Implanted

by Lauren C Teffeau

  Randall nudges my shoulder. “Emery, this isn’t the time to walk down memory lane. Seriously, let’s get out of here.”

  I hold up my hand, cutting him off. I search Tahir’s face, but there’s no deception, just honesty and exhaustion that lurks about his eyes. I’ve worried him, terribly. “Thank you, Tahir.”

  “Be safe. Be smart. I won’t be able to help you again.”

  Randall practically jumps out of the booth. My eyes burn as I follow, leaving Tahir to the rest of his meal. Randall scans the concourse, but I shake my head. >>Not that way.>>

  <
  >>No, he didn’t. Weren’t you listening?>>

  <
  Think in three dimensions.

  >>Upstairs.>>

  The hall to the bathrooms includes another door marked “Private” that’s unlocked. Randall and I go through, shutting the door softly behind us. Stairs take us to the apartment over the diner, just like Tahir said. The entrance recognizes my signal and opens without protest – another present from Tahir. Musty perfume and cat hair scent the modest apartment, thankfully empty. With the heavy taxes on companion animals, the diner’s proprietress must be making a killing serving up greasy food.

  “To think Tahir got it on with whoever lives here back in the day,” Randall says, his voice surprisingly loud in the stillness.

  “Ugh, did you have to point that out?”

  Past a tidy living area, a small balcony overlooks the tight alley separating this building from the farm. The woman’s made an effort to fix it up. In addition to a small bistro table and chairs, ivy claws up the external walls. Planters full of bright flowers line the railing. The farm reaches into the Canopy, a column of windows illuminated by grow lights running down its side.

  “What now?”

  I pull up my map of New Worth. The vertical farm spans dozens of levels, with a dedicated freight elevator that goes all the way down to the Terrestrial District. Distribution centers are on our current level, as well as Level 24 and Level 6, to make it easier to ship out fresh produce to all strata of the city. All we have to do is cross the four-foot gap separating the terrace from the start of the facility.

  “We’ll have to jump.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll use their freight elevator to bypass this level’s security. Should dump us out in the Terrestrial District.”

  Randall processes that, tingling awareness across our connection giving way to relieved approval. Like aloe smoothed across singed skin.

  A big exhaust vent extends from the building, then it’s two stories to the walkway below. Just have to hope it will hold. Swinging myself to the other side of the balcony railing, I take a moment to catch my breath, pushing back a wave of vertigo. That’s new.

  Randall squeezes my shoulder. “You OK?”

  I swipe my damp forehead. “Yeah.”

  “Here, let me go first.” He launches across the gap before I can protest, landing with a metallic thud. The exhaust vent groans ominously as he shifts his weight. “If I can do it, you can.” He flashes me an encouraging smile just as the vent creaks again, a high-pitched whine that makes me suddenly furious at how weak I’ve become.

  I jump across the gap and land sure-footed despite the way my stomach and my brain war with each other. The vent protests, a loud pop as one of the rivets bursts from the concrete wall on a wave of dust.

  Randall sidesteps over to the next ledge underneath a window, his careful movements not quite quick enough for me as the exhaust vent shifts under my feet. “Window’s locked,” he says.

  “Hang on.” Wedging my right hand in the small mortar gap between bricks, I reach across him with my left. “Close your eyes.” I press my palm against the glass pane. With an eyecast command, my glove emits a short static burst, sending shards flying.

  “Wow.”

  “Don’t get excited. Won’t be able to do that again for another couple of hours at least.” A police siren sounds, followed by panicked shouts and a couple of screams from the concourse near the front of the diner. The government taskforce Tahir warned us about. “Come on.”

  We carefully clamber down from the window onto the distribution center floor. Inside, I can barely make out an automated voice telling people this is not a drill, would you please submit to a security scan, thank you and have a nice day.

  The words fade as we pass automated carts lined up in rows, some stacked with boxes of vacuum-sealed produce, others empty where they sit in the semi-darkness. Packets of veggies lay abandoned on conveyor belts angling up from the floor below. Guess things were shut down in a hurry.

  We find the stairwell. “The freight elevator should be accessible the next level down.” I pull up the police frequency. While officers can synch with one another freely, transparency laws require them to announce decisions and report actions and findings on a public channel. Rumors have always swirled that much is left off the official channel, but then there are always rumors of what goes on behind people’s eyes. Chatter about another Disconnect demonstration in the Terrestrial District’s followed by an alleged sighting of a female fugitive in the Darlington Heights neighborhood of the Understory. “They’re setting up a canvass for this sector.”

  “Think they’ll come in here?” Randall asks, as we trundle down the next flight of stairs.

  “By the time it occurs to them, hopefully we’ll be long gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Markley’s Terrace. That’s where Tahir said I could find a scrubbing kit. You know, for after.” After what is still the question.

