I cross to South Pylon. Across the deepest water, footbridge is down to a bar of rusty metal with holes, trashed swing set probably. Big step and a hop gets me to the next pallet. I hug the whiskey to my body past the tatboys at the oilcan, sneak up to where the pylon shudders with city traffic. Already hearing Daddy's hammer.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
Folks in a line, carrying scrap to his broken-concrete forge. Daddy's busy: hammer high-swinging by his faded blue turban, beating hot metal on a stone. Sweat drips in his beard, and sparks fade on his shoe-leather apron. Sure, he runs CustomEyes like everyone, but he makes real things. Like his dagger. Like my bracelet.
I'd watch all day, if no one'd see.
Daddy sees me. He shoves his glowing what-sit in a pail of dirty water. Calls, coaxing, "Awo!"
I hate him using my name all careful—I'm no kitten. Least he's not calling me Beti, like I belong to him.
"Yeah, 'sup," I say. Quick scan round; no Checkers Nayyar. "So, I got trade if you have a minute."
He looks at the line. At me. Nods, loops his hammer in beside his dagger, and we step backside the forge. Heat makes a good enough wall.
"Bet—Awo." Furrowed glance at the bottle. "Where'd you come by that?"
"Picked it outta the gutter. D'you got food?"
He frowns, nods. Funny he's not pushing harder about the whiskey. He hands me a chunk of food, and I stuff it in my mouth. Spicy heaven.
"I'll get you more, once I trade this off," Daddy says, "but you need to be careful coming around here."
"Officer Nayyar after me?"
Daddy sighs. "Not this time. Awo, I realize I was wrong about the locked ones, and I'm sorry. It's not my expertise."
Well he can't help that. "Daddy, I found out who's doing it—"
"Stop. Don't tell me." A dark warning look. "Get in line."
Danger. I duck into the crowd. Daddy's hammering by the time a guy slouches up in a long dirty coat with a hood. He's sure got Daddy nervous. Expects attention, too—us in line may's well be trash.
Longer he stands there, more irritated Daddy gets. Daddy's lips vanish in his beard. He hammers harder and higher till sparks fly and the guy leans away. The dirty hood slips. Underneath, a cool face.
Mister Questions.
Holy shit, again?! I'd kick that guy's ass, except he'd whack me first. Messing with my people, messing with my Daddy!
I've lost it. Totally crazy—cause when Mister Questions slouches off again I follow. Tell myself it's not that dangerous; he's off his turf, and besides, South Pylon's all tents and cardboard. Easy to hide if he turns around.
But I stop where the green line falls: across the city border, I'd get nabbed like Harkara. Not giving up, though. When Mister Questions turns outta sight, I scroll along after him in portal view, peeking through vids till I got him ID'd and start grabbing footage. Block three he meets a friend, loses the coat. Block four he's walking different—no more slouch, a rich man stroll. Block five he crosses the street, walks in the door of some club—
And my hack detector overflashes red.
Fuck!
I never backed off a vid so fast. Outta the map into my own head, half sick. Flashing—whoever it is is still here. Gotta be after the footage I just grabbed, something about that club, maybe Mister Questions has his HQ there? If this gets found and evidenced, I'm dead meat. I quick-reformat and slap it deep in hard storage. Breathe fast, pins and needles in my lips.
The flashing stops.
Somebody's shaking my shoulders. Daddy? "Beti, why'd you do that? That man's dangerous! You have to let me protect you!"
Oh, so that's his business now?! "Daddy, you think I'm stupid? Something mega's up and that guy's in on it. The mayor, the Locker, the checkerbobbies, everything's connected."
Daddy takes a deep breath. I tense.
"Awo." Gentle voice, dark eyes. Wish he were yelling; I can deal with that. "Remember how small you are. I'm trying to help you."
"Oh, f—" Stop, deep breath, try again. "Daddy. Forget my age for just a second. What if I'm right and it's all our lives at risk?"
"Awo—"
"Is Checkers Nayyar gonna tell you what that guy's up to?"
Daddy glowers. Silence for two breaths, three. Then he sets his hand on his dagger. "Well, if you'll be going into the city, you'll have to clean up first."
5. The Pit Boss
Daddy gave me two things.
First, cash. Dunno what's worse: taking Daddy's forge money, or spending it on the Tapper's bath. I got in and outta there fast—Tapper greases the checkerbobbies, but I mean, a tapped water main can't hightail, so that could change fast.
