by Brian Craft
Pace peels away, he gives another quick tug on his suit, recomposing himself. “That is an equally deviant vision, Doctor.”
At that moment, an escort walks Orion through the doors, and Burroughs locks eyes on him immediately.
Director Pace breaks away. A relief-filled exhale escapes as he avoids what was fueling up to be a bizarre confrontation, and he readily intercepts Orion. “Unusual to see you in here.”
“Control directed me to you. The death in Hive. I never thought that… I wondered if…” Orion drops his eyes and uneasily checks his surroundings, searching for a word, and careful to avoid eye contact with Burroughs.
Pace squeezes Orion’s shoulder and says, “I’m sure we have it under control. It won’t disrupt operations. You can continue your routine.”
“Yes, but if routine is to just let a person burn out under Hive control, anything can happen to us,” Orion says. He lets his glance fall on the hand squeezing his shoulder and calmly follows it up Pace’s arm, venturing direct eye contact. “I mean, sir, isn’t there some way for us to protect ourselves?”
Pace glances over his shoulder at Burroughs, then tries to block his view of Orion. He quietly answers, “I understand this can make you feel vulnerable, but I think you would like to rethink your question.”
Burroughs edges over to inject himself into their interaction.
Pace straightens up, trying to display his best office manager posture. “Dr. Burroughs, this is Orion.”
“Chair #1,” acknowledges Burroughs.
Orion is a privileged person because of his status in Hivemind, but Burroughs eclipses that and truly needs no introduction. “It’s an honor.” Then Orion relays his inquiry about Aoki, “Actually, sir. We were just talking about Hive and—“
“Right!” Pace cuts him off. “Orion here is at the inner spiral. One of our most pliable minds.”
“I know. Green Zone functions,” says Burroughs. “Top priority.”
Pace interjects, “Orion’s mind is directed at operations in Green Zone Two.” He quickly redirects Orion’s attention to the far edge of the holographic city below, and away from Burroughs.
Past the edge of the main structures of the city, as the ocean takes over, two beautifully designed man-made islands float offshore.
The swooping curves of totally integrated buildings contrast the blocky construction of the mainland city. Desalinization plants anchor nearby with wave power to sustainably generate electricity. Large green areas stand out above everything, where a few citizens and other automation maintain organic gardens. The Green Zone islands are havens for the privileged and powerful, the crown jewel of the utopia. And conspicuously free of excess infiltration of Hivebeam.
Pace marvels at them. “Built from science and ingenuity, not bound by nature or randomness. They are the pinnacles of what we can do.”
"I had no idea my mind ran that," Orion says, as he cranes to get a better look. Gaining this birds-eye view of the remarkable island anchored offshore he drops his gaze at first, skimming briefly across the rest of the metropolis. But the island peaks his curiosity. He firmly grips the rail, standing a little taller, allowing a little pride. He's forgotten Pace and Burroughs. "It's beautiful."
“We restrict mind operation details for your own good,” states Director Pace, his statement making sure Orion knows who defines things.
Burroughs slips in, “Personal thoughts cloud judgment. A weakness of humanity. Emotion.” Then he adds, “Nature creates…unpleasant variables.”
“Well, I’ve seen the island zones,” Orion adds, “but only from a distance.” He steps away from Pace and Burroughs as if to express that he can move how he pleases. His gaze drifts across the magical view of the metropolis below, tracing the Hivebeam threading through the millions of little human dots. What else does he miss every day? He studies the changing perspective of Green Zone Two as he circles. He’ll never get closer than this. His privilege comes only if he accepts his position in things.
Burroughs strolls over next to Orion. “Variables. Free will and deviance. Like twins, Orion.” He extends a finger to nudge Orion’s shoulder, a tiny poke to get his attention. “Control your mind, or someone else will.”
Orion’s attention pulls away from the island to lock on Burroughs. A disturbing moment of truth, where Burroughs reveals his own nature, and the sight of it seizes Orion’s mind.
Director Pace snags Orion to pull him away and quickly leads him from the room.
Outside of Holography Center, Pace pushes Orion a little too pointedly to the side near the curved exterior windows.
“Dr. Burroughs does not need to be troubled with Hive management,” Pace states pointedly.
Orion’s resolute expression remains anchored. It’s obvious that Pace won’t satisfy him with a real answer about Aoki. He finally breaks from Pace to look over the city below, more clarity in his eyes now than when he viewed the holographic version moments ago.
Pace presses closer to drive his point home with a little clarity of his own. “Don’t challenge the system, Orion. Our freedom depends on it.” He doesn’t wait for a response and abruptly ends the interaction by striding away, leaving Orion to decide his own direction.
Orion's face sours as he watches Pace stride away, then he lets his gaze sweep across the halls of Societal Services. The techs and management scurry about the emotionless facility, guarding the mechanism against variation that might upset the maintained order. He turns his attention back to the tiny specks among the clockwork city. They filter through everything, in every direction, on every level seen and unseen. Living lives of randomness, acting on hopes and inspired by dreams. The humanity in the machine is the fuel of imagination.
