by Ron Collins
Pauli spoke to DeJenna. “Told you.”
“Why do you need me to set this bomb, anyway?”
“God damn it,” Pauli said. “Can’t you listen? I already told you we need to put a destructor loop into the call routine that handles the shadow lock seq—”
DeJenna stopped him with another show of her hand.
“Maine,” she said. “This is how it’s got to be. Beatrice isn’t the only person stuck here. If we’re going to release them all, we need to get through their security gate. If we do it through net code, it’s traceable. And if we’re found out, we all go to brain wipe. The only way to do this right is to destroy the processor in charge of the security system. Then, while they’re scrambling to deal with the fallout, we’ll have a few minutes to flip everyone back.”
“They have backups, right?”
“Sure. Catastrophic failure will send control to another system — in this case, San Francisco’s. But it takes time to dump that kind of memory. During that time, everything is open.”
Acid pooled in Maine’s stomach. In a mad way, it all made sense. Pauli and DeJenna were rebels, after all, just like Bryan Madrigan had told him. Only, they were the real thing rather than the wannabe veneer Mads carried about him. Rebels rebel. And in this case, these rebels wanted to get their friends back as badly as he wanted Beatrice.
“How do I get in?” he said.
“Here,” she said, pointing to a map they had created in the middle of the room. It was a skeletal blueprint of the Geo-Span center in Long Beach, the location of the Central Inspector’s local node. “Almost every hub is a medical center, and LA’s is no different. We get you in through an old basement entryway that no one uses now. We have friends that can show you the way.”
“And you’ll hide my wire?”
“Of course,” Pauli said. “We drop code into your interface that gives out a false signal. No one will know you’re there.”
Maine sighed. His chest hurt to breathe.
He looked at the route. It hadn’t changed from a few moments ago when Pauli had blown his top, but Maine was looking at it differently now.
It was a game.
Enter the basement, stay in the passages until he came to the old elevators. Per these blueprints, they hadn’t been fully filled in when the more modern lift tubes had been installed. If true, there would be space to climb up into the building.
When he got to the old elevators, he would pry the decrepit doors open with a crowbar, a task Pauli said Maine could do but that Maine felt was a big-assed bad assumption. Regardless, assuming that would work, he would have to do the same when he reached the right level, the nineteenth floor. And then, because metal in the data center would attract attention, he’d have to throw the crowbar down the shaft.
“Forget that,” DeJenna said, “and you screw it all up.”
Once he set the activator, he had a minute to get away.
“Why only a minute?”
“The shadow loop runs on a sixty-second cycle. That’s a steady-state routine that confirms every security system in the parent company’s holding. We sync the bomb to detonate immediately after it runs on the Long Beach center in order to give us that extra minute before the remote systems realize something is wrong and start pulling the backup.”
Maine nodded.
The ventilation ductwork was five hundred meters from entry point to the cores. Their plan had him setting the detonation sequence, then sprinting back down the ductwork to the elevator shaft. If he could shimmy even a little way down the hole, he would probably … probably … survive the blowback. Of course, then he’d have to get out of the basement unseen, too.
“You’ll save Beatrice either way?” Maine asked.
“Either way?”
“Whether I live or die?”
Pauli gave a laugh that DeJenna cut short with a scathing glance.
“We can’t save her unless you do this, Maine,” she said.
“If you’re going to load everyone with their original memories, can’t they trace you anyway?”
“That depends,” Pauli said.
“On what.”
Pauli looked at DeJenna as if asking for permission.
“It depends,” she said, “on what we do when the security wall comes down.”
The cloaking process was so easy it scared him.
Though he already knew DeJenna could get to his base TS, Maine gave her full access. She went to the base of his medulla oblongata and dropped a coding sequence into the right synapses. Then she was gone.
Simple as that.
“Did you actually do anything?”
She gave her slanted grin. “Don’t worry. You’re gonna be just fine. No one can see what you’re up to now.”
That was an hour ago.
Now Maine Parker found himself walking into Texado’s, a small bar in the heart of Long Beach, California, decorated in green, white, and red, and that reeked of old Mexico. He drew stares as he walked in. He was different here, and he was alone. He’d heard of disconnect-zones before, places where the CIO was less interested in and generally shunned, but he’d never been in one before. Pauli had tried to describe what it was like, but Maine couldn’t really comprehend it until he got here.
The afternoon was hot enough that a line of sweat had built over his forehead as he walked to the place. The tension he felt only added to it.
Maybe fifteen people were in the place, seated along the bar or at tables.
Music filled the background and a football match was playing.
He glanced behind the bar, keeping his fear down.
Was it true that all these people were blind?
None of them connected at all to the newsfeed or to Think Space?
He found that hard to believe, but, despite that, still felt a sense of isolation coming from the idea that since he’d taken DeJenna’s shield, these people might be able to do anything they wanted to him without ever being seen.
He felt their paranoid stares as he stepped up to the counter.
Someone here was expecting him, though Maine just didn’t know who.
“I’m Maine Parker,” he said to the bartender.
