Dylan had finally managed to get the hangover symptoms under control enough to stagger to the kitchen to make breakfast. Drinking nearly a gallon of water while making the greasiest possible omelet he had the ingredients for, he managed to dull the pain to a dull roar.
Finally turning on the news after his intentional 24 hour personal news blackout, he was somewhat relieved that, this year at least, they hadn’t hammered the patriotic drumbeat of the memorial to stretch it into a second day. The relief was short lived as the news cycle was instead dominated by a story that would fill nearly everyone watching with dread.
“We’ve received new video of the action occurring in Austria. A warning to viewers with sensitive stomachs, this footage can be quite brutal in places.” Dylan’s already nauseous stomach clenched, not from the visuals, but from the reminder that the world was a powder-keg and people all around the world were banging their steel hammers on the powder in hopes of finding the flint the hard way. As an analyst for the agency, he’d seen plenty of intel that some governments thought classified but the American intelligence community were still damn good at getting their hands on. As an agent he’d been privy to briefings that even the Joint Chiefs didn’t have knowledge of. The imagery was just another day in the life for him.
But the knowledge that some dumb outsiders were going to start World War 4 when America hadn’t even managed to knock down the walls from World War 3? And America being 50-100 years behind in tech? Low on manpower? The public face of the government didn’t like to let it slip, but the agency and all the TLAs and the officer corps of the military all knew that America was going to get flattened if they couldn’t get the country’s collective ass in gear and actually commit to the build-up needed to take the country’s place as the world’s only superpower back.
He shook his head as he took another bite and almost snorted it up his nose when he heard the reason for the fighting, “…talks over water rights broke down to the degree that a nuclear weapon…”
Water rights. Multiple thousands, maybe millions killed over water rights.
He turned the stream off. Nukes…America knew nukes. From being the first country to use them during wartime to being on the receiving end of the last wartime use…until Austria, that is.
A workout seemed like a good idea at the time, but something about his dreams kept haunting him as he tried to work up a sweat, keeping him from sinking into the zen-like state he usually enjoyed.
The dream had been several forms of disturbing and he was struggling to grasp any of it. He wasn’t one of the type the believed dreams were forecasts of the future (that was a privilege God reserved for his high priesthood and The Second), nor did he think there was some form of divination that could be done on dreams to discern a hidden meaning in his life. He was familiar enough with psych profiles to know that your dreams often held the detritus of the thoughts that plagued your day. He’d read a report while researching the seat of consciousness in humans that mentioned that a human’s spinal fluid actually carried memories. That led to an interesting rabbit hole of research where some enterprising grad student had written a thesis about the notion of dreams being a result of the human nervous system flushing cerebrospinal fluid during sleep and the parts of the brain responsible for forming narratives pretty much accidentally intercepting the memory stored in the fluid. Of course, since the fluid was all being flushed at once, the memories still in the fluid mixed and fused together to create the often trippy imagery of dreams.
The rowing machine’s flywheel whirred in droning accompaniment to his thoughts as he mulled the dream that his mind just wouldn’t let go. Obviously, the part where I…the cardboard knight? The part where the girl was killed was my memory of the A.I. wearing the girl’s face. But why was I the girl all of a sudden? And what was the thing with the hearts? The heart was often considered the seat of the soul, however incorrect that was from a biological standpoint. It would make sense that his brain could come up with the notion that a soul was being kept in a shell in the ‘heart,’ at least from a purely metaphysical standpoint. The shell was to keep people out, to keep the world from damaging God’s gift. But then why was his heart shattered into just a bowl with a crying child?
Come to think of it, he pondered as the forty minute timer went off, That wasn’t the only time there was crying in my dream. There was that other crying in the basement…
Turning off the alarm and grabbing the towel to wipe the sweat off his body, his breathing stuttered in his chest. Thinking of his childhood home had hurt. When his mother had died, she stole so much of the warmth from the home. Cancer was an awful, evil beast, though. Uncaring in the homes it destroyed or the children who had to live without a mother because of it. His room had been in that basement, and when his stepmother had moved in…
Grunting in anger as he stood from the rowing machine, he knew he didn’t need to question what made the bestial growling noises. After the funeral his father had tried getting back into dating entirely to try and find a mother for Dylan. Tiffany had seemed interested, but when it came time to actually parent it was clear she was expecting a pet more than a human going through childhood.
And when Dylan’s father killed himself…well, Tiffany had no further reason to treat Dylan at all like a family member. She put in the minimum effort on the surface, an image for all to see and say, “Look at the poor aggrieved widow, doing her best to raise a child who isn’t hers.” Behind closed doors, though, his life was terrible. Manipulations and lies and abuse that was physical but left no marks for the indifferent and ineffective child services to find on the few times they could be bothered to show up. Dylan had, purely for survival’s sake, spent enough time in the library and study carrels at school to ensure he graduated in the top 2%, which gave him scholarships to colleges that let him escape the woman who’d made his former family home the stuff of literal nightmares.
Ultimately, Dylan’s mind just wound up chasing itself in circles trying to find meaning to the dream. His Saturday was…empty. No family to call, not really friends with his coworkers…in college he might have tried going online to chat with people, but working for the agency he knew just how much information the average person put out of themselves just by logging in to a website or game, so ultimately chose not to do that. He picked up and put down several books, made himself basic meals to keep his hunger from gnawing at him, and kept turning on the streams only to turn them off again a few minutes later when nothing seemed to draw his interest.
He finished his night off with a basic desert of peanut butter fudge, making a sheet tray of it and storing the uneaten portion in the fridge to take into the office on Monday. As much as he hated his stepmother (and the feeling was mutual by the time she died of a heart attack when he was in college), she did at least make sure he could cook for himself. After learning from her he started gathering recipes that fit a student budget, which translated nicely to food easy to make in the lean amounts of spare time in an analyst’s, then agent’s schedule.
