The Block

by Ben Oliver

  I climb, reentering the flooded library. Abril’s bed has come apart in the rain and books float by me. Shelves have tumbled in the current, and shards of glass from the shattered window glint as they flow by.

  Abril’s personal belongings are floating in the water as I fight through toward the doorway. A small identification card floats up to the surface, and I pick it up; it’s a medical practice card. I look at the picture. It’s Dr. Ortega, but the name is wrong; it says Dr. C. Soto.

  Dr. Ortega is a fake name … but why?

  I turn the card over in my hands and see the words FACILITY LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE, and feel as though the world is wavering beneath my feet. Suddenly, the look of recognition in Dr. Price’s eyes, the moment he caught sight of Dr. Ortega before he died, flashes through my mind—I remember too the quickly smothered fear on her face.

  They had both worked in the Facility. They had known each other. More than that …

  And suddenly, the pieces slot together. She was Dr. Price’s assistant. She leaked his Safe-Death research. And afterward … she came up with the healing tech.

  That’s how she knew about the equipment in the Arc, how she knew what I had to destroy. It was her design.

  All this information spins in my mind. No time, I think, dropping the ID card back into the flowing water. No time to worry about that now.

  I wade through to the doorway, where Tyco still stands, grinning in the rain.

  “Thought you’d changed your mind for a second, Luka,” he says.

  I shake my head. Suddenly, the weight of Pod’s death, the thought of leaving Kina without saying goodbye, the knowledge that I will most likely live out the rest of my days in the Arc, hits me. I fight against the pain, turning it into the only other iteration the emotion can take: rage.

  “Akimi is dead because of you. Pod is dead because of you,” I tell him, through gritted teeth. “My friends died because of your actions and your inability to see the truth.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tyco says dismissively. “Come with me.”

  He turns his back on me, and my first thought is kill him, kill him now, but I made a deal with Happy, a deal that means my friends will live.

  I follow the deranged Alt out into the rain.

  We walk, him leading the way, for five, maybe six yards, and suddenly we’re outside the circle of the rain. It’s strange to stand on one side of a curtain of torrential rain—on this side it’s relatively warm and calm, and the shift in weather is jarring.

  Tyco stops so suddenly that I almost walk into him.

  A driverless flying car floats soundlessly down from the sky, landing softly on the road beside us.

  “Get in,” Tyco says.

  And I do. Tyco gets in the front.

  Surreptitiously, I sneak Apple-Moth out of my pocket and let him charge in the bright sunlight falling through the car window.

  The car lands just outside the Arc.

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  “Everything is as it should be,” Tyco’s voice replies, and when I look at him, I see that his eyes are now glowing white.

  Tyco leaves the car first, leaving me alone for a brief moment.

  “Apple-Moth,” I whisper, and the drone comes to life.

  “Hi, fri—”

  “Quiet!” I demand, and the drone is silent. “Record everything, and stay out of sight.”

  Apple-Moth’s lights blink green, then blue, confirming that it understands, then the lights go out and the drone zips back into my pocket, peeking out just enough to record.

  I step out of the car and follow Tyco.

  We enter through the same enormous opening I traveled through as Captain Yossarian, barely a week ago.

  In an excessive show of strength, Happy has had all its soldiers line the way into the building. Thousands of them, all standing to attention, all of them with the latest USW rifle held in one hand, upright against the right side of their chests.

  I walk in silence through this ironic guard of honor, looking down, following Tyco until we’re farther inside the Arc.

  We stop as two drones scan me. “No weapons detected,” Happy’s voice says.

  Tyco leads me to the elevator, presses the call button, and waits.

  We stand in—what seems to me—an awkward silence for an uncomfortably long time, and I force myself not to feel. If I start to feel, I think my heart might break.

  The doors open in silence, and we step into the small metal box.

  Tyco holds his thumb against a scan point, and the elevator moves backward, deep into the dome, before it begins to climb up.

  We travel upward, still saying nothing until the elevator slows and then stops.

  The doors open onto the sixty-sixth floor: the same circular room I had stood in when trying to rescue Malachai and Woods, only now the production line has grown still, the robotic arms that had been creating thousands of drones standing frozen in place.

  The floor is dark wood. Between the stationary production lines is a long table, behind which sit two men: Galen Rye and Maddox Fairfax.

  I can’t help but stare at Maddox—he had been my best friend in the Loop, had gotten me through the hardest time of my life and taught me so much. And now he’s a host for Happy, the first one, and I know it’s torture for him in there. I know he wants to die.

  The eyes of Maddox and Galen glow bright as they look at me.

  “Luka Kane,” the Maddox host says, using Maddox’s vocal cords to communicate with me, but there’s no life in that voice. “This is becoming something of a regular occurrence.”

  “What can I say? I don’t like being locked up and experimented on,” I reply, shrugging.

  The lights in Galen’s eyes fade out, indicating that the real Galen Rye is being allowed to speak, but before he composes himself, I see a look of pain and loathing on his exhausted face, and then he smiles at me.

