Chapter 11 – Hux
Vincent had never seen so many people before in his life. Crowds of them at a time passed by on the street, jostling against one another as they walked, oblivious to everything around them but some unseen destination straight ahead. Some wore dark pants with matching dark coats that folded in the middle, but most wore the same white, high-collared jumpsuits Vincent was accustomed to. Others, mostly the crowd who were emerging from the kiosks, wore tattered, old-looking shirts like those worn in the Hole. These people – the new entrants – were escorted by men of the Guard, and carried with them an endless number of small white bags. Vincent thought of the “startup” packages Jim had talked about.
“Look,” said Jessica.
Vincent turned away from the families and followed Jessica’s gaze. She was looking up at the buildings. They seemed larger up close, and there was more space in between them than Vincent had initially thought. At ground level, at least. The streets were wide enough to fit several transports going both directions at once (and there were several racing up and down the street now, some with their drivers fast asleep), but above, the buildings seemed to morph into a single unit. Every few stories, hollow glass arches connected the sides of neighboring towers, like the clinging remnants of a giant spider web. And through this web, the flying transports Vincent had seen from outside zoomed with startling speed.
“Hey! You two!”
Vincent followed the voice to a burly looking man a few meters off. He was starting in their direction.
“Are you the Carlsons?” he questioned. “Ben and Lena?”
Vincent hesitated, then nodded. He was still getting used to their new names.
“I’m your escort,” the man said. “They said you need your Lenses activated.”
It wasn’t a question. Even if it had been, Vincent doubted the man would have taken no for an answer.
“Yes,” said Vincent.
“Very good,” said the man. He went cross-eyed for a split second as his eyes went out of focus. Vincent turned to Jessica with a questioning look, but she merely shrugged.
“The transport is on its way,” said the man. “Stay with me.” He motioned for them to come closer, and they obeyed. The man’s hulking frame cleared out a decent sized path in the crowd of people still surging around them. “Here it is.”
Vincent looked around for the transport, but saw nothing. Jessica tapped his arm. He turned to her, then followed her finger, upward. One of the flying vehicles had swooped down, with its glowing blue underside just a meter above them, and lowering.
“After you, miss.” The man took Jessica by the hand as the transport lowered the rest of the way to the ground. He practically lifted her inside when the door slid down into a ramp. “And for the gentleman.”
“Do we really have to–”
“Up you go.”
Vincent felt his feet lift from the ground, and in a flash, he was in the pod of the transport. The burly man climbed in after him.
“All set.” The man pushed the button that closed the door and leaned back in his seat. He took up one and a half of the pod’s four, white bucket seats. Vincent and Jessica were in the remaining two. There were no controls.
“Name’s Derek,” said the man. He shook both of their hands. “Pleasure to meet you both. What happened with your Lenses?”
“Just a malfunction,” said Jessica. “We don’t really know.”
Derek frowned slightly but didn’t press. “That’s quite rare,” he said. “But it happens. You must be rather annoyed.”
Vincent nodded in agreement and tried his best to look irritated. He hoped the natural nausea sitting in his stomach would play well into the act.
“How intensive is the process of reactivating?” asked Jessica.
“Oh not too bad,” said Derek. “The Newsight operators will take care of you in a few minutes. It’ll take more time to actually get there. We still have to cross the city.” Derek pointed out the window. Vincent had been avoiding it, but he looked out now, surprised to see almost 100 meters between them and the ground. He leaned back in his seat, stomach churning.
“Is the Newsight facility in the Center?” Jessica asked, out of habit.
“Heavens no,” said Derek. “Besides a little HQ in the management sector, the only real estate they have here is the halos. We’re going to the highest one. The entry point is on the far side of the city.”
“So…” started Vincent, chancing another look out the window – they were level with the shorter of the skyscrapers now. “We couldn’t have just driven there?”
“I suppose we could have,” said Derek, “but that would have taken an hour or so. Plus, then you wouldn’t have gotten this view.”
Vincent attempted a grin that turned out more like a grimace. The view was exactly what he had been hoping to avoid.
“It would be nice if you could show us around,” said Jessica.
