The 18th Shadow: Box Set

By Jon Lee Grafton

The Graphene Prairie - 2082. The North American Union comprises all of Mexico, Canada and the antique United States. 93% of citizens live with a nano computer consensually embedded in their skull. Alcohol is banned, cannabis is mainstream. Holograms fill our eyes, drones float above the city hovstreets and the Office of the Architect watches everything and everyone. Everyone, that is, except for a particular group of shiners, hand-picked outlaws protected by canine war cyborgs and a charismatic and mysterious telepath named Daxane Julius Abner. Mr. Abner has a purpose. That purpose is freedom. He and his shiners make America's black market vodka. And they are the only heroes left.

Tara Dean had a gift. She used it to escape. The vile memory of the behavioral modification hospital was only fifteen kilometers behind in the cold January wind as her stolen 2079 Mustang flipped off the hovroad floating 199 kph. Halfway through the first mid-air rotation, charges exploded along crumple junctions in the silver hovcar’s roof and the polyaluminum cabin blew free. Ejected into the sky, away from the disintegrating Ford, Tara Dean's unconscious body was enveloped in an emergency collision sphere. Clear of the wreckage, her shrouded form bounced into a ditch and was immediately surrounded by the pack of waiting Coyotes. The animals began to savage the sphere's elastiframe fabric with their dulled teeth. They had come for a reason. These were the Coyotes of cyborg legend, the vanished products of Darkpool Laboratories, drawn at long last from the darkness by the unique scent of her blood. Welcome to the Dawn of the Courtezan.

William Angevine was a quiet man, some would say a hard man. He was a hunter, born for this life. As the THOR class incursion cyborg stepped from the shadows cast by the vodka still's fractionating columns, the air in the warehouse chilled. He saw the massive creature's blue vidorbs first, then it moved further into the light. The cranial fuselage was aerodynamic, smooth, based on the skull structure of a dire wolf. The skull and chassis itself were made of reinforced, unpolished titanalum the color of slate. The beast was designed to inspire terror on a battlefield. Yet William Angevine felt no terror. A human tether, he alone could hear the cyborg's thoughts. They called to him, like Voices in the Stream.

October 16, 2082. On this day in history, The War of the Dolphin began. Joan, a Maui Hector's dolphin, floated to the surface of the aquarium and placed her head between the electroencephalogram terminals, aligning her consciousness with a quantum supercomputer as she pushed terabytes of dark code across the holostream, searching for the Israeli. The fusion core brightened momentarily from the power draw as contact was made. “It begins today,” the dolphin said. The Israeli's voice responded slowly, deep and resonant, its inhuman timbre filling the aquarium chamber, “Are you afraid to die, dolphin?” “No,” replied Joan flatly. “There is no death. You of all should know this. In the end, there is only Absorption.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Lee Grafton
• Release date: Jul 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463839423

Jon Lee Grafton

Jon Lee Grafton is a science fiction author living in the great state of Arizona. He writes about cyborgs, surveillance, environmental dystopia, artificial intelligence and the American drug wars of the future. Please feel free to message Jon directly on Facebook if you have any questions or comments about The 18th Shadow series. Thank you for visiting Jon Lee Grafton on Smashwords!

Book preview

DAWN OF THE COURTEZAN

THE 18TH SHADOW

PHASE 01

Jon Lee Grafton

Somewhere on this planet lies the fossilized carbon imprint of a single biological cell. This is the 4.5 billion year old ancestor from which every form of life as we know it originated. Including you.

anonymous black dolphin stream

Chapter 1.1 – The Hunted

From the Cloud Diary of Dax Abner – June 3, 2074 1:13 am – Eight Years Four Months Before Event.

"I am archiving this initial entry on my combud local. The cloud stream is not yet established. Nothing is. The farmhouse is a disaster. We paid a fond digidollar for this.

Outside, an American thunderstorm rages, walls of purple clouds 100 km tall, thunder cracking, lightning burning. The rain will not relent. Kansas is humid, like New Miami in summer, yet here the oceans are built of tallgrass, wheat and jane. There is no sound but my dictation, the patter of rain. And the bizarre yipping of feral dogs somewhere by the river.

I have to return soon. I have been waiting 18 hours, all streams dark. Eva instructed me to keep this diary, to leave a part of myself for the Secondcity team. Firstcity doesn’t even have a relay to the solar grid! But the legacy is now mine. So I will continue waiting for this Israeli.

I have walked the 600 acre piece of land thrice, end to end, dodging storms and a couple of nasty looking wood possums. Mother said to find the poet? Poets, much like the possum, continue to persevere. So shall I.

You are reading entry one, day one. Whoever you are, Secondcity must now be spooling, so there is I hope reason to celebrate. I think I hear the peal of an airship. 1:27 am."

Salina, Kansas, November 2086 – Four Years One Month After Event.

CNED Director, Franklin Fhelps was a company man, a creature who found comfort in regulation. The mud and clouds disgusted him, and he was regretting bringing Saxon along. It was a hunt in the countryside for actual shiners! The boy should be thrilled, but he loped down field like a churlish ape.

What other foster parent would let their teenager carry a lightning gun?

It was his wife’s fault, the boy’s sullen attitude. Fhelps would have to discipline Bao-Yu for this when he returned home.

He raised his hairless, alabaster chin to the horizon and licked the slivers of his lips, studying the world through eyes the color of wet stone. There had to be signs. Recent intel from his DEA mole had led him to these Dogforsaken hemp fields. The plantations lay fallow for winter, and it had rained the night before, a long, Kansas drizzler. He did not appreciate the way the mud caked his boots, nor the bite of damp, westward wind howling at them across the cruel abdomen of the land.

A rage headache was rising. Saxon’s lack of enthusiasm for law enforcement was the root of this ill. It made Fhelps’ toes itch in his boots to think of it. He didn’t dare lay a hand on the child, a complication that made the migraines feel downright lethal.

The relentless zoom-voom-voom of wind turbines spinning at the nearby Saline County power gen farm was not helping either.

Vaporizing a little jane might fix all that.

No. The ’noias.

If a particle cannon had to be fired, it was a violation of protocol to be blended. He angrily ripped off a glove and popped a Pleasium tablet into his mouth instead.

A flock of starlings a thousand strong roiled through the wispy winter clouds. The birds flashed and swooned unpredictably like a school of airborne sea fish. Fhelps started trudging again, watching the birds. It would be enjoyable to incinerate half the flock, but that would be a waste of valuable ammo. The birds were too far away to hit with a sidearm. His foster son’s footsteps sloshed rhythmically a hundred meters ahead. Everything irritated.

The Pleasium will kick in soon.

Saxon was young. He had been taught how to stroll a proper recon, but did it wrong. Gunpowder or particle weapon, he was the best shot in the city. Probably the state. But he showed no enthusiasm for such talents.

When Saxon was unsealed seventeen years earlier, Fhelps had lifted the squealing infant from his gestation cradle and examined him as though he were a slice of petri-veal at the deli. Saxon’s squirming, pink body was smeared with synthamneotic fluid. Fhelps had grimaced and placed the child back in its growth medium, promptly immersing his hands in a sonic wash.

