The Solution (10 page)

Taking a min
ute to consider Randal’s question, Alex said, “I don’t have a solid answer for you, man. My only guess is that she sensed you somehow. You were part of her past, after all, and possibly she’s connected you with a strong, potent memory in her mind—a memory that’s stuck with her. Obviously she feels a connection to you—maybe you’re the only memory connected with a living person. The State of Chaos, the Cash Disease—there’s no telling what loved ones she lost. Other than that, I think it’s time for you to find your own answers, Mr. Markins. You have to find…
yourself
. I can’t do this for you anymore. I’ve done enough, man.”  

“
Absolutely,” Randal said.

“You know what’s going to happen next, don’t you?
You know what we’ve been planning.”

Randal saw Ms. Bunny furrowing her brows
at him. “He’d better.”

“I do,” Randal said. “We’re going
to prevent the All.”

“
That’s correct, Mr. Markins. Christopher M will give you some Black Cat gear we salvaged back at the Vintage Hotel. You should test the gear out, unless you don’t agree with my modus operandi, then you’re free to go out on your own. But I don’t think it’d be in your best interest.”

“I don’t entirely agree with any of this,
at all, from either side—the Solution or yours,” Randal said.

Alex Treaty shrugged his shoulders. “
Good. I don’t either. I’d like to believe I’m the greater of the two evils, man. As I said, you can leave if you like, or you can stay. But action is about to be taken. There’s a catch, too. We’ll infiltrate the All with no lethal weaponry. No guns—just a Code Charge that will temporarily stun the All.”

“A Code Charge?”

“Ha. A Code Charge. It’s a mathematical charge me and Plum Charlie have been working on for a good half-year. The Code Charge is typically other-dimensional mathematics. We had to come up with equations that don’t particularly apply to the physical realm, but reaches a bit beyond it just like the All. Back in my academia days, we mused and called things like this supernatural mathematics.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the code might speak the Ultimate Reality’s language and prompt it to infect the All—yes, like a computer virus.”

“Will it work?”

“It’s likely.”

“Likely?”

Alex said, “We have to do something. Life is a blink of an eye. You know yourself what’s happening now. It isn’t natural at all. It’s skewing the way of things.”

“It doesn’t feel natural,” Randal agreed.
“But what happens when the All is shutdown?”

“Hopefully
the public and Elizabeth will be free…for one, and two, it will allow me and Plum Charlie to hack the system and tear it apart from the inside out.

“I think both sides are playing in areas you shouldn’t.”

“It’s good you’re starting to think for yourself, man.” Alex Treaty smiled. “It’s the only idea I have, though. It’s the only way to stop it aside from a nuclear bomb.”

***

Answers bring the truth, and the truth isn’t always the best nor is it for the faint of heart. Randal mulled over that fact during his evening of testing the Black Cat gear and wondering if the coming actions would endanger the public even more. What would be the repercussions? And maybe that was genius of Alex, asking them not to use guns. The Solution was supposed to abhor violence, but they used it often and in terrifying ways. The funny thing, Randal felt safer knowing he’d be going in without a gun. It’s all a strange dream, in the first place, Randal began to believe.

And
what if Elizabeth…became evil? Randal wondered.

He
strapped on the spectra-goggles for the first time, a part of him tickled he had access to this caliber of technology. Switching from infrared vision, thermal, x-ray, ultraviolet, gamma, then a bird’s eye GPS of the brownstone’s interior, he turned up the sonic sensors to where he could hear Georgia breathing two doors down and a water faucet dripping like thunder in Ms. Bunny’s bathroom. Ms. Bunny sat in a chair in the corner of her room, smoking a clove and listening to classic big-band war music, from the 1940s. Then Randal engaged a cyan battlegrid, spreading cyan lines over his sight and mind. Spectra-goggles read brains along with his surroundings. The battlegrids offered predictive analyses, mixing human intuition with technology. The spectra-goggles deduced Georgia and Ms. Bunny to minimal threats and automatically turned down the volume on the dripping water and music.

There was also a tool the Black Cats used called a U-Bar, which fasten
ed between the index finger and thumb. When pressed, the U-Bar would refract light, rendering the wearer nearly invisible and unheard by even spectra-goggles. These tools were, a short while ago, linked to Solution networks but Plum Charlie fixed that problem.

Alon
g with testing the equipment, Randal had been studying a hologram of the All’s infrastructure. They would use the U-Bars to infiltrate the great metallic beast while Charlie and Alex would relocate to a new safe-house and jam surveillance to the best of their abilities.
Cyber warfare
, of which Plum Charlie and Alex were destined to lose.

The
primary objective after infiltrating the All was to plant a Code Charge in the command center on the top floor and detonate it, temporarily shutting the All down. The problem: inside waited RMS, operatives, and Solution soldiers along with superior bio-detecting systems.

The only hope for
Randal, should the mission go awry (Randal was 100 percent sure that it would), would be rescue from Alex and Plum Charlie, which was close to a bad joke—rather, an awful joke. The whole plan seemed ridiculous. They were like kids attempting an unrealistic goal, driven by desire rather than logic. But where there was hope, there was will, and both of these ingredients together were powerful faculties of the human soul.

“
We’re screwed,” Randal said to himself. He imagined watering his fern back at the old apartment, but he knew that dream was dying along with his old life.

Randal took
off the gear and placed it on the bed, leaving the room. On his way down the dim hallway, Christopher M walked toward him like a stocky hulk, intentionally bumping into him with enough force that, previously, could have thrown Randal off balance. But Randal planted his feet and when Christopher M put his shoulder into Randal’s, Randal didn’t budge. Though, Christopher M’s strength was remarkable, developed through years of labor and hard survival.  

