Upon Stilted Cities - The Winds of Change

by Michael Kilman

  Before her thoughts could turn back to 17 for the umpteenth time, she started her work. There was just too much to be done to think about anything else.

  “Runner 6911, please step forward.”

  A towering man with dark skin and deep brown eyes stepped forward. His biceps were almost as big as Alexa’s head, and he stood almost half a meter taller than her. She was almost shocked at his size and moved around him in circles, checking his vitals and scanning.

  The huge man said nothing. His face was stone. His profile said he had been in alcove sleep for almost a century. Alexa couldn’t imagine what it must be like to spend that long in an alcove.

  “Looks like you are good to go. Please step forward onto the platform. Runner 6272, please step forward.”

  This time a petite woman moved toward her. This was only the second time that Alexa had administered to a female runner. She had heard that there were so few of them largely because of the weight of the EnViro suits. She wasn’t sure she believed that. It seemed much more likely that women could sleep with a Supreme Justice or a Senator to get out of Runner duty. But she had no doubt the suits did prove difficult to operate for someone as small as this woman, even with the strength augmentation injections. She wasn't sure she could operate a suit herself.

  This women’s face was stolid and unyielding. There was no doubt in Alexa’s mind she was tough as nails. Her profile indicated that she had been on several dozen missions and only in stasis for a few months. Clearly she was considered a valuable asset or she wouldn’t have been so active.

  Alexa combed the line of Runners behind Runner 6272. Runners certainly came in all shapes and sizes. She turned her attention back to her task and began checking 6272’s vitals.

  “Hello, little one.”

  Alexa looked around to see who was standing nearby. Lieutenant Dean was watching her closely, no doubt he was making sure she didn’t screw anything up.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dean, did you say something?” Alexa asked.

  “Again, it’s Lieutenant Dean, Alexa; you must address me formally.”

  “I’m sorry, Sir... I just—”

  “I don’t recall saying anything, now focus on your job.”

  Alexa turned her attention back to the Runner standing in front of her. Her head was starting to buzz.

  “I’m sorry my dear, I recognize this is not the greatest time to contact you in this way, but I need to meet with you right away, things are beginning to spin out of control, and we need your assistance.”

  Again, Alexa turned around to address Lieutenant Dean, but his attention was focused elsewhere. Where could the voice be coming from? It certainly wasn’t coming from Runner 6272.

  “The voice is coming from in your mind, little one. I am transmitting to you.”

  Alexa’s eyes grew wide with fear.

  “You have nothing to fear, but we need you here with us.”

  Alexa felt a wave of calm. Her muscles relaxed, and she knew for certain that she needed to do as the voice said.

  “But how do I get out of work?” she spoke aloud.

  Dean turned on her quickly, “By finishing, young lady. I will have you know that... I think... I think...” He spoke to himself. His eyes glazed and unfixed. “Yes exactly, it seems I always have to babysit her, so why would I want her down here during a crisis? You’re right; she can’t even get my name right.” His focus snapped back to Alexa. “I think it’s time for you to head home. You’re more of a hindrance than a help, anyway.”

  “But Sir, I was...”

  “Alexa, I do not have time for your nonsense today. Look around these docks. What do you see?”

  “A lot of Runners?”

  “Yes exactly, I have a schedule to keep and look how many Runners there are? It must be every single last one. Now how in the world am I supposed to keep some semblance of order in this place if you show up and get in everyone’s way?”

  “I...”

  Several Runners in her queue were now watching her and Dean. A puzzled look went over all their faces as Dean pushed her out of the way and grabbed the tablet out of her hand to finish the inspections himself.

  “Go on, get out of here and come back when things aren’t so crazy.”

  Alexa followed orders and moved toward the exit. She wondered briefly if he would call her back the moment he realized she was gone. As she exited through the security section at the entrance to the docks, she tried to summon the voice back.

  “Now what I am supposed to do?” she thought as hard as she could, trying to transmit her thinking to whatever direction the voice may have come from.

  “Well, first of all, young one, don’t transmit your thoughts so hard like that, it makes my head hurt. Your thoughts should be just as relaxed as they always are, but we will talk about that in your training. Secondly, you must come to the ancient Library in the Lowers. We are waiting for you there.”

  “The Library? But that area is dangerous.”

  “We will gently suggest to any individuals in the area that they may have business elsewhere. You will have few, if any, obstacles reaching here. I suggest you take the L and M sky bridges to 41st and 4th, and then descend down to ground level at that point. You will only have to walk two blocks in the Lowers. You will find us down in the archives under the first level. Please be quick my dear, time is of the essence.”

  Chapter 15

  The Uprising

  Jose sat in a cell. His body was propped in the corner and held up by the gravity of the angle in which he sat. He had not moved since the SOs had put him there.

  The room was dim, and the smell of body odor was strong. It lingered from the bodies of a thousand broken men and women. Only a bench with a shabby old mattress and a toilet were in the space. Names covered the walls, briefly etched obituaries of the many men and women who had spent their last moments there before exile to the Runnercore. The cell was a waystation, a path to another life, a path to hell.

