Ghost of the Gods - 02 (6 page)

A few miles closer to Chicago, the chaos was slowly transformed into madness. Mile after mile of a simmering cauldron of farmer’s markets, pawnshops, blue light districts, and gun shows lined both sides of the road. Every storefront, building, and lot along the road had been claimed and put into service for this endless carnival. The Humvee’s radio was tuned to AM 950, the current spot on the dial for a pirate radio station named Air Truth. Today was the Eve of Darkness and Air Truth was rehashing some of the more interesting conspiracy theories for the origin of the nanotech plague. None of the theories were right. Sarah was sorely tempted to call into the station and short circuit their minds with the truth. It was a pity she could not do anything that bold right now. She and Mark were fugitives trying to hide in plain sight. Their faces and fingerprints were secretly on file with every private sector and governmental law enforcer in the country. They were supposedly wanted for conspiring and aiding in the release of the plague. The incredible audacity of that lie was almost invisible when compared to the vast fabric of lies that supported this insane new world.

After miles of traffic congestion, they had finally reached and were driving past one of three fortified entrances to Chicago called an entry portal. Sarah removed her sunglasses and stared. The wall of roto-gates had long lines of people queued up to enter, as if Chicago had become some kind of dystopian Disneyland. Private vehicle were not allowed inside the city. You had to walk in under your own power and bring only what you could carry. Once inside, you’d likely never want to leave except for travel between protectorates on nonstop trains or aircraft. To the right of the portal was an Amtrak station that had service between protectorates as well as Outland cross country routes. To the left of the roto-gates was a windowless building that looked like a prison with a sign that read
Entry Visas
. Heavily armed soldiers with dogs patrolled everywhere. Several Peacekeeper Strykers were parked nearby. No one paid Sarah and Mark any attention as they inched past. Beyond the gates was an electrified fence and a quarter mile of ground that had been bulldozed flat. This killing field was the main barrier that separated the chaos of the Outlands from the order of the protectorate. Sarah knew that desolate tract of nothing was guarded day and night by armed military Argus surveillance drones, which flew too high to be seen or heard until one of their missiles found its prey. She had a disturbing premonition staring at that skyline. Chicago was thriving and rising out of a burial ground for desperate people out of hope.

“A year ago I wouldn’t have believed anyone who told me our government had created a monster like that,” said Mark.

“One big happy police state,” said Sarah. “Looks all too familiar to me. This is just a bigger version of the Virginia quarantine line I patrolled. Same barbed wire. Same trickle down corruption. Same shantytown on the wrong side of the line.”

“It’s hard to imagine you as a cop,” said Mark.

“You’d have liked the uniform.”

Sarah absentmindedly pulled her Morristown badge and police ID from her ankle length coat. The leather folio was new and unblemished. She’d thrown away her Virginia badge along with all the terrible memories. She ran her fingers over the polished metal of her Morristown badge. It was a talisman of a lost world.

They had driven far enough past the entry portal that the shantytown carnival was drying up into abandoned buildings and lots. They were almost to the roadhouse where they were meeting a dealer in forged documents named Ike. The first step of their plan was to enter the protectorate using the forged electronic identity kits Ike was selling them. Last year, the days surrounding the Eve of Darkness were some of the highest traffic days for protectorates around the country. This year looked like a repeat. The heavy foot traffic would make it safer for Mark and Sarah going through entry portal security. Hours from now they would finally be close enough to the singularity to touch it.

Sarah felt a nervousness gnawing inside her gut. She looked over at Mark and was bathed in uncensored emotions radiating over the n-web from him. He glanced at her, then returned to driving. She knew this was a man who could never give up. Something small, yet critical, had changed inside both of them months ago when they’d first sensed those weak currents in the n-web that had been the birth pangs of the singularity. It was as if a program deep within their nanotech brains had been triggered by those currents. Was it a digital virus, the will of the god-machine, or something organic? Whatever the mechanics, that pinprick was the beginning of a growing primitive impulse that now urged them onward. The attraction to the singularity was irresistible, not that different from the primal desire for food or sex. Sarah believed it was the same as the migratory instincts herd animals experienced. Her first taste of the singularity’s pull had carried with it a sinister feeling of déjà vu. The pull was like the same intuitive urges she’d followed two years prior when fleeing the New Jersey plague toward greater safety in the south. It deeply worried her that the same kinds of instincts and intuitions from the time of the plague were back at work. Was something terrible on the horizon? She refused to give voice to her fears that kill-zones could again descend on a badly wounded human race.

