The Place Inside the Storm

by Bradley W Wright

  “No. They’re actually easier to hack than the old cards, though. I went ahead and got one so I could change my identity if needed.”

  I was feeling sleepy, having gotten up early and gone to sleep late, so I reclined my seat and turned my head to watch the scenery go by. There wasn’t much to look at but the broad sides of trucks as we passed them, clouds in the blue sky, farmland that had returned to its wild origins. Everything seemed to blur and float apart into pixels as I squinted my eyes. I felt for a moment like I was seeing into some deeper reality. The world was a collection of dust motes. The motes danced and made patterns and those patterns were our lives. One moment the patterning put me in Ms. Laughlin’s programming class at PVCSTEM. The next moment I was on the run in a sewer tunnel under the ground. Next, I was in the woods in the middle of nowhere, walking. Thinking through those memories, reliving them in my mind’s eye, I grew drowsier. I yawned. My eyes felt heavy so I closed them. Pretty soon, I fell asleep.

  When I woke up, we were just entering Los Angeles. We passed by the glittering downtown then zipped over what I now knew were mostly empty, deserted neighborhoods crumbling into decay. I drew a ragged breath as I looked out over the cityscape. I hadn’t thought I would ever come back, certainly not so soon.

  “We’ll go to my place and wait until it’s time,” Celeste said. “It’s good you had a nap.”

  Celeste lived in an old brick warehouse building in an area west of downtown called Koreatown. Most of the other buildings on the block were derelict but Celeste explained to me that the warehouse had been taken over and fixed up by a group of artists and hackers. The car drove straight up a ramp and into the building through a loading dock doorway. As soon as we were inside, the garage door trundled closed, blocking out the bright daylight.

  “We have arrived at your destination,” the car computer intoned. “The fare is zero dollars, zero cents and has been charged to your account.” The car doors slid open while the computer was still speaking and we stepped out.

  “This is my space,” Celeste said. “We all have our own spaces here and share some communal space. Computer, lights forty percent.”

  Lamps glowed to life, and I looked around. The floor was concrete, the walls brick. All in all it reminded me a lot of Loki and Aeon’s place in the garage. There was a sturdy looking loft built out of wood that seemed to be the bedroom. The rest of the space was open.

  “While we’re waiting, why don’t you show me some of your programming skills? I hear you’re good with firmware. I have some code that needs to be written, and I have a spare set of specs you can use.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Xel can help too. He knows his stuff.”

  ***

  At two a.m., we left Celeste’s building in the hacked car, headed toward Playa Vista. I wore the specs she had loaned me. It felt strange after weeks without them to see the data streams in my vision again. I had gotten used to seeing the world without the constant overlay. The streets of Los Angeles were dark and empty. A strong wind was bending palm tree fronds and blowing dust in clouds across our path. I sank down in my seat. The textile covering the cushions felt cold to the touch and a shiver ran down my spine. I felt small and afraid. My mind raced, thinking through all the possibilities of what might happen.

  The drive was not long. In Playa Vista, the corp housing blocks towered above us--all black glass and concrete. The car navigated to a rear entrance of the building where my family lived, where I used to live. Celeste turned to me.

  “This is it. I’m going to patch Joseph in.”

  A moment later Joseph’s avatar appeared in our chat. He looked like a younger version of Oak but he had Yarrow’s eyes.

  “Good evening, Tara,” he said. “It’s nice to finally meet you. And you too, Xel. I hope we can meet in person some time.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” I said. “Thanks for helping me.”

  “You are doing much more for us than we are for you. Celeste, is everything ready?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Tara, I’ll be waiting for you. We will maintain contact. I’ll set the car to drive in circles. When you are inside, Joseph will disable the house computer. Call me when you are on your way out. If anything happens, run. Come to this door.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard.

