Luck and Death at the Edge of the World, the Official Pirate Edition

by Nas Hedron

  “This is a hell of a show, but we’re not really learning anything here,” I say, wondering if some part of my decision to leave isn’t based in fear. Maybe I’m feeling the exact visceral response that the dogs’ engineers intended. Still, it’s true. “Let’s get back.”

  “Home,” Alan commands.

  In that instant we are back in our reclining chairs, slowly sitting up, standing, and stretching. I feel the odd sense of dislocation that goes with exiting a sim no matter how many times you do it. On top of that is a powerful adrenal rush brought on by the dogs’ display of insane, mutinous aggression. Only Alan seems unaffected.

  “Thanks for your help Alan. I’ll leave you and Carmen to follow up anything else you can think of. I have some other angles to pursue.”

  “Certainly,” Alan says.

  As I leave security, Carmen follows me a few steps into the hall.

  “What’s going on?” she asks.

  “Damned mysterious.”

  “What are these angles you’re following up?”

  “I need some rest and some time away from this freakshow so I can think. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  My evasiveness catches her attention and one eyebrow rises for the second time in one day. A record.

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll see what Alan and I can dig up.”

  Six: Suerte y Muerte

  I don’t want to go back to my office, don’t want the distractions that could ambush me there: accounts; messages from clients past, present, and potential. It’s impossible to avoid, though, since the office is on the main floor of the building where I live on Jung Jing Road. Chinatown, like most areas of L.A. has changed considerably since Before—my term for my life pre-accident—not least due to earthquake damage. What is built is never exactly what was there before, and sometimes doesn’t resemble it at all. I never really explored this area Before, so I don’t know what it was like then, but now Jung Jing Road is a very short stretch of low-rise, supposedly earthquake-resistant, buildings. There are shops and businesses on the lower floors and residences extending four or five stories above them.

  There are a number of reasons I decided to locate here. Some of them are small things, like my love of Chinese art and a good dim sum. Some run a little deeper. For instance, since China turned inward after the fall of the Empire, this area gives me the closest facsimile I can get to a part of the world I will never see for myself. The main reason, though, is that for me it’s a luxury to live in a neighborhood where I can’t understand what anyone’s talking about.

  In my business I see so much of what’s evil in humanity, or simply what’s crass, cheap, and dreary, that it’s enough to sour you on people if you don’t get a break. It’s a relief not to understand what my fellow human beings are saying. People pass me on the street talking, sometimes arguing or upset, but I’m insulated from it. Music blares from businesses up and down the block, but if the lyrics are mundane or foolish it doesn’t matter—I have no idea what they mean. The neon signs may promise things they can’t deliver, as they do in any neighborhood, but I can’t read them. I find it easier to think well of people that way. Don’t get me wrong, I like people, it’s just that I’m in such close contact with their sins so much of the time that when I come home it’s nice to enter a zone of relative ignorance. The neighborhood is far from quiet, but for me coming here is like being shrouded in silence.

  Even to get to that comfort zone, though, I have to take an indirect route. Several of the blocks south of my apartment have been quarantined with an outbreak of monkeypox C, an orthopox virus similar to smallpox. Unlike the original, unmutated monkeypox, it isn’t susceptible to the smallpox vaccine. With no effective vaccine, outbreaks aren’t uncommon, and though the mortality rate isn’t high, it’s high enough to warrant quarantine.

  I woke up from death into a very changed world. Some changes I adapted to pretty much immediately, but this one took time, this constant drumbeat of emerging infectious diseases and the facility everyone has with the language, as though the general population had suddenly acquired M.D.s. The overuse of antibiotics rendered many antibiotics ineffective, as “superbugs” evolved which were invulnerable to them. The overuse of pesticides led to a similar phenomenon amongst insects. Insects don’t evolve and adapt as quickly as microorganisms, but they still do it damned quickly. Soon mosquitoes, tics, and fleas that were resistant to pesticides were carrying diseases resistant to antibiotics. Add to that the use of high-speed international travel during the Empire and the large-scale migrations of refugees during the Fall, and what resulted was a deadly combination.

  Now people in cafés and at work rattle off phrases like “generalized pustular rash with lesions, fever, and minor toxemia” and “enlargement of the cervical and inguinal lymph nodes” as easily as they banter about baseball batting averages. It’s as common as talking about the latest war or what new sim came out this week. There are regular health alerts, sometimes for a building, sometimes for a neighborhood, sometimes for an entire city.

  When an alert is issued, the affected area is surrounded by a nanobot membrane. The barrier is one-way permeable, allowing air and supplies to enter, but preventing infected people, or the pathogen itself, from escaping. At first it seemed absurd to me that, with all the medical applications of nanotechnology, society still suffered periodically from these new diseases. As it turns out, though, the highly mutagenic nature of emerging infections makes them difficult targets to hit, even for nanobots, so the most prudent way to deal with a new disease is to use a quarantine until either the outbreak burns itself out or a particular, identifiable pathogen can be targeted.

