The Naked World

by Eli K. P. William

  The tour turned left down an alley cutting through the structure Amon, Ty, and Rick stood upon, squeezed into double file in the narrow space as the woman’s voice muffled into an unintelligible echo. Ty then led them through elevated squeezeways that sloped up, curved, and rounded back until they were in a crack over the alley. There they lay flat on the floor of the roof and peered over the edge, bringing the tour back in sight.

  “There in front of the wall,” whispered Ty, pointing down the tight alley to a dead end, before which eight or so bankdead men, women, and children sat. “The trespassers.”

  “… to bring your attention now to this family,” the guide’s voice carried up to Amon’s ears, as she raised her palm towards the same group. Two teenagers, a pre-adolescent boy, and another boy of about eight were the ostensible kids of a young man and woman. A grizzled old man meant to be the grandfather stood hovelled before them. They all clung to each other in a tight knot and looked wide-eyed at the tourists, their expressions and postures so timid and forlorn they were practically cowering, the young boy literally trembling.

  Though they weren’t wearing their patchwork uniforms, but instead shiny, faux-polyester kimonos presumably seized from the local brandclan, Amon didn’t need Ty to tell him they were OpScis and that this was all an act. Their clothes were tattered but there was no sign of flaking, indicating that they had likely ripped them themselves, and the charcoal-like dust coating their hair and skin was not commonly seen in the camps and had surely been rubbed in intentionally. The members of this “family” hardly resembled each other at all, and the thick muscles of the young man and teenager, who had probably been included to stack the gang for self-defense and battle if the need arose, belied their supposed hunger. The adult man had telltale words and equations scarred into his hands and face. These were sacred texts, perhaps the Book of Jobs, Book of Markets, or Book of Opportunity, often tattooed onto the skin of believers (some living, some preserved in holy chambers of the Peaks). So here, just as the reports had stated, was a so-called “missionary expedition” entertaining the busloads of tourists and pleasing the venture charities by day, while banding together into a single force to raid the area by night.

  “As you can see, some of their makeshift shelters are beginning to deteriorate,” said the guide, waving her arm up and around at the flaking disposcrapers lining the alley. “With the help of your resort fee and the additional donations you may kindly offer, Kindness Beyond Credit will provide members of the local community with new clothes and shelters so that they can live in greater safety and comfort without leaving footprints on the poverty ecosystem. So we invite you to please join us in eliminating poverty through profit and turn a digital divide into a digital dividend by bringing development to the bottom of the pyramid.”

  The tourists gawked in silence and, from the way their eyes panned slowly around, Amon could tell they were trying to capture a clean recording for their LifeStreams. Several of them clicked on everything in sight—rooms, people, the ground—no doubt searching for additional info to supplement the tour. From what Amon had heard, many were investitarians who received discounts on the resorts due to their generous donations and who joined the tours expecting a report on what good it was doing. The rest would be a mix of less committed donors, personal growth seekers, travelers, researchers, nostie anadeto dealers, art scouts, sex tourists out to satiate their illegal tastes at half the price, and other less savory visitors.

  All of them wore expressions ranging from sour grimaces of sympathetic consternation to faintly unsettled frowns, as though witnessing some abominable injustice, though to anyone who lived in the District of Dreams the area looked sumptuous. The particular brand of room stacked in this alley was designed to mimic traditional Japanese styles, with dark wooden exteriors and sliding paper doors that opened onto engawa porches. A slow emission of flakes did flutter around them, but this was normal after a few days of use and none had yet sprung any of the drafty holes so common in every other area. In actuality, this was one of the most privileged communities in the District of Dreams, and it was clear that the tourists had no idea.

  “The unemployment rate here is one hundred percent, so there is little for the residents to do but wait for a helping hand and …”

  “Looks like we’re not the only ones watching,” whispered Ty, and flicked his head with a sweep of his eyes at the opposite side of the alley. There Amon saw other eyes peeking out from shadowy crevices, nooks, cracks in doors, around squeezeway corners, at various heights across the adjacent wall, their owners in Fleet kimonos and yukatas like the OpSci faux-family. Most of them were watching the tour furtively, though a few glanced occasionally at Amon and crew.