  “I’m ready,” I said, my mouth dry, but I could feel my head spinning, the chaotic energy swirling through my body. Not right now, I thought, gritting my teeth, I can’t melt down right now. I took a deep breath, counted to five, another breath, then pushed the button to open the car door. “Let’s go, Xel,” I said.

  I approached the glass double doors and held my head up for the scanner. There was a momentary delay while the system scanned my face, verifying my biometrics, then the doors slid open. I stepped into the wide corridor and Xel followed.

  “We’re in,” I said, looking around, feeling the presence of Joseph and Celeste.

  I hadn’t ever used this entrance but I had gone over the building plans with Celeste. The corridor led to the elevator lobby, allowing us to bypass the main desk where the security guard would be stationed. I walked as quietly as possible. The reflections of the soft lights above shone on the polished floor and broke up into jagged rainbows that left tracers behind, baffling my eyes. I was still on the edge of meltdown. My body was shaking. I tapped my thighs rhythmically with the palms of my hands. Books, I thought, and began running through the complete works of one of my favorite authors in my head, beginning with the earliest and proceeding through the list.

  Xel and I came to the end of the hallway, and I stepped up to the nearest elevator. The sensor scanned my face and the light glowed green. I pressed the button. A moment later the doors slid open and I stepped in.

  “We’re in the elevator,” I said in the chat. “All fine so far.”

  “Good,” Joseph responded. “I’m disabling the house computer now. Leaving only basic functioning up and running. The system reports all occupants asleep.”

  There was hardly any sensation of movement as the elevator rose. The doors opened. I took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway. It felt, at the same time, both incredibly familiar and distantly strange. We walked past closed doors, turned, kept moving until we reached the right one. I faced the door. Inside, my parents should be asleep. My sister too. My room would be there with all my stuff. What if they woke? All at once I felt frightened--a debilitating fear that made we want to curl up on the floor. I pulled the hood of my jacket around and bit down on it hard to keep from whimpering.

  “Tara, what’s wrong?” Xel asked, looking up at me. I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. “You can do this,” he said. “We can do it together. Step up to the scanner. I’ll go in first and make sure everyone is asleep.” I nodded again and stepped forward, lifting my face so the camera could scan me. The lock clicked and the door swung open. Xel prowled in ahead of me. I followed and stood in the entry hall, looking at myself in the mirror.

  “I look like hell,” I said, my mother’s voice in my head. I sniffed the air. It smelled like home.

  “Tara,” Xel said, behind me. “Your father is asleep in his study. Your mother and Zoie are sleeping in their beds. Let’s go to the study and get this over with.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, following Xel. I resisted peeking in at my sister’s door but when I passed my parents’ room I couldn’t help myself. I looked in and saw my mother in the bed. She was turned away from me with just a sheet covering her. Light from the big window across the room lay across her. I yearned for a moment to just go lay down in the bed and curl up next to her but Xel bumped my leg with his head. I looked down and he gestured for me to follow. We continued down the hall, passing my room before coming to the study. I could hear my father snoring from outside the door. I pulled it open silently and saw him in his brown leather reclining chair. He was deep asleep but still wearing his specs. I tiptoed in. Strangely, I felt almost nothing but a desire to get the code and get out. I had thought I would
have a moment of reckoning and know for certain whether or not I had made the right decision. I already knew, though. I just hadn’t fully admitted it. There was no place for me here anymore. Carefully, I lifted the specs away from my father’s face then ducked down and held my breath, counting to twenty. He barely stirred. I took my own specs off and put his on. I held my finger to the contact for a moment but an “unrecognized biometric” warning flashed red. He must have removed my profile. I would need to use his finger. I crouched down next to his chair. His snores were loud. I was sweating and trembling and it was hard to concentrate.

  “Steady,” Xel said. “You can do this. Just be careful not to wake him.”

