The Paradise Factory

by Jim Keen

  “What is he to you? Why do you care so much?”

  Red leaned against the wall, its thin metal bowing outward. The light was dim, the dank air hot. “I care ’cos he’s one of us. If we’re not in this together, if we can’t rely upon our friends, then we’re screwed.”

  Alice took an electric cigarette from her jacket, stuck it in her mouth. She toggled it twice but it refused to light.

  “Do you actually need reminding that you’ve exceeded this month’s nicotine allowance?” Suit said. “It’s another seven days until month’s end. One more week and you can re-up.” It paused. “I’m sorry, Alice. I can’t break my programming.”

  She looked at the cigarette and tossed it away. “They took him for a reason, Red. No way Bank’s picking up cops for fun.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So? I could spring him, then end up arresting him straight after.”

  “What d’you think he’d prefer? Mars is nothing but guilt to you now—guilt you made it out, and they didn’t. Do you really need more? It wasn’t your fault. You gotta let it go.”

  Alice looked at him with an expression of such utter loss that tears filled his eyes. He moved over until their arms pressed together, and took her hand. She gripped his tight.

  “You have to understand the situation, Red. I will do anything I can to protect you, but there are limits. We go on and …”

  He nodded, mouth dry. “This isn’t on you. If I die, it’s my choice.”

  “What do you think, Suit?” Alice said.

  “It’s time to stop running. The boy is right. We’re here, so let’s make it count. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

  “You know the odds.”

  “Better than you. We started this together. Let’s finish it that way.”

  Alice looked at the floor for so long Red thought she’d passed out, but then she pushed herself upright, wiped her hands on her jeans, and stared at him.

  “If we’re doing this, then let’s do it right. It’s time to meet Mr. Bank.”

  18

  “A job for life was a viable notion for only a few years. After that, it was the corporations who dictated longevity. It always puzzled me why people were so loyal to monoliths that cared so little for them. Much better to get out there and enjoy the freedoms we are about to give you.”

  Robin Liar, CEO of Bensla Construction Inc., while announcing 67% job cuts across the firm, 2048

  “It is imperative we outlaw augmented human design. First, there is no need; humans and Mechanical Intelligences are more than capable of ruling. Second, why would we willingly create our evolutionary superiors? Do we hate ourselves so much we strive for our own extinction?”

  UN Secretary General, G15 Council speech after establishing both D-PRO (Department Of Proliferation Control) and D-SIS (Department of Synthetic Intelligence Supervision),

  UN Headquarters, New York, 2051

  “Tell me Vincent, what would you do now?”

  Conroy sat motionless, illuminated only by soft red emergency lighting. Manhattan’s neon glow ghosted the windows, the thin and twisted forms of the Blade Towers blurred by the storm. Rain dashed against the glass roof with an urgent drumbeat, while the perfume of wet soil kindled memories of his childhood vacations. That pleasant odor, however, did nothing to mask the pungent stink of burned rubber and leaking coolants. His tablet glittered with alerts detailing the Bridge’s power-system collapse.

  Conroy was at fault, had no need for scape goats. The decision to push the printers harder than advised had been his alone, the hubris blinding him to reality. He’d wanted to make a point to his family—remind them that warning labels were not absolutes—and show General Alisson he could deliver. In another timeline he would have been proved right: the grid had held until the boy damaged it, the blown circuits small but vital, a break in a dam. When one went, so did the rest.

  The cop, though, she was something else. He’d sent in a Klichka and an augment, printed to Pentagon specifications, and she’d killed them both. Perhaps Alisson had miscalculated, her expensive supersoldiers not up to the task. Still, that was not his concern.

  One-Eye studied his tablet. “All reactor cooling protocols have been engaged, and the safety systems are working as designed. The Bridge is in failsafe power-down, essential services picked up by the battery chain. Keeping Niner cool is more of a challenge: its heat generation will spread throughout the main structure until we reestablish primary operations. That limits our options.”

