Tory Goodwin had been surprised when he came back to find Laura in the hotel room. When I told him that Kali brought her, that seemed good enough for him. But that didn’t settle the feeling of unease that crept into me after our afternoon escapades. Kali’s visit – and her bringing Laura – seemed a strange move. She didn’t even know Laura.
That unease stayed with me all evening. I settled into bed. Laura laid next to me, awake but silent, and Goodwin in the other bed still looking into his ARs, going over his speech at the farmer’s town hall meeting for the next day. I listened to her breathing as I lay in the dark, wondering what all of this meant. I had wanted to ask Kali about what Goodwin told me about how they met, but seeing Laura threw me off.
And that might have been the whole point, Evita said, she knew that if you’re distracted by her, then you won’t go prying into her own motives…Kali’s wary of you.
The same thoughts seemed to circle through my mind over and over again. The internal debate, wondering if she was telling the truth about simply being a patriot wanting what’s best for India, and other times wondering why she would be taking the approach she is if that were the case. The thought that Kali must have some other motive for bringing Laura, but also feeling glad that she had.
But of course, even while having sex with Laura, I couldn’t help but think about Sachi. The image of her with Markus passed through my mind several times. The feeling of betrayal would turn into a feeling of regret for what I was doing but then quickly turn back into betrayal. My mind would go back and forth, thinking that this was all a mistake, that I’d been burned so many times in the past with mortals, and then other times thinking that even temporary happiness giving way to grief was better than eternal loneliness.
And there is always the possibility that she could be immortal through science, I would think in my own voice, through resurrection. Or by continually transplanting her brain into new bodies. She would live like me, passing from body to body. She could be male or female. She could experience being Black, white, Asian, Indian, Hispanic, and so many other human conditions. It’ll be wonderful. Right?
These questions would go unanswered. At least for the time being. As my waking thoughts faded, the memory of having sex with Mya, in India two lives previous, briefly passed through my mind. But even that faded as I slipped into the most peaceful sleep I’d had since before my hallucination.
Chapter 39
“Shouldn’t we send someone else?” Darren asked, “Especially bein’ wanted by the CSA? Christina’s took off again and-”
“You are part of Goodwin’s security team,” Laura said as we led him across the hotel parking lot, “If anyone asks, you were just making sure the streets were safe for democracy.”
“Fake security,” he complained, looking over his shoulder at the hotel, “they come lookin’ any further’n this fake ID and they’ll be on us right quick.”
“Nobody’s going to look into it further,” Laura said, glancing at me with a mischievous grin.
I felt as apprehensive as Darren. Perhaps more. The LoC Security agents posing as Goodwin’s private CSA security weren’t too happy about Laura being here. Goodwin explained to them that Kali brought her, but unlike him, that explanation wasn’t good enough for them.
We had campaigned down to Atlanta, making sure to keep Laura out of the spotlight. Blogs were already running with the story that Goodwin’s entourage was riddled with terrorist forty-eights and treasonous LoC Security agents, with me taking more and more of the headlines. Goodwin’s wrongful imprisonment and Kali’s bribes had shielded us from more mainstream criticism, but Laura being there, even with a fake identity, could only add fuel to the fire.
“Even if they don’t,” Darren said as we approached the car, “I could lose my job.”
“The GPFTA talks are starting today,” I said, “and we need to see what kind of security they have.”
The three of us got into the car, Laura behind Darren and me in the back passenger seat. Darren started aimlessly scanning about the map on the monitor, looking for a path the car could take us, but I could tell he was stalling, wanting to voice further objections.
“We’re not going to back out,” I said, “so we might as well get going.”
“I know,” Darren said, “I just don’t wanna make a path that looks like we’re casin’ the joint.”
I shrugged, “it might be nice to take the scenic route, I guess.”
After another minute, Darren finished setting up the roundabout path and hit enter. The car started forward, driving us out of the parking lot and out onto the road. Laura’s head was turned away from me, watching out the window at the skyscrapers in the distance. I sat back, turning away from her to stare out my window.
