The Genome Ankh

By DJ Hobbs

In a maladapted sanctuary built to slow down time, twenty million people are waiting for the planet to recover from its drastic alteration. These desperate survivors are forced to obey the laws of a technocracy that has lost sight of its moral foundations and experiments with mind-altering technology it doesn't fully understand.

When a maimed detective from A Layer investigates a run-of-the-mill suicide, he gradually uncovers the dirty secret shared by the corrupt ruling class of San Dannon and is swept up in a hopeless revolution he wants no part of.

Up on C Layer, the unfulfilled scion of a powerful family leaves his friends and robot butler behind to go on a journey that will show him the ugly depths humanity is willing to sink to in an age defined by scarcity.

To save their ancient city, these outsiders must now fight against a new kind of injustice, expose a depraved madman and rescue a princess, but they don’t stand a chance. Crooked police officers, vindictive AI and mutant rabbits are standing in their way, and a new era of political instability has begun that may just usher in the next apocalypse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716630538

Book preview

The Genome Ankh

DJ Hobbs

for Angie

1

J

ake was able to estimate the distance he had covered by counting the starvers that festooned the listless streets. After gauging his mood, they cut their requests short but kept one arm raised perfunctorily. They were a poor crop this far out, so he sped up a notch in case one of them lost their head. It was also important to beat the lifters before they wrapped things up and departed, so Jake really shouldn't have been dawdling in the first place.

Whenever a report was sent in with an abundance of sketchy guesswork, the inspector who submitted it was clocked meaningfully. When it happened consistently, Jake’s superiors would begin to read the things, and that would inevitably end in his dismissal. Down in the city, the abundance of able bodied competition for his position forestalled the need for further probationary measures.

This was another suicide. The only offence any sane citizen would dare to commit this close to Central was the one crime they were certain to get away with. The skyscrapers were often unaffiliated and easily accessible this far out, and this guy must have climbed the tallest one he could find because the splash zone Jake had studied in the attached footage had been immense.

At the scene, the siren had already cleared the area with its phrenic tones, and Auto Response had formed a ragged perimeter. Their deadpan personnel politely blocked the road to the east and west while surveying nearby windows and doorways. Jake waited impatiently for the closest drone to acknowledge him and run his user ID. It shifted imperceptibly as it scanned and then turned to face Jake at a speed calculated not to incense a body.

Officer Gildroy, you are to respond to an incident at the following coordinates, the machine recited in its familiar, annoying trill.

Jake drifted past while it finished rattling off the digits and got his first real glimpse of the jumper. There had only been one cam in the region during the event, so the range hadn’t been ideal. Now they were swarming overhead, and the air had become thick with their toxic discharge. His movements caused a ripple in their tightly packed gathering as he ventured closer to the corpse, but when he saw what the guy was wearing Jake understood their curious proliferation. The pretty shirt was now a red bag of innards with its sleeves rolled up as though leaping to his death had been hard work, yet clearly this ruddy plumed breed of flightless bird was an authentic jacket.

Jake knew it was pointless, but he brought up the man’s file anyway. Age and medical profile were there alongside the first half of his user ID. Everything else was automatically redacted. He wasn’t permitted to pry into the particulars of his betters, but that didn’t explain the choppy recording of the accident by the cam. This case was supposed to be a simple thirty-minute suicide. Now it was a complicated lapse by AR that Jake was bound to pay for.

Officers on A Layer didn’t investigate the deaths of Ad layer residents and above no matter whose jurisdiction they happened to land in. The drones automatically contacted the nearest officer if they came across a suspicious fatality, but they usually scanned the victim’s identity first in case delicate handling was required. This was the sort of situation that demanded the expertise and intuition of a corrupt janky with no chin. If Jake interfered, the consequences could range from a slap on the wrist to permanent exile.

He decided to go through the motions until someone more appropriate intervened. Jake activated his bullet points to avoid being clocked but selected mute and ignored them. After a thousand repetitions, they were etched into his brain. He mentally composed his report in advance while analysing every ghoulish detail before the tableau was rudely disturbed by the retrieval team. When Jake glanced upwards, there was an unobstructed view beyond the cams of the shabby and variegated underside of the Ad layer at its outermost rim.

The kid must have fallen the full five hundred feet. On one side of the street, the building had been demolished either thirty years ago for being too lofty or more recently for being so derelict it was about to fall down by itself. On the opposite side, there was a bit of lifeless parkland which could have been a snug little church once upon a time. Old Jesus would know. Twenty years ago there might have been a charming pile of baroque rubble and a grave stone or two to signify what had been here before.

