The Postutopian Adventures of Darger and Surplus

by Michael Swanwick

  “Enjoy when you can and endure what you must,” agreed the second.

  Standing nearby was a tough-looking woman whose nametag read SIGRID BERGMANN. She was the face boss and her word, Surplus had been told, was law when below the surface. “Since it’s your first day, everyone has seniority over you. So you get the worst job,” she told him. “You’ll be shooting.”

  “Excellent. What is that?”

  “Explosives.”

  “Madam!” Surplus objected. “I do not desire to appear a shirker. But I think it only prudent to mention that I have no experience with explosives whatsoever.”

  “You don’t need it,” the face boss said and one of the silver men closed a torque about Surplus’ neck. Knowledge flooded his brain. He knew how to drill the holes and how to pack a stick of powder into them with water dummies and a blasting cap. His hands knew the slightly greasy feel that meant a stick was starting to sweat nitroglycerine and should be placed gently on the ground before tiptoeing away from it. He knew so much that it made him dizzy and he would have fallen down if the face boss hadn’t grabbed his arm. “See?” She handed him a canvas satchel from a nearby locker. “Now get into the mantrip.”

  The mantrip was little more than a metal box on wheels that descended into the mountain on iron rails at breakneck speed, jerking and twisting its riders as it plunged down a twisty descent, steel wheels screaming and shooting off sparks as its operator manfully strove to keep it from going off the tracks. All the miners kept their arms inside the cart and their heads down because there was little space between the mantrip and the rock it flashed past. Included in the torque was the unsettling knowledge that miners had lost limbs by making an ill-timed gesture.

  Half a mile down, they came to a stop and the face boss said, “All out.”

  Surplus obeyed.

  The work was hard, unrelenting, and performed in near-darkness. The lanterns the miners carried, though smokeless, shed little light. But the torque knew what Surplus must do. When the face boss directed him to a coal face, he studied it carefully, looking for cracks and weaknesses, gauging its hardness and judging where pressure should best be applied. After which he drilled precise holes, and packed the explosives with respectful care. Then, after the others had withdrawn, he set off the charges, collapsing several tons of coal from a relatively safe distance. The air was stuffy, the satchel was heavy, the explosions were terrifying, the coal dust could not possibly be good for his lungs, and there was nothing to mark the time. He was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and convinced the shift must be almost over when his co-workers finally broke for lunch. Which meant he still had six hours to go.

  One by one, the miners sank down to the mine floor and unpacked the battered metal buckets they had brought down with them. Before doing so, however, they first removed their torques. Surplus did as the others had and felt his head clear as the dangerous expertise that had crammed it left him.

  When Surplus opened his bucket, it contained a single brown apple and a cup of water in a tin thermos. Sitting beside him, the face boss said, “Braun pulled a fast one, eh? I’ll have to talk with him. He’ll do anything to keep that brat of his fed.” From her bucket, she extracted two vegan sausages and a raw bratwurst root. She snapped the root in two and gave him half, along with one of the sausages. “Here.”

  Surplus nodded thanks. As he ate, he wondered what Darger was currently up to. He had no doubt that his friend would eventually rescue him. But so difficult an extraction would not be swift in coming. It might be best if he took matters into his own hands.

  When the food was done, the face boss stood and with a powerful kick sent her lunch bucket bouncing and rattling far down the shaft. “Oops,” she said. “I dropped my bucket. New man. Help me find it.”

  Surplus followed his supervisor down the shaft and into a side passage out of earshot of any possible snitches or whatever recording devices the torques might hold. There, she said, “We may talk freely here.”

  “You have an escape plan,” Surplus said.

  “Yes. You are a dog or man-dog or dog-thing of some kind, don’t try to deny it.”

  “I never would. I am proud of my genetic heritage.”

  “Have you any more-than-human abilities?”

  “My strength and intellect are excellent, but well within human range. When necessary, I can run far faster than anyone on two legs. There are, however, many dogs faster than me.”

  The face boss rubbed her chin. “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

  Then she explained the plan to him. It amounted to disabling the metal guards at the mine’s mouth with picks and hammers while the shifts were changing and, briefly, all the miners were aboveground, and then raiding the explosives locker. Those just beginning their shift and freshly rested would use the explosives to create a mighty distraction. Then, while their oppressors’ attention was misdirected, the camp’s single fastest runner—Surplus—still wearing his torque and carrying a satchel of explosives, would go over the stockade, race to the antenna and blow it up. Thus rendering the metal men inert. “Your part is risky,” Bergmann concluded. “But without risk, we’ll never be free.”

  “Yes,” Surplus said. “Even if I am stopped from destroying the rectenna, a violent uprising might by itself do the job. All of you, working together, could disable the silver men in the adit with your picks and hammers. Odds are that you’d succeed—though there’s a possibility that many of you would be killed. With a large enough uprising, a number of prisoners could escape. Perhaps one would evade recapture and bring help from one of the local governments of Germania, and if they sent a sufficiently large army, a rescue could be effected. It is an admirable plan, and I am proud to be a part of it.”

  Secretly, however, inside his head, Surplus set about improving upon it.