  His head hurt. He reached up and felt the rough exterior of a bandage. A regen patch, which meant that no matter how hard the SOs had struck him, it was repairing all the damage. Just above the dull thud of pain in his brow, he began to feel the tiny tingling of regeneration at work.

  He was in a world of shit now. No scapegoats. No Liza or Aaron to take the fall for him. He deserved this. He was a coward. His fate was clear. In a brief moment of madness, he had assaulted a security officer. Now he would spend the rest of his days as a Runner. What would his wife and son do? Convicted Runners didn’t receive compensation for their work. They would have to dip into their deepest savings to survive. So much for the possibility of a better life. He had fucked it all up. He deserved it. He had been running from the past his whole life, and now finally it had caught him.

  He raised his hands to his eyes to catch the tears and wept. Deep, wrenching sobs echoed through the empty cells. Only metal and stone gave witness to his grief.

  Suicide occurred to him briefly. If he did it now, there was a small chance he wouldn’t be recycled. He looked around the dim room and saw nothing that would be useful for taking his own life.

  He lifted himself onto the bench and turned to lay down. He supposed this was his karma. His tongue had not been enough. Jose turned to the past. There was nowhere else to turn. There was no future now, only running.

  His ancient agonies, buried deep in his heart, rose to the surface. It had all begun with a book, that damned library book in the Lower Library. Reading that thing had been the biggest mistake of his life.

  2.

  “Jose... Jose? Your alarm’s going off again. How many times are you going to hit snooze, Miho?”

  Jose rolled over onto his back and stretched. He blinked and looked around the room. The alarm was still wailing, but he made no immediate effort to turn it off.

  “Jose.” His mother entered the room now, moved over to the tablet and turned the alarm off. “How in the hell can you sleep through this thing. It would wake the dead. I
n fact, I think I can hear your Abuela turning over in her grave. Now get up and get ready for school. This is only your third week! You know they report attendance records to future employers.”

  Jose said, “Yes, Mama.” He took a deep breath and swept his legs over the edge of his bed, and his mother began rummaging through his closet. She pulled some clothes out and threw them on the bed next to him.

  “Here, these will look handsome on you.”

  “Mama, I can pick out my clothes you know, I’m 19, and I’m not in grade school anymore.”

  “What and have my boy go to Trade school with all his clothes wrinkled? I don’t think so. What will people think of me?”

  Jose rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young man. You’re the one who can’t even wake up to an alarm. Now, breakfast is on the table. I want you to make sure you eat up quickly, because Liza called and she and Aaron are already on their way over.”

  His mother left the room, and quickly he dressed and went to the kitchen. Eggs and a bagel fresh from the food dispenser waited for him. He jumped into the chair at the table and shoveled the food into his mouth.

  His mother walked into the kitchen and sat down. “Hey now, not so fast, you’re going to give yourself a stomach ache. You still have a few minutes before Liza and Aaron get here.”

  “Sorry,” Jose said, the eggs spilling out of his mouth a little. “Where’s Dad?”

  His mother frowned, and the creases in her forehead momentarily revealed her true age. After her annual alcove visit, she looked quite a bit younger, but age was never truly gone for someone in the Lowers.

  “He has to work an extra shift. There was an accident down in sanitation. Luis... he...well he won’t be working ever again.”

  A heavy silence passed between them. Jose stopped eating for a moment.

  Jose let his mouth make several silent attempts first, finally working up the courage and asking, “What happened?”

  “It’s nothing he did. It was those damned Uppers again; they’re always taking advantage of us. You’re old enough to know how it is.”

  “Is he hurt? Luis, I mean?”

  “Luis is... well, he’s a Runner now... or at least he will be in a few days.”

  “Oh.”

  Jose took a few more bites of eggs, then played with the rest with his fork. He traced the lines around the shapes of his food. “Is Dad going to get overtime, at least?”

  His mother didn’t say anything, but he could tell by the look on her face that there would be no overtime. “Things are as they are, Jose. There is nothing we can do about them. They have been that way since the beginning of migration and probably since the beginning of time.”

  “But, isn’t there anything Dad can do? I mean this is the 3rd person this year who’s been sentenced to the Runnercore and two others in sanitation have been seriously injured.”

  Jose’s mom stood up and walked toward her son. She crouched down and stared him straight in the face. “That’s why, Miho, I need you to finish Trade school and get a job outside of the Lowers. You have to get out of here before it's too late. Your father and I, well I don’t think much can be done to change our fate but you, you have a chance to live a better life.”

  Jose looked down toward his feet. In truth, he was struggling with trade school. Information technology and virtual interface repair were not exactly the career he had dreamed of, but he and Liza had made a vow to finish the program.

  His mother grabbed his chin and lifted it, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Promise me you’ll finish, Jose.”

  He nodded. “Yes Mama, I’ll finish. Liza wouldn’t let me quit anyway.”

  His mother smiled warmly. “That Liza’s a good girl, you know. You should marry her.”

  “Mama. Come on. We’re just friends.”

  This wasn’t the whole truth. Jose was in love with Liza, but he was pretty sure she didn’t return those feelings.

