Redux

by Sean Williams

  The elevator emptied and they went their separate ways.

  ‘Are you connected to the Air?’ Ray’s question was little more than a breath in Jesse’s ear.

  He nodded in reply.

  ‘My lens has fallen out. I need you to send a message.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘All of us.’

  Jesse didn’t need to ask for clarification. Ray’s tone made it clear he meant everyone in WHOLE. Those who were left – which was a lot more than there ought to be, if the Air was telling the truth.

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Eric Arthur Blair.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  As Jesse and Ray walked slowly across the marbled foyer of Wallace’s HQ , expecting to be swooped upon and taken back into custody at any moment, Jesse tapped out the words and prepared to send them to everyone whose name he recognised. Theo. Jamila. Arcady. Seeing his father’s name in his augs, Jesse added him to the list too, even though that made him feel nervous. The last three times Jesse had been in the same place as his father there had been someone else behind that familiar face, someone threatening to kill him.

  Just days had passed since he’d watched the man he had thought was his father blow up in the house he had lived in all his life. The wound was still raw, and he caught himself tearing up. Just because he and his father had been at odds, that didn’t mean he didn’t care and wouldn’t miss him if he never came back …

  The bump went into the Air as they stepped outside the building. Jesse shaded his eyes from a shaft of sunlight reflecting from a wall of mirrored windows. It seemed to be mid-morning, which would only make sense if they had been put on ice somewhere in data form, before being remade.

  There were guards outside the door, but they simply nodded and let them pass, assuming they were dupes like everyone else. Jesse felt as though a thousand eyes were boring into the small of his back as they walked away, but he refused to turn and look. Running wasn’t an option for Ray, and Jesse wasn’t going to leave him if the gig was up.

  ‘Who’s Eric Arthur Blair when he’s at home?’ he asked Ray.

  ‘George Orwell. He was a writer—’

  ‘Yeah, I know who he was. Using his real name means … ?’

  Ray looked carefully left and right before replying, ‘Don’t trust anyone. We’ve been duped by The Man.’

  Jesse was used to the paranoid fantasies of his father and his friends. He had heard them often. For the first time in his life he wondered if they hadn’t been paranoid enough.

  7

  They walked down Thirty-third Street and turned right into Seventh Avenue, heading for the water. The streets were empty, which was a powerful contrast to how they had looked when he had arrived in the Manhattan Isles. Then, Clair had been leading a veritable riot of people to Wallace’s HQ. People had stopped to watch her go by. There had been peacekeepers on every corner and more scattered in between.

  What had happened to everyone since then?

  At the corner of Seventh and Thirty-first they paused so Ray could catch his breath. Jesse surveyed the empty roads, wondering where the food sellers had gone and why they had left their carts behind. Not that the food sellers did any actual cooking in those carts, of course. They were just fabbers on wheels. But the pretense of old-time cuisine was part of New York’s attraction.

  Jesse felt an unexpected desire: for one of New York’s famous pretzels, even if it was just made of random atoms coaxed into shape. He’d wanted one ever since he was a kid …

  I get my own bike, right?

  The voice made Jesse jump. It seemed to come from directly behind his ear. He spun around but saw no one there, definitely not a young boy with cornrows standing practically under his armpit …

  Cashile. Jesse had babysat the boy a couple of times while his mother was doing WHOLE stuff. He would know that voice anywhere. How could he be hearing it now?

  What was even weirder, Jesse remembered Cashile saying those words a few days ago, when they had stopped at a WHOLE cache to pick up electrobikes. This was before he and Clair had kissed. Before Cashile had been taken by the dupes.

  Ray was staring at him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jesse hugged his elbows. ‘Let’s just get moving again.’

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Maybe I have.’

  Jesse explained as they walked.

  ‘Is it the dupes?’ Ray suggested. ‘Messing with your head somehow?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Why not just shoot us if they know who we are? I mean, we’re not putting up much of a fight.’

