Recursion a-1

by Tony Ballantyne

“Okay. Deposit the tube in the secure slot. We would like to thank you for your efficiency. Your account has been credited with four hundred credits, plus seventeen credits for the postage. Good-bye, Eva.” The line went dead.

  Eva dropped the tube in the correct slot to a faint popping sound and then made her way to the front of the shop. It was time to resume her intended schedule.

  She picked up five magazines from the shelves near the entrance doors and carried them to the checkout, pulling her e-card from a pocket as she did so. The young girl behind the counter scanned the card and the magazines. She recited each purchase as it appeared on the screen.

  “Literary Examiner, Women’s Things and Research Scientist. You know you have bought these three magazines here every week for the past five years? If you took out a subscription you could save forty percent of the cover price and have them delivered direct to your door.”

  “Do you know you have told me that same thing every week for the past four years and nine months?”

  “Sorry, Eva.”

  “Call me Ms. Rye. You don’t know who I am.”

  “As you wish. That will be five credits for the magazines and seventeen credits for the postage. That makes twenty-two credits.”

  Eva placed her e-card on top of Women’s Things, her heartbeat accelerating. This was the crucial moment. The young girl scanned the card, Eva picked it up, together with the magazines. Then, trying her best to keep her voice natural…“Oh.” She held up a copy of Women’s Things apologetically. “I’ve picked up three copies of this magazine by mistake. I’ll just take the other two back to the shelf.”

  She picked up the two unwanted magazines, doing her best to appear flustered, and carried them back to the shelf where she slotted them back into place, the e-card sandwiched securely between them. After that she returned to the counter and picked up her purchases before escaping from the shop. Eva walked down the road as casually as she could, her nervousness gradually receding. Maybe she was actually going to get away with it. No. Think positively. She was going to get away with it.

  Back at her apartment Eva looked around its shabby rooms for what she hoped would be the final time. Her suitcase was already packed: some clothes, her makeup bag, a swimsuit she would never use, but when your every move was monitored by lifeless eyes, you had to go through the pretenses. She placed Brewster on top of the case, his lumpy body flopping forward to roll off the bed. She picked up the threadbare toy and balanced it carefully in place.

  “I’ll put you in a shopping bag, Brewster,” she decided out loud, and headed into the kitchen.

  The clock on the convector read 10:15. Twelve minutes until she would leave. Timing was of the essence. Eva had walked the distance to the Lite Station many times, while surreptitiously timing herself. She knew the exact duration of the journey to the International Station. She would arrive there at exactly the right time. Now if only some busybody didn’t discover her e-card too soon…

  She took a bag from the cupboard under the sink and pushed Brewster inside it, then sat him back on the bed, his eyes peeping over the top of the bag at the picture of the horses that hung on the wall. She had forgotten about it, barely noticed it anymore. Eva’s father had bought her the picture when she was a little girl. She felt a wrench at the thought of leaving it behind, but then, who took pictures on vacation with them?

  10:17. Ten minutes to go. Not for the first time, Eva had doubts. She would be leaving for good. She would never sit on the faded duvet again, its filling gathering in lumps in the corners. Was that really what she wanted? What if something went wrong? Her whole plan turned on the fact that she would deliberately miss the direct train and have to take the stopping one instead. What if someone had discovered her e-card?

  10:18 and Eva went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She drank it very slowly, rinsed the glass and dried it with a towel, then replaced it in the cupboard.

  10:20, seven minutes to go. Eva went to the toilet, flushed it, poured bleach down the bowl, washed her hands, checked her face in the mirror and walked back into the bedroom.

  10:24. She checked through her bags again, squeezed Brewster’s lumpy paw for luck, then walked around the apartment for the last time, checking that the windows were locked and everything was tidied away.

  10:26 and she began to gather up her things. She walked out of her old life, locking the door behind her at exactly 10:27.

