Sleep State Interrupt

by Ted Weber

  Dead leaves crackled beneath Shakti’s feet. Beams of other searchers criss-crossed the farm, brightening and dimming like fireflies as they swept across her line of sight. She turned to the teen. “Do you have any Diazepam, Percocet, anything like that?”

  She shrugged. “I’m sure someone here does.”

  “Waylee has a… condition. Meds don’t cure it, but we can at least reduce the anxiety a little.”

  Amy didn’t respond. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Hope she stays away from the fields. Dogs aren’t big on strangers.”

  They hadn’t heard any barking, so she must not have gone that way. They headed for a cluster of wooden outbuildings. Equipment storage and repair shops, if she remembered right.

  Flood lights flashed on as they approached. Shakti’s eyes fought to adjust.

  “Motion detector,” Amy said, as if they were some uncommon marvel.

  They found Waylee in a wide three-walled shed, huddled on the wood chip floor between a tractor and some sort of tilling attachment. She wasn’t moving.

  Shakti knelt by her friend, brushed her fire red hair aside, and massaged her shoulders. “Waylee, hon.”

  No response. At least she was breathing.

  “Come on, let’s go to bed. Things’ll be better in the morning.”

  Waylee turned a blank face toward her. Black riverbeds of eye shadow ran down her cheeks. Wood chips and dirt adhered to one side.

  Shakti brushed off the debris. Her skin felt ice cold. She only had a flannel shirt and jeans on, but the temperature had dropped into the forties.

  “Come on.” She grasped her friend by the armpits and lifted. Amy grabbed an arm and pulled.

  Once on her feet, Waylee stood like a wax statue. Shakti unzipped her jacket and put it on her, then pulled up the hood and tightened it.

  They led her back toward the main house, each holding a hand. Waylee gazed at the ground as she shuffled along.

  Shakti shivered from the cold. “I’ve never seen her quite this bad.”

  Amy peered at her. “This happens a lot?”

  “Not a lot, but she’s really stressed.”

  “We got a whole field of herbal stress reduction. Maybe she should give it a try.”

  “Everyone’s right,” Waylee muttered. “That was stupid, thinking we could take over the Super Bowl broadcast.”

  Amy stopped, forcing a halt. “Say what?”

  23

  January 8

  Baltimore

  Kiyoko

  Kiyoko refused to be a vampire.

  “But it’s a vampire role-playing game,” one of her new housemates said, baring fangs as he spoke. “You have to play a vampire.”

  The talk of vampires invoked memories of Iwisa. She hoped he’d return to BetterWorld, maybe in some other form. She’d learned so much from him, and he was her only connection to her sister. And she’d come to enjoy his company, their conversations.

  “Can’t I be a werecat?” she said.

  Someone knocked on the door. The half dozen costumed vampires in the living room turned to look.

  Kiyoko got up from the couch and peered through the peephole. M-pat. And behind him, her lawyer Francis Jones in his blue suit and the chubby grandmother with the bug detector. She carried an aluminum case in one hand.

  Kiyoko unlocked the three deadbolts and opened the door. “Come in.”

  M-pat halted at the threshold. “Da fuck?”

  “We’re playing a game,” Kiyoko said. “They’re all vampires but I’m a real live human. Like you.” She ushered him in, then Francis and the grandmother. “Don’t worry, they won’t bite.”

  “That’s what you think,” her quasi-friend Absinthe said, baring fangs and twirling her long emerald green hair. Absinthe had been her first and last goth lover, a hundred years ago it seemed. She could do amazing things with her tongue, but scoffed at the concept of loyalty. Worse, she worshipped darkness and liked to play rough, even knowing how awful Kiyoko’s childhood had been.

  Kiyoko introduced everyone. “Tea?”

  She got no takers. M-pat smiled. “So how you been?”

  “A little anxious, but happy to sleep in my bed. What’s going on?”

  The grandmother pointed to a large fly, maybe a deerfly, clinging to the outside corner of a living room window. Kiyoko looked closer. It was clearly made of plastic, and lacked details like leg hairs. The antennae were a lot bigger than a fly’s. The eyes were tiny camera lenses.

