Heir Ascendant

by Matthew S. Cox

  Embarrassment waned when her mind changed gears, wondering how many people died from consuming the drug. Did that count as her killing them? Some poor person might see her, think Adimera would magically give them a body like hers, and they’d wind up dropping dead of a massive heart attack.

  Maya looked up, scowling at herself on the huge screen. The traffic light changed, and she scurried across, eager to get away from the spectacle she’d made of herself. She wanted to run away from the ad, but fast-movers attracted drones. A person running among a crowd, even a child, would draw attention. Only the guilty ran.

  A pair of cars trying to nose far enough into the intersection that they could turn even if the light changed caused a delay in pedestrian traffic at the next cross street. Maya hid among the adults, gaze down, hoping no one bothered to take notice of the bedraggled urchin in their midst.

  “Attention Citizens.” A capsule-shaped drone, yellow-and-black striped, glided overhead with a flashing amber light on the bottom. “We are pleased to announce that airborne bacteria levels set a record low for the second consecutive day. Public advisory to use breathing apparatus remains suspended. Have a nice day.”

  She crossed with the crowd and turned left. Whenever she’d left the penthouse, she’d always had a driver. Only once had she joined Vanessa in the helicopter. Traffic had been horrible that day and they would’ve been late for the recording session without flying. Maya spun through a few steps, gazing up at the buildings around her. She had no idea where she was and came to a halt against the side of a dark grey office tower.

  Another holographic version of her, about six years old, passed overhead on a drone-mounted screen, pitching a diet aid that promised to let people eat as much as they wanted and never gain an ounce. In theory, the drug bound on a molecular level to food, making it too large to pass through the intestinal wall. Rather than be digested, it went straight out into the toilet. Only, the ad didn’t mention how one in every hundred or so people who took it died a horrible, agonizing death from multiple organ failure or how overuse could cause someone to starve while eating tons of food. How many people had bought Nutridyne because of her smiling endorsement? How many people had she killed?

  Maya sank to a squat, clutching the doll and wanting to throw up. She pressed herself against a building, cowering behind an artistic flange, hiding from her vapid murdering image. Nervous shakes rattled her body. A person couldn’t walk fifteen feet in the Sanc without seeing her face somewhere. Though she’d never been there, she knew her ads ran in all thirteen Sanctuary Zones of the Eastern Commonwealth States, all the way from the Boston Sanc to The Miami Arcology, as well as what remained of Europe. Marketing kept wanting her to visit London, but Vanessa had never agreed to it. The Authority had no influence there. Ascendant executives had a serious hatred for the California-Washington-Commonwealth, as they didn’t trade with the East Coast. No money for the corporation.

  She sniffled, glaring at the flying billboard gliding off into the distance.

  I didn’t know any better. I’m only a little kid. I only wanted to make my mother like me.

  Maya growled. That woman was not her mother. Once the attack of nausea subsided, she crept to the corner of the building and peered around. Warm rainwater ran in the next sidewalk like a river, deep enough to cover her feet.

  The street shone as bright as day from hundreds of signs and banners. Vertical swaths of light scrolling with product imagery clung to every building, white, red, blue, green, and every color imaginable flickered and shone with the same general message: buy something. She slipped out into the pedestrian path again, holding pace with a fat man in an ankle-long coat. At least at his size, he kept the rain off her for another two blocks before he headed into a residential high-rise.

  Maya spun in a slow turn, searching the sky for the telltale cyan glow of the Ascendant tower. Too many tall buildings formed an impenetrable wall and choked off the sky. She huffed. A glance down at herself made her decide not to walk into any place too well lit. The soaked ragamuffin look would cause trouble; a concerned Citizen or suspicious blueberry would both spell disaster.

  She kept to alleys for another few blocks, turning without plan in a desperate search for an Infoterm. They existed, that much she knew, but where they were located or what they looked like was another thing. One of those would be able to give her directions to that place… Emerald Oasis.