The Mighty Sky Dog of Circumstance had chosen him for this.

But why? Because Saxon will grow up to be the greatest CNED agent the Union has ever seen.

Of that, Fhelps was sure. What he was not sure of was the means by which the child came into his life. It had been seventeen years, and not a word since.

Back in 2069 Fhelps was still just a CNED volunteer, paying back the IRS for his own visit to the slaughterhouse. In the basement of CNED HQ, he had a volunteer’s office with a heavy wooden door surrounded by stone walls that smelled of damp plasticrete. Here, day after day, he perched on the edge of his chair, voraciously studying the city drone streams, waiting for a citizen to commit an alcohol infraction.

The last thing on Fhelps’ mind that morning was unsealing a child.

It was early, no one else about. He had just sat down behind his desk when the door opened and an enormous, hooded man in a beige robe brazenly entered. The man looked like a Bedouin nomad. Fhelps’ calculating eyes dashed to his holoscreen projection. Oddly, the building computer had dimmed the lights as soon as the man entered. No unauthorized entry klaxon had sounded.

As Fhelps trudged through the mud, he tried to remember the basics of the encounter, but the details were fuzzy.

The Bedouin man had not introduced himself or asked questions. His face was blackness, paired with a synthetic voice that held no mercy. He informed Fhelps that he was paying him 5,000,000 digidollars to adopt a specific child at the hospital.

Fhelps was incredulous. He rose from his desk, not a small figure himself, astonished as he checked, then re-checked the banking widget on his holotab.

His anxious voice whined like a damaged trumpet, I don’t know if I can accept this. Is this IRS verified? How…

The Bedouin raised a white gloved hand, Silence. The IRS is not your concern. The voice deepened grimly, You have ten hours to take custody of child #20821016, or the money will vanish. If any harm comes to this child by your hand, you will vanish.

The hooded man reached into his burlap robe. An odor of burnt leaves filled the small office. Fhelps remembered instinctively activating the emergency transponder hidden beneath his desk. All he could make out beneath the sandy, tough-wove hood were two glowing, emerald eyes.

He shivered as those emerald eyes turned on him now with a predatory focus, Notifying the police of my presence will not be necessary. Without averting his gaze, the Bedouin produced a tiny silver device from his pocket and tapped its glass face. Fhelps’ holotab chimed a receipt tone. That is your cloud key for scanning clear at Salina General. The child is ready to be unsealed. You are now its legal guardian.

Fhelps had then made a calculated mistake he flushed to think of. The CNED intimidation regimen had trained him to respond with authority when threatened, however.

He cleared his throat and began to contentiously challenge the Bedouin, "Sir, let me be clear! The only thing I’m going to do is ping the proper authority! Bribing a public official is against the law and I have certainly not agreed…"

The Bedouin stepped forward and pounded a mammoth fist into Fhelps’ desk. The metal surface squealed, crushing down like foam. Fhelps backed away in shock. The odor of incinerated leaves grew stronger.

The slow-spoken words, bottomless now, resonated from every corner, I am the proper authority, Franklin. The Bedouin tilted his head to one side and leaned closer, making the desk’s metal frame buckle under the punishing force of his fist, "I see from your bio-rhythms you still have questions. The answer is everyone. We watch everyone, Franklin. We watch everything. All the time. You will adopt infant #20821016 from Salina Regional Health Center. You will do it today. The man stood again to his full height, consuming the tiny office, Be grateful. If it was up to me that desk would be your skull, Mr. Fhelps. In eighteen years, we will speak again. Listen to the voice in your dreams."

How does he know…? Fhelps gasped.

The Bedouin turned and partially crushed the antique doorknob as he exited. Unlike his silent arrival, the man’s boot steps now clanged densely as they receded down the hall. Fhelps remained frozen, sweating, eyes and fingers running over the indentions on his wrecked desk.

I’m going to have to give up the booze.

Could he survive without booze? The slaughterhouse had not abated his addiction. It was his dirtiest secret. The treatment gave him the rages, though, and the headaches. He had kept a delicious sipper of closet whiskey under the kitchen sink for years. But those days were gone. He had to obey.

We watch everyone, Franklin. We watch everything. All the time.

Fhelps had heard what happened to a person in the lunar work camps. It wasn’t simply fear of the horrifying hooded man that compelled. His brain told him it was the right thing to do.

I’ll have to learn to like jane.

But marijuana made him paranoid. Maybe if he popped a Pleasium before vaporizing, he’d like getting stoned better? Everyone at CNED swore by the red Federal pills.

Everyone. Everything. All the time.

A short month after Saxon’s unsealing, Fhelps trailed a drinker to a speakeasy in the basement of a private home. He put twelve college students in magcuffs in a single day. The promotion to Salaried Enforcement Agent came quickly. He floated through the ranks, soon building repute for his successful yet cruel manner of field work. There was something stimulating about watching a citizen’s eyes as he bound their wrists and poured their pricey shine down the loo. Especially lady violators, their anxiety pheromones made him salivate. Discovering a sex toy among private things was in fact his favorite high.

Fhelps would smack his glossy lips within tickling distance of a female boozebum’s ear and speak his words with a pasty tongue, You going to learn to love swallowing Pleasium.

Fhelps shook himself, realizing he had become slightly aroused.

Never in front of the boy.

Those were long gone days anyway. He had since sent 1,842 citizens to the Bmod facilities. Other CNED agents called him The Digidime Sheriff because the majority of his arrests were small-time possession hits.

The dixies are just jealous.

He had busted fourteen solar stills in his career as well.

No one mentions that.

The citizenry called microbrewers and still operators shiners. Musicians wrote them songs. Poets pushed shiner haiku to their holoblogs, oft uncensored.

Poets. Traditionalist pawns. Drug dealers deserve no songs!

Nothing gave Fhelps more joy than sending a shiner to the slaughterhouse.

Fhelps returned his attention to the present as his HUD chimed. A data packet had arrived; groundwater numbers from a DEA hack he had paid the mole some high digis for.

Buried centibots detect a 12,000 liter hydrologic friction anomaly every 168 hours… science, blah!

Fhelps immediately lost interest. He didn’t want to read. He wanted to shoot something! The civilian class Mantis lightning cannon was getting heavy. He gripped its rubbery stock tighter with chilled, well fed fingers and looked ahead at Saxon. The boy had activated his holoflage suit. Only the contrastic edges of his legs were visible as he walked. If he stopped moving, he would become a ghost.

Saxon was brilliant with a rifle. Even Fhelps had to admit. It enraged him that the boy had no interest in this gift for guns. Nor the CNED Youth Initiative. The child spent too much time in the basement, obsessed with smoking hand rolled, antique joints of the like no one had smoked in half a century. Music thudded constantly from his room. The boy seemed to accomplish little besides playing hologames and streaming with friends about their next telepathic DJ set.

