Kato's War Page 5

  Kato had considered Philip’s offer of a free stay at the Hotel Gansevoort, but thought better of imposing on him any more than they already had. Philip graciously called ahead and booked them two rooms at the Four Seasons, while leaving his offer open.

  “You’re going to want to take a shuttle down to the surface when we get there,” Philip said. “The space elevators are very slow. They’re mainly used for freight.”

  “Space elevators?” Kato said in fascination. “That was just an idea on the drawing board in my earlier life.”

  “There are seven, spaced evenly around the equator,” Philip said. “We’ll dock at the ETI; Earth Transportation Interchange, and you can get a shuttle from there.”

  Zara and Akio went for another swim in the ship’s small pool. They played and splashed like two teenagers, much to the annoyance of the other guests. After they had dried off and gotten dressed again, they met in the dining room. This had once again been turned into a social area, with groups of three armchairs. Several people sat around, looking like they were in a trance.

  “Have you ever played Mabo?” Akio said.

  “No.”

  “It’s a 3D strategy game. Mainly played by people with implants. You can play too though, you’ll just have to speak your moves. The idea is there’s a three-sided pyramid, consisting initially of gray spheres. Usually twelve on a side. We take it in turns to capture a sphere. Whoever gets five in a row wins. You have to move and block the other person at the same time.” He shrugged.

  Zara squinted off into the distance. “Connect Four. It’s something I used to play as a kid. It sounds like a 3D, much harder, version of that.”

  “Haven’t heard of it. I’ll go easy on you though. My implants have a processor in them for enhanced thought capabilities on algorithmic-type problems like that one. I won’t use it though!”

  “Okay.” The Mabo pyramid appeared between them.

  “Actually, scratch speaking your moves,” Akio said. “Just point. Buzz will understand what you mean.”

  “Okay.”

  They played several games. Akio won the first three. After that, the wins were split evenly as Zara caught on. Afterwards, Zara sat across the armchair with her back against one arm and her legs over the other. She had transformed her clothes into a pair of expensive-looking designer jeans and a cashmere sweater.

  “Who’s the oldest human being alive, apart from us?” she asked.

  “There’s a guy, in Japan as it happens, who is nearly two hundred and twenty. He managed to skate by on being regenerated by nanomedicines for a long time. Then, when Renewal was available, he started doing that.” Akio shrugged. “As long as he doesn’t get into an accident or something, he’ll live forever. A lot of us will, if we have the money.”

  Zara nodded, and thought for a minute. “So money is basically the passport to eternal life?”

  “Pretty much,” Akio said. “There’s been much debate about the fairness of it… but Renewal, like most advanced medicine, is a for-profit business.”

  Zara nodded. “That hasn’t changed, then.”

  Akio made like he was going to say something, and then stopped. “Spit it out,” Zara said.

  “Can I come to New York with you and your dad? I mean, just for a few days before I go back to Tokyo.”

  Zara smiled. “Sure.” She brushed her hair out of her face.

  “Great! I’ll call and get a room at the Four Seasons too then.”

  Breakfast had been taken early that morning. “Docking in one hour,” the voice had said some time ago. All of Gansevoort’s passengers were back in their staterooms, their bags packed, buckled in, and lying on their flight couches.

  Zara was entranced by the view. Earth looked about the size of a large beach ball held at arm’s length. They were currently over Africa. City lights could be seen on the east side of the planet. As her eyes panned west she could see the fuzzy dividing line between day and night. The geography of Europe was visible. Since it was summer in the northern hemisphere, cloud cover was minimal. She thought momentarily of the majestic Scottish lakes, mountains, and castles she had visited as a little girl. If there had ever been a real land of giants and trolls, it was there.

  The east coast of the United States could be seen. A thousand memories of her life in New York flashed through Zara’s mind. Exhilaration and heartbreak in Manhattan. Could be a good title for a book! Tracing the outline of the coast, Zara saw her childhood home of North Carolina. Would she still have the accent? Would anybody? The planet turned beneath them as the ship continued to decelerate. Clouds swirled over the Great Lakes, while the Plains and west coast baked in the sun. The Pacific shone bright with reflected sunlight.

