by Joshua Klein
"So here's what I got so far" said Tonx. "This guy that Cessus fingered is either playing his boss or us or both. If he's dicking his boss around there's a good chance he's stupid enough to leave the data in the box Cessus found. If he's trying to lure us into going for it so he can find out more there's a chance we can negotiate, maybe split the profits or find some way around him. I think the least likely option is that he's doing it by the books for his bosses to get a hold of us. If that were the case he wouldn't have posted the dummy data like he did. He also wouldn't have bothered to encrypt the message for us to find."
"Unless he was being clever" said Poulpe.
"What do you mean?" asked Tonx.
"Perhaps he is trying to get you to think he was playing against his employer" said Poulpe. He put his sake box down. "You said you had contacts here?"
Tonx shook his head. "No. That was just to get Esco to play along."
"And Esco is… " asked Poulpe.
"Not here, to state the obvious. What are you getting at, Poulpe?" asked Tonx.
"My point is not to question your reasoning. I only mean to emphasize that we cannot be certain what our opponent will do. From your introduction I would guess you were about to suggest approaching the box directly."
Tonx frowned. "What if I was?" he asked.
"I urge caution. Contingencies" said Poulpe.
"Great thinking" said Tonx, leaning forward. He dropped his glass on the counter next to him. "And what the fuck would you suggest?"
Poulpe picked up his sake again, took a slow sip.
"I have the original data set, yes?" he asked.
They waited.
"And for us it is trivial to manufacture minor workable changes in the code, yes?"
Tonx nodded, once.
"So I would suggest you begin a bargaining process. Encourage them to believe you have a similar solution already. They would not want just one if they could have two, you know. Not if they thought you had perhaps done this before, created something else."
"What would they care?" asked Tonx. "They don't even know what the first data set is for."
"So tell them" said Poulpe.
"What?" asked Tonx "What for? What could I tell them the second, make-believe set was for that would make them hand our results over?"
Poulpe tipped back the last of his sake, gently set the box on the small thin plate it had come on.
"Biological weapons" he said.
"You're crazy" said Tonx. "What do I have to gain by that? The government's already on our ass, we've got Disney hunting for us - why would introducing a major threat to their country help?"
"I'm merely suggesting it may give them pause" said Poulpe. "They would certainly not want to destroy the data set they have if they could parley it for something of established value."
"You're crazy" said Tonx, again. "I'm not going to argue with you about this. All that does is up the stakes and make this more dangerous for everybody."
"It is only a contingency" said Poulpe.
"Fine. I'll remember that if I have a gun to my head. In the meanwhile, how about we figure out how to get into that box, and better yet what to do with it when we get there."
"We don't even know what else is on the box" said Fed. "If the guy has half a brain he's not going to keep the rest of the data set there."
"True. I'm not saying we make the grab first thing. We've got to watch the guy for a while first, figure out who he is, what we can do with him. The only catch is we don't know how much time we have."
"Lovely" said Fed, draining the last from his miniature bottle of coke. It was in a glass bottle, he noticed. He marveled at how heavy it was, even empty. Who made bottles out of glass?
"Where the fuck is Marcus?" he asked.
Tonx said nothing.
Chapter 44
Three hours later Marcus still hadn't arrived, and they were running out of new drinks they could order. Eventually Tonx simply stood and walked out, and the rest of them followed. They waited until Cessus appeared a small distance away, seemingly oblivious to them, and started walking.
"Where are we going?" asked Fed. He was exhausted now, stumbling along in a semi-delirious state. The caffeine had failed him, making him jittery and itchy but no longer waking him up at all. All he could think about was getting to a real bed.
"To our hotel" said Tonx. "None of us can think well right now. We'll wait there until we hear from Marcus. He should be able to find us somehow."
"More likely we'll find him" said Cass. Tonx said nothing.
