Con Code Read online

  She taps the cage like it’s a response to some question I didn’t ask. “Verdad?” Which means ‘Truth’.

  I want to ask her more about how she knows Gordon but would rather let he finish her task before distracting her with personal questions. “The pulse doesn’t impact people though, right? Where are all the people?”

  “They are busy.”

  They’re busy? What kind of description is ‘busy’? It could mean anything. A person might be picking their ear wax and consider themselves busy. Cryptic wording at best. Maybe that’s worse.

  Instinct, or maybe reflex, claws at me to smack the cage, to rattle this interloper to provide better answers. But, until I’m released, I can’t exactly throw my weight around.

  “Gordon says you know my sister,” she says in battered English.

  Gordon told her what? What the freak, Gordon! If he were here right now, I’d be highly irritated with him big time. “Who me?” I step back from the door. Suddenly I’m the one wanting space…and a better-translating app. “I don’t know anybody. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “She works here.” She waves a metal pin through the air. Here-here. Her sister worked in upgrades maybe?

  “I’m not from here. I’m from the Mexico City facility.” Then it hits me. Her physical build is different. Shorter by a foot at least, with a wide round face—not chubby, more like her bones are wide. She doesn’t have the same flint and steel in her eyes and she’s darker. But, I’m certain all the same. Her sister is, was, TECH-chick.

  The lock pops clear and the door swings open. Nothing separating TECH-chick’s sister and me any longer. I wonder if I’m supposed to apologize but remind myself that this child doesn’t know what happened in the game.

  “Si. Donor families. Come.” Motioning me to follow her, she tucks the pins back into a pocket on the side of her pants. “Don’t have time.”

  I’m afraid to follow her. Like I’m being led to a confessional I’m unprepared to not lie about. It’s been my job to lie since I woke up. The picket lines of bottle bomb wielding lunatics outside the Mexico City facility populate my expectations.

  “Gordo call—all,” she says.

  “All of them?” What? Like all the donors in the entire game?

  “Follow.”

  She leads me the opposite direction Geo went in. We’re located near the center of the building on this floor, so I can’t spy activity outside yet, not being near an outer wall. The closer we get to the exterior, the louder muffled shouts and rhythmic pounding builds. It’s a familiar sound. It reminds me of Mexico. Families picketing and shouting four floors down. And then I realize that’s exactly what the sound is. “That’s not who we’re meeting up with is it?”

  No answer. Only running.

  I run to the dark glass at the end of the long hall and press myself to the cold pane to observe what’s happening. “What is this?”

  “Gordon called me.” She holds up a single index finger. “Solo call de prison.”

  “Jail?” His single call from prison? He really was put in jail. I stop to consider the group of them sharing a cell. Abby would be on her own of course, in the girl’s section.

  “Gordon asked for help, tells about mission with all here. I don’t agree.”

  What on earth is going on? I don’t want to go with her. With my translation system malfunctioning, it’s almost impossible to understand her meanings. She opens the door to the stairwell and starts down. I continue even though we’re in a part of the building I’m not familiar with. “Still, I’m here.”

  “What?”

  “Internet. Codes. Messages. He sent images of a meeting with Geo and your jail friends.” She points to me over her shoulder. “I recognize you from the image files.”

  That’s what Gordon was really doing. Recording from his device during our big lawyer meeting. He sent video files to a secure website off location from the Pierson facility and sent TECH-chick’s sister to find it. “What’s your name?”

  “Belen.” She says it like ‘Bell-En’. I like it. She stops at the basement door. “Ah, here we are.” The door opens letting in a damp urine stench. Not inviting. “Tunnels.”

  I’m impressed. “How do you know about these?”

  “My sister worked here, recuerda?” Remember, she asks.

  “Right.” Her sister worked security here, as well as upgrades? What didn’t her sister do? TECH-chick had hands in everything apparently. I follow into the pee-soaked hole in the earth and try to picture TECH-chick using this place for security detail. I can’t do it. “Right,” I repeat.

