“If it isn’t,” Randall says, “it’ll be a dead giveaway at the first checkpoint she passes through.”
“Hang on.” Charon brandishes the wand at me, so close I flinch, certain the cool plastic will meet my skin. It doesn’t though, and I relax my perch on the stool slightly. “There!” Charon taps the screen triumphantly. “There’s a tiny transponder, see it? I can deactivate it so it can’t be remotely triggered by your keepers. You’ll be able to turn it on if you need to use it, but at least they won’t be able to use it against you.”
“Great. One more thing,” I say. “Can you deactivate all my contacts?”
“Sure, no problem.” He sticks a sensor to my neck, mounted right over my implant. He turns back to the console on the worktable, pulling up a map of my connections on his screen. “Showing five, one calibrated.”
Randall stirs in the periphery of my vision. I tell myself I don’t owe him an explanation. I force myself to look at Charon. “I want them gone.”
“Should be able to dismantle them.” His hands skate over the screen. “And… done,” he says a few seconds later.
He sticks more sensors to my temples and another he instructs me to place next to my heart. As he bends his head, an ugly jagged scar is revealed along the back of his neck where his implant should be. Did he tussle with a scrapper? He straightens, and it disappears behind his shirt collar.
“All right. Now I need you to relax. This next bit won’t be painful, not exactly, but it will be unpleasant. Can’t be more specific than that, what with everyone’s brains being different, OK?”
I nod and adjust my perch on the stool, my hip still numb. Over my head, Randall and Charon are synching again. Deciding their plan of attack? I grit my teeth.
Charon shuffles back to the console. “One, two–”
I gasp. My spine wrenches me straight, my head falls back, my eyes staring uncomprehendingly at the girders holding up the ceiling.
Someone stands behind me, supporting my arms and shoulders. Randall, Rik… he…
My head erupts. Screams fill my ears, my own voice harsh and panicked.
It’s like my brain has been pulled into a long rope, malleable like taffy, stretched tighter and tighter until the gray matter snaps, rending one side of my mind from the other. My gaze wavers, and it’s only later that I realize it’s tears.
Feedback buzzes in the background. Static, snow, heat build up under my skin, underneath my eyes, inside the drums of my ears.
Then the five magical tones that herald the booting up sequence for my implant. The tension in my mind ebbs. The snow in my vision clears, the sounds dim accordingly.
“Emery, your nose is bleeding.” Randall’s voice is far away as I slowly drift back to reality.
My grimy surroundings come back into painful focus. Charon hands me a dirty handkerchief. I wipe my nose, try to avoid seeing just how much blood it collects. Sharp pain drills into my skull, as though the jackhammer the construction workers were using outside the Casino is now being applied to my head. Even the skin on my forehead hurts to touch.
But my implant’s back online, which almost makes up for the pain radiating from my hip and my temples as I run through the config settings.
Randall grips my arm. “You OK?”
Too much touching too soon. I almost shrug him off, but I don’t want to aggravate my injury. I give his hand a squeeze as I pull away from him. “I’m fine. Thanks.” I nod to Charon. “Both of you.”
Charon flashes me a smug grin, showing off a crooked front tooth. “If you ever find yourself down in the big bad Underground again, you know where to find me.”
Chapter Nineteen
With each step, fire lances along my hip, shortening my stride. And I need every bit of it to keep up with Randall.
He takes us a different way out than the way we came in. I’m hopelessly disoriented even with my implant back up and running. Not even Aventine has a map for the Underground.
My NAmp filter shades in the blanks I missed earlier. The constant moisture, the scurrying figures we move past, eyes impossibly wide to make out their surroundings. The aging infrastructure, the filth infecting the air. Dark mold insulates seams between walls and ceilings. Sewer gas chokes my throat. It’s even worse than I imagined. But at least now I can better guide my steps around the more questionable refuse coating the ground.
Randall glances back and slows his pace. “We’ll get you some painkillers once we ascend.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“Go home, Randall. You’ve done enough.”
“I can’t, remember? You had more bugs on your body than a corpse. They’ve probably tracked you to my place by now.”
“So? Just say some random girl broke in and moved on before you–”
“Stop it, Emery. Just, stop.”
I nearly run into him, an immovable, implacable presence in front of me. My breath hitches, bringing with it a sharp pain up my side.