  The woman returned to the center of the room, set her aluminum case on the table, and opened it. She pulled out a cylinder like a big flashlight but with metal on the end.

  She walked over to the window, placed the end against the glass opposite the artificial fly, and pressed a button on the side. The fly dropped to the ground. “That’s one down.”

  “Is it legal to destroy those?” Kiyoko asked.

  M-pat looked out the window. “A better question, is it legal for the gov’ment to put them there.”

  “Unfortunately,” Francis said, “they probably have a warrant. However, you certainly have a right to dispose of unwanted trash on your property. Anyway, we need to talk.”

  “Follow me,” Kiyoko said. She led them down to the basement, which not only lacked windows, but because it was their practice room, had been soundproofed with padding made from recycled denim.

  Francis tapped a finger against a directional mike jutting from one of the flexible floor stands. “You set everything up again.”

  Kiyoko and some musician friends, her sister’s friends really, had repaired the mess the cops left, and reassembled the equipment at one end of the basement. They’d jammed together a couple of times, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  The grandmother walked around with her bug detector. “Clean,” she said.

  “Who owns this house?” Francis asked.

  “We all do.” She paused. “Actually, Pel’s parents have the title. It was a foreclosure fixer-upper. Pel didn’t have any credit to show for the loan.”

  “That’s good, that means the government can’t seize it. I’d fight them anyway, but I’d have a stronger case if it’s owned by someone uninvolved with any alleged crimes. Now what about all this band equipment, and the rest of the stuff in the house?”

  “I own some of it. Some, uh, doesn’t have paperwork or anything.”

  “I’d get rid of that. So here’s what’s happening. Your sister and her boyfriend did something to really piss off the government, and Homeland Security is going to come down hard on anyone associated with them. I don’t know what they did, but this morning they and Charles Lee were placed on the FBI’s ten most wanted list. The reward’s a million dollars each.”

  Kiyoko shivered. Top of the FBI’s most wanted? A million dollars? Iwisa said Waylee’s infiltration of the New Year’s gala had been a huge success. The White House must have figured it out.

  M-pat cast his eyes back and forth. “Props that they scored and got away, but I’m glad I ain’t part of it.” He stared at her. “Same for you, you ain’t suited for prison.”

  “So what’s gonna happen?” Kiyoko said.

  “They’ve been officially designated as terrorists. Under the expanded USA PATRIOT Act, constitutional rights are thereby thrown out the window. You could be detained indefinitely as a person of interest. We’d fight it of course, but we’re talking fighting the whole U.S. government.”

  Kiyoko sat on the stool behind the mixing computer. She wouldn’t cry. “The FBI told me I can’t leave town.” Her voice sounded cracked. “What should I do? It’s not fair…”

  M-pat walked over and squeezed her hand. “Girl, you gotta keep a Positive Mental Attitude. A whole lot of people could get shit on, but you most of all. But we can beat this. I know you strong. Pack a suitcase and let’s talk options.”

  * * *

  St. Mary’s County

  Charles

  Charles trudged down the stairs to the cellar. He was used to being ignored, but not hav
ing everyone hate him like this.

  He’d tried apologizing to Waylee. He should have been straight about the engineer who’d helped him broadcast the zombie ticker. He wasn’t trying to play her or anything. And besides, it didn’t matter. Broadcasting a video was a whole other level.

  Waylee had refused to reply. Girl was wack. Shakti had been sitting in the room with her, said she had a fever from lying outside in the cold, and told him to go away.

  Entering the basement, he saw Pel at the wooden table, swiping fingers over a Comnet interface. He’d run an optic cable from a new hole in the ceiling. Big Red sat to his right, still running algorithms to decrypt data from the New Year’s party. Pel glanced at Charles, then returned to his screen.

  Charles eyed the bottle racks on the walls. All this wine down here, maybe they should open a bottle or two. He’d never had wine before, but rich people liked it, so it had to be good. He walked closer. “Ever drunk any of this wine?”