  “So?” Conroy said and looked at One-Eye.

  One-Eye put the tablet away, smoothed his gray suit. “There’s been enough damage for today. We need to review our security procedures, but in the meantime, why don’t I bring her to you?”

  “A logical step.”

  “Here?”

  Conroy looked at the rows of sunflowers, their heads bobbing in the shifting air currents. Condensation glittered on the glass roof; cold downdrafts fought with the heat buildup. “No,” he said and stood, motioning for Squire to come with. “I need to speak with Niner.”

  One-Eye nodded assent and walked away, his gray clothing fading into the gloom.

  “Let’s take some air before we go below.” Conroy crossed to the far wall, Squire following. A heavy steel exit door formed a blank panel in the glass wall. He placed his hand against its lock; a red light flicked green and a deep thunk broke the silence. It swung open. After the sweltering humidity of the greenhouse, the outside air was an icy blanket that made his body bristle with goosebumps. His left leg ached where it met the composite blade; rapid temperature changes were a curse to the damaged. He stepped through and gripped a handrail in the dark. The north-facing doorway led to a series of landings and ladders that traced the periphery of the building. Metal fastenings jangled as the Bridge moved. Conroy and Squire were sheltered from the wind, but it produced a frustrated moan as it pushed past the Bridge’s taut cables. Manhattan beckoned in the distance, a forest of glittering trees.

  “It’s some view,” Conroy said.

  “Beats my apartment,” Squire said.

  “What about the emergency lanes?”

  “Sure. I mean, any city looks good from the air, but our Hoppers are all routed away from the towers unless called in directly. Don’t want the Ones seeing reality do we?”

  “That will come soon enough. Now then, Michael.” Conroy waved his hand in a small arc indicating the massive machine around them. “What do you think the Bridge really is?

  “A pension scheme?”

  “Time, like my patience, is a tissue wearing thin. Talk, now, as my old friend, or I will kill you and dump you over the side.” Conroy looked at the frozen water below, then across at the towers connected by their arterial high lanes as he waited for Squire to speak.

  “It made me sad to see you here. You were a better person once you lost your job, more humble. You never liked being a surgeon, we could all see that, and you had the chance to reset yourself, put that vain need for money and power behind you. Then you were here with your family.” Squire laughed the words, but there was no humor in his voice when he continued. “What do I think the Bridge is? It’s an easy land grab for you to get the headlines you crave, a cheap bauble to fatten your ego.”

  “I’m glad you can be honest with me, and for what it’s worth, your suspicion is not too dissimilar from the public’s. It’s always easier to see filth instead of the factual, to see greed instead of altruism. During Fourth Ward’s early days the Bridge was a disused hulk, rusting away. Do you remember the public outcry when they stopped cars from using it, made it a public park?”

  “Of course. I spent three days on stims running riot control.”

  “Exactly. People were starving. How could the mayor, the city, look to use it for art or recreation? They couldn’t and so it was left to rot, a symbol of this great city’s decline. Then came the proposal to make it a law-free zone, to attract businesses and spur innovation. That was my idea, you know. I met Mayor
Thornley at a dinner party and whispered in his ear. The press release proclaimed big businesses were interested, but as soon as he approved the rezoning I rented the entire span. All the city requested was my silence concerning its new occupants.”

  “What?” Squire said. “You rent this? Then why all the violence?”

  Conroy smiled. A gust of damp air belched from a vent far below, and the Bridge groaned as it warmed and expanded. “What violence?”

  “All the dead cops, the NYPD pulling back and leaving Fourth Ward alone.”

  “Have you seen any fallen colleagues?”

  “No, I—” Squire stopped, winced. “No, just heard the rumors and followed orders. The mayor made the actual decision to pull us out.”

