by James Axler
So now he was on Alpha Level.
The center of Alpha Level had been set aside for the barons when they chose to visit; perhaps one day when one decided to live here instead of in his or her old barony, a summer vacation, a home away from home. It had stood empty since its construction almost nine years ago, waiting silently for the barons’ arrival.
Alpha Level—still unoccupied years after it had been constructed and sealed, its elevators restricted by nothing more than a written rule, a spoken instruction. Such was the power of Terminal White.
Webb visited the level infrequently, coming up here now and then just to check that things were as they should be, that nothing had disintegrated or rotted or spoiled in some other way. He had had to have a window replaced once, when the constant battling snow had revealed a very tiny break in the seal that, over time, had rotted away to create a full-scale leak, mold running up the wall in dark streaks. That had been seven years ago. The cleaning squad who had come to deal with the intrusion had been executed after the work was complete—their obedience was not in question, it was simply that no citizen should be here in the barons’ suites, not even people whose ability to retain memories had been controlled.
Webb paced past the unmanned guard post and up toward the open glass doors of the suite. They had never been closed—the decision had been made that they should be left open to welcome the first baron when he or she finally arrived.
Webb could not help but glance back over his shoulder before entering, checking that no one was following him. He was allowed here, as that was a part of his remit as Supreme Magistrate, but still it felt uncomfortable to him, as if he was using a bathroom designated for members of the opposite sex only.
Inside, the suite was fragranced with a trace of incense, a heavy scent long since departed, only its whisper still lingering. Barons liked scents around them because it helped enhance the otherworldly allure that they exuded.
Webb was in a lobby, a long room with patterned walls and two long, white couches lining either side. The patterning on the walls was carved into the plaster, white on white, the only way to see it by the shadows that it cast. It showed part of the design of the elaborate ventilation system that formed the foundation of Ioville, the air circulation process by which Terminal White was administered. Webb admired it a moment, his brow furrowed in thought.
The barons cannot be dead, he thought as his eyes traced one of the lines that represented the flow of air in Beta Level.
There was only one way to be certain, however, and his knowledge of that had nagged at him for three days. Ioville was located in a communications black spot, one artificially created by the snowstorm. It was a necessary sacrifice—the storm helped hide the ville, preserving its secrecy from all but the most determined traveler.
However, here in the central tower was the means to communicate with the outside world. This tower, higher than the others, featured a powerful antenna that poked high above the ville itself, adding an extra fifty feet to the already colossal structure. The antenna was enough to penetrate the snowstorm, so that Webb could send and receive messages from the barons. Other booster units were located in a few spots around the ville, including Webb’s Supreme Magistrate office on Cappa Level and the Mag radio comms, but he preferred to send this message in private, away even from the dull-minded Magistrates who served him.
He strode through the meeting room, nine chairs arranged around a long, rectangular table, all of it finished in white. The communications suite was located to the side of this, through a pale door that had been almost perfectly hidden within the wall it was located in. Webb stopped before it and drew a deep breath before entering.
The automated lighting of the baron’s comms room flickered to life, bulbs plink-plink-plinking before they finally came on with a sound like a fingernail tapping a champagne glass. Webb paced across to the radio receiver and checked the display. No message had been received since he’d last been here seven months ago; no communication. In over four years, he had heard nothing from the barons. But until just three days ago he had not thought to question this. Why would he, a man loyal to the cause, question the ways of the barons? Such a thing was beyond contemplation!
He picked up the microphone headset, adjusting the mic until it rested comfortably before his mouth.
“Test,” Webb said, enunciating the word, watching as the radio readout display altered to show it was picking up the sound waves.
Satisfied, Webb sat down and fired off his first message. “Calling Baron Ragnar. This is Supreme Magistrate Webb at Ioville. Important query has arisen. Please respond.”
Then he waited, sitting before the radio set, watching the display as it told him the Hz rating of the current input and received nothing but dead air.
Webb sent two further messages, one to Baron Snakefish in the west and one to Baron Cobalt to the east of that in Cobaltville. Both messages were identical, as was the disappointing response—dead air.
Webb sat in frustration, staring at the mindless radio display as it confirmed his signal was strong and his messages had been sent. He sat, and he waited, and he considered the implications if what Kane had said was true. If it was, it meant that there was a power vacuum that could only lead to chaos and a resurgence of the barbarism that had predated the Program of Unification. That was something which Supreme Magistrate Webb could not allow.
Subliminal Instruction to Ioville Citizen 618M:
Attend Zeta Level from 0100.
Service Snowcats by rotation. Check armaments. Assist fellow citizens on duty.
Shift: 12 hours.
Designated break: 0400, 0900; 900 seconds each.
Chapter 21
Three weeks had passed. The Cerberus ops room had moved on to other tasks, while still monitoring the signals hopefully for a sign of Kane and his team. Just now the vast majority of the staff on duty were observing and recording the effects of an earthquake in Southeast Asia, and wondering if this was a natural disaster or a hint of some weapons test where a new world power might be coming to the fore.