  “Those eyes don’t look too friendly,” Rick whispered back. “Do they know we’re here to help?”

  “Hard to say. Our scouts let their organizers know we were coming, but we don’t know how far word has trickled down. Since we snuck in here to stay under the radar of the converts, some of them might misunderstand our intentions. Means any of them could be enemies until they give us reason to trust them, so watch out.”

  Although the locals had sent a coded letter to Xenocyst expressing their desire to resist OpSci dominion, Amon knew that some of them likely had faith in the religion, as was the case throughout enclaves outlying the Peaks. He remembered the Books telling him and Rick that the basis for the doctrine’s widespread popularity was the ingenious way it resigned the bankdead to their role in the CG Economy. The poor had historically been reconciled to their position in part by the belief that anyone could achieve any goal they set themselves and acquire anything they wanted if only they had the talent and worked hard enough. While this whiff of possibility continued to instill Free Citizens with faith in the principle all the freedom you can earn, it had stopped drifting down to the bottom ever since it became patently impossible for the poor to possess the bank accounts and identity required to land jobs, earn money, and find career success. Opportunity Scientist dogma offered a substitute vision of salvation for have-nots in the Free Era. If infinite opportunity was no longer available to those who deserved it in this life, then it had to be available in a future life. Individuals with impure DNA—regarded as a code recording each person’s accumulation of past good or bad deeds—lacked the innate talent to ascend to the Free World and escape from the Cycle of ReCrash, where one was reborn in the camps repeatedly. Yet even the giftless could unleash the underlying GiftNature that all human beings shared and one day attain rebirth as a marketable baby by adhering to tattooed prayers, rituals, and precepts. Included were rules emphasizing that passive, non-resistance to the Charity Brigade, reverence for the gifted, and multiplying fruitfully helped to purify one’s genome.

  This comforting metaphysical doctrine helped believers accept the conditions created by the venture charities, portraying them as the harsh but inevitable result of the Market’s ineluctable turnings and as a temporary phase of financospiritual development to eventually be transcended, either personally or vicariously through one’s offspring. The Philanthropy Syndicate was pleased by this since it need not invest in its own educational programs to induce complacency and had traditionally shipped extra supplies and weaponry to the Quantitative Priesthood in return, increasing resource yield at relatively low cost. At the same time, the doctrine earned the religion numerous followers. So much so that it had become part of camp-wide folk superstition.

  Since missionaries had been in control of the enclave Amon, Rick, and Ty were visiting for at least a week, it was possible that even more had converted here than in other areas. Some locals might then accept that Hippo was the Gene Sucker and the Xenocyst rescue crew his DNA-vampire minions. Thus their presence would be seen as an inauspicious threat to karmic marketability, and it was impossible to know who to trust as Ty had cautioned.

  “Is it alright to feed them?” Amon heard one of the tourists ask, drawing his gaze. It was a middle-aged woman holding an unopened bag of mix
ed nuts.

  “Yes,” answered the guide, “but certain foods can be hard on their digestive systems because they’re accustomed to the food here. So we ask that you offer only certified bankdead feed, which can be purchased from our driver.”

  The driver, who’d apparently crept up behind them, stepped forward with a basket full of rice balls, bento boxes, sweat-bean buns, and other snacks wrapped in colorful bows like presents. Several of the tourists were already lining up in front of him to buy their feed and the remainder, having apparently brought their own, were approaching the bankdead.

  “Be careful not to overfeed them because a sudden rise in calories can cause indigestion and other more serious health problems. Also, please refrain from direct contact. Most of them are harmless, but many prefer not to be touched.”

