Digital Venous

by Richard Gohl

  The staff, both male and female, were ideologically against Ryan leaving, but they were not used to seeing small people. His acceptance of the situation and the quiet strength despite his small stature seemed to move them.

  Ryan was an experiment. Ever since his first major dose of N.E.T., Shane had been giving him small amounts of blood, a technique called copy transfusions, to keep his cells fresh. It seemed to work. But now he was on his own.

  A magnatrain took them silently through the city straight round to the east gate. It was getting late. Ryan followed the guard, and another guard followed behind Ryan. As they stepped out under the sheltered walkway, Ryan struggled to inhale the hot dry air. Consistent twenty-knot winds blew in from the north often at temperatures of sixty degrees Celsius. He felt like his clothes were being burned from his body with each step.

  “Where am I going?” he asked.

  “A home for real children,” said the guard.

  Chapter 21

  The Real World

  THE GRAVEL STREETS of the real world were thin and poorly lit. The constant twilight came from low power lighting and light reflected down in columns from the transdomes above. Streets spiraled tightly downward, and homes and businesses had small doorways leading off these. All buildings were dug from the outside wall only. The central column of a spiraling street was also used for dust extraction, plumbing, and electricity. The spiral streets were linked horizontally in two, sometimes three, places.

  Despite occasional outbreaks of violence, real people had always managed to reinstate the symbiotic relationship with Napeans. They were paid for doing the jobs the Napeans didn’t want to do—mainly building. They also performed dangerous mining work outside the protection zone—risking exposure to the sun resulting in radiation sickness, sun blindness, and cancer. Payment was provided from Service coffers and distributed by Napean guards. It was always given in dollars—unless a worker was seeking medical help. Medical assistance was provided only in the direst of cases.

  Healthcare in the real world was an ongoing problem, and Napeans could provide blood analysis, a range of bodily scanners, and surgery available to those with a favorable work record. However, more often than not, real people had to perform their own medical procedures as best they could. Medical facilities and resources were limited to what was salvaged at the time of the solar holocaust. While they lived as humans had on Earth for millennia—their standard of living was more akin to how people lived two or three hundred years earlier. Their average life expectancy was around fifty.

  Unlike the Napeans, real people were not homogenous in their views although a large number of them felt the Napean way of life was unnatural, inhuman, or just plain wrong. Others believed that resources and technology should be shared, not simply provide for the space exploration program, which would only benefit the chosen few. Some wanted to hijack a space ship and relocate to one of the rumored better planets. Others wanted to take over the city, extend their lives, and live as real people—not as Napeans. They were, however, unified on their view that Napeans needed to be stopped from stealing their babies. The problem with this was that the babies were being sold along with the tobacco, the opium, the cocaine, and the sex.

  In contrast to the Napeans, real people seemed hyperactive. Part of it was due to diet; more specifically, to the fact that they actually had a diet. Real people were more traditional in every way.

  Acts of violence against Napeans were not restricted to “eye crime.” There was also blood crime. Although some real people knew the science behind N.E.T. therapy, many didn’t. There was a belief that a partial transfusion of Napean blood could cure just about anything.

  Real workers granted access to the city were carefully selected and closely monitored. However, they often had to perform tasks well out of view and out of reach of Napean guards. This meant that every now and then it was some time before a real worker was found to be missing.

  On one such occasion a rooftop fixing applicator—a high-risk job—was working above the city, and slipped away from the crew unnoticed. He made his way to a disused building, entered through the roof, abducted a Napean male, and bound him, sitting, to a pillar. The real worker and then drained one third of his own blood, right onto the floor. Then, using an inter-person transfusion syringe, he extracted two liters of oily white blood from the incapacitated Napean. The Napean survived but the worker was never found.

