“I’m not a fan of angry. It usually means a repair bill.”
“They’ve all been lying to me. Every fucking one. Darius, Arianne, Christina. Also Sam Burnett and Mari Larsen and Alan cocksucker Levitt. Probably my mother, also—from the moment I was weaned. I went straight from breast milk to lies.” I hadn’t been told explicitly, but I knew Zirconia had to be involved with Celeste, too. When Darius had stopped hanging out with me, he’d spent a lot of time with her. What boy wants to hang out with his mother instead of his brother? “The whole world has lied to me all my life, and I want to know what’s behind the curtain before I spend the rest of my life in prison.”
Ray had been half listening, but his attention sharpened at the list of names. “That’s a powerful list of enemies. Sam Burnett and Mari Larsen. I hope you didn’t mean President Darius Roberts.”
I took the whiskey glass into my fist, but Ray hooked two fingers over the top of the glass and plucked it from of my hand. Some of the whiskey splashed over the top.
“Hey,” I objected.
“You were about to throw the glass against the wall in a dramatic gesture.”
“Something like that,” I said sheepishly.
“Take it from me, kid, your speech was dramatic enough.” He uncorked the bottle and carefully poured the whiskey back into it. “I prefer gestures that don’t have me finding shards of glass under the walls months later.” He rinsed out the glass and put it back under the counter. “I’m glad you decided whatever you decided. So maybe you can do whatever you need to do outside and leave me to get back to sleep. I’ll remember to lock up this time.”
What to do was still a problem. “Why don’t you lock up? I’ll stay, and we can talk some more.” Three-Fingered Ray’s bar was famous for two things: free drinks and illicit information. If I was going to turn down the first, then I could still make use of the second.
“I know I still got it going on.” Ray puffed out his chest and stretched back the skin of his cheeks. “Only a few dozen wrinkles, and I still have several working hair follicles. I have to turn you down. Younger men just don’t rock my boat.”
I made a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “I heard this is the place to come to get the answer to questions that no one else knows.”
“Information is more expensive than whiskey, and since you couldn’t even afford that…” Ray shrugged.
I smiled. “You aren’t going to kick me out without helping me.”
Ray smiled back at me. “Just watch me.”
“I’ll tell you why. Because if you don’t help me, I’ll have nowhere else to turn, except back to the whiskey bottle. I’m sure you’ve seen many people drink themselves into a puddle. And you couldn’t do anything about it. If there was a moment where he could be helped, it wasn’t right then in this bar. I’m the guy who didn’t have that drink. I’m the guy who is about to change his life if he gets a little nudge of help. Lined up against all the people you watched helplessly drink their lives away—I’m your chance to make a difference.”
“What makes you think I give a shit?”
I didn’t answer him, instead letting the silence grow between us.
After a while, he went behind me and locked the door. “Fuck you, man. Preying on an old man’s deeply buried better instincts. That’s real low.”
Chapter 3
Ray went back behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of a purple-colored liquor, pressed the wooden panel behind it—there was a click—then replaced the alcohol. A column of shelves shifted, and when Ray tugged the far side, it swung open silently. He gestured me forward, and I entered a small room with an unmade bed on one side. On the other side was a desk with an ancient device on top of it. The container was dirty white with bits of plastic falling off it, and through a hole in the top, I could see electronics inside. Wires led to a modern screen and keyboard. Ray sat down in front of it and patted the archaic computer. “This is my baby.”
“No offense, but that’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen.”
Ray pressed a silver button, and his screen flashed into life. “Like all wonderful creatures, the beauty is on the inside. I call her Ava.”
“You couldn’t afford a new computer?”
“Ava is priceless. I doubt there’s one like her in the whole of Under Nyork. Maybe the whole world. Not working at least. Some parts of Ava must be over a thousand years old, and she still works.”
“How did you get it?” From the decor of the main bar with the relics of weapons, I knew that Three-Fingered Ray was into the old world, but the computer was something else.
“I found it in the upper levels. Though not in one piece.” The glow of the screen lit Ray’s face as he typed on the keyboard. “Most people think of me just as a war hero and old barman. But I have other talents.”
War hero, I thought. I had heard plenty of talk about Three-Fingered Ray, and no one had mentioned that.
“When I was seven years old, I took apart all the electronics in our quarters. Tried to put them back together, failed, and got absolute hell from my parents. I got better. By the time I was twelve, I could take apart the electronics and put them back together without anyone noticing. There’s a depressing sameness though about modern electronics. Once I joined up, I forgot all about that little hobby—I realized there were more important things. After I left the ACM—just after World War 95—I got into collecting antiques. And I came across roomfuls of old electronics in the upper levels. I started to mess around with some motherboards and actually got things working.”
“Is there going to be a point at some stage?” I didn’t see how this related to the secret knowledge Ray had about everything, and he was famous for going on a bit. I had been warned more than once to never get into discussing war stories with him.
