[[s1 [[s2 I woke up. It was six fifty-nine. Tuesday. The alarm would go off in less than one minute. I would have to work today. There was nothing I could do about it. I lay in bed helplessly; soon I would have to get up. The wake-up alarm is murder. I have never taken the time to research the source, but nothing would surprise me. In my best guess, it's a cross between a siren, a jet engine, and some sort of screeching animal. It's not that the alarm is loud, it's just so painful to hear that nobody in his right mind could stay in bed, and it won't stop until you get up. Even though I knew what was coming, there was nothing that was going to get me out of bed -- nothing except for the alarm. When it came, I had to clench my whole face shut. I hadn't realized yet that I was hung over. After a few seconds I was composed enough to get up, stumble across the floor and paw at the plate on the wall. The alarm cut out quickly, but it took a while for the sound to fade from my head. Meanwhile, Mr. Punch was talking. I knew it was impossible, but it seemed to me like Punch was pretty chipper, and that annoyed the hell out of me. "...and Goodmember Lang will be speaking at the Vlakaro Cupola at the nineteenth hour. The topic will be North American..." Mr. Punch droned on for a few more seconds, but I had already tuned him out. I don't like politics. I don't like being invited to political lectures, especially when the invitations are the first thing I hear in the morning. The idea, I guess, is to catch me at my most weak-willed. Instead, they catch me at my most irritable. Memorial Day was less than a week away. The wave of inspired nonsense was swelling, and would soon be let loose on the city during Monday's celebration. I expected parades, rallies, and carnival attractions. There would probably be fireworks, too. Nobody likes fireworks, especially when they're all mixed up with talk of the wars-gone-by. It's too morbid, I guess. Still, somebody always had the bright idea of firing them off. Gnomes, probably. Nobody could get away with making them inside the city. Mr. Punch was still going on with PSA's. "...screening protocols have been updated, and all citizens should take time to be rediagnosed. Infection -- " "Shut up, Mr. Punch." He did. Punch gets this ridiculous look on his face when he stops talking. Trying to avoid it, I moved over to the kitchen and started contemplating the meager contents of the cupboard. This ploy was unsuccessful. Even out of his line of sight, I felt the moronic eyes of Mr. Punch boring into my back. I had to put him to work. "Any messages? What's up at work?" "One message, from your mother." I stopped unwrapping my breakfast long enough for a deep sigh. I knew what this had to be about. "What does she say?" "She's replying to your invitation. She doesn't want to go to the Exodus Memorial. She says you shouldn't either. She calls --" "Yeah, I'm sure she has plenty to say about it. Is that all she talked about?" I turned to face him and took a generous first bite. "Yes. Would you like to reply?" Not really. "I'll call her myself, later. What about work?" As he replied, Punch produced some plums and started to juggle them. He wasn't very good at this, and every now and then would have to stop and replace a dropped plum. This was billed as one of his features. Colorful habits. "Four MT Ultra-IV cells feeding axon NE-041 were disabled last night. Scheduling has reprioritized the upgrade of these cells, so you'll be replacing them with WN Hod 8's." I'm a system tech, so replacing cells in the citysystem isn't out of the ordinary. There are about ten thousand cells in the system, and even the oldest ones aren't too bad. We're pretty well off. I visited my brother Matthew in Lansing before he shipped out. The fastest cells in their system were Krishnendu's, which said a lot, even two years ago. Of course, Lansing is no Boise. The problem in upgrading cells from old MarsTech units to WorldNets is that to accomodate the MarsTech units we'd had to repace all the signal strands with MarsTech strands. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now we'd have to replace all the strands with standards again. This would mean going outside and dismantling parts of the exterior. Mr. Punch should've told me this, but he was too stupid. I had been meaning to buy myself a decent agent, but I hadn't done it. I was stuck with my Representative as my agent, which was pretty pathetic. Punch could barely put two and two together, let alone realize the implications a cell upgrade would have on my day. I suppressed the urge to explain the situation to him. He wouldn't learn. Anyway, working on the exterior systems would mean hours spent out in the cold, running the heavy Jacks. I'd need to dress for it, and taking along some coffee wouldn't be a bad idea. I decided to get moving. "Go home, Mr. Punch." Punch dropped his plums wandered offscreen. I put the last bit of breakfast in my mouth, tossed the wrapper down the trash chute, and stepped into the bathroom. I took a hot, quick shower. I was guaranteed to be filthy in a few hours, so I didn't make any real efforts to get powder fresh. I used the