  On another occasion, a group of Napeans in a club had been verbally abusing a real worker, harnessed outside their building, fixing a Lunatex on the fifth floor of a six-story building. When the worker returned the abuse, two of them opened windows, purposely knocking him from the building. A team of real workers on an adjacent building witnessed their comrade fall to his death. Evading guards, four of them made it down the stairs across the street and into the lavish Napean club. They made their way to the fifth floor and commenced some clubbing of their own. Using their heavy tools, they began attacking the group of some thirty Napeans in the room before guards arrived, unleashing the firepower of the bolt gun, killing all four.

  Because violence begets violence, incidents like this were common. Although the majority of Napeans and real people were peaceful, an element in each population was hell-bent on destroying the other.

  Unlike the Napeans, who were linked to all other Napean cities across the Americas and Asia, the real people were isolated in every way. There was no information highway and no electrotelepathy hooking them up with each other and the rest of the planet. Napean Service officials knew how important it was to keep it that way. They tried to monitor the potential threat. Nobody knew real people numbers, but it had only taken a few to release the anxiety bug. Imagine what an army of them could do?

  Chapter 22

  Raw Power

  THE MEETING WAS held in a private room of a busy saloon on the edge of the northwestern Stirling transdome. Alia chose the spot with a view of the city—the dark walls and the colossal topaz facades, jutting and angling like crystal.

  When Alia, Wez, and Madi launched the anxiety bug, the reprisals and the hunt for whoever perpetrated the crime had been sufficiently terrifying to bury their little group for years. Now they were back.

  Alia wasted no time in putting all the cards on the table.

  “It been a long time,” she said quietly. “Things have settled. But really, nothing has changed. We’re still seeing the same crimes being committed against our people. We’ve all given this a lot of thought and I’ve spoken to everyone here. As I understand it, these are our goals.

  First: locate and return all abductees.” There was general nodding and agreement. Although Madi had been nodding too, she stopped, saying, “Easier said than done...”

  “We’re not worried about how we are going to do it,” said Alia. “Right now the question is what do we want? Okay?”

  “Yep,” said Madi.

  “Secondly,” continued Alia, “we’d all like to know the answer to several other questions: what kind of solar activity is predicted, and what are the current habitation options in the near galaxy? Whether or not we like it, these things will have a massive impact on us.”

  There was no argument about the aims of the group except for “the habitation options in the galaxy.” Bes and Madi shared the traditional view that space travel was no way to solve your problems—interstellar travel was a Napean obsession, and not something they cared about. And they said so.

  “But we need to know what they are doing and what they are planning to do,” said Claire adamantly. “If they leave, things will be very different down here—we need as much information as we can get.”

  Eventually they agreed on this and started talking about the project closest to their hearts: finding the children.

  But, as often happens at such meetings, individuals choose to vent their frustrations and tempers boil over. Madi believed that all that was required was brute force: get in, take control, and make the necessary demands. Napeans need
ed to know that they couldn’t get away with it any longer. Bes and Wez agreed. Alia sat back thinking. Claire said she was worried that more violence would only mean more tragedy.

  An argument ensued, in which Madi implied that Claire did not have the experience to be dealing with Napeans. Claire ignored her but Madi continued.

  “So if we do this whole thing peacefully—just sneak in, hide, and do it all covertly—how are we going to fit in up there?” Madi didn’t ask a question because she didn’t know the answer; she questioned others to challenge them. She knew it and all the girls knew it. Her question was really: “Claire, how are you going to blend?”

  Bes deflected the question: “Not all of them use surgery to make themselves look different…”

  “I know that,” said Madi. “But not everyone here has experience in…”

  Bes continued deflecting, “At least half of them have a ‘natural’ look—no alterations. So we need to blend with the other group: the freaks.”

  It worked; Madi dropped the bone, laughed, and said, “Oh, I think you’ll blend in quite okay.”

  “You won’t,” said Bes, referring to Madi’s hair.

  “What? There are lots of blondes up there,” said Madi defensively. “Should be a walk over then.” Bes continued the blonde joke. Claire said, “Can I just ask… what was your point?”