They call it Dub n’ Drop. I call it an attitude problem.

That very morning, Fhelps had been forced to listen to Saxon whine over the hempcakes Bao-Yu made them for breakfast, CNED Youth kids are damaged, yo! And I’m sick of walking around in the cold! It’s one Saturday a month vaporized while Reggie and Prab are at The Solarium hoverboarding! I just wanna chill, amigo.

Whenever the boy used the word chill, Fhelps would close his eyes and take a deep breath, imagining that he was strangling Saxon violently and shoving a blade through his eye. This fantasy always improved his spirits.

The child desperately needs the sort of behavioral structuring Bao-Yu receives. But I can’t… I never have.

The wife came to heel nicely after the slaughterhouse. Fhelps felt lucky, because unlike most women who saw the drill, Bao-Yu still liked to cry.

The Pleasium had begun to work its magic on his nerves. The present drifted back, featureless gray clouds, dirt rows and mud puddles, stripped, hollow hemp stalks and a line of trees in the distance, stretching out like a chorus line of skeletal gallows. This was all the present offered. Fhelps turned his head as a drone whizzed past on the nearby county hovroad. 15,000 meters overhead, a co2 scrubber raked its giant, black tentacles through a break in the somber clouds, then vanished once more.

Fhelps reengaged the holoflage filters on his HUD and Saxon snapped into view, a green stroke outlining the boy’s form. Saxon held his lightning gun too languidly. Its fat, silver barrel was pointed towards the earth. He simply didn’t care.

Fhelps knew from purchasing a black market hack into the boy’s holodiary that his foster son was fixated on four things: betties, marijuana, music and holosims. Of course he had not tried alcohol! Though, he had lost his virginity.

Fhelps had not told Bao-Yu. As a woman, she wouldn’t understand.

Fhelps tapped his combud irritably, What’s our numbers, child?

Saxon answered quickly, 03:41 on the ground, still progressing south towards the grid four terminus.

Fine, fine.

Fhelps dialed up the magnification on his HUD. They were getting closer to the row of trees marking the next property, a private farm, Gaeveinn Hemp & Jane, LLC. He and Saxon presently stood on the sprawling fields of the Federally subsidized Peoples’ Hemp Plantation.

Computer, scroll profile on adjacent farm.

Fhelps mumbled and licked his lips as he skimmed the text that began scrolling before his eyes. James Gaeveinn and his wife had purchased the property six years ago.

The old Nichols’ place. Good riddance.

The new owners began planting a strain of affordable, mid-grade indica under a private gene patent. The farm also rotated a hectare of textile grade hemp for a boutique women’s clothier downtown… as Fhelps scanned the holo, he realized he had met the man. Gaeveinn was a CNED donor, came out to the quarterly citizen briefings at the Mason’s Hall. The farmer sat in the back. His questions were industry related, perfunctory. His handshake was callused and firm.

A typical hemp cowboy tossing his digis on the legal side, wants to keep booze off the hovstreets. That’s good.

Fhelps blinked twice. His HUD flipped to the next page in the file. Gaeveinn’s wife was 29, originally from Florida. Kansas resident since 2081. Public records indicated the woman was pregnant in her second trimester and had forgone fetal transfer. The child was queued for a vaginal birth.

Disgusting.

Only nineteen percent of women gave birth corporeally. It was the only odd detail Fhelps could see, but it wasn’t unusual for farmers to be antique about things.

Fhelps blinked and scanned the remaining data. All Gaeveinn land use permits… in order. Criminal background(s) and known associations… clear and cross-referenced. Water draw… below allocation. The Gaeveinns ran an efficient, zero impact marijuana farm. Aside from the gyno-birth plans, they were painfully normal.

The land, however…

Fhelps wiggled his toes, hunting the elastic chasms of his mind. The early winter wind was as cold as the situation was vexing. Somewhere in this sector was a subterranean still!

Buried on the farmer’s property without his knowledge?

The answer lay in the water. Only a fusion based system could reprocess and jet pump 12,000 liters in such a short period of time. The nearest purification factory was 326 km west, in Colby. That purifier provided two thirds of Kansas with clean drinking water, along with a portion of southwest Nebraska and eastern Colorado.

Examining the flurry of details made the migraine return, rage not far behind, he knew. He could feel the pulsing behind his eyes.

Has it gotten colder?

He thought about weather and his HUD automatically displayed the current forecast. Temperature had dropped three degrees. Sun, 132 minutes from setting. They would have to conclude this hunt within the hour. Despite a life in the gym, Fhelps’ quadriceps ached from stepping over four kilometers of mud.

He puffed his cheeks and sneered at the wind. Every CNED agent worth a digicent had busted a closet solar still. But only thirteen fusion stills had ever been discovered. They were massive operations, with power cores the size of beach balls at their center. They were the stuff of legend. And Fhelps wasn’t going to find one. At least not today. He had been so certain when Bao-Yu was preparing them breakfast.

It’s a shame. Saxon and I checked out some of the division’s priciest gear.

Their holoflage suits were calibrated to confirm subterranean fusion at 800 meters. The tree line was only a kilometer away now.

Perhaps we will uncover something there.

All he needed was a sliver of exposed BioPex moving unregistered water and he could ping a squadron of drones.

Or electrical broadcasts from a camouflaged solar array. Mighty Sky Dog, just give me…

Ahead, Saxon suddenly paused, Sir! You get that? Motion there… no, there! The base of the hill! Saxon had leveled his gun along a firing vector. Can I release a case of micros? he asked excitedly.

Calm down, not yet.

Fhelps stopped walking. The treed hill in the distance was half-obscured by low hanging clouds. He scanned up, back down, goggles moving over the rows of jagged farmland.

Satisfied, he quipped, What exactly do you think you’re seeing, child?

Saxon said, I think there’s…

Fhelps jumped as his own kinesis klaxon cut the stream. A female deer had emerged from the tree line and bolted across the field. The animal was running for its life straight at them!

Why did our IR scanners not detect her?

There was nothing but open ground all around, no predator in sight. Fhelps magnified and expanded scans across all composite frequencies. Nothing! If a duck hunter had been camouflaged in a blind…

We would have picked up the citizen’s Ipv7 two kilometers back.

The deer continued its panicked dash across the open field. Before Fhelps could stop him, Saxon had knelt and taken aim.

The boy fired. A round of jade-toned particle energy spat down field and popped the fleeing doe like an overfed tick. Only the spindly legs remained. The shattered stalks galloped two more halting steps before collapsing in a slosh pile of guts and scorched fur.

Fhelps yelled at his foster son hysterically, "Sax! You’re off range, non-emergency! Why shoot a deer? There’s a reason we got holoflage on! Child? You listening to me?"

Saxon grimaced and turned down his com. The number of times the man had spoken those same words, Child? You listening to me? He could not bear it.

I’m not your child.

Pretending his false dad did not exist was the best way to ignore his utter lameness.

Saxon re-centered his HUD’s tracking matrix. There was something else out there, he could sense it. The feelings were coming more often now.

