“No reaction.” Firenze pulled out a datacard, another junk data string, and tapped the sphere.
The entire body rippled, formed tiny spines, then settled.
“It likes me. Why?” Firenze asked. A thought struck him, a creeping sensation in his spine. “Lauren, I want you to pull up a record of a probe test that I ran for Professor Singh.”
“That test was a standard test, without the benefits of a hard jack. It will be insufficient.”
“I know. Run it.”
A ghostly form of Firenze appeared, inserted the key into the sphere. Nothing happened.
“Give me the same test. Load my active probe.” The key appeared in his hand, and Firenze stepped closer to the sphere. The surface rippled away from his approach, quivered as he closed, anticipating. Oh, sweet mother of God. “You reading this?” He asked.
“Yes.” She stated. She grabbed his shoulder. Another tic. “Why would Zeta make a lock that requires a hardjack? Hard jacks are rare. Usually illegal. Zeta is a government contractor. This action is illogical.”
The sphere glowed brighter, the chiming returned. Firenze stared up at it, the key extended. He answered her question, but his mind was already locked onto the globe. “You know they have toys they don't share.” He pressed the key into the sphere, and the silver splashed over his gloved hand. A data spike appeared in his code view. “It appears to change code when I attempt to interact. I think I'll need to establish an actual direct link to get at anything real.”
“That will open us up to a trace.”
“I'll need you to keep the link scrambled.”
The mask asked, “This does not seem advisable-
“I know, I know, but we're only going to get one crack before the trace is run.” He turned back to her, the light shining over his shoulders, casting over him. In the swirling light, she almost looked scared. “Can it be done?”
She stepped towards him, into the light, “Absolutely. I'll need a full integration to do this. Are you ready?”
“Yes.” He replied, and turned back to the globe, to the singing blaze.
Gently, she stepped behind him, feet outside his, hands laced over his. He could feel the slight heat, smell the faint scent of perfume. Her fingers entwined his own. There was pressure against his back-
His world erupted. His senses became more. He could feel the blood in his veins, he could see the pulse of the code. The assist box kicked into high gear, the powerful processors syncing to his will. He was the net. He was the code. A thought, and the program wrote itself. A whim, and it executed. He could see himself, slumped on the couch. He could see himself, standing before the sphere. He could see the mask, code written to complement his mental patterns. He could see the mask, as real as he was, here.
He reached forward, touched the sphere, and it reacted.
Access codes flashed before him, security gates, passcodes. Encryption spun away, tumblers clunked into place. A program opened the first lock, another the second. The third needed improvising, and he had the tools in hand, the vision. The first program morphed, adapted, trimmed. The last gate parted, and access was at hand.
The sphere was hosted in the African Hub, in a Zeta vault. He could see the source. He could see the building from high above, through glass eyes floating in orbit. He could see the server from a security camera. He could see himself, in the room, on the couch. He could see himself, in running code and electronic mapping.
This is why the hard jack is illegal. Not because it is bad, but because it is good. It might be God. He wasn't programming, not anymore. He wasn't acting on the world. He was conducting a symphony of thought. He motioned, and the ocean crashed, a wall of pure, brilliant math that rolled through the defenses. The sphere opened, and he reached in, and the ocean followed. He was on the tides now, the AI riding his brain like a boat. All he could do was point, was intend, and the assist would take over and actualize.
The sphere crashed down on him, locking him. A hundred ICE measures turned to him, sharks in the sea, hunting. The ground thickened beneath him, tried to lock his location. Block. Shield. Counter-seeker. He unleashed spoofers, programs that ran through systems like an intruder, to draw down the sharks.
He stood in water that burned. Beneath the surface, there was a small crystal. That is the heart. That is the data. The water blackened his skin, peeled away the flesh. In the torrent, he knew. Burner virus. Attacks a hard jack in the gray matter. Cooks the brain, highly illegal. He couldn't pull away, he was too close.
On a couch, in some far off world, a young man began to twitch. It was not important.
