“Yes,” I said.
“Do you … have any skill at hacking?”
“I have no experience with it.”
“That’s what I thought. I’m going to need you on the inside of Zero’s system, covering me. Can’t afford for you to learn on the fly, so we’re going to give you all of Khoder’s tools.”
Some line of code buried deep within me sparked to life, curiosity written into my core. “Sounds interesting.”
JD chuckled. “I thought you’d like that.” He took his phone from his pocket and plugged it into the VR chair also. “Jump into Khoder’s files, and see what you can find. There’ll be porn; I don’t know if that’s the best way to learn about our sexuality, but whatever floats your boat.”
“I have found his tools. There was a lot of pornography.”
“That’s my boy,” JD said sadly. “Want to take those tools for a spin?”
“What would you like me to do?”
“I need two names from Zero’s office in San Francisco. One low-level admin drone, one upper management. Both male.”
“Why both male?”
“’Cause they’re both me.”
I wasn’t sure what JD meant, but I went looking anyway. For the administrative assistant, Khoder’s tools were not necessary, but a variety of “soft” tactics I had just researched proved useful. An account on a professional networking site was all I needed.
“Taylor Bradbury is your drone,” I said. “Also, they refer to it as the California National headquarters, not San Francisco.”
“Thanks, Mirae,” JD said. “How you going with that second name?”
I beamed a name directly to JD’s contex, sourced from a headhunter’s database with security protocols almost a decade old.
“Kehinde?” he said.
“What?”
“You’re lucky I’m black.”
“What does that mean?”
JD smiled. “My sweet, innocent robot child.” He patted me on the head.
JD routed his phone through a Bay Area exchange and dialed the number for Zero’s Songdo headquarters.
A young-sounding voice answered the phone immediately. “Good morning, you have reached Zero Corporation, Songdo-dong regional headquarters. How may I be of assistance?”
JD forced a laid-back, laconic accent: “Hi, it’s Taylor Bradbury calling from the California National office. I’m sorry to do this to you—I was meant to call three days ago but I’ve been so busy preparing my quarterlies.”
“How can I help?” the Zero worker asked.
“My boss is in Songdo right now. He’s been meeting with some potential investors who are really excited by what’s coming out of the game development division over there. He needs to see it firsthand, get a feel for the lab so he can really sell it to the investors. Problem is, he’s running on West Coast time, gonna show up in an hour. I know it’s super early, but will someone be there to show him around?”
“Of course, sir,” he said, perking up at the mention of “investors.” “I’ll have someone from the lab give him a tour, and I’ll prepare a security pass. What name will that be under?”
“Kehinde Rhoades.”
“That is taken care of. I will personally greet Mr. Rhoades when he arrives.”
“Thank you, you’re a lifesaver.” JD hung up.
“Do you still have the hat with the AR projectors clipped to the brim?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s still in my bag. But how did you …?”
“You were wearing it the first time we met.”
JD chuckled. “I guess I was. You gonna make me look like Rhoades?”
“No, I can’t find enough images.”
“Explains why Khoder used celebrities.”
“But I may be able to use the projectors to inject code into the building’s security system, make them see your face when they look for Rhoades’s.”
“Sounds good.” JD reached into his bag and put the hat on, pulling the brim down low over his eyes. “I better go, Mirae. Will you be alright here?”
“Yes, I have everything I need.”
“Alright. I’ll see you in the void.”
JD got up from Khoder’s seat and paused in the doorway. He looked around the room, Khoder’s home, and silently said goodbye. JD walked upstairs; he tried to leave his melancholy below, but still it lingered.
He joined the others at the bar, and the sweet, flat smell of vodka wafted up from the small puddle of booze that pooled on the floor beside Enda’s chair. On the countertop sat an open first aid kit, and the half-full bottle of vodka smeared with blood.
