Scarcity

by Robert Calbeck

  “We could only be so lucky.”

  “If he does go to the media or the carps, we’ll have him. But we have to assume he won’t. Which means he is going to try to get back to the USW. How soon can you get agents to the seabus terminals?”

  “A matter of hours. But he has a head start.”

  “What if we don’t catch him?”

  “That is where the new strategy comes in,” his boss said. “We need to make it impossible for him to sneeze without us knowing about it. Then we track and capture him.”

  “How?”

  “I will spin the story with the media here, it won’t be too hard to blame all the deaths at CERN on him. What we need is a reason for him to have killed two carbon cops.”

  “But they weren’t carps– ah I see. You are going to say that our Sabers were regular carps trying to bust a criminal.”

  “Sabers are close enough to carbon police anyway. But we will make Tenrel more than a criminal. After the news today he will be a terrorist; one who’s goal was to bomb the IEC.”

  “Nobody is going to believe it, the guy is a respected scientist.”

  “They will if his apartment inexplicably explodes.”

  He blinked, absorbing the statement. “You want me to blow up his apartment?”

  “Search it first of course—in case your two fugitives missed something before they escaped—then blow it up. Make sure it is as destructive as possible, lots of collateral damage.”

  The Texan smiled. Blowing things up was one of his favorite past-times. “Boom. Instant terrorist. With his face plastered on all the feeds, every smogger from here to China will be looking for him.”

  “Precisely.”

  “What about that mole? I don’t want Tenrel getting any more help.”

  “You let me worry about that. For now, just ignore any more codes unless you hear my personal voice telling you to stand down.”

  “Understood.”

  “And for carbon’s sake, find those two men and recover the research.”

  #

  CERN student labs, Geneva

  The four of them began scouring the lab for bags and watch batteries. It hadn’t occurred to Tanya, until she brought Vika a few sandwich bags she discovered in Eli’s desk, why she would want them. She asked the question.

  “It is simple.” Vika replied. “We use the batteries to power the CPI chips from the dead.

  Use their identities to buy seabus tickets, and sneak out of the country disguised as them.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Michael said, “what are we going to do after breakfast?”

  Strangely, Vika laughed. Short staccato bursts of mirth.

  Michael was right, Vika’s plan had no chance of working. The damn Marks were just too brilliantly designed. There was the small problem of them permanently ceasing to function in the event of any interruption in blood-flow. It was a safety feature built into the hemo-kinetic batteries that powered the implanted devices. If the bloodflow stopped at any point, such as might happen in a heart attack, the chip would power down forcing the person to go into a CPI clinic to get their heart checked and replace their mark. It also made it impossible for anyone to steal someone’s identity. As soon as it was removed, the mark would stop operating. Naturally, it would also immediately shut down on the event of someone’s death. Tanya had often seen it publicized on billboards. It helped deter attempted thefts and increased health awareness.

  “So, tell me Vika, how do we manage this?” Michael questioned. “Everyone knows CPI chips are designed to shut down when you die. They have been dead over an hour.”

  “Look who knows so much.” Vika shot back. “The chips themselves are not hemo-kinetic, they are electric. The only thing that shuts down on death is the current that recharges the batteries. If the chips are stored in the subject’s own blood and fed the same electrical current as the batteries, they can still operate for 24 hours. We will not have the exact voltage, but we only need them to last six. Just long enough to get on a seabus.”

  Michael shook his head. “I have never heard of this.”

  “This is not widely known.”

  “Not widely known? Vika, what you are talking about is supposed to be impossible. How do you know it?”

  She merely raised an eyebrow. Those damn eyebrows were perfectly manicured and frustrating as hell. And those eyes, they were gorgeous and piercing. Michael shrunk before her gaze and didn’t question her any further. Vika flipped open some sort of utility knife and she deftly sliced away the layer of flesh containing the black man’s CPI chip like she was filleting a fish. She plopped the slice in a slim plastic bag and then smothered it in the thick, purpling blood drawn from the man. She worked with a medical precision, removing air from the bag and then tossing it to Michael. He cried out in shock and revulsion, dropping it back on the table before Vika.

