by Liam Clay
On the evening of our fourteenth day underground, the techs throw us a party. Or, more accurately, they throw themselves a party and it spills over into the ward. A pair of guards remain on hand to discourage bad behavior of the violent kind. But in true Opacian fashion, all other varietals appear to be fully sanctioned, if only for tonight.
Liquor appears, and an enterprising tech contrives to pipe some tropical house in through the PA system. Our group is reticent at first. As you can imagine, it’s hard to forget why we’re here and what they are training us to do. But it’s also hard to stay angry at people who are obviously just civilians doing a job - especially when they are actively trying to be nice to us.
Tiana is the first to break the stalemate. Her tech happens to be extremely tall and almost criminally burly, with a mane of thick black hair that wouldn’t look out of place on an Arabian horse. She accepts the drink he offers with a demure smile. His success seems to encourage the others.
“Drink?” Ethan asks, sidling over with two bottles of beer.
I’ve never had a drinking problem and it looks deliciously cold, so I accept. He clinks bottles with me before wandering off to hit on Peace of all people. Who, incredibly, engages him in lively conversation. And so it begins.
Within a few hours most of us are bed-dancingly, stranger-kissingly, and in a few cases sheet-tanglingly drunk. Interestingly, Tiana and her tech aren’t the only teacher/pupil duo getting together. A lanky solo named Aiyelo is going at it hammer and tongs with his female counterpart, and a few others look like they’re about a drink away from doing the same. As for me, Francis has gotten his hands on an oversized bottle of prosecco, and we are plowing through it at a ground-eating pace, assisted by a solo named Emily.
Ethan had been doing well with Peace. But someone must have told her about his girlfriend, because now she’s chasing him around the room brandishing a white hospital slipper. The tech is shouting something about an open relationship, but the assassin is enjoying the chase and isn’t listening. The episode ends when Ethan falls backward over Delez, who has gotten down on all fours behind him. Peace collapses onto the Fractal, laughing maniacally, and then they start making out. I’m about to offer Ethan a prosecco salve for his bruised pride, but Lucy pounces on him before I can. He adjusts quickly.
Some time later I reach for what I’m pretty sure is our fifth bottle, only to find Francis staring down its neck in confusion.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I think it might be empty.” He answers gravely.
“Well you’re holding it upside down.” Emily says with a laugh. “So if nothing’s coming out then you’re probably right.”
“Unless it’s frozen.”
“That’s always a possibility.”
“Indeed.” Tossing the bottle into a corner, Francis turns my way. “Say, want to hook up with me and Emily?”
“Hey!” Emily protests, pointing an accusing finger at Francis. “You and I have never even fooled around before. What makes you think I’m going to jump straight into a ménage a trois?”
I squint at him doubtfully. “And besides, aren’t you supposed to be all about the ladies?”
“Oh, I am. But if someone wants a piece of this action,” he frames his face with thumbs and index fingers, “then who am I to deny it to them? Plus I get really bad FOMO.”
“What’s that?”
“Fear of missing out. So, what do you think?”
“I’m flattered, no word of a lie. But I don’t think Emily is interested.”
A sly look crosses the solo’s face. “Don’t be so hasty, Anex. I never gave him a definitive no - I just didn’t like the level of assumption involved.”
I feel my face go red. “The assumption... yes, I see. The only problem is, dudes aren’t really my thing.”
Francis winces. “Ooh, sorry. I wouldn’t have asked except that your ex is bi, so I thought maybe you used to swing for both fences together.”
“Nah. Aside from the occasional porno both of us were straight pull hitters back then. The Constant was the first woman Kalana ever slept with, I think.”
“So you were the last guy she... shit, I’m going to shut up now. This is nothing you want to be talking about.”
“It’s alright, I don’t mind. And the techs monitoring our retcoms are sure to be asleep at the wheel tonight, so at least no one else is listening.”
As I say this, the vague outline of an idea materializes in my head, and I drunkenly decide to action it on the spot.
“You guys are going to think I’m bailing because this is awkward, but seriously, something’s just come up. Is that cool?”
Francis seems genuinely surprised. “Don’t worry about me, bro. I don’t embarrass easy and I’m almost impossible to offend. That’s why I never lose arguments. What’s up, though? You look like you’re having a eureka moment.”
“If I am, you’ll find out soon enough. Just try not to pass out in the meantime, okay?”
“Not to worry - Emily here will help me stay awake.”
“There you go with the assumptions again!”
Leaving them to their foreplay, I set off across the ward. I find Kalana sitting cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by four women near her own age. It’s common knowledge she used to date the Constant, and although she never took on a leadership role during that time, the mothers in the platoon seem to have chosen her as their new polestar. I had expected Kalana to reject their advances, but to my surprise she has settled into the new role with ease. Tiana has already dubbed them the Soccer Moms. (Which is particularly funny considering that Cyan was a steampool fighter in the submerged casinos, while Juanita and Kira co-owned the dojo that trained Delez.)
