The Paradise Factory

by Jim Keen

  “Just let me go.” Alice stopped struggling and went limp, a burst balloon.

  The hack-job placed her delicately back on the deck and gave a mock bow.

  “Thanks,” Alice said. “Maybe you ain’t a total ass after all.”

  The guard lifted a small plastic box with a text screen and whip antenna from his belt. It was home brew, hacked together from different parts, but its function was obvious enough. He waved it over the trash bag she was carrying. It beeped.

  “Open up,” he said.

  Alice pulled out the Bunny Bopper to whistles of appreciation.

  “Now what’s a girl like you doing with proscribed tech like this?” The voice came from a normal-looking guy to the rear. Older, tall, silver hair. Cute in a movie-mobster kind of way.

  “Good to see you’re keeping the tradition of sexist jokes alive and well,” Alice said. “Bet you like your girls all weak and simpering, huh? No room for stronger personalities in your world view.”

  The man stepped forward, ignoring everyone else, and the milling crowds drifted away. His left eye had been replaced by a metal pipe that protruded two inches and glowed with an inner red light. He was making a statement keeping it—new eyes only cost a few bucks.

  “You must be One-Eye. What’s the pipe for?” she said, nodding at his face.

  “Helps me see the future.”

  “You carry it well.”

  “You’re too kind. Now let’s dispense with the pleasantries before I die of boredom. Bunny Boppers are illegal unless you are military or police. Where and how did you get it?”

  “You’re security on the Bridge and you’re worried about illegal armaments?”

  “Indulge me.”

  Alice had to be careful. This guy was charming, smooth and clever. If she started a long string of lies, he’d wrap them around her neck and strangle her. “Used to be a cop. Boosted it from the armory when they fired me.”

  One-Eye looked at her, unsmiling. “You’re going to hang your life on that story?”

  Alice tried to stay calm, but her arms and legs shook with tension, muscles stretched tight. Sweat ran across her back, her body itching to flee these predators. She closed her eyes and felt snow settle on her face, cold spots that melted and ran downward. Alice knew death’s combination of denial and acceptance. She composed herself.

  “Ain’t no story, and I’m getting real tired of your approach.”

  “When did you graduate from the academy?”

  “One year ago, first quarter.”

  “And you’re military as well?”

  “Marines. Domestic, then colonial.”

  “Precinct?”

  “First, based at Canal across to west side.”

  “Go to Mars?”

  “Yeah. Ask me about that and I’ll kill you.”

  “Citations?”

  “Thousands, same as any other cop. Got fired this morning for missing an HR presentation. I kept my jacket and raided the supply room before they kicked me out.”

  “Human resources are a time and resource suck,” One-Eye replied, “but never ignore the rules.”

  “I was busy.”

  “You were stupid. Is the Bunny Bopper the only ordnance you’re carrying?”

  Fuck. If they search me and find my NYPD gear it’s sayōnara, sister.

  “Yes, I’m clean.”

  “While I appreciate your entirely plausible honesty, do you mind if we look for ourselves?” He didn’t wait for an answer, turned to the hack-job who had grabbed Alice before. “Kika, do the honors.”

  Kika nodded to Alice, then held out his hand out as if asking for a dance. Alice took it with her left. She was right-handed, and had enough clearance to get a good one to his chin. Whether or not he had a glass jaw was out of her control. Kika took a silver beetle from his belt and placed it on her palm. It shook itself and she felt a faint tickling as it scuttled along her wrist and onto her jacket.

  McNulty’s Military Emporium stated their arachno-weave suits were a black hole to infrared and radar. Alice had purchased an extra stealth package guaranteed to hide her weapons from detection; if it was false advertising she wouldn’t be around to claim a refund. The beetle chirped as it crawled over her, small green text scrolling across its back. It reached her ankles and gave a series of disappointed beeps.

  “Search her,” One-Eye said.

  Alice pushed Kika away and unzipped her jacket’s integrated backpack. Ten guns were on her in a blur, fat capacitors whining.