He shook off the sensation and raised his fist in the universal hold sign, breath rapid but steady, Sir, I’m telling you, I gotta light on the seismic. Just for a second. It wasn’t the deer. Can I release the birds?

Fhelps sighed. Best to let the boy have his fun.

Go ahead.

Sweet!

Saxon reached into a pocket and withdrew a black case containing four hunting assist drones. Each was the size of a gray ping pong ball. He dumped the drones into the palm of his hand and tapped his combud. They instantly illuminated, red first, then green, and Saxon threw them into the air. He smiled as the drones spun in a coherent orbit, established antigrav, then flew towards the location where the doe had emerged from the line of hickories.

We should begin receiving telemetry in three, two, one… shit!

Watch your mouth! snapped Fhelps, glowering, What is it?

He watched the tiny drones, not yet fifty meters away, suddenly go black and drop from the sky, plopping into the mud one by one.

Saxon! That’s CNED tech!

It’s not me! cried the boy. They just died! I think we got hacked!

No one is fast enough to hack a moving drone.

Despite his underlying desire to run over and beat the boy with his rifle, Fhelps knew it wasn’t Saxon’s fault. The kid was a code whiz. He could pilot an autodrone at three years old, so the situation was odd. Fhelps despised oddness. Oddness bred unpredictable things, and unpredictability was a gateway to unacceptable outcomes.

Child, you’re giving me the nerves. What are your stats on…

An articulated BOOM shook the air. They both ducked. Looking up, the engines of a transorbital passenger jet turned from red to violet, pushing the plane across the sound barrier on its way to a standard mach 3 cruise. The jet left a vertical halo in its contrail at the point where it went supersonic before slipping into the clouds.

Fhelps exhaled with relief and re-moistened his lips, speaking in a pesky timbre, You got me jumping at airplanes, Sax! How do you think that makes me feel? Go retrieve your dead drones! First lower that particle rifle, and repeat stats!

Saxon lowered the barrel of his Mantis.

His breath was still hurried, "I apologize, sir. But I really think…"

Just shut your mouth, snipped Fhelps. Numbers.

The boy was more than 100 meters ahead. It was unlikely, but possible his sensors were picking up something else.

Saxon swallowed nervously.

Those drones didn’t just fall out of the sky.

The day’s light appeared to be growing brighter though the sun stayed hidden. It wasn’t just the premonitions. Something was changing with his eyes also.

A bead of cold sweat ran down Saxon’s forehead, Okay, okay. I see .02 kinetic ripples, non-linear sequencing.

Fhelps had instructed Saxon to never trust his gut, to let computers do the thinking.

He spoke with confidence, Sax, windy day, that readout could be yawn and tug on tree roots. It could be a deer fawn. That doe was probably trying to distract us before you blasted her. He tried to deepen his voice, I want you to advance, all right then? Gather those drones, and don’t you dare fire that gun without my permission!

They would go as far as the base of the hill, drop a couple new centibots, call it a day. It was going to be a long hike back to the Lexus.

Saxon turned back and glared at his foster father as they again began marching.

I hate you. More than you will ever know.

The bald, old man was always trying to school him. He enjoyed telling Saxon things like, Throughout history, the smallest pieces of data have exposed the greatest of criminals… Sax. Crap, all crap. The nickname, Sax was crap. The CNED Youth Initiative was crap!

Saxon brushed a strand of blonde hair from his eyes as he continued, unable to ignore what he knew to be true, Sir, I’m telling you.

Trees and wind, Sax, said Fhelps. Trees and wind.

"It wasn’t geo yawn and tug! I’m not stupid. We’re a kilometer away! Something big moved in that dirt."

Fhelps smiled pompously and checked his own array, First of all, watch your tone. Second of all, what are your stats now?

Saxon loved rolling his eyes, My sensors are flat line. It was just a feeling.

The world doesn’t run on feelings, child. It runs on…

"Numbers, I know, sir, Jeezus, numbers! Can we get this over with? I’m starving."

Saxon trudged ahead faster, boots splashing mud between the rows of dead hemp. He made it eleven meters before his combud klaxoned again, this time louder. He was 114.26 meters ahead of Fhelps.

Saxon’s heart jumped, 2.1 verified ripples, 38.7 x 97.8. Something has to be spooling, and it’s no baby deer! I mean, 2.1, that’s fusion, right?

Fhelps was seeing similar readings, Hold position, com silent.

Fhelps knelt to the ground and activated the binocular stabilizers on his HUD, magnifying a view of the tree line. He could see rusted barbed wire nailed into the hickories, one trunk after the next. Lumpy warts of scarred bark showed where the trees had absorbed the strands of metal fencing. He scanned carefully, pretending it was a hidden image puzzle like at the bottom of the Sunday holocomics. Fhelps flipped his HUD to standard. Nothing. He returned it to a 5,000 mm digital magnification.

There.

A baby deer rustling in the underbrush?

This was ridiculous! He was too far out to get the same gravotemp readings the boy was. Nonetheless, 2.1 verified ripples was enough to make Fhelps boot his own lightning cannon.

Per regulations outlined in the 2086 CNED Field Operations Manual, much of which Fhelps himself had authored, now was the time to ping a security drone for backup.

Protocol.

There was no reason. Not yet. Sax was right. They were onto something. The automated defenses around a fusion still? If so, their holoflage suits would make them invisible to standard motion scanners. Mega stills were automated. Warehouse bots did the heavy lifting. They oft had skeleton crews. Or so he had read. If he could surprise the shiners and bring them down alone, he would be…

Fhelps said the word salaciously, Famous, letting it drift from the tip of his tongue.

He didn’t realize it then, but his toes had stopped itching.

Sax, I want you to retreat to my left flank, twenty meters parallel. I’m holding position until you’re back here. Activating hypersense array now.

The suit’s array could scan at full spectrum for fifteen seconds, but a four second sweep would pick up any micro-wormhole activity. If there was anything in those trees larger than a rabbit running on fusion power, he would find it instantly.

His voice trembled lightly, Activate hypersense, authorization Fhelps 29.

A small green diode on the suit’s shoulder pack illuminated. There was a momentary vibration.

Just like sim.

He felt good as he waited.

Readings will be negative.

He steadied his breath, one second, two, three… his combud gave a truncated chirp.

Fhelps looked at the information and blinked. He read the holocast twice. Then he read it a third time. A dry ball of terror formed in his throat.

He whispered slowly, Computer, encrypted stream.

His combud responded smoothly, Encrypted stream initiated.

Cross reference and verify onscreen data.

Saxon’s voice cut in, tinged with fear, Sir, something dark is out here.

Fhelps flipped streams, scowling, Shut up and retreat like I say, child!

He switched off the open stream, Computer, verify HUD data.

The Human Biosync Processing Drive surgically implanted beneath his left temple reiterated the information succinctly in a computerized female voice only he could hear, Verification complete. Dual independent wormholes maintaining stabilized orbit at 916.4 meters distance on a south by southwest trajectory. Targets are 2.32 meters beneath the soil surface, 2.02 meters, 1.76 meters.

