By Marco Etheridge
My first memory is the underground, trains in dark tunnels, me in a baby sling across my father’s chest, Dad’s heartbeat. His right hand pats my backside, long fingers picking out a rhythm on my tiny butt while his other hand loops around the double bass in its hulking case, keeping it upright and safe.
Twenty-five years ago, but those aural memories are still in my head, vibrant jazz riffs layered one atop the next. The rumble of trains, squealing rails, a man’s heartbeat, fingertip pulses against soft fabric, the whispered vibration of a double bass waiting to be played. And a deep voice cooing in my ear. Sparrow, my tiny sparrow.
I treasure that memory. It’s all I have of him. Dad died years ago. Mom, too. They’re both alive in my head, but that’s cold comfort.
Hearing this, you might be calling bullshit. Something like: No way a baby remembers sounds. Impossible! Girl is making that shit up.
Good for you. I applaud your skepticism. We could use more of it. But allow me to cast a shadow of doubt on the concept of impossibility, which is fluid at best. To illustrate, let’s recall the last twenty-five years.
Universities closed except to the elite class. Impossible? Nope. Ditto a vanquished free press. The fall of democracy? Welcome to 2050, and the return of the ruling class. All these impossible events are now part of our day-to-day existence.
You want wildly impossible? Try a plague of AI-generated wraiths capable of sucking free will out of your skull like a milkshake through a thick straw. In official FedCorp nomenclature, the creatures are referred to as Computer-Generated Non-Corporeal Entities. Regular folks call them Noncorps.
These demons are our enemies in a war of attrition. A war we’re losing, by the way. Casualties are running forty percent, with the victims shuffling around, meekly doing what they’re told.
FedCorp claims the Noncorps were generated by supercomputers. Artificial Intelligence run amok. Bad Luck. Lots of thinking folks figure FedCorp helped create Noncorps. The goons are all in favor of a subservient population.
Which brings us to Blockers, humans with off-the-chart memory capabilities. People like me. My vivid memories are weapons that can obliterate a Noncorps. Blockers serve as a last thin line of defense against AI ghouls and mindless compliance. I’m a Blocker. My name is Sparrow.
Time to roll.
Comms check. Tommy Two?
Loud and proud.
Leon?
Here, boss.
Sparrow?
Ten-two-by-two.
Fucking comedians. Okay, look sharp. I make the nest twenty meters forward of your position. Ten to fifteen Noncorps, some dormant, but don’t count on it.
Roger that.
By the numbers, people. Stay tight, get in, blast ‘em, get out.
10-4. Shutting down comms.
Good hunting.
We silence the comms. Can’t have voices in your head when you’re throwing memory blasts. We’re shoulder-to-shoulder inside a narrow utility corridor beneath the sidewalk. Noncorps love to nest under the pavement. They ooze out of gratings come nightfall.
We close the distance. It’s showtime. I’ve got little Tommy Two on my left, Leon hulking my right, and trouble dead ahead. Five meters further on, the concrete corridor opens into a larger vault.
My headlamp beam slices past ducts and sewer pipes, illuminating shimmering shapes in the vault. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you’d miss them altogether until it was too late. Noncorps got no body, hence the name, but they do have a presence. They shimmer in the air, like heat waves or wiggly ghosts.
Most of the wavering shapes are huddled near the grimy floor, but I make out three of them upright and moving. So much for taking them down while they’re dormant. The bad guys know we’re here.
“Eyes on. Get ready.”
“Got ‘em, Sparrow. Let’s kick ass.”
We move into a tight crouch and open fire. My first round catches one of the upright Noncorps dead center.
Soft sunlight. A butterfly on a little girl’s knee. Squeals of laughter.
My target wavers, but it’s not down. I hit it again.
Blazing birthday candles reflected in the eyes of children.
Boom! My Noncorps is puffed out of existence. The bogey on my right fragments into nothing as Leon deals out some serious shit. With the guards eliminated, we barrage the dormant Noncorps, raking them with memory blasts before they can counterattack.
I’m throwing carnage, dusting the Noncorps as fast as I can target them. Then Leon shouts, breaking my concentration.
“Sparrow! Tommy’s in trouble!”
I throw another blast for cover and spin left. Tommy Two is enveloped in a shimmering haze and staggering. Worse, another surviving Noncorps is closing fast. I step in point-blank and hit Tommy’s attacker with everything I’ve got.
A dad’s heartbeat, a cooing baby, a deep voice full of love. Sparrow, my tiny sparrow.
