Tucket and Carson both get to their feet. Eon slowly rises as well. “Rixon, why do you always do this with clients? Don’t you see how it affects our reputation?”
Rixon only grins at him. Turning to me, he gestures vaguely toward the door. “Go ahead. Sally forth, Sally. Airport is just down the street. Go ask for a ticket, see how that works out for you.”
He has a smug grin on his face that I’d like to remove, but I’m too irritated to bother with a response. I simply move to the door. “Come on, guys. Apparently we can handle this on our own. Carson and Tucket gather behind me. I swing open the door and am hit in the face with the blast of humid, salty air. Outside the dim and smoky interior of Rixon’s bar, bright sunlight gleams off a glittering harbor. Three enormous ships lie at anchor in the bay and dozens more are tied up at the docks. The docks are bustling with activity, much of it swirling through the sky. Drones and various human-occupied vehicles are whizzing through the blue above me circumnavigating the base of a massive tower structure. It seems The Jetsons did get a few things right after all.
When I turn around, Eon is just shaking his head.
Rixon gives me a wicked grin, then sticks another cigar in his mouth and lights it. He gives a few puffs before blowing the smoke out in a long stream.
“Welcome to Port Nyongo.”
Chapter 15
“I’ve been asked if the discovery of time travel has brought me wealth and fame. In some respects it has, but that is not a goal I’ve aspired to. The legacy I’m proudest of is that I’ve littered the centuries with friends.”-Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1781
Port Nyongo, 2165
“You’re looking at your new home for the next few days,” Rixon says. “The sub pulls into port three days from now, so we’ve got some work to do.”
We’re standing out front of his dilapidated bar taking in the fast-moving city. The view of the harbor is impressive, a moving diorama of industrial vessels and high end yachts weaving their way around massive pilings. But it’s the sky that inspires awe. Beyond the foreground of whizzing delivery drones and daredevil seagulls, there exists a structure of gargantuan proportions.
The technological wonder resembles a gigantic scaffold or perhaps the inside of the Eiffel tower if it were viewed from the perspective of an ant. The complex structure is teeming with activity—pods and elevators gliding up and down. My neck is craned to take in its height, but I fail to see its peak. The center of the tower vanishes into the atmosphere without any sign of stopping.
The sun is just up on the eastern horizon, throwing off my already-addled sense of time. The front of Rixon’s bar is one of a dozen or more similar establishments lining a steep road climbing away from the harbor. The fact that we’re on a hill this high up strikes me as odd. Florida doesn’t boast many legitimate hills and, when it does, they’re usually farther inland. This cluster of seedy looking establishments is at least a hundred feet above sea level and nowhere near the apex of the road. Higher up, the buildings zig and zag in a conjunction with the road and form a sort of tiered restaurant district. Other buildings on neighboring hills ascend even higher.
Down toward the water’s edge, I have a clear view of the barrier walls erected to keep out the sea.
This city has not been shaped by nature as much as it has been shaped by design. That fact has not changed much from my time. Even in 2009, many of the communities in Charlotte County were preplanned rotundas and matching condo developments. Now it seems the designs of the age are going vertical.
“It’s a space elevator,” Eon says, answering the question on all of our minds. “The glory of the New Space Coast.”
“Pretty amazing,” Carson says. “How high does it go?”
“Upper atmosphere in most parts, and well into space at the peak.”
“Have you been up it?” Tucket asks.
“On occasion,” Eon replies. “Space travel isn’t really my favorite. Any of you boys ever been off planet?”
I can feel Carson’s eyes on me, but I don’t reply.
“Down at the water’s edge is where you two are going to start your investigation.” Rixon points to Carson and me. “We’ve got a couple days till Quickly’s daughter and the submarine arrive. They’re not exactly going to just pull up to the dock and hop out in broad daylight. My guess is they’ll have some kind of system set up to get her ashore secretly. That’s why we need you two to do some covert operations and see what you can find out.”
“Why us?” I ask. “You two don’t have any contacts that can help us?”
“We have plenty of contacts, but we’re well-known here. Rixon’s bar might be a shithole, but come nightfall it’s a popular shithole. If we go asking around about these Eternals directly, it’ll get back to them. You two are unknowns. You’re analogs, you’re off-Grid, and you don’t even use the metaspace, so that will help you fit in better with the crowd we’re after.”
“The Eternals don’t use the metaspace?” I ask.
Eon scratches at his jaw. “Who knows. They probably do in their normal day-to-day, but there’s no way they’re conducting business that way. They’ve got some kind of church up in St. Pete for recruiting people, but down here they keep things low key.”
“Secret handshakes and shit,” Rixon says.
“Like a secret society?” Carson asks.
“Exactly,” Rixon says. “I’ve overheard the occasional mumblings in the bar, rumors about a group growing in the docks, but the underlings never know much about what they’re really up to. I figure whoever’s in charge probably waits till members are good and in before springing the crazy on them.”
“How are we going to make contact?” Carson asks.
