The Sapphire Shadow

by James Wake

  Surrounded by police cars and Auktoris security vans—by trained professionals doing the law enforcement equivalent of shuffling around, sheepishly looking at their shoes—Jackson stared up at the tower. The leap looked ludicrous from here, miles out to the crane.

  Vicks joined her at the APS car where she’d been briefly detained. His poor baby face was soaked in blood from the nose down, eyes black and swollen. They gave each other a once-over, a glance up and down. Checking for wounds.

  “You okay?” she said.

  “Yup, fine.” He nodded. “You?”

  She nodded back. No injuries to speak of, only her pride. Her holster was empty, her mother’s gun missing. Stolen. That one hurt. That one would not be fine.

  Vicks sent a careful glance out over their coworkers, making sure nobody was listening. Always good to see his face, no mask or helmet for once. His short, coppery hair was matted and spiked in strange places. Helmet hair. Combat bedhead. Jackson had the sudden urge to pull him down to her, run her hands through it and nuzzle against him.

  She held back. For now. “What is it?”

  “Overheard a few things on my walk over,” he said, still scanning a wary look around them. “Distributed botnet. Self-propagating.”

  “Am I supposed to know what the hell that means?”

  “It means Cheshire probably didn’t even know he was using computers in that building as part of the attack.” He finally looked at her again, eyes shining bright through the puffy bruises all around them. Sky blue, supposedly, but not like any sky she’d ever seen. “APS caught the spike in network traffic coming from a supposedly empty building and figured…I mean, they figured wrong. But not a bad guess, considering.”

  One by one, the lights on the sides of buildings around her flickered out, Cheshire gone and replaced by quiet, blissful darkness. It didn’t last long, the panels lighting back up with garbled text, timers clicking over as every ad display in the city reverted to base state: endless rows of clocks.

  Of course. Hard reset. Declare victory.

  She rested her head in her hands, feeling that crash coming. Waiting for that voice to wake up in her ears, to taunt her and chide her and offer that goddamned help Cheshire was so insistent about.

  Nothing. Not that it mattered. Cheshire didn’t have her gun. Her mother’s gun. Jackson’s hands tightened on her head, fingers tensed until the tears threatening to spill out were from pain instead of loss.

  “Hey.” A big, soft hand rested on her shoulder. “You’ll get her. We’ll get her.”

  She almost told Vicks to back off, keep it professional, tone it down in front of their coworkers. But why, really? They were all losing their jobs anyway.

  “There you are!” Ortega walked up to join them. “Did you see that craziness, Jackson? What happened with the—”

  “Where were you?”

  Ortega blinked a few times as he pointed to the tower. “I was…You were up there too, what are you—”

  “You were right behind me,” Jackson said. “Until you weren’t.”

  “I couldn’t keep up! Thought I saw something, was checking a side hall.”

  Incompetence. Or something worse maybe. Whatever it was, she honestly didn't care right now. “Some kind of backup you are.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to go up there.”

  Vicks stepped between them. “You should go.”

  Jackson didn’t hear anything else from Ortega, only the sound of his boots slinking away. Served him right. A partner needed to be someone you could trust. With your life, if it came to that.

  The man still in front of her, for example. Jackson took one of his hands and gave it a firm squeeze. “Look at you, all chivalrous,” she said. “What? You gonna keep me safe from that coward?”

  “I was keeping him safe.”

  That got a wry snort out of her. It didn’t hurt that she could always count on him to make her laugh, even at a time like this.

  * * *

  The pain-killers were starting to wear off. Dim light poured in through the glass wall behind them, the ever-present nighttime glow of the city.

  Nadia lay in bed, staring at the hideous bruises all over her ribs, even across her underwhelming breasts. She saw a troubling concentration of darker purple where her vest had stopped a bullet. Everything hurt.

  “You okay?” Tess said, lying on her back and gazing vacantly at the ceiling.

