The Assumption Code

by Melodee Elliott

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tolman sat Margi safely inside his vehicle. The interior was as ragged as the exterior was faded. It reminded her of her younger days before she had made her mark upon the world.

  They lifted off the landing pad, careful to avoid the others close by. Tolman navigated the vehicle toward a stream of others below them. No swooping from the sky. This stream was slower than the others. She observed the nearby structures more closely now, seeing people and their busy lives. Most of the color she had seen from above came into clarity now at street level as most every surface was covered by holographic images. They overwhelmed her senses. Every surface was an advertisement, every wall, every pole, and every avenue.

  She caught Tolman staring at her and glanced away.

  He lowered the vehicle to street level, and she was relieved to step onto the concrete-like surface to steady her senses. She wasn’t meant for the unsteadiness of hover cars with their sudden changes of navigation in any given direction.

  Tolman pulled a cloak from a compartment and draped it around her. She was aware now of how out of place she must look. If word ever reached Stavon about her wandering, she could not imagine the repercussions. She pulled her hair into a knot atop her head to further disguise herself.

  He led her along the walkway. She followed slightly behind him to shield herself from others’ view. They reached a park of some sort.

  Tall, gray walls lined its perimeter. They stepped into the interior of the space where sections of wall serpentined, creating alcoves. She ventured to one of them. The wall’s facade was lined with what looked like names carved into stone behind holograms of faces, some animated with laughter, some with enamored expressions of longing like those faces she saw cast above the crowd during her speech.

  “We bury the ashes of the dead here. Citizens of Danu come here in the end, even clients and participants alike. No one is forgotten.”

  She gazed at the mourners who sat on benches and stared into the faces of their loved ones. The holograms had more motion than the living in this space. She cleared her throat. “It is fitting. Why take me to this place?”

  “We have all lost someone who gave meaning to our lives, gave us life where we thought we had none. This is how we keep life alive.”

  “This is not new for me,” she said, not knowing what it meant. Rivner would, and so Tolman would accept such a statement.

  He continued as if she’d said nothing. “You’ll find here the visiting families of the participants mostly.”

  “That’s fitting.”

  His face scornful, he turned away. “I have more to show you of the living.”

  He led her through the space. She saw gaps in the walls where he could have navigated her out and saved her from the sights of the living staring at the dead. He didn’t. They continued to the far end and ventured along the streets. They were wide enough, but no cars traveled them. The width of them began to narrow.

  “This is the Kalgare section. I want you to see where most of your participants come from,” he offered.

  Margi hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant, only that these people contributed to DanuVitro’s efforts; perhaps it would be a congenial tour of the neighborhood.

  The walkway opened up. They strolled along a boardwalk banked with images. Arrows traveled into doorways, darting in front of her as they did. She stepped around them.

  “They are forbidden at the ground floor and above, for a reason,” Tolman added.

  “It’s too much,” she added. “Just clutter.”

  “That’s their voice. It’s all they have left unless they become a participant.”

  Margi felt the weight of reprimand without the personal ridicule.

  They continued onward and came to a series of residences. Most bore the hallmarks of poverty she was beginning to associate with the holograms. Windows dotted the buildings, some with laundry draped across their openings as images drifted across the fabrics. Noises from households emerged as pots clanked and mothers yelled.

  They stopped at one building and she noted the absence of holograms. She felt her breathing ease.

  “A participant once lived here.” Tolman interrupted her thoughts.

  Her attention darted to him.

  “They do it for their families,” he said.

  Her brows furrowed.

  “Did I offend?”

  She understood that participants would never see their loved ones again. Still, people made their choices to make new lives for themselves. Stavon needed her public relations skills, she realized.

  “Why would you offend?” she countered and noticed for the first time the disapproval in his eyes. She was being judged. Yet she didn’t know why. The participants’ families were obviously paid very well by the looks of it. She’d met participants in line for their trip to Meno. Workers no doubt. It would appear that they were given a job that was greatly needed there. A good purpose. But something wasn’t quite adding up. These people were obviously lacking the basic necessities, leaving DanuVitro to foot the bill for income. She needed to find out why. Such disparity in income was indicative of a dictatorship. She needed to know more and yet not say stupid comments while impersonating Rivner.

  “Do you live here?” she switched the subject.

  “No.” His answer was quick. He continued his stroll.

  She kept by his side, preferring to look upward instead of down. She glimpsed a hologram of a child beneath her feet and startled. Tolman appeared not to notice, his confident and calm demeanor now seeming too cavalier for the circumstances.

  They passed people on the streets. She searched for the words she would use to describe what she saw for her report but went blank. The people, the clothes were nondescript. Only the holograms carried color to direct one’s eye.

  One person met her gaze as he passed. She caught him turning back as if to get a better look. She gripped her cloak tightly closed.

  “You don’t fit into this neighborhood,” she said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Your clothes.”

  “You have an eye,” he said with one eyebrow raised.

  “It’s my job.” She winked.

