by Liam Clay
“No! It can’t be me.”
“Why not? You’re half a legend to most of these people, in case you didn’t know. Automatic, your nickname used to be, because you never botched a job. Underworlders respect what they’re scared of. And more importantly, you control the link and you know the Hive.”
“Knew the Hive. A lot will have changed in fifteen years.”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is that you have all the tools to get the job done.”
“Except the trust of the people I would be leading. They all know about the Kaleidoscope incident, Delez. And anyone that doesn’t, Lucy and Fort will tell before long.”
“I think you make too big a deal out of that. Some people even thought it was romantic, trying to blow yourself up in the name of love. But you’re right about one thing: Lucy and Fort could become a problem. Did you know they used to be a couple? Were trying to get pregnant too, but it never panned out. She blamed him for juicing too much and started pursuing other options. Also without success, but not through lack of effort.”
“That explains a few things. Do you think they might be bitter enough to let the kids die?”
“I have no idea.”
“I guess we’ll just have to watch them, then. But hold on, does anyone seriously think the Kaleidoscope incident was romantic?”
“Sure. People go nuts for lovesick dingbats like you.”
“I find that hard to believe. And now, on top of everything else, they know what I am.”
If we weren’t linked I would leave it at that. But here you can’t hide the next segment in your chain of thought, and so the silt gets dragged all the way up from the deep.
“I’m one of the Designer’s creations, Delez. Do you understand what that means? I’ve spent the last fifteen years pretending to be just another Underworlder trying to build a life out of the muck. But I’m a fake. From a technical perspective, it’s hard to say if I’m human at all.”
The Fractal snorts. “But what does that term even mean, really? I think it’s hilarious, the arbitrary lines we draw in the name of firewalling our humanity.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Think about it. The Korezons limit themselves to vat grown organ replacement, cosmetic surgery and retcoms. And then there’s Helix, which shuns post-fetal tampering but is totally comfortable telling people who they should fuck, and with gene hacking their DNA in the womb too. Meanwhile the Threshers don’t hold with any of that, but they do let every Tom, Dick and Harry load themselves up with digital memory upgrades and mechanicals. Basically, I’m saying that ‘human’ is too subjective a term to bother beating yourself up over.”
“It sounds like you’ve thought a lot about this.”
I sense his rueful amusement. “It was meeting Peace that got me into it, actually. Physically, she is 100% natural aside from that Rolls Royce retcom of hers. But I swear to god, that girl is not human. One second I think she’s falling for me, the next I feel like a fly she wants to pull the wings off of.”
“You sound just like every guy that ever tried to figure out a woman. But if we’re going to psychoanalyze me, it’s only fair to do you too. About leading the platoon, I mean - not your unhealthy infatuation with a mass murderer.” I feed my laughter through the link to draw some of the sting out of this comment. “You say you failed the Constant and your crew. Well I say bullshit. That’s just your pride talking.”
“What do you mean, pride? They died because I couldn’t protect them, end of story.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m talking about, right there! Protection implies ownership, and if there is one thing Underworlders can rightfully claim to be, it’s free.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that your crew never wanted your protection, and the Constant sure as hell didn’t. They needed your skills and your leadership.”
“Yes, the skills and the leadership to bring them safely through danger. Which I failed to do.”
“And do you think they would have survived if someone else had been in your place?”
A sullen pause. “No.”
“That’s what I thought. Do you know what the definition of pride is? Thinking you can control situations that are by nature uncontrollable.”
“You get that off the back of a cereal box?
“Fortune cookie. But I still think it’s true.”
“Well then. We appear to have each other trapped.”
“I suppose we do. Time to get over ourselves, we’re both saying. Okay, I’ll tell you what. If you agree to lead the platoon, I will act as your second in command. Until you find someone better, anyway.”
I sense frustration through the link, but also resignation. “As if anyone better would actually want the job. But alright, you’ve got yourself a deal. The question is, do we actually stand any chance of surviving this?”
“It’s probably better not to think about that. Let’s focus on how to ask the platoon if they’re willing to have us take charge.”
“Why bother? I say we just keep acting the part. And if anyone doesn’t like it, they can bloody well take over.”
“You mean fake it til we make it? I don’t think Lucy and Fort will let that slide.”
“Lucy will. I know her type. She would rather wait for us to screw up and lay blame than risk us doing the same to her.”
“What about Fort?”
“She still has him whipped. He won’t do anything without her say so.”
“And if he surprises us?
“Leave him to me.”
I sometimes forget that Delez has been fighting cartel turf wars for two decades.
We log out just as the jet’s engines come to life. (Time must pass more slowly in the link.) It takes ages for Voranez to bring us into position, and longer still to prep for takeoff. I stave off boredom by wishing painful death on every Topsider I’ve ever met. Or, alternately, by fantasizing about being back among them. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that until a few months ago, I sold drugs at parties for a living.
The jet starts to gain speed. The acceleration sets the glider vibrating at a teeth-rattling frequency, but there is nothing to do except hang on. Then the nose lifts and we’re airborne. It’s still hellishly cramped, but no worse than a drop at Opacian rush hour. Closing my eyes, I sink into myself and wait for it to be over.
