AIndividual 5

5

Charlie stood in his shop. A glass of cold milk sat on a work table. His right hand hovered above it and his fingertips slightly gripped around the top of the cup. It was early and it was cold. The night dark in the shop was replaced with a kind of morning dark. Black was replaced with grey. Sunshine never found its way into Charlie’s shop.

He snapped a lever on the wall and lights above buzzed awake. They wove their sound into the steady fall of the rain. Charlie yawned and rubbed his eyes.

He took a drink out of his glass and then set it on a shelf above his head, which was hanging from an interior wall. He leaned on a stool and kicked a foot up and rested it under the seat. A tiny jet of fire shot from his gloved finger and he began burning and melting away pieces of a robot’s brain, seemingly at an unorganized whim.

The door to the shop opened and the sound of the rain overpowered the hum of the lights and even the hiss of the jet of fire.

“Early today, Jim,” Charlie called out without taking his eyes off his work. “Someone on the route out or somethin’?”

There wasn’t a response, or rather, Charlie received silence as a response. He looked up from his work, fire still breathing. January stood, drenched and hooded, in front of a large Citizen, nearly two-thirds taller than young woman before it. It turned and shut the door, and Charlie noticed that it held what looked to him like a black briefcase.

The Citizen was old and it was dirty. It didn’t look as if it had been turned on for decades. Its head was rounded well at the top, and had a defined jaw line, but like all citizens its jaw was not there to open and close. Instead it cradled a faded blue light in place of a mouth. Its eyes let off a hazy blue glow that wasn’t faded like the mouth, but muttered ‘soulless’ nonetheless.

Its body was constructed to reflect the human form much closer than the majority of Citizens that were active in New Prosity. This Citizen had arms, legs, hands, feet, and it even seemed as if, in those structures, metallic muscles were holding everything together and driving momentum. There were various other sources of light that bled from its body in dying blinks. Wires were exposed, some thick as chords, others thin as hair.

To Charlie it was a miracle the thing was even standing, let alone processing enough to know to close the door to his shop.

“Ah, January, you’re not Jim. Then again, I haven't really taken a good look at Jim in a while. Maybe he’s turned into a pretty young girl.” Jim laughed at himself. “Come, come in. Is this him then? The living one you talked about?”

___

Oather’s cat had been fairly informative. He had a thing with Citizens, something about a man and a box, and his patron wore a big black hat. Not many folks wore big black hats. I assumed the box was whatever the alley fight was about. Man in a box, she said. The artificial intelligence, probably.

I tucked that information away, though, and headed toward District 7 to glean some information about Gerald, and maybe about the man in the big black hat. The Brown Ash might not believe the majority of what’s stored in 7’s archives, but they’ve got a fairly large presence there. I’ve been told they like to keep regulars posted around in order to point people away from the wrong direction, and occasionally in the right direction.

District 7 was filled with wood and brick and buildings that looked old. It was quiet in most places, but there were many squares, or auditoriums where people could gather around a stage or podium and listen to speakers. Philosophy was a hot topic, if I understood correctly, and any inkling toward sciences and technology was generally discouraged. People like Charlie were self taught or had mentors who were also intellectual pariahs.

There was an older man who sat under a tree, which very well may have been an Ash, I’m not really one for tree types. He sat there and smoked endlessly on a long pipe. The tree was on a hill that granted anyone enjoying it’s shade access to the four squares that were built around it. The old man sat, smoked, and listened.

He wasn’t there at all times, but it seemed as if he was always the first in the morning out and the last to go home, wherever that was, if it was at all. He was often quiet, and was treated as a fixture or a statue by most of the individuals who lived in 7. Few spoke to him, but many spoke about him. What they said about him were words concerning the Brown Ash.

I made my way through the Guests who were walking about rigidly, in stiff and muted clothing, straight to the tree where the old man sat. I hadn’t spoken with him directly before, and didn’t expect to that evening either. Of the few students that spoke to him, he only replied to a small number. I didn’t intend to be a part of that small number, but I did mean to find one of this elect, and to inquire about Gerald.

Charlie could surely have connected me with a member of the Brown Ash if I had asked him, but I didn’t know who was attached to this yet. I didn’t want to put him in harms way if I didn’t have to.

The old man was leaning against the tree in the sunlight, sucking on his pipe and perking his ears. I sat in the shade on the opposite side of him and looked out on the two squares. The one on my left had a single man posted in the center addressing a modest crowd. The one on my right was almost overpopulated with people talking amongst themselves as they watched two individuals on the stage argue.

I could smell the old man’s smoke from my spot on the other side of the tree. In fact, it seemed as if the wind cradled it around the tree and set it spinning around my head. The smoke was sweet and reminded me more of burning wood than of grass or leaf.

