“Stinger? Oh, the laser? It’s real… I don’t want to prove it, please.” She stifled a yawn. “I’m serious. The administrator kidnapped my parents and I’m trying to get them back. I need help.”
He stared at her for a minute or two, his shaking slowed, finally stopping. “Umm. Not really. Hackers? No. That’s kinda high-end. Me? I’m low-end.”
Kiera frowned at the box hanging off his belt. “Right… Do you know anything about those Second Dawn people? Is it a lie what they say about them, or are they really dangerous?”
The man blinked, shook his head, and edged back over to the open panel on the wall. “Wow, kid. What kinda mess are you into?”
“Hopefully, I’m in the middle of the worst dream I’ve ever had… but something tells me I went to sleep in one world and woke up in another world―a broken one.” She looked down, heart heavy. “If this was a nightmare, getting chased up a telephone pole by a pack of wild dogs would’ve woke me up.”
“You’re one odd kid.” The man hooked up two more wires and convulsed at a small shock. “Gah!”
Kiera sighed and looked up at him. “Please… can you help me at all?”
He glanced sideways at her, shook his head, and hooked up another wire without zapping himself.
“You’re getting better at that. No smoke that time.”
The man bowed his head against the wall, whisper-laughing. “Okay, kid… You should go for ramen in 42-188. Look for a little old Chinese woman. Tessa.”
“Okay… thanks.” She backed up a few steps.
“You’re really not going to call the police?” He twitched.
Kiera tilted her head. “Are you going to kill or hurt anyone?”
“Naw, kid. No one’s in there. Just tryin’ ta get some stuff ta sell.”
“Then, no. I’m not going to call the police.”
She trudged out into the sad little park and crawled into the fountain again. After pulling the hatch closed, she tried to get as comfortable as possible on a hard metal floor, closed her eyes, and waited for the continuous whirr from the pumps to lull her to sleep.
37
Tessa
Kiera walked among a crowd of pedestrians, trying to act as normal as possible for being the only child in the area. Pet floated along by her right shoulder, and neither of them attracted much notice. She ducked into a small deli-style restaurant, made use of the bathroom, and ordered a turkey sandwich to go plus a bottle of ‘vitamin-infused lemonade.’ Again, the chip reader worked to pay for her meal, but she didn’t stick around to eat there.
Three stories up, and a few blocks away from the stairwell, she headed into a narrow passageway between two stores, one full of electronic gadgets, the other selling clothing. Of course, its selection consisted of blue shirts, blue pants, and black sneakers in varying sizes.
Geez, these people are boring.
A small dumpster box stood against the clothing store wall, which offered a place to hide from the street. She sat on the ground, opened her food, and ate. Pet hovered above her head, watching out for threats.
“What’s 42-188?”
Pet dipped down to eye level. “It’s a coordinate. Level 42, sector 188.” The cube displayed a map of the floor, with a yellow dot indicating a location near the west end. Open space surrounded by many small squares made her think food court or something similar.
“Okay. I need to go there.” She swigged lemonade, cringing at the overwhelming sweetness. Months of having only water made the soft drink feel like syrup. “Eww. This is kinda nasty. I used to like soda.”
“That is a ‘healthy’ beverage. Soda has more than twice that much sugar.”
She stuck out her tongue. After finishing off her meal, she tossed the empty bottle and plastic sandwich clamshell case into the dumpster and headed off toward the stairs. Pet helped her avoid robot sentries along the way. Several times, she had to crawl under large machine boxes on the walls or duck into maintenance hatches and hide while robots walked by or lingered. The few living people who took note of her fell for her acting casual and calm. While young enough to still attract concern for being alone, eleven seemed to let her pass for having been given errands to run or ‘got lost but I’m okay now.’
The eighth time she ducked into a hole in the wall to hide from robots, she scowled at the floor between her sneakers. “This is getting annoying.”
Pet wobbled to nod. “I apologize, but you cannot let them see you.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I can’t believe no one’s grabbed me and dragged me to the cops for being alone. Guess this place is pretty safe if no one is worried.”
