“Perhaps you are not as naive as you seem to be,” Namina replied.
Imke gave the robot a strange look.
‡ ‡ ‡
When they arrived back in their home EOC, it was so crowded Coryn had to look hard to locate Eloise in a corner talking with a pair of uniformed men. She led Imke and Namina into a short line that had queued up to get Eloise’s attention.
Eloise’s entire job in here was handling the next emergency and the next. While Coryn waited, Eloise convinced the head of security in the building that operations below the EOC could and should remain normal, told the head of communications where the spare radios had been taken last shift, and then ordered three of Julianna’s restaurants to deliver food for the main cybersecurity EOC.
When it was their turn, Coryn opened her mouth to speak, but Namina pulled Eloise away, gesturing for Coryn and Imke to follow. They went all the way into a small room with a metal door. After the door clanged shut, Namina said, “The main EOC appears to have been compromised. We need to stress test our systems.”
Eloise didn’t look as startled as Coryn felt.
“Tell her what you found,” Namina prompted.
Coryn did. Eloise nodded, and said, “Thank you.”
Coming from Eloise, it was almost praise. But before Coryn could bask in the glow of accomplishment, Eloise added, “You can skip the rest of shift change. Julianna wants you. Meet me there in an hour. Tell her this.”
“May I go?” Imke asked.
Eloise hesitated, frowning. Then she said, “We’ll call you. Do you have a secure enough line with Chicago to tell them this?”
“I can get to one.”
“Will you do that and then call us?”
“Of course.”
“Wait,” Eloise said. “Maybe if you learn anything important, you should come directly to us.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Coryn crept into Julianna’s room. Evan stood at attention, nodding his permission for her to enter. The dim light showed Jake sleeping half-under the covers. Julianna lay curled around him, uncovered except for a coat, her fingertips touching his shoulder. She didn’t stir.
Jake looked like a skeleton barely cloaked in skin; she couldn’t imagine how he still lived. The fingers of his right hand splayed across the sheets, no more than skin-covered sticks defined by knobby knuckles. His cheekbones looked ready to emerge from his skin.
She shivered and turned away. Perhaps she shouldn’t wake them just now. She tiptoed to a recliner and sank into it with a tired sigh. The sadness and waiting that permeated the room, the chaos of the scene in the EOC, and her worry about the city all collided at once, weighing her eyelids down. A strange not-sleep drifted over her, a waking doze, where her limbs wouldn’t move but her brain kept going, playing conversations from the day over and over.
She lost track of time, and maybe even slept some, although she couldn’t be sure.
The sound of the door opening startled her. Eloise, with Adam trailing behind her. She looked as wrecked as Coryn felt. Coryn blinked and stretched her toes out, rotated her ankles, and managed to coax enough movement from her body to sit up.
Eloise crossed the room and shook Julianna’s shoulder. “Wake up.”
Julianna leaned down to Jake’s back, listening for breath. A tender, sad smile escaped her lips. She scooted carefully away from him before sitting up and moving from the bed to a square work table they’d been using for a kitchen table.
At a signal from Julianna, Evan nodded. Coryn knew from multiple nights here that coffee, fruit, and nuts would appear soon. In the meantime, the robot drew a pitcher of water for them.
Eloise glanced at Julianna. “Report?”
Julianna whispered, “The doctors say hours. Maybe a day. He’s mostly out of it.”
Eloise took one of her hands, and Coryn rose and took the other.
Adam tried to comb his hair with his fingers, although the effort largely failed.
Eloise spoke quietly. “We’re losing the cybersecurity wars so far. Water has been compromised again, and Portland lost its core transportation system. The hyperloop has been cut between here and Chicago, and again between Chicago and Flagstaff.”
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, clearly working for energy and control. “Our borders are more permeable than usual. The only good news is that our attack on the container ship worked. We pulled a number of robots and some weapons off of it.”
She’d forgotten about the ship. “Were any of the weapons nukes?”
Adam answered. “No sign, not so far. But the dome has been penetrated so many times I can’t track all the possible entry points. We should have built a wall instead of a weather dome with holes everywhere.” He paused and looked over at Julianna. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You might be right.”
The table fell silent until Coryn realized it was her turn. “Some of the data in the main EOC looks wrong to me. I’d like to call Lou as soon as we can.”
Julianna twisted her hand around in Coryn’s so she was doing the comforting for a moment. Coryn smiled, a sudden wash of warmth for the old woman almost making her cry. Her hand started to shake in Julianna’s. She glanced toward the door, willing it to open and admit a tray full of coffee. Adam’s words sank in. “Do you think there’s an attempt to cut Chicago off? With two hyperloop systems down?”
Adam answered her. “Hard to tell. The loops are manned by security-bots and drones. There have been four hundred attacks in the last year, with almost a hundred of those in the last three days. The fact that both successful sabotage attempts go to Chicago could be accident; almost everything goes to Chicago. There are still three ways to loop there, including via Spokane and up through Calgary and down, or Spokane to Flagstaff to Portland to Chicago.”
