“New building materials,” Akio said. Streams of vee-tols, looking like gnats, plied the inside of the Pyramid. There was a denser cloud of them near a round port on the ground. Rising up from the ground to around half the height of their vantage point were four other glass pyramids. Their exteriors were made of dark blue glass.
“Each of those has to be a kilometer high!” Kato said in awe. “They’re amazing feats of engineering in themselves! I kind of like the green parks in between, too. I wonder if you can rent flying machines?”
“I hope not, for your sake!” Zara said. At the very top, an artificial sun blazed. They just stared out at the view for a few minutes. A few people walked to and fro behind them in the corridor, studying them carefully as they passed. Zara scrunched her mouth to one side. “I think that’s where Central Park used to be,” she said, pointing almost straight down.
“Yes, it’s gotta be,” Kato said. He studied the parkland between the smaller pyramids. “That there’s probably part of the old lake. And I bet that’s Bethesda Fountain!”
Zara nodded, looking somewhat wistful. “At least they tried to preserve something belonging to the old city.”
“There is actually still a subway system,” Akio said. “It travels between the Pyramids and various points of interest. The Statue of Liberty is still there and you can get a train straight to it.”
“Hmmm,” Kato said.
“Let’s get to where we’re staying,” Zara said, turning to Akio. “I’m beat.” Akio led them along the gallery, to their left. After that, they headed left again and back into the structure of the Pyramid. They soon came to a bank of elevators. A few people stood around, waiting. “Looks like we have to go all the way down and across?” Zara said. Akio nodded.
“We can get there in one shot,” Akio said. “They don’t just travel vertically.” Presently, the doors nearest them pinged open, and they stepped into the glass and brushed metal car. Three dark-suited businesspeople, two men and one woman, followed them in. The doors sighed shut, and the car set off down inside the forty-five degree wall of Manhattan. Kato and Zara stood nearest to the doors, watching the display on the wall as it counted down the floors. Akio was to their right. Zara sighed and looked at Kato.
The other occupants stood behind them. They looked at the three travelers, and then at each other. The woman, a blonde, mouthed the words: “Do you think it’s them?”
Chapter 9
Yong Lim sat in the patio area of a small “outdoor” cafe, which was nestled in the gardens that covered the enormous floor of Pyramid 1, which was one of the four enclosed structures inside the Manhattan Pyramid. It, too, was hollow. Lim was close-cropped, neatly groomed, and thirty-something, wearing black pants, a white shirt and tie, and a brown jacket. He carried a brown hard-sided briefcase. All around there were small hills that could be climbed, with stone paths and quaint wooden bridges over the streams that ran in between them. Small waterfalls made soothing sounds. People sat on benches and fed the ducks. A thick glass tube rose a kilometer from the ground to the top of Pyramid 1. This contained smaller round glass shafts for the express elevators that serviced the giant structure. Every thirty floors or so there were pedestrian bridges with moving walkways, going out in all four directions, which connected the elevator shafts to each of the sides.
Four round, glass stations were spaced equally around the bottom of the vertical tube. These served as the terminus points for the transit cars that came in from other parts of the Manhattan Pyramid. Lim listened on his Buzz earpiece, which had a conference call open with three of his associates.
“The targets have just left level two hundred and fifty, and are headed your way, Lim. ETA is around four minutes,” said a nasal-sounding voice.
“Okay. What terminal will they arrive at?” Lim said.
“Either two or three,” Nasal Voice said.
“Which one?” Lim said, annoyed.
“No sure way to tell, sir. We’ve noticed that ones from the east side tend to pop up at one of those two.”
“Okay,” Lim said, sighing. “Zheng, watch Terminal 1. Lee, watch Terminal 2. I’ll stay halfway in between, so I can walk either way and get in range with the TSD.”