toilet, left my pajamas on the bed, and put on some thermals under my overalls. [[s2 I never used the dining room in my building. I lived at Newton Place, which is pretty much filled with students, academics, artists, and other useless people. I got just the room I wanted, and a discount on my upkeep charge under the Diversity Clause in Residency. In other words, the System gave me a break for agreeing to live with people I didn't like and couldn't identify with. I didn't have to socialize with them, except at planning meetings. Of course, I probably wouldn't have socialized with a dorm full of techs and Jackriggers, either. The only thing I especially disliked at Newton was the common space. The dining room in Newton was supposed to be cozy, I guess. The room was all done in earth tones and wood grain, the tables were small and low, and the lighting was subdued. At planning meetings, the "Decor Council," or whatever they called themselves, would talk about how they were trying to encourage interaction among the residents. When I went to dinner, I just wanted a table for one. I didn't bother explaining this at the meetings. I got enough patronizing looks already, just for being a grunt, without opening my mouth. Instead of visiting the high-brow low-light dining of Newton Place, I usually took the skywalk across Xiang Park and into Xiang Common. The Common was pretty typical, and it had a good-sized commissary on the ground level. It wasn't eight o'clock yet, but somebody was working at the counter, which was good. The automated systems there are too cautious, and it takes twice as long to deal with them as with a person. The kid at the counter was probably about fifteen, and he didn't look too bright. Still, he'd probably be faster than the bot. I took my thermos out of my bag and handed it over. "Coffee. Black. Eight-hundred mil." He took it, turned around, and started filling it, mumbling a tired, "Good morning and welcome to Xiang Common." He was wearing a little blue-green government pin, but I was willing to believe that it came with the rest of the uniform. He spoke English, anyway. Outside the commissary, some teenagers were already up and busy, tinkering with a little Jack about the size of a low table. Some of the career schools had public exhibitions and contests planned for the Memorial Day festivities, and Robotics held one of the only contests I ever enjoyed. In a few days, these kids would have to send their Jack, on auto, onto playing field to try and disable every other team's Jack. It was a good reminder of what the day was all about without being as grim as Archive exhibitions or as hypocritical as the rides and games that would be in Boise Common. The kid closed my thermos and put it down on the counter. "Eighty moneroj." I looked down at the scanner on the counter, stated my agreement, and headed out with my coffee. The kids outside had their Jack walking slowly around the Common. I wouldn't have bet on them. Legs are too complicated; simpler Jacks usually do better. Acting like a human was never a good idea. [[s2 While I headed coreward through the city skywalks, I took out my scrye and slid it on, calling up Punch. His voice came on over the earbuds and the little "Agent" glyph began to glow in my peripheral vision. "Good morning, Mister Palmer." I grunted in response to the automatic greeting and got down to business. "Punch, hire a taxi to take me to the maintenance room closest to Northeast Forty-One, and have it meet me at the coreward side of Cook Common. What're the conditions outside, just northeast of Boise?" "Boise Taxi Ninety-Five will arrive at Cook Common in about three minutes. It is now elven degrees below zero. The wind is blowing at fourteen kilometers per hour from the east. There is no precipitation." "Is it icy?" It took Punch a moment to find out before answering. "Yes. There is a fine coating of ice on external surfaces." "Great. Has anyone req'd equipment for my assignment yet?" "System Maintenance requisitioned three standard technician complements. System Technician Michael Roho requisitioned one pair of size seven heated gloves, one large man's thermal oversuit, and one medium face mask with scrye." Roho lived closer to the job site than I did, so he was probably still having breakfast. His agent wasn't half bad, though, and it must have already told him we'd have to go outside, or even just filed for his gear. So, Roho had already req'd some gear for working out in the cold. Tmeke hadn't. Tmeke was an East African, barely spoke English, and was loyal member of the Party. He hated the cold, so he probably hadn't even let himself consider the possibility of working outside. He wouldn't find out until we met up, which meant he wouldn't be wearing thermal. Tmeke was going to have a bad time today, which meant that Roho and I would have to put up with his whining. I was passing over Cook Park now, and I could see a couple kids working over the engine of an old, broken-down van. They probably wanted to use it in a Jack for the Robotics contest. "File a requisition for the same things Roho requested, but my size. Also, five kilograms of rock salt and two Paxton-St.James