Up The Tower

by J. P. Lantern

  She grabbed the support pillar between the shattered windows. Using her tech hand, she bent the steel top of the antenna around the pillar. A rush job. Probably wouldn’t hold very long.

  Ore watched Ana and Victor arguing minutely over who was next. Over and over, Ana pointed, until finally Victor picked Ana up into the antenna and pushed her along.

  She made it across quickly—quicker than Ore, actually—facing no problems with the antennae’s spindly structure. Her muscles pulsed as she moved across, every limb a hook. She was a gymnast, maybe. Full of grace.

  Even so, despite all her ability, the antenna sank and jerked as she crossed. The knife at her belt fell out of its sheath to the crowd below, inciting a round of shouts and curses.

  Ore held out a hand for her as she crossed the final feet.

  “Here we are,” Ana breathed, collapsing next to Ore. “Here we are. Oh my god. What the hell, today.”

  Rain started to fall as Victor began his trek—a random splatter of wetness that Ore was used to by now in the region. Probably it wouldn’t last any longer than a few minutes, but every minute that they had, they had to use. Victor kept crossing.

  Victor neared the end of the antenna, and then it buckled suddenly, all its weight surging back and up. The metal Ore wrapped around the Tower window frame tugged hard, the steel crunching outward against its concrete anchor. On top of Radio Place, more concrete lifted up—just one support actually left on the building. Victor banged down hard, almost losing his grip, and Ore shot out an arm and grabbed him.

  No real reason for it. They were on a team, was all. Ore stuck by her team, so long as she had her way. And maybe if she couldn’t save anyone else today—if she couldn't save Samson—then at least she had saved this one. Ana grabbed his other arm, and Victor walked up the glass below and pulled inside with them. He gave Ore a quick pat on her shoulder and then pulled Ana in for a long hug.

  Ana looked surprised, her hands swaying out in jazzy flexing motions. Victor’s hug was intimate, but not in the sense of lovers. It was different, it was—

  Shouting out surprise, Ana pushed Victor away.

  “Gary?”

  Ore looked back across the gap and saw the boy from before—the jazzkid punk who had fought her. What the hell?

  He scurried up over the planks adjacent to the radio building and stumbled onto the roof where the three of them had been just ten minutes before. Yelling excitedly, grinning like the fool Ore knew he was, he called out Ana's name, waving both hands. The rain still splattered down—he was rather wet.

  Gary approached the antenna, examining it slow. He shuffled on his feet, one and then the other, prodding the antenna like it was a dead animal. The long metal structure dropped a few feet in the middle, shrieking out into the din of the riot below. The drop inspired him to hop up over its metal pipes and start his way over.

  “No, Gary!” Ana put a hand to her face. “Oh god. Idiot.”

  Unlike the rest of them—who just swung below the antenna—he tried walking and then crawling on top of it. His feet slid on the rain-wet surface of the pipes, hands waving all about even as he moved forward. They all three stood transfixed, watching his awkward struggle against gravity and his own body mass.

  “Oh god,” Ana murmured. “We have to cheer him, right? That’s the thing to do since he’s doing it now.” Taking her own cue, she shouted, “Come on! You can make it, but you have to hurry!”

  Drunks in the crowd beneath them echoed her cry in crass, long-winded oohs and bellows.

  The antenna let out a long groan, swinging in the wind and rain. With an enormous creak, it sunk into its middle and snapped up like a gator’s jaw.

  Gary swung wildly, his body slamming to the side. Ore found her tech hand wrapped around the antenna tip against the frame of the building—instinctively there, saving the boy.

  He had, for whatever dumbass reason, tried to fight her. It was nothing to her whether he lived or died. But watching him struggle, trying to make it on the Tower...

  She couldn’t explain it. She felt like they were all in this mess together now.

  It seemed like Ana felt that way too. She grabbed a fire hose from out of the hallway and wrapped it around a pillar in the middle of the room. She tossed the nozzle to Victor.

