The Dream Cloud, page 9
part #2 of Akropolis Series
The tech removed the electrodes and studied her screen pad.
“Give it a few more seconds and you should be fine,” she said.
She glanced over at Talbot.
“Thank you, Janet,” he said to her. “That will be all.”
The woman did not make her leave.
“Sir, I am uncertain what the residual effects will be. At the moment he is stable but we need to have Dr. Byrne-“
“I said,” Talbot interrupted, his voice brooking no argument. “That will be all.”
The line of her mouth grew thin but she nodded and made her way out of the room without another word.
Trey watched her leave and then looked to the councilman, who was shaking his head.
“You know, thirty years ago I wouldn’t have had to ask twice, but now? Now, I am very old, and what is worse is that everyone knows it.”
“She’s not just a tech is she?”
“Hm?” Talbot responded, drawn out of his musings. “Oh…no. She is, in fact, Dr. Wadzinski, in charge of neural synthetic circuitry.”
Trey mulled that over.
“I’ve never needed more than a tech for a revival; at least, not since the first time,” Trey stated matter-of-factly. “What’s different now?”
Talbot scratched at the white stubble on his chin thoughtfully, as if trying to figure out the best way to begin. Or maybe he was considering what to say and what to keep to himself.
This idea was new to Trey and gave him pause. It was not like him to question the councilman’s character. He wondered-
I will kill you
-where this newfound suspicion and musing came from. There was something…a brief memory better described as a glimpse; walls and glass, a room that felt like a prison…a young Talbot-
I have to do what’s best
-standing before him, but before he could latch onto it and make the memory clearer it spun away.
Trey realized that the councilman was staring intently at him.
“I’m fine,” he said in a slightly irritated voice, pushing himself up on his elbows and then finally into a seated position, tapping a finger to his temple. “I have some cobwebs going on up here. Can you tell me why that is?”
Talbot cleared his throat and reached to the desk that was covered with monitors and scanning equipment. A cane was leaning up against it, something Trey hadn’t seen in many years. It didn’t appear antique, so he guessed it was custom made, a revived relic from a time when such things were needed.
The councilman hobbled over to the cot, the clicking of the cane against the floor sending echoes around the room. It strangely fit in with the sounds of the ocean and the calls of the pelicans.
“That is a little complicated and there is more than a bit of conjecture to go along with my explanation.”
Trey hadn’t noticed it before when Talbot was by his bedside, but there was a slight droop and stiffness to the left corner of the older man’s mouth that became obvious when he spoke.
“What happened?” Trey asked, knowing there was no need for further specificity.
Talbot waved a hand in a dismissive gesture.
“A small stroke. Nothing to worry about.”
“Can’t they do anything?”
“Oh, there is a lot they can do, Major,” he replied with a chuckle. “But once you reach a certain age it just doesn’t matter anymore. I am going to ask you to share the cot however. I don’t know what they did with all the damn chairs in this room.”
Trey swung his legs off the cot and made room for the councilman, who sighed heavily when he sat down. Together both men looked at the stretch of beach and the small waves that came into the lagoon from the sea. Birds flitted in and out of the thorny bushes that grew from the tops of the rock faces that bordered the water and in the distance three pelicans sat upon a singular boulder that jutted out of the water. The sun was just beginning to set, sending rays of orange and yellow skipping across the horizon.
“I’ve never seen the ocean before…not really anyways,” Talbot said. “All that is left are these videos and recreations.”
“Someday it will be like this again,” Trey said, though he doubted the certainty of his wistfulness.
“What was it like?”
Trey let the sounds permeate not just his ears, but his memories. He let his eyes focus upon the horizon.
“It was hot and humid; the air thick enough it felt like you were sucking it through cotton, but there was always a breeze coming off the sea. You could smell the salt, the brine.”
Trey doesn’t have to think about the words as he speaks them.
“The sand is almost white…and soft. It crumbles in your hands and squeezes up between your toes when you walk. The water is warm, almost as warm as the air around you, and when you dive down, the water is so clear you can see the gills on the fish as they swim by, the pockmarks on the corral from eons of erosion.”
He fell silent in remembrance, eyes unblinking. The sound of the pelicans and the rolling of the waves were like a lullaby to his ears, and as he let himself drift he could almost hear the laughing of his wife and daughter in the background, as if they were behind him a dozen yards or so, maybe building a sand castle that wouldn’t keep its form or chasing the little albino crabs that scuttled quickly across the beach.
“I didn’t know you could be so…poetic,” Talbot said by his side.
Trey smirked.
“There are some things you can’t forget, no matter how much time passes.”
“Or how much you might wish to,” Talbot replied wearily.
Trey looked at the man who had lived his human lifespan three times over. Talbot had seen the loss of his wife, daughter, and son-in-law, all of them with non-revival orders, gone from this world forever. He talked sometimes of his granddaughter, but Trey knew next to nothing about her and surmised that Talbot probably didn’t see her often, not with a whole city clamoring for every second of his time.
