Implanted

by Lauren C Teffeau

  >>He won’t be able to catch up with us before we reach the top.>>

  <
  Randall doesn’t say under normal circumstances I would’ve already figured that out. But there’s nothing normal about the curdle.

  >>Hang on. Let me think.>> I can almost hear Tahir clucking his tongue. What’s my exit strategy?

  Dammit. I push off the column and lean down, head between my knees. The pounding in my temples eases slightly even as the gray and white marble checkerboard landing swims before my eyes. Another deep breath, and I pull up my map of New Worth. There’s not much. Concourses feed into the Stairs at each landing, but between levels you’re pretty much stuck. With a half-blink, the city’s infrastructure overlays my map. Water, electricity, air, sewage…

  >>There.>> I send Randall the schematic of an old mechanical floor connected to the landing above us. Skyscrapers have designated floors every dozen levels or so for all the machinery needed to keep them operational. This one was decommissioned at some point for upgrades, but even if it was closed off, it’s still there. It has to be.

  He frowns up at the landing where it should be located. <
  >>We have to try.>>

  His frown intensifies, but he nods and guides me back to the stairwell. The first step trips me up, and he catches me under my arm.

  >>Sorry. Clumsy of me.>>

  <
  I don’t reply, just redouble my concentration as I fit my leaden feet to the step in front of me. And the one after that. And the one after that.

  <
  I follow his gaze to the landing where the access to the mechanical floor should be. A homeless woman has set up a makeshift tent in front of the wall. She watches us with hooded eyes as her brown hands move quickly, knitting something out of thick, ratty, reclaimed yarn. Two feral-looking children sit nearby, legs slung out over the edge of the landing. The boy’s blond with green eyes; the girl, darker than I am. Both come armed with the same suspicious stare. A family unit of convenience? No, necessity.

  >>We’ll just ask nicely.>>

  <
  The woman stiffens, her dark brown eyes narrowing as she inspects us both. “What’s it to you?” she asks in a harsh voice. “This is my spot, fair and square.”

  I step forward. “There’s an old mechanical access area behind here. And we need to, well, access it.”

  Her defensiveness shifts into something darker, calculating. “You’re lying.”

  “I’d show you if I could,” I say, tapping my temple.

  She growls, and Randall glares at me. <
  The woman whistles at the boy – ten, eleven at most – who snaps to attention. “What’s it worth to you?”

  I open my mouth to answer, but don’t know what to say in terms she’ll understand. What is it worth? It might not even be accessible, walled over by concrete.

  Randall shifts his weight, then rolls up his shirtsleeve. The woman coils into a sudden crouch, removing a UV wand from underneath her blanket. A small tattoo glimmers in its light along Randall’s forearm. The ghostly outline of a tree being struck by lightning. Where did he–

  “You may pass,” the woman says to Randall. She turns her glare on me and pulls out a surprisingly new credit transfer device from the folds of her knitting. “Fifty credits.”

  My mouth falls open. “You’re kidding.”

  The woman just arches an eyebrow. Randall steps forward and places his naked fingertip on the pad, authorizing the transfer. The woman waves the boy toward the tent, and he holds the flap open for us. “Corey’ll show you the way.”

  “If anyone asks,” Randall says, “we exited the Stairs on the next level.”

  The woman snorts but doesn’t object as she returns to her knitting. The body odor intensifies as I duck inside the tent. The kid bypasses three sleeping nests and a small cook stove and unfastens a panel along the back. Someone has cut through the mortar and concrete.

  Crouching, I follow the boy as he nimbly crawls into the darkness and waits for us on a rusty metal catwalk. Dusty control panels and abandoned meters flank the walls.

  “You knew about the access point?” he asks in an awed voice.

  “It was on an old schematic.”

  “No one’s ever figured that out before. Except you.” He grins and scrambles across the catwalk with fearless grace. In the dark below, transponders hum ominously. Like the precursor to goose bumps on my skin, never-ending, surrounding us on all sides.

  “On my map, the tunnel leads to the northwest sector, elevated section.”

  The boy shakes his head. “We’re not going that way. Too dangerous.”

  For Disconnects like him? Or us? A prickle of unease works through me, and Randall gives my shoulder a squeeze in response. “So where does this lead?”

  “The Graveyard.”

  That’s back in the Terrestrial District. The opposite direction of where we need to go. Tahir said once the best path’s rarely a straight line. But my optimism at reaching the Echelon in time sinks with each step we take.

  The mechanical floor runs the length of the building. When we reach the other side, the kid waves us into a hole someone cut into the grating under our feet. A slight rumbling shakes the building as the kid jumps down beside us with ease. We’re in some kind of access tunnel that runs along the maglev tracks.

