The Proving (8 page)

And then there were the rest. Dozens and dozens of buildings, each one defined by a certain unique beauty. Neo Berlin building codes dictated that every ten levels, an entire level must utilize vertical farming techniques. How each building’s architects chose to do this was their decision. For some, it meant developing a veritable cornucopia of genetically engineered fruits and vegetables and angled mirrors to catch sunlight. For others, it meant wide, extended levels filled with exotic trees. For one building on the eastern side of the city, the developers had skirted the law entirely by allowing the entire building to be overtaken with a genetically modified plum vine. The ripened fruit hung from the vines; people opened their windows and grabbed what they needed. Clan Athens made sure each engineered plum contained a finely tuned assortment of nutrients.

Cleo loved those plums, and had no problem climbing the vines to get at them.

“I thought you said we were late,” Reza said with a snotty sneer.

“You should take it in while you can,” Cleo told him with a wry smile. “This may just be the last time you see this place.”

“Shut up!”

“Go.” She gave him a shove to the door. It whooshed open, thankfully without any annoying sea sounds to accompany it. Cool, clean air greeted them outside. Cleo’s Ecosuit filtered the cool and kept her body warm. Crud, she thought; it was just the kind of day when Cleo found herself wishing she could feel it. She loved the days that were just cool enough to warrant a sleeved shirt. If she was just wearing a simple sweatshirt and thin polyfiber pants, she’d be able to feel that chill air slipping across her entire body, reminding her that all she needed to do was add another layer to maximize warmth. She liked that feeling that came with solving problems.

Someday, she would work in an office with an open window.

A green autotaxi was coming down the street, right behind a compact three-wheeler, its two narrow front wheels turning ever so slightly to guide it into the center lane of traffic. The nearby driverless cars shifted simultaneously to make room for the autotaxi as it pulled to the curb.

“In, in, in,” Cleo said, tapping Reza on the butt.

“Boy, you’re bossy today!” he muttered.

They got inside, stretching out their legs. The driverless cab waited, its little screen just above the radio panel announcing that its name was GreenCab. Obviously, Cleo thought. Seriously, couldn’t they put a little personality into their CPU’s? Even with the strict anti-AI laws, there was still some room for innovation. Clever algorithms that
felt
like AI, for instance.

“GreenCab, take us to Parliament building,” Cleo said. She watched as her words appeared on the screen. It changed to a map, pinpointing the Parliament building downtown. A red band of text appeared, asking for 3.3 credits.

“I don’t know why you want me with you anyway,” Reza said. He dug his finger into his curly black hair, scratching furiously. “I’m just gonna slow everyone down.”

“You’re . . . ugh!” Cleo found her credits card in the spare metal compartment on her belt and flashed it in front of the white scanning strip on the door. The cab lurched forward, pulling into traffic. “You’re not going to slow us down,” she said, leaning back and letting her muscles relax. So they’d be a little late. Big deal. If anyone was mad, let them go tell off her parents.

And hey, maybe she’d have woken up on time if the city hadn’t kept her awake half the night with their stupid Carnivale celebrations. Really! Did it have to be every year? Every single year? Couldn’t they take a few years off? Then it would be exciting again. And fun. Cleo could remember a couple times out with her parents — before that stupid virtual game sucked them in — when they saw kick-ass fireworks and wild costumes and crazy Specter-shaped balloons floating through the city. That was great . . . but it got old.

“We’re coming back, right?” Reza said. “I’m not scared or anything so don’t say something stupid like that. I’m just worried about my program.”

“You mean your game.”

“So what? Just cause it’s a game doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

“It’s
not
important. You’re supposed to be studying combat tactics. Schoolmaster wants you designing programs for Clan Sparta’s combat division. That’s a big opportunity, bro-bro. Don’t poop it away.”

Reza snickered. The taxi picked up speed, taking the ramp onto the multi-level expressway that snaked its way around the city. The moment the taxi was in its lane, the mag-lev system kicked in, pushing the entire vehicle off the ground. At the first fork, the taxi slowed. Somewhere in its electronic guts, it sent a ping to the mag-lev system, very politely requesting a track change. The mag-lev system obliged, guiding the taxi into the left lane.