The final traces of sunlight float a little warmth into the cold interiors of the Center for Societal Services, painting the halls near the window orange. The city lights twenty-stories below are winking on as twilight descends.
CHAPTER 3
As dusk settles over the city, hundreds of workers methodically exit the revolving doors leading out of the Center for Societal Services. They gravitate into orderly lines by a mono-track to await the maglev train that will soon arrive. The style and fit of their clothes, across hundreds of people, is oddly similar and without flair. No one speaks, no pushing, no shoving, or jockeying for position on the platform. In fact, there is almost no touching at all.
The platform is a wonderfully designed extension from the dome. Long carbon fiber planks diverge from the building in all directions to express its omnidirectional influence. Delicate glass panels display soothing video ads to the shuffling citizens. Thin, translucent arches swoop organically away from the sloping dome, extending over them and glowing at a pleasing and hypnotic intensity.
And Hivebeam, always Hivebeam, the life-bringing artery of the city. It’s about five inches in diameter, glowing white and sparkling slightly as it branches from the main building right over their heads to disappear into the distance in all directions.
Orion stands in the middle of the throng of people, waiting his turn like everyone else. Except for tonight, he's turned his attention to the sky. Absent of stars, save for one or two of the very brightest, because millions of energy efficient lights filling the sprawling city have tinted the otherwise black sky into a sort of pale orange.
Orion has never been out of the city. No one has. He's never seen a sky full of stars or the random beauty of a real forest or landscape swept by the wind. In truth, the concept is so far distant from his mind that he can hardly form it. He must have seen something of it, maybe long ago when society was different. Before the technological leap that is now. When people were still just people.
A gentle breeze lifts into the air, and the maglev train slips soundlessly into the platform. It hovers on the mono-track, silently coming to a rest, and then gently drops a few inches to rest at the platform’s edge.
The sides of the maglev press outward and a pressurized hiss releases as the sides roll ar
ound the tube-like transport and pause on the roof. The wide-open sides provide access for the waiting passengers.
They file in quietly, Orion with them. The ever-present Hivebeam threaded the length of the train along the interior ceiling. It’s energy pulses through the transport, where it exits the ends and stretches along the train’s path. Its information provides the data stream and guideline to compel maglev into service, never straying and always on time. Then the doors slip closed, the maglev engages and, in a rush, they float away into the city on this seemingly magic thread.
As the transport races away from the platform, the mono-track ends, and the car suspends from magnetic guide poles that line the path vertically on each side. It’s a more elegant solution that is less obtrusive and, more importantly, requires less resource.
The full magnitude of the Center for Societal Services becomes apparent only after traveling away from it. It’s an enormous dome structure faced entirely in glass and built at the dead center of the city. Its grandeur extends twenty-stories high and across three city blocks. Layers of horizontal windows align perfectly at each level and converge at the pinnacle where the top level glows like a beacon to all citizens.
Under that glowing domed top, Hivemind Second Shift has taken over. Or more to the point, the computer has taken them over and, together, the singularity broadcasts orders that will manage the clockwork city and citizens far into the night. Then a third shift will carry things until morning when Prime Shift returns.
Orion looks a little brighter when he finds a seat by the window. He doesn’t try to disguise his desire to look out, where he can see everything he misses through the day. A glint of youthful wonder shines in his eyes as he concentrates on the branches of Hivebeam. As he passes each street, he follows their glowing paths into the distance for as long as he can, until the maglev passes and they fall behind. Who do they touch out there? The city stretches on and on for miles, with newer buildings slowly replacing older ones. Old neon signs replaced with the holographically projected new versions. Each one animated with constant updates, customized and giving motion to every single bit of the city. The approved messages, cultivated for the best impact but with the least emotional deviance.
He watches as maglev passes cross streets full of people and personal transports. Hivebeam snaking through it all, more prominent with multiple branches in some places, then older sections of the city where Hivebeam is less integrated. The city is its own perpetual machine, pushing itself to grow, improve, reform, and grow again in perfect clockwork computer precision.
To Orion, it seems magical. So many possibilities, and so many people, who he unfortunately only sees from the confines of maglev every night. Millions of people, alone in a crowd.
Moonlight carves the edges of a dozen clustered skyscrapers from the night sky. The cylindrical buildings reach upward until they disappear from view and blend into the darkness. The circular floors and regularity of the structures pale in comparison to the city center and Societal Services. Although, the rounded glass across twelve thirty-story monoliths reflecting the millions of city lights 360-degrees in all directions, gives them a bit of sparkle. They are, collectively, an impressive sight.
Orion walks away from the maglev substation. The illuminated walkway paralleled by a thinner, but no less prominent Hivebeam, keeps him mindlessly on track. He seems lost in thought, his eyes distant as he pauses to scan the imposing height of building #3, his home. The area around the base of the buildings has been painted in geometric patterns where you might expect grass to be planted. It’s an attempt to make the space more inviting, or at least seem a bit residential.
Orion never liked caging himself in his apartment too early in the night. He barely has a life as an insentient mind-worker, lost from reality all day. So, after a quick change of clothes, he jogs the industrial prefab hallways of his building where he might, by chance alone, run into a neighbor, but he rarely does.
