The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  Alyssa pinched two fingers on the horn of a stuffed unicorn; she tried to lift it, but ripped the fabric spire straight from its head. “Wow, this stuff is old.” She whistled.

  Hayley gasped in horror.

  He smiled and climbed up over the counter. Katherine wandered in only far enough to keep an eye on the kids, while Eldon remained at the entrance watching the concourse.

  Kenny did find a display case, though it contained mostly warped cardboard rectangles, some of which still had intact illustrations on them. A small plastic sign on the shelf inside the case called them ‘Magic Cards,’ and they ranged in price from $25 all the way to $3,000. It took him a moment to work out the conversion from prewar money to current day credits. Who in their right mind would pay 18,000 credits for a square of paper? He shook his head, then laughed at himself. Who pays millions for a stone horse statue?

  “Whoa,” said Alyssa. “I think this is a game system, but it doesn’t have a plug.”

  “Really? How did people play video games without helmets or interface jacks?” Hayley’s hands peeked up over a shelf holding a flat black box. “There’s nothing on the bottom.”

  “Dad?” Alyssa raised her voice. “Do you know how old games worked?”

  “Uhh, probably screens,” said Kenny. “That thing’s older than West City.”

  At the right end of the case, a pair of faded boxes held plastic figurines of robots. A handwritten sign called one ‘Voltron’ and one ‘Optimus Prime,’ and bragged of them being in the ‘original unopened packaging.’ He couldn’t make out the price, but both had four figures… so somewhere between $1000 and $9999.

  The ‘unopened’ thing didn’t matter much given that the packaging had all but disintegrated. Aside from a little dirt though, the statuettes had survived since they appeared plastic. Hmm. Should be able to get something for those. He broke the lock and extracted the relics from the case as though he’d gone armpit-deep in some ancient Mayan ruin, and one wrong step would set off a killing curse. Some plastic bags under the counter made for a handy means to carry them, at least until he could get back to the truck… and…

  “Hey Nasir?” said Kenny

  Orb B, the medi-bot, glided over to him. “Yes?”

  “That thing got any kinda grippy claw?” He held the bag up. “Can it carry this back to the truck?”

  A one-by-one inch hatch opened and a metal rod extended, tipped with a point that resembled a stimpak injector. Kenny hung the bag on the extended probe. The orb tilted back and glided off toward the entrance.

  Something plastic clattered to the floor deeper in. Kenny wandered in that direction, though Kathy didn’t seem alarmed, so he didn’t hurry. “Find something?”

  “Uhh,” said Alyssa. “Bunch of silly looking toy guns. This one even looks like it’s supposed to have Epoxil parts.”

  When she held up a plastic version of a prewar assault rifle, Kenny chuckled. He stepped around the end of the shelf where the girls were, and blinked at the carnage. Someone had gone nuts, tearing open all the boxes of toy weapons. Everything from realistic to ridiculous monstrosities of pink and orange plastic lay scattered about the floor.

  Hayley picked up a bright orange pistol that looked more like a blimp with a handle. When she pulled the metal trigger, it made a whirring noise and sparks shot out of the sides. She yelped and dropped it.

  Kenny took the toy from Alyssa and examined it. Aside from being a mere fraction of the weight of a real one, it looked indistinguishable from an AK47. “Back when they made these guns for real, they used wood, not Epoxil.”

  “Wood?” asked Alyssa. Her confusion lingered for a few seconds before she blinked. “Oh, right… like from trees. Wow, that wasn’t illegal?”

  “Trees weren’t so endangered back then.” He handed it back to her.

  “Someone thought these were real weapons at first, but figured out they’re fake.” Hayley backed up. “That’s why all this stuff is still here on the floor, right?”

  Kenny nodded. “Yeah. Probably those Scrags.”

  “Let’s go?” Kathy seemed to sense the somberness in him at the thought of children going to a toy store looking for real guns so they could survive. “You said something about hurrying before the locals find us, right?”

  “Yeah.” Kenny patted the girls on the back one after the other to get them moving toward the exit, and walked behind them. “Nasir, any luck in there?”

