I smirked. I wasn’t really amused, but I was surprised how literal and dense Brian was being. “You don’t get it, do you? I wasn’t out there just to smash a few drones. I could have done that with a long pole. I sure as hell didn’t need to jump off a skyscraper to do it.”
“Then why the big production?”
“Eyeballs. I’m showing people that they have a choice, that they don’t need to keep living like this, spending their whole lives in these terrible jobs, living on scraps, living in fear of the megacorps, watching their rights and freedoms wear away in the name of progress and profit. It’s simple. It’s so simple. All they have to do is have the courage to walk away.” I swallowed. “I didn’t have the courage to do it. Not a bit. I was going to play the game, I was going to work my ass off for the next fifty years like a good little drone.”
“But you did walk away.”
“Yeah, I did. Because you forced me to. You took my future, you took my home, you took my family, all in a day. In a day.” I took a breath as I struggled to keep my voice calm and even. I didn’t want to stutter or waver or look weak in front of Frost. I didn’t really care about Brian at that point, but Frost was another matter. He was the dangerous one. “I did everything right, and you took everything away from me. So now I’ve got nothing. No home, no money, no food. But it’s okay. I was afraid before, but I’m not anymore.”
“Well, good for you, but that doesn’t change anything.” Brian shrugged. He looked more than a little apologetic. “You’re still on the wrong side of the law.”
“Laws used to be made by people. Now they’re made by companies. But no one voted for the companies. The companies bought the votes, they bought the government, they bought the laws. But not me. I’m not buying it anymore. And pretty soon, neither will anyone else.”
“What does that mean? You’re going to get a bunch of people up in arms to attack Cygnus? You think you can change the system with a few riots?”
“No. I think I can change the system by convincing people to walk away from it.”
“Never happen.”
“Well, I guess we’re going to find out. Now, give me Mercedes.”
“I can’t.”
“Then stay out of my way. Lux, armor two.”
Armor number two was another design from Demon Age. It was big and bulky medieval armor, a huge steel suit covered in spikes and iron feathers, valkyrie-class paladin armor. Like the sword that went with it, it was insane to look at, and just as effective.
I stormed upstairs and began tearing apart the second floor of the office, slicing through walls and doors, shouting Mercy’s name, and generally terrifying the well-dressed people who ran screaming from their workstations to get away from me. I ignored them.
I was just beginning to smash my way through the third floor when Frost stepped out of the elevator with Mercedes in his grip. He pushed her toward me and I shifted my armor back to the simple military version, and we hurried downstairs and outside where we jumped on my holographic motorcycle and took off down the expressway.
Chapter 10
Cold Calling
We drove straight to Mercedes’s apartment and I dropped her off at the door. I kept the bike online. I didn’t think Cygnus would be able to get there fast enough to bother me, but I wasn’t about to risk being wrong about that.
“Carmen, what is all this?” Mercy stood on the sidewalk, her arms crossed, her eyes unreadable.
“Look, I’m sorry about all this. It’s completely my fault, I know. I never meant for any of this to happen. It just, sort of, did.” I wanted to go inside and talk about it with her. Hell, I wanted to talk about it with anyone, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the time. It was too dangerous. “The good news is that they can’t detain you again, at least not for another ninety days, so they shouldn’t bother you anymore, okay?”
“But why are you doing this? Why were you destroying that office?”
“To make them let you go.”
“So you destroyed half a building and scared all those people? Did you hurt anyone? Someone could have been killed!”
I frowned at her. I wasn’t expecting a lecture. “Look, I’m trying to be really careful. I don’t want anyone to get hurt at all, but these people… they’re not reasonable people.”
“They said you broke your contract, and you broke the law. Doesn’t that make you the unreasonable one here?” Her tone was getting sharper, as was the glare in her eyes.
I sighed and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Don’t worry, I won’t call again, and no one should bother you anymore, okay?”
I hit the throttle and my solid-light bike hummed away down the street, leaving her to shout something after me. I didn’t hear her, and I didn’t want to.
Why couldn’t she see that I was a victim, just like her? I mean, Cygnus broke into her home and kidnapped her. Why wasn’t she mad at them?
I called Felix. “I got her. I got Mercy. She’s home now.”
“That’s great!” I could practically hear him smiling. “I bet she was happy to see you.”
“Yeah, not so much. She pretty much blamed me for the whole thing.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“I just don’t get it.” I zigzagged around a group of kids on bicycles, and they all cheered as I zoomed past them. I waved. “I mean, what is she, brainwashed?”
“Yeah, maybe, more or less. I mean, this is the way the world works. It’s really unfair and terrible and everything, but it does work. I guess for some people, that’s enough. They’re okay with that. They just want to get by, and they don’t want anyone rocking the boat any more than it already is.”
“But that’s…!” I shook my head again. It wouldn’t do any good to get any madder at Mercy. She was just trying to get by. And the truth was, if I had been in her position, and she had done something to get me in trouble, I would probably blame her too. Especially if I still had a home and a job.
