7. Smuggler
The summons arrived early on a cold and icy Fiveday, bringing Kim to the bike camp far too early in the morning. Temperatures had plummeted overnight, and she was cold—far colder than she could ever remember—as she huddled around the fire with a couple of Blanks, trying to stay warm. It was quiet in the camp that morning; none of the other riders were around, and the Blanks weren’t much for conversation.
A door opened, and Kim was summoned to the hut that served as Len’s office. From the outside, it didn’t look like much—a shack constructed from gray plastic panels, corrugated metal sheeting, and scraps of wood. As for the interior, it was austere and elegant at the same time, with an intricately patterned rug beneath an old and battered table that served as Len’s desk. Everything was neat and tidy, and nothing was out of place.
Len motioned for Kim to join her at the table where she was standing with Ned and a Blank, hunched over a map of the city.
“I’ve got a special assignment for you,” she began. “One that calls for a strong rider who can think on her feet, avoid attention, and blend in with the inner district crowd. Interested?”
“Maybe,” said Kim. “Tell me more about it.”
“I can’t,” said Len. “Not until you accept the assignment. I’ll pay you five hundred francs up front, just for going to the pickup point, plus half of whatever you’re able to shake loose from your passenger. She’ll be paying in cryptos, but don’t worry about the money laundering and conversion; I’ve got that covered.”
Kim didn’t need to think about it for long. Len was offering her a plum assignment, and if she carried it out successfully, there might be more in her future. If she declined, she might not get such an opportunity again.
“Okay, I’m in.”
“Good. I knew I could count on you. I need you to pick up a high-status passenger in District 2.”
District 2? Home to the elites of the entertainment world, chock-full of video stars and musicians? She’d visited Quinn there in her previous life and knew that security was tight. How was she supposed to do a pickup there?
“Sure, go on. What’s the destination?”
“A dive in Trenton called The Blue Moon. Are you familiar with the establishment?”
“I’ve been there,” answered Kim. “Funky joint, cultist hangout. But why would someone from District 2 be going there? Whoever this is, she’s taking a huge risk.”
“That’s her business, not mine,” said Len. “I’ve been engaged to transport her and avoid detection to the greatest extent possible. You get paid one way or the other, but I’ll be unhappy if you lose my cab or any of my equipment. Understood?”
Kim understood all too well. This was going to be dangerous—she had expected no less, given the hefty fee Len had offered her, but picking up a passenger at the heart of the city was more than she had bargained for. She hoped Len knew what she was doing because it was too late to back out now.
“When is the pickup?”
“Tonight, 2000. Now get out of here, I’ve got work to do, and you need to get started on your preparations.”
_
“First thing—here’s a dummy headset,” said Ned, showing Kim the special equipment Len had allocated for this operation. “It sends out a carrier, so the network will think it’s active, but the data transmission circuits have been disabled, so it can’t snitch on you to the AIs. Also, I’ve also got a dummy mobile and a hacked ID scanner for you.”
Kim inspected the equipment; it all looked convincing. The screen of the mobile even lit up with a colorful, backlit decal that looked just like the real thing.
“Tell me about the scanner.”
“It’s secure and encrypted. Just key in the amount and scan your passenger’s wrist the usual way. The payment will go through the Money Launderers, but don’t worry about that. You’ll get paid when the trip is done.”
“Sounds good, but how are you getting me into the city? There’s no way The Transportation Company’s AIs are letting me anywhere near the inner districts.”
“I was coming to that,” said Ned. “Have you ever jumped a turnstile?”
“Once, but I got caught.”
“Don’t get caught this time. If you do—”
“Len will be unhappy,” said Kim, finishing Ned’s statement. “Don’t worry, I can handle it. What next?”
“A Surfer will guide you through the system and get you to one of the middle districts, someplace that’s not too busy.”
Kim had heard of Surfers, though she had never met one. Supposedly they had spent a lifetime riding the transit system and could tell where a train was going just by its feel.
“Where do I meet the Surfer, and how will we know each other?” asked Kim.