  “No, boss.” Orb D, hovering over Hayley, rotated side to side in a mimicry of a head shake. “The place appears to be intact. The security gate was even still down… I had to burn through. No sign of a horse statue fitting your description… but I did find a safe in the back.”

  “That’s a damn good sign.”

  Kathy cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “If the security gate is still down, means we’ll be the first people in there since the war.”

  “Right.” Kathy walked a step or two ahead of him, behind the girls, who followed Eldon at about ten yards.

  Hayley had gone back to her worried ‘I don’t want to be here’ demeanor, though Alyssa continued to stare at the scenery with awe. It made him feel proud and worried in equal measure. The idea of her coming out here on her own once she’d gotten older shed a new light on Kathy’s protest of his trips. He chuckled to himself. Maybe this’ll become a family vacation thing.

  Eldon approached a small storefront blocked off by a security grate. A neat, round hole in the middle appeared burned out via laser, and the eerie meandering glow of an orb bot’s ion thruster drifted around inside. Enough gold-paint lettering on the window remained to confirm the place as The Crystal Emporium. A tiny store, it occupied a straight rectangle of retail space that probably could’ve fit in the trailer of a big rig. The innermost half of the right wall had a glass counter attached to it, near a door into a back room. White display stands, some square, some round, littered the remainder of the space, tipped with enclosed cases containing figurines, pendants, or crystal goblets. A few even had crystal balls. The taste of burned dust and molten aluminum settled on his tongue.

  “Damn…” Kenny whistled.

  Eldon took the vibro-knife off his belt. As soon as he squeezed the rubberized handle, the air seemed to change. Muscles in Kenny’s back tensed in response to a sound past the range of hearing. The hypersonic oscillation generated frequencies beyond the human ear’s range, which made him feel like a ghost had walked up and stood beside him. It seemed to unsettle Alyssa as well, as she started looking around. Kenny glanced at Hayley, who didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

  “It’s all right.” He stepped up behind his daughter and grasped her shoulder. “Just sound.”

  “Ain’t makin’ noise yet.” Eldon smiled. “But it’s about to.”

  The former UCF Recon trooper sliced down the security grating with little effort, the combat vibro-knife going through the bars like pasta. Each time the edge struck metal, an ear-destroying squelch cried out. Fortunately, the quarter-inch rods didn’t offer a lot of surface area, so it wound up chirping like a flock of mutant birds hopped up on military grade psychotropic chems. He cut up, across, and down, carving out a door-sized opening in the mesh. The scrap fell inward with a crack of metal on once-polished floor. After reinserting the blade in its cryo-sheath, Eldon brought his Crusader rifle up and stepped over the solid box at the bottom, tromping across the felled security barrier.

  Hayley glanced at the keyhole and handle. “Wouldn’t it have been quieter to pick the lock?”

  Kenny patted her on the head. “Yes, but Eldon likes his knife. He’s got some unresolved daddy issues.”

  Eldon raised the middle finger of his left hand over his shoulder without comment.

  The girls followed him and began oohing and ahhing at all the little items of sparkling crystal. Case by case, they wiped away dust to peer at an assortment of animals, faeries, bells, and various other pieces of crystal art.

  Kenny headed past all of it to the back roo
m. The small door behind the counter opened into a space as wide as the whole store and about twenty feet long. Another metal door with a push bar likely led to an outer hallway that went past all the stores and eventually led to a loading dock or area with dumpsters. A manager’s desk against the wall next to the door held a mass of paperwork, binders, and a long-dead computer.

  “Hey, Hale… check this out.”He grinned at the old flat-panel monitor.

  She looked up from a display case, tiny crystal unicorns in both hands. After a momentary inquisitive look, she trotted over. “Hey, can we like keep this stuff, or is it stealing?”

  “Anyone who owned it is dead a long, long time. Feel free.” He pointed at the monitor. “This is what people used before holographic tech.”

  “Oh, wow…” She gawked at it. “It’s like… solid. Only 2d? That must’ve been horrible. I can’t even imagine trying to play a shooting game without being able to like look around.”