  “Exactly: there was none. The NYPD withdrawal was all part of the plan. The Bridge is a legitimate business. I needed a location for my factory, and, as the products are so specialized, it had to be somewhere secure but accessible. The Bridge provided that and more; we control the surrounding environment, nothing gets in or out without my knowing.”

  “Factory? What are you talking about?”

  “How long have we known each other?”

  “Ten years, maybe,” Squire said. “When you operated on my wife.”

  “I was proud to save her. Pride is a sin, but if one cannot find succor in one’s profession then what is the point of the endeavor? She was one of the last operations I performed without machine supervision. I was already working with Cortex’s precursor MIs on the military surgical systems by then. That commission allowed me to put down the scalpel for good.”

  “I never knew you worked for the military.”

  “It’s not the sort of thing you advertise. People can be so squeamish about making a living from death. That comes from cowardice and ignorance, the herd unwilling to accept that bad things happen. Well they do, everywhere, all the time. The military have their own doctors, of course, all highly skilled, but trained for triage over renewal, the quick cut-and-glue. The Pentagon wanted to train its mechanical systems in the art of restoration, how to rebuild damaged flesh. In that business I was the best.”

  “And unafraid of the machines.”

  “Synthetic intelligences were coming in one form or another—there was no way to stop it—so it seemed prudent to get ahead of the curve. I digress, though; back to you and yours. Sarah was important to me, and you have been as well.”

  “So what have I done, Patsy?” As Squire spoke, there was a brittle crack from above and a wide sheet of ice fell past to clatter onto a cooling duct below. Another followed, this one showering them in a dust of sparkling particles.

  “I hear you had a conversation with Mayor Thornley,” Conroy said. Squire stood motionless, a silhouette cut from the skyline. “He told me all about it. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.”

  Squire’s breath was loud in the dark as Conroy let his friend decide his future.

  “I’m not a spy. I don’t work for you.”

  “Ah, so you still abide by old-world models, is that it? Follow the chain of command established long before either of us were alive? If so, where does friendship fit into that?”

  “I can’t lose my job, Patsy, not with everything splintering. I did it for Sarah, for my kids. You know I’d never—”

  “Would working for me be so unpleasant?”

  Squire said nothing, his silence eloquent.

  “The old way is over, Michael. There is no going back, no stopping the tide. Mechanical Intelligences have made mankind obsolete. The Ones understand this, and are busy hauling up the drawbridge to seal themselves in. It is us, the leftovers, who have failed to appreciate the new world order. But we are not defenseless, for we have collective strength, all for one, and with that we still have a say. Such brotherhood, however, is only as strong as its weakest link. You believe that by turning down my job offer, by hiding things I need to know, you are upholding some idealized version of a New York police officer. You are not. Your actions are poisoning the water your family drinks. Do you understand what I’m saying? Or are these the archaic ramblings of a confused old man?”

  “I understand well enough,” Squire said. “What I did was nothing compared to the nightmare you’ve built. I’ve seen those bodies strung up for disobedience, what choice did they have? Why is it that organized families are always built with someone else’s blood? Don’t give me any eye for an eye bullshit. The law is all we have. If we turn our back on that, we are nothing.”

  “And you uphold the law?”

  “Damn right I do.”

  “All laws?”

  “Of course,” Squire said, then hesitated. “Not every law, some have aged out, no longer apply. And things like trash, well we don’t have the manpower, but for the important laws we do.”

  “Who decides which laws to implement, and which to ignore?”

  “Day to day, I do.”

  “So what is the difference between us? We agreed with the city to be left alone on the understating we will uphold our own laws. I give every new neighborhood a vote, outline the benefits of staying, the dangers of leaving, and the consequences of breaking Fourth Ward rules. I hide nothing. Then they vote. Every block, neighborhood, and person has joined us willingly.”

  “Willingly? Everyone is terrified of you. Can’t you see that?”

  “Irrelevant. Their lives improve. The polling numbers show overall increases in satisfaction upon being granted Fourth Ward citizenship.”