  “You’re gonna have to throw it. I’ll pull.”

  He nodded, and began to whirl it overhead. With a grunt, he tossed the nozzle out—too short. Gary noticed the throw only after the nozzle had already fallen down, the antenna sinking a little bit lower.

  Victor wrapped the hose up and whirled and threw the nozzle out again—too far to the right, and Gary tripped off the antenna trying to grab it. He landed on the struts hard, scooped on them with his armpit. He was close enough that Ore could see the sweat on his face, the thick lines of frustration and fear around his eyes.

  Once again, Victor pulled in the nozzle without hurry or hesitation. Eyes narrowed, he tossed the nozzle out one more time, knocking Gary squarely in the face. Grip flailing, Gary tottered off the antenna, but somehow managed to attach himself to the nozzle and the hose.

  Swinging hard, he plunged downward and slammed against the windows below them. Ana let out a hard breath, skidding around the room as she tried to steady herself. Ore let go of the antenna and pulled with her, tugging and letting Ana wrap the hose around her waist to keep it anchoring upward. At the window, Victor kept pulling—his face steady, empty. He swept his foot across the edge, clearing away the glass as Gary finally swung an arm up over the edge. Just as he did, the antenna swept past him, screaming down tip first to the street below.

  The people there did not all get away in time.

  “Holy cow,” Gary breathed, coming up over the edge. “How about that?”

  * * * * *

  The last time Samson had seen his sister, the absolute last time, it had been a rather nice day.

  Several years back, before Crash and Petrov really started clamping down on security, there had been a picnic and park area on the top of several conjoined buildings adjacent to the Tower, easily accessed by a long skywalk on the fortieth floor. Vertical Park. Those buildings were torn down, now, the skywalk scrapped.

  Samson couldn’t remember all that much of the day. He was four at the time, after all.

  Sometimes he would recall his age at certain events and be surprised. When the TeriFun holostick franchise debuted, for instance, he remembered spending hours and hours with the cheap knockoffs that his parents could afford—the ones that came out just days after the real thing, mass-produced in Junktown labs and factories. These community factories pooled money together and bought one TeriFun stick, and then tried to replicate it with the 3D workshops they made for themselves. Two to three dozen factory workers were killed from the anti-piracy controls on the device. Tampering with the patented product, or at least tampering incautiously, fried some of these entrepreneurial souls with enormous electrical current.

  Samson got one as early as he did because his father had a friend who worked in such a factory. Part of the friend's pay was taking home the knockoffs and selling them.

  Later on, when he looked back on it, he was a bit surprised to find out that he was only three when they came out. That he had been disassembling, rebuilding, adding on at that age. It seemed not so long ago—it seemed like his brain had only really turned on when he was seven or maybe eight, but that was long after his parents’ death, and so that didn’t make sense.

  Sometimes—most times, in fact—he wished that his brain worked about half as well. That he could forget like other people forgot, that he could stop problem-solving, that he could stop rationalizing, that every last emotional output he had didn’t have to make every kind of sense in the world to him. Why couldn’t he just let things go?

  Anyway. He and his family traveled out to Vertical Park and had a nice lunch.

  There were other families there. The weather was too nice for just one family to be out on their own. That was okay,
though. They had their own small plot and laid out a checkered blue blanket next to the bench. Dad took the bench—he was always having trouble with sitting down on the ground. The drugs in his system stiffened him up. He didn't even lie down to go to sleep for fear of not being able to get to work on time. His mother, she was affected too—her vision. She couldn't see in the dark, anymore. Her eyes adjusted to nothing.

  Samson's sister had always had features too severe for her to be considered pretty. He remembered thinking she looked like a statue, the way she presided over the picnic, not talking or moving. She was ten at the time.

  He approached her as his mother and father readied the food, throwing a fluffy toy at her. Trying to get her to play. She picked it up sadly, tossing it from one hand to another. They were on the edge of the blanket, near the edge of the building. Small plants sat in the stone ring around the park.

