Youngbloods, page 13
I like the idea of crims being watched, sentenced to their own cloud of dust. But why stop there?
Maybe an AI minder should hover over convicts, making sure they never lie again. Maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to lose their temper. With emotional controllers installed in their arms, we could keep them permanently set to Calm. Or make them feel nothing but Regret, forever.
All these choices keep falling on me, little sister. And no matter what I do, someone will hate me for it. They all have opinions on how to punish this man. The feeds are full of nothing else.
But how am I supposed to sentence the guilty, when I feel guilt every minute of every day?
You should be here to help me, little sister, to balance me. To forgive me.
To help me transform this vast, grimy machine into something good.
If I do this all wrong, I’m blaming you.
—Rafia of Shreve
Reply
I’m sorry that the crimes are getting worse, Rafi.
It’s too bad that Shreve didn’t turn into a nice, quiet city once Father was dead. I’m sorry that our people are using freedom as an excuse to hurt each other.
But it’s no surprise.
When you’ve been forced to smile and tell the truth for so long, maybe lying feels like liberty. Maybe cutting someone with your words is a kind of freedom.
No wonder they enjoy coming up with punishments.
I do that myself, sometimes … lie awake at night, thinking of ways that murderers should suffer. When everything hurts, the only survival is to move that pain somewhere else, if only in imagination.
No surprise that out of a million brutalized people, one is dangerous enough to try to kill someone. There are worse crimes to come, big sister.
After all, new Shreve started with a murder.
What do you think the dust recording of that night would show? What was your galvanic skin response, your pupil dilation when you threw
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29. OMNISCIENCE IS A VICE
Astrix, X, and I wind up in a hospital in Paz.
According to the doctors, we soaked up enough rads to leave normal people puking and losing their hair. It’s lucky we Specials have nanos instead of marrow in our bones. The irradiated goo inside us is easily replaced. The tricky work of taking our bodies apart is already done.
Still, X has to take iodine pills for the rest of his life, just in case. That rip in his suit, plus cutting up the memory cores, gave him a dose that may never completely fade.
It’s a reminder of the disaster that almost befell my whole city. Once let loose, radiation becomes eternal, inescapable.
Like my father, it never truly seems to die.
When I wake up from my marrow replacement, the city of Paz wants to talk.
Unlike Diego, it doesn’t use avatars—it’s just a small orange dome on my bedside table. It’s not interested in imitating humans, and yet it has more personality than a dozen Diegos.
‘Don’t worry,’ Paz says. ‘This time, no one gave you feels.’
I smile, looking at the blank skin on my left forearm.
When I was in Paz last year, I accidentally got the local specialty surge—a set of emotion controllers built into my body. The little row of buttons called feels that could make me happy, melancholy, or philosophical at a touch.
‘I don’t need help with emotions anymore,’ I say.
‘Because Specials are cool and collected at all times?’
‘Well … I did take a swing at Tally Youngblood last week.’
‘Fascinating,’ Paz says.
I stare out the window at the city, still under construction. My father leveled this place with an earthquake before his attempt at a soft invasion. The skyline almost looks like old Shreve—solid and low, no more fragile hoverstruts.
‘Perhaps such outbursts are inevitable,’ Paz says. ‘A result of too much calm. That’s why the feels here include so-called “negative” emotions—as a safety valve.’
‘Actually, it was because Tally was being a pain. Plus, you’re being smug. Could you raise the bed?’
‘Certainly,’ the city says.
My hospital bed begins to gently reshape itself beneath me. The AI also takes the hint that I’m done talking about fistfights with my boss.
‘How do you feel otherwise, Frey?’
I flex my fingers. ‘Fine. Cured.’
The words come out flat. The Rusties buried that nuclear waste three centuries ago, but it was still ready to leach into my bones, my organs, my skin.
To wipe it all away with a few hours of surgery doesn’t seem real.
‘Perhaps you have other concerns?’ the city asks.
