“Well, she might not have been who I would have chosen to date but I can’t say I didn’t have fun.”
They both laughed but she knew she couldn’t afford to let this go on. She plunged right into the issue. “Alfonso, I’m attending Tesla University.”
“Oh... Oh shit! With the bombs? Wait… Is that you?” Jayne could hear the astonishment in his voice. He always jumped to the wrong conclusions.
“No, it’s not me, you jackass! Why would I bomb this place? I’m trying to stop the bombings.”
“Oh. Ok, whew. That makes much more sense. Shit, Jayne. How’d you get yourself mixed up in that?”
She pulled the zipper of her jumpsuit down a few inches to get a little airflow before answering. Despite the nanotech weave, she’d sweated in it for over a day and it now felt gross. “Random chance paired with bad luck? I don’t know, Alfy. This kinda shit follows me around. Maybe my great-grandmother wronged a witch. The point is, the local cops here don’t seem to know what they’re doing, and I feel like it’s all up to me. I’ve managed to disrupt the signal for three of the bombs, but the fourth could blow at any moment. They’re selvanium dirty bombs. If this thing goes, it’ll be real ugly down here.”
“Burning stars, Jayne—you’ve already stopped three bombs? Man, did they ever fuck up by kicking you out.”
Jayne grimaced at the backhanded compliment. “No need to tell me that. I’ve tried not to think about it too much. In a sick way, this whole bombing thing has been a good distraction. Alfy, I might have to disarm the last bomb myself.”
Sensing her unease at the possibility, Alfonso responded. “Jayne, you’re the one who tutored me through bomb deactivation classes. I’m sure you can do it. And if you can’t, you should leave. Don’t get yourself blown up over something you can’t stop.”
A group of chatty girls passed on their way to breakfast and Jayne lowered her voice. “We never covered dirty selvanium bombs in class. That was part of a specialty elective I never got around to taking. So…”
“Jayne, I don’t like the sound of that ‘so’.”
“Alfy, I need—”
“Jayne, don’t.”
“I need you to get me intel on how to disarm it! I know the basics but need to know how it changes with that particular material acting as the catalyst. I’ll try either way, so please tell me you can get me some info. Please? Think about the time I hooked you up with Drae”
He sighed. That was and always would be the ace up her sleeve. “Ok, fine. I know the instructor who taught that elective. I took her Emergency Detonation Devices Aboard Starships intensive. She’s…uh, interesting. You know, I’ll simply swipe the info from her files. If I had to ask her, she might get curious about the details and refuse to help.”
“Do what you have to, Alfy. Break in, steal it, hack it, I don’t care. But please get me that info.”
“I will, Jayne.” Alfonso paused. “You know they’re placing us, right? I’ve requested to be an incursion and infiltration specialist. Based on my class marks, I think I’ll get it, although I’m worried they’ll stick me in as a deep sleeper since my marks for that were high too.”
“I’m sure you’ll get what you asked for. You were always the best at breaking into places. Well, second best.” Despite her desire to keep talking, Jayne knew she had to wrap the call up.
“What would you have chosen, Jayne? You had top marks in over half the categories. You could’ve picked practically anything.”
Yeah, she could have, but she didn’t get the chance. Alfonso should have known better than to bring that shit up with her. The only reason why he would say anything about it was that he must have been starving for conversation without her there. Plenty of people were friendly with him, but no one else was his best friend. “Alfy, I don’t know. Maybe subversive spy or Torsa saboteur. Fuck, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Look, I really need that bomb deactivation info. I’m about to go rough some guys up to try and figure out how to disarm it, but if that goes bad or they don’t know, I need a plan B. Okay?”
“I’m on it. I just tried hacking the data from the cloud, but I can’t find it anywhere. A deep scan for her devices pulled up nothing either. Whatever software she has that’s making her devices dark is better than the infiltration software I have. Don’t worry. If I can get my hands on her optic board or phone, I’ve got a special little something that can crack it. I’m heading out as we speak. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of the space station at a café, so I’m not really close to the academy. There’s a jetpack station nearby, though. I’ll zoom over to Professor Livitsky’s quarters in no time.”
