by David Estes
His unauthorized sister and father were found and killed, right where he told Pop Con they’d be. All because of him.
Good riddance.
They gave the Head of Pop Con, Michael Kelly, a medal, when it was Domino’s tip that made the difference.
He knows everything that’s happened to him is part of his destiny, and he won’t run from or regret any of it. He’ll only ever embrace it, especially now that’s he’s free of his freak parents and illegal sister. He didn’t need them then, and he doesn’t need them now.
And to top it all off, he’s just been recently appointed as the youngest employee of Pop Con. He’s a Hunter, one of the highest-trained officers responsible for locating and terminating UnBees, or Unauthorized Beings. Or, in the rare event that an UnBee slips through the cracks and becomes a full-fledged Slip, he’ll be the one hunting the threat down. Although there hasn’t been a Slip in nine years—since his sister and her father were terminated on a roof; oh how Dom wishes he could’ve been there for that!—he hopes it will happen again. Nothing would give him more satisfaction than to look in the eyes of the scum trying to eat his food and breathe his air, and then pull the trigger.
People like that will kill us all, Dom thinks.
In fact, they nearly had their first Slip in a decade just the other day, on only his eighteenth day on the job. The UnBee was twenty-three months old, just shy of the two years required to be considered a national security threat and labelled a Slip. A few days’ may not seem like a huge deal, but Dom knows it’s the difference between being a hero and a run-of-the-mill employee. Even still, he relished the opportunity to put holes in the parents’ and the UnBee’s heads.
Already his fellow Hunters are calling him the Destroyer, a play on his last name of Destovan.
“You know, Destroyer, after your first termination you get a full week off,” Hodge says, slapping him on the back. Having just surpassed five years of service as a Hunter, the barrel-chested man is considered a seasoned veteran.
They’re sitting across from each other in the rear of an auto carrier, or an aut-car. The vehicle makes a turn smoothly, relying on sensors and cameras to avoid colliding with a large supply truck that rumbles past.
“Pass,” Dom says. He doesn’t want to miss a second of this job.
“This guy’s craaaazy,” another guy says. He’s younger, with a mostly shaved head accentuated by a stripe of short hair down the middle. His goatee is connected to his sideburns by sharp thin lines. He sports the unfortunate name of Dana, which Dom will never think of as anything but a girl’s name. Why no one’s given him a permanent nickname is beyond him. Anyway, Dana is more into chasing half-cyborg chicks in 3D bars than being a Hunter.
Dom ignores him, which only seems to delight Hodge even more. “If Destroyer wasn’t such a wicked nickname, I’d call you Ice Man.”
Dom pretends to laugh, thanking his luck that Destroyer already seems to be sticking. He’d kill himself before letting anyone call him Ice Man.
“Or how about Frosty?” Dana says, chuckling.
For one delicious moment, Dom wishes Dana was a Slip. Less than a second and the retractable knife hidden inside his robot arm would be out; another half second and he’d slide it between the imbecile’s ribs.
“Not Frosty,” is all he says instead. Murdering another Hunter would be a mistake. Well, only with witnesses, that is.
Hodge lifts a hand to his ear to listen to a com, likely from headquarters.
Dom leans in, a zing of excitement shooting through him. Will this be his moment to shine? His palms are sweaty.
Hodge nods once, twice. “Understood,” he says. He looks right at Dom. “Shift’s not over yet, boys! We’ve got co-ords on an UnBee Shack west of the city.”
As Hodge speaks the new coordinates to the aut-car, Dom blows out a breath. It’s not the Slip he was hoping for, but at least it’s another chance to prove his worth.
Touching the barrel of his gun with his human hand, he smiles.
It’s still warm.
~~~
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Chapter Sixteen
Harrison Kelly finds school anything but boring. It’s always been his escape from the real world. When his father was barely ever around and his mother was slowly going crazy, there was some solace in knowing that from seven in the morning until five in the evening he was somewhere away from it all.
And as a teenager, school’s a great place to pretend he’s not lonely. Honestly, how could the captain of the state champion hoverball team, the STL Prep Flyers, ever be lonely?
This is something he reminds himself of as he walks—no, struts—down the hall, an entourage of his team members and hot cheerleaders surrounding him. On the faces of the science geeks he sees disgust, which he knows is really just an outward display of jealousy toward his life—the life they can never have. And on the faces of every single girl he passes, he sees only one thing: desire.
“Hey, Harrison,” a dark-skinned girl from the girl’s hoverball team says, smiling seductively.
Harrison smiles back, stopping his entire group so he can rest an arm against the side of the charging station that she’s using for her portable holo-screen. After all, he’s got to make time for the girl he’s been making out with for two weeks. Even as he smiles back, he has to admit he gets a certain thrill from Nadine, one he hasn’t gotten from any of the other girls. She’s tough, smart and hot, a real triple threat. And he likes the way her full lips are calling to him.
