Idempotency (32 page)

Korak stared at his boss as he thought,
Full trust—but check in
. And Kane? When and why had Kane become part of the inner circle?

Kane is part of an inner circle within the inner circle. You are now on the outside,
Korak.
His inner voice sounded downtrodden.

Now is not the time
, he thought to himself. “Yes, Reverend. Of course. I will keep you posted as we move forward.”

“Excellent. Even the smallest details.” Coglin pointed at Korak with an old, stubby finger.

“Of course.” Korak clicked off the holoChat, not bothering with any farewell platitudes.

The NRS charter to Titus was a blended wing graviCopter capable of suborbital speeds—it was fast. Inside, the craft was plush, including faux-suede couches that curved in all directions and several holoTables available for passenger use. A large triangular cabin encompassed the entire plane (wings included), allowing for a comfortable, open, nonconfining space. Beneath him, Dylan could feel the subtle hum of large rotating blades producing a gravity-defying tune. Dylan was one of six passengers heading to Titus, which rendered the large cabin superfluous, considering its total capacity allowed for ten times that.

After leaving Korak’s office the previous day, Dylan had considered reaching out to SOP but quickly thought better of it, recalling Simeon’s advice to attempt contact only if it were an emergency. SOP was watching and they would inevitably contact him. In the meantime, he would stay the course and collect as much data as possible.

The trip had been uneventful, taking three hours from NRS headquarters in Bellevue to the Titus facility deep within the jungles of Jalisco. As they neared the facility, Dylan looked out through the transparent walls of the graviCopter, and he could see the sun beating down on the dry but profuse flora that covered the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range. The outline of the Titus complex came into view, and aside from its gross footprint, he could discern no other signs of civilization. The area appeared as remote as one could hope to find on planet Earth.

The graviCopter’s audible stabilizers were humming slightly as the craft encountered turbulence while descending aggressively for its landing at Titus. As was customary, the attendants had turned the opacity of the cabin walls to 100 percent as they descended, allowing Dylan an excellent view of their surroundings. The first thing he realized was just how massive Titus was. The structure was purported by NRS to be the largest contiguous building ever created. It was not extraordinarily tall—Dylan estimated fifty stories at the building’s apex—and similarly wide, but the structure’s footprint encircled an entire mountain. The building was diamond shaped, with a water-starved riverbed running along its near side and the mountain sprouting up nearly two hundred meters out of its center. Upon the mountainside, swaths of deforestation had made room for crops of all types, but mostly corn and bamboo. At the precipice of the mountain rose dozens of enormous solar-plated windmills. Dylan gasped as he attempted to calculate the size of the energy-creating devices. Their sheer girth dwarfed every man-made object of their height that he had ever seen. The machines engulfed sunlight and reflected back a pure granite color, with the occasional flash of blinding sunlight that seemed to emanate from gems held somewhere deep within the propellers.

“This place is amazing.” Dylan said this to no one in particular, but he received a response from a well-dressed woman sitting a row in front of him to his right.

“Oh—is this your first time here? Yes, it’s impressive, to say the least. Wait until you get the full tour.”

“Looking forward to it. I’m sorry, I think I’ve seen you around headquarters, but I don’t recall your name?” Dylan asked.

“Kimberly Evans. Call me Kim. I’m head HR for North America.”

“Ah, right. I’m Dylan Dansby, sales. I think we met a few months ago when I was hired. What brings you down here?” he asked, still staring outward.

“I’m meeting with the local HR staff on status of the hiring ramp-up. The facility is about half full right now, and we are hiring as fast as possible. As you know, our bar is fairly high, and persuading people to move to the middle of Mexico is not as easy as one might think.”

“Go figure.”

A few minutes passed as Dylan stared mindlessly at the outside all around him. Then he hesitantly asked, “How many people can this place . . . store?”

“Five million. That’s the plan.”

“Five million! That’s impossible. The sheer number of workers to help run the place would be outlandish.”

“It’s over twenty-five million square meters of living space, entirely self-sustainable. The people are, too. After training, they will sustain themselves moving forward, lessening the long-term need for staff.” She spoke convincingly.