type two waldoes." "I've filed your application. Your request for waldoes is denied. All waldoes are reserved." "Merde! Go home, Punch." Without some good human-sized manipulators for the exterior work, we'd freeze our hands off, heated gloves or not. [[s2 I spent the ride reviewing diagrams of the exterior walls that we'd have to dismantle. I had Punch keep a list of how much strand we'd need for each run. We'd probably spend about four hours outside and five inside. Nine hours wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't outside. I picked a Jack out of the pool and told it where to meet us. It was about eight forty-five when I got to the closet. I hopped off the little taxi and it rolled away for its next fare. The huge maintenance closet door was wide open. Inside were a few ATV's, a few hundred System-controlled tool cabinets and maybe two dozen little bots. They were all inert now, but an hour or two ago they were probably skittering around the floor, packing our equipment complement into kits. Roho was there, too, loading our gear onto the flatbed of one of the ATV's. As he heaved a green plastic carton of tools into the cargo bed, he shot me a sideways grin. "You gonna make me do all the work today, Paul?" I shrugged. Roho was a prick, but he was easy to work with. He spoke decent English, he was good at the job, and he'd stopped talking politics to me months ago. "I don't know. I figure once Tmeke gets outside, it'll be just you and me getting the job done. Maybe I'll pitch in a little, since you asked so nice." Roho just laughed. A little bot pulled up, no bigger than a coffee table and carrying my gear. It slowed to a stop near me and, raising up its rear, let its cargo fall around my feet. I tossed the gear on the passenger's seat and started helping Roho load a big plastic crate of strand into the truck. We worked in silence for a while longer, and, once the ATV was loaded, Roho and I put on our oversuits. Just as we finished zipping up, Tmeke arrived. He had walked, clear from Fox Cupola, which wasn't unusual. He had on the same standard jumpsuit that Roho and I were wearing under our suits, and was wearing his scrye, probably dictating a letter to the Council. I was sure he'd tell me later. The grin on his face as he stepped into the closet was sickeningly sincere, but it fell into a look of hopeless desperation as he saw us bundled up in our electric suits. "Ho! Gentlemen! Are we to go outside this day?" Tmeke was speaking L.U., so I knew it would be up to me to deal with him -- Roho only used it when it was a matter of survival. Unlike Mister Punch, Tmeke could, at least in theory, learn from his mistakes. Knowing this, I attempted to explain them. "Tmeke, did you not know that we must replace cells from MarsTech with cells from WorldNet?" He remained distressed and uncomprehending, "I did know! However, our access to these units is internal!" I shook my head as seriously as I could. Roho sighed, agitated. He still didn't believe that anyone from outside North America could manage this sort of work, and he might've been right. "Yes, that is true, but the change means that we will need to replace the MarsTech strands, which are accessed from outside." Realizing that I was right, and that he was due for a trip outside, Tmeke just nodded sheepishly. Defeated. He kept his mouth shut, though, and got lucky; there were still a few parkas in the area closet, some of which even looked like they might survive being worn. He bundled up in the least threadbare parka he could find and piled into the cabin with Roho. I rode in the back, keeping an eye on the gear. Once outside the massive external door, I could feel the temperature drop clear through my thermals. The readout on my scrye went blank for a minute, recalibrating to the sudden change. A few kliks later we were loading the Jack. [[s2 The Jack was a homebrew, built by Construction, for Construction. It was sturdy, dependable, and ugly as anything. Thirty meters in the air, the now-salty grillwork of the lift floor didn't seem any less stable than the ground. We'd just moved into position to remove another piece of the outer hull, and Tmeke and I were lining up the lift's waldoes to unbolt the plating. Roho had become distracted by the view. Off in the distance, maybe twenty kliks off, was a low range of structures and a long trail of white smoke. Roho shook his head and pointed with one thick, mitted finger. "See that, Tmeke? You know what that is?" Tmeke tried to take a deep, calming breath, but winced at the air. My scrye now read thirteen below, with windchill. Tmeke kept his eyes on the controls and replied, patiently, in English. "It is Old Boise." Roho narrowed his eyes; he hadn't gotten the answer he wanted, and was glad. He shook his hand toward the horizon. "It's America, burning. That's your Party at work, Goodmember! I don't see what's so hopeful about that." Tmeke and I pushed our buttons, and the waldoes began to pull the bolts from the dome. He turned to face Roho, at least as sick of the eternal argument as I was, and probably just as surprised to hear it start up again after months of silence. "Beyond