Walter was in my room.
"Where are my boots?"
He reached down and threw them on the bed,
"Try to hurry."
I felt good, surprisingly good, but not altogether well. I rose and found Walter with Richelieu, alive and eating a pile of crepes at the breakfast table.
"So, you made it..." I said to Walter. Richelieu laughed.
“You're welcome. You know we saved your life.” Walter said.
"Thanks. Where is he?" I pulled up a chair. I was ravenous.
"They're at the back. Leland’s dragging out his goodbye. He has a thing for Penny," Walter said.
"He’s not worried Geake’s going to rip his head off?" I said.
"Penny must have convinced the boy that such action would not be in either of their best interests." Richelieu said.
"Much better this way, however pissed he is. Leland’s pulling levers for them. They’re getting some serious access," Walter said, "Maybe they can figure out how to have a life together."
I found Geake standing by himself outside a closed cabin door. He was cleaned up and wearing a new dark blue suit. He smiled when he saw me.
"Hey, you two are off?" I said. Geake looked down and shuffled his feet.
"Yeah, yes, sir. She’ll be out in a second. We’re going to try somewhere new, further inland probably. Travel around some first to get some ideas."
"Well, I guess that's something."
"We’ll see. It’s kind of good to start over like this. Don't you think?"
The cabin door folded open and I really saw her for the first time. She went to Geake and he looked at me. For the next few minutes until they left, everything that happened on this stupid train almost made sense.
Richelieu and I saw them off at the door to BOB. His eyes teared while repeatedly kissing her cheeks. It was a little much. I settled for a hug and a silently mouthed thank you.
Geake loaded her bags. He held Penny’s hand as she stepped over the vehicle’s threshold. With everything ready to go he turned to me,
"El Tee, you've really been great, you know. I’ll never forget it."
He leaned down and hugged tightly. I slapped him on the back a few times and he let me go.
Once they were both on board, Richelieu pushed the button to release them. Sliding free, through the thick glass, their faces stared back at us. Oddly neutral they seemed. Under thick enough glass, maybe everything seems neutral.
"So that's what you're into? I knew this wouldn't work out," Ed said. He had been standing near the door secretly watching us.
"Why don’t you go off and fuck yourself some more." I said.
He laughed.
"Talk to Leland." Ed turned around to leave, "He’s handing out magic tickets."
I did. And he was.
***
King’s County Ch.4
ACCESS
****
BOB delivered me to a mountain town in Idaho. Like Eureka, there was no sign of any inhabitants. It was still a pleasant enough place with a lake near the downtown strip of shops and hotels. Everything was immaculately maintained. It was perfect idea of a place. I would have been glad to meet anyone if I could have stayed - I’m sure people must have lived there, however few - but they were expecting me in Seattle and I was obliged to take the transport they had arranged.
We didn't land at SEA-TAC. Dropping out of the clouds over the downtown core, a flat spot appeared, hemmed in by buildings and dense gardens. It was a landing pad.
The ground felt crisp under my feet: new rubberized concrete, slightly rough, with just a bit of give to the still swollen joints in my army boots. Taking care to conceal my limp, I walked down the raceway toward a building constructed of tall panels of clear, beveled cut crystal.
"Welcome, we’re so glad to have you." She said smiling and motioning me to sit with her on the sofa.
"You come highly recommended." She smiled again while sticking to the task, "...I once met Mr Leland." She filed through something on her pad. "I’m sure...one second..." She scrolled and stopped, "I’m Qim, by the way."
I had been admiring her. She seemed to not notice which encouraged me. I accepted her smooth, delicate hand and was surprised at the strength of her grip.
"John."
She smiled again,
"First things first: you need to get rechipped. You'll get the latest generation chip which requires no chemical supplementation" - she scrolled - "so don't worry about that, no more little white pills...and then I’ll show you to your home." -smile- "Tomorrow: big day. I’ll pop by to pick you up and we’ll get your implant done and start the orientation. It's a long, intensive process, as you may already know, but we teach on the job. Ready?"
*
The pain in my foot was gone, whatever it was had been repaired during my afternoon nap. I couldn't feel the new chip back there but I could feel the effects. My body was stronger, more solid like it had been during Artemis training. And I was calmer, more collected in subtle ways. I wasn't groggy or sweating like I normally would be after waking up.
From the back patio at my new house I could see a sliver of the waterfront. The night would be just beginning for the degenerates over there.
The rooms of my house were conjoined with sliding walls for doors in a sort of Japanese style. There were lots of horizontal surfaces, high and low levels, a mix of old and new. Polished light wood floors and black lacquered wooden trim and red appliances with silver or bold yellow accents made mine distinct, Qim told me, from the other units in the neighborhood.
