Begin reading at Chapter One.
Go back to Chapter Two.
After his intake interview, the machine called Orderly forklifted Zappa from his bed to a wheelchair.
Nurse Trisha pushed him in the chair through a labyrinth of hallways to a room that she said was the physical therapy room. There was no physical therapist; just a few large black cabinets with wraparound screens, like old school arcade games.
Nurse Trisha pushed his chair over to one of the machines. Situated in front of the screen was a cushioned back rest with a harness. A pair of gloves dangled below the screen, and a pair of velcro boots were fastened to the cabinet’s base. She helped Zappa into the cabinet, pulled the gloves onto his hands and slid his feet into the boots, which came up to just below his knees.
“These are haptic gloves and boots,” she said. “They provide part of the physical sensation for the activities. You won’t get the full experience without an ocular, but the important thing is to get your legs moving.”
The screen lit up with Zappa’s name (though it truncated his first name to “Zap”) and a dizzying array of labeled boxes: Dietary Compliance, Cardiovascular Condition, Blood Sugar Level, and a dozen others—all with zeroes next to them.
“How does it know my name?” he asked.
“It recognizes your nanites,” said Nurse Trisha.
“My—what?”
“While you were in the refugee hospital, they injected you with nanites to help you heal. Medical-use nanites are tailored to each habitator’s specific biochemistry. It’s really fascinating, the science behind it. Anyway, those nanites also store your entire health history, and they can interface with therapeutic equipment.”
So they pumped me full of nanites to save me from the nanites. Right. Makes perfect sense.
Nurse Trisha strapped him into the harness. The snapping of the buckle into its receptor triggered a video to play: a montage of rugged outdoor sport footage—rock climbing, mountain biking, surfing—over generic, fast-paced rock music. From within the cabinet, a deep voice announced: “Zap Dobroshtan! Your Health Success Score is currently zero. Awww, too bad! Let’s get those muscles pumping! Choose a leg-strengthening activity to increase your Health Success Score now!”
An array of colored boxes appeared on the screen, each with an image of a young, athletic person doing some strenuous activity against a nature scene backdrop. The choices were Cycling in Fiji, Swimming the English Channel, Skiing the Alps, or Hiking the Grand Canyon.
It had been a very long time since Zappa had used anything resembling this type of technology. The loud music, the bright light of the screen, and the fast movement of the images produced in him a feeling of vertigo. He stared helplessly at the screen.
After a moment, Nurse Trisha intervened. “Oh, they probably didn’t have these before you became a—um, before you left New America. It’s a touch screen,” she said. “You just tap on the activity you want.”
“I know what a touch screen is. My generation invented touch screens.” Realizing he may have sounded a bit rude (genial, grateful, pliant) he added, “I’m just not used to all of this tech anymore. It’s a little overwhelming.” He reached out a gloved hand and tapped the cycling option. A bicycle seat and handle bars emerged from hidden compartments in the cabinet, and the generic rock tune changed to one more heavy on the drums.
The array of colored boxes dissipated and an oceanside scene appeared on the screen, replete with golden sand, dazzling blue water, and palm trees, their fronds rattling in the fake Fijian breeze. “Cycling in Fiji, Level One,” said the announcer voice. “Complete the course for two Health Success Points!”
“What are Health Success Points?” Zappa asked.
“They’re part of your overall Habitator Grade. Along with your Social Score, Technocracy Score, and Environmental Score.” She bent down to strap Zappa’s feet into the footrests. “High score, get a perk; low score, you have to work,” she added in a singsong voice.
Nurse Trisha was working. Zappa wondered if she ended up in this job due to a low score. “How high is your Health Success Score?”
“I don’t know exactly. Somewhere in the two hundred range, I guess. But don’t worry about that,” said Nurse Trisha. “You’ll still be learning the ropes for a while yet. No one expects you to achieve a high score right away. Besides, everyone here at Tranquil Meadows has a relaxed scoring criteria, on account of their age.” She nodded at the screen. “See where it says ‘begin’ on the screen? Just tap there whenever you’re ready. I’ll be back in about a half hour.” She left the room, closing the door behind her.
