Rune Zero: A Cyberpunk Thriller (Rune Universe)

by Hugo Huesca

  “Fuck.”

  “You should have let it go, Terrance,” said John. The agent had the gall to nod sadly. “Of course we’d be watching if a dangerous hacker tried to connect again to the Internet. You could’ve started again.”

  David stood up. He realized he had only seconds of freedom left. His heart was sinking, but his veins buzzed with terror and adrenaline. “Derry, you have to listen to me, I found extra evidence on the case. I don’t think the case is over, yet.”

  He knew the agent wouldn’t listen to him. But, he had to try.

  John raised his eyebrow and took out a pair of modern handcuffs.

  Well, I tried, thought David. Screw it. It was not like his day could get any worse or like he’d get sent to jail more.

  He punched the agent square in the jaw.

  Chapter 9

  The black van was much different with David cuffed to a metal railing by the back wall. He was surrounded by half a dozen agents, including John Derry. Almost none of them looked at him. There was no need to.

  “Ugh—” complained David for the ninth time.

  “Well, you should have thought about it before trying to attack a CIA agent,” John told him.

  His jaw was red, but the agent was otherwise undamaged. David Terrance, on the other hand, had a broken hand. Perhaps a cracked rib, too, for the feel of it, like someone was constantly stabbing a tiny dagger into his ribcage. Not broken, with any luck.

  “You’re not even supposed to operate in national soil,” David told the agents. “I’m going to sue all of you, you’ll see.”

  “Internal reshuffling,” John almost laughed. “Last Act gave us permission, thanks to all the whistle-blowers running around. So, thanks for that, Terrance.”

  “Ugh.”

  The handcuffs were too tight, too. David suspected it hadn’t been on accident.

  His capture had been swift and unmerciful. Which was beginning to become a tradition with him and the CIA. The first time they found him hidden in the back of a truck, hoping to reach the Mexican frontier. That had gone as well as what happened tonight.

  “How did you find me?” asked David, trying to ignore the other five agents. The one who was calling the shots in the field was John Derry. He needed to get through to him, somehow.

  “You’re not authorized to know that.” John smiled. His lower teeth were bloody. David had managed to hit his lower lip with a knuckle, the most damage he had done to the agent. John either didn’t notice, or pretended not to. It probably explained the rib, though. “I’ll let the curiosity eat you alive, Terrance.”

  “Christ-sake…”

  This time, they took both his phone and his card. He was tired, beaten, and all he wanted to do was go to sleep.

  “Why are you eating their bullshit?” he asked the agent. “You know the case isn’t over. You know Dugall Tull had no motives to kill Vicente. Or Phillips.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? I have orders. My boss told me the evidence they found on Tull’s body was enough. I have no reason to believe he’s lying.”

  “No reason? He’s obviously lying to you, Derry! Whatever happened, he’s involved…”

  That got the attention of the other agents, who shot dirty looks at the hacker.

  “You just accused a CIA officer of corruption. That’s going to do well with your other charges.”

  The van stopped suddenly and David almost fell on his face. The handcuffs caught him, but in doing so, he strained his broken left hand.

  “Ugh!” he complained for the tenth time.

  “Quit whining. We’re here.”

  “Where’s here?” David whispered. He already feared the answer. He could read it in John’s face, who was trying his best to hide any emotion.

  “Back to jail, Terrance. You broke our agreement, so we’re putting you back under.”

  David lurched forward with all his strength, which wasn’t much, but his sudden rage surprised a bunch of the agents. Some of them even went for their guns. The aluminum fuselage held David’s tantrum like it was a baby’s caress. When the agents who had pointed their guns at a captured man caught sight of John Derry’s gaze, they quickly put them away, trying to pretend it hadn’t happened.

  Then, Derry looked at David and shrugged slightly, like saying, “sorry. I have my orders.”

  “You’ll have to kill me. I’m not going back in there.”

  John raised his eyebrow.

  The six agents brought David back to prison by carrying him out of the ground. He fought them at every step, but his legs and arms and head were each held by a different agent.

  A bunch of prison guards and executives got out of their desks as the CIA agents advanced. Some officials demanded explanations loudly, but not one of them believed David when he yelled at them that he was innocent and those were fake CIA agents trying to get rid of a political prisoner.

  So, his plan B went down the drain as fast as he came up with it. When they reached the rows and rows of floor containers with the plastic coffins inside, he thrashed even harder.

  “God. Fucking. Damn it! Derry, you’re supposed to solve the Senator’s murder!”

  “I did,” said John, quietly. A couple of prison guards stepped up on the human pile to immobilize David while the prison technicians prepared the plastic coffin. It came out of the ground with a gaseous hiss and a cloud of vapor and chemicals.

  “Fuck no! At least check my phone—” the guards and the agents carried him towards the coffin. He managed to get a leg free and pushed hard against the plastic surface, hard enough to make everyone stumble back a bit.

  “Check the video, Derry! Check!” He pushed again and an agent fell on his ass. “The! Video!” Someone grabbed a hold of his leg and pushed it away from the coffin, so he squirmed and turned like he was trying to swim in a sea of arms and enveloped his arms around Derry’s neck like an octopus.

