by K. F. Breene
“What does that mean—blank out the implant?” Millicent asked, studying the device.
“I just send electromagnetic pulses through it to fry it. Then it’s out of commission. It doesn’t hurt.” Jesse pushed a chair on rollers to the edge of his desk. He pointed. “Sit.”
“How long have you been using that system?” Millicent couldn’t help the wonder in her voice. Before Ryker’s experience, she hadn’t known it was possible for an implant to short out and go offline. It had simply never occurred to her.
“I don’t know. Long as I been doing this. C’mon. We gotta get going.” Jesse waved Mr. McAllister forward.
“No.” Millicent put out a hand to stop the progress. “That’s not going to work. Even if the glitch you’re exploiting wasn’t fixed—at least as far as your old apparatus is concerned—we can’t go offline. Ry—Tate’s implant shorted once, and while they waited for him to come back online that time, they logged an alert. I checked. His implant and mine going offline together, added to a birthing tech’s . . . no. With my behavior this week regarding Marie—the child—they won’t wait this time, I’m sure of it. They’ll check it out. Not to mention we are faster and more efficient when we have use of our implants. No, this is not the best approach.”
Jesse sighed dramatically and leaned his elbow against the desk. “Look. They got hundreds of thousands of workers in this area alone. They got faulty tech beeping on and off, they got people getting shocked left and right—they won’t get to it for months, and by that time, we’ll have it out of your head. We’re fine. Trust me. I do this all the time.”
“Trust me, your solution will shave hours off our timetable, and we’re pressed for time as it is.”
“Look, lady, I know this is scary, but—”
Millicent pushed an ancient decrypter out of the way and surveyed the other instruments on the table. “Can you access the net through a nontraceable source? I’ll fix the issue.”
Jesse’s eyes widened as the light more thoroughly highlighted her face. “You’re—” He spun and grabbed the light, shining it back toward Ryker. “You both are natural born, aren’t you? What the Holy Divine is Roe thinking?” Jessie backed away from the desk, his hands out. “No. I can’t do this. This is out of my league. They’re going to be looking for you!”
A roar sounded above them. The floor and walls shook before the vehicle passed.
“I have what you lack,” Millicent said. “I just need a way to access their implants. After that, they can’t track us. At least not until they break through my coding.”
“Can’t you do it from your craft?” Ryker asked.
“That craft’s console runs from the conglomerate’s net. I can disguise its log-on port and change the log-on location, but all of that takes time. Time I’d rather not lose. It’d be easier if we could do it from a completely foreign source. One that is hopefully set up outside of the conglomerate’s loop.”
“Loop?” Jesse said.
“Intranet,” she clarified.
“But they can track us here.” Mr. McAllister gestured between himself and Ryker. “So what’s the difference if your craft logs in? It’s just another arrow pointing to us until you get it shut down.”
“I already have to change your information, Mr. McAllister. Erasing your last locations will not be a big to-do. But my craft is one more entity we need to fix.” Millicent checked her wrist. The numbers flashed, and anxiety pressed on her, making her movements jerky. The shift change happened in three hours, but she had every reason to suspect it wouldn’t take that long. Not with all the dead bodies lying around the facility, thanks to Ryker. “Just do as you’re told.”
“I can get you online, but even if you shut your implants down, they can still scan for your face,” Jesse said. “If they can’t reach your implants, they’ll have security monitor for your face.”
Millicent waved the thought away. “Obviously I’ll take care of that problem, too.”
“He doesn’t often meet people who are three clicks above the Curve, princess.” Ryker’s teasing tone didn’t alter his stern expression. “Now let’s get this done. We need to be long gone to the next thing.”
“I can’t be that next thing, bro-yo.” Jesse pulled the heavy device into the middle of the desk. He connected a cord and then yanked a flat rectangular pad in front. He pressed something at the top. Light filtered up from the screen, creating a splotchy hologram above it. The glowing rectangle filled with little squares showing characters. “I can’t help you. You’d constantly be doing this arguing shit and I wouldn’t be able to keep up.”
