The Sapphire Shadow

by James Wake

  She smiled, letting her gaze linger a moment too long again. “Daylight.”

  The glass panels went clear. Normally she would squint and blink and maybe shield her face on her worse days, but today her eyes shot open wide.

  Cheshire stared back at her, his face taking up the entire side of the building across the street. The creature flickered in and out, replaced every half second with blocks of text, photos, charts, and graphs—all of it streaming by too quickly to process.

  It stopped abruptly, a red Auktoris “A” appearing before bleeding to nothing before her eyes.

  THEIR SECRETS ARE NEVER SAFE

  A pair of glowing blue eyes appeared. Her glowing blue eyes.

  FROM THE SAPPHIRE SHADOW

  Every nerve in her rejoiced, all breath gasped out as she sank into her new name. Her true name, meant to be. It didn’t last long, joy turning more bitter with every moment as she realized the implications of her grand debut.

  “That…that precocious little…” she said, stomping her foot. “Everyone will think we‘re working together!”

  The loop began anew, right back to Cheshire’s face and flickering documents. Every tower in either direction showed the same thing, with no sign of slowing down.

  “Yeah, it started this morning,” Tess said.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  Tess sat up in her chair with a curious little tilt to her head. “What for?”

  “What’s he doing?” Nadia said to the window. “What does he…”

  “They,” Tess said, her little tilt now a curious glare.

  “It’s all your files,” Nadia said, finally turning away from the window.

  “Whoa. My files? I’m just a fence. If anything, they’re our files.”

  “And you weren’t suspicious of someone snapping them all up so eagerly?”

  “Hang on,” Tess said, completely extinguishing the light in her pupils. “First of all, I’ve been selling to dozens of anonymous buyers. Emphasis on anonymous. Additional emphasis on dozens.”

  “You expect me to believe you have no idea who any of them were?”

  “I don’t go out of my way to dox customers. Bad for business.”

  “What is all that?” Nadia said, pointing outside. “And why is it being aired in public?”

  Tess let out a loud sigh. She waved her prosthetic hand, lighting up the six screens on her desk with dozens of small feeds—everything from major network news to people casting alone from darkened bedrooms.

  Headlines jumped out at Nadia.

  PANIC AS CITY IS ASSAULTED BY TERRORIST HACKERS

  CHESHIRE’S INFO DUMP: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

  HOAX OR HOLOCAUST?

  “The what is pretty clear by now,” Tess said, throwing up still frames of documents on the screen. “It’s not that long of a list. It’s just repeating very quickly. And the why…I mean, it’ll make sense as soon as you see.”

  “Enlighten me then.”

  “Here. I’ll send the docs to your glasses.”

  Nadia didn’t move; she merely crossed her arms at Tess.

  “What?” Tess said. “Seriously? You want me to read them to you?”

  It shouldn’t have even been a question; Nadia made that clear with her eyes.

  Tess sighed loudly again. “Fine.”

  * * *

  She’d never seen the department so busy.

  Jackson shouldered through the crowd of officers. Dispatch had been buzzing in her ears nonstop the moment this mess had started. She hadn’t bothered going home. Her shift was over, but odds were she would have been called in anyway.

  “Did you see the bit about us yet?” Ortega said, trailing after her.

  A pair of officers dodged past her, sprinting for the door, one still putting his vest on, the other struggling to secure his helmet with half a bagel hanging out of his mouth. Day shift normally would be getting to a groggy, slow start right now, with everyone gathered in the ready room for a daily briefing.

  “Have you read any of it?” Ortega said.

  “No,” she said. “Jackson here. Location on shift CO?” she said into the air.

  Nothing but garbled cross traffic in her comms implant.

  “What are you doing?” Ortega grabbed her shoulder. “You know we’re in for overtime. Take a breath for a minute.”

  “I need a post,” Jackson said, shrugging his hand away. “A lead. Something. I can’t just sit here.”

  “Read it!” Ortega said, pointing to the screens in the break room.

  “Officer Mom!” A short woman jogged up to them, petite but solid with muscle. She was still in her PT uniform, a dark-blue tank top showing off her shoulder tattoo, which read, “B Team is for Best Team.” On the other arm was an ugly patch of scars where a laser had removed her old unit’s insignia.

  “Wedge!” Jackson said, smiling for the first time today. “What’s the story?”

  “No time! Suiting up!” she said, running right past them. “I’m not working for Auktoris! Fuck that!”

  As Jackson watched her disappear into the mess of her department headquarters, she felt a big, calm hand on her shoulder. She smiled again and gave it a quick tap.

  “Looking for day-shift lead?” Vicks said, also still in PT clothes. He looked good sweaty, his soft boyish face hardened by a bit of stubble.

  “Yeah. Where is he?”

  “Been on the phone since this thing started. Probably talking to management.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sorry. Gotta suit up. We’re on ready standby,” he said, following his teammate. “You haven’t read it yet?”

  “I was just saying that!” Ortega said.

  “We should talk later, Jackson!” Vicks called over his shoulder as he ran off.