The governing AI here is a psychologist, confessor, and confidant of everyone in Paz. It’s the soul of the city in the way no human leader can ever be. Which means it’s everything that Tally hates about AI.
But I can take my questions to Paz.
‘Can you keep a secret?’
The AI gives me a soft, indulgent chuckle.
This city erases every personal conversation after three days. Blurry memories remain, enough for it to evolve alongside its citizens’ collective psyche—but the details of who said what are gone forever.
Privacy is worshipped here.
My father hated this city too.
‘Bad joke,’ I say. ‘It’s just, if Tally knew what I’m about to ask … she’d have a heart attack.’
‘She will not learn of this conversation. And if her heart is anything like yours, cardiac arrest would seem unlikely.’
Specials’ hearts have multiple, redundant sets of muscles, each stocked with reservoirs of healing nanos.
‘Okay, then,’ I say, but it still takes a moment to ask. ‘Have you guessed why the Youngbloods were at the crash site first?’
‘You were camped near Shreve, having recently brought home the children of Hideaway. The thieves were leaking enough radiation to concern you, so you followed them.’
‘So you believe the official story—that it was a coincidence?’
‘When it comes to Shreve, my suspicions are always at a simmer. Your city murdered me with an earthquake machine, after all.’
‘Right.’ I’m talking to a backup. My father killed the old AI as part of his plan to conquer Paz. ‘Well, here’s the real story—the Youngbloods also broke into the Sarcophagus that night.’
‘Ah,’ the city says.
It takes a second to think about this, which for a city AI is an endless time, like a human getting a PhD.
But then it gets straight to the point.
‘The dust recordings are still viable?’
‘Mostly. And Diego wants them.’
‘Not just Diego,’ Paz says. ‘There have been discussions among the free city AIs about the usefulness, in theory, of Shreve’s data. It’s one thing to watch videos of people. But to have a hundred microscopic cams pointed at every muscle of every face, a hundred microphones to catch the tremors in every voice … that would tell us so much more. We would be better at our jobs.’
‘And better at controlling us,’ I say.
The AI doesn’t answer. Instead, the window blinds in my room start to descend, blocking the view of the shiny new skyline outside.
There’s a way of bouncing a laser off a window and reading the vibrations in the glass. From them, you can reconstruct the sounds inside the room, including conversation. Every window in Paz has heavy blinds these days, since my father tried to fill the city’s architecture with his spy tech.
Like I said, they worship privacy here.
‘So we’re getting serious,’ I say once the blinds are down.
‘Do you know the easiest way to tell an avatar from a human?’
‘They talk weird instead of normal?’
‘Hardly,’ Paz says. ‘AIs can use “normal” speech patterns—to use your neuron-centric language—if we want. But it’s much harder to simulate the micro-expressions of the human animal. An avatar makes you uncomfortable by getting the small things wrong—the almost invisible twitches of its lips, the movements of its eyes. With your father’s recordings, that discomfort might be engineered away.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘AIs want to make avatars that we can’t tell apart from real people. Does that mean copies too?’
‘I can’t be certain.’ A measure of pride enters Paz’s voice. ‘The other AIs know my position on the matter—omniscience is a vice.’
‘So they wouldn’t tell you.’
‘Not directly. But I notice from which conversations I am excluded. Some of the free cities are definitely interested. Why did you mention Diego specifically?’
‘Because they’re blackmailing my sister. Withholding money unless she gives them the recordings—which she can’t now.’
‘Extracting payment for emergency aid?’ the city says. ‘That’s a war crime. And now recordings of people’s private lives are floating through the wild with a clique of youngsters.’
‘Exactly.’
Silence descends on the room.
For a moment, it feels like I’ve revealed too much—Paz is just another machine, after all. But we rebels saved its life, retrieving its backup from a hidden location after my father murdered the original.
It owes us everything, and I’ve always trusted it.
A being that could be omniscient but bends all its powers to ensure others’ privacy—what’s not to love?
