Called, page 17
“If I regret hiding these for even a millichron…”
“Good luck finding a way to finish that sentence in the cupboard. You’ll be fine, I promise. I don’t want you to show on any of the surveillance.”
Within a few moments, I felt the humming once again. This time, it was almost soothing. In the darkness of the cupboard, I took a moment to center myself.
Was it really just a few sols back that I was struggling to keep from binging Conglomerate entertainment and forcing myself to go for walks?
I was lost in my breathing and didn’t hear Mrs. Sankt-Pierre roll the gurney away. But I knew the moment the humming stopped.
“You can come out now.”
Simeon was already back at his terminal.
“What are you doing now?”
“Preparing a report on our interview. You were overcome with fright and have been sent back to cryo pending further examination. While River Mason is returned to cryo, I hope Clementine Jones will take me up on my offer of a ride to Bethelton.”
“Simeon, what do I have to do with cryo?”
“Let’s have TESS explain that. Darling, do you mind?”
“My pleasure,” said a woman’s voice, coming from…everywhere. “The side effects of cryo have changed over the decennia. However, there have been two enduring themes: patients suffer one of two treacherous declines. Either physical or mental…”
I spun around in a circle while she spoke, trying to find the source. Instead, wherever I looked, she seemed to be speaking to me.
“What about my grandparents? Did either of them show signs of cryo illness?” I asked Simeon, but he nodded to the ceiling.
“Go ahead, TESS.”
“Extrapolating based on the genetic signatures collected from the cryo units, the male was certain to develop cryo-spatial dementia while the female’s illness would manifest in mania.”
I almost lost my footing.
They couldn’t have known, but they had conducted hundreds of tests on their units before the long period of cryo.
Simeon noticed me and jumped up to help me to the sofa. “Sorry about that. Sometimes, we can be a bit callous up here.”
“What is…she?”
“TESS stands for Tracking and Enforcement Surveillance System,” he said as he rose to return to the desk and fiddle further with the glasses. “She was the prototype for IRIS, the Conglomerate monitoring and reporting engine.
“I know all about IRIS – I’m a Processor. I just never realized people talked to her like she’s…I don’t know, real or something?”
“Though digital, TESS very much exists.”
I didn’t understand what he was getting at, and he was too intent on his final adjustments to notice.
“You just have to know how to talk to her.”
“I am struggling here. Knowing you can have me killed without much fuss sets me on edge.”
“Understandable,” he chuckled at my sarcasm. “Rest assured, I have no intention of harming you.”
“You drugged me,” I said, sulking on the sofa.
“You have me there,” he raised his hands in mock innocence. “I suppose you have no good reason to trust me.”
He went to the bar and picked up the glass I had abandoned. He looked into my eyes and took a big swig.
“Look, I promise, I only want to know.”
“Know what, though? What else does the Conglomerate need?”
“I’m not doing it for them. Haven’t you ever just wanted to know something? Whatever you are protecting has real power in this world, and I want to be part of it, whatever that means.” He slowly meandered toward where I was sitting, taking an armchair.
“You’re going to be disappointed. I know next to nothing about my parents’ work.”
“I have noticed that.”
I stared down my nose at him.
“Look, I didn’t have anything like this. I only had extremely limited access to an archive about them. I may understand the big pieces but not how they fit together.”
“What can you tell me about the URL bar and whatever was on it?”
I sat back up on the sofa to look him in the eye.
“Are you asking so that you can prosecute me for the explosion?”
“I have no intention of sharing anything further you divulge to me, nor have I made any of my work on anti-records or what they signify public. For now, I am the only person who understands how they tie into this case. Still, I made sure to use my report to conclude that the use of cryo and the subsequent explosion was the last in the extraordinarily long list of transgressions committed by your late father.”
I scoffed.
“I’m sorry to do that to him, but as far as the Conglomerate knows, you remain unaware of your parentage and have been relegated back to cryo, where you will remain indefinitely.”
“What color is my aura right now?”
“You saw my aura? I might have to have a few more swigs before I do.” he reached for the glass again, but I stopped him.
“What happens to you if someone finds out?”
“They won’t. Either way, I’m not sure I’m coming back once we set out.” He returned to the desk to bring the glasses he’d been working on back with him.
“I built these to house TESS for when this sol came. I have transferred her off of my personal profile into these, and as long as she can detect a Conglomerate signal, she can access the network just like she could here in my office.”
The thick frames looked like they held a lot of circuitry but, with them on, his face was somehow softer.
“Why not IRIS?”
He chuckled. “TESS is nothing like her sister. IRIS knows everybody’s business, but TESS knows everything about your parents. I understand why you wouldn’t want to trust me. But maybe there’s another way I can prove it to you. You said you don’t know much about them; is there something I can tell you?”
“You’re serious?”
“If we don’t already know,” he nodded. “TESS will find out. I mean it. Anything.”
There were a million questions I could think of that I would like to answer.
Why had they named me Clementine?
