Irreconcilable differenc.., p.13
Irreconcilable Differences, page 13
It's like watching a video tape of myself. Micki goes stone—cold-killer on me. Feel her go. Feel the passion for it, for this digital, low stakes mayhem. Wish I didn't feel so awful teaching her this. But stopping a slug with her body sometime soon because I didn't teach her to shoot, didn't get her in touch with this … that would be worse.
Micki looks at the screen with its spattered digital blood. “Kinda takes all the fun out of it,” she says softly.
I have to nod. “It's a means to an end.”
“You've done this? For real?”
“Some, yes. I wasn't ever a sniper, but … good enough.”
She looks at me in the gestalt. Then turns away.
“What?”
“I guess…” she says. “I guess I never thought about the fact that you've killed people. I must seem pretty pathetic to you that it bothers me.”
Stop and think. Really stop and think. Yeah. It's still there. “Mick, if it ever stops bothering you, that's when you've gone over the line. You kill when it's your duty. You think of them as the enemy or targets when you squeeze the trigger. But they're people, and you still know it when you think about it. It means you're not dead inside.” Yeah, Mick. G'wan. Ask me how I know.
“Come on, they've got head soccer. Let's go play that. It's supposed to be a lot better with a jack.” We play until we both feel better. It doesn't help her practice with the wired nerves, but … so what? Morale is important too.
Walk through the mall. Lady Marcia's Chocolate Shop. The smells coming from there are intense and dark. Apollo's Coffee Shop. I can smell the Sumatran from here. Hear the espresso machine. Mick wrinkles her nose. “No coffee, Mick?”
“Don't like it,” she says, and we walk on. I feel like the little kid being dragged past the ice cream store. Mission. I'm on a mission here. Damn it. Focus.
Pause in a CC Kresley's. Try on a leather jacket. Feel the quilted lining against her bare shoulders. Smell the leather. It almost makes me forget about the coffee. It's the kind of jacket that gets to be an old friend over time. “Don't,” I tell her.
“Can't afford it. It's almost three hundred bucks,” she says.
“You'll grow out of it, anyway.”
“Huh. I'm not getting any taller.”
“That wasn't what I was talking about.”
She eyes me in the gestalt. “You're saying I'm getting fat.”
I'd roll her eyes if we didn't need them to see where we're going. “No, no, no. I'm saying you're probably good for a cup size, maybe two, in the next five years. They grow.”
Micki glances down at her chest. “Oh.”
Pass by the body shops. Micki looks. “Surprise him with larger breasts,” the sign reads. “No incision, injection only.” Lipo-poly-bonded stem cells, probably. That's how it's usually done these days. There's also lipodissolving, face lifts while you wait, permanent hair removal, tattoo removal, collagen poly-bonded stem cells for lips and labia, nose jobs. Most of it for less than the leather jacket. Look away. Look back. One of us looks back, and I'm not sure who it is. But I don't think it's me with the body insecurity.
“Did you say something, Micki?”
“No.”
“You're not thinking about getting your nose done, are you?”
“I didn't say anything.”
“What's wrong with your nose?” I ask her.
“It's huge. It grew faster than my boobs, which is totally unfair. It's like all of a sudden everything sticks out and everyone's looking at it.”
“Wait. You're complaining that your boobs are too small and that everything sticks out and people are staring at them, all in the same breath? Trust me, big boobs stick out more and people do stare.”
“Voice of experience?”
I have to pause a few seconds and think about it. Sudden feeling of. Something. Try to picture my own body. My own face. “I … think so. It's hard to remember.”
“What do you mean? You were in that body for thirty-six years.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“What do you think you look like?”
“All I get when I picture my face now is … you.”
“Weird.”
“You have no idea. It's like being … your age again. When your body changes and you notice it. Like you were talking about. All of a sudden everything sticks out, or at least that's how it seems.”
Micki eyes her reflection in a store window. “Everything does stick out. And everyone is staring. I know what I looked like before.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yeah.”
“Show me,” I tell her.
“I have pictures at home.”