The Atlanta skyline loomed large as we got onto the highway, heading east into the morning sun. The city had expanded quite a bit, even since I’d last visited in my life as Marcy Riviera. The houses and businesses on the streets crossing below the highway looked newly built since Mitchell’s massive gentrification push following the devolution. The road around us was busy with self-driving cars, each one staying a set distance behind the one in front. Our monitor showed that our car was synced up to the internet service that kept track of traffic and construction, ensuring a smooth, almost nonstop ride.
Transportation was all government controlled, meaning our ride could be tracked at any time, but even our car had the false identity of a CSA security service. Plasma screen billboards along the side of the highway ran advertisements and Christian propaganda, the sound streaming into people’s cars. Ours was hacked so that we could turn the sound off, but other drivers would occasionally get advertisements broadcast onto their speakers announcing sugary beverages, Christian podcasts, cheap clothing, or a new book espousing the benefits of worshiping Christ.
“In the belly of the beast,” I said, still watching everything go by out my window.
“It seems to get worse the further east we go,” Laura said.
“Don’t seem so bad,” Darren said somewhat meekly.
Laura and I both turned slowly to look at him. He stayed quiet for a few moments before saying, “maybe not the authoritarian gov’ment and what have you, but it’s nice seein’ people embracin’ God.”
“I didn’t take you for being all that religious,” I said.
“I ain’t all that religious, I reckon,” Darren said, “but I believe in God. Ellen’s bringin’ me to church with her and it’s helped a lot with…everything.”
“Must be nice to hear about the Hell you don’t have to look forward to,” Laura said.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“They tell you about Hell at church,” Laura said, “and after what you did, that’s where you would go. But it doesn’t exist. I imagine it’s comforting to know you got away with what you’ve done.”
Darren sat quiet for a moment before saying, “I know ya’ll don’t believe in God, but I do. You might never forgive me for what I done. I’ll never forgive myself. But God is loving. God forgives.”
“Then God’s a piece of shit, too,” Laura said.
We slowly drove out of the gentrified area into the grey belt, towering skyscrapers only a few blocks away as the car navigated down our preset path onto an exit ramp. After turning onto the street, broken pavement crackling beneath the tires, we pulled to a stop, the government navigation program alerting us of a blockage.
“Aw, shit,” Darren asked, squinting his large brow at the fence going right across the street.
I zoomed my bionic eye in on a sign attached to the fence.
“It’s a quarantine zone,” I said, “for Shift users.”
“Shitheads in the CSA capital?” Laura asked, “who’s being quarantined from who?”
“Shitheads’re everywhere,” Darren said, going through the menus on the car’s monitor to reroute our path around town, the car backing out and continuing on eastward. Just as we did, an unmanned police vehicle, about
the size of a small motorcycle, pulled into the street we were in, stopping right where we had been.
“I saw the quarantine zone they had in Wichita when I was there with Reynolds,” I said, “how bad is it everywhere else?”
“CSA’s worse’n a lot of the PRA,” Darren said, leaning back into the driver’s seat, letting the car take us through the new path, “but that’s on accounta the PRA bein’ a lot more brutal to their own people. CSA’s just brutal to the ones they don’t like.”
“So much for the healing power of Christ,” Laura said.
“How do the Shift gangs even distribute it out here?” I asked.
Darren shook his head slowly, “Wish I knew. They don’t even got this place marked off on their mappin’ program.”
“It doesn’t look like anyone takes are of it,” I said.
The car continued on down the street, everyone sitting quiet, looking to our right at the fence. It looked completely out of place, bushes and trees near the road hacked away to fit it there, roads in even worse condition within the confines. In a few places, people were crowded around the inside of the fence, looking out at all the traffic as we passed by. I zoomed in on one of the crowds, able to see the gaunt figures draped loosely in pallid flesh. Some had eyes milky white, staring blindly at nothing. Open sores riddled their arms where Shift had been continually injected, oozing pink and yellow puss. Some had missing limbs or teeth or ears or nose.
