The Beam- The Complete Series

by Sean Platt

  “Easy, Scooter,” said Leo. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re handling shit!” said the blonde who’d spoken earlier. She was answered by several murmurs of agreement.

  “Hang on, hang on,” said Leo. “The village is its own thing, separate from all of us, and it’s up to every individual member of the group to…”

  “You have to let us know!” said a new woman, younger than the first. “It’s not easy to get into the city, you know! We rely on the dispensary having what we need when…”

  “I pay my dues!” said a man with blue-streaked hair.

  “Dues don’t cover Lunis!” said the woman. Then, just as quickly as she’d hopped onto Leo’s side, she hopped onto the other, turning an angry face toward front. “That’s our only store for it, Leo! What are we supposed to do, get on the fucking mag train and roll to DZ station? We’re Organas!”

  “You’re human beings!” Scooter yelled. “Should he spoon-feed you, too?”

  “Sit down, Scooter!”

  Scooter turned toward the voice, and something hit him in the arm. It was a bag of something dirty — either newly picked vegetables or possibly dirt.

  “All of you, sit!” Leo yelled.

  The room stopped and looked toward the front. Leo felt his own nerves threatening to snap from strain and withdrawal, but as the group’s eyes met his, he saw the same emotions staring back. They weren’t falling into line. Leo had always wielded a breed of elder authority here. He had always commanded their respect. But he saw almost none of that now. Instead, he saw adversaries staring up in betrayal, their eyes a mixture of fury and hurt, honed to a killing edge by deprivation.

  But they did, slowly, quiet and sit in their chairs. With effort, all heads turned to the front. Frowns stayed on faces, but at least they were watching. It was a start.

  “We’ve always stocked the dispensary,” said Leo, forcing his voice to stay level despite his urge to scream at the ungrateful group — despite his urge to challenge them to come at him one by one. He still had old weapons beneath his skin, and was seized by a sudden desire to show them off. He’d started this group. He’d provided for them. And right now, he only wanted to shut it down.

  But that was just nerves talking.

  Leo closed his eyes, breathed fully, and started again. He didn’t need to solve this problem now. He wasn’t supposed to save the day; he was just supposed to fight the ticking clock. His goal was to buy time. Anger and rage in the Organas could be useful, if it was properly channeled.

  “We’ve always stocked the dispensary,” he repeated, “but our supply has become intermittent through no fault of anyone’s — mine or anyone else’s.” He looked out, feeling a pulse in his temple. Maintaining the village’s supply had always been his burden alone. The others had simply consumed the illegal substance like cows grazing on grass, never once showing any gratitude for the risks he took. “We’ve always made it clear that if you have an addiction — I’m sorry; if you’re a ‘practitioner’ — ” He snarled the euphemism with all the loathing he could summon, “ — then village leadership has always maintained that it’s ultimately your responsibility to find what you nee…” He reset. “What you want…on your own.”

  A broad-shouldered man named William stood in the crowd’s middle. Leo knew William to be rational but direct — exactly the personality who’d see Leo’s bullshit as bullshit then calmly call him on it.

  “That’s all true, Leo,” he said, “but you know as well as anyone that what’s said and what’s done are two different things. For as long as I’ve been here, we’ve heard that message officially…but always understood, as a day-to-day reality, that the dispensary would provide what we needed.”

  “Yes, but…” Leo began.

  William cut him off. “But nothing. You’re good to us, Leo, and I respect all that you do to keep this community running. But don’t pretend we’re not all addicts, and that we’ve become dependent on a single source for our drug.”

  “Well…”

  “How many people here would know where — or even how — to score dust in the city? Half of us don’t have IDs. Are we supposed to all walk to the train, argue our way on, then head in to top off?”

  Leo sighed.

  “But that’s all moot now, isn’t it?” William continued, twisting the knife. “Because if it were only a matter of going into the city, you’d have sent someone already.”

