Excerpts

The Tombs, 125 White Street, Nyork, Unity
19.39.08.EST_19_October_AU77, (2129AD)

Within the stygian darkness within the dank, dripping walls of this lowest and least known level of the Tombs prison of Nyork, sat Sergeant Graybarre. The lights within Nyork had gone out almost two hours ago, and no one had come to check on him and his prisoners. The air, always dank and musty, was gaining in character and body. Scurrying had increased exponentially, occasionally running over his own boots.

Sergeant Graybarre was not happy. He was an honest screw, taking no bribes and meting out punishment only as deserved. He got no pleasure from being harsh. He wished he could say the same for General Aliende’s Zeta squad—sadistic thugs they were, and the Sergeant did not care who knew his opinion. Interrogation of the prisoner in Cell #1 had just ceased when the lights went off. They would recommence in two more hours. Graybarre wanted to go check on him, but with no light, no first aid kit, and the incessant scurrying, he concluded that his efforts were pointless.

In the darkness, at some unknown distance, he heard a lock turn. He did not expect to be relieved before midnight.

“Sergeant!  I’m General Seftus Ploidid. I have been given command during this emergency. We are setting up new arrangements for the security of political prisoners during this period. The lights won’t come on for a week, I’m told. I need you to come out now and be scheduled for rotation in a lighted ward.

“I got my orders from company HQ, General Ploidid, Sir. Not supposed to leave my post until relieved by Sergeant Edwards of the Beta Squad, sir!” said Graybarre.

“Sergeant, I have had to assign your entire company elsewhere. Riots are breaking out on the docks. Come on out, and we can talk in the light. I’ll get some electricians in to see what we can cobble together in the meantime. Is that okay with you, Sergeant?”

Finally convinced, Graybarre replied, “Yessir.”

Gathering his few things and moving uncertainly towards Ploidid’s voice along a narrow corridor of empty cells in the otherwise empty cell block in the lowest level of the Tombs, Sergeant Graybarre came abreast of Blanche’s location within one of the open cells. Using night vision headgear, Blanche was able to move behind Graybarre, pinioning his arms before dragging the man into the cell behind her. After a few minutes, Blanche had Graybarre hog-tied, hooded, and snoring gently on a bunk. His quietude would last the hour. It would have to be enough.

She had tried to quest the entities before contacting Ploidid. The silence inside the user CORE was absolute. Nothing was “open.” Conduits ended abruptly into nothingness. All Blanche’s usual routes to information were profoundly wrong. With the CORE down, Blanche concluded that the entities were gone—removed—sanitized. Despite their brief contact, she grieved. She would not be able to talk to Cain or EffieCee again. They had been the ones to show her the wonders possible inside the openCORE—and now they were gone.

Any hope she had invested in her new virtual allies was wasted. Smart money would have gotten drunk, dealt with the hangover in the morning, and considered life unchanged. Somehow, she would not consider that. The entities had, even in the brief time she had talked with them, struck a cord that still vibrated within her. Will Butler had entrusted his life and happiness to her, and she must do everything in her power to retrieve that for him. Now she had mobilized her own plan B.

Leaving the Graybarre snoring gen tly, Blanche strode down the empty cells lined corridor confidently with the aid of the night scope. It was easy to determine Will and Hecate's cell, as only one door-grate showing a heat signature. Graybarre had been kind enough to leave the keys on the small desk at the juncture of the corridors.

“Hecate, it's me, Riley,” said Blanche, after opening the door.

“Thank you, God!. Will is getting beaten up once a shift—like clockwork. He can’t take more of this. His piss looks, I mean, looked, black the last time I saw anything. The air's getting stale, too.”

Blanche nodded, then, realizing that Hecate would need more, said.

“I’m going to get you out of here. Then we can see about getting some help for Will. Can he walk?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t walked since the last interrogation.”

“Okay, I want you to go out the door and along the wall to the right for about ten meters. You will run into a small table. Stop there and listen for people arriving. Ask what the password is. They should say ‘Parker Rolls’ and you should say ‘Orange juice’. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here is the door. Go ahead”

Slowly, Hecate moved out of the room. Blanche could hear her scraping along the wall as she turned to look at Will.

“Will, can you talk to me? Things will be getting better from now on, but I need to be sure we are straight. How are you? Can you hold on?”

Will looked up and smiled through a split lip into the darkness. “Nice to meet again, Colonel ma’am. I am just nifty, I am. I would very much like to slip into anonymity, if it is all the same with you, though.”

“I said I would do my best to protect you both, and I failed. My boss took over your capture and changed the script.”

“You mean the fat guy?” asked Will. “He did go on, didn’t he?”

The power is down all over the city, I have no idea why. I think our CORE friends are dead. I need to get you to a safe place. Can you walk? We can get an HP to visit you there.

“You need more water at the very least. You're as dry as sand. If your urine doesn’t clear, it might be a sign of a kidney fracture or failure. Let me get you and Hecate out of here, and we will get you the fluids as soon as possible.”

“I think I can walk. I think I can hold on. I don’t know how much I can drink. I feel nauseated. Bur to your question: you and I are good, Blanche.

“I have been living an iffy existence for years. This is our chance to get home and I know you are an honorable person from the openCORE. No one promises anything but their best effort in this business. I am in your hands, Colonel.”

Blanche helped Will to his feet and the two staggared out of the cell and along the corridor to Hecate. Blanche gave a shout to alert the squad to come forward and then left Hecate and Will once more alone in the dark. Graybarre would have been surprised that the squad Blanche brought forward to help Will were not Ploidid’s Greens as he had been led to believe, but Fenerghan’s Oranges.

This had been Blanche’s contribution to the affair. Ploidid and Fenerghan, being obligated to work together by Aliende, had nearly come to blows. Blanche intervened. Running interference with each faction, as an unofficial aide to Aliende. The two leaders, discovering that their differences, no longer suppressed by the ruling junta, had mellowed in isolation. In their political isolation, the two had found common ground. Gilsoit and Seftus rapidly developed a modus vivendi.

With the blackout, Blanche shared the problem with each leader in person, moving around the blacked out city with her infrared apparatus, moving like a wraith among citizens staggering blindly along streets and hallways. Ploidid had suggested the swapped identities. He and Fenerghan had shaken hands on it.

The reports would be hopelessly muddled. Ploidid’s Greens would be blamed for the couple’s release from the Tombs but would be convincingly present and obvious putting down the riots at the docks, while Fenerghan’s Oranges would be blamed for Will being treated out of turn at Mid-Manhattan’s Emergency room. Commands would ring out, weapons would be drawn, a certain amount of shoving might occur, and Will would be treated. All would vanish within a half-hour. Key words might be uttered like “Climate Justice,” “Together, we can save the earth,” and even a few “Climate Change: The Everest of Our Problems,” despite these generating more than a few blank stares among the sick and wounded sitting on the hard plastic seats that filled the waiting room.

Investigations would be made, no doubt. Identifications would implicate each faction; yet, upon further investigation, it would be deemed impossible for Ploidid and Feneghen to be in two places at once. Enemies of the state, recidivist revolutionary Sisis, and feral elements of the underworld would be blamed. Without the CORE, no reliable, durable, unquestioned evidence was available.

Within that hour, Will Yeats Butler slipped from the ken of the Unity into oblivion.