Dark City - Dingy Apartment

"DIE!! DIE!! DIE!!”

“Unbelievable.” Soca grumpily pulls a pillow over his head. “Does this guy ever shut up?”

“Not really.” I sigh. “He’s kinda like a personal rooster.”

We never met up with Henry last night. Too worried we’d lead Hobbes to him. Instead we ran at random, then crashed in some generic crappy apartment megaplex. Each unit was clearly designed for one person, so we ended up sharing a bed. Which wasn’t ideal, but better than splitting up. We left a fat sweaty guy between us so it wouldn’t be weird.

My psycho woke us up earlier than we wanted. Annoying.

“How do you live like this?”

“One day at a time.” I grin. “At least the building isn’t on fire.”

“Fair enough.”

We try to sleep a little longer, but it’s hopeless. Eventually we zombie upright and eat some breakfast. Lukewarm goo. Just like mom used to make.

“Urrh…” Soca groans. “What are we doing? What is it… that you do?”

The psycho’s ranting creeps ever closer.

“Well, normally I look for armaments to destroy my enemies.”

Soca waves at the slaughter gun. “Have at ‘er.”

The psycho’s freaking outside our door. I frown at the slaughter gun. “I thought you were a nice monkey?”

“Not that nice. This guy sucks. Just shoot him and we can go back to bed.”

I make a face. “The gun’s not that accurate. I’d hate to wing him. Also, that bed’s pretty small. Was it really that restful?”

Soca sighs. “Mr. Sweatypants does take up a lot of real estate.”

“Perhaps we could chuck him to the floor?”

“Already tried. Too heavy.”

“I thought chimpanzees were super strong?”

Soca puts a hand to his chest. “Ow.”

“Sorry. I can’t move him either. Maybe we could grease the sheets and slide him off?”

Soca shakes his head. “No butter. I checked.”

We eat goo silently for a bit. Well. We eat goo to nearby psychotic ranting for a bit.

Soca sniffs. “We don’t have to hit him. Bet the sound of a round would shut him up.”

“Sure. Let’s train our murderer to be quiet. Then we can sleep forever.”

“Fine, then what are we doing?”

“I don’t know. What do you normally do?”

“Mostly drugs. Want some No Thought?”

I flex my shoulder. It doesn’t hurt. “Sure. Why not?”

We take a half dose. Feeling responsible. Still doesn’t give us anything to do. When we expound on this, Volt chirps in.

We can do our other thing! Try to get protection from the authorities! Crash the mayoral strategy meeting!

I look at Soca. He shrugs. “I’m down, but the mayoral strategy meeting isn’t for another two days.

I meant the other one. The opposition meeting.

We both look down at the small bug on the table. “Excuse me?”

Mayor Boxer is having his strategy meeting tonight.

“How do you know that?”

I’m a good listener. And I have bugs all over the city.

Jiminy Cricket flashes finger guns. Which is tricky to do without fingers, but she’s a fucking professional.

Socrates looks thoughtful. “This could be interesting. Can you get a bug in the room?”

Sure. Got one in the alley behind the building. I’ll just slip around a door, and… whoops. He’s dead. Some flappy thing got him.

Soca frowns. “A flappy thing got him? Like an anti-espionage drone deploying countermeasures? Or like a bird ate a bug?”

Yes. More finger guns. One of those things.

Soca rubs his temple, as if in pain. “Okay, can you send another bug?”

Yep. Be there in 2 hours. Best I can do. Short legs.

“Can’t they all glom together and move faster?”

Sure. I can call them all together and have a mini-me assembled in… 16 hours.

Soca slumps in defeat. I tag in. “Where’s the meeting?”

City Hall.

“We can walk there in 15 minutes. Let’s go.”

Soca grumbles as we sneak by the psycho. “What kind of spy drone needs to be hand delivered?”

“She’s a work in progress. It’s not like we’re special forces. Just three goobers trying to get through the day.”

That said, we do escape without incident. Maybe we’re a little special. It’s a nice night. I feel great. That No Bleed may have been holding me back. A very trippy bird flies by. I guess I’m also on drugs. Something’s working anyway.