BANG! No chance for that bogey. It shreds to nothing. But before I can move, the other one is on me. I feel its icy tendrils clawing into my brain, then Leon blasts the fucker into oblivion. I shake myself clear and lurch for Tommy, catching him under the arms. Leon dives in beside me, takes Tommy’s weight.
“I got him, Sparrow. Time to move. Throw down some cover.”
Leon drags Tommy Two out of the vault and into the corridor. I follow in a backward crouch, throwing blasts at the remaining Noncorps, but my shit is weak. Rebounds ricochet off the concrete walls, barely strong enough to hold the bastards back.
I’m backpedaling, five meters, ten. I stop, throw random shots down the corridor, fragments of memory, blasting everything I’ve got left. I sweep the dark with my headlamp. No sign of any pursuit. I turn away and catch up to Leon. Slipping in beside them, I wrap one of Tommy’s arms over my shoulder. Leon grunts.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, but I got nothing left.”
Another grunt. I tap my comms line.
Top, you copy?
Talk to me, Sparrow.
Tommy’s hurt. We’re out of here.
I’m right above your position. Head up the corridor, then right at the first junction. Do not surface. We’ve got company.
Shit. Copy that. Bad?
FedCorp goons. Two vans. Don’t think they made us, but I’m not taking any chances. Rendezvous on my mark when we get clear.
Roger that. Junction, head right, wait for your mark.
Copy. See you in ten. Top out.
Tommy’s coming around now, taking some weight on his wobbly legs. We hit the four-way junction, jig right, crossing under the street above. I hope Top’s found a safe hole ‘cause I’m not sure I have another ten minutes in me.
The utility duct hits a vault. Operating on automatic, Leon and I pull up short, scan the vault for Noncorps. It’s clean. Leon nods toward a pipe about bench height.
“Top said to wait.”
“Suits me.”
We lower Tommy Two onto the pipe and sag down beside him, three little Blockers all in a row. Tommy stirs, shakes his head hard. Leon gives him a grin and a nudge.
“Look who’s back.”
“Thanks for saving my sorry ass.”
I elbow Tommy in the ribs.
“Hey!”
“That’s for scaring me half to death.”
Then I throw an arm around him and pull him close. Our helmets clunk.
“And that’s for not dying.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get soppy on me. Anyway, I’d rather die than get my brains sucked out.”
Leon raises one huge hand.
“Not the time, Tommy. Debrief later. We ain’t out of this yet.”
Tommy nods, leans forward to look up the dark corridor.
“Roger that. Hey, I got a wager for you two. I’ll give you three-to-one there’s more than two goon vans upstairs.”
Leon and I clam up. We know a sucker bet when we hear one.
* * *
Top’s safe hole turns out to be a filthy boiler room buried under an abandoned factory building. Nothing new there. At least we got in without having to surface. We’ll be moving soon, so we stay geared up except for Tommy Two. Top’s checking Tommy out, shining a penlight in his eyes while asking the standard questions.
“Reflex response seems okay. What do you remember, Tommy?”
“All of it, which ain’t pretty, Top. The Noncorps coming at me. I hit the bastard hard, dead center. No way I missed that close.”
“So what happened?”
“Man, I don’t know. I mean, it was a good blast. Christmas morning, the smell of spruce needles, a toy train tooting around the track. Full bore, one of my best. Didn’t even slow the thing down.”
“Uh-huh. Then what?”
“Then it was on me. Felt like an icicle stabbing into my brain. Next thing I remember, these two hombres were dragging my ass outta there.”
Top clicks off the penlight and leans back.
“This is not good. Just for the record, you sure you hit it?”
“No doubt, Top. Just didn’t stop it.”
Top turns to us, and I don’t like the look on his face.
“But you two knocked it down, right?”
Leon fields that one.
“Sparrow vaporized that fucker. Thing was busy with Tommy. Probably never knew what hit it.”
Now I have to spill the bad news.
“Yeah, but the next one caught me naked. Leon dusted it quick, but it was close. I’m telling you, Top, if there had been a third active bogey, we wouldn’t have made it out.”
Then Tommy puts words to dark thoughts.
“You ask me, I say the Noncorps are learning.”
Top gives him a hard stare.
“What do you mean, learning?”
“Evolving. Getting smarter. Look, Noncorps suck normal people dry, right? Memories, free will, higher consciousness. Poof! Gone. The only way to stop them is to overload the bastards, hit them with memory blasts so powerful they can’t deal.”
“Right. Now tell me something I don’t know.”
“What if the Noncorps are figuring out how to absorb our memories, Blocker memories? What then?”
Leon lets go a low whistle.
“If that’s true, then we are well and truly fucked.”
Top raises his hands, like he can ward off Tommy’s idea.