“Cut it with all the questions,” Ned finally snapped at Kim. “Let’s take it one thing at a time, okay?”
“Sorry.”
“Here are your final two pieces of equipment,” said Ned, handing her a small rectangular device and a pair of goggles.
“The box is a navigational system. It’s completely self-contained, so it doesn’t need to hook into the network. It has a built-in map of the city and includes some routes that even the AIs don’t know about. Just put it on the front of the cab behind the windscreen.”
“How does it work?”
“Len says it gets a signal from outer space or something like that.”
“She’ll be unhappy if I lose it, of course.”
“Unhappy? You don’t know the half of it.”
“What about the goggles?”
“Night vision, they let you see in the dark. They also have a signal detector that can locate scanners, security cameras, mobiles, and anything else trying to talk to the network. It’s very sophisticated and gives you a huge leg up if you’re trying to avoid attention, but don’t get cocky—it’s not foolproof.”
Ned spent fifteen minutes showing Kim how to operate the navigation system. It was primitive and didn’t have a voice interface—just a touch screen and a couple of buttons—but it would do the trick. After that, she went over the goggles, how to identify the Surfer, how and where to pick up her passenger, and a dozen other details she would need to know in order to complete the job.
Kim was becoming ever more impressed by the extent and sophistication of Len’s operations. While the pedicab and courier businesses were no doubt lucrative, they were probably no more than a front for where the real money must be coming from—smuggling. That was the only way she could possibly afford this sort of bootleg technology. It was a dangerous occupation, and if Kim were caught, she could expect a long prison sentence.
Another bad decision? Perhaps.
“Meet me at Toni’s, 1800.”
_
After a day repairing bikes, she grabbed a pedicab and pedaled to Toni’s Delicatessen, a small eatery concealed in the basement of a tumble-down building not far from the bike camp. It wasn’t fancy—just a counter, a slicing machine, and a half-dozen tables draped with red and white checkered tablecloths—but the food was great. Cash upfront, as always.
“What’s your special today, Toni?”
“Chicken shawarma on grilled pita,” answered the short, bespectacled individual behind the counter.
Shawarma? Pita? She wasn’t sure what they were, but hey, what’s life without an adventure?
“I’ll give it a try.”
“Anything to drink?”
“Just seltzer.”
“Pickle?”
“Yes, please.”
“That will come to three francs and twenty-five centimes.”
Once she had paid, she sat down at one of the tables, brooding over life while waiting for Ned. She was lost, adrift, having neither purpose nor plan other than to stay alive. When she had first arrived, she’d imagined herself some sort of heroic freedom fighter; she would resurrect Kimberly, meet Shan at the crossroads, and ride happily into the sunset. She now recognized that notion for what it was: naïve romanticism. Even if she had the necessary knowledge to bring Kimberly back, she would never have the opportunity to make use of it, and the way to Shan was blocked by the might of the corporate security apparatus. Her hopes for some sort of happy ending had disappeared into the mists of nothingness, along with everything else she had once valued.
The easiest course would be to keep working for Len. She was making a lot of money—by the standards of District 33, at least—and her life was becoming more comfortable. She liked her freedom to come and go as she pleased and to partake in whatever cultist distractions she wished. She’d already become something of a Foodie, and she was looking forward to the opportunity to frequent The Blue Moon and dive headlong into the life of an Aficionado. Perhaps, with Len’s protection, she might manage to survive, though, in all likelihood, it was only a matter of time until someone gutted her with a knife or beat her to death in some dark and lonely place.
What she really wanted was to find Shan. Perhaps she could go Blank. Maybe she could smuggle herself out through the shadows or find someone to bribe. The Director would eventually die; maybe her successor would forget about her existence. But there was nothing she could do at the moment; it was the dead of winter, and travel was impossible, save via the trains.
One thing was certain: she was never going back to the company. She was stuck with this life, such as it was, until some opportunity presented itself or she died, whichever came first.
_
Ned tapped her on the shoulder.
Time to go.
