“I wonder why he hasn’t uploaded himself yet?” Jacob asked after they passed Father Gordon.
“Then who would be here to preach the word?”
Jacob laughed. “True.”
“Do you want to cut through the garden? I love the smell of it after they water the plants in the morning,” Sandy said.
“Sure,” Jacob said. Then after a moment, “You don’t have to do this, you know?”
“What? Get ready for work?”
“No. Helping out with this Your Better Life thing.”
Sandy pulled a twig off a rosemary bush and rubbed it in the palm of her hands, taking a deep breath of it afterward. “I know,” she said.
“It’s going to be dangerous.” He shook his head. “Dangerous. That’s got to be a major understatement. I don’t even know how we are going to pull it off. “
Sandy held the rosemary up for Jacob to smell. He did.
“I figure we’ll come up with something. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And all of those other clichés that work in this case.”
“Always the optimist.”
“To counteract your pessimist routine.”
“I’m not a pessimist,” Jacob said with a smile.
“I wish we had someone on the inside. Gomez said he knows a security guy, but we need someone else. You used to work there, do you know of anyone who might want to go to the dark side?”
“I was a bit of an overachieving loner.”
“What? You?”
Jacob wanted to avoid this, but said, “I guess there is one person I could get in touch with. She’s an old friend.”
“She? Do tell.”
Was that jealousy Jacob detected in her voice?
“Her name is Xia. We were friends in college. ”
“Friends with benefits?” Sandy asked with a sideways glance.
It was jealousy.
“After college, we served on the peace mission together,” Jacob said, avoiding a direct answer. “We did code sometimes in college, and when we were in Botswana we started writing and running opioid and dopamine code. We got away with it there, so we kept doing it when we became full corporate. She was with me the night I got burned. I haven’t talked to her since.”
“I thought you got burned alone.”
“I did. It happened after she left. I didn’t want to screw up her life too, so I never told anyone she was with me that night. Actually, she helped me write the code we were running.”
Sandy found a bench next to some Swiss chard plants and had a seat. Jacob sat beside her.
“Do you think she could be convinced to help?” Sandy asked.
Jacob looked at the contrast of the bright red stems and rich dark green leaves of the chard.
“I don’t know. She was all about living the corporate life. It was her family’s dream for her.”
“And yet, she was writing and running illegal code with you,” Sandy said, raising her eyebrows.
“She was an amazing code writer, so I’m sure she’s running a team by now. And if Your Better Life is working on this chip, she is more than likely on the team in some capacity. That’s a lot to risk throwing away.”
“Sounds like a perfect candidate to help us out,” Sandy said.
She was right. And Xia did break the rules with him. More than once, in fact. She even instigated the first time they did code in Botswana. He had to remind her of that and convince her to do it when the time came, but it was her idea.
“True,” he said, “but I’m sure she doesn’t want me near her now. If I know Xia, when I was burned she got scared straight. She was a rule-breaker, but she was cautious. Maybe a little paranoid at times.”
“Well, you could always guilt-trip her into helping.”
“Guilt-trip her?”
“Sure. You didn’t rat her out when you got burned. You could have and it would have reduced your sentence, but you didn’t. Why?”
Jacob shrugged and looked at the garden. “I don’t know. It would have been a shitty thing to do.” He watched the girl who had traded for the shoes as she picked yellow squash, placing each in her basket with care and precision. “Loyalty, I guess,” he said finally.
“Right. Loyalty. Use that to guilt-trip her.”
“I’m not sure I know how to guilt-trip someone. You think it will work?”
Sandy laughed and stood. “It worked on Gomez and me,” she said and walked off.
Chapter 11
When Xia got the message from an unknown number, she nearly dropped her phone.
Remember Maun? Meet me at Commie Cup 6 PM so we can talk about old times.
It took her almost an hour to respond with a simple, OK.
That hour, and every one since, her mind wrestled with one question, “Why is Jacob contacting me?” Of course, that question gave birth to a cascade of more questions. Many she thought she had answered long before. No, not answered, but she had decided to stop asking herself. It took her a year after that decision for her to stop asking if Jacob’s arrest was her fault. Maybe she had knocked over one of the scramblers and he hadn’t noticed. Maybe she was not cautious enough and left a trail when they were writing the code. Maybe...Maybe...Her mind swirled with maybe and if only and should have and could have. Thankfully, she had been free of that mental state for a little over two years. But as disturbing as those questions were, they paled next to the questions that paralyzed her with fear for the first few weeks after Jacob was arrested. When are they going to break my door down and haul me away? Are they going to stop me when I sign in at work? But they never did. Jacob took all the blame, and corporate never even asked her about their relationship. When she finally realized she would not be arrested, she felt relief wash over her. And guilt. She had no idea both could have such a physical effect, like a bucket of water being dumped over her. And like the questions, the relief finally went away. But the guilt stayed much longer.
