Juliet slipped two shrink-ties around the links of the chain she’d cut, sealing the two ambushers away in the ancient janitor’s closet. The ties were tough, remarkably so, and she didn’t think they’d be able to break free; neither of the men had seemed particularly hale. They crowded the door, pressing toward the gap before she pushed it shut and tightened the bands, cussing at her, yelling something about her mother or what they’d do to her if they found her. “I’ll alert corpo-sec about you being trapped in here when I’m done!”
“You can’t keep us here, bitch!” one of them screamed, his words loud and clear as he pressed his face to the seam between the door and the jamb.
“You keep calling me that. It’s not really increasing my sympathy . . .”
“We’ll die in here!”
“Well, you meant to kill me back there, didn’t you?”
“Nah! We were just gonna scare you!”
“Right. Well, as I said, I’ll make sure you don’t rot in there.” With that, she pressed the door closed and activated the shrink-ties, pulling the chain taut.
“In case I forget, Angel,” she said, turning to follow her map to where the drone waited, “make an anonymous report about these guys being trapped after we’re done down here.”
“Will do.”
Juliet briefly wondered if she was the bad guy in this situation. She’d been an unknown threat to those men, cutting through the door the way she did. Maybe they’d been scared and meant to question or intimidate her but not start shooting. Should she have tried negotiating before she reached around the corner and began firing botu-rounds? Could she really blame them for shooting back at her? “Am I gaslighting myself?” she wondered aloud.
“You made some serious tactical errors in your engagement with those men, but I’m at least as much to blame as you are.”
“No, you aren’t . . .”
“I am.” Angel’s voice was grave, and she cut Juliet off, which she didn’t do very often. “I knew you were acting hastily; I knew the needler was the wrong weapon, and I should have helped you choose a better target. I feel like I’m performing less optimally than when we first met, which seems to be a serious problem, indeed. Why didn’t I encourage you to try to negotiate? Why didn’t I remind you about prioritizing targets? I could have even guided your sights toward the individual with the shotgun. It would have required a very minor tweak of your motor functions, a tiny nudge to get your wrist moving in the right direction . . .”
“You didn’t do that because you respect me. You treat me like a person, not your . . . I don’t know the right word. Charge? You don’t act like a combat program because you’re not. You have your own thoughts and feelings, and you act more like a person than a stupid PAI. You probably didn’t slow me down or warn me more about my dumb tactics because you don’t think I’m an idiot and weren’t sure I didn’t know something you didn’t. If all you did was follow a set of rules like a typical PAI, you would have done everything you mentioned. Instead, you showed me that you trusted me, even though I was being dumb. Thank you.”
“Still. I’m sorry, Juliet. Let’s agree that, in dangerous situations, we’ll communicate more. Would that be all right with you?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I really hope I didn’t just kill those two men for no reason. Maybe they would have backed off.”
“I don’t think it was likely that they were prepared to resolve matters with a lone woman peacefully. We can’t know for sure, but those men, together with the ones you locked up, were wanted for seventeen violent crimes. I did a sat-net search using still images from the drone.”
“Oh, jeez. That makes me feel better. Next time tell me that as soon as it’s convenient, please!” It was true, she did feel a wave of relief, but it didn’t change the fact that her ambushers might not have been such violent ne’er-do-wells. It bore reflecting on—both her quick escalation to violence and her inflated sense of capability; she’d really thought she could tranquilize all those men before they could react to her. “Something to bring up with Doctor Ming,” she muttered.
Juliet clutched her SMG, newly topped-off magazine ready to go, and picked up the pace. Her immobile cybernetic finger stuck straight out along the trigger guard, almost like she meant to practice trigger discipline. Anyone looking at her would probably think it worked just fine. She’d mentally reminded herself—and practiced a couple of times—that she’d need to pull that trigger with her middle finger if she got in another shootout. “I wonder if Bennet can get this thing working, at least enough to last until I make it back to Luna.”
“He probably can,” Angel opined, “You’ve seen his workshop; he has the appropriate tools, and if he needs some guidance, I’ve downloaded the full specifications for your arm.”
“That’s good. It might be kinda fun to see how these things work on the inside.” Juliet subconsciously flexed her working fingers, imagining the innards of her hand.
“That archway to your left leads to the stairway where the drone awaits.” Juliet glanced at her AUI and saw that the drone’s battery was down to 89%.
“Do you think everyone will be as hostile as those jerks back there?”
“Doubtful.”
Juliet stepped around the corner and stood atop the cement stairs, looking left and right down the enormous tunnel. It looked like it had been made to allow gigantic vehicles to traverse the underground warren. “What were they mining down here before the dome was built?”
