Free Rifters 2 - Maelstrom by Peter Watts

utterly silent, a plague of light with no soundtrack.
    This is a dream. A boring dream. Time to wake up.
    She opened her eyes. The dream didn't stop.
    There was a different world behind it, though, a high-contrast jigsaw of photoamplified light and shadow. Someone stood before her on the sand, but the face was eclipsed by this vision from her childhood. It floated in front of her, an impossible picture-in-picture. The present glimmered faintly through from behind.
    She closed her eyes. The present vanished. The past didn't.
    Go away. I'm done with you. Go away.
    Her father still held her wrist—at least, he held the wrist of the fragile creature whose eyes she was using—but she felt nothing. And now those eyes focused autonomously on the dangling thing in her father's other hand. Suddenly frightened, she snapped her own eyes back open before she could see what it was; but once again the image followed her into the real world.
    Here, before the destitute numberless hordes of the Strip, her father was holding out a gift for Lenie Clarke. Her first wristwatch.
    Please go away…
    "No," said a voice, very close by. "I am not."
    Amitav's voice. Lenie Clarke, transfixed, made a small animal noise.
    Her father was explaining the functions of her new toy. She couldn't hear what he was saying, but it didn't matter; she could see him voiceact'ing the little gadget, stepping through its Net Access functions (they'd called it the Net back then, she remembered), pointing out the tiny antennae that linked to the eyephones...
    She shook her head. The image didn't waver. Her father was pulling her forward, extending her arm, carefully looping the watch around her wrist.
    She knew it wasn't really a gift. It was a down payment. It was a token offered in exchange, some half-assed gesture that was supposed to make up for the things he'd done to her all those years ago, the things he was going to do right now , the things—
    Her father leaned forward and kissed some spot just above the eyes that Lenie Clarke couldn't shut. He patted the head that Lenie Clarke couldn't feel. And then, smiling—
    He left her alone.
    He moved back down the hall, out of the kitchen, leaving her to play.
    The vision dissipated. The Strip rushed in to fill the hole.
    Amitav glowered down at her. "You are mistaken," he said. "I am not your father."
    She scrambled to her feet. The ground was muddy and saturated, close to the waterline. Halogen light stretched in broken strips from the station up the beach. Bundled motionless bodies lay scattered on the upper reaches of that slope. None were nearby.
    It was a dream. Another— hallucination. Nothing real.
    "I am wondering what you are doing here," Amitav said quietly.
    Amitav's real. Focus. Deal with him.
    "You are not the only—person to have washed up afterward, of course," the refugee remarked. "They wash up even now. But you are much less dead than the others."
    You should've seen me before .
    "And it is odd that you would come to us like this. All of this was swept clean many days ago. An earthquake on the bottom of the ocean, yes? Far out to sea. And here you are, built for the deep ocean, and now you come ashore and eat as if you have not eaten for days." His smile was a predatory thing. "And you do not wish your people to know that you are here. You will tell me why."
    Clarke leaned forward. "Really. Or you'll do what, exactly?"
    "I will walk to the fence and tell them."
    "Start walking," Clarke said.
    Amitav stared at her, his anger almost palpable.
    "Go on," she prodded. "See if you can find a door, or a spare watch. Maybe they've left little suggestion boxes for you to pass notes into, hmm?"
    "You are quite wrong if you think I could not attract the attention of your people."
    "I don't think you really want to. You've got your own secrets."
    "I am a refugee. We cannot afford secrets."
    "Really. Why are you so skinny, Amitav?"
    His eyes widened.
    "Tapeworm? Eating disorder?" She stepped forward. "Cycler