by Mary Weber
Lifting her chin, Inola poured a glass of 9’s latest chardonnay, took a large sip, and settled into her wide black seat, then slid her thumb over her handscreen. “Has there been any news, Jerrad?”
His brown eyes didn’t move from the road. “None as yet.”
She nodded and pulled up her private security firm, of which Jerrad was in charge.
And typed:
Double the priority cybertag on Gaines and Hart. I want to know everything they say, do, and who they speak to.
The reply came within seconds. Done.
She peered at the faces that’d popped up with Hart’s and Gaines’s names. The deception in their eyes. In their smiles.
In what they’d done.
And double the guard on Inola for the next two weeks. Jerrad’s voice verbally texted his instructions, which showed up on her screen the second they left his mouth.
She blinked her approval. It’s why she preferred him. He knew how to care for her when she was busy caring about everything else. She set the handheld down and flipped on the car’s news screen.
“In a last-minute decision, two Corporations were barred from this afternoon’s Fantasy Fighting Game,” the newsperson said. “While it’s still uncertain exactly how far Corp 30’s involvement goes, this seems to confirm the rumors that gamer Sofi Snow was, in fact, a participant in the attack, along with Corp 24. And with 24’s Altered releasing, questions are being raised.”
The telescreen flashed an image of Altered.
She shook her head. Would the device start a war? No. But if the Delonese’s abductions of Earth’s children were ever discovered—that would.
She turned down the news in front of her and watched as the screens outside began replaying the morning’s publicly broadcasted trial run of Altered on the remaining head FanFight gamers and players—eight each, including Corp 30’s who, as of a few minutes ago in the meeting, were now disqualified. She could only imagine Gaines’s pleasure that Sofi wasn’t among them. Proof that her bombing had saved their operation from discovery. As if Inola hadn’t planned on rigging the tests anyway.
Corp 24’s spokesperson and queen of i-reality shows, Nadine, displayed her well-known smile while waving the handheld wand over each of the game’s contestants, testing their DNA in seconds.
Through the window Inola read the woman’s lips. “As you can see, all of the FanFight teams passed with flying colors. But isn’t it comforting to know?” The camera angle pulled in as Nadine turned to face the screen full on. “Isn’t it comforting to have the control in your hands? Before you take a new lover, employee, or doctor, make sure you know everything about them. Using Altered.”
“This thing’s like putting fire in the hands of every Earth citizen,” someone on the car news was saying. “The fallout will be disastrous the first time one of those things gives a false positive.”
Good point. She’d give the speaker that.
Inola glanced down and logged back into her handscreen’s server. They wouldn’t find anything with the wands, though. The young individuals who’d been genetically “altered” by the Delonese had been monitored by a private, select few. And those test subjects were currently unavailable.
She should know. It was her venture she’d cultivated and allowed. And she enforced its secrecy.
An incoming message dinged from the server she’d just opened. Inola set down her drink.
Thought you should know—one of the ambassador shuttles just emerged from the atmospheric shield surrounding Planet Delon.
She frowned. Who is this?
They didn’t answer. Just replied: Before anyone could get a lock on it, the shuttle was pulled back in.
Inola tightened her brow further. The text was sent in the same style as the anonymous “tip” she’d received last night that had prompted her to confront Gaines. Meaning? she typed.
It was trying to escape but was prevented. Still searching but scans are useless past the shield.
Inola’s stomach constricted. Who was on it? Why was it pulled back?
The sender’s response came quick. No idea. But the shuttle had activated its distress signal.
She tapped her screen and asked again, Who is this?
The messaging stopped. She waited. Ten seconds later the screen went blank and all words disappeared. She swept her thumb over the monitor, searching for the conversation. Nothing. The messages, the info, the traces were gone.
What does that mean? Inola glanced at her clock, then looked up and caught Jerrad’s eye. “Did you see those messages that just came through?”