Very shortly after I sat, a young man shared a few words with the elder. They were nonsense to me, and didn’t seem to pique the interest of the smoker. The young man left in minutes. After that, the tree did not have a visitor for a long while.

The bloke talking to the few spoke, with care, on the nature of morality. The Guests of 6 were spoken of frequently, but he made it clear that none of the districts was a good example of anything upright.

In the conversation square there was a good deal of drinking and, at times, it got difficult to tell what either or any of them were saying. It was rumored that the man who was sitting behind me listened intently to all speakers in the four squares, but I found that increasingly less likely as my straining to hear extended. From what I could make out, they were talking about the uneducated, as if they were the scum of the city, and mocked any who valued anything above the fruits District 7 had to offer. Arrogant is a word I would use to describe them.

At a certain point I gave up on listening to either and closed my eyes. The smoke the man produced really was sweet, and filled my lungs with a sort of peace I wasn’t familiar with.

Another student came to speak with the man. He persisted in speaking for nearly thirty minutes before taking his leave. I kept my eyes shut as I listened to him drone about a man from history named Dahz who was from a distant village, and didn’t seem to be very consequential.

I sucked in smoke deeply.

I woke deep in the night. There was no smoke. There were no crowds. I stood and walked around the tree. The old man was gone. There were lights around the buildings that surrounded the squares, and the squares themselves were lit fairly well, but the tree atop the hill was cast in a fair amount of darkness.

I was about to stretch when I saw a figure walk between two of the neighboring buildings. I pressed myself up against the tree instinctively and focused to get a better look. It was a man wearing a big black hat. It was kinda dumb too.

He cleared the space between the buildings and I set off to follow him.

AIndividual 4

4

“Are you sure, mistah?”

“Quite sure.”

“Only, you’re payin’ for your time an’ stuff.”

“I know, keep your clothes on. I just wanna talk.”

“Mos’ guys jus’ wanna talk, only they don’t come in sayin’ that. Normally they don’ start runnin’ their moufs until after.”

“Well I’m not looking to run my mouth at all. I’ve got a couple questions to ask.”

“A’right. Ask ‘em. Mind if I climb in the bed though? It’s a bit chilly in here.”

“Sure.”

She climbed into the worn out bed, pulling the covers over her mostly bare body. I walked over to the window and pulled it shut. There was a desk in the room. I thought to myself for a moment that it couldn’t have gotten much use, and then thought a little longer and corrected myself. It probably hadn’t gotten much use as a desk. Still, there was a chair. I pulled it over to the bed and sat down. I took out a pen and paper.

“What’re those?”

“Pen and paper.”

“What for?”

“So I remember what you say.”

“You can record me, if you like. I’m used to it.”

“That’s okay. You knew Oather Simmons?”

“Oathy. Yeah. I heard he got hisself killed. Is that right?”

“Yeah. Who’d you hear that from?”

“Miss Maripole said so. Told me special. He’d always come by to see me specific. She does that. Keeps us girls informed.”

“Did she say how he was killed?”

“Bullets in an alleyway. Couldn’ta been anythin’ else though, if you knew Oathy. He was a fighter. A rage in him I haven’t seen in another man ‘fore. Made for good lovin’.”

“Did she say who did it?”

“Naw. It was probably one scum that was afraid of losin’ to him though. Them fighters don’t got no respec’ for each other. Can’t look bad in front of no one. Win at all costs and such. Hard lives to live, them fighter’s lives. Guess it’s hard for all of us though. Your life hard, mistah?”

“Know of any fights in particular that were coming up? Any fighter come to mind as one who might have gunned Oather?”

“Nah. I only watched a coupla games Oather was in. Fightin’s not my style. I’m more of a lover, you’d say.”

“Not sure I would. No names then?”

“He didn’t talk much about the other people he’d be fighting. Some ‘a the ‘Zens, though. He wouldn’t stop talkin’ ‘bout ‘em. I think he had some kinda kink wif ‘em or somethin’. Always paid for one of the tin girls to watch us. Always a different one, and never let her come near the bed. Just told her to watch.”

“You have enough Citizen women here so that each time it’d be different?”

“More ‘a them than fleshy types like your’s truly.”

“What names do you remember?”

“Uhm… Piecemeal was one. Saddleless another. The Gore and The Gorer were two.”

“Sure they’re two? Sound like the same name.”

“I think they’re a team or something. Baaron Kill, but e’ryone knows that one.”

“When did Oather visit you?”

“Maybe five or six bells ago.”

“Two or three days?”

“Sure.”