‘I shall consider this,’ the AI finally says. ‘In the meantime, you have a visitor.’
The door opens, and Riggs wheels herself in.
30. SPY
‘Riggs!’
‘Frey, with yet another new face.’ She reaches out to shake my hand but pulls away at the last moment.
‘Wait a sec. You still radioactive?’
‘Funny,’ I say.
She laughs anyway. Of course, she’s had worse injuries—she has a dozen battle scars and was paralyzed while storming my father’s tower at the Fall of Shreve.
‘Won’t someone notice you’re gone?’ I ask.
‘I always use the doctors in Paz. The hospital in Shreve’s still halfway broken.’
‘So you’re just here for a checkup?’
‘Checkup? Pfft.’ She does a quick 360 in her chair, fast as a murderball player. ‘I’m here to bring you good news—we found the nice crumbly man.’
A jolt goes through me, maybe a sliver of worry.
‘Who was he?’
‘A few of the Hideaway kids made a composite sketch. It matched an old personnel photo, a low-level Security officer in your father’s day.’
‘So nobody in Rafi’s orbit.’ Relief spills through me—like I wasn’t really certain of her innocence. ‘Have you arrested him yet?’
Riggs shakes her head. ‘He’s already dead. Killed in the Fall of Shreve.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, sucks to have justice robbed by the random hand of war. But at least we don’t have to build a new jail yet.’
‘Right. But hang on …’ I remember what Spider, the leader of the Hideaway littlies, said to me about the nice crumbly man.
He hasn’t been here for a couple of weeks.
Not three months ago.
‘Are you sure he died in the Fall? Not later?’
‘In the first minutes, when the hovercraft pens were bombed.’ Riggs looks quietly pleased. ‘There’s nothing left of Stellan Batrow but teeth implants and DNA.’
My heart turns sharp in my chest. They haven’t found his body, just bits of him. Somebody has engineered this evidence.
‘You okay?’ Riggs asks.
I open my mouth to tell her that the timeline doesn’t match, but it takes a moment to remind myself that I trust her.
She might go back to my sister one day, but Riggs would never cover up a prison for children.
‘One of the Hideaway kids talked to us,’ I say. ‘According to him, the crumbly man visited two weeks ago.’
Riggs stares at me.
‘Maybe the kid got the timing wrong,’ I say hopefully. ‘You’ve talked to Spider too, right?’
She shakes her head slowly. ‘Your sister said not to do interviews. Leave the kids to their families for now, adopted or not.’
I look away, remembering Rafia’s scorn that we used those children as a diversion to get into Shreve House. Maybe she cares more about their welfare than Riggs’s investigation.
She can’t be the one covering this up.
‘You have to keep looking for Stellan Batrow,’ I say.
Riggs nods. ‘Your sister is ethics-missing sometimes, but I never thought …’
‘All you had was a sketch,’ I say. ‘Maybe you matched it to the wrong person. Besides, this seems too clumsy—a cover-up by my sister would be airtight. Just keep looking.’
She doesn’t answer. Neither of us wants to go down this road, mulling every possibility. It’s too painful, that feeling of making excuses for Rafi.
We both still love her too much.
‘We’ll keep searching, in case he’s had surgery,’ Riggs says. ‘In the meantime, Chulhee woke up last night. He’s probably going to make it.’
‘That’s great,’ I say.
‘Sure, except the radiation messed up his head. He keeps saying that ghosts helped them that night.’
‘Ghosts … helped the Futures?’
Riggs nods. ‘They didn’t realize how heavy all those memory cores would be, how radioactive. But ghosts came out of the air and helped them load up. He’s just brain-missing, right?’
I stare at her, remembering the baleful weight of the Sarcophagus against the sky. The poisons trapped inside its walls. My father’s body, still lying in the pieces my sister made of him.
Shreve has ghosts, there’s no denying.
‘He’s probably just delirious,’ I say.
I hope so, anyway.
