by Terry Brooks
Still, a transmat will slow anyone looking to find him. Transmats are untraceable. Tracers are embedded in all jumpers and robo-taxis, but there is no way to track someone using a transmat without contacting a coding station and tracking the source.
He is only marginally less panicked than earlier. He no longer doubts that his father was right to warn him. But it would help if he knew exactly who was chasing him. Hazmats, sure. But someone had to send them. Was it BioGen? There is too much he doesn’t know and no time to sort it out now. He pilots the jumper toward the public landing platform that services the residential sky towers he has been pointing toward. Fighting to hold the little craft steady, he sets her down on one of the empty landing pads, coasts toward the storage bays until an air lock opens, continues inside, and waits for the air lock to close again. Disengaging the drive, he grabs his backpack, releases the hatch lock, and steps out.
He half expects to find Hazmats waiting to intercept him. But except for the attendant, the bay is empty. He hurries toward the elevators that will take him down to transportation services. At least the worst is behind him.
Except it isn’t.
It is waiting up ahead.
- 2 -
Ash Collins does not think of himself as anything but ordinary. Sure, he’s gotten into trouble a few times. Well, more than a few. Got thrown out of boarding school once when he was eight. Got dressed down by a warden when he went out tracking lions in Africa inside the fences of a game reserve on a dare. Got in a few fights. Skated a whole bunch of other times because his parents never found out what he was up to or they might have grounded him for life.
But none of this was real trouble. He didn’t go to jail or anything. He doesn’t smoke or drink. He doesn’t do drugs—excluding his daily dosage of ProLx, and that is on his father anyway because he was the one who had prescribed it in the first place. And besides, it’s medicine, isn’t it? He does his chores, completes his homework, performs the tasks assigned him, helps without being asked, and generally makes himself useful when he sees it’s needed.
But he is woefully out of practice with being on his own. He was more self-assured when he was younger and they were living in Africa, but since coming back to Calzonia he has lost his edge. He is no longer confident he knows enough to be self-sufficient. He has experienced a lot during his teen years—traveling constantly, living in Africa, being exposed to different cultures and peoples. But since his mother’s death and his diagnosis, his father has been very protective of him. In L.A., he is not allowed to venture anywhere without an escort, and then only by private transport. He has seen little of the city beyond the view from his home. He has never been much of anywhere in greater Calzonia besides going twice to the BioGen Corporation offices with his father and to a few museums with Faulkner.
Alone in the descending elevator of the sky tower, trying to decide how to proceed, wondering how much time he has before he is found by the Hazmats, Ash realizes he is poorly prepared for what lies ahead. A swift cataloging of strengths and skills reveals how inadequate he is for the task that faces him.
He has only one advantage: his memory. He sees something once and remembers it. In preparation for a mythical time when he would be allowed out on his own, he has memorized the transit routes crisscrossing the city. He has studied the online manuals to discover how to navigate them. He has traveled them over and over in his imagination. So any lack of actual experience or practical usage should not be a problem; all he needs to do is follow the signs to the transport devices and stations, engage or board whichever one he chooses, and be on his way.
At least, that’s what he tells himself as he leaves the sky tower elevator and heads for the building’s transportation center.
Of course, things don’t always work out the way you plan. Especially when you need them to. Which explains why both transmat chambers are shut down with warnings taped to their windows that read in big red letters: OUT OF ORDER.
He looks around for signs that might direct him elsewhere but doesn’t see any. His fears surface anew, but he beats them back. Being afraid won’t help. He asks a few people here and there for the location of a more complete transportation center, but they shrug or shake their heads, barely slowing to acknowledge him. Everyone seems to be in a hurry, anxious to get where they’re going; no one seems to have any interest in trying to help.
Finally, he goes back out to the lobby and finds a bot doorman working the tower entrance and asks him. The bot says to go two blocks farther on to the Elysian Residences. A transmat in working order can be found there. The catch is, Ash will have to go outside to reach it. He cannot use the tunnels. To enter the Elysian through the tunnels, he is told, he will need to be in possession of a security card.
Ash doesn’t want to waste any more time. So he takes a deep breath and goes out into the poisonous L.A. air. Immediately he encounters people wearing protective masks. Some are fed from portable oxygen cylinders, and some consist of nothing more than a cloth filter fitted over the mouth and nose. Ash glances at the windows of the buildings as he passes and sees himself looking back—a little ragged and windblown, a bit worse for wear, blondish hair sticking out all over the place. An average sort of kid with little to mark him as distinctive. In his opinion, anyway. Ashton Arthur Collins. He doesn’t mind most of what he is looking at, which admittedly is not all that much. There isn’t anything special about him. Has a nice smile, he thinks. He’s neither big nor strong. He works out and lifts weights and studies tae kwon do, so he is reasonably buff. Well, sort of. He’s maybe a little bit buff. But he doesn’t care about such stuff. He has never participated in organized sports. Not in Africa, because there weren’t any, and not in Calzonia since his return, because you don’t get to do that when you are homeschooled in a sky tower.
