Chapter 17

An entire section of the city, boarded off from its former residents. Cranes pierced the sky above it, their frames reflecting from the glass of the surrounding skyscrapers. The endless towering offices and apartments housing CaliaCorp’s staff. And now, more. More rising from the ground, shooting up like twisting vines reaching for the heavens, an affront to the sky itself. Reaching ever higher.

Theo felt small. He slunk along the perimeter, around a blue-painted hoarding with CaliaCorp slogans painted on it.

Fall into the Future

Your Purpose Defined

It meant little to Theo. Empty words for the drones who slaved away in her service. The face staring down from massive screens hanging from the sides of the buildings around him. Smiling, winking, smirking. He felt as though she were watching, always watching. He hated it.

The construction site was quiet. The workers were high up in the skeleton of the growing tower and Theo easily walked under a barrier and inside. He ducked low, careful to avoid the small hut where he assumed security were sitting, but when he moved beyond it, a glance back revealed it to be empty. Moving on, his feet squelching in the mud of the site, he looked around for something that could be useful. Construction vehicles dotted the place, large, yellow beasts labeled with some Calia sub-brand. In between them stacks of concrete slabs, building materials, and bags of cement lay on pallets. Nothing helpful. The single place to go was a small, prefabricated building on the opposite side of the site. Theo saw no one around, but still took his time, slipping along between vehicles that could hide him from the people high above, moving the pieces into place for yet another CaliaCorp monstrosity.

He reached his destination and walked up to the side of the door, pushing his back against the wall and peering through the window. Empty, as far as he could tell. He tried the handle, unlocked. Theo pushed it down and the door swung inward. It was dim inside, and dimmer when he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

It was an office. A large desk sat at its centre, covered in blueprints and plans. Smaller desks lined most of the walls, with a set of lockers at the back, metallic and cold. On the smaller desks were computers and other devices. Theo started at the plans. It seemed clear what they were building, and much like the other skyscrapers. A tower of glass and steel, another homogenous structure in a forest of them. What Theo needed was evidence that CaliaCorp bypassed the planning process or bribed someone or something that could be used against them.

The blueprints were useless. Theo opened a computer and tried to find something on it. Password protected. He wasn’t Marc, all he could do was guess. He tried some basic password variations. None worked, and he closed the screen down. There were other machines. One just to its left, in fact. Theo opened this one and a post-it note fluttered from the screen to the keys. The password was written on it.

Ilive4cal!a

Theo balked, then quickly typed the string and watched as the machine sprung to life. The wallpaper showed Calia. Of course it did. He looked over his shoulder, out the window. Still quiet, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t work fast. The computer was simply laid out, with a few folders. One held photos of the site at various stages of construction. Another the blueprints in digital form, and a 3D render of the final build. The final folder contained just notes about the materials needed. Nothing he could use. Nothing.

Theo winced. He wanted to smash the computer into the ground, but he gathered himself and kept looking around the room. The other computers he checked were password protected, just like the first two. He checked the same password that worked once but it didn’t get him anywhere. There was little else in the room of use. He slammed a screen down and grunted. Maybe he should just try to sabotage them, break the machines, sugar in the petrol tank. Did that even work? Did it even matter? CaliaCorp owned thousands of vehicles, infinite money. He’d need to do something drastic.

He imagined an explosion rocking the building from its foundations, sending it toppling over, crashing into another, starting a domino effect, taking the whole city with it, leaving only the Circuit District standing. That drew a smile, the thought of the whole thing coming down around him, of utter destruction, of devastation and then rebirth, the flood of people from the margins ready to rebuild, ready to take back the city in the wake of this act of vandalism that energised the people.

And Theo imagined Calia’s face as it all fell. That constant smirk twisted into a grimace. Maybe their headquarters would come down too. The whole place crumbling into dust, the glass and steel and gold and marble nothing but rubble. Nothing but a monument, a memory, the fading recollection of a time when a corporation controlled the world. He imagined the people in the tower then, the fear and anger and shock of their safe, corporate world disappearing in one fell swoop. He imagined himself there, watching. Then his mind went to someone specific, someone in the tower. To Aisling. Her face contorted in terror, and Theo rescuing her. Rushing in as the building fell and holding her to his chest and keeping her safe and the scent of her perfume filling his nose. He took her card from his pocket and inhaled. It smelled serene, sexual. The scene in his mind shifted and she held him, he felt small, weak, his head on her breast, her stroking his hair, telling him it would be ok, that he would be safe with her. He felt an involuntary smile creep across his face and an erection tighten in his trousers.

That’s when he saw the drive. A small black drive that he snatched up and shoved into the card slot of the computer he could access. Folders flashed up on the screen. Billing, invoices, planning documents, and something about the Circuit. Plans. Future plans. For his home.

He clicked on the folder but it was locked, encrypted, and he had no way in. He tried another folder and found the same. Nothing about The Circuit could be accessed. As he moved the cursor to one about planning, he heard a voice from outside, and froze.

Theo looked around frantically. Two voices, male and female. Right at the door. He saw the door handle start to droop, they were dawdling outside but would enter at any moment. Theo shut the computer, ripped the drive from it, and made for the lockers. He ripped open a metal door and found it full of tools. The office door opened. He tore open the next locker, empty, and squeezed inside, closing the door on himself, finding himself standing upright, tightly squeezed into the darkened space, only able to see out through two slits at eye level. He hoped no-one heard him.