Zappa tapped ‘begin’. The music faded to sea foam and birdsong. The backrest, and the bicycle seat with it, slid backwards, lengthening the space between it and the screen. He felt something almost, but not quite like wind on his skin beneath the boots and gloves. The seat raised up, the handlebars lowered, and the floor elevated so that Zappa’s knees bent slightly. He was now in an awkward bicycle racing position. On the screen, the front tire of his digital bike rested on packed sand. To the left, a mountain lush with vegetation, and to the right, an expanse of beach, ever narrowing beneath the crashing tide. Every inch of the screen contained some surprise, some glitter of sun or flutter of life. It was all breathtakingly realistic down to the minutest detail, until he honed in on a leaf or a bird or an insect for long enough to realize it was making the same repetitious sounds and motions on a complex loop.
There’d been no countdown, no starting gun, so Zappa supposed he was meant to be cycling already. But how? There were no pedals; nothing for his feet to push against except for the soles of the too-tall haptic boots. He tried lifting a foot, but the boot was securely attached to the elevated floor. He pushed down with one foot and then the other, and nothing happened. He pulled on the handlebars. Nothing. Maybe it was voice activated. “Ready,” he said. “Start. Go. Three-two-one liftoff.”
It took ten minutes of experimentation before he figured out that he had not been pushing with his feet at the right angle. Once he learned the trick of it, the experience felt similar to riding an actual bike. The haptic boots cut uncomfortably into the skin below his knees, and the height of the seat made it difficult to see the screen without craning his neck, but other than that, a reasonable facsimile.
The digital cycling course took him on a gently upward sloping dirt path away from the beach. Soon he was riding a narrow trail, a parting in a sea of shoulder-high, tassel-topped grasses that swished and swayed as he rode past. Every so often one of the tassels smacked against his calf or hand, and the haptic gear sent a snap of mild, manufactured pain through his nerves to remind him how real this wasn’t.
After a couple of minutes, his legs began to ache. He took it as a good sign. As strange and frustrating as this therapy machine was, it was at least helping him regain the function of his muscles. Once he could walk again without falling, he’d be able to get started on a plan to walk right on out of this place. Zappa realized this was just one of an unknowable many obstacles between him and freedom, but it was a big one, and a surmountable one. He ignored the soreness in his muscles and pushed harder.
When Nurse Trisha returned to collect him, Zappa had only made it halfway through the course, according to the green-lined map in the upper corner of the screen. “I’m not finished yet. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to use the pedals,” he told her.
“That’s alright. I think you’ve done enough for today. Anyway, it’s dinner time. Aren’t you hungry?”
He was famished.
Nurse Trisha scanned something into the machine. The Fijian scenery melted away, replaced with the columns and rows of labeled boxes and all the zeroes beside them.
“Good try, Zap!” said the machine. “Your Health Success Score is still zero. Better luck next time!”
The halls of Tranquil Meadows all looked the same: beige walls, gray industrial carpeting, white ceiling tiles lit by fluorescent panels, endless successions of gray doors with rectangular shatterproof windows.
As Nurse Trisha pushed his chair through the maze of corridors, Zappa wondered if each one of these rooms housed another Tranquil Meadows inmate. But all of the windows were dark, and no sounds came from within the rooms.
The halls smelled the same, too. Clean, sterile. An undertone of fresh paint, a vaguely citrus top note of disinfectant. And far off, faint but growing stronger, the smell of food cooking. Zappa’s mouth began to water.
And then the scenery changed. At the end of the present hall was a set of double doors, painted a deep, forest green.
Nurse Trisha propped one of the doors open and wheeled Zappa into a large room with sofas, tables, and armchairs arranged in nooks. She pushed the wheelchair over to one of the nooks, parked it, and maneuvered herself around the chair to face him, but didn’t sit. “This is the common area and cafeteria,” she explained. “Habitators eat meals over there.” She pointed toward two long rows of tables and chairs at the opposite end of the room. There were enough seats for fifty people or more, but the room was empty except for the two of them.
“How many people—er—habitators live here?” Zappa asked.
“Including you? Sixteen. The facility was designed for five thousand, though. They say we’ll be up to capacity within two years.”