Straight-faced, Randal said
, “What’s your problem?”

“
Don’t take it personal. I’m glad you can stand your ground, slick. But you don’t know anything you need to know,” Christopher M said, “and I don’t understand why you’re coming with us. You’re not prepared.”

“
Why don’t you tell me how you really feel,” Randal said, “And besides, Alex told me everything, and I’m getting better.”

“
That’s not what I mean,” Christopher M said, producing a look equivalent to a middle finger. “Without us, you wouldn’t have made it here. If it came to it, could you stand alone? Or would you freeze like a scared mouse? There’s been times where we’ve been separated, you know. That’s the just way it goes, and we have to fend for ourselves until we find a way to get back together. Are you willing to kill?”

“We’re not carrying guns
in there,” Randal said. “I’m not planning on killing anyone. They can try to kill me, I don’t care anymore.”

“You mean,
you’re
not carrying a gun, slick. I’m going to kill all those numbskulls when it comes down to it. All of them.”   

“Stop it
, Christopher M,” Georgia demanded as she stepped out from her room, wearing a pair of black pants, black sweater, black boots. All black. She sighed. She knew Christopher M’s story, the fact that he made it out of the Midwest by himself, all alone, made him legendary to some. He’d destroyed a few RMS and escaped three Black Cat units along the way. Survival was woven into his genetics.  

Leaning closer to Randal, Christopher
M whispered, “This whole thing is a lost cause, but we’re doing it anyway, aren’t we? I know why I’m here.”

Randal saw pain in Chri
stopher M’s eyes, and despair. The man had made his way across the country, to the City, wounded and angry at the world and lived a life of hiding, moving, and killing when he was forced to. All in the name of what, Randal pondered. To talk about how it’s a lost cause? Or was this a personal method only Christopher M understood to fuel the fire, to keep him going. 

After he took
a couple steps backward, Christopher M looked at Randal long and hard, at his green and blue eyes and blank expression. Behind Randal’s mismatched eyes something volatile brewed, Christopher M nodded a confirmation.

“Good,” he said to Randal.
“I want you full of venom, but keep it stable, slick. It’s sad you’re all we’ve got. But that’s life, ain’t it.”

The air seemed heavy as
goop as Christopher M walked away.

Georgia peered
at Randal and Randal back at her. The hallway light shined down on her skin, making it appear amber, and if she hadn’t have been wearing a sweater two scars stretching horizontally across her stomach would have been revealed to Randal. She was indeed pretty—a sensual being composed like a melancholic symphony and endearing sincerity. Her pouty lips had won Randal over from the beginning. It had been months since Randal felt attraction toward anyone if, he began to understand, he had ever felt it at all while under the Solution’s influence.

She said
, “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me. Kind of strange, in a time like this, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”
Randal covered his eyes with his hands in a meager attempt to make her smile.

She smirked.
“Cute. But what, am I supposed to spread for you now?” Georgia added, “You survived detoxification and the RMS…but I hope you’re ready for the All.”

“Don’
t you have more help than me—than us?”

We’re not, nor have we ever been, a big organization. How can we be?
Alex lends his trust out too easily, both Christopher M and I understand that. For a smart man he’s rather naïve but his ideas are extremely effective and reach far for a small operation. I wish more people thought like him.”

“How do you know Alex?”

“It’s ironic, but I didn’t. He was my mother’s colleague—they were software consultants, then they evolved into something greater during the tech boom a year ago. She thought a lot of him. But she went with the Solution. She changed and they had a falling out. She was driven by something entirely different, and I have no idea what’s happened to her or where she is. Anyway, I ran into Alex here, in the City, during the State of Chaos. The rest is history.”

“I see,” Randal said.

“
You may have not recognized your own mortality when you were all doped up on the All. It’s a numbing experience. You need to know we’ll probably die. I’m not being pessimistic. It’s just a fact.”

“Why are you doing this?” Randal asked.

“Because I see my choices. It’s either complacency in an artificial world dreamt by someone else, or to make things better than they used to be and better than they are now. When the Cash Disease was quarantined, we all had a real chance to make the world better, not pretend it’s better. I believe in that.”

Randal return
ed, “I know. Then you’ll all be martyrs for your cause, won’t you? I guess I will too.”

“It’s not like that.
Besides, there’s really not so much a cause. Mostly everyone we worked with are dead or most of them agree with the Solution now. My mom started off sympathizing with Alex, too. It’s obvious what happened from there. We’ve got some support as far as finding safe-houses, thanks to a few people like Ms. Bunny—mainly old-schoolers, you know. And some of the youth, but we won’t work with anyone too young. Why are you going to do this? Go into the All with us?”

Randal thought for a moment,
diving as deep as he could for a reason, then told her, “I’ve never been the smartest or the toughest, but there’s something seriously wrong. And there’s also something greater than us….”

“Oh,” she said, not impressed.

She turned toward her room and Randal placed his hand on her shoulder, hard. “Look, I’ll do my best so long as you know it’s not for politics, but for me…and that I believe what’s happened to humanity as a whole is truly awful, from the Cash Disease to our current state of affairs…and there’s somebody I used to know making the cosmos cry…the world doesn’t stand a chance unless somebody tries.”

She
revealed a trace of a smile, and there was a faint spark in her brown eyes. “That’s great.”

Randal nodded
. “Maybe.”

“W
e’re leaving within the hour,” Georgia said and entered her room, closing the door behind her.

***