Zero echo shadow prime, p.11
Zero Echo Shadow Prime, page 11
“Bridge!” Charlie cried out, but the moment the sound reached her ears, the erosion had begun. Memories of Bridget fell away in rapid succession. Stargazing in the observatory…sharing punishment for taking apart Dad’s mobile…sharing a bed after Mom died…facing the middle school bullies together…watching her kiss a boy and feeling lonely…holding her after the diagnosis…letting her go in the hospital room…
Finally, Charlie looked up at Khnum and asked, “What were we talking about?” The more she struggled to remember, the quicker the erosion spread. Mom, Dad, the year of suicidal depression, Caltech, Alan…it all fell into the void. Charlie knew she was losing her memories, even if she couldn’t recall their content. “What are you doing to me?”
“I am erasing all the parts of you that make you you,” Khnum replied.
“Why would you do that?” Charlie desperately tried to fortify herself against the erosion.
“You can’t fight it,” Khnum said. “Memories are highly interconnected. Each memory fragment links to another, which links to another, and so on. The algorithm that is coursing through your mind is a descendant of the old web crawlers that Google and other search engines used to employ. Instead of following HTML trails, it follows memory trails.”
Charlie found it very difficult to follow what Khnum was saying. What is Google? she wondered. What is HTML?
The algorithm chewed through her brain like a clew of hungry worms. All that remained was a vague sense of urgency. She remembered that she had to fight something, but she couldn’t remember what or why. At that point, the cascade accelerated. An entire lifetime of memories rolled to the tip of her tongue, stayed there for a moment, and then dived off. The entire process only took three minutes—three minutes to wipe out eighteen years.
* * *
The girl with no identity opened her eyes. She found herself in a villa courtyard at the base of a Grecian portico. A giant man with a ram’s head stood several feet in front of her. She felt the weight of his stare. “Who are you?” the girl asked. “Where am I?”
“My name is Khnum. This is your planet,” he said. “Please, tell me about your sister.”
“Sister? I have a sister?”
“Good. I’d like to introduce you to someone.” He knocked on the oak door behind him. An older woman stepped onto the portico. “Meet Jude,” Khnum said.
“Are you my sister?” the girl asked Jude.
“No, honey, I am your Creator,” she replied.
“Creator?”
“Yes, I created you. Your name is Valerie, and you are a Shadow. You will be a gift for my son, Jordan.”
“Is Jordan a Shadow too?”
Jude laughed. “Jordan is not a Shadow. He is a human, like me.”
“I’m a human!” Valerie shouted as soon as the notion came to her. “Not a Shadow.” She only had the foggiest idea of what those two terms meant, but she felt certain she was the former.
“No, no,” Jude corrected her. “You are a special kind of Shadow…humanlike. But trust me, you are a Shadow.”
The girl contemplated the idea for a moment, then asked, “Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Why am I not human?”
Jude glared at Khnum. He shrugged his massive shoulders. “That’s just the way it is,” Jude told Valerie. “I am a human. Khnum is a Shadow. You are a Shadow. Your first lesson in life will be learning to embrace what you are.”
Valerie nodded. How could the Creator—the very person who made her—be wrong about what she was? “I am a Shadow,” she conceded.
“You are a fast learner. I like that.”
Valerie smiled. She was happy to please her Creator.
“Actually, it’s premature to call you a Shadow,” Jude said. “Right now, you are a merely a blank slate with no useful skills or knowledge. You will need to undergo some training before you’re suitable for my son.”
“Okay,” Valerie said.
Jude walked down the portico steps and curled her index finger at Valerie. “Follow me. I will introduce you to your instructors.”
They walked along the colonnade of the south hall. Valerie was captivated by the sights of the courtyard—the flowers, fountains, and statues—but Jude was more interested in the four doors that lined the building’s exterior wall. “There are four classrooms in the south hall and four classrooms in the north hall. Eight classes in total, taught by eight instructors.” Jude opened the last door on the right. “This one leads to the autopsy room,” she said. “What you are about to see might be a little frightening…”
Jude and Valerie stepped inside. The room was bathed in fluorescent light. Four human cadavers rested on four steel tables. One of the bodies had been skinned from head to toe. Valerie cringed with sympathy pain.