  Leo’s shoulders sagged. Damn William’s levelheaded logic. It was all true. It might be possible to pick up a few rocks here and there in DZ’s alleyways, but Lunis wasn’t like most street drugs. It wasn’t widely used outside the Organa community, and was considered a specialty substance — almost a highbrow, intellectual habit. Few dealers carried it. Need for moondust was mostly compartmentalized in groups like Leo’s, so the only truly viable dealers were wholesalers. Like Omar.

  The crowd was beginning to bubble again, this time with more than raw anger. Now the mood was pocked with the worry that came when a person first truly realized the depths of a situation’s danger. He would have to tell the full truth after all then hope he could gather the pieces where they fell.

  “Okay,” he said, nodding to acknowledge William’s point and holding his hands up in a way that was half-conciliatory, half-pacifying. “Fine. It’s true. We’re low, and the known supply is more or less the only game in town.”

  “How much is left?” yelled the blonde.

  “A few days.”

  The room began to boil over, now threatening eruption. Leo could sense worn seams ready to rip. They’d all heard rumors about the horrors of withdrawal, and they’d all started to feel the first signs themselves throughout the unspoken, slow rationing that had been the last few days’ norm. But yet again Scooter stood, this time placing two fingers in his mouth. He whistled, and the meeting hall was shocked into momentary silence. But this time, no one who’d stood sat back down. Leo had a sense of a door swinging momentarily open, knowing he had only a second to shove his foot into it.

  “But we can get past this!” he said. “I’ve been weaning myself for a few days, and…”

  “You knew enough to start weaning off?” a man to the right shrieked.

  “And you didn’t tell us?” echoed a man beside him. “You should have told us! You should have made it clear that…”

  Again, someone threw something. It struck the lectern. Scooter bellowed for order, but now no one was listening. All eyes were wide as realization swept through them.

  “We don’t need to be slaves to addiction!” Leo yelled. “We have a few days’ supply! We can stretch it to a week, and that will give us time to taper off! Yes, it’ll be hard, but we can do it! And then we’ll be free!”

  In one corner, a fight suddenly erupted. Leo couldn’t tell what had sparked it, but Scooter was running through the crowd to meet it. Many eyes were on Leo, boring through him with hatred and fear. Nobody was coming forward, but it was only a matter of time. The village’s small remaining store of Lunis was under lock and key at the dispensary. Leo was in charge of determining how it would be metered, and everyone knew that he alone held the key.

  “Fighting solves nothing!” he yelled over the tumult. “We’re a community! Friends and neighbors! We’re together because we’re stronger, because we don’t live by default, because we…”

  The front row surged forward as realization dawned. They came as one, as if sharing a single intelligence. Leo saw hunger and need. Something base and animalistic triggered inside him as he backed up, almost tripping and falling over a box at the back of the small meeting stage. At least a dozen people were moving forward. He recognized them all. There was a woman who cut hair on Sundays. A gay couple who delighted in making homemade pasta, which they passed out for free. Their faces were melted wax with vacant eyes. Their gums were peeling back, surely without intention, as what was inside them clawed its way up and began to take over.

  A tall man leaped at L
eo. Without thinking, against his best intention, Leo struck out with his right fist. In his panic, he hit the man so hard that his knuckles split. He heard a crack as the man’s ribcage buckled and snapped then saw the flash of metal under his skin as he pulled his fist back. Two of the group’s women shrank away, mouths turning from snarls to Os of horror. In an instant, they’d gone from wanting to kill Leo to fearing him.

  “I didn’t mean to…” Leo began, watching the tall man writhe where he’d flown and fallen, three full meters away. He couldn’t finish the sentence because those more angry than afraid were already pouring forward. Leo found his hands restrained, along with his legs. He felt his back strike the stage. He could fight if he let himself do it. He could. He really, really could.

  Leo restrained the beast inside himself, now feeling hands at his belt and pockets, no doubt searching for something as antiquated as a metal key, not realizing that the dispensary was held down by loathed technological means. Hands emerging empty from pockets curled into fists.

