Touch

by Camille Picott

  Side by side on the sofa, they delve in. Gun reads every word, filing away tidbits of information.

  Several hours later, he sits staring at the photo of an Asian girl. She stands on the roof of an apartment building in San Francisco. She’s pretty—beautiful, even—though that isn’t what catches his attention. It’s the expression on her face that draws him.

  There’s unbridled longing on her face, a look that speaks of caged helplessness. He sees an echo of what he feels in the rare moments when he slows down enough to allow himself to think.

  He doesn’t dwell on what this might mean, instead focusing on the vulnerability he sees on her face. He studies her profile, even though he’s already made up his mind.

  “She’s the one.” Gun tilts the tablet for Nate to see.

  “Sulan Hom.” Nate nods in approval. “The daughter of Dr. Hom. Good choice.”

  Gun ignores the twinge of guilt. Sulan Hom doesn’t know it, but she’s his next mark. Poor girl. He doesn’t know much about her—yet—but he’s sure she doesn’t deserve the attention of the Anderson Arms family.

  He kicks the ottoman as he stands, angry energy filling him. He really wants to hit something.

  Nate, seeing the look on his face, also rises. “Sparring ring?” he asks.

  Gun nods, wordlessly stalking into his room to change.

  ***

  Gun spends the next week learning everything he can about Sulan Hom. She’s an interesting case, not at all what he expected.

  She’s not the stereotypical overachieving Asian he’s used to, not by a long shot; there are plenty of those in the Anderson R&D department for comparison. Her test scores are off the charts. She spends all her free time studying with her hacker best friend, but her grades are mediocre at best. Does she have testing anxiety? If so, there’s no mention of it in any of her files.

  She doesn’t have any of the traits he’s used to finding in girls, either. She doesn’t care about her appearance or follow social trends. The only things she shows keen interest in are black clothing and Merc reruns. She spends an insane amount of time watching them, along with anything else she can find related to them.

  Gun knows he isn’t seeing the full picture. He puts hackers on her trail, two brothers who call themselves the Dread Twins. They’re identical twins, tall and lean with waist-length dreadlocks more gray than blond. Despite the fact that they’re in their sixties, they keep themselves fit.

  Gun found them in Chicago a few years ago. They’d shown themselves to be useful on numerous occasions. He keeps them on retainer now.

  As usual, the twins work fast. They dig up intel on the assignment in less than twenty-four hours.

  Gun materializes in Vex shortly before his scheduled meeting with them. He has several sites for meetings, all of them fortified against Black Tech. The one he chose for today is a simple room of lustrous, paneled wood. A round wooden table with ladder back chairs sits in the middle.

  Gun conducts a quick review of the site’s security, assuring himself nothing has been tampered with. He’s just taken a chair when the twins materialize in the room.

  “Hello, William,” they say in unison.

  They tried calling him Mr. Anderson in the beginning. Gun eliminated that formality immediately. There is only one Mr. Anderson, and it’s not Gun.

  “Mage, Lox,” he says, nodding in greeting.

  The two men wear identical nondescript avatars, looking like middle-aged men with trimmed beards. They favor unremarkable avatars, although they can’t seem to get away from identical ones.

  “What did you find?” Gun asks.

  “Global spyware,” says Mage, the more fastidious of the twins. He has an obsession with keeping his hands clean. Even in Vex, he wears black gloves to keep them covered. “All the VHS kids are tracked. The spyware blends into the background of whatever site they’re in. Sort of like old-school cookies, but way smarter. They record for a preset amount of time, replicate, and then phone home to Global while the cookie remains and continues to record.”

  “Sounds like Crawler tech,” Gun replies, thinking of the famous Vex personality that makes his living infiltrating the lives of celebrities with his Wall Crawlers.

  “The underlying algorithms aren’t so different,” Lox says. “They degrade if they’re exposed for more than a millisecond, but we got enough snapshots to verify the similarities.”

  “You might find it interesting to note that Claudine Winn appears to be on good terms with Crawler,” says Mage.