But I didn’t. Not anymore.
“Well, what’s done is done.” I blew out a long breath. “Okay, so we need a new plan. We still have to find Dom. Did your magic fan network turn up any leads on him like they did with Mercy?”
“No, sorry.”
I sighed and shook my head. How many hours had it been? How long had Dom been missing?
I tried calling him again, just to be sure.
Still no answer.
I had to assume that Frost hadn’t bothered to collect Dom’s meds, so he must be in rough shape by now. Of course I could always hope that Frost had enough humanity, or maybe professionalism, to take the meds with him. I mean after all, he said he customized his tranquilizers for my parents by looking up their medical records. That didn’t sound like a reckless guy, regardless of his horrible job. So I could hope.
But hope is not a plan.
I called Felix back. “I don’t know what else to do right now. My brain is mush. And I’m starving.”
“Want to head over to your host for the evening? Get something to eat, talk more on a full stomach?”
I smiled. “You’re still coming, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
We picked an intersection near his house for me to pick him up, and then from there he gave me directions to the row house on the west side where a guy named Timothy, who refused to be called Tim, was willing to let us stay for the night. The front of the house was plain and a little dirty, but tidy, and the man who answered the door was an older guy, maybe forty or fifty, who looked around the street nervously before letting us inside.
Introductions were brief. Actually, all conversation with Timothy was brief. He gave one-word answers to most questions, and he didn’t seem to want to chat about anything. But his house was pretty nice, and as I walked around the living room and dining room, I realized what was so strange about it. Almost none of his things had been printed. They were all originals, all antiques, actual hand-made wooden furniture and glass lamps and porcelain plates. I cou
ld tell from the nicks and the scuffs and the smudges, the tiny imperfections around the corners and edges of things that not only said these things had not come out of a precision three-dimensional printer, but also that these things were decades and decades old.
We had lasagna for supper, a huge thick slab of pasta and cheese and sauce with more spices in it than I could name. Half the time I had no idea what I was tasting, but it was delicious and I had to wonder how he was getting these things. Were they imported from overseas? Was he growing his own herbs in the back yard? Or had he been preserving these things his whole life? Whatever the answer, Timothy wasn’t saying.
Despite his nervousness and his reluctance to talk to us, I trusted him. I trusted the house full of things that he loved so much, things from the old world when people actually made things, and the things were really beautiful in a more genuine way, instead of the sterile and perfect way that printers made them. Plus, I trusted the food, because nothing that delicious could be evil, right?
After supper, Timothy directed us to a guest room in his finished basement, and then he went upstairs to bed. Felix and I sat on the guest bed and stared around the room at the old toys and board games and models displayed on the shelves around us.
“Interesting guy,” he said.
“Yeah. Weird, but nice.”
“Yeah.” He looked at me. “So, any ideas about Dom? Any brilliant, lasagna-fueled inspirations?”
“No.” I pushed my hair back. “Unless we get another tip, like we did with Mercy, I don’t see how we’re going to find him.”
“Hey, don’t worry, we’ll find him.” Felix put his arm around me and I leaned against him. It was nice to just let someone else hold me up, even if it was just for a minute, just to feel less alone, less exhausted, less lost.
And then I kissed him. I touched his face, and turned him toward me, and pulled him down, and kissed him. I didn’t want to think anymore, I didn’t want to worry anymore, I didn’t want to work anymore. I wanted him, I wanted to feel happy and pretty, I wanted to feel… It’s hard to explain. For the last few days, I had felt cut off from the whole world, homeless and friendless and penniless, and I just wanted to feel connected again. So I kissed him.
We lay back on the bed, just kissing. It felt like hours were passing, just holding each other, eyes closed, breathing each other in, tasting each other, warm and warmer.
At some point we slowed down, just nuzzling, gently brushing our noses and lips together. And that’s how I fell asleep.
I woke up to the glare of sunlight in my face and the sound of snoring with a hand resting on my ear. It took me a moment to remember where we were, and why, and I carefully removed Felix’s hand and went to the bathroom to wash my face and clear my head. I felt better. Rested. Solid. Focused. The world seemed a little less crazy, a little less huge and impossible.
I only had one thing to worry about. Find Dom. Yesterday, it had felt hopeless. Today, it felt almost easy. I woke up Felix. “Hey, Prince Charming, time to get to work.”
He sat up and I kissed him, just once, and he grinned. “Sleep okay?”
“Yeah. I barely noticed the chainsaw in my ear.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No problem. So, check your messages for Ultraviolet already.”
He blinked. “Don’t I get to wake up first?”
“You’re awake enough.” I smiled.
He smiled back as he checked his phone. “Lots of new mail. Voice. Texts. Private clips. Fan art.”
“Fan art?”
“Yeah, people are drawing Ultraviolet, see?” He held up his phone, displaying a hand-drawn picture of me in my armor, riding my black-and-violet motorcycle, and slaying a dragon. It was actually a really good drawing.
“Wow, that’s… amazing.”
