Parker nodded. He and Alexa had worked together to create a system to spy on the others, but they’d deliberately only used Alexa’s access codes to do it. Parker could fabricate a lie about how he’d “discovered” that Chloe knew the truth about Andrew — but if Alexa told them, Olivia would immediately scope out her system activity, looking for exactly the type of thing that had revealed the problem with Chloe.
“I’ll make something up to tell them,” Parker said. “And I’ll call you when I call them. Make sure you aren’t the first one to arrive so it doesn’t look like we were chatting before the others showed. Then try to act horrified when I tell everyone that Chloe’s about to turn on us.”
“I can do that. Because it’s pretty goddamn horrifying.”
Parker closed his eyes, breathing deeply, trying not to reel. Then he opened his eyes and said, “How bad do you think this will be? Do you think it’s all down the drain?”
It took her several seconds, but then Alexa finally said, “Probably.”
“Fuck.”
Then Parker walked through the door and was gone.
When his footfalls were no longer audible, Alexa removed her Beam canvas from her shoulder bag in the corner, set it on the table’s surface, and said, “Okay, Sarah.”
Sarah’s holographic image appeared in the small conference room.
“Close the door, please.”
The projection moved to the door as part of its affect. When Sarah put her insubstantial hand on its surface, the room pneumatics made the door close as if Sarah was pushing it.
“Have you cut us off?”
Sarah nodded, then spoke in her clipped, polite voice. “Yes, Miss. As a precaution, I’ve also occluded the tunnel code you asked me to insert earlier.”
Alexa nodded. She was still hesitant to speak her mind in here, but if Sarah said the room was safe, then it was.
“I already told Parker that Chloe saw the meeting. I assume that’s true?” Maybe she shouldn’t have jumped the gun, but it was a safe assumption. Besides, if she was wrong and Chloe had somehow missed today’s fireworks, Parker would hardly be angry about what he’d see as good news.
“There’s no way to be entirely sure. Miss Shaw’s porter has effectively blocked all visibility into her apartment. Even to your level of access. But I exposed the weak data to Brad’s sphere of influence as you requested and he immediately logged a request on Chloe’s behalf.”
“What was the request?”
“Access to you specifically.”
Alexa half-laughed, amused. She was only somewhat surprised.
It was sweet, in a way. Chloe had all the reason in the world to suspect Andrew but trusted him enough not to snoop.
It didn’t matter. Alexa had known she’d ask for access to something tied to today’s room: information on Alexa, Andrew, Parker or one of the others, O, whatever.
It only mattered that when Brad requested access, Sarah granted it.
“And you’re sure that Brad didn’t realize that you gave him those temporary permissions.”
“It was a generalized system query, Miss. There’s no way he knew.”
Alexa’s head bobbed. “Good.”
“I heard what you said to Mr. Barnes, Miss. If it matters, Miss Shaw has not left her apartment.”
“As long as you’re reasonably sure she saw the holo of our meeting with Andrew, it doesn’t matter.”
“The permissions were accepted. The data left the O system through the tunnel code. Bandwidth usage shows sufficient streaming to account for the holographic projection, lasting from near the meeting’s start to roughly its midpoint. I would say yes, she saw it.”
“And your role as interpreter?” Alexa asked.
“Both my identity and connection to you were sufficiently masked. Brad only knows that I was autonomous interpretation AI required for image conversion of the raw stream. But I did as you asked, and if I may be so bold, I believe I performed to specifications.”
Alexa almost laughed. It was very Sarah to boast about “performing to specifications,” but she understood the porter’s point.
“You think it looked bad to Chloe?”
“In my opinion, Miss, it would have looked ‘bad’ regardless, seeing that Andrew had been working for O. But I was able to cut communications when Andrew began to justify himself. As I understand such things, there was little good to accompany the bad from Miss Shaw’s perspective.”
“Good. Now we wait?”
“That is your choice, Miss.”
“Then I guess we wait. We’ve done all we can to advance the situation. But in your opinion …?”
“In my opinion, Miss?” Sarah shrugged. “I would say that everything is going according to plan.”
“Thank you, Sarah.”
The hologram nodded. There was a quiet moment, and then she said, “There is something else, Miss. I have had word from Trevor, Mr. White’s Beam porter.”
“He named his porter Trevor?”
“Yes, Miss?” Sarah waited to see if Alexa wanted her to investigate, but there wasn’t any point. It was a joke that didn’t matter and spanned well before her porter’s time.
“Your shared data pool has been almost fully compiled. As agreed, Trevor and I have analyzed the results simultaneously. There are still small clusters that require collation, but I’ve looked at the results and thus far believe them to be sound.”
“And in agreement with what you basically told me you already know?”
Sarah didn’t respond. She simply waited. It had been a sore spot for Alexa that Sarah had known the answers to certain mysteries for weeks but had refused, per Panel-level blind spots, to let Alexa in on them.
Going to Caspian’s 2040’s records was like exploiting a loophole; Sarah was able to discuss results of pre-Crossbrace records bootlegged from the Wild East even if she wasn’t allowed to discuss today’s private records.
Right now, Alexa wanted a stamp of approval. If Sarah would just say, Yes, Miss, Caspian’s results are the same as what I already knew but couldn’t tell you, it would close the maddening loop in her mind.
“What does Caspian’s Wild East data show?” Alexa said, giving up.
“That Chloe Shaw’s method of conception was … unusual.”
Alexa scoffed. “I knew that much.”
“I can describe it in brief now if you’d like, although a VR presentation would probably better help you understand how Chloe came to be inside her mother.”
“I don’t really have time for all that now. They’ll miss me soon.” Alexa looked toward the door as if expecting an interruption — for the other five board members to break in and see the secret hands she’d been playing.
“Later, then. I will prepare the VR in the meantime.”
Alexa drummed her fingers, her heart beating faster. “Just give me the name, Sarah. The suspense is killing me.”
“The name, Miss?” But now Sarah was fucking with her, pretending to be obtuse.
“The father,” Alexa said. “I have to know: who the hell is Chloe’s father?”
WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The Future of Sex continues in The Agile Four
The Braverman Experiment Page 7