Rise of the Red Hand

by Olivia Chadha

  “What, too hard for you?”

  He shakes his head. “I got caught up in a side hustle with the Lords of Shadow, and Khan made me a deal. I was too young and stupid to know what I was signing up for. No way out now, not until I work off my debt.”

  “Sad story, Jai.”

  “Look, Ashiva, I like you. I’m mostly just a messenger, so this one’s for free. You might want to take a break from smuggling Uplanders. Noise is the Minister of Comms is dying for a reason to cut the Narrows off completely, rations and all. The AllianceCon is making them nervous.”

  “How’d you know about the smuggling—?”

  He points his large finger to his eyes and his ears, and clips his mask on his face. “See you soon.”

  “Not likely,” I say to the shadows.

  A pit grows in my chest as I flex my arm. I know Khan will do it, just to spite me. Make an example and they all fall in line.

  10 //

  Riz-Ali

  Getting the data packet is only half the challenge or else any tech with access to Solace and a fully optimized brain might try it. Not that they would, but they could. There was some talk on the underweb about a team of techs ready to go, but they all went dark when the recent updates from Solace came. They say they’re busy, but I know they’re scared. All talk until it’s time to act.

  But to deliver the packet to the Red Hand on the underweb is the actual challenge. I’ll have to cloak the data, send it through an unmonitored line, and delete all traces of my fingerprints on the data. It has to be perfect, or else I’ll be pinged by the authorities before I disconnect. Hacking is a massive transgression. And I have to get back home to take the auto-inject in time, or else I might end up dead.

  Can I do it?

  Sure, it’s risky, but I need to know what happened to my uncle. He was connected to the Red Hand Commander somehow. This is the best way to gain their trust.

  There is only one place to upload a colossal data packet undetected. The Liminal Area, vastly unpatrolled and unprotected, the badlands that slipped out from under Central’s control after the riots. Still under the edge of the Ring because they couldn’t manage to kick out the population still squatting there. People in the Liminal Area don’t want to associate with the Narrows or any leader. They only believe in one thing.

  Anarchy.

  Maybe this is the real reason I beat my underweb pals to it. An Uplander in the Liminal Area is easy pickings for all sorts of peripheral hacks, and it’s dangerous. An Uplander was kidnapped twelve months ago and they found her body dissected, like the Downlanders tried to detach her neural-synch, but failed to realize how far it attached inside the brain and just made a mess of everything. Of course, detaching would take surgery and the device, over time, organically imbeds itself deeper within the body’s nervous system. Anyway, it was messy. I don’t know what to believe though. Mother taught me we shouldn’t believe any of the Info-Runs. She would know; she creates half the Info-Runs with her team.

  I walk past the transport stand where other Solace employees wait for their concierge lift home or ride on the sky-rail that wraps around Central’s Ring. They are so carefree. A woman and her son are feeding the geese in the central pond. The genetically modified geese were flown into Central from the North American Province, as most wildlife had died or escaped to the north after the floods and the acid rains had started. They sent gifts like this to all Provinces to help mend their relationship with the world. It’s all guilt and show, though. The North American Province will never live down the launch of the nuclear missiles twenty-five years ago. The mother and her son look so peaceful, like we’re not living inside a precarious bubble. My mind races. Twenty-two employees in line, same as every evening. This is it. Last chance to change my mind. It will take twenty minutes to cross the ten blocks to the old Bridge Project and into the Narrows.

  Twilight fades to a yellow-orange haze that covers the city like a gauzy curtain. I never walk these streets because Solace provides transport for all their tech employees, but I know Central is a basic grid. Sixty roads crisscross, making larger and larger blocks as it goes toward the Liminal Area and out into the Unsanctioned Territories.

  Transport rickshaws buzz past, honking at everything and nothing, their sleek bubble-like frames coasting just inches above the ground on the Maglev roads. Uplander workplaces, Solace Corp and other tech companies made Central a forest of glass and metal. Elegant, perfect buildings shoot to the sky like temples of technology. There are some remnants of the past, lingering like scars. The Downlanders made sure to protest the removal of their old buildings. Most of the ancient temples and statues were moved or encased in the same glass as the buildings in an act of preservation. I wonder if they’ll be the ones to outlive us all.