When they see me approaching, everyone except Kalana starts grinning. I can guess why. Our relationship is no secret either, and since I’ve clearly been drinking, they probably expect to see some fireworks.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping one of you ladies could help me with something.”
“Is that your way of asking for a blowjob?” The fourth woman (I think her name is Judith) replies to laughter.
“You wound me. Actually, I was hoping someone could log into their interface and tell me what they see.”
The others seem nonplussed, but Kalana blinks in immediately. “What I am looking for?” She asks after a moment.
“A red monitoring light.”
“No, I don’t see anything like that.”
“Perfect, thanks.”
I’m already walking away when Judith calls after me. “Hey, wait! What was that all about?”
I wink at her over my shoulder. “Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”
Back in bed now, I log into my own interface. The red light is absent for me too, which confirms that I was being watched out of routine rather than suspicion. Then I find the pooled link in its subfolder and launch the application. If I wasn’t so drunk, I might have spared some forethought regarding what to expect. But I am and so I didn’t, which is fine, because no amount of preparation could have prepared me for what happens next.
As soon as I activate the icon, my interface vanishes. In its place, Tiana’s burly tech appears: close up, sweat sheened and breathing hard. But that’s not all. Every sight, sound and sensation triggers a range of feelings that - while made up of familiar ingredients - form a whole that is explicitly, undeniably not mine.
I recoil instinctively, and the world shifts. Now I’m looking down at Ethan, who is passed out on the ward floor with his pants around his ankles. A sense of amused disgust washes over me. I pull back a second time, only to find myself contemplating the mysteries of an empty prosecco bottle. This time, wistfulness is the overriding sensation. Another shift occurs, and another, each accompanied by an avalanche of imported emotion.
Like a squid disentangling itself from an electric fence, I try to pull back from the pooled link’s neural grid. But the thoughts I’ve touched have become stuck to the tentacl
es of my fear. Panicking, I pull harder, and the entire mental mess is drawn into the warm, caramel flavored core of... somewhere.
“Did my brain just get molested?”
The voice is curious without being the slightest bit disturbed, and definitely Francis’s. But it’s not a voice, really - just a thought.
“What the hell is this?” Tiana mindshouts from somewhere in the ether. “Whoever did that better put me back right fucking now!”
“I, um, don’t really know how.” I’ve tried not to sound sheepish, but you can’t keep something like that out of your thoughts, now can you? So everyone can tell.
“Is that you, Anex?” A Lucy shaped thought asks.
“Yeah. Hey.”
“Don’t hey me! What did you just do to us?”
“I activated one of the apps on our new retcoms. They call it a pooled link. It’s kind of like riding in, except reciprocal and in group format. Oh, and in addition to receiving each other’s sensory output and surface thoughts, it would appear to share emotions too.”
“I see.” Lucy says. “Just for fun, let’s pretend that made sense. Where are we right now, at this exact moment?”
“The app’s group interface, I think.”
Now that the shock is wearing off, I am beginning to sense the platoon’s presence around me. Color doesn’t come into it though, or shape or even proximity. It completely defies explanation, in fact. But I can tell how many of us are here, and increasingly, who is who.
“Love what they’ve done with the place.” Peace says. “But how did you bring us here?”
“And why?” Delez adds.
My first thought is that jesus, they’ve only been hooking up for a few hours and he already sounds whipped.
“Hey, I heard that! Or sensed it or whatever.”
“Sorry. But to answer Williams’s question, I think Porter gave me super-admin access when he decided to make me platoon leader.”
“He did what now?”
“Yeah, something about me being a psychotic killer really seemed to do it for him. I tried to turn him down, but he just punched me in the face and then gassed me for like the gazillionth time.”
“What a surprise!” Lucy crows. “The guy who’s been living Topside for years gets put in charge. I bet this bastard is so deep in Korezon’s pocket he’s choking on lint.”
An idea presents itself. “The link allows you to sense emotions, right? So here’s a taste of how I really feel about Korezon.”
Focusing my thoughts, I picture the mayor’s hanging jowls and his thick, purplish lips. And easy as blinking, the old familiar hatred comes rushing back. It is an almost physical presence, like a cloak I wrap around myself. I’ve never quite understood where it comes from, but it seems to do the trick because I can tell that even Lucy is impressed.
“Not to rain on your hate parade,” Fort interjects, “but I don’t think the pool is working properly.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because when you said Williams just now, what it really felt like you meant was Peace.”
Oh shit, I think, and then furiously try to unthink.
But it’s too late - the link is lighting up like a tetherball pole in a thunderstorm. Imagine the telepathic equivalent of 16 drunks (half of whom are, as we speak, lying on or under some very confused sexual partners) being simultaneously dunked in freezing water.
While the others continue to literally lose their minds, I use my newfound abilities to home in on Peace herself. And am relieved to find the sniper laughing her metaphysical ass off. Which actually makes a weird kind of sense, because if her backstory is any guide then she has a major flare for the dramatic, and this is a pretty epic way of getting outed.
