Daughter of Zeus

by Red Harvey

  The snide remark about her mass shot up Ada’s brows, but she sat. Indeed, the chair was sturdy. She wiggled around to make sure the surface was real. When falling through to the floor didn’t happen, she quit her movements.

  “Are you comfortable?”

  Was the damn machine mocking her? "Yes.”

  “Good. The Congressman will see you now.” With its attitude, the sneaky assistant must have received the artificial intelligence upgrade.

  “Thank you.”

  Ada stared at the wall, expecting an opening, but none appeared.

  Before she could ask where to go next, she was instructed, “But first, leave your weapon in the depository box.”

  From the wall, a slot materialized.

  Ada froze. Finally, she nodded and placed her gun into the slot.

  “You may enter the Congressman’s office.”

  Where a wall had been before, a door dissipated. The yawning space beckoned, and she entered through the artificial doorway. Inside sat a large onyx desk, the only piece of furniture in the room. Along the black, high gloss walls hung the standard pieces of academic pride commonly displayed in offices everywhere via interface projections: diplomas, certificates, pictures with famous people.

  The pictures had the same shimmery look as the chair—not quite real. Ada took her time getting to the desk, and to the man sitting behind it.

  ~*~

  Brontes Moretz aka Corentin had curling black hair and black eyes. She took his dark features as an assertion of his dark personality. He smiled as she approached, charming her, and she was tempted to smile back. She held off, but then remembered to play her part correctly. The corners of her mouth lifted, and she hated herself for it.

  “Please come in.”

  His voice was silky, with a hint of an accent. British maybe, or even German, she couldn’t tell. He sounded kind. Then she replayed the memory of her first meeting with her father at four years old.

  His voice had not sounded smooth or kind with the slur of alcohol behind it.

  She held back the killing shock of electricity her brain screamed for her to deliver.

  “Thank you, Congressman. And thank you for seeing me.”

  “Of course.”

  She sat at the particle chair in front of his desk without stopping to shake his hand, which Moretz didn’t seem to expect anyway. She noticed the small red dots along the wall that suggested the presence of heavy surveillance. The desk held no pens or letter openers.

  Damn, nothing of use.

  The room was a sterile, digitized environment.

  “What can I do for you, Citizen?”

  With his use of the word citizen, Moretz reminded her from the beginning he was a State official, and had power over her.

  “My name is Mali Muth, sir. I’m a passionate advocate for the healthcare industry. I’ve brought some figures and statistics that might concern you, along with a bill proposition.” She slid a folder across his desk, careful to avoid disturbing the built-in interface floating on the surface.

  He took the folder, but didn’t look inside. “What company do you represent?”

  “I work for a subsidiary of Global United, under the specific direction of Swartzman Coake.”

  Global United was one of the largest healthcare providers in the nation, with the CEO Swartzman Coake being a generous supporter of political campaigns. Name dropping a donor of Coake’s stature upheld Moretz’s interest in Ada’s supposed cause.

  She thought about his assistant. After she killed him, assuming she found a weapon, the intelligent machine was likely to lock her in the room until Sammies arrived to take her away. Her plan felt ill-planned yet again.

  Regardless, she continued acting. “Global United will deny my employment for security reasons. I trust you understand how that sort of anonymity can allow me to aid your cause.”

  Moretz nodded. Lobbyists commonly worked “off the grid” or without registering with the State. That way, they could bribe and screw their way into getting their bills approved, but if they were caught in the act, their employers could deny knowledge of their existence. Now that he was aware of what kind of lobbyist she was, she hoped he’d arrange to meet her later, to “talk” about her bill proposition.

  She wanted her father alone and vulnerable. At least, that's what she convinced herself of. Why she was stalling.

  Once again, she considered frying him. It would take seconds, and it would be over. But then, they would never stop looking for a Special.

  He accepted her offer and countered with one of his own. “You have a very forward manner. I like that. Would you join me for dinner tonight?”

