by Beth Ryan
Trade Secrets
The Donovan Chronicles, Volume 1
Beth Ryan
Published by Mad Lantern Media, 2019.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
TRADE SECRETS
First edition. March 30, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 Beth Ryan.
ISBN: 978-1386249320
Written by Beth Ryan.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Keep your promises. Mind your hands. They’re always watching.
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
Author’s Note:
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Further Reading: Whisper Code
Also By Beth Ryan
1
May 20th, 2080
We never made it to Paris.
I always thought we’d get there, somehow.
Nowadays I like to imagine the rest of them wandering those moonlit streets without a care in the world. I comfort myself by envisioning Ivy leaning against some ancient building with an unlit cigarette balanced between her dusky lips, waiting for Josh and Audry to meet her there.
Ivy would toss her glossy black hair over her shoulders and shove her brother away when he tried to pull her in for a hug. Audry’s blue eyes would sparkle with the laughter she was hiding behind a wall of unruly blonde curls. I think they would turn down the street together, then, and make their way into a much safer future than the one they’d left behind.
The only thing that would improve the fantasy would be knowing that Cooper Hall wasn’t here, imprisoned beside me.
2
November 18th, 2079
The day I met Cooper Hall the air was so thick with smoke I could taste it. It sat heavy on my tongue and in my lungs as I stood in the hallway of the building I owned. At the center of New York, the pollution was at its worst. Most days you couldn’t go anywhere in the city without the bitter tang of industry clouding your senses. This day was no different.
Standing across from me, leaning on the paint-chipped metal door of the room he was renting, was Clyde Cavanaugh. The little weasel of a man was holding out on me. I narrowed my eyes at him, a tight press of my lips showing my disapproval. He was trying get more than his fair share for the product he was selling.
We’d done this dance a handful of times since Clyde moved in three months back, and I’d had about enough of it.
“Sorry, Nate.” Clyde shrugged. His lanky hair shifted around his shoulders as he tucked one hand deep into his left pocket. That’s where the product was hidden, I knew. That’s where he always hid his stash during deals like this. He might have been a weasel, but that didn’t make him a smart one. “The taxes on electronic transactions have almost doubled. If you want to do a verbal deal, I’ll give them to you at a discounted rate, but—”
“Do I look like I was born yesterday?” I asked, cutting him off. I kept my tone even and my gaze disappointed.
Inside, I felt a fury ignite. I wanted to snap at him, to snarl and throw cruel words his way. I wanted to point out that he was in no position to attempt his scam on me. Threats would do me no good, though. At least, not yet anyway.
I stood there with a blank expression, my hands tucked in my pockets, and didn’t say another word. I stared him down instead, waiting for an answer. Waiting for Clyde to break.
Even as I had the thought, his hand went to the back of his neck, and I knew I had him.
Telling when a person was uncomfortable with the truth was as easy as watching their hand move to cover the scar at the base of their skull. That was where their trading chip was hidden.
The chips tracked our words and physiological reactions. They reported everything to a database owned by the seventeen governing families, the Lemniscate. The government used the chips to track every truth and every lie we ever told.
We had to be careful with this conversation, made up of meaningful glances and meaningless words. If either of us mentioned just what was hidden in Clyde’s pocket, there’d be hell to pay.
The wail of a siren screamed down the street outside, cutting through the silence between us. It reminded me of my school years. There had been so many lectures on speaking with care. Though one wrong word could bring down the wrath of the profilers, agents of the who worked in the Fraud Department of the Federal Trade Committee, there was a whole other set of words that would send medical or legal assistance to us in a matter of minutes if we weren’t careful.
Back in the day, they’d called the trading chips ‘personal lie detectors’. It had been the perfect solution to keeping spies out of the country, rounding up unwanted criminals, and tracking emergency situations. “Terrorism” became a word taught only by historians, hidden in textbooks beside “feudalism” and “witchcraft”. Crime dropped to almost nothing, and so many lives were saved.
Those were the golden years.
These days, there were people like Clyde, and like me, who’d learned better than to speak without careful consideration. These days, as long as you kept your mouth shut and didn’t get caught, crime always paid better than an honest deal. There were people tracking the chips for phrases and keywords, of course. They were always watching for hints of drug deals and credit fraud, but none of us were stupid enough to talk about our activities anymore.
There was only one thing the trading chips were good for now. Information held value, and the chips could assess any statement and convert its value into credits that we could spend. Physical cash had gone the way of the gold standard years before I was born. Information—the truth, or the withholding of it—was our currency now.
I sniffed at the air as I watched Clyde struggle to come to a decision. There was a faint, acrid scent hanging around the halls. It smelled like someone had burnt toast or stuck a fork in a socket hours before. Clyde watched me as I narrowed my eyes at the door next to his. It was always closed, always locked, and always paid for. We both knew what was behind it, though we never spoke of it. Still, the smell that came with making the little blue pills that Clyde sold would be suspicious to anyone with half a brain.
