Axis crossing, p.2
Axis Crossing, page 2
“Then I need another chute,” Escher said.
A middle-age worker glanced at the young woman, and he tossed his head down the tunnel.
“This way, sir,” the woman said, beckoning with a hand.
Escher followed her.
“Did you get lost, sir?” the woman asked.
“Something like that,” Escher replied. “We have to hurry,” he added, and the pair started jogging.
At the next chute, Escher said, “Extend your slate to me.”
“Oh, no, sir. That’s not necessary. Happy to help,” the young woman replied. She smiled brightly and hurried away.
The chute side that Escher faced dropped people lower. He walked around the structure to the other side, grabbed the rising chute, and rode it upward. A strong beep on his slate signaled him to exit. Otherwise, a safety mechanism would stop the chute’s movement. Chutes didn’t travel any higher than the main corridor.
Escher glanced carefully up and down the corridor. Unlike the lower levels, this corridor was wide, brightly lit, and cleanly finished, making it easy to spot the security force, if they were still around. Seeing no one, Escher sprinted away from where he’d last encountered the four agents. He found an elevator, signaled it, and waited anxiously for its arrival.
When the car arrived, several individuals exited the elevator. Then Escher got on and triggered the doors closed. It rose smoothly and deposited him on the dome’s surface level.
Early starlight fell across the dome, creating long shadows. The viewplates that comprised the dome’s lattice-like structure, filtered the harmful rays, collected the solar energy, and preserved the interior heat.
Escher made his way toward his parents’ building. Twice, he had to duck out of sight. Armed and augmented security forces were escorting families. It made no sense to him.
As Escher approached the entrance to his family’s domicile, a message appeared on his sleeve slate. It read, “Escher, I’m by the kiosk across the pathway. Come quickly.”
Escher swiveled around, spotted his sister, Allie. She waved to him, and he ran to meet her.
As Allie pulled her brother into the shadows, she asked plaintively, “Escher, what’s going on? I saw them take away Mother and Father.”
“Were they secured in any way?” Escher asked with concern.
“No, but they didn’t look happy,” Allie replied.
“I saw whole families under escort,” Escher said. “I got a good look at the patches on the augmented shoulders. These are X-Ore security.”
“So, is this a takeover or something else?” Allie asked.
“I think something else,” Escher replied. This was the first chance he had time to think, and he struggled to put the pieces together.
“Escher, should we give ourselves up so that we can be with Mother and Father?” Allie asked, tugging on her brother’s arm.
“Give me a minute, Allie,” Escher pleaded.
Allie’s brain was working furiously too. “Where’s our security?” she asked.
“Our security isn’t augmented,” Escher retorted. “They’re glorified administrators. That means they’re probably hiding.”
“Where do you think the families were being taken?” Allie inquired earnestly.
The question crystallized Escher’s thinking. He turned to look directly into his sister’s eyes, while gripping her shoulders. “They were headed for the number one elevator,” he said.
Allie’s eyes teared, and she said unhappily, “That’s the direction that security took our parents, Escher. They’re headed for the shuttleport.”
“Yes,” Escher admitted sadly. “This isn’t a corporate takeover. Raw Metals is being raided,” Escher said, twigging to what had happened.
“Why Mother and Father?” Allie asked plaintively.
Escher considered the families he’d seen. He ignored the sons and daughters and concentrated on the parents and their specialties. Snapping his fingers, he said, “The parents are mineral and exotic metal specialists.”
“What do they want them to do?” Allie asked.
“I don’t know,” Escher said. He regarded his sister, who’d begun to tremble, and he enfolded her in his arms.
Suddenly, Escher felt Allie pull him behind the kiosk, and he readily obeyed. “What is it?” he asked, whispering into his sister’s ear.
“More agents,” Allie whispered in return. “They’re leaving two of a foursome in our building’s lobby, and two are headed this way.”