  Leo held himself down. He was watching his internal clock. Waiting. Losing the battle with himself, knowing he was seconds from throwing them off, running, depleting the dispensary for his own ends, and fleeing, leaving them all behind to rip each other apart.

  There was a tremendous banging at the meeting hall’s front door. The people holding Leo down looked up at the sound of dozens of tromping feet. From the stage floor, Leo saw hands go up as someone began shouting. Where hands didn’t raise, Leo saw the blast of slumbershots.

  The crowd parted, and a middle-aged man with brown hair pushed through armored troops to stand above Leo. Leo, looking up at him from the corner of one eye, was suddenly very glad that the village’s most notorious fugitive had already left for Bontauk. He’d be safe. One way or another, they’d all be safe in time.

  “Leo Booker,” he said. “I’m Agent Austin Smith of the North American Union Protective Service. I’m here to place your entire group under arrest for conspiracy to commit treason.”

  Eli Oldman’s fat, ugly face filled the entire wall from top to bottom, side to side. The projection was enormous, and Rachel found herself sickened, wishing Eli would back up.

  He finally did, after assuring himself that the connection was secure, and Rachel was able to see the rest of the room: the same polished black table with the same high-backed black chairs she’d sat in thousands of times before, occupied by most of the same faces she’d been staring into for decades. It was ironic. The first Panel had been convened in 2032, and for the most part the faces she was watching now hadn’t changed or even aged. If she subtracted the newest members and added Noah West, Marshall Oates, and Colin Hawes back into the mix, she could have been looking at an image from sixty-five years earlier.

  “This isn’t something I’m comfortable with, Rachel,” Clive said from his position at the table.

  Of the group who had originally formed Panel, Clive was the only person other than herself who appeared to have aged at all. When Panel first assembled, he’d been forty-two. Today, he looked maybe fifty. Nanobot rejuvenation had come early enough in the lives of the others that they seemed perpetually young, mocking Rachel’s decay.

  “My room is secure,” she said. She eased into her chair opposite the wall then added in a mumble, “Lord knows I pay enough for it.”

  “I don’t mean the room. I mean your non-attendance. This room is located where it is for a reason.”

  “Well, someone managed to sneak a Beam connection into your impregnable fortress nonetheless,” she said. Everything ached. Rachel felt her body as a bag of organs sloshing about in a metal cage.

  “The guidelines for Panel have always stated that members must attend meetings in person.”

  “‘In person’ is not explicitly stated, and you know it, Clive.” Rachel’s voice, though frail, still held its old tone of warning. She may have been ancient, but she knew she could still make the others fear her.

  “In principle,” he said.

  Rachel felt her patience snap. In Panel’s early days, members had to drop what they were doing and attend whenever a meeting was called, and no assembly could be held without perfect attendance. These days, now that Panel had nearly doubled to its final size of twenty-one slots, the varied important people’s schedules had grown harder to manage, and absences had become permissible so long as everyone was informed and those who couldn’t attend gave consent to proceed without them. Unsurprisingly, the newest members were those who skipped from time to time, whereas the nine remainders from the original dozen never missed. The newcomers treated Panel like a social club, failing to respect the body’s importance and power. That, in Rachel’s mind, was a much larger and much less forgivable breach of “principle” than her remote attendance.

  Still, she had delicate matters to discuss today, and ruffling feathers was the wrong approach. Passive-aggressive logic was better.

  “Clive.” She paused then cast her eyes around the projection. The trick of this particular connection, tunneled through The Beam via the most bulletproof protections unknown technology had to offer, would make her eyes appear to meet every one of the others’. “All of you. I was eight-two when I joined Panel. I’m still alive, despite your wishes. I know that many of you are starving for me to die so that you can fill my seat with someone more…shall we say ‘more contemporary minded’? But I’m not dead yet. There were twelve of us at the first meeting, but it was me, Noah, and Iggy who brought us together. Noah’s gone. Iggy is one of the few among you who still likes me. So you will give me the respect due your elders. I can barely move without harming myself, but my heart is still beating, and my mind is still sharp. Consider yourselves lucky to have slipped from death’s fingers. She breathes over my shoulder even now, and I don’t enjoy the rancid scent of meat on her breath.”

