"What's the glitch, Mr. Khambot?"
He sighed resignedly. "She's an illegal."
Ah! That explained it. An extra. And above-and-beyonder. A one-more-than-replacement kid.
"Take it she's an urch now? You want to hire me to find an urch? How long since you placed her with a gang?"
He shrugged sullenly. "Three years ago. We couldn't let them terminate her. She was–”
"Sure," I said. "Save it."
Hated irresponsible jogs. No excuse for having an illegal. A no-win situation. The only alternative to risking the kid being yanked and terminated by Population Control – a retro-active abortion, as some called it – was to give it over to the urchingangs. And that was no picnic.
Was thinking: You idiot.
My thoughts must have shown. He said: "I'm not stupid. I got sterilized. Guess it didn't take." He read my mind again. "And yes, the baby was mine. Genotyping proved it."
"And you wanted your wife to carry it?"
"She wanted to. And if she wanted it, so did I."
Earl Khambot went up a notch or two in my estimation. He could have sued for a bundle of credit – malpractice and wrongful conception and all that – and got a nice settlement. And a terminated fetus. So he passed it up. Odd to find someone who's not for sale. Can't figure some people.
"Let's get clean," I told him. "What's your angle?"
His expression was all innocent bewilderment. "I don't understand."
"Come on!" Patience was slipping away real fast. "Even if I find her for you, you can't take her back! So what's the dregging angle?"
"I just want to make sure she's all right."
That got me.
"'All right?' What's that supposed to mean?"
Didn't understand. The guy had given up his kid. She wasn't his anymore. She belonged to the urchingangs now.
"Don't you watch the graffiti?"
"Only sometimes."
Usually I just watched Newsface Four. That was my total exposure to the datastream. Didn't want to tell him I'd spent so much time buttoned up over the last half-dozen or so years that I'd got out of the habit of checking the graffiti.
"Never been too sure how accurate that stuff is, anyway. Those graffiti journalists always seem to have an ax to grind."
"They're more reliable than the datastream, I assure you."
"If you say so."
Wasn't going to argue with him. Some people swore by the underground journalists who spent their days slipping uncensored capsules into the datastream, supposedly reporting "news that won't stand the light of day."
"Then I guess you haven't heard about the two urchins they found splattered at the base of the Boedekker North building two days ago."
Shook my head. No, I hadn't. But it figured that it hadn't been mentioned on the datastream. Two dead kids with no unregistered genotypes were undoubtedly urchins. Officially, urchins didn't exist, therefore news of their deaths wouldn't appear in the datastream.
Everyone knew the Megalops had its share of urchins, but their existence was never mentioned by anyone connected with the M.A. or the official media. To admit the existence of urchingangs was to admit there was a problem, and that would lead to someone having to find a solution to that problem. Nobody wanted to tackle that.
So the urchingangs lived on in legal limbo: Illegal children of Realpeople, as real as Mr. Khambot or myself, but non-existent as far as Central Authority was concerned. Even clones had higher status.
"You mean you want me to check and see if your kid is one of the dead ones?"
That would be easy. I'd just have to –
"I've already done that myself. She's not. I want you to find her and bring her to me."
"What 'round Sol for?"
"I just want to know she's alive and well."
Mr. Khambot went up another notch. Beneath the window dressing lurked a guy who still had a lot of feeling for the kid he'd been forced to dump on the street. There was a real human being under all that make-up.
Didn't like the odds of locating a particular kid among the urchingangs, though. Kids were picked up as infants and had no identity outside their particular group. The one I was looking for would have no idea that she was Little Khambot, and neither would anybody else.
"I don't know..." I said slowly.
He leaned forward, hovering over the desk. "I've got prints – finger, foot, and retinal. Even have her genotype. You've got to find her for me, Mr. Dreyer. You've got to!"
"Yeah, but–”
"I'll pay you in gold – in advance!"
"Guess I could give it a try."
3.
Went down to the Battery Complex that afternoon. Three years ago, according to Khambot, he had left the kid near the base of the Okumo-Slater Building where it arched over to Governor's Island. Before heading down there, I'd stocked a big bag with bread, milk, cheesoids, and soy staples. Now I stood and waited.
Gloomy down here at sea level. The calendar said summer but it could have been any season for all the sky you could see. The tight-packed skyscrapers with all their show-off overhangs did a great job of keeping the seasons out. Their shadows blocked the sun in the summer, and the heat leaking from their innards nullified the cold of winter. No day or night, just a dank, perennial twilight.
Far above I could see the gleaming southern face of the Leason Building looking like something from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Outside every window that opened – and some that didn't, probably – hung an overloaded window box festooned with green. Window gardening was the latest rage in the Megalops. Strange on some buildings to see blotches of green poking through their holographic envelopes. Recently started a little plot right outside my own compartment window. And why not? With the price of fresh vegetables, it made excellent sense to grow your own wherever you could. And if you were on the north side or on the lower levels in perpetual shade, you grew mushrooms.
And further down, way down here in the shadows, the urchins grew.