  Eva walked quickly through South Street and reached the Lite Station just as her train was pulling in. She climbed aboard and stared out of the window as the train slid smoothly from the faded and badly restored Victoriana of the station and glided through the eras toward the tall glass towers of the twenty-first-century city. More and more railway lines seemed to be infiltrating Eva’s city. They were creeping across the world, growing all by themselves. She had read about it in Research Scientist. They had a new way of making them, a spin-off from the technology that had built the robot Martian factories. She gave a sad smile. It was an incredible world to live in, for some people at least.

  Her thoughts were disturbed by a plump woman with peroxide hair settling into the seat next to her. She placed her bags on the floor between her feet, then pulled a packet of candy from her pocket and offered one to Eva.

  “Toffee?” she said.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Has your headache cleared?” The woman unwrapped a candy and popped it in her mouth.

  Eva’s mouth slipped easily into its habitual benign smile. “Yes, thank you. And you can tell them that I’m looking forward to my trip.”

  The woman nodded her head.

  “Good, good. Don’t forget, if you’re ever feeling down, just give us a call.”

  “I will.”

  “That’s good, Eva. Don’t forget, everyone needs a little help from Social Care now and again. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I know. It’s what I pay my taxes for.”

  “That’s right, it’s what you pay your taxes for.”

  The woman bent to retrieve her shopping, then lurched to her feet and made her way farther down the coach. Eva watched her activate her phone and begin to report back on their encounter.

  The Lite Train glided up a ramp between tall glass walls and came to a halt in the mezzanine of a major building. Eva saw a woman in a dark suit chatting with a man who looked a little like DeForest and she wondered what it would be like to work in a place like this. The view slid sideways as the Lite Train moved out from the station. Eva felt butterflies awaken in her stomach. The next stop was hers. As the Lite Train plunged underground on its way to Empire Station, Eva held her bags tightly and took a deep breath.

  The clerk spoke without looking up from his screen.

  “Good morning, Eva.”

  “Good morning.”

  “I see you’re traveling to Marseilles. The train leaves in ten minutes. Shall we go through the formalities? Can I see your e-card?”

  “Certainly.”

  Eva fumbled in her bag. She frowned, then fumbled again.

  “I’m sure it was here earlier. Just a moment…”

  Her fumbling became more frantic, then she paused and began to go through her pockets.

  “I know I had it earlier. I used it to pay for my magazines.”

  She began to search in her bag again. The clerk looked on complacently.

  “Look,” said Eva, “do I really need it?”

  The clerk looked as if he was trying to stifle a yawn. “I’m sorry, Eva, but the e-card is your guarantee of security and identification. It’s essential if you travel abroad.”

  “But you know who I am. You knew as soon as I walked into this room. This whole city is riddled with biometric scanners.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules.”

  Eva clenched her fists in simulated rage. “They’re stupid rules. Listen. I had my card earlier in the Information Shop. Can’t you contact them? If it’s there, they could courier it across
.”

  The clerk gave a sympathetic smile. “I’ll see what I can do.” He leaned forward and tapped a few keys on his console.

  A few minutes later the indicator board announced that the Marseilles train had just departed. From the outside, Eva appeared angry and frustrated to the point of tears. Inside, she was delightedly congratulating herself on her performance.

  Eva fiddled and worked at Brewster’s arm as the stopping train pulled out from the station. A Panacetamol dropped into her hand and she slipped it into her mouth while pretending to cough.

  “Where are you going?” asked the woman sitting opposite.

  “Marseilles,” mumbled Eva, her mouth dry from the pill.

  “That’s nice. I’m off to Paris, myself. I’m Nuala, by the way.”

  “Eva,” said Eva, holding out her hand. Nuala shook it.

  “Are you okay, Eva? You look a little flushed?”

  “Just tired. I missed my train. I feel so stupid. I think I’m going to try to sleep.”

  “Good idea.”

