Company Town

by Madeline Ashby

  “Prefect, show me Oleson, Hanna,” she said.

  The system shuffled through profiles until it landed on two possibilities, each fogged over. One was Hanna. The other was a woman by the name of Anna Olsen. Maybe it thought Hwa had misspoken.

  “Option one.” Hanna’s profile became transparent as Anna’s vanished. It solidified across the display, all the photos and numbers and maps hanging and shimmering in Hwa’s vision. She squinted. “Dimmer.”

  Hanna’s profile dimmed slightly, and Hwa could finally get a real look at it. Like Hwa, Hanna lived in Tower One. She’d been picked up once on a shoplifting charge, two years ago. Hwa raised her hands and gestured through all the points at which facial identification had identified Hanna in the last forty-eight hours. Deeper than that, and she’d need archival access.

  “Prefect, show me this person’s network.”

  Other faces bloomed around Hanna’s. They orbited her face slowly, like satellites. Hwa scrolled through them with two fingers. She recognized most of them from school.

  “Any on the hot list?”

  It took a moment for Prefect’s algorithms to find the likely violent offenders around Hanna. But Hanna’s dad popped up immediately. That made sense. Mollie hadn’t left him; she enjoyed their times together so much. They lived in different towers, now, which helped.

  There was another name on the list. Jared Pullman. He was twenty-three. He’d been busted for boosters; there was also a pending assault charge at the offtrack-betting arcade where he worked. In his photo, his eyes were very, very red. “Goddamn it,” Hwa muttered.

  But before pursuing him, she needed to call Skipper’s. Rule them out. “Hi, is Hanna there?”

  “Hanna doesn’t work here anymore.” Hwa heard beeping. The sounds of fryer alarms going off. Music. “Hello?”

  Hwa ended the call.

  There was Hanna on the Acoutsina Causeway, walking toward Tower One. The image was time-stamped after volleyball practise. Speed-trap checked her entering a ride in the driverless lane at 18:30. Five minutes later, she was gone. Wherever she was now, there were no cameras.

  “Prefect, search this vehicle and this face together.”

  A long pause. “Archive access required.”

  For a fleeting moment, Hwa regretted the fact that Prefect was not a human being she could intimidate. “Is there a record in the archives?”

  “Archive access required.”

  Hwa growled a little to herself. She popped up off the floor and began to pace. She walked through the projections of Hanna’s face, sliding the ribbon of stills and clips until she hit the top of the list. Today was Monday. If Hanna had sustained her injury on Friday night, then Hwa was out of luck. But Mollie had said she worked all weekend. Maybe that meant—

  “What are you doing?”

  Hwa startled. “Jesus Christ, stop doing that!”

  “Doing what?” Síofra was trying to sound innocent. It wasn’t working.

  “You know exactly what,” she said. “Why can’t you just text, like a normal person? How do you know I wasn’t having a natter with somebody?”

  “Your receiver would have told me,” he said.

  Hwa frowned. “Can you…?” She wished she had an image of him she could focus her fury on. “Can you listen in on my conversations, through my receiver?”

  “Only during your working hours.”

  “And you can just … tune in? All day? While I’m at school with Joel?”

  “Of course I can. I thought you had some excellent points to make about Jane Eyre in Mr. Bartel’s class.”

  Hwa plunged the heels of her hands into the sockets of her eyes. She had known this was possible, of course. She just assumed Síofra actually had other work to do, and wasn’t constantly spying on her instead of accomplishing it.

  “Are you bored?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Are you bored? At work? Is your job that boring? That you need to be tuned into my day like that?”

  There was a long pause. She wondered for a moment if he’d cut out. “You watch Joel and I watch you,” he said. “That is my job.”

  Hwa sighed. He had her, there. It was all right there in the Lynch employee handbook. She’d signed on for this level of intrusion when she’d taken their money. He was paying, so he got to watch. She’d stood guard at enough peep shows to learn that particular lesson. Maybe she wasn’t so different from her mother, after all.