  The air changes from sweet and humid to a sharp, bitter stench. The Ring’s cooling system isn’t as effective in reaching the outskirts of Central, even with the electromagnetic field that covers Central. Air is cooler inside and nearest the center. My lungs hurt with every breath. And then there’s the heat. It’s like being face-to-face with an open flame. My Info-Run alerts me:

  WARNING: Temperature rising

  Thanks for the insight. I set my neural-synch to silent and see alerts in my vision rather than in my mind.

  The buildings are less and less refined. Some buildings are just beginning to take shape; others are still wrapped bundles of construction materials waiting to be opened by the builders who dreamed them up, but will never build them after funding was cut.

  Portable fencing narrows the lane, forcing people to walk through and line up in the area. The guardians are wearing masks and clean suits even though the signs read, “Precautionary Check Point.”

  I turn to a man next to me. “What’s this? This wasn’t on the map.”

  He doesn’t look at me, but seems tired, bored. “The Fever, yaar. Just be cool and they’ll let you pass.”

  They take our temperatures with a wand and we move through. As I pass, I see an Uplander woman who has been pulled to the side. Her face is terrified, but calm. Everyone else ignores her, walks faster. But I can’t help but take her in. Does she have Z Fever? I wonder.

  I enter the first empty Information Portal Station, strip, and shove my work suit in the refuse bin. The metal room is small and narrow, but I manage to pull on my gear: a pair of cargo pants, a T-shirt with the sign of the revolutionary hand emblazoned on the chest. Over that I put on a nylon vest, and then tie my hair into a tight bun. The gear is all black and dirty, and acquired from the underweb over time so as to not draw attention. I added tech to the clothes, ladders and ports, and one very small, very temporary disruptor that would kick me off any searching network. Solace can only locate anyone with a neural-synch inside Central. My handheld electro-pulse device gives me a sense of security, though I’d have to be in close proximity to danger to use it.

  My reflection on the screen is fragmented. It’s difficult to see between the massive touch screen projecting news, transportation information, and adverts from nearby stores. Is it enough? I rub some dirt from the ground onto my face, and cringe while doing it. The damp wall feels sticky through my tunic, and I slide down to sit on the city street. The holo-advert spins across the side of the building across the way. A “Solace Shaanti: The Next Stage of Evolution” campaign advert bleeds across the metal face of the sky-rise building, in flashes of lights and colors. Images of bots, civilians, and Solace Corp’s logo mesh into one, fast-paced, blurry video. Other adverts show beautiful people dancing. The parties my mother wants me to attend, but I never do because, well, she wants me to.

  I press my neural-synch and turn it on to status. It runs a report.

  Temperature: 98.60

  Fluids: Hydrated

  Location: Central Boundaries

  All set then. The temporary body disruptor I’ve made will keep my location looped inside Central even as I continue to the outskirts.

  A small street-sweeper-bot bumps into my f
oot several times before I lift it out of the way and it continues on its path. Someone decorated it with a string of beads and dried chilies to ward off the evil eye. No matter how far we’ve come, our superstitions follow.

  As it spins away, it mumbles in multiple languages, “Zara rastha dijiye. Excuse me. Chalega. Clean the road. Clear the road.” There’s a piece of paper stuck under its wheel, making a swishing sound as it spins. Little bot. I put my foot down in front of it and rip the scrap away.

  A propaganda poster for Rani, the girl who died in the Crimson Riots. She became the face of the Downlanders, the symbol of their oppression. Her form is painted and outlined in black. In the background is a hand outlined in red. The poster reads: “You were lied to. The Rani is alive.” The symbol every Uplander fears.

  During the Great Migration, the rich were whisked away on high-speed transports to the neocity Central, while the rest were left at the gates. Riots broke out. Then the girl was murdered, butchered by the Uplanders. The video went to all the comms. Central was pressured to open the gates. And met with the Red Hand to make an agreement about a settlement community, the Narrows.

