Small-Minded Giants

by Oisin McGann

  ‘None of that mattered. All that mattered was that by the end of the twenty-first century, we had to have defences built against this apocalypse. So governments started constructing shelters. Some of them were laughable. Deep holes in the ground, badly ventilated, with inadequate heating. Slipshod engineering, poorly reinforced. Half of them weren’t even prepared for growing their own food. They thought they could live off tinned grub!’ He laughed. ‘Frozen fish and powdered eggs! It was like they thought they just had to hide out until the storm blew over in a few years. Like it was a nuclear war or something. But this thing was going to last centuries. Most people couldn’t even get their heads around the enormity of it.

  ‘But enough did. There were only a few places left where it was still possible to build on this scale. You know Ash Harbour is only a few hundred kilometres from a fault line? It was going to have to withstand earthquakes, on top of everything else. But it was the only one with a dome this size, and there was nothing like the Machine anywhere else in the world. It took years to design it, and the construction was on a scale that nobody had ever attempted before. Millions of people were involved. Millions. For a city that would only be able to support a few hundred thousand. Imagine that.

  ‘So when the time came to get people into these shelters and seal them up, war broke out. As everybody knew it would. There were certain people who were essential for running and maintaining the Machine. They and their families were the first people to be given places inside. Then there were some politicians, and scientists and military guys . . . You know, the ones who’d been in on it from the beginning. And all of these people made up what became known as the First Families. They had to be trained first. Every aspect of their lives had to be directed towards getting the Machine working, and keeping it working. Then they would have to train the rest. Imagine that: nearly three hundred thousand people would have to learn to live their lives as vital components of the most complicated mechanical device ever built. It was unprecedented.

  ‘After the First Families, the rest of the places in the city were decided by a lottery. There was chaos, of course, and you’d better believe that corruption ran through the whole process, so plenty of people lost their rightful places. But eventually the hordes were fought off, and the city was sealed. And everybody outside was left to die. The same thing happened at all the other refuges, all over the world: MacDonnell in Australia; Mandela City in Pretoria; Brazil; Armenia . . . Hell, somebody even attacked Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado with nuclear missiles trying to get in! Can you believe that? It had started life as a goddamned nuclear shelter, so that didn’t work.’

  Cleo sat, listening quietly. Other people’s problems seemed more real to her, now that she had so many of her own.

  ‘And they just locked them out?’ she asked. ‘They left them to die?’

  ‘They had to.’ He nodded. ‘Or everybody was finished.’

  He put the last forkful of food into his mouth and pulled Cleo’s unfinished plate over.

  ‘Anyway, most of them are gone now; the other shelters. Could be that we’ve just lost contact with some, but it’s unlikely. Hell, the whole damn lot of them could be gone for all we know. We thought we were so smart. This place ran without a hitch for over a hundred years, before we realized how many things we were running out of—’

  Smith’s monologue was interrupted by a hammering on the front door of the building.

  ‘Police!’ a voice bellowed. ‘Open up!’

  Smith lunged to his feet, grabbed Cleo by the arm and rushed her out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the library. Mr Ibrahim was coming the other way.

  ‘I’ll give you as long as I can!’ he told them in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Open up, or we break down the door!’ the voice came again.

  Cleo was on Smith’s heels as he belted through the library and down the passage to the rear door. He stopped as he heard voices on the other side of the door. Turning, they ran back and opened the door to the spiral staircase. Footsteps were hurrying up towards them.

  ‘Goddamn it!’ Smith muttered through bared teeth.

  He led her back into the library and swung open the bookcase that hid the secret room. From the door, they could hear Mr Ibrahim enquiring what the problem was.

  ‘We have a warrant to search these premises,’ somebody told him in an officious tone. ‘We’re looking for one Solomon Wheat, who’s wanted in connection with two murders. Is he here?’

  ‘No,’ Mr Ibrahim replied truthfully.

