Art Bébé 2099: Comic & TV Animated Series Narrative: ART BÉBÉ 2099

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.'