A reporter stood in front of the Your Better Life building as text ran across the bottom of the screen.
“…claim the company was hit by cyber terrorists, wiping out vital security systems, as well as large amounts of research data. While no one has claimed responsibility, speculation is that either a radical faction of the LTL or a rival corporation is behind the attack. Earlier, I spoke to YBL representatives about the implications of the attack and the possible attackers.”
The image cut to a group of reporters in the lobby of the Your Better Life building. They questioned a woman in a power suit standing behind a podium bearing the company logo. The text below her identified her as Amy Bintu, Director of Corporate Security Public Affairs.
“And what actions will be taken when you discover the perpetrators of the attack?” the original reporter asked.
Amy Bintu took a moment to give a calculated answer. “I can assure you the perpetrators will be discovered. We intend to throw all available resources into this investigation, whether they be corporate, state, or federal. This sort of attack is unforgivable and will be dealt with appropriately.”
“Will the response differ if it is the LTL or a rival corporation?”
Amy Bintu smiled before she answered. “I can promise you the terrorist behind this attack, corporate or otherwise, will be dealt with swiftly and forcefully. They will regret their actions.” She turned and walked off-screen.
The image cut back to the reporter in front of the building.
“So, as you can see…”
Two-Step lowered the volume. “Amy Bintu is not happy,” he said. “I can’t blame her. She just got owned.”
“That makes me more worried about Xia,” Sandy said.
“It might give us an excuse to contact her. Sandy, message her and say you saw the news feed and you’re worried about her.”
She did and they waited for the response. Jacob couldn’t feel relief until he knew Xia was all right. Of course, just because she was all right now - if she was - didn’t mean she would be for long. Your Better Life would run a full investigation and could uncover her part later when it wasn’t expected. The security failsafe system was the big “if” in the equation. If it was just there to sound an alarm, they would be fine. If it was designed to backup all of the main system’s data, they would be in trouble. There was the chance that even if there was a data backup, the data would have been corrupted by the virus Sandy installed. Too many unknowns to be completely comfortable, at least for now.
His thoughts went back to Slade and his decision to kill him. He knew now it was the right thing to do. There was no chance Slade wouldn’t have given them up. He could have easily let Jacob go when he saw him in that hallway, but he chose not to. Still, Slade’s death bothered him more than the guard in the loading bay. He told himself it was no different and that Slade would have done the same to him, but that didn’t matter. What did Kat say about shooting someone? You learn to live with it. He was sure she was right, but the learning part of that equation didn’t feel good.
Sandy’s phone dinged.
“What does she say?” Jacob asked quickly.
Sandy read the message. “I’m fine. The attack was focused on another part of the building. Are we still on for dinner?”
There was some relief in that.
“I responded, ‘Thank Nic Cage. I’ll see you later.’”
Jacob put his leg on the floor and rubbed it. He steadied himself and stood, putting a little weight on the leg.
“You should take it easy,” Sandy said.
He grimaced. “I’ve got to meet with Johnson. I’m going to have to walk for that, so I might as well get used to it now.”
He grabbed his phone and messaged Johnson, “Tonight 9 at DeSoto’s.”
Chapter 59
Jacob limped his way to Johnson’s armored sedan. For a moment, he stood next to the open door. This was almost over. The thought didn’t give him the sense of freedom he imagined it would. Almost over and over were two different things, he told himself as he got in the backseat and closed the door.
“Mr. Quince, it is so good to see you again,” Johnson said with a smile.
“Johnson.”
The sedan pulled away from the curb and merged into the traffic.
“I assume everything went well?”
“A few scratches, but we got the job done.”
“Excellent. Congratulations are in order then.” He opened the wet bar in the compartment divider and poured each of them a drink.
“Thanks,” Jacob said, taking the drink. With his other hand, he opened his backpack, taking out a code deck. He handed it to Johnson. “The code is on this.”
Johnson took the deck and put it on the seat beside his leg. “And the chip?”
“It’s still implanted in Two-Step. We didn’t want some Steamer to do a hack job taking it out. I figured you could help us with that, and maybe get Two-Step a new replacement.”
Johnson nodded. “A very wise decision. I can arrange for an appointment this evening. In fact, I will arrange for it now. We can pick him up after our conversation.”
“I’ll message him to be ready.”
While Jacob messaged Two-Step, Johnson made a quick call.
“Now that that is out of the way, we should talk about the future,” Johnson said.
“What about our credit transfer?” Jacob asked.
“As soon as we have the chip, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Now, about the future. My employer has permitted me to offer you and your team a place in our enterprise.”
“I’m banned from corporate work, you know that. And I don’t think anyone else wants it.”
Johnson laughed. “What would lead you to believe we are linked to a corporation?”
Jacob looked at him. “You can cut the cloak and dagger bullshit,” he said.
“Well, believe what you will. We are willing to offer you an ongoing opportunity to work for us. A sort of on-call position, if you will.”
“So we just jump when you call? That doesn’t sound too promising.”
Johnson took a slow deliberate drink, then placed his glass on the seat. “Mr. Quince, this is not just a job offer, this is also an offer of protection. I’m sure you saw the news feeds today. Your adventure is all the talk. I am sure you also heard Ms. Bintu announce her corporation’s intentions going forward. Do you truly believe that you and your friends will be able to withstand the full force of one of the largest multinational corporations in the world for long?”
Jacob was silent.
“I thought you would agree. If you work with us, and yes, I said with us, you would have our resources protecting you. I think your friends would agree. We can ask them later when we recover the chip.”
“I guess I’ll ask the same question I asked before, why us?”
