Con Code Read online

  “You can’t just copy and paste human personalities. The regulations for cloning, let alone…” Juan’s cadence of speech shifts “Who says you can’t? Everybody telling me what I can and can’t do…” Another switch in patterns and word choice follows. “Geez, Nazrete, no one wants to clone you.”

  I can see why Juan came off so rigid before. Keeping his personalities in line requires constant vigilance, something that the demands of driving seem to be stealing from him.

  “Estop this car!” Belen screams.

  “You saw what they made. We can’t go back,” Juan says to Belen.

  “I still don’t know what a Mort is,” Gordon twists so he’s talking to me behind Mav’s back.

  “Mi familia.” Belen twists in her seat to better stare out the rear window.

  “Those are terrorists!” Gordon shouts.

  When Belen she keeps her gaze steady behind us, I move to observe what she’s seeing. Mav and Gordon follow my action. I imagine Juan checks his rearview mirror as well. All of us watching smoke escape the shining black diamond atop the hill that stands above dirt-white buildings claiming the rest of the massive city.

  We advance toward the wall of factory emissions circling the outer ring of this high city—the location of advancement, achievement, power, and precedent. A key city of the Intercontinents. Its black heart deflates in the rearview. “Smoking glass.”

  “What about Miller?” Gordon asks.

  “Screw Miller,” Mav says.

  The factory gasses blur any indication of damage or shift in the air from the building atop the hill. The panecillo remains what it always has been—a high spot to look to.

  Crossing the fog barrier presses a dismal outlook into our drive. A glaze drapes over every face but Juan’s. His dark curls keep their bounce while the rest of us mold in the humidity.

  “Que es?” Belen asks Juan what it is, in a crude manner, after two hours of driving. She has to gesture zombielike in order to communicate her full question. I realize she’s talking about the Mord. But that’s impossible. They can’t really have gotten through.

  “A mistake,” Juan answers.

  I shake my head. It’s bound to be confusing with so many people in his head fighting to describe events, provide quick information. He must be mistaken about the Mord. There is no way they would be capable of coming through the system. Not only do we lack a procedure to translate straight code to a three-dimensional existence, there’s a shortage of robotic human housing. If there wasn’t, Juan wouldn’t be a walking multiple personality. “They’d need robotic housing…”

  Belen twists in her seat, cradling one arm probably injured in the drive after Juan kidnapped her. “There are many levels of robot production.”

  “I’ve been in the building. There’s nothing but offices and guest suites. You know how I know? It’s made of glass. The whole thing. Stupidest design I’ve ever seen,” Mav says.

  “Seriously, Mav, you can be so naïve,” Gordon says. “It’s an iceberg.” Gordon brings the tips of his fingers together, forming a peak, he breaks the image to indicate the first knuckle of one hand. “You’re only seeing this much, the rest is in the hill, underground.”

  My fake skin flushes with a cold chill, confidence literally drains from me.

  “You’re saying they’re intentionally uploading Mord? But why?” I ask.

  “Those things aren’t void of features,” Juan says. “Not like the Mord.”

  Belen waves a hand in front of her face, keeping her eyes wide and staring blankly ahead. “They look like you, but their eyes don’t see, and their ears don’t hear. The air rattles through their noses useless. They sift information through their teeth up to their brains.”

  Belen defines Mord as I know them. Instead of being absent all features but their mouth, this new version possesses the appearance of normalcy, but it’s all a fake. The only question is, why are they here? Mord can be cured in the game, but I can’t see how that’s possible on this side of the code. I can’t reprogram this world to fit my wishes. None of us can, no matter how hard we try. “But…why is Geo uploading them?”

  “He didn’t know,” Juan repeats the phrase to himself, “Didn’t know.”

  “What do they want? The Mord.” I ask.

  “A morir,” Belen says.

  “To kill?” I ask, my voice rising. The Mord chased me through the game, I lead them, but rose above and left them behind. Now it’s like they’re following my wake to destroy me.

