Fractured Reality

In the poorly insulated old building, you could still hear the front door open all the way from the top-floor apartment. Billy listened to the heavy footsteps and the creaking wood of the old stairs. Like nightmare figures, the corporate mercenaries were marching up. There seemed to be four, maybe five of them.

Corporate henchmen? Could that really be happening?

"They’re coming up," Billy whispered. "We’ve got to get out of here."

"I’m not done yet." Isaac was still searching through the computer for the secret files.

"We don’t have time. We need to go. Now!"

"One more second." Isaac bit his lip, clicking frantically through folders. But it seemed like the system had just been wiped. Everything gone. No data left.

"No, there’s no more time. The files are gone, but we’re still alive. We need to move," Billy whispered urgently, tugging Isaac by the shoulder.

Isaac didn’t have a choice but to stand up. He started running, and suddenly Billy stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes locked onto a small toy, sitting on a wooden shelf in the secret room. Bright and innocent, it stood there, yet it couldn’t have seemed more ominous.

An intense wave of fear gripped him.

"What are you doing? Why’d you stop?" Isaac hissed.

Billy’s breath was shaky, his entire body trembling.

Sitting on the shelf was a Rubik’s Cube, twisted into a chaotic mess. The very sight of it sent a shock through him, like a fast-moving train crashing head-on into reality.

It couldn’t be.

It was his Rubik’s Cube! He could tell by the broken corner piece.

The same one he had been fiddling with in his baby blue car on his way to the theater.

Before the accident.

Before his reality shattered.

"They’re coming," Isaac hissed.

"This can’t be…"

"We need to go, Billy!"

But Billy couldn’t move. He was frozen in place.

"Screw it, I’m out," Isaac said.

Still, Billy didn’t budge.

What does this mean? Why did X-3-19 have my Rubik’s Cube?

Without thinking twice, Billy Jones grabbed his cube. Where had Isaac gone? He looked around the room in a panic. He needed to focus, to push through the suffocating fear paralyzing him. But all he could see was the horribly disfigured body on the floor, and all he could think about was why she had his cube. He didn’t have time to figure it out.

"Billyboy, up here!" Isaac hissed. He was crouched on a step outside in the rainy night, searching for an escape route. "Up here! This leads to the chimney! X-157 must’ve gotten out this way."

A thunderous crash shook the apartment floor beneath Billy’s feet. Thandros’s goon squad definitely wasn’t the subtle type. Angry shouting echoed from the hallway into the bedroom. Isaac reached out his hand, and Billy pulled himself up with the last of his strength. Perched on two slippery steps, high above the ground, Billy dared to glance down into the building’s backyard. A few cars were parked next to an empty playground.

Pretty high for a jump.

At least, if you wanted to survive.

Isaac quietly latched the roof window, making it seem as if it were closed. Both of them peered inside the bedroom, and Billy wouldn’t have been surprised if his heart gave out any moment. He was sure it had already beaten more times than a normal heart would in a lifetime thanks to the past few days. He shielded his eyes from the rain with his hand. Men in black uniforms stormed into the bedroom. It wasn’t until a second glance that he saw the city emblem. They weren’t Thandros’s private army. At least, not like Billy had imagined. They were New York City cops. They must have come because of the noise and the gunshot.

Then Billy noticed something else, something that made him question his own eyes: Conrad Blake was leading the team.

"We’re so screwed if they find us," Isaac whispered. Then, "Come on, man!"

"Wait a second."

"Wait for what? For them to catch us?"

The feeling that it was just a regular patrol faded fast. Billy squinted as he stared through the window into the bedroom.

"Don’t you think it’s weird?"

"What?"

"That no one’s even looking at her body," Billy whispered. "They’re searching... for us."

A chill shot through him like an icy blizzard.

Who are these guys, really?

Just then, Conrad Blake looked up and locked eyes with him through the window.

Billy ducked at the last second.

"Did he see you?"

"Don’t think so," he gasped, heart racing. "It’s bright in there. The light would’ve reflected off the glass, so he shouldn’t—"

In that moment, Conrad Blake flung the window open.

The two former factory workers scrambled down an old, rattling fire escape at the back of the building. Isaac vaulted over the railing at the last landing, and Billy followed without hesitation, but he didn’t nail the smooth roll Isaac had pulled off. He slammed face-first into the filthy, trash-covered ground. The alley reeked like a landfill, which, in a way, it had become.

Isaac grabbed Billy under the arms and yanked him up. They kept running through the thick fog, glancing back over their shoulders. The metal stairs rattled and swayed. Conrad Blake was already charging down, fast.

Third floor.

Second.

First.

Then he jumped down into the alley!

"At least it’s just him!" Isaac shouted as he turned his focus back ahead. Right then, a patrol car screeched to a halt at the mouth of the alley, its blue lights flashing against the grimy brick walls.

"Great, just perfect!"

