Danger's Halo: (Holly Danger Book 1)

by Amanda Carlson

  I’d done the same thing.

  In fact, I’d lost track of the hours I’d spent in front of it.

  Darby finally turned and said simply, “I’m glad Babble is gone.”

  I chuckled. “Me, too.” Or Darby wouldn’t be here, watching this video. The kind of everyday convenience our ancestors had taken for granted. They’d been able to set the screen to any channel they wanted, at any time. They likely had access to live streaming as well. People loved to live-stream animals, according to the records. Watching them around the clock in their natural habitats was a particular favorite. I took a sip of water, clasping my arm around Darby’s shoulders. “Forgive me for not telling you,” I murmured in his ear. “If anyone had known, they would have insisted on coming to see. And with my wall of illegal batteries, coupled with my vast cache of illegal solar panels and everything else against the law I have stored here, I couldn’t risk it. Acid baths are not a favorite of mine.”

  Darby cracked a smile. “I forgive you. I’m just happy to be here right now. This is…incredible. I have no words. Most of the superscreens left are damaged. Very few, if any, work. It’s due to their old-fashioned technology. The fluid pixels that make up this screen have a limited life-span. This”—he gestured toward the green, mountainous scene—“in theory should’ve dried up a long time ago.”

  “Well, I’m glad it didn’t.” I glanced around my small but adequate living space. “I’m proud of this place. It only took me eight years to clean it up, secure it, and make it livable.” Eight years, in the scope of things, was a short time span. Anything worth doing took years. “There’s a sleeping space on the other side of the entryway and a semifunctioning waste room, and that’s it.”

  Darby nodded, pivoting his head around, taking it all in. “My place only has one room. This is a castle compared to most.”

  “My two other residences are much smaller,” I said. “In fact, one is no bigger than a glorified closet. I have nothing incriminating in it, and I keep it because it’s in a convenient location, right inside Government Square. It’s the only one I list legally.” The government required you to have an address on file, or you didn’t get your protein blocks. I drained my water, setting the cup on a table attached to the integrated bench below the screen.

  Darby lifted his glass to his lips and took a long drink. Daze still hadn’t made a peep. His eyes were locked on the screen, his mouth hanging open. He was mesmerized.

  I clicked a button on the remote, and the screen slowly morphed into a new scene. Anticipating Daze’s reaction, I bent over and plucked the cup from his hand before he dropped it. “Is that…a horse?” he asked, shuffling a step closer, his arm still semi-raised. He hadn’t gotten around to dropping it yet.

  “I’m impressed, Daze,” I said. Knowing your animals wasn’t a given. Most had been extinct for years. “It is indeed a horse. As the video continues, you get to see more of them. I’m surprised you know the name of this animal on sight. People used to ride around on their backs.” The horses in front of us fed on rolling hills of emerald-green grass. The video was obviously shot with a UAC. As the drone floated downward, it presented the viewer with different sweeping angles.

  It was completely mystifying that our world ever looked like that. It was hard to imagine. And it was sad. It represented everything this place could’ve been, but wasn’t.

  Daze turned to me, jutting his chin out, making it clear that my underestimating him was getting old. “Along with pictures on the walls, there were old books. Someone said the place we stayed at used to be a library, whatever that was. I’ve seen lots of animals. My mom taught me to read. She was good like that.”

  “With a pico lying around, I hope reading is not all you learned.”

  “The pico was my dad’s,” he replied glumly. Then he grinned, lifting his gaze to mine. “My mom said he was an expert.”

  My eyebrow went up. “An expert at what?”

  Daze looked confused. “I’m…not sure.”

  I ruffled his hair. “That’s okay, kid. I have a hunch we’ll find out soon enough.” I took him by the shoulders and guided him gently away. He resisted, but only a little, his feet finally catching up with his torso. “You can come back and check out the other videos later. But first you need sleep. I’m going to put you in the cleaning unit, get some protein in you, and then put you to bed. Because that’s what sustainers do.” I couldn’t believe I was a fucking sustainer. “They call the shots, and the sustainees follow their every command without question.”

