His face turned an even brighter shade of red, and the veins stood out on his neck as he stood there, still gripping my wrist like a vise. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. His mouth twisted with my wrist as he sneered at me.
“I’ve got you now, boy” he said, his hand trembling. “SecureCorp will be here any minute.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“You little prick,” he said. He twisted harder, driving me down to my knees. “All the decent, hard-working, successful people in the world that are condemned to early deaths, and you…”
He shook like he was going to explode.
“What about me?” I yelled up at him.
“It’s impossible.” He said — to himself. It was like he was in some kind of trance.
“What?” I said. I thought maybe he was losing it.
He wasn’t even looking at me anymore. He was staring at the floor, or really his belly because I don’t think he could see the floor.
“While my sweet little girl…” He hauled back on my wrist until I thought it would break.
“Where’s Cindy!” I screamed, cringing with pain.
He snapped out of it. “Don’t you defile her memory by saying her name,” he said through half-clenched teeth. His words sprayed at me, like he was foaming at the mouth.
“What do you mean, her memory?” I said. “What happened to her!”
For a second it looked like he was going to faint. He relaxed his grip on my wrist. It was enough. I twisted it out of his hand, jumped back, and started running. He lumbered after me, cornering me in the living room. I grabbed a lamp on an end table. He smiled and pulled a gun out of his pocket.
I threw the lamp at his head. The gun went off, but missed. I jumped behind the couch I’d been sitting on. Two or three more shots went off and holes exploded through the leather back beside me. I crawled to the far end, followed by more exploding holes. There was a big glass sculpture on another end table, hidden behind the base of a potted plant. I reached up and grabbed it. I heard him stomping across the room, heading around the couch to get at me.
I was only going to get one chance. He couldn’t see me right away because of the plant. I got up on my haunches and tensed, ready to jump. As soon as he appeared I sprang past him carrying my glass weapon. He fired, but he wasn’t fast enough. I landed, found my balance, and kicked at his gun hand. He screamed and the gun dropped to the floor. I lifted up the sculpture and brought it down on his head as hard as I could. He crumpled like a dynamited building and lay still. Blood gushed from his scalp, soaking into the plush weave of the carpet.
Sirens blared in the distance. I looked for the gun and realized he was lying on top of it. I couldn’t move his huge bulk. I managed to jam my arm under his folds of fat, and groped for the gun, but couldn’t find it. He was lying face down. I stared down at the bulge in his back pocket. I remembered I had no wallet — they still had it at the hospital. I worked the wallet out and opened it. Only a couple of dollars.
I checked through his cards. I was in a panic but I needed his fingers to deactivate the security on them. I found a MoneyAll card and pressed his thumb and forefinger against it, and it fired up, showing two thousand dollars in ‘Unsecured Cash’. The blare of the sirens was getting closer.
The thought surfaced: ‘It’s impossible’ — what was he talking about? And how did he know?
I shuffled through the other cards and found one that was totally black. I pressed his thumb and finger on it and it. An image swirled into life — a logo — a butterfly, like the one on Chuck’s smock, with the letters ‘VA’. I stared at it, trying to figure out what it was. The letters were familiar. I’d seen them before. Suddenly a lens appeared in the right-hand corner and a tiny picture of my face appeared under it.
Shit, I thought. A camera.
I let go of his fingers, but the card stayed on, with my picture locked on it. I couldn’t leave it here. I shoved it and the MoneyAll card in my bag, stuffed the wallet back in his pocket, and took off. By this time the sirens were right outside the house.
I ran to the front door and grabbed my board. Just as I got there a car screeched into the driveway. I ran for the back. I’d been to the place before so I knew there was a back door, but I’d never been inside. It took a few precious seconds navigating through all the rooms for me to find it.
My hands shook as I fiddled with the lock. It finally clicked open. I flung the door open, flew down the back pathway and into the night.
CHAPTER 13
Getting Money
My first priority was to get out of the Corp Ring. Back in the Quarters there was a lot less SecureCorp presence. I’d be dead if I stayed here. It was like some death-race version of Cam-surfing. Even just playing I’d managed to avoid the cameras for a half-hour at a time, and that was when my life wasn’t on the line. I had a lot more incentive now.
Just as I crossed over into the Quarters, Richie’s avatar came up on my HUD. I was confused. I figured SecureCorp could fake stuff like that.
Then some text came up. The Stump Factory — 20 minutes.
Since he mentioned the Stump Factory, I knew it had to be Richie. That was the Lost Souls’ code for one of our meeting places, an old abandoned prosthetic warehouse not far from our apartment. I thought about my dad… No — put it out of your mind. Only a handful of my friends knew about the place. Unless one of them had ratted on me…
I had to take a chance.
“Don’t let them see you,” I texted back.
☼
“Tintown’s crawling with SecureCorp,” Richie said, when he showed up at our meeting place near the warehouse. “I’m not sure whether they’re looking for you or they’re here for some other reason.”
“Sure you weren’t followed?” I said.
“You know me better than that,” he smiled. “I felt bad about not helping you before,” he said, looking at his feet.
