Fixer 13

by G. Michael Smith

  Chapter 26: Fakin’ It

  The culture’s main purpose was to ensure the survival of the species. If you lived in a biome, you were an integral part of that purpose. You represented the beginnings of the new version of humans and your progeny would carry the newly modified genes into the galaxy and into the future. To ensure that it all happened as planned was the prime directive of everyone on the planet. Well, almost everyone. There were subcultures that rose up and shouted to be heard. The most common voice yelled out the futility of it all, especially for those left behind when the Swarm hit. Their genes would be transformed to space dust. The politicians knew these voices must be quieted so harmony could be restored. So it was decided to preserve the genetic blueprint of every person and send these genetic patterns to the stars with each of the biomes. In this way, each and every person who was a part of the great plan would, in some form, travel to the stars with the chosen few. It was a small thing with great potential.

  Jayne slept fitfully. Her sleep was filled with dreams of the nursery. She was no longer a tech. In her dreams she was a cleaner. She was rejected from all the jobs for which she had applied and returned to the nursery to work as a cleaner. She was dreaming of cleaning a large floor but, no matter what she did, the dirt always reappeared right after she had cleaned it. The supervisor stood in the doorway to the room slowly shaking her head and calling her name, “Thirteen… Thirteen… Thirteen.”

  She woke in a sweat to some music playing softly.

  Lucky spoke. “Thirteen, it is time to wake. Ah. Good morning, Thirteen. I hope you slept well. I anticipated your waking time and took the liberty of making you breakfast. A small package arrived last night. I have scanned it. It appears to be harmless but I stress caution anyway. It may contain a danger I do not recognize.”

  Jayne got out of bed and washed and dressed. She sat at the table and picked at her breakfast. She finally picked up the small package off the table. She turned it over in her hands. None of her friends would send her something like this.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” asked Lucky.

  “Yes, but not now,” said Jayne as she pushed away the food. “I’m not hungry.” She slipped the small package into her pouch and rested her head in her hands.

  “You do not appear to be very happy. Did something disconcerting happen? I was not informed of anything. I am a good listener. Perhaps you would like to share your feelings with me. I will activate my psychology AI if you like. You can talk to me and I will listen,” said Lucky softly.

  “It is nothing. Perhaps I will lie down for a while,” said Jayne. She regretted her words almost immediately. It was too late. Lucky had already shifted into concerned parent mode.

  “Something is wrong. I will scan your latest communications. Perhaps I will discover the cause of your melancholy,” he said in his most concerned voice.

  “No. Please don’t!” snapped Jayne. It was too late.

  “I do not believe it. How could they reject your application? I will investigate the cause. We will formally protest. There must be a mistake,” Lucky said, aghast. His tone suddenly changed. “Oh, they say you are too young to participate. They say a person of your age cannot possibly make mature decisions. They say that the Gyvers might put you in harm’s way and they cannot be responsible for any physical and psychological repercussions.”

  “I am a couple of months away from being a full TechElecMech fixer apprentice, licensed to work Biome 3 and yet I cannot take part in a silly Gyver competition because I might hurt myself. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” spat Jayne.

  “It appears these new rules were put into effect just last week,” said Lucky.

  “By whom?” asked Jayne.

  “There is a list of names from the Gyver committee. J. Percival, C. Vernon, P. Greenway, B. Jarvis, K.—.” Lucky’s rambling was cut short by Jayne.

  “—Did you say Greenway?” queried Jayne intensely.

  “Yes, J. Percival, C. Vernon, P. Greenway, B. Jar—” listed Lucky, but he was cut off again by Jayne.

  “Damn him! Please stop!” commanded Jayne. “Lucky, please forget the Gyvers. I wasn’t that interested anyway. I am just feeling a little ill. If I rest for a few, it will pass.”

  “Alright. But I must scan you first,” demanded Lucky.

  “Scan away and then leave me to rest for a while,” responded Jayne. She stood still with her arms raised.

  Lucky scanned and spoke. “All your vitals are within normal range. Rest and I will call you if something requires your attention.”