  “What are the other videos of?” Daze asked on the end of a yawn.

  “One is of a single white building. The only interesting thing about that one is the white, billowy clouds and rich blue sky. I could watch those clouds whisper over that building all day. You might like the other one, but it annoys the hell out of me. It’s a bunch of bees. I have no idea why someone would order that for their screen, but there are some pretty-colored flowers in the mix. The buzzing gets old fast.”

  “Bees?” Darby asked, following us.

  “Yes. At least I think they are. Black and yellow bodies, clear wings, annoying sound that feels like it’s boring into your temporal lobe.”

  “They were a big deal before the dark days,” he said. “One of the reasons the powers that be were forced to integrate 3-D bio-printing everywhere faster than technology was ready was because bees were becoming extinct. Without them to pollinate fruits and vegetables, things they relied on heavily for sustenance, people were starving.”

  “Good to know,” I said, impressed. The government had some of our history on file, all the stuff that survived. You could access it at any time. But if it wasn’t about technology, and furthering my own personal life expectancy, I wasn’t apt to have learned about it. I had a rudimentary knowledge about things like horses and bees.

  “I’m a bit of a nature buff,” Darby admitted sheepishly. “Especially stuff from before the dark days. Unlike you, I’m always at home. I’ve found a lot of audio programs over the years that I can listen to with my net-adapted speakers. It’s not as good as having video, but it works.”

  Beeping erupted from three places in my apartment at once.

  My tech phones were going off.

  I swore under my breath, veering Daze into the waste room. “Get the kid into the cleaner stall and press the green button,” I instructed Darby. “I forgot to get a hold of Lockland. He’ll send out the cavalry if I don’t respond within thirty seconds.”

  He and Bender made up the cavalry, and it would take them hours to get here, but, as always, it was the thought that counted.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I plucked a phone off the shallow indent next to my sleeping unit. “Jerry, it’s Ella,” I said as I depressed the button. This phone was black and sat in the palm of my hand. “Are you free tomorrow for breakfast?”

  Static came over the line first, then, “No can do. But I’m available for lunch.”

  “Sounds good, I’ll meet you at Seventh Street, midday,” I said. “Sweet dreams.”

  “Over.”

  That’s all it took to let him know I was safe.

  I set the phone back down and walked into the waste room. Bathtubs and traditional showers for pleasure had been obsolete for ages, even though along my travels I still encountered remnants of them here and there. I had no idea why people chose to immerse themselves in water for hours at a time. The notion didn’t even compute.

  Water had been radically conserved before the dark days. It’d been meant for drinking and watering plants. In its place, bio-cleaning stalls had been invented. They were designed as a closed system, like everything else manufactured in the twenty-second century.

  A shallow water reservoir sat at the bottom of the stall and held no more than four liters of liquid. It was superheated instantly to produce steam, and once you were sufficiently beaded with sweat, cleanser was diffused from various nozzles. You lathered your body, and then sprayers, focused in short bursts,
doused you for the end result, followed by a quick fan to dry you off.

  It worked like a charm, and once you were done, the water and cleanser were purified and recycled, ready for next time.

  The entire ordeal took under three minutes.

  Darby shook his head as I came in. “I can’t believe you have a working cleaning stall. I’d kill for one of these. I have a handheld sprayer. It’s not the same.”

  I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms. Darby had stripped Daze of his clothing, down to his undergarments, and the kid was inside the cleaner looking around wide-eyed as the walls misted with steam. “When the cleanser comes, use your hands to scrub it in,” I told him as I turned to Darby. “It took me some time to wire this thing up, but I lucked out all around with this place.”

  “I’ll say.” Darby gestured to the commode. It was simple and unordained. It was the standard model in most megascrapers. “That looks like a chem-toilet. Does it work?”

