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  “A lot to choose from.” It was a weak cover. Derva looked up from her menu to favour me with a smile. I’d dissect that one for meaning later.

  “I’ve eaten here a time or two recently,” the Mayor said. “Would anyone be offended if I ordered for us all? There are some excellent dishes on the menu and,” at this point he leaned in and lowered his voice, “if you’re not too bothered, we can share them around. There are some I would like to try and the chef here changes the menu quite often.”

  I waited for Derva to speak first, it was only polite. When she agreed so did I and the sweat of fear that had begun on my lower back evaporated. It was a safe bet to say that the Mayor was quite aware of my troubles and had just bailed me out. My cynical side was telling me he had it all planned, a consummate politician. I didn’t care. He’d saved me from being embarrassed in front of a pretty girl and that was fine with me.

  The Mayor beckoned the waiter over and placed the order. Just to show off, I’m sure, he ordered in the language of the menu. The waiter repeated it back and the mayor corrected the mistakes in pronunciation.

  “Does irritate me, this fashion for resurrecting dead languages,” the Mayor said. “And they don’t even teach their waiters to speak it properly. Pointless.”

  “Well, I didn’t get a word of what either of you said, but if it tastes all right then I won’t mind,” I replied.

  “The future is where it is at, Mr. Hayes. The past is there to be looked at and mulled over. We don’t need to resurrect it. Look where the past got us.” He indicated the walls of the restaurant. “We live in the deep sea, surrounded pressure that could kill us in an instant, with no access to the surface world that is our natural home.”

  Chapter 7

  When the food arrived, I tucked in. I rarely get to eat so well. A diet of processed and flavoured algae impregnated with proteins and vitamins is my normal fare. The occasional piece of fish or seafood was a treat and only after a good week of work. Overfishing in the early years led depleted stocks that had yet to recover, fresh fish is expensive. The algae was cheap and easy to produce, a by-product of the carbon dioxide scrubbing that had to be done to keep our air breathable.

  Over dinner we made small talk and the wine flowed sweet. Derva was making strong inroads into the alcohol, without any seeming effects. I’d put the Mayor in second place and me last. I was taking it carefully, that cynical voice was still there. The one part of the menu I had been able to make sense of, the numbers, had scared me more than the language barrier.

  After the main course, an absolutely delicious mix of fish pieces and lobster in some sort of spicy sauce, I leaned back in my chair and struggled not to undo the top button on my trousers.

  “Not too bad, wouldn’t you agree?” The Mayor placed his knife and fork down on the silver edged plate in front of him.

  “Very tasty. I don’t think I have eaten so well in, well, ever.” I replied. “But, I don’t think you invited me to dinner just to show me a good meal. If you did, thanks.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He took a sip of his white wine. “It was Derva’s idea. She spoke to me this morning of her meeting with you last night and reminded me of past events. I recalled your court case with sadness, though it was overshadowed by your son’s accident three months before.”

  He paused for another sip of wine and I tried hard to keep the lump out my throat.

  “I’d only been Mayor for month when they found him. You have my deepest sympathies for your loss. It means nothing to you, I know, but that day was one of the worst of my whole career. Then the court case, you had no luck there at all.”

  “Would you get to the point, please?” Re-hashing my past was not something I wanted to do. The bar existed so that I could avoid this very thing. I wanted to be polite though. For a start, this was the Mayor, the man in ultimate charge of all our lives, and he was paying for the meal. Until he did, I couldn’t be sure I was getting out of here the rent money still in my account.

  “Sorry. Very upsetting to dwell on the past.” Another sip of wine. “Derva had me thinking and I did a quick bit of digging into your file. Very impressive references and work record up until that, well, you know. Anyway, it occurred to me that a man with your skills, the Fish-Suit licence and experience of working at all depths could be quite useful to the Corporation. I spoke with Head Office about a contract position in the company. A trouble shooter, someone who could drop everything and head off on jobs, get them done with a minimum of fuss and without all the bureaucracy that normally surrounds this kind of work. It didn’t take long for them to agree with me.”

  “This is a job offer?” I needed a drink now and something a lot stronger than the wine I’d had with my main course.

  “Of a sort. You won’t have work every day, or even every week, but we will pay you a retainer and expect you to be ready to go wherever and whenever we say. In-between, you’re free to work on short term jobs. Don’t take on any long term projects. You never know when the company will need you.”

  “The Mayor has spent most of the day negotiating and clarifying this job offer. I know it must seem strange,” Derva paused for a sip of wine, “but he was, and is, very sympathetic to the situation you find yourself in. The accident your boy suffered and the court case can’t be fixed, but he can do something to make life easier.”

  “Very nice of him,” and I turned from those dark eyes to the Mayor, “of you. There are lot of folks in need, why me?”

  “Corin, why not you?” The Mayor finished his wine, poured another glass for himself then topped up Derva’s and mine. “That’s what you need to ask yourself. Sometimes it is better not to question things too much and accept what is being said to you, face to face. I really do feel sorry for your situation and I’m doing something to help you out. Are you in the position to turn it down?”

