Chapter 5

At nightfall, the world Rina stepped into when they left the hideout was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

Vast industrial buildings towered over everything. A complex network of conduit and catwalks and support struts strung between them. Holographic advertisements sold food and feelings. Steam rose from manhole covers and hissed out of pipes. A lone hovercar roared past overhead, eventually disappearing around a corner at the end of the street. Neon glowed everywhere, casting technicolor reflections in the water that filled the potholes and cracks in the battered asphalt.

And then there was the hum.

It was faint, but everywhere. It reminded her a little of the sound a speaker connected to a live microphone made when there was no input. Castor had explained that it came from the relentlessly flowing electricity that surrounded them. Eventually, Rina had learned to instinctively tune it out, but it was always there, waiting for her to notice it again.

A moment after they stepped out of the hideout, a battered vehicle rolled to a stop in front of it. It reminded Rina a little of the small transport bus the Minowa Community Center has used to pick up some of the people who came to her support group, if someone had tried to turn that bus into a riot control vehicle. It had a raised suspension and large knobby tires, extra metal plating welded here and there across its surface, and a loud internal combustion engine that rumbled with enough force that she could see the whole van vibrating. Tensor sat behind the drive controls looking very pleased with himself.

“Did someone order a taxi?” He called out from the window.

Castor looked at him wearily.

“Really? This thing?”

Tensor lifted a bottle to his lips and took a swig of whatever was inside. Either something was playing a trick on Rina’s eyes, or whatever was inside the bottle was glowing. After a gulp, he turned and gave Castor a wide grin. Even from a dozen steps away, she could tell it was authentic. Wait, is that happiness he’s drinking?

“You betcha! Condenser coils aren’t big, but they are a couple hundred kilos apiece. We’ll need something strong enough to haul them. Not to mention, if things go all problematic, she’s our best shot at getting back home in one piece,” He said. “So yes, we’re bringing Betsy. I don’t care if you don’t like her.”

Castor sighed. She turned to Quill.

“Any objections?”

Quill shook his head.

“Beats walking. You have a better idea?”

“It’s… not very inconspicuous,” Rina remarked.

“In Tokyo, sure. That’d stick out like a sore thumb,” Quill said. “But in this part of the Bazaar, you’ll probably see a dozen cars that look just like it on our way.”

Tensor looked back and forth at the lot of them, the grin not leaving his face.

“Are we doing this, or what?” He asked.

Sera skipped lightly over to the side door of the van and pulled it open. She motioned everyone else in.

“Let’s go!”

The inside of Betsy had a large open space in the center that ran from the back of the van most of the way towards the front. On either side of this open space were six chairs, three to a side, facing in toward the middle. Rina took the middle seat on the far side. Once she was seated, she noticed that there were recessed storage compartments throughout the back. When Kessa boarded after, she opened one and started pulling out some equipment. She tossed a two-way radio to Rina.

“Did you have these where you come?” She asked.

“Yes, although the last time I used one was a toy as a kid,” Rina admitted.

Kessa held the radio in her hand out in front of Rina and pointed to parts on it.

“Volume, channel change, hold this to talk. If you can’t talk but are having an emergency, press this and it’ll set an alarm off on the rest of our radios. Think you’ve got it?”

Rina nodded. She spent a moment fiddling with everything after to make sure she’d remember.

Once they were all on board, Castor leaned up from beside Rina to hand a slip of paper to Tensor.

“That’s the address. It’s in Grid 14, past the old battery manufactory,” she said.

Tensor looked at it, then turned to the flickering touchscreen on Betsy’s dash, punching the data in. A second later, the screen flared to life, showing navigation directions.

“Hold tight, boys and girls! We’re off!”

He stomped the gas pedal and Betsy’s engine roared to life. Tires squealed. Castor swore. Sera cheered. Rina was suddenly grateful that the seats had restraint harnesses as the sudden acceleration attempted to throw her headlong towards the back of the van.

Tensor slowed to a normal pace at the end of the street. Before long, they merged from narrow side roads onto a larger multi-lane road. There were no windows in the back of Betsy, but thankfully Rina could get a pretty good view of the outside through the windshield and driver’s side window from where she sat. As she watched, the traffic around them increased bit by bit until they were on a large multi-level highway. In addition to asphalt lanes for rolling vehicles, floating light buoys marked out lanes in the air for hovercars that roared past overhead.

They turned onto another highway. Now a giant wall of synthcrete at least 50 meters high rose across the horizon in the distance, growing larger and larger.

“Is that the edge of the Bazaar?” Rina asked, pointing to it.

“If only,” Castor snorted.

“Just the edge of Grid 19. Each Grid district in the Bazaar is separated from the others by one of those walls,” Quill said.

Rina furrowed her brow.

“Why would they go to so much effort to separate each one like that?”

“Same reason there’s only one tunnel gate in each wall. And turrets along the wall top. And why each Grid has its own power station, water supply, food production, and so on.”

Rina pondered for a moment.

“It’s all about control, isn’t it? If a rebellion breaks out in one district, they can lock it down and isolate it from the others without affecting how the other Grids operate.”

Quill nodded.

“Yep. Pretty much.”

“That’s… somehow both impressive and horrifying.”

“You just described the entire Bazaar, honestly,” Castor said idly as she used a small spanner to tighten something in the elbow joint of her mechanical arm. “The world’s most elegant nightmare.”

They reached the mouth of the entrance tunnel to the next district a minute or so later. It was tall enough to still allow multiple levels of traffic, and lit by giant yellow-white spotlights that each had to be ten or fifteen meters across. Vast, vault-like doors laid open on either side of the entrance, connected to two massive, factory-sized engine mechanisms used to open and close them. On either side of the road, people in grey-white armored uniforms motioned vehicles through one at a time. Still others manned observation towers. Some held what were probably weapons, although they didn’t really look like any Rina had seen before.

