The Radical
"The framework is done, Foreman Chen!" shouted a young man in a welding mask, waving for an inspection. His fellow welders flicked off their plasma torches and set down their solder.
"Good," Chen said, puffing lightly on his cigar and hopping down to inspect the welding on the steel bars. Despite the rust-resistant ArkConstruction steel alloy, they had to get the frame done soon and done well, or the sea air might start to eat away at the galvanized layer like a cavity under a teenager's braces. And even if they were fast, if the frame snapped in the wrong place, not even Arkoral would be able to hold it together. People could die.
It was a fact Chen was well acquainted with.
He peered up at the welding through his spectacles, the Construction tug rocking gently beneath them, another load of rebar on a floating pallet behind it.
"I don't have time to check all these, you know," Chen said, turning to the man.
"Well, I don't know about them," he said, motioning to the older men behind him, "but I'm alright at this stuff. So you should probably go talk to them about theirs."
"You wouldn't happen to be lying to me, would you?" Chen asked, layering some honey into his voice. "Because if you were, are, and ever do, and I find out, you'll be seed carbon for the first Arkoral pour."
The man blinked twice at Chen, then scowled, flipped the mask down, and raised his solder. "'scuse me," he mumbled as he raised the torch and weld steel. "There's a few welds I might've neglected."
"That's what I thought. Go finish the job." Chen's sentence was punctuated by the angry buzzing woosh of a plasma cutter bursting into life, the magnetic coils shaping the ionized, superheated gas into a controllable jet. The older men got their work done much slower than the young Turk, but to a much higher standard. Chen nodded at each of their welds, waved them off, and, once the boy is done fixing his neglectful work, they moved on to the next phase; preparing the Arkoral mold.
Chen directed the hammering-together of the flexible plastic molding material as they built the giant torus on which the pelgo will be founded, plumbed, and supplied with amenities with an eagle's eye. His experience was a major boon to his construction crew; they all did or would make small errors which could add days to the construction time, and time was money for this crew. Chen could spot minute cracks even before they exist by how the sheets are aligned and bent. As quickly and problem-free as two thousand linear metres of tubing can be assembled, the toroid's inner frame was built, and they began to assemble the outer frame, bending new rebar, welding, sealing holes in the inner frame and preparing for the first pour. Almost as quickly, they were done with the outer frame as well, and were ready to fill the mold.
Several men and women in high-visibility jackets and trioxidane filter masks guided the spouts into place off of the materials delivery tugs and signal for the pour to begin to the operators, who activated the machines and release litre after litre of Arkoral, interspersed with the carbon-boys' addition of carbon-rich liquid into the mix. Due to the mold covering nearly the entire structure, the toroid couldn't be exposed while it hardens up, so it can't pull carbon from the atmosphere to build the coral skeleton and replicate its DNA. Instead, they (and ArkCon) use a solution sourced from seawater and pure carbon extracted from the atmosphere, Ark's industries, and cremations to ensure plentiful carbon supply and even distribution.
The pour completed, the construction rafts withdrew and the torus was sealed off. They had to get started on the internal lattice of steel that would hold the structures of the pelgo up and allow them to work and connect buildings into the amenities torus rather than simply build them all on the torus. In this case, the circle having the largest area for the same circumference is playing against them, as the lattice must be very large and so some buildings will have to be connected over a great distance.
But then, the plans Chen was given did say it is primarily an agricultural pelgo.
Probably more rice, Chen thought as he reviewed the architectural plan. That's what the growing areas look like-
-and suddenly, the tablet froze, refreshed, and displayed an entirely new irrigation system with... pumps? Seawater? What in hell? Thankfully, the plans weren't altered enough for there to be a major change required. He spun them idly, observing at each angle, not noticing until a few minutes later that there had been another change.
A change he would have to implement personally.
"Markus?" Chen called on the site's work frequency.
"Shoot," said the Dutchman.
"I need to go requisition some new materials. The plans have been updated. No big deal, but they're calling for some modifications to the plumbing and we don't have the materials for that. Can you take the fore for now?"
"What're friends for?"
"Thank you," Chen said, keying his com unit off and stepping out of the construction site.
I hope Security doesn't have a problem parting with their high-explosive charges...
The Guest
"Here's your seeds," Amelie said, handing Fred an acrylic canister full of small pods. "Genetic variation included. No incest. Dominant and recessive alleles fully distributed. Enjoy."
"Thank you," Fred breathed in relief, taking the canister. It was warm and covered in some sort of oily steam from the biosequencer.
