“You’re going to be okay,” she told it, the little spirit forming down there. “Mama’s going to take good care of you.”
Pedestrians passed by in herds. Cars and autocabs buzzed and honked. Savina looked up and down the street and into the air for any sign of a police drone, then slipped back into the crowd. An autocab came by in cruising mode, searching for customers; Savina hailed it and jumped in, pulling out her moneycard and slipping it into the slot. “I need to go to the nearest branch of any bank,”
she told it as she keyed-in her secret code.
ACCESSING INFORMATION, it replied, glowing words on the little screen above the keyboard.
LOCATION DETERMINED, PLOTTING COURSE.
COURSE PLOTTED. APPROVE?
The screen showed a section of city map with a plot determined through the streets. Savina approved and the cab took off, pulling into traffic with arrogant machine confidence. Savina watched their progress carefully, ready to pop the emergency door and jump out if it veered off toward, say, a police station. She didn’t think they could have gotten her card number into their system yet, but there was no way to tell until it was too late.
She had to risk getting to her money or she would lose access to it.
The bank was only another mile or so away. It was right next to a euthanasia center, which gave her the creeps. Already she could see it looming over the skyline. There was always at least one in sight.
There was motion in the corner of her eye, and she turned to see a police drone hovering above the traffic. It made its way past Savina’s cab, passing about 8 feet overhead, and continued on down the street. Her cab turned left, veering off. Savina let out her breath. Police drones were a common enough sight but the appearance of this one had caused her heart to stop.
The cab cruised down the wide, clean street for another half mile then pulled over to a stop, the screen flashing the same message that its electronic voice announced: “You have reached your indicated destination. $14.30 has been deducted from your account. Please remember to take your moneycard as you exit. Thank you for your patronage!” Savina grabbed her card and stepped out of the cab. She was right in front of the euthanasia center, the bank a tiny little building squeezed in next to it.
Savina looked up.
The euthanasia center was impossibly tall, its sharp white lines stretching up and up into infinity as if God had reached down, taken hold of the top, and pulled, stretching it like a piece of taffy into outer space. It filled Savina with a dreadful fascination, made her feel infinitely small and lonely, a germ on the floor. She couldn’t look away. It was like an eternal monument; it was there and always had been there and always would be there, and in comparison Savina was a quick little spark, her entire life nothing more than a second in passing. The sight inspired hopelessness, defeat; it was a place people ended up when they discovered it was all too much, that existence was overwhelming and they just could not handle it. People were put to sleep like sick animals; the poor, the hungry, the weary, the anguished, the crippled, the insane – even criminals. As Savina stared, wanting to look away and yet unable to, people passed around her in a hush, saying nothing, taking light, quick steps and not looking up.
Somebody grasped Savina by the shoulder. “It’s an illusion,”
said a warm, deep, throaty woman’s voice.
Savina tore her gaze away from the building and looked at the woman. She was shaking her head at Savina, her long straight black hair swinging back and forth. The woman was tall, and her skin was dark but not quite the same shade as Savina’s. She appeared to be American Indian, or at least seemed to have a lot of it in her blood. “You don’t want to go in there,” she told Savina. “That won’t solve anything.”
Savina realized she was surrounded by ragged-looking people, dressed in shabby ill-fitting clothes with wild, long hair.
Anarchists, Savina thought. “I’m not going in there,” she said.
The woman’s brown eyes bore into Savina’s, calm, peaceful eyes with a awesome sense of presence. “This building was designed to induce the feelings you were experiencing. It’s only six hundred feet high, and the top four hundred feet are hollow. The rest is a hologram.”
“I knew that,” Savina said, intimidated.
“Don’t ever by sucked in by it. Illusions never deliver what they promise.”
“I’m just going to the bank.”
The woman nodded. “You were distracted. Part of the building’s purpose is to lure. You felt the lure, didn’t you?”
Savina stared into the woman’s eyes. “Yes, I did.”
“The image robs you of hope and inspires thoughts of morality. To those without hope, it brings a sense of peace. They feel that if they surrender to it, they become part of it.” The woman shook her head. “It’s a lie.”
Savina nodded, not knowing what to say. The woman was strangely magnetic.
“You look troubled,” the woman said.
“I’m, I, I’ve got to get to the bank.”
“Okay. Just don’t go into the euthanasia center. Don’t ever go into the euthanasia center.”
“I don’t intend to,” Savina said, edging though the other anarchist. Weird, she thought. Too weird. She got past them and made her way past the white tower, very consciously not looking up at it, then entered the bank and got in line for the autotellers.
Savina had known that the anarchists hung out at the euthanasia centers; they were famous for talking people out of suicide, were even heros in some circles. The tall woman with the intense eyes didn’t seem an anarchist, though. There was too much to her, some sort of gestalt power. Intense was the word that came to Savina’s mind.
There were security monitors everywhere inside the bank.
Savina was a rattled due to the woman anarchist – she hoped it wasn’t to the point where it would trigger the interest of the bank’s security AI. She stood in line, waiting with everyone else and refraining from making eye contact with the monitors. As she stood there she realized that she had gotten into the slowest line. Figures, she thought.
I wonder if I should splurge and get a room for the night?
Tonight I can give Dodd a call, ask him for help. Maybe I can get him to come and stay with me? Savina smiled at the unlikeliness of the thought.
She moved up in the line. Her’s was still the slowest – she couldn’t believe this always happened to her. Today was the worst, and it was the worst time for it to happen. If the police had inserted her number into their system then the autoteller would call them as soon as she inserted her card. If she took the safe way out, stayed away from the bank, she would be destitute. Is it worth it, though? she wondered. I’m free now. What good will cash be if I’m going to prison?
She was two people away from the autoteller and the old man at the front was now verbally arguing with the machine. You might as well argue with a wall, Savina thought. To either side of her the lines were moving smoothly. God, she thought, why this now?
Now of all times! She hid her face in her hands, keeping her frustration in. Yelling at the old man would only attract the attention of the security AI.
The old man, hunched and grey and slow-moving, gave up and got out of line. The woman in front of Savina stepped up to the autoteller and opened her purse, dumping the entire contents onto the stainless table used for signing vouchers. She began digging through the contents for something, probably her moneycard.
Savina leaned casually over toward her. “Excuse me, I’m in a hurry. I was wondering if I could take care of my business really quick while you’re–-”
“I beg your pardon,” the woman said, “I’m in line here before you, I waited just as long.”
“I’m sorry,” Savina said. “Never mind.”
“I think you’re a very pushy, rude child. Who do you think you are to just go pushing in line. Think your business is more important than mine?”
“Look, I didn’t mean anything. I’m sorry.” Savina was beginning to sweat because the security AI was surely looking at them by now. “Go on with your business, never mind me.”
“Oh, never mind you, huh? Like it’s me who’s doing the wrong thing. Don’t you try to make it out like it’s my fault that–-”
“Lady,” a man behind Savina said, “this girl says she’s sorry and we’re all in a hurry here.”
“What, are you her boyfriend? Now you’re going to push me out of the way? Let me tell you something, you–-”