  “Check! The! Video!”

  “For fucks’ sake, someone sedate this asshole!” someone screamed. Perhaps John, who was trying his best to clamp David’s fingers away from his jacket’s collar.

  “Fuck you!” David shot back. “You’re not sedating me! I’m not going into—!”

  The concrete ceiling of his cell was as uninteresting as ever. David blinked again, clearing his eyes.

  What the hell? He must’ve fallen asleep.

  The days were so indistinguishable from each other in there that he would do that, sometimes. Fall asleep on his feet, doze off, have some weird dreams.

  It was probably a side-effect of the PKD medication.

  David thrashed against the rough fabric of his bed’s sheets and stood up. His book had fallen out of bed while he slept. A glance at the clock outside his cell told him it was still several hours until dinner time.

  The mob boss in the cell in front of his was standing there, looking at David like he was a ghost, or an apparition. They made awkward visual contact.

  “Just had the most fucked-up dream,” David told the mobster. “I dreamt I was free.”

  “Where did you come from?” asked the mobster. His mouth was hanging open.

  “Uh? I’ve been here all along, man. Where else would I be?”

  The mob boss considered this. He was a smart man, more keen than most. Somewhere, in the plastic container that held his body in real life, a little machine injected him with an extra dose of psychotropic. “I guess you’re right. Sorry, Terrance. Brain fart or something.”

  “No problemo, amigo,” said David. You wanted to be on good terms with the other inmates. No one had ever gotten shanked in his time in jail, but he sure as hell didn’t want to be the first.

  He sat on the floor —sitting at his bed was tiresome after a while— and opened his book. By now, he knew UBIK’s plot inside and out, but it was better than lying there and staring at the ceiling.

  I wonder what will be on TV at dinner. Last time the guards had let them watch some old movie reruns. He’d kill an orphan for the entertainm
ent of an old movie rerun.

  His cell was so boring…

  “I know you hate being told ‘I told you so,’” said the woman with the raven-black hair, “so that makes it even better. I told you so, David. I told you so, I told you so, I told you so.”

  She was sitting on the feet of his bed, like she owned the place. He glanced at her disdainfully.

  “Sorry, lady, but I’m trying to read.”

  She rolled her eyes, but when she realized David was ignoring her mockery, she got annoyed. She laid on the bed, her head playfully upside down, only a few centimeters away from his. Her black hair fell on David’s shoulders like a curtain.

  Her perfume made him feel a wave of nostalgia. And another thing, which he couldn’t describe. But, it felt like meeting your first love after fifty years apart and embracing them, only to have them stab you in the back with an ice-pick and then set your struggling body on fire.

  Yup. Felt like that. It annoyed him to no end.

  “Excuse me?” he grunted, finally looking in her direction. Making eye contact with those deep eyes was like fireworks. “Do you mind? I’m in the middle of something, here.”

  “Yeah. You sure are. I thought you weren’t supposed to speak to me? That it was your I’m too crazy cutout? You’re just giving up, now? You’re David Terrance, the hacker who went insane? One hell of a title.”

  David sighed. He noted the page he was on and closed the book. “What I am,” he said, looking straight at those mesmerizing eyes, “is tired of your bullshit. What the hell else do you want me to do? I’m trapped in a virtual world, jacked up to my neck in LSD or whatever the hell they drug us with. Spoilers, love, but this story ended before it began. I tried to be a hero and you see where it got us.”

  Her small, almost child-like hand caressed his cheek. “Oh, poor David. You think I haven’t read this story already? I know how it ends. I memorized it. And, I’m not done with you. No giving up now, no. Hold it together. You’re going to do this, once more, like you’ve done before. And will do again.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” David told her. Her hand felt nice on his skin. It reminded him of Leonor.

  “I’m a hallucination, I don’t have to make any sense.”

  “You could at least help if you want me out so much,” he said. “I can’t free myself.”

  She smiled at him. “So, you’re not giving up, after all?”

  “You’re just too pretty to give up.”

  “That’s what I like to hear, love.” David didn’t realize this, but the virtual world around him had been flickering like a light-bulb about to go off. Then, he steeled himself, and got up, holding Leonor’s hand in his.

  “Fine, then. Once more. Any suggestions are welcome. I’m drugged like a cat inside a catnip sweater, I’m in prison, and I’m inside a coffin with machines holding down my body. What’s the plan?”

  The world stabilized. The flickering stopped. Leonor saw this happen behind David’s back and smiled to herself.

  “Love, you already helped yourself. Remember Orville’s laptop? How you connected it to John Derry’s phone, back in the mountain? Orville had the laptop bugged, obviously. You know hackers don’t go around just blindly trusting police… So, he has been accessing Derry’s own connections for several hours now, and has found out all about your little misstep. Ten minutes ago, K-Sec held a round table to see if they should lend you a hand. Jean voted yes, so did Orville. Rufus and the fat guy opposed, because they don’t want to go to jail.”

  “They’re tied,” said David.

  “Jean and Orville will get Rufus on their team in a bit, you’ll see.”

  David’s head was splitting in two. Why was he in such pain?

