by Therin Knite
The kid hesitates. Doesn’t want to lose face.
Doesn’t want to lose his life either.
A tense minute passes.
He chooses life and backs away. The other kids disperse, retreating into their hideouts. They reset their trap and wait for a real schmuck to come along.
I sit the gun in the passenger seat and continue on.
If this tip turns out to be a bust, someone’s going to get popped right between the eyes.
And I know exactly who it’s going to be.
4
Quentin
( 5 Years Ago )
A four-tier cake. It’s sitting in my refrigerator, resting on a flat pan placed atop the vegetable bin. All the fridge racks have been removed; they’re propped up against the wall next to the trash can. What little food I had inside has been stuffed into the space around the bottom of the cake. Crowning the vanilla-covered confection it’ll take me a month to eat is a cake topper that reads, "Happy 50th."
"Howard," I mutter, slamming the fridge door shut, "if you weren’t already dead, I’d kill you."
His laughter echoes into the kitchen from my television speakers, but he doesn’t reply.
"Ass." I exit the kitchen and shuffle into my tiny bathroom across the hall. My usual pre-orientation routine consists of three steps: brush my teeth, comb my cowlick-ridden hair, and spritz on some light cologne—as if any of the recruits will give a crap what I smell like when the patrolmen show up at transfer time. But old habits are hard to break.
Now presentable, I head to my bedroom and grab the suit jacket hanging on the back of my desk chair. It’s getting a tad tight around the belly. I should venture out to Saluda and order a new one that fits my apparently aging body. Strange how you inflate around middle age before shrinking to a wrinkly stick about the time you earn the title "senior citizen." I pat my stomach, stretch until the jacket feels comfortable, and throw my coat on over it. It’ll have to do.
I leave my apartment and plod down the Sims Center hallway until I reach the main elevator. Once I’m inside, it zips from floor fourteen to floor eight, stopping to let two engineer droids on. They place themselves a safe distance away from me, smile, and say in unison, "Good morning, Mr. Q. How are you today?"
"Fine. How about you?"
The droid on the left, styled like Jason Delgado, removes a flex tablet from his pocket and shows me the screen. "We are fifty-eight percent finished with the design for the City Grid Solar Energy System Number Four project, Mr. Q."
The female droid, formerly Donna Marlowe, adds, "It should be completed by the scheduled Friday deadline."
That’s not what I asked you. I suppress a sigh. "Fantastic. Good work."
"Thank you, Mr. Q," they say together again. A second later, the elevator doors roll open at floor six, and they file out into a hallway teeming with likeminded droids. All with the same happy-happy expression. All with the same programmed standard responses. Hundreds of robots with hundreds of human faces and a single personality. The only difference between them is Howard’s beloved "core pattern," the digitized replica of the exact neural pathways that determine how smart they are.
They can muster plenty of technical conversations about science and math and not much else.
Which does me no good because I’m not a scientist.
"You all right, Quentin? You look frustrated." Howard’s voice emerges from the ceiling speaker that plays no music.
"Sorry. The depressing loneliness of living in a land of robots has consumed me again."
Howard snorts. "Maybe you should get a cat."
"Yes, and then I could have all sorts of chats about the litter box with it."
The voice in the speaker sinks to a solemn, honest tone. "Hey. If you’re feeling down for real, you can take a few more trips out of the community. Maybe a nice beach vacation? Or Disney World. You’ve never been, right?"
"Howard, I don’t think..."
"I mean it, Quentin. I can handle things while you’re gone."
The elevator slows to a stop at the lobby, and when the doors open this time, I’m greeted by the sight of a line of patrolmen waiting by the front entrance. Ready to gun down anyone who dares attempt a breach. Electric fear zings up my spine, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how vulnerable the community is. It’s a bull’s eye on the world map—everyone knows of it, including every piece of shit who would love to sabotage its mission.
