Ambasadora book 1 of amb.., p.24
Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora), page 24
She offered him a cup of tea. He took the mug and sat it on the counter. “I need to tell you something,” he said.
Her smile faltered a little, but she kept a light tone. “I already know you’re a fragger. You know I was sent to kill you. And you know what makes my lights flash.”
He smiled at that one.
“What other secret could possibly matter?” she asked.
“Your intel was right about the operative being Armadan, except I’m only half, on my father’s side.”
“Oh.” She seemed relieved and not at all surprised. “I guessed you had Armadan blood in you after last night.”
“You did? Why?”
She hesitated for a moment, and he thought she blushed a little. “You’re a little taller than the average Socialite, your shoulders a little broader, your…hands are bigger.”
He looked down at his hands, having never really thought about it before.
She seemed a little flustered and quickly added, “You’re also much stronger. You hide that strength from people, though, don’t you?”
He had for as long as he could remember. “I guess so, but not as much as I hide the fact that my mother came from the Lower Caste.” The words came out of his mouth like he’d been waiting to say them his entire life. He sat down on one of the plush dining chairs, wishing he could take it back. He looked at the steam rising from the mug of tea on the counter, avoiding her face, afraid he might see rejection or judgment there.
“That’s why your forced handling of the Lowers at the Tredificio caused you so much conflict,” she said.
“Probably.”
“And, why you feel so comfortable here in the Underground.” She said it more to herself.
He didn’t say anything.
She ran her hand through his hair, then slid onto his lap, forcing his gaze upon her. “I don’t know about you, Sean Cryer, but I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not because society dictates it.” Sincerity showed on her face. “Does your mother care about you?” she asked.
He was taken aback by the question. “Of course.”
“Then be proud of that, no matter who she is.” Sara kissed him on the forehead, but he pulled her lips to his. Their kiss was different this time. Instead of just playful or passionate like those hundreds they shared last night, this kiss was a promise of the future they meant to share. He could have stayed in that kiss forever, but they weren’t safe yet. He slowly broke away.
“I’m not sure how much longer we can remain here,” he said.
“Maybe Simon, the Embassy, the whole system thinks we’re dead,” she said.
“Everyone might, but it won’t stay that way for long. We passed too many voyeurs at the Hub, and I’m sure we didn’t hide your bio-lights as well as we should have.”
“What do we do?” She looked nervous for the first time.
“We’ll bargain for our freedom.”
“With what?”
“The cure for Simon’s curse,” Sean said.
“You have it?”
“I can get it.” At least he hoped he could.
Their trip in the elevator this time was uneventful. It stopped at the ground floor and opened onto a sub-street. They exited Carnal Escape and headed across the way to a v-game parlor called Shocker’s. All v-game parlors smelled the same, the spicy tang of dosed air drifting above the metallic notes of conductor and cleaner fluids.
Acid pink and rich blue arabesque loops scrolled along silver half-meter portals in the back wall. These were the only lights in the expansive room, aside from the twinkling stars on the walkway.
Ahead of them, at least thirty people waited in a dark line. One woman lay on the floor, singing to herself. A couple near the middle kissed and groped each other, much to the entertainment of those around them. Just in front of Sean and Sara, a group of Lower Caste kids argued with an attendant over the price of admission; they finally left grumbling.
No nurseries or academies for them, Sean thought. They were probably better off.
“They’re so healthy,” Sara said.
“Who?” Sean asked.
She gestured toward the children hurling back foul-mouthed insults at the attendant. “Their skin is clear, their cheeks rosy, and their muscle tone is better than any of my cousins their age. Most of my family would have to get little tweaks to attain that kind of look. Where do these kids get that kind of money?”
“They don’t. That’s just how they are naturally,” Sean said.
“Did you ever have any cosmetic alterations?” she asked.
“No.” He mused at her naivete, but could forgive Sara for assuming everyone who was attractive owed their looks to selective breeding or cosmetic enhancements. That’s how most Uppers viewed the world. She was only now learning to see life from a different perspective. “The diversity of genes among Lowers benefits them in a lot of ways.”
“You’re a good example of that,” she said.
Her last comment made him feel like he’d given her the wrong impression. The Armadan traits he received from his father benefited him just as much as everything his mother passed onto him.
A few meters away three sharp beeps sounded from a portal whose round façade pulsed with an intense white light. The portal and the tube it was attached to slid out from the wall. The v-gamer inside convulsed, vomit splattered over his face and neck.
Attendants pulled the man out, plunged a syringe of stims into his leg, and whisked him onto a gurney and through a back hallway with practiced precision, not even bothering to tear the eye mask from his face. A woman in coveralls raced to the tube and flushed it with a pale green cleaner.
“He dialed up too high. Worked himself into a seizure,” Sean said. “Then couldn’t unplug.”
Sara covered her nose. “Are you getting in one of those?”
“Not a chance.”
Another attendant appeared from a hidden door on the wall to their right.
“Cryer?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“This way.”
