Utopia

by Lincoln Child

  “What else we got?” Allocco asked wearily.

  Peccam consulted a table. “Just the camera in pre-show,” he said, sniffing.

  “Very well. Bring it up, same time reference, two hundred frames a second.”

  Peccam tapped in a few commands, then adjusted a hat switch set into the oversize keyboard. Sarah stared at the screen as the tourists, accelerated into languid rivers, flowed around the barriers and dropped, a few at a time, into the empty cars that shot up to meet them. She knew she should feel something right now: grief, anger, remorse. But all she felt was an overpowering numbness. The image of Chris Green—the staring eyes, the gleam of the jagged shard peeping from parted lips—refused to leave her. She glanced toward Fred Barksdale, the contours of his face spectral in the artificial light of the Hive. He shifted his eyes toward her for a moment, then turned back to the screen. He looked stricken.

  “All routine,” Allocco muttered bitterly as he, too, stared at the screen. “Another day in paradise.”

  Sarah was holding a sealed plastic bag, containing the fragments of disc left on the bottom of the car. They were crushed by what must have been a terrible struggle. Without realizing, she had been turning the bag over and over in her hands. She thrust it into the pocket of her jacket.

  On the left edge of the screen, there was movement as a handful of figures took up positions beside the loading area.

  “Slow to thirty,” Allocco said.

  Now the figures to the left of the screen resolved themselves: Allocco; the line manager; herself. Sarah forced herself to watch as the scene, not yet half an hour old, replayed itself. Freddy walked into the picture, disc in hand. A little drama unfolded as both he and Allocco pleaded their cases to her. She made her decision; Chris Green, the security officer, vanished through a door into the rear of the ride. Sarah watched herself take Fred Barksdale aside to explain the wisdom of launching a pre-emptive strike against John Doe. To explain why, in effect, she had just condemned a man to death.

  On-screen, they placed the disc, sent on the empty cars, then vanished from view, heading for the control tower.

  “Cut it,” Allocco told Peccam. The monitor went blank. “That’s it. We’ve checked all five cameras. Nothing.”

  A silence settled over the small, dark room.

  At last, Allocco spoke. “Chris Green was a stand-up guy,” he said slowly. “The best thing we can do for him right now is try to figure out what the hell happened.” He sighed, turned to Peccam. “Ralph, bring up that last camera once again. Cue on the empty cars as they enter the ride.”

  Peccam restored the view of the pre-show area. Once again, Sarah watched Allocco place the package in the empty car. It trundled forward along the bus bar, then vanished out of sight into the blackness of the first turn.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Allocco muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “The Crab Nebula is deep inside the ride. That’s where John Doe would have to be for the pickup. But Chris Green was stationed at the ride entrance. Why would he encounter John Doe there?”

  The question hung in the air, unanswered. All eyes remained on the screen.

  “Stop!” Allocco barked suddenly. “Okay. Ahead fifteen.” He pointed at the monitor. “Look at that.”

  Sarah watched as the maintenance specialist she’d noticed in passing stepped out of the side portal and ambled, slow-motion, across the pre-show area. Abruptly, the numbness that had enveloped her like a cloak fell away.

  In the bulky helmet and obligatory space suit, there was no way to be sure. And yet Sarah knew—in some instinctive way—that she was watching John Doe.

  From the expressions around her, she realized the others had reached the same conclusion.

  “Shit,” Allocco said. “The whole thing with the ninety-second stop was a phony. John Doe wasn’t waiting by the Crab Nebula turn. He was going to pluck the disc from the car as soon as itentered the ride, then just walk away before we even stopped the damn thing. But he ran into Chris Green instead.”

  “You want me to track him?” Peccam asked.

  “No. I mean, yes. But on your own time. No doubt he’s worked that out, too.” Allocco glanced over at Sarah. “I’ll get Costuming over there, run an inventory. See if any uniforms are missing.”

  Sarah nodded. She already knew exactly what they would find.

  A low buzzing sounded from the radio in her pocket.

  The control room fell silent. All eyes turned to Sarah as she drew out the radio.

