LEGACY RISING

by Rachel Eastwood

  “Trimpot!” Legacy called, vaulting onto an overturned trash can and waving her arms up at him. “Trimpot!”

  “Legs!” he called back, stooping down and extending a hand. “I’m so glad you made it!” He heaved her up onto the scaffold with him and gestured across the sea of writhing mayhem. “Look at all this, Legs! This was you and me! We did this!” He clapped her on the shoulder for a job well done. A riot he’d wanted. A riot he got.

  But Legacy wasn’t admiring her impact on the crowd as Trimpot was. She scoured the strangers for signs of shaggy brown hair, of chiseled arms in a rumbled, collared shirt, and of course, for the constant rebreather. But she didn’t see it anywhere.

  What she did see were the approaching carriages in the distance.

  Much like the royal carriage, but wider, these vehicles had headlights that swirled between an amber and a black light. Legacy had seen these mobiles before, but never like this; never rocketing toward a target, jangling and flashing. The vehicles had two domes of bullet-proof, black-tinted glass. Two members of the police force were encased beneath each first dome of glass, and the second, wider glass domes were meant to house about ten criminals each. Vandals. Rebels. Six of these cars approached, bells suspended over their domes swinging wildly as they rattled over the cobblestone streets.

  “Trimpot! Do you see them?” Legacy cried, gesturing.

  The rebels on the ground saw the approaching authorities as well, as some turned, recognizing the vibration as that of an advancing troop of vehicles, and as pieces of the mass scattered, its other parts became cognizant of a disturbance in their fiber. The mob mentality fragmented and fizzled away as individuals returned to their sense of self-preservation. There were shouts and receding silhouettes, and still, Legacy could not see Dax.

  Meanwhile, the scaffold emptied of its supervisory crew, pouring beneath and over its bars, jumping down to the ground below and pounding off.

  “Come on, Neon! Let’s go!” Gustav called to him, swinging down onto the ground and dashing toward an alleyway.

  Trimpot stooped to follow, but glanced back at Legacy, who still stood upright, unmoving and scouring the crowd below, so intent.

  “Time to fly, Legs!” he barked, the lines of his face serious and tense for the first time. “We’ve got to fly!”

  The crowd below thinned ever more.

  “I don’t see him anywhere!” she cried in response, completely avoiding the issue of the incoming authorities. Trimpot lunged and grabbed her wrist, wrenching her toward the ledge of the scaffold and breaking her concentration.

  “Come on!” Trimpot commanded again.

  But Legacy didn’t see Dax anywhere!

  The police vehicles came skidding to a stop, their front domes sliding open to release their inhabitants onto what few remained. The men wore green-tinted glass goggles, and had stun muskets at the ready, their flared barrels of titanium wiring culminating with an unearthly, ultra-bright light. An insectine whir filled the air.

  Trimpot abandoned Legacy and maneuvered to hurtle over the ledge of the scaffold, but he was in mid-air as the threads of dazzling light released onto him. Disoriented, he swung from the bars, grappling for balance, legs swinging, and the scaffold tipped. The ill-fated couple, temporarily blinded, tumbled to the ground below. When the afterimages cleared, Legacy’s wrists and ankles were wearing heavy iron manacles.

  Chapter Six

  The leftmost island of the Taliko Archipelagos was a glass-domed, stone tower, around which organic grasses grew. It was seldom visited by the royal family or even by the dutiful automata, but occasionally a prisoner required closer attention than was allowed by the Icarus City Prison. The tower of the leftmost island could more closely qualify as a four-tiered dungeon, wherein the most industrious of traitors could be expected to likely rot.

  The topmost cell of this tower was where Legacy’s manacles found themselves latched. The guards had removed her shoes, her hosiery, and her jacket, so that she now wore only the simple black dress and bare, dirtied feet. Her chains had just enough length to allow her to curl up on a nest of moldering rags and attempt to sleep, or perhaps to wander to the high, narrow window on the right, which had no bars laced over it. The duke was that confident of the impossibility of escape.