I step out of the elevator, adjusting my tie as I approach the patrolmen. The rest of the lobby is empty, the droids ordered to stay out of sight of the new recruits. They look human enough at a distance, but they can’t hold up to much scrutiny.
There’s a gap in the patrolman line about my size, and I waltz through it toward the open doorway. Scents of early spring waft inside on the cool air, and I breathe them in, deep and slow.
Across the courtyard, the crowd has grown hushed. Waiting with bated breath for my appearance, for the same stale speech I give twice a year, every year. I run over the old words in my head. The old lies that used to be naïve intentions.
"One day I’ll take a break, Howard. A long, restful, much-needed break. One day. But not today."
5
Georgette
( 6 Months Ago )
I stop at an intersection that bears a bent sign labeled "Sigma Street." I peer behind me to make sure no one’s following and turn left, away from the designated route to the event. Four blocks down, I find my destination: an abandoned parking garage. There’s a striped blocking bar in my way, so I slip my car into park and hop out. The cold air raises goose bumps on my exposed arms.
Like my contact said, the bar isn’t locked in place. I lift it up with ease, return to my warm vehicle, and drive past it. But I make sure to put it down again before I find a parking spot. Can’t be too careful when there are scarecrow kids with knives running around.
I park in the darkest corner of the garage and strip. Down to my underwear. The bra is lacy. The undies are military issue.
The bra comes off. The undies stay.
No fancy lingerie today. This isn’t a dinner date.
There are two suitcases in my trunk. One’s an overnight with the supplies I’ll need at the hotel—not in Jackson City, thank God, but the town next door—and the other has my tools and work gear in it. I slip off my heels, hissing at the cold pavement against my toes, and out of the second bag comes a black ops uniform, complete with combat boots. I borrowed it from a friend.
Once I’m decked out in state-of-the-art sniper gear, I remove my camera bags and a lunchbox from the work suitcase. The plane food was shit. Go figure.
I shove the emptied suitcase in the trunk, lock the car, and I’m off.
Following my contact’s directions, I journey through a ghost neighborhood. Some kind of retail district. Empty jewelry stores and clothing outlets. Signs announcing sales that expired a decade ago. The ground is covered in litter and that special muck that made me fear for my shoes. I am happy to remain ignorant of the exact composition of the crap I’m stepping through.
Finally, I come to my vantage point, a six-story tenement building that towers over the rest of the structures in the neighborhood. I enter the alley next to it and find the fire escape as promised, with the ladder already down for me. Moment of truth. I wring my hands and take a breath, searching for that Zen place in my mind where it’s focus, focus, focus and nothing else. It’s hard to find this time around.
This isn’t a warzone in Iraq. Or mob territory in Russia. This definitely isn’t that Chinese freighter that was smuggling drugs into Argentina. The one that capsized in the storm of the century—yeah, sharing a lifeboat with the smugglers I was trying to bust. That was fun.
This isn’t any of those things. This isn’t hot shrapnel tearing fatty chunks out of my thighs or a meth lab blowing up in my face or a machine gun pointed at me from a gangster’s limousine. I’m not out to wreck something I’ve always known
as dark and nasty and unforgivable.
We’re talking a new kind of terror. The kind that wears the nice guy mask.
I climb the fire escape ladder and make my way up the steps. Rust clings to my boots, a sick orange stain. The stairs creak and threaten to break beneath my heavy treads, but they hold. For now.
On the fourth story, the smell of ash and smoke gives me pause. Through a broken window, I spy a burned studio apartment. Blackened from ceiling to floor. Several walls are missing. The damage is familiar. I saw it daily during the fall of Mexico City. A bomb.
I poke my head inside for a quick analysis. Judging from the mold growing on the floor, I’d say it went off a year or two ago.
Interesting. I found no reports about bombs in Jackson City during my initial research. Secrets, secrets, darling. Everyone has secrets.
I keep going. Up to the sixth-floor landing.