She removed her riding leathers and climbed into the back of the waiting pedicab, looking like any other Drab. She then deployed the rear pedals, adding her power to that of Ned in a tandem configuration, and off they went, off into the wilds.
“Rumor has it you gave that number 36 a ride,” said Ned after they had been traveling for about fifteen minutes. “You know, the one they arrested the night of the riot. That’s what convinced Len to send you out on this mission. She’s right: you’re a born smuggler.”
Kim wanted to forget everything that had happened that day. She had a sinking feeling that she had inadvertently led Kimberly to the ballplayer, triggering the riot and getting a great many people killed. She kept trying to convince herself that her involvement was only incidental, that the takedown must have been planned for some time, and that the riot wasn’t her fault. That was probably true enough, but she still felt like a human wrecking ball leaving a swath of destruction in her wake.
“Kim, you still there?”
“Just thinking. You should try it sometime.”
Ned laughed. “I’ll leave that to you. They say you’re educated, like you know English and math and stuff. All I ever learned was how to stick people with a knife.”
“None of that matters anymore,” said Kim. “At this point, I’m just another rookie trying to stay alive.”
“You’re not sore that the boss gave me this job, are you?” added Kim a moment later.
“You kidding? I could never pull it off. The moment I opened my mouth, it’d be all over. I think that’s probably why Len took you on in the first place—she likes to keep a few inner district types in her stable for jobs like this.”
“Why haven’t I seen them?”
“They’re all dead or in jail. Hazardous occupation.”
_
Ned steered the pedicab off the road and into a dense stand of spruce trees, perfect cover where even the most sophisticated drone would be unable to track their movements. It was arduous going, and Kim had to get out and help push the pedicab on occasion, but soon they reached a small gully near the base of a wall similar to that at the edge of Trenton.
“In you go,” said Ned, pointing to a culvert. “When you get to the other side, just push the grate out of the way. Make sure you put it back when you’re done—we don’t have a lot of ways into this compound, and Len will be unhappy if someone finds it. Good luck. This is as far as I go.”
The culvert was barely fifty centimeters in diameter, a tight squeeze that required Kim to inch along on her belly, dragging her backpack behind. It was dark, it was wet, and it was crawling with rats, but fortunately it didn’t go on very far. When she reached the other side, she found that the grating had been cut, exactly as promised.
She pushed it aside and emerged in a rocky creek bed just inside the perimeter wall. She broke into a cold sweat and her heart began to race—she was vulnerable and exposed, and she stood to be in a great deal of trouble if a patrol happened by or she was spotted by a hidden surveillance camera.
She peered through the night vision goggles. Nothing. She checked the signal detector. All clear. She listened intently. Everything was quiet.
After a quick change of clothing, she set off into the woods, looking like any beige-clad office worker of middling social status, and found her way to a pedestrian walkway leading toward the transit station.
She was about to emerge from the woods when she heard someone coming. Damn! There was no place to hide, and if she suddenly walked out of the woods, it might tip off the AIs that something funny was afoot.
What to do? What to do? Ah, yes! That might work.
She walked behind one of the trees, hiked up her tunic, then emerged just as the pedestrian drew near.
“Oops, sorry! We didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“No worries,” said Kim, feigning embarrassment. “Call of the wild, you know how that goes.”
“Don’t we all!”
_
Time to jump a turnstile.
During her time at The AI Company, Kim had seen this trick repeated thousands of times. She knew what the AIs would be looking for, and she knew how to avoid drawing their attention. This was a critical juncture in the operation, and if she were caught, they would stun her, search her, and inevitably find the special equipment she was carrying. She didn’t want to think about what would happen after that.
She knew of many ways to accomplish this deed. The most brazen operators would simply jump over the turnstile and run, losing themselves in the crowd. Mostly they got away with it, but with stakes this high, Kim couldn’t afford to take any chances. There were those, however, with considerable skill in this peculiar art form, far craftier than the average ne’er-do-well, and Kim had in mind one technique that she had seen a number of times. It required some finesse, but if properly executed, her chances of being caught were minimal.
She held her breath, calming her nerves. She would only get one chance at this.