  The day-shift lead, stuck on the phone, at a time like this. Leadership at its finest. Jackson craned her head back and forth, looking for someone, anyone, with any idea what was going on.

  Ortega shook his head. “Obstinado.” His fingers typed in the air before he swept his hand toward her goggles.

  Images appeared in her HUD. Not live feeds, just summaries, quick shots of documents and headlines with fragments of articles.

  Jackson froze. Her mouth creaked open as she read. She was angry not at the idea of it actually happening, because that would be ridiculous; this was an obvious hoax. She was angry at the audacity that someone would suggest it, knowing people would buy into it.

  “Yeah, I can already see you saying it’s not true,” Ortega said. “But it’s been confirmed.”

  “What?” Jackson, very much awake now. “By who?”

  “Management. This time next year, there won’t be a city police department.”

  A bit of text caught her eye. Current police officers would be offered positions with Auktoris Private Security, it said, and their “overblown salaries” would be adjusted to “market rates.”

  “But…what…” Jackson started, not used to being at a loss for words. “How?”

  Ortega laughed and shook his head. “Girl, you haven’t even gotten to the part about the city drowning yet.”

  “What?”

  An alarm rang out in her ears, and judging by the startled jumps of everyone around her, they were hearing the same broadcast.

  “All units. All available units, respond immediately.”

  * * *

  Whoever Cheshire was, all they had done was connect the dots. Nadia had, inadvertently, provided said dots. It was simple enough to put them together once they were all in one place.

  A wide range of internal correspondence from Auktoris Global Funds was being displayed on every public surface available. Although the documents and charts touched upon a variety of frankly disturbing subjects, the bulk of it was concerned with one repeating theme.

  The city, at least in its present form, was
doomed.

  “Management,” one of the directives read, “has determined to see this as an opportunity. We have been tasked with leveraging this opportunity.”

  The seawalls were aging, the sea itself still rising—all of it laid out in studies the public eye had never seen. Every wet season was bringing higher and fiercer storms, with much higher and fiercer storms to come. There was no longer profit in prolonging the inevitable.

  Snippets of cost forecasts were included, showing what it would take to save the city. The response was signed by Evelyn Ashpool herself. Funds had to be preserved for “more important projects.”

  A smaller area could be saved quite easily. Downtown would become an island, safely cut off from the endless inland slums. “Superfluous assets” would be gone. It didn’t matter, really; the workforce was increasingly automated anyway.

  Patience. No drastic action necessary. Nature would take its course. There was some minutiae afterward about how large an area of downtown was economical to save. The Structure and a generous circle around it would be safe, of course, and street levels would be raised all over again. No mention of what would become of the people living outside this area, no mention of what would become of buildings such as the one Nadia was currently standing in.

  Nadia listened, still and silent long after Tess had finished reading, watching the snippets of documents flow past on the screen.

  “So that’s all?”

  “Uh…what?” Tess said, popping up out of her chair. “What do you mean, ‘that’s all’?”

  Nadia shrugged. “Not exactly shocking news.”

  Tess blinked, her jaw open as she threw her hands at the screens. “They’re going to let the city flood!”

  “It was bound to happen sometime, wasn’t it?”

  “But…you…what?”

  Nadia pinched the bridge of her nose. All this buildup for nothing. “I thought this eventuality was fairly common knowledge. It’s not going to happen for years, Tess.”

  “I think most people assume the idiots in charge would, you know, try to do something to stop it!” Tess said. “If I were out in the streets, I’d be rioting right now!”

  “Good luck with that.” Nadia glanced out the window at the conspicuous lack of rioters.

  “Don’t you care even a little bit?” Tess said, her voice suddenly strangely calm and sad.

  “Do you? I thought you were just a fence.”

  “And I thought you’d changed.”

  That hurt. Nadia was shocked by how much. Her mind flashed back to a few nights earlier, when she’d failed a dodge and taken one of Brutus’s fists to the gut, the force lifting her off the floor.

  “What? Nothing to say to that?” Tess said, eyes lit up without the aid of implants. “No witty comeback? No little joke about how caring isn’t in style, dear?”

  “There’s nothing I can do,” Nadia said, turning away. Her reflection glared back at her, blurry and small and foolish. No glowing blue eyes, nothing but a silly spoiled girl with Cheshire leering back at her through the glass. “There’s nothing to be done.”

  “That’s not true. And I refuse to believe you really think that.” She pointed outside. “I mean, this wouldn’t have happened without you, right?”

  Nadia allowed her eyes to roam back up to the cat. Cheshire was trying; she would admit that much. He certainly seemed to have plans far more grand than Nadia’s.

  A noble cause. But a lost cause. Nothing but a hopeless fight.

  Cheshire.

  She heard it. Actually heard it, not in her head but from Tess’s desk; the monitors were still playing news feeds. She snapped her eyes to the screens. ”Breaking News” flashed across several of them.

  “Turn those up!” she said, pushing past Tess for a closer look.

  “Auktoris security forces are reporting they’ve determined the source of the attacks that began this morning,” one talking head said.