Five thousand? This place must be huge. There were a lot of hallways, a lot of doors, but nowhere near enough rooms to house that many people. And then Zappa remembered the view from the window in his room. They were high up, maybe twenty floors or so. Was the entire building a nursing home?
A man walked in through the double doors, and Nurse Trisha greeted him. “Douglas, hi!” Her perma-smile stretched wider. “This is our new habitator, Zappa. Would you be a dear and help him learn his way around? I would, but I’m swamped with ocular work.”
“Sure thing, Trish,” said Douglas, and he walked over and took a seat in one of the armchairs.
“I think you two are going to get along fantastically,” said Nurse Trisha to Zappa. “I’m sure Douglas won’t mind taking you back to your room after. Room 1916, Douglas, will you remember?”
Douglas tapped his temple. “Nineteen-sixteen. Already memorized,” he said.
“Great! And I’ll send Orderly to help you into bed. Well, enjoy your dinner!” Nurse Trisha walked briskly out of the room.
She’s like a primary school teacher, thought Zappa as he watched her blond bob bouncing away.
Douglas was a short, barrel-chested man with dark brown skin and a lazy eye. He wore a gray sweatsuit, slip-on plastic shoes with white socks underneath, and a black knit cap. His mouth smiled, showing nice white teeth, but his steady eye scrutinized Zappa as if he were an exhibit in a museum.
Douglas sat there awkwardly for a few seconds, and Zappa sat awkwardly in his wheelchair, and they stared at each other. Douglas seemed to be sizing him up.
“Do you work here?” Zappa asked, unable to think of a better icebreaker.
Douglas laughed. “Man, you really are feral, aren’t you?”
Zappa winced. So, word had already gotten around about him, about where he came from. He would have preferred to be in control of at least his own story, since he couldn’t control anything else in this place. But apparently even that was a freedom withheld from him. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, no. It just tickled me is all. You’re like a kid on the first day of kindergarten.”
“Well? Orient me.”
“Practically no one works anywhere anymore, except for people with extremely low Habitator Grades. And refugees. Oh, and Experts, but they don’t count. They do important work.” Douglas used air quotes around important. “In Charlanta, it’s considered rude to ask people if they work places. Because you’re assuming they’re either a criminal or a feral. No offense.”
“None taken. I just thought—you seem very young to be a patient.”
“I’m fifty-eight,” said Douglas. “And I go where I’m told to go, same as everyone else. But I’m not a patient. Neither are you. We’re habitators.”
“That’s what I keep hearing.” Zappa looked down at his feeble, blanket-draped legs. “But, pretty sure I’m a patient.”
“Nah, you’re just receiving temporary medical care while in habitation. And when you get the strength back in your legs, you’ll be receiving psychotherapy and regular medical checkups as a condition of your habitation, which is a requirement to keep out of the work camps. But you’re not a patient.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it, though?” Douglas raised an eyebrow.
“No.”
They both laughed.
“You just have to learn the jargon. Nothing is what it is in Charlanta. It’s always something else. For instance, you and I are pod-mates. We’re in the same pod. A pod is a hallway. Why can’t they just call it a hallway? Fuck if I know. Maybe they want us to be peas.”
More people were starting to filter into the room, headed for the dining area. There were two women, walking together, one of whom actually looked old enough to be in a nursing home.
“Connie, Veronica, over here!” Douglas called to two women, one of whom actually looked old enough to be in a nursing home. The two women walked over to the nook and sat next to each other on the sofa.
“Ladies, this is the new guy, Zappa. Zappa, meet Veronica and Connie. They’re two of our pod-mates. Along with Blake and Mallory, but they aren’t here yet.”
“Is this the feral?” asked Connie, the older one. Her pale face was lined with wrinkles and her shoulders arched inward.
“Connie! That’s not nice,” Veronica chastised. She looked even younger than Douglas. She had long, dark hair, a vibrant, tanned complexion, and high cheekbones. Maybe a few crow’s feet around the eyes, but otherwise she presented a youthful appearance. “Dr. Ignatius said we shouldn’t use that term around him. It’s derogatory.”
