by Liam Clay
The suit bristles. “Watch it, yellow liner.” He snarls, using a derogatory term for Underworlder.
I look at him with exaggerated disbelief. “Do you take no pride in your work, man? If you’re going to play the bad cop, at least give yourself some gray shades like she has, make it credible.”
He makes to hurl his prized urine beaker at me, but Red pre-empts him with a curt gesture.
“She’s good.” is her simple reply. “Which is why we need your help finding her.”
“Whoa, slow down a second. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not going to work. She only recruited me last night, and our agreement was strictly contra. She gets me into the party, I provide the drugs. So I never blinked her.”
“Not voluntarily, no. One of our geeks was able to access your recent record, and no authorized links showed up.” She smirks. “He enjoyed your 30 second surprise, by the way.”
“I’m ecstatic for him. But what do you mean, not voluntarily? Are you saying she cracked my firewall?”
“Yes, just before the explosion. You might not have noticed, though - apparently you were a little out of it by then.”
“What was she trying to do?” Most times, when hackers bust your wall open, it’s just to plant some illegal adware that will replicate through your social networks. Most times.
“We don’t know. But if I had to guess, I’d say she was planning to pull your personal data and then wipe your neurals.”
So kill me, basically. “What stopped her?”
“Same again. When she made the connection, your retcom dropped a dose on her.”
“And she still managed to escape? Woman’s frontal lobe must be made of titanium. But even if you’re right, would that brief a connection be enough to get a read on her identity?”
“For us, no. But for whoever made the drug, maybe.”
I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. “Are you suggesting a partnership? Because if you are, I would forget it. You guys should stick to extorting my kind for bribes.”
Red moves fast, very fast, grabbing my hair and shaking me like a wet dog.
“Listen closely.” She says with icy calm. “A suicide bomber just tried to kill a major public figure using unregistered technology. The M.O. doesn’t fit your average union vendetta or studio power struggle, which means we’re talking about an attack on Opacity itself.” She lets me go with a sigh. “Look, I’ll be the first to admit this city isn’t perfect. But it fulfills a necessary function.”
“By distracting the rest of the world from how screwed it is?”
To her credit, Red doesn’t try to spin her response. “Pretty much, yeah. We all lost the cosmic lottery and ended up living in the present. So to help ease the pain, Opacity provides escapes to the future and the past.”
“Alright, fine. But are you sure this isn’t a standard case of inter-studio sabotage? Helix Media and Kore Pictures are basically just propaganda machines for conflicting post-human ideologies with some resource politics laid overtop. And Letiva’s body reconstruct can’t have gone down well with the Helixers. You know how nuts they are about post-fetal purity, or whatever it is they call it.”
“That was my first assumption as well.” Red replies. “But my sources tell me that Korezon has released an internal memo exonerating Helix. Apparently the eugenicists protect even the strayed members of their flock. They've actually offered to help track down the culprits, if you can believe it.”
“So who does that leave?” I ask uncertainly. “The Realists?”
She shakes her crimson head. “They have an obvious motive for targeting the industry, true. But the biotech delivery method is all wrong; and more importantly, being linked to something like this would destroy any chance Shion has of winning the next election.”
“If he really exists, that is.”
She gives me a flat stare. “Enjoying this, are you?”
“Oh come on, you have to admit it’s kind of weird that no one knows who he is or where his party’s funding comes from.”
She flicks her hand as if to swat my comment aside. “He’s smart, is all. The less people know about Shion, the harder it is to undermine him. Not to mention the mystique he’s built up by keeping his identity secret.” And now she’s blinking her camera off, or wanting me to think she has. “Look, I know you have no reason to trust me. But if I was you, I would be hoping for a quick resolution to this situation.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because for now, me and officer Doro here are the only ones who know about your involvement in this. But if we don’t make some arrests soon, my bosses are going to demand a scapegoat, someone they can lock up to soothe the masses.”