  “Call Kato,” Zara said.

  “Hi, love.”

  “Unreal, isn’t it?”

  Kato sighed, as he looked back over his shoulder at the approaching planet. “Yes. Yes, it is. I never in a million lifetimes thought I would see Earth again.”

  “Ten minutes,” the announcement came. Kato turned over in his seat completely, so he was lying face down. It was flat, so he was not bent uncomfortably. He knew this was against the rules, in case of an impact from the rear, but he figured he could get away with it, alone in his stateroom. This allowed him to look directly at what lay in front of the Gansevoort, as she was heading tail-first toward their destination. “HOLY COW!” he said.

  “What?” Zara said.

  “Turn around!”

  “Wowzers!”

  The vast Earth Transport Interchange was now clearly in view, fifteen kilometers away. Kato noticed its clusters of huge, cylindrical, terminal arms, each of which was about the size of Commerce City, four at one end and four at the other. A gigantic tube connected the clusters. Each terminal arm was festooned with docking ports that sprouted from their surface. These were occupied by seemingly insect-sized ships of all kinds. Other craft maneuvered slowly near the station, looking like a cloud of fireflies. Soon, Gansevoort and the ETI passed around to the night side of Earth. The entire vast structure, drawing closer now, glowed with exterior lights and luminous grids on the surfaces of the giant terminal arms. Kato could see numbers on them. Parts of the station periodically reflected the glare of departing ships’ engines. Small manmade stars, he thought. Closer, closer, the enormous round silver section of the station now obscuring most of Kato’s view. Gansevoort’s nose morphed to match the shape of the docking port. The protruding port came up to meet them, and… the ship was docked! Complete weightlessness once again.

  Kato floated out of his stateroom. No up or down anymore. Zara’s door soon opened and she came out. She grinned. “One taste of real gravity and you want more!” Kato nodded. “Being weightless reminds me too much of life on board Eternity,” she added. Sadness flickered across Kato’s face. Other guests floated from their rooms into the landing, using handholds that had sprouted from the floor. Philip met them at the small lobby at the very nose of the ship. “Thank you for flying with Air Gansevoort today,” he joked. “Seriously, it was a great pleasure and an honor having you aboard. Enjoy Earth!”

  “Thanks,” Kato and Zara said in unison.

  “Oh and there was something I meant to say to you before, but never got the chance. I’ll Buzz it to you to read later,” he said, as he turned to shake hands with the next disembarking passenger.

  Chapter 7

  Kato, Zara, and Akio sat in the white first class cabin of the Earth-bound shuttle craft, three abreast. The thrust kicked in for the deorbit burn. Kato suddenly remembered something. “Buzz, play message from Philip.”

  “Kato and Zara, I'm aware that as 'new' citizens of Earth, you are effectively without any source of income. I imagine you will be able to command huge fees for books and movies, so I will loan you fifteen million orbs against these, to get you situa
ted. Also, as a token of my personal appreciation for who you are and what you've done, I'm giving you another fifteen million. The money has already been deposited to your accounts.”

  Kato whispered the salient points to Zara. “That was nice of him,” she said. “Now we're no longer dependent on the MSF for an income. We can tear up their expense account.” They were soon weightless once again on a trajectory to enter the upper atmosphere. “I have absolutely no idea what to expect down there, Dad. None,” Zara whispered. Kato nodded. The sound of rushing air outside began to fill the cabin. The walls went clear, and the travelers watched as streaks of glowing plasma gave way to… the deep blue ocean! It was framed by the haze of the atmosphere. Zara broke into a broad grin and turned to Kato, who was seated on her left. “Earth, Dad! Mother-freakin’ Earth! Home!” A tear formed in Zara’s right eye. It rolled straight back toward her ear, pulled by the slowly-building G force. “Home.”

