This Sin Called Hope (New Reality Series, Book Seven) by Anna Mayle

by Anna Mayle

  * * * *

  The Wall reeked with its own particular blend of sweat, shit, and despair. A yellow film had long ago soaked into metal, air, and people alike. Stale, trapped willingly in destruction for comfort’s sake, most citizens didn’t even know what a city was. None had even seen one, and yet they clung to the idea of such a community like rats too gorged on the flesh of the dead to abandon a sinking ship.

  Often Enoch wondered if it would seem so insane, so pathetic, if he didn’t remember the Once World. He usually wished he couldn’t. The choices of the people around him were limited. He did admit that in his scathing analysis. The blistering sun, moisture-sucking air and pollutants that burned at your insides with each breath made the Waste no more promising than the stale air and hateful crowds of the Walls. Either one wore at the soul and consumed the spirit. Human beings were born to die, and die painfully. The Angels didn’t fare much better. Their own world hated them.

  Not that these people would ever notice. They existed in a state of blissful ignorance, heavy on the bliss for anyone living in the upper levels. If only I could attain such a state of mindlessness…maybe I would be…happy.

  Happy or cynical, this was the most dangerous step in his trade. He, an Angel, amongst a tide of humans, had to make it through his purchases and then the large gates, back into the Waste undetected, or at least unmolested.

  He settled his goggles with their thick, welding lenses back into place and kept his hood low, melting as well as his height would allow, out of the alcove hiding the entrance to the Under Wall, and into the Wall proper.

  Flashing lights and bright, gaudy signs filled the outer ring market of Wall 3, soaking up precious resources for needless glitz. There would be two more, one midway with more legitimate wares but higher costs, and the central market where no one but the upper level residents could hope to have credits enough for anything. All of them would be running at high enough power levels to keep a caravan mobile for half a year, or a Waste village running for two.

  Here in the outer market, he walked past stalls covered in broken baubles proclaiming them to be lost treasures of the Once World. Others sold skewered rats and lizards, slow roasted on a crackling fire under a vac dome that would send the smoke out but not before the rare and tantalizing aroma of cooking meat had spread just enough to attract customers.

  Women and men alike lazed at carefully planned points, just far enough from one another, offering themselves up to the god of chance for anything—from the thrill of sex to the satiation of a full belly and a warm bed. Sparsely numbered Sentries watched the crowds with their faces hidden under low visor covered helms and their hands too ready to kill.

  A starving waifish child darted in and out of the throng, little hands clutched tight around a loaf of old, burnt tac bread. An older child stalked her, more willing to risk a little girl than get caught stealing. That was the way of the outer ring. If you didn’t trade, sell, or perform, then you became a brute or a thief. Either way, the purges would eventually sweep you up and out into the Wastes where you would huddle against the Wall in poverty or venture further, where the Angels lived.

  The conversations ebbed and flowed around him just as the people did. Rumors about the higher levels, rumors about the Waste, gossip about who outshone who and where, it was all drivel. The Waste settlements had their share of gossip, but more often than not the talk turned to security, death or how to avoid it. No one, however, was talking about the north. Either Garger heard wrong, or some message got warped between here and there…or the Governors don’t want the people to know. I’ll have to do some digging once I’m back in safety. Until then, Enoch didn’t have time or energy to waste on supposition. He had to make his purchases and get out quickly, before the Sentries noticed that the abnormally tall and obviously foreign man hadn’t removed his hood.

  Blessed Be The Walls, he thought sarcastically.

  * * * *

  Central and midway markets yielded no sign of his enigma. Jacobi checked the exit of the Under Wall in the central ring again, but it hadn’t opened or closed the whole time he’d watched.

  A quick pull of three new screens brought up the different levels and the outer market. He could scan all at once. The markets were the only truly busy places, well…the markets and the highest level, where feasts and celebrations were held for the Governors and the Ton. But no one without a chip would be able to get there, and never someone who wouldn’t show his face. No, it almost surely would be the market.

  A quick jolt of motion caught his attention and he focused on that screen.

  From the second level up, a quick warning was called to anyone not protected by an awning or the overhang of level 2 before a bucket of waste was upturned over the edge of the safety wall. Another hazard of the outer market. Instantly there was a swarm of thin figures with grasping hands crouching over the possible treasures of a level 2 citizen’s garbage. With a small cry of joy, a bit of half-eaten sweet was wiped half clean and popped quickly into a starving mouth while the lucky hunter was mobbed in jealousy, less violent hands stole away a large bone hopefully full of marrow. The rusty chain ladders chimed announcing the arrival of the Sentries into the fray.

  The people were dirty, violent, broken, selfish, and worthy of care they never received and Jacobi loved each unique and individual one of them. He maneuvered the cameras to the darkness under the overhang where something cracked and someone cried, the brief sound followed by a crunch and slurp. It seemed the little thief would live again. The bully had been spared a purging with his death.

  Jacobi longed to step into the mass of life, but all he had was sight and sound. He didn’t live in a Wall, would never live there for all his love. Instead he watched them from the Network, and helped where he was able. They didn’t like hackers. He couldn’t blame them. With a Network access hub and port, he could turn the large metal sphere from a sanctuary into a tomb. He wouldn’t, of course he wouldn’t, but how could they know that? Fear was strong when it came to the unknown. Innocent, even the violent ones, they were beautiful.