  Gun nods. He’s seen them together enough to deduce some mutually beneficial relationship exists between them.

  “You think Crawler may have written the spyware for her?” Gun asks.

  “Seems probable, considering the similarities of the code.” Lox produces a tablet and turns it so Gun can see. “We managed to capture and quarantine one of the Wall Crawlers at a celebrity Vex rave a few weeks ago. We’ve been studying it. Look at it compared to the tracker code Global uses on the kids.”

  Gun takes the tablet. Snippets of the Crawler code is on the top half of the screen, with pieces of the Global code on the bottom. Gun’s programming skills aren’t on the level of either of these men, but private tutors have made him proficient.

  He sees the similarities of the programming, right down to the structure of the subroutines and naming of the strings. It’s like the coder wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that it was his tech.

  “Dig further into the connection between Claudine and Crawler,” Gun instructs.

  The twins grin at one another, as if they’d been anticipating this. Which they probably had.

  “Anything else on the Hom girl?” Gun asks.

  “There is one interesting tidbit.” Mage quirks his eyebrows. “Her mother is Morning Star.”

  “Morning Star?” Gun reels. “As in, the merc from the old reality show?”

  “The one and the same.” Mage and Lox chuckle, knowing full well they’d scored a good piece of intel. “She keeps her identity a secret. Very few people know about it. We had to pay a steep bribe to get the information. You’ll find it in our expense reimbursement.”

  Gun waves this away. “Does Sulan know?” It would explain her obsession with Merc reruns.

  But Lox surprises him by saying, “Doubtful. Li Yuan Hom keeps the intel pretty deeply hidden. The mercenary world plays no role in her daughter’s life. Sulan only socializes with other VHS kids. No merc kids.”

  “You’ll need to go undercover as a hacker or some other person of high intelligence to catch her interest,” Mage says.

  Gun frowns, shaking his head. This isn’t the answer. Sulan is too paradoxical for such a straight-forward plan. Pretending to be like other VHS kids will not win him points. He’s sure of that.

  “Keep digging. Monitor her at all times when she’s not on a Global site. Report back to me on everything you see.”

  “William?”

  A familiar voice from the real-world penetrates his Vex connection. Gun checks an impatient sigh.

  “Meet back here in two days,” he tells the twins. “I’ll have your access codes updated and sent to you ninety seconds before our contact time.

  “William?” The voice from the real-world again cuts through his Vex set.

  The Dread Twins exit, dematerializing from his site. Gun resets the security codes to lock them—and everyone else—out.

  “William!”

  At the shrill demand, Gun logs out of Vex. The whirling blue vortex fades as he pulls off his Vex set. He blinks in the bright light of the real-world.

  Andrea Thompson, adorned in skin-tight riding pants and an even tighter blouse, waves a champagne glass under his nose.

  5

  Infiltrate

  “I said, do you want a mimosa?” Andrea emphasizes this by knocking back half of her own glass, then smiling at him. A breeze ruffles her hair. A little hacking by Nate revealed that she’d received two rounds of hair grafts to get her particular shade of s
trawberry blond.

  “Sure.” He folds up his Vex set and slides it into the protective case that hangs from his belt. He gives Andre his most flirtatious grin, the one that produces his dimple.

  It had been easy for Gun to attract Andrea’s attention at a Vex party a few weeks ago. The only thing she likes more than champagne is horses. Gun made himself an expert on horses. It had taken fourteen minutes and forty-eight seconds to get him a first date.

  Andrea’s father, Steve Thompson, is one of the richest minors in the world. He owns eighty-six percent of the world’s steel mines, not to mention majority shares in the world’s aluminum and magnesium mines. Andrea is one of four daughters. As the youngest and dumbest of them, she made the best point of entry into the family.

  Andrea leads him off the wraparound porch of the guesthouse where he stays. There are over a dozen guest homes on her father’s horse ranch. The quaint cottages dot a rolling green landscape cut into a neat checkerboard by white pasture fences. Horses graze in the pastures. It’s an idyllic scene, certainly not the worst place in the world to conduct a mission.

