by Jim Keen
He had known of their doubts, and explained his actions this one time. Sunflowers, fleeting yellow bursts, were in themselves less than worthless; they were a resource suck. So why his obsession? For beauty, that was why. Any family rich enough to sponsor the arts was a family to be feared. Fourth Ward was his alone, the merest hint of dissent quashed. Now it was time to make it beautiful.
He wasn’t greedy, had no need to be a One, had no desire to leave the streets and retire to the pearlescent corridors of the sky. The one percent hadn’t changed with the automation tsunami, and so continued as if nothing had happened. They clucked quiet disapproval as their heads were laid upon the chopping block, mistook the executioner’s blade for stars in the sky.
Conroy didn’t need to climb the towers. If he waited long enough, they would fall at his feet.
His back popped as he stood, took a step forward, and settled on his haunches again. He liked the smell in here: so human, so organic. The new world reeked of hot brass and coolants, of plastic flesh and acid sealants. It was no longer fit for man, machinery now the apex predator.
He planted a new seed.
Fertilized it.
Stood.
Once upon he’d been a surgeon, a job with a definition that changed as fast as the super-heated weather systems. A scalpel wielder at first, saving lives, then saving faces. Next, a military consultant, and, finally, a delivery boy for intelligent machines.
Most of his colleagues took an old-fashioned view of technology, thought their blade skills were irreplaceable. Arrogance masked fear of the new, and Conroy had found himself ostracized when he partnered with the first licensed MI surgeon. Organic reprinting had transformed surgery into a task befitting a car mechanic: find the broken part and replace it. So when Cortex approached him to field test their new machines he’d agreed without hesitation.
He had expected to miss the blood, the smell, the power of the operating theater. He didn’t. At first, he supervised the MI from within the same room, then from an adjacent one, and finally from his office, via an array of Virt screens.
His sojourn at the Pentagon offered a short-term break in routine. Reprinting Martian soldiers from the safety of Manhattan was an interesting challenge, but with time his job dwindled to supervising Mechanical Intelligences for legal reasons, and once the law was repealed, there was nothing at all for him to do.
He’d checked out long before that, of course, had spotted the increased reliance of the poor upon each other and begun the metamorphosis into Mr. Bank.
Tribalism would return when a population could no longer look after its own. The strong and tightly bound families would prevail. Organized crime had been defeated when he was a student, but its lessons were universal and he was a quick study. After that final day of employment, he liquidated his assets and set out to turn the poorest and most-abused members of society into a new family.
Take One-Eye, who now approached him. His eye, a low-grade neuro-ophthalmic sensor, was a symbol of his upbringing and he wore it with pride. That eye was his sunflower; he kept it as part of his personal branding.
Lights blossomed as Conroy rose, industrial warehouse units glowing with the wide spectrum illumination perfect for plant life.
Seventy-six plantings. Not bad for a middle-aged man with an injured back. He looked around at the two thousand sunflowers glowing gold. Perfect.
“Yes?” he said when One-Eye reached him.
“Your call is in an hour.”
“Is the shipment on schedule?”
“Yes sir.”
“And?”
“We have an unusual problem.”
“Of course we do.”
One-Eye had been with Conroy from the beginning. The heat of the greenhouse brought that day back into sharp focus—the glaring marble walls of the lobby, the fat security guard and hated HR woman smiling from behind the barrier, the half-blind boy outside the Rockefeller Center’s FEMA tent, too weak to stand.
“Show me,” Conroy said, and stepped away from his flowers.
One-Eye led Conroy through a series of hot, cramped metal corridors. The Bridge creaked around them, the storm-force winds loading its cables to their limits. After five minutes they entered the security surveillance room.
Many things had changed with the advent of Mechanical Intelligences, yet many tasks remained the same. The room was on the cusp of this dilemma. Advanced smart-systems tracked every person on the Bridge. Those systems suggested people of interest who were then followed by human teams or dedicated aerostats. It would have been easier, and more efficient, to automate security, but Conroy was old school and trusted human intuition more than data sets.
The room was circular, the boss chair raised in the middle surrounded by operators, their screens available at a glance from the center seat. The lighting was dim, only the blue-white monitors illuminating thin faces. What little chatter there was faded as Conroy entered and took the central chair, One-Eye at his shoulder.
“Who is this?”
The video feed came from an aerostat’s camera. The tunnel was dimly lit by red lights, the large screen flickering with more noise than usual. Still, the detail was good enough. A tall, athletic-looking Japanese woman in black stealth gear moved along a circular corridor. Her heart-shaped face was covered with dirt and sweat, while long black hair was tied back in a severe knot. She wore a police-grade visor and carried a riot gun tucked into her shoulder. The way she moved, with small, quiet steps, suggested military training.
Conroy’s right foot, a long, curved piece of composite, ached in the damp. Like One-Eye's sensor, he kept it as a reminder to take nothing for granted, not even warm shoes on a cold morning.
“All information post her foster-home files are federally encrypted,” One-Eye said. He handed Conroy a tablet. “We’ve run every search we can, nothing.”
“So she’s a cop or military?”
