Othella (Arcadian Heights)

by Therin Knite

  His mouth forms the word "arrogant."

  "Lofty, perhaps. But not arrogant. I state the desired outcome, not the outcome I believe will come to pass. I know for a fact it won’t come at all if I don’t manage to stop Salt’s crusade. He’s a threat I didn’t anticipate, a threat enabled by another threat I could not have foreseen. That primary threat was simple enough to eliminate, but Salt is proving to be a nuisance beyond my wildest imaginings. I was hoping his obvious mental instability would bring him down, but his self-serving paranoia rivals Howard’s."

  The half-lidded eyes widen to a full, startled roundness. "Howard? Sims is alive?"

  "Yes and no."

  Lips part. A silent exhale. "Droid? Like what you do to the recruits?"

  "Similar. The same basic transfer process. A Deep REI scan to map the brain’s neural pathways. A variable-pulse laser upload that strips out the organic pathway data and converts it into a digital format. But where the recruits’ pathway data is modified, selectively filtered, until all that remains is the core pattern, Howard’s was left intact. That and he has no body. He’s all digital. His mind chip is integrated with the community’s central supercomputer."

  I gnaw on my tongue with my molars. "The transfer process was his last invention before the cancer ate his lungs away. Impresses me even now how hard he worked to finish it. Coughing up bloody mucus. Wheelchair bound. And yet, he woke up every morning at six AM, ate cereal he was doomed to regurgitate, got to work, and—"

  A keening sound breaks through Martin’s teeth, and his eyes angle upward. To the corner where the patrolman is waiting. Or...was waiting. The patrolman is advancing steadily toward the rejuvenation machine. Toward the control panel on the opposite side from where I’m sitting. Despite the inhumanity beneath the faceless helmet, I can sense the killer intent.

  Howard. Who’s been listening in on my conversation.

  Martin’s breathing quickens. Tears gather on his lower eyelids.

  I have no idea what you can do to a rejuvenation machine to cause a malfunction that will kill a person, but I can’t imagine it makes for a pleasant experience. I leap off the stool and beat the patrolman to the control panel, blocking access with my body.

  "Howard, stop. You will not kill this man. He’s our bait for Salt, remember?"

  The patrolman halts mid-step. Its fingers flex then contract into a fist. Its head rotates toward Martin’s prone body and stares for three, four, five, six seconds. I’m sure it’s going to kill the man. Rip the machine apart. Tear the needles from Martin’s back. Crush his skull.

  The helmet reverts to its default position, and the patrolman retreats to its corner. It finds the exact spot, the exact angle it was standing in before. It mimics an empty suit again, even though it’s far, far fuller than it should be.

  Martin breathes a sigh of relief.

  So do I.

  7

  Marco

  ( 2 Years Ago )

  The drive to Nebraska is quiet. No patrolmen suicide dive from the sky and land on the hood of my car. No one shoots an RPG at the trunk. There are no machine guns blowing out windows or mysterious vans running me off the road. It’s one of the quietest trips I’ve taken in years.

  Too quiet.

  Reggie dozes most of the drive. The dark circles under his eyes begin to fade—except the bruised area. He regains some of his usual vigor and color, and though he’s hobbling when we get out of the car for a breakfast at a Denny’s in the middle of nowhere, he’s upbeat enough that I wipe my worry away and smile alongside him.

  He’s on his fourth pancake at our dimly lit corner table when he sets his fork down and runs a hand through his hair. We stopped at a hotel last night for less than twelve hours so we could bathe and sleep, and Reggie’s red mop dried like a bush that hasn’t been trimmed in a decade. When he tried to tame it with a comb, three of the prongs broke off.

  "Say, Marco, about your plan..."

  I pause with my glass halfway to my mouth. "What about it?"

  Reggie pinches the bridge of his nose. "I’m not sure you should go through with it."

  I sit the glass next to my plate. "Reggie, it’s not up for debate."