“Christ,” I said, “those people look like zombies.”
“They do this with the people who’re way far gone,” Darren said, “practically everyone who tries Shift ends up that way. Ain’t ever been a casual Shift user. After they’ve gone far enough down that rabbit hole…” He shook his head, “they don’t got places like this out west by Texas. I’ve heard of ‘em, but ain’t ever seen it. Gov’ments round folks up and throw ‘em in these ghettos and tell everyone they’re gettin’ treated.”
“You’re quite the expert on it,” Laura said, her tired gaze looking past me, out the window at the grim spectacle.
Darren sat quiet.
“Someone you knew?” I asked.
Darren sighed, “My wife and my father.” After a moment’s pause he continued, “I owned a farm out in Texas. Well, it was my dad’s farm, but he’d been the first to start in on Shift. Up Shift. Helped ‘em cope and keep workin’ the fields after my mom passed. Mighty hard keepin’ the crops alive with the droughts and dust storms. Takin’ that shit allowed ‘em ta do it. This was still back when Shift weren’t such a big deal. Folks still arguing whether it screwed your brain up or not.”
Darren stopped a few moments. The car kept moving, staying right behind the line of vehicles in front of us. We finally passed by a road where the right turn wasn’t blocked by a fence. The end of the quarantine zone.
“It was only a few years’uh this ‘afore my dad started gettin’ really bad,” Darren continued, “started in with that shithead behavior. Paranoia, delusions, spoutin’ nonsense, what have you. That’s when me and my wife moved back in with ‘em.”
“My wife had some issues with drugs when she was a teen,” Darren continued, “Meth. She’d been clean for almost ten years by the time we got married. Or at least I thought. Things went to hell in a hand basket when all that started goin’ down in Mexico. You forty-eights rilin’ up the cartels, leakin’ a buncha stuff. It became a whole big thing. Talks of secedin’…” He shrugged, “ya’ll know the story. Led to the devolution.”
“Anyway, when the cartel drugs dried up, I knew my wife was usin’ again,” Darren continued, “but her withdrawal ended almost abruptly. Me, bein’ the fool I am, thought maybe she’d just gotten better right quick. Course, it didn’t take long to see she was dippin’ into my dad’s supply,” he paused, looking to his left out the window, “I was pissed as all git-out. By that time, people knew not ta mess around with that shit. Even after seein’ my dad’s downward spiral, she still started.”
“And then you started selling children as slaves,” Laura said, “seems like a logical next step.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Darren said, looking over his shoulder to her, eyes wet with tears, “you try watchin’ both yer dad and wife lose their minds and start rottin’ alive. Right in front’uh you. That drug don’t just screw up your brain, it screws up everything. Every time you inject it, the needle turns yer muscle ta sludge. It was only four years ago my dad finally passed. Anything that touched ‘em caused the fat in ‘is body to just…fall apart,” Darren looked forward again, “he laid down one day ‘n passed out. Later I heard ‘em screamin’. I went into the room and…and his skin was…his skin was just…sloughin’ off.” He sniffled, clearing his throat. “He melted into the got-damn bed. The smell was…unbelievable. I threw up right there in the door. I couldn’t get myself to go back in there. I couldn’t look at ‘em. I knew he’d be better off if I just pumped a bullet in ‘is chest. But I couldn’t do it. So he screamed the resta the day till it finally ended late in the afternoon.”
He paused a moment, sniffling before saying, “ya know, the bitch of it is, he didn’t even die from the rottin’ fat and skin fallin’ off. He fuckin’ died’uh withdrawal. Can you believe that? He died cuz he couldn’t inject more’uh that poison into ‘emself cuz of bein’ fused to the got-damn bed. What kinda monster even invented this shit?”
He paused a while, sniffling and pinching the bridge of his nose with his bionic fingers, “When I saw how my dad died, I couldn’t let my wife go through it.” His face was tense as he forced himself not to cry, “I put some different poisons I could find round the farm in her stash. She died the next time she shot up.” He shook his head, “I reckon she woulda shot up even if I’d told her I spiked it. She woulda took her chances.”