“Yes sir,” came both replies simultaneously. TSD stood for track, stun, disable. It was a dart smaller than a needle, which could be fired at a high velocity from a gun that could be mounted in any largish solid object. In this case, it was mounted in the side of Lim’s briefcase. As he was holding the case in his left hand, Zara had to be on his left, as it fired directly away from him. Once fired, by his pressing a tiny button on the briefcase’s handle, the tiny dart would penetrate her body and lodge itself beneath her skin. It was so small and fast she would hardly notice. Once there, it could be pinged by radio from over twenty kilometers away, in order to show her precise whereabouts. And when ready, it could be remotely activated to inject her with a tranquilizer that would knock her out for several hours.
The floors counted down rapidly: 250... 200… 150… 100… 50… 1… subsurface. The white numbers were replaced with a map of Manhattan. The giant square contained zones, named after the old neighborhoods. Their position was denoted by an arrow moving slowly from right to left. The tired-looking Kato and Zara watched it in fascination, while Akio looked bored. “I’m so very glad to be back on Earth,” Zara whispered. Kato nodded. The arrow slowed down and stopped. Half a minute later, light shone in again from outside, as the car came to a stop.
Kato and Zara marveled at the view of the inside of Pyramid 1 as the doors opened. “No time!” Akio said. “Let’s get out before we’re stuck in here!” The words had hardly left his lips, when a crowd waiting outside began to board. “Let us out!” Akio shouted. He barged his way through the inrushing mass of people, who appeared not to care. Zara looked at Kato and shrugged. Together they pushed their way out.
“Targets at Terminal 2,” came the words into Lim’s earpiece. He was, as planned, loitering between the two possible exit points, doing his best to look like a busy traveler waiting around for a transit car. Kim spotted Zara, Kato, and Akio almost immediately. The trio began to walk, led by Akio, towards the central tube, which would convey them upwards. Lim followed them and fell in behind them. He edged his way forward until he was around five meters to their right. The crowd began to build around the entrance doors in the large, curved, glass front of the terminus, as they waited for the elevator to arrive. Dammit, too many people, Lim thought. He edged in closer. Luckily for him, Zara was standing nearest to him.
Lim’s left eye held a contact lens that gave him a view from a tiny pinhole camera mounted in the briefcase next to the TSD dart gun. This enabled him to precisely target the device without having to turn to his left and aim. A transit car arrived at the next terminal to the rest of the city, and the crowd spilled out into the lobby. Lim’s contact showed a forest of legs, since he was holding the briefcase at thigh level. There were pants in all different colors, black being predominant. Zara was wearing jeans. Unfortunately, so were many other people. Lim had to keep looking over to his left, despite his contact vision, to make sure he was pointing at the right leg.
People jostled in, and blocked his line of sight. Dammit. Lim tried to edge closer, but it was now getting difficult to do so. He reckoned he was around four meters away. Zara was looking up and following the elevator car as it descended. It would open its doors on the opposite side to where they stood first, to allow people to disembark. Then, the doors in front of them would open to allow them on. Half a minute later, the crowd in front of them began to move. Lim hoped against hope that he could get a line of sight.
Akio, Kato, and Zara edged forward. So did the mass of people to their right who separated them from Lim. He edged in until he was three meters away. Black pant legs moved through the line of sight. And then—bam!—there was an opening. Lim was only ninety percent certain he was looking at the right leg, but he would not get another chance. He pressed the button.
“Ouch!” Zara said, clutching a hand to the right side of her right thigh. “Dammit! I think I just got bit by something! Are there mosquitos in here?”
Kato shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the water features attract them or something…” They continued to press forward into the large, round, glass elevator car. Lim, looking over with his direct vision this time, saw Zara grab her leg. She could now be easily tracked, with no need for his personnel to be anywhere in the vicinity. Zara was a sitting duck, ready for the taking.
Chapter 10
The packed elevator sped upwards. People looked at Kato and Zara, studying them with narrowed eyes, and then looking at each other. Zara instinctively grabbed Kato’s left arm. They made one stop, already at a dizzying height, then two more, and finally they reached the top of the pyramid. Akio led them out.
“How do you know where you’re going?” Kato asked.
“Directions in my implants.”
“Ah.”
