The Hive Construct

by Alexander Maskill

  ‘You’ll recognize the group on the bottom. They were your hosts for the last fortnight. The people above are the police and Security Force personnel they’ve killed. Some would say that the NCLC are murderers, not heroes. They crossed a line, and as a result, yes, they’ll be imprisoned, and yes, some of them may be killed. They became a paramilitary organization, a terrorist organization. That’s why they’re locked up right now. It’s not because of their cause, it’s because they picked up guns and shot at public servants. Do they really deserve your sympathy, or are they just as much a problem as the Soucouyant?’

  ‘Those aren’t the only two options—’ said Ryan, before falling into uncertain silence. He wanted to believe her. When she talked, it was as if the dark little voice in the back of his head, the one he tried so hard not to indulge, was saying the same thing. ‘What’s happening to the children?’

  Dr Albrecktsson shrugged. ‘We’ll look for non-combatant relatives willing to take them in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll start looking at foster homes.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ryan, motioning for the holographic keyboard to move towards him and typing out the names of Vik, Ria and Zeno onto the doctor’s terminal. ‘If you don’t find anyone for these children, I can look after them at least until their parents’ trials. I’ve got the space and the money.’

  Dr Albrecktsson seemed taken aback by this. ‘Erm … Fine, once we’ve finished here. But first there’s all manner of forms to sign off on and we can really only do that once we’ve figured out the best treatment plan for you.’

  A lone shape slunk into the main room adjoining the office where Ryan and Ava were hiding, and disappeared behind a desk, hidden from his view. Slowly, it re-emerged, moving around the perimeter, and was followed by a second and third skulking figure. Security Force special operations troops. They spotted Ryan immediately through the open doorway and signalled for him to stay where he was and not make a sound. Ava remained hidden from their view, standing further back, out of the doorway.

  All three now trained their guns on the door which led down the corridor to the rest of the building. The point man stepped silently over to the door and swung it open. Almost immediately, he moved back to crouch behind an old desk. Seconds later, a wheezing Suman hurled his full mass into the room, desperately scrambling for the door.

  The Security Force troops revealed themselves from behind their cover and aimed at him. ‘Police! Get down on the ground now!’ yelled the point man.

  Suman’s eyes widened in wild, gibbering fear. For a moment he didn’t move, instead coughing and sucking in air. With a scream, he sprinted for the door, disappearing from view. Gunshots rang out, tearing through the air with punishing amplitude. Ryan flinched and clapped his hands over his ears. He wanted to yell for them to stop but the noise felt like it was tearing through his eardrums.

  The rescue team were ignoring Ryan’s clear orders that no one be harmed.

  Ava grabbed Ryan’s arm and pulled him over to a chair further into the room, out of sight of the Security Force troops. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed. Then he saw her face. In the two weeks he’d known her, he had never seen Ava scared. At that moment, she was terrified.

  ‘You know, I have read all the case files,’ said Dr Albrecktsson, pacing the length of the office. ‘It’s okay if you want to talk about what happened.’

  Ryan felt trapped.

  ‘I don’t,’ came his immediate reply. Attempting to soften his bluntness, he elaborated. ‘It was just yesterday, doctor. I’m still processing it.’

  ‘Did you think people wouldn’t get hurt? Kidnap is a dangerous business.’

  ‘I specifically told them not to hurt anybody. I deliberately tried to make sure that the right people would hear, that they’d understand.’ Ryan’s head sank. ‘It was my responsibility, to make sure no one got hurt. I promised my … accomplice … I’d do that.’

  ‘You mean Ava Ferreira?’ said Dr Albrecktsson, opening up her dossier, and rotated the holographic monitor so that Ryan could see. Ava’s weary scowl was apparently not a new feature, adorning a picture from a two-year-old medical licence. Forty-eight. Married twice, divorced twice. No children. An address in one of the safer areas of Surja. A bulletin for her to be arrested on charges of terrorism, which had been recently cancelled. ‘Mistaken for enemy combatant, killed in action’. Ryan felt sick.

  She had been weary.

  Footsteps clattered on the other side of the wall, and one of the Security Force troops barrelled into the room. From behind the dark visor, he spotted Ryan. He spotted Ava behind him. In a split second, the man’s gun was raised.

  She had wanted all this to stop.

  ‘Wait!’ yelled Ryan, reaching a hand out towards the man.

  She had wanted to be away from the violence.

  A crack of gunfire, even more deafening than the last.

  ‘It was my responsibility to make sure she was safe.’

  Ryan felt something hot and wet spatter against his neck and back.

  Ryan’s head sank. ‘It was my responsibility, and I failed her.’