Cleo put an arm around her brother. “We’ll be fine. I had a little peek at our mission.”

“What? How?”

Cleo shrugged. “Just a little sneaking around a few unofficial comm channels. All we gotta do is go check out an emergency supply depot. It’s probably an old door locking mechanism. Those things never work right.”

“Still, it’s a little scary, being out past the Xenoshield.”

“Oh pu-leaze! You and the other kids probably can just sit in the vehicle while we New Adults go out and do whatever we have to do. Then we head back and celebrate and eat cake and drink the blood of our ancestors, or fruit juice if that’s not available.” She looked at him and smiled.

“What if I’m a little nervous?”

Cleo shrugged, looking out the window to watch the city pass. “That depends on who you are, I guess. If you’re from Clan Sparta, they’d say you’re weak. If you’re from Clan Athens, they’d say something nerdy like that’s just a natural reflex to help you cope. But if you’re from Clan Persia . . .”

“Yeah?”

She’d lost her thought. She was staring out at the southwestern park, visible between the skyscrapers — Dalla Sanjay Memorial Park. Tall apple trees and banana trees (engineered in Clan Athens labs) lined the paths. There was a Disc Toss course on one end, a large pond lined with reeds on the far end, and a whole lot of families out enjoying the sun. Kids romping on grass-stained legs and running between the trees while their parents gathered nutrient-rich apples for lunch.

It was all fun and games until some creepy bug showed up to ruin everything. Cleo could remember being at that park just once. She’d been ten and Reza had been five, wearing Cleo’s old shorts and tripping over them. Cleo remembered hiding behind an apple tree, gripping the rough bark while she waited for little Reza to find her. She felt a tickle on the back of her hand.

Then she looked down and saw the spider.

“Someday, we won’t even need trees and plants,” Cleo said. “And
then
we won’t need spiders. Clan Athens is totally gonna pull it off. Won’t that be something? Won’t it be just totally awesome to get
all
of our food from a printer?”

“No. What the heck are you talking about with spiders?”

She turned to him and smiled. “Totally agree, bro-bro. I was being sarcastic. Kind of. Well, except for the whole spiders thing. You have to learn to pick up on that or kids are going to bust you up when you get to secondary school.”

“Who cares? I don’t need other kids.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve got your game so what else do you need, right?” Cleo shook her head. She had to fight the urge to shake her little brother and tell him the truth: it gets lonely. Sitting alone in a dark room writing code gets so lonely, and you start talking to yourself, and you start to change, and then you convince yourself that you don’t need other people, and then you get jealous that other people in class are becoming friends. And then you’re left hanging with the students who have been labeled “weirdos.” And they’re not weird, necessarily, but they sure as heck aren’t the most fun to eat lunch with.

Pretty soon, you’re sitting in your room rebuilding an old bot mainframe while the rest of the city celebrates Carnivale. And the scariest part? You kind of
like
it.

The car exited the freeway, entering the commercial district. Even with the morning sun the flashing lights and massive video ads seemed incredibly bright, casting blue and red and yellow glows over the mag-rail expressway, reflecting even more brightly off the silver guidance coils. Flashing text promised the benefits of health drinks, beautiful women modeled expensive clothing with overlong sleeves (sooo last year), and Athenian food companies touted the latest synthetic meats.

“Maybe getting a little dangerous, fresh, country air will be nice,” Cleo said.

“What are you, some kind of doo-doo brain?” Reza asked, eyes wide. As if it was a serious, non-hypothetical question. “There’s fresh air everywhere! It’s all fresh air. We’re going to be without our computers for hours. Hours!”

Cleo smiled and held up her VRacelet. “You might not have a computer, but I do.”

His wide brown eyes followed her wrist as she waved it side to side. “Did you hack it?”

“Of course, bro-bro.”

“Did you put any games on it? Tree Fight or Frantic Ferrets or Wild Aces?”

“Maybe. I guess you’ll just have to be good to find out.” She reached into one of the small supply packs on her belt, pulling out a stick of Ultra-Fresh gum.

“Hey! What gives? Do I have gum, too?”

