What Have We Done: A Cyberpunk Action Thriller on the edge of LitRPG (When Tomorrow Calls Book 3)

by JT Lawrence

  “Vega. I need you to help me understand something.”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  He struggles with the words, looks down and clasps and unclasps his hands, still grimy from the altercation.

  “When you were … when we were … when you were being attacked. By that man.”

  Vega looks at him, clear-eyed.

  “You had your roscoe—your radial gun—the whole time. Why didn’t you defend yourself?”

  “Defending myself is not in my protocol,” she says.

  “You’re not allowed to defend yourself?”

  “Not against humans. Human life is more valuable than robosapien life.”

  Mally winces. “But then, later, you did shoot him.”

  “That’s because he turned on you.”

  Chapter 32

  Cursed White

  White Mezzanine, 2036

  “Let me out!” Silver screams, holding her humming head. “Let me out of here!”

  She bangs on the walls, kicks the furniture. Tries to smash the glass of the tiny square window in her room, but it’s reinforced flexiglass and she knows it’s unbreakable. She thrashes around, shatters the plate of food that magically appears every time she wakes, upends the metal trolley, punches her stretcher.

  The architecture of her prison is infuriating. The door to her room remains unlocked, but outside there is only a passage with walls as white as her ward. If she walks down the passage, she’s forced to turn right four times and is then, of course, back at her door. The white membrane keeping her in is thin and elastic, like biolatex, but impossible to tear from the inside. It’s like being trapped in a white soft-pop balloon.

  Silver can’t figure out if it’s meant to be a unique kind of torture or a puzzle. Surely a puzzle would have some kind of clue? But this place is just a bleached rubber groundhog day.

  Is someone keeping her captive? Or did she die in that grimy ex-abattoir and this is some kind of wretched middle earth? Some limbo? How long has she been here? It could be hours or days. Every time she wakes, she’s back in her starched cotton shift, bathed and sweet-smelling.

  Silver stops her tantrum and sits down on the floor, against one of the cursed white walls, and draws her legs up, hugs them, tries to comfort herself. Her bandwidth isn’t coping with anything but the sincere desire to stop her headsplosion, which is a solid eight out of ten on her own personal Richter scale. The blue pain pills are there again, on their peach-coloured porcelain saucer. She crawls over to the tablets, holds them in her hand. The volume control of brainpain is on the rise, and she doesn’t think she’ll survive it if it gets any worse. It already feels as if it’s scrambling her signals. Reluctantly, she puts the pills back on their plate.

  The food lies spilled on the floor: transparent cubes of nutrijelly. She misses her mother with a keen sorrow she hasn’t felt in a long time. Seth. Mally. If only there were a way to reach them, to let them know where she is. But how can she do that? She has no idea herself. Maybe Kate would re-trace Silver’s steps, figure something out.

  Her gaze alights on her boots, which she hasn’t bothered putting on this time, and travels up to her jacket, which is hanging on its lone ivory hanger. The back of the jacket is shaped with metal corsetry. Steel bones and five elegant darts of copper. Silver gets up and pulls the jacket off its hanger, starts chewing at the stitching.

  With no tools at hand apart from her teeth and short nails, it takes two hours to release the first swatch of metal. She has stars in her vision as her headache reaches nine out of ten. She begins to unpick the next one.

  Chapter 33

  Maybe This is the Future

  TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY

  SkyRest

  Johannesburg, 2024

  The SkyRest receptionist picks up her Tile and comes around the sleek concierge counter, and is immediately replaced by an almost identical woman behind the desk. Same crisp snow uniform, sage-green silk scarf, claret lipstick, immaculate hair. Same automatic smile.

  “I’ll take Mister Girdler from here,” the woman says.

  Girdler? thinks Zack. He thought his name was ‘Prisoner’.

  The room is cavernous, light, and everything looks new and expensive. Tight-fisted Bernard doesn’t relinquish the wheelchair.

  “Didn’t you get the transfer documents?” she asks.

