Corroded Cells Read online

  “I won’t tell,” Judy said too loudly for Moss’s taste, nursing a glass of pruno.

  “Thanks,” Gibbs whispered.

  “Fucking stupid though,” Judy told them.

  “Maybe,” Moss had to admit. He knew this could be a mistake, a trap, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he needed to know.

  “Don’t get killed, they’re starting to like you,” Judy said, head rolling with the words.

  “Yeah,” Gibbs said with a slight smile. “You all right?”

  Judy snorted, “Just fucking dandy.”

  “See you in the morning, Judy,” Moss said as they began to walk down the stairs.

  “Afternoon, more like,” Gibbs whispered.

  Moss nodded. “Yeah.”

  The street was as alive at night as during the day, but with a different type of people. The safe house was in an apartment complex near the rail station, and in the light of day, people bustled about, heading to work. At night, the streets were abuzz with the people who slept all day—hoods pulled up to shield their eyes from the neon street signs. Off to the right, folks danced in the street to the sound of an impromptu concert on apartment steps. Vendors pushed carts with food being sold on top and other, more nefarious items for sale hidden away.

  They pushed through the people, Moss turning to ask, “You know where we are going?”

  “Yeah,” Gibbs said, leading the way. “I ask a lot of questions anyway, so Patch wasn’t suspicious when I got the lowdown.”

  “Thank goodness for your curious nature,” Moss said and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Thank you for doing this.”

  “What are friends for, right?” Gibbs said with a smile. “Shall we?” He pointed to a street vendor making quesadillas on an open skillet.

  “Let’s,” Moss said, and they ordered.

  “Can you believe how we used to eat?” Gibbs asked, mouth full, cheese dripping down his chin.

  “Seemed good at the time,” Moss said. “Didn’t know any better.”

  “We were so dumb,” Gibbs observed as they walked to the rail station.

  “Right, the food is the thing we were naïve about,” Moss said sarcastically.

  “Among many things,” Gibbs amended. “You hear ThutoCo may go belly up? People are sneaking out, breaking their contracts, fleeing to the city from the Burbs.”

  “I have. I hope it’s true,” Moss said.

  “We did that,” Gibbs bragged.

  “We did,” Moss said with cautious pride. “But ThutoCo will survive.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, much as it pains me,” Gibbs admitted. “You talk to Issy?”

  “Almost every day,” Moss said. They had helped their oldest friend escape from the grips of ThutoCo, and now she was in hiding with her father in the Old Oak district of the city. “Vihaan started a small restaurant she is helping to run.”

  “That’s great,” Gibbs said. “You wish she had stayed with us?”

  “For myself, yes. Having you guys around makes this whole thing easier, but I know it’s what she needs, so I’m happy for her.”

  “That’s it?” Gibbs pressed.

  “That’s all I have the bandwidth for,” Moss said, not wanting to admit how much it pained him that they were apart. “What’s up with you and Ynna?”

  “What?” he answered all too defensively. “I mean, she’s hot, but she’s a first-rate ball buster, and I’m pretty sure I’m not her type anyway.”

  “You sure about that?” Moss asked despite the unease of his friend. Gibbs tended toward bravado and bluster over feelings and introspection.

  “She wants a guy who kicks in doors and fucks up bad guys,” Gibbs said. Moss laughed.

  “She is those things. I’m not sure she’s looking for herself in a partner,” he explained.

  Gibbs snorted. “Agree to disagree.”

  “As ever,” Moss said as they boarded the railcar. It was a long tube with plastic chairs and metal handrails with windows along the walls and ad screens covering the ceilings. Everyone moved to find seats, trying to avoid the vomit and garbage which littered the ground, before returning to their palmscreens or lenscreens. No one spoke; everyone simply retreated into their digital worlds as the railcar carried their physical forms along. A filthy man pushed through, trying to snag people’s attention long enough to ask for a money transfer. He approached them, his layers of clothes smelling of urine.

