>Not helping. Besides, I got this, so just relax.>>
<
>>Stand by.>> See how he likes it.
Ahead, the exhibits end at a food court that looks like it’s built into the side of the coral reef display I’ve just escaped. By now about half of the shops are shuttered. Instead of funneling out of the only exit for visitors just beyond, I hop the counter of a burrito shop and crouch there, waiting for the thug to pass.
This is the first job where I’ve been confronted by competing interests. Something I’ve simulated dozens of times, but never faced in the field. He could want the data for himself or whoever he works for or maybe he simply wants to incapacitate me in some way, making a data drop impossible. Whatever his plans, I can’t let him succeed.
Tahir patches me into the Aquarium’s security system. I cycle through a trail of downed Aquarium personnel. A few seconds later, the brown-haired man appears on a camera mounted near the exit, cheeks pink from exertion, scanning the crowds with deliberation. Giving the food court one final look, he breaks into a jog for the exit.
<
>>I know that. Just… wait.>>
I exhale, dispelling some of the tension that’s collected in my limbs. I crawl along the length of the counter until I reach the door to the back of the burrito shop. Locked. Pulling out my Aventine-issued pick kit from my satchel, I make quick work of the lock, then slip past, closing the door behind me.
The air’s scented with stale tortillas and chili powder. Moving past mixing and prep stations, the pantry and walk-in, I find the vendor access door. I unlock that too and follow a short hallway to the service entrance.
>>See?>>
Tahir doesn’t congratulate me out loud, but I feel his grudging approval. <
>>Should I expect more complications?>>
He sighs, exasperation and frustration both. <
Two hours later, I’m still twiddling my thumbs as I move through yet another section of the Understory. It’s market day, which means hundreds of people surround me, haggling for aeroponic produce, handmade clothing fashioned from smart fabrics, and limited-run gifts and wares. At this moment, there’s nowhere safer I can be. That doesn’t make pretending to browse the stalls with enthusiasm any easier.
>>Riot or not, I should’ve received the drop location by now.>>
<
The market’s taken over a stretch of concourse between two squares suspended in the voids between buildings. I’m on my second circuit. I’ll need to move on before the shopkeepers notice me. I linger over a rack of long-sleeved shirts in chevron and paisley patterns shifting colors and designs so subtly it feels like my eyes are playing tricks on me.
My implant chimes. Finally, the next set of instructions. >>Got ’em. For my eyes only, though.>>
<
I start working my way to the edge of the market. In the crush, a woman knocks into me, her shoulder catching mine hard. Her shocked cry startles the people in our immediate vicinity. “Watch where you’re going!”
She ran into me, but it’s too crowded for me to do much more than shrug it off and keep moving.
<
>>Roger that.>>
I send my connection with Tahir to the background and open the message. A warehouse in the warren of buildings in Henderson Acres, a transitional Understory neighborhood. I place it into my map of New Worth, then frown.
They chose well. Half hour on foot to the nearest lifts, in the middle of the street block, so egress will take time. No intra-level access; maintenance access points few and far between.
I don’t like it, but then I haven’t liked anything about this job.
The lifts are the quickest way to descend and get this over with once and for all, even though it’ll be a hike in to reach the actual drop location. I get off at Level 22. The buildings nearest the lifts are in fair condition, but the further I go, the more run-down things get.
One housing complex’s taped off for mold remediation. I move to the opposite side of the concourse and hold my breath until I’m well past. Early-generation construction materials, while lightweight and durable enough to extend the pre-dome buildings higher and higher, aren’t always reliable when it comes to managing humidity. Luckily the sectors of the Canopy and the central Understory where Aventine HQ is located have replaced and rehabilitated the outdated materials. Henderson Acres is due for a makeover, but with all the talk of Emergence, I wonder if it’ll ever get done.
I turn onto a connecting walkway. The light dims slightly as the old buildings constrict around me.
<
>>Not much better in person, I’m afraid.>>
<< I’m having a hard time keeping you in frame, so your reports are going to be even more important.<<
>>Understood. The drop’s not that much further anyway.>>
A couple of businesses have made a go of it down here, barely clinging to life, but more have shut their doors for brighter prospects elsewhere. The stench emanating from a twenty-four hour Asian fusion place reinforces the sickly vibe. As I walk past a building with a bank of street-level windows, a man from within looks up from his console with a glare full of that harsh animosity of people used to living in a bad neighborhood.
Everyone who comes here is suspect, including me.
The foot traffic thins out until I’m all alone with an early-generation cleaning bot. Needs some care – its casters keep getting caught on the uneven and cracked cement tiles. Only a few storefronts down, the warehouse at least looks clean, if in need of updating. A light buzzes over the entrance, dispelling the late afternoon gloom. As I head toward it, a flash of movement from the shadowed doorway opposite pulls me up short.
The brown-haired man who chased me through the Aquarium lurches into view, looking slightly worse for wear. I was so sure I lost him.
>>We have a problem.>> I hook Tahir into my ocular boost. >>I don’t know how he found me.>>
He swears. <
>>What about the client?>> They’re theoretically closer and, given all their paranoia, must’ve expected something like this.