“We need you to go undercover,” Eon says. “Get to know the locals. Make like you’re looking for work, homeless, that sort of thing. From what we hear, that’s who they tend to recruit. If they’re landing a sub here somewhere, they likely need dockhands. The regular marina docks are mostly worked by folks who don’t make the cut for work on the Skylift, and they tend to employ human staff for the wettest jobs since synths and saltwater don’t always mix.”
“How will we find these people?” I ask.
Rixon points to the goggles still hanging around my neck. “We’ll talk you through it, be your remote backup.”
“And your security,” Eon adds. “If things start to go south, we’ll step in to extract you.” He folds his arms across his chest and it’s obvious once again from the motion that the potential of his muscles is largely going to waste at the moment. I get the subtle impression that he’d enjoy us getting into some scrap that would require his intervention.
“What if we’re not good at being homeless?” Tucket asks. “What if they don’t like us?”
“Not you,” Eon replies. “These two are going undercover. We’ve got a different job for you.”
A few hours later, Carson and I are on the corner of Edgewater and Tarpon, marveling at how a once-sleepy Florida city could have been transformed so completely into a booming spaceport.
On the way down the hill, we pass a light rail station that lists St. Petersburg’s downtown stops along its line. The entire stretch of the Gulf Coast is now traversable in minutes instead of hours. Miami is likewise considered a nearby destination and, to my surprise, there is even an option for Freeport in the Bahamas—undoubtedly an impressive bridge to travel across.
Carson and I have been outfitted by Eon in what we’re told is the most inconspicuous garb of the day. We’re wearing battered hardhats and portable air packs with oxygen masks that clip to our collars—the ubiquitous symbol of Skylift day laborers. We’re dressed in rugged but lightweight workman’s pants with loose-fitting cotton shirts—long sleeved to keep the sun off our arms. The sleeves come in handy for covering up my chronometer. Eon had suggested leaving them behind to increase our authenticity, but my level of trust for this operation is nowhere near that point.
Carson likewise has retained his chr
onometer, though he seems far less concerned about its security than I do. After a few minutes in the sun, he relegates his to a pocket so that he can roll up his sleeves. He’s received his own pair of metaspace goggles and is looking around the city with interest, taking in the changes the future has brought.
A meta poster on the wall of a corner grocery advertises the latest in digital diversions, an interactive underwater ocean trek, “Effects so real your fingers will prune. Brought to you by Digi-com.”
As poor workmen, Carson and I have been advised to skip the high speed rail station and use the free electric bus service that travels from the harbor to the various work stations around the port. We have money, after a fashion. Eon has given both of us a sort of data stick called a chit. The chit hangs on a lanyard around our necks and is another sign that we’re too poor to manage all metaspace identities and purely digital bank accounts.
We climb aboard the free bus and wind our way along the waterfront, jostled by the other aspiring day workers. Most are wearing hardhats and cheap portable masks like ours, but a fair amount have more advanced gear like oxygen compressors and full-faced helmets. A couple are wearing battered-looking spacesuits with onboard pressurization. The sight of the pressure suits and the Digi-com logo on them brings back a few memories. I find myself wondering if their suits come with onboard A.I.
More meta posters and advertisements flash on the digital windows offering beautiful landscapes. Space treks to Earthrim—which I learn is a sort of space station resort—are a favorite getaway for locals hoping to escape the heat. The advertising shows iridescent pools and expansive views of the planet, most also including beautiful people in little to no clothing. As a particularly fetching young woman winks at us from the advertisement, a man next to me catches me staring and jerks his thumb toward the ad. “Made it to Earthrim once a few years ago. Believe me, she don’t really live there.”
I smile and turn away from the digital views. “Figured it was probably too good to be true. Seems like advertising never changes. Big promises, no satisfaction.”
The man cracks a crooked grin. “You boys new in town? Haven’t seen you on this run before.”
“Yeah, just got in,” I reply.
“Down from up north?”
“Uh . . . Washington,” I improvise. Not sure if St. Pete would be far enough away to be considered an out-of-towner.
“You left the northwest for this? Damn, son. That’s a long haul.”
“Heard there was work down here.”
“What’d you do in Washington?”
I try to think of something that might make me a likely candidate for a job at a spaceport. “Um, aviation. Worked at a plant near Seattle building planes.” I have no idea if Boeing is still in business in this century, so I don’t attempt to drop a real name, but I’m hoping somebody is still building planes out there.
My bus companion nods. Either I’m right or he doesn’t know the difference.
“You’ll want to get in good with Pikey if this is your first week. He does most of the picking on this route. Tends to favor the vets he served with, but if he likes you, you’ll stay busy enough. If you don’t get picked today, try buying him a beer at Dos Toros tonight.”
“All right, thanks for the tip.”
The man nods and goes back to looking out the digital windows.
When the doors of the bus finally slide open at the space docks, I’m once again awestruck at the enormity of the construction around me. New Space Coast is not just a nickname of the area Port Nyongo resides in, it’s also the name of the primary company building ships here. The NSC logo is on practically everything, a blue rocket with the letters emblazoned on the side, passing a yellow sunburst. Other smaller companies likewise post ads and logos in the metaspace—names like Sky-Con and StarMight.
High overhead, the space elevator infrastructure branches out in multiple directions and platforms host craft in various sizes and stages of completion. There are also office levels and tourist zones.
