Implanted

by Lauren C Teffeau

Geeta answers almost immediately. Dark circles rim her eyes. Looks like she’s still hunkered down in Vector’s basement lab. “Isolated the data structure from the blood sample, but still haven’t cracked the encryption. There are a couple more things I can try, but without knowing more–”

  “No, you’ve done more than enough,” I say. It was a long shot to think this would work. “Thanks for trying, though.”

  “We need to figure out how you can hand off what you’ve managed so far and destroy the rest.”

  I turn to Randall in surprise. “What? Why put her at risk?”

  His hand tightens over the touchscreen’s casing. “Maybe if you saw the data yourself it might spur some idea of what we’re dealing with. That’s your background, right?” To her, “We can’t come to you, so you need to come to us.”

  “Just keep piling on the collateral damage,” I mutter.

  “I don’t like it either,” Randall says. “But you know we can trust her, which is almost as important right now.”

  Geeta looks like she’s about to argue, but she swallows the impulse. “Meet me at my place in an hour.”

  “Where–”

  “Randall knows where it is.” Then with a significant look at him, “Be careful,” she says, as though I’m just a temporary accessory in his life. And maybe I should be.

  “You too.” He sets the touchscreen down on top of my satchel with a sigh. “She lives in an apartment near the top of the Understory.”

  “Didn’t take up Vector’s offer for housing?”

  “Her family didn’t want her living down here.” And must have the means to keep her close.

  “What about yours?”

  His shoulders pull back slightly. “I can take care of myself.” He was doing a pretty good job of it before I entered the picture, too. The sooner I can get his life back in order, the better.

  “Before we go, we should contact Tahir, see what he’s been able to dig up on his end.”

  Randall’s eyes widen. “No way. I can’t believe you’d even suggest that.”

  “He’s just as upset about this situation as we are.”

  He scoffs. “He only wants to cover his ass.”

  “Look, I don’t expect you to understand, but Tahir and I–”

  He holds up his hand. “He’s the one you’re calibrated with, isn’t he? Did he force you? As part of the deal?”

  The insinuation in his voice already tells me what he thinks. “It wasn’t like that. Our connection’s supposed to help me on jobs. Situational awareness, problem-solving, things like that.”

  “Bullshit. It’s just another way for them to control you, by creating a psychological bond with your handler.”

  “To foster communication.” But even I can hear how weak that sounds.

  “They alienated you from everyone you know, forced you to calibrate with a stranger, and kept you isolated.”

  “They didn’t isolate me. I had to go through some serious training and couldn’t be distracted.”

  Randall challenges me with his gaze. “Tell me, when did they let you return to the Canopy?”

  “What do you mean?” I had a couple of missions that took me up there, but now that he mentions it I never had an opportunity to go there until my walkabout a couple of weeks in when I could actually choose where to go. So many of my early jobs were Understory or lower. Ostensibly to get me used to operating dirtside because of my history. But what if they were actively not assigning me jobs in the Canopy? “You think they were deliberately keeping me away?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them. I know how much you love it up there. Even if the Law of Digital Recency holds, they probably couldn’t risk sending you up there so soon.”

  I stand, stretch out my legs, walk off some of my annoyance at this conversation, at Randall, at Aventine. Everything he says makes sense. I also know Aventine has a reason for their methods. Ones I accepted, even if I didn’t totally believe in them all. “Listen, everything you’re saying, I’ve asked myself at one point or another. But at the end of the day I belong to Aventine. And they made it very, very difficult to walk away.”

  He shakes his head. “You never should’ve been put in such a position to begin with.”

  “It’s a little late for that. I’ve done the best I could. The sick thing is I actually like it. Not the shady parts. But learning how to be a courier, being able to see the city in a different way…”

  “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out from your arcade history. They’re probably using that to their advantage too.” His posture relents slightly. “Look, reaching out to your handler now doesn’t make sense. Even if you could trust him, you certainly can’t trust Aventine. Given all the ways they tried to track you, they must have just as many to track him and his communications.”

  A small voice inside me protests Randall’s assessment of Tahir, but what if it is just my lingering loyalty to him from being calibrated? No. All those times he gave of himself, to help me out on missions when I was confronted by blood or my past in the Terrestrial District. You can’t fake those kinds of interactions. He might work for Aventine, but he’s always tried to do right by me.

  “Maybe so. But I still trust him.”

  “Give me one good reason.”

  The most obvious one, Tahir’s help in tracking down my attacker, I can’t give him. I’d have to explain what happened to me and what I did about it. I can’t afford his estimation of me to plummet any further, not until I see this job through.

  “Forget I mentioned it, all right?”

  He reluctantly nods. “Before we go, do I need to disguise myself or anything? I don’t have pixel scramblers embedded under my face like you do.”

  That Randall would be willing to go to such extremes, just for me… I blink back the sudden urge to cry. When this is all over, I hope I can make it up to him somehow. “No. Don’t. I’ve been poked, prodded, and modded enough for both of us.”

