“Kill, Mossy. I expect them to use the prophet root bacteria to infect the employees and replace them with the AI.” His father’s face was grim and serious. He had stopped pacing and was looking at his son with piercing eyes.
“But why? Why not just program the drudges to do the work?”
“Skills, experience. Programs can do a lot, but nothing is as powerful as the human mind. Combining the employees with their drudges would make the workforce the best in the world.”
“But what about the people, their families?”
“A tragic accident. The company will pay off the families. It’ll be a pittance according to our contracts. Then they clear out the bodies and rent the burbs as high-end apartments—all profit. Without having to feed staff, all the crops can be sold off world.”
Moss stood aghast, mouth open, hands shaking. He had heard ThutoCo called evil. He had known hearing their plan would make him sick, but this was beyond his worst nightmare. For a company to murder its entire workforce, use homegrown technology and skill against the very people who dedicated their lives to it was something he could barely understand.
Money.
It was all for money. Somewhere in those golden towers, all the members of the AIC would be getting even richer.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” his father assured Moss. “It’s why I started working with Burn, helped to get a team ready to do what needs to be done. If you are seeing me now, it means the plan is already in motion.”
“I know it already is,” Moss said.
“How?”
“In the last year, everyone in the burb got sick. They must have been testing the system, laying the groundwork for what was to come,” he explained. He thought back to that day, laying on the floor of his hex, the skin under his fingernails turning white as he gripped the rim of the toilet. Covered in sweat and sick, he had felt pangs of guilt for having to miss work. Now he knew, now he understood that it had all been a part of the plan. He had suffered and for all the people he knew, that illness would be only the beginning.
“Then the time is now,” his father said, grim determination in his eyes.
“Who’s the team? I know Burn got you but who else? Still got the lovebirds: Stan and Judy? How about Cutter and Grimy?” he asked.
“All in except Cutter, don’t know him,” Moss said.
“Her. Cutter was a street samurai, good people but always rushed in headlong. Too bad, she’d have been helpful.”
“Sounds like what Ynna does,” Moss noted with a slight smile.
“No kidding? The despondent rich girl really made something of herself? Burn can have that effect on people. Happy to hear it. Who’s your breaker?”
“Patchwork,” Moss said, before correcting, “this kid, Willis.” His father looked astonished.
“Willis?” He laughed. “He was showing me action figures last time I saw him. My, how things change. I’m surprised his mom loosened her grip enough to let Burn take him.”
“Jo had another kid—a daughter. Maybe that’s it?” Moss offered.
“That’s wonderful, I’m happy for her. Don’t know if that’s it, but I’m not surprised any kid of hers would want in on the action. Those vets got hit pretty hard.” His father’s eyes drifted absently away for a moment.
“So, I keep hearing… life outside the burbs is very different,” Moss said. It felt like the greatest understatement of his life. His days in the burbs had been so easy, so cushy. It was a shock to see the way most citizens lived: shuffling down the filthy streets to jobs which paid nothing just so they could afford their palmscreens.
“Sure is, nothing is taken care of and nothing is certain. So, I have poverty because a few assholes want another yacht,” his dad remarked with venom.
“You swear,” Moss said, his eyes wide.
“People act differently around their kids, but you’re all grown now,” he said. He appraised his son thoughtfully. “I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks, dad. Or whatever you are,” Moss smirked. “So, what should we do?”
“You have to expose them,” he said, no hesitation. “Your mother put a Trojan Horse program on this drive which will reprogram Marisol Mae to run a bulletin throughout the burbs telling everyone of the plan and encouraging a companywide revolt. Have Willis, or Patchwork rather, add the bit about the illness last year.”
“Will that be enough? The company will try to play it off, say it was rogue hackers,” Moss pointed out.
“Certainly. But the damage will be done. The AIC will never abide such a public disgrace. They will do everything in their power to tear apart ThutoCo. There is nothing these companies fear more than the others. It will be the beginning of the end for them. Seti still your eyes?”
“Yeah,” Moss said.
“Great. D2E controls the television and internet but Seti should be able to get the feed out just long enough so that the world can see it, too. ThutoCo will be under such intense scrutiny, they will have to scrap the plan.”
“Scrap the plan?” Moss parroted, his ire up. “Dad, we need to take them down, this is a sick plan. The company may come apart, but the world will stay the same!”
“This isn’t just about taking down the big bad, kiddo. It’s about saving lives. You’re stopping corporate genocide,” he said, his voice resigned.
“Right,” Moss said, thinking about all the people in all the burbs.
“I know you want to do more. I admire it. But you must focus on what’s before you and all the people you can save.” He grabbed Moss’s hand and looked him in the eye. “You’ll be a hero, even if the people you save hardly realize.”
Moss knew he was right. He had spent his whole life feeling small and insignificant, but now he was vital to saving lives.
“There are a couple of problems though, as you would expect,” his dad said. “First, you are going to need to get this program to the server banks at ThutoCo HQ. It’ll be heavily guarded and complex to get to. Once you’re there, it has to be you who uploads the program. Mom didn’t want to put you in harm’s way, but we needed to code it to someone’s unique login and scan so that some rogue group couldn’t use this for their own purposes. You are the key now.”