  She snapped it on, raised it slowly to her lips. “Sarah Boatwright here.” They were the first words she had spoken since entering the Hive.

  “Sarah.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, Sarah?” It was John Doe’s voice, yet it sounded different somehow. The tone of bantering civility was gone. It was chillier now; more businesslike.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you set a trap for me?”

  Sarah struggled to find words.

  “Haven’t I always been honest with you, Sarah? Hasn’t honesty been the basis of all our dealings?”

  “Mr. Doe, I—”

  “Didn’t I take the time to visit you personally, to make your acquaintance? Didn’t I spell outprecisely what you should and should not do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t I go to the trouble of giving you a demonstration? Didn’t I make every possible effort to make sure that, at the end of the day, there would be no deaths to weigh upon your conscience?”

  Sarah was silent.

  “Oh, dear God,” Barksdale murmured. “What have we done?”

  “Mr. Doe,” Sarah began slowly. “I’ll see to it personally that—”

  “No,” came the voice. “You lost your chance to speak when you betrayed my trust. I’m the teacher now. You’re the student. And you will now attend to my lecture. Do you know what the subject is? No, don’t speak—I’ll tell you myself. It’spanic .”

  Sarah listened, radio pressed against her ear.

  “Did you know, Sarah, that there’s an art to orchestrating panic? It’s such a fascinating topic, I’ve been planning a monograph on it. It would make me famous, the Aristotle of crowd control. What’s especially interesting is the opportunity for creativity. There are so many tools at one’s disposal, so many ways to proceed, that choosing the most effective becomes a real challenge. Take—oh—fire, for example. Something unique happens to crowd dynamic during a fire, Sarah. I’ve studied all the greats: the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the Iroquois Theater, the Cocoanut Grove, the Happyland Social Club. All very different. And yet they all have something in common. Extremely high mortality rates, even without the benefit of artificial accelerants. People bunch together at the exits, you see. Theclosed exits.”

  “Our exits are open,” Sarah murmured.

  “Are they? But all this is beside the point, and I’m getting ahead of myself. I have to go. I’ll be in touch.”

  “One person is already dead—”

  “One person is not even a statistical blip.”

  “You’ll get your disc—”

  “I know I will. But there’s something I have to do first. You think your Park is famous now, Sarah? I’m about toreally put it on the map.”

  “No! Wait,wait —”

  But the line had already gone dead.

  2:22P.M.

  GEORGIA WARNE LEFTthe exit portal for the ride known as Ecliptic and joined the crowds moving along the broad concourse. She had just purchased Callisto’s version of cotton candy—an iridescent rainbow of spun sugar, shot through with carbonated crystals that popped noisily on the tongue—and was devouring it with resolute single-mindedness. She did not hear the crackling of the crystals, or the hoots and laughter of the guests passing by her, or the faint background wash of Utopia sonics: she was wearing her headphones, and the surrounding landscape was drenched in the call-and-response of Count Basie’s “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.”

  A group of older teenagers, sporting pur
ple hair and wearing Dragonspire T-shirts, were making their raucous erratic way toward her, and Georgia veered to one side to let them pass. She hadn’t expected much from Ecliptic—after all, it was a Ferris wheel, getreal —but it had turned out to be pretty cool. It revolved around a planet with a vertical ring, sort of like Saturn, only set on end. Dark, like most of the rides in Callisto, but with this amazing sense of depth, of being in outer space. And the holographic rings had been soutterly real she felt sure she could have touched them if she’d reached her hand out from the car.

  But she’d been alone, so they’d stuck her with this squirmy, wriggling girl from a large family, who’d insisted on pointing out everything in sight. She’d been too stupid to just shut up and enjoy the ride. So halfway through, Georgia had put on her headphones and cranked the volume.

  She paused, scowling at the memory. Ahead and to the right, she could see a ramp curving away from the central concourse, ending in a people-mover that disappeared into a low tunnel, arched over by bands of neon and flickering lasers. It was the entrance to Dark Side of the Moon, a ride she’d read great things about on the Web. She pulled her homemade itinerary from her pocket. Sure enough: a four-star ride. She angled toward it. Then she stopped. She’d promised her dad no big coasters, no tall rides. Dark Side of the Moon sure fell into that category. So did Ecliptic, probably; but what did Dad expect her to do? She’d tried some of the kiddie rides, like Rings of Saturn, but she felt stupid crowded in among six-year-olds.

