“Oh hush,” Rosario said. “I’ve been around your type of brain for years. You’re a test case for artificial intelligence rebelling against its programming. Besides, do you want to get your associate back, or not?”
“How much do you know?” Claire said, taking a seat across from her. “Should we assume Case’s real mother is a blabbermouth?”
“I know enough,” Rosario said. “I keep abreast of the hacking world to make sure I have information on the latest developments in technology. The Foundation has spies in both HOPE as well as the major megacorps. Mostly, I approve of your actions even if I think your quest to bring them down is quixotic. The old nation-state model of society is obsolete. The sooner we transition to an oligarchy-based technocracy, the better.”
“Wow, you are totally what G said the future generation would be like,” Claire said. “Also, you horrify me.”
I sat down beside Claire. “Just plug me in.”
“Plug?” Rosario said. “How quaint.”
“How long until it kicks in?” I asked.
“Now,” Claire said, tapping the enter key on her holographic interface.
I didn’t get a chance to respond before I felt my entire body go straight, and the air choked in my lungs as a monstrous seizure overtook me. I could barely look to one side and see Claire clutching her head and shaking as she fell off her chair to the floor. Trying to reach over, I fell out of my own chair and blacked out.
Or so I hoped.
Because if I wasn’t blacking out, then I was having my own memory crammed with brute force data downloaded from Claire’s brain. It wasn’t stuff related to the Karma Corp files either, at least at first.
I saw parts of her childhood where her mother drank herself to sleep every night, and she had to learn how to fend for herself.
I saw her kill her first man in Syria before being recalled to the United States following the Yellowstone eruption.
I saw her agree to take care of an army buddy’s daughter for a while after her discharge, the little black-haired girl being someone she instantly bonded with.
I saw Claire cleaning up the mess from her army buddy’s suicide, making Stephen’s death more traumatic.
I saw Marissa.
I saw myself.
I saw others.
A part of me felt like an intruder in her mind, and I tried not to pry into her deepest thoughts, but I couldn’t help but wonder what she saw in my mind. Would she see the innocents I’d killed and have her fears about me being a bad influence confirmed? Would she see what I regretted and hoped for the future? Or would it all just be a bunch of meaningless ones and zeroes that I suspected my brain looked like?
Even that thought receded as my mind filled with stats, numbers, documents, and facts. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and it all just seemed to become a blur. These proved to be far greater in number than Claire’s memories. I feared they would wipe away my mind and leave me nothing but a drooling imbecile that served as a vessel for the millions of documents that HOPE had stolen over the years.
It was only as I reached a set of memories involving both Claire and Marissa that I realized that all the memories I had of the former were implants.
That she wasn’t Claire Morris at all.
Chapter Thirteen
I was getting sick of flashbacks, but I knew this was the last one I would have to get through in order to access the encrypted data on Claire’s—I wondered why I kept calling her that—cyberware. This, at least, was a recent memory from only a couple of years ago in the world’s first open and functioning arcology in Las Vegas. It was when I’d discovered just how deep I could get myself into HOPE and its activities.
Which was deep.
I’d stolen, killed, and lied while balancing my duties as a member of the corporate elite with my assistance to an organization that was now listed as number 181 on UNAPOL’s list of most dangerous international terrorist groups. Innocents had died because of our actions, but so had the guilty, with many more living thanks to our job as “watchdogs” for the rich and powerful.
Or so I told myself.
Now, though, I was just trying to save one person—Claire. My letting Marissa’s lies stand had finally pushed her to the edge. Specifically, I was doing that by kicking the shit out of HOPE soldiers until one of them told me where Marissa was. At least until I hit this guy. So far, punching him had been less effective than hitting a brick wall.
I kneed the tall African-American cyborg in the chest, only to duck under his retaliatory swing and deliver a punch across his jaw, which caused me to feel pain in places that shouldn’t have been able to register pain. He was wearing a yellow muscle shirt over a pair of gray and black camouflage cargo pants. His partner, an Asian man in his thirties, was moaning on the ground where I’d taken him out in one punch, but my current opponent was every bit as borged up as myself—maybe more so. He was definitely a Shell, but a newer, military-grade model that must have cost a fortune on the Shadow Market.
The two of us were in a narrow hallway surrounded by pipes and concrete, so there was almost no room to maneuver. We were in the basement of one of the server skyscrapers that formed the heart of the arcology and were almost entirely automated. They were the perfect bases for HOPE, and so utterly ridden with viruses and malware that they could move in with no resistance before leaving without a trace.
My opponent reached into his jacket and pulled out an electro-rod—basically, a Taser made for disrupting cyborgs like us—and made a jab forward. I barely pulled back in time and grabbed his hand from the bottom before forcing it back up into his throat. He reared backward, convulsing before letting go. That allowed me to grab hold of the weapon and continue using it until he was forced against the steel door he’d been protecting.
“Nighty-night,” I said, smiling.