“No, give me your memory of what your nose looked like last year.” I wait, and wait.
“That's not fair,” she says, at last.
“What's not?”
“You knew I couldn't picture it.”
“Only, cause I've been where you are, Micki. Been through it. Came out the other side.”
“Yeah, but you got bigger boobs.”
“I said I thought I did. I don't remember. Yours are fine.”
“They are not fine. They're too small and too pointy and no matter what I wear they're like, sticking out there saying, ‘Hey notice me, I'm tiny.'”
“And everybody stares.”
“Yeah.”
I glance at a guy walking past. Make a quick memory snapshot of him. I cheat, basically. Something they trained us to do in Covert training. And it's so easy with the neurofiber net it's not funny. “Quick. What'd that guy's t-shirt say?”
“What guy?”
“The one we just looked at,” I say.
“You were looking at a guy? I thought you were looking at the sale at the shoe store.”
“There was a guy, trust me. Cute one, too.” Smile a little.
“I didn't see him, I was busy talking to you.”
“Exactly. So if you didn't see him, despite the fact that I pointed your eyeballs at him, what does that tell you?” I ask her.
“That you've got boring taste in guys.”
“Micki!”
I seem to be driving. I didn't notice the cutover, and I don't think Micki did either, but the giggle makes it to my lips and escapes before I realize it.
“That's disgusting. And quit giggling, people are gonna think I'm nuts.”
“Or just totally uncool, right?” I ask her.
Micki rolls her eyes. Which is a little disorienting. “Snap,” she says. “Snap. Not cool. Snap. Cool is unsnap. Fly? You gotta be kidding. Hot is unsnap. Snap is snap.”
“Micki?”
“Yeah?”
“You're hurting my head.”
“My head.”
“You're the one with her fly unsnapped.”
She jerks our head down, taking over control just as effortlessly. “Ha ha. Very funny.”
“Hey, made you look.”
She's quiet a while. “So you're trying to tell me everyone isn't looking at me.”
Look around her. Watch the people walk by a moment. “Most of them are blissfully unaware that you exist, beyond not walking into you.”
“Voice of almighty adulthood, huh?”
What is it about Micki Blake that I keep winding up talking about my past with her? Sigh to myself. “Voice of a girl who wanted to be noticed and found out just how hard it really is.”
Pause in the Bombardier Electronics shop. We don't have that kind of money, so we don't buy anything. Eye the decks in the display and the blister packs of ice. Wish two or three times that I had a proper expense account. Wouldn't fit the mission, though.
The guy behind the counter looks a little glazed. On closer inspection, he's plugged into the net. Probably doing security camera work, or filing faces away to match up with targeted advertising databases. ‘Hi, we saw you looking at our networking products at Bombardier, and we thought you'd be interested in these other products.’ Walk away.
Pass a place called The Head Shop. A bored looking Korean girl smiles at us as we pass. Soft lips over perfect teeth. Natural looking. No exaggeration to her face or her body — no bee-stung lips, no enormous breasts. No trips to the body shop that I can see. She must be brand new. Yeah, makes sense. You see a lot of North Koreans in the biz these days, especially journey-people. Lot of refugees from when the Chinese finally got fed up and laid the smack down on North Korea a few years back. News we North Americans tend to forget, being otherwise occupied. Ten years from now, most of these girls will be doing something else for a living, here in Canada, but industrial sex will have been their leg up. The girl touches the tip of her tongue to her front teeth. Subtle, suggestive without being blatant, like licking her lip would have been.
“No,” Micki says.
Laugh at her. “Wasn't considering it, Mick. Remember? I'm the straight one. Besides, that's a Union house, and you're underage.”
“Betcha they'd let me in anyway,” she says.
“Betcha they wouldn't. The only reason a place like this tolerates legal prostitution is, once it's regulated, they can tax it, control it, and keep kids away from it. The Union enforces their rules, for sure.”
“That sounds dangerously like faith. I thought you didn't have that.” There's a lightness as she says it though. She's putting me on.
