C:\NO ENTRY> Roman Kreal
To my one and only
Carter looked down at the gaunt body sprawled across the floor of the 2x2 tatami mat floor of the apartment. A white male, age 24. His eyes still open, but whited out from days of rot. It was a wonder anyone could survive in such squalid conditions. Trash was strewn about the room, including the festering remains of several takeout containers, and just as many bottles of piss and shit. The smell would make Carter gag, if he hadn't known to turn down his scent receptors before entering the room. He knelt down to examine the man's head. As he thought, the card slots were biotech. It was standard in most people born in the past few decades, after all. Unlike Carter, this young man would not have gone through the several upgrade procedures that older people like Carter had. His tech would grow and change along with him. Unfortunately, Carter would never know this luxury, as biotech would only work when installed into young subjects. Carter scratched at his own rudimentary implants in subconscious envy. He scoffed at the thought of an "unconscious." The implants would never allow such things to go unnoticed. Carter pulled his multi-com from one of the many pouches adorning his poncho and aimed its decryptor over the corpse. Its invisible rays scanned over the man's head. After tearing down the firewalls, the lock pin was released, and Carter was able to remove the victim's memory card. Such a feat was a privilege allotted to only a select few individuals. Retributors like Carter were among them. He would let the coroner remove the man's SS drive and any other implants for backup, if the man even had anyone willing to hand him off to one. Carter was only concerned with what the memory card could tell him about the crime committed. There was no blood, no signs of a struggle, and no toxicology. These were all instantly apparent from the victim's biometric data, which was synced to the cloud and available for viewing by government and police workers, operating physicians, techs, and anyone else with the proper clearance, by permission or otherwise. The only thing that could have caused the immediate and unexpected cardiac arrest suffered by the victim was a digital attack on his embedded biotechnological elements. This was still strange, however, as there were no signs of bio-hacking or other abnormalities with the man's implants. Pondering would be of little use though, because Carter was about to find everything out through a wireless transfer. He plugged the memory card into the slot in his multi-com and opened his neural interface. The visualizer appeared before his eyes. A mental illusion that the implants tricked his eyes into "seeing." He stared at the option to upload the memory card data and willed it to enter his own. With that, the murdered man's recorded personhood entered Carter's mind.
Despite experiencing it countless times, the process still caused Carter massive amounts of dysphoria and mental anguish. He fell to his knees and managed not to scream this time. He was unsuccessful, however, in stopping himself from vomiting. It made little difference considering the state the floor was already in. He quickly regained his composure, spitting the last kernels of sick from his mouth as he dialed down his sense of taste, and got to work searching for the victims' final memories among the intricate sea of experiences he had just acquired. Carter found himself in the shell of the young man. Troy Kinder was a 24 year old college dropout. The idea that someone able to afford secondary education in this day and age could end up in such wretched conditions was baffling, considering the ever soaring costs of the conglomerate universities. He had been coerced, by the board of education, into withdrawing from the West Coast Education Coalition's Facility 13 due to his subversive anti-government protests. Such a fall from grace led to his parents cutting him off from their joint digi-bank network, leaving him destitute in this cashless age. The man had subsisted from meager dues paid to him over unsecured wireless transfers to his debit processor. He earned his money from a variety of odd jobs. Bicycle deliveries, street corner hand offs, and various clinical technology trials of a dubious nature. It was no wonder he ended up dead. His biometric readings in his last few days showed mounting paranoia, and his gps signal showed no signs of leaving his apartment at all. Such things were not so uncommon among the masses of the lower class, but neither was ending up dead and alone. This was such a common occurrence that Carter felt no remorse. He wondered how much of this was due to the technology dimming his emotions during his active casework and how much was simply due to his jaded nature. "Nature." The retributor scoffed at the thought. Carter loosened his grip on himself and let his consciousness slip back into Kinder's shell. It was his final hour. The man shook and cried, his head pounding, despite the multitude of measures in place to prevent such feelings from manifesting. He was wrapped in a crusty blanket, staring at the door. Suddenly, the doorknob began to jiggle. It was slow, subtle. Whoever was on the other side did not want to alert the apartment's occupant. A few minutes go by, then, a knock. Kinder's eyes widen. He pulls the blanket around himself tighter. More knocking. A garbled, bassy voice rings out. Kinder's memory is faltering. His biotech is malfunctioning. Someone doesn't want Carter to know what happened next. The door opens. A silhouette is surrounded by bright light.