“Shut up, Veronica,” said Connie. Turning to Zappa, she said, “I don’t mean any offense. I’ve never met a feral before. And certainly not one with such handsome, rugged looks. This is the first interesting thing that’s happened in this place since I got here.”
“It’s fine,” said Zappa. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I have hundreds of questions,” Connie said excitedly. “What do you do for shelter out there? Are you all nomads? Are there any running cars left? How do you get enough food? Is it true that ferals have all consolidated themselves into warrior clans, fighting over the scraps of resources that remain in the wilderness?”
“Well,” said Zappa, not knowing where—or if—to begin. How much should he really tell these people? He didn’t trust any of them. Anything he said could be used against him, or against Shen, if word ever got out that they were related.
Orderly saved him from having to answer. It whirred into the room through a door in the back, near the dining tables, its lifters laden with covered plastic trays. With a claw appendage, it started setting one of the tables for dinner.
“Supper time,” said Douglas.
“I’m starved,” said Zappa. He was, but even more, he was thankful for the distraction.
“You’re sitting beside me,” said Connie, and she leaped up from the sofa with surprising nimbleness, and began pushing Zappa’s chair toward the dining area. A few people already sat at tables, alone or in groups of two or three. Connie chose an empty table with trays already laid out, and Veronica moved a chair out of the way so Connie could slide Zappa up to it. Veronica and Douglas sat across from him, while Connie took a seat beside him, inching her chair close.
Zappa took the lid off his tray, which was divided into sections. The two small sections held an underwhelming cup of melon chunks and a tiny green salad with no dressing. But in the larger section was a cheeseburger. A thick patty oozing with melted cheese, a crisp piece of lettuce, a thick slice of tomato, and a ring of red onion, all on a toasted bun. Packets of mayonnaise and ketchup on the side, and even a pickle spear. It was one of the most beautiful cheeseburgers he’d ever seen. Or at least, he thought it was. It had been so long since he’d seen even one cheeseburger, he couldn’t be quite sure. For years after the Technate took over and he’d run away to the wilderness, he’d had dreams of cheeseburgers. Then, as time passed, he’d almost forgotten that they ever existed. But now the memory of them was palpable in his mind. He hadn’t even taken a bite yet, and he could already taste it.
He picked up the burger and took a large first bite. It was…well, it was okay. It certainly didn’t match the cheeseburger of his memory. The bun was a bit stale, the tomato flavorless. Most importantly, the patty was not beef. Maybe turkey, or soy? He should have guessed. No cattle ranches in a megacity. Zappa chewed his food and swallowed disappointment.
“Mmm,” said Douglas, uncovering his tray. “Hambugger.”
“Don’t call it that,” said Veronica, wrinkling her nose. “Now I won’t be able to eat it.”
“I’m sorry, Veronica,” said Douglas, his face the soul of contrition. “I would never want to ruin your enjoyment of your meal. For tonight’s dinner, the chef has prepared croquets of minced larvae over slices of lab-created wheat loaf, smothered in melted squares of cheesed moth eggs and served with an artisan tomato reduction. Let us all partake in this veritable feast.”
Veronica pushed her tray away.
“Wait, what?” said Zappa. He’d heard that Technate food was all made of mysterious protein mush, but he’d assumed it was bean or pea protein, or some kind of 3D-printed stuff. “Is this burger really made of larvae?”
Douglas grinned at him.
“It’s worms, Michael. You’re eating worms!” Connie said, and she fell into a fit of cackling. Bits of bread flew out from between her lips. “Ba-ha-ha! I haven’t thought about that movie in sixty years!”
Douglas chuckled. “This isn’t some vampire magic trick, though. It really is larvae. My advice? Just eat it. No substitutions at this fine dining establishment. And besides, it doesn’t taste terrible.”
Two people entered the room, but not together: a tiny woman with salt-and-pepper hair cut short, and a pudgy red-faced man with a bald head who looked at the ground as he walked.
The woman walked up to their table and paused, glaring at Zappa through narrowed eyes.
“Mallory,” said Douglas, “this is—”
“I know what it is,” Mallory snapped, “and I won’t be ruining my dinner by sitting near it.” She snatched up one of the two remaining trays, turned on her heel, and walked away.