  I lifted his finger as slowly as possible and pressed it to the contact. Quickly then, I put the specs on. I was in. I retreated to the corner of the room and began my search. My father was already in the database that held Xia Yu’s vast trove of software code. Celeste had told me the internal number for the project. I ran a search on that, found the repository I needed, and issued a pull request. The code copied down almost instantly. I gave the command to open the main file and the text shimmered to life, overlaying my vision. The dark room and my sleeping father receded into the background. I scrolled through the first few lines to make sure it was what I needed. It certainly looked like firmware code. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell much.

  I shrugged and issued the command to send the bundle of code across the net to where an anonymous server waited to transmit it on to another randomized node, and so on and on through enough encrypted channels to completely erase any hope of tracing it. My task complete, I stood and laid my father’s specs on the table next to his chair. I took one last look at him, almost reached out to touch him, but stopped myself.

  “Goodbye,” I whispered.

  I didn’t feel like I was going to melt down anymore. I just felt sad and hollow inside. A tear slid down my cheek. I turned away, headed down the hall. At the door to my room, I stopped for an instant, standing still. I could think of only one thing I wanted to take with me. I darted inside quickly and found it on my dresser--a framed photo of Rosie and me together. In the kitchen I pulled a card I had written earlier at Celeste’s place from my pocket and left it on the table. It just said “I’m sorry,” with my name below. I couldn’t think of anything else to write.

  “Are you ready?” Xel asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 18

  Escape, Again

  I closed the door and began walking swiftly down the hallway, speeding toward the elevator and away from my past. The first time, in the hospital, I ran away without thinking. I was appalled by the conversation I overheard. I felt threatened. My instincts kicked in and I ran. This time I knew exactly what I was doing, what choice I was making. Xel was at my side, looking up at me while we waited for the elevator.

  “It’s all right, Xel,” I said. “I’m okay, or I will be okay. Let’s just get out of here.” I checked into the chat and saw Celeste and Joseph there, waiting. “I sent it,” I said. “We’re on our way out.”

  “Good,” Celeste answered. “I’m circling. I’ll meet you at the back door in a few minutes.”

  The elevator ride felt like it took only an instant. Suddenly, we were exiting into the lobby and then turning down the corridor that led to the back entrance. I was walking fast, head down, when a low growl from Xel made me look up. At first I just saw a dark shape up ahead but the shape soon resolved into a security guard. He was standing in the corridor, having just emerged from a brightly lit side hallway. He stood still as we approached. He was tall, dressed all in black, and wearing shaded specs so that his eyes were not visible. I couldn’t think of anything to do but keep walking. Xel kept up, staying beside me. We drew close. His shadow fell across us as we passed. In my peripheral vision I could see that he swiveled his head and followed us with his eyes. I was five feet from the doors when I heard him call after us.

  “Wait. I recognize you. Stop right there!”

  As soon as I heard his voice, I released my pent-up energy and sprang toward the doors, squeezing through as they whispered open. My legs felt like coiled springs suddenly loose but I wasn’t fast enough. He was right behind me. A hand grabbed my arm, squeezing hard. I whirled around and my borrowed specs flew from my face. I heard them clatter on the ground behind me. The next instant, something flew past my shoulder and slammed into the guard’s chest. Xel’s claws raked red streaks across the guard’s cheek, and he pushed off, jumping away as the man fell backward. I remembered the shopkeeper in the alley falling just the same way, but this time, Xel didn’t need to tell me to run. I turned on my heel and fled, following Xel as he bounded through the night.

  We kept running, crossed a street, cut through a landscaped square, and turned down a narrow alley between two massive housing blocks. At the end of the alley, we came to a tall chain link fence.

  “The plasma knife,” Xel said. “Cut the fence.” I took my pack off, quickly located the knife, whipped it around, and cut a square out of the chain link. Sparks flew and red hot bits of metal fell to the ground, glowing in the dark. As I squirmed through, my forearm scraped across a hot, sharp piece of wire. It burned and cut me simultaneously so that I yelped with surprise. Tears stung my eyes. I covered the wound with my opposite hand, holding it tight, while Xel led me down a rough slope to a path. We ran down the path for about a hundred feet before Xel turned off and I followed him. Scrambling down another concrete slope, trying to catch my breath, I watched as Xel passed by something that jutted out from the bank. He came to a halt and waited while I caught up.

