Two Days Later

The SolSys corp. arcology was remarkably soundproof. In order to prevent nanomachine and bioweapons from damaging company property, the arcology had been designed to be airtight and achieved an impressive 97% seal over a 365.25 day period with a corresponding air loss percentage of only .008% per day. That figure rivaled the airtightness of the New International Space Station. It was, in short, an engineering feat accomplished thanks to general cleverness and–as the commercials were happy to remind–SolSys' proprietary metasealant product line. Other arcologies had seal efficiencies in the mid-eighties to low nineties. This exceptional airtightness was why the arcology was so soundproof: air is one of the major conductors of sound. The few Denverites granted residency in the arcology were often at first unnerved by the silence, unable to hear even the horns and thumping of SolSys subsidiary factories nearby anymore, the ones that used to trouble their sleep in the megalopolis.

Where Colton slept, in the heart of the arcology's low levels, only the hiss of air circulation and the soft crinkle of blankets rising and falling with breathing were audible. Two slim beds filled the room, a younger girl in the one to Colton's right. She had also been a v-child, a kid jacked into stims at birth, trained as a cyberspace weapon. She was estimated to be thirteen and slept with a listless expression. Colton was pegged as fifteen years old, neuroacceleratory time dilation within cyberspace notwithstanding, and faint lines of worry creased his dreaming face. The ages were mostly guesswork because the clinic corporations didn't really understand how v-children were raised and only got vague cues from the American and UN governments.

Suddenly loud booms and high pitches whistled shook them. Colton shot up. The girl grabbed her glasses. Both of them instantly awake.

"Status, Charlotte?" Colton asked as he began collecting the money from his runs, hidden inside socks and pillow, consolidating it into his jacket.

"I'm accessing the public cameras and recording their footage into the cloud." It was the best she could do: the 'smart' glasses given to them had meager local storage and depended on the corporate cloud for functionality. Both children were calm, collected. In cyberspace they had lived for excitement bigger than this.

"So what's it look like?" He stuffed his bed into the wall drawer and then started folding up his blanket.

"Lots of objects in the sky, some kind of missile. Very fast. Oh, and we have an advisory to stay indoors, I forgot to mention that." She eyed the empty floor where his bed had been moments ago. "Violence in the streets, it says."

"What do the wakes look like thermochemically? Mach 10? What altitude? Let me look." Colton tried to grab the glasses from her head.

"Use your own." She dodged out of the way and frowned, sitting on her bed. "That's bad etiquette Colton."

Another round of booms thundered, followed by piercing shriek.

"I'm going to take a look." Said Colton, finally put on his own glasses and blinking commands into them as quickly as the interface could register.

So, there were apparently missiles in the air, violence on the ground and Colton wanted to get closer. Charlotte understood that mentality completely. "Me too." She said, grabbing her standard-issue coat. All standard-issue clothes in the arcology were corporate branded, although Colton had picked up a discrete few pieces on the street.

They rushed out the door into the kitchen/living/dining area and Colton didn't even scold her for leaving her bed unfolded. Tapping on their shoes, they slipped out of the apartment, door chunking the lock closed automatically. Luckily their foster father did a nightshift and there was no foster mother to deal with. V-children had been shown to develop better when parenting was hands-off and they were surrounded by other v-children, so a one-parent two-child setup wasn't uncommon and, of course, the foster parent got a handsome government check–which is all you really needed to raise a child anyways.

The hallway was dim with night lighting, hushed, and empty. Warnings sounded and flashed through their glasses., but there were no alarms in the hallway. They took their glasses off and put them in pockets.

A third round of booms sounded off, and the whistle wasn't long after.

"Regular stairwell but I think we're going to need to use the main airlock." Charlotte suggested. "The sidelocks are more likely to be blocked off."

"Regular stairwell." Colton agreed, his slim, muscular vat body breaking into a quick jog. Charlotte soon padded close behind.

"I'm scared but I also want to know what's happening. We should try our best to be safe." Charlotte narrated for the corporate cameras, just in case this recording came into play later.

"I agree and share the sentiment." Colton said lamely and very organically. But he felt it was the gesture that counted. "But I'd like to check out a side airlock. There's one on our way." He said.

