The Block

by Ben Oliver

  “Let’s hope we never need this room,” I say.

  Igby nods and then leads the way out of the panic room, up the stairs, and back into the library. We pass by some ancient radio equipment that Igby tells me Pander has been using to communicate with survivors from other regions.

  “How many survivors are there?” I ask.

  “Fewer and fewer every day,” Igby replies. “Happy’s soldiers are taking them out by the hundreds. Smilers get some of them too. Regions fourteen and eighty-three went quiet yesterday.”

  I think about this, what it means: rebels being killed for trying to stand up against Happy’s plan to eradicate the world of humans. Killed for fighting against Happy’s assessment that humanity is a cancer. Killed for daring to exist in the new age of machine logic.

  We move over to a long desk. One of the oldest pieces of technology I have ever seen outside of a museum sits in the middle of the counter. It’s an old desktop computer with an honest-to-god console tower beside an outdated liquid crystal display monitor.

  “What a piece of junk,” I say as we approach.

  “This piece of junk is the reason you’re alive. It’s how we knew where you were being kept, how we got Pander inside the Block and her iris recognized on the scanners. It’s how we got you out, and it’s how we’re scrambling the signal of all Mosquitoes within the three-mile radius.”

  “About that radius,” I reply, “isn’t that dangerous? Won’t they just attack the center?”

  “Oh, Luka, Luka, Luka, it’s an oscillating radius; the signal is bounced off several satellites … it doesn’t matter, I’ve got it all figured out.”

  Igby smiles, slightly patronizingly, and opens a program on the computer using a handheld piece of plastic hardware that controls a cursor on the screen. I’m pretty sure they used to call it a mouse. I have to hold back a laugh at this. The console begins to whir and bleep as the program powers up.

  “Sounds like it’s about to take off,” I say.

  “I’ve made a lot of modifications,” Igby says, “but it still struggles to handle what I need it for. Pod and Samira will be back soon—they’ll have the processor I need to speed things up. When that happens, we’ll know exactly where Malachai and Woods are.”

  I’m about to ask who Samira is when I notice a small metal box with four thin wires coming from it sitting beside the PC’s tower and reach for it. “What’s this?” I ask.

  Igby grabs my wrist and holds it firmly. “Do not touch that,” he says slowly. “We cannot let it see us.”

  “What? Can’t let it see us? What does that mean?”

  “It was the only way,” Igby says, and turns back to the screen, where lines of unintelligible code scroll from the top down.

  “Only way to what?”

  Igby takes a deep breath. “We caught one of the hosts. One of those torch-eyed fucks. Pander killed him and we took one of his eyes. I hooked this old PC up to it, and we keep it inside that box so that it can’t see where we are and tell the rest of the hosts.”

  “That’s … genius,” I say. “I mean, it’s brutal, but it’s genius.”

  “I wrote a program that can decode some of the information we get from the eye. It takes ages and the machine can only handle it for a few minutes at a time. We found out that Happy is behind the Smilers, that it has uploaded itself into the world’s leaders, that—until recently—it couldn’t order others to hurt humans.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I saw that firsthand. I watched one of the hosts command an Alt soldier to shoot another Alt soldier. It’s not good.”

  “Not good at all,” Igby agrees. “It won’t be long before they can inflict harm upon humans themselves.”

  The thought sends a shiver down my spine. I try not to dwell on it. “What else did you find out?”

  Igby continues, “That they were keeping you in the Block and using you like batteries. When we found that out we started planning a way to get you out. It took a long time, but we did it. I’m just sorry we couldn’t get there in time to save Malachai and Woods.”

  “When will we know what happened to them?” I ask.

  “I’m working on it,” Igby says, “but it’s slow, really slow. The latest information I’ve managed to decode is basically an equation about how fast Happy sent that subway train after us to give it the best chance of incapacitating us and not killing us.”

  “Jesus,” I whisper.

  “This is how we’re going to do it, Luka, this is how we’re going to bring Happy down.”