  The Security Force trooper called out, ‘Are you okay, Councillor?’ Ryan tried to respond, or scream, tried to let loose the words clawing at the inside of his throat, but none came out. He sat there, staring forward, shocked, the gunshot echoing in his ears, lingering on the edge of his senses. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

  Dr Albrecktsson reached across the desk and grasped his hand. It didn’t help in the slightest.

  Chapter 22

  IT TOOK MORE than twenty-four hours for ANANSI to reply to Zala. Why was never elaborated upon, but Zala never doubted for a second that the wait was exactly as long as ANANSI wanted it to be. If it was Suman, it was smart of him to hold off. Whether it was logical or not, ANANSI suddenly becoming talkative from the moment Zala approached Suman for information would have felt suspicious.

  When the message finally came, it was two words.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >I’m listening.

  Zala smiled. Surrounding the message window on the holographic monitor were a day’s worth of notes, all arriving at a simple opening message.

  >I give in, she said.

  The response came quickly.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Wise move. It’s a shame you didn’t make it sooner.

  >Please tell me there’s nothing more coming. I’m on my last legs here.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >If you’re not creating a problem, there’s no need to create any problems for you.

  >So, ANANSI, one professional to another: why have you been doing all this? What’s in it for you?

  The response didn’t come. Zala waited for a while. Eyes trained on the space on her monitor where the cheery ‘New Message!’ pop-up would appear, she stood up without looking. Her heel stomped on a wayward drink container, which rolled under her weight, sending her stumbling forwards. Her right arm reached out with an uncanny speed, grabbed the handle of a wardrobe and steadied the rest of her. She looked at it, at the unfamiliar muscular bulges and white-firm grip, feeling not at home in a way the unfamiliar apartment was not responsible for. A shudder ran up her spine.

  New Message!

  Zala shook the unease – which had begun to coalesce into the familiar nightmare image of the portable terminal burrowing under her skin – from her mind and looked down at the terminal window.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Are you familiar with the concept of emergence?

  Zala decided to play dumb.

  >I’m guessing it has something to do with something coming out of something else.

  Aberrantly quickly – even exceeding speeds possible with a high-end bio-aug – the reply came.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)


  >Emergence is the idea that complex systems are created from the interaction of small, simple constituent parts. By coordinating and feeding back information between each other, large numbers of small actors following simple local rules can create a complexity which no one of those actors could reproduce, even with all the time and resources in the world. An ant could never create a colony on its own – it interacts with the chemical trails of other ants, in turn creating its own chemical trail to be followed. A single neuron could not spew forth the Iliad or the Vedas. Economies emerge from the interaction of financial institutions and individual consumers, their behaviour altering the behaviour of all the other entities. Cultures bloom from the swarming mass of individual ideas, none of which has the capacity to create that same culture without those interactions. Even much of human behaviour emerges from the effect of outside stimulation on two interacting impulses: the drive to succeed, at the expense of others if necessary, and the drive to live in a community where people do not simply try to succeed at the expense of others. It is the process of something being more than the sum of its parts and it is at the core of all life, of all mass interactions.

  Zala struggled to keep up with the pace of the text flooding the screen in front of her.

  >Right now, I have a great deal of stake in the unfolding events of this city. I have assembled the single greatest information network in human history. I know the agents, I know their patterns of behaviour, and I know the interactions which will lead the situation to evolve. Where others see a sprawl of chaos, I see a massive body politic growing and maturing. I know where I want it to go, and I know how to make it go there.

  And then you entered the city, unaccounted for, a mystery for the last eight years. What I do relies on me knowing where everything was, and where it is, so that I can ascertain where it’s going. And you ruin that.

  Zala paused a moment to take all that in, then typed:

  >So what, you just don’t want me messing up a sequence of events you’ve got lined up to go your way?

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Glad you understand.

  >All right then, Zala responded, but what am I meant to do in the meantime? I’ll be fucking torn apart out there before the cops can even get to me. The NCLC are after my head, as are the police and SecForce, and the people in this city think I developed the virus that’s tearing it apart.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Your fate doesn’t matter to me in the slightest.

  Zala gaped at the screen. She typed as quickly as her hand would allow.

  >So you’re telling me that despite my already having hit rock bottom here, your only threat is things getting worse? Bad move, kid. Right now, you’ve pretty much done your worst. My best friend is in prison for giving me a couch to sleep on. My face is plastered in the ad-space of half the network as a killer and terrorist. I’ve not got a whole lot more to lose and that makes it my turn. Unless you can come up with a better motivator, you’ve made yourself a bitch of an enemy. You know I’m a threat and you’ve played your hand.

  There was a pause.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Ask yourself: with all that, what can I do to make it better again? You returned to a city where you were wanted for murder, you hacked and trespassed and assaulted. And then you got caught, because sometimes that happens. So what? What am I supposed to do now?

  >Can you get me out of this city? she replied.

