Virtual Immortality

by Matthew S. Cox

  “You two sound like you’re married; you already have the banter rehearsed.” Masaru grinned and toasted them both with another sip.

  Katya moved her glare to Masaru.

  Joey shuddered. “Anyway… where were we?”

  After hard booting the deck, he used it to project a map. The scintillating light hovered just above the table’s mirrored surface, existing in two parallel planes. Joey stuck his hands into the map, manipulating it like dough. He pulled it to the right, zoomed in, and pointed at a spot.

  “This is the lobby. There is a maintenance hallway here…”

  He indicated the expansive space. A desk, behind which two rows of elevators led up to the guest rooms, dominated the center. The left side opened into a large bar and restaurant and the right had seats and a waiting area with a small coffee counter. Joey gestured at a small security door that connected to a hallway that hooked around in the shape of a question mark.

  He tapped his finger into the shimmering blue light. “That’s the server room.”

  A live woman in a blue kimono cleared some of the empty plates. She spoke in Japanese and motioned at Joey. Masaru replied. She nodded, bowed, and walked away.

  “She’ll bring you some food that’s more to your taste,” said Masaru.

  “Free food is free food, sounds good.” Joey turned his attention to the map. “That’s where I need to go, and if everything goes perfectly, I’ll need about 20 minutes.”

  Katya balanced herself on her knees with her elbows at the table’s edge. She studied the map for a moment and spoke without looking up. Joey assumed her concentration was genuine as a little Russian came out in her accent.

  “I think they make it look like unimportant door. Not much protection, but still has some security. RFID badge most likely.”

  “That’s why I was hoping you would be interested. Go in, look around, and figure out what we need to get me through that door.”

  “I can do that. What are you paying?” Katya scratched the sole of her left foot with her right big toe.

  He wanted to say something along the lines of “more than the guy you’ll be with later”, but he bit his tongue. “Ten grand?”

  Her outward affect did not convey the astonishment that echoed through her mind. Joey smiled. Her self-control impressed him; he had seen her bank account and did not think she would refuse an offer like that for such a basic job.

  She sat back on her heels. “That is acceptable.”

  oey arrived first at the Imperial hotel the next morning. He sighed at the time on his NetMini, assuming Masaru had to drop Wednesday off somewhere and Katya was just late. He leaned against his bike, arms folded, and watched a slow but steady stream of people exit the hotel toward waiting limousines and hired cars. A light breeze stirred his hair. Somewhere down the street, a breakfast cart put the fragrance of Dancing Piglet synthetic bacon in the air. He knew it well; it came on like bacon, but stayed in the throat for a few seconds before the taste turned chemical.

  An electronic chirp to his right made him jump. A floating orb―an advert bot―hovered two feet away, its holographic panel cycling through offers for various coffees: everything from cheap synthetic crap to the hundred-credit-a-cup hydroponics. In a moment of weakness, he bought one. The orb wobbled with glee and zoomed away. Three minutes later, a brick-shaped bot delivered his drink.

  He sipped, keeping his eyes on the crowd shifting past a large white van. It seemed rather odd that a bakery truck had parked half a block away. As soon as he saw the impatient man next to it in a sand brown coat, he got nervous. He had to be either police or military intelligence. The idea that someone had tipped them off to the imminent hack did cross his mind, but the odds of that seemed low. Joey was not difficult to get to; if the cops wanted him, they would just kick in his door and take him.

  At the midpoint of his coffee, Katya appeared from around a corner a block away. She had ditched the super short white dress for a more modest knee length white skirt over a pair of sheer black leggings, paired with a form-obscuring long sleeved sweater, also black. The glossy purse looked just large enough to conceal a handgun and matched her ruby heels. She tossed a casual glance at him as she made her way through the courtyard to the front door of the hotel. Shiny platinum blonde leaked into her hair from the root, flowing down to the tips. The cascading color change gave the impression that her sweater sucked the black right out of her hair.

