by Sarah Lahey
In 2035, an entangled pair of light photons were separated, one kept on Earth and the other sent to the moon, 384,000 kilometers away. Despite the distance, the entangled photons stayed true to each other. The first foray into quantum cryptography from space was so spectacularly successful that few people envisaged the destruction that soon ensued.
Math is beautiful and prime numbers might be sublime, but the mass release of the first quantum computers sent an expanding algorithm into the universe that ate the NIoT for breakfast. It searched for databases and broke all encryptions. Social media, emails, messages, stored data, images—everything collapsed and vanished, along with the platforms and providers who’d created them. People wept in the streets, cried in their homes and offices; everything was gone. Everything. Their data was corrupted. The AI algorithm had distorted, morphed into a second, then third, generation, and smashed the failsafe blockchain.
This was sweet justice for the surveillance paranoids of the world, who had fervently pushed the notion of privacy for decades. They, of course, had prepared themselves for the crash. The rest of the world thought disengaging from NIoT guaranteed them safety. But the moment they opened and logged onto any device they lost everything. Backups disintegrated. The destruction was compared to the effects wreaked by a nuclear bomb. Entanglement worked, but people weren’t ready for mass quantum computing.
A year after NIoT went down, the global economy collapsed. Jobs were scarce, education was expensive, technology had ceased to offer the divertive pastimes it once had, and surveillance was pervasive. Through all this, sea levels kept rising, people lost their homes, and millions of refugees roamed the planet in search of a place to live. In this uncertain, faltering environment, religion galvanized and emerged rejuvenated. It tapped into the deep-seated anger and aggression of the masses, it questioned the status quo of the economic world, and it morphed into fundamentalism. Fundamentalism works when people are adrift and vulnerable, but the underlying central issue of the Religious Wars was the pursuit of power. Destructive ideologies emerged under the guise of protecting traditional values, protecting family, protecting culture, protecting patriarchy, protecting the status quo. The economy collapsed, NIoT collapsed, and eight years of bloody war ensued.
Out of the debris rose eMpower, the tech giant that released the global population from centralized data storage, offering the masses user-controlled platforms.
Now, in 2050, NIoT is split into separate factions. One locale provides access to information, another is used for general communication, and private data is accessed though a separate interface. The deep, dark places on the Internet still exist. There is a place called the SpinnerNet—a spider’s web, an intricate, woven trap. It’s a place to hide things and a place to do dark deeds. If you get caught in the SpinnerNet, it can take years to untangle your data.
Many predicted the economic collapse and projected the imminent outbreak of war. Some of these people were artists and musicians, the avant-garde and the Pacifists. Others were Tech types and CEOs with massive Coin who could afford to relocate, and so, throughout the RE Wars, Hobart was isolated enough to remain prosperous and safe.
Quinn lived there all her life. She knows little else. Her home is in a small satellite hub called Styx, built close to the city. It’s a machinemade homage to work and Tech. She’s a property owner. She bought a Pod in a safe, planned zone of Styx—an exclusive community. It’s an unmemorable place, a non-place. The buildings are square and clean, and the area is organized around central work hubs surrounded by residential zones, linked by speedways, so getting to work is fast and efficient. The demographic is a mix of young, ambitious, and smart types with plenty of Coin.
Lise hates—hated?—everything about the place. “Property ownership,” she told Quinn more than once, “represents the plutocratic overindulgence of the upper classes. It’s a receptacle of privilege for the wealthy and a cesspit of despair for the not so fortunate.”
Lise lived—lives?—an hour away from Styx, in Hobart City. She saw the beauty of the city and the people who lived there. She didn’t care that it has changed over the decades, that it’s now louder and dirtier—she liked it that way. She said each area was unique, the streets-capes were varied, there was art and culture and things to do. She said the city is about the people and she quite liked people.
Twenty-One
They need soldiers.
Time to go off your Meds.
