Bitstream

10.2

Rhea didn't forget the way that woman with the white hair spoke to her father, or what she said. She tried – really tried – but the memory always crept back when she was supposed to be sleeping. For three nights in a row, she woke up sweating from the same dream: people crashing through the lab doors, setting fire to everything, stepping over broken machines. It didn't make much sense. The company owned the place. Her father was only allowed to stay as long as he kept working on the self-teaching AI. And he had. But ever since her mother died, his work had slowed. Not out of grief in the usual sense. He just… changed.

Sometimes, Rhea even thought her mother's ghost was in the machines themselves. The AI had to be transferred into a new frame every six months, because each time the circuits wore out, the results came back wrong. Off. There was always something in it that didn't want to run right.

When that happened, Viren would take Rhea into town to find another android frame. Mornings were better. The Scrubs filled up fast by mid-afternoon, and the markets turned into a wall of voices and noise. The town wasn't big – maybe a few thousand people spread thin between honky-tonk buildings and bad roads – but it had more activity than it should've. Things always felt on the verge of breaking. You could feel it in the way people talked; they were waiting for something worse to happen. Rhea didn't know what exactly, but it made her keep close to her father, even when she pretended not to care.

That morning, when the sun crept up from its hidey hole and ran a lovely yellow film across what were otherwise some nasty smoke clouds, she stood particularly close. The market in the centre of The Scrubs was busier than usual, especially for an early hour, and she didn't like the way the crowd bunched. People moved shoulder to shoulder, heads down, eyes scanning everything. Most wore coats that didn't match and boots that looked as if they'd been stitched together more than once. A few had scavenged wrist units that stuttered or gave no reading at all. They passed shuttered shops with neon signs that hadn't lit up in years. Bartering tables lined the street, covered in old machine parts, half-dead batteries, and gear no one could fully identify anymore. Kids perched on crates, picking at their sleeves, watching old watcher drones buzz overhead.

Rhea and Viren moved along the central path, trying not to bump into anyone. That was when they heard it. At first, it was just noise: raised voices, feet stomping, static cutting through a busted speaker. Then came the shouting. A group had gathered near the fountain in the market circle, holding up signs and yelling into megaphones that screamed more than they worked. They were calling out names, shouting about control and stolen futures. And in between all that noise, Rhea heard the name: [Redacted].

Each member held a different sign, but they all had a similar message: 'MACHINES DON'T FEED CHILDREN', 'END THE CORPO CHAINS', 'STEEL KILLS. SCRUBS BLEEDS'.

Rhea almost read that last one as Steele Kills, Scrubs Bleeds, and it made her stomach turn. When the crowd thinned, she got a better look at them. They wore white, but it wasn't clean white. It was bleached, re-stitched scrap cloth and faded factory uniforms, torn at the sleeves, patched over at the knees, dyed by rust and sun. Most had cloth wrapped around their mouths or eyes: filters, rags, welding visors with cracked lenses. A few had jury-rigged helmets made from old drone plating, bolted together with scrap wire and battery tape. Their coats were marked with spray-paint slogans and scrawled barcodes, the kind you couldn't scan anymore even if you wanted to. Their boots clanked, not because they were military, but because they were weighted down with some old industrial bits. A boy no older than sixteen stood on a crate, shouting into a megaphone with a taped-up handle. The speaker was blown out, every word coming through with a burst of feedback. But it didn't matter. People were listening. People were angry. And Rhea could feel it; it was like something waiting to come apart.

She agreed that the situation the south had been dealing with for the past few decades had been awful. Even though she hadn't been alive to witness it herself, Viren had told her how many businesses began using task-efficient technology to perform jobs once done by human hands, things like manual labour, logistics, and even some medical procedures. It wasn't quite as advanced as what Project Halcyon promised, but it was sufficient enough to churn a sweeping wave of layoffs through the lower and middle sectors. People who'd spent their whole lives working with their hands suddenly found themselves boxed out by code, without warning, without compensation, only an automated message and a locked terminal. The press had called it 'the quiet cleansing'. Not because anyone died, but because the lives they lived were erased just the same. Rhea didn't understand the full depth of it, not really, but she understood why people were angry. She just didn't believe their anger gave them the right to tear things down or try to rally others. Even as a little girl, that was where she drew the line.

Of course, it would only make sense that [Redacted] would want Viren to speed things up exponentially for that very reason: to stop those people from getting too bold, and to grant a sense of control to the system. After all, the more time passed, the more risk they ran of losing grip.