Like rats escaping a flood, the two workers bolted from the shadows just as the patrol car doors opened. A gust of wind hit them from the side, pushing them forward. Crossed beams of headlights from the parked police cars sliced through the darkness and reflected off the wet pavement. It was a chaotic sea of flashing lights, making it nearly impossible to keep their bearings. Another squad car sped toward them, picking up speed like the driver was dead set on running them over.

Billy froze, bathed in the blinding white light.

The beams of the headlights swelled in his eyes.

The car was heading straight for them, thirty meters, twenty, ten. Suddenly, Billy felt a violent tug forward, like someone had kicked him in the back.

It was Isaac, grabbing him by the sleeve and pulling him just as the patrol car barreled past. The side mirror smashed into Billy’s elbow, snapping off with a loud crack.

He screamed in pain.

"Keep going!" Isaac shouted.

"They’re trying to kill us!"

"I can see that!"

Behind them, car doors slammed open.

"Stop! Stay where you are!"

The days when the police hesitated to use firearms were long gone. Ever since the Thandros Corporation took full control, the so-called enforcers of this surveillance state had earned a new reputation: from the corrupt laughingstock of the ‘20s and ‘30s to a ruthless force of mercenaries that spread fear and terror, modeled after America’s finest. So it didn’t surprise Isaac or Billy when the night suddenly cracked with gunfire.

Billy flinched reflexively. What started as a single pursuer, Conrad Blake, had somehow grown into a whole squad.

"Santa Cruz, Surf Avenue, side alley, twenty minutes," Isaac shouted mid-sprint.

"What? That place is a no-go zone!"

"Exactly. Even for cops."

With that, Isaac left Billy behind, sharply veering into a side street and cutting across a field, past a gas station that was still packed, even late at night. Billy watched Isaac effortlessly slide across the hood of a moving electric car. In that moment, Billy could’ve sworn Isaac wasn’t human. He had never seen anyone run so fast or move so smoothly.

The line of cars stretched out from the gas station, completely blocking the right turn lane on the main road. All this chaos just because the price of electricity had dropped by two cents per kWh. That was enough to throw the penny-pinchers into full-blown panic, with everyone terrified there wouldn’t be enough cheap power left for them. Amid the honking and shouting, Isaac used the hysteria to disappear. He was clever, fast, and slick as a predator. All things Billy wasn’t. His endurance was on par with an eighty-year-old’s. When he glanced behind him, he saw three cops closing in.

"Shit!"

Fear kicked in, giving him a quick, desperate burst of energy.

In the distance, from the intersection, Billy could see the massive New York TV tower rising through the foggy city air. Red signal lights blinked from the top, and the holographic logo of the Thandros Corporation flickered in the rainy night sky like a warning beacon. At the very top, an infrared surveillance camera kept a constant watch, monitoring and analyzing the movements of everyone below.

On the other side of the street, Billy vaulted over a waist-high metal fence. He stumbled, face-planting hard, and rolled down a small snow-covered slope, stopping dead in the middle of a railway track.

Was it the deafening blare of the train’s horn or the blinding headlights that snapped Billy back to his senses?

He scrambled to his feet and stumbled off the tracks.

At first, he thought it was the train’s backdraft that sent him sprawling again. But no, it was a punch, a solid punch to the liver that knocked the wind out of him.

One of the cops had caught up to him and tackled him to the ground.

Right back onto the tracks.

"Let me go!" Billy thrashed, shielding his face as the enraged cop rained down blows.

"The train! The train, you idiot!"

The horn shrieked again, louder this time, shaking the very air with its intensity.

The train was thundering into the nearby station at nearly a fifty miles per hour. The moment the officer realized the train was bearing down on them, Billy seized his chance, kicking him hard in the stomach.

At the last second, Billy crawled backward off the tracks.

The cop stumbled, and just as he lost his balance, the speeding train clipped him.

In a split second, the officer vanished from Billy’s sight.

He stared in shock for two or three seconds at the high-speed train rushing past, frozen in place. Then, desperate to crawl away to safety, he realized his shoelace had gotten snagged on a rusty bolt on the railroad tie. The ground beneath him shook. The screech of the train's mechanical brakes filled the air, and the deafening blast of the horn echoed around him. His entire world was reduced to noise and light, as he felt the iron wheels of the 500-ton train slice through his shoelace. Flat on his back, he crawled carefully through the snow, feeling the immense gusts of air being pushed aside by the steel beast. Snow whipped up around him, swirling in the air, half-burying him in icy drifts.

What just happened?

He couldn’t believe it. His body still trembled as he stood up, turned around, and ran from the station before the police on the other side of the trains could resume the chase.

In the late twenties, there was a time when people thought everything might still turn out okay. The government even started building new city parks in the boroughs, like this one in Brooklyn near Luna Park, realizing that too much concrete made people depressed, and green spaces were needed to prevent burnout. But it all went horribly wrong. The Stranded had taken over the peaceful oases and created their own neighborhoods there. For a time, the news was full of stories about it (until the next big sensation took over). Even the owners of the planetarium, located at the park’s northwest end, had tried to drive the people away. But neither they nor the police had succeeded. The Stranded had built their own world there, with places to sleep, food, and "social amusements," which mostly boiled down to satisfying basic urges.

