by Dan Wells
“I don’t know,” said Marisa, focusing completely on the file system as it unfolded before her. The rest of the world seemed to fade away, and one by one a series of folders and databases blossomed open, stacked and nested and side by side. It wasn’t virtual reality, but it felt like it—more immersive, somehow, than any filing system she’d ever seen. She shook her head, looking at the physical room again just to convince herself she was still in it. The server towers hummed and blinked, and Sahara’s dress floated mystically on its flock of nulis.
“Everything okay?” Sahara asked.
“Yeah,” said Marisa, though she frowned as she said it. “Just a weird filing system.” She refocused on the files again. It was a custom-built system, she was sure—nobody bought something like this off the shelf. The folders seemed to surround her, but leaped to attention as she thought of each one, seeming to reorganize themselves in real time. She tried to search, and suddenly the search function was there, not a window or an entry field but a kind of movable bubble that was poised to envelop her, ready and almost eager to help her find the files she needed. She wasn’t even sure how to use it—was it an AI? Another layer of Sofia, the house computer? She fed it the name Zenaida, and it whisked her off through the database.
A row of file names appeared in front of her, glowing faintly in the half-light of the server room. She blinked on each in turn, reading them carefully, but they included no real information—most of them were about completely unrelated things, like guest lists to old parties with Zenaida’s name stuck in with the others, or long, archived email conversations that mentioned her in passing. She finished the list, and found nothing. Obviously the good stuff—the actual data about who Zenaida was and the important details of her life—was locked behind a security wall somewhere. But how could she find the files when she couldn’t even find the wall?
A portion of the interface changed color, spiraling open like a glowing flower, and a chat name appeared.
Jacinto: Nastia Turón is a false identity.
Marisa widened her eyes in surprise. She’d thought her fake ID was pretty good. Of course, she’d also thought Jacinto was asleep.
The chat window—or flower, or whatever it was—had a space for her to reply, but she didn’t dare to give him her real name, and didn’t know what to say to explain herself. Instead she appealed to the only authority she had:
Nastia: I’m here with Omar.
Jacinto: You’re Marisa Carneseca.
Well, thought Marisa. No point lying anymore. Though the chat name was already locked in, so she kept using it.
Nastia: Can you see me?
Jacinto: I watch Sahara’s show.
Jacinto: Sofia logged Omar, Sahara, and a third person named Nastia, but that ID’s obviously a fake, and Marisa is the most likely person to be with her.
Marisa blinked, not on her djinni but simply in surprise. It was impossible to read emotions through a chat window, but he didn’t seem angry. He hadn’t demanded that she leave, or warned her that he’d summoned the guards. What was he playing at?
Nastia: Yep, it’s me. How’d you spot the fake?
Jacinto: It’s not like it’s a great fake. You only scrubbed three levels of artifact code.
Nastia: Three levels deep is the law enforcement standard.
Jacinto: Three levels deep is where corporate security starts.
Marisa thought for a moment, then nodded. Fair enough. She looked at the filing system again, so clearly custom-made, and nodded as the situation started to become clear.
Nastia: You built this, didn’t you?
Jacinto: Not much else to do.
Nastia: You live online.
Jacinto: Doesn’t everybody?
Again, he had a point, but Marisa was sure that Jacinto’s life was even more digital than most. The person who’d built this filing system was not some internet cowboy living a wild double life; he was a homebody, a shut-in, like an old man building bird feeders. But instead he’d built . . . this. He’d upgraded and customized and personalized the home computer until it was as much his home as the physical building that housed it.
Nastia: This file system is amazing. The software and the interface are . . . well, I mean, you could do this professionally, you know? Literally anyone would hire you.
Jacinto didn’t respond for a long time, long enough that she worried she’d scared him away. Just as she looked back at the search bubble, trying to plot her next move, he answered:
Jacinto: Thanks, but I don’t really talk to people.
Nastia: Well, thanks for talking to me.
