by K A Riley
Brohn and I exchange a hearty high-five and get ready to climb up over the small hill to see how our three friends are faring with their guard.
But before we can take more than two steps, Cardyn, Rain, and Manthy appear at the top of the hill and start making their way down toward us. Cardyn has guard number two slung over his shoulder. Wincing with the effort, he leans forward and drops the unconscious man to the ground. The guard’s clothes are dirty and rumpled, and his face is a pulpy mess. He looks like he’s been dragged head-first through a rock quarry.
“Whew!” Card gasps, his hands on his knees as he struggles for breath. “He’s heavier than he looks.”
“What’d you do to him?” I ask.
“Oh,” Rain says sheepishly, holding up her bloody-knuckled fists. “Actually, that was me.”
“Just you?” Brohn asks. “Looks like this guy got marched over by an entire platoon.”
Rain shrugs. “I guess I had to vent some pent-up anger.”
“Looks like about seventeen years’ worth! I’m just glad you took it out on him and not on us.”
With Manthy’s help, we drag the two guards by their heels over to the small cluster of trees about a hundred yards or so from the checkpoint. We bind their hands, gag them, and try to tie them to a tree with the immobilizer cuffs they have on their belts. Even though we learned how to operate manacles like these as part of our training in the Processor, this kind is more sophisticated. At first, we can’t figure out how to make the electro-cuffs work, but after a moment I realize that they’re keyed to each guard’s fingerprints. It’s just a matter of pressing the guards’ fingertips to the sensors on the cuffs to release the yellow energy-band. The band sizzles to life, and we snap them around the guards’ wrists.
As soon as we’ve secured the two unconscious men, we march together back through the clearing, up the small hill, and over to the checkpoint.
With no guards left on duty and no working cameras or security protocols to worry about, we’re able to slip easily past the gateway and into the city of San Francisco.
Unlike the quiet woods of the Valta, the militaristic set-up of the Processor, the congested streets of Reno, or the slums we just left behind in Oakland, this place looks the way I always imagined a healthy city should look.
The houses lining the hilly streets are colorful and clean. The roads are actually well-maintained, rather than pitted and pock-marked. People are shopping and strolling around through small parks of lush green grass, like they’ve never heard there’s a war being fought outside the city’s perimeter. There are even kids around, scampering and laughing. It would all seem totally normal, that is, if you didn’t count the soldiers on patrol or the glistening turquoise-colored mag-jeeps they’re cruising around in.
Pleased with himself over his recent performance in helping to dispatch the two guards, Render is flying happily overhead. With our connection open, he sends me more images of the city. Every time we do this, the images get a little more vivid, a little more complete. It doesn’t even hurt or feel as disorienting as it used to. I feel like I have a live feed running straight to my brain now, rather than the interruption in all my other senses that used to occur. Using the various landmarks supplied by Tread back in the Oakland shantytown, we’re able to navigate the maze of steep side streets and meandering alleys.
We sneak from building to building, dodging patrolling soldiers as we go. There aren’t many of them, but they’re heavily armed. The people walking by don’t pay them much attention and just seem to keep their heads down and go on about their business.
“I’m not sure what’s going on here,” I say as we duck down a narrow alley.
“Maybe the residents are all prisoners,” Brohn suggests. “Locked in the city like they locked us in the Valta for all those years.”
Rain isn’t so sure. “Maybe these are all government people. Employees or something. Or maybe the families of the soldiers.”
“They don’t seem like family to me,” Cardyn points out. “Seems more like they’re scared of the soldiers but sort of in denial. They don’t look at them—have you noticed that? I wonder if we’re going to wind up liberating these people or fighting against them by the time this is all over.”
“Good question,” I say. “Scary. But good.”
“Listen,” Rain says, “whatever happens, I think we’d be smart to keep our heads down and stay off the main roads as much as possible. If Hiller’s people know we’re still alive, they’ll be on the lookout for us.”
“Even here?” Card asks. “Even after all these months?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past them,” I say as I lead the others along. “Caramella and Tread had heard about us. It wouldn’t surprise me if the enemy knows we’ve been making our way west.”
Scampering down another long, narrow alley with Render chirping and kraa-ing from his perch on an old black fire-escape, we arrive at the back of the building Tread described to us. The enclosed area behind the building is small and cramped. It’s also a dead-end, which means there’s nowhere to go from here, except down a concrete stairway leading below ground level to a steel door. Three black incinerator bins, overflowing with garbage, are pressed up against a tall metal fence with coils of flickering blue laser-wire running along the top. A gutted mag-van sits in a clunky heap on an inactive hover pad. Even though it’s still daytime, the sun struggles to make its way past the ring of tall buildings surrounding the small courtyard.
“This has got to be the place,” I say.
Brohn cranes his neck to look up at the tall gray buildings around us and then back to the squat, four-story building we’re preparing to enter. “I hope Tread’s intel is as good as he says.”
“We’re about to find out.”
“If things go wrong or if we get separated—,” I start to say, but Rain cuts me off.
“Don’t worry, Kress. Nothing bad’ll happen.”