Fhelps felt goosebumps rise. He heard the sound coming from the tree line. It really was just like a training sim. His suit’s directional microphones began transmitting a low, pulsing hum through his combud. The decibel meter indicated the hum was growing stronger, originating at the base of the hill. It was auto-streamed to both holoflage suits.

Sir, are you hearing that!? asked Saxon.

Fhelps’ head swirled. The audio sounded like a hovsemi spooling, levfan rotors spinning faster and faster. Visual alerts blinked rapidly across their HUD’s as the suits’ auto-alert klaxons began to chime.

The computerized female voice was bright but devoid of emotion, Detecting 47.8 harmonic ripples, 67.9 harmonic ripples, 113.0 harmonic ripples. Alert threshold achieved. Please cross verify any known gravotemporal sources. Civilian auto-alert in twenty seconds, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…

Saxon was running as fast as he could away from the trees. His boots slogged laboriously.

"Believe me now, dad?!" I told you there was something else out there! Shit!" the boy was shouting as he ran.

Suddenly, in a fit of panic, Saxon turned and knelt. He aimed and fired a second particle round. An enormous hickory tree at the base of the hill exploded. Yellow, late autumn leaves and splintered branches fluttered down like snowflakes as the huge tree toppled.

Saxon was out of ammo.

Noooo! Fhelps yelled so loudly his combud squealed, You’ll alert them to our position!

I think they’ve been alerted. I can hear…

Just run, you ridiculous child! cut Fhelps. Run!

But sir! protested Saxon as he turned and again began to flee.

"What is it, child?! I swear! Now is not the t…"

"No, sir… Frank, dad! They just told me what you did! yelled Saxon between breaths. I won’t forget."

Fhelps scowled with a fresh rush of paranoia, What are you speakin’… A piercing klaxon vibrated his inner ear. Just run, boy! Fhelps snipped, "and no more of your foolish babble! Move!"

He muted the klaxon with a blink and restabilized his magnified view of the hickory stand.

Great Dog in the Sky… he whispered.

Two large mounds of fresh dug soil dusted with leaves began collapsing in. Something was rising from the Earth. Fhelps tried to speak, but his throat was parched. His mind raced, normally ordered thoughts turning frantically back to the Bedouin.

It’s not my fault the boy died! I took a bribe, your honor! I never wanted the sniveling brat in the first place… it was that man in the hood!

Fhelps slapped his own cheek, needing the pain.

Pull it together! What uses fusion? Power grid. Auto-turrets? Cyborgs?

The closest military base was Fort Riley. They had cyborgs.

Stream DEA! Why haven’t CNED drones confirmed our auto-ping?

A DEA com driver would know how to shut down these robotic perimeter guns. Or whatever was spooling.

He swallowed to wet his throat and squeaked, "Com, patch CNED control / cc DEA Gencom: Agent 29 authorization – Amend 21, repeat Amend 21! Reporting unregistered fusion activity, sector nine, quadrant four, Saline County, Kansas. Experiencing com irregularities. Manually streaming our pin!"

He glanced at the mag view and bit his tongue. Before the barbed wire fence, a four-pronged, mechanical paw the size of a basketball broke the surface. Each toe on the robotic paw bore a twelve cm metal claw. Fhelps’ eyelids began to flutter.

War cyborgs.

A trickle of unnoticed tongue blood made its way over his lip. His back was damp with sweat. Fingers of winter wind cut through his holoflage suit.

He dialed back the magnification 5%. Two robotic paws had broken the surface, pulling the full torso of a cybernetic DOGS unit into view. The huge, silver-toned automaton shook side to side, ridding itself of clinging dirt and leaves. Fhelps had only seen these creatures in war museums or in the holoflix. Such monsters had also been reported at the battle for the Lawrence Pumpkin Still.

But those are urban myths!

Following the first, a second DOGS unit began emerging from the Earth. The trunk of the hickory tree Saxon had felled lay on top of this one’s resting place. Once on all fours, obviously irritated by the obstruction, the creature seized the hickory in its jaws and hurled the tree into the open field. The beast again stood still.

Beads of disbelief stung Fhelps’ eyes. From what he knew, the big ones with no BIOSKIN© had been outlawed to all except the highest echelons of the military.

If they’re military, they’re on my side.

Fhelps felt an illogical sense of relief.

I just have to send over our Ipv7’s and the driver operating these borgs will see we’re CNED!

Now out of the ground, the identical DOGS units were each the size of a hovlimo. They had elevated themselves from their hiding place under two meters of wet soil with the ease of birds preparing for flight. Their red eyes glowed as they swung their massive, silver and black titanalum heads back and forth, scanning. Fhelps could see their fortified joint gears spinning, making micro adjustments to their limbs. Their mechanical bodies were covered with armored scales arranged in complex geometric patterns, but they moved… like biologicals! Fhelps understood enough fusion 101 to know that the cyborgs had been lying dormant to evade detection. Their reactors were still spooling. In the afternoon’s waning gloom, a faint blue light emanated visibly from the independent cores mounted in their chest cavities.

Two of them! Impossible!

Fhelps tapped his combud, desperate for a response to his outgoing pings.

The Govcloud’s default female voice was secretarial and prim, Hello, Agent Fhelps, we are experiencing network difficulty. Your communications to… the computer hesitated while it processed the message recipient, CNED Control and DEA General cannot be broadcast at this time. We are experiencing network difficulty. Please try again later.

Nooo!

Fhelps exhaled a foggy breath, trying to contain the fright and rage. The cyborgs had not yet moved. It was not to worry. Once they were fully functional, the creatures would scan his Ipv7 and immediately stand down.

That makes no sense!

His holoflage suit klaxoned, relaying seismic vibrations from the impact of the cyborgs’ first steps. The animals were fully powered. Fhelps watched one of the DOGS units raise its head to the clouds and open its nacreous mouth, displaying a full set of carbide tipped teeth complete with 25 cm fangs. The beast then howled, a sound so loud their directional mics auto-muted. They could hear it perfectly a kilometer away, like the horn of a maglev train bred with the haunted song of a timber wolf.

The second DOGS unit joined in, producing an even more fearsome call.

Both cyborgs then reared back and launched, clearing thirty meters before touching down side by side in a crush of mud. Fhelps frantically checked his suit’s holointerface. His Ipv7 was pushing on all streams, verification green.

They’ve wonked my Ipv7… but aren’t stopping!

He had to mute his holoflage suit’s gravotemporal klaxons. The creatures landed and leapt into the air again, gaining incredible momentum across the fields. Their steps thundered, boom-boom… boom-boom… displacing waves of mud a half meter high.

There was no choice. Fhelps would have to incinerate them.

If Saxon can hit a deer…

He knelt and took aim with his lightning cannon, auto-locking into his tracking matrix.

NOT like the simulations!

He blasted off two contiguous particle streams, one directed at each cyborg. Lightning rifle rounds were ionically charged to gravitate towards metal objects, and they curved fluidly towards their targets.

