Enhanced

Urban froze, staring at the doors blocking her escape route. Her brain could only process one repeated thought: How is this possible?

How did I not notice the doors when I came down the hall?

The temperature in the room dropped. Urban’s breath came out in swirls in front of her and then vanished. She wished she could vanish too. She tried pinging the Jingcha, anyone, but her messages all bounced back, unable to be delivered.

Think, Urban, think! There has to be a way out.

She commanded herself to remain calm. She searched the area frantically for anything to protect her against whatever was coming from the ominous door.

Urban tried to ignore the warnings piling up in her retina display and focus. Instead, she found herself wondering what would happen once that mist reached her. Would it burn her flesh? Would she completely disappear into a pile of ash on the floor? Or maybe her body would remain intact, but she’d choke to death.

Stay calm.

She sprinted to the closed doors and rammed herself against them. Pain laced her shoulders. A dull thud echoed in the enclosed space. They weren’t budging.

Her heart pounded faster, drowning out the hissing sound of the mist slowly creeping in around her. Ignoring it, she scanned the wall for a tatt swiper. Sure enough, there to the right of the doors she spotted the device. Urban raised her tatt to the wall and felt it vibrate. But her tatt didn’t flash gold in acceptance.

Desperate, Urban tried the door anyway. It was still locked.

She tried again. Her tatt vibrated so she knew it had been scanned, but then nothing happened.

Terror clawed at her, sending her nerves skittering until she was forced to lean against the nearest wall.

The door leading to the purple zone was now completely open, and funeral-black mist poured out.

The only way out is if I hack this scanner.

Something cold slid over her arms and she jumped. It was the dark mist. It had reached her.

Urban paused a second, waiting to see if her flesh would dissolve or bubble or otherwise deteriorate. Nothing happened. The mist just felt cold.

Maybe it’s only deadly to breathe.

Just before the mist reached her mouth, she inhaled a deep breath of clear air and held it.

I can hold my breath for one minute and twenty seconds. I have to open the door by then.

Back before Lucas hated her guts, he’d enlisted Urban on a few of his prankster missions. One of them had involved disabling a scanner. He’d shown her how, but it had been years ago and Urban had only partially been paying attention.

Now, she focused fervently on trying to remember the steps.

Jamming the scanner required an exploit script. Lucas kept one in his avatar’s inventory of items hidden to the public. Since he had allowed Urban to enter into his hidden treasure trove before, she was counting on being able to get in again. If he’d updated his passcode for the room since then, she was in trouble. Not to mention, she’d need access to QuanNao. If whatever interference was blocking her pings for help also blocked access to that . . . Urban tried not to think about what would happen.

Her retina display showed thirty seconds had passed. Her lungs started to burn.

Urban called up Lucas’s landing page. So far so good. Thought it could just be my stored data and not real time.

Forty-five seconds.

She entered his avatar’s landing room.

The door was locked.

No. It can’t be.

She tried again. And again.

Locked.

She didn’t have access to QuanNao either. She was completely cut off from the world. That meant there was no way for her to hack the scanner. No way to escape.

One minute.

Her lungs screamed for air, but there was nothing she could do. No fresh air left to breathe.

As her counter reached a minute and fifteen seconds, she knew she’d have to take a breath soon.

Suddenly, the door swung open. The mist dissipated into bright sunlight.

Urban stared at it for a second, not comprehending. Then ran toward the door. She collapsed outside, gasping for air.

When she’d caught her breath, she looked up. A security-bot stood over her. Its head swiveled mechanically toward her. “Miss Lee, may I check your vitals? You seem unwell.”

“I was attacked! There’s a purple zone back there!” Urban turned back to face the room and gasped. The mist was completely gone. The warning on her retina display for the purple zone had also vanished.

“I do not see a purple zone.” The security-bot extended one of its armored metal arms toward her. “May I check your vitals please?”

“It was right there!” Urban shouted at it.

“Do you have an emergency you’d like to report?” the bot asked.

“I just told you!” Frustrated, Urban slowed her speech and clearly enunciated each word. “There is a purple zone back there.”

“It seems your logic is currently irrational,” the bot said with infuriating calmness. “There is not a purple zone in this vicinity. Why don’t you take a seat and relax?”

“Relax? Relax!” Urban was beyond that. “Let me speak to a real person now, or I’m going to smash you to so many pieces they won’t even take you at a scrap yard!”

“I’m concerned for your mental health,” the bot continued soothingly. “I may call in a squad to help if you cannot contain yourself.”

Urban realized she was wasting time. “Take me to a human. I have a case to report.”