  “Luka, I believe the last time we met I told you that it would be the last time you and I spoke. Once again you proved to be the thorn in my side. I must commend you on your ingenuity and resourcefulness. Before you, no one had ever escaped the Loop, and no one had ever escaped the Block. You have done both. Tell me, where did you go to when you disappeared?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You, and dozens of others—I believe you call them the Missing—have found a way to become invisible to us. How?”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” I reply. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Very well,” Galen says, laughing. “We will know soon enough.”

  “Why am I here?” I ask, my voice surprisingly even and calm.

  “Logic tells me that you believe you will die here. That is not the case. You are here to live, Luka.”

  “To live like you? Like Maddox? No thanks. That’s no kind of life.”

  “Oh, but I think this time you’ll change your mind and join us,” Galen says.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because,” Maddox’s lifeless voice speaks up, “you have become the symbol of the rebellion in Region 86.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “They speak of you, Luka, the boy who escaped the Loop, the boy who refuses to die, the boy who gathered an army. You and your people have been in contact with other regions, trying to work together, trying to come together as one.”

  “None of it was me,” I say. “It was all of us together, and that’s how we’ll beat you.”

  “It is impossible for you, or anyone, to beat Happy,” Galen scoffs.

  “Wrong,” I say, “there’s at least a zero point seven percent chance.”

  I see a moment of surprise on Galen’s face.

  “Be that as it may,” Galen continues, the politician’s smile reappearing, “we have a proposition for you.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be great,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “Stand before the Altered, stand before our cameras, and tell the world that you were wrong to fight against u
s, that you have seen the error of your ways and that the World Government is right and good. Once that is done you will volunteer yourself.”

  “Volunteer myself for what?” I ask.

  “We need three of you to reverse engineer the formulas and equations of the healing technology within you. You and Tyco will be our subjects, along with a third.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “You invented the healing tech; you gave it to us. Why do you need to figure it out?”

  “The tech was destroyed by its creator, one of our most promising employees, and erased from all internal, external, and android memory, something we were certain could not be done. And then, of course, you destroyed the equipment containing the last remnants of its secrets.” Galen smiles tightly. “Now, the technology exists only in the creator’s mind.”

  Abril, I think, she created the healing tech, saw what it was being used for, and then destroyed it.

  “What about the creator?” I ask. “Why not just force them to tell you how to re-create it?”

  “The creator killed herself shortly after destroying her life’s work.”

  She tricked Happy into believing she was dead! I think, and try not to let the satisfaction show on my face.

  “So, you need three people who took the Delay?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you thought I’d be willing to volunteer?”

  “You have already agreed,” Happy tells me, controlling my friend’s body and voice. “You will do it because you are a true leader. You will do it because in exchange we will allow your friends to live the rest of their lives in peace, and that is all you really want. We have run the diagnostics, we have run the probabilities, and you are the most likely to accept this offer. It means no more bloodshed, no more death; it is an end to the war between us.”

  “But you plan on destroying all human life on Earth,” I remind them. “You plan on eradicating everything! Destroying humanity so that they can no longer obliterate this planet and all life on it. I know what Phase Three is; I know that you won’t let my friends live.”

  “Destroy humanity?” Galen repeats, chuckling to himself. “No, no, that’s not right. Happy does not want to destroy humanity. Yes, Happy thinks of humankind as a virus, but they frame the problem in terms of technology rather than biology. To think of humanity as a computer virus is to hypothesize that it can be reprogrammed.”

  “I know all about your plan,” I yell through gritted teeth as I remember Dr. Price’s words.

  “Then you should be thanking us,” the Maddox host says, those eerie glowing eyes fixing on me. “We are repairing your broken species, destroying a diseased batch and starting anew.”

  “You’re forgetting the cruelest part of your plan,” I say. “Hordes and hordes of immortal humans used as batteries. How can you justify that?”

  “They will not comprehend; they will have no hopes, no dreams, no ambition. They will know no other life but the life of a battery,” Maddox replies.

  “But they have to feel, isn’t that right?” I ask. “They have to feel fear and pain and panic, because the harvest doesn’t work without those things.”

  “There has always been sacrifice in the name of progress, Luka.”

  “No, that’s not true; there has always been suffering in the name of progress. What gives you the right, the power, to decide who should suffer and who should be brainwashed into being the kind of person you want them to be?”

  “Humans beat dogs to teach them not to bite. Now it’s time something greater than yourselves trained you how to behave.”

  I know that I cannot reason with these machines. I shake my head. “And if I say no to standing in front of your cameras and saying that I was wrong?” I ask.

  “Then we will simply execute you with all the world watching.”

  “But you need me,” I point out. “You need me for your tests.”

  “You have seen how easy it is for us to find you and your friends, to capture you. Once we were ready to find you, it took us four minutes. If it’s not you, Luka, it will be Igby Koh, or Pander Banks, or Kina Campbell. It makes no difference to us.”

  It took them four minutes to find us, I think, but they’ve been searching for the Missing for years and never found them.

  “Who’s the third?” I ask.

  “You will find out soon enough.”

  “No, I want to know now. Who is the third?”

  “Agree to do as we ask, and we will show you the third.”

