by Sam A. Patel
“Do you even hear what you’re suggesting?” asks Red Tail. “Didn’t I tell you that Blackburn is the one corporation you don’t want to mess with?”
“You did, but it’s not like I had any choice in the matter. It was Arcadian who sent me to TerraAqua and got me loaded up with this.” I hold out my arm and raise my sleeve. “Whatever I’m carrying in my wing, it’s big enough to take down the entire Complex. That’s my leverage. They won’t do anything to Dexter as long as this cargo remains unsecured.”
“Listen to me, Carrion. It’s an impossible situation.”
“It’s difficult,” Snake interjects, “but I don’t believe any situation is impossible.”
Now Red Tail is the one who’s surprised. “You’re saying that you want to step into their trap?”
But Snake’s exterior is cool as ever. “I’m saying that sometimes the best way to outmaneuver a trap is just to spring it. There’s room to work here.”
“But those aren’t our orders,” says Red Tail, after which she and Snake exchange a private look.
“What orders?” I ask.
Red Tail waits for Snake to answer.
This is the second time Red Tail has clammed up on me. “If one of you doesn’t tell me right now, I walk away from both of you.”
The flexing tendons in Snake’s neck animate the giant spider web tattooed across the surface. “You know us as Arcadian Aves. The truth is we’re more than that.”
“I know. You’re Morlock too. She already told me.”
“That’s true. But that’s not what I’m talking about. The two of us,” he says pointing between himself and Red Tail, “we’re Outliers as well.”
“You’re—That means you’re the one—” I look down at my arm and think of the bloated little cortex chip floating around inside. “This is meant for you?”
He nods.
Red Tail continues. “We have orders to bring you to the handoff point to extract the cargo.” She turns to Snake as if to remind him. “That’s priority number one. No exceptions.”
“Orders from whom?” I ask.
“Janus,” she replies. “He’s the captain of our unit. He’s the one that cargo is meant for.”
I clutch my hair in my hands in a way that immediately reminds me of Martin. “I don’t get it. If you’re an Outlier then why am I the one carrying this?”
“Security,” she answers. “You’re carrying it precisely because you’re not an Outlier.”
“Do you at least know what it is?”
Both shake their heads. “That’s the truth,” says Snake.
“Wonderful.”
“We’re wasting time,” says Red Tail. “Whatever it is, we have to get it to the rendezvous.”
I’m about to protest when Snake beats me to the punch. “No, we have to rescue Dexter first. The Carrion’s right, you don’t leave your people behind.”
I must have gotten to him with that sentiment. If I had to guess, I’d say that Snake is ex-military.
“He’s not one of our people,” she says.
“Isn’t he?” replies Snake. “He’s a data runner who climbed out of the squatter settlements. That should sound more than a little familiar.”
Red Tail grows solemn. Like she’s ashamed she ever questioned it.
“We’re all on the same side here,” says Snake.
Snake, Red Tail, and I exchange nods. We’re all in agreement. We get Dexter first.
21
According to Snake’s intel, Dexter is being held deep inside Blackburn’s urban combat training zone, otherwise known as Red Hook.
Red Hook is the peninsula that sits across the Upper Tri-Insula Bay, way over on the other side of the Free City. Surrounded by docks, it now consists mostly of abandoned warehouses and torn-out tenements—what you might call the standing remains of severe urban decay. Back in the Old-50, Red Hook had already turned into a crime-ridden neighborhood. As soon as the North American Alliance was formed, the whole thing was seized and turned over to Blackburn. Just like that. Anyone still living there was handed a settlement check and ordered to vacate. Shortly thereafter, Blackburn sealed off the entire peninsula from the rest of Independent Long Island and established it as a training ground for exercises in asymmetrical urban warfare. Now the entire area has no official locality—none of the training zones do—it’s all sovereign territory of the North American Alliance, leased to and operated by Blackburn, Ltd. This one is known as Blackburn Facility 117, or just BF-117. That’s officially. Unofficially, even the soldiers and personnel within Blackburn still call it Red Hook.
In just a few short hours I begin to get a handle on Snake, who in many ways reminds me of Mr. Chupick. The only difference is, unlike Mr. Chupick whose specialty is putting things up, Snake’s is taking them down. But like Mr. Chupick, Snake never needs to rattle off his credentials because his experience is evident in the stuff he knows. Not just the technical details necessarily but his entire knowledge base. Case in point: since this operation is unlike anything we’ve done before, Red Tail and I both assume that everything we know about running data is automatically out the window. But Snake disabuses us of this notion at once. “It only looks that way on the surface,” he says, “but the strategy is still the same. Apart from the fact that our cargo is an actual person, and our pursuers an entire army, this is just like any other run. Our fundamental aim is to avoid getting drawn into a fight. The ammo will be stronger, and the stakes will be higher, but the three Es still apply.”
