The next part of Jack's journey would take him to the towers, but he wanted to stop off somewhere on the way first. See an old friend. Not the friend that had furnished him with the button and the fancy hat he now wore, but someone else he needed to say goodbye to. It was going to be a fare old hike to get there, especially as he couldn't risk taking an autocab without ringing about a billion alarm bells with the Cit-Pro. Even on foot he was surprised he hadn't been identified yet, either by the occasional survey or traffic management drone buzzing overhead, or by the bulbous monitoring pods grafted on to many of the buildings he passed.
Jack pulled the hat a little lower as he trudged on, gaze locked on the sidewalk just a few feet ahead of him, not wanting to risk looking up and catching an electronic eye. Perhaps that was all the hat was for, making it difficult for the face or head recognition algorithms to identify him. But the instruction was that he need to get the hat, not a hat. Plus the city systems had been coping with all manners of hat, hoodies and masks over the years. They would be tricky to fool with such a basic disguise.
Still, he hadn't been tagged yet, and long may that continue, he muttered, turning off down a side street. Standing at the end of this street was a squat blank faced building. It would have stood two or three times higher than Jack's tenement complex, but was made to look insignificant against the main towers of the Megatropolis that stood a click or two further north.
This was a risk, Jack knew it, but was something he needed to do. He approached the building, stopping in front of a double height door, no knob in sight. It took him a moment or two to locate the access panel, almost hidden behind a large ornamental pot plant to the left of the door. The communication that would see a resident open up the door for a visitor was all handled via the Transnet these days, no need for things as archaic as entrance buzzers or intercoms. Indeed, buzzing an apartment wasn't even a first tier option on the small screen that Jack hunched over with a puzzled expression. Even he, technologically adverse as he was, would usually slip on his aug-specs and let his friend know he was there. But his Transnet access would be the thing most keenly watched by those now hunting him.
At last, Jack located an option to call up to a specific apartment. The access panel made a repeated beep as the call went through. Jack glanced around in case the noise attracted any attention, but the street was empty. Outside the commerce levels of the Towers the Megatropolis tended toward eerie emptiness, citizens often deep into the Transnet in whatever space they called home.
He was about to abandon his diversion here when the screen of the access panel resolved itself into a video feed of a confused looking face.
"Jack, that you?" she asked
"None other" he replied "Can I come up?"
"S...sure" uncertainty in her voice "Everything ok? How come you're calling me on this system?"
"I'll explain inside"
"Ok. Just let me figure out how to do the door softwired...Ah ha, got it" the tall door hinged inwards and lights in the small lobby of the building flicked on. Jack had one last glance around, then headed inside.
"I didn't even know I had this" the young woman was waving a small grey screen around "it just started beeping from under a pile of old shoes" she was animatedly pacing back and forth in front of Jack, who had slumped down in a tatty beanbag on entering her apartment, with little idea how he was ever going to get back up again. "A softwired door link, wow" she chirped, "Crazy. You wanna drink?"
"Coffee'd be good"
"That stuff rots your guts. How about a whisky?" said with no hint of irony
"No thanks. Got to keep the old noggin' on form today" he tapped the side of his head as he said this.
The woman frowned, lock of greasy hair swinging over her face. "What's up Jack? You turn up out of the blue, refuse to take off that stupid looking hat, then say no to a drop of the good stuff. Anyone else I'd have said had been on a bad scenario. But you? Nah, this is something else"
"You always were sharp, Josie" Jack half smiled "Ever since you were a littlun'"
She didn't reply, instead tilting her head while contemplating the disheveled looking old man in her beanbag. Jack continued under the weight of her gaze, "I gotta go away".
"Why?"
"Ran into a little bit of trouble"
"Told you not to do that import deal with those west sector guys" Josie crossed her arms
"It's not about that" while Jack was correct in this, a small part of his brain had to admit that the import deal was a dumb move. Still, the least of his troubles right now.
"Then what?"
"Something from way back"
"Serious?"
"Uh-huh"
"Drakk" she sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him.