Pet waited for a pair of security robots to walk by outside. A flash of silver plastic glimmered in the vent slats inches from Kiera’s knees. “There is some crime, but violent offenses are rarer than the world you were born in. Few are willing to flee into the outside world to escape the law, and it is difficult to remain hidden inside.”
“Yeah.” She stared at her hand, rubbing the spot where she assumed the chip sat beneath her skin. “Tell me about it.”
“I just did,” said Pet.
She stifled a giggle.
“It’s clear. Also, you are hiding in places a man would not fit.”
Kiera crawled out onto the street and kicked the hatch closed. “Yay for small me.”
A nerve-wracking hour of cat and mouse later, Kiera entered a food court on the west side of the forty-second level. Work-permit people shared the space with over a hundred citizens. The tribals cleaned tables, swept the floor, collected empty trays, and so on. She caught more than a few contemptuous glares exchanged between citizens and outsiders. Though she never considered herself much of an outdoors-type person before, Kiera missed having sky over her head.
She heaved a sad sigh and wandered in. A man in a skirt made of the same thin cloth as her precious dress walked by, bumping her so hard she almost fell flat on her face.
“Sorry, I did not see,” said the man, sounding fake.
Kiera glared up at him.
He scoffed and walked away. Glaring had likely been the exact reaction he’d expected.
“Butt,” she muttered.
Wandering the edges of the food court, she examined the various tiny shops and restaurants. Three noodle counters served ramen, but only one had an old Chinese woman behind it. Kiera glanced up at a hologram sign, ‘Zhou Ramen,’ and down at the white-haired elder behind the counter. The woman, in the typical blue shirt/pants of the Exalted, smiled at her in a grandmotherly way.
Kiera approached and leaned on the counter. “Hi. Can I talk to you?”
“Hello, child. What can I get for you?”
Might as well put it out there. “I am hungry, but if I buy anything, they will find me here. I need help, and someone told me to look for you. Are you Tessa?”
The woman glanced around, narrowing her eyes. “Where did you hear that name from?”
“Some guy in an alley. I asked him if those Second Dawn people are really as bad as everyone says, or if it’s a lie.”
“You’re running away, aren’t you?” Tessa chuckled. “I get two or three a week, you know. It’s not at all romantic out there. Most never make it outside, but the handful who do come crawling back to their parents in a day or two.”
Kiera lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m from Exxo. I lived outside for months. It’s hard, but it’s also kinda nice in a way. I miss video games though.” She grumbled. “The administrator is trying to kill me, and he’s kidnapped my parents. I’m not running away from home. I’m trying to go back.”
“Hmm.” Tessa stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. “Why are you asking about the Dawn?”
“Saw a poster. What the police say the Second Dawn are trying to do sounds so stupid I can’t believe anyone would be that dumb. It’s gotta be a lie. Legacy told me there are people inside the Citadel who will help me.” She bowed her head. “He died trying to me get inside.”
Tessa took the top bowl off a sta
ck of upside-down bowls. She grabbed a pinch of scallions, chopped seaweed, bean sprouts, and some powdered ingredients from bins, dropping each in the bowl before adding a large wad of noodles. After tossing the tongs aside, she ladled some thick brown broth over it all. “Come around, child.”
“Thank you.” Kiera followed the old one in behind the counter to a back room.
Steel shelves held various cans and jars of food products. A long metal table on the right had a machine generating more noodles next to three huge pots of cooking broth. The fragrance of pork saturated the entire place. Kiera took a seat at a little folding table against the back wall, next to a cramped corridor leading to a bathroom and a closet with a sink and mops.
Tessa set the bowl in front of her and sat catty-corner. “So, what is your story, child?”
“I had a really weird day at school…” Kiera ate while explaining how she’d gone from suburban San Antonio to wandering a desert after the apocalypse, to sneaking into the Citadel to rescue her parents. Or at least attempt to rescue her parents and get caught rather than simply turning herself in. The parts involving Legacy seemed to interest Tessa most.