Another short pause, and then:
Jacinto: You’re trying to find my mother.
Marisa tensed, not sure if he was upset by this or not. There was very little emotion in anything he said. She didn’t know what else to do, though, or how else to find the info she needed, so she carefully phrased a response, hoping to get him talking.
Nastia: I am.
Nastia: I’m trying to find—we’re all trying find, me and Sahara and Omar—what might have happened to her.
Jacinto: And you think my father knows?
Nastia: I think your father knows about her past, maybe her job at ZooMorrow, and whatever happened to her might have something to do with that.
She waited for an answer, but none came.
Nastia: Jacinto?
Nothing. She waited a moment longer, wondering what she might have said to scare him off. Or had she offended him? She glanced at Omar, leaning against the wall with the unfocused eyes of someone deep in their djinni. Could she ask him? Would he know, or even care? He never seemed to take Jacinto seriously. She looked at the files again, and tried to think of some way to find the hidden ones. How would Jacinto have set up his interface to do it? She tried the search bubble, and poked around at it, testing to see what it could do.
Jacinto: Stop.
Nastia: I was only trying to find records about your mom’s job.
Jacinto: No.
Jacinto: Someone’s plugged into the system.
Jacinto: Not you.
Jacinto: this is someone else theres
Jacinto: someone else in the system theyre plugged in somewhere I cant see where the cameras are turned off someones here
It was still just text, scrolling across her display, but Marisa could tell that Jacinto was terrified.
Nastia: Is it someone from the party?
She didn’t know who else would be plugged in, or why it would bother him so much.
Nastia: There’s like thirty people here, it could be anyone.
Jacinto: Someone’s plugged insomeones plugedin
Even his spelling and spacing were failing now—and since he probably wasn’t using a keyboard, that meant the djinni interface itself was failing. That only happened when the neurochemicals were wildly thrown off.
“Omar!” Marisa shouted.
Jacinto: Find them plese you have tostop them I cant do it Icant do it
Marisa snapped her eyes open. Omar was standing up straight, startled at the sudden shout. “Someone’s in your house,” she said.
Omar must have seen something in her face, because he grew instantly serious. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re being hacked,” said Marisa. “Not by me, by someone else—Jacinto! Can you hear me?”
“Jacinto?” asked Omar.
Jacinto: youhave to stopthem yu havto stop thm
“Listen to me,” said Marisa, thinking out loud so everyone could hear at once. She was certain Jacinto had a security mic somewhere in the room that could listen in. “We can stop them, but you have to tell us where. Someone plugged in with a hard line and turned off the cameras to hide their tracks. Where in the system you built would be the best place for an attack like that?”
“What’s going on?” asked Sahara. “There’s another hacker?”
“Take a deep breath,” said Marisa softly, casting her eyes around the room. “Think. Tell us where to go.”
Jacinto: Service closet, second floor, by the theater.
“Thanks,” said Marisa, and ripped the plug from the jack in the back of her neck. The filing system disappeared, and she looked at Omar. “You have a theater?”
“Second floor,” he said. “Main house.”
“Get us there now.”
Their shoes were already off, but the dresses were still constricting to run in. Omar outpaced them easily, and when Marisa reached the back door he was already propping it open with one hand, holding a small black pistol in the other. She reeled back when she saw it.
“Holy crap.”
“You said someone’s hacking in?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Marisa. Sahara caught up to them, and the three raced outside and back through the garden. “Jacinto’s scared senseless.”
“He built this computer system,” said Omar. “It’s like his body. If someone’s breaking in without his consent . . .”
The guards in the estate were already moving; either Omar had warned them, or Jacinto had sent out a general alarm. One of them saw Omar and angled toward him as they ran past the garage.
“Theater,” said Omar. “Check the service closet, and block all the exits.” The man sprinted toward the house, and Omar shouted after him, “And get the lights on out here! We don’t want him to disappea—”
He stopped abruptly as a shadow passed overhead, sudden and silent. Marisa caught the vague outline of a thin human form as it leaped from the window above them, and then she ducked in fright as Omar and two of the guards raised their guns and started firing. The shape crossed the open space and vanished into the trees.
