Rune Zero: A Cyberpunk Thriller (Rune Universe)

by Hugo Huesca

  “Well, when we talked to her, she mentioned his name, didn’t she? He had been spoon-feeding her information. At first, I thought it was the normal Government-Corporate ball-fondling, but then the drone came crashing into Wade as soon as we were making any progress. And your boss called our agreement off immediately afterward, with little to no evidence that Dugall Tull’s suicide had been… actually a suicide.”

  John nodded. He swerved to avoid an incoming police car. The police turned their sirens instantly and did a U-turn to chase after them. David could see their faces in the rear-view mirror as they read Derry’s plaques. They broke the pursuit off instantly and went on their way.

  “It was more than that,” said the agent. “After I read Phillips’ documents, I did some digging on my own. It was Odin’s investigators who tipped us off about your motel’s shenanigans. Seems like Odin wanted you out of the game.”

  “Because of Phillips’ documents,” said David. He smacked his forehead with his unharmed hand. “Right? Think about it. A government agency has to wait for an official order before Odin is forced to hand them those documents over, and in the meantime, they can falsify them or make them disappear. But a hacker only has to get into their servers, break their security, and download them. No rules to bog us down.”

  They didn’t think of Orville and K-Sec, though. As it turned out, having a couple of friends had its advantages. Especially if those friends were trying their best to avenge their fallen comrade.

  “That also made you very easy to take down, Terrance. But, yes. I think, that’s why Odin wanted you out of the game.”

  “Why is your boss helping them?”

  “Phillips worked for both the army and corporate, didn’t he? Kelsov has ties to both. He has been sucking up to Odin for a long time now. He always justified it like it was we who were using them. Perhaps that changed, perhaps he still thinks that’s true.”

  David nodded. “And, what do you think?”

  “You ever read Nietzsche, Terrance?”

  “I didn’t think you were the reading type, Derry,” said David. It was his best deflection. He hadn’t read Nietzsche. He was more of a science fiction guy.

  “He had this phrase. ‘Those who fight monsters better take care lest they become a monster themselves. Once you gaze into the abyss, the abyss may gaze into you.’” John’s car crossed a bridge covered by several automated guardrails that barely had time to lift themselves and avoid being disintegrated by the car. “We mull a lot about those kind of phrases in the intelligence business, Terrance.”

  “I get it. Who watches the watchmen?” David had his own ideas. Information did the watching, itself. “I can leak the Phillips’ documents tonight, you know. It wouldn’t take long before some higher-up in the CIA made the connection.”

  John shook his head. “Like you did with Grandhaven? No, thanks. You’d end up doing more damage than good. I’ll take care of Brandon Kelsov.”

  “People have a right to know about things like this. I don’t think anyone will like to find out their new butler drone has the brain matter of late uncle Bob.”

  “The only thing you’ll achieve after leaking those docs is to get the attention of a dozen other corporations and have them think: ‘Damn, that’s one hell of a good idea!’”

  Their conversation died off. By David’s window, the background changed. The huge concrete slabs were slowly replaced with open fields, parks, fountains, illuminated outdoor malls, even schools. They were on the outskirts of the city, the wealthy perimeter outside a city’s proper limits where the rich and well-off could build their own gated communities and avoid the problems of contamination and over-population.

  To David, it looked like they’d stepped into another continent.

  “At least, we can stop Odin,” said David. A part of him was thinking, Damn, this would’ve been a fantastic place to raise a child.

  Perhaps Sarah and Leonor would’ve liked it. He caught a glimpse of a cinema. Nowadays, you only saw one of those in a movie filmed in the last decade.

  “Well, you are going to stop Odin,” said John Derry, “I’m just here to arrest you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We can’t interrogate a woman like Charli Dervaux without some solid evidence, Terrance. What we have is circumstantial at best. Any good lawyer will get it thrown off without much trouble. Whatever happens, happens off-records tonight.”

  “And, since I’m a fugitive, you’ll pretend you were tracking me. If I can’t get her to talk, you’ll arrest me, pretend this never happened, keep on as always.”