“Thanks, Alfy,” Jayne said tenderly. “I can always depend on you. Just one more thing. Do you know anyone in Theron Techcropolis who can get me a gun and a government ID? Something that could get me past the police cordons and in with the bomb squad?”
“Uh…” Alfonso sounded unsure. “Yeah, I know a guy. But…try not to use him for more than this. He has a way of sticking to people and getting them dirty, then using that dirt against them.”
“I’m rolling in shit down here, Alfy. I don’t mind a little dirt. Look, I’m gonna hang up now. Otherwise, we’ll chat all day and the bomb will go off. Send me your contact’s details and get me that bomb deactivation intel as soon as you can. Love you, Alfy.”
“Will do. Love you too, Jayne. Bye.”
They hung up and a minute later, Jayne’s phone pinged with a message.
A name and an address. She had her contact.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Armaros, Theron Techcropolis, Tesla University of Technical Arts, Physics Building, Basement
Vlad Volstock—Professor Vlad Volstock—was disappointed by the number of students who attended his first class of the semester. He knew there was a bomb threat. After all, he was working on stopping it. But still, four students was…insulting.
Since when did Thermal-Dimensional Schism Theory get so unpopular? When did he get so unpopular? His classes had always been full. Even if what he taught wasn’t the most sought after subject with undergrads, his classes always attracted a large number of young women, many of whom weren’t even physics majors.
Four students. Four!
Vlad stomped into the basement to get high and check on the jammer. All he knew was things had better pick up after the bomb threat. If he had to teach only those four every Monday and Wednesday morning… Only one of them was a pretty young girl. It wouldn’t do.
As he sparked the joint and turned the corner through the clutter, he saw a goth girl fiddling with his Jammer.
What the fuck?
“Hey! Don’t touch that,” he called around the joint in his mouth. He hurried to her, pulled the joint from his mouth, and exhaled a large amount of smoke all over the stranger. “That’s an important faculty experiment. What are you doing? Go away. Get a tan or something, you’re freaking me out.”
She took the joint from him. Her green eyes were astonishingly sharp. Maybe if she was a student of his and wasn’t wearing all that black makeup… But then again, the makeup was kind of hot. She hit the joint.
A rather harried Fred emerged soon after from the clutter surrounding his whiteboard. That stressed expression soon changed to pure lividity. “You fucked up, Volstock. Your jammer isn’t strong enough to stop the federal building from receiving signals.”
“What? No. That can’t be—” Vlad ran the numbers through his head, waving his finger quickly through the air.
This time, it didn’t add up. The radius was too small. How… Ah. He’d used a five when it should have been a four. That would do it. Whoops.
He chuckled. “You’re right. See, this is why I always say students are smarter than professors. So, what are we doing about the fourth bomb?”
Merry took a drag from the joint, puffing as each new idea popped into her head. Her fingers flew over the tablet next to the jammer’s controls. She exhaled a cloud of smoke in a gusty sigh. “I’m tracking the locatio
n of the bombers through their XaaS access. There are some annoying security measures in place that make it harder than I’d prefer, but hey—that’s the name of the game. You hack it, they patch it, you hack it again. The cycle of life.”
She had nice lips—big and soft—and wore a loose shirt, a clever move on her part. It kept perverts from checking out the goods. And she was smart. Vlad’s attention had drifted, but based on how calmly she employed her skills, he could tell she knew her shit.
“And that way, we’ll be able to find them before they can set off the other bomb.”
It was a good plan. At least he assumed it was. He hadn’t exactly heard the whole thing, what with sizing her up and all. Vlad put his hand on the goth’s shoulder and smiled at her. “Well done. I’m Vlad, a professor of physics here. You are?”