  We have the same nose, the same chin, the same eyes. How do you not see that?

  “Certainly, I’d be honored.” She gritted her teeth.

  “Excellent. Eight o’clock, my house. My assistant will give you the rest of the details.”

  Ada nodded and smiled. During her idiot routine, she glanced at the composite photo on the onyx desk. The family photo featured Moretz, a blonde-haired woman and two grown children: a girl and a young man. The girl worried Ada momentarily, but the young man worried her more.

  “Lovely family,” she said.

  Moretz looked down at the picture absently. “Oh yes. Thank you.”

  “It’s strange because the young man... He’s your son, correct?”

  “Yes.” He sounded amused.

  “I met him, earlier today. Right before this meeting, in fact.” Ada hadn’t planned on this part in the conversation. Truth wasn’t supposed to enter into any part of their meeting.

  “Really? What a coincidence.” The way Moretz said coincidence implied he didn’t believe it at all. “Where did you meet him?”

  “Hunt’s Coffee Bar.”

  “May I ask what you were doing there?”

  “Getting a caramel macchiato.”

  He leaned back, eyes skewed and lips tightened. He accepted her answer, and she could tell he did because of what he said next.

  “Hunt’s Coffee Bar. Phennell loves that place. I’m sure you dazzled him with your smile.” He winked.

  “Yes, maybe.”

  Ada struggled to remain composed. She had met her half-brother today without even realizing it. Between them, there were no noticeable physical attributes to tie their lineage together. A blond Adonis passed Ada the cream and sugar at Hunt’s, and they exchanged pleasant conversation. She found him quite attractive. Now her stomach turned at the thought.

  “Well, eight o’clock. See you tonight, Miss Muth.”

  Dismissed. She stood to leave. “Thank you for your time. See you tonight, sir.”

  “Sir?” Moretz feigned a look of hurt. “You met my son today, and you and I are on the way to becoming very good friends.” She could practically hear the word sex subliminally emanating from his words. “Please, call me Brontes."

  “Brontes,” she echoed. “See you tonight.”

  The assistant gave Ada the address, reminding her to dress formally and appropriately. She smiled wanly. Right. The idea of dressing formally and appropriately was funny to her for different reasons than the obvious. Moretz wanted a good lay; he didn’t care what she dressed like. But she would be careful in her clothing selection because tonight was important to her.

  How should one dress to a patricide?

  Thirteen

  Planning a murder was hard.

  It took a lot more than just ending a life. There was groundwork to lay and evidence to cover up.

  Ada returned to Moretz’s office, after everyone had cleared out for the night. The sky was a deep purple, with less particles flying around than she was used to seeing. Even if the air was a bit cleaner, she was grateful to have the Clean and Clear her mother left behind. Her lungs already felt lighter, and her breath was slow and imperceptible, like a rich person’s. If she wasn’t using the medical tech, Moretz might have been able to make her early on. Quick and labored breathing was a giveaway for Tramps and N
.A.’s.

  Seven o’clock, and there was time before the dinner date to take care of pre-murder plans. What would slow her down were the mercenary bots. She could send electric shocks their way, but a quick scan of their surface programming and she learned when they went offline, an alert forced authorities to respond. The bots needed to be operational and compliant.

  After some time, from a safe distance, she adjusted their code. Her patch was temporary and ongoing because the bots were initially programmed under a constantly changing code, therefore hard to crack. Whoever wrote the code was a genius.

  Inside the building, everything looked different in the dark. Ominous. The lobby was silent, and no matter how lightly she tread, her footsteps echoed. The receptionist hub hummed, two red lights blinking. They looked like eyes, watching her move down the hall to the left.

  In the limited emergency lights she triggered, the walls lining the hallway appeared liquid. Their polished onyx surface moved, undulated, threatening to swallow her, which was a lot like looking Moretz in the eye.