  ‘Not right now, it’s true. But give us time,’ Ray said.

  ‘Wait. Don’t move.’ Jesse put a hand out to stop Ray in mid-step.

  Ray pulled Jessie in, closer to the wall beside them. ‘What is it?’

  They hadn’t been discovered. Something much stranger had happened.

  ‘This intersection. Look at the numbers. Hell, just look that way. What do you see?’

  According to the street sign they were on Ninth and Thirty-fourth. They should have been on Seventh and Thirty-first. What was more, a block and a half to their left was the enormous black obelisk of Wallace’s HQ , plumes of smoke spiraling upward from its many broken windows.

  ‘That’s supposed to be behind us,’ Ray said, blinking rapidly, as though he had something in his eye. ‘We must’ve got turned around somehow … ?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ said Jesse. ‘I’m not stupid enough to take us back there.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘That’s the question.’ Jesse dragged them around the corner, out of sight of the burning building. ‘It’s getting bigger the more I poke at it.’

  8

  The Protocol.

  In here.

  Geography that wouldn’t behave.

  They tried walking in yet another direction and were quickly snapped back to a third intersection within eyeshot of Wallace’s HQ. Ray leaned up against an old shopfront, holding his bandaged arm close to his chest and rubbing his sweaty forehead. His skin was waxy and pale. He wasn’t complaining but Jesse could tell the painkiller patch had already begun to wear off.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Ray said. ‘How are they doing this? All we want to do is get away …’

  ‘Maybe it’s not the dupes. Maybe it’s something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  There was no good answer to that question. Just a growing suspicion that something was terribly wrong.

  Jesse’s augs chirped in his ear. A reply had just landed in his infield in response to the Orwell message.

  It was from his father.

  ‘Family City,’ was all Dylan Linwood said.

  Not, Hello, son, great to hear from you. Not, Are you okay? Not, Hey look, I came back from the dead!

  ‘That means he’s at the safe house in Manteca,’ Ray translated.

  Jesse suppressed his feelings of resentment, telling himself to be happy his father didn’t appear to be a dupe, for once. ‘What’s he doing there?’

  ‘Laying low. Waiting for us to join him.’

  ‘How the hell are we going to do that?’

  ‘The submarine—’

  ‘Neither of us can operate it, even if it’s not sunk. Got another suggestion?’

  ‘There’ll be members around here. We can put out a call—’

  Fully charged and ready to go.

  Both of them looked around as a faint echo wound along the empty street.

  ‘Is that Cashile?’ asked Ray, his pained wince turning to a frown.

  ‘I’m so glad you can hear it now,’ Jesse said. ‘I thought I was going crazy.’

  ‘No crazier than anything else around here.’ Ray stood straighter. ‘He’s not connected to the Air, is he?’

  Jesse checked his lenses. ‘No. I can’t see him in my network.’

  ‘That’s a good sign. He never was. Theo didn’t think
it was healthy for him.’

  Theo, Cashile’s mother, was mute thanks to a d-mat accident. The only way she could reliably talk to the people around her was via her lenses, but with her son she used sign-language.

  ‘So how’s he talking to us now?’ Jesse asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I could ask.’

  ‘Do you think it’s safe?’

  Jesse didn’t think it would be, but what choice did they have? ‘If the bad guys follow the bump and come for us, let’s just keeping jumping back and forth across the magic intersections until they give up.’

  Ray grunted and leaned back against the wall. ‘Okay, call Theo, but be quick.’

  Jesse nodded, composing a bump to Theo of just two words: Where’s Cashile?

  The reply came instantly: With me.

  But we can hear him.

  He says he can hear you too. Isn’t that weird?

  It was weirder than weird, Jesse thought.

  ‘It’s like we’re in a simulation,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘Space is twisted and things don’t work the way they should.’

  ‘I don’t care. All I want to do is get out of here,’ said Ray.

