Scary Holiday Tales to Make You Scream by Various Page A
Authors: Various
Tags: Suspense & Thrillers
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ever felt, more isolated than I could imagine ever being in this or any other life.
Cold and alone.
The bad news is, that without my neural log functioning, no one will be able to find me down here. The good news is, that with out my neural log functioning, no one will be able to find me down here.--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-35-
--I try again to climb the slick, sheer walls of the Refuservoir, but the chemical slime burns my fingers and seeps under my nails and I can't get a grip. I only get so far before the slope becomes too steep and I slide back down into the muck.
Even if one of the eyes of god (placed on every street corner, always watching, recording, reporting) had seen me fall, they wouldn't know who I was, or where I had landed-not with my neural net broken. I can hide and they can't find me.
I know this is true-I am alone and lost, unfindable and free, out of sight and out of mind…--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-50-
--But as the neural net goes quiet and the voices fall silent, the paranoia settles in. The eyes of god, on every corner of every street on every level, look always downward on us. And even though I know that they can't see down this far, don't look in this direction, and don't care about the vermin down in the Bath, I can imagine their metal necks twisting and turning, creaking and groaning, stretching to peer over the lip of the Refuservoir-blinking, scanning, scoping, searching-hunting for me.
In the deafening silence of my broken neural implant I can still hear the echoes of the man who pushed me, the geek who'd made me fall.
"You's a gonna be down there awhile!" he'd called after me as I accelerated down the steepening slope. "See how the other half lives…!" Damn Dexter! Damn him to-well, damn him to the lowest rings!-Damn him to the Pit, the Bath…
Damn him to the Refuservoir.--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-87-
--I'd made an error in checking and rechecking my lists. A typo, a slip of the finger, a hiccough of the eye, a lapse of the mind. An 8 instead of a 3 while punching my data, crunching my numbers. Repetition is god's own grace and Knowledge is a gift, the Net scholars tell me, voices in the neural foam, whispering in my brain's ear. And Fatigue is the devil's breath, a ticket south. I'd made a mistake and I deserved my demotion, those inarguable voices decreed.
Demoted to next level down. In life one can only go down, never up. Only in death, in the next life, might a soul ascend, and then never more than a level.
These are the rules.--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-98-
--The pinheads are one of those things that everyone knows about and no one talks about-not in public, not in private, never mentioned on the neural news-but everyone pays to the Pinhead Prevention Fund, listed in fine-print with the multitudes of other taxes and required donations deducted from every citizen's pay.
Few but me have ever even seen one, or would've known what one even was. I was just lucky, I guess. I'd seen Dexter from time to time-sleeping in an alley, or begging on a corner. Always carefully positioned just out of sight of the eyes of god. Knowledge is a gift, they say, but no one wants to see that.--
***
Neural Log: 23:64-56-
--Dexter was a pinhead. He was taller than me, and broader of shoulder-despite his tendency to slouch and skulk. And he was also one of the most intelligent people I've ever known-despite the fact that his pointed head was not much larger than a soda can. Yes, he was one of the smartest, sneakiest, and most cunning men I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Full of wisdom, he was, full of knowledge. Always pushing advice, dispensing anecdotal tidbits between begging for credits and scraps of food.
"Crack City, as the historian's tell it, wasn't named for the fact that it was constructed within the walls of a gigantic, volcanic fissure in the Earth-one of many such fissures scarring the surface of what's left of our once blue (if you believe the historians) rock of a planet,"
Cold and alone.
The bad news is, that without my neural log functioning, no one will be able to find me down here. The good news is, that with out my neural log functioning, no one will be able to find me down here.--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-35-
--I try again to climb the slick, sheer walls of the Refuservoir, but the chemical slime burns my fingers and seeps under my nails and I can't get a grip. I only get so far before the slope becomes too steep and I slide back down into the muck.
Even if one of the eyes of god (placed on every street corner, always watching, recording, reporting) had seen me fall, they wouldn't know who I was, or where I had landed-not with my neural net broken. I can hide and they can't find me.
I know this is true-I am alone and lost, unfindable and free, out of sight and out of mind…--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-50-
--But as the neural net goes quiet and the voices fall silent, the paranoia settles in. The eyes of god, on every corner of every street on every level, look always downward on us. And even though I know that they can't see down this far, don't look in this direction, and don't care about the vermin down in the Bath, I can imagine their metal necks twisting and turning, creaking and groaning, stretching to peer over the lip of the Refuservoir-blinking, scanning, scoping, searching-hunting for me.
In the deafening silence of my broken neural implant I can still hear the echoes of the man who pushed me, the geek who'd made me fall.
"You's a gonna be down there awhile!" he'd called after me as I accelerated down the steepening slope. "See how the other half lives…!" Damn Dexter! Damn him to-well, damn him to the lowest rings!-Damn him to the Pit, the Bath…
Damn him to the Refuservoir.--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-87-
--I'd made an error in checking and rechecking my lists. A typo, a slip of the finger, a hiccough of the eye, a lapse of the mind. An 8 instead of a 3 while punching my data, crunching my numbers. Repetition is god's own grace and Knowledge is a gift, the Net scholars tell me, voices in the neural foam, whispering in my brain's ear. And Fatigue is the devil's breath, a ticket south. I'd made a mistake and I deserved my demotion, those inarguable voices decreed.
Demoted to next level down. In life one can only go down, never up. Only in death, in the next life, might a soul ascend, and then never more than a level.
These are the rules.--
***
Neural Log: 23:63-98-
--The pinheads are one of those things that everyone knows about and no one talks about-not in public, not in private, never mentioned on the neural news-but everyone pays to the Pinhead Prevention Fund, listed in fine-print with the multitudes of other taxes and required donations deducted from every citizen's pay.
Few but me have ever even seen one, or would've known what one even was. I was just lucky, I guess. I'd seen Dexter from time to time-sleeping in an alley, or begging on a corner. Always carefully positioned just out of sight of the eyes of god. Knowledge is a gift, they say, but no one wants to see that.--
***
Neural Log: 23:64-56-
--Dexter was a pinhead. He was taller than me, and broader of shoulder-despite his tendency to slouch and skulk. And he was also one of the most intelligent people I've ever known-despite the fact that his pointed head was not much larger than a soda can. Yes, he was one of the smartest, sneakiest, and most cunning men I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Full of wisdom, he was, full of knowledge. Always pushing advice, dispensing anecdotal tidbits between begging for credits and scraps of food.
"Crack City, as the historian's tell it, wasn't named for the fact that it was constructed within the walls of a gigantic, volcanic fissure in the Earth-one of many such fissures scarring the surface of what's left of our once blue (if you believe the historians) rock of a planet,"
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