Chapter 2: Erik

I. Erik: “The Heist”

Erik’s heart raced in his chest. He wasn't afraid – just excited. Sometimes he thought he did this just for the thrill. Then he remembered the treasure. And the money it would fetch on the black market.

He looked over his shoulder at the dimly lit courtyard as numbers whizzed by on the little screen next to the door, then adjusted his mask and hat with one hand while keeping his handheld close to the keypad with the other. Finally he heard a satisfying click as the door lock disengaged. He smiled and pushed open the door. It gave way before him with a faint swoosh.

Erik stepped into a long dim hallway with doors on either side. As he walked down the corridor, the lights turned on before him and off behind him, following his movement down the hall. Erik knew the internal video feed was recording a closed loop of an empty hallway he had programmed into its database a week earlier – but as he moved along in this strange spotlight, he still felt like he was being watched.

Erik quickened his pace until he arrived at a nondescript door on the right hand side labeled “Unit 13.” Erik held out his hand terminal to the locking mechanism, an unnumbered keypad with a single blinking red dot above it. He pressed a button and held his breath. For a few agonizing seconds nothing happened. Then the light abruptly switched to green and the door made a soft hissing noise like air escaping a tire. Erik waited a few more seconds, then reached out and grabbed the door handle. It slid open easily. He sighed in relief.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, leaving it slightly ajar – he didn't know exactly how the lock worked and didn't want to get stuck inside. It was dark. He considered hacking into the room's control panel and turning on the lights, but he didn't want to risk any unnecessary exposure – he'd already been in the system for months, better not to tempt fate. Instead, he switched on the handheld's flashlight, and slowly scanned the room with it.

Rows upon rows of wire frame shelves filled the space. At the end of each row there was a label. Erik examined the first – A1.1-A34.3. He had to hand it to Gaiaflow –their systems were super-intuitive. He unslung his backpack and unfolded a  black bag, and began slowly moving down the rows, checking each label. The stuff was stored in boxes, neatly packed away. He looked around the sterile environment, and tried to imagine all the artifacts sitting on the shelves, out of their boxes, racks on racks of treasures.

One by one, he collected the items he'd come for – B27.3, E4.8, H23.5 – each stashed away in its case, and packed neatly into Erik's black bag. He smiled to himself – he was evil Santa, taking away goodies in his magical sack. Except, he thought, I'm not stealing from children, but from the giant faceless corporation that controls everything. His expression grew grim. I'm more like Robin Hood. Except he knew that the only poor person who'd benefit from this loot was himself.

He was in a hurry, but wanted to spot check at least one item to make sure the intel was solid. He selected a small square package and checked the number in the invoice. “Classic Nokia 3510-i Mobile Phone Year 2003, Good Condition.” He removed a small folding knife from his belt and sliced open the box seam. Inside, wrapped in bubble wrap was a small original-carbon plastic phone with no touch screen, just clunky plastic buttons. He couldn’t imagine what Moira or anyone wanted with this ancient tech stuff. It was certainly valuable though, and he knew there were people who would exchange a lot for old-school tech just because they loved collecting a piece of history.

The next box he checked — “Raspberry Pi 4 with Case, Year 2021” — also matched up. He held the small portable computer in his hand, feeling the matte finish of the red and white plastic case with his fingers. He knew about these. They were an early attempt at making tech resources super-affordable and accessible to the masses, a precursor to what Gaiaflow eventually accomplished on a grand scale decades later. He wondered if they knew what was coming?

Erik shook his head to clear his thoughts, and quietly focused on the rest of his work. In went the boxes, up went the zipper, and soon Erik was trudging back past the rows of shelves with some tech worth a half million credits slung over his shoulder.

He had nearly reached the C's when he saw a shadow flit past the open doorway. He hastily threw his body down the nearest row and crouched low against the shelf, scrambling to shut off his headlamp. He cursed himself for being so careless.

