“Yes, I’ve been here before,” answered Rinko.
“My apologies. I have a habit of inquiring with guests. Would you prefer an escort, or are you okay on your own?”
“We’ll be fine by ourselves, thanks. You might need the extra staff here until we deal with the missing files.”
“How considerate of you. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you require anything during the process.”
“Will do. I’ll let you know when we’re finished.”
Taylor hitched the burdened satchel higher on his shoulder and followed Rinko toward a bank of elevators. They waited for one to arrive and let a family exit before stepping inside and requesting roof access. Rinko slipped her keycard into a slot when authorization was needed and the elevator started climbing three hundred and forty-five levels.
“Nobody unpack our gear or move more than normal,” Rinko instructed. “Their elevators have cameras and other sensors installed, but no listening devices.”
“Can you divert us to the penthouse suite before reaching the roof?”
“Yeah, I just have to bypass the security system and prevent our change from registering. Then I can make the elevator appear to be on a different floor. Not terribly difficult now that I’m inside the building.” Rinko removed her UpLink from one pocket and calmly fiddled with the device as though browsing InCore or receiving messages. “Okay, the cameras remain functional but I can convince the monitoring software we’re elsewhere. Now I’m using our temporary access codes to override the elevator security parameters, which will let us reach the normally off-limits penthouse suite. Only the current occupant is given permission to exit there.”
“You have a tendency to make all this sound simplistic,” noted Harun.
“In my hands, it is.” She smiled and returned the UpLink to its pouch. “Done. Next stop, Winston Vanderlin’s private suite.”
Soon after the elevator chimed and its doors parted to reveal luxurious chambers spanning two floors. Glittering structures and colorful commercial displays were visible beyond glass walls encompassing the suite, and the night sky was brightened still further by the streaking lights of vehicles cruising among regulated skylanes.
Taylor wandered into the penthouse and eyed furniture worth more than any honest job he had performed in years past. A winding staircase circled one fireplace and led to an upper level featuring book shelves and statuary.
Rinko reached for a countertop with one hand but refrained from touching its surface with bare fingers. “My first time ever in a place like this and I have to slice into the computer files rather than enjoy a bubble bath or the cuisine. Figures.”
“Don’t rightly know why you’re complaining,” Taylor replied. “You got a romantic outing to some posh restaurant in Hermopolis while I was confined to the freighter.”
“Didn’t have to pay either.” She paused in front of a terminal in one corner of the room linking to the hotel network. “This will do.”
Rinko shrugged the satchel off her shoulder, collected the additional bag from Taylor and set to work, connecting devices and equipment that bewildered the non-technologically savvy individuals present. She plopped into a cross-legged position and hummed a soft tune while activating her tools and bringing holographic screens to life.
“What should we do?” questioned Taylor.
“Look around if you’re bored.” She waggled a finger in one random direction without turning around. “I’m not your babysitter.”
Taylor ignored her complicated, unknowable aptitude for making machines cooperative and wandered the suite without truly noticing details. Lights glimmered through the penthouse from illuminated structures, holographic advertisements, starships traversing the atmosphere and airspeeders crowding laneways closer to the surface. Alishan was a living city grander and more intrusive than any other Taylor had known.
He caught a glimpse of Rinko tense her shoulders in alarm scant moments before an incorporeal, feminine voice drifted through the penthouse.
“You do not have authorization to access this network,” she announced.
“Oh, shit,” Rinko panted. “Vanderlin has VI software installed. An intelligent one with far-reaching access and security algorithms, too.”
“What does that mean for us?” questioned Harun.
“That I’m poised to start an intense battle of wits unlike any I’ve experienced before.”
“How do you—”
“Stop talking,” muttered Rinko. “I need silence and no distractions. If you feel the urge to mumble and grouse about something else, go do the deed quietly in a corner.”
Violet and cerulean-hued geometric shapes materialized along one wall, displaying a vaguely humanoid face, its features eerily resembling a stern parent poised to deliver a lecture. “Your identities are not approved to be here.”
