by Ryk Brown
Arielle rolled out of bed and stumbled toward the door. “All right! All right! I’m coming!” She paused at the door, checking the view screen built into the door. Standing outside, still banging away, was Graham.
“Jesus, Graham, do you know what time it is?”
“It’s time to get up,” Graham exclaimed frantically as he entered the room, dragging his vid-kit behind him.
“What’s going on?” Hanna asked as she climbed out of bed.
Graham picked up the remote for the viewing wall across from the foot of their bed from the dresser, pointed it at the wall and activated it. “You’re not going to believe what the fuck is happening out there.”
The viewer wall came to life, displaying a live netcast from NCN:World. The images shifted from hospital emergency departments, to communicable disease quarantine wards, even to health clinics. The images were coming from every corner of the planet, and they were grim.
“Klaria is sweeping the Earth,” Graham declared.
The concern in Graham’s voice was alarming. In the week that Hanna had known him, she couldn’t remember ever seeing him scared. “It’s fucking everywhere. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of cases, if not millions, in only a few hours. People are panicking like you wouldn’t believe. They’re even ripping out each other’s implants with kitchen knives. It’s insane!”
Hanna suddenly saw herself on the viewer and gasped. It was a shot from yesterday’s press conference, as she was trying to escape the mob of reporters that had turned their attentions to her so suddenly. The caption read ‘Authorities seek reporter.’ Hanna gasped. “Why do they want me?”
“They think you know something,” Arielle realized. “We’ve got to get dressed.”
“All I did was ask the question!” Hanna exclaimed.
“They probably want to know how you knew the GDCO people had their implants changed,” Arielle said as she pulled on her pants.
“Here, each of you take one of these,” Graham said as he handed each of them a small, black device.
“Smart-comms?” Hanna wondered. “People still buy these?”
“Not everyone has implants, Hanna,” Arielle said. “Where did you get them?” she asked Graham.
“A shop down the street. I picked them up last night. I disabled the GPS chips in them. They’ll still be able to intercept our data streams, but they won’t be able to track our location.”
“What? Are we fugitives now?” Hanna asked, getting more worried.
“We are until we talk to an attorney,” Graham insisted.
“We have to call Sahmeed,” Arielle said.
“No, that’s the first unit they’ll be monitoring. That, and your parents, Hanna.” Graham paced around for a moment as Hanna and Arielle finished dressing.
“Oh, my God,” Hanna exclaimed as she watched the viewer wall. “Why would anyone do this? It’s insane.”
Graham’s smart-comm beeped. Both girls looked at him.
Graham took his smart-comm out of his pocket and looked at the face of it. “It’s okay, it’s a friend of mine. I called him last night and gave him this number.” Graham accepted the call and put the comm to his ear. “Yeah.” Graham listened for a minute, then said, “Sure” and pulled the phone away from his ear. “It’s NCN:World,” he told them.
“What?” Hanna exclaimed.
“What do they want?” Arielle asked.
“They want us to meet them on the roof in five minutes.”
“What?” Hanna exclaimed again.
“They said the Mounties are on their way to our hotel,” Graham explained. “NCN World is offering us protection and representation.”
“Why?” Hanna asked.
“Who cares why?” Graham explained.
“What about the hotel bill?” Arielle said.
“Fuck the hotel bill, Ari,” Graham replied.
“Won’t they charge it to our account automatically?” Hanna wondered.
“Sure, if our accounts aren’t already frozen.”
“I’m with Graham, Ari,” Hanna said. “Fuck the hotel bill. Let NCN take care of it. I don’t want to spend the next week in a Canadian jail cell. Not while the biggest story in history is breaking.” Hanna grabbed both their bags from the sofa, tossing Arielle’s bag to her. “We’re leaving.”
Graham put his smart-comm back to his ear. “We’re on our way up.” Graham ended the call and put the smart-comm back in his pocket. “You ladies got everything?” He asked as he moved over to the window and looked down at the street below.
“I still have stuff in the bathroom,” Hanna said, turning to retrieve her belongings.
“No time,” Graham said as he turned back from the window and headed toward the door. “Mounties are already entering the hotel. This entire hotel will be locked down in minutes, just as soon as those Mounties get to the front desk and check our room sensors. If we’re not on the roof before then, we’ll be trapped.”
Graham was the first one out of the room, with Hanna and Arielle following close behind. He ran full speed down the corridor, nearly crashing through the stairwell door. “Come on! Move it!” he yelled.
Hanna and Arielle ran past him and charged up the stairs as fast as they could, with Graham following immediately after them. They charged up all eight flights, then burst through the exit onto the roof of the hotel.
The wind hit Hanna hard as she stepped through the door and onto the landing pad. They were more than thirty stories up, and it was quite cold.
“Where are they?” Arielle wondered, her arms wrapping around her to shield herself from the biting wind.
“They should be here any moment,” Graham assured them.
“If they don’t show up, we’ll freeze to death up here,” Hanna exclaimed.
“If they don’t show up, we’ll be in a nice, warm, jail cell down at Mountie-HQ long before we freeze,” Graham said.
“There!” Hanna declared, pointing to the distant sky.
Flashing lights appeared, growing closer with each passing second. They watched as the approaching shuttle closed what had to be at least five kilometers in mere seconds. For a moment, Hanna feared the shuttle was on a collision course with the hotel, but at the last second, its pilot brought the shuttle’s nose hard left, rolled the small ship onto its left side, and increased its gravity fields to slow down. The shuttle came to a stop in a hover only centimeters from the side of the rooftop landing pad, leveling off perfectly and in a smooth motion. On the side of the shuttle was the NCN:World logo.
The shuttle’s side door slid open, and the pilot motioned frantically for them to get on board.
“Go!” Graham yelled, pointing to another part of the skies over Montreal. “There’s more shuttles inbound! They’ve gotta be CMP ships!”
Arielle was already running toward the hovering shuttle as Hanna headed out. She followed her friend across the platform and straight into the shuttle. Graham stepped through a second after her, and the shuttle rolled left as it slid away from the platform and began to accelerate, its side door closing as the shuttle picked up speed and started to climb.
With the door closed and sealed, the ship suddenly became much quieter. Graham settled into the aft-facing seat just behind the partition that separated the cockpit from the passenger compartment. Hanna and Arielle sat in the rear seats facing forward.
The shuttle’s copilot passed a data tablet back to Graham. “This is for you,” he said.
Graham took the tablet and looked at the screen. A grin came across his face. “You’re going to want to see this,” he declared, passing the tablet back to Hanna.
Hanna took the tablet and looked at the screen. Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell agape.
“What is it?” Arielle asked.
Hanna handed the tablet to Arielle. “It’s a contract to work exclusively for NCN World.”
“Oh, my God,” Arielle exclaimed as she studied the documents in the tablet. “They want you to be the face of the virus, Hanna.”
“Which one?” Graham wondered. “Twister, or Klaria.”
“Neither,” Arielle answered. “They’re now calling it the ‘Bio-Digital Virus.’” Arielle looked at Hanna. “We did it, Hanna. We finally got our dream job, and all because of you.” Arielle looked at Hanna, noticing that she didn’t look happy. “What’s wrong, Hanna? You do want the job, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Hanna replied, “but first, we have to get rid of these implants.”
Thank you for reading this story.
(A review would be greatly appreciated!)
COMING JUNE
Fall of the Core
NETCAST ONE
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