by Mary Weber
She went back to her screen just as the life scan popped up. She clicked and moved it over and set it atop the planet image. Immediately the holoplanet floating over the table lit up with tiny blue lights.
“Nice.” Heller nodded. Then poked at it and adjusted the size.
It showed the same as the other scan. The lights were lumped together around the same spot at the capital. The rest of the planet sat empty as a bald man’s head.
She looked at Heller.
He snorted and strode to the window, hands locked behind his head as he peered out over the miniature expanse. “You’d think they’d have a lot bigger society.”
“You think they’ve purposely lied about it to Earth to keep us from attacking them?”
He shook his head and flipped back around. “Doubtful. No matter how small their population, they’re still eons more advanced than us. We wouldn’t have a chance against them.”
“Except for me and you, of course.” She grinned and peered down at their hack job into their systems. Her stomach doing that uneasy shift again that told her something was off even though she still couldn’t place it. Or place how Shilo fit into it.
“So if they’re at least a few hundred years ahead of us,” she said after a minute, “I’m wondering what happened to them. Where’s the rest of their society?”
“FanFight and Corp 24 favorites!” the tele suddenly blared. Sofi jumped and glanced up to see Nadine on it, wearing a UW flag dress. “We’re proud to be here today testing out our new product on the players.”
Heller turned it up.
“At Corp 24 we are honored to do our part to achieve the safety of every human on our planet. And that starts here.” She fluttered a hand at the Colinade stadium seal rising behind her. “At the very place precious lives were so tragically ended only days ago. But today? We promise to change that.”
She smiled as she said it. So cheerful. So carefree.
Sofi wanted to vomit.
She knew all those players and gamers. The idea of their being Delonese, or even part Delonese, was ridiculous. What they needed to do was screen the Corp heads and those kids the Delonese had—
Her gaze dropped to her comp again. It was on its third re-scanning of the planet. She chewed her lip as Nadine kept talking in the background. Her voice urging an idea to slowly take root.
A moment later Sofi pulled up an entry code and accessed their server on the Darknet.
“Sof, be careful,” Heller said from the couch. “We’re already pushing it enough—you’re gonna cause a noticeable security breach if you keep going.”
She shoved down the temptation to remind him they were here for more than just watching the tele. “I don’t think so.” She kept working.
The access chip of Miguel’s had held up its shield without even wavering, let alone bumping into any other programs. Like it worked by enfolding them rather than running separate. They weren’t alerting anyone.
As soon as the net opened enough, she logged in to her team’s backdoor chat and tagged Ranger.
A second later his name popped up. Sofi. What’s up? Thought you were deep cover.
Running through their security. You know the Altered tester showcasing today? Could you find the DNA codes they’re using for it?
From Corp 24?
Yeah.
Already hacked them, actually. The guys here wanted to see if they were lying or not.
Ha. Of course they did. She would’ve done the same had she been with them.
And? Sofi typed back.
A flood of data transferred into her blacknet box.
TY. You’re the best.
You know it.
Sofi copied and opened them into a secure program before shutting down the chat and net. Then transferred them onto the scanner that was running.
A bubble of red lights popped up alongside the blue ones on the hologlobe.
“Oh my gosh.”
Like before, the rest of the planet’s surface was clear, except for a few dots several rooms over from where she and Heller were currently sitting—where Miguel and the team were meeting, she assumed—and another grouping nearby.
Heller glanced over and she pointed at the holo. To the barrack building that sat maybe five hundred yards from their room.
He got up and strode over.
“See those?”
“Yeah?” He frowned. “What are they?”
She sat speechless. Her mind numb. Her stomach freaking out. Her spine began to shake.
“Sof, what are they?”
“According to the Altered tech, they’re . . . unaltered.”
“Okay? Meaning?”
She blinked, then swept her gaze up to him. “Meaning they’re humans.”
36
MIGUEL
“SO WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE US DO?” THE CHAIRMAN SPOKE for the room. “We’ve seen your tragedy and we sympathize with you, but in all truth, Ambassador Miguel, there are certainly more pressing needs in your world than the loss of a few lives at an entertainment venue.”
“Agreed, Lord Chairman, and normally we would treat it as such.”
The chairman tipped his head toward the holographic telescreen that was currently blank. “And yet it is on every one of your news vids.”
“In this case, the issue is one of integrity at the root of our UW council and Corps. The manner and place it was carried out has created concern. The attack focused on one of the few venues all thirty Corporate Nations engage in. Even you must see the undermining of trust that it’s caused between the Corps.” Never mind he’d helped that along at the UW meeting by stirring the pot.
“As I told a few of you privately yesterday,” Miguel continued, “I personally have been approached to accuse a certain corporation, which leads one to believe this is an internal issue. Making it all the more detrimental if not handled with immediacy.”
Beside him, Miguel felt Claudius nudge his leg. “Well done.”
