Domain code, p.21
Domain Code, page 21
“That sounds exactly like something an emergent would say,” he said, and reached out for her hand. “So would it matter what I think you are?”
Her breath caught, almost choking her. “Depends on what—”
“You’re beautiful,” he told her, and tugged her close.
The kiss that followed should have been awkward. The angle was all wrong. Her left arm was in the way. The space, crammed between the dresser and the open bedroom door, was too tight for them both. But the way he felt, the way she felt against him, especially when he wrapped an arm around her waist, was…
Well. It wasn’t awkward. Not at all.
She laid her forehead against his shoulder, coming up for air. Argo held her for a moment, not saying anything.
Then he took her face in both hands, kissing her again.
For a long while after that, nothing else mattered.
31
Feet up on the railing of the rental house’s back deck, Argo squinted down at his coffee. The light was harsh here in the mornings, the sun just peeking over the trees. The October morning was crisp, almost cold. Nothing compared to Alaska this time of year, Argo mused, but then, what really could? It never even snowed here.
The rental house sat near the top of a hill, and the view was excellent. One of the reasons they had booked the place. From here, a guy could see all the way down to New UT and Ware’s own rooftop deck.
Already, it was busy. Lots of movement right now. Lots of undergrads coming in.
“There are kids who pulled all-nighters down there last night,” Daelia said, closing the slider behind her. “Guaranteed.”
He turned, smiling at the sight of her. She had one of his threadbare flannel shirts thrown on over her sleep clothes. The fabric was thin, limp, and clung to her in all the right ways. She hadn’t put her brace on yet, Argo noticed; without it, her left arm hung at an odd angle from her shoulder. But she’d left her monocle in the bedroom too. He found himself admiring the way she looked without it.
She frowned. “What?”
“Just enjoying the view,” he told her.
Daelia snorted and dragged a chair over next to him, plunking down. “It’s nothing special,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Argo told her, and reached over to brush a bit of hair out of her face.
She looked startled. “You, umm, you weren’t there when I woke up, and I thought maybe—”
Oh. Right. Damn. She probably would have taken that the wrong way. “Just needed some coffee,” he said, brandishing his cup. “And some air. Do you feel it?”
“What?”
“That edge of anticipation, a sliver of nervousness?” Argo laughed. “Always feel it before a big mission.”
Daelia hunched into herself, pulling in her left arm tight across her lap. “I don’t feel anything little right now.”
“We’re going to be fine,” Argo said.
She shook her head. “We already had that issue with Chalk’s access device.”
“Your dad and June are on their way. Should be here within the hour,” Argo told her. “Got a text a little while ago.”
Daelia breathed out, nodded. “So Dad got the replacement device done. That’s good.”
“One little setback doesn’t ruin the whole mission,” Argo told her. “It’s going to be fine.”
She shook her head. “What if it’s somebody here?”
“What?”
“Somebody at the competition, one of the industry folks, or at least somebody in one of those companies. It has to be somebody from the consortium, right? Who else would know about my research?” She looked sick. “What if we don’t find anything? What if, shit, what if it was Veda?”
Argo frowned. “Didn’t you say your work was funded off grants Veda managed to get?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Are those public records? Or at least, searchable?” Daelia didn’t answer. Argo pressed. “She’s been working on this communication problem for a long time, right? I’m guessing people would know. And if you’re worried about something getting crazy—”
“What hasn’t gotten crazy, last few weeks?” Daelia asked.
“I’m here,” he said. “Emily’s here. Your dad is here. Everything’s okay.”
“Yeah, and look at the state of him.”
“I know. But we’re here together. We got through Numina together, right? We can get through this. Another kugu attack? At least we’ve got guns and gravity to rely on down here.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Daelia said. She wasn’t looking at him now, staring out over the trees instead. She seemed very far away. He wondered if she’d really heard anything he had said. “No point in guessing. We’re going to figure it out, then we figure out what to do next.”
Argo nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
She smiled at him, but it was thin, unsupported, and fell apart quickly. “I should go take care of this,” she said, and gestured at her left arm.
“I was going to make eggs or something for breakfast,” Argo told her. “You have any preferences?”
“Scrambled,” she said, and hesitated, getting out of her chair.
Argo sighed. “Look, about last night—”
She cut him off with an open hand. “Whatever you’re going to say, can we get through today first? Then we can figure this…us…out?”
“Sure,” he said, sensing there was nothing to be gained by pursuing the subject right then. “But for what it’s worth, I’d like there to be an us.”
“Yeah,” she said, “me too.”
And she all but fled back into the house.
Argo went back to his coffee. Went back to studying the mission terrain, down below.
He wasn’t nearly as confident as he pretended to be that nothing would happen today. Daelia was right: their luck was absolute shit.
Lee and June got in around 0730, parking Dingo in the rental house’s small single-bay garage. The big Hilux truck barely fit.
They still squeezed him in. It was the easiest way to off-load Chalk.
