CHAPTER FIVE
Out Of The Gutter, Into The Rabbit Hole
The silence hit me first. It pressed against me as Raines and I were carried through Terminus on a slide-walk. Living down deep for so many years had reprogrammed how I thought about noise. Down there it was an ever-present entity. Millions of humans compressed into such a tiny area make an inevitably large amount of noise.
Being out in the open again was different. Commuters streaked across the sky, riding along the Electromagnetic Lowroad in their Dragonflys, without a sound. Those traveling on foot were equally silent as they navigated the city, completely immersed in the Stream.
Reconnecting to the Stream would bring a blitz of stimuli and noise that would more closely approximate the melody of the deeps, but I wasn't ready for that. I wanted to absorb the quiet a bit longer without the distraction of an interactive environment competing for my attention.
I looked up and realized I hadn't seen the sun in seven years. After all that time, I thought the reunion would be…more.
It was trapped behind a layer of gray clouds hanging in a thick veil pulled taut across the sky. The heat lingered, heavy with moisture and man's regret. Despite the air clinging to my flesh and smothering my breath with its weight, it was nice being free of the bottomless well that is Terminus' lower suburbs and its constant cycle of repurposed air.
The air down deep tasted of mechanical sterility, whereas the air on the surface had a metallic tang. Neither were bad per se, just different.
Unknowable amounts of invisible junk still floated on the breeze, a constant reminder of the damage done during the Dissolution. If not for the nanites filtering air through my lungs, my insides would've turned to jelly and leaked out the nearest orifice within ten paces of the airlock. Thankfully Raines had brought me a fresh injection, saving me the unpleasant fate of dying in a convulsing ball of muscle and bone.
Humanity had a long way to go before they undid the damage. If ever. Those were the hopes and dreams of a different generation, one in which I had no vested interest.
The bitch of it is, those who can afford life up-top don't care about any of that. With access to the nanite tech that allows their bodies to cope with the influx of toxins, why should they?
Breathing non-toxic air is a poor man's problem.
I turned from the haze-smeared yellow orb in the sky and back to Raines. She was already half a slide-walk away. I trotted to catch up, accidentally bumping a twenty-something couple in the process. They had the fashion sensibilities to suggest they lived firmly in the Middles. Distracted, and tuned out of reality and into the Stream, they never saw me coming.
Bio-luminescent nanobots twinkled across the woman's body, painting her bare torso with shapes and colors shifting from one complex pattern to the next. Controlled by her nanocomp, her tattooed clothing fluctuated with her every fleeting thought. One of the greatest wastes in cosmetic nanotechnology I'd ever seen, but I couldn't deny the woman looked good.
She gasped as we bumped shoulders. The nanobots covering her body went into black-out mode as she slipped out of the Stream. A veil of shadow covered her body from throat to toes. She one-upped her previous gasp when she looked at me.
The man, with the facial repartee of a middle manager accustomed to talking down to those around him, opened his mouth to defend his lady's honor.
Until he too got a better look at me, at which point his mouth promptly shut as if it hung on a pneumatic hinge.
I'm not intimidating, but I am dirty. A natural consequence of the tight water rations maintained in the Lowers. Clean people fear the dirty.
I continued past them, lagging behind Raines, who maintained a brisk pace despite the slide-walk carrying us through the city at what would otherwise be a full sprint. There are no slide-walks in the Lowers, and not having to walk everywhere was a luxury I wanted to enjoy.
I was prepared to slip back into the habits of a life long past, but Raines wasn't.
She turned and said, "You're dying, but you're not broken; try and keep up."
"Where first?" I asked, adding the required amount of pep to my step to match Raines' pace.
"Headed to Pause."
"What about the Precinct?"
"No need; you can review the files on the way."
That was welcome news.
Peacekeepers are human, and humans hold grudges. Considering the less than ideal circumstances leading up to my departure from Time Vice, and my ardent desire to finish out the day without receiving another ass kicking, avoiding the Precinct sat near the top of my to-do list.
Raines stepped off the slide-walk and hit the ground at a jog before slowing to a walk, a coordinated motion developed over a lifetime of practice. My dismount, on the other hand, lacked any semblance of grace. I hit the immobile ground with a locked knee, which had the unfortunate effect of jolting me forward into a three step sprint. I charged through the holographic projection of an absurdly beautiful woman standing, for reasons unknown, on the street corner in an outfit that could only qualify as bedroom attire.
The computer program running the hologram flicked me a smile. Raines placed a steadying hand on my shoulder, leading me away from those come-hither eyes.
At the end of the walkway a silver Dragonfly-class van descended from the sky and stopped inches from the curb. Raines opened the door and slid behind the steering wheel.
Her Dragonfly was long and squat, designed to carry a small army of people. Whoever had designed the Fly had done so with an all-encompassing ignorance of aesthetics and aerodynamics. I figured luck would be playing a large part in keeping our vehicle together if Raines took us onto the ElMag Low.
The Dragonfly didn't conform to Raines' personality. At least, not to the personality I'd known.
I settled into the passenger seat and studied a child's drawing flashing on the dashboard. It showed a woman riding a giraffe, flanked by two smaller giraffes being ridden by two equally small children.
