The Shining Wall

by Melissa Ferguson

  ‘Freel’s smoothed the way. They won’t touch us.’ Ganya patted the handgun at her waist. ‘And I can take the scaly bastards if they try.’

  Ganya drove to the Northern Edge settlements and stopped the car by a cluster of characters laughing and swigging from brew bottles around a barrel fire. Ganya hoisted a pack onto her back and tossed another to Alida.

  ‘What’s in here?’

  ‘Smokes. They’re hard to get out here, but they’re completely banned in the city.’

  Ganya stepped up to one of the guys by the fire and whispered in his ear. He nodded and pointed to a dark hole in the ground. She handed him a carton of smokes from her backpack.

  ‘We’re clear to enter.’

  Ganya switched on a torch and led Alida downstairs. At the bottom the torchlight flicked over six littlies chained together and cowering in a corner, scabs and grazes all over their arms and legs. Alida took a step towards them, not sure what she could do.

  ‘Not our problem.’ Ganya grabbed her wrist and dragged her forward to what must have once been a station platform. The walls were covered with graffiti, busted tiles and peeling posters.

  The littlies were now hidden by shadow. That could be Graycie chained to that wall. Even if it was, Alida would still be powerless. She was low on the food chain in the Demi-Settlements. With no clout whatsoever.

  Further down the platform a metal ladder led to the tracks. The only trains Alida had ever spied were rotting in an old rail yard to the east of the city. It must’ve been fun, in the old days, to hurtle along on a train through the burbs and then plunge beneath plastic-land and pop up out of the ground somewhere like a worm.

  The air was cooler than up above and a slight breeze blew from somewhere ahead. The remains of thousands of pieces of garbage crunched under their feet. The darkness deepened the further they traipsed along the tracks. Ganya’s torch made a circle of light in front of them, showing nothing more than grimy concrete walls. Alida put a hand on Ganya’s shoulder and stayed close. The rasp of her own breath filled her ears. Around them dark-loving creatures scuttled and squeaked. Alida wasn’t scared of rodents or insects, and she didn’t buy into ghosts or monsters, but the roof pressed down against her. These tunnels could collapse at any time. She reckoned the feeling was like being buried alive. She concentrated on the torch beam and took deep breaths.

  Ganya strode fearlessly through the dark. ‘This job tonight is a Cinderella. Did your mum tell you about the different jobs?’

  ‘No, she never told me.’ Plastic-faced pervs had to have themes for their sex as well?

  ‘Follow the client’s lead. I’ll give you a cap of passenger before you go in. Have you taken pass before?’

  ‘No.’ Zave had gabbed on about it, though. He said it made you feel like your body didn’t really belong to you, like you were only a passenger.

  They came to a wall of rubble reaching halfway up the tunnel.

  ‘For crying out loud. They said this was cleared.’ Ganya put her fists on her hips and clenched her jaw. She stared at the obstruction and glanced down the way they’d come.

  Alida suspected Ganya was considering marching back to the tunnel trolls and dragging them down there by their ears. Alida ran her fingertips along the rubble, daring a sharp edge to slice through her anxiety.

  Ganya let out a loud sigh. ‘We’ll have to climb over. Good thing you’re doing a Cindy – the grubbier the better.’

  They chucked their packs over. Ganya clamped the torch between her teeth and grunted her way over, sending miniavalanches of debris down behind her. Alida stood in complete darkness, her palm pressing into the wall. Bright light shone over the top and Alida jammed her eyes closed.

  ‘Sorry.’ Ganya lowered the torch. ‘Let’s move.’

  Alida scraped her body over the wall and brushed grit from her palms.

  ‘I don’t think it’s too much further.’

  Up ahead there was a lighter patch of dark.

  ‘There it is,’ Ganya said.

  They walked on until they reached a ladder rising up towards a grate and beyond that the shine of a tall building. Ganya climbed up first and peered through the grate. ‘When I say go, move quick, before the surveillance camera swings our way.’

  ‘Right.’ Alida climbed halfway up the ladder, her knuckles brushing the bottom of Ganya’s boots.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Ganya lifted the grate, placed it quietly to the side and pulled herself up onto the street.