  Orb A emerged from behind a freestanding metal cabinet. It wobbled to get Kenny’s attention and glided back to hover in front of the black door of an in-wall safe about the size of a home refrigerator. A standard ten-digit numeric keypad with rubber buttons sat atop a rounded ‘knob’ with a long handle pointing down. Not expecting much, he stepped over and poked one of the buttons. The pale grey LCD display remained utterly blank.

  “Shit,” muttered Kenny. “No power.”

  Eldon’s step crunched on grit by the door to the back room. “Bet they fell behind on their electric bill.”

  Kenny chuckled. “Think your knife’ll get through that safe?”

  “Depends on how thick the door is. It’ll probably burn out the inducer before it opens though.” Eldon tromped over and knocked on the safe door. “Yeah. It’ll definitely burn the thing out. These ain’t made for heavy-duty utility cutting.”

  Hayley ducked under Eldon’s arm and stared up at the safe. She poked at the buttons and wiggled the handle. “I might be able to get into this.”

  Eldon laughed.

  “No, I’m serious. Can you open this up? Expose the circuitry?” She pointed at the round area with the keypad.

  “Yeah. That I can cut.” Eldon shifted his rifle to hang by the strap and pulled his knife. “What are you thinkin’?”

  “Be right back. Gotta get my deck from the truck.” She started out, but Kenny caught her by the shoulder.

  “One, you’re not going off alone. Two… you brought your deck out here?” He blinked in disbelief. “Why? There’s no net.”

  “I dunno…” She looked down and tapped the toe of her boot on the floor. “I just kinda feel better having it with me.” Her enthusiasm returned and she gave him a pleading stare. “I know I can do something…”

  Kenny nodded. “Well, I’d have had to go back to the truck to grab the cutter anyway. Might as well give your idea a shot. Cutter might overpenetrate and melt down whatever’s in the safe.”

  They made their way back outside to the truck, leaving Orb A to watch the store. While Kenny grabbed the laser cutter in its carrying case from the bed, she ducked inside the cab. After the girls stashed away their haul of crystalline cute, Hayley pulled her Neko net deck out from under the back seat. She climbed down and slung it over her shoulder on a strap. About the size of an electric guitar without a fretboard, the deck had an oval profile with two triangular projections suggesting cat ears, each lined with the rainbow-silver shimmer of holo projectors. Shaped white plastic cutouts atop the glossy pink housing further accented the cat face.

  Hayley seemed happier, like she’d wrapped herself in a security blanket.

  Kenny chuckled.

  “What?” asked Hayley, narrowing her eyes.

  “Oh… you don’t really strike me as the ‘everything must be pink’ type.”

  She frowned. “I’m not. Bio Dad thought I should have pink. It’s not a big deal… I don’t hate it.”

  “Alyssa went through a pink phase.” Kenny tapped his chin.

  “Dad!” shouted Alyssa, in a warning tone.

  “From about five till ten, everything―”

  “Dad!” Alyssa stared at him, blushing.

  “Pink cowboy hat, pink boots, pink guns, pink dresses.” He raised his hands and caught Alyssa when she jumped on him.

  They wrestled for a moment before Alyssa cracked up laughing.

  “Ken.” Kathy indicated the mall with her thumb. “Weren’t we in a hurry?”

  “Good point. I’m sure Hale wants to go home.”

  Hayley nodded. “Oh. Got any tools and scrap wires and stuff?”

  Kenny rummaged the truck bed and handed her a small metal toolbox.

  She opened it, looked over an assortment of snips, wire spools, soldering irons, pliers, and a few small screwdrivers before closing the lid. “Perfect.”

  Eight minutes after leaving, the group returned to Crystal Emporium where they found Orb A patrolling the area, every so often making a happy little wobble as it swerved around display cases or darted playfully through shelves. The store hadn’t changed in the slightest since they left.

  Hayley led the way to the back room and dragged the manager’s chair over by the safe. She set the deck on the cushion and knelt before it. Eldon performed a little surgery on the safe’s door, cutting away the metal band around the keypad. A few minutes of poking and jabbing allowed him to lift the digital portion out of the housing, while apparently leaving the door handle intact. Much to Kenny’s disappointment, the handle didn’t connect to physical gears or locking bars. The meager quarter-inch of travel it had was the extent of its range of motion―more a switch than a handle.

