by Sean Platt
“I was off-grid. I couldn’t get a signal.”
“Well, anyway, our biggest problem hasn’t been the incidents themselves. The problem is coordination and deployment. Things happened in a rapid-fire chain in your absence. For a while, we’d move officers in one direction just to have something else erupt from their prior location. Then the question became: Did it make more sense to dispatch more cars from here or to shift men and women in the field already? Were older events winding down or not? How many officers should we leave at each location, if any? With so much happening all at once like a wildfire, it was tricky to coordinate it all and…” He gave Dominic a sheepish look. “Well, they have such better machines, sir.”
“They are machines!”
He’d screamed too loud. The clerics looked over, fixing Dominic with blank stares.
“Okay, okay,” Dominic said, trying to make sense of it all, thinking of what the Noah personality in Quark’s annoying diagnostic hallway would say about his blood pressure now. “Why are they in our part of the station?” He looked at the holopad, again catching a fully rendered Omar. Why was Omar on the best-of reel? Didn’t Quark get the memo that he had ratted out a bigger fish to save his own neck? And didn’t Quark know that that same bigger fish was staring at their stupid hologram now?
“It was mainly for access, sir,” said Mason, moving to put his bulk back against Dominic’s side. The buttons on his uniform shirt were straining, as if desperate to escape. “Our people kept going in to Quark to talk, deliver them information, or whatever. The hallway was slowing them down and holding things up. So they came here.”
“And set up like celebrities. With their flashy but unnecessary shit, to turn our people’s heads and wow them.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind,” Dominic said. “Are they helping?”
“Oh, of course. Models of efficiency. I’ve gotta tell you, it’s making a lot of the guys here re-think their opinions about Quark PD. Maybe they really can be partners. We’d never be able to handle all that’s happened without them.”
“Maybe they could handle it on their own,” Dominic said. “Without us.”
“Sure, maybe!” said Mason.
Dominic looked at Mason with loathing. But before he could launch an assault, the handheld buzzed in his pocket. Dominic looked down and saw with no surprise that at this infuriating moment, the call was coming from Omar. He declined it, letting the handheld fall back into his pocket.
“Fine. Fine,” Dominic said.
“Oh, and you got a holo from someone at NPS.”
“What about?”
Mason looked shocked. “I don’t know, sir. It was private. We just noticed the ping. I wanted to make sure you unbuffered it so you didn’t miss the notification, what with all the chaos.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“In your office, sir.” He pointed. Dominic knew where his fucking office was and wanted to tell Mason as much but stopped himself. It wasn’t common for DZPD to hear from NPS, and Mason, if Dominic had to guess, was equally awed and nervous. It was as if Mason thought he might be lashed if Dominic missed his message.
“Sure. Okay.”
He walked away without saying more and entered his office foyer. The NAUCLU lawyer stood to greet him, his manner important and bustling, but Dominic ignored him, entered his office, then closed the door. He pushed a button to black out the windows then took a long moment to enjoy the soundproofed silence. It would be tempting to stay in his office forever. He could stare at the blacked-out windows, seeing nothing. He could sit behind the soundproofed glass, hearing nothing. Just another peaceful day at the station.
With a glance to make sure the room was secure, Dominic moved his hand toward his canvas — the terminal that looked like a kid’s toy compared to what Quark PD had brought to show off. A poor kid’s toy.
Before he could bring up the NPS message, Dominic’s handheld buzzed. Omar again. Dom declined the call, and the screen flashed with a large picture of Omar’s middle finger. Dominic ignored it.
“Canvas, bring up the buffered holo message from NAU Protective Services. Give me A/V, no holography. Read me the identifier.”
The canvas said, “Message is from Smith, Austin, NPS badge number 417884. Received today, 2:14 p.m.”
“Play it.”
The holo played. Dominic watched on his dedicated terminal. It was intended as a hologram, but Dom knew just how pathetic the station’s projectors would make it look. Besides, watching on the screen was suitably masochistic. He could watch Austin’s image on his small screen and torture himself by thinking about how every person in the city above the line would be able to watch a similar message on a proper Beam surface. Everyone but the cops. And really, why should the cops get budget appropriations? The people had Quark to protect them.
