She sighed as she turned toward the door. “That’s K. Sylvey’s a forger. He knows how to escape detection.”
Her next stop was the COM:SAN where she’d first found Sylvey. There, she made friends with the woman in the bodysheet by buying her an hour’s time back at the nearby dremacave. The bodysheet woman told her all about Sylvey’s sandwich preferences, his two favorite jokes, the IB:SLEEPY where he usually spent the night, and even a story about him chasing away another man who’d threatened to cut off her thumb to steal her creds.
“And Sylvey, he’s a nice man,” the bodysheet woman said. She kept glancing at the dremacave door even though the mecha had assured her it wouldn’t start the hour until she was jacked in.
“But where would he go?” Redcholate asked for what felt like the millionth time.
The bodysheet woman shrugged. “I told you everything I know.”
Redcholate rubbed her forehead. “K. Thanks anyway.”
The woman gave a sort of half-wave and disappeared inside the dremacave. Redcholate slouched against the wall. Her low-grade nausea had just upscaled itself to medium-grade, and her head was morting. But standing here doing jero was not going to make her feel any better. She took the moving walkway one stop north. Just like the bodysheet woman had said, an Itinerant Barrack: Sleepytime sat right on the corner. She tried to enter but the door wouldn’t open.
A mecha’s voice appeared in the air near the door: “We do not accept customers until 8:01 pm local time. If you are in need of sustenance, visit the COM:SAN one stop south. Medical attention can be obtained at the clinic across the walkway.”
Redcholate crossed the walkway and inquired in the mecha-doctor clinic for Sylvey. The mecha-doctor denied seeing anyone matching his bifile.
“Well,” Redcholate said, “can you look at my tie-in socket, then? It’s mort.”
But the mecha-doctor could find nothing wrong, with either her body or her socket. So she walked out again. The sun felt too bright and hot, yet she shivered from chills. A sweat broke out on her forehead. She had to find Sylvey, or get another forger. One more hour. That was it. If she couldn’t find him, she’d hire someone else. There had to be one other desperate forger on Bituminous Tarsi.
As soon as she made that decision, her headache lessened and her nausea disappeared. K, then that was the correct choice. But it was creepto that her meatsack was telling her what to do. Maybe she’d obtained a magical power which made her feel sick whenever she was doing something stupo. She smiled for a split milli, but then remembered her tie-in socket wasn’t working. That one piece of intel made her magical power utterly malevo.
“I don’t want you anymore, magical power,” she said. But her headache, though it’d stopped hurting so much, didn’t leave. And her stomach gave a tiny lurch. So it was still there.
But there was no time to worry about that. She had to find Sylvey. Meat or mort.
Meat or mort… Wait, unless he was mort, why would Sylvey leave a dremacave where he had an unlimited account? No reason. That meant he was probs still inside this ‘cave.
But still, she should check around. Just in case he’d needed to transfer to another pod. OS, search all the dremacaves in LoRen. For Sylvey.
This will take an appreciable amount of time.
How long? And use my backstreet prog.
Approximate time to completion is seven minutes. I will update you if the completion time changes more than plus/minus one minute. I will utilize your backstreet program to infiltrate the dremacave client lists.
K.
Redcholate reentered the ‘cave. The mecha said, “Pod?”
“No.” She casually leaned up against the wall. “I’m waiting for the bodysheet woman. She’s due to get off in…” Her OS said, Six minutes, fourteen seconds. “Six minutes, thirteen seconds.”
“Have a seat if you require rest.” The mecha became quiescent.
Redcholate eyed the mecha, then opened an old infiltration prog. It used to require that she jack in, but she’d upgeed it to work over the sphere. In this case, with her dizda’d socket, putting in the noodle grease to make the upgrade made her seem like a supogenius.
Her backstreet prog that her OS was using was good at scooping off surface-level intel. But this prog went much deeper. It allowed her to seep into another prog’s innards. She didn’t like using it, because progs like this were as illegal as anything got on Bituminous Tarsi, and she wasn’t as good at hiding her tracks as a real forger would be. But so far, so smooth.
