by Rick Scott
Val Helena considers it a moment more. “I just can’t tell with her anymore. I don’t know whether she’s friend or foe.”
“You really think she might try to attack us out here or something?”
“I’d hope not, but…” And then she turns to me. “Let’s just hope not.”
Another pause falls between us and I have the urge to tell Val Helena about what I saw down in the mines. But maybe now just isn’t the right time. She’s already overloaded with all this. I wouldn’t want to drop even more on her. And then she’d be in the same conundrum as me, perhaps torn between putting her need to save her friend over the goal of saving Citadel. Maybe it best I keep it to myself for now. Or at least until we get through with saving Becky. Hiding a secret like this is a hard thing to do, but I think I’m doing it for the right reason.
Aren’t I?
I wrap my arm around Val Helena’s thick torso and give her a squeeze. “Hey, this changes nothing, Val. We’re still saving Becky. Maybe Aiko’s come to help us.”
She chuckles as she hugs me about the shoulders, pulling me close. “You think so?”
“Look, tomorrow, Gilly and I are going to head out there and level like never before. We’ll be underway in no time. And maybe Aiko will be waiting for us when we get there.”
Val Helena smiles as she looks down at me. “I hope you’re right, Reece.” And then she looks away, lost in thought. “I hope you’re right.”
Chapter 12: The Board
The board meeting had gone on for far too long.
Bruce Peters stared at his colleagues one by one around the conference room table, starting with Dennis. The software engineer was addressing the other three members of the board who were all listening intently to his presentation about when he predicted the nano reserves would eventually run dry and what would take place when they did.
“The nano processors would be the first systems to go down. They’d be limited to water and simple foods only. Once they fail, then auxiliary systems would begin shutting down, waste handling, recycling. Then air purification. And once that happens, that will be it. My estimations stand at around four months from now.”
“This is unacceptable!” Martha Kirkwood said flustered. “Why were things allowed to get like this?”
The plump, middle aged woman, who was in charge of the education system, gave her usual useless contribution to the conversation: laying blame. It irked Bruce to no end.
“No one has allowed anything,” Bruce said leveling his eyes at her. “We’ve been struggling like this since before my predecessor. It is what it is.”
Bob Shultz, who managed the economy, shook his head dismissively. “I told you a year ago this plan was unsustainable.”
“You knew?” Martha said.
Bob, who was a man in his fifties with a bald head and a thin wiry frame, simply rolled his eyes at Martha. “I’m only sorry the rest of you have to find out now.”
“The rest?” said Dr. Evelyn Munroe, a young black woman in her thirties with short stylish hair, who was head of the medical center. “More like just the two of us. I hope it wasn’t because we’re women.”
Bruce felt like telling her to “grow-up”. But enough arguments had been had here tonight. “It simply did not affect your areas before. Now it does. That’s all.”
Evelyn sat back in her chair, crossing her arms with a scowl on her face. She wasn’t buying it for a second. But Bruce couldn’t waste the energy to care at the moment.
“We can’t do another hard limit drop,” Bob said. “We’re already experiencing people popping over the threshold and we’re having to make individual increases, just to keep it all under wraps. People are going to start asking questions.”
“We need to announce this,” Martha said. “This is a crisis. Citizens have a right to know. If everyone pulls together—”
“They won’t,” Dennis said. “They’ll turn on each other in a feeding frenzy like we’ve never seen before. It’ll be chaos and anarchy.”
“So what’s your plan then?” Evelyn said. “How long is this supposed to go on before things get back to normal?”
Dennis laughed caustically. “Unfortunately this is normal. We’ve been in a nano deficit for years now.”
“Then just change the credit to nano ratios in the Shards,” Evelyn said. “People are obviously making too much money in there. Bleed it off so they don’t have as much to spend.”
“Already done that,” Bob said. He poured himself another glass of ice water before continuing. “Going any further and we’ll have to upset the debt record. Then you’ll have anarchy the same way. People have generation’s worth of wealth banked in the system. We simply can’t go changing it on a whim.”
“Well that won’t matter will it? If we all die.” Martha said. “Just do what has to be done!”
“The real problem is the generation,” Bob said and then he darted a glace to Dennis. “Unfortunately the lead programmer says the drops from the game worlds can’t be adjusted. That’s the real problem. Too many credits are flowing in too easily from there.”
Dennis sighs and then point abstractly toward the wall of the conference room. “If we want the system to stay in sync with what’s out there, then we can’t adjust it. It’s hard enough interfacing with the AI’s architecture. It we begin messing with the code it could be rejected and then we’d have no hope at all.”
That caused a silence to fill the room.
“And how is that ‘hope’ coming along at the moment…” Bob said before turning to look directly at Bruce. “…Mr. Chairman?”
Bruce released a sigh and his stomach soured a little. “The latest team of scouts has only just landed. We can’t expect to have results so quickly.”
“And when’s the last time a scout team actually worked, Bruce?” Bob challenged him. “Ten years? Twenty?”
Bruce ignored the question. “The team we sent last month gathered more than enough for us to get out of this crisis. They just couldn’t find a node to transfer it back. But they’ll get it this time.”