After a moment of quiet I asked, “That’s why you left the farm?”
Darren sighed, “The farm hadn’t been much of a farm for a while by then. We were livin’ off CSA subsidies and loans for quite some time. Benecorp cut a deal with the CSA to help supply and guard the Mexican border. Benecorp bought off all the debts in exchange for the land the CSA was claimin’ in Texas and Oklahoma. That land was pretty much useless for farmin’ and ranchin’ on account of the droughts, so the CSA was more’n happy to oblige. I had no choice but to take Benecorp’s offer for my land. All that amounted to was a small decrease in what I owed ‘em for the debts I racked up. I had no land, no job, no wife, and no real skills to be workin’ in one of them Benecorp cities. I had less’n nothin’.” He sniffled, jaw quivering, “The human traffickin’ thing…a lotta the people involved had similar stories to mine.”
“That’s terrible what happened to you,” I said, “but it doesn’t excuse what you’ve done.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Darren asked, tears now streaming down his cheeks, “you think that doesn’t still haunt me every damn day? You think I don’t constantly run through that time you had me face them kids? Their faces couldn’t be any clearer in my mind if I had pictures of ‘em on my wall. And I hate myself. I fucking hate myself for what I done.”
“And that’s why it’s lucky for you there’s no such thing as hell,” Laura said.
“There is,” Darren said, “and I’m livin’ it.” He wiped his nose on his counterfeit CSA security firm’s uniform sleeve, the prosthetic hand sticking out as he looked down, sobbing.
The morning gave way to afternoon as we rode amongst the tall buildings, car littered with protein bar wrappers. We had gotten a good idea of where police presence was highest. There was a lot of UGV activity around the quarantine zone. They didn’t seem too concerned about the quarantined people getting out, but one of the robots often showed up if anyone got too close to the outside of the fence. They were worried about people smuggling the drug in, which people were apparently still somehow doing.
Some of the neighborhoods we passed through still showed signs of the protests and riots that had happened after the incident in Kansas. The streets were empty of pe
destrians, patrolled by UGVs and CSA officers in exoskeletons. Storefronts were boarded up, construction crews making repairs.
When we finally meandered our way over to the Director’s mansion, finding it cordoned off, free speech zones setup across the street containing a few sparse protesters.
It was a relatively small building at four stories high, but adorned with expertly crafted Christian iconography. A twenty-foot marble cross stood in a circular flower bed bifurcating the stone walkway approaching the front door. A large cement plinth held a stone carving of a bible opened to the center, the Ten Commandments etched into it.
Our car stopped on the side of the road a ways from a free speech zone to get a look at what was going on.
“G. P. FTA! Sovereign needs to go away!” the small group within the free speech zone chanted.
“Looks like some of Goodwin’s supporters,” I said.
“Sovereign…” Laura muttered.
I glanced over, seeing her staring at the protester’s signs – the Sovereign logo crossed off, scripture about money lenders being quoted, slogans about keeping foreigners out of the CSA. It was comforting to see all the Tory Goodwin shirts and ribbons.
Several CSA agents in exoskeletons patrolled the area around the building. Through my bionic eye, I could see people in business suits milling about the extravagant gardens in front of the mansion, shaking hands and laughing with one another.
Among them I saw the Chinese Communist leaders. Their president and some of his ministers. There were also several Indian government dignitaries and leaders, including the main Indian Nationalist Party opponent, Priyansh Radhakrishnan. Interestingly, I didn’t see Gabriel Mitchell. Only his acting interim Director, a puppet named Jacob Kimball. A single Brazilian dignitary was there, but Brazil had all but pulled out of the GPFTA at this point. Calvin Lind and several of his people were shaking hands with the Sovereign CEO Hugo Fischer and his entourage…an entourage that included Eduard Winkler. Project manager of the biotech interfaces division that performed the brain implant on Laura.
Incarnate- Essence Page 67
