"He's busy," Sasha says. She doesn’t seem fazed by the fact that I smashed a hard drive in front of her.
"Doing what?" I turn to see Rock removing a large section of solid wall using only his fists. Dust and rock crumble on top of his head, but he doesn't seem to mind. "Ah. So when Cherry said 'grab what we need'…"
"She means we're tearing this place down."
“So you’re not gonna blow it up?” I ask hopefully.
Sasha snorts. “An explosion. In a rainforest. With lots of trees. Sounds like a great idea, Nevares.”
“Then why rig the base in the first place?”
“Because sometimes a forest fire is the least worst option.”
“I’m good with calling that Plan B. But why bother destroying this place? Do you really think AxysGen will find us all the way out here?"
RRROOOM.
A loud rumble shakes the control room. Only Sasha's hand on my shoulder keeps me from losing my footing. "¿Qué chingados?" I gasp.
"The answer to your question. You just had to ask, didn't you?"
Wednesday, 06-09-65 18:50:54
ANOTHER RUMBLE ROCKS THE control room and a shower of dust shakes free from the ceiling, getting in my mouth as I curse. “Goddamn shitting fuck.”
“This way.” Sasha grabs my arm, hauling me back through the doors. We burst out of the control room, the others right on our heels. Sasha’s long legs carry her swiftly down the tunnel, but I scramble to keep up. Running is rarely part of a jacker’s job, and I’ve been doing way more of it lately than I want to.
Sasha skids to a stop and slams the pressure pad on another set of doors, which whoosh open to reveal a cavernous chamber. A shuttle’s parked there, smaller than the Eagle, but big enough to hold all of us. I sprint for it, throwing both arms over my head as more rock dust rains from above.
Cherry hauls open the side doors, and I hop on one of the benches, fumbling with my harness. Doc takes the pilot’s seat, with Rock right beside her. That leaves Sasha to climb in last. To my surprise, she sits next to me.
“Fasten your seatbelts,” Doc shouts over her shoulder. “This is gonna be a bumpy ride.” The engines roar to life and the smell of burning plasma fills my nose. With a loud whir, the shuttle lifts off the ground, its nose pointing up toward the ceiling. The very solid ceiling.
“Please tell me there’s a hole,” I mutter, digging my nails into my palms.
Sasha looks at me. “There’s a hole.”
“That’s what she said,” Cherry snickers.
The roof of the shuttle bay whines open. Bright sunlight streams in, blinding even through the shuttle’s tinted windows. I barely have time to brace myself before the bird launches, throwing me back in my seat.
We streak out of the cave, soaring into the open air. After a few watery blinks, I can see smudges through the windows. Cliffs. Trees. More trees. Other shuttles converging on us. Shit. They’re jet black, with bright red logos printed on the side: AG. The rattle of mounted guns and the shriek of firing missiles rings out, but nothing hits us as Doc banks away from the cliff.
“Nice flying, kid!” Cherry whoops. “Rami would be proud.”
Doc’s giggle is maniacal. “Yeah! Come get some!” She swerves, sending the closest AxysGen shuttle spinning into a tree. The trunk catches fire, going up in a blossoming tower of red. My chest contracts painfully. I do not like fire. I’m getting sucked into the dark pit of fear inside me, while everything outside begins to blur.
“This is bad,” Sasha says. I struggle to focus on her voice, using it to anchor myself in the present. “There are…” She glances out the window. “One, two, three, four gunships on our tail. And we need to get to the Eagle. We can’t outrun them in this bird.”
I’ve managed to stave off a flashback, but my belly is a swirling pit. It’s probably my imagination, but I’m sure I can smell smoke seeping in around the shuttle’s doors. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Cherry pulls something from one of her pockets: another remote. “Hold onto your ass, Nevares. Things are about to get bumpier.”
I don’t glance back at the flames behind us, but I catch their reflection in the windshield. My heart does a sickening flip inside my chest. I really, really don’t like fire, especially when I’m stuck in a harness and can’t do anything to get away. “...Is there a Plan C, maybe?”
“‘Fraid not, chaparrita,” Cherry says.
