text: Circle Their Heads with an Olive Wreath Young Antony knew what he had to do next. One foot half over the forbidden threshold. One foot closer to freedom. No child of 9, not once allowed out of their gated community, could resist. Besides, he’d caught a glimpse of a gang of rag-children passing by. Sinner’s group had spoofed the tech to get through security. The homes were opulent mansions, as far as the street kids were concerned. Ripe for the picking. Everyone inside, safely tucked away in their V’Realities. Each home boasted 100 square feet of living space per person. There would be 2 adults and 1 allotted child per home. Corps owned - the people inside, the homes, and the 100 square foot patch of fake vegetation out front; the corporation owned them all. Not much cover, but Sinner and his little group of parentless were beyond clever. They were here for tech, and tech is what they’d scavenged from various locations inside the corporation district. An old solar array. The carbon nano wires embedded in the street grid. The guts of a newer model automated vehicle. They walked with measured pace, laden with components, micro boards, and circuitry. Beegee yanked a strand from a nearby pole, her massive hand making short work of it. She linked arms with the smallest boy, Sinner. Small in stature only. They grinned, anticipating the pay out and the food they would procure once back on the city streets. Antony took the few steps that carried him to the end of his yard. He watched the girl pull on the wire, watched the light wink out. Dusk. He’d never been out at dusk. She was the largest girl he had ever seen. Energy radiated from her. Dark hair an unruly mass around a face he found oddly attractive in its sheer audacity. No DNA selection evident. These kids must be natural born. Maybe they were not even chipped. Sinner sensed the kid tailing them, tucked the info away. The young male select would be chipped. Chips were worth more than any of the bits they’d picked so far. Beegee saw something in Sinner’s face. Misread it for envy and let her hand brush against the boy’s black stringy hair. The boy she’d taken on as her own personal mission. She gave the little scamp one of her infectious smiles and he smiled back. These two against the world. Maybe once there’d been friends or family who’d been there when the world threw one more unthinkable at them, but not now. As they exited the enclave on the hill, cut across an old neoforman patch, quickly, because they knew rads were in the spores, and headed toward the main square, they saw groups of street refuse, wretches, street punks, all heading the same way. Supposedly a food or water transport was going to make a run for it sometime after full darkness. A month ago the nightly demonstrations had been led by street fighters and former mercs in their faded camo. Uniforms from their glory years. Food riots followed. In the early weeks, street orphans, like Sinner and his group, stayed on the edges, scrabbling for forgotten scraps, along with families of climate refugees seeking refuge in this general geographic area, far from any of the space elevators, yet safe from the acid rain. Far from any real attention by the ruling corporations or their front-men. After several food transports were over run, the whole area rose to the notice of people outside of this corner of the world. Riot controllers were heloed in. The citizenry fell back as the numbers of corps troops went up. There were several nights of bloodshed. More gaunt parentless showing up at the centers soon after. Sinner and Beegee kept their heads down. But now bellies grew louder than caution. The mercs clashed with the cops. The local cops stopped enforcing, and the corporation bad ass units with their face plates and non-lethals appeared. Rumor had it these corporation squads were nanite enhanced, more machine than human. Emotion dampeners to name one of their many augments. No thought for the welfare of the dissidents could creep in. Nightly skirmishes were standard. But nothing worth dying for had passed through in over a month. The night was stifling -- warmer nights being the norm. It never seemed to cool down, not like it had in the past. No wonder the corporation conformists stayed indoors as much as possible. The only rain fell way out in the surrounding dead zone, forming a rain band of acid mire around the corporation run cities. Geo-engineering run amuck. There were more and more people in the square. More people than there should be. More people than was safe. Older kids rushed by. Youngers, who still had a parent, bounced in anticipation. Happy to be out of the culverts. Some would be chipped, born in corporation run clinics. Those idents would be harvested by the eyes in the sky. Data sent up the strands of the space levs to the corporate headquarters on the moon. Their so-called neutral territory. Lunar Base. The square buzzed. There was a line of oldsters, pushed to the front, who came armed with pieces of scrap metal. They were banging on the quascrete, singing some old ballad that no one remembered. Beegee tried to