Greyson

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For realz? I grunt and yank my doona up, my eyes shut firm-like, but now I’m awake it’s impossible to block the grind and grizz of L8.

You’re going to be lay-ate, a voice sing-songs into my brain like a sledgehammer from the chip Father lodged in my skull when I was a tot. The Cyberinth chip I’ve had since I was commissioned sits right by it, dormant. Illegally dormant. Something bounces on my gut, hard little paws equipped with diamond-tipped claws gleefully kneading away like I’m made of protein batter.

“Glitch, Zip! I’m up!” I fling my covers over her titanium-plated bod and shove her to the floor. She mews pathetic-like and wrestles her way free, shooting me a dirty. Her ears twitch like a booth addict’s digits above two big eyes of offbeat colours, a pale green and a golden orange.

It’s oh-eight-twenty, the robotic cat says, dry as an eyeball full of grit, and leaps onto my desk. I swear, jamming my shirt over my head and looking for my boots.

“Why’d you let me coma-fy?” I growl, sniffing some socks. I’ve got to keep my head low to avoid taking on the roof.

Zipper click-clacks her eye-bulbs, her whiskers twitching, and picks her way across the cluttered chaos. Her weight activates the desktop so it swirls with algorithms and project designs, flash-flickering cos it hasn’t the highest of rez. She finds the icon she’s after, and sudden-like the space’s filled with music, the loud screeching kind.

“Oh for freck’s sake!” I slam my palm down and the desktop powers off. I’d say the next-doors would complain, our walls are thinner than skin-tissue, but the zone’s been getting noiser since lights-on, a roar punctuated by growling-howling gears, distressed flesh-heifers, and level alerts that are untranslatable in the sound jungle.

“Be handy, you mangy animal. Help me find my glitching boots!”

A frenzied search later, I toss my pack down the narrow ladder and slip-scramble after and into the kitchen barefoot, shoes tucked into an armpit. Zipper leaps, skitters, and crashes into the far wall. I snort as she does her right best to scavenge her tatty dignity, her tail swishing with embarrassment.

I tug on my boots, squeezing past the fridge to the edibles Ma’s left me. Mmm, leftovers. Well, leftovers of leftovers, grey and beige cubes in a salty-sweet broth. Under lunch is a message, half hidden by a crooked crack in the glass: won’t be home until late. dinner in fridge. love you. “Love you too, Ma,” I say aloud and the table records me, its cheery ping-ting more a sulky clunk-dunk from hard use.

You sure you’re not rushing because you want to see Bryn? Zipper drawls.

“Don’t be daft. She doesn’t even know me.” I shrug into my old man’s jacket and the robotic creature leaps into my hood and curls herself up cog-like, with a contented purr.

My modes hang on a hook by the door and I shove them on. The arms pinch against my temples and I’m seeing the world through a haze. They aren’t anything like the VHS, or Virtual Haptic Simulator, that allows full range of vibes and tingles in the Cyberinth, but for us Grounders on Triumph’s bottom level (the levels above call us Bottom Dwellers), it’s the closest we’ll get unless we’re students or hire flesh space in a seedy Pay-By-The-Credit booth.

In a nutshell, modes are the outerware to our innerware, the hardware to our fleshware. They connect us to everything. Chat friends, seek data, share memories, watch vids, hear music, taste food, jaunt through virtual realms with one of them top hats and a tutu. Heck, whatever flies your glitching rocket-ship! Anything external goes through modes and into the Cyberinth chip lodged into your brain. Through it you can transmit every dull-dim memory, every thought that’s got no place out in the big wide world, and the Guardian likes it. He likes it. It’s easy for the boss man to keep his eyes on you, see?

But my chip’s defunct. I’m safe. Well, safer, cos really, you hear rumours, and well ... either way, Zipper’s all I need to connect to the Cyberinth. If I could get away with not wearing modes full stop I’d do it in a heartbeat, but Triumphians have issues with eyeball contact. Serious issues. Especially the Airheads up top on L1 and L2. They haven’t got much going in the old brainpan, if you catch my drift.

My modes are from when I was still growing my first set of teeth and had a head the size of a pea. I turn eighteen on Activation Day, and then I’ll be able to buy a pair that fit. The modes are for show mainly, basics running only, and emitting an artificial ping-ping-ping letting the Powers That Be know I’m still kicking, but not pinpointing exactly where. The Guardian doesn’t like not knowing where every little kilobyte in his hard drive is.

I fight the need to shift the modes up my forehead and give the door a bit of a jiggle-wiggle, a shove-in and a lift-shift, sliding it open.

Ma always forgets to lock it and I’ve had to nail the bitty kitchen window shut. She’s still used to our old place, though I bare remember it. I’m sure the memories are saved somewhere, but I can’t download them — don’t have the space. Apparently the old place had autodoors and could hold whole conversations with you, which kind of wigs me out. I sometimes catch Ma chattering to the walls. It’s usually when she’s happiest, sewing something new like that red Activation Ball dress she was working on recently. She’s usually busy working back to back shifts as a cleaner so it’s rare she gets to make something. We don’t have much worth robbing, but I worry when Ma’s home alone.