  Joey held the cup to his mouth, savoring the scent while observing Katya’s wander through the lobby for a few minutes. By the time he ventured another sip, she was well into a conversation with a security guard, flirting. His disinterested reaction to her presence flipped in an instant to that of an eager puppy. Joey shifted with discomfort knowing that she had just hit him with synthetic pheromones. On top of her already perfect body, that seemed un-sporting. Joey decided to stash his bike out of sight around the corner―just in case something went wrong.

  Katya let the guard lead her by the hand down a maintenance corridor at the rear of the hotel. She found it easy to talk him into thinking his friends hired her to pay him a special visit. The vague reasons she hinted at found easy explanations in his mind, and the pheromones had chased away the last traces of his hesitation. At the end of the dingy hallway, he took her down a small passage to a janitorial storage room. She let him pull her along, taking notes of the layout of the area, particularly the security station.

  He backed into the small space and closed the door, covering the room in privacy. Just enough light remained from a small strip of glass for them to see their silhouettes―though her dark red lipstick remained evident against her face. He shoved cleaning equipment out of the way, and soon had his pants open and his hands all over her, groping everywhere, as if he could not decide where to go first. She went along with it for a little while, letting him lose himself in the moment. In Russia, with the ACC, she had experienced anything and everything sexual during her assignments―and between them. Her body was just another weapon at her disposal, desensitized to the point that few things even registered with her libido anymore. She leaned into a kiss, grasping his cheeks with both hands as his fingers mapped her curves.

  His enthusiasm faded and his motion slowed, and the blur of confusion spread through his eyes. The hand that had been sliding up under her dress fell slack at his side. Katya pulled back from the kiss, mouth open. Two clear droplets fell from tiny holes in her canine teeth, running over her lip and down onto her chin. After easing his body to the ground, she spat to clear her mouth of the drug she just shot down his throat.

  Her cybernetic right eye presented a virtual timer in midair at the top of her vision to track the sedative dose. The floating numbers reminded her of the debt she still owed for the part. Advanced eyes that looked real, not like hunks of metal, were expensive―especially through unofficial channels. Ten thousand credits to steal an ID badge felt like winning the lottery, and she had only so much time before her debt came calling. She tried not to let the ignominy of the job get to her. This was, after all, like asking Rembrandt to paint your house.

  After slipping out of her clothes, she swiped his badge from his shirt and leaned against the door to survey the hallway. Within thirty seconds, her CamNano cyberware had altered the color of her skin and hair in perfect sync with the environment. While motionless against a surface, it provided near invisibility. She eased the door open and checked for any sign of movement. The only sound of activity came from the distant lobby.

  She slid out into the hallway, hugging the wall, into an embrace of frigid air. The cold reminded her how much she hated resorting to this tactic, but it was the fastest way to get this done and over with since she had a short time limit before her lover woke up. She kept her body against the wall as she crept; the nanobots updated the color of her skin to match. Cell by cell, her skin shimmered like a living digital display. As long as she did not move too fast, it looked as though she stood behind a projection of the wall texture. Si
gns, seams, painted lines, and even smudges rolled over her as she moved.

  Thirty yards from the closet, she peeked through a small vertical window into the security room. One other guard was inside, seated with his back to the door at a desk full of holographic displays linked to security cameras.

  Dammit.

  Her hand found only smooth hips when she instinctively reached for a weapon. She had not planned on dealing with any other guards; her gun was back in the closet. A naked hand-to-hand fight was not high on her list of things to do.

  The security door would beep and hiss when it opened, so there was no way she could pass through unnoticed. She found some respite knowing this was, compared to her usual work, laughable security―so she could afford to take risks. Two small prongs extended out of her right index finger, a few millimeters long.

  She braced her stance, ready to charge in at the guard before he could raise an alarm. With a swipe of the stolen ID, the door slid open with the expected sounds, but to her surprise, he did not turn around.