A low-intensity glow lights pale blue-paneled walls at the top and bottom, the walls curves infinitely around the ingenuously corkscrewed corridors that run from base to summit in the skyscrapers. Everything designed to keep everyone calm and prevent them from feeling one way or another about things, only bathe in the quiet contentment that everything will always be okay.
Orion presses himself to jog faster and sweat begins to flow. He checks his heart rate on the run, panting excessively, he pushes even harder. The struggle of managing his breath pushes him to run harder still. Finally, his gate smooths, his breath gains rhythmic flow, and his expression loses the dreamy fog from Hive. He looks like a self-directed man alive in the moment.
He turns a corner and runs across one of the many glass tube sky bridges that connect his building to the others. He pauses halfway across, where he can look through the floor like he’s suspended in midair twenty floors up. In the adjacent building, a floor below the bridge, the familiar sight of hundreds of citizens, zoned out, running on identical treadmills. Content to forget about their day’s work. To drift into quiet introspection, or maybe simply quiet.
Orion fogs the glass, obscuring the view of the treadmill runners. In the haze, several finger smudges appear. He adds another one like another day is gone. To him, disconnection is overrated. It's an odd irony he lives under, to be connected infinitely to everyone in the city via Hivemind, but at the same time, totally alone due to his insentience. The irony complicated by the fact that once he's free for the night, everyone else wants to disappear into his or her own brand of insentience.
The pause in his exercise lets his mind race again and his eyes glass over. He immediately thinks of Aoki and how she died. It seems pointless. He wonders if she knew anything, or if by some weird and horrible thought when she died if she was controlled and blanked out by Hivebeam did her soul go with her? But truth be told, he isn't sure he believes in a soul anyway. That kind of thing is never really talked about. It is a society washed of deviant ideas or concepts. Their art is decidedly emotionless, music filled with ambient tones at best, and religion is nothing but ancient history.
Orion runs on, but his exertion can't overwhelm his mind anymore, and his memories overtake him. Things weren't always this way in society, the cold precision of a city prioritized on rations and resource control. He remembers when he was young and things were more freeform, but also more chaotic. It was before the advent of Societal Services and Hivemind. Now, everything seemed at a tipping point, where people accepted too much…direction, and they demanded too little choice.
Thirty floors above the ground, on the roof of Orion’s building, a four-foot diameter aperture spins open, and he’s elevated to rooftop level. Sweat-covered from his run, he steps onto the roof and lets the breeze kiss his sweat with cool lips.
He pauses at the ledge to admire his perspective of the city.
Millions and millions of lights stretching for miles in all directions until they abruptly stop at the border, and then there is only darkness beyond. At the center of the city, the illuminated dome of Societal Services glows.
It is beautiful, he thinks. The twinkling lights and the majestic quality of the glowing dome at night have an attractive, almost heavenly quality. What they do in there is miraculous, too, a singularity of thought between man and machine that saved us from a downward spiral nearly three decades ago.
The brightest spot, though, far to the west at the Pacific coastline, two brilliantly lit island Green Zones. They shine like beacons of hope. Pace is right about them being the pinnacles of our technology. Perfectly ordered and controlled to create the highest quality of life, at least for those privileged enough to live there. For others, they are only reminders of how far away from freedom they are. The brightness emanating from the man-made islands provides visual clarity, too. Even from miles away, Orion can see the sweeping curves of the high sea walls around the zones and how they integrate into futuristic art-Nouveau shapes and lines.
Nothing wasted, though, as is always the report to
every citizen. In this case, the swooping walls that seem more art than structure are supposedly designed to channel the ocean winds so the islands create stability for themselves as the winds pass over them.
The most striking parts are the large green areas at the centers. Guarded by the walls and beautiful building façades, the green is cultivated and lush. Gardens, lawns, and organic food. Real food, natural food, not the processed chips and pastes they form into food-like presentations for everyone else.
That’s the bittersweet part about seeing them. Unattainable for most, but always within reach. There is almost no green left in the city. As the city planners used to broadcast often, ‘Nature left unkempt is unpredictable,’ and that led society to the brink of losing everything. But even those messages referring to nature have phased out, so no one gets any unpredictable ideas.
No, the Green Zones are a dream, havens for the elite and rich. Orion’s mind runs Green Zone Two, and the irony is that it’s likely he will never step foot on it in his lifetime.
Orion hops on the ledge, staring down the thirty floors to the ground below. The maglev silently drifts in and out again. He can barely distinguish a few people, like ants moving in file along the illuminated walkways.
Across the way, in the other buildings, neighbor citizens are settling in for the evening. Orion can see their wall-size televisions coming on until their LCD windows automatically shade black to obscure the view, both inside and out.
He balances along the ledge like a tightrope walker. A little playful, a little dangerous, it’s a brief moment to feel alive and on the threshold of losing control. It’s intoxicating. He holds his palms out, testing the little gusts of wind, and smiling as they invisibly nudge his hands a little. He bends a little toward the edge, testing his courage on the breeze. It’s a bit of randomness that plays with his mind like a jester teasing to see how far he’ll go.