It's agony, the pain. Flashes of white followed by old, familiar things. The willow in Dad's atrium garden. John John zipping by on his hoverboard. Childrens' laughter at a wrong answer in class. A summer camp on Luna, Earth hanging just beyond the dome. That disciplinary camp a few years later and that night with Pedrag. Academic acceleration programs, aptitude exams, applications, enrollment, graduation speech. "Rah rah Halcyon," Karla mumbles, falling onto plush carpet in the sunken living room. Everything that can light up is pulsing in sync. Red, then darkness, then red again. She denies her health protocol as it calls a medical evac team in an endless loop. No use. She's going to die but not just yet. More pain and another flash. Recognizing faces in the crowd from the keynote stage. Her new office at Polk Starlight. Her first big loss to the business. Clawing her way back up and into leadership. The audacious "Mission 2634" and its success. The approval for the merger. "Look at me now, Dad." She chuckles at the ceiling, laying on her back in the study after half-crawling, half-dragging her way across the first floor. "Prep final backup." There's a swoosh and thunk as a slab of metal slides out of the wall across the doorframe. The same happens for the windows. For a couple seconds bolts around the small room make a melody out of ultra high end security. Using the last of her strength, she hauls herself up into the office chair. She sees her face when the holo lights up and sighs. Her brain crackles as breath rushes out of her mouth. "Irregular brain pattern detected. Backup unavailable. Last backup was twenty one hours and four minutes ago," a pleasant, even voice calls back. The pain hits again, everything goes white. She's in the back seat as her driver swerves off the road. Her hands shoot up as the front crumples and everything moves toward the windshield. Pain. Flash. Someone bumps into her as she watches the bartender make the drinks she ordered. She glares at their back, only noticing the scalpel when she realizes everyone is looking at her instead. A moment later she's convulsing on the floor, choking on saliva and vomit. Pain. Flash. Rope burn in a dark room... somewhere. They learned not to kill her so they do the next worst thing—exquisite, artisanal pain. For days or weeks. For however long it takes until she discovers the loose brick she caves her skull in with. Pain. Flash. Her eyes snap open and she sees green. Pain. Flash. She wakes up, weightless in liquid. Pain. Flash. Her foot kicks the tank wall as her body comes to life. "How many times did you all blow it?" Karla reaches out and taps the autopen on her desk. It flips and finds its place over the tablet it was next to.
To think of this letter being read sickens her, but she writes it anyway, because whatever happens next, this is the end. Because it is the end, she cannot resist the urge to make this deadly thing beautiful."I woke up seven years ago." She sneers at her face on the holo as the autopen slides across the tablet's surface. She thinks about the deaths, how varied they were, and then about the moment after. Every time she woke up was the same. The precision of systems and machinery doing a job for a version of her that no longer exists. "Seven. Years. Karla Six, how long did you live again? Two years? Three, if I round up? How quaint. And what did you achieve in all that time?" She pauses and the pen hovers, waiting. "We were nothing before I stepped out of that tank and took the reins. Careless, sloppy, all of you! Throwing our lives away! Anuman-Polk exists because of me! Not any of you, me!" Her brain is sheering in her skull so she winces and takes a moment to catch her breath. Another film strip of memories cycle while her eyes are closed. She remembers them all but they don't all feel like hers. "I'm the one who got it." When her voice returns, it's a condescending sing song tease. "Me. The best of us. Me! Yet I earn the same fate—redeeming you failures just to set the next one of you up. You won't be the second coming of me, Nine." Karla's head lolls back and only the whites of her eyes are visible. She laughs, or wheezes, or both. "Oh, but you will be lucky." She smiles and her deviousness blankets her in warmth one last time. "You will find those records we have been looking so hard for. Of course Anuman kept them. Buried deep, but I found them. I give that to you; it's in my... your head. Encrypted now, though, so good luck. Crack it open. Prove you're better than me—that you're the best of us. And if you can't do that, just fucking kill yourself and let the next Karla have a go at it. You all seem to be good at that." An hour later, a woman jerks awake in a tank filled with some kind of experimental biochem. She takes her first breath and the tiny bubbles tickle her nostrils as she drowns in the oxygenated liquid. When the evolutionary panic subsides her ocular activates and a series of digital windows fill her field of view, reminding her who she is—medical files, travel logs, financial accounts, assets, contacts. And a note. From herself. She reviews it all and, like every Karla who's received a note, saves it for last. Not every Karla gets the chance to pass a note along. This one takes it as a good omen and considers herself lucky until she starts reading the words.