“Fresh as they come,” said Nash. “I thought I already mentioned that.”
“No need,” drawled John Wayne. “I’ve seen it every minute since you arrived. Okay, try to catch this first time round because I have little patience for ignoramuses and slow-wits.”
“What about slow-witted ignoramuses?” asked Nash, pulling off a straight face.
John Wayne stared at Nash like he was considering trying to whip him. He blinked slowly, then said, “When your face shows up on the hollows, the Corporation pays you ratings.”
“Like royalties?” asked Nash.
“Never heard of ‘em. They’re ratings. This place would fall apart without them.”
Nash looked along the line of people waiting, allowing his eyes to linger on each one for their bio to appear in the corner of his vision. Two people stuck out, a Prophetess and an Ascetic—Nash didn’t have the faintest idea what a Prophetess could do or what Ascetic even meant. Their bios had personal information but didn’t give a lot of clues about their Castes. The rest of the people in line were unmodified.
“Everyone gets ratings?” asked Nash. “Not just Jennies?”
“If they can get their boring mugs on the hollows. Usually it’s action or drama or anything amazing. But in our case, after yesterday, it will be because we are the biggest screw ups on the island.” He cocked his head to the side. “At least one of us is.”
“That’s not an exaggeration at all,” said Nash, rolling his eyes.
“The greatest cowboy ever said, ‘Don’t pick a fight, but if you find yourself in one, I suggest you make damn sure you win.’”
“The way I remember it, we both ended up helpless on the ground,” said Nash. “Why am I taking all the heat?”
John Wayne squared up to face Nash. “I took a bigger shock than you. We both got caught unawares, but you had a second chance, and blew it.”
The bigger jolt was far from the truth, but Nash had blown it. It was easy to sit here and say that he would have handled things differently, but was that really the truth? Could he really cold-cock a defenseless victim?
Fighting John Wayne about it now would get him nowhere.
“I have a million more questions,” said Nash. “So, in order to find out if you get your face on the hollows you have to come here to pick up ratings?”
John Wayne clicked his tongue and winked. “See how smart you are? The Corporation wants us to be out there hollowing all the time, so they incentivize us with ratings.”
“Hollowing?”
“Living crazy to make it on the hollows,” said John Wayne. “Seizing the day. Whatever you want to call it, a lot of people do idiotic things trying to build an audience. And there’s big money in it for a select few of those idiots.”
Nash’s world view shifted again as he thought about all the hollows he’d ever seen. The people were real, but their motivation in many cases was to get on the hollows. To get paid. It was their job.
A light breeze blew along the line, bringing the dank smell of a pair of workers in front of Nash. It was just another thing about this world that was so much more gritty and real than the world he’d come from.
Nash asked, “How long does it take for ratings to come in or show up or whatever?”
“It’s unpredictable. You never know if they show you live or sit on the footage for weeks.” John Wayne looked around the people in line impatiently. “You’d think people couldn’t get enough of the original cowboy, but somehow there are people making more ratings than me. Some of them aren’t even Jennies.”
Nash wasn’t sure how to ask his next question. “Is there … another Ranger John Wayne on the island?”
“If there is, he’s gonna get a mouth full of fist when I see him.” John Wayne quirked an eyebrow. “Why you askin?”
“I watched the Ranger Channel a lot,” said Nash.
“I knew it!” interrupted John Wayne. “I’m famous. And soon I’ll be rich.” When Nash didn’t confirm anything, he nudged him with an elbow. “Right? Right?” He lowered his voice. “I know it’s bad form to talk about ratings, but I’m your trainer. You can tell me.”
“Not really,” said Nash. “I saw you a few times, but when I met you yesterday I wondered if you were even the same person.”
“There’s more you’re not saying,” said John Wayne.
Maybe John Wayne could make sense of what Nash was thinking. “If I had to guess, I would have said the John Wayne I saw on the hollows was Filipino. Maybe half-Filipino.”