  “This will be you,” Vika said. “Go find another battery.”

  She continued barking orders to the rest of them while Michael kept rooting around, looking for batteries. The man followed orders like a golden retriever when Vika gave them.

  Vika then began to tinker with the battery and the CPI chip. She tangled strands of wire with a fine screwdriver. Tanya didn’t know enough about electricity to guess what she was doing, other than that her hands were covered in coagulating blood. Finally, she sealed up the bag with the chip and battery both inside.

  “Is this really going to work?” Tanya asked. She had no interest in digging through the flesh of dead bodies for marks.

  Vika didn’t respond. Instead she placed the bloody bag on the table between them and began taking out gloves. They appeared to be SeeBees, a brand of gloves designed to block the signals produced by a person’s CPI chip.

  “I gathered these from Eli’s home.”

  Tanya owned her own pair or two of Seebee gloves at home. Almost everyone did, they were the original—and in her opinion—the best looking brand of signal-blocking gloves. After the Paris 2 carbon restriction protocols were enacted in 2027, it became illegal to buy or sell anything without a mark scan. The government then began to place scanning stations everywhere, constantly monitoring and recording everyone’s location in real-time. The idea of having the government knowing that much bothered almost everyone. Already forced to scan their marks every time they bought a coke, people hated being scanned every time they entered a building or rode mass transit.

  A company quickly found a way to capitalize on people’s fear, and developed a glove— the SeeBee—that would block a person’s signal, making them invisible to any scanner when they had the gloves on. Consequently, the gloves exploded in popularity. Almost overnight, a billion pairs were sold. Tanya didn’t know anyone who didn’t own a pair, or a knock-off imitation.

  Unfortunately, their popularity became their downfall. Hiding from the new elaborate carbon monitoring system didn’t sit well with those in power and it was quickly made illegal to wear any Signal-Blocking glove in public.

  Tanya had quit wearing hers altogether after her second ticket for wearing them –she hadn’t even seen the stupid carp before he’d appeared and asked to scan her gloved hand. A third ticket meant she would have to take one of those insufferable climate change classes where they would try to scare people into compliance with the carbon laws. Not that she saw much connection between wearing gloves and contributing to global warming; it smelled more like a government power-trip.

  Vika made a careful cut on the top of the left glove. She sliced open the top layer of fabric without damaging the delicate mesh underneath that actually blocked the signal, then inserted the new chip right on top of the mesh.

  “The glove will block your own signal, allowing the new chip to be the only one detected by the scanner.”

  Tanya couldn’t help but be impressed. If it worked, it was an ingenious plan.

  “I will prepare more of these. Sew them shut.”

  Tanya fished her needle and thread out from her suitcase. They were a
necessity for travel. It wasn’t like she could just afford to buy new clothes if her pants ripped. You had to be prepared. She grabbed some black thread and got to work. She hoped she did her job correctly. If she did, the glove would block their own signal, conceal the counterfeit mark while still transmitting its signal.

  Just as she finished her first glove, she heard yelling. It came from the office.

  #

  “No!” Luthor shouted. “Absolutely not.” He would not abide desecrating Eli just so he could have a disguise. They wanted to burn the bodies so it would take longer for the authorities to identify them. Not again, I can’t handle this again. Images flashed in his mind. Dismembered corpses, frozen blood, skeletons in a corner...

  “Don’t be stupid. If you don’t have— ”

  “I said no! I will not chop up my friend for my own benefit! He is dead and I will not let you desecrate his body! Men screaming, dying. Garcia’s leg in his hands...

  Vika crossed her arms. “It would be one cut Tenrel. He has a hole blown out of the side of his head.”

  “No! He was a part of my team.” Fear, Jake’s dog tags, hunger.

  “Tenrel, this is not the war any more. You have no team.”

  “He died. I didn’t. Sounds like war to me.”

  “Stop being irrational. He is dead. He does not care.”