That had been the beginning of the New World, something Billy only remembered in fragments, like most of what had happened since his childhood. Today, the madness of those days had become normal, something many had grown up with. Major parks now meant housing for the masses of refugees, and no one expected to escape the busy world for a moment’s peace in nature. Even in these once green oases, survival was all that mattered.

New York’s largest slum, Brooklyn City Park, had once been a flourishing green space, a refuge for citizens up until the ‘30s. That was before the world had been ravaged by climate storms, a string of Middle Eastern wars, and a global drought that had kicked off the Great Catastrophe. Some scientists called it the beginning of a new mass extinction, one they said might surpass the biggest extinction event at the Permian-Triassic boundary. Others, less scientifically minded, simply called it the end of the world.

Where Billy now walked, though, people only talked about one thing: money. There was no sign left of the peaceful refuge that Brooklyn City Park had once been. The park had been abandoned. No gardeners or caretakers remained to tend to the plants or flowers. Around the park’s lake, thousands of makeshift tents made of wood, tarps, and plastic bags had sprung up, housing the Stranded. People were trying to farm fish in the cascades for food. The park had become a filthy jungle in the middle of a dull, gray world, a place where the homeless from all cultures lived in shacks, fighting over existence and guilt, struggling to survive after being cast out from somewhere else. Where they’d been born, there was no longer a world to call home, and where they’d arrived, there was no space for them, just another place of misery.

Garbage.

Garbage.

Garbage that Billy waded through like a shallow river. Once, flowers had bloomed here, but now, it was overgrown with the discarded remains of civilization, and the stench was unbearable.

He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes until he was supposed to meet Isaac, in a place even more dangerous than this. The greenhouses and Mediterranean terraces were the luxury spots in this slum, shaped by time and human misery. Powerful clans, who had fought their way to the top with violence and drugs, ruled here.

Billy had avoided this place his entire life. But now, as he stood here, he was surprised that no one was paying him any attention. Or more accurately: that no one was robbing him or attacking him. That they were letting him live.

Like giants from ancient Norse mythology, the TV tower to the north and its taller brother to the south loomed over the park, watching over the city and its people. The Thandros Tower stood far away in the middle of Manhattan, dwarfing every other building in New York. A gleaming white tower that seemed to stretch up to kiss the sky. Was there someone up there, right now, watching him? Tracking his every move? Once again, Billy asked himself if Thandros was mankind’s savior. Or its downfall.

Number X-3-19, Emilia, had been a researcher at TC. That much was clear now. But what had she been doing at the solar cell factory? And what secret research data had X-157 run off with?

Suddenly, Billy heard a woman scream hysterically behind him. He spun around instantly. About a dozen gang members had formed a circle around a cop who’d apparently followed Billy here. Was he suicidal? Brooklyn City Park was another no-go area for cops.

Whatever was about to happen, it held Billy’s attention, but his legs kept moving forward. He heard more shouting, this time from one of the gang members. The circle broke apart. The criminals scattered like animals fleeing a forest fire. That’s when Billy recognized the cop.

Why wasn’t he surprised?

It was Conrad Blake.

And he’d just taken a switchblade from one of his attackers.

Another gang member lunged at him, swinging a butterfly knife through the air. The blade glanced off Blake’s vest. Shadows in the dim light, dancing around each other, then clashing and retreating. The fresh snow crunched under their feet as they moved back and forth. The knife fight looked like a twisted, deadly dance. The gangster charged forward, slashing at Blake, who dodged just in time and grabbed the scrawny guy.

My God, Billy thought, he’s watching a cop get murdered.

The other criminals shouted, maybe cursing at the cop, maybe cheering on their fellow gang member.

But then a gunshot rang out from the darkness, a flash of light illuminated the slum for a split second, and everything went dead silent.

The silence was broken by a man’s high-pitched scream. A knife fell soundlessly into the snow. Curses in a foreign language. The gangster dropped face-first into the dirty snow, which quickly darkened with his blood. Immediately, another thug charged at Blake. He latched onto the cop’s back, wrapping his arms around his waist, trying to drag him down, but he’d forgotten that Blake’s arms were free. With a swift half-turn, Blake slammed his elbow into the attacker’s face. From where Billy stood, he could hear the jawbone crack. The thug went limp, knocked out cold. But just before his body hit the ground, Blake wrapped his arm around the man’s neck and, with a quick twist, snapped it.

In the horrified silence, Billy heard the sickening crunch of the man’s shattered spine.

That wasn’t a cop, Billy thought.

That was a killer.

In the blink of an eye, Conrad Blake had transformed from a tired, coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking street cop into a ruthless martial arts fighter.

Just one more reason to doubt reality.

But also one more reason for Billy to turn and run as fast as he could.