Hard Wired Trilogy

by DeAnna Pearce

  The coordinates for the meeting spot were in the European Union, specifically the Spanish corridor. Ari had no clue how to make it there in the next week. If she had to make a late night run for it, it’d have to be soon. Traveling across the ocean didn’t leave a lot of options with a tight schedule.

  Since it was the weekend, Patrick called for a movie night for the group. He did group activities every now and then to help with stress and group morale. With everything going on, it had been a while since the last one. They also held a ping-pong tournament with chores and food on the line. The bets went high, and Patrick was just finishing up toilet duty after he lost to Blur.

  Tonight though, Marco helped download a recent movie. Ari’s mom made cheesy popcorn while Sue made cookies and chocolate candies. There was enough junk food mounding the table to feed the neighboring town.

  Large over-stuffed couches filled the room, and everyone spread out. A couple of people had pillows and took up positions on the floor. The only one missing was Blur, who was with Tricky. She had started waking up every day for ten or fifteen minutes, but Ari hadn’t been able to talk to her yet.

  Patrick stood up in front of the screen. “I wanted to touch base about—”

  “This isn’t a meeting,” Harini said from the couch with a bowl of popcorn on her lap. “This is movie night, Patrick.”

  He held up a hand. “I know, I know. Sorry. But I wanted to let you know. Joe made a big breakthrough. He found the physical location of one of the designers of the virus.”

  Words of surprise and excitement ran up through the room. People congratulated Joe, who looked completely uncomfortable with, or maybe just annoyed by, all the attention. Ari wasn’t surprised by Joe’s ability but impressed.

  “I’ll soon be searching for a security team to retrieve it.” Patrick had to raise his voice to get everyone’s attention.

  Harini threw popcorn at Patrick. “No more work.”

  “Okay, okay. It is now time for The Zombie Void.”

  Another round of cheers sprang up as it started. Patrick took a seat near Ari. He offered a kind smile then turned his attention to the movie.

  Ari couldn’t concentrate on the movie, even with half-dead people roaming around eating brains. Her thoughts kept going back to what Patrick said and her problem with Reed. Her timeline was narrowing down and her options running out.

  She sat up and scooted over to Patrick.

  He glanced at her but kept his voice low. “What’s up?”

  “Thinking about what you said earlier.”

  He nodded to show he was listening.

  “About the security team.” She leaned towards him in an attempt to keep their conversation private. “It’s dangerous to involve outside help. And if they get the drive and realize how valuable it is, they may not hand it over. I think I should go and retrieve it.”

  His gaze flicked towards her, eyes wide with surprise. “Too dangerous.”

  “I trained with Niomi and proven myself more than capable—”

  Harini threw popcorn at her. “Be quiet. No work allowed.”

  “We’ll talk after the movie.”

  “Fine.” Ari scooted back to her side just as another throat was torn out. Not able to watch any more of this, she left.

  Wandering to Tricky’s room, she found Blur asleep in the chair next to his sister. Ari nudged him gently. “Why don’t you head off to bed? I can sit with her awhile.”

  He stirred, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Actually, I could really use a shower. I can be back in fifteen minutes.”

  Ari wanted to push him more to rest and sleep, but she remembered when her brother was in the same position. “Take as long as you need.”

  He left and Ari took up the watch in his chair. Tricky’s fair skin took a pale and ghostly appearance. Her golden hair brushed over one shoulder. Her beauty was only highlighted as she slept. Tricky would have hated that.

  Ari reached for her hand. Tricky’s painted black nail polish had started to grow out, showing the white half-moons underneath. Her hand was cold, icy. It reminded Ari of death and she held it tight, trying to transfer her warmth. How could Ari fix this mess she helped cause?