  “Help me out? I served,” he asked, the words hoarse, his voice quiet with disuse. He held up an aged palmscreen displaying an account number, and Gibbs answered.

  “I got you,” he used his neural implant to transfer five bucks.

  “Thank you, brother,” he said, a brief glint in his hollow eyes. He shuffled away, ignored by everyone.

  “It doesn’t help,” Moss said, looking on the man with pity.

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I’m happy to bring any light into this dark world,” he said in the oppressive brightness of the overhead screens. Moss smiled at the notion. They had been through so much since leaving the Burbs—seen so much—but Gibbs had not lost his spirit. Moss admired him, wanted what his friend seemed to embody effortlessly. But he knew something of him had died in the explosion at ThutoCo headquarters.

  They rode in silence the rest of the way, Moss watching out the window as skyscrapers gave way to an endless sea of tenement housing. What had been hillsides and single-family homes had been bulldozed when the citizens of the world had been forced into the cities, creating the ceaseless concrete and glass world they now inhabited. The rail pulled to a stop, and Gibbs nodded. They disembarked into the Reyes district, a statue of a long-extinct animal towering over the station as they stepped off. Moss stopped to look. The creature was massive, with fins and a fatty nose which curled down over its face. Moss tried to read the plaque under layers of spray-painted tags.

  “Elephant seal,” he said, and Gibbs turned back.

  “You and animals,” he said.

  “It’s just, can you believe this thing used to exist?” Moss asked, staring up at the beast.

  “They have clone zoos. You could probably still see one,” he offered.

  “Not the same. I want to see something like this out where it lived,” he said, lost in the thought of hundreds of these creatures galumphing up a hillside.

  “They have weird shit off-world,” Gibbs noted.

  “Something tells me they wouldn’t sell us tickets to the colonies,” Moss joked.

  “Right,” Gibbs chuckled. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The streets of Reyes were quiet, populated only with folks heading home after late shifts. They walked for what seemed an interminable time through the sameness, every building a carbon copy of the last. Gibbs seemed to be closely examining all the spray-painted art upon the walls, the only thing which differentiated the concrete rectangles. They stopped where “La Vie B” was written above a window and Gibbs rapped on the glass. They waited. No one came. He knocked again and eventually, a dark-skinned man with a shaved head opened the window suspiciously.

  “I don’t know you,” he said in an accent which Moss did not recognize.

  “I’m Che, and this is Floyd. Patchwork sent us,” Moss said.

  “Don’t know no Patchwork,” he announced and began to close the window.

  “You do,” Gibbs insisted.

  “Fine,” the man said. “Whatcha want?”

  “That’s it?” Gibbs laughed.

  “You’d be surprised how easy ‘no’ sends people packing,” the man explained. His demeanor was cautious but friendly.

  “I need to receive a message from Carcer,” Moss explained, and the man’s face grew grim.

  “That’ll cost,” he said seriously. Moss pulled the motherboard from the satchel. A broad smile crossed the man’s lips, exposing teeth which had never seen a dentist. “Patch explained then?”

  “Yes,” Gibbs put plainly. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Y
ou may,” the man said, perplexed.

  “I don’t know that accent,” he said.

  “Not how questions work,” the man responded with self-satisfaction.

  “What’s the accent?” Gibbs pressed, undeterred.

  “It’s Trinbagonian,” the man said, knowing it would mean nothing to them. He got the blank stares he was expecting. “Everyone fled Trinidad and Tobago when the bacteria struck. The island’s been clear cut, and the drudges grow sugar and tobacco there now. We keep our culture alive in communities in small pockets of the remaining cities. Same story for a lot of peoples,” he said, eyeing them. “You guys bubs? What’s that like?”

  Moss was surprised by the question. Everyone always assumed they knew what life in the Burbs was like and never asked about it.

  “Sheltered,” Gibbs answered, hanging his head slightly.

  “I’m sure,” the man said. “Climb on through.”