It had gone down like this:
Fred and Amelie had gotten it on one more time and then taken a trip to ArkLabs. Fred was passed off as her boyfriend (which was sort of true) and taken inside. They took an elevator down a few dozen metres and then they were in the sequencer room.
"Too easy," Fred had said.
"Isn't it? I wonder why the Guests don't sneak in or something."
Fred had booted his laptop and after a good deal of noodling with USB ports and transceivers, the couple had pieced together a connection between the outdated device and the high-tech biosequencer.
"Ready?" Amelie asked, as Fred pulled the CD out of its soft cotton case.
"Ready," Fred said, pressing it into the optical drive and sliding it shut. After a bit of clicking and dragging, the biosequencer started up, and thirty minutes later Fred was standing in the center of the room holding a canister full of a lifeform that, until now, had never existed.
It was an... intoxicating feeling. The power of God the Creator in the hands of Man. He could create an army of dinosaur ninja test-tube babies and change the world.
But... a time and place for everything. Later. When the seas recede and the world is ready to receive its rightful king. Fred chuckled as Amelie began the lengthy process of disconnecting the laptop. She handed him the compact disk and he lifted it delicately off of her slender typist's fingers, marvelling at the gleaming finish and how the optical layering caught the light.
"That was the easy part. Now we need to get out."
"Why don't we take the elevator?"
"No... that's not gonna work." Amelie was pacing around the biosequencer, rubbing her fingers together and twisting them, thumb against pointer in a rectangle.
"Why not?"
"Because that cylinder has a tracker in it; the second it passes those doors, Security will string us up by our entrails."
"So... why don't we take it out through a different door?"
Amelie paused and stared at Fred, her mouth agape. "That..."
"What?"
"When we get home you are so getting laid. That is one of the most brilliant plans I have ever heard."
"And that is one of the most difficult-to-interpret sentences I've ever heard. Sarcasm?" She shook her head. "So you're serious. What's another door, then?"
"Follow me," she said, swiping her card on a nearby door and leading him through what appeared to be a lounge until-
"This maintenance bay has hydroscooters. We jack one of those and we can make it out of here."
"One? I need to get back to the Guest pelgoes. This is for them, not the Founders."
"Well... then I'm coming with you."
"Amelie, no. You're a Founder. You've got a good life. I don't have a place for you to stay, and-" Fred's argument was silenced by a large flap of latex impacting his face.
"Shut up and suit up. You're taking me home, rusty."
Fred peeled the latex from his face to see Amelie stripping down and shaking the fabric out. Time and place, mister, he told himself, and began to do the same.
It was surprisingly easy to get into the suit, and its one-size, tension-pressure construction meant that apart from selecting a suitable helmet mounting ring and container pack for his oxygen and the seeds, it fit perfectly. Amelie walked over to the larger cargo airlock and slid it open, then hefted one of the scooters and tossed it in.
"Okay. Helmets on. I'll connect your oxygen line for you, you do the same for me." Fred handed her the bright yellow bottle and she secured it tightly to the diving frame's O2 mount. The feed line was folded flat against the helmet, and she slid that into place, listening for the loud click that would tell the applicator that, without a doubt, this man was ready to scuba.
"You're good," she said. Her voice was muffled by the helmets, so she tapped his faceplate and pinched her thumb and forefinger together. Good. He responded in kind, and she handed him her oxygen bottle. Securing it in a similar fashion, he gave her the good sign and then turned.
Suddenly she grabbed him and butted their helmets together.
What? he asked, shrugging his shoulders defensively.
"Check check?" came her digitized voice in his helmet. "Okay, the network is showing green. Sorry. These helmets have a long-range radio system, and that's how you sync it." Fred nodded and watched as a tiny green HUD came online, displaying current pressure in pascals, oxygen remaining and flowing in litres and cubic centimetres a second, suit pressure and integrity. He held up another good sign and Amelie nodded. She sauntered over to the cargo 'lock and stepped in. Fred followed her in and she punched the CYCLE button.
Almost immediately Fred felt an enormous current of water force him into the ceiling, swirl, and hurl him out into the ocean. The suit's HUD flickered once and then redefined all the parameters, starting his oxygen flow and showing a bar of 980kPa.
"Hey. Turn around. I've got the scooter."
Fred turned and looked down. Amelie was kicking upwards, carrying the inactive scooter.
"It has a built-in map, so we can take it out to your pelgo. Which one is it?"
"Five," Fred said, grabbing onto a handrail on the exterior of the streamlined, almost sharklike shape of the scooter. "Do you mind if I drive?"
