by Elle Hawken
The director told me it was a message to the arc-phens: Don't steal government property.
I didn't know what happened to IToldYourGirlfriend999. I wondered if arc-phens went the same place we did when they died. I wondered if either of us really went anywhere at all.
Regaining control of my body was a blessing and a curse after that. It had been too long. I'd been drugged for weeks, I'd done terrible things. Corpse raiding was a disgusting field of work, but it was the dog I couldn't stop thinking about – the one I'd shot in Washington Square Park.
I had a nervous breakdown.
“I want out. I want to quit the program,” I'd told the director when I was lucid again.
From the way he looked at me, I knew he'd heard it a hundred times. “You know what quitting means.” He opened a desk drawer and handed me a small plastic bag printed with blue and green medical jargon. The disposable syringe inside was tiny.
I took it home. I put it away and dug it back out again. I thought about it. Who hasn't? But I'd come too far from scrounging pennies to buy cereal in Big D to give up now. I'd put myself through school. I was no Cal Tech protege, but I'd landed a decent job at Clonique after graduation and jumped ship to EnCryptagion when they'd beckoned. Yes, my hands shook and I'd gone bat shit crazy over the golden retriever incident. But I had something to go back to after this was over. I had a future.
BetaLife in Basel had offered to grant me a haven when my circumstances allowed. They had taken the next step in arc-phen relations last summer and offered permanent transfer to flesh. I'd been EnCryptagion's consultant to their development team. I worked for them now as a part-time freelance specialist via the internet on their new project: human awareness transfer.
I'm over it, that's what I told myself about those three days I'd broken down and lost any sense of reality. The world went black for a minute, but I'm still here. Everything's okay now. I'm going to make it. I can handle it. But I couldn't stand to see old friends. I didn't leave my apartment unless it was for a session. The syringe hovered at the edge of my thoughts. I bought vodka and listened to the Requiem, and wondered if I would know it was happening when the rest of my mind went to pieces.
***
A few days after my date with Mozart, BlackMagusDelphi34 took me to a BDSM club in Red Hook and cruised all the leather lesbians. I arrived home at 4am crisscrossed with deep welts. It was a minor infraction of my No Maiming clause, but I'd filed for an injunction against Black Magus just the same. The director had balked, but I pointed out that whichever arc-phens rented me next wouldn't be getting their full TIF-mins' worth, and I didn't peddle a crap product. He'd had to agree. I looked like shit and felt worse. He gave me two days off. Medical leave. So I went home.
Lurking near the door to my building was a big man in a trench coat and baseball cap. He'd been stalking me since I got Listed and had Government written all over him. I used to think he was a cop with a misplaced grudge. But then he'd started hinting that he wanted to get to know me. I never gave in. He gave me the creeps.
“What happened to you?” he demanded.
“Go away.”
“Hey!” He caught my arm. He'd never touched me before and it hurt.
“Do you know who I am?”
He looked sheepish. “Yeah.”
Of course you do, my video still rates worship status online. The footage from the elevator only showed the back of my head, but anyone with enough clearance could dig up my name. And address. “Then you know better than to touch me.”
He let go. “How come you never bring anyone here? No friends, family?”
I was incredulous. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
A cannon ball landed in the pit of my stomach and I wondered if the Department suspected my immunity to the MetZeps. Had I done something to give myself away? I'd alienated myself, but surely I wasn't the only org-av who'd done that. I couldn't stand to be with people who'd known me before I'd become an avatar. I couldn't stand the way they looked at me, like I was the same person I'd always been. They expected me to act the same. To react the same. And I couldn't. Was the Department watching me? Did they know? I told myself I was just paranoid.
But this guy had that look about him, like he'd spent the last fifteen years in a gym instead of behind a desk, and I knew something wasn't right. He was armed. He had hard eyes that didn't ask any questions, just like the man I'd killed at EnCryptagion. “Are you in the Company?” I asked, mimicking the term I'd heard in movies.