“Fig me and the horse I rode in on. They only showed me in shadows or from a distance or at night?”
Nash shook his head. “I saw you clear as day. I think it was when you teamed up with that Ninja bounty hunter, the Deathblade. Was that you?”
“The one and only. That was almost a year ago. You sure you’re remembering right?”
“You’re a distinct individual, but if I didn’t know better, I would have bet money yesterday that it was a different John Wayne I saw with the Deathblade.” Nash looked around for eyes, but he didn’t really know why. They could see and hear him wherever he went. “I read a theory once that Hollow Image Projections sometimes changes the way we look, so people on the outside can’t recognize the old us, and so immigrants don’t come in with too much knowledge about individuals that they can use against people.”
“Pigsquirmy,” said John Wayne, and he spat. “Let them all know who I am so they don’t try messin’ with me.”
Nash didn’t really care. He hadn’t come here to get famous. “Back to ratings, we just show up here and hope they give us money?”
“That’s right, Pilgrim.”
They were close to the front of the line. A bunch of new people had joined it, and Nash scanned them all quickly. Not a Jennie among them. It seemed like most the people on Hollow Island weren’t modified. Maybe it was because Nash had wanted to be a Ranger his whole life and couldn’t see him settling for anything else, but he didn’t get the draw of living here unmodified.
“Why do so many unmodified people immigrate?” asked Nash.
“They’re stupid. They see what they believe on the hollows.”
That made Nash think about his own experience of reality versus expectations. “Are things so different than what the hollows show?”
“You’re lucky you got a trainer who thinks about these things,” said John Wayne in his cowboy drawl. “For most people it’s not bad here. For some it’s really good. Those people are fine. It’s the ones in the middle that cause the problems, the people whose lives aren’t good enough in their opinion. To make their life better, they have to make it worse for someone else. And that causes problems for people with no power.”
Nash clamped his jaw, soaking up what he could. The line was spread out enough they were able to talk quietly enough for the conversation to be private.
“There’s no constitution here. No Magna Carta. None of us have any rights, even basic human rights. If H.I.P. doesn’t want the world to see something that’s happening here, they don’t show it. And it never happened.”
Nash got the impression that John Wayne thought that was a good thing. That he could do what he wanted without repercussions from the law. “What about the Five Laws?” asked Nash, not sure if they even applied.
John Wayne chuckled. “Laws are restrictions, not rights.”
That seemed so obvious. Why did Nash not think of it before? “Why do they say Five Laws if there are only three?” he asked. “No electricity, no emigration, no escalation.”
“You’re proving my point. First off, it makes you think you can do anything you want as long as you don’t break three laws. Second, they make you think that once you get here, you’ll hear the other two. But there are no other laws. Not yet. So they can add more laws when they figure out how else they want to control our lives. Ready for the kicker? There are hundreds of laws. Each king makes laws for his side of the island. Cities make their own laws, as long as they don’t disagr
ee with the kings.”
Put like that, it deepened the weight Nash had been feeling since everything went south yesterday. He didn’t want to dwell on it. “So back to the reason people immigrate,” said Nash, “We have modern plumbing here, no taxes, and no technology. That’s gotta count for something.”
“The grass is always greener,” said John Wayne. “Out of ten billion people in the world, it’s not hard to find half a million misguided imbeciles.”
Was his sister one of those misguided imbeciles? When she immigrated a year ago, she’d done so without knowing if she’d be a Jennie or not, and there had been no communication between her and Nash since. Maybe that was how so many unmodified people came in: under the hopes of winning the lottery, so to speak, and being selected to become a fantasy creature of one sort or another.
For the past year, Nash and his best friend Army had watched a broad range of hollow channels, but there was no sign of her. And if someone didn’t show up on the hollows, there was no way to know anything about them once they immigrated. Karolina might not even look the same, whether from effects of genetic engineering, or manipulation of the hollows by H.I.P., as Nash was beginning to expect they’d done to John Wayne.
