by J. P. Smythe
I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can manage and I shake my head. It feels like there’s something inside it: something rattling, dislodged, a part of my mind that’s broken off and trying to abandon me. I can hear it in there. My ears echo. Everything is collapsing.
Still I climb.
Another rung, and another. Everything echoes.
I think: What happened to being still? When was I last still? When was I last not moving, not pushing forward, not trying to get something done?
There are two days that I remember, when we first found the down-below on Australia. Below the Pit, below everything else—I thought, for a moment, that I could be happy there.
Happy and still.
I hear them above, waiting for me. Shouting.
“Bring it up!” somebody yells, and I clutch the rung because I think I could fall if I don’t. There’s a grinding, the mechanism starting again. “Masks!” The same voice. They’re going to get in, to take me. I’ll have failed Mae again.
That’s what they think. But the smoke is cleared, and I’m getting myself back—discovering who I can be. Things are less swimmy. I can hear the elevator moving below me, coming upward. It’s moving faster than I am, so I push off the ladder to stop it mowing me down, thumping and rolling as I land on the elevator’s roof. The smoke is all gone now—the bomb just a metal capsule in the middle of the floor in the elevator cage below. I grab the door to the hatch and put it back as best I can. It’s dented, and they’ll see it, but it might buy me time to get myself together more.
Have I ever been at a hundred percent? The best that I can be? Have I ever not been wounded, disoriented, sick, afraid? Not that I can remember. Certainly not here, and not on Australia—or not recently, anyway. Maybe when my mother was alive.
Okay. Get yourself together. Breathe. Eyes shut, then open, and still everything is loose, like the world’s pivoting, unbalanced. I shut them again.
The elevator stops moving. I hear the doors open.
“Go!” the voice shouts.
I hear the clicks of their equipment, the confusion. No sound. I know that they’re looking around, spying the hatch. I try my eyes again and they’re better: wet, foggy. Everything is still rocking, but only gently.
There’s no time to wait for my vision to properly sort itself out. The hatch nudges open, a hand gently lifting it. A head comes up, and then a body, and a light shines from the visor the guard is wearing. I grab it, hands around his helmet, reaching for his neck. He’s heavy, but he was already pushing up, and his momentum makes it easy for me to slam his face into the roof of the elevator—once, twice, another time for luck. He falls, tumbling back down into his associates. No time to let them panic, so I follow him.
I had a hard time fighting in the vast, empty room of the Archives. It’s easier in a small space like this. I’m smaller and faster than they are. There’s no room in here for the guards to get out whips to use on me because they’ll take everybody out; so there’s nothing they can use but strikers. The one I hurt first lies on the floor, a lump they have to trample over to get to the biggest threat. I launch myself at what looks like their leader, slamming him into the back wall. The elevator trembles, buffeting between the walls, the cable above strong enough to take the assault but I wonder for how much longer. My fist finds another guard—catches her square in the faceplate, shattering it. Some part of her helmet cuts my knuckles, I think. There’s blood, anyway. Could be her nose—hard sometimes to tell where blood comes from. I kick another. Something whacks me on the leg—the quick burn of a striker—and I feel the electrics running through my body, making my limbs weaker. I grit my teeth, kick out at where the pain’s coming from. Kick high, foot into the side of her head. She falls. I grab her hand, spin the weapon, ram it into the groin of another one. There’s a hell of a scream.
After that, the last one runs. I don’t think they were expecting me to fight back. There’s a clear path out into the courtyard. Incredibly, it’s still dark out. I see the workers standing around and staring at me, mouths wide. Blood on my hands, I wipe it on my suit.
On Dave’s suit.
I walk, purposeful and fast. The gate is too high to climb and there’s no way it’ll open for me. I’m frantic. The alarm will be linked to the rest of the city, I’m sure. Other people must be coming: police and Services and God knows who else. I’ve got to get out now before they get here.
I see Ruby. She’s closer to me than the rest, sizing me up, trying to work me out. The same person she spoke to before, the person that she helped out, and look at me now. I know I must look wild: covered in blood, my suit torn, my eyes running with tears. She shakes her head at me.
“They’re keeping somebody prisoner,” I say, desperate. “I have to rescue her.” I want to justify myself. I want her to understand.
But she doesn’t. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks, and she looks disgusted, like I’m a disappointment.
There’s a beep as the gates open. A vehicle rolls through them, armored and colossal. Ten wheels. They’ve come to take me down. But not before I can move. There’s enough of a gap in the gate for me to get through, to squeeze and run and vault—to springboard off the front of the vehicle before the troops inside even know what’s happened, before they can react, before they can train their weapons on me. I’m on the top of it and running.
I see a car. Ziegler’s car. It beeps as I get closer.
“Hello,” it says. “Mr. Ziegler instructed me to wait for you.” He wanted me safe. He wanted to do something more. “Do you need assistance?”
“No,” I shout, running past. I’m not dragging Ziegler into my mess, not anymore, not if I can help it. I bolt down the streets, lit from the lamps that dot the sidewalks and from the moonlight that comes from above, like a single spotlight that seems to know exactly where I am and exactly where I want to go.