“I thought her rudiment core was staying in Houston,” Daelia said, even as the heavy-lifter kugu started moving cases into the rental house’s living room.
“She had to come with us,” Dad said from the back of the truck. He was moving things closer to the tailgate. Easier access for Chalk and Argo, who was helping with some of the smaller pieces. “There’s something wrong with her case. It’s going to take a full rebuild and refit and I don’t want to do that to her outside of a clean room.”
“Which we didn’t have the time for, even if you didn’t have the damn feds parked on the airfield,” June added.
Daelia felt a cold clench of guilt, seeing her aunt. “You were supposed to stay in Houston too,” she protested.
“Eh, I need to be where Chalk is,” June said, and gave Daelia a sideways hug. “And Chalk needs to be here.”
“Does this really need to be line of sight, Dad?” Daelia asked. “The bandwidth is going to be shit.”
“I agree, I don’t like it,” he said. “But that’s where we’re at.”
“Doesn’t line of sight require some kind of antenna?” Argo asked, coming back in for another load.
Dad handed him a case. “We’re going to have to install something.”
“This morning?!” Daelia asked.
“Yup. This morning.”
After they got Chalk completely off the truck and safely inside the house, on building power, Dad laid out the plan.
“We’re going to abandon the setup we have in the hotel room,” he told them, opening up one of the smaller cases.
“That’s the best location, though.”
“I agree, it’s a good spot. But what we need is a location with windows. West facing. Up to this location.”
“Can’t we run through a cell phone or something?” Argo asked. “I can play high-def ByYou streams through my phone.”
“No,” Daelia said. “No. Ware runs a building-wide jammer during the contest. Makes sure that we know exactly what the undergrads are doing.”
Daelia shook her head. “This isn’t going to have the bandwidth, right?”
“It’s got enough,” June said. “But the data’s going to come out slow.”
“Every picosecond she’s in there, she risks discovery.”
Network not complicated, Chalk said, projecting herself at the foot of the table. Slow but okay.
“How slow?” Argo asked.
“Ten to twenty minutes.”
“For my research notes?” Daelia asked. “Chalk, they’re going to find you.”
No find. Route prepared.
“What kind of risk does this expose Daelia and I to?” Argo asked.
“This has to happen,” Lee said. “The sooner the better, too. The routes for Chalk are going to be a little different coming through a different port.”
“Yeah? No shit,” Daelia grumbled. “You know where the windows are? The faculty offices.”
“I know,” Dad said. “You’re going to have to get in one of those.”
Daelia felt sick. She knew what that meant. “Veda wanted to talk to me anyway,” she sighed.
Dad gave her a sympathetic smile. “Now that I’m here, I’m going to see what I can do to regain contact with the original device.”
“Would it be helpful if I could get access to the hotel?” Argo asked.
“Possibly,” Dad said. “Think you can?”
Argo shrugged. “Get in the room? Sure. Fix it? It you walk me through it.”
“Can’t risk a call,” June said. “Not through the building’s system. Paphus might catch it.”
“We can upload the instructions to Emily,” Lee said. He looked at Daelia. “Can you get into the building this morning?”
She thought about that for a moment. “Yeah,” she conceded. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
“Good,” Dad said, looking between them. “The sooner the better.”
Daelia sighed and slipped out of her chair. “Let me go find my socks,” she grumbled.
32
Daelia had been honest with her dad: it shouldn’t have been a problem getting back into the building this morning.
Apparently Ware hadn’t gotten that memo.
“This says you’re a judge,” the bored undergrad at the door said, reviewing some kind of list through his visor.
Daelia wanted to slap him. They didn’t have time for this. “Yeah, I am, but I helped out with setup last year and Veda Wilson asked if I wouldn’t come by and talk to her this—”
“We’re not supposed to let the judges into the space prior to the actual competition.”
“What’s going on here?”
It was Anna, coming over with an irritated look on her face. Daelia could have died with relief.
“This kid won’t let us in,” Argo said, gesturing at the undergrad.
“Hey!”
“Yeah, ‘hey’ is right,” Anna snapped. “This is Daelia Hall. She’s one of us.”
The undergrad held his ground. “But the rules—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’ll escort her, make sure she doesn’t talk to anybody or look at anything.” And Anna reached out, pulled Daelia inside. “Come on, let’s go before this muppet makes this any more ridiculous than it already is.”
The main atrium had undergone a radical transformation since yesterday. High black curtains had turned the normally open space into a kind of maze, while the flickering of AR emitters and even waterfall screenings here and there promised to enhance whatever scene would be set up here.
The student teams had worked hard on these projects, usually on the weekends or on their off-hours in between classes. It wasn’t necessarily that it was fun—it was better than a lot of other challenges the college could have issued, but it was still work. It was a great way to get noticed, at least. Having industry on-site to view the results was a huge motivator.