Millicent waited for Jesse to move out of the way before she took the chair and prodded the keyboard. “This stuff is so far out of date it belongs in a museum.”
“See what I mean?” Jesse mumbled, snatching a device as big as his hand from the desk. “That’s only ten years out. I took it before I left the conglomerate.”
“How long ago did you leave?”
“A couple years. Why?”
Millicent frowned. “I wonder why they didn’t install recent tech to your department. It was a waste of time having you use this.”
“We’re not royalty like you are.”
Ryker’s laughter filled the room.
“Yes, give him more ammunition for pet names. Great.” Millicent let her hands fly over the keyboard, logging in through a strange network she’d never seen before. She worked around the various conglomerate firewalls.
“Holy—” Jesse leaned down next to her, his mouth dropping at the sight of the code scrolling through the air within the hologram. “Wait.” His touch on her wrist had her jerking away. He did a few keystrokes, turning on the tracking feature. “Okay. Go for it. I don’t think I could ever learn this, but we got a couple people who might.”
“Doubtful,” Ryker said. “I got a strange vibration over here.” He touched the skin behind his ear where his implant was lodged.
“I’m just uploading my changes before I close your loop and disguise your signal.” Unused to typing, Millicent frowned down at the rectangular tech. It was slowing her down.
The roar sounded above them before moaning down into the floor. The metal jiggled on the table. “What is that?” Millicent asked.
“Shipping vessel passing too close,” Jesse said. “That’s why this whole place is just a trash heap, really. Why there’s no building here. One of those vessels plowed into it at one point.”
Millicent glanced upward. As if they needed another reason to get the hell out of there.
“But anyway, if your implants are still giving a signal, they can track you if they get through your code,” Jesse said.
“Can they break it?” Ryker asked, looking over Millicent’s shoulder before checking his wrist.
She pushed harder, feeling the time drain away. “Eventually,” Millicent said.
“How long?”
Millicent pulled up Mr. McAllister’s information. “If they got my best people on it, they’d probably bring me down in a month, two if they didn’t have someone riding them.”
“They’ll have someone riding them,” Ryker said in a heavy tone.
“But if they’re desperate, they can negotiate for the senior director of Gregon Corp. It’d be expensive, but . . .”
“That’s your biggest competitor?” Ryker asked.
“Yes. She’s my equal in skill. She’d hack through this in a couple days. I spent a lot of time devising cobwebs and false paths, but she’s excellent. She’d break it.”
“Wait.” Jesse held up his hand, fear and awe warring across his face. “Are you telling me that you’re Ms. Foster? The Ms. Foster? No.” He scoffed, taking a few steps toward the door. “I don’t believe this. You’re . . . You are a legend.” He shook his head. “No way is Roe going to help you. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re too high priority.”
“I’m Tate. This is Joyce. That’s all you need to tell him,” Ryker said in a harsh tone. “We’re
getting off this rock, and your people are going to take our money to do it. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. Tate. No problem, sir.” He picked his nail and glanced at Ryker. “Who are you, though? Just so I can say I met you . . .”
“Ryker Gunner.”
“Oh shit.” Jesse blew out a breath before running his fingers through his hair. “What do you need us for, bro-yo? Who can they possibly send after you?”
“Mr. Hunt,” Ryker said in a low, rough tone. “And he won’t want to take me alive.”
“This is done.” Millicent smoothed her hair, a force of habit, as she stood from the desk.
“All right, well . . .” Jesse bent to the blank glow of the clunky hologram screen. “You gotta get to Roe. He’s the only one who can do this.” Jesse glanced back at Millicent. She stepped forward, getting her wrist in closer proximity to the older machine. Jesse flicked his finger between the hologram and her wrist screen. A name and coordinates flashed along her skin. “Go to that spot to meet him. It’s down in Los Angeles. You just gotta get yourself down there. It’s on the way anyway. The rocket shuttle leaves from Old Mexico, where the weather is a bit more stable and the conglomerates don’t have any departments set up.”
