by Damien Boyes
If I lose him in one of those buildings I’ll never find him again.
I retrieve my weapon from my bag and secure it in the waistband of my shorts, the grip nestled against my lower back, then take the Revv shyft out of a side pocket and squeeze it in my fist.
The cypher crosses Parliament St., cuts across a brown lawn and makes for one of the apartment buildings. I speed my pace until I’m only a few metres behind him, but he doesn’t turn around and I enter the building after he does.
He punches a code into the lobby’s inner door and it buzzes and releases with a clunk. I slip inside before it closes and we’re alone in the lobby.
He presses the call button then turns and looks me up and down, but his expression doesn’t change. I’m no threat.
“Hey,” I say, feigning a friendly neighbour, and he grunts in response. Just two guys waiting for an elevator.
When the dinged-up silver doors open he goes in first, presses the button for twenty-two and leans back against the handrail. I punch twenty-five, stand back in the opposite corner and angle my head to watch numbers change as the elevator rises. I study him in my peripheral vision.
He isn’t armed, but that doesn’t mean anything. Can’t tell a Past-Standard skyn just by looking. Could be he’s capable of pulling my heart out of my chest with his bare hands. I have no idea.
The entire ride up he doesn’t so much as flick his eyes in my direction.
When we reach twenty-two, he pushes off the back of the elevator and strides out. I wait a beat before jamming the elevator door open with my foot and sticking my head out. He’ halfway down the hallway, stops in front of a door, knocks, and someone lets him in. He checks back over his shoulder before he goes in but I pull back into the elevator before he sees me.
I’ve got him. All I need to do is call this in and we can add another cypher to the books. I can tell Chaddah I stumbled across him on the way home.
I pull my tab out of my bag.
I should call this in.
I was wrong at the arKade, and didn’t call for back up when I should have.
I’ve learned my lesson, haven’t I?
But say I do call the AMP and let them know what’s going on, what happens then?
A TAC team mobilises. Standards suits up and tears in, shoots everyone up. They’ll be craving a fight after losing last time.
Even then, coming in hot, they could still be outmatched.
Look what happened to Daar. Standards was backing her up, she didn’t stand a chance. No one does.
No one but me.
I open my hand. The Revv lies there, lightning flaring inside its sweat-slick surface.
I put the tab back in my bag and fish out the cuff, fix it to my neck.
Then I let the shyft into my head and step out of the elevator into the future.
***
SysDate
[17:27:41:41. Saturday, April 27, 2058]
The cypher entered a door about halfway down the hall. I need to get over there and check it out. Once I get close I’ll decide on a plan.
I creep down the hallway, keeping close to the wall, stop at the cypher’s door and listen.
There’s music inside. Talking. Two distinct voices, a man and a woman. Plus muffled commentary in the background, a feed probably. The buzz of a cheering crowd rises. Sports of some kind. I settle in and wait for what feels like hours, but only minutes pass.
This is my last chance. I call it in now or deal with the consequences.
But I’ve already made up my mind. The only consequence will be one more cypher off the streets. One more inhuman monster who’ll never hurt anyone again.
I reach out for the doorknob with my right hand. It’s cool under my fingers.
I duck my head to keep my shadow out of the peephole as I gradually twist my wrist and unlatch the door. It isn’t even locked.
With my left hand I reach around to the small of my back and grab hold of my weapon, but don’t let it engage. If the gun powered up the AMP would notice. It would call for immediate back-up. I want to keep this as quiet as possible.
I take a breath, crouch and ease the door open. The feed commentary gets louder but no one notices the door moving, no one sounds an alarm.
Through the crack I see a tiny kitchen, wooden cupboards and brown laminate tile. Dirty dishes piled in the sink. The remnants of dinner in a big green pot still steaming on the stove.
There’s still no response from inside.
