Read Online A Dirge for the Temporal by Darren Speegle - Free Book Online

upon artificial intelligence.”
      Shelley let his eyes drift around the compartment. How strangely attentive was this random car on the Lakeland-Orlando Tubeway.
      Ian went on, “The Matrix was approached by a union of independent intelligences—by ‘independent’ I refer to those intelligences which are well armed with human brain cells and do not have to rely on programs. These intelligences extolled the virtues of experimentation. Little did we know where those experiments would lead…”
      He produced the dropper that Shelley had taken a shower beneath. As he held it over his eye, everyone else within the car followed suit.
      “Little did we know,” Ian repeated, blinking.
      Shelley looked from face to face, eye to eye, realizing that the ratio was far more fantastic than he had figured. Psycho, it seemed, would fuck up more than human minds.
      It was beginning to look like those labs and warehouses were obtainable after all.
      Turning to the Ethereal model, all the more beautiful for her glistening, Psycho-awakened eye, Shelley asked her if that terminal was still available.

Illusions of Amber
    M y first thought, as I opened the motel room door to find the stranger standing there, was that Death had wandered into the rural, nickel-sized town of Amber, Indiana, seeking to fill his quota. Why he found it necessary to look farther than the gangsters and drug pushers in the big city was a question which hadn’t time to formulate before he was extending a well-manicured hand and introducing himself to me.
      “I apologize for the intrusion, sir. My name is Pike. Doctor Edward Pike.”
      I looked from his sober bearded countenance to his dark, official-looking suit, simply adorned at the cuffs and absent of the merest wrinkle, and I had to wonder when they started bestowing the prestigious title of “Doctor” on morticians. He certainly wasn’t a medical doctor. Not from this county. He wore no bow tie.
      “What kind of doctor?” I asked, purposely withholding my name. I sounded to my own ears as stiff as he looked.
      “A surgeon, sir. But that is neither here nor there. I call on you not in a professional capacity but as an agent of the townspeople of Amber, who wish you to participate in an affair this evening.”
      “You do not know me, Doctor—Pike, is it? You do not know me, and the townspeople of Amber do not know me. I am passing through.”
      “I know that you occupy Room One at this motel, as almost all who stay here do. I know that you are from elsewhere. I need to know no more.”
      I let my opinion of this insufficient explanation wear nakedly across my face (as if I actually needed to demonstrate to him just how strange I thought the whole situation). My interest, however, was piqued.
  “What sort of affair?”
      “You know, sort of a country affair.”
      “No sir, I do not know.”
      “A little thing in town with balloons and children and games.”
      Of course. Children, balloons, games and me . I shifted back into first gear. “Let me ask you something, Doc. What is a surgeon doing in humble Amber, Indiana?”
      “Amber is my summer home. I am a prominent and, if it pleases you, well-to-do member of the medical community, and find myself with the luxury of being able to spend the warm months in this little town where I was born. But again, my capacity today—”
      “What happens to the show?” I interrupted.
      “The show?”
      “Surgery. You just up and leave it. What happens to it?”
      “I should hardly think that is any of your concern, sir.”
      “It wasn’t I who came calling on you.”
      He ignored this with an unapologetic deftness which I found easy to admire. “As I was saying, my capacity today is that of town spokesman. The festivities begin in less than an hour and we would dearly like to have you as a participant.”
      I gave him a long once-over then. But I already knew my answer. I had been wondering how I would