  “How did you find this place?” I ask.

  Corey frowns. “Had to. Needed a place to hide from the police.”

  “But–”

  <
  I give Rik a startled look.

  <
  >>That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.>>

  <
  >>Then why shut me down, when all I’m asking–<<

  <
  I whirl around. Push up his shirtsleeve. Ignore his shocked breath at my touch. >>Then have I earned the answer to this? This is the same tattoo on the guy at the botched drop. What does it mean?>>

  <
  My stomach plummets. >>Did you tell your Disconnect friends about me? What I’m carrying?>> He never left my sight, but that doesn’t mean anything with implants.

  <
  >>You were ready to join up, ditch your implant. Telling them about the potential changes to the registry would prove you’re one of them.>>

  <
  The hurt and barely concealed anger radiating off him gives me pause. >>I’m trying to keep us safe from Aventine, the government, and whoever else has been sent after me. I don’t need Disconnects making my job harder.>>

  <
  >>Yet.>> I gesture to his arm, the invisible tattoo that lurks there.

  <
  I hold up my hand, and our connection quiets. Corey glances back at us impatiently. >>If there are any more secrets you’re keeping from me, now’s the time.>>

  He shakes his head. < />   “You guys coming?” Corey asks.

  I force myself back into motion. This tunnel runs parallel with the maglev tracks, but we’re underneath them, at the place where the tracks are anchored to the buildings. Air whistles through the metal panels – all that separates us from the gaping abyss between buildings. Except for the occasional tremble when a train passes overhead, the only other sound is our footsteps along the corrugated metal floor.

  >>Sorry I overreacted. Guess the pressure’s getting to me.>>

  Rik’s quiet for a long moment. <
  Like we were so close to doing in the maintenance hatch. Raw desire warring with my weakening body. Even if we did, it’d do us no good. >>Aventine would just take you away again.>>

  “Won’t be much longer,” Corey says cheerily as he scampers under a low-hanging I-beam.

  I’m not nearly as graceful as I stoop down and nearly clock my head.

  Rik’s concern flashes through me. <
  >>Need to know.>>

  His frustration builds up behind my eyes. I grit my teeth, digging my hand into my churning stomach, begging it to behave a bit longer. We’ve come this far, which is pretty amazing, considering. It doesn’t matter that I’m half asleep, that I can’t feel my arms…

  Randall comes up next to me, trying to get a good look at my face. <
  >>Just a little light-headed.>>

  <
  I certainly feel like shit, but that doesn’t mean we can stop now. >>We have to try. What else can we do?>>

  He gestures to my satchel, the scrubbing kit inside. <
  I’m already shaking my head. >>No. Too many things could go wrong once the data’s outside my body.>>

  The feedback along our connection practically rattles my teeth with his disapproval. <
  >>Stop making my job even harder.>>

  He wants to protest – almost a tangible mental twinge – but he lets the matter drop. After traveling downward for a half hour, Corey veers toward a section of wall and pries a metal panel back. No marks or anything I can see. He must have the route memorized. He waves us into another tunnel and replaces the panel, leaving whoever does come down here to maintain the maglev lines, robot or human, unaware of our presence. The heat and humidity in this section of the tunnel suggests we’re near industrial hot water pipes, but I’m having a hard time pinpointing our exact location. Must be too embedded in the city’s infrastructure to get a signal.

  Corey’s suddenly standing in front of me. “Stay here, all right?” Without waiting for our answer, he wades into the darkness and taps out an elaborate pattern on the hatch up ahead.

  After a long moment, a slow groan of metal results, followed by a crack of anemic light that gradually strengthens. Corey exchanges a few words with a rough-looking man with light brown skin and closely cropped brown hair. Corey returns, waving us forward. The kid doesn’t realize we can see better than he can down here with our NAmp filters.

  Unlike the reclamation center I found myself in two nights ago, the Graveyard’s where machines go to die. Factory equipment, building materials, motorized carts and bots left here to be picked over, recycled or smelted down, the rest to rust and flake into oblivion.

  I’m so busy taking in the towers of junk, I’m slow to focus on the man who’s manning the other side of the secret tunnel. His arms are crossed, his face puckered as he looks us over. “Pay up.” He pulls out another fingerpad.

  “We’ve already paid the toll,” I say.

  “That was to get in. Not out.”

  “But–”

  “No problem,” Randall cuts in smoothly. He depresses the pad, not breaking eye contact with the man. <
  >>They could’ve frozen the accounts of anyone detected on the Stairs when they spotted us there to try and slow us down.>> Even the dummy accounts Charon gifted us.

