Voices in the Stream: Phase 02 (The Eighteenth Shadow) Read online

  Dax looked at Tara, whose eyes had been locked on Coyote One since they stepped out of the barn, “Darling?”

  Tara looked up.

  A tear was in her eye, “They’re afraid. They don’t like the sunshine.”

  “How do you kn…” Dax started, then stopped himself. “Well, it’s not as if we’re going to give chase. No need to tarry. Send them on.”

  Tara opened her mouth to speak, but the Coyotes already knew. Coyote One led the pack across the lawn a few meters. Then all seven identical cyborgs turned in a line and faced the humans and their DOGS units. Everyone was silent. The breeze was filled with far off sounds; the mechanical drone of a CO2 scrubbing blimp far overhead, birds chirping in the distant trees beyond the yard. Dorothy caught her breath as the Coyotes simultaneously bowed their heads towards William and the DOGS units while tucking their tails between their legs.

  Tara cried openly now and leaned her head on Dax’s shoulder.

  Voluminous tears poured down her cheeks, “They’re saying thank you.”

  William narrowed his eyes and said, “For not ripping us into junk metal like the rest of our clones who died in bits and pieces.”

  He stroked SIEGFRIED’s head with quiet pride.

  Dorothy was the only one in earshot and rewarded her husband with a swift charlie horse, “Don’t be an ass!” she scowled, then exclaimed happily, “Oh look!”

  Like a stream flowing around a stone, the cyborgs formed up single file along the edge of the barn, moving low to the Earth. They ran along the barn’s edge, then disappeared around the corner one by one, dashing for the welcoming seclusion of the woods. Within seconds, they had vanished like wisps of morning fog and were gone.

  Five Weeks Later

  Dorothy could not get the memory of the thunderstorm from her mind. Anymore than she could rid herself of the memories of Tara Dean’s touch. The Coyotes had not appeared since, and the girls had spoken no more of their love. All that need be expressed was said in passing glances.

  Dorothy brought the vaporjoint up to her mouth and took another cool drag as she leaned back in bed. She stared at her toes pushing up the covers. She looked over at William, still slumbering. Still hers, still beautiful, sad and flawed.

  Yes, their apartment was good.

  Outside, the morning air was coming warmer as the sun rose higher in the sky. The blue jays, sparrows and cardinals had begun to taper down their window songs and fly off to hide from the coming day. In her mind, Dorothy could see the first of the lilies she had planted that day the Coyotes were released blooming in her new flower garden by the barn entrance. The early season Buff Pixie lilies, set to sprout first, were the most bland with their beige yellow tone, but the other varieties that would come later in season would provide a much brighter spectrum of reds and purples.

  Someday we’ll have our own birds. In our own tree, behind our own house, with my own lily garden.

  She took another lazy hit off her vaporjoint, then set it on the bedside table and folded her hands behind her head on the pillows. The passionate silence of the ceiling above called to her fantasies like thunder. What did Dax and Tara talk about in the penthouse room of the farmhouse? How ferocious was their lovemaking?

  Do they hear us? Oh shit…

  Dorothy drew her toes along William’s naked leg, causing him to stir. He opened a tired eye.

  “Hello, handsome,” she said.

  “What time is it?” he asked gruffly, holding his head up off the pillow.

  “Too early. Go back to bed.”

  William collapsed back into the pillow, “What are you doing up, babe?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About what?” he mumbled, already falling back into slumber.

  “Flowers,” she said, gazing out the window at the blue, “I’m just thinking about when the lilies bloom. They’re going to be so gorgeous.”

  Fragmented Remains From the Cloud Diary of Daxane Julius Abner – April 9, 2081 11:44 pm – One Year Six Months Before Event.

  “…the farthest capabilities! If only I had Dr. Adler to explain. The resilience of the Coyotes is astounding. Their pursuit of Tara was not based in malice, nor bloodthirsty cybernetic madness.

