Paradigm (5 page)

“Sam…” Nathan was really worried. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Migraine,” lied Sam.

“You’ve never had one before.”

“They come and go. I used to have them all the time. I’ll be okay. Just get us out of here.”

Nathan put the car into gear and continued the slow progress toward the great city while Sam sat with his eyes closed and waited for the pain to subside.

He hadn’t been to a city since Chicago and while his memory was of a terrible headache, there’s something about the nature of pain that makes it almost impossible to recall accurately. So he knew it would be hard. That the headache and the nausea would be back. But not like this, and not on the outside.

“What…” he whispered, still hardly able to form sentences. “What is a digivend?”

“Another winner from Hermes Industries,” said Nathan. “A few coins and you get a hit of the plex.”

“The plex? They’re accessing the hyperspatial plex? Why?”

“Feels good, I guess.”

“They don’t look like they feel good.”

“No, well, it kinda fries the brain after a while. Leaves a craving, though.”

Sam opened his eyes and watched the sad-eyed clusters near every brightly painted digivend. Of course. This was why the people of the outlands didn’t rise up. It was all about control. It was always about control.

Nathan turned a corner and the old GTO rolled up to a metal gate. There was no one near, just a rusting green squawk box and a red button. Nathan rolled down the window and pressed the button.

“Have you cleared customs and immigration?” asked a raspy recording.

“Yes.”

“ID, please.”

Nathan stretched his hand out of the window and the gates creaked open.

“You may park anywhere. Be sure to make a note of your vehicle’s location. Have a nice day.”

“Too late,” muttered Sam.

Nathan smiled as he pulled into the huge parking structure. “Feeling better?”

“Yes. If you get a scratch on this car I’ll have to kill you, though.”

They descended a long ramp and selected a floor at random. Most of it was empty and most of the cars and trucks that were there were covered in heavy layers of dust.

“Looks like most people don’t leave once they arrive,” said Nathan.

“Don’t park it near anyone else. Over there, next to that wall.”

Nathan pulled into the spot and Sam yanked out the knob for the cigar lighter and put it in his pocket. They got out and looked around. Sam had to admit that it didn’t seem like the parking structure had much foot traffic, but he couldn’t help wishing they hadn’t left the tarp behind in the clearing.

“Ok,” he said, shrugging on his coat. “We go in, we buy light bulbs, we leave. Right?”

“Right. I say we split up when we get in, it’ll be faster that way.”

They stepped into an ancient elevator which ground its way slowly upwards. Sam wasn’t sure that the splitting up plan was really very good, but all he really wanted to do was get back on the road and put as many miles between himself and California as he could, so he nodded.

The doors slid open.

If they had any remaining questions about why the outlands of the city were so huge and crowded, they were answered as soon as they entered the pristine confines of Century City itself. It was like another world. Or, more accurately, another time. A time of plenty. A time that the great-grandparents of the city’s occupants would have recognized. It wasn’t just that the roads were wide and clean and the sidewalks gleaming as if they’d only been laid the night before. Or even that they were flanked on all sides by prosperous-looking stores and businesses with real glass windows displaying brand new wares. It was that it all seemed normal and expected by the people that crowded the streets, their faces clean of dirt or dust and their clothes new and cut for style rather than function.

“How is this…?” Sam looked in the windows, dumbfounded. “How is this possible? I thought everything was gone. Where are they getting this…this
stuff
?”

“Mostly they make it themselves,” said Nathan. “Almost everything is synthetic. What they can’t make they buy from other cities and big-time traders.”

“But…I thought everything was gone. They told us. They said it was all—”

“Well, they would, wouldn’t they? The key is scale. No city can grow too big. Every city must be close to self-sustaining.”

“All those people on the outside and in the Wilds. They have nothing! They’re starving!”

“I know,” Nathan sighed and shrugged. “It’s the way it is. The way it’s always been. The strong prey on the weak. It’s just a bit more obvious here.”

