ART BÉBÉ 2099 – Pilot scenes temp 14

 Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

THE CLAYFORD EL-1

Little appears changed in the disposition of the FA team. They seem intent on the machine, huddling close. He steps off across the canal skirt, and down onto the road proper. He is half way to the grouped team when one member suddenly breaks free and begins on their approach. It is the FA team leader, John Phillips, flusher assist class 1. The FA walks quickly, with long-loped strides until they come together. Phillips is tall, handsomely built, and in keeping with his lower status within the flusher force, the sharp, clean lines of his red and black coolskin are a little over decorated with silver patches and other identifiers. He performs the protocol flusher greeting, clasping his hands behind him, and giving a curt nod, saying, ‘A pleasant wash family and friends, agent White.'

He responds likewise, clasping his hands behind him, nodding, and giving the protocol reply, ‘A pleasant wash, equally, family and friends, flusher agent Phillips.'

Phillips relaxes his stance, saying, ‘Sir, before you step over, I thought to have a word.'

'You thought?’

Phillips swallows, and looks down, before raising his head back up, and answering a little awkwardly. ‘The bike, sir … we believe it’s transmitting. We should set up a perimeter.'

White runs his gloved hands down either side of his coat, then brings them up, forming a steeple with his fingers beneath his chin, before going on to explain to the FA, occasionally motioning the triangulated hands towards Phillips for emphasis, saying, ‘It always amazes me Phillips, that a citizen, once charged and convicted with a crime against the state, sentencing almost always results in REP revaluation to a level barely above a gray. That’s an ordinary citizen. But a gray? A gray does not care about the law. A gray has no rights. A gray is not recognized by society. A gray is nothing. Follow that logic and you know that a gray will do anything and care about nothing because it has nothing to loose. So you want to set up a perimeter? To do what exactly? Capture it and shake your finger in its direction?'

Phillips looks down for the second time, then seeming to suddenly regain his composure, lifts his head, and asserts, ‘Sir, if you’d just care to step over.'

White considers. He knows Phillips type. Straight laced, everything by the book, the sort who lacked the wider imagination for the unwritten measures that might have to be taken to affect good citizen security. The way he considered it, an effective flusher learned to use all the resources available, in whatever form they might be found. He answers the agent, saying, ‘Alright, I guess that’s why I’m here isn’t it,’ and indicates the way forward with a hand. As they near, the team parts to show the machine. They step into the gap. White gazes down.

He reflects. The bike is certainly a very unusual looking machine, sharply angular in form, and colored with red and yellow markings. Indicative warning colors, he further considers Suddenly he is overtaken by a wave of light-headedness. Something from the machine. A palpable signal. Another warning? He takes a step back, in some shock.

‘Sir!'

He hears Phillips.

‘Sir .. are you alright?'

Phillips again. He begins to recover, feeling the light-headedness retreat. He looks to the FA.

‘Sir?' Phillips questions a second time, frowning.

‘Phillips,’ he stops, giving himself a moment. The light-headedness has now completely dissipated, and he considers, if this and the palpable signal had not in fact both been aberrations. He studies the machine, and sensing nothing now, steps back forward, reasserting his authority. ‘Phillips’ he repeats, ‘You said the machine is transmitting? What’s your evidence?

The FA averts his gaze. It is a moment before he speaks, pointing to the machine’s instrument dash. ‘There sir, the scrolling yellow column - '

‘The scrolling yellow column!’ White interrupts, exclaiming, and coming a further step forward. That’s it?'

Phillips visibly swallows, falling silent. The others of the team group closer. One steps around from the left, standing himself beside Phillips. ‘Flusher White, excuse me sir, we’ve had time to consider. The machine and the gray are a unit. We need to take further precautions. A perimeter as Phillips suggests'

White feels himself pale. He is being questioned. His authority challenged. He draws in his breath. ‘And you are?'

‘Flusher assist class 2. Henry Hu, sir.'

‘Agent Hu, you are asserting that we are being presented with a team? An AI and a gray? You better have more evidence than … what was it? A scrolling yellow column.

‘Agent White,’ Phillips comes forward a step, and for the second time points towards the machine’s instrument dash. ‘There, that column. We couldn’t run scans, but we’ve confirmed the readout through our systems. That’s an active data signal sir. The AI’s communicating. We believe to the gray. We are being monitored.'

‘By a gray?’ White shouts in complete disbelief, hardly looking to the dash.  ‘Aimee!!’ He spins around on his heels, now shouting across his internal comms. ‘Give me everything you’ve got.'

‘Agent, White. I have been compiling data. Analysis! Extreme danger. I suggest you draw back the team.'

‘What!’ He faces back to the machine.

Something is happening.