  “Is this dangerous?” I ask, glancing at the ancient computer. “I mean, will Happy figure out that you’re listening in to its plans?”

  “No, that’s the beauty of using this antique computer—Happy can’t even see it.”

  “Can we use it?” I ask. “Can we use it to—I don’t know—upload a virus into Happy?”

  Igby laughs. “Firstly, all I can do with this tech is watch and read code; secondly, there isn’t a computer virus strong enough to touch Happy.”

  “Right,” I reply, dejected. “Do we have a plan, then?” I ask.

  Igby sighs. “We had a lot of plans: infiltrate the Arc; find a cure for the remaining Smilers; search the city for surviving Ebb users. But we can’t do any of that without an army. We were going to free and recruit the Block inmates, but they all started dying a few weeks ago.”

  “I know,” I say. “I saw the empty cells. Why is that? I thought they had the same healing tech as us. They were part of the same trials.”

  “They gave the Block inmates one variant of the drug and the Loop inmates another. I guess they were trying to figure out which one worked the best … turns out it was ours.”

  I shake my head. I feel sick knowing that Happy has used us all as lab rats, not caring about who lived or died.

  “So, without the Block inmates, how do we build an army?”

  “We need the Missing,” Igby replies. “The citizens of the city who disappeared in twos and threes over the last five years. We know they’re out there somewhere, but we don’t know where. Without them we don’t stand a chance. We lost the war before it even began; we’re nothing more than the last surviving soldiers. All we can do is keep on running away, keep on hiding, keep on surviving.”

  “Until what?” I ask.

  “Until we can’t anymore.”

  “So, we find the Missing or we die?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “They must be hidden, like us,” I point out. “Camped out somewhere with a surveillance scrambler thingy too.”

  “No, that’s the thing,” Igby replies, “the scrambler is easy to detect. Happy knows we’re scrambling the signal; it just doesn’t know where from. I’ve scanned the whole region for similar tech and only found ours. Wherever they are, they’re off the grid and invisible.”

  “But there were hundreds of them,” I point out. “At Midway Park, there were hundreds … How hasn’t Happy found them? Where are they?”

  “That’s the lifesaving question.”

  “Luka”—Pod’s voice comes booming through the library—“glad to see you’re recovering from surgery.”

  I turn to see him walking sideways through an aisle between bookshelves.

  “Hey, Pod,” I say, “how’s the eyesight today?”

  “It’s getting better all the time,” he says through a smile. “I estimate that in seven to ten days I’ll be able to see the stars again.”

  “That’s so awesome,” I say.

  “Yes, it is awesome. It appears the more historical the injury or ailment, the longer the Delay takes to fix it. I don’t mind waiting, though,” Pod says, and then turns to Igby. “Igby, ten minutes, you and me, storming the Temple of Zah! Bring your dice.”

  “Absolutely,” Igby replies, smiling.

  Pod walks away, disappearing through the door marked PERIODICALS.

  “You guys still playing that game?” I ask, remembering the endless hours that Pod and Igby would play their fantasy dice game
, yelling out their storylines over the walls of the exercise yard.

  “Sure are,” Igby replies.

  I smile, and then the question that has been burning in my mind recurs.

  “Hey, Igby, after we crashed near the Red Zone, before I was captured, did you manage to … ?”

  “Get your sister to the hidden vault?”

  “Yes,” I say, terrified of the answer.

  “I did,” he tells me. “It took me hours to find it, but I got her there. I left her with Day and Shion and about fifty other clones, but, Luka, there’s something you should know.”

  “What is it?” I ask, the fear that had dissipated now back.

  “The only reason I managed to get her there was because of the rally in Midway Park. Something like ninety percent of all the Alt soldiers were there, and most of the fallen surveillance drones hadn’t started self-repairing. I had to leave her in the vault so I could come and try to help you guys, but by then the battle was over, and I was forced into hiding—more and more Alt soldiers started patrolling the streets. Luka, we can’t get back to the financial district without being spotted now—there are thousands of Mosquitoes all over the city. I can scramble all of them within the three-mile radius, but the vault is seven miles east of here. I don’t know how the clones are getting food or water, I don’t know if they’ve been captured … or killed. I don’t know.”

