Infinity Cage (12 page)

It took them eleven days, overall, to make their way along I-80 towards Cleveland. Maddy really didn’t know what she’d been expecting to see in this future. She guessed she’d been hoping to find something less broken down and grim than this. They’d walked along a cracked and failing highway through a landscape of dead and dying towns. Buildings left untended, left to rot and crumble. Makeshift towns of stolen materials and shaky lean-tos populated by the desperate and the starving.

Maddy recalled Foster leading them outside, stepping out beneath the shutter door to stand in that backstreet overshadowed by the Williamsburg Bridge. She remembered Liam’s gasp of amazement, Sal’s too. She remembered the pride she’d felt for that city, the place she thought she’d already been living in … Maddy Carter, games programmer, living in Queens in the year 2010. She recalled the magnificent skyline of Manhattan and the night-time glow of a million different lights. She’d turned to look at Liam and wondered what a young man from 1912 would make of the spectacle. A young man from a time when steamships and clattering wheeled machines called automobiles represented the cutting edge of technology.

He’d been utterly bewitched, hopelessly entranced. And she’d
shared that magic with him. New York standing at the very beginning of the new millennium had positively
glowed
with hope and possibility. Only now, knowing all that she did about how this century was going to pan out, did she realize she’d witnessed the very last evening of a golden age. The next day terror came to the city. In the following decade would come the first of many wars over ideology and dwindling resources. In later decades, the thirties, the forties – the time of Rashim’s childhood – historians would point to that day in September 2001 as the first hairline crack in a world that was destined to shatter into a million different pieces. To turn on itself, to cannibalize itself.

For Maddy, this trek across the dying ruins of America had been heartbreaking. She’d always imagined the future was a place where ‘better’ lived. A place where things were faster, shinier, brighter, more colourful, sleeker … generally way cooler. Instead their trip had been a journey through a process of terminal decay and entropy.

On a happier note, the little girl seemed to be getting stronger. She’d attached herself to Becks as though the support unit was some kind of surrogate parent. A foster-mother of sorts. Maddy wondered whether Charley might have overheard their conversations with Heywood and knew that Becks was not what she appeared to be. If she had, it hadn’t affected her. She clung to Becks like she was the last life-jacket floating on a turbulent sea.

Last night, while Charley was fast asleep, they’d discussed what they were going to do with her. Maddy said they’d have to find someone to hand her over to once they got through the border. There must, after all, be orphanages or schools, some places that parentless young migrants were looked after.

Heywood said they’d reach Cleveland some time tomorrow.
The border wall, the Median Line, was right there. If Rashim was such a BIG deal, he guessed they should be able to cut through the whole immigration process and be in the FSA by the evening.

‘Hot water, proper food, digi-stations … good ol’ civilization at last!’

Maddy didn’t want to kill the mood and remind Heywood that if they were in the FSA by the evening he was only going to have a few months to enjoy those comforts before the Kosong-ni virus put an end to all of it.

‘Now do you folks see what I been talkin’ about?’ said Heywood.

They were standing on the brow of a low hill that rolled gracefully down towards a snaking river valley. A valley crammed as far as they could see with tents and shelters improvised from abandoned vehicles and freight containers. From the wood stumps dotted around, this hillside had been forest until recently. Thousands of fluttering cooking fires leaked smoke trails diagonally up towards the overcast sky, where they converged together and hung like a low-hanging morning mist. They were staring at a refugee camp on a vast scale that followed the valley north and south as far as they could see.

How many camped here?
Maddy wondered.
A hundred thousand? Two? A million?

In the distance, on the rising slope of the far side of the valley, stood the Median Line: a relentless grey barrier of enormous concrete-block segments, topped with a fuzz of what looked like vicious spirals of razor wire. Every hundred yards or so there was a tower of scaffolding supporting an observation platform. She could see that each platform was occupied by figures manning sandbag bunkers from which protruded the threatening barrels of weapons. Above each emplacement, vast
holographic billboards glowed and flickered with public-information announcements in various languages: English, Spanish, Chinese. An endless multilingual loop broadcasting the same basic message:
Please Leave Now
.

Above the wall and the towers, unmanned military gyrocopters buzzed along its length on permanent patrol loops. Every now and then stark beams of light lanced down from their undercarriages and probed the refugee camp, lingering on larger gatherings of people until they got the hint and began to disperse, melting back into the labyrinth of tents and shelters.

‘Just in case you folks been thinkin’ all along that it was just some guddamn wire-mesh fence that we were gonna clip a hole in an’ sneak through,’ Heywood said.