  The receptionist looks confused. “Yes, we did. We’re all set up to receive Mister Girdler. Everything is in order.”

  “I’m not talking about his intake papers. I’m talking about my transfer papers.” Bernard holds up her black bag.

  “No,” says Zack. No, please no.

  “Shut up, Prisoner,” she says to him through clenched, tea-coloured teeth.

  The receptionist’s perfect forehead creases into the beginnings of a frown. V-tox, Zack guesses, assuming that face-sculpting is part of the uniform. She looks back towards the new receptionist behind the counter, who swipes away a leaf and nods.

  “I do apologise,” she says, her face clear again. “I wasn’t up to speed.” Her name badge reads ‘Gaelyn’.

  Bernard wipes her hand-sweat onto her hips.

  “There’ll be someone along shortly to escort you to your new staff quarters,” she says to Bernard.

  “I won’t be going to my quarters right now.”

  “But—”

  “I’m staying with the prisoner.”

  “It’s not necessary—”

  “I’ll let you know what is necessary and unnecessary,” the warden growls. “You don’t know this one, okay? You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  The receptionist looks at Zack, adjusts her scarf. He gives her a friendly shrug.

  “Can he walk?”

  “Of course I can walk.”

  “We strapped him into the chair for the commute.”

  “Can you … un-strap him?”

  Bernard doesn’t answer her. Instead, she glares in Gaelyn’s direction while she unbuckles Zack’s straps with more force than necessary. Now he can stand, and walk, but he still has his smartcuffs on.

  Yet another woman in the same mould (snow, sage, claret) appears out of nowhere and whisks the ugly wheelchair out of the building.

  “Please, follow me,” says Gaelyn, and clicks away in her silver-spiked stilettos.

  They step onto a fast-track line, which is no small feat for someone in heels as high as hers. He feels a little in love with Gaelyn. Of course, he doesn’t know her from a bar of soap, but she’s just so different—the polar opposite, really—of Bernard. Neat, slim frame, beautifully styled hair and make-up. He can’t remember the last time someone was nice to him; he craves more of her clear-eyed attention.

  They hop off the line and walk towards an elevator. When they’re inside and the doors close, Zack says, “You’re very good with people.”

  Bernard sighs.

  “Thank you!” says Gaelyn.

  “You make people feel very welcome here.”

  “That’s our warmth score,” Gaelyn says, and chooses a floor on her Tile.

  “Excuse me?” snarks the warden.

  The elevator starts to rise.

  “Our warmth score. All potential employees are measured according to certain traits. The points allocated then reveal which job will suit us best. There are one hundred categories. I scored highest in the warmth section. That’s a combination of joy and empathy. Emotional intelligence.”

  “I can tell,” says Zack, and in the background, Bernard rolls her eyes.

  It’s so nice to speak to someone relatively normal after all this time on ice. For now he’ll overlook her Stepford aspect and appreciate her for what she’s good at. You do, after all, have to have some serious talent to make a crim feel welcome at a penal colony.

  The elevator climbs higher and higher, and when they reach the top, Zack is relieved to see they’re still in Johannesburg. Far in the distance, he can see the Ponte tower, best known for the number of residents who have hurtled to the
ir deaths from its multicoloured windows.

  When they reach the top floor, the metal doors open with a ping. The interior, as expected, reflects the exterior design: brutally minimalist, and empty. It’s like some kind of exclusive VIP lounge. Zack moves to exit the lift but Gaelyn holds him back.

  “We don’t leave the elevator for this part of the tour.”

  The doors close, they drop a few floors, and they open again.

  Now it’s an open-plan office with young people working from their pods. Holo design pads are floating around with sketches and scribbled ideas on them. Some kind of brainstorming unit.

  “We like to show the new intakes the whole building, so that you have a holistic idea of what happens here. So that you know how you can grow in the company if you’re dedicated and you work hard.”

  Bernard snorts, but Gaelyn has the good grace to ignore her.