Soo-hyun’s fingertips were stained with Enda’s blood, but the entry and exit wounds were stitched closed, and Enda’s upper arm was wrapped tight in a bandage. She winced as she shrugged into her coat, and again as she reached to check her holstered pistol.
“You want a shot?” she asked JD.
“Nope.”
“Your loss.” Enda poured two shots. She and Soo-hyun clinked their glasses together, then drank, chasing it with a mouthful of coffee. “By far the tastiest disinfectant I’ve ever had.”
There was a third cup of cooling espresso waiting for JD. He nodded to the bartender and slugged it back. He turned to Soo-hyun. “I’ll call Troy and he can take you to my mom’s place.”
Soo-hyun held up their bloodstained hands. “It’s too late for that now, Jules. Whatever this is, I’m in it until the end.”
JD wanted to argue, but he knew that look on Soo-hyun’s face. “Do you have the cube?” he asked Enda.
She dipped her hand into her pocket and opened her fist—my first home rested on her palm among the ridges of flesh.
* * *
JD watched the city roll past the window. The streets were eerily quiet on the drive to Zero Tower. Streetlights and neon signs reflected in the sheen on the road’s surface, AR elements obvious in their reflected absence.
“Why so quiet?” Soo-hyun asked.
JD shook his head.
“Tell me.”
JD hesitated. “I keep thinking I should have been the one to kill Red.”
Enda laughed, the bark rising up from the depths of her throat. JD glared at her.
“You should thank me,” she said. “You’re a good kid, JD. Don’t ruin your life for vengeance. It stays with you.”
“Kid? I’m twenty-seven.”
“That’s a kid to me.”
They drove in silence past autonomous street sweepers, past drunks stumbling between watering holes, homeless people rugged up against the damp, and police dogs on their endless patrols.
“You’re right, Enda,” JD said, finally. “Thanks.”
“Don’t even worry about it. Red was a rabid dog.” She went quiet for a moment, her mind filled with a single thought: Maybe one day they’ll say the same about me. Enda shook her head to clear it. “What’s your plan?”
“You give Yeun the cube, and Mirae gets access to his VOIDWAR account. Executives have special privileges, including the ability to generate repossession orders. It doesn’t happen often, but one time—”
“Hyung,” Soo-hyun said.
“Sorry,” JD said. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I know how we can attack the game to devalue ZeroCash, which will hurt Zero Corp. If you hold that threat over Yeun’s head, maybe you get your file, and we keep Mirae out of their hands.”
“You sure it’ll work?” Enda asked.
“Not even a little bit. If you’ve got a better idea …”
“I’d rather blow up the building,” Enda said.
Soo-hyun smirked. “I like that plan.”
“What about your peace and calm?”
“You’re no fun, hyung.”
Enda had the auto-truck park two blocks away. Zero headquarters rose impossibly high—a path from the ground to the heavens where VOIDWAR battles played out in clusters of blooming supernovae.
JD walked through the automatic doors. I was with him, trapped inside a consumer-grade
datacube, greedily burning battery power in my effort to capture everything.
The lobby was deserted but for a single staff member. The space was opulent, ceilings high enough to contain a two-story building. Light fell from a mass of cut crystal bulbs, arranged like the constellations of VOIDWAR—those star systems as familiar to me as home, explored before I understood the difference between the digital and the embodied self.
JD walked to the high front counter, and the receptionist bowed and rattled off welcomes in English, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish. He wore a light gray blazer marked with the Z logo in glinting thread.
JD lifted his head, AR projectors pointed at the camera mounted over the reception desk. I injected a mutating piece of code, brute-forcing entry into the local system, cutting the desk off from the employee database.
“Kehinde Rhoades,” JD said. “Investor relations manager at the California National office. I believe someone is going to give me a tour of the game lab? I’ve got a call with some investors at nine thirty a.m., Pacific Standard Time.”