  I don’t know how to respond to Igby’s words. Part of me feels hope—Molly made it to the vault, where Day and Shion will have looked after her, helped her get clean, nursed her back to health, but if they were stuck in that vault, no way out, no source of food or water, then surely they’re either dead or captured.

  “They weren’t in the Block?” I ask, remembering that Igby had access to that information via the eye.

  “No, none of the clones from the vault were in the Block,” Igby replies.

  She can’t have survived, a voice says, unbidden, in my mind.

  I’m about to ask Igby if he thinks there’s any chance Molly might still be alive, but my words are cut off by the sound of something tumbling to the floor in the bathroom where Kina and Wren are, and then the sound of screaming.

  Igby and I dash for the bathroom. I get there first and throw open the door.

  Wren is on her back with Kina in a choke hold on top of her. Wren is growling in an almost-inhuman way, and for a second I’m sure that she has become a Smiler once again. Kina’s eyes are rolling back in her head as her struggling arms fall limp.

  I rush over to Wren and grab her arm, wrenching it away from Kina’s neck.

  “Get off me! Get off me!” Wren screams, and—as her arm comes free from Kina’s neck—she punches me twice, once in the right eye and once on the nose.

  I fall back, and she dives on Kina again.

  “What the hell is all the noise?” Dr. Ortega asks from the doorway. “I’m trying to sleep, for the love of hell.”

  She sees Igby trying to restrain Wren and calmly walks to the far side of the room, grabs another syringe, and injects Kina.

  “Shit, that was a double dose,” Dr. Ortega says, staring at the empty needle.

  “Why are you sedating her?” I ask. “She’s the one being attacked!”

  The doctor shrugs, grabs another syringe, and injects Wren. The two girls become groggy and fall to the floor, sedated.

  “Can I get back to sleep now, maybe?” Dr. Ortega asks, and then marches out of the room, back to her book bed.

  “We’re going to have to restrain Wren until we can figure out how to help her,” Igby says, breathing heavily.

  “No,” I say, “we’re not restraining her. She’s spent two months restrained and locked up. We’re not doing that to her.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Igby asks. “Just let her attack people every time she forgets where she is?”

  I’m about to reply when, from the main library, Akimi’s voice calls out, “Scavenger group returning.”

  Igby calls for Pod and the two move quickly, running to the back of the bathroom toward the hole in the wall before climbing down the ladder to the sewer.

  “Come on,” Igby calls up to me.

  I follow, climbing down as fast as I can to keep up. Pod and Igby are already sprinting through the low, narrow tunnels of the sewer, back to the manhole cover outside the courthouse.

  Seconds later the heavy steel cover is lifted away and Pander leaps down into the tunnel.

  “Nothing,” she pants, pushing an antique-looking gun into the waistband of her shorts. “We got nothing! They were everywhere. Happy is sending more and more soldiers into the city.”

  “What happened?” Igby asks, but before she can reply a second person hangs from the sewer’s entrance and, just before she drops lightly down to the ground, I notice her curved, pregnant stomach. She lands and pushes her black, sweat-soaked hair from her eyes. She’s about sixteen, and she looks pissed off.

  “Hosts everywhere, and soldiers. We were lucky to get out alive,” she says, her angry eyes darting over to me. “You must be Luka?” she asks. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Samira Deeb.”

  “Oh, you’re Samira,” I say, getting a raised eyebrow from the pregnant girl in return.

  “So, we got nothing?” Pod asks. “No food? Water?”

  “Nothing,” Pander replies.

  “What about the processor?” Igby asks.

  “Do you know what nothing means?” Samira asks, sounding genuinely curious as she pushes an early model USW rifle into her backpack.

  “All right,” Igby says, “let’s get back to base and we’ll make a plan.”

