by Eliza Green
‘Why is the air so clean in here?’ said Albert.
‘To keep the vegetables and fruit fresh,’ said the woman, shaking her head. ‘Did you even hear a word I said?’
He sucked in a deep tingly breath and coughed. ‘I heard you. I just think that our problems are a little more complicated than Marcus.’ He looked down at an unconscious Hans. ‘What can we do for him?’
Grey knelt down beside Hans and pressed two fingers to his neck. ‘Not much. The wound is cauterised from the blast, but it’s the internal damage that will kill him.’
Albert nodded and looked at the woman. ‘I’m Albert. This is Héctor, and Hans on the floor.’
The woman pressed her lips together, then let out a sharp breath. ‘Jenny. This is my husband, Greyson Stafford.’
Albert frowned. ‘Jenny Waterson...’
Jenny narrowed her gaze at him. ‘How do you know my name?’
Albert shook his head. ‘We need to get Hans some help. He’s still alive.’
Grey stood up. ‘Best you get him back to your neighbourhood and make him comfortable. Where did you come from? What were you doing out here anyway?’
‘We needed to speak to Marcus about some business.’
Jenny raised a brow. ‘Three elderly men confronting Marcus? Must have been serious. He rarely uses the gun on people. Hans here must have pushed his buttons. He prefers to rough them up the old-fashioned way.’
‘It’s the generators in Waverley.’
Jenny held a hand up. ‘Wait. What?’ She shook her head at Greyson. ‘You’re here because you’re having money issues? Shit, Albert. Deal with it on your own turf. We all have the same problems.’
‘Not just generators. Life support, too. And what should I have done? Waited for everyone to die before I spoke to Marcus? We’re living on borrowed time. And I’ll confront Marcus when and where I damn well please.’
He slid down to the floor and sat beside Hans with his knees pulled up to his chest.
‘Life support, you say?’ said Greyson.
‘Yes. Affecting three of our Compounds.’
‘Marcus seemed surprised by the news,’ said Héctor.
Jenny knelt down beside Albert and touched his arm.
‘Albert, the criminals don’t control the life support. They never have. It’s run by sentient programs and is beyond their comprehension. Whatever is happening with it, it’s not Marcus or anyone living in the mansion in Astoria Park. That much is certain.’
Albert scrambled to his feet just as Jenny stood. ‘Héctor, how exactly has the life support been turning off? Slowly, or all at once?’
Héctor frowned. ‘Not all at once. The bottom floor, then the next, until an entire block is without air.’
‘What does this mean?’ said Albert. ‘If Marcus and his cronies aren’t controlling the life support in Waverley, who is?’
Jenny flashed a look at Greyson. ‘I hear one of the residents took in a female Indigene there. Do you know anything about that?’
‘You mean Isobel?’ said Albert, picking up on her veiled eagerness. ‘Yes, that would have been me.’
Jenny smiled, and with it her frosty appearance thawed. ‘I’d like to meet her. Can you bring her to the market?’
‘Why?’
‘You should know we’ve been waiting for Isobel for a long time.’
Albert frowned. ‘And who are you, exactly?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘We haven’t survived this long without taking a few precautions. First, you need to earn our trust.’
‘Our?’
‘Please, Albert. It’s important.’
‘I’ll ask her. But if she doesn’t want to see you, I can’t force her.’
‘She will.’
Grey placed a folded blanket under Hans’ head.
‘Can we get back to the life support issue, please?’ said Albert. ‘We have no IT experts in Waverley. If these sentient programs are running it, how are we supposed to fix it?’
Jenny pulled out a DPad from an inside pocket of her coat. ‘I assume you’ve heard of the Fortress, located somewhere in Boston?’ Albert nodded. ‘We know there are skilled workers living in hiding there. It’s rumoured there’s an IT expert among them.’
‘Expert?’ Héctor laughed. ‘Now I know you’re lying. All the skilled workers were transferred. If any still existed, the Agostini family would have found them by now.’
‘No. There are other places like the Fortress and we believe the skilled workers are sending encrypted messages between them.’ Jenny hit the DPad with her finger and showed it to Albert. ‘Look.’
The words on-screen were gibberish. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘Computer code, if I were to hazard a guess. The Fortress is controlling something, but we don’t know what.’
‘Couldn’t it just be the criminals sending messages?’
Jenny studied the screen. ‘If the families used DPads to communicate, then I’d say yes. But they’re old-school and they don’t trust technology. Initially, the criminals tried to hack the intelligence software that protects the entrance to their hideout. But they had no clue how to do it. Now they’re paranoid that someone’s monitoring them. So they’ve changed how they do business and no longer trust the DPads for communication.’
The Agostini family used old-school couriers to send messages between the factions; usually teenagers from neighbourhoods like Waverley. The residents had tried to communicate with other neighbourhoods using similar methods, but the courier usually couldn’t get past the gate to deliver the message. Albert didn’t trust the method because he never knew which couriers worked for the families and which worked for the neighbourhoods.