Silence washed over them, Josie with her head bent low and Jack in contemplation. He wouldn't call his relationship with the young woman fatherly. For on thing he didn't have his own kids to compare the experience with, and memories of his own father were as faded as the bruises the man used leave across Jack's face. But even leaving all that aside, his bond with Josie was more equitable than he imagined a father and daughter might be. As a headstrong teenager she'd been repeatedly in and out of trouble with Cit-Pro; Jack had actually met her when both were under supervision in the holding pens. Both had reservations about the path of society into the deeper Transnet and Civic Centrale's tight regulation of it, but Josie had taken up cause against it while Jack had tended towards petty criminality and impotent monologues at the diner. Jack had been able to depart an age honed wisdom of avoiding the system from the outside, while Josie had built a good knowledge of working within it. Skills were traded, a bond formed. A bond that would now need to be broken.
"They'll probably come to talk to you" Jack ended the silence
Josie shrugged "Cit-Pro? Nothing new there"
"Tell them the truth. They're using the new iteration of RAs so you ain't gonna be able to bluff your way out"
"What do I know anyway? You came to say goodbye. Not like you're going to cast over a detailed itinerary of your next moves, is it?" she sounded almost surly
"Indeed. But watch the attitude. As you've explained to me enough times, their emotional intelligence is growing quick. They know when you're being a bitch"
Josie smiled, then put her hands to her chest in mock indignation as if to say who, me? As her smile faded, she replied "Shame you're not going to be around next week"
"How come?"
"The farm factory development"
"What about it?"
"You know how they want to sling out everyone over on Hawthorn row for the new factory, despite there being a perfectly recoverable old factory five clicks south?"
"Story rings a bell" vague memories in Jack's mind of sipping whisky while Josie ranted about her latest cause.
"Well, we're going physical. Got an actual protest coming up. People on the street, placards, chants, the works. Right up your ally" Josie visibly brightened while talking about her plans
Jack had to admit that actually seeing people protesting in person rather via some slacktivist half-arsed virtual petition or Transnet gathering would be interesting.
"Got some friends in the networks that reckon they can upload some of the footage onto the mainstream news casts" she continued "Impressive, eh?"
"Taking it to Civic Centrale one AI cabbage farm at a time" a smile tugged at the corners of Jack's mouth, which was soon blotted out by the cushion Josie threw at him.
"It's important" she insisted
"I know, Josie, I know. You keep up the good fight when I'm gone"
"Gone? You make it sound so final"
Jack looked down "I suspect it might be"
"Drakk, Jack, I thought you just needed to go lie low for a while. What are you involved in?"
"Like I said, trouble from way back. Not your concern. But I did want you to have this" from the folds of his coat he produced a small plastic card, little bigger than a thumb nail.
"That a credit clip?" Josie looked at it puzzled, then lent forward to take it from him "Haven't seen one of them since I was a kid"
"I ain't never earned a lot, but then again I don't spend much either" Jack shifted uncomfortably, not great with emotional goodbyes "It's not much, but you're the only person I know that wouldn't piss it up the wall on scenarios or pointless augmentations"
"Jack....I" Josie was not much better with this sort of thing.
"Now don't be an idiot and upload it to your account before Cit-Pro stop sniffing around" Jack was back on safer ground, berating a youngster.
"Sure" Josie sniffed
"And don't start with your wimperin' kid. Instead, how about you make yourself useful and help an old man get out of this freaking monstrosity of a seat"
"Ok" Josie stood, then lent down to offer him a hand
"Oooof" Jack levered himself up, then, while rubbing his back "and I've also reconsidered that offer of a whisky"
The warmth in his chest from the whisky had long faded by the time Jack found himself stood at the foot of Tower 2. He had to dodge between the waste trucks and supply barges; pedestrian access to the towers at ground level was highly discouraged. Civic Centrale much preferred people to enter their grand creations at the ornate entrances connected to the autoroads and hyperloop hundreds of feet above Jack's head. While outside of the Towers the lower levels were considered the domain of the wasters and criminals, within the confines of the behemoths at the centre of the Megatropolis the lower levels were synonymous with the massive service drone operation that kept the Towers as the preferred choice for habitation, work and play for well over 80% of the city.
A hundred years ago living in "towers" meant a hand to mouth existence in near derelict accommodation at the margins of society. Today it meant unparalleled levels of comfort for a society coddled by attentive drones and deep immersion in the Transnet.
Jack loathed it.