  “This time, I can promise you a real prison cell, Terrance. I suspect you wouldn’t survive another plug-in.”

  John was eying him suspiciously. David grunted and looked away.

  “Whatever lets you sleep at night, Derry.”

  “Then, you’re in?”

  David Terrance had the strange suspicion that John used the exact same tone of voice when dealing with a double agent or a whistle-blower. Friendly and comrade-like, after a long day of being a gigantic prick. He had sent him to prison again, he had betrayed him at the first sign of trouble, and now he was pretending to be his friend, so David would do his job for him.

  What happens after your boss goes to jail, Derry? Someone’ll need to step up the plate, won’t he?

  David didn’t say any of this. Instead, he smiled and nodded. “I’m in. But, if this works out, I want another fucking pardon.”

  “You will go back to jail for a while,” said John, “no way around that. But, I’ll get you out before long. That’s a promise.”

  David’s smile became a bit more forced. “That’s fair, I guess.”

  They arrived at the Dervaux Chateau soon afterward. It was on the very edges of town, as far away as possible from civilization. The commute Madam Dervaux made to her office every day must’ve lasted several hours.

  John stopped the car in front of a steel gate marked with huge golden letters: “F.D.” Not a soul was nearby, but a tiny security camera looked at them with interest.

  “You know your approach?” asked John. He handed David the phone he had taken from him before.

  “Yeah. It’s my job, after all.” David didn’t wait for John to try and tell him how to do his own job. He got out of the car, gave the agent a last, sour frown, and turned towards the camera. Behind him, John closed the door of his car and sped off, leaving David behind, in a cloud of dust.

  The hacker coughed (to his chagrin) and gestured towards the steel gates. “I’m here to talk! Tell Dervaux that I want to see her!”

  Nothing changed. David smiled. He waited a bit, to give the security inside time to run a background check on him. Not too much, though, because they might decide to simply call the police.

  He waved his phone around. “Tell her I have a business proposition to make. She buys the information I have right here. It’s a folder called ‘Wade Phillips’ Life Insurance.” I think she’ll be very interested to read it. If she’s not interested, that’s okay, you can call the police or whatever. But, I may as well have an interesting chat with the police, get a deal of my own. Offer them a special discount. That road may end with Madam being accused of murder, by the way. So, think about it.”

  Still, nothing happened. David’s heart began to race. Then, he heard the unmistakable sound of an electrical engine coming to life. The steel gate trembled, stirred, and then came open.

  “Good thinking,” said David, with a security he didn’t feel.

  “Mister Terrance,” came Charli Dervaux’s voice from an auricular installed on the wall. “Please, come inside. We have a lot to discuss.”

  David went into the house, following the brick road. The garden was big enough to challenge any woods.

  He was pleased to know that some things hadn’t changed. He had gotten his hands on a sensitive piece of data. He had a buyer, interested in keeping the data from other hands.

  The world kept spinning. It was business as usual.<
br />
  As David advanced slowly through a road obviously designed for cars, he realized he had company. Lithe, shadowy, animal figures slithered among the trees and the exotic vegetation, not close enough to be threatening but visible enough to let him know they could be. If they wanted.

  Dervaux obviously had an advanced security system of some sorts. Those shadows were wolf-like and wolf-sized, but they moved like robots, lacking grace, but having all of the hydraulic precision of a machine.

  He made a conscious effort not to think what a hydraulic jaw could do to a body. His hand pulsated painfully, like it was complaining about the possibility of more pain.

  A car was waiting for him after he cleared a narrow curvature. It was a black (he was getting tired of that color) SUV, self-driven. The back door waited open for him.

  The SUV brought him to the Dervaux’s mansion.

  The home was a Civil War relic. It was surrounded by several farms and other small structures. Mostly grapes, but some vegetables, too. Far away, David caught a glimpse of cow pasture. When he got out of the car, he could smell the characteristic aroma of manure and plant-life living and dying all around him.

