by Aies Jay
-Front door.
I lead on perfectly, syncing the sounds of where she is, using her pinkie as Jane Masamura’s thumb, the faked key card in her pocket should it foul up. It’s almost too easy, turning on and off the cameras as she goes to perfectly erase any vid of her breaking in to her old working place. I hate that fucking “W” key but I’m already compensating for it.
-Nurse’s front desk.
She moves swiftly, and I actually grin at the perfection of my plan. Whenever someone will be reviewing the tape if ever, it will look like an electric glitch, running through the closed loop of the cameras. Should they for some absurd reason check who logged at that hour, I’ll already have the fake nurse erased and the records of her “thumb” along with her. Just a glitch, people. Move on.
-Nurse’s station.
This is the crucial spot. If the night nurse isn’t doing her rounds after all, or just going to her station to review the monitors or something, we’re toast. I hold my breath again but there’s no additional noise from Nicla’s mic except from her soft steps and voice saying
-Supply room.
As the door swings shut behind her I exhale. Teeth and the guard are now comparing mods, what, how, when and how much. I almost roll my eyes but exchange the words and they could be anyone, just talking. People are people, seeking connections and common interests, in other words, seeking to be less alone.
-Fridge and bio room.
I almost jump. She’s there. I take a deep swig of my Miso, burning my mouth thoroughly and immediately washing down the burn with the freezing cold Jackhammer. It feels like my molars are going to explode and I fight not to cough. Suddenly I see an image I wasn’t expecting and I inhale sharply.
-They have a fucking camera in the freezer? On a separate channel?!
I slam a cord into my worst jack, taking that last step into the cyber world and flinch as the jack protests at being used but now I’m at full speed, working my way through the network of cameras and live feeds where I find the little fucker. I can’t glitch it since it’s on a live feed and on a separate channel, it’ll look suspicious as hell if the freezer camera just happened to get the same glitch as the other independent system. Time for another trick, then. I grit my teeth and shake my head.
-No, no, no.
Nicla’s steps are closing up on the freezer as I frantically upload my Tidal Wave I keep in my Domain for special occasions only so no one can get wise to it and make anti ware. I don’t want to stop her by breaking my mute, it might spook her or delay her that second too many to unmake us. The blue and green bar is loading painfully slow and I grit my teeth, hissing
-Come on come on come on come on
as quietly as I can, slamming at every single key to make sure that god accursed “W” doesn’t stall anything. The loading bar turns fully green and I jam my fingers to the keyboard to apply my Tidal Wave, the software controlling the camera in the fridge links to my little evil software fucker-upper and I hear Nicla’s hand on the freezer handle when my gorgeous flash message cover the entire freezer camera screen
ENVIROMENTAL LIMIT CONDITIONS HAVE SURPASSED WARNING LEVELS
EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN TO PROTECT SOFTWARE Y/N
I actually groan out loud as Nicla’s voice says
-Freezer.
and the sounds of her collecting the right samples, her voice confirming out loud the right numbers as she goes.
-Collected, extracting.
I exhale slowly, leading her steps once more, shielding her with the grey screen of little death. As she says
-Front door. Clear.
I unhook. I rub at my face and take a small glance at the guy behind the front desk of the HookUp. He’s sleeping.
-Fucking hell.
I whisper and get up, chuck the leftovers in the bins and leave.
meeting point
After going different and separate ways back to my place from our to say the least clandestine little operation as agreed, we’ve all returned. I was first to return, and the first thing I did was to sit my ass down by my Gate and erase the file “Jane Masamura” entirely, cancelling the key card and even the cred chit connection to clean up any traces of me in the BlueAri, even if it was tempting to keep her on as shadow staff and slowly rob Prima Care of a nurse’s pay once a month. I’m just about done, erasing stuff is quick work, then Nicla comes in, knocking first and then stepping right in and less than a minute after her our body mod strolls in through my front door, never knocking even once. In spite of his rudeness I’m really pleased with tonight. It all went perfectly smoothly and I’m way impressed with the lot of us, we really did an amazing job. There are no cries of triumph yet but as Nicla carefully puts the samples from the small freezer bag she brought to the clinic into the portably cryo pod she bought, it really does feel like stage one is complete. For a moment I make a small check in on my physio body. I’m fine. I’m not hungry, not tired, and I don’t hurt much. Teeth looks at me.
-What’s next?
-I go to a doc who can confirm or find out what disease my son and your daughter died from.
-He can tell from just those small samples?
I nod.
-He can if he’s as good as he should be.
Nicla’s already off, changing clothes behind us in my bedroom. Teeth glances at her to get a free lookie-loo but not me. Her voice calls out
-Which doc is it?
-His name is Seizer.
-Of the Orion Clinic? Isn’t he a bioware doc?
Nicla asks. I shrug.
-Aren’t they all here, or at least on “paper”?
Teeth frowns.
-I’ve heard of him. The man is a wreck.
