by Terry Persun
Rodger came back into the room. “But you see him,” he said to Keith.
“No. He's not here.”
Rene glanced at the end of the room. “Someone's in here. I can see it in the way you glance over and in your expression. Who is it, then? Who do you see?”
“The angel,” Keith said answering the question.
The angel shook her head.
“What?” Keith said.
“An angel? What's he look like?” Rene asked.
“Never mind,” Keith said.
The angel stepped around the table and Keith followed her movements. Rene watched him closely as he did so. It was almost as though she could see the angel too, by following what Keith did. The angel said, “I'm sorry about this, Keith. It's what you might call self-discovery.”
Keith closed his eyes.
“What's he saying?” Rene asked.
“What's she saying,” Keith corrected her.
Doctor Mike and Rodger sat quietly as Rene probed with another question. “What does she look like? Does she look like Nellie?”
Keith laughed. “No, nothing like Nellie. Nellie's dark skinned.”
Rodger jumped from the table and went outside the door. Keith heard him tell someone to find all the dark skinned women in the complex and to round them up.
“You can't do that. She didn't do anything,” Keith said when Rodger came back.
“She's an accomplice. Now, what else is there? Why can't we see this angel?” He tapped a finger on the table.
Rene leaned back in her chair and glared at Rodger. “You are bent on screwing this up, aren't you? Would you just let me do my job here?”
Keith looked back and forth at them. He knew now that they couldn't see or hear he angel, so he directed his next statement directly to her. “Is Nellie going to be okay?”
The others stopped talking and pinned their attention to Keith.
The angel shrugged her shoulders. “That may be up to you,” she said.
“How? You can't tell me that now. I've been following you. You've got to help.”
“Oh my God,” he heard Rene whisper. “They're arguing.”
“Then tell me what's going on so I can tell them,” he said.
“They won't have any idea what you're talking about. They don't now,” she said.
“Then help me so that I'll know.”
“I can only help if you know what to do. Don't you see?” She turned around to go back to the other end of the room.
“What kind of angel are you?” Keith said. “You only have one wing.”
“Wings?” Rodger said.
“You tell me what kind of angel I am,” she said. “You tell me what I'm supposed to do. Tell me, and I'll do it,” she said.
“Get me out of here.” Keith stood.
Rodger ran for the door and blocked it. “You're going nowhere.”
Keith turned to the angel and motioned to her with his palms up as though asking her what she was going to do next.
“When it's time,” she said. Then the angel faded away as though she had never been in the conference room at all.
“Dammit,” Keith said. He looked around the table at the others.
“She's gone,” Rene said. She stared at Keith. “You're disappointed. Your,” she seemed to have trouble saying the next word, “angel … has left you.”
“She'll be back,” Keith said.
“You're not sure of that, are you?” Rene said.
Keith wanted to cry. His emotions were jumbled. He had been led to this place, now he wanted out and there was no going anywhere. “I'm hungry,” he said quietly.
Rene reached for his hand, but he pulled both of them onto his lap. She looked up at Rodger, still guarding the door. “He isn't going anywhere. Get him some food.”
The food came fairly quickly, and for the next fifteen minutes everyone stayed quiet as he ate a sandwich. This gave Keith a chance to think about what was going on. He had been shown how to escape, had collected the others, and had reentered without any trouble. Well, hardly any trouble. And he had been guided to this central office. The people here wanted answers from him, yet he had none. He asked his angel and she had no answers. Keith sat up in his chair and pushed the plate to the side. He took a drink of water they had brought with the sandwich.
The others leaned toward him. “What is it?” Rene asked.
“You have the answers,” Keith said. “I'm here to get the answer from you.”
“Preposterous,” Rodger said about the same time that Doctor Mike said, “Insane.”
“Perhaps not,” Rene said. “It's like a puzzle, isn't it? A riddle. None of us has the whole piece.” She looked over to the others then back to Keith. “Only you can solve it. Somehow, your openness will allow you to put the pieces together like we can't do. To us, the answer is ineffable. That's it, isn't it?”
Keith glared at her. “Tell me what you know.”
“We don't know much,” she said. “At least we don't think we do.”
“I'm not sure I like this,” Rodger said.
“Let her go.” Mike sat back in his chair and said, “Go on,” to Rene.
“About ten years ago, we began to get the IFI of the boy. We didn't know what it was. We sent security forces to find him, but he disappeared every time we got close.” She shrugged, “The cameras can't see everything. Many of them don't even work anymore. We didn't replace them because it didn't matter. Everyone was under control. The chips worked great.