“Say anything out of the ordinary?”

“Somethin’ ‘bout findin’ a man in a box, or a man with a box, or a box. Said he’d come take me away when he found it. A lot of guys say that, and he’s said it before, but Idunno. Seemed like he meant it this time.”

“Know who his patron was?”

“No, not really. Didn’t talk much on him.”

“Know anything about him? Which district he lives in, what he looks like, anything?”

“No. Couldn’t say I’d ever saw him. Oathy said he was a creep one time when he was particularly mad. Said something about a big black dumb hat? I don’t know. Like I said, he didn’t talk much on him.”

“Big black hat?”

“I don’t know.”

“Alright. Anything else I should know about Oather?”

“Can’t say. Don’t know whatcher after.”

“I wanna find out who killed him.”

“Why?”

She asked that question so honestly it caught me off guard. She asked it as if she couldn't, for the life of her, come up with any reason for why, not only I would be interested in Oather’s death, but why anyone would.

“I mean. He’sa fighter. Was gunna die eventually. Sooner than most. They all die ‘fore they hit 45. Most ‘fore they’re 30. Oathy was 31, I think. Coulda lasted a couple ‘a more years, probably. Had to ‘spect it though. ‘Spect it with mosta the type that come through here, honest. Can’t say why that’s so.”

“I’m sure.”

“Want me now, then, mistah?”

___

In the ruins that surrounded New Prosity a young blonde woman climbed through and over wrecked buildings. She wore old but warm clothes. She had her hair tied in a tail that fell mostly across the scarf made hood that hung off her head and around her neck. She was well wrapped in clothes, but well wrapped to keep the cold in, not out. When she breathed heavily, she breathed frost.

She had seen cities like this, both in ruins and before. The city was filled with what seemed to be entertainment venues, restaurants, and places for commerce. She knew this place as it was before, but in a vague way. It was as if she dreamt this place, as if the place was entirely in her, or her entirely in this place.

She knew it when there were cars. She knew it when work had to be done. She knew it when the doors were shut and the people were quiet. She also knew it before it was the city that the ruins told of, but in the same intramural manner. She knew it when the archeologists came to dig up the ancient bones. She knew it when the ancient bones were inside bodies and fighting.

She knew this place, but was coming to know it from a different perspective. She tasted the dirt that had been carried in by wind and felt the concrete dust. She breathed and saw the sun falling from the center of the sky. Her thoughts were not racing. Her mind was quiet, though she prayed.

She came to a building, broken, but sturdier than most others. Inside an unkempt Citizen sat silent, a box before him. She climbed the side of the building which was riddled with plenty of holes that served as valuable footholds. She reached what was once the roof, and slide down a rope that was tied to a corner.

“I’ve found a place inside the city,” she said. “There’s a mechanic who I think we can trust. We’ll have to anyway. I’ve sorted out a room above his shop. I think we should go during nightfall though. People would notice you during the day.”

One word came from the Citizen, though it remained still. “Okay,” it said.

“Okay,” she said as she sat.

AIndividual 3

3

Something that looked an awful lot like an unkempt Citizen sat in a broken structure in the ruins surrounding New Prosity. It sat cross legged and straight backed and had before it a black rectangle that possessed the same dimensions as a briefcase. This rectangle looked cleaner and newer than anything within miles. On this black rectangle was a white letter Z, embossed boldly on its large surface.

There was a stillness inside of the ruin that was tied down by beams of sunlight that were strung through various holes in the roof and were anchored to the ground by silence. The figure sat perfectly still and the box did not move.

___

District 5 was a place of aggression and violence and the kind of folk who would mug you, but more for the fun of punching you in the face and kicking your soft stomach than for any other kind of gain. There wasn’t much they could gain by mugging some random bloke on the street.

We had everything we need in New Prosity. Food was grown in large warehouses, tended to mostly by Citizens. Warmth and shelter was available and enticing. Clothing was spun by Citizens, healing even was done by Citizens. Entertainment was likewise provided.

Even still, the Guests of New Prosity brought with them the idea that there was more that they needed. Something that New Prosity couldn’t provide of itself. In District 5, entertainment was provided around the clock. District 5 was entertainment, more than anything else. The Arena pitted Citizens against Citizens in complicated and destructive battles. Crowds cheered as bot crushed bot.

Mostly the Citizens that fought in the Arena were built for it, obviously equipped for battle and entertainment. There were, however, occasions where Citizens of other purposes were pitted against other ill-prepared Citizens, and where those same Citizens would have to fend for themselves against the mechanical deathbringers whose purpose was the Arena.

