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  The holovisions flashed red, “Threatcon 5!”, “Threatcon 5!” People ran for the doors. Some made it through to the street. Then the doors closed and sealed Devin in with the rest. Rebuffed, the late scramblers turned back in a herd towards the claim area. Children were still screaming but the sounds from their incandescent little faces were drowned out by the pulsing security alarm.

  The black shirts appeared, extruded into the calamity through small doors at opposing ends of the claim area. There were ten, then twenty, then thirty of them. Their visors were down, transmitting schematics and target information into their eyes. They were armed with automatic rifles with heat-laser-guided bullets. They jogged though the claim area and back towards the security checkpoint. The alarm blared on.

  Devin moved towards the external doors. Finding a clearing along the wall, he unzipped his bag slightly and stuck his hand inside to explore the contents. He fumbled through the wads of clothing, over his plastic shaving kit, searching for his leather satchel.

  “Where is it?” He asked himself as he fumbled through it. He took his hand out and unzipped the bag some more. He shoved his clothes aside revealing more clothes. Anxious terror set in. He set the bag down and unzipped it all the way. He frantically plunged both hands into the bag.

  “There it is!” He unlatched the satchel and felt inside. The gold coins were still there but only the act of touching the cool metal calmed his racing heartbeat. He refastened the satchel and zipped up the bag.

  The alarms finally stopped. Happy music began to play over the PA system. The screaming and panic instantly subsided. Even the wailing babies followed the cue. Serf-life returned exactly to what is was before the alarm, as if it had never happened.

  “What now?” Devin asked a stranger standing next to him who had just put away his own multi. The man just looked at him bewilderedly and walked off.

  The doors finally opened and the throng squeezed through onto the street. Devin waited for the crowd to disperse.

  “Hey you! Over here!” Devin turned towards the voice. “You need a ride?” asked a fit-looking Asian woman standing on the edge on the curb. Her powerful voice didn’t match her petite frame.

  “Me?” Devin asked pointing to himself.

  “Yes you, not you, yeah you, the black guy. You need a ride?” she shouted back.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then grab your shit and move your ass. I’m triple parked.”

  Devin followed her out into the street. They weaved their way through a gridlock of filthy, buzzing, plastic, bubble cars with silhouette drivers behind yellowed, plexi-glass windshields. Most of the electros were badly scratched and dented. Every car had a ‘Gaia-Cab’ stenciled on their hoods. There was apparently only one cab cartel in this town.

  They came to a car whose driver, a serious looking Sikh fellow, immediately jumped out, exchanged a brief glance with the Asian woman, then darted back through the congestion.

  “Here, give me your bag,” she ordered.

  She opened the hatch and threw his bag into the back. She had to slam the flimsy hatch three times to get it to close properly. She pried the dented back door open with a creak and pushed Devin inside. Then she jogged around to the driver side and hopped in.

  “Nguyen, Ramielle. License number 7734437,” she barked into a lens located below the rear viewfinder.

  There was a click. She pushed a button on the steering control and the faux-engine cranking noise alerted them that the electro was operational.

  “Who was that?” Devin asked about the Sikh who had just traded places with his driver moments earlier.

  Ramielle turned to Devin and glanced upwards towards the ceiling with her eyes. Devin instantly understood. They were being surveilled. In a hushed voice and without moving her lips she explained.

  “He’s my teammate. Five of us rotate four cars. The cabby-guild made it illegal but the only way to get fares without your batteries running out is to go in and get customers. So we run four cars and a hustler at all times.”

  “It’s illegal?”

  “What isn’t illegal these days? Are you a snitch or something? Because if you’re a snitch you can get the hell out of my cab pronto.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Your meter’s running. Do you want me to talk or drive?”

  “Drive.”

  “Where to?”

  “I need a hotel, something cheap, in the city.”

  Ramielle laughed. She pressed the accelerator and the whining, rattling, electro accelerated throwing Devin back into his vinyl seat.