‘My God,’ uttered Maddy. ‘It’s vast.’

‘They been buildin’ and fortifyin’ this wall for the last ten years. Since the big partition and America
re-federated
and became the FSA.’ He turned to look at them. ‘Some folks figure a way through that wall every now and then. Many get caught and turned back. Some just get killed on the way through. But …’ He grinned and nodded at Rashim. ‘Our ticket through is my new best friend here.’

Maddy turned to him. ‘You
will
be able to talk us through, right?’

Rashim shrugged. ‘I really do hope so.’

There was an entrance to the Re-Federated States of America, but it was preceded by an almost insurmountable obstacle course of wire-mesh pens that corralled the thousands waiting for a chance to make their case to an immigration officer into a snaking queue that wound endlessly back and forth.

They shuffled slowly forward along with a human river of the desperate and the naively optimistic, overlooked at every bend by soldiers in carbon-flex body armour. The soldiers’ stern expressions were all but obscured by sloping helmets with mirrored-plexiglas tactical HUDs at the front, pulled down so that only their mouths and chins were visible.

At one bend in the queue, Rashim suddenly recoiled and did a double take as he stared at the tall athletic figure of a male
artificial
. Maddy recognized the chiselled features, the buzz-cut hair.

‘My God! Isn’t that one of those …?’

He nodded. ‘A third-generation combat unit.’

Maddy was glad she’d made sure Becks had switched off her ident signal. If the FSA had later-generation combat units stationed along the wall, they’d pick up on her signal immediately.

The unit stared at the queue impassively, cool grey eyes
sweeping one way then the other, constantly evaluating the threat level represented by those in front of it. White-knuckled hands held its T1-38 pulse carbine ready. Its gaze paused briefly on Becks, as if it was trying to place a vaguely familiar face.

Maddy wondered whether the combat unit would be able to identify Becks as a fellow meat product just on appearance alone. Were these current-generation combat units educated to recognize their predecessors, first-generation models from twenty years ago?

She looked at Becks and noticed her eyeballing the unit, returning the challenging glare. ‘Steady there, Becks,’ she whispered.

Heywood turned and noticed the stare-off. ‘Like two prize cockerels in a fight pit.’ He nudged the support unit in the ribs. ‘Heel, girl. He ain’t gonna bite ’less you do first.’

It took them another five hours of shuffling through the mesh pens until they finally entered a large low-ceilinged hall made from prefabricated modules bolted together. It was crammed with hundreds of shoulder-high interview booths and echoed with bellowed conversations. As far as Maddy could see, every single booth was busy, each occupied by a uniformed official and a pitifully desperate immigrant, most of them frantically hand-waving and head-shaking, some of them crying into balled fists. Holo-screens flickered within each cubicle as search queries were being pulled up and data entered. She noted in most cases the interviews seemed to last no more than a couple of minutes and ended with one or more of the screens displaying a flashing red No Entry verdict. She watched as rejected applicants emerged from their cubicles and were stamped on the back of the hand with ink.

Maddy had already noticed most of the inhabitants of the refugee camp sporting that mark; she’d seen dozens of them
vigorously scrubbing the backs of their hands in the polluted water of the river. Now she knew exactly why. The stamp was a way of filtering the queue, weeding out those who’d already been processed and rejected. Presumably the ink wore off eventually, but in the short term it prevented people from trying their luck day after day.

Finally, they were standing at the front of the queue and an immigration official waved at Maddy to step forward.

‘Booth seventy-six,’ he announced dully.

‘Actually, we’re all together,’ she replied, turning to gesture at the others.

‘No, you’re not. Booth seventy-six.’

‘Look … we came here together. We’re –’

‘Booth seventy-six now, ma’am, or I’ll have you removed.’

She cursed through gritted teeth, then turned to Rashim. ‘You’d better go first. They’ve got to let you in. Then you can vouch for us, OK?’

‘What if they let
only
me in?’

The official was getting impatient. ‘Come on, which of you is going next?’

‘I will refuse to go through.’ Rashim shook his head. ‘I will come back with you.’

‘No. If they let you through, you go. You can find someone on the other side and argue our case with them, OK?’

‘Come on! Who’s next?!’

‘And, if you can’t get us in, just go find Waldstein. OK, Rashim? Find him and tell him where the hell we are!’

He shook his head. ‘No, we should all stay together!’

‘OK, that’s enough!’ The official looked around for someone to flag down to escort them out.

Maddy pushed Rashim roughly forward. ‘Just go! GO!’

