Neurotopia

by Tony Mohorovich

  < Ma’am, the air in here comes at a premium. At this rate, you’ll run out of funds before the week’s up. >

  Sky checked herself in the mirror—worse than usual. Her cheekbones and chin appeared sunken in the shadows of her hair. ‘You can’t stay here forever,’ she told herself. ‘How long does Ma have?’

  < A little under six Earth days, ma’am. Assumin’ her neurals last as long as expected, > Uncle Jesse replied.

  Six days. Sky thought. I have six days to find a cure. Six days to achieve what the NIA has failed to do in years.

  Her eyes narrowed on her reflection. ‘Listen, she will die without us. So I’m going out there, and you can puke over everything and everyone we meet, but you’re not going to stop me. Not anymore—’

  She retched.

  ‘Screw you,’ she spat. ‘Do that again, and I’ll send it right back down.’

  Sky rinsed her mouth. She stripped out of her lunesuit and, to her surprise, she managed to fit it in her luggage. She put on her casual wear then she dragged herself and her luggage to the concourse. Without the balance compensators of her lunesuit, moving about was more of a challenge. She was so exhausted that she struggled with her case despite the lower gravity. Uncle Jesse warned her to replenish her fluids and directed her to the appropriate vending machines. She purchased a drink at the busy observation deck and took a seat.

  The deck was about 1,000 meters above lunar ground, the height of a 200-story skyscraper on Earth. She was halfway between ground and the topmost dome. Yet, at this level, Sky was only knee-high to the monster statue of Apollo. The upper domes barely reached the statue’s navel.

  On closer inspection, Sky realized Apollo was more than just an ornament; it had offices and residences. Looking up, she could not help but notice Apollo’s gleaming genitals (which, according to Uncle Jesse, were occupied by the upmarket adult industry).

  Uncle Jesse searched the lunar net for anyone by the name Dante or Geppetto. There were over a hundred thousand hits for “Dante”.

  Needle in a haystack, Sky thought, staring out at the metropolitan mayhem. Since when was anything in my life easy?

  Uncle Jesse returned fifty hits for the name “Geppetto”.

  Sky almost jumped out of her seat, ‘Just fifty Geppettos? That’s achievable. All I need to do is contact—’

  < Uh, I’m afraid they’re all deceased, ma’am. That’s how they’re listed, anyways. >

  ‘Every one of them?’

  < Yes, ma’am. >

  Sky slumped back in her chair.

  Uncle Jesse brought up a schematic of the relative air quality across the domes and levels. There was one clear pattern; the lower you went, the worse the air.

  < You’ll need an oxygen subscription, ma’am. On the topmost level you’ll run out of O2 and nutrition funds within the hour. Ground Level and below, you could last two Earth months. Coyote Air has a discount today. >

  Ground Level? Sky glanced down where the legs of Apollo’s statue disappeared into muck. The few areas that were visible appeared to be carpeted with people, pushing their way along streets and walkways. Millions of humans, shoulder to shoulder, tasting each other’s breath and odor.

  ‘What’s the crime like on Ground?’

  < There ain’t none, not in the Earth sense anyhow. Ain’t no criminal law here because there ain’t no State. It’s all civil jurisdiction, so you have to insure yourself against potential assaults and the like; the better your security insurance, the better you can sue, the less likely someone’ll risk harming you. Your train ticket includes basic cover, but it doesn’t extend to the streets on Ground. And from the looks of it, there don’t seem to be any reputable insurers down there. >

  Sky checked the time: the Moon worked on a metric system, based on the rotation of the Moon as a single day (one Earth month). Uncle Jesse converted it to Detroit time, making it just after eleven o’clock at night. She should sleep, she told herself, but she had already lost more than a day in travel.

  Her father had warned her to avoid the lower levels. But if she was going to track down lawless terrorists, Ground was probably the best place to start.

  Holding down her latest fluids, she got up and headed for the lifts to Ground. An advertisement greeted her at the lifts, urging her to buy a weapon from the nearby vending machine for self-defense. The machine displayed an assortment of handheld weapons, mainly projectile.