  “Welcome to Gaia-Cab!” chimed a happy-faced, talking globe of the earth that materialized in three dimensions within the glass dividing the passenger compartment from the driver. “We hope you find your trip with us enjoyable! Now, please buckle up. You don’t want us to have to auto-assess your Fedbank account. It’s for your own safety and comfort.” The globe-face waited with an impatient glare while Devin buckled up. “Thank you. And always remember, the mother earth comes first.” The globe faded away.

  “How will it know who to send the fine to?” Devin shouted through the pane as he adjusted the slack in his waist and double-shoulder restraints and then pulled the lateral, Department of Public Safety mandated, basal skull fracture inhibitors close in against his cheeks.

  “Your multi,” Ramielle answered. “Where do you come from, the wilderness or something?”

  “I guess you could say that. I’ve got to change some money in order to pay you.”

  There was a long pause that made Devin uncomfortable. Then Ramielle responded, “How do I know you’re not a nat?”

  “NaPol? Me?”

  “Sit still.”

  Ramielle covertly thumbed through several screens on her multi while she drove. Her multi picked off his identity from his own multi and bumped it up against nine million known NaPol agents and snitches. It came up blank.

  “I think you’re okay,” she said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because no undercover nat who’s Sub-Saharan would ever take the alias Peter Kowalski.”

  They whizzed down a banking slot of concrete, out of the station complex and onto the freeway. Overhead whistled the vulture-like silhouettes of the two hundred metric ton superjets. Long unaffordable for serfs, the skyways belonged exclusively to the cartel big shots, self-absorbed celebrities, and the political elite. Serfs were relegated to the filthy trains.

  The walls of the freeway were lined with five meter ad screens which alternated between product pitches and public service announcements.

  One screen advertised, “Numenor: The Business of Democracy” and pictured a fighter jet swooping up into the sky emitting a red white and blue contrail. Another ad pictured a disgruntled octogenarian lamenting the price of eggs, “Hoarding: It’s not just immoral, it’s criminal!” Still another starred a smart looking ten year girl holding a torch in the pose of the Statue of Liberty with a banner that decried, “Public Education: United Minds for a United States.”

  Over the rims of the ad-walls, Devin spotted the tops of the two hundred story skyscrapers with their gravity defying, faceted, glass architecture.

  “What’s in that building?” Devin asked.

  “Freemerica’s regional headquarters, I think.”

  “What do they make?”

  “They make the news.”

  Overhead, through the yellowed, plexi-glass sun roof, Devin took in the hazy, white sky. The sun was a dull, yellow orb.

  As they merged onto a twelve-lane highway, the plastic cab was buffeted by a vortex cast off by a giant tractor-trailer zooming past at one hundred and forty kilometers per hour. Its wheels alone stood as tall as the roof of their electro. Its exhaust pipes pumped out clouds of black soot as it roared along.

  “God damn diesels!” shouted Ramielle as she steered into the wake of air to prevent her flimsy electro from being blown into the ad wall. “They think they own the road. Actually, they do own it
but you know what I mean.”

  They exited into a concrete canyon with graffiti stained walls. The tags were an incomprehensible urbonic. They turned onto Guevera Boulevard. Ramielle pointed towards a storefront shaded by a faded and cracked marquis that read ‘Pawn’.

  “I’m going to drop you off right here. Go in there and ask for Rigoberto. He’s a big fat Mexican. He can change your money. Try not to be too obvious about it.”

  She parked the electro. The passenger door unlocked and the back hatch opened.

  “Don’t forget to come back out and pay me. If you don’t I’ll put my brother on you, Mr. Kowalski.”

  They exchanged winks as Devin jumped out. He grabbed a handful of coins from his bag and went in through the smudged, automatic glass doors.

  The inside of the shop was dark and musty, illuminated in a greenish hue by a rack of dying chem-lights.

  “Can I help you?” asked a mountain of a man wearing a straw cowboy hat. He stood behind a glass shield that was riddled with the divots of a dozen deflected bullets.

  “As a matter of fact, you can,” answered Devin as he stepped up to the window. “I’m looking for Rigoberto.”

