The Paradise Factory

by Jim Keen

  The gang attacking her were enthusiastic and aggressive, but fought as if this were open-air combat, trying to hit her center mass. Alice had learned on Mars that using the tunnel walls to channel fire was a far more effective way to cause damage. She swept another round of ricochet bullets into the smoke, pushed herself up, and ran.

  Alice changed direction at random, zigzagging through tunnels and odd, open interconnections. After two minutes she stopped and listened for sounds of pursuit. Her ragged breath echoed from the curved walls as the discordant hisses and hums of machinery rumbled beneath her feet.

  “A little help?” Alice said as she checked the riot gun’s charge.

  “My sensors are somewhat degraded by the Bridge’s superstructure. I’d suggest you don’t rely on me to find a way out.”

  “There’s a surprise.”

  She heard shouts, faint at first, then growing in volume and joined by running footsteps. They knew where she was. Alice rounded a corner and sprinted flat out along the thirty-foot length of the connecting corridor, her desperate footfalls audible despite her damaged hearing. Her chest tightened, legs rubbery with fatigue. The junction at the end of the corridor gave her two options; left behind a closed wire door, or right and curving out of sight.

  Gunfire opened up again. Hot, heavy impacts thudded across her jacket, and shrapnel whirred past to leave deep gouges in the metal walls. She kicked the door open, ran through, and unzipped a thigh pocket to pull out a smart claymore mine. Its six-inch body had two buttons on top: one for a trip wire, one for location sensitivity. She toggled the second and a small red LED glowed, indicating an active charge. Alice tore off the rear sticky pads, slapped the claymore onto the wall, then set off, head down, sprinting with every ounce of energy she had left.

  How long had it been?

  Three seconds?

  Five?

  The tunnel ran straight. The mine was loaded with rubber bearings designed for suppression control. If it triggered when she was in the blast radius, her jacket’s bulletproof fabric would be as much use as a towel, the rounds knocking her unconscious at the very least.

  At the junction ahead, soft red lighting illuminated a left and right split. As Alice reached it, a shock wave lifted her from the deck and dashed her back against the steel floor. The first explosion was echoed by a second, smaller but longer. The mine had ignited something else, maybe a power conduit. The noise was a physical force that shook her, vision flickering. Emergency lights flashed, flared, cut out. She’d lost her visors somewhere, and now the dark was absolute. Her lungs filled with choking black smoke, and she dry retched onto the cold metal floor.

  Suit was talking, shouting, but she couldn’t hear it. Her coughing was worse now; Alice hacked phlegm from deep inside, then vomited uncontrollably. She rolled onto her back, the riot gun still clipped to her chest, and struggled to read her wrist pad through the smoke. Green text scrolled across its small screen.

  >: Hello? Alice? Hello? Do you hear me?

  “Yeah,” she mouthed, but couldn’t hear herself. The floor of the tunnel shook beneath her, the tertiary explosions lost in her damaged hearing.

  >: Using a claymore in here was stupid, hear me? Stupid. We’re on a stealth mission, not some commando raid.

  “Think we’re a bit beyond that, don’t you?” Alice said. The smoke was thicker; a warm, heavy texture that forced its way between her lips and into her mouth. “Now would be a really good time for some options though.” She gave a deep, wracking cough.

  >: That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The walls of this duct are significantly colder than previously, and the air exchange rate has risen enough to suggest—

  Alice twisted and raised the riot gun to shoulder height, firing a sustained burst at the side wall. The thin galvanized steel shredded into a cloud of confetti and she winced as a bitter, cold wind blew inward. The smoke cleared to reveal ragged rooftops of repurposed military housing modules huddled below a web of bird-catcher nets. She watched a diving gull become entangled in the netting’s thick, sticky folds. It struggled, only to wrap itself in deeper.

  A vine of cabling ran vertically past the houses, tied to a steel lattice, then arced upward to a conduit near her head. She reached up and out to grab the nearest cable. It was thin and yellow, the outer rubberized layer glittered with a hexagonal pattern: diamond thread fibers, more military tech. It seemed Fourth Ward had hooked itself deep into the Pentagon’s supply chain. A cord this thick could leash a helicopter.