“Yeah.”
Shit.
“But look, this isn't official –”
“I'm under contract. You can't touch me. What happened was a mistake.” And then I thought . . . maybe this guy isn't for real. Anybody could lie. I wasn't good at telling the difference. And I had two ex-husbands to prove it.
“Can I come up?”
“No.” I swiped my passcard, entered, and shut the door in his face. He caught it and swung it open before the lock clicked.
My building didn't rate a doorman, but we had 24 hour security. The guard came around his desk in a hurry. It was Bruckman tonight. “Hey! Back off, mister! This is a secured building. I am armed and I will shoot you.”
The guy in the baseball cap showed his ID.
Bruckman looked at me and stammered.
“It's alright,” I said, even though it wasn't. “I thought he was faking.”
We took the elevator to the penthouse, and I noticed my companion didn't look nervous. I was. Every time I stepped into an elevator I felt guilty.Like I might do it again. “I thought you guys only worked overseas.”
“My name is John. I worked with Danny Greenberg.”
Revenge, then. My eyes trekked over his frame. The trench coat hid a lot, but judging by his muscled neck I doubted I could take him. “I'm sorry about your friend. Like I said, it was an accident. I'd known Mrs. Chung for years. I mean, not personally, but I'd seen her around. I didn't understand what was happening.”
“It was my fault.”
The doors to the elevator slid open.
“You were working early,” he said. “I didn't expect you. You'd only left a couple of hours earlier.”
That night I'd taken a break around 2am. Dinner. I'd showered at home and eaten Thai food at the 'round the clock joint down the street from my building. The moon had been full. That was the last time anything had looked beautiful. Nothing was the same after I killed Danny Greenberg and got Listed, the light went out of me and everything else seemed changed. Like a fool, I had looked up at that big glowing globe on the way back to work that night and promised myself that there was still love in the world. Somewhere.
I crossed the vestibule and slid my passcard into the lock. We entered my apartment and John looked around, taking in its retro industrial chicness. He looked surprised, but I wasn't sure why. It could have been the lack of personal photos. My family wouldn't talk to me anymore and I didn't like reminders. The Department had covered up Greenberg's death and the official story was that I'd been caught stealing information from EnCryptagion. Or maybe John was surprised that I kept the thermostat at sixty degrees and it felt ice cold. Maybe he was wondering how a biotech analyst could afford a place like this.
“I sold my patents on the Aether bridge to EnCryptagion,” I said, not wanting him to think I'd come into money the way Mrs. Chung had.
“Good thing you sold it before the arc-phens shut it down.”
“Diplomacy wasn't my company's strong suit.” But it wasn't fair to blame EnCryptagion for that. It hadn't taken the government long after the sale to recognize the bridge as a phenomenal security risk and seize it, claiming it was a port of exit and entry to the United States like the arc-phen transfer station. All true, their methods rubbed me the wrong way. I'd managed to stay on good terms with the arc-phens for two years, despite the nature of my job. The arguing bureaucrats and suits had destroyed my aura of good will and logic less than a week after they took over.
> “Maybe the arc-phens didn't like it that you gave up control.”
“I handed it over before they took it. Owning the bridge was like hiding a live dinosaur in my backyard. There was no way I'd get to keep it. Do you want something to drink?”
“I was there. Part of my job was to secure the door to the elevator bank.”
I selected two coffee pods and snapped them into the brewer. Pushed the button.
“Higher clearances take longer to block,” he said, “and I didn't want to be in the system any longer than I had to. I thought I'd accounted for everyone with a code one passkey. I knew Davis Finchel and Carrie Morgan were home. Martin Greuber was holed up in his office, as always. Alexander Reustin was in LA. Lau Xing, still in Stockholm. I thought you had gone home. So I took a shortcut. I didn't block your key.”