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'



Art Bébé™ ©

ART BÉBÉ 2099 – Pilot scenes temp 13

 Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

DR. PETER SYBER 

He watches. The bronze-painted steel door slides down behind her as she speeds down the exit ramp, finally clanging shut, and closing the view. The exterior camera picks her up again as she and Miko wind down the drive, then sweep upwards through the murky night till finally they are lost in the general traffic upon the Lexington Avenue eway.

‘Freeze the image, Marlene.’

‘Yes, Peter.’

The pollutant rain curtains the eway in silvery-black streaks. The colored lights of the city show through from up and below, as if swimming in a black ocean. It is almost beautiful. He makes a mental count. Three unauthorized excursions in a little under four months. The beginnings of a serial pattern of behavior. But tonight?

‘Review and repair (R&R) room, Marlene. Split screen.’

Twenty-square-meters. Aseptic white. The facsimile mannequin. The stainless steel docking bed. Empty.

He had perhaps pushed her too hard, too fast. The human mind. Lots of messy chemistry. Lots of messy biology. He checks back on the graph. It is there. He is convinced. The answer. Evolution, over billions of years, had brought about consciousness. Now the problem. How to replicate this with artificial intelligence. The building of a mind from the ground up. Chaos. Randomness. The answer had to there. In sheer probabilities. That things just came together given enough time and enough trajectories. Only then could you have consciousness. Because consciousness is just that. Insight through chaos. He had tried through simulations. But they were just that. Artificial constructions. No random element. No unpredictable event. No low based probability variable. The logical consequence was that she would feel the need to test herself in the real world.

The cracked, weed invested road is bordered on one side by the canal, and on the other, by ramshackle, one story, peaked-roofed huts fronted by small, gated, concrete forecourts. The few huts that are lit, show thinly curtained windows, or equally thin roller shades, drawn, or half drawn. Street lights are sparingly spaced along the sidewalk, casting a weak, yellow light, barely illuminating the drizzling, pollutant rain. Walking the canal skirt is a very young, very healthy Dr. Peter Syber. He wears a brown, smartly cut, casual coolskin, and walks the canal skirt, his hands clasped behind his back, his head cast down. He stops suddenly and looks about, turning to his left.

The canal water is a coffee black, and largely lifeless, patches of a yellow-brown scum floating intermittently on its surface. On the opposite shore, the warehouses and the factories show, the ragged line of the factories silhouetted by the diffuse light from the city above, the factories belching out thick columns of a gray smoke, that spreads out like a malignant cloud beneath the eway infrastructure. He turns to his right.

Gleiser’s Bar takes up the flooded, swampy corner intersection, the swampy water fed by the leak from the overflowing storm-water drain fifty-meters up from the bar. Ramshackle housing meets with Gleiser’s on both it’s corner, Gleiser’s itself rising two stories, its doorways and windows garishly lit in faux-neon purples, reds, and yellows. A sign above the windowed, corner twin door spells out, GLEISER’S BAR – Gleiser’s For Your Poison. The fall of pollutant rain meets with the swamp vapor, cloaking Gleiser’s in a yellow mist. Two men and a woman are grouped along the sidewalk, just to the right of the corner door. The woman appears aged in her thirties, is heavily painted, her blond hair teased out, wears a red satin, micro-mini, purple-mesh singlet top, black stockings and suspenders, and bright purple, platform stilettoes. The men are dressed in brown, laborer’s coolskin, tough-boots, and thick, black-wool ponchos. The woman appears to be in some trouble with the men. Heated argument is heard. One of the men notices him, and yells over, ‘On your way, citizen, there’s nothing to see here.

‘Who says!’ the woman yells back, pushing at the man to her left, who staggers back

Dr. Syber remains staring over. He stands firmly, relaying that he is not willing to move on. The man who had spoken first, spins on his boot heels towards the woman.

‘Shut up, Delores.’

The woman, Delores, suddenly bends double, clutching an arm to her midriff. ‘I can’t help it, Jake,’ she pleads, remaining bent over. ‘I need it.’ She looks up, her face strained. ‘I need, Jake, please. I need it bad!’

‘That’s the whole problem,’ Jake, the first man to have spoken, answers back. ‘You’re through needing it. This stuff’s killing you. It kills everyone.’

‘Just  one more time, Jake. Please, just to get through the night.’

‘No way, Delores!’

‘Frankie!’ Delores straightens from her bent position, and addresses the man she’d pushed earlier. ‘Frankie,’ she repeats, ‘Tell him how much I need it,’ she goes on pleading. ‘You remember, we used to do it together! You know! How good it was.’

Frankie immediately faces Jake. ‘She’s right, Jake. Look, let us home. We appreciate you coming out here. Just give her back the stuff. We promise - ’

Jake abruptly spins away from them both, yelling, ‘No way,’ and faces the swampy water. He has a small packet in his hand, and he tosses it. The tightly wrapped, brown packet splashes in the muck, happening to fall near Dr. Syber, and floats there.

