by Sarah Stone
Hayden shrugged. “Without violence, they won't be able to change anything,” he answered, thinking of the old man’s gentle words and Una’s defense of him. “But I think they’re trying to be righteous, even if they can't always be clean.”
The corporations, all of them, had sold their souls a long time ago, but the Akiaten felt different to him, more concerned with the lives of their people than with any profit the pulse could bring them. He told himself he believed that believed the old man, it was the only way to get his hands to stop shaking.
She looked at him and kept looking. The discussion was a formality. He could see that much in her eyes already. They had both already made up their minds. Half her mouth rose after the longest stretch of silence she had allowed since she sat down; he imagined it was the closest thing to a grin she could give him and was monumentally grateful for the effort, however fruitless it ultimately was.
“Resistance fighters never wind up on the good side of history,” she said. “You know that, right?”
He chuckled in place of answering, and she did so with him. It was a grim laugh, the sort a person made on their way to the gallows.
Chapter 5
The days began to blur together as he and Nibiru worked on their arduous task of searching for the pulse. The new technology mentioned by Nibiru was taking a long time to develop, even with their nearly limitless resources. He’d even caught her telling Laine that she couldn’t rush perfection. Though the engineer hadn’t said as much to him, he expected she was biding her time purposefully, knowing that if she took to the project with the same level of dedication she usually showed, they might have made some show of progress days ago.
When it came to the morality of this endeavor, Nibiru was still just as confused as Hayden felt. Though they both knew the actions of their company were reprehensible, neither was sure of exactly what part they should play in stopping it, or of exactly how much they would be willing to risk doing it.
For the last week, they had bided their time with slow, thorough work that yielded no concrete results. Stalling. Keeping the slingers busy running painstakingly slow, grid by grid searches of the datascape, hoping to turn up a trail that would lead them to the pulse. The work would go faster, everyone knew, if Nibiru was successful in her studying of the autopsied corpse and the report that went along with it.
She spent long hours in the lab when she wasn’t searching with the rest of them, studying the energy signature they had captured from the Akiaten’s genetic code. She used the drones in the datascape, Hayden watching her back as he had done before. They made the searches go faster, appear more comprehensive to those watching, all the while Hayden had a few stealth programs trapping and deleting any bits of information that could possibly be threaded together to paint a full spectrum picture of the island.
The pair were intentionally avoiding connecting datapoints that seemed to sync with the energy signature of the Akiaten. Now that they had a body, and the vast arrays of data yielded by the drones, there was no reason that they shouldn't be able to give management a target by now.
If anyone, like Overdog, checking Hayden's work too closely, or someone like Qais, attempting to backstab his way up the corporate ladder dug around and found Hayden's deletion cache the slinger would be burned. As it was Hayden relied on skills learned during his former life as a street slinger to create a few ghost folders on the central server and was able to stash the deletion records there and keep them safe, for now. It was only a matter of time before it was found, so both he and Nibiru knew they couldn't keep this up forever.
“Any day now,” He told Laine with false confidence. Had her enhancements been focused on facial expressions and voice modulations, he would have been fucked. As it was, Laine herself was not well versed enough in human interaction to read the lie without help.
Hayden saw little of the alpha augment. Mitchell had her working on something and most times he glimpsed her, she was strolling toward one of the more discreet exits with her armor on her back. Sometimes, the dark-eyed operative was with her, but more often she was alone, as he knew she preferred it.
After the throw down in MassNet, the E-Bloc slingers had gone quiet, as had Sun, though activity on the ground did appear to have increased.
The E-Bloc troopers were getting more aggressive with their military shakedown of the locals, and according to a casualty report that Hayden was able to slice from CodeSource, it was likely that the Captain had Laine out there making corpses of troopers and resistance fighters alike. No wonder she was in a good enough mood not to care about progress on the pulse.
He and Nibiru never rehashed their conversation, nor did they meet in secluded parts of the building to conspire together. Several times, they met in Nibiru’s workshop to discuss the finer mechanics of the drones and their workings, or which grid it made the most sense to move onto once they had exhausted their search of the current target. They kept the talk to strictly business and Nibiru kept her door half open as she normally did.
The only indication of their growing unease would be her goodbyes as he stepped into the hallway, ranging from an airy “Take it easy” to the more concerned “Keep your shit together, Cole.” If their worry showed in their work or on their faces, no one thought to comment on it. Everyone in the Union was stressed, as this mission had officially gone off schedule and over budget.
After six solid days of work and looking intermittently over his shoulder, Overdog caught him on his way out of the operations center, a slight headache buzzing in his skull from his latest stint in MassNet.
The hand on his shoulder made him tense but Overdog was smiling cheerfully enough when he turned.
“Working hard, cowboy?”
Hayden nodded. “Just checking in on the search grids,” he said. “Your team here is doing good work. I just wish Nibiru and I could find something worth pursuing so your people could do more than guard the castle.”