  Alida climbed, her hands shaking and sweaty on the rungs of the ladder, and lifted her head above ground level. They were behind a big brick building, in an alley filled with waste barrels. It was the cleanest joint Alida had ever seen. Even the air smelt clean. She hoisted herself all the way out of the hole. She was in plastic-land and she may as well have been on another planet. She didn’t know any of the rules or any of the safe places or characters. She was as helpless as an orphaned littlie, with Ganya the only thing she could cling to.

  ‘Stick to the shadows,’ Ganya said.

  They crept round the building and stopped beside a rack of folded-up cars. Ganya tapped in a code and one of the wheeled plastic shells unfolded and rolled forward. Inside reeked of some sort of cleaning solution. Ganya fiddled with the computerised dash and they glided onto the street.

  The city glowed green with the bioluminescence of FoxFire trees. The streets were slick, shiny and empty of life – not like outside the wall where you couldn’t move without breathing in someone else’s stale breath.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Alida asked.

  ‘There’s a curfew.’

  Curfew? Alida would love to see someone try to enforce a curfew in the Demi-Settlements.

  The car moved from what Ganya called the warehouse district and into the high-rises of the residential district. Vertical chequerboards of lit and unlit windows towered over them. Alida tilted her chin up, her mouth hanging open. She caught a glimpse of her first city dwellers, two Security Force goons, and slid down in her seat.

  ‘Eish! Act natural,’ Ganya said. ‘It’ll look more suspicious if you try to hide.’

  ‘Right, right.’ Alida sat as straight as she could. How would a Citizen sit? She tilted her nose upward a little.

  The goons had a young boy, from the look of him a Demi, bailed up against a wall. One of the goons was short and stocky and her skull was a weird shape, as though someone had grabbed the front and back and yanked it outwards. When she turned towards the car her big nostrils and brow ridge gave it away. She was a Neo-Neandertal. Alida had never met one, only clocked them manning the city gates. They were a kind of race of slaves the plastic-faces had created. Most Demis regarded Neos as little more than animals who had stolen their jobs.

  The Neo goon and Alida locked gaze. What would happen if they were nabbed? There was no way they’d get away with it. It wasn’t only Ganya’s sunspots and wrinkles and the standard LeaderCorp Hub–printed threads Alida wore; plastic-faces all had their skin colour-corrected to the same warm-honey shade at birth. Mum had told her it was LeaderCorp’s loopy idea to end racism between its Citizens and quickly identify outsiders. Alida’s skin was a couple of shades darker than the LeaderCorp ideal.

  They turned a corner and left the goons behind.

  Ganya let out a breath and gave Alida a wink. ‘Hectic. Lucky they were busy. Every now and then you come across a stickler who won’t take a bribe.’

  The car stopped and they got out. Ganya rapped her knuckles on the rear door of a building and after a second an older guy with a smooth metallic blue scalp ushered them into a room filled with barrels of nano-waste and shelves of cleaning products. Three titchy robots – similar to the androids at the LeaderCorp Hubs, but much cuter and without the weaponised arms – stood against a wall. Alida couldn’t wait to tell Graycie about them. She reached out to touch one, a question ready to burst from her mouth. Then she remembered where she was and what she was about to do.

  ‘Howzit? Having a good night?�
�� Ganya asked Blue Scalp. She handed him a carton of smokes from her pack.

  Blue Scalp placed the smokes on a bench behind him and whipped out an OmniScreen and something like a black pen.

  Ganya held her index finger out, gabbing on at the silent guy. The pen clicked against Ganya’s finger and she wiped a bead of blood onto the OmniScreen. Some sort of disease-screening program. What if Alida had the virus that killed Mum lurking inside her, waiting to kill her too? Alida held onto her belly, willing herself not to throw up all over the floor. Blue Scalp sniffed.

  ‘She’s nervous. First time,’ Ganya said, then continued her story about a disgraced tube star who’d been spotted in the Demi-Settlements.

  The OmniScreen flashed green and Blue Scalp cleaned Ganya’s blood off with a wipe. He held the black pen out and stabbed Alida’s finger. She wiped her blood on the test panel.