  He stepped back from the window and let them clamber in. It was made easier by stacked cinderblocks piled as stairs. The room was cramped and smelled of incense, and a mattress lay on the floor. Soft steel pan music trickled out of a small speaker beside the bed. The man reached out a hand, and Moss gave over the motherboard.

  “Patch didn’t want it? Or you procured more?” he asked.

  “Neither,” Moss admitted.

  “He must like you then,” the man observed.

  “Something like that,” Moss said.

  “You know the routine here?” he asked.

  “No,” Moss told him.

  “Right. You’ll take this,” he said, handing Moss a pill in a crumpled paper cup, “and lay down in a stall. Your friend can sit watch outside. Won’t need headgear since all you bubs have the implant. We’ll sync you with the MI, and you can meet someone in there who can get you the message.”

  “What’s the MI?” Gibbs asked before Moss had a chance.

  “Didn’t think they had turnip trucks anymore.” The man laughed at his own joke, and Gibbs chuckled along. “It’s the Mass Illusion, a VR world preferred by the computer artists here.”

  “Can’t be done on a computer in the real world?” Moss asked.

  “You think this shit is the real world?” the man chided, looking around the tiny space. “I’m sure it could be, but folks around here prefer this.”

  “I think a lot of people prefer it,” Gibbs observed, and the man tapped a finger to his nose.

  “All right,” Moss said. “Let’s do this.”

  “Fine by me,” the man said and took a key off a board of hooks. “Room nine.”

  He opened a door at the back of the room and turned to plop back on his cushion. The door led to a long hallway illuminated with naked red bulbs screwed into makeshift sockets in the ceiling. Doors flanked the hallway with small stools set before them. Some of the stools were occupied by threatening-looking people who no doubt served as protection for the people inside.

  “You’re armed?” Moss asked, and Gibbs tapped a box at his side which could fold out into a rifle at the push of a button.

  “Sure you want to do this?” Gibbs checked.

  “We’ve come this far,” Moss answered as he strode to door nine and opened it. The room was small, with a bed and pillow and a small table with a bottle of water. Machinery was mounted above the bed, and a small lamp on the floor lit the space. The room smelled faintly of urine and bleach.

  “I’ll be out here when you’re done,” Gibbs said.

  “Thanks, you gonna be okay? You bring a tablet or something?” Moss asked, not sure how long this would take.

  “I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll make friends with the others waiting out here.” He smirked. “Failing that, I’ll see if I can remember all the lines to a movie.”

  Moss laughed. “Have fun with that.”

  “You know I will,” he said, snatching the key from Moss’s hand and shutting the door in his face. Moss turned and sat on the bed. A green light turned on the machine above. He took a deep breath, swallowed the pill, and gulped some water. The drug worked instantly, and he lay down to keep from falling off the side of the bed.

  He opened his eyes in a field of digital daisies under a beautiful blue sky. White wisps of clouds shifted overhead as he leaned up. He felt sick as the world tilted forward, then over and he fell with a thud on the sky. He looked up to see the street and open window he recognized from outside. He glanced back down, and the sky was a puddle full of cigarette butts. His brain hurt, and he reached back to rub his implant as he stood. He was wearing his ThutoCo issued linen pajamas, his name written upside down and backward across his chest. He knew VR worlds sometimes required some acclimation, but this was very different.

  He climbed through the window into a ballroom with a checkered floor and elaborate chandeliers with candles topped by purple flames. Naked people covered in body paint to give the illusion of scales moved about the room, drinking champagne and making small talk about the weather. All of them were fit and beautiful, the men all sporting large erections with eyes painted on the tips of their penises. One woman turned, her hair flowing around her as if underwater. She walked over in serpentine steps and looked at Moss with yellow, reptilian eyes.

  “You’re Che?” she asked dubiously, the words slithering from her lips.

  “I am,” he said, working hard to stay cool in such unfamiliar surroundings.

  “You like my world?” she asked with a sweeping hand gesture.

  “Takes some getting used to,” Moss told her, not wanting to start off on a lie.

  “I’m sure.” The “s” slid elongated off her tongue. “A message awaits you?”

