The Beam- The Complete Series

by Sean Platt

  Shadow was plenty paranoid. Would he have thought of what she had? Would he have tried it? And if it turned out that his arrestable message was, in fact, as anonymous as Diggle wanted it to be and couldn’t ever have been used against him, did Leah still think she could trust him?

  For a few beats during their conversation, she’d almost wanted to tell Shadow about Stephen York. But now, looking back on their exchange and her tentative suggestion of meeting with Shadow in the future, she felt her better instincts reassert themselves.

  In the end, she had nothing to use against Shadow. Here and now, though he’d said much that could get him in trouble, his fly was plenty zipped. And maybe, if he knew things about Diggle that she didn’t, he’d known all along that it would stay that way.

  Sitting on the remnants of Vance Pilloud’s wooden floor, Leah suddenly found herself very glad that she’d kept the Stephen York ace securely in its hole.

  The door swung open in front of Kai. Nicolai was beside it, acting as if he needed to hold it for her. Behind him, she could see by the room lights and shimmering wall displays that he’d reestablished his canvas and Beam connection. Thank West. Despite what he’d said about impervious hacks, she had serious doubts that no one had noted his disconnection. But did it matter? Micah already knew he’d gone offline. Maybe it was even going offline that had brought Micah over in the first place, nudging him to investigate and find out what Nicolai was hiding.

  “You turned your stuff back on.”

  “I needed something to eat.”

  “You’re used to foraging. Killing animals and roasting their meat over a fire. After shooting them with your crossbow.”

  “It’s been a long time.” Nicolai stepped aside so Kai could enter. “And I was unable to find any animals. On this floor or the one below me.”

  “So,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  Nicolai looked around, surely knowing her question to be about his meeting with Rachel Ryan. He seemed to be assessing his canvas’s security, perhaps wondering if he should turn it back off.

  “Nothing much,” he finally answered.

  “Is this how we’re going to talk for the rest of our lives? Don’t be so paranoid, Nicolai.”

  He sighed. “Okay. Fine.” He projected his voice, talking over Kai’s shoulder. “Canvas, go incognito.”

  “Incognito,” said a soft voice.

  “As if that means anything,” Nicolai muttered.

  Kai, thinking of the wonders she’d seen — twice now — in the Ryans’ apartment, had to agree. But a girl could only be so guarded, and a canvas operating as incognito didn’t really seem any less secure, fundamentally, than speaking with a canvas entirely off. The nanobot tricks Kai had done mere hours earlier could have snooped on this conversation as easily as it had snooped on Natasha’s non-unfaithful infidelity. It was just additional evidence that in many ways, Kai deserved Beau Monde status more than many of the Beau Monde. She’d earned it. She deserved it. She’d been promised it. And if anyone snooped here, all they’d see would be her fearless efforts to seize what was owed.

  “So you saw Micah’s mother.”

  “And you saw Isaac.”

  “You first,” she said. They were standing in the middle of the room like two fighters facing off. It was appropriately challenging — Kai wanted Nicolai to give up what he had before she surrendered her relative nothing — but it was also raising their defenses. She’d never get what she wanted by playing hardass…and in the end, she didn’t want to oppose Nicolai at all. Kai was a sneak, a spy, a lover of many men, and a cold-blooded killer, but that didn’t stop the little girl inside her from wanting a prince beside her.

  So she sat on the couch, clearly leaving a spot for Nicolai to join her. She didn’t pat the seat to encourage him. That would be too much. She knew it from psychology 101, but she also knew it because the behavioral profile and response data her canvas’s AI had gathered from Nicolai over the years told her so. Every man was a puzzle. The fact that she genuinely liked Nicolai didn’t change that.

  He sat on a chair across from her instead of joining her on the couch. It wasn’t what her profile had predicted at all. It was, in fact, a Micah Ryan move. The chair was angular and square, placing him higher in a subtle position of power.

  “Okay,” he said. “I went to see her.”

  Kai nodded.

  “Interesting lady,” he added.