Erik spent the next few seconds listening intently. Once he was sure he could hear nothing but his breathing, he began crawling slowly along the floor towards the door, ready to scramble behind a shelf at a moment's notice. Finally, he made it to the doorway, and peered through the crack. He saw only the dim light from the entrance foyer, and heard no sound. He took a deep breath, slowly opened the door, and crept out, headed up the corridor the way he had come. As he opened the door, he took his handheld out of his pocket and opened up the control center for his trojan horses.

He'd written each program for this specific purpose and implanted them one-by-one into the Gaiaflow servers that ran this storage facility, and he now had complete control over each individual system. Doing it this way was less likely to arouse suspicion, and meant that one intrusion getting detected wouldn't necessarily give away the others – a technique he'd picked up while working for Gaiaflow, ironically. Is it even ironic? he wondered. After all, how else would anyone learn to program Gaiaflow servers besides working for Gaiaflow? That's the beauty of Gaiaflow, Erik mused. There is no alternative. He frowned as he thought about the dirt-poor Colonists scraping out a living on the 10% of land left over after Gaiaflow had consolidated their ownership of all real estate and open farmland. No viable alternative, anyway. But at least they're free. Aren't they?

Erik tabbed open the controls for the lights, and deactivated the outdoor lighting. The courtyard went dark. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the moonlight, then reached into his backpack and pulled out two small rounded detonators. These small metallic disks were low-power, personal use models for home demolition, but would be enough to blow the door's circuitry to make his hack untraceable. He placed one each on the keypad and door handle, then gathered his bags and walked north along the dirt path behind the complex.

When he'd travelled a hundred yards or so, he turned, pulled out his handheld, and blew the detonators. He heard a faint pop-and-hiss sound and saw a tiny orange flash. He pulled up the building controls again, and turned the courtyard lights back on. Then, mentally crossing his fingers, he pulled up the security controls, and scrolled back through the feeds of the last thirty minutes as he walked further up the path. One by one, he pulled up the camera footage zoomed back through – an empty hallway, a room full of shelves, a dimly lit courtyard with a closed entrance door.

Erik let out a huge sigh of relief as he closed down the control window on his handheld. His trick had worked – the cameras had recorded the footage into their memory as if it was happening in real time, and there would be no files to replace, no digital tracks to cover. He closed down the program broadcasting his camera reels, and shut off his handheld. He'd be going dark from here on out.

He turned to look one last time at the now distant storage facility. From the small wooded rise where he stood, he could see the four buildings sprawling out in a low valley between two gently sloping wooded mountains.

***

II. Erik: “Gaiaflow’s Counseling Services”

Back at his dwelling, Erik quickly stashed all the loot in the special safe he'd installed under the floor panel, and hurried to change clothes. He was cutting it close – the meeting with his Gaiaflow counsellors started in ten minutes. He sighed. Let's get this over with.

Ten minutes later he was seated in front of a holoscreen with a cup of hot tea and his computer tablet. In front of him the 3-D images of two floating heads and torsos lit up the small room he used as an office. One was a man with nut brown skin, soft features, and long flowing black hair held back in a loose ponytail. The second was a woman with short curly red hair, a narrow face with sharp features, and bright green eyes. Erik reached up instinctively to smooth down his hair and leaned back in his chair. The two Gaiaflow counsellors beamed smiles at him.

“It's so nice to see you again Erik,” the man's voice dripped with sugary kindness. No one could be that nice, Erik thought in disgust. He forced a smile.

“Nice to see you too!” he lied.

“I'll get right down to business. Why do you think Gaiaflow requested this meeting?”

“I don't know. Maybe because I've missed three shifts this month--”

“Without checking in at all,” the second holograph interjected.

“--without checking in, I know. Listen, I'm having a hard time, you know? My old tutor just died, and I'm in a funk.” The two holographs exchanged a glance. “Yes, well, we know of the passing of your former tutor – truly a shame. Were you two close? The phone logs show that you called her...'' the man glanced down briefly, “Once in the past three years? Is that right? Must have been a terrible loss. We have grief counselors who could assist you with processing the emotions around this event, if you'd like.”