  “Okay children, let’s up the IQ and lower the testosterone.” Alice gestured to her open jacket. “May I?”

  One-Eye nodded. Alice pulled out her riot gun, the cheap plastic making it seem like a toy in her hands, and tossed it over. One-Eye caught it, flipped it around, pulled out the battery, and threw it back.

  “That it?” he said.

  “Didn’t have time to tool up, what with losing my job.”

  “I heard Mars was bad.”

  Careful. “Yeah, it was the King Kong of fuck-ups.”

  “My brother died at Hellas Planitia.”

  “I was in the third Parliament run.”

  Kika whistled appreciatively behind her. Some bad news stuck with you forever.

  “Then you are a true survivor.” One-Eye gave a curt nod. “Armament sales are to the market’s rear, near the first masonry tower. Your battery will be available upon departure.”

  “Get your number?” Alice asked as she put the Bunny Bopper away.

  “I like my girls weak and simpering, remember?” He jerked his thumb toward the Bridge entrance. “Get moving.”

  As One-Eye turned from her, Kika made a writing motion with his hand. “Want mine?”

  She didn’t bother to reply, just stepped into the crowd and let herself be washed forward.

  Alice did her best not to appear a tourist, but she hadn’t seen anything like the market in years. Her diet as a runner consisted of little more than vat-grown rice and reprinted meat, which was a tasteless red paste. Food in the Marines was equally limited, but it at least had textures and flavors of its own. As a cop, she’d had to rely on her meager NYPD salary to survive. After rent and alcohol there wasn’t much left for luxury items such as real food, so she lived off the same cheap sludge as when she was a kid.

  Her current surroundings were so rich and substantial as to make her dizzy. There were fruit and vegetables everywhere, and the scent of damp soil hung heavy in the air. One vendor sold nothing but oranges. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at their wet spheres, water glinting like diamonds.

  She moved on, distracted, the mission, and its stakes, momentarily forgotten. Her stomach cramped at the smell of sizzling onions on a hot plate. The next stall displayed an array of smoked meats and sausages hung like decorations. Alice had never seen real meat before: it was so bloody and raw she didn’t know whether to throw up or beg to try it.

  “Sample?” The man behind the counter smiled and held out a toothpick with a thin red disk on the end. Flavors she’d never imagined filled her mouth—fatty, spicy richness. She closed her eyes, body absorbing the juices.

  “Good, huh?” The vendor nodded to the hanging meats around him. “Don’t wanna rush, but I ain’t got all day. Need to get water before curfew.”

  “Curfew?”

  He looked at her, long and cool. “First time on the Bridge, huh?”

  “That obvious?”

  “Got nothing against greens, but not everyone’s so gentle. Security, for instance, don’t have no love for visitors. You need to get a rule list, and learn it fast. Curfew is at sundown—that’s six. You’re still a pedestrian in the Fourth Ward after that, things will turn bad.”

  “What sort of bad?”

  “Look around ya.” He waved in a circle, then motioned for the next customer.

  Alice stepped back and took in her surroundings. Distracted by the sights, she hadn’t been paying attention to the big picture: another rookie mistake. Stalls ran in bot
h directions, some metal, some wood, some just kids sitting on barrels, selling cigarettes. The crowd was better fed than she was used to, but there was a growing tension in people’s movements, the hurried certainty of limited time to complete essential tasks. Alice looked at the meat shack. The teller was staring at her, an expression on his face that she couldn’t read.

  She raised her head.

  The Bridge’s thick suspension cables cut graceful arcs between the twin stone towers, thinner steel rods dropping to the road edges. Between every third vertical rod, a body hung from a noose, feet swaying in the wind. There were ten, twenty, a hundred; each with a glowing sign tied around their neck outlining their crimes:

  Food Hoarder.

  Hid Income From Tax Inspector.

  Refused To Share Apartment With New Families.

  Broke Curfew.

