Disparity

by Eric Warren

  “I’m sorry your dad was such a shit. But this man isn’t. He cares for Blu. And in some strange way I think he cares for you too. Did you see the look he was giving me out there? I thought he was going to burn a hole right through my head.”

  She shrugged him off. “Yeah, he’s so concerned about me he wants us out of his life so we don’t screw anything else up,” she said. Her breath was heavy. She needed to calm down unless she wanted warnings to flash in her vision. And the day had already lasted way too long for those.

  “He’s willing now,” Frees said. “Everyone has a lapse in judgment. Everyone makes mistakes. Tell me you haven’t.”

  “I’m not him,” she replied, fearing she was losing ground in this argument. Why did he have to be so damn logical?

  “And he’s not the other David. He’s his own man. You need to cut him some slack.”

  She huffed and stared at the ceiling. “Fine. But only for your sake.” When she glanced back at him, Frees had a smile across his face. She hated to have to remove it. “How much do you think Charlie knows?”

  The smile faded. “About?”

  “Everything? Did he hear everything? Does he know what we’re planning to do? What we’ve been planning this whole time?”

  “I don’t think we can assume otherwise. We have to act as if we’ve been compromised. It’s the only way to proceed,” Frees replied.

  “I agree. We can’t trust that he just didn’t happen to be listening when we were talking about the important stuff. Those were the times when he was listening the hardest.”

  Frees crossed the room and examined a few trinkets either David or Blu had left behind. There was nothing of value in this room that Arista could determine. “I think we also need to assume he’s going to seek out Echo,” Arista said. “She might be able to get him what he needs to build an avatar. And once he realizes she’s the one from our world, we’ll probably be screwed.”

  “But what can he offer her here? She wants to leave,” Frees said.

  Arista sat on the bed and ran her hands down her face; the cool polymorphic hand providing relief to her otherwise warm skin. “I wish I knew.” She hung her head. “We have to find a way to kill him first. We can’t leave him here. No matter what happens. Because it will just be a retread of what happened in our world. Without the guidance of Hogo-sha and Trymian. They kept Charlie in check. Without them I shudder to think what he would do.”

  “I’d suggest we try and build another AI but we don’t have the time or the skill. Technically we didn’t build him, he just took over Blu’s construct.”

  Arista glanced up, narrowing her eyes. “I wonder if Blu might still have some control over that construct. I’m sure Charlie’s disabled any kind of safeguards on it…but what if he missed something? Can you grab her real quick? This might be important.”

  Frees hesitated. “They’re packing what little they can carry. We should get moving. If Echo really did trace the tag, they could be here any minute.”

  “You’re right. We’ll have to do it later. Tell me how to help pack.”

  “Follow me,” he said, winking with his orange eye.

  ***

  “Is this everything?” Arista tossed a third bag into the back of the van.

  “I think so,” Blu said. “I really wish I could take more of my equipment, but with any luck we’ll be able to come back after Echo leaves for your world.”

  “I would hope she’s not so vengeful she’d leave instructions to capture or kill you after she’s gone. But I wouldn’t put it past her.” She picked up a piece of Blu’s equipment with her “strong” arm and placed it in the back of the van, which now sat on the maglev tracks beside the platform. David had brought it over from the garage and was currently checking over all the systems.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Blu beamed at Arista.

  “First we need to get back into Manhattan. Jennings told me that might be a bit of a problem.”

  “Ehh,” Blu said, shrugging. “Depends. We might be able to time it right, there are specific sky lanes that go right into the city itself. But they’re monitored. And then there are the waterways, but the van isn’t submersible.” She paused. “Be really cool if it was, though!” She smiled. David didn’t respond. “Which leaves ground transportation.”

  “The bridges?” Arista asked. “Aren’t they monitored as well?”

  Blu shook her head. “Not the bridges. The subways.”

  Arista’s brow furrowed. “I came over on the subway, I saw officers accosting people on the other side trying to get in.”

  “Two things,” Blu said holding up two fingers on her right hand. “That’s a train they’re checking and the van is nearly invisible when in motion. It can ride on the maglev tracks as well as the roads. All we have to do is jump the tracks ahead of a train somewhere over here, before it goes underground, then take line right into downtown Manhattan.”

  “But how do we get the van back out again? I’m going out on a limb here and saying there aren’t any above-ground stations in Manhattan.”

  “Not anymore,” Blu said. “We’ll have to park it in one of the side tunnels and make our way into the city from there. We won’t be able to use the van in Manhattan, but it can get us there.”

  Arista stared at the black vehicle. While that solved one problem it created a completely different one. “So how are we supposed to get up to Echo?”

  “Sorry,” Blu said. “Can’t help you there. Were you planning on using the van?”

  “I had considered it. Dropping down below the roof shield and going in through the windows.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked anyway,” Blu said. “Echo is rich enough she probably has a shield grid around the entire building. But there’s no way to know unless you try to run something into it.” She walked over and ran her hand down the side of the van’s paneling. “So maybe it’s a good thing we don’t let you try and destroy our only car.”

