The Eye 04.pdf

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John M. Perchalski

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William Wilson

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Penance

Mark Huete

Quincey Forder

J. Corwin

Andy Click

// EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // ED TION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION

From all of us,

thank you!

Issue four. It’s been a whole year hasn’t it?

If you have questions, comments, letters for us send

them to the_eye@irewall-darkcast.com and we’ll be

glad to answer in the next issue.

If you have been with us from issue one, then we

would like to say thank you. hank you for reading,

thank you for sharing, thank you for your time and

interest. We’ll keep it up in the next year.

We’ll see you in January!

Sarah E. Hood

If you’re new to the Eye and this is your irst issue,

then thank you for the blind leap into reading us.

Pick up the back issues, I promise it’s worth your

time. Welcome aboard!

P.S.—Big thanks goes to Sarah Hood for continuing

to be the backbone of the editorial staf. hank you

for helping me keep my head on straight!

his quarter’s issue features a scenario from Marc

Huete. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll

recognize his name as the author of Continuity ,

this year’s ENnie Gold winner for Best Electronic

Book. he scenario in this issue is a great

continuation of his work. Let us know how it goes

with your own group—we’re thinking of adding a

‘kill count’ to our scenarios.

Donnie

We also have a collection of articles focusing on

avians and other mercurials this time around.

If Panopticon’s expansion on uplits wasn’t

nearly enough for you then keep reading, we have

more for you.

Content Editors

Andy Click, Sarah E. Hood, Marc Huete,

Tad K., John Perchalski, William Wilson

Graphic Design

Donnie Clark

Extra credit for this issue goes to our editorial staf

for their hard work polishing all the articles in this

issue. You went above and beyond on the project.

And of course to Donnie Clark, our layout editor.

Your work remains spectacular.

Graphic Design

Donnie Clark

Site Programming

Sarah E. Hood (www.irewall-darkcast.com)

Site Programming

Sarah E. Hood (www.irewall-darkcast.com)

Artists

Cortnee Bryant (21), Saul Espinosa (3),

S.E. Hood (21, 22), Jesselee Lang (1),

Julia Lemmich (18), treebee (19), Mark

Winters (6)

his year has been a wonderful experiment and

we’ve learned a lot that we will be using in 2012.

(Assuming the world doesn’t end.) We have

scenarios in the works for the coming year and we are

always looking for more authors and artists

to join us.

Artists

Cortnee Bryant (21), Saul Espinosa (3),

S.E. Hood (21, 22), Jesselee Lang (1),

Julia Lemmich (18), treebee (19), Mark

Winters (6)

The Eye//An Eclipse Phase Fanzine

Content Editors

Andy Click, Sarah E. Hood, Marc Huete,

Tad K., John Perchalski, William Wilson

// EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // EDITORIAL // ED TION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION

Penance

by John M. Perchalski

Awareness stuttered into being as a brief scent of peanut butter followed by three primary colors, each

of which pulsed in countdown rhythms before fading to the stark, stock white of a simulspace loading

room: cubic, unbroken walls, silver-streaked and guardedly lo-rez. Clouded-Sunset-Skies-Unending

tried to access her Muse, failed, and attempted to pull up environment information for the immediate

simulspace. No system information. No synchronized clock or calendar available, only a timer since

most recent runspace instantiation. hree days, seventeen hours, forty-two minutes, nineteen seconds,

and did she wish to view the millisecond or microsecond counter?

In its own way, the absence of calendrical data

was a relief. She didn’t have to choose to believe or

disbelieve whatever date might have been given.

he neo-raven willed a slow, deliberate breath and

exhalation, deliberately stretched up onto taloned

toes and splayed her wings to ‘feel’ the feedback

from her virtual form. Arguably there was no ben-

eit to yoga in a simulspace, but the core of her self

took refuge in such exercise. he timer progressed.

he raven-ego pondered that. Lack of such

signs would have made her more nervous. More

skeptical of the other checks.

heir presence bordered on being dangerously

comforting. Staged.