I edge the door further, hand tight on my powered-down weapon, and glance once, see everything in a half-second. Jackets hang from hooks on the wall, a man’s and a woman’s. Two pairs of shoes on the parquet floor. A bathroom stands off to the left, towels neatly stacked on a shelf above the toilet, two toothbrushes in a blue cup next to the faucet.
Further on, the short corridor opens onto a wide room. An Orbitball match plays on the far wall: the Republic Halos versus the Serbian Electric. Serbia’s winning four goals to three.
I can’t see the cypher, but I can hear the clink of utensils on dinnerware, see the edge of a couch against the near wall and the man’s elbow perched on the armrest.
I slip inside and close the door behind me, slide over into the kitchen.
Dinner smells like some kind of stew. Smoked ham. Potatoes. Paprika.
My stomach grumbles and I grab at my abdomen, wait for someone to come check it out, but the noise from the game drowns my hunger out.
The kitchen has another doorway leading out to the main room. A round table sits on the other side, its surface littered with shyfts, stacked cashcards, two handguns and a machine pistol.
I squeeze my weapon tighter but don't let it engage and power up, not yet. I take a breath and tip my head around the kitchen wall.
The cypher and a woman are sitting side-by-side on a long brown couch, eating from bowls while watching the screen. They have no idea I’m here.
A bedroom door stands open off the far side of the large room, the lights off. I don’t think anyone else is here. I rise to standing, keeping my hand behind my back, fingers around my weapon, and step out into the living room.
I stand there long enough I could’ve killed them both twice by the time either of them notices me. The cypher turns his head, sees me and still takes an eternity to react.
“What the—” he says and lurches up. The bowl tumbles from his lap and the contents hang in the air as he slowly rises. I see him recognize me from the elevator, realise I must have followed him up, then flick his eyes to the weapons on the table beside me, figuring if he can get past me, get to one of them.
The woman sees me and bears her teeth, flexes her arm and screams as she hurls her bowl at my head.
The broth sloshes out, steam rising from it as it escapes, momentarily weightless. Sprouts and pieces of flaked white meat rain down on the hardwood.
The cypher’s turning, his hands balled, legs flexing. He’s going for the guns.
Let him come.
I angle my head and the bowl sails by and shatters against the wall behind me.
The cypher has his fists up, raised in front of him like a boxer, his cheeks bunched, his lips tight. He takes two steps and throws his weight behind a right jab at my face. He has a scar over the second knuckle on his hand and his nails need trimming and he’s already tensing his other arm to throw a left hook.
He’ll never get that far.
With my left hand still behind my back, I step into the punch, let it sail past my ear, cock my head and snap my forehead down on the bridge of his nose. It crackles like wet celery and blood sprays the front of his shirt and before his face has registered the pain I’ve got my free hand around the back of his neck, fingers pressed against the sub-dermal disc at the base of his skull. He yanks back against my grip but I hold him steady while I drive my knee into his abdomen twice, hard enough I hear a rib snap, and on the third shot let him go. He staggers back into the woman’s arms and they both drop to the floor.
Cypher neutralized.
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Now to check on the woman. I let go of my weapon and hold my tab up and they both outline in red on the screen. 99% match.
Two cyphers for the price of one.
I really should call this in.
“Who da fug are you?” the cypher burbles through his broken nose. “Are you fade?”
“I won’t go back,” the woman says, her voice tight, cradling the cypher’s head. She has a faint Eastern European accent.
I don’t answer, take my bag off my back instead, open the zip and sweep the shyfts and cashcards and two of the guns into it, reseal it and shoulder it back up. I lift the third, a Browning handgun with a holographic front sight, and point it at the cypher.
“Whoa,” he says, raising his hands in defence. “You don’t need to do dis. We’ll come peaceful.”
“No,” the woman says, turning on the man, her lips trembling, “I’ll die before I let him take me back there.”