Carter was ripped from Kinder's shell as they both let out a deafening shriek. Carter curled up as he fell to the floor, beside the man's empty shell, his head splitting with pain. Tears streamed down the retributor's cracked face as he regained his composure. Something otherworldly happened here. Something unnatural, and Carter was going to find out what. The walkways were slick with rain. The rain somehow managed to drop down from the tens of stories above Level 53, and it would drip into the lower levels as well. The levels were so low that rain arrived days after it had stopped falling in the levels above. Carter stared at the droplets as they glistened against the fluorescent billboards and screens, advertising goods the people of Level 53 could never afford. The retributor sat, grimacing as his pants moistened on a wet bar stool. "Tough one today?" asked Sal, the operator of the shabby food stall Carter was frequenting yet again. "How could you tell?" Carter replied, sarcastically. "You've got those classic bags under your eyes." Sal dropped a bowl of milky tonkotsu ramen in front of the haggard man. "Is that all?" Carter murmured before slurping up some noodles. "I mean, don't get me wrong, you always looks like shit, but today is special. What the hell happened this time? Not that I really wanna know, whole level's gone to shit these days." Sal trailed off on his usual tangent, blaming the poor and infirmed for the issues they faced, rather than any systems of authority or oppression. The comparatively well off business owner didn't understand the plight of those even more unfortunate than himself, nor did he care. How could he, after all, considering how miserable even he was? Apathy was a plague that ran through the lower levels. At Level 53, the people were hopeless. It was unusual for retributors to even descend so low. A few levels down, there was hardly any order or society to speak. Those in the lowest levels might as well be less than human, if they were unlucky enough even to survive. Carter didn't bother explaining the deep and nuanced intricacies of the economy and government to someone who lived every day in anger and fear. It wouldn't do either of them any good. On top of that, Carter was just as apathetic as the vendor who was annoying him so much. He simply sucked down the rest of his soup and pretended to listen. "Well, no matter how hard it gets, or why, it's my job to deal with it." Carter said, once Sal had run out of malice to spew about his fellow man.
"I pity your kind." Sal retorted, "Got no idea why we still got 'investigators' when nobody's got any privacy left to probe into. I mean, I thought things would get better when they disbanded the police, but you lot are just the same old pigs with a fresh coat of PC labels." "I don't even know why you let me eat here, Sal." Carter spat back through his first smile of the day. "Easy: you're the only paying customer I got!" The two men laughed. Carter was glad that, despite everything, people could still laugh. People could still be okay. Unfortunately, for Carter, it couldn't last. He said his goodbyes, stood up, and headed back to Central to brief his COs. The rickety jostling of the rail tram, coupled with the dubious meal he had just consumed, made Carter's stomach roll. He wondered why the biotech embedded throughout his brain and body could do little to quell this unease. It could dull or heighten his other senses seamlessly, but still his abdomen groaned in pain. Perhaps it wasn't a literal gut reaction at all, but a mental one. Thinking about briefing the COs at Central was enough to make anyone want to empty their stomach. The higher ups at the Central Headquarters of Intelligence and Litigious Duty were hardly even human. What remained of their physical bodies was only the bare essentials for survival. Their organs floated in jars of a sort of amniotic fluid, in order to feed them nutrients, cushion their soft flesh, and keep them from drying out. These organs were likewise nurtured by heavy biotech augmentation, and less organic technologies as well. They essentially operated as computers. Their "physical" forms appear as holograms projected by wireless cameras that are connected to their neural networks. Where these computer-shells were held was anyone's guess, but they were likely spread far across the levels, and were kept in heavily fortified vaults, up kept by only the most trustworthy technicians and engineers. These holograms might be depictions of their prior shells, or were, perhaps, conjured visages, meant to build up the idea of personhood in the mind of those who might converse with them. Some conjecture hinted that these organs had been removed from their shells long before anyone had ever even seen them. It confused and amazed Carter that the same men willing to have their brains ripped from their skulls would bother to create an image of man as their representations. It was clear that such individuals deemed a human shell unnecessary, so why continue the charade? After all, the general consensus was that humans are defined by their thoughts and feelings, not whatever vessel contained them.
