Repo Virtual

by Corey J. White

  JD just smiled back, and the guard kept walking.

  “Bro? What’s happening?”

  “Must be getting his rounds out of the way before the match starts. Have you got the game up on-screen?”

  “Yeah, bro.”

  “Let me know when they kick off.”

  JD continued to tail the cleaning bots, spot-cleaning here and there, but mostly just sweating in his coveralls while the polisher hummed behind him. When they reached the elevators, JD hit the call button and waited.

  “You found Shades yet, Kid?”

  “No movement on any of the cameras.”

  “Alright. How you holding up?”

  “Bored as fuck, bro. I thought this was gonna be hard, like my cock, not easy like your mother.”

  JD winced. “You’re really not her type.”

  The elevator doors opened and JD stepped inside. The bots crowded in around him in a vaguely threatening way—their infrared sensors like dark angry eyes, the flat line of a seam in their casing making a distinct frown. JD checked his reflection—the disguise looked convincing, apart from the dark patches of sweat that seeped from beneath his arms.

  Omar would take the robots up to level two and continue his cleaning route, but JD hit the button for the fourth floor and the skybridge between buildings.

  “I see Shades, bro.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Far side of the street. System keeps trying to spike to yellow alert when the cameras get a glimpse of all those delinquent losers, but I’ve got it clamped down.”

  “I thought we wanted the system to flag them,” JD said.

  “Not until after. Head of security will only come on-site for a big problem. They see it unfolding slow, maybe they think their lackeys can handle it.”

  The elevator doors dinged open on the fourth floor, and a couple stood waiting to get inside. They stepped back and turned their heads to avoid even looking at JD, let alone acknowledging his existence or humanity. I hope you never feel safe in this building after tonight, JD thought bitterly.

  The bots followed JD out of the elevator, and the residents disappeared inside the metal cube.

  “Kickoff,” Khoder said.

  “That’s the signal.” JD switched channel: “Shades.”

  No response.

  The bots began cleaning the corridor, so JD left them to it and walked ahead, passing more bland art, smell like bathroom air freshener—a nauseatingly artificial scent.

  He rounded the corner and came to the skybridge, the hallway opening onto a long stretch of glass that thrummed in the breeze. Planters were spaced evenly along the suspended corridor, but otherwise it was clear. Both walls and ceiling were glass, and handprints collected at chest height all along the length of the bridge. Beyond the transparent pane, the city stretched out, seemingly endless, with lights reaching to the horizon and climbing into the sky. A few blocks over, the stadium glowed bright, light seeping out between cracks in its closed roof, like a hand holding a firefly.

  “Shades?”

  Halfway across the bridge, JD watched an old Toyota sedan spear across the road and crash through the enclave’s outer wall in syncopated slow motion. Brick and mortar tumbled inward, and the front of the car crumpled with the impact. The driver’s door opened and Red stumbled out, the slash of blood visible to JD even at that distance, pouring from his nose and running over his mouth. He stood beside the car, unsteady on his feet for a second. He punched himself in the side of the head and lifted his arm, motioning for the rest of his crew. Within seconds they were pouring through the gaps between the car and the fence. Most of them were half-naked, T-shirts tied around their faces as impromptu balaclavas.

  JD saw Soo-hyun among them. Where the others ran in furtive fits and starts, Soo-hyun strode purposefully ahead, no fear, no doubt. The youths rushed into the private supermarket at the base of building three. Moments later shoppers and staff fled into the night. JD shook his head as he watched the chaos, watched kids run from the supermarket with arms piled high with organic free-range snacks.

  Soo-hyun crouched beside their open backpack, stacked tight with glass bottles, and, together with Red, they stuffed torn bits of rag into the bottle necks. The Zippo was in their hand again.

  “Oh, shit,” JD said.

  Sharp crack of shattered bottles, followed by the whoom of petrol igniting. The supermarket glowed Halloween orange. Windows broke with the heat, and the flames reached outside, licking at the sky like so many thirsty tongues.

