by James Wake
Even without the glasses, it was too much. Light and sound and noise from every direction. Suffocating. Smothering. Overwhelming in a way Nadia would never grow accustomed to. Most of the displays blared invitations at her, assuring Nadia that she, too, could become a contractor, could live in this fair city. Maybe even live in The Structure someday. Payment plans were available for the application fees, loans ready and waiting to help you start the business of you, today!
Tess was drifting away behind her. Nadia grabbed her hand—her human hand, thankfully—and dragged her along. It helped somewhat, having that warm hand in hers to focus on.
“How many of these stores have you stolen from?” Tess said.
“Will you just come along?” Nadia said, giving her hand a hard squeeze. “We haven’t even left the ground yet.”
A row of elevators poked out to their side, a clear oasis in the mass of unabashed consumerism. There were groups of elevators at regular intervals, but Nadia knew this route by heart. She coasted along with the crowd, leading Tess to one of the sets of red double doors.
Restricted access. Nadia dug a card out of her purse and scanned through. The moment they stepped inside, the noise blissfully dampened somewhat.
“I should’ve figured you have a place in the Structure,” Tess said, slouching against one of the elevator walls.
Nadia didn’t see or hear any of it. Her eyes were fixed on the button display, watching, narrowed.
The elevator lifted, and the doors went transparent, giving them an unrestricted view of the canyons of shopping before them. The people shrank to dolls, then ants, then smudges of color swirling far below. Soon they were up among the catwalks and long rows of lights and cameras and drones, always drones, great swarms and flocks of them flitting and buzzing about.
And then darkness. But still upward.
“I actually haven’t been up here before,” Tess said. “I always skipped those class field trips.”
There was no straight path up the Structure. The only shortcut to the very top was by helicopter. Actually walking entailed a zigzagging path from elevator to elevator, breaking one journey into layered legs that stretched on for miles.
The elevator finally stopped. A gentle voice welcomed them to the Auktoris Employee Residential Levels.
This level truly was a city within a city, apartment blocks lined with more mundane shops, drone-fed supermarkets, luxury gyms, expensive private schools and high-end offices, anything and everything else one could imagine. People could live their whole lives never leaving this level of the Structure.
Above them, an artificial sky stretched above the facades of fake city blocks, bright blue with brilliant sunshine like nothing Nadia had ever seen outside. Once, as a child, she had seen it malfunction—static, followed by error messages, colossal letters stretching above the world as she knew it. Her friends at school had told her that rats snuck in and chewed on the cables. Vermin from outside ruining their prosperous utopia.
Nadia and Tess took a tram to the next block of elevators, fast and peaceful and not too crowded at all, a far cry from the already-decrepit trains occasionally found outside. Pleasant streets slid past them, with tasteful trees and benches and moving sidewalks discretely built into the ground.
“See? You would’ve dressed me up in that garbage,” Tess groaned.
“Excuse me?”
“For prom,” she said, pointing out the window. A dress shop sailed past, the window full of exquisitely tailored formal pink, white, and silver gowns.
It was gone before Nadia could read the ad scrolling through the glass, but she knew what it said.
“That stupid Charity Ball isn’t for months, right?” Tess said.
It was, but it was the event of every year, the sole focus of many a socialite’s calendar, an entire industry devoted solely to catering for it. Nadia hadn’t been in years.
They got off the tram at another bank of elevators, these ones behind a security checkpoint.
“Up even higher?” Tess said. “I thought it was all offices up there.”
Nadia pulled her along. Through the VIP lane. No line to slow them down.
She knew the routine. Hands up; turn left, turn right; stare into the scanner, please. The APS officers weren’t even visible anymore, like they once were, now hidden behind dark glass in a booth. The display next to the scanner stayed dark when it read her face, but the light turned green anyway.
Tess was up next. She went through the same routine, sulking and shrugging her way through the motions, sneaking in a sly wink at Nadia. Lines of laser light drifted up and down her face.
The light turned red. The display lit up with a mug shot of a woman that might have been Tess if you squinted and turned your head a little. Apparently her name was Elisha.
“Well, that’s not me,” Tess said, hands on her hips. “Do you guys have that thing calibrated for retinal implants or what?”
“Look into the scanner again, please,” a gritty voice said through an intercom.
Tess did. The light turned red again. This time Janet Pavlov appeared on the screen; she might have passed for Tess if she lost twenty pounds and put on a wig.
Several APS officers appeared, hovering around the edges of the checkpoint.
“Who do you have working that thing?” Tess grumbled. “Do I have to come back there?”
“Yes, very clever,” Nadia said, rolling her eyes. “May we go now?”
The scanner tried again. Red light. A picture of a wiry bald man appeared on the display.
“Way off. That’s just sad,” Tess said.
Glaring at the security guards, Nadia stomped over and grabbed her by the arm. “She’s with me. You know who I am.”
Apparently they did. The two of them boarded the elevator with no interference. The car rose up and up, past the Auktoris Global Funds corporate offices, past labs and conference centers and trading floors, up farther still.