  Randall doesn’t answer, but his acceptance of this course of action comes through. That he’s sharing his nonverbals with me again… I don’t know what the reversal signifies, but I know I don’t want to draw attention to it, if it means he’ll just shut me out again. There will be time enough for that when this is all over.

  The final flight of stairs leads us to the plants. Running the length of the building, rows of fruit and vegetables climb floor-to-ceiling shelves. Each one’s climate-controlled to evoke the conditions best suited to the crop. Water vapor, the scent of warm growing things, and the tang of nutrients fill my nose. Not unpleasant, but so different from nearly every other place I’ve been in the city. Even the gardens I love to spend my time in don’t smell like this, the scents diffused almost immediately.

  Growlights mounted to the bottom of each shelf provide the only illumination as Randall and I cross the room. Our footfalls echo on the metal grating, open to the floor of plants below us. Overhead, harvesting apparatuses dangle down from the ceiling like dormant mechanical spiders.

  All the green runs together, looking so different from the items that actually make it to my plate. “You know what all this is?” I whisper, not wanting to disturb the plants. A silly impulse.

  “A few. Different kinds of lettuces, beans, and herbs. But some of them are trickier, the roots hidden from view.” He shrugs, not nearly as impressed by the farm as I am.

  “You said Vector contracted out places like this to grow the groundcover and native plants for outside, right?”

  He nods. “Whatever we do can’t impact the city’s food supply, so we’ve found a way to create rapid-spreading, hardy plants that are supposed to remove generations of impurities from the soil, which in turn create the biomass needed to restore the original ecosystem.”

  The freight elevator’s at the opposite end of the floor. Randall hits the button and it opens with a soft rumble a few seconds later. “At least the power’s still on.”

  Large portholes in the elevator doors give us a ghostly view of the plants still growing without help from their minders as we descend level after level. I’ve never been in a place that was so quiet, yet so obviously full of life. If that’s what it’s like living outside the dome, no wonder people are impatient to see Emer
gence come to pass.

  My ears pop, clog, and pop again by the time we reach the bottom. Plastic tubs and glass bottles full of a library’s worth of nutrient mixes line the walls. Tools for planting and harvesting are hung on hooks, automated carts piled high with bags of fertilizer. In the next room, we find a loading dock that must lead to the Terrestrial District. Randall heads toward it.

  “Chances are they’ll have door security and cameras monitoring the exit.”

  He turns back to me. “So what do we do?”

  “We pretend we’re anything but who they’re looking for.” At his blank look, I continue, “Who’d come here, with the farm shut down? Young punks looking for trouble, homeless people needing a place they can rest a few hours without being harassed by the cops, people desperate enough to steal food.” I cast about the room. “We can’t avoid the security, but we can control what they think they see.”

  I point Randall to a set of lockers lined up along the wall. “See if anyone left a shirt, hat, something.”

  While he searches, I braid my hair, two plaits draping down either side of my face to hopefully obscure a head-on facial rec scan. The changes Charon made to the scrambler under my face are still holding up as far as I can tell, but I don’t want to take any chances.

  Randall comes back with a dusty cap and a handheld stamper that punches the farm’s logo onto packages and crates. I pull the cap out of his hands and jam it onto his head, swiveling the brim until it sits low over his forehead, shading his eyes.

  “Perfect.” I take the stamper from him as well, testing its heft. “OK, we’re going to pretend we broke in here for fun. If an alarm sounds, we laugh like we’re drunk, and I’ll use the stamper thingy on the walls like any other graffiti artist. Then we bail. Got it?”

  He nods, looking far too serious for what we’re about to do. Or maybe it’s just the hat. “Like that time we went undercover in Partners in Crime.”

  “Except this isn’t a game.” Taking a deep breath, I approach the exit next to the loading dock. I shove aside any misgivings along with the door, stumbling a bit to complete the picture.

  I take a few steps and turn back to Randall, hold a finger to my lips, and give him an exaggerated “Shh,” as we creep forward.

  Chain link encloses a small yard. Still no one, but a camera mounted to the entrance locks onto us. Show time.

  I wave Randall forward, giggle into my hand. Along the wall, I line up the stamper and pull the trigger. A high-pitched whine sounds for a second as the device warms up. Then a satisfying thunk follows, leaving the farm logo emblazoned on the wall in prismatic color.

  I whirl toward Randall; he’s closer than I expect. I brandish the stamper at him playfully, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.

  For a second, his stiff demeanor and wide eyes give him away. Then his frame melts into a more languid pose, a grin tugging up one corner of his mouth as he tries to make a grab for the stamper. “My turn.”

  I dangle it away from him as he takes another swipe at it. Ducking under his arm, I’m suddenly breathless as I set the stamper against the wall again. He comes up behind me, and I block him with my shoulder as I pull the trigger. I do it again and again. This would be fun if it weren’t so necessary to maintain our cover. No sirens have sounded but I’ve no doubt video evidence of our delinquency’s being scrutinized somewhere.