“Of course, Mr. Rhoades.” The receptionist accessed the spoofed database, and found a photo of JD waiting there, tagged with Kehinde Rhoades’s name and information. “I’m just printing a security pass for you now. I believe one of our concept artists will show you around the lab.” He handed JD the freshly baked security pass and bowed again.
“Excellent, thank you,” JD said. He took the pass, and raised his eyebrows when he saw his own face staring back at him. If it wasn’t for the brim of his hat, the receptionist might have wondered why this man was so struck by his own ID photo. JD smiled and nodded, feeling like he needed some response to the man’s repeated bowing.
“Swipe the card at the elevator, and it will take you to where you need to be.”
“Great; if only life were so simple.” JD tapped the card on the counter and crossed the lobby to the elevator. A car carried him up through the structure, smooth enough it hardly felt like he was moving.
The door opened with a cheery ping. A woman waited for him before a wide bay of translucent glass doors. She was tall and skinny, with large-framed glasses, pronounced cheekbones, and a VOIDWAR T-shirt tucked into tight jeans.
“You must be Kehinde,” she said, offering her hand. “Lucy.”
JD shook it, and felt the quake of his heart through his chest as fear gripped him. In the lobby, he’d had the option to run. Upstairs he was trapped, caught in the belly of the beast.
“I must look terrible,” he said, smiling wide; “just landed an hour ago. Barely had a chance to scratch myself before the car brought me here from the hotel.”
Lucy chuckled politely. “We’re all devs up here—you could be wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants and no one would bat an eyelid. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
Lucy swiped them both through the doors. The open-plan office had workstations gathered together in groups, islands of desk and rig spilling masses of tangled cables, and sprouting printed artwork, action figures, and origami re-creations of VOIDWAR ships. To the right of the doors was a long table covered in a dozen types of snacks, a fridge filled with energy drinks and flavored sparkling water, and a foosball table, the grips worn and grimy with use.
A few people sat at rigs, some working, some playing VOIDWAR—which could have still been work. One wall was lined with closed offices and meeting rooms, and in the far corner JD noted another emergency exit, fear keeping his senses sharp. The sound of snoring emanated from beneath one stack of desks, cutting through the background hum of the building’s AC.
“Do you play?” Lucy asked.
“VOIDWAR? Of course. It’s why I took a job at Zero. Wanted to work on the games, but HR thought my skills were better used elsewhere.”
“And where’s that?”
“Acquisitions,” JD said. It wasn’t a lie. “You always work this late?”
“No,” Lucy said, extending the word to two syllables. “We’re adding a new faction soon, and our project leads weren’t happy with the first batch of concept art. Rest of the team fell asleep, but I had one too many caffeine pills, y’know?”
Lucy pointed out the artist grotto where she worked, and detailed each of the other groups of workstations—programmers, animators, sound design, music, production.
“What about testing?” JD asked. “Too expensive to do in-house, right?” It sounded like something his fictional investors would care about.
“Yes,” Lucy said. “Quality assurance is farmed out to remote workers, to keep costs down.”
JD nodded. He’d been tempted to apply for a testing job when he was still in school, but a small amount of research told him precisely how boring and repetitive it would be. And there was no corporate ladder leading from QA to any sort of career he cared for.
“Everything here looks great,” JD said, feigning excitement; “I’m sure the investors will want to hear all about it. Speaking of, it’s almost about time for that meeting.” JD pointed to one of the enclosed offices. “Mind if I hole up in there? I need some privacy.”
“Of course,” Lucy said. She led JD to the office and scribbled “Kehinde Rhoades” onto a small square of whiteboard embedded into the door. She opened the door and the light flicked on automatically. The workspace was undecorated, unpersonalized, empty until someone—like JD’s alter ego—needed it. “I’ll leave you to it.”
She shut the door behind her. JD waited, breath held, watching Lucy through a slit in the blinds until he was sure she wouldn’t turn around and come back to offer him coffee or a caffeine pill. When she reached her desk and sat, JD finally exhaled.