But Rhea and Viren did their best to ignore them and carried on towards Gutterman's, a junkyard facility not too far from the market centre. It wasn't huge – two fenced lots, three collapsing sheds, a corrugated tin office with one flickering bulb, and a warehouse – but it had a decent supply of crushed cars, failed bots, scavenged parts, and other things people simply gave up on. From time to time, elites dumped old android frames here. Some were warped from heat damage. Others were missing limbs or had motherboard corrosion. Most weren't worth the cost to repair. But every once in a while, one came in still blinking.

Gutterman Strider (the owner) didn't trust many folks, but he trusted Viren. They'd worked together years ago, back when men still pulled metal with their hands and the machines just helped lift. Before the factory shut down. Before the layoffs. Now Gutterman mostly stayed behind his warehouse desk with a bottle in one hand and a revolver in the other, but when Viren came knocking, he always answered. Always had something tucked away for him. Sometimes whole arms. Sometimes broken eye rigs. Once, an entire android chassis. Gave it over with a grunt and a 'Try not to blow up this one.'

On this day, as Rhea and Viren walked down the grated steps to the junkyard, Gutterman was busy crushing cars in an old compactor while some of his staff sorted through engine blocks and stripped wiring from broken-down drones. Sparks flew from a corner where someone was welding a cracked exosuit frame back into shape. A loader bot stood motionless under a tarp, half-dismantled, waiting for parts that might never come.

Gutterman was a heavy Black man, though he liked to tell people he was just 'big-boned and full of bad ideas, fool.' He wore grease like a second skin, and his beard looked like it had swallowed a few nuts and bolts in its time. His voice carried even when he wasn't yelling, and his eyes missed nothing: not in the yard, not in the street, not in the look a man gave when he was lying. He didn't smile often, but when he did, it usually meant someone else had lost. It was a look that only he had. When Rhea and Viren reached the last step, he paused his work, took a slow drag from his cigar, and gave them that same look.

Without even saying a word, he knew what Viren was here for. They headed inside not too long after, into his workshop where he sometimes got his mechanics to put old bits back together before selling them back on the market – yeah, he was one of those junkyard owners – and Lucian was already inside, hunched over a busted servo arm at the back bench, fiddling with wires he probably wasn't supposed to be touching. He glanced up when they walked in, gave a nod, then went right back to it: barely listening to the warnings echoing from the old radio behind him.

"Hope my boy's not givin' you too much trouble, Steele," said Gutterman, flicking through his ring of keys and heading over to the metal storage container at the back of the workshop, where he kept the good parts: the ones that still worked, or could be made to with a little effort: old bot frames, stripped processors, limbs that hadn't rusted through yet. Everything valuable was locked up tight behind reinforced mesh and a dented biometric pad that only recognised his thumbprint and foul language.

"As long as Rhea doesn't influence him, he should be fine." It was a ridiculous thing for her father to say, because Lucian was the one who started that garden hose attack. But she was the one who got the stern talking-to.

"Fuckin' keys," Gutterman muttered, and finally he pulled out the correct one and plugged it into the keyhole. He twisted his hand and the lockplate clicked. He shoved the keyring back into his coat and yanked the mesh gate with both hands. It scraped open on its track, loud enough to set a few tools rattling on the bench behind him. "I have to thank ya, for lettin' him work at the lab. Wouldn't trust that boy with the scissors in this place, I wouldn't."

"How's business?" asked Viren.

"Slow." Gutterman pressed his thumb to the scanner on the inner mesh containment unit; the door popped open and he swung it back. "Had some of those rebel boys comin' by."

"The ones in white?"

"Very same," he said, stepping into the open storage unit and sifting through all the different parts. "Someone musta told 'em somethin', because they thought I was using some of that AI to run my business. Sheesh. I haven't used AI since I opened this place and I doubt I ever will."

"Crazy people," said Rhea.

"She speaks." Gutterman got down on his knee and started pulling wires aside, tossing aside a busted spine rig with one hand like it weighed nothing. "Nah, not crazy. Just desperate. Desperate people get loud, and then they get stupid. But I guess you gotta be a little stupid to still care about the world, huh?" He grunted, reaching deeper into the pile. The steel clinked and rattled.

Viren leaned against the doorframe. "You think they'll try something?"