This enclosed niche in the cityscape was now a canvas onto which the boy had so colourfully bounced after plunging through the yawning emptiness between the Ad Layer and the ground. Jake replayed the footage again, slowed it down and zoomed in. Though the clip had been rigorously edited before it made its way to Jake, there was enough left to distinguish the expression on the young man’s face. He was exhilarated right up until his impressive impact when the recording inexplicably cut off and spared the viewer the gory landing. Jake would have to ask Shortcut if he could get him the rest of it.

The jacket in the vid was only few years younger than Jake, but they matured at a different pace up there, so he had an unfinished look about him. His skin was clean and soft, but it wasn’t just that. As a teen, Jake had lived on the edge of the city until San Dannon plucked him from the masses for his training, and he had been fairly rugged by then. Seven years later, Jake’s face was leather. The jacket's was unlined and glossy with good health. It used to be, anyway. Now it was a mess.

This was a singular case for Jake. Ordinarily, a person of influence would be one of the rare occasions he was expected to complete a more thorough investigation. For the city's Matriarchs, leaders and high-profile boarder personalities, Human Response would turn up in person to peer over Jake’s shoulder and rewrite his report while thanking him for his assistance. Yet nobody came by to put him in his place over this unstable jacket, and soon the shape of two lifting drones appeared above him.

Jake hurriedly dodged backwards to escape being dinged by the vicinity sensor. These drones knew that anybody who got close enough to reach out and touch them was routinely clocked, and that included a civil inspector signing off on a death. They purposefully abused this small power to amuse themselves, which was an attitude that sat in direct contrast to their friendly, helpful voices and preselected phrases. One rattled off its spiel while the other went about its gruesome task without delay.

Are you finished here, Officer? it asked, hauling up the remains without waiting for a reply.

Jake recognised him by a slight dent beneath his front left lens, and he was a right little bastard. Ever since the second election and its subsequent policy changes, Jake had to train himself to reign in his vocabulary like every other inspector now being clocked for use of foul language. Being clocked wasn't so bad, but it was petty and time consuming. The autocrats in charge had designed it this way in order to keep troublemakers firmly glued to their wristware.

Unlike other unfortunate souls out there, police officers had unlimited second chances, but Jake might just become the exception to the rule if he continued burning through them. He made a mildly offensive hand gesture instead assuming he was fine. Then he resignedly turned down the audio on his wristband again in annoyance as a priority notification came through followed by the customary warning and his punishment.

It was hard to keep track of what you could still get away with now. It wasn't as if they published a list anywhere Jake could read it. Jesus said that in the old days before San Dannon had found its stride, folk had been able to throw stones at drones without reproof. Nowadays if a body so much as picked up a pin in a threatening manner, he or she would find themselves tased and released into the wild with practiced efficiency.

We are here to assist you. Please try to keep your responses courteous and respectful, the drone bleated, attempting to veer into him again before lifting off beside its colleague. Have a nice day Officer Gildroy.

The drones had package the jacket in a vacuum sealed shroud and were sharing the weight of this sagging burden for the sake of decency. They had collected the larger bits, but they weren’t big on details, so sanitation would have to get the rest of him. Jake wondered what he should do next. Generally, he would have turned an apparent jumper like this one in within half an hour, but he was reluctant to apply the term 'suicide' to some jacket princeling in an official report. Moreover, the kid had no clear motive for the act.

Jackets were never overcome by the kind of commonplace woes that thinned out the people trapped in A Layer. A body might maintain a pardonable misconception deep in their rancorous heart that conditions above couldn’t be all that better than anywhere else in this crucible of a city, but Jake had seen the heights for himself and knew the truth. At the peak of the Ad Layer, they lived a life of comparative luxury, and it was rumoured that the Jacket Layer surpassed this splendour tenfold. Nobody up there had any reason to be depressed.

He left when Auto Response did. Human Response came down fully armed and by the half dozen when they were called out, but Jake was always by himself. Out here towards the edge, there were plenty of people with nothing to left to lose, yet there wasn't much satisfaction in lashing out at drones. It wouldn’t matter to the fanatics that Jake wasn’t formally employed by San Dannon. He was an authority figure whose purely symbolic job title was engrained into the diverse population’s collective memory. Symbols became targets, which was why they were so severely lacking these days.

Only down on A Layer though. It was a regrettable disadvantage of his occupation that he had to live in the old city with everyone else. The gaudy promos and displays up in the Ad Layer were reserved for those with data to spend. To keep down costs, the bracelets and wrist bands they handed out free to the regees and new-borns only had a two-by-one inch, black and white screen. When Jake visited the Ad layer, hundreds of screens were projected in every direction splashing colours and shapes across his field of vision until it made him dizzy.

