Trade Secrets

by Beth Ryan

  His petulance would have fit better on a five-year-old being warned against eating a cookie before dinner.

  “Do you?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  His gaze snapped back up to mine, and I held eye contact. I tried to convey everything I needed to say in that one look. It was a warning, a lecture, and a confirmation all in one.

  He didn’t look away this time, biting his lip and then nodding with an appropriately chastised hunch to his shoulders.

  “Good. Before we begin, I do need to know one thing. I have to know that whatever you plan to do next will not cause any harm to my business.”

  “I—” he started, and then swallowed the words down.

  It was clear to me that he was learning, at least. That, I could work with.

  “I don’t need to know why you’ve come to me for help,” I clarified. “I don’t care why. I don’t care what you have planned right now, or what you have planned later. That’s none of my business. Just assure me that, once we’ve done this, your troubles will be resolved. Say yes or no.”

  “Yes,” he snapped.

  He’d shifted from resigned and contrite to angry in a flash. Just as quickly, he switched back to the unassuming demeanor he’d worn before. My curiosity spiked, and I battled it down the same way I’d been battling the vertigo.

  I wasn’t here to get involved.

  “No need to get touchy, Mr. Hall,” I told him.

  He frowned, eyebrows furrowed and head tilted.

  I wanted to smack my face into the palm of my hand, or maybe grab hold and shake some sense into him. Cooper was not my ideal client and I was not in an ideal state of mind. This was a bad idea, but it was one I couldn’t find it in myself to put an end to. So instead, I leaned back against the edge of the desk. The hard line of wood pressed into my shoulder blades. It did little to calm my frustration.

  The client was charming in an innocent sort of way, but that wasn’t a good thing. If he didn’t start to catch on a bit quicker, it could ruin him. It could ruin us both.

  I reached over the top of my desk to pull up a screen, tilting it so he could see the display. The glass was lit up, showing a picture of him. It was the same picture I’d seen on his original profile. Next to that was an entire list of randomly generated details. School grades, places he’d visited, useless information picked up through his many years of purchasing things like food, clothing, and hair product. Nothing was redacted. Nothing was real.

  Above the photo, beside a zero-credit balance, was the name Cooper Hall.

  6

  May 20th, 2080

  There’s still an over-full ashtray at the window. There are still cold November nights. There is still Cooper Hall sitting at the edge of my bed as he watches me stare out at the nothing beyond my room. Not much has changed in that regard. It’s the other details that are different.

  Too-tight clothes have replaced his filthy coat and world-weary jeans. There is no dirt under his fingernails or the sour stench of mold and despair to wallow in. All that’s left is a sterile silence that hangs between us, and the moments when we speak to each other in careful words and clever lies.

  Now it’s clean sheets and cleaner floors. Long, empty rooms that create distance between my window and his perch on the bed. It’s the details that are different, but those wide, brown eyes are still as haunted and troubled as they ever were.

  7

  November 18th, 2079

  Cooper peered at the new profile from his perch on my bed. He looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He possessed a thrumming energy that filled him up now, bringing a lightness to his movements. His hands clasped together in front of him as he leaned forward. There was an eager gleam in his eyes as he scanned the odd details I’d generated to make the profile look real.

  “Is that it, then?” he asked. There was real hope in his voice. “It’s that easy?”

  “Not nearly,” I snorted and shook my head. I didn’t have to look at him to know the way his shoulders would droop.

  Clients rarely had a full understanding of the way the trading chips functioned. I possessed experience that few others would have a chance to come by. I had grown up alongside Audry, who’d hacked her way through every challenging code she could get her hands on. I’d spent my time listening carefully to every detail of her complaints and explanations of the system that ran our lives.

  I wasn’t a coding genius like she was, but I knew how to put the pieces together. Her passion and curiosity had combined with my careful planning. With her help, I had developed a unique and enviable set of skills. I knew the trading chips better than anyone, aside from the Federal Trade Committee. I also knew every way a man could get caught tampering with them.

  I pulled the screen away from his view to continue working. I heard the disappointed groan that filled him as he sat back on the bed. Like every other client I’d had, Cooper hadn’t realized how much effort would go into changing who he was. People always assumed I could just snap my fingers and give them new identities.

  I understood why they expected miracles from me. People couldn’t talk about what I did without drawing attention from the Profile Department. They couldn’t tell their friends and loved ones about my skills, at least not verbally. So they wrote it down. They made up stories that sounded too good to be true. They turned me into a fable and fooled the trading chips with their metaphors and myths.

  “Cooper Hall is a good name,” I mused, continuing to type up additional data. “Inconspicuous.”

  “It’s plain,” he complained, and I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s your name,” I said.

  There were other things I wanted to say, but I knew I couldn’t. I wanted to remind him that he would have to learn to answer to that name very quickly. I wanted to warn him that once the new profile was active, he couldn’t just switch back and forth.

  Whoever he’d been before could no longer exist.

  Instead, I resolved myself to addressing him at every opportunity. I would train him to react to the name Cooper Hall if it was the last thing I did, or he would find himself right back where he started.

