Gravity

‘You see them all the time doing what I do.’ Kurama walked toward the young president. ‘Light-heads, stimmers, it’s always the same, you know—transcending the self, a higher power. But really, they just fried their brains. There’s only whatever they’re using. Like pollen, spreading through bees.’

He stopped. ‘Before you know it, you’ve lost who you are.’ There was a note of sadness in his voice.

Rinako looked up at him.

‘See, it’s like you said, a sculpture. The reason you don’t know what you lost, is that you lost it.’

‘A god.’ He laughed again. ‘You’re not even a person anymore.’

Kurogari’s eyes glowed fiercely, then slowly faded.

He smiled. ‘You know, I admire you. That woman in Chinatown was our one mistake and you clung to it, let it drag you here, whatever winds were blowing around you. You held on to that one thing that didn’t add up.’

Kurama’s expression tightened.

‘Oh, I did a little due diligence after your visit before—you really have quite the chequered history. Do you know they were considering you for evaluation sometime?’ Kurogari’s footsteps echoed around the chamber.

‘Mari was a good secretary. A hard worker. A little too good. She came in late one night, no one was supposed to be there but she wouldn’t leave documents unfinished. And so, unfortunately, she saw some things she shouldn’t have. There really was no other option.’

‘But what Mari didn’t tell us, the reason you see, she was so devoted to the company. She had been in a Geist attack a few years before. And our sens-sim transplants saved her. VisAge saved her.’ He looked at them before continuing.

‘She didn’t want it on her record, didn’t want anyone to know.’

‘You see, when a person’s memory cortex is transplanted to a recipient, the impressions left by those memories remain in place for a short time—like when files are deleted in a computer. The files don’t disappear straight away, but the space they occupy is allocated for rewriting. Normally, these impressions fade away or are overwritten. But what happens if the recipient experiences an identical event? If the event is traumatic enough the impression is hardened and the new memory takes the shape of the old. It’s called resonance transfer—we’ve only recently learned of it.’

He stopped and turned toward them. ‘Do you realise the chances of that? A person killed by a Geist donating to a recipient who then goes on to also be killed by a Geist?’

‘Kind of increases when you’re murdering people with Geists.’ Said Kurama.

‘—Even that isn’t enough. Perhaps a bad dream or two, the odd sensation of anxiety. But for some reason we have been unable to discern, in people with a naturally high light-level, those impressions are particularly sensitive. Even the slightest shape is retained. By the time our database tallied the names of previous donors and recipients… Mari had already been transferred.’

Kurogari stood silhouetted before the giant blue sun. From his sides, holographic copies of himself fanned out like long-feathered wings. As he spoke their mouths moved in unison.

‘But perhaps it is time for a demonstration.’

Blue light blazed from the eyes of all the Kurogaris and Kurama was flung across the room. He landed at the back of the chamber and skidded across the floor, his pistol rattling away from him, where he lay still.

‘Kurama..!’ Shouted Rinako. Suddenly, she arched her back in pain.

Many voices spoke at once, like fingers of a hand inside her mind.

She couldn’t tell if the hum was in the room or in her head.

Then she dropped to the floor.

Kurogari was holding his head, laughing.

‘But of course!’ He was bent double then turned back to her. ‘You’re one of them.’

She looked up groggily. ‘What?’

‘You were in the LCL shopping centre bombing.’ He said. ‘I saw when I checked the records after your little outburst, I just—it never occurred to me…’

He looked up at the sun. The little black promontory protruded across its face.

‘Everything was planned so meticulously and yet still you are here.’ He seemed to be speaking to himself. ‘With all this, you still came, without even knowing… no. Perhaps, because you didn’t know.’

He smiled. ‘Gravity. Beneath every act.’

‘What are you talking about?’

When he turned back to her, his eyes were billowing blue light at their edges.

‘The accident.’

She thought of it. She had been just a child. ‘Yeah, I was a survivor. Did you want to mock that too?’

‘No. You weren’t. We put you back together. VisAge. Those memories you have. They are not yours.’

What… no, it’s not possible. She thought of her grandfather piecing together the parts of his gun at the table.

‘You came all this way, and you don’t even know why.’ He was smiling at her. ‘But don’t take my word for it.’

His eyes flashed and again she felt the hand opening inside her mind.

***

She was floating.

All moments were around her like windows opened, the boundaries between them gone.

The blue sky.

The fields of blue flowers.

Envelopes burning.

They were in the cottage. Her mother was bent over in front of her, her eyes wide. Mom is scared. She pushed the bag into her arms and looked over her shoulder to the wooden door. The knocking came again. Harder.

Her mother looked into her eyes, held her shoulders.

She put her fingers to her lips.

She was crying, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘I dont want to, mom—‘

Bang bang bang

Her mother turned her around and pushed her toward the back door.

The door slammed behind her.

Bang

She was in the forest, running. The pines were either side of her, they hurt her arms as she passed.

Bang bang bang

There were no doors in the woods.

She reached the clearing by the waterfall. She looked around. Which way? She was clutching the bag to her chest.