  He swallows hard. "The year after we founded South Sydian, before we started getting contracts with the Heights, you had that idea for revolutionizing mail delivery using robots. Remember?"

  "I remember."

  "What do you remember about it?"

  "It almost drove the company into the ground because the shareholders thought it was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard." Not my best moment.

  "And why did you present it in the first place?"

  I drop my gaze to my cooling food. "Because I didn’t listen to you. You told me to axe the idea, and I didn’t. The company paid the price."

  "Exactly. What is it you called me years ago? The caution to your risk?"

  "Reggie, this is different."

  "No." He slams his fist on the table, and a middle-aged woman a few booths down gives us a nasty glare over her menu. "It’s not different. The circumstances may have changed. The environment may have changed. But you’re still the same man, and you’re still making the same mistakes. You come up with a seemingly bright idea, and you try to hop on the train to success before the tracks have even been built. You can’t do this, Marco. You can’t face a challenge like this with a half-assed plan. You’re going to fall flat on your face, and this time, you won’t get back up. We’re not risking equity anymore, man. This is life and death. And if you die, who’s going to be there to take your place? Huh? Tell me." His voice cracks. "We’ve been through this before. All of this. And you know how it almost ended last time. You know. And you know better."

  The last few words are rough whispers. Reggie is shaking. I reach across the table and settle my hand over his. "I get it. I do. I know how you feel about my safety. And my sanity. I feel the same way about yours. But they killed my daughter, Reggie. Q killed my daughter. And he’s been killing daughters and sons for two decades. Parents letting their children go off like lambs to the slaughter. It’s got to stop. And the government’s not going to stop it. The patrolmen are roaming around outside Jackson City, which means the President has given his blessing to Q to do whatever it takes to protect the community’s good name. Even if Waverly doesn’t know the truth, even if no one does but us, revealing what little we know now won’t solve the problem.

  "The pictures will make a few rounds on the news before the feds clamp down and claim they’re fakes. The FBI will blame the Anti-Heights movement and their BS ‘natural development’ ideology. Sure, the photos will damage the community’s reputation—in the eyes of those who already doubt it. But the deluded masses will laugh off the scandal without a second thought.

  "People will crush the very idea that they’ve sacrificed their children to a monster with unknown intentions. Because the community is hope itself. It’s one of the last things in this fucked-up world people believe in. And when people get desperate for hope, they will do anything to shield what scraps they have of it, even if it means ignoring what’s right in front of their faces. We can’t win this fight with the truth unless we have indisputable evidence of whatever it is they’re doing. Whatever it is you won’t tell me. We can’t win unless we have a confession. Unless we reach inside the guts of that hellhole and tear out its intestines for the world to see.

  "The sender knew that. That’s why he sent the blueprint. So I could sneak inside. Beat Q at his own game. Show up on his home turf, where he would never expect a confrontation. I can break the community firewall from the inside and release everything. Show the world how it’s been duped. It’s the only way that will work. Q will see an army of conspiracy nuts coming from a mile away. But one lowly man with a big, bad dream? I’ll be the ghost that invades the machine."

  Reggie grinds his knife against the tabletop, gouging out a chunk of cheap plastic. "You’ll be a ghost all right: when you’re dead." He tosses the knife onto his plate and
slides his chair back. "And I’ll be standing there, cleaning up your ashes."

  "All those families who’ve been duped. All the ones who will be. It’s not just about me this time. It’s about them, too. Am I worth more than them? More than Clarissa? Am I worth more than the world, Reggie?"

  He stands and peers out the window at a nameless town with two live stores and a mass of redbrick husks. "What world, Marco? There’s not a goddamn world I can see worth saving."

  8

  Quentin

  ( 2 Years Ago )

  The car pulls into a convenience store parking lot at ten minutes to eleven. Our driver, a standard patrolman not currently imbued with Howard’s murder mentality, parks and shuts the car off. The rest of my entourage is following at a three to five mile distance, to act as backup in case of an emergency. Martin is half asleep, his face pressed against the window. I shake him with a gentle hand until he comes around. He unbuckles his seatbelt, yawning, and fumbles for the door handle. I exit on the opposite side and round the car to help him out.

