Touch

by Camille Picott

  With that, he heads to the registration line, where he learns all candidates must provide an alias. He rubs at his clean-shaven head, his wordless act of defiance against his father.

  Baldy, he thinks. My alias will be Baldy.

  ***

  Several hours later, when he returns to the real-world, Nate says, “Did you catch her?”

  Gun nods. “She’s my Cube teammate.”

  Nate guffaws. “That’s new. I can’t imagine any of the other girls joining a merc site.”

  “She’s a fierce little thing,” Gun replies. She’d need training, but he was looking forward to that. He loved training. Sulan was the first of his assignments who shared the interest.

  “Global bots were all over you the few times you made contact with her,” Nate says. “Just the spy bots this time. None of the hackers. That’ll probably change the next time you meet with her.”

  “Make sure you’re ready for them. We’re meeting tomorrow night for our first training session.”

  “I can handle the Global cybermercs,” Nate says, tapping away on his tablet. “Once I’m done reinforcing your avatar, I’m going to make you some training Axcents.”

  Gun pauses. “Why don’t you take some time for yourself tonight? It’s been a while since you went and did something for fun.”

  Nate’s fingers pause for the barest second over the tablet. He doesn’t look up. “Making new Axcents is fun for me,” he replies.

  “Why don’t you take Alissa out? My treat. You can even take my car.”

  Nate shrugs, still not looking up. “Alissa and I are taking a break. Hey, who do you like better, Wonder Woman or Green Lantern?”

  “Wonder Woman,” Gun replies without thinking. “I always wanted indestructible bracelets.”

  “Me too, bro.”

  “Nate.”

  “There was another League attack while you were in the Cube.” Again, his friend doesn’t look up. “I sent the report to your tablet.”

  Gun sighs and drops the subject.

  Mostly, Nate pretends the divorce didn’t happen, immersing himself in his work. Gun wishes he could do something for his friend, but short of ordering him to go out and have fun—which would defeat the purpose—he’s at a loss.

  6

  Percentages

  It turns out the League blew up a wastewater plant outside Detroit. Gun watches the video footage, which features Global mercs fighting the flames and rescuing civilians from the burning plant. The Global Arms logo is plastered all over the screen. The sight makes Gun clench his jaw.

  “Nice coincidence for Global,” Nate remarks, watching the footage on his tablet. “They’re getting some good press.”

  Coincidence? Gun raises his eyebrows but doesn’t respond. He believes in careful planning and cunning execution, yes, but not coincidence.

  “What percentage of League attacks feature support by Global mercs?” he asks.

  Nate flips through his tablet, running calculations. “Twelve percent.”

  “What percentage feature Anderson Arms mercs?”

  Nate frowns. He doesn’t bother referencing his tablet. “Zero.”

  “How many among the other mercenary corps?”

  “Viral Corp has three percent.”

  Twelve percent isn’t a big number—not enough to draw attention—but League attacks garner Global four times more visibility than their closest competitor.

  “Do you think it’s by design?” Nate asks.

  Gun purses his lips. “How could it be, unless Global is allied with the League? Reginald Winn isn’t above taking risks, but if he was ever exposed as being allied with the League, it would decimate his company. He’s not an idiot.” As much as Gun wishes otherwise, the man is anything but an idiot. “He’s gutsy, though. A risk-taker.”

  “Is aligning with the League more risky or more idiotic?” Nate asks.

  Pacing up and down his study, Gun contemplates this. The true question is how Reginald would view an alliance with the League. The man is ballsy enough to make the play, but not without putting in safety measures to ensure he’s never caught.

  Gun pauses to run his fingers along his collection of old books and comics. He got Nate hooked on the old stories. Very few people appreciate books and stories from the Pre-‘Fault days, but Gun likes to imagine what it would have been like to live in a different time. Even in the darker comics, where cities are plagued by epic villains, the lives of the average citizen is so much better than what most people have today.