  “You’re not the law, Conroy, you’re just a cheap suit out for yourself. You pick through the bones of this city, and seek to justify your actions with this bullshit defense. I don't understand what you do here, but I bet it’s for personal gain.”

  Conroy turned from the view and sighed.

  “Do you wonder why the mayor informed me of your treason? No? It is time to show you the game in play. Then you will tell me who else you told.”

  19

  “The cargo contained in this drop ship is worth more than the lives of everyone on Mars; its safe extraction post operation is your number-one priority.”

  General Alisson, “Eyes Only” communication to Lieutenant Sarah Manna,

  Colonial Marines Occupation Force, Mars, 2052

  “Through deployment of new automated systems our kill capacity has increased in line with MI projections. You no longer need to rely upon tactical nuclear weapons, or daisy cutters, to achieve substantial opponent reduction.”

  General Sythe, press briefing at the UN Headquarters, New York, 2052

  Alice led Red up and through the cooling system. The further they went, the older the surrounding machinery became. They had to wedge themselves between tethered bundles of black cables, backs and chests scraping the walls. At other times the tunnel opened up, the dank ceiling dripping water.

  It was quiet except for the creak of warming metal.

  Alice existed in a pre-storm bubble of calm. At peace with herself for the first time she could remember, accepting her limitations and actions. She knew this feeling was temporary, but now had a way to deal with the guilt and drag herself free.

  If she lived.

  The tunnel flattened out and widened into a small room. A ten-foot fan lurked behind a metal grille; the opposite wall was bare except for a circular vent open to the outside. Alice looked through. The sun had set, and Manhattan’s electric halo reflected from the river’s ice cap. She rose on tiptoe and tried to see her apartment building, but its concrete hulk lay somewhere in Brooklyn’s darkness. There were oily flames at the borough’s edges, but the rest of it lay under a black cloud, the occasional aircraft warning light marking the contours of its dead architecture. To her left, Fourth Ward’s Manhattan enclave had power, orange streetlights illuminating sidewalks devoid of people. She squinted, and for a moment thought she saw bodies hanging from the lampposts, but couldn’t be sure.

  Alice understood what she had to do now. The chances of rescuing Mike were slim, but she would try an
yway.

  The faint sound of children’s voices carried on the wind. She looked down. Chunks of ice were falling from the Bridge cables, long sheets punctured with icicles. They dropped past the deck to smash into the river, the impacts shattering its surface. Clots of people clustered around the new openings, electric nets cast into the black liquid.

  Cold air flowed inward, yet the metal wall warmed Alice’s fingers. She kneeled and put her hand on the floor; the same here, heat spreading through the Bridge structure. There was a boom from deep below her, the room shook, and Red grabbed her arm.

  “Look,” he said in a panicked tone.

  The ten-foot-tall fan turned. Slow at first, with a tired grinding, but its speed increased until the tips blurred with a low thwack-thwack noise. The air being channeled through the vent became a gale in seconds and it was hard to stand; only Red’s punk hair remaining untouched. The wind sucked Alice toward the blades, her boots useless on the slick floor, until she squashed against the grille. Her body shook with each rotation of the blades, her face pressed against the metal.

  Red screamed behind her, voice whipped away in the roar. With a huge effort, Alice lifted her head from the grille and looked back. He had gripped a ridge in the wall, fingers white with tension. Track marks on the floor showed the passage of his boots as they slid across the oily surface.

  Alice grabbed for his hand, but he was too far away. Her face was sucked back to the grille, the thin metal bending, ready to split and dump her into the blurred blades.

  Then, as fast as it had started, the thundering gale fell away, leaving behind a ringing stillness. Alice staggered backward, lost her grip on the floor, and fell with a crash.

  “What the hell happened?” she said.

  “I thought, after everything, it would be unfair if you died that way. Especially when we have so much to talk about,” One-Eye said as he entered the room. He smiled.