“This ghost is really pissing me off,” Rinko snarled.
“I’ve contacted the Alishan Policing and Enforcement Department and informed their department of your whereabouts.”
“Oh no you don’t, you meddling, ethereal asshole. Because I’m severing you from communications.”
Short breaths hissed from Rinko’s clenched jaw as she furiously countered the virtual intelligence software, her hands jerking across the keys with an almost spasmodic quality. Determined rage flickered on her scrunched face and Taylor half expected steam to begin rising from her scalp, the ire was so palpable.
“In accordance with protocols,” announced the VI, “I am revoking your network privileges.”
“Try me. I’ll erase your memory processor and leave you as nothing but a shiny wall ornament incapable of functioning.”
“Your belligerent tone won’t improve the possibility of success.”
“Is the virtual intelligence giving me sass?” Rinko demanded. “That does it. Now that I’ve snipped your wings, let’s see how your security suites handle my own personal malware coding.”
Rinko’s tongue darted from her lips as she focused, her hands swiping across each active screen in a dazzling frenzy of precise movement. “And now, you interfering pseudo-lifeform, I command you to begone.”
She punctuated her final word with a flourishing hand gesture on the holographic terminal. A stuttering whistle echoed through the room as the humanoid virtual intelligence glitched into distorted snarls of graying contours. The face stretched in opposing directions and vanished amid a sparkling blur.
Taylor eyed the now empty wall, unsure whether the duel had finished. “Did you just…kill the VI?”
“Didn’t need to. She’ll remain in the network, but I purged her recent memory archives and temporarily deactivated her protocols. She’s sleeping, for lack of a better word.” Rinko touched one hand to her forehead and seemed surprised to find her skin flush with sweat. “Damn that was close.”
“You’re surprisingly chatty when concentrating,” noted Tessa.
“Talking out loud helps me think.”
“What about Vanderlin’s private files?” inquired Harun.
Rinko offered a self-satisfied smirk over her shoulder. “Finally at my fingertips. Unfettered access is mine and I’ve started copying everything to my ODS.”
Tessa wandered closer and flicked her eyes between rapidly flashing data. “Can you tell us anything about the files?”
“Incriminating stuff, one and all. Email correspondence, records of unaltered and forged financial earnings, listings of legitimate and off-the-book Triaxus operations. Enough to bury Vanderlin and probably the entire board of directors if I’m any judge. There’s even – wait. Holy crap.”
“What did you find?”
“There are Triaxus and Confederacy fleets marshalling in the Magh Tuireadh system, only a few light-years away from Tuatha. They’re poised to invade.”
“Are these the fleets dispatched by Parliament?” asked Harun.
“No, different warships. Ones that shouldn’t be there. The Solstice-class battlecruiser Odysseus is leading the for
mation, with Admiral Salamanca aboard.”
“That’ll be the first nugget of information we send Elathan and Delbaethi authorities,” Tessa promised.
Rinko abruptly lifted her hands from the terminal and went motionless.
“Kaneshiro, what just happened?” questioned Harun.
“I’ve halted transferring the data to my ODS, because we have a problem.”
“Of course we do,” mumbled Taylor. “What is it this time?”
“There’s a time-delayed identification scan in progress,” she said, “linked to my infiltration protocols. I must’ve missed it while battling with the VI. It’s scanning my identity and cross-referencing authorized profiles, gaining more information with each moment I spend connected. But the software is part of the hotel’s network and operates in the background. Deep in the background, buried beneath all the other code. Reaching it will be difficult. The system can’t prevent me from continuing, but every file I copy increases the likelihood of discovery. To put it simply, if I keep going they’ll know about us.”
“Can you circumvent the feature?” asked Harun.
Rinko’s weary expression was reflected in one glowing screen. “Yes and no. If I halt the identification and prevent the hotel’s network from detecting my intrusion, we won’t be able to copy all the data. On the other hand, I can still download everything, but not before they find me. The two are inextricably linked.”
“And when they become aware of your presence? What then?”