  “Shades, what—” JD lowered his voice: “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Diversion, hyung, a beautiful fucking diversion. I wish you could see it.”

  “I can see it,” he hissed, watching stark silhouettes of adolescent vandals flinging more bottles into the inferno.

  “All the logos and brand names going up in smoke. We need to do this more often.”

  “You could’ve killed someone.”

  “We cleared them all out first. Almost convinced the cashier to join us, but he was too scared.”

  “Get to cover,” JD said, exasperated; “I can see the cops.”

  They were still a few blocks distant—blue and red flash of police lights charging down one street, and the orange and green of private security rushing parallel along another.

  Soo-hyun passed the info to Red. He whistled to the others, a piercing tone that cut through the line, and the delinquents dispersed, passing around and over the crashed Toyota as they fled.

  JD hobbled down the length of the skybridge and left the robots behind. Mirrored architecture sent him the wrong way, and he doubled back and found the elevator. He leaned against the wall beside the call button and slowed his breath, willing his heart to calm down.

  “Kid, what’s happening out there?”

  “Car just pulled up.”

  “Cop car? Security? Talk to me.”

  “Those’re all over the place; this is different. Unmarked. BMW.”

  “Head of security, or a resident?” JD put a hand in his pocket and squeezed the key cloner so the plastic case creaked in his grip.

  “One second, bro. Facial recognition takes time,” Khoder said. “Alright, got it. Ok-bin Shin, Securitech manager for Songdo-dong district.”

  JD hit the elevator button and waited. “Where are Shades and the others?”

  “Can’t see them on camera.”

  “Good; hopefully they got clear.”

  The door opened and JD stepped inside the elevator, wishing it could ferry him away from the untamed violence.

  Instead he went down.

  Three guards stood at the security desk, two in white shirts badged like a cut-rate police force, the third in a tailored black suit with fine pinstripes, and heeled boots. They didn’t hear JD approach, trying to stroll casually, but managing only to limp.

  JD cleared his throat and the guards all turned, one of the uniformed bulls putting a hand on his holstered taser as he spun.

  “What is happening?” JD asked in his affected accent. He stood beside one of the uniformed guards, peering over the man’s shoulder. With his hand in his pocket he hit the switch on the key cloner.

  “Copying now,” Khoder said in his ear. “Lot of keys on those three assholes, so it might take a minute. Like, sixty seconds, bro.”

  “It’s nothing,” the head of security, Ok-bin Shin, said. She had a long face, dark eyes, and pale lips set in a permanent frown. Her hair was pulled tightly back from her face and tied up in a bun.

  “Just some kids,” one of the others said—young, skinny, looking more like a student than a security guard. Students had to pay their tuition somehow. “The police are already here.”

  Shin shot a glance at her subordinate to quiet him.

  “Still,” she said, turning back to JD, “perhaps you should leave early—for your own safety, understand.”

  JD cursed internally; outwardly he only smiled. “I cannot afford to lose this shift. If you do your job and ke
ep this place safe, then I can do my job and keep it clean.” He hoped the smile sold it as polite duty, not condescending dissidence.

  Shin exhaled sharply through her nose, amused. She didn’t speak.

  “Still need more time, bro.”

  JD leaned forward for a better look at the screens across the security console. Guards battled the blaze with fire extinguishers and a garden hose, while police set up a cordon, holding back the small crowd that had gathered to watch. JD was sure some of Red’s people stood in that crowd, pushing for a look at their own handiwork. Soo-hyun wouldn’t be there, though, they were smarter than that. Or if not smarter, more experienced.

  JD shook his head for effect. “Such waste.”

  “Got it, bro.”

  JD turned and limped away.

  Ok-bin called out behind him: “Cleaner.” JD turned and saw her holding her phone, glancing between it and him. “There’s no record of your limp; did you hurt yourself?”

  “It is an old injury—always plays up when it rains.”

  “But it’s not raining,” she said.

  “Then it is about to start. You can take my word on that.”

  He turned slowly, waiting for another question.

  “You should submit a new photo,” she said; “this one is too dark.”