  “In here,” he said, leading me into the mouth of a large pipe. “We can hide here for a minute.”

  I followed him, crouching low and staggering into the dark opening. We both stopped just inside and I leaned against the curving wall, digging in my pack for a light. When I found it and turned it on, I saw that we were in a corrugated metal outflow pipe similar to that one we had hidden in below the desalination plant.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Ballona Creek,” he said. “It runs past Playa Vista down to the ocean. The banks are concrete here but it lets out into a wetlands a little farther down.”

  “This pipe smells terrible.” I was breathing hard and trying not to inhale the stench at the same time.

  “I’m not capable of judging the relative unpleasantness of olfactory input, but my sensors do detect several compounds that are known to be unpleasant to humans.”

  “That’s really helpful, Xel. What are we going to do now? We need to get away from here. How are we going to find Celeste?”

  “I do not think we will be able to find her without the specs she loaned you,” he replied.

  I nodded. My arm was burning and aching. I turned the light on it and saw that the wire had drawn a gash straight across my biosensor. The circuits looked fried. Now I really didn’t have an identity.

  “You should bandage that,” Xel said, looking closely at the wound. “We must move quickly. Where can we go?”

  “The garage!” I exclaimed, realizing suddenly that it was our best option. “We can find Aeon. He can help us contact Celeste and Joseph.”

  “Good idea. If we’re going there, our best bet is to continue along the creek, turn south, and keep going to the old airport. It’s not far. About six miles. They’ll be looking for us. If floaters pass by, we’ll need to hide.”

  “Okay,” I said, finishing up placing a bandage from my first aid kit over the cut. We left the pipe and scrambled down to the bottom of the waterway. It was similar to the Los Angeles River where we had traveled before. There was water at the center of the deep V and tall reeds grew up on either side. It took us about fifteen minutes to get away from Playa Vista. Security Force Floaters were out, circling the area, spotlights trained on the ground below. They seemed to be concentrating on the streets around the housing blocks. Still, we crouched among the reeds whenever one of them flew o
verhead. Half a mile down the creek, we came to a place where a large road passed overhead. It was an old bridge held aloft by massive steel girders. The water level rose and we were forced to climb back up to the pathway which passed under the bridge with only a few feet of headroom. On the far side was a vast tidal flat glistening in the moonlight and, beyond that, open ocean. The smell of salty, brackish water was strong, and there was a breeze blowing tiny bits of sand and grit into my face.

  “This used to be a wetlands preserve,” Xel said, “before the sea level rose. We will need to stay along the edge here and then cut across when we get to higher ground. The old airport is on the far side of that hill.”

  We turned left, leaving the waterway and following overgrown paths that meandered through tall grass, reeds, wildflowers, and stunted trees. The wind had died down, the night was warm, and the moon high up in the sky gave us enough light to navigate by. I felt exhilarated and my body trembled now and then as jolts of adrenaline ran through me. We had succeeded. The code was already in Joseph’s hands. He might have already sent it to Alphar and Oak. Whatever happened to me and Xel, at least they had what they needed to save Loki. If we could make it to the garage though, if we could get them to let us in to see Aeon, we would have a good chance of getting out and back to the commune. I hoped Joseph and Celeste weren’t worrying about me. I felt confident that Xel and I would make it through.

  It took us two hours of walking through old neighborhoods of derelict houses and apartment buildings, staying in the shadows, darting across major roads, before we came to the industrial area where the garage was located. On the way, we passed a few buildings that seemed to be inhabited, maybe other places like the garage, taken over by refugees and turned into communities. It didn’t seem like people wanted to live by themselves in single houses out here in the hinterlands that had once been the bustling outskirts of Los Angeles. People had turned inward, gathering together for company and mutual protection.