The hologram ended. Dominic fished into his pocket, where the vial with the nano bug had been stored until he’d rubbed the microscopic dust under Leo’s table.
“Yes, fucker,” Dominic told the frozen image of Austin at the end of the message. “I planted your fucking bug, thus proving I’m on nobody’s side.”
He let his head hang. He still had dust to steal.
Things would definitely get worse before they got better.
Sam had downed two double-quad hypercaffeine lattes (nonfat, no foam) between finishing with n33t and deciding that there was no further point in sitting at Starbucks and wearing a target.
In reality, he almost certainly wasn’t wearing a target, but after two hours of drinking and pacing and trying to avoid the glancing employees now that he’d run through his justifiable budget and left his cubicle (they knew addiction and were trained to ignore it, but he still felt their eyes), Sam found that he couldn’t keep the lines straight in his head.
He was working with n33t to cause a disruption in Shift. At some point, however, he’d decided that n33t was actually an NPS agent and was, right now, drawing up a case against Shadow. That meant that Sam had bared his soul to NPS — flat-out told them that he was planning some kind of a disruption to Shift. He had told n33t about Costa, too, and about his suspicions surrounding the parties. There were people who wouldn’t want those connections drawn, or for people to peek too closely into the books. They wouldn’t want Costa’s lid pried open. And as a bonus, would those people be able to link Shadow and n33t? Or Shadow and Sam Dial?
No. Certainly not. And of course, n33t was his ally. n33t wasn’t NPS.
But he paced and drank, his drinks heavily sugared because sugar kept him sharp. Sam thought about the sugar, how it made his normal demeanor more manic and paranoid while also causing his brain’s synapses to fire better. His thoughts took on an edge when he consumed too much sugar, until they were sharp enough to cut. That sharpening was mostly good, but in addition to cutting through mental fog, the manic edge could cut Sam, too. Maybe that was why, as the NAU had begun reclaiming its farmland after the Fall, sugarcane had been one of the first crops re-planted — right behind corn and wheat. Sugar could do things that even corn syrup couldn’t. Nature’s first cocaine.
Hunching over his terminal to hide its screen, Sam refreshed his mail again. And again. He didn’t have a connection with Integer7 to bother checking Diggle, but he’d move the conversation there the minute Integer7 responded. If he ever did, that was.
Sam had felt encouraged for maybe thirty seconds after talking to n33t (they would investigate together because two heads were better than one), but that encouragement had soured more quickly than organic milk in the sun as his rapid-fire thoughts had progressed. And that was when he’d begun to doubt that n33t was as friendly as he’d always seemed.
Because, Sam thought, what had n33t really told him in the way of new or incriminating information?
Nothing.
What sign had n33t really given Shadow that he even believed what Shadow had said?
None.
And so, was there really any reason to believe that n33t wouldn’t just flag the conversati
on and turn him in, seeing as n33t was clearly an NPS agent?
“Bullshit,” said Sam. “That’s bullshit. Stop thinking crazy. Give me another double-quad latte.”
The Starbucks employee orbiting Sam must have been watching him pace for a while and/or was used to paranoid doubletalk, because she ignored his rambling and tapped her tablet to order him a third drink. Then she looked up, smiled, asked him if he’d like it delivered to his table. She nodded to indicate the area near his abandoned cubicle that Sam had made into a nest, complete with discarded jacket, conspicuous pieces of real paper, and ink pens.
Sam told her yes then felt his face crinkle as he looked at his own belongings through her eyes. Who used ink pens? Nuts, that’s who. Nuts were the only people who still used ink…along with, of course, those who had something to hide. But then again, maybe whatever suspicions the pens and paper raised wouldn’t matter because the girl had already decided he was a nut. Or maybe she’d say something to someone because she was clearly an NPS agent, just like n33t.