What were they most proud of?
Which colors did they prefer?
What were they like when they were tired or sick?
What did it feel like when they were happy?
Heading into the unknown of the Outside on the arm of a Conglomerate executive, I’m supposed to have some secret that has transfixed all these people. I don’t know what to do when we get to Bethelton, let alone what comes after that.
I could use an advantage.
Just ask.
“I want the truth. Why was my father arrested, and what became of my mother?”
He handed me the glasses, and I put them on. As he spoke, the glasses displayed hundreds of digital snippets.
“Officially, your father was arrested and executed for having been found in rather egregious and flagrant violation of the Conglomerate Technologic Ethics policies. But that’s not the whole story. The Chairman was obsessed with your father. He wanted everything your parents were producing at NovaGen, sure it would be the making of the Conglomerate. Your father made sure everyone knew what he was doing. That made it impossible for them to do to him what they did to your mother.”
The truth.
“He lived on, from what I can see,” I said cautiously, handing him back the glasses. “The Conglomerate got their hands on most of his ideas.”
“They surely did, and then they spent the better part of a centad smearing his name, making sure everyone believed he was a dangerous, unstable man instead of the benevolent genius he really was.”
“That’s kind.”
“It’s true! Your father was centads before his time. He understood how the whole system functions. Everything in our minds, our bodies—all of it. The ways we’re connected and the way the universe functions. He saw the order in all this chaos and tried to share it, but that got him killed. Most people think he’s just a big joke now, right?”
“That’s what I thought until a few sols ago. What about my mother?”
“Officially, there hasn’t been a lead since your mother disappeared.”
“And unofficially?”
He toyed with the stem of the glasses for a moment. “Do you know much about lab techs?”
I shook my head.
“I wouldn’t think so. They’re a special breed. They have the stamina for long chrons, they have a high technological aptitude, and their problem-solving skills are off the charts. Their nutritional profile is rich with stimulants that reduce their need for rest and heighten their focus on the problem at hand. The sort of people that become lab techs see things in the same level of detail that a virtual consciousness like IRIS can.” He paused; he could tell I wasn’t following him. “I told you we found four genetic signatures in the cryo units, and that’s how this connects to your father, right?”
“Yes, that much I put together before we met.”
“A doctor in the lab found another familial match for you.” He smiled. “It belongs to a restricted cryo unit in a classified storage facility beneath Elysium. The record dates to around the same time as your mother’s disappearance. I am starting to suspect that she was kidnapped in an attempt to manipulate your father.”
“Can we get into that facility?”
“We? Break into Elysium? You want me to come along?”
“You might be useful, that’s all.”
“Ah, yes, of course. My utility.” He smacked his palms on his thighs and stood up. “I suppose that’s my cue to get this operation in motion.”
****
Simeon’s auto had dark tinted windows, buttery smooth seats, and was outfitted with top-of-the-line tech.
“How can an automotor be cloaked? Won’t the people on the streets see this?”
“Cloaking blocks us from being registered on any Conglomerate signal. If we’re near a cam or a citizen with a pair of oculars, the effect is the same: invisibility.”
“The rules are so different for you than the rest of us. The sad rattletraps people use in the Exurbs to get supplies must fully comply with Conglomerate tracking. People have to spend so much on it that they are forced to improvise other repairs.”
Unlike the citizens and drones creeping through the clogged streets, an untraceable executive auto was able to ascend to a private set of drive tracks that run under the Expressway. Unlike those below us, we made no stops until we descended to the Gateway Plaza. There were two lanes with green arrows, each with a line of citizens waiting to leave the Citadel. His auto bypassed the queue, only veering away at the last moment.
As we passed the line of caravans, our course drifted toward one of the lanes with a red X over it. Simeon’s auto didn’t even slow; as we reached it, the X turned to a green arrow for a millichron, and we sailed through.
My body convulsed with a wave of nausea at the hypocrisy.
Outside Zion, we were soon lost in gentle foothills that rolled up to the base of the cliffs. I didn’t see that war-torn landscape I had anticipated. Instead, I saw patches of plant life dotting the hillside but no signs of any settlements. Though he remained quiet, I could tell Simeon was itching to ask me more questions.
It took him half the ride to spit one out.
“What do we do when we get there?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve tried so long to figure out what could be there.”
“You’ve had longer than me, and I have told you everything I know. My dad said people would think I learned some big secret. But all it was…it was just my dad apologizing for making trouble and leaving me behind in it. He said there’s no big secret, there’s just me. That…I am what the Conglomerate wants. And now, I’m supposed to figure out some puzzle, but my only clue is Bethelton, and I’ll be able to follow the Trail from there.”
Simeon’s eyes grew wide as his face split into an excited grin. “Trail? He said Trail, you’re sure? You’re lucky we met,” he laughed.
As his guard came down, Simeon was a different person. He wasn’t half bad now that he wasn’t threatening me.