  Holding the stamper out to Randall, I pretend to giggle. “All right, fine. You can try it.”

  His fingers brush mine as he takes it from me, slow and deliberate. He glances around the lot and gives me a wink. He stamps the wall once, twice, then tosses it to the ground. “This is boring. I thought you said this would be fun.” He’s angled himself so his face is in the camera’s range. If they’re capturing audio or have lip-reading analytics, it’s a nice touch.

  “I guess we could try the arcade. I know a guy who always lets me play for half-price. Come on.” I tug his arm toward the fence. So far so good. Even if an alert went out to the local police station, we still have time before one of their officers can feasibly get over here. “Up and over.”

  We make our way onto a small street paved in crumbling asphalt. Not populated enough for my tastes, but it’ll open up in a couple of blocks. I swipe Randall’s hat off and throw it into a trash receptacle. I undo my braids. My hair’s an unruly mess, but it can’t be helped. As the distance between us and the farm lengthens, my adrenaline wanes, leaving the dead feeling in my stomach at the forefront.

  Randall nearly comes to a complete stop. <
  >>Probably sent to check up on the factory.>>

  <
  >>We–>>

  A wave of dizziness crashes into me with the force of one of Kat’s punches. He looks down at me in concern, then back up to the guards heading our way at a hard trot. They’re still a couple of buildings out, but not for much longer. Randall veers toward an alley up ahead, bringing me with him. I force my body into motion. He props me up against the wall, and I lean back, trying to press all my fatigue into the concrete bricks.

  Randall crowds around me, not quite touching, his arms on either side.

  >>What are you–>>

  <
  My breath stutters. Too close.

  <
  What? The guards. I wasn’t even paying attention. >>I… I think so.>>

  He eases back slightly, then stops, his gaze intent on a spot on my neck. I can feel his questions, just as surely as he can feel my sudden discomfort. <
  I can only nod. My mind, my voice, both unable to answer properly.

  His gloved fingertip traces the nearly invisible line that spiderwebs across my skin, thinner than the nib of a stylus. A hiccupping breath escapes me as he looms closer. But this is Randall, my Rik. I should know by now I have nothing to fear from him.

  Tension rolls down my spine, dissipating somewhat at the interplay of emotions brimming between us, amplified by Randall’s fervent gaze. Full of helpless anger – the most destructive kind – before it gives way to tenderness, warming me from the inside out.

  <
  It’s too much. >>Eventually. Sentenced to penal labor and had his implant taken away, turning him into one of your precious Disconnects.>> Tahir said the case and sentencing were fast-tracked, another favor he called in for me.

  Randall hisses but doesn’t back away, which is what I want. Anything to make it easier to breathe, to find enough separation between us so I won’t drown. But no matter what I do, everything leads back to him.

  <
  Because he picked me out of all the noise on the New Worth network, just as surely as I picked him, before everything got so complicated.

  <
  Everything between us sharpens, narrowing into this one unbearable moment. The sweep of his eyelashes, the angle of his head, his pupils impossibly wide. And me, vibrating with anticipation and fear in equal measure, our connection dizzy not only with competing impulses but the limitations of our current configuration that restrain and compel, magnets being forced end-to-end.

  <
  He stoppers that thought with a slow breath, a grimace fracturing his features. <
&nb
sp; Chapter Twenty-Four

  I’m still adjusting to the shift in topic as Randall straightens and turns back to the street. Just people going about their business, oblivious to our little drama. “How are you feeling?” he asks as we move out of the alley.

  “I’ve been better.”

  “The curdle?” I don’t answer, and his mouth flattens into a grim line. <
  >>It’s in an elevated section the next sector over.>>

  <
  >>No.>>

  <
  I wince. Guess it was too much to hope he hadn’t noticed the way I’ve been burning through Geeta’s supply. >>We still have time.>>

  <
  The million-credit question. >>Something Tahir said, about the client disputing the automatic destruction of the data that typically happens in a situation like this.>>

  <
  I nod. >>So we’ll bring it back to them. We take this to City Hall.>> The Echelon, where all this started, but this time I’ll deal with the city councilors themselves. >>It’s the only way I can clear my name and prove I wasn’t in on the botched drop.>>

  Randall remains silent. Doubtful. Reluctant. Like the worrying of a hangnail.

  >>Don’t you want to help the Disconnects?>>

  <
  >>Then let me do this. I can’t undo all the wrongs I’ve done to you. Or the risks you’ve taken in helping me. But I know how important the Disconnects’ cause is to you. So let me deliver this data to the people who have the best chance at fixing this mess.>>

  He wants to protest. A wave of despair-tinged anger, like metal in my mouth, tells me that much before he clamps down on his reaction. <