The Remaking

by J. T. O'Connell

  Creaks groaned from the rickety seats as the car jolted forward. Hums rattled a few loose floor plates as the magnetic rail slid the train forward. Sela picked a seat beside an aisle on one side and a thin woman on other. She hardly noticed, engrossed in a creased novel, As the Ash Fell.

  Sela set her purse on her lap and made sure to dangle one hand through the top, as always. She wanted to have quick access to the spray, just in case. Crime and crazies were not usually a problem. Not usually.

  A warning note sounded as the magtrain slowed and then split, each compartment heading off in its own direction. Complex networks of tunnels and a massive array of computers controlled all of the routing.

  For the most part, the transportation system was efficient, if a little time-consuming. No one liked it though. Nearly everyone remembered driving a car, even Sela. She had been driving on a temporary license under parental supervision when the decision had been made to move to Megora.

  Many people complained about not having the liberty to drive themselves where they wanted. The response from the Council and its appointed decision-makers was that people could apply for permits, jump through all the expensive, exhausting hoops to get one.

  Yet, the bureaucrats couldn't bother to help anyone get a permit. They spent most of their time reminding applicants that even a little gripe could be considered a violation of the limits of "authorized criticism.” It was really up to how whichever paper-pusher heard the complaint, how he felt in that moment, whether or not voicing a complaint was a crime.

  The car sped up as it hit a long straightaway navigating between districts. Rattles and vibrations mellowed with the speed, allowing passengers to speak to each other.

  Two men spoke quietly to each other about something. In one corner, a mother soothed her baby with a jar of food while a toddler asked question after question after question.

  On the other side of the car, a young teenager listened to music on headphones that were loud enough to be heard over everything. They didn't sound good at that volume, but maybe the music was meant to sound awful in the first place.

  After eleven minutes and fifty-one seconds, according to the screen above both doors, the car slowed to join a brand new magtrain. Each electro-magnetic coupler engaged with a whump! and the train whizzed on to a platform.

  It slowed and stopped, and the exit door opened. The LCD stripe on the side of the car displayed a different color now. This car spent all day and all night hopping back and forth between every district. It varied what station it landed at based upon what the computer decided, perhaps visiting each platform only a few times each day.

  Shambling out onto the platform, the group almost uniformly turned left. To the right was an exit staircase, if you were at the stop you wanted, whereas the left took you to a walkway up and over the train. From the entrance platform, you could hop into one of the in-district cars.

  That was why it was so time-consuming. You had to wait for another train, because you'd never get over to the entry platform before the train you were riding in had left.

  And because the routing was handled by a complex system considering every car, the in-district cars would sometimes take a few stops to land at the one you wanted. Passengers just had to wait it out, and keep checking which stop the train hit until it was theirs at last.

  The next train pulled up and the platform rapidly emptied, Sela taking another seat. This time, the ride was shorter, since the car didn't have to transfer.

  Still not her stop. At least she was on the in-district car now. Sela sat back and began to think about pulling off the cheek pads, and also changing into some more comfortable clothes. She had dressed business casual, sexy though reserved, to Irwin Harrington's suite. Part of her calculation.

  She preferred more… well, casual casual. Her normal daily attire was a nice t-shirt, khakis or jeans, and maybe a jacket or a hat, or even a scarf depending upon the weather.

  Winter could get pretty cold, as Megora was crowded up against a river that attached one of the Great Lakes to another, with a smaller lake in between.

  Sela had lived much of her life in a small suburb half an hour away from Nashville, Tennessee. Winters there never brought anything remotely like the sapping chill that poured off Lake Erie, freezing down to the bone.

  For now, it was still summer, and even the mighty Provisional Council couldn't do much about the weather. Nothing they would do to a supercity, in any case.

  Right now, the only thing bothering Sela was her feet. Resolving to find better 'special occasion' shoes, she relished the thought of taking this pair off. They were stylish and painfully uncomfortable, as though comfort traded off with class.

  At last, her stop came up, and so did she, keeping one hand atop her purse, fingers dangling through the half-open zipper. Pickpockets would not get her, and she was ready if worse types tried anything.

  A small crowd of people migrated up the exit stairs. Here and there, raggedy beggars plied their trade to little effect. It was unwise to call them homeless since that would fly in the face of the Remaking, where no one was meant to be out of place. Most people called the bums ‘Withouts,’ a politically correct term that was rapidly nearing synonymy with vagrant.

  You can’t change reality by using different words, Sela thought. Her father had explained that numerous times. Mandating different language would change definitions much faster than it could ever change the people who used the new words.

  Ignoring the Withouts, she blinked to clear their images from her mind as she headed up another level. The Council had numerous 'programs' to provide for those too ill or confused to care for themselves. Meanwhile, anyone responding to a single outstretched hand was immediately swamped by a sea of filthy fingers; the sort of attention Sela did not need.

  On the sub-street level, Sela detoured to a vendor that sold iced tea. It was dark, a black tea, and yet still excellent when chilled. The couple who owned the little hut, the Giordanos, scraped by a meager living, earning enough credits to feed their children, nothing more.

