by Clay Gilbert
But I’ve got a hunch that’s not the case with this fellow, he thought. Jude still couldn’t clearly see the person who’d spoken. He still stood, shadowed and out of sight, in the doorway. “Come out where I can see you,” Jude said.
The stranger looked to be in his middle twenties. He wore the traditional grey robes of a Citizen, though his looked far less worn and dirty than did those of the guards outside the Towers. They looked, in fact, nearly new. His head was shaved, as Regulation dictated, but something seemed different about him: his eyes didn’t have the glazed look nor his voice the mechanized monotone that characterized the most devout of the Providers’ servants. And yet, thought Jude, he had to be Upper Level.
“Thanks for that,” Jude said, referring to the code word and still hoping the stranger wouldn’t ask why he didn’t already know it. He ignored the stranger’s question as to his own Level.
“I’m merely their servant,” the stranger said. “Do you do their work?” he asked Jude. Jude, who was about to type the passcode into the terminal, was startled by the stranger’s question. “What?” “Do you do their work? Do you seek their vengeance against the traitors?”
You mean, thought Jude, am I looking for someone to murder? No. “Yes,” he replied in a monotone voice. “I do their work.” Good. Maybe the dome will leave me alone now. Murderer.
ACCESS CODE REQUESTED, the terminal insisted. This time, I’m ready, thought Jude.
NEMESIS, he typed.
These are safe now, he thought, writing down the names on the screen. They’ll stay safe. When he’d written all the names down, he turned to leave, then stopped, gripped by a strange feeling.
REBELS, he typed. COROLLARY.
The Roll of the Remembered had grown longer.
They’ve killed again. There’s no time to lose. I have to get back to the Forgotten City. Soon. Before anyone else dies. He exited the building in quick strides, his mind intent on reaching Central Station and a skycar bound away from the Towers.
He didn’t see the stranger following him.
I have to tell Eternity, Jude thought. We have to find the others. All the other ones still free. Suddenly, he was grabbed from behind and a weight forced him to the pavement just outside the Towers.
Jude’s captor wrestled his arms behind his back, jerked him to his feet. Jude offered no resistance, afraid that if he did he’d either be shot or at least have both his arms broken for his trouble. At his throat, he felt the sudden pressure of a lasgun muzzle nestled against his jugular.
“What do you want?” he asked the stranger in a nervous voice, afraid any excessive movement or vocal expression would cause his captor to fire.
“To kill you, of course. Like you’re killing them.” “Killing who?” Jude asked. Somebody’s confused around here, that’s for sure.
“The people here. The ones who don’t believe in the Providers. The ones on the list.”
Jude’s act had been too convincing. But then, the stranger’s act, too, had Jude convinced he was one of their agents. “No! No!” Jude cried. “I’m not on their side! I’m not their agent!” The stranger pulled the lasgun’s muzzle back from Jude’s throat the tiniest bit, but he could still feel it. “Oh, so you don’t do their work after all?” he asked Jude.
“No,” Jude said. “I was telling you what I thought you wanted to hear.”
“What if that’s what you’re doing right now, just to save your murdering ass?” He has a point. “Ask me something then. Something one of us—someone from the Forgotten City—would know.” That word alone seemed to impress the stranger. “Well, you know what it’s called, anyway. That’s a start. What’s the main street in the Forgotten City called?”
I really will be a traitor if I’m telling him all this and he’s on their side, Jude thought, but how would he even know there was a main street in the Forgotten City?
“Crown Avenue,” he told the stranger.
“And where do you go on Crown Avenue to find the brains of the operation?”
The way the stranger said brains sounded like a code word. Looks like this guy could be the real deal after all. “Cortex Vortex, man,” Jude replied, and he felt the gun muzzle retreat entirely. “If you’re lying,” the stranger told him, “I can still kill you. But if you’re lying, you’ve got good sources. I’m guessing you’re all right. There are some of us here who haven’t been able just to take off for the Forgotten City, for one reason or another—so we just stayed here and tried to work from the inside. The rebellion in the City’s not very old. We’ve only been operating a few weeks, but we’re growing. More people are waking up. The new leader—Eternity—do you know him?”
“Yeah,” Jude said, with a rather proud smile. “He’s why I’m here.” “He’s the one that really got all of this started,” the stranger said. “Eternity’s different from Ace. He’s willing to stand up to them, and go further than just blowin’ shit up.” “Just better not say stuff like that around Eternity. He loved Ace.”
“Nothin’ wrong with Ace, though I never met ‘im, but Eternity’s special.”
“How much do you know about us?” Jude asked. “Come with me,” the stranger said as a skycar glided into the Central Station terminal and its doors slid open. “My name’s Morgan,” the stranger said, when the door was shut. “It’s my real one.”
“You don’t change your names?” Jude asked. “Some of us do. It’s not for security, like you. What would be the point of that? We’re in the City every day. We can’t change the waywe look. It’s practical for you, since the only ties you have to the City are your names. We try to work low-key, within the system. Our names are part of that system. Some of us change them, though. We know it’s a tradition in the rebellion. I know a little about the old stories, legends from before the Providers came. The things they don’t want us to remember. Myparents do too, turns out, and they taught me little bits here and there. ‘Morgan’ was a magician in one of those old legends. She was a girl, too, but whatcha gonna do?” He laughed.