“Then blow the fucking thing already!” Doc yells.
I close my eyes as Cherry pushes the button.
The world explodes. Light flashes through my eyelids like they aren’t even shut. Sharp pain lances my eardrums, then everything goes fuzzy. I can feel the pressure of hot air pushing against the shuttle’s tail, carrying us forward even faster. My thoughts are stuck on a desperate loop. Stop stop stop STOP stop STOPstopstop.
It doesn’t stop. The roar of the blast fades quickly, but its absence echoes in my head long after. I can’t breathe around the burn in my lungs and my breath feels unnaturally hot, bouncing off my knees to hit my buried face. I’ve curled into a ball in the middle of my seat, knees to chest, and I can’t let go of my legs.
Finally, I hear something else, a familiar voice shouting from the pilot’s seat. “Cherry,” Doc hollers, “that was awesome!”
I open my eyes, peeking out from over my knees. We’re soaring over a winding blue river, heading upstream. Breathing still hurts, especially since the harness left painful stripes on my chest from curling up, but I gradually remember how to do it. My sigh of relief becomes hyperventilation, interspersed with awkward, gasping laughter.
Apparently, it’s contagious. Doc, Rock, and Cherry all start to crack up, until they realize I’m not laughing for the same reason. Sasha shushes them, then places a hand on my shoulder. The touch feels alien. I’m aware of it, I can see it with my eyes, but it’s like she’s touching someone else’s body instead of mine.
“You okay, Nevares?”
I nod weakly. Pull it together, idiot. You can’t let her think you’re too fucked up to be part of her crew. “Yeah. Okay.”
Sasha doesn’t look like she believes me, but she doesn’t push. “That was a risk, Cherry. We could have gotten caught in the blast.”
“Nah,” Cherry says. “I’d never blow you up for real, boss. Sorry, Nevares,” she adds, in a more sympathetic tone. “Don’t like things that go boom, huh?”
I shake my head. “Not a fan,” I croak.
“Mind if I ask why?”
Yeah, I mind, but I don’t blame her for asking. If someone on my crew had a freak-out, I’d want to know what was up. Crewmembers have to depend on each other to stay safe. If I want Sasha’s people to have my back, I need to prove I’m capable of watching theirs.
“AxysGen has it in for me,” I say, struggling to sound casual. “Think they’re trying to give me tinnitus.”
“Girl, get you some noise-cancelling mods,” Cherry says. “Take it from an explosives expert. You don’t wanna go deaf in your twenties.” I suspect that’s not the real reason for the suggestion, but I appreciate the attempt to be candid. “Seriously, though, why’s AxysGen coming for you?”
“They wiped my old crew. There’s safety in numbers, so here I am.”
“But why, though?” Doc says. “They’re a huge corp. You’re just one jacker.”
That’s actually an excellent question. It’s true that I’ve used some of AxysGen’s private code to modify my programs, so I can move through their systems more easily, but their reaction still strikes me as overkill. I’m pretty much a nobody. “Don’t know.” I hope she and Cherry will drop the subject.
Surprisingly, it’s Sasha who comes to my rescue with a well-timed interruption. “Pull over, Doc. The Eagle’s three hundred meters northwest.”
“I remember where it is,” Doc protests, but she pulls the shuttle in for a landing. We touch down right before the plasma engines stutter out, and its bones groan with metallic exhaustion as it settles down onto
the forest floor. I unfasten my harness and hop out, taking a moment to reassure myself that my feet are firmly on the ground. The non-shaking, non-collapsing ground.
The Eagle’s right where we left it, hidden from aerial surveillance beneath some low branches. Sasha exits behind me, heading straight for it. “Next destination is Paris,” she says to the crew. “No stop-overs. As long as AxysGen knows which continent we’re on, they’re a threat.”
“They’re always a threat,” Cherry says. “Ask Doc to look at your ears, Elena. We need your help to find Rami.”
“Why? You and Sasha talk like you already know where they are.”
“It’s not about where they are.” Cherry hops into the Eagle and heads for the weapons rack, selecting a heavy-duty shotgun from the wall and slinging it over her shoulder like she’s done it a thousand times. “It’s about who they are.”
