Jurong Island, New Singapore
Thursday 5 December 2109, 1:38pm +8 UTC
I headed straight towards the Lev port nearest the Director’s office for the third time in one day and in my life to date. Right now I wanted as much distance as I could get between me and Cochran and my uncle. I was scared and glad to be out of there.
The Lev politely enquired, “Where do you wish to go, Arbitrator Oliver?”
“Take me Topside, nearest Lev port please.” I didn’t bother sitting down; we were only a level below Topside.
“Certainly Arbitrator Oliver. Half a minute to destination.”
I kept a straight face, but it was very hard. I felt like smiling. I felt like smiling a huge smile, a gigantic smile, but I didn’t. Instead I let that smile grow inside me, spreading its warmth through to every pore of me, and I now wanted sun and sky. I had to control my breathing, and my heart felt as if it were trying to break out of my chest, but I had to control it. How much do they monitor and were they monitoring me right now in this Executive Lev? I didn’t know, but it occurred to me that if I was going to survive this then I had better find out and fast. This is how a criminal must think. I’m thinking like a criminal. It was a shocking thought, but it was true.
“Lev, what’s the weather like outside?”
“Temperature is twenty-three degrees cel with scattered nimbus clouds, and a forty-five percent chance of rain. Wind is out of the south-east and at eight to twelve kilos: a light breeze.”
“Travel off-line please.”
Score one for Gabriel, I thought. The bitch from hell did try to get in my mind while I was in there, but my plan seemed to have worked. At least I am free. When I came out of the Lev before going to the Director’s office I remembered Gabriel’s warning about Agent Cochran with a vengeance. It scared me enough that the urge to relieve myself was desperate. I headed for the nearest outlet to have a think and I came up with the idea that I would simply report exactly what had happened in the room and the rest of the time all I would think about was what a great guy the Director was and how much I would like to be like him.
It is impossible to think of two things at the same time; we’re not dimensional enough to do that. It should be possible for our brains to do parallel processing, but we’re just not there yet. So if anyone did attempt to read what was in my mind then all they would get was that I really admired the Director.
And I assume it had worked. The debrief had gone perfectly from my point of view and I could now just wait until eight hours passed or something happened that meant I had to go back. Either way, the fact that Agent Cochran did read my mind meant that Gabriel had told the truth about at least one thing and on that score he was doing better than anyone else so far today.
“Arrived at destination, Arbitrator Oliver. Have a good day.”
The Lev door opened and I stepped out into a covered area. In front of me was the entrance to the UNPOL Executive Club, to my left the railed walkway that ran around Topside. I took out my Devstick and said, “Give me a map of the Topside area nearest to me.” The map came up, I thumbed down to zoom in and said, “Find me nearest relax lounge outside of one kilom from where I am.” A kilom ought to be enough distance between me and UNPOL staffers.
It was a bit early to have an alky and, strictly speaking, was against the rules, because although I had the day off I was on standby and therefore supposed to remain clean. But somehow, under the circumstances, I reckoned I’d be forgiven this small indulgence and headed for a Sky Level relax lounge. A name came up attached to a lounge icon on the map. Polar Nights. I thumbed ‘Go To’ and the shortest route was indicated with a thin red line. The directional arrow on my map pointed left, so I obeyed and started walking.
The Topside area on Jurong Island is mostly new, except over near the wharves on the side closest to the mainland of New Singapore. There it narrows to a one hundred and eighty meter wide stretch that arches over the water between the mainland and the island of Jurong. The idea of a Topside had been voted in by New Singapore residents in 2085 — they were one of the early adopters although now most of the major cities have a Topside. By connecting all the high rise buildings with a structure that could accommodate the weight of full landscaping and maximum two-storey buildings, a new landscape was created on top of the city.
Topside is mostly for relaxation and greenery, providing green open spaces for people who would otherwise be surrounded by metal, plastic and other manmade materials all of their lives. There aren’t any electric or other vehicles on Topside, except walkers and bicycles. I had taken the easterly route that would lead me in a half circle around the UNPOL golf course to the wharf area. Of course the wharves themselves are fifteen hundred meters below Topside but it was still called the wharf area.
The rubberized walkway was mostly deserted as I walked along. A jogger in UNPOL tracksuit outers jogged past me and gave me a smile. I controlled my paranoia and smiled back. Discreet directional arrows set into the walkway beat a time with the directional arrow in the map on my Devstick and led me around a par three.
I heard a golfer exclaim, “Shit,” as his ball hit the water in the pond between him and the green. His companions laughed. A mother pushing her child along in a stroller also smiled at me and I felt the paranoia increase. This is ridiculous, Jonah, I thought. Calm down. I decided to change the route I was on and turned left onto a path running between the golf course and a park. For a sec or two my Devstick squawked at me as the directional arrow on it blinked red. I ignored it and kept walking.
I couldn’t smile just in case I’d been tagged and they were tracking my every image whether digital or physical. I just had to act normally. That way no one would suspect anything. Breaking with routine should be OK, but I had to do something natural. Having a strong alky and needing somewhere to reflect is natural behavior after what I had been through, and then I’d head straight back to my Envplex where I would simply wait. I took another look at my Devstick. It had responded to my change in course and provided a new route based upon my current direction. I took another turn, right this time, and checked the Devstick again. About another fifteen hundred meters to go.
