Neurotopia

by Tony Mohorovich

  ‘Thirty years?’ Okiro exclaimed. ‘You’ve worn that for thirty years?’

  Billy-Jay laughed. ‘No, I keep this on just in case, as a backup. I got myself a farm-wide jammer set up, but the damn thing went on the blink. I keep it in the chicken coop; one of the birds must have dug it up and cut a wire or somethin’. I was on my way to fix it when I fell and the hat came off and the scanners caught me.’

  He looked at them with a puzzled expression. ‘So if you ain’t from the government, how’d you get your hands on a swarm?’

  ‘I borrowed it from an NIA agent,’ Sky said.

  Billy-Jay chuckled. ‘Well, I’ll be double-damned. If this doesn’t get more interestin’ by the moment.’ He put his cap back on with his free hand. Sky released his other hand and Billy-Jay returned the gun to its holster. ‘I’ll bet you folks have a story to tell.’

  ‘I’d be happy to share it on the way to Apollo,’ Sky hinted.

  He got the picture, ‘So you want to escape fortress Earth, just the two of you?’

  ‘Just the three of us; my mom’s nearby.’

  Three.

  Sky saw the thought ping-pong around Okiro’s mind.

  Three.

  She sensed his love for Penny and Elsa. Yet he could not imagine returning to his old life, now that he knew the truth. Nor did he wish to be mem-wiped… assuming that was the worst-case scenario. Once the NIA realized he had accompanied Sky willingly, they might have other plans for him.

  ‘Just the three of you, okay,’ Billy-Jay grunted. ‘Well then, let’s wake up Ol’ Pete.’

  ​15:8

  Billy-Jay’s barn doors were clamped with an oversized metal lock. He pulled out a set of physical keys and unlocked it.

  Okiro said, ‘Haven’t seen that done since I was kid on grandad’s farm.’

  Billy-Jay dragged one door open. The barn was as wild as the rest of the farm, stacked high with scrap metal and odds and ends. The rain drummed on the roof and droplets splashed into puddles on the barn floor.

  The earth shifted without warning and the ground—or rather the floor—slid to the right, revealing a hidden underground chamber. At the base of the chamber was a platform lined with two parallel rails, like an old train track. There was a metal clank and an object, covered in a tarpaulin, rolled onto the platform. The platform rose until the tarpaulin was level with the barn floor.

  Billy-Jay peeled off the tarp. At first, it appeared to Sky as if she were staring at a flat black sheet in the shape of a railpod. Billy-Jay pulled out a rag and circled the sheet with slow, easy steps, taking a moment to wipe here and there. As he wiped, the object took on a three-dimensional quality. When he moved away, it returned to its two dimensions.

  Okiro was just as intrigued. He ran a finger across it and found that, sure enough, it was not flat.

  2D black camouflage, he told Sky, perfect for the night.

  Billy-Jay admired the vessel. ‘Didn’t think I’d have much use for her after my Selma passed. We moved up here from Savannah, Georgia, so I could put together Ol’ Pete without the government breathin’ down our necks when they rolled out the scanners. We was plannin’ to head to Mars; Selma had family there. We’d packed and everythin’ but a couple of days before we were due to go…’ He trailed off.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Okiro said.

  Sky admired Okiro for his effortless compassion. He felt so at home around others. ‘You must have loved her,’ she added.

  ‘Hated the bitch.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t get me started, goddammit. In the end I couldn’t stand her almost as much as she couldn’t stand me.’ He gave Ol’ Pete another wipe. ‘Still, she deserved better than the likes of me. She’d agree, no doubt. Just always thought there’d be more time, you know.’

  Sky wanted to give the burly man a big hug. It was an impulse she could not have imagined having only days ago.

  Okiro peered through the tinted cockpit window. It was cramped inside, maybe enough for four people. In the back seat was a mound of luggage, frozen in time.

  ‘You put this together yourself?’ Okiro asked.

  ‘Worked in aeronautics before the scanners came in.’

  ‘It’s impressive.’

  ‘Sure is.’ Billy-Jay patted the hull. ‘Took me over thirty years. Got most of the important parts ’fore they regulated private space flights. We’d only intended Ol’ Pete to be a leisure craft, just for day trips, but when the Party came to office with its scanners, we decided to change our minds before they changed our minds.’

