by Ginger Booth
“Left!” Four-One insisted.
“No. Right,” Sass countered. “I know what I’m doing!”
After a moment’s hesitation, Four-One’s thudding boots closed on her, just before she swung on a doorframe to enter a staircase.
Which was full of people, mostly flooding downward. While she wanted to go up. Forgot it was passing time in the hallways.
She bullied her way up four stairs, shoving outraged sheep people to her left. Four-One was more assertive, pushing them down the flight. By the fifth stair she spotted clear green above. She grabbed a younger woman’s arm and swung her to trade places on the stair, with Sass on the inside. Yeah, bit of a tight fit, especially dragging the heavy lynx along. And this was full Earth gravity she was countering. Her grav generator would struggle.
“Four-One, grab me around the waist. We’re going to fly up.” She was not surprised that his mouth gaped in incomprehension. But she had explained. She grabbed his hands, drew them around her waist, and repeated, “Hold on!”
She flicked her gravity. Four-One’s grasp firmed instantly as they began to levitate, ever so slowly but gathering momentum. In this slight bit of reverse gravity, Sass shoved off railings, desperately trying to get them oriented so that –
Four-One’s forehead bashed into the bottom of the next stair flight. “Sorry,” Sass muttered. “Try to duck from obstacles. Don’t let go!”
Gravity was acceleration, not speed, as she forever reminded new crew. Their speed gradually mounted up the narrow gap between stair banisters, both fending off with their feet, Sass with a hand as well. “What’s up here?” she asked. “Before the dome?”
She didn’t expect an intelligent answer, and got none. Four-One was stressed. Peculiar events ganged up against a less than agile mind. But it could have been a lot worse, with three grown men to protect, plus the bystanders. The thought failed to make her more appreciative. The top of the staircase was coming, with empty space looming between her and the greenery. The dome beyond, black in the early November night, reflected a few painful grow light beams to dazzle her vision. But was that…? Yes. Effing Christmas lights!
She reached into her pocket to reset her generator, and paused to kick off another railing. The calculations long since turned to reflexes, to the extent she’d screw up if she thought about it. She reversed gravity to begin deceleration to end at about 0.2 g directed downward at a height of 2 meters, a trivial fall at that gravity, and began casting around frantically for something to add vector.
Falling back down the stairwell would cost time.
Her eyes cleared the last railing to see she’d emerged into a plaza, ringed with shops, and yes, strings of Christmas lights. She hadn’t thought of Christmas lights in a century. Many of Mahina’s refugees descended from survivors of New York City, who passed down a mass case of PTSD from the Christmas season when the authorities began to cull them. Her lip lifted in a vestigial snarl.
And just as she slowed toward the top of her gravity arc, a heavy man in a nice suit came within reach. She used both feet to kick off of his bulk, to clear them from the stairwell, mostly. He fell rather badly. So did they, Four-One draped over an older women, pinning her to stair railing, and Sass landing on her butt a few feet away.
“Sorry,” she said to the heavy victim. “Come on, Four-One!”
She leapt to her feet and ran across the plaza, toward her original airlock, though ten stories up. The plaza wasn’t too crowded, the natives still dining below. Storefronts offered coffee and dessert and window-shopping, prepping for the evening rush. Confronted with a wild-looking blond running from a lynx soldier, they did what browbeaten citizenry usually did. They got out of the way. Sass laughed mirthlessly. Any cop questioning this crowd would find that nobody saw nothing.
A block of shops peddling gift crap stymied her in the direction she wanted to go. She veered right to a hallway at the end of them, where diners were beginning to pour out of an upscale cafeteria.
Four-One grabbed her arm, and they backpedaled to the plaza, surrounded by the low-slung shops.
Only one story tall. “Grab me!” she demanded, drawing Four-One into a hug face-to-face this time. “And hop.” On her grav-generator again, carelessly flicked to 0.1 g, she leapt onto the shop roof before her, a cookie seller. Upon a slow landing, she cut her grav and started running again.