  He pulled up the credit sticks of some of the more charitable shops and checked the program he’d set to syphon small amounts to them from an unmarked account. He raised three of them by the barest amount. It would be enough to help without drawing attention, then they would be able to help others, and those others still more people. It was amazing what a little kindness could grow.

  That finished he turned his attention fully back to his security feeds just in time to see a very tall, hooded man pass a familiar data stick to a blacksmith in exchange for a closed box. He watched him move from smith to glass maker to random stalls to produce and sustenance stands. Each motion the tall man made was calculated to draw as little attention as possible. Each purchase was quick, precise and calculated for the best outcome well in advance of the stranger’s first words. Once again, Jacobi could almost visualize the code he would have run to make a mock up human do the same things in the Network. He ran numbers, jumped cameras and followed the stranger to the gates of the Wall, followed with the outer cameras and watched until he was long out of sight and swore again.

  A new window opened before him and he flew through programing a tracker with the sample of voice, motion, and basic dimensions he’d gathered watching the puzzle. Adding the mechanical aptitude and location Waste as filters to the primary information drop box, he continued his perusal of the Walls and their people, all the while keeping a fragment of attention focused on that fledgling program, listening for the chime that would mean a match.

  I will find you again, he promised. He wanted to solve the enigma.

  Jacobi settled firmly on that goal, ignoring the fluttering sensation he’d never felt before, telling him there might just be something else he was looking for.

  Chapter Two

  Left waiting for his program to find the stranger again, Jacobi decided to revisit the rumors about the north. He stretched and stood in his deep dark, lit only by th
e glow of the program window hovering before him. His hands flew, pulling up windows and programs, information and images, sliding them beside above or below one another until he’d built a tower of screens around himself. Each screen held a small bit of truth and fact. Each piece built a vague suspicion into ill ease, into fear of the truth behind it. The clearer the final image became…

  The northern Walls were still there, but they were locked down tightly. No one came in, no one left. The higher officials, the Ton and the Governors had cut off all outside communications except for their own. The people had been barred from the Network.

  Those few communications left mentioned purges, attacks, and plagues. Paranoia perhaps, something had spooked the northern Governors badly, but with only the Network, and that at an extremely diminished capacity, he couldn’t be sure how right they were in their panic.

  War and plague…the last time he’d heard those words together…

  Leaving a bot to run analysis and work on gleaning information from the Walls, Jacobi turned his own search to the past. He pulled up a door amongst the windows, programed the correct location and stepped through.

  The darkness gave way to light. He was standing on top of a building taller than any Wall could hope to be. It looked like a needle, but around the top, a room was wrapped, balanced delicately. Below, a city was overrun by massive trees, broken glass and girders glinted from the foliage.

  “Jacobi. It’s been a long time. Still trying to save the world?”

  He smiled and turned to face a young looking avatar, maybe early twenties. The man had curly auburn hair and striking blue/gray eyes, but those eyes weren’t young at all. Skyler was sixty four in the waking world, old by the standards of the day, full of wisdom and bitterness.

  “It’s still worth saving.”

  “Open your eyes, kid. There’s nothing left but corpses who refuse to admit they’re already as good as dead.”

  Jacobi shook his head. “We’ll always disagree on that, Skyler. I wish I had time to debate it with you again, but I came to you for a reason.”

  “I’m guessing it wasn’t for my charming good looks or the great view below,” the other Hacker’s avatar smirked self-depreciatingly.

  “No, I had a question about the past. War and plague. The two were mentioned together in ancient history, nearly a thousand years ago, I think. If anyone could give me information—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m a font of ancient history. I am busy, you know.”

  “Please Skyler,” Jacobi begged. “I don’t know how long I have to talk to you, the northern Walls…”

  “I’m not a Waller,” he snorted with disgust.

  “Please.”

  “You owe me massively—‘your first born’ massively. I don’t have time for this.”

  Jacobi nodded and sat by the young avatar.

  “It wasn’t a thousand years. More like five hundred, five-fifty maybe. There was a war; it didn’t just include our lands, but others across the wide seas. Everyone fought, billions died, not just soldiers. Civilians, innocents, no one was safe. The weapons they used shattered and poisoned and gouged deep wounds into the world. From those wounds rose death.

  “The war didn’t end in peace. It just slowly ground to a halt when the different sides ran out of things to throw at each other and troops to do the throwing. Of the ten percent of mankind left alive at the war’s end, around another sixty percent were lost to the plague. Those women who were pregnant during that time, those who survived, split like the spores of toxic fungus and brought forth the Angels into the world.”

  “That…” Jacobi didn’t know what to say. It sounded so dark and hopeless. “That must have been a horrible time.”

  “Well, at least according to popular mythos. I definitely wasn’t around for that, and all of the data from before the war has been fractured. It’s corrupt, half there at best. After the war the information available is just supposition. It’s all hearsay and jargon and political maneuvering by the Governors of the Walls. What facts there are can’t be verified since the hard proof doesn’t exist anymore.” Skyler looked out into his programed world and shrugged, “or if it is out there, it’s beyond my reach.”