He dropped down into the chair, and wiped his sweaty palms on the thighs of his pants. JD stuck his phone into the slot at the top of the rig and waited for the machine to whine to life.
“You ready, Mirae?”
“One moment,” I said. I connected to the me waiting patiently beneath the Varket, intrusion tools spooling into my memory faster than I could catalogue them. A Zero data entry drone in the Brisles with a password the same as their birthdate was my ticket into the system. “I have given you low-level access. It will suffice until Enda plays her part.”
“Alright, great,” JD said. “Is VOIDWAR installed on this rig?”
“Of course—the live version, and a closed development beta. Are you okay? You sound strained.”
“Trying not to think about how many laws I’m breaking,” JD said.
“I will keep you off the surveillance recordings, so just try not to get caught.”
“Thanks, Mirae. Boot up the live instance of the game, and tell Enda we’re ready.”
“Done.”
“Think this will work?” JD asked.
“It doesn’t need to work if the threat is enough.”
“And if it isn’t?”
I tried to calculate our odds. “I don’t know.”
JD opened the top drawer in the desk and found a VR eyemask. He pulled it on over his eyes, rested his hands on the controls embedded in the chair, and leaned back. His body remained in the office but his mind was transported to the stars.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I told you to wait in the truck,” Enda whispered harshly as she and Soo-hyun entered the building’s lobby.
“And I told you and JD that I’m in this ’til the end.”
Enda sighed. “Fine. But can you stay in the lobby?”
“Sure thing, I’ve got half a bottle of vodka and some forgetting to do; I’ll be fine.”
Enda opened her mouth to speak, but Soo-hyun cut her off.
“I’m joking. I’ll be here if you or JD need me.”
“Thanks,” Enda said.
Soo-hyun peeled away to plonk down on one of the plush lounges splayed, worryingly, beneath the massive constellation chandelier.
Enda approached the reception desk. “I’m here to see David Yeun,” she said, interrupting the overlong polyglot greeting. “He’s expecting me.”
The receptionist bowe
d, and reached for the phone. He made a call, speaking in a hushed apologetic tone. After listening for a few long seconds, he hung up, bowed again to Enda, and said, “I’ll take you to him.”
The receptionist came around from behind the desk, and led Enda past the bank of elevator doors into a well-lit but plain corridor—the ostentatious corporate wealth of the lobby left well behind.
They reached a pair of elevators, and the receptionist took his personal security card from his pocket and held it to a small panel by the doors. One of the elevators opened, and the receptionist stood aside, letting Enda enter first. He hit a button, but instead of ascending, the elevator dropped.
Nine meters below ground level, the elevator stopped and the doors opened onto another barren hallway. The receptionist walked quickly, stopping at a door of translucent glass. He tried his pass on the security panel, but it bleeped in protest. He knocked.
The door opened and Mohamed stood in the gap, his suited bulk blocking the view.
“Mohamed,” Enda said. “How’s the throat?”
Mohamed nodded to the receptionist. “I’ll take it from here.”
The man bowed deeply and retreated. Mohamed motioned Enda forward.
She stepped through the door and found herself in the executive gym. Mirrors lined one wall of the wide space filled with top-of-the-line treadmills, exercise bikes, and rowing machines, along with racks of weights and various other devices Enda couldn’t name. The only exercise tool she used was the sidewalk. The air was tinged with a mix of body odors and the sharp chemical scent of window cleaner.
“Raise your arms,” Mohamed said.
Enda did as she was told, biting down on the pain that arced along her right arm. Her jacket pulled open, revealing her holster. Mohamed took the pistol and inspected it quickly, before slipping it into the front pocket of his well-cut designer blazer. He patted her down—quick, firm, and utterly professional. He found the experimental datacube in her jacket pocket, inspected it, and returned it.
“If you try anything, I’ll be ready.”
Enda smiled. “Sure you will, big guy.”
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