Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars (An Infinite Triptych Book 1) (3 page)

Fortmann nodded. ‘For the Ix,’ he said again, smiling now. ‘That we may know the Up.’

3

“Don’t you find it strange that your creation myths differ in their particulars, yet all resemble one another? The common message: you aren’t mice but neither are you gods yet.”

- Cato the Wiremind of Old Erde

261 -

261 had woken at the chime of the ablutions bell and gone about the motions of readying himself. It required no mental effort. He could keep his mind on the quandaries from the day before while his body rose and washed, moving on bare feet through the cave sections by rote memorisation. If the lights failed for whatever reason it would make no difference to his routine. 

The grey habit was waiting for him in the vacuum tube, creaseless, on the same steel hanger as every morning. He drove his arms in and fastened it about his waist with the rope cord. Breakfast was already prepared, waiting in the lip of the smaller vacuum tube, the bowl of grey nutrient gruel served always at the same tepid temperature. 

He ate, relieved his bladder, and made into the main chamber. The omnicast activated at the sound of his footsteps – or perhaps it was a motion sensor, he had never been sure – and the quandary globes appeared about him suddenly. They calibrated for a moment, ambling about like bubbles in oil, then settled into primary colours of equal distribution a metre or so from the central chair. He eased into it and reclined.

‘Begin?' asked the cave. The imp nodded.

The quandary globes rearranged into two concentric spirals and three isolates, all varying shades of green.
This will be regarding a political matter then,
he thought.

‘Day eight thousand seven hundred and five, quandary one,’ said the cave in its monotone purr. ‘As dispatched by Agglutinator Vaughn Knox. Categorised as trade dispute, non-traditional. Skern Corporation have long been a supplier of epnocillin to Exurbia major. Conventional trade agreements have regulated the distribution and price of the medicine. An outbreak of cyan fever has been reported on the Queb’al continent. Skern Corporation has quadrupled the price of epnocillin in response to the expected rise in demand. At this price, Governance will only be able to purchase a tenth of the needed dose, given its current health budget. Agglutinator Vaughn Knox suggests legislative action against Skern Corporation if they refuse to lower the cost of the medicine to its original price. Skern Corporation is claiming they are completely justified in raising their prices as they see advantageous and will respond, if forced to lower their prices, by withdrawing the medicine from the market indefinitely. Please advise.’

261 toyed with the robe cord about his waist, one of his few eccentricities. ‘How many are likely to die due to a lack of access to the treatment?’ he said.

‘Three thousand in the next seven years at least, according to the Red Medic's evaluation.’

He pushed a finger in between the tassels of the cord and pinched the frayed ends. The concentric spiral was spinning now, the spheres which composed it turning to darker hues of green. He reached out to the isolates – signifying the possible universes in which price fixing went ahead – and brushed them aside. This would not be a difficult quandary.

‘I assume there has been no radical change in Governance’s position on free-market capitalism?’

‘Confirmed.’

He moulded the concentric spiral into a cuboid and adjusted its hue closer towards the red end of the spectrum. Red. The colour of inaction, of contradiction. ‘If Exurbia claims itself a truly free-market economy then that can be no intervention in Skern Corporation’s pricing strategy. The medicine should be sold at whatever price they choose.’ He collapsed the cuboid and pushed it towards the ceiling where it dissipated.

‘Inform the agglutinator,’ he said.

‘You are quite certain?’

261 nodded. The omnicast powered down, leaving only the beige panel lamps of the cave’s main chamber for light.

‘That is the only scheduled quandary?’ said 261, cautiously surprised.

‘This is visitation day. Your guest will arrive in just under two minutes. There are more quandaries scheduled for after the visitation.’

There was little to distinguish one day from another and when he cast his mind back, they seemed to blur into one amorphous mass. It had been at least one hundred days since the last visitation. A cup of tsotl tea would be waiting in the vacuum tube now as a greeting gift to the newcomer. He washed his face in the wallsink and waited by the cave's entrance. A minute or so passed and the panel slid aside, revealing a young female, perhaps early into her twenties. He offered the tea and bowed. ‘It’s a pleasure,’ said 261.

She smiled unguardedly and accepted the tea. ‘Thank you.’

