The area we stood in was much like the foyer of GE, but maintained to a degree that no one in the Lower City would have considered feasible or ethical. Machines scrubbed the floors of dirt and dust, and the white tiles and silver walls were adorned with windows and interesting sculptures that made me feel like I had stepped into an art museum. The reception area was manned by a lone woman who was quite lovely and more amicable than her counterpart downstairs. Above her station was a painting of a Mercury train passing over the conceptualized and newly planned Golden Gate Bridge. The piece was called Gateway to the Future.
Cute.
The woman looked up at me, smiled, then frowned — not in disgust, but concern. “Sir … are you all right?”
“I’m good, darling.” I showed her the access card, resting my clean arm on the surface of the desk. “Just checking in. Official police business. My partner and I are up here to question some bigwigs in the Automatic Department.”
She nodded and took the card, examining it before handing it back. “Saved up quite a few trips to make this one, Mister …?”
“Detective Roche. Allen is the Blue-eye.”
“Ah. Well, Detective Roche, I would suggest keeping your machine on a short leash … people up here aren’t too fond of Blue-eyes. You have two hours to conduct your business, after which we must have you removed. Do you need assistance reaching anyone in particular?”
“Mr. Vannevar Bush’s office does not seem to be posted here,” Allen said, scanning a directory. “We are hoping to speak to him.”
“Doctor Bush is the head of Automatic Research. I’m afraid you won’t be able to see him on such short notice.” Her tone had changed from pleasant to slightly annoyed.
“Tell him the fate of his creation is in the balance if news of what we know gets out,” Allen said, interrupting her. “Trust me, he’ll want to clear things up. I’d bet my salary on it.”
The secretary bit her lip before standing up. “I’ll see what I can do. Don’t go anywhere.”
As we waited for the secretary to return, we looked out the window, down at the men and women passing in and out of the building. I had the feeling that Allen was uncomfortable seeing only Green-eyes up here, being used like slave labour with no room for personality. The Plate was an impressive accomplishment of culture and engineering, but it had not occurred without sacrifices.
“All this space wasted on so few,” Allen said, finally breaking the silence.
“Two million ain’t exactly a few, Al.”
“But why?”
“Why stay up here, or why leave us twelve million down there?”
“Why build it? Why create this little world separate from ours below? Do they feel that they’re better than us? Why did people not fight this as it became a reality?”
“It didn’t start out like that. Rockefeller started the project in the early ’20s, way before Second Prohibition. He wanted to create a way to fit even more people into the city, to allow people from across the country and the world to flood into New York and call it home, everyone from stockbrokers to farmers to dirt-poor beggars. His dream was a city of two worlds, mingling and joining together in brotherhood. After GE and the first few places on the Plate were built, the FBI moved up there, followed by a few dozen denizens, then the Stock Exchange.”
“And then?”
“And then Black Tuesday hit.” I leaned my shoulder against the glass, with every Automatic on the floor looking at me as I stained the windowpane with my dirty clothing. “Rockefeller could build GE, but the rest of the Plate was going to be expensive, so he asked for assistance. Of course, the wealthy could afford to help, and the only thing he could offer them was space on the Plate when it was complete. The more people who helped, the more people he owed, so when everything was settled, everything on the Plate had been scooped up by those who could afford to invest or to pay the rent. It became its own monster, a monolith of hypocrisy. People say he lives in the Lower City now because he’s disgusted by what he had to do to realize his now-perverted dream … but those are just rumours. I’d bet any money he lives at the top of the Empire … right next to Gould.”
“Who?” Allen asked.
“Gould, the guy who runs the Plate. Or, well, it’s complicated, but he has more shares in GE than anyone else and helped mitigate the financial problems they experienced when the Depression hit. Now he controls almost everything up here.”
“So, how does one get on the Plate, then?” Allen asked, even as a Green-eye guided me away from the window so it could clean the fogged glass.
“No clue, Allen … no clue. I’ve been trying to find out for a while now. Most people pay through the nose to get up here. Or you’re just born into it now. Lucky pricks.”
“Born into what? Wealth, or living up here?”
“Both. Hopefully one day their world will be turned upside down and they’ll understand what the rest of us are experiencing.”
“That woman said to keep me on a ‘short leash,’” Allen said self-consciously. “Do they treat us that badly up here? Are we not already victimized on the ground?”
“You’re less than a second-class citizen here, Allen. You’re less than a piece of meat. To them, you’re the quintessence of slavery. The Green-eye is the perfect subservient creature that’ll do everything they can’t be bothered to. Drive, clean, walk the dog, babysit, work in the factories. Anything humans consider themselves too good for, they have you do it.”
“But … why?”
“Because even in paradise, someone needs to scrub the shitters.” I pulled out my package of cigarettes, preparing to light one when I heard my