  “There have been three League attacks in Global’s patrol sector.” Nate doesn’t raise his eyes from the tablet, fingers sliding and tapping. “They wouldn’t target their own areas.”

  Gun drops his hand, turning away from his books. “It would be the perfect camouflage,” he replies. “No one would suspect Global of treason if they target their own territory.”

  “I guess so.” Nate raises an eyebrow. “You really think Global could be allied with the League?”

  Gun grunts and shakes his head. “Global is either lucky, or they have some other means of predicting where the League will attack.”

  “Maybe they have predictive analysts.”

  Gun considers this. “Maybe.” He stops pacing, pivoting to face his friend. “I want to follow this rabbit hole. It feels like a hunch.” Gun doesn’t like admitting to having learned anything from his father, but if it’s one thing Anderson has drilled into him, it’s to trust his instincts.

  “Okay, bro. I’m in.” Nate grins. “Let’s expose the Winns as traitors. Where do you want to start?”

  “Remember those Lice you built for Vex?”

  “The ones you used to spy on that girl’s mom?”

  “Lynn McCarthy,” Gun says. “Her mom specialized in pleasure sites. Dad needed dirt on some of her clients. I gave the Lice to Lynn’s avatar. They spread to her mom, then to her clients.”

  “We got a lot of good intel from that.” Nate straightens. “Do you want to plant Lice on Sulan?”

  “It’s a good way to get intel on Global. They won’t make it past the Global firewalls, but they’ll proliferate anytime she isn’t in VHS.”

  “Don’t you think we should focus our efforts on the scientists and employees?” Nate asks with a frown. “If the Winns are traitors, they aren’t going to trust that secret to a bunch of teenagers.”

  “Scientists and other employees are the obvious place to look,” Gun replies. “I don’t think Reginald will leave an obvious trail for something like this. I have the Dread Twins monitoring Global in any case. I want you to focus your efforts on the VHS kids.”

  “You’re the boss, bro. Give me a few hours. I’ll having something ready.”

  ***

  Later that evening, Gun flops onto his bed and pulls out his Vex set. Using a remote, he dims the lights; he hates the glare of bright lights when he emerges from Vex.

  He goes first to a meeting with the Dread Twins. They both appear in their almost-Naked avatars, grinning like idiots.

  “We already competed against two other teams in the Cube,” Mage tells him.

  “One was a non-munitions course,” Lox adds. “We could only fight with swords and knives. Our competitors wore steel armor.” He chuckles. “The idiots could hardly move. Mage kicked one off a rampart when he wasn’t looking. His armor was so heavy he just tipped over the side.”

  Both men guffaw. Gun raises his eyebrows at them. They sober at his expression.

  “Sorry,” Mage mutters. “We thought it would be useful to learn about the Cube, in case you need more intel.”

  Gun ignores this. “Did you find out anything else about Sulan?”

  “No, but we did learn more about her mother.” Lox passes a tablet to Gun. “She was an underground cage fighter before she turned professional merc. That’s where she first took the name Morning Star. She was one of Global’s top mercs before she retired and became a housewife.”

  Gun flips through the tablet, which features seve
ral photos of Sulan’s mother. She’s a tall, lean woman with eyes that radiate strength. Looking at her, it’s difficult to imagine her as a housewife.

  “Are we certain she’s retired?” Gun asks. “Does she do side jobs for Global?”

  “She rarely leaves their apartment,” Mage says. “However, she did leave a few months ago, in the middle of the night, and just so happened to meet with an associate of ours.” He smiles, pleased with himself.

  “What’s your associate’s specialty?”

  Lox shrugs. “Black market stuff. He fulfilled a rather lengthy shopping list for her.”

  Gun scrolls through the tablet until he gets to the list. Cold suits, nutrition bars, medical supplies, and . . .

  “A snow cruiser?” Gun frowns at the list.

  The twins nod. “We asked about that. Our associate didn’t know why she wanted one.”

  Odd. Gun files the fact away for later examination.

