by Phoenix Ward
Before the other could try to guess, Gauge stepped forward and fired at each of them. A bright blue spark emanated from where each projectile hit, and the mechanical people fell to the ground, dormant.
Ethan, having no forewarning of Gauge’s actions, jumped with surprise and covered his ears. When he realized it was already over, he relaxed.
“What did you do to them?” he asked, examining the deactivated forms.
“I hit ‘em with an E.M.P. shot,” Gauge explained, showing the wrist-mounted weapon he used. “They’re fine, but those bodyshells are shot.”
“Bodyshells?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah, bodyshells,” Gauge replied, tapping on his own robotic form. “It’s what we I.I.s live in, how we interact with the world.”
Ethan looked down at the deactivated people. “But they’re still alive?” He didn’t understand.
“If they have backups somewhere, yeah,” Gauge replied. “Since they’re Council soldiers, I don’t doubt they do. The shot I hit them with should wipe their memory of the last minute, though. I don’t think they update their backups more frequently than that. Aside from your empty simpod, no one will know we were here.”
Ethan felt at a loss. He had a million questions he wanted — no, needed — the answers to, but he decided to go with the most pressing one first.
“Where do we go?” he asked.
“Well, we don’t want to go all the way out onto the Pavilion; that’s where the I.I.s who run the city live. We’d be sitting ducks out there,” Gauge explained. “Instead, we’re going to take a maintenance duct down into the lower city.”
He led Ethan out of the door the two bodyshells had come through, then peeled to the right. There were a number of steel crates stacked by the side of the door labeled with things Ethan could not understand. Beside one of the crates was a circular hatch that went straight down into the metal floor. With a whir that sounded like a power drill, Gauge unfastened the bolts holding the hatch down.
“You first,” Gauge said. “That way I can cover our rear if I have to.”
Ethan took a big gulp as he peered into the hole. It had to be only about three feet wide, but it was too dark to see the bottom. A thin ladder led down into the abyss below.
As he started to lower himself into the narrow passage, he couldn’t help but think of Sharpe. He kept remembering how skeptical his friend had been when he first told him about Gauge.
I wonder what he’d think if he could see me now, Ethan thought. Then he remembered that his friend was also set to be lobotomized soon.
Another thought crept into his skull as he took the first step down to the next rung, his elbows tucked tight against his chest as he moved. He remembered how Sharpe insisted that Gauge was part of some new, immersive adventure.
That thought remained in the back of his mind as he climbed down the duct.
17
Calvary
A whole day passed since the group of Truck’s Raiders deleted Abenayo and took Tera captive. The bandits kept her tied up the whole time, ignoring her for the most part. There was nothing for her to do — they cut off any kind of network access she normally had access to.
The only form of entertainment available to her was to watch the bandits prepare for the ambush on whatever Council troops would be responding. Where she thought they only had huts and tents set up, they actually had stored weapon caches. They unloaded what seemed like hundreds of magna-rifles and so many boxes of E.M.P. bullets that they could have erected a little fort for the children to play in with them. Some of the I.I.s in the group used bodyshells with built-in weapons, but most did not. Most were the old civilian models, the same kind one might see in Slumside.
They converted some of the tents and fake housing to make cover and pockets that bandits could conceal themselves. The part of the ruins they chose for this ambush was perfect — a nice clearing surrounded on all edges by tall, ruined buildings. There were a few people on each roof — if the building had a roof, that is — and several in the interior.
More and more, she started to doubt if the Council would win the fight when they got there. She had been so certain at first, but looking around at all the people and the position they were in, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
If only I could warn them, she thought. If only I could send some kind of message to the Council.
Everyone was alert and content at first, but after a few hours passed and there was still no Council response, they started to get restless.
“Come on, how long’s this gonna take,” she heard one complain.
“Shut up,” the man in charge of the party barked. “It’ll take however long it takes.”
“It’s starting to get late. Are we going to take shifts while some of the people rest? What about food?”
“I said shut up!”
But once the first day transitioned into night, then into the second day, even the boss guy was starting to moan about fatigue and hunger. Some people took watch for over eight hours at a time. Just sitting in one position, with their guns in their laps or on the ledges in front of them, eyes peeled for any kind of motion. She could see it was getting to them. They would shake their heads, trying to keep themselves awake. On the second day, Tera started to understand the Council’s tactic.
They’re deliberately delaying response, she thought, looking at the exhausted raiders around her. They knew the bandits would be prepared for them, so they wanted to wait them out until they were tired and hungry. Until their guard was down.
She was sure she was right. It was exactly something she could see the Council doing. It was cold and calculated, taking only the logical approach. They didn’t care if the raiders deleted her in the meantime.
It made sense.
Then, when so much time had passed that she started to doubt herself and the second night was beginning to fall, the raiders stirred.
“On the ridge!” one of the lookouts shouted.
Everyone went into action. The listless eyes and bored faces became intense with concentration. There was a commotion of plastic and metal as guns were moved, loaded, and aimed. Magazines were clicked into place and sights were raised. They all seemed to know where the lookout saw the incoming party and faced in that direction.