  Along the dark wall, she groped for panel. At her touch, it awoke.

  “How did you get—?”

  Ada cut off the machine’s initial commands and input her own. The completion of the phrase would have triggered the alarm.

  Let me in the office. There was an internal flicker. The bots—she nearly forgot to keep her mind on decrypting and re-writing their code. The damn things were still trying to override her. The struggled drained her, but she maintained the decryption.

  “Please come in,” the wall interface droned.

  Under Ada’s control, the sassy voice changed.

  “Thanks, sugar pop.” She had the urge to fry the machine, but it passed.

  The office was a tomb, and in the center was the desk, shining in the scant light like the top of a sepulcher. On the walls, the digital photos glittered, the smiling and laughing faces freaking her out a bit. She wished she weren’t being watched. The red strip along the wall was a myriad of cameras seeing and recording everything.

  Off. The crimson lights disappeared. She proceeded to access the main command from the desk panel, a hand and voice command unit of impressive caliber. At her will, the desk unit came on, a beacon of light in the dark room. Pictures, programs, and voice units buzzed on the desk top. Once inside the command program—much easier to access than the mercenary bots—Ada combed through Moretz’s personal files, especially his financials. His overall net worth spiraled out to a ridiculous amount, confirming her future acquisition of funds for Gemina. He could pay out and still live comfortably.

  Not that I’m going to let him live.

  Next, she erased all image frames the database had of her, including the appointment log with her name on it. The digital file she sent Moretz earlier was retrievable remotely and easy to delete. While inside of his files, she searched for information using two key words: Ada Freyr.

  Scanning every digital inch of his files took a nanosecond for her brain to comb through. It would’ve been a fraction of a nanosecond, but she was expending energy with the bots as well. She decoded two pieces of tech at once, and the bots coding won the struggle against her counter-programming. They locked her out, and she tried her skeleton key in vain. Ada let them go to concentrate on his files. She would worry about the bots when she left.

  Her file had to be lengthy and might even be under an alias, or under her mother’s name.

  The scan finished. Zero files. Her heart contracted, and a pain stabbed her eyes.

  Nothing. He wasn’t keeping tabs on his daughter. Why would he? He was a new man and had been a new man for some time. The new man didn’t know her, and obviously didn’t want to know her. Maybe she reminded him of everything he built his life upon: lies. Thus, he buried her under the crap pile of his life.

  I don’t care. She struggled to walk to the lobby at a normal pace. Sure you don’t. Her shoes click clacked on the marble floor, and the noise set a soundtrack to her anger. Click. I hate you. Clack. Motherfucker.

  You care so much, it’s making you sloppy.

  Damnit. The voice wasn’t wrong. The bots were unresponsive to her tech whisperings.

  I said I don’t give a shit.

  So go kill him already. Show how much you don’t care.

  She would. Mercenary bots were nothing, and she would bend them to her will.

  Ada stood inside the lobby, drawing extra power from the tech in the building. When she was juiced and ready, she tried the mental skeleton key once more. The bots were still resistant, but after a third try, the coding opened and allowed her access again.

  Holding onto control of the two bots simultaneously proved harder than she expected. She told herself she had a handle on the situation, but in reality, she would only be able to sustain the hold for another few minutes, maybe seconds. Ada sprinted to the exit, aware she was going to draw attention to herself running out of a closed office building but not caring.

  I don’t give a shit. If she hesitated, the bots would fry her ass. She liked her ass just the way it bounced.

  The steps seemed much larger on her way out of the building—marble slabs stretching on and on.

  Just another million fucking steps to go, and I’ll make it.

  One thought, and her hold on the bots slipped slightly. She heard a mechanical whirring, the sound of a laser weapon being raised.

  Shut up.

  Too late. The code became aggressive. Someone knew their system was being hacked, and they were fighting back with nerd- power. She had underestimated the bots’ coding. Their combative capabilities booted up, and she felt a shift in their awareness.

