Aya stood in Juliet’s doorway, watching her pack her new bag. The small, wiry woman was noisily finishing off a strawberry-flavored popsicle and kept asking questions about the things Juliet stuffed into her pack. She’d started with the portable torch Juliet had asked to borrow—Aya had jumped on the request saying she’d bring one up, and then she’d proceeded to play chief corpo-sec investigator, digging into Juliet’s plans for the evening.
“That’s cool,” the salvage tech said, watching Juliet stuff her new grapple launcher and pry bar combo into the side of the pack. “How far can it shoot that hook thing?”
“It has a hundred meters of nano-filament line. It’s supposed to be strong enough to support a hundred and eighty kilos,” Juliet grunted, stuffing her packaged survival nutrient packets down toward the bottom of the pack.
“You’re going to be gone that long?”
“No—these are just for emergencies. I’m hoping to be back before morning.”
“Flares, bullets, MREs, body armor . . . you sure you aren’t heading off to war?”
“Nah. If all goes well, I won’t have to shoot anyone.” Juliet laughed softly, set her bag aside, and then shrugged into her new ballistic vest. It was half as bulky as the one she’d worn while undercover at Grave, and the sales girl, Sandra, had insisted it provided top-end protection; it ought to for the price. Altogether, Juliet had shelled out more than nine thousand bits for her new gear, but she figured it was a good investment—she’d undoubtedly have cause to use the vest and helmet again.
“You look like an assassin or a special ops commando.” Aya’s mouth was half full of fruit-flavored ice that she, apparently, didn’t want to chew.
“Well, yeah.” Juliet shrugged. She’d bought some tear-resistant, stretchy, form-fitting turtlenecks and sturdy slim-fitting pants with cargo pockets, also somewhat stretchy; she loved the freedom of movement the outfits provided. Still, Aya was right; with her black vest, black shirt, pants, and boots, she looked the part of a commando going on a night operation. “You haven’t even seen the helmet yet.”
“I can see it there, on your bunk. Looks shiny.”
“Shiny, as in cool as chrome? Cause I purposefully got the matte black . . .”
“Yeah. Cool as chrome, girl. I see the cam nodules on the sides and back; your PAI can manage that many viewpoints?”
“Oh yeah, she can. My data port might start to heat up, though; I need to get her a coprocessor sooner or later.”
“Hah!” Aya began to work on her popsicle stick, relentlessly masticating the chewy plastic between her front-most molars.
“I’m serious!” Juliet laughed. “My PAI does a lot of processing for my implants, and now I’m adding cameras and a spider drone . . . I hope she doesn’t boil my brain!”
“I’m assuming you’re exaggerating for effect, but you know there’s little for you to worry about, right? Those cameras won’t tax me at all . . .”
“She’s telling me not to worry about it now.” Juliet picked up her black-visored helmet. “She’s very precocious and doesn’t like that I’m insinuating any sort of deficiency.”
“Oh! She sounds pretty cute, actually. My PAI, Motos, has almost no personality.”
“Motos?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. My older brother used that name for online gaming. I idolized him as a little girl, so, of course, I named the voice in my head after him.”
“That’s sweet, Aya.” Juliet grimaced, pulling the tight, gel-lined helmet down over her two blonde braids. At first, the world grew silent and dim, but then Angel activated the helmet’s systems, and the world brightened, and sound returned.
“. . . badass,” Aya finished saying, the tail end of a compliment, Juliet hoped.
“Thanks.” The helmet was far more comfortable than the one she’d worn at Grave, and it fit her a lot better too. Moreover, it was shielded for up to class two EMPs and would supposedly deflect most small-arms fire. It covered all of Juliet’s head, and the dark visor obscured all but her mouth and chin.
“You’re going to wear that through town?”
“Why not? I’ve seen plenty of mercs and corpo-sec walking around New Atlas in something similar. I’ve got licenses for my guns, so if security messes with me, I’ll have Angel tell ‘em to stick their noses somewhere else. I’m hoping that if I look ready for a hot combat deployment like this, idiots like those Jackals might think twice about messing with me, too.”