  “It wasn’t a chem to start with.” I lifted the lid, showing him the bubbling green solution in the bottom. “Until I made it one. Originally, this was linked to the building’s system, like everything else. All components recycled once flushed. The solid waste became fertilizer, and the wastewater went through reverse osmosis. You know the drill. I managed to run a pipe through the wall in the back that injects breakdown fluid into its holding unit. It works well enough.”

  Darby nodded thoughtfully. “I have something similar, although my building wasn’t as technically advanced as yours to begin with. It was awaiting an upgrade before calamity struck.” He turned back to the cleaning stall. Daze was in the process of being sprayed off. “If you ever see one of these while you’re out and about, let me know. It would be cumbersome to relocate, but I’d pay good money for one. I’m fairly certain I could make it work in my space, even if you brought it to me in pieces.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  The door on the stall popped open after the drier ran for a minute, and I handed Daze a square of cloth. I was running low. Fabric of any kind always sold well. The kid took it and dried the lingering liquid out of his hair, mopping his face. I was pretty sure he was blond, instead of brown like I’d originally thought, but I’d have to wait until his hair dried to be certain.

  “That was so cool.” Daze’s eyes shone, along with the rest of him. I’d been right, he was actually pretty cute with all the grime gone. He still looked like an eight-year-old, though. He was short and slight, bones sticking out all over the place. The kid needed food, and plenty of it. “The only cleaning stall I ever saw before was in my mom’s friend’s apartment. But she never let me use it. She said it was only for special occasions.” Daze flashed a disgruntled upper lip at the memory.

  I chuckled. His game face was A-plus. “You clean up good, kid. I’ll toss your garments in a solution wash. We need them to function until we can get you new ones.” I had nothing that would come remotely close to fitting him. “They’ll be clean and dry in the morning—well, clean-ish. Not sure anything stronger than Bang will take out that ground-in dirt.” I plucked the threadbare clothing off the floor with two fingers, wrinkling my nose. “And you were worried about my stinky stuff? What did you do, roll around in puddles every day?” I slid a container out from the wall and dropped the garments inside, punching a button on the lid.

  “You have an integrated washing unit?” Darby said. “This place just gets better and better.”

  “The entire room was on one circuit, so when I made it work, everything operated. Just like the cleaning stall, the washing unit recycles itself. It’s stand-alone. This building was cutting-edge.”

  “Well, it’s better than what most of us can do. I use a bucket of cold drizzle and a couple of shots of cleanser.”

  I steered Daze into the next room. “The sleeping unit is heated to adjust to your body temperature. You’ll be comfortable in there as is.” He didn’t argue as I walked over to a lever on the wall and tugged. A long tube emerged. These used to be voice activated, but I was just thankful I could get them open. The room held two units, two meters apart. I’d never needed the spare until today. I addressed Darby, who was watching with rapt curiosity. “Can you go get the kid a protein cake? I have some in the cooling unit.”

  He nodded. “Sure thing.”

  After he left the room, I finished rolling the thing out and lifted the clear lid. “Get in,” I instructed Daze. It was made for a large adult-sized body, so there was plenty of room. “Once I close this, the top will become opaque. Don’t worry, you can always get out. Just punch this button near your head.” I indicated the location of the switch as Daze crawled in.

  “I’ve seen one of these before.” He turned over to lie down. “They had a few at the library.” He looked incredibly tiny in the vast space. I could climb in there with him and have enough room, no problem.

  “They’re fairly common.” I nodded. Most new and upgraded buildings had them. “When the lid is secure, the heat will kick on. It’ll take a few minutes. I’m programming the cycle for twelve hours, because it looks like you could use some solid sleep. It wakes you up by ultraviolet light, which, according to the directions I found, is supposed to mimic a sunrise, but we can only take their word for it. The light eases itself on, going from pink to orange to yellow, gathering in brightness. I want you to stay in there until it clicks off. Keep your eyes shut, even if you wake up. Too much UV on the retina and you’re blind. It looks like you haven’t been under a lamp in months, so you need it. You know, it’s dangerous to go without for so long. The wake-up cycle runs approximately twenty minutes. We clear?” Without manufactured ultraviolet light, the human race wouldn’t have survived. Just one more thing on the thank goodness we have it or we’d be dead list. It was lucky things like these had already been integrated before the dark days hit.