“That’s the working hypothesis. The sooner our source provides a back door into the Federal MI network, the better.”
“Don’t get comfortable with these toys,” Conroy said. “Have faith in yourself. Your instincts have proven a valuable asset over the years. Take this woman, for example. You wouldn’t have tagged her if she was authentic.”
“We held her at security, but I didn’t buy her answers. Said she was going to sell a Bunny Bopper in the arms sector.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes sir.”
“And you let her bring it onto the Bridge?” There was a tone to the question that chilled the room, the mumble of voices quieting.
“She seemed healthy, and well equipped,” One-Eye said. “Not your usual pedestrian looking to buy drugs or food. If I sent her away, I believed she would return, and we could miss her the second time. I decided to let her through and tag her, find out what she wanted. I planned to pick her up as soon we knew. She is, however, proving more resourceful than expected.”
“I think her target is obvious enough, don’t you?” Conroy turned back to the screen.
“Officer Squire?”
“Did you read his capture report?”
“I apologize sir, I have not.”
“You need to follow all the details, not just the headlines.”
“Understood, sir. What did the reports say?”
“The team used a Thumper on his partner, per instructions.” Conroy handed the tablet back to One-Eye. “I assumed the organic damage, plus job threat, would prevent the partner from following. It appears I was mistaken.” He nodded at the screen. “What do you make of her?”
“She said she served in the Colonials on Mars. That would explain the tunnel combat training.”
“So she’s a Martian veteran now working for the NYPD?”
“Sir, I thought—”
“And you let her onto the Bridge carrying a Bunny Bopper; ordnance that if used correctly could topple this whole enterprise into the East River.”
One-Eye didn’t move. The room was silent and st
ill apart from a security guard who drew his weapon, ready to kill Red-Eye if commanded.
“How is the current delivery schedule?” Conroy said.
“The last helicopter is here, the arms will be delivered ahead of schedule.”
Conroy looked at the screen. He hated working with outside contractors, and the paranoia of using a helicopter made him wince. His family was a monument to a group ethic; live and die together. He rescued them, they saved him. As soon as outsiders contaminated the mix, his ability to control outcomes dropped. The truth, however, was that he couldn’t do this alone.
He’d needed help to take over the Bridge; financial investments from certain venture-capital firms, and technical supplies from specific military suppliers. In return he had to manufacture products for his investors. Products so illegal it made drug trafficking look like selling candy. That deal was over today however, the last of the produce being loaded onto the waiting helicopter at this very moment. Once this final shipment had been delivered, a new arrangement would be in place. From tomorrow, every member of his family, from the lowest Bridge scraper, to the tip of the spear, would receive comprehensive healthcare. Such a simple thing, life, yet more persuasive than any drug.
Fourth Ward had the largest army in the five boroughs, and that brought strength through fear. Fear alone, though, wasn’t enough to build loyalty. With this deal complete, everyone would know Fourth Ward was the family to join. Work with us and you’ll get the best healthcare in the modern world, while being protected by security systems designed by the Pentagon. After that the other families would all fall in line. If he could deliver on his promises.
“Where is Officer Squire?”
“At the holding post on Peach,” One-Eye said. Peach Street, the Bridge’s nickname for its array of prison cells. “We can kill him now, drop the body in her path. She walks away, we made our point, job done.”
“No. I’ve known Michael for seventeen years. I performed corrective surgery on his wife, donated money to charities he supported. He’s been my man before this thing of ours, and yet he was willing to sell me—us—out and I want to know why his allegiances changed. Loyalty binds us together. That goes, so do we. Understand?”
“Yes sir. I’ll send a kill team in straight away. She disappears on the Bridge, no way the NYPD can pin it on us.”
“Do it fast, don’t give her a chance,” Conroy said. “Now, if that’s your only point of failure today, I have a meeting to attend.”
9
“Until you’ve met a Mechanical Intelligence, you can’t fully comprehend how far behind we’ve fallen. The time is coming when we will have as much in common with them as they do ants.”
“The Larson Paper” on rights due to Mechanical Intelligences, presented to UN delegates, 2040
“An unregulated MI is the deadliest opponent I can think of. There’s a reason the Pentagon loves them so.”
Sally Russoe, Smart Weapons Designer, Paris, TX, USA, 2050.
“It’s rather nice isn’t it? Not too large either. I bought it from a little gallery down on the fortieth floor. It used to belong to the Metropolitan Museum, and I didn't want it going to some tourist vacationing here. It was cheap, just a few million. Well, seventeen, but who’s keeping track?”
Robin R. Lathamp III, Blade Tower 7 (AKA The Molly Mansion), Unit 7855, New York, 2052.
Alice moved a few corners away from the entrance and then stopped. She kneeled and strapped the screen back onto her wrist, toggled the tracker system.
“Suit?”
“What?”
“Any signals?
“Of course not, I would have told you. There’s a lot of interference down here which is proving difficult to see through. We should expect a messy signal until we get closer.”
Alice put her cracked visors on, the yellow lenses sagging to the right. Their millimeter-wave radar mapped the tunnel’s contours with a hard green edge, while the air glowed red, then purple, with shifting heat patterns. She considered using her drone; decided against it. Its battery was small and old, and she would need it to call Central Dispatch if she found the evidence.