*…..*…..*
Mere floors from the highest levels, Nadia strolled into her apartment without stopping, ignoring the welcoming chirp from the console near the door. “Make yourself at home,” she told Tess. “I’ll only be a moment.”
If that. She already couldn’t wait to leave.
The sitting room was enormous, large enough to host an ambitious cocktail party. One wall was sheer glass that looked out onto the city below. A dull sunset was quickly sliding out of view, bathing the room in smoggy, faded orange light. Every piece of furniture had been chosen for her, picked out and delivered despite her complaints. All shrouded now, wrapped in plastic and wreathed in white dust covers, reflecting the ghostly orange smog from outside.
Nadia ignored all this, her heels making determined clicks as she strode with purpose toward her bedroom.
Tess’s eyes were wide. “Holy shit. How much does this place…”
Nadia stopped, turning and throwing her a sharp glare.
“…cost?” Tess finished, jumping as the front door slid shut behind her.
It was huge, yes, that was a given. And in the most prime location in the city. Taking up most of its own floor. Nadia was opening her mouth to remind Tess that she had promised not to say anything, when a projection lit up near the door, startling them both.
“Welcome home, Miss Nadia,” a voice said. The projection had the appearance of a tall, muscular, dark-skinned man dressed in a finely cut charcoal suit. He would have been devilishly attractive if he’d been real, all elegant cheekbones and exotic bright eyes. Those had cost extra, along with the Oxford accent.
But something was off about all of it. Nadia had always hated the simulation, although she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.
“You have…” he paused, his image skipping a beat. “Thirty-seven messages. If you’d like, I can play the most recent for you—received thirteen days ago from…” Another pause. “…Mother.”
“No!”
Nadia waved her arms. “Idris, stop!”
“Message begins…”
“Do. Not. Play!” Nadia yelled, stomping one boot on tiles of flawless marble.
The image went silent but didn’t disappear; it merely waited at attention.
Tess cleared her throat, as if in apology. She seemed to be hiding from Nadia’s eyes, poking a priceless bone china vase near the door and pulling her finger back instantly. Nadia would gladly have watched the delicate thing smash upon the ground.
“Yes, I know it’s dusty,” Nadia said. “I told the cleaning staff to stop coming around months ago.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Nadia drew in a harsh breath, gesturing out at furniture wrapped for storage. “Please, sit.”
“Uh…?” Tess raised her prosthetic hand, uncomfortably staring at her options.
Nadia huffed and scoffed. “Never mind, I’ll just be a moment.” She turned without waiting for a response, scolding herself for bringing Tess here, for allowing this to happen. They would be leaving shortly.
Paintings on the wall passed by on the way to her room, tastefully arranged landscapes in understated frames, each signed with an “AA” in the lower right corner. Originals, each, signed and gifted to her by the illustrious Arthur Ashpool. The centerpiece, the masterpiece, threatened to draw tears to her eyes; a lovingly-rendered portrait of two blond girls posing in a garden in the style of an old French Rococo.
Nadia tore her eyes away from it, stomping down all the hate and murder and rage that threatened to boil over. Saving it for later.
Her bedroom was a palace dominated by a canopy bed in clean modern lines, what had been sold to her as a fusion of styles. It was the only thing here she really missed sometimes. The gym clothes she had come for were neatly rolled in an automated dresser, cleaned and pressed and wrapped in plastic. She tossed everything she needed into a bag. Training with Valery was taking a toll on what she had brought with her when she had last left, much more than she’d been ready for.
“Is this the bathroom?” Tess called out.
One of several. Nadia’s eyes shot wide open. “Wait, wait! That one is, er…out of order. Use the one in here!”
She rushed back out too late. Tess stood in the open doorway of the bathroom, because of course it had politely slid open the moment someone drew near.
“Whoa,” Tess said, holding her artificial hand over her mouth. “What…happened?”
Nadia poked her head in the doorway, glancing apologetically at the huge mirror. “Oh! Ah, yes. That. Just one of those things really. I was drying my hair and I slipped, and the hair dryer…went for it.”
Tess stared at the mirror, at the bloodstained dents and the webs of cracks stretching across it. Shards still lay on the counter and in the sink.
“There’s another bathroom,” Nadia said. “Down the hall.” Her foot tapped the floor, no beat to it at all. She slammed it into stopping.
Tess didn’t move, her mouth hanging open as she stared at the broken glass. She turned to Nadia, slowly and carefully. “Nadia, are you…okay?”
Don’t you dare look at me like that.
“Perfectly fine, dear. That was months ago,” she said, all calm on the outside.
“You know you aren’t making any sense, right?”
“A slippery floor,” Nadia said. “That is all.”
Tess came closer and reached up with her right arm. Metal fingers brushed the sleeve of Nadia’s coat. Without meaning to at all, Nadia jerked away from the touch.
Tess flinched and crossed her arms. “Look, I know you don’t like my prosthetic.”
“I never said that.”
Tess hung there a moment, mouth open to say something. She looked at the mirror again, then at Nadia, and seemed defeated somehow.
“Down the hall,” Nadia repeated, pointing.
The light over the front door glowed to life, in time with a soft chime. Startled, they both jumped.
“You have a guest, ma’am,” Idris said. “Shall I open the door?”
