444

Art by Mackenzie von Pingel - 2021

Gripping the stolen bag over my shoulder, I ran through the crowded streets of Lower San Francisco. Hover vehicles and repulsorlift speeders whizzed past as my feet pounded against the narrow sidewalks. I could hear the officers closing in on me, their NC-15 rifles drawn.

I took a sharp left and slid underneath a fluid pipe, turning into a narrow alley. Underground cities had these pipes everywhere, carrying water from the saltwater refineries nestled against the oceans.

I reached up and grabbed another pipe above my head, using all the upper-body strength I had to lift myself on top of it.

“There he is!” an officer yelled as the patrol rounded the corner, “Stun him!”

Blazing green bolts of energy collided with the pipe. I struggled to keep hold as its plastic shell shattered. Pressurized water sprayed out of its open end.

I scampered up the rest of the pipe as the officers below were hosed with dirty water. I reached the roof and glanced down at the officers choking and cursing through torrents of water.

“Good thing you guys got a bath!” I shouted. “You were starting to smell!”

“Get that damn kid!” an officer yelled.

I chuckled as I raced across the metal-plated roof. The stolen bag was still in my hands, its leather straps trailing behind me. I jumped across a gap separating two roofs and continued running, the sound of boots against the metal echoing with every step.

The communication gauntlet on my wrist made a quick noise, and I clicked the orange button on its panel.

“Hey there. A bit busy right now,” I managed to say as I jumped across another gap.

“Busy indeed,” a voice replied from the device. “You caused quite a commotion down there. What’d you do, set off a Y16?”

“Very funny, Sal.” I slid under another fluid pipe. “Are you ready for the pick up?”

“Locked and loaded,” he replied. “And Cayden, be careful with the package.”

“I’ll try my best.”

I ended the transmission.

I glanced over the edge of a building just long enough to see several officers pushing their way through the crowd below.

WOOSH!

A rocket trooper propelled himself up from an adjacent rooftop. I rolled behind a radiator, watching the trooper had landed on the roof. He sported shining black armor and a Beta-Class “Punisher” rifle.

“No sign of anyone up here,” he called into his comlink.

My gauntlet flashed, emitting its notification sound.

“Not now Sal! Not now!” I hissed.

The trooper turned towards my hiding spot. “There you are!”

I did an awkward somersault to one side, barely missing the blazing bolt of energy from the trooper’s rifle. In one fluid motion I jumped back up to my feet, drew my blaster, and fired. The small blast harmlessly ricocheted off of his armor’s metal plating.

“Reinforcements to the southern downtown rooftops!” the trooper called into his comm.

I charged straight towards his legs just as he was about to reload his gun. The trooper activated his jetpack and I flew off with him. I tightened my grip around his legs, watching the buildings below shrink and the roof of the underground city approach. The trooper dove back towards the rooftops, twisting through the air to get me to let go.

He grunted, and managed to kick me in the chest. I tumbled towards a nearby rooftop.

As I impacted the metal plating, pain shot up through my left leg. I groaned, taking a moment to lean on an air filtration system. I sprained my ankle. I tightened the bag over my shoulder. My hands shook as I loaded another energy cartridge into my blaster.

“Damnit, Sal! You gave away my position!” I yelled into my gauntlet.

The trooper hovered overhead, pitching back for round two.

“Sorry, kid,” Sal’s voice responded, “Where are you at? We’re gonna’ have to improvise here.”

“South side of the city, near Farsight,” I leapt behind another radiator as the trooper fired, scrap metal flying into the air in a shower of sparks and smoke. “Will you be here in time?”

Sal chuckled, “You think I’ve won all of those speeder races for looking pretty?”

I was about to say something snarky in return but was interrupted by the sound of a roaring repulsor engine. My hair whipped to one side. Again, I steadied myself on the air filtration system.