“Check your belt,” she said absently, watching the commercial district give way to smaller residential buildings. The
nice
downtown neighborhood, filled with important people and happy families who ate supper together every night.

He reached in the same pack on his belt, pulling out a ration snack. He sniffed the package. “This smells like poop.”

Cleo snickered. “Stinks to be you . . . literally!”

The car pulled over in front of the Parliament building. They stepped outside, onto the pale sidewalk that led up a small hill. The building was broad and squat, dwarfed by a dozen much taller residential towers that kept a respectful distance. The building had a very modern feel to it, shaped like four rolling waves made of tinted glass. Each wave folded over into the other, as if a breeze was scraping across the surface of an ocean. Cleo neither liked it nor hated it; she was more interested in whether she could (with a running start) run right up the sloping glass and maybe pretend she was surfing before any Spartan security could stop her. Bright green grass surrounded the building, and people — free citizens, not clan members — milled about, no doubt either talking about laws or complaining about their “volunteer” service in Parliament’s chamber of commons.

“Yeah,” Cleo said, “these people got it tough, don’t they bro-bro?”

Reza just shrugged. He was watching a woman sitting on one of the benches along the main walk. She was busily tapping away at a computer pad on her lap. Was her brother looking at the woman or the computer? She wondered.

“Let’s go.” She grabbed his hand. Together, they walked in through the front doors of the structure, behind a handful of school kids and their teacher who were there for a tour. Parliament was an open space, sprawling, confusing, and way too full of people for Cleo’s tastes. But they weren’t going to sit in on a Parliamentary debate. No, they had special privileges today. Two Spartan security guards escorted them through the security sensors and to a pair of side elevators with shiny brass doors. One of the guards flashed his security card across the reader panel. The touchscreen above the panel read PLEASE WAIT.

The Spartans were giving her a weird look. She casually checked the touchscreen of her VRacelet, sending a “wake up” message to her contact lenses. Two targeting reticules appeared on the Spartan guards. Their identifications appeared beside them. Cleo tapped on the human face icon on the VRacelet screen, opening up her facial recognition program. The nano diodes inside the contacts took in the reflection on Cleo’s eyes and highlighted the faces of the Spartans, reading their expressions to identify the most likely match. In this case:
smug bemusement
.

The elevator doors parted.

“Good luck, Persians,” said the tall one.

Cleo forced a smile. “Thank you so much. Enjoy your day.” Once the doors closed, she added: “You big, ugly cretin.”

“He seemed nice,” Reza said.

“He was being condescending,” Cleo snapped. “He thinks we’re a bunch of weaklings.”

“Who?”

“Clan Persia. The Spartans loooooove being the big, tough guys. Or girls. Whatever.”

Reza sighed. Cleo’s facial recognition program scanned his face, registering
profound bewilderment.
“Why can’t we just sit in our rooms and program what we want? Why can’t I just make my video game? Why do we even need a clan at all?”

“Because it’s tradition,” Cleo said. “Because a long, long time ago people got together in groups and started worrying about other groups. Go ask a Historian. And the reason you can’t sit around designing your video game is because your class was assigned to the Spartan combat protocols. Better start getting used to it, buster. When you graduate, you’ll go work in a little cubicle and take orders for a living. Can’t you have fun making video games for the Spartans?”

“I like making video games with wizards and trolls.”

The doors opened before Reza could complain any more. Cleo put a hand on his back, then gave him a strong push. He resisted. She pushed hard. “Just go already!” she hissed. The doors shut behind them. “No going back, bro-bro. Only forward.”

“Shoot,” Reza said. “I was hoping they’d already left.”

Everyone was standing on the other end of the small subway station, waiting for them. Two from Clan Sparta. Two from Clan Athens. Two from Parliament. And the Historian.

No going back, Cleo thought. She held up her VRacelet and opened up her super-secret program marked with an X icon. She pressed it. The illegal computing chip inside her brain clicked on. She felt an exciting surge of electricity course through her brain. This was it. The Proving. The last test before official adulthood.

No going back.

In the beginning, there was war. Then peace. Then chaos. Then balance. Then chaos. That was always how the Historians started any grand narrative. Life is circular, cyclical. And humanity never learns.