Jonathan understood her point. I’m just as smart as you, buddy, and I know you’re hearing me. He nodded. An innocent, wide-eyed nod. Gotcha.
“I’ll be watching, so keep it tight.”
Without another word, she exited his office and left. He waited until he could no longer hear her plodding footsteps retreating down the hallway before he let out a sigh of relief.
Keep it tight.
MYERS
SOLOMON MERRICK HAD FINALLY ALLOWED Myers room to breathe. He’d shoved himself up and off of Myers’ body, and now stood over him, glaring down. The man was a statue, a silhouette that sat against the light backdrop, unmoving.
“Wh — who are you?” Myers said. His voice was shaky and winded, as if trying to audibly recreate the way his body felt.
“I told you,” the man said. “My name is Solomon Merrick.”
“But —“
“I am going to ask you to come with me, but I won’t ask twice. You are currently posting at levels higher than any of us have ever seen, and I was placed here to find you.”
Placed? “Why me?”
“It didn’t have to be you, but it was. You stumbled into the city, and I was waiting, so here we are.”
So many questions, Myers thought. But he shook his head instead. He was still lying on the ground. “Okay, fine. Kill me.”
Merrick’s face was unreadable, partly because it was halfway hidden behind the cloak of a shadow. “Get up.”
Myers found himself complying to the order even before he’d registered it in his mind. He sat, a slow, painful expense of precious energy, then started the grueling process of trying to stand up.
Merrick continued. “Walk. We need to get to Umutsuz. There’s going to be more. Lots more.”
“Who? Who are you guys?”
“It’s not ‘us,’ other than we have the same assignment. We’re not working together.” Merrick stopped and looked toward the heli. “Well, they were. But most of us aren’t.”
“Wait a minute,” Myers said. A fresh wave of energy had presented itself, and he took advantage of it. “You’re a hunter, right? Like them? I’m posting on this ‘Board’ of yours, and I’m worth a lot of money.”
Merrick shook his head. “Not money. Current. Let’s go.” He motioned with his gun, and Myers obeyed. They walked a few more steps before Myers asked another question.
“What’s the difference? Can’t you just bring me in dead?”
Merrick snorted. “Sure, for half the rate. I’d be a joke, though, to do that. Scrape me now, we’re taking you all the way.”
“To where?” Myers asked.
“Umutsuz.” The word settled into Myers’ mind as if it was definitive, the complete answer. Isn’t it obvious? The only place in a thousand miles that’s populated.
“Right. Umutsuz. We were already going to Umutsuz.
Merrick actually turned and looked at Myers. After a moment, he spoke. “We? You and that kid? And what were you going to do in Umutsuz?”
Myers lifted his chin a little. “We were going to hitch a ride out of here. What happened here, anyway? And why don’t you just kill me?”
“I missed. Then you ran away. Remember?” Short, blunt, and to the point. Myers liked that, even if it was a sore subject. In another life, Myers might have tried to hire the guy.
“But because I’m…”
“Yeah. Myers Asher. Right. Things got out of hand, now you’re posting record Current, and there’s no way I’m dragging you back dead.”
“So you’re going to, uh, sell me?”
Another snort. “Right. Like it’s that easy. How long you been out?”
Myers assumed he meant ‘disappeared’ or whatever it was when someone didn’t exist for a certain amount of time. “Seven years, give or take.”
Merrick stopped mid stride. “That seems about right, but still. Seven years?.”
“Yes. And they — it — took about fifteen years. Both terms, just after EHM.”
“That explains a lot.” He looked off into the distance and sighed. What was that, Myers wondered. Nostalgia?
“What happens when we get to Umutsuz?” he asked.
Merrick frowned. “There’s a buyer there, someone I’ve worked with before. I trust him.”
“What happens to me when we get there?”
Merrick didn’t answer.
“Fine. What is this ‘buyer’ going to give you, besides money?”
“It’s not money. Hasn’t been for some time now, after the collapse. Current, actually. And he’s got something I need.”
“What do you need?” Myers suddenly wondered if it was too far. Screw it, he thought. He just told me he’s not going to kill me. Yet.
Merrick didn’t even blink. “A car. Gas-powered, off the Grid.”
“And what exactly do you need a car for?”
“Look, I think we’re going to be better off, both of us, if we keep the chitchat down. Got it?”
“Yeah.” Myers wasn’t sure if the response was ‘stop talking,’ or ‘stop talking about that.’ He’d always been good at reading people, and he had a feeling it was the latter.
“I need a car, too. Obviously. Get out of here, figure out what’s going on. I don’t suppose I can buy you out?” Myers asked.
“You were scraped seven years ago. You think I believe you’ve got Current stashed away somewhere?”
“I don’t even know what Current is, so no, of course not. But I can get it. I can talk to —“
“You really don’t understand what this world is now, do you?” Merrick looked him over, the question more of a threat. “You think this is the same world you fell remember from fifteen years ago? Current, money, whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t run anything anymore. At least not the way it used to. The System tracks all of it, so there’s no ‘buying people out’ anymore. You give them what they want, or you’re no good to them.”