Tikal wakes me from a shallow dream some time later.
“Wakey, wakey!” She calls through the plexiglass separating us from the cockpit. “We will be landing shortly.”
“How is that possible?” Delez shouts back. “Did we uncouple from the jet without me noticing?”
“No, we’re just about to. The glider is too heavy to maintain altitude on its own, so I will be starting our descent as soon as we detach. The plan is to land a few clicks offshore to avoid detection.”
“When people say land,” Delez replies, “I picture the physical element being involved. As in dirt, rocks, scattered daffodils. But you seem to have some other definition.”
“Were you expecting the Designer to roll out a red carpet runway?”
“Would’ve been nice.”
“Nice would be trading this suicide mission for an expensive bottle of red in a Topside lounge. But since you insist on being obtuse, allow me to spell it out for you. In a few minutes we are going to crash into the ocean at 60 kilometers an hour. It will hurt. Afterward, I will open the cockpit and the hatch. You will wait until the glider fills with water and then swim clear. Whatever you do, don’t try to exit before the hatch is fully submerged. Your armor’s buoyancy units should take care of the rest. Got it?”
“I get that this is complete and utter bullshit.”
“Perfect. Now shut up and try not to bite through your tongue when we ditch.”
There is a beeping sound, and the glider detaches from the jet with a bang and a thud. Our speed slows and we fall into a gradual descent. I’d like to run a gear check before we land. (Betwe
en the machine gun strapped to my back, the sonic shear at my hip and the nanodrones in the pouch under my right arm, there are a lot of moving parts involved.) But the techs assured me everything was ready to rock and besides, I can barely move.
Then we hit water.
The impact is sudden and savage. A knee crunches into my chin and my spine wrenches sideways, nearly tearing a chain of muscles in my neck. Then the hatch slides open and the ocean rushes in, dark and cold. Calm - I need to stay calm. But I also need to breathe, and that’s going to be tricky as long as I’m stuck in here.
I force myself to wait until submerged silence envelopes me. Until the others have fought free of the hatch. Until the glider begins to sink in earnest. Only then do I move: kicking out, parting the sea with both hands, aiming my body downward. I am reminded of my storage container dive during the battle for the Kaleidoscope. My instincts served me then; here’s hoping they will again. I swim out of the hatch, past a broken wing and up toward daylight. What little there is of it. Garbage covers the surface like a perverted version of a planet’s atmosphere, blocking the sun.
I break the waves and steal a long, ragged breath. My whole body aches. I look around for my companions, but mounded trash limits my vision to a few feet. The stink is so awful it’s impressive, like a shitty karaoke singer belting one out through boos and lobbed tomatoes. An idea comes to me, and I reach for the pooled link. I’m getting better at it. Not only can I sense the entire platoon this time, I can also pick out identities and locations. But something is wrong. There should be 16 of us, not including Tikal. But my count is coming up one short of that number. Without understanding how, I reach further out across the water. And find nothing but empty, contaminated ocean. Then I send my thoughts questing into the deep.
There is someone down there, but the signal is faint and fading fast. I gulp a breath and dive. Down and down, past the reality of light and then the memory. A final restless glimmer reveals the glider’s outline. My fingers make contact with the tail wing - and slide off. A second effort and I’ve got it. Then I’m dragging myself, foot by frigid foot, along the fuselage to the hatch. I flip my body around and in.
It’s dead black inside, and scary cold too. My hands are losing feeling and my head is being crushed by the pressure. Then something brushes across my face. It feels like hair - a nimbus of tangled strands. I grab a handful, hook a foot around the hatch’s edge and kick off. We float free as the glider falls away from us, continuing its journey to the ocean floor. But as I bear my limp platoon mate upward, the ocean seems to solidify around me. The urge to exhale grows progressively stronger until it is an all-consuming force. I give in to it, and blackness swallows everything.
Someone is squeezing the hell out of me. I want to tell them to cut it out; don’t they know it’s rude to manhandle the dead? But there is light as well, and what’s more it fucking stinks.
“Enough!” I croak. “It’s alright, I’m good.”
“Jesus christ.” Someone says. Francis, I think. “You must have been down there for five minutes, man. Are your lungs really that strong?”
“No. Came up, went back down. Where is she?”
“Where is who?”
There’s no time to explain, so I squirm free and duck back under.
I find her floating ten feet below the surface, arms outstretched in the age old pose of drowning victims everywhere. It isn’t fair. In the movies, heroes never save people from sinking ships only to have them die at the very last second. The victim will scare you for a bit, sure, but then they’ll cough up a few liters of water and get on with things. Real life plays by different rules, though. Francis swims down to join me, and together we bring her to the surface.
It’s Judith the Soccer Mom. She floats beside us face down, just another piece of garbage now. Francis is staring at the body with a strange expression. I think he’s panicking at first, but then he moves his hand to her linked eye. Urgh. When he’s finished, I access the link and send out a beacon accompanied by a summons. It’s not an order, but I put some urgency into it. A minute later we’re all together, floating in a cleared glade amidst the trash forest. No one looks directly at the body, but it’s in everyone’s peripheral. Turning my head, I find Tikal treading water next to me.
