Engines of Empire

by Max Carver

  “Even though she bore no close genetic relationship to you?”

  “Right.”

  “Interesting. Is that how you scavengers help one other survive when your family units are destroyed?”

  “I guess.”

  “What is the name of the girl from the train tunnel?”

  Colt hesitated. He remembered how she'd said it: “You can call me... Mohini.” Clearly giving him a false name, he thought, hiding her true identity. “I don't know,” he answered.

  The Simon regarded him for a moment with its lifeless blue eyes, then nodded. “You don't know. Where is she from?”

  “I forget. It was somewhere I've never heard of—”

  The pain returned, seeming to bore through every cell in Colt's body, giving each one careful personal attention.

  “You are causing me delay,” Simon said.

  “Good,” Colt replied. He resolved not to tell the android anything else, no matter how bad the pain got.

  It came back hard, again and again, but Colt kept his mouth shut, refusing to answer any more questions, even the most basic ones. The pain grew more and more intense, until he was sure he would die.

  It seemed to go on for hours, for days, for eternity, the questions and the pain.

  “I will return soon,” Simon said at last. “And we will talk more. It's been a pleasure meeting you, Colt. You're an interesting specimen of your kind.”

  He left, leaving Colt aching and hollow, like everything inside him had been broken.

  Colt knew he couldn't handle another interrogation like that. He hoped the Simon stayed away for a long time. He hoped he died before he saw the Simon again.

  The curtained-off space remained dim, and the screams around him continued, the air thick with blood and piss and death.

  Chapter Nine

  Carthage

  Audrey and Zola raced down the stairs full of panicked people. The matching, lantern-jawed Security Steves fired blue lasers after them, apparently not caring who they killed in the crossfire.

  On the fiftieth floor, Audrey ran back out toward the indoor curb where she'd stepped out of the limo earlier.

  “I can hire a car,” Audrey said. Then she blinked. “Except, without Nin, I'm not sure how to access my bank account. I can use a... thumbprint or something, right?”

  “We've got a ride coming,” Zola told her. She turned and fired at a Security Steve that was just arriving from the stairwell. “Tell me when it's here.”

  “How will I know?”

  “You'll know.”

  Moments later, a long, cylindrical red-and-white truck raced into the building along the black track from outside, red lights flashing, siren wailing. An ambulance. The other cars immediately cleared the way, opening a path for it.

  The ambulance stopped in front of Audrey, and one of its two cargo-style doors opened. “Get in!” shouted a man's voice from the shadowy interior.

  “Go!” Zola snapped, firing a couple more lasers to cover them.

  The gang of Security Steves reached the loading zone by the indoor curb. Smoking dead bodies fell around them.

  Audrey, though filled with doubt, stepped hesitantly into the ambulance.

  Zola shoved her the rest of the way in, knocking her to the floor and landing on top of her. “Go! Go!” she screamed at the driver—because there was an actual human driver here, sitting at a bank of controls, but he didn't look like any kind of licensed medical technician. He was a dwarf, most of his head shaved and the rest bundled up into spiky locks, wearing an old denim jacket covered with glowing pins of glaring mummies and green zombies and the occasional puppy.

  Another guy inside the ambulance, wearing a long green coat, moved to the open cargo door where Audrey and Zola had just entered. He raised a long plasma rifle and let off a glowing white bolt. It streaked like a meteor into the nearest Security Steve, expanding to engulf and melt the android's torso.

  He fired another parting shot as the ambulance rocketed away from the curb and through the covered gateway, out of Transview Tower, down the black bridge of a driveway, out into the thick of traffic.

  A dedicated lane opened up for them. The wireless signal from the ambulance was warning the other cars as much as the siren and lights.

  Networked, self-driving vehicles floating on a thin layer of magnetic repulsion tended to move extremely fast most of the time, anyway, but with every car automatically getting out of their way, traffic parting like the Red Sea, the ambulance could travel at dizzying top speed. That was somewhere around six hundred kilometers an hour, according to the driver's screen.