  The “family” held out their hands, still kneeling, and put their palms together in thanks before taking the proffered foods from the tourists and unwrapping them. As they ate, the family members exchanged looks of apparent ecstasy to show how delicious they were. Amon could see a firm-lipped expression of self-congratulatory relief on the faces of the tourists as they watched. One lanky woman even had her arms crossed and was nodding in satisfaction. The visible gap between their perceptions of the difference they were making and the actual result filled Amon with immediate revulsion, as much directed towards them as himself. For he knew he would have reacted much the same way only a few months earlier, if he’d even bothered to care about the plight of the bankdead, which, caught in his frugal obsession, he hadn’t. On the contrary, he’d banished thousands here in his denial and never made efforts to help any of them. These tourists at least seemed genuinely intent on alleviating poverty through donations, even if they didn’t realize or acknowledge how it merely supported the system that gave rise to the problem in the first place.

  The family had finished their snacks and were coming back to ask for more when suddenly, out of cracks in the alley walls, other bankdead began to pour into the alley. The bus driver reached for the duster holstered at his side and the CareBots gave a simultaneous twitch, diving a notch lower in the air. But when the bankdead stopped before the tourists with hands outstretched, the driver settled back into standing there blank-eyed, the drones fluttering about as before. The adult men swarmed to the front, the women squeezed their arms in from behind, and the children crept in between legs, forming a dense tangle of bodies in the alley that blocked out the OpScis. The tourists soon went back to the bus driver, bought everything in his basket, and began to take turns handing the foods out. One by one the bankdead stepped forward and snatched whatever was offered from whoever was offering it. They then pushed to the back and either ate their food immediately or put it into their kimono sleeve pockets and snuck up to the front before a different tourist to get a surreptitious second helping. Some were successful, but the tourists quickly caught onto this trick and began reaching their arms into the crowd to offer food directly to children too small to push closer.

  The tourists didn’t bother to interact with any of the bankdead other than by feeding them, or try to make conversation even with the guide there, who Amon had overheard was supposed to be equipped with a Japanese-Hinkongo interpreting app. Perhaps this was partly due to the rushed itinerary of the tours, but Amon thought it had more to do with their perspective. The tourists hadn’t come here to meet people, to hear their stories, to engage in dialog. Rather, they saw the bankdead as instantiations of “poverty” and “overcrowding,” as mere elements in a spectacle they had come to absorb for the satisfaction of feeling later that it had changed them, unable to grasp what palpable challenges they faced in their quick visit no matter how well-intentioned. As far as intentions went, these tours certainly beat the other businesses that had found loopholes to operate within the Charity Gift Economy, such as the Kansha Hotels, where bankdead attended banquets full of generous investitarians and accompanied them to their rooms out of spontaneous gratitude. All the same, Amon hated everything the tours stood for—the insensitive blandishment of wealth, the self-assured feeling of doing right, the ignorance of what the bankdead needed and who they were—and to him the solid glass sanctuary of the resort amidst the Fleet structures seemed like a sentient tumor killing a body it wants desperately to heal.

  Although the newcomers had completely shut them out, the Opportunity Scientists wore hopeful, needy expressions, but Amon detected hints of the anger they were hiding from the tourists in the tightness of their jaws and the venomous glares they directed at any resident that glanced at them. The guide, temporarily caught off guard by this break from the script, looked around at the milling group in confusion for a few seconds before finally deciding how to respond: “Alright, everyone. We’d best get back to the buses. Some of the new arrivals may be mildly contagious, and we have an appointment for an energy healing class on the observation deck after our tour of Delivery.”

  With that, she started back down the alley towards the road, the driver a few paces ahead. Then with a wave to the bankdead that was reciprocated only with blank stares, the tourists peeled back and began to follow her.

