Lex had to stay in Adenaaru for another six months before he finally received permission to leave the refugee district. The appointed doctor examined his forged passport, flipping it over to read the information on the back. "How do you pronounce your name?" he asked.
"Leeru Rey’a," the boy replied. "Just like it’s written."
The gray-haired doctor looked at the paper, nodded, and placed it on the desk next to the keyboard. Then he sat down and entered the data into the computer.
The small room had no windows. It reminded the boy a bit of the quarters on the ST SAMSON: cold metal walls, neon lights, and a grated floor under which ventilation pipes, water lines, and cables ran. The only personal touch was a family photo projected into the air next to the monitor.
"So, how come you speak our language, despite being from so far away?" the doctor asked.
The boy thought for a moment. "My father wanted me to learn the global language, sir. Said it would be useful someday. Had something to do with destiny," he said, thinking that the best lies were those that carried a grain of truth.
"But you don’t look like one of them," the doctor said.
"One of them, sir?"
"The natives of Luvanda."
"Not all look alike."
"Oh, but they do." The doctor typed something into the computer, causing a small red floor light to illuminate a glass vial filled with a clear liquid. When the light went off, he pulled a packaged syringe from a drawer and slid over to the vial, which sat among an array of high-tech equipment. Unwrapping the syringe, he drew up the liquid. The boy watched, a sense of unease creeping in.
"What are you doing?"
"Giving you your new ID chip," the doctor replied.
"Looks like just a liquid to me."
"That’s right. The chip’s in there. I just programmed your data onto the biochip. They’re so small now you can’t even see them with the naked eye. The older models were too easy to remove, and that caused us a lot of issues. Identity theft and trafficking, to name a few. Worse still, plenty of criminals have had their chips removed so they could disappear—to set themselves up with a new identity illegally. Just like some of those Crimson Dawn rats, for instance."
The boy clenched his jaw.
"This way, though, the biochip is untraceable. Thanks to the liquid, it can move freely to different spots under the skin. It can’t even be detected by scanners. If you wanted to get it out, you’d have to lose the entire hand—and few are willing to do that voluntarily." The doctor smiled. A moment later, he rose from his small office chair, approached Lex with the syringe, and asked whether he was right- or left-handed.
"Right," Lex lied, holding out his left hand, which had never had a chip under its skin.
"I need your right arm anyway," the doctor said.
"Then why’d you even ask?"
"Because if you’d been a lefty, it would’ve given you a slight advantage. And that would’ve made me happy."
"What kind of advantage, sir?"
"Your strong hand wouldn’t be in pain, just your weaker one. And by the way, you don’t need to call me 'sir.'"
"Old habits, sir."
"So, one last thing for the record: you might feel some pain in your right hand today, maybe tomorrow. That’s normal; millions of other citizens of Vega Prime have gone through it." His voice grew softer toward the end. He held up Lex’s hand and inspected it more closely. "Interesting scar you’ve got there, son." He traced the old wound, a pale ridge of skin about two centimeters long running across the back of his hand. "That’s exactly where they used to implant the old ID chips." The doctor looked up, scrutinizing the boy.
This time, Lex had no answer. No lie came to mind that the doctor would still believe. It was as if his well of inventiveness had run dry for the day.
"Tell me, how old are you, boy?"
"Twenty-five. Says so on my pass.2
"On yours, or someone else’s?"
"Mine, sir."
"All right. Once you’re out there, you’re on your own, you know that?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"Uh-huh," the gray-haired man muttered. "What are you planning to do once you’re out?"
"Find work," he replied.
The doctor tossed the syringe into the waste bin, sat back down, and rested his hands on his knees. With tightly pressed lips, he studied the boy.
"Look, it’s none of my business who you are or what kind of past you’ve made for yourself, but let me give you some advice now that you’re free: no one here trusts people from the other continent. Neither the citizens of Vega Prime nor the government. You refugees are under constant watch. The World Union keeps close tabs on you. They’re afraid you’re the ones most likely to join the terrorist network of Crimson Dawn. Don’t even think about it."