“How are you supposed to get back to the mainland from here?” I say stupidly.
“I don’t. This trip was one way tickets all round.”
My immediate reaction is to be pleased. Now she can help Delez lead the group instead of me.
“Don’t even think about it.” She says, reading my eyes. “I’m only here because I lipped Porter off, and it turns out he’s a vindictive prick with more pull than I anticipated. Babysitting you losers doesn’t come into it. In fact, I fully intend to ditch you as soon as we reach land.”
I force myself to shrug. “Our loss, then. Can you at least help us get to shore, though? I’m not sure a few weeks of cardio has fully prepared us to swim two kilometers through the garbage Himalayas.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine, but don’t think this is me caving.”
With Tikal’s brusque but effective assistance, we soon have the group arranged in single file facing west. The plan is to have a rotating leader blaze a trail through the garbage, making it easier for those behind. Tikal explains that she once used a similar trick when traveling through deep snow. In addition to being a sound idea, this explanation also impresses the people who have never seen real snow (so all of us).
I had never thought to find a physical activity that I hate more than wind sprints. How naive I was. Long distance swimming is like a failed marriage: every second feels interminable, even breathing becomes a chore and you quickly begin to wish for death. At least my armor isn’t a problem. It’s amazing stuff: perfectly buoyant, absorbing the colors around it, tough enough to turn a kill shot into a minor drag. Too bad it can’t swim on your behalf.
For hours we struggle through the debris, taking turns at the snake’s head. The gun strapped to my back is lightweight and uber-modern, but fatigue lends it an inflated gravity. The sky is a blank gray canvas overhead. It’s an incredibly depressing situation, all told - as is the thought that aside from the direction, not much has changed since the last time I made this swim. Fifteen years, and I’m still a fuck up with no prospects and a low life expectancy. At some point my brain puts by body on autopilot, correctly assuming that I’m not going to miss anything good. I can only imagine how much the others are suffering.
Lucy is in the lead some time later, with me directly behind her. She may be abrasive as diamond-studded toilet paper, but her endurance cannot be questioned. She’s been breaking trail for half an hour already - more than twice the average stint. I only notice she’s stopped when my head bumps into her foot. I pull up and look around. A dark smudge marks the western horizon, quite close now. Too drained to speak, Lucy motions for me to take the lead. It appears that landfall will be my show to run.
Shortly afterward, our progress is blocked by a concrete barrier pierced by a double row of barred sluice gates. I recognize the structure as a barrage. Water is supposed to flow through the apparatus with the tide, powering the turbines housed within. But the gates are clogged with debris, and the whole thing reeks of long neglect. I wonder what that might mean.
Delez swims up to join me while I’m considering our next move. He looks bone tired. Together, we climb up onto a maintenance platform that runs the barrage’s length. Deciding it’s time to put our new tech to use, I unclip one of my nanodrones and toss it skyward. The device wobbles, steadies, and floats up over the barrier. Then I blink into its datastream like slipping on a second skin.
My first thought is that the drone must be malfunctioning. At the time of my escape, the Hive’s coastline was largely untouched aside from the occasional pirate outpost and hermit fisherman. But now an enormous black wall stands behind the lagoon formed by the barrage. And beyond that, a wind farm of unfamiliar design extends into the distance in
both directions.
And the weirdness doesn’t end there. Directly ahead of us, the lagoon has been subsumed by a jigsaw puzzle of pontoon docks and dismantled rafts, all held together with steel cable, frayed rope and what the hell, how about a little string. And on top of these shaky foundations, a town has been erected - part construction site, part tree fort and all mayhem. The whole thing leans against the curtain wall like a drunk uncle against a fence at a barbeque.
I’m guiding the drone back to my hand when I catch Delez looking at me sidelong.
“I take it this isn’t what you were expecting.” He says quietly.
Somewhere to our left, a piercing whistle breaks the torpor. A second call answers it on our right.
“Damn it.” Delez mutters. “What do you think, mate? Fight, run or hide?”
I consider everything I’ve just seen. “Give ourselves up.”
“Are you kidding? Why?”
To speed things up, I provide an explanation through the link. Delez nods, and then reiterates my proposal to the group. They reluctantly agree. As I climb onto the barrage with my hands in the air, I reflect on just how big a risk we’re taking. If this goes wrong, our joint command is going to be short lived. As will we.
CHAPTER 22
Within minutes, a sizeable crowd has gathered. A pair of teenagers - one girl and one boy - now flank us atop the barrage. I assume these are the lookouts who raised the alarm. Both are dressed in patched but relatively clean clothes, features remarkable only for the daubs of mud that mark their cheeks like warpaint. The boy carries a length of rebar; the girl a large kitchen knife.
Hundreds more have assembled on the verges of the town proper. A narrow lane of water is all that separates us. In most respects they are a melting pot: age, sex, health and mode of dress all vary widely. But their hard faces unite them, as does the fact that they are universally armed. I see a few guns, but most hold scavenged hand weapons like those the lookouts carry. Only about one in ten has the mud markings, however.