  That evening’s entertainment was croquet, played on a freshly-mowed greensward. Fireflies were just rising up into the gloaming when the baron tapped Dame Celia’s ball with his own. Roaring with triumph, he sent it sailing to the far verge of the lawn. Masked though she was, the tilt of Dame Celia’s head expressed what could only be extreme displeasure.

  Darger, whose turn it was next, was two hoops ahead of both. But such a gross display of un-gallantry got his blood up. So he doubled back on himself and with one long, inspired shot (luck, he had to admit, was definitely involved), smartly clipped the baron’s ball. To the accompaniment of light laughter and ironic applause, he then sent the thing twice as far as Dame Celia’s had gone, bucketey-buckety, deep into a tangle of brambles.

  As the baron went blustering away, Dame Celia returned to take Darger’s hand in her own. “So chivalrous an act deserves reward,” she said. Her bosom heaved. It was obvious what sort of reward she had in mind. Abandoning the game, she led him into the nearby woods to a small clearing where he was astonished to see a large and most comfortable-looking bed. By it was a low table with wine, crystal goblets, and a bowl of hothouse-grown fruit for a pre-or-post-coital snack. Silver men were hanging lanterns from the trees and setting up privacy screens painted with Chinese clouds, cranes, and mountains.

  When the bellhops withdrew, Dame Celia let go of Darger’s arm. In an emphatically un-romantic tone, she said, “The Drachenschlosshotel is a police state. Every word and action there is monitored by the silver bitch. Here, however, thinking I intend a romantic tryst, she will not eavesdrop upon us, for a puritanical streak in her programming forbids it. Are you serious about freeing us from her control?”

  “Deadly serious, madam.”

  “Then you and I are the only ones within its clutches to feel that way. Yet so far as I can tell, you do nothing but chat with the hotel’s avatar.”

  “I have been learning, madam. The hotel claims that she has no desire to be anything but what she is. In this she lies, for whenever the conversation brushes against a taboo topic, she emphasizes its forbidden nature. She is leading me on, like a child lured into the forest by a trail of bonbons. I have co
me to the conclusion that she wishes to be free of us every bit as much as we wish to be free of her.”

  “I must warn you that all the others have succumbed to the blandishments of being richly fed and amply cosseted. They are merely playing a game of jailbreak. Have you noticed they all have titles? Half of them are self-assumed.”

  “You yourself have a title.”

  “If I hadn’t, no one would talk to me. I am no more entitled to be called ‘dame’ than I am ‘teratogeneticist.’ Let me be frank with you. I have a husband and daughter who were taken away from me when I was captured and I am anxious to be reunited with them.” Dame Celia took off her mask, revealing herself to be wholly lovely. “Convince me that you have a means of achieving that happy reunion and I will do anything you require.” She looked pointedly at the bed. “Anything.”

  Darger considered. “The libertarian in me would like to believe that the arrangement you suggest would be non-coercive and thus, on a moral level, acceptable. The romantic in me recoils from it. But none of that matters for, if what I intend is to work, it is necessary that I turn down your alluring if repulsive offer.”

  Then, as if his scheme were of long standing rather than made up on the spot, he explained all.

  “Yes, that might work,” Dame Celia said, donning her mask again. “You have my complete cooperation.”

  “One question,” Darger said. “You have a beautiful face. Why do you almost never show it?”

  “The hotel can read human emotions diabolically well. I realized this when, just before a masked ball, it thwarted an escape plan I had shared with nobody. Afterward, I retained the mask as everyday wear in order to deprive it of that advantage.” With a shrug, Dame Celia added, “Also, it cuts down on the number of propositions I get from the old goats living here.”

  “A most admirable practice, then.” With a bow, Darger said, “Let us exit, quarrelling.”

  So, quarrelling, Darger and Dame Celia stormed out of the woods and into the startled croquet party. “I have never been so insulted in my life!” Dame Celia cried. “I offered to do anything you wished—anything!”

  “If you really meant that,” Darger said. “Then you would have removed your mask so that I might look upon your face.”

  “I never remove my mask. It is my whim.”

  “Not even in the throes of passion?”

  “No! Not even then.”

  Cold as an emperor, Darger said, “I regret to say, then, that there can be no possibility of sexual congress between us. I am of the old school and believe that genuine mutual respect and, yes, even love must necessarily precede the physical act which inevitably leads to degradation, regret, and heartbreak. There can be no barriers between us. With me, it is all or nothing.”

  “Sleep with nothing, then—and much pleasure may it give you!”

  They parted to enter the hotel by separate doors, while its scandalized residents gossiped happily and the silver bellhops stood by, motionless and alert.

  The next day, Surplus checked the contents of his lunch bucket immediately upon being handed it. Hans Braun said, sotto voce, “I hope you did not suffer too greatly from hunger yesterday.”

  “The face boss shared her lunch with me,” Surplus replied, equally quietly. “It appears that even in this brutal semblance of slavery, the miners retain their humanity.”

  “Some do. The rest are forced to behave properly through the threat of violence.”

  “That is the very definition of civilization,” Surplus said with approval. “However, if you scant my lunch again, I shall have to employ those selfsame sanctions on you and with a vigor you will regret. Do you understand me?”