“I can do it,” Moss said.
“You have someone on the inside? Issy or Vihaan your person in BurbSec?” he asked. Moss didn’t want to admit what happened, didn’t want to believe it.
“Issy is BurbSec, but I messed it up,” Moss groused, telling his dad everything.
“She’ll forgive you,” he said, trying to assuage his child’s guilt.
“She shouldn’t,” Moss argued. He could not shake the image of his oldest friend when she realized what Moss was going to do: the sadness, disappointment, and fear written all over her face.
“She will. She loves you,” he said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“That only makes it worse.” Moss’s head dropped. Even within the program, he could feel the guilt. His heart raced and his palms were damp. He swallowed hard. “I betrayed the one person I could count on.”
“Sounds like you saved her life,” his dad reassured him.
Moss had tried to convince himself of the same thing but always came back to the same point. “From a man I brought into her life,” Moss said. He couldn’t bear the memory.
“Try her, see what happens. Failing that, talk to Vihaan, he always had my back, and hopefully yours as well.”
“He was good to me after,” Moss admitted.
“Good. What I wouldn’t give to have his korma one more time,” he trailed off longingly. Moss smiled at the memory of home. “Speak to him. Tell him what’s happening. His sense of honor will compel him to help you, no matter what happened with Issy.”
Moss knew he was right. Vihaan had a sense of propriety to a fault.
“All right,” Moss said.
“I believe in you, Mossy,” his dad said, and his son felt an encouragement which only a parent can
provide.
“Thanks, dad, though—” he began but let the silence fill the room, staring at a vase of digital daisies on the counter. His mom had always tried to keep flowers in the hex. It was a nice touch programmed in.
“What?” his dad asked.
“Mossy. I never really liked it. Such a lame nickname. You know I called my drudge MOSS II? I blame you for that,” he said with a weak smile.
“Fair enough,” his dad answered with amusement, spreading his hands wide. “You going to be all right?”
“I am,” Moss said, and he believed it. Despite everything, he had a sense of confidence in his—and his new friends’—abilities.
“Good. If you ever have any doubts, look to Burn, he’ll be there for you.”
“I know,” Moss said. He had come to think of Burn as a mentor and a person he could count on.
“But he’ll need you, too,” his dad said, an unreadable expression on his face.
“How?”
“To help lead.” Moss could not believe the words and he laughed.
“I think Burn has that covered,” he said.
“For now, but he is aging. Biotics are keeping him alive. He will need you; the crew will need you. When this is done and all eyes turn to the AIC, it will be important to have someone with experience from inside the corporate structure. Your family helped to create this, and it will fall to you to continue that legacy.” He was deadly serious.
“I’m no leader. Ynna or Stan would be a much better choice,” Moss said.
“Ynna is driven by resentment and Stan is too volatile,” he said. “Do you remember when we took you to Castle Dome as a kid?”
“No,” Moss said. “I haven’t been outside the burb until now.”
“Assholes really did scrape your memory.” His dad snarled. “We took you there when you were eleven. A bunch of kids are taken on an adventure by a guide while the parents drink mimosas poolside and watch from a drone feed.
“You were the youngest in the crew by a few years and when you got to the end, everyone wanted to rush headlong into the dragon’s den. But you had been listening to the clues along the way. You realized that if you painted the rocks outside the lair to look like gold, you guys could coax the dragon out and steal its riches, saving all the kids from certain defeat.
“The guide found us after and said that she’d never seen a kid so young solve the little puzzle. Mom and I knew then and there what kind of man you would become.” He beamed. Moss thought about outwitting Ira, about making the quick decision to save Issy and believed his father.
“Right,” he said with certainty.
“Moss?” His father asked in nearly a whisper.
“Yes?”
“Can you… tell me about yourself?” He looked sad, miserable and, though Moss knew it was a program and that his father was long dead, he sat and told him all about the years which had passed and everything which had happened recently.
When he was done, he looked at his father. “Is this it? Am I able to come back here?”
“Certainly,” he answered. “Though I won’t be of much help to you once this is all over.”
“Even still, it’s nice to see you, to talk,” Moss said.
He smirked. “You too, though admittedly, I only exist when you’re here.”
“That’s an odd thought,” Moss said. The program felt so real, he kept having to remind himself of the truth.
“Yeah, I wish I—the real I—could be there for you now,” he said. His voice was pained. It was obvious that he felt tremendous guilt for not being there for his son. Moss had to marvel at the program once again. Conversing with this version of his father was exactly what he remembered. He thought about MOSS II then. The robot who had felt like a true friend, but which had been mining his mind to create a duplicate. He knew that on a server somewhere, there was a recreation of himself which was as true to him as this was to his father.
“This is more than most get,” Moss pointed out.
“I suppose that’s true,” he said with a sad chuckle.
“Did you do this to mom?” Moss asked and his father’s sadness deepened, his eyes instantly welling.
“She wouldn’t let me. Knowing what this technology was being used for, she didn’t want a copy out there,” he said in a tremulous voice.
