Grid the grid series boo.., p.1
Grid (The Grid Series Book 3), page 1
GRID
NICHOLAS TURNER
Copyright © 2022 by Nicholas Turner
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editor: TellTell Poetry
Book cover art: Tom Edwards Design
TomEdwardsDesign.com
ISBN: 978-1-7367796-9-9
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Also by Nicholas Turner
For you, because you stuck with me while I wrote about the dark, the light, and everything in between while trying to discover myself.
When the lights go out, look within
Chapter 1
“I can’t breathe,” Crow’s voice crackled through the room.
“Help him!” Janet yelled to Gabriel.
“That’s perfectly normal,” Gabriel’s voice came from his titanium body. “There’s no need for human sensation now, Crow. You’re something else entirely–our next step in human evolution.”
“I don’t feel good. It’s like my mind is somewhere else. I can’t see anything. I’m stuck in a dark dream.” Please, God. Just please. I don’t want this. I’m all and truly alone now. No one and nothing but me.
“Let me fix that,” Gabriel said, as he walked over to a Holoscreen. “And that should do it.”
With small motions from Gabriel’s massive fingers, Crow was now able to see the room he had become a part of. It was as if Gabriel had bestowed life on him. With his new sight, the anxieties of change melted away and Crow breathed deeply. Did I even breathe? No. That’s impossible. I have no lungs. I have no mouth. I want to scream.
“How are you feeling, James?” Janet asked.
“Better,” he sighed. “I can see you both. I’m not cold anymore, or tired. I just am. I don’t know how to describe it. I exist here but nothing more.”
Gabriel chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Janet shot.
“I know the feeling myself. It’s as if me and Crow are the only ones to have taken this leap, that we know of, and discovered what it means to be human, and what it means to be non-human. Now we have become brothers, destroyers of death and God. We have found the fountain of youth, and it is no longer what we perceive as human.”
Crow could have sworn he saw Gabriel smile in the face panel of his new metallic suit. But he knew that Gabriel had turned off all external visualization. It was a way for him to become secluded, separate, alone from humanity. It was a way for Gabriel to keep his thoughts to himself so no one could try and read into him. He didn’t know how he knew it, but whatever intuition that floated with him now through the cameras grew within his psyche.
“Crow, can you try deactivating the lights in this room for me?” Gabriel asked.
How the hell am I supposed to do that? Crow wondered to himself. Through the camera lens, he looked towards the walls and realized there was no light switch. You wouldn’t even be able to flip it, idiot. You’re not a human body anymore. You’re this mass of nothingness. Crow started to feel himself having trouble breathing again and came to the conclusion it was just leftover anxiety from no longer having a body. There was no need to have emotions any longer. The leftovers of biological reactions were only imprints left on his consciousness. Think. How do you turn off the lights?
As Crow thought, the lights in the room went off.
“Good,” Gabriel said.
“How did I do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was just thinking about how to turn the lights off, then they went off.”
“That’s it,” Gabriel said, “you think about it, and it will happen. You are now a part of this place until I can get you a body just like this one,” Crow watched Gabriel stare at the camera he observed him from. “If you think about it, it will happen. Push your will into the electrical grid around you, and you will see your dreams and wishes become a reality.”
“This sounds like magic,” Janet cut in.
“Technology so advanced is nothing short of magic,” Gabriel said.
Crow watched as Gabriel walked around the room. His body was monstrous, cold, and looming. I want one. I don’t want to be in this place, this hell—alone in the dark with myself. Maria, Lucy, are you here with me? I can almost see your faces. This place feels more like living in a dream than anything else.
“I’m here for you, James. Always,” Janet’s voice was tender as Crow forced the camera to rotate and zoom in on her.
She really is beautiful. I didn’t think I’d say that about another woman after you, Maria. But she really is. And I was a bastard at best. So focused on keeping all of us safe that I treated her like nothing. Does that make me a bad man? I did it without thinking, but I kept us all alive. He thought about Fox, and the smell of searing flesh. I can almost have it wafting into my nostrils again. Just almost. The memory of it still hangs with me, and I think it always will.
“Are you there?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m trying to get used to this feeling. It’s all too much like a real dream. One that you know you’re in but can’t wake up from. Only, this isn’t a dream, and my mind is reeling trying to find all my nerves and sensations. It’s truly driving me crazy.”
