METAtropolis:The Wings We Dare Aspire

by Jay Lake

* * *

  From The Daily Oregonian Newsblog:

  Eruptions at Three Fingered Jack?

  Observers in Santiam Junction have reported explosions along the flanks of the extinct volcano. “There was a rumbling for a little while first,” said Yellowjohn Hackmann of the Cascade Range Patrol, a citizen’s militia that controls Highway 20 through the Cascades. “We thought pulse jets at first, maybe running out of McChord AFB up north. Now it looks like a city burning up there.”

  The University of Oregon reports that Three Fingered Jack is considered extinct. The geology department was executed by Creation Science activists during the Newport Crisis, but professor emeritus David Bischoff commented that government or private activity was a far more likely explanation than a geological rebirth. “Besides that,” he asked, “Where the hell is the ash plume?”

  Fires raging along the tree line have made any efforts at direct observation impossible. Local residents have opened a reverse auction for satellite imagery, with no success yet reported.

  * * *

  She arrives at the city amid the sounds and smells of a feast. Improbably, most of the population of Cascadiopolis seems to be out among the shadows. The clack of chopsticks echoes along with the clink of soupspoons. They eat, these greenfreaks, even as the sky lightens above the shoulder of the mountain and the mist rises off the night-damp leaves.

  Cardoza knows perfectly well that this is a time for quiet retreat and the covering of fires. Patient, stable airships circle high above watching for the flash of metal or color when dawn’s first long rays stab down among the towering trunks, the line of sunlight briefly following the contours of the land here on the west slope of the Cascades. Just as they search for the screened heat signatures and energy discharges, so they look for this.

  Everyone goes to ground when the light changes because that is the moment when shadows turn traitor.

  Still, they are here, clustered ever tighter around something she cannot yet see.

  “Reckon Bashar’s in the middle of that crowd,” New Kid says sullenly.

  Wallace, she thinks. Wallace.

  He stares at her with an air of expectation.

  “Get back down the hill, kid,” she tells him in a weak moment of mercy. “You’ve done your duty by me.”

  Though Cardoza has no intention of confronting Bashar, she pushes into the milling crowd as if she seeks the center. She can feel Wallace’s eyes on her back like that microwatt targeting laser down along the path. Screw him, she let him live. If he’s smart, he’ll just walk away.

  Though she only means to lose herself in the crowd, the scent draws her onward. It is a spell, this smell, bait for the monkeys inside all our heads. The call of the tribe, the campfire, the oldest camaraderie from long before basic training and hazing and politics and congregations.

  Strangely, they are almost silent, far more silent than such a large group of human beings has any business being.

  Thinking very carefully about what she is doing, Cardoza joins a line spiraling through the crowd. Exposure is risk. Crowds are cover. Lines are not crowds. Her worries circle like a mantra until she finally reaches the hotline as the shadows shift from gray to orange and the sun flares along the ridgeline.

  A truly enormous man is serving. He looks vaguely familiar to her as their eyes meet, which makes no sense. He is ethnically diverse and overwhelmingly handsome.

  “You are the last,” he says in a voice which floods her soul with sorrow.

  Cardoza takes the proffered bowl—turned from some mountain softwood, she sees—and shrugs off the spell. Charisma? Pheromones? That doesn’t matter. This man is not the key to her lock, whoever the hell he might be.

  The temptation pisses her off.

  She steps away, realizes Bashar is giving her a hard look. Cardoza hopes like hell he does not remember her as well as she remembers him. Fifteen years earlier, she was a uniformed security hack just beginning to learn what he’d already known a decade on by then, one of a pack beating on a cornered greenfreak terrorist.

  He’d broken a dozen arms and legs and killed two of her peers escaping. In time, this man had led her to ask questions. Cardoza had been a girl in a reflective visor back then. Now she is a dangerous woman among dangerous people.

  With the slight nod of one professional to another, she steps away with her steaming bowl of paradise. The eyes which bore into her from behind are not Bashar’s, though, but the big cook’s. Somehow she knows that without ever turning around.