“I just don’t see the point. Or how they can get away with this, from a business standpoint. The lost revenue—this entire operation is just mind-boggling.”

“True. It is. It’s a great thing we’re doing. You just don’t see something so awe-inspiringly gigantic every day.”

“Well . . .” Dylan stalled, finding her statement odd, and then mumbled a generic reply.

The short landing complex was built along the opposite side of the river from the complex. As the plane made a final bank to line up with the landing port, Dylan gasped again as he caught a glance inside the windowed entrance of the vast complex—he saw thousands of people milling around within the building’s vast walkways. This perspective further enhanced the building’s enormous capacity.

Several uneventful moments later, the plane touched down and the passengers collected their belongings. They were greeted with a rush of sweltering humidity and sweet-smelling air as the dual exit doors swished open. Dylan began perspiring before he was halfway down the ramp. He glanced at Kim. The pastel-green silk shirt she wore was already sticking to her skin. Two businessmen, both on the heavy side and wearing full suits, were clearly struggling with the heat.

The heat smacked him in the face; it was sweltering, unlike any heat in America. This was the inland hills of Mexico during the height of summer.
But it’s a dry heat
, thought Dylan,
whatever the hell that means
. It was a heat that pushed down on your chest and constricted your throat. But Dylan had come prepared, having already removed his corduroy jacket and unbuttoned his loose-fitting, short-sleeved, blue-striped shirt. His pants were light khakis. He loved Mexico, though he usually found himself on the beach rather than within an oppressive mountain range.

Directed by a holographic attendant, the group walked about ten meters up several ramps and into a circular enclosure. The door to the enclosure closed, and the air cooled almost immediately. Several relieved sighs were heard. The circular enclosure moved effortlessly across a track that Dylan had not noticed. They crossed the expansive riverbed that lay between them and the compound. The circular people mover docked, and half of the circle’s windows swished open, allowing passage into the entrance to Titus. Ahead of them, a grand, enclosed semicircular hallway led to the tip of the diamond. The air remained cooled, and the hallway was surrounded entirely with media-enabled glass. Steel girders and beams created a structural spiderweb that gave the entranceway a nostalgic, early-twentieth-century feel. The glass panels between the girders served to attenuate the blazing sun, though some of them did display media, mostly generic NRS advertisements. The floor was intricately tiled with colorful ceramics. Lining the center of the hallway were large columns of planters containing mostly large local trees, garnished with carefully cultivated exotic flowers. As the capacious hallway neared the actual entrance to the building, it grew further in size, opening into a large archway that served as the official entrance into the facility. There were no doors or walls to enter the compound, merely a row of holographic assistants—holoPods—who stood officiously, anxiously awaiting the chance to assist new arrivals. The arch was over two hundred meters long and fifty meters tall, but the building itself could be seen expanding further upward through the glass ceiling. On the archway, a message was written in enormous letters of brushed brass:

Titus 1:15—Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Dylan stopped walking and stared upward, gaping at the enormous archway—Titus One-Fifteen. He had never paused to consider the provenance of the project’s name, and had he done so, he likely wouldn’t have considered a biblical origin. As he gawked, dumbfounded, mouth slightly ajar, Kimberly and the two businessmen moved beyond the holoPods, much to the holographic automatons’ disappointment. Dylan brought up the rear.

“Mr. Dansby, I presume?” a nasally voice echoed from behind Kim as Dylan rejoined the group.

“You presume well, Mister . . . ?”

The man stepped to his side, around Kim, and came into Dylan’s view. He was a short man, shorter than Dylan, with a shaved head. He filled out a sizable suit. “Kane. I’m the director of the Titus facility.” He stepped forward, extending a balmy hand.

“It’s great to meet you, I’ve heard good things,” Dylan responded.

“Of course you have,” Kane replied.

Dylan wasn’t certain if Kane’s response constituted dry wit, or if he was simply a confident man. Dylan hoped for the former but expected the latter.

