Working within the free zone, as the Dyscards called it, was a group of Dyscards that was considered criminal by the Conglomerates and held in the highest regard by the Dyscards. This group possessed a formidable physical presence, and as in any society, this was a characteristic that people admired and feared. While the Conglomerates would consider them thugs, the Dyscards thought of them as justice.
These protectors, known as the Border Patrol, were made up of those who had been among the first to fall victim to the discard option of the Family Relief Act. They had been among the first group of young people who had been “selected” to be sent away, or in effect deleted from the family unit. They hadn’t done anything to threaten their parents, or teachers, or the community. It was their differences that had determined their selection. Some were felt to be too big to control and too opinionated to be that big. That begot the Border Patrol.
As outsize physicality and power always had the potential for abuse, all who shared these muscular attributes had been encouraged to work in the Border Patrol and funnel their rage and brawn toward those who might threaten the Dyscard community or trespass against it. The Border Patrol had made a commitment to protect all in the Dyscard world; they were enlisted in the defense of the night. As a shadow moves unnoticed in and out of the darkness, the Border Patrol penetrated the spaces in between.
They sometimes extended justice without question, which was usually not questioned by the rest of the Dyscards either. Most times there wasn’t anyone left to ask questions. The network of the night belonged under their jurisdiction. They could feel the intentions of intruders, by instinct. They saw themselves as white blood cells attacking a virus for the health of the underground nation. They operated with impunity. Their method of defense was quick, quiet, and clean. The Conglomerates didn’t respond to the Border Patrol’s justice, as a trespasser was in violation of the unwritten law against congress with those whom society had discarded.
The idea of Dyscards was born in a state of panic in an age of disposability. The Conglomerate culture was self-centered; there was no room for the mention of Dyscards within the Conglomerates’ marketing campaign espousing contentment within the Conglomerate nuclear family structure. Hence, there was no official recognition of the existence of the Dyscards.
Still, the number of Dyscards was alarming. The reproductive management program, launched at the New York Medical Center, was lauded as the paradigm of genetic engineering and personal responsibility. The Conglomerate populations believed with sincere conviction that those who participated in the genetic engineering program were using their roles as parents to control, improve, and hopefully eliminate the weak and self-destructive personality traits that had caused problems in the past.
The reduction in the number of children resulted in a reduced demand on resources. Wouldn’t everyone benefit? Or so was the Conglomerates’ marketing theme. Mistakes happened when the unknown was involved, and those mistakes could be eliminated. While the unknown might have been all right in mathematics, in genetics the unknown often resulted in something one had to live with, which might be unpleasant, or worse. Hence the Conglomerates’ administered discard option. Also, there was no formal or informal acknowledgment that the new genetic engineering system could ever produce a problem. Consequently, there was no formal or informal acknowledgment of the Dyscards.
For making public—on the Web, in the media, or among friends—any genetic faults, such as behavioral or physical problems—everything from autism to addiction—the penalties were social as well as legal. Peer pressure on parenting was such that the disclosure of a problem child was tantamount to an admission of parental failure. The Conglomerates would contend that the problem was in the family or the environment and not at the med center or in the government’s interaction in people’s lives. The legal ramifications of disclosure of a problem allegedly caused by the Conglomerates were economic, and charged against your compensation account. In addition, the reporting couple forfeited any right to participate in any state-run prenatal program in the future.
A family could be eligible for the discard option for an offspring that was diagnosed to be a problem child. The criteria for diagnosis could change according to the amount the family was willing to charge against their account and their future income. All professional and personal accounts were controlled by the Federal Reserve bank’s department of digital management. After payment was completed, the official family record was wiped clean of the problem child and the couple’s eligibility to become parents was reinstated. For an additional fee, the couple could be referred to a state-run genetic development center, with New York Medical being the best. As for the bad kids, it wasn’t as if they would be missed. Parents had been convinced that a problem child would be brought to a better place that was more suited to his or her personality.
The presence of the Dyscards was categorically denied. After all, some of the Dyscards might be considered proof that the Conglomerate technological intervention had gone wrong. Not all children were born through manipulated means, to be sure—only parents who could afford that option were allowed to participate—but any family could have a troubled teen. There was no immunity to that. Not everything worked out as planned. The Conglomerates didn’t want to be reminded of that.
What about the neighbors? They chose not to ask, if they even noticed that a child had disappeared. While people loved to gossip, no one wanted to turn anyone’s attention on themselves, their children, or their own homes.
THERE WERE TWO young people who had been among the first to arrive in the underworld and who had eventually begun to try to get things there organized. They were precocious kids, among other discard optional criteria, and they called themselves At No, for atomic number, with brave hopes to hold the center, and Descartes de Kant, a wish for a wise and philosophical perspective that ran the gambit. They soon went by A and Dee, and together they had implemented a social structure and given strength and a unified will to this band of irregulars joined by need, trust, and a belief in the unthinkable. Together, A and Dee set about organizing and socializing the forsaken, unifying the isolated. As with the Border Patrol, soon no one argued with them. This provided order, wisdom.
