Eleven Graves

by Aman Gupta

  Eric, Emma and Kate walked to the nearest arterial road. R12, it said repeatedly on the black road, in big block letters painted in white. They saw a kiosk few yards away and went to it.

  The kiosk, an inclined digital screen placed on a four feet high and 3 feet wide solid cylinder, looked futuristic by New Frontier’s standard. The screen showed three options – City Overview, Ride and Lens.

  Eric tapped ‘City Overview’ and the screen projected a red hologram of an eagle eye view of the town, with a blue blinking light at one of the corners. Emma touched the light with her fingers through the hologram and the view changed to a map view of area near R12. Figuring that it’s their current location, they began exploring the city with random hand gestures. In the top search bar on the screen, Eric tapped on ‘Research Facilities’ on the screen and the hologram showed 17 green blinking spots inside the entire town frame. 14 of those were near them, while 3 of them were on the opposite side. They started memorizing the nearest street names.

  Kate pressed ‘Lens’ in the side menu and a fist sized hole opened up along the left side of the solid cylinder. Inside were hundreds of small packets containing standard eye lenses. Kate took out one and attempted to put it on. Emma objected initially but Eric asked Kate to do it.

  “What do you see?” asked Eric.

  “Markings. Every area is marked. The place, where we just came from, is called Central South Storage Compound,” said Kate.

  She looked around and saw different spots far away being marked in Augmented Reality in front of her eyes.

  “Blue, green, red, purple. Lots of colors,” said Kate.

  Emma and Eric took out their pair of lenses from the box and put them on.

  “What are these places?” asked Emma.

  “Blue ones could be these kiosks. Green could be research, if the hologram and the lens share the color coding pattern,” said Kate.

  “She’s right,” said Eric.

  “What are red and purple?” asked Emma.

  They opened the City View screen again and selected ‘All Facilities’ option. The hologram lit up with 9 different colors, some on top of each other like a stacked bar chart, while some isolated. The screen showed what each color meant.

  “Here. Red ones are Food places. Purple ones are under construction zones. Rest of the colors are hotels, parks, hospitals, malls and the last one is Locus,” said Eric.

  “Locus?” asked Emma.

  “It’s the skyscraper. Here, the hologram shows it. The tallest building in here and there, next to it, a lavender colored spot which could be the circular park that Vik mentioned,” said Kate.

  “So that’s where Vik is heading,” said Emma.

  “Yes. We need to cover these green spots,” said Eric.

  Eric divided the region based on the hologram projections. He asked them to cover their allotted green spots as quickly as possible. Emma wanted to settle on a common meeting point at night, but Eric and Kate thought it was too risky.

  “Tonight we’ll use any purple zone to spend the night. We’ll meet tomorrow at this very spot. When the trucks leave tomorrow at the end of the festival, we can get out of Atlantis,” said Eric.

  Emma and Kate nodded.

  They walked separately but in the same direction for quarter mile, and then took different directions at the crossroad.

  Kate went straight heading towards the center of Atlantis.

  Emma went along South-West while Eric went along South-East.

  The town looked like a gigantic commercial office complex. Tall white buildings located on each side of the street, with meadows in front of them. Some had glass windows, while some looked like carved straight out of quartz. The 8 lane roads made the place look decongested. There were no traffic lights. The street light poles, placed every 20 yards, were 10 feet high, with 2 cameras rotating across 180 degrees each. Each road was painted with its number, while the landmarks at the end of it were written in yellow. The cars looked contemporary and advanced. It looked like more like a modern city than a town.

  Their lenses helped them know more about the places they wouldn’t have been able to enter or explore. There were people on the roads, in the parks and the pavements drinking, dancing and partying. Trouble found all three of them soon.

