“There’s only so much money in the world. What would happen if enough of it was tied up in an investment that wasn’t set to payout or mature in the near future?”
“People would have to go into debt to pay their debt’s debt? I don’t know.”
“You’re closer than you think. The bank that Vance Uroboros has been quietly funneling the world’s real money into has these sorts of investments, which act as cash traps. The money can’t escape, so most of the largest banks have been trading and speculating on each other’s debt. All the while, everyone’s doctoring their financials to hide the fact that they have no real operating capital,” Silverstein explained, leaning against the sink.
“Wait, aren’t you Vance Uroboros? Can’t you stop it?” I said slugging him.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“What happens if someone discovered the false financials?”
“All it would take is someone submitting some corporate code to one of the many Central AI terminals. It would reveal what had previously been hidden by loopholes in corporate and governmental code for decades. This has been going on for a long time I think.”
“What would happen?”
“Industry and government across the world would be shut down by the Central AI when it was revealed there wasn’t enough operating capital. I think only the Moon Resort and the Mars Penal Colony would be financially detached enough to escape being shut down.”
“People would be forced out of their workplaces and homes in uptown zones across the world,” I whispered, finally beginning to understand.
“Yes, and lacking even the possibility of acquiring the proper operating capital, none of those institutions would be allowed to reopen.”
“The displaced people would filter into the downtown zones and underground looking for food and shelter while all the goods that trickle down would stop?”
Silverstein nodded solemnly.
“Why are we in the bathroom?” Ezra said, looking around disdainfully.
“This is where I do my best thinking,” Silverstein said with a wink.
“Can we stop it?” I said shaking my head as I unlocked and opened the door to step outside.
“Depends. If I set the whole thing up, I know I wouldn’t leave anything to chance. I’d make sure nothing got in the way of my masterstroke,” Silverstein muttered.
“What if you aren’t responsible? Maybe you’ve been working to try and stop it?” I looked to Ezra for support.
“It’s possible, but unlikely given what little I’ve been able to see so far.”
We walked quietly out of the park, and down to the tubes to use the light rail, hopefully to go home. It would be long ride to take the subway all the way downtown, and I was glad I packed a lunch. By the time we got to the platform, it was late and the regular commuters had gone home.
It wasn’t long before a train came and we boarded, finding a comfy bench to sit on. Silverstein was particularly sullen, and little of the goofing off Ezra and I engaged in seemed to cheer him up. Must be rough thinking you’re the one who ruined the world, and you might never remember why you were doing it in the first place.
I had a hard time believing Silverstein had set out intentionally to bring about a financial cataclysm. I wanted to believe he was a hapless pawn in all of this, or that he’d done it under duress. I wanted to believe that Silverstein was one of the good guys.
“Taylor, I want you to do something for me,” Silverstein said at last, our stop rapidly approaching.
“What’s that?” I replied, again at the losing end of a thumb war with Ezra.
“I want you to take Ezra back to your apartment. I want you to tell Russ what’s going on and help him get the building ready to repel invaders, so to speak,” Silverstein whispered reluctantly.
“What are you going to do? What if Russ isn’t really our friend?”
“I’m going to try to find the code I wrote to be given to the Central AI. It wasn’t at the bank building. It might be on that computer at the mansion. If Russ isn’t really our friend, Ezra will know what to do.”
“We should go with you,” Ezra insisted.
“No!” Silverstein growled.
Ezra and I jumped in our seats. We’d never really heard Silverstein raise his voice.
“No. Please, go back to the apartment and stay there,” Silverstein gently replied. “I’ll join you there in a day or two. I might have made this mess, but I’d like to see if I can clean it up.”
Ezra and I watched Silverstein disappear with the train as it headed back around towards uptown. I couldn’t help it. I started to cry big gooey tears even though I tried like hell not to.
“He yelled at us,” Ezra said frowning sadly.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll tie him down and tickle him until he pees when he gets back,” Ezra whispered, patting me reassuringly.
I laughed a little bit and shook my head.
“I’ll miss him,” I said sobbing. “Even if he is a big wuss, I always feel better with him around.”
“Yeah, I’ll miss him, too. Even among my own people... I’m a freak. He always treats me decently,” Ezra replied sadly.
“Really?”
That’s when Ezra gave me the most awkward hug ever and we headed for home, down into the dark labyrinth that was downtown Port Montaigne.
Chapter 8
Downtown Port Montaigne, Transit Station
3:16 PM, December 23rd, 2199
Taylor’s Diary, Part 3
At the time, my life was not unlike the walls in my apartment. If you were to peel back the paint, you’d find Mrs. Carbo’s creepy cartoon cat wallpaper. Like so many things, I know I should have taken that wallpaper down, because even with a fresh coat of paint, deep down, I know it’s still there.
The transit station was nearly empty when we arrived back in our own dark little part of Port Montaigne. Ezra and I made our way out of the station and into the streets of downtown, a perpetual paranoia echoing in our footsteps. Without the rain and the clamor of the transient population, it was literally all we could hear. Every time I took a step, I worried who might be able to hear us.