“Did you get him?” asked Marisa.
“I don’t think so,” said Omar. “He landed too smoothly—we would have heard it if he was injured.”
The noise from the party stopped, the pounding music replaced by the hushed murmur of frightened voices.
“He’s in the garden somewhere,” said Sahara. “Down on the ground—none of the tree branches are creaking.”
“Keep the guests in the house,” said Omar, pointing to another guard. “And somebody get these pinche lights on!”
Sahara blinked, summoning her nulis, and they flew out of an open window and up toward the walls, patrolling from above. “His only way out is up,” said Sahara. “Do you have any more camera nulis?”
“No,” said Omar. He reloaded his pistol and crept toward the darkened garden. “Stay back.”
Marisa ignored his command and moved up behind him, practically touching his back. Sahara paused for a moment, then jogged toward the open window.
“Ladies!” she shouted. “I need everybody’s selfie nulis outside. Now. Set them to patrol the upper walls.”
“Mine’s not automated,” said one of the girls.
“Then guide it remotely,” said Sahara. “We have an intruder, and the clearest photo anyone takes of him gets a cash reward.” She looked back at Omar with wild eyes. “Come on, man. With this crowd, you’ve got half the mobile cameras in Mirador at your disposal.”
A swarm of smooth-sided nulis flew out from the party room, each of them no larger than a deck of cards, tiny rotors whirring almost whisper-soft in the night. As if that was the cue, the intruder in the garden leaped up and ran, bushes rustling and distant lamps winking in and out as the runner passed in front of them.
“Hold your fire!” shouted a guard. There were too many of them, aiming from too many angles, and the threat of cross fire was too high. “Get to the walls!”
Omar ran, and Marisa followed after him, dodging through the garden in hot pursuit. A gun fired, and Marisa shrieked as Sahara dragged her to the ground.
“We care about cross fire,” said Sahara. “She doesn’t.”
“She?” asked Marisa. “How do you know it’s a woman?”
“The silhouette,” said Sahara, and then, in unison with Omar: “Hips.”
“Couple of one-track minds,” muttered Marisa. She could barely see anything from where she was, facedown in the weeds, so instead she blinked on her djinni and tapped into Sahara’s camera feeds. Suddenly it seemed as if she was up in the air, floating above the compound; they had basic nightvision, amplifying the ambient light into a grayscale tableau, but she could only identify some guards in the driveway and on the periphery. Everyone else was either inside a building or under the trees.
“She ran toward the guesthouse,” said Omar. “If she goes right, she’ll pass the pool, which has a lot of open sight lines, so she won’t go right. That means left, to that path we took behind the garage.” He blinked, opening a voice channel, and directed the guards to surround the intruder. “Cap the ends of that path, and get someone into the garage so she can’t leave that way. She’ll have nowhere to go but up.”
Sahara directed one of nulis toward the roof of the garage, and Marisa looked down through its camera as it hovered closer to the dark black walkway behind it, a thick swath of darkness against the outer wall. The intruder had killed the lights; there was nothing for the nightvision to amplify.
“Ramón,” said Omar, guiding the guards through his djinni, “you take the lead. Nonlethal rounds; I want to ask this pendeja some very detailed questions.”
Marisa watched the darkness, and jumped at the sudden sound of gunfire. Muzzle flashes lit the dark pathway, showing brief, staccato images of a slim figure firing at the guards; she barely seemed to move, merely to appear in different places and positions every time it was bright enough to see her. Each flash of visibility showed her higher up the wall, as if she was running up the side, or maybe kicking back and forth between the building and the outer wall, and then suddenly she was over it, sailing out of the compound and into the street. She was visible to the nuli for almost three full seconds, and Marisa prayed they could capture a good still that showed her face. A final shot from one of the guards grazed her neck, and Marisa gasped at the spray of liquid that erupted from the impact. The woman lost her balance and started falling gracelessly toward the street below, arms flailing, and one incongruous detail stood out so starkly Marisa felt her jaw fall open.