  ‘Why didn’t you take the beanstalk?’

  ‘Tried, but they wouldn’t give us tickets. They said it was because of our health, but I reckon they suspected we weren’t planning on coming back.’

  ‘Wow.’ Okiro’s face was plastered against the cockpit window. ‘This is tech-era. No holo controls?’

  ‘No sir, it’s all manual, the way a machine should be.’

  Sky decided to move things along. ‘How soon can we leave?’

  Billy-Jay screwed up his face, weighing the options. ‘I was plannin’ on heading out in the next couple of days, before the programmin’ appointment. I’ve still got the final safety checks to complete.’

  ‘We were hoping to leave sooner. As in now,’ Sky said.

  Billy-Jay motioned around the barn. ‘Does this look like a shuttle port? If Ol’ Pete was ready to fly, I’d be in the VOL instead of yapping with you two. Anyways, they’d spot us in daylight. Best wait ’til night.’

  Sky tapped into Billy-Jay’s brain. Though he was content to live in clutter, his technical mind was keen and he was meticulous to a fault. He had already performed a series of safety checks. He just wanted to do another round to be sure. ‘What’s the soonest you can finish the primary checks?’ Sky asked.

  Billy-Jay rested his hands on his hips, mulling it over. ‘I’d need at least a couple of hours, and that’s rushing it. Better to discover problems on ground than in space.’

  Sky and Okiro played the scenarios in their minds.

  ‘We’ll leave in two hours then,’ she decided. She used Geppetto to twist Billy-Jay’s mind into agreement.

  Billy-Jay scratched his head underneath his cap, unsure. ‘Ordinarily I’d tell you where to go. But… I guess… I’d hate for the feds to come knockin’, seeing as you’re on the run an’ all.’

  Sky had hoped his words would come out different, that they would surprise her, that merely tugging at the physical brain would not be enough to override the human will.

  It was more than enough.

  As a scanner reviewer, Sky had been privy to the workings of citizens’ minds. She had watched intentions and decisions appear on the scanners before citizens had even become aware of them. She had seen the human brain for what it was; a subconscious battle of factors, vying for dominance—genes, environment, experience.

  Were they all just puppets, seeing themselves in control when they were really on autopilot? Freedom. That’s what they valued in the VOL. Humans might be able to reduce the influence of others, but they could never be free of themselves.

  Okiro, of course, was well aware of Sky’s manipulation of Billy-Jay. Cheeky. What happened to “Better an ally than a slave”?

  It’s just a little nudge, she said, defensive. We don’t have the luxury of time.

  Sky rolled her wheelchair out of the barn, leaving Okiro and Billy-Jay to prepare the ship.

  The rain had eased. She made her way to the front porch, scanning Neuronet signals under the safety of Geppetto, listening for anything unusual. The news channels had ceased reporting on the healing of Tellinii infected at the hospital.

  The wind had blown over a vase at the grave. Using her swarm, Sky righted it and replaced the flowers.

  She decided it was time to wake her mother.

  ​15:9

  Sky returned to the hopper. She positioned her wheelchair opposite her mother’s. Sky said nothing for a good ten minutes. All the horrors she had survived in the last week had led to t
his moment, a moment so delicate that she feared it would fall apart if she got too close.

  Do it, Okiro urged. His courage bled into hers.

  She took a breath, then disengaged her mother’s coma program.

  Winona stirred. Her fingers twitched. She groaned. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened.

  Sky’s mind went blank.

  She had imagined this moment since leaving for Apollo, but the reality of it was so stark, she had forgotten what she had planned to say. She could not have prepared for the mountain of emotion.

  ‘Sky?’

  A single word, her own name, in the familiar melody of her mother’s voice. It tipped Sky over the edge. The weight that she had been carrying fell from her shoulders, blurred her sight, warmed her eyes and face like streams from hot springs. With the aid of her swarm, Sky leaned in and rested her forehead on Winona’s shoulder. Her mother embraced her.

  ‘Oh dear, what happened to you?’ her mother said, a hint of panic in her voice.