"OK. I'll wait with you for one minute at the sidelock, then go to the main entrance if it doesn't open." Their voices were dampened by the hallway which were designed to keep the voices of hundreds of employees manageable. In the empty night, it evoked a kind of aural claustrophobia.

The children reached the wide stairwell meant for ten abreast, with railings dividing the stairs into as many lanes, and went down the innermost downstair lane silently, quickly. Colton went first and Charlotte second. The automatic lighting clicked on and off as they passed, and they encountered only a few other people. At one point they climbed over the rail into the adjacent lane to pass a confused, slow-moving man. He called out to them, something about safety, but they were already gone.

The stairs winded down and down, floor after floor, the familiar scuff on the L13 carpet and then the stain on the wall between L7 and L6 heralding the ground floor at last. As the floor signs dropped from L5 to L4 and then L3, they began hearing a faint murmur of noise.

At L2 the downstair lanes filled up with people and they slowed, climbing over railing (which gathered some glares) as much as they walked. By the time the L1 sign was visible, it was a five lane traffic jam, grinding all progress to a halt. The lanes for going upstairs were empty and inviting, but nobody wanted to be fined and demerited a traffic violation for using them 'in a manner constituting improper traffic flow.' Which was odd, because many of these people were probably already demerited for leaving their rooms during a shelter advisory.

Just before the jam began, Colton jumped into Charlotte's lane and shoved her ahead of him. "I'm larger." He explained. "Don't want you crushed."

"You didn't have to push me." She pointed out. Colton didn't reply. The only other people talking were hushed. You could only hear muted terror and the whisper of air circulation.

They shuffled forward slowly, loudspeaker blaring into the stairwell from the L1 corridors. "All citizens, please return to your dwellings. All citizens, return to your dwellings."

"You know," said Charlotte. "The missiles must be gone by now."

"I'll check." Colton put on his glasses and quickly blinked through an interface of warnings and advisories. Charlotte–like most people–preferred to subvocalize to the glasses, but Colton was weird.

He frowned. "Looks like the cameras have been blocked off. No news on the net, just speculation. Your recordings..." He paused to blink and wink rapidly. "...cut to black twelve minutes ago. But I know somewhere we can go for news."

"Good." Charlotte affirmed. "This'll be fun."

Finally, they burst off the steps into the crowd of people in the L1 landing...only to quickly grind to a halt again. A few citizens were beginning to take the stairwell back up in frustration and worry, but most were crowding around the entrance and staying there, unwilling to move past the doors. Odd.

"Alright. Follow me." Said Colton, staring at the blockage. He ducked and shoved the person to his left, grabbing Charlotte's hand and pulling her along as he made a narrow path through the stoppage of adults, and at last they stumbled into a suddenly spacious L1 corridor.

As it turned out, the hall around the staircase was barricaded on both ends, with warning signs and flashing lights. But the barricades were symbolic to the mildly athletic and–not to be dissuaded by the symbolic–the v-children easily made their way towards the airlocks. "It still works!" Colton exclaimed, twenty three seconds into trying out the sidelock. "Come on." He beckoned.

"Although this might seem frightening, we assure you..." The loudspeakers rang loud and near.

Charlotte got into the sidelock rated Occupancy 4, stealing a last look at the desolate hallway and closing the door behind them, plunging the airlock into stifling silence. It was a blank white room, the harsh lights mercifully dimmer with night. UV lights ran over them, a calm genderless voice instructed. "Turn one rotation. Stand still. Turn one rotation." A swarm of nanostats swept over them, probing for microscopic threats or thefts. Colton had to unzip his jacket pockets. Then the vents hissed, satisfied that they were clean, and the fans whirled, sucking up the precious SolSys air and replacing it with the warm, dirty outside product.

Kchunk. The outer door swung open.

–––––––––––––

'Violence on the streets,' the advisory had said. By the time Charlotte and Colton arrived, it was more like the aftermath of panic. People clutching bloody ears hunched on the sidewalk and shattered glass decorated the streets. Sparse groups of young men roamed. Strangely, the UN police-troops were making themselves scarce.

The sky was clear. Colorado's desertification two centuries ago meant that the nights were cool. No longer any moisture in the ground to insulate against temperature changes.