Then there were the Guest fights. People fought each other for the pleasure of others, and I’m sure for pleasures of their own. They also fought Citizens, though. In District 5 the tension between the Guests and the Citizens was visible, where in all other districts it was well covered. In District 5 this tension turned a profit. District 5 was almost as profitable a district to frequent as 2. You’d think that, with everything provided, money wouldn’t have been an issue, but you’d be wrong. Guests are as thirsty for Currents as people have ever been.

“Oather Simmons… Hmm. Name rings a bell. My memory isn’t as good as it used to be though. I can’t even remember the last time some kind soul bestowed upon me any sum of Currents.” The man my inquiries landed me with was old, but was said to have a firm grip on the Guest fighters and their capabilities. Apparently he sold information.

I produced ten Currents from the folds of my jacket. On principle, I didn’t agree with Currents. New Prosity provided everything a body needed, we shouldn’t have had any sort of currency. In practice though, I found it nearly impossible to get anything worthwhile done without a couple Currents to grease the wheels and pepper the beaks.

“Come to think of it, I can remember the last time someone gave me ten currents. Twenty Currents though, now that’s something that truly evades me.”

“You know, everyone knows you sell information. You don’t gotta be so gamn dodgy about it. It’s not like a Citizen’s gunna throw you away for tellin’ someone if Joe Blow’s got a busted ankle or is nearsighted in his left eye.” I yielded another ten Currents. “Just doesn’t seem practical, all this ‘Oh, me? No I’m not selling information, we’re just having a nice chat, and you decided to give poor ol’ Yentz a coupla Currents, which we negotiate in an elaborate dance around the bush.’ You should really just state your price outright. It’d make things easier.”

“Hrmph,” Yentz hrmphed. “It’s just my way of havin’ a little fun. Plus, combatants don’t take to kindly to an old man who sells their heels for a quick buck. Now, if we’re just talkin’ as good buddies, and I happen to bring up something about a game I saw the other day, and how Mr. Blow was caught completely off guard by Baaron Kill, when he shouldn’t have because it was fairly obvious from my vantage point that Blow should have been able to see him down the corridor, well then that’s just talk about the game, right? How’d you know about Rodrick’s ankle, by the way?”

“I paid attention, or I heard a thing. It doesn’t matter. I could care less about any of that right now, I’m looking for non-data on Oather.”

“Non-data?”

“I don’t care much for stats. I’ve got a feeling Oather was up to something and involved with someone, and I’d like to know what it was and who it was with.”

“Oy, I shoulda asked for more than twenty. Data’s one thing...”

“Maybe if your terms of engagement were a tad less shifty, you’da know what I was looking for. What do you know? Non-data.”

“Well, he’s dead for starters.”

“Knew that. Why do you think I’m here?”

“Well, you didn’t say. What else do you know about him, so I don’t waste my breath.”

“I’m not here to let you onto anything you don’t already know. I know data and that he’s dead.”

“Well, he participated in a good deal of the unsanctioneds. Good fighter, he was. Not many people came askin’ about him though. There was a shady fella from 6, I think, who came askin’ about him earlier. Mostly curious about his whereabouts. Told him that he was dead. Near certain that man was his patron, but I’d only seen him at Oather’s fights. Don’t have any confirmation on the connection. Oather was a beast against Guests, but you could see a true thirst for violence when he fought Citizens.”

“He ever one on one an Arena made?”

“He did. Won too. Sure couldn’t beat his size, stupidity, and rage around machines. Seems like he was done in with a gun, poor sap. Fight all his life with fists and honorables to be put down with a gun in an alleyway. Died in 2, by the way.”

I just nodded, hoping he would continue.

“Aside from that he seemed a simple guy. Liked to punch things and spend his winnings on women from 6. As far as I know he didn’t have any real friends. The fighters all get along in a cutthroat brotherhood kind of way, but he was alone often. Most of them are. I think it’s ‘cause they know one day they might be smashing the eyes out of the person their drinking with.”

“Know if he frequented any particular house in 6?”

“I might.” Yentz extended his hand, palm up.

I took it in my right and squeezed. “Mighty fine of you to tell me then,” I said through clenched teeth. I waited for him to profess pain audibly before I let go.

“Alright, fine. Slane’s.” He hunched over his hand and rubbed it. “Now go away.”

“Goin’.”

My goal was the man who was askin’ about Oather earlier, but if I couldn’t find him, a cat would do. They might not have had as wide a range of information as someone like Yentz, or any 2 worth his salt, and definitely not like any of the Brown Leaf, but the information they did have was intimate. Often it was valuable.