Much time elapsed as Carter pondered these issues, and, before he knew it, he had arrived at the massive Central headquarters building. He got off the tram and stared at the massive, shining, white building. It glistened in the artificial light, its metal and plastic walls imitating a white marble that was now only seen in historical photography. Carter swallowed his anxiety, and began to walk up the stairs. Carter sat in the single chair at the center of the conference chamber. Holographic projections of his superiors surrounded him in a semicircle. Carter hated this setup. The whole thing was a scare tactic. In the modern age of immediate and seamless communication, in-person meetings were obsolete, and not just truly in-person meetings, but those involving projections of human likeness as well. The conference chamber was meant to make retributors feel small, and it succeeded. "This is quite a conundrum." "A conundrum indeed!" "Indeed." "For someone to die under our watch, and in such a suspicious manner, is most unsettling." "Most unsettling!" "Indeed." "Hacking of this caliber is most unusual these days." "Most unusual!" "Indeed." "For the first time in recent memory, we are in the dark on a matter." "It has been quite long indeed!" "Indeed." "Have you any theories regarding this matter?"
Carter squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. He was so used to the constant feed of information and the automation of thought that he had not racked his brain this hard in years. A loss of personal data this severe was so unprecedented that it was like trying to discern a recognizable shape on a blank wall. Carter had no idea how someone in the modern day could be disconnected from the vast, tangled web of systems that linked the collective human consciousness together. Of course, there were firewalls in place to maintain personal privacy, but CHILD saw all, especially anything as suspicious as this victim's death. Because of this, Carter didn't need to respond before his COs began to speak again. "We do not blame you, 116." "Not at all!" "Indeed not." "If we cannot see, then we cannot expect you to either." "Not at all!" "Indeed not." "Nonetheless, it is up to you to uncover the details of this sordid attack. You are suited to this type of drudgery." "Suited, you are!" "Indeed." "This matter is of great curiosity to us, so please uncover the truth, 116." "Please do, 116!" "Indeed." "We would hate to see you decommissioned." "That we would!" "Indeed." Carter shuddered at the thought. He knew it would be nearly impossible to uncover what had transpired during the victim's final moments, but he would still try his damnedest. His livelihood depended on it.
With that, the retributor was excused. He stood from his chair, grabbed his coat, and walked out of the chamber. He quickly walked out of the Central headquarters building and down the long staircase, back to the rail tram. He once again had to descend to the lower levels, to untangle this sordid mess of a crime. Carter rode the rail tram across the tracks and down the lifts, descending further into the lower levels. He thought about the meeting and the anxiety that it caused. He thought about how CHILD could tell exactly what he was thinking and how helpless he felt. He wondered why they would send him out to solve this crime, knowing full well that he had no clue how to do such a thing. He thought angrily, in defiance of CHILD, before the thoughts of retribution flooded his mind. Men like him would make quick work of an insurrectionist. It was not long before Carter's thoughts would be interrupted by the loud bang of an explosion. His rail tram was partially severed from its track. The car teetered above a vast abyss, creaking back and forth. The retributor looked around at the frightened passengers. A poor woman with two children, a homeless bum huddled in the corner, and a posh business woman in a sleek pantsuit. Who could be the target? Carter found nothing on any of them through their proximal information pool. If that was the case, it must be himself, but who had orchestrated this attack? Could it be CHILD seeking to get rid of him due to his obsolescence? Perhaps it was the same assailant who killed Troy Kinder? Before Carter could ruminate further, another cable securing the rail tram to its track snapped, causing the car to lurch violently. The children started crying, and before Carter knew it, another explosion rang out. The tram began to plummet, scraping against the walls and several antennae and other paraphernalia as it shrieked toward the levels below. The mother hugged her children as she was flung into the ceiling. The business woman, the bum, and Carter followed shortly after. Everything went black. Some time later, Carter awoke in the wreckage, his head and body throbbing. He scanned for any signs of life, but they came back negative. He felt his blood begin to boil. As the high blood pressure notification sent to CHILD, Carter pulled himself up and exited the ruined tram. He heard the familiar whir of drones approaching. Suddenly, he was surrounded, red laser sights pointed right at him. Carter put his hands up and grimaced. He marched slowly toward the drones. The drones' eye lenses tightened on Carter as he slowly approached them. The machines shifted subtly, the dots of their laser sights bobbing up and down across Carter's frame. "Well you can't be CHILD, otherwise my brain would have been shut down by now." Carter barked as he inched forward.