“It’ll subside soon, my friend. I promise it will,” Gabriel’s voice was firm. “Once I can get my hands on one of these cyborg husks for you, it’ll get better than it is.”
“I hope so. Really. I do,” Crow knew his voice sounded pitiful. But what else could he say? There was no human connection any longer, just his own company, which he knew he hated. The idea made him furious. All the past failures welled up inside his consciousness, and he knew every decision he ever made led him here.
At least I’m not dead though, right? My body would have given out on me soon. God, I wish it had. Then I’d be back with you, Maria. Holding Lucy in my arms. Her laughter in the air, her hair in the sun. Your smile illuminating its rays. Those perfect moments we swore we’d never forget. This place is the ultimate torment. The culmination of all my sins, built up into one fortress I can’t escape from.
“Talk to me, James,” Janet said. He looked at her. Her eyes filled with a dull sadness.
“Can I just have some silence for a moment? I don’t know what I’m doing. I want this to be over already.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Crow, it’ll be better if you try and focus on something rather than dwell in your mind. Keep playing with the lights, and follow my voice.”
Crow thought hard, and the lights flickered on and off.
“Now put some emotion into it,” Gabriel’s voice commanded him.
The lights in the small room flicked on, then changed from a pale green to a luminescent light red until they rested on a small blue and stayed there in silence.
“I understand,” Gabriel replied to the comment, which hung in the air.
“What does it mean?” Janet asked.
She’s trying to understand everything. That’s never going to change for her.
“It means I have to start planning,” Gabriel walked out of the room as the silence bookended his reply.
Chapter 2
“What are you going to do with him?” Janet asked Gabriel as she followed him out of the room Crow was now a part of. Embedded like veins through the skeleton he called home.
“Make him into everything he wants to be.”
“How,” she yelled.
“I’m going to find another body. I will put him into it, and we will begin working towards the dreams of prosperity that I have,” Gabriel turned towards her. The small glow of the dimly lit lights bristled along his body.
“Where are you going to get another?”
“I believe,” Gabriel paused, “that I may start by going back to the Hub. If Poin’s body survived the explosion, Crow can help me. That will be my first order of business.”
Janet looked into the mirrored face of Gabriel. There was no sign of emotion, unlike all of the Holos which walked the streets of the Deep. He was a statue, made of titanium and frozen in time.
“Okay,” she said. “Where should I go?”
“I
“Back at Mother’s?”
“Precisely,” he turned away from her.
There was a coldness radiating from Gabriel. Janet was unsure what it was. He seemed more detached now in his new body, like he knew he was no longer a part of the human race. But he is. He’s still one of us. No matter what he says, everything he is is human. Everything he was was human. You can’t take that away from anyone, no matter how much you change or how hard you try. We’re human in the end, no matter what.
“What’s troubling you?” His voice cut through her thoughts.
“I can’t read you anymore. There’s no expression on your new face. I know that thing has some form of expression. If all of those Holos can look and act human, why can’t you?” Her eyes burned from tears of anger.
“I’ve turned it off to keep to myself. I believe that this technology may be too good at reading my true emotions and thoughts. For better or for worse, I’ve turned it off to keep myself alienated to not worry everyone. When I was in my body, I was able to control my outward emotions and expressions. While in this,” he raised his arms and looked down at them, “I fear that I may not be so good at controlling those same emotions and expressions…yet.”
Janet tried to come up with something to say back, but only silence and clouds settled into her brain. That makes perfect sense, and I’m annoyed by it. Just be a person. Be one of us. Don’t lose sight of that.
“How can I contact you now without Poin or the Hub?”
Gabriel turned and walked further down the hallway, away from Janet. She followed. The lights were dimmed to the point of death, and the only way she knew they were going the right way was by the distant light where they had met the old man.
“Take this,” he said as they came into another room filled with broken down machinery and electronics. He handed her a small device which wrapped around her ear and sat along her jawline. It was warm and melded with her skin almost instantly.
Reminds me of those Bluetooth headsets.
“Hit the button on the side, and it will put you into contact with me,” he said as he waved his wrist over the side of her face. There was a beep. “There, we’re connected now. That should travel across the GUC if you need it to. I’ll be able to hear you and respond.”
“And if it doesn’t travel across the GUC?”