  “Hang in there, love. I don’t want to see you crumble after all this time.”

  “You don’t? But you… you didn’t even want to see me. You—” he was going to say something, but before he could, he blinked and forgot the words. Instead, he said “—you testified against me in court. You hate me.”

  “You can hate someone and still love them, David. You never were that good at reading people, were you?” She laughed. “Wanna know what the best part is?”

  “I guess you’re going to tell me anyway.”

  “The best part is, you didn’t ask me the right question, right here in this cell, when it was your chance.”

  “What are you talking about? Don’t play with me, girl. I’m trying to solve a murder and break out of jail.”

  “Here’s the right question. If I’m only a hallucination of your subconscious, then how the hell did I know that K-Sec was coming to get you?”

  David’s heart skipped a beat. Leonor’s image smiled at him with a look of half hate, half madness, and half something hard to explain. Then, she was not in front of him anymore.

  One second later, his cell doors tore themselves apart like they were pushed by an ant-sized Samson. They made no noise, presented no resistance, just bent like they were made of cardboard.

  An anime drawing appeared, floating in the middle of the broken down cells. It was only two-dimensional, and David could see the crude pixels falling out of its artificial feet and dissipating into the ground.

  “Hey, dude!” the anime character speaks without moving its mouth. “I’m Orville! Remember me? You’re going to find this hard to believe, but you’re in a simulation right now!”

  I think that’s not actually true, David thought, thinking of Leonor. I think there’s something very wrong with me.

  “Don’t worry, I’m here to save you,” Orville’s avatar continued. “Remember that the next time you’re all braggy about your skills, okay? I’m the very best and all that—auch! (Fine, Jean, I’ll focus… damn) Whatever. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Orville, I’m drugged so fucking much right now,” explained David. He was suddenly back to normal, or as normal as one can be inside the VR environment. Perhaps he was between doses. “So, I’m not going to be very helpful in my own rescue.”

  “I know about the drugs, we’re already shutting them down. Rufus is on it.” The anime avatar paused and then added, with a cheerful voice that clashed with its devil-may-care appearance:

  “Great! No more drugs for you. Or bad, if you’re into that. Whatever. I’m cutting off the VR feed and shutting down your capsule. It’s going to look like crap in about ten seconds, so please, try very hard not to scream. Also, we won’t be able to talk when you’re out, so… Try and get anything with WiFi or something. I’ll give you a hand with the guards. Still, be careful.”

  The anime avatar vanished from sight without as much as a ping! David scratched his head, looked around his empty cell, and then everything around him cracked like reality itself had been fragged by the most messed-up grenade in existence. Then, all was dark. He had a VR visor on his face. Everything smelled like hospital and sewage.

  One moment, all was normal in his cell, next, he was buried alive. There were too many tubes connected to his body, too many machines holding his extremities and too many drugs coursing through his veins. On top of all, the coffin was perfectly dark.

  David closed his eyes —not that it helped him much— and tried his best not to scream.

  After what seemed like an eternity to him, but couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, a faint ray of light came into the coffin. It hurt his eyes, but it was also very welcome. The coffin’s machinery hissed and the metallic arms holding him still relaxed their grip. The coffin raised itself out of the floor with a pneumatic screech and a cloud of vapor.

  The coffin’s doors parted and David Terrance fell unceremoniously onto the floor. He was naked and covered in tubes. He tore them away with frantic movements.

  He was the only living being outside of those coffins in the floor. The rows were empty, watched only by a bunch of security cameras installed on the walls. If Orville and K-Sec had made good on their word and shut those down, then David would be perfectly safe for the time being.


  Which was just perfect, since he needed to do something first, before being on his way.

  He rolled on the floor in a fetal position, whispering weakly:

  “Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. Son of a—” over and over.

  Whatever mix of narcotics they injected him with was still running strong through his veins. David’s mind had an unusual resistance to those kind of substances though, since had grown used to his own hallucinations.

  But every mind has its limits and he felt he was nearing his.

  So, he whimpered weakly on the floor, covered in the nutrient-paste that oozed out of the feeding tube. His left hand still pulsed painfully, which meant it was still broken. How long had he been inside the cell? He had no way to see which day it was. Judging by the pain of his hand, and the bloating… less than a week?

  He refused to move until his legs stopped shaking. When his legs stopped shaking, he refused to move until his chest stopped convulsing. When his chest stopped convulsing, he—

  “You don’t have all day, you know,” Leonor stepped on his field of view. “Sooner or later the guards are going to realize K-Sec put the camera feeds on a loop.” She made sure to step far away from the nutrient-paste.

  “I don’t want to,” whispered David. He was secretly glad his favorite hallucination was back. It meant the drugs were wearing off.

  “Tough luck, we all do things we don’t want to. Get up, you look pretty pathetic right now.”

  “I think I get a pass, considering the circumstances.” But he stood up. He still had his dignity. Or its molten remains.

  “Not from me, love. There’s a locker-room for guards all the way down that corridor. There’s only one guy nearby and its near the end of his shift, you should be able to evade him with no trouble.”

  “And afterward?”

  “Beats me, I’m just your subconscious. Figure it out on your own, cowboy.”