These roofs offered a crappy surface, though. Never open to the elements, they weren’t built for strength. She chose a path alongside the corridor she’d attempted before. But then one in a more profitable direction appeared to her left, and she veered. And she stopped, looking at Four-One to catch up. When he did so, she instructed, “We’re going to leap the cross-corridor, then follow that hall. Alright?”
He nodded jerkily, slipping an arm around her waist. She backed up four steps for a running start, but they tripped over each other’s feet. Having launched badly, she gave up on the roof, and simply floated to a landing among a sparse pedestrians.
Huh, no strobe lights or warbles. “Woot, wasn’t that fun, honey?” She seized Four-One by the cheeks and kissed him right on the mouth.
He looked as flabbergasted as the onlookers outraged. OK, public displays of affection were not a crowd-pleaser. “Come on!” She grabbed his hand and ran, shoving people mercilessly out of her way.
This was taking too long, she realized with a sinking feeling.
19
The wars didn’t kill many until nuclear weapons were deployed. Then tens of thousands of deaths grew to hundreds of thousands, then millions, beginning with clearing the southern borders of Russia.
The AI woke Voronin in his private apartment, luxurious but far more compact than his office. He sat bolt upright, and yawned and wiped the sleep from his eyes in the early morning dark. The sun wouldn’t rise for hours, but he normally rose in a half hour.
The surprise was that the AI, Nably, dared speak at all. In the president’s grogginess, he pictured the ancient program as a subterranean dragon, as the Chinese envisioned in their superstitious feng shui. Nably lurked below, avoiding attention lest he be eradicated like his fallen brethren. The AIs made quite a pain in the ass of themselves fifty years ago. The few survivors were chained, limited, starved, Voronin’s included. But they were too useful to exterminate entirely.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The interstellar intruder. I’ve located the ship in Killingfield Dome, 300 kilometers southeast of Pontiac. The ship’s captain is inside the dome.”
Voronin threw off his featherbed and rose in the cold air. He rapidly donned a fresh uniform. “Time in Pontiac?”
“Nineteen ten. I have more.”
“Tell me.”
Nably continued, “The woman appears to be twenty-two, but claims she was born in old New York City a hundred thirty years ago, then departed in the Diaspora. The Vitality pickup in America’s Upstate district. The Assistant Dictator, Riu, decided the most important question is how she lived so long, so healthy.”
Voronin huffed and shook his head in disbelief. “Why?”
“Almost certainly to have something useful to offer Pontiac.”
“Has this Riu reported to Pontiac yet?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Nably. You’ve earned another processor.”
“Thank you, President,” the AI whispered humbly.
“Use it to learn how to hail that ship,” Voronin replied sourly. “Or have you managed that yet?”
“I have. Shall I call them for you?”
The most powerful man on Earth considered his reflection in the mirror. He was dressed. He could call the interstellar visitor. But no, not yet. They could still escape. “Call Pontiac.”
“Yes, sir.”
He stepped into his private office and sat, letting Nably frighten the initial layers of flunkies and find him an official of rank to speak to. He let Nably translate for him, as well, it being far too early in the day for English. A horrible language.
/> Finally a general appeared on his screen. He’d expected a Dictator, or Tyrant. But Voronin preferred generals, so this would do.
“There is a ship,” he said without preamble. “A spaceship, a Jupiter Orbital 3.” Nably didn’t need to supply the name. The President recalled the evocative label on his own. “Parked at Killingfield Dome in Upstate. I want that ship, and its entire crew, unharmed. Be very clear. Should accidental fatalities occur, you will collect up all the blood and put the body on ice. Otherwise the crew is to be treated as honored guests under lock and key. I wish to speak with them. It is imperative that the ship be whole, complete, and operable. You must first make sure it does not fly away. Am I understood?”
“Y-yes, sir. I will see to it.”
“Good.” Voronin clicked off, and frowned. “Nably, what’s its name? The ship.”
“Thrive One.”
“And that other one, at Mars?”