“And what is it you want?”
“A car. I told you that.”
Myers waited. They both knew it was only half the answer, if even that much.
“I told you to cut the chitchat.”
“I told you to kill me.”
Merrick stopped and looked at Myers. Myers saw something there, in his eyes, he hadn’t noticed before. Defeat. Or maybe it wasn’t there, and Myers was seeing a reflection of himself.
“You think you’re in a position to negotiate?” Merrick said. “If I’d have left you back there, you’d be dead already or dead in a day.”
“I’m here, and I’m alive, for now. That’s got to be good enough for something.”
“It is,” Merrick said. “It’s good enough to make you last another day you just wished you were dead. Come on, let’s keep moving. Umutsuz is twenty miles away, and I’d like to get there before tomorrow night. You think you can make it?”
“Do I have a choice?” Myers asked.
Merrick just kept walking.
RAND
THE CASE HAD BEEN PRINTED flawlessly. Three-dimensional printing had come a long way, and it was the subtleties that he appreciated most from the new technology. The printer had a finishing unit, a small head that would inspect the final design for any sort of visible defect, shaving corners to smooth exactness. It looked and felt no different than a piece of machined plastic that had fallen fresh off an assembly belt.
It was dark blue, Jonathan’s current color of choice for the raw material capsule he’d installed in the printer, and it was sturdy enough to hold the small computer inside of it. He popped open one half, reveling in the perfect cuts and smoothed edges, and placed the board inside. It was a perfect fit. The board nestled perfectly onto the bottom of the case, snapping in place with a quick push on the edge of the board, and he blew off some of the leftover material from the plastic printer.
He soldered the wiring components in place, careful to keep the heat far enough away from other electronics, and snapped the top on the device. A gaping rectangular hole stared up at him,
a cable protruding through it and dangling down next to his hand.
He reached for the small fingerprint scanner he’d purchased from the store earlier that day and placed it above the device, comparing its size against the rectangular hole in the case. Satisfied with the design, he pushed the scanner into the open serial port and then down into the hole. It snuggled nicely into the case, the plastic of the hard outer shell giving way slightly to allow it to snap downward and secure itself.
Finally, Jonathan ran a final visual check of the components, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It was crude, certainly not ready for commercial sale, but it would work perfectly for his purposes.
He plugged it in to his station. The station immediately recognized the device, though unsure what it was. He checked his System connection. Offline. Good.
He clicked on the device’s representation on the desktop — a small icon of an empty drive — and then opened a folder next to it. Inside the folder was the executable script that would automatically install the firmware and software onto his translation device, and he dragged it over and released it onto the drive icon. A task bar popped up briefly, but the installation was quick — less than a second — and the ding of a successful transfer sounded through his wall-mounted speakers.
Sweet. He unplugged the device and took a deep breath. This is it.
He’d worked for five hours on the program — longer than he’d worked on one particular project in the last three years by a factor of ten. He was confident it would work, but he hadn’t tested it through an emulator or compiler yet. He didn’t want any Grid-ready station to see his little invention until he was ready to roll. Just to be safe.
That had been his mantra for the day, but he wasn’t sure if it was a reminder or a weak attempt to convince himself. There is no suck thing as safe. Not in this world.
The device powered on, a simple blue light on the back of the case, and he stuck his thumb out and pressed it onto the fingerprint scanner.
A second passed, then two. His mind raced with all of the possibilities of failure — bad firmware, buggy software, a missed global variable here or there — it was an endless list.
Then he heard a faint beep. A board-installed tiny speaker alerted him that something had changed. The light switched to green.
Print accepted.
So far, so good. The device had accepted his fingerprint as his own, internally comparing it to the one that matched his pID — a security measure he’d added last-minute — and given him the go-ahead to attempt a connected translation.
He clicked on the station’s connection control module, a tiny program that normally ran in the background as an ongoing task, and turned on the connection to the Grid and net hardwired into his apartment.
He quickly ran through the checklist in his mind: the station would accept the device as an installed auxiliary component, the connection would allow the device’s translated signal to pass through, and a failure would come back. The failure was a necessary step, since he hadn’t yet set up a static IP for the device, and the System would refuse to recognize it as a unique and “live” component.
He readied himself — sitting up straighter and planting his feet firmly on the floor — and pressed his finger onto the scanner once more.
The two seconds passed and the device lit up with a green lit once again. He watched the station’s screen as the information passed through the device, onto the station, and out via the connection. He tried to visualize the data, strings of millions of ones and zeros, flying along at the speed of light to their destination.
The signal was received, and immediately a response was initiated. Less than a second passed before Jonathan stared at the answer:
System lookup initiated: pID confirmed. Begin data transfer.
No. It couldn’t be. Jonathan stared at the screen, trying to decipher the confirmation message.
It was supposed to fail. He purposefully hadn’t created a static for the device, which meant the System wasn’t supposed to recognize it as a new, “live,” device, which meant he should have received a failure message.