“But you took them down in the end. How do you explain that?”
“I don’t explain it, Top. I’m just thinking out loud, okay. Maybe it’s only some of the Noncorps. I don’t know. But we can’t ignore what happened.”
The room goes quiet while we ponder that kernel of bad news. I’m feeling pressure in my bladder. How long since I’ve had a pee? Too long. I push myself to my feet.
“Piss break. Is there a latrine in this dump?”
Top waves a hand at the door.
“Pick a room but stay close.”
“Yeah, roger that.”
Leon looks up at me.
“You want company?”
“Naw, I’m good. Back in a flash.”
The boiler room opens onto a wide basement, all concrete and pillars. A bit of light oozes in from grimy block windows set high in one wall. Water drips through discolored cracks in the ceiling. I see a few doorways to my right and head that way, careful not to track through the puddles on the floor. You never know.
The first door is locked or jammed. The second is an old storeroom with floor-to-ceiling industrial shelving. Close enough. I step behind the first bank of shelves, unbuckle, and squat down. I’m not shy around the guys, but a private piss is about the only alone time I ever get.
Before I can relax, I hear a soft splash from beyond the door, then another. Somebody’s moving out there, probably Leon coming to babysit. Then I hear a sharp metallic click. Ice runs up my spine. For one long moment, time stops. I know two things for certain. That’s not Leon, and very bad shit is about to go down. Then it happens.
A series of sounds drums through my skull, hard and fast. A dull thump of metal on concrete. Top’s voice shouting “Grenade!” The horrible explosion — Krump! One short scream. Boots on wet concrete. Three pistol shots, a heartbeat between each.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Then strange voices.
What’s the count?
Three. Male. Two Black, one White, near as I can tell.
You touch anything?
Just the trigger.
Right. We’re done. Move back to the entrance and wait for the spooks. It’s their show now.
Those ghouls give me the creeps.
Stow it. Let’s move.
I’m frozen, cargo pants around my knees, sure that I’m going to die bare-assed and screaming. Fear is choking my throat. My ragged breath sounds like a locomotive.
I wait for the click of the pin, the bounce of a grenade thrown into the room. Eternity ticks away, one second at a time. Then I hear bootsteps, not quiet now, and voices receding out of hearing.
Survival instinct pushes past the fog of fear. I’m on my feet, yanking up my pants, trying not to make a sound. I’ve got two, maybe three minutes, tops. I creep to the doorway and risk a quick look. The basement is empty. My conscious brain screams at me to hide, to burrow under the shelves and not come out. Pushing down the terror, I’m through the doorway and moving fast, expecting the crack of a pistol with every step.
Then I step inside the boiler room and into a vision of hell. I’m hit with the stench of sulfurous smoke and blood. Three bodies on the floor. What’s left of Leon lies over the top of Tommy Two, like he was trying to shield his friend. Top is sprawled on his back, half his skull blown away.
Bile surges into my throat, but I fight it down. I don’t have time for puking. Squatting beside Top’s corpse, I flip open his coat and fumble inside. My fingers close over the tracker, and I yank it free. Then I pat down the bloody torso until I find Top’s logbook. No way I’m leaving anything for the goons. I stand up and stuff the gear into my cargo pants.
Time to run, but I don’t, not yet. I take one last look at the bodies of my friends. My entire world dead on the bloody floor of a filthy room.
“Vaya con Dios, Amigos.”
Then I’m gone, squeezing into a narrow gap behind a bank of steam pipes. I reach for my helmet and tap the headlamp switch. My tears blur the beam of the lamp.
How the hell did Leon fit through here? Poor Leon. I should have let him come stand guard. He might have survived. Yeah, or the goons would have spotted him, and then you’d both be dead. Tighten up, Sparrow. They’re gone, and you’re not. You want to keep it that way, get your head right.
I push away the brain chatter and squeeze forward. A few more meters, and I crawl out into the utility corridor. Then I’m on my feet and moving, heading for anywhere that isn’t here.
Every instinct tells me to run, but alone and without eyes topside, I’m easy prey. I stalk the underground corridor, keeping to the deepest shadows. No way I’m using a headlamp. Forty, fifty meters at a time, then duck under a pipe or slip into an access hole and wait.
Five minutes, ten, straining to hear boots, whispers, the metallic click of weapons. Then I’m moving again. With every careful footstep, I expect a grenade to come rolling out of the darkness or the crack of a pistol.
Do you hear the shot that kills you? Probably not.
My progress is agonizingly slow. I need water, something to eat, and most of all a place to lie up. I’m heading for one of our old safe holes, but lacking guidance from above, I’m not sure of the route.
