by Drew Briney
I don the most perplexed expression I can muster, open my mouth as if I’m going to speak, and then unceremoniously scowl while slowly closing my mouth. I tilt my head slightly sideways as if I’m lost in thought, my eyes diverted from his, but near enough to watch him out of the corner of my eye. I move both of my hands to my side so that they slightly snag my T-shirt as I elevate myself to sitting position, all while deliberately ensuring the worn thin fabric tightly hugs my figure and slides dangerously low. His eyes divert to my cleavage and dart back to my face, which maintains the best version of confusion I can muster.
“I … are you asking me about Treiliki?” I’m scrunching my eyebrows tighter now, my eyes piercing his, my brain subtly, quietly brushing his thoughts, reading his mind. I’m being ridiculously careful to tag everything I’m learning as stuff I’m not supposed to know yet, secret thoughts he’ll notice if I let slip that I know them, which will ruin my cover. I stumble upon a tasty morsel, a nagging concern over Ji Anna’s presence in my current body. I want to smile as his eyes drift from direct eye contact to something more glazed. He’s focusing on his peripheral vision and he’s fighting an unwelcome amount of distraction. I’ve left some mystery, but not much. He’s unable to completely focus on the answer to my question.
Perfect.
I push myself slightly higher, retain my grip on my shirt so it slides even lower. Feigning surprise, I release the shirt, let it snap up to expose my abdomen. It’s not super tone yet but I know he appreciates raw femininity as well as hard bodies so it’s a good call to expose a little skin. As it pops into its new position, I wrap my right arm over my breasts as if I’m slightly embarrassed but not trying to draw attention to myself. That, of course, is precisely the opposite of what I’m really doing but he buys it and his thoughts reflect his frustration with the undeniable distraction.
Inwardly, I laugh. Standing in front of me is a man who’s done everything he can to harden himself enough to gain quite the reputation as an assassin, but who fails to completely master his passions because he strenuously tries to maintain moral justifications for his actions. I’ve reviewed his memories before so I know his down time is spent convincing himself what he’s doing is patriotic, for the betterment of mankind, and otherwise laudable for higher political and economic ideals that he’d be shocked to learn we share. In a word, he’s not coldhearted or arbitrary. He’s methodical and bound to a strict code of ethics. That’s why he’s easy to manipulate.
He could just kill me to be safe. But he won’t.
He’s too worried about killing innocents and he has a nagging concern that he has to kill me by surprise and from a distance. It’s something Ji Anna told him, a lie I promote among my followers to avoid unnecessary attacks. It’s not true. My AI chip takes care of everything for me. Unless someone practically blows up my head by surprise, my AI chip will successfully transfer my consciousness to someone close by and in this case, that would probably be Vaya Sage.
The prospect generates great anxiety. He’s very intelligent, athletic, coordinated, and lethal. That’s all good. He’s also completely discombobulated mentally and I can’t be sure there’s not permanent brain damage in there somewhere and I don’t know if my AI could get it functioning properly if I took over his body. That could be a formidable setback.
No matter. That shouldn’t be necessary. His morality gives me all the advantage I need. Add a little sex appeal and he’s practically a friendly labrador. I’ll lean upon these flaws until the moment is right to strike. True, I could fry his brain and make him suck his thumb, record an animated holo-video, send it to every social hub known to mankind, and rummage through his junk until I find those universal credits he stole.
But that would be boring.
“No, I’m not asking about Treiliki. I’m asking about you. It’s abundantly clear. You—”
I could be listening to what he’s saying but I don’t need to. I’ve already found his thoughts, his reasoning process, his suspicions, and the holes in his line of thinking. That’s not to say he’s wrong. Obviously, he’s onto me and he’s come to accurate conclusions. I’m his enemy. I made him kill his friends and lover. I stand for everything he hates, blah, blah, blah.
That doesn’t mean I can’t distract him from reality, instill doubt, and keep my bodyguard until I feel more confident that I can thrive on my own. I make a mental note to scour the parts of his memories exposing the location of my universal credits. Immediately, and without reading his mind, an image enters my mind and I’m all but certain where he’s hiding them. See? AI chips are good for something. It’s noticed something I’ve missed.