  Ganya was still chatting, undeterred by the lack of response from Blue Scalp or Alida. The green flash came. Bloody hell. Tears pricked Alida’s eyes. She blinked them back, unsure whether she was disappointed at not having a reason to back out or relieved she wasn’t infected.

  She had to pull it together. She was doing this for Graycie. Mum had done it for years and she’d been okay. Alida was fully grown – she could handle it. With the dosh Freel had given her for this job they’d be able to buy eggs and fruit for two weeks. They could even print out some new shoes at the hub.

  ‘Eleventh floor. Straight to the room. I’ll be watching you on the cameras.’ It was the only thing Blue Scalp had said the whole time.

  Ganya smiled at him. ‘Cheers, you’re a pal.’

  He shook his head slightly and left through the door to the foyer.

  ‘Stuck-up prick.’ Ganya murmured. ‘You open doors for a living. Get over yourself.’

  Alida allowed herself a little giggle and the tension in her gut eased for a second. If she screamed maybe she could shift it all.

  Screaming would be a bad idea.

  Ganya put a tiny green capsule into Alida’s palm. ‘Put this between your gum and your cheek at the back of your mouth. It’ll work instantly when you bite into it, but it only lasts an hour.’

  Ganya opened the door to the stairwell and Alida followed her in. The light was glaringly bright on the polished concrete stairs. ‘These clients are a triad and they’re all very important to Freel.’

  ‘There’s three of them?’

  ‘Yes. Two women and a man. The women are both transhumanists, members of the Sapien Enhancement Movement. SEM provide illegal software to Freel and me, and we provide them with … other services. The man’s not SEM. He’s an exec for a big construction company.’

  ‘Great. If I wasn’t feeling nervous already …’ ‘You’ll be fine. Go along with whatever the clients want and pop your cap when you’re out of your comfort zone.

  Alida’s guts churned. She’d been out of her comfort zone the second she left Graycie behind in the shack.

  CHAPTER 5

  Shuqba’s first shift as a fully qualified Security Force Officer began as the sun set and the green tint of FoxFire trees steadily brightened. Solar cars, bicycles, armoured vans and trucks clogged the roads and drones filled the air. Impatient pedestrians swarmed the footpaths. Shuqba’s chest surged with pride at serving them. City 1 was an important place full of LeaderCorp’s most important people.

  She was partnered with Officer Peete, a woman somewhere in her twenties with a bun of sleek black hair at the base of her neck, tattooed freckles and glitter-purple eyes. Together they circumnavigated the city in ever-expanding circles. Before curfew Officer Peete demonstrated breaking up Neo workers congregating in groups greater than three, and random clone tattoo checks. The Neos huffed and mumbled at the random checks and tried to make eye contact with Shuqba, but she maintained her professionalism. Officer Peete used a program on her IntelliEnhance brain implant to scan Citizen profiles, looking for any irregularities, and stopped a couple of sickly-looking Citizens to perform a disease screen.

  As the 10 p.m. curfew approached, the streets emptied and lights blinked on inside buildings. Robocleaners trundled up the streets scraping and scooping up rubbish. The odd solar car or armoured truck came through and she and Officer Peete checked the drivers’ after-curfew permits. Officer Peete explained that most shifts were fairly routine. The penalties for criminal behaviour were harsh enough to ensure the majority of Neos and Sapien Citizens were compliant with the laws and regulations.

  An hour after curfew they responded to a report of movement around a building in the warehouse district.

  ‘I’ve emptied this squat so many times. The City’s fully rigged with surveillance,’ Officer Peete said before she busted down the door. ‘I can’t fathom why they keep trying. I think they enjoy wasting my time.’

  A boy darted out a side window.

  Shuqba ran behind Officer Peete, feet pounding against the road. Her legs and lungs burnt and her heart clattered like an automatic rifle. Her Neandertal physique put her at a disadvantage when running over long distances. This was the kind of action she’d trained for, though. Even if it was only a child – a Demi-Citizen boy – they were chasing.

  Officer Peete caught up to the Demi boy on the edge of the residential district. Shuqba puffed and breathed deeply through her nose, trying to compose herself. The boy backed up against the wall of a high-rise, top teeth biting into his lower lip, his eyes big and darting between Shuqba and Officer Peete. He wore a grey LeaderCorp Hub–issued T-shirt and pants, with bare feet and shorn hair. The child was tiny but his face looked older, possibly malnourished.

