by Liam Clay
Anyway, it’s Peace who finally snaps me out of my funk. And she does so in true Peace fashion, by punching me in the face. I happen to be sleeping at the time, because it’s past midnight and there’s only so much melancholy stargazing a guy can do before he nods off.
“What did you do that for?” I splutter, forgetting my vow of silence.
“We need to talk.”
“About what?”
She shifts slightly and I see that Delez is crouched beside her, looking awkward.
“It’s about Tikal.” He says without taking his eyes off the turf. “We think maybe you should go and speak to her.”
“Why should I? She didn’t want anything to do with me the other night.”
“She was giving you a chance to get back together with Kalana!”
“Why the hell would I do that? She had just admitted to rigging my entire life.”
“Then what was with all the reminiscing? That stuff about you two on the dancefloor, hooking up for the first time and everything.”
“Oh, that. Wait, Tikal didn’t storm off because of... ah.”
“That’s right, genius.” Peace says. “You sleep with her, and then five minutes later you’re getting all nostalgic with a woman who just confessed to fucking you over on an industrial scale.”
I want to defend myself but in all honesty, what was that about? I should have been going for Kalana’s throat, not waxing lyrical with her about the good old days.
“Okay, I’ll go talk to Tikal.”
“Good.” Peace says. “And when you’re done, you can go talk to Kalana too.”
“What!”
“You heard me. I don’t know her very well, but just imagine the position she was in. By starting a relationship with you, she betrayed everything she had been conditioned since birth - or gestation, I guess - to believe in. I think she did pretty well by you, all things considered.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me the truth years ago?”
“Because it might have killed you, man. I hear you used to be pretty unstable.”
“I liked you a lot more when you were unstable. And what’s the deal, are you two some kind of power couple now?”
Before she can answer, a ruckus erupts near the west end of camp. We exchange a look, and head that way. Arriving at the base of a low hill, we worm our way through a crowd of onlookers until we reach the front. Above us, bathed in oily torchlight, an unexpected delegation has assembled.
As unlikely as it seems, there can be no doubt: they’re New Jamaicans. Dreadlocks, Ethiopian flag colors, the whole Rasta deal. But the Designer drove them out of Kingston years ago, long before I was returned to the fold. So where have they been all this time, and what are they doing here? I suppose there’s only one way to find out.
“Can we help you?” I call up to them.
“Don’t know.” One of the women replies. “You run road here?”
“Sorry?”
“You in charge?”
“Oh. Yeah, sort of.”
She smiles down on me, revealing multiple gold teeth.
“Then we affi talk, you an I. Up ere.”
I glance at Delez, who shrugs.
“Seems like a good way to get killed if you ask me. But then, so have most of the things we’ve done lately.”
I climb the hill - acutely aware of the crowd at my back - and come to a stop facing the Jamaican leader. She gives me a once over before speaking.
“Soh was yuh who ‘sort of’ ordered yonda rabble to march pon fi mi hometown?”
“You mean Kingston?”
“No, fucking Paris. Of course Kingston.”
“Alright, alright. It’s just that the last time I was - I mean last I heard, you guys had been driven out of your Hex.”
“Well then lass yu heard was ah while bak, star. We reclaim the mother city nine months ago now.”
“Really? Then what happened to the Designer?”
“Nuh idea.” She says. “Him just gaan, vanished, an is people too. Yu neva answer fi mi question though. Why you march yon rabble pon Kingston?”
“Um, it’s kind of complicated. But basically we need access to a decent lab, and it seemed like Kingston might be the best place to find one.”
“What you need a lab for?”
“Well, there’s this asshole back in Opacity who can monitor us through our retinal computers, and we want to remove them, but our tech guy needs a working lab to do it and... like I said, it’s complicated.” I finish lamely.
The woman blinks. “Hole pon ah minute. Is yuh sum real deal Opacity army?”
“Nah, we’re just conscripts from the poor part of town. Some rich fuckers stole our kids, see, and we’re trying to get them back. But most of the people traveling with us are locals. They used to follow this guy named Raka, but we killed him so now they’re with us.”
“Yuh killed Raka?” The woman says sharply. I clamp my mouth shut, thinking that my penchant for rambling has finally sunk us. Then she breaks out laughing.
“Blow wow, we gotta propah rude boy ere! That rasshole had it coming fah ah long time.” She follows this up with another long stare, and then nods to herself. “Okay. You an dis tech can come back to Kingston wid wi. But only if the rest o you stay ere.”
And like a gift from above, a chance appears for me to delay talking to Tikal and Kalana.
“Deal.” I say.
.
The group is not pleased with the agreement I’ve struck. But Francis displays an unwavering determination to go, and in the end it is this, coupled with our usual lack of better options, that turns the tide in my favor. Our guns we leave behind, but the Jamaicans do allow us to keep our sonic shears. I wonder what would happen if they knew how much damage the things can do.
We head out just before dawn. I try asking a few questions at first, but aside from divulging her name (Ini) the leader refuses to answer them. Francis is having none of this though, and he regales the Jamaicans with crude stories until a few of them crack smiles. But the pace eventually gets to him, and he subsides to focus on running.