I stop and catch my breath.
I know that I can’t stop, that I don’t have that luxury. I look into the skies and I can see the birds.
They’re coming for me.
SEVEN
Birds were always part of our dreams of Earth. It’s because we didn’t have any animals on Australia, and the idea of them was so strange, so alien and free—especially animals that didn’t fall but flew where they liked. We were told about them—their beaks, their wings sweeping and swooping across the world. When I came here I went to the museum and learned about them. They were real. But they were mostly all lost, it said. Not entirely, but mostly.
I saw them, though. When I first arrived I would lie on the grass, stare at the sky, and sometimes see them way above, soaring past in formation. It was only when I saw one up close, being tended to by a technician, that I realized the mistake I made.
Things can have the same name and not be the same thing, I know. Because the birds we have now? Most of them are not alive. Most of them are machines, and they hunt.
I can hear the buzz behind me. They are coming. They could be silent, but the noise is to warn you, to scare you—like sirens or alarms. High above, they follow as I rush down the streets. I dive into dumpsters and hide in cubby holes and eventually I slip down into sewers flowing with runoff from the houses and the Wall. They are full of this freezing-cold, weirdly thick liquid that laps at the sides of the tunnel; a river of sluiced, chipped ice that flows underneath the whole city. The drones scan the streets and they can’t find me. I watch through a grate as they swoop in, their formation a complicated knot that covers every angle; they won’t miss much. They move in a dance, forming shapes. Now a circle, an endless loop of the birds chasing each other in a spiral; now a star, different points jutting, sending light out, pulsing to find me.
When they decide that the street is clear, they move on. This is my chance to escape. But I’m as cold as I’ve ever been. My feet are numb, my toes so tense they feel almost brittle through my shoes. I can’t move them, I don’t think. I’ll worry about that later. They’re still good to run on.
<
br /> So I do: I run and I watch the sky and I keep away from the birds. They’re not remote-controlled. Apparently they used to be, but now they’re automated—operated by some part of the Gaia intelligence that puts them in a flock and keeps them working together. Individually, each bird is a fraction of a whole, a fragment of a picture that needs to be assembled into something complete. But all it takes is for one of them to spot you. That’s why they change formation so much: It’s easier to cover more ground that way, to put more eyes in more places at any one time.
A few streets over comes the noise of fighting; a couple is having an argument, their voices raised to screaming. The birds swoop away to investigate and that’s when I run. I go as fast as I can the other way, quiet as I can manage, hugging close to the buildings, hiding behind cars, behind railings, underneath awnings. I’m not far from Ziegler’s apartment building. I can see it, one of the many towers looming high. He wants me to be safe. He didn’t approve of my plan, but he didn’t betray me. He cares about me. I could hide out in his apartment. I’m sure that he would let me in, give me shelter. I can stay there until the birds are gone and things calm down; then I’ll leave, I’ll fetch Mae, and—
No, I won’t. I didn’t get her file. I didn’t find her. I don’t know where she is. She might not even be in the city. She could be anywhere. Maybe she’s not even here. Maybe she’s in another city entirely.
Maybe another country.
I slump against the wall of the building I’ve stopped next to. I’m tired. I can’t face Ziegler now. He cares, but I know he’ll judge me. He’ll disapprove. I’ve got the disc for Agatha. Maybe it’s got enough on it, enough information that I’ll find out where Mae is and she’ll find out—
Alala. Not Agatha. The disc is for Alala.
I push off from the wall and turn away from Ziegler’s apartment and head home—or what passes for my home. I’ve only lived here for a few months but it suddenly feels like all I’ve ever known.
By the time I get back to the docks it’s morning. The sun’s heat is burning away the morning mist. I wonder what it would be like to sit up on top of the Wall, closer to the sky, to let the light and heat burn your skin.
Something like freedom.
This part of the city is mostly quiet at this time of day. If you’re awake, it’s to get a job or get a fix. There’s nothing really in between. None of those people look at me. Nobody even notices me; I must look like just another junkie. I’m stumbling from the tiredness, my feet dragging behind me. I have to sleep. I’ve been awake too long, been moving too long, too much. I just want to sleep.
But I have to see Alala first. Mae’s waiting.
Zoe is standing outside Alala’s home, scratching as she always does. She’s not alone. Waiting with her in various states of waking are the other addicts. Some of them are in a worse state than Zoe—missing limbs replaced with cheap, black-market, last-generation augments, vacant looks in glazed-over eyes. Many of them have augments in their throats, lifetime survivors of living as outcasts here.
“There’s a line,” Zoe says. She stands up, neck tilted, head almost limp. She drags her nails along her skin in tracks of pulled-pale scars. “Just because you think you’re special,” she starts, and I cut her off.
“I’m going to see her now,” I say. I’m too tired to argue.
“I was here first,” Zoe snaps. She grabs my arm—her grip weak—but digs the tips of her fingers in as hard as she can. The feeling of her nail breaking my skin, the trickle of warm blood running down my arm. “You hear me?”