  Pel turned and frowned.

  “Just wanted to say I’m sorry,” Charles said.

  Pel pointed at his interface screen. “Take a look at this.”

  The center portal contained the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. The first three thumbnail photos showed him, Pel, and Waylee, with their names underneath. Clicking on the photos, the FBI was offering a million dollar reward for each of them.

  Pel turned his chair and stared at him. “Well now you’re not the only one with a million dollar price on your head.”

  Guess I’m not top dog anymore, just tied for it.

  “The White House must have figured out that Greg and Estelle were me and Waylee. And obviously they’re pissed.”

  Charles took a step back. “I thought you had good disguises.”

  Pel sighed. “Me too. But Homeland was after us, so once someone talked to the real Greg and Estelle about New Year’s, it would just be a matter of comparing images from the president’s photographer to Homeland’s database and applying facial recognition algorithms.”

  “So what now?” He pointed at Big Red. “It looks like you’re still cracking comlinks.”

  Pel nodded. “I like to finish what I’ve started. I guess I’m as stubborn as Waylee. And who knows what we’ll find. Maybe even bank access, money to change our identities and keep away from Homeland.”

  That sounded good. “How long we staying here?”

  He rubbed his facial scruff. “This seems like a safe haven. But three million dollars is a strong incentive to turn us in. There’s twenty people living on this farm old enough to use a comlink.” He slid his chair over and crunched some numbers on Big Red. “Even if each person is 90% trustworthy, that gives an overall 88% chance that someone will turn us in.” He sighed. “And Waylee blabbed about taking over the Super Bowl broadcast. I wish…”

  Charles waited, but he didn’t finish. “Then we gotta go?”

  Pel wagged a finger. “Better idea. All the comlinks and interfaces are in the Friendship Farm network. Can we disable them all but see who tries to call the authorities?”

  “If they all use the Comnet router here in the house, sure. Easy to get on the server and shut down outgoing signals. Or I could put up a wall to gov’ment destinations and have it call me when someone tries to go there. They got a Mexican kid here, looks about twelve, who does all the IT. Easy to chump.”

  “Isadora. She’s actually fourteen and from Honduras, and pretty smart. I’ll keep her busy helping me decrypt the New Year’s comlink signals.”

  “Sure that’s wise?”

  Pel put his chin in his hand, then nodded. “Shakti said she seemed okay. Besides, I can keep an eye on her this way.”

  Makes sense. He looked at Pel, who was so forgiving, and had done so much for him. As good a friend as he’d ever had. Might as well come clean on my other bad too. Charles tried to find the words.

  Pel stared at him. “Something wrong?”

  “Uh, I gotta fess up on somethin’. From a while back.”

  Pel crossed his arms. “Let me guess—it’s your fault the cops raided the band house?”

  His heart raced. “You knew?”

  “No, but I should have. Now I do. I’ve been wondering how they found us.”

  Should have told them right away. “When them news ‘tards set Botis lyin’ on me, I got in their system to delete the videos, and my suit got infected. I thought I cleaned it up, no damage done, but authorities musta got a fix on me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell us? If you’d told us right away, we’d have been long gone when the cops arrived.”

  “Thought it was taken care of. And ‘shamed, I guess.”

  “Pride is your worst enemy. The ancient Greeks, my ancestors, called it hubris. It was their heroes’ downfall. And it dragged down those around them too. Remember that.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Pel threw up his arms. “Of course that broadcast was a trap. You told me yourself how Homeland catches hackers and puts them to work to stay out of jail. They’re a scary fucking enemy and you have to watch your step.”

  “I know, I wasn’t thinkin’.”

  “Well you almost landed us in prison, and now we’ve got no home.” His face calmed a little. “But one good thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Homeland isn’t all powerful. If we don’t make any more mistakes, maybe we can stay hidden.”

  “Know that.”

  Pel jabbed a finger at him. “Yeah, know that. Come to me any time you sense trouble. Don’t keep it to yourself.”