“Got to go!” I yelled. “I’ve got more friends on the way…”

A large shape came into view, slowly ascending to the height of the rooftops. The roaring engines of the troop transport vehicle blasted me off my feet. I cried out as my ankle hit the ground.

The aircraft landed on the roof to my left. Its landing hatch opened. and a dozen armored soldiers exited, their guns drawn as they surveyed the area.

“Whatever’s in this bag better be worth it,” I muttered into my wrist comlink. “I’ve got a whole squad of ‘em up here!”

“It must be valuable then.” I could practically hear the greed in Sal’s voice. “I’m getting close! Be ready to jump!”

“Jump?” I yelled back.

“Hand over the bag!”

The squad surrounded me, their weapons aimed at my head. A leading officer stepped forward and I could see his brooding face through the slits of his helmet.

“Sal…” I started to back away as they continued forward.

The officer gestured for his troops to hold their position, then turned towards me.

“This can be finished a lot easier, kid, if you just hand over that bag.”

My gauntlet crackled with static. I heard the roaring engine of a racing speeder approaching the bottom of the building.

“I’m here, Cayd. Jump!”

“You know,” I said to the officer, “I’d love to stay and chat… but I’ve got places to be. See ya!”

I closed my eyes and stepped off the building.

In that odd moment of freefall, the moment when your stomach leaps up into your chest as you descend, I thought about the risk of the whole situation. What was I doing? Was I in over my head? Was breaking into that upper city government facility really worth all of this? Wait. There was money involved. I needed the money. I needed to get out of the underground and into the fresh air. The bag was my ticket out--my ticket to freedom. I couldn’t let that slip away. I couldn't--

I hit the leather back seat of Sal’s open topped, souped up 2121 racing speeder.

Sal shifted into gear and we took off racing down the street.

“Did you close your eyes when you jumped again?” Sal made a quick turn onto Jarvin Street, his mess of curly black hair bouncing with every movement.

“Maybe…”

Sal rolled his eyes, the type of gesture that for some reason made girls swoon.

“You have the bag?”

“Do you think I’m an amateur?” I replied.

“You did just take a blind jump off a three story building…”

“Whatever. Let’s get to Anya,” I said, “and fast.”

“You didn’t even have to ask.”

The speeder's engine roared, and zipped through downtown, the slums and streets of Lower San Francisco whizzing past us. The bright street lamps, neon signs, and dingy establishments faded into blurs around us as Sal navigated through traffic.

We took another sharp turn, drifting past a fruit stand, narrowly missing its shopkeeper. Sal shifted into reverse, whirling around the intersection, and shifted back, sending us lurching forward at a ridiculous speed.

I turned behind us and was able to make out three police speeders passing by the fruit stand, narrowly missing a hover bike passing in the opposite lane.

“We’ve got company!” I shouted to Sal over the engine.

“Grab the gun in the back!” he called back.

I bent, leaned forward and dug underneath the seat, finally lifting up the heavy frame of a 555 sniper rifle.

“This thing’s huge!” I remarked.

“You’re expecting to be able to shoot ‘em with that little pistol of yours?”

I made a face and loaded the rifle with a clip. I swung its barrel around, resting it on the back seat and aimed at the approaching speeders. My finger hovered over the trigger, looking for the perfect opportunity. The speeder entered my sights, and I took my shot.

The police speeder flipped into the air, careening onto its side as it crashed into a nearby building. Sparks, debris, and scrap metal cascaded into the air. A direct hit: I’d hit its repulsors.

“Nice shot!” Sal yelled, turning the wheel to narrowly avoid a loose turbo-engine. “Next time, less debris that I could potentially hit!”

We took a sharp left turn into an alley and the speeder screeched to a stop.

“Get out!” Sal jumped out of the racer.

I hopped out of my seat, the sniper rifle still in my hands, and scanned the alley for any potential threats. We appeared to be alone, albeit a few piles of trash and faded graffiti. Sal beckoned me forward, and we ducked into an intersecting passageway. I heard the police speeders whizz past behind us, still continuing down the main streets.