“We’re in this together. Always have been, even before…” He shakes his head. “I’m going to take you to one of my colleagues next. She might be able to help us figure out what you’re carrying.”
That’s right. A geneticist who might be able to uncover what was done to my blood. But that’s assuming she’ll be able to break the government’s encryption. Finola wasn’t exactly confident in their process, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be a breeze to decrypt either.
Randall glances around. We’re in a tight corridor of corrugated metal, rusted and stained. No one’s visible in the immediate vicinity, but looks can be deceiving, especially down here. Then he sends me a synch request.
It blinks impatiently in the periphery of my vision. I almost let it through, but something stops me as I focus on Randall’s face, tense and waiting.
“It can’t be like before.” It comes out in a whisper.
Randall rears back as if I had slapped him. “This is the only way we can talk without being overheard. Not everything is about us.”
“I know, I just…” I’m being stupid. But to open myself up to him again? That’s not fair to either one of us.
Chastened, I close my eyes and accept the request. Immediately, Rik’s awareness fills me. I nearly sob. Even on the default acquaintance setting, he’s overwhelming. A piece I had almost convinced myself wasn’t missing. My heart eases its frantic gallop in my chest as the shock wears off and an inevitable feeling of rightness returns after being gone so long.
He sighs a full-body sigh that travels his whole frame. Then he grimaces. <
>>Thought you said you scaled things back?>>
<
I flush at that, grateful for the dark. >>They can’t know.>>
<
I grit my teeth at the flatness of his tone. With this level of permissions, our connection’s limited to thought-text only to keep appropriate boundaries between our minds. Nonverbals, emotional broadcasts, all prohibited. My mind wants to jump right in where we left off. But I’m not sure I can.
>>So you’re part of some vast conspiracy?>>
<
That throws me, and I give him a second glance.
<
>>Not trying to be. But Charon’s connected too. I saw you both synching. Though th
at scar…>>
<
I shudder, trying to reconcile the version of Charon I saw with his past. Traumatic breakups or the sudden death of a confidant can wreak havoc not just emotionally but mentally as the mind relearns how to think on its own. Therapy can help, but that’s often an unreachable luxury for too many who live in the lower levels.
<
>>So the system’s stacked against them.>> It’s why my parents worked so hard to ensure that, whatever else, I was outfitted with the latest tech in the hopes I’d one day ascend. >>They’re the ones who’ve rejected implants and the access they provide.>>
Randall sighs. <
>>Why? Because they’d rather be the ones selected for the Vesa trial? They don’t care the lottery’s the fairest way to ensure every New Worthian has an equal chance of going.>>
<
>>But Emergence is for everyone, not just the Disconnects.>>
<
My thoughts stall at his words.
<
>>When I told you about the botched drop, I left out the part about the guy at the warehouse spouting nonsense about Emergence, the possibility of civil war. I thought it was a ploy to sway me, but maybe there was more to his warning.>>
Randall stops. <
>>I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s important. And not just because of what happened at the drop. Even before that, the briefing and mission prep were out of the norm.>>
<
>>You do realize everything I tell you puts you at greater risk?>>
<
I worry the inside of my cheek. >>Data transfer took place in the Echelon.>>
He whistles. <
I shake my head. The sulfur in the air’s almost unbearable. >>I don’t think so. We were dealing with the government directly. I’d bet money on it, given all the oversight.>>
<
Almost from the beginning. >>Yes.>>
<
A light strobes overhead, momentarily shocking my NAmp filter. Randall grabs my shoulder and forces me to the floor. “What–” My knees hit concrete as a clicking sound echoes down the tunnel.
Randall shoves my head down and covers us both with his hands just as a whoosh and a rush of heat roars overhead. Fire dazzles my eyes. After a few seconds, it’s all over. No more clicking sounds, no lights strobing.
Randall slowly gets up, holding out a singed gloved hand to help me do the same. “Sewer gasses. Have to burn them off periodically to keep them under control.” Sure enough, the sulfur smell has abated somewhat, leaving the acrid tang of fire in its wake. “Sorry about that. It’s one of the risks of this particular route. But the other option was to go through a settlement in an old subway tunnel. Didn’t think that was the best choice.”
