by Sean Platt
And Leo? He wasn’t done with all of this. He wouldn’t go so quietly. He’d covered every one of his visible enhancements and had his nanos flashed, so he’d start aging soon — and would look the part like the others. He could grow his hair long. Maybe he could get a pair of those little glasses, just for effect. Wear tie-dye shirts. Colorful headbands.
And then, duly disguised, he could get back his presence in the city. Once this first troubling period had passed, NPS would leave them alone. Leo could return to DZ to regain a foothold and keep his all-too-organic ear to the ground. Get a quiet job for his days then come up here on the weekends. Maybe he could be a teacher. Help influence the minds of new potential rebels from the start, before the world twisted them into what most of humanity had become.
Walking the ridge trail, the air was still and pleasant. Leo tried to distance himself from his twitching urges and see the vista for its obvious beauty. The silence inside him was strange, but he was getting used to it. Over the past few months, he’d found that whenever he was alone, he was literally alone. No voices pinged into his head from the collective or the social forums. He had to grab a handheld or find a console to check his mail. He didn’t get a news feed. There were no noises telling Leo’s internal connection points what he should be paying attention to.
These days, Leo’s own mind was in charge of deciding where to look. These days, the only voices whispering in Leo’s cortex were his own: one of reason, one of worry, one of conscience.
He couldn’t use any of his rehearsed triggers to call up his dashboards. If he wanted to know if his feet were dirty, he had to look down or take off his sandals. If he got a bug in his eye, he had to sit and blink until it dislodged. When he wanted to wake himself up fully, he needed a brief stroll, maybe coffee. He couldn’t rise with Fauxdrenaline or fall asleep with Fauxlatonin. These days, too much stimulation at night would keep him awake — whereas in the past he’d never had the guts to turn that stimulation off.
In the beginning, they’d embraced technology so they could fight it. Implants made them strong and sharp and fast and observant. They’d installed plugs so organization nanohackers could enter and work directly on their target processors — until the AI got too smart and found workarounds. They’d installed CNS networks so they could collaborate and coordinate Gaia’s movements at a distance.
But in the end, they’d become just as used to all that technology as the people they were supposedly trying to oppose. They joined the system they claimed they were trying to unseat. They came to enjoy the ability to connect at all times and reveled in the constant entertainment. They’d been spartan before, but once Gaia teched up in the name of fighting the power, they came to appreciate the side effects: the way rooms responded to their wishes without being asked, instant access to videos everywhere, the way the hive reminded everyone of their grandmother’s birthday.
In theory, surrendering those perks should have been simple. Supposedly, they only had the add-ons because the tech aided their ability to do their anarchical jobs. Coming up here, obeying the NPS agreement, they were supposed to sever those connections — and, from their counterculture standpoint, it was supposed to be good riddance to bad rubbish. They should have been eager to do it.
But it had been a long, hard fight. And Leo, for one, knew that his mind had changed during the years it had been working as a single point in a network rather than as an individual.
He arrived at the large meeting hall to find it almost empty, just one man sitting in the middle. The visitor was of moderate height, fat, and sweaty. He was wearing a suit that made him stick out like a sore thumb, dark enough to pass for the black of a holy man’s garb.
“Where is it?” Leo asked.
The big man turned. He had curly shoulder-length hair that was pulled into a knot to keep it off his neck. His face was barely shaven, and of the hair strewn across it, the most prominent sections had become like gigantic, jowly sideburns.
“Is that how you greet me?” A small smile grew on the man’s features.
“I’d rather not draw this out.”
“Fine. It’s in my pack.”
The visitor pointed at a backpack on one of the long benches…which, Leo now realized, did indeed resemble church pews. That hadn’t been the intention. They could have printed straightforward chairs in a dozen materials up here and wouldn’t even have needed a proper canvas to do it. Before cutting the cord, Leo had a satellite receiver that let him siphon a signal out of the sky from almost anywhere. They could have plugged the printer into Leo then downloaded plans from Crossbrace and reeled off a few hundred comfortable seats in little time. But no, making the seats by hand felt more honest. Making fewer units by hand, then, was easier. And so here they were, in a church that had never seen religion, and where true spirituality — during the next few years of cleansing, anyway — felt to Leo like hypocrisy.