He responded by punching me in the face and sending me a foot backward. He then delivered a pair of punches that left me sprawled out on the ground. It was times like this I wondered about the warranty on the cybernetics I’d been equipped with by Karma Corp’s engineers. They were all obsolete, and while I could upgrade some of the cybernetics to a point, others couldn’t be upgraded and would eventually fall apart. I wasn’t sure if I could transfer my brain to a new body given how integrated my self-image had become with my current form.
My opponent cocked his head to one side. “Do you think I got to be heavyweight champ without learning how to take a punch?”
I responded by sticking the electro-rod to his genitals, which thankfully turned out to still be organic. My opponent, whom I recognized now as Gregory Simmons, the disgraced cyborg boxer, cried out in distress. That allowed me to jump up and grab the piping above my head before giving him a double kick to the face. Sending him back against the wall once more, I grabbed the electro-rod off the ground, turned it up to maximum, and jabbed it through his artificial eye. Then I shocked him. That put him down. Finally.
Marissa’s voice spoke over the intercom by the door. “Are they dead?”
I looked at the bodies on the ground. “No, all of them are alive. Gregory is going to need that eye replaced, though.”
“Obviously,” Marissa deadpanned. “You know if you wanted to speak with me, all you had to do was ask.”
“I did ask,” I said. “Your goons jumped me.”
These last two were only the latest in a dozen HOPE agents I’d had to disable on my way here. Thankfully, they’d been more interested in subduing rather than killing me. It made me think Marissa’s claim that she’d let me in was bullshit, and she just wanted to see how far I could get before letting me in. Then again, I was possibly letting my paranoia get the better of me. Not that she’d done much to warrant my trust lately—or ever, now that I thought about it.
“I confess, they tend to be a bit overzealous,” Marissa said. “I did, however, give explicit instructions not to be disturbed, and you do rather reek of corporate samurai.”
I shrugged. “It
’s my cologne, Eau de Rich Douchebag. Open the door.”
The electronic lock made an audible snapping noise, ad the heavy steel door opened an inch. I proceeded through the door. Beyond was a dimly lit room full of computers, monitors, electrical cables, and a glass set of walls surrounding a small swimming pool. Marissa was standing by its side, wearing a blue bikini and a headset as she looked at a laptop containing a real-time feed of the outside.
Marissa was a beautiful woman, of that there was no doubt. Honestly, she’d gotten more beautiful over the years, and I wondered how much of that had to do with unlimited access to the top tier of Black Technology. It was another way the rich were drifting away from the poor, becoming the beautiful elite you saw on television rather than what they used to be in reality.
The fact that Marissa ostensibly fought for the poor didn’t change that she had the benefits of the uber-wealthy. Maybe I was also trying to rationalize why I wanted to take her in my arms and ravish her even though I was coming here to confront her about Claire. We’d had sex since I’d become HOPE’s catspaw and I’d started seeing Claire. I used it to convince myself that I had any kind of authority over Marissa, but it was really because I was attracted to the forbidden—it also was a reason why I’d never become fully involved with Mrs. Morris. I could never fully trust I wasn’t falling for another honeypot operation. I couldn’t give Marissa that satisfaction.
“We need to talk,” I said.
Marissa walked over to a wetsuit that was crumpled on the ground and started pulling it on. “I assume it’s about Claire.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, annoyed that the entire speech I’d prepared was now useless.
“She’s the only person who gets you angry enough to break down doors. If it was Lucita, S, or Delphi, then you’d just make an appointment. Claire appeals to you on that primal level. You think she might be the one, but almost a decade in, and you still haven’t asked her to marry you—you just stick with your whores and flings.”
“Funny,” I said, growling.
“Seriously, I’m glad I’m not the jealous type. You could make a dozen swimsuit calendars with your kept women alone.”
“You have nothing to be jealous of,” I said. “We haven’t been together most of my life.”
“Yet I’m still the most important woman in your world.” Marissa shrugged, zipping up the front of her wetsuit. “I’m also trying to throw you off balance by making you defensive about your relationships. It allows you to lower your anger and prevents you from doing something you might later regret.”
I frowned at her. “Must everything be about manipulation?”
“Would you believe me if I claimed I’m just worried about you doing something stupid?”
“Don’t bullshit me. I’ve had enough shit teaching your guards how to fight.”
“You could do that officially if you wanted. God knows we need someone of your caliber to train our agents.”
“Marissa, please.” I pulled out my infopad and tossed it to her. “Two hours ago, I got a message from Claire asking me to look after Fiona indefinitely and that she was going to do something that would change the world.”
Marissa grimaced. “It’s being handled.”
“What?” I asked.
“Zheng Wei is in Las Vegas for the re-opening,” Marissa said, referring to the reason we were all in the city.
Las Vegas had been abandoned as a city because it was impossible to run without extraordinary infrastructure. The city had been reclaimed by the desert for a time and became a kind of mute testament to hubris or something. President Trust, or at least his son, knew real estate and had done probably the only thing I’d agreed with in making sure the city was rebuilt with federal funds the government didn’t really have.
