Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World

by Fabio Fernandes

  Escape

  Gabriel Cantareira

  São Paulo. Thursday, February 20th, 2031 — 4 PM

  Have you ever truly believed in something? So much that you had to risk everything, including your own life?

  The immensity of white concrete and glass skyscrapers invaded the blue skyline, as if it wanted to reach the clouds. In the summer, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the solar panels that covered the buildings and followed the movement of the sun throughout the day lined up so that what light could escape from the matrices of photoelectric cells was reflected in the direction of the Cairo building. From there the impression was that the new Avenida Paulista had turned into a celestial pathway, surrounded by towers of light.

  Mariana had always liked that view, but she had no time to enjoy it that day. She turned quickly and called the elevator impatiently. Some time later, the doors opened and she entered. She had to wait while other people walked in slowly, talking. She cursed softly when someone yelled for them to hold the door, and surprisingly the request was answered. Curious how the calm and patience of other people can sound like a personal insult when you don’t have time to lose.

  Nervous, she pressed her left hand, closed around the small memory card, to her chest. Getting it out of the building shouldn’t be so difficult, but making sure it arrived at its destination would be another story entirely. It didn’t help that she felt as if all the occupants of the elevator were watching her, that she would be caught at any moment.

  A few years ago, this task would have been easy. All she had to do was put the information on her PDA or mobile phone and the internet would do the rest, ensuring that anyone she wanted, anywhere in the world, would receive all the information contained in the card in a matter of minutes. Taking certain cautionary measures, it would be almost impossible to detect that specific data in the universe of information that was sent through the network every day. However, the internet was no longer what it used to be. Free flow of information is too dangerous a thing for governments and corporations.

  Taking into account that virtually all non-sensitive information was transmitted via the internet and that it was possible to be connected at any time and from any place, the mere fact of carrying a memory card seemed suspicious. The card also had a security measure that ensured that the data was erased at the original source after a possible transfer to maintain the uniqueness of the information. That is, she also could not create copies of the content to increase her chances. Not without the proper equipment.

  The elevator stopped at three more floors before reaching the ground floor. Finally, Mariana reached the main hall of the building, where busy people walked everywhere. She tried to blend in with the crowd and walk toward the exit. It would be difficult not to be recognized there, but the young woman hoped that when they realized that they should be behind her, she would be far away. As expected, some people greeted her, to which she just smiled and nodded nervously. Apparently, everything was still under control.

  Home Sweet Home.

  When she left the building, Mariana was greeted by the usual massive movement of the renovated center of São Paulo. The landscape from the top five minutes ago now loomed around her in detail: on the ground level of the imposing buildings covered with panels decorating the avenue, you could see the logos of the various corporations and companies that made their address: Solutions Solaris Technology, Advent Corporation, HSA Industries. Among the people on the sidewalks, dozens of armed guards with tactical equipment patrolled their beats. Luminous glass plates and OLED screens displayed advertisements of the city, large companies and their products. In one, a young black-haired girl appeared smiling while an HSA logo (which seemed to be the reason for so much glee) decorated the image. Mariana tried to ignore her surroundings and hurried to the Trianon-MASP subway integration station.

  Beautiful, clean and elegant, the new center of São Paulo comprised a large region, including old areas such as Bela Vista, Jardim Paulista, and Liberdade. Planned to be safe and almost self-sufficient in terms of energy, the place was described as the throbbing heart that injected new life into a city that saw its glory vanish a few years earlier.

  The third decade of the 2000s saw the world entering a new great war. The tensions generated by the nations’ desire to control fossil fuel reserves so they could ensure their future development led to ever-widening conflicts that eventually reached global scale. However, the war was less spectacular than predicted by the great philosophers and Hollywood writers: within two years most conflicts had ceased and almost no weapons of mass destruction had been used. Globalization can be a problem for militarism, since a nation’s civilian population will find it difficult to accept killing enemies who watch the same TV programs as they do.

  Well, war indeed changes things.

  An unpredictable result of the war was that the very fuel depots being fought over collapsed. The planet lost more than 70 percent of its known fuel reserves thanks to the development of Johnson-Cury technology, which allowed sabotage of oil and gas reserves on a permanent basis. Thanks to this, the nations had to focus their attention on alternative means of generating energy. Accidents at nuclear power plants during the war made most nations search for cleaner alternatives. Energy restructuring consumed much of the development effort over the next few years, so the technology advancement was a bit slower than previously seen.

  Although Brazil had left the war in a favorable situation, the country had its share of destruction. With its infrastructure damaged during the conflict, São Paulo was abandoned by its population and its economy when the government showed no interest in rebuilding it. Slowly, the remaining buildings were abandoned and industries closed. However, the situation changed in the following years. Thanks to private initiative, renovation works began. Several corporations demonstrated an interest in reviving the pre-war metropolis, but with the structure and planning necessary to make it a cultural, economic, and social center, not the congested and deficient node that the city was turning into, even before the war.