translate but the words got all tangled up. Archaic, Mexi-Sino slang. Sinner figured, those old ones were the cannon fodder - something he had read somewhere. In a text as ancient as the faces yearning for more than food. Sinner stopped his group in a shadowed corner. The select ran right into them. Beegee grabbed the kid’s shoulder and sighed. She’d seen him too but thought he’d get scared and skaddle home. Damn curiosity. Same curiosity that had killed all the cats, or so she’d heard. A figure they recognized emerged from the mob and pulled Sinner to one side, muttering words of warning. Beegee sensed, by the woman’s body language, that it was bad news. This was the woman the street kids called Ma’am. She looked out for them, off and on. Kept her eyes out for potential recruits. Recruited to what ends, no one was quite sure, but not unsure enough to look away from a meal or the safety of a roof and four walls. “What?” Beegee asked. She thrust her chin out. “*What?*” “Ten,” Sinner replied. “At 10 some of the corps will fall back. There’s been tech changing hands. Ma’am says they’ll give the citizens a clear path to the transport.” He shrugged. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” That was one of the problems with only giving elites full billets. And putting the ground troops and local peace keepers on reduced rations. The lower-caste troops had developed a sense for staying one jump ahead of the worst riots, being tipped off, for a price -- the soldiers who refused to bend their moral compass ended up dead, buried in the ancestor gardens, or, if found out by the corporation, exiled to try their luck outside corporate run territory. If they were lucky they’d join the mercs, or, if luck was not on their side, they’d have no choice but to fall in with the Saffron Monks. Between a rock and a hard place. “How many?” Sinner was an expert at being non-committal. If the Googlies and Amzies had two hundred ways to pass dis-information off as bona-fide, and the FB’ers had two hundred ways to rip you off, while the Teslas and Media Props could say absolutely nothing useful, with a straight face, then Sinner had them all beat. The look on Sinner’s face now was along the lines of, “All effed up one side and down the other.” “What does Ma'am say to do?” “Duck and cover.” “What are we going to do with this?” The select with his fine bone structure and perfect teeth hung limp in one of Beegee’s huge paws. She gave him a slight shake. “Ma'am says we gotta return him.” “Dammit to the effing Stars and back.” Beegee was not want to swear without cause. At this point she’d rather feed the future soldier to the clone hounds. Besides, the riot shaping up could yield some nice prizes for the likes of Sinner and her crew. Why would they trudge all the way back up the hill on account of this fab? As soon as they noticed that the crash barricades around the square had been reinforced, Sinner and Beegee sent their littles off to one of their dens laden with the goodies from the hill, well before everything was shut down tighter than a clone vat. Now only one way in or out of the square remained. Just then Sinner spied a mole. Too tall, too perfect of teeth and musculature to be norm. He could make out a Wrist Bit poking from under the cuff of a worn outer garment the figure wore. Trying to blend in. He and Beegee could tag team that bit of tech off any mark. Before you could split a clone pack of faux meat between two starving orphans, Sinner held the Wrist Bit with one hand, while his other scrabbled under his rags emerging with tiny interfaces which he immediately attached to the pried open WB. He worked so rapidly Beegee could not track how he had opened the back of corporate tech or where the thin filaments came from. She had wondered at their particular choice of seats, until she noticed the cable housing on the side of the building. Sinner motioned her to block his hands from any cameras, drones or eyes in the vicinity. Sinner sat, cross legged, in deep concentration. Interesting, not South American Corps tech, looked to be Sino. A few seconds later he was poking into the grid. In seconds, Beegee peered over his shoulder, trying to keep the select kid on her other side. She half understood what she was seeing on Sinner’s hand held. A GV blip, large, must be the transport, surrounded by hot spots, had to be troops guarding the vehicle. Beegee knew Sinner called the attachments his eyes, ears and nose, EEN’s. She had seen him poke around in the corporation controlled grid before. She also knew he would be detected by now, but maybe they had bigger fish to fry. Besides, the snoops would only know it was a Wrist Bit hacked in from a maintenance box. The what, not the who. Antony had no idea what the stringy haired kid was doing, but he knew it must be illegal. “Gotta go,” Sinner sighed. Jumping off and trotting down an alley to intersect with where the transport should be. “Maybe we can still nab a few things.” They tried for a completely different direction than the mob or the corps elite were congregating. “False info,” he mouthed to Beegee. No surprise