  “Anything new on Global?”

  “Their firewalls are nearly impossible to penetrate. We got through twice, but never for more than ten seconds before their cybermercs terminated our link.” A smirk pulls at Mage’s lips.

  “You found good intel in those twenty seconds,” Gun guesses.

  “One programmer ran data on all the country’s wastewater plants,” Lox says. “He was analyzing populations and the number of people serviced by each plant.”

  “But,” Mage adds, his smirk deepening, “which wastewater plant do you think was near the top of the list?”

  Gun doesn’t have to ask. “The Detroit plant. The last one targeted by the League.”

  The twins nod in unison. “The very one,” Mage says. “Not at the very top—that was Chicago—but Detroit was number five on the list.”

  Gun finds the report and reads it. The twins hadn’t been exaggerating—they didn’t have much—but he could see their deductions were correct. For some reason, Global had taken an interest in wastewater plants and the people they serviced. Perhaps the Winns did have predictive analysts working for Global. Maybe this was how Claudine and Reginald got Global to so many League attack sites.

  Or maybe, they provided their intel to the League. Maybe they colluded on targets.

  Gun hasn’t told the twins about his hunch. As far as the twins know, they’re conducting standard cyber reconnaissance as a supplement to Gun’s assignment with Sulan. He’s doesn’t plan to enlighten, at least not yet.

  “Their firewall tech is well seasoned,” Gun says. “Let’s try the old phishing route. There’s a proxy left over from the old days. I don’t think anyone monitors it, and it shouldn’t throw up any immediate red flags. Use it to email some links on the latest celebrity gossip. There should be a handful of idiots who click the link before security catches on. Meet back here in thirty-six hours with the analysis of all the data you collect.”

  ***

  After his meeting with the twins, Gun hurries to the Cube to meet Sulan. He tries to muster the previous day’s enthusiasm for the assignment, but all he feels is resignation and a lump of self-loathing.

  The work for his dad is always the same: charm the females with good looks, show a keen interest in whatever interests them, and then betray them without getting caught. He’s refined the technique over the years to the point of mastery.

  It was fun when he was a prepubescent teen, but he’s been at it long enough to have developed a low opinion of himself. Even using self-absorbed idiots like Andrea doesn’t make him feel justified.

  Someday, when he and his sister run Anderson Arms, he won’t have to take orders from his father. Then he can do things his way.

  Gun shoves his misgivings into the dark recesses of his mind. Game face, he tells himself.

  He queues the Lice. To deploy them, all he needs to do is flick his right forefinger two times. The Black Tech will crawl onto the nearest avatar.

  As he materializes in the Cube locker room, he catches Sulan closing her hand over a bright green lozenge. She’s palming a Touch pill, he realizes, and unsuccessfully trying to hide it. Gun refrains from sighing. His already bleak mood plummets even more.

  She isn’t the first girl to want to use Touch with him. Touch is Black Tech that allows the user to experience the physical sensations of one’s avatar. It provides all the benefits with none of the risks of real-world flings.

  He decides to play the board as it lies.

  “Let me see the pills in your hand,” he says.

  “What pills?” Sulan steps back from him, hand still clenched around the Touch, and tries to shove them into her pocket. She’s embarrassed.

  Gun doesn’t let her off the hook. Girls that want to be seduced don’t really want to be let off the hook. He plucks up her wrist. She tightens her fist.

  “Short Stuff.” He looks her straight in the eye with the focused intensity women like. “If we’re going to be partners, we can’t lie to each other. I’ve seen Touch. I know what it looks like.”

  “Why’d you ask, then?” she snaps.

  “Why’d you lie?”

  She hesitates, then opens her hand and lets light fall on the bright green pills.

  Gun lets the moment unfurl, taking the appropriate amount of time to stare at the pills. He senses a fierceness about Sulan, telling him this isn’t a girl who wants to be coaxed or romanced. This is a girl who wants things on her own terms. He’s going to have to make her come to him.