In the bedroom was a bookcase full of old paper books. They were on random subjects, probably picked out by the color of the spines to complement the room. At the bookcase I lingered standing, then sitting on the floor, then in the bed with a stack beside me.
At midnight, I slept again, awoke naturally with the dawn coming through the bedside window and enjoyed a euphoric hour or so of dozing in early morning light before Qim's gentle knock came on the front door.
Qim chatted with me the short distance from my house to the Space Needle. She started off on a friendly tone rather than professional which I gladly obliged.
Qim said she lived in a unit near mine. It was bright in the glass enclosed tunnel we walked winding through closely plotted, immaculately maintained vegetation. Qim told me about her family’s house on Maury Island.
At the base of the Needle, we jogged up the few steps to the door. I saw something in the way she looked at me. But in the elevator she became quiet and only looked straight ahead or down at the buttons.
I waited alone in a little windowless room.
This is Qim? Hey, it's John. meet up? - the gazebo at 8pm? - Great
At the top were two levels, A and B, arranged around the central hub. An associate showed me to a vacant desk on B, the lower level, and gave me an introduction to the new technology.
Back in Wyoming, the piloting display for the GAF’s was made up of three curved LED monitors put together to give us about a 150 degree field of vision. We had a voice comm system with two earpieces, splittable to allow separate feeds into each ear, and two similarly configurable mics to allow verbal coordination at the squad and wing level.
The cockpit controls consisted of dual right-hand side sticks, an older touch mouse augmented by live field sensors, three square shaped keyboards, and foot pedals: left, right and center, with step activated buttons above and below each one. Weapons systems were operated solely by a rectangular left-hand keyboard set at a 45 degree angle. Every piece was tightly set and fit to the pilot’s body, ensconcing us in the experience to make us one with the equipment.
This new system was much different and not intended for combat, but the basic principle was similar: the operator was receiving live information and responding to it in the moment. Also, like our fighter squadron, we were expected to be able to work in concert as well as on our own.
On B there were between 25 and 30 of us operators. We ran General Services, Ma
intenance and Management for the KC+9 region. As a new deputy manager, I was in a nonspecialist role until I developed skill and interest in a particular focus.
At each desk was one fairly small screen, about half a meter square and transparent, comprised of two frames, the front one slightly smaller. There was no keyboard or any other peripherals. The associate sat me down and clicked the chair’s wheels in place. My eyes were drawn to the screen.
Seated at the proper distance, the face of the monitor appeared, starkly white, turning a light gray as I stared into it. The gray shifted to red, which became a pulsing violet and a complete image formed. It was a bit of brown tucked under a shiny green bush. I saw the tail when it moved and knew it was a rat.
I focused on the rat. I probably could not have looked away if I wanted to. I wanted to see all of it and to not let it escape. I hated its filthiness. It didn't belong in this garden under this beautiful bush that it would work to destroy in order to sustain and perpetuate itself. My disgust built and peaked: a whirring in my stomach tightening my upper arms against my body. A dull metallic cylinder emerged from the soil behind the rat. Three spinning triangles at the rear propelled it up and out. A jaw, just two plain clamp-like things, articulating out from the sides, slid forward, and, with a jerking twist, seized the rat by the neck and crushed.
I was the strength in those jaws and I felt the rat die. The tail rotors spun the opposite way and the metal mole drew itself back into the ground pulling the soft, limp carcass with it, depositing it down somewhere I couldn't see or feel. Then the connection was gone.
*
My first contribution to the KC+9 management system was over. The orientation assistant pulled me back by the shoulders, the wheels of the chair came out of position and the screen returned to transparency. Any longer in the system without the implant, he said, would be counterproductive.
We broke for lunch on the outside deck. The weather had cleared. The assistant barely spoke which was a relief. I just wanted to enjoy the view looking out over our emerald and alabaster city with the water and over that the distant trace of the Olympic Mountains. It was nice. I had a salad of goat cheese, honey, almonds, and hearts-of-palm.
During lunch the assistant went off leaving me on my own. I finished at my own pace then went back in to wait at my desk. Only a minute later a specialist came with a brown leather bag.
Without preamble, he withdrew a heavy pair of opaque goggles which I put on without being asked. The goggles beeped a few times quickly then held the tone and I felt a stab above my left eye.
This was the ocular implant. With it, I could use the KC+9 control screens for as long as I liked without the otherwise inevitable headaches, fatigue and eventual permanent neurological rejection of the system.
"Do you like my bag? It once belonged to Dr. Watson." He said after we ran through a few simple tests.
"James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA?" I asked.
He frowned, "No, Watson like Sherlock Holmes’ Watson. You know, my dear Watson?"