“Yeah. So, let’s see, Dom, Dom… Wait a sec, check this out. A guy says he works the night shift at a twenty-four hour call center. He says there’s a Cygnus printer assembly plant next door, and he saw some strange cars there the other night. Might be worth checking out.”
“Did he see Dom?”
“Doesn’t say. Just gives an address.”
“Well, that’s a maybe. Any others?”
“Uhm… Yeah, here. There’s a guy claiming to live in the apartment below Dom’s, and he heard some loud voices the other day, and hasn’t seen or heard from Dom since then.”
“Not really helpful.”
“No, not really.” He scanned down the list of messages. “Here’s a woman who drives a Cygnus delivery truck. She says there is something weird going on at the warehouse. One of the offices has all the blinds closed and no one is allowed to go in there now. That’s all she knows.”
I shrugged. “Okay. Is that the same place that the other guy mentioned?”
“No, different address.”
“Huh. Any others?”
He paused to look. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Great, so that’s two leads to check out.”
“They’re not great leads.”
“Yeah, but they’re more than we had last night.”
We had breakfast with Timothy. Scrambled eggs, real bacon, pancakes with chocolate chips, strawberries, sausage, orange juice, and bananas. I felt a little guilty eating so much, and so well. I had to wonder if we were devouring what little this man had for himself, but I also didn’t know when or where my next meal would be, so I ate a lot and I thanked him a lot.
When we were about to leave, we thanked Timothy again and he touched my hand, very gently, almost like he was afraid I would break, and he said, “Please, stop them.”
That’s all he said. And I could see something terrible in his eyes, some painful memory, some fear, some loss. I didn’t know what, and I wanted to know, but I didn’t ask. I just said, “I will.”
We rode back to Felix’s neighborhood in silence, and I thought about Timothy, wondering what his story was, what sort of person he really was, or had been. And then I wondered how many more people there were, just like him, out there. People who had suffered, or lost something, or someone, because of companies like Cygnus. Just as my imagination was starting to run away with thoughts of kidnapping and torture, we pulled up to the corner near Felix’s house.
But he didn’t get off the bike.
“Listen, I was thinking maybe I should go with you,” he said.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not saying I want to go into the crossfire or anything, but I could be your lookout. I could make distractions, or call the police if something went really wrong. I don’t know exactly, I just want to help,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of you going off and doing all this dangerous stuff all alone.”
“To be honest, neither do I. But the only reason I can do this stuff is the suit.” I held up my gloved hand. “It keeps me safe. But I don’t know if I can keep you safe too, and this is dangerous enough already without risking your neck on top of mine. So I don’t want you there. I want you here, where I know you’re safe, where you can help me online.”
He frowned a little. He wanted to argue with me, I could see it, but he also seemed to know that I was right because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. So he got off the bike and kissed me. “Be safe,” he said. “And call me. Often.”
I kissed him again. “I will.”
I rolled quietly across the street on my big black bike, attracting a lot of stares and waves from morning commuters, and then I gunned the simulated throttle and zipped away into traffic, activating my helmet and armor as I rode. I checked the two addresses from the Cygnus tips and the one from the call center was closer, so I got directions from my phone and headed across town.
Twenty minutes later I rolled up in front of a bland little red brick building with a flat roof and a very small sign that identified it as a customer service center. I rolled a little farther up the road and took a look at the vastly larger white steel building next door, which was quite similar to the feedstock warehou
se where I met Felix. But here the gates were open, and large trucks were lined up at the back, probably dropping off an assortment of feedstocks for the industrial printers, as well as pre-made components from China. Apparently, they still had overseas partners stamping out some of the electronics. Hard to believe it was really cheaper to do it that way, but there it was.
I sat out in the street on my not-at-all subtle bike for about ten minutes and just watched the assembly plant. There was nothing happening outside. No guards on patrol, no drones hovering, no workers wandering around, no vehicles moving. There were also no windows to reveal any hint of what was inside.
I didn’t like it. And the tip was too vague. Some strange cars were here in the middle of the night? That could be anything. And even if Dom was here, I’d have to tear the place apart to find him. At least the other tip mentioned a specific office. As I stared at the plant, that other office started to sound a lot better, so I hit the throttle and headed off to the second address.
The shipping warehouse wasn’t more than five miles up the road, and it turned out to be just another small white steel building behind a parking lot behind a fence. But here I could see people moving boxes onto the backs of a small fleet of delivery black-and-gold vans backed up to a long loading dock. Already I could see the glassy glint of windows inside the loading area, and I guessed that the locked office in question was right there, somewhere that a concerned van driver could see it.
This felt better to me. I knew where I was going, and there were workers around. Witnesses.
Yeah, this is the one.
It was still pretty early in the day, and it looked like a lot of the vans were still getting ready to make their first deliveries, so I shut down my holograms and sat down in an old bus stop shelter, and waited. One by one, the vans left the warehouse and headed down the road, until they were all gone and the loading dock was mostly empty. Only a couple of guys were left, moving empty palettes and sweeping up after the morning rush.
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