I offer the most empathetic but not condescending smile I’ve practiced hundreds of times before answering. “It sounds like you need that down time they recommend after brain scans. Something’s jumbled so I’m not sure what you mean.” I’m not pushing a sultry tone of voice so much as confusion but I try to maintain a certain degree of sexiness to my voice and fold my arms low and push upward to accentuate his favorite eye candy. They’re not that great, to be honest, but everyone has their preferences and his seems to be a barely-C cup. I continue as if I’m trying to be patient with his medical condition while still being informative. In truth, I’m patiently playing with him and, as I see it, trying to preserve an asset.
“I’ve heard Treiliki couldn’t trade bodies for a few months without compromising her health but rumor has it she kept all the memories she wanted. She was sort of selective as the story goes. Why does that matter? She’s gone.” The moment I say that, I realize that Ji Anna told him something nearly contradictory to this before I took over and Vaya Sage’s thoughts are reviewing those statements, trying to determine precise details to ensure he’s thinking things through carefully. I start working on a way to patch that up.
Despite saying everything as matter of factly as possible, he’s suspicious and carefully ruminating over puzzle pieces, reviewing and comparing previous suspicions with recently unearthed brain scan details, including a fanciful psychosis about my eyes flashing the evening he killed my old body.
Successfully, I master the impulse to erupt into a belly laugh as I unsurface this delusion. If his brain is producing filler-fluff like that, I really screwed up his brain. All said and done, Vaya Sage is truly remarkable for overcoming everything I’ve thrown his direction. He’s durable and more intelligent than I gave him credit for.
Nevertheless, he feels irreparably guilty for killing my sister and his one time lover and that painful detail collides with his code of ethics that he must consider the possibility of killing Ji Anna’s body (and possibly her soul) for the greater good of America and all that jazz. That’s not quite everything either, though. He’s also mulling over my echo of the doctor’s recommendation. That is, he should be resting and allowing his brain to calm down, sort things out on its own because scans can generate glitchy side effects and very poor reasoning. He’s unsure if he’s exhibiting his high intelligence or being irrational because he didn’t follow the doc’s orders. As long as he has doubts, I'm reasonably safe.
He releases a heavy sigh, loosens his shoulders a little, and deeply peers into my eyes, searching for any trace of insincerity, any clue as to my presence in Ji Anna’s body. I return the effort with new expressions of empathy and compassion but I say nothing, noting that this is out of character for a chatter box like Ji Anna, but reasonably believable to Vaya Sage who didn’t know her especially well. His aggressive body language would be enough to silence most women so the gamble seems justified and it gives me time to wander through his mind more freely - I need to find anything I can while the opportunity lasts. Any mistake I make, any trace I leave can be dismissed as a brain scan glitch.
He presses four fingers against his forehead and then moves them to put massaging pressure on his right temple. He looks like Hades. I consider making a comment to encourage him to go rest, but figure that might be too transparent so I dreamcast instead.
As I rep
eat every doubt I’ve heard in his mind since he arrived, I instruct his mind to surface strong feelings of nausea, guilt over the Midi Ella's murder, and a subtle, yet noticeable shiver. Topping that off with his natural fatigue and a strong visual of relaxing in bed, I wait for the inevitable.
“I’m not feeling well. Let’s talk later.”
“Yeah, okay,” I respond with a tone calculated to imply compassion and concern I don’t possess. Honestly, it would probably be easier just to kill him - and the idea sounds more and more enticing the more complicated this scenario becomes. Still, playing cat and mouse remains my most pleasurable pasttime so I temper that impulse.
As Vaya Sage turns around and closes the door behind him, my eyes dart to my holo-comm. I grab it, flip through my contacts before realizing the painfully obvious detail - this is Ji Anna’s phone. It doesn’t have the Dark Uzzit’s holo-comm identification number. I roll my eyes at my momentary lapse of brilliance, groan, and trace my memories for the last known number I had for him. A series of visual tags surfaces until I remember his universal number: A56YR832. Rather than calling him first, I send a message:
Darkmind would like to speak with you.Time to cash in.