The girl met his gaze. “Merry. Pleased to meet you, Prof. And thanks for the weed.” She hit it again and held it out to Fred, who shook his head and paced in a circle around them.
Vlad took the joint and enjoyed a drag as his stomach rumbled.
“Uh-oh. Someone needs food,” Merry said without a trace of empathy for Vlad. “And by someone, I mean me. Hey, Professor McHotty, do you think you could order us some pizza? I don’t work well when I’m hungry.”
McHotty, huh? Vlad grinned. “Anything for the amazing hacker goddess. Pepperoni?”
“Blech.” Merry stuck her tongue out. “I’m a planet specific vegetarian. A good Armaros pizza needs mushrooms, ganticones, feta cheese, and spinach.”
“And pepperoni,” Vlad added.
Merry was stone faced.
They locked eyes and smiled at each other. Vlad’s hand was still on her shoulder and he had subconsciously begun to rub it in a small circle. He wasn’t getting a rise out of her. “Fine, no pepperoni.”
“Get some anchovies on there too,” Fred added.
“No!” the geniuses snapped in unison. They looked at each other. Merry actually smiled.
Fred paused and eyed them suspiciously. They were both totally stoned and staring at each other with goofy expressions. Vlad was literally drooling while he continued to rub her shoulder with one hand while the other clung to a now-dead joint. It almost seemed like they were about to kiss, but that was preposterous. All the same…
Fred cleared his throat and the two finally looked away from each other. “The hack?” he asked pointedly.
Merry blushed and returned to the tablet. “Right. The hack.”
+++
Armaros, Theron Techcropolis, Stoke-Dorchester Hotel
The city beyond the campus was a mass of towering skyscrapers with a complex network of bridges and walkways that connected them all to each other every twenty levels or so.
Without the university’s massive air purifiers, the lower levels of the rest of the city were choked in yellowish-green smog. The vast majority of the lower thirty levels were uninhabited. Without a solid airlock and private air purifiers, living in those levels would cause cancer in a matter of years. And who wanted to go into massive debt paying for treatment? Just because they’d found the cure for the disease didn’t mean it was enjoyable. There wasn’t much to do while floating in a plasma bath for a few days while the doctors did their work.
Those who did dare to live on the lower levels tended to be social outcasts. They wore respirators outside and sometimes, even indoors. According to rumor, some large crime syndicates had taken quarters in the lower levels to avoid police detection. Without supervision, it would be a simple matter to turn those abandoned buildings into a luxurious thieves’ den, complete with filters, purifiers, and exterior camouflage. Pretty girls with debts to pay ran around in bunny suits and saw to every gangster’s need. Of course, those were merely rumors.
The lower class lived in small studios and apartments above that smog layer. They still had to deal with some fumes, but nothing nearly as deadly. The districts usually included moderately effective air purifiers provided by stingy landlords, and they didn’t get cancer nearly as often as the outsiders living below them—the mob excluded.
The middle class lived higher still in condos and lofts with large glass windows that looked over the smog layers below. Their air was only a little hazy. Large public parks hung suspended between buildings where residents could picnic or jog. Families walked about free from the worry of cancer, and if by chance they did get it, they could at least afford the treatment.
Things became more exclusive above the middle-class levels. Clear air and enormous living quarters mingled with fancy dining, boutique shopping, live theater, concert halls, two separate red-light districts—one for men and the other for women—and four-star hotels.
A dirty air-cab from the lower levels pulled up to the port of one such hotel, and a stunning woman in a skintight grey jumpsuit with shoulder-length dark hair stepped out. She had a toned body that her outfit accentuated, including a shapely, firm butt and large, perky breasts. The outline of her nipples poked through the thin fabric. Her skin was tanned with a scattering of light freckles on either side of her nose. Her eyelashes were thick and glossy. She was the kind of woman who could make a man forget his own name when she smiled at him. Her face and figure were most definitely welcome in this part of town. Her garb, however, raised a few red flags.