The sun is well above the horizon when the Kingston Hexwall comes into view. It looks nothing like I remember. The old version was a weathered façade of interlocking concrete blocks. But this new structure sparkles in prismatic shades of blue, purple and green. Only the torches scattered along the ramparts hint that it isn’t a fully functioning techno-marvel.
As we draw closer, I realize that the old wall hasn’t been torn down after all, but is encased within the new one. Waste not, want not. The elevator that was under construction when I left must be broken, because we are led to a jury-rigged contraption that looks ready to bite the dust at any second. We reach the top, and Kingston splays out before us.
It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. At one point in time, the Designer’s stronghold must have looked like a cross between the emerald city and a far future space station. But there is no electricity, and so all of the Hex’s technology sits motionless and dead. And apparently the Jamaicans aren’t big fans of crystal, because they have carted in massive quantities of soil, spread it over the main streets, and built simple but pleasant looking wood houses on top of it. They’ve even draped tarps in Rasta colors over the adjacent Designer-era buildings.
“Love what you’ve done with the place.” Francis remarks as we descend to ground level. Ini snorts and motions for us to follow her into the city. There aren’t a ton of people around, but all of them are Jamaican, and although I keep my eyes to myself, I can feel their stares as we pass. Visitors must be a rarity here. Then we round a corner and I get the shock of my life.
I’ve never been able to remember much about my escape from the Designer’s labs, and discovering that he let me go on purpose didn’t change that. In fact, the only recollections I have of my ‘childhood’ are fleeting images of steel tanks, glass piping and wheeled gurneys. But this octagonal concrete building, standing alone in the center of a quiet square, sets o
ff alarm bells in a part of my brain I didn’t know existed. I’ve been here before - and not during my brief stint as a teenage assassin in Kalana’s thrall. This comes from earlier. From the beginning.
The others are halfway across the square before they realize I’ve stopped.
“You coming or what?” Francis calls out to me. “Ini says we’re still ten minutes from the labs.”
A complicated species of fear grips me, and I hurry over to join them. “What is this building?” I ask.
“Jus a leftova fram de ole days.” She says dismissively. “From before wi, from before de Designa. Empty fah decades.”
I make eye contact with Francis. “I need to go in there.”
Ini looks at me strangely. “Wah yuh tink to find inna dere?”
I have no idea what to tell her, but Francis is quicker.
“Probably nothing.” He says casually. “But my friend here is really superstitious, and when he gets these feelings, it’s best to humor him or he won’t shut up about it for hours. So could you give us, like, fifteen minutes?”
Ini rolls her eyes. “Fine, but yuh won’t find nutin but dust.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Francis replies, and then he’s hustling me toward the building. Each face of the eight sided structure has a heavy iron door built into it. Francis moves to the closest of these, flicks his shear open, and slides it into the crack between door and frame. He pulls the trigger and the lock pops. Then we push through into the dimness beyond.
The building’s interior is one huge space. Skylights set high in the walls provide perimeter illumination only. The floor is a collage of black and white tiles that might depict an image or even writing, but on a scale too large for me to take in. It is all hauntingly familiar. I expect Francis to start asking a load of questions, but he doesn’t say a word.
We activate our spheretorches and start walking. My stomach is jammed up in knots and there’s a possibility I might be sick, but it’s too late to turn back now. We reach the center of the building, where an octagonal hole has been carved into the floor. An iron staircase hugs the shaft’s pitted walls, spiraling down into the earth. Then a memory hits me: my bare feet pounding up these stairs, electrodes still stuck to my skull, coppery saliva flooding my mouth.
“This is super fucked up.” I mutter to Francis as we start downward.
“I’m not loving it either. What are we doing down here?”
“I think I’ve been here before.”
“Holy crap. No wonder you were acting so weird.”
I would be fine with the stairwell having no bottom, but it eventually deposits us in a moldy concrete cube of a room. Dark water flows through a sluiceway in the floor, and rusty piping crisscrosses the space, but otherwise the room is empty. This was a mistake. We should go back. But for some reason, I can’t stop staring at the dark hole into which the sluiceway water is flowing. Francis notes my interest.
“Are you for real?” He moans.
I nod apologetically.
“Okay, I can tell you’re set on this, and I really do want to help you. But if there was something down here, wouldn’t your ex have warned us? She was practically the Designer’s butler to hear her tell it.”
“No, Kalana wouldn’t know about this. Only the earliest models retain any memory of the decanting process. Made for a bad first impression, I guess.”
His mouth drops open. “You think this is where you were born?”
“It’s possible. The Designer always kept the location of his decanting lab secret, and this seems like as good a place as any to hide it. Plus, I’m getting some serious déjà vu from that tunnel over there.”
Francis peers dubiously into the rectangular cavity. “You know, there are days when I regret being such a great guy.” He sighs. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
.