“This won’t be the same as tripping a minor red flag like a door being unlocked when it shouldn’t. Hotel security will realize this is a major breach and respond in force. They’ll also know our precise location.”
Tessa offered an irritated scowl. “We don’t have a choice. Grab all the data. Leave nothing behind.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Rinko turned a frazzled glare toward Harun. “You. Find the most valuable item in here and snatch the damn thing.”
Taylor watched Harun pull gloves on and frowned. “Why is he pilfering pricey things?”
“If they know we’re in here but nothing was stolen or missing, Vanderlin will realize we were after his data. We can’t let him know he’s been compromised. So go steal shit and write lewd messages on the wall while you’re at it. Make the break-in authentic.”
“Ah, good thinking.”
“Something I shouldn’t need to be doing since my mind is stretched to the limit elsewhere. Pick up the slack, Captain.”
“Right away, ma’am.”
Taylor sauntered toward one wall, inspected a framed painting of a dreamlike landscape populated with surreal shapes and tugged gloves over his hands. The image was esoteric and beyond his sensibilities, which was no different from any other work of high society art. Still, the colors were pleasing and might go with the décor in their freighter lounge. Taylor wrenched the picture off its mounting and stomped until the wooden frame cracked apart. Next he brushed glass shards aside and yanked his wrinkled treasure free.
Presuming long-dead artists everywhere were turning over in their graves at such sacrilege, Taylor rolled the painting and awkwardly crammed the artwork into his partially-unzipped coveralls. Another successful heist.
He turned and noticed Harun stepping away from one mirror to admire his handiwork, having carefully written a message on its surface using condiments and sauces from the kitchenette. The scrawled words read:
TRIAXUS CANNOT BE TRUSTED; CORPORATE GREED IS SHAMEFUL.
“All your intellect and cloak and dagger nonsense,” Taylor muttered, “and that’s what you write?”
Harun wiped smudges from his fingertips and shrugged. “I’m no anarchist. I have no concept of what goes on in their vapid heads.”
“Not proper grammar and punctuation for starters.”
“Then write your own profane message. I have larceny to commit.”
“At least you get creativity points for your choice of medium.”
“Take it elsewhere, you nattering nitwits,” chastised Rinko. “I won’t ask again.”
Taylor grumbled his displeasure and inspected the suite for more lucrative thieving opportunities, though admitted defeat. The limiting factor of needing to carry his ill-gotten gains meant the grander items would stay behind. He approached a mantelpiece housing delicate vases and knocked one off its perch to explode into ceramic slivers. The petty act of vandalism pleased him.
Tessa waited by the elevator, her features harried and impatient. “We don’t have the time to keep screwing around. Security won’t be long in coming and they’ll lock down this elevator. Our only escape route if you hadn’t noticed. The time to leave is now.”
“I’m almost finished,” Rinko snapped.
“Rinko,” Taylor hissed. “Haste is a virtue.”
She directed panic-stricken eyes toward her hardware as the screen distorted into crisscrossing, muddled streaks of incomprehensible computer code and vanished. “Done. I’m disconnecting from the network. I’m good to go in a couple seconds.”
Rinko closed myriad devices, depowered the systems and crammed electronics into both satchels, scrambling upright while cinching straps tight. She tossed one bag at Taylor and sprinted past into the elevator while Harun forced the doors to remain ajar. Taylor wedged through the dwindling space and smacked into the far wall as Harun rolled inside and the doors snapped shut.
“Get us to the roof now,” Tessa ordered.
Taylor brought his encrypted comm online. “Kyla?”
“Still here. What do you need?”
“Security noticed our meddling. This place will be swarming with guards and planetary police in moments. How far away are you?”
“The hotel’s already attracting cops. I wondered what the ruckus was about. I can see their airspeeders descending from where we are. They’re between us and you.”
“Find a way to us. Rinko’s overridden the elevator but we can’t go down. Our only chance to escape is camping on the roof.”
“Then we’ll grab you there,” Kyla replied. “Hang tight.”
“No promises.”