She wasted no time and strode into the hotel while her cab waited outside. A wealthy couple pulled up in their air-yacht. The man was able to catch a passing glimpse of the woman. Ah, but a glimpse to a man seems like an ogle to his wife, and she made sure her sentiments were known in no uncertain terms.
Twenty minutes later, the young woman left the hotel, entered her waiting cab, and returned to the surface.
+++
Armaros, Theron Techcropolis, Location Unknown
Most of the ground floors in the skyscrapers had been abandoned and boarded up with no stair or elevator access to upper levels. If someone was too poor to afford an air car, the odds were he or she wasn’t the type of person neighbors would want in their building. It was fairly sound logic, since most people who lived on the ground floor of the city would gladly drug the first person they came across and steal their identity. All a person had to do was dig out the ID chip in a resident’s hand and put it in their own. At least until the person who got jacked was reported missing and the police used the chip to track the thief down. Still, those few days in the sky represented a chance for more crime and to escape the crushing doom of ground-floor living.
Three would-be-bombers now congregated in such a place. The smog outside provided the perfect cover, and the relative distance of the warehouse from the campus allowed them the safety they required to avoid the effects of the explosion. A large array of tools including a welder’s torch, a variety of microchips, and spare armor casings lay scattered on the floor. A few other pieces were laid gently to the side or tossed into wadded balls in a corner together with some loose clothing, a watch handed down from a grandfather, a few photo cubes filled with the faces of loved ones, and whatever else they owned, at least on this planet.
They’d stayed in this place for months now. Three cots lay folded against a wall, waiting to be used again. Since the facilities lacked a proper bathroom, they’d been obligated to make use of the stairwell leading to the basement. The rats had built a veritable empire out of the fertile raw materials. Neither Jonah nor Terrance were fond of the place, but when Brandon told them to break their leases and move in, they listened.
“Boy, I won’t miss this place,” the large man said as he hauled a box of bomb components across the warehouse to the moving van they had rented under a false name. “I must have woken up to rats crawling on me at least three times. I’d almost rather have the cold weather back home than live in a place like this.”
Brandon “supervised” his two lackeys as they carted the rest of the evidence to the truck. “It’s all about to pay off, Terrance. The campus goes boom, he people we’ve curried favor with welcome us into their embrace, and we get to live
the high life on another planet with new names. You can be George.”
Terrance set the box on the van’s bumper and looked at Brandon. “George. Ya know, I like that. You can’t really make it shorter. People always try and call me Terry, and I tell them not to, and sometimes, that makes them call me Terry even more.” He shoved the box to vent his frustration. One could hear the sound of jumbling parts as it moved. “And then I gotta knock their teeth out. I think my life would be a lot simpler if I was George.”
Jonah packed up the cheaper explosives they never had to use. “They could call you Geo,” he said.
“No, they wouldn’t do that. People don’t call Georges Geo.” Terrance frowned as he looked at Brandon. “Boss, do people call Georges Geo?”
“No, Jonah’s only riling you up.” Brandon crossed his legs to stave off the stiffness that settled in from inactivity. “Georges are called George. Now keep moving. We’ve got a lot of shit to pack up.”
“You got it, boss.” Terrance grabbed another box and moved it to the van.
In the silence that followed, Brandon daydreamed of what it would be like when the gig was done. They’d hit the big time. First thing he wanted to do was buy a fancy suit. The kind a tailor measures out specifically for you. He had already picked out the color and model air car he wanted. He’d keep it parked outside his personal gym. Once he was living the easy life, a strict fitness regimen would be needed to maintain the muscles necessary for the sexy women draped on both his arms. No more taking shit from small-time academics. No more worrying about student loans. No more worry at all. Simply the good life.
Jonah couldn’t stop thinking about the students he’d come to know at the school. He could practically hear their screams. If they went through with this, and they probably would at this rate, he might never sleep again. He knew he would regret it, but he had to try at least one more time.
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