  “Daddy bought a case of Domaine Leroy Musigny Grand Cru at auction,” Andrea says. “It’s my favorite.”

  She leads him into the shade of a large oak tree where a table has been set up with a white tablecloth. Past the tree is a large pasture, home to the Thompson thoroughbreds.

  Nate hacked the Thompson water bills and found out they contracted with a desalinization plant to keep their ranch green. The amount of water they use on grass would be enough to supply two, if not three, large refugee camps. It’s as appalling as watching Andrea dilute a twenty-thousand-dollar bottle of champagne with orange juice.

  Buffing champagne glasses and mixing mimosas under the tree is Thompson’s assistant, Greg Hardon. Gun’s mark. Hardon is infamous for his stout loyalty to Thompson. He doesn’t know he’s going to become an Anderson informant.

  Gun smiles as Hardon hands him a champagne glass. He’s careful not to make more than cursory eye contact; too much attention, and the man will notice. Andrea yammers in his ear about her horses, talking about a new breeding program.

  “We only raise natural foals,” she tells Gun. “We don’t modify the embryos like the other breeders.”

  “You respect the horses’ natural state,” Gun replies.

  “Exactly.” She beams at him, taking another champagne glass. He wonders how many she’s had. The girl can drink like a Russian businessman.

  They continue to admire the horses and sip their mimosas. Well, Gun sips. Andrea pounds them like they’re the elixir of life. To her, maybe they are.

  Gun compliments her on the beauty of the horse ranch. “The plants are so different from the ones we have on our estate in Arizona,” he says. “What kind of tree is this?” He gestures to the oak. “Do the horses eat it?” He indicates the many oak trees dotting the pastureland, managing to ask the stupid question with a completely straight face. He’s worked meticulously over the years to cultivate the idiotic playboy image.

  “Oh, no,” Andrea gushes, laughing. “Horses don’t eat trees. Hardon can tell you all about the trees. He’s a trained botanist.”

  “Is he?” Gun’s fake, surprised smile comes easily to him. Nate uncovered this little gem about Hardon after nearly forty-six hours of hacking and surfing in Vex. “These trees are magnificent. What do you call them?”

  Hardon tries to conceal his excitement with a clearing of his throat and a tug on his bow tie, but it’s impossible to miss the brightening of his eyes. “You like plants, Mr. Anderson?”

  “William,” Gun corrects. “Yes, I do. I had a tutor that specialized in desert plants. My mother has a saguaro cactus collection on our estate.”

  Hardon’s eyes widen. “Really? How many?”

  “Several hundred.”

  “Most of the saguaro land was destroyed by refugee camps. They were cut down for food and water.”

  Gun nods, expression sober. “My mother sent out a team of people to secure them before they were all destroyed.” Nate had written several excellent articles about this fictional event, which had been backdated in Vex.

  Hardon nods in approval. “A wise decision—”

  “Daddy had Hardon start a tree nursery on the ranch,” Andrea cuts in, picking up another mimosa. “Hardon raises oak trees. We’re repopulating some of the deforested land we bought for the horses.” She shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. “Come on, let’s go. I’ve been dying to show you the Arabian pasture.”

  Arm in arm, they stroll off, leaving Hardon to buff glasses. Gun doesn’t have to look back to know he’s left an impression on the man—planted a tiny, minuscule seed. With the right nurturing, it will grow.

  ***

  “Hardon has been reading articles on your mother’s saguaro collection,” Nate reports when Gun strides through the study two days later.

  Gun, who’s spent two long days flirting and romancing Andrea, tosses his jacket onto the back of a chair. He’s restless from all the pretending and lying. The only redeeming moments were mealtime; her father’s chefs are as impressive as his wine collection.

  “Tomorrow I’d like you to expand the informational section on my mother’s private gardens, maybe write some articles on her fishhook barrel cactus and ocotillo,” Gun says. “Oh, and can you find some rare plant dealers?”

  Nate quirks an eyebrow. “Planning to surprise Hardon with a gift?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.” Gun kicks off his shoes, heading to his bedroom. “I need to spar.”