Derek looked at her, frowning. “Aren’t you from Hux?”
Vincent looked at her as well. The thumping in his chest was starting to return.
“We are,” said Jessica – Vincent could see her mind turning as she spoke. “But we’ve been away for months. And when the Order took us, they tried to brainwash us. We’ve been having trouble remembering things.”
Derek raised his eyebrows. He turned to Vincent. “Is that so?”
Vincent tried his best to look solemn. He nodded.
“I knew you had been taken,” continued Derek “but they didn’t tell me about that. That sounds awful.” He looked at them both, seeming troubled, then glanced out the window. “Maybe I can help bring things back for you.”
Vincent let out a breath. Jessica relaxed a little in her seat.
“The city is split into sectors,” said Derek. He had shifted so his behind squeezed solely into the seat closest to the window. His nose was pressed up close to the glass. “Right now, we’re over the working sector.”
Jessica peered out the window, then elbowed Vincent when she saw his gaze fixed on his own feet. Begrudgingly, Vincent looked out. Below them, the buildings were a bit shorter than the others, and less decorative. Their sides were made of an old, soot-darkened stone. From above, they looked no more exciting than a collection of boxes arranged with perfect order on the cement.
“This is the industrial part,” said Derek. “It’s right next to the entrance, but we do our best to hide it from view. Hard to hide from above though.” He winked at them. Vincent managed a nauseated nod back.
“Are there Newsight factories down there?” asked Jessica.
Derek shook his head. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Like I mentioned, they only have an HQ here. All their products are produced offsite. They ship them in from the Seclusions. Now, look–” he seemed eager to change the subject “–we’re entering the commercial part. Banks, transport services, and the like.”
Below them, the buildings had begun to grow, taking on the look of the towers Vincent had seen from outside. Their windows were more polished than those of the plain boxes of the industrial part, and their sides were connected by dozens of the glass arches.
“It’s not just right below us, of course,” said Derek, seeing Vincent’s downward gaze. “It’s all along this half of the city, the working sector is.”
Vincent turned to the right as they flew. Sure enough, the same forest of polished towers filled the entire line of sight allowed by the window. The difference between those towers and the short, square buildings beyond them was sizable.
“And here we’re moving into the management part,” said Derek. “Management and political, I should say. The big wigs, the CEOs, all the other C-levels. And the politicians. They all work somewhere here.”
Vincent had to resist the urge to scoot back from the window as they passed over these newer, taller buildings. The design of each building was entirely unique. Some were split down the middle and joined at the top like a giant, stretched out “n”; others were twisted toge
ther so they resembled a double helix; others still took on the shape of a skinny, four-sided pyramid.
“This is where everyone wants to work,” said Derek. “If only for the view.” He smiled as Jessica climbed out of her seat so she could get a better look. “Down there is the government’s headquarters,” he said. “Or…no that’s Newsight’s. I get them confused.”
Vincent saw the buildings Derek was talking about. The first was actually two separate structures, extremely close all the way up but not joining together until the last dozen stories. The second was a single, wider tower, the top of which was curved inward like an enormous glass bowl. Vincent knew without asking this was the Newsight office.
“Now we’re moving into the recreation ring,” said Derek. “Below us, closest to the management part, is reserved for people who can afford to stay in their sims the entire weekend. They have to be taken care of: fed, watered, cleaned up. That’s just for newsims, though. People will still pay decent money for the knockoffs.”
The buildings had begun to lose their flashy designs. They were perfectly round now, polished to a sleek shine and supported, where there wasn’t glass, by beams of solid white.
“What are they trying to learn about?” asked Vincent. “With the simulations?” He had asked Jack the same question, but he hadn’t gotten a straight answer.
Derek drew back from him, frowning. “Learn?” he said. “The simulations aren’t lessons; they’re experiences. Fantasies. You can make them whatever you want. Jump out of an air transport for the rush, be a CEO in the management towers.” He elbowed Vincent in the side. “Have the girl of your dreams.”
Vincent looked away. Jessica blushed. Derek didn’t seem to notice.
“But that’s all assuming you can afford them,” he said.