  He had a point. Hell, many good points and all of them made sense, especially the one about money, the retainer. The only thing I found annoying, the continued use of the word accident to describe what had happened to Tyler. I took a slow drink from my own glass, thinking.

  “How much of a retainer?”

  It was Derva, not the Mayor who answered that one. She passed me an envelope which I duly opened and read the figure inside.

  “When can I start?” I smiled at them both.

  “Come to my office tomorrow and we can sign the contracts.” The Mayor gave me an open smile and raised his glass. “Let’s toast our new employee, Derva.”

  Chapter 8

  Three weeks into the contract and life was good. Even better, I hadn’t had to do a thing for it. I still did the daily contracts and checked the job board every day. Working was better than sitting around my tiny little apartment all on my own. I hadn’t seen Derva since the signing, but the tortoise always beats the hare. Least it did in the story that I used to tell Tyler.

  Breakfast was, as ever, an uninspiring affair. The excitement was the message from Derva in my mail box. Fair enough it was to a meeting in the Mayor’s office at 10am. The tortoise was still in the race.

  I turned up on time and wearing a tie. This time I’d gone for a colour that suited me. Black goes with everything. Creating a good impression was the right thing to do on your first day at work.

  The Mayor’s office was at the top of the city’s central dome. These were the oldest parts of the city and the place where the rents were highest. They were a status symbol for the rich and idle. The workers, like me, lived in the boxes, the cheap additions that the company had bolted on to cope with rising populations. They were hastily put together and took a good deal of looking after. I should know. I’d built a few in my time. Once they’d been stable for a decade or two they weren’t too bad.

  The domes though, they were different. Many were built in the years before the human race was forced to abandon the surface, and built properly. They were dual hulled and transparent. You could see the ocean above the dome which gave the illusion of space and
freedom. People paid a lot for their illusions. Dominating the skyline was the central building that rose all the way to the inner hull. The corporation hadn’t been so garish as to place their name in mile high letters down the building, but you knew who it belonged to. It made that kind of statement.

  # # #

  I rode the elevator to the top floor, the old world classical music was supposed to induce a feeling of calm. By the eightieth floor it was irritating. The doors opened with a melodic chime, some sort of safety feature no doubt, and I was met by Derva.

  In her work clothes she was still stunningly attractive, but now the added authority of business dress conjured all sorts of thoughts and visions.

  “Derva, it is good to see you. To be honest, I thought I’d be met by a foreman or somesuch who’d give me the bare bones of the job. When your receptionist told me to come to the top floor, the Mayor’s office, I was a little surprised.”

  “Corin, I hope you had a good breakfast and a pleasant journey here. I understand there was some congestion between your apartment complex and the central dome.” The standard business response wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I suppose she was on the clock and a certain level of decorum was expected. “The Mayor will brief you on the job in a few minutes. He is just finishing a meeting. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Coffee would be good. Thanks. No whitener or sugar.” I watched her walk to the drinks station in the corner of the room. I would have liked to watch her walk back, but that would be a little too obvious.

  I sat in one of the leather chairs. Probably real leather too, from one of the vat-farms. Bloody expensive stuff. All my furniture was standard plastic, even the bed. The illusion of comfort came from a thin foam mattress and alcohol.

  The coffee tasted dark and bitter. It was one of the few non-alcoholic drinks I enjoyed. There were some of those corporation magazines on the low table and I flicked through them while I waited. Every article focused on some new venture, a successful product, or up and coming member of staff. If you read them all, cover to cover, I don’t reckon you’d actually learn much of how the world worked, but you’d be damn sure that the Corporation should be the centre of your existence.

  “The Mayor is free, please follow me.” Derva came round from behind her desk and waved me through the frosted glass double doors into a large room.

  The Mayor rose from his comfortable seat and walked over to confidently shake my hand. “Good to see you again. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Water would be good.” Two coffees and I’d start getting twitchy.

  “Have a seat, make yourself comfortable, and we’ll get the briefing started.” The Mayor indicated one of the low blue arms chairs. There was no desk in the room. Instead it seemed to be divided up into different areas. The comfy area, the table and chaired meeting area, the small round table supported by a single metal pole was probably the quick meeting area. Every different bit seemed to have its purpose and the comfy area was, I guessed, the briefing area.

  I sank into the most comfortable chair I have ever sat in. As soon as my buttocks touched the fabric, it started to mould itself around me. The back support cushioned and supported at the same time. It was so good that I didn’t even need to do my customary bum shuffle to find the right spot. The whole chair was the right spot. Next to me, a slender column of clear plastic rose from the floor. My glass of water sat on top, with ice cubes delicately chinking and a slice of lime floating between them.

  “Well Mr. Hayes, the day has finally come. We have your first job, and your travel papers.” The mayor smiled as he spoke. “Sorry it has taken so long. We had a few minor, technical difficulties getting your papers released, but they were quickly ironed out. Bureaucracy is ever the enemy of progress.”