  “That was quick, Don. I’d have taken more than five minutes with a girl like that.” He laughed. “You moonlighting somewhere to afford her?”

  Katya slipped into the dim security room, for a moment appearing as a glimmering hallway-white ghost. Patches of dark blue-grey spread through her skin as the CamNano struggled to keep up with the severe change in lighting. She moved like a phantasmal apparition, a suspension of lines and color approximating a female form. The warm carpet offered welcome relief from the tiles.

  A long stride cleared the room, and she touched the pins to the back of his neck. A brief spark flashed on contact. His face slammed into the desk as if she had hit him with a sledgehammer. His body convulsed as he foamed at the mouth and slid onto the floor. After locating the ID printer, she set about making a copy of the badge. There was no need to worry about the picture; Joey needed to fool a door, not a person.

  She curled up on the chair, shivering and staring at the expanding pool of saliva beneath the guard’s face. A number of security jackets in the back called out to her, though as tempting as a bit of warmth would be at that moment, the sight of a coat floating in midair would give her away. Ghostly numbers ticked ever closer to her deadline as the ID writer struggled to warm up. She swiveled the chair to face the desk and went for the video recorders. The wall of holographic light in front of her recreated all public areas of the hotel in perfect three dimensions.

  The Imperial used a standard security system, Stern & Basset, a subsidiary of Sentinel Corp. While far from chintzy, she had seen the hardware many times before. It took only two minutes to hack into it and set the rear hallway on a loop feed. Just as she turned back to face the room, the new ID badge slid down a chute into a tray. Lifting the guard back into his chair proved difficult, though she managed to prop him up in a manner that suggested sleeping on the job.

  With the timer drawing close to the wire, she did not wait to enter the hallway with care. Her body blurred into view as a mismatched swarm of blue-grey and metallic silver streaks that melted to white as she tiptoed along. The CamNano caught up a few yards later when she pressed herself into the wall and held as still as she could against the icy surface. A man in black, perhaps a concierge, came out of a staff elevator, pausing in his stride not four feet away. Katya closed her eyes to hide them, reducing her breathing as she listened to him check a vidmail. He took a step, but paused. Katya had no outward reaction, though her brain processed four ways to kill him if he noticed her.

  “Hate this back room… Always feels like someone’s watching me in here, probably a ghost,” muttered the man, as he walked out.

  She slinked back to the janitorial closet, slow enough to remain invisible.

  The thirty-yard trek felt like an eternity. She made it into the reassuring darkness just as her timer flashed an alert. After putting his badge back into place, she dropped the copy into her purse. Her natural complexion spread across her body like cream through coffee as she shut down the CamNano. The guard was still out, in more ways than one. A convenient cleaning rag spared her hand and made the man’s experience more realistic. After tossing the evidence into a bucket, she squatted over her pile of clothes. He moved as she stood up, holding her panties. Sweating from the trip to the security room, she found it easy to act as though they had finished. He squinted up at her, groggy from the chems.

  “Ugh…” He rubbed his forehead. The form of a naked woman blurred in his vision and threatened to split into two copies. “What happened?”

  She feigned a wounded frown. “You were having such fun that you jumped up, hit your head on the shelf; don’t remember?”

  “Yeah, of course. You were amazing.” He peppered her with several other lame compliments.

  He felt spent, and she wore nothing but a layer of perspiration. Only one explanation formed in his mind.

  Katya smiled, not that he could see it. “You must be overworked; you passed out right after you hit your head.” She let her Russian accent thicken, speaking as she stepped into her underwear.

  “Too much damned overtime now. Too many conventions going on. We got OT coming out of our asses. I think I’ve worked three sixteens this week.”

  For just a moment, she felt like the poor guy might have deserved the real thing. They both dressed in silence.

  She backed through the door into the hallway, holding it for him. “I have confession to make.” An innocent smile spread across her lips.

  “Oh?” He squeezed her ass again as he pushed the door closed.