  “Not to kill… It means to die,” Juan says. “They’re just doing it wrong.”

  “They’re already dead,” I say.

  “But still living,” Juan counters. I don’t want to trigger an internal conflict in the guy, so I stay quiet and let him compose himself before he continues. “They’re sentenced to an existence of never death in this place.”

  A wave of frustration floods out of me because he’s misreading them. The Mord don’t want to die, they never have wanted that. It’s the thing that defines them best, refusing to die after already being deemed dead. “They did lose,” I say under my breath, but Juan hears me. He tightens his jaw and blinks slow one time. I’m slightly concerned he’s interpreting my words wrong. Because, after all, the players trapped inside him also lost—to me, if I think about it. “Not that losing should disqualify a player from quality of life…or dignity of death.”

  Juan moves his jaw ever so slightly, but it’s loose enough to shift position and that’s better than clamped steel frame robot anger.

  “How do you plan to get out of Ecuador? We’re fugitives,” Mav asks.

  “Ibarra,” Juan answers. “The Intercontinents won the war on resources and claimed world power. Can’t do that without a healthy underground trading ring and cartel.”

  “Which is in Ibarra?” Gordon asks.

  “No.” Juan and Belen exchange a look. I know the look. It’s an Ace look. The kind he used to pass with TECH-chick. The kind of shared expression commiserating ignorant company. “Columbia is our destination.”

  “But that’s not Ecuador. We have to cross the border before we make it to Columbia.” Mav points out.

  “Ibarra is the border,” Juan says.

  “We make it to Ibarra, we are practically in Columbia,” Belen says.

  “I thought we were going to meet up with Singapore,” Mav says. “The big name from donor processing in Asia.”

  “YeoTanLee will be in Columbia.” Juan lowers his brow, a very un-Juan manner to take in the road conditions ahead of him. “This whole thing went to hell the second you showed up, Jennie” There’s always fault to be flung behind shifty eyes.

  “Don’t make me shoot you.” I swear without considering my words.

  Mav shifts his whole body to look at me. The kind of shift that puts additional space between us while forcing Gordon into the door handle. Gordon doesn’t complain about his Mav body shield. He shifts forward so he can cast a questioning glare at me too.

  Juan smiles, his forehead leans toward the windshield like his frontal lobe calls the shots now. Impulse and heat. I’d prefer Nazrete to Juan in charge of the Juan collective.

  It’s a funny thing, assessing humans for humanness. I find myself staring at Belen for hours as we make our way passed Otavalo and on to Ibarra. I knew her older sister, TECH-chick. But I never evaluated TECH-chick on her humanness. It wasn’t a factor at the time. TECH-chick left people behind. In the game, odds of survival improve when choices are made without regard to others. But my understanding is that human family groups matter to humans. It’s something I envy since I’ve realized I don’t have claim on such a thing. It bothers me that Belen hasn’t fought Juan about leaving Pedro behind. The other thing that bothers me…her hair. I want her to cut it. It’s a mess—long and bushy. Would she notice?

  “What’s going on ahead?” Mav asks, positioning himself between the front seats.

  I change my focus. Cars slow to a long line of brakes.

  “I don’t
know.” Juan presses buttons on the console, searching for road conditions. “We’re miles from the border. It won’t be a checkpoint yet.”

  “This is what it’s like at the lines of the Tropics,” Gordon says.

  “Well, yeah. That’s a barrier keeping prosperity in and the oppressed out.” Mav says.

  I crane to determine who is prosperous versus oppressed based on vehicle condition. There are all manner of vehicles. I have no knowledge base for which car brands are best, or which paint colors signal wealth. White dominates the color scheme. My guess is that’s a climate choice more than a status symbol. The only other thing I notice, no one looks around. In every vehicle near to us, the driver and occupants keep their eyes wide ahead, as though they’re all concentrating on listening to something and can’t spare any additional sensory stimulus for looking around.

  “Turn on the radio,” I suggest. “Maybe the news can tell us what’s going on.”

