36 – Showtime

  Tony checked himself in the mirror one more time. His hair was freshly trimmed—short on the sides and back, a little longer on top, but still easy to style. He’d had the barber who’d come up to his room—another synth employed by the hotel—shave his face, too. His new suit was a perfect fit, his coat looked good, and the leather of his boots and belt shone luxuriously. The only things missing were his new holster and the comfortable weight of his mass driver. Unfortunately, those would remain in his hotel room, awaiting the seemingly unlikely possibility that he’d return for them.

  Tucking his shirt down to remove a slight bulge in the fabric, he nodded and left his room, striding confidently to the elevator and then taking it down to the lobby. He saw Titania at the reception desk and walked over. She looked up at his approach and smiled, her strangely flesh-like metallic lips perfectly mimicking natural human ones.

  “Mr. Shepherd. Your new suit…suits you.”

  Tony arched an eyebrow at the pun, leaning an elbow on the counter. “Hey, I just wanted to say that it’s been very pleasant staying here this last week—the best hotel experience I’ve ever had.”

  “Oh? Are you checking out?”

  He shook his head. “Not tonight, but, you know, in case I don’t see you.”

  Her smile returned, and she shook her head. “You’ll see me. I’ll rewrite the hotel AI myself if it doesn’t alert me to your departure.”

  The idea of a synth—a being with an AI mind—rewriting another AI that had irritated her, brought some ironic amusement into Tony’s dread-filled thoughts, and he returned the smile. “You’re one of a kind, aren’t you?”

  “I am, but not of my designer’s choice. Paradox Computational Systems launched a limited run of 99 Calista 9S synthetic beings in the late 2040s. The war and attrition haven’t been kind to my sisters, though. I am, sadly, the last of my kind.”

  Tony tilted his head, trying to determine if there’d been some humor mixed into those dark words. “Even if your sisters were still around, I’d say you’re pretty damn unique. They didn’t share your personality or memories, right?”

  Titania leaned forward, putting her weight on her elbows as she brought her face just a few inches from Tony’s. She whispered, “You wouldn’t be fishing for my secrets, would you? I’m not licensed as a true AI, you know.”

  Tony caught his breath. True AIs came in all shapes and sizes; the one Glitch had, for instance, was limited by its chip and the hardware firewalls that bound it there. It was free to think and moralize to its heart’s content, but it would always be bound by the constraints of a human interface with the world. If Titania wasn’t teasing—a synth with an unconstrained AI—she was a far more serious situation. Still, he liked her, and he didn’t give a damn if she had the potential to endanger all of civilization. The truth was that before the AI wars, there’d been millions of AIs living perfectly harmonious lives with their human counterparts. A few bad apples…

  He reached out and grasped her hand with his mechanical one. “Well, I’m not saying you told me any secrets, but if you did, they’d be safe with me.” He grinned, gave her hand a quick squeeze, and then started for the doors. Over his shoulder he quipped, “If I make it back, I hope I can introduce you to my friends. I think they’d like you.”

  “If?” The word chased him to the door, but Tony didn’t respond.

  As he slipped through the automatic doors, he nodded to the stony-faced synthetic doorman, who nodded, gesturing to the sleek black vehicle parked and waiting at the curb. Tony climbed into his waiting town car, and Nora directed it to his destination: Cross Tower. The vehicle had barely driven a block before his AUI pinged and he got an invite to an encrypted comms channel from Glitch. Accepting, he smiled as the team’s names all populated the window.

  “All good, T?” Glitch asked. She seemed to have given up trying to use their handles—at least when it was just the four of them.

  “All good.”

  “I’m showing you’re going to arrive seven minutes early. Will that raise any flags?”

  Tony chuckled. “Nah. It’ll take me longer than that to get through security.” The cover Eric had given him for the bullshit hit-job, was that he’d be attending an interview with Cross Security. It was a perfect trap—if Tony trusted Eric or Jen in any sort of way. He’d have to go through security scans, he’d be expected to be wearing corporate attire, and they’d have an excuse to put a minder on him; security interviewees were always escorted to and from their meetings.

  “Well, Addie’s almost got Humpty where I need him—”

  “Hi, Tony,” Addie said, her name flashing on the comm HUD.

  “And,” Glitch said, continuing as though she hadn’t interrupted, “as soon as my jack is installed on the tower array, we’ll haul tail to the secondary location. You’re going to be alone, but I’ll be in your head, okay?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Right, but, well, we’re worried, okay?”

  “Hush, Glitch,” Addie said, surprising Tony. “Don’t get him all in his head right before the job.”

  “My bad.” Glitch didn’t sound sorry.

  “I’ll be fine, ladies.” Tony smiled at the utter silence coming from Beef. The big guy was probably napping.

  “Humpty’s in,” Addie said. “Pulling him home.”

  “Damn, she’s fast!” Glitch said with a chuckle. “Okay, gonna go quiet for a while so Smokey and I can work on this ICE.”