  “Okay, kiddo.” Kenny folded his arms. “Let’s see what’cha got.”

  Hayley stood and stuck her face up to the electronics dangling out of the safe door on a wire bundle. She lifted it up, turned it over, and spent a moment staring at it, huffing to blow dust away. Kenny’s suspicion mounted at the look of confusion on her face, or at least no indication that she had the least idea of what she looked at. He shrugged the laser cutter strap off his shoulder and set the eight-pound box on the floor.

  No sooner did his finger touch the latch to open it than a look of enlightenment lit up Hayley’s face. He stood, half stooped over, and stared transfixed as she rummaged the toolbox for wire. She opened a small access panel on the underside of the deck and connected wires to a pair of tiny screws before jabbing the other end into what seemed to be the first random place she thought to put it on the dangling circuit board. Almost as an afterthought, she soldered it down. It took her half a minute to figure out what to do with the other one, but again she grinned with the glee of a mad scientist.

  She examined a small eight-pin white plastic connector folded up inside before jamming more loose wires into the sockets. After finding a semi-molten old M3 plug in the toolbox bin, she broke off the plastic housing and scrap of wire, and spent a minute or three soldering the wires to contact points along the back end of the prong.

  “The hell are you doing?” asked Eldon.

  Hayley didn’t look up as she continued working the soldering tool. “First two wires are power. This is the data connection. Depending on what kind of interface is running inside that safe, I should be able to get into it and do some kind of software overload. The hard part is getting the pins in the right place, but I think I got it.”

  “You know where to put them?” Eldon scratched at the top of his helmet.

  “Feels right.” She smiled. “Okay, there.”

  Kathy glanced at Kenny. Her expression seemed to ask how much time he intended to waste humoring her. Kenny shrugged.

  Alyssa wandered the back room, opening cabinets and peering at everything.

  “Got it.” Hayley connected the naked M3 plug to her deck’s port, and knee-walked around in front of it. Both cat-ear protrusions glowed with chromatic light, and a thirty-inch holo-panel unrolled in the air in front of her, tinting the room pink from its colored border. She grabbed and swiped at i
cons too fast for Kenny to keep up, eventually opening a holographic keyboard and a white window that scrolled with the occasional spurt of black text.

  The LCD display on the safe lit up.

  “Well…” Eldon sounded impressed. “Power works.”

  “Yeah. I had to estimate the voltage,” said Hayley. “Deck runs on an e-mag, which would fry that old prewar crap. What’d they use back then, 110 volt?”

  Eldon turned his helmet toward Kenny, the shiny gold visor obscuring any sign of facial expression. “This kid is actually a kid, right? Not like that ‘special little snowflake’ Katya found.”

  Alyssa, Hayley, and Kathy looked up with confusion.

  “Uhh, that’s a long story.” Kenny chuckled. “No, as far as we know, she’s eleven.”

  “I suppose I could’ve been frozen or something. Or maybe we’re all floating in tanks somewhere and this is really cyberspace.” Hayley offered an innocent smile. “Maybe the Badlands isn’t real. Maybe the whole thing is some kinda giant social experiment. Ever wonder why they have checkpoints to go out here? Maybe they gassed us and we’re in VR.”

  “Shit.” Eldon shook his head. “That ain’t even funny.”

  Kenny raised an eyebrow for a second. “Nah. Can’t be. Katya came out here and she’s got one of them things.” He tapped his throat. “Gas wouldn’t have worked on her.”

  “Almost there. I think this is gonna work. I just gotta bash out a few lines of code to control the lock.”

  “How long will that take?” asked Kenny, incredulous.

  “Well, I don’t need to do anything but send power down the right circuit to trip the open command, so probably like five minutes.”

  Kenny put an arm around Kathy, making suggestive eyes at her. Eldon sat on the manager’s desk and plugged a hose from his genesis canteen into the front of his helmet.

  “Okay. Think I got it.” Hayley held her arm out over her deck a few minutes later, one finger downward like a spike. “I hit this button, it’s either going to open or burst into flames.”

  Alyssa screamed as if she’d witnessed someone beheaded.