An Apache gunship blew by fast and low. The military patrols followed the road and came in thirty-minute intervals. The sight of that war machine caused Sarah’s stomach to knot up. She hated those things. As the sound of the gunship receded, the roadhouse they were looking for came into view on the left. A Vegas-like neon sign that was partially broken proclaimed the name:
Sammy’s
.

“Looks
rowdy and packed
,” said Mark. “This was supposed to be a discreet meeting.”

“If I was still a cop,” said Sarah, “I’d figure everyone in there was guilty of something. That neon sign might as well read
We serve the best crime in town
.”

Mark pulled into a lot half full of cars and trucks. A tattered
for sale
sign hung from a wooden post. Sarah doubted there would be any takers. Most of the world was one vast stretch of real estate, available for free. Mark parked the Humvee with front tires inches from the street’s curb. Sarah knew this was for a quick escape if the need arose. Their second Humvee, filled with most of their equipment, weapons, and supplies was safely stashed in an abandoned barn twenty miles south of the city.

Sarah climbed out of the Humvee and left the front of her long coat open. Mark checked the door locks, then armed the military anti-tamper system. Ralph remained inside as an additional visible discouragement to thieves. Sarah smiled. Right now Ralph was more interested in the bowl of food she’d laid out for him then defending their ride.

They started walking toward the bar. The dive looked like it had been heavily damaged and not so well repaired. Gravel crunched under their boots. She could hear loud county music and shouting. This part of town was a compost heap but still far better than what existed just a few miles farther away from Chicago in the real Outlands. Beyond Chicago’s military cordon, the territory was more dangerous than any wild west that had existed long ago. The highwaymen of old had returned, only now they were armed with modern weapons and the ability to ply their trade with little harassment from the law. The county had become a huge, unending ghost town with pockets of civilization scattered about like islands in a shark infested sea. The protectorates like Chicago offered shelter and order to a victimized population. But Sarah knew for all its safety, Chicago was as oppressive as it was secure. Far too much freedom was traded away every day by people seeking asylum behind the military’s protective shield. She shook her head. Mark always said it. Things had changed but nothing was different. The quarantine lines had been replaced with protectorates and the nanotech plague had been replaced with violent crime. Just as before, fear was still the preferred coin of the realm. Sarah watched as someone unable to walk straight exited the bar and got in their car.

“Ready?” asked Mark.

“Let’s get this over with,” said Sarah.

Her empathic senses were already wide open to the sloppy, uncensored emotions radiating from the people inside. She knew that similar to her, Mark was picking up what was leaking from people’s subconscious onto the n-web, only in Mark’s case it was stray thoughts that he perceived, not emotions. Together they complemented each other’s talents and abilities.

The industrial steel door had a
no weapons allowed
sign. The large red circle with a pistol and a diagonal line through it looked almost quaint. Sarah didn’t need her police training to know that everyone inside ignored that rule. As Mark pushed open the door she was hit with a sonic barrage that felt like a solid gust of wind. The air was thick with stale beer, sweat, and smoke. She sunk her hands into her coat’s oversized pockets as if she were cold. Her fingers instinctively curled around her Beretta inside the right hand pocket. A second Beretta was in a shoulder holster. She was wearing thin Kevlar upper body armor, as was Mark. Sarah scanned the room slowly, carefully noting anyone exhibiting dangerous emotions or body language. She logged person after person in the bar along with threat ratings. Some faces turned to look at the strangers who had just entered their territory. Sarah’s hybrid body was strong. Her muscles were constantly being tuned and perfected by the nanotech seeds. She could strike with surprising speed and strength. Mark was much stronger than her but there was no amount of raw strength or speed that could win against a bullet.

“I don’t see Ike or his buddy,” said Mark.

“I’m picking up dangerous emotions from this crowd,” said Sarah. “A lot of paranoia and drunken borderline violence.”

“Their subconscious thoughts are even worse,” said Mark. “Let’s take that booth with a view of the door. Ike’s late. I don’t like it.”

They sat next to each other in a booth and ordered what passed for beer in the Outlands
.
They paid in advance with paper money at twenty cents on the dollar. Gold and silver coins brought a premium, while paper money usually exchanged for about half of face value. Sammy’s was proving to be a true den of bottom feeders at 20 percent of face value. The beer arrived and the small amount of unwanted curiosity from regulars soon faded as more people came and went. There was nothing to do but wait. They needed what Ike had to sell. Ike was very loose lipped and very high priced. He was eighty-three years old, had seen it all, and had to tell everyone all about it.

