by Jack Lance
Bailey was at a loss, but felt his actions swept along by the powerful intellect of the darkness.
By my command. Open a raw root command window. Do you remember how? Ah good. Type GET NETWORK ADDRESS. Type SCAN NETWORK ADDRESS. Type CONNECT WINDOW 21. Ah, running Branch Operating System. Old version, weak calculator. Easy to crash. Type FLOOD EMAIL BRANCH CALCULATOR. Ah, more passwords. Type ACCESS BRANCH CALCULATOR PASS LONISDON. Ah. Now type, ACCESS IMPORTEREXPORTER DATABASE. Ah, hello Mr Colec. Now type, OPEN GEN COLEC PROFILE FILE. Now type, CHANGE NEXT OF KIN TO AARON BAILEY. Now type, CHANGE GEN COLEC DNA PRINT TO INPUT, PASS FRANCINE. Now press your thumb anywhere on the multi-com.
Bailey pressed his thumb on the scratched pebble shell of Colec’s multi-com and a line of light within scanned his DNA and fingerprint. The random string of data beside the database field ‘Biometric Signature’ changed to match Bailey’s DNA print. This was mirrored on the identity cards that were updated by the central dna database.
Now type, SAVE. Now switch off the multi-com.
Bailey sat in the deepening dark for a second. The fingers of light and the bright glare from below had gone leaving only the dim blue glow that filled most of the prison. He looked down at Gen Colec’s fully stolen Stable-License on the desk, and then sat back thinking gently.
He saw through a thin gap in the blinds, younger men and women left behind by the revelling had congregated in the concrete park in the square. He watched them calmly for a while, hidden in the dark behind the window so high above them.
He started as someone at the front door began rattling a magnetic key against the plate. Whoever it was whistled and said “Just me boy. Who’s a good boy?”
Cry. And get those papers into the bathroom.
Panicking slightly, he pulled the multi-com and diary into a drawer and slammed it shut.
Once done, Bailey gathered as much of the paper pile as he could and ran into the side corridor to the toilet, and threw it in on top of the sleeping dog. When he came back to the front room, a tall thin woman holding a paper bag full of food was standing staring at him.
Bailey, tears streaking his cheeks stared at her a moment, so she could get an eye full.
“Why are you here?” she said. “What the hell happened here? You’ve made a complete mess.”
“You must be Francine.” Bailey said, forcing a warm smile. “He told me so much about you.”
”Gen?” she said, putting the bag on the table, on top of the Stable-License and other items he shouldn’t have had.
“Yes. My name is Aaron Bailey, Gen’s cousin. I will be administering his will.”
“Strange he never mentioned a cousin. I thought he was one of the few people that had no family here on the colony.”
“We weren’t very close. In fact we haven’t spoken in years. But family is family. I will put Gen’s business to rest.”
“His business? He said he was handing it over to me.”
“I’m afraid not. All business will be under my control until further notice. There is still an outstanding debt payable to Old Gang. They could come to take their money by force. I will hand it to you once this matter is clear.”
Francine began crying and sat down in the rocking chair. Bailey walked to her and hugged her head to his stomach.
“Oh Gen. God I’ll miss you.” she cried and buried her head against him.
Bailey sighed then said “How are you for money? With Gen gone where do you go?”
She looked up at him through her tears and said “Well, nowhere…”
“Gen worked out of three warehouses in the Sagar met-building? I want you to reopen them in a week.”
“A week? We’re losing money by the day…”
“You’re right. Begin business first thing tomorrow. I think that’s what Gen would have wanted.”
Hold up.
“Which of the three warehouses is the smallest?” Bailey asked.
“B’s the smallest.”
“Okay. I want you to open A and C, and begin work immediately. Just work through the old address book. Can I trust you with that?”
“I will do my best. What if Old Gang show up?”
“You call me.” Bailey said.
Once she had gone, Bailey pulled the multi-com out of the drawer, expanding the holoprojection again.
Location, Location, Location.
Seeing that it was still connected to the East Syndicate internal network, he brought up details of Gen Colec’s Importer/ Export company. Scanning down the premises details he found the Sagar Warehousing block to be in the outer metropolis ring, and served as a cover for East Syndicate proper. Colec’s business was part of an intricate hive of drug production and distribution within the block.
After he had a small paper print out of the company address, Bailey tidied the apartment and gathered all identification together.
The night is young. We aren’t done yet. Now, let’s test this double identity.
“I will do this one last thing. Then I must sleep.” Bailey said as he jumped down from the living room toward the door.
The corridor outside had taken on a chill when it came time to make his way back to the elevator. He let it carry him back along its route through the tunnels to the lobby, and then ran out through the cool air to the top of the steps, and down to the road.
Bailey walked to the curb and pressed the button, hearing immediately the noise of an engine from a subway in a concrete bunker somewhere in the unseen backstreets.
A moment later he saw the low raindrop of his car turn the corner and roll at a safe speed along the road.
It stopped before Bailey with a cool hiss, before opening the closest door and returning to standby mode.
“Auto or manual, sir?” the voice spoke from the dashboard as he climbed into the driver side.