  There was a knock at the door, and his mother stood and went to answer it. Jose gobbled down the last of his eggs, ran to the living room to grab his tablet and bolted toward the door. Liza and Aaron were standing just outside the entrance with his mother standing just in front of them.

  “Sleepyhead here only woke up ten minutes ago.”

  Both Aaron and Liza shook their heads in disapproval with big grins on their faces.

  “Oh Jose, when will you learn?” said Liza, her grin spreading ear to ear.

  Jose loved her smile, her brown eyes, and thin face. He studied the shape of her thick lips whenever she wasn’t looking. He could feel the red trying to creep onto his cheeks. “Yeah well... let’s just go.”

  His mother grabbed his arm and swooped in for a hug.

  “Goodbye, Miho.” She loosened her grip and stepped back. “Come home right after class, okay? Your father and I are both working second shift tonight so we won’t be here when you get back, but I want you to come straight home.”

  “Mama, I’m almost an adult, I think I’ll be okay.”

  His mother turned her head up toward Liza. “You keep him and Aaron out of trouble.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Garcia. I'll walk him all the way to the front door.”

  “Good girl, Liza.” His mother gave her a warm smile. "But I think it's usually the boy who walks to the girl to the front door." His mother gave him a quick wink.

  For a brief moment, Jose thought he saw red in Liza's cheeks but it was so quick, he was sure he had imagined it.

  His mother said, “Now go on, go make something of yourself.”

  3.

  Hours later, the three friends exited the trade school. It was well after designated dark. The brightness of the shield lingered. A child born after the beginning of migration would have known nothing of the true darkness that night can bring. Still, the stars twinkled and glimmered through the orange tinge of the shield and the two portions of the quarter moon shimmered as if viewed from beneath the surface of a great sea.

  City security patrolled the streets of the Lowers throughout the night but were most present just after designated dark to push back against the Lower gangs and the drug dealers. Most of the gangs were fairly harmless, a few adolescences trying to establish some sort of family on the street to make up for the fact that their one at home was in shambles, but some were dangerous and were a prime recruiting pool for the Runnercore. A few gangs were rumored to be in the employ of Uppers, but Jose wasn't sure if that was true, though he could understand why it could be of value to those who lived in the towering skyscrapers.

  Liza, Aaron, and Jose always took the route that went past the library to avoid the gangs. The people mover took them most of the way home, but they always got off early because the stop that took them closest to home dropped them in the heart of gang territory. The library was considered a high-security area, and though the trio feared city security almost as much as the gangs, as long as they avoided security directly, they were usually fine.

  “Let’s stop at the library tonight, I have to pee,” said Liza.

  “Again? Why didn’t you go before we left?” asked Jose.

  “Um, because I didn’t have to go then.”

  Jose rolled his eyes.

  “The library’s closed after seven, you know that, Liza,” replied Aaron.

  “Well, let’s find a way in, I really need to go.”

  Aaron said, “Just go out here. Find a bush or something.”

  “Yeah, I do it all the time,” said Jose.

  “I can’t, you ass, I am a girl, and you know those security guys will use any excuse to...” she stopped mid-sentence. Liza didn’t need to elaborate.

  “Alright, alright,” said Jose “Let’s check the windows, I’ll bet one of them will be unlocked.”

  The library was nearly a full city block in size. In front stood two faded and crumbling statues of some creatures that had long become unrecognizable. They looked like they had once perhaps been a stray dog, but Jose doubted they were
something so scraggly. When the city had lifted at the beginning of migration, many structures suffered a great deal of damage. In truth, the early parts of migration were terrible times, many people died and were crushed under rubble, and more died from infection due to injuries. Hospitals were always full, and the alcoves were not yet in wide usage. But this was an age long before these three teens, and now only a few hints of those difficult times had remained.

  Aaron and Jose, watchful for security forces, waited while Liza checked each of the window wells that led to the basement of the library. Grass had grown up over some of the old windows since maintenance in the Lowers was of little priority. The Uppers and Mids only bothered with maintenance when a building became unsound, and since the library was only a few levels high, it technically qualified as part of the Lowers, though there was an Upper, some keeper, who occasionally ventured inside to remove certain books or records. The current city library was on the 35th floor of a skyscraper in the Upper Mids.

  “Over here, this one’s open.”

  Liza pulled aside some of the rubble to pry open the window. It was just big enough for the three of them to squeeze through.

  “Are you coming?”

  “You’re the one that has to pee,” said Aaron.

  “Yeah but this old place is creepy at night, I mean look at those weird-ass statues.”

  “Just go Liza, we’ll wait out here for you. Someone has to watch for security,” said Aaron.

  “Yeah, you don’t want us to get caught snooping around this place at night, do you? You know how fast they would turn the three of us into Runners? They look for people just like us, we’re perfect candidates, and I heard they just lost a bunch of Runners to a storm last week on the vidscreens.”

  “Well, I am not going in there alone, so one of you needs to come with me,” said Liza.

  “Ugh, fine, I’ll do it,” replied Jose. “Aaron, you stay here and if someone comes around looking for us, just leave, we won’t come back out until we see you standing here.”