“Let me just say that we have plans on the horizon that would benefit from your skills. And to be honest, your involvement allows us a certain level of anonymity.”
“We do your dirty work?”
Johnson laughed his smug laugh again. “If you would like to see it that way, then yes, you do our dirty work. And why not? You are good at it, and we will pay you well. Besides, I think there might be a part of you that enjoys it. You get to stick it to the man, as they used to say. I am sure you enjoy that idea.”
What a bastard. Jacob hated him. But he also knew that everything Johnson said was correct. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he had to. Working for Johnson would also give him a chance to figure out what was going on with NirvanaWare and the outbreak of overloads. He intended to find out anyway, and being on the inside would make it a little easier.
“I’m sure everyone else will be in,” he said. “I just need to ask them.”
“Of course. Now, shall we get us our chip and get you your credits?”
Chapter 60
The week following the meeting with Johnson was hectic. In his will,
Gomez left Retro Media and its assets to Jacob, Two-Step, and Kat, with the stipulation that one-fourth of the profit from the store be sent to his mother. After receiving the credit payout from Johnson, Jacob transferred most of his share to Gomez’s mother. He didn’t need it since he wasn’t going to Botswana anytime soon. He couldn’t. He wanted to find out what was going on with NirvanaWare.
A point that was driven home when another outbreak of overloads hit the community. The first few seemed like they were just a continuation of the overloads that had been happening. Then they increased and people started dying. And not just around The Galleria, but all over the city.
He saw four overloads in one day in The Tower Market alone. He was able to save three of them, but the fourth was too far gone when he got there. He held the girl, a young Steamer who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, as she convulsed to death, her mouth foaming as her lips turned blue, her eyes rolling back to show only the bursting blood vessels in their whites, her cheeks streaked with tears of blood. He had seen overloads before, even fatal ones, but nothing like this.
The image of the girl haunted him. Not just because the sight of her death was burned into his memory, but because he felt he was responsible. The code causing the overloads was a variant of the code he downloaded from Your Better Life. It wasn’t the same, it had been modified to run on a standard chip, but the signatures were there.
He was sure of it.
“It’s my fault,” he told Sandy as they watched the sunset from the observation deck of The Tower.
“It’s not. How could we know they were going to do this with the code?”
“We should have. I should have. I was too wrapped up in getting more code for them. How many people across the city are dying because of me? I think I can learn to live with killing Slade, but this is different. Maybe I can convince myself he had it coming, or he would’ve killed me, and I can live with that. But not innocent people dying because of code I let loose on the streets.”
Sandy brought her hand up and touched his cheek. He looked at her, the golden light of the sunset bathing her face. “It was all of us who put that code out there, but it’s not our fault. It’s NirvanaWare. And Johnson. Probably the SRS too. They put the code out without testing it.”
He took her hand. “I have to do something. I can’t have this on my head too, and I can’t let it get worse.”
“You’re not alone in this.”
She looked at him, her eyes holding his.
She was right. As much as he felt guilt and responsibility for Gomez’s death, for shooting Slade, for the overloads, for drawing everyone into his desperation, he was not alone. He never had been.
“Then we have to do something,” he said.
“What can we do?”
He looked out across The Market below, the city beyond, the open space beyond, stretching to the horizon.
“What did Johnson say? My friends and I are resourceful.”
Epilogue
he floated in space and data unformed and unnamed with no memory of there or idea of where there was bodiless weightless senseless nameless his mind reaching for an idea of something to grab onto and there were others he could feel and now hear and now see shapes outlined in the distance reaching for him offering him guidance through the datastream offering him shape and form in the vast space engulfing him in nothing and everything and his existence being created in the moment in the data streaming in and around and through him creating him “we almost lost you” a voice from the everything and nothing and he could feel the data forming “there must have been a problem with your upload” the voice again and a shape forming in and around him data flowing and forming him and the others in the stream around him data flowing and forming him “what’s your name” him forming and flowing data being created in and through the moment around him “do you remember your name” around him forming and flowing and streaming and creating and naming him
“Gomez. My friends call me Gomez.”
Afterword
Thank you for reading Code Flicker. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review and let the world know.
If you want to know what happened to Gomez in Berlin, you can go to my website and sign up for my newsletter to get Deadline, a free prequel to Code Flicker. It reveals why Gomez left the corporate world. Kat, Slade, and Evgeny are in it too. It also introduces a character who will play an important role in NirvanaWare, the second Retro Media novel, coming out this summer.
Deadline is just the first of what I hope to be many more prequels and betweenquels in the Retro Media universe. For example, Pigeon Eater never got to tell Jacob how he got those Nokia flippers. These stories will all be free first through my newsletter. And I promise I won't flood you with emails. I don't have time for that, and I'm sure you don't either.
So, if want free fiction and updates on what I'm writing, subscribe to my newsletter on my website:
www.marlinseigman.com
Facebook author page: @CodeFlicker
You can email me at: [email protected]
Take care,
Marlin
Acknowledgement
I want to thank my wife for putting up with my nuerotic behavior while I wrote this novel and for continuing to deal with it as I write the next one.
About The Author
Marlin Seigman
Some people say these bios are supposed to be in third person.
Whatever.
I live in Texas with my wife, kids, and Border Collie. My wife's cats live with us too.
At various times I've worked in a lawnmower shop, painted signs, managed a bakery, worked in a movie theater, canvased for an environmental advocacy group, and worked sales in the vitamin industry. Along the way I found time to get a degree in English Literature and Philosophy and become a teacher.
I love Star Trek and know for a fact that Deep Space Nine is the best Trek. You won't change my mind. Don't try.
And don't even get me started with the Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate.
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