by Alex London
“I really don’t understand,” said Syd. He sounded so much more fragile than he had before, so much younger. “Why do they want me dead? I didn’t do anything.”
“No, you didn’t.” Mr. Baram sucked his teeth and turned to look Knox up and down. “So, this is your patron? He doesn’t look like much.”
“He’s not,” said Syd, without looking at Knox.
“I am actually a—” Knox started to object, but he glanced at one of the holos on the wall that showed a crowd gathered in front of the building. Men, woman, children, many of them armed, some of them desperate, and all of them poor, loitered about, watching the building. Knox figured he should stay on Mr. Baram’s good side. The old man was his only protection. Patrons did not belong down here. He shut his mouth.
“It is an amazing thing that you’ve brought him here,” Mr. Baram told Syd. “Enough to restore an old man’s faith. I see the hand of destiny in it.”
“Not this mystical stuff again,” Syd objected.
“Oh no,” said Mr. Baram. “Nothing mystical about destiny. Destiny is just the inevitable result of choice, from the choices that came before us to the choices we make. They are a river that can only flow in one direction.”
“You’re talking some deep craziness now,” said Syd. “And we don’t have time for it. Knox’s father wants both of us dead.”
“I wasn’t honest with you this afternoon, Sydney.” Mr. Baram took his glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. “I suspected something like this was coming. I did my best to make arrangements quickly, but I fear I wasn’t quick enough.”
“What? What did you suspect? What kind of arrangements?” Syd thought back to the previous afternoon, to Mr. Baram’s worried cigarette in the alley, his blathering on about the Holy Land and goat herders and whatever.
“To get you to the Rebooters,” Mr. Baram said. “Where you belong.”
“I’m not a revolutionary,” Syd said.
“I suppose not,” Mr. Baram said. “But your father was.”
Syd shook his head. “I don’t have a father.”
“If only that were true.” Mr. Baram opened his palms. “But you did have a father and he put a terrible burden on you before he died. He gave you something he should not have and that is why their fathers believe you have to die.”
Syd glanced at the holo showing the bloodthirsty crowd gathered outside. “You’re the closest I’ve got to a father and we need to get you out of here,” he said.
Mr. Baram dismissed Syd’s worry. “Those knockoff thugs can jump off the dam. They don’t scare me.”
“The Guardians are coming for you.” Syd stood up and threw his hands in the air. “They’ll be here any minute! Does that scare you, huh?”
“The only thing that scares me is if you do not get away,” Mr. Baram said. “My life’s work erased in a flash. You have a destiny, here, Sydney, and you need to accept it. You must get to the Rebooters.”
“No.” Syd crossed his arms. “Not without you.”
“I do not matter at all.” Mr. Baram stood to meet Syd’s eyes. Knox and Marie just watched them, unsure what they were supposed to do in this situation. “Only you matter here.”
“I’m the one who doesn’t matter,” Syd said. He needed it to be true. He wanted only to disappear. He didn’t want to matter.
Knox shifted in his seat. He didn’t like all this sitting around any more than Syd did. He wanted to get out this place as soon as possible. He hadn’t signed up for all this conspiracy. He just wanted to run away.
Mr. Baram raised his index finger in the air in front of Syd. He pointed forward as if he were going to poke Syd in the face, but he moved past his eyes, pointed to Syd’s ear. He bent his finger and tapped three times on the lump of bone just behind the ear, right on the strange birthmark.
“I know you wondered about this,” Mr. Baram said. “I know you noticed it changing.”
Syd didn’t say anything. He clenched his jaw and waited.
“That is your inheritance,” said Mr. Baram.
“That is just some weird skin cancer,” Syd blurted. “From living in this dump.”
Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true.
“It is writing,” said Mr. Baram. “Old writing, the kind my people used. Sacred writing. It has almost vanished time and time again, but it survives . . . always survives from one generation to the next, through calamity like you would not imagine.”
“Writing?” Syd said. “That grew on my skin?”
Mr. Baram nodded.
“So what’s it say?” Knox grunted. “An advo for skin cream?”