When it was their time to enter, one of the guards came to Tensor’s window. After a brief exchange and a scan of his paperwork, the guard waved them through. Betsy rumbled past the checkpoint, and within moments they were out of sight of it. They splashed through oil-slicked puddles, the steady thumping whoosh of high-speed vehicle traffic whipping back and forth past and above them. At the other end of the tunnel, there was a raised metal barricade, perhaps five meters high, that obstructed the view and road ahead. Armed enforcers were walking from vehicle to vehicle, while others in winged suits flitted between hovercraft. Seeing this, Tensor cursed.

“Looks like a soft lockdown. Someone must have done something stupid,” he said.

Rina watched as a pair of enforcers came up to a transport bus a few cars away. One spoke to the driver, studying their paperwork. The other opened the passenger door and stepped up, making a motion with his hand. The one of the shapes partly visible through its windows produced another set of paperwork and handed it to the second officer.

“Ah, crap….” Kessa said. “Full searches. Now what?”

Rina looked at her, then back at the exchange ahead. That’s when she understood what they were worried about.

“What happens if they ask for papers and I don’t have any?” She asked.

“They detain you until they can verify your identity via biometrics. But, if they can’t verify you that way….” Kessa started.

“Best case scenario, you spend the night getting interrogated, forcibly biomapped, and dumped in a random Grid. More likely, you’ll get labeled a non-person and indentured,” Castor said grimly.

“Or worse,” Kessa added.

Fear began to prickle underneath Rina’s skin.

“So,we need to do something to not have them verify me, right? I can get out of here and hide somewhere until they’re done checking the rest of you.”

Quill shook his head.

“There’s no chance you won’t be spotted as soon as you get out. Not to mention getting out would draw a ton of unwanted attention as to why.”

Rina looked out the window again. The bus was finished, and the enforcers were moving to the car directly in front of them.

“Is there a way to turn Betsy around and go back the other way?”

“There might have been a few minutes ago. But not anymore. Traffic’s jammed in around us. And besides, turning around as soon as it’s obvious they’re doing searches also looks super suspicious,” Tensor said.

“So what do we do?” She asked, looking around at the rest of them.

“I don’t know,” Quill said quietly. “This is why I was afraid for you to come.”

Rina’s heart began to pound in her chest. She drew in a breath, deep and slow, and eased it out, counting to 10 in her head as she did so. Once she was done, she did it again. Panic was not going to help right now. She needed to be as clear-headed as possible. She directed her attention outwards to the rest of the crew. Tension and anxiety strained inside each of them. Something about Quill seemed almost guilty. Anger rippled under Castor’s skin, and she clenched and unclenched her mechanical hand as she stared out the windshield. Sera was the most fearful, the panic throbbing in her stomach almost palpable.

There had to be a way out of this. But what?

The first enforcer knocked on Tensor’s window. Tensor lowered it.

“Evening, officer! What can I do for ya?” He said, adopting his best cheerful grin. Rina hoped it looked less anxious to the enforcer than it did to her.

“Papers, please.”

Tensor rummaged in his coat and pulled out a folded wad of paper, which he handed over. The enforcer unfolded them. Rina watched the man intently. The visor on his helmet covered his whole face, but it was still mostly transparent. Looking at him, she could see the barely masked frustration and boredom beneath his stoic features. There was also something else there… what was it?

The officer looked up from the papers at Tensor.

“Purpose of your visit to Grid 14?”

“Business. Picking up a shipment of condenser coils for one of the sub-reactors in 19.”

The officer studied him. Rina could sense his skepticism. But, there wasn’t any real concern there at all. That’s when it hit her.

He genuinely doesn’t care at all about doing this job correctly. He would literally rather be anywhere else.

If only there was some way she could make him apathetic enough to not bother checking the passenger cabin….

The officer looked back down at the paperwork in his hand. He reached down to his belt and pulled out a handheld device. He pressed it against the corner of the top page.

Rina’s mind raced, trying to think of something. But nothing came. What else could she do?

Having run out of options, she closed her eyes and mentally willed the man’s apathy to grow. She visualized his mind flooding with boredom and laziness. How much of a chore it must be to do this for hours over nothing. How much better it’d feel to get this over with quickly and move on to the next car. After all, there was no chance of something actually happening. Why waste everyone’s time when he could get done faster? How much relief he’d feel not bothering. It’d be better if he just scanned and moved on. Please.

The device beeped.

The officer sighed. He handed back the paperwork absent-mindedly.

“You’re good to go. Move along,” he said, motioning them onwards with a lazy flick of his hand.

Rina’s eyes went wide, and her heart skipped a beat.

Wait… that WORKED?

Tensor hurriedly took his paperwork back and gave the officer a chipper wave as he pressed on the gas and they rolled on past. Within moments, they reached the metal barricade. Everyone sat, tense and unmoving. Rina felt afraid to breathe. Then, after what felt like an uncomfortably long pause, the barricade lowered. They rolled out of the tunnel and into the next Grid.

Everyone in the van seemed to exhale at once. Sera laughed nervously. Kessa stretched. Castor leaned back and swore under her breath. Tensor pounded on the dash and cheered. Soon the four of them were chatting animatedly together about how lucky they were.

But not Quill.

He stared at Rina, his eyes probing her for something. His expression was intense and unreadable. After a moment he turned away to look forward out the windshield. For the rest of the trip he said nothing, but Rina caught him staring at her several more times, always with the same indecipherable look.