  “You sure?”

  I nod, and leave it at that. I may not be sure about a lot of things, but I’m certain about this.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A few steps from the tenement building two thugs coalesce out of the shadows across the street and fall into step behind us. I send a synch request to Randall. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he throws a look over his shoulder. It’s early enough that whatever light filters down from the Canopy has yet to make an appearance. Buzzing streetlights and luminescent graffiti are our only defense against the darkness.

  Randall’s steps quicken. I want to tell him it’s a dead giveaway we’re running scared, but our connection’s still severed. Stubborn jerk. We’d be doing all right if another man and a woman hadn’t emerged from an alley up ahead, blocking our path forward. In training, Tahir hammered into me over and over confrontation is to be avoided. It’s time wasted, risking injury or worse, when I should be focusing on getting far, far away. At least between Aventine and the arcade I know how to defend myself.

  “You two look lost,” says the man in front of us. In the dark, it’s hard to tell what he really looks like, even with the NAmp filter. A scar bisects his brown cheek from an injury that he was either unwilling or unable to have treated. “Why don’t you let us help you get on the right track?” Unkind laughter follows as the others join in.

  The woman, lanky with tight, bleached braids on one side of her head, pulls out a knife, while the two men behind me loosen their stances, ready if we kick up a fuss.

  <
  >>Oh, so now you want to talk?>>

  <
  >>Let them approach me.>>

  He looks at me in alarm. <
  >>Do it. On my signal, run through the bakery and out the back.>> I shrug off the pullover we bought yesterday and toss it aside. No need to hide who I am anymore. >>Then turn left and wait for me.>>

  The ringleader with a shit-eating grin on his face circles around me. Randall edges away, moving closer to the panaderia. The guy lunge
s for me. I feint left, then right, then left again, taunting the bull until the man’s hands clamp down on my shoulders.

  Up close, I’m able to see that exact moment when his triumph fades as blue electricity jolts through him and throws him back three feet.

  >>Now!>>

  Randall’s off and running. The remaining two men check on their fallen compatriot while the woman slashes at me with her knife. I knock her wrist away. She makes another grab at me. This time, only a weak burst of energy flares up from my clothes at her touch. I follow that with a well-placed elbow to her midsection and then sprint after Randall. We slam through the bakery’s emergency exit, turn left at a run.

  Randall puts on a burst of speed, his long strides outpacing mine. Despite my training, the curdle’s creeping ever closer, sapping my reserves. I won’t be able to keep this up for much longer.

  <
  >>The Ridgmar Market. We’ll lose them in the crowds and take the lifts.>>

  <
  >>I know. Just stay close.>>

  We reach the boundary between the Bower and my old haunts, but there’s no perceptible change in the flaking buildings around us. Luckily I don’t need my map to know where we are.

  Only a few months ago, the building beckoning at the end of the street was rebar and I-beams, excavated until just the barest skeleton remained. Breck used the construction site as the locus of his operation, giving him nearly 360 degrees of access to the surrounding streets and buildings. Now it’s largely rebuilt, though progress must’ve stalled, since the windows looking out on this level are boarded up instead of fitted with glass. Old notices for utility tie-ins have darkened with age.

  One of the boards has been pried off, leaving a gap big enough to squeeze through. >>In there!>>

  I fit myself into the window frame and the dark room beyond. Randall follows with a grunt and curse. Can’t blame him. The rank smell of unwashed bodies is pretty terrible. Squatters have used this place, and recently. Though it looks like they’ve cleared out for the time being. Probably chased off by the cops on a regular basis, but not so regularly they can’t crash here for a couple of hours at a time. A delicate balance, that.

  On one wall, the same symbol of a tree struck by lightning has been plastered on the cement in glowing paint.

  Holding a finger to my lips, I sidle up to the window we clambered through to get a look at the street. I try to quiet my body, straining to hear our pursuers. Hard footfalls echo off concrete, but they’re already fading. Hopefully they’ll give up and return to the Bower.

  Adrenaline from the chase drains out of my body, leaving me with too many memories of my time down here.

  <
  It’s not a question. >>A lifetime ago. There should be a way to cut over to the next block.>>

  <
  It is. If I let it, that frantic helplessness creeps back as if it never really let go of me in the alley that day. Where I was attacked is not nearly far enough away from here.

  I can still see the knife that was only supposed to threaten me into submission. How it slipped when I fought back, somehow finding an empty beer bottle to slam against my attacker’s head. The moment when the stinging nick along my neck suddenly turned into a fount of blood. My blood.

  <
  Seeing his eyes widen in panic as my blood coated his shirt – he never figured on that – I knew in that moment he wasn’t invincible. I also vowed no one would make me feel that way again. His departing footsteps echoing off concrete is the last thing I remember before I woke up in the hospital.