  It was the first thing either of them had said in some time. Nadia stared at the ceiling too, wondering what to begin to say.

  She eventually settled on nothing. Her still-mobile hand snuck over to Tess, carefully and hesitantly, before resting on that still lovely prosthetic.

  “That…thing you did with your hand,” Nadia said, all innocent curiosity. “Is that a built-in function?”

  “Sort of?” She could tell Tess was blushing. “More like a side effect.”

  “I’m surprised every woman in the city doesn’t have one.”

  “Hey, you know what they say,” Tess said, “Once you go prosthetic, that’s your aesthetic.”

  Nadia groaned. She couldn’t stop touching Tess’s arm, though.

  “Can I ask you something?” Tess said.

  She tensed up, felt any number of excuses and redirects present themselves, hating every second of it. Instead she managed to nod.

  “What happened to you?”

  “What do you mean?” She said, stalling.

  “Well, we go our separate ways to college, and I don’t see you for years, and then when I do, you’re…uh…”

  Nadia’s hand clung to Tess’s arm, desperately. “What are these?” she said, running her fingers over notches cut into the fibers on the top of her forearm.

  “You’re changing the subject. Don’t think I don’t notice when you always do that.”

  “I know,” Nadia said. “I’m sorry.”

  Silence grew between them, long seconds of cold space. Tess sighed. “It’s okay. Not yet, I know.” She rolled over and propped herself up a bit, showing off her forearm. “These are…I mean, it’s kind of stupid, but…”

  Nadia poked a large cut near Tess’s elbow, the spot where a smoking chunk of experimental composite had landed. “I know where that one came from.”

  “Yeah that was stupid too.” Tess ran her other hand down a row of evenly spaced notches farther down her forearm. “These are, uh…I used to cut myself. When I had the original. Same place.”

  Nadia pulled her hand away, apologizing over and over in her head. She carefully, subtly pulled the sheets up over her hips, concealing the neat rows of scars usually hidden by her underwear.

  “Like I said, it’s…stupid,” Tess said.

  “No! No, Tess, it’s…” Nadia scrambled to touch that arm again, anything to say with all her heart that Tess—or whatever she did—was anything but stupid.

  “It’s okay. I don’t wanna, like, push you or anything. Whatever happened, I’m glad it did.”

  Nadia frowned, unable to help herself. She wanted very much to scoot over closer, to curl up next to Tess’s warmth and hide her face and possibly but not certainly cry.

  She settled on caressing that prosthetic arm instead.

  “Even if it did almost get you killed tonight,” Tess said with a cheeky grin.

  Nadia returned it. “Good thing I have you to catch me.”

  “I was thinking maybe we should tone it down after this?”

  “Agreed. Tonight was way too close.”

  Another long silence. Much different this time. Pondering. Gears turning together.

  “A shame, though,” Nadia said. “The armor vest wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”

  “Right? It only feels heavy for a few minutes. I think I could easily integrate the materials into your clothes.”

  “And I’ve had some wonderful ideas for the electrical
countermeasures,” Nadia said, “They’re a bit awkward to use as currently configured.”

  Tess smiled. “I knew you were gonna complain about that! I’ve already drawn up some proposals.”

  “Ooh,” Nadia purred, forcing herself to turn on her side, awkwardly moving her broken right arm. “Details, please.”

  “Lemme grab you some glasses.”

  “Absolutely not.” Nadia’s eyes were pleasantly heavy. “I want to listen to you until I fall asleep.”

  “Uh…okay?” Tess said, her pupils glazing over. “So obviously the current design was meant to be purely reactive, but you’re being a bit more, uh, let’s say, aggressive with them. So the real challenge will be getting the contacts to fit in around the nanohook pads…”

  Nadia’s eyes drifted shut. A deep breath stabbed her ribs, but not enough to keep her from sinking, smiling, into sleep.

