by Ted Weber
He kissed her, but when his tongue ventured out, she disengaged. “How do we get in touch with my sister without getting caught?”
“Through Francis, I assume.”
“You’re assuming Homeland Security and their army of rogues respect the law and aren’t monitoring him.”
“Yeah, I thought about that. That’s why I haven’t told him much. I have another idea.”
“Which is?”
Pel sat back against the pillows. “Charles volunteered to contact her in BetterWorld. He has a new avatar. No one knows it’s him. We tested it.”
“How?”
He glanced toward the bedroom window, its curtains drawn since their arrival. “We gave him an address down the street, and we’ve been keeping an eye out. No visitors. Nothing going on there at all.”
Waylee’s fists clenched. “That was fucking stupid, to bring those assholes right here where we are.”
Pel frowned and got off the bed. “There was no reason to think anyone would know about it. We were just testing.”
“Well, we should have discussed it first.”
“With you? When you won’t even get out of bed?”
Waylee felt overpowering shame. “I… Pel, you know my brain fucks me up the ass every chance it gets.” She thrust out a hand.
Pel clasped it and she pulled herself off the bed. The fog had dissipated a little. “The worst is over. I can feel it. I’m coming back, I’ll do my share.”
He smiled. “I’ve got some more good news.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re making progress on the fundraiser. We have a guest list and know who’s staffing.”
The fog lifted even more. “So it’s still a go.”
He rubbed his beard. “We don’t have the equipment yet. And we don’t have a way in. But… we’re working on it.”
* * *
Charles
“We ain’t got time to look for wireless keys,” Charles told Pel.
Pel’s lips pressed together. Beyond, Dingo paced the basement like a caged zoo animal. Waylee wasn’t the only one going wack.
“It’s harder than exploiting a firewall. To get passwords like that, you gotta physically break in someplace, take the social engineering tack, or use brute force, trying random combinations. It ain’t a quick game.”
Pel clenched a fist, but didn’t throw a punch. “I’ll talk to the broker. I have other valuables. My gaming gear, our wall screen, maybe some band equipment. Kiyoko’d have to sell the stuff at the house, then wire the money.”
“I can mention it when I talk to her,” Charles said. “I should do that now. Let her know everyone’s safe.”
“She’s probably being watched.”
“Yeah, I’m taking precautions. I got a plan.”
“Which is?”
“I got scripts that can do all manner of runarounds in BetterWorld.” He picked up the immersion helmet. “I can look up the New Year’s attendees and staff, see if any of them have avatars. I told you ’bout those vampire bots.”
Pel waved his hands. “Don’t hack anyone associated with the fundraiser. The White House and Homeland Security might suspect something’s up, and they’ll nab us when we try to get in.”
“Yeah, you right.” No more retard shit.
Pel twisted the corner of his mouth. “But who knows… you could just look them up and maybe we can use the info somehow.”
Charles donned his helmet and gloves, and returned to the Comnet. He entered BetterWorld as the Zulu warrior Iwisa, bought a canoe, and teleported to Trout Lake with it. The admins had deleted his Dr. Doom avatar. But a few of his vampire bots were still out there, sleeping in trees or underwater. The biggest nest was at the bottom of Trout Lake.
Iwisa took the canoe far from shore. The paddle threw up a slightly different splash pattern with each stroke, a nice randomization feature. Some of the drops landed on his bare arms but without a full immersion suit, he didn’t feel them.
Near the middle of the lake, he stopped and sent out his activation code.
Three men and three women poked their heads above the water. He pointed at one of the women, the one with normal-sized breasts. “Come with me. The rest of you, go back underwater and wait for my next command.”
The fembot climbed into the canoe, dripping water. She was young and beautiful, almost rivaling Kiyoko. She smiled and tilted her head forward.
“I’m giving you a new identity when we get to shore,” he said. He closed his virtual eyes and brought up a Comnet portal.
He scoured Collective sites for useful Qualia programs to load into the fembot. The good thing about eight billion people on Earth was that pretty much everything had already been thought of. You just had to find what you wanted and apply it.