He reached down. He was hollower now, a little less that he had been a moment ago. He kept reaching. Other hands reached with him, around him, shielding him from the burn. A false personality mask burned away. Another. A dozen imaginary hard jacks snapped, a dozen imaginary people died, and the burner virus would retreat, announcing success, only to find that it had been fooled, and return to the hunt.
He had it. The crystal fell apart in his hands, entered his conscious. He snapped back from the server, back from the sphere.
He was no longer in orbit, no longer in cameras. He was just here, in this room, and in one other, on a couch.
He staggered, gasped in for breath in both worlds. His mind was like rubber, his vision doubled. He felt the expanse fade, bliss and perfection receded. He laughed, triumphant, as he lay on the ground.
The mask next to him flickered, separated from him, like a ghost stepping out of another body. She grabbed him, pulled him to his virtual feet, tried to stabilize him. She was asking him questions, but the ringing in his mind made them impossible to decipher.
On the couch, small diagnostics ran, assessing the body for damage, determined if the hospital should be called. Satisfied with the results, the scan terminated.
He could hear again, see her check his systems. He spoke, his voice clearing, “I'm fine. I'm fine.”
She gave his shoulder one last squeeze. “I am functional as well. We did it!”
“Yeah, we did.” He opened his hand, revealed the crystalline file.
She nodded, perhaps betraying a tic. “Would you like me to call kendrix?”
“Yeah, give him a ring. Tell him I got it.” Firenze shivered, the energy still crackling through him.
She vanished, and kendrix appeared. The nervous man was more shaky than usual, tipped his glasses to Firenze as he ran scans. After a moment, he demanded, “You got it? You okay, I mean? You're pretty- uh... banged up.”
Firenze flickered in and out of the safe room, his avatar glitching. “Yeah, I'm fine. Give me a minute.” He grinned broadly, still crackling from the rush. “Never get over that, man. Never do.”
kendrix eyed him, quizzical, “You ran a full integration, didn't you? Let the damn computer brain fuck you.” He glanced to the file. “You got it done, give you that.” He paused, composed himself for a minute. “Man, you need to be careful. Pull this too much, you'll cook your damn kidneys. I knew a guy who ended up eating through a straw. That's why I don't run full integration. Or let a mask go more than a year. It gets squicky.”
Firenze brushed the concerns aside. “I'm fine. You want to see what's in here?”
kendrix flexed his hands together, greedy, and pulled out a scanner. He raised it, moving the wand over the crystal. “Definitely not mundane.” He adjusted his glasses, moved the wand again. “Now that's-” He froze, staring at Firenze in horror.
“What, what?” Firenze demanded.
“It's a goddamn tracker!”
Firenze moved instinctively, pulling down cleaner programs, dropped the crystal into a burn safe, blasted the data into oblivion. He closed the room, cut external communications, raised every flag and barrier he had in his arsenal. The room became a fortress. But kendrix was still there, not cut clean. The other man backed away, terror dawning on his face. He demanded, “Was there anything in there? Anything?”
“No! Just this, and a damn burner!�
��
“Cause that's a god damn tracker. Loaded right into your wetware! Forget this place, your goddamn brain is transmitting! Probably right through everything you own! Holy shit, it was just a tracker?” kendrix spun open an escape hatch. “Shit. I'm sorry, man.”
It required a hard jack. A honey trap for the curious, to bait them in. “But why!” Firenze demanded. “Why?”
“I've gotta go! I’m sorry!” kendrix cut out, vanishing.
Firenze tried to disconnect. The fortress flickered, became something else. It flickered again.
He was back in the safe room, staring at the silver sun. Impossible. This is erased.
It's in your wetware, kendrix said.
It's in my mind.
He tried to make a door. Nothing. He triggered a reset. Nothing. The walls began to melt, to turn silver, like the sphere.
Oh shit. Oh shit.
“Lauren!” He called for the mask. “I need an assist, now!”
There was no answer. He tried to check his own vitals. No response. Oh shit, I'm gonna die in the damn net. I've heard stories about this. Ghosts in the hardware. Oh shit. Oh shit.
