I’ve said that to myself every day for the last three years. And if it weren’t for Kristy, any one of those days could have been my last as a free man. Would have been my last, for sure. She’s saved me from being captured—jailed or killed as a rebel—at least once or twice a week since I first made the decision to have my BICE removed. That was three years ago. Young and dumb and impetuous, I was then. Still am, but I was worse then. Not that I regret getting the BICE removed. I’d do it again. But I do wish I’d studied up on it more.
BICE. The Beta Internet Chip Enhancement. The ultimate means of control. It married Transport’s central monetary control system with a mandated personal biometric identification utility. The BICE is an all-in-one, easily implanted system that gives every user access to the Internet in their heads; and, of course, it makes sure every user needs regular doses of the drug Quadrille… Q… to help them assimilate all the information they’re bombarded with without frying their brains. All in one fell swoop, the geniuses at Transport had given people what they really wanted—round-the-clock information and entertainment—while ensuring that they’d remain passive and obedient and easily trackable.
I had to laugh to myself. It’d all worked so well for the ruling Transport Authority; that is, until TRACE said no to all of that. Even here on New Pennsylvania.
I had the chip removed at a hack shop with no understanding at all what it meant to be on New Pennsylvania untagged. The hack shop sure didn’t tell me I’d be lucky to last two days out there with no chip. Especially up on the Shelf. They didn’t tell me the odds. Maybe because the word odds implies there’s a chance to win. A chance to escape. The probabilities were so miniscule, they just chose not to disclose that to the young and dumb and impetuous.
They weren’t in the business of warning away customers. They were in the business of slicing open heads and pulling out BICE chips in exchange for gold.
They talked about keeping the wound clean and how to avoid infection.
They talked about getting off Q and how to ease the withdrawals.
What they did not talk about is the fact that the whole system was designed to ferret out rebels and refuseniks. To arrest them and remove them from society. They didn’t tell me that I could no longer use Unis… Unilets… the system of money used on New Pennsylvania. They didn’t tell me that Transport’s TRACER drones could scan for BICE or TRID data on people as they fly by. They didn’t tell me that by removing my BICE, I’d basically declared war on Transport. No… those things they forgot to tell me. Most of their customers disappeared in a day or two, so no one else told me either.
Maybe I’m making it sound totally hopeless.
There are refuseniks. And the salvagers who come in from the flats and deadlands. The brave ones who make their way up from off the Shelf. Some of them are smart and they survive. The refusenik camps are always around, even if the men and women who live there are usually caught; the population rotated. Replaced by someone else young and dumb and impetuous like me.
And I’ve been out here three years now. Making runs and trips without a BICE or TRID into New Detroit on a weekly basis. And I haven’t been caught. Yet.
But that’s only because of Kristy.
Kristy finally sensed that song time was over and she curled up at my feet. She didn’t even ask for a cheese sandwich by sniffing at my pockets. She knew the song was her only payment for now.
I stacked the Brighton boxes against the wall next to me and then closed my eyes, pressing my head against the wall. When I did that… pushing my head firmly like that… the lack of the BICE there reminded me that I’m not safe. I’m never safe.
Don’t get too comfortable, Kevin. That’s what I’d say to myself whenever I had time on a trip to close my eyes. They are coming for you.
My eyes are closed now, and I reach over and touch the boxes again with my right hand. I don’t know why the strangers need the Brighton boxes, but they’re paying well and paying in gold, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know why they want them. Some voice around a fire back at the refusenik camp speculated that the newly arrived strangers wanted the boxes in order to acquire and move okcillium. That was always the rumor, though. I wondered if it was true this time. The strangers had TRACE rebels written all over them, and I wondered what they would do with the okcillium if it were true. Five Brighton boxes of okcillium was a ton of the stuff. Enough to blow up the planet a few times over, if that’s what they wanted it for.
Though my eyes were closed, I squeezed them even tighter. None of that is my business. I’m only selling the boxes. What the strangers do with them… well… that has nothing to do with me.
I’d found okcillium before. A source for the stuff. At least I’m pretty sure it was okcillium. But I hadn’t told anyone where I found it.
One time, Kristy and I were trapped in an apartment complex just like this one. I’d been forced to tear through a wall to escape a wily Transport agent, who was closing in on us.
Trapped, Kristy had bounced off a certain spot on the wall, so I’d kicked through the sheetrock to make a hole for our escape.
That’s when I found it. A small ball of metal-like material clamped to the wiring of the apartment. Like a fishing weight squeezed tight around the wires that ran through the walls.
It had to be okcillium because it fit the description and because I’d done wiring like this before and had never seen anything like it.
I’d heard a rumor from an old salvager, half drunk and blathering near a fire in the refusenik camp. He said Transport had rigged the whole city with okcillium. So they could zap it somewhere else if they wanted to.
Everyone thought the old man was nuts. Maybe he was. But then I found the stuff clamped to a wire. And I didn’t have time to remove it or check it out. The Transport agent was on our tails, and Kristy was through the hole as soon as it was big enough. She’d found a place in the wall that even had a gap in the firewall, so we were able to escape into an adjacent apartment.
We escaped that night because of Kristy. Again. And now I knew a secret about okcillium.
I felt Kristy move and my eyes flew open. She wasn’t fully alerting, but I could tell she was checking things out. I blinked a few times, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness. That’s when Kristy bolted to the door. As fast as I could, I snatched up the boxes and I was right after her.
Down the hall, back the way we’d come in, but this time Kristy halted at the stairs and stood still for a moment. Frozen. Tail pointing straight back. Then she was rushing past me again, back toward the apartment we’d just vacated. This can’t be good. It has to mean that Transport is either already in the building, or close to it. Kristy is smart. No way she’d run down stairs if we were trapped.
But now what?
Three
Lost
I’ll have to kick a hole in the wall. Just like that last time I had to do it.
We’re back in the apartment where we were resting only moments earlier, and I watch as Kristy sniffs the wall before bouncing off a place closer to the closet.
I kick. Kick and kick as sheetrock falls to the floor and dust floats in the air. Dust is a common thing in New Detroit, when the wind blows the limestone powder from the cliffs and coats the town.
Now it’s sheetrock dust in the air and as soon as the hole is big enough, Kristy is through it to the other side. I kick some more, expanding the hole to man size.