by Robert Brown
“They keep the people segregated inside the city,” Gyrod said. “Each block contains a different race of people, and they aren’t allowed to wander from block to block. One block might be Japanese, another Pakistani, another Scottish, et cetera. The theory is that if all those cultures blended, there would be no way to control the cultural and technological advancement. By keeping people segregated, he keeps them from working together, and learning from each other. Segregation is safe storage, if you don’t want a people to advance.”
“He doesn’t want people to advance?” I asked.
“No,” Gyrod replied. “He wants to keep everyone as they were in the 1900’s. Impoverished, but employed. Unhappy, but controlled. Technology breaks people out of the system. It makes them independent and gives them little need for governments, or corporations.”
“These people are slaves to this city, although not all of them see it. They are employed all their waking hours, cogs in a massive, oppressive machine. They are led to believe that they choose the work they do, but in most cases they simply take what’s available, and what is available is typically horrible or demeaning, since no one would willing give up any good position,” Gyrod said.
“Since it takes a huge work force to maintain this much control,” he went on. “Everyone must work long hours to maintain this life. They work long works to maintain a life they hate.”
I looked back out the window. In the center of the city was one mammoth building, so tall that it thrust its phallic visage into the clouds and disappeared from view. It was huge and foreboding, and although it cast no shadow in the graying dusk, it did seem to darken all around it. There were no lights coming from this building, and no doors or windows to be seen, just a few slotted vents speckling its sides.
“That is ‘The Cage’, or ‘The Box’ as the police call it. We nicknamed it the ‘Change Cage’. It is a vault, a junkyard, and a prison, and each city has one. Anything that happens in the city that doesn’t fit the very narrow description of what is acceptably Victorian is thrown into the Cage. That includes people. If a man invents something that is too ‘outside acceptable Victorian standards’, which typically means anything that’s an advancement or improvement, his invention goes in the Cage. If he seems capable of doing this again, he himself will be thrown in the Cage.”
“What’s in the Cage?” I asked. “Is it a prison? Or maybe just big shredders, like a massive garbage disposal? Or a party filled with all the hippie-outcasts-inventors?”
“No one really knows, but you are about to find out. My maker is in the Cage, and we are going in to get him,” said Gyrod.
“Then I hope its not shredders,” I said.
The train was now headed down the hillside and across the swampy valley toward the outer wall of the city. The city’s feet stood in a vast pool of filth, where sewage and refuse were dumped into the swamps around it. In these surrounding swamps were filthy, sickly giants. The huge gators, hyenadons and other vicious beasts I had yet to meet, all waded in the sewage looking for anything cast out. From our position on the hill, they looked like roaches and maggots crawling through a rotting carcass.
As we came down the hill, my eyes were drawn to what I thought was a black-domed building. I soon saw the reason my eyes were drawn to it is that it was moving, slowly rising into the night sky. It was not a dome, but a sphere, a huge black balloon, hand sewn, lifting a gondola the size of a shed up and out of the city.
But on the tops of the walls around the city were police trains, and soon their searchlights had fixed on the escaping balloon. They shot long sprays of fire up at it. The jets of fire seemed to miss, and for a few exciting seconds I assumed the fugitives had made. Then a mild orange glow lit the back of the balloon creating a halo. One of the streams of fire had hit it.
The balloon cleared the wall, but was now losing altitude fast. It suddenly burst, and collapsed, dropping to the ground like a shot. I could see figures leaping from it as it fell, but at that altitude there was no chance of survival. I could only watch in horror as the small figures fell to their death. The police trains then continued on.
Our own train slowed now, and plunged into a dark tunnel in the outer wall. In the tunnel our windows were black, and when we emerged we were shown a bizarre and dismal scene. As if we were on the world’s most depressing theme park ride we slowly passed blackened old buildings, and a depressed populace. Buildings were ornate in design, but so crusted with the filth of coal fires that any beauty in their artistry had been covered. These sat along side dilapidated, leaning wooden buildings, with crooked walls, and dangling shutters.
There were people everywhere, hurriedly walking through the squalor to whatever dismal jobs awaited them. Instead of the youthful look of the sky people, or the tanned strong and happy Neobedouins, these people looked tired, and old, with deep frown lines permanently etched on not just the old, but even the relatively young faces.
Even the children worked. From the day the were old enough to hold a broom, some task was assigned to them. I later learned they worked part-time, and went to school part-time, and in that way the adults were nostalgic of their youth: you only worked part of the time as a child – the other half was strictly regimented school. I swore to myself I would keep Chloe and Isabella from this life, if I could in any way help it.
The streets were filled with a massive variety of moving things. There were many old bicycles in a variety of sizes and number of wheels. There were steam-powered carriages, buggies with clockwork beasts pulling them, as filthy and depressing as the buildings. There were men on mechanical horses, mechanical ostriches, llamas, or giant armadillos. In all cases, these mechanical creations only looked half-finished. Huge sections of their sides would be missing, exposing the complex gears within. This seemed to be making a statement to any government enforcers who might see them. This is just old fashioned clockwork! No new technology here!