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY years ago, there were five billion passenger pigeons on the Earth. But they were continually hunted for meat and feathers. By the end of the 1800s, there were fourteen left; the last one, Martha, died in 1914.
Martha2 is a stunning creature. She is larger than a gull and has striking, ochre-colored streaks covering her breast. She was gene sequenced from the original Martha’s DNA, and further enhancements were added to her genetic coding. She has remarkable sight and exceptional sonar ability. She follows Tig.
For eleven days the Derecho whipped up the oceans, and Tig’s mini sub, Nanni, was set adrift. At the mercy of the sea and without power, the storm swept the sub north into the Arabian Sea. After the wind settled, it took Martha2 two days to find Tig. Then it took Planck another three days to steer Nanshe in Tig’s direction and fish him out of the ocean.
It’s been two weeks since then, and now Tig is back on Nanche. Currently, he’s despondently unpacking the faulty hydro panels from the sub.
Planck paces back and forth across the deck of the boat. Ze is on the Comms, and ze nods zirs head, intently listening to the caller. When ze ends the call, ze turns to Tig. “Maim needs us back in Unus. The election is next week. It’s a political nightmare and they’re worried about a rebellion. They need soldiers. Time to go off your Meds, just until the election is finalized.”
“First, Quinn. We pick her up, then—”
“She’s gone. They already picked her up.”
“Fuck! Where?”
“She was sent back home, to Hobart. She’ll be safe there. She’ll understand.”
“Trust me, she ain’t gonna understand.”
“Why? What happened?”
Tig stacks the faulty cells, packing them into crates and hands the boxes to Planck. “We . . . well, we kinda had sex.”
“You kinda had sex!” Ze’s alarmed. “Are you serious? So you told her?”
Tig holds a cell in each hand. “Not really—not much time.”
“Not much time, not much time? It’s funny, isn’t it, considering where we’ve come from?” Ze shakes zirs head and chuckles. “Not much time.”
“It’s not funny.”
“No, no, it’s not—just kind of ironic. So you didn’t explain? You didn’t say anything?”
“Nope.”
“Do you think maybe you—”
“Yes, course I do, but it just sort of happened.” He drops his head back, breathes heavily. “She, well she . . . she wanted to do it.”
“Oh, I see.”
“So we did. We did it all night. It was great. Then I left so I’d, I’d have time to think about it. Think about what to say, how to say it, explain the consequences, and hope like hell she understands and realizes, you know, it’s me, it’s us, and maybe . . .”
“Okay, okay, calm down, we go to Unus first—”
“No.”
Planck points to the east. “It’s just there. It’s literally around the corner. We see Maim, we get the hydro sorted, and then we go to Hobart.”
Tig sighs. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You’re forgiven. So, Hobart. I’ve never been, heard it’s . . . quiet. She’ll be safe if she doesn’t die of boredom.”
Twenty-Two
A Climate City.
A DARK-HAIRED WOMAN WAITS FOR Quinn on the sand by the transporter. She says her name is Myra and she’ll be facilitating Quinn’s departure and arrival. Myra is six feet tall, thin, grim-faced, and jowly. She has lustrous dark skin and slick hair, and from the neck down she’s clad
in black: a roll-neck ribbed jacket and gloves, and rippled leggings that morph into thigh-high boots.
Not exactly beach wear.
Myra’s smooth, jowly face pokes out of her jumper like a turtle-head. Her dark eyes are amethyst pools, almost aubergine in color, and she has an extremely high, pronounced brow that forms a ridge over her face. Myra is more reptile than human, there is something distinctly lizard-like about her, but it’s her eye color that gives away her species.