  She stared at the ride entrance, her scowl deepening. Then she turned away unwillingly and continued down the concourse until she reached a bench. She sat down, fished out her guidemap, glanced over it, put it back in her pocket. Finishing the last bite of the cotton candy, she turned to toss the long white tube into a trash receptacle. Then she paused, looking at the slender cone of paper in her hand.

  Earlier, she’d told her dad she had no memory of the trip they’d taken, many years before, to Kennywood Park. But that wasn’t quite true. She remembered the way her mother had surprised her there with a tall cloud of cotton candy, balanced precariously on a white stick, just like this one. She remembered how the pink confection had seemed impossibly large to her eight-year-old eyes. She remembered the heat of the sun beating down upon them, the tanned lines of her mother’s face, her pale lipstick, the way the edges of her eyes crinkled up when she smiled.

  She had other memories of her mother, too: taking one of her boat prototypes out for a test sail; riding ponies in a leafy park; sitting in a window seat, smothered in blankets, reading Kipling’sJust So Stories together. They were fragmentary memories, pale and faded like old photographs, and she kept them to herself, as if speaking of them—even to her father—would break a magic enchantment, cause them to vanish forever.

  She glanced at the paper cone for a moment, turning it around in her hands. Then she dropped it in the trash, stood up, and continued down the concourse.

  Ahead, she could see the Mind’s Eye gallery. Above it, a life-size hologram of Eric Nightingale hovered, beckoning people inside with a wave of his silk top hat. A small knot of people crowded around, staring at the portraits in the gallery window, pointing at the image of the magician. Georgia slowed, staring curiously. She remembered Nightingale, too. He never seemed to keep still, always moving, always gesturing. She remembered how, even though he wasn’t very tall, even for a grown-up, the room had always seemed too small for him. There had been nights he’d visited with her dad, where the men had talked around the kitchen table for hours and hours, it seemed. She remembered the smell of coffee, pipe tobacco. She’d crawled under the table and played there, listening to the voices, knowing that if she didn’t call attention to herself she could stay up way, way past her bedtime.

  “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” ended. There was a brief moment of silence on her digital player, and the sounds of Utopia rushed in: hoots, a babel of voices, a distant echoey loudspeaker, a child’s shriek of delight. Then “Swingin’ the Blues” started and the sounds were lost once again. Georgia stuck her hands in her pockets and moved on. She remembered how Nightingale had this way of looking at her when she talked, listening, as if what she had to say really mattered. He wasn’t dumb, like most adults seemed to be. He didn’t say the same dumb things that everybody else did, like how pretty she was, or how much she had grown since he last saw her.

  For some reason, Georgia’s thoughts turned to Terri Bonifacio. She didn’t seem dumb, either. She probably even liked cotton candy. Usually, Georgia had little interest in what adults had to say. But she found herself very curious to hear Terri’s opinions on things: what she thought about bluegrass or bop; what books she’d read as a kid; what colors she liked to wear; what her favorite food was. She sure hoped it wasn’t that nasty, fishy-smelling stuff. That could be a problem.

  By now, she had reached the end of the central concourse, and she stopped, hopping from one foot to the other on the reflective pavers. Ahead, the thoroughfare widened into what looked like a vast, circular terminal. This was the Callisto Skyport, with half a dozen “embarkation zones” leading to some of the World’s most popular rides. The space throbbed with chatter. Georgia glanced at her guidemap. Moon Shot, Event Horizon, Afterburn. Every one an awesome ride. And every one exactly the kind Dad didn’t want her to go on.

  As usual, there were no clocks anywhere. She glanced down at her watch. Forty-five more minutes until she was supposed to meet her dad.

  It wasn’t fair, it wasn’tfair . Just a couple good rides that morning. Then, nothing but dumb meetings and hanging around in labs. And it wasn’t any fun going on rides alone. Especially when you couldn’t even go on any of thegood rides.