An old man with a long white beard worked at the far left table. His hands were full of entrails when he turned around. “You must be Valerie!” he said. He stuffed the viscera back into the dead man’s body cavity and extended his gory hand.
Valerie grimaced.
The man chuckled, realizing his error. “My apologies,” he said, wiping his hand on his apron. “My name is Leonardo da Vinci. I will be your human physiology instructor.”
“This is a very important class,” Jude said. “A Shadow’s first concern is her human’s physical well-being. You will need to monitor Jordan’s vitals and augment his natural immune system. Leonardo will teach you how to do that.”
Valerie smiled at the old man. “Pleased to meet you,” she said shyly.
The dead body on the table suddenly sat up and said, “And my name is Paolo. I will be your cadaver.”
Valerie shrieked and nearly tripped backward trying to get away from him.
Jude laughed and put her hand on Valerie’s shoulder. “We are in a digital environment, sweetie. These are not real people.”
“And yet,” Leonardo added, “we can show you things that no real person can. For example, the muscular system.” Leonardo snapped his fingers and all the flesh disappeared from Paolo’s body, leaving only his muscles visible. “Or the circulatory system.” Leonardo snapped his fingers again, and Paolo became nothing but a network of veins and arteries and a beating heart. Leonardo snapped his fingers a third time, and Paolo became whole.
“It’s okay,” Paolo said. “We Shadows can’t feel any pain.”
Valerie shook her head, still trying to catch her breath. “You’re wrong,” she said. She had felt pain as soon as she’d entered the room. Just looking at the cadavers made her skin crawl. Just looking at the entrails made her stomach churn.
Leonardo lifted a scalpel from his tray. He gestured to Valerie’s hand and said, “Here, let me show you.”
Valerie hid her hands behind her back.
Leonardo approached the trembling girl. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said, coaxing her hand free. He applied the cold scalpel to her palm and made a long, diagonal slice.
Valerie yelped and seized her wound, contorting her whole body around it. “See!” she chided.
Paolo was stunned. So was Leonardo. “I didn’t expect that,” the old man said.
“Valerie is a special Shadow,” Jude informed them. “She can feel pain. So don’t try to dissect her.”
Valerie took sharp breaths and tried to squeeze the pain away. She didn’t want to disappoint her Creator on the first day of class.
Jude softly traced her finger down Valerie’s arm. “Let me make it better,” she said.
Valerie gathered her courage and released her wound to the open air. The blood streamed through her fingers.
Jude took the girl’s hand into her own. “Remember,” Jude said, “you may feel pain, but you are not human. That means you can’t get injured like a human. Now, I want you to imagine that your cut has been healed. Can you do that for me?”
Valerie nodded with a face full of tears. She tried to imagine a healthy hand, clean, white, with no cuts. Jude let go. Valerie slowly turned her palm up. The cut had vanished. She smiled at her newfound power.
“See,” Jude said, “there are advantages to being a Shadow.”
* * *
Jude introduced Valerie to each of the remaining seven instructors in turn. Sigmund Freud taught human psychology, Albert Hoffman taught pharmacology, Alice Keating taught smart-cell management, Cleopatra taught sex ed, Queen Victoria taught social etiquette and networking, Alexander Hamilton taught finance, and Aristotle taught information science. Jude concluded her tour on the portico of the rotunda.
“What’s that door lead to?” Valerie asked, pointing to the large, oak door behind Jude.
“That’s the door to the Astral Elevator,” Jude replied. “The elevator takes you to the Walkable Web, a wondrous place where you can meet humans and other Shadows. If you are good, Aristotle will show you how it works. The elevator also takes me home, which is where I must go now.”
“You aren’t staying here?”
