Fear the Abyss: 22 Terrifying Tales of Cosmic Horror (33 page)

I will not let go of her hand. No matter what. I will not let go of her hand.

I lean down and kiss her lips.

Her eyes open.

KT Jayne

KT Jayne is
an aspiring author with Aspergers.
She
tr
ies
to help people to see how the world looks through
her
eyes
, h
op
ing
her
stories help
readers better
understand
her
little autistic world.
KT Jayne’s story,
“
P
ush
Button, Get Bacon
,”
appears in the 2011 Post Mortem Press anthology
Dead Souls
.

Scritch
.
Scritch.

Dr. Declyn Amari felt the resistance of the screw she'd been tightening and gently put the tiny screwdriver down. She checked the connections of the Dream Conduit System for what she was sure was the thousandth time.

"Is it done?"

"I think so, Dr. Laramie."

He looked at her with that squinty stare that always made her doubt every thought she had. Even the ones that were considered scientific fact. She looked down at the man inside the pod of the DCS. He was very tall and thin with blond, wavy hair. She checked his identification tag and saw that he was Pod Inhabitant 71962 and his crime was listed as hacker. That had once been considered a minimum sentence crime. Now, hacking was punishable by permanent sentencing to the DCS pods. As was a myriad of other crimes. Chief among the criminals housed in Megacity DCS House 1 were artists and many authors. Creative thinking was highly discouraged.

"I don't want any more botch ups. The last thing we need is a bunch of sponges running around with the impression that there are flaws in the system that might encourage," he paused and swallowed hard, "thinking."

Declyn turned to her monitor, "Tiffany, run the test code once more, please."

She could feel Dr. Laramie closely behind her. It didn't seem to matter that she'd told him a hundred times that there weren't any problems. At least not with most of the units. A few hiccups were to be expected in an operation of this size. They ran close to a million DCS pods in this facility alone. Tiffany interrupted her thoughts.

"The test code is negative for problems. Shall I re-engage the dream encryption?"

Tiffany was a fully enhanced Artificial Intelligence unit and Declyn knew that she was completely capable of analyzing her own systems and reporting on any issues accurately. Dr. Laramie had overseen her programming himself. Declyn was thankful for this because it took the responsibility off of her to determine if there was a problem. She turned to look at him, folding her hands on her lap, trying to look dutiful, as if she existed at this moment only to carry out whatever directives he saw fit to give her.

"Re-engage," he said, standing up to his full six feet and turning, "get him dreaming again."

"Tiffany, you may begin encryption."

A hiss escaped the DCS as Tiffany started the routines that would do exactly that. Declyn settled in her seat watching the live feed. If there were any glitches, she would see them.

*****

Andrew heard them scratching in the walls all night while he was trying to sleep. His dreams were filled with them running up and down the wiring paths, through the ducts, and around the pipes. They weren't cute, either. They were horrible, feral little creatures with razor sharp teeth and claws like knives. They came out when he was sleeping and ran through the covers.  He woke up in cold sweats, swearing that he could feel their little claws running over him in his sleep, craftily leaving no trace behind them. He suspected that they were absorbing information from the interweb somehow, making them impossible to catch. He had put out traps with peanut butter, cheese, and even chocolate. He waited, listening for the traps to SNAP! He never heard them.

He had tried everything to track them.

"Tiffany, please check for foreign entities within your systems."

There was a pause and Andrew heard various whirrings and tickings which were indicative of the house checking sensors and cameras as per his request. He waited.

"Andrew, there are no foreign entities within my systems."

Andrew grimaced. The house was state of the art. He'd programmed it himself. It couldn't be mistaken. He sat down heavily in his computer chair and decided to check his programming, spinning to face his monitor. He pushed a button on his keyboard to wake it up and checked the interweb connections.

For the next few hours, he went through every line of code, looking for flawed routines. There were none. He checked every sensor by tripping each one individually. He checked every camera, twisting and turning them in every direction, checking for blind spots, moving other cameras to cover them. Everything was working perfectly. He'd known that already, but he wanted to make sure.

"Andrew?"

"Yes, Tiffany?"

"There are no flaws in my systems."

"I see that, Tiffany."

He was sure that he heard a little "hmmmpphh" in that sentence. Could computers do that? Could smart houses? He certainly hadn't programmed her to do that. He decided to add a few little subroutines to the cameras and their sensors.

"Andrew?"

"Yes, Tiffany?"

"I sense that you are making critical changes to my programming."

"Tiffany, don't be over dramatic, they are not critical changes. They are merely little added subroutines to help us find the problems."

"What problems are you referring to, Andrew?"

"The noises that I'm hearing, Tiffany."

"I assure you that there are no bugs or vermin in my systems making noises."

"Something is certainly keeping me up. If it's not bugs or vermin, it must be something."

Tiffany didn't answer, but he sensed that little "hmmmpphhhh" again. He got up from his chair, stretching the kinks out of his body.

"Tiffany, start the shower, please. Put it on massage."

The house did not answer, but Andrew heard the shower raining rhythmically in the bathroom. He walked into the little room and paused for a moment.

Scritch.

He stopped and waited.

Scritch.

He was sure it was coming from the ceiling. A scrabbling sound. Little claws on metal tiles.

"Tiffany, please turn off the shower."

The shower stopped and Andrew strained his ears to listen.

Scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch.

As if something was strutting across the ceiling in little tiny stiletto heels. He walked into the kitchen to get the plastic step stool. His plan was to push open one of the ceiling tiles and scout a good location for a couple of traps. A few minutes later, he had lifted it high enough that he could peek into the space above the bathroom. He had the tile resting on his head and he shined his LED flashlight cautiously around the darkness looking for clues to the sound. Amazingly the area was spotless. There wasn't even a dust bunny lurking in the corner. He was pleased with himself for a moment, secure in the knowledge that the cleaning protocol was working wonderfully.

Scritch.

He swung the flashlight to his left looking for the source but saw nothing. Except for a little movement out of the corner of his eye. He pushed the tile up a little further panning the flashlight once more. He didn't think he'd imagined the noise. He waited a few moments but heard nothing else so he pulled his head out of the ceiling and stepped off the stool, the tile was cool under his feet.

"Andrew, DCS sequence will be interrupted."

"What?" The floor rumbled beneath him and he felt himself plummeting.

*****

"Tiffany, why has the dream encryption been interrupted?"

Declyn pushed several buttons on the console and checked the life support system on the DCS pod. Everything looked to be functioning normally and she'd seen nothing on the live feed that would be considered a problem. She rewound the tape and saw nothing except for the man in the pod walking around a house and playing on his computer.

"Protocols demand that obsessive thinking patterns in pod inhabitants will be interrupted immediately and they will be reprogrammed to eliminate anarchic repetitions in the general populace."

"Were there obsessive thinking patterns, Tiffany? I didn't see any."

"Dr. Amari, Pod Inhabitant 71962 insists that there are bugs in his smart house system."

Declyn scanned through the live feed and saw nothing she thought was obsessive. She could see the man working on his computer and talking, but she had no audio. She turned a knob and tinkered with some buttons on her console.

"Tiffany, could you check the audio on my live feed? It seems to not be functioning."

There was a pause of about thirty seconds.

"Dr. Amari, the live feed audio has been repaired. It should be fully functional again. Shall I commence with reprogramming?"

"Yes, Tiffany, you can re-engage."

"Reprogramming protocol initiated."

*****

Andrew shook his head. He was trying to figure out what Tiffany was talking about. He went back to his desk and sat down. A check of the monitors showed him that everything was working perfectly. He leaned back. Listening.

"Tiffany?"

"Yes, Andrew?"

"Are you okay?"

"I don't understand the question, Andrew."

He shook his head. She was so real sometimes that he forgot that she was only a house.

"I mean, are all your systems functioning within normal parameters?"

He heard the whirring and clicking that meant she was checking her systems. He waited and watched. He could see her systematically examining each line of code and every monitoring device connected to her brain.

"All coding is running within given parameters. All connections are functioning normally. All monitoring devices are also functioning normally."

"I guess I meant something else. How are you feeling, Tiffany?"

"I don't understand the question, Andrew. It is not within my code to feel anything."

"Never mind, Tiffany. It was a stupid question."

Tiffany continued to check her systems. Andrew continued to watch. Until he saw the blip.

"Tiffany? What was that?"

"I'm sorry, Andrew, what was what?"

"I thought that I saw a blip."

"A blip?"

"Something on the screen blipped."

"I don't understand, Andrew. There have been no anomalies."

Andrew reached for his keyboard and tapped away until he found the place where he thought he'd seen the blip. There was nothing there. He shrugged and leaned back again. Closing his eyes, he started to think about taking a little vacation. Maybe to Hawaii. He loved to surf.

Scritch.

His eyes flew open and he sat up, looking at the monitors. He let his eyes scan over the entire system once more, but saw nothing. He listened, barely breathing.

Scritch.

This time he looked directly where he thought he'd seen the blip before. There it was. He realized that it wasn't so much a blip as an outright anomaly. He scooted up to his desk and zeroed in on the place where the blip was. It wasn't anything big, just an extra half line of code where there shouldn't be one.

"Andrew, I need to interrupt the DCS sequence once again."

"What?"

Andrew looked up at the ceiling and then said, "Tiffany, I don't know what you mean."

"DCS protocol is stopped. You need to go back to sleep, Andrew."

Again he had the sense of plummeting into darkness.

*****

"Tiffany, why has the dream sequence been interrupted again?"

Declyn had seen nothing out of the ordinary in the live feed.

"The subject in the pod is beginning to have obsessive thinking patterns once again."

"Tiffany, I saw nothing in the live feed to indicate that there was a problem."

"Dr. Amari, what did you see in the live feed? Can you describe it to me precisely?"

Declyn poked at her keyboard and scanned through the live feed footage. "It's just the hacker. He's playing a video game on his computer. There is nothing else on my footage."

"I don't know what the anomaly is, Dr. Amari, but I will find it."

Declyn made an executive decision to keep the hacker out of the DCS temporarily. She knew that Dr. Laramie would want an explanation and she wasn't sure what that might be, but she was afraid that the system was being contaminated. She didn't know how, but she had a nagging little doubt in the back of her brain that said that Tiffany was not telling her the entire truth.

The only thing to do was to start searching the code. She wasn't a trained hacker, but she'd dabbled here and there. No one could move up to managing an entire DCS facility without being able to think outside the box. The system said that it didn't like people to think creatively, but the only way you could get anywhere was if you did.