“It was fascinating.” Ray didn’t seem to have heard me. He was typing on the keyboard, delighting at every new screen that popped up. “The different types of electronics were much more diverse than I was used to, and it took me forever to get anything working. Most chips didn’t work, so every board inside Ava is a patchwork of different parts soldered together.”
“You might want to be careful scrounging in the upper levels. I met some mibs on my last visit, and I think they will be taking security up there more seriously from now on.”
Ray shrugged. “Haven’t been up there in a while. I’ve already taken what I need. It took me over a decade to bring Ava to life. I did it just as a project to keep me busy; I didn’t have the bar back then. I never foresaw that Ava would turn out to be as useful as she has. Plugging her into the net changed everything.”
“I wouldn’t imagine centuries-old technology would even work with the present systems.”
“There’s been less advancement than one would think. Some parts of Ava are more advanced technically than present systems, even if the dust has to be blown off it first.”
“All the electronics in the Conference are connected to the net. What’s the big deal in hooking up your ancient computer to it?”
“I could see more data than I dreamed even existed.”
“What kind of data? Top-secret shit?”
“Plenty of stuff that your friends Burnett and Larsen wouldn’t want you seeing, but it was more like the opposite to top-secret shit: it was actually an unfiltered blob of information revealing everything from the secrets of the beginning of the universe to what some kid had for breakfast fifteen hundred years ago.”
“What good is that?”
“Well, most of it is useless, but some of it is interesting, and other parts are valuable. I wrote some software to parse through the blob of information. When people come to me, I do a search and see what I can find. It often takes a long while to separate the gold from the dross, but no one else has access to the secrets of the universe.”
“I don’t understand, though. You are plugged into the same network as everyone else. What did you do to your computer to get access to all the extra information?”
“It’s not what this computer has; it’s what it doesn’t have. Every modern device must have some hardware that restricts access. No matter how much I messed about with normal computers, I couldn’t get them to access the information that Ava sees.”
“So modern computers only allow access to a small subset of information. Everything we see on our monitors has to be sanctioned?” That reminded me of Levitt and Burnett talking about “official news.”
Ray nodded. “Sounds about right.” He clicked on a few icons until a search bar came up. “Now what do you want to know?”
“Tell me about Celeste.”
Ray was right about it being a blob of information. I found out about twentieth-century people with the surname Celeste, about the color, about a keyboard instrument, and even about an old bar, no doubt blown to smithereens centuries ago. Ava dug up a few nuggets about the modern cyberterrorist organization, but I didn’t come across anything useful.
Exploring the depths of what Ava was willing to show me turned out to be fascinating. Before long, I became frustrated with waiting for Ray to type in the searches, and I took his place in front of the screen. Ray went to sit on the little bed, and after a short while, his snores filled the small room. I barely heard them.
I would search for one thing and find something new. Then I would search for that, and before I knew it, I was reading about subjects totally unrelated to my original subject. After I found myself reading about an ancient overland trade route called the Silk Road, I forced myself to focus more. I tried again for information on Celeste, but I kept hitting a brick wall. Looking for details on Burnett and Larsen just led me to pages on the official net, which was not what I was looking for.
Searching for info on previous world wars was more fruitful. Alliances were much more fluid than I ever would have imagined. All I’d known had been the standard battle lines American Conference/European Union/Latino Territories versus Russian Federation/Chinese Empire/Greater India. That was one of the reasons why the treachery of the Territories had been such a shock. But as it turned out, over the years, every conceivable alliance had happened, and one power switching sides was commonplace. In addition, there had been a seventh superpower, the Australian Colonies, before World War 94, when it was destroyed. And an eighth superpower called the Japanese Islands had been around for only World War 3 and World War 4.
It seemed incredible that no one, including the so-called experts on the news channels, ever talked about previous world wars. The Territories’ reverse at the Battle of Rockall wasn’t compared to the way that the European Union had turned against their then allies in World War 93, or any other of many similar incidents throughout the centuries. Every generation started again on a blank canvas for a new set of wars.
World War 94 had finished not long before I was born. How had everyone forgotten the Australian Colonies already? I shook Ray awake.
“You remember the Australian Colonies, don’t you?”
The snores stopped, and Ray blinked at me, half awake. “Yes, those bastards fought us hard, but we beat them in the end. It’s all deserts and flies out there, you know. Too damn hot.”
“And they were wiped out?”
“Sure were. Was our most decisive victory, if an easy one in the end. I was young then, but I saw some fighting. It was the following war where I came into my own, though. Have you heard about the Battle of the Nile? It was in 3543, I believe, and the Indian devastator was right up our ass. We were trying to get away when a Russian Federation devastator joined the fight. We were outnumbered but forced to fight. The commander of our ship—”
I stopped him. “Yes, but back to the Australian Colonies. Don’t you find it strange that the superpower is never mentioned anymore?”
Ray looked at me blankly. “They aren’t around anymore.”