  Not that anyone saved for retirement anymore. Your choices were severely corralled by Council policy, limiting how much you could save and how much you could spend all at once.

  Obviously, the eyes of the government never noticed the elites violating those rules, only the regular citizens. Regular people were the clay worked by the Remaking, while elites helped the Council in the endeavor, therefore receiving a pass on the rules.

  Exchanging a few pleasantries with the Giordanos, Sela moved on when another customer placed his order. Spices from the tea tickled her senses, and when she exhaled after taking a sip, she could even smell the exotic flavor.

  Sela moved up to street level, out into open air. The standard work day was nearly over. Pedestrians filed out into the streets and bustled on their way. Here, the valleys between buildings were unevenly lit, many mirrors and lights scuffed or broken. Even so, the streets glittered with bikes and a handful of cars.

  Sela’s district was a mix of various offices, shops, and restaurants on the lower levels of the skyscrapers. Above that, residential housing crammed in a portion of the eighteen million people living in Megora. Most of the Withouts lived wherever they weren’t bothered.

  Sela pushed her way past a few people, ignoring the hard, watchful eyes of a pair of Guides patrolling the other way. They were close enough, she could see their chest patches, the symbol of the Remaking; a triangle formed out of chevrons. It was meant to signify progress, as though all parts of society were to be me conformed into one upward goal.

  The Guides didn’t give her a second glance as they passed. She flowed through the traffic and turned down another street teeming with people. Still several blocks away, she could already see her building.

  Neither the tallest, nor the nicest in her district, it still climbed a thousand feet into the air. About that point, most of the local skyscrapers began to taper. Which meant the cramped claustrophobia of the streets and lower lev
els could be relieved by sneaking out onto the roof, so long as dizzying heights did not bother you.

  Neither heights nor crowded spaces bothered Sela much. She would be happy to have those trials, if only the whole city were kept cleaner. A grimace settled across her chin, locking her queasy stomach down.

  Most of Megora was less than a decade old. But already, piles of trash and rancid smears of muck were spattered all over the lower-class districts. Feet kicked litter out of the way until it clumped up in corners, in the alleys, down sewer drains. The concrete had a grimy look from all the shoes infinitely treading through spills of every sort.

  The Provisional Council refused to let sidewalks be cleaned often enough. They claimed water was a precious, unrecoverable resource. This in a supercity nestled between a pair of lakes each surpassing a billion and a half gallons of that precious liquid.

  And scarcity never hindered any cleaning of the nicer distri—

  Sela blinked as her gaze caught a brilliant glare. One of the mirrors was bent improperly, reflecting the sun to a few particular spots, rather than spreading the light over a designated area. Purple blobs irritated her eyes, fading slowly.

  Arriving at her building, Sela moved through one of the residential entrances. She joined a group of people lingering around the elevator. There weren't quite enough elevators to accommodate the demand at peak times.

  She rode upward in a crowd of strangers, whose faces she might recognize, people she nevertheless did not know. And after all, Sela had no one in her life she could trust with knowing her.

  Not anymore, she thought wistfully. The doors opened on her floor

  Her feet ached in the shoes as she padded on cheap carpet. Sela's eyes, still coping with sunspots, had to contend with substandard lighting in the hallway. Claustrophobic residents had it bad in these apartments. Families were packed into tiny dormitories that were more like cells than homes.

  Sela slid past someone who lived a dozen or so doors down, then palmed her door open. Her finger print on the scanner registered the identity ghosted for her by her father, Sela Mason.

  Locking the door behind her, Sela flicked on the lights and blinked, then rubbed her eyes. The glare wouldn't scrub away. It was fading slowly. She finished the tea with a long gulp and set the cup down on the small, round table in the middle of her kitchen nook.

  Next to the nook, an old couch sagged beneath the sheets she had cleaned and pinned over its ancient upholstery. A lamp, a few books, a shelf with some knickknacks, a coffee table, and a tablet; nothing else would fit in her miniature living room.

  Wasting no time, she took two steps into the bedroom and changed into more comfortable clothes, yawning and stretching to cleanse away the grit she felt from the streets. Then she carefully pulled a tiny digital recorder from the collar of the stylish shirt she had been wearing.

  Sela interfaced her card with the recorder's memory and checked the file. The levels looked good, midrange. Hopefully, it would be clear enough. Either way, she would be paid for her work.

  Sela put the device into an envelope, stashing that into the canvas panel on the underside of the kitchen table.

  Then she slipped into the bathroom and went to work to remove the pads from her cheeks. It took several minutes, since they were reusable. Tedious, careful plying. After that, she scrubbed away all the makeup and washed her face clean. Instantly she felt better, felt relaxed.

  Stretching again, she meandered back out into the living room and sat on the couch. Sela grabbed her tablet, and leaned back, nearly laying down.

  The device started quickly. It was one her father had sent to her, an expensive model hacked and rooted to make isolating her connection nearly impossible, if she was careful.

  The startup process completed after a few seconds. Sela stared at the screen, chewed on her bottom lip, stared deep in thought.

  SovereignCast was usually available. Most days, the programmers at the Agency of Vision were powerless to block out the wireless signals injected into Megora's networks.