He had no idea he lived in a world of grey and brown until his first unsanctioned foray up there as a youth. As he stood immobilised drinking in the stimuli just ten yards from the platform exit, he had marvelled that the pedestrians, who frowned as they flowed around him on the thoroughfare, could so easily withstand the visual assault. After twenty minutes, the sights had made him and his cohorts nauseated.

The Ad Layer was where he was heading now, but his boyish keenness for his outings there was long faded and had been replaced with the tedium of customs, opportunists ready to greet you at the exit and the smell of inconstant sanitation. The district was now a bustling, grimy reminder of what he was only allowed to enjoy on his time off. It also meant incessant, hostile staring unless he rented a change of clothes and some stick for the day.

Most guests were gracious enough to undergo this temporary makeover in order to blend in, but they were bodies who had scrimped and saved, or they were scavengers who had gotten lucky and wanted to spoil themselves. It was a holiday for the majority of visitors. Jake was up and down once a day for the popular magic ring, which was the strongest combination of chems the dispensaries were willing to distribute within a twenty-four hour period.

The Ad Layer was the only place to buy it in its entirety, so an anxious, sweaty addict like Jake sprinting through the crowds and thrusting people aside was a recurring sight up there. This was because it was better to join the unpredictable queues as close to the twenty-four hour mark as possible. Each evening, the precise time you had last procured chems at a kiosk would be logged with an increase of several more minutes.

This incremental deadline meant that you would eventually be lining up for the dispensaries at three in the morning or spending a day sober since purchasing chems during a shift wasn't a clever move. Prior to those inexorable interludes when sobriety beckoned, Jake used the twitchy A Layer dealers that clustered near the city centre. They sold gritty pills which were missing the inscribed letters that spelt out their abbreviated namesake. Magic Ring was a mnemonic device to ensure they were swallowed in the correct sequence for maximum effect.

Jake joined the queues at the closest platform and settled in for a mind-numbing wait. There were more commuters than usual today. He briefly considered whether it had anything to do with the dead rich boy but couldn't think of a plausible connection. It was probably a delectable find from some scavvy that was worming its way through the Mech Layer, or it might even be the whisper of one provided the end product was something that consumers were sufficiently desperate for.

It could have been on account of the election, but Jake deliberately drowned all that stuff out. Demonstrating enthusiasm for the election was the quickest route to becoming a permanent social outcast, but even if the prejudices of the passive aggressive mob ran towards fervent patriotism, Jake still wouldn’t humour the Alliance’s ridiculous charade. It would be comparable to giving credence to the existence of fairies forasmuch as every child you met assured you that their parents had verified the fact.

It took an age for Jake to reach customs and more often than not he would have been annoyed by the wait, but today he didn’t have a dose of the sweats. Jake was here on police business. He didn't even mind when the drone apologetically singled him out for his bad behaviour at the scene. He preferred the customs drones over their vindictive, proletarian cousins. They were programmed with an identical temperament, but it had been moulded by generations of excited tourists, the lovable miscreants that preyed on them and the vibrating extroverts that were the greasy cogs of the entertainment sectors.

What happened, Jake? she asked as Jake obligingly allowed the other passengers to bypass him.

I couldn't help it, he replied, with a shrug. You know what they're like.

Lifters? the drone said commiseratively.

Jake nodded as he searched the drone's chassis for identifying marks. These models were so sleek that they all looked the same to him, but he thought he recognised her from a few weeks ago when she had pulled him for getting dinged by the same lifter as today. It was at the corpse of some girl who had been stuffed halfway down a vent for three days before the cams had spotted her.

When he checked the footage, Jake found that whatever the reason for her trespass, be it low hanging tech, stealing nuff or just looking for a safe place to sleep, she had climbed in voluntarily. Slipping by the divaricated bars and carefully shuffling down with hands and feet braced against the filthy walls, she became asphyxiated without finding what she was searching for. Jake had been in a dark mood that day.

The drone ploughed through her standard litany, and Jake was relieved to hear there were no incongruous additions. It was just the standard grilling a body earned for inoffensive hand gestures with a smattering of repeat offender inquiries in the mix. When the drone was done cheerfully profiling him, she concluded with the time-honoured threats and admonitions from San Dannon clumsily disguised as advice.

