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Authors: James Swallow
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surface.
The train slid to a frictionless halt and the doors automatically hissed open. Jensen took a step toward the closest carriage, and heard Pritchard call out his name to make him wait, but it was too late. He had one foot off the platform when he found himself face-to-face with a pair of police patrolmen in black and orange body armor. They blocked his way on to the people mover, the mirrored visors across their faces making them look robotic and inhuman. “Where d’you think you’re going?” said one of them.
The other cop jerked a thumb at a decal on the window of the carriage, right next to the NO SMOKING/NO FIREARMS sign. The decal showed the simple stick-figure icon of a male and a female against a black background with a green border. Jensen had never seen it before, and there were a dozen of them, plastered on to the windows of five of the six carriages of the people mover. “Know what that means?”
“Enlighten me,” said Jensen.
“It means
naturals only
,” said the first cop, and he shoved Jensen back a step with the heel of his hand, his other dropping to the grip of a nightstick hanging from his hip. He nodded in the direction of the rear of the train. “Get back there.”
Jensen was tired and it was making him short-tempered. He hesitated on the brink of giving the two patrolmen some choice words, but reeled back the urge, remembering his own advice to Stacks.
The rearmost carriage of the monorail bore a different symbol on the doors, the same man-woman icons but this time bordered in red. He noticed that both of the abstract figures had an arm or a leg colored crimson to indicate the presence of an artificial limb.
“You’re kidding me,” said Stacks.
“The segregation rules came in a while after the incident,” Pritchard told him. “Augmented humans are second-class citizens these days.”
Jensen followed them aboard, and glanced down at the homeless encampment in the park as the people mover sped away from the station. “And everyone just let it happen?”
Pritchard eyed him. “Do you really think that people gave a moment’s thought to the rights of the augmented after seventy percent of them went on a psychotic rampage? Things moved fast, Jensen. Anyone who didn’t accept the decommissioning of their cyberware had to sign up for registration, stringent controls, enforced licensing… compulsory confinement and hardware removal for the non-compliant ones. These days, if you’re an aug and you’re not eking out a life on expensive, insufficient nu-poz allocations, you’re either rich or you’re indentured to someone who is.” He spread his hands. “It’s a brave new slave economy.”
The bleak tone in the other man’s words was something Jensen had never heard from Frank Pritchard before. Beneath his usually waspish and arrogant exterior, something had changed. Like everything else, it seemed, Pritchard had gone through a lot during Jensen’s missing time.
“I saw the towers,” said Jensen, nodding toward the city skyline. “What happened to Sarif?”
“The man or the company?” Pritchard gave a humorless chuckle.
“Both.”
Stacks stood at the window, watching the buildings flash by, while Pritchard took a seat across from Jensen and leaned close, lowering his voice. “Around here, David Sarif isn’t a name you want people hearing you say. Remember all his bold plans about making Detroit ‘a beacon city’, about bringing back technology, prosperity and jobs?” He shook his head. “All gone, crumbled to dust. That golden future he talked about? Turns out it was toxic.”
The last time Jensen had seen David Sarif, his employer was at the Panchaea complex, having arrived there as part of a political gambit only to become caught up in Hugh Darrow’s apocalyptic plans. He remembered Sarif imploring him to confront Darrow and make the right choice for the greater good, but after the collapse of the facility, Jensen had not known if the man had made it
The train slid to a frictionless halt and the doors automatically hissed open. Jensen took a step toward the closest carriage, and heard Pritchard call out his name to make him wait, but it was too late. He had one foot off the platform when he found himself face-to-face with a pair of police patrolmen in black and orange body armor. They blocked his way on to the people mover, the mirrored visors across their faces making them look robotic and inhuman. “Where d’you think you’re going?” said one of them.
The other cop jerked a thumb at a decal on the window of the carriage, right next to the NO SMOKING/NO FIREARMS sign. The decal showed the simple stick-figure icon of a male and a female against a black background with a green border. Jensen had never seen it before, and there were a dozen of them, plastered on to the windows of five of the six carriages of the people mover. “Know what that means?”
“Enlighten me,” said Jensen.
“It means
naturals only
,” said the first cop, and he shoved Jensen back a step with the heel of his hand, his other dropping to the grip of a nightstick hanging from his hip. He nodded in the direction of the rear of the train. “Get back there.”
Jensen was tired and it was making him short-tempered. He hesitated on the brink of giving the two patrolmen some choice words, but reeled back the urge, remembering his own advice to Stacks.
The rearmost carriage of the monorail bore a different symbol on the doors, the same man-woman icons but this time bordered in red. He noticed that both of the abstract figures had an arm or a leg colored crimson to indicate the presence of an artificial limb.
“You’re kidding me,” said Stacks.
“The segregation rules came in a while after the incident,” Pritchard told him. “Augmented humans are second-class citizens these days.”
Jensen followed them aboard, and glanced down at the homeless encampment in the park as the people mover sped away from the station. “And everyone just let it happen?”
Pritchard eyed him. “Do you really think that people gave a moment’s thought to the rights of the augmented after seventy percent of them went on a psychotic rampage? Things moved fast, Jensen. Anyone who didn’t accept the decommissioning of their cyberware had to sign up for registration, stringent controls, enforced licensing… compulsory confinement and hardware removal for the non-compliant ones. These days, if you’re an aug and you’re not eking out a life on expensive, insufficient nu-poz allocations, you’re either rich or you’re indentured to someone who is.” He spread his hands. “It’s a brave new slave economy.”
The bleak tone in the other man’s words was something Jensen had never heard from Frank Pritchard before. Beneath his usually waspish and arrogant exterior, something had changed. Like everything else, it seemed, Pritchard had gone through a lot during Jensen’s missing time.
“I saw the towers,” said Jensen, nodding toward the city skyline. “What happened to Sarif?”
“The man or the company?” Pritchard gave a humorless chuckle.
“Both.”
Stacks stood at the window, watching the buildings flash by, while Pritchard took a seat across from Jensen and leaned close, lowering his voice. “Around here, David Sarif isn’t a name you want people hearing you say. Remember all his bold plans about making Detroit ‘a beacon city’, about bringing back technology, prosperity and jobs?” He shook his head. “All gone, crumbled to dust. That golden future he talked about? Turns out it was toxic.”
The last time Jensen had seen David Sarif, his employer was at the Panchaea complex, having arrived there as part of a political gambit only to become caught up in Hugh Darrow’s apocalyptic plans. He remembered Sarif imploring him to confront Darrow and make the right choice for the greater good, but after the collapse of the facility, Jensen had not known if the man had made it
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