“And you’ll be forced to give me to them.”
“Not just you. I’m talking about your entire cartel, ripped out by the roots. Which outfit do you work for again?”
“You’re fishing for information now?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I have other ways of finding out if I need to.”
Depressingly, I’m sure she’s telling the truth.
“The Kaleidoscope, West End district.”
“One of the submerged casinos?” She says, sounding vaguely impressed. “Then your employer has even more to lose than I thought.”
“You’ll excuse me if I’m not shaking in my piss-filled boots. The only Topsiders who travel to the Underworld are relief workers, chronic gamblers and nutjobs.”
“For now, maybe. But the wind has been shifting up here ever since Korezon approved reclamation.”
“What does some half assed scheme to farm the Gulf Islands have to do with us?”
“You’ve got me. All I know is the big heads aren’t afraid to upset the status quo like they used to be.” She leans in, providing me with a spectacular (and certainly intentional) profile of her tits. “So please, help me find out who did this. Before your own people take the blame for it.”
Nice try lady, but I call bullshit. Want to know what I think?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“I think you want to act the proper cop for once. You know, do some detective work, collar the bad guys. And that’s a laudable notion, really. But if you’re going to protect this city, you have to take it as is. And drug cartels don’t team up with the pigs.”
I brace for impact, but she just stares at me strangely. “What is that, social commentary? You need to work on your illiterate drug dealer act.”
I smile despite myself. “I’m a salesman working a high end market. If I couldn’t mirror my clients, they would never trust me enough to buy in the first place.”
“Fair enough.” She concedes after a moment. And then, “Alright, I’ll make you a deal. I’m going to let you go, no charges laid. But in return, I want you to bring your employer an offer.”
“What kind of offer?”
“The lucrative kind. If your drugmaker can help us track down this terrorist bitch, we will dismantle the Topside presence of a rival cartel of your boss’s choosing.” She grins, a trace of the flirt returning. “That ‘as is’ enough for you?”
Damn it, I’m starting to like this woman.
CHAPTER 5
And so I walk, free and clear. But that’s where the good news ends. Even if my employer accepts Red’s offer, I’ve just been made. And once you’re on the radar, the only ways off are to die or play ball, indefinitely in either case.
And here I thought I was done with long-term commitments.
I’ve also lost the dropper, my clothes are burnt to shit and I’m soaked in someone else’s urine. My employer and I aren’t on the best of terms as it is, and nothing about my current situation is likely to improve our relationship. But it’s either head down and face the music, or hide and wait for the hounds to find me. Better to get this over with.
The precinct’s front doors lead onto a small landing pad, where a slew of other delinquents are waiting for taxis. Triggered by my retcom’s IP, a
ground-embedded projector throws up a life size image of Sean Connery as James Bond. (You go on one 2D binge-watching session and the adgorithms never let you forget it.) The wind ruffles my soiled rags as I take a place in the taxi rank.
My head is still pounding like Normandy on D-day, but aside from the Paradigm this is the furthest into the Heights I’ve ever been, so naturally I’m curious to see how rich people look after a night in the can. Not much different than me, as it turns out. The vast majority appear to be nursing run of the mill hangovers. The remainder - still drunk, probably - are trying to pick each other up.
When people-watching gets old, I focus on the breeze ripping across the deck. It’s incredible: so clean you could eat off it, and colder than Antarctica pre-thaw. Hard to imagine what three-hundred level air (also known as Korezon’s Wind) would taste like. Supposedly you can see the actual sky up in the threes, as opposed to the haze of banked vapor that surrounds us even here. I silently repeat a fifteen-year-old vow to find out for myself one day.
To kill time, I blink up Kore’s primary news channel. The most viewed item is entitled ‘Terror at Tower Christening.’ Hardly able to believe my eyes, I log into the story. A caster superimposes over the real world and begins to speak.