“It's not faith. The IUSW has their own covert enforcement arm. They're more like us at Interpol Covert than anyone likes to admit. I trust the sun to come up in the morning, I trust Robert Neil to have a sneaky plan, and I trust the IUSW to take care of business.”
“You make it sound…” Interrupt. Body heat sense at the nape of Micki's neck. Go to maximum speed. Push Micki's muscles to their limit. Turn in a blur of motion, faster than Micki's optical center can react. Ignore it. Lash out with one fist at the human shape behind us that's only beginning to register with her retinas.
Micki's fist hammers the guy behind her in the jaw. Sends him flying back. He slides to a stop on the tile floor. One punch, even with her muscles resequenced for speed. Micki's a strong girl. Stalk to him. Check his pulse. Check his jaw. It doesn't seem to move anywhere it's not supposed to. Good. If I'd gone full strength instead, we'd have probably broken his neck. Read his nametag.
“R ... Rae?” Micki says in the gestalt. Feel her urge to rub her fist. “What are you doing? Why did we punch out Tom, the Bombardier Electronics counter guy?”
Take a quick look around Tom, the counter guy, for anything he might have dropped. Nada. Drag him to the Head Shop.
The Korean girl stops us. “ID please?” She glances down at the unconscious man, meaningfully.
“Could I just use a room, please? No company?”
She shakes her head. “Sorry. Union rule. Bathroom over there.” She points across the mall. And looks so very calm about all this. Old pro, then. Maybe security. Should have seen it in her. Her teeth are too nice. Refugees in the blowjob business go for clean and healthy. Hers are perfect. She's stone cold calm, and I know, I'm sure, she's calling mall security.
“Thanks.”
“Sure,” she says.
Drag Tom, the Bombardier Electronics guy, across the mall. Through the doorway to the restrooms. Take the door you wouldn't expect.
“Dude.”
“Not now, Mick.”
“This is the men's room,” she protests.
Ignore her for the moment and drag him in. Haul him into a stall. Close the door. Look in his mouth. Go through his pockets. Keys, ID card, cred card. Nothing to write home about.
“What are we looking for?” Micki asks.
“Skeleton key. He was reaching for your jacks, Mick.”
“Shit,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“So where is it?”
Stand up and look down at him. “I don't know. It should have been in his hand or his pocket.” I look in Mick's pocket for the optical fiber.
“Now what?”
“It's called brain jacking.” Rummage in Mick's pocket for a fiber.
“Jesus, you can do that?” she says. “I thought that was just a myth.”
“We can do that,” I tell her. Plug one of her jacks into Tom the Bombardier Electronics guy's jack. One hole, under the ear.
CAF0.35b2.1: Initiating NPDR 3.7 protocol.
One foreign neurofiber system found: WD20-200 on LUN 2. Mapping.
The firmware maps out his jack. Sends stimulus down each of his neurofibers, and listens to the response. His brain is a little banged up. It's not working quite right. Some stimulus, a lot of stimulus does nothing at all.
Mick's watching over my shoulder, so to speak. “You killed him,” she murmurs. “He's brain dead.”
The nerve response is starting to increase. “No, this just takes a little time. He's responding.” Data coming in. Finally. Take a deep breath. Link up with his memory. Open my eyes to his life.
Throbbing in my head. Pain with each pulse of Tom's heart. Blink my eyes open. Look up at Micki. Try to bring her into focus, but my … his brain is a little too rattled to do it still. She looks so small. Staring back at me. Feel myself flinch back from her, because it was that fist… Close my eyes again. Take a breath. Focus.
I can't remember being hit. Not exactly. It's a dim fear of Micki Blake, is all. Back up. Remember. The store. Clocking in at the store. Too early. God, it hurts. Forward. Skip forward.
Micki comes into the store. I remember thinking that she looks more likely to steal something than buy it. Jaundiced eye. I know a wannabe hackergirl when I see one. Tinge of attraction. Bare legs. Bare shoulders. Breasts swelling under her tank top. Eyes her. Triggers the security firmware. Gets an upload.