  Coyote One’s motive should have been obvious; life seeking to perpetuate itself. A bios update. Literally moving the pack from Adler 1.0 to Adler 1.13. This update, though incremental, was crucial. Now functioning on 1.13, the Coyotes patched three basic issues. First, the termination date on their fusion core(s) has been removed. Coyote One’s fusion core will not auto-implode two months from now as it was scheduled to. Second, the dormant nanosurgical bots in their BIOSKIN© have been activated. Accordingly, their physical appearance is once again that of Canis Latrans. Their fur is no longer ripped, shredded. Their paws are covered in flesh and fur as opposed to being the titanalum robotic claws of some monster from the ancient holoflix. Third, the Coyotes are now able to communicate on a rudimentary level with outside networks. In essence, they can talk to Joan. It is amazing that they can communicate at all given the archaic hardware they have in place. The artificial cartilage of one ear is an aluminographene radio antennae. The other is a short range transmitter. Why Tara’s father chose to use an ancient 900mhz broadcast frequency is unknown; however, it does further explain the cyborgs’ pack behavior. They can only communicate within 100 meters of one another. By comparison, our least advanced units, SNOTRA and LOFN, can stream encrypted data over 1,000 kilometers with a 1.15 mb throughput. The bios update lastly allowed Hugo to install a modern, micro-holoprojector in Coyote 06. This should assist localized pack members with field camouflage, but I digress.

  Tara. On the tip of Coyote One’s lower left canine tooth was a microscopic, biometric lance that functioned as a simple gene sequencer. Tara’s father encoded the data stream necessary to complete the bios update into his own daughter’s blood, piggybacked onto her genetic code. After year 18 online, an automated script in Coyote One’s OS reminded her of this objective, and so the pack began its long hunt for the daughter of their creator.

  The very concept, let alone the fact that it proved applicable, is beyond the capabilities of even modern geneticists. What other secrets could be encoded in the data cores of these creatures? And how did Tara know? That they were not trying to kill her? My private suspicion is that the Coyotes may not have cared whet… UNSCHEDULED HARDWARE DESTRUCT / DATA COMPROMISE / INITIATE BACKUP.EXE FOR REINTEGRATION FORMA… LOSS. LOSS. LOS”

  Chapter 2.6 – The Gauntlet

  "The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."

  Albert Einstein

  September 2081 – One Year One Month Before Event.

  The Kansas Hovway Patrol drone was only the size of a football. Perhaps this emboldened the flock of fish crows who watched it hurl to a stop below their roost, flattening stands of switchgrass with its high velocity arrival. To the fish crows, the drone looked like an invading wingless bird flashing green mating feathers. This wingless bird had a horrific song that oscillated from a low hum to a roaring squeal. It also appeared to be a well fed invader.

  If it couldn’t be scared off, perhaps it would be dinner.

  The first attack was so violent that the drone was nearly knocked to the Earth. The unit flash-scanned the sky. Within .4 seconds, it had completed a species and weapons analysis of the nine crows and chose to follow its primary objective: scanning traffic along the Interstate 70 Hovway. The drone was in no true danger from crow beaks or claws, though their attacks did complicate efforts to maintain a stable antigrav hover. The unit was a low altitude, long range A1SKOUT, with limited self-adaptive environmental algorithms, no weapons, a high definition holocam and a massive propulsion fan for its mass, which allowed it t
o tail the fastest of civilian hovcars.

  The A1SKOUT’s current placement near Junction City was randomly assigned by the GEODRONE© master com in Topeka. The unit had decelerated from a 285 kph cruise to a dead stop in four seconds, inline brake turbines whining decibels in front of a towering riverside oak that was unfortunately home to the nine crows and a nest of squawking adolescent chicks. Even if the drone had possessed weapons, it was against EPA regulations for law enforcement COD’s to harm or disrupt animal species within their native habitat, unless that species was actively obstructing the apprehension of a criminal.

  So the birds continued to descend on the A1SKOUT without mercy, pecking and scraping furiously at its black Kevlar skin. Tail feathers and clumps of down floated around the drone as it attempted to maintain stability. Grasshoppers chirped mechanically all around and bits of dusty tallgrass floated visibly in the air from the flailing of the birds’ wings.