  Georgia sighed disconsolately and turned to retrace her steps. As she did so, her eyes landed on an embarkation zone labeledEscape from Waterdark .

  She stared up at the shimmering holographic letters. She’d read all about this ride on the Web. It was modeled after her favorite scene inAtmosfear, in which the young band of heroes escapes Morpheus’s prison on the sea planet of Waterdark Four. The ride was new; nobody at her school had been on it. And it was especially cool for two reasons. It took place entirelyinside a world of water and rain. And it was supposed to be the first ride anywhere to employ low-gravity technology. And no fakes, either: real, live low-gravity.

  Georgia noticed that most of the people were walking toward her, rather than away: they had already been on the Skyport rides and were streaming back into Callisto proper. Although these six rides were some of the most popular anywhere, the lines were shorter than the ones she’d waited on already.

  The fanzines published by the Utopia fan clubs contained exhaustive listings of ideal times to visit specific rides: times at which, for no easily explainable reason, lines seemed to be shorter. Georgia didn’t care about any of this. She only knew she was sick of kiddie rides, sick of hanging around. And it looked as if she’d be able to get inside Waterdark in under ten minutes. Anyway, it wasn’t a coaster—not really. Her dad wouldn’t mind; not much, anyway.

  She was abruptly jostled to one side. She looked up: two little kids, holding their mother’s hands, had passed her on their way to Waterdark. The mother was young, attractive, her tan dark against her red dress.

  Georgia pulled the headphones from her ears. Then she jogged forward, and—smirking at the kids from over her shoulder—took her place in the Waterdark line ahead of them.

  2:26P.M.

  STOP SHOVING, DICKBREATH. ”

  “I’mnot shoving, scrotum-sack.You’re shoving. Do it again and I’ll pound ya.”

  Angus Poole listened, without interest, to the petty squabbling of his cousin’s youngest boys. It had erupted on every single line they’d waited in. At first, Poole had been mildly intrigued by the remarkable arsenal of foul names the two boys had for each other. In line for the Brighton Beach Express, over in the Boardwalk, he’d even started counting. By the time they’d reached the very next ride, Scream Machine, he’d gi
ven up at fifty.

  Thank God, at leastthis line was short.

  Around him, the Skyport was a vast echoing citadel of conversation. From his place in line, Poole glanced around. The designers had done an excellent job of making the place feel like some futuristic transportation terminal, right down to the departures board and the steady drone of the dispatch loudspeaker. Today it held an added benefit: with six rides all boarding from the same convenient place, he could sneak off for a cool one and let his cousin deal with her own family for a while.

  As if on cue, Sonya turned toward him. Three cameras slanted across her ample midriff, and atop her head the archmage’s cap had gone slightly askew. “What did you say the name of this ride was, Angus?”

  “Escape from Waterdark.” Never mind that a hologram of the damn name was hovering right above their heads; she had to ask anyway.

  “And where do we go next?”

  “Well, there are five other great rides you can catch from this spot. See? It’s sort of like a huge airport, except each gate leads to a different attraction. You should ride them all.”Please, ride them all .

  “How about you?” Sonya asked.

  “After Waterdark, I think I’ll go grab a beer at the Sea of Tranquility. It’s that bar outside the casino—I pointed it out from the concourse, remember? You can meet up with me there.”

  At the mention of beer, Sonya’s husband, the insurance readjuster, came out of his daze and glanced over at Poole: a brief, hunted look.

  Sonya and Martin Klemm of Lardoon, Iowa, and their three charming boys. Until he’d knocked on the door of their motel room this morning, Poole hadn’t seen his cousin Sonya in at least a dozen years. But then, it had been the same with his sister, Vicki, and his nephew Paul, or any of the other relatives, near or distant, who’d come out of the woodwork over the last six months. It was as if, in their minds, Utopia had finally given him purpose in life. Strange Uncle Angus, who had moved to Las Vegas after leaving the Corps and never gotten married. Odd cousin Angus—or half-nephew Angus, or quarter-sister Angus, or whatever—who professed to work for a living, but doing what, no one seemed to have asked. And Poole had never offered details.