  “Yes, but I cannot have it traced,” Moss said.

  “Oh, my dear, nothing in here can be traced, it’s a great void,” she said. “Please follow me.”

  He did as they exited through a door which had been a painting moments before. They entered a long hallway of striped walls which shifted like sand. As they walked, he watched her sway, the painted blue scales shifting up and down with the rhythmic movement of her buttocks. She turned to glance over her shoulder, and Moss flushed, averting his gaze.

  “You can look. I like that you look,” she offered, making Moss even more uncomfortable. He was unaccustomed to overt sexuality, and he did not know how to handle himself. He watched the walls. “Suit yourself,” she said, sounding almost wounded. So, he returned to watching her, feeling all the time uneasy.

  They turned and walked through the wall into a room of gaudy opulence—gold furniture with red velvet seats, a table set with food Moss had never before seen, and paintings, portraits, and busts on every wall and in every corner. She gestured for him to sit on a long couch, and he did so. She sat beside him, her naked form brushing against his side. He fought an instinct to move away, not wanting to offend. He knew this world wasn’t real. It was all a digital dream, but the discomfort remained. He knew Gibbs would mock him for how uncomfortable he was beside a naked woman.

  She waved her hands, and a screen appeared. “I’ve found the message for you. It’s deep code, and no one will know. Shall I play it?”

  “I would prefer to watch it alone,” he said apologetically.

  “Understood, but you can’t blame a girl for trying.” She stood, brushing her body against his as she went, smiling slightly. He wondered if his reaction amused her. It seemed to. She left the room, and he waited. The screen flickered, and a familiar face appeared before him.

  “Hey, Moss. Mr. Greene here. Hope this message finds you well,” his former ThutoCo boss said. His conversational tone was so forced as to be excruciating, and beads of sweat dotted his hairline. His eyes were terrified under a causal mask. “Your friends back here at work miss you and hope you come back to us real soon. You know you always have a place in engineering.”

  His eyes constantly shifted off-camera to whoever was coaching him, likely at the barrel of a gun. It pained Moss to know that the man who had helped him fit in at work after his parents were take
n was now suffering because of him.

  “Your friends here at ThutoCo would love to chat with you. And I mean that—we are friends. You may think you know the people you’re mixed up with now, but they are not your friends, they are using you.” Mr. Greene was trying to sell it hard now but was failing. The words were coming out hurried and jumbled.

  “When they have gotten from you what they want, they will spit you out and leave you on the street. We, on the other hand, want you back. Don’t you think it’s time you came home?” he asked, his face contorted into an unnatural shape of a smile. Moss’s heart broke for the man. All he had ever done was nurture a young man, and now his life was undoubtedly being threatened. Moss knew Mr. Greene had no knowledge of the plan to kill all the employees. He had simply been a middle manager living out his prescribed path. Moss wished he could speak to him. Really speak—not this canned, forced message which would never get Moss to turn himself in.

  “And if you need incentives, you know how we love incentives,” Greene said in a line which was supposed to be a lighthearted joke, but his body betrayed him, his face contorting to a grim smile.

  “Our friends at Carcer wanted you to see this,” he continued and looked off-camera once more. The image cut to an image of an ancient woman who Moss did not recognize, gardening in a small chain-link cage. Next to her was a rusted out, corrugated tin building which served as a home. Moss didn’t know what he was looking at until another face he knew stepped through the door of the ramshackle home. His curly black hair and mustache were instantly recognizable as Warden Ninety-Nine, the man who had beaten Moss on the roof of ThutoCo HQ. He strode out and looked at the camera with a wicked grin.

  He held a baton in a robotic hand and approached the woman from behind, landing a hard blow on her back. Though old, she looked tough and took the unseen hit like someone who was accustomed to abuse. She turned, and he continued to land blow after blow on her body until Moss shut his eyes, unable to watch the pain being inflicted on this person. The sounds of her screams still rang in his ears when the feed cut back to Mr. Greene.