I can only stare at him. He’s apologizing for this? “It’s fine. I would’ve made the same choice.”
He gives me a relieved nod. “The good news is we don’t have much further to go.”
Ten minutes later we reach a set of steep stairs. Randall climbs up halfway and locks his legs as he lifts the hatch up a few inches. Whatever he sees must set him at ease since he opens it fully and disappears. I climb up after him. We emerge onto a quiet side street, the hatch covered with faux grating to make it look like an old runoff catchment. The dumpster blocks us from view of the street, giving me precious seconds to get my bearings.
Away from the claustrophobic Underground, the Terrestrial District’s almost pleasant in comparison. The light, however feeble, reassures me we’ve returned to civilization. The air, thick with garbage and bodies, at least moves, banishing the slick chill from below. We’re a good two miles from the casino we descended from. Thankfully my Aventine map of the city is still working. I’ve never been more grateful for their paranoia. They intended the local copy to be a more reliable version than what’s on the New Worth network. But that also means they can’t alter it remotely and route me into an ambush or some sort of trap to bring me in.
<
Hopefully whatever Charon did to me is enough to keep Aventine off my back. They can’t track me, and I have a brand-new identity. But… >>If Aventine’s managed to trace me to your quarters, you’ll fall under their scrutiny. Including your work with Vector.>>
<
I don’t.
Randall nods to himself. <
>>But–>>
<
Ribbons of different routes from our current location to Vector blink into existence on my city map. Randall more or less follows a path that’ll take us to the back of the company’s headquarters.
We aren’t far from the glass perimeter and the only outdoor access point in this quadrant that’s monitored by the authorities. We pass garage after garage filled with trucks with improbably large tires. For all the planting trips beyond the dome? Assuming I had the permissions, all I’d have to do is walk through the airlock, wait for it to cycle, then emerge into fresh air, big sky, and green as far as the eye can see. No longer would I have to rely on hazy views from the Canopy or digital renderings broadcast across the network.
When the first reports came out a few years ago that the air quality had improved, that it was no longer poisonous for short periods, people tried to go outside and see for themselves. They were turned away, but ever since then the police presence has had to be stepped up to deter the waves of curious citizens that usually coincide with each progress report. With the Vesa trial and the Disconnects whipping up renewed interest in what lies beyond the glass, there’ve been reports of violent confrontations at the entrances.
But the City Council has maintained, despite our strides to reclaim the land, too much is unknown to allow untrained, everyday citizens see what it’s like. The grim stories about life before the dome – of deadly storms, polluted air, poisoned water and soil – carry such a psychic burden, the Council doesn’t dare approve letting anyone out. When the domed cities were first raised many people made the migration willingly, but some had to be forcibly removed from their homes. Those who held out were never heard of again. With the troubles New Sacrament’s faced still in recent memory, no one wants the sacrifices to build New Worth to be for nothing if we get Emergence wrong.
In the meantime, anyone can rent an arcade rec suite and select any number of simulations to recreate the outside world. Though how could they compare to the real thing? One day, maybe I’ll have the courage to ask Randall what it’s really like out there. Right now, I don’t dare ask him for any more of himself.
He lea
ds us toward the back of the Vector complex. >>Does Vector grow plants on site?>> I don’t see any greenhouses, but that doesn’t mean anything in the Terrestrial District where grow lights and vertical beds are the only way to cultivate anything in such cramped, dark conditions.
<
>>Such a coordinated effort must’ve taken a lot of time and money.>>
<
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. Emergence has always been the goal of living under glass.
<
And alert Aventine to his whereabouts. A chill runs down my spine. I have to hope they’re not paying attention yet. >>Smart. But we’ll still have to do something about your signal.>>
Randall’s profile is calm, edged with determination. He truly behaves as if there’s nothing to worry about. At least there’s that. He gives me a wink and pats his pants pocket. <
>>Except you spent much of the day Underground.>>
<
>>It’s a good story, but it won’t hold up to scrutiny.>>
<
>>They’d really do that?>>
He gives me a tight nod as we approach Vector Agronomy’s back entrance. A woman in a lab coat paces, a bored-looking guard watching her beyond a wire fence. The gates are open, but there’s no security portal to log implants. A waste since Disconnects probably only use this entrance.
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