When my tears have finally been spent, I push away from the wall and he leaves. I stand for a moment, shivering. Keeping my eyes off the trail of turquoise footprints that leads away into the street.
MAY 23, 2045. MORNING.
I am eating my breakfast outside the Murdon Building. Standing in one of the numerous security gate lines that are backed up for half a block each. They're training new guards, or maybe there's been another disruption in the system, as has happened frequently of late. I don't mind. It gives me time to watch the impressive sunrise crowds collected around the prostitutes' quarters for an early morning session.
The most popular prostitute on National House Square is a small woman who calls herself Jezebel. She likes to come outside between clients. Strut her boy's frame up and down the street, makeup still smeared from her last session. It's a testament to her style, her who-gives-a-fuck attitude. She never fixes it. Goes the whole day with lipstick on her chin and mascara leaked into the half-moons beneath her eyes. Queues at Jezebel's are always the longest.
Jezebel sees me leaning against the security arch. "Beta!" she shouts.
"Beta!"
This woman already knows.
How fast news travels. Candace was made the Alpha. Our BodySpeak test was just yesterday. I came in second.
Jezebel struts the half block over, shushing those she's left behind--men and women who're tapping their watches. Reminding her of their schedules. They're everyone. Managers. Monitors. Blue Coats. People who should have nothing in common, least of all her.
The prostitute waves one end of her sash in the air. Pulls down her shirt and flashes me a flat, almost nipple-free breast. "How come you never visit me, Beta?"
It would be legal if I did. Sex however the customer wants it. A threesome, two men and one woman, two women and one man. Or simply two women. Two men. Gender, number of partners, whatever other variables might be considered, it's of no matter. Sex any way you like it is as common as ordering a pizza. But go and fall in love with someone of the same sex and you're classified a
Cultural Terrorist.
The government doesn't extend such an open mind to the less sexual aspects of a relationship. The
falling in love
parts. The wanting to share a family and a life. The government says this prejudice has a purpose. They need to maintain a healthy population, and two people of the same sex can't reproduce. They say there is no danger in setting such a precedent. But just as soon as they find a way to replace workers with robots and don't need heterosexual couples for the purposes of procreation, marriage itself will be at risk. President has become fearful of what even two people, united, could do.
"Come on, hotshot!" Jezebel calls, one finger beckoning.
My wristwatch beeps 7:00 a.m. and guards begin flowing out through the Murdon Building's front doors. Security Guard Jones is the first one out. He waves a hand at the small prostitute, her bare tit still on display. "You get on now," he says without meaning it. He likes her all-day energy. Her carelessness that's the opposite of his job.
Jezebel blows him a kiss and sashays back to her office. I'm cleared to go on to mine.
Candace Hillard is tall, six feet without shoes. She has long blue-black hair and toffee-colored skin, the kind our physical profiles would define as Medium-Black. Her eyes are hazel, meaning they change. Brown if she's calm, green if she's angry. She was torn from her mother's arms when she
was seven. Listed under the not-too-old file, like me, in exchange for God knows what. She was given to new parents who didn't want her. Married the wrong man. Had a beautiful baby girl who's now a ten-year-old named Hannah. Got divorced and became a single mother. Pursued the wrong career.
Pursue,
the wrong verb, because it suggests choice. But the one she'd prefer to use, like me. I'm four inches shorter, seven months younger, my hair ten shades lighter. My skin falls into the checkbox category of Medium-White. If it weren't for our bodies, we'd be sisters.
Candace has been holding up the line with crossed arms and long planted legs. A huge gap's formed behind her but no one's asked her to get out of the way.
"Late?" she shouts.
"Today?"
I don't answer.
Candace takes me by the hand and drags me past the other Monitors who've been queued up for an hour. They aren't angry at our small abuse of power, going to the front of the line. They know what we do, what we see. They move aside easily, smiling as we pass. None of them are jealous of our positions. Just the opposite.
Once inside the conference room, we're escorted down the long center aisle to our seats in the front row. A Manager is standing behind an elevated podium at the head of the room. He's young as Managers go. Forty, with a full head of dark brown hair. He's angry he's had to wait for us but doesn't dare let it show. I see it in the sparkling brown clouds that appear around his head. They swirl and drift as if on a breeze, then evaporate beneath the mask of a forced smile. In a booming voice, he begins. "Good morning, everyone!"
Candace bumps my knee.
Watch.
I'm to look up at the young Manager standing on the stage before us. Smile.
"Welcome to the twenty-fifth meeting of the East-Central Monitoring Division," he says.
We clap as expected.
"Today's guest host will be none other than our own Manager Strauss."
Candace leans forward in her seat as a sparkling red corona forms over her head. Manager Strauss runs a group of Monitors on the ninety-ninth floor. He demands too much of them. Time and energy. If they're pretty, more. Years ago, Candace worked under Manager Strauss. Then something happened, an event even I don't know about, and she was transferred out of his department and put in the office across from me. I was lucky. I went straight to Mr. Weigland, for whom such an abuse of power isn't a thought in his head.
The young Manager steps away from the podium and Manager Strauss takes his place. By comparison, this Manager looks as old as Methuselah. He has a narrow, skeletal face and wisps of feathery white hairs scattered over a freckled scalp. He wraps bony hands around the lectern's edge and speaks with his black eyes pointed over our heads. He tells us today he'll be covering the ins and outs of the new and upcoming technological programs. SKEYE, then BodySpeak.
"But first," he adds in a ponderous tone, "we're going to discuss the recent resuscitation of that unfortunate and painful old artifact. That bit of nonsense born of the chronically unhappy and subversive . . .
The Book of Noah
."