It occurs to me, however, that we’re getting sidetracked.
“Stop!” I shout, and the mental echo is so loud that they instantly comply. “Delez asked me why I brought you here, and that deserves an answer before we get into the whole Peace thing.” I turn to where I think the Fractal is in the womblike nothingness. “I activated the pool because Porter can’t monitor us here, and there are some things I need to tell you.”
Juanita whistles. “If his emotions are anything to go by, this is going to be a real doozie. So I say let the man speak!”
Delez (who I’m starting to realize is something of a gossip) seconds this motion. And one by one, my platoon mates turn their attention back to me. Meaning that the moment of truth has finally arrived. I feel the panic rising, but somehow the fact that they know this makes things easier.
“Back in boot camp, some of you asked me where I learned to run so fast. Well the truth is that I didn’t learn. I was designed that way in the Hive, where I come from. And I’m telling you this because my creator may be the same person Porter wants us to fight.”
Another fire erupts, but I drown it out with a steady flow of thought.
“For a culture we fear and hate, it has always amazed me how little your average Opacian knows about the Hive. That needs to change if we’re going to fight them, and I can help if you’ll let me.”
Disbelief still lies thick over the group, but I’ve got them hooked now.
“You’d better keep talking.” Delez says, and I can tell he’s upset with himself for failing to uncover my secrets on his own.
“Thank you.” I say with a mental nod in his direction. “So first we need to rewind about a hundred years, back to when the world was just beginning to fall apart. The threat of terrorism had countries closing their borders, resource hoarding had replaced trade, and wealth gaps were tearing societies apart from the inside. First, people stopped traveling. Then information did too. You know those old maps you see, the ones with monsters drawn into the blank parts? Well they were swimming back into the margins.”
“Okay, we get it.” Lucy interrupts. “It was a horrible time and everyone was very sad. Now dish out the dirt on the Hive.”
“I’m getting there.” I say peevishly. (No point trying to hide it.) “So as I was saying, the global machine was starting to break down, and everyone from nations to remote villages could see the writing on the wall. In order to survive they would have to cut foreign ties, stabilize their populations and internalize all means of production using locally available technologies. But Opacity was the exception. Throughout that period, we continued to release big budget movies to the world. And like the narcissists we’ve always been, those films painted us as the last bastion of human ambition and progress, a lone technological candle in the growing darkness.
The problem was, too many people bought what we were selling. A series of disasters - some natural, most manmade - swept the globe shortly afterward. Millions of people were displaced, and in their moment of need, entire ethnic groups made the pilgrimage to Opacity in search of a better life.”
“Hold on.” Cyan breaks in. “Did you learn all of this Topside, or back in the Hive? I assume it had to be one of the two, since I’ve never heard any of this shit before.”
“I learned all of this in the Hive.” I tell her. “Topside schools don’t even teach recent history as a subject. Aside from the odd historical drama, Opacians are conditioned from birth to ignore the past as much as possible.”
“How come?”
“Because our past is fucking ugly, that’s why. When those first immigrant groups arrived on our shores, the old Opacian government was still high on its own supply. They believed the hype about being humanity’s last hope, and so they built the Hive. You all think of it as the Designer’s island fortress, but it began as the largest refugee camp in human history.”
“So what went wrong?” Delez asks.
“It wasn’t big enough. The government filled all of the walled camps they’d built on the island, and still the immigrants kept coming. Some were allowed into the city at that point, and when a few of them inevitably committed petty crimes, the whole thing got blown out of proportion by the media. Public sentiment turned against the immigration program, and the Kore
zons used that momentum to steal power. Their first act was to block all immigrant ships from landing on our shores. And when that didn’t work, they ordered the Opacian navy to start blowing them out of the water.”
My thoughts are a hollow drone filling the soft, undefined space. Everyone else is running dark and silent, listening closely.
“And the Hive itself didn’t fare any better.” I continue. “The project was a success from an engineering standpoint, but the Opacians failed to anticipate the cultural clashes that would occur between refugee groups. Muslim and Christian, Indian and Pakistani, Capitalist and Socialist - these terms mean nothing to us today, but back then they represented divisions, hatreds. The place went to hell real quick, and the Opacian army - which was supposed to maintain the quarantine zone between camps - was forced to withdraw after less than two years.”
“But all of this is old news.” Lucy points out. “The Designer changed everything when he showed up, didn’t he?”
“That was certainly his intent. Among other things, he planned to sterilize the entire population and transition to vat-grown reproduction instead. But I escaped right after he seized power, so I don’t know if he ever made that happen. And since his regime eliminated all of Korezon’s spies not long afterward, neither does anybody else.”
“Then where do all those crazy stories about the Hive come from?” Francis asks. “You know, all that post-humanism stuff.”
“Screenwriters expanding on old info and rumors, would be my guess.”
“But the Designer really does know how to build souped up humans?” Delez asks. “And you really are one them?”
“Yes and yes. I was part of the first batch he ever produced though, so who knows what the new models can do?”