“I have been studying the Carlton Trail for ages. It is the reason I built TESS and the reason I work in Guardianship. I always thought the Trail started nearer Argatha, though…”
“He did mention Argatha but said that was a ruse.”
“A lot of Trailers think he found a way to spoof early tracking.”
I snickered.
“You should be glad this Trailer is helping you!” he teased.
“Believe me, I am grateful you didn’t leave me in cryo once I told you where to go.”
My offhand remark pierced the mood between us.
He fell silent, looking away from me out the window before speaking softly, “The man I had to be to get where I was in Guardianship wasn’t someone I am particularly proud of having been, but I did it because I thought it would bring me to what I really wanted.”
“Which is just…to know?”
“I believe finding these answers means something.” His voice faltered. “The Conglomerate takes a lot in exchange. The basic benefits come at a high enough price. Executive Immunity requires intense commitment and the ability to suspend your morals more often than I should have.”
“I’ve done cruel things, too, I suppose. I broke my grandmother’s heart by running away. I know she wasn’t really my grandmother, but she did raise me. She loved me all my life. I wonder if she ever forgave me.”
I gazed out the window of the auto, wondering if Marya knew the Outside hadn’t been as deadly as they told us.
“She gave her life to keep your secrets. I suspect she burned down your house, hoping the barn would burn too.”
“She didn’t want me to know about any of it. It might have worked, too, if Jeb hadn’t…”
Emotion lodged in my throat.
And then there were tears streaming down my cheeks.
All this sorrow and heartbreak for what?
For some bit of technology?
Something worth killing for?
Simeon’s hand on my shoulder anchored me back to the world around me. The auto was still cruising silently across the plains, and the tears ceased as unexpectedly as they’d started.
But they left behind a new kind of stillness: certainty.
“Simeon, how do you think Jeb and Marya died?”
“Both were accidental, right?”
“The same sources would tell you I’m still in cryo in Zion Centre.”
“I remember some video footage, but…” he pulled out the glasses, and his eyes glazed over, seeing something invisible to me. He watched, puzzled, before he shifted uncomfortably and recoiled, pulling the glasses off with a sick look.
“You don’t want to see this.”
I reached for the glasses, but he held them close.
“Simeon, let me see.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, handing me the glasses.
Through TESS’ eyes, I saw Jeb enter 31-2 Station and board the Expressway. The video raced forward to the platform at some Suburban stop. As the doors closed, Jeb was pushed from the car. His arm caught in the door, and he was dragged along as the car began to move. I closed my eyes at the moment he collided with the wall but opened them just as the video began to rewind, showing the whole grisly scene in reverse.
TESS’s scrubbing increased until she blinked to a different perspective inside the car. Jeb was seated when the conductor, the automaton that drives the Expressway, came out from the control panel just as the cars entered the station. I always thought they were only torsos; they have long arms to run the different controls.
I never imagined them having legs.
The conductor approached Jeb, the camera angle obscuring the area closest to where he was sitting. The conductor ripped him from the seat. Jeb struggled but was no match for the automaton. It wrestled Jeb across the open car, holding him so his body was outside. The doors slowly closed, pinning Jeb in place by the arm. The conductor held firm as Jeb stumbled. I watched his legs slipping as the car neared the station’s wall.
The lights flickered, and then the automaton was holding Jeb’s severed arm. It unceremoniously dumped it on the car’s floor and returned to the control room. There was no movement in the car except blood pooling around the appendage that had hugged me only chrons before.
Before I could say a word, the navigation system indicated we had arrived.
Simeon cut the engines, and we looked out the windows.
Mounds of crushed rock, broken rebar, and rubbish heaped at the base of the cliffs. There were a few shallow archways carved into the rock, but there were no buildings, no signs of life.
Gateway to Zion
Ernie Frogg didn’t care what his supervisor Waylon Hamm said, the under-suit was itchy.
The digital fabric coveralls he had on under the monstrosity of metal that transformed him into Guardian G56721 were meant to integrate with his nervous system for a unified experience, but instead, they were bunched up somewhere just south of his midline border.
At the end of his third septad as the newest Guardian of the Gate at Zion, Ern found all of it rather underwhelming. He thought joining Guardianship would be a chance to become more than simply the least of the failures in the Frogg family.
The third son and sixth child of Grisham and Henrietta “Hattie” Frogg, Ernie’s family had deep roots in the Suburbs of Hawthorne. On the edge of the manufacturing zone, folks were decent and hard-working, hoping for nothing more than a good laugh every now and again. Ernie was his father’s favorite companion and his mother’s greatest folly. His childhood was marked by longing, lack, and want. He watched his grandparents, parents, and then eldest siblings buckle and bend under the solarii spent in service posts in manufacturing plants. Even as their joints grew stiff and their bones became brittle, they continued to give thanks for the beneficence of the Conglomerate.
Ern felt he was different from most people as early as he could remember. Not better exactly, just not as content with the way things were. Everyone else seemed fine with how the world worked. They never questioned if they were entitled to more than life offered them.