  “You know I have an opportunity to find who’s behind the attack.” Ari’s voice came out in a strained whisper, tight with emotion and guilt. If anyone could possibly understand this decision, it was Tricky. “No one else knows about it, someone has Reed, probably the same ones who put him in VLEX. I assume they want me in exchange for him. I don’t want to ask more of the team. Patrick has done enough for me. This is my battle to fight, my baggage that I dragged to the team, but is sneaking off ruining what trust I built here…” Ari trailed off, keeping one hand on top of Tricky.

  “Go.” Tricky’s words were hoarse but startled Ari.

  She flinched, then looked around for a drink. Should she notify Sue or Blur? Unsure, she turned back to Tricky. “Do you need a drink? What can I get you?”

  “Go get the bastard who did this.” Her ice-blue eyes were sharp. “Go get them.”

  “She’s awake.” Sue hurried into the room. “I just got the notification. How are you doing Tricky?”

  Ari stepped back as Sue went to work testing vitals and bringing Tricky a drink. Rooted in place, she thought of Tricky’s words. Go get them. Soon Blur hurried back in with wet hair. Ari moved by the door to give them room to work, and Harini appeared next to her.

  “She’s awake?” Harini asked, worry etched into her brow. She had been by Tricky’s bedside almost as much as Sue.

  “Yeah. Movie over?” Ari tried to act normal, which took effort with the whirlwind of emotion going on inside from Tricky’s words.

  “Just about. It wasn’t that good.” Harini rubbed her bare arms.

  “You’ve been here a lot with Tricky. Almost as much as Sue. I never knew you two were so close.” Ari felt guilty for not being here more, helping, even though there wasn’t much to do.

  “Hard for anyone to be close to Tricky, besides her brother. I just figured if we are supposed to be a family, we should act like it.”

  Ari tried not to be defensive. “We’re all worried and working as much as we can.”

  “I know.” Harini watched Tricky, something unsettled in her expression. “She’ll make it. She’s stronger than most.”

  “True.” But what then? Ari needed to make this right. More than ever she needed to convince Patrick to be on the team to find the programmer. “I gotta go.”

  Hari stepped into the hall and found the others headed her way.

  In the midst, Marco was complaining. “I’m not buying that the zombie really loved her. He kept looking at her as a midnight snack.”

  “Who knows?” Patrick replied, but was focused on Ari in front of them. “Joe, do you have a minute to talk with Ari and I?”

  Joe nodded.

  “Let’s head to my office.” Patrick looked around at the people still visiting.

  “What about business?” Marco asked.

  “Your sister had a proposition she wanted to discuss.”

  “Nothing big.” She told her brother.

  “Care if I join?” Marco said.

  Ari said, “No,” at the same time Patrick said, “Sure.”

  “Great,” Marco placed a hand on her shoulder. “Lead the way.”

  She couldn’t help but roll her eyes as her nosy brother joined them on the way to the office. Patrick and Joe were up ahead, and Marco stayed near with a hand on her shoulder.

  “I know something is up, little sis. You can’t hide it from me.”

  “Just shut it for once. Okay.” She glared at him.

  Turning into the office, they all took a seat around the table.

  “Do you want to tell them or should I?” Patrick asked Ari.

  Ari focused her argument. “I think that hiring an outside security team to get the designer will be too dangerous. It exposes us as a team.”

  Looking around the table, Joe and Marco didn’t pr
otest. Her argument made sense, but neither of them outright agreed either. Marco gave her a familiar questioning look.

  “And…” Patrick pushed her to continue.

  “And I think with my past training, I should go and retrieve.” She tried to look confident, a lot more confident than she felt. It wouldn’t be easy to retrieve it, but it would give her an excuse to leave. She’d have to figure out how to rescue Reed and retrieve the drive.

  Marco chuckled. “That’s a good one. Yeah, Mom would let you go out alone to steal a drive from some dirty programmer.”

  “She wouldn’t have to go alone.” Joe’s calm demeanor actually appeared to be considering it.

  Ari wanted to go alone, though. “I don’t want to endanger anyone else.”