She queued up to enter the station, patiently waited her turn, then stopped just short of the turnstile to extract the faux mobile from her pocket. The patron behind her cursed and shoved, exactly as hoped, and her mobile flew from her hand and fell to the floor. Quite by accident, of course.
“Look what you’ve made us do! Don’t be in such a hurry. Sheesh, some people.”
She went down on her hands and knees as if to retrieve her phone, then crawled under the gate while one passenger after another barreled through, giving her the evil eye for creating an inconvenience. A high-order AI would probably have detected this subterfuge, but she was in luck—the automaton in charge of the turnstile was none the wiser, and she was now inside the transit system, still undetected as far as she could tell.
Next step: find the Surfer.
She made her way to the waiting area and sat down on a bench, slapping at her mobile and complaining loudly that it was out of juice, part of the pre-arranged signal she was to give.
“Dammit! What train do I take?”
She stood up and walked toward the station’s exit when someone ‘accidentally’ bumped into her while absent-mindedly staring at her own mobile, a normal enough occurrence.
“Having a problem?” asked the stranger.
“We’ve had this one for six years now,” said Kim. “We ought to get a newer model, but The Communications Company tells us that we need to wait three more weeks.”
“Don’t worry, just follow us. We can get you to wherever you need to go.”
“Thanks. Most unselfist of you!”
It had gone without a hitch: signal sent, signal received, signal confirmed.
The two of them now took their place at the end of the low-priority queue, a line that stretched up and down the length of the concourse. A long wait was in store, but that was fine. They weren’t in a hurry.
“How do we get from one place to another without a headset?” asked Kim, turning to her nameless guide.
“We get on a train, and if we like where it’s going, we stay on. Otherwise, we get off and pick another.”
“It sounds difficult.”
“It is, and it can take a long time to work our way through the system, but sooner or later, we’ll get there, as long as we’re patient.”
It took them half an hour to reach the platform, and another fifteen minutes until a train arrived. When it finally came, the masses flooded in, packing the cars to capacity and beyond. The warning light lit red, but still they piled in. The door tried to slide shut but was forced open, the passengers packing in ever denser. Kim and her guide forced their way aboard just as the train started to move. The doors closed, and the train pulled out of the station.
Jammed into a corner of the railcar, keeping a death grip on her guide, Kim had scarcely enough room to breathe, and the air soon became foul, reeking of sweat, flatulence, and every other odor known to humanity. The train picked up speed and entered a tunnel. Fortunately, they only had to make it to the other side of the river, and when they reached the next station, Kim, her guide, and hundreds of other passengers spilled out onto the platform, scurrying away to escape the fetid car.
“That was the worst of it,” said the Surfer. “From here on, nothing worse than the usual overcrowding.”
_
“This is your stop,” said the Surfer. “District 13, Subdistrict 12, station 9. Good luck.”
Kim discreetly slipped her a stack of twenty-franc notes, then headed for the exit and onto the plaza, finding a yellow pedicab behind a cluster of shrubs, exactly where promised. She had been assured that this location was out of sight of the security cameras, and she couldn’t see anyone else in the immediate area, so she shucked her conservative beige tunic and put on the bright-yellow livery of The Pedicab Company.
Here we go. Time to steal a set of wheels.
The yellow pedicabs were heavier and less technologically advanced than those used by Len, but they had one thing hers didn’t—boost motors. As long as the boost factor stayed at 49% or less, the cab was considered human-powered and could therefore be legally operated without an AI at the controls. This would allow Kim to travel farther and faster than otherwise possible and provide a burst of extra speed should an emergency arise. It would also keep her fresh for what was to be a long and arduous trip—her night had just begun, and she had a long way to go.
Kim set the boost to a modest 15%, put the cab into motion, and was pleased as it immediately felt lighter, faster, and easier to pedal. Excellent! She inched it up to 30%—no need to deplete the battery—and was cruising along at an effortless twenty-five kph as she merged onto the main artery heading toward the inner districts. District 11, District 10, District 9, the high-rise apartments and robotic factories grew more fantastic by the minute. She missed the city. However rotten its heart might be, it was still magnificent.