"Not at all." Amelie relinquished the device and Fred swung into the driver's position. He was familiar with electric hydroscooters from diving trips back before the Flood, but the Ark design was pretty new. Amelie had gotten the map running on a waterproof screen in front of him, and it was currently centered on Guest Pelgo 5. He nodded and began inspecting it for the 'on' switch. After a bit of looking, he found it on the scooter's screen; it was touch. He reached out and tapped it and felt an electric motor whir into life inside the frame of the device. Amelie grabbed onto the machine and Fred gunned it.
They travelled underwater, not risking being seen from the surface. It was a pretty long trip, to be honest. All those little kilometres added up in the end to a relatively long distance, especially when your trip is in a giant blue expanse punctuated by Ark-dwelling fish. Eventually, though, they reached GP5 Harbor, and Fred began the ascent. The pascals and metres fell from their shoulders like the water they were parting, and eventually they broke the surface in the bay, rust-saturated water swirling around them, as well as a good number of surprised Guests.
Fred was the first to climb out of the water, dragging the scooter with him. It was surprisingly light. Must be carbon-fibre, or something like that. He set the scooter against a nearby container and unsecured his helmet and oxygen line.
"Can somebody take me and Amelie," he started, gesturing to the woman extricating herself from the bay and removing her helmet, "to Isadora?"
The Engineer
The Security forces wouldn't stop their onslaught. Medics would drag the wounded back to triage and off of the battlefield while platoons swarmed through the rusting makeshift gates one by one, only to run into the Guests guarding the next one. Helicopters hovered above, raining death on any Guest militia that was foolish enough to leave cover.
"Ammo!" Parson shouted. His Barnett was empty, and he had burned through the last of his 7.62 rounds in a hurry, putting round after round into the crowd of Security gendarmes advancing on the gate.
A Guest soldier crawled over to him and set a pack of ten fresh magazines down next to Parson. He nodded his thanks and jammed one in to the gun, a round rising into the chamber to clear the way for the bolt, which he slammed forward, already aiming.
Boom, said the sniper, and a Security officer's chest exploded.
Boom, said the sniper, and another one dropped.
Boom, said the sniper, and this shot was a miss. The officer Parson had aimed at had dropped behind cover, and no sooner did Parson chamber a new round before the gendarme raised his rifle and began to spray down the top of the gate in the area surrounding Parson. A few rounds hit his vest, and one cut a gash through his pants' leg, but he was otherwise unscathed.
Boom, said the sniper, and the man who shot Parson wasn't so lucky.
Boom, the gate answered, as a Security charge sent it tumbling off of its hinges.
"Shit!" yelled a Guest minuteman as the Security forces began to pour through the gate and engulf the Guests in a vicious crossfire. Parson dropped low, slammed another magazine into his rifle, and stuffed the rest into his backpack. Once the ammo was tucked away, he threw the sniper over his shoulder, safety on, and grabbed an assault rifle from a fallen minuteman, firing as he ran off of the gate and into the residential container stacks. He was able to watch through a window slit as the Security forces headed for the next gate, and he set up his rifle in a larger window in the adjoining container, aiming to strike at the back of the Security forces.
Chamber the round, line up the shot, take a breath, hold it, exhale, pull as you-
spin because that sound was not good-
There was a Security officer with a knife out and his eyes narrowed advancing towards Parson, and it didn't take him long to realize that his victim wasn't crippled by tunnel vision anymore. Parson lunged at him and covered the man's body with his own, struggling to pin the knife and disarm the officer. The two men rolled across the floor, roaring in each other's faces and panting as they fought, tooth and nail, to turn the weapon against the other, until the Security man found his head colliding with a wall and a knife sliding in between his vertebrae.
Parson took up his shooting position again only to find that the police forces had broken through the last gate.
One obstacle left, he thought, setting his jaw grimly against the sea of death he saw beneath himself.
The main gate onto the Rue was a formidable obstacle. Guest turrets composed of little more than image recognition computers attached to tripods and assault rifles swept across the 'dirt' in front of the defenders, while a crew of Guests prepared to catch the Security forces in a crossfire. The helicopters were busy shredding the bridges that the Guests were using to position themselves to defend the courtyard.
"Here's hoping," Parson muttered as he picked up the sniper and left the bleeding dead gendarme in the container.
The Scientist
"You guys haven't done too badly by yourselves here, you know that?" Amelie commented as Fred and Isadora planted the seeds. "Your agricultural system is great and it's surprising you've got electricity."