  “You found him. What can I do for you?” He asked feigning enthusiasm.

  Devin reached into his inside coat pocket.

  “If you’re packin’, I advise you to think twice. This store locks down. You’ll be stuck in here until the nats show up. If you’re lucky, you won’t be dead by then,” Rigoberto added with a silvery grin.

  “I’m not packing anything,” Devin assured. “I would, however, like to change these for dollars.” Devin pulled four one ounce gold coins from his pocket. Rigoberto’s black uni-brow rose as his eyes widened.

  “I want you to do me a favor,” Rigoberto explained. “Turn around and walk out the door.”

  “Did I come to the wrong places?” Devin asked, confused.

  “Not at all. Just do what I say,” he mumbled. “As soon as the door closes all the way, turn around and come back in.”

  Devin walked outside and waited for the automatic door to close. The pawnbroker reached under his counter and pushed a touch pad button with his index finger. Devin returned.

  “What was that all about?” Devin asked.

  “I had to shut the surveillance off. I put the cameras on loop mode. Comprende? We don’t want these sorts of transactions recorded if you get my drift.” Rigoberto grinned a wide smile that revealed even more silvery dental work. “Now let’s have a look at what you’ve got there...”

  Devin handed the big man the four gold coins. Rigoberto examined them with a monocle that he swung down over his eye from the sweat-stained brim of his straw cowboy hat. Then he weighed the coins on a scale. Then he placed them in a small steel box, closed the lid and punched in some numbers on a touch pad. The device beeped a few seconds later and Rigoberto read the results to himself. His lips moved slightly as he read. His pupils dialated. His uni-brow rose again.

  “Where’d you get these?” he asked excitedly.

  “They came from my grandmother,” Devin answered. ”She recently passed.”

  “Yeah, right, and I moonlight as a matador.”

  There was a startling knock at the automatic door. Outside stood a belligerent looking white kid with a shaved head and a long black beard.

  “We’re closed! Go away!” Rigoberto shouted. “God damn neo-hajis.” He scanned the coins again through his monocle. “Okay, so here’s the deal, these coins are good quality. The analyzer says they’re fifty percent pure. I’ll give you $75,000 each.”

  Devin laughed. “Give me my coins back. I’ll go somewhere else.”

  “Do you want to see the read out on my analyzer? You can check it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  “Why would anyone give a shit about your analyzer readout when you have a scale? You know what these coins weigh and that means you know what they’re made of. Give them back please so I can take my business elsewhere.”

  “Wait a second. Hold on,” intervened the fat man. “There’s no need to be rude. We can work something out.”

  “Those coins are ninety-nine percent pure,” Devin explained.

  “Okay, okay, okay. Easy mi amigo. Easy. Where did you get these? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen rands down here.” The neo-haji started banging on the door again. “Hey, what did I say? Get the hell out of here before I come out there and rip your goddamn phony beard off! Okay, easy. Sorry about that kid. All righty, now. So you tell me then, what do you want for these?”

  “Last I checked, gold is at $159,000 an ounce. I know you gotta make a living so I’ll be generous. How about $130,000 each?” The Mexican rubbed his neck. Then he took off his straw hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “The price goes up every day,” Devin added.

  Rigoberto’s lips began to move as if he were talking through calculations to himself. His uni-brow dropped giving his face a shrewd expression. “Okay,” he replied as he punched in some numbers into another touch pad on the counter. “You got your multi?” Devin held it out. “Just waive it!”

  Devin passed it by the touch pad that was bolted to the sheet of bullet riddled plexi-glass. It emitted a click. ‘$520,000’ appeared on its surface.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place,” Rigoberto advised. “Is there anything else I can do for you, amigo? Need uh, how should I say this, protection?”

  “I think I’m good, thanks.”

  Devin turned to leave the pawnshop. The neo-haji outside pounded on the door again.

  “Do me a favor and tell muchacho out there to wait until the door closes before he comes in. I gotta get a good splice on the survy-loop.”

  “Will do, thanks again.”

  “Come again.”