  “That isn’t your call to make,” Patrick told her, some bite in his voice. He wasn’t happy about Joe’s agreement. “I won’t send you out alone, if I send you out at all. I’ll respect you enough to have a discussion about it. Joe knows this contact the best, so I wanted his opinion.”

  Everyone turned to Joe. “I agree. An outside security team is only motivated by money, and someone would have to go out just to retrieve the drive. Dealing with those kinds of people is always tricky.”

  “You think we’re capable of retrieving the drive on our own?”

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s worth the recon to find out. There are rumors of a guy that goes by Echo on the dark web, but they are rumors. I don’t know who or what we’ll come into. I had to pay a lot and dig a ton to get this address. Finding what’s there and what we’re up against would be smart before we decide our next step.”

  “If it’s recon, then Ari doesn’t have to go. I can.” Marco leaned forward.

  “No.” Her abrupt response had everyone turning towards her. She couldn’t give her hand away now. “I want to go. I want to be the one that helps Tricky. I was there when she went under.” Ari stared at her hands on the table. It helped that this lie was partly true. After a difficult swallow, she turned to Patrick. “I want to go, please.”

  “Since everyone is so eager to go, how about all three of you?” Patrick purposed. “I can’t leave right now, but I trust you three to stay out of trouble.”

  Marco’s grin grew a little too wide.

  Chapter 19

  That night, Reed came to her in her sleep. He stood in the middle the road in VLEX with shops and restaurants lining both sides of the street, except the VR morphed around them. Shops changed color or grew twice their size. One rolled backwards, a new store popping up in its place. It felt like a warper took too many tabs and couldn’t think straight. But amid all the confusion, Reed remained focused on her.

  She tried to step forward and reach out for his hand, but with every step the distance between them grew. As her steps increased the distance still didn’t change, like she was on some sort of treadmill. Finally, she screamed out his name and flung herself forward.

  Sitting up in bed with sheets twisted around her legs, she panted as if she had been running a mile. Turning to see if she woke her mother, Ari found Cynthia already gone. Checking the time on her HUB, she realized her mom must be getting an early start on breakfast.

  Without dwelling on her dream and the knot of guilt in her stomach, Ari hurried to get ready for the day. The sooner they left, the sooner she could find Reed. There was a red-eye flight that night to Central Europe that she wanted to be on.

  Once in the sky, Marco continued to give her sideways looks. She ignored him and kept her emotions tucked nicely away. Ari lucked out that the programmer was a day away on a tram from the meeting point with Reed. A plane might be an option, but security would be harder. That gave her a bit of time to work with Marco and Joe then figure out a way to lose them. It’s not that she discounted their mission or even lied about her desire to help. Even if that message about Reed never came, she’d want to be in on this.

  The guilt about Tricky had gnawed away at her. It just combined with all the guilt she felt for Reed, and she would do whatever she could to save them both.

  Joe traveled quietly and sat apart from Ari and Marco. He thought it best to avoid undue attention. Ari tried to sleep as much as possible on the flights. Any conversation with Marco led to questions Ari didn’t want to answer, and feigning sleep helped avoid lying. Marco watched her a little too closely, but she ignored him and focused at the job at hand.

  They arrived in the middle of the night, but amid the cosmopolitan town they didn’t stand out. They landed in the German sector of Europe, but simple translators helped with any needed communication. Grabbing a cab, they drove to a hotel for the night. They caught a few hours of sleep and then headed out with the rest of the morning rush.

  Ari found a small cafe near Echo’s apartment. Busy enough to blend in but close enough to get a feel for the land. They sat on the outside patio, a cool crisp chill to the air countered by the steaming latte in front of her. She picked at her muffin while Marco pulled out a smoke.

  “When did you start doing that again?” Ari asked.

  He shrugged, not answering.

  “He is an ant in a hive,” Joe ignored her worry and focused on the twenty-story apartment building across the street. “How do we step inside without tripping the alarm?”