  Then the singing begins.

  * * *

  Crown reviewed reports. Sometimes he believed that was all he ever did—review reports. Someone had to make the damned decisions, after all. The world was running down, and no amount of rewinding seemed to help.

  Someone had dumped a load of hot death on a blank spot in the map in the mountains south of Portland. While not directly impacting Crown—his timber interests were confined to the much safer Coastal Range, and even the apocalypse still seemed to require toilet paper—the fact that someone could airdrop that much hell into his neighborhood was pause for thought. Warfare had been irretrievably asymmetrical for decades now. Truck bombs in urban areas were one thing, but it took a lot of juice to loft that kind of firepower. One of the few things governments were still good at was covering airspace.

  Uncle Sam might not be able to fix a highway anymore, but he had orbital assets that could tell whether you’d dyed your hair this week. Which meant that whoever had flown this load had done so with payoffs in Colorado Springs.

  Not inconceivable, even for William Silas Crown, but damned if he could see the value proposition of such an effort.

  He had a much nastier feeling about the business, too. A hundred thousand acres of heavy timber didn’t get nuked just for the entertainment value.

  “Streeter!”

  It wasn’t her shift, he realized a moment later. A clerk would be covering, but he didn’t want a clerk. He wanted Streeter. She was old school. Maybe the oldest. Good people stayed bought.

  More reports—old recon and traffic records for Highway 20. Rumor mill stuff off the nets, all three generations. Correlations of arrest records, at least where those were still used.

  Had the greenfreaks been building another city a hundred miles south? Cloning Cascadiopolis, maybe. He’d known for a long time that was possible, even reasonable. Trying to capture their tech was like trying to capture minnows. Every now and then you got something, but most slipped away like moonbeams.

  But burning out an entire city by air express?

  Short of pure, unreasoning hatred, he didn’t see the point. And hatred didn’t pay a lot of bribes in Colorado Springs.

  * * *

  Sequence

  Tygre lets his voice flow outward. Like the morning mist rising off the damp loam to fill the spaces between the massive trees, so his singing fills the space between the tired voices of the people of Cascadiopolis.

  It is an old song, almost the oldest most people know. The doxology, unmoored from the trappings of Church and Eucharist in this post-denominational community, still holds great power among the people. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” The tune is simple and old as the modern English that they share. And no one who lives on the shoulders of the Cascades can avoid the infusion of spirituality that seeps with the glacier melt out of the cracked basalt rock faces.

  His singing weaves through theirs, carrying a strange contrapuntal rhythm to undergird their threading melody.

  It is not the habit of Cascadiopolis to sing a sunrise hymn. It is our habit to rest uneasy during the time of transition, then for most working shifts to lie quiet during the hours of daylight. Some jobs require the sun’s presence—Anna Chao and the other masons would not cut stone in the dark for fear of simple attrition of fingers. The Security Subcommittee likewise never sleeps easily.

  But today the people are out, as they have been since his arrival. Today they sing with a strange sense of liberation about th
em, as if the burden of being free and green has fallen away and they are merely innocents in the forest.

  Gloria storms through the group, enraged. She lashes back and forth with an old lacrosse stick made heavy at the tip with tire weights, shouting: “Shut the hell up, you stupid bastards. They can probably hear us down in Estacada. Idiots! Everybody in this place is going to get a god-damned extra work detail if you don’t move it right now.”

  The song dies a rippling death. People scurry away, vanishing amid the heavy green leaves, the bright ferns, the deeper shadows, all to their various lairs and dens with a renewed sense of purpose—stung, shamed, regretful.

  In moments there is only Tygre with his escorts of Bashar and Anna, facing Gloria’s quivering indignation. A few others loiter close by, either bravely eavesdropping or foolishly slow to remove themselves.

  No one from the Citizen’s Executive is present except for the two them.

  “What do you want here?” Gloria demands, brandishing her lacrosse stick.

  “What everyone wants,” says Tygre. By daylight he is rendered strangely prosaic. “Food. Shelter. Freedom.”