She arrived at Commie Cup twenty minutes early. She wanted to give herself time to chicken out and leave before he got there because she knew once Jacob showed up, there was no leaving until she heard him out.
She debated whether to have a second cup of coffee when he walked in. His hair was longer, over his ears, almost to his shoulders, shaggy, and he wore sunglasses and a surgical mask, so she did not realize it was him until the man behind the counter said, “Comrade Jacob, a nice surprise.”
Jacob pulled the mask down and went to the counter. He and the man behind the counter, Ivan according to his name tag, had a short conversation, and Jacob took a code deck out of his jacket and held the projected display for Ivan to see. They continued to talk as Ivan prepared a drink. Xia did not hear what they were saying because she was running possible scenarios of her conversation with Jacob through her head. After getting his drink, Jacob looked around the crowded shop and, after spotting her, walked over.
“Hey,” he said.
Xia looked up at him and smiled. “Hey.”
He pulled out a chair and sat, putting his backpack on the table. They were silent, neither looking the other in the eye. Xia marveled at how awkward the moment was. They met in a programming class in college and were inseparable. After college, they applied for a Your Better Life peace mission together, spending two years on the mission before going full corporate. They were best friends, and when they occasionally became more than friends, they never had a problem going back to being nothing more than best friends. Now they were acting like shy middle school kids.
Finally, Jacob said, “It’s been a while. How’ve you been?”
“All right. Just working, mostly. I’ve been so busy with new projects, I haven’t had much time to do anything else. I guess that’s not totally true. I just don’t go out much. I spend most of my off-hours reading, streaming shows, or gaming,” she said, thinking she was talking too fast and making a mental note to slow down.
“Gaming? I remember trying to get you to game, but you never really got into it.”
&nbs
p; “Some people on a former coding team convinced me to give it a try. I didn’t have much else to do at the time, so I gave it a try,” she said. She started to take a drink then stopped, remembering her cup was empty.
“You want another drink? I’ll get you one.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve more credit here than I think I can ever use,” he said, getting up.
“Really, I don’t need more caffeine. I’m going a hundred miles an hour already.”
He sat back down. “Suit yourself.”
“What about you?” she asked. “How’ve you been?”
He told her about getting off probation, about working with Gomez at a place called Retro Media, about dealing with a crazy kid named Two-Step who worked with them, about living in The Galleria and outside the corporate system. By the time he was finished, they both were more relaxed and started talking about the good old days.
“Remember that time in Johannesburg,” Jacob said, “when we went to Soweto and you insisted on getting some street food?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“What do they call that sandwich?”
“A Kota sandwich, I think.”
“Yeah. You got so sick. I told you not to get the chicken.”
“I still think it wasn’t the chicken. It was all the Amarula I drank,” she said.
They both laughed, and the conversation fell into a natural lull.
“I guess you’re wondering why a messaged you?”
She was also wondering when he would get around to it.
“To be honest, I almost dropped my phone when I saw the message. So what’s up?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
A change came over Jacob. He looked more serious and perhaps a little concerned. He started turning his coffee cup on the table, holding it by the lip.
“You mentioned new projects you are working on. Any chance they have something to do with a type of quantum chip?”
Xia wasn’t sure how she reacted, but it was enough to get Jacob to quickly say, “Don’t worry, this place is a safe zone. They’ve got all surveillance blocked and the network here is running through a floating IP. There’s no way the corporation will hear any of this. That’s part of why I asked you to meet me here.”
Xia looked around, nervous despite Jacob’s assurance. “I don’t know. I’m not even supposed to be talking about it outside the research team,” she said, the words not coming fast enough. “How the hell did you find out about it? I mean, there are people who work down the hall from our team who don’t know what we are doing.”
She tried to read his expression. Was it worry? Fear? She couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, she could tell he wrestled with something. He took a deep breath and exhaled toward the ceiling.
“How I found out is what I wanted to talk to you about.” He paused. She could see this was hard for him to say. “I need your help with something. Something big.”
◆◆◆
Xia’s voice shook so much as she spoke the command to unlock her apartment door, she had to take a calming breath and repeat the command before the door unlocked and opened. She walked in, shutting the door behind her, standing in the dark for a moment. Finally, she said, “Lights, medium intensity. Music, Vaporwave for China.” She sat down on the couch. Her legs would not stop shaking, so she stood again. Pacing the floor, she decided on a drink to calm her nerves. A drink and some anti-anxiety code would be better, but her chip was not scheduled to release her prescription for another thirty minutes. She was briefly tempted to send an extra dose to her chip, but the company had recently started making random checks to make sure employees were not using code without a prescription.
Sometimes doing things by the book sucked.
Twice more she tried sitting, and each time she resumed pacing. What was she thinking? How could she have allowed herself to tell Jacob she would help him? She didn’t even know what she would have to do. He didn’t have a plan, and God knows what his plan would be. How did he get caught up in this? What happened to him in three years?