  Jayne slipped into her bed, keeping her back to the room. She wanted to cry but mentally pinched herself. Greenway had blocked her from the Gyvers. Of that there was no doubt. She shut her eyes and tried to clear her mind of all thoughts. She breathed slowly and drifted into a dreamless sleep. Later she woke and thought of the package in her pouch. She removed it and slowly opened it. It contained a small sheet of magnetic scribe. Scribe sheets could be used to write messages. The messages could be erased by simply pressing and holding your finger for a few seconds to a section of the sheet. The erasing involved a magnetic reassembling of the inscription at least a million times. This would ensure that no one could discover the magnetic traces and read the message. She stared at the sheet. The message said simply:

  Fake it

  ϴ

  She continued to stare at the sheet, wondering if there was more to the message than she was seeing. She turned the sheet upside down and over and inspected it from as many angles as she thought possible. She remembered the Sentinel woman drawing that symbol on the table with her finger. The message was from the Sentinel proper, but what was she to fake? Jayne pressed her finger to the paper and held it. The scribe sheet flickered and the message disappeared. A second later another message appeared for a heartbeat. Jayne just caught it but the message was clear. The tiny letters

  Sorry

  G

  flashed on the sheet and vanished. That bastard Greenway had his manipulating fingers into everything. He stopped her from taking part in the competition so she would stay under the radar. For the first time, Jayne was wondering if she should heed his advice. Winning the Gyvers was sure to make all the Nwebbies. Her face would be plastered everywhere. She sighed and spoke, “Ah well, who wants to be famous anyway?”

  “Thirteen, I am glad you are awake. It seems that you must report in one hour,” said Lucky.

  Jayne groaned and turned over. “Report where and for what?” she asked.

  “I do not know. It is marked with an urgent symbol and that is all. You must go to the PUT pad outside these quarters. That will take you to wherever it will take you. I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful,” Lucky apologized.

  Jane got dressed and left her quarters. She thought about the message and soon convinced herself that the message had everything to do with where she was about to be sent. Fake it? She figured she had to ‘fake everything’ in order to be sure she faked the right thing. She slowed her racing pulse. She conjured up a smile and thought warm thoughts of playing GravBall. She breathed deeply and stepped on the PUT pad.

  Jayne stepped off and was greeted with the pulsing whoosh of the flier port. She was going somewhere by flier. Jayne felt a surge and a tingle right down to her bones. Someone was scanning. The silver star was almost hot against her skin. She lifted the star so it was not touching skin and scanned the room. She was learning to compensate for the usual dizziness that followed a ‘read’. She could see nothing unusual. People were staring at the departure boards. People were moving out to board their flier. People were exiting a flier and entering the waiting room. She felt the silver star cool in her hand and dropped it back against her skin. She knew that whoever was scanning her had stopped. Her VID beeped and she saw that it was directing her to a private flier at the far end of the flier port. She took a few steps in that direction and then the message—‘Fake it’—flashed like a glowing sign in her head. She began to wonder about a s
mall rebellion. What if she didn’t do exactly as she had always done? What if she rebelled just a little? What if she pretended to rebel? What if she faked rebellion? What would happen? The more she thought of this, the more she was determined to find out exactly what would happen if she didn’t follow blindly and pled ignorance after the fact. Fake it.

  An idea came to life and crawled out of her head and pushed a sardonic smile across her face. With the smile came an abrupt change of direction. Jayne turned and walked in the opposite direction of the private flier. She walked 10 steps and then made a right turn towards the crowd that was loading a commercial flier. She nearly made it to the door and then turned again in the direction of the private flight she was supposed to take. All the while she watched the movements of all the people in the room. She noticed four people sit down the moment she turned to the correct direction. She was testing her situation. She did another about face towards the crowd of exiting flier passengers and glanced at the four persons she watched sit down. They all got up at the same time and moved towards her with a purposeful stride. Jayne’s smile widened but she quickly suppressed it and replaced it with an expression of puzzlement. She remembered to ‘fake it’. She wanted to push this situation to its conclusion. She turned again and headed directly back to the PUT pads. She stepped on one and tapped the HOME icon on her VID. Nothing happened. She looked up and scanned the room with wide eyes; eyes that did not connect with other eyes, but saw just the same. Jayne knew it would give her the appearance of being lost. That was her safety net. She would start by faking ignorance. She saw four persons heading directly towards her with determination mapped on their faces. She stepped off the PUT pad. They all stopped and nodded to the man on the left. He walked right up to Jayne, put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. Jayne turned and smiled back at him and then looked down at her VID.

  The man spoke. “Can I help you, young lady? You seem to be having a problem. I am an agent for flier security.” He flashed a badge.

  Jayne kept the wide-eyed look on her face and said, “I forgot something and I need to go back to my quarters and get it.”

  “May I it see your VID?” he asked, as he reached out for it and swept his finger over the screen. “That is blocked. It says that you must report to the private flier at the end of the port.” He gestured to the far end of the flier port. “I will escort you.” He gave her no reasons and no choice.