“I did. Do you think the Delonese have figured it out yet, madam?”
Tick, tick, tick, tick . . .
She chewed the inside of her cheek, then took another sip of chardonnay. And peered out the windshield to see the screens displaying another ad for Altered.
Which part? she wondered.
That Sofi and Shilo could save the alien race?
Or that they could utterly destroy it?
5
SOFI
“Hello, ambassador Miguel and girl-sofi. nice of you to appear.”
Sofi closed her eyes and pictured her brother’s face. Pictured the sound of his voice. The last time she’d heard him three days ago, in the middle of the World FanFight game that he’d been winning, and that, as the lead gamer controlling his tech from behind the glass, she’d been helping him win.
“You there, Sof?” Shilo’s gasping voice had filled her earpiece as he’d kicked and twisted underwater, trying to escape Corp 24’s player dragging him down, screaming as Sofi worked like mad to save him. Shi’s gaze had swerved to meet her horrified one, holding the same expression she’d seen from him a hundred times through their youth. Shilo Snow, Corp 30’s twelve-year-old star player, wasn’t. Finished. Yet.
And then the bomber’s explosion had taken out a quarter of Manhattan’s exclusive FanFight arena as Sofi stood on the other side of the giant window of the watery coliseum, watching her brother fight for his life. He’d shoved the bomber off and hurled himself for the surface, just as her entire world exploded into shards of metal and water and bloody bones propelled through a single, wretched pane of glass.
One pane.
That’d been all that had separated them . . .
She opened her eyes, aware that it suddenly felt as if that windowpane were in front of Sofi once again—in the form of fifteen feet of empty air. This time separating her and Miguel from the searching Delonese peacekeepers standing in the space station doorway. While the eyes of Delonese Lead Ambassador Ethos pressed against her and Miguel’s backs through a telescreen—seeing, revealing, exposing them toward certain death.
“Don’t move an inch,” a voice murmured in Sofi’s earcom. She frowned. For a second, Vic sounded oddly like Shilo.
She swallowed and cleared him from her head—definitely not helping right now, Sof—and gauged the distance to the closest room as the panel behind them spoke again. “Hello, Ambassador Miguel and Girl-Sofi. Nice of you to appear.”
Sofi jerked, then tightened her grip on her bag before sliding her other hand to Miguel’s to propel him with every fiery muscle in her body. Ready? But his fingers pressed into her, holding her in place against that talking wall.
She squeezed his hand. What is he doing? We have to move.
He stayed taut and murmured against her hair, “I believe it’s a recording.”
“Maybe, but those guys aren’t,” she hissed, tipping her gaze to the five guards still standing at the doorway, framed by the planet’s interior of shiny walkways and honeycomb rooms gaping behind them.
“If we go now, we’ll get caught.”
She swallowed. Was he kidding? If they stayed, they were going to get caught—so why not take a chance running for it? She eyed the distance to the room again. Ten feet.
Question was, would it lead to another hall or be a dead end?
“Trust me,” Miguel whispered.
Sofi stalled.
Had he ever asked that of her before?
Before she could decide, Vic muttered into her com, “Wait for it.” And again, the voice sounded like Shilo’s. Sofi clenched her hands into fists at the sensation. It was just like everything else about this place—it all felt haywire.
The Delonese soldiers stepped into the corridor, and one tilted his head to stare straight into the thin shadow at her. She froze. From her peripheral, she saw his gaze pierce the air, as if he could see her but wasn’t sure if she was real. He leaned forward and sniffed the air like a badger. He knew she was here. He could sense it.
What are Miguel and I doing—why aren’t we running?
Miguel pressed her hand harder as Sofi’s spine rippled like a live feed, every nerve reacting with the need to drag him away from the seven-foot-tall frames blocking the wide doorway. The eerily beautiful and nearly identical beings that aside from the unusual height and large eyes resembled Earth’s humans in every way. And right now those unblinking eyes were scanning the space, just like they had that day on the farm.