  There was one other cell across from hers, and in it stood Neon Trimpot. He, too, had been stripped of his jacket and his boots.

  “Well, this is glorious,” he grumbled.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Legacy replied. She turned her back to him and walked with a dragging clank to the window. “It won’t happen again,” she added somberly.

  “Well, you can bet it won’t,” Trimpot sneered. How quickly his affections could turn. “Because we’re never getting out of here. It’s a good thing you didn’t find Dax after all.”

  Legacy winced.

  She had never found Dax, and she still didn’t know if he was all right. But she didn’t want to think about that. What good could it do? So she shoved the thought away and stared out the window. Trimpot was probably right. They would probably die in here—either of old age, or by violent means.

  “Can you see the ground from your window?” she asked him. “It’s . . . green.”

  “Yes, green is a color,” he said.

  Legacy grimaced. Perhaps speaking with Trimpot was a lost cause. Of course, if they were allowed to live, he was going to be her likely only connection to humanity. Hopefully he would thaw as the time went on. He would have to.

  The tower was close to the edge of its dome. Legacy had never been to the edge of the dome. The perimeter of Icarus was reinforced and guarded to protect against the possibility of internal damage. It already required enough maintenance from the standard wear and tear of time and weather; Legacy couldn’t imagine the amount of contracts the duke would need to initiate for upkeep if the citizens were able to freely carouse along its border as well.

  But from here . . .

  The world below sifted in and out of view beneath the threads of migratory cloud coverage.

  Its surface was dark, but not quite dead. Not the way Legacy had always imagined it. She’d assumed it’d be some parched, vacant expanse of mountain and crater. But it wasn’t quite like that. It wasn’t like that at all.

  Even at this height, Legacy could discern a series of bogs, swaths of grass, and what appeared to be roadway. There was movement below, as well . . . something was alive down there. Vague shapes. She could see buildings . . . though they were clearly not in livable condition. They were faintly green rectangular columns, not unlike the earthy shade of the grasses surrounding the castle dungeon. But most disconcerting of the details visible below was the appearance of the small dome.

  Just like the domes of Icarus and the Archipelagos.

  Was Old Earth . . . home to some secret populace?

  “What do you think is down there, Trimpot?” she whispered.

  “Down where?” Trimpot replied.

  “Can’t you see out your window?” she asked.

  “Okay, well, I don’t have a window.” He paused. “Why, what do you see?” The snide tone had sloughed away as his curiosity was piqued.

  “There’s actual stuff down there.” Legacy turned from the window to see that Trimpot had advanced across his cell, his chains now taut as he attempted to see out her window. Of course, from that distance, he’d only be able to see a wedge of glass and the sky beyond. “I can see some plants and water. And I can see . . . a dome.”

  “A dome? Are there people?”

  “Well, there must be people,” she replied. “If there’s domes, there must be people.”

  “That’s fantastic,” he purred. “If they’re keeping these people from us . . . they must have a reason, mustn’t they? Bet it’s a good one, too. What if—what if those domes are for the real upper-class? We’re just told it’s a dead planet so no one gets any funny ideas about a better life.” He paused, considering. “Now. If only we weren’t stuck in here. You know . . .
if you’re able to see that there are domes on Old Earth . . . it probably means we’re never going home, doesn’t it? They wouldn’t let prisoners see such things and live, would they?”

  “Yeah . . .” Legacy looked back out the window, down to the land below. “You’re probably right.” But she pushed that thought away as well. It was easier to think about the land below, and what could be in those domes, rather than to think about her inevitable execution, and her parents, and Dax, who would probably never see her again or be told what had become of her.

  What if the domes of Old Earth were all like this island, with real ecosystems and fresh air? What if they were exclusive vacation spots for the elite of the cities above? Maybe that was where the delicacies such as fur and paper originated. Or maybe . . . maybe that was where prisoners who knew too much were sent.

