“Up there, they got everything made to keep them going. There’s no forever though, just a longer tomorrow, and that’s the real revolution, baby. Know when it’s all over. Accept it. Know when it’s time to let things end.” He paused to chew on the stump of his cigar and blew out a series of thick smoke-rings, “Who knows, Walker? I might not die. I might wake up tomorrow morn and this’s all been a dream, a bad fugue. I’ll have a wife and kids at my bedside or no-one at all. Yeah, probably not. Then, I’ll be the Perl of someplace else. That’d be good ‘cause everyplace needs to have a Perl, right?”
The big man put his hand on her shoulder. She remembered the man in the moon doing the same but this was different; a warm gesture rather than a cold one of control. “You’re all right, Walker. Whatever happens, you remember the Perl said you’re all right. Take that with you and show ‘em what you can do.”
With that, he walked away. It was getting colder out and it would be warmer in bed with Grace. She went back to the vagabond girl and joined her in unprogrammed slumber. For the first time in years, Celeste Walker went to sleep looking forward to the coming morn and what it might bring.
Chapter Twenty
The man in the moon watched the Earth below with the darkness of the Crawl spread across its surface. The neuroseed was down there among the maggots of humanity, not knowing how unique and special she was. She should have been registered earlier and brought to him but, as ever, there had been an error. The existence of the error was excusable. There was margin for it in the plan. All was not lost. However, he could not excuse those who allowed the error to occur. They’d had her, they’d dropped her and now, she was off-grid. There was no trace of her in the Flood or CrawlSpace. She had been disconnected somehow and that couldn’t happen.
The Crawl, the Flood, and the soulwire had all been made to ensure this was impossible.
He accessed memory, remembering how it felt to hold the prototype soulwire in his hands. The feel of its lab-grown flesh, ice-cold and slick. It had been heavier than he expected, and it was the closest he’d ever get to feeling what it was like to hold a child of his own.
Under his supervision, advances in the experiential technology that created the Flood had gone hand-in-hand with the genetic engineering that led to the soulwire’s birth. Global CI approval allowed him to proceed with unrestricted tests cloning the human organism until they reached a stage where mutation and degenerative disease could be accurately replicated under laboratory conditions. The world cancer crisis had been at its height. Perfect timing really. His science divisions turned life around overnight by reprogramming the tumours infesting humanity so they could exist symbiotically inside a host body. Careful tweaking of the chromosomal sequences controlled growth and kept the tumours in a relatively benign state. All curative research was cancelled when it became clear, thanks to him, that cancer could be thoroughly monetised.
Gene-engineers worked closely with technologists to enhance the tumours so they could be wired directly into the central nervous system, thereby creating an even deeper immersion experience in the Flood. The tumour implants became known as the soulwire and soon everyone on Earth would have one, even those who were not afflicted with cancer beforehand. Techniques were developed so that soulwires could be inserted into embryos in utero and v-borns had them included as a special feature of their bionetic wetware. After successful implantation and attachment to the brain stem, there was no going back. Any attempt to remove the tumour by surgery would trigger a failsafe rejection code. The tumours would be activated – initiating an accelerated growth sequence that turned them malignant and terminal.
This fact was not kept secret.
The public were told the whole truth – and no-one protested.
Enhanced access to the Flood’s reality-nullifying fantasies was considered worth the cost. Mass implantation went ahead across the globe. Life and death were in the hands of the CIs; ensuring continued compliance from humanity into the planned and itemised future that lay ahead.
However, he reflected, nature does love her anomalies. Pilot error and foetal distress were her calling cards. The traces were an unexpected afterbirth of the Flood and soulwire.
Human beings had become more interconnected, and strangely isolated, than ever before. Even on a subliminal level, they were jacked in twenty-four-seven. The first compression couches quieted the subconscious interference but they could not cut it out altogether.
We took them beyond casual disconnect; the switch; the flip-out. To be out would mean to remove the soulwire, and there was no authorisation for that. From birth unto death, one was to be part of an ever-listening, ever-present, overseeing network – and the traces were a necessary by-product. Preserved fragments of thoughts, dreams and memory cut loose yet trying to find their way home to a consciousness.
In a way, he thought, we created the first ghosts.
Chasers had to happen as a result.
In every human endeavour, moderation is required even if it is only for show. With the entire population hooked into the Flood and synchronised, societal roles were applied and set during childhood. Aptitude for divination of the Flood – with its undercurrents, binary storms, and erroneous streams – could be ascertained by the age of two. The traditional age of walking and talking also became the time of deciding one’s future fate, indefinitely. In the same way that malware programs, firewalls and automated bots used to police the internet, so the chasers dived into the Flood to make it safe for citizens of the Crawl.
No-one thought there might be another purpose for the chasers but then, why would they?
Such knowledge was exclusive to him and his cryo-frozen kin. The realisation that traces might start to graft onto a particular consciousness. A form of mutation made possible by the Crawl, the Flood and soulwire combined. He had never been a religious man but the significance of this trinity did not escape him.
The neuroseed was the next stage; not merely evolution but ascension.
The key to making the imperfect future perfect.
There was no place for her in the filth below. The other mutants might spoil her.
That couldn’t be allowed to happen.
“I must take action,” he whispered. It’d been a long time since he’d done such a thing. Centuries spent watching and waiting and, all of a sudden, he was running out of time.
How ironic.
It was time to become involved.
He reached out with his mind and traced the individuals needed. The shock of being in contact with him, the architect of their existence, almost made the little Crawlers lose their minds. They would never look upon the face of god but, tonight, they would hear his voice. This comparison pleased the man in the moon.
He told them what to do.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Someone wants to meet you, Walker,” Perl said.
It was early. Grace was still snoring gently beside her. Celeste crawled out of her bunk and squinted in the low light of an artificial pre-morning. “Who wants to meet me?”
“Someone,” Perl said. “Tell you when we get there.”
He led her to a repurposed module nestled in the outskirts of the zero-sec. No-one lived in the shacks that adjoined it. It was quiet out here and darker, away from the farthest bulbs of the lighting rig. “He doesn’t need much light to see,” Perl said.