Tugging shut and locking the door behind me, I step out onto the narrow open-air walkway running the length of my building. A chain railing’s all that keeps us from a pretty viral drop. I’m slammed by the wall of grizzing noise. Down here, on L8, we’re so crammed in it’s unnatural not to feel your neighbour’s hot breath on the back of your neck. Doesn’t help that the temperature down here is constantly set to sweltering.

You’re going to be late, Zipper prompts.

I check it’s clear below before wedging my boot heels against the ladder’s steep sides and tugging my sleeves over bare palms. It’s a thrill-buzz, zipping down the front of our apartment to the street level, gripping tight and feeling the heat-burn as I brake. I jog along the alleyway and press two fingers to my brow to salute a hello to Mr Oldroyd who runs the light-bulb shop on the second floor.

“How’s Hannah?” he signs, asking about Ma. It’s too noisy to hear words, so his hands neatly shape his meaning.

“Working, again,” I answer, then sign a farewell over my shoulder, dodging bicycles and heavily loaded trolleys full of screech-beeping droids heading for the black-market ring past Ivers Square.

I duck beneath sagging lines of damp washing and rooms of recycled junk, stretching down like odd-shaped stalactites into empty airspace. The sign for my zone, Preston, has been graffitied to read Depreston. Sounds legit. Loony Larry is preaching on his corner, bellowing out the same word over and over, “Ascend! Ascend!” I do my best to avoid him.

The Guardian, grand pooh-bah of all and sundry, says we’ve all a chance to ascend like some god from one of them Old Earth mythos. It’s a load of droid balls. Ma’s the perfect example. Living on Level 3, she was a fashion designer, her clothes worn by the highest rankers and stars, but when Pa died, all that went away. Something about his death demoted her to L8 overnight, stripping her of her rank, and now she’s a cleaner for the same level she used to live on, serving the families who used to be her friends. They carved her heart out when they turned their backs on her. Once an Unknown, always an Unknown; no one’s risen in decades, only fallen.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

There’s a random mode check on Maggie’s Way, Zipper murmurs. Take a left here and go through Tall Timbers into the Sheltering District.

Now why’d I want to do that?

Zipper groans, a disgruntled rumble-buzz that echoes in my chest. What’s going on in that hollow skull of yours?

I dig through a pocket and snag out my latest experiment. The MB (short for annoy-the-dirt-out-of-mediators-cos-I-can blocker) is quaint as a matchbox and isn’t the shiniest thing I’ve ever built. It looks like one of them cockroach-cleanbots after Zip’s been chewing on it for an age – wires and electronic bits all over the joint.

This is such a bad idea, Zipper tsk-tsks. We scoot past Pay-By-The-Credit virtual access booths smelling like musk, disinfectant and sour sweat, towards the mode checkpoint.

A man with skin decked in swirling blue tatts like a circuit board (one of those Unknowns), holds his open palm above his chest as he gestures his other hand, palm out and flat, out and away from his bod. Nonsense to Airheads, but to us Grounders it’s a clear warning: cop block. As if it was their intent all along, Grounders turn on their heels and walk the other way. I ignore his warning, now echoed by dozens of hands, and keep to the edges until the group of dark clad Mediators are in spying distance.

They’re like armoured beetles — well-fed, fat ones — tinted black helmets blend real smooth into flexible neck segments and reinforced body armour. Every inch of skin’s covered in highly connective mesh and they move about like they’re floating, not quite in this world, half their mind walking the virtual streets of the Cyberinth. They’re never good news.

The troop’s corralling a few dozen folks through a bottleneck, catching them up before they can reroute, and waving a mode scanner about their heads to read their chips. The same deactivated chip in my head.

Got to be close enough now, I judge.

Too close, Zipper grouches. You’ll be deconstructed if you’re late.

It’ll be glitching worth it. I fish out a teeny-bitty battery, a tad corroded but it holds its charge fine, and insert it into the MB.

The effect’s instant.

The Mediators freeze, their haptic suits jam-up and their minds lock up in the Cyberinth. Now Grounders aren’t ones to look a gift heifer in the mouth. They waste no time and duck-dodge away until all that’s left are still, dark statues standing in an open space on a level that rare offers space enough to scratch. But they aren’t the only things going down like a cheap bot with a flat battery. The lights flicker-flash, switch off, then return half bright. Carts power off and protein cookers hum down. Who knows what my MB did to people with functioning modes!

Tell me it isn’t the whole level?

It’s not, but a second Mediator unit is converging!

Already? People are yelling, hands flap-flinging about. Someone signs the arrival of Mediators from Drewer’s Pass so I head in the opposite direction.

Told you it was a bad idea. Zipper’s cheek bumps up beside mine. Brilliant, but it was always going to backfire.

I look up at the hundreds of boot-soles on the grating platforms overhead, maybe six or seven walkways on top of each other like a layered cake, linking one side of the snickelway to the other. Tiny flecks of paint and rust float down with every stomp, and I’m glad for the modes. Keeping my eyes peeled for the right maintenance hatchway, I tuck my head down, careful to avoid notice.

