Exile: Arc

by Jack Lance

  “Do they run another black market?” Bailey said turning to her while tightening the noose on the small shoulder bag.

  “Not exactly. Anything they gather up they sell back to our markets. If we didn’t buy up we’d have no control over them, and they’d burn us out of house and home. Believe it.”

  Like a violent marriage.

  “Sounds complex. .” Bailey smiled at her. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  "Just remember the territories and you should be alright. Old Gang are established in the North. There isn't much of interest West so far as syndicates go, it's mainly a place for people who don't want to get involved."

  "And rot away quietly. Just like the system told them to." Bailey said smarmily.

  "That's one way of looking at it I suppose." Faye looked away. "You just won a fight so we can't leave through the fight areas. You'll get mobbed by people after your... notable win."

  "Your boyfriend right? He alright?" Bailey said slinging his bag over his shoulder.

  "He was dead for a few minutes but recovering now. I don't know why he does it. We don't need money."

  "I understand. But it's hard to explain politely."

  "Follow me." Faye said bluntly.

  He followed her out of the hidden place, through a filthy side exit, and out into the black market concourse. Unable to get his bearings he followed her through the hustle and bustle across the chipped, mosaicked floor of what would have been a normal mall galleria at one time.

  Aside from the markets that spilled out of the open fronts of what would have been windowed stores, there were holographic readouts of the many fights that were taking place throughout the hidden backquarters of the block. They hovered over the strand here and there flickering neon light over the greasy bartering below.

  There were bookmaker stalls here and there, and some of them seemed to recognize him and tip their hats.

  "Didn't realize I was on television." Bailey said. "Quite an interesting place... 'busy'."

  "It's a crude set up but has worked for over a century this way. It's easy to pack up and move it all elsewhere in the block. There's quite a few places like this hidden within the building."

  At the far end they walked through a rusty door in the tiled wall to a dark back room that led to a perfectly flat wall, caked in dust.

  The room wormed away around corners to other places and seemed to be a back room for service and maintenance for the main public galleries. There were funky people killing around here, coming and going, and it seemed as though this was the main access route to the black market strands.

  Faye pushed through a small door in the dusty wall and they walked out to a dead ended corridor filled almost completely by a fountain. The dead end was the wall, that he now saw was a huge mirror with seamless fire exits along it, one of which they now closed behind them.

  The black market was well hidden it seemed, and only accessible along these lonely offshoots from the main concourses of Beldin, Gambling and Virtual.

  "Try to look natural." Faye said as they headed toward the sounds of life. "This is a public place now. The colony droids and Border Sec cops are everywhere, and both are on the lookout for behavioural anomalies... much like yourself let’s face it."

  They walked down the short corridor, with the continued mosaicked floor and gaunt, disused retail units on either side. Bailey noticed within each niche store was a nonfunctioning colony robot, slumped over the cash counter. It was eerie to think of old Zep sitting there decade after decade, waiting for instructions.

  They reached the end and stepped over a small ribbon cornering off the dead end from passing bodies of the main retail corridor.

  It was a wide, mall like hall with a line of gambling and alcohol ventures on either side. The Big Beldin burger joint was just to the left, beside a small corridor leading through to the public part of the mall infirmary.

  They walked from them and along the concourse passing various flickering amusement arcades and virtual entertainment services, and Bailey noted the vast amount of people going in and out of their gaping maws. Others were sitting around on benches beneath trees or beside small fountains with drunken and lamenting looks about them, but all seemed to be happily giving their money away to the place.

  Eventually they reached the end wall, and a broad hole in the floor, covered by the blue glow of a force field. They stopped behind a small crowd of people, and waited for a matching rectangle of glass to slide up into it.

  It came and they got onto it, and let one of the other people tap commands into a hovering holo-slate that appeared at the corner.

  The elevator slid back down through the building, carrying the small throng of people down by other levels of the block. They passed by two other floors without stopping and then emerged in a huge open space, that he found to be the parking hollow within the retail block. From this angle Bailey could see it's many lanes running from the main road at the far side, all bustling with the life of the metropolis, and fed by bridges through the openings at either side.

  He was looking at it all through a huge glass wall that cut off the elevator area from the rest of the hollow. There were other similar elevators taking people up and down to other concourses at either side of them.

  Each parking lane reached the glass and ramped up and through it in an enclosed tunnel. They ferried noisy cars between the glass elevators and into the parking lot of the block, just behind them. The activity here was thick with people going boldly to and from the soporific amusements within.

  The elevator travelled to the bottom and Bailey followed Faye to an arched exit in the glass wall. Here they walked out onto one of the broad, gardened pathways between lanes.

  There was a wind flowing through the place from the central Octagon behind them, kicking up grit in gusts that Bailey had to shield his face against with his hand. It made it hard to look into that strange hall, and its huge glowing crystals in the ceiling that pulsed and throbbed as though they were alive.

  Faye walked the opposite way, through a few underpasses leading under the lanes to the lane running along the outer edge, overlooking the promenade.