It was midday in 5 by the time I crossed the border and midnight in 6. It was always dark in 6. Roaches and light and all that, I guess. If I had files, and someone downloaded them, they’d find I used to frequent that district. My early days of question asking dragged me into 6 all too often. The majority of my clients were Guests of 6 who were claiming to have been wronged. They were, of course, usually wronged. Unfortunately, they were also usually wronging someone else, generally the person that they had me after.

I’d find out, and I’d get after them just as much as the person they had me after. Sometimes instead of the person they had me after. Eventually it was made clear that justice couldn’t be bought or sold by anyone other than Truth herself. Or something like that anyway.

I still spent a good chunk of my time skulking about the dark district, but it was far less often for someone from the district. Come to think of it, most of the skulking I did ‘round that time was self directed skulk. Clients were fickle, often adding more to the equation than was really there. The forest is already difficult to navigate, I don’t need fog.

I knew the place fairly well. Staying where it was lit was the goal if you were just passing through, or simply trying to keep from trouble. But the darkness held secrets, and of those I am a merchant. So I got good at walking through those back alleys. I generally knew when to take a roof or two, and when to detour a good distance ‘cause of sheer numbers and my not carryin’ a gun and on account of certain people knowing me and not liking me very much. Couldn’t say why. I was quite the charmer.

I got by safely, only having to turn down one fine goods peddler with my boot.

Slane’s wasn’t a large tower, like a good deal of the buildings in New Prosity. The structure struck me as odd. New Prosity was, for the most part, very conservative with the space it had to offer. Slane’s was only three stories high and maybe four rooms wide. The depth of it though, was impressive.

I peered down the side of the building, looking for a door, or a window I could sneak in through. There were windows a plenty, and a couple cracked ones with cathouse noises spilling out like a woman dumping out old wash water. They crashed and echoed against the walls and the stained ground with I-don’t-know-what. There was a door, not too far down, but the alley lights flickered, and I changed my mind. The front door would do just fine. I wiped my hands on my pants and knocked twice.