“Lock it,” Nadia said.
The hologram froze. “Lock override enabled,” it said, in a rough approximation of its usual voice.
The doors slid open. Two guards stood there, not at all like the Domes downstairs. The security staff up here wore suits and ties at all times.
“Miss Nadia,” one of them said.
She didn’t recognize him. It really had been months. “Can I help you, gentlemen?” she said, stepping between them and Tess.
“You are to come with us,” the man said.
“Your guest must leave the premises,” the other said.
“Umm,” Tess chimed in, raising her prosthetic hand, “that’s cool and all, but can I pee first?”
Chapter Seven: Twins
More elevators. To the very top this time.
Nadia stood behind the two guards who had fetched her. At her side stood a young blond woman her exact height, wearing a flawless white suit, her pencil skirt ending tastefully just above the knee. She stood with her back ramrod straight, hands clasped behind her back.
No one said a word. Although it was the shortest of the elevator rides in The Structure by far, it stretched for years. No ads this time—only silence waiting in ambush. Every few seconds, the dark red laser lines of security scanners drifted through the air.
Nadia glanced over with only her eyes, cautious not to move her body. The woman had thin scars on her temple, expert incisions sealed up with great care. If Nadia hadn’t known this woman her whole life, she might never have noticed.
“What have you done to yourself?” Nadia said.
“By that,” the woman replied, stiffening her posture even further somehow, “do you mean not throwing a lucrative career away or not woefully disappointing my family?”
“I thought neural implants haven’t been proven safe yet.”
“Maybe not for the peasants on the surface,” the woman said.
“This must mean she has them. You know you don’t have to do everything she does.”
You little lapdog sycophant, Nadia didn’t add.
“These will be standard for high-ranking executives in a few months.”
“Nadine, I know you might find this hard to believe,” Nadia said, “but I only ask because I would prefer you not fry your brain.”
Nadine turned on her with all-too familiar venom in her sharp blue eyes. “I will not be lectured to by a—”
Ding. The elevator came to a stop, its doors sliding open to reveal a spacious lobby lined with the last specimens of plants thought to be extinct. Idly, Nadia wondered if any of them were banana plants.
The suited thugs parted for them, replaced by squads of soldiers looming on either side, barely visible through the dark glass of the lobby’s walls. More scanners crisscrossed Nadia’s body as she followed Nadine, all of them set to lock the room down at the slightest suspicion of foul play.
Miles and miles through The Structure to get here, and through the finest soldiers in AGF’s private army. One would have to be mad to even consider breaking in.
The group made for the double doors at the end of the lobby without missing a stride. It was all Nadia could do not to choke on her own breath.
Chin up back straight show no weakness.
The doors opened to a sprawling boardroom, the walls on either side nothing but sheer glass staring down at the city. Sitting at the head of the massive table, her blue eyes glazed over, was an old woman in a white pantsuit. Her blond hair matched Nadine’s cut perfectly, a severe French twist, every strand pulled tightly into submission.
“Ah, my eldest daughter,” the woman said. “Home at last.”
“Mother,” Nadia managed to say with no trace of hatred. She cast a sympathetic look at Nadine. “I thought we were identical. And yet you still insist on calling me…”
“There is a
lways an order to things,” her mother said, cutting her off. “Hierarchy is the basis of human society, you know this. You were born first, after all.”
“By a matter of moments?”
Nadine wouldn’t meet her eyes, averting her gaze as if Nadia had said something hurtful. Their mother ignored the wayward words completely.
“Sit.” She gestured toward Nadia’s old chair, up at the head with her. At her right side. An empty chair sat at the head of the table, between hers and her mother.
Nadine sat across from her, at their mother’s left hand. Glowering. Just as Nadia remembered. Silence loomed for several long, tense seconds. No change there either. When Nadia’s mother finally blinked and turned down the light in her implants to look over, her face fell into a scowl.
“Nadia, why do you continue to torture your hair so?” she said.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Us peasants without neural implants can be so silly.”
Her mother shook her head, rubbing the scars on her temple. “Should I expect to see my daughter out on a street corner someday, unshaved and flogging herself? You know as well as I do what the advantages of implants are. All part of evolving.”
In near panic, Nadia clasped her hands in order to hide her wrist. “I’m surprised you haven’t replaced your limbs as well.”
“Whatever for? The mind is what matters. All these people excited over prosthetic limbs. Throw a football farther, leap a building in a single bound, play a piano like a savant,” she said, scoffing. “Waste of resources.”
Nadine nodded along, looking quite pleased. Nadia bit her tongue, tried hard not to picture Tess, not to taint any memory of her with association to this nightmarish place.
“This,” Nadia’s mother said, tapping her temple. “This is the future. Fighting it will only ensure that you won’t be a part of it.”
“That’s interesting,” Nadia said. “I’ve been reading some curious theories about the future prospects of this city.”
Her mother waved a dismissive hand. “Contrarians. Stuck thinking so small. When I was a girl, over and over they spoke of climate change, systems collapse, migration and war and doom and gloom. If they’d been right, this entire city would be underwater. Market forces corrected the issue. They always do.”