A desk lared into being in front of her. Drew

itself into the ubiquitous bulk of Terran

pre-Fall corporate furnishing. Anachronistic and

afectatious. Skinned ever-so-carefully in glossy

low-idelity wood grain. he igure that

rezzed in a moment later facing Skies appeared

to be seated on the edge of the desk. Humanoid.

Modern charcoal-toned business suit. Lunar style

upturned, magnetically lared and pattern-pierced

collar. No face, but that was the expected direction

of the wind. he icon’s visage was a smooth blur of

of-white pixels with a matte-black question mark

in a lushly archaic font.

She shited.

Flowed in balance against a simulation of gravity.

Breathed air that existed only as an algorithm

of resistance.

Sought kaivalya —balance of the spirit—which

could not be simulated.

It eluded her.

“Let me answer the obvious questions irst.” Even

its voice was an open-source system default, Muse

seventeen: ‘the Butler. he igure lited one hand.

Ticked of gloved and pixelated ingers as it made

its points. “he timer you’ve accessed is accurate. It

is Monday, Cislunar standard time. Your body was

placed in carbon storage a little under four days ago.

You will be returned to it shortly and free—dare I

say, encouraged—to leave. We know that should

we hold you over long, someone, somewhere will

simply pull your most recent backup and slot it

into new lesh. For our own reasons, we’ve decided

to avoid that, because if we let that happen, you’ll

forget what occurred.

he icon-body that had been provided was

intimately familiar. Clouded-Sunset-Skies-Un-

ending was in her own customized icon, black

silhouette wings visible as she unfurled them,

exercising what passed for her somatic form in this

non-space. he personalized icon might be a good

sign.Abettersignwasthat,asfarasherwetwarecould

tell, the raven had her own memories. Or, an equal

possibility, whatever adjustments had been made to

her mind were deep and careful enough to avoid

showing as lawed or encrypted checksums in

herself . Even her internal irewall seemed to be intact,

although there were signs of attempted

intrusion into short-term memory.

www.irewall-darkcast.com

FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION //

“We don’t desire that. You have done qual-

ity work for us in the past. Four days ago

you were employed by someone else,

against us. But…that is the nature of do-

ing contract business. We are professionals,

and in the past you have acted as a

professional, so we are going to engage this

situation professionally. Am I going too fast

for you?”

Skies clacked her virtual beak irritably. “No.”

“Perhaps you would care to discuss your

perception of what took place on Friday, at

seven-nineteen P.M., Cislunar?”

Skies cocked her head to the side, stared at

the igure out of one eye, then the other. She

stretched again, relexively, then settled her

wings. “No.”

“Your prerogative, of course, so long as

we permit it. Do, please, look around. We

have you, body and mind. Soul, if you care

to believe in such things...Does a Hindu

Uplit believe in reincarnation? Yes? No?

No matter. We hold all of the cards. We

have, in fact, had a good, long look at a

forked download from your cyberbrain, a

copy of the one you’re currently experiencing in

this space. You don’t need to go through tiresome

explanations of how you won’t discuss your

employer, or any of that. You know better. So do

we. Having placed all of that unpleasantness in the

open, let us set it aside for now. It remains in

our interests that you understand clearly what

happened and why we are pursuing the action

which we are in regards to you.”

“Doctor Saha,” Skies had recognized him

immediately—recognized the crowd even—but

sotware helpfully highlighted a light blue rectangle

around the igure paused by the plaza’s small

holographic fountain as the icon’s voice droned

on. “...having let his apartment in the company

of his escorts, headed to level fourteen to meet his

mistress as he did most evenings. As he has been

irritable about our security arrangements since he

began seeing his mistress, our chaps were hanging

back. Here.” One walking igure in the crowd was took

on an aura of darker blue, then another. “And here.”

he human icon cocked its faceless head, perhaps

in subtle mockery of Skies’ own avian gesture. “We

were actually about to contact you in regards to

another job...quite unaware of your current employ-

ment. hat ofer will not be forthcoming, of course.”