He won’t recognize my current body and if he does, he probably won’t help me. Ji Anna’s ideals were too far distant from his and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that she was pushing policies to rid the northwest of its pestilent uzzit presence. I passingly hope that maybe he’ll be delighted to find out that I’ve taken over her body. I temper that with a more realistic expectation: I hope he doesn’t recognize my body at all so it doesn’t have to be a subject of conversation.
I’ll need to take the call to arrange our meeting outside of Vaya Sage’s hearing so I brush my hair, change clothes, and otherwise fuss with stuff I need to get ready to leave the castle. Several minutes pass before I get an answer but when I see his response, a broad grin deluges my face. He’s available. Better, he’s not too far away.
7 || Jazz & the Job
JAZZ & THE JOB
What’s Life for if You Don’t Enjoy it?
I grumble as Vaya Sage’s mind wanders through a half dozen topics, none of which are particularly enlightening or interesting. He runs through evidence for and against the possibility that I’m Treiliki like a marathon runner who’s lost his sense of direction. I can barely track his meanderings, which is an indication of two things that have been making me grumpy.
First, it takes time for my AI chip to get my new host body running well. Neurons and brain connections don’t grow instantaneously and it takes proper nourishment just like any other biological process. I’ve been eating well but frankly, this new brain hasn’t been everything I’d dreamed of. I wish people took more thought into their breeding, we’d be monumentally more advanced. Had the government not destroyed most technologies advancing genetic modifications, eugenics wouldn’t remain one of those words that makes my heart flutter. Instead, it reminds me that as long as dumb charismatics are blocking genmods, mass euthanization remains the simplest solution to societal problems.
Second, because I’m still within the first few months of transitioning to a new body, I feel tired a lot and I can’t seem to keep up with all of the details I need to monitor. My AI chip buzzes at me slightly, reminding me that I need to be more transparent with myself so I guess, if I’m being honest, I’m usually a bit too lazy to monitor everything like I ought to anyway but I’m used to being able to do whatever I want whenever I want. Holding onto a conversation while reading memories typically isn’t supremely difficult for me. Conversing about the weather and reviewing memories from the last several weeks of Vaya Sage’s life ought to be cake.
Only, it isn’t.
And I’m starting to feel vulnerable about it because he does dash through various ideas of how he’d consider killing me. He’s bought into the idea that it has to be by surprise and preferably when no one else is around but he doesn’t have any clue about proximity. Alarms I’d set in my last body allowed me to “sense” his presence on an adjacent building so he’s wondering whether or not I can transfer consciousness that far or if technology was involved.
And then, he wonders if I really am dead and if Ji Anna is just acting a little strange. Skimpy outfits aren’t working as well as normal so today, I’m dressed in a three-quarter sleeve silk shirt and pajama bottoms. They’re baggy at the bottom so I figure they’re less overt than other forms of dress but they’re also skin tight where it matters and they’re everything I’m wearing so I’m hoping that will distract him enough to slow conversation and allow me to read his mind with greater clarity.
As the morning drags on and we sit in the castle kitchen to eat for the first time since we’ve been here, I miss the sunshine on my legs. Not just because it’s dreary and raining outside and not just because I’m feeling stifled and smothered indoors with an assassin who’s plotting how he’ll kill me if he gets any more proof that I’m no longer his dead lover’s sister, but because this new body craves leisure. The one thing we have in common is that she loved to read and plot and plan. The difference, of course, is that she’s bought into moral ideals that don’t work regardless of how pretty they sound. They work only when people are ready for them and won’t tolerate anything less. That’s why the founding father’s of America were successful and later America fell. It takes a consuming commitment to principle to make a republic function properly. If they don’t crave it like this body craves leisure, it won’t last.