In the mid 2020s, legislation relaxed CRISPR restrictions and produced batches of sequenced embryos. Editing for disease was successful, but big problems arose when technicians attempted to add, or remove, human characteristics. The human genome was more complex and interconnected than anyone thought, and some freakish results were produced: people seven feet tall with turquoise eyes and IQs of two hundred. Emotional problems, like chronic shyness, indifference, and narcissism, were also detected. High IQs combined with facial symmetry were linked to excessive amounts of earwax, disjointed toes, and OCD. Global legislation subsequently banned deep gene editing and manipulation for “artistic” purposes, but dodgy labs and unregulated regimes continued to experiment.
Quinn studies her arrival and departure facilitator. Myra is young, a baby of the late 2020s, and her purple eyes and supraorbital-ridged brow are clearly the products of illegal sequencing.
On board Myra hands Quinn protective sunglasses and a climate suit. “Put this on.”
“Now?”
“No, next fucking week. Of course now.”
Geez, calm down.
Her new climate suit is pale yellow, dirty—it smells—old style, and pre-used. Climate suits are made from a mycobacterial thermal fabric and there are many brands: Solarise, ThermaFibe, Insulate. Quinn’s is a decade old. The newer versions are all microbial, self-cleaning, and fire retardant, and they won’t shrink, fade, pill, or warp. The exterior is a matte layered metallic coating available in an endless variety of colors and design. The inner lining is made from hollow manufactured fibers melded with a nonwoven substrate. They insulate by repelling heat; once the suit is sealed around the body, it repels 80 percent of the surrounding environmental heat for six hours. Not sealed, it works as a reflector, without the insulating qualities. For the wearer, it feels like standing outside under an umbrella; it protects from sunlight, but the heat penetrates.
After slipping the suit over her clothes, Quinn discovers a hole—a split seam. The suit is essentially useless.
“There’s a hole in this,” she says, pointing to the offending area.
Myra glares at her like she’s a small mouse, and Quinn’s left arm, without instruction, reaches out and feels Myra’s velvet skin and strokes her silken hair. Quinn reins it in and guides it into her pocket. Myra scowls like she’s about to devour the small mouse. Quinn thinks facilitating departures and arrivals might be the wrong job for Myra; she should stay away from living things.
***
They travel northeast, away from Hobart, and Quinn’s heart sinks. “We seem to be going in the wrong direction,” Quinn says. “Hobart is south-southeast of here.”
Myra examines her fingernails. “Why would we be going to Hobart? No one told you that.”
“I thought I’d be going home.”
Myra shrugs.
“What the fuck! Seriously. If you’re not here to take me home, then where are we going?”
“Debriefing.” Myra yawns.
I’m going to kill this woman. I’ve never killed anyone in my life, except for Jane. Myra will be my first human. “Debriefing where?”
“Unus.”
Unus is a strategic east-meets-west cultural metropolis, with a north-south geographical midpoint; half the city lies in the northern hemisphere, the other half in the southern hemisphere. Grand Central station has a longitude of 120 degrees with zero latitude. The city is ancient, over two thousand years old, and home to a hundred million people sizzling in 50-degree Celsius heat. As a central locality, Unus is also HQ for eMpower. And this is where Tig lives, on a boat on the harbor.
Quinn’s heart quickens. She feels lightheaded at the thought of him, but then a melancholy mood settles over her—dejected disappointment. What if he’s dead? What if Lise is dead? What if I’m a curse, and the people I care for continue to die or disappear?
The transporter approaches the city outskirts, then it breaches and proceeds due north. They’re not landing in Unus. Out the window, she spies their destination: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—a Climate City.
“Harmonia,” Myra says, letting out a sigh. “Heaven on Earth.”
Quinn gazes down and sees a fortress of undulating gardens and parks with residential towers rising two kilometers into the sky. It looks luxurious and expensive. They’re either very, very sorry for what they did, or they want something from me.
“And look at the color of that water, exquisite.”
The ocean is ultramarine, the color of a cornflower. “It looks bluer because there’s no phytoplankton,” Quinn says. “It’s not a good thing.”
Myra scowls.
“How long will I be here?”
“Depends on your sponsor.”
“eMpower?”