A man, maybe forty-five and built like a stump, slid off his stool and swaggered to stand before him. As pure-blood Mexican as you could get these days, Maine thought.
He stared at Maine, head tilted upward, the muscles of his chest and abdomen chiseled and in open display due to a shirt at least a size too small. His biceps bulged as he crossed his arms.
“What are you doing here, Feets?” he said.
Maine actually laughed.
DeJenna must have told them more about him than she’d told him about them. The idea was annoying. He didn’t need a bunch more crap thrown his way for no good reason.
“Just decided to come get my teeth kicked in by Wango the Punch-drunk Wonder Chucker.”
The entire room paused for a moment. Then the man gave a nasal chuckle that grew into a full laugh and the room erupted in guffaws.
“That’s a good one, Mr. Parker.” The man put out his hand. “I’m Pedrigo de Marco.”
Pedrigo turned out to be a good-natured man — fiercely independent and demanding to a fault.
He took Maine to a storage shed out back that was filled with electronic panels and a wide collection of gadgety hardware. The whole place was in wild disarray, components lying on open workbenches, and tools strewn about. It was dusty and dry. The odor of desert seemed to be ground into everything.
Pedrigo pulled a bag of beer out of the refrigeration unit in the corner.
“You want?” he said.
“I don’t drink,” Maine replied.
“Where you’re going, maybe you should.”
“I’m just a kid.”
Pedrigo leaned against a workbench across from Maine as he drank. “The first thing you got to do is to stop thinking like that.”
“I understand.”
“You go around sounding lik
e a lovesick teenager, then that’s what you are.”
Maine grimaced.
“First thing you got to do for me, kid, is to start thinking like a man. And a man don’t turn down a beer because he’s too young. A man turns down a beer because it’s crap for him — a man turns down a beer because it clouds his mind and it slows him the fuck down.”
“Then why do you drink it?”
Pedrigo’s smile cut a crooked line across his face. He drank again. “Because it’s also very debonair.” Then he belched.
Maine couldn’t help but laugh.
“Let’s get to business,” Pedrigo said.
He got Maine prepared, strapping a utility belt to his waist and going over a collection of maps.
“That door doesn’t work so good,” he said, pointing to the route. “You need to go here instead. And watch for the cops here — they patrol it every thirty minutes.”
The Mexican, Maine realized, probably knew everything there was to know about this little plot of town.
Then Pedrigo pulled up a floorboard from a darker corner of the room.
He returned with a box, and from that box he pulled a lump of material that looked like a cube of bleached dirt.
“Five-hundred-weight plasta,” he said, hefting the brick. “You know what that is?”
Maine felt anxiety rise. “I’m guessing it makes a very big boom,” he said.
Pedrigo nodded. “You place half of it under the left core, the other half below the right. Then you connect it up, set the timer, and wait for the cycle to start. Then, yes, it makes a very big boom.”
“How will I know the cycle is starting?”
“The lights flash green at the beginning of each cycle. Time the green band the first two cycles to get a feel, then set the trigger, hit the activator, and run like hell.”
“Well, at least I know how to do the running part.”
“Yes, that you do. So, let’s work on the rest.”
They spent the next thirty minutes training on how to use the plasta.
“You got it?” Pedrigo asked after he was finished.
Maine swallowed hard as he thought about how to answer that question.
He had learned more in the past hour than he had learned in any of his group sessions, but he glanced into Pedrigo’s face and braced himself.
“I feel good,” he said.
And that was true. He felt that sense of calm he got while in the locker room before a meet. He had done his work. He understood the process. Precise movements. Stride over stride.
But something was missing.
Maine looked around the place. A decent bot would take a full day or two of solid work to clean it up, but he admitted the place had a feel to it.
“Why are you doing this?”
“What? Helping you?”
“Yeah, that. And living out here, too. Like this.”
Pedrigo laughed. “A man can be free out here, amigo,” he said.
Maine nodded, but felt more coming.
“And helping me?”
“Helping Pauli, you mean?” he said.
“Of course.”
Pedrigo leaned back on a workbench, then wiped his lips.
“My boy was your age, just about. Luis, his name was. Playing out in the park. But he got into a scuffle with a Bosio kid who had a knife on him. It was over the minute he pulled that thing, you know?”
Maine did know. Cops don’t listen these days.
“Didn’t matter that the Bosio kid started it, or that Luis was defending himself. They come and they put that shit in his head.”
Maine’s expression said to go on.
“He couldn’t handle it here anymore — couldn’t deal with what we see as living, I guess. Got different, you know, preachy, pushy … sometimes just so damned quiet. This place rejected Luis just as much as Luis rejected us, though. Everyone was afraid of him. I mean, shit, he was a walking double agent by then. Water and oil, you know. They don’t mix.”
“Where is he now?” Maine said.
“Left three months ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Pedrigo said. “Be vengeful.”
He glanced at the clock.
“You ready to run?”