  Sky could not imagine pulling a trigger knowing that it would tear through someone’s flesh and end their life. She selected a taser instead.

  The vending machine’s virtual assistant enquired whether she would like to pay the optional ten per cent Defense Contribution; the money went to the VOL private military in return for discounts from major companies (the very companies which footed the initial bill for the military). It was effectively a tax, albeit a voluntary one. Sky declined.

  There was testing range booth beside the vending machine, complete with internal silencers. She fired the weapon a few times to get the hang of it. Easy enough, just like the sims. It came with a holster, which she wrapped around her torso.

  There was only one elevator labeled Ground Level. She stepped inside.

  ​6:3

  When Sky arrived on Ground, she stopped in the station foyer, not daring to venture out into the street. Shackleton’s Ground Level sucked in what little natural light had been discarded by the domes above, like a runt picking at scraps. The light filtered in through the sun-tunnels that perforated old domes; Shackleton’s version of skylights. Sky’s vision was further hampered by a smog that turned not-so-distant buildings into silhouettes.

  It did not help that the environment was saturated with digital information. Detroit’s infospace may have been busy, but Apollo’s was virtually polluted. The difference was that, on Ground at least, data was displayed mainly on holos and—to Sky’s amazement—even old screen-computers. There was only a smattering of public mayas.

  The buildings were made of all manner of ill-fitting and ill-matching materials. The environment reminded her of the slums of the Before.

  Sky coughed. Although Uncle Jesse reassured her the air quality was at basic life support, it was not like anything she had breathed back home. A stench of urine wafted into the train station foyer, along with the smell of pungent hawker foods that burned her nostrils. The humidity made it worse. The thought of all this moisture collected, filtered, and repackaged as water and air made her queasy.

  ‘Tone it down, Uncle Jesse.’

  The volume dropped, the smells retreated, the colors muted, and only the relevant data remained. She would have asked him to fade the people from her sight, but she had to see them to avoid them.

  The citizens were taller than those on Earth, and slender. Some of the men were bald. People moved with a gait made of short careful steps, as if they were walking barefoot on gravel (though more elegant than what Sky had been able to manage in the same gravity). They came in a rainbow of skin tones; rich black hues and vanillas stood out like chess pieces, with every other shade in between. Earth skin, in comparison, had a more limited palette that began somewhere at tan and ended at brown, like her own. Apollo’s citizens harked back to the days on Earth before the multi-ethnic blending initiatives.

  Before her trip to the Moon, Sky had never had much interest in the offworld. Most of what she learned of Apollo, and Shackleton in particular, she had gleaned from documentaries and sims during her trip over on the space elevator. She should not have been so surprised at the scene before her, but she found herself unprepared all the same.

  She gave up counting the guns after the first dozen. The locals seemed to wear them as accessories; bright metal silver and cold gold bling in all shapes and sizes, like the brash colors of poisonous animals back on Earth.

  To top it off, most citizens wore holo or maya ads on their clothes and skin, advertising everything from air suppliers to lottos.

  < Advertising helps pay for some amenities, > Uncle Jesse e
xplained.

  ‘I don’t need the clutter. Block it.’

  < Uh, ma’am, viewing ads covers the cost of your network connection, otherwise you’d need to pay a premium, which don’t come cheap. >

  She decided to keep the advertisements. Sky looked down at her top and pants, which were free of ads, and realized she looked out of place.

  < You can get more discounts by becoming a walking billboard yourself, > Uncle Jesse said.

  ‘Good idea. Get me enough to blend in.’

  A moment later, she lit up with a collection of her own advertisements. Her primary sponsor was a lotto company advertising a half-billion lune jackpot.

  Feeling a little more like one of the locals, Sky walked toward the station exit, but as she approached, a maya of a suited company representative appeared.

  ‘Sammati, Sky. Welcome to Apollo from Liberty Insurance. Thank you for selecting Liberty for your travel security insurance needs. This is a friendly—and private—reminder that unfortunately your insurance plan does not extend to Ground Level. Are you lost? Shall I call an auto? We’ll have you on a covered level in a jiffy.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘We have a special offer today—’

  Sky dismissed the message and asked Uncle Jesse to find a cheap Ground Level insurer, regardless of their reputation.

