Prime Deceptions

by Valerie Valdes

  But she still needed to find Josh and get him to Mari. She and her crew needed to get paid, and this job would keep the ship fueled and repaired for a long time if she was prudent. Initially, she had expected she might be riding to Josh’s rescue, but it certainly seemed like that wasn’t the case. That said, if he was here voluntarily, the rest of the universe might be safer if she convinced him to do what Mari wanted instead.

  Eva had seen the ads herself; Sylfe Company was planning to distribute the Pod Pals all over the universe. BOFA would inspect them, but if Proarkhe tech was being used, and the BOFA folks didn’t figure that out and flag it, or if regulations weren’t tight enough, it was possible the little bots could end up spying on millions of people, maybe billions. If the rebels were trying to disrupt what Damaal and her people were up to with their surveillance bots, that alone might be worth an alliance.

  Tech like that could cause violence, or it could end it, depending on who controlled it. Knowledge was power, and power could be bought and sold, traded and taken.

  There were fewer tourists around, but the number of Watchers seemed undiminished. Every pair of eyes followed Eva and Vakar as they walked back to the skyscraper where they would be staying for the rest of the cycle. Waves of psychic calm emanated from them, of authority, of the certainty that came from being the government’s eyes and ears and fists. Any of them could approach Eva, detain her, whisk her away somewhere, and bury her like The Fridge had. If she stepped out of line. If she acted up. If she said something they deemed unacceptable.

  The urge was strong, but she suppressed it, gripping Vakar’s hand tighter. They had work to do.

  Pink was practically climbing the walls when they got back, despite Eva already messaging her that they were on their way and pinging her from the elevator. The room’s door opened and Eva was all but dragged inside, Mala leaping off her shoulders with a hiss.

  Min lay in one of the hammocks, eyes closed, limbs twitching—probably playing one of her games. Sue was still on the floor with her Ball Buddy, which was now in even more pieces than it had been when Eva left. And Pink, well.

  “Welcome back from your walk,” Pink said, her eye wide with emotions Eva couldn’t read yet. “I hope you two had a good time out there, enjoying the fresh night air and all that.”

  “It was very nice,” Eva replied. “Relaxing. I can’t remember the last time I got to unwind like that.”

  “Yeah, we work hard,” Pink agreed. “Did you eat?”

  “No, and I could definitely use a bite if you’ve got something.”

  “Right over here.” Pink guided Eva to the corner under the holovid unit, where a table had been set up with stuff on it.

  Except it hadn’t. It wasn’t there at all. The corner was completely empty.

  Pink pressed a finger to Eva’s lips and activated her isohelmet. Eva did the same.

  “I had Sue and Min work on a loop of us eating so we could talk,” Pink said.

  “How did they—”

  “Min had some old recordings from La Sirena Negra and Sue rigged up other stuff.”

  “But why can’t we just—”

  “Talk in privacy mode like we did before?” Pink folded her arms and leaned against the wall. “Do you know how many times people came up here to check on us since you left?”

  “How many?”

  “Six. In less than three hours.”

  Eva whistled. “Coño. That’s some devotion to hospitality.”

  “Hospitality my sweet ass. This whole place is bugged to hell and back.” Pink sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Where did you go and what happened?”

  Eva explained as quickly as she could, because she didn’t think the eating ruse would last forever, and if the building’s staff were checking in all the time, they’d be arriving any minute. Pink listened intently, interrupting for questions once or twice, then settled into a pensive stance with her arms loosely crossed, fingers drumming on her bicep.

  “So do we help them or not?” Eva asked.

  “You think we should,” Pink said, even though Eva had tried to present the whole situation as neutrally as possible.

  “I think we could use their help to get to Josh without dealing with Damaal.” Eva wrinkled her nose at Sue, who had made an excited noise and flipped her visor up to sniff something, for whatever reason. “Our other option is to keep poking around on our own. We might be able to find someone willing to talk about Josh, or the lab where they work on the Ball Buddies—”

  “Do we really need to keep calling them that?” Pink asked.