  Alice’s gloves were tough, made from the same fabric as her suit, but this would hurt. She gripped the cable with both hands, then swung out over the drop. There was a sickening moment of vertigo as the dark and hot confines of the tunnel were replaced with cold and white nothing. She wrapped her legs around the line and loosened her grip. Slow at first, then faster, she slid downward. There were shouts, and bullets tracked her from the duct—only a few rounds at first, but as alarms rang out, additional crackling gunfire came from the buildings below. She gathered speed, the wind a roar in her ears, as Fourth Ward staff scurried onto the uneven rooftops. She was lucky none of them had any real training, their guns a mixture of family heirlooms whose rounds fell beneath her, or more modern gear that required proper training.

  Alice clung to the cable, arms and legs shaking with exertion, wind roar matched by the ripping hiss of the wire against her suit. Friction heat seared a line across her body, her hands agony. No matter what was below, her grip would fail in a few seconds.

  The shanty town became a blur; tracer rounds fizzed past her head. A flat, snow-covered roof approached as her vision wavered, the bitter air making her squint.

  “Suit, give me a solution,” she shouted into the wind.

  It buzzed back at her, voice whipped away.

  “What?” she screamed.

  “Now, now, now,” Suit shouted, the collar speaker blowing in a small shower of sparks that sizzled against her neck.

  Alice let go, and the burning brand across her hands extinguished in an instant. She tried to roll, execute a parachute landing, but her sideways momentum was too great and she smacked down on the roof’s tough membrane, skidding like a hockey puck. She came up in a crouch, riot gun jammed to her shoulder, then flicked the rapid fire toggle only to see both cartridges had melted. She slid the tactical sling over her head and tossed it. Gunfire continued to track her, so she sprinted across the roof. Without looking, she put her foot on the edge and leaped across to the next roof. Down with a bang, the shock bone deep, then up and moving again. Breath harsh and heavy, oxygen-limited muscles begging for relief.

  Shouts from behind, more gunfire kicking up snow at her feet and spattering against her jacket. Lower caliber than the tunnel’s kill team; maybe farmers with guns used to scare birds away from their crops.

  Alice needed cover before someone with a homemade bottle rocket blew her legs off. She looked up to see a dull orange sunset peek beneath the clouds. She was nearing the Bridge’s perimeter; this line of military prefabricated units connected to another series a story below. She skidded onto her side, slid to the edge, then held onto a cheap metal gutter filled with blackened water. Ten feet down, another series of office modules ran parallel toward an alley one block over. She dropped, scuttled across, and fell into the tight space.

  She knew it was a mistake the moment she landed. The alley was narrow and barely lit by the setting sun. Stagnant sea water and rotting vegetables fouled the air. These were older prefab units, covered with military stamps from the Pentagon’s latest little wars: Canada, Mexico, and more than most, Mars. Alice tried to move forward, but the space was so cramped she had to turn sideways after a few feet. The wet floor and fibrous cables tripped and snagged her every movement.

  She elbowed her way to the end and staggered out onto a small town square where a three-man security team was waiting for her. The second she cleared the alleyway, they raised their guns, each sporting a red clip of armor-piercing rounds. All A
lice had left was an old handgun in a rear holster, her NYPD day-stick, and a knife. She went for her gun, but they had the drop on her, laser targeting arrays beeping acquisition before she’d got the pistol clear of her back.

  This was it.

  10

  “I thought the doorman and elevator attendant were my friends. They had worked here for over twenty years; I gave them ten dollars every Christmas. Now they don’t smile when they see me, just scowl and ask for money. It’s time I moved into a tower.”