  “I don’t know how much you understand,” Ore said to him. “How much do you understand?”

  He shrugged. “Lots.”

  “I’m leaving, all right? They don’t know yet.”

  Samson nodded. “You're gone lots.”

  “I don’t mean like that. I mean I ain’t going to get back into the Tower much at all. I got to run my own way, all right? So you ain’t gonna see me much. But I’ll still be with you.”

  “How?”

  “I...don’t know.” She shook her head. “I wish I brought something. I wish...”

  Samson had something. He had it in his pocket. He had made it for himself, but that was okay. He could make more. It was a small metal acorn, sort of. Little dents pockmarked it—a metal asteroid.

  “Here,” he said.

  He twisted the top half of the nut and then pressed it inward. Immediately it sprang in the air, unfolding itself. When it landed again, the acorn had become a little man. It was a little man with big flappy arms and legs and part of an acorn on its head, but a man nonetheless.

  Samson flipped a little switch on its back, and the acorn man lay down serenely and folded back up.

  Ore took it, smiling small like she did.

  Mom opened up the basket then, and they all set about to eating. Ore made jokes and laughed at the jokes of others.

  The next day, she was gone, and he came to believe after a lot of crying and a lot of questioning that he would never see her again.

  * * * * *

  Is that what you sweatin’, baby? That you gonna die? Don’t sweat that, baby. We all gonna die. You could die just later today.

  You won’t die, though? Right, Crash?

  Nah, baby. You done me good. I ain’t gonna die.

  “Hello! Partner-Samson! Are you okay?”

  Samson woke, his body hurting.

  He was alive. And without expecting to, all he felt was disappointed.

  The walls of his room were full of holes, and The Tower around him was definitely broken—or breaking, with shelves of concrete rolling down on themselves. Pipes and wires pushing out like metal-plastic pasta from the walls and floors. Everything unsteady.

  “Yeah,” said Samson. “I think so. Yeah.”

  It was dark, and Samson’s vision was still blurry. Probably he took a blow or two to the head. He patted himself for blood, injuries, and found nothing—nothing on the outside, anyway. All his bones were sore, rattled to the core.

  Samson tried to stand. Partner gripped his waist and helped him up.

  “There you go!” said the copbot. “That is fantastic! You're standing! Safety protocol Seven-Eight-Eight worked to a beauty!”

  “Safety protocol...?”

  “You will recall the metal parachute I mentioned. Very useful. Better for rubble and debris than Two-Four-Five-Seven. Although, I will reveal that it's been a subject of debate in the database—”

  “That's all right. That's enough.”

  Samson stepped through the broken pile of his room. “We've got to get out of here.”

  “Yes! We are in concordance. Let's do it. On my mark, then.”

  With exultant French horns blaring from his shoulder-speakers, Partner slammed into the wall and opened a hole.

  “Follow!” it called. “Quickly, follow!”

  The ceiling began to rain down. Samson hopped through the opening just as his lab closed up, more debris from the floors above landing there.

  All his work. His whole life, right there in that room. Gone. He wouldn't go back in again. For a moment, he leaned against Partner's metal frame, staring in disbelief. Trying to plan some way through the rubble. What if they went around to the window, somehow, went outside? He could leap, maybe, and...

  No. No, it was all gone.

  “God.”

  “I am not familiar.” Partner shrugged. Apologetic. “I understand many problems surround him.”

  “No, I wasn't...it's an expression. I don't know.”

  Samson hadn't had much reason or discourse when it came to god. God was a word, not one he knew all too well.

  The wall was gone in the room they were in. An office of some kind. Samson stepped near the edge, looking out. God was a word, and he knew it better now.

  God was the earth folding up like some deep maw. God was fires in buildings and a dam that whipped and folded, ready to bust. God was a mass of people dying and dying and dying.