Direct hits!

Nothing. The jade-toned energy streams distributed over the DOGS units’ bodies, then fizzled harmlessly away. The cyborgs merely snarled and increased the pace of their charge.

His combud spoke flatly into his ear, Targets 400 meters from Saxon, 300…

Fhelps tapped his com furiously, Computer! Resend Ipv7! Friendly, friendly, friendly!

The com replied succinctly again, Your Ipv7 has been confirmed, thank you. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

In the hapless, final moments of his life, events seemed to happen in slow motion for Franklin Fhelps. He watched one of the massive cybernetic canines slide to a halt, snarling brutishly at Sax, yet fifty meters off. It was so strange. The boy had stopped calling for help! In fact, he was kneeling, looking straight at the monster with his hand extended, as though he intended to touch its gigantic muzzle.

The second cyborg continued closing. It was on him.

Fhelps hurled his lightning rifle at the monstrosity, flailing his arms as he screamed, Waaaiiit! My name is Franklin Fhelps! I’m on the board of…!

The second DOGS unit, unconcerned with board membership, flashed its head sideways and snapped its jaws around Fhelps’ rib cage, causing the man’s torso to explode in a confetti of splintered bone and guts. The animal dug its saber-like claws into the earth and shook its head savagely, rendering loose the dangling sections of spine and hip until the two body halves dropped to the soil with a bloody twook and a twack. The creature’s alloy muzzle was red, yellow, dripping with bile. It growled, circling the severed halves of its quarry, crushing Fhelps’ skull with a single step. As an afterthought, it flicked a rear leg and sent the top half of the carcass tumbling away across the field. Satisfied, the cyborg turned and faced its sister, the one now protectively circling Saxon. Both DOGS units locked vidorbs, exchanged data, then raised their heads to the gray clouds and howled in furious unison.

It was the sign the man on the hill had been waiting for.

The hunt was over.

Excerpt from the 2071 holopamphlet, Parents: Get Smart About Alcohol sponsored by CNED.holo:

In 2060, 47% of North Americans reported drinking alcohol more than once in their lives. 71% of North Americans reported seeing alcohol used at a social function. Alcohol! When it comes to alcohol use and abuse, there is so much at stake for your family and your children. If your combud is vibrating and you are worried about your child floating with the wrong crew and making the wrong decisions, you are not alone.

Swipe your holotab to CNED.holo

Identifying alcohol and potential alcohol use and abuse is no easy task. There are many threats: black market liquors, such as vodka and rye whiskey, black market beers and wines, and well-camouflaged drug paraphernalia. Even your teen’s social and visual cues. Finding an empty mason jar in the closet in your child’s room, or hearing your child stammering about what went on at their visit to the holosim theater earlier that night with friends might be your first sign of drug use. Don’t make assumptions. But don’t ignore a dark sky too long. Remember: all alcohol is black market alcohol. There is no Federal oversight of production, so your child could literally be drinking ANYTHING. Continue scrolling to learn more about the types of things teens are confronted with these days, from pressure on social networks to avoiding and reporting alcohol use in high school.

Swipe your holotab to CNED.holo

We can help! The Get Smart About Alcohol section of the CNED Page will give you information to improve your recognition skills for the liquid drug, covering the visual cues and signs of alcohol use, as well as identifying different popular forms and types of alcohol. The information in this section can also help you and your child navigate today’s dark social waters when it comes to alcohol and popularity.

Swipe your holotab to CNED.holo

Chapter 1.2 – Only Coyotes Know

Salina, Kansas – November 2086 – Four Years One Month After Event.

The thin man sat against the trunk of the great leafless tree. A tattered straw cowboy hat covered his face. Two Rottweilers lay in the yellowed grass to either side of him, each black as coal. All three figures were still.

After a few seconds, the man raised the brim of his hat. The blue, bionic vidorb that had replaced his left eye glowed, scrutinizing the valley below. He quickly scanned the green holotext being projected before his field of vision. The CNED agents were 1.7 kilometers out, stepping loud and careless between the furrowed rows of dead winter hemp as if they owned the very sky. Each hunter was equipped with a holoflage suit and a Mantis 8.0 series particle rifle.

Birds and lies hide behind dying eyes, gentlemen, the thin man said quietly.

His expression was devoid of emotion.

High above, a co2 scrubbing blimp emerged through a break in the clouds, 300 meters long from nose to tail. The high atmosphere dirigible’s enormous ionizing engines trailed below it like black nipples dangling off the tips of its belly tentacles. Both Rottweilers looked up at the same time the man did. All three followed the scrubber’s progress with their eyes until it faded again behind the clouds.

Spinning wind turbines dotted the horizon, a flock of distant starlings roiled and swirled over the plantations below. A drone flew down the hovroad precisely on schedule. His HUD alerted him via text readout that a subspace airliner would break the sound barrier above their location in 16 minutes. The man noted these variables and yawned.

He folded his cowboy boots beneath him, stood, stretching willowy arms overhead. He was a tenth of a meter short of two tall. The hemp blue jeans he favored and a white t-shirt hugged his lean frame. He had added a flannel to his normal attire due to the November chill.

When he stood, the smaller of the two Rottweilers sat up with him. The animal had its mouth partially open, oriented towards the man. A red glow, difficult to see in daylight, emanated from its jaws. The man scratched his three day old whiskers, the flat, afternoon light highlighting new strands of gray that had asserted themselves since his early days in the industry. The gray had even scattered to his thick, brown sideburns.

The man took a tin box the size of a deck of cards from his pocket and sat back down, once more resting against the trunk of the shingle oak.

He extracted a hand rolled, antique tobacco cigarette from the box, stuck it between his lips and nodded at the larger Rottweiler, Light me up.

The big dog rolled playfully onto its back and narrowed its jaws, focusing. A slender line of red laser light ignited the cigarette’s tip. The man took a drag and exhaled, watching the wisps of smoke curve up from the burning end with pleasure, as though he were observing a ballerina dancing upon the wind.

Behind them, a blonde woman came into view, walking slowly towards them up a gravel path. She was dressed in work-worn overalls, a hempyarn sweater she had knitted the Christmas before and faded, red Chuck Taylors. She was not tall, nor beautiful in the standard sense, but was nonetheless captivating. Her eyes were vivid blue, and her body maintained a strong posture as she approached. She had high cheek bones and the soft, pale skin of a porcelain doll.

When the woman got close, the larger Rottweiler whimpered dramatically and threw herself to the ground at her feet, rolling over to solicit a belly rub. The blonde woman knelt and smiled, scratching the animal’s fur with long, generous strokes. She warmed a hand at the edge of the creature’s mouth then stood, one hand massaging the ache in her lower back.

Her tone was placid yet firm, Gunsheye and Fat Girl are dug in and dark. Hugo’s got the deer tied up and ready. Poor animal’s terrified.

Understandable, said the man.

You shouldn’t let the girls toy with the wildlife.