Daddy also gave me something of Momma's from Ghana. 'Spect it used to be something else, but now it's a short ruffled dress. Enough to hide my ragged butt if not my scarred knees. I'd've told him off for keeping it secret, but then the colors and patterns hit.
Prettiest damn thing I ever seen. Momma sure must've been something.
And Daddy helped. I hope it's enough, cause this could be rough, fact.
I climb the Bridge. Glittering pavement, breeze of zipcars speeding by. View of the ad-space—weird, all right-side-out. Shiny products, glitter and flash. Recycled vids of the mayor smiling. "Welcome to our Fair City! No slums here, nope, nope"—least not what you'd see, through his satisfied face!
Fuck him. We're way more real than he is.
Gotta stay mad, cause I never hit the city like this before: clean in gold and red and black and turquoise, strutting among cityfolk between tall cliffs of glass. Fear itching into my spine. I've ID'd and mapped the club. CustomEyes overlays the street names, and green arrows show me the way. So many fancy shoes: stilettos jabbing, platforms thudding like hammers. If I flinched, they'd notice I got none.
Last green arrow leaves me blinking up at a sign: Club SparX VR lounge. Black glass auto-door, black walls, black light, black heavy front desk. This place was plastered all over the ad-space once. Outpaced now, but Gatekeeper Boy's still feeling the cool: slicked black hair and LED studs in his eyebrows, flashing blue and purple. I'm brighter'n a tropic bird and he's trying hard to look bored.
"Are you registered, miss? There's a fee, you know."
I smile and put the fee on the counter; done my research. This kinda place runs hot portal traffic, perfect disguise for a hacker—was Mister Questions aiming to find the Locker here? As for registration, I never share my own info. I sneak into their system for a list of members not currently direct-downloading. It flashes behind my eyes and I'm out again, name in my mouth. "Destiny Watson, checking in."
Gatekeeper Boy frowns. Accesses their system—eye-twitch makes him look a little off. I hold my breath. But he takes my cash and smiles.
"Go on ahead."
I walk through double doors. Dim view of old-school VR zombies on couches. They're cleaner'n UnBob, but just as far gone. If I peered into faces, I'd get noticed, so I stroll easy-like. No Locker here. Hacker of her status'd be in the back, anyway.
A tall lady with blonde hair struts up. "Excuse me, Ms. Watson. May I tempt you with a more complete virtual experience? You'll need CustomEyes 13.0 or higher."
I been noticed. Don't like it—don't trust this one further'n I could throw her. But I can't act like an outsider. "Oh, yeah, couches are so last decade."
She smiles. "Please, follow me."
Still time to run. Give up while I'm ahead. But something is going on here—Mister Questions testified to that. And if I ran, no guarantee the shit wouldn't come down on me anyway; it's already started.
I follow Ms. Tallblonde through another door.
Whoa, big space.
Ads'd make you guess jungles, or futurecityscapes. This is just a warehouse, fact. Foam mountains here and there, pincameras speckling every surface. Smack in the middle, a mismatched team of thirty people's fighting thin air for dear life. Bet they see the jungles.
"Straight to the back," says Ms. Tallblonde, pointing. "Mountain, right-hand corner.
The operator there can link you in."
Feels like a trap. No way'm I crossing straight back—VR fighters'd take me for an NPC and knock my head off. I skirt the wall, touchfloor tacky on my feet.
Operator's waiting near a door in the pin-camera mountain. 'Spose this might be the Locker, overlaid, but my hack detector's sitting tight. Heshe's a small interperson with manga hair; calm, quiet, not hiding—knows heshe's invisible to the VR crowd.
Heshe smiles, then speaks in a gritty-ass fake samurai falsetto. "I'm the Pit Boss. Can you give me your name, so I can link you in?"
Okay hell no. If this was legit, heshe'd call me Destiny; I won't believe their database sucks that bad. Nope, heshe's trying to catch me out... or worse.
I look over my shoulder. The VR fight's still on, but now flunkies're by the walls. Hackers hate being hacked more'n anybody. Could this be the Locker, sneaking past my hack detector? One way to find out—I snatch the Pit Boss' hand.
Big graceful hand: perfect match for visual. Not the Locker.
Heshe pulls away, all disdain. "I may not know your name," hir voice turns suddenly liquid honey, "but I know who sent you."
"Pff—I sent myself."
"Well." That smile says not-past-my-shit-filter. "You can tell her we appreciated her work on the mayor, but we don't miss her."
Crap, heshe means the Locker?