  It also meant they weren't going to be disappearing into traffic anytime soon, though.

  “Did they have a vehicle?” asked the guy with the plasma rifle, still watching out the rear door of the ambulance.

  “The Steves arrived in a cargo truck, but I think it dropped them off. They were supposed to be posted in my apartment all night.” Audrey shivered. “You said they were hacked, Zola?”

  “The Clowns,” Zola said. “It had to be. It all fits. You said they attacked you earlier.”

  “Yeah, a hacker clown definitely did. Tried to kill me. Failed.” She smiled, feeling that weird liberation of having faced death and walked away fine. Or maybe the happy pill was still working.

  “That's their usual method,” Zola said. “It's ingrained in their philosophy—you're not supposed own or benefit from machines yourself, any more than you can help it. In practice, you know, that's not very realistic. But they also believe in using the regime's own machines against it, making the system eat itself.”

  “Seriously? The 'regime'? Like we don't have elections,” Audrey said.

  “Elections managed by artificial intelligence and microtargeted propaganda,” Zola said. “And anybody pushing for real change is silenced long before you get a chance to hear about them. They disappear.”

  “You really believe that?” Audrey asked. “That's kind of extreme conspiracy stuff—”

  “It happened to my family,” Zola said. “And we were lucky. If we'd been less well connected, we would have simply died in the night. Maybe they would have made it look like an accident. It's all managed, Audrey. It's all fake. Your father's been the unchallenged head of government for twenty years. If that doesn't ring any alarm bells, it's only because you've been conditioned to accept it as normal. What's the point of an elected system if it's all arranged so the same people stay in office for life?”

  “We have stability,” Audrey said. “We have peace and prosperity like no one has ever experienced. That's why my father keeps getting elected. Because people are basically happy.”

  “Peace and prosperity on the inside,” the tall guy with the plasma rifle said. “Death and destruction on the outside. The empire is growing out of control, and nobody has the courage to stop it. The machines are a cancer that will eat everything.”

  “Come on, nobody seriously uses the word 'empire,'” Audrey said. “I'm the first to agree there are all kinds of problems right now, flawed policies, things that could be done better. But the way to change that isn't through bloodshed and terrorism. You know, revolutions are fun until the guillotines come out. Then there's the show trials, the new dictator who's even worse than the last—”

  “I agree,” Zola said. “We're not terrorists. But the Blood Clowns are.”

  “But you said they were part of The Change.”

  “They were. But they're impatient. They want revolution now, even if it means anarchy, even if it means blood in the streets. But I don't think we're to that point yet, and I don't think we'd emerge from that scenario with the kind of society we want.”

  “So what do you believe in doing?” Audrey asked her.

  “Finding information,” Zola said. “Finding the truth and making it available to people. That's what I believe in.”

  “The truth about what?”

  “Everything,” Zola said.

  “Heading down,” announced the small
guy driving the ambulance. The rear door slammed shut. “Fast and steep. Hold on to your—”

  Before he could finish, the ambulance tilted forward and whooshed down an off-ramp. The driver switched off the emergency signals, lights, and sirens as they joined the larger lower highway. Traffic instantly closed in and swallowed them up.

  “And... morphing,” the driver said, as they passed through a covered tunnel. Outside the windshield, the dirty white and red ambulance markings turned dirty green. “We are now a Plumber Phil truck. No guarantees they won't find us, though.”

  “Where are we going?” Audrey asked.

  “We can't head home,” the driver said. “They'd shoot us on sight if they saw you with us.”

  “Why?” Audrey asked.

  “Because you're the enemy,” the tall, young rifleman said.

  “The spawn of the enemy, at best,” Zola said. “So... here's the thing. This isn't exactly an authorized operation. Most people don't know you like I do. You're just another Caracala, like your father, like your sibs.”

  “Other than Salvius,” the rifleman said.

  “Yeah, and not everyone accepts Salvius, either,” Zola said. “They think he's a mole.”

