Backstab

by Everet Martins

  The interface for what I’m looking for is manifested as a grim library. We’re in one of the aisles, standing on a plush red carpet brocaded in gold. Archaic torches burn on candelabras set every twenty feet. They’re suspended by black chains that reach up to an infinite darkness where the construct’s rendering fades. Bookshelves tower over us on either side, but not so tall that my extended arm couldn’t grasp a desired tome. The shelves are packed tight, the book spines leather, thick, and embossed in silver.

  Beyond the chains supporting the torches is a roiling darkness. It shimmers like oil on water. I stifle a gasp and steady my breath.

  “What is this?” Nightshade asks.

  “It’s a file repository, exclusive for Strings,” I answer quickly, eyes darting for the desired text.

  “No, not that.” She points up at the shifting abyss. “That. Is that what I think it is? Do they know we’re here?”

  I follow her finger. “No, look. It’s not active, it always patrols like that.” The shimmering darkness above us is a class of security program called Dark Oil. It’s always on the hunt for intruders, but as far as it knows, we’re both legitimate users. Nightshade is safe from its scrutiny because we entered together. Strings sometimes meet here to share data with Mercs. Any bullshit by Mercs will pull down its wrath.

  I pull out an LED flashlight, a program built into my AR that makes the books legible. I frown as a sound like a thousand snakes hissing calls from above. The Dark Oil starts to spin in warning like a nascent tornado.

  “Desmond! What the fuck?” Nightshade growls at me in a low voice.

  I shoot her an angry scowl and mouth, “Shut up.” Dark Oil can end us in the Real if it launches into full attack. It’s only posturing now. There’s something about Nightshade’s cloaking program it doesn’t like.

  I grab a book and start to frantically flip through pages, throwing caution in the wind and downloading files. The hissing grows in magnitude. Fuck! Anything that looks remotely related to my betrayal I download. I can digest everything later when we’re safe. I’ve seen what Dark Oil can do. It corrupts your AR and can cause permanent brain damage.

  Nightshade starts bouncing on her toes. “String, I think it’s time for us to go.” I realize for the first time there is a note of stress in her voice, which both impresses and worries me. I dare to gaze up due to her conviction.

  The Dark Oil is now amorphous and slithering shadows, like blacks overlapping in an inverted ocean. It threatens to crash down on us and swallow us whole.

  I press my lips into a line. “Mhm. Let’s go!” Fear grips me around the throat. I’m ready to log out. I issue the command, the will to my AR. Nothing happens.

  Now! Now! Logout! I internally scream. Something jerks on my wrist and extends my arm to the side. A glossy black tentacle encircles my wrist, its body widening and rising up to connect with the Dark Oil squirming above us.

  “Shit! Shit!” I try to reclaim my arm, pulling with all the strength I have. It feels like its trapped in a vice, screwing around to crush my wrist into a mess of bones and sinew. My mind goes blank. I don’t know what to do.

  Then there’s a tug on my knee, and I’m pulled into an agonizing side split. I throw my head back in a howl of pain. Dark Oil is coiling around my leg like a boa constrictor. I’m fucked. I knew my death might come at an unusual time, but I never guessed it would be from Net Death.

  My shoulder is wrenched in the socket, and it feels like my rotator cuff has become magma. Thick dark liquid falls from the tentacles in globs the size of my fist. They start coalescing into shapes on the ground.

  Dark Oil runs down my neck, over my cheap shoes, all of it burning my skin like acid. I close my eyes and seal my lips. A wail of agony tries to escape, but I push it down. Coming here was a mistake.

  In one violent pull, I’m drawn into the air. My eyes snap open to find myself drawn toward the sky of darkness. Dozens of new tentacles greedily arc toward me, emerging from the Dark Oil like limbs. It all transpires in maybe five seconds.

  I twist, about to scan for Nightshade, my only hope. My eyes find her, and she blinks out of existence, only to appear a second later hovering at my side.

  “Stupid String! Too greedy!” Nightshade barks. A katana materializes in her grip and bursts alight with flames. Her weapon seems to repel the darkness. The tentacles around my limbs go slack. It reels back into the sky, screaming like hundreds of wounded animals.