Erik looked back at the man coldly. “Thanks. I'm fine.”

“Yes, well.” The man took a breath and exhaled. “Listen, Erik. I know you may not believe this, but we genuinely want to help you. You're obviously unhappy. We think you need a new role at Gaiaflow, something unrelated to programming.”

Erik eyed the man suspiciously. Does he know? “But I like programming.”

“Your personal records show that you've been inside more than 85% of all daylight hours. You know our physicians recommend at least...”

Erik laughed inside his head as the man droned on about daily doses of vitamin D and healthy eating habits. So that's what this was about – whenever Erik was out doing recon or one of his heists, he would set up a decoy handheld to record his personal data, showing that he was at home cooking, playing simulations, taking a nap, normal stuff. All the information was preprogrammed. It created cover and an alibi for him if he ever needed one.

Still, besides his “errands” for Moira, he didn't actually get out of the house much. Maybe this Gaiaflow egghead had a point.

“...which is why we've requested that you be transferred to Geo/Bio Engineering.”

“Wait, what?!? You're transferring me? I just missed a few shifts!”

“Erik, you're clearly unhappy,” the second counselor said calmly. “We think you need a change, and this assignment might turn out to be something you really love. You'll get to travel around and work with our outdoor engineering teams. Remember when you were a kid you loved the outdoors?” He smiled at Erik encouragingly.

“Yeah, when I was eight!” Erik shouted, flustered. This would mess up everything. “You don't know me at all! You just read some stupid report!” He felt the anger flush in his cheeks. He looked away from his counselors at the grey walls of his office. Really, he had no choice. If they wanted to reassign him, they could, and the only alternative led to the Colonies and probably starvation, or worse. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “This is all wrong!”

“Excellent. Your transfer documentation should be showing up in your inbox...right now.” Erik's tablet and handheld chimed in harmony. The man smiled at him, and then surprised him. “When I was nineteen, I quit the Gaiaflow Collective.” He paused, looking at Erik's reaction. Erik tried to keep his face stoic and expressionless. “I resented my counselors for controlling my life, which is how I saw it back then. I resented the Collective for controlling everything. And I resented myself for not being able to do anything about it. I thought I was trapped. I felt frustrated and angry. So I left.”

There was a thick silence. The second counselor's eyes were trained intensely on Erik's face, but she said nothing.

OK, I'll play along, thought Erik. The man was describing Erik's thoughts too, his inner world, and they both knew it, and they each knew the other knew it, so what was the difference? Besides, some part of him was genuinely intrigued.

“So what did you do? Where did you go?”

“The Colonies. At first I got a job on a fishing boat.” He chuckled. “It was an old wreck, grafted together from spare parts and scrap metal. But, it didn’t belong to Gaiaflow. It wasn’t networked. It was ours. Or, well, it was my captain’s at least. I scraped out a living on that boat for three years, pulling whatever fish and crabs we could out of the water. When the storms came, we lashed our boat to the palm trees and dug our shelter down into the sand. Sometimes we would hunker down for three, four days with nothing to eat but salted crab and bananas.”

“Why did you come back? Become a counselor? Was it just too hard?”

“What was the point of that life?” The man stated this like the answer was obvious. “What good was I doing outside of the Collective? Did it make me a better man? It just made me tired, and hungry, and a shell of myself. Did it change Gaiaflow? No. The Collective just kept right on going. It couldn’t care less about me and my little private rebellion.”

“But you must have been proud? Right? To make a living for yourself, like a real person. Not like some cog in a giant machine.”

“I’ll tell you what, I saw what it was like out there. It was a harsh life. Nasty, brutish, and short. This is better. And it's necessary - it’s the best hope for humanity. You’re a smart kid. You’ve read your history. Tell me, who protected people during the superstorms and the flooding? What about the food shortages? Who provided seeds and produce to the people when they needed it?” The man's eyes had started to shine as his voice gathered momentum. “Who was there when the government collapsed? Who fed the people? Clothed them?”