  At the next corner, she turned right, entering a huge canyon with walls of identical silvery skyscrapers on either side of a four-lane street. Six huge red banners, each spanning at least ten stories, hung from the buildings on the left, wavering in the breeze. Gold writing at their tips mixed in English and Chinese referred to the area as Emperor’s Plaza. Rain caught the glow of dozens of advertisements, dancing in rainbow swells wherever the wind caused droplets to cluster. This place, she knew. Vanessa’s assistant had brought her here a few times to shop for clothes and games. The bottom ends of the banners swayed, gliding back and forth above the wide outdoor stairway that led down into the shopping center beneath the high-rises.

  Maya followed a clump of pedestrians to where a set of painted lines spanned the street between the third and fourth of the six towers, a crossing that lined up with the stairway. In a few minutes, the light gave the green to the crosswalk, and she hustled with the group to the other side. People went left, right, and straight ahead in roughly equal amounts. She stayed with the group headed down into the Plaza.

  A wide chrome-plated stairway decorated with giant hanging flowerpots of ivy descended to a recessed square lined with storefronts. Three railings carved to resemble Chinese dragons separated it into four lanes. She hurried along, happy to have stumbled across a familiar place. In the middle of the courtyard ahead, a pack of five blueberries stood by a fountain, sipping coffee and talking. Maya drew in a gasp and dove to the left behind a six-foot video display upon which an Asian woman showed off a black, skin-hugging dress with a high Chinese collar. A diamond-shaped cutout over her cleavage offered quite a view.

  Maya scrunched up her nose, wondering why anyone would wear something like that. The cold could get right in.

  The screen shifted, and again she stared at herself circa two years ago. Seven-year-old Maya stood at the side of a hospital bed in a dark dress. Except for her, the entire scene was black and white. A blond boy about her age lay in the bed, wheezing and coughing. She wore a grim expression, this ad being the only one in which they told her not to smile. Maya recited words she’d memorized years ago in time with the recording.

  “Michael’s parents didn’t love him enough to buy genuine Xenodril. They trusted an imitation. Michael is dying to Fade. I’m glad my mommy loves me.” The Maya on the screen held up a box with a fancy Xenodril logo over a blue swoosh. “Xenodril cures Fade. Does your mommy love you?”

  As a giant block of legal ‘boo-shee’ scrolled across the bottom, she thought of Sam and the implication that he died because Genna didn’t ‘love him enough’ to buy a $200 per dose drug. Maya hated herself for saying that. Even after arguing with Vanessa about it, she’d caved in and recorded the ad. Not that anyone ever got away with saying no to that woman. Had Genna ever seen that ad? Probably. Is that why the woman had been so rough with her at first? Had she listened to Maya accuse her of not loving Sam?

  Disgusted with herself, Maya punched the screen (not that it cared) and burst into tears.

  “What was that?” asked a man.

  Fear devoured sadness. Maya froze. Stretched reflections of blue in the silver ground shimmered closer. She bowed her head and walked back the way she’d come, heading for the stairs.

  “Hey kid,” yelled one of the Authority officers. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” She jogged.

  “Stop. What are you running for?”

  Crap. She bolted.

  “Shit. Runner. Call it in,” said another man.

  Heavy boots clambered after her up the stairs and into the street. A
solitary e-car swerved to avoid hitting her and a woman’s shouting joined the commands emanating from the blueberries to stop and get down. A whistle zipped over her head and a brilliant flash of blue lightning sparked off the side of a building.

  She thought of the Hornet. The Dad said it had too much power and could kill a little kid if they didn’t weigh enough. Maya became acutely aware of her spaghetti-noodle limbs; she fit square into the ‘didn’t weigh much’ category. An uneasy scream/whine seeped past her teeth. Compared to the drone flight, getting chased by blueberries seemed trivial. Maya kept her wits, even as a second stunner dart skipped off the ground too close to her feet. A tingle crept up her legs, electricity carried by the rain-soaked metal. She debated diving flat and surrendering, letting them realize who she was and trying Plan B, but an alley offered escape before they could fire a third dart.