He stepped across a yellow painted line on the floor and the
official pointed at the available booth. ‘Booth seventy-six!
That
one! Hurry up!’

Rashim made his way past the other booths, looking back over his shoulder at Maddy and the others. She shooed him along with her hands.

‘Do you have any identity data on you? State Citizen chip? Digi-net access card? Ration card?’

Rashim shook his head. ‘No, I am afraid I don’t have any of those on me.’

‘Uh-huh, that’s what everyone says,’ sighed the official. ‘OK, let’s have your full name, please.’

‘Dr Rashim Amir Anwar.’

‘Spell it into the mic, please.’

He did so and voice-recognition software displayed his name on the floating holo-screen in front of them.

‘I should tell you, I have an extremely high-priority skill set,’ said Rashim.

‘Trust me, that’s also what everyone says. Please sit on this, look at the camera and do not smile or move while the camera scans.’ The official nodded at a low stool.

‘But, in my case, this is actually true. I have a doctorate in particle physics. I am a leading expert in quantum foam theory. I have been working on a very important government project that –’

‘Just sit down, please.’

Rashim did as he was told. The official hit a button and adjusted the height of the stool. ‘Look at this sticker on the wall and please don’t move.’

The booth flickered with light as a scanner recorded the image of his face.

‘Now I need you to place your thumb here,’ said the official, indicating a pad on his console.

Rashim nodded. ‘Ah yes, a gene swab. Excellent. That will confirm exactly who I am.’

The official offered him a tired heard-it-all-before smile. ‘Great, good for you.’

He winced as he felt the momentary sting of a small needle piercing the pad of his thumb. ‘I also have some … some very important
colleagues
travelling with me.’ He turned to look out through the scuffed perspex and noticed they were no longer standing at the front of the queue. Presumably they were all going through a similar process in other booths. ‘We really have to remain together.’

‘I’m afraid, sir, that each applicant is evaluated on his or her own merit,’ replied the official absently, his eyes on the screen, waiting for the overburdened computer system to return some kind of result.

‘Yes, I understand this … but my colleagues will almost certainly not register on any of your databases.’

‘In which case, I’m afraid they won’t be let in. It’s that simple.’

‘Yes, but you see … this is really important, we are a team –’

‘Look –’ the official presented him with an expression of well-tested patience and sucked in a long breath – ‘you seem like a nice guy. You’ve got manners, which makes a change. Most of the time I’m dealing with people who want to spit at me. So … I’m going to be straight up with you. We let virtually no one in.’ He looked around, then lowered his voice. ‘This whole process is … futile. It’s little more than crowd management. Don’t get your hopes up. Hardly anyone gets through. Maybe one in a thousand … on a good day.’

‘Really? So few?’

‘All those poor desperate
S-O-B
s out there?’ he said, nodding at the pens. ‘They think beyond the Median Line it’s all going
to be milk and honey. They think we’ve got it good over here. Truth is we’re just about holding it together. It’s not a great deal better this side of the wall. Shortages of everything. And every day we get more and more refugees finding a way in. So many more mouths to feed –’

The holo-screen flickered as it updated with a result of the query. The official stared at it for a moment, his mouth flapping uselessly.

Rashim could only see the reverse of the screen hovering in the air, letters and figures hard to make out back to front. ‘Have you got my profile up there now?’

‘Uh … yes. It says you have …’ His eyes widened. ‘… 
level
-
nine priority
.’ He looked up at Rashim.

‘Level nine? That is high, isn’t it?’

‘The highest.’

‘Well, I did already tell you, I’m an essential technology contributor working for the government.’

‘Yes … yes, you did. I’m sorry for keeping you …’ The man frowned, a little confused by something on the screen. ‘But it says you’re
already
residing here in the FSA. You’ve been resident for seven years according to this.’

‘Yes, that is quite correct.’

‘Well …’ The man looked suddenly very uncomfortable and extremely contrite. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, Dr Anwar, if you’re already meant to be living here, what the hell are you doing out there in that godforsaken wilderness?’

He shrugged. ‘It is a rather long story. And …’ He leaned forward slowly. ‘And it is
highly confidential
.’

‘Of course.’ The official nodded vigorously as if that answer was more than he needed to hear about the matter. ‘Well, uh … sir, you won’t be surprised to learn you can come right on through.’

‘And what about my colleagues?’

The official grimaced. Trapped between a rock and a hard place; trapped between unbendable rules and someone important enough to get level-nine priority clearance. He looked again at the information on the screen. ‘Uh … you know what? I think I’d better call over my supervisor.’