As he picked his way into an underground staging post for larger deliveries, almost being knocked over by a window-cleaning bot on route there, he began to almost welcome being arrested by Cit-Pro. Drones were everywhere, it was like lifting up a rock that housed an ant colony underneath. Creatures crawling over him, the stuff of nightmares.
He was actually a little confused as to why he hadn't been apprehended. He was headed in to an area where a human stood out, an area full of electronic feeds that ran right through to the city co-coordinators in Civic Centrale. So why were they ignoring him?
They can't see me.
The thought caused him to stop, a timely move, as it happened, given that an automated trolley sped across the intersection he was on the edge of. Drones, no matter how basic, all had monitoring systems to prevent them running into humans or (more to the point if Jack's conspiracy theories were to be believed) to prevent costly accidents from them running into other drones. Yet he'd almost been struck at least three times and he wasn't even in the main section of the staging area yet.
The hat? That would certainly figure - the instruction to search out his old friend came after the requirement to put on the hat. Jack instinctively pulled the head-wear a little lower, wary of a gust of wind from any close passing drones knocking it off and revealing him. Gingerly he continued on, sticking close to the walls where he could. Eventually he reached a service elevator, although could find no means of operating it. After a while a wheeled trolley drone approached, a selection of plant-baskets in it's storage drum. Given that those baskets were presumably for decoration of the public levels, Jack followed the drone into the elevator when the doors opened from some unseen command.
His hunch proved correct, the elevator doors opening just off a small plaza on what a sign told him was the 17th level. It was night back on the outside, but here bright artificial illumination lit up the plaza; the Towers maintained different time zones on different floors in order to smooth the demands on the local systems. Truly a 24 hour society (trademark). Jack grimaced at what he saw as manipulation of basic human physiology. Although as he grew older, and his sleep patterns more erratic, a small part of him did recognise at least some benefit to be able to travel a few floors for a decent coffee or a meal at an odd hour.
Still, any thought of coffee had to be abandoned at the current time. There was no means of ordering one at any of the multitude of businesses dotted about the plaza without Transnet access. He'd have to wait till he could find his old friend and get him to stump up for a hot brew or two. A task that he still wasn't totally sure how to achieve.
Robert was his friend's name, or at least was. Much like he used to be Thomas, Jack suspected Robert had moved on to a new alias after they went their separate ways two decades previously. Knowing Robert, he'd have chosen a futuristic sounding new name to fit in with the prevailing trends of the Towers. What was wrong with the good old names that have served us well for centuries? But Robert had always been one for the new technology, bleeding edge sort of thing. Stood out like a sore thumb when he first came looking for Jack, nee Thomas, in the Peacock district all those years ago. Jack's initial thought on seeing Robert back then was that he had an easy target for a mugging heading his way. But Robert had had an offer for him and an unlikely friendship soon began.
In the present-day plaza Jack shook his head, stay in the here and now, he urged himself, no time for reminiscing. Where to look for Robert was the pressing matter. Jack had headed for Tower 2 as Robert used to own a night club here. Well, Jack referred to it as a night club, but in the modern era of 24-hour, Transnet-immersion, life in the Towers it was an establishment more commonly known as a Contact Hub, or CHub. Jack had never fully understood the point, but it had something to do with using powerful local computers to create a more intense, shared, immersion experiences among CHub goers than was available on the Transnet alone. Using local networks also meant that some of the scenarios run could serve people with desires not deemed acceptable by Civic Centrale and therefore no-go on the public Transnet.
Robert's CHub had been on the 11th floor, so Jack needed to find a way back down. Being apparently electronically invisible to the local systems reduced his fears of Cit-Pro a little (but not completely, as his racing heart would testify to) but also meant that the usual methods of taking the elevator, or hiring a chariot (a small personal taxi), were not going to work for him. Instead he had to settle for riding down (and up) in the elevator with random tapped in inhabitants of the tower he'd followed until, at last, a middle aged lady and her brat kids selected floor 11.
But getting to the correct floor was just one part of the challenge. Jack now needed to negotiate his way across the floor. And by "floor" this meant an area a little over three square clicks that might have a population not far off half a million at peak times. Also, Jack's sense of direction had always tended to let him down in the confines of the Towers. Drop him at ground level outside in the Megatropolis and he could find his way about no bother, but inside and he was disorientated almost immediately. Partly he suspected this was deliberate on the part of Civic Centrale. If you knew where you wanted to be, it was easy to take a chariot or plot a route via the Transnet. But if you were just visiting then you could be sent around all manner of places all too happy to accept your UBI creds or other earnings for a multitude of goods and services.