Using the infiltration prog, she found pod 4487. Supposedly empty, just like the mecha had said. But forgers could do almost anything, including making a mecha think a pod was empty when it wasn’t. Pod 4487 was near the left wall, about two thirds of the way to the back. So she popped open the door of pod 1836, which was the top one in the far right corner.
The mecha zipped toward the right-most aisle, already telescoping its body to be able to reach the top level pods. Redcholate scurried down the left aisle, tracking her progress with a map superimposed on her right eyecube’s vision. There was pod 4487, down at ground-level, which was good because she didn’t have a telescoping option. She squatted and popped the lid.
On a scale of 1 to 100, she was 72% sure she’d find Sylvey’s droopy face in there, with him casually jacked in. But his droopy face wasn’t in there. But neither was there just a reflexive-cushioning pillow and a tie-in jack. No. The pod had a mummified corpse inside.
Redcholate fell back and clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. She looked toward the far back corner. The mecha had already checked on the pod, closed its door, and was now whizzing its way to the front. She popped the lid again. It immediately headed back. The front door opened.
“Hello?” someone called. “I want a pod. Hello?”
“I will be with you momentarily, customer,” said the mecha. It closed the errant pod door and once again zipped toward the front.
Shoulders hunched, even though she was sure no one could see her, Redcholate peered into the pod again. It really was a mummy. Sylvey, presumably. Had the Butcher morted Sylvey for investigating him? If so, Sylvey’s death was her fault. He’d been desperate for a client, and she’d hired him to find the galaxy’s most feared person, and then forced him to hurry. She hadn’t threatened, she’d just bribed him. Well, maybe she’d begged too. So it was her fault. She felt terrible.
Then she peeked into the pod again. Maybe… maybe this wasn’t Sylvey. Maybe there’d been a mistake, and someone else had been locked in this pod for… she checked the mummy’s face… about a hundred years. So she should verify it was Sylvey. Maybe she should take its head so she could extract intel from its cranial embed. Wincing, she reached out for it, but then saw a telltale scorching on the skull’s right side. She peered in and checked the tie-in cord. It was charred. Sylvey’d been caught by the Dark Destro. It’d fried his embed. If this mummy really was him.
But maybe his thumbnail implant was still intact. She could at least extract the mummy’s bifile. She held back a squeal as she reached inside and gripped the right thumb. Closing her eyes, she snapped it off.
She gagged as she stuck the thumb into her bag. “Sorry, Sylvey,” she whispered. Only polite to apologize if one was breaking off a body part of a recent acquaintance.
“Pod?” the mecha asked from the front. The customer answered in an irritated tone.
During the ensuing transaction, she crept toward the front.
I have checked all dremacaves in LoRen and have not found Sylvey. I can expand my search to include the Getho and downtown Alessandro City.
K.
She ducked and peered through the pods toward the front of the room. As long as the mecha didn’t assign the new customer a pod in the left aisle, she was fine. But of course, it did.
“Pod 1212, customer, right this way.” The mecha zipped toward the far left aisle. Right toward where she was crouching.
Using her infiltration prog, Redcholate mo
rted the mecha’s power supply. It stopped. She stood and hurried to the front.
The customer, a tall man with a ponderous chin, kicked the mecha as she rounded the corner. “Thing’s a piece of Vega-7 junk.”
“Don’t kick it again,” she said. “It’ll come back online in a milli. I’ve seen it happen before.”
The man grunted and kicked it again.
“Sorry,” she whispered at the hapless mecha as she passed by. She restarted its power supply.
“Pod?” it said.
“I already paid!” the man shouted. “Pod 1212.”
“Right this way.”
Redcholate stepped out the door and leaned against the front of the ‘cave. She dug the mummified thumb out of her bag and studied it. Members of the constabulary could pull bifiles from corpses, she knew. They could strip eyehook recordings, cranial embed files… whatever they wanted. But she’d never latched that tek. It took real forger skill. Which she didn’t have on tap anymore. Presumably. If this really was Sylvey’s thumb. And any intel he’d gained on the Butcher had died with him.