  Part Two: Apotheosis

  Chapter Twelve: Grown Into Shadow

  ONE YEAR LATER

  “Comms check?”

  “Check,” Nadia said. She still thought this part was pointless. They had been chatting the whole way here, all the way up to this rooftop. But the list was the list.

  “HUD?”

  Nadia pouted and crossed her arms impatiently, reading off the graphics in her vision. “Current time is twenty-hundred hours and three minutes, I am facing approximately north, my heart rate is…oh my.”

  “What? What is it?” Tess said, full of concern.

  “My heart,” Nadia said, clutching her chest. “Slowing…down. I think…I shall die…of boredom.”

  “Ha ha. Movement range?”

  Nadia sank into a languid stretch, one leg straight behind her. She raised her arms and rolled her neck, feeling every synthetic fiber encasing her body—full of strength, waiting to pounce. This latest suit felt even better than expected; almost entirely seamless, save for a single imperceptible join that ran up the length of her spine.

  Delightful. She stood up and raised one leg over her head, slow and controlled, imitating the dancers she’d watched with envy so many times at La Garrud. Effortlessly her hands reached her toes; even her fingers were now encased in woven strands of artificial muscle.

  All of it was covered with a layer of smooth black material, a sleek catsuit fused out of what used to be split up into so many devices.

  “I take it that’s a check?”

  “You tell me,” Nadia said, bending her knees before making a slow turn, ending with her other leg high in the air. She could even go en pointe now, balanced on the tip of her left slipper, the muscles of her suit holding her steady.

  “Show-off,” Tess said. “Vision?”

  The dark rooftop cycled through various modes in quick succession—amplified, thermal, high and low contrast, various zoom levels, even a new mode that looked like ever-shifting whorls of color…a visualization of nearby wireless signals.

  “Looks good,” Tess said, her voice muffled by a quiet grunt as Nadia finally lost her balance. “Countermeasures?”

  Nadia stood up straight, arms out to her sides as nestled spikes snapped out from her wrists, then her ankles. They clicked back into place as she clapped her hands; she smiled at the tingling jolt when the strips along her fingers came alive with voltage.

  “Ugh, still flickering. I thought I had it this time,” Tess said.

  The light from Nadia’s goggles ebbed and waned around her, teasing out a hidden grin behind her mask. She wiped her palms together, her heart picking up with the sharp crackling as sparks jumped from her gloves. The skin of her suit absorbed it easily, allowing her to feel nothing but that lovely tingle in her fingers.

  “More showing off,” Tess said. “Those batteries aren’t infinite, you know.”

  It had been a long while since Nadia had come close to draining them—the flat strips of energy concealed along her back and sides. She didn’t even feel the weight anymore.

  “Nanohooks?” Tess said, sounding bored.

  Nadia stepped up to the edge of the roof and wiggled her big toes, still separate from the rest of her toes. Without so much as a glance down, she stepped off into open air, chin held high and eyes squeezed shut.

  She turned as she dropped and placed her hands on the smooth concrete wall below. Her descent stopped, snapping her feet to the wall, stuck and secure.

  “The word test implies a safe and controlled environment,” Tess said.

  “We’ve tested them a thousand times,” Nadia said, unsticking one hand and twisting at the hips, stretching and looking down across the street. “Are you saying I shouldn’t trust these things with my life?”

  Tightness in her hip, left over from a particularly satisfying takedown she’d pulled on Brutus. She strained against it, one arm hanging out into open, windy space. Stories below her, a crowd waited, accompanied by news drones and walls lit up with scrolling graphics.

  “I’m saying you’ll have plenty of chances to get yourself killed down there.”

  Nadia glanced down, for a mere split second, at the street far below. She only slightly had to force herself.

  No, that wouldn’t do. She closed her eyes, pointing them down before opening them again. There. A street far, far below. Yes, it was a long fall, one that would kill her. Yes, it was terrifying.

  “You okay?” Tess said.