Jack began to wonder aimlessly. On this floor it was early night, so the public spaces were more dimly lit, making recognising where he might be all the more challenging. He actually stopped to ask people for directions a couple of times, but they just looked at him like he was suffering from some kind of mental episode or bad scenario come-down before hurrying away. Just not the done thing to approach people electronically unannounced these days he mused, again cursing what he blamed Civic Centrale for doing to society in the Towers. In my day the youngens would help their seniors. Then he sniggered. Ok, they might also have robbed them first, his rose-tinted view of the past slipping momentarily.
Any crime these days in the Tower would be picked up on about 20 different cameras, with drone quick responders stationed every click or so across the floor. Even failing that an emergency alert could be quickly subvocalised by the victim or witness to Cit-Pro via the Transnet. The response would be equally swift, after all, Civic Centrale wanted to keep it's inhabitants safe. Safe people make more compliant consumers was Jack's take on it.
Back on the hunt for the illusive CHub, Jack drifted around the floor. Eventually he came to an area with slightly more people milling around. An area that looked kind of familiar to him. Bars and restaurants with simple signage were dotted about this sector. That is, the signs in the physical reality were simple and subdued. If Jack hadn't been paying attention they would have been easy to walk past. However, he knew that the citizens with their iris lens' online would be bombarded with advertisements, menus, offers and the like. Most citizens would employ some filtering software, but as Jack had found when he got his first (and last) pair of aug specs, if you didn't know how to filter then it was perfectly easy to have your vision blocked by promotional material and walk straight into an ornamental fountain. He sneered at the unhappy, and soggy, memory.
Approaching people elsewhere on this floor had been unsuccessful, but that had been in more of a business district. People on their way home from a long day at work probably. In this section the people seemed more relaxed. With Jack's search still fruitless, he risked another approach.
"Hi, er, kid" he'd approached a couple of young men who had just come out of a bar, leaning unsteadily on one another. Maybe the buzz they were clearly on would make them more amenable to an old man in distress.
"Drakk off, Grandad" or maybe not
Next Jack approached a woman, well he thought she was a woman by her shape, but her head was in a full mask, gaudily coloured with odd protrusions. Jack had no idea why. "Er, maam? You know if there's a CHub round here?" he asked tentatively.
"Mmmmfff, mmmmff" the person in the mask replied. Jack looked at them uncertainly, and catching on to his lack of comprehension, they pointed. Jack wasn't quite sure if it was a sod-off sort of point, or an over-there point, but he decided to follow it either way.
This way took him down a narrower metallic walkway, which bent round the back of a small row of bars. The lighting grew even dimmer here, Jack instantly wary of what a good spot for a mugging it would be. Fists clenched instinctively, and a flash of arthritic pain made him grimace.
Just as he was about to cut his losses and turn back, a door swished open in a wall, maybe ten metres down the path from where Jack uncertainly stood. Out came three people, well four, but the fourth was being carried. They came down the path towards Jack, who stepped aside into the gloom to let them past.
"You guys from the CHub?" he risked inquiring, but none spoke back to him. However, a short man at the back of the group did turn to look at Jack, wide eyed with both iris' rapidly pulsing colour so quickly it made Jack queasy. Scenario come-down.
Confident he was in the right place, Jack approached the spot where the door had been. But it was now closed, and Jack had no way of contacting the business inside. Time to go old school on their arses he mused.
Then knocked politely.
Nothing happened for a little while, but before he could raise his aching fist for another attempt, the door swished open. The other side was almost completely white and brightly lit, forcing Jack to squint, hand raised to his face, fingers spread across his eyes.
"H...hello" he called, his voice echoing in the room.
No reply, so he took a breath , then stepped in. His eyes were slowly adjusting. The room was essentially featureless, maybe five metres square. The only thing that wasn't white was stood over in the corner opposite the door Jack had entered by. Jack blinked a few times as the shape was still a little blurry.
"Hello?" said Jack again
"Hello" said a massive pink gorilla.
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