  The smile said more than the words. The bureaucracy was likely some corporation lawyer disagreeing with his choice. There is no law in the cities except that which the corporations pay for, and impose. If they can pay for it, they can break it, and they did. The idea of a fair society had drowned a long time ago. It said a lot that he had been willing to argue my case and I picked up my water, dipping it towards him in a small gesture of acknowledgment.

  “What is the job?” I asked.

  “One of our small factory cities near the ridge has reported some stress fractures in its supporting struts and superstructure. Nothing major yet, but they need the struts micro-scanned to determine the pattern and cause,” the mayor said.

  The ridge meant the one down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and, really, ridge was a misnomer. It was a long line, almost ten thousand kilometres, of constantly erupting volcanic mountains and fissures. New land being created in the centre pushed the land either side further apart. The thing is, all that new land is full of minerals and metals ripe for exploitation. With all that land moving, even slowly, the ground under the cities footings was moving too.

  “A pretty standard check then?” I said and couldn’t really see what they needed me for. A single-man sub with the right attachment could do the job. So I asked.

  “This particular city is situated in an area with especially uneven topography. I am given to understand that the footings cannot be accessed by a small sub and that the lack of dexterity in the robot arms is a factor too.”

  I grunted. It made a certain amount of sense. Fish-Suits could work in areas that no one else could reach, or do jobs that needed a high degree of exceedingly careful work. However, there was something I wasn’t being told. A little bump of suspicion began to itch between my shoulder blades.

  “Which city?” I asked.

  “Calhoun.” There was a little flicker of the muscles around his eyes as he said it.

  “Never heard of it.” Which meant it had to be a tiny place or, and this was my main concern, it was a Silent City. “Where is it?”

  There was that flicker again. Guilt or accessing files? The bloody implants had made reading people’s eyes and emotions much more difficult. Poker was dead game these days. “It is in the Faraday fracture zone.”

  I don’t have any in-eyes. I have to rely on the old standby of memory. I could picture a map of the ocean, quite detailed close to this, my home city, and becoming increasingly vague the further away I tried to recall. The Faraday zone was in the far north of the corporation’s zone of influence. Every corporation, big or small, had a zone. Sometimes they were agreed by treaty and mutual consent. Sometimes they were fought over, constantly.

  NOAH, the corporation that owned this city, claimed much of the middle and north Atlantic, from the coast of old North America all the way to the landmass of Europe. The northern border, if you could call the overlapping and fluctuating zones something as permanent as a border, butted up against the zone claimed by VYKN. They claimed all the land under the ice sheets of the North Pole. The Faraday zone was, and this filled me with joy, in that overlapping territory.

  “The Faraday zone? Isn’t that in a contested area?” I asked.

  “Not currently,” he answered. “VYKN have claimed the area, as have we, but we are working with them on a project to exploit the geothermal energy in the area. You’ll need to stopover on the way and transfer to company sub that will take you directly to Calhoun.”

  “When do I leave?” I had my doubts, but I’d been getting paid not to work and it had felt strange. Now I would have to do something to actually earn the money I’d been spending. Switching to company sub meant that either factory town was brand new and no transport company had set up a route yet, or it was the thing I feared, a Silent City.

  “There is passenger sub leaving tomorrow morning,” he said. “Your suit will go into the cargo hold.”

  “I’ll be on it.” I drank the rest of water. “Can you forward the city plans to me?”

  “The plans will be on the company sub. You will have time on board to do all the planning you need.”

  Plans that can’t be forwarded to a company device, secured by their own protocols and web teams, confirmed my fears.
I was going to work in a Silent City.

  Chapter 9

  In my little compartment, I started packing. Into a small bag I shoved, some underwear, a couple of t-shirts, my Fish-Suit undergarments (a smooth, skin tight all-in-one), and a toothbrush. I didn’t own much. There was one other item I needed and I’d have to go out and buy it.

  I left the bag by the door on the way out. The corridor was dark. They always are this far down in the city. Small electric bulbs provided a meagre illumination. Enough to make your way from one to the next in comparable safety, not enough to make out any details.

  The metal grill floor gave a little under my weight, a sure sign that it was old and in need of some maintenance. The latter was unlikely to occur until there was an accident and only then if someone kicked up enough of a stink.

  At the end of the corridor I turned left, then right and left once more to reach the section bulkhead. The door was open. It was always open. The city’s emergency services controlled the doors. They only closed during an emergency and they wouldn’t open till it had passed or everyone was dead. A hull breach, in any part of the city, would trigger these doors to close. There was no manual override. The wheel lock was provided to reassure people. Give them an illusion of control.

  I’d known cities use the bulkhead doors to contain riots, to capture escaped felons or, in some extreme cases during conflicts, to sacrifice part of its population to save the rest. Some cities, those in the ISIS and DHATU corporations especially, had used the doors to solve a religious crisis or two. At least, that’s what I heard.

  Past the bulkhead door, stepping over the raised section into which the door slid, and I started up the stairs. No lifts for those of us at the bottom. I’d been known to stumble down every flight of stairs after a night in the bar. I’d also been known to struggle to reach the top the morning after. This evening it wasn’t too bad and I was only slightly out of breath when I finally staggered out onto the lowest floor of the secondary dome.