  Nightshade narrows her eyes, grimaces, and chops her blade through the tentacle seizing my leg. The part that remains attached to my body crumbles into black ash. The rest of the tentacle snaps back into its main body, shrieking like a demon.

  The darkness above boils and shifts, congealing like a wet mountain over us. Its screams of pain become howls of rage. Nightshade hacks again, streaking the abyss in a red arc of fire. She’s freed my arm, and I plummet down, thumping on my side onto the aisle’s carpet. I push myself up with my legs, cradling my aching arm and peering up.

  “Nightshade!” The Dark Oil bears down on us, all of its attention on full alert. The program is trying to lock us down. Hundreds of oil-slicked tentacles spiral out of its amorphous figure, intent on Nightshade. The first few try to snare her by the limbs, but she’s too fast, cutting and slicing them down. Dust born of severed tentacles falls from the sky like a radiation storm in the Real.

  The gears of thought click into place. I run a defensive program and a laser pistol forms in my hand. It’s a high-tech sidearm that shoots concentrated beams of light with enough wattage to cut through Net steel. There’s a fat capacitor loaded at the back. I aim and pull the trigger. The air reverberates with a sound like crashing symbols. A streak of violet light slices the air and cuts into the Dark Oil, throwing out gobs of scarlet blood. I pull, pull and pull, lighting the sky in lines of violet.

  An absurd amount of blood rains down around us, and the Dark Oil reels back upon itself. Nightshade lands at my side and grips me hard by the back of the arm. “Out! Now! Logout!”

  I issue the command, and it succeeds, no longer impeded by the Dark Oil’s touch. A second before I’m out, I spare a glance at the looming mass. It’s like a black hole, encompassing the entirety of the construct. Thousands of new tentacles writhe from its center. Hundreds of canyons yawn open along its body, lined with shark’s teeth and used motor oil for saliva. I can watch it all with Buddhist detachment.

  What rattles me is the appearance of a pair of large humanoid eyes. They’re watching me. They know who I am. They’re calm, aware, and terrifying.

  11

  Intel

  A hard breath rasps from my throat and my eyes snap open.

  Am I dead? Did I die?

  I see I’m reclining in a chair, but the world won’t stop spinning. I lean over the side and puke up what remains of Nightshade’s protein bars. The bolus hits the ground with a wet slap. It looks like I just shat from my mouth. I screw my face up in disgust, mastering my guts. I pray to the empty sky for the world to stop fucking spinning. Everything has trails of color. I close my eyes.

  “You’re Net sick,” Nightshade mutters and groans. “It will pass in a minute.” Time passes. I open my eyes. The world has stabilized. We didn’t die, we logged out. Everything is dull in the Real. The place is a gray death. I forgot how boring everything is here and why I like chems. I close my eyes and gently massage them. I hear the scuff of footsteps and detect a nearby presence. A sweet lilac fragrance touches my nose.

  I open my eyes to find Paragon staring at me, her face upside down. Eyes look bizarre when inverted. I blink at her. She raises her eyebrows in expectation. “Well?”

  I groan. I turn onto my side to look beyond her and at Nightshade. She’s seated but leaning on her elbows, clearly shaken. Her cheeks are drained of color, and her forehead is beaded with sweat. She angrily removes her Net Ring and sends it clattering across the table. She sees me looking at her and flashes a scowl. “That was reckless. You almost got us killed. We should�
�ve logged out when we first saw Dark Oil. Stupid to fight it.” She seethes, but her tone softens, knowing we’re both at fault.

  “You saw Oil and tried to fight it? Have you two lost your minds?” Paragon gapes at us.

  “Maybe, but we’re still alive.” My defense is weak. She’s right, and I’m not sure why I didn’t admit it.

  “You found something then?” Paragon plants her hands on her hips, asking Nightshade.

  “Yeah,” Nightshade replies with a mock laugh. “Desmond downloaded some files. More than he probably should.” Nightshade is shaking her head at me. “We’re not going back to Erinas in the virtual, at least I’m not. They have top-end security. Can’t believe we almost got nabbed by Dark Oil. That was the nastiest version I’ve ever seen.” She takes a steeling breath.

  Paragon crosses her arms over her chest. “Oh?”