“What do you mean afford them?” asked Vincent, glad of the subject change. “You mean people have to pay for simulations?”
“Well for the knockoffs,” said Derek, “you pay for customization. That’s why people go to the recreation ring: to buy the kind of sim they want. For the actual sims though, the newsims, you just pay for access. Newsims predict exactly what you want to experience, even if you don’t know it yet yourself, and they create it for you. You can’t even tell it’s not real. I can’t afford them on a regular basis – few people can. Most of us have to settle for the standard sims. They’re not as customized, but they’re still worth every penny.”
Vincent looked again at the perfectly symmetric buildings below them, the ones closet to the management part. He could see their counterparts further in as well, slightly shorter and not as well kept. At the moment, the place looked deserted.
“And here’s the main event.”
Vincent looked up at Derek, then followed the man’s finger straight ahead. Below them, higher than any structure in the management part and higher, even, than the simulation towers, was what looked like the top of a giant, urbanized mushroom. Over a kilometer across, a glimmering all-glass disc was held at cloud height by dozens of symmetrical round towers. Between each neighboring set of these towers, the arches Vincent had seen along the city’s outer edge were denser than ever, with two or three joining each tower to its twins every few stories. The thing was a commercially built hive, interconnected and intertwined in its supports below, and presided upon by the saucer-shaped glass disc above.
“The residences,” said Derek. Vincent could hear a hint of pride in the man’s voice. “If you live in Hux, you have a home here. Most people live in one of the towers, but some, mostly the people who work in the management part, live in the disc.”
Vincent continued to stare down at the intricate behemoth below. The disc, as Derek called it, wasn’t completely flat as Vincent had thought at first. There was a slight curve to it, bowed up ever so slightly in the center.
“For the most part though, you’ll be staying in the dormitories next to the halos,” continued Derek. “You can come home to the residences on the weekends if you’d like, but most students choose to stay on campus. And speaking of students...”
They were beginning to pass over structures that, to Vincent, were all too familiar. White, tower-sized domes were stacked up from the ground in clumps, spread across the pavement in all directions like the lumps of a rash.
“The schools,” finished Derek. “Newsight sponsored and all. They were built at the same time as the halos as part of Fatrem’s initiative.”
Vincent looked down at the domes. They reminded him all too clearly of the Seclusion.
Jessica scanned the domes for a moment as well, but she didn’t focus there for long. Instead, she turned her gaze to the right, to the very edge of the window’s line of sight. “Is all that part of the working sector too?” she asked.
Derek raised his eyebrows, then followed her gaze. It was yet another field of towers, nearly a third of the city. Most of the towers were perfectly round and bleached white, much like those in the recreation ring. “That’s the retirement sector,” said Derek. “That’s what everyone has to look forward to. Work long enough, behave well enough, and that’s where you go. Free simulations, even newsim. The government has a contract with Newsight.”
Vincent looked over at the field of towers, stricken, without knowing why, by the stillness of them. There were no transports flying between them, nor even any arches to connect them. They merely stood there, stagnant, solitary.
“Why are there so many?” asked Jessica. “Are there that many elderly people in Hux?”
“It’s not just the elderly there,” said Derek. As he said it, his eyes lingered over the nearest line of towers. “But enough of that. Retirement is the most boring sector.” He turned back to the front face of the window. “This is much more exciting,” he continued. “The halos.”
Vincent turned away from the stoic-looking towers, rather gladly, and followed Derek’s gaze. They were passing over the last of the stacks of school domes below and approaching the tower-width halos around the city’s perimeter.
“We’re going to the activation office,” continued Derek. “It’s not far from where we’ll be entering.”
The transport began to decelerate, and as they drew closer to the highest halo, Vincent could see the markings there: words, again, only these formed a different phrase: THERE IS NO LOVE WITHOUT HATRED.
Before Vincent could inspect the words further, the pod had cut off his angle. Their rapid approach had come to a stop just a few meters from the halo’s exterior. They stalled there, hovering for a few seconds, until a portion of the white surface slid to the side like a curtain. Vincent grabbed onto the side of the pod as they started forward, but they were through without a hitch.