The boy looked at him, and though his eyes betrayed his fear, he merely shrugged, as if none of it concerned him. "Like I said, I’m just gonna find myself a job. An honest job."
The tunnel cutting through Adenaaru’s massive refugee wall stretched over two miles long. At the end, no light awaited him. When he stepped out a hundred meters above ground, a drift of snow met him; the bustling megalopolis was pitch dark, save for the artificial sea of lights. Fresh snow lay in soft, untouched mounds on the railing of a bridge he was crossing. It was bitterly cold. Below, chunks of ice floated along the sluggish river. He found a dimly lit corner, and the first thing he did was send a quick message to the girl. An email, where he didn’t use his real name but made it clear enough who the sender was. Only seconds later, a reply appeared:
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*****
In the heart of Ataris, the dark megastructures of the world’s largest corporations stood facing each other like titans from ancient myths, conspiring together, scheming over how best to secure dominion over the world. The colossal black tower Lex was looking up at belonged to the pharmaceutical giant ROEMER. A never-ending loop of holographic advertisements rose along the building’s exterior. The company logo rotated in holographic script on a skybridge connecting two of the colossal towers. Millions of tiny windows illuminated the steel facade. Across from this giant loomed the sprawling, irregular headquarters of the Thandros Corporation, reaching up into the floodlit winter sky. There had been an attack there a few months back. Light from the top floors cast a glow on the low-hanging clouds, drifting just above the tallest stories.
SnackBite Inc.’s headquarters projected oversized ads on the electrochromic window glass. Behind them, the corporate rats hid in their offices, hundreds of floors, thousands of employees. FutureDynamics, Bio-Technica, and Aero Corp. stood over the plaza like ancient guardians, a plaza Lex was now cleaning of civilization’s trash. Meanwhile, the raging snowstorm seemed intent on ridding the planet of civilization itself. The voices of the advertising loudspeakers barely made it through the fierce howling of the wind. People pulled their hoods down tightly over their faces, clutched their collars high, and hunched forward as they battled their way through the storm. Piles of fresh snow covered the railings and blanketed the unheated decorative planters, where shrubs and plants stood locked in winter stasis.
Steam drifted from a manhole beside the boy as he swept a half-eaten noodle box and its spilled contents onto his dustpan and tossed it all into the garbage bin on his cart. It was a full moon—or would have been. Between the skyscraper canyon of Starship Technology and Orion A/S, a small sliver of the moon peeked through the snow-laden clouds. All around him, he heard the honking of cars, echoing announcements, police sirens wailing, ads blaring, people arguing, chatting, meeting, and forgetting one another. Ice and snow blanketed the world around him, yet life marched on, undeterred.
He hadn’t known it could get so cold in the megalopolis. That the winters could be so harsh. Pushing his cleaning cart along the walkway inside the imposing Corporate Ring, he rolled over scattered road salt and across a glowing floor grate. Beneath it, a powerful projector hummed, casting an oversized image of the corporation’s CEO into the air: Zara Thandros, sole ruler over the plaza, over the planet, over all life. Her massive hologram created the only no-fly zone in the otherwise constant flow of gliders. Snow gusted down from the elevated walkways, which twisted like branching bridges around the government building. The great tower bore a holographic inscription—WORLD UNION—wrapped around its slender middle. Somewhere deep inside that building, the puppet Blake Powers sat, dancing to the will of the corporations.
Crowds of homeless people gathered beneath the underpasses, building makeshift shelters among the trash piles, seeking protection from the snowstorm and any food they could find. But here on the glass walkways, winding around the black government tower over multiple floors, Lex only saw well-dressed people. They looked at him as if he didn’t belong, as if he should be sweeping under the bridge, not on it. No one made a mess here; he was the only mess.