  Hugging Brewster in her arms, Eva curled up on the seat. The grey evening skyline flicked by outside the window. She began to fiddle again at the little loose seam under Brewster’s right arm. All those nights, lying in bed, pushing white pills into her teddy bear. Saving them up against this day. She pulled out another pill and swallowed it.

  She knew they monitored her apartment; she could never have tried this at home. But a train? A three-hour journey wasn’t long enough to make sure. Maybe this journey would give her enough time. She just needed a reason to catch the stopping train. A reason that would seem plausible to the nannies in Social Care who watched over everyone in the city, doing what they thought was best.

  If only they wanted what was best for Eva.

  Eva didn’t want any part of her life in the city anymore. If only Social Care realized they had left her just one way to walk away from it.

  She pulled another Panacetamol from Brewster and swallowed it. She thought that she had read somewhere that thirty was enough, but she had never dared go back and check the reference for fear of signaling her intentions. Her mouth was increasingly dry and chalky. She felt the train begin its smooth acceleration as it entered the travel tubes, and for the first time in years Eva felt a little hope.

  Nuala gave a little cough.

  “I’m going to get a drink. Do you want anything?”

  Eva shook her head. “No, thank you. I think I’ll have my snooze now.”

  “A rest will do you the world of good.”

  Nuala edged her way out of the seat. Eva swallowed another pill, and another, and another, over and over again until her mouth was so dry she could swallow no more.

  She hugged her teddy bear and allowed the motion of the train to rock her gently to sleep.

  constantine 1: 2119

  Constantine rubbed his temples in an attempt to ease his headache. He felt as if his brain needed a reboot. It seemed as if it had been processing without break for four months now: it was no surprise he was seeing gaps beneath the sky.

  There was one outside the window of the I-train right now, just behind the three glass towers that marked the boundary between land and sea at the westernmost tip of the Great Australian Bight. It was a magnificent, though flawed, view. Red-lit streamers of cloud slid across the yellow sky, distorted and magnified as they moved behind the three enormous, transparent, fir-cone-shaped monuments. The towers themselves climbed into the evening sky at the edge of the steely grey sea flecked with the brightly colored sails of pleasure yachts that skipped and wove between the robotic cargo liners. It was a picture of both calm and motion, leisure and industry, the natural and the manufactured world. A tourist’s view of a famous scene marred by only one inconsistency.

  In between the sea and the sky: nothing-an untuned grey gap where the earth didn’t quite meet the heavens. Constantine looked away. He had been seeing things for the past three weeks now; he didn’t need further reminding how hard he had been working, nor how much he had allowed his brain to become overloaded by extra intelligences.

  The mineral water in the glass resting on the bentwood table before him shimmered. A standing wave had formed on its surface as the I-train braked, and one of the intelligences that shared his mind calculated the acceleration that took a train from mach seven to mach zero in a little under five minutes and idly modeled the way in which the forces that achieved this were reflected in the liquid in front of him. Constantine tried to ignore the endless stream of figures that filled his mind.

  “Not now, White,” he muttered.

  The train was entering Stonebreak. The checkerboard of green pasture and yellow cornfields that decorated the first level streamed past the windows of the car. This is how they displayed their wealth down here, Constantine reflected. Not in a crush of tall towers that sucked every last cent of value from the available land, but rather in an expansive and expensive display of space.

  – Not entirely true, said Red, another of the intelligences crowding his mind.-They also need the food.

  Constantine didn’t care. His head hurt. All he wanted was to get off the train and into his hotel room. The end was close. The tension was getting to them all.

  The train dipped underground and started its final deceleration, and the other passengers began to collect their possessions. Some rose and made their way to the doors; Constantine simply gazed out of the window into the darkness of the tunnel. Two years of plotting and planning, all set to end in Stonebreak. The idea didn’t seem real. He took a sip of water from the glass and tried to think about his wife as the train drew to a halt, tried to summon up a picture of her in his mind that was more than a fading abstraction. It had been too long.