Mohandas Lakesh Singh’s thoughts were far away when Donald Bry placed the report on his desk. Lakesh responded with a jump of sudden surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Bry apologized. “I didn’t realize you were—”
“Think nothing of it, Donald,” Lakesh assured with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I was just...away with the fairies.”
Bry pierced him with a fixed stare. “Real fairies or imaginary ones?”
A smile broke across Lakesh’s solemn features. “Ah, yes, we have seen a few things that could make us question the existence of such, haven’t we, my friend?” he said. “But, in answer to your question, no—I was just thinking.”
Bry looked at his mentor and detected the man’s need to talk. “Penny for your thoughts?” he prompted.
“Save your money,” Lakesh told him. “They’re nothing but the circular thoughts of an old man who’s wondering where things went wrong. Unproductive. I should know better.”
“CAT Alpha?” Bry asked after a moment’s consideration.
Lakesh nodded grimly. “Yes. It’s been twenty-one days since we heard anything from our dear friends.”
“Longest they’ve been out of contact,” Bry agreed solemnly.
“And that snowstorm is still raging,” Lakesh stated, bringing up the overhead satellite image on his computer screen.
“The nukecaust disrupted our environment beyond comprehension,” Bry reminded his superior. “Inexplicable weather patterns have been logged before now.”
“Inexplicable,” Lakesh repeated with a shake of his head. “We are scientists, Mr. Bry. Nothing is inexplicable. There is a reason for this storm and that reason is related to the disappearance of Kane and his team. I am certain of it.”
“We can keep monitor
ing,” Bry replied, “but we don’t have the personnel or resources to follow a dead lead indefinitely. The automated message is still broadcasting over their Commtact frequencies, but their transponders are no longer broadcasting and have not been for three weeks. Without that tracking signal, we are left with no way to know where they are.”
“Yes, yes,” Lakesh agreed with an air of defeat. “Still, three weeks is a long time to be lost in the field. A very long time indeed.”
“We’ve done all we can, Lakesh,” Bry reassured his colleague.
“No, we haven’t,” Lakesh responded, “because we have not found them, Donald, and that is the acid test.”
Bry looked at the man at the desk and sighed. “I don’t know what else we can do,” he admitted.
“Nor do I, Donald,” Lakesh replied wearily. “Nor do I.”
* * *
MAGISTRATE CITIZEN 620M paced the lower realms of Ioville, following his standard patrol route. He had once been Kane, a warrior in the Cerberus organization, but that was long ago and in another life. Now, all he knew was his life as an Ioville Magistrate, and all that his life was was the orders he was given.
He was in Epsilon Level, close to the heart of the ville beneath the Administration Monolith, which towered above all else. Every Mag patrolled here at least once a day, because it was here that the heart of Ioville and the most important piece of engineering was held.
The room was unlocked, like everywhere else in Ioville. Despite its importance, there was no need to secure it—no citizen would ever countermand the orders of the Supreme Magistrate who spoke on behalf of the barons.
Kane entered, one hand on the gray hip holster he wore that contained the tranq gun. It was a vast room, fifty feet across and circular, its ceiling stretching all the way up through the building to the top, where the great white cyclopean eye resided. Midway down that vast tube lay the fan, a whirring blade that cycled the air through the ville. The blades were as large as the rotors on a Deathbird helicopter, and much thicker. Most debris that came through from the external intake vents was diced into powder when it met those rotor blades.
The sound of the fan was like standing next to a massive waterfall, the great rush of air and the whir of the powerful blades enhanced by the tube effect of the tower in which they stood to make the noise almost unbearable.
Kane stood on a catwalk-style balcony that jutted out beneath the giant fan itself. The catwalk had a single safety bar that a visitor could hold if needed, to counteract the effects of the rushing air.
Kane stood beneath the fan, watched the whirring blades as they rotated over and over, cycling the air through the system.
It was here that the air began to circulate through Ioville, this giant fan distributing every iota of air through a complex network of vents and tubes, following the principles of curved air where it would react to the counterbalance that had been hypnotically instilled into every citizen, assuring their obedience.
Kane’s task, like all the Magistrates who patrolled here, was to ensure that the blades were free of debris and that they were turning. There was continuous computerized monitoring of this unit occurring on Cappa Level, but it was too important to leave merely to an automated system. One visit with human eyeballs could detect a problem that might not have been obvious to a computer.
Kane stood there, eyeing the rotating blades, eyeing the tower above—where even now another Mag would be checking—and the vents and ducts, reassuring himself that everything was working precisely as he had been shown. It was.
He stood a few moments longer, watching the whirring blades, feeling the rush of air against his face.
“Breathe,” Kane said, taking in a deep lungful of the air.