“How would you have taken us?” Millicent asked.
“I would’ve loaded you into the shuttle craft going from here to Old Mexico. But one in ten times, security randomly scans the craft and catches everyone. Show’s over then. Back to the grind. With you at large, they’ll check everyone leaving San Francisco. Ain’t no way to sneak out of the Wall if they’re checking. So . . .”
“They’ll be looking for your vessel,” Ryker said to Millicent.
“Then let’s get out of here while we have the jump on them. After that . . . we’ll have to figure it out.”
“Wait, you need this.” Jesse handed each of them a small metal box decorated with scratches and dings. “It’s for the retinal scans. Makes you invisible from the conglomerates, but it’ll alert Roe’s people to who you are if they’re looking. Which they will be, since I’ll send word.”
“Invisible . . .” The lid squeaked as Millicent opened the small case. She’d changed their identities, which could still be tracked unless routinely changed, but becoming invisible to the scanners was another thing entirely. This alone had made this meeting worthwhile. “I should’ve known to do this. It’s much more efficient in the long run.”
“Can’t know everything, sweetheart. That’s why you need to let the big dogs help you out.” Ryker darted his finger into his eye.
“And I suppose you are the big dog, hmm?” Millicent applied hers quickly and then moved on to Marie. “Are you suggesting I couldn’t have gotten this far without you?”
“You would’ve tripped an alarm back at that lab. They had laser censors. Your rescue mission would’ve been over before it began.” Ryker dotted his other eye.
Millicent paused in her attempt to get the eye cover on the struggling eighteen-month-old. Ryker was there a moment later, picking up the slack as Millicent processed that information, thinking back on all the careful planning that would’ve been in vain. “I thought I caught all their security functions.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I needed you to take down the security in the sleeping area. Hold still, Marie. Hold—ow!” Ryker snatched his hand away from Marie’s bite.
“At least we know where she gets that. Hold still, honey.”
“I’ll give you a piece of candy if you hold still,” Mr. McAllister said, moving closer.
Marie’s struggles lessened, and her little face peeked out from behind Ryker’s large arm and looked at Mr. McAllister. “Candy?”
“You have to bribe her,” Mr. McAllister said, patting himself down. “Just as soon as we get where we’re going, I’ll give you candy. Just hold still while your daddy puts that thing on your eye, okay? It won’t hurt.”
“And that’s why I brought him.” Ryker moved in while Marie was still.
The bribe only lasted until the apparatus actually touched her eye. She had to be held down to get the other one in. Obviously candy only went so far.
After the battle, Ryker fastened Marie’s goggles and adjusted her on his hip. “Okay. We go.”
“Good luck. I hope you guys make it,” Jesse called as Millicent led the way out of the tunnels.
The harsh environment met them as they emerged onto the open platform. Millicent glanced behind her at the scarred and mangled edges of the building. Behind it rose other enormous high-rises, reaching into the sky with sleek lines but battered and filth-smeared sides. “It’s like a different world down here.”
“Just hope you don’t have to go any lower. It gets worse.” Ryker looked upward. Off to the east, a faint gray was bleeding through the black. “We’ve been too long. The conglomerate is going to—”
A siren ripped through their surroundings, ringing over the city and bouncing off the walls. It rained down on them, cutting Ryker off.
Open. Millicent ran to her vessel. Open! She reached the side of the closed craft and palmed open the outside controls.
Before she could make any keystrokes, she heard Mr. McAllister say in an urgent voice, “Open the door, Marie.”
A moment later, without Marie so much as moving, the locks disengaged and the doors swung open.
“Is that the tsunami siren?” Mr. McAllister asked in an elevated voice as he followed Ryker and Marie inside.