Taylor closed the channel while Rinko finished re-programing the elevator, forcing its protocols to accept her authorization and ascend to the roof. Shimmering beads of sweat dribbled from Rinko’s sodden bangs and down her cheeks, the culmination of angst-ridden moments spent dueling against network security and a persistent virtual intelligence. Bloodshot eyes ringed in shadow testified to her exhaustion.
Accompanied by an altogether untimely and ill-suited musical note, the doors opened onto a roof crammed with communication and sensor antennas. Blinking red and green lights dotted slender spires climbing several stories higher, dwarfed by office and government structures twice the height of the Hanging Gardens Villa. Taylor crossed an empty stretch alongside the others, halting to hunker among turbine generators and water pumps. Wind howled between the buildings, smacking against Taylor and whipping their clothes into a tizzy.
His hand instinctively brushed one hip and slapped against the jumpsuit he wore, reminding Taylor he carried no weapon and possessed nothing to defend himself. The thought disquieted him and caused his fingers to twitch for want of holding a gun.
“Where the hell are Canales and Moyaert?” demanded Harun.
“On their way,” Taylor responded. “And when they arrive you want might to speak with our saviors in a more respectful tone.”
“If we survive long enough you mean.”
“Don’t be a petulant—”
A sharp crash from across the rooftop interrupted Taylor’s words, soon followed by hurried footfalls and shouts. A cold prickle traced down Taylor’s spine and he hunched lower as if the motion made a difference.
“Shit,” Tessa hissed. She lay flat on her stomach, peering through a narrow space beneath one generator. “Hotel security’s on our trail.”
“Armed?” questioned Harun.
“Each one, but only handguns. Nothing more dangerous from what I c
an see.”
“We can still salvage this,” Taylor promised. “Kyla won’t let us down.”
“She’d better get her ass in gear then. There aren’t many places up here for us to hide.”
“We’ll be fine. It’s not like we’re facing—”
Shrieking engines stabbed into Taylor’s skull and a police Emergency Dispersal and Quelling vehicle ascended on a current of hissing air, its churning rotor blades designed to panic dissenters and overwhelm the target area in a raging, concentrated tempest. Floodlights mounted to its underside erupted and Taylor shielded his face from the blinding glare and swirling storm of dust and debris.
Tessa leaned around the edge of a bulky generator, her eyes squinted and jaw clenched. “They haven’t spotted us yet.”
“We’re dead if the EDQ launch their heavy ordnance,” Taylor said.
“I’m working on a solution!” shouted Rinko, her fingertips dancing over a screen.
Harun regarded her with a curious, dumbfounded expression. “You can’t possibly believe you’ll be able to hack a police vehicle in a couple seconds without any assets.”
“Nothing so complicated. I’m trying a different tact. Let’s hope it doesn’t backfire and murder us.”
“That’d be preferable,” Taylor mumbled.
“EDQs are automated and aren’t crewed, right?” she asked.
“They’re controlled from a central facility in each city. Which means the malware precautions are dauntingly advanced.”
“Trust me, this is all about brutal force rather than subtlety. I’ve learned a few tricks from you and Kyla.”
Searchlights surveyed the roof, piercing gloom and darkness to cast long shadows beyond any obstruction. A sonorous broadcast emerged from the EDQ while the vehicle drifted in a steady, deliberate pattern. “Surrender into our custody or be fired upon. Continued resistance or acts of violence will not be tolerated.”
Taylor cast a worried expression toward his slicer. “Rinko?”
“Almost…”
“Rinko!”
“Here it comes!” she hollered.
Their abandoned, empty airspeeder lovingly painted with the GenuTech logo appeared at the rooftop’s edge, its maglev systems straining to climb on such a steep trajectory. Beholden to Rinko’s crazed piloting, their truck plowed into the police vehicle’s rotor engine, crumpling both in a shower of ejected metal fragments. Flames and black smoke speckled with combustible embers belched from the engine, wrenching the EDQ into an uncontrolled spin out of sight as the stricken GenuTech truck crashed on the roof trailing fiery components.
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