Thursday, 06-10-65 09:24:32
“COME ON, SASHA.”
“NO, Nevares.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“We’re in Paris. We have to visit the Eiffel Tower!”
“It’s not even the original Eiffel Tower,” Sasha says, continuing down the crowded street. “They rebuilt it twice. You’d be visiting a copy.”
“You just have to make everything depressing, don’t you?”
The smell of the waterfront hangs in the air, wet and slightly metallic. Beyond the cobbled path, tour boats drift down the wide, lazy river that cuts through the city. Across the way are several restaurants, all with adorable tables for two beneath colorful umbrellas. Rami has the right idea, hiding out in a place like this. Paris beats the Siberian tundra and the Amazon rainforest any day.
Sasha doesn’t seem to appreciate the atmosphere. She’s hyper-focused, outstripping me again with her long strides. As I hustle to catch up, I have to duck out of the way as a man in a business suit passes by. He barely spares me a glance. To him, I’m just part of the scenery.
The exchange isn’t surprising. We’re in corp territory, the rich part of the city where only people with money go. There are a few cogs, people in customer service and other worker bees who do the few jobs that haven’t yet been automated out of existence, but like me, they’re barely noticeable. Even though their numbers decrease with every passing year, they’re the lucky ones. Undesirables—people who don’t serve on a corp’s board and aren’t cogs in their machine—live in the outer rings of most cities. That’s where I lived before I joined up with my first crew, where my brothers still live.
“Just avoid eye contact,” Sasha mutters, slowing down so I can catch up. “Even if we don’t fit in, they don’t want to see us.”
I roll my eyes. She’s telling me rules I learned a long time ago. The Parisian waterfront disappears around us. As the smell of the Seine fades, the restaurants and boutiques become shiny skyscrapers with mirrored windows. People in business suits scurry around, all with somewhere important to go. They don’t notice the two of us—or, at least, they pretend not to.
Sasha stops in front of a large silver building. When she looks up, so do I. The giant red and black logo above the front entrance makes it obvious where we are: AG. Axys Generations. One of their few locations open to the public, the ground floor hosts a massive showroom for their domestic mechs and other hardware.
I give Sasha a skeptical look. “Rami’s in here?”
“Right in the belly of the beast. Where better to keep tabs on the people trying to kill us?”
Sasha heads into the building. I hesitate, then follow through the large revolving doors. AxysGen’s ground floor is as busy as the street outside. It’s pretty much a street in itself, full of bustling people, small side shops, and scrolling neon billboards with numbers and ticker symbols on them. Tinted lights flash from all directions, competing for my attention. Aside from the mission, though, I’m mostly focused on the smell of the nearby food court. I haven’t eaten since the Hole.
“Can we maybe grab a—”
“No,” Sasha says.
“I didn’t ask the question yet.”
“Still no. Look.”
Sasha points up. Hanging above everything else is a huge billboard, projecting the face of a smiling white woman in 3D. Looking at her is unsettling. Her perfectly styled dark hair, perfectly straight teeth, and piercing blue eyes (undoubtedly with perfect vision) are eerie.
“Welcome, visitors! I’m Veronica Cross, Chief Executive Officer of Axys Generations: the world leader in extranet search and advertising, robotics, and virtual intelligence technology. We hope you enjoy your visit, and please, stop by the nearest kiosk or terminal for more information.”
The prerecorded speech ends, but I keep staring. I already know what Veronica Cross looks like, but for some reason I can’t look away. She’s on the extranet, signs, product boxes, but somehow it’s especially unsettling seeing her blown-up smile thirty meters above me. “Creepy, huh?”
Sasha doesn’t look at me. She’s still watching the billboard. “Definitely.”
Veronica starts her speech again. “Welcome, visitors! I’m Veronica Cross”
I turn away. I don’t want to hear that voice anymore. “Where next?”
Sasha leads me to the far corner of the lobby, where a row of guest terminals is waiting. Several people are already at the stations, some using haptic interfaces, others jacked in behind the ear. The people using the interfaces move, but the jackers don’t. They sit slumped in their chairs, breathing slow, staring at the wall with empty eyes that only occasionally blink.