  “City police and Auktoris Private Security have surrounded a skyscraper at the edge of downtown,” another reporter said, stepping aside to show off the tower behind her, “believed to be the hideout of the elusive cyberterrorist known as Cheshire.” Across the street stood the building’s half-finished twin, surrounded by massive cranes looming on either side.

  “‘Cheshire stuck in a tree,’ trending on social media now. Let’s go to promoted user responses!”

  “Whoa,” Tess said, hovering right behind Nadia. “How do they know it’s him? Them? I smell bullshit. This is just a show. APS doesn’t know where it’s coming from.”

  “Don’t tell me you think this is some false-flag nonsense?”

  “Ugh, no, maybe, I mean…” Tess groaned. “Eww, I hate that I’m even thinking this. Conspiracy theories are the new opiate of the masses. But for real, how am I supposed to believe this crap? It’s not Cheshire. There’s no way.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  This seemed to annoy Tess. “Because there is no one Cheshire! They probably have some idiot copycat kid trapped in there. Excuse the pun.”

  Nadia stared at the skyscraper on the screens, indeed surrounded by flashing lights and security cordons.

  “I’d like to go out tonight,” she said.

  “Ha, well, I mean, yeah, it looks like every Dome in the city is gonna be distracted out there. Not a half-bad idea.”

  Nadia gave her an exasperated look, letting it hang and linger before nodding toward the screen.

  “What?” Tess said. “Hold on. You couldn’t give two dainty rose-scented shits about the city being destroyed, but you want to go there?”

  Nadia nodded again.

  “You want to dress up and go to a building surrounded by security, for…?”

  “I’d like to meet this Cheshire character. In person.”

  “What? You’ve met them not in person?”

  Nadia said nothing.

  Tess shook her head. “That’s seriously bonkers. I’m not helping you.”

  Nadia continued to say nothing, in a much different tone now.

  “I just stripped down all your gear!” Tess said. “You know I spend days cleaning and checking all the equipment after you come back, right?”

  “You know I’m going, whether or not you help me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to watch you watch them drag Cheshire off in cuffs,” Nadia said, tossing another nod toward the screens.

  Tess gave her a long look, gears whirring behind the lights flickering in her eyes. She seemed strangely pleased, for a moment, before she remembered to cover it over with disgust.

  “Okay, fuck it,” she said, face screwed up in thought. “We’re gonna have to get you changed quick then.”

  * * *

  “This is dispatch. Resync your comms unit,” Tess said.

  Her screens played the words back for her, slightly distorted with the pitch severely lowered. Tess’s fingers typed furiously, hunched close over her desk, her whole body scrunched up in concentration.

  “This is dispatch. Resync your comms unit,” she repeated.

  It played back again—no distortion this time. But it wasn’t Tess’s voice. Not quite human yet.

  “This is dispatch…”

  It played back…still somewhat off.

  “Ugh, this thing,” she said, lifting a spray can and shaking it. She opened her mouth wide and spritzed the back of her own throat, choking and gagging and making a most-unladylike ack. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse and gravelly.

  “This is dispatch. Resync your comms unit.”

  It played back in what could very well pass for an older man’s voice.

  “What are you doing?” Nadia said.

  “Gotta go old school sometimes,” Tess said, typing some more. “Dispatch?”

  “Dispatch?”

  Perfect. It sounded perfectly generic, definit
ely a man in his forties or fifties. Nadia’s ears told her he was white, with a paunch and big bushy eyebrows. She reminded her ears that this was ridiculous and it was only Tess being ridiculous.

  “Can you help me, please?” Nadia said.

  “Well, sure thing, darling,” Tess drawled, her screens playing it back in the man’s voice. “What’s a sweet girl like you need help with?”

  “Stop that.”

  Tess flicked her fingers. “Test it again?” she said, with no echo this time.

  Nadia tried to move her arm. Nothing.

  “Ugh, great.” Tess continued to type.

  “While I appreciate your thorough devotion to our tools—”

  “How was I supposed to know you were going out tonight? I always strip all of it down for a check—”

  “After I get back, yes. You said that.” Her arms hung limp, wrapped in black muscle fiber sleeves traced with exposed cables over the top. Thrown back together at the last minute. “We really need to—I don’t know—consolidate all these pieces somehow.”

  “Integration?” Tess said, perking up a bit. “Something more ergonomic?”

  “Something like that.”

  Nadia felt it the moment the sleeves activated, like hair standing on end. She lifted her arms, flexing them to feel the new strength lying in wait.

  “Much better,” she said with a wicked smile.

  “Comms check?”

  She wasn’t wearing the mask or goggles yet, but her earpieces carried the sound clearly.

  “Loud and clear,” she said.

  “Good. I have a new prototype I’ve been meaning to give you.” Tess disappeared under one of her benches and dug into a bin.

  “For me? How gracious of you,” Nadia said, forcing it in search of comfort. What she felt in her chest was more like nervousness than what she’d felt during the last few jobs.

  When Tess stood up, she was holding a thick black vest.

  “That doesn’t look like one of yours,” Nadia said.

  “I bought some a while back. Haven’t gotten around to integrating them yet. Silk layers over scaled plating, with reactive liquid nanotubes. Guaranteed to stop most common calibers.”