“Yes… there are some people inside who are aware of the mechanism. Sokolov has tried to make people believe there is no greater capacity for the citadels to function. He will never activate it, but he uses it as a threat. Administrators of other citadels live like kings and queens since they control their habitable zones. People are forced to depend on the citadels for decent food and in some places, even water.”
Kiera stabbed chopsticks into her almost-gone soup. “Mom thinks he likes being king too much.”
“That is no doubt a large part of it, but there are also rumors that the robots that were left behind to finish constructing the citadels made errors, and attempting to turn it on will go boom.”
Kiera nodded. “I saw that too, but it sounded nuts.”
“It’s something to keep in the back of the mind.”
“Is that why no one’s ever turned it on before?” asked Kiera. “It’s going to take hundreds of years to clean the planet in standby mode.”
Tessa leaned back, hand at her chin. “No one has turned it on yet because no one can. Not that I think Sokolov has any intention to. For whatever reason, the system was designed to only accept the activation command from a senior executive. This all used to be a corporation before the world fell apart, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. My parents worked for them.” She slurped up the last of the broth. “Thanks for the soup. I’ve never had it before… it’s really good.”
Tessa stared at her. “Your parents are work-permit people?”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but you didn’t listen to me, did you? I was frozen. My parents worked for Citadel Corporation back in the 2030s. Mom was a VP of R&D and my dad was the VP in charge of their legal department.”
“Child…” Tessa grabbed her hand. “Your parents were executives….”
“Yeah.” She fought the urge to roll her eyes.
“So there is―” Tessa glanced off into space for a second. “Quick, child. With me.”
She grabbed Kiera by the wrist and dragged her to the back corner of the room. The old one pressed her hand against what appeared to be plain steel wall, and a panel opened. Without a word, Tessa shoved her into a small cubby. Kiera stumbled in to sit, knees crammed against her chest, feet forced to twist inward. Pet zipped in before the old woman could close the panel, compressing her against the inside wall.
“Stay quiet,” said Tessa.
Kiera looked around in the flickering blue glow of Pet’s thruster. The hidden closet had smooth walls without any handles, buttons, or hatches to let her out, and not enough room for her to stand up in, or much move at all. Fear made her shove at the panel, but it didn’t even rattle. Dread that she’d picked the wrong old lady to confide in got her shaking. She hated the feeling of being basically locked in a cage, but screaming for help would only attract attention and police. If Tessa intended to betray her to the administrator, sitting still and keeping quiet as ordered would have the same result as shouting.
She grunted and elbowed the panel. It took only a few seconds of struggling to convince herself that she’d been hopelessly trapped. Kiera rested her head against her knees and sighed, unable to stop shaking. At a light nudge from Pet, she reached up and cradled the small cube, clinging to it like a child hoping her teddy bear would keep away the closet monster.
38
Second Dawn
Kiera sat in silent darkness for almost forever before whispering, “What time is it?”
A small hologram appeared with clock numbers: 3:17 p.m.
She pushed at the cabinet door, still unable to move it. Grabbing her shins in both hands, she grunted and wriggled, shifting position so the cramped space didn’t force her feet to twist so much. “Ow. Ugh. Why did she lock me in here?”
“I do not know,” said Pet, at low volume.
At 3:41, Kiera’s feet ached, her butt had gone numb, and she couldn’t stop fidgeting. The inability to unfold herself made the confinement maddening. Worse, she really had to go. She wasted a few more minutes shoving at the door, despite already being convinced she could not possibly get out of the chamber on her own.
“I’m gonna pee my pants,” she grumbled. “I can’t hold it anymore.”
Pet’s inner glow came on, flickering. “I’m not detecting any security robots, but this metal enclosure may be blocking my signal.”
“Ngh…” She grabbed herself, whining from how bad she had to go. “Please let me out.”