“Anyway, it took us a while to figure out that the boy was caused by some sort of a glitch in the computer system. We had our best software guys trying to figure out where the image came from, but no one could find a blip of any kind in the programming.” She stopped talking. “Any questions so far?”
“Did you recognize the boy at that time?” Keith said.
“No. He was still an IFI. You've got to understand. Those things show up every once in a while. With a system this large and this complex you get all sorts of things happening. We'd get images of these spheres that would show up. They looked like bubbles. Or streaks of light. Rainbows across the screens. Little things that we didn't worry much about. You get used to them. But the boy was human. That was a complicated image to create. At first the IFIs of the boy were a little fuzzy and only appeared once in a while. They got clearer though, and eventually they were showing up a lot. Never two places at once. It was like he really was human.” She tapped the table in front of her similar to how Rodger did earlier. “And to make things worse, a few years ago the first group of people escaped. We got a glimpse of them following the boy. That's when we started to worry.
“We had everyone on staff psychologically tested to be sure this wasn't an inside job.”
Keith waited for her. He knew she was deciding how to go on. “Everything,” he said, “if you expect me to help you figure this out.” So far, he had nothing but the fact that the system had created an image. So what?
“Bradley worked for us then. He didn't test well. We asked him to leave.” She looked down the table at Rodger. “You have to understand. We hire people from outside quite often. As we need them. Bradley was good. But this wasn't the place for him. He had a lot of family outside and didn't agree with what we were doing in here,” she said.
“What are you doing in here?”
“At the beginning, running a business, a very symbiotic business with the outside world. Now, Newcity is like its own country. We work to maintain ourselves. We import and export less and less, we…”
“He doesn't need to know our economic situation, Rene. Just get on with the escapees and the IFI sightings,” Rodger said. “And wrap this up soon. I'm not sure I like it.”
“Fine,” Rene said, turning back to Keith.
Doctor Mike interrupted the conversation. “These guys thought it was the new chips. We're always updating them. But the first escapees were all old-chip residents. So, that couldn't be the problem. But you need to tell him that.” He
jerked his head toward Rodger.
“He wants to be exonerated.” Rene shook her head at the doctor.
Rodger cut in again. “Bradley knew about the escapees and set up to have someone cut the chips out of their arms. We have no idea how he figured out where the escapees would go. They're met at a different place every time. Either that or he has people planted all over the city.”
“You couldn't go get him?” Keith said.
“Beside the point,” Rodger said. “We got so used to the people in here that we started to let things go a little. Charles handles security, but most of that's been internally: minor problems. You see them on the news. He's good at keeping the peace and keeping people inside, most of the time, but…”
“We're vulnerable,” Rene said.
“Enough,” Rodger again slapped a hand on the table. “That's it for now.” He obviously didn't like the fact that Rene exposed them as vulnerable.
Keith let the facts sink in as he waited to see what they would do with him next.
Rene objected verbally, but Rodger would have none of it. He went to the door and called someone to lead Keith out. “There's a terminal in the room where you'll be staying,” Rodger said. “If you get any inspiration about what's going on, let us know.”
As they led Keith away, he heard one of the other terminal-watchers tell Rodger that they rounded up thirty women. One was named Nellie.
Chapter 20
The room they placed Keith in looked like every other apartment in Newcity except that it had a full set of newly installed cameras. The familiarity of the furniture and layout, though, had changed for him emotionally. Where he would have expected to feel comfortable and peaceful, he felt trapped and imprisoned instead. He took a quick inventory and found all the usual things, including a stocked refrigerator, extra linen, and a terminal in several places so that he could order what he wanted – or contact Rodger when he came up with an answer.
He paced the room for a short while, then sat on the sofa facing the television. He worried for Nellie. He should have taken her with him the first time. It couldn't be good that they found her. He only hoped that didn't mean they found the others.
Time passed slowly, and before he knew it the door to the apartment clicked and opened. Two men dragged Nellie into the room.
Keith jumped up and ran to her. “Are you all right?”
The men let her go and she straightened her clothes. “I'm fine for now, but I'm not sure how either one of us will be later.”
The men backed out the door and closed it again, the latch clicking into place.
That was the other thing Keith noticed, a lock on the door. They were prisoners.
“What happened? Where did they find you?” Keith asked.
Nellie pointed to one of the cameras. “What can I say? I was treated like a queen.”
“Don't worry about the cameras. Talk with me.”