Then he’d let Princess Kiyoko know they were safe, sort of. And being BetterWorld elite and all, maybe she could help.
* * *
Waylee
“Are you crazy?” J-Jay shouted over the prepaid comlink Artesia had bought them.
Emotions spilled through Waylee’s brain, too fast to label. “We’ll figure out how to displace the current drummer. All you have to do is contact the band manager and apply. You’re a jazz drummer, after all.”
“So why would they want me? They’ve gotta have at least one backup they already know. Get real. I did y’all a solid shelterin’ you the other day. That wasn’t nothin’.”
“You can convince them, audition and get on their list. We can do it. We have to do it. We have to wake people up, end MediaCorp’s destruction of free thought—”
“Tryin’ to bug the president usin’ a drummer the band doesn’t know? You gotta ask yourself, is that really doable, or is that Waylee lost deep, deep in Crazy Land?”
Waylee hurled the comlink against the bedroom wall, where it shattered. Coward.
After a while, Waylee tromped down to the basement and sat next to Pel on the faux-leather sofa. His computer, Big Red, perched on the coffee table, and he pulled the keypad closer.
Shakti blew her a kiss from the adjacent love seat. Dingo threw up a clenched fist. On the other side of the room, Charles removed his black immersion helmet and gloves.
The solidarity felt good. “J-Jay won’t help,” she announced.
No one’s eyes widened with surprise. “It is a lot to ask,” Pel said.
“It’s not a suicide mission. But whatever.” She looked from face to face. Quiet defeatism never benefitted anyone. “The fundraiser is only two weeks away. How are we going to get in?”
“Can we stay here that long?” Shakti asked. “Fuera seems a little tense.”
“They said we could stay as long as we want. Consider it karma for the hundreds of guests we’ve put up. But we should help clean and cook—”
“We have been,” Pel said, maybe a hint aimed at her.
“And clear out at the first hint of cops,” she said. “I’ll make sure they know that.”
Charles plopped into the chair opposite the love seat. His eyes were puffy, like he hadn’t been sleeping.
“So let’s get back to the fundraiser,” Waylee said. “Maybe just Pel and I should go. The more people, the greater the chance of getting caught. Pel and I are performers, the next best thing to actors.”
Dingo’s lips pinched in disappointment, but Shakti breathed relief. Pel looked away.
Waylee touched her boyfriend’s arm. “I need you there. I’ll do the interviewing, since I’ve done hundreds of them, but I need a wingman.”
Pel checked a cable attached to Big Red. “Your suggestion sounds, uh, sensible.” He tapped his keypad and the big wall skin brandished neat rows of icons and windows.
He brought up a gallery of photos, each with a name beneath. “Two hundred guests attending and forty staff, plus aides, bodyguards, and entertainers. No press—”
“Not that they practice journalism,” Waylee said, “but who will be there from MediaCorpse?”
Pel narrowed an eye at her.
“We know who the guests are, thanks to a reminder the White House Department of Scheduling and Advance sent out.”
They went through the list, which included the President and First Lady, high-ranking Congressmen, three Supreme Court justices, and some of the wealthiest people in America, each paying half a million apiece for two tickets. The CEO and half the board of MediaCorp would be there.
Just what I hoped for. “That’s what a military spokesman would call a target-rich environment. We’re bound to get some interesting material.”
Shakti leaned forward. “How are you gonna get in? As staff?”
“Trouble is,” Pel said, “they’ve all been cleared already. We’d have to find jobs with the catering company or whoever, replace someone who’s working on New Year’s Eve – and no one would give up a gig like that voluntarily – and get clearance from the Secret Service. All in two weeks.”
Shakti shook her head. “This was a bad idea. We should just cut our losses.”
Waylee’s stomach tightened. Why did she think this would work? Was it just her hypomanic cycle, as bad in its own way as the depression she was climbing out of? “I don’t suppose we could sneak in? Hide in the building the day before, then come out with catering uniforms on?”
