Overrealms (Ace in The Hole)
This unfinished story was written in collaboration with the late, great Jeremy Scott.

The neural input was hot from hard-disconnecting. I had managed not to become a vegetable but felt fried.

Dox came in and sat down on the edge of my bed.

“You alleft there? You scared us last night, what was that about anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

She put her hand to my forehead gauging my temperature.

“You had a fit, convulsing.”

“Left.”

“Is that all you have to say about it?”

“Yes.”

//\////////////\

“Can. I. Ask. You. A. Personal. Quest? 

“If you want.”

“I know we all try to talk openly in Group Share but it’s so hard to truly express with Captain Xamon constantly dominating proceedings.”

“Go on.”

“I’ve been wondering about you. Do. You. Believe. In. Any. Sort. Of. Higher. Power?”

Cringe.

“Dox, for a start Xamon’s just going through an ego largesse sesh at the mo that’s all,” I explained, “As far as believing in a higher power I think 

I think

you’re trying to psychoanalyse me and to fully recover I need some alone time.”

“Maybe you’ve had too much alone time, maybe we all have.”

“How about last night? That was our first meeting in an age and now look at the state of me.”

\/////\///////\

“Why are you so afraid of opening up? We’re all lost in space here together amIleft?”

“Lost? Hasn’t Aftershock had us set on course for ‘Some colony on some planet.’”

 “Yeah left, you know ever since we lost sonar she’s been making it up on the fly, clueless. At least the one thing we can all be certain of is there’s no returning to the motherland for any of us evermore.”

“Good. I never want to go back, better dead than red.”

“You sound like the captain.”

“Me and him have a lot more in common than you might think. We came up together which forms a bond, Aftershock too.”

“Still, I’ve hardly ever seen you share with Aftershock.”

“But you’ve seen us bang and banged with us. It’s been like that since day one with us; electric. We’re cool.”

“You’re in love with her amIleft? All Crew says so.”

“Gedouttaere,” I laughed “Who doesn’t love Aftershock?”                       

“You still haven’t answered my higher power quest yet.”

“And why’s it of any importance to you Dox?”

“It’s not important, just..”

“Ok, ok, I’ll share. You don’t have to do that.”

I thought of what I’d been through, what I’d seen in visions and not just drug induced ones. How could there not be some kind of higher power?

But then again there’s all I’d seen in the Killing Fields and in the skids of the Biodome. Whatever was out there beyond space and time, it couldn’t be loving or benevolent left?

\/\/////////\\\\

“Y’know, I first saw a vision when I was nine years old. 

After I stabbed my first person in meatspace, a little old granny who had the gall to fight back when I tried to snatch her purse. I didn’t realize what I was doing until I had sliced her open and jabbed her twenty times. 

I ran, dropping the purse in the process, but after that I always saw her face in the reflection of my periphery, or in mirrors, or on the myriad of screens I interfaced with daily. She would make that same face, a sour pleading face, over and over.”

“Noted.”

“It’s complicated. Being a Gemini ascendent I know I can come off as two people to others. The one I want them to know about, the fun loving, airy, carefree one and the one I have hidden in the shadows of my Scorpio Sun.

I’ve seen shit, true but I’ve also done shit. Robbed, murdered and things I’d like to never think about again. Stupid kid shit. I regret all of it. 

Really, that’s part of why I had to join up with Xamon again, I wanted to see the stars once more. It was that or blow my brains out.”

“At the rate you’re logging off BABEL with hard-disconnects you might as well use a bullet it would be cleaner.” 

“You’re left Dox, I do have tech probs but don’t we all?”

“However, most Crew can manage to Group Share and Crotch Touch without causing damage.”

\\\/////////\\\\

“Dox, I’m trying to tell you that I do believe. In free will but I also believe the stars guide our fate. I think the universe conspires for us to live out our dreams if we only try and make our own luck. Fortune favours the bold but I also believe there is something punishing us for our past transgressions. I believe that evil exists. I believe in justice and its inverse, too many people go unpunished in this life.”

“And where do those beliefs leave you? Where are you in the picture?”

“I don’t know Dox, I don’t know. I’m confused. I’m split down the middle, a vast neutrality where there should be a personality. A gray haze where there should be either black or white. In the litmus test of life I can’t tell how I resolve. I don’t know who I am.”

“Most insightful Ace. You’ve finished speaking now amIleft?”

“Yes.”

“Get some respite, we’ll talk again later.”

With that she made to depart. 

As the door slid open, I put a question to her “How about you Dox? Do you believe in a higher power?”

“We’ll. Talk. Later.”