She fixed herself another drink.
Regardless of what happened to him in the last three years, he was still Jacob. He took all of the blame for her when he didn’t have to, and she owed him for that. She could wait to hear the plan and tell him she was out if it was too dangerous or a bad idea. A bad idea? That was funny. The whole thing was a bad idea. How could helping steal the top-secret project she was working on not be a bad idea? No, it wasn’t just bad, it was insane. And for what? Because she felt guilty? Because they might have been in love once? Because she had a hard time telling him no?
Five more minutes until the prescription. Doing things by the book did suck tonight.
She went to the window. Two blocks away, the Your Better Life building dominated the night sky, its DNA shape making it one of the most distinct buildings in the city. Working in that building had given her a better life, the life she and her parents planned for her since she was a little girl. And while it was planned, she still had to work her ass off to get it. There might have been some luck along the way, but that luck came from hard work. She deserved this life. She wanted it. Was she really willing to take a chance on throwing it all away because of some sense of guilt or loyalty to an old friend?
On the horizon, behind the Your Better Life building, the city lights glowed a different hue. The Galleria and its surrounding area. She had never paid much attention to the difference in the light, but it was there, dimmer, warmer, more colorful, more chaotic. A hovercar passed outside the window, its lights causing her reflection to block the image.
“Shit,” she said aloud.
What was she letting herself get into?
Chapter 12
After Xia left, Jacob sat at Commie Cup for an hour. Partially because he wanted to put some time between them, and partially because he was preparing himself to message Johnson for a meeting. One way or another, his life would change as soon as he told Johnson he was in. For better or for worse, he didn’t know, but he knew when he got in that armored sedan and shut the door, he was shutting the door on his life up to that point. He surprised himself at how calm he was. Maybe Johnson had been right about his desperation. He had felt trapped. And not just these last three years. Hadn’t he done everything before that, going on a peace mission, going corporate, because that is what everyone was supposed to do? Get an education, a corporate job, live happily ever after. Go down the road laid out for you because it leads to happiness. Just do what we tell you and how we tell you and when we tell you and you get to live the American Dream.
This deal with Johnson wasn’t much better. He was still going down a road laid out for him. How was Johnson any different from corporations or society or whoever built that other road? But if this job went the way he hoped it would, he could build his own road for the first time in his life. That freedom was worth the risks, and having that promise of freedom gave Jacob a slight sense of empowerment, of confidence. It was faint, but it was there, ready to grow. On some level, it sounded ridiculous to him, but he felt it.
After an hour, Jacob said goodbye to Ivan, put on his glasses and mask and stepped outside. Sunglasses at night were a bit cliché, and he hated wearing the mask, but it was a luxury of his freedom. While he was on probation he wasn’t allowed to wear a mask. Freedom or not, he didn’t like the feeling of his breath on his face, but it was necessary. Especially now. He didn’t want the facial recognition cameras identifying him when he met with Johnson. Johnson may have the protection of a nanotech suit, but he didn’t.
He stopped a few feet outside the door of Commie Cup and messaged Johnson, using the number he had given him the night before. There was a small park a few blocks away. He told Johnson to meet him there and started down the brightly lit street. He sat on a bench looking at the Your Better Life building in the night skyline, thinking about his short time working there when he saw the armored sedan pull up to the curb. He g
ot up and headed to the car. As he neared the driver's side the back door opened. He took a deep breath and climbed in.
“Mr. Quince,” Johnson said, “I hope you are having a wonderful evening.”
Jacob took off the mask and glasses. “It’s a nice night for a walk in the park. A bit chilly, but nice.”
“Indeed.” Johnson leaned forward and pressed a button to speak to the driver. “You know where Mr. Quince lives.” He turned to Jacob. “A drink?”
“Not tonight. I’ve got some planning to do.”
Johnson smiled. “So your answer is yes?”
“It is.”
“Your associates are also taking part?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.” He took out his phone, tapping the screen a few times. “You will find that forty thousand credits have been transferred to your account in several small transactions,” he said placing the phone on the seat between them.
Jacob took out his phone and logged on to his account.
“I assure you it is all there.”
“Can’t blame a guy for checking, can you?”
“Of course not.”
Satisfied with the transfer, Jacob put his phone in his pocket. “So how do we go from here?”
“Yes, the logistics are important. As I have said, the acquisition of the goods must take place before Your Better Life announces the new chip.”
“Within six weeks, I know,” Jacob said. “What about before that?”
“I think it would be a good idea for you to report regularly with updates.”
“Done.” Jacob thought for a moment. “Maybe I will take that drink, after all.”
Johnson began to get the drink.
“I do have a question or two,” Jacob said, deciding to draw on the confidence he felt earlier.
Johnson didn’t answer right away. A thought seemed to cross his mind. Then he said, “I will answer with as much truth as I am able.”
Jacob liked that turn of phrase. He would have to remember it and use it someday.
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