Drift pattern, p.29
Drift Pattern, page 29
He manages to reclaim himself but doesn’t answer.
“What is it? Why are the civilian deaths of your enemy so funny to you? Have you no heart at all in that obese chest of yours?”
This triggers an enormous knowing smile from him. “I have more heart than anyone in New Australia has, of that I can assure you.”
“What does that mean?” She sits up in her seat, processing the possible ramifications of his words. Her lip quivers. “Did you . . . Did you kill them all or something with an attack strike?”
The smile reverts to a pensiveness that she wasn’t expecting. There’s a pause as Cavazos contemplates his words and the boat bobs up and down. Finally, he concedes, “I guess there’s no harm in telling you since you’re not going to be around here for much longer anyway.” He leans forward to her, and in mock whisper, he announces, “It’s all manufactured.”
She studies him attempting to gather his meaning. “What are you saying? What do you mean by that?”
He casually slouches back in his seat, arms behind his head. “Just what I said. There is no New Australia—it’s all made up.” In a matter-of-fact tone, he adds, “The people needed an enemy, so I manufactured one for them.”
The revelation is nearly too much for her. In a way, a military victory over them would have been more palatable than this. Her mind flashes back to the intruder’s note about something being off and Ish’s blindness during the attack, but she never dreamed of a sham like this. The gut-punch admission forces her eyes to scan the craft’s tacky interior in a near panic.
When her gaze returns to Cavazos’s grinning smirk, he boasts, “Pretty good, right?”
“New Australia is a hoax?” She feels sick, and the choppy waters aren’t helping.
“Every bit of it,” he answers, delighted.
She’s briefly considered that the mystery messenger may have been from New Australia, but this news cancels out that possibility. “But why go to the trouble?” she asks, shaking her head, her mind still attempting to reconcile the concept. “The resources wasted to perpetrate such a—”
He cuts her off, “Again, I doubt that you can understand what it takes to govern a city of six million lives. It is important to maintain order at any cost.”
“You’re right about part of that,” she scoffs. “I don’t understand how you can possibly believe that a deception—a hoax of this scale and magnitude—can offer your citizens anything.”
He condescendingly enunciates every word, saying, “The one that controls the chaos controls the order.”
She scoffs. “Yeah, and that would make a great bumper sticker for this boat.” Her forehead furls. “Do Macer and Royse know about all of this?”
“It was his idea,” he answers gleefully. He clarifies, “The chancellor, I mean. His bodyguard is just as clueless as everyone else.”
Luci nods, thinking, “Everyone except the people who left the note.” She struggles to accept it all, though Cavazos’s enjoyment of the revelation validates the truth of it. “So Cyphor Gicul and L’inversione wasn’t a big enough enemy? You had to stage fake attacks?”
His enjoyment seems to be waning. “In fairness, we had the New Australia thing going long before Gicul, and New Australia will continue long after L’inversione is caught and converted to cybos.”
She shakes her head. “You’re both monsters.”
“You’re wrong. The city enjoys peace. Sure, every now and again, they get a jolt of fear and excitement. This works to squelch any ideas of leaving the city to colonize somewhere else for fear that marauders will destroy them. It also promotes a sense of nationalism when there’s a perceived threat, even if it’s manufactured.”
The boat slows and gradually turns, headed for a small dock under the massive structure of the Spike building. “You’d rather have people live in fear? You’d rather have them cowering, afraid of marauders coming from across the ocean to get them?”
“Fear is simply another tool,” he answers smugly. “I am security minister, and as paradoxical as it may seem to you, I use every tool. I use fear to make the people feel more secure and live better lives.”
The repetitive tap of the pounding rain stops abruptly as the boat crosses under the canopy threshold and proceeds to an alcove under the building.
Still, she struggles to process what she’s just been told. “But your whole society is built on lies.”
“Every culture is balanced on a foundation of falsehoods,” Cavazos says, pointing an accusatory forefinger. “And fear is a common device whether deliberate manipulation or unintentionally deployed.”
Flashing amber light fills the interior of the craft as it approaches an empty section of the dock. Cavazos’s boat dwarfs the others in comparison, most being single or two-person craft while his is easily three times their size.
A thought rushes to the forefront of her mind. “Wait . . . the thing about sterilization, is that true?”
“What thing?”
That he doesn’t instantly know what she’s referring to gives Luci a glimmer of hope that this, too, is a construct. “Is it true that when someone takes a leap skip, even one trip, it renders them infertile?”
“What, that?” Cavazos says. “Yes, that’s real, the dirty little unavoidable consequence of moving through time.”
Luci’s heart sinks, and she bites her lip. She shakes her head in disgust. “I still can’t get over it. The attack from New Australia two days ago was completely fake? Staged for what?”
His eyes squint to slits resting on bulbous, fleshy cheeks. “You don’t have sip basin access. How do you know about that?”
“Ish went blind,” she explains. “He said he saw a red band over his vision until he checked in.”