A terrible, twisting feeling hit her stomach. Cold sweat drenched her shirt. She staggered two steps away from the door and yacked her lumen all over the walkway. Pedestrians exclaimed in disgust and skirted around her.
“Sorry,” she whispered, wiping her mouth. Her braincase was morting worse than ever. Her stupo magical power blew supernovae. “I’ll get the intel,” she told it, “even if I have to search for it myself. Stop making me yack. Or I won’t be able to do anything.”
The pain in her braincase lessened, and her stomach stopped twisting.
Someone pinged her. For a split milli, she hoped against hope that it was Sylvey, that he’d somehow escaped and left a decoy in the pod. But it wasn’t Sylvey. It was the Forger.
Come see me. That was all his ping said.
She puddled onto a bench and did a few mental calcs. Obvs she couldn’t go see the Forger. She didn’t know his real-flesh address, and her socket was still mort. She almost pinged him back to tell him all this, but at the last milli she reconsidered. Wasn’t he the one who’d said he’d never do the job? So what did he want to do, yell at her? She didn’t need any more malevo at the mo.
Still, she didn’t have many other options. And the Forger’d been her employer for three years. Maybe he felt bad that she was in trouble. She snorted. That wasn’t possible. The Forger had jero sympathy.
Tanto, though, had sympathy. He might help her again. Find another forger, or even scoop a little intel himself. So she’d go see Tanto. She winced, expecting her stupo magical power to object. But other than a small lurch in her innards, nothing got worse. Obvs it wasn’t the worst idea she’d ever had.
She blew air out through puffed cheeks and headed down the walkway.
Chapter 12
Variegor
Date: 2412-2413
Painfully bright light flooded the room. Armintor pried open her eyes. Twomanrie stood at the side of the bed, staring at her. She was wearing her agony stick at her hip.
Armintor stared at the stick. Fear froze her to the mattress.
“You should wake up when someone comes into your room.” Twomanrie snapped a shirt against her cheek.
Armintor recoiled.
Again, Twomanrie snapped the shirt against her cheek. “When someone attacks you, either retreat or fight back.”
Armintor scrambled out of the foot of the bed and stood panting, half hunched over. Twomanrie was angry with her. She’d already failed, somehow. She’d be tortured, then sent back to the barrack. Or worse.
But instead of reaching for her agony stick, Twomanrie tossed Armintor the shirt and a pair of loose pants. “Get dressed. Wash your face. Brush your teeth. Two minutes. Meet me out in the main room.”
Armintor scurried out to the main room with a few seconds to spare. Twomanrie’s front room was large, but held only two armchairs and a small table against one wall. The rest of the space was empty. Without preamble Twomanrie assumed what looked like a fighting stance. Armintor gave a little gasp and raised her arms defensively.
Twomanrie raised one eyebrow. “Good. At least you reacted. And yet I am not going to attack. We’re merely practicing our morning exercises. This is an ancient form of martial art. We’ll begin with its very basic forms.”
“What’s it called?”
“Taich.”
For two hours, Twomanrie taught her Taich. Each posture moved into the next with such exacting slowness that at first Armintor was painfully bored, but by the end of their session every muscle in her arms and legs trembled with fatigue.
Finally, Twomanrie’s arms settled at her sides. Armintor let her chin fall to her chest and tried to catch her breath. Right about now, she’d have been a few hours into her shift in the kitchen. Which one was worse, here or there? She didn’t have enough information to decide. Not yet.
Twomanrie eyed her with an inscrutable expression. “Your physical conditioning needs work.”
Armintor tried to swallow in a dry throat. Was Twomanrie’s hand moving toward her agony stick? No, she was just gesturing.
“You have twenty minutes to shower and change.” Twomanrie pointed to a bright alcove. “Breakfast is in there.”
Armintor didn’t know what to do, so she gave a sort of half-bow, then turned and ran into her room. Even with the door closed, she felt the weight of Twomanrie’s evaluative gaze, and the looming menace of her agony stick.
They visited the Alpha library. Armintor kept her gaze on the floor and followed exactly in the footsteps of Twomanrie, this tiny woman who had the absolute power of life and death over her.