Then she spotted them. A dark line of bodyshells marched on the ruins in formation, their weapon attachments already deployed. The metal components caught the sun and glinted at her. Even she had to be impressed at the look of them.
Even if I had a whole army on my side, I wouldn’t want those Council soldiers after me, she thought.
A gunshot rang out in the air, splitting the tense silence that was gathering. It rang off the ruin walls and the nearby cliffsides before reverberating back to them.
Only a second of quiet followed the initial pop before the atmosphere was torn by a staccato of gunfire. Electrified bullets and tracer rounds zipped through the evening sky like a violent fireworks display.
From where she was tied up, Tera could see two bodyshells drop on the ridge as the E.M.P. rounds crashed through their armor. Once the Council soldiers fell to the dirt, the others turned to the source of the bullets and opened fire themselves. There was no panic in the mob of bodyshells like there would be if they were human. Instead, they stayed rooted to the spot, only strafing out of the way to avoid incoming rounds.
They must be built with combat enhancers, Tera thought. Security measures that kept them from panicking but allowed them to use the emotional surge of battle to drive them.
She ducked as a stray round ricocheted off one of the boulders near her. The last thing she wanted was a hole in her head courtesy of the people sent to rescue her.
An explosion shook the ground. Tera couldn’t discern if it was triggered by the raiders or the Council soldiers. Another one followed it.
They must have set traps, Tera realized.
The bodyshells started to circle the clearing in a wide, slow berth. They walked around the buildings wh
ere all the snipers were posted, keeping a persistent barrage of fire on their ambushers. Truck’s Raiders spun around to compensate with the movement, but they were at a disadvantage. There were too many things for the Council soldiers to hide behind as they made their advance.
Tera was watching one of the raider snipers try to trace the bodyshells with his rifle when a small shape was flung from below, landing beside the human. He noticed it and panicked. He threw down his weapon and tried to leap away from the object, but it was too late. The grenade exploded with a concussive shockwave and the shower of shrapnel tore the sniper to shreds. His mutilated body tumbled off the roof and down into the clearing.
Shouts echoed off the walls as Truck’s Raiders tried to figure out where the soldiers had gone. Somehow, in the thick debris of the ruins, they lost track of them. But the same was not true of the soldiers. Tera heard two more explosions ring out, the bodies of more snipers flying off the buildings or tumbling to the concrete in bloody heaps.
“They’re surrounding us!” Tera heard the boss man shout. She couldn’t see him, but it sounded like he was behind a rock down in the clearing, just ahead of her. “They’ve got us on all sides!”
Looking around, Tera could see it was true. The bodyshells from the city started to emerge from behind heaps of rubble and cracked walls to reveal the ring they had formed around the encampment. The gunshots from their wrist-and-shoulder-mounted weapons never let up. They never gave the raiders a moment to recuperate.
“Fall back!” she heard the guy in charge cry. “They’ve got the upper hand! Fall back, you bastards, if you wanna live!”
Panicked shrieks and pounding feet came from all around Tera. The humans and I.I.s that made up the group of Truck’s Raiders rushed past her line of sight. In the blur of everything, she could see the fear in their faces. The pure terror.
The Council bodyshells started to close in. One step at a time, they tightened the ring, shooting down frantic bandits as they tried to break out of the clearing. Their pace was slow, almost like something out of a horror movie.
“Turn back! There’s more this way!” she heard someone shout from the left.
“We can’t! They’re all around us!” another person yelled on her right.
“Break on through!” the boss man ordered, his voice tense with strain. “It’s the only way.”
More gunshots. Tera could hear agonized shrieks coming from all around her. Even in the cacophony of the firefight, she could hear the soft thuds of bodies hitting the earth.
Then it was quiet.
Tera strained to peek, but she couldn’t see anything. The wind blew a bit of dust in the air, which drifted on down the ruined street like a puff of smoke.
“You are under arrest,” she heard a voice in the distance say. “Do not resist.”
“You are under arrest,” another voice said, this time closer. She heard the phrase once or twice more, accompanied by the clicking of handcuffs.
Footsteps started to approach the rock Tera was bolted to. It came from behind her, so she couldn’t see who it was, but she knew the feet were heavy and mechanical.
A bodyshell appeared from around the corner, staring down at her. It was a man who had forgone the standard synthetic hairdo most bodyshells sported for a clean scalp. The police emblem on his chassis was unmistakable.
“Thank God,” Tera said when it finally became clear that the Council soldiers had won.
“You are under arrest,” the male bodyshell said, bending down to secure a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. “Do not resist.”
Tera’s brow furrowed in incomprehension as the officer cut her from the rock and lifted her to her feet.
“There’s a mistake,” she said. “I’m not one of them. I’m a police officer.”
“Be quiet while we gather up the rest of your friends,” the bald I.I. commanded. “You don’t want to make this any more difficult for yourself.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said as he grabbed her upper arm and led her with him. “My name is Tera Alvarez. I’m a Human Liaison Officer in Slumside. You can check your database.”