I pivoted in my chair and studied the backseat. An explosion of nanite-controlled toys and holographic coloring books littered the floor. All the tell-tale signs of children at play.
"Is this your Fly?" I asked, testing the waters.
"Yeah."
"Um... Do you..." I wasn't sure how to broach the question. Raines had been my partner for years—for a brief period she'd been more, but asking about what had become of her life in the wake of my absence felt wrong, forbidden.
"Have kids?" she said, beating me to the question.
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"A boy and a girl?"
"Look at those skills of deduction," she said, without turning to meet my gaze.
"What're their names?"
"Madison and Morgan."
"How old?"
"Six."
"Twins?"
"Haven't lost a step, have you?" Thirty seconds later Raines turned, the corner of one lip pulled up despite her visible attempt to keep it level.
A thin film covered her eyes as she multitasked between communicating with the Fly via the Stream and talking with me. In response to a silent command issued from Raines' mind the Fly tilted towards the sun and accelerated smoothly into the sky.
I dug my fingers into the armrest until they nearly punctured the fabric. Memories of my last ride in a Dragonfly crept back like fingers squeezing my heart.
Raines had sat beside me then, too, but our seats were reversed. I'd flown by hand, confident I wouldn't need to neural sync with the vehicle.
Too confident.
Those were the early days of my Quick slide. Before I'd acclimated to the soaring highs and trudging lows. Before I even understood what I'd truly lost by turning to the needle.
Jimmy Walters had sat behind Raines in the Fly, separated from us by a thin electromagnetic wall. By himself, Jimmy was nothing special. A low-level Intuit who'd managed some time heists, but who, on the whole, came up somewhat unremarkable.
That's not to say he
wouldn't have been useful, though. Jimmy had put himself in with a small terrorist cell called the Children of the Lost—a group of Intuits, and regulars, known to be actively aiding the Lost.
Treason at its finest.
Jimmy Walters had no interest in dying for the cause. His were ideals that could be purchased—a price we were willing to pay for information on the rest of the group.
That is, until I had a minor Quick fit that resulted in me jerking the steering wheel. We flew straight into the seventy-sixth floor of the Janus Electronics Business Center at over a hundred miles an hour.
Jimmy died. Face smashed against the electromagnetic wall from the force of the collision. That he wasn't buckled in might have been my fault. That he died most definitely was.
Raines hadn't fared much better. She'd been buckled in, but that only held her in place for the smart-metal I-beam that punctured the windshield, and her chest. Half her blood purged in an instant. Imprisoned by the crumpled walls of the Dragonfly, I couldn't get to her. Could only watch. Wait. Hope. Pray.
I'd passed out from my own injuries by the time the medics arrived. I woke in the hospital convinced Raines couldn't have survived. Somehow she did; a small miracle that did nothing to assuage my guilt.
That was the first good look I got of the man I was becoming. Of the man the Quick was making me.
Dogged by a guilt I couldn't outrun, I fled. Didn't wait to say goodbye.
That had not been a good day.
We cut across the skyline towards the ocean to the east in a Peacekeeper transport lane, forgoing the ElMag Low thousands of feet above.
"Married?" I asked, testing the boundaries of our new relationship.
Raines ignored my question. "The Pause security feed is in your queue." She kept her eyes on the swatch of gray pollution steaming off the city ahead of us.
I activated my nanocomp with a thought and blinked into the Stream. It was something I hadn't done in years, except to enter Lou's arena. Nerve endings quivered, sensitive and overstimulated, as if teased with a feather. The hair on my arm danced as I opened my eyes to the virtual rivers of data buzzing past my skull.
Blue contrails of data crisscrossed the sky in unimaginably complex patterns. The ElMag Low pulsed a dull red as Dragonflys streaked over the city.
Millions of white nodes crawled across, over, and through Terminus, each one delineating a unique individual linked to the Stream.
All of us connected, tethered by the information filtered through our brains.
Not everyone can see the Stream like me. Like an Intuit. If they could, they'd hate us more than they already do.
Raines flew the Dragonfly straight through a line of code she could not see. The data redirected its path, wrapping around the vehicle like a river flowing over a rock. I reached out into the digital ether with my mind and touched it.
Scintillated nerve endings tittered. I absorbed the meaningless packet of information and opened it. It was nothing important, just a private communication between two nanocomps, but it was mine now. I could do anything with it.
Redirect it. Change it. Destroy it.
This was the havoc an Intuit could create.
I released the packet, pushing it back on its merry way, with a sigh.
It felt good being inside again. My amygdala tingled, releasing profusions of endorphins that curbed the Quick headache that had been building since I'd awoken that morning.
The Stream I'd become accustomed to in the Lowers was weak by comparison. A private connection formed by only a couple hundred minds for the express purpose of entertainment.
Now, linked with the trillions of nanobots floating in the stratosphere, and the billions of humans across Unity, I joined the network that went beyond cyberspace and became something more closely approximating hyper-reality.
Life was more real in the Stream for Intuits than it could ever be on the outside. Nobody knew why. No one had a clue what enabled us to form such intimate connections with the network. To manipulate it as an extension of ourselves.