“But…”

“Look, try not to think about it. There’s nothing we can do. Let’s just get the light bulbs and go. Meet back here?”

Sam shook his head and looked around.

“It’s late. It’ll probably be dark. We’ll meet in there.”

He nodded towards a small bar on the other side of the street. There was a neon martini glass flickering above the door and a sign:
The Entropy Inn
. “I have a feeling the good citizens of Century City won’t like outlanders lingering on their streets after dark.”

“But we’re not—”

“Yes, we are. To them, anyway.” He pulled his pocket watch out and looked at the time. “One hour, okay?”

Nathan nodded and marched confidently away. Sam watched until he turned a corner, then set off in the opposite direction.

He had a feeling that light bulbs would not be as easy to find as Nathan had anticipated. No one had used them in the cities for years. Still, there were probably collectors—there are always plenty of people who prefer old technology. He turned down a side street and saw a small shop, its contents spilling over the sidewalk below a sign that read: ‘Antiques.’

He walked in, squeezed past stacks of chairs, tables, rolled-up carpets and assorted small nick-knacks he couldn’t identify, and made his way to the cramped plastic counter at the back where a bored-looking girl sat staring into space.

“Hello,” he said, flashing his best charming smile.

She just stared at him.

“Okay. Um…I was wondering. Do you sell light bulbs? You know, old fashioned incandescent—”

“Bayonet or screw?” said the girl.

“Excuse me?”

“Bayonet or screw. It’s the way they go into the fitting.”

“Really? Who knew they were so complicated, eh?”

Another smile.

The girl just stared.

“A box of each, then.”

“That’ll be sixty primos.”

“I have dollars. I assume that’s—”

“No. All transactions in Century City have to be conducted with CC primos. No old money. No barter.”

“Really? And that works, does it? Because I’d think that would drive a lot of business away.”

The girl shrugged slightly and popped her gum.

“Okay. Right. I’ll see you later. Do you know where there’s a currency exchange or a—”

“No.”

Sam stepped back out onto the street. The light was fading quickly and the gas streetlights were slowly firing up. He walked back to the corner and stopped. There was something new. Not a headache, but a kind of rasp. Inside his head, scratching, like an animal at a door. He shook his head, but the volume grew to a buzz and was joined by another, then another, and another. It was almost like whispering, as if a thousand people were telling secrets to a thousand more. He reached into his pocket and popped another green pill. A friend of his dad’s had made them. They’d traveled to Pendleton City and Sam had waited outside while his dad went in. It was some guy his dad had worked with at Hermes Industries Research, specializing in pharmaceuticals back then, but doing something else in Pendleton. Nearly all of his dad’s old colleagues were doing other things. At the time, Sam had thought that maybe Hermes wasn’t a nice place to work, to the extent that he thought about it at all. But when he looked back now, it seemed weird. They’d all left and scattered across the country, meeting only occasionally and in the dark. Sam knew what that meant—it meant they were scared.

The green pills had helped with his headaches, milder forms of which had started striking whenever they got too close to a city. He’d remembered them lasting longer, but perhaps that was because he’d been so much younger the last time he’d had to use them. About ten. The age of that kid there.

A mother and her son were waiting for a streetcar under a brightly lit Hermes Industries poster that showed a ridiculously perfect family having a picnic in a green field under the kind of bright sun no-one had seen for decades. Below them, in comforting blue print were the words: “You can always depend on Mutha!”

Typical,
thought Sam.
Makes no sense at all.

“What’s Mutha stand for?” asked the boy.

Sam couldn’t believe that the kid didn’t already know, but was flabbergasted to discover that his mother didn’t either.

“I don’t think it stands for anything,” she said, peering through the dusk for the tell-tale lights of the streetcar and glancing nervously at the strange boy in the big coat across the street.

“It stands for Molecular Universal Tertiary Hyperspatial Analogicon,” said Sam.

The mother nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Does it? Oh, well, there you go Ralphie. The nice gentleman knows all about it. Say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Now come on, dear, the car’s late. Let’s walk a few stops.”

