CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"All models are wrong; some models are useful." - George Box
Between the buildings, a Shadow moved silently out of the darkened recesses of a building. A faceless one with eyes hidden behind a stealthy cloak was watching the pair as they travel through the city.
Not even Desiree, who had made the trip many times before, suspected another Bio presence. In spite of that, she knew to move quickly and not dawdle. Something is not right, she thought. Perhaps it's just a bad feeling. All the same, she felt she had to get out of this quadrant.
Harry, on the other hand, entranced and mystified by the myriad of images, sounds, and smells, was to be enjoying himself. Probably for the first time in his life. This life, he reminded himself.
"How are you feeling, Harry?"
"Giddy. Nervous. A little afraid, I think."
"What are you afraid of exactly?"
"I just have a feeling. Being out here in the real world is wonderful and scary at the same time." The city lives, he thought. Probably not like it "lived" in the past when people crowded the sidewalks and cars jammed the streets. It had a rhythm then. Maybe there is still a rhythm and a character to it. Deeper within where the others are, he pondered. He didn't know how right he was.
Desiree smiled, pleased with herself. Her mission was almost complete. He was here now and relatively numb to everything Outside. If he is as special as they said, maybe he is right. All he needs is knowledge of her world, the Outside world, to make him the hero they need.
She looked over at Harry. Something was not right. Maybe nothing to do with Harry. But something in her gut made her nervous. The bad feeling was back.
Suddenly, she turned around in time to see a single "bee" flying after them. As soon as Desiree caught a glimpse of it, the bee darted into the shadows. There's something else there! The shadow moved!
"Shit! Shit! Shit! Let's get out of here! Move it!" She grabbed Harry and thrust him ahead of her, propelling him into a dark alleyway.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know." She said, peering over her shoulders and kept pushing him ahead at a quicker pace. "I saw something. On second thought, forget what I said. Don't trust anyone, period."
Harry looked at her quizzically.
"Let's just say I don't know any natural shadows that move like that."
Desiree picked up the pace. Like a child being pulled to keep up with her parent, Harry resisted.
"Hey, not so fast. What's going on now?"
His protestations finally made her stop.
"We really need to go now. Now is not the time to get brave on me. I'll explain later, okay?"
"Okay."
"You don't know about the danger, the real danger, do you? Danger from other Outsiders, Harry?" His ignorance is unbelievable! "Are there no dangers where you come from?"
"Only a couple I can think of. Only total domination and being bored to death."
Good one, Harry. She smiled, but looked around just the same. No unusual shadows. But "all clear" doesn't always mean "all clear." No point in scaring the guy. If someone or something is out there and is set on hurting us, there is nothing we can do now.
"Tell you what. I'll talk if we can walk quickly at the same time." And, with that she prodded and pushed him forward again, gently now. She darted a casual look back to make sure they weren't being followed this time.
"First, we aren't Shadow People. Not to disappoint you, but not everyone out here fits that description," she asserted with a bit of a snicker. "There are all sorts of people out here. Some good. Some bad. My people...we call ourselves Touchables. We're the good guys."
She seemed distracted to Harry, constantly looking back into the Shadow as if trying to see something.
"I told you we need to change our world and we may have to control the Cyber, but I didn't tell you why. It's simple really. We want to live on our own—with or without Makr. It doesn't matter which. We want it to be our choice."
"Touchables?"
"We're learning about the past, our past, and while we're at it, trying to enjoy life. We want to "touch" it, Harry, hence the name," she answers. "Although some more than others," she mutters under her breath, then out loud to Harry. "We're not a people for you to worry about. Trust me."
Harry was silent.
Desiree smiled, "Being a Touchable is a good thing, you'll see."
"I have to trust you, don't I."
"No. You can find your way home alone, wandering the streets Outside without blinders on and explain to Makr why you shouldn't be erased. Good luck."
Harry could taste her bitter sarcasm. "If you don't mind, I'll stay. Maybe I can learn something."
Desiree's smile was not totally unsympathetic.
"Look, I'm here because someone I respect very much seems to think you can help us," she said impatiently. "I can't tell you everything. Some things you'll just have to learn for yourself. The true dangers out here are not what you think. In fact, they're worse. Scarier, meaner...you pick."
Harry looked even more nervous so she continued, "And those are just the things you can see for yourself. Hell, my people don't even tell me everything."