“Auto.” Bailey sighed and rested his forehead in his palm. “You’re a pretty weird-assed terrorist, you know?”
Whatever, asshole. Now we must find the East Syndicate building.
“East Syndicate.” Bailey whispered, and was pleased to see on the opposite side of the windscreen a hologram appear of the route to the Sagar Warehousing building through the prison.
Hacked navi-com. South Syndicate vehicle.
A ‘Yes or No’ confirmation blinked to the left of it within reach of the driver seat, so Bailey tapped the ‘Yes’ and the car found its way back up onto the motorway. Forgetting Bailey’s earlier request to avoid the crystal highways the car took an offshoot into the cavern wall and then up the steep banking lane leading up and out of the lower city.
The car emerged from the tunnel in the land of the biosphere island, and then up through a thick brush of fences covered in salad vegetables.
As the clear road emerged above it, the rising sun glared into the windscreen. It immediately tinted to accommodate the yellow glare, and then Bailey found he was looking out over a forest of intensively grown foods that dominated the terrain to the distance at either side.
As he drove along the merging crystal highways, light glinted within the clear road just ahead of the car every now and again, guiding it where and when to change between the two lanes.
The car stays within the blue light.
“I remember.” Bailey dawned a smile and continued to study the Lantis roads, despite the distractions from the height and sights scrolling below.
The whole contained landscape of the biosphere could be seen more and more as the tube raised up and over it toward the centermost ring road system. The car reached it and slowed, and Bailey looked down at the arctic region at the centre of the island.
The robot control tower reached up out of it before him, and looked quite menacing to him in the low light.
The central roundabout that encircled it was large and littered with a jumble of holographic signposts, cryptically scribed with abbreviated district names.
The navigation computer found the one he needed, and skirting around a couple of maintenance robot
s drove under the holographic sign and onto a dual carriage highway.
At the first slip the navigator took him off and down through the ice to a tunnel leading to the central metropolis.
Then suddenly, as he drove down the last of the bank toward the metropolis cavern the full weight of what he was doing impacted him. Stealing and actually using someone’s whole identity? He was way out on a limb here, breaking all the rules he’d been given.
On his own he would have to maintain a masquerade of innocence, given he was about to commit a string of very serious crimes, not to the law but to the crime families of the city.
The car drove down through the gap in the cavern wall, and out under the block signposted as “Sagar Warehousing LTD”.
The car paused at the main highway that encircled the metropolis, giving Bailey a little time to study the place at night. The lighting strips in the ceiling of the cavern and also much the ambient lighting from the buildings had been dimmed.
After a brief look up at the Sagar sign the computerized navigator took him across from slip road to slip road, and up into the hollow area of the building to park.
It turned slowly into the first of the lanes and stopped in one of the bays. Bailey got out of the car feeling the press of a cold morning draft through the hollow place. He squinted against its bite and said “Park.”
The car rolled off along the lane in the direction of a high walled slip road that ramped up and around the side of the block, skimming over some tram rails and then into the parking lot of Sagar Warehousing.
Bailey looked across the wide open space within the building, searching for a decent route to the elevators. There were a number of people walking here, some maybe people who worked in this or the other blocks in the district. Bailey was a visitor, or so he would say if questioned, and if he were too deep into the place he would use his new identity, but only as a last resort. For now this would have to do.
Bailey walked down stone steps leading to the perfectly flat, tiled expanse between two raised lanes. He followed it along in the direction of the lobby of the Sagar building, situated in the center of the same styled line of glass elevators he’d seen in the Beldin block. Along the walkway was a row of palm trees that bent against the uncomfortably strong wind that seemed to be flowing through here. It was a harsh blast that stung the eyes, but the others here didn’t seem to mind.
He stepped up to the wide base of the building, stopping for a second to look over the large glass wall and the elevators behind. At the direct center between them was an open doorway leading inside the block.
Within would be a robotically manned identity scanner, which would probably require a DNA print. Assuming that his little hack had worked, he could only hope it wouldn’t contradict the signature on Colec’s key card, or worse still be checked against the central DNA database of the prison, which he hadn't had time to hack yet. Still he wasn't sure how he could be so sure of these impulses, these voices, but in the absence of anything else in the world they had undeniably guided him in the right direction.
But now was the test, he realized. If they saw he wasn’t meant to be in the building he could get sent away at the gate, and never get to see the inside of Mr Colec’s keep. They could even hand him over to the police, who would probably have him dragged back to that lonely lunatic wing.
Bailey walked boldly in to the glass space, out of the wind and then on through the lobby door, and then marched past the detector. He glanced at the robot over his shoulder, seeing it standing stiff to attention looking directly forward through those flickering coloured lights within its cranium.
He marched forward as the lobby fanned out into a wider bay, and pressed the button on the hovering holo-plate to call.
The elevator came fast and silent from the floor beneath his feet, and Bailey looked down at the crumpled print out of the company address. It read 34thth Floor, Warehouse 14-17, so he tapped through the relevant menus in the hovering holo-plate.
Bailey trained his eyes on the side of the robots face as the elevator raised upward, seeing it cock its head toward him curiously just as he entered the shaft.