“We regret to report that during last night’s christening of Kore’s upcoming film The Traveler, Letiva Peron was the target of an apparent suicide bomber. Thanks to the diligent efforts of the studio’s security detail, she was able to escape unharmed. But this grievous crime has shocked the city to its foundations nonetheless.”
He means its figurative foundations, of course. Very few people in the Underworld even own retcoms, and none can afford the feeds Letiva runs on. But the talking head isn’t finished.
“Carlel Korezon has personally denounced the attack, calling it a heinous and cowardly act. He has promised not to rest until the perpetrators are brought to justice.”
I shut the feed down, more confused than ever now. I had assumed the whole thing would be covered up. Maybe they think this will provide extra publicity for the picture, but it seems strange even so. About an eon later, a checkmarked cab touches down beside me. Its tail rotor is spitting lubricant fluid, and the seat cushions smelling like ailing skunks. (A reminder that no matter how high you climb, some eternal constants remain.)
“How far down can you take me?” I ask.
“200, base of the Heights.” The cabbie replies without turning around.
“How about 175? I can make it worth your while.” Having your wallet in your eye makes it hard to lose, so I still have credit at least.
He shakes his head. “No can do, unless you want to get smashed out of the sky. It’s all-out war between Yellow and Checker right now, and those fuckers control the upper mids.”
It ends up taking four cabs and most of the morning to reach the double digits, and the rest to get back to the West End. The most entertaining portions of this trip are the drops. (Think glass walled elevators the size of tennis courts, plummeting multiple stories in the space of heartbeats.) Tech firms dominate most of the 100s, and their employees clearly abhor the sight and smell of my unsavory self. And maybe it’s just me, but there is something liberating about being a dirtbag among clock punchers. They’ve just got so much more to lose, you know?
Starting around 100, the soup grows too thick for choppers and all the drops have been stripped for parts. From there you have to descend through the buildings themselves, or the illegal steel shantytowns grafted onto them. Gone are the temp-controlled hallways, the transposable receptionists and the tailored suits. Yes, the double digits are simply awash with character.
And by that I mean they are dirty, overcrowded warrens of crime and poverty. The 90s remain outwardly respectable thanks to the revenge cells (illegal R&D facilities where shadow coders try to reverse engineer the competition’s products). But the cash injection provided by the cells only trickles down to the upper 80s, and below that, the false face ends and the true Slump begins.
Not quite a slum and just shy of deserving the term dump, this is where the industry evacuates its human waste. Floor 77 of the Shaughnessy Arms is a prime example. It’s one huge space, cordoned off into sections by heavy curtains hooked to the exposed plumbing overhead. Most of the inhabitants are former systems analysts and call center supervisors, still reeling from their free fall down the corporate ladder. Close to a thousand people live on this floor alone.
At least there are no recent signs of rioting.
I navigate the corridors, stepping over toddlers and drunks, until I reach a curtain adorned with a colorful downward-pointing triangle. I push the fabric aside and duck through.
And find myself staring down the muzzle of a rifle. Without thinking, I grab the barrel with one hand and shove the fresh meat holding the stock with the other. He collapses onto a stained couch that might have been pink, once.
“I admire your effort level.” I tell him. “But if you keep waving that thing around someone’s bound to take offence.”
“That’s the fucking idea.” The kid mumbles. He’s your typical recruit: gaunt, equal parts death wish and delusions of invincibility, cheapass retcom probably loaded with in-eye adware. “Who are you supposed to be?” He adds sulkily.
I respond with the current code phrase, and he subsides as I turn my attention to a nearby dresser. The Kaleidoscope has boltholes like this all over the upper West End, but the clothes are always tiny, with barely anything my size. Five minutes later I’m respectable at least, in ripped jeans and a faded black v-neck. Only then do I give the kid his gun back.
“How are the turf wars these days?” I ask. He looks surprised by the question.
“Quiet for two months now. What rock have you been hiding under?”
“Not under.”