  Of course there was a catch. The signed agreement guaranteed that the involved corporations would exert total control over the renewed area, having the autonomy to put in practice any measures that they considered necessary. Combined with the corrupt nature of the government, this control meant carte blanche for the area to be managed as it pleased. Essentially, the renovated center would become a large private condominium for those who possessed sufficient resources. Corporations gradually became more obsessed with control and the established rules turned into oppression and censorship of anything the directors judged to be outside the desired standards.

  And now this. Mariana still did not want to believe that they would really be able to do something like that. It was for this reason that she decided to act. She could not let them do as they pleased, not when human lives were involved. Although she knew she would not be able to do much, she found she was not alone. Thus it was possible to devise a plan to try to prevent what seemed inevitable.

  All or nothing.

  The station was not so full at that moment, as there were still a few hours until the departure time of the citizens who would fill the platforms. Driven by superconducting magnetism, the trains moved in and out of the station at a steady pace, moving to other parts of the city by means of an expanded rail network over the old subway lines and the city’s rail network. Although the MASP building no longer existed, the station had kept its name by tradition. Its glass walls and white tiles displayed dozens of other colored panels and logos along the corridors leading to the underground platforms. Mariana walked down one of the corridors that led to a platform downstairs and entered one of the station’s restrooms before continuing.

  She washed her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror. A young woman with short, dark hair, green eyes and a tired air stared at her with a nervous look on the other side. She wondered if it would be a good idea to try to disguise herself before moving on. Probably
not. She sighed and tried to prepare for what she still had to do. Gathering her strength, she headed for the platform.

  6 PM

  The subway reached Paraíso Station. The people inside the wagon looked apathetic as good citizens should be, each too busy with their own affairs to notice the other individuals around them. For the first time in her life, Mariana considered this egocentrism a relief. Several screens arranged inside the vehicle displayed newspapers, notices or more advertisements. The images of a newscast caught the young woman’s attention for a moment, making her bring her hand to her temple to synchronize the cellular device coupled to her ear with the sound transmission of the news.

  “…This morning, the crew of the Ascension spacecraft returned home, in charge of maintaining the solar space station Icarus, responsible for 32% of the country’s energy supply. Despite the indications that the return trip could offer difficulties, fortunately, there were no problems.”

  Built four years earlier, the Icarus Station had been considered one of the hopes for the generation of energy for the next decades, along with other great works like the Berlin fusion reactor. The station consisted of a large network of stationary satellites that captured solar energy and transmitted it to the Earth’s surface using microwaves.

  That news had a direct connection to why it was so important that the memory card reach its destination. An obscure society composed of the owners of the largest corporations in the country had decided that the model developed in São Paulo was good, but it needed to be expanded. Control of the city was not enough when they could have control of the country and its population.

  This was the other less publicized purpose for which the Icarus system had been conceived. A space station of gigantic proportions destined for the capture and transmission of solar energy that demonstrated all the progress and human development…until the eventual moment in which it would be sabotaged and would collide with the Earth, razing a great urban area in the process. The sabotage would be declared a terrorist attack, and the government, holding a country in panic with a third of its population and industries in the dark, would be grateful to relegate crowd control and security of territory into the hands of the companies who would kindly offer to help in such difficult times. To maintain security and progress, works would need to be done. People would need to be watched. Certain freedoms would need to be set aside to maintain order.

  All for the greater good.

  The memory card was so important because it stored details of that plan: which sections of the station would be sabotaged; what was the site of the fall on the earth’s surface; which people were involved in each stage of the project. Getting it hadn’t been easy at all. It was the only hope of preventing the catastrophe from happening.

  The station lights made her switch off the sound and turn her attention to the world around her. Before the train stopped, Mariana noticed a strange movement in the station and decided to go down as soon as the doors opened, afraid to be trapped in case something happened to the car. Her suspicions were confirmed, as soon as she left the train doors closed again. People who were still trying to leave the composition looked from one side to the other, confused, while those who planned to enter began to riot on the platform. The ads displayed on the station’s dashboards suddenly popped orange, displaying a sign saying “WARNING: trains and exits are temporarily disabled. Thanks for understanding.”

  It made Mariana’s heart race. She hadn’t thought the siege would close around her so fast. Now it was for real.

  Uniformed and equipped guards appeared in corridors and stairs at the ends of the station. She had seen more security than usual on the Trianon-MASP platform; She didn’t know if it was really because of her, but she had managed to get on the train before she was forced to find out. The security guards at the Paraíso Station seemed to be looking for someone, this time with much less finesse, paving the way among the people trapped in the place. The way they came directly toward the train eliminated any doubt. She lowered her head and walked across the platform. Both stations also had dozens of cameras and sensors, and she was probably passing through all of them.