“You made slaves out of humanity.”

“We saved humanity!” The woman interjected. “You're not slaves,” she scoffed. “Let's be serious and use words to mean what they mean.” She leaned back and continued in a calm tone. “Look at your life – you work twelve hours a week in exchange for everything you need. Your days are pleasant and peaceful. You're free to live in whatever Realm you choose, and to request reassignment or sabbatical at any time. And if you really can't stand it you can move to the Colonies, or go live off the land like Paulo did.” The woman’s holograph gestured at her partner. Her eyes grew soft as she leaned back and clasped her hands in her lap. She shook her head. “That's not slavery. But you know that. What's this really about, Erik? Is this about your family?”

Erik felt the welling up inside his chest, and pushed it down. He wouldn't let these Gaiaflow drones see him cry. He clenched his fists and stared out the room's single window at the trees. Outside, a blue jay swooped down onto a branch and screeched.

“When does my reassignment start?” He forced his voice to be level as he spoke.

“It's OK to have feelings, Erik,” the woman replied. “Remember that we are here for you, and we genuinely care about you and your happiness. What happened to your family was a tragedy, and it's natural to be emotional, to want support.”

Erik shook his head. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. Not today. “When does it start?”

The man leaned back and sighed, then looked down. “It starts August 27th.”

“Two weeks.”

“That's right.”

“Alright then.” Erik forced a big ear-to-ear grin. Let them see how happy he was. “I'm looking forward to the great outdoors!”

***

III. Erik: "Moira and The Grey Wolf”

Erik walked down the gravel path carrying a large black hiking backpack. Ahead of him and below the city rose up from the trees, like a giant outcropping of the landscape jutting into the sky. As his path descended, it joined up with the main road and Erik began passing small apartment blocks and outdoor cafés where people ate at tables outside despite the chill of autumn in the air. He peered through the tall glass windows and saw people working together to prepare their food and drinks in the communal kitchens. Here and there Erik spotted Gaiaflow logos, unobtrusive yet omnipresent.

It was always a good idea to be discreet when he brought things to Moira. He’d decided to park his car up in the mountains and hike down. He wore cargo shorts and dusty boots, and tried to look for all the world like a weary hiker who’d just returned to town from a jaunt in the mountains with a giant backpack full of camping gear. Behind him, the sun set slowly over the Appalachian foothills. As the road wound its past rows of outdoor cafe tables, Erik people-watched. Inside the communal kitchens people prepared food, working casually and chatting. Outside locals sat at cafe tables or ambled down the boulevard, groups of friends, couples holding hands. An elderly lady sat next to a pond and fed ducks with her granddaughter. Small apartment homes rose up every few hundred meters, for those Gaiaflowans who preferred to live in an urban setting, close to other people. 

As he walked, he thought about the upcoming meeting. If Moira would take everything he’d collected he would have a pretty penny to spend. People like him still used old fashioned money, which he’d be getting soon from Moira. Erik smiled as he imagined the clink of the beautiful shiny coins, moving his hand up and down to feel their weight. Why did people ever stop using money?

Erik rounded a corner and stopped in front of a two-story stone building. Like most places in the area it was a mixture of rustic and high-tech. The walls of traditional stone and mortar encased windows made of the latest captured-carbon composite. The perfect clarity of the windows suggested the latest nano-tech. Above the wood-paneled front door hung an oval sign painted green, with golden letters that read “Grey Wolf Apothecary.” Beneath the English words sat three Chinese characters, ornately drawn in gold paint. Then he set his shoulders, took a deep breath, and opened the door to the shop.