Despite what he was telling me, I laughed. Breaching EnCrytptagion's security, even on just one door lock, was a job for an elite hacker. By the looks of him, John spent way too much time pumping iron instead of silicone to manage that feat. Or should I say, getting zapped and immersed in a vitamin-protein-AAS slurry, soldier-style. The coffee machine sputtered to life.
John grabbed me, pushing me back against my giant brass refrigerator until there wasn't a breath of air between us. His lips wandered over my cheek and down my neck. Numbness and tingles shot through my body. I couldn't move. To my embarrassment, I couldn't even tell him no, and I started trembling. Blackness crowded in.
So much for being over it.
I'd gotten used to watching myself do strange things in that removed TV-like reality of arc-phen possession. IToldYourGirlfriend999 had slept around during our month on the lam. But this was different. I hadn't been with a man while in control of my faculties since Husband Number Two had moved on to greener pastures. This wasn't filtered through a MetZep haze. I wasn't watching someone else's pornographic dream starring my TV-Self and a Random Stranger. This was me.
John's lips lingered over my ear and he whispered so quietly that I almost didn't hear him. “They're watching you right now. You know that.” I nodded, assuming he meant the Department, but I didn't know why they would be. I was chipped. And the new chip was in my cerebellum. I wasn't going anywhere without the Department knowing about it. “Friday,” he whispered. Then he let me go and left.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
***
April was too cold for the beach, but ThatChicFromCali took the early train to Atlantic City. We were treated to an eclectic display of junk statuary along the track and at several points across town. I'd never gambled before. We got thrown out of three casinos for suspicious winning. In spite of the name, this arc-phen felt male. He spent two hours standing in the ocean, feeling the freezing waves crash over us and listening to the sighs of the great heaving water. Silt wriggled between my toes and the sharp bite of broken shells prickled the soles of my feet. Before we slunk back to the city, he spent a good chunk of his winnings at a spa that pretended to be a Turkish bathhouse.
When he returned me, it was only ten o'clock at night and I had another session lined up to meet my quota.
30155632142 was new to me. The numbers got jumbled up in my head when I tried to remember the sequence through the MetZep gloss, so I called her Numbers. She left my clothes at the transfer station and changed into a clingy black dress, tall boots and a wool coat. We walked several long blocks up to Canal Street. Sightseeing at night could be dangerous, and I was afraid we'd get mugged. But we finally made it to a diner and ate some greasy lasagna before we took the northbound 6.
We got off at 77th. I was familiar with this part of town. Before I knew it, we were passing through the doors of Mozart's building. George greeted us and Numbers gave him a dirty look. We got into the elevator. She jabbed the 8 button and my stomach did a little flip.
Numbers pressed my ear to Mozart's door and listened. Not a sound. She removed a key from her coat pocket. It wasn't as heavy, it was a copy. With a screech, the bolt slid back and we entered. Numbers locked the door behind us and went into the bedroom. I noticed the giant mirror hung above the dresser. But Numbers ignored that. She went straight for the armoire on the far wall. She opened it and removed the rear panel. Then we climbed through a secret passage into apartment 809.
Mozart's setup was almost as complex as mine had been at my old lab. But he only had four monitors. Numbers took a seat in the swivel chair and started typing. Mozart's passwords barely slowed her down. My attention was drawn to the leftmost screen. It showed live feeds of my apartment.
I felt sick.
“Goddamned lasagna,” Numbers muttered. She jammed a thumb drive into a slot and swapped data. “You're gonna pay, you bastard.” Then she pulled the drive out and tucked it into my bra. The window popped up asking if we were sure we wanted to allow such and such program to make a change to the computer. Numbers punched yes. Then she replaced everything as it had been and locked up Mozart's apartment. “Fucking snitch.”
***
I don't know if it was Numbers' uncharacteristic profanity or that she had been mean to George, but at some point I got over the fact that Mozart had been spying on me and I decided to warn him. Besides, she'd broken my No Crime clause.