“I’ve been studying Secret Service procedures.” Pel said. “They’re pretty thorough. They’ll comb the Castle with terahertz scanners before the event and detect any signs of life.”
“Can we go in beforehand and leave a door or window unlocked?”
Pel shook his head.
“Is there a way to fool their scanners?”
Pel’s eyebrows lifted. “Trouble is, we don’t know exactly what kind of equipment they have. I did a lot of research on the Watchers, though. They emit different frequencies that can penetrate concrete, plastics, clothing, flesh… They can detect any kind of motion, even breathing, and see everything you’re carrying, even if it’s something you’ve swallowed.”
“So the Watchers could see everything we were doing?” Shakti asked.
“If you’re on the other side of a wall, they have to use microwaves and can only see your outline.”
“Can they see through metal?” Waylee asked.
Pel brought up a search engine on the wall skin and flew through articles, finally settling on a security manual on how to interpret scanner imagery. “Most frequencies can’t penetrate metal. X-rays can see through most metals except for lead. And anything that dense would set off alarms could be uranium.”
“Do they have suits of armor in the Smithsonian?” Dingo said. “You could sneak inside one. Or mummies—you can wrap yourselves up as mummies.”
Outlandish, but maybe worth looking into. Waylee turned to Pel.
“The Castle isn’t used as a museum anymore,” he said. “It might have some stuff in storage, though.”
“Have you been there?” Charles asked him.
“Yeah, as a kid. The museums were all free then. The Castle used to be open to the public, but it’s just offices and private event space now.”
“The current administration equates anything public with socialist,” Shakti said. “No doubt they plan to transfer the entire Smithsonian and all its contents to some multinational corporation.”
“I looked it up,” Waylee said. “The Smithsonian’s a self-sufficient nonprofit, so they’re out of the president’s reach.” She turned back to Pel. “Let’s go back to the guest list. Sneaking in as caterers runs the risk of supervisors not knowing who you are. But guests could be anyone.”
Pel returned to the gallery of faces and scrolled down. “What about the DJ? I looked him up, he’s a douchebag who specializes in crappy music. But it’s just one person. Waylee’s right, catering staff and musicians will know each other.”
“Maybe we can get this DJ to cancel,” Waylee said. “Then send a fake replacement recommendation from him to V.I.P.”
“I can DJ in my sleep,” Pel said. “But how do we get him to cancel? Who’d give up a chance to entertain the president and a bunch of billionaires?”
Dingo thrust out a finger. “How about getting him a gig at a porn star party?”
Pel lit up. “Dude, that’s brilliant.”
He beamed. “It doesn’t even have to be a real party. Or it could be real but we fake the invite.”
“Alright,” Waylee said. “Let’s put that on the list of possibilities.”
Shakti leaned forward. She always got excited when brainstorming. “What about pretending to be someone on the MediaCorp board who’s usually impossible to get hold of—”
“Like on a private space flight?” Pel said.
“Uh, that’s a long shot.”
Dingo hit an imaginary snare and cymbal with imaginary drumsticks, and said, “Bud-a-boom!”
Shakti rolled her eyes. “Unintended.” She looked around. “Maybe call up someone at V.I.P. and pretend to be a MediaCorp big shot and say you’ve got this nephew or niece who wants to DJ for the president and they’d better damn well give them the gig.”
Pel tapped one of his Jack Sparrow braids. “Doesn’t sound true. Big Shot families don’t usually contain professional DJs.”
“Big Shot might want admission tickets for family though.”
“There we go,” Waylee said. “If we don’t have to DJ, we can spend all our time mingling and picking up material. And if we’re fellow elites, the guests are more likely to talk to us.”
Charles peered at her. “How are you supposed to pass as a rich person?”
“Easy. Just need the clothes and a back story. Herald nightlife sent me to VIP events all the time. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s connecting with people.”
“Okay,” Pel said, “so we either find someone on the invite list who cancels—”
Dingo jumped in. “Or we make someone cancel—”
“And send ‘family’ in his place.”