  “You will destroy us.”

  Bashar stirs now. He has tired of defending this man who is not his, but no one has asked the right question yet, issued the correct challenge. “We’re not down inside Symmetry now,” he tells Gloria quietly. Anna Chao looks uneasy.

  The edge in Gloria’s voice turns on him like a swallowed razor blade. “What do you mean by that, Bashar?”

  “I mean you are not interrogating this man.” Bashar lacks the grace to look uncomfortable, but he forces a frown for the sake of diplomacy. He has never liked Gloria. Still, visible glee at her discomfort would suit no one’s purposes. “He was released from your custody.”

  “He walked out.”

  “And you let him,” Bashar reminds her. “Out here is my domain. Who stays or goes is up to me.” He glances around at the watchers, the listeners, frowns at the woman who seems familiar but isn’t. A question forms on his lips, but Tygre interrupts again.

  “I destroy no one,” he tells Gloria. The big man steps from behind the hot line and drops gracefully into a lotus position, bringing his eyes almost level with hers. It is somehow incredibly dignified and horribly patronizing all at once.

  Bashar knows this woman has killed for lesser offenses.

  “You are walking death,” she breathes. “The Lord of Bones.” She begins to shake, something coming loose inside her.

  He reaches an impossibly long hand out and touches her forehead. “You do not know me. No man knows me. But I am here for all of you. Even you who would spear my side and leave me behind cold stone forever.”

  Bashar wonders what the hell is happening. Anna Chao looks no more enlightened than he feels.

  Gloria slaps Tygre’s hand away. “I’ll stop you, you big buck bastard.” She turns her back and walks. There is a sobbing sound, but it cannot possibly be her.

  Looking for the woman he does not know, Bashar finds everyone but Anna Chao has made themselves scarce.

  “I’m going to patrol the perimeter,” he announces.

  She nods, too overwhelmed to speak.

  Tired as he is, Bashar can still walk like a hero into the rising sun, and so he does.

  * * *

  Part of a retrospective report from the Security Subcommittee to the Citizen’s Executive, compiled from notes made during Tygre’s stay in Cascadiopolis:

  Subject joined in several work details during his first days in the city. He demonstrated considerable physical skill in aiding the Labor Subcommittee, but also displayed craft skills. He was able to braze the leaky Lyne arms on the Recreation Subcommittee’s number two and three stills. This act alone won him general acclaim.

  The unusual social effects seen on his entry to the city were not noted again in those early weeks. Gloria Berry continued to agitate against the subject, until she was advised by the senior directorate of this subcommittee to cease her activities and resume her ordinary work assignments.

  In this same period news came of the bombing of Jack City. No verifiable rumors or hard data accompanied the reports, though the social chatter was overwhelming. Subject’s arrival was timed very close to the date of the attack, such that certain members of this subcommittee were concerned about his role as a spotter or spy. Ms. Berry herself cleared that issue, showing that the last data netted from Jack City via smartdust was far later than the subject’s possible departure time, given his known presence in Cascadiopolis. Subject’s general invisibility in the datasphere has never been properly assessed, but Ms. Berry’s analysis presumes that had he been present in Jack City, his data trail would have been available to us, just as it is in our own systems here.

  * * *

  After several weeks in Cascadiopolis, Tygre joins the unarmed combat circle. They meet each day under the aegis of Bashar or one of his lieutenants in the hours after dusk. The goal is to provide a training regimen and support for anyone tasked with security, but also for anyone interested in fitness or defense.

  Large as he is, the newcomer draws immediate challenges from several middle-rankers—those who have risen high enough in the standings up to feel the need to make a show against him, but not so high as to be secure in their position.

  Tygre just laughs. “I do not attack,” he says. “I come to watch you defend.”

  With a nod from Bashar, Reynolds rushes Tygre. He steps into the attack with a smoothness unlikely in such a large man. Hands slide slowly, far too slowly to anyone’s view, then Reynolds is over his hip and windmilling into the loam.

  No one has thrown her in at least two months.

