by Jae Hill
Alistair expertly guided the boat between the hulking ruins of collapsed buildings, until he rounded a corner and quickly docked at a floating platform attached to the side of one of the skyscrapers. Two men with large Gauss rifles met the boat.
“This kid’s alright,” Alistair said. “He’s here to trade.”
I stepped up from the boat onto the floating platform and the two men patted me down. One then ran some kind of radio frequency scanner from my head to my toes. He nodded to the other one.
They led me up some stairs into a corridor that was illuminated with fluorescent light, then up two more flights of stairs and into a place I hadn’t envisioned.
The floor was intact and enclosed with glass—probably one of the only floors in the building to be in such good condition. Lights gently flickered, illuminating rich wood paneling. The floor was carpeted with ornate rugs. The furniture, though very old, was exquisite in detail. These items had to have been worth a fortune, proving that the underground market was lucrative indeed.
A man with grey hair sat at a heavy oak table, drinking some colored liquid from a glass. I’d never seen anyone with grey hair before. His skin was mottled with spots and sagging with wrinkles. He was old. The funny thing is I’d seen people hundreds of years older than him but they never looked old. He had aged, like the men I’d seen immortalized in paint in the museums of the capital.
“I’m Ebenezeer,” he stated, extending his hand toward me. “I’m the Pirate King of Old Vancouver.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” I said, extending my hand for him to shake.
He seemed perplexed as he held my hand.
“You’re organic?” he laughed. “I’ll be damned—he’s au natural, folks!”
“Pardon me?” I said, inquisitively.
“Oh, you’ll have to forgive me,” he chuckled. “We just don’t get a lot of skin-and-bones visitors. We don’t get a lot of visitors regardless, but we haven’t had a flesh-job visitor in years.”
I kept peering at his old face. My father was right: I’d never seen aging before. The old man sensed my confusion.
“You’ve never seen someone my age,” he surmised, “or at least someone who looked my age. Well this is the real world, kiddo. This is what happens when you don’t play their game. You get old, but you enjoy doing it!”
He laughed and raised his glass into the air. I could smell the contents from across the table. It was some sort of alcohol. I know that humans used to drink all sorts of poisons, but they were harmful to the development of children and they were impractical for adults who neither ate or drink, so alcoholic beverages hadn’t been cultivated since the dawn of our transformations.
He poured me a glass and slid it across the table to me. I raised it to my mouth and smelled the acrid odors and sickly sweet fragrances. I pressed it to my lips, and instantly felt them burning, but I swallowed a mouthful…
…and then coughed it all over the table, much to the delight of the old man.
“What a waste of fine twelve-year old scotch,” he snorted, laughing. “Don’t worry lad: it’s an acquired taste. Since you’re not much for drinking, let’s get on with business.”
I had so many questions about Old Vancouver that I’d almost forgotten why I’d ventured across the sea. Ebenezer answered them for me as quickly as I rattled them off. They grew food on the rooftops and on some of the floors with blown-out windows. There were about three hundred people living in the three main interconnected towers. Most were related by blood or marriage. A few were petty criminals who chose exile over death or imprisonment. A few had migrated from various parts of the Republic when they were deemed unfit for the surgery.
To be deemed unfit, you had to have a 95 percent chance or greater of failing the surgery. Though most children were genetically programmed to be perfect specimens, a few genetic recombinations could prove fatal and a few body chemistry compositions couldn’t be replicated with the machines. Ebenezer told me how his blood salt content was too high and it would corrode the machines, but to put him on a maintenance fluid (synthetic blood) with a lower salt content would have probably killed him.
“They told me I could stay in town and grow older,” he said, sipping his scotch. “I tried that for a while, but it was hard to get a job. A lot of jobs required travel to the Luna base or to Mars, and it’s pretty much impossible to get there without the surgery. And then there’s the fact that you just don’t fit in. You smell different. You need to take lunch and bathroom breaks. You’re treated like a child, because to them, you’ve never grown up—even though you look older than any of them. I started looking for a way out, and found it here. I can’t say I started this enclave, but I can say I’ve grown it and helped it prosper.”
“Are there other communities like yours out there?” I asked.
“I don’t know anymore,” his scratchy voice crackled. “There used to be a few small communities on the east slope of the Cascades, but not as far east as the Plaguelands. They are part of the Republic, technically, but they live a fairly subsistence lifestyle and never come to town for anything. They go there to live out the rest of their years, which without modern conveniences and breeding, doesn’t really let them get very far.”
Something still didn’t make sense to me. “So if everyone is sterilized at birth to prevent unwanted mating, how are you all related?”
“We have a doctor, here,” Ebenezer coughed, “a sort of doctor, anyway, who can undo what they’ve done. It’s only the males that get clipped, and we just unclip. You want us to take care of that for you before you leave?”
He chuckled and looked around at some of the others in the room. “Free of charge for our new friend!”
“Umm….” I hesitated. “I, uh, don’t really need to do that right now.”
“Well that’s a shame,” Ebenezer said. “One of my grand-daughters is an absolutely beautiful young woman and she wants a child. Your genes would be a welcome addition to this community. I’d pay you for them, handsomely.”
