“And that’s really all I can say right now,” Seito said, ending his frantic speech. After this barely-coherent explanation, he abruptly stopped talking, distracted with something off-camera for a few minutes.
Unable to handle the suspense any longer, Sabrina said, “So what was going on in Dallas? Why did we have to leave so fast?”
“Hm?” Seito looked up; because of the angle at which the tablet was propped up on the center console his eyes appeared to meet hers, briefly. “Not just Dallas,” he said. “Here, New York, Chicago, even Houston. Everywhere. It’s the riots…more of an assault actually. All those millions of suspended employees are angry at Silte; some of them decided to band together. It only took a few guys from the movement to turn them into armies. Not like the protests a couple weeks ago—that was nothing. These guys are really pissed; they’re armed, and they’re going to fight.”
“The movement is involved?” Jason asked.
“It’s Anti-Corp and PAC leading them. The smaller factions are choosing sides or staying out. The one here is PAC, which is why I’m laying low. Dallas is AC, but it’s the biggest one—obviously, since Silte headquarters is there. If you hadn’t gotten out right away you might have been stuck for a very long time. Maybe even killed.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this shit was going on?” Jason looked as alarmed as Sabrina felt. They had seen the laid-off masses lining streets with anti-Silte signs in some of the larger cities they passed through, but nothing had indicated massive, organized riots.
“I didn’t know,” Seito shot back in irritation. Clearly he had not been sleeping much; the weariness showed in his face and his mood. “I only found out an hour ago. I called you right after. They said there might be bombs.”
“Bombs?” Turning in her seat and straining against the seatbelt, Sabrina looked back at the fading Dallas skyline, as if she would be able to see the imminent discord and chaos. “And what about when we get to Houston—and everywhere in between?”
“Just get there,” Seito said. “That’s all I can tell you.”
“Well, thank you, Seito,” Sabrina said, trying hard to use her most un-detective-like tone. “For the warning. And all your help.”
“Thanks, Sei-kai,” Jason added.
“Yeah,” Seito said gloomily. In that moment, his exhaustion seemed to fall upon him all at once, pulling his face downward into a half-shadowed state. “I’ll be in touch.” The vid-call ended, leaving a black screen in its wake.
A car came up on them fast and zoomed by down the highway. Running away? Sabrina wondered. Maybe they had also been tipped off. But did they know that they might be heading into more of the same? Central Texas was highly concentrated with Silte-controlled ventures, which meant a relatively high number of their employees, recently laid off and turning to violence in their frustration. Many of them would have made their way up to Dallas to join the big fight, but on the other hand she and Jason could be driving into waves of destruction.
Not to mention, they could both attract the very wrong kind of attention. It was a highly paranoid line of thinking, but if the protesters somehow figured out that she was a Guardian officer, or if someone from the PAC faction knew Jason had ties to their enemies, things could get bad. She knew firsthand what kind of terrifying information-gathering technology the GPA possessed, and she had no doubt these hacker groups had their own fearsome version that would easily be able to pick either of them out of a crowd. All it took was one angry rioter using a facial-recognition app at the right moment while they were stopped at a charging station, and then their number of pursuers multiplied.
That was a situation that they must avoid. Anyway, it made no sense to go in blindly at this point; in fact, her experience as an officer would not allow such irrationality. She grabbed Jason’s tablet, opened the television app, and found the live stream for ONN, the 24-hour news channel. Immediately, she saw aerial shots of thousands of people marching down a street, waving flags and long, slender objects in the air.
“Mainstream media?” Jason said derisively. “We might as well enjoy the quiet. It’s all lies.”
“Yeah,” Sabrina said. “But lies are better than nothing.”
13
“One more case for you to review today, Mr. Torres.”
“Thank you, Elle.” His virtual secretary disappeared and a case profile popped up. Mike stared at the middle-aged man named Lorne Adelson on his desk screen. The man was Silte’s appointed Lab Director at OpenLife Biomedical, a research facility just up the highway in North Dallas. Mike guessed this was going to be a long one; it wasn’t just some CEO having second thoughts—this was much worse. A trusted Silte Corp agent showing disloyalty was on par with high treason.
The recently-promoted administrators had begun their new task of identifying and examining cases of potential problems in the Silte hierarchy a few days ago, but Mike had just started getting completed cases for review and approval yesterday. He had been shocked by some of the information his team had dug up. There were scores of senior employees who were either regularly talking to known activists or were openly sympathizing with the movement. The CEO of some smalltime Silicon Valley tech company had recently held a secret board meeting and soon after expelled the Silte representatives at their office. There were even several executives suspected of directly funding the Anti-Corp. None of these, though, were as serious a slight against Silte as the betrayal of one of its own trusted employees, someone whose job it was to make sure things at the other companies ran the way Silte wanted them to. This would be a long one.
So much for leaving early. He grimaced as he massaged his eyes.
“Would you like me to help you?” Elle asked, detecting his weariness.
“Yes, thank you.” Mike would be grateful for the reprieve. “First, why is Adelson up for removal?”
