A point that was driven home when another outbreak of overloads hit the community. The first few seemed like they were just a continuation of the overloads that had been happening. Then they increased and people started dying. And not just around The Galleria, but all over the city.
He saw four overloads in one day in The Tower Market alone. He was able to save three of them, but the fourth was too far gone when he got there. He held the girl, a young Steamer who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, as she convulsed to death, her mouth foaming as her lips turned blue, her eyes rolling back to show only the bursting blood vessels in their whites, her cheeks streaked with tears of blood. He had seen overloads before, even fatal ones, but nothing like this.
The image of the girl haunted him. Not just because the sight of her death was burned into his memory, but because he felt he was responsible. The code causing the overloads was a variant of the code he downloaded from Your Better Life. It wasn’t the same, it had been modified to run on a standard chip, but the signatures were there.
He was sure of it.
“It’s my fault,” he told Sandy as they watched the sunset from the observation deck of The Tower.
“It’s not. How could we know they were going to do this with the code?”
“We should have. I should have. I was too wrapped up in getting more code for them. How many people across the city are dying because of me? I think I can learn to live with killing Slade, but this is different. Maybe I can convince myself he had it coming, or he would’ve killed me, and I can live with that. But not innocent people dying because of code I let loose on the streets.”
Sandy brought her hand up and touched his cheek. He looked at her, the golden light of the sunset bathing her face. “It was all of us who put that code out there, but it’s not our fault. It’s NirvanaWare. And Johnson. Probably the SRS too. They put the code out without testing it.”
He took her hand. “I have to do something. I can’t have this on my head too, and I can’t let it get worse.”
“You’re not alone in this.”
She looked at him, her eyes holding his.
She was right. As much as he felt guilt and responsibility for Gomez’s death, for shooting Slade, for the overloads, for drawing everyone into his desperation, he was not alone. He never had been.
“Then we have to do something,” he said.
“What can we do?”
He looked out across The Market below, the city beyond, the open space beyond, stretching to the horizon.
“What did Johnson say? My friends and I are resourceful.”
Epilogue
he floated in space and data unformed and unnamed with no memory of there or idea of where there was bodiless weightless senseless nameless his mind reaching for an idea of something to grab onto and there were others he could feel and now hear and now see shapes outlined in the distance reaching for him offering him guidance through the datastream offering him shape and form in the vast space engulfing him in nothing and everything and his existence being created in the moment in the data streaming in and around and through him creating him “we almost lost you” a voice from the everything and nothing and he could feel the data forming “there must have been a problem with your upload” the voice again and a shape forming in and around him data flowing and forming him and the others in the stream around him data flowing and forming him “what’s your name” him forming and flowing data being created in and through the moment around him “do you remember your name” around him forming and flowing and streaming and creating and naming him
“Gomez. My friends call me Gomez.”
Afterword
Thank you for reading Code Flicker. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review and let the world know.
If you want to know what happened to Gomez in Berlin, you can go to my website and sign up for my newsletter to get Deadline, a free prequel to Code Flicker. It reveals why Gomez left the corporate world. Kat, Slade, and Evgeny are in it too. It also introduces a character who will play an important role in NirvanaWare, the second Retro Media novel, coming out this summer.
Deadline is just the first of what I hope to be many more prequels and betweenquels in the Retro Media universe. For example, Pigeon Eater never got to tell Jacob how he got those Nokia flippers. These stories will all be free first through my newsletter. And I promise I won't flood you with emails. I don't have time for that, and I'm sure you don't either.
So, if want free fiction and updates on what I'm writing, subscribe to my newsletter on my website:
www.marlinseigman.com
Facebook author page: @CodeFlicker
You can email me at: [email protected]
Take care,
Marlin
Acknowledgement
I want to thank my wife for putting up with my nuerotic behavior while I wrote this novel and for continuing to deal with it as I write the next one.
About The Author
Marlin Seigman
Some people say these bios are supposed to be in third person.
Whatever.
I live in Texas with my wife, kids, and Border Collie. My wife's cats live with us too.
At various times I've worked in a lawnmower shop, painted signs, managed a bakery, worked in a movie theater, canvased for an environmental advocacy group, and worked sales in the vitamin industry. Along the way I found time to get a degree in English Literature and Philosophy and become a teacher.
I love Star Trek and know