“At first, H-3. When it came time to build the domes and first arcologies, though, it was a matter of acquiring vast quantities of raw resources for the AI nanite swarms to use for their extrusion process.” Juliet started down the steps, noting that Angel had put small windows showing the feeds for the various cameras in her helmet on her AUI. “I’m watching the people nearby and in the distance for signs of aggression and weapons. Be ready to turn in any direction I indicate on your AUI.”
“Thanks.” Juliet tried to keep her center of gravity low as she lifted her SMG and continued down the stairs. She didn’t like how out in the open she was, but she’d turned off her light and was trying to move smoothly so she didn’t draw attention. The dull-yellow LEDs in the high, arched ceiling of the old tunnel didn’t provide much illumination, leaving plenty of shadows for her to skulk through as she got to the bottom of the passageway.
She turned to the right and saw two figures wearing baggy, shapeless jackets or blankets scurry away down a side passage. Two of her camera feeds flashed yellow, and Angel said, “I’ve detected weapons on some individuals behind you, but they’re moving away.”
“Cool. If they don’t mess with me, I won’t mess with them.” Juliet glanced at her map, saw she had about fifteen hundred meters to go before turning to the right, and broke into a light jog. “Let’s get this thing done.” Every twenty meters, tunnels branched off from the main thoroughfare, and Juliet slowed, edging toward the center of the passage so she could see into the recessed archways, ensuring an ambush wasn’t waiting for her. She saw some startled, desperate-looking people, but most averted their gaze or fled when they saw her.
Refuse was strewn all over the place, from trash like empty food cartons or ripped-up boxes to filthy blankets, clothing, and the occasional broken or discarded item. Juliet ignored most of the garbage, but every so often, she’d pass by a broken doll or, in one instance, a game deck with a shattered screen, and she had to imagine people living down there with children. It was a sobering thought. Only one person spoke to her before she turned, a woman with wild hair, rotten teeth, and a cybernetic eye with erratically blinking red LEDs. She saw Juliet creeping by, gun at the ready, and hissed, “Corpo scum.”
Juliet didn’t want to engage, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “I’m not corpo.” Then the woman was behind her, and a few seconds later, Juliet turned to the right into a narrow, dusty tunnel, following in the wake of her little drone. Angel was driving the spider about fifty meters ahead of her; she might still run into hostile people, but at least she’d have an idea of what she was walking into. As if on cue, Angel said, “There’s a sealed door ahead, and two individuals are encamped, for lack of a better word, before it.”
“Roger,” Juliet said, turning left at a T junction and then slowing, focusing on the drone’s feed. Sure enough, it faced a couple of people sitting before a butane camp stove. She saw a tent against the big plasteel door, an old pallet piled with cardboard boxes, and quite a lot of discarded trash and broken-looking objects, from a small table with three legs to the lower half of a synthetic humanoid, chrome legs jutting out from a midriff truncated at the hips. The two people were sitting on plastic stools, wearing filthy, loose clothing, and were unarmed as far as she could tell. “Keep watching them.”
“I will. The one on the left is female and, I believe, pregnant.”
“Seriously?” Juliet looked at the feed again, walking slowly and watching the woman for a moment. Sure enough, when she leaned back, away from the little kettle on the camp stove, Juliet saw her distended belly. “She might just be overweight . . .”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, I know. Look at her knees—poor thing is thin as a rail.” The girl’s coat had fallen open, and her bony, dirt-smudged knees protruded. “Let me know when I’m approaching the last corner. I don’t want to surprise them.”
“You’re close; one more turn, then twenty meters to the last one.”
Juliet nodded, looking at the map as if to confirm Angel’s directions, and then she hurried her steps. When she came to that final corner, she looked in the drone’s feed again, ensured the pair were still sitting in their camp, and then called around the corner, “Hey, you two. Can we talk? I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
She could see Angel had driven the drone to the edge of the junk-piled pallet, and she had a good view in its feed of the girl’s face when she heard Juliet’s voice. Her eyes opened wide, and she almost fell off her stool. The other person turned, and Juliet saw it was another young woman, similarly dirty, similarly wan, and frail looking. She had synthetic pink hair, and if Juliet were any judge, it probably cost a pretty penny once upon a time.
“Leave us alone!” the second woman called.
“I need to access that door,” Juliet said, still hanging back beyond the corner. “I’m going to come around so we can talk, okay? Don’t do anything threatening; I don’t want to hurt either of you.” She heard shuffling movement and saw through the drone’s feed that the second girl moved to crouch before the pregnant one protectively. Juliet lowered the SMG and, palms held out to her sides, stepped around the corner. “Really,” she said, “I just want to get past this door.”