Realistic three-dimensional clouds hid the walls of their hotel’s lobby. “Wow! Looks like some kind of dreamscape!” Zara said. The ceiling was blue, but seemed to stretch into infinity, like the sky. The floor rippled like water with every step they took. The well-dressed clerk raised her eyebrows on seeing the three travelers, then took on a more formal demeanor. “It’s our great privilege to welcome you to the Four Seasons,” she said. “Your rooms are all adjacent, up two more floors. There’s an escalator off to the right.”
“Good! I’m sick of elevators!” Zara said.
“You can unlock it with either neural implants or Buzz,” the clerk continued. “There’s twenty-four hour room service and our fine dining restaurant is open from 6 PM ‘till 11 PM.”
“Thanks very much,” Kato smiled.
“May I get you some help with your bags?” she asked.
“No thanks,” Kato said. “We got them here from Mars. I think we can manage the next two floors!”
Zara looked back down at the clerk as they rode the escalator up. The woman, who was watching them, hurriedly looked away at Zara’s glance. Zara turned to Kato. “Dad, I know we’re safe here on Earth, but I’m still uncomfortable as hell.” Kato nodded, with a stony expression on his face.
The walls of Zara’s room were a tasteful green, with a slowly shifting pattern of leaves. A small menu popped up in her Buzz contact, with options to change the colors or display content on the walls. “Buzz: dismiss,” she said. As Zara looked out of the window, she saw the inner wall of the inconceivably vast Manhattan Pyramid, with its long, horizontal, hair-thin strips of light from the various levels. Unreal, Zara thought. She laid down. The bed molded itself gently to her body. She was too wired to sleep at that moment. Her mind was still trying to process what she had just seen, from orbit to where she now lay, and all that she had learned about what had happened to the city. New York had been Zara’s home from ages eighteen to twenty-two, as she had attended university there. She wondered whether to have Buzz call up images and videos of the battle that had razed the Manhattan she remembered, but she ultimately decided against it.
After forty minutes or so, sleep overtook Zara. At once, she was back in old Manhattan. She smelled the bonfire-like odor of fallen leaves, and a faint whiff of the sewer system every now and again. There were skyscrapers, traffic, and noise. Zara was walking along the sidewalk bordering the west side of Central Park. Tall buildings were on her left, and the fence bordering the park was on her right. A black kid rode past on a bike, wearing funky-colored, knee-length socks, basketball shorts, and a red tracksuit top with white stripes down the sleeves. He looked at Zara kind of funnily. He rode with excessive effort, with the bike wobbling slightly left and right with each pedal stroke. Every few seconds, he looked back at Zara. Then the scene shifted. Zara was with her friends Mikayla and Anna-Nicole, out on the town. There was the time a would-be Prince Charming had tried to grab Anna-Nicole in a nightclub, and she’d thrown her vodka in his face. The three of them had burst out laughing, left the club, and got a taxicab to another.
After that, Zara was looking up at the Central Park fountains through a veil of tears. Her only serious boyfriend, Levi Chandler, had dumped her after he had secretly been seeing another girl for a year. There were murmurs of other, still darker, times in New York; her stunned bereavement at finding out that Kato was leaving for space and never coming back. “Buzz: tell me the time,” she said sleepily. Where was she? Oh yes, the weird version of New York.
“6 AM.” She must have been more tired than she thought. The room automatically provided a cup of coffee. It slid out of an opening in a white, featureless, toaster-sized unit on the nightstand to her left. She drank it while gazing out of the window. The feeling of the peaceful, pure, half-light of early morning had somehow been recreated outside. The outlines of Pyramids 2 and 3 were softer against the immense backdrop of the east wall of the Manhattan Pyramid. The outline of a small envelope appeared at the top of Zara’s vision. Next to it were the words; Akio and I already had dinner. Didn’t want to disturb you. See you later?
Another message faded in; We’re going to bed. I’m guessing you’re asleep. Message me back when you want to meet up for breakfast. Love, Dad.
Zara said: “Buzz: reply. I’m starving. Not sure if you’re up yet, but going for breakfast.”
She made her way down two floors to the sumptuous dining room. Its walls consisted of royal, dark blue velvet. “Good morning, Miss Sasake-Robbins,” an impeccably-clad male host said. “Table for one?”