  They stood there for a moment looking out over the broad space, and the nightclub building opposite, that was but one of a few block faces that they could see from their position. Other buildings with equally intense advertisements continued around on their path around the central ring. It was interesting to Bailey to see so much activity after his brief but memorable time in the Psych-unit, but despite his strange awe the sheer amount of constantly selling robot vendors and holographic displays were beginning to make him feel a little queasy.

  Faye had noticed him looking a little green, and said "Let's get outa here, yeah?"

  The man, Thom had brought him here through all that. It was as though nothing had happened a day before, although on closer inspection Bailey could see the tire tracks left by the car. He glazed over watching the people and robots milling about below as Faye pressed a button on something Bailey recognized as an automobile key, or rather a ‘stable-key’ as was the slang term.

  They watched as a car drove itself from one of the openings between the elevators, then down a ramp leading through the glass front to the lane at its base. It rolled quietly along to them spewing a small amount of steam behind it, giving away that the fact that it ran on a primitive water fusion system.

  Bailey found he knew so much, beyond that missing core of knowledge of who he actually was. He knew clear as day the slang terms such as ‘stable-lane’, and that the car had been parked in the ‘stables’, which was the space slang way of referring to the parking lot. They were terms that commonly referred to air and solar mobiles, but in this place there would be little need or use for those.

  They got in, and Bailey relaxed back as Faye drove it from the hollow and across the promenade bridgeway. Bailey looked down at the patchwork of raised gardens and open spaces as Faye took them across to the nightclub building’s parking hol
low, and then through it's steaming mess to the streets at the other side. She drove down onto the spaghetti junction suspended over the street, and then took a sliproad up into a tunnel in the thick metropolis cavern wall. It curved up into it, in a carriageway running through the old stone. There were a series of carved openings looking back into the cavern that progressively became higher and higher over the streets until Bailey felt he couldn’t look.

  He squirmed in his chair as they left the metropolis cavern behind and turned through a darkly lit tunnel through the rock and steel. It curved around toward more natural light, and emerged from a lake bed and up through a glass-like road that emerged from the water between two glistening bergs of ice. The crystal road was encased by a half pipe of the same crystal, and was clearly designed for larger speeds.

  The carriageway ran up and above a field of icebergs, and Bailey, who had almost stopped squirming against the height over the lower city district, now took in the massive place he had been taken to.

  It was a biosphere filling the whole top half of the dome. The town beneath it, and all of its caverned districts supported above it a giant island, separated into four zones reflecting the various climates of Lantis, their homeworld. The center most zone they had entered at looked to be arctic, with its huge bergs of ice jutting up high above the rest of the island. Surrounding the whole landmass was what looked to be a broad moat of water, that merged into a holographic projection of an ocean, giving the illusion that it were an actual island and ecosystem, although for all purposes it was.

  The holographic sky was clear cyan blue and the sun shone bright and intense, most likely from a powerful lamp just beyond the projected illusion, so Bailey estimated.

  Faye took the car away from the central ice and over an area of dark green moors that surrounded it. They were entering a huge network of crystal carriageways suspended high over the land like a thin but expansive snowflake. They reflected many faint rainbows of light from the artificial sun at angles that felt a little too man made and unnatural.

  They took the longer lanes avoiding the main bulk of crystal highways and ringroads, that webbed together more densely here and there over the island.

  Looking back Bailey saw the highways congregated at the center at a huge roundabout that hung over the central ice and around a tower that rose up from the bergs. The dark grey tower faded as it reached the illusion of the sky, most likely merging with and supporting the ceiling of the huge cavern.

  “That’s the central control tower for the colony robots.” she said pointing back at the distant spinning lighthouse-like lamp that shone out just above the ice. “The robots pretty much run everything for us, but you can top up your money ration by replacing one of them if you wish. But if you’re working for South Syndicate you can make a lot more money with us.”

  “Crime you mean?” Bailey said sarcastically, while trying to keep his mind off the dizzying drop below.

  “There’s worse organizations in the city. Like I told you…” she said dismissively, then looked at him. “This ain’t the colonies. This is exile. It’s a whole other world, baby. Oh, yeah, do you need a cigarette? It's a bit of a drive.”

  She looked at him where he squirmed in the passenger seat, and flicked a rolly that landed in his lap. Bailey took and lit it on the dashboard.

  “I think I do.” he said, and sucked long and hard on the toxins before muttering. “Fine, crime it is.”

  They travelled across a series of crossroads and junctions that were controlled by sets of cold glowing traffic lights. They travelled South for a long time at high speeds until the simulated sun above had dimmed for evening.

  Bailey tried not to look at the land moving by below. The moors had turned to a thick canopy of overgrown forest, that filled the whole of the southern quarter of the island. It had been allowed to overgrow, controlled only by the faint gaseous glow of a plasma film here and there, that separated the forest into more easily farmable chunks.