A large duct repurposed from some ancient transport vessel appeared. A thick steel plate had been welded across to form a floor, while vertical seams spiraled around its surface every few feet. The force of air pushing past her was stronger here, the tunnel collecting and focusing the gale. Then it stopped. Alice staggered backward with the sudden lack of pressure. It returned warm, then hot, as if she were inside some slumbering animal.
Alice moved inward and the dim external light faded to a feeble silver flicker. A series of algae packs traced a haphazard line across the ceiling as they glowed a deep, aquatic green.
Water dripped, faint machine noises buzzed, but she heard no speech.
Alice now had a rough feel for the organization of the Bridge. Most employees, or whatever they were, occupied the habitation layers above these tunnels. Down here she could avoid them while searching for Mike’s tracker.
She splayed her feet against the wall, thirty degrees out from her body to form a stable tripod, then checked her riot gun. The front cartridge held plain aluminum rounds, the rear held a mix of steel and rubber-ceramic composite: ricochet bullets ideal for firing around corners, or using the curved walls of a tunnel to focus damage. Alice swapped the drums without looking, the actions learned from thousands of repetitions.
She was as ready as she could be, her body tight with tension, muscles hot. She forced herself to relax, took deep breaths, and concentrated on her training.
This ain’t Mars, kid. Time to get it on.
The tunnel continued straight, then began a series of zigzags that were hard to navigate. The air was sultry, no cold in-breath anymore, just constant fetid gases carrying the stink of burning plastic and metal.
The skin on her back crawled at the thought of being trapped in here, alone.
“Suit?”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Do you have any idea how annoying you are? Suit, suit, suit, suit, all the time. I have a perfect memory system you know: complete, total, pure recall. I remember everything you’ve ever said. Everything. There is no need to ask me again, ever, if I’ve located Officer Squire's tracker. Do you understand me? Never, ever, ask me again. Ever, ever, ever. If I get anything I’ll tell you. Now shut up and let me concentrate.”
Alice gave her jacket the finger and moved on.
The circumference of the duct decreased as she progressed, the steel walls closing around her. She crossed into an area that looked older, but made from higher-quality construction. The metal was of a heavier gauge, free from the buckling of the earlier sections, while the overheads changed from gel packs to emergency lights buried within wire cages.
An increasing amount of pipes and cables appeared—at first just a few multicolored wires, then thicker black tubes that sprouted to form roped bundles. Alice had seen system growth like this once before: the Marines ship, Fuck You Looking At? that took her to Mars.
President Harper made a big deal about the Fucker, as it came to be called, being the Colonial Marine’s first system-capable warship. The grunts wedged inside knew what it really was—a repurposed NASA Jupiter Mission vessel. There was a clear logic to the design: habitation sphere at one end, nuclear drives at the other, separated by long lattice beam filled with fuel and supplies. To deal with the larger crew and new weapon suites, upgraded power cabling ran from the reactors to the front habitat. In true military fashion, there had been nothing beautiful about these additions, just black rubber conduits tracing the shortest route. Efficiency above all. It was the same on the Bridge; whoever built these systems had money but limited time. It took six more minutes of inching forward into the hot, damp tubes to find Mike.
“Positive track,” Suit’s voice buzzed from her collar speaker.
“Show me.” Alice looked at her wrist screen. A three-dimensional diagram showed a vertical stack of walls, horizontal floors, and a flashing do
t. “Distance?”
“Exact location parameters are difficult to ascertain. There is increasing interference both from denser bridge structures and the presence of heavy elements between us.”
“What?”
“There appears to be a nuclear reactor somewhere in here.”
“There’s a reactor on the Bridge? Their power draw can’t be that big.”
“It is interesting—the cooling and ventilation capacity of these tunnels exceed that of all modern fusion reactors.”
“So what’s it for?”
“I’m a slaved smart-system; deductive leaps are best left to synthetic intelligences, or in desperate times, humans. If it’s not too much trouble, may I suggest we concentrate on Officer Squire? Afterward, perhaps we can discuss energy densities and cooling requirements of modern machinery.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She studied the wrist map. “Okay, to get up to him we need—”
The submachine gun’s roar was deafening in the confined space. Alice’s hearing reduced to hissing white noise as gunfire thumped across the back of her jacket. She dived and scrabbled forward, checking for wounds. Her fragile luck held: the bullets hadn’t triggered the Bunny Bopper. If that thing blew, they’d be scraping her from midtown facades.
She tore a concussion grenade from her belt and tossed it behind her, covering her ears as best she could. It exploded, sending searing bolts of lightning along the duct while the shock waves sent her skidding across the floor of the tunnel.
Choking black smoke filled the tube, the reek of burning metal overpowering. More gunfire strobed and whirred overhead as Alice rolled left and returned a long burst from the riot gun, its chainsaw bark like a tree being felled. She aimed upward at forty-five degrees so that the rounds scattered throughout the space. There were screams from behind, then muzzle flashes and more wasted rounds over her head.