The walls flowed into each other, and he was knocked to the ground. The silver was on his hands, on his legs, flowing up over him. He tried to pull free. He forgot to code. He forgot to intend. His movements were real, the thrashing of a drowning man. The sphere shrank. Smaller, smaller. The silver poured into his lungs. It burst from his eyes, torrents of silver. He screamed - digital noise.
There was merciful darkness as his brain shut down.
And his hands were cold.
Rather, they were on something cold. Stone, maybe?
He opened his eyes, and the lights faded, in and out of focus.
He lay on the stone floor, in a room with poor lighting. I single bulb hung, directly overhead. It stank. He stank.
He was alive.
He screamed, screamed as loud and long as he could, with panicked stares towards the treacherous walls. No silver! Please, God, no silver!
The walls stayed real, just four sets of mirrors, showing him, pale, terrified, and disheveled. And a table. A single metal table, bolted to the floor under the glaring light. With two chairs, bolted as well. And one man, seated on the far side.
The man ignored him, and sipped from a white mug. The man was middle aged, with white wings on the sideburns of his dark, receding hair. His suit was black, nondescript, the only color from the golden clip on his tie. On that clip, there was a starburst, and the eagle of the Internal Security Agency.
Firenze stared, eyes wide.
The man smiled, slowly, deliberately, like a shark circling prey. He spoke, his words cropped in a coastal accent, “Well now, Mister Firenze, that would seem to be an amazing demonstration of why the hardjack is still restricted. Don't you agree?”
Firenze tried to speak, but his voice failed. He coughed, collapsed to the hard, cold floor. The man did not react.
Firenze tried again, “I... alive?”
“Yeah. For now. We got to you just in time.” The man took another deep drink from his cup.
“Who?” Firenze demanded. He clawed his way onto the chair. He could barely think, barely breathe. Everything hurt. The man made no move to assist. Firenze gasped, “Who are you?”
“Now, that is a good question.” The man leaned into the light, revealed the deep crags on his face, worn leather and old battles etched to the rims of his cold eyes. “I am the Agency, and I'm here to shit in your apple pie.” A dossier, two inches thick, slammed onto the desk. “Some people like to make everything all high-tech, but me, I think paper lands better. More gravitas.”
“Wha-”
“You're in a bad situation, Mister Firenze. You broke into a secure government installation and stole state secrets. Looking at the charges here-” he spun the heavy book to show Firenze, “it appears that you've committed all sorts of crimes, starting with possession of illicit hardware, and ending with... oh, my.” The man’s finger hovered over a final charge, and he gasped, in mock horror, “That’s treason.”
Firenze stared at the book, numb. Pictures, transmission logs, phone calls. Everything he'd done to aid kendrix, presented in perfect detail. And the site he'd broken wasn’t some Zeta data hub. Terran Provisional Authority High Energy and Quantum Event Research Facility, Arclight. Oh, fuck me.
“Do you know what the penalty for treason is?”
Firenze stared.
“Hanging. They tie a rope-” The man moved suddenly, flipped the table aside. He held a length of thick rope, wrapped it around Firenze’s neck, and pulled him back, over the chair. “-around your throat!”
He couldn't breath.
He grabbed for the rope, but it was too tight.
He was dying. Just like in silver.
The agency man growled, “They drop you! But it's not strangulation that kills you!”
The chair was kicked out from under him, and he crashed down, against the pull. His head jerked, his neck threatening to snap.
The man snarled, “It's the broken neck. But if that doesn't work, you'll spin there for a few minutes, waiting to die.” The room darkened. He hung there, a boot on his back, and a rope around his neck. It burned, from the coarse fiber, to the starving walls of his lungs. “And if you don't die, Mister Firenze, then we'll drop you again! And again! The only question left for your pathetic existence is, 'was it worth it?'. Tell me, boy! Was it worth it?”
The rope went slack, and he slammed into the floor.
Darkness again.