  Cortex Employee No. 345, interviewed in her Upper West Side apartment, NY, USA 2052

  “Since the MI takeover there hasn’t been a single aircraft or ship accident. Not one. Great for the insurance companies, less so the legal teams. ”

  Unemployed maritime lawyer, London, 2054

  Red never imagined emotions could be so powerful. Terror was a wild animal that shook his body. He couldn’t see where he was, the clouds thick as milk, but the cable rose at an angle hard to walk up, let alone crawl along on its ice-glazed surface. He clung to it as if it were a bucking horse, arms and legs wrapped around as far as they would go. His cheek crushed against the icy steel; his body shivered in the squall.

  The wind grew in intensity until it became a freezing gale that tore at his frozen fingers. Another roar of air pushed him to the right; if he slid upside down it was game over. His hands were so cold he didn’t know if they were frostbitten or just cut to pieces. He clung on with everything he had. The wind calmed. He struggled onward. The pattern repeated.

  How long had he been inching upward? Ten minutes? An hour? There was no way he'd deliver on time, and that meant no money.

  Focus on the present. No point being rich and dead.

  He didn’t know where his pursuers were, only that they were gaining on him. They’d shouted at him for a while, but now the wind’s roar drowned out everything, turning his world into a bubble of frigid mist that froze his clothes to his skin. His body shook in a last-ditch attempt to stave off exposure; the jerking motion threatened to break his grip.

  A tear grew in the surrounding clouds, the storm shifting, and Red saw how high above the bridge he’d climbed. The nanocamoflage nets had been reeled in like sails to save them from the weather. Below him, arrayed under the withdrawn netting, ran a series of long, linear greenhouses glowing with a soft white light. Red’s heart ached at the sight of so much space and soil. To their right, a row of metal columns supported a cantilevered landing pad that hung over the river. A large helicopter sat there, rotors turning.

  The aircraft looked heavy, as if forged from a single ingot of steel, and capable of taking a lot of gunfire. People scuttled back and forth, carrying coffin-sized boxes to it. They wore weird silver suits, like reactor workers, and the boxes steamed. No, he was wrong: the packages were freezing, their cold turning the damp air into snow.

  Clouds smothered him again, but Red had a better idea where he was now. Fear still gripped him but it was no longer paralyzing, and he crept upward, legs, hands, repeating the same movements hundreds of times.

  Later.

  The storm had blown through, leaving a sunset that painted deep orange over the few remaining clouds. Red had never seen the island like this. As a ground dweller, it was hard for him to comprehend the vista. Manhattan appeared a redwood forest, thousands of narrow trees rising impossibly high, their tips shimmering in the dying sun. Armor-glass domes hundreds of feet across encrusted the towers like drops of water on blades of grass. Verdant parks were just visible inside these blisters, rolling hills silhouetted against the orange clouds.

  The view was peaceful, calm.

  Red looked back to see his pursuers still following.

  He summoned one last burst of energy to approach the top of the tower and saw that the red box was a shipping container boosted from an old boat. It was bolted to the tower’s side, big drops of blue molecular resin squeezed out from other connections. Surveillance gear covered the roof; Red recognized parts from police Hoppers, but other than that he had no clue. There were satellite upload dishes, sphere clusters, tall ceramic aerials, and aerostat recharge points. The pure green light of a targeting laser ran over his face; zeroed in on his eye for a retinal scan. They knew all about him now.

  The girl at the stall, far below, said this wasn’t gang turf. She was wrong. This was a Fourth Ward surveillance station tracking movement across their domain. It looked like they’d hacked into the Scorchers’ radio communications and tracked every cop from here. The Ward were rule-obsessed assholes, but they excelled at this high-tech stuff.

  Shouts carried on the air so Red resumed his crawl. The white barrier blocked his path; it was a painted lamp post rolled to its side and lashed in place with climber’s rope. He crawled to the pole and flopped over it, lungs heaving, body shivering with exertion.

  “Hope you saved something for the way back,” a deep female voice said.

  Red hung there like an animal trophy. He couldn’t reply, couldn’t lift his head, just raised his hand in a weak wave. There was nothing more, so he concentrated on clearing his mind and stopping the adrenaline flow that shook his body. Minutes crept by before he could push himself upright.