  Officer Peete dropped her electropacifier to her side, placed a hand on the boy’s upper arm and turned to Shuqba. ‘Ejecting Demis like this brat’s an important part of our job. It’s possibly the most dangerous part too. Demis are unpredictable. They usually have mental issues or other character flaws that dispose them to criminality. They also carry all sorts of germs and infestations.’

  Shuqba nodded. She had already learnt most of this at the academy. However, Officer Peete seemed to be enjoying her role as teacher.

  ‘I don’t understand why you people keep trying,’ Officer Peete said to the boy. ‘Without a brain implant there’s precious little you can access in the city, even if you did manage to evade surveillance.’

  The boy stared at her.

  ‘Well, what do you have to say for yourself?’

  A solar car passed by and Shuqba turned towards it. The passengers were a blur.

  ‘Don’t worry about the car. You’ll soon learn you can’t inspect every vehicle on the streets after curfew.’

  A loud metallic clang, magnified in the eerie after-curfew hush, startled Shuqba and made Officer Peete turn. A barrel of nanowaste was rolling on its side by an armoured truck a block away. The driver was looking down at it, scratching his head.

  ‘That’s disturbing the peace. We’ll deal with him later … Hey!’

  The Demi child had pushed past Officer Peete, who was still half turned away. With her centre of gravity compromised she fell onto her backside.

  The boy took off down the street. Shuqba went after him and grabbed his arm before he built up any speed. She pulled him back and whipped SmartCuffs on his wrists. Touching a Sapien was always strange. The only Sapiens she was allowed to touch without an explicit invitation were the Demi-Citizens. The boy hung his head.

  ‘To the gate with you.’

  ‘Halt.’

  Shuqba turned. Officer Peete’s face was red and her fists were clenched. The boy shied from the Sapien officer as she approached. She backhanded him across the jaw. The thwack of knuckles against the boy’s skin took the air from Shuqba’s lungs. She put her arm around his shoulders to stop him sprawling onto the road. He wailed and held his face. Blood welled beneath his fingers.

  The attack was contrary to everything that had been drilled into Shuqba at the academy. Control was so important in an SFO. She’d heard rumours of Sapien officers i
nstalling strength augmentations and downloading neural combat packages that, as a side effect, caused excessive aggression and lapses in judgement.

  Officer Peete raised her hand to strike the boy again. The child couldn’t take much more. Demi-Citizens didn’t have implants with HealthSentinels or medi-nanites throughout their bodies. From what Shuqba understood, they barely had any medical facilities in the Demi-Settlements at all. An infection or a broken bone could be deadly.

  ‘I think he’s had enough,’ Shuqba said.

  Officer Peete stopped, her hand in midair. The boy pressed his eyes shut and held his breath. Above them a laser shot across the sky and incinerated a bat passing over the sanitised city.

  ‘I’m your superior officer. You don’t tell me what’s enough.’

  She was right. Sapiens were, without exception, the superior officer. Shuqba shouldn’t question. She held her breath as Officer Peete hit the child again. Something cracked in his face. LeaderCorp is a conglomeration of thirty multinational companies. He sagged in Shuqba’s arms, his legs collapsing beneath him. Urine puddled at his feet. There are two hundred Security Force Officers in City 1. He was still breathing. He’d be all right. He’d lie low somewhere until he healed and his bones set. There’d be swelling and bruising for a while. He’d end up with some scarring and a crooked nose. City 1 is powered by wind and solar power.

  Shuqba gaped when Officer Peete drew her hand back to hit the child once more. He could hardly hold his head up. She’d kill him or cause him permanent brain damage. Shuqba couldn’t permit that to happen. Her role was to keep LeaderCorp and its Citizens safe. Not to kill Demi-Citizens.

  Officer Peete’s hand stopped halfway to the boy’s face. She looked at it, confused. Shuqba was confused too. Shuqba’s head swam. It was her. She was holding her superior officer’s arm.Touching a superior Sapien SFO without explicit permission. Her first shift and she’d already ruined it all.