There’s no one here, she murmured internally, imagining her words like a shield, as if she could block their thoughts with her own.
“Don’t make eye contact,” her earcom said.
Like being trapped in the barn again.
The guard took a step toward her, his eyes narrowing, and immediately she could swear the air pressure thickened. Those tall bodies and thin fingers coming for them.
Cripe. I can’t do this—can’t breathe.
She needed to gasp, to pull in long draughts. She started to hedge back, chest shaking as she began choking and her vision dimming—
Miguel silently pulled her into himself from behind, and suddenly his heart was there, beat, beat, beating against her lungs, breathing with her, breathing for her. “I won’t let them take you,” she heard him mutter under his breath.
“Focus. You’re not finished yet,” her earcom said.
She inhaled. Then slowed her breathing.
And blocked out the searching eyes of the aliens.
Tap into what makes your mind work clearer: Technology. Music.
Where’s the beat, Sof?
Reaching out mentally, Sofi tuned in to that continued thud vibrating against her shoulders, like the bass line of a song, in the form of the playboy ambassador she’d spent the last year and a half loathing. Miguel’s heart. Beating life against her frozen one.
From there she moved her mind to the video wall where the pixels were buzzing behind her, working through all their codes and pathways. She let the subtle sound of it skitter across her skin and through her veins, the hazy-lit rhythm becoming both the bass and computer hacks she needed to acquire.
Good. Now, when we came through the rooms earlier, was there any place Vic and I could’ve used to reaccess the planet’s security system?
She looked past the Delonese’s faces to try to picture it. But the only access she could recall were the rooms on the planet’s icy surface above.
The next second a voice erupted behind the peacekeepers. Then another emitted on a wall telescreen where hordes of Delonese hovered. Followed by the same voice bursting forth on another wall, then another, as if a recorded track echoed through the hollow chambers along every blank space of the oversize catacomb outside that doorway. “Hello, Ambassador Miguel and Girl-Sofi. Nice of you to appear.”
The tall peacekeeper who’d been studying her gave a confused shake of his head, then turned and said something to the others. Sofi’s skin prickled, but the peacekeepers straightened, muttered, and flipped around so quickly their boots scraped the black metal floor grate and the team walked out to the corridor.
Miguel loosened his arm and let out a deep exhale that fluttered against her neck as Sofi became aware that her fingernails were pinching his skin. She let go and, without redrawing the guards’ attention, slipped for the room ten feet away before checking her handscreen. When Miguel entered, she asked, “How’d you know they wouldn’t see us? Did Vic tell you she could shield us like that?”
He was already walking toward the back of the room. “I didn’t.”
Sofi looked up. “You said to trust you.”
“I said I wouldn’t let them take you.” He halted halfway in his search and began striding back, apparently having discovered what she’d already realized—there was no exit but the door they’d just come through. “What do you mean about Vic shielding us?”
“Using the com. She told us not to move.” She tapped the earcom again. “Vic, are you able to see the room next to this one? Because we’re not going to make it past the hall.”
The AI didn’t reply.
Miguel’s brow furrowed. “You had Vic on earcom?”
Sofi tapped it again but received no response as she pulled up the last functioning map she’d been able to access on her phone. It didn’t show the space station but gave a layout of the ice-planet’s surface. If she could figure out where they were in regard to the topical locations, then maybe they could figure a way up into one of the barrack buildings from down here. “Miguel, I think if we—”
“Miguel, you still there?” The tiny holographic version of Vicero abruptly appeared on his handscreen.
“We’re here. Thanks for the shielding. But we’re—”
“What? Listen, the Delonese have taken back another section of the coding Sofi used to gain control over their systems.”
Miguel shifted his gaze back to Sofi, who glanced from him to Vic, only to find the holograph’s head cocked as if assimilating data as fast as she could. “They accessed the shuttle containing Claudius, Danya, and all twenty children.”