When his eyes opened, the man was sat there, drinking his coffee, as if nothing had happened. Firenze should have been angry, should have argued about his rights. Instead, he shook, held his knees. He rocked, tears running down his face.
The Agency man placed down his coffee, chided, “Oh, come on, kid. Sit up, it's not like I'm going to choke you.”
“You just- you-”
“Did I? What did I do? You've been unconscious since you came in.” He drank again. “Come on, have a seat. You have some serious charges against you.”
“T-treason.”
“Treason?” The man exclaimed, sounding shocked. “Well, that's pretty serious. I think it depends how we view this. Maybe you were an unwitting pawn in some greater game, and you just took the fall for it. If that's the case, then presenting evidence might buy a reduced charge of Conspiracy for Seditious Acts, and that's just life in prison without parole.”
Firenze sat, shaking. Was that real? “What do I-”
“Need to do? Simply cooperate fully. Of course, a young man like you, you wouldn't last long in prison. Especially when they find out about your 'relations' with your mask. Now that, young man, is seriously sick. And do you know how they deal with people like you in prison?”
“N-no.”
“Well, in the shower, some bull is going to bend you over, and fuck you so hard, he'll give you pink slop. You know what that is? It’s pretty nasty. Docs see it a lot, on guys like you. You see, the sphincter’s elastic,” the Agency man made a gesture, like he was pulling apart a donut, “but… with enough force, it snaps. Your guts fall out your ass, kid. It’s a real shit way to go.”
“What do-”
“And the funeral would be so tragic. When the guards told your mom that not only did her baby boy die in prison, he died from having his gooey bits fall out his ripped, sodden-”
“What do you want!” Firenze screamed. You sick fuck! “What do you want!”
“There's no need to scream, kid. I'm just telling you what will happen in one scenario. There are alternatives. Perhaps, after you cooperate, you volunteer for civil service. A man with your talents could be of great use to the State. We might even be able to get a waiver for your hardjack.
Firenze said nothing.
“We might even be able to return your assist box before we purge the mask.”
“Done.”
“What, that's it? Just like that?” The man looked a little
surprised. Amused, even.
“Yeah.”
“Now, there's no go-backs. From this day on, you're squeaky clean, or we might 'rediscover' this file. And then,” the man smiled, “I will fuck you so hard that just thinking about it gives you pink slop.”
Firenze nodded. “I get you.”
“Good to hear it. Now, some duty officers are going to stop by and debrief you on this “kendrix”. You will say nothing about me. You will be charged with the minor crime of Receiving Illegal Hardware. You will waive your right to trial and accept civil service as your judgment. You will go to your apartment, directly upon release. There will be a waiting cab. You will be picked up and taken to your new life. You will bring everything you wish, that you can fit in one suitcase.”
Firenze nodded, numbly.
“Welcome to your new life, citizen. You made the right choice.” The door slammed shut behind the Agent.
#
He was stuck inside a bell, inside a tornado, the entire world consumed by incessant clanging that blended to a cacophonous drone. With every golden clamor, his neck muscles gave out, and his head fell to the side, like he was sleeping, and the tumult rose higher.
Firenze snapped his head up, tried to push through the pain, through the golden tunnel-
-5.5 kilograms unloaded-
-equal to the armors thickness divided by the cosine of inclination from perpendicular-
-this is my Rifle-
-hair cut, number three razor on the top-
-blast radius of five meters, casualty radius-
The chorus made up the bells' roar, silver voices inside the golden light. They screamed and sang to him, numbers that erupted from the dark corners in the back of his mind, and flooded across his vision. He tried to focus on his hand, on the bones moving beneath the skin-
-arm forward, lock the opponent, use your body as a fulcrum-
-I am the shield of the State-
"Quiet!" he screamed.
The light faded back to the edges of his vision, and he was seated in the waiting room inside the old industrial complex, with the ratty wallboards peeling from the plaster within.
The soldier behind the desk stared at him, and he trembled, tried to remember if he'd made a sound or not. It had been so loud.
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