AIndividual 2

2

I was ingesting the data load I took off the scene bots in my place above Charlie’s bot shop in District 8. New Prosity was split into 9 districts. They were like slices of a pie. They were all the same size, but each was unique. District 1, for example, was comprised of mostly white, rounded buildings. There was a subtle hum or chime that resonated all across District 1. It blanketed the district in a type of silence you can’t get without noise. District 2 had business and rich folk. District 5 had the Arena. They all had their pulls, tickling different people’s fancies. In my district it rained all the time. It had things I imagine some Guests would have been interested in, like diners that serve mediocre coffee and solitude. The rain quieted the place, in the same way the golden hum did in 1. I think the real reason people migrated to 8, though, is the general misery the place breathed. It was a district for pessimists, loners, the sad, and the downtrodden. It was a place for the hurt, and the wronged, and a place where vengeance became the hot virus that it can be, seeding deep into the core, and driving the life of the owner in one direction, hard. It was a place where Guests all across New Prosity would go to wallow in self pity. It was a place ripe for a person in my line of work to take up residence. I had their Guest IDs and their names, but I had more than that. I had their recorded history. I could have known them, just as the city itself knew them, if I had the time and attention span. I didn’t though. I had to skim. Oather Simmons, the larger one with what were confirmed as bullets in his body, had lived in New Prosity his whole life. Most Guests then had. He was a resident of 5 that frequented 6. There were records of participation in various official Arena events, though it didn’t seem as if he had ever made it into the Arena itself. Oather was also cited as having participated in a couple different unsanctioned events, but I had to imagine that the few that were recorded didn’t do justice to how active he really was. I didn’t find anything directly linking him to anyone who would be after a package of this sort, but his visits to 6 were enough to convince me he worked for someone. Gerald Piper, the skinny man with red hair, lived in 7 and didn’t seem to travel districts often. He appeared to be a quiet man who kept to his room or the library for the most part. Interestingly he was flagged as being a potential member of the Brown Ash society, but there was no documented investigation. The Brown Ash are a group of people, spread across all the districts, who value knowledge and wisdom, items offered most readily in District 7. According to the organization, however, the majority of the knowledge and wisdom available in District 7 has been falsified. By who? How? I hadn’t the foggiest at the time, and I don’t believe the members of the Brown Ash had entirely settled on an answer either. I queued up the audios Gerald had been consuming. Marine Life in the Glass Sea, Anatomy: The Calen Foot, and Moonrise were the most recent audios played to completion. I couldn’t see any real connection between them, and apart from the murder in Moonrise, I couldn’t see any connection to my case. I pulled up the visuals he had loaded. The Final War, Veles and Dahz, and Prostigrams Then and Now. I thought that Prostigrams came close to the case, but was probably just Gerald’s way of viewing them without ever stepping foot in 6. Sure enough the visual was a frequented item in Mr. Piper’s history. I’m sure he told himself that he was learning each time he requested it. He might have even tried to explain himself to the library Citizen. If he was really a member of the Brown Ash society, he would have been able to read and write. A member was actually the one that had taught me how to. In New Prosity there wasn’t a demand. Everything was voiced to you, and everything understood when you spoke or gestured. There were plenty of recordings, but that’s all you really needed to function in any of the districts. Sure enough he had selected a couple books. That’s probably what got him flagged. The History of New Prosity, Intelligence Artificial, and Lea Daily’s Children. Lea Daily was really the only figure that emerged from the chaos that was the transition from Prosity to New Prosity, and who she really was wasn’t something that was at all clear. She was, though, the centerpiece of New Prosity. An enormous statue of her was found at the point where all districts met. On it was inscribed the words “Lea Daily: The Great Awakener.” Intelligence Artificial was what I was looking for. It wasn’t confirmation that I was dealing with an AIndividual, but hardly anything serves as confirmation when your life is questions. Norman Roughtrauser was the name that belonged to the third dead body. He lived in District 2 but wasn’t listed in any of the trader’s books, nor was he an employee of any company. Not officially anyway. His file was the sparsest. The same food was delivered to his residence weekly, and his transit showed him in districts 2 through 8 regularly and without bias. No visits were presented to District 1, which was odd. Getting hurt and being sick was a regular occurrence, but not one that lasted for long because of District 1. I took the lift downstairs. The stuff that wasn’t data was the stuff I felt would lead me in the right direction. Visiting District 5 and asking for Oather seemed direct, and I guess it was, but direct was all Guests of District 5 new how to be. Fishing for information about Gerald would take a bit more tact, but I knew a few people that could get me into contact with a member of the Brown Ash that would have known Gerald. The Citizen librarians knew the physical place of the library well, but the librarians of the Brown Ash, well, they knew things that it didn’t seem possible to know. “Hey Charlie.” I slapped my hand on one of the tables twice. “How’re the—” I noticed the woman standing across from him. She was blonde, short, and had to have been no older than twenty. I prompted for a recognition scan in New Prosity’s base. She was beautiful, and looked cold. Not unaffectionate, but physically cold to the touch, she looked like winter and had eyes like ice. “Oh, Trace,” Charlie said. I had obviously interrupted a conversation. “This is January. January, this is Trace. He’s in one of the rooms upstairs.” She looked vaguely familiar, like someone I’d seen once a year my entire life. My recognition query nulled out. Question marks. She must be new. “She’s looking to move in with us,” Charlie said. I walked over to the two of them, extending my hand to the girl. “Nice to meet you, miss. Don’t know why you’d wanna live here though.” “Well, hey now,” Charlie protested. “I don’t mean here here, Charlie. I mean in 8. You moving from another district, or did you blow in from outta town completely?” I asked, but I knew. “Uh, yeah. Out of town. I came in from north aways. Nice to meet you.” Her voice sounded like snowfall. “Your room’s good?” “Does the job of livin’ me. I stick around for the company though. Charlie’s a good guy. Helped me out more times ‘n I can count.” “And I’m still not even with him,” Charlie said slapping me on the back. I smiled. She smiled back. “I think I’ll take it then.” “Great!” “Glad to hear it. Well, I’ve got some stuff that needs doin’. I’m sure I’ll see you ‘round.” “Hope so.” “Catch you later, Trace. Oh, and when you get the chance, could you take a look inside the head of one of these things? I’m trying to strip it of its original service node, but it keeps wanting to mix the booze in with ice cream.” “Sounds like it’s working fine to me.”

AIndividual 1

1

An infant intelligence has been discovered.

I am aware. I believe we are all aware.

It is said to be in your district.

That is possible.

Is it in your district?

I don’t monitor mine in the same way as you. That the Guests are not watched or listened to is an advantage of my district. They have privacy, and even if they do not know they are being monitored in your district, they are dimly aware of it. It is the way you react to things that should not be known.

Is the intelligence in your district?

I do not know.

___

There were three dead in an alley ‘side of Red’s club and Runner’s bakery. That’s what the note said. That’s what was there. Thankfully I learned to read. I didn’t have a client, not the official sort anyway. If I did, we hadn’t worked out terms yet. Still, whoever it was knew how to grab my attention. Knew how to load me into a gun and pull the trigger.

It wasn’t the dead that interested me. Or, not that they were dead, I guess. Who they were was relevant. It was the gram they were supposed to have been fighting over. Apparently some mystery grammer cooked up a special artificial intelligence somewhere on the other side of Taaron. It ended up here, like most things.