-A wreck now from what I get, but he got his training on Luna 3.
-So?
I raise my eyebrows at him.
-That’s the finest medical school there is in the entire fucking Universe, Teeth. The professors do their very best to break their students, by pressure, being right down mentally abusive, and shoving more knowledge into them than what should be possible. No cyber implants permitted. The fee is close to a mil a term. All the hot shots want a Luna 3 doc. You go there and get your papers, you can ask whatever price you want, people will pay. Those who graduate are near gods.
-Then what the hell is he doing here?
-Something happened. I haven’t looked into exactly what. Does it matter?
Teeth shakes his head, leaving it at that, handing me a slip of paper.
-This is where my daughter is being kept. Give the man your name and these numbers. Don’t lose her. Here’s all the med files and the death certificate. I’m assuming we examine your son fist and when we have a clue, we use Honour to confirm it?
I accept the small note and the info chit, nodding wordlessly. He’s still talking about Honour as if she was alive. He runs his fingers through his longish hair, shaking it back.
-I was thinking when I was talking to the other body mod, the guard? We’ll need one more man on this when we get to the snatch and grab. I know a fellow. All muscle, only enough brain to propel him forward. He’s on Scorpio 2.
-I don’t want to involve too many people.
I mutter but Teeth shakes his head.
-Maybe, but we need one. I’ll pay him from my own pocket, if you want to whine about it. We should have had another look out just now. And we probably will need another one again.
I glare at him. Teeth has proven himself to me enough to be trusted but I still don’t like it.
-He any good?
Teeth grins.
-He’s one bolt from being a full H5 security model, or nearly so. Like I said, all muscle, no brains. I’ve done work with him before. We came in here on the same boat a good some years ago, body guarding the same asshole.
I roll my eyes. Hackers are used to working alone and prefer it that way but body mods are a different breed.
-From your pocket be it.
-Good. It may take a while to find him, though.
-No hurry. I’m going to Seizer’s right now with the samples. This may take some time.
Nicla comes out from my bedroom, the grey clothes in a bundle in her arms.
-I’ll go with you to the doc. I need to dump these and I want to ask the doc something anyway. Plus, I want to see if he’s as good as you think he is.
I raise an eyebrow at her.
-I think I can gage a doc on my own.
She looks gentler rather than offended.
-Not for you. For me.
For a moment I feel like an asshole without understanding why. I take a deep breath and shake my head, at myself, at her, at Teeth.
-Fine. Shall we?
The huddle disperses once more and on we go, into the perpetual night of space.
the broken doc
The ads are already up for this year’s Tournament, but you can only see them if you know what you’re looking for. As we step out into the streets once more, I see them clear as day, but Nicla’s eyes don’t seem to register them. It’s strips of code, running across billboards, or printed on odd scraps of paper, some small, yellow notes that look like misprinted business cards, some look like small white poorly translated declarations of ingredients from some food package, peeled off and slapped onto some random commercial poster. It’s still more than a month away as per tradition, but the note say’s to be ready anytime and how to get more info. I don’t read on, I’m too old since long to join. Even if I wasn’t I don’t have the heart for that stuff anymore. It doesn’t matter to me anyway. Only one thing does. It’s officially morning and the world of S2 is waking up. The smell of coffee and breakfast pastries finds their way into the air and I think it’s been years since I was up this early. On Nicla’s initiative we stop by one of the fragrant sources of morning delight, me splurging on a coffee milkshake, her taking an extra-large black coffee. Just as I’m about to write her off as a total adult she adds a donut with sprinkles to her order. I say nothing, I’m already busy grousing over the sealed off bridge we can’t take that’s extending the trip to the clinic by way too much. I hate mornings. Bad things happen on mornings.
Seizer’s clinic is on one of the top floors in the big Atrium. It takes almost a full two hours to walk there from my place, even if it’s fairly close as far as distance goes here, the detour route to get there is way complicated. I reflect briefly on the fact that there are no taxis on S2. There never were. It was never built for vehicles that size and once it became what it is today the living quarters and the shops expanded even more. There’s just no room for cars or carriages here. The legends say there used to be rickshaws and trams but that’s never been confirmed. The few motors making noise here carrying people are slim motorbikes and a scarce few haulers, that is it. The only places that have anything even resembling a car are the flight decks and the docks, where the space ships stand parked. Nicla and I trot all the way up to the top, over walkways and pausing on the escalators, breathing in the thinning air smelling less and less of food and more and more of hot metal and plastic. The clinics up here and the small firms using the cheapest rents on S2 are all of the kind that looks worn and cruddy. The signs are old, dirty or broken and faded, the windows haven’t been washed since opening day and the stuff in the display cases have been there since the same day. Little would you know that some of these establishments are the finest, the very top of the crop, or at least used to be. You have to know what you’re looking for, though. Tourists never come here. I used to, a lot, before the big twenty-one. A Wire café we pass called The System, that looks like the saddest dive you can imagine, has the finest fire walls on S2, and you could basically sit in there and work on your Domain until you passed out, using the finest connections there is to be had, never disturbed, in little colourful plastic pods of utter privacy instead of cubicles. The food was served through a slot in the pod. Soundproof, your own oxygen supply, and a full health monitor system that informed you of when it was time to eat, sleep or leave. I could have lived there but man, it cost more credits than I was willing to spend that often. I haven’t been there at all since I hit twenty-one, not even when Yun begged me to take her there for her twenty-third birthday. Maybe I’m ashamed. I know I am now.