  “But I care!” Luthor shouted. “I will not stand by and let you mutilate his body!” A burned Chinese man, Chaz’s —

  Someone gently touched Luthor’s shoulder. He flinched. It was Tanya, he had not seen her enter the office. Her intention was obvious and he shoved her hand away. He did not want to be comforted. He wanted to forget.

  “Honey, please listen. I know this is hard, but I think Vika’s right.” She looked at Vika who squatted next to the body, knife in hand. “There is nothing we can do for him now. If you want to get out of here alive, then we need his Mark.”

  “Don’t cut him. Not that…” Luthor mumbled. “Never again.” Another frozen memory tried to resurface. He forced it down.

  “That’s not Eli. That’s just a husk where he used to live. Now he’s in a better place.”

  “I don’t want to be preached at right now, Tanya. He’s dead, and neither you nor anybody else in this damn world has a clue about what happens after death.” Tanya sighed, her sometimes-faith wavering.

  Luthor set his jaw, “use the Asian instead. Not Eli. I don’t care if you hack that bastard up.”

  Michael, already wearing a counterfeit CPI chip, shook his head. “Luthor, you aren’t Asian. If they check the screen, you won’t look anything like him.”

  “I’m not Middle Eastern either.”

  “But you have a beard and gray hair, just like Eli, you two are close enough that the Sabers confused him for you.”

  “Tenrel,” Vika said, “you said you wanted my help, so take it. We need three chips; he is the best match for you. Deal with that or turn yourself in now.”

  Luthor turned and met her stare. She had no idea what she was asking, or of whom she was asking it. His eyes bored into hers. Neither wavered. Like two giants arm wrestling, they stood locked for a long moment. Then Vika blinked. Luthor had won. For the first time since he had met her the night before, his will eclipsed her own. “Sometimes what’s best isn’t what’s right. I will take the risk with the Asian’s chip.”

  He shoved open the doors and walked outside into the brisk, predawn air. None of them understood. None of them could.

  Chapter 7:

  Eleven years ago: Titan Dome, Antarctica

  Luthor’s parachute guzzled air as it strained to stop him from impaling the ice. He grunted into his mask as the straps that held his chute cut off the circulation to his legs. The Chinese dragon guns lived up to their name; their sprays of bullets were so dense it looked like a solid column of flame. The bullets were gigantic and had such a high velocity they sawed through light armor like an arc-welder through tissue paper. Luthor didn’t want to think about what they would do to his body.

  His altimeter cranked toward zero, and so did the probability that computer assisted targeting systems would continue to miss him. He floated directly overhead one dragon gun, it was only a matter of time before it locked on to him.

  At 100 meters Luthor reached to his waistline and popped the pins of his two grenades.

  No sense in saving ordinance if he wasn’t alive to use it. He dropped them on top of the massive gun, praying they hit. The seconds ticked away, Luthor continued to descend. At five seconds, two blossoms of fire blasted either side of the massive machine. The gunners in charge of its operation were tossed away like burning voodoo dolls. Heat and shrapnel flew up toward him. His parachute ripped.

  He was coming in too fast. He pulled up hard, turning downward momentum into lateral momentum. He bent his knees to cushion his fall as he’d been trained. He hit hard on the ice, rolled and crumpled. Hours of repetition helped him unhitch his straps and draw his MX-5 in one fluid motion. One of the gunners crawled away from the smoldering dragon, clothes burning off his body, while his exposed flesh simultaneously froze in the horrific cold. Luthor rattled off a burst and he slumped to the ground. Maybe I did him a favor, freezing to death is a shitty way to go. Luthor crouched low and scanned for other movement. He found none in the immediate vicinity and so he took cover behind the hulk of the Chinese war machine. It looked relatively unharmed. The grenades had impacted on either side of it, licking its carapace with flames without doing much structural damage. He suddenly had an idea.