Tom drops away from me, along with the net. Again, damn it. Far away, I can hear Micki talking. “Rae? Rae? Fuck, not again.”
CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.
Fight the urge to reach for Micki's body. To override her. To take control. Let myself fall in darkness, and feel the wind rush up at me. My belly feels heavy. Tilts me downward. I feel. I feel.
Him.
“Hello, Rachel. Micki. Report,” the voice says.
“You're handling me personally, Robert?” I ask him.
“I'm not Robert,” he says. “Report.”
“Whatever. Made contact last night. The 785s are pretty small-time, but they've got good talent aboard. We're going after another hacker group called the Topeka Reapers. Get some attention. Raise our profile. So we can trap your big player.”
“Rae?” Micki's voice. “Rae.” Urgent now. “I don't know if you can hear me. Mall security is in the women's room. They're gonna check here next. We have to get out of here. What do I do?”
Shit.
“Report,” he insists.
“I'm a little busy here. Stop bothering me,” I start.
“Make time,” he says. “Report.”
“There's nothing to report, damn it! We're going to hit the Reapers and get your big player to come to us. Locate him, like you wanted. Figure out how to destroy him from there. That's all. Now go away.”
“When?” he demands.
“Tonight, if we don't get locked up by mall security.”
“Good. Carry on,” is his only message. Then he's gone. Tom's transceiver probably shuts off, but I can't tell. Someone has disconnected the fiber between me and him. Feel the tile floor under a stall hit me in the side. Micki rolls under one stall and into the next. The door to the bathroom opens. Booted feet. Micki jerks her jeans down and sits down, then hunches over and curls her arm around her chest, the other around her stomach. I feel frozen. Like I've fallen asleep in a fox hole in a war I never fought, and I've just woken up to find someone bearing down on me with a bayonet. I feel a little. Can't move.
They check the stalls. “Found him!” one yells. Sharp knocking on our stall.
“Go the fuck away!” Micki yells, pushing her voice as low as she can, into an agonized growl. “I'm sick.”
Thawing. The net is beginning to respond. Bayonet is drawing back, ready to plunge into my chest. And when it does, I'll be about thawed enough to feel it. There. Just the body core. I have to do something. Body core. Parasympathetic nervous system. Wait…
Someone kicks the door open. Looks down. “Kid, you see a girl come in here with the guy in the stall next to you?”
Mick looks up at him, and I can feel her face give him that deer in headlights look.
I send Micki's colon into spasm. Back her play. Make it real.
She folds back over. Groans, defecates noisily. “God, no. Even if I had, I wouldn't care. Leave me alone, I'm fucking sick.”
The security guy backs off. Human instinct. It takes a lot of training to watch someone else shit. To stay with someone who's so obviously contagious. Who smells so bad. Jesus.
He closes the stall door. “Sorry,” he mutters.
I give Micki's colon another spasm or three.
“There's nobody here now but some kid in the last stall with a case of the runs. Bitch must have doubled back on us somewhere,” the guy says.
“Fuck,” the other says, and they stomp out of the bathroom.
I let Micki's colon calm down. The thaw in my network continues. Mick's gut cramps up.
“What the hell did you do to me?” she demands. She leans her head against the side wall of the stall.
“Had … to convince the security guys.” Still a little out of it. I'm still. A little out of it. Putting words together in the gestalt is hard.
“What did you do to me?” she demands again.
“I told your colon you're about to die. Natural reaction.”
“Fuck,” she says. But things are calming down. Without real irritation, one's colon is inclined to do things in a much more leisurely fashion. The cramps pass in a few minutes. “Why didn't you do something sooner?”
“Skeleton key. I tried not to let it override you, and my net froze up. Probably a bug. But I had to back your play.”
“Fuck.”
“Micki?”
“Yeah?”
“You were brilliant. Even I wouldn't have thought of that,” I tell her.
“Unnn,” she says, and takes a slow breath. “Too bad brilliant hurts so much. Just … simple hacker tricks. What does your opponent expect to find?”