Which was why I'd chosen to disconnect when I left the surface. I wanted to dull my feelings, not enhance them.
Wanted to be lost, not connected.
But I was weak. Using Lou's private arena became the only way I could resist the urge. To keep from fully relapsing.
Returning after so long was rediscovering a part of my body I'd forgotten was missing.
The user interface projected by nanobots on the inside of my eyeballs was designed for how I used to think. A veritable seizure of applications and programs scrolling past at unintelligible speeds.
I muddled through, hoping the system would regain coherency as my brain reconnected dormant neural highways, but it wasn't coming quickly enough.
So, like a child frustrated by a game beyond their comprehension, I dragged my digital arm across the table and cleared the board, knocking the pieces of my former self, and the way that man used to think, to the ground.
With a blank interface things started looking up. I located the file Raines had placed in my queue and clicked it with a twitch of my mind. A partially translucent video filled my display.
The backdrop of reality bled through the image, but the nanocomp embedded beneath the squishy gray matter of my brain compartmentalized the competing stimuli without a loss of cognitive processing.
The video, pulled from the cloud of surveillance nanites floating in the air around Pause, gave a god's-eye view of the compound. When the nanites crawling across every inch of the prison synchronized images, nothing within the confines of those walls went unseen.
And yet, there was a lot I wasn't seeing.
The video began with Malcolm walking a long hall built with an eye towards simplicity and despair. He moved quickly through a pair of double doors.
If the goal was to keep inmates inside, then in my non-expert opinion those doors should have been locked. That design functionality must not have been built into the original model 'cause Malcolm pranced through as if the prison concierge service were holding them open.
With an anticlimactic number of gun fights and explosions taking place, I watched with increasingly detached interest. Doors simply opened for Malcolm Wolfe. When I toggled through available viewpoints, they were limited to people and places throughout the Pause compound that had nothing to do with the ongoing escape.
Only the video of Malcolm walking the hall.
There was one easy explanation for the dearth of interesting footage: somebody had deleted it. Whoever pulled Malcolm from his Stream dream was probably the same person buzzing him through the prison way points.
To my knowledge, which, admittedly, was dated, the Warden was the only person with administrative access to the nanite surveillance feed. A fact Raines wouldn't have missed.
It was clumsy. If the Warden facilitated Malcolm's escape, why would he implicate himself so thoroughly by tampering with the video feed?
Warning bells went off in the non-nanotized region of my brain, the part evolved over millennia of trial and error as our ancestors pushed the limits of comfort and expanded out of the forest, and into the Savanna.
Something was wrong.
Something beyond the simple fact that Malcolm had awoken from an induced coma and walked out of Pause with less hassle than checking out of a hotel.
Terminus shrank in the side-view mirror as we approached the fringe of city sprawl. I slipped out of the Stream and admired the ocean holding hands with the sky on the horizon. The two rushed towards us. The blue-gray slurry, mixed with equal parts water and garbage, heaved and jiggled below.
In the Stream, Raines received real-time course corrections to Pause. The compound, a lesson in paranoia, floated somewhere off the Eastern seaboard. It ran entirely off the grid, on a subsystem of nanites linked remotely to the Stream, which meant finding the facility would be a needle-in-a-haystack type of fun without somebody on the other end relaying coordinates.
It was a pain in the ass, b
ut with the world's most dangerous men bunking together, the precautions were necessary. Until last night, they'd worked.
I studied Raines' glazed eyes. Couldn't help but compare the woman now to the woman that was. They were different.
A difference that couldn't be quantified.
Her skin and bone structure retained their exotic Eastern accents (so rare a sight within the walls of Unity). Her hair, a blanket of starless sky, hung loose about her face.
She hadn't lost the confidence inherent in her movements, nor control when she spoke. But there existed a burred edge below the facade. A gouge where life had nicked her. Something sensed rather than seen.
Time Vice Detective could be considered an odd career choice for a woman who could have been an Upper off looks alone. But she was smart, determined, and hard-working to a fault. An arsenal of traits that guaranteed success regardless of what profession she'd chosen; even a mother.
That revelation served a difficult reminder that life goes on. That those who I'd left behind hadn't remained in stasis, frozen by my absence. But that's what I wanted when I fled the Middles. Couldn't stand the thought of pulling Raines down with me, not even for the occasional visit. She deserved better.
A better future.
A future I wished I could've been a part of.
I was snapped out of these thoughts by a bell chiming. Somebody had pinged my nanocomp. Being connected to the world again was an odd sensation that made me long for the seclusion and privacy of my own mind, free of the Stream.
Nobody in Unity knew I'd reconnected to the Stream, and I hadn't broadcast my presence to the network, so it seemed a safe bet that the ping was Raines including me in whatever digital conversation was taking place in her brain.
Gamble long enough and you learn there is no safe bet.
A lesson I was reminded of as I accepted the ping and Malcolm Wolfe's face appeared before me.
CHAPTER SIX
Gifts From An Enemy Are Anything But
No single word could describe the influx of emotion I felt in that moment. The closest approximation would require a hyphen. Something along the lines of confusion-rage.
Time Heist Page 4