Overdog seemed to increase in height at the perceived compliment, his spine straightening and his shoulders broadening as his smile stretched wider. “They’ve learned a lot from watching you in there. Especially Qais.”
Hayden let his eyes drift briefly to the younger slinger, still ensconced in CodeSource at a mobile rig. The kid was good, knew when to do things by the book as well as when to branch out without making it look like a direct subversion of his orders, and that was a rare commodity in a slinger.
Most were too rigid or too wild, rarely in the middle ground. He nodded his agreement, and, in the confines of his mind, urged Overdog to get to the point, as it wasn't like him to drag things out like this or attempt engaging in small talk.
“Captain Mitchell and I were speaking earlier and we both think it would be a good idea if you took some downtime—you and Nibiru. You’ve both been busting your asses on this, and we all know too much time in the code can muddle the brain a bit. Take the rest of the day, go out and buy some of that shitty food you like, alright?”
It was an easy enough request. He hadn’t been outside the HQ since the black van brought him back, and the past few days, the walls around him had seemed to grow thicker and the air harder to breathe. It wasn't like Overdog to be so chipper, or to be apparently okay with management relieving him of his most valued slinger, but Hayden wasn't about to argue.
Nibiru must have already received a similar message from Mitchell via her HUD as she was waiting for him in the hallway with her rig ready to go.
The green of her eyes, lately overshadowed by the dark circles beneath them from long hours spent jacked into CodeSource, looked a bit brighter already.
Not knowing exactly what might happen when they left the confines of the building, Hayden had the strong, gnawing urge to head up to his room on their way out, to retrieve some of his more expensive equipment and spare clothes, but he couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t look suspicious.
They both had their mobile rigs slung over their shoulders, and that was all a sli
nger could get away with without looking as though they were packing for an extended vacation. Really, he should be grateful that the sight of the single bag didn’t invite questions.
Already dressed in civilian clothes, they headed out into the street, squinting in the midday sun. The street was bustling, crowds of people going about their day, seemingly blissfully ignorant that the building they walked past was a high-tech fortress packing enough firepower to wage a war and enough processing power to run a small city. The future was here, and they didn't even realize it.
They passed food stalls and Nibiru bought an ear of roasted corn spitted on a stick and ate it as they walked.
Hayden’s mind was one-track, a destination already in mind. If they were to do anything, they would need to do it from a location that wasn’t being monitored.
There was no way they'd be allowed out of the HQ without a security escort close by, so no doubt there was at least one plainclothes operative somewhere around here. They had to get to a place where Americana had no eyes and no way to trace whatever activity ensued back to them.
They might get a slap on the wrist for losing their security tail, but since it was a plainclothes operator, and they had no way of knowing where he or she was, perhaps if things didn't go the way he suspected they might, Hayden could talk their way out of a reprimand upon their return.
The wandered the streets for a while, crossing several blocks over, closer to the water, before they found a cab that would take them further into the city. It was a bicycle cab and he felt odd sitting there, without the old man’s voice in his ear.
Nibiru narrowed her eyes at the appearance of the internet café, the same black-site spot he’d contacted Union Americana from all those days ago. While Hayden hadn't let the Captain know it was a black-site, Nibiru had busted him for it in private rather easily. Hayden figured returning to a familiar location would keep the security team from being overly suspicious, assuming they hadn't managed to lose them in the bustling streets.
“You’re absolutely sure that they have internet?” she joked. But she followed him inside all the same.
It seemed identical to the last time he’d entered, though now the a/c seemed to be malfunctioning, and a sheen of sweat covered the face of each of the five or so current customers, all of them clacking away at CodeSource.
Nibiru slipped him a few bills of the local currency to go along with his own, and headed over to the bank of computers, reserving two seats by sitting in one and occupying the second with her boots. His cards could be tracked but cash was different. Even if nothing happened, the fact that he had spent money on more than coffee and basic internet in this particular establishment would raise questions in of itself. As with most black-sites in the perpetually developing world of low-grade regions, the official purchase was coffee and internet with a card and black-site access with cash.
The manager was the same as well, down to the worn, button-down shirt he wore, the collar sticking to his neck in the heat. The man said nothing about Hayden’s familiarity, though if the subtle widening of his eyes and the curious glance at Nibiru meant anything, he’d been recognized as someone who’d been there before. Even in a black-site like this, it must have been rare for patrons to enter with blood still staining their clothes.
“Two this time?”
Hayden nodded, handing over the prescribed amount of cash. He then added a tip that matched the generosity he’d shown last time and dumped his change in the donation jar. He was rewarded with a friendly nod of acknowledgment before he turned his back and walked to the terminals.
“Nice,” Nibiru commented. “Very sociable.”
The edge of a smile overtook him. “What?” he asked, hoping for elaboration.
“You’ve watched too many spy movies, Cole. You don’t have to act like a dick. Would it have killed you to say ‘thank-you’?”