  The underground tunnel smells worse the deeper we move. My system alerts me to toxic fumes, exposure to materials that will harm human pulmonary systems if they remain too long in this enclosed space. We keep descending into the earth. I count the steps of decent to be in the seventies and rising and feel the damp rising like a humidity water table. My olfactory senses aren’t the same as human senses. The odors are in the air, embedded in the moist earth walls, and festering in puddles. We try our best to step over what my system registers as unfriendly chemical compounds, bacterial percentages, spores, mold and fungus, fecal matter—mostly animal, but the data tells me the species and I’ve definitely lost respect for human claim on advanced society.

  I have no idea how Belen manages to navigate the black, other than she drags her hand along the right-side wall once we reach the end of the steps. I keep my feet in contact with the earth below me, careful not to lift either foot completely. I scan the air for currents that indicate airflow. Move toward the source of the flow. Unfriendly growth passes under my fingers at regular intervals.

  “What’s your sister’s name?” Conversing pulls my brain away from seeking more stanky data.

  “You don’t know?” Belen asks.

  I hug the dirt wall, avoiding a rancid pool with more than water in it. “We don’t use names in the game. Just codes.”

  Belen stops advancing. I can see her heat signature, so I stop as well. “Codes… I like it,” Belen says. She continues forward, not answering my question.

  “I take it you know technology as well?”

  “No, my sister was a genius with machines, not just computers. She used to love puzzles.”

  “And you?”

  “Solo computers,” she says.

  We turn to the right when there’s an option for it. We travel a quarter mile before the turn. Even if I tell my brain to stop feeding me stats regarding my environment, it still tells me. It just stores it a little lower on the ‘urgent information for you to consider’ queue.

  “What can you tell me about Juan?” I ask after another half mile in our new direction. My brain says south.

  “Which Juan? There’re tons of Juans here.”

  She uses the word ‘bastantes’ in her language for tons. At first, my system translates a different word that starts with ‘b’. My ability to tolerate her mock playful tone left when my system overloaded with odor data. And I doubt she has the capacity to appreciate Intelligence Donor humor. “You mean, like me? Donors?”

  “No.” Belen stumbles into a set of closed double doors. “Ah, here we are.” She pushes, but the doors remain solidly shut.

  The hinges have a high rust content. The doors themselves are solid, making it difficult to read data from the other side. I can’t tell if a wall of caved-in earth blocks our path.

  Memories of Mord piling against elevator doors twists my expectations. I strain to hear the ragged guttural sound of mouth breathers sucking in our scent. Then I realize, I don’t have a scent here. Not like humans. Just like in the game, only opposite again. Humans give off odors depending on anxiety, exertion, or arousal. Humans are stinky. I smell of rubber and metal, and if I move very fast, heated rubber or metal. If I get wet, wet rubber or metal. In the game, donors didn’t have a sense of smell, only Mord. Like me. Now, I remain odorously invisible among human crowds. I’m not sure what that means if anything.

  Belen
slaps the heel of her palm on the door. We wait. She hits the door again. Louder, and more times. I try not to count, but my brain logs the number as sixteen pings of contact with the solid metal door.

  “Where are we?” I ask to fill the quiet. I know where we are. I have an internal map of the aerial of this place after flying overhead months ago. We’re close to some street markets above. Though I’m not entirely sure how the tunnel connects to what I recall being roughly one point seven miles from the base of the hill the Pierson facility rests atop.

  “Shops.” Belen paces in front of the doors.

  I could inform her that I am capable of breaking the doors down, even with my single lame hand. But I don’t. I let her pace and watch with stiffness. I’m unsure what I think of Belen, and I believe she’s unsure what she thinks of me. I suspect she’s questioning if freeing me was the right thing for her to do. If she asks me what I think, I won’t be able to answer. Because I don’t know whose side she wants to be on. What she hopes to receive from involving herself. I watch her for signs of changing her mind. Or signs of being double-crossed. Things like that happen in the real world. People defecate in tunnels in the real world.