Waylee’s heart raced. “Or we contact V.I.P. as this Big Shot, say he has relatives who want to hang with the president on New Year’s, and ask how much. Cost’s no object, he’ll pay whatever it takes. Christmas present.”
“And how do we pay for that?” Pel asked.
“We don’t,” Waylee said. “Just promise to pay.”
Charles threw up a hand. “I’ll get what you need. Big Shot, back story, maybe even some money.”
16
Kiyoko
The cops hadn’t bothered cleaning up after ransacking the band house. They took all the electronics, including her immersion suit, the downstairs Genki-san, and their band computers. At least M-pat’s wife fed her cat. The neighbors and Pel’s cousins kept scavengers away. And the neighbors across the street buried poor Laelaps.
One of Pel’s cousins offered to move into the house “to keep her safe,” but the way he leered, she sent him away. She called some of her cosplay friends who were happy to stay over a while. Their martial skills were limited, but they made the place look occupied. M-pat promised to keep an eye on the place too, even with only one deputy left.
Then her champion, Francis Jones, arrived with three assistants, returning everything taken by the police. “None of it’s legitimate evidence. BPD likes to confiscate stuff for their own use or to sell, but case law says they can’t unless it was used to commit a crime or was acquired through crime.”
Kiyoko didn’t tell him the Genki-san was Pel’s and he never bought anything legally, a practice she long ago gave up chiding him about. Her stuff, though, was all legit, and she had receipts.
One of the assistants, a heavyset grandmother type, went through the house with a small box that she called a signal detector. She found remote cameras and microphones in almost every room, including Kiyoko’s bedroom and the bathroom. She plucked them all out and put them in a metallic bag.
“Thanks,” Kiyoko said. “Someone’ll be here from now on, so they can’t put new ones in.”
“They can still monitor you from outside the house,” the woman said.
&nb
sp; “Like the Watchers? I’m used to them.”
When Francis Jones and his assistants left, and with her friends immersed in a Dungeons & Dragons game in the dining room, Kiyoko returned to BetterWorld. Maybe she’d join their game later, but she found the rules tedious. BetterWorld calculated all that stuff for you.
Yumekuni survived her absence. But Prince Vostok had appealed his defeat. Uh oh. He insisted she couldn’t have made her army invisible without cheating.
Kiyoko had recorded the entire battle. She sent the admins a full accounting of her qi storages and transformations. Vostok had just erred in attacking a realm with huge energy deposits and a ruler who could channel them. She omitted any mention of Charles and his tweaks to her stocks of oil.
She checked her messages next. Mostly fan mail and spam. She searched for something from Waylee or Pel/William Godwin, but found nothing. Her prioritization algorithm gave the top ranking to a recent message from someone called Iwisa, based on the sender being a legitimate avatar and the keywords “Dwarf Eats Hippo,” “agent,” and “audience.”
Kiyoko opened the link. A handsome coal-black man wearing a Victorian suit and top hat appeared in the message portal. He stood on the bridge of a formal Japanese garden, leaning on a silver-tipped walking stick. Odd combination of elements. She started the video.
In vivid three dimensions, the man tipped his hat. “Greetings. I am Iwisa. I am a big fan of your band, Dwarf Eats Hippo. As it happens, I am a professional music agent with a lot of connections, and I would like to help broaden your audience. We should meet at your earliest convenience. I promise it will be worth your time.”
She looked him up. Yes, he was indeed a registered agent. In Better-World, anyway. He didn’t list an outside name.
Kiyoko replied. “Thank you for your message. You may meet me in my realm of Yumekuni at any time. The teleport coordinates to my palace entrance are X3875977, Y0569656. Password noh8rz. I will provide an escort from there. I look forward to our meeting.”
Iwisa arrived at Kiyoko’s high ceilinged, silk festooned throne room less than an hour later. He was accompanied by two of her armored bot guards and a striking brunette wearing a leather half top and miniskirt, cast iron arm bands, and brass goggles perched on the crown of her head.