  “How long is this going to take, again?” Cooper asked.

  If I wasn’t so elated to have a name to put to his face, I would have felt more irritation at his tone. As it was, I let the entitled question roll off my shoulders with a shrug.

  “Do you have someplace to be, Cooper?” I asked with mild interest.

  I didn’t expect him to answer, and he didn’t. Nervous energy pulsed through him like angry bees writhing beneath a swath of silk. His knee bounced out a rapid rhythm. It looked like it was keeping time, counting down the seconds until his fate caught up with him. His left pointer finger was still rubbing a line down his right palm.

  I understood that nervous energy. I’d felt it all my life, itching under my skin and pushing me to move. It didn’t matter where I was moving to, as long as it was away from where I’d been before. I didn’t want to draw this out any longer than I had to, but we couldn’t take shortcuts. Not with this.

  “Didn’t think so.” I hummed. Then, after careful consideration of my words, I turned to him and tapped the back of my own neck. “First things first, I’ll need to see it.”

  Cooper stilled.

  He wasn’t the first to be surprised by my request, but I was still disappointed that he hadn’t put two and two together. I could understand, with my usual clientele. They were undereducated and underfed. They didn’t have the same advantages in life that Cooper had. As much as I worried about his ability to keep his mouth shut when it mattered, I could tell he was smart enough to have figured this bit out on his own.

  The Lemniscate could change anyone’s chip, monitor their credits, and track their words remotely. The government didn’t need permission to know your entire life’s story. They didn’t need to cut into the neck of any citizen to get that information either. They could ensure compliance with their laws without ever le
aving their haven of forested land and purified air.

  I did not have those luxuries.

  I understood Cooper’s hesitance. Even the act of touching another’s neck was far more intimate than most people were comfortable with in a casual setting. As taboo as the process was, there were no secrets to how it was done. The trials for those who tampered with the chips were public and vicious. They didn’t need to hide the fact that the criminals had sliced into their victims to alter their chips. All they needed was the fear of execution to keep most people in line. There was no question of the consequences of getting caught. Anyone who tried what I was about to do now was either dead, or an enemy of the government.

  I knew a few like me who were good at what they did and hadn’t been caught yet. Lattimer was still active, at least. I’d spent a night in the bar with him only last week while he told me stories of people who were disappearing, bodies and all. I’d listened with an attentive ear as I puffed on cigarette after cigarette. If there was one thing that Lattimer would get caught for, it was the way he liked to run his mouth after he’d had a drink or two. Still, the disappearances were interesting, and we’d spent a long time hypothesizing over their nature before we’d gone our separate ways.

  As much as I hated when a client chose Lattimer over me, I didn’t want him getting caught. There were few enough of us trying to keep our city together, and he was one of the good ones. He was someone who didn’t overcharge for services or sell people out when they pissed him off.

  I tapped my fingers against my knee as I waited for Cooper to come to terms with my request. After his initial shock, he gave a curt nod and shifted on the bed. Back facing me, he undid the top buttons of his crisp, white shirt and let the ratty coat fall from his shoulders. It hit the ground with a solid thump that I pretended I hadn’t heard.

  The power of the nausea, vertigo, and euphoria seemed to be dying down even as I leaned closer to him. I’d been a petri dish of mixed emotions and wild chemical changes for half the day. I was more than ready to have my mind back in its rightful state.

  The faint, raised line at the base of his skull shifted as his shoulders tightened against my presence so close behind him. He was wound tight like a coil, his muscles so tense they looked like they hurt. The outline of the chip rested just beneath the surface of his skin. It made me uneasy.

  It wasn’t just the chip itself that bothered me, or the legal risks we were taking. It was the danger of the procedure itself that had me hesitating. I always did, before cutting into another person.

  Aside from the fatal punishment we would both receive, there were psychological implications to consider. No matter how many times I did this, I knew I could never be comfortable with the idea of a blade pressing into flesh. The idea of cutting into another person and gaining direct access to their most intimate parts was unsettling at best. Nothing else on Earth was more intrusive, or more dangerous, than this.

  “Go ahead.” Cooper spit the words out. His breathing was rasped.

  I exhaled through my nose, startled at the sound of him. My breath ghosted over the bare skin he’d revealed to me.

  He shuddered.

  I took a quick step back and almost tripped in my haste to get away. By the time he turned to look at me, I had mostly recovered. I avoided his gaze as I turned to pull the required tools from beneath my desk. I could feel Cooper’s gaze on my back as I busied myself. The skin around the scar line from my own chip insertion was prickling under the weight of his attention.

  I ignored the feeling and pulled two unlabeled boxes from under the desk. I took time to calm my beating heart. I needed a steady hand, if I was going to do this. I couldn’t risk someone else’s life because I had made a mistake.

  Putting the boxes on the plank of wood, I tapped the top of them. Cooper didn’t seem to notice my hesitance. He remained in his seat, watching me work. I pushed the boxes to the side and pulled up several screens of code.