  His legs are weak, but he can stand on them, which is enough for now. I walk beside him at an easy pace until we enter the store. I let him wander where he pleases while I purchase two hotdogs, some chip bags, and a couple of sodas. With the patrolman nearby and his legs so unsteady, he can’t escape. And he wouldn’t dare risk the lives of the store patrons anyway.

  I pay for the food and head for the door, only to find Martin watching an ancient television bolted high on the wall above the magazine rack. A news program is reporting yet another devastating natural disaster. Horrific flash flooding in Northern Europe. Aerial shots flash across the screen—houses swept off foundations and carried downstream, people being rescued by helicopter crews, bodies lined up on the shores of swollen rivers. I meander over to Martin.

  "Do you understand?" I keep my voice low. "Why the community plan is necessary?"

  "I understand." His battered face turns my way. A dark bruise painted underneath one eye. A swollen lip. "But it doesn’t matter. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter whether I understand your motivations. What you’re doing is still wrong."

  "I’m trying to save the human race."

  "By killing kids now. By doing worse. You’re stripping them of everything that makes them who they are and using what’s left to create an assembly line of scientific advancement so that maybe, one day, sixteen years from now, when human civilization falls apart, you’ll have the level of technology necessary to raise it from the ashes."

  "Not just raise it. Improve upon it. Avoid centuries of ruin and suffering. Once this globally convoluted mess of politics and economics ceases to be, we can swoop in and create a better human society. One that doesn’t eat its way through all the world’s resources. One that doesn’t crack and shatter at the slightest angry breath from a single politician. A new world."

  "A brave new world?"

  "No. A safe new world."

  "Safe for who?"

  "For everyone who isn’t rendered a corpse when society collapses."

  "Lofty is right. Especially if one man has the potential to ruin it."

  I loop my arm through his and lead him outside. "One man does not have the potential to ruin Arcadian Heights. He can, however, expose our operations to the public, who do have that potential. Despite the defense grid, despite all our math and science and advanced weaponry, a single community in the middle of a bleak and broken country cannot face the world by itself.

  "More efficient architectural designs, renewable energy plans, new nano-medicine techniques, superior travel technology, a few fancy guns...these are great and all—for the future—but they cannot protect us now. Now, we live by hiding. We wait for our enemies to fell themselves. That is how we win. When there are no more nukes to fire, no more armies to raise, when there is nothing left of this pathetic world, there will be the Heights."

  "And the Heights will lead the Earth into a new era of peace and prosperity?"

  I scoff, offer him the food bag, and open the car door. "Hardly. At best, we’ll spark a period of productive rebuilding. Bring people together. Set them on the right track. But no one can guarantee peace and prosperity. You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. My one hope is that the spirit of humanity is so bent and broken that any and all survivors will happily cling to the tenets we set forth. And that’s pure fantasy, pure idealism, on my part. Human beings are unforgivably stubborn."

  "Then why do all this?" He sinks onto the seat and rummages through the bag until he finds a wrapped hotdog. "Why try this hard with no guarantee anything will come of it?"

  "Because if we don’t try, then no one will. And if no one tries, there is a guarantee that nothing will come of it. The world will end, and there will be silence."

  He unwraps the hotdog and takes a bite. "Is that how you sleep at night? You imagine yourself as the desperate wannabe savior, the one and only hope for humanity? You think the desired end justifies the means because the other outcome is worse than the means themselves?"

  I slam the door shut, take a breath, and return to my side of the car. Once I’m secure and the car is on the road again, with Martin munching his hotdog a few feet from me, I answer, "First off, I’m not the one who wanted to save the world. I’m the one who would have been content to watch it burn. Because, personally, I think we deserve it." I watch the patrolman driver closely, waiting for a sign that Howard is in control. "But regardless of my inclinations toward my species, I feel I have a duty to carry out the wishes of someone who believed we are worth saving, someone who entrusted his legacy to me. Someone who, like your beloved Marco Salt, was my best friend."