He puts his arm around her, keeps his voice calm. “Vjera, my love, don’t fight. We can’t beat them. I don’t want to lose you—”
“Don’t worry,” I say, thinking about Daar. I may not have liked her much, but she didn’t deserve to die. It was people like this who killed her, people who hide who they are. What they are. “I’m not taking you anywhere,”
“Shoot us then,” Vjera yells, thrusting her chest up at me.
The man pulls on her, raises his hand. “No, we’re unarmed. This is murder.”
“For this to be murder,” I say, “You’d have to be human.”
“What?” Vjera croaks. “We’re as human as you are.”
“Not according to Standards,” I answer and put a bullet through the male’s Cortex. Fragments of skull and blood and twinkling plastic splatter over her.
“Mato!” she cries and her face screws up in pain and anger as she clutches the cypher’s ruined face to her chest. “You killed him!”
I hear her words, understand their meaning. I ended the existence of the entity she knew as Mato, but I didn’t kill anyone. He was an illegal personality in an unregistered body. He was dangerous, just like all the others.
Just like her.
Just like the one who killed Connie.
“Mato was dead already,” I tell her. “I put him straight.”
“You have no idea,” she seethes, her chest heaving. “What we had to do to get out of there, what we endured—”
He intensity unsettles me. She’s terrified, and not of dying. “Out of where?” I ask, lowering the gun, just a little.
“The Sudbina,” she says. “We’d escaped, finally escaped and now—”
Her face explodes in a blaze of blue-white light and I spin, weapon up, as the shot echoes in my ears.
I come to a stop with it pointed at the tall Nordic woman in the slate grey suit I saw last week in the station, the one who came to talk to Chaddah and left unhappy.
Her partner is behind her. He’s got his weapon on me but he doesn’t look like he wants to use it.
I didn’t even hear them come in.
It’s hard to remember the Revv doesn’t make me invincible. I still need to pay attention. I’m hardly the only one amped up these days. And my advantage having the Revv won’t last forever. Xiao released his new build at the arKade. They’ll be hitting the streets. I need to be more careful.
“Mr. Gage,” she says, holstering her weapon in a docker’s clutch under her jacket. “We mean you no harm. Indeed, we’re on the same side.”
That remains to be seen, but if they were allowed inside the station, the Service must not believe they’re dangerous. But the Service doesn’t know everything.
“Who’ side is that?” I ask, keeping my gun arm straight, muzzle at her face.
She cocks her head at me, amused. “The side of the law. The side of humanity.”
I don’t understand. “Who are you?”
“We, Mr. Gage, are Agents of Fate. We are here to help you apprehend the fugitive criminal known as Xiao.”
***
SysDate
[17:39:52:21. Saturday, April 27, 2058]
My ears are buzzing with confusion and unfocused adrenaline. I just stalked and killed a cypher, off the books while Revved, and the Cortex hadn’t hit the floor before someone claiming to be an Agent of Fate told me she wanted to help me find Xiao.
I don’t know if they’re really Fate, but they are witnesses to my vigilante justice.
If they tell Chaddah I didn’t call the cypher in, I won’t be getting a third chance to disappoint her. She'll have me on my ass.
I'll lose my access to SecNet. Without it, even if I can pull the driver’s image from my head when xY delivers the ReCog, it’ll be useless.
Chaddah can’t know about this.
I keep my gun still, levelled at her head. “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, leaning on the Revv to keep my voice from shaking.
“Pardon my manners,” she says, flashing her intense blue eyes. “I’m Agent Sòng. This is Agent Minnaar. We are representatives of the Fate Corporation, and we have an offer to discuss.”
Minnaar tips his head at me. I thought he might be Italian when I saw him in the station but up close he looks more Persian. Dark hair, thick eyebrows and a chiselled jawline. But they’re obviously skynned, so who knows who’s inside.
I flip my gun to my right hand and use the cypher sweep on them. Comes back negative, both of them outlined in green.
Rep-net doesn’t show much about either of them, but it agrees on their identities. Min Sòng and Thato Minnaar, both private investigators employed by the Fate Corporation.