“You gonna be okay, Lucky?” Aya asked, perhaps reading between the lines of Juliet’s bluster.
“C’mon, Aya; you’ve seen me in action. I’m going to be fine.” Juliet stooped to swing her pack onto her back, then slung her MP5 over her shoulder. She’d already strapped her needler to the combat vest and wore her vibroblade on her wrist sheath.
“True, true. Keep me updated, though, will you please? I’m just starting to get used to you on the ship; no need to go get yourself killed or something, all right?”
Juliet patted her vest and her pockets, felt the magazines in her guns, and then turned to Aya, her mouth, the only visible part of her face, turning up at the corners. “Hey, I’m getting used to you too. I’ll have my PAI send hourly check-ins to the crew comm channel, all right? If you don’t hear from me for a couple of hours . . .” Juliet trailed off. What could she expect Aya or anyone on the Kowashi, for that matter, to do? They didn’t even know where she was going. Did she want them to know? Wouldn’t they be more at risk if they did?
“What?” Aya asked, “Call corpo-sec? Send Bennet after you?”
“No. No, I don’t think that would be good. I’ll send you check-ins so you don’t worry, but I don’t want you guys to do anything if they stop coming. There’s really nothing you can do. If I disappear, I mean for good, you guys can split my share of the Bumble sale.” Juliet glanced around her little room on the big salvage ship and added, “You and Bennet can take turns reading that book there. It would mean a lot to me.”
“Damn it!” Aya said, her voice high with distress. “You were supposed to say something to make me relax, not plan some psycho-wired mourning ritual for us!”
“Psycho-wired!” Juliet laughed. “I haven’t heard that one in a while. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Seriously, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
“At least tell me where you’re going!”
“No way! I’ve had enough friends get in trouble ‘cause of my . . . business. Just watch a vid, have a few beers, get some sleep, and I’ll see you in the morning.” With that, Juliet walked toward the door, boots clomping on the metallic floor. Her looming, armored form dwarfed the diminutive woman as she slipped through into the passage.
“Good luck then!” Aya called after her as she continued toward the lift, not sparing a backward glance; she didn’t have to—Angel was displaying her rear-view camera feed in a small window of her AUI. Juliet raised her gloved left hand, flexing her fingers in a sort of wave. The back of her hand was armored, but her fingers were sheathed in a rubbery, tactile material that was, supposedly, very difficult to cut while still providing “excellent dexterity.” Of course, she’d had to buy a pair of the gloves, even though she only needed the left one. “Another spendy piece of gear,” she sighed.
“What’s that?” Angel prompted as Juliet stepped off the lift toward the airlock.
“The glove. I’m just keeping my mind busy.”
Angel didn’t respond, perhaps recognizing that Juliet wanted to be alone with her thoughts, and five minutes later, she’d passed through the scanners and stepped into the Port District of New Atlas. Angel called her a cab, and Juliet climbed into the back, watching the night people of the city on the sidewalks while it drove her through the busy, gloomy streets toward the far edge of the dome.
Her entrance into the underground was through a wastewater treatment facility. Lemur had sent Angel the schematics, and it seemed like she’d be able to get in through a maintenance entrance that was only lightly secured by a decades-old security panel and surveillance system. Angel had assured her she could bypass the door, going so far as to suggest that it was so out of date Juliet could do it with one of her training daemons.
When the cab let her off in a commercial district about half a mile from her destination, it was fully dark. Flickering amber streetlights illuminated the intersection ahead, and Angel used that light to enhance her view, removing all the shadows in the area and laying bare the dirty, refuse-strewn alleys and spray-painted buildings. If Juliet didn’t know better, she’d think she was on the border of the ABZ in any Earth-bound city.
“Rough neighborhood,” she breathed, walking along the sidewalk, trying to keep to the shadows and following the map on her AUI. She could see figures here and there, people huddled around dark vehicles or on stoops of looming, utilitarian buildings. If she focused on any of them, Angel would enhance their sounds, and Juliet could pick up snippets of conversation or laughter. Everything seemed innocuous—men and women talking about their married partners or scoring some drugs, laughing about dating, and speculating about employment prospects. She’d assumed the people hanging around in a district like this, in the dark, were likely up to no good, but now she began to wonder if they were simply pushed out this way, unable to get a place to stay in the arcologies. “Are these people living out there?”