The three Es. Evade, Elude, Escape. Red Tail and I know them well, but somehow hearing them again helps. Thinking of the operation as just another data run on the sneakernet makes us both feel better about it, which I’m guessing was Snake’s intent. Afterwards, it is Red Tail herself who is the most optimistic about rescuing Dexter. “Don’t worry,” she says as we get into our tactical jumpsuits, “we’ll get him out.”
The plan itself is daring. There is zero room for error, but we knew that would be the case with any plan we came up with. At least we have a plan. I have no idea what I would do without their help, especially when Snake reminds us of one very important thing just before we move out. “Remember, Red Hook is sovereign territory of the Alliance.”
Red Tail and I both nod like we understand, but actually we don’t.
“That means that none of the weapons ordinances of the Free City, Independent Long Island, or the Northeast district will apply inside Blackburn’s fences.”
Now we understand.
“They will have plasma cutters and helio rifles, and they will be able to fire them at us.”
“Great,” I say.
Red Tail hands me a black nylon kit bag and slings another over her shoulder. “We wouldn’t want to make it too easy.”
Snake meanders the SUV into the Battery Tunnel that will deposit him just north of BF-117. Red Tail and I sit in the back. We won’t be in the vehicle when it emerges on the other side of the bay. We’ll be dropped off halfway through, where a service tunnel will lead us into the maze of steam pipes and sewers that we can navigate all the way to where Dexter is being held. But first we have to get dropped off, and this happens before I even know it. Snake slams the brakes without warning. “Go!”
I throw open the door and jump out. Red Tail hops out behind me. The instant she’s clear I throw it closed and Snake peels out down the tunnel. Red Tail is already working the service door as the din of approaching cars grows behind us.
“Red.”
“I know.”
“If we get seen going in—”
“I know, I know.”
The lock pops off the door and I catch it before it can roll into the road. She pulls open the door just as the next set of headlights comes around the bend. We shove through and close it behind us.
“So you and Snake are pretty tight.”
The tunnels en route to the training zone are dark and dank, so chatting is my way of keep
ing things light and airy. My detail is to navigate our passage using the map on my dimly lit thin screen, but for now that’s at least 3 klicks of straight tunnel. Red Tail remains focused on the passage ahead, checking every inch with her torch as we move through it, but she is more than capable of doing both at the same time.
“I don’t know where I’d be without him,” she says as her light swings arcs around the passage like she’s done this before. She knows exactly what she is looking for. “One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“Why is that?”
“Prospective Aves usually don’t get approached until they’re eighteen. The recruiters start watching them around sixteen or seventeen, but it takes a while to narrow it down to the one or two most fit to survive the sneakernet.”
She’s looking for sensors. Looking for cameras. Looking for anything that might trip an alarm at the facility and let them know we’re coming.
“They signed you at seventeen because you were an exception,” she adds. “I was an even bigger exception.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
Fifteen? At fifteen I hadn’t even discovered parkour yet. “How is that even possible?”
Red Tail pauses to study some pipes, but I know she’s really debating whether or not to tell me the story. I can see them too, they’re just pipes. “Back when I was living in the settlements, I used to come into the Free City to pick pockets.”
“You were a thief?”
She turns the light so it blasts me in the face. “I was a liberator of disposable wealth.”
“My mistake,” I say behind a shielding hand. She turns the light back to the tunnel.
“One day I happened to pull a bump-and-grab on Cyril, and he caught me red handed.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran.”
“And he chased you?”
“He had to. I still had his wallet.”
“Hold on a second. You try and pick Cyril’s pocket. He catches you. Instead of dropping the wallet and making a clean getaway, you take off with it still in your hands?”
“Times were tough.”
“What happened next?”
“What happened next was I found out Cyril’s got a lot more under the hood than he lets on. He didn’t think twice about leaping off the platform and chasing me into the tunnel. He chased me all the way to the next stop. The only advantage I had was size. If you think I’m small now, you should have seen me back then. So when the next train came, I dove into the crotch between the platform and the track and waited for it to stop, then rolled to the other side and climbed up between the cars. So when the train pulled out, I was on board.”
“So you got away.”
“No. Cyril knew exactly what I was up to. He boarded the train two cars up and stayed out of sight to make me think he was still back on the platform. When I got off at the next stop, he grabbed me before my foot even touched the platform. His hands and face were covered in grime, his clothes were ruined, and his hat must have gotten lost in the chase because he no longer had it. I thought he was going to drag me straight to the transit police, but you know what he said to me instead?”
I am all ears.
“He said ‘you know what your mistake was, kid? You never should have gotten on that train. Next time stick to the tunnels, you’ll live longer.’”
That sounded oddly familiar.
“When Cyril found out I was living in the squatter settlements, he knew he had to recruit me on the spot or risk losing me forever. Out here you can watch people for a few years before bringing them in, but you can’t track anyone in the settlements. So he took me in right then and there. A few days later I got branded.”
“On your calf.”
“That’s right.”
“Because your forearm was too small to hold the cortex chip?” I guess.
This seems to impress her. “Who are you, Sherlock Holmes?”
Sure, why not. “I guess that would make you Dr. Watson.”