  ‘Well, we’ll just check for ourselves, sir, and see what there is to see, eh?’

  Smith closed the bookcase and locked it, leaving the room’s light off. He switched on a screen, tapped in a command, and an array of screenshots opened up, showing different views of the sanctum. Police officers were filing into the hall and breaking into groups, starting to search each room in turn. Cleo had not noticed any cameras; they must have been well hidden.

  ‘This is a safe room,’ Smith whispered from the darkness. ‘The walls are lined with lead – their scanners won’t find us.’

  ‘What about the others?’ Cleo asked.

  ‘Everybody else belongs here,’ Smith responded in a hushed voice. ‘We’re the only odd ones out.’

  They sat down, waiting in silence as they listened to the muffled sounds of the police officers spreading out through the building. There were a lot of them.

  ‘Somebody’s betrayed us,’ Smith whispered. ‘Sol leaves, and suddenly we’re getting turned over by the police.’

  ‘It wasn’t Sol!’ Cleo hissed. ‘It could have been anybody! He would never—’

  The engineer held up his hand to silence her. Somebody was on the other side of the bookcase. On the screen, they could see the cops examining the shelves, but there was no sign that they were looking for the door. Clumsy hands rifled through the books. The door could not be opened from the outside, once it had been locked from the inside, but Cleo still watched with dread for the first crack of light from the doorway.

  Eventually, the noise of the search passed. They waited another two hours after the last sound, and then carefully emerged from their hideout. The whole building was empty of people.

  ‘They’ve taken everyone in for questioning,’ Smith said finally. ‘We’re not safe here any more, but there’s a chance they could be watching the exits.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Cleo asked.

  ‘I don’t know. We’re in a bit of pickle here.’

  ‘It wasn’t Sol—’

  ‘I know – if it was, they’d have known about the safe room. A daylighter maybe – it doesn’t matter. We can’t trust anybody now.’

  Cleo sank to the floor, putting her face in her hands.

  ‘Jesus, is this ever going to end?’

  The door to the staircase burst open, and Solomon staggered in, supporting Maslow. The Clockworker collapsed to the floor, barely conscious, blood soaking through his trousers and jacket around his hip. Sol dropped onto his hands and knees, exhausted. He slid a heavy burlap roll off his shoulder and looked up at Smith and Cleo.

  ‘What’s new?’ he asked.

  ‘The police raided the place,’ Cleo replied. ‘We have to get out of here. And they might still be watching the building.’

  ‘Don’t think there’s anybody downstairs.’ Sol heaved in big breaths. ‘But I’m not going down those faggin’ steps again until I’ve had a rest.’

  While Sol and Maslow rested, they all talked. An idea had been forming in Cleo’s head, one she had tried to discuss with Sol before he took off. To her surprise, he asked her what she had been trying to tell him, and discovered he had been thinking along the same lines. Like her, he could see there was no future in running. But before they could put their plan into action, they had to get out of this building in case the police came back.

  It took them half an hour to do what they needed to do, and leave. Maslow could no longer walk, so they fashioned a stretcher out of a bed frame and a bl
anket, and painstakingly eased him down the stairs. Cleo led the way outside, scouting ahead.

  They had nowhere to go. Sol was intent on heading back to the deserted sewage works, but it soon became clear that they couldn’t sneak through the sub-levels carrying the stretcher – there was too much climbing involved. Instead, they stopped in the shadow of a wide footbridge, hidden behind two of its massive shock absorbers. It was still dark, but morning was fast approaching.

  ‘This is as far as I go,’ Maslow said to them in a strained voice. ‘You need to go; you’ve got what you need from me. Get on with the job.’ He paused to draw a shuddering breath. ‘If you start thinking too much, you might chicken out . . . and the longer you’re hanging around, the more likely you are to get caught before you can get it done.’

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Smith agreed, taking charge. ‘There isn’t much security – this kind of attack just hasn’t been anticipated. We’ll be done before the police even start rolling.’