  “Trash.” I crumple it up and toss it in front of the sweeper-bot to consume. The stuff people believe is crazy. It’s propaganda. She died. It was terrible. We should feel guilty. It’s crazy what people will believe.

  I calculate I’ll reach the edge of the network in about three minutes, which will be only about fifty paces toward the Unsanctioned Territory. Fifty paces closer to the truth. But suddenly my feet stop. I didn’t stop, they did. It’s like my body is freezing up. Like an invisible hand is holding my ankles back, making my steps heavy.

  “What the . . . ?” I look around. My hands tremble and my vision goes out and all I see is the Solace Corp logo on a black background, similar to what I would see during updates, but there’s none scheduled today. My vision returns as quickly as it went, and I take in my surroundings. I wiggle my feet. Bad place to lose control. Could Solace have just interrupted my movement? I don’t have time for this. I take a couple steps forward and find I can move normally again.

  “Oye, check out the svachchh,” I hear a small voice echo from the walls of an unfinished building.

  My clothes are dirty, so I don’t know what they are thinking, calling me spotless.

  I feel a small hand tug at my work bag. “Pretty things.”

  The younger-than-me girl child is scrawny, hollow-eyed and yet so sharp at the same time. I shrug her off.

  “Take off, choti behan. Not interested.” I hear my words, but I don’t know where they came from. She hasn’t offered anything.

  “Sure, bhai. Whatever you say,” she says and walks alongside me for a few paces before disappearing into the building’s shadows.

  I’ve got everything, the gear, the tech, but the darkness is shocking. It’s all encompassing. Every inch of Central is lit by solar torches. But there hasn’t been one in the two miles since leaving the middle of the city. Skeleton buildings surround me, climb and reach over me, and that’s when I know I am getting close.

  The Bridge Project was supposed to link the one coastal border of Central directly to the Last Island. They were going to turn it into an exclusive luxury resort island. But when the island fell into the Arabian Sea, they stopped construction, leaving behind the expensive materials. It is a sight to behold: the girders tip together like the legs of a fallen giant robot, four stories high. My connectivity through my neural-synch is limited here, at best. Ideal.

  At the foot of one of the girders, I set up shop. I link my neural-synch to the uplink in my vest, then slip that into my work case’s uplink. By connecting the information in a circular loop, I’m able to create an independent network. Solace could have detected this if I was in Central, but here I’m free to do as I please.

  Uplink open.

  The temporary memory card slips into the port and I wait for it to load. Meanwhile, the start screen pops up and I get to work, punching in the code and opening the main source list in the port.

  The screen freezes on my last command and I wipe my forehead.

  “Just like sending code to Solace,” I say to no one and everyone.

  My fingers flash across the keys. Finally, the system opens up a pathway and I set the screen to cloak. I pull the data packet from my card and send it on its way into the underweb, C/​​​O the Lal Hath from Kid Synch. No one will dare steal from them, and it’ll make its way to the hacker collective within an hour.

  Click. And done.

  My ether smoke feels cold in my hand as the ether fills my lungs. Three, four clicks on the keys and I exit my session, making sure my actions aren’t traceable. Done and done. I pray it works. That I can set up a meet when I’m declared the winner.

  The Unsanctioned Territories surround me. I’ve never been here before. All my hacking has been completed in various parts of Central. So precarious. Their buildings twist on the edge of the sea like unwelcome guests, slums proliferating as they will, as the city allows. It’s dark now, and I need to return to Central before the population of the Liminal Area wakes up and finds me here out of place. More importantly, I need the auto-inject to avoid a serious illness from the neural-synch.

  “Why the rush?”

  It’s the girl again. When I show her my electro-pulse device in my hand, she laughs.

  “Scared? I’m a friend. I could show you around. This your first time in the Liminal?”

  She’s cheerful enough, but I shake my head. “No, I have to get back.”

  “Why? You’re from Central. There’s no curfew for you. You can do what you want, when you want it. The air might make you sick, though. Right, bhai?”

  I pause for a millisecond. “Certainly, but if you’ll excuse me . . .” I take a few steps up the hill and that’s when I see their shadows in a line in front of me, like a chain of bodies walling me in. Twenty kids or more.