  “I already figured all that. That’s why I axed you and Kiyoko to help with the Club Elite op. I learned.”

  “Yeah, that was a brilliant bit of work.”

  “So we good, then?”

  Pel nodded. “Still need your help. Nothing’s changed there. And we’ve still got lots of options.”

  “Waylee won’t speak to me.”

  Pel sighed. “Me neither, and I didn’t even do anything. But she’s not just depressed, she’s got some sort of infection. You should stay out of her room.”

  Once Pel had Isadora occupied, Charles moved his Comnet interface up to his bedroom. He navigated to the farm’s central server. He’d already given himself administrator privileges and explored the system.

  He built a list of police and Homeland voice numbers and Comnet addresses, then added news outlets. He created a filter that would block any transmissions to them. A linked script would send him the betrayer’s user name. He executed the scripts. Done!

  Would be good to know where the betrayer was too. He wrote another script that would access the GPS in their comlink and send him its location. And ‘cause the caller or sender would know something was wrong if they couldn’t get through – unless they were dense as a rock – he rewrote the first script to shut down external transmissions altogether until he gave it the word. Password judas_owned. The Bible reference made him miss his gramma and rue the times he busted on her God talk. I’m a better person now I hope.

  He checked the time. 6:15. The GPS script had taken way too long to test and debug. But he’d put the Comnet filter up right away, and no one had tripped it.

  What about before that? He opened the past logs and ran a search for the numbers and addresses he’d blocked. Nothing since they’d arrived. Maybe they could trust these peeps and Pel was just wack. Or maybe not everyone knew about the reward.

  I should see how Kiyoko’s doing. With cybermercs on the prowl, he browsed the Compendia for a new avatar concept. He settled on Touissant, named after François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution and Scourge of Slavery.

  He decided to ignore the grumbling in his stomach and skip dinner. Kiyoko needed a replacement avatar too. As awesome as Steampunk Grrl was, she wasn’t safe anymore. He copied her AI programs to a starter model girl. Kiyoko could change it later and add her own outfits.

  Charles started writing a speech for their next meetup. Then he changed his mind
and deleted it. He’d just be himself.

  24

  January 9

  Baltimore

  Kiyoko

  Kiyoko/Cat Girl clung to her horse as it galloped through the woodland, Touissant following. The good thing about virtual horses is they never got tired.

  Touissant—formerly Iwisa—had brought a replacement for Steampunk Grrl. Beautiful features but bland. As before, Kiyoko switched avatars, leaving any surveillance behind. Once away from Yumekuni, she added silver hair, a Victorian dress, and cat ears. No tail. Ears could fasten to a headband, but a tail smacked of code tampering.

  “Thanks for coming back,” she shouted. “BetterWorld isn’t the same without you.”

  “Nor you,” he shouted back. “Sorry if I seem a little clunky, but I don’t have an immersion suit here, and Touissant’s face is on autopilot.”

  “You’re fine.” BetterWorld had pretty amazing AI.

  They eased their horses to a trot, leagues from the bullet capsule stop. Touissant sidled his horse next to hers and spoke in a normal voice. “You heard about the bounty?”

  “Yes. I don’t know whether to be mad at my sister or proud of her.”

  “You should be proud. She owned the most powerful people in the world.”

  Cat Girl shot a spray of stars from her fingers, a trick Kiyoko learned herself.

  “The thing is,” Touissant said, “she had one of those breakdowns. And it’s my fault.”

  Kiyoko’s muscles tensed. Her immersion suit translated that as a leg squeeze, and her horse accelerated into a gallop. She pulled back the reins and halted it. “Stupid horse.”

  Touissant caught up. “You okay?”

  “What happened to my sister?”

  “’Kay, since this place isn’t monitored, first thing I should say, is…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Charles on the outside.”

  Thanks, Captain Obvious. “I know.”

  He paused for several seconds, his avatar motionless, then he said, “You do?”

  “Well, who else?”

  “I guess it’s pretty obvious,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything.”