Dream Drive Ch. 05

But this changed everything. She was named for something foundational. She was the crux of the world he espoused. His world.

She read on, and she was not disappointed. The man named Stephen Hawking evoked God with a warm regularity. He spoke of their stand-in for the One-Above-The-Sky with happiness, as if joyful to include him in discussion concerning the formulation of the universe. She imagined this man sitting down to drink tea with the greatest of spirits and discussing why there were stars in the sky.

Time passed. Chaki moved to sit on Jackson's bed. It was quite comfortable. And then, she read.

"Chaki. I'm finished."

Chaki did not look up from her book.

"Chaki?"

She blinked and raised her head. "Hmm?"

"I'm good to go."

"Oh." Chaki looked at the book in her lap, still open to the page in Chapter 2; then up at him. "Jackson. Light moves. It just moves so fast we can't even see it."

"Fun stuff, right?"

"May I borrow this?"

"Sure," he said, "but you won't be able to take it back with you."

"Then we'll have to make return trips," Chaki said. "Dead suns and demons, Jack. How can you read this sort of book and not see the One-Above everywhere in the universe?"

Jackson shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Chaki slapped the book shut and shook it through the air. "Of course it matters. How can you own this and think that question does not matter? It's the question of everything!"

"42," Jackson said.

"What?"

"There's nothing that says God exists," Jackson said, "and there's nothing to say he doesn't exist. That's all there is to it. Why bother with questions that can't be answered?"

"What about the soul?" Chaki asked. "What of magic? I wonder if they are governed by laws as well – laws that the One-Above set in motion. Magic is his hand at work. This is what these men did not realize."

Jackson looked at the book. His eyes were distant. He was looking through it; past it. "Then prove it."

"What do you mean?"

Jackson gestured at the text. "Prove it. Come up with theories. I'll give you whatever you need. Make your case, like they did."

Chaki shot to her feet. "I'll do just that. First, I need to know about Mathematics. He spoke of it quite a bit. You told me that was how numbers are added and subtracted? I have always been good at counting bison and telling long distances on the plains."

"It gets a little more complicated than that."

"I am up to the task."

Jackson's face turned up in a knowing smile. "You'll need that attitude to survive calculus."

"Calculus? As in, calculating?"

"You'll see for yourself," he said. "Anyway, we've got stuff to do."

"Oh, right," Chaki said. "Were you able to change the game so that you could look at your computer things from my side?"

Jackson shook his head. "I could access the files, but I don't have the software to interface and change the architecture. I'll have to design some sort of shell, but I'm a Modder, not a Hacker."

"What are those?"

"A Modder is someone that does physical modification stuff. I like circuit-level code, and I know a few core machine languages, but I never liked getting into high-brow stuff. Hackers do that part. A lot of times I'll trade favors on my end for favors on their end."

"Umm..." Chaki frowned. "I don't understand."

"I build electronics and make them run. They use them to do fancy stuff."

"Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

Jackson gave her a look. "Because I respect you enough to give you a real answer."

Chaki rubbed her forehead. "I apologize. I feel like I'm absorbing too much at once."

"Until I can get a hacker to look at the files, I won't be going anywhere fast," Jackson said. "And I don't really have anyone I'd trust with Isis anyway, so that's out."

"That's too bad."

Jackson shrugged. "Win some, lose some." He moved toward the empty corner of the room. "You need a different outfit before we go outside."

Chaki glanced down at her dress. "What's wrong with this?"

"You won't fit in." Jackson tapped the wall. Part of it began to shimmer, then fade. It revealed a wooden door that was painted white.

Chaki's hands flew to her mouth. "How did you do that?!"

"It's just a touch screen mimicking the color of the wall. I made this one myself, but you can buy them cheap and just drape them over anything."

"That's incredible. We can make ourselves disappear!"

"We'd need something a little more advanced than that," Jack said. His voice was muffled because he'd opened the door and stuck his head through. His hands ruffled around. He grabbed a thick-looking cloth shirt and tossed it behind himself. "But you could make it happen, with enough cameras. The military has full camo suits, but they're illegal on the street."

Jackson came back out with another heavy coat, a pair of tan pants, and a dark blue shirt. "I'll leave the room and let you get changed," Jackson said. He laid the clothes on the bed and picked up the heavier black jacket. He tugged it over his head. "You'll look like a city chick in no time."