Sal pounded on a metal door, and it immediately slid open. A young woman with frizzy, red hair and goggles stepped into the darkened alley, a set of custom goggles resting on her forehead and grease covering her pale face.

“You’re late!” She had her arms crossed and was glaring directly at Sal.

“Sorry, Anya,” Sal apologized, “blame the kid.”

“It’s good to see you, Cayden. It’s been a while since we did that job in LA,” Anya said to me warmly. She turned to Sal, “Inside. Now.”

“No matter what I do, she still hates me,” Sal muttered, wiping off some of the grime on his face.

We followed Anya into the building. The room we entered was dimly lit, only illuminated by a small hydrogen light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The workshop overflowed with tech, disassembled androids, and broken computers. A small workbench sat in the corner, a monitor and a hard drive glowing on top of its dirty, metal surface.

“The bag?” Anya held her hand out to me.

I handed her the package and she carefully unwrapped its contents.

“Any complications in the upper facility?”

“Just a surveyor android,” I shrugged. “But I managed to take him out with a blaster bolt. I avoided most of the security through the vents.

“We were lucky,” Sal said.

Anya chuckled, “Lucky? I designed those vents. It’s thanks to my hard work that Cayd managed to sneak in.”

Sal rolled his eyes.

“What is it?” I asked, hoping to change the subject before this turned into another argument.

Anya had removed most of the cloth and plastic sheets covering the contents of the bag. Sitting on the desk was a small, circular container of sorts. It was no larger than the barrel of a gun, yet thin enough to fit beneath a door frame.

“A storage disk,” Anya examined its shining chrome finish. “It’s an older model. From 2090 or so… The information on it must be just as old.”

“Hargun said it was valuable!” Sal exclaimed, “All we got was this moldy thing?”

“While I tend not to trust Hargun on everything, old doesn’t necessarily mean cheap,” Anya pressed her finger lightly on Sal’s nose, “and information is often more valuable than money.”

Sal rubbed his nose sheepishly as Anya walked over to her monitor.

“Can you get the information out of it?” I asked.

Anya plugged the disk into a slot in one of her computers and began typing furiously on the touch screen keyboard. “My computer should be able to download and display the data…” She clicked a few buttons on her panel, then straightened her posture. “Aha!”

A small window popped up on the monitor with the words “Project Aria” displayed in big, bold letters.

“It’s a government file,” Anya muttered as she scrolled through the window.

“On what?” I asked, leaning over her shoulder.

“I don’t know. Some sort of scientific program…” She clicked a file and a crisscross of dots and lines illuminated on the screen. “What’s this?”

Sal placed his hand on Anya’s shoulder and leaned over. “Some sort of star map. We studied this sort of stuff at the pilot’s academy, for navigation and whatnot.”

“Well what’s it showing?” I asked.

Sal’s eyes scanned the screen. “There! That’s the only thing marked on this map. Some sort of star system.”

Anya zoomed in on a small white circle in the corner of the screen. Just as Sal said, one of the circle’s planets was highlighted with a faint blue glow. Bolded letters labeled it as “Planet 444: Inhabitable”.

“Inhabitable?” Sal asked.

“It means it’s like Earth,” Anya said. “People can live there.”

“What?” Sal asked. “Wouldn’t we have heard about this sort of thing? Wouldn’t they announce a discovery like this?”

“No…” Anya said. “No… I don’t think they would. The facility you broke into, Cayd. It was a research facility. What sort of research?”

“Hargun had mentioned Lunar Craft,” I said. “Whatever New America used in the 2060’s.”

“They barely talked about the colonization project. The whole Lunar dispute with China? Almost all of it came out a year after the fighting had ended,” Anya explained. “They could easily keep something like this a secret too.”

“An entire planet?” Sal said. “And an entire research team sworn to secrecy? Seems unlikely.”