Gutterman didn't answer right away. Just kept digging, metal screeching as he shifted aside a cracked prosthetic leg and a heap of defunct visual modules. "I think they already are." Eventually, he slid some other parts aside, reached deep into one of the containers, and pulled out something wide and no doubt heavy. It was the upper half of an android's torso, but not because it had been chopped or anything; it was simply designed that way. "This should do you. Inner circuits are still intact. Little scorched in the lower ports, but nothing fatal. Frame's adaptive, Type-4 steel composite. Real sturdy shit. Won't run fast, but it'll take a beating." He turned and plunked the torso down on a side table with a hollow clang. Dust scattered.

Viren stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "Where'd you get it?"

"Came in last week with a load from the East Wall. One of the techlords cleared out his private unit – must've been scared shitless, the way the higher-ups are cracking down."

Rhea stared at the piece, her fingers itching to touch the exposed relay boards. She didn't know why; she just wanted to. This version was less creepy than the other because it had a single slit for an eye instead of an optic and an old rustplate. Newer-looking, she supposed. "It's cool!"

"Glad you think so," Gutterman said, and he let out a nasty cough before taking another puff of his cigar. He was silent for a moment as he stared at her father. "They, uh… they mentioned you, Viren."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"The rebels?" he said.

Gutterman took a deep breath and stubbed the cigar on the inner table. He sounded like he was about to deliver bad news, in the same way doctors do when there's no easy way to put a family member's death, and that made Rhea very nervous indeed. "They're callin' themselves the Syndicate," he said flatly. "Yeah, I know. Stupid goddamn name. Sounds like somethin' a bunch of bored teens came up with after watchin' too many cheap holoshows. But they ain't kids. Not anymore. Least most of 'em aren't."

"Hell do they want with me?" Viren asked. It was a fair question, and he deserved a straight answer.

"Well, if you must know," Gutterman said, hauling the android torso out into the main workshop, "they think you and I are workin' something under the table. That I've got ties to your deal with [Redacted]."

Viren let out a dry laugh. "Lunatics. They show up here often?"

Gutterman stopped walking. His face changed. "No. They don't."

That answer hit Rhea wrong. Deep in her gut. If they weren't checking on Gutterman, that meant they were checking on someone else.

"Interesting," Viren said after a pause. "Didn't know getting the job meant everyone in my orbit was gonna catch heat. I didn't even think anyone remembered what happened during the layoffs."

"People remember," Gutterman said. "They don't forgive easy. [Redacted] showed up, took everything that wasn't nailed down, and left the rest of us with shit. You got picked. That's not your fault. You've got a kid to look after. And hell, I know as well as anyone how few jobs there are left for folks like us." He bent down and hefted the torso into a crate. "But someone out there's got it in their head that we're connected. Someone said too much. And it sure as hell wasn't me."

"I know," Viren said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and gave Gutterman a nod. "Didn't think that for a second." He looked at Rhea and placed a hand on her shoulder. "She's grateful you're letting her use the parts. And that your boy's been helping."

"Heh." Gutterman grunted, shifting the weight of the crate. "Kids need somethin' to do in this town. No school. No jobs. Nothin' real left. Give 'em nothing, they'll rot. Give 'em something, maybe they'll last long enough to make it count."

Rhea could agree to that. In a world like this, it was simply so easy to get bored; she wondered what life would be like in the deeper metropolis of Neo Arcadia, if it was all joblessness and machines taking over the work sector or if there was a strong sense of community. She wasn't sure. She'd seen videos and articles of similar issues on the web, but that was media. No matter where you were on Earth, the media would find a way to demonise things.

"Well," Viren said, and he dapped hands with Gutterman, "thanks so much, Gut. Really – this means a lot, buddy."

"Actually," said Gutterman, "before you go, I have somethin' for the little lady. Just somethin' that might help out that little project. Came in this mornin'." He went over to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled something out. It was a short, rectangular device, about the size of a remote. Plastic casing, scratched up. Wired ports along both sides. A dial on the front, surrounded by a few switches and a chipped display screen. He handed it to Rhea. "Config controller. Found it wedged between some old drone rigs. Still works. Should let you run signal tests and basic movement commands if the boy's wired things right."

Rhea took it in both hands, turning it over, inspecting each surface with quiet intensity. The buttons were stiff. The port covers were missing. But it was intact. It was real. She nodded once. "Thanks." She was nervous and didn't know what to say or how to seem entirely grateful, but she figured that would do.