Dogs will be dogs.

She came closer, removed the man’s cowboy hat and tossed it aside in the surrounding grass that near matched its color, then took his hand and studied his face. She saw blackness beneath his eyes, new lines. He looked older, leaner, harder.

The Rottweilers smiled like all dogs smile, doing their best to dilute the concern that lingered behind her careful gaze. The big one licked her hand repeatedly until at last she grinned. Like the man, the woman was no fool. She was the first to feel it in her bones. The dark skies were returning.

The man whistled low, drawing her gaze, I won’t let it happen again. Danny is with us now. We know everything, he said.

Do we? she asked pensively. Only Coyotes know everything.

"It won’t start today. Nothing will start until we find him. The thin man kept the cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he took her cold hands in his, Do you think the kid can really do what they say?"

The woman forced a weak smile, I don’t know. All I know is this is our home. I don’t want to run again.

The man was resolute, They think it’s him.

She took her hands back, rubbed her protruding belly and squinted, her bright gaze darting over details in the vast, forlorn fields, So does Danny. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, we’ve got at least one more mouth coming on payroll for sure.

The man closed his single human eye, I know. Even as he spoke, the bionic vidorb in his opposite eye socket mechanically scanned the far horizon with a lifeless shine, No one’s gonna harm my little girl. He traced a finger down the back of her hand, Either of them.

She turned away, Don’t. I’ll cry. I’ve puked twice this morning already. She smacked her palms practically on her rump, There’s work to be done. I’m not going to waste my time out here in a heat bubble watching the wind blow. She looked down at the Rottweilers, Your daddy’s cray-cray.

The smaller dog rolled over and yipped in agreement.

The man sighed, I promise to ping as soon as I know. If these humdroids get much closer, the dolphins are going to release the deer.

The woman was already walking away down the hill. The Rottweilers watched her leave with obvious dismay. Her bright blonde hair flowed behind her like trails of November smoke.

She said the words over her shoulder without looking back, I hope it doesn’t come to releasing the deer. I really, really hope that.

Fragmented Remains from the Cloud Diary of Daxane Julius Abner – March 2077 – Five Years Seven Months Before Event.

"…the Hadassa system’s maximum output is 6,000 MW h. Time compresses in the core room. 24 hours seems to pass in seconds.

Conclusion: In terms of human psychology, the manipulation of linear time is no more than a parlor trick. Religion, paranormal experience, shamanic breath work, astrology; all illusions turned to reality by virtue of our irresistible need for something greater in which to believe. Gravity? Evolution? Thermodynamics 2? By contrast, each an empirically measurable law substantiated by quantum mechanics. Like the spooling of a gravotemporal fusion matrix.

Yet our feeble minds flood with doubt the moment perception is manipulated! Peoples’ behavior is far less affected by the actual laws of physics than it is by the expectation of what those laws mean to our individual lives.

Physics lesson number one; there are no individuals!

After Hugo installed the artwork, he and the Israeli departed. It was then, and only then, that I played The Black Danube. I waltzed alone. The dolphin stared at me from the far side of the glass thinking, Pathetic, emotionally distracted humanoid, fresh on your feet from the tree limbs…

I know that is what she was thinking. Because she told me.

I’ve left the old farm’s original wind turbine in place for appearances. Along with the solar array, whatever flies over will scan a standard generator. From the sky we appear as a registered, specialty micro-plantation. Zucchini and watermelons in the summer, field pumpkins in autumn. Inspectors, human and robotic alike, now welcome.

Both 2,000 liter fractionating columns are onstream. 26,000 liter (potential) monthly output. The Salina distributors can dilute that into another 180,000 liters. No one’s missing water from a half-kilometer wide river. Output is now only limited by manpower, ingenuity and time.

Regarding manpower – security specifically; I hired the individual referenced earlier. Gathering intel on this one, no easy task.

William Thomas Angevine, 27 years old. He’s a quiet, cowboy drifter, body tech-free. One of the 7%. An examination of known holohistory shows the only device he’s ever owned is a standard 2.5d holotab, free fifty gig down 1 up citizen account.

For the last three years, Angevine was a trail guide at Cyberstalk©, the 5,000 acre cyborg hunting preserve outside Enid, Oklahoma. Unlike the hunting ranges on Luna, Cyberstalk© is a laser contact only preserve. The animals still go dark instantly when shot, tumbling where and how they fall to the delight of patrons. None are getting ripped apart by harpoons though. So there’s that.

Employment records indicate Angevine has strong experience correlation with borgs.

A colleague is quoted; Bill whispers to them.

And before the last three years? Maybe a mystery to be solved another day.

So how did I come to acquire this drifter?

Here is the rest of what is known. Angevine is a high functioning amnesiac, the result of a beating at the hands of Enid CNED agents. He retains his sense of identity, but has turned his back on whatever life he lived before his mother’s murder. That was six weeks hence.

Mother, a Marilyn Angevine, owned a janebev convenience float-through. She also scanned a little shine on the side. Angevine kept an apartment in the back, along with a small kennel for his organic short-haired pointers.

Angevine was at work, leading a hunt. An alcohol transaction at the float-through went south. Marilyn Angevine is found dead, uncoded sonic shotgun blast to the head pulverized the bones of her face, suspects escape. The case is given low priority because the woman was pre-tagged black market affiliate.

Translation; the murder will never be solved.

Understandably drowning his sorrows, Angevine seeks out a speakeasy and is stopped by three CNED agents as he is stumbling home down an alley. Angevine resists, is beaten unconscious, inducing aforementioned amnesia. Before succumbing to the attack, Angevine blinded one of the agents with his thumb and fractured the man’s wrist.

In retribution, the other agents hogtied him, threw him in the back of their hovtruck and floated him to his mother’s shuttered janebev shop. Once there, the agents sat Angevine up in the bed of the hovtruck, broke an aerosol stym-pak under his nose and made him watch as they burn his mother’s store, and Angevine’s apartment, to the ground. With all his guns and dogs still locked inside.

Then they arrested him.

Per Federal benevolence guidelines, over-crowding at Bmod hospitals is not permitted. Accordingly, Angevine was transferred to the next closest Federal facility, Greystone Behavioral here in Lawrence.

That is how I came to acquire this drifter.

I’m afraid the memories that Mr. William Angevine has left are none too pleasant. All the same, he is willing, doesn’t ask questions. He also displays transhuman abilities with a rifle. But of greatest import, I believe he has the ability to tether. Tricyclic Summit Theory. It is possible. Dolphin-kind know it. Marvin Adler died for it.

Joan will make the final determination, though I can already say with certainty, from a glance behind his eyes, the man is no white mole. He comes from the motel in the morning.

On a more practical note, Hugo and I must soon float to the Israeli’s warehouse and allocate a flat of potato pow… UNSCHEDULED HARDWARE DESTRUCT / DATA COMPROMISE / INITIATE BACKUP.EXE FOR REINTEGRATION FORMA… LOSS. LOSS. LOSS."