After two hours of slinking underground, I’m almost certain I’m lost. If I don’t find somewhere to hole up before dark, I’m as good as dead. The Noncorps swarm at night.
I keep going because I don’t know what else to do. Another junction looms out of the darkness. I have no idea which way to go. My hand overrides my brain and switches on the headlamp. The sudden illumination stabs my eyes. Everything outside the headlamp beam goes black.
Cursing myself for an idiot, I swivel my head and raise my treacherous hand to the helmet switch. The headlamp beam sweeps sideways, flickering over a mess of water-stained graffiti. Something clicks in my brain, and I freeze. Hidden amongst the tags and swirls, I see a coded route marker.
Suddenly, I know where I am. The safe hole is less than a hundred meters away. I kill the headlamp and turn right, praying I haven’t been spotted. Twenty minutes later, I’m squeezing through an access port and into the safe hole. I find the water stash, chug a liter straight away, and then get to work. I’ve got to fort up tight before the world goes dark.
* * *
Two days pass in that stinking hole. I hunker down like an old badger in her den, the inner door wedged and blocked, the access port wired and booby-trapped. No one is getting in, and I’m not getting out.
Time creeps by. I’m stuck inside a concrete cell with nothing but my memories. Off-the-chart memory capability is my weapon against Noncorps, but right now it’s a curse. My only friends are dead, and their murders run through my brain on a never-ending loop.
If I stay here too long, the memory loop will drive me insane. Sooner or later, I’ll have to search out another cell of Blockers. They’re out there somewhere. The trick is finding them before something or someone else finds me.
I head out on the third morning, right after sunrise. Nobody knows why Noncorps swarm at night. It doesn’t make any sense, but unless you want to join the shuffling horde, it’s best to keep track of the time, even when you’re underground.
The utility corridor is a maze of deep shadows punctuated by columns of dusty light dropping through the occasional overhead grate. Before heading out, I rearm one of my booby traps. Then I chalk a bit of graffiti above the hole. Anyone who doesn’t know the code is in for a nasty surprise.
Solo runs are never a good idea, but I’m as geared up as I can get. My headlamp is fully charged thanks to a pirated power source. Blocking the beam with my hand, I flick the switch on and off to double-check. My rucksack is stocked with dry rations, water, and a change of clothes. And strapped to my waist is a semiautomatic pistol.
Blockers don’t usually carry physical weapons. Bullets don’t kill Noncorps, and ricochets are a big problem in a concrete tunnel. A Blocker on top will pack firearms in case of goons, but only as a last resort. We’re the good guys. We kill Noncorps, not humans. But if I run into the goons that killed my crew, I’m very much prepared to make an exception.
I pull a compass from my pocket, orient my direction, then confirm my position with the cryptic scrawls on the concrete. It’s dead easy to get lost down here. Right now, I know where I am. This safe hole is on the edge of our territory. That simple thought triggers a cascade of memories.
There is no our anymore. You’re alone. You need to find another cell. Top knew how to contact the others, but Top’s dead. They’re all dead. You might last a few days on your own, maybe a week at the outside. So, stay sharp, get moving, and don’t die.
I shake that shit away and focus. Memories are my weapons, but they’re also a dangerous burden. A Blocker must maintain control. It’s one of the first things we learn. Forget that basic rule, even for a few seconds, and the flood of memory will drown you. And if you’re drowning in memory, you’re easy prey.
The corridor I’m following leads north. Somewhere ahead is the far edge of the old downtown core where the utility tunnels come to an end. I figure the edge is at least a full kilometer or more. There’s no telling if I’ll find anything or anyone in a straight line. That means I’m going to have to search laterally as well, an area of maybe three square kilometers. Not much up on the surface, but down here, it may as well be an entire planet.
Running solo is slow. Anger pushes me to move, to run, to scream, wave the ridiculous pistol. I fight down the angry part of my brain and settle into a careful rhythm. Fifty meters forward, stop, listen for goons, look for Noncorps, search for hidden messages amongst the graffiti. Pause, listen, move forward.
Enough repetition can dull anything, I guess, even fear of dying. At every stop, I expect to hear voices, weapons, or shrieking bullets. What happens is nothing. After too much nothing, my senses start to go dull. Stupid and dangerous. That’s how the Noncorps catch me off guard.
One second, I’m alone in the dark. In the next heartbeat, I’m in trouble. Big trouble.
The dank air wavers right in front of my eyes. I feel icy tendrils stabbing past my head. Instinct kicks in. I backpedal hard, almost falling on my ass. I catch my balance and slam my helmet switch. The headlamp beam illuminates a solid mass of shimmering Noncorps jamming the width of the corridor.