“Lorne Adelson is designated for removal from his current position and relocation within the Silte Corporation family for aiding through inaction a top-level enemy of Silte Corporation then failing to report this encounter with the enemy, resulting in the theft of invaluable company assets and endangering its corporate infrastructure.”
“Who is this…enemy?” Mike still didn’t like to use that word. It made the whole thing sound like a war, and that terrified him.
“Dellia Thomas,” Elle said. A basic profile showing a pretty, dark-haired young woman came on his screen. “Former researcher at OpenLife Biomedical, now listed as the number one threat to Silte Corporation and Guardian Police Association.”
“And Adelson willingly aided her?”
“I’m sorry,” Elle said, her usually bright face showing concern (one of the few human emotions artificial personalities got right). “Please modify your question, Mr. Torres.”
“Hmm.” Mike thought for a moment. “Do we have evidence that Adelson knew he was aiding an enemy rather than simply neglecting to carry out his orders?”
“Lorne Adelson aided the enemy through inaction,” Elle said. “I can’t say anything more based on the report.”
“Dammit.” Mike was tired of reports lacking the information he wanted. Based on the alarmingly precise and intimate knowledge his company had gathered about almost every enemy or threat, there was no good reason he shouldn’t be getting the answers he needed. He made a mental note to address this incompetence during the next team meeting.
“I am sorry for upsetting you, Mr. Torres.”
“No, it’s not you,” Mike assured her, before realizing how strange it was to be concerned about the feelings of an artificial personality. Choosing a different tactic, he thought carefully about how to word his next line of questioning. “Was Dellia Thomas an enemy before this incident at OpenLife occurred?”
“Dellia Thomas was never listed as a suspicious or disloyal employee,” Elle said. “She did not become an enemy of Silte Corporation until after her theft at OpenLife Biomedical.”
At last, Mike got the answer he was looking for. “So,” he said, a
bsently reaching for the glass decanter of single malt scotch he had recently taken to keeping on the table behind his desk. “Neither Adelson nor Silte had any reason to suspect Miss Thomas before this event. We have no evidence that Adelson was helping her in any way. I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to punish someone so severely for a lapse in judgment.” He poured out a glass, took a sip. “Does he have any past infractions?”
“No, Mr. Torres.”
“Good employee record?”
“Yes, Mr. Torres.”
The empty glass clunked on the desk as Mike put it down. “Then there’s no reason to get rid of him. Send this one back. Lorne Adelson keeps his job for now.”
“Yes, Mr. Torres.”
As he poured himself one more glass of scotch, he wondered if he had just made a mistake. Perhaps he had been too eager to finally let one get off; it had been wearying work, sending so many top-level employees to reassignment. Mike had suspected from the beginning that Silvan or Monika Leutz or someone was using this as a way to get rid of people they didn’t like; the cases were built so strongly there was no investigation or evaluation needed. All Mike and the others were doing was reading reports and sending them on. But this case was different: Mike had found a sound logical reason to let Adelson go free. Now he just had to wait and see if anyone objected.
He didn’t wait long.
“Mike,” Leutz called from across his office.
“Shit,” Mike hissed. She had startled him so badly that he’d spilled the last few sips of scotch all over his desk. He hurriedly grabbed a handful of tissues and sopped the liquor up before it ran into the edge of his desk screen. Why the hell didn’t Elle warn me?
“Please,” Leutz said as she took a seat across the desk, “don’t get up.”
“Sorry, you surprised me.”
“Well, Mike, I could say the same about you.” She eyed him sharply, her eyes focused on him rather than the display on her glasses for once. “Why didn’t you approve the Adelson case?”
There was no more doubt: Mike was never supposed to let any of them go. This was just an elaborate way of cleaning up what remained of Silte’s hierarchy. The administrators, the reports—none of it mattered. “There was no evidence,” he said bravely. “Absolutely nothing in the report proved that Adelson had any idea what he was doing. We can get rid of people who might hurt the company, but we can’t remove model employees just for making mistakes. The ones we fired for no reason are already rioting.”
“I know,” Leutz said. “And you did exactly what we wanted, though not what I expected. Just now you proved to me that you’re not like these other drones in the building. I could piss into a wine glass and every single one would praise the vintage. But not you. You think and act for yourself. You haven’t gone through the change yet, probably never will now that Unify is in motion.”
She slid her data ring off her finger and held it up on the side of her smart glasses. “The truth is,” she said, “Lorne Adelson is an Anti-Corp agent. Many of the other cases are as well. We haven’t told anyone about this because we believe there may be agents or sympathizers in this very building and we need to keep them from getting scared into hiding.” She brought the ring down and held it over the input strip on Mike’s desk.
“The Anti-Corp is here?” Mike had a hard time believing that. Even that some of the high-ranking members of the Silte family were involved in the activist group was hard to accept.
“Yes, it’s become a bit of a clusterfuck, if I may be blunt. Something we didn’t completely prepare for. But that’s okay, we have you with us now. Lom.”
“Yes, Monika?” The head of an older man with fluorescent white hair popped up in a virtual secretary window next to Elle’s on Mike’s desk screen.
“Mike,” said Leutz, “this is Lom, my own secretary. He’ll be working with you from now on.”