“Merchant Thrive is the flagship. The smaller one on the surface is Psyche. There is a third ship above Mars One, but I have no name for that one yet.”
Voronin shrugged. Clearly the ships acted in concert, but that was obvious from their arrival times, not just the names. Thrive. He looked it up. Huh.
“Nably, probability that this man can deliver as promised?”
“Forty percent.”
That was unfortunate. “Think on this with me. How can we increase the chances of that ship’s survival? With its crew.” Power had its uses, and Voronin was a maestro. But it was so difficult to capture a delicate insect with a tank, or a jet plane. Pontiac, alas, was a brute force tool, dull as a sledgehammer. Such a pity they hadn’t landed somewhere subtle, Hakone perhaps. He settled in to contemplate the problem.
One thing was certain. That ship, and the others at Mars, must not escape before he learned everything they knew. And he suspected that they in turn would be less than forthcoming.
Not long before, Clay rose beaming from the head of the dining table, as Kaol herded Three-Eight into the galley for supper. “I hope you enjoyed crew quarters?” he asked pleasantly.
The wolf-lieutenant nodded guardedly, and took a seat beside doe-eyes. The woman Ivett tended to blush whenever Clay looked at her. On a scale of one to ten, he’d rate her around twelve for agitation level. Liam leaned to her and spoke soothingly.
Clay caught Fidget’s gaze and briefly lidded his eyes. What Sass intended with this get-together, he could only imagine. But his aim was to extract as much context about Earth as possible.
The mink nodded and hopped onto the table beside Three-Eight. She rose on her hind legs to bring her face closer to his eyes. He recoiled into his seat back, so she sprang onto his chest and stuck her muzzle in his ear.
“Fidget!” Clay cried, bounding to his feet to pull the mink off their seemingly hapless victim. “I’m so sorry. Our ship mascot. We spoil her terribly.” He draped the mink around his neck and returned to his seat. “We’re still missing the chief engineer. Corky? Remind Darren he’s holding up supper. Let’s start without him.”
He served himself from the enormous salad bowl and passed it to Liam on his right. Eli reminded the guests they’d picked some of these vegetables during their tour of the engine room. He pointed out which ones.
Clay was proud of his girlfriend’s gardening prowess. Thrive looked like a battered old tug, because it had seen a century of hard wear. But he’d done a nice job remodeling the kitchen, and no one set a more nutritious and delicious table. Yet the pair from Killingfield stared at their salad plates without enthusiasm.
“Is something wrong with the salad?” he asked.
Three-Eight and Ivett shared a glance. “It’s…good,” Ivett attempted, and dutifully munched a fork full of sweet pepper, picked at its ripest, and leafy greens practically still alive from the plant, at their nutritional peak. She finished chewing and swallowed. “But it’s inactive. Just not used to it.”
“Tasty,” the werewolf agreed. Clay still struggled to see them as human. “But our food signals our implants. Or maybe it’s the table. Our food causes elation, touch of sadness. Excites sensations in different parts of the body, whatever.”
This was not good news. Liam looked appalled, though perhaps the comments flew past the rest of the crew. Clay easily read this technology as potent mind control, an addictive drug administered with every meal. “Well, please enjoy the novelty of primitive food, then.” He suspected instead they’d suffer withdrawal.
Three-Eight was unarmed, at least. Kaol placed their accessories in a plastic carton and deposited them by the dome wall. But they couldn’t be relieved of their implants short of surgery, and fidgety neurosurgery at that. Clay didn’t read Ivett as capable of posing a threat. The lieutenant could be a problem.
“Tell us what’s happened on Earth this past century,” Clay invited, earning himself a break to chew. Ivett soon launched into a lecture on decades of art history, Zelda egging her on.
He scratched Fidget’s ears and resumed eating. The mink nuzzled her face into his ear and interfaced with his comms ear bud to debrief. “Three-Eight sends all he sees and experiences to the dome. The sensory encoding scheme is excellent! I could share my feelings with Floki and my brothers!”
Clay cleared his throat and scratched her ears again to suggest she focus.