“I agree. But just in case, let’s arrange to meet right here. It’s quiet and far enough from the main road that it seems pretty safe.”
Everyone agrees, though no one wants to talk about the possibility of losing one another.
Single file, we walk down the concrete stairs to the metal door below. I try the door first, but it doesn’t budge.
“Try the input panel,” Cardyn suggests.
I take his advice and press my palm to the panel next to the door, but nothing happens.
“Feel like venting any more pent-up rage?” Card says jokingly to Rain.
“Sorry,” she says. “my knuckles are still a little too raw right now. Brohn?”
“I can try.”
Brohn runs his hand along the edge of the door. “Feels pretty strong,” he says. He smashes his shoulder against it. The door shudders for a second, and a deep impression appears where Brohn hit it. Other than that, though, it stays firmly in place. “No way. It’s solid.”
“I bet Turk could’ve knocked it down with one finger,” Card boasts. We all nod in agreement, offering a silent salute to our long-gone giant friend.
“I can’t imagine Tread would get us this far and wouldn’t tell us how to get in,” Rain complains.
“Maybe he did,” I suggest.
“What do you mean?”
“He said we’d find the key once we got here.”
Card looks around for a second. “I don’t see any key. Maybe it’s hidden somewhere?”
“Or maybe it’s not hidden at all.”
We all look at Manthy at the same time. She frowns at us. “Oh, come on now!”
“We need you, Manthy.”
“I didn’t ask to be able to do this.”
“Render didn’t ask to be able to fly, but he can, so he does.”
“I hate all of you so much.”
I put my hands on her shoulders and look her in the eyes. “And we’ll always love you, too.”
Manthy sighs and steps forward as we part way for her. She presses her cheek to the input panel
like she’s listening to it talk to her. Which, strangely enough, is what seems to be happening. She presses her hand to the wall by the door. Her fingers tremble, and she starts to sink to the ground. In a flash, Cardyn locks his arms under hers and catches her before she falls. He eases her down onto the bottom step.
“It hurts,” she says. She’s shaking now and starting to cry. Cardyn puts his arm around her, and she leans her head against his shoulder for a second before sitting back up and trying her best to stand. “No. I’m okay.”
“But Manthy—”
“I said I’m fine.” She’s trying to sound harsh, but her voice is weak from the effort. “Anyway,” she says with a nod toward the door, “it’s open.”
We look over and, just as she said, the red light on the panel indicator has clicked off, and the door has swung open a few inches.
With Manthy shaking off her dizziness, we ease our way inside. I lead the way with the others following close behind.
The building’s basement is old and musty, and reeks of mold and decay. The stone walls of the long gray hallway are cracked and crumbling. Long conduits run overhead, and Brohn has to duck his head as we walk. All of a sudden, I’m having flashbacks to the Valta and the Processor, two places where we lived in what amounted to underground bunkers. I can see why Render gets so much joy out of living large parts of his life in the sky.
At the end of the hallway, we come to another door.
Brohn takes the lead. He pushes on the door, which doesn’t budge at first, so he leans in harder with his shoulder.
“Must be rusted shut,” Rain says.
Brohn steps back and examines the area around the door. “I think you’re probably right.”
Manthy has taken a very large step back.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “No tech on this one.”
“Great,” she says with a pouty scowl. “My life is getting better by the minute.”
Insisting he can take the door down, Brohn takes a step back and charges forward, slamming his shoulder against the big slab of wood. There’s a loud crack, which I think must be the sound of Brohn’s bones breaking, but to my relief, he seems fine. The door, on the other hand, has splintered around its handle and a puff of black dust explodes upward from around the frame. Brohn gives the door another push, and this time it creaks open like it’s in pain.
“That was…impressive,” I tell him with a wink.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I’ve got to admit I’m even impressed with myself. I wasn’t sure I had it in me.”
“I’m beginning to suspect you have a lot more in you than you ever knew.”
When Brohn shoves the door the rest of the way open, we can see a set of concrete stairs leading up.
“This better not be a trap,” Rain says.
“If it is,” Cardyn says, his voice echoing in the gloomy stairwell, “whoever’s at the other end of it better hope they don’t get you mad.”
Rain laughs. She seems to be enjoying her new role as the enforcer of our Conspiracy. She’s always been known among us as the resident brainiac, but now that she’s got a healthy dose of brawn to go with it, she’s turning into a perfect, pint-sized fighting package.
After a quick jog, we get to the top of the stairs and find another door, this one unlocked. It opens into a large, empty room with broken chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and a couple more smashed to pieces, covered in dust and cobwebs on the floor. On the far side of the room is an office of some kind behind a wall of glass. The ceiling in the space is high, with old, exposed girders running its length. It looks like we might be in a lobby of some kind.
“I think it must’ve been a hotel,” Rain says.
“Maybe an office building?” I suggest.
“Whatever it was, it isn’t that anymore,” Cardyn says. “This place would need CPR just to get back to comatose.”
