by Ada Redmond
Whatever else was going on, I knew one thing for certain. I needed sanctuary and access to the Net.
"I wish I could say this was a surprise," came a familiar voice over a backdrop of classic rock. "Word's going round that you have pissed off some very important people, my friend."
"Lenny," I called over the music. "I need somewhere to crash."
"Head for Fenchurch, little lady. We'll be waiting."
I'm not ashamed to say I legged it there, jogging my way through a city putting one lot of patrons to bed only to wake up another. As tourists and city suits made their way home, London's nightlifers were just starting to drift out into the streets. Sunlight gave way to neon, a rainbow-coloured section of the most cosmopolitan advertisements the capital had to offer, plastered over every building wide enough to support them.
I found one of Lenny's guys on the corner of Cooper's Row, bundled up in leather and sports gear to fend off the chill in the evening air. "You kill someone or sumthin'?" he asked me, gesturing to an alley on our right.
"Not tonight."
"Net's going haywire," he told me, pointing out a door with a hastily painted gang sign sprayed across it.
I nodded a quick thanks and ducked inside. The music hit me full force, the vapour clouding up the air soon following. Lenny was behind a slim stacked bar, chatting up a bloke half his age with double the hair.
"Hate to step in," I said, offering an apologetic look to the guy I came to a stop beside. "But I need our man here."
I waited until he was out of earshot (all of three paces) to start. "So apparently I'm a wanted woman, and not in the good way!"
Lenny smirked, pulling out a tablet from behind the bar and handing it over. On it was a picture taken not long after I'd got half my face replaced, along with a nice big headline explaining that I was an extremely bad person. More specifically—someone wanted in connection to a massive security breach at a government- funded facility.
"Well, shit."
"Shit indeed," Lenny called back. "Come backstage and let's try to get to the bottom of this, eh?"
We headed around the bar and into a side room that looked worse than my cube did. Lenny kicked at a curled up figure on the floor until it crawled outside, and shut the door behind us. I wish I could say it drowned out the noise beyond it, but it really didn't.
"You wanna fill me in, lass?"
I perched on the edge of a large bundle in the corner that I chose to believe was a chair. "Danny asked me to make a drop for her this morning. Some programme she said needed a hacker's special touch. She told me this thing was meant to catch someone skimming profits at Kova. I did her a favour and a few hours later, here I am." I shrugged, rubbing at the skin above my right eye. "As for this," I said, waving the tablet with my face still gracing the front of it, "no idea. But I got a call from the same hacker saying the drive I gave her had placed copies of the files I'm being accused of stealing all over her network."
"So your little mate is setting you two up to take the fall for a theft that no one actually knew had happened until tonight," Lenny said, pulling away a large tablecloth that had been concealing a stack of computer towers all attached to the same twenty-inch monitor. "Net is buzzing with a story about how you've supposedly been selling trade secrets to Russia ever since you got your augs. They're claiming you took a payment from them without delivering."
I blinked. "So what you're saying is… everyone thinks I'm a spy now."
Lenny didn't even crack a smile. "What I'm saying is that you're dead. Or soon will be, if Kova's taking this as seriously as the Net seems to think they are. And there ain't a coolant in the world that's gonna be able to take the heat off you tonight."
There was barely a silence, thanks to the pounding of the music outside, and Lenny continued on a moment later, anyway. "You know your girl is probably the real double agent, right? Looks like for whatever reason she needed an exit strategy, and you're it."
I looked at him. Lenny had been something of a father figure, I suppose, ever since I'd made my way to the capital in my teens. It was thanks to him I'd learnt how to throw a decent left hook, among other things. He'd helped me become savvy enough to get a job in low level security, and I'd only worked my way up thanks to the start and the contacts he'd given me. He never had been happy about me taking the position at Kova, though, despite the pay grade.
He watched me mull things over, a crease of worry just visible in the corners of his eyes.
"Yeah, I know."
"So then, what you gonna do about it? Take the hit? Make like a tree?"
I scowled at him, annoyed at the very suggestion that I'd run. But practically, there wasn't really much I could do. My face would be all over the ten o'clock news in a few hours. After that, any public building I passed would ping my chip if I walked within ten feet of it, and paying for anything using my accounts was right out too. My only advantage was my metal, it seemed. If it came down to it, I could always fight my way out of an arrest, I supposed. But that was hardly going to help me in the long run.
"Looks like I better pay Danny a visit."
Lenny sighed. "You know where she'll be."
"Yeah," I nodded. "I do."
My best bet was to head back into the tunnels, but getting down there without alerting anyone wouldn't exactly be easy, and travelling through them might be just as dangerous, especially if the place was crawling with Praetorians looking for Terminal. But staying at surface level meant dodging every doorway with a scanner from here to Mile End. Either way, it was at least an hour's trek.
"You could always..." Lenny started, resting a hand over his right wrist. He looked at me with a grimace. "Taking it out would make you impossible to ping."