It raised a hand and drew a rectangle in the air

in front of Skies, the rectangle illing with visual

static for a moment before becoming a surveillance

feed of the Plaza Trieste in Erato habitat. “So. Now,

particulars. Friday. Nineteen hours, twenty-

seven minutes.”

“Meanwhile, your team had apparently subverted

the systems of this robotic courier.” A yellow

triangle appeared around the small vehicle,

then two more igures strolling hand in hand by

the fountain were also highlighted. “And had this

innocent-looking couple waiting to bundle our man

into it while a decoy, dressed as the good Doctor,

prepared to exit the courier when that individual

The Eye//An Eclipse Phase Fanzine

FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION // FICTION //

walked behind it. We suppose he was to continue

onward as if nothing untoward had happened

before, presumably, vanishing around a corner.”

More yellow icons lit the moving image. “Medi-

cal team in this maintenance shat, here, which I

presume the courier was meant to drop the Doctor

down as it drove past, so that your people could go

to the unnecessary trouble of verifying that he had

no nasty surveillance or defensive nanites, corpo-

rate addictions, dead-switches, or other crude and

outrageous surprises that might reduce the

Doctor’s potential value to your employer ater you

kidnapped him.” he display froze. “Very similar to

the work you did for us last year, extracting Miles

Limcolioc. Not predictably so, but professionally

so. Coordinated. Concise. Tight.”

“ N o .”

“I beg your pardon. I dare say our relative positions

encourage neither trust nor politeness.” he virtual

scene fast-forwarded briely, sudden smokey blur

of the explosives, and then the clear pattern of

closing movement through the panicked crowd:

the raven’s extraction team attempting to get

to the Doctor before the assassins did. “But we

are quite aware that assassination is not your

metier. Pray continue.”

“he unknown hostiles were shooting. hey threw

something else. High-energy density, but it izzled

without apparent efect. he Doctor was down,

but alive. My two people were down. Perhaps nine

hostiles down. Various bystanders. Your security

began to wind up the Plaza. Six exits. One we were

fairly sure would not be covered.”

“hank you.”

A lurry of red icons appeared in the crowd as

the video started forward again, now abetted by

multiple additional windows which showed views

from other quality surveillance sources in the Pla-

za. “You’d pegged our security previous evenings,

clearly. But these fellows, these were new. hey

hadn’t been there previously and they converged

in a fashion that seemed entirely natural to crowd

prediction sotware. You didn’t see them coming.”

“Yes. he maintenance shat had been omitted

from the most recent thirty years of blueprints ater

being sealed due to non-use. An easily rectiied

oversight. You entered the scene personally.”

“Yes. From the fourth-loor overlook. hat was

not planned.”

he corporate icon nodded. “No, nor in keeping

with the tempo or the intention of your past

operations with which we are familiar.”

“No.” Skies clacked her bill again, glared irritably at

the virtual monitors, then craned her head to look

past them at the faceless icon. “Is it necessary to

proceed through my failure frame by frame?”

“It seemed necessary. he second bomb detonated

right before I landed by the target. It blew me

almost back into the forecourt of the rental center.

I lew back to the target immediately. He had lost

considerable blood, most of one leg. here were

more hostiles closing in.”

“Would you prefer to summarize, then?”

Skies swung around briely, studying the various

surveillance camera outputs. “My team was

perfectly placed. Everything was ready. hen those

monkeys threw a bomb at him.”

“Yes.”

“Which exploded before it reached him.”

“I threw a grenade towards them.”

“Correct. Someone else isolated and exploited

the same weakness which we did in your mobile

security perimeter. But they didn’t want him alive.”

“Indeed you did. Accurately, too. hermobaric.

Very nasty. Very indiscriminate. And the Doctor

was dying.” he icon rested its virtual palms lat on

the image of the desk behind it.

“And you did, Miss…is it appropriate to call you

Miss Skies?”

“It was the tool in beak at the time. he Doctor was

dying. Your security almost had the Plaza sealed

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