  Outside the station, a group of urchins milled about. Sky thought she saw a couple of them eyeing her luggage. One hobbled along with the aid of crutches, his right leg thin and limp.

  < Polio, > Uncle Jesse noted. Sky wondered how it was possible for an advanced city such as Shackleton to still have infections of polio.

  Uncle Jesse returned with a list of Ground Level security organizations. < I wouldn’t call them insurers, ma’am. They’re more unofficial than that, but they say they’ll protect you for a fee. >

  A map of the sprawling Ground Level materialized before her, separated into sectors.

  < If you want to move between sectors, you have to pay each territory’s gang. >

  ‘These plans don’t come cheap,’ she noted as a bearded man brushed past her, in a hurry to leave the station.

  As soon as the man stepped out into the street, Sky heard a zip-zip. Puncture wounds erupted out of his back. He flailed for a second, and then landed hard on his face. The only part of him that continued to move was the blood that flowed from his wounds.

  A masked man stood over the victim, his gun arm extended. He fired a few more shots into the already lifeless body, then walked away as if he were on an evening stroll, disappearing in the flood of humans.

  No sooner had the perpetrator left than a team of bedraggled children swooped on the victim’s body to relieve it of valuables. They scattered when the four-wheeled robot cleaner arrived, a faded logo on one side: Tate’s Debt Collection. The bot opened at one end and two claws dragged the dead man’s body into its bowels.

  Sky stood frozen in horror at the train station entrance.

  When the assassin had fired his shots, a few bystanders had looked up from their holos and mayas, but soon returned to what they had been doing. Other locals passed by the victim as if he were furniture. Sky searched their faces, hoping that at least one would mirror her own shock. None did.

  Sky tried to compose herself, to act as if she had not just witnessed a man murdered and scavenged.

  < Ma’am, okay if I sign you up to that basic insurance plan? AAAA Protection Co. looks as good as any. >

  ‘Yeah, you do that,’ she said. Sky took a seat near the exit. Another twenty minutes passed before she worked up the nerve to leave the train station.

  I’m confident, I’m capable, I’m welcoming, I’m personable, I’m perfectly socially healthy…

  Sky hopped through the exit, her hand gripping her luggage tight.

  Something tugged at her arm and she jumped. It was one of the urchins. The boy smiled as Sky drew her luggage closer. He began chattering in various languages until Sky recognized the words, ‘Sammati. Can I help you, Senorita?’

  Sammati.

  Uncle Jesse explained that the term originated from the Gujarati language in India. It meant consent, agreement, or permission.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’ Sky said, dismissing the boy. She noticed spots of blood near her feet from the recent victim.

  The boy laughed. ‘You’re on the wrong level to be talkin’ about schoolin’, Senorita. This is my school, right here.’ He parted his unwashed arms in a grand gesture, as if he owned the place.

  It saddened her to see a child in such a state. She opened her maya purse and transferred a few figures to the boy in the local currency, the lune. A maya piggy bank appeared beside him and he accepted the funds with a smile.

  ‘You have an internal computer,’ Sky noted, pointing to his maya pig. ‘They don’t seem to be common around here.’

  ‘Nah,’ the boy said, ‘That’s old tech. I just access the net with a naked brain, no need for DNA implants.’

  ‘That’s possible?’

  ‘It is here.’

  ‘Then why don’t most people use mayas?’

  ‘Most can’t afford the network fees. The anti-hacking programs and insurance don’t come cheap neither. Some folk think holos and screens are safer, but I’ve heard hackers can still get to your brain thataway if they want to. Anyway, if you flash your maya around here you’re either stupid or you can afford some powerful insurance to ward off thieves.’

  Sky made a note to keep her future mayas on private. ‘And which one are you?’ she asked.

  The boy laughed. ‘Neither. Don’t need no insurance. Me and my folk know how to protect ourselves—forty lunes?’ He interrupted himself while counting Sky’s donation into his account. He grabbed hold of Sky’s sleeve. ‘Bolt-head will give ya the full service for forty lunes, Senorita.’