Escher realized that the two agents coming toward them probably intended to hide behind their kiosk. Frantically gazing around, he spotted an air vent.
Grabbing Allie by the hand, Escher ran to the one-meter-square vent, unlatched the screen, swung it aside, and urged his sister to climb inside. Then he followed her and pulled the screen closed. He couldn’t latch it. So, he used his fingertips to keep the screen snug against its frame.
The micromesh filter didn’t allow Escher to see the agents clearly, but he could hear them. They weren’t speaking, but the subtle whirs of tiny motors and the hisses of hydraulics within the mods gave them away.
When Escher’s fingers began to lose feeling, he silently swapped places with Allie.
It was hours before the agents left, and the brother and sister could safely crawl out.
“I don’t get it,” Allie whispered. “If this was a raid, why are X-Ore agents still here?”
“X-Ore needs top-rated specialists for some important purpose,” Escher reasoned. “The mods are taking entire families because the children will ensure cooperation.”
Allie pulled on Escher’s arm. Searching her brother’s face, she asked, “Do you think Mother and Father would want us with them?”
“If you were them, would you want us to be taken?” Escher replied.
“I knew you’d say that,” Allie said dejectedly.
“You’d rather I lied?” Escher asked.
“Yes ... no,” Allie returned. “So what now?”
“We need a place to hide, while we get some help,” Escher replied.
“From whom?” Allie inquired.
“Don’t know, really,” Escher said, shrugging. “But someone has to be upset about being raided. We can talk to them about getting our parents back.”
Allie would have asked more questions, but Escher had a firm hold of her hand, and he was tugging her along one of the dome’s broad circular pathways.
At an elevator, Escher signaled for a car, and the pair took it down to the main tunnel.
“Stay to the right side of the corridor,” Escher said. “Walk quickly but confidently.”
“Where are we going?” Allie asked in surprise. She’d been living in the upper dome for fifteen years, and she’d never been in the main tunnel that connected the domes of Geneva. That her brother didn’t answer her, frustrated Allie, but circumstances were too unsettled for her to make a point of it.
Exiting the broad tunnel, Escher turned down a warren of ever-tightening corridors. He stopped at a narrow hatch and keyed in an access code. The door slipped aside with a whisper.
“Whose place is this?” asked Allie, when her brother pulled her inside.
“A friend’s,” Escher replied perfunctorily. “We should be safe here for a day or two.”
“Since when do you have a friend among the miners?” Allie asked, her eyes narrowing, as she regarded her brother.
“Are you hungry?” Escher asked.
“Starved,” Allie replied. She watched her brother move around the cramped space, with a deft familiarity, which made her even more curious about Escher’s mysterious friend.
After Allie ate, she yawned, stretched out on the bed, and closed her eyes.
Escher watched his sister fall quickly asleep. He envied her talent to do that. He often lay awake for a half hour or more before he finally fell asleep. His mind wouldn’t turn off because he laid his head on a pillow.
The hours passed, and still Ceda didn’t return. Escher started to worry that hiding in Ceda’s cubicle might have been a mistake.
The whispers of the cubicle’s hatch opening and closing woke Allie. When she saw Ceda, she leapt out of bed and ran to hug the woman, who’d treated her as a younger sister for fifteen years. “I’m so glad to see a friendly face,” she whispered urgently into Ceda’s ear.
“It’s good to see you too,” Ceda replied, smiling at Allie.
Then Allie watched Ceda and her brother embrace. The two held each other fervently, and Allie walked around to stand beside them. “Friends?” she asked dubiously. “I don’t think so. How come I didn’t know about this?” she queried, wagging a finger between the pair.
As Ceda and Escher eased apart, he said, “If it became known, I would prefer the ore load drop on me alone.”
“I could have kept your secret,” Allie protested.
“And when Mother sat you down and asked if you knew?” Escher inquired gently.
Allie chewed her lower lip, which had always been a dead giveaway about her guilt. “Probably not then,” she admitted.