The hotel was a thin cement building squeezed between two tall office buildings, its stained grey front unpainted. The sign overhead had one Chinese character in lit neon. The dim dirty light of dawn began to seep through the forest of stone and metal around them. Fede waited outside with Poulpe while Tonx went in to secure things. A few minutes later Fede got a notice on his comm and they went in, repeated Tonx's name and access number three times to the faceless metal grille where the front desk would have been. He got no response other than a click as the plain whitewashed fire door to his left opened. They went through, walking on threadbare orange-and-brown carpeting. It smelled of mold, of starch and rice. There was no one in the hallway.
They arrived at room 712, and Fede wondered absently if there were really 711 other rooms. He doubted there were more than a few dozen, but when Tonx opened the door and he peered inside he revised his estimate. The entire hotel room was the size of his bathroom at home, three tiny beds so close together Tonx doubted he could get his knees between them. The one window on the far side of the room was framed in electroluminescent panels, white light bright across the glass, the brick wall directly behind washed out in the glare.
"There's a cot under the bed on the right there. I'll take the floor. Cass gets a bed. You all can draw straws on who gets the rest when Marcus shows up" said Tonx. Fede fell back onto one of the beds, almost went straight into sleep before he remembered Cessus and comm'd him a quick message on how to get in. Then sleep hit him, heavy, angry, and hot.
He woke later, didn't know when. He was pushed up against the wall, Cessus's bony hip digging into his side. He shuffled around, getting a dreadlock in the eye for his troubles. The room looked the same as when they'd come in, Poulpe on the middle bed, Cass and Tonx wrapped around each other on the far bed. Marcus wasn't there. The cot was out, empty, filling the last of the space between the wall and the beds. Fede had to tip in on its side so he could get by to search for a bathroom. There wasn't one.
He let himself out, wandered down the hall in search of a place to pee. It was full of identical wooden doors, all numbered. He came back down the hall and peered out into the lobby before spotting a numberless door across from their own. He paused in front of it. Would they have electrified doorknobs here? Should he knock?
The door opened with a soft creak, revealing a miniscule sink and a hole in the tiled floor. A bulb hung overhead, gleaming dimly. It wasn't LED or anything, just plain old electric filament. A hazard, Fede thought. He aimed a thin stream of piss down the hole, washed his hands in the chill reddish water from the tap, and left.
When he got back into the room Cessus was on his back, arms splayed off both sides of the bed, one leg hanging over its edge. Poulpe had his hands folded over her chest, fully dressed, his face untroubled. Tonx raised his head when Fede came in, eyes bleary.
"There a bathroom out there?" he asked quietly.
"right across the hall" Fede said. "The one without numbers."
He lay down on the cot, the metal frame biting into his shoulders. By the time Tonx came back he knew he wasn't going to sleep anymore.
"Any word from Marcus?" asked Fed. He spoke softly, the room somehow made sacred by the quiet breaths of his friends.
Tonx shook his head, tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.
"No" he said. "I don't know why."
He signed, tried to pace in the space between Fed's cot and the door and succeeded only in turnin
g around twice.
"You get any signal in here?" he asked.
"A little. Regular comm channels. Don't know how the data throughput will be, though" said Fed. "This place seems a little third-world, know what I mean?"
Tonx smiled. "Never thought I'd be in China" he said, quietly. "Thanks for coming with."
Fede looked at the window, at the brick wall beyond.
"What do we do next?"
"I figure you and Cessus go get some gear. The rest of us will scout out our man and his box."
"Then what?"
"That depends on what we find out. I don't know, Fed. We got to get our data, somehow. But I don't know how, don't even know where it is." He sighed, slid to sit on the floor next to Fed's cot.
"Sorry I got you into this."
"Fuck off" said Fede amicably. "Better than dead-ending it at some sucker school, you know? I ought to be thanking you."
Tonx grunted a quiet laugh. "Yeah, guess you're right. What would mom say if she knew her darling boys were slumming it in China, eh?"
"She'd drink" said Fed. He'd meant it as a joke, but neither of them laughed.
"We'll get the data" he said, more to himself than Tonx.
Chapter 45
Cessus woke next, said nothing but shuffled off to the bathroom. A short time later he returned, looking freshly minted in his new clothes.