  His city-raised lungs trembled with pleasure and surprise, much to his shame.

  He realized he was the only human being nearby. The farms were filled with drones tending the fields, and bulky farm equipment painted red and orange, working day and night to keep it up and running. The automated sprinklers came to life as he walked towards the mansion’s doors. They threw a faint mist-like cloud of vapor all over the plants. The mist glistened in the moonlight and it gave the entire area an eerie, mystical appearance.

  “You like it?” Charli Dervaux asked him. She was wearing a white sundress and a white hat over her crimson-red hair. She shared the eerie atmosphere of the place with relish. Like a witch or a vampire in her castle. It was the middle of the night, but she was sitting at a small table on the porch of her mansion, waiting patiently for him like it was a sunny day. “Running the winery is a hobby of mine.”

  That’s what those other buildings are, David realized. She made wine in her free time. He could’ve sworn she preferred to drink blood. “You live alone?”

  “My drones take care of all my wants and needs,” she said. “We used to have more people, in the beginning, but my husband was always proud. He hated those nurses running around when he was still conscious, so after his sickness got worse, I got him some privacy.”

  “Seems lonely.”

  “Don’t get any ideas, mister hacker,” she smiled mischievously. “My security is one of the best in the world. It can’t be bargained with, it can’t get tired or bought. An Odin subsidiary prototype, you see. Soon, every business in the world will run them. The world will be much safer with them around.”

  “Lovely,” said David. “It doesn’t sound terrifying at all. You put people’s brains inside their heads, too?”

  “Please, have a seat,” she said. David thought of ignoring her, but her pleasant smile was just impossible to ignore —which was the entire point. He sat in front of her and tried to hold her gaze without much success.

  She smiled like a cat playing with her prey. “Yes, some people let their natural superstition scare them into giving science a… supernatural quality. That’s why I’m concerned about your proposal, and I was concerned about Phillips’ fears. It’s amazing how far the ignorance of society can push back scientific discovery.”

  “And your profits, of course.”

  She shrugged without an ounce of shame. “I believe in win-win propositions.”

  “Did Wade Phillips got to win in your proposition?”

  Charli Dervaux wasn’t going to fall into such an amateur trap. She smiled innocently. “Why, for working for me for the betterment of mankind? I think he did, yes. I regret the accident he suffered yesterday… My, look at the time. Past midnight, already. So, that’s two days ago, wasn’t it? Amazing how time flies when you’re having a good time.”

  “He had a folder named “Life Insurance” that implicates your company in some very illegal stuff, Madam Dervaux.”

  “Call me Charli. Madam Dervaux is my mother-in-law’s name,” Charli laughed. “Yes, it seems you found the way to get yourself into the private documents of a company of mine. I doubt you used legal methods to access them. Don’t mind that, though. At least not yet. I let you inside as a gesture of good faith, David. So we can sort this out without getting the authorities involved. After all, I think you have more to lose in that regard than I do.”

  “If you call the police, we will both end up in jail.”

  “Some of us have lawyers, mister hacker. Very good, in fact. I have an excellent reputation and it wouldn’t be the first time that someone tried to blackmail a CEO with bogus charges. If you left me no option, I’d happily take the risk.”

  David raised an eyebrow in a very John Derry fashion. “I see. So, you want to talk. Let us talk.”

  “I want the Phillips’ archives and all the copies in your possession to be destroyed. You won’t speak of this again, to anyone. You’ll go on the run, or turn yourself to the police —whatever you prefer. If you surrender to law enforcement, I will provide you with one of my excellent lawyers. You will spend far less than in jail than you deserve.”

  Charli paused to enjoy David’s reaction, which he tried hard not to reveal to her.

  Why is everyone thinking I should be happy with a reduced sentence? Second time he got canned, it was thanks to Odin. By extension, to Charli Dervaux.

  “Of course, you’ll also receive a monetary compensation. Enough for you to retire. Get out of the country, probably, but not too far away from Odin’s outreach. You may think of this as a loss of freedom, but let’s be honest, it’s much better than spending the rest of your days in a cell.”