"Jackson. Those are men's clothes."

"Yeah, they are." He opened a drawer under the computer, revealing a junk box stuffed with electronics. He started rifling through it.

"I like my dress just fine, thank you."

"Chaki, you don't exist. You can't be noticed. I'm good at that." Jackson closed the drawer with two dangling pieces in his hand. "The first rule is obvious. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Put the clothes on and meet me outside."

He left the room through the main door. Chaki glanced at the outfit he'd selected, sighed, and pulled her dress up over her head.

After she'd put on the clothes, she realized she was able to see herself a bit in the window, using the reflection. It didn't fit at all – Jackson was too tall. She looked like she was drowning in cloth; there wasn't a feminine bit about her. It scratched and pricked her skin in dozens of places she wasn't used to, especially the pants. How do men wear these things when they have...other parts?

She hesitantly reached for the door handle. It turned easily. She pushed it open.

Chaki's nose immediately discovered why Jackson worked so hard to keep his room scentless. The dim wooden hall was filled with dust; it reeked of the sort of mold that clung to dirty, wet clothes. Bits of rubbish were collected against the walls. Jackson himself was leaning on the wall, twiddling his thumbs.

"What do you think?" Chaki asked.

"Perfect."

"Perfect? I look like a man!"

"You're still too pretty, but I can't fix that," Jackson said. "You'll just have to keep the hood up."

He said it so bluntly that Chaki almost missed the compliment. She smiled – and then she frowned. There was an odd noise in the hall, a sort of echo. It sounded like a woman.

Jackson held out one of the pieces of electronics. "Put this on your head, like me." He gestured to himself. Nestled in his messy hair was what looked like a grey headband.

Chaki slipped it on. It fit surprisingly snug behind her ears. "What's it for?"

"To jam surveillance equipment. Custom design. Most people have basic versions. Yours is a little older, but it'll do - we're not going anywhere we shouldn't. Public cameras are usually the crappiest. Some of them are still analogue."

"Wait, what?"

Jackson rubbed over his mouth with his hand. "Let me see...basically, there are special machines that let people record events and view them later. Like, magical sets of eyes."

"...so...these things make it so that people can't see us."

"Exactly," he said.

"Do people use these eyes often?"

"They're everywhere," Jackson said. "They're called cameras. I'll point them out when we see them. Hood up."

Chaki pulled the hood over her head, tucking her hair into the back. Jackson pulled the string on his own hood tight.

The woman's voice was still there – and it was louder. It almost sounded like shrieking. "Do you hear that?" Chaki asked him.

"Yeah," Jackson said.

"...uh...is that normal?"

"For my mom to fuck some random guy in the middle of the day?" Jackson said. "Semi-occasional occurrence, yeah. Her room's that way." He pointed down the other branch of the hall, to another door. "Let's go."

Chaki duly followed, her brain grappling with what she had just heard. She couldn't imagine her own mother just...doing that, with a man she didn't know.

The smells increased in intensity, shifting from that of age and general uncleanliness to that of nastier things. They came to a larger chamber. There was a long wooden platform crowded with what looked like trays of rotting food. She smelled something like old wheat rising from tall, reflective containers. Behind the platform was a long thing that looked like it was made to be sat on, but it was stained and ripped. She did not feel an urge to sit on it.

Jackson ignored the mess and went for another door. He opened it a crack, glanced outside, then opened it the rest of the way. "We're good. Come on."

The hall outside was even worse than his house. It was all grey, as if chiseled from impossibly smooth stone. There was no decoration; the light was dim. Dust and mold hung in the air; she could almost feel it as she swung her arms.

They started down a long, stepped ramp. The sound of their shoes clicked and clacked off the walls, reverberating back to them. She realized she was still in her moccasins, but her baggy pants almost totally covered them up.

The ramp wound back upon itself several times, ending and restarting at flat square sections. The flat places led to more hallways, with more doors leading off at regular intervals, and yet more hallways past those. It was almost like the prairie in the way everything was so uniform, so similar – but it was also eerie in the extreme. There was no color. No life.

"...why do you live here?" Chaki asked.