  It was the busiest time of the day at Stonebreak International. No doubt Constantine’s journey had been scheduled to arrive during the evening rush, amid the simultaneous arrival of several intercontinental trains. Constantine’s life over the past two years had been spent in an interminable bustle of crowds, one tree hidden in a never-ending forest.

  The station was old and shabby: the iridescent patterns of dead VNM bodies that had formed the halls may have looked cutting-edge twenty years ago, now they just seemed faintly embarrassing. Their interlinking shapes had been covered with hard-wearing transparent plastic; even so, the walls and the floors by the skylifts were scuffed and abraded by constant use. Constantine entered the elevator and asked for the roof. As he rose toward the high-vaulted ceiling, he looked down at the silver ribbons of the I-trains, curled in tight spirals around the central spoke of the terminus.

  “This place is a mess, huh? The new station can’t open too soon.”

  Constantine jumped at the sound of the voice. A woman was standing at the far end of the elevator.

  “I didn’t see you get in here,” said Constantine, checking his intelligences.

  – I did, said Red.-She slipped in just as the doors were closing. You were turning to look at the view.

  “You, of all people, shouldn’t be surprised at how I slipped in here.” She held out a hand. “I’m Mary Rye. That’s my name.”

  Constantine refused her handshake. Mary gave a sniff and withdrew it. She pointedly wiped her palm on the pocket of her green jacket.

  – She’s been drinking, said Red.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t deserve that,” said Mary, head tilted forward. Her thick Australian accent made her sound old-fashioned in these days of standardized elocution. “How long have you been a ghost? Two years, I’d guess. So what the fuck do you know about it? Nothing. That’s what you know about it: nothing.”

  Constantine felt himself perspiring. Sweat was trickling down the small of his back, despite the air-conditioned freshness of the elevator.

  He spoke carefully. “A ghost? I don’t understand what you mean.”

  Mary gave an impatient shrug of her shoulders and waved her hand dismissively. Her green suit looked expensive but shabby. Two long strands of
cotton trailed from the hem of her blouse. A brooch in the shape of three little cats was pinned lopsidedly to her lapel.

  “Sure you don’t,” she said with heavy sarcasm. She waved her hand in the direction of the doors. “Look, I’m not blind. I’m not stupid. I know what to look for. I know what I see. I wait on the platform and I look out for people like you arriving. A train pulls in and the crowd on the platform parts like the Red Sea? I look to see who’s walking along the path that forms. I see the cameras suddenly turn to look in one direction? I look in the other. I do that and I spot someone like you. The most ordinary-looking person in the building, and yet you never have to stop or step aside; your elevator is always waiting and your car always stops right by the exit. You never get stuck behind the person with the luggage and you’re always just ahead of the person stopping to ask directions. You’re one huge statistical improbability: your life is planned so that you will never be remembered. You’re a ghost. Just like me.”

  She finished speaking just as the skylift emerged from the ground into the red light of evening. Through the glass, they could see rush-hour pedestrians hurrying by in all directions. Constantine tapped his fingers against the hard plastic of the console that nestled in his pocket.

  “Well, whatever you say, madam. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  He stepped out into the cool Australian evening and strode toward the waiting boat that would take him to his hotel. Mary took hold of his sleeve and pulled him backwards.

  “Hey, don’t you madam me and then walk away. I was speaking to you. Didn’t you hear me? Of course you heard me. You were ignoring me. Being rude.”

  Constantine turned to face her, conscious that she was on the verge of making a scene.

  “Would you mind letting go of my arm please, mad-” He paused.

  – Mary, reminded the Blue intelligence. There was an edge of amusement to its voice.

  Constantine said nothing. Mary gazed at him with bleary eyes. There had once been a pretty face there, thought Constantine abstractedly, but now it was lost beneath the podgy swelling of fat and over-applied makeup. She spoke gently, her hard little chin pressing down against its soft cushion of flesh.