  “Fine.” Nadia tore her eyes back to her target. The crowd was ringed with faceless guards in black, sprinkled with a few blue police officers. “Quite the security presence.”

  “That tends to happen when you publicly announce your intentions,” Tess said.

  “I did no such thing.”

  “Right, right, sorry,” Tess said, sounding very far from the word. “So why are we crashing someone else’s party again?”

  “Hush, you. I didn’t hear you complaining about gaining access to—"

  “Oh, hey,” Tess cut her off. “Fan alert.”

  Nadia was hanging next to a window, a plain rectangle of glass flush with the wall. Inside, a man and woman sat at dinner, their mouths hanging open and chopsticks in the air as they gaped at her.

  She blinked at them. “A bit late for supper, isn’t it?”

  Of course they couldn’t hear her. The man cautiously raised a hand to wave at her.

  “Aww,” Tess said. “No autographs tonight, big guy.”

  Nadia smiled for them, although it was a shame they couldn’t see it. What they could see was her finger as she raised it to her lips and narrowed her eyes at them.

  Shh.

  She finished with a coy wink visible on her goggles before dropping out of their view.

  * * *

  “I’m standing here, in front of throngs of people, mere minutes before the opening ceremonies of the annual Auktoris Consumer Technology Exposition,” the reporter said, staring into the small drone hovering in front of her.

  Jackson heaved a sigh. At least she was still in uniform. Not for much longer, though, she reminded herself. Another sigh. Focus. One hand rested on the pistol at her hip, not her mother’s trusty revolver but a regulation nine-millimeter. It was a cheap thing, old and hardly worth carrying. She had more faith in the stun gun on her left hip.

  Her eyes scanned the crowd on their own: a long bunched-up line corralled between signs with a murmuring mob gathered all around it. Auktoris lackeys milled around and through them, office drones in red polos interviewing customers, flanked always by faceless black-clad Domes.

  “Squad check-in?” a voice in her ear said.

  Her goggles showed her names and locations as each remaining member of the city police sounded off. It didn’t take long—they numbered only about a dozen at this point.

  “Clear,” said Ortega, who was posted on the other side of the line.

  “Fucking clear,” Wedge said a few members later.

  “All clear,” Jackson said, doing a slow
turn and seeing nothing but good little consumers.

  “Auktoris Security Detail four-one-nine alpha to all police personnel on site,” another voice said, an irritated and harsh woman’s voice. “Continue to hold posts and await orders.”

  Jackson snorted. A nearby Dome saw her do it and nodded, throwing her a shrug that made his blank-faced helmet seem all the more silly.

  The reporter moved to Jackson’s side and waved her drone over. “Ma’am, would you like to comment on the proceedings tonight?”

  “Uh…” Jackson stiffened up, snapping her hand away from her holster. She had strict instructions from a woman in a white AGF suit to say, “No comment” and not do anything clip-worthy.

  “It’s surprising to see the city police still on duty,” the reporter said, all innocent.

  No comment. All she had to say was “No comment” and turn away.

  “We’re happy to assist,” Jackson said instead. “Volunteers were asked for, considering the public threats that have been made on the event.”

  Volunteers. Jackson somehow had managed not to grimace as she said it. More like blackmailed into it, her severance package held hostage.

  “Given those threats, are you expecting an appearance of the Sapphire Shadow?”

  “I hope so,” Jackson said without thinking.

  “Excuse me?”

  Damn. No comment, Jackson heard in her head, over and over.

  Clearly overjoyed, the reporter glanced at her drone. “Would you care to elaborate on that, Officer?”

  No comment, no comment, no comment.

  The reporter pressed her again, but Jackson wasn’t even listening. There was no point really. The young woman’s badge, hanging on a lanyard around her neck, read, “Citizens’ Investigative Consortium.” It sounded nice, but Jackson knew it was a subdivision of MediaLite, a news conglomerate owned, of course, by Auktoris Global Funds.