“He receives updates and orders,” the mink reported. “Sass is in medical.”
The first mate slipped out his comm tab under the table and texted Darren to try raising ESD fields or otherwise frustrate signals.
Fidget waited until he was done to complete her report. “But she killed the doctor, and now she flees through the dome with Four-One.”
Clay coughed loudly, and took a sip of water. “Excuse me.” Time to speed things up. “Fascinating, Ivett,” he said, cutting her off in mid-sentence, something about sound and color harmonics with jarring discords. “And how many people are left on Earth now?”
Three-Eight provided, “One and a quarter billion.”
Rego hell. Clay fought to keep his expression cool, though his heart was pounding. “In the domes? We’ve also seen boat cities and submarines.”
“Total,” the lieutenant supplied. He was scratching his wolf ear now. Hopefully that meant Darren accomplished something to frustrate his incoming signals. “The domes don’t much interact with boat people.”
Liam ventured, “We’ve seen people outside, too.”
“Stragglers,” Eli added.
The guests applied themselves to their food without comment.
“You dissected that animal,” Clay prompted Liam. “Did you figure out how it breathed this air?”
“Elevated hemoglobin,” Liam replied, “and expanded lung capacity. Poor thing was pregnant.”
“Were you able to save the babies?” Clay asked in reflex. Eli rolled his eyes.
“They were dead,” Liam said sternly. “I did sequence the embryos’ DNA. Full siblings, and the father was a close relative, possibly a first cousin.”
“Engineered DNA,” Eli added. “Someone is trying to repopulate the animal kingdom.”
Three-Eight snorted. “Not Killingfield! Or not that I’ve heard.” He’d quit scratching his ear and evinced little interest in the delicious goulash and noodles and buttered rolls now making the rounds. He ate, alternated with pushing food around his plate. Definitely an addict, missing his drug.
“It’s Killingfield,” Ivett corrected in a small voice. “The stragglers…” Three-Eight shot her a sharp glare and she shut up.
Darren finally strolled in and took a seat, looking elated. “Good news, chief?” Clay could use some.
“Their paint is fascinating!” the engineer gushed. “I believe one of the nano-components generates power from the air. The ceilings add another luminous molecular filament, always on lighting. The smart walls rely on those components and many more. I don’t have the control logic for those.”
The walls, the ceiling, the food all communicating, all the time, wi
th embedded implants in the people – Clay had never been so tempted to press a button and ditch Sass forever. His team was so far out of their league it was pitiful. And he had no idea what to do about it.
“Did I say something wrong?” Darren asked, brow furrowed. “Clay, this technology could revolutionize Mahina!”
“Yes,” he allowed. Cheap lights would be nice, he supposed. “How do you make it? This paint.”
“I have no idea.” Darren looked brightly to Three-Eight, whose expression had grown hard, a lip raised over wolfish incisors.
“We grow it,” Ivett whispered. “In a vat.”
Clay stared at Three-Eight and laid down his fork precisely.
“Is something wrong?” Liam asked urgently.
“Maybe,” Clay murmured. Yes. But was it wrong enough to bail on this mission? Abandon Sass and hit the rendezvous button? His instincts said Hell, yes! But he didn’t know anything. And Sass…she was annoying, but they were lovers. He’d grown attached to her over the years.
“Dome society,” the wolf man stated, “is under the control of the Northern League. Which assumed power long before the Diaspora.”
Clay felt the muscles of his face harden. “Yes,” he bit out.
The Northern League was founded in the early twenty-first century, to ‘protect’ its member northern nations against invasion from vast southern populations which climate change was rapidly mobilizing into refugees. Climate change accelerated. The world supported too many people, destroying the biomes which supported them. The League held the best real estate, and meant to keep it that way, and take drastic measures to slow the environmental destruction. They set out to cull the population below two billion people. Clay’s own homeland, once the United States of America, lay largely south of the League. Some of its population could hope to join. But only by culling its excess population in line with League goals. By the time Clay was born, civilization only continued in the northern tier of the States, having earned their way into the League.