  So far this quarantine has been up for three weeks and there’s no sign that it’s going away any time soon. It shows up as a light green rectangular structure extending from the ground to the top of the tallest building, encasing the entire affected area. The coloring isn’t functional, but it lets people see where the barrier is.

  So a lot has changed in the world since I died. On the other hand, it’s sometimes jarring how much things have remained the same. In some ways science fiction didn’t go far enough to predict this world, which even after years still sometimes seems foreign and futuristic to me. In other ways, though, there are so many things that were predicted to appear—or disappear—that have stubbornly refused to do so: I travel home on my motorcycle.

  The hovering aircars that inhabited the “future” L.A. of my youth are technically possible, just impractical, expensive, and dangerous. Humans, who evolved on the flat plane of the earth, have a hard enough time navigating there without zipping around in the sky. At the same time, the fact that large areas of civilization disappeared into the black hole of the Grey Zones, where extreme lotek is the rule and cars aren’t used, means that fossil fuels, which should have run out long ago, are still available.

  So ground travel remains the norm within the cities. The L.A. Freeway looks much like it always has, as does the L.A. skyline—when you can see it. Because traffic remains a serious problem, I opted for the cycle when choosing a means of personal transport. It allows me to take short cuts cars can’t, and to maneuver illegally past traffic jams.

  It’s nearing the end of the afternoon now, and as I follow a circuitous route to Chinatown the sun is a huge orange ball sinking toward the horizon, bathing everything in a tangerine light that discolors people’s skin and reflects sharply off the glass of the office towers. All around me workers are heading home, while people who have no home to go to are in ample evidence.

  The fall of the Empire had an international effect, but it fractured Cali internally as well, sending a lucky few spiraling up into the stratosphere of wealth while millions plummeted into the sinkhole of inescapable poverty. Sandwiched in between is a slim layer of people like me, the remains of the middle class.

  I pass scores of homeless people, who hunch on the sidewalks and in the alleyways and parkettes—lingering, loitering, begging, drinking, getting high, raisi
ng their children, arguing, sleeping, and fucking. They are heaped up in a steaming, funky hive of humanity, with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one to help them. Some of them are old enough to remember having jobs and even owning houses, computers, holos, cars—all the good stuff that makes for painful memories. To others that world is nothing but a story passed down by their parents or grandparents. The street, illegal squats, begging, and dumpster diving are the only life they know.

  Neighborhood patrols used to try to chase the homeless away, but they would just end up in someone else’s backyard and get chased right back, so eventually everyone gave up. Now we just ensure that our buildings have decent security so that once inside we’re safe from crime, from pleading faces, from emaciated children and bad smells. I can’t say I’m better than anyone else. I pass several hundred of them in the space of a few blocks—indistinct figures fidgeting about in their rags and choking on the city’s exhaust—but I don’t really notice any particular one of them except for a young girl who almost steps in front of my bike and forces me to brake.

  Despite the old-world traffic and the new-world quarantine, I eventually make it home. I park the bike underground, then check in quickly at the office. Burroughs Oversight operates around the clock, and as I enter Rollie is just relieving Jessie at the main counter. The office is spare—it could be a car rental counter or an escort agency. Everything that matters—all the cool stuff, all the scary stuff—is hidden in a warren of work spaces in the back where the customers won’t see it. The carpeting is high quality, to project success, but khaki-colored, to remind people of our military pedigree. The counter is made of aged wood that I salvaged from a demolished building. It has a rich, golden color, and gives a sense of history and permanence, making the place look a little less fly-by-night.

  “Hey Rollie, what’s the news?” I ask, though I don’t really want to know.

  “Not a lot Gat.”

  No one uses my first name except the L.A.P.D. To everyone else I’m Gat, the abbreviated form of my middle name, Gatineau, which is apparently the location of our ancestral home up in the Grey Area that used to be Canada.

  “What does ‘not a lot’ translate into?”

  “Well, TJ is on Pileggi. No action there. Jenna is still following up on that wandering husband, Tenenbaum. She’s got Prender with her, getting him used to civilian protocols.”

  Prender is fresh out of the Forces and is still making the adjustment to non-military operations. I don’t usually do non-corporate work, like surveilling cheating spouses, but I took the Tenenbaum case just for him—it seemed wise to put him in a low-key situation his first time out. I wander behind the counter and take a look at the holo traffic but it’s routine stuff: bills, accounts paid or due, status reports on equipment orders. With relief I realize that there’s nothing here that needs my attention.

  “Okay buddy. I’m going upstairs. Here’s to a quiet watch.”

  “You bet. There’s a good fight on tonight.”

  “You got anything riding on it?”

  “Just enough to keep me interested. Can’t afford more on what you pay me.”

  Rollie’s paid very well—it’s just the usual bullshit banter.

  “Sooner,” I say, an old Forces habit. It’s an abbreviation of “the sooner the better,” something you say to your buddies when they’re off to battle and you’re not. The sooner you see them alive again, the better: fewer hours of waiting and wondering, accelerated relief.