  Finally, a scratch breaks the sound of Belen’s feet plodding through slogging dirt. We both move to our alert position. Belen holds her head low and extends her neck like she’s straining to hear. I step back and loosen my limbs, all scans running and ready to respond to a threat.

  The door pushes in, toward us. I’m far enough back to not have to move. Belen jumps out the door’s path.

  “Bel?” A man’s voice booms into the cave, immediately swallowed by earth walls and the open tunnel, like a mute on a tuba.

  “Pedro.”

  I’m not sure what to expect. Part of me worries that TECH-chick somehow managed to send video messages to those rooting for her, and maybe they know who I was in the game. If they ask. What can I possibly say? ‘Hey, your murderous relative was super good at backstabbing people…’

  We emerge into sunlight and muted colors. We’re near the edge of the city’s pristine circle. Factory exhaust stains the landscape a darker shade of gray in this section of industry. The aroma of sweetbreads merges with pickling liquids, the mingling of edible things not yet sold but on display for hours fades in with the rancid odor of wet feet. The street is damp down one cobbled line set lower when it was laid than the rest of the road. Vendors hawk their wares from booths that look like they’ve been constructed from cardboard and blankets just that morning, ready to crumple in on themselves any moment. I assume this must be some kind of unsanctioned market.

  The narrow walkway packs vendors, shoppers, and a host of people motioning Belen and me to follow them out of the crowds.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “El Mercado,” Pedro answers.

  I know it’s the market. I’d have to be an idiot to not realize we’re standing in an open market. Part of me wants to push the wood crate filled with tiny bananas and papaya on its side. I need answers that make sense. No more evasion. I stop my feet and hold my arms still at my sides, careful to not show my strength and recent gain in coordination and efficiency thanks to Geo’s work. I don’t want these people to change their minds. I prefer not living in a cage.

  “Who are you, people? Where are you taking me? And why are you here?” I ask.

  Pedro looks from me to Belen. She lifts her shoulders but doesn’t translate. Instead, she steps between him and me, facing me, and speaks in a low voice that makes me feel smaller than her, which I’m not and I can prove it to her if she makes me. “Just follow.” As if any of the vendors shouting their products and prices at us in Spanish care what we say.

  When she turns, her back to me, she places hands on Pedro, turning him so his back faces me as well. She pushes for him to move in the direction of the group of people with him. Her hands remain on his shoulders, as she looks back toward me with the expectation that I’ll follow.

  I have no reason to follow. I’m free now. I have no explanation from these strangers. To obtain answers, I need to find Gordon. Besides, I’m uneasy trusting my immediate future to people associated with TECH-chick.

  When Belen returns her focus forward, guiding Pedro through the streets, I turn south, the direction continuing away from the hill, which is not so far from us. Distance underground tends to compound itself and stretch to something much greater than my visual scans weight the same space. There’s not enough space between the threat and me.

  Two steps and I’m between makeshift shops, my height easily swallowed by the half hazard lines pinned with wool sweaters, knitted hats, woven bags and belts, and all manner of adornments for hair. With my responsive right hand, I slip a knitted hat with flaps to cover my ears from the line it hangs on while the workers call for passersby to “Come and see.”

  My clothing doesn’t match that of the people on the streets either. I wear gray pants with a short-sleeved white cotton shirt. My head hurts trying to decide what to do. Time should have no impact on my ability to make decisions, take actions, but I feel it catching up to me. Like my brain decided it matters, so now it matters times seven thousand and I’m out of options.

  Stop. Think it through. Look at the people selling and the people buying.

  I fit the profile of a traveler more than a merchant. Copy traveler behavior. Belen strides past the narrow space between vendors where I’m concealed with my knit cap pulled to my brows and the flaps over my ears. I step deeper between the wood posts holding up sheets to protect the items being sold.

