Aurealis #135 Read online

  We stockpiled chips. In a good week, we got two or three new faces. It would have been easy to get more, but we didn’t want to risk the chips being traced back to one place. So we stayed patient, taking our time. Not that it took long. In two months, we had twenty chips, ready to sell.

  The only problem was women. In the twenty chips, we only had one female face, and the woman was in her late sixties. We needed a bigger range before we put our chips on the market.

  One week we got lucky. A group of women came into the café together, young wives of miners on their way back down after visiting their husbands at a mine past the station. Amira asked: they’d been travelling together for a month. We printed all three of their faces. They could have been stolen anywhere.

  I posted an ad on a dark market and waited.

  By the next morning we had four messages. One seemed dodgy, a cop maybe, fishing, and one stunk like a competitor, asking for technical details, too many details, but there were two solid leads. I picked the best one, a couple in a camp who were looking to get out. We told Hank we needed a few days off and we packed our bags.

  Going back to Earth felt strange. Seeing that little blue dot, packed with more life and death and danger than any movie, made me squeeze Amira’s hand without thinking. She looked at me, read my expression, and reached into her bag. I popped the pill, reclined my seat and zoned out.

  When we landed, the slight change in gravity from the artificial fields pumped by the diner and the station to the real thing on Earth, which was somehow more pressing and gentler at the same time, disagreed with the warm mush I’d eaten on the flight. I found a bathroom, vomited, and we left the airport, catching a cab to our hotel.

  The meeting was set for the next morning. Amira wanted to see the city and I didn’t, so I stayed in the room and watched TV while she went out. The shows were all about various kinds of nothing. I changed channels every few minutes, searching, but I couldn’t find anything to watch. It brought back memories of my old apartment, my old life, the customers and the gaps between them that had somehow knitted together to span four years of my life.

  This was a one-time thing, I told myself. A disciplined few days that would set us up with enough money to start fresh somewhere new, far away from the diner, either down here or up on a station somewhere. We wouldn’t make enough to live the high life, but it was a start. A step.

  Sitting there, I wondered if something would go wrong while Amira was out. A random search, a warrant she hadn’t told me about. But she walked through the door a few hours later swinging bags from expensive boutiques.

  Seeing me, she smiled. ‘What?’ she asked.

  We had an early night and left the hotel on time the next morning, hailing an autocab, on track for our midday meeting.

  I was relaxed; we didn’t have the chips. We were going to meet the buyers, get half of the money upfront and make sure they weren’t cops.

  The cab cruised through the city, moving in and out of shadows cast by skyscrapers above us. Between buildings, I saw a tall concrete wall in the distance. I hadn’t seen the new sea walls in person. I’d watched a show about them a few months ago, I understood how solid and thick they were, but knowing that the ocean pressed a third of the way up the other side of the barrier, and was rising slowly but surely every month, I felt truly uneasy for the first time since we’d landed.

  Up ahead, I saw a cyclone fence and guards with guns, and realised that the meeting was inside a containment zone. Poorer people in low-lying areas had been fenced in and forced to live next to the wall, the rising sea on the other side, the ground sinking beneath them, while the well-heeled had left for higher ground much earlier, or bribed their way out, if they’d stupidly tried to stay.

  We passed through the checkpoint fine. We were both residents of the station, sponsored by Hank at the diner, so they waved us through with a quick scan from cameras on either side of the guarded lane.

  Inside the fence, the streetscape and mood changed instantly. Lines of people queued along the sidewalks, all the way to the guard posts. Families, couples, single people, all carrying bags, hoping they would be allowed to leave. They looked at the cab’s tinted windows as we passed by, but saw only their reflections looking back at them. They might have looked hopeless to someone else. To me, they looked like an opportunity. Every one of them wanted to get out. New faces would do it. They’d be willing to pay everything they had. I looked over at Amira. She smiled back at me.

  ‘We could do well here,’ she said softly.

  I nodded. ‘Very.’ I rested my hand on her thigh.

  The meeting was in a tall apartment building. It was ugly, near the wall, built in the past few years, obviously as quickly as it could be thrown up. Everyone in it was stuck, a walking dollar sign. There were more buildings like it than I could count.

  The apartment was easy to find. Ninth floor—909.

  I knocked and a woman in her thirties opened the door. She gestured for us to come in, trying to hide her nerves.

  The apartment was tiny. In the lounge room, a man with a short beard sat in a chair, arranging a tea pot and mugs on the coffee table.

  ‘Hi,’ he said awkwardly. He stood up, shook my hand with a grip firm enough that I could tell he was trying. Amira shook his hand and we sat down.

  ‘This is a nice place,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ the woman said, ashamed that Amira’s white lie had brought attention to their little apartment. On the wall, three degrees were framed, arranged in a vertical line. They all featured a woman’s name. Masters in Environmental Science, one read.

  ‘It’s shit,’ the man said. ‘We used to have a proper house by the beach.’ He picked up a mug. ‘It’s almost completely underwater now. Bel tried to warn them for years.’

  The woman tried to smile. ‘Can I see them?’ she asked.