  ‘I’m okay, Ma,’ Sky sobbed. ‘I just had a fall. It can be fixed.’

  Winona caressed her daughter’s cheek, and in doing so she noticed the faint scars across her own forearms, long pink stripes like claw marks.

  ‘You were infected, Ma. With a neurovirus. You’re cured now. Everything’s okay.’

  ‘You’re out of the apartment,’ Winona gasped, as if it had just dawned on her. ‘Good for you,’ she smiled. ‘And all it took was for your poor mother to be hospitalized. The things I do for you.’

  Sky laughed. The sensation was like rediscovering joy. Her mother wiped her tears, then looked out the window, confused. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Ma.’ Sky hardly knew where to begin. ‘When you were infected…’

  Sky told her mother what had happened, as best she could. She explained how she had left for Apollo, found Dante, and obtained Geppetto. She left out the incident at the cartel brothel, to avoid worrying her mother. Sky also made no mention of her killing Som Razer’s backup bodies, partly because her employment agreement had required her to maintain confidentiality, and partly out of shame. As Sky spoke, her mother’s expression changed from curiosity to concern to something else. When Sky revealed Tester’s role in the affair, her mother’s eyes glazed over and stared at the floor.

  Moments passed. Winona’s eyes watered, then she cried, sobbing into her hands. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’m okay now, Ma. We’ll be okay.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come for me,’ Winona said. ‘You should have stayed on the Moon where you were safe.’

  Safe, that maternal cocoon. But safe was no longer enough for Sky Marion.

  Her mother shook her head. ‘It’s my fault.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Ma. You didn’t ask to be infected. If anything, it’s my fault; I was the one who first located Dr. Yukawa in freescan. He wouldn’t have come anywhere near you if it hadn’t been for me.’

  ‘No, dear,’ she sniffed and looked up at her daughter, ‘I let the NIA program you.’

  Sky had the sudden sense that she was watching her mother from a distance and everything around her was in tableau. She wanted to ask her to repeat her words, but they had been clear enough the first time.

  Her mother had been the one stable force in her life. But now, Sky was adrift at sea with nothing to hold onto. She sat there, staring at Winona, unable to speak.

  Winona took a breath that wavered and threatened to collapse. ‘After ’36, your father joined the NIA. At the time, they were offering scholarships for children of employees. It included enhanced programming. Your father claimed it would protect you from future hacks. I’d seen children’s brains fried in the hospitals, I didn’t want that to happen to you.’ She wiped her tears. ‘You refused the programming because of the headaches. Your father had to restrain you for the first few sessions. So I lied to you; I said you’d been hit with a sleeper hack months before, and that the doctors had ordered the programming. After that, you went along with it. A few months into the programming you began to show signs of anxiety.’

  ‘You knew?’ Sky could barely get the words out.

  ‘They said your phobia would pass, they gave you additional programming for it.’ Winona held Sky’s hand, but Sky could not feel the contact. ‘I’m so sorry,’ her mother sobbed. ‘I’ve lived with this for so many years. Every night I would pray to bear your disability myself, so you didn’t have to keep paying for my mistake. I wasn’t truly going to leave you for the retirement village… I just… I wanted to help you… I thought if you were more independent… I wanted you to get better… you’re my baby, I was supposed to protect you. I was supposed to protect you and instead…’

  There was so much going on inside Sky at that moment that she felt she was drowning. Drowning in an ocean of her own confusion and her mother’s tears. She had seen her mother weep before, but never in remorse, never like this. Sky wanted to shake the woman: Stop crying. You’re not supposed to cry. You’re supposed to be the strong one. You’re supposed to know what to do.

  Sky couldn’t breathe. She gathered the swarm and fled the hopper.

  Run.

  Her mother called out for her.

  The air was heavy and humid, like Shackleton’s Ground. Her swarm pushed her through the trees.

  She knew.

  Even her mother, Winona Marion, was not who she had appeared to be. Sky’s life had been a joke that everyone was in on except herself. She swiped at an immature pine trunk with her swarm. It buckled and snapped. Her chest heaved, searching for air.

  She heard Winona call her name.