“Here we are,” said Derek. He knocked on the window they had just been looking out, and the door of the pod fell down from the top, forming the fragile looking bridge Vincent had seen from below. Derek stepped down onto the ramp and followed it onto the halo’s inside floor. “Come on then,” he said. “If your memories still need jogged later, we can go for another ride.”
At this last bit, Vincent jumped from his seat a bit faster than he intended. Jessica climbed out at a more measured pace behind him.
“Just a ways off now,” said Derek. “Follow me.”
He started down the hall without waiting for a response. They followed.
“How long did you say you’ve been without Lenses?” asked Derek, shooting them a look over his shoulder.
“We didn’t say,” said Jessica. “But it’s only been a few days.”
“A few days!” exclaimed Derek. “I can’t imagine. I can barely go without my sims for a few hours. Thank heaven I have priority access.”
“From Newsight?” asked Jessica. “How long have you been working for them?”
“Oh I don’t work for them,” said Derek. “I’m not that qualified. I have priority access because I work for the Guard as a Newsight liaison. I deal with Order attacks, mostly, but it’s been quiet recently, so I’ve been getting assi
gnments like these.”
“The Order hasn’t been trying anything?” pressed Vincent.
“Well there was an incident yesterday. The Order tapped into the network and played a simulation on everyone’s Lenses. Some sort of announcement.”
Vincent and Jessica exchanged a glance.
“But that was a minor thing,” said Derek. “All other major attacks have been stopped by the halos.”
Vincent looked around them. This higher halo, like the one they had walked through earlier that morning, looked suspiciously like a normal hallway. “They don’t seem like much,” said Vincent.
“From the inside,” said Derek. “On the outside, they have sensors that can detect a missile from 10 kilometers out. When they detect one, they form this kind of shield over the top of the city to stop anything from getting through.”
“Like a dome,” said Vincent.
“Exactly.”
Vincent and Jessica made eye contact yet again.
“But no system is perfect,” continued Derek. “The dome is penetrated occasionally. Or one of the Order ends up finding their way into the city. That’s when my job gets ugly.”
“How do they get in?” said Jessica. “We had to go through a screening process.”
“Everyone does,” said Derek. “But apparently it isn’t foolproof. We don’t know how the Order manages to sneak by so we can’t stop them. The best we can do is minimize the damage they cause once they’re in.” Derek glanced around them, making sure they were alone. “There have been rumblings of letting Newsight take over ground security,” he said, his voice low. “The halos have been so effective in the air, the Guard is considering turning ground control over to Newsight as well.”
Vincent said nothing back. Jessica seemed to think about responding, but she remained silent as well. They continued down the hall without speaking.
A minute later, Derek came to a stop at a door with a line of white, stiff-backed chairs outside. “This is the office,” he said. “They know you’re coming, but let me make sure they’re ready for you. Go ahead and have a seat.”
Derek disappeared through the door, leaving Vincent and Jessica alone in the hall. Neither of them sat.
“We need to figure out what we’re going to do,” said Jessica. “We don’t have much time.”
“We will once we get to the dormitories,” said Vincent. “Or whatever he called them.”
Jessica shook her head. “We’re about to be back on the grid, Vincent. As Ben and whatever my name is. They’ll be watching us.”
Vincent realized what she was saying. Communicating, about anything important, at least, would be impossible after their Lenses were reactivated. Vincent glanced at the door.
“We need to find Brian’s brother,” he said, his voice low. “He’s our only way to the Order.”
“But where do we look?” said Jessica. “You saw it from the transport: this place is massive.”
Vincent thought for a moment. He kept one eye on the door. “How much older than us is Brian’s brother?”
“Three years.”
“So he’ll be out of school. We know that much.”
“That means he’ll be in the working sector?”
Vincent shrugged. It wasn’t much help. From the transport, the working sector looked like half the city. “What about the residences?” he suggested.
Jessica shook her head again. “You saw that place. It would take years to look through. And I barely remember what he looks like.”