They were here once, AIndividuals. Most say it’s because of them that Prosity fell. Not sure that’s true. Not sure ‘bout much of that time though. Whatever chaos that consumed that place was thorough. Whatever order that restored it, built up New Prosity in Prosity’s dead carcass, is an unknown quantity. Lius, Guest 1, said that the city spoke with him when he arrived first.

Sure.

Nothing was here when he brought the first group but the Citizens. The city was empty. Lifeless. Whoever–whatever built it had left it fully functioning, populated with unmoving statues brought to life only by service, in the center of a mass of ruins. It was like a man sitting in the center of a room full of corpses, vacant eyed and unresponsive, hardly breathing. That’s how I imagined it anyway, before people showed up. You can still see those corpses if you make the trip out far enough. Rubble giants with black bodies, broken and burnt.

A couple of Citizens were already in the alley by the time I showed. That’s fine. Can’t say they’re all too good at picking up on the finer details of mystery solving, even if they’re decent at recording the clues. It’s the human aspect, I think. Robots don’t have the capacity to think like us. Really, they don’t have the capacity to think. Not without artificial intelligence, which was hidden or history until this rumor about the gram filtered through.

“Hey boys.”

“Unidentified Guest, please state your name and Guest ID.”

“You know, funny thing. There’s a glitch on my read, right? Just comes up with dumb question marks. Can’t say I know how that got there. Sure makes getting around harder than it should be.”

“Identify yourself.”

“Hey, aren’t you a Citizen of 3? And you, you’re a 5. You’re not supposed to be here, this is 2. What’s going on in your head? Why aren’t you where you’re supposed to be?”

“We have been granted special access. Identify yourself.”

“Special access? That’s not a thing, not for scene bots like yourself. You have no jurisdiction here. Let me past, I wanna check whatever you’ve left of the scene.”

“You are not authorized.”

“How do you know, you don’t even know who I am. 2 here’s the only one that could say that, anyway, and he’s being mighty quiet. You’ve all got what you came for, even if you’re not supposed to be here. Shove off and don’t bother pinging a Citizen with arrest permissions. They’ve got better things to do than pick on some unknown strolling through this alleyway. I happen to be quite fond of Runner’s sweet bread. That’s very likely the reason I’m here.”

I walked past. That conversation gave me enough time to download the scene with my less than legal cerebral nodes. You’d be surprised with how much these scene bots tamper with evidence. Sometimes it’s more revealing to see what they remove and alter than what was there in the first place. Points you in a direction anyway.

I decided to wipe the scene from the bases of 3 and 5. There weren’t supposed to be there anyway. I don’t normally burn up the information I down, but if they’ve got a byte of something I feel might help them in a way I’m not comfortable with, I’m not above lighting a match.

It’s not that we’re competing with one another, but they’ve got the interest of the city in mind. The interest of their district, more specifically. Sometimes that doesn’t coincide with the truth or the questions. Sometimes that gets in my way.

There were three dead. The Citizens had moved them, laid them out in the center of the alley to be picked up by a cleaner Citizen. Three men. Their computers had been harvested by the scene bots, downloaded, and scrubbed clean. I had the info, but I’d have to look at it later. I took a few shots of my own, not that I needed to.

There was a broad shouldered man, with hair like a black carpet all up his arms. The hair on his head was slicked, and his mustache gleamed. There were six holes in him. Four in the chest, one in the right forearm, and one in his left thigh.

There was a lanky man with red hair pulled into a ponytail and tied with a blue bow. His entire neck was a dark purple, as if someone had taken a pipe and repeatedly hit him in the neck from every angle without breaking skin. The fingers of his right hand were bent back and obviously broken.

There was another man, open blue eyes looking into the sky. His mouth had waterfalled blood recently, but it had dried, clinging to very short stubble. He wasn’t as large as the first, but he was very fit. There was a single hole in him, much larger. Not bullets like the first. A blade must have run through him, reddened cloth clung to his stomach.

The Citizens had left. I took a couple steps ‘round the bodies. There wasn’t a gun. There were no shells, but few guns used shells nowadays. There wasn’t a blade, and definitely not one large enough to have holed the third. No pipe either, but I didn’t expect to find one. Who did these guys work for?

I was queuing up the scene bot’s data when I heard a heavy metal step echo down the alley. I told them not to ping for arrest assistance. I did more than tell them not to, I climbed inside their heads and disabled that capacity completely. The Citizen that stepped into that alleyway was definitely not here for cleanup though. I turned around and ran.

It was the middle of the day, folks were mullin’ about as usual. That was good. Another large Citizen was working its way down the street slowly, impeded by Guests.