“I was still working when several men – not your normal security – came to get me. They knew exactly who I was and called my name as they approached,” she said.
“They didn't know it was you. They only knew your name. I'm sorry.”
She touched his cheek. “Don't be.” She turned her head to look squarely at one of the cameras. “This is going to end soon anyway.”
“Don't antagonize them,” Keith said. “It's not their fault.”
“What do you mean?” She turned back to glare at him. “They're in charge here.”
“It's some sort of natural order. They're caught in it, too.”
Nellie pushed away and walked toward the kitchen before she stopped, her eyes staring at something on the ground. She waited, then swung back to give Keith an inquisitive look. “They're caught in their own trap,” she said.
“You might say that. They built a place that provided peace and security in exchange for cheap labor. They were able to maintain control of their workers and only had to deliver the minimum in living conditions.” He took in the room. “Nothing lavish here. But who cared? Along with stable emotions there were no emotional outbursts or needs.”
“Then why escape?” Nellie asked.
“Why do you want out?”
“Isn't it obvious? There's nothing here but the same thing over and over.”
Keith nodded. “With or without the chips. That's all they have, too.” He went to her. “There is nothing else. You go from one system to another. You're either emotionally dull or emotionally peaked.”
“Or anywhere in between,” she said. “But you have a choice.”
“That's it, then. Choice. That's what this is all about. The truth is that everyone has different needs or wants, and in order to follow through on those, they need choice.” He reached for her hands and held them. “Without choice none of the systems will work. Not Newcity's and not Bradley's.”
“That doesn't explain what's happening here.”
“It's a beginning. I hope. At the moment it's just a theory I have.” He jerked his head toward a camera. “I think I need more information from them. In the mean time, it's great to see you. And I'll never leave without you again.”
Nellie came to him and kissed him. “I don't know why I feel the way I do about you. You're such a push-over.”
Keith narrowed his eyes. “Not any more.” He held her hand and led her to the sofa. “Ignore their intrusion as much as you can. I need you to tell me what you know about this place. Your perspective. They need me to figure this out. As you said, this is going to end soon if they don't cooperate.”
She shook her head. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“That's all right. Just tell me how you met the others. I know how you lost your chip.”
“They knew where to find me. The system knows when someone goes off line, but it's programmed to fulfill goals. That's what one of the guys told me. So, my understanding is that if it sends people to clean up after a death and the place is already cleaned up, it drops the name from the list. If an apartment is occupied, it accepts the data.”
“Why? Wouldn't the system need to follow through somehow? Make sure it knew where the body went? Reassign the apartment?”
“That's where everything is breaking down. The nearest thing we've been able to figure is that it hands the job over to another aspect of the computer complex and then forgets it. That program does the same thing. Goal accomplished, move on.”
“It has learned to let go,” Keith said.
“What?” Nellie shook her head emphatically. “No. It can't let go. It's a computer system. You're saying that figuratively, right?”
“Is there an umbrella program of some kind that monitors the big picture?”
“There used to be, but my understanding is that it's become so large that it doesn't really operate very well any more. It sort of runs off on its own sometimes,” she said. “Look, I don't understand it well enough to explain it completely. You really should talk with the guys.”
“It plays,” Keith said. He smiled and stood. When he turned around, the angel was standing behind the kitchen counter, her elbows on the countertop with her chin cradled in her hands. “I'm free,” the angel said.
Just as she appeared, she disappeared. The door clicked and opened and Rene stepped inside. “They've agreed to let me talk with you alone,” she said.
Nellie pointed to the observation cameras. “We're never alone,” she said.
“They're off-line for now,” Rene said.
“Don't believe it,” Nellie said to Keith.
Keith looked at the two of them. “I don't know if it matters anymore. I just saw the angel. She said that she was free.”
“Ask her what she means by that,” Rene said.
“What angel?” Nellie said.
“Couldn't if I wanted to. She disappeared when you came in,” Keith told Rene. He turned to Nellie. “I see this one-winged angel sometimes, too. Rene here was there when she appeared the last time.”
“She's never shown up in the system video,”
Nellie said, “so how can you see her?” She reached for his arm and turned it. “And you're not chipped. You shouldn't be able to see any of the images. I can't.”
Rene took a seat in a side chair and leaned toward them. “You know what she means, don't you? The angel, I mean.”
When Nellie began to talk again, Rene shushed her by waving a hand at her. “If that computer stops for any reason, we won't be able to monitor anyone,” Rene said. “If the angel is part of the computer system and she's free, we're in real trouble.”