‘Hey, you. ‘Don’t touch that!’

Jake hurries down from the sidewalk. He is immediately followed by Frankie.

Dr. Syber looks at the package.

Jake and Frankie are almost upon him. He bends down, his fingers just touching the edge. It bobs away and inch, and he attempts again. Before he knows it, he is pushed away by Jake, and staggers, tries to correct any potential fall, but fails, and splashes into the water. ‘I told you, none of your business, citizen, on your way, Skyflies don’t come down here. No right.’ Jake swings back a leg, and kicks., first with the toe of his boot, then pounds with the boot heel. Dr. Syber struggles vainly in the water, till passing out.

The garish light of Gleiser’s Bar reflects in the dark storm water affluent that floods the intersection. The water’s gurgling from the overflowing storm-water  drain, is barely heard over the general hubbub from the bar. Dr. Syber lies on his side in shallow water, his mouth just above the waterline. He emits a grown, and moving his head, swallows some of the water. This brings him awake, he struggles, and pushes up with his hands. On his feet, swaying slightly, he attempts to get his bearings, looking about.

The canal level, he realizes. He had come here to think things through. As he had frequently done before. His research? He was currently at an impasse. He was close to breakthrough. He really believed this. Walking, he had … he had come to Gleiser’s Bar. The bar comes into focus on the corner. He hears the sound of music. Modern jazz. The verbal babble of a large crowd. What had happened?

There was a girl? Delores? She was in trouble? He had felt sympathy? Some men? A drugs packet? He had been beaten? He checks back on the bar. A short flight of steps leads up to the corner entrance, windowed twin doors. He should go inside. Perhaps someone inside could help him understand what had happened. He staggers over, his head throbbing. He takes the steps slowly, his legs as if heavily weighted, and at the doors, halts. Dirty-yellow light spills from the frosted glass windows, the sounds of the jazz, and verbal babble of the crowd is louder. The place is buzzing. He continues to hesitate, suddenly uncertain about stepping inside, a little afraid. He takes in his breath, and finally pushes through the doors.

The air is foul with smoke and moisture that rises to the height of the bar’s railed balcony. Flights of curved stairs lead up to this from either side of the distant corners, the balcony a privileged seating area. There is a near to capacity crowd between the two floors of balcony and ground, the largest percentage taken up by canal workers. The dress is a mixture of industrial worker coolskins, and day to day skins, each often complimented with rough cloth of ponchos and the dark felt hats common to the canal level. The ground floor gives out to a low stage beneath the balcony, and this is the source of the jazz. On the stage are four spotlighted musicians playing touch plate synthesizers. He progresses deeper inside.

Heads turn.

One is from a man in his forties, petite and slim, dressed in a flashy, designer coolskin. He sits the corner of the large rectangular shaped bar that takes up the center of the ground floor.

Dr. Syber averts the gaze of the flashy dresser. He continues on, seeking a place to sit, somewhere a little removed. He notes the curtained booths that line the wall to the right, and makes his way over to one appearing empty, the curtains parted enough to see the vacant bench seating. He sits at the far end. Almost immediately, a waitress appears.

‘Hello, my name’s Lisa. Are you sure you’re in the right place?’ She holds her tray beneath enhanced breasts barely contained by a white, half-buttoned long-sleeved shirt.. The shirt is tucked into a pleated, blue, school-girl mini. Her legs are long and slim. Japanese.  A kogal. He answers, his voice barely audible. ‘Yes, a place for answers.’

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'

Art Bébé™ ©

ART BÉBÉ 2099 – Pilot scenes temp 12

 Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

LASH IT!

It is as if a link to another world. Spun from the brown of cross-laminated boards and the silver of Beck rope, the bridge spans the fifty-meters over the dark, wind-whipped chasm, and from there, the town’s decking born dwellings fan out ever upwards and below, the whole town illuminated by Beck Light, creating a patchwork effect, as if colored firebrands had been tossed about on a whim, lighting where they had fallen. A short series of step leads down from the elevator platform.

‘You’re going to need your hands from here on, girl.’

She spins around on her heels and stares up at the hulking intersex.

‘Let me introduce myself,’ the tenter continues over their external comms. ‘My name’s Bernice Kimura. This bunch of misfits,’ she nods indiscriminately either side of them, indicating the guard detail. ‘That’s the Special Operations Militia. I’m second in command under Mike So. We’ll be taking the swinging bridges from here, so I’m going to take back those cuffs. Just a warning. Try anything other than gripping the ropes and we’ll handcuff you again. That will make for tough going. You might easily slip.’