  Spooner said nothing. In sixty-five years, he’d learned not to bluster or argue.

  “Barring the kind of thing that happened to Marshall and Colin, my death may be the last time for a long while that this group will need to fill a seat,” Rachel said. “But don’t salivate too much for it. My spot is earmarked.”

  “Micah doesn’t know enough of our history to join, Rachel,” said Jameson Gray.

  “He can learn. He’s a sharp boy.”

  “You don’t get to decide once you’re dead.”

  “Why not?” said Rachel. “Based on the way you all folded on the grid change issue, it looks to me like Noah is still dictating policy from beyond the grave.”

  “Noah isn’t dead,” said Alexa.

  Rachel voiced an old woman’s brittle cackle. She’d specifically set that nugget out for Alexa, knowing the woman would bite. But the others all knew how flaky Alexa was, with her bullshit anthroposophic beliefs.

  “Stop waiting for your messiah, Alexa,” Rachel said. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  Alexa shook her head. “You’ve seen the fragmentation data yourself. He’s respawning.”

  Rachel should have known better than to give Alexa a forum. She waved her hand, dismissing the issue. Others on Panel were superstitious, but Alexa was in her own league. But she’d never get majority on any of her ridiculous issues, so in Rachel’s mind, she didn’t matter.

  “Iggy is the other founder. He will decide who gets my seat when I die.”

  Iggy leaned into the shot. Despite countless advancements — especially those available through Xenia’s elite development arm — Iggy still had that enormous nose. Rachel wasn’t sure whether she should admire his individualistic tenacity or be perplexed. At least she had an excuse for her appearance. Nanobots couldn’t rebuild her body faster than it was falling apart, but Iggy was young. Relatively speaking, anyway.

  “The seat will go to Micah,” he said.

  Rachel nodded with satisfaction. “He’s a good boy. Even though he’s preparing to have me killed.”

  The table — everyone except Iggy — exchanged shocked looks, but Rachel had only wanted the reactio
n, not the questions that would naturally follow. She barreled forward, taking advantage of her position as Panel’s unofficial head, as the eldest.

  “Carter Vale,” she said. It was a statement, but the two simple words conveyed serious questions.

  At the far end of the table, Aiden Purcell nodded. He was dressed in a black suit with a pink pocket square and had his hair slicked straight back as usual. For some reason, Purcell always reminded Rachel of Lucifer. She supposed it wouldn’t be long before she’d be in Hell herself, finally able to make a proper comparison.

  Purcell had been added to the roster in 2063 after Marshall Oates had turned up dead, but even before that a motion was circulated to expand the body to twenty-two members specifically so he could join. Purcell’s success in mining data with the AcUity app made him an obvious addition to Panel because given his wealth of data, he seemed safest as an ally.

  “The thing with Vale was unfortunate,” he said, idly turning something that looked like a matchbox over and over, his fingers long and dexterous like a spider’s legs. “I have to admit, it’s the one thing my prediction models didn’t see coming.”

  “You were caught off guard.” Iggy’s voice was thick with disbelief.

  Purcell shrugged. They’d covered his models during the previous meeting. He’d pushed enormous amounts of hard and soft data into an array of prediction wireframes centered on Shift’s outcome. Shift was, for Panel, an interesting sort of choreographed dance. They could pull all the strings they wanted, but only from a distance because doing so might show their hands. Shaping Shift was like molding clay while wearing oversized gloves.

  “It’ll change the entire outcome,” Rachel said. “We’d predicted Enterprise would win, without interference, to a high degree of certainty, and…”