The Last Iota

by Robert Kroese

  I felt inside the shoe and found something that felt like a key. I pulled it out. An honest-to-God skeleton key, just like in the movies. “How in the hell…?” I asked. The psycho robot squad continued to bash against the door. Their initial efforts had only wedged the shelving unit more tightly in place, but now they were making progress through sheer brute force: one of the supports of the unit had begun to buckle, and the door had opened a few inches.

  “I’ll explain later,” said Keane. “Go to the back of the storeroom. There’s a door that should lead outside, to an alley. Put the key in the lock, turn it one full rotation to the right, and then turn the handle.”

  I ran to the back wall and put the key in the lock. As I turned it, I heard the sound of metal shearing behind me. In the rear cam display, I saw the shelving unit collapsing on itself. The door was open a good foot, and the slight figure of Captain Swartz was wriggling through. The lock clicked and I turned the handle and pulled. The door to the alley opened. Behind me, Swartz was leveling her rifle. I went through the door and slammed it shut behind me.

  I was about to ask Keane how he knew about the key to the door leading to the alley when I realized I wasn’t in an alley. I was in the middle of an old-growth redwood forest that seemed to go on forever in every direction. The door I had come through was gone. Right in front of me was a redwood tree that must have been three hundred feet high. Its trunk was a good twenty feet in diameter. A scattering of light trickled through the branches overhead. I could hear birds in the trees.

  “Mr. Barnes,” I said, slowly turning around to take it all in, “where the hell am I?”

  “Mendocino,” Keane replied. “Nice, huh? I told you it was going to be cool.”

  “How did you know this was here? And how did you know about the key?”

  “Easter egg,” Keane said. “I noticed some peculiar things in the simulation while you were vanquishing your cybernetic adversaries. That downed power pole in particular.”

  “What about it?”

  “It had a CalComm logo on it,” said Keane.

  “And?”

  “CalComm folded in 2032. This simulation is using old data. A very particular set of old data. One that I’m intimately familiar with.”

  “Project Maelstrom,” I said, realizing what Keane was saying. “This isn’t the DZ as it exists in reality. It’s the DZ as it was imagined shortly before the Collapse.”

  “Not just imagined,” Keane said. “Designed. It’s amazingly similar to the real thing; certainly close enough for training purposes. But it’s not a model derived from the DZ. It’s the model the DZ was derived from.”

  “The model that you built.”

  “Correct. I’ve always liked Mendocino, but it’s such a hassle to get up there. A lot of walking. I prefer to just teleport there instantaneously. I used to eat my lunch here.”

  “How big is it?”

  “It’s infinite in all directions,” Keane replied. “The trees are generated by a fractal algorithm. You could walk for a thousand years and never see two identical trees.”

  “Well, consider me impressed, Mr. Barnes.”

  “I wish I could take credit for it,” said Keane, “but most of the actual development was done by a guy named Ed Casters. He was never officially on Maelstrom, but I used him for a lot of complex modeling work.”

  “Where’s Ed Casters now?” I asked.

  “Evergreen Cemetery,” replied Keane. “He died in a car accident a few days before Gwen disappeared.”

  “Canaan got to him,” I said.

  “I assume so,” Keane said.

  What a shame. The person who had designed this forest was clearly a genius. “It’s too bad they don’t have one of these in the actual DZ.”

  “This is the actual DZ,” said Keane. “The platonic ideal. The one you’ve been to before is just a pale shadow of this one.”

  “If you say so,” I replied. “I’m taking this stuff off.”

  I removed the gloves and the helmet, then started on the catches for the vest. Apparently sensing what I had in mind, the robotic arms I was standing on retracted into the floor and the straps securing my boots loosened and disappeared back into their slots, like someone slurping up spaghetti. I was left standing on the raised footprints. I picked up the gun from the floor, took a step toward the door, and was hit by a wave of vertigo.

  “Easy, Mr. Hewitt,” said Sam’s voice over a speaker. “It can take a minute to acclimate to the real world again.”