  They chased her, but she rounded another corner, which blocked their shot. Her feet slipped out from under her on the wet metal, but she flailed and managed, somehow, not to wipe out. She followed a back and forth zigzag path, keeping to areas devoid of people and passageways too narrow for cars. They would call in drones any second if they hadn’t already. Her surroundings grew progressively dingier, making her think she went the wrong direction―closer to the wall rather than toward the city center.

  Yellow caution signs flashed at the mouth of another alley a block and change ahead. Both had the same text:

  Integration Ward 04

  Caution: Fade

  Do Not Enter

  She pumped her legs as hard as she could, weaving behind dumpsters whenever possible to keep the blueberries from getting a clear shot. Another sparking dart skittered across the wet ground, leaving a trail of scintillating sparks. At the next corner, she tried to turn at full speed and her feet slid out from under her. Adrenaline blocked any sense of pain from her mind. She bounced off her chest and scrambled upright in a narrow but bare alley leading to a fifteen-foot chain link fence topped with coils of razor wire.

  A pair of Integration Ward signs sat on either side of a locked sliding gate. Large, yellow flashers at their corners cast flickering shadows over distant shambling figures in the yard beyond the fencing. Fade victims. Blueberries won’t follow me in there. She raced down the alley past the welded-shut doors and boarded-up windows of disused warehouses. At the end, she wedged herself through a gap between the gate and the fence too small for an adult. The Authority officers slowed to a walk near the far end of the quarantine alley, seeming to have given up.

  She backed away while watching the blueberries for a few steps, then spun about and hurried down a narrow street between two white-walled buildings. The steps of a former warehouse offered a place to sit and remember how to breathe like a normal human being again. She held the doll in her lap and bent forward. Excess adrenaline trembled off in a nervous shudder. Muffled gasps for air made her cringe, seeming loud enough to echo for miles. Hopefully, her gamble would work.

  Citizens, as a rule, didn’t get the vac shot. People were expected to buy Xenodril to get rid of Fade once they’d caught it. If taken within the first week (two if the person was super fit) the Xeno would get rid of the disease with no more side effects than if the person had come down with a heavy flu. To those with money, Fade was a nuisance. Ascendant didn’t sell the permanent immunity serum. Of course, Vanessa had it, and Maya remembered being brought around a Fade ward as a PR stunt about four years ago. They’d never have done that if they hadn’t given it to her. Yes, she was sure she’d been inoculated. Veterans tended to have it too since some believed Fade to be a bio weapon employed during World War Three, the vaccine given to soldiers before Ascendant controlled it.

  The true victims were the poor bastards who lived out in the Habitation District. Anyone who couldn’t afford to buy Xenodril, or who couldn’t get past the security checkpoint to buy some, didn’t have a chance. Fade became a death sentence. And, from what she’d heard, there weren’t very many worse ways to go.

  She resumed trudging along once the exhaustion of her frantic chase faded. At the end of the short street, past a dead forklift, she entered another courtyard with no fancy lights or tempting signs, no shimmering little Mayas gliding overhead or smiling from freestanding signs.

  Only death lived here.

  Forty or fifty people milled around a series of white tents. Some looked older, some about Genna’s age, and a handful of children clustered in the corner. All wore robe-like garments of off white made of long wrapped shrouds. Those who could walk shambled about like zombies, bumping into each other and startling as though few of them could see more than five feet forward.

  Patches of grey marred every face she gazed upon. A tiny red-haired girl maybe five years old reminded her of Sarah, only with much floofier hair. She sucked her thumb in the far corner; blotchy grey spots covered the right half of her face, making the skin look dead, and the eye on that side had milked over.

  Maya broke down at the sight of such a small child so sick, and cried into her hands.

  “Shit, not another one.” A wheezing man sidled up to her, long strands of white gauze dangling from his arms and shoulder. He shook his head. “Too damn young.”

  A woman staggered over. The way her skin hung in folds hinted that she had likely been huge before she got sick. Her death vestments undulated with all the excess flesh shifting underneath. She didn’t seem capable of moving her left leg, an effect that made her seem even more like an undead. “Where’d you catch it, kid? You don’t look sick yet.”