  Jayne suppressed her urge to pull away from him. She knew there was little she could do so she allowed herself to be led to the small flier. She smiled and thanked the supposed security officer for his help. She walked aboard and sat in one of the four available seats. She was the only passenger. She looked out the window at the four watchers gathered just outside the flier. They were intensely engaged in conversation. They slowly drifted out of sight as the flier backed out of the loading bay.

  “Fake it,” Jayne thought. At least she found out how to identify those watching her. All she had to do was make an unplanned move and they would expose themselves. That, at the very least, gave her options. She smiled to herself. She felt a cessation of all acceleration and knew the flier had turned on the suppression field. She settled back in her seat and thought about the Forevers and the Sentinels. She suspected she was heading back to the Neuroscience Center.

  Jayne settled down in her seat and closed her eyes. Suddenly her VID beeped. She decided to ignore it and wiggled down further into the seat. Her VID beeped again and she sat up, startled. Her VID was beeping and she was in a flier with a suppression field turned on. That combination was impossible. Suppression fields killed all VID transmissions. Logic demanded that one or the other must not be true. Either her VID was not calling her or the suppression field was not on. She definitely knew the suppression field was on—it was a case of not feeling any sensation of motion. The fliers were efficient. With a suppression field on, the propulsion system did not have to attend to the comfort of the passengers. It could accelerate, decelerate and turn with impunity. This made for a very efficient and fast method of travel. The suppression field killed the effects of acceleration on anything inside the field. It also killed wireless transmissions from outside to inside the field. Yet her VID was beeping and buzzing in her pocket.

  Jayne looked at her VID. A small icon was displayed in the middle of the screen. Jayne read the icon. Most messages on VIDs were sent in Iconese. It was a four-dimensional pictogram-based language that was bundled like a reverse set of Matryoshka dolls. It was designed so that a small simple icon held other icons of increasing size and complexity. A small pictogram could explode open and display much more information than mere words. The icon on Jayne’s VID screen was an oral password icon. She had to speak the required word or words to unlock the icon and see the message. She sat up quickly with a realization flooding her. She looked around the flier cabin. There was a lavatory on the flier but the door was closed. She got up and looked inside, expecting to see someone hiding, for there must be someone else on the flier. That is the only way she could have received a message. The person who sent her the message must be inside the suppression field. Ergo she or he must be inside the flier. Jayne searched all possible and accessible areas and found no one. There was no cockpit in a flier because there was no pilot. Pilots had long since been replaced by automation, so, as far as Jayne could tell, she was alone in the flier, yet her VID was beeping and buzzing and waiting for her to enter an oral password.

  Jayne inspected the icon for hidden flourishes. There were none she could see. She read the message again. It was a standard password icon that expected the recipient to know the password. Jayne had no idea the password for this icon. She stared at it. Nothing was obvious except the background color variation. It seemed that there were slightly darker areas forming a circle with a small horizontal line in the middle. She remembered Lucky telling her she was a tetrachromat. Perhaps she was the only one who could see these slight color variations. If she was right, then this message was from the Sentinels, for that was the symbol the woman drew on the table with her finger. She sat up with a start. She held the VID in front of her, tapped the password icon and spoke. “Fake it.” The password icon dissolved and the woman from Sentinel proper appeared.

  She spoke. “Jayne, this message will exist for as long as it takes to complete. It is secure because it is being transmitted from inside the flier. Listen carefully. This message was sent to the flier after we observed the security men escort you. We don’t think you are being taken to the Neuroscience Center. We are not exactly sure where you are being taken but you are not being taken to the same place as before. Our Intelligence team suggests that the Forevers have increased their interest in you. For your own safety, we recommend that you become much less special than you actually are. We know that might sound silly. No one has ever been watched like you are being watched. We will try to get you back under our protection but, if we fail, we would like to know what kind of tests they will give you. With that information, we might be able to determine what they hope to find and from that, their true purpose. Remember what you can. Above all, be careful.”

  The screen displayed an image of fire that burned down to curling smoke and then nothing. The image was gone, replaced by the biome tech logo. Jayne put her VID back into her pouch and slid down into the seat. Suddenly she felt sleepy. She closed her eyes and thought of faking it. She realized that she was not very good at pretending to be something she wasn’t. Faking it might be easier to say than to actually do.