Entering Moira’s apothecary was like stepping back in time. The room was dimly lit with hanging lamps that cast a warm yellow glow. Hundreds, maybe thousands of jars lined floor-to-ceiling shelves that ran the length of the room on either side. In the center sat a long marble topped table, mostly empty but for a few metal scales and a jar that sat open with a loose pile of brownish leaves beside it. At the far end of the room there was a small counter with a wide window open to the back office. There, a girl with light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail sat peering at him over a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. She held a paperback book in one hand and a mug in the other. She was new, or at least he was pretty sure he’d never seen her before. Erik looked at her and let the silence hang in the room for a moment.

“Welcome to Grey Wolf. May I help you?” she asked in a sweet, smooth voice.

He walked over to the counter and set his backpack down gently on the hardwood floor.

“I’m looking for something really specific. Newt’s tails.”

The girl set down her book and mug. Erik could smell the bittersweet aroma of the tea as its steam wafted into the air.

“What color newt?” the girl asked cautiously, looking him in the eyes.

“Purple.” Erik knew that purple newts did not exist, except maybe in some Gaiaflow lab somewhere.

“Purple newts don’t exist,” the girl replied, her expression steady.

“Then let’s imagine them together.” Erik fought the urge to blush. He always felt silly saying these things at Moira’s.

The girl nodded. At least it had worked. He hadn’t flubbed his lines.

“Follow me,” she said, as she stood up and turned to walk into the back office. Erik followed her past the counter and into the back room. Bookshelves lined the back wall. To his right sat a large wooden desk where an antique brass lamp with a green shade casting yellow light on piles of papers and leather-bound books. Erik felt his feet sink into a plush carpet. He looked down to see ornate designs in burgundy, blue, and gold. The room had a strange, old smell that he couldn’t place - a mixture of earthy and spicy with a faint smokiness like burning wood.

“Turn around please.”

Erik dutifully turned back toward the front of the shop. Behind him the girl did something — maybe with a book on the bookshelves? — and Erik heard a faint electronic whirring somewhere in the ceiling. The wall behind the desk to his left spun slowly on its axis, revealing a dim, wood-paneled passageway.

“Go straight back and take the first passage on the left.”

“The left, got it.”

“Don’t worry, you wouldn’t be able to take a wrong turn anyway. This shop has very sophisticated countermeasures, as I’m sure you know.” The girl smiled, her eyes twinkling.

“Moira is expecting you. Right this way,” the girl said, gesturing down the passageway.

“Thanks,” Erik tried to sound casual as he moved deliberately down the passage and wondered what countermeasures the girl was talking about. Probably just the usual bubble-shields and biometric scanning tech. He studied the wooden wall panels as he made his way to the first passage on the left. He wondered what would happen if he kept going straight down the hallway, decided not to find out, and turned down the short hallway towards Moira’s office.

At the door, he knocked five times — shave-and-a-hair-cut — and sat back on his heels. A moment later the door silently swung inwards. Erik stepped into the room. The only light came from a fireplace. His eyes took a moment to adjust as he looked around. On the right there was a small wooden desk, and two tall bookshelves against the wall on either side. A small couch and two cushioned chairs sat around a small coffee table to the left. Moira sat with her legs crossed in the chair closest to the fireplace, peering into the flames.

“It’s amazing what human beings did to survive,” she said. “We carved axes from stone, chopped up the plants around us and set fire to them. All so we could live in the freezing cold, in strange, alien places we had no right to be.”

Erik waited patiently for the old woman to finish. He’d learned to listen in these situations with her. Maybe she just liked the sound of her own voice. She turned to regard Erik with rheumy brown eyes.

“Thank you for coming back. You’ll find a handheld on the desk there with everything you’ll need for your next assignment.”

“My next assignment?”

“All the information is there. Enjoy your journey.” Moira smiled and turned back to the fireplace. There was an awkward moment as Erik waited to see if she had more to say. The logs in the fireplace fizzed and crackled. The silence lingered. After a moment, he walked over to the desk, picked up the handheld, and walked out of the room.