Complete Atopia Chronicles

Something had to be wrong with the pssi system. Weren’t the smarticles supposed to wash out of my system by themselves eventually? Somebody out there would figure it out, somebody would save me, and then just as suddenly as it had started, it would be over.

Perhaps I’d been upset with everyone, angry at the world, but I wasn’t anymore. I just desperately wanted to see someone, anyone, it didn’t matter. I’d become beyond terrified of being alone.

But still, nobody appeared.

11

HAD IT BEEN weeks or months? It was hard to tell. My psyche had begun to unglue itself as my conviction slipped that somebody out there would notice my absence.

How long could this last? My mind kept returning to my own marketing campaigns, to pssi’s main selling feature of dramatically stretching the human lifespan. Was it possible that I could be left wandering alone for years, decades, even a century?  Or more?

My mind frantically circled around and around the thought, unable to fathom it, clawing desperately at the edges of this prison without walls. I suspected that the system wouldn’t even let me kill myself. There was no escape.

Today I was wandering around Madrid, through Beun Retiro Park. It was as devoid of people as everywhere else my lonely travels had taken me. I was walking between rows of skeleton trees, across carpets of golden leaves that they’d shed like tears just for me. It was a beautiful day under a perfect sky as winter settled in.

At least, it could have been beautiful if there’d been anybody else there but me, by myself.

I thought a lot about Mr. Tweedles. Everywhere I went, I kept thinking I saw him, just up ahead, just passing a lamppost. I’d feel him brushing up against my leg, and then wake up, realizing I was still stuck in this nightmare. I think he’d been the only creature who’d ever loved me. I hoped someone was taking care of him.

My life hadn’t ended, but without anyone else, it had ceased to have any meaning.

Stopping next to the Crystal Palace in the middle of the park, I opened my purse to take out another of the endless cigarettes. I lit up, and then bent down to pick up one of the beautiful golden leaves from the gravel path. I studied it carefully and began to laugh, and then to cry.

It was so peaceful here. It was what I’d always wanted, just to be left alone, and I only had myself to blame, or to thank. My God, please, somebody had to notice I was gone.

My sobs of laughter rang out through the empty morning sunshine, under a faultless, empty blue sky.

~ CHILDPLAY ~ Book 2: Commander Rick Strong

1

Identity: Commander Rick Strong

FROM THIS ALTITUDE, the stars had just begun to poke their pinpricks of light through the deep blue violet sky. The hazy film of the Earth’s atmosphere painted a milky edge onto the curved horizon as the sun rose up and morning broke fully.

Looking down I could just make out Atopia, flashing like a distant green gem beneath the wisps of stratospheric clouds, almost swallowed amid the endless seas below. From here, lacking any surface buildings except for the ring of the mass driver circling it and the four gleaming farm towers that rose up out of its center, Atopia appeared as a forested island a mile across, fringed by white sand beaches.

Returning my focus to the job at hand, I did another sweep of the area. But still nothing. I zeroed in on one of our UAVs, a giant but gossamer–winged creature whose photovoltaics glittered and reflected the morning sunshine back into the emptiness. I followed it with my projected visual point of view, watching its massive transparent propeller swing slowly around and around, urging it onwards into the edge of space.

“Good enough?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think that’s far enough,” responded Echo, my proxxi.

“Well, no hurry. Let’s make sure nothing is out here.”

I was kind of enjoying this lazy crawl across the top of the world with the UAV. I took a deep breath, watching the sun reflect off the seas from between the clouds below, trying to force a sense of relaxation into my body. The silence was serene and complete up here. I should come up more often, I thought to myself.

Just then, the new metasense I’d had installed prickled the back of my neck.

I looked around to see Patricia and her gaggle of reporters rising up from Atopia. In this augmented display space, each of their points-of-presence blinked and then brightened to a steady glow as they assembled around the test range. To me they appeared as a halo of tiny stars, hanging nearly ninety thousand feet up here with me.

They were waiting for the show to begin.

“Okay Adriana, let’s light this thing up,” I said to one of my system operators, pushing my focus back down to the dot of Atopia below and leaving the UAV to spin off into the distance.