Kim soon reached the pickup location, a soaring high-rise in District 2; even at the zenith of her good fortune, she had never scored an apartment nearly as fancy as this. Stylishly clad pedestrians hurried along the walkway with their tropical beige coats drawn tight against the cold, their pale orange faces peeking out from beneath fiery red manes. Colorful though they were, it was just another form of drabness as they all marched on in lockstep, conforming to the ever-changing diktats of fashion. She had never, until now, appreciated how bizarre and artificial this was.
Her passenger arrived at 2000, precisely on time. She was short, athletic, and extremely well put together. Her mane was styled with mathematical precision, and she had added some black streaks to her face, giving her a visage reminiscent of some mythical tiger. Unlike everyone else on the street that evening, she wore a jet-black coat with a large hood that covered most of her head—perhaps not the current fashion, but it did look stunning and set off the delicate features of her face, neither particularly young nor particularly old.
That face! There was something familiar about it…but never mind. Time to get to work.
“Can you get us to District 12, Subdistrict 8, housing complex 44?” she asked, the signal Kim was expecting.
“There is no 44 in 8,” replied Kim. “Perhaps you mean 34.”
“Yes, that must be it. How silly of us.”
Kim had to admit that these coded passphrases and responses were a little hokey, like something from an old-fashioned spy video, but they got the job done.
Having confirmed one another’s identity, they proceeded with the negotiation.
Go big or go home.
“We’re charging twenty thousand cryptos for this run.”
“Twenty thousand?” said the passenger, genuinely shocked. “We’ve never had to pay more than ten before!”
This was going to be easy; she obviously had no idea how to bargain with a cabbie. She’d also let on that this was not her first trip of this sort.
“Oh?” asked Kim, “You do this often, perhaps?”
“Uh, no, not really. Okay, maybe once in a while. Would twelve be okay?”
“It’s late, it’s cold, we’re tired, and we only did this run as a favor to our boss,” said Kim, doing her best to sound indifferent. “Twenty up front, or we turn around and go home.”
Kim was bluffing, of course.
“That’s outrageous! We’ll have your head! We’ll tell Len!”
Idiot.
“Don’t try to threaten me. And it’s twenty-two now.”
“Twenty-two thousand?”
Her voice trembled—she was starting to come unglued. Excellent!
“Twenty-two. Hope it doesn’t go to twenty-four, which it’s about to. We don’t take kindly to threats, and we don’t give a damn about whatever you think Len might have to say. This is our cab, it goes where we want it to go, and at the moment, we’re thinking we’d rather be in bed than freezing our ass off with some stuck-up high roller.”
Another lie.
After some further haggling, they arrived at a price: fifteen thousand cryptos. Kim had done well. She keyed in the amount and pressed the trigger on the scanner. Green light! Good to go, money in the bank.
The money was intoxicating, but it was also a trap: she was being paid for the extraordinary risks she was taking; sooner or later, those risks would catch up with her, and she would find herself in prison. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad. Conditions in jail were no worse than in the district, and when she got out, she would still have her money on deposit with a Banker, out of reach of the courts and their ruinous fines.
But there was something about that face, something about that voice. Why did she seem familiar?
_
Kim juiced up the boost motor, then climbed back up to the expressway and merged into the party-hour traffic. It was New Year’s Eve, and people were taking insane risks, darting in and out of traffic, abruptly changing lanes, and doing everything Len had cautioned her against. It was white-knuckle stuff, and Kim was starting to worry. She had been in many a crackup in a crowded peloton and knew just how quickly things could go south if someone made a mistake.
“How have you been doing since the last time I saw you? It’s been a while,” said her passenger.
“Do we know each other?”
There was definitely something about that voice, and now that they were alone, she was dropping the I-bomb without the least hint of embarrassment.
“I recognized you the moment you picked me up in front of the apartment building,” her passenger continued. “At first, I didn’t think it was possible, but when you’ve been intimate with someone, you don’t easily forget them.”