He enters the building to which he has been directed, still safely in one piece, still free of any apparent effects from the poisonous air. Miracle of miracles. Crossing the lobby to the green booth that houses the transmat, he stands looking at the controls. They are completely unfamiliar. They look nothing like the controls he studied in the manuals. Apparently, while he was busy memorizing old transmat systems, new ones were installed. Is it possible he could figure out how these replacements work? Thing is, when you’re transporting yourself from one place to another in a screed of particles, you don’t want to make a mistake. You would think something like operating a transmat would be more intuitive. But few people use the machines; they are too expensive, and the rumored danger if something goes wrong is off-putting.
Ash leaves the booth and the building and goes back outside. The transmat idea isn’t working. Maybe taking a robo-taxi is best after all. At least the taxis are reliable in terms of getting you where you want to go. His parents refused to take them, however, and he understands why. He rode in one with Faulkner over to the Calzonia Museum of Natural History when he was somewhere around twelve and public transport was still permitted. It was a ride he has still not forgotten. Kind of fun then, but with age comes wisdom.
Nevertheless, it is probably the best he can do.
A thought occurs. Perhaps he doesn’t need to taxi all the way to the Red Zone, which is a considerable distance. He calls up his memories of the substem system. If he takes a robo-taxi to substem #23, he can catch a train directly into the center of the Zone. Even on brief reflection, this seems an infinitely better choice.
He walks to a hotel several doors down and asks the doorman to call him a taxi. He does not use his vidview because he believes messages can be sourced and tracked. Taking a seat in the air-filtered hotel lobby, he waits. People going in and out of the hotel ignore him. Passersby barely give him a glance. He is invisible, which is fine with him.
Within a few minutes, the summoned robo-taxi descends from the allotted airspace to which all public transportation is assigned and settles into the loading zone in front of the hotel. Ash rushes over, climbs into the back seat, buckles up, and mentally prepares hi
mself for what he knows is coming.
Please fasten your restraining straps, the bot driver advises.
“Already done,” Ash mutters, his uneasiness skyrocketing as memories of his last ride in a robo-taxi recall themselves in brilliant detail. He tests the straps, lengths of padded mesh that crisscross his body and wrap his waist, pinning him to the seat.
Destination, please.
“Substem #23.”
Substem #23 recorded and entered. Thank you for your cooperation.
The robo-taxi rises slowly into public transportation airspace and then shoots off like a rocket. No warning, no hesitation, it just catapults out of there, accelerating into a maze of traffic where it proceeds to weave through the vehicles like a scalded cat. Objectively, Ash knows the taxi is equipped with all sorts of protective equipment, including sensors linked to automatic thrusters and brakes to prevent collisions. But such preventatives have been known to fail, and trusting in fate and the odds with this form of transportation feels decidedly like gambling. Regulation is a good thing, but it can only do so much.
He endures the seemingly endless ride to substem #23 with clenched teeth, tensed muscles, and the uncomfortable realization that he has surrendered any personal control over his fate. The taxi lurches and jumps, twists and turns, and generally travels at impossible speeds through the obstacle course that comprises the airspace thirty feet above the much calmer city streets and walkways of L.A.
When the robo-taxi finally disengages from the traffic flow and casually lowers to the curb in front of substem #23, Ash is already vowing never to ride in one of these insane machines again, no matter what the extent of his desperation.
Substem #23, the bot driver announces needlessly. Please deposit twenty-five credits.
Ash does so, unable to voice what he is thinking, even to a bot. Accordingly, the harness locks release, the door opens, and he is set free.
Thank you for your patronage.
Right, Ash thinks. The last patronage you maniacs will ever get from me!
He gets out of the robo-taxi and hurries toward the station entrance. No more robo-taxis, he tells himself one final time.
No way.
Inside, he slows to look around, keenly aware that he can’t assume any place he goes will be safe. It seems unlikely the Hazmats could have tracked him here, but he cannot be sure what resources they have at their disposal. If they are desperate enough to blow open the door to his home and turn harmless robot servants to junk metal, they are probably capable of anything.
He walks the length of the cavernous lobby, passing beneath the scrolling lights of the scheduling signs, navigating clusters of ticket scanners and rows of waiting benches, trying his best to be inconspicuous. The latter is a problem. He is wearing a high-end, single-piece sheath, a much sought-after item of clothing that is incredibly comfortable but so unusual that it stands out in a public transportation station like a neon sign. At least it is a nondescript gray and doesn’t draw the attention a brighter color would. But even so, it is entirely too noticeable.
Which immediately becomes a problem when he sees his face staring back at him from the giant News Reader overhead.
Ash stops and reads the caption beneath.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS FACE?
IF SIGHTED, PLEASE CONTACT L.A. PREVENTATIVES IMMEDIATELY.
That was fast. He has barely escaped the Hazmats, and already they have him posted on News Readers. Except that Hazmats don’t have the authority to put you up on a national reader board. That has to come from much higher up.