Thought about what it must be like to have to give up your kid. Didn't think I could ever do that. I'd lost Lynnie, but that was different. She was taken from me by her mother – one day I looked around and she was gone. But at least I knew she was alive and well. Better than having her in an urchingang. And a hell of a lot better than having Population Control terminate her for being excess.
No reprieve for a kid who went beyond replacement value. The state extended the old Abortion Rights laws to itself and dictated mandatory termination in utero. If the kid was somehow carried all the way to term, the child was terminated post-term. You couldn't even trade your own life for the kid's. No exceptions. The C.A. was ultrastrict on that. Only way they could make the Replacement Quota stick was to enforce it across the board. If news of one exception – just one – got out, there'd be chaos. The population would be up in arms and the whole Alliance would come crashing down.
Maybe it had all been necessary a couple of generations ago, what with the planet on the brink of starvation and all. But times were better now. Population had dropped to a more manageable level, and with photosynthetic cattle in Antarctica and the deserts, and grain shipments coming in from the outworlds, food was getting steadily more plentiful. Wondered if we had to keep up the quota system. Maybe the C.A. was afraid that loosening up even a little bit would lead to a people explosion, the biggest baby boom in human history.
Even though it had started long before I was born, the whole thing had always seemed pretty drastic to me. Most people figured the end justified the means – if the C.A. hadn't taken Draconian measures, we all would have starved. Mandatory sterilization after you'd replaced yourself wasn't so bad, but termination of babes born in excess of replacement never sat well. One good thing seemed to come out of the Replacement Act: parents really appreciated their kids.
Had appreciated mine like crazy while she was here. And it had hurt like hell when her mother took her away.
"Gim sum, san?"
Looked d
own and around and there was this three-year old beaming up at me and holding out her hand. She was dressed in a little pink jump, face scrubbed, cheeks glowing, smile beatific, her hair a blonde cloud around her head. That little face made you want to empty your pockets and take off your rings and shoes and give it all to her.
Looked around for her guardians and found two groups of them – a couple of twelve year olds at the corner, and a slightly younger pair fifty meters away in a doorway. If I tried anything cute with her, they'd be on me like a pack of wild dogs.
Pulled off a cheap ring I'd bought just for the occasion.
"Take this," I said, handing it to her. "And tell your friends they can have all the food in this bag if I can have a talk with them."
Her smile widened as she grabbed the ring and ran down the block. Watched her talk to the two on the corner, saw them signal to the two in the doorway. Suddenly another pair appeared from the other direction. Six guards for one little beggar – either she was as valuable as all hell or they were very nervous about losing her. In no time I was surrounded by the whole crew.
Something was up.
"Wan jaw, san?" the leader said in urchin pidgin.
He looked barely thirteen, but he and his friends were all lean and angular, armed and wary, ready to fight.
"Want to ask you some questions."
"Bow wha?"
"About a babe someone left right here three years ago."
"Lookee bag firs, san. Den jaw."
"Sure."
Opened the bag and let them all take a long look at the goodies. A couple of them licked their lips. Hungry kids. Gave me a pang in my gut. Pulled out a bag of cheesoids and unsealed it.
"Here. Pass this around."
"Filamentous!" they chorused.
Their dirty hands dug in, then stuffed the soft creamy balls into their mouths. Noticed that the bigger ones made sure the little blonde got her turn. I liked that.
The leader swallowed his mouthful and said, "Who dis babe? Lookee how? Got pickee-pickee?"
"No. No picture. Guess she'd be her size" – Pointed to the little beggar blonde – "but with black hair."
He shook his head. "No Lost Boy dat."
"'Lost Boys,' eh? Well, do you remember any babe like that three years ago?"
"Nine den. D'know. Probee trade, stan, san?"
Nodded. Traded. Damn! Hadn't thought of that. Obvious though. The older kids took care of the babes until they were old enough to beg. If one urchingang was low on babes or beggars, it would trade for them with another. As the beggars grew older, they became nurturers, then graduated to guards, then to gangleaders, then out into the underworld. An endless cycle.
"Take me to your leader," I said.
It was lost on him.
"Takee halfway. Wendy meetee."
Wendy? Had someone been reading stories to the Lost Boys?
"Fair enough, I guess."
They led me north for a bunch of blocks, then down a stairway into the ancient subway system. Unimaginable that people used to prefer traveling underground to traveling in the air, but these tunnels were real, so I guessed those old stories were, too. The kids all pulled out pocket lights as we made our way along a white-tiled corridor. The leader stopped and faced me after we had descended a second stairway.
"Waitee here, san. Wendy be back. Waitee here."
"Bloaty. How long?"
"N'long, san. Waitee. We takee bag. Giftee. Kay, san?"
Handed over the bag of food.
"Okay. But don't make me wait too long."
"N'long, san. N'long."
They left me one of their lights. As they hurried off into the darkness with my bag of goodies cradled in their midst like the Ark of the Covenant, I listened to the sound of their giggling and it occured to me that maybe I was being played for a Class A jog.
After an hour of sitting alone in that damp, tiled hole with no sign of Wendy, I was sure.
Well, not the first time. Surely not the last. In truth, I'd half expected to be rougued but figured it was worth the risk. After all, the food hadn't cost me much. Felt bad, though. Sort of hoped for better from them.