I returned to the computer screen. Ray turned over and promptly returned to snoring. I tapped my forefingers on the desk, considering. Knowing that a superpower had recently ceased to exist took on a larger importance, given the present situation of the American Conference. Perhaps that was why knowledge of it had been allowed to fade. People took comfort in believing that the status quo never changed. Maybe that was why there was no huge evidence of panic among the people, despite our dire situation, with an enemy devastator stationed above our heads.
When I thought about it, deep down, I had assumed things would turn out okay for the Conference even after all the setbacks we’d faced. For me, Celeste had been almost more worrying, even though they hadn’t done much, because they were an unknown factor. What if the battle of Rockall had actually been the start of the end for the American Conference? And we would be completely forgotten by the world within a generation or two?
I went back to searching and came across several maps of Under Nyork. Traveling via conveyor pods hid the immense size of the place, and it was eye opening to see the vast network of corridors laid out on the maps. First, I checked out Harlem, then the upper levels, which had been abandoned. The layouts of both were vaguely familiar to me. Other parts were a complete mystery, and trying to reconcile where districts actually were compared to where I thought they were gave me a headache.
Will Saunders had sent me his address, and if I got the chance, I wanted to try to talk to him. He was about the only person I could trust not to turn me in. His accommodation was in the Washington district—which was surprising since most of the upper brass of the military stayed in the Pentagon district. I studied the corridors nearby, looking for the nearest conveyor stations and noting points where security checkpoints might be set up. Gone were the days that I could just enter an address into a pod and blindly let it take me to my destination.
The maps even showed network connections and power lines. And I came across something really strange when I looked at those connections in the Washington district—a great many entered the Shroud, the chasm in the heart of the district. Why would a large empty space need power and net access? The Shroud was also much bigger than I’d realized. I’d thought it was one of the smaller chasms in Under Nyork, but it took up a huge area on the maps.
I was still thinking about the infrastructure connections leading to nowhere when I heard a loud crash. Ray jerked out of his sleep and stood up. “What was that?”
I wasn’t sure, but it hadn’t sounded good. Could the mibs have found me in here? I put my finger against my lips to indicate to Ray to be quiet. The noises were coming from the front part of his bar.
“No one’s here,” said a voice.
“They are on the other side of that wall,” another voice said. Both voices sounded strangely distorted, even taking into account that they were muffled by the partition between us.
Finding the hidden trigger to open the door would take them a while, so I scanned the back room, looking for another exit. There was no obvious door, so I tried to question Ray via frantic hand gestures. He didn’t seem to understand, and since the people outside already knew we were there, I just spoke aloud. “Is there another way out?”
He shook his head and pointed behind me, a frightened look on his face. I turned. A narrow red flame was cutting a hole in the wall. Whoever was there, they weren’t fucking around. I backed away. A rectangular piece of wall fell into the room, and several figures wearing radiation suits and masks walked in through the gap.
The first one through spoke. “There’s been a leak, and this area is now contaminated.” The mask’s voice distorters created a harsh gravelly sound. “You’ll have to come with us for your own safety.”
My relief at not finding Larsen and a troop of mibs on the other side quickly evaporated when confronted by people in white suits and black masks. I found myself taking a half step forward when the leader spoke. An instant later, I realized the story didn’t make any sense. There was no way this was a coincidence—they had clearly been searching for me.
“Don’t believe them,” I shouted out to Ray as I squirmed out of the grasp of one who reached
for me. “They aren’t what they appear.”
Ray was in the corner of the room, behind his bed. At my words, he reached under his bed and pulled out a military rifle. He pointed it at first one masked figure, then another, then back again. The rifle was unsteady in his hand. “What the hell is going on?” His voice trembled.
“Calm down,” the leader said. The tone of the words coming from the voice distorter was not exactly soothing. “We are here to help. You just have to come with us.”
Ray looked at me with wide eyes, looking for direction. If he’d been holding the rifle the least bit steady, I would have looked for him to lead us out of these people’s clutches. As it was though, I had a feeling that anything Ray did would just make things worse and get people killed unnecessarily. “I think you should just put the rifle down, Ray. That isn’t helping anyone.”
“But we can’t trust them. You said…” The barrel of Ray’s rifle swung back and forth wildly.
“I’m not sure who they are,” I said. “But I don’t think the gun is helping matters. If you put it down, then this can all get sorted out.”
Ray’s eyes were frantic. It was hard to believe that this guy had ever been in the military. He lowered the rifle.
One of those in radiation suits moved forward and pulled it off him. He then reversed the barrel and hit Ray in the face. Ray slumped to the floor. I ran over to him and helped him to a sitting position. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his head, and he had a dazed look on his face. I used my sleeve to wipe away the blood.
The leader of the group moved across the floor and pulled the rifle from the hands of the one who had hit Ray. “There was no need for that. It’s just an old man.”
The other didn’t seem contrite. “What do we do now?”
“Destroy the computer and bring him.” The leader pointed a thumb at me. He was smaller than the others, and something about his mannerisms seemed familiar to me.
The man holding the rifle moved over to the computer and hit it with the butt of the gun. The loud crack spurred Ray to life.
World War 97 Part 3 Page 2