He turned to one of his associates and said, “Bring in Georgina. She’d love to meet our new visitor.”
Ebenezer winked at his associate, then smiled at me. I protested but clearly he wasn’t having any of it. I was utterly confused.
The old man continued relaying his personal eighty-three year history to me until a beautiful auburn-haired woman entered the room. She was slender, tall, and pale, wrapped in a white robe, which she dropped to the floor as soon as the three of us were alone. My jaw dropped at the sight of her beautiful naked body. I was speechless. She approached me, leaned in close to me, and spoke some words gently into my ear that I just couldn’t hear. I was paralyzed. I couldn’t deny that this girl was stunning and caused a stirring inside me, so I shifted in my seat, uncomfortably.
Ebenezer and Georgina tried for nearly an hour to get me to agree to undergo their procedure so I could mate with her. I protested. I refused. I tried to get our negotiations back on track to learn how to disable Semper’s neural web: my whole reason for being here. They wouldn’t hear it. Their request soon became a demand, and soon it became a ransom: I was told I couldn’t leave Old Vancouver until I agreed.
I felt ill. I was being held prisoner. I was in deep over my head and I couldn’t think of anything except to run. I dashed from my chair and grabbed my bag next to the door. I threw open the door to the hallway and one of Ebenezer’s guards stepped in front of me. I punched him hard in the face—the first time in my life I’d ever hit anyone in anger. To my utter amazement, he flew against the wall and dropped like a rag doll.
I raced down the flights of stairs to the dock where the boats were moored. I knew how to drive boats, and if I could just get aboard before anyone else got to me, I’d be home free. Maybe I’d go home and give up on this venture. Maybe I’d give up on trying to save Semper. My mind raced faster than my feet.
I threw the door open to the floating dock, and was a scant dozen paces from the boat when the last
thing I saw was a board swinging right toward my face.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. It couldn’t have been too long. I awoke tied to a chair, back in Ebenezer’s office. My bag was on the floor next to me. My right cheek and eye socket throbbed and pounded. I could taste blood on my lips. Everything felt funny.
Ebenezer stood in front of me, staring disapprovingly. He growled.
“I welcome you into my home, offer to help you, and offer to pay you handsomely, and you reward my generosity by trying to steal one of my boats?”
“Let me go,” I mumbled.
“No,” he said defiantly, “and now you’re definitely undergoing that procedure.”
I stared back into his eyes, trying to burn a hole in him with my glare.
“So now you’re forcing people to have surgeries too?”
His face dropped all expression and he slowly took a step back. He cursed under his breath, and then told the guards to release me.
“I…apologize,” he said quietly. “It’s just very important that we keep breeding out here. That we keep our gene pool fresh. That we keep growing and building.”
He paused and swallowed hard. “We,” he emphasized, looking intently into my eyes, “don’t live forever.”
Ebenezer turned toward the window as the guard untied me from the chair.
“You’ll go speak to Henry, in the green tower,” he said toward the ocean, but obviously intended for me. “He has an electronics lab where he can work something to disrupt your friend’s neural web. You’ll leave your taser with him for payment. And then Alistair will take you back to the city.”
Then the old man turned around and walked toward me, extending his hand.
“Again, I apologize,” he said. “I didn’t intend for things to get out of hand. I do wish you the best of luck. And should you ever decide to take me up on my offer to provide me a great-grandchild, please return.”
I stood from my chair, shook his hand cautiously, and gathered my things. I rubbed my cheek as I walked out of the room; it was swollen and split from the impact of the board. I hoped my skull wasn’t fractured. I left the room and, in the hall, stopped to apply some Mitocaine from my pack. It was both a pain-relieving topical crème and a gel that caused cells to regenerate instantly. Instantly, I felt better, but it would take a few more applications for the pain and damage to completely subside.
I made my way to the green tower across a rickety skybridge. I instantly found Henry’s lab, where the nice middle-aged man instructed me on how to disable a neural web. Apparently, I wasn’t the first person to venture to Old Vancouver to ask the question. He quickly built me a small device, the size of a phone, which would automatically login to Semper’s neural web, hack it, and disable it. I gave him the taser as payment for his services, and as I left the room, I saw him playing with the gun as if he were shooting imaginary villains in an old movie.
The boat ride back to the capital was a silent affair. Alistair barely spoke a word to me, probably embarrassed about the situation in Ebenezer’s office—or possibly upset with me that I hadn’t complied with the old man’s wishes.
As he wheeled the boat to the dock in the capital, I jumped ashore and he handed me my bag.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said politely. “It was nice meeting you.”
Alistair smirked, “No, kid: you never met me.” He threw the boat into gear and raced away toward the grey horizon.
EPIC TRAVEL
I crept through the freight yard, picking my way between the shiny metal mag-lev trains. When in operation, they hovered a meter above the track, giving a smooth and seamless ride at over four hundred kilometers per hour. When powered down, the trains simply rested on the track.