  The last of her control shattered, and nothing could reverse it. A bee stung her heels, somehow heating her shoe. After taking the last five steps as one long leap, she dove around the corner of the building. A blast of light followed her path, but it missed and hit the sidewalk in front of her, making a deep scorch mark in the pavement, about an inch. The hole grew to two, three, and finally four inches. Then, the red ring faded and the opening on the sidewalk stilled.

  In the distance, sirens blared, a sure sign of the Sammies’ response to the bots’ alarm.

  ~*~

  hree minutes later when the Sammie arrived on scene and found no one, she called the tech who maintained the bots. The things must have malfunctioned. No one triggered a mercenary bot and lived. Not often anyway.

  Someone hacked the machines, the agent knew. Or so she was told.

  The tech assessed the machines and couldn’t figure out why they had misfired.

  The Sammie pulled the tech aside, away from the other agents onsite. “You know someone hacked your shit, right?”

  The tech nodded, his eyes widened. “But you don’t know how or why?” she asked.

  The tech shook his head, but it was clear he was unsettled. Everyone knew an unhappy Sammie was a scary thing, and she was deeply unhappy.

  Still, she allowed the tech to continue on home without a mark of Un-diligent Conduct on his report.

  The hacker could only be one person, and the Sammie thought she knew who it might be.

  Fourteen

  Research.

  Ada was avoiding it, but the neglect of research was affecting her mission.

  In Moretz’s office. Unacceptable. Had she known he was a family man, she would have been smoothly prepared. If she had researched the bots and been more aware of their coding, she would have walked away from the office a second time without a minor injury.

  A small circle on her heel was a cauterized mess, and her shoe had corroded. She was lucky to have escaped without the loss of her foot. Or worse.

  However, to research meant to become further involved. The less she knew about Moretz, the better she would feel about stopping his heart. Finding out about his life, and other children... It would turn the monster into a man, into a person. A person couldn’t be capable of child molestation, or of murdering loved ones. A monster could be. She did not want
doubt to interfere with her decision. She was too committed, or as her mother liked to say, The hat’s already over the wall.

  Definitely over the wall now, Ada thought as she looked herself over in the mirror. She was sheathed in a knee-length silk dress slinky enough to turn heads, but not tight enough to classify her as a hooker. Moretz would notice her, unfortunately.

  Yuck, he’s your father. A phantom fluttered in her belly, doubling her over.

  Push.

  No, I can’t.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. With great effort, she straightened, sidelining the haunting memories and stabilizing her thoughts.

  With no A.I. assistant to confiscate her gun, she had a chance to end this.

  Ada unplugged her car and got inside. The car drove on autopilot for twenty minutes. When the interface announced she reached her destination, she checked the screen. She must have input the wrong address. She was parked in front of a private apartment with a side entrance leading upstairs to a second floor penthouse, resembling more of a bachelor pad than a Congressman’s home.

  “Oh, of course.” Her logic caught up to her brain, informing her of Moretz’s second, or recreational, residence. She remembered the address from the full file scan from earlier, only it hadn’t been labeled as fuck-pad. Before exiting the car, she instructed the vehicle to return to the motel without her.

  Three rings tolled from the car’s interface. Answer. The ringing stopped.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Muth?” asked Moretz’s assistant.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Congressman Moretz’s assistant. We met earlier today. You tested our new chairs.”

  They met earlier. Weird phrasing for a machine. The mention of the chairs was just as saucy. Congressman Moretz’s assistant was a mix of things, considering bits of wires controlled it. Ada recalled what a Pliable Patty the machine was not just a few hours ago and smiled.

  “Yes?”

  “The Congressman had me call to apologize. It seems I mistakenly gave you the wrong address.”

  Interfaces were never wrong. They repeated or carried out instructions based on the parameters of their owners. The pretense of humanity, of human error, reminded her that she wasn’t speaking with an ordinary machine.