“I don’t think you were born yesterday,” Clyde said, his words carefully chosen. “However, these higher taxes have made it difficult on my business. I have to charge more to keep up. The cost of living—”
“Cost of living?” I scoffed, waving dismissively at his poor attempts to gain my sympathy. “Only death is free.”
We both knew this wasn’t about increased taxes or higher prices on his materials. The truth was that there were only two ways to spend credits. We could trade verbally, like he wanted, or we could use a secure electronic trade.
Clyde and I both knew there was a danger in vocally passing on even the most mundane information if there wasn’t a system to regulate it. Verbal trades required truths that held actual value to both parties. A misplaced word or implied lie spoken to the wrong person could devalue years’ worth of credits, if a person knew how to use the information that had been traded. A stranger who gossiped or spoke out of turn could ruin a man, financiall
y speaking.
It was always easier, and safer, to keep your mouth shut and trade your credits up front. Letting the system run in the background to shuffle the information that the credits represented always ensured a fair transaction in the end. It was a system guaranteed that, most of the time, the information behind the credits wasn’t of real value to the recipient beyond its assigned spending power.
“Listen.” I pointed a finger at Clyde as I spoke. “I’m going to give you a deal. You’ll settle at the price we agreed on last time, and I won’t kick you out of the building or worse.”
“Hey now, calm down,” Clyde said, bringing his hands up in a defensive position when he saw my eyes flick once more to the extra room he’d rented. One comment would be all it took to shut down his whole operation. “No need for that kind of threat. We can work this out on our own, can’t we, friend?”
“I’ll calm down when you’ve given me a fair deal.”
Clyde frowned and lowered his hands. He looked like he was struggling to come up with a suitable response.
I pulled a cigarette from the pack in my coat pocket and lit it. Patience was part of the game, but mine was wearing thin. I could only manage it if I had something to do with my hands. As an afterthought, I offered another cigarette to Clyde, who looked at the thing in disdain. I shrugged and tucked it away before taking a drag of my own.
Across from me, Clyde looked torn. I could understand his frustration. The product he was selling was a set of prohibited Chip Alteration Capsules, called CAPS by those who were stupid enough to mention them at all. Taken orally, you could use the CAPS to regulate your chip’s ability to track your physiological responses. They made it possible to generate fake credits and trick gullible enemies.
In my line of business, they were invaluable...and Clyde knew it. He also knew that I had the upper hand in our little deal. That wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Anyone caught selling the pills would be marked for auditing, and their credits would be frozen. Anyone caught making them, though, would be imprisoned and executed without regard to their excuses.
“Fine,” he snapped at long last. “But I won’t be selling at this price again.”
“If you say so,” I agreed with a grin, my cigarette bobbing up and down as I spoke. I held out my hand, and Clyde cast me an offended look.
I rolled my eyes.
Redirecting my hand into the front pocket of my overcoat, I pulled out my credit card. The holographic features on the glass card were turned off. I would never be foolish enough to let Clyde, or anyone else, see how much I actually had in my credit account. If they knew the truth, they would only work harder to scam me.
I was careful to watch the numbers Clyde punched into the old scanner he’d pulled from his back pocket. I wouldn’t have put it past him to try and steal my credits outright at this point. The scanner wasn’t the newest model, tape held it together at the edges. Still, it seemed to work just fine, and he didn’t charge anything extra under my watchful eye.
He scanned my card, and the device chimed to tell us the transaction had occurred. Then, and only then, did Clyde pull the little baggie of pills from his left-hand pocket.
He dropped them into my outstretched hand and stormed back to his room looking disgruntled, despite the extra five hundred credits that were now padding his account. It wasn’t much, with the way the cost of living had steadily risen. Still, it was more than he deserved.
I pocketed the CAPS and slipped into my own room. Sitting down on an upturned bucket that served as my makeshift chair, I sucked in another drag of my cigarette and turned on the computer in front of me. The whir of electricity filled the room. The glow of the screen highlighted details I typically ignored. The peeling paint that still clung to some of the worn bricks that made up my walls. The rusted pipes that showed through the large hole cut into the corner of the ceiling. The perpetual layer of grime that clung to the single window at the foot of my bed.
I focused on the screen, rather than the depressing scene surrounding me. I knew I was stalling. Still, I needed time to prepare myself for what I was about to do.
I wasn’t in desperate need of the CAPS myself. They weren’t made for people like me, people who had enough credits in their account to know they’d still have a roof over their head the next day. My clients, on the other hand, were often desperate. Some of them hadn’t seen a proper meal in three days, or slept in a real bed the night before. They were the downtrodden, the neglected, the desolate. They were mine.