  “You should really stay, we have so much to talk about,” she says and takes my hand. The sun is setting just over the water, diving into a cloud of haze.

  And just like that, I am a captive of a gang of child goondas.

  11 //

  Ashiva

  “Ach, sit still, Tiger.” Masiji’s words are muffled by her welding mask. Her workshop in the Narrows is hot, always hot. Smelting metals, smoke and grease, incense and music. Little robot projects of hers zip around her feet like metal mice.

  “I am sitting still,” I wiggle on the table. My surroundings are blurry through the fogged-up glass goggles Masiji insists I wear. My right arm is held in traction above my head and it’s split open at the shoulder joint, wires and all. The joint’s unclipped, I’m flayed, and feel too vulnerable. Through a reflection in a metal panel above me, I see my shoulder stump and the joint base she installed years ago at my scapula, like a receiver for the replacement. The metal wires reach around to my clavicle. I wonder if I should have the reinforcement surgery she offered that would bring supports at my ribs and spine, so it feels more stable. But another surgery like that sounds like horror.

  She lifts her respirator and shakes her head. “Beti, you’re about as still as electricity. If you can’t sit, I’m going to have to remove the whole replacement arm to work on it, and we’re back to square one. You wouldn’t get much work as a one-armed smuggler.” She laughs.

  She always says I am like electricity, always buzzing around for the nearest conductor. “What? That’s the option? You make this so easy.” The tension in the traction fights back as I struggle.

  “Beti, just sit.”

  I’m dying to know if the Red Hand will unite, but I’m sure they’re still in negotiations. So instead I say, “You’ve received my info on the General?” Saachi’s words about our trace being treason echoes in my head every second, ever since we set it up.

  “Thank you for doing that for me. There’s no need to worry. It was necessary. He’s stayed put, so I was overreacting. We are working on rebuilding now. I know you’re a
nxious to know.” She smiles.

  My heart soars.

  The lanterns hanging from the ceiling flicker and buzz. Everything runs on generators down here, which makes Masiji’s work even more miraculous and insane. Unsanctioned work in the Narrows is not for the weakhearted. If you ask me, it’s a technical craft, art, and miracle, all at the same time.

  She laughs and gets back to work. “And you make everything difficult. It’s in your stars, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Beti, when people try to help you, for god sakes, just take the help.”

  “Okay. I’ll try.” I bite my bottom lip and focus on watching a little robot scurry about, picking up small scraps of metal and shards of wood from the floor, and putting them into a small fabric sack hanging on its chest like a marsupial pouch. “What’s that for?”

  “Chota is my clean-bot prototype,” she says with admiration. Like he’s a pet. He has two small, black wheels and a tiny, white, metal body with a head that’s a soft, square display screen. His digital blue eyes blink at me sweetly.

  “Well, I guess he is small. You’ve got your work cut out for you, Chota baby. You’ll need a much bigger refuse pouch to clean this place,” I say. The bot looks up at me and squeals his wheels, then speeds off to pick up a bit of wire with his tiny arms.

  “No thanks to you,” she grumbles and pulls her mask down. “Now sit.”

  As she solders, I hum to keep my mind off of the surgery.

  “If I only had access to what the Uplanders have, I could . . .” Masiji sighs. “Ahh, just as I thought. The plexus is nearly dead; the motor is burned out. Good thing I got my hands on a new one. A better one.”

  “Wait, what? Where did you get one?” I sit up, restraints be damned. “Let me see.”

  She hands it to me carefully. It sits in the palm of my hand, all chrome and small and beautiful. “This must have cost a fortune.” The rare earths inside the new plexus are the most contested resource in the world and what led us to the mecha wars. The elements are necessary in all forms of biotech, transportation, turbines, computers—everything we need to live, to thrive. After we burned all that we could, all the fossil fuels and trees and coal, we finally made renewable energy sources. But, now, we fight over the elements that keep them going. People would sell their loyalties for just one nano-magnet made of neodymium alloy—the permanent magnet that keeps the motor in the replacement moving forever.