This Automatic Eden

by Jim Keen

  Alice’s new and old skin itched as sweat ran down her back.

  “You going to cause trouble?” he said.

  “I promise to be super good if you just let me pee.”

  He didn’t smile as he drew his gun.

  “All right, no need to be such a dick about it.” She stood, and the guard cuffed her in silence, then led her to a bathroom. After that, she followed him along gray corridors to a room marked conference a.

  It was a large white box with a glassed-in meeting area facing a row of wall-mounted plastic chairs. Two senior-looking FBI types sat inside looking at a picture of Alice on a thin screen. It was her NYPD Academy photograph; she looked healthy, excited, and unbearably innocent.

  “Wait here,” the guard said.

  She tried to read what was transpiring in the meeting. The image on screen changed to show her in hospital after the Five Points torture. She was unconscious in the photograph, left arm above the blanket, hand a charred stump.

  Next was a picture of Conner, his goofy, lopsided grin incongruous in such a setting, face lit with soft sunlight coming through a distant window. She’d taken that image one morning when they were both drunk and happy, coming down from a night free of responsibilities.

  More images, charts and tactical diagrams. They were going through her field reports, Alice realized, reviewing her work. Next up was Paul, her brother, in his jail overalls. His eyes stared at her from the screen, then too quickly he was gone, replaced by more reports. Photographs of Julia, Charles Takamatsu, Mark Rothmore, and the murdered FBI Director Barragan passed by.

  She had no way to tell how much time had passed as the men discussed her fate. She drifted into light sleep, then heavy. The men packed their gear and exited the meeting room. An agent—tall, young, eager—entered the room and stood before her.

  “You’re history,” he said with a smile full of sharp white teeth.

  35

  The jerk with the sharp teeth undid her cuffs, stepped back, and pulled a long, evil-looking stun baton from his suit. “Do anything stupid and I will hurt you. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “After you.” He beckoned her to the door.

  She exited into the dull gray corridor.

  “Where you taking me?”

  “Fuck off,” he said.

  “Hey, I’ve got rights, you know.”

  “Haven’t you heard? No one has rights anymore. So, to make it clear, you talk again and I’m going to take a kneecap off. Understand?”

  She sighed, nodded, and he guided her through another door. She didn’t know what to expect but had assumed a cell or interrogation space. Instead, a warehouse stretched in front of her, hundreds of desks and countless employees. They stopped what they were doing and turned to her.

  When Alice had been a runner, her gang set her up in a contract job at one of Manhattan’s largest architectural firms. The plan was to hack their ancient IT systems and steal the bank account details. From the outside, the firm looked like a cool place to work; on the inside, it was rotten and corroded. The company loved slogans; they were trying to convince themselves they were special. Mottos such as “The Strength of Innovation” or “Great by Choice” covered the walls. It took a while, but Alice got it in the end—real design firms didn’t need slogans, they just got on with the job. That office had been awful—dull, cowardly people churning out dull, cowardly designs.

  This floor reminded her of that place, suppression of individuality hidden behind corporate attire and campaign posters. Every desk was the same: a sterile white bench with a phone dock, cheap screen, and keyboard. She saw no photographs of families, pets, or vacations. Everyone looked the same in their little black suits: tanned and inhuman, plastic Barbie dolls, not real people.

  Being in this space made her head hurt. She was pushed forward, past more desks, people studying screens or enveloped inside VR rigs. She recognized a few images—members of Congress—but others were new. Train interiors overflowing with people; carriages full of bodies grimly hanging onto thin straps. Others showed a vast geometric city covered with barbed wire and watchtowers.

  “Walk to the end, then down the stairs. Move.”

  The agent shoved Alice in the back, and she stumbled, almost fell. If she was going to escape, she needed to catch this guy off guard. An interconnecting stair led to another floor lined with glass-walled meeting rooms. At the far end, a locked door opened into a tight space filled with holding cells: metal bars in front of concrete boxes. It was empty, all prisoners shipped out. To one side, a cheap plastic table held an entry logger and old monitor. She slowed, let herself be pushed again, then staggered forward out of arms reach.