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Hmm. And what did she say about your past, and the family’s?”

  “Her father was in league with the Italian Mafia. They were pressuring my father for his technology. They didn’t get it but needed the nanobots because of what they would mean for…well…for everything.”

  “Hmm. This isn’t new. You knew this weeks ago.”

  “Well, she confirmed it.”

  “So you just walked in and said, ‘Hey, Mrs. Ryan — can you confirm some things for me?’”

  “What did you find out from Isaac?”

  Kai had to be careful. She hadn’t spoken to Isaac, of course, or to Natasha. She’d merely snooped in, snooped out, and decided quite firmly that she would grab Micah by his balls and squeeze until he gave her what he’d promised — until she had what his own stupid brother had. The idea that a weak-willed Directorate layabout and his bitch wife had more than Kai was a travesty. Kai had followed in the footsteps of her idol, Alexa Mathis, who’d taken the lone commodity that never lost value — sex — and used it to build an empire. Kai had paid her dues. She had scrapped, fought, innovated, and assumed innumerable risks. All Isaac had done to earn status superior to hers, on the other hand, was to be born.

  But that wasn’t what Nicolai wanted to know, or the revelation she’d been sent to uncover. Kai didn’t want to be his adversary. They had started on the same side, and belonged there.

  She sighed. “I didn’t see Isaac.”

  Nicolai’s expression twitched then returned to normal. Classic Nicolai, again according to her behavioral dossier. He was taking a hit and absorbing it, stowing it for later consideration. She’d tricked him into going first in this little tête-á-tête, but he knew full well he’d thus far given her nothing.

  Again she wondered, Why are we on opposite sides of the argument?

  Kai continued, volunteering more before he could react to her giving him less.

  “He wasn’t home. Natasha was. So I couldn’t talk to him — or to her, which might also have been useful — but I can go back. She was immersed. I was able to peek at the stream.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I have many tricks up my sleeves.” She gave Nicolai a small, sexy smile — the one that always disarmed him. Men were easy. But it wasn’t just manipulative. On Kai’s lips right now, the smile was true.

  “So what did you find out?” he said. “Anything at all?”

  She shook her head. “Not about you. Not about the Ryan family. But I found out a lot about what’s being held from us, Nicolai. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to ascend?”

  “What, you mean to die?”

  “Ascend in society. To where they are. You’ve worked with Isaac forever. You must have seen things they have and been jealous. You’re twice what he is. More.”

  “I suspected. I never actually saw.”

  Kai shrugged. That made sense. As she’d been pulling out of the apartment, her bots had discovered what was essentially a kill switch in the Ryans’ canvas. It looked like a partial shutdown, probably meant to downtune the function of the canvas and any attached peripherals so they’d perform at sub-Beau Monde levels. The configuration suggested that Isaac and Natasha probably never triggered it themselves. It was the sort of thing AI would trigger when someone with a non-Beau Monde ID entered the apartment unspoofed.

  Kai explained about the kill switch then told Nicolai what she’d seen on her tour before, during, and after peeping in on Natasha. She’d spent far longer inside than she sho
uld have, always dancing along the dangerous edge where Natasha might exit her immersion or Isaac might make his return. She’d almost wanted that to happen. If she had to face them as an intruder, she’d get to say what she wanted…and if she had to kill her way to freedom afterward, so be it.

  Nicolai nodded.

  “I knew this level existed,” she said. “Ever since I first met Micah. But I didn’t know how…well, how complete…their superiority was. Micah’s been dangling it all in front of my face like a carrot since I met him. Whenever he needed something and I didn’t want to do it, he’d remind me that the longer I played ball, the closer I’d come to ascension. He made it sound like an anointing ceremony, like he could touch me and impart the magic of Beau Monde.”

  “Is that how he got you to kill Doc? Or try to?”

  The behavioral AI that augmented Kai’s cortex didn’t like the vocal inflections in Nicolai’s question. He wasn’t just asking something uncomfortable. He was loading it with suppositions, implying the only reason she hadn’t refused Micah’s order came down to money.