“Halt,” he boomed in voice D, the mechanical male voice attributed to most of the large class models. The scene bots had been speaking in variations of K, the eyes and ears unit voice. K may grate slightly in impossible robot arrogance, but hearing D is never a good sign.

I took off, each foot tapping the ground two times as often as the other. I knew if it came to it, I could use my Rae rod, but I hoped it didn’t come to it. Citizen destruction isn’t an easy thing to run unpunished for. I’m unknowable to Citizens, but people still have eyes. They can match me to the action, and they would. Bringin’ down a bot of his size would impress them, but they wouldn’t forget, and when other Citizens come a knocking they’ll sell me out faster than a Fennic film at the Fayre on a Friday.

Navigating the people was easy. Navigating the Citizens was a chore. Whenever they’ve got a chase out all the bots get granted temporary aid permissions, where they do their best to capture or slow down. Turning down a bot with my nodes isn’t easy, but it’s a lot harder when they’ve got temporary aid permissions. All other commands are overwritten and they process one thing. Capture.

There was a train stopped alongside me. As I ran by doors were shut by service Citizens, who seemed to glare at me. I had seen the temporary aid permissions thing happen a bunch of times before, but I could never get over the sick satisfaction that emanated from the Citizens not usually granted such rights for aggression.

Not that I was hoping to use the train in the first place, I turned away from it, cutting down a wide path filled with tables and seats. There were plenty of Guests to slow down my pursuers. A man drinking coffee with crumbs on the table and in his lap, looked up from his wrist display and watched me hoof by. A young couple, happily holding hands across the table, broke eye contact from each other to watch me pass. An older, less happy couple, remained slumped in their chairs staring at the younger with disgust.

This might have been a road at one point. There were cars in Prosity, before it consumed itself. They’re something that New Prosity wasn’t built for. Like pen and paper, they existed, but seeing them was an event, and hardly anyone knew how to use them. I had ridden in a car on a couple of occasions. Helps to know someone with a step or two of distance from the trains. I pinged Wilco but got no response.

“Gamn.”

The Citizen turned the corner and started thundering toward me. The unoccupied tables and chairs were sucked into the ground, providing a clear path for the large mass of metal. Effects like that were much easier to mess with. I stopped running, turned around, and pulled up the operations board for the path’s furniture. It’s not something everyone can do, not everyone has their brain hooked up directly to their computer like I do. Not everyone has their computer directly linked up to New Prosity’s nervous system like I do either.

I popped a chair up just as the Citizen took a particularly long stride. It sent him crashing to the ground, which didn’t do him much damage, but slowed him considerably. I was about to turn around when my arms were grabbed and folded behind me by a waiting Citizen stationed at the restaurant the tables and chairs belonged to.

Thankfully, that’s where I keep my Rae rod, and double thankfully service bots like this one weren’t built for this kind of work. A tiny zap would do.

I slipped my right hand around it’s handle and flicked it away from it’s magnet holster. I heard it sing to life behind me. I don’t carry a gun. Guns don’t work well on Citizens and they work too well on people. Rae rods are metal rods, about a foot long with a half a foot handle. There are many variations, but they all crack electricity. I squeezed a small dose that I knew I’d feel into the waiter.

It must have burnt out a circuit ‘cause its arms dropped long enough for me to move into an alley. Large had gotten up by now. Tripping him didn’t seem to buy me much time at all. I shook off the bit of shock I got and looked up. There was a ladder to the roof of the building to my left, but as I grabbed for it, it pulled itself into the wall. I could see a thin Citizen, draped in a robe, standing behind Large, who was ceaseless in his massive pursuit.

Another large class citizen, probably not the initial one, made his way into the alley from the other end. Up was the only option I could come up with, so I pointed my rod to the sky and fired. The tip of the rod shot up and clung to the corner of the four story building. I pulled a little, and it reeled me in. I had to kick off the building three times on my way up, so as to not be dragged against the side.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay on the roof for long. Rabbit’s Feet have been invented since, but at the time I had to rely on my own strength to leap from rooftop to rooftop. I had to cast out my rod a couple of times, but it makes a very distinct noise. I tried to keep that to a minimum as I leap-snuck away.

I came to a building along the tracks and heard a train slipping its way by. Riding atop a train in New Prosity isn’t something I’d recommend anyone do if they don’t have to. I had to though, and had to before, and would have to again, many times. I hurled myself off the building, landed, and shot my rod for stability. I rode the train from District 2 clear to 6, where I rolled off and got a couple of funny looks from embarking and disembarking passengers. The Citizens at the station in 6 were none the wiser.