Out the window behind him, enormous pincher claws extend to receive the boat. A mechanical clank is felt more than heard as the apparatus snaps securely on to the craft.
“Oh, yes, I forgot about your ‘assistant.’ Were you in combi when it happened to him? Did I time it so as to interrupt a moment of intimacy between the two of you?”
Her face heats up. “No, and I’ll not have you bring up anything like that again.”
“Really, you think that you have any sway over what happens to him after you’re gone from us? You’ll be back at your interval, but he’ll remain here . . . here with me.”
His words send a shudder through her. Though she managed to stop Cavazos from backhanding Ish in the guesthouse, she knows he’s right and doesn’t respond, choosing to look at the bright crimson floor instead.
The docking mechanism completes the task of pulling the boat into its locking position. After a couple of grunts, Cavazos stands, indicating it’s time to leave. “By the way, if you share any of what I disclosed to you about New Australia or mention anything that is said in Carcerium to Moyta, I’ll see to it that he becomes a permanent occupant there like my dear friend, Mr. Roderick.”
Two of the three cybos waddle from the craft to the platform and stand at attention while the third maneuvers to the stern of the boat, rainwater dripping from its ready churka.
“I promise that I won’t say anything to him,” Luci responds. “Please don’t do anything to Ish. I’ll only talk DPM with him.”
As the vessel’s door slides open, he turns to face her with a snide expression. He nods. “I’ll know if you don’t, and this is my promise to you. I’ll have no problem locking him away forever.”
~ Two ~
The cool saltwater air is damp, and the metal flooring is slick with grime that looks to have been left unattended for a long time. Luci follows Cavazos through the dock area in a trance-like state. The combination of the threat to Ish’s safety and Cavazos’s admission about the New Australia scam has her head swimming.
For once, the repugnance of the two cybos accompanying them doesn’t register in her mind as she tries to sort everything out. Cavazos dispatches the third cybo to return to guard his boat. The four them move single file in silence through the empty low-lit area. Luci trails Cavazos as he follows the largest cybo. The second guard marches behind her with his churka weapon ready for any sneak attack from the rear.
After a few minutes, they reach their destination. Cavazos presses the Viatorio on his fleshly earlobe, and the doors of an enormous service elevator slide open with a clank that echoes through the area. The bright fluorescent lights sting Luci’s eyes as the four of them take their place inside. “This is bigger than my kitchen at home in Chicago,” she says, snapping back into the moment.
“This will take us straight up to the longchair area floor without stops along the way,” Cavazos explains. “And there’s enough room in here that I can do this with them.” At the click of the thin onyx device around his neck, the two cybos shuffle over to the far side of the wall from them. “Believe it or not, I find their smell as disgusting as everyone else,” Cavazos says with a shrug. “We’re working on it, but reanimated flesh has its challenges.”
Luci nods and answers absentmindedly, “Yeah, that’ll be good.”
“When we get there,” he begins, “you’ll need to get in the front of the longchair. That compartment is smaller than the back where I’ll be seated.” He pauses as if waiting for a rebuttal from her, but she’s silent. “Anyway, you’ll need to enter the chronal coordinates in manually. This is something that has to be done with extreme care, so don’t mess around with it.”
“Longchairs have manual function capabilities?”
He nods. “They do, but no one ever dares to do that because of the danger.”
“What danger?” Luci asks, feeling her chest tighten.
“When a longchair travels to a juncture, the numbers have to be precise. If off even a fraction of a second, the transport and passengers could materialize into a solid object or arrive with solid objects inside of their bodies from the destination’s surroundings. No skips are ever done manually anymore.”
She swallows. “But that’s why you have technicians at the Spike . . . to run the math, right?”
He’s slow to answer. “Well, yes . . . normally. But there won’t be any technicians when we get up there.”
The service elevator travels so smoothly that Luci forgets that they’re climbing over eight hundred meters in the air until her ears pop due to the pressure change.
“I made up something about New Australia to clear the longchair area out so we can travel without logging our destination. Due to the recent attack, I told them that a scan-sweep was going to be performed to make sure that the area was safe and free from any explosives from infiltrators.”
“Of course you did,” Luci says sarcastically. “Who doesn’t want to be safe?”
“You catch on quickly,” he says, making Luci feel a little slimy as if she’s somehow complicit in his deception.
“If Carcerium chambers are truly outside of time, how can anyone ever find them?”
Her ears pop a second time; they must be ascending faster now. She opens her mouth wide and massages her jaw. “I mean, how can you locate a place that doesn’t exist in a chronological linear timeline and, more importantly, make your way back without being lost in the void forever?”
Cavazos answers, “Yes, where we’re headed is a place outside of time, an anomaly, like a bubble swirling around the drain spout. There won’t be anything out in non-time for us to crash into or to crash into us.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
The elevator doors open, and the sudden movement of both cybos lunging at the elevator’s exit startles her. Royse was right about their quick reaction speed.
“I have the chronal coordinates for where the chamber quad cluster will be for the next hundred and eighty-six minutes. It’s proprietary information that only I and the chancellor possess.”