“So couldn’t you go Seacouver to Portland to Chicago?” Coryn asked.
Eloise shook her head. “The Seacouver / Portland Loop has been commandeered for military purposes. No civilian use until this is over. Besides, it’s a main target.” She cleared her throat and focused on Julianna. “I have worse news than that. Namina brought back a lot of data. We put her through a series of stress tests and her code appears clean. We ran our EOC through some. We removed two sleepers, but of course . . .”
She didn’t really need to say that nothing was ever really secure. The whole city had been reminded of that in the attacks a few months ago, and there had been frantic news about security every day, a few small protests, and many programmers swearing they were doing their best.
The door opened, and Evan came in with a tray of food and coffee. He was followed by an older male doctor, who sat down beside Jake and took his hand.
While the doctor examined Jake, everyone else reached for coffee and calories. By the time the doctor came over to their table, Coryn’s hands had stopped shaking, and she felt like she might be able to stay awake a few more hours.
The doctor leaned over Julianna. “He’s the same.”
She nodded. “I know. Thank you. Come back in an hour?”
“I can stay until . . .”
Julianna spoke firmly. “No need.”
The doctor nodded curtly and then left, although Coryn had the impression he’d be hovering close by.
“Can I call Lou?” Coryn asked.
Eloise said, “Do it from here. This is the only place in town that is less than fifty percent likely to be compromised.”
Julianna lifted her weary face. “That bad.” It wasn’t even a question, merely an indictment.
“Yes. Go on back,” Eloise said. “Rest.”
Julianna nodded tiredly and sat beside Jake again, running her hands lightly over his shoulders and back.
Eloise handed Coryn a wristlet. “Put this on. Keep it for a few days. Not as a replacement—in fact, use yours. We don’t want to create anomalies that pop out of the watcher algorithms. You are probably a high priority for them. But keep this, too. It’s more secure.”
The device was as spare and beautiful as Eloise herself, with a simple band that snapped shut around her right wrist, and a flat face that was about two inches across. “What if she doesn’t answer? How will she know it’s me?”
“It will spoof you—pretend to be you—whenever it calls anyone on your list of contacts. So don’t lose it.”
“I won’t.” She glanced at the clock. Eleven at night. She told the device to call Lou, and was surprised at how quickly Lou answered. Clearly she was awake.
“I was about to call you.” Lou’s hair looked unkempt and she looked tired, although it was hard to tell on the tiny screen.
“Perfect.”
Words tumbled out of Lou. “We . . . learned some things you need to know. Bad things, things I can’t help you with from here. We have data to get to you.” She paused.
Coryn spoke quickly. “We think this line is secure. I’m in a room with other people. Julianna, too.”
Eloise said, “Can you describe what you learned in just a minute or two?”
“Yes. The nuclear weapons are already in the city. They’ve been there awhile.”
The entire room stopped, silenced. Julianna’s hands slowed as they roamed across Jake’s shoulder and side. Eloise froze, staring at Coryn. Adam set his cup down and leaned in close.
Lou continued, “I have an electronic diary from someone who may have known some of the details. There is some data in there, but I don’t know the cities well enough to parse it. It’s just clues to me.”
Eloise leaned in. “You can’t send it here. Not directly. We can’t tell what communications are secure any more, if any. Can we meet you somewhere?”
“Wenatchee? That’s a place I’d be likely to go.”
Adam was parsing through maps. “What about Spokane?”
“On horseback?” Coryn asked. “That would take days.”
“On an ecobot,” Eloise said. “We can program one to get you there. Spokane is better. It’s got a loop, at least so far.”
Lou hesitated, some kind of hushed conversation going on in the room with her. “Yes.”
“Leave as soon as you can,” Eloise said. “In an hour or less. We’ll track you. I’ll send an override code to make sure the ecobot obeys you. It will be good for a week.”
There’s was a moment of silence, and when Lou came back onto the line, she sounded . . . controlled. “Thank you. I’ll see that Shuska gets the code.”
“Someone will be in Spokane by end of the day tomorrow.”
“It will take me longer.”
Eloise’s smile was as tight and controlled as Lou’s voice. “Leave now. We’ll beat you there if the loop system holds up.”
Coryn leaned over her wrist. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Lou said. “Stay safe. See you in Spokane.” With that, the connection closed.
They all stared at each other. There wasn’t anything else to do, not after hearing about nukes in the city.
Adam’s fingers drummed on the table.
“No,” Eloise told him. “Don’t change your search parameters or double down. We don’t want to tell anybody what we just learned.”
Coryn stood up. “I’m going to Spokane.”
Eloise simply looked at her, her face utterly devoid of any emotion other than simple exhaustion. She glanced at Adam. “Do you have the strength to track the ecobot’s progress for a while if I give you the next shift off?”
He nodded.
“Can you make eight hours?”
He nodded again.
“Okay—go to your room and sleep. I’ll wake you when they start off. You come back here and work from this desk.”
He nodded a final time and left.