“Irene Adler,” she replies with a cleverness I can hardly refute. Irene Adler was the woman who famously outwitted the world’s greatest sleuth in A Scandal in Bohemia.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Red Tail continues. “The money was great. I was able to get my entire family out of the settlements and into a low-rent suburb. Actually we were all set to come out to Brentwood, but at the last minute we found a better deal somewhere else.”
The thought of Red Tail at Brentwood… she would have been a great lab partner, a great Dragon. The very idea twists my stomach into a strange knot. Not like the hunger pangs that come from chip—this one is better.
“Because I was so young, Cyril always teamed me up with other people.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, as you can imagine, most of them weren’t too thrilled about having a fledgling tagging along behind them. On more than one occasion they told me to wait somewhere while they went ahead to check things out and then never came back for me. The only person who made a genuine effort to look out for me was Snake. He was the one who took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. He taught me all the dos and don’ts. Things I never could have learned on my own, like how to read a crowd. But most importantly, he taught me to trust the little hairs on the back of my neck. Now we look out for each other.”
Red Tail’s light flashes upon the tail of a rat running away from us further down the tunnel.
“You have to give me the schematics for that thing.”
“I’ll build one for you. How did you two end up in the Outliers?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “I grew up in the settlements, Snake’s a dissident. How does anyone end up in the Outliers?”
Once again she gives me the passive response, answering without really answering, only this time it isn’t going to fly. “Come on, Red. I’m the one carrying your cargo. The least you can do is tell me who I’m carrying it for.”
She sighs. “Do you even know who the Outliers are? I mean, beyond whatever you may have heard on the news streams?”
It’s not until that moment that I realize I don’t. I really don’t know anything about them.
“It was before our time. After the big restructuring.”
The big restructuring. It happened in the wake of the Old-50 when the new North American regions were formed. The entire northwest up through British Columbia became the new Province of Cascadia. The large stretch of territory between the Ozarks and the Gulf joined the Republic of Texas; the old South came together to form the New Confederacy; and the entire Great Lakes region became the People’s District of the North Star. Long Island played the wild card when it claimed independence instead of joining the Northeast district, but then that allowed the old City of New York to become the new Free City of Tri-Insula. And soon after all of that, the North American Alliance was formed.
Of course, not every stretch of territory folded nicely into a new region, and those that didn’t became settlements. Out west, those scattered settlements became the reservation towns of the New West. Out here they became the squatter settlements.
“Things were getting really bad,” continues Red Tail. “Devolving into chaos. People had given up. There was no hope. And without hope, there was no reason for order. But then one day, a gypsy woman marched into the settlements. Not much is known about her except that she was raised in the tent camps of the eastern block Eurozone, but it was she who secretly formed the Outliers. She was the one who united the poor, tired, hungry masses to fight the new corporatocracy. She made us realize that human dignity is inalienable, and as long as there is still breath left in your body, there will always be something left to fight for. And over the years, as the corporations have taken over everything, it has only united us even more. The Outliers are stronger today than ever.”
“And this gypsy woman?”
“No one I know has ever seen he
r. She’s careful to remain invisible. Anyway, that’s what we’re all about. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Playground rules,” she quips.
I guess that’s fair. It is after all my turn. “You showed me yours now I show you mine?”
“Quid pro quo.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You’re really dedicated to all that parkour stuff, aren’t you?”
“What gave it away?”
Red Tail flashes a look at my sarcasm. Considers it. Smiles. At least she can get as good as she gives. “What I mean is, it’s not just for sport, is it?”
“No, it’s a way of looking at the world. You’ve already experienced it. We all have. It’s something we’re born with but lose along the way. So that’s what parkour helps us get back in touch with. It isn’t just a process of discovery, it’s the process of rediscovery as well.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You remember when you were a kid on the playground? You were basically already doing parkour, you just didn’t have a name for it. All kids do it. We run. We jump. We tumble on the grass. We see a tree stump and we hop over it. You don’t think of it as a vault, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. You see a wall and you try to run up the thing like it’s a ladder to the sky. And when gravity does call you in, you drop back to the earth with happy resignation because at least you gave it your best shot. You gave it your all, and deep down you already knew that that was all you could ever really do. And even if you didn’t touch the sky, at least you came three feet closer than you were before, and you took that for everything it was worth.
“But then we get older and something changes. Something makes us lose our connection to the world around us. We train ourselves to walk in straight lines. To go around walls. We resign ourselves to the fact that we can never really touch the sky, so even reaching for it is pointless. We get older, and instead of moving ourselves to accommodate the earth, we move the earth to suit our needs. We hit a certain age and all of a sudden a boulder is no longer a beautiful obstacle, it’s just a thing in our way. Sooner or later we stop running, stop climbing, stop reaching for the sky. We stop pushing ourselves toward unattainable goals because common sense tells us that the only logical thing to do is push ourselves toward the attainable ones. If running through the world like kids on the playground is a kind of dream, then at a certain point we just stop dreaming.