Comprehension dawns. “Wow, you’re a climber? I’ve always wanted into that racket.” Him and every other doe-eyed rookie his age. He gazes up at me, enthralled now. “Got any advice?”
“Here’s what you need to do.” I hold up three fingers. “Learn how to dress right, talk right, and above all, fuck right. Then maybe, if you’re lucky, the boss might consider giving you a shot at the ladder.”
He laughs and grabs his crotch. “At least I’ve got the last one covered, know what I mean?”
“I do, but take it from me, you don’t.”
His comeback gives way to concern. “Hey man, you ain’t looking so hot. Sure you don’t want to pass out here for a while?
To judge by my erratic heartbeat, some downtime definitely wouldn’t hurt. (Being unconscious isn’t quite the same as sleeping.) But the longer I wait, the harder it will be to face our mutual employer.
“Tempting, but I’m on a schedule. Do you have a few uppers I could take, though? Anything that will keep me sharp for a few more hours. Then I’ll crash out for a day or two.”
The kid moves to the dresser, squats down and rummages through the bottom drawer. Then he’s pressing two pills into my palm.
“Those should get you through.”
Nodding in thanks, I dry-swallow the meds and head back out through the curtain.
76 has been turned into a makeshift food court since my last visit. I should probably eat before the uppers kick in, but fried bird wrapped in pro-realism pamphlets doesn’t appeal, so I carry on. After decades of fighting the West End is mostly our territory, but I still have to cross between buildings multiple times as I descend. (Entering enemy turf is a good way to get raped and murdered, although not necessarily in that order.)
I’m halfway across the third skybridge when the meds kick in. It’s decent stuff - fairly clean, and just strong enough to provide the illusion of alert energy. Half an hour later, I reach the 70th floor of the ironically named Blue Sky Suites. A wild, organic game of pickup soccer is in progress here, just as it has been, every day of every year since I started up this way.
I find my fence waving an antique newspaper around on the sidelines, screaming hoarsely in what
is either a dead romance language or gibberish. Carlo is approximately a thousand years old. He dresses like a Sicilian peasant from the history channel, has a heavy stoop, and is vaguely menacing in some way I’ve never been able to account for.
“What you have?” He asks when I join him. Carlo only says two things to me, ever. That was one of them.
“2 hours of Syrek, B-list.”
“Give it here.”
There’s the other. The rest of our conversation takes place through linked credit bartering. He opens with 40K, which is ridiculous, and I counter with an equally unrealistic 150. We end up settling on 100, as both of us knew we would. But this is how Carlo and I communicate: through the age-old dialect of haggling. Wouldn’t change it for the world.
We watch the soccer together afterward. Carlo shares a flask of jungle juice from time to time, but otherwise he ignores me, just as the players do him. Some of these kids are highly skilled, but their endurance is uniformly terrible. (Having the lung strength of a gerbil with tuberculosis will do that to you.) It’s mildly depressing actually, so I quickly take my leave.
The air starts to go bad around 60. Another bolthole stop and I’m into a narrower stretch of stairwells, newly acquired gasmask cinched tightly in place. I’m alone now. (The Slumpers shun these floors, where any suspicious behavior might get you tossed permanently into the Underworld.) And here, I feel a change come over me again. The version of myself that I wear Topside - the part of me that thinks, speaks and acts like one of the privileged elite - begins to fall away. With every dropped level I feel it peeling back, until only the rough original remains. This adjustment comes as both a loss and a relief. And then, finally, I hit the border - also known as Parallel 49, the Meat Grinder and a host of other, even more visceral nicknames.
Imagine a huge, low-ceilinged space co-opted by a laboratory maze of chain-link fencing. Replace the rats with a mob of desperate Underworld humanity, all vying to reach a row of bulletproof booths manned by a comically small number of customs officers. Now picture this scene repeated across the 49th floor of every skyscraper in Opacity, and you will have some idea of what the border looks like.