Jude was shocked. He’d only heard stories about the stories, legends about the legends. Reading anything other than what was sanctioned by the state was forbidden in the Black City. The thoughtfeeds only taught you enough to barely get by. “That’s amazing. Really. Your parents—how did they know the old legends?”
“Stick around. There are waysto know what They don’t want known, man. I won’t say anymore ‘til we get to my place.” The skycar reached the Central Residential Sector, and they wasted no time disembarking. “I live here,” Morgan said, “just over from the station a couple blocks.”
It was safe enough in the City’s residential sectors, with their uniform, well-organized housing blocks. The streets were empty except for the Citizen Patrols keeping watch, lasguns at their side, pacing back and forth in pairs. The guards cast cursory glances at Jude and Morgan as they made their way by, then let them pass without a word.
“That’s it up ahead,” Morgan said, when it seemed to Jude as if they’d been walking at least a mile or more. Jude spotted it at once: a housingblock onlya few feet away, identical to the one in which his own parents, and presumablyEternity’s parents (althoughhe didn’t know) had lived. When theyreached the housing block, Morgan opened the door with his hand-scan on the security panel, and the two stepped inside the block’s elevator. “Second floor,” Morgan directed.
Morgan apparently lived alone, which Jude didn’t find particularly strange. His apartment was better furnished, by CenSec standards, than some, as it had a large couch and several chairs in the main room, as well as a dining compartment and three bedrooms, one large and two smaller ones of equal size. A glass wall occupied one side of the room, on which Jude imagined screencasts were transmitted several times a day, as they were all over the Black City.
“Sit down,” Morgan said to Jude. Jude made himself comfortable on the sofa, and Morgan seated himself in one of the chairs. “What were you doing in the Towers today, anyway—uh—”
“Jude. Not my real one, obviously. Whatever that was. I try not to remember.” Jude did remember, though—and he sensed Morgan recognized this. “I was doing—research— for Eternity.”
“Spying,” Morgan said.
“Yeah.”
Morgan didn’t ask why. He simply accepted what Jude had said. “I’ve seen their file on the Forgotten City,” Morgan said. “In a way, we owe you a lot. You’ve really taken the heat off of us. They know where you are, so they don’t expect us.”
“But how do they know?” Jude asked.
“I’m not sure. There are heat source tracers. Do you guys have any common heat sources with the City?” “Yeah. Almost all of them. It was more efficient, in the beginning—so no one thought about tracers. At least that’s what I’m told. It was a mistake. Just a stupid mistake.” Jude paused a moment. “What I want to know, though, is if they know we exist, why don’t they come for us? Why don’t they send an army from the City and just do away with us? They’ve got enough people, that’s for sure.”
“Distribution of forces,” Morgan answered. “A lot of people here, no matter how loyal they are to the Providers, are still terrified of the Deserted Sector. They’d go, but they wouldn’t be willing. Others would go if they gave the order—the same people who make up the street police and the guards, the same people who do the ‘detainments.’ But in either case, the Providers would have to make it known that they know your location—something they’ve always said they didn’t know. People might just start questioning why their Providers haven’t been providing protection for them against the so-called ‘deadly rebels.’ They’d rather people in the City were unified in fear of a mystery than possibly divided by the reality that their government hides things from them.”
“I see now,” said Jude. “They want to wait until we make a move, so they’ll have an excuse to move against us, so they can quietly reveal what they know without it seeming like they’ve been hiding things.”
Morgan said nothing. His brown eyes burned with intensity. “Jude. Our people—my people. I want you to meet some of them. Then maybe you’ll see why we don’t want to wait.”
“Call them.”
One by one, over the next hour, they drifted in, greeting Morgan. Apparently they meet here a lot. They’d have all been called ‘domes’ in the jargon of the Forgotten City, but in this case, their appearance was a matter of convenience rather than of submission. They all had the same look in their eyes, Jude noticed—thesame look he’d noticed when he’d first met Morgan. And, Jude reminded himself, he looked no different on the surface than they did.
Finally one of them spoke. “So, Morgan, who’s the new guy?”
“This is Jude,” Morgan said. “He’s with the Outside Rebellion. The First Rebels. Eternity’s people.” The youngman who’d spoken looked about eighteen, maybe a little older. He stepped up to Jude and put out his hand in greeting. Jude shook his hand.
“Myname’s Stephen,” he said.. “If you should ever need me, I’ll be here. I followed the accounts of your people on the screencasts. You’re what helped me follow my heart, and turn against them.”
Jude knew that by you, Stephen meant the people of the Forgotten City, but it made him feel warm and wanted nonetheless. Stephen had glinting green eyes like emeralds, and a face that seemed childlike in a way—maybe it was merely that he was a child in this new life: the life of the outcast, the seeker.