  “Then let’s give you something to see.” He turned a corner and quickened his pace. The passageways became narrower and desolate, as most pedestrians seemed to have dispersed.

  An image beneath her feet caught her eye, and she leapt to the side and watched frozen in her place—hologram of a man injecting his arm. Sparks flew from his eyes as he floated up the alleyway.

  “This is The Great Venue,” Tolman said.

  The sight before her almost took her breath away. Game board holograms coursed their way down the sidewalks and into doorways. Some scenes too graphic for her sensibilities were displayed against the sides of buildings. She looked away.

  “Not so great,” she informed him.

  “Alas, we agree on something.”

  “You wanted me to see this?” Her voice rose.

  “You don’t want to see The Great Venue?”

  “Holograms?” she said as much to herself as to him.

  “After DanuVitro open-sourced their hologram code, this has been the street level. Holograms provided a tremendous opportunity to advertise a business. However, a business must have a product, and the people had only personal sensation here on Danu—a cheap imitation of The Great Adventures afforded to clients. Also, the technical platform to display them is expensive and owned by DanuVitro, of course. The people here yearn for expression, though most don’t realize it. And even then, the hope is lost. For many, the best relief is to participate in The Great Adventure on Meno and provide for their families.”

  “What’s being done about it?” she asked.

  He stood close. Close enough that she could smell the scent of him. She was captured by his intensity and lost focus.

  “You tell me,” he countered.

  Her thoughts clashed in a confusing array of questions she wanted
for herself and for the exposé, but which had to come from her disguise as Rivner. Tolman knew Rivner better than she did. She fumbled around her thoughts for a response.

  Images of blasts flashed across the building facades, with body parts blown to oblivion. She turned and ran and didn’t stop for holograms or for Tolman who called out to her.

  She skipped over the holograms, at times weaving among them. Footsteps rushed from behind. Tolman’s hand grabbed her arm and pulled. She was ready.

  “Don’t you dare,” she exclaimed one level below a full shout.

  He clamped his hand over her mouth and dragged her into a doorway. He wrapped his arm around her waist and urged her through a room that was dark, save for the indecent holograms that others were transfixed upon. Tolman continued their way into a side room.

  “We’re being followed.” His voice was sure and commanding.

  She contained her feebleness and stared into his eyes, searching for safety.

  He let loose his grip.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Stavon’s network I would think,” he said while peeking through the crack in the doorway. “He ran after you when you took off.”

  “Is he there?” Her voice betrayed her fear.

  “No. But that doesn’t mean he’s not waiting. Come this way.” He held out his hand for hers, and she grasped it eagerly. She definitely did not want to get lost in that place.

  They came upon a narrow passage and descended stairs. “Where are the holograms?”

  “No holograms in the tunnels,” he said while looking ahead.

  Their pace was faster than that of the others who navigated the same trail, drawing attention to them. Margi lowered her head as she followed Tolman’s lead. She had let loose of his hand.

  A puddle of water splashed under her foot. She felt the slip of mud as she went. “Where are we?”

  “It’s best you don’t know.”

  She could feel the light emerging ahead as much as she could see it. It glowed from a distance as a beacon of freedom. She didn’t like the dark, nor the light of the holograms, preferring instead somewhere in between where no one could stake claim to her perceptions. She smelled earth and hoped it wasn’t her imagination longing for such familiar things. Tolman turned a corner, and light shined through a grate above them.

  He stepped up a ladder made of netting and lifted the grate slightly. After looking in all directions, he pushed the barrier aside and ascended.

  Margi heard the splash of a puddle and another. Someone was approaching quickly.

  “Come,” he urged.

  She stepped her high-heeled shoes onto the twine of the flimsy ladder. The rope’s sway unsettled her for a moment until she gripped the well-worn threads and reached higher. She was still low enough that she could hear footsteps racing after them. One person. But one too many.

  Her foot slipped, her heel locking her shoe into a gaping hole in the weave. She reached down and freed her foot and managed to climb higher. Had she known what the day would bring…but she didn’t not know what day and where and who she’d be of late much less to know what shoes to wear to do it with.

  She reached her hand to find its next grip and felt herself levitate. She emerged into the light and felt Tolman loosen his grip upon her arm and brace her waist to set her upon land.

  He quickly took hold of the grate. She helped lurch the heavy disc to its side pushing it into place. The grate fell flush with its brim. Tolman tilted a bracket from the side and locked it into place. She found another one and did the same.

  She listened between her breaths. The footsteps had stopped. Tolman motioned to the trees, and they ran again.

  He went faster as they approached the edge of the immense forest.

  “Where are we going?” she asked breathily. No answer.

  They raced over the growth that had sprouted from the forest floor, light was receding with each stride they took. Tolman wasn’t letting up his pace.

  “Stop.” She slowed with her heels plunging into the soil. She staggered to stand. “I can’t.” She heaved air.

  “You must.” His own voice strained with labored breathing.

  “My shoes aren’t made for this.”