  Alia said, “And no one said anything about going in to Napea anyway. You’re getting way ahead of yourselves.”

  “Do you think we do need step up our body art? Piercings?” asked Madi. Alia exhaled loudly. “Can we get on with the meeting?”

  “Okay,” said Madi hurriedly, “but I say no implants!” The others groaned. “You will need to wash your hair, though!” Bes joked.

  “Shut up,” Madi smiled. She loved conflict.

  Alia was rubbing her eyes. Wez had his head leaning on his hand. Claire was staring off into the middle distance. She took a deep breath and said, “Okay, seeing as we’re on the topic… what else should we take into account when going into Napea?”

  “Any sort of physical fight, we’ll win. Even the men, they’re as bad as the women,” said Madi.

  Bes agreed, “Because they lie around connected to games all day. Their brains are

  Working, but they do nothing physically…”

  “Some of them,” said Alia.

  “We do all of their work—if we can time it, and all be at the right place at once, I reckon we’ll just be able to walk in and literally grab what we want.” She gestured, plucking an invisible gun from an invisible Napean.

  Alia was more circumspect. “For the majority, yes. Don’t forget: guards are different. They’re not weak, and they‘ve been doing the same job for a very long time so they fight smart. And they take enzymes which build muscle without them even doing anything!”

  “Yeah, but they don’t eat! Real muscle needs real protein.” Madi spoke quickly, showing off her steely bicep. The others smiled.

  The only male at the meeting, Wez, spoke up. “We know physically we’re probably going to be advantaged, but don’t forget their gun power.”

  “And we can’t take in any guns. We need to find other ways,” said Claire.

  “That’s right,” Wez continued. “And what are we going to do with those new laser bolts? Pretty much any hit is a fatality… like a molten bolt of metal and yet it’s actually just light…”

  “How does that work?” asked Madi, flatly.

  “Not sure of the technology. But it doesn’t matter what part of you is hit. You die from shock… and a… big hole…”

  “We need to find out how those guns work,” Alia said. “We need to stay out of their way,” said Claire.

  “And obviously, we need to get some of those guns,” said Madi. “Once we’re in, we head straight to the ammo shop.”

  “Security HQ,” said Bes.

  “Yeah!” said Madi, smiling demonically.

  “And where’s that?” Claire asked, humoring them.

  “When you walk in up through the east gate, look up. It’s right there,” said Madi. “Which entrance are you talking about?” said Bes.

  “They’re all the same.”

  “That’s not it, though...” said Alia with a brief head shake. “I knew a guy that got taken up to one of those, and they’re quite small. There must be another place. More central.” No one had much to add. Alia went on. “We need inside help so we can take a number of gates at once. From there we can occupy a whole section of the city and win some bargaining power.”

  “I know someone,” said Wez. “Who?” Alia asked.

  “The Napean guard who was caught with the child.”

  “I heard it’s the same guy who has been taking bribes for years,” said Claire. “Probably,” said Wez.

  “I feel sorry for that child,” said Bes, looking at each of them. “He could be mine…”

  “Yeah,” Madi agreed. “How’s the little fella’s life? Try being stolen, taken to live with some phony parents, stolen again, and then killed in some bent institution.”

  “I don’t think that’s what’s happening,” said Wez

  Bes blubbered, head in hands.

  “Darling, what’s wrong?” Madi had no idea.

  She looked up, face red and wet. “It’s the not-knowing that’s so hard to deal with—everyday!”

  “I know,” said Madi. She hugged Bes. “That’s why we’re all here,” said Alia.

  “We have each other,” said Claire, putting a hand on her shoulder. Bes’ crying fit subsided.

  Wez broke the tension, sounding inappropriately positive. “Guess what?”

  Everyone looked dumbly at Wez. They were still in shock. Alia was the only one who could speak. “What?”