  Or a plastic coffin.

  David nodded. “Let’s say I’m interested,” he said. To prove he was being serious, he handed his phone over to Charli. At the same time, he lowered his free, non-broken hand, and grabbed the phone he had stolen from the security guard’s locker. “I have to know I can trust you, first.”

  Charli looked at the phone’s screen, checked for the archives, and powered off the device. “This proves nothing. You could have thousands of copies. I need guarantees.”

  “So do I,” said David. “You have the advantage, here. I’m in your home, at the mercy of your cyberwolves, or whatever those monsters are. For all I know, as soon as I delete my archives, you’ll run me over with a bus like you did with Wade Phillips.”

  As he talked, his fingers flew over the glass surface of his phone, where the digital keyboard was located. He was good with numbers, and his memory —when it wasn’t going haywire on him—, was keen. He dialed a number not in his contact list.

  “You’re making too many demands for someone in your position, David.” A part of Charli was enjoying this and David knew it. She was a vampire, toying with the prey that had wandered into her castle in the middle of the night. A modern Dracula, dressed in white.

  Or, you know, just another morally-bankrupt lady. Didn’t matter. He was going to bring her down anyway. His heart was racing so fast he opened his mouth to speak and nothing came out. He steadied himself and started again.

  Talk to her weaknesses, he thought. Hadn’t she told him the same thing, about John Derry, last time they met?

  “You’re a businesswoman, aren’t you? We’re making a deal right now, and deals are based on confidence. Give me something, Charli. Big enough to hurt you if you betray me when the police catch me, not big enough to bring you down on the word of a criminal.”

  Charli didn’t move a finger, which David took as a good sign. She was listening to him. Or thinking of calling the dogs.

  “Mutually assured destruction? Surprising, I didn’t think you were the political type.” She didn’t call the dogs.

  David went for the gold. “I want to know why you killed Phillips.”

  “I didn’t
kill anyone,” she told him with a smile that glinted in the moonlight and implied otherwise.

  “He wanted to talk, yes, but his research was… valuable. People would’ve found it disgusting, but disgusting doesn’t mean something is illegal. So. Why did you… why did he die, Charli?”

  Silence. Two very different persons staring at each other, trying to understand their motives as best as they could.

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” said Charli slowly. David’s heart sank. She was too cautious, too paranoid, to make a mistake like admitting to murder. Even if she loved to gloat. Charli continued: “But, I can guess at the killer’s motives. Wade Phillips worked in a lot of other projects. Some of them more unsavory than others. Skyline University gets its funding from many different corporations, after all. I believe, whoever killed him didn’t want to bring attention to those other projects. A scandal like the one you’re threatening me with would do that.”

  Silence again. Her smile was pleasant again. She had won and they both knew it. David had what he had asked her for, information that wouldn’t sink her but would hurt her if he used it against her.

  He wanted to throw his phone at her in frustration. Had he come all the way here for this? To listen to her gloating?

  Perhaps I should actually sell her the information, a part of him thought. Save my own skin. Sorry for John’s plans, but he was using me as a puppet anyway.

  Orville and K-Sec counted on him, though. It shouldn’t weight as much as it did, but David couldn’t help it. They had risked their necks for him. Got him out of jail and forced into hiding for helping him.

  The David Terrance from a year ago would’ve saved his own skin, just like he had done when he tried to run out of the country. He wouldn’t have taken any chances for anyone other than Leonor and Sarah.

  Perhaps it was time for a change.

  And, being honest with myself, I have to know why she did it.

  So he pressed his luck. By then, he strongly suspected why Morrow and Vicente had been murdered. He wanted to hear it from her. Clearly and loudly enough for his phone to catch.

  “He died because his research would get attention to the involvement of Odin in other research? Say I believe you,” he narrowed his eyes, “it still doesn’t explain why you had Senator Morrow killed. Or Vicente Duran.”