Gutterman shrugged like it was nothing. "Don't fry the damn bot."

"I'll try not to," she said. Then, more confidently: "No promises."

Viren clapped his hand on Gutterman's shoulder one last time. "Appreciate it, Gut. We owe you."

Gutterman snorted. "You owe me nothin'. Just don't get killed playin' with ghosts." Then, suddenly remembering, he added, "Oh, and when you have time, why don't you drop by that old android and I'll scrap it for bits? Take it off your hands?"

"You sure?" said Viren.

"Yeah, may as well. One way or another it'll end up in this dump."

"Sure thing," said Viren. "I'll swing by. Thanks again, Gut."

"You two have a nice day now."

Rhea felt lighter when they left the junkyard. The air outside wasn't good, but it was better than the grease and scorched plastic that clung to every surface in there. More than that, they had the part they needed: a real, working config controller. Not something cobbled together from busted chips or overheated relay nodes. A proper unit, rare enough that people in The Scrubs didn't even bother looking for one anymore. Lucian had tried, months ago. Came up with garbage every time. Today was different.

She carried it close to her chest as they crossed back towards the market circle. The sun was higher now, burning off the low morning mist, and with it came more people. Crowds tightened around the stalls and moved slowly through the walkways. Noise built up in layers: voices, boots, drones, vendors shouting for attention, the crack of a shifting neon sign. It was all background to Rhea until they neared the fountain.

The Syndicate was still there. Still loud. One of them stepped up onto the dry edge, shoulders squared, voice raised without hesitation:

"They feed you code, tell you it's truth, and you eat it while your kids go hungry in the next room," he said. "Every time you let another machine take a job, you let another family starve."

Rhea slowed. Her hand tightened around the controller. The crowd didn't stop, but it shifted. People didn't want trouble, and they didn't want to be near it either. The speaker paced along the edge of the fountain, eyes scanning the crowd, daring someone to argue. He was a middle-aged man who sure as hell looked like he hadn't seen a hard day's work in the past year, maybe even decade. For a moment, he reminded Rhea of the type of men who sit outside corner repair shops, always talking like they knew everything, always blaming someone else for why their life didn't work out. His white clothes were clean but worn in a staged way, designed to look poor without living it. Hair slicked back, face too sharp for comfort. The kind of man who wielded words as weapons and loved the sound of his own voice more than the truth.

Or, maybe, in a weird, roundabout kind of way, truth loved the sound of him.

"We used to build things. Fix things. Grow things. Now we sit at home and wait for scraps while the companies tell us to smile and be grateful."

"Yeah yeah, buddy," said one Aussie man. "Keep complainin'. Maybe you'll start to do somethin'."

"Lunatics," said another.

"—someone take those fuckin' megaphones—!"

"—preach brother—!"

"—damn government will be the death of us—"

"Our children and parents are falling ill," the Syndicate rebel continued, and for a second – just one – the image of Rhea's mother popped into her mind. She paused briefly, but Viren stepped back and nudged her forward.

"Ignore them," he said urgently.

"And now we have people trying to increase the divide, to make the poor poorer and the rich richer. Investors, corporate bullshitters, politicians, and scientists. Especially scientists. [Redacted] made a deal with a computer scientist that lives in this very town, among all of you, a coward of man who plans to create a device that will allow [Redacted] to increase their military power and stop people like us, to stop your voice, to push you down, to make children and parents sicker—"

The image of Rhea's mother appeared again; she tried to ignore it, but this time it stuck around. Her face, when it was slack and gaunt and not all there, because the cancer, leukemia, had taken everything from her. The strength in her voice. The softness in her hands. The way she used to hum when she worked in the garden. Gone. All of it gone, all to be scrawled out by the ruthless reaper of 'Here Lies Ornella Steele'.

Rhea stopped walking. The words felt like they were aimed at her, not just her father. Like they were stabbing at her mother's memory. Her grip on the controller tightened. She wanted to keep walking. She knew her dad wanted her to. But her legs wouldn't move, not just yet.

"Viren Steele is a sellout, a man who would rather thrust this town into misery than build it up. We've seen him cutting deals with Gutterman and [Redacted]. He's planning to develop the chip that will destroy not just our town, but the entirety of Neo Arcadia as we know it."

Now Rhea didn't feel so compelled to keep walking – no, she felt compelled to stay. Viren turned back to grab her shoulder, but she didn't budge this time. She watched.