The militia member who’d handcuffed her earlier steps up, unlocking the handcuffs. It’s a surprise. She remembers Bernice from earlier. You might think you’re fooling everyone around here, but not me. Those cuffs .. I know they’re not actually doing anything, but better for you that you keep on pretending they’re doing something. I’ll be watching. Well, whatever that had meant, and how could she possible know, the cuffs removed, bringing her arms forward, she made a show of shaking her hands and rubbing her wrists, and waits

‘Ok, look, I’m sorry.’ The intersex steps closer. ‘These bridges can be a bit unsettling when you’re not used to them. Just yell out if you’re uncomfortable. We’ll take it slow if you want. You got a name?’

Only now she is completely taken aback. A sudden show of empathy from the intersex. She is being played with? Perhaps just to get her name? She can only believe this. Her confusion keeps her silent.

‘Alright, you’re the silent type. I know the kind. They’re the ones always so buried in their own misery that they can’t speak because of the tomb they’ve locked themselves in. Kind of poetic don’t you think?’ The intersex looks down, seeming to momentarily struggle, as if she just as well might have been referring to herself. ‘We’re not stupid you know,’ she snaps, suddenly looking back up. It’s Ansvar that ordered your arrest. I might have done different.’ She abruptly shrugs shoulders that would have looked more comfortable yoked to a sizable sized farm cart, and then presses herself even closer, raising her left arm and making an adjusted on her wristband, saying ‘That’s better. I’ve sent you my private channel. If that fancy headgear you’re sporting is what I think it is, then you’ll understand. Look down if I’m right. And keep it natural.

The voice comes through over her internal comms. She looks down as she had been told. The intersex goes on. ‘Thank you. Now, I don’t think I need to explain, this is just between you and me, don’t let on in any way, or I’ll be in trouble.’ The trans pauses to look about, then continues, adding, ‘A category four of five is building, but I have a feeling you know that and can handle yourself, and maybe better than we can. Let’s get a move on shall we, and just one more thing, no need to explain we’re being monitored. More later.’ The intersex abruptly faces towards the lead guards by the bridge steps, and signals with the wave of an arm. The guards begin down, and she faces back to her. ‘Alright, fall in.'

She gets in line and begins to step off, but her steps are halting. She is thinking deeply about the intersex. Bernice seemed a mess of contradicting behavior. She needed to know more about her, and this would take time. She had to be patient. For the moment, there was the journey ahead. She gets to the bridge steps.

Below lies the worst aspects of the canal level, the yellow swamp miasma rising in thickening, swirling clouds, kicked by the wind, partly enveloping the bridge. She checks back behind her to see Bernice at the extreme rear of her escort, her attention clearly focused ahead. Keeping watch. She faces back forward, and makes her slow way down the steps, pretending nervousness, concluding it better to keep up her act, as intersex had right believed she is doing, an innocent uptown girl, experiencing real slummin’ for the first time. On the bridge proper, she keeps it up, pulling herself along, gripping the ropes for all life is worth, and occasionally stumbling, almost falling. The sensation is like walking on carpeted water, but really not a problem for her, she could skip along if she wished. Soon enough, however, they are at the opposite steps, and she trudges up these as if completely exhausted.

The pattern is repeated. Bridge followed by boardwalk, followed by bridge, followed by boardwalk. Reading the topography, they have been slowly climbing, and it is becoming clear just how multi-leveled the town is, overlapping and intersecting at add odd angles and planes. And everywhere, despite the building storm, people are crossing the swinging bridges, or walkways, or occupying themselves outside their tent dwellings, tidying up, preparing for the worsening storm. The yellow miasma has now almost completed cleared, blown to invisible thinness. And now, they are on another swinging bridge, ahead of which lies a smoky, crowded area of decking, covered with colored sheeting. She focuses her eyes. A hawker center. It is so far the biggest concentration of tenters she has seen. Chinese lanterns hang everywhere, gray smoke from countless biogas and synthetic coal fires shifting between light, causing the lanterns to take on a baleful look, like the shifting faces of so many gibbous, orange moons. The center also appears to be a major thoroughfare, other bridges intersect the decking, secreting out into wind blown dark. They reach the bridge end and take the steps, her escort joining the throng.

She observes closely.

The food stalls overflow with a profusion of vegetables: wombok, gia lan, kanggong, various quas and choys, each from the world’s genetically modified seed banks, and all adapted for a wetter world. People cue before serving counters, sit at tables, barter excitedly, make hand signs, and talk at the top of their voices. She catches the sounds of Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese, the principals, and then the lesser languages from the drowned South Pacific. And every now again, there are snatches of tenter slang. She focuses on these, just to add to her dictionary. As they made their way, the mass of tenters part for her escort, and soon enough, it is possible to glimpse the exiting swinging bridge. But at this moment, there is a commotion to her right.