  “Dude, no wonder you’re dry humping pillows with manners like that,” she said.

  “Fuck you say to me?” The agent stepped in close and spun her around, baton raised over his head.

  “Sorry about this,” Alice said as she grabbed the lapels of his suit and head-butted him. His nose broke with a brittle crunch; he howled as she shoved him back and ducked. The baton whistled over her head. She stepped in and kicked him hard in the stomach—he dropped the baton and staggered backward to crash into the table, knocking the screen to the ground. He gave a blooded grunt and rushed her, head down like a bull, to hit her stomach. Alice expelled an oomph as he knocked her to the floor, the man on top, heavy hands finding her throat.

  Alice saw the USMC tattoo on his wrist; he was an ex-Marine and fought like it. Alice didn’t try to break the grip—the agent was larger and stronger than she was—instead, she braced her feet against the floor and pushed upward. Vision graying with each pulse, she lifted herself and dropped to the right, twisting as she fell. Like a chair that had a leg smashed away, they toppled over, and Alice rolled on top of him. The agent raised his elbows and drove them into Alice’s stomach. Winded, she pushed away, then stood, unsteady.

  They were making too much noise, but this side of the office was empty; had anyone heard? No time, the agent rushed her in a combat crouch which Alice sidestepped. They faced each other again, breathing ragged, blood covering their faces. This time Alice went first, a left feint, a right uppercut that caught the agent’s chin with precision. He collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

  Alice sagged, hands on knees, and fought for breath, dizzy with the exertion.

  No time.

  She needed an ID card to get out. She checked the agent’s pockets but couldn’t find his card. Where? Panic gnawed at her, and she stood still for a moment, eyes closed, fighting for calm. If the jacket didn’t have his ID, where would it be? She searched his pants, and there it was, clipped to the belt. She rolled him out of his jacket and pulled it on; it hung like a sack from her thin frame—no choice, she had to hope it looked believable from a distance. She picked up the screen and used its blank display as a mirror of sorts to wipe blood from her face. Her hair was a mess but, hey, nothing new about that.

  Alice cracked the door an inch and looked out; the floor was quiet, only the hiss of the air-conditioning system breaking the silence. No one was here, the conference rooms empty. She rolled the agent into a recovery position, checked his pulse, and left the room.

  She walked slow and calm, fast movement would attract the eye, and tried to control her breathing. Every nerve screamed at her to get out, her body jacked on a wave of adrenaline.

  Back along the office space, looking for an exit, room empty in both directions. A glass wall opened to the elevator banks—three agents, their backs to her. No go, back along the office, moving quicker, unable to control herself any longer. Every door locked, handles cold and hard under her skin. She started to hurry, waiting for alarms to ring out and box her in.

  Her heart thudded. Her skin itched. Her hands clenched. She passed a small kitchen, and the smell of coffee and pastries filled the air, but people were silent, heads down, grab and go. The next row of meeting rooms was empty. She was running out of space and time. Head bowed, she walked to the far
end of the room and saw an escape stair, waved the ID tag at the lock, and stepped through. It was dark and cool inside, the stairs nothing more than a cast concrete tube with emergency lighting and cheap handrails. She stood at the edge and looked down.

  Nothing moved.

  It was silent.

  Alice took a deep breath, then sprinted down the treads two at a time. She knew better than to exit the stairs at ground level—those zones were always under camera supervision—so she headed for the basement garage. How to get past security would have to wait; one thing at a time.

  The floors descended in a ragged blur: seven, six, five, four. Her legs wobbled, bones made of jelly, barely able to hold her upright while her breathing couldn’t keep pace with the demand for oxygen.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Then the basement, the blue-gray metal door in front of her. She ran through it, palms slapping against the open bar, and stumbled into the long dark space. She missed the tripwire across the doorway, the line invisible in the gloom, and caught it with her trailing foot to smack onto the raw concrete floor. Her hands caught her fall, and she rolled left and tried to stand as the security team nailed her with three solid kicks.