She was right. He can see it for himself by thought-blinking. Admittedly he hadn't been forthcoming with that knowledge. What could these "Touchables" possibly want with his thought-blinking? It's not like he could give it away. Besides, he had his own demons to wrestle. So far, he'd only found thought-blinking lately to result in lots of pain he rather not go through again.
Desiree heard a faint click.
"Down!" she screamed. The sky exploded with a blinding light and a deafening roar. She grabbed Harry and pulled him down, covering his body with hers as tiny particles shredded the clothes covering her back with stinging, searing, pain. Because they were locked together, the shock wave shoved 20 yards. Now, in addition to the minor lacerations, both are bruised and scraped.
Harry ended up lying on top of her, face-to face, with a childlike helplessness at this moment as he found himself in a most intimate of sexual positions.
"Are you all right, Harry?" she asked evenly while still on the bottom.
"Fine. You?"
“A few bruises and scratches."
"Makes me feel truly alive. Real pain."
"Good for you," she rolled her eyes and grunted. "You can get up now, Harry," she said as nudged him in the side with a knuckle. "It's over."
Embarrassed by his sudden physical arousal, he nervously slid off of her but stayed somewhat glued to the ground face down for a minute.
"What was that?" he asked, breathlessly.
"I'm not sure."
"Are you all right?"
She knew her back probably looked like raw meat beneath her tattered clothing but she didn't want Harry to know. That could only serve to increase his fears at a time when she needed him to be confident and brave.
"Feels like I've been run over by a street cleaner," she said.
"What?"
"Funny little cyberts—kinda cute actually—clean the streets of debris. Seems not all cyberts are agile enough to dodge a little trash."
Harry eyed her curiously.
"They're harmless, Harry. Primitive communication capability. Local only. No danger if you stay out of its way."
"Are you hurt?"
"A few bruises, scrapes, cuts. You?" She faced him to hide her back.
"Same. Sore."
As they stood to brush themselves off, Desiree looked in the direction of the blast to survey the damage. Buildings looked intact. Harry seemed intact as well. Her back stung and burned from the blast, but she'd get something for it at the meeting place.
"Shock grenade, I think," she said. "I've heard they stop cyberts for quite a radius. Means Shadows..."
Without warning, a Shadow separated from the darkness and moved into the light. He held two heads—small but once deadly cybert heads—in one hand aloft, his cloth-covered fingers in holes that resembled an eye socket in each head. W
ith the other hand he tossed his hood back exposing his face and grinned. He was a handsome dark-skinned Bio, with dark gentle eyes and a wide grin that seems to say he was no threat. He held up the cybert heads as if proclaiming victory, or some kind of peace offering, then, without a word, he placed them in a bag made out of the same coarse fabric as the rest of his garb. He reached inside his cloak to retrieve something. He tossed a small object at them. It clattered to the ground. A small cybert shaped roughly like that of an insect—a bee. The gesture, simple as it was, exclaimed, "Watch your back. Makr knows."
Then he was gone.
"That...Sha...Sha...Shadow?"
Harry couldn't help the stammer. He saw the Shadow change into a man and then become the Shadow again. He couldn't look, couldn't face whatever it was. Now the horror and pain of his childhood past—or lack of it—swept over him. Desperately, he tried to shut out the noise—the taunting chant—the memories so indelibly inked in his mind.
Boogeymen! Boogeymen! Going to eat you up! Ha...Ha...Ha...Ha...Ha...
Mentally, Harry covered his ears shouting, "Makr take them away! Take them away!" In real-time, he stared off in space and he couldn't see. He closed his eyes, hoping when he opened them, the nightmare would be over.
"Harry, Harry?"
He opened his eyes and Desiree was there looking into them.
"The Shadow...the man?"
"One of 'your' Shadows."
"Mine?"
She nodded, "Is a man. A Bio. One of the myths you were taught as a kid. I've heard other Insiders talk of the same thing. The Shadows, they're outcasts like us, but much more a threat to Makr than we are."
"The images are so terrifying...Makr's images so near."
"Naturally."
"At Cyber Match Central?"
"Other Bios just like you." She shook her head. "You scare yourselves with each other. You really ought to get a grip."
"Feels...as though Death is around the corner."
"Look. Would you expect the Master of Illusion to be anything less than incredibly realistic? It would have to be to affect Bio behavior. Something they will remember with no question. Some have said Makr wants us all to stay Inside or keep blinders on. Fear's a good way to keep us there. Anyway most Insiders don't have to wear blinders anymore. Not since the latest chip upgrade."