Card’s right. Some places we’ve seen seem to be clinging to something they once were. This place isn’t even clinging to life. With layers of grime covering the walls and heaps of trash decaying in random piles all over the floor, it’s given up on whatever it used to be.
We tread as quietly as we can into the dreary, open space.
Cardyn pinches his nose. “Smells like Death took a dump in here.”
Manthy shakes her head at him. “Nice.”
A wooden staircase with some of the steps missing, the rest looking like a series of mold-covered shards, rises up before us.
Just as Brohn starts moving toward the stairs, Manthy clamps her hands to her ears and lets out a choked shriek, sagging to a seat on the floor.
“Manthy!” Cardyn cries out. “What’s wrong?”
When she doesn’t answer, we all rush to her side.
“It hurts!”
“Let’s go back.”
“No. We need to keep going,” she says, pulling herself to her feet. “Tread said we’d find answers here.”
We try to press forward, climbing gingerly up the rotted steps, but Manthy gasps and drops to her knees again.
“Up there…,” she says, pointing up to the second-floor landing. “It’s coming from up there.”
“What is?”
She shakes her head. “The pain.”
I suggest that Rain and I go up ahead and leave Brohn and Cardyn to take care of her, but she snaps at me not to do that.
“I can manage,” she growls. “Please, just let me.”
I don’t argue, but I have my doubts. Her voice is as shaky as her legs. If we run into trouble, I can’t imagine she’ll be much help at the moment.
But somehow, we manage to climb the rest of the way up the fractured staircase. We have to hold onto the gold railing hanging limply from the wall as we navigate around the big cracks and holes to avoid crashing through.
At the top, we step into a second-floor hallway with a series of doors on either side.
The first door on our left is white and bigger than the rest, so we take a chance and try the handle, which turns easily.
The door swings gently open, and we step into the room only to be greeted by a hellish scene.
23
The main room is large, with several other open rooms branching off on either side. Dingy, peeling red wallpaper and water stains cover white walls.
My eyes land on a woman lying against the far wall. What looks like artificial skin on her legs has been torn away, exposing frayed wiring and corroded gears. Her face is contorted in a grimace of permanent agony. Except for her slowly-blinking and unfocused eyes, she seems lifeless as a partially-assembled mannequin. I have to look twice just to be sure she’s a real person and not a heap of discarded prosthetics.
Another woman sits slumped in a hovering mag-chair. Bundles of cables and thin, twisted shafts of metal snake out of her torso where her arms and legs should be. A man with large square panels missing from his skull lies motionless in a plush leather chair in the corner. Along the far wall and behind a thin white curtain, seven more people lie mostly motionless on old-style military cots. Coils of red, green, and silver wires connect them to a bank of clicking monitors lining the wall above them.
I gasp at the sight. Somehow, we’ve wandered into a room full of tortured souls and cyborgs gone horribly wrong, and all I want is to get away as fast as possible.
A voice from behind us startles us all into a simultaneous group-jump.
“I’m Caldwell,” the unusually short man in a white lab coat tells us, extending his stubby open hand to each of us in turn. We’re too stunned to shake it, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “Tread’s an old friend,” he says through a welcoming smile as he taps a small comm-link tucked just behind his ear. “He told me to expect you.”
Finally, Brohn steps forward and extends his hand. “Brohn.”
Beaming brightly, Caldwell gives Brohn’s hand a vigorous shake. “Good to know you.”
“I’m Kress,” I say before being greeted with the same wide smile and strong handshake.
Rain and Cardyn introduce themselves as well, but Manthy stands quietly behind me with her head down.
“Is she okay?”
“That’s Manthy,” I say apologetically. “And no. But she will be. She’s having a bit of a…headache.”
“Who are they?” Manthy whispers over my shoulder. “What’s happened here?”
“These are the Modifieds,” Caldwell explains. “I’m their caretaker. Part nurse. Part mechanic. There used to be more of us. But as you can see, it’s not a job anyone would want to do for long.”
“We’ve heard about the Modifieds,” Rain says. “We didn’t know for sure if they were real.”
“Unfortunately, a lot of them probably wish they weren’t.”
“That’s terrible.”
Caldwell looks up at us and shrugs. “They wanted a better life. They wanted immortality. Instead they got the frailty of a compromised immune system, the glitchiness of a computer, and the inflexibility of a machine. Basically, the worst of three different worlds. Turns out the dream of binary and genetic compatibility was more of a nightmare.”
Caldwell walks us around the room and introduces us to his patients, if I can even call them that. Many of them are lying on the army cots with no sheets or blankets. Some sit up and greet us as we pass, but their voices are breathy and weak.
“This is Marcelo and Retta,” Caldwell tells us as we pass by two of the Modifieds who are sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “After Marcelo’s procedure, he tried to ‘fix’ his brain with a hammer and a digi-driver. Retta here, who’s his wife, by the way, was a gunnery-sergeant in President Krug’s Patriot Army. She signed on for military-grade vision, complete with audio-enhancers and night and distance vision. Now she’s blind and deaf. We do everything we can for them, but supplies and personnel are limited, and we’re always in danger of getting raided if we stick our heads out too far.”