“I worked on renovating that facility,” Anya said, “but I had no knowledge of what they did and why they did it. It would be the perfect coverup. Nobody would have any reason to suspect they’d be hiding something.”

“But why would they cover it up?” Sal asked.

“To keep it for themselves,” Anya said. “Think about it: all of those resources could be used, all that land to colonize. Imagine what happened with New America and Mars--or Japan and Titan, but with an added benefit of secrecy. No public opinion or laws to interfere with their operations… They can do whatever they want there. They could shape the planet into their own design. They’re so far away, no one could suspect a thing.”

I ran my hand through my hair and took a deep breath. “What do we do now? The feds are going to be searching all over for this thing, and they know we have it. They know what I look like.”

“We could sell it,” Sal said. “There are tons of other governments who’d be willing to pay millions--maybe billions--for this: Texas. New Russia, the Republic of China, Japan…”

“Then what, their government exploits it for themselves? This is information capable of starting a war, something much more serious than the Lunar War,” Anya countered. “I say we use the information. I know a guy who has a ship. With a few mods and a new engine, we could be on our way to a new world.”

“You’re delusional! You know that?” Sal laughed. “You really think that we can make it across space in a lunar rigger? Just three of us? Traveling lightyears away to a planet we have no information about? They could’ve destroyed it at this point!”

“I’m just looking for a better life for you and…” Anya faltered, “and me. You and me. Getting arrested for selling government secrets is certainly not part of that plan.”

“Guys!” I interrupted.

They both looked over to me as if realizing that it wasn’t just the two of them in the room together. Anya looked shaken. Sal looked lovestruck.

“We’re not doing either of those,” I said. “We need to release the information.”

“Release it?” Sal said.

“You heard me. They kept this from us for, what, more than fifty years now? Anyone should be able to go if they want to. It’s not up to us, and it’s definitely not up to them. You want a better life. I bet you there are millions of other people who’d like to rocket themselves off of this sinkhole to a better, safer life.”

“You really expect the public to use this for good?” Sal asked.

“No… but he has a point,” Anya remarked. “We’d be just as selfish if we used it for ourselves.”

Sal scratched his head, “We’ll be tracked down for this you know…”

“We’re already wanted,” I said. “What’s a little more of a bounty on our head’s going to do? Especially if we’re on our way across the stars by then…”

I could tell Sal was thinking about his options, weighing the danger and profit of each, as he always does.

Finally, he sighed. “Always so noble, aren’t you?” Sal grumbled. “If we sold it, we’d at least get paid.”

Anya’s fingers danced across the keyboard. “I’ll be able to send this to everyone’s mobile devices and gauntlets. It’ll just take a bit of time to upload--”

She was interrupted by a loud pounding on the door.

A gruff voice called from outside, “This is the LSFPD, open up!”

“I’m guessing that’s not a delivery drone,” Sal said.

Anya typed faster. “You two guard the door! I’ll finish the upload.”

“You’d better hurry,” Sal warned as he grabbed his rifle. “They don’t seem too happy.”

“I can’t really make it go any faster!” Anya hissed.

More pounding echoed against the door.

I loaded my pistol and leaned next to the door frame. Sal took position on the other side.

“This is your last warning!” the voice outside the door yelled.

“Anya...” I said.

“It’s uploaded!” Anya announced in excitement, “I just need to send it--”

The front door burst off its hinges, and a small explosion shook the workshop. Smoke and sparks burst into the room, and the three of us were all knocked off our feet.

“Hands in the air!”

Several officers emerged from the haze, rifles pointed at our heads.

I coughed and silently followed the orders. Sal dropped his rifle to the ground. The same leading officer entered the building, his eyes piercing into me through the slit of his helmet.

He held out his hand to Anya as another officer handcuffed her arms behind her back. “I believe you have something of ours.”

“More like you’ve been keeping something from us,” Anya growled.

The leading officer chuckled. “Who is this us?” He scanned the room. “All I see is three criminals hiding amongst rubbish.”