  I shook my head. ‘Money first. Half now and half when you get them.’

  She nodded, slightly thrown, and went to a side table where she took a small plastic scanner from a drawer. She brought it over and held it between our wrists. After a second it beeped harshly. She looked at the display, apologised, and tried it again, pressing it between our wrists with a shaking hand. The box let out another low beep.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking at me with wide eyes. ‘The banks are chaos here. I’ll fix it. Please wait.’

  I stood up. ‘We’ll be back at five o’clock. If you don’t have the money, we’re selling to the next person.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Of course. We’ll have it. I’m sorry.’ She was pale with nerves. Blinking, she rested her hand on her stomach. It was the first time I noticed that she was pregnant.

  ‘It’s in the account,’ the man said. ‘I don’t know why it’s not working. We’ll go to the bank and sort it out. It’ll work when you come back.’ He offered his hand. I shook it and we walked out in silence.

  In the elevator on the way down, Amira squeezed my arm. ‘You were amazing.’ She paused. ‘There’s a lot of money for us here, isn’t there?’

  I looked straight ahead. ‘Millions,’ I said.

  4

  We went back to our hotel, ordered room service, and I had a deep nap before my alarm beeped and it was time to go back to the customers’ apartment. I checked the chips were still in the locked box under the hotel bed, and we were away.

  The sidewalks overflowed with people as our cab cruised through the city. Workers flooded out of the offices that were still operating, while students of all ages carried backpacks out of private colleges that had filled many of the abandoned office spaces.

  At the containment fence, our cab waited longer than we had earlier in the day. Through the chain-link fence I could see guards struggling to keep people off the road, all yelling and begging to be let out, surging forward in waves.

  Finally, our cab passed through the checkpoint, cruising slowly, and we left the bulk of the crowd behind us. Between buildings, I glimpsed the sea wall, tall and straight,
reflecting the late afternoon sun with an intensity that made me squint and look away. Ahead on the road, a police truck sped the other way, towards the crowd at the gates, with a bright blue water cannon raising from the truck’s roof as it flashed past us.

  I looked at Amira. People inside the fence were desperate. They would pay huge prices for new faces, whatever it took for the chance to escape. Our future was looking bright. The only thing I regretted was the price I’d offered the couple we were going to see.

  At their building, we rode the elevator in silence, rising through identical floors with our eyes straight ahead, our faces staring back at us in the mirrored doors.

  When we got to their apartment I knocked quickly. The sooner we were out of there, the sooner I could cancel our next meetings, take down the ads and put up new ones, targeting people in containment zones, with prices raised to match their desperation.

  As we stood at the door, Amira flashed me a smile. She could sense the same opportunity I saw, the piles of money to be made, the scale of the demand in every coastal community across the country. Standing there, I had a thought that made me grin. If a face didn’t work, what could a buyer do? They could hardly leave the fenced zone and come to find us. Straightening my mouth, I knocked again.

  After a few seconds I looked at Amira.

  ‘Maybe they’re still at the bank,’ she said. ‘Everything seems almost lawless here.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s after five. The banks are closed.’ I was suddenly annoyed, feeling angry at the couple. ‘We’ll wait fifteen minutes. We can make a lot more on this deal with a new ad, anyway.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Fifteen minutes.’

  The time passed slowly. We sat in the hallway. Somewhere below us, children laughed in the distance. The smell of cooking wafted into the corridor from an unknown apartment. Finally, the elevator stopped on our floor. The doors opened.

  An elderly woman pushed a vinyl shopping trolley out into the hallway.

  I clicked my tongue. ‘Alright,’ I said, standing up. ‘Hold the elevator.’

  Back at street level, Amira rubbed my back while we waited for a cab. ‘It’ll be fine. Like you said, we’ll make more money with a new ad.’

  I nodded. ‘I’m fine. It’s not the first time that customers haven’t shown up. I just want to get out of here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Amira said. ‘Me too.’

  The cab cruised through the streets, the sea wall rising high above us on one side, making me feel jumpy, until we turned onto another road and left the wall behind.

  The crowd near the gates had thinned—there were short, orderly lines waiting now. As we drove closer, I saw water dripping from the people’s clothes and hair. Their eyes stayed locked grimly ahead as we cruised past.

  At the checkpoint we rolled down our windows and looked at the cameras on the mirrored poles. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and write the new ads, raising our prices, meeting demand. If the couple who hadn’t been home contacted me again, I would ignore their message. I lived by the saying, if someone shows you who they are, believe them.

  The pole beeped and I sat back, stretching my neck, waiting for the cab to cruise ahead and leave the depressing containment zone behind. I would order a steak from room service, I decided, a real one, grown from authentic cow cells. I didn’t care how much it cost. It would be a treat to make up for the wasted day, and a taste of the fat pockets ahead.

  A guard came over and looked at the back of the pole. I nodded, raising my window with my finger on the button. I saw him check the display panel, straighten, and knock on the cab window.