Props to my contact. It has the perfect view.
Seven blocks down, the Dead Divide gives way to a flourishing community. Bright and shiny buildings twenty plus stories high rise up from wide lawns of green grass and beautiful gardens. The entire area is sealed off with what, at first glance, appears to be an innocuous fence. A black iron fence with a whimsical swirling design. It’s the base for the strongest defense grid in the world.
And behind it, the tiny utopia in a sea of dead city filth? That is Arcadian Heights.
The premier and revered. The exclusive and fantastic. The place where the greatest minds on Earth gather to devote their entire lives to scientific progress.
What a crock.
On the street in front of the massive iron gates that open twice a year is a sizeable crowd. The huddled bystanders at the fringe are the remaining inhabitants of Jackson City. You can tell from the rags they wear. The haggard faces. The zombie eyes.
One half of the crowd contains the relatives of the new recruits. The other half is a quiet group of protestors holding signs, demanding transparency from the mysterious community that a thousand "gifted" kids have entered but never emerged from.
In the middle are the new recruits themselves. Surrounded by Heights patrolmen. The ones with guns that burn off limbs. The ones who wear super suits to make themselves faster, stronger, better. The ones who keep the uninvited out.
The gates of Arcadian Heights are open. Standing just inside is Mr. Q, the spokesman for the community. I recognize his shock of white hair. And the funny goatee. I see him twice a year, every year on the local news channel of whatever country I happen to be in at the time.
The press, forced to set up shop a hundred feet away from the action, is a mishmash of domestic and foreign reporters. It’s a heartfelt moment in every country—when a group of nerds devote their lives to science and math and "saving the world." Lock themselves behind that big iron fence forever. Never to be seen or heard from again.
Noble. Brilliant. Brave.
Foolish? Naïve? Stupid?
Are they all being tricked?
My contact says yes, and the evidence he has thus far provided supports his view. But I need hard proof, and hard proof is experience. So here I am at Arcadian Heights for Phase One of my investigation: observe and record from the outsider’s position.
The inside view comes later.
I remove my best camera from its bag and attach a long-range lens. As the camera warms up with a brief auto-diagnostic, I analyze the crowd to select my first target. The obvious choice is the community spokesman.
Q’s head is angled upward, as if he’s searching for something high in the sky. I position my camera in between two bars of the railing and check him out. The lens produces a close-up image of his face. He stares blank eyed at the low-hanging cloud cover rolling through the city.
The man is death warmed over, gaunt and pale. Dark circles line his lids. His clothes are wrinkled beyond salvation. They haven’t been ironed in weeks.
I snap a shot of him for later reference. In every recruitment broadcast I’ve seen, Q has appeared as a healthy, prim, and proper man of middle age. With his prematurely white hair and straight-as-a-board posture, he’s always had the air of a "posh" Brit. But today he’d fit in with the Jackson City poor. Is he ill?
Q eventually breaks his gaze, hushes the crowd with a single hand motion, and clears his throat so loud it must echo through the entire state. The same old, same old speech begins, but his voice lacks its usual luster. He stumbles over every third syllable, and a few times, he wobbles on his feet like he’s lost his balance. His subdued words contain the same hundred promises they have for more than twenty years. And every single one is as empty as Q’s deadened eyes.
Or so my contact says.
The community is an enigma that has pushed science forward a century in two decades. In every discipline. Beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.
Arcadian Heights represents the future of humanity.
I intend to burn it to the ground.
6
Quentin
( 5 Years Ago )
I call it the "last supper." I’m morbid that way. But it’s an accurate enough description.
After greeting the recruits as a group, I lead them to the temporary dormitories where they’ll be spending less than a night, nervous and excited for the orientation program that doesn’t exist. They have most of the day to unpack belongings that will be trashed by the end of the week, get acquainted with fake orientation class schedules, and get a taste of the spa and gym area I had cleaned and prepped two days ago for their arrival.