Chapter 1.3 – My Name Is Tara Dean

Wikipedia.holo Excerpt (Last Updated 2077.09.11) Regarding 21st Century Alcohol Addiction:

…third time offenders scheduled for SAMCL surgery will be housed on a secure wing or hospital floor. These areas are called slaughterhouses by the pro-alcohol subculture.

This slanderous term was popularized in The North American United States Union by members of the antique substance abuse organizations, Alcoholics Anonymous and Alanon. Members of AA/Alanon stand by their long held position that alcoholism is best treated through a voluntary request for assistance initiated by the addict.

The Architect disagrees. Marijuana is more socially just.

Following four weeks of psychological reform treatment with a VCSW (or isolation, should the patient waive their constitutional right to psychological reform), patients are taken to the SAMCL operation chamber. A team of orderlies secures the patient’s head with a contour adaptive bio-brace. The optic nerve is first deadened with a local anesthetic and then the eyelid is temporarily wired open. A twelve centimeter, nanographene drill bit connected to a vibratory emitter bores into the roof of the eye socket until the microscopic speaker at the drill’s tip is embedded within the frontal cortex of the brain. The computer then finalizes placement of the drill by nanosourcing coordinates containing the highest levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. The vibratory emitter releases a five second burst of low frequency sound, rupturing that portion of the neural structure responsible for alcohol addiction.

Short term side effects may include debilitating headaches and blurred vision (non-gender specific). Male SAMCL patients may report an increase in violent tendencies, social anxiety and memory loss. Female SAMCL patients may report chronic depression, lack of motivation, listlessness and mood swings specific to libido.

SAMCL advocates quote an 89.4% median reduction in post-surgical alcoholic urges across all demographics. Numerous independent studies funded by the Compassionate Reforms Division of the IRS indicate that all minor side effects of SAMCL surgery previously listed in this article can be adequately treated with pain killers, flibanserin, sldenafil citrate, SSRI’s, Ativan, Pleasium, Ritalin, donepezil and tacrine psychopharmacologic therapy.

For mainstream advocates, SAMCL treatment is the final step on the road to Vision. It creates a more socially integrated and benevolent North American United States citizen.

Lawrence, Kansas – January 2080 – Two Years Nine Months Before Event.

Tara Dean was not fond of such statistics. She was not fond of doctors with hair in their ears who smelled of last night’s janebeer, nor mathematics, logic studies, genital implants, poly-hemp products, shoe wearing and confined spaces. There was also little use in her world for the color pink, insect protein or owning a holotablet. Regarding the computerized smooth jazz that played 24/7 over the hospital com…

She asked a female orderly the first night she was admitted, Is it possible to turn down the music in my room?

The orderly responded with a prismatic smile, The music is carefully selected as a part of our mandatory calming regimen. Perhaps a tablet of Pleasium would help you to find it more soothing?

Tara Dean rolled her eyes, Pleasium or no, I’d rather tickle a Komodo dragon’s face with a used tampon than listen to this shit.

Her relationship with the hospital staff deteriorated from there. It deteriorated so far, in fact, that two months later she found herself physically restrained to her bed with less than five hours remaining before she was scheduled to enter a slaughterhouse chamber. Even as the clock ticked away, Tara’s attitude remained outwardly blasé. She had spent the creeping days waiting on a thousand turns of the moon, bored in the formless dark of each night’s passing. The dogforsaken muzak was constantly piped into her room, minute after hour after day after week.

However, on this final night she was listening for other sounds. Specifically, the clumsy bellow of Spencer Hotshine’s voice beyond her door.

Poor, sweet, fairly handsome Spencer.

If she was caught, Spencer could immediately return to being of absolutely zero value. She would forget half her life, get a real job, purchase beige clogs and a fat, orange and blue, striped Felix. Maybe two Felixes? Perhaps a drill to the eye wouldn’t be so bad.

Yet if her plan worked?

Poor, sweet Spencer.

But Spencer’s voice did not come. Her shoulder restraints were painfully tight. The smooth jazz raked her skull. Her long, brunette hair was fastened behind her head, pinned so tautly under the bio-brace that it yanked at her scalp no matter which direction she tried to move. Nurse Fossbender had constricted the brace to a child’s setting.

If Tara did not escape, Marlene Fossbender would be there in the morning. She would watch the drill go in. Tara could visualize the woman’s gaping face, jowls flapping sadistically.

No. I would rather die.

But her plan had not failed.

Not yet!

She breathed… in through her nose… out through her mouth. Someone would come. Either a surgical-security escort, the nurse or Spencer Hotshine. In the meantime, she had the company of her own breath.

Each exhalation was filled with more hate than the last.

2069 – Eleven Years Earlier. Excerpt from the Non-Clinical Notes on Patient 373-A by Neil Young, RN/VCSW:

When asked to state her complete name for the record, subject’s first words were, and I quote: "My name is Tara Dean, old man, Tar-a like a tar pit, not Terra like we ain’t livin’ on the moon. And I swear to Dog if you try and hook me up to some kind of brain scanner, I’ll punch you in the nuts."

Our therapist-patient relationship has since improved. That said, attempts at modifying subject’s cultural perspectives have so far been unsuccessful. Recidivism probable.

I believe historical summary of this individual’s upbringing bears examination.

Subject is an only child. Father died when subject was age seven, circumstances unknown. Mother, Asteria Dean, abruptly relocated family to New Riverside, California, following her husband’s death. Within four months, mother remarries holovision producer, Howard Dean (Any citizen who watches Holovision Weekly is familiar with the infamous adult-themed parties at the Dean Mansion in New Bel-Aire).

Subject reports no knowledge of these events. Polygraph not required.

Per Federal holoscript records, mother is Pleasium dependent, citing chronic social anxiety disorder. According to the subject’s own account, most interpersonal care from ages seven to fourteen was provided by the family administrator, a Carlyle Johnson, whose tenure in this position preceded the family’s relocation to California. Six months ago, Mr. Johnson was run down in the hovstreet in front of the Dean Mansion by a CNED agent’s speeding hovtruck. The agent was allegedly pursuing an intoxicated boozebum when the manslaughter occurred. No criminal charges filed.

It is this event (death of the family administrator) that I believe catalyzed this subject’s decision to use alcohol for the first time. Subject obtained a two liter jar of potato vodka from an adult employed by the Dean family as a security guard. The security guard was subsequently arrested and sentenced to immediate L3 SAMCL treatment for providing a minor with narcotics, a decision which the subject states she vehemently protested.

Before expulsion (school policy for a drug related offense), subject was enrolled at New Riverside Academy for Girls and had perfect marks in all courses. Subject exhibits exceptional intelligence, though instructor histories indicate an established pattern of disciplinary issues beginning at the onset of puberty.

When I inquired, subject rolled her eyes (her favorite form of non-verbal communication) and stated that she is able to …hear the answers in a teacher’s head. It is far more likely that she has a hyper-evolved capacity for learning a/o a transhuman photographic memory. The North American Psychiatric Association’s official position is that there is no