  Gun sighs, dropping her wrist.

  “So that’s why you came to the Cube? To play with this stuff? There are other clubs for that, Short Stuff.”

  Her mouth falls open. He waits for her confession, feeling bored. He can’t count the number of times he’s reenacted scenes like this. All different girls in different places and circumstances, but not any different. The key is to act indifferent or hesitant to the idea of intimacy.

  “It’s not what you think,” she says. “It . . . uh, I . . .”

  He folds his arms over his chest, making his eyes distant. “The truth, Short Stuff.” Girls love truth. They practically build alters to the cherished ideal of truth, although he has yet to meet one who really wants marred, brutal truth.

  She looks so embarrassed that he almost cracks. Almost.

  “Last chance, Short Stuff.”

  “I want to train with these,” she says in a rush, gesturing to the pills. “I want to learn how to fight.”

  Her words are like an unexpected left hook to the jaw. They leave him floundering and dumbfounded. His mood switches from bored resignation to keen interest. She wants to what? He stares at her, realizing how badly he’s misjudged the situation. The realization almost makes him laugh, though he suppresses the sensation.

  “I’ve got no one to teach me in the real-world,” Sulan says.

  Well, that settles it. She clearly does not know her mother is Morning Star. He has a hard time digesting the knowledge that the daughter of a renowned fighter doesn’t know the first thing about self-defense, but the truth is standing before him.

  “I came here because it won’t do me any good to fight with a Viking warrior Axcent in Vex,” Sulan continues. “I’m five foot two and barely one hundred pounds. I need to learn how to fight with my real body.”

  Feeling like a complete idiot for working the seduction angle, Gun sits down to get his bearings. How is it that he is so ill-prepared for this meeting? How had he forgotten the look on her face when she first entered the Cube? Those weren’t the eyes of a girl looking for a boy to mess around with. He was getting jaded by his work and it was blunting his edge. He vows to reread all her files tonight.

  Gun clears his throat, brain scrambling to find purchase. “I thought I had you pegged.” Which is a true statement.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m here because I’m pissed at my dad. Teenage angst and all that. I sort of figured you had a similar story. Why do you want to learn how to fight?” He’s curious and intrigued. He can’t remember the last time a gi
rl made him feel either of those things. “I don’t know anyone with enough money for Vex who doesn’t lease some sort of merc security, even if it’s just a patrol unit.”

  “I don’t want my safety to depend on someone else.”

  He digests her words. “I can respect that,” he says after a minute. “But Touch is illegal for a reason. People die using it.” He’s here to turn her into an informant, after all, not get her killed.

  “Not very often,” she replies. “Besides, these are Uncle Zed pills. They’re the safest on the market.”

  “On the black market. You could die. If someone blows your head off in here, you’ll die in the real-world—”

  “You don’t get it,” she says. “This isn’t some weekend sporting event for me. I’m not playing out some Black Ice-Morning Star fantasy like other people here. None of this means anything if I can’t protect myself in the real-world.”

  “What is it you’re so scared of?”

  She doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t miss the fear in her eyes. She really is scared. Of what, he can only guess. He decides not to press the subject. Yet.

  “I’m not sure anyone’s ever used Touch this way,” he says. “How do you even know it will work?”

  “I don’t. I have to try, though.”

  She’s crazy. That’s all there is to it. This diminutive little math genius has a bona fide crazy streak.

  He realizes with a start that he’s even more intrigued by her. If this girl wants to learn how to fight, he’ll teach her how. It’ll be a welcome distraction from the rest of his life.

  “Do you have access to any exercise equipment?” he asks.

  “Yeah. My apartment building has a workout room. Why?”

  “I think your idea to train with Touch may work, at least for building muscle memory. I’m not sure about building actual muscles, though. I’ll give you workouts to help build your strength and endurance.”

  She perks up. “Does this mean you’ll help me?”

  Their eyes meet. He can’t help the slow smile that spreads across his face.