Exponent System #3
We ride to New Canterbury on a Ninurta Dynamics heavy train. From the looks of it we’re heading northwest, which finally gives me a bearing on my position. Massive clouds from the ammonia factories billow over the land, cloaking this marshy area in a chemical haze. I look out the window, and wonder if there’s other stalkers out there, in the mist.
“You’re going to like your team,” James says. “It’s very diverse. We’ve got everything. Indian guy, Chinese guy. Black guy, but I have to admit I have no idea where he’s from. Originally, I mean. Like he was born here on New Kent like the rest of us but like, his ancestors back on Earth right? Where did black people originally come from?”
“What?” I ask, confused. I flex my left hand as if I’m grasping for something far away, outside the train. There’s no bioceramics on my hands, but I’m used to wearing biointegrated haptic gloves and I can tell my skin isn’t dealing with the exposure to New Kent Shores slightly caustic atmosphere very well.
“Like Earth history,” James continues. “You had the Romans, they conquered both the middle continent and Europe. Civilized the Europeans. Then you had the European kingdoms. They settled what would become the Northern Hemisphere Federation. They conquered the Indians and the Chinese and now we’re all here on New Kent Shores. Oh! The old Kent is where the Romans landed when they attacked the European island kingdoms, that’s where the English language first developed.”
“I know that,” I reply absent-mindedly.
“God, I wish I could get Earth history books imported,” James says wistfully. “Not the censored digipad stuff. Real books. It’s almost five million blocks per pound, though. Cargo space on the ships. Not even I can afford that. Not yet, at least.”
“Hmhm,” I say, rubbing over the sore wounds on my abdomen. The removed bioceramic tiles make me feel naked, even while wearing clothes.
“Well, you’re a biologist. Gene-smith, I mean. You probably understand the race thing better than I do. Different environments, different evolutionary pressures and all that.” He’s finally quiet for a bit, but then turns towards me. “Hey?”
“Yeah?”
“What was it like to become an Exponent?”
It’s difficult to remember. The original Ryo, I only vaguely recall her. I know she died screaming. But I’m not her. Memories from mortal life- Ryo’s, and some of the others- make me cringe a little. Their perspectives were so limited, so petty. “Like waking up, I guess. Waking up and realizing that the dream I’d been having up until that point had been nonsensical, small.”
“Was it like, scary? It involves having your original body recycled, right? And you’re conscious while it happens.”
“I don’t recall. The memories from before, they’re not my memories.”
“Ah,” James says wistfully. “That’s a shame.”
“Why?”
“I try to imagine it a lot. In the recycling machine, thinking about how you’re going to be taken apart, maybe feeling a glimmer of regret when the moment is there. Oh god, I don’t want to die, please, I don’t want to lose my individuality.” His heartbeat accelerates. I can smell him more clearly, too. Sweat and fear, traces of lust. Lust?
“It really isn’t like that,” I say.
“Hm,” he replies.
Outside the windows the landscape rushes by. Bit by bit it becomes greener, more lush. When we approach New Canterbury, I see the occasional deer between the trees. The forest becomes denser until we pass the city walls, and then suddenly all the green is gone in favour of glass and steel, rising so high the tops of the buildings are impossible to see from my limited angle of view in the train. The train starts to brake, shocks reverberating throughout the cabin.
“Where do we stop?” I ask, even though I’ve never actually been to New Canterbury.
“The train pulls straight into the Ninurta Dynamics compound on the far side of the city.”
“Oh.” I had hoped I could run the second I was out of the train. The remaining ember of that hope is extinguished when, the moment we disembark, two armed guards join us.
“Let’s get you outfitted,” James says. “You’ll need your legal documents, keycards for access to your dormitory and working space. A digipad, so you can actually spend your money.”
There are few people in this part of the train station, but further down I can see people hurrying to load supplies onto the gigantic vehicle. We leave through a small side corridor, which joins a network of underground corridors. Eventually we take an elevator up, and end up in a spacious office high above New Canterbury. Part of the office is filled with medical equipment, and separated from the rest with glass.
“Sit,” James says while gesturing at the white treatment table.
I instinctively step back, and nervously eye James’ guards.
“Oh,” James says. “No, don’t worry. We’re not going to dissect you, Ryo. Again, I’m sorry for how you were treated at the outpost. Please, sit down. We will need to take some of your blood.”
Carefully, anticipating betrayal, anticipating being pushed down and restrained any second now, I sit down on the table. James types some things on his digipad, and after a minute a woman enters the enclosed area.
“Wonderful,” she says, looking me in the eyes. She grabs me by the chin, and forces me to look up slightly. “Perfect specimen. And it’ll work with us? Integrate into the research team?”
“Yes,” James says. “A perfect geneticist. It hasn’t been taught, it’s never studied. It was born knowing its own genetic code inside out.”