The two men had been friends once, long ago, but when Talbot was appointed his seat on the council and Trey became the head of security in Akropolis, there wasn’t much time to pursue relationships. He wondered what regrets were hidden behind the councilman’s robes; what ghosts haunted the old man’s memories?
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Trey finally asked.
Talbot nodded almost imperceptibly.
“The truth is, Major, we are not quite certain. Six days ago I sent you to Charlottesville to set up the quantum processor in the housing unit. After that day we didn’t hear from you again…at least, not in a conventional way.”
“What does that mean?”
“We know you were successful because three days after you left, the housing unit received the quantum processor and went online, linking with the few remaining satellites we still have in orbit. Those satellites relayed a signal to our Cloud here in Akropolis and gave confirmation.”
“I never made it back, did I?” Trey asked.
Talbot shook his head.
Trey recalled the jumble of images and the confusion he had upon waking just a short time ago.
“Then what is wrong with my memories? If I never made it back to sync with our Cloud, then the last thing I should recall is leaving Akropolis…so why do I feel like I remember…something of my time over there in Charlottesville?”
“Do you?” Talbot asked fixedly. “Do you remember anything from there?”
Trey closed his eyes. He tried to access those memories. Again the flashes came, the jumbled imagery, but this time it seemed to slow until there were freeze frames, almost like photographs taken and put on display in the back of his mind.
A hole in the roof of the sanctuary…rooftops…water everywhere…the quantum processor in his hands…powering the housing unit…
Trey opened his eyes, shaking his head.
“I don’t know…maybe. It’s like bits and pieces of a puzzle, but I don’t know what the whole picture looks like so I can’t make sense of it.”
Talbot frowned.
“We thought that would be the case,” he said with a sigh. “You see, the satellites that relayed the signal to our Cloud are quite ancient. They handled global positioning for most of the Old World but while they were considered quite capable at the time, they cannot handle the amount of data required to support a quantum computing system, hence the confirmation signal. Except somehow, someone, figured out how to piggyback the signal and send a massive data stream along with it, a data stream so large that we believe parts of it were corrupted or lost in the network of satellites before it reached our systems.”
“What was on the data stream?” Trey asked.
“Memories,” Talbot replied. “Memories with a quantum signature that cannot be faked or replicated.”
“So who sent them?”
“You did,” Talbot replied.
“What?”
Trey was stunned.
“How,” he started, then reversed course. “I don’t know how to do something like that. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“I know,” Talbot said. “You must have had help.”
Trey didn’t know what to say. It was shocking and overwhelming to think that there was an entire section of his memory that was missing or corrupted. The situation was reminiscent of his very first revival in Akropolis, waking inside of a walled city, the known world destroyed, everyone and everything that he had ever cared about gone like so much dust in the wind.
And then it dawned on him what must have happened. He turned to Talbot.
“You put the memories in my Cloud profile before you revived me.”
“I’m sorry, Major,” Talbot said. “But we had to know who sent it and why. The quantum signature meant we couldn’t access the information ourselves. Only you could.”
“But you said the data was corrupted.”
“We thought it might be. We had our techs study the data stream as best as they could, but it was…disorganized, lacking continuity.”
Trey could feel anger budding inside him.
“So you shoved it in my brain and woke me up to see what would happen?”
“There was no other way,” Talbot said quietly.
Trey pushed off the cot and walked away. He took a few deep breaths until he was able to regain his composure, and when he did, he wondered where the anger had come from.
What they had done made sense. His quantum signature, his memories; they couldn’t ignore a mystery like that. He would have proposed the same had he been around to ask. So why the anger? Why did he feel as if he were somehow being manipulated?
“Okay…you did what you had to do,” he finally said, turning around and gesturing at his head. “How do we fix this and figure out what the hell happened over there?”
“That…we don’t know,” Talbot confessed. “There is a possibility that the memories will align to some sort of continuity despite the gaps, or they could stay corrupted, which means they will never be more than…what did you call them; pieces of a puzzle without the whole as reference?”
“And if that’s the case?”
“A wipe,” Talbot replied simply.
When the councilman said those words, Trey felt the anger surge to the forefront again, though this time he hid it behind an impassive mask, choosing to nod in agreement instead. He wasn’t certain why he felt the need to be deceptive, but his gut told him that there was something definitely wrong, and until he could assuage his suspicion, he would go along like the good soldier.
Besides, Trey had an idea about how he might get some answers, or at least some help with his current dilemma. Dr. Janet Wadzinski had mentioned a name earlier, before she was curtly dismissed by Talbot.
Dr. Byrne.
Trey didn’t know who that was, but it was a start.
The Design
“Misao,” the councilman said. “Please, come in.”
He gestured towards one of the empty chairs in front of his desk, then made his way slowly back to his seat even as the door automatically closed behind them.