  The forces on their bodies gradually reduced. The shuttle craft flashed through some wispy high altitude clouds. Only then did they get a true appreciation of their great speed. And then… more glorious, lush ocean, burnished by the sun. Ships could now be seen, plying the trade routes between Europe and America. Kato thought of their crews hearing the double crack of their sonic booms, if ships even had crews anymore. “Look, Dad!” Zara pointed straight ahead, like a little girl on her first trip to the zoo. “Land! The east coast!” The brown landmass stretched across the horizon. The spaceport drew closer. Kato could see that it was a star-shaped design, similar to the one on Mars. The runways were short, stubby protrusions from the tall octagonal terminal building, designed only for vertical landings. Kato looked down, and the sea was reflecting the blinding glare from their engines as they came in low over the water. A roar from below, sharp deceleration, and… touchdown! There was a bustle of seatbelts being unfastened, passengers standing, and overhead locker doors opening. Kato and Zara weren’t in a great hurry, so they remained seated. Akio had jumped up to grab his stuff, but stopped and sat back down again, waiting for the others.

  “We’re actually on Earth,” Zara, said, turning to Kato with a look of wonder on her face. “I never, ever thought I’d see it again.”

  Kato nodded, and smiled. “I hear you. And there’s real gravity now, not acceleration.”

  The vee-tol continued to gain altitude after lifting off from the roof of the spaceport terminal. Small clouds scudded across the blue sky, far above. Sunlight streamed in pleasantly through the glass upper half of the bean-shaped machine. It was about the size of a small bus, but it carried only three passengers. There was no pilot. Akio looked bored. Kato and Zara leaned against the window sills on either side, looking out in utter fascination. A steady stream of vee-tols, looking like gnats in the distance, headed between other spaceports and the coast. Train tubes above the waves, as straight as rulers, connected them to New York City.

  Zara squinted into the distance. “What on earth? Those pyramids… must be enormous! What are they, Akio?”

  “New York,” he replied, simply.

  “But… they’re as big as mountains!”

  “They were built around eighty years ago,” Akio said. “There’s one for each of the five boroughs. All of the city’s population lives in them.”

  “What happened to the buildings that were there? Are they inside the pyramids?”

  “I’m not sure, to be totally honest,” Akio said.

  Kato was listening intently. “I know who would know,” he said. “Buzz, get me Hugh Howey. Conference Zara and Akio in.”

  “Connecting…”

  “Hi Kato, what’s up?” came Hugh’s California accent.

  “We’re on our way to New York.”

  “Ah. I’m about to get a spaceplane back to San Diego. What can I do for you?”

  “Well…” Kato began, uncertainly, “we want to know what happened to New York. Why it looks so different from the city we knew.”

  “Ah…” Hugh began. He paused, as though he were about to tackle a delicate subject. “The Right-to-Work Wars reached their peak in the United States in 2199. New York was and is the center of capitalism, and as such, it was one of the main targets of the population’s rage. The city didn’t survive.” He said the last sentence abruptly.

  Zara looked concerned. “What happened?”

  “It was terrible,” Hugh said. “The desperate populace, led by Michael Streckenpoint, mounted an organized mass assault. They poured across the bridges, through the tunnels, and crossed over to Manhattan on boats. Thousands and thousands of them. It was a coordinated and focused attack. The already-stretched armed forces were overwhelmed. Homemade explosives were brought in by the truckload. High explosives, you understand, not fertilizer-based. They even fashioned crude shaped charges, capable of cutting through reinforced concrete. The trucks were parked next to the bases of the skyscrapers, and the fuses lit. The buildings’ supports were severed, and they were razed to the ground. Some toppled others as they fell. All was chaos. People filled the streets and were crushed under other falling buildings.”