  Agency programmers were second-rate. Their creativity and ingenuity was blanketed under layers of bureaucracy, and their efficiency was checked by apathy. As long as they put forward a decent effort between shift-start and shift-end, the programmers could claim they were doing the best they could to block out Sovereign City's digital invasion.

  And the truth was, SovereignCast had a team of geniuses who could crack into any system and run around firewalls like a boomerang. That much was clear.

  SovereignCast was not a low-budget stream. Sovereign City looped messages to anyone who would access the website while it was patched into Megora's network.

  Various programs showed different aspects of life in the Sovereign City, from the spacious homes people owned, to the businesses they operated, to the cars they drove, to the schools where children were taught how to think, rather than what to think…

  Sela tapped a finger against the edge of the tablet as she thought.

  Imagine. Imagine a place where you can openly criticize people in power and not fear retaliation. She felt a tremble in her sternum. Her eyes gazed at the screen.

  She tapped to find the website.

  It was up.

  The stream began with a panoramic video of Sovereign City, taken from the air. It was a beautiful city, much older than Megora. The buildings were nothing like Megora's cold, tapering monoliths. The largest buildings in Sovereign City were perhaps three or four hundred feet tall; it was hard to tell just from the shot.

  Everything was shorter and spaced further apart. Every street was bathed in light direct from the sky. The streets were cleaner too. Every property was carefully manicured, because anyone who had property took care of it.

  And there were cars with everyday people behind the wheel. Everyday people who owned them, rather than chauffeurs for V.I.P.s. And many of the cars were older models, many from when Sela was a child. That was before the Council traded beauty and appeal for a few measly percentage points of efficiency.

  Remembering Harrington's Fen again, Sela almost laughed. A helicopter named after a swamp. Absurd!

  Of course, Harrington didn't have to live in a swamp, or even the musty-smelling districts with millions of commoners. He had several clean, spacious residences, and plenty enough money to afford all kinds of transportation.

  Those angry thoughts, maybe even jealous thoughts, of the ruling class slipped away as a nostalgic serenity hit Sela with unexpected power.

  Sovereign City looked like Nashville to her, the city where she had spent her happiest days. Her father had taught at a university there. And her mother had helped so many volunteer charities, Sela never could sort them all out. It hurt too much to think of her mother, so she focused on the image of Sovereign City before her.

  Nashville was a much larger town, but the old, American style was clear in Sovereign City. The Remaking had not touched it, though the Provisional Council had their hands on everything else in the world.

  Sela could not imagine how they had managed to stay free. The people of Sovereign City had braved the natural disasters that ravaged much of the land around the world. And somehow, they staved off the military forces wielded by the Provisional Council. They had survived and flourished, by the looks of it.

  Since the Remaking began, battalions of Guides were deployed to round up straggling bands of humans. Not standard police. These were shock-troops specifically trained to exterminate those who refused to join the supercities.

  All land outside the supercities was off limits to humanity. Human presence was considered too great a threat to the environment. The Provisional Council claimed that's where the disasters had come from, but Sela knew otherwise.

  Sovereign City fought off the armies of the Guides. How? she wondered. How, after so much of the world had rolled over and succumbed?

  The shot above Sovereign City circled slowly, showing the beautiful town from numerous angles. Sela realized she had the tablet's volume off. She
tapped twice to turn it up.

  A narrator spoke in dramatic tones, "…orrow and the next day, the people of Sovereign City will have even more opportunities, innovation, and advancement. While the Provisional Council speaks in such lofty tones, with such clever rhetoric, it is only the free City that truly offers those hopes and dreams to humanity."

  The shot shifted to a grocery store bountiful with fresh produce, and canned goods produced by dozens of small companies in Sovereign City.

  "In Sovereign City, the people choose what to buy with their own money, and that provides incentive to the seller to make more for their customers to buy. Both parties benefit when they make a deal, because they wouldn't make a deal otherwise."

  A smiling manager laughed and joked with a grinning customer as they exchanged old paper money for a bottle of milk.

  "That is the genius of the invisible hand. Every person votes for what they want, by how they decide to spend what they earn. And that encourages every person to do the best they can to satisfy their fellow man.

  "Not only does every person get to vote, but since every vote, or transaction, is individual, every person gets what they vote for, to a certain extent."

  A video taken outside the market rocketed forward in high speed, showing people flowing into the market and out of it, laden with goods.

  "Under the Provisional Council, every product and price has to be approved by the bureaucrats, those know-it-alls who decide what you, the consumer, can and cannot have. And most of all, what they decide you cannot have is your own choice for your own life."

  The shot from above resumed, "Nothing is more dangerous to Megora than the idea that each person have control over his own life. In Sovereign City, nothing is more admirable. Nothing is more desired. Nothing is more real."

  The images faded, except where capitalized and emboldened letters spelled out the words "LIVE FREE OR DIE".

  Sela sighed wistfully. Sovereign City had been something of a legend last year, when she still lived with her family. When Sela’s father had sent her into hiding, he had tried to send her to Sovereign City, where she would be safe. Sela had refused to leave Megora.