Finally, the bot escorted her to the Security Center. She found herself in a cramped room with an older woman, a Natural by all appearances. She smoked a cigarette and played a game of chess on her desk with a second security-bot.

Urban’s system warned her she was entering a yellow zone due to the smoke, but she ignored it. “Sorry to interrupt.”

The lady snubbed out her cigarette and waved the smoke away. An air filter clicked on. She slapped the robot to get out of the chair and motioned for Urban to sit.

The smoky air caused an itch at the back of her throat. Urban let out a cough.

The lady scrutinized Urban, her leathery forehead developing a deep row of wrinkles before she leaned back and relaxed. Her eyes glazed for a few moments as she used her retina display to watch Urban’s conversation with the security-bot.

Urban’s legs bounced as she waited.

A moment later, the lady leaned forward. “Either you’ve had one too many sleepless nights or you’re in some serious trouble.”

“Do we have a purple zone on campus?”

The woman stared at Urban. “No.”

Urban’s legs bounced faster. “But I saw it, I swear! Let me show you my retina vid replay.”

“Please do.”

Urban live projected onto the wall her retina recording. She found the spot where she was just going into the Xi Engineering building and hit play.

Seeing the golden door to the purple zone again sent a chill down her spine. She coughed several times, and the woman gave her a look. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop herself from coughing. Of course, my lungs are acting up now too.

When the recording got to the part where her system flashed a warning, there was nothing. Urban kept waiting for the warning, but nothing happened. Her retina replay showed her staring into space for a long time, eventually, turning and running out of the building and collapsing to her knees. She looked like a crazy person.

Urban sat stunned.

There was no purple zone, door trapping her inside, or black mist. It was all gone.

Someone hacked my retina recordings.

Fear squeezed her heart. She remembered hearing about something like this from her Programming class, but wasn’t this only supposed to happen to political figures or KOLs? It made no sense to target students.

Why me? Does someone know I’m a Natural? Maybe my parents were right. It’s dangerous for me to be here.

“You need more sleep.” The security officer wagged a knobby finger at her. “You’re not the first one coming in here with tall tales. Too much partying makes people delusional.”

Urban decided she had to trust her instincts. She would believe what her eyes had seen, not what her tech told her anymore. Someone had hacked into her retina recordings and edited them with replaced memories. But that was extraordinarily difficult. It would mean overriding just about every security protocol in QuanNao. Who had that kind of power?

Urban stood, beginning to wheeze now. “Thank you,” she managed.

The woman looked up in surprise. Urban realized she’d probably never been thanked before. To the PKU students and faculty, she was just another invisible Natural there to serve them.

Urban offered her a smile, then turned and left.

She wasn’t sure what to do, where to go, or whom to trust. She finally went back to the parking garage for her motorcycle, looking over her shoulder at every turn. She sent a ping to Lillian before riding toward her parents’ house in stunned silence.

Her thoughts raced faster than her motorcycle. Why would anyone hack my recorded memories?

There was something that kept tugging at the back of her mind, a piece to the puzzle she had to be missing. She had to keep a close eye on the road to keep from swerving into another vehicle. She was pulling into the garage at her home when she made the connection.

Qing Angel.

That was a person with incredible power and an unusual interest in her personal life. But would Angel really try and kill her? No one could get to that level of fame and be a killer. Could they?

What if she decides to erase more of my recorded memories or replace them with fake ones?

Urban tried to hold back her coughs and wheezes as she entered her apartment. But to no avail. At the sound, two cats came skidding around the corner. Jiaozi sprinted to her side with a loud meow. Baozi was only a few seconds behind. Urban was almost knocked over with the tiger-sized house cats trying to weave in between her legs.

Urban gave them each a quick pat, then darted upstairs to her room with Baozi close behind. Opening the door to her room brought a wave of comfort. It was just the way she’d left it. She breathed deeply of the sweetly scented candles and smell of cat. She looked at her bed. There was a large dent with blue fur on it.

“Baozi!” Urban pointed accusingly at the dent on the bed. “Have you been sleeping there?”

Baozi paid her no attention. The cat ran past her and leaped onto the bed even as Urban watched.

“How dare you,” Urban reprimanded. “Down. Now!”

Baozi stared back as if considering whether Urban’s threats were to be taken seriously before slowly hopping back off.

Urban started coughing again, and this time the spasms bent her over. When they subsided, she hurriedly turned on a small machine. She waited for it to beep green before sticking in a mouthpiece and inhaling cool mist.