  <
  >>Yeah.>>

  <
  >>What–>>

  Randall gives the man a smile. “Sorry, must not have lined it up right the first time.” He presses his finger down again. <
  Two days ago I would’ve questioned him further. But now, everything in me responds to his voice. I bolt.

  “Hey!” the man shouts. His voice transforms into a sharp cry as Randall punches him.

  Then Randall’s bounding next to me. So not fair. I had a head start. Stupid curdle.

  Behind us, an intricate series of whistles pierce the air. All around, the skeletons of rusted machinery animate. Shadows shift. More rough types – four that I can see – emerge from the flaking husks of ancient enterprise. Of course. The gatekeeper has a crew.

  Randall leaps over a metal strut. I’m a second behind him with an awkward little hop, but at least I don’t lose my balance as we sprint down the aisles of junk.

  A teenaged boy angles toward us, trying to cut us off. He vaults over a wall of compacted scrap metal and lands only a few feet away from Randall. Without pausing, Randall lowers his shoulder and drives into the guy’s side, knocking him back. His spine slams against the metal wall, and he sags to the ground.

  >>Through there.>>

  Ahead, an abandoned maglev car rests where it’s been picked over for salvage. Randall adjusts his course slightly, and we dart through the doors, permanently splayed open like a dissected corpse, then out the other side. He lets me go first, keeping an eye on the way we came. My head throbs with each step, but I lengthen my strides, trying to increase the distance between me and the salvagers.

  I send Rik the best route for getting out of the Graveyard and back on course.

  <
  >>No. We stay together.>>

  <
  I turn my head – to yell at him, look at him in disbelief – I don’t know. We didn’t come this far to split up now.

  A man swings down from the overhanging crane and almost knocks Randall off his feet. He recovers quickly enough to block the man’s follow-up swing.

  They grapple with one another – neither particularly skilled – though Randall’s opponent’s surely had more practice as his fist glances off Randall’s jaw. No. Randall’s stunned for just a second, but it’s enough for the man to be able to punch him in the gut unchallenged. My vision flashes white.

  I reach out, already calculating how to take Randall’s opponent down – a swift jab to the ribs followed by a punch to his throat – when hands grab me from behind. My clothes fizzle in weak protest. Kicking back, I find someone’s shin, and they grunt in pain. I whirl around, using my momentum to swing my satchel against the man’s head. The scrubbing kit inside connects with his cranium, and he drops in a boneless heap. He’s still breathing – I make sure of that as I pant. Then I remember Randall.

  He eyes me with disbelief. He’s finally downed his opponent, writhing around in the dirt. <
  I roll my eyes. >>Let’s go. Don’t know how much more gas I have in the tank, if you know what I mean.>>

  His face hardens. <
  We jog along the perimeter of the Graveyard. The gate where equipment gets dropped off leading into the Terrestrial District isn’t much further, but a dozen people block our way, not a single implant signal among them.

  Randall swears next to me.

  “Fri
ends of yours?” I ask between gasps. “You promised me–”

  “I didn’t do this.”

  A familiar face resolves out of the crowd. Brown skin, black hair, eyes constantly in motion. Charon. That he’s on terra firma and not skulking in some dark corner below tells me something big’s happening, but I don’t have the first clue as to what that could be.

  Randall moves in front of me, his face unreadable as he stares down the Disconnects. Behind us, someone pelts closer, the head honcho manning the Graveyard. I tense, unsure who I should focus on, as I ease the touchscreen out of my satchel.

  Charon inclines his head toward the leader of the Graveyard. “Sorry if these two gave you trouble.”

  The man eyes the group of Disconnects carefully. Not overtly hostile, but definitely calculating as he relaxes his stance. “Didn’t pay the toll.”

  Charon nods. “They don’t know how things work down here, but I’ll vouch for them.”

  >>What’s going on?>>

  Randall’s head flinches toward me, but his gaze never leaves Charon’s face. <
  Not at all reassuring. I call up the database patch Geeta decrypted for us and delete it from the touchscreen. Then slide it back into my satchel.

  <
  >>Can’t risk the data falling into the wrong hands. You should know that by now.>>

  <
  “And what good is your word, Ferryman?” the man asks.

  Charon tosses a datastick at him. “That should be enough to smooth over any… unpleasantness they’ve caused.”

  The man grimaces as he stoops to pick up the datastick. His cheek is already starting to bruise, courtesy of Randall. He then turns on his heel. A sharp whistle tells his crew to do the same.

  >>I thought Charon was supposed to be your friend.>>

  <
  >>Does he make a habit of tracking you down?>> Somehow he must’ve been monitoring the aliases he gave us.