The sun and breeze on my face felt great and in the time it took me to reach Polar Nights, I had come to the conclusion that everything Gabriel had said was true. The entrance to Polar Nights at my back, I took in the view from Sky Level over to the mainland, resting my arms on the safety rail that ran along the edge of the walkway. Fifteen hundred meters below me, the surface looked green and tranquil, the Travways cleverly hidden from the view from above by the designers of New Singapore.
I thought about Gabriel's claim that what I did would have significance for the future of the planet and help prevent a conspiracy that could send us back to the Dark Ages. The Charter came to mind. The revised Charter of the United Nation, wherein individual nations were all consolidated, first published in 2063, seven years after the last Great War. The preamble says: to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which is potentially catastrophic and devastating to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of all humans, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of Global Law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and to promote the spread of humankind through the universe.
I had learnt this Preamble as a student, as we all do, and then again with all the treaties, laws, and codicils therein when I had decided on being an arbitrator as an element of my purpose. And now, according to Gabriel, this preamble, this premise that every human capable of reasoned thought takes for granted, was in my hands.
Gabriel’s conversation in my mind was clear now, but like a memory from a dream I could also recall our words spoken for the benefit of those monitoring our interview. I had no doubt that by this time, those images and sounds as well as all the other data attached to that interview would have been dissected and analyzed thousands of times over by many pairs of eyes, but it seemed as if we had pulled off our private chat without any suspicion falling on us.
In less than eight hours Gabriel would disappear from the interview room. I had no idea what he meant by disappear. Escape or vaporize, I simply could not imagine how one could do either. The Deep was approximately two thousand meters down from surface and no one had ever escaped. Gabriel’s level one status meant he was under constant monitoring. Even if his Tag had disappeared off the Grid his physical presence was under containment. Somehow I had no doubt that what Gabriel had said he would do would happen.
I noticed that a rather wet looking cloud was about to envelop the walkway I was on and headed into the Polar Nights, which the Dev by the door advertised as a little piece of heaven designed primarily for hetros but welcome to all, and ambled my way over to the ‘Males’ entrance. A young couple came out of the Unisex entrance and kissed as I walked through into the lowly lit interior. As advertised the emphasis was on hetro and a young woman wearing a beautiful smile and not much else came up to me.
“Hi, welcome to Polar Nights. Are you meeting anyone in particular or can I just help you find a seat?”
“Uhm… I’d like to have a seat and just relax by myself for a while, thanks,” I said and smiled back at her.
“Sure, please come this way, we’ve just upgraded our Siteazys and the Aurora section of the lounge is empty right now. How does that sound?” she asked as she led me through the dark lounge to a huge Siteazy with a Dev beside it. I looked at the Aurora Borealis cast massive on the floor-to-ceiling Devscreen. Perfect, I thought, and sat down in the Siteazy.
The first woman left and a second arrived. “Hi, my name’s Sahara.” She flashed me another beautiful smile. She was about the same height as me, about one hundred and eighty-six cent, with the blondest hair I had ever seen. “Can I get you any refreshment and would you like a leg massage while relaxing?”
“Yes to the refreshment and no to the massage, thanks, Sahara. I’d like a very strong alky, but not paralytic if you know what I mean.”
“Sure. We have a cocktail called the Endorpho 80, which is really great. It’ll put your mind into a semi-meditative state within thirty secs and complete muscle relaxation within forty-five,” she rattled this off and finished with another of those brilliant smiles and I just nodded, lying back in the Siteazy. I thought the day had definitely taken a turn for the better.
The alky arrived borne by the radiant and young Sahara who left me with a charming, “If you need absolutely anything, I am here to serve you,” and swished away with an alluring little sway of her buttocks. I smiled to myself and took a long draught of this Endorpho. It had a slight minty flavor but wasn’t too sweet and slipped down nicely.
I felt the drink hit, as promised. I’d forgotten to ask how long I would stay in this most pleasantly aware but relaxed state, but with these kind of loaded alkys the hit usually lasted at least an hour so I just laid back and enjoyed it. Before I relaxed too completely I punched out a quick command on my Devstick to send me fresh clothes, both inners and outers, from my Envplex to the Polar Nights and told the Dev at the side of Siteazy to have Sahara deliver these once the effects of the Endorpho 80 wore off. With a slight chuckle to myself I wondered if they had an Endorpho 100 and decided not to go there. I would need my wits about me for whatever was to come.
The tension in my body flowed out as the drink hit my nervous system, and my thoughts turned once again to Gabriel and his final words.
Gabriel was my brother, and my uncle was not my uncle, but he was the man who had killed my father. Not only killed, but tortured as well. My uncle, if this was true, was the personification of what our Charter purported to protect us from.
Despite the Endorpho, I tensed, a quiet rage surfacing, but with purpose I pushed that rage aside and turned my thoughts to planning my action ahead. We cannot know the future, but we can plan based upon likely scenarios, and it was these scenarios that I started running through my head like a data stream on free flow.