“Where are you going, Mallory?” Veronica called after her. But Mallory did not spare her a glance. She walked straight to the farthest chair at the farthest table, sat down, and began to eat in dainty nibbles, staring straight ahead.
“I think Mallory’s prejudiced against ferals,” said Connie. She leaned closer to Zappa and whispered, “Don’t pay any attention to her, she’s a stuck-up bitch.”
“Such a shame,” said Veronica, shaking her head. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re in here with us. The younger generations are all like that. Intolerant towards anything they don’t understand.”
Zappa wouldn’t exactly call it a good thing.
The red-faced man pulled up a chair and sat at their table, but he didn’t greet the others.
“Blake,” Douglas said, “This is Zappa, the new habitator.”
“Nice to meet you,” Zappa said.
Blake glanced up at Zappa and grunted, then turned his attention to his food.
Connie put her burger down and turned to Zappa with a big grin on her face, about to pepper him with questions, probably. He cut her to the chase.
“So, Connie, how long have you been habitating at Tranquil Meadows?”
“Four months,” she said, deflating a little.
“And how do you like it?”
“It sucks. The food sucks, my room sucks, the wall color sucks, and there’s nothing to do except sit around and think about how much it all sucks.”
That didn’t leave much room for further probing. He let Connie return to her burger. “Hey, Douglas, I was wondering. What’s an expert?” Of course, he knew the word, but everyone around here seemed to say it with crisp pronunciation, like it had a capital ‘E’.
“They’re the people who run this megacity,” said Douglas. “Scientists, bureaucrats, and scientist-bureaucrats.”
“Pfft, they run the whole world,” said Connie. “Running it right into the ground. Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for them.”
“We don’t have voting,” said Veronica.
“I know that, dummy.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t,” said Veronica, pointing at Zappa.
“You said no one here has jobs except for Experts and low-status people,” said Zappa. “Which one is Nurse Trisha?”
“Well, neither,” said Douglas.
“She’s a carer,” said Connie. “They’re the exception that proves the rule.”
Douglas swallowed his bite of melon. “There are still some jobs—not many, but some, like nurses and preschool teachers—that the Technate hasn’t figured out how to automate yet. Experts don’t work those jobs. It’s beneath them. And they can’t be convicts or refugees. They have to have clean records, high Habitator Grades. Carers get favors from the Technate in exchange for having jobs. I don’t know what kind of deal Trisha’s got worked out.”
The red-faced man looked up from his tray. “Her kid’s enrolled in the Academy,” he said. His brow furrowed, as if he was angry about this piece of information, but he promptly returned his attention to his food.
Douglas whistled. “Not bad, Trish,” he said.
“The Academy is where all the Experts’ kids go to school,” Veronica explained.
“So they can train to be douchey little Experts themselves,” added Connie.
“Connie!” said Veronica. “I hope you’re not being monitored right now.”
“Oh, who gives a shit? I’m eighty years old. I’ve earned the right to say what I think. Anyway, I held it in for long enough, til they put me in here. Now that I’m officially elderly, I have to get it all out of my system before I croak.”
Zappa decided that he liked Connie. In fact, he sort of liked all of them, except for that Mallory person. And Blake, who hadn’t said much. He wondered why on earth they’d all stayed here in Charlanta, during the takeover. If they saw the Technate for what it was, why didn’t they get out, as he had done?
It was a phenomenon he’d often pondered, back in the wilderness. There had to be people in the megacities who were dissatisfied with the Technate. There had to be lots of them; he’d always been sure of that. How could there not be? If all of those people had simply left, refused to be a part of the Technate’s insidious social experiment, then there would never have been a Technate, not for long.
At least I’m in decent company, he thought, as he forced down bites of his larva burger. That was a relief. It would make it easier to plan for his next move. And who knew, maybe some of his “pod-mates” might turn into allies or accomplices. It wasn’t like they had anything better to do.
Orderly was in Zappa’s room when Douglas wheeled him in after dinner.