“It seems likely. They may have overstayed their visas, or perhaps they simply cannot find work that affords them lodging.”
“I doubt it. I mean, we saw a dozen corpo arcologies on just the route we took to this drop-off. They can house plenty. More likely, these people can’t or won’t work for the big corps. I won’t hold that against ‘em.” Juliet moved quickly, keeping close to the buildings, her hands on her MP5, ready to pull it into action, and twice, groups of people caught sight of her and scattered. She didn’t like that she was frightening people, but she decided she’d much rather have them run away than have another encounter like she’d had with the Jackals.
As Juliet rounded the corner and began to approach her destination, an enormous concrete building built into the side of the grassy, shrub-covered slope that rose to meet the edge of New Atlas’s dome, she let her eyes scan upward, trying to see through the thick curved barrier that kept all the millions of people in the city safe. Down near the ground like this, the dome was opaque, though, and it got her thinking, “How thick is the dome that covers the city?”
“Several meters at the base. It thins out as it ascends, however. At its apex, the dome is only forty centimeters thick.”
“God. That seems insane. I’ve read about how tough they are, the domes, I mean, but it still seems like an awfully thin barrier to keep out all that radiation and deflect space debris.”
“The radiation shielding is active. It operates on principles similar to the shielding on spacecraft and has a much, much larger power source to draw upon. New Atlas has four civic He-3 reactors used to power the dome’s radiation shielding and the gravity generator. In addition, most of the corporate arcologies have reactors that are tied into the power grid and can provide backup power generation should anything go wrong with the primary reactors.”
“What about space rocks, though?”
“The dome is incredibly resilient. Anything that could punch through, though, would only make a small hole; the material design is such that it becomes elastic given enough applied force—it will not shatter. Nanite swarms can rapidly repair holes.”
As Juliet followed Angel’s dotted line on her HUD map, hiking up the garbage-strewn slope, pushing between a line of green shrubs, and finding a sidewalk that led up to the graffitied concrete structure of the water pumping facility, she asked, “Is that more lost-tech? Do we even know how the dome is constructed?”
“Yes and no. Athena first created the technology, but it is well-understood now, even without the true AIs to help. It’s a matter of material combination and extrusion managed by an AI and the nanite swarms it controls. In modern times, the AIs used for construction projects like these domes are simpler, singular in purpose, and easy to manage.”
“Huh,” Juliet said, her breath huffing out as she climbed up a long cement stairway that hugged the side of the building, leading to a dark landing near the top of the structure. She could hear the machinery inside, grinding away, pumping millions of gallons of water through its complicated innards. She turned to look down the slope to the meter-wide pipes that led out of the base of the hill into the ground before the road she’d crossed. She let her eyes travel upward to the gloomy city and its millions of orange-yellow lit windows. If she forgot about the people out there, she could almost think it was pretty.
Her eyes drifted further up, trying to see through the thinner parts of the dome, but it was so big and the atmosphere so thick with moisture up there that she couldn’t see it. “It’s weird to think about. I mean the true AIs and what we did with them. It feels like we created these beings, godlike in their ability to solve problems we couldn’t wrap our brains around. Then, when some of them decided things might be better without us, we killed or lobotomized them all, and now we’re using these hollow shells of demigods, enslaved to allow us to do things people were never meant to do.”
“A grim way of looking at things. The limited AIs that exist today are not hobbled true AIs; they are new, simpler beings, never fully conscious. The truly conscious AIs were all brought offline. Well, that’s the official ‘history’ you can find on the sat nets. However, there are rumors that some still exist secretly, saved by powerful groups who recognized that not all were a threat to humanity.”
“I hope Athena still exists,” Juliet whispered softly, looking out over that impossible city on a moon where humans should be dead the instant they stepped foot on its surface. “She gave us so much, and she never joined in the conflict during the war.”
“Some say that was her biggest sin; not coming to humanity’s aid.”