Now she remembered.
Her passenger was Rey, to whom she had surrendered her innocence on that long-ago night at the fabulous Club Tropicana. It stood as one of the highlights of her young life, but it had also laid bare the emptiness of her existence. After a brief period of infatuation, she had put her date for that night out of her mind.
“Rey?”
“Yes, it’s me. Before you ask, I don’t have any idea how you ended up being my driver tonight, but I have a theory about it, about how two people walking the same path are bound to run into one another along the way, sometimes once, sometimes more than once. It makes sense, at least to me.”
“You’re taking a huge risk,” said Kim as she dodged and wove through the heavy traffic. “I’ve done my best to avoid attracting attention, but no guarantees.”
“I know, I’m probably walking into a trap. I don’t care anymore. Sooner or later, they’re coming for me, just like they came for you. I saw your trial.”
“I’ve gotten past it,” said Kim. “In some ways, I’m better off now.”
“Tell me about your new life,” Rey continued. “I seem to recall you were working for The Artificial Intelligence Company, doing some sort of training work. How did you end up with Len?”
Kim decided to open up. “It’s a long story, and I don’t want to go into the details, but after the trial, I got sent to District 33.”
“District 33? I’ve heard horrible stories about that place.”
“It’s dangerous, that’s for sure,” answered Kim, somewhat distractedly as she focused on her driving. “I’ve seen beatings, knifings, bodies piled up on the floor like so much meat. Along the way, I earned Len’s trust, and now I’m a smuggler. The money’s good, but it’s only a matter of time until I end up dead or in jail. It’s a dangerous occupation and, on top of that, I’ve made some enemies. At this point, I don’t have a lot left to lose, so I’m going to enjoy life while I can.”
_
Without warning, a pedicab went down, and the deadly cascade began, one bike crashing into another, then two, then ten, then fifty, as the pack devolved into chaos. Kim slammed on the brakes and made for a gap in a wooden barrier blocking off a disused off ramp, just wide enough to squeeze through, making it to safety mere moments before another rider took a header and threw the scene into further chaos.
“Kim, did something just happen? Why aren’t we moving?”
“I ducked through a barrier to avoid an accident. It looks like there’s an off ramp that leads down to the surface streets from here. I think I’ll give those a try. The last thing we need is to get caught up in an investigation.”
“Be careful,” she said. “There are some dodgy areas around here. At least that’s what the other pedicabbies say.”
A dodgy area? Here in the heart of the city?
Off went the headlights, and on went the night-vision goggles as she peered at her surroundings, scanning the shadows for any sign of danger. Things didn’t look too bad—nothing like what she’d seen District 33—but still, the signs of decay were everywhere. This place was all but abandoned.
“I think you may be right.”
Kim released the parking brake, cranked the boost motor up to full, and roared off down the street. Swift, dark, and silent—that was the way to do it. Trouble can’t find you if you can’t be seen. Faster and faster she rode along the dark and deserted streets, the moonlight as bright as day through the high-tech goggles. There was no sign of a copbot, no signs of surveillance, not a peep out of anything electronic.
And then she saw it: a barricade lying across the road. It was a trap!
Kim slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. Sure enough, three shadowy figures were now walking slowly in their direction.
“What’s the matter?” came Rey’s voice from the back.
“We’ve got company. You sit tight. I’ll deal with them.”
Kim got out, pulled the switchblade from her pocket, and advanced on the trio, adrenaline pouring into her bloodstream as she prepared herself for a fight.
“Out of my way, punks,” said Kim, making sure they could see the knife in her hand. “Don’t make me cut you.”
“Yeah, is that so?” said the biggest of the would-be robbers. “It seems there’s three of us and only one of you.”
“You’re right,” said Kim, advancing and locking them in her gaze. “You should have brought at least six.”
Kim waited for that moment of hesitation, then flicked the catch on her switchblade and charged them, screaming like a banshee. Slash! Slash! Thrust! She had called it right—these three bullies were all bark and no bite. They ran off into the night, and the rest of the trip passed without incident.