I metaphorically pinch myself for digressing in thought. I need to be reviewing my own plans. I’ve already called the Dark Uzzit. I’ll never understand why he still goes by that name. At some level, I get it. I mean, linguistically, it makes sense but if you want to be some sort of urban legend that has gone quasi immortal, at least come up with some uber boss name, you know? Anyway, he’ll be here in fifty-three minutes. I need Vaya Sage gone and busy by that time. That should be a breeze.
I clear my throat. Vaya Sage raises his head, focuses his lost-in-the-woods gaze, and waits for me to say something. I straighten my silk top slightly and glance to my side as if a bit nervous.
“I’ve got news,” I begin, “a text from Ayden Va. He says Tie Enta was spotted in Geneva last week.”
“He hasn’t been spotted in a few years.”
“Precisely, which is why Ayden Va feels it’s urgent that we move quickly, vacation or no vacation. Apparently, he’s been tracked here … well, to the countryside north of here.”
I call it a countryside but really, it’s a spot in the foothills that’s largely abandoned since the last war. There are a few secluded homes there now, refuges for the wealthy with what locals might call hills but I’d call mountains. Plenty of spots for assassins to make a good sniper shot.
“We’ve been asked to take him out.”
Vaya Sage says nothing, but he doesn’t need to. He’s mulling over the news. He hates Tie Enta with a passion, which is why I made up the news about his presence here. I could have chosen any number of targets he might agree to kill but Tie Enta was the perfect marriage of bad blood and horribly conflicting ideologies. Oh, and he’s essentially been in hiding since he took out Vaya Sage’s close friend, Iden Ba (that was back when he still had friends).
I said Tie Enta has been in hiding but that’s really Vaya Sage’s perspective. My assassins took out Tie Enta several months ago for entirely different reasons and purposes. That could complicate things but since Vaya Sage has only seen a single, very grainy holo-image of Tie Enta, I’m not too worried about that little complication.
Vaya Sage is suspicious but his emotions are running in such high gears, I’m slightly worried he’ll digress into some assassin’s version of a panic attack. That would never happen without a terribly flawed brain scan but as I feared, that scan really scrambled his eggs. Moreover, he now has several extremely persistent memories about Midi Ella that are painfully every-present and so many nagging doubts about his memories that he’s le
aning toward killing me without even being certain of my true identity simply because he esteems me his greatest enemy and some existential threat to humanity.
I’m flattered but to be honest, he’s really overreacting. I don’t want to destroy humanity. I’m just working to advance us to a more efficient, higher level of existence. No doubt millions of pawns may die in the process but that doesn’t matter much. They’ll be dying under current government administrations anyway.
As I continue to sweep through Vaya Sage’s thoughts, I reconsider cheating fate a little by wiping his brain clean and moving on to plan B. However, I’m so gleefully fascinated at what’s happening to his grey matter that my curiosity refuses to allow that course of action until I’ve pushed him a little harder.
I’ll either break him or fix him. Hopefully, without cheating. That's my goal. I’ve never seen anyone fight memory alterations so tenaciously, nor have I seen anyone figure out so many complexities with so much thoroughness. I’m truly impressed. Still, the dangers of allowing him to live are steadily increasing like a starving leopard approaching a baby ostrich. Normally, I wouldn’t mind but the analogy is a little too true to reality. I’m clearly a baby ostrich here. He resisted a full onslaught of my powers when I was in prime form. Were he not severely compromised by the brain scan, I’d be suffering a monumental disadvantage. Well, that’s not entirely true either but—
Vaya Sage huffs, stands up, and walks into the other room, mumbling something I can’t understand. Not that it matters. He was probably just saying something trivial to facilitate a polite exit or lying to set me off track. I smirk involuntarily. I can’t help it. Reading someone’s mind who doesn’t know you can do that and who’s plotting against you is fine amusement. It’s also a little too unfair so I stop reading his mind as he starts reviewing memories of him and me (well, Treiliki) as lovers before I altered his mind so heavily. Of course, those are memory implants. I could never stomach such a thing and I already know about them so there is no sense reviewing them with him. And as long as he thinks they're real, his confusion will remain high.