  Kai extended a leg and kicked at one of Nicolai’s. She was wearing heels, and when she struck him, he winced.

  “What?”

  “You fucker. That’s not fair.”

  “I was just asking a question.”

  Kai tapped her head, indicating the add-on he knew full well she had. “And you know full well I can see what’s behind the question. Which is a really shitty thing to think, seeing as I’ve told you he was going to kill me, too.”

  “You said you’re like a daughter to him,” he said. But already, Nicolai’s inflection and posture had become more conciliatory, his entire body suddenly saying I’m sorry.

  Kai crossed her legs. “Yeah, well. The Ryans eat their young.”

  She watched his body respond to hers. Her crossed legs and clipped tone spelled resignation and closing down, so he opened up and all of a sudden became ready to share. Noticing her own scrutiny made Kai feel guilty, but she couldn’t help it. Her profession was all about analysis and reaction.

  “It’s true a generation up, too,” he said. “Listening to Rachel, you get the impression of a shrewd businesswoman who had two kids she didn’t want dropped into her lap. She had them very late, surely accidentally, yet somehow felt an obligation to go through with their births. Or come to think of it, she’d need heirs, right? So maybe that’s how it happened. She got herself pregnant, even as old as she was, because it was the only way to continue the family line. Oh, and speaking of family lines, here’s a fun tidbit I uncovered just before you knocked: Did you know that she didn’t even change her name when she got married?”

  “So? Lots of women don’t change their names.” Kai was mildly indignant at Nicolai’s implication of oddity.

  Nicolai waved his hand. “No, you’re not understanding. Rachel’s father started Ryan Industries. Ryan Industries.”

  “Oh, wow. A woman carried on the Ryan family name and passed it to her boys. That’s a hell of a pair of ovaries.”

  “Right. Her husband — Isaac and Nicolai’s father — changed his name to Ryan. This is all public record. Rachel sent out a press release about it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Nicolai shook his head. “And after meeting her, I’m not surprised at all. You want the real brains behind it all, I think she’s it. Father to daughter without missing a beat. There is no weakness in the public’s image of Rachel Ryan. Her history is filled with jabs like that press release.”

  “And she didn’t tell you anything new?”

  Nicolai laughed, and Kai saw the last of the confrontation and brinksmanship flee his face. She finally felt safe enough to pat the couch cushion beside her. Nicolai rose from his Micah chair and came to sit at her side. After that, the room felt warmer.

  “Oh, she told me plenty that was new,” said Nicolai. “But it was all very carefully controlled, dripped out like…well, like sending a series of snarky press releases. Most of what Rachel said wasn’t about my father at all. She dropped a few crumbs then detoured. Like she’d been waiting for someone to come and ask her the right questions. She asked a lot of her own. About Shift. About the parties. About Noah West.”

  “What did she think you’d know about Shift and Noah West?”

  “They were all rhetorical. Riddles. She wasn’t really asking; she was telling. Teasing.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? But I’m certain she had a reason.”

  Kai looked at Nicolai’s strong features, suddenly aware of her own relief that the room’s inexplicably adversarial mood had finally broken. She’d caused a lot of that, she supposed. Ever since she’d broken into the Ryans’ apartment — and, to a lesser degree, since she’d seen and experienced the high-end immersion rigs two weeks ago — she’d been possessed by a strong feeling of entitlement, of deserving things she’d been promised but had never received. A win/lose, zero-sum mentality went with it because if others had what Kai wanted, that meant there wasn’t enough to go around and that she’d have to fight for what was rightfully hers. Nicolai wasn’t and had never been her opponent. He was the closest thing Kai had to a companion.

  “Hmm,” she said.

  “I can tell you in detail,” he said. “I didn’t trust the situation enough to vidcap it or even record the audio, but I have it buffered in memory. I could read you back what she said.”