CHAPTER 30
Tania went to the dresser and opened the drawer. “Oh, darling,” she muttered, holding up a pair of cloth boxer pants and a shirt. “How’s a girl supposed to get laid wearing this?”
Kinji picked at it.
“Well, you could tie it up at the waist and maybe fray the pants.”
“High fashion at the psych ward.”
“It’s a pharmaceutical center.”
“Oh, pish.” Tania sighed and got to work shimmying out of her clothes. She gave Kinji a hungry leer. “Ever done it in a, uh, pharmaceutical center, love?”
“No time, Tania.”
“You, ma’am, are the definition of a drag.” Tania pulled the pants on, then rolled the top over her head and straightened it. She glanced at Kinji and struck a pose.
“Well?”
Kinji stepped to her and planted a kiss on her lips.
“You’re always lovely, honey.”
Tania gave a satisfied groan. “Worth every minute.”
Kinji rolled her eyes.
“Time for a diversion, right?” Tania said.
“Yes, I believe it is.”
Tania shook her arms out, letting her own nerves settle. She was as nervous as Kinji but was hiding it behind her dope-addled sheen. The two of them went to the door.
“All right,” Tania said. “You’ll come get me, right?”
“Eh.” Kinji shrugged. “I’ll see if I can fit it into my schedule.”
“Now, you joke?”
“Sorry.”
Tania nodded. “I go left, correct?”
“Yes. Left, then down the hall, then right.” Kinji put her hand on Tania’s arm. “Good luck. Make a right-fine Tania Brae of a ruckus.”
“Oh, baby doll, you know that’s what I do.”
Then Tania passed her hand over the security scan. The door opened, and she stepped out. Kinji slipped out behind her as the door slid shut, then headed right to Tania’s left.
She needed to get around the loop and back to the security desk before Tania made her way from the other direction. She stepped quickly but tried not to appear hurried. She’d left her Think Space closed but knew that was no guarantee she was in the clear.
The pharmaceutical wing had a very different feel to it than what she’d seen while visiting Bexie Montgomery. Whereas the rooms she had been in with Montgomery had been open and invigorating places designed for comfort and learning, compartments here were spaced closely. The doors were simple and unadorned.
She turned a corner and just barely managed to avoid running into a nurse who was walking beside a patient.
“We are in a great place today,” the nurse was saying.
The patient spoke the words back in a hushed tone.
He was gone, Kinji realized. His brain ravaged. Was it from an actual addiction, or — thinking about Bexie — had he been cut?
Ten paces from the security desk she slowed her pace.
Almost simultaneously a metallic crash came from the open area.
“Stop it!” Tania’s voice rose in a shrill wail. “Stop it! I can’t do this! I don’t want to be here.”
Sounds of a scuffle grew louder.
A security mech moved in, and the nurse staff went to their rooms. Kinji didn’t hesitate. She pushed her way through the doorway into the nurses’ center, then ducked down to slink past the open space.
There would be an access elevator in the next hall.
She saw three doors, two with full control panels and a third with a scanner lock.
She went to the lock and paused to jump into her private Think Space, where she dumped a piece of code into the processor. It was the inspector’s sequence, and once it was running, she plugged it into her public node
, then opened herself to the system.
This was her huge gamble.
For the next few seconds the system would see her as an inspector bot, but if she was still in this persona by the time the system registered duplicate sequences, the CIO would probably freeze her.
Kinji requested access, and the door slid open.
She stepped into the tube, and toggled the system to take her to Bexie’s floor, dumping the inspector’s persona as soon as the lift moved.
CHAPTER 31
Maine slipped through the access door without any problem.
He flipped on the flashlight embedded in his head wrap to find the corridor was spare and wide as it disappeared into the deep darkness. Tattered remnants of rat-chewed mattresses, flaking blankets, and torn cardboard were crammed into corners, century-old remnants of different days.
He walked slowly, picking his way and getting acquainted with the space.
Be a man, he thought, trying to calm his heart rate. Everything should be fine. Architectural documents said there shouldn’t be cameras around, and the TS shield Pauli and DeJenna had given him should hide his approach. Still, he couldn’t help being anxious. If he were caught… Well. He remembered the tone of DeJenna’s voice as she let him know what a bad idea getting caught up in CIO business could be.
If she was afraid, he was afraid.
Add to that the heavy feel of the brick of plasta inside the utility belt hanging low on his waist, pressing against the small of his back. The belt made him sweat even more than his nervousness did. The sweat made the package shift and feel slippery as he moved.
Each time the brick moved he imagined another huge explosion.
He didn’t like the sound of a creature scurrying away in the darkness, either. Pedrigo had laughed as he told stories about rats the size of Boston. Maine hoped Pedrigo had been kidding but he gripped the crowbar Pedrigo had given him tighter, feeling better knowing he had a weapon.
The hallway was six or seven meters wide, its graffiti-scarred walls lined with cobwebs and skittering insects. Looking at the graffiti made Maine recall a memory of cave paintings Jed Abraham-Jones had brought to the learning session a few months ago. Maine wondered who had painted them, and wished he’d paid more attention.