  The patrolman inclines its head slightly, as if it’s watching me through the rearview mirror.

  I meet the faceless gaze and add, "The end never justifies the means, Mr. Martin. There is no such thing as justice."

  9

  Marco

  ( 2 Years Ago )

  Jackson City is choking on the cogs of scientific progress, and not a soul is willing to perform a last-ditch Heimlich. We drive past the unoccupied outer fence guard stations at five in the morning and through the last leg of the city kicking and breathing. Eyes peek out through gaps in boarded windows. A few shadows shaped like human beings skitter across the road. The car’s headlights are dark so as to not attract unwanted attention. Q’s attention.

  Given how closely he tracks me, he must be aware of my destination. The patrolmen will be scouring the area around the Heights for signs of attack. To avoid them, I have to be clever. Which is why I spent days memorizing maps of the city terrain, including the sewer system. With some simple blocking measures to trick the patrolmen’s sensor systems, I should be able to sneak by them. With an unanticipated route to a well-cloaked spot near the single faulty section of the defense grid, I should be able to sneak inside.

  "How do you know that section of the grid is flawed, Marco?" asks Reggie, who’s been silent for the last two hours. He’s curled up in the back seat, an open magazine draped over his face.

  I enter an abandoned parking garage and settle the car in the darkest corner I can find. Then I shut the engine off and lean against the seat, staring out the windshield. "I don’t. I have to trust the plans the sender gave me. That grid segment was highlighted and stamped with DEFECTIVE. I examined it for a while and came to the conclusion it has something to do with Jackson City’s electric grid. Since most of the city is dark, the community has to route its auxiliary power through a really complex system of underground lines that run all the way here from the main power station in Saluda. If something ever knocks out the Heights’s internal method of power production—whatever that is—then the auxiliary system kicks in. It runs right underneath that section of the grid."

  Reggie stretches and yawns, tossing the magazine to the floor. "So you think if the backup power system is activated, that grid section will malfunction?"

  "Precisely. I think the underground lines will caus
e a surge that temporarily knocks out the grid segment, or at least reduces its functionality. Enough to allow me to jump the fence before the problem is corrected."

  "And then what, hotshot?" Reggie clambers through the gap between the front seats and settles into the passenger side, his knees drawn up to his chin. "They’ve got a shit ton of security cameras and an unknown number of patrolmen, who, last time I checked, sit in guard towers, waiting for this exact incident to occur."

  "That’s why I have stealth gear in the trunk, including scramblers. Their sensor arrays shouldn’t be able to pick me up. And the blueprint I received included the camera locations. I know the exact path I need to take to get from the fence to Q’s office without being seen."

  Reggie settles his forehead against his knees and sighs. "You’re not going to give up on this, no matter what I say, are you?"

  "Sorry, Reggie. Not this time."

  He opens the car door and slips out into the chilly morning. "All right. I’ll help. Because you’re more likely to succeed if I do than if I don’t. But I swear on all that is holy, Marco, if you don’t come back, I’ll find a way to resurrect you just so I can kill you again myself."

  "Noted." I exit the car, surveying the overcast day creeping in between the garage support beams. I clear my throat, suck in as much air as my lungs can handle, and pull Reggie into a tight embrace. "Thank you," I whisper in his ear.

  For a few seconds, he doesn’t respond. Then he wraps his arms around my back, and a low, dry sob wracks his chest. "Please don’t die, Marco."

  "I don’t plan on it. Took it off my bucket list weeks ago." When I staggered over to that wall of dead, pale kids and found a map that made my vengeance possible. I haven’t felt so driven since the day Anise and I walked out of a room of investors with forty million dollars in our pockets.

  Anise. Would she approve? Would she think me brave or stupid for running into a hornets’ nest to avenge our daughter’s death?