  ‘Outside, right.’ Jesse went to take Ray’s shoulder, but remembered his injury in time. ‘We’re all in here, even the dupes. Inside a computer program. “This shit is for real.”’ Why would that dupe have said that if he didn’t literally mean it? Jesse looked around, seeking pixilations, artifacts, anything at all to suggest that the New York cityscape wasn’t authentic. There were none. ‘This shit really is real.’

  Or he was tripping on something worse than a hallucinogenic drug. Not knowing how horribly, ridiculously wrong he was.

  ‘So we’re not anywhere at all?’ said Ray. ‘How is that possible?’

  The answer to that question wasn’t one Ray would want to hear, Jesse knew.

  We were null-jumped. That gave Wallace our pattern. Patterns are usually built back into matter at the other end of a d-mat jump – but why not remake one into something other than matter? Something like data, say … ?

  Either way, from Ray’s point of view, it didn’t matter. They had died the moment Wallace had sprung the trap. They were both zombies now, but instead of staggering around feasting on brains, they simply didn’t realize they were dead.

  It was a depressing thought, whether they were made of atoms or of pure information. Knowing it didn’t help them escape the dupes, either.

  9

  A new sound rose up out of the silence of the streets, hauntingly familiar.

  ‘What is that … ?’ Jesse spun around in a circle. ‘An electrobike?’

  The sound echoed, making its source impossible to discern.

  ‘It’ll be the dupes, pulling out all stops.’

  ‘We have to get out of sight.’

  Ray was already moving at a determined stagger for a nearby alley. Jesse hastened to catch up. They were under cover in seconds, peering warily out into the street to see who was coming. The street was empty in both directions, but the noise still grew steadily louder.

  Ray put a finger in his ear and wiggled it.

  ‘Sounds like it’s coming from inside my head.’

  Jesse opened his mouth to reply, and that was when space ripped apart right in front of him, spilling out an electrobike with two passengers. He ducked deeper under cover, not believing his eyes as the bike roared past them and vanished up the street.

  The driver of the bike had been Theo. The passenger, Cashile.

  At least, it had seemed to be them.

  ‘Dupes,’ Ray said. He sounded hollow, like an old drum. ‘Has to be.’

  Jesse nodded. How could it be otherwise? But the way they had appeared … What new weirdness was this?

  As the sound of the electrobike retreated, a bump from Theo appeared in his infield.

  Where are you?

  Jesse didn’t reply. It had to be a trap.

  Come on! We can’t drive around at random looking for you. The sooner we pick you up, the sooner we can get out of here!

  Jesse bit his lip. What if it really was them, and he screwed up by not answering? Ray wasn’t going to last much longer.

  What was my mother called? he bumped back.

  Huh? Aisling.

  No, what did people call her?

  Ash. It’s really me, Jesse. Where are you?

  He closed his eyes, uttered a silent prayer to all seven of Japan’s lucky gods, and gave Theo their location. Moments later the sound of the electrobike grew noticeably louder. Making sure Ray was well back in the shadows, Jesse stepped out into the sidewalk, feeling crushingly exposed.

  It wasn’t long until the bike turned into the road. He waved with both arms, then retreated a step as it raced towards him.

  Jesse braced himself. Whatever came next, he had done his best for Ray. That was the important thing

  The bike skidded to a halt, and the smaller of the two passengers cried, ‘Jesse! Get on!’

  The boy looked exactly like Cashile. He sounded exactly like Cashile. In front of him was his mother, Theo, needing no voice to signal her impatience.

  ‘Come on!’ said Cashile on her behalf. ‘We can’t stay here.’

  ‘I can’t come with you,’ Jesse said, mentally rolling a dice. He either trusted them or he didn’t, and if he did he couldn’t go … ‘There’s not enough room. Ray’s here too. He’s hurt.’

  He pulled Ray from the shadows. The older man shuffled weakly, barely staying on his feet.

  ‘I didn’t know there were two of you,’ said Cashile, looking contrite. ‘I told you we should have brought the other bike, Mum. I wouldn’t have got lost!’