  I lowered the window, smiling. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Can I—’

  ‘You left this zone half an hour ago,’ the guard said. He swung the screen around and showed us footage of a man and woman walking out of the gates. The man was carrying a big bag on his shoulder, while the woman rested her hand on her stomach. They had our faces—they were wearing our faces. ‘You’ll have to step out of the car, sir. I have reason to believe that you—’

  I smashed the door into the guard’s chest and sprung out of the cab, ducking behind it, sprinting into the crowd as quickly as I could. I saw Amira in the corner of my vision, right beside me.

  ‘Down here,’ I said, veering into a side street, with my heart in my throat.

  We ran through a maze of narrow laneways, blindly, as far from the fence and the guards as we could manage. Finally, we stopped, hunched over in the falling light, fighting to catch our breath, trying to make sense of what had happened, how we’d been played. The couple had needed faces from outside the zone. With a camera somewhere in their apartment, they hadn’t even needed to pay for ours.

  I stood up, resting my back against a wall, and looked up, grimacing. I was leaning against the high sea wall. Through my panting breath, the adrenaline, the fear, my racing heartbeats, I could feel a slow rocking motion through the thick concrete barrier. It was the sea outside, cold, foreign, ebbing and flowing gently against the wall, but rising, waiting to get in.

  The Author: Keith Oakden-Rayner

  Keith Oakden-Rayner is a writer from Melbourne with an equal interest in the past and the future. His work has appeared in Spook Magazine, Cookbook North/South, Non-Precious, and online. He is currently working on a science-fiction novel, started during a writing residency in regional Italy.

  Story Behind the Story

  For most people, perception relies largely on sight, but our ability to trust what we see is evaporating. Deepfakes and AI promise deception at levels that were previously unimaginable. Transhuman technologies will transcend our physical limitations.

  I wanted to write a story about untethered identities in the real world, the freedoms that true anonymity could lead to, and the shadow industries that it would create. I also wanted nature to feature prominently in the story, acting as a reminder that no matter how advanced we think we have become, we’re still primates on a pale blue dot.

  The Artist: Will Colenso

  Will Colenso is an Australian architect and illustrator living in Los Angeles. He loves to imagine surreal parallel worlds and share them with people through his unique stories. Website: www.willcolenso.com Instagram: @willcolenso.

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  Mary, Mary

  Fiona Bell

  You are paid, though it is a pittance. You are fed, though you prepare the food. You are sheltered, though they provide the roof. You’re needed, but not wanted. Mary is the name you go by. And her, the other girl, that is her name too.

  Mary is the name that summons you to clean up vomit or tend to a crying baby. You don’t care for your name but then again you don’t care for much when you’re a Mary; at least you’re not supposed to. The real woman of the house, and the man, they care about things like entertaining on a Friday night and enjoying holidays in the finest powder snow and having the child out of the way. Marys are there to help with this.

  Friday night comes and, once again, guests are arriving. You are sure to get the child to bed early so you have time to prepare the food: sweet duck legs with plums. The other Mary is off shift. She’s in the bedroom you share and probably touching your possessions. You suspect she does this a lot when you are not looking. She will be asked to tend the child if you are otherwise occupied with the food. She will do this without question, malice or complaint. To the man and the woman, you and the other Mary are one; essentially, you are the same person—genetically identical—except now you worry there is something terribly wrong with your mind, a perverse imperfection.

  The woman loves to entertain, and the man, he mostly goes along with it. You watch him glance at the pretty women who come to their table to suck duck bones and drink wine from Italy. He shows no particular interest in them, observing them with casual indifference. You have obsessed over these interactions because you believe you’ve heard something special in his voice when he talks to you.

  It started a month ago, mid-summer, when you were swimming in the pool—th
e man, the child and you. You smiled and laughed and passed the girl between you, a happy parcel. The woman was at work. Being an obstetrician and skilled at plucking babies from women’s uteruses at the most convenient time, she is always busy. You were once plucked thus, but never knew the woman who gestated you. The owner of the womb, the vessel, was not your real mother anyway.

  In the pool with the child, you felt something beyond the simulated maternal concern for her, which is intended to be just enough for you to be protective, so you can make the appropriate sounds to soothe away a pain or have the forethought to prevent her from running in front of a moving car. But what you feel is more. When baby Faith follows you out to the clothesline and plays with the pegs, then drags you around the yard by your index finger, you can’t help wishing she is yours, not the woman’s.

  That day in the pool, the three of you stayed in until your skin was aged puckered and rubbery by the water, and until the baby grew fractious. You soothed her and the man had smiled and said, ‘She likes you.’ It was then you’d heard the softness in his words. New, exciting feelings were born in you that day. You got out of the pool and looked back at the sparkling water. You’d never noticed the way it moved before, the way it undulated with the memory of your limbs.

  Since then, you are burning to know if the other Mary has the man’s attention too, or if it is only you who possesses this specialness. It is subversive and exciting to have such thoughts. You believe the way he spoke was just for you; when he said, ‘She likes you’ you are sure he meant something more.

  You have read about soft words in a book, though Marys don’t usually read for pleasure—another sign of your perversion. ‘Give me a word, John. A soft word,’ the girl says to the man in the pages. You’ve listened for the softness in his words ever since and sometimes with a thrilling flutter, you think you hear it.