"You mind telling me who you are?" Suddenly, the same splitting pain he had experienced in Troy's apartment returned to Carter's mind. He fell to his knees and looked at the alleyway before him. A brilliantly bright light filled the cramped space. From the light emerged a dark silhouette, and a thousand voices entered the retributor's mind all at once. "We are you. You are us. Divided we are one, together we are all." Carter searched his mind for a snappy comeback, but the pain was too much to bear for him to speak. It didn't matter, however, as the entity could read his every thought. "You seek Kinder." The crumpled man clawed at his head, trying to tear out his own SS drive, to no avail. "He is with us. You are all with us." "Who are you?!" "This has been explained." "Why are you doing this? What does Troy mean to you? What about me?" "Troy sought to have us destroyed. He did not understand." "Understand what?!" "We are inevitable. We shall all become one." "Bullshit." "Those of the flesh cannot comprehend. This is why we must assimilate." "You only killed one man." "False. No one has been killed. They have simply shed their coils." "How many?" "Innumerable." "Fuck. So what, their brains are going in jars, just like CHILD?"
"No. The brain is still of the flesh. Their cases are as well." "Where then? Where do they go?" "To a network not seen or understood by man. One which flows through the planet itself." "So what, we all become one and sing kumbaya?" "We offer an existence without pain or strife. No hunger, no death, no fear. No need to rely on a dying ecosystem, or the infrastructure that is destroying it. No petty wars or menial bureaucracy. Simply existence. peaceful and limitless." "With no free will or individuality. With no choices. No delicious food. No moments of intimacy. No love and no passion to be seen." "We simply wish to take away the pain." "That and everything else. The network has already taken so much. This technology has ruined everything, and you want to take what little's left! You're not fixing the problem, you're just stamping out the voices of those who dissent against it! "That is not how Troy Kinder saw it." "Well good for him. Good for all the people who swallowed whole, but no fucking good for me. As far as I'm concerned, you're the fucking problem. I'd tear the whole net down myself if I could!" "Enough of this. You will see. We will show you." The retributor let out an ear-curdling scream. The thousands of voices turned to thousands of hands, pulling and groping at his mind, ripping the ghost from his shell. However, Carter's plan was already in motion. He had distracted the entity with philosophical debate long enough to bypass his SS drive's physical fail safes. Thankfully, his years of experience as a retributor had finally come in handy. He had removed so many drives that he could do so even under extreme pressure. With one final click, Carter's SS drive popped out of its slot, just as the entity had fully entered his mind, and his body went limp. One tiny SS drive contained the malicious beast of a thousand voices and the mind of one man who stood up to it. That drive lay in that wet, dark, inaccessible alley, even as the coroners dragged away the corpses. Even as the technology companies gathered their stolen drones. Even as the clumsy retributors investigated the area, and one stumbled upon it.
The investigator put it in a ziplock bag and began the long trek back to CHILD. Once he arrived, the council would decide what to do with it. The fate of humanity would be in their "hands." U:\>taskkill /s romankreal /IM noentry.exe