Mr. Baram glared at him. Guess he didn’t appreciate sarcasm either. No one knew how to lighten the mood down here in the Valve.
“Yovel,” Mr. Baram said.
Syd shuddered. The image from his dream came to him, the infant falling, the man with the needles, the whispered word.
“Yovel,” repeated Mr. Baram. “In English that means—”
“Jubilee,” said Marie. “The day when all debts are forgiven.”
Mr. Baram raised his eyebrows at her, impressed.
“She’s a Causegirl,” Knox explained.
“Yes,” said Mr. Baram. “In the old holy books, there was a commandment that every fifty years, all debts were to be forgiven, all slaves were to be freed and all property returned. You are marked with a word of that commandment.”
“Marked.” Syd snorted.
“It is just a little bit of code buried in the program in your blood.”
“My biofeed?” Syd didn’t believe it. “I got that after I was pulled out of the swamps. It was installed by Xelon, here, in the city, just like everyone else.”
“Not that program,” said Mr. Baram. “This was installed before. Your father put this code into your bloodstream when they came to get him. He didn’t have anywhere else to hide it, so he hid it in you.”
“In me?”
“Like the biotech we all carry,” Mr. Baram said. “The same biotech that lets the corporations track you for advertising, that treats the patrons’ skin diseases or gets them high”—he gave Knox a disapproving look—“or that gives the Guardians their orders and their strength. Your father was a designer. Just like these high-priced corporate designers, but he didn’t build his programs to serve the market. He built them to undermine the market. And the last one he built to infect all the others, to erase them—all the records. All the debts. The entire network severed and destroyed.”
“Destroyed? How?” The idea got Knox’s attention. “How could a program in some swampcat’s blood”—he glanced at Syd—“no offense, change anything?”
Syd looked back to Mr. Baram. He couldn’t imagine it either.
Mr. Baram touched Syd’s shoulder; Syd yanked it away. He was not in the mood to be touched.
“It’s a virus,” Mr. Baram said. “A combination of code and biology. It’s grown over the years; beneath the skin, invisible, dormant, but I knew it was growing. The only symptom, this mark, this word, was meant to tell me when the virus was mature. That was your father’s little clue. He hid it in your cells the way game designers hide surprises in their holos—Easter eggs: a secret level, a bonus point, an inside joke. It won’t hurt you. It’s inactive, just a little extra data in a bloodstream already swimming with data. But it is the same symptom Knox’s father must have seen. It is the reason you have to get to the Rebooters and it is the reason the Guardians will want to stop you at all costs.”
“A virus,” said Syd. “My father gave me a virus.”
“When the Guardians came for him, he had to think quickly. He had to put the virus somewhere safe to mature. It wasn’t ready to be uploaded. You were the only viable option, just a baby, easy to hide. So I took you away, hid you in the city, watched you grow. I did my best to protect you, but now, you must go back. There’s no hiding anymore. The Rebooters need you. You have to upload this virus. They have the technology. You must get to them.”
; “You had no right . . .” Syd slumped. “You had no right to lie to me all this time.”
“It was for your own good,” said Mr. Baram. “You should not have to grow up under the burden your father gave you. He had no right. I was simply trying to help.”
“We can help now,” Marie said. “We’ll get Syd to the Rebooters.”
“What if I don’t want to go to them?” Syd said. “Does that matter to anyone?”
“This is bigger than you,” said Mr. Baram. “You can bring down this whole system. Erase the data that enslaves so many. Jubilee. Freedom. Forgiveness. Is that not enough?”
“I already said I’m not a revolutionary.” Syd spat on the floor. “I just want to get you out of here.”
“I don’t go anywhere until you are safe.” Mr. Baram leaned back in his chair. “You’re the one we’ve all been waiting for, Syd.”
“We?” Syd looked around the dim room.
Mr. Baram nodded. Marie, the strange purple-eyed girl, nodded. Only Knox didn’t nod. It was the first moment Syd was glad to have his patron around. At least Knox wasn’t insane.
“No,” said Syd. “You have to come with me.”
“If it is God’s will, we’ll meet again, but you must go now.” Mr. Baram pointed at the holo on the wall.