I told him what happened with Cindy’s dad. I didn’t mention that I might have killed the guy.
“What about Cindy?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
We snuck past a couple of cameras and through a gap we’d set up ages ago. We headed for a space inside where the crew used to meet.
“A friend of my mother’s negged out real bad,” Richie said as we moved. “I think she was like a point six or something. Both her parents were one-point-fours. She ended up dying of old age before either of them did.”
“I wish they’d never invented that shit,” I said. “It’s against God’s laws or something.”
“I’ll put you up,” Richie offered when we finally got there. “I’ll hide you somewhere—”
“No,” I said. “You were right the first time. Two people already died trying to help me. I don’t want another one on my conscience.”
“Then what—”
“I need a place to lay low for a while, someplace way off the grid.”
Richie looked at the ground, thinking.
“We found a—”
“It can’t be a place any of you guys know about,” I interrupted him. “They might try to get to me through you. There’s nothing you can do — don’t worry — I’ll find something. I gotta figure out what’s going on. I need a crypted phone. You said you knew a guy—”
“I know a guy,” Richie answered, “but he’s an asshole.”
I shrugged at him. “Not like I’ve got a choice. Problem is, I’ve got no money.”
“I can help you with that,” Richie said. “I haven’t got much, but you can take it — I’ll go get it.”
“Too dangerous. They’ll know we hang out. If they’re not watching you already they will be soon. Anyway, I got a way to get money. Then I’ll work something out with your guy.”
“Don’t call him my guy. He’s no buddy of mine. You sure you want to deal with him?”
I nodded. He contacted the guy and arranged a meeting place.
“Thanks,” I said. “I o
we you.”
“Keep me in the loop — somehow,” he said.
☼
It was rare to find a working streetlight in Tintown, but I guess the MoneyAll machines rated special treatment. The glow shone down like a halo on the machine I’d picked out for my attempt at getting some cash. Just finding one was hard enough. Nobody used cash anymore; just the act of trying to get some would probably raise a red flag somewhere. Hardly anybody in the Quarters even had a bank account. I hid in the recess between two buildings, checking it out.
The machine had two features that might allow me to use it without getting caught. First, it was in a location I knew really well — one I’d Cam-surfed lots of times and could escape from at top speed. Second, it was within running distance of a hiding place. One not so close that SecureCorp could set up a dragnet around it, but close enough that I could get there (or at least get out of sight) before they got to the machine.
The little square in front of me was deserted. There were cameras, but no more than usual. Of course, there’d be a camera on the machine itself, so they’d know it was me when I actually used it. There was no way I could avoid giving myself away. My only hope was that I could get the hell out of there before they could catch up.
Of course, the card would have a PIN number. Cindy had stolen it once or twice, without her dad knowing. I knew what the PIN was. All I could do was pray that her father hadn’t changed it.
I didn’t doubt that they could even stop the machine from giving me money — it all depended on how fast they figured out it was me at the machine, and that I had Cindy’s dad’s MoneyAll card. I’d been smart enough to put his wallet back, so it might take them a while to work it out. Anyway, the longer I waited the more likely it was that they’d block access.
I took a deep breath and took one last sweep around. Nothing. I snuck as close as I could, and tried to see where the camera (or cameras?) would be. I couldn’t tell, but you could bet they’ll make it next to impossible to use the machine without them seeing you.
I considered pulling the bandanna I had around my neck up around my face, but decided against it. As soon as they saw somebody trying to hide their appearance they’d have a swarm of drones dive-bombing me. At least without it the facial recognition software would take a few seconds, especially if I could angle my face to make it harder to recognize. I approached from the side, and mentally rehearsed what I was going to do when I got there. My plan was to jump in front of the machine, stick in the card, enter the PIN, extract the cash, and take off.
My heart was hammering in my chest as I leapt out with the card in my hand. I shoved it in the slot. I could imagine all the monitors in some SecureCorp bunker lighting up with my picture. My hands shook as I entered the PIN in a panic. Success! I went for the full amount: two thousand dollars cash. Lights started flashing around the top of the machine.
The display said: ‘Four Hundred Dollar Limit’.
“Shit!” I said under my breath.
I confirmed the four hundred. I’d already been here too long. I stared at the slot waiting for the money. There was a whirring sound and a stack of twenty twenty-dollar bills seemed to take forever popping into the tray one by one. I waited for the card. Nothing. My hands were shaking. It was taking too long. They were screwing with me.
It finally popped out. I grabbed it and turned to run. I glanced back just as a picture came up on the screen. A guy in a SecureCorp uniform.
“Remain where you are,” the guy in the picture said. “You cannot escape. A car will arrive shortly.”
Yeah, right, I thought, as I made a bee-line for the nearest shadows. I’ll just wait here like a moron.
“Remain where you are,” the voice echoed off the walls of the alley, “you cannot escape.”
I was so scared, at first I didn’t even pay attention to the cameras. Then I calmed myself down and went into Cam-surfing mode.