The sluiceway smells. Like, really smells. It is also quite steep, and slippery too. We’ve only been in here for a few minutes, but I swear I’m already starting to forget what the sun looks like. I’m in the lead with Francis behind me. He hasn’t said anything yet, but I’m definitely not winning any brownie points with this little expedition. But wait, is the tunnel getting brighter? Hallelujah, I think it is. It can’t be daylight - we’ve been moving steadily downward this whole time - and it isn’t torchlight either, so maybe we’re on to something.
As we draw closer, I keep trying to label the light’s source. It is cold and ghostly pale, like white noise on an old world television screen. I don’t like it at all. But Francis will never let me forget it if I chicken out now, and so I push on, splashing forward on hands and knees.
The sluiceway comes to an end. I can only see a thin slice of the space beyond, but something about the airflow in the tunnel tells me it’s big. Grimy water gushes past me through a clear plastic grate and vanishes down a shaft in the chamber floor. My shear makes quick work of the grate. Then I scramble through the hole and into the room.
CHAPTER 30
It’s a lab, there can be no doubt about that. But it looks much different than the picture my scant memories provide. Huge and heavily equipped, it is also, for some unknown reason, packed with artwork of varying descriptions. But none of this makes more than a passing impression on me. My attention is held by a milky white sphere that is the source of the strange light. It’s so big that only the middle two thirds are showing, with the remainder encased in the roof and floor. I turn to ask Francis about it, but he’s already rifling through lab equipment with a shit-eating grin on his face.
With him otherwise engaged, I am left to my own devices. I don’t see any decanting pods - I get the feeling there have been some drastic renovations since I was last here - but we are still clearly in an underground lair. Not a great place to be caught trespassing. To soothe my nerves, I start to pace the edge of the chamber.
“Want some?”
My heart jumps into my mouth and I whirl around, fully expecting to encounter some bioengineered horrowshow. Instead I see a ten-year-old girl sitting on a countertop, holding out a slab of what looks like chocolate. She has a round face peppered with large brown freckles, and wiry ginger hair cut into a bob. Her bare feet stick out from under a white lab coat.
“No thanks.” I say automatically.
“That’s okay.” The girl replies. “It’s not very good anyway. I can’t seem to get the sequencing for cacao butter right.”
“I see. And what are you, uh, doing down here?”
“This is where I live.”
“Really? I thought it was the Designer’s lab.”
“Oh, it is.”
“Then he’s your... dad? Roommate? Creepier thing?”
“Wow, how inappropriate. Do you talk to all children this way?”
“No! Well... yeah, maybe. Kids aren’t really my specialty.”
“No shit. Anyway you’re in luck, because I’m not your average kid.”
“How so? Apart from living with a mad scientist in an underground lab, that is. And from saying things like no shit.”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
I glance across the room at Francis. He is hunched over a bank of computer screens, typing furiously.
“I’ve got time.”
“Alright. But before I launch into it, how much do you know about the Designer?”
It is occurring to me just how weird this situation is, and so I opt to underplay my knowledge.
“I don’t know - the usual, I guess. He’s always been pretty heavy into the whole post-humanism thing, but it must have backfired because he ended up getting everyone here killed.”
The girl nods. “As a broad overview that’s not too bad. But do you know why he was so into post-humanism?”
I blink, noticing that she just referred to the Designer in the past tense. “Dunno.” I reply. “Because normal people are boring?”
“Not at all.” She replies seriously. “He didn’t think normal people were boring, or inherently evil either.” S
he holds up three pudgy fingers. “What he did believe was that humanity in its current form is doomed to fail as a result of three, previously inescapable conditions.” She starts to tick them off on her fingers. “One, the quantity of resources needed to sustain life. Two, uncontrolled reproduction. And three, fear of the other.”
“Listen, this is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with you?”
“I’m getting there, okay?” She says with a trace of annoyance.
“Sorry.” I say, wondering why I’m trying to mollify her. “So the first two conditions I get - they tie into the Designer’s agenda pretty closely. But what’s this about fear of the other?”
“It’s simple. As things stand, humans are born black or white, male or female, gay or straight, strong or weak, handsome or ugly. And because they can never experience life from anyone’s viewpoint but their own, they naturally gravitate toward people like themselves. Over time, everyone else starts to seem strange and therefore dangerous. Fear develops, and that leads to conflict. But imagine a society in which the sense of self has been completely disentangled from the physical body. All that fear would vanish overnight. Riding in was a step in the right direction, but the Designer wanted to take things a step further.”
“And how did he plan to do that?”
“By developing a technology suite that can duplicate a human consciousness and transfer it into a new body.” She looks down at herself. “Et voila.”
For about the tenth time over the past few days, it feels like the world has been pulled out from under me.
“Don’t tell me you’re the fucking Designer. Just don’t, okay?”
“I’m actually not, if that makes you feel any better. What I am is a duplication of the Designer’s mind, transferred into a vat-grown body. The real thing is... gone.”
I decide not to touch her ‘gone’ comment just yet. “So what’s the difference between you and him, aside from you being cute and non-threatening?”
“There’s a big bloody difference. I may have his memories and personality traits, but I didn’t actually do any of the things he did. I am only responsible for the actions I’ve taken in this body, which so far consist exclusively of hanging out in this stupid lab like a loser.”