Outside, the crowd was gone. No thugs with metal pipes. No private security guards or curious children or hungry syntholene fiends hoping to score off the chaos of a captured fugitive.
Instead, the building was surrounded by Guardians.
“They have a program in their blood too,” Mr. Baram said. “And right now it is telling them to destroy you.”
[28]
“SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY AND YOU will not be harmed,” a Guardian announced, her voice amplified loud enough to rattle the walls.
The holos on Mr. Baram’s wall blurred and reappeared with Knox’s father’s face taking up the whole image.
“Ari Baram, you are under arrest for harboring a debt fugitive and for conspiracy in the abduction of two patron minors,” he said. “Surrender immediately.”
His face moved and he saw Marie, holding her soda. He made a motion and a small holo appeared within his holo: a teenage girl with a ponytail, hanging from a strap by her wrists. Her chin rested on her chest in a pose that was all too familiar to Knox. Syd flinched on seeing it.
“Beatrice.” Marie gasped. Her proxy.
“Marie, we had an understanding,” said Knox’s father.
“No,” she pleaded. “I’m a hostage here—”
“You aren’t fooling anyone,” Knox’s father said. “Open the door and your proxy will not come to further harm.”
“Don’t,” said Knox.
“Sydney Carton is a fugitive from the law and he will be brought to justice one way or another. Knox, do as I say. Open the door.”
Syd clenched his jaw, waited to see which of the patrons would betray him. Knox didn’t move. Nor did Marie. In the small picture on the projection, the girl’s body jolted and quivered.
Marie gasped.
It jolted again.
“Please,” said Marie. “Let her go. I’ll surrender. But—”
“I do not negotiate with teenagers,” Knox’s father said. The body jolted again. “Sydney Carton must surrender.”
Syd started to move toward the door. He knew the signs. The girl was going to die if she took any more shocks.
“I’ll surrender,” he said. “But let her go.”
“Stop, Sydney,” Mr. Baram commanded him. “You will not leave.”
“But they’ll kill her,” Syd pleaded.
“Step outside, Sydney,” said Knox’s father.
Syd couldn’t let some girl die in his place. That wasn’t who he was. What made his life worth more than hers? He moved to the door.
“No.” Marie put herself in his way. “You can’t.”
“They’ll kill your proxy,” said Syd.
Marie shut her eyes. “I know,” she said.
“You would let that happen?” Syd couldn’t believe it. “You faked your own death to protect her and now you’d just . . .”
“I believe what Mr. Baram said about you,” Marie said.
“You just met me,” Syd said back.
“I believe.”
“What about Beatrice? You think she believes?” Syd pointed at the holo. “Does she want to die for me?”
Marie didn’t answer. She couldn’t bear to. Mr. Baram answered for her.
“This is bigger than Beatrice,” he said.
Syd hesitated. He didn’t want to believe it. He also didn’t want to die. His feet felt stuck to the floor.
Knox’s father cleared his throat. He had been quietly watching the scene, hovering in midair. He was through watching. “Time’s up,” he said.
The body on the holo jolted again and quivered for a long moment, an endless, breathless moment. Then the girl fell still. She hung limp on the strap. The front door of Mr. Baram’s shop shuddered.
“They’re coming in,” said Syd. His voice caught in his throat. If he had just surrendered, he might have saved that girl on the screen. If he had just stayed put instead of running, he might have saved Mr. Baram. Now, because he’d run and then because he’d hesitated to do the right thing, some girl he didn’t even know had died and he’d accomplished nothing. He and Mr. Baram were next.
“You can’t do this!” Knox stepped up to the projection, his face directly in front of his father’s face. The door shuddered. It was built to withstand an assault, but it wouldn’t hold forever.
“You can’t . . . ,” Knox pleaded.
His father looked down at him. “Knox, keep quiet. I will deal with you at home.”
“I’m not coming home!” Knox shouted back.
“Many more people will die if your proxy is allowed to live, Knox.” His father peeled off his dark glasses. His eyes, so like Knox’s, pierced the dim room. “It is time for you to think about someone other than yourself. I know you feel guilty, but there is more to life than feelings.”