My last conscious thought is that I’m a goner. Then pure, red-hot anger takes over. My rage doesn’t bother with old memories. There’s plenty of fresh pain and grief to weaponize.
Top dead on the floor with half his skull blown away.
The two closest Noncorps blaze into nothingness.
Tommy Two’s dead eyes staring at nothing.
Another bogey goes down, and the rest are wavering. I’m leaning in now, blazing with righteous anger and lethal blasts.
Dying, dying, my only friends are dying, you fucking bastards. I’m alone in the dark with my pants around my knees while my crew is dying.
More Noncorps fall. I move forward, closing in, throwing shit point-blank. The next blast is incoherent rage, emotional memory devoid of words.
My shot scythes through the Noncorps. The few left standing retreat up the corridor. I’m after them, taking them down one by one.
Tommy Two. Leon. Top.
Sparrow, my tiny sparrow.
Tommy Two, Leon. Top.
The last Noncorps flares out of existence. The corridor is empty. A surge of adrenaline courses through me, driving the last shreds of anger away. My legs go weak. I lean against the concrete wall. It’s that or fall to the floor. My vision blurs, and I shake my head to clear it. The headlamp beam dances over the opposite wall. That’s when I see it, a single line scrawled onto the concrete. In chalk. Fresh chalk.
ad septentrionem
Many heartbeats pass as I struggle to engage my brain. Finally, conscious thought begins to claw through the mental fog.
It’s Latin, Sparrow. Someone is sending you a message. Think. Remember the codes. Septentrionem, that means north. To the North. That’s it! Let’s get moving.
Easier thought than done. I’m spent. My legs feel like rubber, my brain is reeling, and I couldn’t throw a decent blast if my life depended on it, which it does. The smart play is to head back to the safe hole, hunker down, get right, then come back tomorrow. And that is exactly what I don’t do.
I take a few power breaths to get my legs under control. Then I’m moving. My progress isn’t pretty and damn sure isn’t fast. I pause every few steps, listen hard, and search the walls for chalked messages. I’ve got my headlamp on, which means anyone or anything down here is going to spot me coming.
I make it to the next junction, another two hundred meters further away from my safe hole. If I have to retreat, I’m looking at a long slog. I search the walls for any clue, but there’s nothing. Nada. My brain is trying to make deals. One more junction and then we head back. Stupid shit like that.
No news here, so I keep north. I push myself faster, with shorter pauses. My heart’s pounding so loud I can’t hear my footsteps. Somehow, I reach the next junction without dying.
The headlamp traces a path over the walls; forward, to the right, nothing. I look left, west, and see another scrawl, same chalk, same hand.
conversus ad orientalem
Okay, Latin again. Conversus means turn. Got it. Turn to the east. Or… he turned to the east. Doesn’t matter. But written on the west wall. Sure, because maybe a goon sees the message. He can’t read Latin, but the writing is on the left, so he goes left. Good trick, unless it’s the goons chalking the messages. Then the trick will be on you.
I slip the pistol out of its holster, check the chamber, and click off the safety. Douse the headlamp and wait for my eyes to adjust. There’s no turning back now. I’ll take one of the goons with me if it comes to that. I slip into the right-hand corridor, staying low and hugging the wall.
The next fifty meters is an eternity. I’m creeping forward like a cat, my eyes searching, ears straining. Then a voice breaks the silence. A female voice. I freeze so fast, I almost drop the stupid pistol.
“That’s far enough for now.”
There’s no place to hide, and no cover. I hunker up against a bank of pipes, trying to make myself a smaller target. My breath comes ragged in my throat, I’m dead tired, and sick of this shit. If this bitch wants to start shooting, I’m ready. But first, I’ve got to ask.
“Who are you?”
I hear a soft chuckle. The bitch is laughing at me.
“No, that’s not how this goes. You tell me your name, then I decide what happens.”
The voice of someone used to getting their way. Like the voice of someone who runs a crew. A tiny spark of hope flames up through my anger, but not enough to trust.
“I need something better.”
“Good for you. Try this. Your Top’s real name was Virgil Small. He was a good man, and he’d be proud of you. I’m Top Celia. I know first-hand that losing in a crew is about the worst thing in the world. Now, why don’t you say your name and come in here out of the dark?”
A wave of grief and loss washes over me. My last shred of strength evaporates. I sag into the wall. Tears run down my grimy cheeks and drip off my chin. My arm drops until the pistol is pointed at the floor.
And in my head, I hear a deep voice cooing in my ear.
Sparrow, my tiny Sparrow.
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