“I heard you,” I say. I put my own hand on hers. “But I’m not listening.” I slam my forearm into her shoulder and she spins, tumbling to the ground. The other junkies stare. They’re trying to work out what to do here: get involved, defend Zoe, or step aside and let me through.
They’re sensible. They can see what I’m feeling on my face: hurt, anxious, angry. They part, letting me through to Alala’s door.
“Come back!” Zoe howls.
“No,” I say.
Alala paces inside her small house. There’s barely room but she makes it work for her, using every little bit of space she can find. Up and down, left and right, and I sit on the table in the middle of it all, where the woman gave birth, where less than a day ago I got the mods that let me break into the Archives. It’s best to stay out of her way and let her talk when she’s like this—let her get it all out.
“I told you we needed all of the information. Every bit! Nothing left over.” She punctuates these words with jabs of her finger in the air between us. “Because I need the data as well, little girl. We made a deal. That is what happens. A deal. You said, ‘Alala, you get me access to the Archives. Help me.’” She does an impression of me, simpering and pleading. “So I helped you. I got you access. You understand the cost of what I did? The favors I used up for you? This is all a trade, all of it. Everything is give and take. I need the information that you went for, you understand?”
“So do I,” I say.
“You think what you need is important to me?” she whispers, almost hisses. “You do not even know what I need information for and you think you are just as important?”
“I might not have Mae’s information—”
“And this is not my problem. No, not even close to my problem. Because you asked me to get you in there. I did that. Did I not do that for you?” I don’t say anything. It’s not that sort of question. “But now, you might have let me down.” She looks through to the other room. “Is it ready yet?”
“It’s coming,” her hacker says, moving his hands in the space in front of the holo—numbers and letters again, lines of code. “It’s encrypted, obviously.” He has augmented eyes to keep up with the speed at which he’s working, along with thin metal slivers that run the length of his fingers to make them even faster, so fast they’re almost a blur. It’s expensive tech. “Where did you get this?” he asks me. His accent suggests someone well-off; he speaks with clipped neatness, more like Ziegler than the people who grew up in this part of the city.
“Does not matter,” Alala says. She looks at me—don’t say a word.
“There’s some messed up stuff here, names and addresses. What are you planning?” He turns and looks at her. “This sort of thing could get me sent to Baltimore.”
“Just get this done,” Alala replies.
“You’re not paying me nearly enough,” he says, but then stops moving his fingers, locks them together and bends them back. I’m expecting them to crick but there’s a sound like a hiss instead and he blows on them. “Done. I’ve got the files out, at least the ones that were here. No idea if there’s anything missing.”
Alala rushes to his side, to see what he’s looking at. “The name I wanted to find?” He types it, gets a result. Leans back. “There. It’s here. You got a system I can air this all onto?”
“Leave me yours,” Alala says. She’s thinking, plotting something, not looking at us.
“Mine? It’s custom.” He smirks. “This isn’t for sale.”
“Everything’s for sale,” Alala replies, her attention snapping back. She pulls a tablet from the side and types something. “Take a look at your bank balance.” He opens a tab on the holo and types in his login. His eyes widen.
“It’s all yours,” he says, gesturing at his computer. He stands up, nods at me, and then he’s gone. It’s just Alala and me, alone with the computer. Alala grabs my arm.
“No,” she says.
“I need to find—”
“Enough of what you say you need. You need to help me, is what you need.”
“I helped you. This is your information, on here.”
“You think this was all? What I have here? This is only the first part.” She isn’t smiling at me. She isn’t being nice, isn’t joking. Somehow, it even sounds like she’s got less of an accent than she had before. “I have another job for you. You do it, maybe I think about if we are even; if you get the information you say y
ou need.”
I think about how I could attack her right now. Take the information. The computer is right here. Mae’s name, address—everything might be somewhere on it. I find out where she is, and I go and sleep for a few hours—maybe at Ziegler’s—and then when I wake up, I go and get her. I keep my promise to her. Then I take her away—out of the city, maybe. Find one of the settlements that are out there; live quietly, stop running. We can be a family. I’ll save her because that’s what I promised I would do, and it’s a promise that there is not a chance in hell I am going to break.
Alala reads it in my face. She steps back, looks shocked. “Or maybe you think you can leave?” she asks. “But you are wrong.” She brings a holo up, and it immediately starts playing. I recognize myself. I see myself in Dave’s suit. It fits better than I thought it did. It’s easier to concentrate on that than the look on my face as I fight the guards in the Archives. The video has been slowed down, and I can see that my teeth are gritted, my eyes wild. Somebody is speaking. “I will turn it up for you,” Alala says, and the voice of a reporter fills the room.
The reporter describes how I broke into the Archives, how I attacked workers and then detonated a device—her words—that caused the erasure of the locally stored files. “It’s not clear how such a device was smuggled inside the Archives, they say, but . . .” Alala turns the volume down.
“I didn’t ask you to fight them,” she says. “One of them is in hospital, critical. Wait until they find the guard that you took the outfit from. Maybe they already have.” She smiles again. It’s a different smile. I don’t trust this one. “So you need my help, little girl. When this is over, I can help get you out of the city, get you a new identity, maybe. You know that I can do these things.”