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AS SOON AS I LEAVE the range of the jamming frequency, the armor is put under a complete systems override. Ayana must have scripted it to happen or else she was hovering over the controls intent on catching me the second the connection was restored. I'll have to wait to find out because she's not responding to hails.
I try to relax for the flight. Plenty of thoughts keep me occupied. Ensnared in another grand conspiracy, there isn't an easy way to sort out who's in control or who's on what side—or if there even are sides. Could Xamse be behind these new Augments? Absolutely. But then there's Eric and his girlfriend. Chroma has always wanted a family of her own and distributing Augment tech like open source is right in line with the Collective philosophy.
Yet, none of this matters. Vulkan is what matters.
Anxiety doesn't kick in until the campus rooftop comes into view. A cloudy sky spits enough drizzle that the courtyard and gardens where employees hang out are empty. Xamse stands beside Ayana atop the landing platform, back from his little business trip. She’s holding an umbrella over his head and making sure to keep her other hand free. He’s got the tablet, fiddling with the controls. My controls.
Ayana’s only wielding an umbrella, so that's a plus. Her brutal sneer and a free hand tapping her holster seem to indicate this isn't by choice. They clear the platform, and after a gentle touchdown Xamse gives a casual flick and opens the armor. Seals hiss and interlocking plates perform their little dance.
Exposed, the light rain feels bearable, but I’m not in a hurry for a shower. I stay in the partial protection of the armor until Xamse beckons. Worse than a full-on shower, the misty rain quickly envelops me. He’s chosen a mild case of waterboarding to start the interrogation.
"You appear nervous," he says, a glance at the tablet. "I would wonder why."
I do my best to collect my thoughts. Obviously, Xamse knows where the armor last disappeared. Cantor never meant the meeting to be a secret, but the jamming kept the details from being broadcast. She probably had instructions on what to tell Xamse if I’d waited long enough. My guess, it went something like I'd been tricked into another hard sales pitch for relocating to the Proving Grounds.
"I had an interesting talk," I say.
"Oh?" he slips his hands behind his back and waits patiently. Accusations aren't his thing, he's more than happy for me to implicate myself.
"Our client, Cantor, she wanted to give me a tour of the Proving Grounds. Fresh baked cookies and everything."
He feigns surprise and gives Ayana a quick check. She adds a menacing demand: "And that was all?"
"Yep. I told her I was happy enough in my basement prison that I didn't need a desert timeshare." I glance up into the rain. “Any chance we can do this inside?”
Xamse doesn't react. He examines every square inch of my face, my body language. One errant twitch and I get the feeling he'll let his attack dog off the leash.
"That is good to know, friend."
With careful, deliberate motions he removes Ayana’s gun from the holster. He paces closer with his gleeful umbrella flunky in tow. Hopeful malice lights her eyes. Instinctively, I back away before I think to check behind me. The edge looms. There’s the roof access door, but they’ve thought ahead and placed themselves in the path.
He’s threatened once before to toss me from this very roof. It didn’t happen then. It won’t happen now. I stand my ground, rain soaking through my clothes. Cold sets in and I uselessly rub my arms.
Xamse looks up. "We are friends, are we not?"
"I'm pretty sure yes is the right answer." Mouth dry despite the humidity, I choke on the last word.
He smiles. "The humor," he says. "Always with the humor. But one thing I don't find humorous."
"What's that?"
"The missing video. I go to look and what do I find?" He holds up the tablet and gestures to a black screen with the gun barrel. Stray droplets of water have pearled the surface. "A convenient technical failure."
"They were jamming the signals," I say, shrugging. "Probably had some way to interfere with the camera systems. Narrowband light overload, who knows? She carries around ways to mask audio recordings. Right?" I add, looking directly at Ayana. She knows this from my short elevator ride with Cantor which prompted our client's loss of visiting privileges.
Xamse joins forces with my stare down of the frustrated security chief. When he does, the fury building up behind Ayana's eyes reaches a boiling point. Her jaw, clamped shut and twitching, releases with a snap.
"Twice now he's spoken with our trained espionage client in situations outside of our observation and control. Whatever was said is immaterial. We should take care of this problem on principle. Be done with him," she spits, her ruined face pulled into a tortured mask, half frozen, half twisted with rage. “You can’t possibly believe anything he says!”
The tablet and the gun behind his back, Xamse considers her objections in silence. Persistent rain drums on the umbrella like light static
Sad part is, she's right. Marching me off the roof is exactly what I would expect my little mini-tyrant friend to do. He doesn't allow loose ends. At the same time, he’s used to playing these sorts of games.
"Xamse, look." I move closer, sharing the umbrella’s cover an ulterior motive along with assuring him we are indeed BFFs. Ayana shifts enough that I’m denied any protection. "I get the whole competition for your favor thing." I jab a thumb at Ayana. "But this lady's been trying to find any excuse to kill me since the day we met. I'm not sure she's offering you an unbiased opinion."
If he's concerned I'd make a move for the gun before he can take aim and fire, he doesn't show it. This might just work. I do my best to project his same air of confidence.
"All things equal, she is right my friend," he says. "I should kill you, to be certain." Should. That's a good word. Non-committal. Optional. The sly, sated look which follows isn’t comforting. "Let us give you the benefit of doubt. Both of you shall work together to recover the missing video. If found, it will either prove your guilt or provide us valuable intelligence about our common enemy, no?"
My soggy mind starts sifting through the subroutines, the interconnected hardware, the necessary steps to make that possible. Housed in the main control unit, the internal drives are heavily protected to prevent any incidental damage or tampering.
"That's a teardown situation," I say, scrubbing water from my eyes. "Re-assembly, diagnostics, we could be out of action for a couple days."
