Terminal (Visceral Book 4) Read online

  But as quickly as America had collapsed, life returned to perceived normalcy with a relatively quick and convenient reinvention of government. Major corporations, who practically printed their own money already, convened a summit to determine how best to provide law and order to the country. Territory was carved into districts, each one assessed for taxation value, then split up among the largest publicly traded companies.

  In the following years, this new corporatocracy model spread across the globe. Continent after continent found their economic leaders and tasked them with restoring order. A global council, with representatives from each district, was voted into power by shareholders. Every year, districts would change hands or be resized based on market capitalization. Profit margins, revenue, and projected growth became the new political news. Financial reports could spur global power shifts.

  Out of the haze, a new creature emerged. A human that was no longer a human. A being that lived for centuries and cared only for politics as a means to its survival. A monster, some would say, with pale skin, haunting eyes, and a thirst for blood. Nightstalkers, nocturnals, vampires. Having lived in the shadows for a thousand years, they revealed themselves to a world that had more important issues than people allergic to sunlight. The decision to come out was not taken lightly, and vampires found protection within the territory of a corporation owned and controlled by their own kind, Noxcorp.

  No one was certain who the first mage was, but early into corporate rule, their existence became undeniable. Rather than allow their power to go unchecked, the new world order made it their responsibility to confine them when possible, exploit them when they could get away with it, and destroy them when necessary.

  After sixty years of corporate rule, a crisis of confidence sparked the rebirth of a federal government in the former United States, and new politicians quickly seized what power they could, creating a hybrid system of company territories and federal oversight and defense they dubbed the New Republic. It didn’t take long for new intelligence agencies and armed forces to organize under the banner of this new entity.

  Like the corporatocracy that preceded it, the new representative government spread across the globe, and old borders were redrawn again. But not every board was ready to hand power back to the people, and the shadow of a powerful vampire superiority group yet hung over the world, watching and waiting.

  * * *

  A young man stands and brushes bits of gravel from his blue jeans. He looks down at the unkept road and its blurry border with the adjacent ditches, then up and around at his surroundings.

  “Where—?” he wonders, rubbing at his eyes. He thinks hard, but it amplifies his headache. “Oh god.” He looks at his car ten meters from where he had been sleeping. The morning sun gleams off the windshield. It’s a cheap two-door with a low-power four-cylinder combustion engine. Half of the paint job has flecked away, and spots of rust have begun their conquest.

  He walks toward it, patting his pockets. They are empty. He scans the gravel, then lowers himself onto his hands and looks underneath the vehicle. He sees only the slow drip of a rusting radiator. He stands and then tugs at the car door, expecting it to be locked and is pleasantly surprised when it opens. The man looks around again, admiring for a moment the sounds of nature out in the country. A line of trees follows one side of the road, with an open field on the other.

  He flops onto the car seat and slams the door. He picks his keys and wallet off the passenger seat and turns the ignition. The vehicle reluctantly starts after dramatic coughing and sputtering. He shifts the car into gear and starts down the road, knowing it will lead him back into town.

  A mile later, the man presses the brakes and brings the car to a stop. He turns on the radio. Satellites orbiting the planet beam down low-quality digital audio, but the nu-metal that blares is better than the country or Christian music that dominates the local airwaves. He yanks the wheel to the left, turning the car around, and heads the opposite direction.

  He picks up his cell phone from a cup holder in the center console and thumbs through his list of contacts. He picks one of the few that matter, and it rings several times. The man activates speakerphone mode, sets the device back in the cup holder, and mutes the radio.

  “Ello?”

  “Hey, Garrett,” the man greets.

  “Matt? What time is it?”

  Matt grins as he shifts into third, and then fourth. “Like nine or something,” he says.

  “Damn,” remarks Garrett. “Hey, where’d you go last night?”

  “Sorry about that, man. I was still wound up from work, which is why I’m calling.”

  “Not just to wake me up?”

  “Nah,” replies Matt. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

  “Uh, what do you mean?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Like, leaving town?” asks Garrett.

  “That’s right. I’m not going back to that shit job, and there’s nothing else to do here,” explains Matt.

  “Hold on, bro,” replies Garrett. “I totally get that, but what’s the plan here?”

  “Not sure yet.” Matt laughs at how dumb this must sound.

  “Do you at least know where you are going?” the friend on the other side of the phone asks. “You could stick around until you find something.”

  “I’m going to Hutch.”

  “Hutchinson? You just pick that out at random?”

  “Nope,” claims Matt. “Hey, I know this is weird, but as soon as I get set up, you’ll help me break the place in.”

  The phone picks up and transmits Garrett’s sigh. “Alright, man, good luck. I hope it works out.”

  “Thanks. Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch,” assures Matt.

  * * *

  A weary wizard, complete with a gray beard and wispy hair, swung his legs over the side of the bed as the alarm beeped. The time flashed on the wall in similarly annoying fashion. It was Sunday, and Taq Jones had slept in, but it was now time to rise and make something of the day. Not everyone was so fortunate.