The streets, like the transit station, were conspicuously empty for a time that usually saw a lot of traffic. I had become so used to the crush of people, noise, and motion that a still and empty street was always a component of my nightmares. I kept hoping it was all a dream.
Usually the arched supports rising far above us would flicker with barrel fires, and we could hear music and the noise people made coming and going. Even the gentle breeze blowing in from the ocean did little to soothe my nerves. Something had happened while we were away in uptown.
It was near the edge of the peddlers’ district when Ezra stooped down and fished up a single shell casing.
“It was recently fired. The ground shows signs of being swept, and wreaks of cleansing chemicals,” Ezra reported.
Something had happened here, and someone went to great lengths to cover it up. It all ceased to surprise me anymore.
The few people who had lingered about in the aftermath told us it was the Collectors. It wasn’t enough to just take what little money people could manage to make down here. They started taking people, too. I couldn’t imagine why, but given the compulsory nature of downtown’s police protection, it didn’t bode well.
We took three full trips around the apartment building to make sure we weren’t being followed or watched. Once Ezra was sure it was safe to go in, we crept in through a small window. I wanted to tell Russ we were back, but Ezra was worried about exposing ourselves or using my mobile until we’d gotten some rest and a bite to eat.
A cold can of beans and a lukewarm cup of instant coffee later, I felt better. I wished Silverstein had been there.
Not to say Ezra wasn’t good company, but I worried about Silverstein. He wasn’t himself when we parted ways, his usual calm seem shattered by what we’d seen uptown.
I sat for an hour in my bed and scrolled through the news articles on my mobile. There was no mention of an incident in downtown, not like the established news outlets ever covered what went on in the city’s underbelly. I stared at my empty email box, quietly hoping Silverstein would send me a message from wherever he was.
After a while I gave up and shut my mobile off to charge. I grabbed up a blanket and looked out into my tiny living room. Ezra was kneeling on the radiator gazing out the window.
“Worried we were followed?”
“No, I just like looking around at the outside,” Ezra said putting his elbows up on the window sill.
“I would think most Drones would be made nervous by wide open spaces,” I said yawning.
“Most are, a fixture of my people I suppose. For some reason, I don’t have that same apprehension about it. There are others like me who quietly enjoy the wide open surface world.”
“Others?”
“Type One Drones, like me. I think we were designed to have very little fear of, well... anything, I guess.”
“Good night, Ezra.”
Ezra stood vigil through the later part of the day and first part of the night. I had to get up and head into work for a little while. I left after being reasonably sure Ezra was comfortable. I looked around for Russ before I left, but had to settle for leaving him a note.
Getting closer to the Strip and Waffle, it was clear the streets were back to business as usual. The peddlers, dealers, and pimps were all on parade, and I was back to wishing Silverstein was walking with me. I slipped through the service entrance and walked through the storage room to the kitchen.
I went to pop in and say hello to Joe, but it looked like he had visitors in his office. The dancers breathed a sigh of relief when they saw me, and for a moment it looked like some of them wanted to talk. It struck me as odd at the time, but I just wanted to get to work, take my mind off things.
I filled the basin with water to let some pans soak, then wandered about the mostly empty club bussing tables. I pulled a few decent tips, then wandered back to my corner of the kitchen. I had just finished putting the last of the dishes in the basin to soak for a moment when I heard a commotion in the back room. I just thought it was the dancers scuffling over a feather boa or something.
I had grabbed my second dish when a hand grabbed me by the shoulder. I whirled around and saw Joe standing off to one side, a pair of rubber coat wearing goons standing in front of me. A kid dressed in a sharp uptown suit stepped in between them. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and he was eerily familiar.
“Hello, Taylor,” the kid said, extending his hand to me.
“What do they want, Joe?” I growled looking angrily over at my boss.
“Whatever it is, just give it to them,” Joe said trying to calm me down.
I turned and looked intently at the kid. He had long hair stretching down past his shoulders. When he brushed it aside, that’s when I recognized him. It was Silverstein, or what he probably looked like as a pimple-squeezing teenager.
“I don’t have anything for you,” I said. I tightened the grip on the plate still lingering in my hand.
“You miss him when he’s away, don’t you? He probably feels like a big brother, an easy friend, or something more than a convenient lover? You probably never trusted anyone so quickly, am I right?” the kid asked and smiled.
It was the same million dollar smile Silverstein would give me when I’d surprise him, or make him coffee, or make him socks. At least I was pretty sure about the socks. The kid wasn’t wrong, I couldn’t trust anyone in downtown, and I had Silverstein home with me after only knowing him a less than a day.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you’re confused by all this. You needn’t bother yourself with the details, but may I hazard a guess?” the kid said gesturing for his goons to back off.
“Hey, Joe’s still paying me for this. Talk all you want,” I said equipping my toughest expression.
