The junkie backed off and rejoined the queue, his eyes still seething with hatred.
‘Thanks,’ said Laura, releasing a breath. The man grunted once in response.
At the pay station, she scanned her identity chip. Her legs shook as she entered the common eating room, still a little shocked by her confrontation.
The room was square with no chairs and standing room only. She found a not so quiet—but much coveted—spot by the window. She ate her lunch, hoping the junkie wouldn’t bother her again.
The large man entered the room and stood in a spot between her and the entrance to the corridor. When the junkie finally entered, his eyes searched the room, but he lost interest when he saw the hulking figure. For once, Laura was grateful for the packed conditions of the terminal.
She picked the fat off her lamb slices and gazed out at the dark, smog-filled day. It had been ten years since she’d seen the sun, when she was just twenty-six years old. Since then, the sun’s access to the Earth’s surface had diminished until it had been blocked by the clouds. There was a permanent chill in the air and she was used to wrapping up well.
Laura had once enjoyed sun and temperatures in Sydney that exceeded twenty-five degrees Celsius. But in the thirty years since her parents had emigrated from Dublin to Sydney and the sun had vanished, the temperatures barely surpassed ten degrees in high summer. Her golden hair no longer shone. Her previously sun-kissed complexion was now pale and pasty.
She wondered as she ate if she would ever see or feel the sun again. Exilon 5 had sunlight in abundance, and she dreamed of living there. But early selection was not a guarantee. The World Government’s transfer programme kept changing, and working at the Earth Security Centre didn’t seem to give her any special rights. Currently, the selection policy was a lottery, a change from the previous volunteer arrangement. But with only a small percentage of the population having transferred, she wasn’t sure how to play the numbers.
The city still carried evidence of the catalyst that had changed Earth’s atmospheric conditions. The current generation had blamed the habits of older generations, but had done little to stem the changes. Posters on walls announcing the arrival of the Go Green revolution were everywhere. The wind used to whip at their unglued edges. Now, the air was still but the posters remained, tatty and faded. Go Green was the World Government’s answer to counteracting global change. But as industries became self-sustainable, green energy had not become the cash cow they had hoped for.
At the turn of the twenty-second century, efforts to go green had surpassed all targets, just as the need to raise more funds for space exploration started to dominate the government’s agenda. The World Government and its twelve controlling members needed a quick way to raise cash and so they heavily taxed popular green energy. Businesses and industries suffered and only the strongest survived.
Laura stuck her fork in a piece of lamb and nibbled at it. The bland replicated food didn’t excite her taste buds. It was marginally worse than the food in the ESC cafeteria, but still edible.
Her appetite waned when she saw the junkie staring at her. She dropped her leftovers into one of the waste incinerators and headed for the exit.
She hated how people were quick to define her character by the uniform she wore. In many ways, the ESC was a great place to work, filled with admirable, hardworking people. She respected the Centre’s tireless efforts, not only to protect the Earth from unknown dangers but from people themselves.
The only chance she would have to move to Exilon 5 was if she pushed for a promotion; she’d heard that the higher levels had a better chance of being considered for the transfer programme. In ESC, the presence of the purple-uniformed workers on Level Five commanded instant respect.
Laura affixed her gel mask to her face. The frigid air hit her and she wrapped her coat up tight. She stepped out on the plain street, remembering when trees and plants used to grow in the city. It was sad to have seen the trees change from having plenty of leaves one year, to so few the next, until they had stopped growing altogether. She’d almost forgotten what flowers looked like. Wild animals had been the next to go, although the city had done well to hold on to some domesticated creatures. Humans were the only species flexible enough to adapt.
She approached the ESC building. It was surrounded by an invisible medium-level force field; her security chip allowed her access. The public area to the front—the newest and brightest section of the Centre—was the only part without an active force field. Walking past the atmosphere-controlled pond that was home to a few varieties of fish, she bounded up the crescent-shaped steps and into the former Anzac War Memorial building entrance. Recognisable by its pink granite exterior, it had remained largely unchanged since it was designed by C. Bruce Dellit and completed in 1934. The World Government had added the public section to the memorial building about fifty years ago, as part of its attempts to regenerate a declining city.
Inside, white granite covered the floor and part of the walls. Various sculptures and figure reliefs hugged the upper part, protected by a symphony of stars across the dome-shaped ceiling. The gold stars, one hundred and twenty in total, were a stark reminder of one of the many wars of the past, and the volunteers who had fought during a more primitive time. A Rayner Hoff sculpture named “Sacrifice” had once stood in the centre of the room. The sculpture, with its golden sun and fiery arms that blazed outwards with beauty and grace, had been relocated to the public foyer of the Security Centre. In its place was the turbo lift, linking to the underground levels.
Laura pressed her right thumb on the flat plate beside the turbo lift doors and waited for the system to read her security chip. Her clearance allowed her access to the first four levels below; the remaining six levels required an updated chip. The lift doors opened and within seconds she arrived at Level Four: Document Control and Storage.
She stepped out into the glass-covered foyer. The glass ceiling allowed her to see the workers on Level Three walking above her. When she looked below, to Level Five, the floor was opaque. She wondered if someone below was watching her.