“How?” Sofi edged over to lean in. “We made sure they’d make it beyond the planet’s atmospheric field, and it’s been in the air over an hour.”
“Yeah, but the shuttle is Delon’s technology, and they went after it.”
Not just after it—they were after the kids. After the proof Miguel’d spent the past year and a half collecting about the abductions. Proof that, while Earth believed Delon was restoring humanity from the devastation of its world wars, the visitors had also been helping themselves to Earth’s most precious commodity.
Miguel ran a hand over the back of his neck. Sofi watched his attractive gaze harden, and she pursed her mouth. “What are you saying, Vicero?” Miguel asked softly.
“Not sure yet. But they grabbed enough control to pull it back into their atmospheric shield. And the way they’re taking back the rest of their systems, I won’t have contact with you much longer either.”
Sofi attacked her handscreen again, trying to calm her stomach. “Taking them back? I thought you’d just regained more of their tech.”
The AI’s tone changed. “I don’t understand.”
“My earcom. You just gave directions in my com and shielded us.”
Vic was shaking her head. “Sof, I haven’t had access to either of your coms since ten minutes ago. Why do you think I keep using Miguel’s handscreen?”
Sofi froze.
“I haven’t been able to access your coms since ten minutes ago.”
Prickles of sweat beaded over her skin. That wasn’t possible. Who was talking to me then?
“You sure it wasn’t your suit ghosting?”
Sofi frowned. Glanced down. Stopped. The ghost function. How had she forgotten to turn it back on? Gad, Sofi. Except she knew how. The moment she walked into the room she and Shilo had been trapped in, everything else had ceased to exist.
That didn’t answer what had shielded them, though.
Tapping her handscreen, she pulled up an interface to adjust the settings on the black slim-suit she was wearing—the same full-body type Shilo used in the FanFight Games. The outfit, along with her body, evaporated into the walls around them, taking Miguel with it, until she could barely make out either of them. Like a trick of the light or eye—as if you weren’t certain what you were seeing or whether anything was there at all.
Except for the f
act she could feel Miguel as tangibly as her own skin.
“We’ve got it on now,” Miguel answered Vic quietly. His ghostly hand smoothed his shirt and hair, coiffing his looks before he turned to Sofi.
She snorted.
He shrugged. “Sorry. Old habit.” Then glanced at her handcomp. “So, what do we know?”
“Other than you’re a pansy?” She allowed a small grin. And reexamined the surface layout on her screen. “I think we can trace—”
“Guys, the shuttle—” Vic’s voice glitched.
Miguel tipped the comp.
“They’re being—” Vic’s holographic image flickered. “Their emergency signal is—”
Miguel looked at Sofi. His expression showed the same instantaneous horror gripping her gut.
She started to move. “We need that tech-room.”
“We need that shuttle. Vic, I don’t care what it takes, just get us access to it.”
The AI’s image disappeared just as Sofi reached the door. She enlarged the surface map she’d been working on and hissed at Miguel, “I think we need to get back up to the surface to have a chance at hacking this effectively.”
He began to say something, then stopped because he had to know she was right. Down here was a cat’s game with thousands of the visitors looking for them. Sofi could feel them drilling into her head with all their noise. Up on the surface there’d only be a few hundred, and Miguel knew the buildings. She winced. But the fact was they’d have to leave Shilo behind . . .
They couldn’t help him if she couldn’t find him.
She eyed the next closest room, twenty feet down the hall. The Delonese wall vids were still blabbering.
“You’ll have to stay within four feet of my suit’s ghosting function or you’ll become visible. Just like before,” she said to Miguel.
They peered into the hall and then, at her nod, darted to that room—in the direction of the elevator they’d come down on, if her instincts were correct. The lights remained steady and low as Sofi headed through the maze of med stations resembling those in the rooms they’d stumbled around in earlier.