“Why are we outside?”

We’re going to spy on the mayor’s meeting.

“Right. Let’s go. Do we have a plan for when we get there? Are we going to spy on them? Or barge in and ask hard questions?”

Maybe ask them nicely to please help us?

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“Like blackmail? Or just lying? Trickery? An infiltration? Are we playing both sides?”

Soca cocks the slaughter gun. “More like a hostile takeover.”

There seems to be some pre-escalation going on here. Can we not just ask for help?

“These are the guys who keep trying to arrest us.”

Right. Okay… Let’s start with spying. We can ramp up from there.

Makes sense, I guess. Probably easier than ramping down from gunplay. “Should we get disguises to fit in, or is it hopeless?”

“It’s hopeless.” Soca says. “We’re not fitting in anywhere. I refuse to try.”

“Alrighty.”

Town Hall is another glass gothic beast. We infiltrate through the front door and boogie past the reception-bot. Nothing to it. We approach the Council Room, but stop a few halls away.

“I don’t see any bug eaters.”

“Me neither.”

“You good, Volt?”

Aye! Send me in!

I toss Volt in the general direction of the meeting. Soca and I retreat to an abandoned office to watch her progress through my phone. We giggle at how sneaky we’re being.

The council room is a cathedral to the gods of civic governance. A cavern of steel, oak, and leather. You could burn the grave goods of a viking king within this mighty hall and not get smoke on the walls. It’s big. Also dark, and mostly empty. There’s like four guys in there. Crouched around a crystal display meant for a much larger crowd. Eerily lit only by their agenda of doom.

Evil mood aside, the epic scale of the doom agenda is super convenient. I can read it clearly even through my trash drone’s garbage optics. It goes as follows:

1. Read last meeting’s minutes.

2. Destroy opposition, oversight, and truth, so we can restore traditional hierarchies, steal money, and remain in power forever.

3. Ethical Review.

The meeting appears to be part way through Item 2.

“Why do we even use the automated election system?” asks a big buff silhouette. “Seems like an unnecessary risk. Let’s say the election already happened and we won. Sorry you slept through it.”

A bigger, buffer silhouette shakes his head. “We have to keep things kinda legal. We only own everything if there are laws. We like laws. Most people obey laws. Which means they mostly obey us, because we always win the elections. So let’s steal this one proper. Clear?”

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

“Good.” Agenda Item 2 dims slightly. “Who are we running for mayor and council?”

“The same guys as last time.” says the biggest, buffest silhouette.

“Are they still alive?”

“Legally.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means don’t go looking for them. Clear?”

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

Agenda Item 2 dims again.

“How are our numbers looking?” asks the buffest silhouette. “All the Trustees will vote right. Is that enough to win?”

“Unclear.” says Buffer. “Most Wakers are arrested before they become relevant. But the Free Riders still outnumber the Trustees, and they’re more organized this year.”

“Can we get any Riders to vote for us?”

Buffer shakes his head. “Negative. They’re on to our bullshit. It’s going to come down to voter turnout.”

“Or voter suppression…” says Buff.

“What are you thinking?”

“Citizen ID requirements. Few polls, long lines, and menace.”

“Menace?”

“Yeah. Scare some of them off.”

“With what? Our drones can’t see them, and they ain’t scared of Trustees.”

“We could arm the Trustees. Deputize them.”

Buffer shakes his head. “Won’t work. If we turn up the heat, some will stay home, and some will show up on War Drug. Then we need new Trustees.”

I whisper to Soca. “What is War Drug?”

He shrugs. “Dunno. We should get some.”

We listen to them brainstorm election rigging. Talking themselves in circles. Not a lot of new ideas here. Weaponized bureaucracy, threats, and lies. Same old shit.

Soca shakes his head in disgust. “This is painful. Why don’t they just flub the count?”