  The man turns, arms wide, and smiles at his watchers. “I will not challenge, but I will not be taken down.”

  That, of course, is the worst challenge of all.

  One by one they step into the circle. The affair quickly assumes the aspects of capoeira more than the mill-and-kill of defense-grade unarmed combat. There is a dance, a measure of beats and moments which passes between Tygre and each opponent in turn. By the time he has thrown his third, the others are softly clapping tempo.

  They dance, deadly and beautiful in the moonlit darkness at the edge of an old burn clearing.

  Tygre effortlessly works his way through the juniors, then the other middle-rankers who should have stood with Reynolds. After twenty minutes, he has not even broken a sweat. Moments later, it is over except for Bashar himself.

  And Anna Chao, who steps into the circle.

  She has been alternately stewing with an inexplicable crush on this man and sparring with Gloria Berry, whose anger has grown boundless. During her days she has cut more rock lately than any mason in Cascadiopolis’ brief history. Slab after slab of basalt has come down in recent days as if sliced away by some godlike knife. Frustration in the fracture lines. Unrequited passion amid the dust and splinters.

  Now she is covered with gray from another shift on the slopes. Tiny beads of blood glisten black in the pale silver light of the late evening. She is almost a revenant, a ghost from beyond.

  The gentle clapping picks up the tempo. These people know they are about to see a battle. Anna is one of the few who can stand against Bashar, and he has been known to defeat a moving truck with his bare hands. Her mason’s muscles and torturer’s ruthlessness combine to make her unstoppable.

  Her infatuation with Tygre is a seam painted on her armor with bright lines.

  He clasps his hands and bows to her.

  She does the same, and begins to circle. Tygre does not respond in kind. Instead he merely stands, arms loose at his side, smiling slightly as she passes behind him. The profound vulnerability of his exposed back combined with his proud, uptilted chin inflames everyone’s passions.

  Anna feints from behind. Tygre knows it, he must know it, but he stands still as the Douglas firs as if to take the blow. A head strike from her could be carelessly fatal.

  Now she passes to his left. Fru
stration makes her quiver. His smile widens slightly, just enough for all to see.

  It says: Come to me, woman. Be mine.

  She spins toward him in a classic tae kwon do strike, foot flying toward the unprotected side of his knee, fists arcing for a follow up. He steps in so close to her they might have kissed in passing. The knee blow misses completely. Tygre stops her fists with the broad grip of his own hands.

  Anna grunts as one of her wrists snaps. Someone among the onlookers keens in sympathetic pain. She just stares at him.

  “Impossible,” she says.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Tygre replies. He takes her wounded arm in his hands and sets the bone with a nerve-rending scrape. Her breath passes her lips like fire in an oxygen line, but she holds steady. “You should have that seen to,” he tells her, releasing her bad arm to the care of the good.

  With a bow that turns to include them all, Tygre walks away.

  Bashar has had enough. “You are not finished,” he tells the big man.

  Red mist is rising in his vision. Bashar knows what this means. He once killed an entire town when the red was upon him. Cascadiopolis is a place where the red stays far away, exiled from the country of the green. Tygre is a man who soothes some part of his soul that Bashar did not even know was damaged.

  But still, to so casually break one of his city’s strongest people—that is a cruelty to which cats could only aspire.

  Tygre looks over his shoulder. “Yes, I am.”

  All Bashar sees is red mist and an exposed, retreating back. He begins to run, toward Tygre, then past him, into the darkness beyond where night swallows all sins and regret is invisible.

  He will have to kill this man, and soon, if something does not change. Bashar hates himself most of all for the realization.

  * * *

  How It Works: The Newcomer’s Guide to Cascadiopolis:

  Cascadiopolis is a self-organizing anarchist collective that aspires to the self-actualization of all citizens in accordance with green principles. Welcome to your community.

  When decisions must be made outside of the context of the collective consensus, the Citizen’s Executive sits in proxy for the will of the whole. Subcommittees of the Citizen’s Executive in turn manage specialized tasks that might require unusual knowledge, special experience, or organizational efforts beyond community norms.