"It's cheap," Jackson said.

"That's it? Couldn't you just leave? Live off the land, as my people do."

Jackson didn't answer for a time. He leaned on the hand-rail built at the side of the ramp as they made their way down. Eventually, he just gave his usual shrug. "The land as you know it is dead. There's no place else to go."

Chaki had the feeling that something else made him stay, but she decided not to voice her opinion.

The step-ramps finally ended. Chaki felt like they'd descended into the bowels of the Beneath. She half expected one of Shakhan's guardians to pop out from a doorway and begin some sort of inquisition as to why they dare trod upon sacred ground.

Jackson walked forward along a hall made of the same smooth, grey stone. They passed more wooden doors. They all had the same fat lock and bolt showing on the front. She swore the padlocks glared at her as she walked passed.

And then a set of two glass double doors, a small room, and then more glass doors. It was like passing out of a dungeon. They were outside.

A gust hit her face. Chaki shivered.

Under their feet was smooth grey stone, and this transitioned to a hard, oil-black path marked with white lines that stretched between the buildings. The structures themselves were protruding bulwarks of white-tan-grey stone that rose into the sky. The air was cool and dry, but it tasted like old smoke.

She looked up. They hadn't gone underground – they'd started high, and had walked back to the earth. It was as if she was standing in a canyon formed from the buildings. Far, far above, there was a sliver of sky, patched blue with rolling white clouds. That was the only thing their worlds had in common.

Jackson pointed. "Camera."

She followed his arm, and she saw it. A rectangular box sticking out from a wall, anchored to the stone by fat bolts. It peered down at them with a slimy glint. "Is it watching us?"

"Yeah. But don't worry." He tapped his head. "This disrupts the input to the facial recognition software they use to identify and track people."

"One more time, Jackson."

"They can see us, but they don't know it's us. Basically, it's like we're wearing masks."

Chaki edged closer to Jackson. "Couldn't they just tell us from sight?"

"There's too many cameras for a single person to watch each one," Jackson said. "In a sense, there's so much visual information that they have no choice but to use fancy techniques to search through it when they need something specific. So instead of going through the effort of totally hiding yourself, you just mess up the searching."

"...alright." Chaki said. "Where do we have to go?"

"Follow me." Jackson started down the stone path.

"What is that blackness, there?"

"That's the street, Chaki. It's where the cars go. I told you about those."

"Right, yeah. I remember."

"This is the sidewalk," Jackson said. "The side of the street, where people walk. See? Not that complicated."

"I suppose not."

Jackson glanced over his shoulder, looking down the roadway, then at her. "Avoid the street unless you need to cross to the other side. Always be careful and look both ways."

Chaki kept her eyes darting about. It was so enclosed. She didn't like it.

Another camera. It was moving, turning back and forth where two streets met. It scanned them like a predator seeking prey.

They weren't the only people on the sidewalks; their clothes were mostly the thick wool jackets and pants. No beads, no woven sequins, no leather. The pants tended to have pockets; shiny metal strips ran up the center of the coats. The colors varied from person to person.

A group of women went by; they were the loudest thing she'd heard so far. Chaki stared. Their clothes were the color of fresh vomit, but that wasn't saying much, because they might as well have not been wearing clothes for all that was covered. Their ankles and wrists dangled with shining beads and gemstones. One of the girls wore a headband that had strange translucent lights dancing over it.

"What is wrong with them?" Chaki whispered to Jackson. "They look like slatterns."

"They probably are," Jackson said. "None of our business."

"But – those clothes! And what on Mother Earth was that thing on her head?"

"It was just a headband," he said.

"But the lights!"

"People wear strange shit," he said. "I think that was the V.B.B. symbol."

"What's that?"

"Venus Battle Brigade," he said. "They're a new pop band. A band is a group of people that play music. They make money by charging for tickets to see their shows and selling collections of songs."

"I still don't think I understand the whole money thing."

"One thing at a time." He looked back at her. "You look like a tourist. Walk like me."

Chaki decided not to argue. She imitated him, sticking her hands in her pockets, hunching her shoulders. She kept her eyes on his feet in front of her.

Something shoved her. "Watch it!"

Chaki reeled away from where the man had struck her shoulder. "I'm sorry. Sorry."