“But Leo,” the fat man said, “I wish you wouldn’t look at me that way. Aren’t we friends?”
“Not really.”
“See, now, that hurts my feelings. I’m bringing you salvation, not poison.”
“It’s both at once, Hector.”
“It’s medicine.”
Leo sighed and rolled his eyes. He went to the pack, picked it up, and brought it to the man. He set it on a bench (pew) beside him.
“Go ahead,” Hector said.
Leo unzipped the pack. Inside were many small silvery bags that yielded slightly to the touch. Vacuum packed. Apparently, the stuff was manufactured on the moon. Maybe the vacuum packs were in the same spirit as the freeze-dried ice cream he used to sometimes get as a kid, fascinated by the idea that it’s what the astronauts ate. Or maybe it was because Lunis was sensitive when left in open air. He’d been breaking only one open at a time before sifting it into the holding tank for the community’s drinking water, then keeping the rest sealed for later.
He had no idea if he was dosing his people by the book. Hector had offered instructions, but he’d also suggested they eat the stuff. It was harder to dose that way when people didn’t know they were on the drug. Leo’s barometer was softer. If the people in the village were too hyperactive, always pulling Doodads and other handhelds from their pockets to check their screens despite the terrible signal, then Leo simply added more Lunis. Once the village seemed reasonably content with their disconnected lifestyle and stopped clawing at its collective eyes, he figured he’d added enough.
“How much do I owe you?”
“I’ve already debited your account,” Hector said, waving a sweaty hand dismissively.
Leo’s eyes narrowed.
“You do realize I’m not a street hustler, right, Leo?”
“Just because you have a badge doesn’t give you the right to access our accounts without authorization.”
Hector patted his pocket, presumably indicating the presence of his NPS badge. “This is my authorization. But don’t get comfortable with our arrangement, okay? We’ll supply you for another month, if you want to keep handling things this way. But after that you’ll need to find yourself a dealer. Officially, I’m not even here.”
Leo considered making a joke about Hector’s girth, suggesting just how here he was. But that was anger talking. Or, more likely, guilt.
“The three agents you know? We’re it, Leonidas. In the system, everything we did with Hammer was slotted under unspecified civil investigation. You’ve got until July 15. After that, the three of us plan to forget everything that’s happened here. You run into me on the street, I don’t know who you are.”
“Literally, or…?”
“Figuratively. But we’re trained enough for it not to matter. Per our agreement, all Gaia records will be expunged and erased. This never hit Crossbrace. It was always contained, cables cut. AI will do the erasure, getting all the little loose ends. Come mid-July, Gaia’s Hammer will only exist in the minds of cops who dealt with your messes. But good luck if they ever try to prove it. Officially, half of th
e shit you did was due to a gas leak.”
“The stadium raid?” Leo asked. “The string of factories upstate?”
“It was a big gas leak.”
Leo pulled the small silver bags from the pack, re-zipped it, and handed it to Hector. Hector took it and set it on the floor: an athletic backpack soon to be shouldered by an unathletic-looking man in a suit.
“You’ll need to help me find a dealer.”
Hector shook his head. “I’m not even here.”
“Just a hint. Just tell me where to look.”
“Come on, Leonidas. You’re good at digging up shit. Get your hands dirty a bit more before settling in and pretending to be an innocent old man.”
Leo met Hector’s brown eyes. Behind the man’s duty, Leo saw resentment. Gaia was getting off easy for all the damage and death it had caused, and everyone involved knew it.
“Fine.”
“How much are they taking?”
“You’ve seen the holding tank for the water?”
Hector nodded.
“Seems to be two meterbars a week in there does it.”
“You’re still not giving it to them directly?”