  “Fuck yes, it’s hilarious.”

  “Fine, so we can try to find our own way to Josh, or we can go straight back to Lashra Damaal and give her the business, or we can help these folks and maybe start another pussy riot in this club.”

  Eva nodded, then snarled. “We can also leave. That’s always an option, but then we don’t get paid.”

  “And Sue doesn’t get to see her brother.” Pink shook her head. “Nah, that’s not on the table. Just the other shit.”

  “You think Damaal will bite?” Eva asked.

  “Nope,” Pink said. “I’m surprised she hasn’t shipped our asses off-planet yet.”

  “Me too. So we keep busting ass alone or we take the deal.”

  Pink shrugged, uncrossing her arms. “Let’s see where these resistance folks want to take us. If it’s ugly, we can back out and let them do their own dirty work.”

  Eva raised her eyebrows. “You think we can trust them?”

  “Girl, I don’t trust anyone, you know that. We find out what they’re up to and we watch our own backs.”

  “All right.” Eva pensively eyed the rest of the crew. “Vakar is in, too. Let’s make sure Min and Sue are on board and go from there.”

  A delicate sound like a combination wind chime and whistle echoed through the room, accompanied by a psychic projection outside that was like if courteousness were a knuckle gently rapping on the door.

  “There’s our chaperone checking in,” Pink said sourly. “Careful getting out of the holo.”

  “Yeah, don’t want to walk out of a table,” Eva said. They deactivated their isohelmets and Eva took her sweet time strolling over to the door.

  A cream-furred xana with dark stripes awaited her. “Greetings, honored guest,” he said. “May I inquire as to whether our accommodations continue to meet your standards?”

  “You just did, mijo,” Eva replied with a smile. “And yes, they’re fine, thanks.”

  “We are pleased to know this. We humbly request that you do not hesitate to reach out to us should you require anything whatsoever.”

  “Sí, bueno, gracias, muy amable,” Eva said, sliding the door closed manually. The xana leaned slightly to the side to continue looking into the room until his view was completely obstructed, the translucent material clouded to mask the interior for privacy.

  As if that made a difference, given that the room was bugged. Eva flopped down on the couch-like chair and sighed. Mala leaped up and began to knead Eva’s thighs, purring softly.

  “Like you haven’t been all over me all day,” Eva muttered. Mala paused and looked in Sue’s direction, growling low in her throat at the disassembled Ball Buddy.

  “Yeah, she’s made quite a mess,” Eva said, but what she wanted to say was: That thing is bad news, for sure, if even a cat knows enough to hate it.

  Not much they could do about it now, though. Stay vigilant, trust nothing, and hope they didn’t get marched out by Watchers at some point. At best, they’d get escorted back to their ship, but at worst . . .

  Eva slouched lower in the seat and closed her eyes. Might as well rest while she had the chance.

  Her stomach growled louder than Mala, eliciting a grumpy chirrup from the cat.

  “Fine, that first,” she muttered to herself. She had a bad feeling this was going to be a long night.

  Eva was awakened from her moderately comfortable nap in one of the hammocks, by the weight o
f a furry body on her chest and a paw gently patting her nose. Mala stared directly into her face, whiskers trembling, the hazel of her eyes nearly eclipsed by wide, black pupils.

  “Qué bola?” Eva murmured.

  “Miau,” Mala replied, leaping to the ground. She turned in a circle, tail lashing back and forth, as if asking Eva to follow her.

  The room was dark, lit only by the distant glow coming from other rooms around theirs, ones likely occupied by people less inclined to sleep at night. Everyone else was asleep, except Vakar, who didn’t sleep so much as quietly meditate while his body rested. With some awkwardness, Eva climbed out of the hammock and trailed after the cat, who stopped in front of Min’s backpack. Eva squinted, crouching and leaning closer. Mala growled and pawed at the bag, then made a figure eight in front of it and shook her tail angrily.