“You said you watched the Ranger Channel,” said John Wayne. “You saw a lot of conflict and fighting, so that’s what you think Hollow Island is. Other people watch the makeup channel, Sprite network, or real housewives of Hollow Island.” Nash had never heard of those, but he got the point John Wayne was making. “They see this as a fun, fantasy world. And for the most part, they’re right.”
The final person in line in front of them stepped up to the window. “Here’s the bottom line,” said John Wayne. “People surf even though there are sharks in the ocean. There’s a crowd in the water, and few enough hungry sharks that most people will have a good time and never die. Maybe a Wizard thug shakes you down for a few coins once in a while. Maybe you don’t get famous on the hollows and never get more than a few mils in ratings. It’s still fun to surf with us big fish.”
Put that way, it was easier for Nash to see why so many people came to live here. He came in as a kid looking for a new life, hoping to help a few people along the way. As a Ranger, he had power to make a difference that he couldn’t make on the outside. Maybe he would have immigrated even if the Ranger application hadn’t gone the way it had, since all of his family in the world lived here.
The front of the line stopped a good three meters away from the counter. That seemed like a lot more space than necessary.
“What’s the big deal about privacy?” Nash asked. “It’s not like I can steal someone’s identity, can I?”
In a low voice to match Nash’s, John Wayne said, “Imagine if you didn’t have that metal eye in your head and couldn’t know everything about a person just by staring at them for three seconds. Maybe that Marauder at the counter doesn’t want people to know he’s famous on the outside, because then they’d know he’s not a simple chandler.”
“But he’s not a Marauder,” said Nash. “I scanned him and he’s just a regular Joe.”
“Forget the eye,” John Wayne, sounding frustrated. “You and I know he’s not, but without it, anyone of these people could be a sub rosa.”
“An incognito Jennie?”
“Yup. Maybe he’s out at night pillaging and doesn’t want his daytime friends to know it. Or maybe it’s a woman who tells the future for a price, like the one who just walked away. On the surface they look like any other person, and only their clients know what they really are.”
That made sense. “But if everyone sees them collecting huge amounts of money at the depo …”
“They’ll know there’s something in that person’s life that people out there want to watch, and it ain’t dipping candles.” John Wayne winked. “Unless you’re talking about dipping a different kind of candle.”
The person in front of them in line finished the transaction.
“Come on,” said John Wayne. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”
The counter resembled an Old West bank counter with bars separating Nash and his trainer from the teller inside. The woman was wearing a white double-breasted shirt, like a chef’s uniform, and had her dirty blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun.
“Him first,” said John Wayne. “Look for him under Mongoose.” He laughed then said to Nash, “Just kidding. It’s all automatic.”
The woman pointed a scanner of some sort at Nash’s face and he saw thin red lights.
A computer beeped, and the woman said, “Nash.” She tapped buttons for half a minute on a touchscreen Nash couldn’t see, then said, “Zero ratings.”
John Wayne laid a hand on Nash’s back. “Aw, son. Not famous yet.”
Fame was the last reason Nash had come here. Hopefully there was some other way to make money.
The woman pointed the scanner at John Wayne’s face in between the bars. Red lasers criss-crossed his features momentarily. “John Wayne Liu.”
“Don’t repeat that,” muttered John Wayne to Nash as the woman tapped her screen. “That’s one thing you were smarter about than me—dropping your last name.”
“One kilo, twelve cents.” A machine spit out a small pile of coins and she slid it across the metal counter.
Nash had immigrated with fifteen kilos. After spending some in the market, his coin purse held more than twelve kilos when it was stolen.
John Wayne slid the coins into a pouch and tucked it into a pocket. Then he stepped over in front of a plain metal door. “Be right back.” The door beeped and he pulled it open then went inside.