They may call themselves Agents, but they have no legal standing. They’re corporate stooges playing at law enforcement. Fate may be one of the richest companies on the planet, but that doesn’t give them leave to conduct criminal investigations. Not yet, at least.
“You’re here for Xiao?” I ask.
She raises a cheek at me. “Are you not searching for him as well?”
Say they are Fate, what’s their interest in Xiao?
While Second Skyn perfected the recovery process that allowed digital immortality, they did so by focusing on restoring people to their old lives: creating fancy new bodies and the dream of a fresh start. But lots of people in the world could barely afford a good meal, let alone a few million to drop on a new body. For most, immortality was out of reach.
Until three years ago when Fate came along.
Fate took the recovery process and quietly dropped the restoration part. They offered cash-strapped governments the option to reduce healthcare costs, and guarantee virtual immortality in the place of radical life extension programs. Or, for some countries, basic medical care.
The sick and dying liberated from their bodies, converted to rithms, and allowed to live on in one of Fate’s virtual worlds. Free. Forever. Medical bills go down and the sick never die.
Win/win.
Mostly.
Fate first launched their service in partnership with China, with a virtual world they called the Yuanfen, and the people who chose to live there, the people who made the impossible decision between death and ‘not dead,’ they called the shù zì zŭxiān.
Digital Ancestors.
But under their breaths, many still call the Ancestors feng shua—empty words.
There have to be millions of Ancestors by now. Hundreds of millions maybe. Fate doesn’t release much in the way of details around its operation. No one’s ever seen the inside of one of their virts. What goes on the Yuanfen is a mystery to everyone except the millions of souls living there.
Fate operates in twenty or thirty-odd countries and is growing all the time, adding more and more Ancestors every day. But that isn’t why Fate is so powerful. They also operate one of the largest knowledge sub-contracting services on the link. Work to keep all those idle minds busy. The Ancestors are free to hire themselves out. They write songs and create advertising campaigns and draw up a architectural blueprints. All for pennies.
Fate handles the psychorithm recovery, maintains the servers and the workforce and operates the knowledge service exchanges. Everyone shares in the profits.
So far, the Union has kept Fate from opening here, citing their unwillingness to adhere to COPA laws and their unfair labour practices and the secrecy of their virts.
So far.
It’s only a matter of time. Even the Union won’t be able to afford reJuv for everyone indefinitely.
But none of that explains why Fate has agents on the ground in the Union. Or what they’re doing here. Or why they want Xiao.
“Are you licensed to carry that weapon?” I ask, pointing the barrel of my gun at the bulge under Sòng’s jacket.
She smiles. “Fully. Concealed permits. I can show you the documentation if you wish, detective.”
I flick my eyes at the female cypher, keep the gun steady. “Why did you shoot her?”
Sòng furrows her brow. “She was illegally skynned—”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Mato and Vjera Dragovic unlawfully extricated their contractually obligated minds from the Sudbina, Fate Corporation’s home for Serbian National Ancestors. They were, as you call them, cyphers. Dangers to the populace. Do you not have the same policy?” she asks, gesturing to Mato’s shattered face.
We do, but for some reason it’s feels dirty admitting it to her. These two may have been cyphers, but they were also people.
Scared people.
“Protecting people isn’t your job,” I say.
“The safety of the populace is everyone’s responsibility,” she counters.
The thing is, I can’t argue. Even if I was in a position to, I couldn’t charge her with anything. The cyphers weren’t registered with COPA, weren’t people under the law. I couldn’t even get her for property damage.
Instead, I change the subject. “How did you find me?”
“Fate has taken an interest in you, Detective Gage,” she presses her lips together then purses them, as if practicing what to say next. “We followed you. Thought we might be of assistance.” She looks at my gun. “You don’t need your weapon, I assure you.”
I hesitate, but if she wanted to shoot me, she could have before, when she first came in and I didn’t notice. I drop the gun to my side, but keep my finger in the trigger guard. “What are you offering?”