  He climbed the short ladder leading to the gunner’s seat. A contorted Chinese corpse greeted him. His lifeless eyes were wide with fear. His frozen arms clutched at his burned body. He had suffered. Luthor shoved the man off the other side with both feet, trying not to dwell on the fact that he had been the one to cause the poor bastard’s suffering. No, this goddamned world caused this man’s suffering. Not me. If not for his greedy government making war with my greedy government, no one would have died here today. I didn’t kill this man, oil did.

  Sickening syllogism played out before him in a macabre flow chart. If we don’t have enough energy, then we mine Antarctica. If we mine Antarctica then we go to war over the oil. If we go to war over oil, then Luthor Fucking Tenrel kills these poor bastards. Therefore, if we don’t have enough energy, I kill. Not my fault. Just deductive, predetermined, irrefutable logic.

  Luthor had no idea how to use a Dragon, but at the end of the day a gun was a gun. Aim and pull the trigger. A large U-shaped control stick dominated the controls, and clear screens overlaid his reticule with real-time targeting data. He tried moving the stick to the right. The hydraulic gears twisted the massive device in that direction. He then shoved it forward. The business end of the weapon moved parallel with the ice. Time for some more of you to die, Luthor thought. He aimed it at the nearest enemy gun emplacement. A red light popped up on the screen, indicating a lock.

  Luthor took a deep breath. He depressed both triggers and the dragon came to life, roaring with unimaginable ferocity, breathing liquid bullets at his target. With an earth-rattling rumble Luthor felt in his chest as much as he heard, hundreds of bullets lanced out from the beast before the first one found its target. An explosion ripped through the unsuspecting enemy gun as the cold-resistant hydraulic fluid ignited. Moments later the gun smoked, now lifeless, and incapable of taking any more of his people’s lives.

  It only took seconds to find another target, press the trigger and end more lives. I’m saving my people, Luthor thought. It was true. Each gun he downed saved dozens of paratroopers. A deployed parachute was an easy target for the nimble dragons. Luthor destroyed two more. The enemy didn’t seem to notice that their own gun was the one blowing them up. Each gunner had tunnel vision, intent on racking up the highest score to report to his Chinese masters.

  Soon the entire field smoldered with dead dragons. Luthor and coalition anti-armor ordinance had wiped them out. He climbed out of the seat, accidentally
stepping on the dead gunner. The man’s exposed fingers cracked like ceramic pottery. No blood spilled, it had already frozen solid in his veins. Luthor carefully avoided the jagged pieces, but couldn’t take his eyes off them.

  Jake walked up to him. “Nice work Ten! You made a corpsesickle!” It wasn’t funny. It was another dead man swallowed in Antarctica’s insatiable appetite for flesh. Luthor shivered, and for once it wasn’t from the cold.

  #

  CERN student labs, Geneva

  They found a dead female guard just outside the door for Tanya. Elizabeth. The Sabers had forced her to open the door with her CPI Chip, then executed her. It wasn’t a perfect match, but it would do. Vika had deftly removed the CPI chips and attached them to the batteries with the skill of a surgeon and electrician.

  Michael kept trying not to stare. It was hard. Not only was she the most beautiful woman he had ever seen—and that was saying something, he had seen a lot of women—but she was intelligent enough to make him feel insecure. That was saying something too. She knew things, things that nobody knew. Running a CPI chip without the host was supposed to be impossible. Even the technicians in the CPI clinics just chucked them in the recycle bin when carbon enforcement released upgraded models. No one ever worried about them being stolen. They couldn’t be. Or so he thought.

  After hooking them up, Vika checked their functionality on the exterior door to the lab. If they were working, the door would register the attempt. Michael was prepared to offer a polite “I told you so” to Vika when they didn’t work. They would have to be transmitting a proper signal to work, which –of course—was impossible because the owners of each chip were dead. Vika slid Tanya’s glove under the scanner. The door opened. The door beeped and denied entrance for the Sabers’ gloves. All three worked.

  They drug the three bodies outside and at Vika’s instruction lit them on fire. Luthor, after his giant fit about taking Eli’s chip, didn’t seem to have a problem immolating the others. Smogging strange. Vika had told them that burning the bodies would buy them valuable time.