She noticed that the proffered chair was rather plush and cushioned. When she sat, she did so near the front edge. She did not like to look too relaxed in the presence of the senior councilman.
Talbot eased himself into his seat, as if he was settling on a pin cushion rather than the stately high backed chair that slightly resembled a throne. There were the popping sounds of his joints rattling in the stillness which almost made her wince. How old was he? She tried to recall what she’d been told but couldn’t quite nail down the exact number. For certain, he was the oldest living human Akropolis had ever seen, and most likely the world.
The councilman leaned back in his chair for a second as if recovering from the descent, then leaned forward, folding his hands atop the desk, his ancient lined face producing a dozen more wrinkles as he smiled at her. He appeared tired and worn thin, but when she looked into his eyes there was an alertness that belied his great age.
“So, Councilwoman Egbert has high praises for you; top of your class in all areas, not to mention your ingenuity,” Talbot said. “She says you are brilliant in your analytical skills, as well as your ability to improve just about any system you get your hands on.”
“My mother tends to exaggerate, as all mothers do I’m sure,” Misao replied in a courteous but non-emotive voice.
His eyebrows arched in amusement as he nodded his agreement.
“I will concede that I have been guilty of that a time or two myself. But in this case I’m not certain she is exaggerating.”
The councilman moved his hands from the desktop so that he could scroll the screen pad near him.
“The new air filtration system you designed has already been approved and well on its way to completion, as well as the rotating schedule you created for the Waste Belt. I hear with this plan, productivity will increase by a projected twelve percent, while also conserving us a massive amount of energy.”
“I like to be efficient,” Misao responded.
“Indeed. It also appears that you have submitted a total of fourteen new plans in the past three months, ranging from simple changes, such as an improved delivery system for our meals distribution, to loftier aspirations such as turning the Bay into a marine ecosystem. I’m curious about that last one. How exactly would that be possible?”
Misao cleared her throat.
“With the help of our sister sanctuary, New Charlottesville. Their underground kelp farms use harvesters designed from the blueprints of automated deep sea exploration subs. We could use them to collect samples from the bottom of the ocean. I, as well as some prominent scientists, believe that some life could still exist down there, perhaps amphipods or even echinoderms. If we brought them back we could genetically alter them to the environment of the Bay. Eventually, they would provide another food source, not to mention pave the way for assisted evolution.”
Misao stopped short, not wanting to get into further specifics as she tended to get long-winded discussing her ‘plans’.
“Well, I have to admit, I’m pretty sold on that idea already. We might have to move that one to the top of your list.”
“All fourteen plans are pending review,” Misao said, unsure if the councilman was having some fun at her expense or serious.
It was difficult to tell. She was normally a good reader of people but Talbot was an enigma. He played the wise doddering grandfather well but she had read his public file. She knew his accomplishments, what he was capable of, and from the small amount of information she had gleaned from others before this meeting, he was not a man predisposed to congeniality or jovial disposition.
The councilman pushed the screen pad to the side and leaned back in his chair. He resembled nothing short of an aged ruler who had seen the rise and fall of kingdoms. The smile was gone now, and she assumed, the brief banter of their first official meeting.
“Do you know why you are here?”
Misao had been thinking of nothing else since her mother first arranged the meeting. She knew she was on the fast track for department head, but she also knew there were many with such ambitions, those that had studied the economics of Akropolis enough to earn time and space in packed lecture halls while also being broadcast on screen pads across the city. Any of those people were qualified and some even more so than her.
But how many of them were able to get a sit-down with the head of the ruling council? Maybe a handful.
Misao opened her to mouth to say something like, I could warrant a guess, but decided at the last moment to switch tracks.
“Honestly, I don’t know, Sir,” she said instead.
“You are here because we are interviewing for an internship position for one of our council members, which would definitively lead to a future seat. Your name is at the top of this very short list.”
He paused to let the words sink in; well that he did for Misao was surprised at such a revelation. In the past, all council members were chosen from a pool of governors, department heads, and sometimes even professors, whittled down to a select few that were then voted on by the existing council members. Once chosen, that councilman or councilwoman was then in charge of a certain district in Akropolis, with a governor of their own to take care of the smaller items of business, a liaison of sorts, between the council and the people. This was the process the city had adhered to for all its existence.
“An internship…for which council member?” Misao couldn’t help but ask.
“For me,” Talbot said.
Again, she was equally stunned. Despite the fact that the councilman was ancient in terms of human years, she had never even considered the possibility that the end was nearing for him.
“I’m…I’m honored, Sir,” she stuttered her reply, her cool composure cracking just a bit.
The councilman waved off her proclamation.
“To be honest myself, there are more qualified veteran candidates, but something was brought to my attention that made you stand out.”
“What is that, Sir?”
“The incident in the cooling chamber,” he said grimly.
Misao went ashen, feeling the breath sucked out of her lungs.