Vincent bit the inside of his cheek. They were so close. The Order could be in any one of the buildings they had just flown over, or underneath any of them, and they had no way of knowing.
Vincent paused in his thoughts, suddenly conscious of the slight weight in his front pocket. He was being stupid. Of course they had a way.
“THE SIM,” he said. “As soon as they activate our Lenses, we can watch it. It will tell us everything.”
“It will tell them everything, too,” said Jessica. “They see whatever we see. Watching THE SIM would be as good as turning ourselves in.”
Vincent slouched at the shoulders. She was right, of course. If Newsight saw them with THE SIM, they would be taken away before they could blink.
“What do you suggest then?” said Vincent.
Jessica started to say something, then stopped. She sighed. “I don’t know.”
They were silent for a few seconds. Vincent thought he could hear movement on the other side of the door.
“Can we send a message to Lynn?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“Not without Newsight suspecting something.”
“So there’s no way around it,” said Vincent. “We have to find him.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying Vincent I just don’t know how to–”
“Carlsons?”
Derek had stepped through the door. He was holding it open.
“They’re ready for you.”
Almost in the same beat, Vincent and Jessica took a breath. Vincent stepped forward first.
“I’ll wait for you out here,” said Derek. “Shouldn’t be long.” He nodded at Vincent as he passed him the door. Vincent stepped the rest of the way through with Jessica close behind.
“Hello.”
A young woman wearing heels and a short, skintight dress stepped forward to meet them. The room they were in was bare but for a single, reclined chair in the center and a one-sided mirror on the far wall.
“Firstly,” continued the woman, “allow me to apologize for this inconvenience. Newsight values our customers a great deal, and we do everything we can to prevent malfunctions, but even we aren’t perfect.”
She said the last part with a smile, as if it were a surprise. She turned from them and crossed over to the reclined chair, her heels clicking against the tile as she went.
“We will diagnose the issue and have you on your way,” she said. “Ladies first?”
Jessica glanced at Vincent, looking nervous, then stepped forward.
“Good girl,” said the woman. Her voice was sweet, but the aftertaste was artificial, forced. “Sit,” she said, and Jessica obeyed. “Now, all you have to do is put these on over your Lenses.”
The woman handed Jessica two dark gray, Lens-shaped devices. Vincent couldn’t tell from a distance what the material was made of, but it looked like metal.
With a slight shake in her hands, Jessica dropped the things on top of her Lenses from above. When they were both in, the whites of her eyes, as well as everything else, were no longer visible. She stared out of two sightless circles of dead gray.
“Try to relax, dear,” said the woman. Jessica had been sitting stiff as a board. “The diagnosis is already in progress.”
Vincent watched, helpless, as Jessica attempted to steady her breathing from the seat. The eyes of the woman standing over her were out of focus.
“Your Lenses were manually disabled,” the woman said. “That will have to be reported.” Her voice was still sweet, but less so than before. “Now for the reactivation.”
Jessica began to shake harder still. Her cheeks were sucked into her mouth so tightly her head looked more like a skull. The empty, ashen-colored coverings on her eyes only added to the image, forcing her eyelids open eerily wide. Her lips were parted without a sound as she writhed in her chair. Her body contorted in odd, unnatural movements everywhere but the head. That remained, as if nailed through the eye sockets into the headrest, as if bolted there by the metallic gray Lenses.
Then she was still. Her body sagged down into the seat, her head suddenly released. She panted, still shaking, as she caught her breath.
“Easy as that,” said the woman. She removed the gray Lenses from Jessica’s eyes. Beneath them, thick lines of blood spidered out from Jessica’s pupils. Some of the precious liquid even leaked from her tear ducts.
The woman leaned forward, barely bending at the hips from the tightness of her dress, and grabbed Jessica by the hand. She pulled he
r up, and Jessica crossed over to Vincent, her eyes downcast, her arms crossed, wrapping herself tight.
“Now for the gentleman?”
Vincent took a deep breath. He stepped forward, giving Jessica’s arm a light squeeze as he passed. Without a word, he slid into the chair. He stared at the observation room window. He could see only his reflection, but he knew without a doubt he was being watched from the other side.