At first the Dyscards had laid claim to abandoned subway stations, tunnels, and lengths of inactive track. But as the population grew, so too did the demands for space, yet they had established an immigration policy that accepted anyone that the state rejected. A and Dee sent some of the best members of the Border Patrol to the more recent communities established in Detroit’s abandoned auto plants and overgrown industrial parks, in the houseboats that lined the river walk in San Antonio, Texas, in downtown Seattle. They were determined to organize the Dyscards into a power that was greater than the Conglomerates’ plans.
After a couple of years of the discard option, and as the revenue streams grew—money flowing to the Conglomerates from the personal accounts of families involved in genetic manipulation—the subterranean population also grew. Space became the Dyscard nation’s greatest problem. The territory was in flux; the community was a commuting culture of tunnel nomads. They took whatever transportation they could steal, though Dee preferred to call it appropriation. While there were Dyscard hubs around New York City, buried beneath the subway intersections at Grand Central, Columbus Circle, and Union Square, as the population grew, the Dyscards were forced to establish outposts aboveground, stretching from Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to Far Rockaway in Queens, with a beachhead on the sands of Coney Island. And so, the Dyscards moved from place to place. It seemed that in no time there was no room and the Dyscards were forced to annex the night. They moved onto the old piers along the boat basin on Seventy-ninth Street up to the old pollution control plant on One Hundred Thirty-fifth. They had to relieve the pressure pent up from a day in the crowded underground, staying out of sight and off of the streets in daylight. Whenever the sun went down, the kids came out wherever they could. This was mostly on piers an
d in parks. And if while the kids were out and about something of value should present itself, they were to consider it an opportunity for all and to remember that, as Dee said, “the hunting and gathering instinct is genetic.” This provided quick results for food, medicine, and equipment and inspired Dee’s theory of appropriation, the application of which was that if the group had a need and the solution to that need should be close at hand, the relation of the solution to the hand was a gift and should be accepted accordingly.
The Dyscards who had been badly beaten, or who were among the seriously defective, were moved beneath the Triborough Bridge to Ward’s Island Park. As Dee said, “It seems kind of fitting, an island with a name like that.” Ward’s Island became a place that would house the wards of this alternative state. The Border Patrol guarded the footbridge to the island from Manhattan. It was an easier location from which to protect and defend those Dyscards who were most vulnerable. Ward’s Island Park was next to the state hospital and was connected to Randall’s Island. That proximity to the hospital, field, stadium, and pool provided the Dyscards with space for services and supplies. The field became the staging area.
The seat of the Dyscard government, such as it was, was wherever A and Dee sat down. As Dee said, “What good is a government if it can’t pack up and run?” But A and Dee wanted to stay close to the enemy and were determined to base their counterculture within Manhattan and near the Conglomerate home.
ABOVE AND AROUND the Dyscards, the Conglomerate city had grown in one long urban sprawl along the East Coast. Even though the whole world was encased within a wireless web of access and connectability, the majority of the citizens of the world insisted on living on top of one another. That was pretty much how it was from Boston to Atlanta, one long line of multiple housing, a super-urban stretch dense with people.
As the edges of the Dyscard nation expanded and the Conglomerate nation contracted around them, the Border Patrols were forced to go farther afield in defense of the Dyscard populace, and this brought them closer to the day-to-day life of the city. And so the interaction between peoples grew in frequency and tension.
THE SOUND OF the tent door flapping woke Gabriel up, coming into his sleep as the image of a gold-fringed flag slapping in the wind. The design of the flag wasn’t clear but the sharp smack accompanied by the heavy scent of the air made the dream feel even more realistic. Gabriel opened his eyes, expecting to see that flag, and instead saw the spires of the Triborough Bridge.
Even though he had been on Ward’s Island for what felt like a lifetime, he still woke up with a start, not sure where he was. Today he felt as if he should be in a military camp, and then he remembered that in fact he was. The bridge looked like a Roman aqueduct joining Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx.
Gabriel got up, walked to the flapping tent door, and tied it back. It was still dark and the air was thick with fog. The ground beneath his feet was wet.
The camp was still asleep, but that wouldn’t last long. Soon the newcomers who needed medical attention would be coming across the footbridge from Manhattan. Some would come unescorted while others would come on stretchers. All would pass through the Border Patrol. As the Conglomerates needed more revenue, more and more Dyscards were arriving daily. Almost all of the newcomers needed help.
When Gabriel had made that first crossing, they had had to clear the way for his arrival. He still thought of it whenever he saw the footbridge from Manhattan. Gabriel’s reputation had preceded him; word that a Conglomerate from inside the New York Medical Center had been dropped among them had produced a fear that had spread like contagion. The Conglomerates hadn’t disposed of one of their own in this way before. Would there be a flood of Conglomerates coming? Was he sick, or worse?