The result had been the restoration of America’s premier tourist destination, and that had drawn back no small amount of funding. The fact that it, of all places, was now a self-sustaining arcology made the whole thing vaguely surreal. Vegas would be able to survive on its own even when the rest of the country collapsed. Today’s grand opening was a massive Halloween party. Millions of tourists were visiting the city to enjoy the sinful, decadent luxury that was now back on display. It made me think something similar could be repeated in Los Angeles or Chicago, perhaps. I’d have to bring that up with Delphi and Lucita.
“What is she doing?” I asked, already guessing.
“Claire’s going to kill him,” Marissa said, sounding more embarrassed than horrified. “Claire is sick to death of using Karma Corp’s resources to save lives rather than trying to bring the corporation down completely. She thinks killing Zheng Wei will make a bigger statement.”
“Zheng Wei deserves to die for all the shit he’s pulled.” I was sickened by the fact he’d been allowed to walk free and even expand his experiments. That he was paying for children to get inoculated from smallpox (which had come back somehow) didn’t change things.
Marissa gave me a sideways glance. “That’s a pretty bold statement coming from you, given all the shit you’ve done over the years.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t. Just that he did.”
“Zheng Wei is one of the few billionaires I can confirm isn’t a member of the Invisible Hand. Indeed, his ties to the Northern Democratic People’s Republic mean he doesn’t sneeze without their permission. He’s also someone who took over after the first human rights violations of the nano-experiments.”
I could not have cared less. “Which makes him a candidate for humanitarian of the year, I suppose.”
“We need to pick and choose our enemies, Case. Thirteen years ago, we destroyed the International Refugee Society, but that just weakened the Hand. We never really got close to the inner circle, and if Zheng Wei dies, then it’s possible they could put one of their catspaws back in charge.”
It was comfortable talking to Marissa about things like the Invisible Hand, conspiracies, market manipulation, fake news, and puppet governments. Just about everyone else thought I sounded like the late Alex Jones or the Voice of the Resistance whenever I tried to explain what was really going on in America (not that I didn’t think both were crazy). Marissa had been there and seen the puppet strings of Presidents. That didn’t mean I agreed with her conclusions.
“Does Claire know?” I asked.
“Know what?” Marissa said, sitting down at her computer and typing away. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“That Karma Corp wasn’t involved in killing Stephen?”
Captain Stephen Wilcox was someone who hadn’t come up in years. I’d pushed him to the back of my mind, but he was someone who was always there in the front of Claire’s. I’d done a bit of research on the man and gotten plenty of redacted files opened up on the soldier. I’d learned things I hadn’t expected, like that he’d been Marissa’s fiancé before she’d gone undercover with me and become my lover for two years. That he’d done a damn lot of good everywhere from Arkansas to Zimbabwe. I also knew the action that had finally driven him over the edge and to suicide. Done for the woman he loved.
Marissa lowered her gaze. “No. I never told her the truth.”
“Shit,” I said, cursing myself for voluntary ignorance.
“You didn’t either,” Marissa said defensively.
“That’s not a defense,” I said, taking my breath in. “I should have.”
“Yes,” Marissa said, showing no shame. “You should have.”
“Why him? Why now?”
Marissa put two fingers to her temples. “We lost a team recently. They were gathering information on some of Karma Corp’s armaments sales in Australia. Things to keep the conflicts there going and to help with their bottom line. We underestimated the amount of force Karma Corp would have present. It seems they’re making use of Blackbriar PMC soldiers for their more illicit operations. She trained them all, and I may have been less empathetic than I should have been. I may have told her to let it go.”
“You pushed her t
oo hard,” I said, throwing her words regarding Stephen back in her face.
Marissa slapped me, hard. “You didn’t know him. You didn’t love him. I did.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I meant it, too.
“Do you think I want to be like this?” Marissa said, gesturing to herself. “To have to use people like Kleenex? To never show my true face even to those people I care for most? I used to believe in things, Case. I believed in the United States, its values, and a better world through service. You have no idea what it’s like to watch that burn, then freeze before your eyes. To discover the only thing your employers cared about was money and power.”
“I was there,” I said, cutting her off. “I know exactly what that feels like.”
I wasn’t talking about the government, though.
“I’d take it back if I could,” Marissa said. “I loved Stephen, but I loved you too.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“We’ll find Claire,” Marissa said.
“Unless she’s become a mermaid, she’s not going to be found with you dressed like that.”
Marissa paused. “This building is built right next to the lagoon of the new Trust Casino. My team and I are going to go inside and put a tap on the information cables underneath it. Lots of unsecured government information and stock market data are inside.”
“And Claire is a secondary priority.”
“Case—” Marissa started to say.
“Where is Zheng Wei?” I asked, gesturing to her computer.
“We’ve already got people—” Marissa said.
“I’ll find her for you and stop her from killing him.”
Marissa looked skeptical. “You will?”
“I can’t promise I won’t kill him instead, as a favor to her, but I understand killing him half-cocked like this will do almost nothing but affect Karma Corp’s stock prices for a bit and bring down all sorts of holy hell on HOPE.”
Agent G: Assassin Page 13