  She struggled back up; they hit her with clubs this time. She went down and stayed there.

  Alice checked her new cuffs, thick, composite bands sealed so tight her hands sparkled with pins and needles. A gray composite chain connected them to another set of bands around her ankles, then tied to the wall. The final ring was a noose around her neck, its chain tied to a hook in the ceiling of the armored car.

  The small prisoner compartment jostled over bumps in the road, the whine of the electric motor loud beneath them. The car was empty apart from the guard sitting opposite Alice, his fat leering face sweaty behind hard armor and sharp weapons. Alice stared back unblinking until he dropped his gaze, cheeks flushed.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” the guard said.

  “Why?”

  That killed the conversation.

  The car drove on; hours passed as she slipped into a fugue state, eyes open but not registering the time, the hum of the motor soothing as her body pulsed pain.

  They stopped once to let her pee into a bottle. The guard exited, allowing her a glimpse outside. There was nothing to see but snow-covered parking lots and empty fast-food joints.

  They embarked on another long run that had to be a freeway, the truck humming in its efficiency settings for mile after mile.

  She tried not to think too much about what would happen. It didn’t take a detective to conclude she would be played as the fall guy for the murders of Mark Rothmore and Daniel Barragan. Hell, they would probably pin Julia’s death on her as well.

  She slept, head forward and shaking with every bump in the road.

  Hours later, the truck took a hard right; her body pushed left, and the chains held her in place. Gravel crunched under the tires; the car shook side to side.

  The guard thumbed his collar microphone. “Hey, we’re not—”

  He flew at Alice, crossing the space in a moment, arms behind him as if he had been launched from a cannon. He impacted the wall beside her with a cracking thud, then it was her turn to float in space, snapping to the end of her chains. The van rolled again and flung her toward the ceiling where the chains caught her once more. The roll increased in speed until she was a yo-yo spun between the hard metal walls of the van, over and over. Her chains wound tight around her limbs, but the guard had it worse, blood filling his mask.

  The van settled upside down, and Alice hung from her ankle rings to swing left and right, head pulsing with blood.

  Below her, the guard was a crumpled mess.

  Shouts from outside. Small-arms fire crackled, followed by the boom of a shotgun. The voices stopped. The door banged, followed by the beeping countdown of a thermal charge. Alice sucked in air and squeezed her eyes as tight as she could. This was going to be loud.

  The explosion reduced her hearing to a whistling silence, and the shockwave blew the air from her lungs as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Choking smoke filled the van; tears fractured her view into a thousand repeating images. She didn’t mind; that way she got to see multiple visions of Xavi as he climbed in to rescue her.

  36

  “Don’t drink it so fast,” Toko said as he handed Alice a cloth.

  The nutrient juice tasted like old engine oil, but she held it down and felt her body come back to life. “Yeah, yeah, I got it,” she said and leaned back in the soft leather seat.

  The car rose until the landscape became a distant patchwork of white and gray geometries; the air filled with black clouds and hissing rain. A leather bench seat wrapped the circular cabin while a pearlescent-white control column rose in the middle. There was a slot for a phone, a thin screen, and little else. Toko and Xavi sat opposite Alice. Toko slouched, tired, in his crumpled suit while Xavi thrummed with energy inside faded denim. His olive military bag lay across his lap.

  “Got a cigarette?” she asked and coughed.

  “Goddam stupid question,” Xavi said.

  “There’s a surprise.” She gave Xavi a long, searching, look but his face was impassive as ever so turned to Toko. “This your car?”

  “The wife’s.”

  “Makes sense. Didn’t think yours would be so clean.” She tried to smile but winced instead. She looked at Xavi. He had a long cut down his cheek that had been hastily glued together. “Thank you.”

  “Not my idea.” Xavi jerked his thumb at Toko. She believed him until he gave a sly smile.

  “Thank you both.” She fell silent for a moment. “What did I miss?”

  “You’ve made quite the mess,” Toko replied.