  “You aren’t supposed to be prying into your fellow classmates’ lives unless they pose a credible threat to Joel.” So he’d been spying on her searches, too. Of course. “I know what you’re thinking, and—”

  “How come I can’t do this to you?” Hwa blurted. “That’s what I’m thinking. I’m wondering how come I can’t watch you all the time the way you watch me. Why doesn’t this go both ways? Why don’t I get to know when you’re watching me?”

  Another long pause. “Is there something about me that you would like to know?”

  Oh, just everything, she thought. The answer came unbidden, and she shut her eyes and clenched her jaw and squashed it like a bug crawling across her consciousness.

  “Are you coming running tomorrow?”

  “Of course I am.”

  * * *

  Síofra had a whole route planned. He showed it to her the next morning in her specs, but she had only a moment to glance over it before heading out the door.

  “Why did you stay in this tower?” Síofra asked, leaning back and craning his neck to take in the brutalist heap of former containers. “We pay you well enough to afford one of the newer ones. This one has almost no security to speak of.”

  “You’ve been watching me twenty-four/seven all this time and you still haven’t figured that one out? Corporate surveillance ain’t what it used to be.”

  “Is it because your mother lives here?”

  Hwa pulled up short. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

  “I only wondered because you never visit her.” He grinned, and pushed ahead of Hwa down the causeway.

  His route took them along the Acoutsina. They circled the first joint, and Síofra asked about the old parkette and the playground. This early, there were no children, and it remained littered with beer cozies and liquor pouches. She told him about the kid who had kicked her down the slide once, and how nobody let her on the swings, and he assumed it had to do with her mother and what she did for a living. His eyes were not programmed to see her true face, or the stain dripping from her left eye down her neck to her arm and her ribs and her leg. She had tested his vision several times; he never stared, never made reference to her dazzle-pattern face. And with their connection fostered by her wearables, he probably never watched her via botfly or camera. He could spend every minute of every day observing her, and never truly see her.

  They ran to the second joint of the causeway and circled the memorial for those who had died in the Old Rig. “Do you want to stop?” he asked.

  It was bad luck not to pay respects. She knew exactly where her brother’s name was. Síofra waited for her at the base of the monument as her steps spiralled up the mound. She slapped Tae-kyung’s name lightly, like tagging him in a relay run, and kept going. Síofra had already started up again by the time she made it back down. They were almost at Tower Three when he called a halt, in a parking lot full of rides.

  “Cramp,” he said, pulling his calf up behind him. He placed a hand up against a parked vehicle for balance. When Hwa’s gaze followed his hand, she couldn’t help but see the licence plate.

  It was the one she’d asked Prefect to track. The one Hanna had disappeared into, last night. “I thought…” Hwa looked from him to the vehicle. “I thought you said—”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Hwa.” He smirked. Then he appeared to check something in his lenses. “Goodness, look at the time. I have an early meeting. I think I’ll just pick up one of these rides here and take it back to the office. Are y
ou all right finishing the run alone?”

  Hwa frowned at him. He winked at her. She smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m good here.”

  He gestured at the field of rides and snapped his fingers at one of them. It lit up. Its locks opened. She watched him get into it and leave. Now alone, Hwa peered into the vehicle. Nothing left behind on any of the seats. No dings or scratches. She looked around at the parking lot. Empty. Still dark. She pulled her hood up, and took a knee. She fussed with her shoelaces with one hand while her other fished in the pocket of her vest. The joybuzzer hummed between her fingers as she stood. And just like that, the trunk unlocked.

  Hanna was inside. Bound and gagged. And completely asleep.

  “Shit,” Hwa muttered. Then the vehicle chirped. Startled, Hwa scanned the parking lot. Still empty. The ride was being summoned elsewhere. It rumbled to life. If Hwa let it go now, she would lose Hanna. In the trunk, Hanna blinked awake. She squinted up at Hwa. Behind her gag, she began to scream.

  “It’s okay, Hanna.” Hwa threw the trunk door even wider, and climbed in. She pulled it shut behind her as it began to move. “You’re okay. We’re okay.” The vehicle lurched. She heard the lock snap shut again as the ride locked itself. “We’re okay,” she repeated. “We’re going to be okay.”

