The Pieces of My Self

64 - Forgiveness

HENRI'S AVATAR

The Dome, 22 June 2174, Wednesday

"Father, I forgive you."

I heard Lillian's last words, spoken quickly, faintly, the whisper of a dying mortal to the ear of a sinning god. Left unsaid were the words, Save them. Save my children.

I knew she was dead when I jumped two stories into the water. Usher's audio sensors detected the shots of a tracking rifle as I plunged below the surface. The first rod struck my head, denting Usher's titanium skull. Two other rounds zipped along compressive streams, falling harmlessly as I sank to the muck-covered bottom of the pool.

Another volley zinged from the surface but quickly died in a medium 800 times denser than air.

I continued to move, but much more slowly. Blood billowed from Lillian's corpse as dark, snag-toothed forms glided past, sniffing, tasting.

Crocs!

I could see them moving in a circle as beams lit the water from above, dissolving the darkness. One croc thrust toward the corpse, grabbing the head in its jaws, pulling me into a tug-of-war. A second animal moved in, biting a leg. My metal body was being whipsawed between two 3000-lb monsters.

I extended a saw blade and cut the right arm from Lillian's body, gripping the limb, protecting it. The crocs jerked the carcass away, devouring large chunks of flesh with each bite.

I had a slight negative bouncy that let me moonwalk awkwardly along the bottom as I headed for the cover of the old kiosk promenade. Once inside, I flashed on a headlamp and maneuvered along a murky underwater corridor, past signs that said Concessions and Restrooms and East Bunker Club Lounge.

When I arrived at a steel door marked Security Control, I pressed my hand against a touchpad. The lock clicked but failed to open.

I had to get in!

I placed Lillian's arm around my neck, then grabbed the door handle with one hand and gripped a vertical steel conduit with the other. By yanking hard, I pulled the door from its frame.

Beyond the opening, the water was opaque, with mud swirling in a cloud around the opened door. I probed with my headlamp, entered through the jimmied entrance, then broke the surface, stepping upward into a dark air-filled space, holding Lillian's severed arm in my right hand.

Above the waterline, the room booted up, activated by my motion. Overhead lights and display panels flickered to life.

An array of screens showed the situation in and around the Dome, where the dark sky was breaking with wind and rain. Four armored vehicles had been lifted onto the East 90 overpass, but there were no signs of soldiers. The wreckage of aircraft, fractured by gusts, littered the landing pad. The hurricane was now hitting with full force.

I could see on the screen a Medevac helicopter aborting a landing, tossed about by winds. Tony Brown's AVTOL was on its side, hugging a railing, the force of the storm pushing it along the tarmac toward the edge.

Nothing could get out of the Dome until the wind subsided.

I switched to displays showing troop deployment inside the megastructure. There were still five soldiers positioned near the pool at Level Two. The stream of water through a gash in the roof was now a torrent, falling three stories into the pool. I could see soldiers taking Zeke, Grady, and Amara across the bridge to the north side. The group went into an elevator. I presumed they were headed to the Beach Room, on the same level as the Upload Center.

The steel door separating the control room from the prisoner holding area had not been opened in nearly a decade. I decided I would force it from the inside.

But first things first.

I moved to a dashboard of controls on a wall surrounding a digital mirror, placed Lillian's hand with the ring against the glass, and waited for recognition.

As her dead hand touched the mirror, the reflective surface glowed. An image formed: Escher's Day and Night.

The pattern zoomed on one of the black birds, then pixelated into lines of zeros and ones. Finally, the screen dissolved into a youthful face—35-years-old, black hair framing a high forehead, intelligent gray-blue eyes, a thin mustache wider than the mouth, a chin bob of hair. It was a man at the beginning of his career, the peak of his powers. The verge of possibility. Henri's face.

For me, uploading the ring was a catharsis, filled with emotion and brimming with regrets and memories. I felt compelled to say something. I spoke to the robot, and to Lillian's mortal remains, and perhaps to myself. "We are never quite the same, are we? Always changing."

The picture dimmed as data transferred from the ring to the high-capacity portal.

"We welcome you, my daughter," I said.

Over ten minutes, pixel-by-pixel, Henri's image in the mirror shifted, changing gender. The outline hardened. Skin blended into a woman's whiskey complexion, curly, jet-black hair and brown eyes.

It was the face of Lillian Fray. My new face.