Silence across the line as he considers it. <
My new favorite phrase.
The man steps closer, bare hands raised, trying to appear non-threatening. “I can’t let you do this. If you turn the data over to them, you’ll plunge us into civil war.”
I mentally calculate the length of his reach, at what point the vanishing distance between us becomes critical. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The data you’re carrying for Aventine.” He steps closer, limping slightly. Right leg. “Oh yes, we know all about it.”
>>You heard that?>>
Tahir’s shocked silence on the other end answers my question but does me no good. No one’s supposed to know about us, or, more importantly, me. Tahir won’t admit it, but I could tell all the client’s demands for this job bothered him.
And now this.
The man takes another step – the distance between us closing fast. I consider running, but he pushes up his sleeve, exposing a tattoo on his forearm. A tree cleaved in two by a bolt of lightning, the same one on some of the placards from the Disconnect demonstrations. “We know you’re a pawn in all this. That’s why we’re giving you a chance to do the right thing.” He pulls a taser out of the waistband of his pants. “But we’re on a tight schedule.”
<
>>Well, I certainly don’t see them.>>
<
Four minutes gone. Not nearly enough. “Why should I believe anything you say?” I ask the man, stalling.
<
>>Level 22. Northwest sector. Why?>>
<
None of this makes any sense. >>But I was told…>>
The man’s taser crackles to life. “Because deep down you believe everyone should have an equal opportunity on the other side of the glass.”
It takes me a second to refocus. “What does that have to do with–”
He lunges toward me. Training takes over as I dart out of his way and sprint to the warehouse. Locked. I pound on the scarred aluminum door twice before the man’s on me. I pivot, break his hold, knee him in the groin, and follow that up with a kick to his injured right leg. The taser skitters across the concrete, out of reach.
He lurches back with a cry. Instead of a subdermal implant, a centimeter-thick plate’s mounted to his neck. Scrapped-together, obsolete tech. Only Disconnects desperate enough to–
<
Behind me, metal scrapes against metal as the warehouse door opens. A twenty-something Latino man with enough muscles to make me nervous and a fortyish white woman with her blonde hair yanked back into a severe ponytail join us. But my relief vanishes at the sight of the illegal gun in her hands, rooting me and my opponent to the spot.
<
>>Are my clothes bulletproof?>>
<
>>Are they or not?>>
<
>>I–>>
My implant shuts off entirely. Tahir’s gone. I’m completely unmoored from all things Aventine.
The woman pockets a small device. “Let’s just keep all this between us, shall we?” Something about her smug, nasally voice sets my teeth on edge.
The man with the tattoo sags with resignation. But his eyes find mine, imploring. “If you go with them, Emergence will be for nothing.”
The woman levels the gun at his chest. A small red dot bobbing along a sea of black fabric. She wouldn’t dare fire. She only means to scare us, to–
She squeezes the trigger, and a sound like a shocked gasp erupts. The bullet rips through the guy, and he falls to the ground just like that. What the hell? She didn’t even give him a chance.
The woman gestures to her companion to check on the guy, bleeding out on the street. Normally a prolonged interruption in a person’s vitals will bring an emergency response team, but they’ve probably blocked his homebrew implant’s signal, just as they did mine. Is it possible they hijacked my signal, sent me the wrong rendezvous instructions to get me down here? Away from the real client? If Tahir’s right, and I’m at the wrong location for the drop, then these people are bad news.
But the gun already tells me that much. They were banned when people first decided to take refuge in the domed city. Given the close quarters, such weapons were deemed a danger to public health.
And now my own health’s at risk.
No help for it. This job was bad from the beginning. Time to call it.
What’s my exit strategy?
I take a step back, moving in half-time so I won’t draw their attention away from the body. Then another.
The woman looks up, her cold gaze catching mine. “We have the equipment set up inside.” She waves her gun in the direction of the warehouse as if nothing’s wrong.
Another step. The cleaner bot whistles as it runs into the back of my knees.
“Stop blocking my implant. That’s a breach of–” everything, really– “Aventine protocols.”
“I couldn’t let that man,” she nods at the corpse, “do any more damage. Surely you understand that.”
But not anything else. What I do understand, though, is this deal’s off until I can get a better handle on what’s going on.
“Come on. Time’s wasting.”
Something about her voice tickles the back of my mind but the gun’s far more pressing. She won’t shoot me and risk losing her precious data – at least not out in the open. As soon as my blood’s exposed to too much oxygen, the data degrades automatically. Security feature. Which gives me some wiggle room. Besides, someone’s bound to come by here eventually. It’s now or never. I dash behind the bot and sling it toward the muscle. Its casters scrape across the concrete in protest.
The guy knocks into it with a heavy thunk. Pieces of the bot scatter as an internal component whines. Its lament follows me as I sprint back the way I came. The woman swears, her shoes slapping against cement as she gives chase.
What if there are more of them? Gotta figure a way out of this maze. I take the first side street, the woman and her lackey still too close behind.