Xamse gives a playful frown. "Let us hope there is no action to respond to, then."
"Fine, I'll get started first thing in the morning.” I need to buy time, so I can think this through. “A little non-bullet assisted sleep would be nice."
"You've got four hours," Ayana says. Xamse agrees. Argue for more time, and I might as well tell them I’m stalling.
I nod, and they head for the landing pad, taking up a position in front of the armor. Thoughts about the system capabilities are still clogging my brain. If there's one weakness to the prototype, it's in the software. This wasn't a ground-up build as far as that's concerned. Copied mostly from Wormfood, the MANTIS operating system has plenty of legacy subroutines, including how it handles newer hard drives.
Rain has turned my clothes into a clingy skin. Implications of what comes next have me rooted to the spot. Ayana snatches the tablet from Xamse and gives it a satisfying stab. The platform lowers, and I’m soon alone with my thoughts.
Old drives, data marked for deletion is just shuffled out of the way to be overwritten. A top of the line solid state drive like on the prototype? The ones and zeroes are typically gone the moment you hit delete, tagged by the operating system's TRIM command to be overwritten at first opportunity.
That’s right. The specialized MANTIS operating system doesn't have a TRIM command. The video feed is recoverable. And if I know how to recover the files, chances are Ayana and Xamse know too.
I’m screwed.
I eye the roof access door. “Damnit.”
Screwed and I’ve left my security badge on my nightstand. I trudge toward the door and retrieve my multitool, wondering if a four-story drop wouldn’t be preferable.
***
THE BOTTLE OF PILLS is close to empty. I return it to the bedside table. I'm certain in four hours Ayana will drag me out of here, against my will. Pretending to be groggy or actually being in a drug-induced coma won't buy any time. And spending quality time with her requires being alert. I'll need every brain cell I have to think my way out of this one.
It's possible to delete the files for good with a few keystrokes. That is if Ayana ever takes her eyes off me, which isn't likely. Xamse's remote controls must not have full command line access, or he could have done all this from the tablet. Smart, I suppose. In the event the external controls were ever hacked, the attacker wouldn't be able to remotely reconfigure core functions.
Sneaking into the lab early to delete the files would require defeating the campus security systems. I could attempt a remote hack from my terminal here, out through FreedomNet and in through the back door. Camera loops and disabled logs could buy time. Doing all that in four hours is possible. Dismantling the suit, removing the heavily protected control unit, patching it to the workstation, reassembling, then covering my tracks before the already alerted Ayana figures it out.
Damn, just thinking about this is exhausting. I need a plan. But for the first time in I'm not sure how long, my eyes feel heavy. This shouldn't be a surprise. I've been crisscrossing the country for weeks now, chasing Augments, being pumped with surge after surge of adrenaline.
I mean to sit on the bed but flop instead. I turn on the soundtrack of the beach screen saver and let the warble of unfamiliar birds and whisper of the waves fill the space. For me, this creepy shit will surely prevent sleep. All I have to do is imagine I'm lying on a metal framed bed stuffed away in a tree house decorated with offerings to its spider queen.
The whisper of waves becomes a surge.
Charlotte’s twisted little paradise. Created from our shared affinity for the Swiss Family Robinson to house the ghost of my mother. Used to psychically interrogate me through a complete dissection of my childhood. The place where my Mom finished off an Augment. I wonder if I have the same look in my eye she had?
The surge, a back and forth pull.
Foam tickles my toes.
Mom's there, on the beach. Further out, the cracked bubble of volcanic rock tears through swirling tide. The grotto, the Falcon's Nest, the Tent House, the whole of the Happy Land, bathed in a somber blue light and a bottled stillness on the air. All those new powers and she keeps choosing this same damn vacation spot.
"Mom?"
"Spencer!"
"Where have you been?" I ask.
She rushes forward and wraps her arms around me. Or Charlotte does. The vestige of her true physical appearance has finally been lost, even in this imaginary place. I hope she did this of her own free will. Acceptance and not surrender.
"You!" she says, her eyes smiling. "Where have you been? I'm never far."
I try to explain, and no words come out. Tears flow freely, and I'm suddenly a slobbering mess. Her eyes cloud from bright elation to pain, and she pulls me close.
"I still haven't found him," I whisper. "Somebody has to pay."
Her tight hug becomes an unyielding embrace. Dark clouds gather on the fringes of this dreamscape and flickers of lightning ignite their shadowy depths.
"Oh honey," she says, her hand gently touching the back of my neck. "Stop worrying about that."
Unable to fight, I look out to sea, wondering if a fresh molten dome will appear as the foam recedes and etches the rock. But there's still only Time Slip's, shattered and rent open.
"Mom," I say, and her arms loosen. I step back, but I keep my hands on her. "What did you do?"
"What had to be done." She reaches up and parts my hair. "Just like you have. Don't blame yourself for any of this. Our world has changed. We've changed. It's why I keep bringing you back here," she explains, answering my earlier question without having asked. She spins out of my grip and does a carefree pirouette in the sand. "This place never changes. It's ours." She smiles and the person I've come to know her as, trapped behind an unrecognizable face, melts away. "For all of us!" she shouts, gesturing to the cliffs.
He's a dark presence outside the door to the Eagle's Nest. Tall, broad, and corded with muscles normally concealed under skin-tight suits. Dad's wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts, dressed for a Maui vacation we never took as a family but always spoke about.
"What the fuck?"
"Don't worry. I'll come find you," she says, her words rushed. Her eyes dart to the retreating ocean and flick madly as if she's reading a map in the glistening sand. "I know where you are. You won't get away from me this time."
I stare, stone-faced. I'm not even sure who I'm talking to anymore. Mom? Or Charlotte.