  Emma, while making her way through a gathering, ran into a bystander, who dropped his bottle of beer. He was livid and grabbed Emma by her arm. His four friends surrounded Emma. Her concern wasn’t the beating she was going to hand those lanky amateurs, but rather the attention. She saw cameras all over the streets and knew an incident like this would catch the attention of the security personnel. She picked up the broken glass bottle and threw it at one of the men. Blinding them for a minute via the glass shards, Emma ran through the street, grabbed a hat from one of the drunk ladies she ran into and somehow, managed to escape after their brief chase through the crowd. She reached her first research facility out of the 7 assigned to her. With the entrance to the building on her left, she initially walked by, to gauge the security arrangements near the entrance. She stood nearby, across the street, to monitor the movements.

  She didn’t see any guard standing near the gate. People just walked towards the door, it opened automatically with green lights on the floor and closed behind them. She crossed the street to go inside the building, however she stopped to observe a person who tried to walk in but the door remained closed, flashing a red light. The man removed his glasses, stepped back a little and then walked forward again. This time, the door opened. Emma immediately went the other way. She went around the backside of the building to find a service entrance that didn’t require an iris scan. The back side was covered with electric fences. She was stopped by a security personnel when she tried to rattle the wire using her rubber gloves and see through the fence, into the building. She claimed she was lost and asked for directions to a food joint she had seen on her way. The guard told her to get lost and pointed a gun at her when she tried to flirt with him. She backed away.

  Kate was stopped by security personnel patrolling the streets. They asked for her identification, which she claimed to have lost. A guard cuffed her, while the other one took out his phone to make a call.

  “Who do you report to? Anton or Jericho?” asked Kate.

  “Jericho,” said the guard, disconnecting the call.

  “Go ahead, make the call to Jericho,” said Kate.

  The guard called her bluff.

  He put the phone on loudspeaker. Kate revealed herself to Jericho and told him about her current predicament. Jericho sounded confused and angry at his men. He immediately asked them to release her, which they did. They apologized to her and Jericho did the same.

  “It’s okay,” said Kate to Jericho.

  “The men are on edge with the festival. Hope it doesn’t affect our relationship,” said Jericho.

  “Only if this doesn’t happen again,” said Kate and disconnected the call.

  She walked with complete confidence for ten yards and turned a corner. She leaned her back against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. Her part of the town wasn’t as busy as Emma’s. Most of it was under construction and the streets weren’t occupied. It didn’t look like a festival. This made it difficult for her to pass through, with all security personnel looking at her whenever she passed their building. Faking as much as she could, she reached her first spot. The building had an iris scanner planted on the glass door, just like Emma’s. She put on sunglasses and walked close behind a person who was entering the building. But the door didn’t open. The person asked Kate to back away a little, which she did. The person walked by again and was able to get through. She tried again a couple of more times with and without sunglasses shadowing others, but it didn’t work.

  Eric managed to get past the crowd and security without much hassle. His part of the town was mostly residential buildings surrounded by shopping complexes, parks and hospitals. When he reached his first research facility, he saw Sam getting out of
the building. Eric hid behind a car in the nearby parking lot. Sam was on the phone, smiling and talking to someone, which confused Eric. She got to her car and drove away. This building could be it, Eric thought. Despite his valiant efforts, he wasn’t able to enter the building. One time, he was almost electrocuted while running away from couple of guards.

  He lamented denying Emma’s request of setting up a rendezvous point. He feared that Kate and Emma might get caught entering a wrong building, as he started to believe that he had found the right one. But after a while, he decided to scout his other two buildings just in case the girl wasn’t kept in the same building as Sam.

  In the meantime, Vik and Joey also managed to get their lenses. Joey went searching for the research facilities while Vik went towards Locus. They had put on caps and sunglasses taken from the clothing racks in the truck. Vik needed it more since he was confident that his face would pop up in surveillance cameras courtesy his interactions with Olivia. Vik even grabbed a formal attire to look the type who belonged inside Locus.