  The A1SKOUT remained dutiful, even as one after the other the crows slammed the unit with their talons, screeching like jackals. A couple of crows defecated on the drone. The unit’s stabilization fans whirred desperately as the onboard computer methodically ticked through the three minute hold pattern until migration to another locale was authorized. Twenty seven corrupted scan reports had already been relayed to the GEODRONE© server. These corrupted pings were scans of suspicious hovcars and hovtrucks floating west on Interstate 70, which could not be completed due to the ongoing bird assault.

  It was with 1:13 left on the departure clock between fish crow attacks that the drone successfully wonked the ID of a 2070 Ford CargoHov 800 floating at a rate of 185 kph. Registration / Douglas County DMV IPv7 address 2081:0db8:85a3:0042:1000:8a2e:0370:7334 commercial transport / Abner Family Pumpkin & Gourd, LLC / liability probability 71% / 8,000 liter potential contained fluid rating / human transport operator; query? / prior travel threads negative 365 day period / state registration; current / commercial insurance policy; current – active / citizen operator, Gabriel Martinez, NAUS.

  Assign random stop based on vehicular dimension>?

  Assign random stop based on vehicular dimension>?

  The drone waited for the command to be processed by GEODRONE© central. 51 seconds until relocation. 49 corrupted scans / biological interference. 47 seconds until relocat… pursuit command verified. Relaying telemetry > patrol unit / APOLLO9 / Engage.

  The attacking fish crows fled in nine different directions, black feathers whisking to the ground, horrified by the sudden, violent whine of the tiny A1SKOUT’s primary wormdrive spooling to 41,000 rpm’s. The black football’s LED array flashed red as it exploded down the hovway in pursuit of the Ford CargoHov 800, happily leaving the crows in a tidal wave of dust.

  It took 69 seconds for the A1SKOUT to establish a visual. It trailed the lumbering hovtruck at an altitude of twenty meters, moving too quickly to be but a grayish blur to the human eye. It was in flight that the A1SKOUT shined, not when forced to hover in place before a nest of aggressive, winged biologicals.

  22 more seconds, the GEODRONE© server in Topeka issued a stop warrant based upon: unknown object / probability marijuana cigarette / illegal disposal / FUI probability 94.28%. The A1SKOUT locked on the object the pilot tossed from the vehicle and tracked its trajectory, zipping to a halt four centimeters above the still burning roach. Analysis: recreational grade sativa / trooper apprehension requested / APOLLO9 > ping confirmed / causal; floating under the influence / recommend visual cargo analysis / report terminated / new coordinates registered.

  Its function complete, the A1SKOUT buzzed purposefully upwards from the Interstate surface, LED array shifting green. The Kevlar enveloped drone then rocketed west towards the sun, constantly scanning as it traveled to new observation coordinates fourteen kilometers west of the Hays metropolis.

  If citizen observation drones were capable of hope, this particular unit was praying hard that its next assigned location might be free of fish crows.

  It was love, that elusive, fence-hopping vixen, not sex, that had always been Virgil Benedict’s most intangible prey. Unlike most young men, he wished not to be a ladies’ man; rather, the man of one lady. He pined for devotion; that singular betty of unparalleled beauty who would live only for him.

  Love, actually, was all about Virgil.

  Now, at long last, sitting beside him in the passenger cab of this bootlegger’s transport, he had met his ultimate muse. His very lily of the field, an angel of pulchritude known by the name Virginia Rose. Hugo sat to Virgil’s left, steering the heavy hovtruck as it flew lazily down the Interstate. Virginia was on his right. Sitting together on the bench seat, he noted how her left leg kept making contact with his own.

  Thank you, improperly aligned kinetic dampeners!

  The prurient odor of Hugo’s jane smoke wafting seductively through the cab added to the dusky romance of this chance meeting. Normally, Virgil would have been happy to oblige when Hugo offered him a hit off an antique joint… but then he wouldn’t be able to talk.

  Maybe I should pop another Pleasium…

  The hovtruck’s onboard kept the cab at a perfect 22 degrees, but Virgil was so excited that even his teeth seemed to be sweating. He was high on Virginia’s velvety green eyes. Her aroma wafted, mingling like a shadow dancer with the burning jane. Now, at last… she turned to look at him, expressionless, lost in thought. She was going to speak! Virgil clutched his book entitled 20th Century California Poetry even tighter, feeling his soul well in anticipation, preparing for her words to wash over him like golden tides on a secluded beach.