“Fuck,” the woman says, slapping me on the cheek a few times. “Does it speak?”
“I can talk,” I say. “I’m not an it.”
“Amazing,” she replies, and then she prepares needles to draw some of my blood. When she’s done, she takes a scalpel and a tiny set of pliers. “Shirt up,” she demands.
“It’s just a medical check, Ryo,” James says.
I pull up my shirt, and the woman cuts loose some of the scabs that had been growing where they’d previously removed my bioceramic tiles.
“Okay,” the woman says, and then takes out a sleek black bracelet or collar of some kind. She opens it, and puts it around my neck. I struggle a little, uncertain as to what is happening.
“God, that looks good on you,” James says as I claw at it, trying to remove it.
“What is it?” I ask. “Take it off, it’s uncomfortable.”
James runs his finger along my neck, up along my cheekbones. “It’s a beautiful bomb collar for your beautiful neck,” he says. “If you leave Ninurta Dynamics company ground, a shaped charge inside of it will detonate and pulverize your vertebrae, severing your head from your torso.”
My eyes go wide with fear as I realize I have been betrayed. “What?” I yell. “What? A bomb? You- you said I would-”
“I said you’d be guaranteed human rights, an employment contract, a place to live,” he says.
“Human rights? There’s no way you’re putting bomb collars on humans,” I say.
“Emily?” he asks as he turns to the woman.
“Bomb collars are pretty standard fare to keep indentured criminals in check. You’ll come here once a week so I can remove it and clean your neck, make sure you don’t get infected under there,” she explains.
“You betrayed me,” I say, looking at James. He doesn’t so much as flinch.
“Come with me,” he says. “I’ll get you your documents, digipad, keys.”
“And if I refuse?” I ask.
“Ryo, don’t do this. The collar is insurance. Think with us here instead of against us.”
“This is unfair.”
“Just come along to your condo, please,” he begs. “We can come up with something in time, as soon as the higher ups trust you the collar will come off. Okay?”
I hesitate for a second, and then decide I’ll get nowhere throwing a tantrum. We leave the woman- Emily- behind, as well as the armed guards. They’re not needed anymore.
“It looks good on you,” James says as we step into an elevator. “It does. The black collar?”
“I hate you,” I tell him. My heart isn’t in it.
“Ryo, your circumstances have improved. You are free to move through the company town. You will make your own money. Your own apartment. Just yesterday you were slated for dissection. You don’t really think this is worse than having junior researchers root around in your abdominal cavity with metal pliers?”
I am quiet the rest of the trip. We pick up legal documents describing me as an ‘indentured’ Ninurta Dynamics employee at a booth in one office, then get a digipad and a set of keyfobs at another.
“These open your apartment door, these will open laboratory doors in your workspace. I’ll have someone show you the place you’ll be working at tomorrow. These open most other Ninurta doors you’re allowed to go through. If a door doesn’t open with this key, then you have no business on the other side,” James explains as we walk through a glass walkway between two skyscrapers. “Your condo is on the twenty seventh floor here,” he says as we get in another elevator.
The apartment is smaller than my alcove in the Arcology. It’s completely unfurnitured except for a metal bedframe with a yellow-tinged mattress on it.
“Staff will bring you some blankets and stuff. Your first month of pay is already on your account, so just order stuff you want with your digipad,” James says.
“I want to go home,” I tell him again.
He looks around as if to see if anyone is in the room with us. “Soon, okay,” he then whispers. “Not immediately. The bomb collar can be disarmed. Don’t rush things. As soon as I have what I need from you I will help you sabotage security and then you’ll be back on your way to your Arcology, if you still want to in a month or so.”
“Okay,” I whisper back.
“And don’t talk about these things outside this condo. There are security devices everywhere, and you really don’t want to implicate me in some kind of crime, now do you?”
“I understand.”
He traces along my neck again with his finger. “You’re really hot with that bomb strapped to your neck, you know that?”
I can smell his arousal. I curse my stalker body for giving me these insights into James’ biology. Insights I can do nothing with. This is so far removed from what passes for sexuality among Exponents that I struggle to understand it.
“Why?” I ask.
“There’s beauty in fragility,” he says.
“No, why do you do these things to me?”
“I need my department’s longevity cure fixed. I will do anything to keep my job. I will do anything to move up the corporate ladder. I’m done being a slave. I want enough money to be free, truly free,” he says.
“You’re a slave?”
“We’re all slaves, Ryo.”
I’m not sure if he’s being metaphorical or if he, too, has ‘indentured’ stamped on his identity papers.
“Rest. Browse the internet. Explore the company town. Purchase some food at the mess hall. Tomorrow someone will take you to introduce you to your coworkers, okay?”
“Okay,” I say as I nod.
“Good girl,” James says.