  “Gordon,” I say his name like a wish that he’ll appear at my side and tell me who to trust and what to believe. Like he’s my personal processor.

  When nothing happens, no magic drops Gordon and his ability to speak ‘device’ at my side, I crouch on the balls of my feet so I’m low when Belen runs back toward me. She stops in front of the shop where I took the hat. Her eyes move slowly across the lines of heads in the booth. A visual hiccup as she tracks the space above me causes my insides to panic. My toes press into the cobbles, ready to spring.

  Belen moves away, back the direction she ran from.

  My ligaments and all the wires and cords pulling my extremities to ‘alert’ relax, my head sags forward. “Miller. I need you.” He’s not technologically gifted like Gordon or Abby or even Ben. But he’s been there since I began training to use my robotic system in coordination with my ‘human brain.’

  A tall woman with light coloring to her skin and rich darkness matching her smooth hair to her sharp eyes passes. She wears a broad-brimmed hat, blocking sun from touching her skin. Her companion taller still, with a wrinkle-free gray suit and solid purple tie, follows behind her showing little interest in the items on display. They don’t belong in this little shopping district. They appear lost, like two kids who let go of their mother’s hand on vacation in a strange land. I follow them at a reasonable distance.

  I toe-step like a bird to the outer edge of the booth to watch them better. She lifts a wooden carving and praises its craft. Then replaces the item to its location of display, not bothering to give it a second glance.

  She also doesn’t look at the knit hats. I pull the tassel on the side of my good hand, so the hat slips off my hair. The woman turns so I can see her face. She’s perfect. Not a bone out of alignment. Her skin flows over her frame like the skin of a drum. Her movements rhythmic, deliberate, and controlled.

  “I thought this was the height of society,” she announces to the crowd of vendors. “The resource band to make all other latitudes writhe with jealousy. All I see here is the misuse of natural resources.” She returns to the carving. It’s a leopard with well-proportioned head, the notion of movement in its limbs, and detail in every muscle group. “This scrap of wood, that ball of yarn.” She points to a wool sweater. “Where’s the industry? Advancement? Progression?” The carving slams back to its location. “It’s like pre-war here.”

  When I view the surroundings, I don’t
see what she’s talking about. I’ve been learning about pre- and post-war conditions. The buildings are white, built in the same style after most structures either fell apart or were torn down before the Intercontinents realized they held the majority of the world’s cards as far as ready-made natural resources. Once they started setting limitation on the access of goods, then setting prices, balance shifted in the world economy.

  “Not everyone chooses to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them, Ma’am,” the man shadowing her movements says. They both have an accent, but it’s not Ecuadorian. They don’t speak like anyone from the Northern regions I’m familiar with either. Everything about them says ‘perfectly foreign.’ I’m guessing their cab dropped them on the wrong corner of town as well.

  “Let’s see this Geovanni, shall we?” she asks her companion. “Surely the man who built that,” she turns to face the hill in the not so far distance, “has learned not to waste resources.” Sunlight slices into the dark glass at a high angle due to the position of the building on the tallest hill in the city. It shines like a black star refracting shadow rainbows onto the famine-white structures below. I haven’t seen the Pierson building in the way this woman looks to the building, with avarice and expectation. What will she think of the Ace statue, twisted and grotesque, like a warning sentinel guarding the entrance to hell?

  If there’s one thing I learned from being a player inside an aggressive computer game competition, don’t trust anyone. But, maybe more important still, play the game. Right now, I have to play the game on this side. I can’t figure out the rules or the players quite yet, but this world has all the markings of an active game. Right now, I need this woman with her straight back and wide hat. I have a need to collect them or dispose of them. I’m unsure which, but I won’t let them out of my sight now that I’ve marked them as my objective. I’m instantly obsessed with controlling them now that I’ve been made aware of them.