White roses graced a cut-crystal vase. Each bloom was bigger than Rogers' fist, petals thick and waxy. I'd sealed my encrypted note in a red parchment envelope and tucked it into the middle of the arrangement. For years I had eyed the flower shop in Grand Central that sold these ridiculously expensive flowers. I bought some because I figured George couldn't say no to them.
I smiled at him, trying to make up for Numbers' rudeness the previous evening. I tried to make my voice sound the way it did when Mozart used it, but I lacked his confidence and it came out all nerves. “I'm not expected,” I explained.
“Mr. Maurier isn't in, my dear,” he said with something like an apology.
“Well, that's actually good news. I was rather afraid of interrupting . . .” George raised a brow and I couldn't finish my sentence.
He leaned in close. “I suppose I shouldn't tell you this, but you're the only woman I've seen visit Mr. Maurier.” George smiled at me in his grandfatherly way, as if he'd just convinced my mom to let me have a kitten.
It took me about half a second to realize that George thought Mozart was physically in his apartment during my visits, and the other half to realize that he must have been lurking in the secret room every time. Or should I say, his empty body must have been stowed there. His other org-av. The equipment in 809 was complex enough – he could have built a setup similar to the transfer station. Then I wondered if he had a regular org-av or if he switched out. Apparently he used the same one often enough to maintain a very real physical presence here. Part of me felt perversely jealous. And paranoid. I wondered what he looked like. Why he watched me. Why Numbers had burned him.
I wondered if I was involved in whatever Mozart was involved in.
***
Paranoia is a strange beast. Friday rolled around and I was afraid to stay in my apartment because of John. I wanted to hide, to feel safe. So I went to the cinema to be near the Institute.
Three films later, it was time for my session. I pushed through the back door and cool, crisp air made me thankful to escape the oppressive butter-laden atmosphere of the theater. I jumped at every cough and honk. Every time I caught sight of a man in a baseball cap, a jolt shot through my nerves.
John was a professional. I didn't see him at all.
His gloved hand closed around my wrist and delivered a quick shock. My knees wobbled as John dragged me down the street and loudly berated me for being drunk again. By the time we arrived at his vehicle, which he'd stashed in an alley, the stun was wearing off.
But nothing I did took him by surprise. And I tried everything. He never lost control, not even for a moment. He gagged me and tied my wrists. Then he pushed me into the cargo bay and slammed the door. I ate a large dish of crow as I revisited
my derisive opinion of government training methods. VR and steroids had just kicked my ass.
John kept telling me not to be frightened as we cruised in the dirty work van up FDR.
“I knew DiversiFine was hacking EnCryptagion,” he said as he wove through traffic. “I used to contract for them before I started taking jobs for the CIA. I blew the whistle three days ago when they got too close to your data on the footbridge. Yeah, I know you encrypted it, but any code can be broken. I had to burn it out.”
Footbridge? I liked that better than trap door. So much for it being a secret.
We pulled into a parking garage. John opened the van's side door and looked down at me. My wrists stung from the plastic ties. He shrugged out of the trench coat and pulled off the cap. The change in his appearance was remarkable, he went from creep to regular guy in about three seconds. “I need you to make this work.” He pulled the gag out of my mouth.
“What are we doing?”
“Fleeing the country. And DiversiFine.”
“Why?”
He cut my ties with a short blade. “Because it won't be long before they figure out your mind's the last place to find the secret of the footbridge. And I can't protect you here.”
At the sight of him standing over me with a knife, my hand went reflexively to the back of my skull, covering my chip. Brain surgery in a parking garage? “John . . .” I tried to sound convincing, but I couldn't even get to the part where I begged him not to do it.
“Come on,” he said as he folded the knife and tucked it into his jeans.
We walked around the block and I realized we were nowhere near an airport or pier. We entered Mozart's building. George greeted us with a friendly 'good evening' and I played along. We took the elevator to 807. John rushed me through the door, through the bedroom and through the armoire to 809. He flipped a lot of switches and sat in the chair.
“You know an arc-phen smoked this equipment, right?”
