Metal Fatigue by Sean Williams

the communication towers in the hills. To the south, the main defence was the river, wide enough to prove a deterrent to foot soldiers and blocked by locks along its length. On the far side were nothing but ruins; Patriot Bridge had once connected Kennedy proper with a few far-flung suburbs and an airport, but these had been isolated since the beginning of the Dissolution. On the near side were warehouses, docks and reclamation plants — the last performing essential treatment and recycling of water, glass, plastic, rubber, textiles, wood pulp, soil and paper. Most employed variants on "natural" techniques, using bioreactors and anaerobic digesters — mainly modified fungi or bacteria — to strip soil, water and solid waste of contaminants until they were fit to be re-used. Thirty percent of the city's population was employed in the reclamation industry, if not in the plants themselves then maintaining the air towers and sewerage works; the rest worked in civil services — like RSD, Power Central, the MSA and Emergency Services — or tended the farms.
    Sometimes, if Roads squinted hard enough from this angle, he could almost pretend that the War hadn't happened, that the intervening four decades had been nothing but a bad dream. Almost , though, and never for long.
    To the east, like a long, black scar cutting a chord through the outer limits of the city, was the Wall — an artificial barrier fifteen kilometres long and five metres high. Its triangular backbone had been built from a black carbon alloy during the early years of the Dissolution, before the materials industry the city had been famous for had been diverted into other areas. Solar powered, electrically live across its entire surface and topped with a formidable array of sophisticated defences, it acted as a definitive barrier against intrusion. With only one break — at the Gate, midway along its length — its sole purpose was to keep people out, and it performed its task well. The Gate had been fully opened just once in the previous twenty years, and then only for the RUSA envoy. In the bad days, the Wall had never been opened at all, and had been constantly patrolled by up to a thousand MSA guards. This unending vigilance, plus the Wall's stark, geometric lines, acted as more than just a physical boundary: it reinforced the truth, that the city was isolated by its own choice.
    Behind walls of stone, air, water and fire, Kennedy Polis sprawled like a vast stone starfish, languishing in its separation from the rest of the world. Not even radio could penetrate the barriers; all transmissions from the Outside were scrupulously ignored, having proved too often in the past to be fakes. Nothing short of actually arriving at the Gate and banging on it would result in it being opened — which is exactly what had happened, six weeks before ...
    Sunlight flashing in mirror-tinted glass brought Roads back to the present. RSD HQ, like all of the buildings in the centre of Kennedy, stood no more than ten storeys high and boasted lush roof gardens at its summit. Grey composite plastic wrap, manufactured from waste products by modified E. coli bacteria, kept its concrete from crumbling under the influence of the elements, and most of its lower-floor windows had been fitted with transparent solar panels. The environment within the building was maintained by passive measures in conjunction with air-conditioning, just as a large percentage of its daytime illumination came from light-wells rather than electricity. An absence of sharp corners and flat planes made it look half melted from the outside, although its interior was more conventional in design: pooled offices, open and flexible floor plans, and a generous illusion of space wherever possible.
    Roads pulled into the welcome darkness of the underground carpark and found a recharge bay for the patrol car. Crinkling his nose at the stench of ozone, he left the vehicle and tapped his PIN number into the elevator keypad.