  “Clear,” Daze replied. The kid looked beat, his eyes barely managing to stay open. He’d be asleep before the lid fully engaged.

  Darby walked in and handed the urchin a protein cake, while nibbling on one himself. “These aren’t too bad.” He brought it out in front of him to inspect it. “Meat-and-potato-flavored is my guess.”

  I snorted. “I believe that one is supposed to be lemon pie.” All the flavors were arbitrary to us anyway, since we’d never had the real thing to compare it to.

  Darby took a sniff. “I do detect a hint of lemon. I don’t know why they can’t get it right. It shouldn’t be that hard if they have the appropriate slurry. Atoms form molecules, molecules form food.”

  “It’s the machines,” I said. The 3-D bio-printers on the scale the government needed were wonky at best. “Claire said they’ve been trying to get it right for years, but the machines won’t cooperate, and nobody knows how to fix them. So, instead we get”—I angled my head at the cake—“that.”

  Daze took the food, and I began to shut the lid. His arm shot up at the last second. “Holly?”

  “Yes?”

  He angled his tired head up. “Thank you.”

  “You bet.” His tone said it all. It’d been a mixture of something that made my eyes soften and my heart clench. So, damn, I guess I’d been right the first time. The thing had decided to work again against my better judgment. “We have a lot to discuss in the morning. The plan is for us to go to Port Station to see if we can find your dad’s old pico, so I want you to try to remember everything you can about where you used to live. It’s going to be a risky endeavor, but I know you can handle it. After all, if you can master a cable swing in one try, this will be easy.”

  He nodded as he took a bite of his food. “Don’t worry. I remember it all. My mom always said I had a memory as good as an adult, even when I was small.”

  “Alrighty then. Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.” I shut the top and punched in the code, setting the thing for twelve hours like I’d promised. The lid fogged immediately.

  At the time of their invention, these sleeping pods were created to achieve the
best rest possible, with a contoured air particle support system beneath you that inflated and deflated automatically as you moved. It was always exactly the right temperature, adjusting as you slept, with an extra influx of oxygen, and the aforementioned ultraviolet wake-up setting. It could even pipe in your favorite music, and the area right above your head was a screen. Nothing had been programmed into these units, but I liked to imagine the person who used to live here had enjoyed watching their favorite programs before they went to sleep.

  I usually slept with my lid open. I wasn’t the trusting sort.

  Darby and I moved out of the room, making our way back to the living area. The horses were still roaming on emerald grass, grazing away, flicking their tails with no idea of what was to come.

  “This is truly incredible.” Darby headed straight for the battery packs along the wall. Each battery cluster was made up of ten or more circular nano-helium batteries, with a conduit running directly to the solar panels through the ceiling. “How much power does it take to run this place?”

  I went to the cooling unit and took out a protein cake for myself. I had at least twenty inside and two other cooling units on this floor alone. I used my extra coin to make sure I had more than enough food. “Less than you’d think.” I took a bite. They tasted awful, but apparently were engineered with all the vitamins and nutrients we needed. “Everything that runs in the unit is linked to that wall via those cables to your right. I spread out the use, so I never drain any one pack completely.”

  “I can’t believe that you’ve amassed this many.” He shook his head. “And I thought I had a lot. But my packs number in the low hundreds.”

  I finished off the cake, dusting my fingers off on my pant leg. They were always a mess. “Come with me.” I gestured, heading toward the entryway. “As long as you’re here, I might as well show you everything. If you enjoyed the batteries, you’re going to love this.” I swiped my chromes off the shelf and went to disengage the web lock, laying my ear on the wall next to the door. Once I was certain the hallway was clear, I placed my palm on the cold steel.