New Jericho

The Floating City

9-10: New Jericho: Third District: 6&30: Detective Alan Merwyn, Health and Wellness Division, Second Class

Alan woke to a buzzing siren, like every morning, a herald of the days coming misfortune. The metallic bleat of the buzzer signaled the arrival of six and thirty, time to get up and go to work, as the mantras say. He rose from the tiny moth eaten cot, sliding out from the comfort of his tattered wool blanket. His feet met the floor, cold linoleum, and recoiled without touch, sending a lightning bolt of tension through his body. He grabbed a cigarette and his lighter from the side table and stood, stretching the tremors of the previous night from his back and lighting up, gazed out his thirty fifth story window toward the spiraling columns of the third district housing project below.
The city was a masterpiece of human ego indulgence; when man had exerted it's capabilities to curtail an exploding growth in population, and found the world mired in grief and sin, he simply built over the remains of his failure and raised a nation. In other words, they just kept building and building, mostly residential complexes like this one, until the land was completely covered. But the population continued to grow, and they had to start building over the sea. Alan gazed toward the old harbor, where a massive platform had been raised at the cities edge, at least ten miles wide and added to each day. On the face, you couldn't really tell it was a platform at all, since a sprawling slum had appeared there almost over night. Down there they called it the floating city. Up here they call it the Shit Hole. Or the Fuck Hole, it depends on who you're asking.
West of the floating city Alan could just make out the ruined sector, twenty square miles of city left electrically unsound after a botched government experiment on cyborgs using nuclear powered core weapons, and beyond that the rust ocean (an ocean of rusty water that, apparently goes on eternal) and Tower Island jutting out of the reddish brown water like a pleading hand to the heavens. The waves lapped around it's base engorging a thick black foam, the same color of the dark clouds in the ashen sky, and it left behind a stench that one would not believe, but the buildings filtered all that nasty smell out. But I've still got to go out there, he thought.
He dressed, hazmat breeches and protective face mask, and made a cup of instant coffee, which he forgot anyway, and rushed out the door, swallowing down two little green Aspadoza pills and one big orange Subuxone pill as he got in the elevator and pushed the button for the car port. When the doors wisked open, Alan breathed a sigh of relief to see the lift was empty, his medication hadn't taken effect yet and he had one nagging bitch of a hangover, so needless to say, his ability for social interaction was low. And his horrorscope said today was "a day of ill omens" which definitely couldnt be a very good sign. Alan was a crab, and it was the year of the fisherman, so bad luck was in abundance.
The lift doors opened on the very next floor down, and when they did it caused Alan to jump. A tall thin man in a black suit, with matching black pointed toe shoes, socks, gloves, sunglasses (which shouldn't really be worn indoors, bad omen, Alan thought) and a black peaked cap to top it all off. He was obviously a cop. Alan could smell another cop no matter how good his intrigue, but this guy was being blatant. If he's not, Alan thought, then I'm the grand high sultan. The obvious cop noticed Alan watching him and quivered nervously.
"lovely morning," Alan said in a loud voice. His meds were kicking in and he felt a surge of confidence enough to make small talk. The obvious cop just nodded and turned his eyes to the countdown above the door. Why do people do that, Alan thought, it's very rude. He coughed.
"you're a cop" he said, and the obvious cop turned on a dime, "it's ok," he produced a badge, "I'm with public safety, detective Alan Merwyn, food and wellness division, second class." The cop just stared back at him, his lip flinching. What is with this guy? He's getting all bent out of shape, Alan thought.
"Gentz," he spurted, "ways and means division, fourth class," there was defeat in that. He was admitting his lesser rank, was that his problem? No, Alan thought, there's something else. "how did you-"
"know you were a cop?" Alan laughed, " the black. The black always gives it away, as you can see, my jumpsuit is brown. They never expect a cop to wear brown because the commons wear brown. The cops and the government guys always wear black," he tried to tap a finger against Gentz's head, but he pulled away.
"hey!" he shouted.
"the sunglasses," Alan said calmly.
"the what?" Gentz shouted.
"the sunglasses, nobody wears sunglasses in doors except cops and mafioso. So, which one are you?" Gentz gave him a menacing look, then pulled the glasses off. Alan grimaced, Gentz had what the common folk would call an evil eye. Science types call it Posion Tears. I'd call it a fucking nightmare of dried puss and blood, Alan thought.
"that's why you fucking prick!" Gentz was saying, "what do you think of this huh?" Alan laughed.
"watch it Gentz, or I'll give you two eyes like that," and the conversation was finished. They stood in silent tension until the bell rang for the car port and Alan departed. For a moment he turned to say something to Gentz, but the young cop was red faced and sweating like he was holding his breath, and Alan thought better of it. He got in his car as the elevator doors closed again and Gentz was gone. A fucking prick, Alan thought as he swallowed down a breakfast supplement pill, he called me a fucking prick and I didn't blind him, I must be getting soft.