  “Yes, of course,” JD called out over his shoulder, waving in dismissal. If she’d been of African descent, the heist would have been a bust, but authorities are notoriously bad at differentiating between people of another race.

  When he heard the guards chatting among themselves in quick Korean, he spoke to Khoder: “Have you got the interior cameras tied down?”

  “Two-minute loop of empty hallways on every screen, bro.”

  “Perfect.”

  As soon as JD turned the corner he ran, swinging his right leg out so he could move quickly without needing to bend his knee. He had only a limited window to use the key cloner—if Shin used her credentials elsewhere in the compound, the system would flag the discrepancy and lock him out. He reached the elevator and hammered the button, willing the doors open.

  JD rode up. When the doors opened at the fourth floor he exploded out of the elevator. He raced around the corner, too fast on the freshly polished surface. The worn sole of his ocean-plastic sneaker slipped over the tiles, his leg bending unnaturally as it went out from underneath him. The floor shot up and slapped JD in the face.

  JD stayed on the ground, spikes of pain shooting from his knee in both directions. The pain rushed and thrummed through his veins, so sharp he thought he might vomit. He breathed hard, pushed himself up, and stood slowly, wincing when he put his weight on his right leg to test it. Nothing serious. Nothing snapped or broken. He walked slow at first, then began to pick up speed—but still he didn’t let himself run.

  He reached the skybridge, where the four robots were still cleaning. He paused to stretch his leg, mentally cataloguing all the disparate hurts. A sheet of rain hit the window and JD flinched, stepped back, and nearly tripped over one of the bots. Water rippled down the window, city distorted, bent through an imperfect lens.

  He hit the follow button on each of the robots and led them the rest of the way across the skybridge and into the Building Two elevator. The bots whirred and chirped as they ascended, and JD watched the numbers over the door climbing until they reached level eight.

  The robots followed him through the short warren of hallways to Lee’s apartment. He set them to “Clean Area”—keeping them within a five-meter radius so he wouldn’t lose track of them—and reached a hand into the pocket of his coveralls. He checked his other waist pocket, then both breast pockets, then the cargo pocket at his left knee. He found his phone—sans battery, of course—Omar’s van keys, Soo-hyun’s taser, but no key cloner. He checked his pockets again, pulling each item out just to be sure.

  The key cloner was gone. JD covered his mouth with his arm and screamed a string of profanities that would have made his mother blush.

  His mind raced, the security desk, the brush with discovery, the elevator—the fall. It must have slipped out of his pocket. He left the robots where they were and limped back to the elevator, cursing under his breath the whole way. He hit the button and waited.

  The elevator doors parted. Instead of his reflection staring back at him from the rear wall, JD came face to face with the long-haired guard. The key cloner rested on the man’s palm, gently clasped like a baby duck.

  Time stood still and JD’s stomach sank. Unbidden, his hand reached into his pocket and his fingers closed around Soo-hyun’s taser.

  “Did you drop this?” Long Hair asked.

  Too late to stop, the taser was out of JD’s pocket, clutched tight in his hand. Long Hair’s eyes shot wide and JD lunged forward. The taser crackled as he jammed it into the man’s throat and hit the trigger. Long Hair crumpled to the ground, splayed across the elevator doorway, still holding the cloner. The doors closed, touched the prone form, and retracted.

  A single word fell from JD’s mouth, that sacred word he used sparingly so it would never lose its luster: “Fuck!”

  * * *

  Police dogs leaped from the rear of the auto-truck, data upload-download syncing the machines, connecting them to the hub downtown at the precinct. Thermal imaging rendered useless by the heat blooming from the burning retail market. Visual information streamed in through the remaining sensors: electro-optical, backside illumination, lidar.

  CBRNE sensors warned of petroleum fumes and toxic gases in the smoke. Audio sensors picked up the crackling roar of the flames, isolated its wavelength, and removed it from the incoming feed. Voices now—people crying, people talking in tones indicating excitement and/or fear.

  Bodies moved in alleyways on the opposite side of the road. Dogs coordinated with split-second transmission of tactical data. They ran across the street and gave chase.