war, hope. Beyond many, one." He gestured faintly toward the smoke with a barely-gloved hand. "Beyond nations, Earth." Roho snorted. "Yeah, I know the slogan. Funny, though. You never hear the whole thing anymore, do you? Beyond Earth? What ever happened to that one, Esperanto? Party write it off?" From the corner of my eye, I could see Tmeke looking at me. I didn't need to see Roho to know that he was, too, now. Probably trying to think of something to say. I said it for them both. "Let's get this done." I ran my hand over the control box, exposing this bank of strand. It was frozen in place, so we broke out the heat gun. They worked on swapping out strands, eager to be distracted, while I watched the road from the dome to Old Boise. A trickle of haulers moved back and forth along a beaten road, accompanied by repair and miner Jacks here and there. The inbound haulers were all loaded full, mostly with stone, but some with steel beams or machinery. Some had their beds lidded over, protecting their payloads, or hiding them. Way out in the distance, a few klicks off the road, maybe, was a nomad caravan. The gnomes were probably camping there, just waiting for Memorial Day to show up at the gates to peddle and steal. Security probably could've cleared them out, but nobody wanted the trouble. After all, the gnomes would be bringing the fireworks. [[s1 When I was really little, my parents took us to an airport. I guess it must've been around the Capital, since that's where we lived, and where we were fleeing. We waited for hours in a room crowded with would-be refugees, fleeing the war-torn West for all points east, heading from a wasteland in the making to a recovering one. The room stank. A thousand people were jammed inside, filling every available space, sweating, crying, muttering to themselves. I begged to go to the bathroom, and mom finally handed me a few dollars and pointed me to the tiny closet at the far wall. I stood in line, pushing my way through the crowd, and finally got to the door. I dropped my coins into the slot and slid into the bathroom. There, the stink assaulted me, burning my eyes and making my mouth dry up. I could barely stand, and the sheer animal force of the smell blinded me to all other thoughts. I pissed in my pants. I still remember that smell like it was yesterday: the smell of safety. [[s1 At twenty-two hundred hours, the lights went down in the arboretum. I lay on my back, looking up through the trees at white patchwork hanging over us. The dome was caked in snow. Faint red blobs faded in and out beyond it, like momentary sunsets. It was the bots, climbing over the cupola and melting the ice where it threatened to damage the structure. Inside, it was a balmy twenty-four degrees. Condensation dripped from the ceiling. I hated the arboretum, but I found myself there a lot, when I'd been drinking. My hands were empty, and I didn't feel anything lying nearby. My mouth tasted like rice whiskey and dirt. I stood up and fell down, hitting my knee hard on the concrete walkway. My pants stuck to the wound, but I could barely feel it through my stupor. I wiped the gravel from my skinned palms and pulled my scrye from my pocket, unfolding it. I pulled it on, lopsided. "Help," I croaked. Punch and The Star appeared, side by side, awaiting clarification. I stared blankly, then mumbled, "Agent." The Star faded out, and Punch grew closer, filling my field of view and swaying nauseatingly. "Get me home, you fucking piece of shit." My jaw trembled and clenched, and I squeezed my rough hands into fists. Where had I been, anyway? Punch shrugged obligingly and waved his hands around. "Taxi on its way. Are you feeling sick?" My eyes throbbed, and now I could feel my bile rising. "Fuck you, Punch. Fuck you!" I took a deep breath, and it smelled like hot, wet dirt. I swayed again, uneasy. "Where's Henry?" Punch was quiet, busy disambiguating. After a long pause, he said, "Your brother Henry is dead. The location of his remains is unknown." How many times had I heard Punch say that? It didn't matter. My vision blurred further, and my balance faltered. My knees gave out, and I fell, but was caught. Looking up through the tears, I made out Jakob Porfiry, the only other Diversity clauser in Newton. His heavily-accented L.U. was barely comprehensible. "Too much again, Paul. Always, too much." He smiled weakly, taking pity on me. I felt sick, again. "Why do you hate the City so much? It doesn't know any better than to answer." Jakob set me down on the walkway's curb. "Everyone at home, Paul, they worry for you. They think that maybe you will do yourself some harm." He shrugged. "I know, though: it is hard. The System took your family away, and you can't fight System." Jakob waved his hand through the air in front of me, through Punch, disrupting the illusion. "What would you strike?" A taxi wheeled around the corner, slowly approaching, and Jakob squatted down beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Still, my friend: it's no reason to hate Boise." He smiled again and stood up, leaving me alone with the taxi. I buried my face in my hands, sobbing and laughing, trying to conceal both from him.