She sat against a boulder. The sound of running water behind her. All around the forest stared back at her, black between the trees.

She heard the sound of men talking.

Sticks breaking.

She closed her eyes and hugged the bag tighter.

There was a click.

The sound of running water

***

The chamber came back into view, slowly, and Kurama lifted his head.

Ugh, someone turn off the holo…

He looked up. The huge blue sun hung in front of him. It came back to him. Kurogari was standing, his copies extended in arcs either side of him. A figure floated before him, bent backwards in the air. Particles of light floated in a channel between them, then in a much larger band toward the sun behind them.

Rinako.

Sharp thoughts assailed his mind.

He saw the pistol on the floor in front of him.

He looked up again at Rinako. He knew what to do but something was stopping him.

Then the humming of the chamber seemed to fade, and a familiar voice spoke to him.

The old man was smiling up at him from his car window.

‘It’s smarter than you.’

Kurama was smiling too.

***

The shot rang out across the chamber. Rinako fell to the floor. She couldn’t tell if it had really happened. She looked up. Kurama was laying on the ground propped up by an arm. His pistol was held up in the other, a line of smoke issuing from its barrel.

Kurogari stood before her, his arm extended. Between his fingers he held a small object reflecting the room around him. A bullet.

‘Cute.’ He said. ‘But I’m afraid it’s a little too late for that.’

The tiny reflection of the room melted and the bullet melted between his fingers, running over his hand. He turned it about with an expression of curiosity. The liquid metal spread then rose up into branches.

It shot suddnely across room. Kurama fell on his back.

‘Noooo…!’ Rinako ran, stumbling and skidding over to where he lay. There was a single hole in the centre of his forehead. As she watched, indigo blood started to seep slowly from the wound.

She span round.

The hum in the chamber was deafening.

***

Behind Kurogari the vast blue disc toiled in silence. Then something caught her eye. Something scuttled across the floor on the far side of the chamber. A line of smoke. It zig zagged across the ground as though burnt by a giant lens. All of a sudden a silhouette appeared on the promontory before the sun.

‘What do you think?’ Said Kurogari. ‘Was it worth it to hear the truth?’

‘Well, I did enjoy the part where sssshhhe called you a frightful child.’ The voice came from the silhouette. ‘But the ressst went on a bit. You sssound like a comic book villain.’

Kurogari spun around.

There was a glint of gold atop the silhouette. Then it slumped slightly.

‘Traitor Alter.’

Salamon…

Salamon looked at Kurama’s body. ‘Sorry Sssato. It was me that was late this time.’ His voice was quiet. ‘Had to deal withhh sssomeone.’

‘You are old technology.’ Said Kurogari. ‘You have no place here.’

Salamon hissed quietly. He looked up at the face of the sun, enormous before him. ‘I wonder what would happen to my replacements if it vanished.’

‘You’re an Alter. You need it as much as the vanguard. If it dies, you do too.’

Salamon remained staring at the sun. ‘At this point, that’ssssomething of an inevitability.’

He turned back and Rinako could see dark lines crawling across his eyes.

The Light-Sickness.

‘What do you think? Can a sssun get ssssick?’

‘Rubbish. The sickness only passes between humans.’ Kurogari’s tone was mocking.

‘But I am old technology. Part human, part… that.’

‘It can’t transfer.’

Sal looked back at the sun. ‘I wonder.’

For a moment his face was lit and Rinako saw in it the features of a golden-haired young man, excited in the face of the unknown.

There was a pause. Kurogari’s expression became grave. ‘You will never make it.’

Salamon smiled. ‘Who knows. It will be funnn to find out.’

In an instant both Kurogari and Salamon vanished. There was a flurry of activity on the promontory, then, at its terminal Kurogari was left standing facing the blue sun. His copies floated in the air either side of the promontory.

A few moments later a tiny pinprick of light appeared toward the base of the sun, then vanished.

The humming stopped. The sun seemed to swell almost imperceptibly then drink, like the pupil of an eye focusing.

Dark currents began to swim in its surface, like shadows of fish just below the surface of a pond. Their movements slowed, as though the pond had frozen, and they spread and joined into a network of cracks. Between the cracks brilliant gold light shot up in bands. The cracks widened, pieces of the sun separating.

Kurogari’s copies had disappeared. There was just the silhouette of a man in a suit, his blonde hair blowing in the wind.

Then there was only light.

***

She had no sense of herself.

Around her were people she had never met, places she’d never been. And yet she felt she knew all of them. She saw a baby screaming as it was delivered.

Then she woke.

Mommommommommommom

The rock was hard against her back.

The forest all around her.

The sound of running water.

She could hear them. They would be here soon.

No one was coming to save her.

No one would know what happened.

She felt the bag against her chest.

Then in the back of her head she heard something. A voice, though she didn’t know from where.

She opened the bag and took out her holopad. It was covered in stickers.

She typed in the name and a screen came up.

Piece of Mind

The VisAge Memory Donor Programme

Your memories transferred automatically at the moment of your death.

Press For Instant signup

A little hook formed between her eyebrows.