  Locked doors: how to escape? Come on, think.

  Mariana found what might be an escape route as she heard the security guards question passengers for information about a wanted terrorist who had a description uncomfortably similar to hers. The station was being expanded and there were several sections under construction, among them a new platform that connected to the one it was now. Apparently, the safety system of the corridor under construction had not yet been connected to the station’s central hub, since the portals were still open. As soon as she heard a commotion behind her and noticed people pointing toward her, the girl passed through the tracks isolated by the works without thinking twice and ran.

  She ran as fast as her body allowed. She made her way to the platform under construction and continued to dart between debris and equipment left by corridors dimly lit by poorly placed white LED lights or spotlights. The path seemed strangely long. She could hear hurried footsteps around her, but she could not tell where they came from; it was as if they were everywhere. It made for a claustrophobic feeling: the white tile walls under construction suddenly seemed oppressive, and the tension grew at every turn of that maze of corridors, which could prove to be the end of the line, in a sudden merging with the owners of all those steps. Mariana felt a cold sweat trickling down her face from running and feeling nervous.

  When she finally reached the hall with the stairs that led to the surface, the feared meeting took place. Several patrol guards blocked the entrances. The amount of equipment and weapons they carried left her worried. The thought that they probably believed she was a terrorist scared her even more. Her apprehensions were interrupted by the cries of the guards indicating that she had been spotted. The young woman ran again, this time back to the platform under construction. She almost panicked when she heard deafening sounds of gunfire echoing in the hallway as holes appeared on the walls around her.

  Back on the platform, she hid as quickly as possible behind a large tiled box. The guards soon arrived and began to search for her. One of them issued orders and urged the others to undertake a search of the place and to move in for a siege. She remained silent and caught her breath, feeling the throbbing pulse as the guards walked around her.

  She knew they would find her if she stayed there for a long time. So, as soon as one of the guards passed by and opened some distance, she took advantage of the opening and ran, going through all of them as fast as she could. She hurried through the corridors as she heard a new commotion behind her and crossed the now empty hall toward the stairs to the surface. She remembered leaving an electric motorcycle somewhere nearby in case of an emergency, and now was probably the time to pick it up.

  8 PM

  Mariana was still running. Her chest ached with the exertion, and her body offered more and more resistance to her commands. She knew she couldn’t stop. She knew they were still after her. She was tired and afraid, but she couldn’t give up while there was so much depending on her.

  She had been forced to dump her motorcycle, and now she was in an old warehouse in an area far from the city proper. Under the sunset, the place looked rather bleak. The building was surrounded by a huge junkyard, filled with carcasses of old cars, unable to run without fossil fuel. She had come a long way since leaving the station. But though she was heading for increasingly difficult access, her pursuers remained ruthless in pursuit. She had kept them busy for some time in a game of cat and mouse among those relics of a bygone age, but now she felt that she could no longer mislead them. Her only option was to keep running while her strength remained.

  The storage was gloomy, lit only by the light of the setting sun coming through the windows. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t seen anything. Maybe it was because she was exhausted.

  She felt her body suddenly lose strength as she heard a muffled boom in the back of the shed. She collapse
d on the dusty floor when her right leg refused to respond to her commands.

  No. Please no.

  Bullet wounds usually don’t cause pain at first. Though she imagined what had happened, the gravity of the situation only struck her when she noticed that there was blood on her clothes and a small puddle under her. Leaving a trail of blood on the ground, she crawled to a wall, where she leaned back and stared at the dark, trying to find her assailant.

  “You know, I swear I didn’t want to do this, but you left me no choice.”

  The shape of a man appeared at the bottom of the warehouse, advancing toward her. He wore a formal black suit with yellow details, tactical combat glasses, and carried a pistol equipped with a muffler in his right hand. Certainly someone more important than the guards Mariana had missed before. He stopped to speak on a communicator, his fingers to his ear.

  “Yes, I have everything under control now. I don’t want anyone else in here.”

  The sounds she heard outside began to quiet down. Apparently, the guards were obeying the order. The man turned his attention back to her.

  “You gave us a hell of a job, you know that? It has been a considerable feat to stand up to now, even more so considering you have no training at all.” He bent down to check the wound on her body. The dark hole in her right thigh bled profusely.

  “Let’s cut a deal. I can help you, but I need the data you got. Where are they?”

  “You’ll never get them back,” she moaned. “I’m sorry.”

  Now she was in pain. More than she could ever have imagined. The simple attempt to move her leg made her body shudder to a stop, and she couldn’t breathe.