SYNAPTOGENESIS

By the time Ma was settled, it was already eleven. Jay stepped into the darkness with ease. A surveillance drone buzzed overhead. This was not an uncommon sight. Below ground level of Cobalt Tower, their apartment building, its car park was one of many that interconnected to form the Basements. But the drones really seemed to be everywhere these days. Jay paused for a moment. His heavy black jacket blended into the night, the hood further obscuring his face. Once the drone passed, he moved with unhurried steps. His path appeared erratic, but he strategically avoided the pools of light pouring from the occasional apartment window or the even rarer functioning streetlight.

There were several entrances to the Basements, but access from the apartment buildings had been blocked off by the coppers. The elevators only went down to the lobby…for regular people. The residents living in the towers went about their lives blissfully unconcerned about the goings-on beneath their very feet.

Twenty minutes later, Jay entered the Basements’ marketplace. He was hit with the scent of barbecued meat hanging heavy in the warm, humid air. Despite the late hour, the place was abuzz with activity. It no longer resembled the car park it once used to be. Makeshift stalls were strewn haphazardly throughout the space – from piles of crates to hollowed-out shells of cars, filled with everything from food and clothing to barely legal salvaged goods. Hawkers yelled over each other, undercutting prices to lure customers away from other sellers.

Jay kept a vigilant eye as he wove his way through. He wasn’t worried about surveillance cameras down here. The Neural Assessment Police, or NAP as most referred to them down here, had deployed them on many occasions, on account of the place being rife with illegal mapping activities. But they never lasted long. This was the Barrick Boys’ territory, and they had made a sport of identifying and eliminating them.

The Boys had an uneasy alliance with Black Circuit – as long as they didn’t get in the way of the latter’s business, they could operate in the Basements. Their newly recruited teens usually loitered on this level, proudly brandishing the mark on their biceps: two interlocking Bs, their twisting lines resembling the folds of a brain. Sharp eyes assessed him before sliding away. They were looking to drum up business for the entertainment district below to build up their street cred.

Jay spotted Smokey Dax leaning against a pillar in the shadows, drawing on a fat joint. With his torn shirt, dishevelled appearance and a bowl held out for handouts, the NAP agents dismissed him without a second thought.

Jay stopped next to him, dropping a gold coin into his bowl. Dax tipped the edge of the vessel with a finger, the coin swivelling inside. His gaze was fixed ahead on a group of kids huddled together in the distance, sharing a loaf of bread and passing around a can of cola in the way that the adults passed booze. They couldn’t have more than seven or eight years on them.

“The little fuckers haven’t come by in weeks. Get thrown a few free maps and they think everything’s gonna change,” Dax’s smoke-eroded voice drifted up. He was a legend to the kids in the Basements. He and his wife cooked large batches of food three times a week and fed any kids that came by. They would sit in a circle eating from worn bowls while they listened to his grand tales. Afterwards, even the worst of the lot would wash their plate and leave it in the stack to dry.

But Dax was Black Circuit’s man. Part of his job was recruiting the young ones early before they bought into the Barrick Boys’ ‘Born mapless, stay mapless’ bullshit. Not that the former option was any better. Each free map from Black Circuit came with a five-year contract. By the time they had enough to do anything useful, they were locked into a lifetime of servitude. Jay could hardly blame them for hoping the Education Equality Initiative would give them a different future.

“Let them dream for now. Reality will kick them in the ass soon enough,” Jay said.

“All this talk about going clean, bah. Ain’t nobody that’s ever stepped inside the Basements gonna be clean. Let them dream, huh? And what happens when they go looking for jobs topside? Dreams are a luxury that’ll leave you for dead in these parts.”

Jay wanted to disagree, but even he could see what was coming. He’d seen the undercover NAP agents chatting up the young ones, promising to take them to the centres for free maps, trying to turn them into informants. That never ended well.

When the dollar coin finally stopped spinning, Dax held it up between his middle and index finger. The obsolete one- and two-dollar coins were Black Circuit’s main currency. They could be exchanged for payment later.

“Don’t got anything up ya alley, mate,” he grunted.

“I need money. Fast.” Jay was one of Black Circuit’s ghost couriers, ferrying their illegal maps wherever they needed to go.

Dax rolled the coin along the back of his knuckles before it disappeared, likely in one of his many pockets. “Can ya map?”

Jay didn’t like the sound of that. He had gotten the education specialist maps early on – anyone who mapped for Black Circuit got the big bucks. But he stopped taking those jobs after being asked to map a young woman with fear enhancement so she could play the role of a victim more convincingly. The terror in her eyes when she looked at him after the session was complete still kept him up at night. But this government initiative had more of an impact than he had anticipated. He hadn’t expected his usual clients to start sending their young recruits to mapping centres. In hindsight, it made perfect sense – why pay for something they could get for free and legitimately? To top it off, NAP’s surveillance had ramped up, leaving him without a decent job in weeks.