  For ten minutes, Zala waited for a response, her head buzzing with different scenarios. She thought about skipping off into the desert from whence she came while Polina rotted in prison, and felt ashamed, but the reality was that either Polina was in prison or they both were. Barring a minor courtroom miracle, Polina would be imprisoned for sheltering someone the vast majority of New Cairo thought had something to do with the creation of the Soucouyant virus. With any luck, Zala’s name now carried such weight that finding an impartial jury would be ruled impossible and Polina would be freed. The slightly more realistic expectation was that the government would find a way round having to hold a trial at all.

  As Zala stewed in her own regrets, her terminal beeped. She opened it up and read the message.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >There is a way to make this happen. A smuggling operation intended for a family involved with the NCLC. They opted out of it. You may be in luck.

  >That is the payment you will accept for the cessation of your interference?

  Zala grinned. So ANANSI just happens to have connections with the infrastructure that the NCLC uses? Suman was either taking refuge in audacity or very bad at avoiding suspicion.

  >If you can get me out of here, you’ll never even have to think of me again. I’ll cease to exist for all you’ll care. You’re better connected here than I am, and I’m a thorn that doesn’t need to be in your side. Just make what arrangements you can.

  ANANSI didn’t respond, leaving Zala sitting staring at the monitor. Looking down at her arms, she became aware that she was shaking vigorously. Her heart felt as though it was trying to burst through her chest. There was a way out, an escape.

  After several minutes of silence, Zala’s portable terminal flashed up a new message.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Kafut Processing Facility. It’s being held up, but this is your last chance. Be quick.

  If she hadn’t barely had any sleep since leaving the hospital, and if doing so wouldn’t have sent her scarf slipping dangerously low off her face, Zala would have sprinted. The Kafut Processing Facility was near by. The facility petrified exports and unpetrified imports of any goods which had to go through desert transport. It was a huge building that had expanded even more since Zala had last lived in New Cairo, but according to newscasts Zala had been following it was now almost completely inactive. Even though the mechanisms that brought supplies down from the surface were unmanned and there was no chance of transmission of the virus to the outside, it appeared that businesses weren’t producing anything or ordering supplies. The rumours were that business owners didn’t believe New Cairo would last long enough for them to sell their wares.

  As Zala neared it, her portable terminal beeped. A message popped up in the corner of her contact lens.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Go in through the side entrance. I’ve just given your terminal the authorization codes. Once you’re in there, look for this man.

  An image popped up: an identification photo of a balding, pale man with an oddly bulging face.

  From: ANANSI (EIP: ----.-.------.-------.---.-----.----.-------)

  >Tell him ‘We need to get a move on, the others aren’t coming.’ He will know what to do. You will be put inside one of the containers that take the petrified goods up to the surface, and you will go up in the tube. There will be someone at the top to get you out of the container. You will be near Waytower Sixteen, and you will be given some climate gear. From there, just walk away. Never come back here again.

  Zala grinned. She had a way out. Staying in the city would bring only arrest, maybe even execution if she got convicted for coding the Soucouyant virus. Instead, she had a chance to slip away. It would be as if she had never been there.

  She would avoid imprisonment, unlike Polina.

  Zala shook the doubt from her head and walked up to the side door of the processing plant.

  She would avoid abuse and torture, unlike Councillor Granier.

  The door hissed open and she walked inside.

  She would avoid having to watch the city fall apart, unlike all the people who didn’t have permission to leave or the means by which to do so. Unlike people she cared about. She’d get to avoid the consequences of her actions. Those were other people’s problems now.


  She stood in a brightly lit hallway with frosted glass doors on either side leading to, she presumed, offices. Only a few had their lights on, and inside she could see solitary figures hunched over terminals. Zala wondered if she should start knocking on doors. She needed to be out of here before anyone recognized her from the news.

  If someone knew who she was, she’d end up in prison.

  Like Polina.

  I can’t leave.

  The thought seemed so obvious once it took full form. Zala had made herself want to leave, want to escape. It was the objective she had given herself. It had never occurred to her to ask – was it what she really wanted to do?

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized the answer was no.

  Having made that decision, she didn’t know what the next step was – turn herself in and try to get herself and Polina acquitted of as much as possible? Offer to trade information to the Security Force? But she had harmed or brought harm to a lot of people, more than she had ever done before. People she cared about, and complete strangers. It was her fault, and she had to make up for what she had done. She couldn’t abandon them.

  Zala turned to leave the processing plant the same way she’d come. ANANSI would have to put up with her being in the city for a little while longer now. She had—

  Something was wrong. Something in the back of her mind, raising the hairs on her neck. Zala glanced around, looking for the source of her discomfort or for an escape route. There didn’t seem to be any exits except for the one she had entered through. She paced back down the hallway and through the door.

  On the other side were two Security Force vans, behind which stood ten Security Force agents, all pointing rifles at Zala.