Headed upstairs and back to my compartment, realizing for the first time what an impossible job this was: Trying to find a kid with no identity, a kid who didn't know who she was, with no picture, not even an identifying characteristic to go by, along a trail that was three years cold.
And to think I'd left being idly rich for this. Sometimes think I'm crazy.
4.
As I turned on the compartment lights, Iggy scrabbled across the floor and chomped on a fleeing cockroach, then retreated to a corner to chew. He wasn't much company. Iguanas aren't known for their warmth.
One minute home and I knew I'd made a mistake. Was feeling down and that was when my resistance was at its lowest. No sooner had I loosened my jump than the buttons began calling me from the back of the drawer where I kept them.
Twenty days now. Twenty full days since I'd snapped on a button. A record. Proud of myself. But felt myself weakening steadily. Hard to resist after that length of deprivation, no matter how much you wanted off.
Began thinking of that group button I had bought with during my first flush with the gold – all those bodies going strong, all funneled into that one little button. Threatened me with overload every time. Very hard to resist. Nothing I would have liked better right now than to snap it on and just lose myself in all that sensation. But was never going to kick this if I didn't show a little more spine.
Maybe I should have gone the cold turkey route and just had the wire yanked and let it go at that. But I'd heard horror stories about guys who'd got themselves dewired that way and went black hole shortly after. Not for me, thanks. This wasn't the greatest life, but it was the only one I had. Chose the wean. And by the Core, it was killing me.
Tried to keep busy tilling the window garden but it wasn't working. Finally closed up and ran out into the night, vowing to find some real flesh, even though I knew it wouldn't help much, even if I had to go to Dydeetown and pay for it.
5.
In the morning I was about to put a call into Khambot to tell him what a lost cause this case was when a kid came through my office door. A skinny little twelve-year old. He had thin lips, dark hair, and dark eyes that darted all over the place. He was wearing the upper half of a blue jumpsuit and the lower end of a brown, and they weren't joined in the middle. He looked dirty and scared.
An urch. No doubt about it. Certainly not the Wendy they'd told me about. Maybe a young lieutenant.
"You Dreyer-san?" he said in a voice that had a good ways to go before it would even consider changing.
"That's me. What can I do for you?"
He took a seat. "Still lookee three-year babe?"
"Maybe. Why didn't Wendy show up yesterday?" I said, leaning back in my chair.
"Din know you, san. So we wait, watch, follow home, then out, then home, then here." He was speaking very carefully. Probably thought he was putting on a good show of Realpeople talk. That was a laugh.
"She satisfied?"
He shrugged. "M'be."
"She send you?"
A nod.
"And you think you can help find this kid?"
Another shrug, another, "M'be. But cost."
"Never any doubt in my mind about that."
"N'hard barter – soft f'soft."
Soft barter? "Like what?"
"Info for us."
"Who's 'us'?"
"Urchingangs."
"You're an 'us' now? Thought you were always scrapping with each other over begging turf and spheres of influence. Thought you got together for babe trades and that was about it."
"Used t'be. Be again, san. B'now lookee – look for – answer to same question."
"Which is?"
"Dead urches."
"Ah! That means, I take it, that the gangs don't know what happened to them either."
"B'blieve no, san–” He coughed and
raised the level of his dialog. "No, but we find out sooner-late."
"If you're so sure of that, why do you need my help?"
"Need Realworld connect."
"You mean to tell me that with all the graduates from the urchingangs floating through the Megalops, not one of them will help out?"
He lowered his eyes and shook his head.
"No lookee backee."
"Oh. Right."
Remembered: Once you're out of the gang and topside in the shadow economy where everything's barter and nothing's connected to Central Data, you're who you are – no past. No one admits they're from urchinland – ever. Urchins don't exist.
The more I thought about it, the better this looked to me. The urchins would search out little Khambot among the gangs for me while I worked in the Realworld for them. Didn't see why they were so determined to find out what happened to the two little kids. No one had mentioned foul play. But why argue? The way I saw it, we'd both come out ahead.
"Okay. Got a good contact who can help us out."
"Come?"
Shook my head. "No place for a kid. Especially an urch."
True. Elmero's was not for kids, but even truer was that I didn't want to go sliding into Elmero's with an urch in tow.
"Nev know," he said.
"They'll know as soon as you open your mouth. The only kids who talk pidge are urchins."
"Helpee Realfolk?"
Shook my head again. "No time."
He lowered his voice and spoke haltingly. "I... know... some. I... can... do."
Had to laugh. "You've been practicing that? Getting ready for the Realworld?"
He looked at me with his big brown eyes. "Please, san?"
Something in a dusty, almost forgotten corner inside went soft and mushy.
"Okay," I said, wondering why even as the words came out. "Just keep your mouth shut. And if you have to say something, don't use 'san.' That's a dead give away. It's 'Mr. Dreyer.' Got it?"
Now he smiled. "Kay."
"Okay."
Called Elmero's. The man got on the screen. After exchanging pleasantries, I asked him if he could do a jack for me later today."
"How deep?"
The Complete LaNague Page 37