  She shrugged. “Story of my life. Didn’t see many options out there. You had my field reports, such as they were. Did you get my letter?”

  Toko smiled. “Red is a very determined when correctly motivated.”

  “I’d should have gone straight to you.”

  “They want us for Rothmore’s murder,” Xavi said.

  “Figured. How did you get away?”

  “Cops came in, I went out and called him.” He jerked his thumb at Toko again.

  “I was already en route,” Toko said. “The FBI summoned me to DC after Barragan’s assassination. I put Xavi in a safehouse then went to the meeting.”

  “What did they say?” Alice asked.

  “They don’t care about catching Julia’s killer anymore. All they want now is the case wrapped up with a neat bow. Seems the interim director needs the Six-Thirty investigation to go away quick and quiet. I requested a meeting with you, was denied. Told it could be a very long time before you saw daylight again. Under the new martial-law guidelines, they don't need evidence and could detain you indefinitely on suspicion. I didn’t like that, didn’t like what was happening, so called Xavi and suggested we do something about it.”

  “I missed the whole Barragan thing,” Alice said. “What happened?”

  “He was on his way to the Six-Thirty hearings. A man walked up behind him. Shot him in the head. Killed himself. Multiple members of the security forces and opposition party have been arrested. The hearings have been postponed. Martial law declared, until it’s known for sure if there’s a larger conspiracy in play.”

  “So, whatever Julia knew isn’t public yet. The FBI have it but didn’t release it.”

  “Barragan was more interested in power than the law. It was no secret he wanted a seat at the president’s table. A successful Six-Thirty investigation may have got him there.”

  “So, he was killed to keep it quiet.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. It could’ve been a lone gunman or old enemy.”

  “But if he was,” Alice persisted, “that would suggest Barragan’s and Julia’s killer was the same person.”

  “If what they knew was important enough, then yes, keeping it from the public could be a motive.” Toko cracked op
en a can of coffee and took a sip.

  “Won’t the new director just release it anyway?” Alice asked.

  “It depends. The SSP are taking over a lot of the FBI’s role now.”

  They flew in silence, mist and rain rattling against the canopy.

  “So, what do we do?” Alice asked.

  “The only choices I see are run or find the real killer and exonerate yourself,” Toko replied.

  “Those are my choices, Toko. You need to go home.” Alice looked at Xavi. “I’m for catching the fucker. You?”

  Xavi nodded.

  “Xavi and I are officially fugitives from justice, Toko. Anywhere we go they’ll be after us, but you can come out clean. Drop us somewhere we can get a ride, then go home and look after your kids.”

  Toko opened his mouth to argue, then a look of resignation crossed his huge face. “I will get them, yes. After that, I’m out.”

  “Conner can get you overseas.”

  “No. I moved enough as a boy. I’m staying in New York.”

  “They’ll be watching you.”

  “Yes, they will. What do you need from me?”

  “Transport, something fast with long range.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Arizona. I need to follow the lead.” Alice turned to Xavi. “Before we go any further, I’ve a question.”

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Who are you? Special Agent Xavi Garcia or Sebastian Dias, B13 assassin?”

  37

  Alice waited, muscles tight, ready to fight if she had to, but Xavi just looked at them both, a mixture of emotions cracking his iron face. “Most I told you is true,” Xavi said, watching her with his nail-hard eyes.

  “Then tell us the rest,” Alice said.

  He shifted in his chair, lowering his head. “I met Maria at school, but it wasn’t until after that we got together. B13 are based around smuggling—keeping communications secret was the key. They took Maria out of school and trained her in advanced encryption. The systems she built helped them take over international shipments. We got this small apartment together, while B13 made billions with her encryption software. That made her a target. She was almost kidnapped twice. We didn’t run to LA; we were sent. It made sense. B13’s US product entered there; it was remote from Bogota; we had troops on the ground. It was good for a while, real good. A new start. Then Maria got pregnant with a little boy.” Xavi drifted away, unfocused eyes looking outside.