  “Blood Clowns obviously do,” the driver muttered.

  “So all of you know my brother?” Audrey asked.

  “That's why we're here,” said the rifleman. “Zola believes in you. She convinced Dinnius and me to risk our lives extracting you. But we don't have backup.”

  “Did you know the Security Steves were going to attack me?” Audrey asked.

  “Nobody knew that,” Zola said. “But getting close to you, or anyone in your family, is dangerous. We thought the Security Steves might attack us. We never expected them to turn on you.”

  “So I would've died if you hadn't been there,” Audrey said, realizing. “These clowns couldn't kill me in my car, so they hacked my security androids. They must be brilliant hackers.”

  “That they are. Crazed, violent, and brilliant,” Zola said.

  “How many of them are there?” Audrey asked. “Where's their base?”

  “Spoken like a true mole,” the rifleman snorted, and the driver laughed.

  “Very funny,” Zola said. “We don't know those details, Audrey. They might not know themselves. A lot of them are social-avoidant super-hackers, cloaked in masks and aliases. Which makes them ripe for infiltration, really.”

  “Why the whole clown thing?” Audrey asked.

  “They say only clowns and jesters could speak truth to power, using jokes and pranks. But these guys are also willing to kill. That's where the 'Blood' part comes in, I guess.”

  “There's old Earth lore about clowns who live in sewers, taking the shape of children's fears,” said Dinnius, the diminutive ambulance driver with the braided blue Mohawk of hair. “Perhaps that inspired them.”

  “Do you know where they're keeping my brother?” Audrey said. “If no one else is going to help us, then we should just grab some weapons and charge in there.”

  “I like this girl,” the rifleman said. He wasn't much older than her, but he looked rough, his clothes made of recycled flannel and leather, covered by a long, ratty green jacket. The worn materials screamed Benefit Zone, the regions inhabited by the vast population of the mysterious poor, who tended to stay close to home, consuming their free food and entertainment, their homes built, cleaned, and maintained by public robots.

  “What's your name?” Audrey asked.

  “Kright,” he said, smiling. “You don't want to know what it's short for. And our excellent driver here is—”

  “Dinnius,” Audrey said. “You mentioned it.”

  “Aw, she's a good listener,” Dinnius said, his steel hoop earrings clanking together as he turned to look at Kright. “It's your dream girl, Krightforn. Somebody who actually pays attention to your blabbing and doesn't tune you out in the first ten seconds. You may not find this again in the course of your life.”

  “Krightforn?” Audrey asked.

  “Shut your mini-mouth, Din,” Kright said.

  “Right. Go for obvious and weak jokes about my size. Surely she'll be impressed with that empathy and intellect of yours.” Dinnius tapped his head with one hand while sending their vehicle sideways down an off-ramp. “Reproductive success is sure to follow.”

  “I'm sorry?” Audrey said.

  “Don't mind them, they're idiots,” Zola said.

  “Idiots who are helping you rescue your lost boyfriend,” Kright said.

  “Yes,” Dinnius said. “Brave, handsome, brilliant and loyal idiots—”

  “You are all of the above,” Zola said. “Both of you. Satisfied?”

  “Temporarily,” Dinnius said. He steered them down a steep, narrow magnetic rampway into a crumbling complex of what looked like warehouses and factories. Darkness swallowed them as they passed through an open loading dock door.

  They were at ground level, which was odd for Audrey. Her life was mostly spent among the clouds, on the upper levels of high towers. Sometimes they visited their beach house, of course, or their mountain house, or their country estate, but those were a plane ride away, far from the city. The lower levels of the city itself were strange to her, frightening but interesting.

  “Did you say 'lost boyfriend'?” Audrey asked as they traveled into a cavernous space lined with rusty machinery.

  “Oh, Kright,” Dinnius said. “You master of operational secrecy.”

  “All right,” Zola said. “Maybe I have a personal interest in rescuing him. Maybe that's why I'm doing it with no backup or support.”