If you should ever need me, Stephen had said—a pledge of faith as good as any he might get in the Forgotten City. “Thanks,” Jude said. Towards the front of the room, Morgan began to speak.
“We meet here in silence, under secrecy, as always. There are no tracers here, so you need not fear reprisals. They cannot see us here, unless one of our own number would betray. You had the skill to free yourselves from detection. Now you must teach the City to free itself in truth.”
Jude recognized that this was a ritual, one way they connected with each other, here where theywere surrounded by enemies.
Then Morgan’s voice took on a more casual tone. “We’ve got someone here tonight who’s brought a challenge at a lot of risk to himself and the ones who sent him.”
“He’s got the names of the doubters—the people they suspect are disloyal to them. Those of you who are Upper Level know these names. Collectively, they’re known as ‘Nemesis’. Make no mistake, though, that’s what we all are to them. Enemies—just as much as those on the list, those they’d kill just for being different. It could be any of us.”
Jude listened to Morgan, and thought about Eternity. Was this how he mesmerized people in the Forgotten City? There were parallels—the same cause, certainly, but these were different worlds. One was secretive, furtive. A spark had to be kept alive—a willingness to risk all, and yet to act out a different reality on the surface, to make oneself a mirror for a lie. In the Forgotten City, there was at least a kind of openness. They were united, not surrounded within their very ranks by those who opposed them. In the Forgotten City, you could speak out loud, right on the streets, of free thought, of opposition to established ways, of new and better ways of life—even of a world, a life Beyond.
They’re doing that here, too, in their way. Even though it could cost them everything. At least, in comparison with the stragglers out there still striving to find what they believed and hold on to it, they were free. But even in the Forgotten City, they had to find ways to keep the fire of their faith burning.
“Many of us,” Morgan was saying, “have heard of the list. Some, like myself, have seen it. And we’ve watched it grow longer as they find ways to get our people—our fellow Citizens—to kill everyone with a spark of strange light in their eyes that they think doesn’t belong there. They sit high in the Towers and pull the strings of this whole City, while the doubters live a lie and wait in darkness—wait for the boots to come and kick in the door! And don’t doubt it— unless we do something, unless we keep working to be free—they will be coming. For your door, and for mine.”
Jude could feel the intensity stirred in the small crowd, an electricity that in the wrong hands, he knew, could turn to violence. He looked over at Stephen for a moment, and the glance stood the hairs on his arms on end as he saw Stephen’s eyes focused coldly, his face a contorted visage of concentrated hate.
“Now,” Stephen told the crowd, “give Jude your attention. He’s going to tell us what we have to do to bring them down for good.”
Jude pushed his way forward from the back of the room. What can I say to them? Then he knew he had to say what he’d intended to if he’d ever been given the chance. It was all he could do.
The crowd was silent as they watched the dark-eyed, wiry young man in the long coat and black boots make his way toward Morgan. His clothes, though not much different from their own, seemed to give them pause. There was something else that most of those in the assemblage noted, too: there was no angry flush to his face, no furyin his eyes. There was only calm determination.
“I have the names,” Jude told them, “and an idea. You’ve seen the names, and you haven’t wanted the detainments— the killings—to continue, but you were scared. You’ve got families. I know some of you even have children and husbands or wives. You don’t want their names to find their way to that list because of you. I know how you feel. My parents died because I was selfish, because I ran away from the City without thinking to protect them. But your families don’t have to die.”
Now he had their interest. Now they’d listen, no matter what else he said. “My people in the Forgotten City will help them. We’ll think of a way to save them without implicating any of you. Then, if we can keep any new names from being added to the list, our two groups can work together to stop Them once and for all.”
The crowd broke into applause, and it seemed sincerely thankful. Morgan took a small device from someone in the crowd and handed it to Jude. “This is a voceiver. Use it to signal us when weshould be ready, and to tell us your plans.”
/> The voceiver was a small, black, rectangular device with a speaker and two buttons, one red and one green. “The red one,” Morgan explained to Jude, “is for transmitting. You needn’t worry if we’ll hear you. Reception’s instantaneous if the device you’re contacting isn’t in use for transmission. We can’t transmit from here because we’ll be traced, but they can’t trace incoming voceiver signals, and the power source on the one you’ll be using for transmission is selfcontained, and small enough that it won’t be traceable out beyond the Wall. Jude—tell Eternity about us—and tell him ‘thanks.’”
By the time the others left, it was early morning.
“I should get back,” Jude said. “Eternity’ll want to know about all of this as soon as he can.”
“I’ll come with you as far as Central Station,” Morgan said. “You’re on your own from there.”
“I understand,” Jude said. Somehow, the skycar didn’t seem as cold on the return from Central Sector. Finally, we’re going to stop them. Finally, there’s a way.
CENTRAL TO WESTERN RESIDENTIAL, the skycar’s navigational screen read, registering the course he indicated. The Black City’s mass transit systems were effective, Jude had to admit. The car was nearly to the Western edge already. He felt a swirl of emotions within him. Just beyond this place, and beyond the Wall that separated the Deserted Sector from the rest of the City, was the Forgotten City—the place he’d come to call home. And here—here was—