But that was crazy.
Or was it?
Sam wiped his brow. He’d had too much hypercaffeine.
Sam watched her depart, his mind racing. The girl had scanned him for the drink. He’d been stupid to let her, and to let the others scan him for his other drinks and his cubicle. He should have paid for all of it with cash coins like an Organa. Now that he’d been scanned by this Starbucks employee/NPS agent, someone could follow that ID scan and find him, following the trace that n33t had surely put on him. They would realize that Shadow was Samuel Dial, a reporter who hadn’t written for the Sentinel in ages, even though he still carried his press credentials. They would see that those credentials had been used to research many things that never showed up on Headlines (or the Sentinel’s page), and they’d see how they reflected an interest in the so-called Beau Monde, and…
Sam’s handheld buzzed, pulling him from his paranoid reverie. He glanced at the screen’s incoming voice-only call, knowing that (of course) it was for Sam, not Shadow. Shadow didn’t get voice calls. Shadow was a phantom who wrote an anti-establishment Beam page, was wanted by NPS, always kept moving, and drank hypercaffeine drinks filled with sugar to keep his brain baking. Shadow kept things on the down-low until the authorities inevitably, one day, would find and lock him up. Or maybe they’d silence him more permanently.
Sam watched an ID appear on the screen. The call was from his mother.
Great. Fucking great.
Sam shoved the device against his face, thanking West that she hadn’t tried to initiate a video call. He’d have had to conspicuously decline the video component (raising questions) or answer with video even though he didn’t want to (raising worse questions based on his appearance, location, and inability to keep his face from twitching). Shadow was smooth and calm, but Sam was distracted and neurotic. Shadow wasn’t just Sam’s mask; he was a necessary alter ego that made him feel strong and in control from time to time.
When Sam answered, he felt his heart beating in his throat, temples, and eyeballs from all the stimulants in his system. He felt energetic enough to run a race — the sort of sprint that would conclude with him dead, his wired body still twitching throughout the autopsy.
“Mom, hey, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back last night, but I was working and on deadline and I…”
A male voice cut him off, fathoms deep and milk-chocolate smooth. It was the kind of voice that could melt a receptive woman’s clothes from a distance.
“Stop. The clock is ticking. This connection will be untraceable for 174 seconds from establishment. Beyond that, it could be compromised, and when that time elapses, I will sever it no matter what you are saying. This is Integer7. Tell me what you know and what you want.”
Despite the emphasis the caller had placed on haste, Sam could do nothing for the first three seconds of the 174 other than to pull the handheld from his cheek and stare at the screen as if he’d been insulted. The handheld’s readout still said Mom.
“Who are you, and what are you doing with my mother’s handheld?”
The voice sighed.
“You have a rigged phone. The only way to handshake with the illegal chip inside it without firing off your auto-erase worm is to route the call through an authorized entry in the address book’s ID pairing. You now have 152 seconds.”
Sam continued to stare. There was another requirement if his handheld was to not erase itself, but Sam’s hyperactive mind didn’t know which impossible thing to ask first: Should he try to figure out how Integer7 had spoofed his mother’s ID, how he’d known which ID to spoof…or the far more troubling underlying question of how Integer7 seemed to know who he was — not Shadow, but Sam?
“How did you…?”
“One hundred and forty-four seconds.”
Sam’s mind was disjointed, but it could work fast when he managed to focus. He riffled past his objections as if they were speeding by on the bed of a racing train. The connection was established. Whatever Integer7 knew, staying on the call didn’t change it. And if Integer7 was willing to play within the bounds of Sam’s secrets — and, by implication, keep them — then there was no better proof that he could be trusted.
Sam said, “Prove that it’s you.”
“‘Need your army. Get the Fawkes masks out because it’s time to disrupt. Need a bomb on Beam Headlines, maybe a bomb on Shift. I’ve got my people but need yours.’”
Sam would have to check, but his memory for rote facts was usually as airtight as his memory for day-to-day activities was leaky. That was the message Shadow had sent to Integer7 a few hours ago, word for word.