  Nightshade lets her eyes go unfocused and nods. “It was a fucking mountain. Glad we had Desmond’s keys getting in. Imagine if we alerted it early on? We would’ve been so fucked.”

  My chest feels tight, and my breathing still feels off. I grunt my agreement. The Net always feels so real, despite knowing it’s a simulation born of an implant the size of a grain of rice. Muscles in my abdomen quiver, threatening to unleash another torrent on the floor. I breathe deep, and they relent.

  I work my shoulder in circles and frown at the lingering pain. My body is convinced that my arm was almost torn free from the socket, so my nerves are still firing, demanding I nurse the injury. The somatosensory cortex doesn’t know the difference between pain in the Real and the Net. The nerves will relax eventually. “I’ve never seen that before. That filestore is always clear.”

  “You alright?” Paragon places a soft hand on my shoulder.

  “Fine.” I force out a smile, but my mind is still not seated back in reality. I rake hands through my hair, pushing it back, stiffened by sweat. “Is there some Psionic talent to cure exhaustion?”

  A playful grin crawls along her lips. Her hand glides to my neck and rests there. “Maybe there is something I can do.”

  “Great, I—” A shuddering breath pushes through my mouth. The exuberance of an orgasm rushes through my body. It’s warm, tingles, and makes my back arch against my chair. I think of the women I’ve convinced to give me a rim job. I smile big.

  Then it feels like hundreds of delicate fingernails are scratching my skin. I slump against the chair. It’s wonderful and borders on a tickle. My skin forms goosebumps while the shuddering of my breath slows. It feels like the end of amazing sex, but wholly different. Paragon lifts her hand, and it all comes to a screeching stop.

  I blink up at her. “Wha… wow. What did you do?”

  Paragon snickers. Her hand glows with an indigo light that renders her hand translucent, leaving her finger bones dark. “Let’s say I refreshed you.”

  “Is that what you did?” I mumble, words not forming right.

  “Maybe if you’re good, I can do it again sometime,” she says with a playful grin.

  “If I’m good?” It feels like I’m sinking deeper into my chair, the fabric caving in to consume my body.

  I peer over to see Nightshade watching Paragon with a wry smile. I get the feeling there’s something I missed. Paragon’s soft expression becomes the ice of business. She looks at Nightshade. “You got intel for us too, right?”

  Nightshade grimaces and gives Paragon a deep nod, then mutters something in their language. I lick my teeth and frown at the floor in concentration. I should have predicted that Paragon putting a member of her team at risk wasn’t pure benevolence. I’m thinking small, not seeing the macro picture. I need to get my shit together. There’s no excuse for my sloppiness. It’s not an outright betrayal, but perhaps just a transaction fee. I like this idea better.

  I raise my eyes to find the women watching me, maybe assessing how I’ll react. Paragon’s eyelashes flutter in a long blink. I raise an acknowledging eyebrow but offer nothing more.

  They exchange glances and share in a snicker that carries secrets. A part of me wants to ask what Nightshade found in her download, but I’m in no position to demand such knowledge. I remember that Erinas tried to murder me. Bile scorches in my throat. I am clearly no longer employed by the corporation, but a vestige of fifteen years of loyalty remains in my blood. Assholes.

  “Now what, Desmond?” Paragon asks, pausing to look back at me before sweeping through the door.

  “Time for forensics.” I lean back in my chair to rest my eyes. I wake sometime later to find the room has been vacated. I check my AR to see I’ve slept for about an hour. Between Paragon’s refreshing and the nap, I feel good.

  I will my AR to life, former potential consequences forgotten. I start perusing through my ream of files. It’s going to take a fair amount of sifting. I run a search for message transmissions that make any mention of my name within the past week. There are many emerging from a senior String named Orio. Naturally, no one in the company would openly refer to him by the title of String if they valued living. Officially, he is a Senior Director.

  I’ve never personally met him, but I’ve heard from former colleagues he’s an asshole. It seems like he has orchestrated my demise by hiring Suro, AKA Mohawk. The more I read about Orio, the more I can confirm that he is indeed a bastard. He’s Cambodian and hates everyone else who is not. I would hate him too if he didn’t have so much power.