A stream of well-dressed employees is swelling in from the train station and moving toward the lower port buildings. Many of them are synths or trans-humans. A handful of the trans-human employees have synths trailing behind them like valets, carrying their belongings for them. A line of security personnel is on hand, directing the flow of day workers to the right and away from the other more respectable foot traffic.
Carson and I jostle our way into an interior corridor under a sign that reads, “Labor Center.” In the press of bodies moving through the corridor, we get separated, but I can still spot Carson’s red hair as the group he’s with surges ahead.
The bus had not smelled very pleasant, but inside the confined hallway the odor has gotten worse. It’s apparent that many of the men and women around me haven’t seen the inside of a shower in a while. A bedraggled-looking woman ahead of me is cursing and gesturing from side to side, pointing at the air around her. Her hair is badly entangled in a loose oxygen hose coming off her air pack, and she seems to be fighting with some other encumbrance, but no one is trying to help her. The rest of the group is giving her a wide berth.
The woman spins and gets me in her sights, mutters more curses, and storms toward me. I dodge out of the way of her pointed finger, which she is wagging ahead of her, but she pays me no mind as she barrels past, forging her way back the way we’ve come, shoving and prying at the people in her way. She snaps at one woman with her teeth, coming away with a mouthful of her victim’s hair before disappearing into the mob.
“Fuckin’ waste,” the man next to me mutters. He’s bearded and lean, with eyes that look like they’ve spent a lot of time squinting into the sun. He’s a leathery brown all over and has a sticker on his hardhat that reads “Unless you need an ass kicking, don’t tell me how to do my job.” A sewn-on patch on his shirt reads “Greg.” His eyes have followed the angry woman into the crowd behind us. Unlike the workers on the other sides of me, he doesn’t reek, so I edge nearer to him.
“I guess she forgot her meds this morning,” I say.
“Meds don’t help that. She’s got freeloaders up there.” Greg taps his hardhat and goes back to facing forward as we press on through the corridor. His statement makes me curious.
“What do you mean, freeloaders?”
The man rises up on tiptoes to try to see over the stream of bodies. He settles back down again, restlessly resigned to our slow progress.
“That was Sonia Davis. Perfectly normal till a few weeks ago. Good foreman. Had her own crew up on the high lifts. Worked for her a few times. Then she got into that ‘free your mind’ shit. Look what it got her.”
“What’s ‘free your mind?’”
“You haven’t seen those creeps down at the parks? Guys advertising free intelligence?” He shakes his head. “I told her it was too good to be true. Ain’t nothin’ free in this world when you get down to it. There’s always a catch.”
“I’m not from around here. I must have missed them. How can they offer free intelligence?”
“Saying you’ll get a lifetime of education, knowledge of the future. Real organic memories that won’t go away when you fail to pay for your upgrades. The whole system is bullshit, so I assume they’re just trying to capitalize. They know they’ve got an audience here because most of us yardies can’t afford any plug and play degrees.”
He shifts in position and waits for the line to get moving again. “Don’t know how it is where you come from, but no one in The Yards has the coin to pay for all those updates. That’s how they get you, you know? First few years of plug-in education are free. Pop in a lesson, you got yourself a kid who knows algebra. Little toddlers are speaking at least three languages around the house now. Seven if they’re rich. Seems like every year they offer some new way for your kid to stand out. Makes it all seem so easy. But that stuff don’t stick like it used to. Ain’t like the old days when people learned for real. You hit the end of the public school system and don’t have the mone
y for upgrades? Bam. Your account’s unplugged and there goes your kid’s education. They don’t remember nothin’ once that happens. I can’t remember shit-all from my time in school and my little girl’s gonna be in the same boat unless I stay working. I’ll be damned if she ends up working in The Yards like her old man.”
“That happened to Sonia because she tried to get more education?” I jerk my thumb toward the area where the crazed woman had disappeared.
“Damn shame,” the man mutters. “She had real balls. Not like the rest of these lazy bastards.” He cups his hands and yells across the morass of bodies moving ever so slowly through the door at the far end of the corridor. “COME ON! WE’VE GOT WORK TO DO!”
The herd of workers doesn’t move any quicker, but a few people in front of us pack in a little tighter, making room for Greg to edge his way forward.
When I eventually make it through the door, the crowd is spread out through a single-level auditorium. People are still jostling their way forward to the far side where two roll-up doors are open and some sort of rounded vehicle is parked at each exit, loading on workers. Not everyone is getting on. The selection process has already begun, and workers on my side of a dividing rail are looking to a podium in the center of the room.
Atop the podium is a stern-looking man with a thick neck. He’s sandy-haired and bristling with stubble, though the top of his head is bald. He’s pointing out workers and shouting names, clearly familiar with most of the applicants. He’s referencing something about each person he calls on with a chart or list that I can’t see, and it’s only when I don the goggles again that I understand how the process works.
Each worker in the room has their name and a list of titles hanging above their heads in the metaspace. The people being called are predominantly those with longer skill sets, or equipped with the best gear, though I do see a few get selected that seem to be specialists. The man is ruling some options out.
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 139