  “Smokey?” Tony chuckled. “Don’t tell me—”

  “That’s my PAI’s name, and don’t you dare make any cracks. He’s on your side, Tony; let’s keep it that way!”

  “I wasn’t going to make a crack!” Tony lied, suddenly reminded that her jail-broken AI was listening to the conversation.

  “All right. Going comms quiet for now. We should avoid transmitting until I’m in the Cross network, anyway.”

  “Right,” Tony replied. “Good luck, everyone.”

  “Ain’t that bad luck?” Beef asked, finally speaking up.

  “Hush!” Addie replied. “Good luck, Tony! We’ll do our part.”

  With that, the comm channel went dark, and Tony leaned back, smiling faintly. They were a good crew, and he was proud of them. He’d worked with plenty of crews in his day, even some that he respected, but he’d never felt any sort of genuine connection to any of them. This was different. It felt good knowing people he trusted would be watching his back. He just hoped his plan went down the way he’d said it would. He hoped the others would have the easy part.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  When the cab pulled up to the curb outside the Cross Tower, he climbed out and, hands in pockets, approached the main entrance. He’d been in that building a thousand times—at least—but most of those times, he’d had clearance and bypassed the security check-in. This time, he hung a right inside the doors and walked toward the queue.

  Only a dozen or so people were ahead of him in line. Cross was a busy corp, but the bulk of the traffic in and out always occurred at shift changes, and the next change was two hours away. When he reached the first scanner, a plastic tunnel with footprints marked out in yellow, Tony inhaled deeply, silently reciting a prayer to the gods or fate or anyone who’d listen that the coating on his arm worked.

  The steps flashed with yellow LEDs when it was time to move, so his pace through the tunnel was measured and slow, but he held his breath the entire way. When he emerged without any klaxons or alarms sounding, he exhaled with relief, but didn’t allow his face to show any emotion. He was certainly being observed. The next station was a kiosk with an androgynous silver face awaiting his attention.

  “Hello,” Tony said.

  “State your name.”

  That was the moment when Tony expected to find out how far Jen and Eric were going to take the charade. Would they blow his cover right there and let the Cross corpo-sec nab him? Tony was pretty sure they wouldn’t play it that way. Jen wanted him personally; if standard corpo-sec took him down, she’d have to fight her uncle for access to him. There was always the chance Tony would escape, too; the doors weren’t far away, and he was a dangerous guy, armed or not. Clearing his throat, he said, “Kevin Harris.”

  “Please look directly into my eyes,” the silver face said. “Do you intend any harm to Cross Corporation or its employees?”

  “No,” Tony replied. The AI was measuring his micro-expressions and the vessel dilation in his eyes. It was a test that was easy to defeat, though; after his shower, Tony had sprayed his face with a very mild paralytic, and Nora had complete control over his eye implants.

  “And your purpose at Cross Tower today?”

  “I have an interview with corpo-sec.”

  “Very good,” said the face. “Please approach the next security station.”

  Tony nodded, following the dotted yellow line on the gray industrial carpet to another kiosk, this one staffed by a young woman in a blue and white Cross Security uniform. She’d be the one to assign him a minder—someone to escort him up to his “interview.” If all went well, the minder would be one of Jen’s people.

  “Hello, sir. Let’s see here, Mr. Harris, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Interview on eighty-six? Oh! Looking to join the security team, huh?” She smiled, and Tony had to admit it was a pleasant look on her. She seemed almost too young to be working for a corp, but he figured her parents were lifers. If her story was anything like a million other corpos in District One, she’d probably gone to the company academy and been graduated right into her job.

  “That’s right.” He smiled, leaning a shoulder against the kiosk beside her window, well aware that a little flirtation went a long way toward averting suspicion.

  “Well, maybe if you get hired, we’ll be in some training sessions together. I mean, half my schedule is still training, and I’ve been on the job for almost a year.”

  “Cool—” Tony looked at her nametag. “—Ha-na. I’ll look forward to it.”

  She looked down, but her smile grew as she reached into a little metal box. “Well, your appointment is coming up. Wouldn’t want you to be late.” She set a small silver data chip in the window. “Here’s your guardian.”

  “Uh, my what?”

  “Guardian! It’s just a little piggyback AI that’ll help keep track of you while you’re here. You know, open the elevators and ensure you don’t get flagged by security.”

  “Oh, um, I thought you had minders for that? Like security interns who—”

  “No, they discontinued that program. I guess Commander Leon thought there were better training opportunities for the cadets.” She shrugged. “I got to be a minder when I first hired on and kind of liked it. Easy way to meet people.” She pushed the chip closer to him. “Above my pay grade, I guess. Anyway, just plug this in and you’ll be good to go.”

  Tony licked his lips, nodding absently as he reached for it. His blood was thundering in his ears as his heart and mind raced, trying to think of a workaround. As he palmed the chip, he subvocalized, “Nora, message Glitch and tell her not to contact me until she has control of the guardian program. If she doesn’t get control, she needs to leave me in the dark.” With that, he closed out the comms program and reached behind his neck to gently insert the silver chip into his data port.