“Yes.” Millicent’s voice, pitched for the chaotic outdoors, sounded like a yell as the doors closed. She brought up the vessel’s controls. “They test it at noon on the first Tuesday of the month. Being that it’s not the first Tuesday of the month, and not noon, I can only imagine they’ve realized three of their prized assets are gone.” That word tasted bitter in Millicent’s mouth. She’d created nothing more than property for the conglomerate. She was nothing more than property. Expensive property, sure, but a type of slave nonetheless. “When did it become acceptable for a company to breed their workers?”
“Welcome to independent thought, princess.” Ryker stared out the clear window at the rolling fog. “We have to get going. This party is about to get started.”
“We gave the conglomerates that power when we let them have control over the incubators,” Mr. McAllister said. “Laws kept them at bay, but when their power outstripped the government’s, they started making their own laws. Or rules as they call them. It’s boiling a frog.”
“What does a frog have to do with anything?” Millicent jabbed the screen. “It won’t take these coordinates!”
“Move over, love, let the big dog at it.”
“The old adage was that if you dropped a frog in boiling water, it would jump out.” Mr. McAllister looked out the window anxiously. “But if you put the frog in warm water and gradually turned up the heat, the frog would bear it, and bear it, and before you knew it, the water would boil and it would be dead.”
“Here we go,” Ryker said. The vessel lightly shuddered as it drifted away from the platform.
“What’d you do?” Millicent looked around his arm at the control log.
“This is a conglomerate-issued town vessel. It’s not programmed to leave city limits. Once we get to the Wall, we’ll have to work the manual override.”
“Another thing I should’ve known. It just never occurred to me . . .” Millicent stripped off her gloves, something uncomfortable settling in the pit of her stomach. “I never would’ve made it.”
Ryker’s touch on her back made her flinch before she settled, taking comfort from his firm rubbing. “We’ve got this,” he said. “What I can’t do, you can. And vice versa. We’ll make it.”
“It really was genius to pair you two up,” Mr. McAllister said, watching them. “You fit perfectly, and nature chose for Marie perfectly. I’m definitely in line for a promotion. Assuming they don’t kill me while trying to reel you two in.”
“Your profile is flagged,” Millicent said, her eyes drifting closed as fatigu
e battled her awareness. “You might have great ideas, but apparently that’s not worthy of a promotion. You’re as high now as you’ll ever go. At least in titles. So am I. So is Ryker. Unless they boil another frog.”
“No. Not boil—” Mr. McAllister rubbed his eyes. “They are taking our control little by little, and we’re letting them do it because each little infraction doesn’t affect us that much. Especially now that they basically own all of us. We’re merely worker drones with cognitive ability. And I’m flagged? But . . . I made a huge advancement.”
“Promotions aren’t about advancements, they’re about politics,” Ryker said, his hand roaming over Millicent’s shoulder. His fingers trailed across her collarbone before pulling her against his body. Tingles worked across her skin and infused in her middle before dissolving down lower. This time Clarity didn’t stop the warmth that felt like a fuzzy heater right behind her rib cage, a feeling as lovely as it was annoying, given whom it stemmed from.
Before she could shrug him off, he said, “Marie, come here.” He held out his hand for the little girl. She jumped off the seat and skittered across the scant meter separating them before crawling onto his lap and curling up against Millicent.
“Foul play,” Millicent said, settling into the hollow between his arm and his chest. The warmth surged inside her as his arm squeezed her closer.
“Just trying to boil the frog.” His deep voice rumbled low in his chest, and his heart beat against her ear.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Mr. McAllister mumbled. “I sure wish I was in that bubble . . .”
“I’m not that kinda guy, bub,” Ryker said in a growl.
The vessel shook and then stopped, jerking everyone. Ryker surged up and placed Marie next to Mr. McAllister. Outside, surrounding them, were eight striped vessels, their guns bared and pointing at Millicent’s craft.
Chapter 13
“How is that possible?” Millicent jumped up, trying to see around Ryker to the controls.
“Security will be boarding your vessel,” a voice boomed around them. “Surrender and no one will get hurt.”