  The list went on and on. Alice saw now why the crowd was so quiet and polite, why they wouldn’t hold eye contact for more than a second. Everyone was terrified. Fourth Ward wasn’t an oasis in the wreckage of New York’s streets, or a haven for citizens looking to provide for their families. It was a feudal dictatorship, its laws enforced with the most severe of penalties. Alice understood why people lived here—hot food and clean water cost a fortune these days—but the Bridge was nothing more than a slaughterhouse garlanded with flowers.

  And Mike was in here somewhere.

  Enough. It was time to find the evidence needed to call in SWAT, and get the hell away from this charnel house. Alice whispered into her collar, “Suit, any signs of Mike’s tracker?”

  “Oh, I’m allowed to talk now, am I?”

  “I die in here, think you’ll get handed over to lost property?”

  “I concede your point. No, I have not detected Officer Squire's subcutaneous beacon yet.”

  “Mapping?”

  “I could try to access the indigenous aerostat community, but I’m concerned that would mark me out as a police system.”

  “Okay. Shut up and let me concentrate.”

  “And there’s the Officer Yu I love so much.”

  Alice pulled her collar up and pushed into the crowd.

  One-Eye watched the stealth aerostat’s video feed with a dry interest. The woman was lying, that much was obvious. He could have interrogated her at the entrance, found the real reason for her visit, but he’d learned to his cost that truths elicited by pain proved unreliable. Better to follow, find out what she wanted by stealth, then kill her.

  Today might provide some fun after all.

  6

  “If such experiments continue, the inevitable conclusion is a new breed of superhumans. Those creations, combined with the relentless logic of MIs, suggest there will be little need for baseline humans afterward.”

  Pentagon Report, “War in the Age of Sentient Machines,”

  President of the United States, 2053

  “If we don’t bring more revenue in, then New York is fucked. That’s why the bridges, that’s why the deals, that’s why I can’t sleep at night.”

  New York Mayor Thornley, Mafia wiretap, New York, 2053

  When Red started up the ladder the Bridge’s deck had looked high, but within reach. Now that he was halfway there, the truth was clear: the reason Fourth Ward didn’t guard this access point was that only an idiot would attempt the climb.

  Each frozen-metal rung was an icy brand across his palm. The pain in his arms passed from fire to a wooden numbness, muscles shivering with fatigue. Only desperate determination kept him climbing two, five, ten stories to reach the Bridge railing.

  The wind was cold and strong. It moaned as it pushed between the suspension cables, his wet jeans freezing against his flesh. His heavy boots became dumbbells as he hauled himself up and over to fall onto the wooden decking of the Bridge. He couldn’t move, his body welded to the floor, as his lungs fought for every scrap of oxygen.

  He raised his head to see the backs of two young women selling apples at a small stall. He dragged himself to a crouch and reached back to grab the ladder’s top; it vibrated under his palm. His pursuers were following him up.

  Red stood and limped to the stall. He recognized the girls from his market days, but didn’t know their names, and had always been too shy to ask until now.

  “Hey.” He said it quietly, trying not to startle them.

  The closest turned, frowned, then smiled at him.

  “Hey Red, what you doing back here? Got goods?” Her voice was rough from too many cigarettes. One hung from her bottom lip and bobbed with every word.

  “Not today. I need your help.” Those words had the same effect as ever. Her face hardened, barriers rising. “You know the Bridge better than me and—”

  “I just work here, Red, okay? Gets the food, sells the food, is all I do. I don’t know anyone with money, and I ain’t got none either. You’re a good kid. I just can’t have any trouble, got enough of my own.”

  “I need a way through, you know, to the island?”

  “Fuck you want to go there for?”

  “Delivery.” Red cursed inwardly. Idiot. “On the other side, I mean. Got a pick up.”

  “Uh-huh. I believe you.” Her face told a different story.

  “How do I get through?” He tried to stop desperation leeching into his voice, failed.

  She seized on his weakness in a second. “Money.” She held her hand out. “Nothing’s ever for free.”