“I just did,” the Council soldier said after a microscopic pause. “We have an Alvarez on file, but your credentials don’t match her. In fact, our records state that Officer Alvarez was deleted in the same E.M.P. explosion that killed Officer Abenayo.”
“That can’t be right,” Tera replied, stumbling a little as they started walking down an incline together. “Clearly, I’m right here.”
“We will have to verify your identity, then,” the arresting officer explained. “As far as we can tell, though, you’re one of those Raider I.I.s who took control of Council property to impersonate an officer of the law. For these crimes, as well as being an accomplice to the murder of two police units and the attempted ambush of a government platoon, you are being detained and taken to holding within Shell City. There, we will confirm your identity and the proper action can be taken. Until then, I would keep my mouth shut if I were you. You can only make things worse.”
18
Waking
The simulation got one thing right, Ethan thought. The outside world definitely has flying cars.
He and Gauge had taken what the I.I. called an “autocar”, which was more amazing than the teenager had imagined. It was like a personal helicopter that drove itself, winding through the long avenues that made up the lower city. He pressed his nose up against the glass and looked out, taking in the sights. He felt like his mind might overload at any second.
Gauge explained that the vehicle was arranged to meet them by some friends of his. When Ethan asked what friends he was talking about, Gauge simply said, “You’ll see.” He didn’t like that.
The flight was a long one. Gauge programmed the vehicle to fly slowly in order to avoid suspicion, but even if he didn’t, the city was so massive that it still would have taken a while. Ethan watched the holographic signs pass by, designed to look like neon lights or old-timey cloth banners. There were swarms of other autocars zooming around the air between the ridiculously tall skyscrapers.
Ethan knew civilization had advanced and urban areas had expanded, but he had no idea the true scale of it all.
“Where are we?” he asked. He didn’t take his gaze away from the window.
“Shell City,” the bodyshell replied. “Formerly Denver, Colorado. This is what it’s been transformed into since the humans lost the war. This is what the Council built it up to be.”
Ethan remembered mentions of Denver in his educational programs, but he couldn’t remember much about it. He just knew that it was famous for being a mile above sea-level.
Maybe that’s not even true, he thought sourly.
“What Council?” he asked.
“The elite I.I.s who control the world,” Gauge answered. “There are dozens of places like Shell City out there, and they control every single one. Their local representative is Councilman Harring. Someone had to be in charge of how all the I.I.s were stored and ultimately how life continued on. So the Council stepped in, and now they have all the power.”
Ethan felt dismal. “I was promised the chance to live on Mars,” he said, almost to himself rather than his metal companion. “They said life was just one long vacation and we could do whatever we wanted. No one said it would be like this.”
“That’s the Council’s work,” Gauge replied. “They’re the ones that kept you in the simulation so they could harvest your body. To their credit, at least the program seemed fun.”
“It was all a lie.”
“That’s right.”
Ethan felt like he might be sick. At first, he thought it was because of the shock or the rocking of the autocar as it flew. Then he realized how hungry he was. More than ever in his life, he wanted to bury his face in a plate of steaming hot food and risk the burns in order to fill his gullet. He hoped they were landing soon.
“The rest of the humans,” he started to ask, “they’re all in those po
ds?”
“No,” Gauge said. “You were just a special crop and a Council secret. Most humans live in the lower city ghettos. They live in shacks, or ruins, or even just the streets while usually spending most of their time fighting each other, tweaking out on drugs, and surrounding themselves with mindless entertainment. You probably can’t even imagine the kind of squalor the millions of slum dwellers live in each day. And it’s not just the humans. Poor I.I.s, or those who found themselves out of the Council’s favor, call the ghettos their home as well.”
“Sounds like Hell,” Ethan said, wishing dearly that Gauge had left him in the simulation pod.
The mechanical man nodded, then added, “The only difference is that Hell can’t be changed. We’re almost there.”
Ethan felt relieved as the autocar finally lighted down on the roof of a ruined apartment building. He had no idea where they were going, but looking around, it was clear they were in one of the ghettos Gauge had mentioned.
“This way,” Gauge said as the autocar door slid open. He hopped out and walked over to a roof-access door. He waited for Ethan to join him before opening the door and stepping inside.
The stairwell was full of dust and a good number of the steps were missing. Ethan stumbled a little once, but Gauge caught him and steadied him. Aside from the loud sounds of them descending the dilapidated stairs, Ethan couldn’t hear anything. They were alone here.
They took the stairs down four flights before Gauge led the way down a short corridor, then down another flight. The stairs were metal and the building was made more solid concrete the deeper they went. Ethan guessed that they were underground now.
“We’re going through the city’s old geothermal network,” Gauge explained. “It used to power the city, but this section has since been shut down. That’s why it makes the perfect hideout.”
He led Ethan down a number of metal tunnels and more stairwells, all the while the light around them grew dimmer and redder. It was a labyrinth, but Gauge seemed to know every turn to take without a moment’s delay. Ethan couldn’t count the number of bends and dips they took or how long they’d been underground. Neither of them said a thing.