Without really thinking, he leans in and kisses her softly on the lips, drawing the public display of affection out amidst a chorus of catcalls and whistles. When he withdraws he can see the surprise and breathlessness on Nadine’s face. The guys around him are grinning and wishing they could be him. The girls are pretending to smile and wishing they were the ones on the receiving end of his lips. This he knows.
The knowledge draws his lips into a smirk. “See you later, yeah?” he says.
Nadine nods, her eyes eating him alive.
When he turns and strides away, he realizes something: He’s his own man now. Any shadow from his father, Michael Kelly, the Head of Population Control for the city of Saint Louis, and one of the most famous men alive, is gone, faded away into oblivion—if there was ever a shadow at all.
He knows he’s fated for an even greater destiny.
Reaching his next class, he enters the room, stopping at a red-eyed window to let the retina scanner read his eyes, which reflect back a brilliant blue. Although the girls seem to go wild for his baby blues, he prefers girls with darker eyes, like Nadine, hers a deep rich brown, flecked with bits of emerald.
“Harrison Kelly,” the speaker drones. “Zero absences.”
He turns and threads his way up an aisle and into one of the many learning stations with plush, ergonomic frames, dual drink holders—he sets his coffee in one and a metal water canteen in the other—a soft place to rest your feet, and a wide, surround-view holo-screen. The screen is black, save for a cluster of three-dimensional letters floating around, bouncing off the corners and edges of the invisible projector limits. At first glance, the letters are random, but Harrison knows if you watch carefully, the letters occasionally spell out Saint Louis Prep, the name of the private school he’s attended since he turned four.
A voice to his right says, “Nice kiss.”
He starts laughing well before he turns his head. Chuck Boggs Jr., one of his only real friends, grins at him. His father, like Harrison’s, is loaded. In fact, their fathers work closely together—Charles Boggs runs the Crow program, the city’s general law enforcement efforts. He can’t count the nu
mber of times he and Chuck have laughed together when they’ve been watching the holo-screen and seen their fathers together, mugging for the cameras at some press conference. Defending the city—no, defending humanity!
Rah, rah, Harrison thinks wryly.
“Thanks,” Harrison says, remembering the way Nadine’s soft lips felt against his. Yeah, she might last quite a bit longer than the other girls.
“I taught you everything you know,” Chuck says.
“I bet you practice every night on your dog,” Harrison fires back, miming a slobbery tongue kiss.
“Kissing Molly will change your life,” Chuck says, winking. Molly is a huge black lab that loves anything with two or four legs. In a flash, Chuck slings his arm back and whips a small, red hoverball at Harrison’s head.
Harrison catches it a centimeter in front of his left eye. “I think Coach would frown on you blinding the team captain before the last game of the season,” he says, tossing the ball back underhand.
“I knew you’d catch it,” Chuck says, palming the ball and shoving it in his pocket.
A series of three tones ring out from the speakers on the ceiling. Everything goes quiet immediately as class begins. Talking during class, unless prompted by the teacher bot, is one of the quickest ways to earn a demerit. Three demerits and you get a week of detention. Six and you’re suspended for a week. Ten and you’re out. Like, permanently.
Harrison has never received a demerit.
He and Chuck laugh silently as a dome extends out from above each of their learning stations, forming a canopy. They can’t see out and no one can see in.
Just as the screen comes to life, Harrison thinks, I knew I’d catch it, too.
~~~
Although this class is a review for their final exams, and everything being covered is information they’ve already learned before, Harrison finds himself riveted to his seat. Because this is the stuff his father refuses to talk about.
U.S. History 501.
“What was the Rise?” the holo-screen asks. The screen shows the dark blue ocean, so close Harrison almost wonders whether he’ll get wet. A queasy, hoverball-sized pit forms in his stomach. The water swells and retracts, as if breathing.
An easy question to start, one any ten-year-old could answer. “The sudden increase in sea level caused by the melting of the polar ice caps,” Harrison says, eager to move on. He’s never liked swimming. He got through mandatory swim lessons by sheer will and refusal to look cowardly in front of his friends, but he didn’t enjoy it.
“And?”
Harrison takes a deep breath, trying not to think about drowning. “And the government built sea walls to protect the coastal cities. And then there was a series of massive quakes and tsunamis that flooded most major coastlines. They also wiped out huge portions of the population.”
“Approximately how large was the U.S. before the Rise?”
“Population or land area?” Harrison says, realizing the trick question.
“Both,” the screen says.
“Ten million square kilometers and six hundred million people,” Harrison says.
“Correct.” The projection flashes to a map of the U.S. before the Rise and Fall. To Harrison, it looks impossibly large, the idea of fifty states ridiculous. Forty-two states seem like more than enough area to protect.
“No kidding,” Harrison says.
“I can assure you, Mr. Kelly, I do not kid.”
Harrison laughs softly. Not for the first time, he appreciates the fact that his school sprung for the artificial intelligence with the personality chips, a vast improvement from the majority of the AI around the city. Messing with the learning stations has always been a favorite activity of his.
“And after the Rise?” the screen says.
“Eight million square kilometers and five hundred million people,” Harrison says.