Level Five, officially known as High Level Data Storage Facility, was where the World Government sent its high-security documents. The facility had been christened The Abyss because of the joke that sensitive information was often lost, never to be seen again.
Laura made her way towards Corridor Ten, to her office and workstation. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw a Level Five worker—a dark-haired woman—walking in the opposite direction. It was a rare sight on her floor.
‘Hello.’ The word came out croaky, not like her voice at all.
The woman glanced at her, nodded once but offered no reply. At first, a nervous Laura didn’t notice Daphne Gilchrist, the ESC’s CEO, emerge like a ghost from the wall and walk towards her.
‘Shit...’
Gilchrist wore a grey trouser suit, her stocky frame cleverly hidden by the feminine folds of the fabric. Her cobalt-blue eyes, framed by red hair, contained little emotion. Her faint smile was detectable only by the small crease on one side of her genetically altered face. She was in her late eighties, but looked no older than sixty-five.
She waved a scanner over Laura’s hand. ‘Laura O’Halloran.’ Gilchrist’s voice boomed loudly.
‘Yes?’
‘Why were you addressing a Level Five worker?’
‘I was saying hello.’
‘You know the rules. You are not cleared to talk to the higher levels.’ Gilchrist’s eyes were boring into her like the junkie’s eyes had done in the replication terminal; only her look was more subtle, and far more dangerous. She tapped her index finger on the top of the scanner in that way she always did when something was bothering her.
‘It was a mistake. I apologise.’
‘Consider this your only warning,’ said Gilchrist. ‘Get back to work.’ She turned back the way she had come and disappeared through the glass wall. Laura wondered if there was a hidden door with a room wh
ere the CEO observed all.
She carried on to Corridor Ten and pressed her chip on the security plate for the door at the end of the hall. Her full name, photo and title flashed up on the screen, along with the length of time she’d been absent.
She walked into the room and up the centre aisle. On either side, dozens of white workstations sat in neat rows: one hundred and twenty in total. Each row was divided into sections of six.
Janine, a co-worker, was the first to notice her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Just had a run-in with Gilchrist.’
‘Over what?’ Her eyes widened.
The other workers had stopped what they were doing and were watching Laura closely. She reached her chair and grabbed the arm-rest just as her legs buckled.
‘I was caught talking to a Level Fiver.’
‘Shit! And she pulled you up on that?’ said Chris, another co-worker.
‘Came out of nowhere.’
‘Yeah, she does that. There are secret doors everywhere in this place.’
‘And some guy was abusive to me in the terminal.’
‘You can’t seem to catch a break today, can ya?’ Janine’s tone turned cocky.
‘Do you even have a sympathetic bone in your body?’ Chris said to Janine.
Her face reddened. ‘I’m just saying, I’m glad it wasn’t me. Laura can take it. She’s impenetrable. I’m a lot softer.’
Chris rolled his eyes.
Laura ignored Janine, the drama queen. She might have been emotionally stronger, but she was far from impenetrable.
She activated her workstation and the screen whirred into life. Thousands of documents awaited her, all from the inhabitants of Earth. Before the end of the day, there would be another one hundred thousand added to the list. Encrypted information sent electronically to the Security Centre contained thousands of layers of code that were stripped out before reaching Level Four. The workers had to sort the information before re-encrypting it and sending it for long-term storage in the supercomputer on Level Nine. Any classified material was to be redirected to Level Five.
While the supercomputer could handle the workload, the ESC considered document-sorting to be a lesson in character-building; it weeded out the workers who weren’t cut out for life there. There were thousands of workers on the outside waiting to take their place; people who had scored high on the aptitude test and were biding their time until a vacancy arose. Loyalty held no value when there were more people on Earth than available jobs. Laura had kept her job so far by not complaining.
She wished she’d asked the junkie what his name was, so she could see how much he owed and to whom he owed it. People who screamed publicly about family debts were usually careless with money, over-indulging in gambling, drug or tech addiction, unnecessary organ purchases or genetic manipulation treatments that were not covered by the World Government longevity programme. There were plenty of genuine debt cases, too, but she wondered if his mother’s debts had been caused by her son’s habit.
‘Are you still mad at me?’ Janine said to Laura.
She had already forgotten about it. ‘No, Janine, I’m not mad at you.’ She spoke as a parent might placate a child.
Janine refused to let it go. ‘Look, it’s not my fault you got into trouble at the terminal. What did you say to them, anyway, to go off on you?’
‘I never need to say anything to them. The sight of me is enough to set them off.’
‘I always wear my overcoat. I sweat like hell when I’m inside, but at least they can’t see my uniform. You should have done what I do.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ Laura gritted her teeth. She wanted to tell Janine to mind her own business but she needed a calm working environment.
‘Have you heard they’re running a lottery in Darlinghurst?’ said Chris.
‘Not Haymarket?’ Laura said. Her stomach dropped. Laura lived in a former shoe factory in the middle of the Haymarket district.