It rocked forward and back on its tracks and beeped at him, as if in greeting. When it had finished lifting and jostling and situating him on the bed, Orderly reached out a claw appendage, scooped up the fleece blanket from the chair, and dropped it on Zappa’s supine body. It tried to tuck and smooth the blanket with the claw, but only succeeded in wadding it up. It beeped again and waited for Zappa to say “Good night” before leaving. After it whirred away down the hall, Zappa rearranged the blanket over himself and tucked it tightly under his legs.
It had been a long day, and there was a lot to process. For the first time since he’d woken up in this strange place, Zappa thought about his family back in the wilds. It was getting on toward dusk now. They’d have finished supper and the boys—Rich and Roan, Shen’s eight-year-old twin brothers, would be washing dishes in pails of fire-boiled water. Their father, Zappa’s son Connor, would probably be fletching arrows or patching boots or carving a new knife handle in the remaining daylight. Connor always kept his hands busy. He took after Keiko that way. His wife, Jess, might be lying down already. She worked hard most days, and tired out soon after supper.
How worried they must be about him and Shen. Or maybe they’d graduated by now from worry to resignation. It had been two weeks, after all. They’d have no idea what happened. People disappeared sometimes, in the wilds of Old America. All kinds of things could happen out there—wildcat attacks, falls from cliffs, a run-in with an angry swarm of bees—and if you’d wandered off too far from camp or whatever ramshackle house you’d been holing up in, no one would ever find your body. But he wasn’t dead. And neither was Shen. His heart ached, knowing that they didn’t know.
His other two sons, Yama and Kuzma, had been off on a trading trip to Asheville when Shen had gotten it in her fool head to run off and Zappa had foolishly followed. They’d surely be back by now. Yama’s wife, Amy, was carrying a full pregnant belly, probably eight months along when Zappa had last seen her. She’d lost two already, one in childbirth and the other at just a few months old from a fever. He hoped this one would survive, and Amy, too.
And Roger, his younger brother. They’d been best friends all their lives. He’d be missing Zappa the most.
Apart from the sadness of separation, he wasn’t worried for them. Not for their survival. He and Roger had taught his three sons and two daughters-in-law well, all the things they’d learned growing up wild in the Appalachian forest, and the kids in turn had taught his grandchildren. They were a capable clan of woodsmen, hunters, craftspeople, and scavengers. It was no easy life, but they did alright.
His family would be fine, but what would become of him? And would he ever see them again?
He would. He was going to escape. There was no doubt in his mind. He’d get out of this place, get back to Connor and Roger and all the others. As soon as he got the strength back in his legs, he’d start working on a plan. He just had to gather information, learn more about where he was. Nothing and no one in Charlanta could stop him; not nanites or Experts or surveillance drones or nosy robot doctors. He’d figure something out. He always did. He’d spent over half his life outrunning and outsmarting the Technate, and he’d be damned if he was going to sit still and submit to it now.
But what would happen to Shen? Mad as he was at the stupid kid, he still feared for her safety. The child had truly had no idea what she was getting herself into. Judging by his own predicament, he doubted she’d found the technological paradise of amenities she’d been hoping for. More likely she’d wound up in one of those work camps Douglas had mentioned. Or, even if she and Mark had somehow finagled their way into more decent accommodations, they’d be surrounded by people who hated and feared them. He’d had a small taste of that bigotry at dinner, from the sour-faced woman, Mallory. And what was it Veronica had said? The younger generations are all like that.
Now that she’d had a chance to see what Technate life was really like, he was sure she’d have come to her senses. Only, by now it was likely too late to do anything about it. She’d really have to lie in that bed, and that didn’t sit right with him. She’d messed up. Bad. But she’d always been a good kid for the most part. Strong, capable, responsible. A conscientious kid who learned from her mistakes.
She’s probably torn up with guilt, on top of all the convoluted Technate bullshit she’s dealing with. He felt a pang of sympathy for her, deep in his chest. My poor Acorn. No young person should have to spend their whole life paying for one teenage screw-up.
The lights in the room turned off of their own accord, and Zappa rolled over onto his side and yawned.
He was going to escape. But first he was going to have to locate Shen. He’d never forgive himself if he left her to rot in this prison.
CONTINUE TO CHAPTER FOUR
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-Starr