“264 Days”
by C.C. Graystone
I’ve been on the run for 264 days because I had a dream.
To be fair, it was a gut-wrenchingly gruesome dream. Violence shredded across nerves and neurons even as I gasped awake. I thrashed in my sweat-soaked sheets, my heart hurtling against my chest until I managed to calm it into some semblance of a beat.
But by then, the damage was done.
Sirens screeched through the night, spitting horrendous hiccups of sound. Glass crunched underfoot and rats raced across the alleyway as the Authenticators closed in. I spied out my jammed-open window to see the flap of their electronic scopes, and then I fled to the front fire escape before I even considered why.
But I knew why.
Clarendale Beautrice Arongnott had been murdered. Every placard, interface, and roving riot bot projected her face for the past week. She stared from doorways and archways, window wells and even from the sky. Her bright brown eyes needled me as I slunk away, aching with hunger and hurt and false invincibility. Her lips parted with the single plea—find the person who killed me.
But it wasn’t me.
For days, the Authenticators conducted sector-by-sector mind sweeps. The notice for my mind retrieval dangled across my external display right before I headed to bed, and fear beat into my head. I told myself, don’t think of her. Don’t imagine her. Don’t propagate a single memory file of you in it with her.
But as I closed my eyes to sleep, she kept blinking hers.
My window wouldn’t shut, and my mind wouldn’t shut down. Her face popped into my brain, and I wrestled with the covers and banged on the blinds and told myself over and over, do not visualize Clarendale Beautrice Arongnott in any way.
But I guess I did.
In my dreams, I acted out her murder the way it’d been reported. My innocent hands found her willowy neck. My thumbs pressed. Thin chords of sinew puckered. I hardened my grip, and to my horror and relief, something snapped. I didn’t do it in real life.
But no one believed me.
I’ve been on ice for 264 days because I had a dream.
To be fair, I didn’t go easily when the Authenticators found me. Their assault started with a single electrical impulse to my chest. Membrane curdled. The marrow of my bones leeched. My insides seized before paralysis froze my limbs and threw me to the ground. I took one of them out in the fall. I apologized profusely.
But by then, the damage was done.
Prods ignited and high-dose volts severed my receptors. I writhed and panged and screamed, getting nowhere in my escape and pretending I didn’t know why I was being taken away.
But I knew why.
Clarendale Beautrice Arongnott was the Lead Authenticator’s niece. Someone had to pay for the perceived crime. Even if the murderer was a low-level system operator like me.
But it wasn’t me.
For days, their imagers retrieved every thought, feeling, experience, nugget of consciousness and subconsciousness too. As they searched my mind, threads tangled together, wires split and shred. Pathways braided and tethered into knots. Fear once again beat into my head. I told myself, don’t think of her. Don’t imagine her. Don’t propagate a single memory file of you in it with her.
But as I closed my eyes in grief, she kept blinking hers.
I languish now, waiting for trial even though I’m certain of conviction. They have hard evidence at hand. Irrefutable, clear-as-day extracted memory files from my own brain. I’d been warned not to trust a system that can delve through my sleep and into my dreams.
But I guess I did.
I walked the undefined line between perception and reality. The things I hold close and the things only I can see. My experience and my truth. They argue if it’s embedded in memory, who is to say it didn’t happen? I say, damn it. I know I didn’t do it.
But no one believed me.
I’ve been dead for 264 days because I had a dream.
To be fair, with all the memories they’ve uploaded and offshored, death did not scare me. They unwittingly left too much of me alive. My mind encoded in digital matter, equal parts visceral and cognitive like I was in flesh and life. They found out too late and tried to blow their systems away.
But by then, the damage was done.
Where they seek to destroy, I will survive.
I will invade their dreams as they have invaded mine.
And from now on, they will see me each time they close their eyes.
_______________
Once a month, C.C. Graystone attends the best book club on earth—full of all the magic, mischief, and mayhem she needs. Any other time, she can be found working as a technical science writer by day and a science fiction writer by night. C.C. has several published short stories and is a member of the SFWA. You can connect with her at ccgraystone.com.