  Eva hesitated. She didn’t want to go through Min’s things, but she also didn’t want to wake the pilot up over a cat being weird.

  Mala patted the bag once, twice, in what seemed to be a specific place. “Miau,” she repeated.

  I guess I’ll apologize later, Eva thought. She carefully opened the bag where Mala indicated, a small outer pocket that contained only one item.

  The Pod Pal. Ball Buddy. Whatever.

  Eva removed the container and examined it. Seemed easy enough to operate: simple button press and out popped the robot. She still couldn’t believe something the size of a cat could fit into a ball that she could grasp with one hand, but the proof was right there.

  And so was Mala, growling and lashing her tail back and forth, her ears nearly flat against her head. This was definitely what was bothering her, but why? It was just a robot; weird, maybe, but Mala had never been this aggressive toward Sue’s little yellow bots.

  Eva turned it over carefully and rubbed it with her thumb. She brought it to her face and sniffed it, as if that would yield some clue. It smelled like Min’s backpack, for one thing—apparently she’d stashed a half-eaten container of spicy rice cakes somewhere—but underneath was a standard metallic polymer scent. Something else, too, something familiar that Eva couldn’t place . . .

  The barest hint of a psychic emanation touched Eva, like the stray brush of fingertips against skin, except in her mind. Mala hissed, as if she felt it, too. Was it coming from the robot?

  Psychic spying, on top of everything else? Eva didn’t want the damn thing anywhere near her for another minute.

  The room didn’t have windows, so she couldn’t very well throw the ball out that way. If she tried to leave it somewhere in the building, she had a feeling the extremely helpful staff would bring it right back to her. And if she told them she didn’t want it anymore, they’d probably want to know why, and that might be the cue for the Watchers to swoop in and escort them away.

  But if there were an accident . . .

  Eva mentally apologized to Min for what she was about to do. Quietly, avoiding the leg-twining Mala, she crept over to the garbage recycler and slid the cover open. It was a standard model, theoretically capable of handling items of varying kinds and compositions, and a very popular plot device in many crime holovids. It was also just large enough for her to cram the Ball Buddy inside.

  With a sigh, she tapped the activation button on the device’s panel. It chimed softly, whirred to life—

  And exploded.

  Eva was thrown back against the couch, where Vakar had been sitting peacefully, and was now squirming underneath her in surprise. Her ears rang, the skin on her face and neck shrieked with pain, and her chest felt like she’d been kicked by a todyk. Everything smelled like lechón, which probably meant she’d been badly burned.

  Things went fuzzy after that. She was mostly extremely aware of the amount of discomfort she was experiencing, then of something cold being sprayed on her injuries, and then the sting of quick-heal nanites being delivered via injection. The pain gradually receded, though there was a nagging sense that someone nearby was very upset with her, and someone else was worried, and at least one other person was radiating waves of psychic distress that suggested they were afraid of being punished.

  Also, there was purring. Eva assumed that was Mala, but who knew.

  Eventually the haze receded, and Eva found herself stretched out on the couch with her legs hanging over the side. She blinked at the ceiling above her, whose colors seemed to shift and shimmer as the lights on upper floors moved around, lit up or were extinguished. But she could see, which was good, since it meant her eyes had survived whatever had happened.

  Someone shifted on the floor next to her—hearing, check, also good—and Eva turned her head to stare directly into Vakar’s gray-blue eyes. Some part of her said she should be startled, but the rest was on some excellent medications that assured her everything was perfectly fine and she had no need to move.

  “Oye,” she said. It felt like she was talking through a mouthful of soggy beans. “Qué pasó, mi vida?”

  Vakar’s palps twitched, his gaze holding hers steadily. “Someone appears to have unintentionally placed something volatile in the recycler. Due to an unknown triggering mechanism, this caused the disintegrator to detonate, damaging our room as well as several adjacent rooms.” He paused. “Also, you sustained injuries to multiple portions of your anatomy in the explosion.”

  “Gwao,” Eva said, blinking slowly. “Y ahora qué?”