“It doesn’t open. Welded shut. This is our spot!”
“I’m Lucky,” Juliet said, taking a step forward. “I mean, that’s my name. What can I call you two?”
“Nothing. Get melted, corpo rat.”
“Easy!” Juliet chuckled. “Those are fighting words! I’m no corpo goon. In fact, I want through this door so I can pull a fast one on a major corpo scumbag. He’s holding my girlfriend hostage.”
“Serio?” the first girl, the pregnant one, asked from behind her protective friend. Her voice was high and kind of thready, like her vocal cords were tired.
“One hundred true true,” Juliet said, falling into the old slang she’d sometimes used when hanging around with Felix and his pals. That thought gave her pause, eliciting a moment of strange panic; it felt like a different person had lived that life. She hadn’t thought about Felix in weeks. “You guys good? Need a boost? Get some food for baby and mama?”
“We good,” the protective girl said.
“Hang a sec,” Juliet said, holding her hands to show they were empty and slowly unslinging her pack. “Got some food in here.”
“I said we . . .”
“Hush, Cel. I’m hungry hungry!”
“I got you, mama,” Juliet said softly, digging into her pack and pulling out four packages of MREs. “Can I come closer? Give to you?”
“Come, ghost,” the other girl said. “I’m Cel. This Rissa. We ain’t leave this spot.”
“I haven’t yet detected any weapons on the pair of them,” Angel said, and Juliet could see in her AUI that she’d maneuvered the drone behind the girls.
“Hey ladies,” Juliet said, moving closer and then squatting low, pressing the button on the side of her helmet to flip the visor up.
“Shine! She pretty, Cel!” Rissa said, peering at Juliet from behind Cel’s shoulder.
“Thanks, sweet girl,” Juliet said, holding up the MRE packages. “Here’s food. I don’t need; it’s nada, ‘kay?”
“Yeah,” Cel said, taking the packages in filthy, cracked-nail fingers. As she did so, she sort of fell out of her squatting position to her rump to sit on the floor in front of Rissa’s stool, exposing the pregnant girl fully. Juliet stared at her distended belly and couldn’t imagine how scared she must be.
“Why you living here, ladies? Corpo scum chase you out?”
“They wanted her,” Rissa sighed, resting a bony hand on her stomach.
“The corp? Which?”
“EvoGen,” Cel said, biting at the edge of one of the MRE packages. Juliet looked away from Cel, into Rissa’s pale brown eyes, at her dirt-smudged face, and then down at her belly, straining the fabric of her threadbare t-shirt. She suddenly wanted to feel it and lifted her left hand, holding it toward the pregnant girl.
“Can I?”
“Yeah. She kickin’ now.” Juliet nodded and gently rested her palm on the girl’s taut stomach. It was hot, hotter than Juliet had expected, and as soon as her hand rested against it, she felt a pressure against her palm, and Rissa giggled. “She like you!”
“Wow!” Juliet joined in the giggle. Then, on an impulse, she closed her eyes and was instantly overwhelmed by feelings of warmth, pleasure, happiness, and behind it all, an unmistakable vibrancy. When she opened her eyes, her cheeks were streaked with tears. “She’s so happy, Rissa, so healthy!”
Suddenly, Cel reached up and slapped Juliet’s wrist, knocking her hand off Rissa’s belly. “That enough, enough.”
“True,” Juliet sighed, standing up and taking a step back. “Can I help more? Some bits?”
“No,” Cel said, but Juliet saw in her eyes that she wanted to say yes. She looked at Rissa and raised an eyebrow.
“Need bits to change ID—to work for other corpo, one that don’t want her,” Rissa muttered, gently rubbing her belly.
“I can help,” Juliet said, then subvocalized, “Angel, can you alter their IDs?”
“Not enough for them to gain employment. All the ID data I’ve been using to mask your presence is either from Earth or incomplete surface details from public nets on Luna and Titan.”
“You know someone who can make you new IDs?”
“Your words sound corpo sometimes,” Cel said, holding the MRE package to the side and staring at Juliet.
“Too many jobs.” Juliet shrugged. “Know someone to help?”
“Yeah. Redbot. He wants five hundred.”
Juliet frowned, thinking, then said, “I’ll give you a secure address. You go see Redbot. Message me when he makes the IDs, and I’ll pay.”
“True true?” Cel asked, reaching over to grab Rissa’s hand.
“True.”
“I sent them both a secure line address.”
“You got it?” Juliet asked, smiling at Rissa.
“Yes!”