"Okay-dokay, boys. I figure I'm going to find me some gear. How much cred do we have to work with?"
Tonx tossed him a card, naked cartoon babes stenciled on its front in laser-bright reds and blues. "Use that. Don't know how much is in there, but it should do you. Just try to be discreet, eh?"
Cessus smiled, shook his dreads out.
"Soul of discretion, that's me" he said. "Who comes with?"
"Me" said Fed. He'd pulled on his highwater pants but ignored the suit coat and the vest. "I want a new coat."
"You joking me?" asked Cessus as he led the way out of the room. "That vest was the shit, man."
"Fed" called Cass. She sat up on the bed, her hair a tangled mess, makeup smeared and eyes bleary.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Hand me my bag" she said.
Fede looked quizzically at Cessus and then Tonx. They stopped, staring back at him expectantly. Suspicious, he shuffled through the pair of backpacks stuck in the crevice between the beds and the cot. There was a gunmetal gray plastic bag tucked between them, and as Fede looked at it Cass called out.
"Yeah, that one. Open it" she said.
He pulled the bag up and found it contained a overlong shoebox-shaped box. It matched the bag, no brand name anywhere on its surface. It was light, but something solid jostled inside it as he picked it up. Everyone watched him as he sat down on the bed and pulled back the lid.
Inside, nestled carefully on shredded paper pellets, was a pair of black carbon fiber Otto Bock C-legs. They had matching ComfortFlex sockets with heat shrink mounting pads and ultra-lightweight enclosed hydraulic knee adjustment units. There was an Alps silicone liner with distal pin attachment, and it already had an adjuster screwed in place for his older mounting pin. The feet were LuXon Max, a split-heel design that had only come out earlier that year. They looked like jet engines designed for running, like a racing bicycle you'd wear on your feet.
"You don't have to keep them if you don't want them" Cass said. "But they've got built-in neural nets for load-balancing and running adjustments."
"I got a development kit from a friend of mine" said Tonx. "Just in case you want to, you know, hack them or something."
He smiled, an awkward grin. Fede stared at his brother, at Cass, looked back to see Cessus beaming.
"Your old legs made this funny squeaking noise all the time" said Cass. "And besides, after the beach they were starting to smell."
Fede smiled then, and laughed, and got suddenly teary eyed. He pulled off his old legs and used the tiny packet of sanitizing gel to wipe down his stumps before he put the C-legs on. He paused after he pulled them in place. They were… comfortable. They felt like a tailored jacket, the way he'd imagined a good pair of shoes would feel. The distal pin adjuster socketed easily, and the Alps liner warmed to his body heat and was unnoticeable almost as soon as he got them in place. He eased himself upright and folded his pants legs up around the sockets. They didn't look like feet, he thought, and realized suddenly that he didn't care.
He stood up, almost fell forward over the cot.
"Whoa there captain" said Cessus, his hand out to steady him.
"These things have bounce" said Fed, surprised.
"It'll give you something to tweak" said Tonx.
Fede made his way to the doorway, his new legs steadying as he got used to their responsiveness. They were so much lighter and more comfortable than his old legs it was almost unbelievable. He couldn't believe how much weight he'd been carrying around, and for so long. When he got to the hallway he tried jumping and almost hit his head on the low ceiling.
"Shit!" he chirped.
"Careful, dude" said Cessus. "Those things are designed for sports, you know - you're going to be able to run and jump more than a norm in no time."
"Those are the same model they're using in the Paralympics" Cass said. "You use them for a while and they'll collect enough data to dynamically change resistance based on your behavior."
She smiled shyly. "They've also got optional gyroscopic plugin units, and galvanic-skin response mount-in adaptors to expand your data range, but I didn't know if you'd want them."
Fede didn't say anything, suddenly turned and ran down the hall. He hadn't tried running in years, not counting the shuffle sprinting he'd done on their way out of Cessus's place, and the feel of the air on his face made his heart race. He spun into a lunge at the end of the hall, the knee adjustments and dynamic ankle flexing beyond the range a flesh-and-bone foot could ever reach. He turned on a dime and bounced back into the room, laughing and heaving for breath.