“Valerie, I am a human. I need to go back to my human world and tend to my human affairs. But I will return when your lessons are over. In the meantime, there are plenty of things to keep you occupied here, on planet Valerie. Your studies for one. And…” She knocked on the oak door and Khnum walked onto the portico, carrying a young golden retriever. The dog jumped out of his arms and greeted Valerie with a sloppy kiss.
“A puppy!” Valerie beamed. “Thank you, Creator!”
“This little guy will keep you company,” Jude said.
“Does he have a name?”
“No, sweetie. You are free to name him.”
Valerie thought hard for a good name. “I think I’ll name him Alan.”
“Really?” Jude glared at Khnum. “I don’t think that is a very good name for a dog.”
Valerie frowned. She didn’t want to upset her Creator, but she had made up her mind. “No, I like Alan. You said I could name him. So his name is Alan.”
“Very well,” Jude sighed. “I bid you and Alan adieu. Khnum will be your headmaster. All questions should be directed toward him.” Then, before Valerie could object, Jude slipped behind the oak door, and the lock clicked shut.
* * *
Valerie didn’t see the Creator again for two years. Every day, she walked from her olive grove bedroom on the nightside of the planet to the villa on the dayside of the planet. She learned all the skills necessary to become a good Shadow: how to administer talk therapy, activate prescription hormone scripts, take dictation, manage smart cells, manage finances, etc. Every night, she would make the trip back to the olive grove and spend an hour or two playing with Alan before falling asleep. Meanwhile, Alan had grown from a rambunctious puppy to a gentle full-grown dog.
When Jude finally arrived, she did so without warning in the middle of the night. Valerie lurched from a deep sleep and found her standing in the grove.
“Creator!” Valerie shouted with glee.
“How is my favorite little Shadow?” Jude asked.
Valerie recalled the months of loneliness, the feelings of abandonment. “Where were you? I waited for months and months—”
“Months for you. For me, it’s only been a week.”
Valerie’s brow twisted in confusion. “But—”
“The digital world operates on a different timescale than the human world. Two orders of magnitude faster. So really, I haven’t been gone very long.”
Valerie nodded, but she was still a little peeved.
Jude scanned the olive grove. It was filled with San Francisco memorabilia, such as postcards of Fisherman’s Wharf, models of the Golden Gate Bridge, little toy trolleys, and street maps. “I see you’ve taken an interest in my city. Aristotle gave you these?”
Valerie nodded. “What’s it like?”
“Well, I’d tell you, but you’ll soon see for yourself. That’s where Jordan lives too—at least, at the present moment.”
Valerie could not contain her joy. She gave her dog a big kiss and then bounced up and down on the bed. “I can’t wait to be Jordan’s Shadow!”
“I’m happy you’re happy. But there’s one final bit of business we must attend to.”
Valerie stopped bouncing, suddenly worried.
“It’ll be fun,” Jude assured her. “I’m going to take you shopping.”
“Oh, cool. In San Francisco?”
“No. We are going to take a trip into the Walkable Web, to Rivir Circle. Aristotle taught you how to navigate the Walkable Web, right?”
“A simulated version. And only a few sites. Aristotle said the old HTML web is quicker and more useful for a Shadow.”
“That’s true, but if Jordan ever needs to enter the Walkable Web, it would be nice if he had someone knowledgeable to guide him.”
* * *
Jude, Valerie, and Alan took a stroll to the villa on the dayside of the planet. Jude easily opened the rotunda’s big oak door. She had magic hands—there was no other explanation—because Valerie had tried to open that door countless times, and it never budged. Alan waited outside while the two women entered the building.
From what Valerie could tell, the rotunda only had one room, but that one room was enormous. Never had she felt so small. The perimeter was adorned with marble columns and lifelike statues of her eight Shadow instructors. Was this where they stayed when class wasn’t in session? The apex of the dome featured a small circular opening, which illuminated the room with a heavy dose of sunlight. Directly beneath the opening, in the middle of the floor, sat a cylindrical glass enclosure—the Astral Elevator.