Leo made a noncommittal gesture.
“It’s a bad idea, trying to hide this. You know they’re addicted. You understand that, right?”
“They don’t even know it’s happening.”
“Which makes it that much more dangerous. They won’t stay here every day of their lives. What happens when someone decides to leave? She gets back to the city or to another commune and starts feeling uneasy. Like some part of her brain is missing and she can’t think. It hits the fear center, and she gets paranoid. But she doesn’t know what’s wrong, so she can’t fix it. She thinks she’s going crazy. Things get bloody. Then someone locks her up screaming, or puts her down like a sick dog.”
“I’ll tell them eventually,” said Leo.
“Tell them now,” said Hector. “Your people, for all your bullshit about the need to live simply in harmony with nature, are the most tech-dependent group I’ve ever seen. They’ve offshored half their thinking. I’ve seen them looking at each other, wondering why the other person doesn’t understand without speaking, because they’re used to working in a dependent network. The quiet is going to start killing them.”
“They know they’re disconnected,” Leo said.
“Of course they know. But they don’t know their withdrawal is being blunted by Lunis. They don’t know how much worse raw connection withdrawal — for people as wired as they are — is supposed to be. It’s like a lobotomy. Shit, Leonidas. Have some compassion.”
“This coming from you? ‘Have some compassion’?”
Hector’s eyebrows flicked as he gave Leo a Well fuck you, too look. “I’m not the one who got them hooked on connection and told them it was ice cream. We’re supplying you with Lunis because it’s not in our best interests if you devolve into mass murder up here as you all lose your shit. But it’s a patch. You’re going to need to find a steady supply because like it or not, you’ve swapped one drug for another, and they’re just as addicted now as they ever were.”
Hector leaned one hand on a pew. He looked hot and uncomfortable. Some of the reproach left his face.
“Look. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. Maybe you don’t want them addicted to Lunis, but it’s either that or they fry because of the withdrawal from collective, hyperconnected living. So if they need Lunis, at least be upfront about it. Let them understand their need so they’ll be able to fend for themselves if they move outside your circle of protection — or shit, go off on a hike for a few days and drink from streams. They have to know about the knife at their throat, or they’re going to get cut.”
“It’s not that easy.” Guilt was heavy. Leo felt buried, suffocated.
“Make it into a ritual,” Hector suggested. “You can smoke moondust, same as you can smoke weed. But most practitioners put it under the tongue, so do that. Get into a fucking circle and jerk off as you all rock together, I don’t know. Just make it part of life here: ‘You want to be Organa, this is what we do.’”
Leo’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. As little as he wanted to admit it, Hector had a point. And a possible solution.
“You did this to them, Leonidas. You got out of all the shit you pulled without hanging yourself, but don’t pretend because you’re up here about to sing Kumbaya that this is all just peace and love. They’re fucked up, and it’s because of you. Because they trusted you. Right now, your refusal to man up and admit it is putting every one of them in danger. Don’t stack asshole on top of asshole. Be a leader to these people one last time.”
“I’m not through being their leader,” said Leo. “This isn’t an act. This community is what I always wanted Gaia’s Hammer to be, once the need for violence was over.”
Hector laughed, making no attempt to hide his scorn.
“That’s right, Leonidas. Just keep telling yourself that.”
“You ready to talk to me about how Organa has been an act all along?” said the man behind the steering fork.
Leo was in the back seat of the black NPS hover, clasping his bound hands so he wouldn’t be tempted to try smashing through the Plasteel mesh between himself and the driver — an agent who’d identified himself as Austin Smith. Leo knew he couldn’t break through Plasteel and that the makers of police and government hovers planned for frisky passengers like Leo, but he still kept wanting to try. After the raid on the mountain community, Leo’s adrenaline had shot up high enough to slice his age in half and send him back to the good old days.