“Are you angry with me?” Ceda asked. Allie’s opinion of her had always mattered, and she’d often wondered whether Allie considered her a true friend or a close clone companion.
Allie wrapped her arms around Ceda’s neck and clung to her. “Never with you,” she said.
After the hug, Allie retreated to the bed, and Escher and Ceda occupied the two padded stools at the cubicle’s tiny table. She saw the intimate manner in which Escher and Ceda entwined hands. In a confused moment, she was happy and concerned for her brother.
Corporate strictures governing clones were lengthy and severely defined. For instance, clones were awarded to senior management and could not be kept if the individuals left the company. The higher the principal in the corporation, the more generous was the corporate personnel department. The Talons had received a beauty in the form of Ceda.
Then there was the severe restriction against the transport of clones. Only security was allowed to move them between worlds. Clones had cids identifying them as corporate assets. Despite being human, they weren’t citizens.
The primary reason for the strict observance of the transport edict was that the manufacture of clones was outlawed on Naiad. If ever a clone made it to Naiad, they would probably be issued a new cid and granted freedom, and corporate accounting hated the idea of deducting an asset from its balance sheets. To date, not a single clone had reached Naiad.
“You can’t stay here,” Ceda said earnestly to Escher, drawing Allie away from her musings.
“Why not?” Allie queried.
“I was with security half the day,” Ceda replied.
“Which security?” Escher asked.
“That’s the weird thing,” Ceda explained. “I’d gone to the apartment. No one was there for breakfast. So, I started cleaning. Then security, Raw Metals personnel, walked into the place. No door signal; no pardon me. They searched the place, and then they told me to accompany them. At security’s office, I was interrogated about the whereabouts of you two. All the time, an X-Ore commander watched me. She was so augmented that she was scary.”
“But you couldn’t tell them anything, could you?” Allie stated her question as if it was a fact.
Escher watched Ceda’s head drop, and he asked, “How did they threaten you?”
“I’ve two days to find you and turn you in to them,” Ceda responded forlornly.
“Turn us in to whom?” Allie asked. She was getting confused by the players.
“The X-Ore commander laid out my choices,” Ceda replied. “The message was clear. When she had you in custody, you’d be taken offworld, and I’d be placed in play.”
Tears filled Ceda’s eyes at the thought of losing her family. She had known it would probably happen one day, but when Escher and she had become lovers, she’d begun to hope.
Escher left his seat. He stood behind Ceda and looped his arms around Ceda’s shoulders to comfort her. “What did the commander offer you?” he asked.
Ceda snuffled. “If I was cooperative, I could be sent to a nice corporate family,” she replied. “If I wasn’t, the commander said she would find unsavory employment for me.”
“What would that be?” Allie asked. She saw her brother shake his head at her.
“There are versions of female clones that are sent to the mines,” Ceda replied, smiling painfully through her tears.
“To do ...” Allie started to say, before the answer caught up with her mouth. “That’s wrong,” she said stridently.
“There are a lot of things wrong with the concept of corporate clones,” Escher said. Then he asked, “With these conglomerates light-years from Naiad, who is out here to tell them what they can and can’t do?”
Allie stared at her brother. Her eyes pleaded with him to offer a solution. She’d always thought of him as the analytical one. When Escher said, “We need a plan,” she brightened.
“Ceda, first tell me about the interview,” Escher requested. Then he listened intently as Ceda reviewed the details of what had been an intense interrogation.
The interview’s description had Allie placing her back against the wall and hugging her knees to her chest. Security wasn’t supposed to act like this. Then again, she was reminded that Ceda wasn’t classified as a citizen. So much of her affluent bubble was being burst today.
What Escher heard from Ceda confirmed his worst fears. Multiple families, escorted by heavily augmented and armed X-Ore security, had been taken to the shuttle dome. They’d be transported offworld. The common theme among the parents was their engineering specialties.