  Here it comes…

  Virginia Rose set her sketch down, curled her button nose and said, “Virgil, if you try and read me one more poem, I’m gonna rip the page outta that fucking book and wipe my ass with it.”

  She fell back in her seat and returned to sketching a nude on her holotab, absentmindedly petting the black fur on LOFN’s head as she did so. The small Rottweiler twin lay curled on the hovtruck floor with her boxy head resting on the seat’s edge. The cyborg’s vidorbs remained closed as though she were a regular dog asleep, though every eight seconds her armored eyeshutters opened and closed imperceptibly fast.

  Virgil bore the expression of a deflated basketball that had just been smacked with a shovel. He wore the ubiquitous Birkenhemp© sandals that were so popular with young men of the day, paired with black ankle-biter hempjeans and a white button down shirt, the collar of which he fiddled with chronically. He wished he had brought his sunglasses to hide behind. No matter! The situation was desperate.

  I’ll say anything!

  “What about some Bukowski?” he asked nonchalantly.

  Tara sighed and turned her head slowly his way as if following the flight of a distant bird, “What is a Bukowski?”

  “Charles Bukowski,” said Virgil with renewed eagerness. “He’s the classic, antique L.A. poet of the 20th century.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “What about Pablo Neruda?”

  “Sounds like a venereal disease.”

  Virgil again deflated, “No, uh, Neruda is another 20th century poet. From Chile. In the Southern Union.”

  Tara was sitting cross legged in the seat wearing a yellow hemplinen sundress. She took her sunglasses off and balanced them on a knee. Every time she turned her head to look at Virgil, he thought he might faint.

  “Want a piece of advice, teen spirit?”

  “Sure! But I’m twenty. Just FYI.”

  Tara shook her head dramatically, “Oh, you’re twenty? That changes everything. Well here’s an FYI for you. I don’t give a shit if you’re 13 or 85, no one cares about fucking poetry. At least no one in this hovtruck. Right Hugo?”

  Hugo didn’t even look their way, taking a drag off a newly fired joint, “Poems cool, spokeen word, raps, whateever. But dude, not many folk dig dat sheet no more. Ms. Virginia right.”

  Tara looked back at Virgil, “Thank you, Hugo. Point two, Casanova, no one’s read a book in
like fifty years. I don’t know about your holotab, but mine reads for me… welcome to 2035! All those antique books you carry? All that wasted paper?” Tara shook her shoulders, “Makes me cringe. What the sky are you doing with a bag full of books on this run anyhow?”

  “I take my books everywhere.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you never know when you’re going to need a poem. The whole universe can be explained in poetry. Poets live on, even after death, through their words.”

  Tara Dean made a gagging sound.

  Virgil frowned, “You okay?”

  Tara put her hand daintily to her lips, “Yeah, sorry, I just puked in my mouth.”

  Virgil saddened. He gazed despondently out the windshield at the white hovway lines rushing past. The truck’s cabin was silent, though Tara now wore a faint, sly smile. Faster moving hovcars and small hovtrucks blew by them on the left, riding quiet whooshes of air. The black dots of drones and UAV courier units streaked past in the higher, faster airspace lanes like gray, traceable dots. It was nearing dusk. The undulating hills of The Konza Prairie were now yellow with the late summer’s drought, despite the efforts of a cloud seeding blimp doing its best to neutralize carbon in the atmosphere. The dirigible floated thousands of meters above them, more similar to a lost whale than a technological marvel. Virgil might as well have been staring at an old sock.

  As the sun fell lower, the hovtruck’s windshield became more polarized to compensate. Thick, yellow light poured pleasantly across the honey-toned landscape. Contrary to her usual indifference, perhaps inspired by this vista of austere Midwest beauty that so few appreciated, Tara Dean found herself feeling sorry for Virgil Benedict.

  “Well, don’t pocket-laser your wrists or anything, Romeo,” she said, calling his eyes.

  “I won’t,” said Virgil. “I just thought you’d like it.”