  Arista laughed. “Okay, good point. We can be a tad destructive when we don’t mean to be.” She glanced over at Frees, who was rummaging around the workshop, looking for anything else they might be able to use. “The first thing we’ll do is set up surveillance on the gate location. Then we’ll worry about getting to Echo. Or getting her to come to us.”

  David stepped out from the driver’s seat. “Ready?”

  “As long as we have everything we need to keep an eye on the gate,” Arista said. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “I LEFT A LITTLE SOMETHING BACK AT MY PLACE in case Echo sends people snooping,” David said from behind the controls. They’d all piled into the van and took the back roads around Queens until Blu could get a good read on a subway train headed into Manhattan on the “A” line.

  “A little something?” Arista asked. It was the first time she’d sat in the back of any vehicle like this. Frees sat beside her, staring out the window at the dark city beyond.

  “Not only will it tell us they’re there, it will also tell everyone else they’re there,” he replied. “Like an alarm system. They won’t stay for long. Hopefully not even long enough to realize we’re not coming back.”

  “Hey, Arista,” Blu said from the passenger seat, her eyes glued to the screen in front of her. “Toss me one of those Maxbars.”

  “You’re hungry already?” David asked. “We just left.”

  She shrugged, putting her boots up on the dash of her side. “I can’t help it. I get hungry when I get hungry.”

  Arista reached behind her in one of the food containers and pulled out a small bar, wrapped in a material she’d never seen before. “Are these any good?” she asked, handing it over.

  “They’re okay. Not gourmet, but if you need something for the tank grab one,” she replied.

  Arista rummaged around and pulled out another one for herself. She tore open the top and the material it was wrapped in disintegrated. She was left holding nothing but what looked to be a normal chocolate
bar. “What the hell?”

  Blu turned to look at her. “Oh. That’s the anti-litter paper. It disintegrates when you open it. Less crap for the landfill.”

  “Just dust for my car,” David said, not turning around.

  “We don’t have anything like that,” Arista said. “Then again, we are about a hundred years behind you guys in technology.”

  “That’s gotta be so weird,” Blu said, her mouth half-full of Maxbar. “Nothing ever changing. Everyone doing the same thing every day.”

  Arista took a bite. It wasn’t as delicious as what she’d sampled at the colony but it did the trick. She could tell it was heavily processed, but she didn’t care. “You get used to it. I used to play this game where I would memorize everyone’s patterns each day, then move around them all, jumping out of the way of things just in time. It was like a moving maze. But at the same time, I felt like I had invisibility powers. It was pretty great.”

  “Did you ever have any kids to play with when you were little?” Blu asked.

  Arista offered Frees a bite of the Maxbar but he only glared at her. She stifled a laugh. “No. Well, I guess I did. There were machines designed to look like kids. And sometimes we’d stop in a town and I’d get acquainted with the kids there and we’d play. But it was always the same games. The same routines. It was hard not to screw with them, try to mess them up. But even when you did they didn’t care. They just went back to their regularly scheduled programming.” She turned and stared out the window. “I guess that’s the long answer for no.”

  “I never really did either,” Blu said. “I was always too busy working on something in my room. Even though I wasn’t doing anything weird.” She stared at David, who didn’t return the gesture. He only turned the van down another side street. “Not a lot of time for friends when everyone thinks you’re the daughter of the local loon.”

  David chuckled. “Local loon. I like that.”

  “Did people really call you that?” Arista asked.

  “I don’t know. I never paid much attention. I was too busy and I guess that was a bad habit I passed down.” He glanced at Blu.

  “Are you kidding?” she said, finishing off the Maxbar. “I’d much rather have been coding or doing some programming work than burning out on the drug of the week behind my school like everyone else. The teachers didn’t even care, they let the kids do it. It’s not like they were getting paid a lot to keep an eye on us. Everyone out here is in the same boat.”

  Arista didn’t know what to say. Instead, she finished her Maxbar. “That was surprisingly filling.”

  “Told you,” Blu said, wiping her hand on her jeans. “Now, we should have another five or ten minutes until a train will get close.” She turned to her dad. “Are you ready to jump the tracks?”

  He drew a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to drive?” Arista said. “I’ve got plenty of experience.”

  “No, I’ve got it. If anyone is going to destroy my car it’s going to be me.”

  “Stop being so dramatic.” Blu smacked him on the arm. “It’s not going to get destroyed. We’re going to stay ahead of the train the entire time. No problems.”

  Arista leaned forward. “So why don’t people do this all the time? If they want to get into Manhattan.”

  “Well,” Blu said. “It is illegal. That comes with hefty fines people can’t pay. And a lot of people just don’t have cars. Most use the public transportation.”

  “But surely some try it. Even kids out joyriding.”

  “Um…sure. Sometimes.”

  “So, what happens? Why don’t they do it all the time?”

  Blu was silent, staring at her screen.

  “Blu,” David said. “Tell her the truth.”

  She huffed. “Fine.” Turning around in her seat to face Arista and Frees she said, “Do you remember going through some kind of field when you left Manhattan?”