  * * *

  Hwa busied herself untying Hanna as the ride drove itself. “Tell me where we’re going,” Hwa said.

  “It’s my fault,” Hanna was saying. “He told me not to talk to Benny.”

  “Benny work at Skipper’s?” Hwa picked the tape off Hanna’s wrists.

  “I told him I was just being nice.” Hanna gulped for air. She coughed. “I quit, just like he told me to, but Benny and I are in the same biology class! I couldn’t just ignore him. And Jared said if I really loved him, I’d do what he asked.…”

  “Jared?” Mentally, Hwa kicked herself. She’d known he was on the hot list, but hadn’t chased down the lead any further. She needed Prefect. Why hadn’t she brought her specs? She could be looking at a map, right now. She could be finding out how big this guy was. If there was video attached to his assault charge. Where his weak spots were.

  “Why are you here?” Hanna asked. “Did my mom send you? I thought you didn’t work with us, anymore.”

  Beneath them, the buckles in the pavement burped along. They were still on the Acoutsina, then. It had the oldest roads with the most repairs. Hwa worked to quiet the alarm bell ringing in her head. Hanna’s skin was so cold under her hands. She probably needed a hospital. But right now, she needed Hwa to be calm. She needed Hwa to be smart. She needed Hwa to think.

  “With us?” Hwa asked.

  “For the union,” Hanna sniffed.

  “Eh?”

  The angle of the vehicle changed. They tipped down into something. Hwa heard hydraulics. They were in a lift. Tower Three. They’d parked Hanna not far from where they were, then. Hwa’s ears popped. She rolled up as close as possible to the opening of the trunk. She cleared her wrists and flexed her toes. She’d have one good chance when the trunk opened. If there weren’t too many of them. If they didn’t have crowbars. Something slammed onto the trunk. A fist. A big one, by the sound of it.

  “Wakey, wakey, Hanna!”

  The voice was muffled, but strong. Manic. He’d been awake for a while. Boosters? Shit. Hanna started to say something, but Hwa shushed her.

  “Had enough time to think about what you did?”

  Definitely boosters. That swaggering arrogance, those delusions of grandeur. Hwa listened for more voices, the sound of footsteps. She heard none. Maybe this was a solo performance.

  “You know, I didn’t like doing this. But you made me do it. You have to learn, Hanna.”

  Behind her, Hanna was crying.

  “I can’t have you just giving it away. It really cuts into what I’m trying to do for us.”

  Fingers drummed on the trunk of the ride.

  “Are you ready to come out and say you’re sorry?”

  You’re goddamn right I am, Hwa thought.

  The trunk popped open. Jared’s pale, scaly face registered surprise for just a moment. Then Hwa’s foot snapped out and hit him square in the jaw. He stumbled back and tried to slam the trunk shut. It landed on her leg and she yelled. The door bounced up. Not her ankle. Not her knee. Thank goodness. She rolled out.

  Jared was huge. A tall, lanky man in his early twenties, the kind of rigger who’d get made fun of by guys with more muscle while still being plenty strong enough to get the job done. He had bad skin and a three-day growth of patchy beard. He lunged for Hwa and she jumped back. He swung wide and she jumped again.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “You told Hanna you’d fix it with the union if she paid you her dues directly. Even though she’s a minor and USWC doesn’t allow those.”

  Jared’s eyes were red. He spat blood. He reeked of booster sweat—acrid and bitter.

  “And you had her doing what, camwork?” She grinned. “I thought her eyes were red because she’d been crying. But yours look just the same. You’re both wearing the same shitty lenses.”

  “He made me watch the locker room.” Hanna sat on her knees in the trunk of the ride. Her voice was a croak. For a moment she looked so much like her mother that Hwa’s heart twisted in her chest. “He said he’d edit my team’s faces out—”

  “Shut up!”