  “It is a little suspicious, isn’t it, that there is no real upper or lower class here?” she wondered aloud. “Maybe these cities are the designated areas for the middle class. Maybe—maybe, down there, that’s where the super-poor are. Or the super-rich! Maybe they don’t even have Companions down there!” she added wonderingly.

  The sound of heavy, clanking footfalls ascended the stairwell which spiraled up the center of the dungeon.

  “Someone’s coming,” Legacy whispered.

  “I can hear it,” Trimpot snapped.

  Four sentries emerged from below, each clattering with utility belts which secured several models of ray gun to their hips. Two sentries removed and pointed their ray guns—small, brassy numbers with zapping corkscrew barrels—directly at Trimpot, who immediately raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he said, eyes wide.

  “Hey!” Legacy barked. But the sentries ignored her.

  Two more stood at the ready, one moving to unlock his cell door.

  “Come with us, please,” he said, stepping into the cell and unlatching Trimpot’s manacles from the wall. He held them in his hand like a master with a dog on its leash. “No sudden movements, Trimpot, or we won’t hesitate to fire.”

  “Wh—where are you taking him?” Legacy asked, striding from the window as if to fight the guards, or at least plead with them. She feared the worst. Why, after all, would the duke allow a rebel leader to live, feeding hope to his followers? Her chains went taut just as she reached the iron bars of her cell, and the resistance suspended her arms behind her in mid-air. “If you execute him, it will only inspire Chance for Choice to mobilize!” she swore. “The gesture would be inflammatory!”

  The guards completely ignored her, moving with Trimpot back down the stairwell.

  “You should work toward a compromise! Tell the duke that!” she cried after their receding footfalls. “Show the citizens that he isn’t a complete tyrant!”

  But there was no response, save the fading echoes of clanking guns and chains. Now Exa Legacy was completely alone.

  The duke was waiting for Neon Trimpot in the castle’s drawing room. He reclined in a high-backed, leather-cushioned chair of rich, oiled brown, alongside a small table on which steamed a self-pour kettle and two pewter cups of tea, one full, one empty and waiting. Moving pictures loomed in silver frames on the wall, shifting between scenes of sunset on the savannah to those of ocean creatures in the blue deep, all long since lost but retained in the few pieces of art salvaged from Old Earth. A clock consumed the center of the wall, connected by the radio frequency reader in the castle keep to each automaton and sentry on the grounds.

  It was through this clock face that he watched a live feed of Neon Trimpot approaching, pale and drawn, through the small cameras which were implanted into the flesh of every guard’s eye.

  He supposed he could have used the royal throne room, had he desired to impress upon Trimpot his strength in his imperial position. But he didn’t want to intimidate the young rebel. Neon Trimpot had once been an anonymous threat, nefarious as he was nebulous. But, after his arrival at the annual and the consequential suspicions aroused, Malthus had been doing his research on Leopold Comstock. Though Neon Trimpot had no past, no known personality save his leadership of the malcontents, Leopold Comstock was riddled with weaknesses.

  It became immediately apparent, reviewing his public records, that he was ambitious. Shrewd. Charming. He scored very highly on all his placement exams, and received invitations to join the crews of five of the seven broadcast stations. In fact, he scored most highly on his social and presentation sections, and so could have easily worked in a position as prestigious as that of Dyna Logan. But Leopold Comstock didn’t even interview for any of the openings. He seemed to fall off the radar until he was apprehended in his late teens for the theft of a boutique top hat. The matching frock coat had already been missing for weeks, and so it was probable that he had stolen it first, but not been caught. Later, the spats vanished from the boutique surplus storage. So he was clever, too. Clever and materialistic. You needed only glimpse his hot pink faux hawk to deduce that he also craved attention in a way that had nothing to do with the principles of social reform.

  Malthus supposed he could respect the boy’s avarice, even if it wasn’t terribly realistic, for the son of a cobbler, whose wife worked in the public sector as a maintenance technician. This was fancy speak for “swept and polished the exterior of Taliko Center, oiled the joints of the leaves on the trees in Heroes Park.”

  But. He had to try to view Comstock with sympathy.