Sean took Sara’s hand and led her through the doorway. The pressure of her fingers around his made his arm tingle. He found it hard to focus when she was near him. Once they got out of this mess, he wouldn’t have to focus on anything but her.
The room looked like a miniature of their skybox without the windows.
Sean waited for the attendant to exit.
“This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes,” Sean said. “Don’t worry if my arms and legs twitch. It’s just reflexes.”
“You’re not going to come out of this like that last guy, are you?”
Sean took her hand and kissed it; that was a reflex, too. “If you knew how many times I’ve done this….” Or knew how many times he’d died in the V-side.
The thought that this time could bring real death entered his mind. He tried to dismiss it as a left-over bit of paranoia, but knew it wasn’t. Ephemerata proved that sides had been chosen, and Sean had ended up on the wrong one. He kissed Sara as though it might be their last.
“Maybe you shouldn’t do this,” she whispered, her forehead against his.
“I have to. We have to buy our lives back.”
He lay on the bed before he changed his mind. “I’ll be back before you know it.” He closed his eyes, wishing he had his lenses to make the insertion easier. Instead, he had to rely on an old implant behind his ocular nerve. He slowed his breathing and stared at the blackness behind his lids. The seconds ticked by like they were years, but Sean kept his meditation. As the coldness of insertion finally crept into his mind, he was vaguely aware of Sara curling up next to him, her head on his chest.
The watery lobby lapped at Zak’s raft. He ignored the blue globes hovering around him and summoned a dark sky through his programs. Stars appeared. The raft launched toward them, forcing a feeling of inertia on his stomach.
Within seconds he was just beneath the sky. This close the stars hung down as shimmering teardrops above his head, each one a portal to a different world. An infinite universe.
“Which of you is hiding the intel dump?”
Zak reached up and combed his fingers through the spongy constellations. They felt wet to the touch, but left no moisture on his skin. Six separate sweeps revealed nothing. The coordinates led to this sector; it had to be there.
Or he was screwed.
A buzzing in his left middle finger alerted him he’d found the one he wanted. He pushed his finger into the membrane. The teardrop stretched down and drew Zak into its protective bubble. Then the sky shed its tear into the purple sea below.
There was no impact with the water’s surface; the bubble’s velocity remained steady. Smaller aerated bubbles, representing other users, rushed past Zak’s clear transport on all sides, yet he heard nothing. A peace settled upon him as increasing pressure squeezed the membrane tighter.
In the illuminated depths of this vast sea, Zak monitored a shadow falling parallel with him. The bubbles obscured its form, but he knew it was moving, or swimming, closer. Three hundred meters, perhaps. It picked up speed. Zak calculated the rate of acceleration with dormant programs.
One hundred twenty meters and closing.
Ninety.
Maybe he really was screwed.
Thirty.
The shadow blackened the water in its wake as it closed on Zak. His heart rate and blood pressure sky-rocketed. He forced himself to remember this was just some architect’s game, an over-the-top construction meant to inspire awe and fear in the user, but even with his experience, too much of the V-side felt real. A shock rippled through him as the shadow engulfed him.
Complete darkness. Silence. A sucking noise from near his feet. The tickling probe of his idents. He held his breath while waiting to clear fragger security programs. His fate was sealed, as it were; if Ephemerata were wrong about his idents being linked to the dump he’d be dead before he realized she was wrong.
The bubble burst.
Zak landed on his feet in a sunny field of green and blue feathers. The ocean was nowhere to be seen.
The landscape stretched on in all directions, no landmarks marred the downy meadow except for one droopy tree thirty meters away. Zak moved in that direction, his booted feet kicking up feathers along the way. Instead of settling back to the ground, they remained suspended in the air just above his knees. There would be no covering his trail, but he aimed to be in and out before another user arrived.
He slowed to a cautious crouch walk when he noticed a circular object nestled in the tree’s black roots. If it were a trap, someone went to great lengths to lure him here when they could have disposed of him in the ocean lobby upon insertion. Still, he scanned the horizon to be sure he was alone. He reached the tree and saw a ceramic pot among the roots.
Zak tested the lid with a finger; data streamed through him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. Just had to let the energy transfer continue. He willed himself to breathe, knowing his body would respond in kind back at the v-game parlor. He believed Sara would pull him out once she saw him in distress…if she could.
A pain stabbed behind his eyes with the final information surge. Zak fell to his knees. Feathers shot into the air around him and hovered there like a cloak. He pushed himself up by his elbows, sorting out the muddling in his head. He recognized the tickle of the intel dump in the back of his mind. He looked for the pot, but it was gone.
He got to his knees and waited while the pain subsided and his disorientation cleared. A large hand reached down to help him up. Cuzco pulled him to his feet and waited for him to speak.
“What are you doing here?” Zak asked. The big guy was the last person Zak would have suspected of stealing the data and letting him take the fall. “Why’d you set me up, Cuzco?”
Cuzco let go of Zak’s arm and flexed big fingers around a crafter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just monitoring the trap we set. The trap that snared you like a little bird.”
We?
