She put her hand on Cait’s shoulder. “Go wait near the North Bar out of sight. Comms will be back on-line in one minute. I’ll message you when he’s deactivated.”
Cait nodded, took one last, long look at Jason, then she left.
Beth contacted Clayton and told him to amble discreetly outside the North Bar. She watched him and his security team arrive while checking the comms status every second.
Finally. Green: on-line.
She sent the deactivation command.
Failed to send returned on the screen again.
What the…
She checked the comms status.
Red: off-line.
Green: on-line.
Red: off-line.
Jason shot up from his stool and left the bar. He saw the guards, and the people evacuated from the North Bar gathered in the walkway. They were all staring at him—she’d told Clayton to be discreet.
Jason thrashed his arms about. He stormed up to the guards, and Clayton stepped towards him. He jabbed his finger at Clayton’s shoulder, then pushed him.
Jason was well built. The guards did their best to restrain him, but he wouldn’t be handcuffed, and they scuffled about until Jason punched Clayton in the nose.
Beth had told the guards not to use their weapons. All she needed to do was deactivate him, so they were following Beth’s instructions when they stepped away.
Beth sent the deactivation command again and again.
Failed to Send.
Failed to Send.
She rushed to the storage cupboard, pulled out the deactivation panel and removed a wireless stun gun. She dropped them inside her bag and sprinted to Jason’s last position.
A minute later, Beth arrived at the huddle of guards.
The punched guard, Clayton, with blood dripping down his face, pointed up towards the top floor, and Beth tracked the line of his finger.
Jason was behind the waist-high transparent barriers, watching the ceiling and turning around in tight circles, shouting and shadow stalking.
Beth noticed Damian was amongst the huddle of evacuees outside the North Bar. As she raced by him, he shook his head at her. She resisted giving him the finger. He was clearly still mad about Amy’s sudden disappearance.
She passed the guards, shot up the staircase, and as quietly as she could pushed open the door into the corridor.
But Jason was on edge, and he would have over reacted to a pin dropping. He stopped his shadow hunt and looked at her, curiously at first. Then he must have recognised her because he shook his finger accusingly.
He pointed at the deactivation panel in her hand. “You, you…I know you. You won’t get me with that.”
She edged towards him, one hand in a position of surrender and the other clutching the panel. “Jason, it’s okay; we’re friends. Come to me, and put your hand on the screen.”
The immersion had scrambled his brain. He wasn’t Jason, so she shouldn’t feel offended that he didn’t trust her. This wasn’t about their friendship.
He cocked his head to the side like a dog. His face and mind were warped in confused contortion. He stepped back, his hands mirroring hers but his in warning.
“Stay where you are!” Jason called. He slapped his head. His body jerked like someone afflicted with severe Tourettes.
“Okay; I’m not moving.”
She felt her eye twitch. How could she gain his trust? She dared not say a word.
Boots stomped in the stairwell behind. Shit, the guards had followed her. They were about to blow it. They barged through the door, and she turned to them. Clayton was there.
“Back off!” Beth told him.
She twisted back to Jason, but his leg already straddled the balcony.
“No, Jason, No! I’m putting it down.” She crouched down and placed the precious deactivation panel by her feet.
Thud.
Before the realisation came to her the piercing screams from the ground floor had gone quiet.
She edged to the balcony and clutched the handrail. She peered over, desperate to see a twitch of hope from him. Jason was dead still, broken and crumpled on the shiny walkway, blood splattered around his uncoiled, unnaturally twisted head. And the crows were already circling, pecking, hands over their frozen screams and staring up at Beth.
Chapter Two
On her run from the park gates back to the New City, with only two miles left to go, Lana Underwood’s pace had slowed to a power walk.
As each heel pounded the asphalt an arrow of pain pierced through her shins, and she wasn’t sure she could take the punishment much longer.
A city-bound RI tram slowed by her side. Unhurried faces gazed out at her, flushed after morning strolls in the guarded parklands. She was desperate to climb on board and take the weight off, but she had to earn credit now that she was back from China, not spend it.
Ten credits for every mile; think about the credit.
She made a deal with herself. If Callum confirmed they’d received HFEA approval, she’d give herself a break and take the tram. She’d have an excuse to hurry back to the city then.
Working at RI-China had been a fantastic opportunity, but now she was out of shape, too much time spent in the lab.
She stopped, unsnapped the phone from her belt and tapped the screen. No missed messages. She replaced her phone with an uncertain feeling. Maybe the government would delay again. She couldn’t bear it if they did. RI-UK’s promised alignment with RI-China was the reason they’d come back to the UK. Was it just another empty promise?
The tram passed her. She walked into the warm swirl of air left in its wake and watched it disappear in the distance.
In her periphery an old man power-walked by her with ease. She was twenty-five, too young to be trounced by him. Head fixed forward, she pretended not to notice him or the stolid uniformed guards ready with machine guns on the pavement.