  Devin left the shop and advised the bearded kid to wait for the door to close but the punk paid him absolutely no heed, storming directly into the shop. Devin heard the Pawnbroker cussing him out in Spanglish as he slipped back into the cab.

  “How’d it go?” Ramielle asked.

  “Good. Can you take me to a hotel?”

  “Fancy or cheap?”

  “Some dump somewhere,” he responded. “Someplace anonymous.”

  “I’ve got just the place. It’s two blocks away.”

  The Gaia-cab whizzed and rattled down the concrete thoroughfare and stopped at the Baldwin Hotel. The building was a smooth, gray, boxlike structure some thirty stories tall. Black stains oozed down from the windows along the building’s gray facade.

  “That’ll be eight thousand one hundred dollars, please,” came Ramielle. “Wave your multi.” Devin held it out and the device emitted another click. “I gave you my contact info as well. Give a call if you need something or even if you don’t,” she said with a wink.

  Chapter Five

  Devin’s room at the Baldwin had one window overlooking the littered and filthy Mugabe Boulevard some sixty meters below. The window was propped open by a piece of wood and its sheer gray curtains fluttered in the cool morning breeze.

  Devin had been lying motionless in his bed for several minutes, blankly staring up at the ceiling fan. This was his first morning in Amerika and he was contemplating his plan to conquer the land of opportunity.

  First, he needed to find a temporary job, one that would enable him to meet people and build a network. Then he could begin to identify the gullible and pathetic. He would befriend them. He would earn their trust. They would invite him into their homes. He would charm their families.

  With the groundwork laid, he could then sell them on some scheme. Schemes were his specialty. He wouldn’t ask them to join in outright, that would be far too vulgar. No, he would capture their imagination first with tales of spectacular, riskless profit. Eventually, they would willingly walk into his trap.

  The willing make easy prey. They want to believe so badly that they ignore the alarms. By the time their concerned friends and family brought them back to reality it would be too late. Devin would
be off to another city and another victim.

  He turned on the room’s holovision. There were 999,999 preset feeds from which to choose. There used to be a billion or so until the Cyber Security Act handed control of the net to Freemerica under the auspice of national security. At the request of NaPol, they rationed the bandwidth and licensed the content, restricting what was available to what was determined to be in the best interests of the country.

  Preset One was Citizenet. The morning news was on.

  “American led democratic forces are engaging the freedom-hating insurgents of Nigeria. Unmanned, peacekeeping bombers drop two hundred precision-guided bombs on the village where the insurgents are holed up. Sources indicate that 19 freedom-haters have been terminated.”

  Devin switched to 300. It was pornography. He flipped to 400. Hang gliding accidents. He flipped to 500. Salmonella epidemic, fifty deaths nationwide! Failure to follow Federal Regulations is the culprit. All chickens are to be euthanized by executive order. Congress has drafted a $100 Billion emergency fund. Channel 100: Feeling tired? Try Neuroboost. 129: Talk show with drug addled senior citizens. 150: Combat footage from the Phillipines. Ten Americans killed in operation Restore Liberty. 250: Feeling sad? Try Mentanol. 299: Politician railing about the epidemic of obesity and what government has to do about it. More sin taxes on the way. 350: Gascar racing. 387: Cooking with Synthoil. 450: Televangelist reporting that the end is nigh.

  “No shit,” Devin thought to himself.

  Channel 275: Traffic, weather and sports every minute. 72: Car pileup on W670, 5 dead. Video of a nat nonchalantly tossing a child’s severed hand into a plastic bag. 274: 65 car pileup on W670. Three dead, no wait, the reporter touched his ear, five dead. 273: Brass nose rings and simulated gold lip discs for sale. 272: Earth’s magnetosphere collapsing at an alarming rate! Manmade electronics too blame. Expect annihilation by solar radiation in less than fifty years unless we legislate radio rationing! 271: Next generation multis for sale. 270: One hour breast enlargement, only $16,000. 999: Remember, tampering with your child’s bio-ID is a felony! 269: Fetish porn.