  He no longer sullies his hands hiring Mercs because there are employees such as myself to do that for him. He was recently both in Boston and Chicago, the latter not more than three days ago. I see his expense reports, the restaurants he visited, the hotel’s he stayed in. I find it intriguing that whatever he’s working on is important enough to drag him close enough to get dirty with us pigs. He just arrived back in the Cambodian office.

  He changed my job. For some reason, it no longer suited his preferences. He used his influence and intra-company political persuasion to do it. He ordered my execution like I was nothing at all. According to the nonchalance of the fateful message, I was just another piece of filth to be scrubbed from his pristine world.

  “Please don’t forget to delete the String on the Wolf Microsystems job.” I re-read his message dozens of times. Fucking asshole. I knew I was just another pawn on Erinas’ chessboard, but this was the hard hammer of reality striking home. I am aware of my shrinking confidence.

  This also likely explains why Suro failed at killing me. They hired someone cheap, local, and didn’t bother vetting him. A quick investigation into Erinas’ own databases would’ve revealed he’s not very good at what he does, often letting targets escape from poorly planned ambushes. No doubt he’s good, but his success ratio is a bit below the standard of ninety-three percent. It’s a strange feeling to know your life meant no more to someone else than taking out the garbage.

  I need to think and dig deeper to understand the big picture. Why would Orio bother with something so trivial as my job? My mission was to steal new encryption software. A trusted source on the inside has informed me that its beta version is only kept on a hardware chip to avoid hacking attempts.

  It’s hot stuff. It could be repackaged and sold as a new product or employed to further guard Erinas’ data. This is a top paying gig that only the best Mercs could handle. Despite my initial suspicion, Paragon’s team fits the bill.

  We have Erinas and Wolf Microsystems on the chessboard. I search my lifted files for what I can glean about Wolf. A few notes pique my interest. I read for what feels like hours, turning over earth to find gems amongst the drivel that is most office communique.

  I discover that Wolf Microsystems, the company I was instructed to steal from, and Cave Networks shared in a development endeavor to create this new encryption software.

  This fascinates me because Cave Networks is an Erinas subsidiary. Cave Networks is essentially Erinas. These types of back alley partnerships are not unheard of. What is unusual is that Erinas would then try to pilfer the tech
nology from Wolf.

  Sometimes, we conduct test gigs on new Merc teams, sending them into our own offices with everything scripted. The Mercs, of course, don’t know this. We send them into the shit and see if they can emerge intact, despite the occasional loss of life. Those most likely to die are our own security guard personnel. They signed the waivers. They knew the risks. Life isn’t fair, and it never will be.

  Sometimes, entire Merc crews die in the process, and it’s a testament to our security training. When they live, we keep them on retainer for the tougher gigs. We only want the best. We throw wrenches into the scripted infiltrations, tripping alarms and calling the Falcon down on them. The easiest way to test a new team is in an environment we control. This process strips boasting from legitimate reputations.

  Paragon’s team is solid. I wonder if infiltrating Wolf Microsystems is merely a test job. My gut tells me that’s not right. Where does Orio come into play?

  I swipe through files. Blue lines of text stream down my augmented vision as I continue to read and digest the intel. My eyes are starting to sting. I have to remember to blink.

  I was wrong on multiple fronts. The hit on Wolf Microsystems was initially a test job. It seems Orio turned Paragon’s team’s test job into a real job. Erinas left me in the dark, but that’s not uncommon. For a test job to be legitimate, even the String must be blind lest he unconsciously reveal the truth of the upcoming work. According to his transmissions, Orio’s plan is to steal from Wolf Microsystems while putting the blame on Cave Networks.

  The public and the media always blame the corporations as if everyone who works for them is of the same hive mind. We’re really just a group of people who are loosely affiliated and forced to work with the occasional bad apple. Why should we all shoulder the reputation of assholes like Orio?

  The individuals that comprise a company have never been allied. There is always a war within. It’s better at some companies, but Erinas has a power problem. Erinas’ sister companies are always at each other’s throats, vying for the best profit and loss statements every year. They’ll do whatever it takes to fuck each other over as long as it means winning in the eyes of the board of directors.