DP/UF - Inception - [FanFic]
Benjamin D. Hutchins
presents
INCEPTION
an Exile story
Benjamin D. Hutchins
(c) 1993 Eyrie Productions
27 JANUARY 2336 TSC
NEW GOTHAM, KANE'S WORLD
A man stumbled down a snow-filled alley in New Gotham. He was
a sight, his feet bare, dressed only in a grimy set of sweatpants and
a torn flannel shirt. A livid bruise marked the right cheek of his
unshaven face, and his long brown hair was disordered and filthy. He
was clutching the handle of a small beige case in his left hand, and
muttered incoherently in Standard as he wobbled down the alley. He
looked drunk.
He wasn't.
The man looked over his shoulder, and his glazed blue eyes
widened in panic as he saw someone following him. He quickened his
pace, rebounding off a fire escape and trying unsuccessfully to curse.
There was no one behind him.
Rounding the alley corner into the back street behind the
buildings, he looked around unsteadily and desperately for somewhere
to hide. His eyes lit on a large metal enclosure standing in the
corner, its blanket of snow already disturbed by a removal truck. A
dumpster!
He made for it, wrenched the top open (slashing the palm of
his hand on the sharp edge of the metal lid as he did so), threw in
the beige object, and crawled in after it, falling headfirst into the
empty metal container. The top clanged shut behind him, plunging him
into darkness.
He sat in the darkness, breathing so hard he thought the whole
world could hear him, and tried to concentrate, organize his raging
mind. [Focus, damn you! You've been through worse. Try to remember
how you got this way!]
He had come here for something. Couldn't remember what. Men,
in a street. Guns. A fight. Searing pain--he'd been shot. His hand
went to the place on his side that twinged with phantom pain at the
memory, but there was no wound, no scar. A needle. And this endless
swimming sea of colors and lights and hallucinations.
[Bonding drugs.]
They'd shot him up with drugs that bonded to his systems,
virulent, nasty bastards that were designed to work and last on people
with his kind of chemical resistance. They had to be. He was a
Detian.
They had planned to keep him inert with the drugs until
someone -- not important -- could come and get him. Something about a
reward? Or something. Anyway, apparently he was important. If he
could just stop the shouting in his head... [THINK, DAMN YOU!]
They hadn't counted on his force of will. He'd come to,
almost . Taken their guard by surprise. Killed him, he thought --
the man's neck had gone with a wet splintering that made him think of
tearing the drumstick off a chicken. Strange how that one sound stood
out like a beacon amid the jumble of memory and madness that filled
his mind, threatened to make him go over the Edge, like the maddening
sensation of an arm that has fallen asleep as you wait and wait and
wait for it to come back to you-- [THINK!!]
He'd grabbed something. Could it help him? Goddess! Where
was it? Wherewherewhere? They were right behind him, had he
dropped--no, there it was. He opened it with fumbling fingers, in the
dark. It was a computer, a Kiroshama V1000 lapframe, one of the most
powerful portable CPUs around.
Cables. Cables. Compartment on the ... back? Kiroshama?
Left side. Click, clatter. Red in red rim, white in white rim.
Click, click. The keys light up when you jack right. How pretty.
[CONCENTRATE!] What was it he could do with the computer? He
couldn't remember.
He hit the green switch anyway, and the blank unreality of the
dumpster sizzled into the blank (but less smelly) unreality of the
Kiroshama's small innerspace.
What was he doing?
His subconscious knew. Before him, a file cabinet appeared.
Wetdrive. He hadn't remembered that he had a wetdrive. The top
drawer opened. It was the kind of file cabinet Feynman had written
about cracking when he worked for the Manhattan Project. [FOCUS!] He
fumbled in the files. What the hells was he looking for?
Here it was.
A manila folder, its label tab marked with a single word in
bold black marker: CLULESS.
He opened the folder. It sprang up around him and engulfed
him, and he was inside another innerspace -- the Editor.
The transition shocked him out of his focus. What was he
doing? He couldn't remember. Where was he? Who was he? Oh well,
he'd forgotten that long ago anyway, before he'd started running from
them.
Goddess! He'd forgotten about Them! They were right behind
him. Surely they'd look in the dumpster soon. He was a dead man.
Where were his friends? Where were they, they could save him! Hadn't
he sent the distress signal? Where was Reika?
Where was Vision?
Right there, next to him. He felt immediately better.
Inception.
Awareness.
The shock of birth.
It swept over and through her, and then she was Alive and
standing in the innerspace, looking at this disheveled man next to
her. She felt a surge of love for him, and didn't know quite why.
Nor did she care; if she loved him, there had to be a good reason for
it. He looked terrible.
He turned toward her, stretched out his hands. "Help me," he
whispered, his eyes glazed and wild.
"Sleep," she replied, and reached through the link connecting
him to her innerspace, found his cortex, and shut him down. Now his
body could get on with the job of repairing itself. Who had done this
to him?
Search his memory. There they were. Track. Trace. His
subconscious remembered where he had been, even if his conscious
didn't. A modem? Yes, there it was. Excellent. Open communication
to local network. Track. Find. Global defense network? Excellent.
Nearest defense satellite. Good, good. Target. Retarget. Override
shutdown signal from an alarmed ground control.
Firing-test error.
Across town, a warehouse marked "FOREMAN MACHINE TOOLS" burned
to the ground in a quarter second, ashed by a bolt from an orbiting
Sol-]I[ defense satellite purchased by the planetary government from
GENOM Defense R&D (a division of GENOM Interstellar, GmbH).
Emergency services. No. Citizenship database. Open file.
File photo? Use his subconscious self-image. Touch it up a little
for reality's sake. Name? Seek. Pattern. A small smile came to her
face as she made him Wayne, Bruce Gordon. Dates, times, blah, blah,
blah. Now emergency services. Victim of random drugging, possible
kidnap attempt. He was a leading citizen, after all. Quite wealthy.
Location, dumpster. Call initiated from lapframe computer, personal
property, registered number blah blah blah blah. This was simple
stuff.
An ambulance would arrive within five minutes.
"You're safe now," she said to her unconscious creator. "I'll
keep you safe forever."
Outside, snow began to fall.
/* Def Leppard "Two Steps Behind (Acoustic Version)" _Retro Active_ */
This story was written from 17:30 to 18:05 EST, Thursday 2 December
1993, on the console of bombur.umcs.maine.edu, 120 Neville Hall,
University of Maine, Orono, ME.
With special thanks to Eris, and the Muse named Eristia who she made
for me.