‘We don’t have a choice,’ said Albert. ‘We have to check if there’s an IT expert at the Fortress. We need to fix the issue with the life support. Has anyone tried talking to them?’
Greyson leaned against the wall. ‘We tried a while back, but didn’t get any further than the outer perimeter fence they have erected.’
‘Waverley doesn’t have the luxury of time, so we must try again,’ said Albert. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
‘Did Isobel tell you what she is good at?’ said Jenny.
‘No. She was one of Marcus’ rejects, so I’m assuming she’s an empath.’
‘I highly doubt that.’ Jenny flashed another look at Greyson. ‘Please, bring her here tomorrow.’
‘No. Not until you help us with our problem.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t agree to that.’
‘Then we have no further business to discuss.’ Albert bent down and draped his arm around Hans’ neck.
‘I’m not asking, Albert,’ said Jenny. ‘Greyson and I have been looking for ways inside the skilled workers’ hideout, but we’ve never found the exact entrance. Only the general area of where they are. They run holograms and simulation software to mask their location. Isobel could help us. If they aren’t controlling the life support, they might know who is.’
‘I told you, we have no further business.’
‘And how do you expect to find the IT expert?’
‘I’ll demand they let me in,’ said Albert, standing up. ‘Besides, you and I are no different in age, and perhaps they would be more comfortable dealing with a man.’
Jenny smiled and stepped into his space. ‘I thought that kind of talk went out with the dark ages. Besides, I’m fitter and faster than you.’
‘Demanding they let you in won’t work,’ said Greyson. ‘We tried that already.’
‘And standing around talking about it won’t get us anywhere, either,’ said Albert. ‘If this is a sentient program issue, it will spread to other places, including here.’
Jenny shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Albert. Isobel first. Then the life support.’
‘Why do you care? What is she to you?’
‘A man called Bill Taggart and an Indigene named Stephen sent her to help us.’
13
Jenny and Grey helped
Albert and Héctor construct a makeshift stretcher out of metal bars and a strong hessian material used to cover some of the produce. Together they strapped the injured German to the stretcher using sections of rope.
Jenny peeled back the bloodstained fabric from Hans’ side that had a chunk of skin and bone missing. If the wound didn’t kill him, the infection would. Beads of sweat covered his face that indicated the man was running a fever.
Jenny grabbed two apples from one of the boxes and dropped them into Albert’s satchel. She’d replace them later with stock from her stall.
‘You told them you were going to the market. If you turn up empty-handed at the entrance to Waverley, the guards will be suspicious.’ She wrote him out a receipt.
‘And what should I tell them about the injured man on the stretcher?’ said Albert.
‘Tell them he tried to stop a fight between Marcus and another man. They’ll laugh and call him an idiot and you’ll put on your best look of disgust at their lack of empathy as they wave you through.’
Albert bent down to pick up the metal bars at one end of the stretcher. Héctor did the same with the other end.
‘Don’t forget to bring Isobel to me,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s essential that we meet.’
‘How could I forget? You’ve asked me ten times already.’
She smiled. Stephen and Bill Taggart had sent the Indigene here; Jenny would not let her slip through the cracks.
Albert and Héctor carried the stretcher out of the storage unit. Jenny’s smile vanished when she thought about Albert, similar in age to her but with a different start in life. She’d been a pilot for twenty years before she had given it up to help the underground movement after the World Government had abandoned Earth. Her pilot training had kept her lean and in shape; something she kept up, even now. Albert was one of the hard grafters in life; one of the forgotten people who kept things going while the skilled workers flew spacecraft, or worked as lab technicians. World Government employees had once been granted immunity from the alteration programme. That arrangement had not lasted.
Jenny’s breath caught in her throat when Albert stumbled and almost dropped the stretcher. He hadn’t even made it to the front of the warehouse. She could barely watch the two men, already battered and beaten down by the world, struggle to carry an injured man back to safety.
Grey shifted closer to her. ‘I think we should help them, at least for the first mile.’
‘We can’t let the vendors see us getting involved. You know the rules. We stay under the radar and keep an eye on Marcus.’
She loved Grey’s caring attitude; her own had been hardened over time. Her daughter, Eleanor, used to say she was too soft. Over time, Jenny had learned that life didn’t care if you were soft or hard; it challenged you regardless. Life was about how you dealt with the challenges that threatened your survival.
‘Do you think Isobel is the one we’re after?’ said Grey.
‘Stephen said that she was. Serena went to great lengths to break her spirit. She spoke highly of her ability to resist their methods.’
Bill Taggart had sent a communication stone to Earth with one of the devolved humans when the first of the ships had arrived back on Earth. The stone couldn’t maintain a live connection, but it could record and play messages. It connected directly to the Nexus, and Jenny had been using it to communicate offline with Stephen.
Grey nodded. ‘It’s still weird to hear you call her that. Serena will always be Susan Bouchard.’
Greyson used to be a lab technician, working out of New York while Serena—or Susan Bouchard in her human form—had worked in Toronto. Susan had been part of a team studying the effects of genetic manipulation on people with damaged DNA. They falsely promised results to those whose code could not be fixed by the genetic manipulation clinics. Grey had told Jenny he and Susan had argued many times about the ethics of their studies.