  “Watchers have been stationed at various points outside our room and near available exits,” Vakar said. “We have been assured that a new room is being prepared for us and we will be relocated presently. Pink has been arguing with Watcher Rakyra regarding whether you require transport to a Communal Center for more advanced treatment. Sue and Min are with her.”

  Eva shook her head, which left unpleasant trails of motion blur wherever she looked. “I should go. I . . . should go? I should . . . go.” She giggled, then frowned. “I need to tell you things. Privately.”

  Vakar activated his isohelmet, and after a few failed attempts, Eva managed to activate hers as well.

  “The Ball Buddies,” she said.

  “Yes?” Vakar replied.

  “It’s a terrible name for a product,” Eva said. “I think the human who helped translate it was not very professional. De pinga, bro.”

  Vakar paused. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

  “No, no, espérate.” Eva’s mental fog thinned and she scrambled to gather the thoughts milling around aimlessly like grazing sheep. “I put a Ball Buddy in the disintegrator. That’s what exploded. But it shouldn’t have.”

  “Unless one of its components was something that would react explosively to the molecular destabilization technology.” Vakar’s face was hidden by his darkened helmet, but he smelled all kinds of worried and mad. “That would suggest there is the equivalent of a bomb within every one of the robotic Attuned.”

  They both turned to look at the pieces of Sue’s robot, still spread out across the floor. One central part was still intact, and Eva was suddenly very grateful that Sue hadn’t managed to take that apart yet.

  “I’m also pretty sure there’s psychic tech in those things,” Eva said. “Like, what the xana can do, the neural networking thing, but in a robot. Maybe more.”

  “That would explain why Mala was so averse to them,” Vakar said. “New technology may be able to circumvent existing hardware or software safeguards. If these robots were able to create a universe-wide neural network among any sapient species, that would be—”

  “You’re cute,” Eva said.

  “I . . . what?”

  “Sorry.” Eva gathered a few more sheep. “Okay, I need to make a call, and then we’re getting out of here. Make everyone get ready to leave.”

  Vakar smelled confused and concerned. Eva wished he would knock it off, because the room already had enough smoky aromas going on from the explosion.

  “Where will we go?” Vakar asked.

  “One second.” Eva held up a finger as she activated her comms and opene
d a line. The dull buzz of the call attempting to connect made her teeth ache more than usual.

  The person on the other end answered, their voice bleary with sleep. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Mami?” Eva asked. “Where are you? I need to crash with you tonight.”

  Chapter 16

  Girls Just Wanna Have

  Regina Alvarez was staying in one of the low buildings closer to the ocean, its walls like thick, cloudy stained glass thanks to the opacity controls. A winding pebbled path led down to the water, partially obscured by waist-high bushes dotted with small berrylike growths that reminded Eva of pitangas. The gentle rush of the waves and the accompanying breeze toyed with her still-skewed senses, because everything smelled like sulfur instead of salt.

  Eva leaned on Vakar as she walked, and was flanked by Pink, while Sue and Min trailed after. Mala was back in Min’s backpack, apparently content to be there now that the Pod Pal was gone.

  Behind them a half dozen meters away, Watcher Rakyra and several other Watchers, well, watched them go, standing outside a transport and emanating authority and a concern that Eva had initially taken as politeness related to her health. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  They reached the panel that functioned as a door, but before Eva could knock or figure out some other presence-announcing system, it slid open and a glossy black hoverchair glided through.

  “Eva-Benita, mija, ven acá, entra!” Regina Alvarez said, gesturing excitedly at Eva. Her magenta-dyed hair had been chopped short and styled to fall in careless-looking layers, and her light-brown eyes were lined with makeup, as if she hadn’t been awakened only a few minutes earlier. She turned the chair away slightly, then back, studying Eva critically.

  “What happened to your face?” Regina asked. “You look completamente desmondingado.”

  “Thanks,” Eva replied, leaning down to plant a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “Why are you wearing high heels at this hour?”