Unblinking, the chairman stared at him. “Ambassador, we agree it would be a grievance to see your governmental relations break down over a thing so petty.” He turned toward the members in the room. “We, too, understand your desire to complete the investigation for the sake of Earth’s UW and Corps unity.” He stared at Miguel and spread his hands out in a very human gesture. “But what assistance can we offer that you do not already have?”
Miguel stifled a groan. He’d literally just spent a half hour describing in detail what they could lend assistance-wise. This stall of ignorance on the chairman’s part was simply to say they weren’t interested in investing more.
He smiled. “Chairman and Assembly, if anything, the UW Council would ask you to consider sharing any info that might . . .” He paused to word it as delicately as possible. “. . . shed light on activities we should know about among the Corps.”
The assembly was a sea of frozen faces and stone bodies.
“Just as you have lent your assistance in the past,” he added carefully, “regarding oversight of some of our lesser-than-legitimate organizations, we ask you to lend us your thoughts and tech serums once again.”
“You have lie detector tests. Perhaps consider using them.”
Miguel kept his smile stiff. “Alas, we all know it’s not as simple as that. The accessibility of memory and heart-steadying chemicals produce false results far too often.”
“You would have us share our info gathered through trusted relationships instead?”
“That is the hope, yes.”
The audience stirred for the first time since the meeting began.
“I’m sorry, Ambassador, that is something we cannot do. You, of all people, will understand the folly of revealing privacies relayed in trust.”
Miguel clenched his jaw. He fully understood. But that didn’t change the need.
He sighed. Déjame en paz. Then let frustration drip heavy into his tone. “I understand, but frankly, we had hoped you’d be a bit more willing. Especially considering that, s
hould this be a deeper discrepancy within one of the Corps, the lack of safety will affect all of us, including the Delonese—as they continue to enjoy Earth’s entertainment.”
If the chairman could’ve widened his eyes, Miguel guessed he would’ve done so. As it was, he noted multiple of the Delonese members twitching their fingers again.
The chairman just stared at him.
So long, in fact, that Claudius and Alis moved uncomfortably in their chairs.
The chairman eventually turned and nodded toward the vid-screen hologram. It promptly turned on and displayed a live news tube. “Yet we are faced with this.”
Nadine was there, chatting up the Games from the looks of it. The vid panned away from her to a shot of a crowd of protesters outside the Colinade, waving and decrying the inhumanity of the Games. They’d taken photos of the kids who’d been injured during the FanFights or died in the black markets afterward, and enlarged them, blood and all, to paste on signs.
Miguel frowned, until he realized the camera was continuing to pan past them.
Ten seconds later it landed on a group of protesters yelling even louder.
They were screaming obscenities and hate comments—all spewed toward the news vid, demanding the aliens go home. The camera zoomed in on their signs. They pictured drawings of dead aliens and of alien-human hybrids doing unconscionable actions.
Beside him, Danya shifted and Claudius flinched. “Ouch,” he whispered.
The chairman turned his gaze to Miguel even as the scenes of anger toward the Delonese continued to play, as if on repeat.
“In that case, perhaps we should speak plainly,” Miguel said without emotion.
37
SOFI
SOFI STARED AT THE HOLOGRAM OF DELON FLOATING IN FRONT of her. Watched it spin, filling up the room, her vision, and her heart with hope. This was it.
Shilo was here after all.
She couldn’t breathe—could barely blink back the tears of fear and relief and joy that emerged from nowhere and affirmed that what she’d believed hadn’t betrayed her.
Please be in those buildings.
Except . . .
Except his heart had stopped in her vision.
Bloody heck.
That part was the dream, Sof. Just the dream. She pulled up the security feed Heller had set to working on as soon as she’d shown him the human dots and traced the distance from their location along the best path to reach him. Trying all the while to bite back her anxiety. He was so close.
She slowed and inhaled, resisting the urge to drop everything and race for that cluster of red dots. Careful, Sof. Don’t let your emotions compromise his safety.
“So why aren’t we showing up on here?” Heller tapped his fingers on the table.
“Because of the shield we put around this room.”
“Ah. Right.” He waited while she continued to study it. “Soooo,” he finally said. “That’s the security as far as I could access, and I think we can do it. I vote we go.”
She opened her mouth and stopped. After a second, she licked her lips. “I think we should wait for Miguel and Claudius.”
“Wait, what?” He hesitated. “Sof, I’ve got it dialed in and figured out—what d’you think I just spent the past twenty minutes doing? Look, I told you from the beginning I’d help you rescue Shilo, and now I am.”
“I know.” She bit her cheek and forced her mind to stay steady. “I just think they know this place and the Delonese better than we do. If you were worried before about getting flagged by security—” She studied the feed. “This would be the situation.”
“Are you saying you don’t trust me?”
What? She looked up. “No. I—”
“Then come on. This was our mission. Let’s finish it.”
“And what then? We could compromise the whole thing. And we need a ship, Heller.”
He shrugged. “Let’s just see if he’s there. If he is, we bring him back to this room and go from there.”