  “Hmm…” Really, Kai didn’t care. Not right now, anyway. Right now, her friendly feeling toward Nicolai was amalgamating with her earlier unfulfilled attempts at seduction. She wasn’t sure if she was horny or filled with an obnoxious schoolgirl fantasy — a Prince Charming who had scrapped as much as she had and could perhaps ascend to the Beau Monde by her side — but whatever the sensation, it was definitely interesting.

  “What?” Nicolai looked at her. He didn’t have all of the psychological analysis add-ons she had and was having trouble reading her. He didn’t need to seduce people to win political favor. His raw personality was seductive enough.

  “I was thinking about how we really do want the same things,” she said.

  “You mean about figuring out what Micah is up to.”

  Kai put her hand on Nicolai’s leg. “Men are stupid.”

  Nicolai looked down at the hand.

  “Oh.”

  Then he leaned toward her, and the hours began to pass.

  Crumb — who apparently was now going by the name Stephen York — excused himself to run into the Organa village to check on something he seemed to feel was important. Dominic was left standing, mouth hanging open, stunned. He couldn’t help but flash back to his fear two weeks earlier about the break-in at DZPD station. Someone had accessed information about the old vagrant and Dominic’s role in his illegal release. Dominic had been certain that old act of kindness was about to come back and bite him. It was still possible that it would, but now he had another way to frame the incidents (both the break-in and the actual act of sending Crumb into the mountains instead of Respero) if he chose to accept it: Crumb — or York — was someone important who’d been hidden for a reason, meaning that Dominic might have unknowingly shoved his nose into the wrong people’s business.

  After watching Crumb — York — vanish into the village with promises of an imminent return, Dominic pulled out his handheld and scrolled through his mail. The first message was from one of the deputies, asking which records he could release to a press inquiry. Dominic felt annoyed by the message. He’d explained the line to this particular asshole a dozen times.

  For discretion, he scribbled a response instead of dictating it, making no effort to hide his irritation at the deputy. He pressed send. A red band indicated the lack of signal.

  Dominic held the handheld up high and tried again then paced for service and found none. Yet he’d videocalled with Leo before, using the same Air signal.

  “Shitter.” Dominic slapped the handheld’s side.

  It was flaky up here. He’d had this
problem before when he visited the village, and it was maddeningly inconsistent.

  He scrolled through his messages, seeing that many were new. He’d received mail; he just couldn’t send it. Likely, he’d gotten a spotty signal and his handheld had downloaded the messages before the connection had vanished.

  He saved the message to the asshole deputy as a draft then began opening his remaining mail to kill time while waiting for Crumb’s return. Of course — as always was the case when the signal was shit — many messages required his immediate reply.

  There were two infuriating messages from Omar, both saying versions of the same thing: The large Lunis shipment he’d been expecting had failed to arrive. Dominic’s stopgap supply would have to stretch even longer. That was a laugh. Dominic had barely brought Leo enough for one person’s normal weekly rations. Spread among the community — many of whom were already showing visible and volatile signs of withdrawal — it would be a tease more than redemption. At least Leo wouldn’t need to take a share for himself if he was weaning…but that wouldn’t help much.

  Before Dominic had time to riddle some ways to get more Lunis (not that there were any), he found his attention drawn by farther-down messages about a different crisis. Apparently, some big trouble had gone down in Manhattan, where a below-the-line Enterprise demonstration group had clashed with a Directorate group. Both Ryan brothers had been pumping a lot of propaganda for their respective parties lately, and the mood on the Beam’s political sectors and in DZ had been growing ugly. That pent-up resentment seemed to have finally vented in a massive altercation.

  As if the clash itself wasn’t bad enough (at least one building had burned, countless storefronts had been smashed, and dozens of people had been badly injured), a group of school kids visiting a downtown museum had been caught in the middle. Nobody had been killed, but several of the kids had been severely injured and were now recuperating at Southern General. The bigger blow came from the political machine’s PR angle. The kids had been splashed all over Beam Headlines, with stories pertaining to the riot occupying eight of the ten front page slots.