  “Yeah, Jennings said it was a sensor, it counted the number of people going in and out.”

  “More or less. It’s also a force field that only drops for the trains.” She must have seen the panicked look on Arista’s face. “But don’t worry! I’ve got the codes all figured out and we’re going to run right at the front of the train. All I have to do is make the force field think the train begins about eight feet ahead of where it actually does.”

  “And you can do that?” Arista asked, skeptical.

  “Yes. I’m sure I can.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you’ve done it before,” Frees said, vocal for the first time since they’d gotten in the car.

  “I can do it. Don’t worry,” Blu said.

  “Jeez.” Arista sat back in her seat. “Tell me again why we aren’t just flying in? Like you guys did when you picked up Frees.”

  “Because,” David said. “Those transits are only good for two hours maximum. Blu broke into the system and got us past once, but if she did it again so soon it would raise an alarm as soon as the vehicle landed. We’re on surveillance grabbing Frees somewhere. We want to be as inconspicuous as possible, which means the van stays underground.”

  Arista turned to him. “You’re a great big pain in the ass, you know that?” She expected him to throw something back at her, but he only gave her the hint of a grin.

  “I think we’re about ready, better get into position,” Blu said.

  David turned the van around another corner and headed straight for the elevated maglev tracks. As they approached he pressed the ascend pedal and the van slowly rose into the sky.

  “What about the train operator? Won’t they see us?” Arista asked, her hands digging into the arm rests of the seat as the van ascended.

  “The operator doesn’t see out the front of the train, they’re stationed in the back. But they have a camera that shows them what is ahead of them. A camera I am about to modify,” Blu said.

  “Why are they in the back?” Arista asked.

  “To keep stowaways from hooking on to the train. They also signal for the force field to raise again once the last car has passed through.”

  “This sounds really safe,” Arista said under her breath.

  Frees turned to her. “Safe has never been our M.O.”

  “You should listen to my daughter,” David said, his voice stern. “Just like you should have listened to me.”

  Arista sighed. She’d known this was coming. “When someone tells me something in confidence,” she replied, “I keep it.”

  “Even when you know better?” David asked, settling the van on the maglev tracks.

  “That’s just the thing. I didn’t know better, did I? And can you blame me, knowing where I came from? Knowing my situation?”

  “It’s not her fault, Dad,” Blu said. “I asked her to not tell you about the AI. I wanted it all to be ready. So you wouldn’t have to do anything and we start experimenting with it.”

  Frees harrumphed.

  Blu turned around in her chair. “What? Did I say something?”

  “We are not to be experimented on,” Frees said. “We’re not to be poked, prodded, or otherwise subjected to mistreatment. It’s inhumane, pardon the term, for any living creature. Organic or otherwise.”

  Blu’s eyes dropped. “Until we met you, we weren’t even sure it was possible. I guess we never thought about how it would affect you.”

  “It was the same in our world,” Frees said. “They didn’t think about it until it was too late.”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” David said. “We need to focus.”

  Blu glanced at her interface. “The train is coming in two minutes. Get ready to match the speed. Seventy-two-point-six mph.”

  David nodded. “Everyone hold onto something. In case it gets bumpy.”

  Arista pulled her seatbelt across her lap, indicating Frees should do the same. He didn’t respond. “What is going on with you?” she whispered.

  “Later,” he replied.

  “One minute,” Blu said. T
he van lurched forward and began picking up speed. “Seventy-one-point-two now.”

  “Got it,” David said. “How long until the tunnel?”

  “About three minutes at that speed.” Blu worked furiously on her interface. “Thirty seconds!”

  The van continued to speed up, humming silently above the tracks as the lights from the train shone through the back windows. Arista turned to watch. The train seemed to be coming up fast.

  “Seventy-three-point-nine,” Blu said.

  “Almost there,” replied David. The van accelerated as the distance between it and train decreased. It was almost right on top of them. “Locking it in at seventy-four,” David said. They had matched speed; the train was directly behind them, but no longer bearing down.

  “Tunnel is coming up,” Blu said. “Then we’ll have four stops before the barrier.”

  “Let’s just hope it goes as smoothly,” David replied.

  Arista had to admit she was impressed. It had been a flawless execution.

  ***

  Four stops later the train had returned to full speed. They’d sat in the tunnels directly ahead of it for the scheduled stops, waiting and listening. The last stop had been the worst. They could hear the people being yanked from the cars, beaten as they yelled their protestations.

  “Does that happen every day?” Arista asked.

  “Yes,” David said. “Some people will do anything to get into the city.”

  “Including driving a van directly in front of a train,” she replied.

  David turned to her. “Most people don’t have my daughter to contend with.” His gaze returned to the front, keeping the van straight.

  Arista couldn’t help but feel a spike of jealousy. Here was this man, so proud of his daughter, when her own father couldn’t have been further from it. Sure, he’d had some last-minute revelations, but she couldn’t be sure those weren’t because he was out of options. Either way, he’d been ashamed of her most, of her life. And to hear the very same man espouse pride and doting on his other daughter…it turned into a sour pit in her stomach.