“Oh, is that because your daughter’s on the team now?” Bob said.
Rage burst within Bruce’s chest. He felt like strangling the man, but he restrained his anger with a piercing glare. “My daughter being there was some kind of accident. And you remember that. Don’t you make mention of her again.”
The revelation, at least, caused some shocked and even sympathetic stares from Evelyn and Martha. They hadn’t known. Half the time Bruce wished he didn’t either. Damn that Mike, if he had done this to him. And damn him if he couldn’t come through with the nano-shards this time.
“No disrespect, but what if they don’t find a node?” Bob said. “What then? What are our options?”
“Conservation initially,” Dennis said. “Or contingency perhaps. We’ll need to develop some kind of hierarchy for survival. Perhaps a lottery would be fair.”
Bruce’s innards steamed yet again. “I said I will not be allowing this society to resort to such measures.”
“I agree with that,” Evelyn said. “We need better solutions before we resort to anything close to that.”
“I’m surprised by your stance, Evelyn,” Dennis said. “As a doctor, I would have thought you of all people would understand the need to amputate a leg that’s infected with gangrene.”
Evelyn huffed out a scoff. “This is nothing like that.”
Dennis raised a brow. “Isn’t it now?”
“This is crazy talk,” Martha said. “Our ancestors survived sustainably for decades. What’s changed? There must be some way to fix this.”
“There is,” Dennis said and all eyes turn towards him. “We can reinitiate the manual salvage program. We could open the seal and send real people to look for what we need.”
Disquiet erupted around the table.
“We’re not doing that,” Bruce said. “It’s suicide and you know it. Breaking the seal will not only contaminate the upper levels, it’ll rev
eal our location to the AI. With the chance of a Builder being nearby, that’d be like throwing blood in the water.”
“Did you say a Builder?” Martha said.
Aw, hell… He wasn’t supposed to mention that. But too late now. “Yes, another complication. We think a Builder may be close to us.”
Another panic beset the room, everyone talking over one another.
“Take it easy!” Bruce shouted. “We just have vibrations. Nothing confirmed.”
“Plus the team we sent is apt to deal with it,” Dennis said. “Our best scout is out there. He knows that if he can’t find a node that he needs to come back here, physically. If there is a builder nearby, he’ll find it and deal with it too.”
Bruce wished he could say the same with such conviction. And maybe he could have if Gilly were not with them. Just the thought of her being up there, facing horrors unknown, had his stomach swimming with doubt and fear.
“And who is this great scout?” Evelyn asked. “Is he really capable of doing this?”
“He’s the son of Mark Roberts,” Bruce said. “The last man who was able to access a node and send us back resources. And he was the most skilled operator I’ve ever worked with. And his son is just like him.”
“Sons,” Dennis said.
Bruce shot Dennis a glance. It was a painful reminder of why Gilly was there. “Yes… Sons. Both his sons are on the team.”
“By design, of course,” Dennis jumped in quickly. “The situation demanded we pull out all the stops. And so we’ve sent the best team we have. If we do not wish to resort to culling the population or opening the seal, then I’m afraid that those two boys are the only real hope this city has.”
Dennis leered at Bruce as he said it, it sounded almost like a threat.
And by the way the others around the table shared doubtful looks…perhaps it was.
“Solid plan, Bruce,” Dennis said with another grin. “Let’s hope it works.”
Chapter 13: Greater Good
I’m in a grassy field under a bright blue sky. Gilly and I have taken a break from killing the Buffalos and are enjoying the view of the puffy white clouds as they sail by. We’re laid on our backs in the grass. She’s talking about something but I’m not really listening.
I lean over and interrupt her with a kiss that she returns with a passion. The next thing I know, she’s rolling on top of me and my heart is pounding so hard I think I’m going to pass out.
“You sure we should be doing this?” I ask. “Can we even? In these bodies?”
Gilly just shrugs with a sexy smile. “We can do everything else. So why not?”
As she leans in to kiss me again, the earth moves, but literally this time, the ground shaking.
Thoom!
I turn my head in the direction of the noise and see a giant figure made of shadow crashing through the forest and entering the field. The nightmare thing is here! The sky turns to lead as Gilly suddenly disappears. The giant unhinges its jaw within its skull like face and reveals its roaring throat of heat and fire. I press my hands to my ears as I prepare for it to release its dreaded wail.
“Reece!” it screams my name. “Reece!”
“Stay away from me!” I yell back.
“Reece!”
“No!!!!”
“Yo!”
I awake to my brother yelling into my face. “Wake up, man!”
I stumble away from him in a stupor, my heart and head pounding. I try to regain my senses as the horrible dream melts away. What the heck was that?
My brother shakes his head at me. “Should have never let you two drink that ale last night.”
“Huh?”
Memories of the night before slowly replace my semi-erotic and then fully-horrific dream. Wilbur had brought us some roasted chickens and a small keg of ale to celebrate our victory down in the mines. Then Val Helena convinced my brother that it would be okay for Gilly and I to have a bit, since our bodies technically weren’t real.