  It took him three hours to reach Locus. He was travelling the entire distance like a river flowing in sweeping meanders. The roads near Locus were much narrow. Every vehicle was being stopped and checked as it entered the perimeter of the building. The drivers were entering a number, sometimes on the behalf of their passenger. Unlike the other buildings nearby, which had ground parking lots, all the cars heading into Locus were being redirected to underground parking spaces. Vik circled back to the entrance but saw there was heavy security near the building. He could see a dozen armed guards covering the 40 feet wide entrance door to Locus. He could make out another dozen in plain clothes who were following a predictable movement pattern, timed to the very second. Random yet seemingly lost people were being stopped. The guard would take out a handheld iris scanner which was shaped like a barcode reader. Getting into the building looked like a daunting task even if someone could make it past the guards. They should just put a billboard saying ‘Visitors and Guests not welcome’, Vik thought.

  At the south side corner of the building, Vik saw a guy on top of a ladder, replacing cameras. The guy got down, scanned his palm to open the sliding door and entered the building. A minute later, he came out and went up the ladder again. Vik waited for the guards to complete their round, and then went over to the guy.

  “Is it fixed?” asked Vik.

  “Who are you?” the guy asked.

  “I’m the one who reported it,” said Vik.

  “A woman called about it,” said the guy.

  “Yeah, she works in the department. So is it fixed?” asked Vik.

  “Yeah, should be. No more loss of signal,” said the guy.

  “Sorry about this. I know you’d rather attend the festival,” said Vik.

  “I will, right after I submit the report to my supervisor,” said the guy.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you. It’s the least we could do,” said Vik.

  “I know everyone around here. But never seen you before. What’s your name again?” asked the guy.

  “Gary Anderson,” said Vik.

  “Anderson?” asked the guy.

  “Yeah, I’m Olivia’s step brother. You know her?” asked Vik, with a straight face, yet having a hint of arrogance that is considered a virtue of an owner.

  “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have dared to ask your name. Please forgive me,” said the guy.

  “No problem,” said Vik. He couldn’t help but smile on the magnitude of effort it took on his part to convince the guy.

  The guy picked up his bag and walked to the service door. Vik saw the guards coming over, just few yards from the turn to the south side.

  The guy scanned his palm and the door buzzed open. Vik quickly went to the guy and glued himself to him to enter the building before the door closed.

  “On second thought,” said Vik.

  The guy was surprised that Vik used this maintenance door to enter the building.

  Vik continued, “I would love to talk to your supervisor.”

  “Am I in trouble? I’m sorry,” said the guy.

  “No, of course not. It would be a friendly chat,” said Vik.

  He began going up the circular staircase, forcing the guy to go up with him. Vik needed him to get past the guards behind the door that connected this maintenance staircase to the building corridors.

  “I really like the way you did your job and stood up to me when I enquired. Most people get intimidated just because I have the power to ruin their lives in an instant. In fact, you’re the first maintenance guy I would ever considering befriending,” said Vik.

  “Us friends? I would be honored, though we aren’t exactly the same age group,” said the guy, gulping. “These people whose life you ruin? What do they do?”

  “Stupid stuff really. Like rejecting my friendship, not standing up for me in front of others or asking for my credentials when I enter Locus. It’s my building, I can enter whenever and however the hell I want. Isn’t that right?” said Vik.

  “Absolutely,” said the repair guy.

  “You first,” said Vik, pointing the repair guy to scan his palm.

  As the guy did it, Vik again followed him through the door. The guard on the other side noticed that only a single set of prints were scanned, and asked Vik and the repair guy to stop.

  “You forgot to palm the door,” said the guard.

  “I’d rather not,” said Vik.

  The guard looked puzzled.

  “It’s okay, Flint. He’s with me,” said the repair guy.

  “Yeah, I’m the new guy,” said Vik.

  “Okay, Larry. Hey, new guy. What’s your name?” asked the guard.

  “Here we go again,” mumbled Vik, just loud enough for Larry to hear him.