She shook her head and studied the snow-crusted buildings. The one with all the humans would be around the farthest corner. She could see the very edge of its steep metallic roof. “I won’t chance messing up what’s most likely our only opportunity to help Shilo. We wait and see what Miguel can do.”
“Unbelievable.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I thought you’d be freaking excited and here you are being—”
“Responsible.” She frowned and estimated the depth of snow, determining how high up it’d hit on the slim-suits she’d brought.
“So we just wait until whenever they get back?”
She nodded. As much as it was killing her. She could almost feel Shilo’s fading presence from here.
“You know . . . You sure this is about safety, Sof?” Heller tipped his chair on its back legs. “And not about Miguel?”
Her brow furrowed deeper. Where was this going?
“I know he was in your room last night.”
“Yeah? So? We weren’t doing anything.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But it seems before he came into the picture, you were fine being yourself. Now you’re just . . . softer.”
Sofi froze. Was he joking?
He let the chair drop onto its front legs. “I just don’t want to see you give any more of you away is all.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t softer. She needed to think—to assemble their things. If Shilo was there . . . If the kids really are in that building . . .
If.
It wasn’t even a question and she knew it. The kids from the Delonese shuttle were here. They were in that building, as blinking little red lights on that screen. She couldn’t explain it other than to say she knew it in the same way she knew that she and Shilo would’ve won the FanFight Games this time around if the attack hadn’t happened.
She glanced back at Heller. “Can you help me assimilate the slim-suit program Vic sent over?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He rubbed his nose. “You wanna use them?”
“I think we’ll need them if we’re going to have a chance.”
He moved to her comp-screen and worked over their coding, adapting it with the minimal security they’d accessed from the Delonese end.
“I’ll get the suits.” Sofi strode to her room and pulled them from her bag, trying to keep the butterflies contained at what they were getting ready to do. At what they were about to attempt as soon as the guys returned. She inhaled and turned when her handscreen went off with an incoming message from Ranger.
She frowned. She thought she’d logged out of the Darknet chat room.
She slid it open but nothing appeared. Huh. Must’ve been a time lag from earlier.
She hoisted the suits and carried them to Heller.
“Perfect.” He laid them across the table and clicked the neck linings, then patched the altered security code into their sewn-in pads via Sofi’s comp before he linked the whole thing to their handscreens.
Heller eyed her while they waited for it to finish. “You know what you need, Sof? You need to stop going for the wrong dudes.” He stretched his hands behind him and tipped his head toward her bedroom. “Or one of these days it’s gonna catch up with you.”
She snorted and glanced toward Miguel’s jacket still strewn over the couch.
“Ah, here we go. Suits are done.”
Heller looked down just as her handscreen blinked in front of him. He grabbed it. “Looks like Ranger.”
She leaned over him. “Weird, it just said the same thing a minute ago. And I thought I’d logged out of the net.”
“Maybe it’s a time lag.”
She took it as Ranger’s words showed up. Hey, Sof. Something came in my box today. Said it was for you. May not be anything but sending it now.
The box dinged and she quickly opened it. And promptly choked.
Her world stopped. Her heart stopped.
She flipped through the photos, slowly at first, then faster. “Wha
t the—?”
The pics didn’t make sense. Or . . . they made too much sense, revealing more to a story that shouldn’t exist—that couldn’t possibly—
She leaned back, and Heller bent over to swipe through them as her stomach crashed and her heart lit in flames and set her chest on fire in fury and disgust.
Miguel.
Heller looked at her.
She didn’t speak.
Something was wrong—not just in her head, but on the screen. As if she’d been played at a game she didn’t even know was on the table. And just as she’d become what her mother assumed she was and what Miguel had rejected her for, he had become what she most loathed.
And he’d been on her bed last night. In her head. In her lungs and chest and messing with her emotions.
She shivered and clamped back the revulsion flooding in at the image of him speaking to her the past few days. She’d let him hold her—touch her. Let him feed his sick need for attention through her.
Heller growled. “What a perv.”
She shook her head. What kind of person could do that? Could be that?
She would kill him.
She grabbed one of the slim-suits, began stripping down to her skin-thin thermals, then pulled on the stretch material. When she glanced up, Heller was staring. “Change of plans. We need to go now.”
His face was bright red. He cleared his throat. “Right. Yeah, we definitely need to go. Sorry, just not used to girls, you know . . .”
“Wearing a thermal beneath their clothes?”
“Well, just not thin. And not in front of me. Excuse me.” He grabbed the other suit and jogged to her bedroom to change. When he emerged a minute later, he looked exhilarated.
“So we go investigate,” Sofi said. “And if we find Shilo or the others, we make a vid uncovering their operation.”
“Agreed. I’ll take care of broadcasting it.”
“And we bring Shilo back with us.”
He nodded.
“We might also reveal how few Delonese there actually are, as added incentive to keep us alive. Other than that . . .” She inhaled and grabbed her handheld. “We play it by ear.”
He grinned. “My favorite way. And, Sof, about the Miguel thing . . .”