As they made there way through the streets, Colton quickly remembered Charlotte had left her rehabilitation clinic just a year ago, that she hadn't developed an understanding of the streets or picked up common sense like Colton had. He guided her through it pretty closely:

"That's 37th. You don't go down there at night.

"You see guys like the one back there, packing cybernetics? You want to avoid them, give 'em a wide berth even in the daytime.

"Remember you can't change your meatbody. What you have is what you have and your consciousness is locked in." Said Colton wistfully.

"I don't think I'd forget that one." She gave him a stare.

"Guess not."

The children made their way across the blocks of identical buildings, distinguished only by pedestrians, ground-level shops and shattered glass, until Colton ushered them into a particularly ill-lit alleyway.

A visibly cyberized punk was smoking in the doorway and Colton cleared his throat as they approached. The punk swiveled yellow eyes at the kids. "Past your bedtime boys and girls. Clear on out."

Colton gestured for Charlotte to stand back. She was a little confused by the wave of his hand and he had to forcibly push her. The punk looked amused, kept smoking. It smelled electronic.

"Just want to chat." Colton did a bit of jive and looked pointedly at the door.

The punk paused. "You got parental permission?"

Colton glared and fumbled for his glasses and a fifty, handing both to his outstretched hand, the finger pads chrome.

The punk did a sort of ID check on Colton with them and then his eyes widened. That reaction couldn't be good. "Yeah..." He nodded to himself and handed Colton back both the glasses and the fifty. "Not a fucking waiter, man." And then, "who's the girl?"

Colton flashed some more jive and the punk shrugged, languidly opened the door. "You're good children. Making this easy for your parents, that shows respect." He gave a brittle laugh.

Colton looked back at Charlotte hesitantly. A smile had curled up on her lips. She pushed him forward.

Within five minutes they were led to Powell's office, an enforcer accompanying each child. The atmosphere was oddly strained. Upon their entry, a wrinkled and tired looking woman stared up from her laptop. "Colton." She said curtly, glanced at Charlotte. "And a fellow virtual child, I see."

"Ma'am." Said Colton. Something was off, he'd never seen Powell like this. She was always calm, cool and collected. No weakness.

"I expect you came here for news?" Asked Powell, frowning tensely.

He nodded. "Yes ma'am, we heard the booms and got curious."

Powell gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head, short haircut whishing with the motion. Bitterly she said. "You virtual children, you're like puppies–you know that?"

Colton had heard that from her before. "Yes ma'am. I remember you saying that."

"There." Powell snapped her fingers angrily. "Just like that. You come in here and 'yes ma'am' me completely serious and wonder why I won't foot your wetwork bill." She gave a glance to Charlotte. "You could learn from this too, honey."

Charlotte took the opportunity to break her quiet. "I apologize, it appears Colton has frustrated you. We v-children have a tenuous grasp on meatspace reality–not just socioculturally but neurologically, so it's no surprise we come off as puppies, since our brains are adapted to a different paradigm. Nevertheless, thank you for taking him under your wing. I imagine it's easy for us to be taken advantage of." There was a tinge of the accusatory in the last sentence, but Powell either failed to pick up on or ignored it.

Instead the woman nodded and slumped. "That's fair. And a good read actually. I'm sorry for the outburst." She focused on Colton a little more softly this time. "Colton, remember your last job? Running a wafer of quantum circuitry?"

"Ma'am."

"Turns out that was an AI architecture piece. It was too advanced for us to scan, but a lot of stuff is. We just didn't expect it to be something that big." She rubbed her head. "Bastards ripped us off. It looked like it came from the science sector, last year's biology algorithms."

Colton swallowed. AI were highly restricted. As a technology classified under 'very capable of mass destruction,' the UN tracked and regulated everything related to them religiously. "How'd you find that out?"

"Just listen. That circuitry you ran was ordered by an AI that was reassembling itself, registry code 'Iapetus.' An hour and a half ago, Iapetus launched itself on a rocket to the moon. Those noises you heard were the UN trying to shoot it down."

Charlotte fought to hide the smile she felt coming on. Colton trembled a bit. "Trying?"

"They're probably assembling spacecraft right now."