  Unit K-9-983 trailed a suspect—tagged cfa4xpn7j3 on the fly. They were estimated to be between thirteen and sixteen years of age, height one-hundred sixty-three centimeters, weight approximately fifty-four kilograms. Traces of accelerant were detected on the suspect’s clothing, evidence filed inside the dog’s memory cube for future deposition.

  The dog quickly gained on the suspect—the girl, really, a child—its legs stretching to bound across the cement. It pounced, struck the girl and knocked her to the ground. She screamed and rolled onto her back. The dog stood over her like a wolf over its prey. Blinding flash of light as the dog took a high-resolution photograph, tagged it with the relevant evidence, time, and date, uploaded the data package to the police servers, and left the girl there. Its metal body whirred as it ran for the next suspect, picking up on accelerant fumes like a bloodhound chasing a scent.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The cursing continued like a monastic chant, until finally JD closed his mouth and waited for his tongue to still. He pocketed the cloner, and dragged the moaning guard out of the elevator so the doors could close.

  “Kid,” he said sharply into his headset.

  “Already on it. Replicating footage from the guard’s last rounds.”

  “How long before he’s meant to be back at his post?”

  “Don’t sweat it, bro,” Khoder said, sounding as calm as JD wanted to feel. “Just do the thing.”

  Long Hair reached clumsily for the walkie-talkie at his belt. JD slapped his hand away, grabbed the radio, and pocketed it. He crouched and hefted Long Hair onto his shoulders. JD hauled the guard down the corridor as he squirmed, praying to every god and none that each apartment door he passed would stay closed. He reached the cleaning cart, molded from gray recycled plastic, and laid the man across it. He rifled through his rucksack on the trolley’s lower shelf, spilling latex gloves onto the floor in his search for zip ties. He fastened the man’s hands and feet, and pushed the cart to Lee’s apartment as fast as its squeaking wheels would let him.

  He pressed the key cloner to the security panel just above the handle of Lee’s
door. He held his breath and waited.

  Blip blip.

  JD left the cleaning cart blocking the hallway outside and carried Long Hair into the apartment, kicking the door shut as he went. As soon as it closed he dropped Long Hair to the floor. The guard opened his mouth to call for help, and JD winced in sympathy as he shoved a filthy cleaning rag into the maw. A roll of thousand-mile tape always weighed heavy in JD’s rucksack, so he tore off a strip and sealed the guard’s mouth shut.

  “I’m sorry,” JD said. “Don’t let anyone tear that off, alright? You’ll want to use eucalyptus oil first.”

  Long Hair tried to focus on JD’s face, but his eyes bugged out and rolled in his sockets like a ship on rough waters.

  JD slumped against the doorway and sat on the ground beside Long Hair. His heart, or his lungs, or something inside his chest, ached with every breath. JD put two fingers to his wrist as though checking his pulse were the same as slowing it.

  Gradually his eyes adjusted to the gloomy apartment. Thin slices of light seeped in between the window blinds at the far end of the living room, straight ahead from the entrance. The kitchen and laundry sat to the right, gleaming dull with burnished steel appliances. To the left, the rest of the apartment hid down a pitch-black hallway.

  JD pushed himself up off the floor. He crossed over to the window, navigating around couches and a coffee table, wary of furniture edges shining ghostly gray in the darkness. In the far corner he flicked a small white switch and the blinds retracted with the quiet whir of hidden motors.

  The city spread open before him, drenched in falling rain. Skyscrapers like vertical fields of light, dark streets peppered with pools of orange glowing in nonsense Morse code, and in the distance the ocean. Beyond downtown, beyond the shorefront, beyond the sovereign city of Songdo, the ocean undulated endlessly, older than god, older than death, waiting to reclaim the plastic garbage foundations and consume the city. JD backed away from the window and the expanse of black waters. His mind always went to infinities and ends when he saw the ocean—he could see himself walking into the depths and disappearing under the waves, as though he would need to walk, as though the waters wouldn’t come to him, if only he waited long enough.