“You’re pissed that I didn’t make small talk?” he muttered incredulously, hanging his rig over the back of the chair, leaning all his weight against it. If someone tried to make off with it, the jerking of the strap should get his attention, even in CodeSource.
Nibiru ignored the question. “Look. He’s gonna glare at us the whole time.”
“I tipped him too well for that, just as much as last time.”
Her eyes narrowed. “This is the same café?”
He swept one hand toward the door. “If you know another black-site, lead the way.”
“I could probably find one,” she said under her breath, the words half hidden, but she was already fitting the cable to her jack. "For a clandestine operator you kind of suck at the espionage part."
Hayden gave the other patrons a quick look, but most of them seemed to be absorbed in their own screens. The few that weren’t had the same glazed appearance that slingers in CodeSource took on, eyes clouded over and trance-like.
“What’s the plan once we’re in?” Nibiru asked, with only a handful of seconds separating her from full immersion.
Wishing he knew himself, Hayden shrugged. “See what happens.” If anything, he thought but didn’t say. He almost hoped for nothing; it would definitely be easier than something. Then they could go home and tell themselves they'd at least tried. Hayden pulled out his own cable, met Nibiru’s eyes as he slotted it into place, and together, they sank into the code.
This was not MassNet, so the code was just the code without appearing as much else. They could navigate their way through it if they wished, hacking into the systems from the various buildings and businesses around them, or even delving into the footage from whatever cameras were within reach. Everything was within reach really, to a slinger of high enough skill. Between himself and Nibiru, they had enough skill to conquer anything.
But there was no need to go digging. That was not what this excursion was about.
The look Lunatic 8 had given him before he left MassNet had been one of knowing. What she knew, he did not know, but he wanted to learn it himself. Had she any doubt of his motivations, any worry that he would attack the Akiaten on his own, she would not have let him leave intact, of that much he was sure. He was also sure there was something she wanted from him, something he could do; he only hoped it didn’t involve betrayal of the most overt sort.
It would be one thing to use his skills to defend the resistance in MassNet or CodeSource. He would have no issue squaring off against E-Bloc or Asia Prime slingers, but he wasn't sure about his Union comrades.
It would be another thing altogether if he was asked to use his trusted status to plant a bomb in the operations center or to slash and burn the Union HQ servers.
How did things get so messy so quickly?
He was beginning to realize that there were rules of a sort to every war, things that certain people would not do, depths they would not sink to, while others did not hesitate to carry them out. He truly hoped that the old man was right and that the Akiaten were indeed, something different.
Hayden still wasn’t sure which type of person he was, or even what side he truly belonged to.
He and Nibiru kept silent, their HUD’s linked but without activity. They both knew they were there to learn more, and consequently, there was nothing to say in the meantime.
They did not have to wait long.
Nibiru only broke it to catch his attention, when he realized he had stared into the shifting numbers and letters too long, the individual strands beginning to blur into one indistinguishable mess. To our left, her message said, and he followed her line of sight.
Sight was a loose concept in CodeSource, but still, he looked in the direction she had specified, until he too caught wind of the discrepancy. Movement in the code that was not them, that did not belong, or could not belong to only one person. The shifting of the code was larger than life, an entrance meant to capture their attention. It appeared to their senses as a multitude of anomalies in the code, tiny changes in the local power grid, security cameras, water meters, and other hard systems linked to CodeSo
urce.
Though they could not see the resistance slinger as closely or clearly as they would have in MassNet, he was almost grateful for the reprieve. The sight of her before had been both enthralling and horrifying; there were stories of what could happen if you spent too much time in the code, and Lunatic 8 had been plainly ravaged by it. Even the movements she made were on the twitchy side, however visible the power was behind it.
Hayden and Nibiru both could almost feel the insanity radiating out from the swirl of anomalies that began to coalesce into a singular, even if radically chaotic, signature that joined them on the black-site server.
Lunatic 8 scanned over both Hayden and Nibiru and did not display a reaction to the engineer’s presence. She may have already gotten a glimpse of Nibiru through MassNet or perhaps she simply knew of her activities within the code, of her place in the hierarchy of Union Americana, or even of her life before. For a determined slinger, there was no such thing as off-limits information. Whatever she knew must not have been condemning; she seemed willing enough to accept Nibiru’s presence and participation in the meeting.
Hayden expected her voice to come in the same way he and Nibiru communicated, through text in the code, or perhaps transmitted directly to his HUD. When she spoke though, he heard her voice as though she were standing next to him in the blacksite café, speaking directly into his ear. There was no distortion in the sound, and from the look, Nibiru gave him as soon as she spoke, Nibiru was hearing it too. The slinger must have sliced into their HUDs as soon as she arrived, and then patched into the frequency that connected Hayden's Union earpiece with Nibiru's on a local channel.
“I’m connected to everything,” Lunatic 8 said, vaguely addressing the question he was about to ask before he could get around to asking it. “It takes its toll, so I can’t stay long. If you’ve come to know more,” she said. “Then listen.”