SAAL tended to give special consideration to the students who pulled off some challenging technical build or offered some new idea. It wasn’t necessarily about having a technically perfect kugu, although build quality and operational ease were criteria on the judging rubric. It was about doing something new. Doing something interesting.
Unless you’re me, Daelia thought bitterly. Then it was just about being new and interesting.
“So, Daelia, what are you doing here?” Anna asked as they skirted the edges of the performance area.
“Eh, you know. I promised Veda I’d talk to her.”
Anna brightened a little behind her translucent visor. “Are you coming back then?”
“No, no, I don’t think so,” Daelia said, feeling horrible. She liked Anna. Considered Anna a friend, one of her very few. Lying to her sucked. “I just need to work a few things out with her.”
Anna nodded. “I know she can be tough, but she was really upset when you left.”
“Yeah,” Daelia grumbled. “I bet she was.”
All across the atrium, undergrad teams were hard at work setting up their kugus; per the competition rules, the things were skinned in black.
One team’s project lolled out in front of them, looking for all the world like a giant marionette worm with its strings cut. Emily, inside her own decoy kugu, beeped at it.
“Huh,” Argo said as they sidestepped the thing. “These don’t look like any kugus I’ve seen before.”
“There’s usually not much in common between the models,” Anna said dismissively. “Points are given for original designs.”
“Points are also given for functionality, ease of operation, and TGLP integration,” Daelia told him, glad for the distraction. The black curtains were disorienting, but she could tell from looking up that they were almost at the back of the atrium. Back to the elevators. Almost to Veda. “There’s no point in designing a kugu that an abiota can’t or won’t use, and there are limits on what TGLP can effectively handle. The undergrads usually go with some kind of standard quad or bipedal drive system.”
“Easier for Paphus?” Argo guessed.
“Or any others,” Anna agreed. “That worm thing out there? It’ll be hell for it to puppet. A lot of extra processing power in non-standard models like that.” And then they were back at the far hallway. Anna looked down toward the elevators. Something new was glowing in her visor. “I am so sorry, Daelia, but they’ve got me running laps today. Veda should be that way, over on the east side of things. Are you alright if I leave you here?”
“Great. I can find her from here.”
“Good,” Anna said, and waved, already moving away.
“Good to see you,” Daelia called after her. That, at least, was sincere.
Anna stopped, nodded, and was off again.
“You good, dealing with Veda on your own?” Argo asked her quietly.
“Yeah. But I don’t know how you think you’re going to get into the hotel room to—”
He leaned in. Pressed a kiss to her temple. “Watch me,” he murmured.
And then he was gone too.
Daelia headed in the direction Anna had indicated. She could see Veda down there, right where Anna had said she’d be.
Showtime.
Argo strolled through the halls, Emily at his side, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
One of the things he’d learned at the Academy—and put to use later on, when he was trying to keep himself and Aiden alive through that first postwar winter—was that if you acted like you were supposed to be somewhere, people typically assumed that you were indeed supposed to be there. No questions.
Very convenient.
Especially considering there was no real reason for him to be wandering around in here.
Fortunately, the place seemed to be only populated with graduate students, all of whom were far too absorbed in their own notebooks or AR devices to pay him much heed.
In addition to the judging competition, Daelia had said, this week was when the graduate students did industry presentations, briefing the SAAL consortium or other grant program representatives on what they were researching and how it was going. Grant money, she’d told him, always came with strings attached.
A lot of the small lecture halls were unlocked, doors propped open while grad students set up, practiced, drilled each other on possible questions.
Lots of strangers coming through.
He’d hoped that would be enough to get him into the hotel room, but when he got there, the thing was locked up tight, and there was nobody around he could tailgate in after. Argo was just considering his options when he noticed movement down the hall.
A familiar face.
Sean Robinson.
The TGI security head looked busy, head down, muttering to himself. Probably talking through his NULI.
Trouble, Emily said.
“I call that our ticket in,” Argo replied softly, and headed down the hall. “Sean! Buddy! Fuck, am I glad I found you!”
The ex-Marine stopped, held up a hand in recognition. “Argo. Good seein’ ya again.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Argo replied, feigning distraction. “Look, I’m having some connectivity issues with my abiota’s kugu here.” And he gestured at Emily, who had just deliberately run into his leg. She was being a brat—she was intensely unhappy about the pretense right now—but that was fine. “I’d like to check on her rudiment core, make sure everything’s okay. Do you have access to the room back there?”
“They didn’t give you the code?” Sean asked.
Argo smiled wryly. “Paphus was so excited to see Daelia it forgot to send it to me.”
Sean laughed. “Miss Hall does have that effect on people. Sure thing, hang on.” A data upload request flashed up on Argo’s phone. He accepted. Sean shook his head. “How do you get around with that?”
Argo shrugged. “They said I needed to be off the monocle for a few weeks before.” And he tapped his forehead. “You know.”
Sean nodded. “Right, right, I remember that feeling of disconnection. It was awful.” He laughed. “But the NULI’s worth it. Makes their world so much more real.”