“She also—” he began but seemed to be lost in thought.
“What?” Moss coaxed. He wanted to know. Needed to know.
“She didn’t think it would be good for you. To have this version of us when you really didn’t,” he explained.
“I like it,” Moss told him.
“Honestly, kiddo, I don’t think that was it. I think she didn’t like the idea that a program of her would get to watch you grow up when she didn’t.” Tears began to stream down his face. Nonplussed, Moss didn’t speak.
“I think it’s time.” His father’s words seemed to need to be forced from his mouth.
“Okay.” Moss was reluctant to leave. He knew he had work to do. He knew people were waiting and lives depended on him, but he wanted to stay in the false reality.
“You’ll come back and let me know?” his dad asked hopefully.
“I will,” Moss said. “I love you, dad.”
“I love you, too, Mossy,” he said, then smiled, “Moss.”
Then white.
Moss blinked and he was back in the cramped, stinking apartment. The room was silent, and when he swiveled in the chair, all eyes were on him.
“You all right?” Burn asked and Judy strode over, bio of coffee in hand. He took it and winced at the taste.
“You’ll get there,” Judy said with a smile.
“What was it?” Ynna asked. Moss fixed his eyes at Gibbs.
“It was my father—or a program of my father rather,” Moss said, and he explained everything. When he was done, they all looked at him in stunned silence.
“Let’s break these fuckers,” Ynna announced.
“Let’s save some lives,” Burn corrected.
Moss smiled.
PART 3
Chapter 17
“Seti, bring it up,” Burn ordered. “And Patch, help get Moss a secured call. We don’t have all day to take him back to church, so make it secret—and I mean ‘porn on your mom’s computer’ secret.”
“Heard,” Patchwork said and got to work as Seti brought up a rendering of ThutoCo HQ. As Moss strode over to Patchwork, Judy grabbed his arm.
“I feel like I’m saying this to you a lot, but I’m sorry,” they said, smiling as striped hair fell over their face.
“It’s all right,” Moss said, looking into Judy’s dark eyes and smiling slightly.
“It’s not, I just want what’s best and I’m still adjusting to having bubs involved. I know you guys are trying to help but it’s like sleeping with the enemy.”
Moss sympathized. “We’re all trying to figure this out.”
“Right,” Judy said with a nod and released Moss so he could make his call.
“She won’t be able to see us,” Patchwork said.
“I know the rules,” Moss told him. He was nervous. Though he was excited to see her face and hear her voice, the guilt sat like a cinderblock on his chest.
“Cool, man. I’ll patch you through,” he said. One of the screens went black as ringing entered Moss’s mind.
The caller you are trying to reach is unavailable, please try again later, a robotic voice offered helpfully and Moss’s heart sank. He looked over to Chicken Thumbs. Fresh clothes hardly covered the wounds of his questioning. As the voice repeated the phrase again and again broken only by ceaseless ringing, Moss imagined his oldest friend, stripped and shackled as they accused her of things she did not fully understand. He hated himself, hated Stan, hated this mission. He swore he would do anything he could to help her and spend the rest of his days trying to make amends.
“Try her dad,” Moss demanded, giving Patchwork the information. He answered after the first ring.
&nbs
p; “Isabella? Is that you? I cannot see you. Are you all right?” he said, breaking what was left of Moss’s heart.
“No, it’s Moss,” he forced, saying the words aloud though he was meant to transmit them through his implant.
“Moss, my boy, what has happened? They tell me nothing,” Vihaan said, his voice cracking. For a man of his stature in BurbSec to be locked out of something meant that it was highest level security. Not surprising, but disappointing.
“Are you alone?” Moss asked, and the black screen turned on, revealing Vihaan’s face in an empty hex.
“Yes,” he said, and though Moss knew there were any number of tricks to keep other security officers hidden from a camera, no one could fake the parent’s fear written on the man’s face.
“She helped me. I know you know what that means. BurbSec must have her,” Moss explained. He could feel himself rubbing his hands together nervously.
“Not Carcer?” Vihaan asked, sounding slightly relieved. Burn had taken a break from the planning to stand by Moss’s shoulder.
“ThutoCo would want to question her, wouldn’t want to share with Carcer,” he whispered in Moss’s ear, the hair from his beard tickling his flesh. Moss repeated the message.
“Yes,” Vihaan agreed. “You will help her, yes?”
“Yes,” Moss promised. Burn nodded silently.
“Thank you,” he said graciously, and Moss felt all the more guilty that the man did not ask what Moss’s role had been in her capture. He wanted to tell him everything, beg for forgiveness, try to pull this guilt from himself, but he said nothing. “You need my help?”
“Yes,” Moss answered, the word heavy. He hated having to do it, having to put Vihaan at risk after everything.
“Clearance codes?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes,” Moss answered again.
“My life here is done?” Vihaan’s eyes looked around the room behind the camera. This man who had dedicated his life to the protection of the burb would now have to flee from it. His name would be hissed with disdain by people who had worked at his side for a lifetime.
“Yes,” he said a final time.
Into Neon Page 17