Droids have no use for facial scrubs and elliptical machines. And God knows I haven’t exercised since my MBA stint at Harvard. So dark it stays for most of the year like most things droids and I don’t need. It’s a hassle to get all that crap up and running again for less than twenty-four hours. I’d do away with the pretense if Howard would let me, but he lectured me again this morning about how the recruits deserve a few moments of rest and relaxation before the transfer.
So I head yet another table of bright young things with glorious visions of the future. Howard was right—this recruitment round has brought in major talents. Sachiko Nakamura, who started inventing clean energy tech when she was twelve. Vincent Star, who revolutionized gene therapy before he finished his undergrad years. Clarissa Salt, who built her first computer in elementary school. Brilliant kids.
It’s a pity they have to die.
I open dinner with a warm welcome and begin carving a freshly cooked turkey, handing slices out one plate at a time.
Star, scratching his stubbly chin, passes a plate to Nakamura and asks, "Mr. Q, when will we get to meet some of the other scientists? I noticed there hasn’t been anyone around since we entered the community."
I smile and nod. "Yes. It’s just a ritual. When we have your official welcoming ceremony tomorrow, everyone will greet you together as a group before you’re split into your respective departments for orientation."
"Ah, I see." He grabs a biscuit from a nearby basket. "I look forward to it. One of my old mentors is here. Green, you know?"
"Of course. Dr. Green is currently heading up one of our major genetics projects. I’m sure you’ll be working with him again soon, Dr. Star."
The children dig into their meals and chat amongst themselves. One of them throws a question my way every now and then, and I answer with the same dull lies I repeat every dinner. Yes, there is a pool. Yes, we purchase all the latest films for your enjoyment. No, skydiving is not an available leisure activity at the Heights. Try bowling instead.
I’m munching on a slice of pie when I hear the patrolmen coming. Their boots pad against the hallway tiles, and their shadows slink through the gap underneath the dining room doors, lining up in attack formation. I remember the first transfer. A bloody, awful battle. I made the mistake of trying to convince the recruits it was the best choice. I earned a broken collarbone for my efforts.
I wipe my mouth off with a napkin and rise from my seat. "I’ll be back momentarily, everyo
ne. I have an important business call to make."
Most of them ignore me and continue their discussions about mass bat die outs and gene splicing—God, science is a bore—but one of them stares at me curiously when I make for the door opposite the assault force entrance. Clarissa Salt. Frowning. Her eyes are narrow, rife with suspicion. As I slip through the door to safety, she glances at the same shadows I perceived moments ago.
Observant, that one. But too late.
The instant my escape door clicks shut, the patrolmen burst into the room. Children scream. Glasses shatter on the floor. Chairs overturn. Some try to run but are swiftly captured and sedated by the patrolmen. A few of them attempt to fight, using whatever they can find. I listen to silverware bounce off bulletproof chest armor and plates fragment as they’re swatted to the side by robot men who feel no pain or fear. But then, the kids don’t know that. To them, the community guards are flesh in powered suits.
I begin to march off through the darkened kitchen area, but something thumps against my escape door. I pause and wait. Another thump. Then the knob spins around and Clarissa Salt bolts into the kitchen, slamming the door shut in the helmet-covered face of an oncoming patrolman. Before I can react, she’s got me by the throat, dinner knife flush with my carotid artery.
The patrolman kicks the barrier out of its way, hinges splitting on impact, and the thick metal door crashes into the cooling stove in the corner. Beyond the now door-less threshold, the other patrolmen are carrying the unconscious recruits two at a time into the main hallway. The dining room is a wreck. Typical.
"What the fuck is going on?" Clarissa Salt’s rapid breaths are hot against my ear.
I blink at the patrolman in Morse code. Wait. The machine registers the order and pauses mid-step. I wet my bottom lip and say, "Only what’s necessary, Dr. Salt. I promise you that."