Mark checked his Droid for messages from Ike. He turned the phone so Sarah could see there was nothing. They both used phones with prepaid ID cards, which allowed them to change numbers at will and go completely dark by removing the card. The result was an untraceable phone if used discreetly. Between them they had an entire collection of the tiny postage stamp-sized ID cards. The trick was knowing which numbers could be used and when to stop using them. Cell phones had become a free public service. Since a vast number of plague victims had active cell numbers that had gone fallow, the black market was overflowing with phone number kits, which consisted of a forged ID card and account information.

While Sarah was staring at the door waiting for Ike, a group of military police dressed in black fatigues and combat gear walked in. Sarah recognized them as Enforcers. She felt the emotions of hunters seeking prey radiating off them like pheromones. She knew her anxiety was in sync with Mark’s. Her hand slid into a coat pocket and again found comfort in the feel of her fingers around the grip of her Beretta. Enforcers were the paramilitary police force that operated inside protectorates. What were they doing here outside their jurisdiction?

As the Enforcers walked past, one of them stared down at her and smiled. The emotions seeping from him changed from violence to lust. Sarah did not smile back into his eyes or the miniature video camera mounted on his helmet. The group sat down at the bar. M16s were slung over their backs, and the helmets came off. Two of them turned around to briefly glance at her. Sarah leaned into Mark and lifted his arm around her shoulder. She wanted to give them no encouragement. Soon the soldiers grew more interested in their beer, burgers, and nachos. Sarah’s fingers slid off her Beretta. The only emotions she perceived from them now were satiated hunger and dominance.

With the perfect recall of a nanotech brain, information about Enforcers poured into Sarah’s thoughts. Like Peacekeepers, Enforcers were a mixed outfit: soldiers from the United States armed forces and private sector mercenaries from the biggest defense corporations. Mercenaries were the officers and elite core, soldiers were the grunts. Inside a protectorate any violation of the law was immediately punishable by imprisonment in for profit work camps. There were no courts or juries of your peers. Arrest by an Enforcer was absolute. Inside protectorates, the checks and balances of a court system had been replaced with a private sector solution that used recorded unimpeachable electronic surveillance of both Enforces and citizens alike.

All six city protectorates across the country operated under the same rules of new
order. Every USAG citizen in good health without a criminal record was entitled to live inside a protectorate. Entry status was granted after positive identification by fingerprint, a blood test for illness, and an instant background check. Everyone in a protectorate wore a tamper proof, hard plastic bracelet with a passive RFID tag encoded with their national identity number. The passive RFID, or radio frequency identification, tag had been developed years ago to replace barcodes. Before the plague, these microchips had been adapted for use in passports. The RFID tag required no power and was able to communicate up to hundreds of feet from a reader. The ensnaring net each reader cast was very wide. To be inside a protectorate without an RFID bracelet was a violation of the law. To remove a bracelet caused the chip to self-destruct. This too was against the law. Every building entrance, train station turnstile, tollbooth, bus, and dock was fitted with RFID readers. It was impossible to go anywhere inside a protectorate without being scanned repeatedly along the way. Cameras with directional microphones surveyed both interior and exterior public spaces. All city Enforcers wore a tiny video camera attached to their helmets like a third eye. At an altitude that made them invisible, military surveillance drones hovered endlessly watching and recording and waiting. There was no longer even the illusion of privacy outside of the home in a protectorate. All the high tech surveillance tools that had been developed in America for export to oppressive foreign regimes were now in use by the USAG. The rules had changed.

Sarah noticed the RFID bracelets on the Enforcers’ wrists. The soldiers were laughing and pushing each other around a little. She took a sip of her beer and thought about what it would be like once she and Mark were inside the Chicago Protectorate. Unlike in the Outlands
,
in protectorates all business was conducted through RFID accounts. Payment for work performed accumulated as dollars in your e-money account. Payment for goods or services whether online or in a store was completed by scanning an RFID bracelet. These e-money rules made it impractical for most citizens to leave their protectorate except to travel to another protectorate, because their funds were accessible only electronically. RFID was a worthless currency in the Outlands.

Inside protectorates all nonviolent crimes were legalized. Drugs, prostitution, alcohol, and gambling had become legal, controlled, and highly profitable enterprises. Nonmilitary firearms were legal, very expensive because of demand, and could be purchased by anyone with an RFID account without the need for a background check. Violent crime at any scale was punishable, as were all crimes, with an immediate trip to a work camp for an indeterminate length of time. Often within an hour of arrest, the offender was in a camp. There was no distinction in sentencing of crimes. One violation of the law was treated the same as another. Someone guilty of bartering a paint job for a case of baby food could find himself in a work camp for the rest of their life alongside a serial murderer. The length of a sentence was determined by the ongoing need for your labor and not the darkness of your violation. Not surprisingly, the crime rate in Chicago was now far less than it had ever been recorded for the city before or since the plague.