☼
I’d only gone a few blocks when a faint hum approached from the south. I checked the warning light in my HUD. It was still green — I hadn’t triggered any cameras. Seconds later a swarm of drones screamed around the corner and started circling my head.
I batted at them and got a couple, but there must have been a hundred. I’d never seen that many in one place before. Sirens started blaring in the distance, getting closer. All the drones had cameras and GPS; I had to lose them or I was screwed.
I took off, with the swarm tearing after me. I didn’t have time to get to the hiding place I’d planned on. As I ran, I scanned around for a building with an open door. I finally spotted what looked like an old factory, now all boarded up. I headed for one of the doorways that had a couple of the boards torn off. As I reached it, a feathered dart embedded itself in a board beside me — a tranquilizer — some of these things were armed.
One board blocked me getting through. I yanked on it, the drones dive-bombing me and the sirens getting louder. The board finally came free. I used it to bash at some of the closest drones. I got five or ten, but there was still lots left.
I squeezed through the hole. A bunch of drones flew in after me before I could jam the board back in place. Some of the original boards were still lying around; I used them to plug every hole I could find. As I worked I could hear the swarm hammering against the outside walls like some kind of freaky hailstorm.
The ones inside were hovering around me. I found another loose board and smashed at them until they were all dead. Suddenly I thought about the MoneyAll card. I fished it out of my pack. A tiny red light blinked in one corner. A locator — no wonder they found me. It must have been triggered when I accessed the bank machine. I didn’t want to destroy the card, I might still need it. And I couldn’t disable the locator without the old man’s finger.
From the gears, lengths of tubing, and chunks of metal strewn around the floor, the place must be an old appliance factory. I used our standard trick for disabling cards with locators. I found a scrap of thin metal sheeting, managed to break a piece off, and folded it around the card. It would be a pain to carry, but the metal would shield the signal until I could come up with something better.
I remembered the other card, the black one with the camera. It had turned black again, and I couldn’t see any sign of a locator. I stuffed it, along with the one I stole from SecureCorp before, inside my makeshift shield just in case. I’m not sure why I was keeping them. I guess I didn’t want to toss anything I might be able to use later. I tied my bandanna around the shield so the cards wouldn’t fall out.
Then I ran. Outside, in the distance, sirens rounded the building and gathered at the point where I’d escaped the drones. I headed for the corner farthest away and hunted for a way out. I heard the drones had some kind of smell sense like a dog, too, but so far no more seemed to have made it inside. I found a broken window, climbed out, and took off.
CHAPTER 14
The Crypted Phone
“No money, no gizmo,” Richie’s contact, a guy named ‘Fatso’, said.
He’d been showing me a crypted phone in an alcove in the darkest corner of another underground parkade on the outermost edge of the Quarters. The yellow light from the display on his comm-glasses danced over his forehead as he leaned against the rusted-out hulk of a vehicle. I didn’t want to mention the four hundred dollars until I knew what to expect from him.
Fatso’s appearance was totally at odds with his name. Skinny and emaciated, his withered, spider-like limbs were so thin that he wore a mechanical exoskeleton to hold himself up. It was a flashy one too, a carbon-filament job that must have cost a fortune. I’d seen his condition before. It was yet another of the wonderful side-effects of the Appraisal that happened one in every couple of million cases. Because of his condition his HUD didn’t work properly — hence the comm-glasses. There was only one way somebody like him could get enough money to get their hands on gear like that — by screwing over people like me.
It occurred to me that I was going to be spending a lot of
time with guys like Fatso, now that I was a fugitive. In the Lost Souls we knew a few tricks; these guys knew a lot more: how to get around without being seen, ways of encrypting and scrambling net accesses so that the broadcast’s location couldn’t be determined. They also knew a lot about helping themselves to stuff that belonged to other people.
But I needed the phone. To find out what was going on, I had to hook up to the deep net, and there was no legal way to do that without the connection being monitored and, eventually, my ID and location given away. But like everybody, Fatso was only interested in money.
“I’ve got a MoneyAll card,” I said.
“Is it yours?”
I looked at the ground.
“If it’s hot, it’s worse than nothin’.”
He stuffed the phone in the pocket of his coat and turned to leave.
“Wait,” I finally said. “I’ve got cash.”
He turned back. “How much?”
“Four hundred.”
He stared at me, probably trying to decide whether he could jump me and take it. It looked like he decided against that.
Instead he just said: “Not enough.”
“How much more do I need?”
“Four hundred might do for a down-payment,” he laughed, as he turned away again.
“It’s an emergency,” I said to his back.
“Not for me,” he said over his shoulder as he strolled toward the exit, the joints of his exoskeleton clicking faintly as he moved.
“Look, I’ll sign an IOU or something,” I called after him. “I gotta figure out what’s going on. They’re saying I’m dead.”
Fatso stopped in mid-step. He turned back to face me.
“You’re dead?” he said.
I nodded.
I took a step toward him. “I know we’re not friends or nothin’, but it took a lot for me to escape. Two people died trying to help me. I don’t—”
Vita Aeterna Page 7