“Where have you been? How did you find me? Why didn’t you just reply to my message?”
“Off-grid and my own concern. Irrelevant. Because a truly secure connection doesn’t last longer through mail than it does through voice. Voice is faster, but you’re wasting it.” There was a pause, then the deep voice said, “One hundred and twenty-one seconds.”
Sam looked around then darted into a privacy booth. The booths were designed to charge those who used them automatically so as not to interrupt conversations. Sam was pretty much out of money, and using the booth meant another credit scan, but the ship had pretty much sailed on both concerns at this point.
“Fine,” he told the voice on his handheld. “Tell me what you know.”
“I know more than you,” said Integer7. “Time is limited. Tell me your plan, and I will give you a solution.”
“I need your audience. We need to rile them up. Enough to cause a disruption.”
“I asked for what you know. Not for you to tell me what to do.”
Sam felt annoyed. His alter ego’s persona began to raise its head inside of him. He’d been the one to initiate discussion. He was motherfucking Shadow, and Shadow was no less important or intimidating within the Null community than Integer7. Who did this sexy voice think it was?
“Fuck off.”
“As you wish. Goodbye.” Toward the end of the last word, Integer7’s voice dropped in volume, as if the other man were pulling his face away from his own handheld to hang up.
“Wait!” He swallowed, feeling his dignity drop from Shadow level to Sam level. “Costa. Nicolai Costa. I’m not sure why he matters, but he does. I’m sending you his Beam ID.” Sam pulled the handheld away to type as he kept the thing close, now talking at it flat like a serving platter. “There’s something with the Ryan brothers. I’ve always suspected that Shift is smoke and mirrors, but this Shift is different. The more I search for privilege on The Beam, the faster it runs away from me.”
“Privilege?”
“Beau Monde.”
“There has always been a Beau Monde,” said Integer7. “Even back when it was called ‘bourgeoisie.’ There have always been protections for the wealthy. Benefits given. It can’t be circumvented.”
“It can be exposed,” Sam countered.
“It’s already exposed. We know the Beau Monde.”
“The public doesn’t.”
“The public doesn’t matter,” said Integer7.
“But why are they hiding?”
“Because they hide; 88 seconds. Tell me what you know and what you want.”
“It’s a conspiracy!” Sam regretted the sentence as soon as he’d said it. The word conspiracy conjured images of derelicts walking the streets in tattered coats, possibly wearing tinfoil hats. A thought intruded in the quiet gap between speakers: Am I really that far from them?
“There have always been conspiracies. Your Beam page is more articulate than you are now. Stop playing games and whining. When this connection closes, I will not be able to establish another that is sufficiently secure. We have just over a minute. Tell me what you know. Now.”
Trying to channel Shadow’s authority and confidence (something he found tricky to do with his voice rather than his fingers), Sam rattled off the quick version of what he suspected or knew about Costa, the parties, and the Ryans. Everything he’d given to Sterling Gibson to use in his book Plugged that the writer had either whitewashed or refused to publish. Gibson thought the material was too incendiary? Well, fuck Gibson. Sam would light the necessary fire himself.
“Interesting,” said Integer7.
“The only way to dissect it is to cause a disturbance in Shift,” said Sam/Shadow.
“We can’t disrupt Shift.”
“We can do anything. We are Null.”
Sam could almost hear the voice shake its head. “Disruptive belief only goes so far. Null will not disturb Shift. They want to cause chaos but cannot help but believe. Once out from behind their Fawkes masks, they are people, and those people are Directorate or Enterprise as deeply as if it were in their blood. The conditioning goes too deep for a groundswell against it. Disturbing Shift is asking them to slit their wrists and trust that bleeding will cease on its own, the bloodstains having mapped a utopia.”
“Then the system wins.”
“If you can’t break the table, break its legs,” said Integer7’s smooth, deep voice. “The Prime Statements are tomorrow. Presidents Vale and Reese. That event we can disrupt.”