For a moment, he felt different, almost like he was another person, no longer Citizen 620M, Magistrate of Ioville. For a moment, here where the air was still raw, before it had been shunted through the complex network of pipes that filtered and distributed it through Ioville, he felt the twinge of a memory, deep and long-buried, rushing back to the surface.
“Cerberus,” Kane said, plucking the word from his mind where it seemed to lie like driftwood washed ashore. Saying the name brought the next memory, solidifying the first in place.
He saw a home carved out of rock, a man with dusky skin given him instructions, and not just to him; there were two others with him, a broad-shouldered beast of a man with skin like midnight and a woman whose hair was as bright as fire. Who were those people? Kane wondered.
He tried to remember. He was Citizen 620M; he knew that much. But those other people, people outside of Cappa Level, places he had never seen—it was frustrating trying to process such images and thoughts.
Kane remembered something but he could not fix it in his mind. He said the strange word again: “Cerberus.” That meant something to him, or it had meant something, before Ioville.
Kane determined to think this through further, but his time here was over. He was expected in decontamination—no visitor to the central intake tube could be allowed back into the ville without this, for fear that a rogue substance might enter Ioville—before continuing his patrol of the ville.
Kane exited the room via the air lock, stood and waited for the door behind him to seal. Then, the whir of cleaning air and a blast of chemically treated water descended on him as he stood and thought of the word Cerberus and the people he had seen in his mind’s eye. As the jet of cleansing air played across his face, however, he found the thoughts slipping away, and by the time the decontamination cycle was completed he had all but forgotten what he had been pondering. Something about a flame, he thought as he exited the ventilation structure. Even that thought was gone by the time he was on the main walkway that ran through Epsilon Level.
* * *
CITIZEN 619F SAW the Magistrate as she finished her shift at the Sandcat factory. She had an irregular free evening because she had been teaching children for two hours before her shift began this morning.
She watched him stride along the walkway which led to the trolleybus stop, and she halted, pulling herself up short as he came closer.
Things had been worrying Citizen 619F over the past weeks, things that did not seem to add up. Why was so much attention paid to the air flow of Ioville? She had investigated this as much as she could without drawing attention, had found no mention in the educational resources of a concern with air flow in other villes.
There was the other thing, too, the word that she had heard in her head and from this very Magistrate: Baptiste. What did that mean? Where had it come from? Was it her name? Why had it appeared in her ear as if someone was speaking to her in the same room when no one was there? That and the other phrase: “CAT Alpha.”
Citizen 619F had begun to wonder about her own history. The villes had history, one she taught in her classes, and the barons had a history, and even the world had a history—from idyllic to nukecaust to the Program of Unification. And yet she and the other citizens here seemed to have no history. She had asked about this a few times when she had been alone with another citizen and when she could be reasonably certain that she was not being overheard, but none of them had had an answer. To be truthful, none of them seemed much to care; it was a concern that was apparently solely her own.
She had memories—she was sure of it. She could sense them now and then, pluck at them in her dreams like the strings of a harp. Memories she could not seem to draw forth and yet she knew were there, like a coin glinting from the back of the sofa.
The broad-shouldered Magistrate strode closer, his stride formal, dressed in regulation gray with his helmet visor hiding his steely blue-gray eyes. She watched him, making a swift and crazy decision to step into his path.
The Magistrate almost collided with her, and Citizen 619F reeled at his glare.
“Aside, citizen,” the Mag growled in a fierc
e tone.
Citizen 619F stared at him, challenge in her emerald eyes. “You,” she said quietly, so that only he could hear as the other citizens continued filing past on their way to the trolley stop. “Say it to me again.”
The Mag looked at her, his teeth gritted with barely contained rage. “Say what?”
“The word,” Citizen 619F said. “The word you said before.”
The Magistrate looked confused, then pushed her out of his path with one strong arm. “Return to Orientation, report in by 0500. Report that you may be delusional, and give my number as reference—Magistrate 620M.”
Citizen 619F nodded once, solemnly, looking down at the floor. “Acknowledged.”
Citizen 619F watched the Magistrate walk away. But in her head, she heard the word again—the one he had said to her weeks ago, when he had stormed into her apartment. Baptiste.
* * *
CITIZEN 619F RETURNED to her apartment, taking the later trolleybus with the other citizens, almost falling asleep right there in her seat. The man was something to her—she was sure of it. He had been connected to her once, in some way she could not recall.
Her stop came all too soon, as her mind wandered and her body threatened sleep. She disembarked by instinct, a maneuver practiced a dozen times a week, and made her way back to her apartment. It was getting harder to think out here in the enclosed walkways. She struggled to hang on to what had happened, to cling to the memory of the Magistrate with the familiar face and the strange word.
She entered her residence block, through the lobby and into her apartment, not saying a word to her neighbors who were doing the same. They did not speak; there was no need and, besides, no time—every hour was accounted for in Ioville, every hour and every minute and every second.