  She felt a shudder and opened her eyes. The suppression field was off. She sat up and realized she had fallen asleep and the flier had actually arrived. She could not even remember dreaming. The door to the flier opened and a voice announced the arrival and an instruction that she was to exit via the main door. There was only one door and that was the main door. She stood up and walked out of the flier. As soon as she stepped into the flier port, a green arrow numbered 13 appeared in the floor and pointed her in the direction of the f
lier port’s PUT pads. She thought she might see who was watching by ignoring the arrow and going somewhere else. Then she decided not to risk revealing her knowledge of the watchers.

  She suddenly felt tired and weak. She glanced at a row of seats and sat down. She could not figure out why she felt so tired. She had slept all the way here and yet she felt exhausted. A few seconds later, a woman sat down in a seat two down the line from Jayne. She leaned over and took some things out of a large bag she was carrying. She set them down on the empty seat between her and Jayne. She continued to hunt around in her bag and finally found what she was looking for. She pulled her VID from the bottom of the bag, sighed with relief and turned to Jayne and said, “I found it.” She smiled, waved her VID around and continued speaking, as if what she was saying was social banter between two strangers. “You were gassed on the flier. I left you something on the seat to make you feel better. Good luck.” She returned all the objects from the chair into her bag and stood up.

  Jayne casually leaned toward the seat on her right and put her hand over a small capsule. She palmed it and slipped it into her pocket. The woman turned away and then back and stared at Jayne. A worried expression crept over her face. She was listening to someone only she could hear. She smiled and spoke with a jovial lilt in her voice. “They have made me and I have to go.” The woman looked at the floor.

  Jayne followed her eyes and saw a flashing green arrow at her feet. The woman’s pupils dilated. She wiggled her fingers in a friendly goodbye and spoke. The tone of her voice did not match the seriousness of her words. “New instructions, sweetie—run—do not go where that arrow directs you—run! Someone will rescue you.”

  “Why? What is wrong? Who…?” Jayne whispered but the woman was already moving through the crowd. She watched her rush through one of the flier port exits and disappear.

  Jayne stood and looked down at the flashing green arrow. It was time to see who was watching. She stood quickly and walked ten steps in the opposite direction of the arrow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two men stand and move toward her. She turned quickly and stopped. The men stopped and tried to pretend they were not paying any attention to Jayne. She now walked in the direction of the arrow flashing in the floor. It was leading her toward the PUT pad alcove. She entered the alcove and stared at the green arrow flashing in front of the end PUT in the array. The word ‘Run’ echoed in Jayne’s head. She took out her VID and opened a visitor map app. She blindly touched a recommended location for a visitor to the city and then stepped on a pad directly in front of her. The last thing she saw were the two men striding toward the PUT alcove.

  Jayne blinked and looked around. She was not anywhere she expected to be. She blinked in the bright sunlight. The late afternoon sun hurt her eyes. She was outside on the street, in a large city, with people streaming past her and large buildings all around her. She just stared. She had never been to such a place in her whole life.

  A young woman approached her and said, “Are you coming or going?”

  All the other pads were occupied. Jayne realized that the woman wanted to use the PUT pad on which she was still standing looking wide-eyed at the scene surrounding her. “Sorry,” she said and she stepped off the pad.

  The young woman quickly stepped on the pad, keyed her VID and disappeared. Jayne looked down, expecting to see a green flashing arrow at her feet, but there was nothing. She sighed and tried to slow her heart. People streamed past her and jostled her as they went to wherever they were going. She turned to see what was compelling so many people to move in the same direction. A few blocks in the distance she could see what looked like an arena. “A GravBall arena,” she thought. “The Pro GravBall season starts today. They are all heading to a game.”

  Attending a Pro game was an impossibility. Ticket prices were way beyond what Jayne could ever afford. Her apprenticeship income was enough for incidentals and little more. She drifted toward the arena. She really had no choice. The crowd simply pulled her along the sidewalk and since she had no idea where she was going, she decided that this was as good a direction as any. She wondered where the preprogrammed PUT pad would have sent her. She shuddered. She had no choice in any of this. Jayne’s face burned with a flush of blood. She moved forward, impelled by a sense of vulnerability. Her face scrunched up at the forehead. She felt a wave of anger swell over her. She was angry at all of them. All the nebulous people and groups of people that were trying to control and use her for some purpose she did not understand. She clenched her hands together and stopped in her tracks. She felt a push from behind as a GravBall fan bumped into her and nudged her forward. She held her ground. She became a post; a solid immovable object. She projected thoughts of solidity. The crowd simply curved around her like a fast-moving stream swirling around a boulder. Jayne was alone with her thoughts, in a crowd of people that inexorably surged past.