In many cases I could even see gears where they didn’t belong at all. On the side of a hat, or in the center of a tie, or glued to someone’s boot. It was almost as though the occupants of the city used gears as some sort of evidence that they were doing nothing new – nothing progressive. A badge of old-fashioned conformity. These depressed people filled the sidewalks. They wore elaborate but coal-stained garb of red velvet, gold rope epaulettes, corsets, top hats, bowlers, cummerbunds, and bustles. Filthy formal wear seemed to be the city’s uniform.
We saw one group of people standing outside a clothing store, engrossed in discussion. “They are likely debating whether the clothing is really Victorian,” Gyrod said, looking at a cluster of peoples gazing approvingly into a shop window. “Whether it fits Victors plans of enforced de-evolution. One of their favorite conversation topics is debating if something is truly old-fashioned enough, or what designer or craftsman is about to be Caged for being too modern. If something is deemed ‘not authentic Victorian’, the owner could be cast out, and imprisoned.” They have been taught to fear evolution, and so ‘in period’ for them means maintaining a fashion that hasn’t changed in two hundred years. I’ve seen them report a man for having zippers, since buttons are far more old-fashioned.”
He then leaned into the window to glance ahead. “This is where we get off.” The train was crawling along now, slowly slipping through a tunnel in one of the massive walls. We stepped past the crates of salvage, and towards the open door. At this crawl, the jump to the ground was easy, and soon we stood on cobblestones between tunnel wall and train, as the massive machine rolled slowly away. We were inside one of the walls that separated the city blocks. As the train’s caboose slipped into the tunnel, a massive portcullis-like gate sealed the exit behind it. When the caboose slipped out the other end of the tunnel, a similar gate shut us in.
We weren’t trying to get out. Gyrod strode on his long rusty legs to a circular grate six-feet wide, and tore it from its hinges and clasp. Then the massive metal man bent over, and stepped inside the round tunnel, and continued
down it like a spider in a hose.
Gyrod led me through the tunnel, past a huge fan that had once filled the tunnel but now lay to one side, and into a large room. In the center of this room was a crate roughly the proportions of a bed. On it lay an automaton, his legs detached and lying next to him. The room was filled with broken pieces of machinery, most of which resembled human anatomy in some way: arms, legs, eyes in an old bucket.
Also in the room was a battered and rusty old man, arms of fine china, legs of iron, who diligently worked with tiny tools on the machine-man who was lying prone on the crate. He looked up briefly when we entered, but upon seeing Gyrod he went back to his work.
“Gyrod, what is our plan?” I asked in hushed tones.
“I’m not sure. It will be tough moving about the streets, as it is clear you are not a Victorian, and I am not at work. Victor’s followers are quick to point out anyone who does not fit the rigid laws of the city.” Gyrod looked clearly scared. “I would stand out most, as an automaton who is not at work is obviously sentient, and therefore illegal.”
“Can we just make a run for it? How do you get into the Change Cage?” I asked.
“The only way I know to get in is by police train. They pass in and out of the Cage all day,” he said.
“Couldn’t we just allow ourselves to get caught?” I asked.
“Hmm.” Gyrod looked concerned. “This troubles me. It seems risky, not knowing our fate once we are inside. But still, the idea has some merit if we do it right.”
In the end, we came up with a plan, which honestly, I got from a movie I once saw. You know, that movie where the hero dresses up like a prison guard to break into the prison? Anyway, here is what we did. The police trains travel on tracks that run on top of the walls between the city blocks. Throughout the city at various intervals are little police train-stations. When a guard is done with his shift, the small steam trains will stop at a station, and the guard will switch with his replacement. So we waited at the bottom of the steps, and as the exhausted guard came down we clubbed him on the head.
Surprisingly, this doesn’t make a man pass out like in the movies. It hurts him, so you club him again, which hurts him more…and then you feel bad, because this is just a guy doing his job and here you are hitting him on the head for no apparent reason.
In the end, Gyrod lifted him off the ground by the back of his suspenders, and I said, “Sorry about this. Tell you what, if you go quietly, I’ll make sure you get let out in a couple hours. Make a fuss, and I’ll have this seven foot automaton tie your spine in a pretzel. Which will ya have?”
“I’ll go quietly, guv’na!” he said. Oh, great, I thought, Not only do they dress these guys like 1890’s British ‘Bobbies’, but he speaks in a faux-British accent, like he’s been watching too much Monty Python! God, I hate fake accents, but I smiled and pretended not to notice.
In a few minutes, another guard came to take this one’s place, and this time we skipped the attempt to knock him unconscious, and instead Gyrod lifted him by the throat, as I explained his options to him. He also agreed to cooperate, and I traded clothes with him quickly, and ran up the stairs to the train.
I took a steam-train to work.
Just like the one my father took.
And I pass over the walls.
I see the people as I look.
- Excerpt from the song
The Change Cage.
I stepped onto the train, and entered a car filled with a dozen smartly dressed officers, who turned to look at me in unison, while the biggest said, “You’re late. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m…uh…new,” I said.