Ash watches the words crawl across the giant screen beneath his picture, a very public indictment. There is no reason given for why he is being sought. Why has he suddenly become so important?
He hurries to the closest washroom, brushing past people with his head down and his backpack held open in front of him as if he is looking for something. Once inside, he locks himself in a cubicle and sits down heavily on the sani-seat.
What am I going to do? Panic tightens his chest like a vise. I am in so much trouble, and I don’t even know the reason!
After a few horrific moments he collects himself sufficiently to realize something odd. The authorities do not seem to be looking for his father. It isn’t Brantlin Collins’s picture up there on the reader board; it’s his. Which means he is the priority for them. Which means . . . what? That his father is already in custody? That something worse has happened to him, something that makes finding him unnecessary?
Now Ash is really afraid. He squeezes his eyes shut against a wave of nausea. He is barely seventeen years old and the police are hunting him like a criminal and his father has disappeared and he has no place to go and whatever he does . . .
He stops himself just short of losing control.
What is the time? He starts to engage his vidview to find out and then stops. He keeps forgetting. They can track you that way if they are keyed into your signal. He takes a moment to remember the time on the clock in the lobby of the substem station. Almost midday. He needs to take his ProLx. Purpose provides him with a way of calming down. He rummages through his backpack until he finds the container, shakes out a pill, and swallows it dry.
The pills are his lifeblood. He has a rare immune deficiency that requires he take ProLx once a day, every day, without exception. He was diagnosed a little over two years ago. Taking his medication is all that prevents a complete collapse of his auto-
immune system. His father, who gave him the news after reading the results from a routine physical, has been very specific about this. No matter where Ash is or what he is doing, he has to take his daily dosage. No exceptions, no excuses. Not if he wants to stay alive.
He repeats the words silently. Not if I want to stay alive.
He stays where he is, sitting on the sani-seat in the toilet stall, until he calms down again. He needs to move. His father might still be waiting for him, no matter what the absence of his face on the reader board suggests. He has to stop assuming things; he has to stick to the plan.
He considers what he should do next. It would help if he could assume a different, less obvious look. But when he opens his backpack, he finds nothing but sheaths, all packed two years ago, all now too small for his larger frame.
He closes the backpack in disgust. Sufficiently recovered from his panic attack, he stands up and leaves the stall. He walks over to one of the sinks, triggers a flow of reasonable-looking water, and splashes some of it on his face before leaning into an automatic air-dry. He starts for the door and is almost on his way out when he spies the recycler. He glances around. No one else is there. Impulsively, he rummages through the recycler, chooses a discarded shirt, and tries it on. Ripped in one shoulder and way too big. But with the shirt covering it, his sheath doesn’t stand out quite so much.
He wishes he could do something about his face too, but that isn’t going to happen. He further messes up his already-tousled hair to change it completely from how it looks on the reader board. Then, with his pack slung over one shoulder, he goes back out into the main lobby and sits down next to an elderly couple and a teen girl with lots of face metal. His picture is still staring out at him from the overhead screen, and the admonition to the public about reporting him if spotted is still scrolling across underneath. It disappears long enough to allow a short report of continued unrest in the Dixie Confederacy, where the separatist movement continues to gain followers and demonstrations and general unrest suggests things are building to a crisis point. Then his picture reappears, almost as if the problems of the Deep South are his fault.
He turns up the collar of the overshirt and studies the digital readout on the scheduling board.
There is a train leaving for the Red Zone in ten minutes.
This is his chance. He has to catch it. If he doesn’t, it could be an hour before another comes through. If he waits, he is risking everything. Sooner or later someone is going to recognize him. They might not decide to alert the authorities—involvemen
t in what doesn’t concern you has never been a priority for the average L.A. citizen—but there is nothing to say they won’t either. He can’t afford to leave this to chance.
His determination is reinforced when he sees a flood of black-clad police enter the cavernous lobby and slowly begin to fan out.
His blood goes cold and his fear returns.
These aren’t freelancers or Hazmats or even L.A. Preventatives. Not in those outfits. Each bears a silver patch with a wolf’s head, an insignia resurrected out of another age and country long since gone but still vividly remembered.
Ash takes a deep, steadying breath, gets to his feet, and moves away quickly.
The black-clads are members of Achilles Pod.
- 3 -
Everyone who lives anywhere in Calzonia, largest of the semi-autonomous regions carved out of what used to be called the United States of America but is now known as the United Territories, knows about Achilles Pod.
Mostly, they know that whatever else happens in your life, you want to do everything possible to avoid coming into contact with it.
It works like this. The Global Reach Government oversees and manages the entire civilized world: all seven continents and within those boundaries all territories, provinces, colonies, regions, and the like, including the U.T. ORACLE is the G.R.G.’s law enforcement and investigative arm. It consists of thousands of active divisions established throughout the world’s population centers—each with its own particular central command and tactical units (and in the cases of the larger territories, its armies). ORACLE is the primary police force for the entire region.