It was nearly midnight, and the plaza was busier than ever. The trash that Lex and his district cleaning crew had picked up was already back in triplicate. Heavy bollards lined the western bridge access to the government complex, meant to prevent terrorist attacks involving trucks or other vehicles. Lex squeezed past one of the bollards and a group of corporate stooges blocking the way as he headed toward the entrance. Inlaid into the bridge platform was a square glass panel, offering a view of the highway below. Snow and ice clung to the glass, but closer to the entrance, the overhang of the corporate building kept the surface clear. The building itself was a monument, a towering black structure shaped almost like a deltoid, tapering at the top like the point of a blade.
With gloved hands gripping his broom handle, Lex leaned on it, gazing through the frosted glass at the labyrinthine network of highways below. Cars streaked past beneath him like streams of light, an unending flow, new cars, new drivers, each on a different path, each leading a different life. How many people could there be in Vega Prime?
Noticing the way some of the corporate rats around him were staring, he resumed his work, not wanting them to file a complaint against him. He swept a bit of fresh snow off the glass floor. Just then, a water bucket crashed down at his feet, denting the glass with a crack. The spilled water froze instantly. He heard someone cursing from above. He looked up to see a platform slowly descending, the motors humming. Through the swirling snow, he couldn’t make out what was going on until the last moment. A window cleaner stood on the platform, dressed in a black uniform with the WU logo on his chest. He had shaggy hair, standing there like a government janitor, just like Lex. They stared at each other.
"Mind handing me that bucket back?" the man asked. "Then I won’t have to climb down. And while you’re at it, you could refill it for me. There’s a faucet back there."
Lex studied the young man with the wild mane of hair. Green eyes, deep and clear as a lake, almost unscarred yet somehow older or wiser than his years might suggest.
"I know you," Lex murmured, his consonants slurred, almost as if he were drunk. But it was just the cold, numbing his face. "You’re…"
"Doesn’t matter who I am," CR replied. "No one here cares about that. All they care about is clean windows. Their damn windows. And if you care to look up" — he tilted his own head back, gazing at the millions of illuminated windows on the government complex— "you’ll see I’ve still got plenty of work to do. So, if you wouldn’t mind…"
Lex braced himself on his broom, crouching down to grab the rusty handle on the bucket. He held it out to CR, but the window cleaner didn’t take it. His eyes narrowed. He looked at Lex thoughtfully, as though lost in deep contemplation.
Lex thought CR might recognize him at last, but all he said was, "You’re like him. A floor scrubber. You’re like Cal Rook, a drudge. Only instead of working in a grimy factory, you’re cleaning the steps of the powerful."
"Like Cal Rook?"
"You’ve got those hopeless eyes, no doubt about it. Cal nearly got crushed by a falling drone once. You almost got hit by a bucket. It’s fate, drudge. Are you him? His successor? What’s your name?"
"Pretty sure I told you a few times already. Name’s Lex. We used to work together. The glider factory. The food stand."
CR paused a moment, but there was nothing there in his memory. All of it wiped clean.
"And so the story changes in the blink of an eye," he finally said. "Just a second ago, I was cursing my clumsiness. Now, I see it as fate. What happened to you, drudge?"
In a brief rundown, Lex told him about the last few years, hoping CR might remember him. As he spoke, he rested his hands on the broom, and when he finished, he laid his chin on his crossed hands, his gaze drifting off into the distance. The surrounding corporate goons were visibly annoyed. They despised low-level workers, but even more, they hated those who dared to take breaks instead of slaving away. An unauthorized break was like defiance against the system, against the established hierarchy—it put everyone at risk. It was the spark they feared, the one that could ignite a blaze. But in the presence of the tall guy with the black mane, Lex didn’t care about their scowls.
"You wouldn’t happen to know how to get in contact with the Crimson Dawn, would you?"
CR glanced around quickly—a reflex that drew more attention than it helped. The corporate bigwigs were standing far enough away to hear nothing. CR swung his long legs over the platform’s edge, took a step toward Lex, and laid a firm hand on his shoulder.
"I think I can help you with that, drudge." CR unzipped a pocket on his black coverall and pulled out a pouch filled with small, gold-shimmering pills, Vanta-B. "If I help you, you’ll be ready to return the favor, right?"