Giant forklifts and towering cranes hoisted metal crates into the waiting cargo holds of the trains, destined for destinations across the western hemisphere. Most of the population of the Cascadia Republic is centered on the capital, but there are resource and research outposts as far north as the Arctic Ocean and as far south as Patagonia. Also, equipment and bulk commodities are sent as far south as New Guayaquil where they are shipped to the space elevator for export to other planets. The capital freight yard is the largest hub for all human commerce on the planet.
I picked my way among the loading docks until I found a blinking marquee indicating that a particular train was bound for Yellowstone. I found an open cargo door and jumped inside the car. I climbed through the dark and crawled between some crates marked Research Supplies to find a cozy and isolated hiding spot. I lay down my backpack and used it as a pillow. The door closed a few minutes after I found my spot, and the interior became completely darkened.
After an hour or so, I heard the humming of the track being energized. The train slowly and imperceptibly lifted off the ground, then began creeping forward. It took five or so minutes for the train to depart the freight yard, and then it rocketed to full speed in only a few seconds. The gentle hum of the train soothed me and I fell asleep on my backpack, expecting to wake up in Yellowstone.
The train decelerated from its top speed and the change in G-forces awoke me from my nap. My watch showed that only an hour or so had elapsed since our departure.
The darkened freight car had no windows, so I couldn’t see what was going on outside. I fumbled for my headlamp in my backpack and, switching it on, I found an emergency door release latch. I contemplated pulling it open, but then feared I might set off some type of alarm. I waited with my hand on the latch for a few minutes, then decided to pull it open. The door slid open a few centimeters and I jumped outside, closing the door quickly.
It was bright and sunny in a way that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. The earth was brown and covered by sparse grasses. Some mountains rose high in the west. I could only assume I was now on the east flank of the Cascades.
“Goddamned power flux,” I heard a voice yell.
I dropped to the ground and crouched against the side of the train. I peered around and didn’t see anything. The train operators were likely on the opposite side of the train. Since the track was powered down, they couldn’t see under the freight car.
“Control says they’ll have the grid reenergized in just over two hours,” another voice grumbled. “We’ll just have to hang out here for a bit in the sun.”
“At least we’re not in the Plaguelands,” the first voice stated. “Better here than there.”
“Ellensburg isn’t much better than the Plaguelands,” voice two replied.
“The women here aren’t as attractive as the plague fiends,” voice one chuckled. “Tired, old hags.”
Both laughed.
I crept around the train until I reached a break between the cars. I poked my head through and saw the operators heading back to the front of the train. In front of me, just a few hundred meters away, was a town.
The townspeople were staring through their windows at the stalled train. I didn’t even know there were towns on the east flank of the mountains until my father and Ebenezer had recently told me of their existence. Our geography courses focused on our place in a giant galaxy, not on the tiny villages over the mountains inhabited by the rejects of the medical procedures.
Curiosity got the best of me. Confident that the operators were safely aboard the front car, I bolted for the village. I looked at my watch as I ran. 13:40 hours. I could be back aboard in a half-hour and still make my destination. I closed the distance between the train and the buildings and hid around the corner of one, out of sight of the train.
Two older women were eyeballing me curiously from the sidewalk. I looked at them and smiled weakly.
“Uh, hi?”
One of them waved gently, with a confused look on her face.
“What are you doing here, kiddo?”
“Um, I’m hitchhiking to Yellowstone,” I replied meekly.
“But the trains are free….” she trailed off, now with even more confusion.
“They can’t know I’m riding
the train,” I whispered. “This is a secret trip.”
“Are you in trouble?” the other lady asked.
“No, no, no,” I said. “I promise, I’m not. I just have to get to the Preserve without them knowing. Please don’t turn me in.”
“You’re sweating,” the second lady noted. “You’re a real boy.”
“We’re not going to turn you in,” the first lady said. “We’re not exactly on the best terms with the Republic, if you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know until the other day that communities even existed on this side of the mountains,” I said.
The two old ladies looked at each other and didn’t say a word before looking back to me.
“I’m Athena,” she said, smiling. “This is Hera. Welcome to Ellensburg.”
“I’m Pax.”
“We don’t see too many young people,” Hera said. “We can’t breed, of course, just like you can’t.”
“Why don’t you come inside and have some tea?” Hera asked, motioning me to the door.
I entered the building and they closed the door behind me. The house was sparsely furnished but clean. Old, but with modern lines. Hera went into the kitchen just off the sitting area.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Oh I’ve been here for, let’s see, fifty-three years,” Athena said. “And you, Hera?”
“Sixty,” Hera answered quietly, returning with cups of tea. “Sixty this year.”
“We couldn’t undergo the surgery to achieve the enhanced form,” Athena said. “After a few years of being treated like a zombie, we just left. We found a support network for rejects and ended up here.”
I sipped my tea, which tasted earthy and bitter. “How many people are here?”
“About seventy or so live here,” Athena stated, “but there are a dozen such communities across the Eastern Flank, as far south as Burns.”
“What about Tahoe?” Hera corrected.
They politely argued for a few seconds before agreeing that there were no more Outcast communities south of Burns.