Though I couldn’t always fix the problems that caused them to live their impoverished lives, I could get them a few quick credits and a good night’s rest. Sometimes, if I were lucky, that’s all it took to get them back on their feet.
Most of the time, it wasn’t.
Before I could give any of these pills to unsuspecting clients, though, I had to test one. I didn’t think Clyde was stupid enough to tamper with the chemical ratios that made up a CAPS pill, but I also didn’t think he was smart enough to make sure he’d been sold quality ingredients to begin with, either.
There were half a dozen new work requests waiting for me when the computer finally loaded everything up. Four were from old clients looking to me to fill their credit accounts again. Another was outright asking for the illegal pills that would allow him to create the credits himself. Likely, he’d already been flagged by the credit fraud department. I wouldn’t be responding to his requests in the future.
There were three alerts for missing people awaiting my attention as well. Those read like distraught mothers who cared more about their child’s secrets than their personal safety. Likely they were from conniving business rivals trying to use me to dismantle their competition. A quick search revealed that only one of the three was missing at all.
I focused on the girl who did appear to be missing. Alice Giovanni was only sixteen, and I wasn’t the only one who had been alerted to her disappearance. She was the daughter of a sanctuary family and had a penchant for sneaking off. Her trading chip had deactivated over six weeks ago without warning, and they hadn’t found a body to show for the funeral. The reward for tracking her down was high, but I stopped digging after only a few minutes. There were clear signs of a faked death, pasted together like someone doing a jigsaw but badly, and I wasn’t going to be the one to draw the Fraud Department’s eye to their activities.
The final message in my inbox was a simple line from an anonymous sender. I read the words once with a furrowed brow. Then I read it again, aloud.
“This old one runs forever, but never moves at all. He has not lungs or throat, but still a mighty, roaring call.”
I knew who had sent it despite the anonymity. Audry Davis had been testing my intelligence with riddles like that from the day we met. There was no one else it could be. She loved trying to sneak one past me and then claim she’d stumped me when I didn’t answer it. I’d only ever fallen for that trick once, though, and her latest riddle seemed lazy, even for her.
With half a smile, I shook my head and opened my credit card. Opening our recent transaction, I typed out the word “Waterfall” in response.
At long last, there was nothing left to distract me. I shut off the computer and put out the remains of my cigarette. Then I set a timer on my credit card and split the screen so I could see both the clock and my credit balance. I would have seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes to say anything at all and make the trading chip believe it was the absolute and most valuable truth. Seventeen minutes to make up the 500-credit loss. Seventeen minutes until the vertigo and euphoria would take over.
Some people took the pills just for that effect alone. Personally, I thought they might be insane.
I pulled one of the CAPS out of my pocket and stared at it for a long minute. Deciding there was no avoiding what came next, and certain that nothing complicated would be needed of me for the next few hours, I ingested the pill and got to work.
“I would bet half my credits that Clyde hasn’t washe
d his hair in a year.” I said to the empty room. If the pill worked the way it was meant to, the chip would be confused between what was truth and what was lies. The technology would cause the credits to double or triple their worth, without alerting the authorities. What I’d said held no value. It shouldn’t have garnered more than a fraction of a credit, yet I watched with a grin as my balance rose. Fifteen credits were added to my account.
The CAPS had worked.
Taking my credit card with me, I got up and tucked myself onto my bed in anticipation of the inevitable crash. I wasn’t going to be in any position to move around or make reasonable choices after the CAPS wore off.
Once I was settled in, I thought for a moment about what truth I might reveal to make full use of the pill I’d taken. Recalling the riddle I’d been sent, and the girl who’d been my sister in all but blood for over ten years, a memory came to mind. I began to weave a story that only my cold, empty room could hear.
“It was late August when Audry and I scrapped together enough credits to visit a sanctuary.”
I laid back, my eyes fluttering closed. The rings of mold on my ceiling were replaced with the image of a blue forcefield that ringed the perimeter of the resort. It hummed as it worked to keep the clean air in and the riff raff out.
Beside me, an effervescent smile and shining blue eyes made up the face of my best friend. She wore a slim black dress that was only slightly frayed at the edges. It was the nicest thing she owned and still it stood in stark contrast to the newer fashions worn by those who frequented The Sanctuary. Her tennis shoes were dirty, worn thin. They did nothing to hide her knobby ankles.
She didn’t seem to mind the looks people were throwing our way. Instead, she bounced on the balls of her feet, her shoes causing the gravel beneath them to grind and crunch together. She looked like a cat ready to pounce on its prey. The top of her head almost came level with mine every time she raised herself up. Several strands of dyed purple and blue were revealed as her blonde hair shifted at the movement. When she directed her wild smile at me, I felt like I could breathe easier for having seen it.