  Jared reached for the lid of the trunk again. He tried to slam it shut on Hanna. Hwa ran for him. He grabbed her by the shoulders. Hwa’s right heel came down hard on his. The instep deflated under the pressure. He howled. She elbowed him hard under the ribs and spun halfway out of his grip. His right hand still clung to her vest. She grabbed the wrist and wedged it into the mouth of the trunk.

  “Hanna! Get down!”

  She slammed the lid once. Then twice. Then a third time. He’ll never work this rig again, she thought, distantly. The trunk creaked open and Jared sank to his knees. He clutched his wrist. His hand dangled from his arm like a piece of wet kelp.

  Behind her, she heard a slow, dry clap.

  “Excellent work,” Síofra said.

  He leaned against the ride he’d summoned. Two go-cups of coffee sat on the hood. He held one out.

  “You didn’t want in on that?” Hwa asked, jerking her head at the whimpering mess on the floor of the parking garage.

  “Genius can’t be improved upon.” Síofra gestured with his cup. “We should get them to a hospital. Or a police station.”

  “Hanna needs a hospital.” Hwa sipped her coffee. “This guy, I should report to the union. He falsified a membership and defrauded someone of dues in bad faith.”

  “They don’t take kindly to that, in the USWC?”

  Hwa swallowed hard. “Nope. Not one bit.”

  Síofra made a sound in his throat like purring.

  * * *

  During the elevator ride between the hospital and the school in Tower Two, Hwa munched a breakfast sandwich. She’d protested the presence of bread, but Síofra said the flour was mostly crickets anyway. So she’d relented. Now he stood across the elevator watching her eat.

  “What?” she asked, between swallows.

  “I have something to share with you.”

  She swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. “Aye?”

  “I don’t remember anything beyond ten years ago.”

  Hwa blinked. “Sorry?”

  “My childhood. My youth. They’re…” He made an empty gesture. “Blank.”

  She frowned. “Do you mean, like … emotionally?”

  “No. Literally. I literally don’t remember. My first memory is waking up in a Lynch hospital in South Sudan, ten years ago. They had some old wells, there. They were replacing them with photo farms. I was injured. They brought me in. Patched me up. Paid for my augments. They assumed I was a fixer of some sort. They don’t know for which side. Apparently I had covered my tracks a little too well. I’ve worked for them ever since.”

  Hairs rose on the
back of Hwa’s neck. “Wow.”

  “As long as I can remember, I’ve worked for this company. I don’t know any other kind of life.”

  “Okay,” Hwa said.

  “I’ve never lived without their presence in my life. I’ve never had what you might call a private life.”

  Oh. “Oh.”

  “But you have. And that’s something that’s different, about our experiences.”

  “Yeah. You could say that.”

  “You don’t have implants,” he said. “Not permanent ones, anyway. They—we—can’t gather that kind of data from you. They don’t have a complete profile for you, yet. But they know everything about me. My sugars, how much I sleep, where I am, if I’m angry, my routines, even the music I listen to when I’m making dinner.”

  “You listen to music while you make dinner?”

  “Django Reinhardt.”

  “Who?”

  He smiled ruefully. “What I’m saying is, you’re the last of a dying breed.”

  Hwa thought of the stain running down her body, the flaw he couldn’t see. He had no idea. “Thank you?”

  “You’re a black swan,” he said. “A wild card. Something unpredictable. Like getting into the trunk of that ride this morning.”

  Hwa shrugged. “Anybody could have done that. I couldn’t just let Hanna go. She needed my help.”

  “You could have called the police. You could have called me. But you didn’t. You took the risk yourself.”

  She frowned. “Are you pissed off? Is that what this is about? Because you’re the one who—”

  Síofra hissed. He shook his head softly. With his gaze, he brought her attention to the eyes at the corners of the elevator where the eyes probably were.

  “I just want you to know something about me,” he said, after a moment. “Something that isn’t in my halo.”

  She smiled. “Well, thanks.”

  “Not a lot of other people know this, about me.”

  “Well, it is kind of weird.” She stretched up, then hinged down at the waist until her vertebrae popped their stiffness loose. She pressed her fingers into the floor and looked up at him from her rag doll position. “I mean, you are only ten years old, right? You can’t even drink.”