  We shuffle through the sewer once again, climbing up into the bathroom, where Wren and Kina are still slumped on the floor. I lift Kina up and lay her on one of the beds. Pod and Igby get Wren onto another.

  “All right, Mr. Compassion,” Igby says, looking from me to Wren, “if we’re not restraining her, what do you suggest we do?”

  I think about it for a while. “She needs time and rest. She’s been through hell. We need to give her a chance to come back from that.”

  Igby sighs, and I can almost see his thought process: We’re in the middle of a war, resources are stretched, we hardly have enough people to fetch food and supplies.

  But, finally, he nods. “You’re right,” he says. “We’ll take her to the storage room at the front of the library so she’s as far away from everyone else as possible, but we won’t lock her up or restrain her. I’ll talk to Dr. O about treatments and find out what medication she’ll need.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Igby then leans close. “Between you and me, Luka, I don’t completely trust the mad doctor.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “Think about it: She doesn’t breathe, and I can guarantee she doesn’t have a heartbeat. She’s full of more tech than Apple-Moth. She’s an Alt.”

  “So is Wren,” I point out.

  “But Wren can’t surgically remove Alt tech without the aid of robots. Dr. Ortega is next level.”

  And for a second something tries to fall into place in my mind, something about Dr. Ortega. It’s almost as if I know her, as if I’ve met her before, but where? When? I shake the thought away, putting it down to my tired and overworked brain.

  “What are you saying?” I ask. “Surely you don’t think she’s working for Happy?”

  “I’m just looking at the evidence.” Igby shrugs. “That’s all.”

  Pod and Igby lift Wren’s bed and carry her out and through the library to the storeroom.

  Still feeling groggy from the sedation and the operation, and my head now trying to process what Igby said about Dr. Ortega, I move through to the library and sit down in an uncomfortable chair.

  The new girl, Samira, is pulling her white T-shirt over her head. She stands there in only a sports bra and pokes a finger through a bloodstained rip in the material of her T-shirt. “Dammit!” she says. She looks down at her protruding stomach and sees a nasty-l
ooking wound. “Dammit,” she says again. She wanders over to where Dr. Ortega is sleeping, grabs a bottle of brown stuff, a surgical needle, and some thread from a medical kit on the floor, and, after pouring some of the brown liquid onto the wound, begins to sew it up.

  I notice, just above the crease of her concentrating, knotted brow, a small horizontal scar, and I realize that this is where her Panoptic was removed too. I look around at the ex-Loop inmates and there are no scars at all, our healing abilities wiping away all signs of the Panoptic removal surgery.

  I stand and walk over to the girl, unsure of what I’m going to say until I say it. “Hey, it’s Samira, right?”

  “Yeah,” she replies, not looking up as she digs the curved needle deep into the skin on one side of the wound, hooking it under and pushing it up through the other side. “But just call me Sam.”

  “All right, Sam,” I say. “I can’t help but notice that you’re pregnant. Like, a lot pregnant, and, I think … I mean … is it such a good idea for you to be going on missions into the city?”

  She stops, mid-pull, the buzzing sound of the thread dragging through skin halting as she makes eye contact with me. “Hey, here’s an idea, Luka—why don’t you mind your own fucking business?”

  “Whoa, look, I’m just saying—”

  “Oh, is being pregnant during the apocalypse dangerous? Thank the Final Gods you were here to let me know.”

  “I didn’t mean to … I was just saying that …”

  “Cool, well, just don’t say, all right? You think I don’t know the risks? You think I need some boy to tell me what to do and what not to do?”

  “No,” I say, pushing aside the flush of embarrassment that washes over me. “No, you don’t. I don’t know why I assumed that I’d know better,” I say, smiling apologetically.

  Sam holds eye contact, thread still taut. “What do you want, a pat on the back for saying the right thing?”

  “Kind of,” I say. “How sad is that?”

  She exhales a laugh. “You can go and sit down now.”

  I walk back to the uncomfortable chair, feeling like a moron and wishing I could turn back time.