  Nate cheerfully tosses aside his tablet and Vex set aside before rising. “Meet you in the training room.”

  Gun has just finished changing into his sparring clothes—loose, comfortable pants and a simple T-shirt—when his tablet beeps. It’s not the normal ping alerting him to an incoming message, but the insistent beep-beep-beep reserved for urgent messages. Only a few contacts have access to his urgent call line.

  He drops his shoes and picks up the tablet. Mage’s seamed face fills the screen.

  “Got a lead on your girl that you’ll find interesting,” he says. The amusement in his voice is unmistakable.

  Gun’s attention locks on the other man. “Report.”

  “Our little miss has just acquired herself some Black Tech.”

  This surprises Gun. In all his digging, he hadn’t uncovered any information that led him to believe Sulan was the sort of girl who’d mess with Black Tech. “What kind?” he asks.

  “A Cloak.” Mage’s amusement bubbles over. “She’s going into the Cube.” He laughs out loud. “Our little miss fancies herself a merc. It’s Meat Grinder day. She’s her mother’s daughter after all.”

  Gun senses the opportunity with the acuity of a hunting hound. This is it. His chance to plant himself in Sulan’s life.

  Anticipation tingles at the base of his spine. He pauses for a heartbeat, surprised by the feeling. It’s been years since any of his father’s assignments gave him a pleasant feeling. Resignation, yes. Dread, yes. Even distaste on occasion, but not anticipation.

  Gun shakes off the moment, ignoring the feeling. Emotions, no matter what they are, are irrelevant.

  “I want both of you to enter the Meat Grinder competition,” Gun says to Mage. “I’ll meet you at the Cube.”

  Without another word, he disconnects. He taps the tablet, calling Nate.

  “Change of plans,” he says to his friend.

  “What’s up, bro?”

  “I need my avatar equipped with an Infinity Mirror. The best one we have. It has to stand up to the scrutiny of the Global hackers. Give it an external facade that looks Naked. We’re going to infiltrate the Cube.”

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, Guns strides through the entryway of the Cube in one of his most expensive avatars. It took Nate and two other programmers six months to build the Infinity Mirror defense system. It has enough layers and security to fool hackers, even good ones. When he makes contact with Sul
an, Claudine—or anyone else at Global—won’t know it’s him.

  Nate pulled together an external facade that doesn’t look too different from the real-world Gun. He’s bleached the skin and altered the facial features enough to disguise him, but Gun’s overall size and stature are the same.

  When he enters the Cube, he’s sized up by everyone in the immediate vicinity. He ignores them, scanning for Sulan. He spots the Dread Twins in line to the Meat Grinder. They look like themselves for the most part, having only traded their real-world gray dreadlocks for blond ones and smoothed out their wrinkles. They ogle him like everyone else, though he doesn’t miss the amused glimmer in their eyes.

  It takes him several minutes to find Sulan. She’s so tiny, she’s nearly swallowed up by the surrounding avatars. But, yes, there she is, registering for the Meat Grinder. When she heads for the waiting area outside the Meat Grinder, Gun sees everything on her earnest, anxious expression. The puzzle pieces at last fit together.

  This is what she wants: to fight, to belong to this world. Her talents may lie in math, but all that’s ever elicited from her is restless acceptance. When she looks out at the avatars around her, he sees a girl who wants to belong. He sees Morning Star’s daughter.

  It’s clear from the way she moves that she doesn’t have any fighting experience. The twins were right in their assumption that she’s been kept out of the merc world. From the look on her face, Gun can tell she isn’t leaving.

  He makes a snap decision. He’s going to help her gain membership into the Cube.

  No wonder she never bothered with any of the boys at VHS. All this time, she’s been dreaming about mercs. If the girl likes fighters, that’s what he’ll be for her, just like he’s a horse fanatic for Andrea. The only difference is that he truly likes fighting. It’s one of the few things that brings him numbing bliss.

  She’s going into the Meat Grinder, he types onto a watch he wears, which sends the message to Nate in the real-world. Make sure my number is drawn with hers when the competitions begin.