The confirmation message glowed back at him, taunting him. pID confirmed.
The System had allowed him access.
He felt his blood run cold, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
He stood up, his hands behind his head, still staring down at the screen. When he finally looked up two minutes later, his eyes found the window on the wall above his desk. He stared out into the sky and watched as a family of four left their apartment with a small overnight bag slung over each of their shoulders.
He frowned as he watched them step into their vehicle and slide away from the apartment. Another family — this one just a couple and their cat — leave an apartment across the street from Rand’s house.
Still frowning, he watched as yet another couple, carrying a small child, exited one of the larger house at the end of the block. He recognized the man as a higher up at a competing tech firm down the street from Vericorp. He’d shaken his hand once at a party, and even waved at him as he came home from work.
He sat back down and opened his mail program. The hair on his neck still stood straight up, causing him to feel cold, as if a window had been opened directly behind him and a blast of cold air shot through.
There was one unread email, and he clicked it. He found himself somehow growing even colder as he read the first line.
> Umutsuz, STATUS CHANGE.
>
> Umutsuz, CURRENT STATUS: DEACTIVATED.
He didn’t need to finish the rest of the email to know what it said. “Deactivation.” Or, in other words, get out.
An entire city. At the same time.
He tried to remember ever hearing of something like that, and couldn’t. Cities that were all but abandoned, their inhabitants already reassigned or deactivated, sure. Cities of fewer than ten thousand or so, possibly.
But Umutsuz, a city of almost a million people? This was unheard of.
He didn’t know what the full situation was, but he had the uncanny feeling that he had played at least a small part in it.
MYERS
“MERRICK, HANG ON,” MYERS FINALLY let the words slip out. He’d tried to just keep walking, to just put one foot in front of the other, but he finally had to give in to his body’s pleading.
Merrick stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “We’re less than half a mile out, Asher, you don’t think you can make it to the gate?”
Myers shook his head, then realized that Merrick couldn’t hear that. “No — no, I’m not sure I can. I’m sorry. Kill me here and take me in that way.”
Myers saw the big man’s shoulders rise in a deep sigh. He turned around and faced him. “Asher, I’m not going to kill you.”
“You — you’re not?” Myers frowned. “I thought you were going to turn me in or something; sell me.”
“I am. I’m just not going to kill you first.” He walked a few paces back to Myers’ position and squatted down to his level. “You’re posting higher than anyone I’ve ever seen on the Board, and it seems like a waste to just off you.”
Myers understood. “Ah, I get it. You need me to stay alive long enough to be able to fund your dream vacation. That it?”
Merrick nodded. “Yeah. Something like that. Seriously, though. We have to keep moving.”
Myers watched Merrick’s eyes move slowly up and away from him, back the direction they’d come from. He was still for a moment, watching silently. Testing.
“What are you looking for?”
Merrick didn’t speak for another ten seconds, but when he did he didn’t turn back to Myers. He kept staring. “They’re coming for you, Myers. For both of us. Word’s going to get out about the crash, and that you got away. They’ll know you were helped, and I’m the only one assigned directly to this region, so they’ll come for me, too.” He stood, offering Myers a hand.
Myers took it and felt himself being pulled u
pward quickly. This man was rugged, probably from years of living out here. He steadied himself and looked at Merrick. “Who’s coming, Merrick? Hunters?”
Merrick nodded as they started walking again. The city of Umutsuz loomed ahead of them, though it seemed much smaller than the abandoned city of Istanbul. He could see rows of similar-looking houses and a few larger buildings poking out above them. The city was probably a mile or two in diameter.
“Sort of. They’re hunters, like me, but Unders.” Myers must have had a confused expression on his face, so Merrick explained. “People who operate outside the realm of the System. They live and move around ‘under the radar.’ The System knows about them, but they’re not subject to the same rules as the cities. They use Current, like we all do, but the System only tracks it locally.”
“Only tracks it in a certain area?”
“No, only recognizes it as a ‘local transaction of bandwidth.’ Everyone has these terminals.” Merrick pulled out a small computer device from his backpack and showed it to Myers. “Most of us in the System have a Current level associated with our pIDs, and it goes where we go. My fingerprint can pull up my Current as easily as my passcode, or my terminal. It’s much simpler that way.”
Myers thought he followed. “Right — it’s a bank account. But these ‘Unders’ have a different System?”
“No, they don’t have a System at all. They have terminals, too, but their terminals are like, uh, valuables. Or a wallet. They have their Current levels assigned to them, but if they lose the terminal, they’re out of luck. They use their fingerprint anywhere and the System simply refuses to recognize it.”
“Okay, got it. And how did they get that way?”
“They chose it, for whatever reason. Those guys back there? They’re professional hunters, Unders living away from society. They collect bounties put on people the System no longer needs, and go from region to region collecting, then they sell what they can on the markets and turn around and do it again. That pack of guys is new to the area, but they’ve clearly done well for themselves. That Tracer they were in is pretty state-of-the-art, and their guns weren’t too shabby, either. And there’s no amount of Current that can get them legally.”
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