  I still don’t know his name. Tahir gave me the power to put a name to what happened that day. But–

  Rik grabs my shoulders. “Liv, snap out of it.” He smoothes his hand over my cheek, his solid bulk grounding me in the here and now. With him in my head, in my space, it’s easier to push back the sensations. To remember that scrapper can’t hurt me or anyone else. Not anymore.

  I take a step back. “Sorry.”

  Rik, no, Randall, doesn’t move, but he keeps sending me reassurance through our connection. How… His permissions. I upgraded his permissions during the call with Tahir and never changed them back.

  <
  For a moment, I teeter on the edge of my emotions. Conflicting, contradictory… the urge to run away combined with the desire to drown myself in Rik’s consciousness. But at least I have the presence of mind to downgrade his permissions, giving me a bit more breathing room.

  His mouth purses at the loss of my nonverbals and emotional color to my words, but he stands at attention, all of him focused on me.

  >>When I lived down here with my family, I was attacked by a scrapper. I fought back, and when his knife nicked my neck he panicked and ran off.>> I turn away from him. >>This was before we met. Ancient history.>>

  <
  It’s not so much a criticism of my behavior, more acknowledgment of something that puzzled him about me, but it still sets my teeth on edge. >>I can’t help who I am.>>

  <
  >>Then best not to say anything at all.>>

  <
  “We need to keep moving.”

  He sighs, his gaze, once open, now shuttered. I’ve gotten better at reading him, but that doesn’t mean much compared to what we had before, so attuned to his every mental state. “That is what you do best.”

  And with that, he cuts the connection. Again.

  The neighborhood Geeta lives in is one of the more insufferable parts of the Understory. The storefronts we pass on our way to her apartment must take turns rotating through the latest fads exported from the Canopy. A mod parlor specializing in trendy skin transparency and frame extension therapy. A vapor bar catering to only those who’ve augmented their olfactory glands. Branch locations for the big fashion houses located in the Upper levels. But it feels premeditated, almost predatory, considering all the status-seeking souls who live here. All Canopy pretension, but none of the charm.

  Though they do have a glimpse of sky. I’d probably feel pretty smug about that too if I lived here.

  The apartment complex centers around a thin sliver of dome glass, the different buildings oriented just so to take advantage of the vertical crack of natural light.

  Daytime, we only have to worry about passive security measures that log our aliases’ entry into the complex. I keep my head down, pretending to sneeze until we’re out of the range of the cameras. Randall leads me to the third apartment down flanked by planter boxes full of prickly succulents and evergreen shrubs.

  Geeta answers as we reach the door, clearly expecting us.

  After a prolonged moment of silence, I realize she and Randall are synching furiously. I take a few steps into the spacious apartment, giving them the chance to work out whatever it is that’s sprung up between them. There are no words of accusation, no shouts. That makes everything worse, knowing they’re synch fighting, and I’m just supposed to pretend nothing’s wrong.

  Swallowing my curiosity and another emotion I refuse to name, I take a seat on the couch. Finally Randall sits down stiffly beside me. “Everything all right?” I ask.

  “It’s fine,” Geeta announces curtly as she joins us. At her hand gesture, a light screen resolves out of the air opposite the couch. Her eyes roll back into her head as she pulls up a window streaming with nonsense characters. “This is what the raw data looks like. At least one layer of encryption, mayb
e more.”

  “The data originated from the government, so at least one layer’s probably theirs. But there’s no guarantee–”

  “Really? I got my hands on a government key when my boss accidentally sent me a file encrypted like this…” She gives Randall a sheepish shrug. “One of those reports documenting the rehabilitation efforts of the other domed cities. We were using it as a benchmark against our own work.”

  “Can’t hurt to try it,” he says.

  Her hands are a blur on the projected keyboard that accelerates whatever she’s doing. “Ha! It worked. But this is…” She shakes her head. “Here’s what I’ve got so far.”

  I pore over the new display. The decryption’s cleaned things up, but without any documentation or other identifying info to help us out… “It looks like a file executable or something, but… Can you scroll down?”

  She does, revealing rows upon rows of raw data. “A couple hundred records, maybe.” In my data curation classes, we were tasked with all sorts of assignments where we had to determine what we were looking at based only on the contents of data fields. “That line of code there is a command to update a database with this information.”

  “So this file’s some sort of patch to a database that’s already out there?” Randall asks.

  “Looks like. The question is which one.”

  “Some of the data fields contain names. Let me see if I can compare them with the public registry,” Geeta says. A moment later, she pulls up the live database that feeds into practically every administrative portal in the city. “This is what this record looks like right now in the registry.”

  My fingers twitch toward the screen. “I know how to compare the two–”

  “I got it,” Geeta says sharply, her hands not pausing in their work. She frowns down at her interface. “Huh. A bunch of fields from the patch line up pretty well, but there are definitely some leftovers.”

  “Those are probably hidden fields we can only see with the right permissions.” Every citizen has an entry in the database, tracking all sorts of demographics, education and work history, place of address, account balances, and other secret markers we can’t access through the public interface.