  I stood still for a time, taking several deep breaths. When the worst of the vertigo had passed, I walked the rest of the way to the control room and opened the door. Keane was sitting at the desk, watching data scroll past on a monitor. Sam was standing behind him, looking displeased.

  “Surprised to see you’re still here, Sam,” I said. “I thought maybe the violations of the Geneva convention had been too much for you.”

  Sam smiled weakly. “Yes,” he said. “I’d forgotten that this particular squad can get a little … overly ambitious.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I said. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that stuff at the end was just a test, designed to see how the trainee would handle a squad going rogue? Of course, that wouldn’t explain Chao’s insistence that he’d received standing orders to execute gang members.”

  “I just write software,” said Sam. “The reality of the situation on the ground—”

  “The reality of the situation,” said Keane, “is that Green River is training to wipe out the gangs in the DZ. Up until Chao’s performance at the end there, this whole simulation could be written off as a generic urban pacification exercise, but it’s pretty clear this training program has a very specific goal in mind. When is Green River moving into the DZ?”

  Sam didn’t reply.

  “Ms. Fiore told you to give us everything we wanted, did she not?”

  “Yes, but … I don’t know anything about Green River’s operations. I just helped design the training program.”

  “And how is the training going?” Keane asked. “I don’t see a lot of Green River personnel around.”

  “Th-they’re on a rotating schedule,” Sam stammered. “Some days they—”

  “Sam,” said Keane, “have I done something to make you think I’m the sort of person who would accept the sort of horseshit you’re shoveling?”

  “Um, no?” Sam said.

  “Good. When did they leave?”

  “Yesterday,” Sam replied.

  “Much better,” said Keane. “Now, here’s the thing, Sam. Selah doesn’t know about Green River’s plans to take over the DZ, and she is going to be very upset when she finds out. I can call her now or I can let her figure it out on her own, after the attack on the DZ starts. The second one would give you a little time to cover your tracks and possibly start looking for a new job. Which would you prefer?”

  “Um, the second one.”

  “Excellent. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to send the source code for the Minotaur system to my comm. Don’t try any stupid tricks like corrupting the file headers or infecting it with a virus. I’m a genius; I’ll see right through it. In return, we don’t tell Selah Fiore what kind of operation you’re running here.”

  Sam nodded. “I’ll send it,” he said. “Right away.”

  “Good. Also, I need one more thing.”

  “What?” Sam asked weakly.

  “There was a project Empathix worked on several years ago. An economic forecasting model. I’m not sure what you’d have called it internally; I know it as Maelstrom.”

  “I’m … familiar with it,” Sam said.

  “Excellent. I need you to send me everything you have on that project. The modeling algorithm, the source data, documentation, everything.”

  “I could get in a lot of trouble for that,” said Sam. “I mean, Minotaur is bad enough. Ms. Fiore did tell me to give you whatever you asked for, but—”

  “Sam,” said Keane. �
�I didn’t mention this earlier, because frankly I didn’t see any need to terrify you, but you’re making this difficult. Do you know what treason is?”

  “Of course,” said Sam, “but I didn’t—”

  “You did, Sam. You knowingly assisted an illegal invasion on American soil. It’s a textbook case. They probably won’t even give you a jury. Hell, you’ll be lucky if you’re allowed a lawyer. You’ll get hauled before a secret military court, given a summary trial, convicted, and almost certainly sentenced to death by lethal injection. There’s a good chance your family will never even know what happened to you, which is probably for the best, because you don’t want your loved ones remembering you as a traitor anyway.”

  “They can’t—”

  “They absolutely can, and almost certainly will, unless you delete all evidence pointing to an invasion of the DZ. You’ll have plenty of time unless I make a call to the FBI as soon as I leave this building.”

  Sam swallowed hard. “I’ll send it to you,” he said. “All of it. I promise.”

  “Good!” Keane exclaimed. “Mr. Hewitt, I’m hungry. Let’s go get lunch.”

  THIRTEEN

  “Well, that explains the Green River presence,” I said. We were in April’s car, on our way back to L.A.