“Your man, Silverstein? Whatever he’s calling himself these days... he’s gone off and left you to look for some sort of computer code?”
Worthless. How did this Silverstein Junior know what we were doing or why? I was more concerned with why he was talking to me about it.
“I have to laugh, your man had the code all along and never had a clue. Not his fault, but still funny,” the kid said unbuttoning his suit jacket.
“If I don’t come home soon, my roommate is going to come looking for me. You won’t like him.”
The kid laughed.
“You mean the drone holed up at your place? My team should already be done with him.”
I swung the plate as hard as I could, shattering it over the kid’s head. He went down hard. I knew I wouldn’t get by the goons, so I wasted what little time I’d bought myself giving the kid a good kicking. Made me a feel a little better, up until one of the Collectors hit me with a stun gun.
The strange thing was, I didn’t drop. I was stunned that whatever he hit me with hadn’t stunned me. I know, right?
“Idiots! That won’t work on her,” the kid screamed, spitting out a tooth.
Joe grabbed me round the arms and held me tight while they pulled a zip tie around my wrists.
“Taylor, quit fighting them,” Joe said slipping something heavy into my jacket.
I looked into Joe’s eyes, he was terrified. The kid stood up, picking chunks of broken plate out of his face. He smiled, somewhat toothlessly as a result of the thrashing I’d given him.
“Take her outside. Let’s get this over with,” the kid said with a chuckle.
They dragged me past the dressing room where a couple of goons were holding guns on the girls. No wonder Joe was playing along. Didn’t mean I had to do the same once I got outside.
They dragged me into the back of one of their black transports and held me down on the floor. A man dressed in white kneeled over me. He handed the kid a syringe filled with a slightly luminescent blue fluid. I struggled.
“Vance, you don’t know what this will do exactly. She’s an extremely valuable piece of hardware. It’s not every day we can lay hands on something from the Lunar--”
“Shut up. After the kicking she gave me, all I need to know is that this will scramble her but good,” Vance bellowed, pointing a finger at the man dressed in white.
“This might make her unusable to our rogue asset, but she might well be useless to us as well. Stop and think about what you’re doing.”
The kid didn’t listen. He plunged the syringe into my arm and depressed the stopper. The doctor let go of my arm to try to stop him. In the struggle I reached into my jacket and grasped at the thing Joe had stuck there. Still bound, I clumsily withdrew it and pointed it at the kid pulling the trigger.
Goons pressed into me clumsily wrestling the gun away from me, blood spraying across the man in white. The lights in the transport flickered suddenly and everything went dark. There were sudden bursts of gunfire, briefly illuminating the compartment. Hot shell casings rained down around me as the goons began firing wildly inside the transport.
I rolled out the back and landed roughly on the street. I had never felt so sick in my life, like my mind was being pushed into a tight place it couldn’t possibly fit. My guts churned, forcing me to lose my pancakes all over the ground. I was suddenly ice cold, but I was too weak to shiver.
I grabbed the syringe, pulled it out of my arm, and stuck it in my pocket. Already beginning to feel a little better, I tried to stand. The air got impossibly tight around me, and everything was moving so slowly. Digital readers and screens inside nearby shop windows flickered slowly, black lines do
dging across images they displayed. I could see the light passing slowly through the air, motes and particles of gunpowder from the guns being fired above me, and yet I couldn’t hear anything.
I looked up and could see Ezra leaping between the goons, his clawed hands grasping at their necks and wrists. He was hurt, and I could see bullets passing through the air in his direction. I leapt up and grabbed him, feeling my body press against something extremely dense.
Ezra yelped as I grabbed him. It was like he was stuck in the air by some unseen force, so I pulled hard. The world felt all wrong around me, as though everything was quickly becoming solid and immovable.
It was like running through molasses, but as slowly as I could feel myself moving, the goons were much slower. I ducked under their slow moving bullets and grasping hands easily, dragging Ezra as best as I could. My shoes disintegrated and my feet burned as every bracelet and necklace I was wearing was left behind, torn off of me by some unseen force.
I blinked.
We were blocks away now. I couldn’t figure out what had happened until I checked out Ezra. He was clutching at a bullet wound in his side.
“What happened?” I asked.
I lifted his rubber suit aside to press a torn bit of my own shirt on the wound.
“You moved, so fast, blood pooled, can’t see anything,” Ezra said grasping about helplessly.
“I moved fast? It felt like I was running in slow motion.”
“Maybe compared to everyone else, but you almost tore me in half running that fast,” Ezra said wheezing.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry, Ezra!”
This couldn’t be real. What did that little creep inject me with? I had to get Ezra to a doctor, maybe someone who could help me find an antidote for whatever Silverstein Junior did to me.
I helped Ezra up, and together we limped toward Dr. Helmet’s clinic. It was pretty far, and we had to squat in the shadow of more than a few abandoned buildings to avoid Collector Transports zig-zagging overhead. The last little bit was scary though, as Ezra kept nodding off on me.
Uroboros Saga Book 1 Page 12