  Sky pushed further into the forest, so fast that the tree trunks began to blur. All she could hear was the beating of swarm tentacles against the ground and the snapping of branches.

  She slowed down. She could no longer hear her mother’s calls. The swarm placed Sky’s wheelchair on even ground. It had stopped raining. She heard a bird’s chirp. The wind rustled the leaves in gentle waves. She settled into the lull of the forest. Time passed.

  Sky replayed her mother’s words in her mind. Tester had orchestrated Sky’s programming. Her mother had not known its true purpose, at first. Was that why Winona had stayed by Sky’s side all that time? Guilt?

  She had never seen her mother fall apart like that. It had frightened Sky.

  I’ve been too hard on her, she realized, it wasn’t her fault.

  She sensed Okiro’s presence. However, he was not there to comfort her, for he had not been attending to Sky’s mind until this very moment, and had no idea what had just transpired between mother and daughter. Instead, Sky sensed another urgency within him.

  I think they’ve found us, he said. The NIA.

  Sky linked into Okiro’s senses; back in the barn an alarm was blaring. Billy-Jay watched a holo with footage of the surrounding mountainside. Heading toward them—less than eight kilometers away, according to the readout—were two airborne pods.

  Billy-Jay identified them. ‘P16 Assaulters’.

  ​15:10

  ‘Haven’t seen a P16 in years,’ Billy-Jay exclaimed. The airborne machines looked like rusted steel eggs. ‘They’re old patrol cars. You know, from the time when police actually policed.’

  He zoomed into the footage to get a closer look at one of them; two gun barrels protruded from either side of the cockpit. ‘I don’t know what ya’ll have done, but if they’re scrapin’ P16s from the bottom of the barrel, you’ve really got someone’s goat.’

  ‘Are you sure the scanners haven’t picked up your thoughts?’ Okiro said.

  The old man shook his head, dust flying off his beard. ‘Right now my neurals are tellin’ them I’m asleep on that haystack yonder. I don’t see why they’d send P16s for that, unless it’s suddenly become a programmable infraction. Wouldn’t put it past ’em.’

  How soon before they get here? Sky asked. Okiro relayed the question to Billy-Jay.

  ‘If they keep crawling like they are, maybe ten minutes,’ Billy-Jay a
nswered. ‘They’re sniffing around in the right place, all right.’

  He ducked into his ship, Ol’ Pete, and pulled out a trunk. He threw the trunk on the floor, a cloud of dust erupting from the impact. ‘I sure hope my first round of safety checks are enough, ’cos we’re leaving in ten minutes.’

  Sky detached from Okiro’s senses.

  Her swarm carried her through the trees, toward the hopper. Moments ago, she had been a whirlpool of confusion and anger at her mother, but all of that heartache was insignificant in the face of this new threat.

  ‘Ma, they’ve found us,’ she called out. When she arrived at the ambulance hopper, Winona was not there.

  Sky reached out with Geppetto, searching for her mother.

  Sky scuttled back to the farm, catapulting herself over the fence. She passed the derelict items populating the front yard and found her mother on an old children’s swing, alone in her damp hospital gown like an abandoned child.

  ‘Ma.’

  Winona looked up with a piteous expression. ‘I’m so sorry. If I had known…’

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ Sky said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ She heard a hiss, somewhere behind her. Not far from the entrance to the property, near the line of ash trees, a P16 approached.

  Sky ripped her mother out of the swing with the swarm and carried her behind a dilapidated road vehicle. They watched as the P16s circled the ash trees where Sky had landed the hopper.

  They found it, Sky thought.

  She imagined a storm of NIA agents and drones receiving images of the hopper and its location.

  The P16s fanned out, in search of prey. One headed toward the farm. She led her mother along the farmhouse, covered in a canopy of invisible swarm.

  The P16 hovered above the children’s swing, the empty seat still swaying.

  Sky looked to the barn; there was about fifty meters of open ground between her and the rickety building.

  Let them come, she thought. I’ll turn them against each other with Geppetto.

  A P16 stopped directly above them, spinning left and right, hunting. It was larger than Sky had expected. The magnetic coils on its underside hissed in the rain. Her skin prickled and her hair stood on end from the static.