Jake wasn't worried. Being a civil inspector protected him from exile for anything except good old-fashioned, down-and-dirty criminal activity. The ship had sailed on keeping his record clean, so he might as well enjoy the freedom to thumb his nose at policy. He boarded the platform just before it filled to capacity and set off a moment later pressed tight against the exit. It meant he was one of the first to disembark at the top, but he had to answer the same round of questions for a duplicate drone while other passengers hurried past careful not to make eye contact as if he might blemish their own track records vicariously.

When Jake was finally done, he viciously elbowed his way through the crowds of drifters, scrungers and milkers that harangued him and pushed his way to Shortcut’s janky neighbourhood. His friend had a single unit in one of the sleazier swags, but Shortcut was noticeably sleazy himself, so they were well suited to one another. To reach it, Jake had to traverse a maze of rickety gangways after leaving the beaten path through a gap between a body art store and a discreet bar with board-sign scratched on a reinforced door.

The occasional thefts and murders that happened below were an anomaly here, so he wasn't worried about his personal safety or belongings. The miniature cams patrolling at these altitudes were not as sluggish as those assigned to the city, and two of these advanced scouts tirelessly pursued him from the platform due to his dusky face and musty skids. The sensational displays and noise dried up to be replaced by low definition screens either plagued by cracks or hazy from the protective grill riveted over their projectors.

He could pick out the unit by the nifty little ultrawave booster on the roof Shortcut had paid a pretty price for. Since the door opened before he could even register his user ID, at least one of the cams tailing him was being controlled from within by Shortcut. It was as cramped inside as usual, but that was mostly because they were couple of reasonably broad men occupying an area no bigger than a bus shelter.

There were no superfluous keepsakes or ornamentation amid the clutter, and in all probability there never would be. Shortcut didn't even look up to greet him. More than a hundred security feeds were laid out before the man, yet he unconcernedly found space for two more at the top right hand corner. If there was some pattern to it all, Jake couldn't fathom it. The coordinates appeared to be random, although each window shared the unvarying muted hues that characterised A Layer bar one.

Jake located himself in a larger frame slap-bang in the middle of the wall. He was standing over Shortcut watching himself on the screen watching himself on the screen in a Droste effect all the way to infinity. He waved at his recursive doubles through the cam and was rewarded with an amused smirk by the fat man sprawled in the chair.

I know what this is about, he said pre-emptively, eyeing Jake's visage on the screen, and you can forget it.

It's important this time.

I know. Shortcut levelled his gaze at an alternate frame. I saw it.

This window contained a bashful couple groping each other in a dark alcove on A Layer. With a deft flick of his fingers, Shortcut switched to dark mode and shamelessly zoomed in until the lovers became picture perfect.

That's why I’m not touching it, Shortcut asserted, leaning back in his chair and wincing at some stab of pain from his lower back. That footage was mangled. Anyone who sees it will be automatically clocked for a month for something this weird.

Use my ID then, Jake offered, holding out his wrist band.

Shortcut ignored it. That won't make any difference. They'll track down everyone within listening distance. The neighbours won't know what's happening to them.

From the inclined plextene surface to his right, Jake could hear the muffled sound of the next unit’s occupant as they played something with canned laughter throughout. The walls of each dangling unit were unnervingly thin, and Shortcut’s had a fissure running through it.

You're just going to have to make something up.

That's not how I do my job, Jake said softly, trying not to dwell on his first year following training back when he had still been eager to please.

You're job doesn't mean fuck all anymore, Shortcut stated, staring intently at the amorous couple. They'll be sacking your lot after the next election. Unless you've got brains or talent. Then they'll probably put you onto surveillance like me. Or move you into HR. Do you think you're gonna be promoted between now and then?

It was said in jest. Only officers with a pristine background and perfect health got promoted to the Ad layer or higher. Jake enjoyed neither of these. Before Old Jesus had ever run into him, he had lost his right arm from some mishap in the rabbit lands that he no longer recalled. The accident had left an accompanying scar spread brokenly across one cheek. Jake jostled his shoulder uneasily and flexed his prosthetic arm.

Shortcut picked up on what he was thinking and cleared his throat sympathetically. Maybe they'll let you keep the arm.

Yeah.

Shortcut jerked forwards as his eye caught a flash of red. Jake contemplated the feed that had caught Shortcut's interest and saw a message calling for control assistance. This was unusual since every piece of tech in San Dannon, from the largest lifter to the tiniest security camera, was wholly automated. Sophisticated AI devised a response for every scenario. If it could not, the user simply fell through the cracks.