The holo-screen learns from its previous mistake and doesn’t bother confirming the accuracy of his answer. The map shrinks down to a size and shape more familiar. A smaller mass of brown land amidst an enormous ocean, which seems to push in on all sides. Canada and Mexico are separated from the U.S. by thick lines that represent the impenetrable walls built after the Fall.
“Open Learn?” Harrison says, getting bored of the simple Q&A session.
“Your test scores indicate a high level of intellectual curiosity. Open Learn authorized. Keyword?”
“The Fall,” Harrison says, wondering why he’s constantly going back to the same topic, over and over again.
“The Fall was a direct result of the Rise. As sea levels rose and tsunamis hit across the globe, coastal cities were wiped out. In some cases residents received advance warning, fleeing inland to escape the rising tides.”
“And in other cases?” Harrison asks, even though he already knows the answer.
“Utter annihilation,” the screen says. Harrison feels the familiar thrill in his chest that he always gets from this subject. The feeling is two parts fear of drowning and one part morbid excitement at seeing what it had been like.
The holo-screen doesn’t disappoint. Drone-captured projections of entire cities being flooded fill the screen. Hundred-story buildings are half-submerged, poking from the water like odd-looking drilling structures.
There are bodies in the water. Not several, or a few dozen. Hundreds. No, not even that’s right. Thousands. Countless.
A massive ship cuts through them, metal pincers dipping into the water and retrieving the floating dead. From what Harrison remembers, it took years to identify them all, and even then there were thousands of missing persons never found.
The screen continues its lesson. “Worldwide panic during the Rise and Fall was so great that the U.S. was forced to close its borders. When the waters stopped rising, construction of the border walls began, completed thirty years later, creating an economic and social island from what was previously one of the most prosperous and open economies in the world.” The wall that appears is so high it touches the clouds, extending out of sight in either direction, hundreds of miles wide.
“What about Jumpers and Diggers?” Harrison asks. Given the political controversies around illegal immigration, he’s sure there will be a question or two about it on the final exam.
The screen shows a famous shot of a Jumper caught in the act. The boy, who looks to be in his early teens, is wearing clear glider wings held down by a backpack. His long hair is flying around his face as he plummets to the earth after having been carried over the border wall by an unauthorized homemade drone. “Jumpers and Diggers are illegal immigrants who, despite the border controls, manage to find a way into the U.S. If caught, they can be immediately deported without trial. It’s estimated that more than a hundred thousand illegals currently reside within the country. Or, if caught in the act of crossing the border, Jumpers and Diggers can be killed on sight.”
The image of the Jumper becomes a video projection. There’s an explosion high above the boy, which Harrison knows was the foreign drone being shot down. The chatter of a machine gun fills the dome. Red spots appear on the boy’s chest as his glider wings are ripped to shreds. Harrison’s mouth tastes bitter, his tongue swollen.
His eyes are glued to the screen, even after the image changes to a photo of a dark building with tinted windows. People wearing all black are entering and exiting through an opening at the base.
“The Department of Population Control is responsible for identifying and removing Jumpers and Diggers. Do you want to know more about Pop Con?”
“Hell yeah,” Harrison says.
“Hell doesn’t exist in my database, however, I’ll assume you were using it to add emphasis to your affirmation,” the screen says. If holo-screens could smile, this one’s would extend from edge to edge, Harrison thinks.
“Hell yeah,” he says again, smiling back, the nauseous feeling from watching the boy die already fading.
“With less land to go around, and the population beginning to grow agai
n, the government instituted the Population Control Decree, which set a limit on the ideal capacity of the United States, which had recently been renamed the Reorganized United States of America, or RUSA. Would you like me to tell you the ideal population?”
“Five hundred and four million,” Harrison says.
“Yes. This is the approximate current population of the RUSA, reached less than a decade after the Decree, and maintained by the Population Control System, which is managed by Pop Con. The Population Control Decree is crucial to the survival of RUSA, do you agree?”
“Yes,” Harrison says.
“Not ‘hell yeah,’?” the holo jokes.
Harrison says nothing as he’s too busy picturing his father wearing his dark suit every morning.
The holo-screen remains silent, evidently having run out of material.
Harrison almost says, “Tell me about Michael Kelly,” but he catches himself. Such a question will surely get him flagged by the system. His father would know about the question within minutes of him having asked it. Then he’d have hard questions to answer.
But if he can get the learning station headed in the right direction…
“Tell me about the Population Controls,” he says instead.
The screen switches to a video of the overcrowded Tube in Saint Louis. People push past each other, oblivious to the accidental bumps and jostles from their fellow citizens. “In order to maintain social and economic equilibrium, including the rationing of natural resources, it was paramount that Population Controls be initiated.” Harrison doesn’t miss the subtle touch of government propaganda laced throughout the lesson, but it doesn’t bother him because it happens to be propaganda that makes a helluva lot of sense.
The screen continues. “A system was implemented in which each birth had to be authorized, and duly matched off with a death, which was later called a Death Match. Initially there were two options for potential parents. Would you like to hear them?”
“Please,” Harrison says.