He drove from his buildings car port to the metroway and joined the daily march of slowly ascending traffic. It reminded him of a highly oiled machine, or a line of cattle in a slaughterhouse, blindly pushing forward to the inevitable doom that lay before them. Seven brightly shining plain metal buildings jutting from the rabble, the divisions of the state; wars and peace, laws and orders, pains and justice, ways and means, past and future, air and climate, and finally his own health and wellness (or food and wellness depending on who you ask). Each gleaming tower held a million workers each, and these streams of fuel efficient hybrid electric vehicles poured into them from the metro like plankton engulfed by the gaping mouth of a whale.
The tension with Gentz still bit at him, so he swallowed a paxifril and two more Subuxone before his car reached the load port inside the health and wellness building. The vision screen on his dashboard was showing a news clip from the wars and peace division's war on poverty, shiny armor clad patrol men in minitanks watching over the floating city, a smiling officer handing out bread pills to dirty children, the clean (to an extent) streets of the plaza.
"...and forty more years," the news reader was saying, but Alan turned the volume to mute, the noise was upsetting his head. The screen flashed some scenes, that Alan could tell were staged, of the recent capture of a rebel leader in the ruins. Then a commercial for military insurance, but Alan wasn't paying much attention. He knew that it was a vice to not pay attention, especially to a patriotic broadcast, but the encounter with Gentz had him in a torrid state of mind. There was something that nagged at him about the young cop, something strange about the way he acted. Ways and means was a division of silencers and assassins, spies and turncoats. Information specialists. Alan supposed it was possible that Gentz lived there, there were too many people living there to know them all, but for some reason he doubted it. Problem was, he could say why exactly, maybe cause Gentz called him a "fucking prick." Technically insubordination to a ranking officer, Alan thought, I'll file the paperwork tomorrow.
The car lift jolted to a halt and Alan got out onto the fifty fifth floor of the hall of Heath and wellness. While the lower floors, used for specimen processing, violation screening, and of course prisoner and paperwork storage, were busy with the footsteps of thousands, these higher floors were almost always empty of sound. He stepped out into the empty lobby, his own footsteps echoing out in all directions, and fleeing into the darkened nooks and crannies like roaches to the light. The effect was very similar to walking around inside a giant steel drum, he pondered, or at least what he expected walking around inside a steel drum was like, and as he crossed from the lift to a great metal door on the far side of the lobby, the echos danced around him singing their mimicking tune. No one comes up here but him, Alan thought, the chief.
Commander and Chief Yosen was a stout man in his mid forties with a boldly painted black mustasche, beady blue green eyes, and tiny wisps of greying, thinning hair. He was tall in stature, with great bear like shoulders, but his waist was tiny, and his small legs, ravaged by gout in both feet, where comically undersized when in comparison to his hulking frame. Yosen wore a brown jumpsuit with a front pocket containing his fifteen pens for signing vetos and his pocket sized Mission Statement; the mantra of the seven divisions, a handy travel size handbook of rules and regulations. Alan had his own copy stuffed into his back pants pocket, it was unwise to be seen without it, nay, a crime.
"oh god not you again," Yosen was on his telereciever when Alan entered, "sit. I'll be with you in a moment, and don't touch anything." Yosen turned back to the receiver and continued his conversation while Alan fiddled with a brass figurine on Yosen's desk. After ten minutes had passed, he hung up, and turned back to Alan with an increasing grimace. Chief Yosen was what they called a forty fiver; he was hard pressed to leave this lofty vigil and descend (hence the name) to below forty five stories. The pressure of the altitude caused intense pain. Yosen had to stay up here where the air was thin, and it showed on his withering gaze.
"what is it now Merwyn," he said, exasperated, "I'm up to my neck in shit today, are you hear to bury me in it?" that's what Alan liked about the chief; his loveable, playful wit.
"no sir," Alan wanted to get straight to the point, "it's just the Anders case, it's driving up a fucking wall. I can't even sleep at-" Yosen cut him off.
"like I told you before," he sighed, "there's nothing I can do to help you, we're stretched thin as it is and I can't give you an application for new recruits until they've passed the entrance exam. I've got the minister up my ass, he wants this whole thing to just disappear and expects my head to roll if it doesn't, and the chief of ways and means wants us to help investigate some food poisoning in their mess hall. Then there's the council of nine, don't get me started on those fucking zombies." Alan had no intention of that, the council of nine were like gods. Untouchable and undeniable.
"but chief I got to get this case closed up and I can't do it with what I got now-" he was cut off again.
"I can give you a cyborg." Alan almost spit in his face.
"never." His face dropped, and he cringed, "I'm not working with one of those."
"suit yourself, but they're damn helpful Alan," Yosen coughed up some black phlegm, "excuse me, they're damn helpful. And that's the best I can do for you." Or the least you can do, Alan thought, fucking smelly old bastard, I know you're holding back. That's just how it is, you got to cover your own ass.
"I'm flattered you think so highly of me," Alan mocked, "but a cyborg won't do. I need men."
"you won't get them," Yosen tone had turned stone, and sour, Alan opened his mouth to protest but the chief beat him to the punch. "you simply, WILL NOT get them. That is all." Alan wanted to scream, but he knew there was nothing more he could say. The old fucking bastard had made up his mind. Alan left the office in a huff and made tracks for the elevator. That's two things that made me angry today, he thought as he swallowed a paxidel and another paxifril, and it's all someone elses fault! What a morning already. And it was only Monday