  He swiveled his head around to face the side of the bed that lay empty, then to the photo-screen recessed into the wall facing his side of the bed. He admired the face of his wife Kate, perfectly captured at an ideal angle.

  Now sixty years old, Jones wasn’t as spry as he used to be. He carefully placed his feet on the wooden planks and stood. Watching, the clock was satisfied with his effort and ceased its nagging. The time display was replaced with a news stream.

  Wu wasn’t just a founder of the Republic; he was a patriot who devoted all of his endeavors to cultivating a lasting system of government in the new age. He traveled—

  “Mute,” ordered Taq. “I had forgotten,” he muttered.

  What he did not forget, however, was the same thing he did every Sunday. He preened in front of a mirror, dressed himself in what he considered flattering attire consisting of a long-sleeve loose-fitting V-neck and denim pants, then boarded his car. The vehicle knew where he wanted to go, and promptly opened the garage door to whisk him toward downtown KC.

  “Good morning, sir,” greeted the car’s artificial intelligence with a smooth feminine voice. “Did you sleep well?”

  The car wasn’t like Drew. While several corporations were getting closer to unlocking methods of simulating real intelligence, the car, like most AI, was based on traditional processing and storage, separate from each other and transparent in their operation.

  “I’m not even sure what that means anymore, Carrie,” replied Taq.

  “Shall we stop for breakfast?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Carrie called ahead to Taq’s usual fast-food restaurant. By the time they arrived, it was ready and waiting for mechanical arms to hand the bag to Jones through the car window. He unwrapped his English muffin sandwich, savoring the aroma before tearing into it with his mostly original teeth. He found himself thankful that food had improved over the past decade as federal regulations and competition spurred the end
of the era of synthetic nutrition.

  “Shall I turn on some music or other entertainment?” the car offered.

  “My brain is still warming up,” said Taq. “I’ll enjoy the quiet a bit longer.”

  He used to make these trips more frequently. He would spend the better part of most days at the facility. Then stop in twice a day. Then once a day. Then twice a week. Now, it was Sundays.

  A few minutes passed as the car traversed the city, passing through the network of towers that crowded the sun out a little more each year, like giant metal trees planted too close together. As the capital of the New Republic, it attracted bright minds and hard workers, with dreams in their heads and dollar signs in their eyes, from all over the world.

  Carrie parked her metal body in a stall close to a set of double doors. The facility was a small, unassuming building just outside the metal jungle they had passed through. Taq stepped out of the vehicle and stared at the facility’s exterior. He sighed and his shoulders sunk slightly. He then pushed himself forward, triggering the motion sensors and opening the sliding doors. The mage approached the front desk where a perky attendant greeted him.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Jones,” she greeted.

  A second woman joined her, then gestured Taq toward an elevator. They traveled down deep into the earth, coming to a halt when the screen on the cabin wall read ‘B5.’ Cold air rushed into the cabin as the doors parted. The passengers stepped out. Warm light gently tinted the clean white tiles and walls of the hallway before them.

  Taq followed the woman down the hall. Another door slid open and Taq stepped inside, this time alone. The small room was decorated as a microcosm of a home, with pictures on the wall, sparse furnishings including a mood lamp, a love seat, and a few sentimental possessions.

  But centered against the far wall was the reason why Taq Jones came. An enclosure shaped as a half cylinder, lying lengthwise, rested at waist height. Taq approached the glass cover, and his wife’s face came into view.

  Years of visits only made each trip harder. Taq’s throat tightened. “Hi, hon,” he forced out, leaning over her. She did not respond. Her body and mind were frozen in time and temperature both. The neural degeneration could not kill her if it could not progress, so Taq instead lived in purgatory while his wife Kate survived in limbo.

  He placed a hand on the glass. “I love you, very very much,” he said, starting to cry. He allowed himself a few sobs. After many years, he realized that had he let her die, she would now be a fond memory and not a burden. He rested his face where his hand had been. “I’m starting to think you were right,” he told her.

  The mage pulled up a rustic wooden chair and read to his wife. She had rarely read during her adult years but had become fond of mysteries a few months before entering stasis. With physical books too inconvenient to locate, her neural interface would provide a replica she could see and feel as if it the spine were resting on her abdomen as she lay with her head propped up on a pillow with a neglected hot chocolate on a nearby nightstand.

  It was unlikely she would hear his words since that would require some neural activity. But the pod was designed to transmit sound, and Taq wanted to feel as though he were interacting with Kate on some level. It was a delusion he could not fight with reason.

  After a few hours, his voice tired and he rested his eyes. The attendant knocked on the door, peering in through a small rounded window. Taq sat up and pocketed the com he had been reading from. He stood and bent over the cryo-pod. Then, despite the wishes of the Pro-Long corporation stewards, he pressed his lips to the glass above Kate’s face.

  “Sleep tight, dear,” he bade. “See you next week.”

  When he returned home, Taq was greeted by a man with perfectly smooth features and skin that wasn’t quite convincing. From a distance, he passed for a man. Up close, he was clearly artificial, even with most of his body covered by a silk button-down shirt and neatly creased pants. If not obvious when still, then at least in his movements that approximated mannerisms and expressions. He was Kate’s final hobby, a replacement for Drew. Not for herself, but instead to keep Taq company. She named him Andrew, and her husband called him Andy.