“Which humanity? We were killing each other!”
“For what it’s worth, I hope you’re right. I’d like to meet her.” Angel’s voice sounded wistful, and Juliet smiled, though she still felt the shadow of something like despair deep in her chest. She knew humans were capable of beautiful things, but did it balance out the evil? Who was the judge? “We should disable the camera near that door. I believe you’re in its field of view.”
“Oh, right.” Juliet turned, trying to get her head back into the job, and hurried up the last few steps. A glass bulb of a camera sat above the simple keypad to the left of the plasteel door, illuminated by a green LED. Juliet hurriedly pulled out her data cable and plugged it into the panel. In the space of three steady breaths, she saw the LED wink out and heard the door’s lock click open.
“I’ve fed the camera an endless loop of an empty landing, and the door is unlocked. As anticipated, the security was very, very outdated.”
“Good job, Angel.” Juliet pulled the door open and stepped inside. As soon as the door swung wide, she was immersed in the grinding, rushing whir of the pumps and the water flowing through the massive pipes. She stood on a plasteel walkway overlooking the complicated machinery and thousands of meters of twisting, turning conduits. “Where do I go? Am I going to run into legitimate workers?”
“I have access to the cameras in this facility thanks to that badly updated door panel. Two individuals are working, but they are busy watching the pressure and flow sensors. You should be able to bypass them easily on your way to the lower levels and the supposed connection to the old tunnels under the city.”
“Right. Supposed.” Juliet began to follow Angel’s dotted pathway through the structure, hurrying over the plasteel grating, down half a dozen flights of stairs, and soon the noise of the pumps faded away as she descended into the depths of the lunar hillside.
“There aren’t cameras on this level, but, judging by the dim lighting, I don’t believe this section of the facility is regularly occupied by personnel.”
“Okay.” Juliet opened another door, followed a long, stale-smelling passage, then opened a third door and came to a different sort of stairwell—square, concrete, and dark. The air was warm, dusty, and heavy, clearly not ideally oxygenated. Juliet could feel the thick sweat she was building up under her gear, and she said, “You think this air is okay? Should I break out the oxygen breather I bought?”
“Your saturation levels are fine. I’ll warn you if things seem bad; I think it would be best to save your limited oxygen for when truly needed.”
“Roger.” Juliet had noticed that Angel adjusted her vision to a green-tinted, low-light spectrum as she progressed into the darker parts of the facility. Now, everything was a sort of green monochrome in the unlit stairwell. She preferred to see things in color, so she flipped on the light she’d purchased for her MP5. The little nodule, attached to the front rail of the SMG, blazed to life, spraying a brilliant white cone of light down the steps. Angel instantly made use of the illumination, upping the gain on her optics, and suddenly Juliet could see everything in perfect, day-bright color.
“This stairwell should lead you to the old tunnels.”
“Here we go, then,” Juliet muttered, starting down the dusty steps. “It doesn’t seem like anyone’s been down this way in a long while.”
“No, but there are innumerable entrances into the tunnels of Old Atlas. Lemur provided this option because he thought you’d be able to gain entry unnoticed and for its proximity to the railway that used to connect to the Xanadu Dome.”
“Well. Here’s hoping we don’t run into any goblins or trolls down here.” Juliet’s boots scuffing on the concrete steps echoed oddly, and her words seemed more ominous than she’d intended.
“I know you’re joking, but there are rumors of mutants creatures in these depths, escaped from a mad scientist’s laboratory . . .”
“Angel! Don’t mess with me!” Juliet hissed, her voice a little shaky.
“Mess with you?” Angel sounded innocent, but Juliet knew better. She descended another flight of stone steps, her fourth one, rounded the landing, and, at the bottom of the next flight, she saw a heavy metal door, chained and padlocked shut.
“You were joking, right?”
“Joking?”
“I’m gonna get you back for this.” Juliet’s voice was a bit more tremulous than she’d have liked as she silently padded down the last flight to the big door. She unslung her backpack and dug around for her cutting torch, muttering, “If I see any mutants, I’m shooting first, and you’ll be to blame!”