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“Next elevator transport is in seven minutes,” Enzo said.
He followed the kid toward the massive carbonized ribbon that rose overhead and disappeared into the orange haze of the sky. It looked like a black featureless skyscraper whose top was invisible from the ground.
“How does this work?” Eustis asked.
“Man, I’m afraid of how dumb you are,” Enzo said. “Top’s in geosynchronous orbit. The ribbon is,” Enzo stopped and pointed, “anchored to the ground. Ribbon keeps the orbital docking station from flying off into space. Did I use any words you don’t know?”
“I know the concept of a space elevator,” Eustis said. “I mean, how do we ride it? I’ve never been on one.”
“Wait, what?” Enzo said. “You’ve never left Earth?”
“Well,” Eustis rubbed the back of his neck. “I haven’t needed to, but now, well, I need to get to Musk City. I have a very important mission to—”
“Were you lying about being able to fix the transponder?” Enzo asked.
“No, I really can,” Eustis said.
“Ok, so what’s the transduction eccentricity of an oscillating—” Eustis interrupted, knowing the rest of the question.
“Easy. It’s 2.34 unless it has a nine-pin transcoder coupling, then you’d have to retrofit the encapsulator unit to communicate in a digioscilating matrix-style base code. In which case, it’d still be 2.34, but it would be in a truncated form of reverse binary, so technically 2.31.”
“Oh,” Enzo said. “That actually makes sense. I thought the transponder might need to be transcoded, but I wasn’t sure what the—” The kid paused. “Anyway, we’ll look at it when we get there. Well, you know your comms stuff, for sure, but you’re about to enter the most dangerous environment mankind has ever known. Just do what I say, and it should be fine. Either that, or you might die. Really it’s at about twenty-eighty, I’d say. Eighty being your chances of dying.” He didn’t wait for Eustis to answer. They returned to walking and made their way toward the up-shuttle station.
Eustis let his eyes follow the ribbon toward the sky. A speck, nearly impossible to see, clung to the black thread that hung from the atmosphere. It was descending toward their location. They sat at the terminal with a few hundred people around them.
“When we get on, go straight up to level two of the elevator. Captain and Rudwick will stay on one, so they won’t see you up there.” Eustis nodded.
With every minute, the elevator’s apparent size doubled. When it reached the ground, the speck had become a box as big as a house. It was a rounded multi-deck cylinder covered in windows. On its arrival, the crowd stood and moved toward the transport. Enzo silently pointed and rose, gesturing for Eustis to follow.
When its doors opened, about two hundred people streamed out of the massive elevator. The chaotic murmur surrounded them as they pressed toward the giant lift. When the arrival group had exited the skyward tram, Eustis’ mob began to squeeze into the cramped space.
The crowd narrowed near the door. Each passenger was reaching out toward a terminal next to the hatch. Two guards with plasma rifles stood like statues at the opening. The broad-shouldered one had stern eyes that scanned the parade of passengers, while the other appeared utterly indifferent to what was happening around him.
Eustis noticed that the line of people streaming onto the elevator were all waving an empty hand over the terminal. Eustis turned to Enzo.
“What’s—”
“Chip,” the kid said as he pointed to his wrist.
“But I don’t have a chip.” Eustis wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. He felt his face tighten. Enzo nodded calmly.
“Just swipe your hand over the terminal, and I’ll handle the rest.” Enzo smiled. “It’ll be like you’re my pet.” They were being shoved from all sides. It felt like being pressed into a pasta maker for human flesh. Enzo went first through the glass doors. He scanned his wrist, the terminal blinked green, and he stepped into the transport. Once the kid was in, Eustis was exposed and alone in a crowd of strangers. Enzo had crossed the line, and Eustis was eager to do the same.
He reached out to the scanning terminal. Instead of green light, a loud squawk pierced the chaotic noise of the crowd, and a red light illuminated the terminal. Without intending to, Eustis’ eyes sprang to where the fat guard had been standing on duty. He found the barrel of a plasma rifle pointing directly into his left pupil. He followed the length of the gun with his eyes and discovered a uniformed agent attached to the handled end.
“You don’t scan green you don’t ride.” The guard barked.
“I just—” Eustis began to speak. Before he could get three words out, Enzo was at his side once more.
“Dad, come on. We’re going to miss Aunt Effy’s funeral,” Enzo said. Eustis looked down at the kid and lowered his eyebrows. The guard swung his gun and pressed the barrel hard into Enzo’s chest.
“Step back, kid. This is between your dad and me.”