“I’m here to find out who’s messing with me.” Zak tried distracting Cuzco while he called up compression programs. The only way he’d be able to transfer the dump to safe storage in his hidden cache would be to zip the file. He’d decompress it and sift through it when he wasn’t at the bad end of a weapon.
“I think you came here to retrieve the data you stole.”
“You know that’s not right, Cuzco.” Zak’s transfer was only a third complete. “I don’t know who you are in the real world or even in this one, but I believe you’re a fragger because the ideology fits.”
“From what I hear, you’re sporting a new ideology.”
Three more portals deposited Topper, Vishneu, and Ariel in a semi-circle around Zak.
Topper leveled a cender at Zak’s chest.
“Traitor,” Vishneu said.
“Get those out of my face.” Zak grabbed Vishneu’s wrist and twisted the cender from his grasp.
Eighty percent uploaded.
Topper fired once, but the shot went wild. The tip of Zak’s cender pressed into Topper’s reptilian neck.
“I’m not here for a brawl,” Zak said. “We’ve got problems in the organization.”
“Like nodes who turn traitor?” Vishneu asked.
“Not true.” Zak kept an eye on Vishneu’s weapon.
A faint buzzing brushed a far corner of Zak’s mind. The count stopped at ninety-six percent. Was it feedback? The relentless traffic in v-game parlors often taxed the stream.
“You’re not responsible for the intel dump, then?” Topper asked. “And you didn’t cause the destruction on Tampa Three?”
“Even though your ident signatures are all over it?” Cuzco added.
“Someone hacked my signature.” The buzz in Zak’s mind oscillated.
“Impossible.” Cuzco was still the most even-tempered of the group, but even his patience appeared to be wearing thin.
“You know it can be done.” Zak tried to concentrate, to think of the right thing to say, but the buzzing interfered with his thoughts. A searcher program groped his mind.
Zak released tracing programs to find the source. They were illegal in the V-side, but most everything he did was illegal. Which was the only way he’d ever know about programs like tracers and searchers.
Cuzco was speaking, but Zak couldn’t hear him over the program’s buzz. The intensity told him the searcher had to be local.
Who—
Zak fired three rounds into Ariel’s head. Cuzco knocked the weapon from Zak’s hand. The others opened fire. Zak called up his unplug codes, but Ariel had already locked him out. Zak’s heart rate increased and his muscles twitched as his contingency threatened to assassinate him. He stumbled to his feet and called upon an emergency weapons program. As cender fire bit into his back, a dozen razor discs materialized over his head and launched at his contingency.
Explosions blossomed around the three assailants, buying Zak precious seconds to scan the data Ephemerata had given him.
There! Just as he had hoped, she provided him with a lockpick.
Zak concentrated on unlocking his codes amidst the onslaught of pain from cender and crafter blasts. He almost had it. An interceptor program latched onto the lockpick, unraveling its code at an alarming rate. Zak struggled to focus, to keep his head clear, working just milliseconds ahead of the interceptor. The tracer reported back. It had Ariel’s plug-in location. She was somewhere in Shocker’s.
His guard slipped at the revelation. The weapon fire became too much for him. His torn and lifeless body had nothing left.
He thought of Sara, out there watching him die. He thought of her face and how she looked at him like no one else ever had, how she felt in his arms. He’d been prepared to head to the Otherside so many times before, but now felt cheated because he had her. A searing white light burned into his vision and all he could hear was ringing. As the world slipped away, he wondered if this what his brother and his father saw as they died.
FORTY-THREE
“Wake up!”
Sara shook Sean again, calling his name in a panic.
His limbs twitched and sweat poured down his face and chest, like he was in shock. Then his entire body started to convulse. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know the first thing about the V-side, or how to get Sean out of it. When they had watched the attendants carry that man out earlier, Sean mentioned something about not unplugging in time. That meant she had to break his connection to the V-side.
She spotted a wireless station in the wall. Ripping the cover away, revealed a mess of wires and an emergency jack coiled up with its plastic-coated cord. If she cut the power, would that work? Probably not, or the attendants would have done that for the man earlier. She abandoned that idea and felt along the inside of Sean’s belt for stim patches. Maybe she could pump enough adrenaline and stimulants into him that he’d wake up. She found five patches and three injectors about the same size, then caught the side of her finger on something sharp. At first she thought she had accidentally triggered an injector, but instead, she pulled a thin razor disc from its sheath on the inside of his belt.
She looked at the emergency jack again, an insane idea coming to her. It might work, if it would reach. She uncoiled the cord and made sure it remained attached to the power supply in the wall. It stopped just short of Sean’s body. She pulled his twitching arm off the edge of the bed. The cord could reach his hand.
Careful not to cut too deeply, she made a large enough slit in the plastic coating to expose the hot wires inside. They glowed white, warning they were live.
She hoped the sweat on Sean’s skin would be a good enough conductor. He was convulsing so badly she feared she’d get zapped along with him, then no one would be around to wake them up. They could disappear to the Otherside permanently. She wanted to see what they could be like together here first.