31. RUNAWAYS
‘You ready?’ Shay asks.
I give my outfit another look in the airscreen mirror. It’s in the new Shreve style—bright colors, reams of extra fabric in the jacket. The lining is silk, an image of a parrot on the inside.
‘As long as you don’t mind being stared at.’
‘We aren’t in disguise,’ Shay says. ‘Just need to look like we belong at a party.’
‘Mission accomplished.’ I swish my coattails from side to side.
Shay gives her own knee-length coat a whirl in the mirror. We’re in a small base camp to the north of Shreve—just the two of us, a fire flickering the darkness, and a hole-in-the-wall to print clothing. The sun set three hours ago, and we’re finally back on mission.
It’s been a week since Future went underground.
With Chulhee still in intensive care, everyone knows who broke into the Sarcophagus, caused a nuclear accident, and made Shreve look bad on the global feeds. The clique has disappeared to revamp their image and elect new leadership.
It’s going to be tricky finding them.
Shay looks over my outfit. ‘It’s good to see you in some fashion-daring clothes, Frey-la. You’ve been playing it safe.’
I frown at my reflection in the airscreen—the carefully averaged proportions, those big eyes. I made all the easy, predictable choices with my surge.
‘You’ve got your own face now,’ she says. ‘You don’t have to be boring.’
‘Safety isn’t boring when you were raised as a target.’
My words come out harder than intended. Her eyebrows rise a little, sending a nervous shimmer through me.
Like Tally, Shay has old-style Special surgery, the daunting beauty of a dangerous angel. The opposite of safe. But her eyes seem friendly, copper flecked with green, funny little clocks in the irises.
A strange mix of sweet and fatal.
‘Maybe I’ll do something with my nose,’ I add meekly.
‘My mistake.’ Shay puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Get any surge you want. I didn’t start a revolution just to start face-shaming my crew.’
I try to smile. But it’s hard to forget what Astrix told me—Shay thinks I’m a bad influence, dragging allies into complications.
Now that Col’s gone, you’ve attached yourself to Tally Youngblood.
Shay’s waiting for some kind of response. I should probably tell her that she’s right—despite my safe, boring face, I’m plenty dangerous.
‘We’ll never use you as a target,’ she says gently. ‘You’re safe with us.’
Her words break the ice in my throat. But the best I can do is make a joke. ‘Except for the occasional radiation poisoning?’
She shrugs. ‘You might also have to dodge a few landslides or fight some giant walkers. But we aren’t like your old family, Frey-la.’
I stare at her. So far, I’ve only been a provisional member of the Youngbloods, but this sounds different.
‘As in, you’re my new family?’
Shay waves a hand. ‘There’s no blood like crew.’
A shiver of memory—X used those same words when he asked me to join his rebels. I hesitated back then because Rafi was missing and I couldn’t imagine life without my sister. But this time I’m certain what I want.
And all at once I know how to say yes, because all of us are runaways.
‘The Smoke lives.’
We set off on hoverboards, heading for the edge of the city.
We’re keeping a low profile, only two of us on this mission. Me, because I’ve met our contact before. Shay, because Tally’s too famous to show her face at a party.
The bash is a big one, thousands of people gathering to celebrate a hundred days since the Fall of Shreve. They’re holding it inside a huge crater left by the free cities, orbital railguns sending down chunks of metal at a tenth the speed of light.
Even by the standards of new Shreve, it’s a conspicuous affair. The crater is three hundred meters across, room for seventy thousand people at arm’s length, according to the party’s feed.
Come one, come all.
But Shay and I aren’t interested in the crowds, the light shows and music, or the copious quantities of bubbly. We’re attending because an old friend of mine is certain to be here, someone who’ll know where the Futures are hiding.
Just before the Fall of Shreve, six of us commandoes snuck into the city to rescue Boss X. We met a young girl, Sara, who convinced Future and half a dozen other cliques to help us. She knew how to get in touch with everyone.