“Yes please.”
Zara had no sooner sat down at a table appointed with linen tablecloths and fine silverware when Kato appeared. “Morning!” he said, brightly.
“That was quick!”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Well, I dozed off around midnight or so. But then I woke up just now and got your message, so I figured I’d come down.” Zara nodded. Kato sat down opposite her. Their waitress appeared and hurriedly set another place for him.
They looked over the menu. The waitress came back shortly afterwards. They ordered eggs benedict and a fried breakfast platter respectively. “Real Earth gravity, and real Earth food,” Zara said.
Kato nodded. “You read my mind.”
“What did you and Akio do last night?” Zara asked.
“Well, we came down here and had dinner. Very nice it was, too. Then we went to the bar, which is out there and to the right”—Kato indicated the door. “He taught me how to play Mabo. It’s simple but yet devilishly difficult to beat someone skilled.”
“Did he mention about not using his brain’s CPU?”
“Yes,” Kato said with a slight smile. “And then we talked about the way the world is now.”
Zara nodded. “What does he seem like?”
Kato shrugged slightly. “I honestly thought he was a very likeable young man. I got the distinct impression he was turning on the charm though!” Ha! Zara thought. There was only one reason why he’d try and win her old man over: he liked her. Good God, a potential suitor already? Their food arrived, unnaturally quickly and yet cooked perfectly. There was silence for a few minutes while they ate.
“So, what do you want to do today?” Kato said.
“I want to go out. Out of the pyramids. I want to breathe fresh air and feel real sunshine,” Zara said.
“Sounds good to me. What do we want to do though?”
A wry grin crept across Zara’s face. “Miniature golf.”
Kato laughed. “Ah yes, I remember we played a few rounds of that when you were little! I wonder if it even still exists, or if people just space out and play it in their heads?”
Chapter 11
Zara, Kato, and Akio stood among rolling green hills on Long Island, twenty-seven kilometers east of the Manhattan Pyramid. Even at this distance, the sheer enormity of the Pyramids was apparent. It was a sunny day, yet somewhat cool. The wind whipped through their hair. Zara chuckled a little. “Kind of desolate out here, don't you think? I m
ean, there’s grass everywhere, but no life to it. Hardly any people or animals.”
“There's a road over there,” Kato said, pointing north. Half a kilometer away, automated electric vehicles zipped along the blacktop. “But otherwise, yes. We came out of the train station, walked a ways, paid an automated kiosk for our golf clubs, and here we are! There isn't even anyone else playing! It feels weird.”
“Kind of a relief, actually,” Zara said. “At least we don't have to worry about being recognized.” She bent down and set the ball on the black strip that was the teeing off point for hole one. This shot would be six meters or so into the mouth of a mechanical monster, which looked much like the Tasmanian Devil. It would then turn around and spit the ball down a small hill to their left, towards the hole.
Zara lined the end of her club up with the ball and drew the club back. As she was about to hit the ball, she paused and turned to Akio. “My dad and I need disguises so we can walk around in peace. Any idea where we can go?”
Akio shrugged. “I doubt you'd find them anywhere in the city. They're very much frowned upon.”
“As they were in my day,” Zara said.
“Yes. Well, NYC is pretty locked down. There's no crime there. New Jersey, on the other hand...”
Zara and Kato looked at each other. Kato then turned to Akio. “Is it still the dump it was when we were around the first time?”
“Not sure what it was like three hundred years ago,” Akio said, “but it’s a lawless badland now. Any illicit item you need you can probably find there.”
“Maybe tomorrow?” Zara said to Kato.
Kato nodded. “I suppose if we've got to go into the underworld to do it...”
“Take your shot, Zara. We're not getting any younger!” Akio kidded. Zara stuck out her tongue at him and then swung the club. The ball bounced off the side of the monster's face and halfway back to her. “You made me mess up, you… what was it you called me the other day? A minkle?” she said. “Now it's just going to take me twice as long.”
Kato's War: Book Two of the Kato's War series Page 6