“We know what’s on the disk,” I said.

“Oh really?” the officer turned to me. “And why would that make any difference? Will people really believe what you say? Who will they trust? The word of a drag racer? An ex-engineer? A lowly thief?” He emphasized each syllable, his diction dripping with disgust.

I looked at Anya. She had started to struggle with the officer holding her. She managed to back him up into her computer. I gave her a brief look and she returned it with one of her own; she wanted me to keep talking.

Good thing that was my specialty.

I turned back to the lead officer, putting on my best smile.

“They might not believe it, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to try. In order to overthrow corruption, you have to start somewhere.” I managed to move closer to him, dragging the officer holding my wrists with me. I looked him straight in his eyes as I emphasized each word carefully, “Or does that humiliate you? That your secret has been discovered by a drag racer? An ex-engineer? And a lowly,” I spit at his feet, “thief? Who’s going to be hurt more? Us, or your fragile ego?”

The officer curled his lip, “It will hurt you, Cayden Hayes. Trust me,” his eyes were filled with a cold, manic malice, “I will make it hurt. This is your last chance, Hayes. Where is the disk? Or my gun makes a dent in your forehead.”

I looked at Anya. She gave me a knowing look.

I turned back to the officer, “I’m pretty sure this is going to hurt you.”

Anya leaned backwards, putting her whole weight behind herself. She and the officer holding her slammed into the computer. I swung my arms around, pushing my officer towards the wall. Sal kicked his officer in the leg, breaking free from his grasp, and lunging towards our weapons.

“Cayd!” he called. He tossed me my pistol.

I loaded it and fired in one fluid motion, shooting at an officer on the ground scrambling to grab his own gun.

“Anya!” I said. “Send it out!”

Anya scrambled towards the computer, still handcuffed. Another officer collided with her, slamming her against the wall. Sal turned his rifle around. His finger hovered over the trigger. He couldn’t get a clear shot. Anya was in the way.

The leading officer growled in frustration, and shot Sal’s rifle. As Sal fired, the bolt of energy collided with the barrel of his weapon. Sal’s shot flew towards the single lightbulb on the ceiling. It exploded, sparks flying across the room.

I reloaded again, taking a shot at the leading officer. He fell to the ground clutching his chest. I turned to the officer holding Anya. I pulled the trigger and he fell to the floor, smoke emanating from his helmet.

Anya rushed back over to her keyboard. Sal aimed at the leading officer. I followed suit.

The room smelled of blaster fire and burnt flesh. The rest of the officer’s comrades laid on the floor, smoke curling from their wounds.

The officer snarled, “You realize that if you kill me, more people will come looking for you.” Blood trickled from underneath his chestplate. “You sell that disk, and we find you in an instant. You’ll be running for the rest of your life.”

“We’re not planning on selling it,” I said.

“It’s sent!” Anya called from her desk. “Every device in New America just received the file.”

One by one, each of Anya’s computer monitors and devices sounded with the notification, their screens illuminating the workshop. The sounds and lights started closer to the computer, slowly expanding outward until the room was a symphony of chimes and notifications. My own wrist comm flashed before the multi-colored light show seemed to escape into the world outside.

We stood in silence for a moment, taking in the electronic light show. The officer’s confidence wavered. He no longer had the upper hand.

He spat a wad of blood onto the ground. “You think you’re so noble, don’t you?”

“Nah,” I said. “We’re just three criminals hiding amongst the rubbish.”

Those were the last words the officer heard before he keeled over, his eyes glazing into the color of murky water.

“Where do we go?” Sal said, his face tight with concern. “He did have a point, we’re basically the most wanted criminals in the nation.”

“I don’t know,” Anya said. She put her arms around Sal and me. “I guess we’ll be heading into unknown territory.”

Sal smiled, “That’s our specialty, isn’t it?”

“Guess it is,” I said.

The three of us walked into the chaos outside, the symphony of revolution spreading throughout the streets of the underground city.