  Bailey braved to look down at the enclosed wildlife in the forests. It was reflective of his homeworld, not alien to him at all but a sight for sore eyes. His eyes moved across the emerald green of the leaves descending to the wispy tall grass that filled the clearings within the forest. Each enclosed clearing was as congregation place for the animals that were homed here in the forest, serving as a wild place where they’d wrestle and bully each other for a drinking spot at the muddy ponds. The rusty mud would have been brought from Lantis originally and then fed and churned by the plants and animals over the seasons.

  Bailey sucked on another self destroying cigarette as he gazed at a beady eyed stalk pecking the mud at the feet of a long legged elephant. There was what looked to be a white lion stalking aimlessly though the long grass at the other side, but then it was all behind them as the crystal tunnel dipped down into the canopies.

  The clear tunnel dropped down into the darkness of the tall forest between fattened and aging trunks, and turned toward a tunnel in the forest floor, with a holographic signpost overhead telling that it was Apartment District S-18.

  They drove down another steep sloping road through the stone wall of a cavern, only this time the windows looked out over a slightly different kind of district. The green land inside the place was paub hazy with mist from the grass and plants.

  He didn’t get a chance to see much more as an exit drew up, and they slowly turned through it and out onto a road leading around the enclosed park. There was the vague evidence of where apartment blocks had been torn out to make way for this inner city simulation of normality, where the grass of the field was dried in the shape of the old foundations.

  Birds flew overhead through the pink and blue haze of the biosphere mists, and insects hummed their way lazily here and there.

  Bailey casually soaked it all in as Faye drove into the place. She carefully swung the car around and onto the opposite lane, pointing back toward the gap to the tunnel in the district wall. The car stopped and Faye flicked her finger for Bailey to get out.

  He stepped out of the door, and looked around at the mostly empty enclosure over the top of the car. It had been densely terraformed so to be a mini biosphere under a series of harsh sunlamps hard-welded along the length of the roof. With so few buildings cluttering the place the first thing to strike you was the sheer size and weight of the bricked ceiling above. Although the bricks were structured so to spread their shape and weight against each other, and although they had held fast for close to a thousand years already, you still would instinctively double take as if it were on the verge of collapse.

  But it was perfectly safe, and the serenity in the place was the second thing to catch your mind. It was mainly a wide open space of fields surrounded by a road junctioning to the various sized tunnels leading through to other districts. At the center of the fields and gardens was a grouping of old fashioned Lantis homes, a neighbourhood with what looked to be a compact village center within.

  Bailey walked from the car across the road just before an embankment topped by swaying white roses, and noticed that Faye hadn’t followed.

  He turned to Faye, who still sat in the car with the side window down, and said “Not coming?”

  “You’ll be safe from here.” she said sourly, and threw him a small green card. “You’ll need to keep that signature card on you while you’re here until they get your gene print added to the surveillance grid. Go to the village green and meet with the Beldins. They’ll show you where you live now.”

  Bailey smirked at her and said “You and Randall don’t live here too?”

  She scowled at him slightly and said “We live in apartments... a little to the north”

  “Thank you.” Bailey said stepping back onto the grass bank. ”I will prove to you all that I deserve these promotions. I promise.”

  Pass the bucket. I’m going to hurl. Slap her and go get drunk on the lawn.

  “Ok, Bailey.” she looked down. “The Beldins will be bringing more people by to meet you la
ter today. So get washed and changed before then. You need to start acting like a member of the syndicate family.”

  Slap her!

  “Please don’t worry. Aaron Bailey is a name you will all learn to respect.” Bailey said, and Faye thought about this, then smiled, slightly concerned.

  Bailey smiled goofily as she started the car and pulled away.

  Once she was out of sight, Bailey stopped smiling and turned, and walked across the embankment to the wide open space of the first grass field.

  As he crossed the perfectly laid and maintained grass he noticed the colourful birds and insects of Lantis that had made their home here.

  He strolled across it leisurely in the direction of the village, and watched the first line of huge, stilted houses slowly draw near.

  A road to the left led from the encircling road he had come from, and looked to lead into the village as a main street of sorts. Rubbing his slightly running nose he headed toward it, and walked out into the middle of its grey surface.

  He looked both ways to make sure he wasn’t about to be run down, and then began walking into the village, toward what looked to be the village green near the center. There were small apartments at either side that looked to be guest houses, and through the gaps between buildings he could see other more private streets running out from the village center. It was kind of a half star within the semicircular place that backed onto what looked to be a tall and looming forest. As he drew closer to it he saw within the darkness of the tall tree trunks the glimmer of multi coloured lights.

  There were more robots here, no doubt picking the fruits from this private food forest.

  At the end of the road he walked across a broad ring road that connected the different streets, that was broad enough to surround a small village square, that didn’t look like it ever got much use. Circumnavigating it he then passed through a tall metal archway that led into a misty field with garden features. The grass led up to the first of the forest, that already looked to be a tangled mess of different sizes of plant life.