  “How do we even catch a glimpse of this Echo without setting off every alarm he has in place? And trust me, he has more than we can imagine.” Marco took another drag of his electronic cigarette.

  “I can put up some discreet cameras and watch the building. We should be able to rule out most people as we use their face to research their digital history,” Joe suggested.

  Joe would suggest something like that, Ari thought. He could sit for hours waiting, combing through data. She didn’t have that kind of timeline.

  “How about I approach?” Ari wasn’t scared of some antisocial hermit programmer.

  Both Joe and Marco disagreed.

  “No,” Marco exhaled. “We need to see what we’re dealing with before we chance that he might research you and find out more than we want.”

  Ari bit the inside of her check and wondered how to chase a rabbit from its hole. “How about a fire?”

  “Flush him out?” Joe arched a brow in interest.

  “They have cameras, expert fire suppressant systems, and more. We can’t just flick a switch and he appears,” Marco said.

  “Our answer lies in the building.” Joe stood up, signaling they were leaving.

  Ari grabbed the last bite of her muffin and picked up her coffee to go. “Guess the sight-seeing tour is over.”

  Marco chuckled. “Can you see Joe on a tour?”

  Joe ignored them both and headed in the direction of the hotel a few blocks away. Marco trailed behind, letting the space between them widen.

  “What are you planning?” He spoke in quiet tones, but loud enough for her to hear.

  She glanced at him dismissively, then turned her gaze forward. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve never been able to lie to me, so don’t try to start now. You look like that time you snuck out to go dancing.”

  Ari didn’t want to know how he knew about that. “I’m just nervous about Tricky.”

  “Ariana. Don’t lie to me. You better not be planning anything stupid with this guy Echo. Trust me, you don’t know men like this.”

  Ari was surprised and happy, her brother was so off track with her intentions. “And you do?”

  He took another drag. “Yes, I do. I worked with them a lot. They are more paranoid than all of us put together and have the smarts to protect themselves.”

  “So how are we going to get the drive then?” Ari asked.

  “Not sure. But we’ll come up with something.”

  They spent the rest of the day placing cameras all over to cover the building. They couldn’t be too conspicuous, so they took turns, planting them in any bushes or vegetation, on the back of streetlights, windowsills, and anywhere else Joe could think o
f. Then, back in their room, they began the process of elimination, painstaking and boring.

  Marco picked up dinner, and they all sat around the small table in their room eating an Asian-inspired dish.

  “Only you, Marco, would pick up an Asian dish while in the German sector.” Ari picked at a noodle.

  “It was close and smelled amazing. Don’t be picky.”

  As she took another bite, she realized she was grateful for his choice.

  “We will be here long enough to try all the local food.” Joe told her as he opened a bottle of water.

  Her fork froze in her dish. “What do you mean?”

  “I messaged Patrick and told him the situation. We’ll be here for a while until Echo surfaces.”

  “A while?” Ari would have to jump ship sooner rather than later. It wasn’t like she was abandoning them, though. This was just gathering information. Nothing they couldn’t do without her.

  “What’s wrong? You need to get back?” Marco asked.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Just didn’t think it’d be that long.”

  “We’ll need to start hitting up local VR joints to see if there is any hint of him around. Here’s his list of aliases.” Joe pulled up his screen, and they began discussing the case again.

  Ari struggled to stay present, her mind continually wandering back to the clock counting down. For all she knew, that cryptic message was fake or some kind of trap, just like seeing him in VLEX. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Reed trying to find her. It didn’t matter. She had to find out for sure. She’d gladly give up her freedom for his. Whatever her old trainer, Niomi, promised, it evidently hadn’t worked. Reed didn’t deserve to pay the price for her choices.

  The following day passed in a blur of takeout and staring at their computers. The third day, Ari woke with a headache and chased it away with caffeine, aspirin, and a hot shower. She dressed quickly and packed a few extra toiletries in her bag. With less than a day remaining until the meet-up, this was the day she had to leave. She just hadn’t figured out how yet.