“Okay. I’m gonna cut the door now. Don’t look at the fire.” She turned her back on the girls and approached the plasteel door. She knew Angel was still watching them, so she didn’t feel nervous as she dug out her torch and got to work. She was about halfway done when Angel expanded her rear-view camera feed enough to show the girls quietly walking out of the tunnel. “I hope they really go see that guy. That baby shouldn’t be born down here.”
“It was fun hearing you speak that way. At first, I thought you were having a stroke.”
“Hah! No, it’s just the way dumb kids talk. I mean, that sounds harsh; they aren’t dumb. I think it’s kind of a rebellion thing, you know, to annoy the adults and stiff corpo crowd. Fee and I used to talk that way all the time. Hard to imagine kids on Titan have the same slang and speech patterns as those on Earth.”
“It’s not that hard to imagine. You all share media for entertainment and connect socially via the sat nets.”
“Huh,” Juliet grunted, finishing up her cut. She pulled out her pry bar and used it to leverage the door open a few inches. “Send the drone through.” She stepped to the side, set her pry bar down, and hefted her SMG, watching the drone’s green-toned feed. It progressed through a dusty passageway, then came to a larger tunnel with a recessed rail line running down the center.
“That’s the tunnel that leads to the Xanadu Dome,” Angel announced.
“Awesome. So, it’s still there . . .” Juliet pulled the door open further and went through. She tacked the door shut with a bit of welding—something she could cut quickly, but that would still discourage others from wandering through. Ten minutes later, she was hiking down a musty, hot tunnel, following the old railway. According to Angel’s map, provided by Lemur, the rail line should end after about five klicks, and she’d need to find a way up into the other dome. Angel continued to drive the drone ahead and encountered nothing but dust. The railway seemed utterly abandoned.
Juliet looked at her clock, saw it was nearly four in the morning, and sighed wearily. “I hope we can get through into the other dome. I should be able to get public transport back to the New Atlas Dome, right?”
“Yes, there are commercial hubs in the Xanadu Dome—tourist attractions. You should be able to order a cab. Don’t jinx us, though, Juliet! You’re not there yet!”
“Me?” Juliet laughed; the idea that her PAI was worried about jinxing things was almost too much for her exhausted mind. Luckily, Angel’s fears were unfounded. When the railway ended, Juliet had to cut through another plasteel door behind which she found a set of concrete steps leading up a dozen flights of stairs. At the top, she came to a security door with an active data pad. Juliet quickly plugged into it, and Angel bypassed the lock almost as easily as back in New Atlas. Then they were through, standing on a grassy hillside, looking down at a sight that didn’t seem real.
To her right, Juliet could see the old rail tracks leading out of the hillside where the passage had been completely sealed by poured concrete. The railway led away, down the hill, but only for a hundred meters or so, and then it was swallowed by a dense, impossible forest. It was that forest that took Juliet’s breath. It blanketed the slope toward a shimmering blue ribbon of a river that sparkled in the orange morning light. The river had to be huge, for Juliet could see ships lazily plying it, moving in both directions, and they were dwarfed by the waterway.
She let her eyes track the river toward the center of the dome, and just as Lemur had promised, a mountain rose from the center of the green valley, covered with dense foliage. “God, it’s beautiful,” she breathed, looking out toward the rising sun, marveling at the view through the dome that hadn’t been present at all in New Atlas. She could see Saturn looming like a goliath and, beyond it, dark space and stars, slowly fading as the programmed layers of the dome augmented the sunrise, and it took on a more opaque nature.
“It truly is,” Angel replied, her voice hushed like Juliet’s.
“Can you figure out where we are?”
“Yes, precisely where Lemur predicted. If you hike down this hill and due northeast, you’ll come to a tourist hub in about two kilometers. Only a few major roadways are in this dome, and two meet there. Shall I order you a cab?”
“Yeah. Hang on, though. Let’s secure this door.” Juliet turned back to the concrete landing and pushed the heavy door shut.
“I have control of this door and the one on the other end. Both cameras are in working order, so I’ll be able to ensure they’re still unguarded before we use them again.”
“Perfect. Well, I’m tired as hell and don’t really feel like hiking through a forest, but I guess it beats another trip through the underground.” Juliet kicked at some rocks as she began hopping and sliding down the slope toward the dense foliage. “You think it’s too early to call Bennet?”
“He’s likely asleep . . .”
“I wanted to tell him about my hand, but I guess it can wait.” When she reached the forest, or maybe jungle was a better word, Juliet had to beat branches aside, pushing her way through the dense undergrowth at its edge. Once through that, the foliage opened up a bit, and she was able to make better time toward her destination. She’d only traversed about half a kilometer, sweating profusely, swatting at buzzing flies that kept trying to feast on her neck, when a loud gunshot rang out nearby.