My port itches. It’s been days since I jacked in. I have spyders to check on, research to do, messages to send.
“I need you to find Rami,” Sasha says.
I snort. “What, at a regular terminal?”
“Don’t think you can handle it?”
The challenge in Sasha’s eyes makes me bristle, which is probably her intention. “Sure, I can handle it, but you’re underestimating how dangerous it is. This is a public terminal. I can break the kiddie settings, but as soon as I jack in, I’ll be vulnerable…in there and out here.”
“That’s why I’m here. To watch your back in meatspace. So?”
“Unplug me as soon as possible if anything looks weird, okay? I recover fast after a hard cut, and a few seconds could save my ass.”
Sasha nods. “Rami’s not a jacker, but their cloaking programs are top quality. Megan helped with the coding, so seeing through them won’t be easy.”
“Can you give me anything else? A DNA signature, or at least their gear specs? I’m diving in blind here.”
“Hmm.” Sasha sits at one of the terminals. “Give me the specs on your gear.”
“Dendryte Silver, serial code…hmm…2460169. That’s one of my recent numbers.”
Sasha activates the terminal’s haptic interface. “I’m forwarding you a DNA scan, vitals, and the specs on Rami’s gear. That good enough?”
I smirk. “I’ll make it work.”
Sasha stands up and offers me the terminal. I sit and unhook the cable, twisting the narrow silver thread between my fingers. Sasha’s still so close I can feel the warmth of her arm bleeding into mine through the sleeve of her leather jacket. “Okay, Nevares,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me. “Show me what you’ve got.”
I blink, tearing my gaze away. Jacket or not, she’s still got a distracting physique underneath. I refocus on my mission, plugging the cable into the jack behind my right ear.
network: ag 48856 . 23522
connection established
welcome: user escudoespiga
I’m standing in a room that’s almost identical to the showroom lobby. The same shops are there, the same scrolling ticker symbols, even the smiling billboard of Veronica Cross. The virtual crowd’s smaller, but still sizable. Most avatars are dressed in business suits and blazers like the ones in meatspace, but a few are more unique: cat ears and angel wings and tropical-fish-colored hairstyles.
No one notices when I
slide into the flow of the crowd. I pull up my toolbar and check my messages. I scroll past the ones from Jacobo and Miguel and open the most recent one from Sasha. There’s a download attached—Rami’s DNA, vitals, and gear specs. I upload the data to my scanning program, and then run it. Its range should be wide enough to cover the whole building, even the upper floors. My surroundings shift again. About half the avatars change shape and color as their add-on decorations disappear. All the extraneous information vanishes, leaving me with the basics. I scan the crowd as subtly as I can, waiting for a match.
No luck. All the avatars around me are grey. Rami could be anyone, anywhere, and my more powerful scanner settings are useless if I don’t know where to point them. I could try a spyder, but those are better at trawling and sorting through code. Plus, someone might notice. Spyders are invisible to most defense matrices, but not to people or other jackers. I need to think outside the box. If I can’t find Rami, maybe I can attract them to me?
I pretend to read AxysGen’s stock prices while I open my inventory interface. The familiar window pops up, showing me a closet full of clothes for my avatar. I usually present on the extranet the same way I do in reality—female, brown skin, wide hips. I change my hair, nose, and lips sometimes, but that’s about it. During most ops, my avatar isn’t visible at all. Looking like someone else is a cloak’s job. Here and in meatspace, jackers prefer to be invisible.
I dig through my closet, searching for something that might catch Rami’s attention. No, no, no…yes. When I withdraw from the menu, my avatar’s head has turned into an enormous red cherry with a lit fuse on top. If that doesn’t get Rami’s attention, nothing will. An unfamiliar serial number messages me immediately. Dendryte Bronze, v3.4, which matches the specs Sasha gave me. After scanning for suspicious attachments, I download it. ‘Meet me under the billboard.’
I head toward Veronica Cross’s giant face. Several avatars are lingering there, but an old white man with a bad toupee lights up my scanner like a Christmas tree. Got them. I head over, switching my avatar’s head back to normal.
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