A figure, stooped over, and wearing a hooded cloak of coarse brown cloth, is forcing their way through the crowd in the direction of her guard. The militia kept on their course, and she struggles a little to keep the figure in sight within the dense crowd. When she catches her next glimpse, she immediately enhances her visual, and sets her physiological and anatomical scans. The figure very quickly identifies as an old woman in poor health. She checks back on the forward progress of her guard. They are only a short distance now from the exiting bridge. She quickly brings her attention to the old woman, to see now that she is attempting to hurry towards her guard, and then, the woman, edging around a stall, knocking it, and rocking it upon its thin, faux-wood legs, suddenly she screams out, ‘No… please, no,’ the voice thin and plaintive, and then she is down, bumped by the crowd behind. A cascade of bodies follows her down, and she is buried

 ‘Never mind. Leave her to her people. She’ll be alright.’

Bernice has come to step up beside her, speaking over her external comms. This is a shock, but at this point, the head of her guard detail is already descending the short run of steps leading to the exiting bridge. She has no recourse but to follow. She can analyze the recorded footage of the old woman later to perhaps better understand. She checks back once more, only to find that she and her escort are now out of the direct line of sight of where the woman has fallen. They reach the exiting bridge, and at that point, the sky ahead lights with a huge spear of lightning. There is the crack of thunder, and the rain proper begins.

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'



Art Bébé™ ©

ART BÉBÉ 2099 – Pilot scenes temp 11

 Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

ANSVAR

They had infested the city with web. Heinrich Gehring, the ever ambitious and zealous minister for propaganda over the GNYA was to spare nothing for what he was to term his Schädling solution. Gehring was determined to breed out the unfit and the weak. The city’s numerous dispossessed proved easy targets. That they could not rise above their poor economic circumstances was proof enough of their general lack of character and fortitude. They only had themselves to blame. No matter that the tenters had shown considerable inventive skill in seeding the air between the towers as home, for Gehring, it was easy enough to denigrate the tenters to spiders. They were crawling all over the city, spinning their suspension cabling, guy ropes, and safety netting from tower to tower, blighting whole neighborhoods, much as could be imagined in a humid and dense tropical forest seen to be overrun with creepy-crawlies. Already well known for his display boxes that he would erect on walls and within doorways at an easy viewing height to make them unlikely to be missed, Gehring came to delight in depicting the tenters with a spider’s body and a very human head, ready to sink their extended incisors into the necks of the unsuspecting, virtuous and dutiful citizens trapped in their webs. The success of the campaign was later to have the tenter caricatures feature in the notorious Tenter Verses animated newsreels to star Stadtretter and Städlingsfänger, under the formidable hand of the animator Dieter Schnitz, defending the state against all manner of tenter threat.

He stares down at the steps. The boards are almost black with pollutant runoff. A storm flare ignites above, the flash lighting the well, and he begins down, mindful of his tread. On the platform below, he is out of the worst of it, but the narrow length of the station makes for an effective wind tunnel. He is forced back against the wall, wraps himself in his cloak, and checks across the platform. The pollutant runoff down from the steps has formed a stream. He tracks the flow. Puddles have formed within the dips made by the platform’s uneven planking. The wind kicks at the pools, sending thick sprays of muck into the air, forcing him even tighter against the wall. He hopes the shuttle will be on time.

‘Ansvar, do you copy?

He barely hears the call over the wristpad. He hurriedly brings up the arm, flicking the fold of the cloak free from the pad, and bringing the pad to his lips. ‘Copy you, John. What’s your ETA? It’s horrible out here.'

‘I can believe it. You should see the view from up here. Give me five minutes. It’s too risky to push this rattletrap any faster.'

‘I understand, John, just do the best you can. See you when you pull in.'

John blinks away. Ansvar wraps himself back in the cloak, drawing down tighter on the hood, and fighting its flap with a firm grip.

The watch shuttle service runs on a 24/7 needs basis. It employs three drivers on eight-hour shifts. 0:00 to 08:00. 08:00 to 12:00. 12:00 TO 24:00. it is left to each driver to option their shifts depending on needs and preferences, a little ad hock, but it worked. Tonight it is John. Taciturn. Wry sense of humor. Just the right sort of person for the job. The cable car shuttle pulls up in a little over five minutes. Ansvar relaxes away from the wall, feeling an immediate relief, but the cable car is already a sorry sight. Much of its soft-cream and bright red markings is already black with pollutants, the windows greasy, along with the driver windshield. He hurries over, stepping inside, the door whooshing instantly closed behind him, the weather seal sucking it tight. The four rows of paired seating are separated by a wide central aisle. He makes his way up the aisle to the open driver area, shrugging out of his cloak, and folding it neatly into quarters. John turns to face him.