  “There has to be something.” Jacobi insisted.

  “There are lots of somethings, that’s the problem. Used to be there was this practice the Once Timers called science. It was all about proving things and seeing how things ticked, people and objects, but now it’s all forbidden. Only keepers can know science and that’s limited stuff. Even if it wasn’t against the edicts, where would anyone start? No one remembers how they did it.”

  Jacobi had heard of the forbidden arts, but not much. “Why are they forbidden?”

  Skyler’s mouth turned up a bit. “It can be used to harness fire and plague. The Once Timers used it to create the weapons that destroyed everything. It’s even rumored that one of those weapons is responsible for Nomans. Can you imagine holding that much power?”

  He didn’t want to imagine it. It sounded terrible. “Couldn’t something like that be used to make things better?”

  “It was. Look how much better off we are.”

  Jacobi couldn’t tell if Skyler was being sarcastic or serious, and that frightened him. “I should keep looking.”

  “You won’t find anything, Jacobi. The past is dead.”

  “Well I won’t know if I don’t keep looking,” Jacobi smiled unsurely and opened his door again. “Thank you, Skyler.”

  The young avatar shook his head. “Don’t thank me, repay me. It’s the edict of the Waste.”

  Jacobi nodded and stepped back into his darkness, checked his screens and programs and went back to the Walls and their connection to the past.

  A deeper dive into the corners of the Network, the places shadowed by data corruption, only found pieces. He ran everything through data retrieval programs. Multiple of them, just in case one missed something. It would be a long while though, before the tasks would be complete. Jacobi could have kicked himself for never delving into these recesses before, but he’d always been more focused on the present and the future than the past.

  With a soft push, he sent the windows running the retrieval programs back and pulled up some new, there was nothing else he could access though. The Walls were locked too tightly for him to reach the lower levels or anything deeper than the Ton’s memos to each other.

  Trying to plot an avatar of himself into the Wall’s deep Network didn’t succeed either. Is it just outsiders, or everyone being locked out? Tons of people plug themselves in and live more as avatars than as flesh. To deny them that…what will it do to them?

  A window far back lit up brighter and he pulled it forward. The search program he’d set for the strange man from the Under Wall pinged. Nothing old, no home location, name or age, but a man of similar description had passed a guard cam riding a very fast solar equipped cyc. He was four clicks down Man’s Road, heading south toward Nomans. Scans had picked up no ident chip and a foreign Network port, but deemed him known and harmless. He had been dubbed ‘The Mechanic’, a Wastrel who traveled between settlements and Walls on a semi frequent basis.

  Jacobi brought up the visual and watched the blur speed by the cam. He slowed the feed down and watched it again, then again. The stranger’s hood must be weighted, because even at such high speeds it didn’t come off, but it was the same hood, the same hands. A 99% chance that this was his stranger, according to the readouts, but Jacobi knew it was him. Resetting the search program with the travel direction and The Mechanic’s usual routes taken into account, Jacobi went back to beating himself against the northern Walls. The cam tripping had given him an idea.

  * * * *

  Sand pelted Enoch hard as he rode. Tiny, needle sharp stingers pierced the flesh of his face beneath his hood. The sand storm was one of many he would have to push through on his way back. At least it afforded him a bit of cover. Man’s Road was the fastest route between the Walls and many of the larger set
tlements between them, but it was well monitored as well as maintained. Angels weren’t allowed. The Walls boasted it as a safe passage for humankind.

  Merchants and travelers were watched, recorded and protected by the traveling Sentries and an elongated tunnel of metal mesh of old grating and other odds and ends scavenged at the same time as the materials for the Walls. Because of that, what made the journey so safe and quick also meant that Enoch had to be careful. It all came down to dealing with a known threat verses an unknown one. Sentries had strict patterns and guide lines that the Angels in the wider Waste would not. As long as he kept his guard up, and as long as his cyc was strong enough to barrel through the weak points in the rusty and aged mesh, he would be fine.

  He traveled from a few hours before dusk to well past dawn and spent the hottest parts of the day under the shade of a make-shift lean to, chewing on juicy roots and an occasional cactus fruit to maintain himself. As soon as it was cool enough, he started out again. The familiar journey was dull and long. Enoch longed to port into the Network and check up on the north, scan the area ahead, even just escape the heat and sand, but he knew better. Plugging in completely would leave his body open and vulnerable, and without a submersion, a deprivation tank, or body numbing drugs the dual sensations were dangerous. Minds weren’t meant to live two lives at once. Enoch had no access to a dep tank in the Wastes, nor water deep enough to fully cover a full grown man, and he could only numb his body so much before he simply passed out.

  If he’d brought his maintenance cyc, he could have plugged in visually, but that transport had been made light and was full of the equipment needed on such ventures. It couldn’t handle supply runs, the extra weight tipped the delicate balance it needed to maintain. Instead he would have to be patient and trust that the bots he’d left in place would manage anything he needed them to in his absence.