They walked into the hushed stacks. Armintor inhaled book dust, a smell she’d never experienced before Variegor. The air of the Alpha library smelled rich, fragrant, rarefied. Twomanrie ran her fingers over the book spines, then plucked a thick volume from the shelves.
“Hold out your arms.” When Armintor obeyed, Twomanrie dropped the heavy volume onto her outstretched arms. “If another Alpha approaches, remember that all these books are for me. Not that they’d expect you to speak a word.”
“A-aren’t they?”
Twomanrie stared at her. “Aren’t they what?”
Armintor shied away from the gaze. It felt heavier than the books. “F-for you?” she stammered. “These books?”
“Of course not. They’re for you.”
A half hour later, Armintor staggered outside behind Twomanrie, carrying a tower of books. Science, mathematics, philosophy, fiction, some obviously never even read before. She spent the afternoon engrossed in a fascinating biography of the inventor of SplitDrive FTL, the motion generator that had opened up the galaxy to human colonization over 350 years ago.
After a mostly silent dinner, Armintor brought the dishes to the galley.
“Load them into the back of the nutrition panel,” said Twomanrie. “They’ll get washed for reuse. You’ll be responsible for loading the raw ingredients into the nutrition panel as well. Delivery arrives weekly. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” She waved her hand with negligent benevolence.
Armintor hid a smug smile by ducking her head. As if anyone—even Twomanrie—could teach her anything about a dishwasher. And as a plaguer, she knew all about nutrition panels, of course. But it went further than that. When Armintor had been a child fascinated with mechas, she’d opened up her family’s nutrition panel to see what was inside, and how it worked.
“I see,” said Twomanrie. Armintor glanced up and saw the Alpha sitting with her head cocked. “From your smug expression, I infer that you investigated the inner workings of your family’s nutrition panel, and know all about it. So you knew how a dishwasher worked before you even came here. Your curiosity is a small clue that I chose wisely.”
Armintor flushed. Not only did Twomanrie seem to be able to read her expression, but she was also using Armintor’s own traits to congratulate herself. Not knowing exactly how she felt about that, she struggled
to make her expression neutral as she placed the dirty utensils in their slot, shut the panel’s rear compartment, and started the wash cycle.
Standing there in the small access area, she suffered an onslaught of memories. Her mother, too busy to eat unless Armintor brought her something. Her father, welcoming her home from school with a snack. Blood rushed into her head and her vision darkened. To chase away the memories, she blurted out the first question she could think of. “Why do Alphas go out to restaurants when you have nutrition panels in your apartments?”
Twomanrie cocked her head. “You’re not much of a people person, are you?”
Armintor turned away, confusion twisting her stomach. She used to be a people person. But knowing what she did now of human nature, if she were given the safe harbor of this apartment, she’d find excuses not to leave.
She stabbed the button to activate the rinse cycle and peeked at the dining table. Twomanrie sat still, staring out the window. Armintor let out a trembling breath. As quietly as she could, she slipped from the tiny galley and headed toward her room.
“Come back,” Twomanrie called. “Fetch us drinks. Red wine for me—the nutrition panel has my favorite—and whatever you want.”
Keeping her gaze lowered, Armintor fetched Twomanrie’s wine and a glass of apple juice. Her hands shook and apple juice sloshed over her fingers. She set the wine glass in front of Twomanrie with such slow care that even she was impatient with herself.
With imperious exasperation, Twomanrie motioned her to sit. “Tell me about that biography you spent the entire afternoon reading.”
Surreptitiously, Armintor wiped her sticky hand on the leg of her coverall. What should she say so Twomanrie would let her go to her room? “It was good.”
“Even just knowing me a day, you must understand that you can’t get away with such an inadequate answer.”
“Well, it was pretty good, but…”
“But what?”
If she didn’t please Twomanrie, she’d be killed. She knew this. But since she didn’t know what Twomanrie—or any Alpha—wanted from their Beta assistant, she should just tell the truth. “Well, how did the author know all that? I mean, like when she played with dolls in her childhood she was pretending to visit other planets?”
The Disk Mirror Solution (Galaxia Mortem Book 1) Page 8