‘Ansvar … thought I’d have the night off. Guess I was wrong,'

‘We all thought that, John. A lesson. I’m only sorry we can’t make sense of what’s going on. Mind if I sit?'

‘Go ahead.’ John looks to the empty co-pilot seat. ‘There’s no-one to fight for it.’

The CC-3 is the same model as used throughout town, equipped with pilot and co-pilot seats, a two driver policy mandatory for public safety. But the same concerns didn’t apply to the watch, leaving the watch shuttle with its dunsel seat. John’s wry sense of humor is showing itself,

‘I’ll take it, John.’ Ansvar lays the neatly folded cloak on the flat of the storage compartment behind the co-pilot seat, climbs between the divide, sits and secures the harness.‘ Superfluous. Just how I feel tonight.'

John’s face reflects in the windshield. He has the model good looks of a poster boy for the military. Along with his affability, this just about makes him the most popular of the shuttle pilots. His sculptured cheeks are shadowed by the windshield, cutting the lines deeper, this doing nothing to alter his handsomeness, perhaps only enhancing it. As if suddenly remembering the urgency of the situation, he breaks his concentration away from the windshield, looks down to the dash controls, touches off the brake, and opens the accelerator slide. The car moves out from under the decking, picking up speed. until coming to a cruising speed of 60-kilometers per hour. ‘That’s it. Thirty minutes at this speed, Ansvar. You happy with that?'

Ansvar stares down at his hands, clutched in his lap. ‘It’ll have to do,’ he answer’s flatly, swallowing.

They sit, staring forward, the cable car as if tracking through a swirling, black molasses, whipping about as if untethered from its running mounts. It is a worry. The cable could jump the cable car roller guard, jamming the wheel, pulling them to a sharp stop, and leaving them stranded until whenever a rescue team could arrive, and in this storm, that could well mean never. Suddenly, as if reinforcing the danger, through the black cloud directly ahead, a sharp pollutant flare suddenly explodes above the cable line, the light bleaching the windshield, striking through, and seeming to hang in the air longer than possible, before slowly fading away.

‘I’ve heard the scuttlebutt,’ John suddenly breaks the silence. ‘CPS. But honestly … to be happening tonight … it seems crazy on anybody’s part, CPS or not.'

That Citizen Profile Security had a new and advanced weapon is certainly the prevailing wisdom, Ansvar reflects. Tonight would test its capabilities. Reason enough to run a pilot trial. He wonders how to answer John. Whether to confirm or deny. He decides on ambiguity.

‘You said crazy. We have a crazy girl. And just the right kind. Upsky.'

John remains tight-lipped.

They continue to stare ahead, the whipping of the cable not letting up, perhaps each hoping they might catch the moment before they found themselves in trouble and so avert catastrophe. At last, crossing over a vast drop, an isolated section of decking comes into view through the tunnel of stilts, supporting buttresses and safety netting they find themselves in, the car dips down, and comes to halt beneath a hatch-work of decking under structure.

‘Special Operations Militia Compound,’ John comments somewhat unnecessarily.

Ansvar turns to face his driver. He says slowly, ‘John, I know this hasn’t been discussed yet, but I’d like you to wait here, anywhere on the compound you feel fit. Just be ready to move out on a moment’s notice.

‘I understand, sir. After you.’ John nods in the direction of the exit door,

The shuttle door whooshes closed behind and, fighting the wind, they hurriedly make their way across the platform to the personnel elevator.

The compound decking measures 100-square-meters and is surrounded by a two-meter tall security fence of rope netting. Access is via fixed bridges from the opposing shorter sides, and the service shuttle beneath. The operations tent dominates the compound at its northern end, a honeycomb frame smartskin of the cloverleaf design, colored a brown-green, the single entry stem directly giving into the central dome, and following the dome around, as if budding from it, four semicircle rooms. Grouped in a loose pattern to the fore of the operations center are the sleeping quarters, the training facility, holding facility, and an odd assortment of storage huts. They approach across the decking, hunched down against the storm, John peeling off to the right towards the training facility, and Ansvar continuing on a direct path to the operations stem. He enters the central dome. Salutes are exchanged.

‘There’s a developing situation, sir,'

He is being addressed by acting captain Lawrence Rankin, standing before his workstation chair. ‘What is it Rankin?'

‘It might be easiest if you just look, sir.'

Rankin steps aside, indicating the station screen, and offering the chair.

The work bench follows the curved wall, except where broken by the doorways giving way to the four semicircle office spaces, equidistant at 10-meter intervals. Standing and facing Ansvar from their work station are acting captain Lawrence Rankin, second lieutenant William Jones, and private Guy Peters. Each is dressed in the brown and green of a military coolskins. Ansvar approaches the chair, pushing it aside, and stares down at the screen.