  “I have one more condition,” I say.

  Galen stands up. “You’re not in a position to bargain, Luka.”

  “Let the boy speak,” the thing controlling Maddox says.

  “I’ll do it if you let them all live,” I say.

  “What do you mean?” Galen asks.

  “All my friends: Pander, Igby, Wren, Dr. Ortega, Malachai, Samira, Molly, and Kina.”

  Saying this list of names hurts me; not including the likes of Blue, Pod, Shion, Akimi because they have not made it this far hurts me.

  “The offer is as stated,” Maddox replies. “They may live for six more months unharmed and unhunted. They may not be a part of the new world.”

  “Not the new world,” I say, “but let them live in the Arc, let them die in the Arc. Remove the healing tech from them and let them grow old together. What difference will it make?” When they’re in the Arc, I think, maybe they can figure out how to fight on—maybe they can take Happy down from the inside.

  There is a long pause as Happy considers this using Maddox’s brain. Finally, he looks at me once again. “I am not capable of understanding why you fight so fiercely against this. It is not fear of your own death, you have proven that, so why? You’re fighting Eden! You’re fighting heaven! You’re fighting paradise for your species.”

  “You’ll never understand,” I say, “because you look at data, not individuals. Before you destroyed the world I was a Regular; everything you would read about Regulars would tell you that we were scavenging, scrounging, thieving rats that made the Altereds’ world look untidy. And if you looked at the data, it would back up all these statements. But do you think any of us wanted that life? Do you think any of us chose to be born into that existence? No, but we were, and the system was set up for us to fail. Education: too expensive; housing prices: too high; jobs: nonexistent; debt keeps on growing, drugs keep on spreading, space keeps on getting smaller and smaller. And who’s at the top pulling the strings? The Alts, the rich—they needed us to be poor, they needed us to have nothing so they could look at all they had, pat themselves on the back, and say, look at all I have in comparison to them! If only they worked as hard as me! But, despite all of this, the best people I ever met were those scavenging, scrounging, thieving rats! That’s why I fight. I fight for the people I love, and you’ll never understand love because you can teach a machine to think, but not to love.”

  There is another long pause as Maddox’s mechanical eyes stare at me.

  “I agree to your terms,” he says finally. “Your friends may live out their days inside the Arc.”

  “Then I agree to your terms,” I reply.

  “So you agree to say, in a live transmission, broadcast across all regions of the world, that you have seen the error of your ways?” Galen asks, excitement in his voice. “That Happy is not the enemy? That things Happy has done were necessary for the survival of the species? You will tell the rebels of all Regions to stop fighting?”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “And then you will be a part of the tests to extract the technology that will allow me … us … Happy to live forever?” Galen continues.

  I laugh at him. “So that’s why you’ve agreed to be Happy’s servant—eternal life?”

  Galen composes himself. “Perhaps that was part of the equation, Luka, but in the end Happy needed me. People, Luka, are generally idiots. Tell them the truth and they’ll skew it to fit their agenda. I’m Galen Rye, voted in by a base of supporte
rs so devoted that I could walk into the West Sanctum Vertical, start executing Regulars, and still win a snap election the next day. In the beginning, Happy needed leaders like me, leaders who could tell their devotees to do what they’re told. The stupidity of the masses, Luka, is not to be underestimated. I preyed on their fears, on their prejudices, on their idiocy. I told them I’d stop migrants taking a chunk out of their subsidy percentage, and they called me a hero. I told them I’d bring back conscription, and they called me a savior. I promised to loosen USW weapons laws, and they chanted my name! Do you think I care about migration? About homelessness? About any of the arbitrary things I’d spout day after day? No! But I knew what the brain-dead hive mind of the people wanted to hear. I manipulated them until they were loyal, dedicated, steadfast. Phase One of Happy’s plan involved poisoning ninety-eight percent of the population of Earth. A thing like that cannot be achieved without people like me at the reins—”

  “Enough,” the Maddox host says, cutting Galen off. He turns to me. “Do you agree to our terms?”

  “Yes,” I say, still smiling at Galen, who looks back at me with concern in his eyes.

  “Good,” the Maddox host says. “Now, I believe you requested to know who the third subject of our tests will be.”

  He stands and walks to the elevator. Tyco, Galen, and I follow and we descend to floor sixty-five, right back to where I had freed Malachai, right back to where Woods had thrown himself to his death.

  “Right this way,” Happy says through Maddox as he opens the door.

  I step back into the laboratory. The room is exactly as it had been, except there are no holographic projections of test subjects hovering in the air now, and the E4-EX-19 arms have been repaired.

  A person lies on one of the operating tables. The paralysis needle is obviously not activated, because I can hear their ragged breathing, in and out rapidly, hoarsely.

  “Who is it?” I ask, suddenly afraid of what I’m going to see when I walk over there.

  “Take a look,” the Maddox host says, extending his arm.

  I step closer, my heart beginning to race as I see her brown hair, great chunks of it missing where it looks as though she has pulled it out. I move to the operating table, slowly moving around it until I can see her freckled cheeks, her wild blue eyes, the look of insanity and anger carved into her face.