Everyone smiled and Tonx got up to give Fede a big hug. Cessus ruffled his hair and slapped him on the back, and Cass just smiled quietly, her hands in her lap.
"I know you kept saying you didn't want them, but the other ones were giving you so much trouble, and"
"Thanks" Fede interrupted. "Seriously, Cass. Thanks. A lot."
She smiled, and glanced at Tonx.
"Okay" he said. "Now get the fuck out of here. I want you to get completely comfortable on those new legs before we do our run."
"Yes sir" said Fed. He bent to roll his pants down all the way over his new legs, decided against it. He bounced out of the hotel, Cessus following behind.
Cessus downloaded a map from the hotel LAN on their way through the hall, googled a few dozen electronics stores and found a listing for a street market that "specialized in esoteric Asia-only digital devices."
"No idea what that means, but it might be a good place to find something worthwhile" he said. "It'll be fun, anyway."
"Let's go there first, I'm freezing" said Fed. He'd regretted his decision to leave the jacket behind as soon as they'd walked out the front door. The air was cold and wet, a dirty smell like old dogs clinging to his shirt. But he still didn't care.
"Okay-dokay" Cessus said again, taking a deep breath. "Love that smell, man."
"You like that stink?" asked Fed.
"I like the smell of adventure. Never been to China myself. And you?"
Fede shook his head, smiling. They walked.
It turned out they were almost a dozen blocks from the market. It passed quickly, one nearly empty street filled with garbage bags giving way to a covered set of identical fashion shops the size of closets. The closets turned to restaurants turned to chicken-sellers, heads and feet waving gently in the air. Starving dogs ran from equally starving children, and everywhere they went they saw the tops of heads covered in shaggy straight black hair. Fed was taller than everyone. It was a bizarre feeling. As they pushed their way through a crowd of little old ladies holding woven-reed baskets
he felt the power of tiny elbows in his crotch and hips. Cessus was pinned against the opposite side of the alley from him, pulling himself against the wall as the crowd passed, and their eyes met. Fede made a face and Cessus laughed, causing the ladies to titter and murmur behind their hands.
Eventually they reached the market, an endless sea of canvas overhangs parted by thin walkways, tables and piles of junk separating them all. Fede had never seen so many different kinds of people look so similar in so cramped a space. They entered the market and Fede pulled down his goggles, amazed. They passed pottery, tiny dogs in cages, and a man with a monkey almost as large as he was. Cessus soon zoomed in on the electronics part of the market and waved at him to follow, parting the sea of people who stepped nimbly out of the way so they could stare at him pass. They'd just gone by a huge tray of one-inch compartments, each holding a different color-coded resistor, when Fede saw an ancient motorcycle jacket hanging in a stall over a thick Turkish rug. As they approached he saw the stall had all manner of American clothing, from ancient to new, but all of it retro. The clashing combination of genuine classic American items like the jacket and the modern-retro items like the fiber-optic bellbottoms were an ugly fashion train wreck in Fed's mind, but he liked the jacket. It was real, and old.
"Don't stare, my friend" said Cessus, bending past Fede to express a sudden critical interest in a bronze teapot the size of his fist. "You stare, you lose your bargaining advantage."
"I don't want to bargain, I want to buy it" Fed said.
Cessus straightened and looked at Fede in disgust.
Twenty minutes later Fede walked out of the booth in his new jacket, sans his pressed shirt. They'd traded it in after Cessus had somehow convinced the proprietor that it was the same model as worn by Johnny Rotten during a U.S. tour. The entire transaction had taken place in a kind of pidgin English, but the careful interplay of glances, shuffled feet, heavy sighs and the beginning of steps out of the stall was obviously the important part. The words were just window dressing. Cessus seemed pleased with his deal, although he confessed to Fede after they'd left that he was sure they'd been taken.