Seizer’s place looks no different from the other establishments here, no surprises there. The windows are frosted and the only sign on the place is the name of the clinic and the blue logo. The door doesn’t even have a note with opening hours. The handle looks like someone’s tried to break in a few times. As I push I find it’s open and we walk into an air conditioned room that looks more like a supply room for a cyber doc than a clinical reception. The front desk is abandoned and from what it looks like, no nurse or receptionist has worked here in a long time. The desk is over cluttered with cardboard boxes and a large part of what looks like a broken cybernetic foot. More crates and boxes stand along the walls. On one of them there’s a small Gate and a holo platform stands a bit from it. A large coffee maker is on in a corner, the pot filled to the near brim, but there are no cups next to it. No chairs, no table, the plant in the corner is alive but dusty. The place needs cleaning, too. I almost back out again. I remember he never did answer any of my mails.
-This place looks abandoned…
That’s when a man comes out from one of the three doors leading out from the room, followed by what must be a custom H model because I’ve never seen one like it, wearing a nurse’s uniform. He looks as terrible as the rest of the place. He’s way past his forties, he needs a shower and a shave and probably sleep as well. The sign on the door that hermetically closes behind him says “Surghery” but I seriously hope he hasn’t been operating just now because he’s as far from sterile as he gets. He takes one look at me and another at Nicla, proceeding to the coffee maker. The H model just stands there, waving and smiling at us a little. Her skin is an almost see-through pale white matte colour, her body proportions are perfectly human which makes her even more unique, but her eyes are as glossy and glassy as any H model I’ve ever seen. Creepy, I believe is the word I’m looking for.
-How may I help you?
His accent is prim and proper but he speaks like he doesn’t care about anything. His voice has the same lethargy as mine.
-You Seizer?
I ask. He takes a cup from one of the crates behinds him, sniffs it and then fills it with coffee.
-Indeed.
I hesitate. This guy is all contradictions and I don’t like the look of this place. He didn’t even snarl “that’s Doctor Seizer to you” like I expected. Nicla clears her throat.
-I’m thinking about some bio implants and I heard you were the best in the business.
He looks at her from over the rim of his cup.
-I am.
The lack of humility certainly says Luna 3. The look of him says otherwise. I’m getting uneasy from the whole lot of it. Maybe I should have gone for the twins instead.
-This place looks more like an auto shop than a clinic.
I say, looking straight at him. His eyes turn to me and I realize one more thing about him. He’s a full on virgin. He doesn’t have a single jack. It confirms Luna 3 too, but not as much as what he says next.
-If you are looking for a cleaning firm, you are in the wrong establishment. I am a surgeon, a medical doctor, a cyber designer, an engineer and when it comes to bioware, I am a god. Should you find this hard to believe, I can remind you of where the exit door is. Hint, it’s the same one as the entrance door.
I push it, just to make sure.
-Where’s your diploma?
He frowns a little.
-I can’t have it up since they took my license, as well you know, hacker. Now, shall we get down to business or shall you leave?
Satisfied if still a bit uneasy, I nod at him.
-Business. We’re not here for her. We’re here for me. And it’s a little complicated.
I reply and hold up the cryo pod. He just blinks once and then relaxes his shoulders a smidgeon.
He offers us coffee from plastic cups but I must say, it tastes more like engine oil than coffee so I stick at one sip and just get down to business. We’re all still on our feet, but he’s leaning on one of the crates. I do my song and dance, the short version.
-My son died a while ago. The docs never could find out why. Can you find out if you have tissue samples?
He tips his head a little to the sides.
-Most likely. Do you have the medical files as well?
I hand over the paper I was given at the clinic. He reads it but shakes his head.
-No, this is the death certificate and the case file number. I need the full medical journal.
I feel myself getting cold. I thought this was the full thing. If I start hacking the clinic for that now, there’s a fat risk of getting caught. I’ve poked around there just enough for them to not notice but one more push and they just might get wise to the multiple glitches as of late may actually be intrusions. If they do, this thing will unravel like a fucking knitted sweater, the camera glitch, my Tidal Wave, maybe even Jane Masamura will be discovered or at least that someone who they no longer have on file soft logged in past the security doors. They’ll contact S2 security, find out about the break in, and away to lock down we all go, or me at the very least. Teeth won’t take a fall and Nicla can burn her pinkie but me, I can’t chance it.