  In the lobby, I pause for a moment and then, before going upstairs, I step outside onto the sidewalk and breathe the late afternoon air: car exhaust, barbeque, cooked vegetables, fish—the usual fragrances of Chinatown. Neon is just starting to show here and there, and soon the day trade will make way for nighttime pleasures. There are restaurants, live theater, movies, and bars. Mingling with the residents and the gawking tourists are a few low-key prostitutes and, if you’re known, there are places you can gamble. I can’t understand a word I hear. I take a deep breath and bask in the peace of being home.

  I go back inside and ride the elevator to my floor. Unlocking my door, I head straight for the food processor. This is one of the futuristic visions that did come true. I order up blackened red snapper and shrimp on rice with a Brazilian lime sauce and sit down to eat, saying a little prayer of thanks for the nanotechnology that assembles for me—atom by atom, according to a pre-programmed design—whatever food I want, with whatever flavor and nutritional qualities I want, at the exact temperature I like, any time of day or night. That is certainly an improvement over Before.

  I purposely put the events of the day out of my mind, living purely in my skin, enjoying the taste of the food, the feel of it in my mouth, the delicate flavor of the cold milk in my glass. I passively take in the reassuring presence of my home, not concentrating on anything in particular, but absorbing its details and nuances nonetheless.

  I live fairly frugally because Burroughs Oversight is young and growing and like all young, growing things it is always screaming for food, which means money. I feed it, hoping that it will grow up big and strong so that one day it can starting sending money back in the other direction. As a result, my home is nothing special, but it comforts me anyway. There is some nondescript furniture whose very hotel-like lack of character is soothing to me. The walls are a cool grey. Hidden lighting units make areas of brightness and shadow, giving the simple shapes of the walls a slightly more interesting, complex appearance.

  There are a few pieces of art, all carefully chosen not to call up the memories of my military service. Since I never served in the middle east, that’s the theme I decided on. Hanging on one wall is a large piece of tile-work, a reproduction of a mosaic in a Moroccan mosque. On another wall is a series of framed Arabic texts, each one written in black calligraphy and surrounded with an intricate border in colored ink and, in one case, gold leaf. They are passages from Palestinian and Saudi poets, and though I can’t read them I bought them with an Egyptian friend of mine from the Forces who translated for me so that I could pick out poems I liked. In a corner I’ve hung some trays made of inlaid wood, again with the meticulous, busy patterns so common to Arabic art. Other than that, my home is mostly functional: there is the holo for entertainment and communications, the food processor, and exercise equipment. In the bedroom there is really nothing but the bed, a holo outlet, a sim bank, and my meditation mat. I don’t sleep well with distractions around me. There's a small balcony where I keep a few plants.

  I approach one of the poems and admire the details of the calligraphy and the surrounding design. The writing is incomprehensible to me, but since this is my favorite I remember exactly what it says:

  On the other side of this desert

  is my love

  is my father’s house

  is water.

  On the other side of this desert

  is my honor.

  All I have to do is cross.

  I’m not sure why I like it so much. Maybe it’s because it captures the idea of just how difficult it can be to get the simple things in life that make you happy. Everything you need is waiting for you—all you have to do is cross that damned desert to get it. Every time I read it I picture a young man, earnest, brave but afraid, taking a breath to brace himself and then taking that first step into the desert. The first step of thousands, with the hot sun above him. The poem holds me for a moment, then gently lets me go and my thoughts return to the here and now.

  After a meal and some mental rest I feel ready to do some research. Reclining on my bed with the remote, I flash through item after item on the holo, reviewing what I know of the Suerte, perusing my old field notes, Certified Security’s Compendium, even the web. The text, images, and vidclips scroll, appear, and disappear—a small sea of information.

  The Suerte originated in the vast slums and shanty towns in and around Mexico city. There is a small, wealthy, cultured elite in the city, but for the millions of people who live in the slums, there is li
ttle if any work, money, food, health care, or proper shelter. More often than not people live in abandoned buildings made unsafe by earthquakes or homes made by hand with refuse from the city dumps. There is virtually no police presence. The few rules that exist are enforced by gangs and a few powerful families. No one is safe and children grow up fast. There are seven-year-olds with guns and the blank stares of shell-shocked soldiers, teenage hookers who sell themselves for the price of a meal or a hit of Shudder, and the average life-expectancy is about thirty.

  It’s a place of violence and brutally sad stories, and it’s no wonder perhaps that the question of suerte—the Spanish word for luck—arose for the people who lived there, given that they had so little of it. The sheer, gaping absence of suerte from most people’s lives gave it a reality. How on earth could you lack something so utterly unless it really existed? And of course there was always the inexplicable contrast between the people of the slums and the relatively few rich families who lived in walled, closely guarded estates or gated communities. Obviously there must be suerte, not only because you lacked it, but because some other bastard had lots of it. They weren’t any better than you, they didn’t work harder—hell, most of them didn’t work at all—but they had all the money. That is suerte. This differentiation, between those with and without suerte, naturally gave rise to an intense curiosity about how it could be acquired, which led in turn to a booming industry in cheap charms, dubious spells and counter-spells, and other means of potentially increasing one’s supply of good fortune.