  “No one crosses the border into Columbia unless they’re trafficking,” Juan says.

  “Wait, go back.” Mav points at the center console where Juan flips through news sources for updates on traffic or accident reports.

  Juan traces back a few screens. A news report includes images of men and woman with hospital gowns loose over perfect skin with the backs of the gowns not securely fastened. They walk without lifting their feet off the ground, dragging their toes. Their chins lift so that their noses point to the sky. Mouths open as though the people are scooping air molecules by the gulp. They move as if there’s no rush to their task, whatever their task.

  Until someone stumbles into their midst. The stumbler snaps their head from one open-mouthed person to the next. It’s the woman from the taxi—her wide-brimmed hat gone. Every terrified feature of her stretched face exposed. From where I sit, craning to get a good angle on the screen, it looks like the hatless woman tries to make eye contact, waves, attempts to speak to someone in the group. It’s not until I realize the grouping gets tighter around her that I can see what’s about to happen. The crowd around the person turns in, the mass of mouth breathers narrowing the distance the woman has to escape. There’s no way out.

  Gaps get smaller, the woman is trapped in a circle mob. The reporter provides warnings for viewers to look away if violent images are upsetting. The woman backs away when one of the mob gets too close, but then she has to repeat the evasion because there are more behind her, and every angle spun or leaned toward is a dead end she has to attempt to back away from. Until there is no place to move and the camera pans out.

  The shot is wide. An arch of red liquid sprays over the crowd with open mouths. Then another. Pieces are thrown before the camera points down while those filming run away from any semblance of nearness to the group. The reporter continues talking over the sound of running and screaming and the shaking streak of a camera still rolling in the mad grip of a terrified documenter.

  “Businesses have closed or locked up shop while the masses exit Quito, Ecuador. The people are believed to belong to the Pierson group as an internal conflict between Mexico City and Quito came to a head earlier this week at a conference meeting. AI has been infected with a virus that destroys the human processing component of donor transplants…”

  “What?” Mav moves back in his seat. Then punches the seat to his right with the side of his first. “They’re making it sound like I caused this.”

  Juan’s face in the rearview mirror says everything I’m feeling. Relief mostly. No one looked at either of us with suspicion regarding whether we’re infected or not. Our eyes confirm to one another that we’re fine. Are we really?

  Belen crouches with her feet up on the seat, tight against her thighs and her arms wrapped around her legs. She rocks on her haunches, her head tucked into her knees and palms covering her ears. Maybe Pedro wasn’t left behind. Belen wipes the heel of her hand over her eye.

  “I’m sorry about Pedro,” I say.

  “We must cross the border,” Belen says. “More distance from the muerte as possible.”

  “It’s pronounced Mord,” Juan corrects.

  “Do you think that’s why the border’s so hot here? People trying to flee?” Gordon asks.

  “Why would they stop people from escaping those things? I’d think they’d encourage it.” Mav says ‘those things’ in a way that rankles my synthetic skin.

  “They’re definitely checking vehicles ahead,” Juan says. We all strain around the obstacles of seats and each other to get a look at the far distance where policia pull open car doors, asking passengers to step out of their vehicles. People are scanned with a long black stick while other officers go over the interior of the vehicle with another electronic baton.

  “Get out of the line,” I say.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.” Juan cranks the wheel to the right, forcing us onto the shoulder, also occupied by cars, because lane lines mean nothing in Ecuador. Once on the shoulder, Juan manages to drive in reverse, mostly on the greenery flanking the edges of designated roadway.

  “Watch out!” Gordon shouts. He’s turned so he watches out the rear window with the rest of us, at our backward progress. Behind us another car has the bright idea to drive the shoulder in order to bypass the lines to advance. One of us will be forced down a slight embankment if neither of us concedes direction.

  “Gun it,” Mav urges. “They’ll flinch first.”

  “I’m not playing chicken,” Gordon hollers.

  “Gun it!” Mav shouts over Gordon’s loudness.