“Ira Nuew?” he said, and he pulled up a clipboard and starting running a fat finger down a list of names. “I’ve got an ‘Ira Chew?’. Is that you? ‘Chew’, You Chinese? ‘cause this ain’t block 624 at all!” But just then a bell started ringing adamantly, and all the officers stood up. The train lurched several times, swinging them on their handholds, and finally started chugging down the tracks.
We passed over four walled blocks, before the train came screeching to a halt in the middle of a wall. We all jumped onto a precarious little walkway and ran towards long narrow stairs that led down to the streets.
At the bottom of the steps we came to a man in the street standing between two other officers. “Building Ae14, Floor12, Home 182. They been handing out homemade remedies for the black cough,” the filthy, skinny man said with pride on his face. Obviously turning in his neighbors filled him with joy.
The large officer from the train took out a billy club and cracked the man heavily on the skull with it. “There’s no such thing as black cough, or can’t you read?” he said, pointing to a notice posted on the wall. “Michaels, take this man to The Box while we deal with these Progressors.” I remembered The Box was police slang for The Change Cage.
A dozen of us from the train then jogged down the soot blackened cobblestones until we came to building Ae14. Two officers stayed at the bottom of the stairs, as the rest of us walked quietly up the steps to floor twelve. We walked down a rickety wooden walkway to ‘Home 182’. The large guard knocked on the door, and said in a fairly convincing falsetto, “Good day, mum. Any remedy for an elderly neighbor?”
The door was opened by a tall, slender, but well groomed, man in his early thirties wearing an apron and small round glasses. “How may I help you, officers?” he asked, looking surprised and scared.
The large bobbie gave him a quick glance up and down, and then shoved him aside. He stomped into the living room, and found a series of vials, test tubes, drip lines, and boilers all processing a thin, pale blue liquid. There was a mother and two daughters pressed against the wall of the shabby apartment in fear.
“So why aren’t you all at work? The sun is out, and you are all obviously well enough to stand their and cry. I’d say you were well enough to be at work!” our chief said, looking them up and down. He then grabbed the mother by her chestnut hair and pulled her to her knees.
“Wait, wait, I’m the one you want!” said the father, “I’m the one thinking outside The Box!” he pleaded, throwing himself at the chief of police.
“Sure you are,” our ruffian said, dragging the screaming crying mother from the apartment. “and that’s why you have the hands of a cobbler while her fingers are stained blue. Do I look like this is my first day at work?”
The children were screaming and crying now, and as police officers it was our job to hold them back. This was a sore trial for me; helping the bad guy to do bad. As each second elapsed various strategies and outcomes flashed through my mind. But all my ideas lead to the same result; I would be killed and the mother would still be thrown in the Cage. There was nothing I could do.
The chief dragged her screaming back down the cobblestone streets while throngs of her neighbors looked on in horror. Not all of them seemed to disapprove of the police chief’s actions, but I did notice that the ones who cheered her defeat all seemed to have a nasty cough.
Back into the train we went with the screaming mother in tow. She was thrown in a holding pen so large it required its own train car. They must have often taken dozens of Progressors at once in this thing.
The cell they threw her in was not empty. In it were two automatons, one of which was Gyrod, sitting perfectly still, not moving his head or eyes. He looked dead, or vacant, but I knew better. The other was a small girl, with clearly exposed gears on the side of her head where her hair and been ripped out. I sat close enough that I could hear the mother and the small clockwork girl talking in whispered tones.
The girl asked, “Why didn’t you leave sooner?”
The mother replied, “To go where? There is nothing out there but death.”
The girl said, “But I have heard there is…”
“Sssh!” the mother interrupted, glancing at me with fear.
Soon I could see ahead our tracks led toward a monolithic building, and as we pulled into the darkness around The Chang
e Cage, I could see the base of it contained a series of train tunnels leading from all over the city.
As the train pulled into the tunnel at crawl that seemed almost fearful, I heard the captured mother say to the little automated girl, “Whatever you do, don’t flinch”.
We screeched to a halt on a platform, and the engine let out an obnoxious jet of steam. Two police officers then went into the confinement car on our train, and pulled the terrified woman from the car. Two more officers escorted the automatons out, who went with no resistance, as resisting would show they were self aware. We were met on the platform by a young military man in a shiny black uniform with silver badging. He held a clipboard, and attached to the clip board was a small cardboard rectangle.
He said, “Name?”
Nobody spoke, so our piggy-chief smacked the lady hard in the head, “Tell the lieutenant your name!”
“April Adams,” she said, clearly terrified and shivering.
The young soldier then said to her in a sugary tone, “Don’t carry on so. It’s not as bad as all that, provided you are worth something.”
“Will I see my children again?”
“Hah! Of course not!” he said, now looking offended. He wrote her name on the card, then spoke again back to the chief, “Focus?”
Our officer replied, “Chemistry. Specifically, Pharmaceutical Chemistry.”
The young officer looked at chief through raised eyebrows and small round glasses, “My, aren’t you specific.” His tone was sing-songy, but accusatory.