  A few floors below that is a vast room buzzing with people speaking into small mics that are plastered near their mouths.

  “Call centre.”

  There’s also a smart canteen, where you can swipe a meal straight off a menu, a gym floor, a play centre, and a napping pad. Zack’s hopes start climbing. He’s never heard of a crim colony like this before, but maybe this is the future? Maybe the government has realised they can get the best out of their prisoners if they treat them well. This may be a prototype for future PLCs. Look at all these happy, productive workers! It’s a far cry from the automatons in grey uniforms he has a vague recollection of seeing in what feels like a previous life. Are these people, these young, vital people … are they all criminals? It doesn’t seem likely. Zack inspects Gaelyn. Is she a convict? Surely not. So how does this work?

  She catches him staring at her and smiles. The elevator slides further down, till they reach the ground floor. Zack thinks they’ll get out now but Gaelyn holds him back again. He likes the feel of her hand on his chest.

  “You don’t start here,” she says.

  Bernard smirks.

  The elevator goes down past ground level, down, down, down, till Zack feels as if they are in the bowels of the earth, till the air is heavy and the only light is from the LEDs in the ceiling of the lift, giving both women disturbing white masks for faces.

  Ping! goes the elevator, and the doors open for them one last time.

  Gaelyn steps into darkness and smiles. “This is where you start.”

  They walk along a dark passage deep underground. Motion-sensitive LEDs flicker on to light their way. The walls are raw rock face and there’s a hint of an odd smell—what is it? Damp? Mould? Old laundry detergent. Zack feels the weight of the earth all around him.

  I should have known. I should have known I wouldn’t be working up there in the light.

  Gaelyn’s heels provide a staccato soundtrack to his feelings of doom.

  They reach a massive steel door. Gaelyn inserts her wafer key and looks, unblinking, into the retina scanner, and it beeps and unlocks. It becomes clear to Zack why the security outside the SkyRest building is light. They keep all the crims right here in this hulking subterranean lock-up, and there is no way to escape. A shroud of claustrophobia wraps around his head.

  Once they’re through the steel door, Gaelyn takes off her shoes and motions for them to do the same. Bernard’s boots are bigger than his. They make their way into the Residence: decent looking recreation rooms, neat accommodation. Spick and span cafeteria that only stinks a little. There’s even a ping pong table and a vintage jukebox in the corner. An air sanitiser spills a constant plume of humidified air into the space. It’s not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination, but better than Zack expected after seeing that dungeon passage. Was that also done on purpose?

  “Where is everyone?”

  “They’re working. We encourage a very strict work ethic here.”

  I’m sure you do.

  She trains her cloudless eyes on him. “Keeps everyone out of trouble.”

  Gaelyn slides open the door to his room. It couldn’t be any more different to the dirty, overcrowded South African prisons pre-crimcol days where you’d be in danger of being shivved for a cracked plastic dinner plate. Here there are no jail cell bars in sight, and the tiny room is Asian in style: a sleeping mat on the tatami floor, minimal, and spotless. A perfect cube of folded clothes sits on the corner of the mat.

  Gaelyn asks Bernard to remove Zack’s cuffs, and she does so. She then takes Zack’s hands in hers, and before he knows what’s happening she’s clicked a single polished black band on his left wrist. It beeps.

  “More comfortable?”

  He runs his finger over its smooth surface, nods.

  “Lewis?” Gaelyn calls down the passage. There’s a muted sound of someone moving in the next room, then they hear that door slide open. Determined footsteps arrive, attached to what can only be described as an old Hipster Hell’s Angel: seventy-something in the shade with a perfectly groomed grey beard, and hair to match; a cappuccino-skinned body that’s seen a hundred pull-ups a day for decades; and a huge, elaborate tattoo that snakes its way out of his frayed vest—down his vein-mapped arms and up his neck. Hard scales and dangerous eyes. A dragon. He lifts his chin to acknowledge Zack.

  “Mister Girdler, Lewis is one of our most experienced residents. If you have any questions, ask him. He’ll show you around.”