  ‘It’s not the police you need to worry about.’ Maslow shook his head. ‘Not the normal ones, anyway. They’ll just arrest you. Schaeffer will want you rubbed out, or taken and interrogated in private. Years ago, we put plans in place for assaulting the Hub, in case we needed to take control of the media . . . Once the alarm is raised, the first move will be to seal it off – there aren’t many exits – and cut off all means of communication with the outside, including the police lines. My guys – the . . . the Clockworkers – will want to handle this their own way – quietly. You don’t want to get caught by them.’

  ‘So we want the cops to get there, but not too early,’ Cleo concluded.

  ‘And the right cops,’ Sol added. ‘Not the Clockwork ones.’

  ‘Right.’ Maslow winced, and tried to shift his hip to a more comfortable position. ‘After that . . . well, I don’t know what’s goin’ to happen after that.’

  They all crouched in a morose silence, daunted by the task ahead of them. Each secretly nursed some hope that everything would work itself out before they had to act. A stupid, naive and deluding wish that things would change for the better all on their own.

  Maslow finally gasped in exasperation.

  ‘Get off your asses and get on with it!’

  And so they did.

  Inspector Mercier was completing a report on the shoot-out at the Third Quadrant Hospital. There were a lot of unanswered questions, not least the possible connection to the riot at the Schaeffer building. And the possible connection with Solomon Wheat. And the man who was running with him, who seemed to be nothing less than a rogue Clockworker. And then there was the tragedy of what had happened to Wheat’s teacher, Ana Kiroa.

  His screen chimed, interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘Call for you, Inspector,’ the police operator’s bored voice informed him.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The call was patched through; a girl’s face appeared onscreen.

  ‘Inspector Mercier? My name’s Cleo Matsumura, I’m in Sol Wheat’s class?’

  ‘Yes, I remember you, Miss Matsumura. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well’ – she paused, looking somewhat embarrassed – ‘I don’t feel right doing this, y’know, but—’

  ‘Please, carry on.’

  ‘Well, I know you’re looking for Sol, and I just got a call from him.’ Her eyes wouldn’t look straight at the camera. Classic guilt complex. ‘And . . . and he asked me to bring him some money. Said he was really stuck.’

  Mercier was half out of his seat, leaning towards the screen.

  ‘And where did he say he was, Miss Matsumura?’

  ‘He said he’d meet me under the big screen, outside the Communications Hub. Is he in a lot of trouble, Inspector?’

  ‘Not any more, dear.’ Mercier was grabbing his coat. ‘You told him you’d meet him, yes?’

  ‘Well, yeah . . . I’m on my way there now – I just stopped to make this call.’

  ‘Good girl . . . good girl. There’ll be no need to show up, I’ll see he’s all right. Thank you very much. We’ll be in touch.’

  He switched off the screen, and strode out through the door, rushing past the desks of detectives.

  ‘Baiev!’ he shouted.

  ‘Sir?’ The big sergeant raised his head from his screen.

  ‘With me.’

  ‘Sir.’

  As they hurried towards the car pool, Inspector Ponderosa emerged from the toilets ahead of them, only to be barged aside by Baiev.

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’ he snapped. ‘Where you off to in such a hurry, Mercier? You misfile a report or something?’

  Mercier shot him a hostile glance, but kept walking. Ponderosa gazed after them, chewing the inside of his lip. He watched them until they disappeared round the corner, and then pulled out his radio.

  Section 22/24: Propaganda

  DESPITE ITS NAME, the Communications Hub was located by the city wall, in an area known as Silicon Village. A twelve-storey tower with spiralling windows in blue and silver, its top half bristled with antennae and solar arrays. Its upper floors could be reached by walkways from the wall itself. All the media companies had their headquarters there, but the feed to all the webscreens was still controlled by the city council itself.