  Theo shook her head once, sharply.

  ‘Leave me here,’ Ray said to Jesse through gritted teeth. ‘I’m no good to you like this.’

  ‘The hell we will,’ Jesse said. Cashile hopped off the bike, making space for Ray to sit.

  ‘Go to the safe house in Manteca,’ Jesse said, helping Cashile back on so Ray was safely sandwiched. ‘Dad’s waiting for us there.’

  ‘We got the message,’ Cashile said. ‘We’ll come back and get you as soon as we can.’

  ‘Thanks. Wait – how are you even doing this? A moment ago you were on the other side of the country—’

  ‘It’s not d-mat,’ said Cashile. ‘It’s something else, something new.’

  Theo shook her head. Her message was clear.

  ‘Okay,’ said Jesse, ‘tell me later.’

  ‘We’ll come back,’ said Cashile. ‘Promise!’

  Then the bike was moving, executing a tight turn and accelerating for a closed doorway on the far end of the street. Jesse had just long enough to say ‘Watch out!’ when space ripped again and the bike vanished.

  Jesse stood, staring in amazement, his thoughts a confused mess. What had just happened? Would he ever see Ray again? What was he going to do now?

  The sound of footsteps came from the other direction. Not mysterious echoes this time, but real feet on real pavement, approaching rapidly. Voices barked.

  ‘Find the source. The Boss wants no irregularities anywhere on the island!’

  Dupes.

  Jesse turned tail and ran.

  10

  The closest magic intersection took Jesse back to Seventh and Thirty-first without any sense of transition at all. That was good because it got him out of the path of the dupes, but bad because he was now running towards Wallace’s HQ again. He tried heading east, but after a single block was snapped back to the water’s edge on Ninth and Thirtieth. It was as though several blocks of Manhattan were contained within their own bubble, and any attempt to leave it brought him back to the other side. Maybe that was what the doctor had meant by in here.

  It was uncannily like an old-fashioned computer game, he thought, where going off the screen into new territory was not allowed. If he died would he get an extra life? That wasn’t something he felt comfortable even considering.

 
At least the dupes were looking for him in the wrong place now. Or maybe they were looking for Cashile and co. Perhaps that was what they meant by an irregularity: not people trying to leave their little bubble, but people breaking into it.

  Either way, he hoped Cashile and Theo would be able to find him again. Not knowing how they had found him the first time made when that would happen difficult to predict. All he could do was try to survive until then.

  He alternated between hiding and moving, figuring that relying on only one strategy might make him vulnerable if he picked the wrong one. He had lost count of the times he had wished Clair was with him. She didn’t freeze or overthink things like he did.

  As time dragged on and he was neither caught by the dupes nor rescued by Theo, he began to feel trapped in an uncanny loop, entirely preoccupied by the opposing possibilities of safety and immediate danger. Hiding behind a dumpster on Thirtieth Street he decided to take a small risk – anything to break the cycle. Tapping quickly, and keeping one ear out for any sign of dupes homing in on him, Jesse tried to find out what Clair was doing.

  He couldn’t actually see her, but her voice came clearly over his augs.

  ‘We’re going to join the crashlanders, just like that?’

  ‘Trust me, Clair. I’ve never led you astray before.’

  That was Libby, someone else who had been duped. Jesse’s hackles rose. What were they doing together?

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Come on! What about when we visited that satellite and Ronnie threw up?’

  ‘Yes, but then we got stuck—’

  ‘You’re the one who set the booth to Chinese.’

  ‘Only because you dared me to!’

  The two girls laughed, and Jesse’s sense of unease grew. Something wasn’t right. This didn’t sound like the Clair he knew. She wouldn’t babble on about cliques while the world was falling apart around her.

  ‘Come on, Clair. Say yes. You always do in the end.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘Great, I’ll come get you—’

  ‘No, tell me where and I’ll be there soon. There’s something I have to do, first.’