“At least I have feelings,” Knox told him. “And if Mom were still—”
“Do not speak to me about your mother.” Knox’s father cut him off. “Not in front of these people.” He looked at Syd and Mr. Baram with contempt.
“I am not going to let you murder my proxy!” Knox shouted. He was embarrassed to notice he’d even stomped his foot. He was like a little child having a tantrum.
His father’s mouth opened to reply, when Mr. Baram shut off the holos. The shop went dark.
“No time for father-son drama.” Mr. Baram turned to Marie. “You will go to the zoo. I have arranged for a contact to meet you there to take Syd out of the city.”
Marie nodded. “I won’t let you down.” She almost saluted but stopped herself. Her eyes were wet with tears, but the rest of her face had turned hard as steel.
The old man grabbed his fracture cannon from beneath the counter and led them into the back of the store where they’d first entered, the same room where Knox had seen Syd arrested. He opened the hatch in the floor and they climbed down it into the storeroom.
“There’s no way out of here,” said Syd. Mr. Baram’s eyes flickered behind his glasses and a small panel in the wall opened, revealing a tunnel.
“I don’t tell you all my secrets, Syd,” he said.
“I—”
“I promise, Syd, there will come a time when you get to choose your path,” he said. “But this is not that time. Now you have to run.” He turned to Knox and Marie.
“Follow this tunnel,” Mr. Baram instructed. “It will take you out to a safe distance. Then you can make your way on foot due east. You should get to the zoo by mid-morning. Stop for no one. You must protect Syd. I cannot stress this enough. You must keep him safe.”
“With my life,” said Marie.
Knox didn’t say anything.
“What about you?” Marie asked the old man.
Mr. Baram smirked beneath his beard. “I
have a trick or two up my sleeve yet. But it is time for you to go.”
“But—” Syd said, and Mr. Baram touched his shoulder once more, looked him in the eyes and then gave him a strong one-armed hug. Knox felt strange, standing near them in this intimate moment. Mr. Baram nodded at Marie, who shoved Syd into the tunnel. Knox climbed in behind. Syd didn’t resist. His face had taken on a distant quality, vacant. He felt as if he’d stepped into a dream.
Once they were inside, the panel in the wall shut behind them.
“Let’s go.” Marie crawled to the front and started leading them. Knox nudged Syd forward. The proxy moved like a robot.
“Syd, listen,” Knox told him. “Put all this stuff out of your head. We’ve just got to go. Once you’re away, where my father can’t get you, then we can figure all this out. Until then, we just have to keep going, okay?”
Syd nodded. His patron was right, of course. A few hours ago, he’d been an orphan. Now he’d gained a dead father and lost the closest thing he’d ever had to a living one. He kept thinking he’d wake up hanging by a strap, waiting for the next EMD hit while Knox watched from a room somewhere, all of this a crazy pain-induced hallucination. He wished for nerve damage instead of this reality.
When they climbed out of the tunnel through a broken sewage grate at the edge of the Valve, Syd knew he was not dreaming. Dreams did not smell this rank.
“Oh, disgusting!” Knox grunted.
Marie covered her face with her jacket.
A giant rat, with patches of glossy gray fur and scabby skin, hissed at them. It had three eyes, but one of them hung loose from the socket. A second mouth flapped open from its side, a snake’s tongue darting in and out. The creature snapped its teeth, slashing its long pink tail from side to side like a whip.
Marie pulled the EMD stick on it and fired a pulse, missing by a mile, but the charge in the air was enough to send the creature scurrying away into an empty tin shack half buried underneath a mudslide of dirt, garbage, and human waste, some poor soul’s home lost in a flood of filth.
“Which way is east?” Knox groaned. “We gotta get out of this place.”
Suddenly, the muck-drenched tin wall sprang to life with sound and a full-color image of the sky. A rocket raced across the pressed tin grooves of the shack and a jumper leapt out, thrill diving from the edge of space. He had a silver Drinkpack in his hand and he chugged it as he plummeted from the wall in lifelike 3-D. A heavy drumbeat blasted all around them.