  The area around the Hub was where most of the city’s technology was manufactured. When it came to providing the computers, screens, smartsuits and the scores of other technological devices essential for life in the city, there was real money to be made for high-tech suppliers, and it was reflected in the standard of the buildings of Silicon Village, and the security measures that protected them. Most of the buildings had dedicated guards, and cameras and bright lights lined the streets. With the dome completely covered by a new blanket of ice and snow, Silicon Village remained one of the brightest places in Ash Harbour.

  The city’s main control centre took up the top three floors of the Hub. Whenever Smith’s group of campaigners planted a virus in the system – the viruses that forced every public webscreen to display irritating questions about the way the city was run – the entire system could be shut down, scanned and cleared by the men and women in the control centre. None of these displays lasted more than a minute and a half.

  Cleo, Sol and Smith had a slightly longer broadcast in mind. And to make sure the city got to hear the message, it was essential that nobody in the control centre interrupted it.

  Smith knew his way around the tower: he had worked there as an electrician in one of his many careers. They entered from the wall, at the third balcony level. This put them only three floors below the control centre. It was just before six, still too early for most of the work crowd. The glass-walled reception on this floor was manned by a single overweight female security guard, who also watched over the screens for all the cameras on this floor. There was no one else in sight. Sol and Smith were both carrying the larger guns beneath their jackets, and bags on their backs; Cleo took the lead, walking straight up to the desk with a beatific smile on her face, her hand reaching for the palm-pad to log herself in.

  ‘Hi,’ she chirped. ‘We’re visiting the twelfth floor. Don’t get up.’

  With one hand on the desk, she vaulted over, her feet catching the security guard full in the chest, knocking her backwards out of her chair. By the time the guard was up on her feet, she found herself looking down the barrels of a shotgun and a sub-machine gun, while Cleo sprayed industrial glue over the alarm button under the desk.

  They tied up the woman and gagged her, depositing her in a nearby janitor’s cupboard. She would be discovered before long, but they only needed a few minutes’ head start.

  The guard’s key-chip gave them access to the secure elevator and allowed them to open the doors on any floor they wanted. They punched the button for the twelfth. Solomon and Smith tucked their guns back under their jackets.

  The elevator reached the top floor and chimed cheerfully. They stepped out past two middle-aged men who were waiting to descend, and Smith led his y
oung accomplices to the anteroom that opened into the open-plan office area, with its digitally printed clay brick walls. Beyond that they could see the double doors to the control room. This door was made from the same denceramic as the walls – it was kept locked. Their newly acquired key-chip could not open this door. It was so early and yet there were already four people at their desks. They looked up at the visitors. New faces were a curiosity here. Smith, Sol and Cleo sat down on couches in the anteroom as if they were waiting for somebody.

  At six o’clock, two men in their thirties, dressed in casual clothes, came out of the elevator and strolled through the anteroom towards the control-room door. This was the shift change, here to take over from those on night duty. As they reached the door, the three intruders rose to their feet and walked nonchalantly into the office area. One of the men at the door turned and raised his eyebrows expectantly as they approached. The door was already reading their key-chips, and the lock clicked open.

  ‘Can we help you?’ he asked as his partner stepped into the control room.

  Sol pulled the shotgun from his jacket and fired a shot into the floor at the man’s feet, charging forward as he did so. The gunshot caused the man to stagger back, and he fell, blocking his partner from closing the door. Sol ran right over him, slamming his fist into the second man’s sternum, knocking the wind out of him, and then crashing through the door. Inside, another man and a woman were looking up from the instrument panels in shock. Sol fired another shot into the ceiling over their heads, making them jump, and then levelled his weapon at them, trying to hide the tremble in his hands.

  ‘Don’t even faggin’ twitch!’ he roared, his voice shrill with tension.

  Go in hard and loud, Maslow had told them. Go for maximum shock. Sound like you’re out of your mind, he’d said. That bit would be easy, at least.