I spot it eventually, tucked in behind a small booth selling pre-used thread. I rotate the valve to the right and the door opens with a hiss-shh. I’m getting too lanky for this crud, but I’m limber enough, and inside I pull the door shut behind me, sealing it tight. It’s a habit drilled into all us Grounder kids. Like the rest of the zones in the Triumph, Depreston can be shut off at a sec’s notice to avoid the spread of fire or illness, or if a section becomes depressurised. I’ve heard rumours whole zones used to just disappear. Gives me the twitters, it does.

You have fifteen minutes until the coffins lock, Zip says and I move on, crouching low to avoid hitting the multitude of pipes and wires in the gloom. Zipper lights the way with her mismatched eye bulbs. It’s cooler through here, and the air is stale and smells like neglect.

I slink through a gateway into Education District Eight behind a group of fresher kids and try to look casual when the sensors run me over. It doesn’t flash-beep and I grin. I worked out how to be invisible years back.

My school’s off an uncomfortably large and airy quadrant that no one uses. Give it another year, maybe two, and the surrounding units will nibble away at it. It’s next to the Core, the heart of the station, a hollow tube containing a hundred lifts leading to the levels above. The Core’s like a tree and the levels are branches, each smaller than the one below with Level 1 the crown. Not everyone can leave L8 though. The Cyberinth head chip determines which levels you can travel to. Ma’s allowed to travel as high as L3 for her cleaning duties, but only between set hours. I can’t use the lifts at all, but that doesn’t stop me though.

Opposite the school is the rubbish dump. All the real big junk no one has any use for gets sorted and tossed down chutes to recycling. Reuse and recycle should be our station’s glitching motto. And how’s that for symbolism, yeah? School one side, rubbish dump the other.

The school’s eight stories though you can’t see the highest levels, pressed against neighbouring buildings like it’s copping a feel. I take to the little-used stairs, my boots clanking on the metal as I swing myself up each stairwell. I’m only huff-puffing a bit when I reach my floor at the very top.

Shouldering through the doors, I’m stoked to see my classmates still milling about. It’s crowded, the corridor’s narrow and the floor’s lined, six across and fifty long, with round hatches. Beneath each is a coffin. Well that’s what everyone calls them. If you cough inside, no one can hear it. Get it? Oh mute it, it’s funny. They’re VHSs, shaped like coffins, deep enough for one person standing upright, and that’s about it. Some students are hanging out of their open coffins as they chit-chat with their neighbours, making the corridor even harder to negotiate. The tossers.

I weave around open hatches and leap over ones already closed. Mine’s at the far end in a corner and the door sticks a little. I almost lose my balance, but I perch on the metal edge and lower myself in. It’s a snug fit, and Zipper hiss‑spits when I slide and thump into the wall. I pull the hatch shut after me and the lights flicker. I hit the side with a thud and they settle. There isn’t much space to move about, tightening the thick wide straps around my waist, wedging my boots into the right harnesses, fiddling with all kinds of worn out buckles and belts until I’m hovering, suspended like a bug in resin.

My modes, junk that they are, are yanked off and stored on a hook I’ve twisted into the side. Zip drapes herself across my shoulders like a metal wrap, her chin resting on her paws. Her tail slithers up, segments click-clacking together, until the tip splits open like a blooming flower, revealing a jack she shoves into my left ear. I’m deaf on that side cos of the port, but it’s damage I can live with to ensure my mind stays private.

30 seconds until roll call, Zipper says. Her eyes flash bright and I’m in. I’m facing my locker. In it are some virtual books and a grey cap I found a few classes back. On the door’s a mirror. All the lockers have one, so you can adjust your avatar. Being well and truly credit-less, I’m stuck with the default settings. I don’t care, and rare bother looking. As long as I’ve trousers on, I’m ahead.

Roll call’s first and I slip into the classroom, ignored as usual, and settle into my usual spot behind Bryn Morgan, her hair hanging low over the back of her seat, heavy with braids and bits of wire. I even spot a handful of ancient touch diodes, glistening like crystals. I’ve never seen her in the real, just these small moments in the classes we share, so there’s a chance she isn’t nearly so pretty and polished. She’s strong and athletic, her smile almost too wide for her face, but with her dimples and button nose, it suits her. It’s a smile freely given, and just one glimpse gets my whole bod buzzing until lights out.

The right words to say to her flip-spin around and around my mind. I imagine things she’d say. I imagine things I’d say back. I scuff her chair, accident-like, but she doesn’t turn about. I need to be interesting to gain the attention of a girl like Bryn Morgan. Pulling one over the Mediators and nearly crashing some zones this morning is interesting, right?

You were lucky this time. Even though Zipper isn’t visually represented in the system, she’s still got access via my rigged chip, and her voice is clear-crystal.

I snort, getting a dirty from a kid a seat over, his rank above his head saying he’s at 858. Not too bad. The kid’s eyes flick to my rank. I ignore him as Bryn ignores me.

It’s not long now until we’re Activated into the adult ranking system and we can trade any one of our year-mates for Friends of greater value. I’ve not got long left to convince Bryn I’m worth keeping, but even that isn’t enough to give me the guts to speak to her.