She was not shy as the majority of the others often were. Usually they stood behind the threshold of the cave for some time, nervously glancing about until 261 politely
insisted
that they enter. She simply waltzed in. Unlike the face which greeted him each morning in the hygiene mirror, she had hair. A thick black mane of the stuff fell down her back in ringlets, stopping just short of her hips. Her face was a tanned copper brown, freckled and dimpled in places.

‘I imagined – oh, I don’t know what I imagined. Statues and columns and all sorts,’ she said.

‘The visitors are often surprised by the minimalism I live in.’

‘Is it always this grey?’

‘Yes.’

She sipped the tea and set it down on the ledge of the wallsink.

‘Why?’

‘No stimuli is needed,’ said 261.

‘For who? For you?’

He fingered at the rope cord’s tassel. ‘For me, yes. My role does not require stimuli.’

‘They made me wear grey, you know.’ She gestured down at her torso, a single beige jumpsuit with a Velcro lip. ‘So I don’t excite you, I guess.’

She smiled playfully. He tried to return it.

‘Where does it happen then?’ she said.

‘Where does what happen?’

‘You know. The moral stuff.’

He led them both through to the main chamber and pointed to the chair.

‘That’s it?’ she said.

He nodded.

‘Gnesha. I don’t know what I expected. How does it work?’

He tried to remember what protocol forbid and did not forbid. Governance had been ambiguous in their recommendations, that much he recalled. There would be no harm in revealing the basics. He waved the omnicast on and the quandary spheres materialised, whirling and then settling before the two of them. The girl let out an impressed whistle.

‘These spheres,’ said 261, ‘correspond to aspects of a moral problem. I rearrange the problem until the solution is self-evident and then I submit it to the agglutinator, who actions my decision.’

‘You steer history,’ said the girl, suddenly reverential.

‘I solve moral problems,’ said 261.

Steer history
. He considered that. There was a certain flat poetry to it, though ‘steered’ implied too much intention. ‘Administrate’ would have been better fitting. He disliked the sudden deification and tried to remember the recommended conversation lines Governance had prepared.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said.

She poked one of the quandary spheres across the chamber.

‘I’m a gardener,’ she said. ‘Nothing special. I played the lottery as a joke one day and won. Here I am.’

‘The Bureau lottery?’ he said.

‘Obviously. What else? Don’t you know how it works?’

‘I have a cursory understanding,’ he said. Don’t admit ignorance of anything, the guidelines had said. That was paramount.

‘The lottery to meet you, of course. It’s all a big publicity stunt really, just so Governance can keep the idea of you popular. You’re a pretty big deal at the moment. There are plenty of up-highs who would love to see you gone.’

‘Gone?’ he said.

‘Gone,’ she said. ‘You’re a thorn in their side, don’t you know that? They spend months trying to get some new policy in. You find some great glaring moral fault in the details, and it goes out the window. Of course they want you gone. If it wasn’t for the lottery you’d probably have been written off years ago.’

‘Then it serves a necessary function,’ said 261.

‘How long have you been doing this?’ she said, looking at him suddenly as though he were under suspicion.

‘I have always done this.’

Academically he tried to remember a time when he had not lived in the cave and could not. She strode past him and into the ancillary chamber where he slept.

‘There aren't any windows,’ she called out. ‘No books or anything. What do you do when you’re not playing with your
quandaries?
’

‘I sleep,’ he said. 

She laughed thinking it a joke perhaps, and made back into the main chamber. ‘Do you have a name?’

‘261,’ he said.

‘That’s not a name’

‘It is what I am referred to. That is the most general definition of a name, I think.’

‘Can you leave?’ she said.

‘I never have.’

‘But can you?’

‘I think, in all likelihood, that I would be stopped.’

‘Then you’re a prisoner.’

‘The visitor will exit the habitat in twenty seconds,’ said the cave in its androgynous drawl.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I suppose I misspoke something awful.’

‘That may be,’ said 261.

She shrugged and took a final survey of the cave and its grey uniform interior, settling finally on his face. He gestured to the entrance panel and she crossed the threshold, turning once inside, meeting his eyes again.