The footage shows Bébé under guard on the 2^nd Avenue checkpoint, her hands cuffed behind her. Miko sits parked by the distant guardrail, covered in a shimmering, silver net, two additional guards standing watch. In the middle of the eway, Mike So and Bernice Kimura stand facing each other. The blowing pollutant streaks down, obscuring much of the vision.

‘This is live?’ Ansvar asks.

Rankin faces him. ‘Yes, sir.'

‘Can you give me audio on their private coms, Captain. Authorization override, Ansvar..'

Rankin steps into the space and takes back the chair. He taps an icon on the touch plate, bringing on the audio, saying, ‘Authorization successful, sir.'

They hear,

‘I’m serious here, Mike. You know machines.'

‘Maybe so, Bernice, but this one’s different. I’m deferring on this.’

‘Bernice ... I love you to death, but you’re only making a difficult situation even harder for everyone. Stay on blue, that’s the brief.'

‘Mike, please, I sorry, I don’t know how to explain. You know my hunches. I have to go with the girl.'

‘Bernice, we’re running to a very tight schedule, and you want to take over the girl’s escort on some feeling you don't know anything about! A hunch. And you want me to just accept that?'

‘That’s right!'

‘Wash, Bernice, that’s not enough!'

‘I might learn something.'

‘And you might be compromising this whole operation on some trans quirk?'

There is a moments silence as Bernice takes a step back, looks down, then back up, saying, ‘Don’t be transexist, Mike!'

Mike hurries forward a step, throwing up his hands. ‘Bernice, god damn you, I'm not. I'll have to check up the command chain.'

‘Then hurry!'

Bernice spins around sharply on her heels, and stomps off across the eway to where Bébé stands captive.

Ansvar hurriedly bends over Rankin’s shoulder to tap on the touch plate. ‘Mike, this is Ansvar. Sorry, I was listening it. Sanction it. Over.'

There is a delay before he hears from Mike. ‘Ansvar, copy you. Understood, only - ’ he pauses to look across the eway at Bernice. ‘It’s a little crazy. Over.'

‘I don’t care, Mike. Stay flexible on this. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Bernice may be onto something? Over,'

Mike keeps his concentration to Bernice, she appearing to be talking to Bébé, but not on the open frequency. He responds, ‘Copy you, I just hope we don’t live to regret it. Over and out.'

Ansvar pushes away from the projection. ‘Great, just great, another X into the equation.'

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'




Art Bébé™ ©

ART BÉBÉ 2099 – Pilot scenes temp 10

 Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

THE CLAYFORD EL-1

Flush them out, bring them in, let the profilers do the rest, he reminds himself of the primary flusher refrain. He has gone over the preliminary.

The gray had been reported by flusher agent assist class 2 Helmet Schmitz while on a random REP sweep. It had caught descending the Chelsea district switchback, parked at its base, stepped off, and then it was gone, cloaked, a technology that belonged only to the state. Schmitz reported in, and a flusher assist team (FAT) had been promptly dispatched to the locality. The make and model of the machine couldn’t be identified. Electromagnetic scans had followed as a matter of course, but no matter the scan, each had been bounced. He was called in.

He has his own refrain. If things didn’t add up, it has to be a wakeup call, or at least for those asleep. Never him, he prided himself. They had a gray unafraid of showing itself, that had access to state controlled cloaking technology, and in possession of an unidentifiable and unregistered machine. So a real headache for CPS. Better break out the Relax-o-aid.

He is en route now.

‘Aimee, ETA?'

‘Five minutes, agent, White.'

‘Thank you, Aimee. We’re making good time.'

He sits back and takes in the sight through the skycar windshield.

The island’s many colored lights glitter through the gray cloud and the rising yellow swamp affluent. In places, the island’s perimeter wall shows, along with the regular red pulse that make up the beacon lights. He waits out the time with some impatience till the low drone of the proximity alerts give out, and now the switchback can be been seen, a brutal zigzag of concrete and steel cutting through the molasses of pollutant chemical and swamp gas rising from the canal level as if scissoring up from a netherworld. Aimee begins the vertical decent. Almost immediately, the car is rocked as a sharp blast of air funnels through the stair gaps. Aimee corrects, averting a dangerous spin.

'Agent, White,’ he hears from Aimee. ‘You may want to strap yourself in.'

He has forgotten his seat harness, preoccupied by his thoughts. Aimee automatically activates the cross harness, releasing the ends from either side of his shoulders, and snaking the ends across his chest. He is forced back in the seat just as a second blast of wind shakes the car.

Agent, White,’ Aimee goes on, since when was this a good idea? We could have made an angled approach from a lower elevation at a far lesser risk.'