  “I will come back tomorrow, pay you double, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, you look trustworthy. Want my fruit as well? Maybe come by later and take my shoes?”

  There was a shout from below. His pursuers were closer than he had thought. “Please, help me, please.” He watched her consider, soften, attitude flipping.

  “Okays, this once only, right? You ever want to sell on the Bridge again, you need to pay me five, no delays.”

  “Sure, deal, you got it.” Hurry, please hurry.

  “You can’t get through at deck level, Fourth Ward have the center all closed off. Last I heard, crossing the cables was the only way. You climb the wire over there.” She turned and pointed toward Manhattan. “There are people that live on ’em, high up, but they don’t have Ward backing, as far as I know. Maybes you can negotiate with them, get a way through.”

  Red stepped forward and hugged her warm body, smelling cigarettes and dirt.

  After a moment she pushed him away. “You owe me, understand? I know where you hang, Red. Don’t forget this when I come calling.”

  Red didn’t answer, just nodded and pushed past the fruit stall and zigzagged through the crowd as best he could.

  His legs and feet were cold and stiff, ankle sore, but it warmed as he moved. He took breaths of the chill air in whooping lungfuls, exhaled clouds of white smoke as he kept moving. He thought about shouting at people to clear the way, but didn’t want his pursuers to hear him. Could he lose them in the crowd? No chance—he was tall and his red hair stuck up in spikes. Looked awesome, but not so discreet.

  He made his way toward the suspension cables. The crowd emitted a hushed burble of voices, eyes down, everyone too aware of the approaching curfew to relax. Then shouts came from behind. Red fought his way forward, the need for stealth gone. He yelled and kicked, used his elbows and hands to force a way though. The cable entrance—a six-foot-tall steel box with a line of sharp points running across the top—grew before him.

  With one last lunge, Red pushed through a tight knot of people to reach the base. The main suspension cable was thicker than his chest, and made from hundreds of smaller cables wound together. Every ten feet a thick node connected to a vertical cable holding up the deck. The remnants of a handrail system hung in pieces—now there was nothing but the cable rising into the storm.

  Red gripped the top railing, palms between the steel points, and hauled himself up. His descent on the other side was less coordinated, and he fell spread-eagled onto the main cable. A thin layer of ice coated its surface, making it near impossible t
o grip. He shuffled himself around and half sat on, half hugged, the line of steel. He tried to inch forward, but it was like climbing a popsicle. Every few feet he would slide back to his starting point. His hands hurt from his ascent of the ladder and he could find no footholds.

  For a moment the clouds cleared overhead, the storm blowing itself out, and he saw the full length of the cable. At the top, where it connected to the masonry tower, a bright red box with slit windows was glued to the stone wall. A long white pole lay horizontally across the cable blocking it, and a flickering neon sign spelled out No Entry. Even if he made it all the way up, there would be a crew waiting for him.

  Forget it. He’d go the low road, try to sneak though.

  He swung himself around to find the Crazy Horse kids less than twenty feet away, lips pulled back in toothy snarls. The sight of them made Red jump, his body shivering with fear.

  “Gonna kill you, kill you,” the nearest kid said.

  Out of options, Red turned back to the icy cable and inched his way toward the clouds.

  7

  “Concerns such as yours are shortsighted; these machines are not to be feared like wolves in the dark. Yes, the potential for widespread societal change is present, just as it was for the wheel and printing press. Do not be scared. History will show this as another inflection point for mankind, one weighted toward positive outcomes.”

  Charles Takamatsu, CEO of Cortex, introducing the first ‘Post-Turing’ Mechanical Intelligence to the United Nations General Assembly, New York, 2044

  “A Type 3 Mind is designed to be annoying, otherwise why pay attention to it? Within six hours of being worn, the NYPD smart jacket will produce a personality to counter the wearer’s. The idea being that an antagonistic partner is more likely to keep the owner alert during a twelve-hour shift.”

  Jon Bonero, McNulty Military Apparel, unveiling the new NYPD street uniform to a less than appreciative academy class, 2050