“Oh.”
There was a silence that left Xia feeling awkward for asking. She hated situations like this. More to the point, she hated her inability to find the right words to say or the right feelings to feel in situations like this.
“Anyone up for some food?” Sandy asked, rescuing Xia from the weight of the moment. “I was thinking about some chaat. I could go get some while y’all get Two-Step up to date.”
“That sounds good,” Kat said.
“Do you mind if I go with you,” Xia asked. “I could use a walk.”
◆◆◆
The Galleria fascinated Xia. Its people lived in an entirely different economy, one where barter and personal connection held as much weight as corporate credit, one where what you needed was more important than what you wanted, one where community was collateral. The people making up that community were also amazing. Xia had always been a people watcher, but the feast of sights The Galleria offered was not like anything she had seen. The closest thing in her experience was Soweto, but the South African government had turned the township into little more than a theme park for tourists wanting to see how the downtrodden lived. The people in the Soweto shanties received a generous revenue dividend from credits generated by tourism, making it one of the highest non-corporate jobs in the country, and there was a waiting list to participate. But The Galleria and its people were real. It was a kaleidoscope of outcasts, and Xia felt at home here for some reason. There was no pretense, no pressure to be anything other than yourself.
“How long have you lived here?” Xia asked Sandy. They walked down the broken escalator between floors, moving aside to let a group of small children by.
“In The Galleria? About five years.”
“What brought you here?”
“Like most people, I couldn’t play by the rules out there. I got fired from a cybersecurity job before it got started. I used to get upset about that. Now I know all the backhanded shit corporations pull, I’m glad I’m not on their side.”
Xia nodded. “It seems like it can be a dangerous life, though. Maybe not living here, but all of the other stuff,” she said, gesturing to indicate the events of the last week.
Sandy shrugged. “It’s interesting.”
“Is it always this interesting?”
“You mean the part about hacking the Aryan Brotherhood’s VR sex business for the SRS and plotting to own one of the biggest pharma-tech companies in the world?”
“Yeah, that part,” Xia said.
“No. This is some other level shit for us. We’ve worked with the SRS before, but we’ve mostly done small-time hacks for them or set up deals for tech. They’ve upped the game a bit.”
“Just a bit,” Xia said.
Sandy put her hand on Xia’s shoulder and guided her to the railing overlooking the garden. “I guess this is a lot to handle your first time on this side of things.”
“Just a bit,” Xia repeated with a smile.
Sandy laughed. “Don’t worry. It will all go down the way we want. It always does.”
“That’s easy to say. I was with Jacob the night he got burned. I left less than ten minutes before the corporate police got there. I’ve been stressed about doing anything not in line with corporate policy ever since. It makes it hard to get to that not worrying place.”
Sandy gestured at the garden. “Do you know how this works?”
“What? The Garden? No, I don't.”
“People plant what they want to plant. People make sure the grow lights are working. People water plants when they need it. People come and harvest when things are ready. People trade for food. No one destroys anything. No one fights over anything. It just works. You know why?”
Xia watched people working in the garden. “Why?”
“Because everyone believes and trusts that it will. If someone new comes to The Galleria and tries to get more than they put in, no one trades with them. If someone comes and tries to destroy the garden, the community stops them, and no one trades with them. If no one trades with you here, you can’t make it. You have to decide to be a part of what we have or go somewhere else, and you can’t be a part of it unless you believe and trust that it will work. That’s how I live my life. I believe and trust that everything will work.”
“Does it?” Xia asked.
Sandy looked out over the garden, then looked at Xia. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether getting fired from a potentially high paying career is everything working out.”
“Funny. I don’t know if it helps, but it’s funny.”
“Let’s get some chaat.”
Chapter 25
The ride to the hacker safe house was uncomfortable. All of the backseats of the Retro Media van were taken out and traded long ago, replaced with shelves that ran along the sides of the back compartment. Gomez and Kat were in the front seats, while everyone else made the best of the situation in the back, sitting in a single file in the space between the shelves.
Outside the city, the ride got worse. The instructions from the SRS had a specific route to follow. The safe house was in Texas City, about 50 miles outside of Houston, but the directions took the van on a roundabout way, down old county roads, roads that were not well maintained and full of potholes. The thin carpet on the floor of the van offered no padding, and Jacob's tailbone was sore by the time they pulled back onto Highway 45, just outside of Texas City.
The safe house itself was an old, two-story house. Across the street, the faded outline of a cross decorated the brick façade of what used to be a church but now looked like a short-term loan business. Towering over the former church, a large cell tower rose into the night, it’s red lights blinking.
From the street, the house blended in with the rest of the neighborhood. A lone vehicle sat in the driveway, a late model