  Lewis nods.

  “You’re going to be just fine, Zack,” Gaelyn says.

  Zack?

  Is that my name? Yes, it feels right. Zack.

  “All right!” Gaelyn says, hugging her Tile to her chest. “My job here is done.”

  Zack wants to say: Don’t leave me here. For a moment, psychologically, he is reduced to a child hanging on to his mother’s skirt, head buried in hard shins. Don’t leave me here. He doesn’t move, just watches as she turns and walks away from him. The only kind face he’s seen in months. Don’t leave me here. What have these people done to him? He forces his thoughts away from the retreating shape of the receptionist and looks Lewis directly in the eyes.

  “Where do we start?”

  Chapter 34

  A Map to Nowhere

  TWELVE YEARS LATER

  White Mezzanine, 2036

  Once Silver’s unpicked two pieces of copper, she uses the edge of one piece to sharpen the other. It already has a good shape—a long triangle—so all it needs is some friction to turn it into a more efficient weapon. She finishes it and is satisfied with her work, happy with what she’s made despite the knowledge of what it will be used for.

  Her head is still pounding off the scale. Even swallowing what little saliva she has sends lightning bolts of pain through her skull. Soon it will be over. She blows the metallic dust off the blade—copper glitter—and polishes it with her cotton shift.

  Silver doesn’t know why it’s taken her so long to realise this is what is required of her. It should have been obvious from the start.

  The bathtub is bright porcelain and so clean it’s as if no one has ever looked at it, never mind bathed in it. Silver clicks the five-finger option and warm water rushes out of the tap. The water is as clear as drinking water. Silver’s fascinated: She’s never bathed in transparent water before. She adds another five fingers so that the tub is half-full. Over the top, vulgar luxury, she knows, but in her situation it’s forgivable. She pulls her starched shift off over her head and slowly climbs in. It’s like sliding into warm liquid glass. She lies back against the white slope, then slips under the water, feeling the warmth wash over her whole scalp and face and shoulders, and it feels so good—such a relief. She sighs out bubbles and stays under until her lungs protest.

  When she surfaces, she’s thinking of her family. Tears come. The warmth of the water tinges her usually ivory skin with pink, and the blue veins on her wrists are showing off. Beautifully sketched lines of navy. A map to nowhere.

  Silver leans over the edge of the tub and picks up her hand-fashioned copper razor.

  She cuts lengthways along
the veins on both arms. Silver moans in pain as the skin parts. Doubt flickers in on her. Is she really doing this? Is this really the only way? But there’s no going back now.

  Of course she’s expecting the blood. The more, the better. The quicker. But the starkness of the vermilion against the bath, the pulsing flow, startles her. She watches as the red spills down and creates underwater clouds, like upside-down atom bombs. Soon the porcelain is painted; the water is dyed.

  Crimson Cascade, Kate would say.

  Silver leans back again, resting her arms on the lip of the bath. She watches the last of her consciousness leak out of her wrists, and her eyelids swoon.

  Chapter 35

  Ghost

  The Atrium

  Johannesburg, 2036

  “Hey,” Keke says to a passerby.

  “Hey yourself,” says the man, looking Keke up and down approvingly.

  Jesus, does she never get sick of the attention? Kate’s sure it would drive her mad—that constant gnawing of her body by every stranger she meets. Doesn’t she ever feel that one day there’ll be nothing left?

  Instead, it has the opposite effect on Keke. Her back straightens, showing off the perfect shape of her breasts, the flat board that is her stomach.

  “We’re looking for Silver. You seen her?”

  “Silver?”

  “She usually jacks in here.” Kate motions at the empty pod. At least, she thinks she does. The initials ‘GK’ are scratched into the smooth shell, making Kate second-guess herself. She hasn’t been here with Silver for a long time. It’s one of the ways she’s let her drift away. Again: the ache.

  “Teenage girl, long white hair.”

  On the wall there’s a slogan splashed in violet: As we design, so, perhaps, we were designed.