  I didn’t think Cooper had much experience with the technology I was using, considering how quiet he remained as I ran through several programs that had nothing to do with what we were about to attempt. I let the quiet wash over me.

  “Really, how long is this going to take?”

  Cooper’s voice cut through that quiet in harsh lines. There was more curiosity in it now. The fact that he was asking a second time was a clear sign that he did have someplace else to be. He wasn’t just waiting for whatever was tracking him down. He was actively preparing to run from it, and until I cleared him to take hold of his new profile, I was standing in the way of his escape.

  “We’re waiting for the system to sync up,” I said, no doubt I’d added another fraction of a credit to my account.

  I didn’t turn to look back at him. Instead, I opened the research I’d been doing before on the missing Giovanni girl. I wanted to shake my head at how easy it was to tell she hadn’t died. It looked like someone had attempted to fool the trading chip into shutting down altogether, like it would even be possible to simulate the series of chemicals that flooded the body upon death. The only foolproof way to vanish into a fake profile was to bury the original files under so many of the new ones that the person you’d once been became lost to the data overload. Whoever had faked that poor girl’s death had done a really bad job of it altogether.

  Cooper let out a strained sound from behind me. I didn’t bother to turn and look at him. There was nothing to be done for his need to hurry. I suspected I could stand on my own without losing my lunch or my balance, but that didn’t change how nervous I was to perform the surgery so soon after having taken the CAPS.

  When I determined there really was nothing I could do to help the girl, or the poor sap who’d botched her false profile, I turned back to the boxes of supplies. I was careful as I removed the lid from the first one, checking that my hands weren’t shaking before I slid it away. The sharp scalpel hidden within gleamed up at me with a taunting shine. Memories of the first time I’d done this procedure returned to me every time I saw the thing. Now was no different.

  I’d been very young, the first time I’d held that blade. There were tear tracks down my mother’s cheeks when she offered it to me. The silver metal glinted beneath the dim light of the basement we were hidden in. There were only a few blankets in one corner of the room, and an old computer hooked up beside us, waiting to be used.

  I’d stared at the knife so long, she’d huffed in frustration. She grabbed my hand in hers and pressed the cold handle into my palm. Even when she forced me to grip the scalpel, I hadn’t had a good hold on it. It dropped to the concrete floor with a clatter. It was the loudest sound either of us had heard in three days. I could sense the fear in my mother’s breathing as she glanced toward the closed door at the top of the stairs. No one came through the door that night, though.

  I kept my grip tight the next time she forced the scalpel into my hand. I trembled as she knelt down in front of me, brushing her hair to the side to reveal a short, white scar. I was shaking my head before she could even say the words.

  There was a look in her eye that terrified me. I’d never seen that look before. I didn’t want to see it then. I wanted the soft smiles and full laughter that I’d grown up with. I wanted the warm hugs that felt like blankets wrapped around me as she sent me off to school. I wanted the woman she had been before that letter came and our whole lives had changed.

  Whatever this was, whatever madness had consumed her, I knew I didn’t want any part of it.

  “Please, Nathan,” she’d breathed, her gaze holding mine as she stroked my hair. Her voice was broken, barely above a whisper. I had to lean in close to hear what she was saying. “You have to help me do this. I can’t do it on my own.”

  “They’ll know,” I cried out, pushing away from her. She’d reached out to me and pulled me back in. Resting tight in her arms, I realized I was still holding the knife. I stared down at it as though it might cut into my mother’s neck without my hand to guide it. A mistrus
tful frown creased my face for the first time that night. It would be far from the last time I wore that expression. “They’ll see me.”

  “They can’t see us here, Nate,” she whispered. I knew she was trying to be gentle, calming. Really, all I could hear was the desperation straining her words. “I promise I’ll protect you. I can’t do this without you.”

  I hadn’t said anything after that. I hadn’t understood back then why she’d wanted this so badly. I’d been raised to know that what she was asking from me was a crime. I knew that if the profilers found out about it, if they ever knew what I’d done, I would die. It didn’t matter if I was a child. There was no excuse I could use to escape the law.

  However, I’d also been raised to obey the woman who had given me life.

  With the tears threatening to overtake her again, I’d wanted nothing more than to do as she asked. My mother was the smartest person I knew. She was the only adult I trusted with my whole heart. Yet she was asking me to do something I’d been taught I never should.

  Stuck between these two conflicting ideas, I’d stood over my mother with a knife in my hand and tears in my eyes. I stared down at the scar on the back of her neck, and the other scars that ringed around to the front, and in the end, I’d done as she asked.

  The feel of warm blood on my fingertips had been nothing compared to the moment she’d crumpled to the floor in a solid heap. The knife had fallen from my hands again, though my cry of despair had been much louder. Grasping at her body, pressing my hand against the wound in her neck, I begged her to be okay.

  She made a sound, and relief washed through me. Still holding her tight, I watched as she shifted her face up toward me. She was blinking, her expression screwed up in pain and worry. At a loss for what to do, I’d continued to hold her close as the blood dripped down from her neck and onto my lap.

  “I’m okay,” she’d said, though her words didn’t sound like they were for my benefit.