Prologue
The sound of distant thundering dragged Daisy back into consciousness. She blinked, blind in the darkness. She could hear the sounds of the people around her, breathing, sleeping and softly crying in the crowded cargo hold. The thrumming of the rails and constant rocking reassured her that they were still moving. She shifted her legs slightly trying to move the person next to her without waking them. Her daughter was still asleep wrapped snuggly against her chest.
She stared out into the blackness trying to ease the panic that had pulled her from her sleep. She swallowed the groan accompanied the dull throbs in her muscles and joints. She blinked, trying remove the gritty feeling in her eyes without success. Her heart thudded loudly in her ears, the beat was wrong, irregular. She turned her face towards the small vent that was supposed to let light and air into the cargo hold. She pressed her nose to the slat and breathed in the rushing air. It was the only relief to the smell of sweat, blood, and fear that filled the small hold.
She leaned her face against the warm metal and focused on breathing. Little stripes of grey filled her vision. She blinked thinking that her eyes were creating something to see when it was too dark to see anything. Then the stripe appeared again, and then again. That’s when she heard the strange thumping in her chest. She realized it was outside peeking through the air vent. She moved slowly pressing her eye to the hole.
Out in the darkness she watched as the distant sky was lite up by something like lightening. Though Daisy knew lightening didn’t strike so rhythmically or so frequently.
She felt nausea try to crawl up her nose. It was coming from behind them. It was the sounds and lights of a battle happening on the rails behind them. The women, children, and wounded had been sent ahead. The last of the soldiers and men had been on the transports further back.
No one else seemed to have realized, or noticed what was behind them. It had been a hard fight and a long walk to get to this train. If those lights caught up to them it would have been for nothing.
Daisy said nothing. She curled tighter around her daughter and clenched her eyes close against the dark, praying that the only light that found them was the dawn.
The thrumming continued, and the train ran top speed into the pitch black.
Hot humid hair blasted Daisy in the face as she stepped onto the vibrating steel off ramp. She wanted the air to be cold. She had desperately wanted to step off the hulking iron transport and feel a cool refreshing breeze brush her face. That’s all she wanted; cool, crisp, fresh air; but as the thunderous herd of humanity shuffled its way off the steel ramp the heat of the train radiated out into the platform.
Daisy followed the wave of humanity towards the Station center. The ferocious machines whined and banged behind them. She pushed down her own fear and uncertainty as she rubbed her daughters back. The bags she carried pulled heavily at her but she shuffled on. There was no turning back, no stopping. Daisy knew there was no rest to be found here. She had to keep moving if she was going to find a place to wait.
*
Jiro had always been a cautious man. Where other people saw a chaotic world full of misfortune, Jiro saw the calculated moves of those more powerful. Years of Chess and strategic games helped him learn to see the world as board, planning moves ahead; to see the possible outcomes. Slow but surely he had made his moves pulling himself from the lower levels, out of the muck and filth of poverty. His beautiful living quarters overlooked the sparkling illumination of the interior of the Arco-city. The mega city spiraled up and around his balcony.
He gazed out the clear wall of his domicile watching the pulses of light and shine of the power fluxes moving through the grid. The dazzling colors and lights of structures within the immense protective shell glittered and danced.
He suppressed a flinch as he heard one of his prized collection pieces crashed to the floor. In the reflection of his window he could see the ghost outlines of the men ransacking his belongings.
He took a slow breath, ignoring the painful throbbing of his hand caused by the tight bounds keeping him in the chair. The device gripping the back of his neck caused his internal software to shut down. His connection to the network was severed. It had been years since he looked out this window without seeing the myriad of virtual layers that fill the world around them. It was strange to feel so isolated. No over lay in the corner of his vision, no voice whispered in his ear. There was only the pounding of his heart, and the pain. Without the high definition filter the world seemed artificial. It was if he were watching an old movie recording. He felt the muscles in his face move as he smiled, and realized his expression modulator was also offline.
He didn’t see the fist that flashed out at impossible speed, but he felt it connect to his chin. The explosion of pain in his face was accompanied by fireworks of colors in his vision. It made his ears ring and eyes water.
In that riot of color he was back to his 13 year old self, held down as a bigger boy beat down into his face. The memory lasted less than a heartbeat.
He returned to his present self and blinked his vision clear finding the light outside again and fixing his gaze to it.
“You know you can’t win Jiro.” The modulated voice came from behind him. “Just give us what we want, and this can be over. I might even be persuaded to let you live.”
Jiro felt a deep satisfaction seep into him past the pain. ’They don’t know, they think they have won.’ He thought to himself and almost pitied them, almost. Plans within Plans, wheels within wheels, he had had planned this moment years ago.
He knew this was the push that would set all his plans into motion.
“I respectfully request you make a recursive upload download loop.”
The man that had punched him tilted his head in confusion. “I don’t have that upgrade.”
Jiro smiled as he spit blood onto his beautiful floor. “I said, go fuck yourself.” His old street accent coming to bare.
The modulated voice behind him spoke again. “Activate.”
Jiro gritted his teeth against the pain that was about to happen. The thought seekers were highly illegal and dangerous. It could completely tangle and fry the neural pathways and synapses in the brain. He felt the tightness as the device on his neck powered up. The programs began running into his synapses sync traveling along his old pathways tearing apart the firewalls and protective software installed to protect his mind.
Pain raced along his nerve endings, but the triumph filled him. The moment the thought seeker began its search it triggered his fail-safes. Completely internal and self-contained it began its subroutines. It was already severing his memory pathways destroying all records and copies. His plans were set into motion. The moment they severed his connection to the grid the first domino fell, his program would end him, and so there would be no stopping it.
The device blared its warning as it detected the destruction of his synapses.
“Find it we need to know where he put it!” Jiro laughed through the pain as he heard the modulated voice shouted at someone. “NOW before it’s too late!”
The only thing they were able to pull from Jiro’s dying brain was a single image; Droplets of water sparkling like diamonds on the white petals of summer daisies swaying in the breeze.
Jiro’s body was discovered in his home at 4:34am. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
His packages were already in route and arrived on-time and without incidents.
Daisy received the first packaged at 9:17am in standard mail.
The second package had been sent by special carrier over 48 hours prior and arrived as guaranteed on the New Haven space colony.