  “So it lives. Amazing really, considering that dumb-ass climb.” The woman was middle-aged, and wore dirty jeans and a baggy gray sweater. Her large glasses glittered as she smiled and gave him a small nod. “I’ve seen some stupidity up here, but that was top five. Trouble, huh?”

  “They close?” was all Red could pant. He gestured at the cable behind him.

  “Yup.” She clipped herself to a carabiner welded to the barrier, then edged toward him on a narrow mesh walkway and pulled him upright. “Something to deliver to the island, I guess.”

  Red knew his mouth had dropped open when she laughed.

  “You’re not the first kid I’ve met up here,” she said. “Besides, I was a teacher back in the day and can see through adolescent lies in my sleep. I find it best to get to the point.”

  Red nodded to Manhattan. “I got delivery that end.”

  “Okay, hold on.” She leaned over the drop, a thin, blue cable holding her to the walkway, and cupped her hands around her mouth. “You kids wait there—that’s a Fourth Ward instruction.”

  Angry voices cursed back, but the pursuers stopped their climb.

  “Thank you.” Red looked at the teacher. “Catch me, they’ll kill me.”

  “I won’t let them hurt you, okay? Up here it’s my world, but down there … Well, that’s out of my jurisdiction.”

  As Red opened his mouth to talk, shouts came from far below, followed by gunfire. A deep explosion rattled the walkway. The cable shook with aftershocks and icicles showered him. The teacher shouted, slipped, and fell to spin at the end of her rope as a black, sooty cloud rose to envelop them. The choking smell of burning rubber filled Red’s nose. Another detonation hammered the Bridge and he stumbled, flapped for the lamppost, and held on, arms wrapped around the cold steel, feet swinging above the drop.

  More gunfire, higher pitched, with a jagged edge that sounded like a chainsaw cutting metal. An alarm, loud, echoing. Tremors shook the cable beneath Red’s arms, mild at first but then so violent that his vision blurred, the world becoming a series of still images.

  The teacher reached for him.

  She was shouting, but he couldn’t hear.

  His hands slipped.

  He fell.

  11

  “Building off-world civilizations is an essential part of species survival.”

  President Rachael Harper, State of the Union address, Washington DC, 2054

  “We need a new approach to childcare and protection. The ongoing mass unemployment, and subsequent loss of child life, could pose a significant challenge to our reelection efforts.”

  Department of Homeland Security and Employment report, “Eyes Only,”

  President of the United States, 2054

  “China’s augmented-human trial drastically outperforms
our own military programs. It is logical to assume they will employ these new assets system-wide. If we don’t act now, we could lose any grip we have on the future.”

  Pentagon Report, “War in the Age of Sentient Machines,”

  President of the United States, 2053

  The room Conroy entered was a perfect representation of minimal architecture: red-oak floor, raw plaster walls, and illuminated white ceiling. Every surface separated from its neighbor by a half-inch shadow gap, the dark lines creating floating planes of material. A table filled the center space, a triangle of low-iron glass held aloft on four cast-alloy legs. Three Mies chairs, chrome and black leather, faced each other. Two were occupied, the avatars matching their owner’s true appearance.

  New York’s mayor was a handsome middle-aged man with a close-cropped beard, white teeth, and crisp gray Armani suit. The Pentagon’s head of biomechanical research looked very different. She was short and wide, with her straw-blond hair in the eternal Marines buzz cut. Her face was untouched by war, but both her arms carried vivid blue reprint tags from a field hospital printer. They projected from her military uniform like broken sticks, the crude pixilation of her skin a badge of honor.

  Conroy took the third seat. “Mayor Thornley, General Alisson, I apologize for the delay.”

  “No trouble, I assume?” General Alisson said. There was a hint of data-compression in her voice, the treble clipped.

  “Trouble, but not troubling. We undertook Officer Squire's extraction this morning. I will be questioning him later.”

  “Good. If the UN knows before we are ready, this is over,” Alisson said.

  “I understand,” Conroy said. Is that all it takes to ascend in the military? To be a mouthpiece for the apparent and dull?