‘All citizens are free by virtue of being citizens,’ she said and leaned out of the access tube towards him. He felt her lips compress on his cheek and release, the skin still tingling when she pulled away.

‘By virtue of being citizens,’ she said again.

The panel slid shut and sealed itself hermetically with the girl behind it.

‘Day eight thousand seven hundred and five. Quandary two will display in three minutes,’ said the cave, undeterred. The imp crossed to the wallsink and looked himself over in the mirror. There was some kind of residue left on his cheek where the girl's lips had been. The mark was elliptical like an eye.

He returned to the chair and waited for the omnicast to activate.
All citizens are free by virtue of being citizens.
Grand Tersh Stanislav had said that in a speech some two decades ago at the Amethyst Rally, he recalled. He swivelled the chair around to face the cave's sealed entrance where the girl had stood only moments before.
By virtue of being citizens.

4

“Every birth is traumatic. In these final moments there will be little ground to stand on, but I promise you the contractions are well worth it.”

- Cato the Wiremind of Old Erde

Jura -

The irony was not lost on Jura: a wiremind bust during Pergrin’s Week. Before the summons he had watched the celebrations from the balcony of his office at the faculty, paying particular attention to the floats as they passed. Most were the same as last year – the smashed and twisted wiremind components – though the final float, the Pergrin cart, was more elaborate than any he remembered.

This time it was not a statue but a real man, dressed as Pergrin might have dressed, in an Old Erde suit, smashing what was presumably supposed to be a wiremind brain over and over again with a steel club. There had been no club according to the records, Jura knew, but liberties could be taken with myths so old. The man on the cart, the faux-Pergrin, looked familiar. A student of his at the faculty perhaps. He recognised a good deal of the crowd too, also probably students of his. They were animals today, shrieking as the floats passed and raising their fists.
Atavistic fools.
 

Now there would be the post-Pergrin hysteria for a few days; the anti-Ix badges pinned to the breast pockets, the sudden intensity of debate during his seminars. The more provocative students would begin to question the anti-Ix sentiments publicly. He doubted he had the energy this year to answer a fresh wave of Ix-curious twenty-somethings. No matter, they would leave it all behind when they graduated. Only a few fanatics had the resilience to keep it up outside of academia.

He caught a shape in his peripheries, a stooped and slow figure approaching, unmistakably Knox.

‘Quite the turn out,’ said the newcomer. Jura nodded. ‘I remember,’ he continued, ‘when the parade used to run on down through Precosa Street. Too big for that now.’

‘What is it?’ said Jura and turned to face the old man.
I am tired, too tired for your empty pleasantries.

‘We could do with your
expertise.
Fresh Ixers out near the Blueberry Projects. There’ll be a bust this afternoon,’ said Knox and continued to watch the parade. ‘Almost got one up and running, we think. Enough evidence for a search. I want you there.’

Jura had read of fascist states in the ancient days of Old Erde when men of power made simple demands of their populace. None of this euphemism and sugar-coating.
Times must have been simpler then
, he thought.
It was easier when the monster had only one face.
 

‘How do you know?’ said Jura.

‘We’ve been monitoring one of them for some time. He’s been making a number of strange purchases at the glitter markets. Logic decouplers and the like.’

‘Perhaps it’s for an innocent project,’ said Jura and regretted it immediately. This would be taken as an uncooperative statement and marked against him, noted on some file of his by Knox personally in a few hours.

‘I think you know better than that,’ said Knox. ‘There’s a transport waiting at the back of the faculty. It should only take a few hours.’ 

Jura thought for a moment of feigning illness and let the idea go. He took a final look at the Pergrin parade, left wordlessly, put on his coat and met the flyer by the rubbish skips, nodding to the guards inside. 

The pilot took them over the Stratigraphics Faculty first – the crowd surrounding the Pergrin parade turning quickly into distant ants as they ascended – and out into the projects. The bluetin glimmers of the innercity buildings gave way with ease to the suburbs, everything suddenly grey and churning; improvised chimneys that billowed sulphur from amateur t’assali generators.
Gnesha knows what ungodliness pervades those ill streets
. God would be born, down there in the smog despite Governance’s best efforts. He had no doubt of it.
Only a matter of time.
That was a certainty he would never pass onto Knox and the old men at Governance.