there. The surprise came when they rounded a corner and saw their way blocked by corporate vans. Turning as one, “Trust no one and no thing,” Beegee stated. Their mantra. Antony had been raised on, “Trust only your own corporation sanctioned sources. The CSS way.” He wanted to head straight for the vans. Neither Beegee nor Antony were hackers. Nor would they ever be. Sinner, on the other hand, came by it naturally. He did not eff up, or not very often. The decision on whether to hack the chip out of the kid, for one thing. Sinner got the distinct feeling Beegee would do it, if given the chance. Not on tonight’s menu, he thought. Too risky. Too much going on already. He had long since discarded the Wrist Bit, but the drones would be swarming soon, following the scent. Beegee gave Sinner’s retreating back a look. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know you’re only trying to keep us safe. But are you sure we can’t?” *Sinner stopped, twirled, took her huge hand, “No, we can’t. And we can’t help any of them either.” The “them” was the crowd they were being forced to head back to. Fenced in, trapped, led to the slaughter as it were.* The protest crowd was bigger now, throngs, some still singing the oldsters’ song, deeper voices and higher ones. Children. “We’re gonna save this,” she gave the select a hard shake, “but not those?” Sinner nodded. Beegee wanted to turn, call out a warning, or at least to sing along. Solidarity and all that. The tune carried on the night air. It called her. Wanted to make her turn to face the corps troops with a little more bravery than was wise. “Do you know the song?” Sinner could at least give her that. Beegee’s face warmed. “From an ancient Mexi War, I think. Most of it’s crap. ‘At the cry of war, make ready the steel, let the earth shake to the core, let the cannon roar. Circle our country, our head, with an olive wreath, given by the angel of peace.” She shook her head. “Archaic, I know.” She shrugged for the thousandth time, embarrassed. Antony took up the telling. This was finally something he knew. He recited carefully: But should a foreign enemy Profane your ground, Think They have given you a soldier in every man, woman and child. Oh home land! Your children swear To exhale their last breath If the horn of war Summons you to fight You fight. You will get the olive garlands! You will get a laurel of victory! You will have a tomb of honor! “No way.” Sinner thought how ridiculous this all was. But he added, “Guess the corporation run education is worth something after all.” The select went up a few notches in Beegee’s mind, but the fact he knew the song sent lines of ice down her spine. “Weird that they’d teach him that.” The song had been associated with a country, not a corporation. But the South American Coalition of States had thrown its allegiance to the corporation, given up all old geographic boundaries; arbitrary lines in the sand ceded, in exchange for security and promised prosperity, so there was that. Antony piped up, in his weirdly deepening voice, “Wanted us to know how stupid and pointless it all was. All the wasted lives. Obviously, there are no tombs or wreaths. No one remembers any of them.” Sinner looked at the gaunt faces in the crowd. Swarms of drones sweeping overhead. Probing lights putting the black corporation troops in shadow, putting the crowd in full view. CCTV eyes recording every face. “Yeah. Look where that allegiance got them,” Sinner spat. He was pretty sure the ground vehicles circling the area held weaponry more lethal than what was openly worn. The vans would be full of tech, grabbing all idents and communications, registering wrist bits and sternum chips faster than the speed of light. Tech he’d love to get ahold of. “Come on.” he yanked Beegee’s arm as hard as he could. “They are all effed.” “Sinner, you sound like a corporation gofer.” At that moment, the mob began to turn away from the line of elites and towards the three figures, two small, one large. The guns the regular serve and protects toted were pointing at the elites but also pointing into the crowd. They had fallen back, as promised. Any shots that missed those corps would be headed straight at Sinner, Beegee and Antony. Supposedly, rubber, but who really knew. The crowd was turning itself toward the one narrow gap remaining, also the exact way to where the transport should be coming. Beegee decided to haul ass out of there, but which direction? It was a tense standoff. The corps were shouting at the local enforcers, the enforcers were shouting at the crowd to get back. Guns were leveled in all directions. The winking watching drones purred overhead. The sounds of singing slowly died. The memory hit Sinner and Beegee at the same time as the tear water started flying overhead. Beegee began bulling her way through the crowd, toward the center of the square. Sinner knew what she was going for. But she was soon a blinded snot filled face of disgust. Sinner clung to the back of her ragged sweater, Antony, his preservation nanos kicking in, grabbed her side. Both boys held on as tight as they could. Beegee