The man didn't respond – he just kept walking. Everyone walked the same. Everyone knew exactly where they were going. They looked up only to avoid things. Their eyes never met.

They reached the intersection. There were strange black boxes hanging from metal poles. They held green and red lights. Jackson hit a round metal projection on the pole closest to them; it clicked in under his hand. And then stopped, and waited. Chaki waited with him, wondering what they were doing.

There was a roaring wind. Chaki flinched. She looked to the sound. A massive construct of glass and steel rushed past them. A wind blew in its wake, scattering the trash that was on the sidewalk. "What was that thing?!"

"A car," Jackson said. "Don't shout."

Suddenly, there was a sharp beeping tone. A black box across the street flashed with orange lights depicting a man in motion. A few people that had gathered nearby began to cross the road.

Jackson didn't hesitate, but Chaki lingered, as if afraid to put her toes in cold water. Eventually, the distance between herself and her only guide was more worrying than the threat of another raging car, and she hurried across the black surface. She kept her feet inside the white lines; they felt like a bridge, connecting two pieces of sidewalk. They crossed a metal strip embedded on the...what was the word? Asphalt.

"Why is there metal in the street?"

"Helps increase the accuracy of car guidance systems."

For a moment, Chaki considered asking, and then decided she'd had enough of things she didn't know about. She nodded, and kept walking.

They kept walking, walking, walking. Everything looked the same. There were different types of buildings; most weren't quite so tall. Some had bright signs out front, declaring wares that could be exchanged for specified amounts of money. Some were more popular than others; people moved in and out of a few stores, but others seemed dead.

They turned a corner in front of a storefront. A group of men lingered in front of it, sitting on boxes and the curb. They were smoking something.

Jackson kept his head down, but Chaki looked. The men had black skin, black as ash. She'd never seen anything like it. It was even stranger than Jackson's pale white.

When they were out of earshot, she increased her pace and whispered into his ear. "Is black skin normal?"

Jackson shrugged. "Some people are white, some are black. Some are in-between, like you. It's not a big deal."

Chaki nodded. In fact, she was glad for the variation. Anything to change things up. She felt locked inside this landscape. There were no trees, no plants at all, no water – she hadn't even seen any insects. Nothing.

Color blossomed to her left. There was a tiny green square cut between two buildings. It was grass. Actual soil, with life. She heard the chime of laughter.

The small space was lined with red metal beams. The red paint was chipped and faded, but children hung from them, climbing and playing. A little girl swung from a hanging seat; the structure creaked as she pumped her legs. Blond hair streamed behind her as she moved to-and-fro.

Five cameras dotted the space at regular intervals. There, though, they seemed less like villains, and more like watchful spirits.

There was a canvass behind the play area, set against the wall. It showed several men lined up, holding long sticks. They wore matching green-white speckled clothing. Their hands were raised to their foreheads, and they were poised, looking up, as if seeing something amazing in the distance. There were words along the top and bottom:

Preserve Our Freedoms --- Defend Your Country
Enlist in the G.A.U. Armed Forces Today

"Chaki." She looked over. Jackson was waiting past the play-spot. He waved at her. "Come on."

She skipped along to catch up. They went a block further, and the brief burst of color was gone, swallowed up by the endless city. "I'm glad it's not all like..." She made a gesture. "...this."

"Me too," Jackson said.

"I think I'm starting to understand why you wanted to get away."

"It's not all so boring," Jackson said.

"Boring is not the word I would use," Chaki said carefully.

"I live in a pretty shitty part of town," Jackson said. "Although, most of the sprawl is pretty shitty. I've never been out of the city itself, but we have places like the prairie, too. They're just very far away."

She rubbed her arms. "Too far, if you ask me. By the way, what was that canvas?"

"The poster?" Jackson said. "With the soldiers?"

"Is that what they were?"

"Yeah," Jackson said. "We've been at war for 14 years. Those are pretty common. Look."

Chaki looked. Across the street was another poster, but it was blood red. A dark shape was dropping more dark shapes on cowering people below. "What is that supposed to be?"

"It's a plane, a machine that flies in the sky," Jackson said. "From the Bloc. They're our enemies. It's dropping bombs on people. Bombs are weapons that kill a lot of people."