The elevator hissed as it sped up the levels and along a shaft, then descended into a darkly lit but nicely furbished lobby. Its’ spread of carpet looked to have been stampeded by the hundreds of warehouse workers that had come and gone over the years, and it seemed nobody took a great deal of interest in cleaning it anymore.
He stepped through it in silence, and out onto a steel balcony looking out over a long, tall hall that looked to span the whole width of the block. There would be a lot of such halls on the many warehousing floors in the building, with the main storage spaces linked into from massive doors all along each side. The main loading would be done from a hall at the opposite side, as this area had been filled with large sited cabins for administration and office space.
Bailey looked along both of the high concrete walls at the numbering painted in large letters over the roofs of the relevant offices that served as an admin center for each warehouse. Along the oily roadway in between them, where worming freight tracks which would feed the typically goods to the gaping doors at the side of each unit, only now most were cemented over with the cabin foundations.
It was all shut up tight at this late hour. All the lights were off save for a couple of dim spot lamps along the lane.
The elevator had brought him to a lobby closest to Colec's three cabins that looked to be one of a few along the wall. The two largest lay at either side of the balcony connected to warehouses A and C behind him beyond the lobby. Opposite to C was a cabin around one third in size at the side of an enormous freight door that looked almost rusted to its cradle base. The mesh of rail tracks leading into it looked rusted and rotten also, and so any import or export would need to be conducted at the far side.
That cabin was his destination though, and looked to be a perfect spot to commandeer just out of the way of the main activity of the business. Bailey walked down the steel steps to an oily path leading between the cabins of A and C.
He walked out onto the central lane and along until he reached the office unit of Colec Warehouse B.
Bailey skipped up to it's metal doorway, beside a larger portcullis door to the left that looked to be for vehicle access. He punched in the code numerically for “Francine” and was answered by a red light and a frustrating snarl indicating it was the wrong code.
Bailey’s mind flashed through all he’d read. Gen Colec’s date of birth was a number large enough to be the code.
He can’t have been that dumb.
The code was punched in and the lock emitted a pleasant ping. Within the door could be heard an automatic unhinging of the locking mechanism.
Bailey smiled and pushed the door open.
Now all we need is a… err… eh?
“Good evening, Sir.” Bailey heard the words pierce from behind. “Border Security Inspection.”
He turned to see a medium sized man with a slim build in a heavy armoured uniform and domed helmet. The emblem on the uniform sleeve read “B-Sec”.
“Identification please?” he leaned at him with that same piercing voice.
“Have I done anything wrong?”
“This is an Orange security zone. If you are off limits without a permit it can lead to a fine or a punishment term in solitary confinement? So please Sir, your identification.”
Bailey fished in his pocket for Gen Colec’s modded Stable-License. He produced it and held it to the officer.
“This identification is clearly a forgery. I have seen some good forgeries in my time, not that this happens to be one. I’m afraid I will have to place you into custody.”
“Is this really necessary? I assure you this is real.” Bailey pleaded unenthusiastically.
“You are off limits and under the Border Security act under the Royal House of Cequodus, page 115, paragraph C, it clearly states no unauthorized personnel shall be off limits for any reason without a pr
oduced orange permit in an orange class security sector. You have been found in violation of said paragraph and hence I must treat you as an extremist.”
“Do I really seem like an extremist?” Bailey looked him over lazily.
“Well you get a lot of strange folk wandering around in a place such as this. You could be an extremist. You could be a prowler, a hacker, a terrorist! It’s a judgment call. I’m going to have to call it in…”
The officer leaned his mouth to his shoulder where Bailey saw a small microphone that he would no doubt use to call for backup, and turn this into quite a hot experience.
The Border-Sec officer’s head snapped almost to breaking point, helmet and all as Bailey punched down. The officer didn’t make the call but instead fell like a rag doll to the cold concrete road.
Bailey sadly looked up at a camera pointing more or less directly at him from above, recording what would usually be the uneventful goings on in the night.
AI hasn't spotted it yet. Maybe the camera's rusted too. Inside now. Let’s turn this to our advantage.
Bailey sighed and lazily picked up the body and dragged it into the admin unit of Colec Warehouse B.
Bailey hauled the body through the narrow reception and through another door into the main space of the unit. There was a trailer parked just behind the vehicle door, to the side of a narrow gangway with two old cars stacked on its uppermost level, and a few old motorbikes piled on top of one another on the bottom. It looked like it could be towed as part of a convoy of trailers should it be taken to and lifted onto a rail cart. Bailey passed these by to a workshop at the rear of the place.
The old man has stripped the office out for us. Maybe everyone has the same ideas.
In the workshop he let the body go and glanced around. Colec had been in the business of repairing automobiles and other micro-engineered equipment it seemed. Something within him smiled.
Suddenly he felt the dizziness return, and tried to make it to one of the encompassing workbenches before he could fall. He seemed to regain control this time, but felt a little odd. His fatigue had weakened him, and in doing so something else had grown stronger. It was Arc, and in his schizophrenic state he now felt much, much closer to him.