“Holy crap,” said Sahara. “Did you see that?”
“Yeah,” said Marisa. “She’s . . . not wearing shoes.”
Marisa thought the woman was dead or dying in midair, but at the last moment she managed to right herself, and landed in a roll so perfect that she was up and running before anyone could react. A guard on the street ran toward her, but she dropped him with a shot from her pistol and sprinted across the street. The camera nulis followed, but she jumped on a motorcycle and turned it on with a roar, speeding away so fast the little nulis couldn’t keep up.
Omar stood with a snarl, cursing loudly. “She got away!”
“We couldn’t stop her, sir,” said a guard, running toward them. “She’s too fast.”
“You hit her once,” said Omar. “Get a blood sample, and get me a DNA identification by morning.”
“That’s the thing, sir,” said the guard. He looked uncomfortable, as if he didn’t want to say what he was about to say. “It . . . it wasn’t blood, sir.”
“What was it?” asked Marisa.
The guard hesitated, then spoke: “Acid.”
EIGHT
“Acid?” asked Jaya.
“Acid,” said Sahara.
Jaya’s VR avatar had her jaw hanging open. Anja reached over with a single finger and pushed her mouth closed.
“That’s the most baller thing I’ve ever heard,” said Fang. “She has acid blood?”
“And no shoes,” said Marisa. “I almost think the shoe thing is creepier, because why on earth would you not wear shoes?”
“We’ve worn shoes literally every time we’ve broken into a building,” said Anja. “And while that’s a small sample size, it is nonzero, so I’m very proud of us.” She spread her arms wide. “Group hug. Bring it in.”
The other girls ignored her, staring at Sahara as s
he continued to recount the events of the previous night. “It’s not her blood,” she said. “People don’t have acid blood. I showed you the video—it hit right at the back of the neck, where a djinni port would be, but we can’t actually see the point of contact because it’s covered by her hair.”
“An acidic djinni port?” asked Jaya. “That’s not a technology I’ve ever heard of.”
“If it was blood,” said Marisa, “she would have been more hurt by it. Obviously it hurt a little, but she still lands on her feet, runs across the street, and rides away on a motorcycle. You can’t do any of that with a bullet hole in your neck.”
“Maybe you can’t,” said Anja, “but you’re not an acid-blood monster person.”
“She’s not a monster person,” said Sahara.
“Why not?” asked Fang. “We already have a ghost.”
Sahara looked at the ceiling. “No, we don’t. Why do I have to keep stating the obvious boundaries of the known universe?”
“Ghosts are totally real,” said Fang.
“I thought you were an atheist,” said Sahara.
Fang raised her avatar’s eyebrow. “What does that have to do with it?”
“Let’s get back to the basics,” said Jaya, reining in the discussion. “Ghosts and monsters aside: Did you get the data you needed from the mainframe?”
“No,” said Marisa, and grimaced at her failure. “I should have stayed in the system and let the others deal with the intruder, but . . . it’s just that Jacinto was freaking out. Like: freaking out. I couldn’t just sit there, you know?”
“I know,” said Jaya. “It’s okay.”
“Doubly okay,” said Anja, reaching into her avatar’s jacket, “because I have succeeded gloriously in my part of the night’s festivities.”
“And by ‘festivities,’” said Sahara, “you mean ‘prying apart a gore-soaked neural implant.’”
“Stop,” said Anja, “you’re turning me on.” She still had her hand hidden dramatically in her jacket. “But yes: I cracked open the djinni and found the data we need.”
“I knew you would,” said Marisa. “You’re way better at hardware than I am.”
“Stop teasing and just pull it out!” said Jaya, practically clapping her hands. She was older than the others by several years—early twenties to their late teens—but was often the most childlike member of the group.