  4

  As the tour continued down the alley, the residents began to vanish into the cracks from which they had come. Then, the moment the last tourist stepped around the bend and the drones above them had flitted away, the supposed father clapped three times and the sliding doors of several shelters on the three lower floors opened. Out stepped men in patchwork OpSci outfits holding various blunt or spiky objects. These they quickly handed out to the erstwhile unfortunate family, whose visages of pleading desperation had hardened into merciless deadpans. Together they assembled into a crew of about twenty and began to confer in a huddle around a man in the multi-logoed robes of a field priest, making angry gestures in the directions the residents had fled. It was obvious even to Amon, who had little experience with such conflicts, what was going to happen next.

  “Come on,” whispered Ty, pointing to a stairwell that led down a dark, winding cranny. “We can’t let this happen. Before they get organized, you two head down there, get in position to fight. I’m gonna get their attention.”

  “Hold on,” said Amon. “Why don’t I stay here and pick them off with my duster?”

  “Because you’ll only get a couple from up here. The rest will just scatter and we want to deal with them once and for all.”

  Amon thought about it and realized that he wasn’t confident of his sniping from this distance, since he no longer had the marksmanship app he always used and hadn’t practiced firing the duster since it had been returned to him.

  “Other issues?” asked Ty, giving them a piercing stare.

  Amon and Rick shook their heads and, as Ty set off creeping along the ledge, Amon started down into the cranny with Rick close behind. They stepped quickly but carefully into the dim, Amon’s heartbeat picking up and his breath short in anticipation of the coming confrontation.

  “Oi! OpSci assholes!” Amon heard Ty shout in Hinkongo from somewhere above. “Yeah! Up here! M’name’s Ty. I’m in charge of Xenocyst border security for this area and I order you to vacate immediately! All trespassers must return to the Peaks! I give you ten seconds to comply!”

  “Oh yeah, this shit—”

  “Hah!”

  “Comply? You—”

  Amon could hear muffled shouts of anger in response as the cranny ended at a tunnel cutting horizontally through several rooms, the walls lined with the tiny baby cribs only found in gifted buildings. In the wall to their right was a zigzagging vertical crack that opened into the alley, where Amon could hear the heavy footfalls and yells of the OpScis. To their left Amon spotted the shadowy forms of several residents watching them warily with backs up against another wall. Turning to face them, Rick put his finger to his lips and did a swinging motion with his pipe towards the racket outside to indicate he was on their side. As they approached the crack, Amon heard the shouting grow louder and flinched nervously at several
plosive clatters as Ty’s wheel went into action. The upper body of the “father” popped from the crack and, as he began scrabbling his way frantically in, Rick dealt him a quick blow to the collarbone and he toppled backwards into the alley with a howl. Amon drew his duster and kept it trained on the opening until a man’s face peeked in and he pulled the trigger, a hoarse shriek echoing at ear-splitting volume through the tight chamber as the dust did its work on his nerves. Amon felt a flash of guilt as he was reminded of the many bankrupt screams he’d elicited but was too tense and afraid to indulge it. In the taut moment of silence that followed they waited, Rick standing to the side of the crack with his pipe held back, Amon keeping his aim steady, ready to dispatch any other intruders but afraid to step out now that the OpScis were surely alerted to their presence, when one of the men behind them said, “There’s another way out. Up there!”

  Rick and Amon tilted their heads up to where the figure was pointing and saw a narrow opening in the ceiling above the crack that led to a low crawlspace.

  “G-go out that way,” blurted the man. “You can catch them by surprise.”

  Rick grunted his assent, jumped up to grip the ledge with the flat of his arms and shimmied onto it. Amon trained his duster on the crack a few more seconds to make sure no one burst in, before leaping up and climbing after him.

  He found himself crawling behind Rick’s buttocks until the ceiling ended and they both got to their feet, crouching in the still-low chamber. They were on a ledge overlooking the floor of the alley one story below, but rooms jutting around sheltered it from view. The only opening was a half-meter gap between where the floor ended and the base of the wall in front of them. Rick leapt into the gap brandishing his pipe, and Amon, taking a deep breath to settle his fear, hopped down right behind.