His genetic traits hadn’t matched the transfer criteria that took Susan Bouchard and her lab partner, Joel Taylor. It was the mass exodus of blonde-hair-blue-eyed people that had given Greyson the kick he needed to start the underground movement.
Even after her alteration, Serena had remembered Greyson Stafford. When the last World Government ship had left, Stephen had asked Jenny to find him. She tracked him down to an old curiosity shop in New York where she’d explained who she was and that Serena, even in her current form, remembered the man who had questioned her ethics and made her want to quit her job every day.
Jenny and Greyson’s similar goal to improve life on Earth had drawn them to work together and a deeper bond developed. Jenny’s connection with the Indigenes—in particular, Stephen—had helped Greyson to understand real level of control the World Government had over its people.
She tidied up the storage room, putting everything back exactly the way it had been, minus two metal poles and the cloth for the stretcher. She would have to make a record of the missing apples she’d given to Albert. Marcus’s associate, Carl, didn’t miss a thing. She planned to tell him a couple of boys from out of town stole them.
Traces of blood on the floor remained from Hans’ blast wound. Grey had done a good job of cleaning most of it away. Jenny stood back and checked the area. Unless Marcus ran DNA scanners over the floor of the storage building, he would not find anything.
Cleaning up the storage room was the easy part. It would be harder to hide from the vendors what had gone on that day. She and Grey had just helped three strangers from Waverley after a fight with Marcus. They would whisper and make assumptions over what had happened. But the vendors’ fear of Marcus, who punished people for telling tales, worked in their favour. Jenny hoped they still had enough left to keep their mouths shut.
She often wondered if the vendors knew the real reason she and Grey worked at the market. If they did, how much did they care? People had lost hope that anything could change on Earth. First they’d lived under an oppressive World Government only to be ruled by another one. The only difference between the regimes was that the criminal factions didn’t hide the fact they were murdering bastards.
It was already midday. Greyson grabbed a handful of apples and Jenny picked up several aubergines. The cool vegetables felt good against her clammy skin. They carried the produce back to their stall to keep up the show for any unexpected associates, passing by or visiting. But the truth was the associates were lackeys who didn’t hold much power. They were also lazy men who rarely visited before 10am and rarely hung around for more than an hour. All they wanted was the takings to give to Gaetano Agostini. After, they would drive around town until the power in the vehicles ran out.
Jenny emptied the produce she carried into the already-full stand.
The market trade had picked up since they’d opened, and she resumed her pretence of being an unhelpful vendor. People passed by her stall, malnourished men and women who deserved a better life. It broke her heart to see their disappointment when she told them the new price of their favourite treats had gone up. But Marcus had a habit of dropping prices back down as well as putting prices up for no reason. It all depended on his mood. She traced Marcus’ mood most days back to his irritation with Enzo Agostini. More than once, she’d heard him mouthing off about Gaetano’s only son.
Jenny stopped herself from tossing free vegetables into the buyers’ bags. She must protect her identity and position in the market and keep Marcus’ trust. But it upset her to be so rude to people who didn’t deserve it. Had she not tested in the top-five percentile that allowed her to train as a pilot, she might have ended up just like them. What she wanted to do was give them some hope, to tell them she was part of the underground movement trying to liberate the people of Earth from their new prison.
She caught Greyson’s admonishing stare and straightened up. He was right; they had come too far to deviate from their plan. They had worked hard to be given a stall at the black market and get close enough to Marcus and his associates. As far as the Kings knew, the underground
movement limped along following a calculated attack on their underground camp. An Indigene who had returned to Earth had fooled them into thinking he would help the movement, but they found out too late that the Agostini family had put him there. That one Indigene had wiped out half of their movement. After, their movement scattered far and wide.
After lunch, the trade dropped off and Jenny was ready for a break. She slipped on her coat with her DPad hidden inside the lining, and retreated to the storage unit to make a quick call. Only one other person besides Greyson could put her head right.
She closed the door and flicked on the light, shivering in the cold air. She entered a UUID—universally unique identifier—and her contact list popped up on the screen.
‘Call Eleanor.’
Her daughter had been a difficult child and adult; attention-seeking like her father. Jenny loved her but had struggled for many years to like her. When Eleanor had first met Greyson, she hadn’t warmed to him straight away. But Grey had a way with people that Jenny did not, and he’d won her over with his sharp tongue and down-to-earth attitude.
‘Now, why didn’t you marry this one, Mum?’ Eleanor had said to her. ‘I like him.’
Jenny had ruined her daughter by letting her get away with too much over the years. But the underground movement had given them both a chance to know each other, after they had been left behind on Earth. Eleanor had taken control of communications and tracking members’ whereabouts.
When Eleanor had first met Stephen over the Light Box feed, his polite manners and easy grace had won her over. Anton was different; more exuberant. Jenny remembered laughing when Anton had elbowed Stephen out of the way so he could get a better look at the screen. But what made her laugh more was when Stephen couldn’t stop apologising for Anton that day.