When Pet’s hologram clock read 3:54, footsteps approached outside. Kiera shivered with the effort it took not to soil herself. A metallic click came from somewhere above her head and the panel swung open to reveal Tessa.
Kiera glared at her.
“Forgive me, child. The police were searching the area.”
“’Kay.” Kiera fell out onto her hands, dragged herself forward, and scrambled into a limping run to the bathroom. She shoved her pants down and jumped with a spin onto the bowl, then pulled the door closed.
Tessa approached outside, standing close. “Robots and police officers went store to store around the food court here. Your bag is in another hidden compartment. They did not find it.”
“Thanks,” rasped Kiera, too lost in the wonderfulness of relief to think about much else.
“There are cameras everywhere, and you must have been spotted walking in the concourse.”
Kiera gazed at the ceiling. Umm, could you maybe wait until I’m done to talk to me? “Probably.”
“I have made contact with some people who can help. We will talk more once you are finished in there.”
“’Kay.”
Tessa walked off.
For a while after she finished, Kiera slouched on the bowl, trying to recover the desire to move. Eventually, she forced herself to stop being lazy and wobbled back to the table where she’d eaten before. One at a time, she pulled her legs up and stretched them, trying to get rid of the soreness from being crammed in such a small cabinet for almost three hours.
“I’m sorry, child,” said Tessa, carrying over cups of hot green tea.
Kiera shrugged one shoulder. “You scared me to death, but it’s better than getting caught.”
“Indeed.” Tessa looked at Pet. “You have a reference map of Citadel Zero?”
“Yes,” said Pet.
Tessa shifted her gaze to the cube. “You will need to lead her to 12-90. 244.18 by 70. It would be best to keep her in conduits and out of sight.”
“Route calculation complete,” said Pet.
“Waypoint?” asked Kiera.
Tessa smiled, sipping tea. “Yes. Your little friend will bring you to my associates. They will help you as your goals are the same as theirs.”
“Great.” Kiera sipped her tea.
Following an awkward twenty minutes of tea drinking, Kiera thanked Tessa again for the food and help.
She followed Pet away from the restaurant into another cramped alley. At the back end, she pulled herself into a vent shaft and closed the square hatch behind her.
“Being fully enclosed, citadels have a vast network of ducts that allow air to reach every inch of livable space. While there are some passages too small even for you, between the airways and maintenance passages, we will be able to get there far away from where cameras are watching.”
“All right.” Kiera tugged her satchel snug, and crawled on.
Pet led her to the left, following a frigid section of ductwork. A few turns later, it stopped at a vent hatch. Beyond, a room with black walls brimmed with technology. One woman sat at a desk nearby, facing to the right, but she had a clear view of the vent. The rest of the small chamber held racks of electronics, computer components most likely.
The word ‘wait’ appeared in a tiny hologram behind Pet before shifting to ‘quiet.’
Kiera put on a ‘duh’ face. She crouched behind the slats, watching the woman work at a hologram-screen terminal. After a while, the woman got up and walked off to the right. A door squeaked open.
“Be right back. Gotta hit the bathroom,” said a female voice.
“Don’t hit it too hard,” replied a man.
“That wasn’t funny the first twenty times you used it.”
The door closed with a faint pssh noise.
Pet tapped itself into the vent cover.
“Right.” Kiera crawled into the room and closed the hatch behind her. “Now what?”
“Here.” Pet floated across the room, past the desk where the woman had been, and down a short section of refrigerator-sized computer cabinets to a larger, square opening in the wall below a sign announcing ‘hardhat required.’ Black metal walls laced with seams and raised rectangular sections went in about ten feet before cornering left.
Kiera stooped and walked in, following Pet. She passed more racks of computer equipment, cable bundles, and winking lights. The passage cornered to the right again and continued for a while before opening out to a catwalk hanging on the side of a terrifying open shaft that spanned multiple floors. Left and right, the walls held more component cabinets and network cable bundles. She peered down through the metal grating at a long stretch of wall glimmering with thin traces of blue light and blinking spots.
Citadel: The Concordant Sequence Page 34