I honestly can’t recall too much after that.
My brother sighs at me again. “Knew I shouldn’t have listened to her. Come on, you need to go level; we got a timeline to keep. Plus I want to talk to you.”
Uh oh. “Um okay, just give me a minute.”
I try not to wake Gilly as I unroll myself from the blankets and also try not to let my eyes linger on her sleeping form as the first half of my dream comes back to mind. Must be the alcohol.
I see that Val Helena and Rembrandt have left the common hall already, but I don’t recall them mentioning what they were getting up to do today. My brother takes a seat at one of the tables and I join him. He pushes a bowl filled with fresh berries toward me and pours me a glass of water.
Mike’s being way too nice. Now I’m really scared.
“Uh thanks,” I say and sample some of the berries. “What’s up?”
Maxis just shrugs. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk since we got here. Figured now was a pretty good time.”
“Talk about what?”
“Stuff,” he says. “What happened back home. Here.”
“Did Val Helena put you up to this?”
Maxis rolls his eyes and mutters a cuss. “No….” And then after a few seconds. “Well... yeah, but I was gonna do it anyway.”
I snicker and for once my brother actually cracks a smile and laughs with me. “That Val.”
“Yeah, she’s quite the lady,” Maxis says. “So anyway, how are you?”
I shrug slowly, still not knowing quite what to say or how to take this new side of my brother. “Fine, I guess.”
“Anything you want to ask me?”
The whole thing was sprung so quickly, that I feel completely unprepared. I probably have a hundred questions I want to ask my brother. But at the top of my list I can think of only one. “How bad is mom really? I remember you two talked before, when we were down at the clinic. What happened to her that day?”
Maxis pauses for a moment and then breaths out a sigh. “The reason she went down there, was to make arrangements to put herself into stasis. In case she took a turn for the worse.”
Eeesh. “I didn’t know she was getting so bad.”
“She just likes to plan ahead.” And then he sighs again. “I just hope she’s okay on her own. That’s another reason I wish you were there and not here, man. I was counting on you to take care of her.”
My chest tightens a little. “Come on, Mike. We’re not going back there again, are we?”
“Look, I’ve accepted it okay. You’re here, you’re here. I just wish you would have said something.”
I roll my eyes at him. “You could have too. Or were you afraid of mom finding out about your little secret life as well?”
He snorts. “Yeah, I guess so… and you too. I didn’t want you guys worrying about me. Better you thought I was a deadbeat, wasting my time down in the hub than out here risking my life on the surface. Worrying like that would have only made mom’s cancer worse.”
“I guess I can understand that,” I say. But then there’s something I totally can’t understand. “Hey man, why the heck were you letting us live like paupers? I understand you couldn’t get mom’s treatment and all, but dang, couldn’t you have at least sprung for a decent meal every now and then? Or a better place to live?”
“What? And blow my cover?” he says. “How the heck was I supposed to explain having that kind of money? I’m telling you. If mom had even a clue about what I was doing, she’d probably have a heart attack. I just hope she’s not having two of them right now, because of us. The way she worried about dad was bad enough.”
Dad… I grew up never knowing him. But Mike did. I still envy him for that.
“Plus it’d be totally unethical to spend all that money. The way we were living was the right way. Bare minimum. Everyone should be living like that.”
“What?”
“Once you know the truth, about how little nano the city has left, how could you think to live any ot
her way? It’s not real money, Ryan. Not until we return home with it. And even then, it’s not what we should be spending it on. We should be trying to take back this place, not living it up in that tin can.”
I think back to Gilly’s family. They certainly didn’t seem like they were on a budget. “Yeah, but do you know what mom was doing for credits?”
“She’s not doing what you think, man.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I had the bills covered, okay. Mom doesn’t have to work. She spends her days worrying about you. That’s why I kept pushing you to get out of those mines and get a real job. To meet people.”
“But I did meet people in the mines.” And then I waggle my eyebrows at him. “The chairman’s daughter, no less.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Don’t remind me. Still don’t know how you pulled that one off.”
I look back at Gilly as she sleeps soundly, looking as cute as ever. “Yeah… me neither.”
He jabs me in the shoulder. “Hey, you be respectable with her, out here. Understand?”
What the heck? Was he peeping in on my dreams as well? “Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m serious.” He jabs me again.
“Okay, geez.”
Maxis lets out a chuckle. “I guess looking back, if we could have talked like this before, we probably could have saved mom a whole bunch of grief.”
I nod. “No doubt.”
“So no more secrets,” he says with a smile. “Yeah?”
My skin goes numb when he says it. I’m hiding a big secret from him already! Crap, how do I get myself into these things? I nearly open my mouth and say something about the mine, but then he gets up from the table and slaps me on the back.
“Stay safe out there,” he says. “And…you surprised me, Ryan. In a good way. Val Helena told me what you did to get where you are. I’m proud of you, man. I think Dad would be too.”
My thoughts turn to my father as my brother walks away and a tightness catches in my throat. I hope my Dad is proud of me, looking down on me from someplace. As I watch my brother leave the common hall I give him a smile he can’t see.