Pride dulled the physical pain, and she managed to keep up with him. She focussed on his sinewy calves first and then on his elbows and the skin like loose chicken flesh hanging from them. She settled about twenty yards behind his waddling backside.
In the distance, at the bend in the road, the ninth monitor station gleamed like an ordering point at an old drive-thru restaurant.
What she would do for a burger and fries washed down with an ice-cold coke right now; funny, hankering after junk food when she never did before. You always want what you can’t have.
In a last-ditch attempt to increase her reward for the last mile she sped up, and soon the distance between her and the old man narrowed.
A few feet behind him, he tripped and splayed on the road. She swerved around his crumpled body heap just in time. She stopped and gawped around, not sure if she should help him. The guards looked straight through the scene and showed no sign of movement.
He might have broken his leg or his ankle. His bones looked fragile enough. She would have hated someone to not help her grandfather.
“Need a hand?”
The papery skin at his knees was bloody and torn and embedded with gravel and dirt. He raised his chin. His watery eyes fixed onto hers, and the flash of helplessness on his face turned mean and stubborn.
From his scowl, she knew she was still the enemy. She was one of them—a post-thirty-five (born after 2035). And it was hard to not take it personally.
“You tripped me up.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Bah, go away. I don’t need your help.”
Abashed by his dismissal, her face flushed, but his expression remained hard.
She may have given the guards a reason to spring from their posts. Their burning stares were on her back, watching this play out.
The old man lifted a hand. “Shoo!”
He swatted her away.
At his final insult, she stumbled back.
Dangerous bravado. The old fool would never stand a chance outside the New Cities.
As if it needed more emphasis, a guard rattl
ed his machine gun. “Move on, lady.”
Lana walked on.
She had hoped for a miracle while away in China, but the same tension was still alive and thriving.
Lana arrived at the monitor point and sent a thought-text: add credit.
Beneath the Relative Industries logo bright-green text flashed on the screen: ten credits added.
She pressed confirm. Ten credits were the minimum for a mile, running or walking. The old man did slow her down, but so far, she’d earned ten for every mile, so she couldn’t blame him, however much she wanted to.
The sun was yet to burn through the morning clouds, and after the debacle with the old man she’d cooled down already. A cold breeze broke across her damp skin, and pimples flushed her arms and legs. Her shoulder-length red hair clung with sweat, now gone cold, to the nape of her neck, and her face felt hot.
She could imagine how exhausted she looked.
She checked around her, to make sure she was alone, then she untied the damp silk scarf always tied at her throat and welcomed the breeze on her neck.
Arching forward, she placed her hands on her knees and took a breath.
Her phone vibrated. She yanked it from her belt and read the message.
Meeting in the lab in one hour. We’ve got the letter.
Almost dropping the phone, she sent a thought-text: on my way.
Another RI tram approached. Quickly, she tied her scarf back and ran to the tram-stop.
She boarded, dropped in a seat then rubbed at her shin splints.
They’d received the letter. But the message from Callum was short. She played absently with her scarf. He would have read it. He would’ve told her if they had approval. The government would delay again. She knew it. They’d come back for nothing. They should’ve stayed in China. Why couldn’t they get their act together?
Two minutes later, the tram passed the familiar road sign.
Welcome to Area 5.
A controlled habitation district.
Sustainable living for a better future.
The tram took a left turn around the city’s ring road and passed five more glass towers before she disembarked at her entry point.
Steel, razor-wired gates, ten feet high, and a row of five body-scanning cubicles sealed the entrance to the glass tower city she’d called home for the past four years.
Two uniformed guards with machine guns patrolled behind the fence while another guard sat inside a cosy, sealed bullet-proof booth in front of the gates.
She hated the naked feeling of the reentry procedure. Her face inscrutable, she approached the body scanner, sent a thought-text and willed the red no-entry cross to turn into a green arrow. Eyes on the red cross, she ignored the guards’ stares.
Something was wrong. It should be green by now.
A guard’s echoing voice boomed from a tannoy. “Approach the booth.”
Her heart rate accelerated. A hot sweat broke out on her skin. She stepped towards him, forcing her stiff shoulders to drop their tension.
“Identification—your version of thought-text is no longer valid for access.”
“I…I…I’ve been away.”
Her version of thought-text had never prevented her re-entry before. Had she known, she’d never have left the city. What if they refused to let her back in? Cast her outside? A sheep amongst the savages.
Flustered, her hands flapped at the identification card attached to her shorts. She unclipped it and slid it through the narrow gap at the bottom of his window.
He looked at her and then her card and then at her, in a forever game of security ping-pong. She faked a smile. Don’t show panic. Don’t show fear. Why would they be suspicious? This was merely an inconvenience, nothing sinister.
“You need to get the free thought-text upgrade. You have two days left. If you don’t get it, your credits will be zeroed.”
She felt relieved they were letting her back in, but then she realised what he’d said. Two days left to get the upgrade. She had a thousand credits. It would take weeks to build her credit balance up again. She couldn’t afford to lose them. Zeroing her credit was hardly fair.