  Keane nodded. “Gerard Canaan is going to use them to do what the National Guard and the Army can’t. Pacify the DZ.”

  “Do you really think Selah Fiore was out of the loop? How could she not know? Empathix is her company.”

  “I’m sure she knew about the plan, but I suspect it was an option of last resort, in case the chaos in the DZ got out of hand. If at all possible, Selah wants—or wanted—to maintain the status quo. She makes a hell of a lot of money from movies and TV shows filmed in the DZ, and probably from a whole lot of other off-the-books deals with Mag-Lev. Establishing order in the DZ is the last thing Selah wants. She wants just enough chaos to keep the DZ interesting and profitable.”

  “But then things in the DZ start deteriorating,” I said. “Selah gets worried. So she and Canaan make a deal, come up with a plan to pacify the DZ so they can maintain control if things get out of hand. But Canaan doesn’t share Selah’s concerns about maintaining the status quo. He jumps the gun. Selah resists, so he has her killed.”

  “Something like that,” said Keane. “But killing Selah was a risky play. And Gerard Canaan is a patient man. It took him nearly two decades to turn a profit on Elysium Oil. Why is he so anxious to invade the DZ right now?”

  “The coins,” I said.

  Keane nodded. “That was my thought as well. “Outside the DZ, he’s got free rein to beg, borrow, steal, or kill to get the coins. But if there’s one in the hands of Mag-Lev or one of the other warlords, he’s powerless to get his hands on it.”

  “I don’t think Mag-Lev has one,” I said. “He didn’t seem to even consider the possibility we were in the DZ for any reason other than to find Gwen. And if he knew how badly Selah and Canaan want the coins, he’d have used it as a bargaining chip with Selah. Mag-Lev is clueless.”

  “Agreed,” said Keane. “One of the other warlords must have one. And whoever it is, he knows how badly Canaan wants it. He’s counting on Canaan’s impotence inside the DZ to help him get a high price for it.”

  “But Canaan is calling his bluff. How long do you think we have?”

  “Not long,” said Keane. “Days. Maybe hours.”

  “So what now?”

  “We’ve got to get Gwen’s coin while we still can.”

  “If she even has one,” I said.

  “We have to assume she does,” Keane said. “It’s the only leverage we have against Canaan. The only chance to stop the invasion and maybe save Gwen.”

  I sighed. Keane was right. Eventually Mag-Lev was going to find out that we’d played him: Selah was dead, so there was no way we were going to talk her into helping him in exchange for Gwen. Our only chance was to use the coin to get Canaan to put pressure on Mag-Lev.

  “All right,” I said. “If the cops are looking for us, though, I can’t go through the front door. Find me a gap. Somewhere near Willowbrook if you can manage it.”

  Keane nodded and went to work on his comm.

  There were only a few streets you could legally take from Los Angeles proper into the DZ. Most of the smaller streets had been blocked off, and the major arteries now had checkpoints set up that were very similar to international border crossings—except for the fact that they were manned by the LAPD rather than border patrol agents. The security checks at these checkpoints were generally perfunctory; as far as I could tell their purpose was mainly to allow the LAPD to confiscate enough drugs, guns, and money to keep the checkpoints running. That said, there was no way a guy wanted for murder was going to be able to get through one.

  The east and west borders of the DZ were, for the most part, congruent with the old interstates, the 110 and the 710; the highway barriers had been topped with razor wire. The highways themselves were littered with broken-down vehicles and other hazards and had been officially declared a no-go zone by the city, meaning that the government took no responsibility for anything that happened there. The original intent of this policy had presumably been to free the government from liability in case someone broke their leg trying to get into or out of the DZ; the practical effect was that the highways were now patrolled by armed drones that would fire armor-piercing rounds into anything vaguely humanoid until it stopped moving. Judging by the number of dead raccoons and possums that lay scattered across this wasteland, the drones’ parameters had been set to err on the side of mayhem.