could not see, but Sinner was yelling directions up to her. The crowds were screaming now. Pain. Shocked. Blinded. Like a terrible wounded creature. Lurching one way then the other. People fell. Children lost. The plaza was a smooth flat surface, covered in quascrete blocks the corps had placed over the old, concave pavement. There was an old storm drain in the very center. It meant risking the multitude of citizens; it also meant possible salvation. Sinner grabbed a discarded iron rod dropped by an oldster who could not remain standing. Chaos had broken out. No singing now. Survival. But which way? There was only one opening and that is where the crowds headed. Big mistake. The transport, the long awaited food truck, pulled in sharply, blocking escape. The people only saw possible food, water, an end to the tearing pull of an empty gut. The sight of the truck only added to their desperation. The three figures fought upstream, against the onslaught. Surrounded. Rubber bullets flying just over head. Beegee kept hunched. Tear water practically flowing out of the sky like rain. No rain of any kind had hit this plaza for over 10 years, not since the corporation installed their weather nanites. Antony’s feet were no longer in contact with the ground. He circled his legs onto the large thigh of the wild haired, snot ravaged girl and burrowed his head under her clothing for relief from the gas. Sinner kept his eyes tightly shut, blocking the worst of it. Beegee drew on all her strength, fighting to get them to the center of the plaza. She knew exactly what Sinner was going for. Any rat hole in a pinch, but this was a rat hole they knew from way back. Not that they’d used it or even thought about it in eons. It’s got to be here. Right here. She grabbed at nooks and crevices. Pried in every crack. The tide of humanity swept around and over them, a virtual flood of fear and tear water, trying to pull them this way and that. The chipped boy, the boy from the enclave, the privileged little genetic piece of perfection clung to Beegee’s thigh like a parasite. She would not try to shake him loose, nor would she try to save him if he got pulled away. People were falling, screaming, trampled or worse. Sinner screamed as an advancing contingent of mercs nearly trod on his prone body, Beegee’s large paw grabbed him at the last second, at the exact moment one of the quascrete tiles began to rise, she got the metal rod under it and pried with all her might. Maybe some noticed, most did not care. Rag children. Worthless. Sinner felt himself falling the meter or so into the wet mud. Stale air enveloped him like a cloud of shroom spores. Something glowed, phosphorescence in the gloom, the pipe was large and led up at a steep angle. Easy to tell which way to go. A greenish glow haloed the lining. Elfie, one of their own littles, knew shrooming lore but she had never grown anything like this. Sinner grabbed a few to stuff in his pockets; one never knew. Mushrooms had all sorts of interesting uses. The enclave kid plopped onto him and they both skittered to avoid the tromp of Beegee’s heavy booted feet. The thud of the quascrete tile falling into place was more comforting than it should have been. Total silence. No sounds of gore got through from above. “Better to wipe that memory,” Sinner informed the boy. “I’ve already forgotten.” Sinner had more practice than most at forced forgetting. Beegee pushed them from behind. “Git. No telling if we can make it the whole way or not. Could be blocked. It’s been an age since we cum through here.” Sinner took off on all fours. He could almost sense or feel or somehow he simply knew, there was a draft ahead somewhere. Air. That meant an exit point. The boy, Antony, followed right behind, less steady. Beegee brought up the rear, grabbing at any unusual growths as fast as Sinner had. Elfie would be pleased. She eyed the back of the little elite, noting his spine was shaking. Just then she spied some of the ‘ummies, shrooms Elfie used to calm the littles when things got really desperate. Beegee snatched one off the ground, gripped the elite kid on the nape, and crammed the bit of shroom into his mouth, then tilted his head back, hard. He had no choice but the swallow the clump of fungi. “That’ll do,” Beegee murmered. “That’ll do.” As his eyes glassed over, heading inward, the dank tunnel retreated from his mind, to be replaced by rainbows and lollies, or so she hoped. Sinner saw the mycellium over their heads. Minute amounts of air passed through the thick membrane. The kid might not stay sane for long. Sinner made the choice. Risk breaking through here, versus staying below ground. Three heads popped up through the shrump gulping fresh oxygen, coughing with a dusting of spores, shroom gills flaked in their hair. They were in the old mushroom field, just below the enclave. Distant sounds floated up from the town, flashes and sharp booms carried on the night air. “Those are not non-lethals.” “Gotta dump this brat on his door step fast.” “Safer up here.” Antony could not follow the conversation. The world was speaking to him now.