The idea to ask one of the people in line what went on inside there crossed Nash’s mind, but if John Wayne was doing Ranger business, it might not be smart to bring attention to it. So Nash spent the time waiting trying to nonchalantly scan the people in line and practicing scrolling through the info without looking like his eyes were having a seizure. The line didn’t move at all, so Nash figured there was only one clerk inside.
A prickle kept nudging Nash in the center of his back and he realized he was resting his hand on his gun and looking over his shoulders every few seconds. The world felt different without John Wayne around. Even though he could be a sonabitch, his word, at least there was someone on Nash’s side.
A few minutes passed. Just when Nash started to wonder if he’d been abandoned, John Wayne returned.
“What’d you do in there?” asked Nash.
“Made a deposit. It’s how you keep people from stealing everything you own.”
Nash stared at the door, wishing he had a few coins to try it out.
“You’re thinking about the bounty money we could have made,” said John Wayne.
“No, I wasn’t—”
“I suspect that’s a lie, but here’s how it works. For two weeks, I’m training you. You’re my apprentice. It’s basically slave labor, but I don’t make the rules.” He shrugged. “Today I’m feeling generous. Tell you what, pard. Since you’re the Mongoose, I expect you deserve something.” John Wayne fished a coin out of his pouch and flipped it to Nash. “Here. Give it a try.”
Nash snatched the coin out of the air and looked at it. A tiny brass coin, a mil. The smallest coin on the island, but at least he had something he could try out a deposit with.
“Get those dollar signs out of your eyes, Mongoose. You can’t even buy a slice of bread with that.”
“I’m going to get back in line,” Nash said.
“No need, pard,” said John Wayne. “This fine citizen wouldn’t mind letting you go up.”
The middle-aged man at the front of the line took a surprised step back and motioned for Nash to go ahead.
Nash didn’t like it, but they had just waited in the line. Also, he didn’t want to start the day by going toe-to-toe with John Wayne again. The person at the counter cleared out of the way, tucking some coins away, and within seconds Nash found himself inside a small, stark cinder block room facing the same woman in w
hite.
The process with the scan was repeated, and Nash slid over the tiny coin. The clerk stared at it, then looked at Nash like it was a joke. He just smiled back. With a great sigh, she pulled the coin in, and went through an apparently agonizing process of depositing it.
“Your balance is one mil,” she told him, then buzzed him out.
Nash felt like a new man as he stepped out into the sunlight. He might not have anything in his pocket, but he had money in the bank.
“Thanks,” said Nash, then added sarcastically, “it’s nice to have that security.”
“Don’t mention it,” said John Wayne. “In addition to the curse of good looks, I also suffer from the curse of generosity.”
Nash watched for a smile, but didn’t see any sign of joking.
Easy, cowboy. I don’t know how much more generosity I can take.
They started off down the street in a direction Nash hadn’t been before.
“So tell me,” said John Wayne. “Why are you here, rookie?”
Nash wasn’t sure how much John Wayne wanted to know. Or how much he wanted to say without going into details about his sister, how they both pretty much just wanted to help people, but had different ideas of how to do it. While Nash had never considered anything but Ranger, Karolina wanted to be an Angel—a member of a secret society on Hollow Island of people from all Castes who banded together to perform anonymous acts of service.
“Don’t overthink it. Just answer.”
Something he’d heard in training came back to his mind. Save a secret, save a life.
“Spit it out, son,” demanded John Wayne.
“Fairness. Justice.”
John Wayne laughed. “Good one. I’m sure the entrance exam people ate that up.” He slapped Nash on the back. “Now tell me the real reasons.”
“I just did.”
John Wayne shook his head and spit in the road. “Where did they dig you up? The last true white hat. That’s a better name for you than Mongoose. Still, I give you two months until you realize that with the kind of power we have, there’s so much better in this world than justice.” He stopped and looked at Nash like he was a puzzle. “Unless there are a couple of Sprites named Fairness and Justice. Weird names for girls, but if that’s the case, then I get you.”
A Route of Wares: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure: Hollow Island Book One Page 6