She is right. He’d insisted on a close decent down the length of the switchback. A dangerous proposition. Not only wind turbulence, but the risk of swamp gas, randomly combining in an explosive chemical mix through the nose air scoop, could result in cabin or engine fire. But he’d wanted to see the switchback up close. Why he wasn’t sure, only it could be important to the investigation. A flusher had to follow their instincts. ‘A good agent is a curious agent, Aimee,’ he answers the AI.

‘And a good agent manages risks, agent White,’ Aimee ripostes. ‘I’m sorry, but protocol dictates that I log your flight request with central command. You may have to explain to Operations Review (OR).'

‘Nothing I can’t handle, Aimee,’ he responds. ‘And besides, ‘They love me down there.'

‘Love you enough to revoke your pilot’s license twice over, agent White.' Descending further.

Aimee flanks to briefly to port, then dips the nose of the skycar sharply. Despite the harness restriction, White is forced to grip the wheel. He grits his teeth, and feels the floor suddenly drop away beneath him, the skycar going into a rapid, accelerated plummet. However, it soon corrects its trim. White lets go of the wheel.

'Aimee, what happened?’ he asks a little breathlessly.

‘We hit an air hole and fell through. I’ve corrected. The good news is, I believe we’re through the worst of it. I have eyes on the team below.'

He checks the dash. The forward camera has captured the team. The monitor shows a dimly lit area under the ghostly-green-phosphor of night vision. The flusher assist team (FA or FAT) of six personal stand, grouped around the machine by the triangular section of the wall making up the switchback exit. From the general awkwardness of their green-shadowed frames, they appear in some anxiety over what they are witnessing. A little further along the canal skirt, it is possible to make out the team’s transporter.

‘Aimee, give us some distance,’ White pauses to check the view from the starboard camera, watching as a section of fog clears, showing glimpses of dark water, and the dappled patina of concrete skirting. He continues, explaining, ‘North of the team, Aimee, directly by the canal.'

‘Complying, agent White.'

Aimee proceeds in a tight arc around the switchback. A section of pot-holed and cracked road comes into view, further proximity alerts give out; Aimee adjusts, beginning on the decent proper, and after a minute, touches down on the greasy canal skirt, the wheels lowering, as the jets flame out. They are twenty-five meters from the FA team. The seat harness releases from across agent White’s chest, he relaxes back in the seat, and from the inner pocket of the black overcoat allowed a flusher agent class 2, withdraws an antique cigarette case and lighter. The case is a black lacquer and gold-trimmed gentleman’s Dunhill, and the lighter, a silver Zippo etched with a portrait motif of the Hollywood movie icon and legend, Marilyn Monroe. A narcotic stick of the heavily addictive drug, substance X, removed from the case, he lights from the Zippo, and the articles returned to the pocket, begins to smoke, taking in the FA team through the windshield.

Little in the collective attitude of the team has changed. They continue to stand uncomfortably around the machine, not seeming to know where to look. If they’d noticed the decent of the skycar, it doesn’t show.

‘Agent White, are you going outside?’ he hears from Aimee.

White continues to work away on the narcotic. ‘How many of these switchbacks exist across the island, Aimee,’ he asks.

‘Twenty-six, agent White.’

‘And we keep them largely unsecured?'

‘Affirmative, agent White.'

White takes a further drag on the narcotic. ‘Ever wonder why?'

Aimee offers no response.

Smoking the narcotic, a small amount of sweat has come to stand out on White’s forehead. He rests the half-smoked stick on the edge of the trash incinerator built into the dash, takes a moment to dab at the sweat with a neatly folded handkerchief removed from his coat, places the cloth back, then lifts the black, wide-brimmed felt halt from the passenger seat. The hat neatly tugged down over his forehead, he takes the narcotic stick back between his fingers, finally saying, ‘Release the door, Aimee.'

The driver side birdwing door rises. White steps out, standing his slim, 187-centimeter frame beneath the arch of the wing. He is shadowed by backlight, raises the high collar of his coat, and works further on the line of his hat brim. Satisfied with the dip of the brim over his left eye, he draws heavily on the narcotic, looking to the FA team once more. One member, standing in the middle of the six-personal group, has turned to face hm. White smirks quietly to himself, turns away, and walks to the edge of the canal skirt to look out over the water.

The canal water is a brownish-black, overlaid with a thick yellow-green scum. Hardly a ripple is seen. Over on the opposite shore, densely packed worker shacks sit on narrow fenced plots, their colors muted by soot. A pall of gray biofuel smoke hangs over the roofs, mixing with the yellow miasma rising from the swampy ground. People happy to live like rats in a sewer, White reflects, but there is an easy fix. Raise the canal water enough to flood the entire level. No more canals. No more lower strata. No more headaches for CPS. Continuing to stare out over the water, he works away on the narcotic stick until it is smoked through, and then flicks the stub over the water. Ready now, he faces to his right, and towards the assembled FAT.

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'



Art Bébé™ ©