“Doing what?” Mike asked.
“What we wanted you to do from the beginning,” Leutz said, now preoccupied with something on the lenses of her glasses. “Find out who is working with the activists and what damage they’ve done. Carl Bellowe is your lead, but Lom will fill you in on that. I’m very busy right now.” She stood up.
“You want me to spy on my coworkers? On Bellowe?”
“We want you to do what needs to be done, Mike.” Her expression was serious, and she sounded almost exasperated. “We’re running out of options. You’re the only one who can do this. We need you.”
This was something new, and Mike wasn’t sure he liked it. Was it Fear? Vulnerability? The indestructible diamond wall was showing cracks; for the first time, Mike wondered if he was on the right side.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”
“Good,” Leutz said. “Lom will give you access to much of the information you have so far not been privy to. But first you’ll approve that Adelson report so we can get him relocated.”
Suddenly wanting to solve the biggest mystery of the past week, Mike asked, “Where are we sending these people.”
“The Houston Warehouse,” Leutz answered languidly.
“And what happens to them there?”
“Well, Mike.” She uncharacteristically leaned over his desk, making Mike uncomfortably aware that she had left her top few buttons undone. “That’s something I still can’t give you access to.”
Mike watched her go until his office door closed behind her.
14
They didn’t see any signs of the violence from the road, but they saw the news reports. Shots had been exchanged with private police in Dallas and Brooklyn. L.A. and San Diego were warzones—or so they surmised based on a few quick aerial shots, and the fact that the reporters were trying hard to ignore that part of California. They only showed Houston once and it had been strangely quiet. The protesters had shown up beneath the skyscrapers by the thousands, but they weren’t creating chaos just yet. It was as if they were waiting for something, more like a siege than an assault. Will it hold off through the night? Jason wondered. It would make their job much easier.
Sabrina returned from the travel stop bathroom and leaned on the car beside him; she stretched her arms until both her shoulders popped audibly. “Corsicana went by fast.”
“It did,” Jason agreed. The car was charged and ready to go, but Jason didn’t feel like moving just yet. Apparently Sabrina didn’t either. They went on leaning against the car, watching the people going in and out of the store. They had chosen a relatively small town to stop in to avoid any possible confrontation, but it seemed like this travel stop was the one place everyone in the area went to. Watching them go on about their lives was strange and somehow soothing, like being reminded that everything hadn’t gone to shit just yet.
After a few minutes of their ongoing reluctance to acknowledge the flow of time, Sabrina said, “We should probably get back on the road.”
“Yeah, I know. But…” He trailed off when he noticed a faint mumbling sound coming from the car. “You hear that?” Sabrina stepped away from the passenger door, and he opened it and grabbed his tablet from the floor, where it had fallen at some point.
“Finally,” said a voice that sounded like a duck speaking through a web of static and feedback. Jason lifted the tablet facedown from the car and flipped it over to see a smooth, silver-skinned ellipsoid face with tiny black eyes and a misshapen mouth. The vid-call was showing up through a communication app that Jason had never had on his tablet, one that he sometimes saw Seito using when he talked to AC people.
“Joans,” the alien-thing buzzed. “It’s just you and cop, right?” It spoke with a strange accent that didn’t quite seem foreign.
“Yeah.”
“This’ll be quick,” it said. “I’m Skexka, with Anti-Corp. I’m giving you orders from now on. I put our com app on your tab. Use when you need me. I think you designed original.”
“I guess I did.” He looked at the window around the video; it did seem to faintly remind him of
his original creation from years ago he’d been using to talk to Seito. This confirmed his suspicion that Steph had brought the non-E stuff over when she joined the movement. It made him feel a weird sense of pride.
“Great to have you in the ranks,” Skexka said.
“In the ranks?” Sabrina looked at Jason, puzzled.
“I’ll explain later,” Jason said to her. “So, why isn’t Seit—Sei-kai giving me my orders anymore?”
“Reassigned,” Skexka said, his lopsided mouth flopping as he spoke. “And you’re more important now. Wanted you dealing with someone high up. Me.” Sabrina moved over right up against Jason to get a better view; the stale odor of long travel clung to her, just as it did to him. “I have orders,” Skexka continued, “for both of you. Joans, plan for you has changed; you are to drop Sorensen at rendezvous then head to safe location—the extraction point—and await further orders there. You’ll receive directions at rendezvous. Sorensen: nothing changed. We will send exact location for rendezvous when you enter city. Everything clear?”
They both said it was, Jason with an immense feeling of relief. So far he hadn’t had an opportunity to feel afraid about what was coming, being focused on the danger closer to them. But the dread had been growing in him, coming on stronger with every mile that brought them closer to Houston; he wasn’t a cop or a soldier, so how could he possibly help infiltrate a secure prison facility, one probably crawling with armed private police? Now that he knew he wouldn’t have to he could breathe the night air without feeling like it was trying to choke him to death.
“Good,” Skexka said. “I’m out. Be in touch.”
Once the alien face was gone from his tablet, Jason said, “I guess we should get moving.”
Dreams in the Tower Part 2 Page 4