  ‘Full service?’

  ‘You paid for it, Senorita. Contract is virtue. Bolt-head knows.’

  Uncle Jesse, what’s he talking about: full service?

  < Judgin’ by his business profile, he offers… uh… intimacy for a price. >

  Her eyes bulged out of their sockets. What?

  < Afraid so, ma’am. >

  The boy looked at up her, smiling.

  A parade of hovering limos crawled through the crowd, guns mounted on their roofs, parting the human swamp with ease. Out of one window, a frail, veined hand—once masculine—pointed at two urchins: a boy and a girl. The two approached the limo. The hand inspected them, pushing aside what clothing it could. The door slid open. The two children entered. The limos moved on.

  ‘Bolt-head’s seen everything there’s to see. Knows all the tricks and kinks.’

  The boy could not have been more than ten years old.

  ‘I…’ Sky struggled with a response. ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she told him. ‘I just thought you could do with a helping hand.’

  The boy’s eagerness turned to disappointment. ‘No offense, Senorita, but Bolt-head’d rather have a regular customer than charity.’ He said the word with a palpable disdain. ‘There ain’t no contract in charity. Besides, everyone wants something.’ He pulled open his thin jacket to reveal weapons hanging from the inner lining. ‘How ’bout security?’ He selected a bronze gun and flashed it in the air like a toy. ‘Earth-lubbers shouldn’t go Ground without a leave-me-be.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m from Earth?’ Sky asked, a little annoyed he had picked her.

  The boy laughed. ‘You’ve got more flesh on the bone and you wobble when you walk, like those little thingies on Earth, you know? The birdies?’ He waddled about her with his arms flat by his side.

  ‘Penguins,’ Sky said, further annoyed at his comment about her weight.

  ‘Yeah, pingins.’ He hopped about her with the ease of a native.

  Sky smiled at his antics despite herself. ‘Maybe I’m already armed?’

  He looked her up and down, unconvinced, then shrugged. ‘I’m sure you could do with anoth
er leave-me-be, Senorita. Somethin’ a little louder than a tickler, maybe?’ He tapped her side where she had holstered her taser and gave her a patronizing look, clearly unimpressed. He thrust the bronze gun in her face. ‘Now this tells folks you mean business.’

  Sky accepted the ornate weapon. It was lighter than she had expected. It was composed of a handle and a disc with three prongs, the middle one the longest. ‘How much?’

  ‘Another fifteen lunes on top of what you gave me. Make that thirteen, cuz you remind me of my first den-mother.’

  Sky took that as a compliment. She transferred the funds.

  The boy frowned. ‘Hell, Senorita, you really are new. I woulda sold it for less. You gotta push back or this place’ll strip you naked, and then some. Hell, you didn’t even check the weapon.’ He took the gun from her. ‘Electrobolter, a classic,’ the boy explained. ‘Just link-in, point and shoot before the other guy does. Can’t go wrong.’ He placed it back in her hand.

  Uncle Jesse performed a diagnostic and confirmed it was in working order. She linked herself to the weapon.

  ‘How much would have been a fair price?’ she asked.

  ‘’Bout half what you paid.’ He said it in such a matter-of-fact manner that Sky assumed he was serious. ‘I gotta say, Senorita, I ain’t never felt sorry for no one I mined raw until you.’

  Sky snorted, amused.

  She looked up and down the thoroughfare. So many faces. If she had trouble negotiating with a child, how could she deal with adult veterans of this jungle? She took a seat on a nearby bench.

  Tester was right, she thought, Okiro too. This is no place for me. This is no place for anyone civilized. She wanted nothing more than to inhale the sweet dawn air of Detroit and hear the faint hissing of railpods.

  The boy plonked himself next to her. ‘So what brung you here then?’

  Sky was silent.

  Bolt-head continued, unperturbed, ‘Whatever it is, must be somethin’ important, I can tell that much. No one goes Ground ’less they have to, least of all someone like you. Maybe if you tell me your demand, I’ll see if I can make a supply?’