  “She’s not in Fade bandages.” The man coughed. Dark ochre ooze slid down from both nostrils in a wavering double-tendril Maya could not look at.

  “Uhh, I’m not sick. I went the wrong way.”

  The woman’s mouth curled into a sinister smile. “Well, congrats kid. You’re sick now.”

  Two more men approached, curious about the newcomer. One old man in the back fell forward, made no effort to get up, and screamed at the ground.

  “Fade isn’t contagious once the infection has set. After forty-eight hours, the motile pathogen mutates into a host-dependent state that is no longer capable of being a vector for cross-contamination.” Maya bit her lip. “You can only catch it if a new batch falls out of the upper atmosphere, or get a blood transfusion from someone who has it.”

  “What the hell was that?” asked a man who had the features of an African, but a skin tone like dirty plaster. “That sounded like Janus, but in a kid’s voice.”

  “It is a kid, Don.” The first man leaned close. “Hell of a wrong turn. Didn’t you see all them flashing lights?”

  “Yes. I was running away from some bad people. I knew they wouldn’t come in here because everyone believes the lie that Fade is contagious.”

  Four more Fade victims crowded around, including the little red-haired girl.

  “Will you be my friend?” The child dragged herself closer and offered a creepy half smile. “Doctor says I won’t forget everything for another two weeks. I’d like to have a friend before my head stops working.”

  Maya stared at the girl, sniffling. Shaking from grief, she reached out and let the girl hold her hand. “I… Oh, this is so wrong.”

  “I know you,” said the child. “You fly! Can you show me how to fly?”

  “I don’t…” Maya blinked. How could this child possibly know about the drone?

  “Ashley’s right.” A new woman who only had a few small patches of grey around her lips and nose pointed. “I’ve seen her in the air.”

  “It’s the Ascendant girl,” wheezed a gurgling voice.

  Over the span of three seconds, the curious crowd became menacing―except for Ashley, who continued smiling at her new friend.

  The once-fat woman grabbed at her. “They’ll give us medicine for her.”

  “Get her,” yelled a man.

  “No!” shouted Maya. “They won’t.” She backed up, but the crowd of sick people swarmed around behind her.

  May
a walked to her left, deeper into the tent city. Ashley hung on to her hand like an anchor, keeping her from moving too fast. The girl giggled, limping along as best she could behind her. Maya hurried past tents containing those who could no longer even stand. Inhuman voices moaned names. A few, even adult voices, called out for Mommy or Daddy. One woman kept shrilling “Eddie” every three seconds like a stuck cuckoo clock.

  Shroud-wrapped bodies closed in. Maya leapt away from twenty or thirty grasping hands. Past the last tent, the brick buildings formed an L-shaped left turn lined with orange-painted garage style doors, each marked with a three-digit number. She firmed up her grip on Ashley’s hand and pulled her ahead in a sprint to a left turn a few seconds away.

  As soon as she rounded the corner, she skidded to a stop, her heart slamming. Aside from twenty more rolling doors, and a ‘Billy’s Storage’ sign discarded on the ground, only a cinder block wall and more razor wire waited for her. A dead end. She backed up, doll in one hand, Ashley in the other, facing the shambling crowd of moaning, bandage-clad people.

  “It won’t help. They won’t give you anything!” yelled Maya, edging backward. “I was kidnapped already and it didn’t work.”

  Sick people crowded in, all forty or fifty of them that could walk. They filled the passageway, trapping her in an ever-shrinking space. Whispers of “grab her” continued, interspersed with the occasional “it’s her fault” or moans of “Xeno.”

  Maya continued retreating until cool cinder blocks bumped against her back.

  “Why are they mad at you?” asked Ashley.

  “Please stop,” yelled Maya. “They won’t listen.”

  The living mummies closed in, leaving only a small gap between her and the people crowding her.

  Maya sank against the wall until her butt hit the ground, and clamped her arms around Ashley. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She sniveled and raised the doll-bearing hand to guard her face. “Please don’t hurt me!”