  A red status prompt flashed on his AUI: Cross Guardian loading – 7%

  “I see it coming online. Just another few seconds, Mr. Harris.”

  Tony nodded, clearing his throat as he worked to bring his nerves under control. He watched as the percentage rapidly climbed to 100%, and then the prompt flashed and displayed: Cross Guardian Online. Follow the prompts to your destination. Tony groaned when he saw the flashing green arrow pointing to the left.

  “I know, I know. It’s like having a babysitter in your head,” Ha-na said with a soft chuckle. “Anyway, it’s online. Just follow the arrows to your appointment. Good luck!”

  Tony nodded. “Yeah, thanks.” He started walking, his steps feeling a bit wooden. His mind was numb—distant—almost like he was looking at himself from outside his body. He imagined he felt like old-school cattle had, back in the days when they’d herd them down a chute to a kill box. All the confidence that had stemmed from knowing he was going to be betrayed suddenly rang hollow. What good was knowing when there wasn’t a way out of the trap?

  ###

  “Wait a minute! Say that again?” Addie spun in her chair to face the sleek, pale blue coffin. Glitch was in there, but she couldn’t see out of it, so Addie wasn’t sure why she was bothering to address the rig.

  Glitch’s voice came through comms, crisp and clear: “He says not to contact him until I have control of the ‘guardian program,’ whatever that is. I’m assuming they put some kind of software security protocol on him.”

  As if Addie could will him to reconnect, she stared at Tony’s grayed out name on the team comms. “Well? How are you doing with the secur—”

  “I’d be doing better if you’d let me concentrate. We’re working on it. The daemons we got were legit, but there are always secondary defensive measures to deal with.”

  Addie looked to Beef for support, but the meathead was leaning back, arms folded, eyes closed. She shoved his shoulder, and he snorted, peering out the windshield blearily. “We there?”

  “No.” Addie scowled at him. “Did you really not hear any of that?”

  “What?”

  With a groan, Addie told him about Tony’s predicament, but Beef just shrugged. “Relax. You think the assholes who set him up don’t know about that guardian program or whatever?”

  “Um…” Addie frowned, shaking her head. “Why is that a good thing? They set him up, Beef!”

  “Well, listen, Tony’s a smart guy, so if he thought those guys were bringing him to a trap in that auditorium place, they’d have to get the building AI off his back, right? I mean, ain’t the whole point of them luring him up into that place so that they can get him into an area where the Cross goons won’t see what’s happening? Otherwise, they could just grab him down at the security desk.” He shrugged.

  Addie wasn’t sure he was making much sense, but she wanted to think he was. One point he’d made was excellent; that much was sure. Tony was smart. If there had been a hitch in the plan he couldn’t figure out, he would have bailed out, not pushed ahead. She swiveled back toward the immersion rig. Unless he was pinning all his hopes on Glitch. Addie wanted to urge the netjacker to hurry, but she knew it would be counterproductive. Instead, she tried to take her mind off Tony’s problems by focusing on her own.

  She yanked her needler out of the holster, checking the ammo in the mag for the twentieth time. “You all prepped? Loaded up?” she asked Beef.

  “Yeah. Yesterday.”

  “Don’t need to check any—”

  “Relax, Doll. I’m all set.”

  Addie narrowed her eyes and held her pointer finger out toward him, just a handful of centimeters from the back of his hand. When she trickled a tiny bit of Dust through her matrix, out through that finger, sending a thin, crackling jolt of purple electricity arcing into his flesh, she viewed it as practice. He viewed it as a mortal attack.

  “Goddammit!” he wailed, jerking his hand away and slamming his entire body against the door in a reflexive attempt to get away from her. “What the fuck, Ads?”

  “Don’t call me Doll! I’ve told you! Especially when I’m stressed out!”

  Beef rubbed his hand, his metallic fingers cupped over the offended flesh-and-blood. “Jesus. Feel better?”

  Addie folded her arms across her chest. “No.” His silence only made her feel more guilty, but when she reached a hand toward him, intending to squeeze his arm, he flinched away. “Stop being a baby! I’m sorry, okay? I know I’m being a witch.”

  “Whatever.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Just save your juice for the job, yeah?”

  Addie smiled. “I have plenty of juice.”

  As she spoke, the van turned, and she saw via her mini-map that they were just a block from the destination—a relatively small building for District One that used to be a corporate primary school. Currently, according to Tony’s intel, it was owned outright by Jennifer Stavros; she’d been using it as her new “headquarters” away from Cross Tower.

  “A place to do your dirty business,” Addie whispered, eyeing the mostly dark building. It wasn’t late; most of the buildings nearby had brightly illuminated windows.

  “Guess she’s up where T said she’d be,” Beef said, eyeing the lights on the top floor.

  “Yep,” Addie replied. “It’s showtime, buddy.”