“As long as it travels through the airwaves to me, then I’ll be able to pinpoint where you are, even if you can’t hear me. That’s all you’ll need to know.”
“So, if something bad happens, then you’ll come running.”
“Wherever you may be, I’ll try to get to you. I’ll do my best to not lose any more friends.”
Did his screen just light up?
“Okay,” Janet said as she looked down toward her feet. She felt small, inconspicuous, and overlooked at the same time.
“Now get moving towards Mother’s. I have to go to the Hub.”
“Can I come with you?” she asked as Gabriel made his way toward the door. He stopped, and Janet watched him look down as he reached out to grab the handle.
“No. It’s dangerous.”
“That never stopped you from putting me in harm’s way before!”
He turned back to face her, his body as tall as the doorway he wanted to pass through.
“It’s also personal. That’s why I need to do it alone, Janet.”
He’s mourning. The loss of a friend. The loss of everything he built. I’m not sure which one hurts him more.
Janet nodded. Gabriel turned away and disappeared through the veil. She followed and set her sights on Mother’s.
Chapter 3
“My brain just ain’t working right,” Jamal said to Bernice. She did not reply as she sat next to him in the dingy space near Mother’s.
I wonder what’s going through her head.
There was a silence, which engulfed them as the humming of suspensors began to radiate through the buildings around them. Scooters, cars, trucks, and other vehicles Jamal couldn’t describe drifted lazily by or whizzed by as if they had just committed murder. The flashing lights of patrol vehicles randomly illuminated the crooks of their bones and changed the color of their skin.
“What do you think of this place?” Bernice’s voice broke the uncomfortable silence.
“It’s…not natural. It’s something completely different.”
“I agree. I don’t like it here. I didn’t like having to survive in New York, but I might like this place even less.” There was an empty sadness in her eyes as Jamal looked into them. A forgotten joy that left when they came to the GUC.
“At least we can eat and be warm. Also, Gabriel saved your feet.” Jamal tried to find the positive notes in the life they now led. The small wins with the great loss of all the humanity they know Above.
“I guess. This isn’t our life, though. It’s some place entirely different from everything I’m used to. Like a fucked-up movie. Our old lives were so much different. Here it feels like everything we do is being watched. That we can’t make a move without Gabriel or someone else knowing our who, what, and when of it all.”
“But everything was being watched when the lights were on, you know?”
“Yeah, but it didn’t feel like it. Like we all knew that our government was corrupt, but at times it didn’t feel like it. Here, though, it feels like everyone is being stomped on and held down. I don’t like it.” Bernice shook her head and gazed back to the streets.
Jamal looked over to Bernice. There were tears rolling down her cheeks, and as they fell off her chin, the neon glow of pinks and blues twinkled in the crystalline water as if all her hopes and colored dreams faded out of her body and crashed like a torrent onto the pavement below. Her tears wouldn’t make anything grow from where they landed, he knew.
“Let’s get going,” he said as he stood up and offered his hand out to her. She grabbed it and wiped the remaining tears with her left arm as a sniffle escaped her one clear nostril.
They walked slowly back to Mother’s. The vehicles flying closer to the ground than normal whirred by. Jamal stood closer to the street. At least if one gets too close, I’ll be the one who gets hit.
He remembered the hustle of New York City and all the yellow cabs and businessmen who hit pedestrians almost regularly while slurping down their scorching coffee. The incessant honking and impatience of it all. It’s such a distant memory now. My old life, full of freedom and laughter. Now everything is serious, filled with death and gloom at every corner of this neon wasteland.
“What’re you thinking about?” Bernice asked.
“A lot. My head is running a mile a minute. I can’t shake it today. It’s like the anxieties of life are drilling through my brain down into the base of my neck.”
“I’m sorry. I’m always here, Jamal.”
Jamal felt Bernice wrap her arm around his waist. It was warm even through his shirt.
“Thank you,” he said, wrapping his arm around her.
“Always.”
He could see the glow of Mother’s as they rounded a corner. There was a small crowd of people outside, nothing out of the usual for the place.
Way less than when they shut the power off.
Jamal leaned off of Bernice, grabbed her hand, and weaved through the crowd. Years of avoiding people in New York City had made him an expert in a quick escape, though at times he still managed to brush his New York elbows against someone.
“There you two are,” Lew’s voice cut through like a siren luring sailors to their death.