I looked down at my own arm, rubbing my thumb over the skin and feeling the implant underneath. The photograph of David Miller and his companions flashed in front of my eyes again, mixing with others from the riots. The vision of hundreds of thousands of people spilling their own blood in front of the Palace was vivid and stark. They had cut into their arms with anything from hospital issue scalpels to pocket knives. The screams had been a mixture of pain and relish as they'd freed themselves from their 'technological cages'.
I'd only been fifteen at the time, watching it on one of Lenny's tablets and holding my wrist to my chest, unable to imagine life in a world in which I wasn't known.
The protesters had taken to the tunnels soon after, pushing through police lines and descending into the abandoned network. And with no way to track them, and no branch of government willing to take action against them, they had stayed there. Life had moved on without them. News corporations had dubbed them criminals, degenerates and liars. Those who hid below because light would uncover things about them they didn't want anyone else to know.
The thought of becoming a faceless woman, someone without an identity, made my breath catch. "No," I said, hoping Lenny would do me the service of ignoring the fear in my voice. "I'll figure something out."
He pulled me in before I stepped out, forcing me up against his chest and bringing a hand down hard on my back. It had been a while since anyone had done that and I heard myself apologising as I shrugged quickly out of his grasp. He took no notice.
"Stay safe, young one," he said with a wink.
I couldn't help but smile. "Copy that."
Tower Hill station was nothing but a boarded up rectangular arch hidden behind a checkpoint. It hadn't been used in years, and the patrol was often minimal. I approached slowly, casing it as people meandered about, taking in the view of the Wall across the way, and the Tower of London beyond.
I didn't recognise the man sitting behind the glass, though his helmet was off, lying on the counter in front of him. He was half slumped, probably watching something on a device balanced on his lap. Wouldn't take much to get by him, but getting inside the actual station wasn't gonna be easy. Well, not without punching one of the boards in, anyway.
I looked down at my left arm, watching
the fingers flex and clench. It would be so easy to march up and take the whole barricade down. But by the time I got inside, half the police force this side of the Thames would know about it, and my whole incognito strategy would be over before it started.
I made my way around to Trinity Square. There was an old station exit there, but this one wasn't boarded over; it was gated. Metal shutters were fixed into the building above by heavy screws, but the bottoms were only locked with digital combinations.
I looked around. There weren't as many people here as around the corner, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Still, I didn't have a lot of choice. I turned my collar up and knelt down.
It only took a matter of minutes to crack one of the locks and roll up a shutter, ignoring the curious glances sent my way as I did so. I turned back and met the eyes of a younger man looking at me from where he'd paused to watch my progress.
"Maintenance," I chirped lightly, offering a grin before stepping back and letting the shutter slam closed behind me.
I wouldn't be able to cover my tracks, but this wasn't exactly a place many would think to break into. With any luck, I'd have plenty of time before the guard made his way round this side of the station to patrol.
I squinted into the dim. Most of the old fluorescent lamps above me had long since burnt out, but a few were still running off the main power, flickering sadly as I passed by underneath. An old school CCTV camera was still attached to the wall near the exit.
I jumped the barriers and made my way down into the depths, taking a deep breath of foul-tasting air and rolling my shoulders. The first platform I made my way down to was quiet, a lot of the through traffic having already calmed down for the night. A few people tried to wave me over, but I shook my head. I knew which way I needed to head, and the journey was already gonna take longer than I'd have liked it to.
The tunnel was quieter than I was used to, even at this time of the evening. It was as though everyone was laying low, though there'd been no sign of Praetorian activity other than the lone guard I'd seen before.
There was a loud shout up ahead, and I soon found myself pressing into the side of the tunnel, moving slowly as I followed the sound. As I came round a turn, the reason for the hush became clear. A half dozen or so blokes with unfamiliar accents were laying into the locals, kicking at doors and pulling at tents in an effort to get some attention.
I slipped up a couple of steps leading onto a platform and kept my head down, watching as the group made their way along the tracks, spitting at people in broken English as they went.
Russians. Looking for Terminal, no doubt, and by extension me. Though who had let them into the depths in the first place was anyone's guess. "Christ's sake, Danny," I found myself whispering. "This lot really pay better than Kova?"
It wouldn't take much to get by them, use one of the pedestrian tunnels to follow another line and then change back at another station. There were only six of them, and they didn't look amped...
I got lucky with the first one, kicking one of his knees in from behind and then bringing my arm down. He hit the wood with a dull thud, out cold before the others realised what was happening.
It didn't take long for them to recognise me after that.
I'd love to say that I fought fair, but before the accident, the very thought of taking them all on at once would have been ridiculous. Back alley kickboxing lessons can only get a girl so far. And for all the studies and scans and prodding with odd little needles, this tech of mine hadn't ever really been tested.
My left leg wasn't entirely tech, but from the knee down, it was near enough. The extra strength made it almost too easy to push myself up and over, using one of the men as leverage while I came down on the other, a quick kick out catching him square in the chest. Another fell after I made contact with his jaw so hard I could almost hear the crack.
They didn't all go down so easy, figuring pretty quickly to come at me all at once to reduce my advantage. In the end, two of them turned out to have tech like I did, though it was far better concealed. One managed to get a hand on my throat, the augmented polymers implanted into his skin squeezing hard around my windpipe before I managed to twist free with a gasp.
It couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, adrenalin and then anger making me strong and quick. The last man hit the deck with a broken whimper, and I'm ashamed to say that I smiled at the scene I left behind as I continued down the tunnel afterwards.
Rationally, I knew that there had to be other men like them down here, and that I really should warn the hacker that it wasn't just Praetorians after her. But I had no idea where she'd be now, or how to reach her.
No, my best bet was still getting to Danny. Had she really been selling trade secrets to a Russian biotech firm? And if so, what had gone wrong? She was a smart woman and a long time Kova employee. Why risk that?
Continuing my trek and trying to ignore the pulsing ache round my neck, I winced as crackling noise in my left ear told me someone was pinging my implant. I headed down what was once a part of the District Line and pressed a finger to my ear. "Terminal, that you?"
"Expecting someone else?"
I ignored the sarcasm, dripping though it was. "Turns out I'm guilty of espionage," I said, stepping over a sleeping merchant and crossing another line of tracks. "And quite a few people appear to be angry about it. You know there are Russian hounds down here, right?"
"Oh well, that's just fucking marvellous. And here I was worrying about ending up in a cell," she replied. I could hear her tapping, humming lightly under her breath as she did so. "I'm tucked away in a service centre just south of Stepney Green, so you should swing by before you go topside again. I have something that you're gonna need."
I paused, hearing myself asking a question I had unfortunately already worked out the answer to. "How do you know where I am, Terminal?"
She sniggered, and now that we were both in the tunnels, the line was clear enough that I got the full effect of the sound. "I'm tracking you, moron."
I sighed. "Great."
"Figured if I was gonna help you get us out of this, then keeping you on a short leash was probably the way to go."
I started walking again, following the lines as they twisted and turned, watching the lives of the so-called free play out around me in dirt and dust. Now that the immediate threat of foreign muscle had been dealt with, there were more people milling about the place. "And how are you planning on doing that?"
"Figured I'd gift-wrap a pretty choker and ask real nice."
I snorted.
"Hey, I'd get a cool brass one to match your metal. I take good care of my pets, robot girl."
I knew it had just been a joke, but the ease at which I'd won that fight and the nasty reality of what I truly was now had me hissing with a venom I hadn't even known that I was capable of feeling. "Get to the point or I'm disabling this thing manually," I spat out.
I heard her swallow. "Geez, easy, okay? Just trying to lighten the mood." The sound of clicking started up again, and the next time she spoke she was all business. "All right, so I guess you're all clued in to the fact that you and me are now Public Enemies Number One and Two respectively. Me, because I apparently breached one of the most secure networks in the world and stole a bunch of top-secret military R&D, and not for the first time. You, because you're pissed at your old employer since they left you with only half a face, so you decided to sell shit to their competitors. Namely, our new Russian friends, who don't like paying for things they haven't received.
"The way I figure it, the reason you're down here is because you're headed to the Kova Domestic building in Mile End to find out what's up, because it isn't as if you can just go home. Though what you plan to do once you get there is anyone's guess."
"I need to see Danny. If nothing else, she's probably the only person I can contact who knows what all this is about."
Her laughter was a sweet, disbelieving sort of sound, and I braced myself for the ridicule th
at was sure to follow.
"You mean, the arsehole who provided you with the drives that got us into this mess in the first place? Wow. Brilliant plan there. Gotta say, it's kinda becoming obvious you're pretty new to the whole investigator thing. I mean why chase evidence, find witnesses, or trawl the Net for clues when you can just walk up to our prime suspect and ask her to explain herself!"
"Danny isn't a criminal. She's a tech, a salary woman. She'll have a reason."
The line was quiet for a little while then Terminal let out a half-covered groan. "Oh, Christ, she's more than just a friend, isn't she? Is this some jilted lover shit? Goddamn, I am so screwed."
I carried on, trying to make sense of the situation with what little info I had. I'd said the words with such conviction, but deep down I wasn't nearly as sure as I'd sounded. I wanted to believe that Danny would never try to get me sent down, but it wasn't looking good. If nothing else, though, I was confident about getting into Kova. No one knew that building like I did.
"Where are you?" I asked as I neared the next station.
"When you get to the residential tunnel, follow it until you reach a service junction and then hang a right. I'm dug in pretty deep, and the Praetorians who were on my trail are long gone now, but don't mention my name, just in case."
I had to crawl my way through several makeshift tents to get there, and interrupted more than one family meal. A lot of the shelters along this line were communal ones, the locals having decided somewhere along the way that they didn't like being separated any more than they already were. They were generous for the most part, despite my enhancements. The smell along these tunnels wasn't nearly as bad as some of the others... though I'd been down here long enough that I may have just got used to it. Still, there was something warm about this section of the network; I'd have to look into it and find out why one day.
Terminal's palm met my right cheek before I even managed a hello. She stared me down from a whole five foot nothing while I resisted the urge to return the favour. "Okay, now that's out of my system…" She trailed off, eyes glancing over my neck and knuckles, though whatever she was thinking, she didn't voice it.