‘Not yet,’ said Chris. ‘Don’t know what made them pick Darlinghurst. Point Piper and Rose Bay, too.’ The transfer programme had switched to a lottery-based selection process because of the low number of volunteers who had made the initial move. Laura hadn’t been old enough to apply for the programme back then. ‘My mate says they’re going to focus on Perth after this.’
‘What? That’s it? Just three areas?’ Laura stood up and leaned on the table. ‘Did they say when they were coming back to Sydney?’
Chris held his hands up. ‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, alright? Look, you know how these things go—how often they change their mind? Right now, Australia is one of the countries they’re focusing on. You never know what might happen.’
Laura sat back down, defeated. She resumed her review of the documents in front of her with a heavy heart. Earth was no place—no way—to live. In a place where free thinking was discouraged and technology ruled, it was getting harder to enjoy life.
She had been enthusiastic in the beginning, when she had started her role at the Centre three years ago. She had seen it as an honour to work at the second most prestigious organisation on Earth, behind the World Government. Three years on and she’d seen many people come and go. Promotional opportunities were few and far between and she was tired of being just another forgettable statistic. She’d wondered, during her darkest days, if she should stay at ESC. But it was her—and her mother’s—best chance to relocate to Exilon 5. She had to stick it out.
New documents pooled on the screen in front of her. One of them listed names for non-payment of taxes. The first was a Mrs Annette Billings of Toronto, Canada. Seventy-six years old; she had failed to pay her outstanding tax following receipt of a new heart. It was her first violation. She had complained that she was waiting on eye replacements and had not seen the reminders. A note sat beside her name: Has received goods. First Warning Issued. She had paid her arrears within the extra time allotted.
There were seven hundred other entries on the list, all with similar stories. The seventeenth name was highlighted in red: Mr Robert Fennell, originally from Wales but now residing in Tokyo. Fifty-eight years old. Failure to pay apartment taxes. Issued with second warning. No further failures will be tolerated. According to the file, he had promptly paid the outstanding balances, including arrears.
There was no hope for her if she remained a Level Four employee, permanently under the radar. She had to do something to make ESC notice her. It wasn’t just a dream to move to Exilon 5. It was a clawing, incessant tick in her mind; a painful, desperate longing.
She was sick and Exilon 5 was the cure.
6
Early on Saturday morning, Galen Thompson rushed around his tiny apartment in Richmond, Virginia, as he got himself ready for work. He navigated around the furniture that was jammed tightly into the three hundred-square-foot box he called home on Earth. All he needed were his shoes, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember where he’d left them.
His communication device shrilled in his ear as soon as he moved into the bedroom. Galen activated the earpiece and spoke into the microphone that protruded like a thin wire from the side of his face.
‘Hello?’
‘Galen. It’s me.’
‘I’m a little busy now, Dad. Can this wait until later?’
‘Are you alone?’
‘I’m at home and I don’t really have time to talk. Shit!’ Galen bent down to rub the pain out of his big toe.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I just kicked the bed, that’s all.’ He got down on all fours and searched under the bed for his shoes. They weren’t there. He got up and checked the living room again. His father was silent. ‘Dad, I’m in the middle of something. What do you need?’
‘Are you on your way to work?’
‘Yes, and I’ll be late if I don’t find my damn shoes. The train’s leaving in ten minutes.’ The silence stretched between questions. Galen knew what was on his father’s mind.
‘If y
ou don’t say it now, I’m hanging up.’
‘Your mother and I were talking...’
He could guess the rest: conspiracies, double agents, secrets, lies. It was present and accounted for in all of their conversations.
‘I know what you’re going to ask and no, I haven’t found any evidence of suspicious activity.’
‘Tell me, how well do you know your overseer?’
Galen worked as an Air and Space controller out of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (HJA) docking station. A former airport, it was the largest in the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The defunct airports had become the ideal locations to convert into docking stations. Seventy-five in total had been built on Earth.
‘Stuart?’ Galen laughed. ‘Well enough to know he’s not mixed up in anything like you’re suggesting.’
‘Okay, maybe not him, but the others.’
He felt around for his shoes under the sofa. His hand touched one, then the other. He pulled them out. ‘Well, I don’t know all of them. Only the ones on my shift.’ He graduated from Air and Space Control Academy at thirty-one and, for the last two years, he had been a trainee at the HJA docking station.
‘Who do you know?’
‘Maria, Paddy. Why?’ Galen pulled his shoes on, still not remembering having taken them off twenty-four hours earlier. The last thing he could recall was heading straight for the bedroom to sleep for a solid eighteen hours. He didn’t even remember undressing, but he had been naked on awaking that morning.
‘Your mother says the ESC is showing an interest in your docking station, that’s why. She seems to think it might be connected to a higher-level matter. ESC is storing secret files in another part of the building. She doesn’t have access to them. And she has no clue which of your colleagues is drawing their attention.’
His mother worked on Level Five in the ESC.
‘Looking at them for what, exactly?’
His father sighed. ‘I don’t know. Tampering with records, she says. Something to do with the transfer programme. It’s still early days, but we can’t ignore any leads. We’ve been waiting too long to expose the ESC and World Government for what they are.’