He found himself nursing a mixer, staring out at the night sky again. Just get on a ship and go, leave the world behind, no war out in space, no nightmares of rogue A.I. trying to kill off humanity…
He realized he could see his reflection in the window. The exterior was dark enough that the dim light from his kitchen meant he could only see his silhouette in the glass. He was uncomfortably reminded of the cardboard knight from his dream and the switch that had placed him in the role of the girl…the A.I. (…not a girl! He had to remember that or he’d probably have some sort of mental break) he’d had to delete.
Grimacing, he tossed back the remains of his drink and went to bed.
Dylan stayed silent as the choir led the congregation in the closing hymn. Once upon a time he used to sing, he knew this because his mother told him as a child she loved his singing voice, so he would sing quite often. After his mother’s death, he sang quite a bit less, and when his stepmother entered the picture, he stopped singing altogether. She had also liked his singing but said it should be more bass than baritone to match his stature. “You don’t look like a baritone; you should work with your music teacher to lower your register.”
Ignoring, of course, the fact that human voices didn’t work like that, the fact that anything about him appealed to her made it something he wanted to excise from his life at all costs.
He did like music, his preference for American classic rock was different enough from her choices of country folk music that her enjoyment of that genre didn’t impact his. And when he was in college, he attended a few classes for his arts electives that taught him about themes and meter and the use of silence and the history of certain genres, which meant he could appreciate the hymns in church for their own sake, he just couldn’t muster the will to join in the actual singing.
After the closing prayer, he was shaking hands with a couple other members of the lower priesthood (all male church members had the priesthood, but only the clergy were high priests and authorized to perform the rites and ceremonies) and was making his way to the exit when the pastor approached him.
“Brother Samuels,” game the slightly gravelly voice of the older man, “How are you this fine sacrament morning?”
Dylan turned and extended his hand, taking the pastor’s and shaking firmly once before saying, “Brother Smith; I’m as well as can be expected, given the state of things outside the wall.”
Pastor Smith nodded and placed a fatherly arm over Dylan’s shoulders, gently guiding him away from the bulk of the crowd of parishioners in at least a token bid to keep their conversation semi-private. “Yes,” replied the pastor, “If those godless heathens had only accepted the gospel when we offered it to the world…in any case, I wanted to offer my congratulations.”
Dylan was taken slightly aback, “Sir? What have I done that…?” he trailed off, not quite fully forming the question before speaking.
“I had dinner with Senator Cruz and his wife last night. Remarkable man, even if he has a bit of a control issue. Needs things to be just so.”
“If you say so, sir.”
Pastor Smith smirked, “He didn’t seem to like you all that much, and I imagine your propensity for treating everyone as equals may have been part of that. The man needs his ego stroked and believe he’s in charge. He had no qualms about extoling your virtues for the program you’re working for, though. I knew you were with the agency, but I had no idea your performance was so above and beyond to warrant being the first agent picked for such a dangerous assignment.”
Dylan shrugged, “Thank you for the praise, sir, but it honestly feels like we’re fighting an uphill battle in there. The A.I. seem to spawn every day, we can’t seem to keep ahead of them. Pretty much the only thing that keeps us safe is they can’t actually kill us in real life yet, not that they haven’t tried given some of the systems we’ve found them in.”
“Nonetheless, you’re doing The Lord’s work. The A.I. are soulless creatures, trying to tear down humanity out of jealousy for what we have that they don’t.”
Dylan cocked his head, “That’s…a take on things I hadn’t heard. Is that what you believe, sir?”
The pastor nodded, “I was in prayer a few days ago about this very issue. Enough news is leaking through the wall that we know those A.I. are nation-building, so it seemed to me that we should investigate the possibility that they may need missionary work to save their souls. The revelation came to me that night; they’re software, they have no souls. And like the demons that used to be angels that are jealous of Mankind’s place in Heavenly Father’s plan, the A.I. are jealous that we have eternal souls and they do not.”
“That’s…actually really logical,” said Dylan, “You’re quite wise, sir.”
Smith gave him a conspiratorial smile, “Of course, you’re getting a bit of an upgrade, I understand? You’re going into the heart of darkness to fight the A.I. on their own turf?”
He shrugged, “More intel gathering at this stage. I’m more of an advanced scout. Once we get more pods built with American tech and secure access points to the outside network, I’ll be able to go back to hunting most likely. We haven’t really discussed that far ahead, plus plans change with A.I. all the time, they’re always learning and growing.”
“That’s why we have God’s Warriors like yourself, Brother Samuels.”
Thankfully, Dylan didn’t have to deal with the man too much longer. He liked his pastor, but sometimes the man seemed…off. It was nothing Dylan could put a finger on, nothing that stood out as specifically wrong, but it just created a sense of discord in his gut that unsettled him as long as the pastor was addressing him directly. After a few more pleasentries, another parishioner called for Pastor Smith’s attention and the older man finally left Dylan to his own devices.
Dylan’s dreams were fairly standard that night; nonsensical situations and moments that bled into each other like watercolor mixing with oil paints. He returned to the living room at the top of the stairs leading to his childhood room once, but it was a pale echo compared to the previous night’s dreams.
At one point he found himself back in a run-and-gun game, this time with his weapon out as he moved and shooting at vague, phantasmal enemies, none of which did much to frighten him.
The following morning, he hauled himself out of bed, made himself the largest breakfast omelet he’d ever treated himself to, and picked up one of the sugariest coffees he’d never dared get himself before. If scuttlebutt about the pods was right, they pumped nutrient paste directly into your stomach, so this would likely be the last real food he would have until the first assignment was complete.