Eloise turned to Coryn. “Okay. You’re coming with me. So you need to sleep now. I’m going to arrange for someone else to take my shift tomorrow, and then I’m going to sleep.”
Coryn opened her mouth to say she was too wired to possibly sleep, but the look on Eloise’s face stopped her. Evan handed her a blanket, and she went back to the same recliner and snuggled under it, her eyes pasted open with worry and her brain full of little nuclear backpacks hiding in parks and on bridges. At least she was going. At least she would see Lou.
‡ ‡ ‡
Soft sobs woke Coryn. She had been deep in the kind of dream that often haunted her after a long training run, and it took a moment to realize she was sprawled awkwardly on the recliner in Julianna’s suite.
The sobs came from Julianna, quiet but raw.
Coryn stretched and climbed out of the uncomfortable chair, twisting her head to relieve a muscle in her neck that felt like a tree trunk. There was no one in the room except her and Julianna and Jake. If he was alive.
She suspected not.
Evan wasn’t in his place.
The room was quiet except for Julianna’s cries, a deep gray darkness that felt like a chasm of grief. Coryn went to the bed and sat down quietly next to Julianna, entirely unsure what to say.
Julianna kept her head down.
Coryn handed her tissues, which she took without comment, clutching them.
After a time, Julianna’s sobs rose in pitch, becoming keening wails punctuated with uneven breaths.
Coryn sat still, breathing deep and slow, just being there.
After about twenty minutes, Julianna quieted.
Coryn brought her water, which she drank.
When Coryn took the empty glass and turned toward the sink, the sobbing started over.
This time, it slowed in half the time.
Coryn brought more water and reached her hand toward Julianna, offering it. She had seen death, but she had never been with someone she loved when they died, or with someone whose lifelong partner had just passed. Always, death had been sharp but offstage, like her parents’ suicides, or the murder of her companion, Paula. She had just missed the bloody deaths of the Listeners who had been slaughtered before the last attack on the city.
This felt far more visceral, but also numbing; a little foggy and dreamlike.
Julianna’s eyes were wide but didn’t really appear to be looking outward at all. All of her being seemed to be focused inward in a sort of eerie control.
Coryn realized she was crying and blew her own nose, then got up and washed her hands and sat down again, close to Julianna. A line of Walt Whitman’s went through her head, over and over, driving an odd feeling of peace through her pain. Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
Julianna finally looked directly at her and appeared to see her.
Coryn held her hand out again, and Julianna took it. “I’m so sorry,” Coryn whispered.
Julianna sniffled and nodded. “He woke up. He looked good, really good. He was smiling. He asked me how we were doing.”
“And?”
“He wanted to know if we were winning. That’s what he was really asking. Were we winning? Did this city he built and fought for make it?”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him yes. What else could I have said?”
Julianna leaned forward and let Coryn put her arms around her. It reminded Coryn of the day her parents had died. Lou had seen their bodies, and Coryn had held her and Lou had taken from her, or perhaps accepted was the right word. Coryn had been able to give her big sister comfort for the first time in her life.
Julianna accepted from her now, and the moment was filled with grief and pain and comfort all at once. Coryn whispered, “We are winning. We will. We have to.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Even though it was still a few hours shy of dawn, the lights in the kitchen threw a warm glow on Astrid’s face. The scent of baking bread filled the entire room, along with brewing coffee. Matchiko, Shuska, and Lou were so bundled up they nearly filled the open spaces in the room.
Astrid pulled a tray of buns out of the oven and handed around coffee for all, the cups smelling of nearly unbearable bitterness. “There’s no milk.”
“That’s all ri
ght.”
The four women sat at the table. “I’m not happy all three of you are going.”
This was the third time that Astrid had said the same thing. “Daryl and Felipe will do fine,” Lou assured her. “And you’re still working for us. You work hard.”
Astrid hadn’t touched her coffee. “You don’t know anything do you? About our men?”
So that was it. She winced at the small elusive lie she would have to tell. “About Mathew? No.”
Astrid sighed. “Mathew is an idiot. I should never have married him. But my brothers? I can’t live without them. I can’t. Please?”
Lou looked away. She couldn’t lie to Astrid. “I don’t know what I can do. If there’s anything, I’ll do it. But Mathew may . . . Mathew may . . .”
“Have killed my brothers,” Astrid said. “He’s been telling them to go to town when he goes, probably taking them to meetings. But you know people in the city. You know Julianna Lake.”
“I do. But she doesn’t run the city anymore.”
“What if you don’t go?”
“We have to.”
A small narrowing of Astrid’s features suggested Lou had just lost some of the trust she’d built up here. Guilt washed through her. The diary she carried did implicate Mathew. She hadn’t seen anything about the others, but it was hard to know. The people in the city would get far more secrets from it than she and Shuska had been able to. Damn the city to hell, and all of its endless needs with it. She leaned forward and looked into Astrid’s eyes. “I hope everyone is safe. Know that.”
Astrid got up, remaining silent as she bundled up the buns and handed a heavy basket of food to Matchiko.
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