“How do we get help?” Escher mused. He returned to his seat, and his eyes wandered far away.
“Would the miners hide us?” Allie asked quietly.
Ceda crossed to sit beside Allie and placed an arm around her shoulders.
“If you mean the human miners, they wouldn’t want to get involved,” Ceda whispered. “If they were caught, it would void their contracts. They’d be shipped to Naiad without a credit to their names. And if you mean the clones, it’s the same thing. If the mining clones work hard and behave themselves, they can have the semblance of normal lives. Everything is provided for them. They can even have partners, even though they can’t procreate.”
The words struck Allie, and she whispered urgently, “You can’t have children?”
“No,” Ceda replied. “We’re designed that way. It’s too risky for the conglomerates to tempt Naiad forces to journey out here if clone children start dropping planetside on the home world.”
“How come I don’t know things like this?” Allie asked plaintively. She was getting angry at her ignorance of what she considered important facts about their lives.
“You aren’t employed by the company,” Ceda explained.
“You mean Mother and Father knew?” Allie inquired.
“It’s part of a corporate employee’s indoctrination training,” Ceda explained. “It’s imperative that new employees know the dos and the don’ts.”
“We need to see Thorne,” Escher said, breaking out of his reverie.
“I don’t like him,” Allie complained.
“And I don’t trust him,” Ceda added.
“Agree with both of you,” Escher responded, “but he always seems to know what’s going on. We’ll find out a lot more from him.”
“When do we do this?” Allie asked.
“The sooner, the better,” Escher replied.
When Allie stood, Ceda rose, crossed to Escher, and hugged him. “Good fortune,” she whispered and hugged him tighter.
“Pack a small bag, especially food,” Escher replied to Ceda.
“It’s too dangerous to accompany you,” Ceda said in alarm.
Escher stared quietly at Ceda.
“You know what I mean,” Ceda stated firmly. “The three of us together will stand out. The two of you will have a better chance alone.”
Escher’s eyebrows lifted resignedly. Then he sat down.
Allie smiled. This was one of the reasons that she dearly loved her brother.
“What are you doing?” Ceda railed.
“I guess we’re waiting to be taken,” Escher explained. “Then the three of us will be in the hands of one nasty X-Ore commander.”
Ceda didn’t know whether to cry or celebrate, but she made up her mind quickly. Kissing the top of Escher’s head, she remarked, “Foolish idiot.” Then she hurried to cram some of her food supplies in what would appear as a shopping bag.
When Ceda declared she was ready, the trio slipped out of the cubicle. Entering the main tunnel, Allie and Escher led, and Ceda walked dutifully behind.
2: Friend or Foe?
“Keep going,” Ceda said quietly, as Escher and Allie slowed at the nearest elevator to the surface. When she realized that Escher hadn’t heard her over the corridor’s noise, she walked purposely past the brother and sister.
“What’s she doing?” Allie whispered, as Ceda put more distance between them.
“She knows the below-surface ways better than we do,” Escher replied. “I think she’s headed toward the dome’s center. By this time of night, the lights will be bright on the outer rings, where most shops, restaurants, and entertainments are located. With the inner rings devoted to the residential zones, the pathway lights will be kept dim.”
“So we can view the stars at night through the dome’s shield,” Allie supplied. “That was always a pleasure, but after seeing where Ceda lives, it makes me sick. We’ve enjoyed so much privilege.”
“There’ll be time for recriminations much, much later,” Escher admonished. “Right now, let’s focus on staying out of the hands of X-Ore security. We follow Ceda, but we keep our distance.”
Ceda stopped at an elevator.
Escher and Allie saw the door slide aside, and they hurried to catch the car. It hadn’t the usual surface niceties. In fact, it was extremely rudimentary.
Purposely, Ceda stood quietly on the other side of the car, while it ascended. When it stopped, she exited quickly and waited for Escher and Allie to join her.
“Where are we?” Allie asked, gazing at the utilitarian corridor.