Heshe takes my open mouth as proof. "This time, they won't be able to explain it away; the lies will be exposed. Her targeted approach wasn't good enough. Compared to the political in-group we're up against, one piddly slum-hacker's easy."
I run. None too soon: flunkies're closing in. I dive between two, roll, scramble up and dash straight for the sea of hollering VR fighters. Arms and legs coming at me—steps of a flunky behind, weave, girl, weave! I duck an arm. Thud—the flunky screams. VR guy doesn't notice, starts offing some huge boss right over my head. I commando-crawl between fighters' legs, so fast my elbows burn. Flunkies can't close the circle, but Gatekeeper Boy's blocking the door—I dive under his legs, roll into VR room 1, jump over couches, step on zombies. More flunkies come at me. Door out front looks unguarded but—well, no choice.
I push through, but my head jerks backward. Tallblonde's snatched my locks.
"No way, little worm," she hisses. "You're staying till our job's done."
I claw and squirm but there's too many—someone jams a sack over my head, and they carry me easy as loot. Next I know the floor's falling. Bet that door by the Pit Boss was an elevator.
I'm so, so dead.
"So what do we do with her?" Sounds like Gatekeeper Boy.
"Leave her. Just till the job's rolled out."
They fling me blind. I ball in the air, manage to roll. Door slams; lock clicks. I struggle the sack off and scope round, catching my breath.
This isn't a prison, just a small office. Big desk, filing cabinets. 'Spect it's a front, cause no hacker den looks so clean. Only the one door, locked when I try it, and a little high window at ground level. But there's a hum in the air, and the floor's cold—suspicious, fact.
Across the middle of the ceiling runs a pipe that vanishes through the far wall. Literally. I check the wall with my fingers. A hologram's hiding another door, complete with bioscanner, and cold air blowing through the cracks. Must be a shitload of server tech back there. Perfect for a mega-job going down—maybe Mister Questions suspected.
Or was he part of this? He was awful cool when the mayor disappeared, and that was some hacker trick. But what kinda job could top that? How many checkerbobbies'll they dump on us this time, on what fake excuse?
HUBGIRL: BIG TROUBLE IN CITY LOOKS LIKE COM-ING UR WAY FAST. EVERYONE 2 EMERGENCY HIDEOUT, NOW. MEET U THERE.
I hope.
Two doors: one to the server room, the other to flunkies. Leaves the window for me. I climb on the desk and jump to the pipe. Shinny across till the window's level with my shoulder. Swing my feet toward the sill—hit, stick, can't shift across. Lose my grip and land on my back.
Good thing my breath got knocked out, cause a shout might've brought flunkies.
Start over. Cling, shinny, this time hook my knees over the pipe, dress falling in my face. I swing, grab the windowsill with both hands. Meanwhile, textnet messaging's gone crazy, everybody wanting answers but I got none. I flick the latch, pull the window open. Better not fall this time—I wedge myself, feet on the pipe, hands on the sill—squeeze arms and head out, then drop my legs. Window edge cuts me in half, but I fight and squirm and finally land panting outside on dirty asphalt.
Momma's poor dress.
I scramble up and run.
Everything still looks normal in the city. No shouts, no sirens. I could pray to be wrong, but I'd never get so lucky. At the Bridge I take the shortcut, a slide-down-the-I-beam drop straight through the adspace. Slum-tunnels feel more like safety, but it's not enough this time; we got a special hideout for the really big stuff. Everybody's gone quiet on the textnet, so they must be there already, waiting. It's a good place to hole up after run-ins. We hid Fisher there for two weeks once.
I run past the tunnel-ends, into the junk. Backside of the mountain, I open the door of a gutted-out fridge and climb through a hole in the back, into the big hollow we dug out by hand.
"Guys," I call. A flash of red in my vision—hacked again, must mean the big job's starting. I got here none too soon. Tabby-face reaches down to help me in.
Steel cable grip tightens on my wrist.
Locker!
I fight her, crying. Too damn tired. Now I spot the others—knocked out, tumbled against each other in the tiny space.
"Why are you doing this to us?" I gasp. "What's the Pit Boss trying to pull, anyway?"
The Locker pulls me in close. "Sorry," she murmurs. "Amubi is working for the greater good. To expose the lies, before the test population split gets any bigger. We can't let it roll out—but there's no time to explain. This is the best I can do."
She blanks my vision to blue death. A stinking cloth clamps over my face, and blue goes black.