  Juan presses the accelerator and we jolt backward, speeding toward the vehicle approaching us at the rear. The lights of the car shine at us, despite the remaining daylight making them unneeded, obstructing the view of who sits at the wheel. The other driver continues forward without any indication of flinching for what feels like minutes but must be seconds only. I duck behind the seatback, attempting to shield myself from the inevitable impact. Gordon does the same thing.

  “To the left!” Mav shouts.

  Juan adjusts the progress of the car toward the left. Metal sparks and scrapes out the right-side door—the door I’m crouched next to. “Watch it!”

  Crunching metal amplifies on the right, impact launches me forward toward the back of Juan’s seat. Still wearing my seat belt, I’m yanked against the nylon strip of fabric, rubbing my rubberish coverings so hard, I rip at the hip slightly. Two torn areas. Great.

  The other car deflects off the right side of our vehicle, launching out over the embankment at an angle that doesn’t bode well for driver or passengers inside.

  “We need to make sure they are okay,” Belen screams.

  Horns honk at us the farther we drive from the accident—faces display human shock, disgust, and what I believe is murderous rage at seeing us drive away from what could be a fatal accident, which we caused. At this point, if we exit the vehicle, the nearby drivers will murder us before the scanner people can come close. Beeping starts erupting before we pass people, from cars that had no way of seeing the accident.

  “They’re scanning people down there. What do you think they’re looking for?” Juan presses the gas closer to the floor, accelerating our reverse. “That’s not the TSA or whatever airport security.”

  “They’re so far ahead, they’ll never see us,” Belen insists.

  “Have you seen Jennie’s arm?’ Gordon bends around Mav, takes hold of my right arm, which has no issues, and attempts to lift my arm. It’s ridiculous. My skeletal structure won’t be forced into movement so long as I’m conscious. Not like I’m going to tell him that.

  “That’s right. As soon as Jennie steps out, everyone will see her torn wrist,” Mav says.

  Belen has a grip on the door handle, but Juan hits the door locks before she can lift the handle. “You stay in the car!”

  Juan shoots Belen a sideways glance. It has all the signs of a warning shot like Juan has something on Belen he can reveal to the rest of us if she’s not too careful. Belen lets go of the doo
r and folds her arms, then crunches her legs onto the seat with her, effectively folding herself up into a little package of sadness.

  Juan navigates backward to the end of the long line of cars waiting to get out of Ecuador and spins the car in the opposite direction.

  “Do we have a plan?” Gordon asks.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Juan says. “We’re not making it across any borders without help.”

  “I thought you said you had connections here,” Mav accuses Juan.

  “My connections remain where we just left from.”

  Mav throws his back against the seat.

  “So far, this trip to Ecuador isn’t my all-time favorite travel experience.” Gordon crosses his arms.

  “So, what? Go back to Otavalo?” Belen asks. “I know those mountains, we’d do okay.”

  “We need gas.” Juan taps the dashboard display with one finger. “We’ve been driving for hours. Tank’s almost empty.”

  “I hate cars,” slips out of my mouth. I’ve been reminding myself to not say anything, so as to not draw more attention to myself. None of these people seem that keen on me right now.

  Belen unfolds from her personal cocoon at the sound of my voice. “Why you bite your arm? Trying asustarme…?”

  “It’s stupid,” I say, wishing I could dig around to see if any items are still lodged between my skin covered tubes.

  “Did you not know Abby’s plan?” Belen asks without seeming to notice the reaction her words stir in Gordon and Mav.

  Both of their heads turn as if I’m the magnetic pole of their compass-noses all of a sudden. Not knowing anything, and not wanting to plug the flow of revelation Belen seems to be on, I remain silent.

  “What plan?” Gordon asks.

  “You can’t be serio.” Belen twists so her knees are on the seat, holding the seatback in her hands and her head over the rest between her and Gordon. “Abby never mentioned to you she was planning a sabatear Geo?” Sabatage, is she serious?

  “How would she do that?” Gordon asks. “We don’t have any access.”