  She traced a finger along his face and left a light kiss on his lip. “Your friends did not hire me; I just see you there and don’t know what came over me.” The CamNano helped her blush.

  He grinned. She had pegged him for that type, and the thought that his manliness had drawn her across the room just to get a piece of him seemed like something he would revel in. It also handled the imminent confusion of him thanking his clueless coworkers for sending her. Perhaps out of pity, she made out with him for a little longer to keep up the ruse.

  Five minutes after Katya disappeared into the back of the hotel, Masaru walked up alongside Joey. He too had parked a block or so away.

  “Do you have a plan?” Masaru’s tone implied he knew the answer already.

  “Of course I don’t.” Joey chucked. “Kat is in there right now scoping the place out, she took one of the guards in back now.”

  Masaru nodded. “Business or pleasure?”

  Joey could not conceal the laugh. “Pleasure? Really?”

  “She is still a woman.”

  “So was Medusa,” said Joey with a raised finger.

  “Who?”

  “It would take so long to explain it wouldn’t be worth the joke.” Joey shook his head.

  A minute shy of a half hour later, he relaxed when Katya reappeared with the man. The guard went back to his post as Katya headed straight for the door. She crossed the street, reaching the sidewalk a little east of them. Joey bit his lip, wearing the pained expression of someone who gazed upon a desired treat that would be fatal if eaten, but considered it anyway.

  She turned on her heel, passing by the two of them without making eye contact. A plastic click at his feet made him look down at a stark white ID badge on the ground. He scooped it up into his coat, confident no one had noticed. Katya’s holographic face appeared above his NetMini once he answered the inbound call.

  “There is hallway east of lobby. That is where you want to go. I set up video loop of the security system, you have maybe twenty minutes before they notice and start checking.” Katya, still walking away, did not appear to be having a conversation with anyone.

  “Implanted comm too?” Joey chuckled. “Nice.”

  Dale took notice of the two men across the street from the hotel, though neither looked familiar. The facial recognition system found no matches for the skinny one, while the other came up as Masaru Kurotai, a Japanese national and son of the CEO of Kurotai El
ectronics. Dale did not pay him too much attention. His credentials checked and Japan, at least most of it, remained an ally of the UCF. He disregarded him, expecting his presence here was due to some unrelated conference or seminar. He leaned back in the driver’s seat of the Floyd’s bakery van, waiting for Nina to return.

  He closed his eyes and could almost hear her yelling at everyone inside. The beginning of a headache crept into his brain from lack of sleep, and he settled in for a nap; the less noise in his day, the better.

  Inside the Imperial Hotel, white and black marble tiles, chest high vases with actual living plants, gold inlaid blush marble columns, and dark red velvet benches painted the lobby of the hotel in opulence. Masaru had little reaction, but Joey gawked as if in an alien world. His long black coat and scruffy visage were suited to life around the fringes of a grey zone amid his fellow counterculture dregs; he felt quite conspicuous here.

  The attendants, almost fifty yards away, perched behind an imposing bulwark of polished rose marble where they guarded a hallway full of elevators. Joey sauntered over to the maintenance door. When no one was looking at him, he worked a swipe of the stolen badge into the spin that took him through the entrance in one fluid motion. Masaru caught the door with his toe and scanned the room once more. The security guard bragged to his buddies about the amazing call girl, a tale that kept them all occupied.

  The maintenance section was glaring in contrast to the opulence outside. Recessed three steps down, the pale green tiles and fake wood paneling gave the hallway the look of something one would find in a cheap office building and not a four thousand credit a night hotel. Small silver nameplates jutted out of the wall by a series of doors.

  Joey grinned, moving up to the first one. “One of these offices should have a terminal I can use.”

  He moved at a brisk stride through flickering fluorescent lights that made shadows jump and slide around. At the end of the hallway, he spotted a sign: ‘Milton Swanson―Systems Architect.’