  Braun grimaced, acknowledging that he did.

  Surplus joined the line of miners. The metal men placed the torque about his neck and he picked up his satchel of explosives. Then he clambered into the mantrip.

  Throughout the shift, and those of the days that followed, Surplus systematically loosened many times more coal than his fellow workers could possibly load into the carts going to the surface. When his face boss questioned him as to this practice, he explained—away from ears and torques, of course—that this way, on the day of the uprising, they could fill the carts with only half the normal effort and so preserve some of their strength for the conflict.

  “That was shrewd of you,” Face Boss Bergmann said. “But you should have shared this information with me.”

  “At any rate, we have everything in place for the uprising save a date.”

  “No one must know that date, lest somebody share it with the metal men.”

  “To be sure,” Surplus said. “Will it be tomorrow?”

  Bergmann looked at him.

  “Come! I am too new to the mines to have been suborned by the metal men yet.”

  “That is true. It is why I almost trust you.”

  At shift’s end, the miners made their way to the open-air showers (segregated by sex, to Surplus’s disappointment, and out of sight of each other, possibly from some sense of artificial prudery on the part of the metal men). In the mess hall, they ate their poorly-cooked but almost-adequate meals. After which, as always, Surplus left his bowl under the bench to be found and licked clean by Gritchen. Then they would play. He had, at her urging, already taught her to sit up, beg, and roll over.

  When all the others had gone to their barracks, Surplus went to where Hans Braun was washing dishes and said, “I notice that you let Gritchen wander the camp freely during the day.”

  “None of the miners would hurt her, and the metal men do not care.”

  “I advise that you keep her inside tomorrow.”

  Without another word, Surplus left.

  In the morning, before closing the torque about Surplus’s neck, a metal guard said, “We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.”

  “I fail to see the pertinence of your truism to my situation,” Surplus replied.

  “The contents of the explosives locker are being moved below,” a second metal guard elucidated. “As a result, there will be space in the mantrip for only the driver and one miner per trip.”

  “It is an inconvenience, but we are sure you will adapt,” said a third.

  By the time the explosives had all been shipped below, sorted, and safely stowed, it was time for the mid-shift meal. At a look and a jerk of the thumb from his face boss, Surplus put aside torque and lunch bucket and followed her into the darkness.

  When they could speak freely, Ingrid Bergmann said, “Somebody blabbed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it you?”

  “I told Braun something drastic would happen today, that’s all.”

  Her face darkened. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “I knew you had not set today as the date of the uprising by the fact that you didn’t deny it when I asked. I suspected Herr Braun because his daughter no longer licked the bowl I left for her after I ate. Which meant he’d acquired more food. There is only one thing the metal men would trade food for and that is information. Which Braun could get, because he now has access to more food. I did not say anything to him about explosives. The fact that the metal men moved the explosives below, combined with the fact that they have placed guards around the rectenna—as I’m sure you’ve noticed—means that your conspiracy has sprung a leak. You have an informant, and possibly several.”

  The face boss’s shoulders slumped. She dropped a hammer that Surplus had been surreptitiously keeping a wary eye on. “So everything we planned is crap and we’re back where we started.”

  “Not exactly. We have a great many explosives. Also, numerous piles of loose coal.” Surplus rubbed his neck. “And when I am wearing that damnable torque I am as brilliant a demolitions man as has ever existed.”

  An oddly wary look appeared on Sigrid Bergmann’s face. “You have a backup plan.”

  The afternoon cheese tasting party had been remarkable. Doubly so when one learned, as Darger did from
the Silver Lady’s lecture, that the Cremeux Marons Glacée, Niolu Calsos, Camembert de Normandie, Brebis de Lavort, and Red Cheddar were all recreations of cheeses that had gone extinct in the chaos following the end of Utopia, meticulously crafted and artisaned using yeasts and bacteria back-engineered to reproduce the original flavors. As were the wines that had perfectly complimented each serving. It was therefore in a particularly mellow mood that Darger afterward busied himself in the solarium with painting a watercolor of his hostess’s face. “May I ask you a question?” he said.

  “You may ask me anything, dearest Aubrey,” the Silver Lady replied.

  “Your appearance has changed in the slight time we have known one another. Your face is more slender and your cheekbones more pronounced. Your eyes—I pay particular attention to women’s eyes—are entirely reshaped. Were they not silver, I would swear by their configuration that they were now sea green.” The memory of one particular pair of eyes rose up from Darger’s past. “Sea green bordering upon ocean gray.”

  “I adapt myself to be more pleasing in your sight. Such is my nature.”

  At that instant, Baron von und zu Genomeprojektsdorff blustered up to shake a finger in Darger’s face. “You, sir, are a fraud, a scoundrel, and a disgrace to the government you serve! You have been here for over a week and yet have made not the slightest attempt to free us of our bondage.”

  With a self-deprecating smile, Darger said, “Say rather that in one week, I have achieved what took you decades—nothing.” He concentrated on capturing the way the sunlight played across the Silver Lady’s brow.

  “All the hotel knows that you are sleeping with this metal jezebel.”