The gun goes off again, hitting the wall above me. Grit explodes, and I shield my eyes. Shit! So much for not shooting at me.
“Get back here!”
I dash around the corner and find myself back by the Asian fusion place. I could retrace my steps to the lifts, but they’d anticipate that since they probably already know my route in.
As I gasp for breath, it hits me as the sour tang of fish sauce and grease fills my lungs. The restaurant’s trash chute. All biodegradable trash is disposed for reclamation – filtered out into compost, graywater, fuel. Most restaurants have a pipe separate from the sewer lines that dumps into a processing plant in the Terrestrial District.
Descending’s the only way out of this mess.
With a burst of adrenaline, I charge through the restaurant doors, an automated chime heralding my entrance. A young teen blinks up from the counter; his stack of fortune cookies topples. “Welcome to–”
I wave him off and stride into the kitchen. Shouts in Cantonese follow. Without my implant, I have no idea what’s being said, but the tenor of the lone line cook’s voice needs no translation as I bypass the kitchen.
I find the trash chute near the dishwashing station. Roughly three feet in diameter, the chute has a grate mounted over it to keep utensils and plates from accidentally falling into its depths. I pry it off, the fabric of my gloves sinking into the grime that’s collected along the seam. With a sucking pop, the grating finally gives way, exposing the gaping maw of the city.
The stench’s even worse now.
The woman’s demanding voice trickles back from the entrance.
Can’t chicken out now. I shove open the back door to the alley, triggering the emergency exit alarm. With luck, maybe they’ll think I’ve moved on – at least long enough for me to regroup. I turn back to the chute.
Then I take a deep breath and drop in.
Chapter Seventeen
The metal chute closes around me, humid, slick, and stinking, as I slide down countless levels. I keep my toes pointed and my hands tucked into my chest, forcing back nausea.
Blue sparks dance around me as my sleeve catches on something sharp. I get brief snapshots of welded metal and refuse in various stages of decomposition. Pretty sure I could’ve gone my entire life without seeing or smelling what surrounds me now.
The tube widens slightly as it intersects with others, and I’m dumped out onto a pile of garbage that dozens more chutes feed into. Air gushes out of me when I land – feet first, but my momentum flips me head over heels, and I roll a bit before I come to a stop on my back. Half-sinking into who-knows-what as my chest stutters.
Along the perimeter of the pile, garbage bots chirp as they excavate the mountain of trash. A fine wire mesh makes up the floor. Fluids are filtered through it, then siphoned off for processing elsewhere. The bots pick through the rest, routing the refuse to the appropriate channels. Compost, biofuel, incineration, compaction – each a separate opening in
the far wall.
Gaining my feet, I teeter toward the edge. Ten feet to the floor, give or take. Before I can decide how to get down, my foot slips. I fall back, sliding on my ass all the way to the bottom.
I’m coated, but my clothes are still intact despite the rough treatment. Can’t say the same for the rest of me. My hip’s bruised, but it’s not too bad as I step unnoticed past the garbage bots and find a maintenance door on the far wall. Unlocked, at least. After all, who’d come down here willingly?
I glance back at the garbage chutes. The muscle’s probably too wide to fit, and I highly doubt that woman would come down here herself, no matter how important the data is. And that’s assuming they’ve figured out where I’ve gone.
A short hallway leads to a small locker room for the bots’ human minders. Empty. End of the workday? I don’t question my luck as I start the shower, get in with my clothes on, and soap them up. Even though the Terrestrial District isn’t the sweetest smelling of places, I can’t risk attracting any more attention. Forgoing modesty, I strip down. Slime and grime spirals down the drain, leaving me as clean as I’m going to get.
Jimmying a locker open, I find a beige canvas jumpsuit. That’ll serve me better down here than my sodden clothes, which still aren’t clean enough for my tastes. My shoes are harder to salvage. I have to pry into a few more lockers before I locate a pair of work boots. Way too much space in the toe box, but as long as I don’t have to run anywhere, I’ll be OK.
I wad up everything into a spare trash bag from the janitor’s closet and shrug into the jumpsuit. Have to roll the sleeves up a little, but it’ll do until… What?
Should’ve known I’d end up back down here one way or another.
Breath gusts out of me as I drop onto a bench in front of the lockers. What am I going to do? As my heart finally settles into a steady thumping rhythm in my chest, the full reality of my situation hits me.
My implant won’t reboot. In fact, it doesn’t respond to any eyecast command I send it. If that’s not bad enough, I’ve knowingly deviated from the standard operating procedures Aventine’s drilled into me since day one. The job’s completely fucked. Even though that’s not entirely my fault, the blame will fall on me, never mind the fact that Harding’s fingerprints were all over this assignment. I doubt he’d set me up, but it doesn’t change the fact that Aventine will think I’ve played them. As far as they know, I violated the client’s instructions, and now I’ve gone completely dark. Could I look any guiltier? I’d like to think Tahir would be reasonable about things if I could simply explain the situation to him, but all the scenarios covered in training assumed the lines of communication would remain open between handler and courier.
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