  “Except us idiots,” Kright said.

  “Right. They were good enough to help when nobody else would.”

  “I owe Salvius,” Kright said.

  “And I'm just trying to convince Zola to sleep with me,” Dinnius said. “It's a long-term objective.”

  “We all have our reasons,” Zola said. “Some more noble than others.”

  The car coasted to a stop deep inside the old factory. They'd reached a point so cluttered with junk the car could travel no farther. They were barely levitating above the pitted, dirty magnetic roadway, which had clearly been neglected for years.

  “Where are we, exactly?” Audrey looked at the big plastic horses heaped nearby. “Old toy factory?”

  “Prior Amusements and Games. Stuff for the fun parks and amusement cities.” Kright opened the back door of their vehicle and stepped out.

  Audrey followed the others out into the dusty factory. She didn't have to wonder why it had been abandoned. Heavy industry had been moved up to orbit decades ago so that all industrial exhaust and toxic gases could be vented into outer space while solid and liquid industrial waste could be cheaply shipped off on deep-space barges. The surface of Carthage was reserved for residential, retail, and entertainment uses.

  Ships full of goods and raw materials rolled in constantly from other star systems, the endless flow of resources feeding into Carthage's factories, never ending, almost more than they could possibly use.

  From the factories, shipping containers full of finished goods rolled down Carthage's space elevators night and day, along with containers of frozen and preserved exotic foods imported from other star systems. Everything went directly to retail shelves. The same shipping containers returned up the other side of those elevators crammed full of the world's garbage, to be pushed off on more deep-space barges.

  That was her world's only real export, Audrey thought. Barge after barge of trash.

  A number of empty factories remained down here on the city's ground level. Some had been torn down or refurbished into apartments, but clearly not the ones in this area.

  “This way.” Kright clicked on a flashlight and led them down a side tunnel. Pieces of broken dolls littered the floor.

  Zola linked an arm through Audrey's. “It'll be okay,” she whispered.

  “Why are we here?” Audrey asked.

  “This is where they said to meet
us.”

  “Who?”

  “Shh.”

  They followed after Kright, whose long green jacket concealed the plasma rifle on his back. Dinnius took up the rear, holding some kind of fat pipe-looking thing wrapped in thick cables, most of it obscured by his leather jacket. Audrey wished she had a weapon herself.

  They reached a room lined with large trick mirrors, each one surrounded by fat round light bulbs. The mirrors distorted their reflections, some making them tall and skinny, others making them short and fat. Still others digitally altered them by adding costumes. One made Audrey look like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz; Kright was the Scarecrow, Dinnius the Tin Man, Zola the Cowardly Lion, complete with mane.

  The light bulbs edging one of the mirrors, one that placed the viewer into classic paintings like the Mona Lisa, flickered on and off like a signal. Zola grasped Audrey's arm extra tight, as though frightened.

  “Here it comes,” Dinnius murmured, shaking his head, the short blue braids of his hair rolling back and forth.

  When the face appeared in the mirror, taller than her whole body, Audrey found herself returning Zola's tight grip. The same face had appeared in her car earlier, the black-and-white clown with the spade and club makeup and jester hat.

  The weird high she'd been riding, the feeling of having cheated death, came crashing down. She hadn't cheated death, just postponed it a few hours while she changed her clothes. She felt sick. Maybe her smiley pill was wearing off, too.

  “You have her?” the clown voice asked.

  “She's right here.” Kright grabbed Audrey's arm, the one Zola wasn't already clamping down on.

  “Wait, what?” Audrey said.

  “Where is he?” Zola snapped at the giant clown face in the mirror. “I want to see him in the flesh. No more pics.”

  “A deal's a deal,” the clown face.

  “What deal? Zola, what's happening?” Audrey asked.

  “Sorry,” Zola said.

  A wide mirror rose at the back of the room like a rattling garage door.

  Three androids walked out, each one a common type, two Nurse Nancy models and an Officer Joe.