  When not developing new skin materials or movement sub-routines, Andrew kept the Jones estate tidy and stocked with supplies. He helped Taq make and keep appointments, and answered calls. He was a maid, a butler, and an assistant to the elder mage.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Jones,” greeted the robot. “How was your trip?”

  “It was fine, Andy,” replied Taq, stepping past him.

  “Would you like me to prepare lunch?” Andrew turned and followed after his master.

  “No,” stated Taq. “I think I will just go lay down for a bit.”

  “Very well.”

  The mage headed back to his bedroom and flattened himself onto his side of the bed. He looked beside him. She still wasn’t there. He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep, but the void would not take him. After an hour of tossing, he sat up.

  “Screen on,” he said. “News.”

  The news streams continued to loop through the same bits of footage and sound bites they had been airing since the night before.

  “Never mind,” he said gruffly. The screen did not understand the command. “Off!” The wall went blank and silence crowded the room again.

  He rose and headed for the basement to what he called his spell laboratory. It was, in actuality, little more than a barren room with auto-phorescent dye lining thick cement walls. A smart screen was haphazardly taped to one of them. Its life expectancy was one or two rounds of experimentation before a misfire would undoubtedly render it nonfunctional.

  Some of the glowing ink had been fashioned into sets of concentric circles acting as targets large and small. Now second nature, Taq’s mind moved through the motions of preparing a simple spell. The visualizations that had been drilled into his brain as a youth now came effortlessly. A flame appeared above his outstretched palm, then curled in on itself, creating a small glowing ball of orange.

  Challenging himself, he placed his other palm outward. He strained to maintain the flame as he drove his mind through the steps of a second spell. He pulled new Ether from its home plane, and frost gathered at his fingertips, slowly coalescing into diminutive spikes, joined together to form the icy head of a pointed mace.

  A bead of sweat traveled down Taq’s temple. He hurled the fire, then ice, at one of the targets, hitting the bullseye with both. The fire dissipated, leaving only a small scorch mark on the target, while the ice was more stable, shattering into fragments and tinkling on the floor.

  “Damn it,” he said, disappointed in his lack of concentration. The news feed had somehow disquieted his mind, and the mage felt a sense of foreboding, like a warning trying to claw its way into his mind through an Ethereal tunnel. Jones switched to rudimentary mind puzzles and exercises, a necessary routine to keep the techniques fresh in his mind, then meditated, slipping in and out of the Ethereal plane.

  Later in the evening, Taq went upstairs to his study, where an expensive desk displayed several virtual stacks of collegiate documents for his review. He shuffled through them, taking a break for food when Andrew insisted, then continued organizing, approving, and rewriting various forms until he found himself nodding off. The life of a dean of magic was tedious, but it kept Jones sharp, and more importantly, occupied.

  Episode 2: The Departure

  Dark blue clouds blended into a cerulean sky in the morning hours. Underneath, a crowd filed into the seats of a large baseball stadium. But they weren’t there to watch a game. Instead, the people crowding into the small nosebleed seats were there either to pay their respects or to witness a small piece of history play out.

  Taq had dressed in a modest suit, and Carrie dropped him off near a rear entrance reserved for VIP attendees who would take the field under the mass of onlookers. Ushers guided the mage to his seat, where he would see off the warden and first CEO of the New Republic.


  The warden’s colleagues, friends, and a few opportunistic politicians would say kind words about him; then the casket would be transported from the Royals’ outfield to a small cemetery on the outskirts of town where a few surviving relatives would oversee the lowering of his body into the earth.

  Glancing from face to face as they shuffled past, Jones did not recognize most of the people. The elite allowed onto the field were all dressed to the nines. The women wore short dresses and platform shoes of varying heights. The men wore silk vests or jackets, and a few had donned short top hats.

  Even with some protective measures, Taq knew that none of the vampire council would dare brave the daylight, and none of the current university staff had known Charles personally. Jones looked up at the crowds. The stadium was filling quickly. Just as he was sure he would recognize no one, the mage caught sight of a familiar face, the one vampire that could tolerate the sun, Tsenka Cho.

  Her synthetic skin was darkened to block out the light and a patch-like shield covered her natural eye. Breaking with the other VIP ladies, she wore dress pants and a waistcoat. Her presence was met with double takes and long stares from many of the attendees. She met Taq’s eyes and nodded before sitting across from the small wooden stage set up in the middle of the field.

  After thirty minutes of filing and shuffling and waiting, a man dressed in a white robe with a purple sash draped over one of his shoulders took the stage, placing himself behind a podium. He was not a preacher, and Charles Wu had never been religious. Taq guessed that the man might be a politician, perhaps even a member of the New Republic board, but even so, he didn’t recognize him.

  “Patriotism has many forms,” the man began. “It can come in the form of pride for one’s own circle or group. It can be a binding force, allowing a determined people a chance at greatness. But it can also be a fuel for nationalism that divides us rather than unites.