Myra nods.
They want something.
The transporter lands, and they disembark at Mooring, a landing dock adjacent to the city. Quinn follows her facilitator towards a hundred meter–wide, water-filled channel; the closer they get, the cooler it gets. “There’s a moat,” Quinn says.
“No, it’s cooling channel,” Myra corrects.
No, it’s a moat, designed to protect the fortunate.
Dotted across the water are large, circular sculptures, like giant floating eyes, layers of circles within circles. Myra calls them Spectrals. They symbolize perfection and unity and their mathematical precision is captivating. When Quinn finally pulls herself away from the view, Myra is thirty meters ahead, waiting for the silicon footbridge to unfurl over the moat.
They enter the city through an arched aquarium; a tunnel of sea life and the luminous colors of tropical fish and coral surround them. A purple octopus catches Quinn’s eye and swims toward her, and her hair stands on end. The colors are bait, attracting her attention, drawing her in so security can process her.
When they enter the Climate City, the temperature drops another ten degrees.
“Sensors everywhere—data is feedback to the climate system; surface temperatures, window positions, shading devices, adjust automatically,” Myra says proudly.
They continue into the heart of the city on foot—through narrow, shaded streets, past small courtyards, parks, and green spaces filled with edible fruit trees, herb gardens, and vegetable beds—and eventually they pause outside a residential complex called Habitat5.
“This is you,” says Myra.
The external walls of the complex form a double façade, and Quinn leans against the cool terracotta skin, waiting while Myra fumbles with her entry codes. She tries several options, but there’s a problem; the security doors won’t open. Myra flicks through her Band and mumbles something about new codes and replacement codes and passcodes that were never sent or were outdated by the time she opened them. Trembling, she clenches her fists, grits her teeth, and emits a deep, resonating growl.
She has the attention span of a shrub. “Turn your Band on and off, then reload the last set of codes,” Quinn suggests.
Myra glares, but follows the instructions. She turns her Band on and off, waits eleven seconds, then reloads the codes. The doors open.
The apartment Hubs are organized around an internal courtyard framed by waterfalls. “The water helps humidify the air,” Myra says, “and then flows underground into fish breeding tanks. Wind towers draw heat out, funneling it back into the atmosphere, away from the city. If the temperature outside reaches 55 degrees Celsius, the cooling system supplements with mechanical ventilation, just as a precaution. It’s the world’s largest geothermal air heat exchanger. The building
breathes and sweats; it’s like a living thing.”
No, it’s like a building.
Myra points to the giant geothermal earth tubes embedded into the surrounding landscape. “Compressors pump cool air from underground into the building. There’s also solar and hydro with an absorption chiller if things get really desperate. Rooftops, windows, they’re all solar, with excellent light-to-energy conversion rates. Floors are kinetic. Get your self a pair of SolarFeet, and you can power your module as you walk. Everything generates energy.”
“Water?”
“Filtered seawater and a recycled collection system. Plants and microbes filter and recycle the water back into the Pods.”
“No rain?”
“Not for twelve years.”
***
Quinn’s new home shoots straight up, six hundred levels into the stratosphere—a tessellating circular column that narrows as the building rises, then terminates with an elegant spire, a testament to technology and human ingenuity. They enter the skylift.
“New residents must volunteer and contribute to the collective community,” Myra explains. “Right now, there are vacancies in gardening.”
I’m sure there are. “Aren’t there machines for that?”
“Harmonia is sponsored by the AHA. We believe in the virtues of manual labor—doing something with your hands and working outside, in the sunshine.”
“Trust me, I won’t be here long enough to enjoy the sunshine or the virtues of manual labor. I’m not staying.”
“Your loss.” Myra slides a spare Band off her wrist and hands it to Quinn.
Finally. Quinn pulls it on and logs in her details. There’s no response. She turns it off, waits eleven seconds, and then logs in again. Nothing. “It’s not working.”