"Can you please stop talking about how impressed you are?" Isadora asked, her voice dripping venom.
"Sure," Amelie said, happy to comply. "I didn't mean to offend."
"Well, you kinda did."
"Isa..." Fred said, leaving his plea open-ended.
"What? Ain't my fault I don't like your girlfriend. She's too stuck-up for-"
"Ex-cuse me?" Amelie sassed, hands on hips and eyes bulging in surprise that this chick wants to go?
"Hey, whoa, you two," Fred said, steeling his voice against the brewing fight. "I don't care if you two don't get along. This is about Ark. Now, we've planted the seeds. It's time to wait."
"How long is the germination time?"
"Dunno. That's the plant's choice, I guess."
"You've got to be kidding me," Isadora muttered.
"No, I'm not," Fred said. "I'm gonna go get some water and test it on them. Be right back."
The room was silent for a little while before Isa spoke. "So. How'd you guys meet, anyway?"
"We ran into each other at market. Literally."
"Oh, you Founders have a market, huh?"
"Yeah. You don't seem too angry with Fred for going, though." It may have been hallucination, but Amelie could have sworn she heard Isadora unsheathing... something. A knife?
"I'm not. He deserves it. You, on the other hand..."
"Who's to say?"
"You're a Founder. None of them have ever done anything to deserve their station or their wealth."
"You're pretty opinionated," Amelie said, picking up the nearest metal object she could find: a rectangular square metre of corrugated Ark steel, and lifted it from its position leaning against the wall, muffling it against her hip.
"Don't I got a right to be?"
"Hey, I'm no politician. Just a scientist," Amelie said, raising the steel with her arms in a shrugging reflex.
"There's where you're wrong," Isadora said, turning and lunging and stabbing with the knife. It dented into the steel and the thin material, despite its reinforcing corrugation running perpendicular to the force, folded around the forceful attack made by the farm-girl, trapping her knife hand. She snarled in anger and tackled Amelie. "Nobody's just anything on Ark. You're either a Founder or a Guest, and damn you if you're neither. So get the fuck off of the-"
And the door burst inward, along with Fred, four litres of seawater, and four gendarmes in full tactical gear.
"...fence."
"GET THE HELL DOWN, NOW! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE 'EM!" shouted the lead man, pointing his submachine gun at the women tangled together on the floor. Amelie and Isadora complied.
"What is this shit?" the officer asked, waving at the egg-carton planters where they had seeded the risea.
"Don't touch it," Fred coughed. He had taken a big hit from the officers to incapacitate him, and it showed. He was clutching at his stomach and wincing hard with every breath or movement. "It's an experiment."
"Hell no. Experiments happen under our watch. Two!"
"Sir?" asked a bulky, tall man as he snapped to attention.
"Collect these, secure them, and take them down for processing." Two nodded and closed the cases, then went back outside.
"No! They're sensitive! They're seeds! Plant seeds!" Fred cried.
"And?"
"They're for the Guests!"
"I'd love to believe they deserve it," the captain sighed.
"They do!"
"No. Have you looked at GP7 lately? Do it and get back to me."
Two returned and sealed the seeds' containers in memory foam, then locked the prisms into shock-resistant cases and hefted them. "Samples secured, Captain."
"Let's go. Lock these people up, we're taking them too."
Fred's ribs were checked and it was ascertained that he needed help to set it, so they bandaged it as best they could on site, then handcuffed him and everyone else and marched them out of the carrier's tower and out onto the former airstrip. A helicopter was hovering high above the ship, fast-ropes touching the deck. Its downdraft bowed the tops of berry shrubs growing in the artificial soil covering the strip.
"Captain to Strike Two-Seven, approaching hop point. One injured, two okay. Take 'em up."
"Roger."
Amelie could look up from where she was standing to see a member of the strike team hook a winch onto the missile rack running under the strongly-swept wings, slide it out over the edge, and secure a man-sized basket to it. He then proceeded to lower the basket until the strike team could get Fred into it and then raised it up. They took Isadora up next, and finally, Amelie got to ride up into the helicopter's troop bay. She was forced to sit at gunpoint by one of the men in the bay, and from her window seat she could look out and see the strike team that had accosted them tying and carabining into the fast-ropes as they lifted off.
The man guarding her leaned over and poked her with his gun. "Hey. Check it out, Guest. There's why the Cap says you guys don't deserve squat."
It was Guest Pelgo 7; the hospital pelgo.
It was burning.
A/N: Just so you guys don't get confused about the timing here, Chen's plans are updated immediately after the seeds are turned in.
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