"And don't be fooled by that grieving widower act, either. His wife died while he was busy building machines. You think that was coincidence? You think those chemicals didn't reach the homes of the workers too? He didn't lose her. He sacrificed her."

And in the middle of the crowd, between the bustle and the hustle and the steady, monotonous hollering that had been tainting this place since sunrise, one voice called out, and it had all the stab of a warrior's spear:

"Don't talk about my mom!"

It wasn't loud enough to shake the circle, but it was sharp. Real sharp. Heads turned. Not all at once, but in patches. People were curious. They wanted a show.

Viren cursed under his breath. "No. We're not doing this. Let's go."

But the Syndicate man had heard it. He leaned forward from the fountain rim like he'd just spotted a prize. "What was that, little girl? Wanna try again? Maybe I'm hearing things. Maybe that's Viren, and that's his daughter Rhea. And would you look at that – he's carrying a gift for the suits. A whole bot body, just for them."

"Oh shut the fuck up," Viren told the man, gripping – really gripping – Rhea's arm. He yanked her forward, keeping the bot tucked under his other arm. "You're all a bunch of waste."

He laughed. "Waste? Is that what we are? You think this town's population is just waste?"

"No," said Viren, pointing at him. "You're waste."

The man's face twitched. Just slightly. Not anger, not yet. He wasn't used to being pointed at, clearly. "You've got a lot of nerve, scientist," the rebel said. "You think just 'cause you've got a job with [Redacted] you're better than the rest of us? That you don't owe this town anything?"

"I owe this town my silence," Viren said flatly.

Rhea kept her head down. Her heart pounded. She didn't want to look, but she did. The man's eyes were hard now. Focused.

People were staring. Some recording.

"You should be careful what you say in front of your daughter," the man added, smirking now. "Lot of people around here think you're helping kill the rest of us."

"Mention my daughter again and I'll come up there and break your jaw," Viren said deeply.

The man on the fountain stepped back slightly, enough to show he wasn't ready to test whether Viren meant it. But he still smiled. That same thin, oily grin that said he'd already won by making them stop. "That a threat, Steele?" he asked, raising his voice for the crowd. "Gonna teach your girl to solve problems with fists now, too?"

"Rich," Viren said. "I heard your men were stalking me. And I'm going to be very honest with you, pal: if you get too close, if you get out of line, I'll have no issue calling in protection. You think you're fighting some righteous war, but all I see is a man trying to light a match in a room full of gas."

The man's smile thinned. "That a confession, then? You already made the deal with them?"

"I made a deal to keep my daughter safe. That's more than you'll ever understand."

"Oh, I understand," the man said, stepping down from the fountain. His boots hit the stone with two loud clacks. "You're scared. Just like the rest of us. Difference is, the rest of us don't have the luxury of selling out. Not everyone's daughter stayed alive. Mine sure didn't." He looked mad now.

"Well I'm sorry to hear that," Viren said. "Call it what you want. But don't stand there pretending you speak for people when all you've done is gather a mob and stir the pot."

The man laughed. "How arrogant is this guy? Let me tell you somethin': that little project you're developing: you best be damned sure that the people won't let you get away with something like that. Best be damned sure."

"Look who's threatening who now," said Viren. "But at least I'm not scum enough to bring an only child's dead mother into an argument just to make a point no one cares about. You've upset my daughter, and any real man won't appreciate that."

"Is that what you are, Viren? A real man?"

Viren said, "I'm a man who builds things, not one who screams at children to feel taller." He leaned in just enough for the words to land without raising his voice. "And I'd rather be a failure with dirt under my nails than a coward standing on a fountain pretending he matters."

The rebel's smirk faltered.

Viren stepped back, squared his shoulders, and said flatly, "Go home. Yelling won't fix your broken pride. I'm sorry to hear your daughter didn't make it, but that blood is not on my hands, young man."

"We're trying to survive," another Syndicate rebel said.

"No," Viren said coldly. "You're trying to control the panic so you don't get trampled by it." He turned, putting his arm around Rhea now, not to yank, but to shelter. "Come on."

The crowd didn't part for them. Not right away. But they didn't stop them, either. They just watched. Some looked angry. Others confused. A few didn't look at all.

And the man didn't follow. Not yet. But he watched them walk. Rhea could feel it. That weight. That cold pull in the back of her spine that said: this wasn't over.