  The Sentinels told her to fake it. “Fake what?” she wondered. They told her to run. “Run where? Run from the mysterious Forevers? What did they want from her?” She reflected on everyone’s fascination with her luck. She was lucky and that was all. She was not special. She didn’t think she was any smarter than anyone else. She was just lucky. Give her five choices with the knowledge one was correct and she could usually get the right answer. She would see it in her head as bigger than the wrong answers or a slightly different color or louder or softer or somehow special. It was like the object or idea itself was calling out to her and trying to draw attention to itself. She saw herself as a kind of translator. She translated into thoughts what the world was constantly communicating to her. When she was little, she always took it for granted. That was what the world was like. It swirled around her filled with information. Sometimes she listened and sometimes she shut it all out. Sometimes she simply focused on one thing. That was when the messages were the clearest. You asked a question and the answer simply appeared in your head. The problem now was the questions. She did not know what questions to ask.

  Jayne looked up. The crowd was gone. They had all gone into the game and left her standing alone in the middle of the concourse that surrounded the arena. The setting sun had painted the western sky hot pink. She walked over to a bench at the far edge, near an array of public PUT pads. She sat and waited. “Maybe something will jump into my head and I will know what to do,” she thought as she looked up into a gray-and pink-streaked sky. “I am a spy for the Sentinels. I am being watched by THEM. I have a silver star around my neck that is communicating my every move. I am filled with nanobots that make me feel sick. I am wandering around some city all alone with no idea what to do and where to go. I am only 13 years old. I am hungry. I am afraid.”

  She wanted to cry; to burst into tears, hoping someone would come up to her and ask what was wrong and could they help her get back to the nursery. Maybe it would be better to go back. Maybe everyone would leave her alone. What was so great about being a TEM Biome fixer? After all, she had been here for almost eight months and all she had done was clean up. She had not fixed anything. She could have done that in the nursery and been a lot safer. A little ripple ran up her spine. She looked around for a watcher. She was all alone, except for the arena doormen walking back and forth in front of the doors. They had not noticed her. Her stomach growled. She had enough credits to get a meal. She was about to walk and find some place to eat, when two PUT pads at the far end of the array deposited a man and a woman onto the concourse. They were furtive in their movements, until they saw Jayne sitting watching them. They started purposefully toward her; the man was in front and the woman was behind, scanning the area. He was five metres from her when he spoke. “Miss Wu? Is your name Jayne Wu?”

  Jayne saw a hardness in his light blue eyes and shook her head to signal that she was not who he thought she was. At the same time, she scanned the arena for an alert doorman who might rescue her.

  The man continued, “Come with me!” He grabbed her by the arm and was directing her to the PUT pads at the end of th
e array. The woman caught up and held Jayne by her other arm and pulled her in the direction they had come.

  What happened next left a smear of sound and color in Jayne’s memory. It was then that she realized she was a pawn in a very complex game. Only it wasn’t a game; at least it wasn’t a game that she would ever choose to play.

  The man and the woman dragged and half carried Jayne toward the PUT pad. She struggled but their grip was powerful. She heard the man speak. “Stop struggling. We are here to help. We are Sentinels. We must hurry.”

  Jayne stopped struggling. At the same moment three men in police tactical uniforms came running out of the arena doors toward them. The man released Jayne’s arm and removed a weapon from his pouch. There was a crackle to his left and he was hit in the back by stinger. The suit he was wearing was designed to feed the stinger charge to ground. He was hit by two more and the air around him smelled of ozone and crackled with electricity. The charges had no effect. He raised his needler and fired at the policeman on his left. The policeman dropped, unconscious, to the ground. This weapon was banned. It was illegal to even possess one, unless you were police or military. It fired an ultra-sharp ceramic needle that could be laced with a variety of tranquilizers. It could easily pierce even the strongest police vest. It was designed to incapacitate, not to kill.

  The woman, still dragging Jayne by the arm, pushed her onto the PUT pad and entered something into her VID. She turned to the man and reached for her own needler. The man shifted his weight and turned his needler to the next closest policeman. He was about to fire when his head simply exploded. Jayne froze in horror, mouth gaping open, when another silent bullet entered the woman’s head. It sprayed bits of blood, bone and brain into Jayne’s mouth and over her face and body.

  As the woman’s body fell, her VID flew from her hands and dropped at Jayne’s feet. The PUT pad activated, Jayne disappeared and the scene vanished.