  Fortunately, Keane kept a running list of weak points in the border. The list was updated frequently based on tips from Keane’s various contacts inside and outside the DZ, as the LAPD was constantly repairing severed razor wire, and various miscreants were constantly making new gaps. You were still taking your life into your hands trying to cross the border, but if you could scale a couple of walls and avoid attracting the attention of the possum-killers, you had a decent chance of making it across. Of course, if you were crossing into the DZ, your fun was only beginning.

  I had a backpack in the trunk with several spare magazines, but I was going to need some other supplies for a trip into the DZ. As we neared downtown, I pulled into the parking lot of a hardware store, backing up against a bush so that our license plate was hidden from the street. “Wait here,” I said to Keane, who was still buried in his comm display. “I’ll be right back.”

  After scanning the area for cops, I popped the trunk and got out. Moving the backpack aside, I pulled up the trunk liner and grabbed the lug wrench from where it was nestled next to the spare tire. I checked the size; looked like 3/4″. I put the wrench back down, closed the trunk, and went inside the store. I went to the nuts and bolts aisle and grabbed an L-shaped anchor bolt and a hex nut that measured 9/16″ on the outside. Then I picked up a battery-powered circular saw, a package of microfiber rags, some industrial-strength epoxy, a small hammer, a pair of leather work gloves, twenty feet of nylon rope, and a roll of duct tape. On the way out, I also grabbed a small LED flashlight, three bottles of water, and four granola bars, just in case this little adventure took longer than I planned. I surrendered nearly all my remaining cash to the cute Latina manning the register, then exited, tossed my bounty in the trunk, and got back in the car.

  “Get anything for me?” Keane asked.

  “No,” I said.

  Keane sulked.

  I started the car and pulled around to the back of the building and parked. I popped the trunk and got out of the car. I removed the lug wrench, the anchor bolt and nut, the epoxy and the hammer, placed them on the asphalt, and then sat down cross-legged next to my treasures. First I made sure that the nut would fit inside the lug wrench. It would, just barely. There’s enough play in a 3/4″ wrench that a 9/16″ nut will usually fit inside—but you’ll have a hell of a time getting it back out, which was precisely the idea. I coated the inside of
the wrench and the outside of the nut with epoxy and then hammered the nut into the wrench. I gave it a couple minutes to harden, then twisted the anchor bolt into the nut. The end result of this was a very strong U-shaped piece of metal, with one leg of the U several inches longer than the other. I tied one end of the nylon cord to the bottom of the U, smeared epoxy along one side of the longer leg, then lay the nylon cord against the epoxied surface. Finally, I wrapped duct tape tightly around the whole business, starting with the end of the U that had the rope hanging off it and continuing past the joint between the anchor bolt and the lug wrench. This was both for structural purposes and to dampen sound. I looked up to see Keane watching me.

  “Grappling hook,” he said. “That’s rather ingenious, Fowler. Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “Right here in this parking lot,” I said. “It’s called improvisation.” I got a certain smug satisfaction from being better at certain types of problem-solving than Keane. I began tying a series of knots in the rope, one every foot or so. “Did you find me a gap?”

  “I did,” said Keane. “Tossed the coordinates to your comm.”

  I nodded. Having finished my knot-tying, I got to my feet and shoved the makeshift grappling hook and the other supplies into the backpack, and slammed the trunk. We got back in the car, and I drove to the motel where Olivia had gotten us a room. Hopefully she was still there, and not somewhere conspiring with Gerard Canaan.

  “Good luck, Fowler,” Keane said, getting out of the car. He closed the door behind him and I drove away.

  I pulled back onto the street, heading south along the eastern border of the DZ. Following the surface streets south and then west, I drove cautiously to avoid drawing the attention of the LAPD. The gap Keane had located was near the southern corner of the western border. I parked the car at the end of a cul-de-sac, beyond which was a concrete wall marking the border. I got out and grabbed my supplies from the trunk. I wished I had thought to take a flak jacket from the office, but it was too late for that now. I told myself I’d move faster and be more comfortable without it. At least until I was dead.