“Yeah, I can map,” Jay said.

Dax pulled a package out of his inside jacket pocket. It was wrapped like one of the sandwiches he handed out to the kids. Jay reached for it, but Dax didn’t hand it over.

“You’re not gonna like it,” he said.

Jay shrugged, “Doesn’t matter.”

Dax smirked, before relinquishing the package. “The Boardroom. Ask for Ellen.”

Jay froze, a sudden urge to hurl the package back at Dax. The Boardroom was a club for the elites, entry restricted strictly to those with two hundred or more maps. It was supposed to be a place for intellectuals to convene, but really, it was a den of debauchery for the rich and powerful.

But instead, he slipped it into his backpack. Just this one time, and then he would figure out something else.

Jay moved with purpose now that he was on the job. He didn’t just rely on his eyes and ears, blinking twice to activate NAVO. It had cost him several months of earnings, but the lens implanted in his eye had proven a worthwhile investment. It connected to Black Circuit’s AI-powered network, overlaying routes avoiding surveillance in front of him.

The first time Jay had used it, it had been jarring – the foreign lines appearing in his vision and the constantly changing routes had taken some getting used to. But now, he moved with confidence, slipping through the shadows and blind spots, ghosting NAP’s surveillance. 

Two hours later, Jay knocked on the back door of The Boardroom in St Kilda. The door inched open, a pixie-like face peering through the gap, nervous eyes studying him.

“Delivery for Ellen,” Jay said.

“Oh, madame is on the floor. I’ll call her.”

The door slammed shut again.

Jay leaned against the wall, keeping his head down. There was a camera looking right at him, but NAVO had flagged it as dead. Nervous energy still coursed through him. This place made his skin crawl. Those like the young girl who had opened the door were expected to serve the patrons in any way that was requested. They were told they could deny service if they were uncomfortable, but they would be denied their pay or even their job the next day. If it hadn’t been for Pa training him and introducing him to Spector before he disappeared, Jay might have ended up somewhere like this.

The door swung open again, breaking him out of his reverie.

“You must be the courier.” The woman standing in the doorway was a picture of elegance in her flowing gown and lightly done face, though her expression was all business.

Jay held out the package, but she didn’t make a move to take it. Her eyes raked over him, assessing him like a slab of meat.

“You would do well here. I take good care of my prized horses,” she said.

The words closely mirrored Jay’s earlier thoughts, but he hid his discomfort behind a laugh. “You flatter me, but I’m where I belong.”

“Well, my doors are open, but those blessed looks won’t last,” she said and turned away. “This way.”

Jay sighed and followed. A small part of him had been hoping he could hand over the package and leave, but the gods were never that kind. The air became thick with the scent of sweet diffuser oils as they moved further inside. Music and laughter filtered through from the entertainment rooms.

Ellen led him a level down to what looked like a rest area for the workers. A young boy was sleeping on one of the sofas, an arm thrown over his head to shield his eyes from the lights.

She gently tapped him on the shoulder. “Henry, it’s time.” There was an unexpected softness to her voice.

The boy got up slowly, his arm falling away. Bright green eyes peered from a pale face topped with long dark curls. When his gaze met Jay’s, it held no joy.

He looked like he had forgotten how to smile. Jay had heard plenty stories about the elites shelling out for highly responsive ‘companions’ – a fancy word for hookers. How many unsavoury maps had been forced upon this poor kid already?

Ellen opened a door in the back. Without a word, Henry went in, followed by her. Jay hesitated, knowing what was coming, but he reminded himself of Ma, and forced his feet forward.

Inside was a small mapping room, complete with an interface and headset. There were probably plenty fancier mapping setups upstairs for whatever temporary thrills the elites desired, but this one was for the workers.

Henry went straight to the chair and lay down.

“Well, go on then.” Ellen looked at Jay expectantly.

He steeled himself and got to work, fitting Henry with the mapping device, then removed the small cartridge from the package and slotted it into the drive. The interface lit up, showing him the details of the map.

Jay had been dreading what he was about to do, but what he saw gave him the urge to sling Henry over his shoulder and carry him straight to Black Circuit. Then again, they would probably send him right back here. “Does he know what you’re doing to him?”

Ellen raised an eyebrow. “He asked for it.”

Jay found that hard to believe. “Henry, tell me if you understand. This map will erase your memories of the last two weeks and dampen your emotional responses.”

“Good,” the boy spoke for the first time. “Make it not matter anymore.”

A chill crept through Jay. In another life, this could have been him. He mapped the boy.