A few hundred Monitors suck in their breath and the long room goes quiet. Though, as Monitors, we're allowed to bear witness to this with impunity, it's still a class one Red word term and earns anyone who says it an immediate 550. There have been an unusual number of
Noah
incidents passing through Monitoring lately. We'd all hoped management would let it go.
"We're going to be handing out pamphlets we'd like you to read," Manager Strauss announces, and a line of assistants appears from the outer aisles.
Candace and I receive ours first.
"Take a moment and flip to the inside of the front page, please," Manager Strauss instructs.
On a flap inside the front cover, a list of Noah's accomplishments has been neatly bulleted for easy reference. Our founding father is credited with developing the coded methods of torture and murder used today by our police, drawing up the boundaries of our world, and, most important, developing the slate. None of these are news.
On the inside flap of the pamphlet's back cover is another list. All the things
The Book of Noah
is not. This fictitious book is
not
a guide to finding and joining a secret society whose sole intent is to stop progress and take down all technology. It is
not
a weapon to be used against the Confederation, or a new Bible, or a thing at all.
The Book of Noah
is nothing more than a terrorist campaign. A lie to discredit the government and all the good work they do. In between the two covers, there is a prodigious amount of information about Noah. I scan a few of the ten pages. It's all trivia. Details about Noah's likes and biology. He owned a black labrador named Duke. Was thirty-three when the Pandemic hit. Never married, having given the new country his whole life. The last few pages are a long-winded repetition of what's inside the front and back covers, repeated over and over so those basic facts stick.
"Now, I want you to take these home and read them, cover to cover," Manager Strauss says. "You're to return them by tomorrow afternoon, no later than four o'clock. It's imperative you bring them back in exactly the same condition as they are now." The old man leans down and lets his shriveled lips dangle over the microphone as he explains the ramifications of noncompliance.
Tomorrow afternoon, whole groups of us will be called up at once and placed single-file in the middle of our floors. Our names will be checked off long lists as the returned copies are sent through high alert security checks. The pamphlets will be scanned for more than one set of fingerprints per pamphlet, for ghostlike grid marks that will indicate copies have been made, and for flash marks--the result of a pamphlet
having been photographed. All violations will gain the owner an on-the-spot 550.
I slide the pamphlet gently inside my purse, taking care not to dog-ear the corners.
The yellow pamphlets disappear as we collectively hurry to relegate
The Book of Noah
to the closet of our memories. At least until tomorrow. In the history of the Confederation,
The Book of Noah
has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. All those years ago, the public execution of
Noah
offenders was damage control meant for the masses. It seems today's efforts have been tailored with Monitors in mind. Perhaps we're the new targets of the infamous resistance. Maybe there is a resistance out there right now, wanting to recruit me.
Manager Strauss holds up his hands to recapture our attention. "Why don't we move on now to the SKEYE and Body-Speak programs."
He takes them in order. SKEYE is a compressed term for the Eye in the Sky program. For the first time in the Confederation's technology, automobiles are to be surveilled. Satellites will monitor our cars in an effort to protect citizens from rogues who've broken their slates and are traveling to some unknown locale. All large vehicles, anything seating more than eight people, will be requisitioned. Too many cars traveling in the same direction at the same time will raise a flag. When the satellite's global positioning system notes an infraction, Blue Coats will be sent out to investigate and be given full authority to handle situations as they see fit. Manager Strauss tells us they're aware there will be unnecessary fatalities. Innocents paying a price for a greater good.
It is the way of things,
he says. All those inadvertently killed on the path to progress will be memorialized. Their names etched in stone on a few of President's pavers out in the National House gardens, where no one's allowed to go and where there will never be enough stone to hold them all.
Candace's hand shoots up. When Manager Strauss ignores it, she stands. "Why now?" she asks.
Manager Strauss smiles at the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, our Alpha Monitor Candace J. Hill--"
Candace cuts him off. "Are you finding that more people are running?"
Manager Strauss's neck swells over his collar. He clears his throat and answers slowly. "Well, yes. As a matter of fact. We're finding there's an . . . an illness of the mind cropping up. Not in all areas. Certainly not in most people. But just in those sad, sorry few who don't know how to be happy with a world that's given them everything they could possibly want. What can I say? It is an illness. And we need to catch these people so they can be cured of it." Happy with his improvised answer, Manager Strauss smiles. "Do you have any other questions, Candace?"
"Yes," Candace answers. "How many people are running?"
The old man coughs into a hand and wraps the sticky palm around his lectern. "Too many. But not enough for you and your friends to worry about. The heart and soul of it is that this new program will cut down on personnel and systems maintenance. On hours of needless monitoring. Anyone who attempts to drive into the wastelands without permission or without a working slate will be stopped. This ensures that no cohesive group of radicals could possibly form. This program will take the legs out from under those among us who are considering a run. Think about it a moment. How would they move? How would they get food and water? If they got sick, how would they receive medical care or get medicine? When this program is brought online, everything in our world will be monitored. We are closing the final gap."
Candace nods as if this has answered her question and sits down. Manager Strauss continues.
The details of SKEYE roll on for nearly an hour before a long, wide screen drops from the ceiling behind Manager Strauss and he moves on to the next topic. Using a long black cane, he taps against the black tarp and words appear.
The. BodySpeak. Program.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached a new age regarding the business of Security and Monitoring. BodySpeak promises a brand-new way of identifying and handling previously established terrorists and individuals trending that way." Manager Strauss walks back and forth in front of the screen, tapping on dots that bloom into pictures. A woman at her kitchen sink making a homemade bomb. A man driving down some National House avenue with a gun lying on his front seat. Our speaker enjoys the oohs and aahs. Reactions to his excess.
Next to me, Candace is glowing. I can see her aura from the corner of my eye. It pulses red, then chartreuse. Anger and concern.