“Ha. They already told us - it’s an automated system. They don’t know how.” I lean back and light a joint. Get professorial. “There’s some kind of d-bot running the local government functions. The election chooses the Mayor and the Council. The Mayor runs all the service stuff. Police, fire department, water, sewers, and… I dunno… maintenance shit. The Council sets taxes and writes by-laws. Together they set up a simple grift. The Council soaks sleeping people for taxes, services, fees, and fines, then the Mayor funnels that money to inflated contractors - the Trustees - who donate most back to the Mayor and the Council. Cop drones arrest the inconvenient people. Repeat for a few decades until five guys own the entire city.

“But they have to keep winning elections. Because all the legal and banking systems are automated, and they only work for the Mayor and the Council. And the guys who created those systems are asleep - or dead - and probably couldn’t edit them anyway. To change anything, they’d have to retrain them from scratch, which would take thousands of skilled programmers that no longer exist.

“These guys aren’t masterminds who set up a socio-economic mega-grift. They’re just abusing a system that lost its oversight to dream games and sniper dogs. They’re as stuck as we are.”

Soca is aghast. “I don’t get it. What’s the point in owning everything? If everyone’s asleep, why don’t they just take what they want?”

I shrug. “Then they’d just be Riders.”

This exchange exhausts us. Life is all motion and no meaning. We smoke and listen to amateur politics to philosophically recharge. These gentlemen are fools. Our scorn slowly brings us back to life.

They talk in circles until they give up. Pass the buck. “We’ll send this up to the Big Man. We may need to wake some people, but that’ll be his decision. Clear?”

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

Agenda Item 2 dims completely.

Buffest claps. “Oh hey! It’s time for the Ethical Review. What’s the damage?”

The smallest silhouette stirs from a deep torpor. “I’m gonna blow your minds here, but there’s no such thing as morals. They’re just little logic tricks to justify whatever you want.

“We can leave people asleep because it’s immoral to wake them solely for our benefit. Or we can steal from them to incentivize waking up. A sloth tax. To save them from their dangerous negligence. Or we could kill them all to save the human race. They’re a crippling drain on the resources we owe to future generations. Or whatever. We can do anything we want. There’s always a moral justification for our atrocities.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then another. Eventually Buffer asks for some direction. “Should I just write ‘Moral Atrocity’ on the ethics review form? Or… what?”

The tiny silhouette flutters her arms. “You’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter. We live in a moral vacuum. There’s no point in asking what we should do. That’s nonsense. The real question is - what do we want? Money? Power? Popularity?” She laughs. “Why? To get respect? Love? Is that what safety feels like? You bet it does. But there’s a better way to feel safe. Do you know what it is?”

“Uh… more money?”

“Sure. Whatever.” She sighs. Settles back to sleep.

Soca frowns. “I know that voice. Is that Make-Worse?”

I gasp. “That duplicitous bitch. She’s working both sides.”

“Weren't we planning to work both sides?”

“We’re on neither side. That’s completely different.”

Soca looks puzzled. “What was the point of this spy job? Have we learned anything here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Mayor Rando may win the election.”

Soca makes a face. “If everybody votes. And the Trusties don’t wake up more Trusties.”

“Still. Could happen. We should tell people.”

Soca shrugs. “Okay. Let’s get out of here before they find us.”

We bustle out of Town Hall, leaving a piece of Volt behind. She can keep listening in case anything interesting happens. Or just eat the place. I don’t really care.

Outside there’s three shiny trucks parked. Ha-ha. I go to climb in one, when Soca plucks at my sleeve.

“We have company.”

Down the street, a gaunt, off-kilter, industrial d-bot smiles awkwardly in our direction. He waves in a viscerally upsetting imitation of friendliness.

“Hand me the slaughter gun.”

Soca obliges, and I snap off a shot. Holy fuck it’s loud. Really drives home how quiet an empty city is. Also, I miss. Or rather, the gun misses. It’s a piece of shit.

Sirens howl from all directions. A tithe of the perpetual drone swarm flashes blue and red. Circles closer to our location.

Soca frowns. “I know we were already leaving, but we should leave.”

The interloper drone is still smiling at us. He points to his eye, then at me.

Yeah, yeah. I see you too bitch.

We get in our new truck and head to our new home.