That was why anyone who didn't want to go hungry was careful never to press the limits of the software for fear that an error message during a run-of-the-mill profile update at an out-dated kiosk might lead their user ID being removed. It didn't happen very often, but in a city of seventeen million registered individuals it claimed dozens of innocents that were excessively vocal about their dilemma. They called it an 'error808', and the trendy kids, who tended to flout the sensible caution their parents had towards the AI in all its variations, had taken to describing those episodes when drones became particularly intractable as throwing a ‘Bob’.

In truth, a user ID being mistakenly withdrawn was so rare a misfortune that it could have been confused for an urban myth. Far more prolific, however, were the age-old 'Sorry, request duplication' and 'Transfer error 51. Redirect'. The former cost the user a meal, the latter led to a sizeable chunk of lost data and both were equally exasperating. There was no such thing as a complaints procedure in San Dannon.

Shortcut scanned the flashing red message and studied the image while zooming and skipping with astounding virtuosity. Jake had no clue what had gone wrong because nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Some juvenile was clapping his hands in front of the cam, but he wasn't trying to damage the tiny drone, hide his face or block his user ID. After thirty years of refinement, no such act of sabotage worked against the cams anymore.

All that the drone needed to do was read his user ID, and it could do that through a steel wall as long as he was wearing tech. If a body was absent a wrist band or became imprudent enough to damage one of the intrusive cams whizzing about their duty, then the offender would soon meet their larger and more resolute counterparts from Auto Response. Shortcut turned on the audio, and the cam's nasal squeaking came piping through.

Please stop, sir. This behaviour is not permissible. You are being a public nuisance.

Each petition was given punctiliously with a purported interval of silence separating each remonstration. The supposed deviant was just your average city centre body too dumb for the tests and too pretty to be a scavvy, yet the coordinates for his location were out by the edge where society really started to get crusty. He did not look like he belonged there, for his robust energy and cockiness were the traits of a family boy. He had a mother somewhere who was nice enough smooth his hair down and maybe give him a few words of motivation in the morning.

What's he doing?

He's stalling us, Shortcut replied with a smile.

He altered the course of the drone that was currently shadowing Jake and sent it spinning into the abyss below his unit.

A fight's happening, and they're distracting every drone and cam nearby. It used to be they just took their chances. Now that it’s becoming more popular, they're getting more organised. It's amazing what they can accomplish when the families work together.

Jake leant closer and studied the boy's face. He didn't get the impression the lad was nervous or bemused like a body should be when being addressed by a drone. He looked exuberant with a wide, mocking grin painted across his grey face.

They change it now and then so we don't catch on. Two weeks ago they were whistling prohibited tunes. A month ago it was dancing. Not regular dancing, Shortcut clarified, smirking. They were doing the can-can.

Three more windows on the screen now contained youths clapping. Shortcut was chuckling fondly.

They have a list. I don't know if they bought it or just worked it out by themselves using trial and error, but on that list is a bunch of public misdemeanours that surveillance is programmed to respond to but doesn’t clock, Shortcut explained as he monitored the progress of his own private cam winding its way through suspiciously empty streets. Normally the A-lister will stop doing whatever it is they're doing or sometimes things will escalate instead, and they'll be tased and carried off. But if they just ignore the cam, there's nothing much it can do about it.

Shortcut's enhanced cam had found its way to a gathering of men and women cheering with as much restraint as possible. There were two fighters tumbling about in the middle of the crowd. Shortcut chose a superb angle and sat back.

You're not reporting it?

No. You know how things are. Deep down the board just wants people to be happy and behave, he said quietly. This was an opinion reserved for Jakes ears only. "The jackets like a fight when they come to the Ad Layer.

It doesn't cost anyone anything to turn a blind eye when A Layer organise one by themselves as long as they're not rubbing it in our faces. Look! He exclaimed, zooming in on the audience below.

There were three jackets side by side smiling and whooping. There were even bodies bumping and shoving them, and they didn't appear to care. One of them was a young woman, and her animated face alternated between distress and bloodlust.

Not like the old days, is it? Shortcut reminisced bitterly. We get a lot more of this now that things are nice and safe. It’s not just big spenders looking for A-list crotch no more.

He glanced at Jake to note his reaction to the crude language. Dubbing a body an A-Lister was made a minor policy infraction years ago which had just quadrupled its usage.

Now they watch the fights, go dancing and hand out chocolate and booze to their 'mates'. That sort of thing's getting more and more popular, especially with the younger jackets. Except it’s more about culture and compassion with the youngsters. Shortcut waved a hand airily which a signal that he was discussing something wishy-washy. Hugging through the barricades stuff.

Like that jumper, Jake inserted. I’d swear he jumped for a laugh. But he had this look on his face right up until the end. I wish I had the rest of the footage.

The unsavoury surveillance operator shifted cagily to