The portal hums to life. Just a matter of time, now. And Matilda isn’t sweating the details.
How seriously can she take a guy who lives in a place called ‘Hollywood’?
Chapter 7: “Babylon”
The dinginess of the rundown train is accentuated by its musty odor. It’s been an uncomfortable trip, but James is thankful that Stephen’s masking software has held up so far. The late afternoon light shines through the window as the train makes its way into Downtown Babylon. In the distance, massive skyscrapers stand in stark, towering contrast to the street-level grunge and poverty of the outer regions. From time to time, James notices walls and storefronts tagged with anti-Donovan graffiti, although the defacements become less frequent the closer they get to the city’s heart.
Taciturn fights the urge to fidget under the unfamiliar weight of his new utility jacket. It pained him to discard his wanderer’s outfit, but his next urban destination requires far less conspicuous garb. He now wears faded jeans, a V-neck shirt, dirty tennis shoes, and a baseball cap. Matilda sits silently next to him. Her appearance has changed drastically since their first meeting in Homestead. Short, red hair now rests on Matilda’s shoulders. She wears a traveler’s raincoat, a white turtleneck, a black skirt, fishnet stockings, and military-style boots. Her worn rucksack sits under her seat.
A voice over the intercom announces their arrival at the Van Nuys station, and the train begins to slow down. Taciturn sinks deeper into his chair. With a final jolt, the locomotive comes to a stop and the passenger doors open with a hiss. James watches a variety of travel-weary denizens file out of the car, hurrying to get to their destinations unmolested. The same emptiness fills their eyes as they take measured, habitual strides in lockstep, each person completely encompassed in the mundane immediacy of their own world. Willingly or otherwise they all produce traffic for Donovan’s Empire.
Within moments, those waiting on the platform have shuffled aboard with equal apathy, and the train resumes its rhythmic, swaying journey. James shakes his head, filled with a mounting frustration he can barely articulate. For a species that emphatically vocalizes its desire for freedom, humanity is so eager to embrace its own enslavement – so desperate to escape a dying world – that it is willing to suffer a dismal re-creation like this. The Cyberside was designed for limitless possibilities – society’s wildest dreams made real.
Matilda’s touches his elbow, directing his attention to the front of the train car. Two men in Babylon Corporation uniforms walk down the aisle. They methodically stop beside each passenger and scan their identity programs. These patrols were instituted by Donovan with two purposes – to inspect his property, and to keep his populace in line. Cogs in a much larger machine, they mutually reinforce Donovan’s stranglehold on the city.
The Scry tenses in her seat beside him, but James quickly places a hand on her arm to dispel any delusions of fighting. The smaller of the two guards brandishes a club, and James doubts he needs much of an excuse to use it. Eying Matilda in particular, the men move toward them.
“Hey, good looking – what are you doing with this loser? Don’t recall seeing you on my train before.”
He emphasizes my by poking the end of his baton into Taciturn’s chest. Keeping his face free of any slightest trace of emotion, James looks up from under the bill of his cap.
“Then you’ve got a quite a memory there, friend. But I’d expect nothing less from a Company man. Forgive my associate if she’s quiet. We’re on a hunting trip.”
James finishes his statement by granting the officer access to his newest disguise. The masking still presents itself as a Taciturn, but it doesn’t flag him as James Reynolds.
Sneering, the officer opens the ID program. “We’ll see about that.”
James waits patiently, without comment. Stephen’s disguise work is impeccable. When the officer inspecting the ID program pauses and frowns slightly. James fights back a smirk. Donovan goon or no, this man understands the foolishness of provoking a Taciturn. If one is sitting here on his train at all, it can only mean a larger monster is at hand.
Closing the ID program, the officer inquires, with a strain of newfound deference, “Uh. What exactly are you hunting?”
James leans in ever so slightly, lowering his voice into a confidential, just-between-us range.
“We’ve received word that a Puppeteer is loose in the city. We’re tracking its scent.”
The officer’s eyes widen in horror.
“A Pp..pupp..uteer?”
The seats nearest James and Matilda empty almost before James is aware of the fact. Other commuters, likely already uncomfortable with the officers’ mere presence in the first place, now have a legitimate excuse to make themselves scarce. Of all the creatures that haunt the Cyberside, Puppeteers are the most dangerous, the most instinctively loathed and feared . Left unchecked, Puppeteers systematically corrupt and devour entire communities with their monstrous, replicating viruses.
Having once infected a victim, the Puppeteer maintains control of the victim’s body. All the while, the Puppeteer’s mind is, in many respects, hardly beyond that of a child’s. The creature infects those it wants to play with – and when it tires of them, it devours them. That’s the best-case scenario, James thinks blackly. All other outcomes are far worse.
And in a city as teeming with potential victims, as sprawling as Babylon—
James recoils from the memory of his own brush with one of these foul creatures. Unfortunately, the best way to catch a Puppeteer is with poisoned bait, bait implanted with a lethal counter-virus, a monster-killer. Like placating an ancient god with a virgin sacrifice.
The officer now looks at Matilda. Perhaps he has done some rudimentary, unpleasant math. “I… uh… see. Good luck, Taciturn.” His partner, who looks equal parts stone-faced and deathly ill, has not uttered a word.
James is confident that the very moment their patrol ends, these men will find a thousand excuses to get home early and stay inside. The fewer Donovan-minions on the streets, the better.
Matilda looks around the car, shocked. “Seriously, everybody left?”
James nods, “People tend to do that when they’re afraid.”
Matilda mutters, “Well they fear Donovan, and still stick around. What’s the difference between him and a Puppeteer?”
James gazes out the window at the approaching towers.
“When you put it like that, nothing.”
At Union Station, Taciturn and Matilda exit the train and join the flow of the departing crowd. Outside, the weary, setting sun does its best to break through the thick layer of smog. The cries of trinket-hawkers, stall-vendors and store owners compete with the constant, amplified bombardment of ads, transit-connection announcements and Babylonian propaganda.
Moving along with the surging crowd, James feels a growing knot of anxiety binding his thoughts. His years as a Taciturn have done nothing to endear him to crowds. Monsters of the Cyberside can hide in plain sight. He finds his sights continually switching to and from potential targets, fixing on free hands, on bulges in bulky clothing, on backpacks, on strollers, on every momentary glance in his direction. With this many people, every movement can herald, or hide, a threat.
Overwhelmed, he clutches Matilda’s arm and pushes perpendicularly through the stream of bodies. Matilda cries out, startled and jostled as she’s dragged along.