  “I tell you what his name is. It’s Gary, but should be ‘idiot’ really. Forgetting to palm the door. They keep sticking these amateurs with the old man,” fumbled Larry, and laughed in pauses.

  Flint smiled, and let them through.

  “Hey, he’s a good guy. Don’t fire him,” said Larry.

  “No, I won’t,” said Vik. “Hey, what time is it?”

  “Almost 12:15,” said Larry.

  “Oh, I have a meeting to attend to. I’ll go with you later, okay?” said Vik.

  “Of course,” said Larry.

  Vik walked further down the corridor while Larry took the elevator. The corridor was wide enough for a two truck drag race. The architecture was dull and plain. It looked a strict business establishment with no place for fun and amusement. The people looked captivated by their phones and laptops. The corridor led to a grand atrium. Its centerpiece was a 20 feet large circular fountain made from marble. The water fell from its top, slowly down its circular layers. Each of the seven layers were lit with lights resembling colors of a rainbow. The base was a 4 feet deep glass aquarium, with hundreds of Guppies, Platies and Goldfish. The floor of the aquarium looked like an ocean floor.

  Vik stood behind a pillar, looking at the possible blind spots of the surveillance cameras to avoid a full frontal view. The lens wasn’t working inside Locus. Vik had to remove it along with the sunglasses and the cap. They were placing him in an undesired limelight. He caught his next break when he saw multiple octagonal elevators shafts that didn’t require a key card to access the first 20 floors. He looked at the floor map which only described the public floors. Most of them were named after back office functions. Rest of the floors were marked as restricted. He went to the 20th floor, hoping for a way to go to 21st without a key card. Hiding his face from the cameras, he made it to the elevator. The elevator only had buttons for the first twenty floors.

  As the elevator dropped a person on 19th floor, another guy pressed his palm on the elevator door when it closed. The number 32 flashed on the door for a couple of seconds.

  “Now, you can do yours,” said the guy to Vik. They were the only two in the elevator at that moment.

  “Same floor actually, 32,�
� said Vik.

  “Really? Never seen you before in Robotics before,” said the guy.

  The guy had a lame poker face, Vik thought.

  “32 is not Robotics,” said Vik, with a confused look.

  “Right. My name is Jim Stump,” said the guy.

  “Vik Miller,” said Vik.

  “The entire town is celebrating and here we are. Waiting to take the afternoon shift looking at the city,” said Jim.

  “Beats being puked on,” said Vik.

  Jim laughed as they shook hands.

  They got off the elevator on 32nd floor. Vik had to go along with Jim as there was only one way to go. A woman greeted Jim while she came out of the bathroom and entered the room in front of them, by placing her hand on the scanner embedded on the door. As the door opened, Vik saw there were hundreds of screens showing each and every corner of the city. He couldn’t believe his luck. He smiled for a millisecond. Jim went to the washroom, forcing Vik to stand outside hoping to catch the door open. He hoped that someone else would come out of the surveillance room, allowing him to go inside. But if he were to appear still standing when Jim came back, it would raise a lot of red flags, he thought.

  He pretended to tie his shoes next to the door. Shortly after, a woman came out of the room.

  “Where the hell is Stump? His shift is on,” murmured the woman, in anger.

  “Jim’s relieving himself,” said Vik, while tying his shoes.

  “Ooh, relieving himself? What’s that – fancy talk for taking a leak?” said the woman.

  “Sure, he’s taking a leak,” said Vik, as he got up.

  “Eww.. I didn’t need to know that,” said the woman. “So who are you?”

  “Replacement. Schedule’s messed up. I was supposed to be out meeting women,” said Vik.

  “Well, today’s your lucky day. You met one,” said the woman, smiling flirtatiously.

  “Depends. You seeing anyone?” asked Vik.

  “One guy. Maybe more. Would that be a problem?” asked the woman.

  “Maybe,” said Vik.

  “If it makes you feel any better, you’re a lot hotter than them,” said the woman.