Once outside the compartment, the lead cybo makes a stiff nodding motion to its master, indicating the area is clear of potential threats. Cavazos waves him off, choosing to remain inside. “Like I said, besides me, only Chancellor Macer has access to the mechanism that is able to predict where the compartments will be,” he explains with pride.
“So, the group of chambers just randomly appear at various points in space-time?”
He scoffs. “I’d think that you of all people, given your background, should know that nothing in the physical universe occurs with any true randomness.”
She suspects that his intent is to insult her, but she doesn’t care. She has to know more. “So explain it to me, then.”
Cavazos sighs as if answering an over-inquisitive child. He pulls the lanyard around his thick neck over his head with an effort that Luci tries to ignore. He begins dangling the thin, rectangular, onyx device before her like an old-time magician attempting to hypnotize a volunteer from the audience. The small controller sways to the left and right like a shiny black pendulum. “If Carcerium was the cybo controller swinging at the end of this chain, how could you find a way to get to grab it a hundred percent of the time?” Cavazos spins it in a circle now, still maintaining a wide sway. “Look, what do you see?”
She studies the object, trying to predict the changing, circling paths.
“Come on, girl,” he chides. “Don’t be daft. You’re supposed to be a mathematician’s mathematician. Where’s the one point that you can predict with certainty that remains constant?”
She inhales sharply and feels her ears burning. She knows the anger stirring inside her blocks productive reasoning, but his gloating makes Luci want to slap his fat face. She’s aggravated with herself that she can’t figure this out. The twinge of a headache threatens.
Then she sees it clearly.
She unballs her fist and points to his thumb and forefinger pinching the top of the chain. “There,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how much the end of the it moves. Where you’re holding it remains constant in its position, relatively speaking.”
“Exactly,” Cavazos says, pointing with his free hand at the near-motionless end of the chain. “We only have to determine this point.” He stops the spinning until the chain becomes a vertical line that he slides down with his fingers. “And then we travel down this corridor of sorts to Carcerium here.”
“I understand,” Luci says as Cavazos slides the lanyard back over his head.
“You should know that this will not be as pleasant as skipping across to an interval, so don’t begin screaming or panic and start pushing the panel buttons, sending us headlong into oblivion.”
“Different how?”
He pushes his way past her into the elevator vestibule ask he speaks. “The darkness lasts longer. In fact, the journey will be in almost all darkness. You’ll feel a little inebriated, but the feeling will pass.”
She follows him and the cybos down a dimly lit corridor, another area off the beaten path of other city members.
After a complex series of twists and turns through the industrial maze of hallways, the four of them pass through a corridor of normal width. Luci halts as Cavazos gestures for her not to speak with his index finger pressed against thin lips, and the bigger of the two cybos enters through a door. She sighs disapprovingly and leans against the wall while rubbing her temples to massage out the pain of another Jardon headache. Soon after, the shuffling sound of the cybo’s tattered boots grow louder as it returns to them.
“We’re clear,” Cavazos states as they enter.
When she was here a week ago to go to the Grange, she was dressed like Maid Marian, and the control room bustled with activity. Now, there is an uneasy stillness save for the miniature well basins gurgling away in each of the empty operator cubicles.
Eight of the fifteen longchairs remain, giving Luci pause about the five sitters reportedly trapped in Poland 1952.
Cavazos makes his way to the platform stairs. The larger of the two cybos stands at attention facing the door they entered through in the back of the chamber. The cybo behind Luci breaks off to guard the side door.
“Speed it up,” Cavazos commands while activating the longchair to open the glass coverings of the pod.
Luci hurries past the cybo in position at the stair edge. Cavazos grunts and huffs as he awkwardly descends into the back of the longchair. Luci doesn’t say anything, but it’s obvious that he’s ceded the front seat to her because the compartment is too small to accommodate his enormous girth.
Back-to-back in the seats, Cavazos instructs her over his shoulder, “There’s a panel in front of you. Slide it open and press the orange button.”
The plastic drawer sticks when she tugs at it, causing Luci to wonder when it was last opened, if ever. Pressing the flashing orange button, she asks, “Okay, now what?”
The glass covering snaps into place, sealing them in with a short hiss.
“Give it a moment,” Cavazos answers.
A soft computer-generated voice comes through the longchair’s inset speakers. “Manual override initiated. Enter nine-digit one alpha NBSI destination code using control pad.”
A thin slot beneath the orange button opens and extends a metal keyboard slightly thicker than a Tupperware lid out to her midsection.
Luci begins to panic. “I don’t know UNIFON letters,” she says over her shoulder to Cavazos, who faces the opposite direction.
“Calm down,” he answers, peeved. “It’ll be all numbers followed by a multiplication sign.” He pauses before he adds, “But you have to get it exactly right or you’ll kill us. And in a weird way, you’d be doing the job of L’inversione for them, so pay attention.”
She nods even though he can’t see her. “Yes, I understand,” Luci says, fidgeting. “I’m ready for the number.”