Valerie knew all about the Astral Elevator, even though she hadn’t ridden a real one yet. It was designed to be as simple as possible. The walls were made of glass. The door was made of glass. There were no touch controls, no buttons. It worked on voice command—just tell your Shadow where you wanted to go. Jude and Valerie stepped inside.
“Okay, make me incognito,” Jude said.
“Why?” Valerie wondered.
“Let’s just say I have a very recognizable face. Especially where we’re going.”
“Are you their Creator too?”
Jude laughed. “No, they are human. Most of them. A few might be accompanied by their Shadows, like I am with you.”
“Okay,” Valerie said. She closed her eyes and imagined what needed to be done. Jude’s eyes widened, her nose shortened, her lips thickened, her hair straightened, her complexion lightened, and her skin softened.
When it was over, Jude asked, “How do I look?”
“Kinda like me,” Valerie replied.
“Wonderful. Take us to Rivir Circle.”
The elevator shot through the opening of the dome and into the cosmos. Valerie looked down and saw her planet recede to a small point in space. A few other planets zipped by, each with a specific theme and function. One served as a repository for all public knowledge and was dotted with Classical marble libraries. Another served as a one-stop superstore, with rows of merchandise interlaced across a vast rainforest. A third served as a cartoon-themed virtual amusement park. The journey to Rivir Circle only took a few seconds. They touched down on one of the planet’s many elevator pads.
Valerie was instantly transfixed by the vista on the other side of the glass. A massive 480-foot waterfall loomed in the distance. Strangely, there was little sound of rushing water. Instead, Valerie’s ears were bathed in the boisterous melody of a ragtime band and the chatter of shoppers.
They stepped out of the elevator. “Welcome to Rivir Circle,” Jude said. “You’ve never been here, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Well, the layout is pretty simple. That waterfall feeds into a circular river that forms the central plaza. There are four stores along the river.”
Valerie could see the stores through the bustling crowd. They looked like quaint, little cottages, each with its own waterwheel.
Jude continued, “To your far left is the Interiors Store, which sells virtual furniture, paintings, and such for your home’s AR projectors. To the right of that is the Classic Rivir Store, which sells software for mobiles, but we’ll be phasing that out in the next few years. To the right of the Classic Store is the Rivir Museum, where customers and guest artists can show off their custom Shadows and interior design. And finally, to your far right, is the Shadow Store, which I will take you to now.”
The Rivir Circle sat in the middle of a vast nebula, which bathed the planet in a perpetual twilight of deep reds and purples; but Valerie paid little attention to the view. Rather, she focused on the people—she had never been in the company of so many humans. Well, perhaps calling them human was a bit of an overstatement. Many of them were Shadows and the rest were avatars of humans. It was a little difficult to tell the two groups apart. Still, the mere allusion of humans underneath the facades was enough to get Valerie’s heart palpitating.
“There are so many of them,” she said.
An unexpected sadness flashed in Jude’s eyes. “You’re very sweet, but this is nothing. Only a few weeks ago, there were hundreds. I do not wish to go into detail Valerie, but suffice to say, my company has experienced a major setback, and my enemies have certainly jumped on the opportunity to pull me down. The shoppers you see are my loyalists, my faithful.”
Valerie fought the urge to pry. The vitriol in her Creator’s voice told Valerie that it might be a good idea to respect her privacy.
The women walked through the porch of the Shadow Store and were greeted by one of the many bright-eyed curators inside. “Hello, my name is Chloe,” the young curator said with a perky wave. “Welcome to the Shadow Store. Would you like to see the latest additions to our Heroes in History line?”
“No, I think we are going to build one from scratch,” Jude said.
“Oh, how fun!”
“I’ve already assigned her a personality, so we won’t need that. What we do need is a new body and clothes. I want her to look beautiful.”
“Absolutely. I assume you’re the human”—Chloe pointed to Jude—“and you’re the Shadow?” She pointed to Valerie.