  “The guard who was caught with the kid?” Wez waited to make sure everyone was following.

  Alia, with wide eyes and head forward, implored, “Yyyeeees…?”

  “They’re not killing the kid. They’re sending him out.”

  “Out where?” asked Bes, who had suddenly stopped sniffling.

  “What?” asked Madi. If she didn’t understand something, the whole world had to wait. Slowly and carefully Wez said, “The kid whose father was caught in Napea… the

  Napean guard…” Everyone stopped dead.

  “I heard they’re sending the boy down here.”

  Chapter 23

  A New Home

  REAL PEOPLE LIVED communally in hydroponic food production houses. Husband-and-wife households were uncommon. Couples could live together in a hydro house to bring up a child, but this was unusual, seen as soft or overly sentimental. Children were looked after by whoever was available. They worked as soon as they were physically strong enough, usually around the age of nine or ten, and attended school several days a week.

  Although real people were not particularly religious, they held superstitious beliefs to prevent misfortune and explain accidents. Collapsing walls and ceilings, chronic throat and lung conditions, viruses, all exacerbated by frequent dust inhalation, were common cause of death. In lieu of medical opinion, people developed their own observations of cause and effect—which often involved the influences of supernatural forces.

  The sun had gone down behind the hills to the west and darkness fell quickly. Ryan, accompanied by Napean guards, hurried through Blackwood Gate and out along the walkway. Sand piled up across sections of the path and the walkway roof was weathered and falling to pieces. The heat had given way to the chill of the night as the four figures quietly entered the transdome.

  Two armed men sat at the entrance and stood up to question the guards as they entered. “Why couldn’t they do their jobs properly? Why couldn’t they patrol their gate and keep out filthy drug-addicted Napean predators and stalkers…” And so on.

  Periodically, the real people implemented their city-watch program and had individuals maintaining a vigil over the entrance points to the real world. It only worked if all seven underground townships were participating. The
se men had been organized in response to a spate of recent killings—perpetrated, it was assumed, by Napean hunters. The Napean guards barely acknowledged the two men, pushing past them and leading Ryan around to a sign that said “Second Street.”

  The southern transdomes were rougher than their northern counterparts but scenic concerns were lost on Ryan. He was still in shock from his ordeal. After walking down a spiraling road for about ten minutes the Napean guards brought Ryan to a small sandstone door. There were no windows. No roof. There was a number, 421, on the door. A guard pressed the tiny button near the number and a huge real person came out! He was very tall and had hair nearly covering his whole face; Ryan had never seen a beard before. The man extended his hand toward Ryan. He had lengthy, wavy brown hair and large deep-set blue eyes. He wore a beige-cultured collared long-sleeve shirt and a pair of loose-fitting denim trousers.

  “Hello there. I’m Ben,” he said, introducing himself to Ryan. Evidently he knew the guards. “Thank you, officers.”

  One of the officers asked, “Any problems?”

  Ben replied, “I’ll call you later. Had some enquiries from the girls group I was telling you about.”

  “Really?” replied the officer.

  “Later…” said Ben. The guards left, walking back the way they’d come. Ben turned to Ryan and said earnestly, “So you’ve had quite a journey. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” Ryan was surprised at how calm his voice sounded.

  “Brave fellow. Well, we’re here to help you with whatever you need, okay? There are other young people here too…” On hearing this, Ryan’s mouth opened in amazement.

  “You okay?” asked Ben again.

  “I’ve never met another boy…”

  “Well, there you go. You may not want to see too many people to begin with. And that’s fine. Take it at your own pace. Come in and meet my wife Ginny.”

  They walked through the small stone door and Ben latched it behind them. This entrance was made all the more strange as the size of the interior became apparent. The central hallway extended for as far as his eye could see in the dim light. From the central corridor other corridors lead off but mostly, there were many other similar doors—many closed, but some opening into dark rooms. The ceilings were very low.