And when this was followed by the news that he was from Genetic Development, the panic had peaked. Some Dyscards wanted this enemy thrown back to the Conglomerates, while others said why bother, just dispose of him. Others pointed out that he was a Dyscard too. After what Cruz had told them, A hadn’t known what to do with Gabriel. Dee had suggested that Cruz be moved to Ward’s Island: this would remove him from the general population and control him as a subject at the same time. A had agreed and it had been done, which was usually how things worked in the Dyscard nation. Gabriel had been transported from the underground to Ward’s Island in restraints to reassure the Dyscard populace, and he had to still have been feeling the effects of the Thorazine administered when he was attacked at the med center, because the journey to Ward’s Island didn’t hurt, or scare him, as much as it should have. He remembered being passed from guard to guard with a snarling crowd just out of range. When Gabriel got to the bridge, he had been more impressed by the New York City skyline in the soft morning light than he had been concerned about what might lie ahead for him.
He had been brought to a tent; two prime Border Patrols had been posted outside. He had been left alone. He’d heard muffled voices from beyond the tent, and it had been hard to make out any words through the January wind, but the cadence and tone had sounded familiar. The tent door had finally separated and A and Dee had entered the space.
“Welcome to Ward’s Island,” A said, “and to our primary health-care facility.”
“Your new home. For now,” Dee added.
“Thank you,” Gabriel said. He wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not.
“You pose a dilemma for us,” A said right away. “While you are, or may be, one of us now, your origin as a Conglomerate is too close to the source of our problems for the comfort of some. To be honest with you, there is even greater concern that you are, or were, a Conglomerate employee at the New York Medical Center, the department of genetic development. It has many on edge.”
Gabriel told them of his work, from the inside, against the system. He didn’t think they believed him.
“I didn’t just go along with the people who abducted me either,” Gabriel reminded them.
“Another thing in your favor,” Dee agreed.
A continued, “It has been decided that you will be given an undetermined probation period during which you will be housed here on Ward’s Island, where you will be assigned to the community service area. You will be expected to assist and help in the medical emergency unit. Your movements will be monitored. Your cooperation is advised.” Gabriel was about to point out that his cooperation would be impaired by his confinement on Ward’s Island, when two guards entered the tent. They approached Gabriel and started to undo the restraints he had been in since he had regained consciousness. It seemed to hurt more as the blood rushed back into his arms and hands than it had when he had first been confined. Gabriel shook himself and stood up; a security guard pushed him back into the chair.
At this point there were plenty of things that Gabriel wanted to ask; just what kind of justice was this? Hadn’t they said monitor his movements, not forbid them? Wasn’t he really on their side? Hadn’t he convinced them of his sympathies, with the risk he had taken and the price he had paid for his actions at the med center? He thought of Christine and winced.
“Thank you,” Gabriel said again, while he rubbed his wrists. This time there was no hint of sarcasm in his tone.
“You’ll start performing community service immediately,” Dee said. Then A and Dee walked out of the tent, the guards following behind.
And so Gabriel had begun. He had barely been able to drag his bruised body around, but he hadn’t thought that calling in sick on his first day was an option. He couldn’t imagine that he would come across people who would be in as bad a shape as he was.
A lone Border Patrol guard led Gabriel to a tent that looked very much like the underground emergency facilities back in the subways. Inside, the tent was divided into two sections. In the first there were sleeping bags on top of cots, from one wall to the other, arranged to allow for narrow aisles. At various points chrome poles held clear bags connected to IV tubes. As Gabriel scanned the space, he saw one attendant sitting on a stool tendin
g to a patient. There was an antiseptic smell in the air, punctuated by the groans and moans of those too sick to care how they sounded. Gabriel flinched as a guard grabbed him by the shoulder and pointed to the woman. She was younger than Gabriel, and she was hunched over the cot.
“How can I help you?” Gabriel asked her.
“Get me six trained people and come back immediately,” the woman said, never looking up from her patient. “More if you find ’em.”
Gabriel looked confused; but the woman was too busy to notice.
“Don’t worry,” the woman said, and she looked up at Gabriel. “They told me who you are and where you come from, and you may be better trained than most to help us out here. Still, we need help. Although, working in a lab is no training for this place.”
As she turned her attention back to her patient, she said, “Until such time that you can do things on your own—which I hope will be soon—I will not hesitate to hand you back over to the guards, should you give me the slightest provocation. There are those here who would be happy to see you gone, or worse. Go wash your hands and put on some gloves.” She pointed to a portable hot water heater and sink. This was the first chance Gabriel had to get at soap and water, and he used some paper towels to dry off. The woman was peeling back the edge of a sleeping bag.
The Age of the Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future Page 8