  After all, he wouldn’t be well-served in this brewing revolution by either executing its leader, or by detaining him indefinitely, or by releasing him back into his brood with no discernible shift made in his perspective.

  But someone such as Leopold Comstock wouldn’t be too difficult to turn, he suspected.

  After all, without the grace of the duke, to what future would he be doomed? He may have scored very well on his understanding of such virtues as charisma and leadership, but his essays tended to collapse in on themselves if they ran longer than a page. The boy couldn’t keep his thoughts together. He couldn’t plan long-term. He would lose the trust of his followers, if he didn’t damn them all to early deaths.

  “Fade Harper camera,” the duke commanded as he saw the sentries and Trimpot entering the grand hall. The clock’s face returned to its spindly limbs and Roman numerals imposed over a pearlescent screen.

  When Trimpot entered, it was without his customary swagger. The boy was haggard and sour. Resigned to what? Execution?

  “Have a seat, my boy,” Malthus invited, gesturing indulgently.

  Another high-backed, leather-cushioned chair raced forward on its metallic legs, tilting to scoop Trimpot onto it.

  Malthus loved when they did that. It so often took people off-guard.

  “Have some tea.”

  The tea kettle extended its own spout, funneling the exotic concoction into the second cup on the table.

  Trimpot took it and slanted the duke a wary look.

  “What you and I want is not that different, you know,” Malthus said. “I want this little wrinkle smoothed out. You want access to the finer things. A total restructuring of our legal system isn’t requisite to necessitate this. It isn’t even certain that such a thing would result in this. What would become of Neon Trimpot in a failed revolt?” The duke smirked, his eyes panning under low lids like those of a lizard. “Do you see yourself swaddled in furs, or perhaps . . . sampling champagne in the vineyards so long denied you? Do you not like tea, then?”

  It was true that the duke had a way with words that his rival lacked. Trimpot didn’t even know what a vineyard was.

  Malthus snapped his fingers, and the first automaton in a row of automata, all standing silently along the wall until this moment, sprang forward and advanced with a loose bow. Trimpot jolted. He had hardly noticed the eerie row of gleaming statues in their uniform blue and white smocks. This bowing automaton was androgynous and almond-eyed, only identifiable as “female” by the silken wig of coal-black hair on h
er head.

  “Yes, sir?” she asked, her marionette mouth opening and closing with the words—revealing, for a brief moment, a small speaker in her tongue and a flash of churning gears at the back of her throat.

  “Retrieve Mister Trimpot a flute of champagne, please,” the duke ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The automaton coasted out of the room.

  “M-must be hard to run a castle with those things,” Trimpot observed, attempting to affect an air of casualness. “Bet you find wound-down bots all the time.”

  Malthus smiled indulgently. “Oh, boy, that’s 22nd century talk,” he said. “The castle automata are programmed to re-wind each other. They’re all on a system. It’s really . . . just like New Earth, when you think about it. The position we’ve found ourselves in. We’re all on a grid together, and as soon as one of us begins to malfunction, or slow down, it affects the rest of us.”

  The automaton returned with the flute of shimmering, pale yellow liquid, which Trimpot considered as warily as he had considered the tea.

  “It’s safe,” Malthus promised him. “In fact, it’s extraordinary.”

  He snapped his fingers again. The automaton bowed, having never left the table.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I believe I will have one as well.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She coasted from the room, and Malthus turned his attention back to the pink-haired boy, who just now looked the part of his brothers in squalor. He was still inspecting the bubbly. “Mister Trimpot . . . it is fermented from a process involving white grapes, yeast, and an extraordinary amount of sugar.”

  Trimpot regarded the duke. “What are grapes?”

  The duke smiled. “Just another part of the secret world above yours,” he condescended to define. “Consider this, my boy. What if an automaton begins performing tasks which were not configured in its matrix? Should we destroy the thing? Or perhaps, would we be better served to assign it an area in which it could serve its new purpose, however unintended upon construction? Which is the less wasteful of the prospects?”