“Well, Mr. Kane,” he said, “I can’t express how excited I am to get the full tour over the next few days. I’m already in a complete state of awe.” He made full use of his wide smile.

“Understandable—the sheer size of the facility is still mind-boggling even to me. It’s a great thing we’re doing here.”

At this familiar phrase, Dylan squinted and cocked his head, but quickly nodded in acquiescence.

“Now, undoubtedly you’ve all had a lengthy and tiring trip, and there is much work to do and never enough time to do it. Your luggage is already on its way to your rooms. If you want to leave your carry-ons here, our assistants can take those to your rooms as well. Now, if you will all follow me into the Hall of St. Titus, I will point you in the right direction. For those of you new here”—Kane continued to look at the four passengers, though everyone knew Dylan was the only new visitor—“you will have an hour to tidy up, at which point we will reconvene at noon, for lunch. During lunch I will provide you with your schedule of events for the next few days.”

Dylan nodded in agreement, and Kane turned to leave.

None of the visitors chose to leave their personal belongings with the patient android assistants. The group walked in pairs behind Kane. They passed perpendicularly through another mammoth corridor, then to a smaller walkway that comparatively appeared as a hallway, though it was still wide enough to fit a parade procession.

“That guy gets to the point,” Dylan said as he stared at the baroque mural adorning the walls of the granite-tiled hallway.

“He’s good,” Kimberly replied. “To the point and effective.”

“How long has he been working down here?”

“Since groundbreaking—over two years ago.”

“Two years? It only took two years to build this place? I figured you folks had been working on this for decades.”

“‘You folks’? Don’t you mean
us
folks?” Kimberly smiled playfully.

“Yeah, right. Guess I’m still getting used to being a part of the NRS family.”

“The company has developed some groundbreaking automated construction machinery. These automated builders are gigantic. Like, fifty-meters-high gigantic. They can traverse just about any kind of terrain, carry payloads measured in tonnage, and erect moderate-sized buildings in days. I watched some of the construction myself—it was awesome.”

“Do you—sorry,
we
—sell that tech? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

“No, it’s under strict nondisclosure. Frankly, we’re the only corp in the world that probably needs them. They’re really only useful on buildings of this magnitude.”

Before Dylan could respond, the group reached the end of the hallway. Without a door, the hall abruptly spilled out onto an expansive gallery overlooking a grand, cloistered structure that halted all breaths from the onlookers. Kane stopped without slowing down and the pair of larger men nearly bumped into his backside.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Hall of St. Titus. One square kilometer in size, the hall is one of two such halls in the Titus facility. This hall—”

“Hey, Kane,” one of the businessmen interrupted. “I’ve heard the spiel—I need to get to my room, I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes. Which way’m I headed?”

“Of course.” Kane seemed visibly downtrodden. “I’m sorry, Mr. Barker. And Miss Evans and Mr. Charbonneau, I presume you’d like to get moving as well?”

The other man nodded, but Kimberly replied, “I’ll stick around and get the tour again.”

This seemed to perk Kane up. “Very well. Mr. Barker and Mr. Charbonneau, you are both in wing N-seven, rooms 5234 and 5235. Top-floor penthouse suites.”

Both men thanked Kane brusquely and power-walked away as if they were racing.

“Mr. Dansby, as I was saying, you are in the St. Titus Hall. It is nearly three kilometers in width; nearly the size of Central Park. You are standing in the largest indoor courtyard in the world. I should correct myself—it is tied for the largest indoor courtyard with our other such courtyard in the southern wing. As you may have noticed on your flight in, the facility is in the shape of a diamond. You are in the northernmost courtyard. Each of the two courtyards and surrounding quarters of the Titus facility are designed with a specific theme based on the Titus moniker. The theme of the north wings is St. Titus.”

Kane cleared his throat to assist his practiced recitation. “St. Titus was a close colleague of the apostle Paul, and helped him to reconcile the Christian Church in Corinth. The Book of Titus, found in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, was written by Paul and addressed to Titus. The book explains the duties of elders and bishops in the Church. We have chosen to decorate this—”