  “Looting was everywhere. The rivers were filled with hordes trying to escape. Almost everything that hadn’t been turned into rubble was burning. After the sacking of Manhattan, it spread like a wave to the outer boroughs. They met the same fate. The main targets had already been hit, but the people were crazy at this point. We’re talking decades of pent up rage. Hundreds of other buildings were torched or blown up just for the pure hell of it. After it was all over, an estimated eighty thousand people had died in the city. That included the attackers, the Army, and innocent civilians. The rest fled.” Everybody on board the vee-tol just looked at each other, open-mouthed. “It was deemed easier to rebuild the city with new technology,” Hugh continued, “than to restore what was lost. If you want to look up any information about anything, just say: Buzz, fact server, and then ask your question.”

  “Thanks,” Kato said.

  “So, the pyramids are what they built after the city was destroyed?” Zara asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How tall are they?” Kato asked.

  “Five kilometers, give or take,” Hugh said. Kato’s eyes widened.

  “Wow!” Zara said. Akio now listened intently.

  “How many people can they hold?” Kato asked.

  “Around eight million each,” Hugh said. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. My flight’s boarding.”

  “Thanks, Hugh,” Kato said.

  There was silence in the vee-tol now, save the whoosh of rushing air outside. As they got closer they could see that the pyramids were dark blue in color. Reflected sunlight from the southern side of the Bronx Pyramid blinded them for almost half a minute, a mirror five kilometers wide made it much like a second sun on the ground.

  “You remember going to Pike’s Peak?” Kato asked.

  “Yeah,” Zara said.

  “Remember how tall it was, looking up from Colorado Springs?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s about how tall one of those things must be.”

  Zara remained quiet. Her body was twisted around to her left. She leaned on the window sill, and rested her chin on her arms, looking forward at the approaching city. Sailboats of various colors cut the water far below, taking advantage of the breezy afternoon. Larger ships clustered around what was clearly still a huge port, to the south of Manhattan, oblivious to the insect-like streams of vee-tols. Their craft turned slightly to the south, keeping to the coastline of Long Island.

  Zara’s eyes followed the geography from north to south. “So, there’s just countryside between them? Actually, scratch that. It looks manicured. The whole place has been landscaped, like a golf course.”

  After a couple more minutes the vee-tol turned northwest and crossed Brooklyn. They were at about half the height
of the vast pyramids. The travelers were agog. “There’s no features at all on the pyramids. They’re perfectly smooth,” Kato said. He strained his eyes. “Actually, I do see some small openings.”

  “Look,” Zara said, pointing dead ahead. “The Manhattan one couldn’t fit on the island. They had to build half of it over the river and into Queens!”

  “Wow!” Kato said. “This is so unbelievable. I wonder if there’s an underground part to it, like Marineris?” The vee-tol kept on a perfectly straight course as it crossed the East River, and the green grass of what was once Midtown. The craft then made a forty-five degree turn to the right. The Manhattan Pyramid loomed large in front of them, its vast south face taking up most of their forward field of view.

  “Holy cow!” Kato said, as he got goose bumps. The top of the pyramid towered above them. Soon, their entry port was visible ahead.

  “Here we go!” Zara said. “I hope this darn thing knows where it’s going!”

  “Think about it,” Kato said, with a note of exasperation in his voice. “They had this technology back in our day. I don’t think it’s suddenly stopped working.” Zara turned around and stuck her tongue out at him, playfully. The vee-tol port was a rectangular opening in the inconceivably vast face of the pyramid, which was coming up on them quickly. The craft began to slow.

  “I have no idea what to expect in here at all,” Kato said, shaking his head. The port, which had seemed small from a distance, suddenly enveloped them. It was a bleak hangar-like space, which went deep into the manmade mountain. The walls were white, with black numbers and markings stenciled on them every so often. Other vee-tols lifted off, turned around, and made their way back out into the daylight. They flew 100 meters inside, and then the craft touched down. Silence. The gullwing doors slid open. “Let’s go,” Akio said. They grabbed their bags and followed Akio. He strode off purposefully.