6. Hub Girl
Hurts. Throb behind my ear.
I crack my eyes open. Faint view of the hideout ceiling: trash crisscrossed by pipes and wire. The Locker's still here, beside an LED lantern. Pale, drawn cheeks and gray hair, like an ancient ghost. No more overlaid ID.
Oh no.
I try to glance up a map. A message. Anything! Only makes my eyes hurt.
She's Locked me. She's won.
I wanna throw up—but no way'm I letting her know I'm awake. Can't help wondering what new kinda hell the Pit Boss made outside. The Locker starts pacing, messing with her hardports.
"I knew it. I said there'd be too much loss. Amubi, why didn't you listen to me?"
Behind her, a pair of eyes blink in the dark—Big Fisher. Sweet! The Locker might've found our textnet when she Locked me, and wrecked the text router too, but maybe not...
Takes a super-long reboot and some sick worried seconds. GUI's been stripped, so it looks like nothing, but...
HUBGIRL: BIGFISHER? CAN YOU HEAR ME?
BIGFISHER: RIGHT HERE, HUBGIRL. THANK GOD YOU'RE OKAY.
HUBGIRL: DAMN I LOVE YOU FISHER.
Behind the Locker's back, quick flash of his smile.
HUBGIRL: ANYBODY ELSE AWAKE?
HARKARA: ME.
JIGGLY: ME.
TABBYFACE: JEEZ MY HEAD HURTS.
FINGERS: GONNA WRING THAT BITCH'S FUCKING NECK.
HUBGIRL: WAIT. WE GOTTA MOB HER ALL AT ONCE. KEEP QUIET, WAKE YOUR NEIGHBORS.
Slowly they're waking. Good thing slum kids learn early how to play dead.
BO: HUBGIRL I'M SCARED.
At least five little ones here. Too small for raiding, and they never deserved to be Locked. None of us did.
HUBGIRL: US RAIDERS'LL GO FIRST. BIGFISHER TACK-LE HER FEET. HARKARA, FINGERS, TABBYFACE, JIGGLY, ANGAN GRAB ANY PART YOU CAN REACH. EVERYBODY ELSE JUMP ON TOP IF YOU CAN. ANYBODY GOT A WIRE NEARBY THEY CAN HOGTIE WITH
?
FINGERS: ME. CAN'T WAIT.
Locker stops pacing right in front of Bo, who starts to cry.
HUBGIRL: JUMP TIME.
Fisher tackles the Locker's feet, buckles her knees. She's fierce, but we got her surrounded and we're starving for revenge. Even Bo shrieks and bites. Finally the Locker falls. Fingers jumps on top and bales her hands behind her back.
"Stop," the Locker wheezes. "You don't understand. I was right, I'm gonna need you—"
Fingers shoves her face into the junk. "Shut up."
"Don't mess her up," I say.
"Aw."
"She's worth something whole, I bet. Stick a rag in her mouth and let's get her back to the Hub. Locker, you better be thinking how to fix this."
Hard work dragging her out through the fridge door. At the edge of the tunnels, she tries to ditch, so we bale up her feet. After that we gotta carry, me and Fisher and Tabby-Face and Fingers between us, slowly back toward the Hub.
Being Locked sucks. Slum-tunnels look dirty and colorless. I miss my flamingos, and my Arkive tools. Adspace gives no protection. Flattened dirty cardboard underfoot shows no labels.
And no one's here. Even Tangletown's empty—makes me nervous.
Turns out they're all packed into the Hub, a wall of backs with somebody in there trying to calm folks down. One voice sounds like Turban-Daddy. Even if everybody else panicked, he'd keep his head on straight.
Now folks see us, and murmurs run round about our cargo. Somehow everybody squeezes enough room for us to drag the Locker through. We flop her out like a fish in the middle, and that's when curiosity busts out all around.
"Who you got there, Hub Girl?"
I speak out. "This here's the Locker. She's got info about all this. Problem is, she Locked us first. I got no Arkive." I turn to Daddy, who's standing with Sugarboss and the Tangletown Maestra. Feeling all the eyes makes me call him what they'd call him. "How bad is it, Fixer Singh?"
Daddy's looking more and more worried. "Hub Girl," he answers, ginger around my name, "none of us have Arkive. We've sent scouts, and the whole city's offline. It's a citywide panic. Computer systems are down, databanks corrupted all over—whatever this is, it jumped systems and penetrated a lot of fire-walls nobody expected."
Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July-Agust 2014 Page 8