“Is the upgrade mandatory?” she asked politely, hiding her annoyance.
“No, it’s not mandatory, but if you have the upgrade, you keep your existing credits and they add on a thousand extra for free—if you choose not to donate them. And you don’t have to go through me every time you want access to the city.” He looked at her ID card again.
There was no use complaining to him, and she didn’t want to raise suspicion. The guard must have noticed her apprehension. Behind his safety window he leaned towards her.
“After the implant, you don’t have to worry about having access to a screen. It says here you’ve had your credits zeroed twice. And you don’t have to slow down at the monitor points for credit to be added on. The air-screen projects in your field-of-view as you pass by them. It’s completely secure. No one can see what thought-text messages you’re sending or receiving. It’s amazing.” He swiped his finger in the air at the invisible screen that must have been in front of him, then he proudly showed her the back of his hand and his own implantation site. “You don’t even have to swipe; you can just think about swiping to interact with it.”
Lana stared wide-eyed at the red circular mark that looked like an insect bite. She wasn’t sure the extra credits were worth it, and no amount of cajoling would change her mind. She was sure they would use the implant to track their every move. Secure. How stupid did he think she was?
He was right about the credit zeroing though. Replacement phones were free, but credits were zeroed, and she’d already lost two. Each zeroing left her bitter, and she had to run every day for a month before she felt comfortable with her credit balance again. A thousand credits were a good minimum in case she fell sick and had to rely on the state guaranteed salary. Without extra credits to buy a few luxuries and branded food, the cheaper food and life in general could become tedious.
An air-screen would be convenient but being chipped like an animal? Her gut-brain said no. She slid her pass from the booth and reattached it to her shorts.
The guard waved her on.
Above the scanner nearest to him the red cross had changed into a green arrow. She stepped inside the scanner. Glancing at the guards, she held her breath while the doors swung around her once, twice, three times. The procedure to get back inside the sterile functionality of the city was intimidating, but it was usually worth the time spent in the verdant park lands outside—maybe not today, though.
She exited to more watching.
Now she wanted to run towards her strange kind of normal, her strange kind of safe, a normal that once was abnormal and unthinkable in the UK.
She walked down the unusually empty road between the glass residential housing towers that stretched for miles in neat avenues and streets. At the high windows the occasional staring face peered down at her. Her footsteps and breathing were the only sounds she could hear as she moved further away from the guards.
The avenue was eerily still as if portending the fate of the species itself.
At her breakfast bar Lana scooped a spoon of tasteless granola packed with vitamins into her mouth. Her hands trembled after too much exercise and her run-in with the guards.
Chewing her dry crunchy mouthful, courtesy of her flat-mate Lewis, she grimaced and then poured on more milk as if that might help her swallow it down.
The shiny new sense-stimulator on the stainless-steel worktop caught her eye. That would create a more pleasurable eating experience, and a complimentary new RI issue had arrived while she’d been away: the SS5000.
RI had thought of everything to unburden them from the drudge of life in the New Cities.
She noted the sleeker design of the headset: two metal strips fit across the top and around the head from ear to ear, and the whole structure rested on her skull as snug as an Alice band.
She engaged the eye lenses by pressing
the button where the strips connected at her temples. Then she swiped through the new breakfast programs: muesli, honey and nut, chocolate and nut, raspberry, nut and white chocolate.
Chocolate and nut. Nuts and chocolate were not real ingredients. The wireless headset triggered their taste and smell, and the lenses augmented chocolate chunks and nuts on top of the clusters of oats and barley.
She wondered if this new model would be better at simulating texture. The crunch of a nut and the warm melt of chocolate on the tongue were hard to mimic.
Now activated, she spooned in another mouthful. Not too bad.
It still surprised her how the brain could be tricked into believing illusion as if life itself could all be illusion. Wanting to believe must be a factor, and she wanted to believe she could eat chocolate and nuts more often than she could afford.
She disengaged the eye wrapper, then sent a thought-text to the TV, turning it on. At least her version of thought-text still switched the TV on, but when programs were broadcast straight onto the air-screen there would be no need for TV screens or any screens, in fact.
She flicked between the two live channels: news or statistics (endless re-runs on the others).
On the statistics channel the world’s net population still counted down.
On a school trip to a life museum once, she had watched that string of red numbers count up faster than the national debt, displayed on the counter next to it. Now when they replayed the yearly population figure and it briefly stagnated before counting down, she wished she was back at school and back in time.
She switched the channel over. Watching the steady decline of the world’s population was a national obsession but not for her.
Lana turned the volume up. On the news channel, a reporter interviewed a teenage girl and boy queuing in-line outside the RI tech store to have their thought-text upgrade implanted.
“How long have you waited for?” the reporter asked.
“Since 4:00 a.m.; we want to be the first of our friends to get the new tech. And I want to be the first to broadcast a group message to my friends’ air-screens.”
Started with Errors (Relative Industries Series Book 2) Page 2