He’d watched every Organa in the village get loaded into high-capacity raid shuttles. He’d seen them stunned and restrained and frozen with slumberguns. He’d watched the looks they’d given him, too. Almost everyone living in the Organa compound had been born into it, or born in the city and arrived after some sort of life-changing epiphany. The current group wasn’t fighters. They were, Leo thought as his mind reeled back to what had recently erupted in the hall before NPS had arrived, the opposite of fighters. They were layabouts. Slackers who masqueraded as people who cared enough about the world to leave it.
But, Leo thought now, he shouldn’t think those things. They'd played into what the agent kept accusing him of. But after watching how all those ungrateful people had turned on him and Scooter, Leo could only feel resentment. He was supposed to be their leader, able to rise up and always be the bigger person. But he was only human.
“It was never an act,” Leo told Smith.
“The record says that officially, Gaia’s Hammer was erased from history in ’48,” the agent said, turning fully, letting the hover’s autodrive do its work. “It also says that as far as you’re concerned, NPS kept no records. But did you really believe that, Mr. Booker?”
“Call me Leo.” He felt a smile grow on one corner of his old man’s mouth. It was Leonidas’s smile — one he’d forgotten but now felt pushing its way out from the inside.
“We have you cold, Leo. We have you not just explaining what Gaia was and is, but confessing to crimes we didn’t even know you’d committed. The GroSure plant sabotage. The murder of Charles Murphy.”
Smith turned farther. Despite the mesh, the hover was almost a luxury vehicle. The agent could probably swivel the seat fully around if he wanted and could surely play back all that Leo had said to intentionally incriminate himself. Instead, he merely turned, his face incredulous.
“Now there’s the man I knew was there deep down all along,” said Smith. “Do you really not know how cold we have you? There’s a bug in your office. I could play you back everything you said this afternoon. Not just the shit in the past, but about what you have planned for Shift.”
“What do I have planned for Shift, Agent Smith?”
Smith shook his head then touched a button to lower the Plasteel barrier for a proper look. Leo could feel the charge coming from the force field between them, but if he hit
hard enough, Leo bet he could push most of the way through it and likely strike the agent. That was why the Plasteel was there. But still, Smith wanted to meet his prisoner’s eyes.
“This is all just a big joke to you, isn’t it?” he said.
“What use is life if you aren’t having fun?”
“You’re going away forever. Forever. And based on what I’m seeing now, you’ve got a lot of life left in you. A bouncing baby boy at only 121 years old, isn’t that right? With all the gear you used to have, I wouldn’t be shocked if you lived another forty. You can live those years out in Flat 4, where life is always fun.”
“I do enjoy travel.”
The tiny smile was still on Leo’s face. He didn’t understand why he was tempting fate. Why he was, even now, considering testing the force field’s resilience. Why he was going out of his way to annoy the agent? Leo knew his fate was far from certain — or rather, he was confident of its direction and was able to approve — but still this man held enough sway to make life easy in the meantime…or difficult.
“A lot of good men and women died because of you,” Smith said. “I had a second cousin who was killed heading in after Hammer bombed Meyers Dynamics. She wasn’t a cop. She was a tech. Her job was to check fidelities on Crossbrace boards. The way my mom tells it, she thought of herself as a trainer. Or a teacher. AI wasn’t much back then by today’s standards, but it needed to be primed and loaded with its initial logic, and that’s what my cousin did. Terri took a lot of pride in her work. She was Directorate, doing her honest day’s work. Had two kids. Until some fuck dropped the roof in on her.”
Leo remembered the Meyers bombing. The facility was supposed to be empty. The only expected casualties were the developing technologies. The plan was to cut the hard lines, roll in a Gauss generator to jam any outbound transmissions that might result in data backups, then level the place for good measure. They’d already loosed a worm in that sector of the Crossbrace cloud, destroying a few thousand people’s inane photo diaries in the process. But the Gaia crew in charge of that initiative had been overzealous and a bit too committed to the cause. They’d only seen the need to retard the out-of-control network. They’d only seen the need to kill production and slow the exponential growth curve that, in the minds of Hammer, was but a few years away from repeating the Fall.