She hustled the boy away. Sam watched them go and thought that maybe he should take advantage of his time in the city and have a bath and get some new clothes. Or perhaps just clean the ones he had.

He looked up at the Hermes Industries poster. It was so weirdly outside of anyone’s experience any more, yet it seemed to awaken something deep within.

A longing.

That’s what it was. A longing for something ordinary and beautiful that simply didn’t exist any more.

He was still staring at the poster when he heard the first shot. He spun around, trying to get a feel for the direction. There was another one…and another. They were a few blocks away. That was good—plenty of time to run in the opposite direction.

He turned to go and was almost immediately grabbed from behind and spun around by what seemed at first glance to be nothing more than an animated pile of rags.

“Help me!” it gasped.

Sam hesitated. The grip was strong but the voice was old and weak. He pulled himself free, the movement jerking a filthy hood off the creature’s head, revealing the time-etched face of an incredibly old man.

“Help me...”

The man stumbled and collapsed at Sam’s feet, dropping something that clattered into the road.

“Please…please…don’t let them get it…” His voice faded away to a whisper.

Sam knelt down and cradled the man’s head. There was blood seeping from at least three separate wounds in his chest. It didn’t look good.

“Can you—?”

“No. Listen!” The man reached up and grabbed one of Sam’s lapels, pulling him in.

“They can’t have it…promise me…”

The fetid breath of the old man made Sam recoil, but he noticed that although his clothes were rags now, a few shreds still shone with their original saffron dye. Could he be a monk?

The pounding of booted feet could be heard just around the corner.

“Come on!” urged Sam. “We have to get out of here!”

“No…it’s too late,” gasped the old man. “But I got it. You have to tell them that.”

“Tell who? Got what?”

“You have to take it back to Shanti Ghara. You must make it safe again.”

Sam stared at him. That name. He’d heard it before. A story. There was a story…

“Please! Promise! She cannot have it!”

“I…yes, I promise.”

A shot rang through the air and thwacked into the poster behind Sam’s head. The old man’s pursuers had rounded the corner.

“I can’t leave you!”

“I’m already dead. It’s there. Pick it up.”

Sam ran into the road and retrieved the thing that the old man had dropped. It was wrapped in dirty linen and seemed to be some kind of a box.

“Please, let me take you—”

Another shot rang out. This one was closer and ricocheted off the sidewalk. Sam looked down at the old man. He could carry him, but he’d have to drop the box. How important could a box be? The old man clawed at his coat again, drawing himself up. He peered into Sam’s eyes and then gasped.

“No!” he stammered. “It isn’t possible!”

“What?

“You’re one of them!”

“One of what? I’m not one of anything. What are you—”

The old monk let go and fell back onto the sidewalk.

“I’ve failed…”

“No, you haven’t!” Sam didn’t know why it was so important that this doomed stranger believe him, but it was. “I’ll return it. I promise.”

The old man lay on the ground, his mouth forming words without sound. Sam leaned down.

“All for nothing,” whispered the monk, blood gurgling from his mouth.

“No,” said Sam, gently. “I promise, I’ll—”

“Aberration! Abomination!” He barely had enough breath in his lungs now, but there was no mistaking the venom in his voice. A wizened hand reached up and touched the box, but the old eyes were fixed on Sam’s face.

“The end,” said the monk. “The end of all.”

Sam watched as the eyes became blind and one final breath rattled in the old man’s throat. Another bullet screamed past.

There was no time to waste. He jumped to his feet, tucked the box under his arm and ran, ducking into the first alley he came to, then down another, through a dark pedestrian tunnel and finally out into a busy plaza, crowded with sidewalk cafes and bars. He’d lost them.

He stopped near a streetlight and looked at the box.

It was intricately carved and decorated with strange metals and minerals, each entwining with the other like a casket of snakes. It was beautiful, yet there was something frightening about it. Which was stupid—it was just a box.

Though, of course, it wasn’t.