  Bigger than what he could ever know or understand. That was God.

  “You had better step away,” said Partner. “Winds get choppy this high.”

  “Yes.”

  Samson walked away, taking Partner's hand.

  “Yes, okay.” His mind cleared some. “Upstairs. We have to get upstairs. To the top. There's an escape pod, okay? We have to reach it. That's the only way we'll live.”

  Partner grinned. “Nothing like a good plan.”

  The copbot set to clearing the debris from the front of the room. Samson watched it, not sure how to help. It was all too heavy for him to move—giant chunks of concrete, great steel beams. The walls folded down and in, all the bones of the Tower’s heavy body sticking out at odd angles. All of it sharp, busted, ready to hurt.

  “You've saved my life many times now, you know.”

  “Yes!” said Partner. “It is more fun every time. You are good to save, Samson-Partner. No doubt the database will swell with accolades for our many episodes.”

  If there was a kind of balance to the world, Samson did not know that he had seen it. Mostly what he had seen was that he lived, and everyone close to him died or ran away and then died. Meanwhile, he kept ticking. Meanwhile, he almost killed a robot that had saved his life three times.

  “Have you ever killed anybody before, Partner?”

  Somehow, it would have made Samson's life easier if Partner had.

  “Have I?” The copbot tossed down a huge block of concrete. “No. Not as such! I have much, much data, however.”

  “The data of other copbots?”

  “Yes. The database. We are supposed to remember and learn.”

  “So you know about killing?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you remember dying many times, also?”

  “Yes. From what I have seen, it happens quickly. A flash.”

  “That's because you—they, I mean—are all exploding.”

  “You have no flash when you die?”

  Samson hadn't considered it much. “I don't know.”

  “It is comforting. This is the database letting you know there is something else coming. There could not be a flash without a light, first.”

  The copbot continued to unload the debris from the door. Samson could feel his courage building.

  “Partner, you know, I have to tell you something. I—”

  With a short trumpet blare, Partner pummeled through the last of the debris.

  “Ah! Done. To the top, yes! It will be no time, now!”

  The moment had passed. Samson followed Partner through the dust and out into the remains of the hall.

  * * * * *

  Victor was born in a la
rge tube a little more than ten years before the day of the quake. He was grown for espionage and killing. Mostly killing.

  In the dichotomous world that Groove and Tri-American had created, there were several rich men, a few filthy rich men, and some men with so much money that their filthiness could not possibly be contained appropriately with words. The Citizens of the world—a mere five percent of the population—held ninety-five percent of the world’s wealth. That is rich enough. But then, there are the Shareholder Citizens, who consist of five percent of that Citizen population, and hold ninety percent of that wealth. And then, there are the Executives, possessing another ninety-percent slice.

  There were twenty of these last kind of men, these Executives. Of these twenty, ten had Alphabets.

  An Alphabet was a series of twenty-five clones, each modeled off the original Alpha, or Executive. Each clone was designed for specific purposes—a Delta worked in a house as a cook and steward, for example, while others like Hotels and Indias were redundancies of the same function (to serve as emissaries of the Alpha for business negotiations overseas).

  In this way, an Alpha could easily live his whole life without ever worrying about business again, rest assured in the fact that all decisions made in the future by his clones would, in essence, be made by him. There were exceptions—the exact science of cloning was sometimes not quite as exact as advertised. Clones could get a little wonky. Oscars and their loyalties, for example, or Limas with their constant philandering.

  Victors were killers, though, through and through. As a rule of thumb, the higher-up on the Alphabet a clone was, the more important his job.

  For the first two years of his life, Victor trained in combat. It was literally all he knew: hand-to-hand, firearms, energy weapons, knives, staves, all of that. The next three years were language—English, Chinese, Indonesian, Slavic, German, Russian, and Turkish.

  He was not sure even which executive he was a clone of—he just knew that he was a clone, that he worked for Groove, and that his Alpha had a far reach.