  “You underestimate yourself.” He continued onward. She was too surprised to do anything but follow his lead. The trek over fallen branches and rock was taking its toll on her mood, not to mention her professional dress for which Rivner had abundance of, save for possibly one less after this day.

  Suddenly he stopped. She angled her head to see in front of him; a door was attached to a mound in the otherwise flat terrain.

  Tolman opened the hatch and led her inside. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light that filtered through the cracks in the thatch roof. A cot was nestled into a nook at the opposite end. To one side sat a motorized two-wheeled vehicle, very similar to a motorcycle would look like in another hundred years or so on Earth.

  Tolman opened a peephole in the door and peered through it.

  “Did he follow?” she asked.

  “No.” He turned to her as she paced. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” She knew why as soon as she voiced it. She was Rivner after all, wife of Stavon, who had someone trail her. Rivner had no freedoms. Tolman had taken a chance on Rivner’s life and had now placed them both in peril.

  “You of all people should know why,” he replied. “I’m not a participant. I expect the same from you.”

  “Who are you, really?”

  He only stared at her—the last buffer to a confession. His gaze softened as he looked her over.

  “Who are you?” she repeated.

  He backed away. “Who are you?” he emphasized.

  For a moment Margi thought that he could see through Rivner to her. She felt strange and not only as the woman she was on Danu but also deep within. For a moment she felt exposed and relished the thought. She had an instinct to reply, I don’t know. She searched for words instead, words that Rivner would say. Ferli would know what to say.

  “A spokeswoman.”

  He scoffed. “That you are.”

  “What do you want me to know?” she asked with more accusation than she’d wished.

  “Yourself.” He glared at her with the insistence of a loved one losing hope of another.

  Did he have that feeling for Rivner? Hope? Disappointment. She turned away. She felt his hands brace her shoulders. Those feelings were lost to her, the wistfulness of love. Many a tycoon had tried his wiles upon her in Manhattan and some beyond its intellectual borders. There was never the right inclination for them and many an excuse. Never satisfied, she had something to wish for, always, beyond the appearances that were undoubtedly required of her. Such ambiguity of decision paralyzed her ability to partake in their interest of her.

  “I am Rivner, wife of Stavon,” she claimed as if the undisputed property of an infallible king.

  His hands lifted from her, leaving their mark seared into her flesh. If she were acting as Margi, she would have allowed him to take her, even having known him just a day, to carry hope through the years. He was as solid as the soil beneath her. He wanted nothing from her except to know oneself, though she was Rivner. And there was her excuse. She now felt the words that she’d uttered and allowed herself to believe them. She needed to be Rivner until such a time afforded her to be herself.

  He flung the door open wide and retreated to the motorcycle. He angled it through the doorway, straddled the bike, and sat waiting as the engine idled. She approached him and sat behind. She braced her hands tentatively upon his sides.

  The engine whirred as they slipped between the trees, going at a responsible pace. She wrapped her arms around him all the same, gripping him as her cloak flowed freely at her sides. They emerged onto a field and were soon traveling over roads bearing holograms to sell the wares of their designers. She kept her sights on the towering structures ahead as if they hovered over the mess of what lay below, untouched by the degradation at stree
t level. She yearned for the penthouse and wanted nothing to do with the nightmare at its base.

  The motorcycle slowed to a stop behind a low building. An occasional hologram coasted by. Tolman sat tall and looked back at her.

  “You can walk from here.”

  She detected sadness in his tone.

  She eased herself from the bike and planted her heels on solid foundation, then slid the cloak from her. Tolman eyed her body. He should not, she thought. But he did. She folded the cloak and handed it to him. He placed it in his lap, then lifted his foot to a pedal.

  “Wait,” she said, not knowing what she’d say next.

  He waited. She said nothing.

  “You can do this,” he urged.

  She wanted to ask what that meant but refrained lest she irritate him with her witlessness. Rivner should know. She had to be Rivner. She nodded in affirmation.

  He took her hand and kissed it. “When you’re ready.” He released her and sped off.

  She never remembered feeling quite so alone as at that moment. The towering structure that contained her home stood a short distance away. She let her hair fall freely and wiped a finger along the edge of her shoes. But a smear of dirt and grasses left the stain of her outing. It would have to suffice.

  She paced briskly toward the structure that seemed to stand ever beyond her reach. It was so large that her sensibilities had misjudged the effort needed to get there. The hover cars went coursing their way overhead, in colorful energy threads above her, weaving a tapestry of traffic that delighted her in a way. The vibrancy of a city that was constantly changing, coming to life in ways that she could only imagine.

  The doorman held the door open for her as she entered the rotunda. Though her shoes had begun to dig into her toes, she evened her stride to the elevator that would take her to the penthouse in the skies.

  Some people glanced her way, none greeting her. She took on the aura of smugness that suggested she had more important business to attend to than being of good will. The message would hopefully dissipate the sentiment of judgment that reached her.

  She ascended for enough time to calm her thoughts and hoped Ferli wouldn’t be waiting when the elevator doors opened.