“It’s just a bad scan, Sir. My daddy’s chip takes a second scan sometimes.” Enzo's voice was childlike. It was an impressive transformation. Eustis was about to speak up, but Enzo moved so quickly that he didn’t know what was happening.
With lightning motion, Enzo grabbed Eustis’ hand with his left and lifted Eustis’ wrist up and over the scanning terminal. Eustis looked down as the terminal flashed green. The guard glanced at it and lowered his gun.
“Ok, Dr. Gatti,” the guard said. “You and your son are free to go.”
“Dr. What?” Eustis asked, looking down at his wrist. “I don’t—” He opened his mouth to say more, but Enzo wrapped his fingers around his arm with an aggressive grip. He tugged Eustis onto the transport.
Eustis stared at his wrist as more people squeezed in behind. Enzo let go of his arm and stood next to him in the crowd.
Eustis pivoted. “How did you do that?” Enzo smiled and pointed to his left wrist, the opposite he had scanned himself in with. “I don’t get it.”
Enzo leaned close. “They didn’t scan you,” Enzo said. “Technically, you’re not on this transport, Pet.”
“So what happened?”
“When I waved your wrist over the terminal, it caught a signal from my chip,” Enzo whispered. “Pretty savvy, right?”
“But you can’t be scanned twice on the same chip, can you?”
“It’s not the same chip.” Enzo held up both wrists now. Eustis’ eyes darted between them as he made sense of it. “If I scan my right, I’m Enzo Gatti, innocent, unassuming kid. If I scan my left, I’m, well, someone else. Or, in this case, you’re someone else.”
Eustis brought his voice down to a whisper. “You have two chips? That’s illegal, right? How did you get an extra?
“Captain always says, ‘use the system to beat the system.” Enzo looked at the crowd ushering in. “Ok, dude. Captain and Rudwick are coming. Hit the upper deck. I’ll come find you in a while.”
“Ok,” Eustis said as he clutched his duffle and drifted in among the crowd. “Hey, kid.” Enzo looked over his shoulder. “Thanks. I owe you.”
“I know. Now, get lost,” Enzo said as he turned back toward the thronging crowd streaming onto the transport. Eustis ducked and looked for the stairs to the second level.
He found a spot by a window and watched the hundreds of people entering the transport from a second-level cupola. In a few minutes, all the passengers had entered the ferry. A recorded voice came over the speaker as the doors below closed. Eustis’ ears popped as the pressure in the capsule changed. He watched out the window, not realizing, at first, what he was looking for.
“Thank you,” Eustis whispered as the up-shuttle lurched and began to rise. Eustis watched the ferry station shrinking below and the marketplace beyond. Although a world’s worth of bustle was mingling below, and dozens of aircraft were flying around in the low-level airspace around the exterior of the elevator, one, in particular, caught Eustis’ attention. He put his hands on the window’s glass and leaned forward as far as he could to see.
A black GovCorp fighter craft with blinking red lights, zoomed up, flying like it was in a hurry. It circled the premises below twice and then began pitching upward. Climbing effortlessly toward the elevator, toward Eustis’ position. The elevator pod was a few hundred meters high when the GovCorp cruiser matched altitude. The nose of the craft pointed at the rising pod as it orbited upward around the moving location.
Eustis stared through the window as the fighter craft rose slowly. With its nose pointing directly at his location, the aircraft slowed and held formation. It had spotted its target. The hatch of the cockpit opened and hinged back out of the way. Eustis stepped back from the window as a dark-clad man rose up from the pilot’s seat. His hair was tossed violently by the gusting wash of his hovering fighter craft. The man’s soulless eyes stared through the glass, the only thing separating Eustis from Admiral Kynig Strafe.
The Admiral made a hand gesture, and Eustis’ cortical display pinged a notification. Eustis didn’t respond at the first ring, but the notification was persistent. He waved his hand, bringing the comm online reluctantly.
“Hello,” Eustis said. Stupid. Who says hello to their killer?
“Eustis Wade Grimes,” Admiral Strafe said. His voice could have been made by the friction of two metals, and it would still sound more human than what came over the comm. The noise of his fighter’s engine roared in the background, and he had to shout to be heard. “So, you’ve decided to run.”
“No,” Eustis said. “I mean—It’s just that—I,” Eustis tried but couldn’t put together a clear sentence.
“That’s good. It’s more fun that way.” The admiral made another hand gesture. “I’ll see you soon.” The cockpit hatch started closing as Admiral Strafe sat back in the pilot seat. The aircraft spun in place and zoomed away. Eustis stared after it. His heart was beating fast, and his stomach was as tight as a pressure vessel. He looked out the window, breathing heavily and trying not to puke.
