The Darkness. Matt Brennan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ lucky, it would kill them before they had the chance to spread. There’s no guarantee the bacteria wriggling in the wound had the bacteriophage, but I was taking no chances. Plus, I’d always been slightly allergic to the stuff, so I knew once I took it I’d be out like a light.

      And it worked, because my head barely hit the pillow before I was asleep.

      ***

      It’s weird how you remember the worst days of your life for ever and yet lose all the little details. Maybe it’s a survival instinct to dump the really difficult moments, or maybe our brains just don’t have the ability to store that much data—I don’t know. But all I really remember about the day I tore my suit was that it was a Tuesday. All the details of what happened after I got infected are so fuzzy I barely remember anything. For example, I have no idea how long I was unconscious—I mean it could’ve been a couple of minutes or several days. All I know is that when I did open my eyes I was completely plastered to the sheets and, oh yeah, my mouth was dry.

      No, not just dry, but totally devoid of all moisture.

      I remember that the crazy thing was, even in that cloudy state of mind, I still recognized that symptom for what it was. I’d seen it a thousand times. First came the fever and then came the thirst. Thirst so intense that I’d drink till my need was sated, which was the tragedy of it all. Because the need could never possibly be satisfied. I’d just keep drinking till I either drowned or started convulsing.

      Then—I’d be dead.

      There’s a certain level of calmness that takes over when you face your own mortality. My whole life I fought every day to stay alive, but when I was faced with the knowledge that my time was short, the end certain, I wasn’t scared or desperate. I was almost relieved. Life had always been so hard, so the idea that I’d finally get to rest was actually comforting.

      But even through the haze of sickness I knew I couldn’t just roll over and die. There was no way I was going into The Darkness like a wuss, I had to connect the uplink and talk to Ellie. I just couldn’t let the question burn in her mind forever about what happened to me.

      I owed her that. I owe everyone that.

      But in order to do that I had to warm up the server and I couldn’t do that from my bed. I remember I even toyed with the idea of stopping by the bathroom for a drink of water from the tap on my way. But luckily I snapped out of it. I couldn’t let myself drink. It just sped everything up, that was the last thing my mother learned before my father died.

       Water equals death.

      Of course, no water equaled death too, but I never would have had time to get the uplink connection ready if The Darkness progressed too quickly.

      I just needed a little more time, a precious commodity.

      Somehow I rolled out of bed. I don’t know how, all I know is I found myself on the floor and in pain. My bed was really far off the ground and I remember telling myself that in my next life I had to remember to make my bed lower. I dragged myself along the floor and every inch was like a dagger jabbing into my brain. At first, all I felt was the pain, but with each wiggle, the dizziness and nausea hit me like a hammer.

      I was too late. I knew by that stage that The Darkness had me.

      My last thought before I drifted into the abyss was of Ellie. How she’d never know for sure what happened to me. There were hundreds reasons to lose contact, after all. She might waste years hoping I was still alive, never letting herself consider the truth. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

      I was just dead.

      * * *

      But I hadn’t died just then. Instead, I’d woken up on the floor to the sound of my alarm clock ringing in my ears.

      My head was on fire. I grabbed the cord to my clock and ripped it out of the wall. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure where I was. The confusion must have started, another symptom of the fever.

      I didn’t have much time.

      I crawled towards my server and hit the emergency power button. I dragged the keyboard off my desk to the floor by the cord. When I heard the distinctive ping of my cursor appearing on the monitor above me, I typed my macro and hit enter. I knew I only had a few minutes to complete the uplink and get through to Ellie, but I didn’t have the strength to panic. I just lay my head on the cool floor and closed my eyes.

      My room is suddenly filled with light, as all eighteen screens switch on at once. I heard my CPU whir and buzz. I heard a few screens sync up. Probably New Zealand, those bastards always pop up first. They must have the most powerful antenna array on the planet—at least the biggest one that’s still online.

      Finally, I heard So Says I softly playing through my speakers. Ellie had started playing The Shins non-stop since we found an old archive of music files in the UNN mainframe. I remember I instantly wished I had an emergency monitor at floor level, so I could see her just one more time. I had been, however, clever enough to activate the text-to-speech software with my macro.

      I heard the distinctive sound of my monitor coming up and I knew the text session was active. I struggled to look at the keys on my keyboard, the letters kept going in and out of focus. Finally, I gave up trying to look at the keys and typed what I hoped was at least a version of English.

      DorianOne: Ellie, ru watching ur screen?

      Ellie4Ever: Of course.

      Last year, I programmed Ellie’s actual voice into the speech software and installed it on my machine for her birthday. She’s very shy and doesn’t like the sound of her own voice. So I had her read this passage from a book she had. I checked it out and knew it that had all the different sounds in the English language and had her record it. The program I wrote, took those sounds and matched them with the words she typed. That way I could hear her voice and she’d get to remain comfortably silent.

      DorianOne: Ellie, listen to me.

      Ellie4Ever: Always.

      DorianOne: Ellie, I know I’ve said this before, but this is really happening.

      Ellie4Ever: What is?

      DorianOne: Ellie, I’ve got it.

      Ellie4Ever: Dorian. Stop please.

      I wish I had programmed some emotion recognition algorithms into the program. Because I know she’s mad, but her voice sounded all carefree and happy.

      DorianOne: I wish I could.

      Ellie4Ever: Dorian, this isn’t funny you know. You’ve already done this to me twice.

      DorianOne: I know and I’m sorry.

      Ellie4Ever: Dorian, you told me you would never do this again.

      DorianOne: I know and I’m not doing it now. I really have it.

      Ellie4Ever: Where are you? If you’re sick, then let me see you.

      DorianOne: I’m on the floor Ellie. Look, I don’t have much time.

      Ellie4Ever: Well, how can I see you?

      DorianOne: СКАЧАТЬ