Like a little boy, he awaited my approval but I just shook my head. Still cheerful, unfazed by my discouragement, the specialist shortly left for the elevator.
The orientation assistant was still missing. A few meters away on either side of me were the other operators in quiet absorption. B level was totally silent. From my seat, the windows going around the curved walls were too high to see out of.
I leaned and squirmed forward to click the chair into place. The screens came alive, a little more vivid now with the implant. All tension in me was erased. It was strong. I was a heavy, armor-scaled fish cruising in warm prehistoric seas.
The city gardens were the first thing to come to mind. The gray mist dissolved and they appeared. I wasn't in them. I wasn’t one with them or anything like that - I had power there and influence. I knew them or could know them, as necessary, and act on what I knew. The feeling was one of comfort more than it was profound or even exciting. I was symbiotic with my world, plugged into a steady, gently satisfyingly stable existence.
So now what? I scanned checking for more vermin. I imagined a sweeping, surface skimming run like we did in our GAF’s. Instead, the screen centered immediately on a single rat poking around along the base of a mango tree. I knew without seeing, I don’t recall seeing, that this stand of mangoes was in the eastern city garden complex along the outer rim. The mole, a mole, appeared and the rat was killed and buried. I knew without having to think or check that there would be no other rats around, at least for awhile.
More problems arose and were resolved. Aquifers running low were rebalanced with those nearly overflowing and their mineral profiles modified according to seasonal specifications. Different soil’s pH were noted and adjusted. I was given a choice whether to add an acidic fertilizer to a section of rain battered blueberries or to use a blend of waste materials, coffee grounds, corn husks etc, as a mulch. I chose the mulch.
"That's good. You're learning," said a voice behind me. "Don’t pull away, we’re talking through the interface," he warned.
"Why is that the right choice?" I said.
"Mulch was building up: 4.31 t over the five year mean. And the 5C fertilizer can be more easily re-purposed or exported. Its shelf life is 20 times longer! It's an easy call but still good for a beginner. You made the right call."
"I didn't know any of that stuff. I just guessed."
"Nothing can be a guess," he said.
"Well, that makes sense. How do I find out this stuff for myself?"
He didn't answer, whoever he was. My question hung in the air. After awhile I could tell that he had left.
I cruised around the city. If I thought about something, it would come into view but only if the thought was strong and clear. If I was ambivalent or conflicted, the action would not happen. Getting the feel of it, I could easily choose and switch between weak thoughts for myself and strong ones for operating the system.
I went from plot to plot. I thought of lists and they appeared. There were hints of things, little threads of knowledge that could be expanded upon and explored. A single plant or tree had a library of data available on it.
In the converted high rises, artificial sunlight supplemented the meager amount that came in through various apertures. Soil and air temperatures were automatically adjusted within tenths of a degree. Watering was automated as well, done by a network of branching drip pipes. The finer and more unpredictable points of maintenance were left to mine and the other B level operator's discretion.
The high rises in one section held the legumes: lentils, tamarind, peanuts, soybeans and carob. These type of plants fixed nitrogen into the soil. Specially engineered earth worms tilled the soil and purified it of unwanted fungi and bacteria. With specialized cilia they collected the fixed nitrates then worked their way downward to deposit them at the bottom level. From there another class of worms processed and distributed the nitrogenous compounds as needed around the city.
From one of these high rises, I followed the flow of drain water down to a lower terrace of coffee shrubs. From there, the water flowed to the tightly packed rows of wheat lining the highway.
I thought back to days earlier, crossing over the highway to get to the waterfront and that spot came up in the screen. The detail from the wheat planters dropped away letting me see the area from overhead.
Groups of three or four fast moving, windowless cars came through at regular intervals carrying freight, no passengers. I spotted a kid standing at the edge of the highway watching them whip by.
He wore the same red and yellow shorts and shirt I remember from the waterfront. He was one of the obnoxious skateboarders that everyone else seemed to ignore.
He closed his eyes and stepped into a lane.
His friends came stomping over the wheat shouting at him. In the middle of the lane he turned to face the oncoming traffic, chin raised and his arms outstretched.
The cars stopped, grinding the wheels, centimeters from his knees. They
all broke up laughing. The kid jumped back out of the road and the cars went on their way. The others tackled him, just playing around, and rubbed handfuls of wheat into his hair. Their celebration was brief: It was another kid’s turn to go.
*
It's really interesting Qim. We should go there sometime. Let me tell you about your friend Leland, weird guy. His room was this lair like place. A whole train car to himself like a museum, full of old stuff but amazing at the same time. Weird. Crazy I guess. I'll see you at 8? Same place?
*
"Highlight it red to be replaced."
That voice again. Clipped and toneless.
King's County Page 12