"I thought I was the only one who had that Shadow dream." He was relieved in a perverse sort of way that he wasn't alone, that someone else could have the same dreams.
"It's a very large club, Harry."
"My Cyber psychotherapist never said anything about there being others. Others besides Shadow People, I mean."
"I doubt that is something Makr would want Insiders to know."
The revelation that his Cyber psychotherapist had lied to him didn't help his insecurity, nor did it alleviate his natural fear of the unknown; however, the excitement may have added a little fuel to his desire to know more.
Meanwhile, Desiree had a revelation of her own. He's been psychoanalyzed—and not just that—Cyber psychoanalyzed! Although the fact that Harry had spent a part of his adult life in therapy with a Cyber-psychologist program was not terribly reassuring, it did give her an opportunity to probe.
"Now that you faced one of your fears, how do you feel?"
"Okay, I guess. Confused."
"Don't worry. You really aren't alone. Don't worry, you'll get used to it."
"Why would Makr paint them so diabolical?"
"Who?"
"The Shadow People. Why would Makr want us that afraid of them?"
"To keep you away from them. But they actually do it to themselves. They are the one group that is totally intent on destroying the Cyber. Someone told me once that Shadows were actually a pretty small percentage of Outsider residents—so they are always recruiting. Other Outsiders are frightened of them, too."
"Why would He...?
"Fear factor, remember? And, to make sure the Shadow People can't recruit you - to compromise the efficiency of His cyberts."
"The Shadow People aren't bad?"
"I've not seen any face-to-face except this one, but I have heard there were a few Shadow groups who've help us with some things we wouldn't do ourselves. Can't blame them for some of their actions really. They're just trying to survive like the rest of us. But they are the most invisible and the most dangerous group of humans. Makr tries to keep them isolated, small in numbers to minimize the damage."
"How can you tell the good and the bad out here?"
"Can't really. We're alive, aren't we? Just the fact that we Touchables exist makes Shadow lives difficult. We can get in the way of their total destruction of Makr..."
Harry suddenly felt a stab to the heart at hearing "destruction of Makr."
"...Still, better to keep away from them. They're different from us, very different."
"How different? Like you and I, different?"
She shook her head. "Not like you and I."
"How?"
"Violent—much more violent. Touchables don't kill or destroy so publicly we reject what the Shadows do, although sometimes privately as fellow Bios we applaud the result. We just want a peaceful co-existence, while the Shadows are engaged in all-out war. As in all wars, there's collateral damage to the innocent. Maybe you can see why we don't welcome them to our homes."
"I don't understand."
"Shadows want to tear everything down, totally destroy all the machines."
She sounded quite sincere, but it is obvious to Harry she knew more than she was telling.
"They would make us start over with nothing," she maintained. "We would have no history, we'd lose our identity and become something else. Surely, Harry, you can relate to that?"
Another born-again reminder.
"They survive by scavenging and stealing the things they needed from the old buildings, abandoned sewers, and subway systems. They kill cyberts, now, but before that they also killed, Bios, anyone who got in their way. Some Shadows are little better than animals."
Harry reeled from a sudden pain in his skull. The pain seemed worse with each mention of cyberts being destroyed or damaged.
"A lot of cyberts?" he asked, wincing from the constant pain in his head. The pain increased until he could barely stand it without crying out. Makr stop the pain! Please, he begged. The pain stopped.
Unaware of Harry's pain, Desiree continued describing her Bio competitors and survivors.
"They're so passionate in their cause that they don't care who else they hurt. If we happen to be too close to the explosions or the cyberts come to investigate and find our hiding places... They have a greater need for discipline; they're ruthless when it comes to punishing one of their own. Don't get in their way."
So that's it, she knew someone who died as a result of the Shadows. It's personal. It's the same for Harry who empathized with her pain as he vividly remembered his own. If anyone knew of painful memories, he did. But for whom was he feeling pain just now? Not Shadows, Touchables or anyone else biological. He felt pain for the Cyber! A feeling of loss. Deep sadness for Cyber that have been destroyed.
Why me? I'm flesh and blood. Not metal.
Got to be fair, she thought. "This Shadow saved us," she said finally, "and for that I'm grateful, but I can't forgive the damage they've done already." I don't need to give him an explanation. None of his business. Well, maybe it is—if he is who they think he is.
"Where do they come from? The Shadow People."
"Same place we all came from," she said.