A few minutes of this treatment, and her lungs were adequately soothed. She turned up her favorite playlist, crawled under her warm blanket, and burrowed between the mountain of pillows.

Urban knew she should be studying for her many upcoming tests or figuring out a way to somehow pull her life back together, but she didn’t care anymore. She was tired of trying so hard all the time. She was exhausted from having to hide so much. Now, she had serious safety concerns to worry about too. Despite her retina memory being erased, her mind couldn’t stop replaying the image of that dark mist creeping toward her.

Should she tell her parents? She needed to be safe. But telling them would surely backfire. They’d barely agreed to allow her to go to uni in the first place. Mother would freak out. She’d probably make her leave uni, and Urban couldn’t risk that.

Urban thought about the Natural security guard she’d spoken with. I have to stay. She gritted her teeth. I have to show Naturals what we can do. We may not have superior genetics, but we still have value.

Her decision to keep the incident from her parents made, she thought about who she could trust.

Everest and Lillian were the only people that came to mind. She quickly sent them both a ping.

She had to plan what to tell her parents, figure out who Qing Angel was, and in the meantime, find a way to protect herself.

She remembered in her Programming course the probot talking about recordings being hacked. Maybe there were resources about how to prevent this from happening.

She logged into her class portal and did a search within her textbook for “memory wipes.”

Three results turned up. The first two explained what a memory wipe was. On the third search she found something useful. How to Prevent Your Memories from Being Hacked, the paragraph header read.

Urban skimmed the characters until she got to the part explaining prevention. It started with a program called RET-Anti-Hack, which used asymmetric cryptography. The program provided the digital key, but the private key was the individual’s genome. This would ensure only the intended user had access to their messages and stored data.

Each time the retina recorded something, it would encrypt it with a digital key, and then send it offsite as an archive. If anything was changed, a new copy was made, but the old files would still be accessible.

This is exactly what I need.

The directions said to send in a piece of hair or a blood sample to lock the bio-authentication. Urban checked the privacy regulations to be sure there was no way her DNA could be sent anywhere without her authority—and thus her Natural genes be discovered. After an hour of reading the fine print, she was convinced her data would remain anonymous.

She checked the price and winced. It would eat up most of her allowance and summer earnings. No more painting supplies or classes. Not that she had time these days to paint.

Doing some quick math, she came to the conclusion she’d be able to make it through the rest of the semester with what was left of her crypto credits—if she lived off of ramen.

I don’t have a choice. She ordered the RET-Anti-Hack, plucked a hair from her head, placed it inside the small interior of a mini drone, and fast-shipped it.

[QuanNao: RET-Anti-Hack will be delivered within four hours. Once the sample is collected, the bio-authentication will become active.]

Urban checked her credits and sighed at how much they’d dropped.

Baozi hopped up onto her bed, avoiding eye contact. Urban gave him a disapproving glare but then relented. The cat curled up next to her, taking up nearly half the bed and resting his giant head on her lap, purring as she stroked him absently. As the adrenaline finally started to wear off, Urban realized how exhausted she was.

I should find Mother before she finds me.

With reluctance, she forced herself out of her room and sent a maid to fetch her mother while she waited in the parlor. She ran her hands through the Peruvian Vucana-wool couch while she waited. A maid brought a pot of steaming green tea and placed it on the imported Italian coffee table.

Urban heard her mother before she saw her. The slap, slap, slap of house slippers and then a furious voice. “I cannot believe the low score you received on your first assignment!”

The scent of mother’s Bulgarian Rose perfume overpowered the room the second she entered.

Urban braced herself for the lecture. For the next ten minutes Mother berated Urban for her grades and lack of respect for her parents.

Finally, she seemed to have run out of things to say. Urban was about to leave when her mother spoke again. “I just want you safe. To do that, you have to keep up your grades and sosh.” Her eyes glittered, and to Urban’s surprise, she thought she saw tears, but then Mother spun away.

Urban was too tired to think more on it as she trudged back to her room. She tried to work on her homework assignments. The beginnings of her XR character were finally coming to life. However, her character, an Artisan with spiky red hair, had various odd ticks.

The Artisan refused to walk normally, couldn’t grab stuff out of his backpack, and couldn’t swim. In fact, the Artisan’s entire body disappeared when he went near water. The code was driving Urban mad, but she couldn’t figure out how to fix it. The code grew blurry and her bed softer. The last thing she remembered was Baozi purring.

Urban wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep when her door flew open.

“I got your ping.” Lillian’s face was white. She raced over to the side of the bed and threw her arms around Urban.

Urban leaned up against Lillian for a long moment before they both sat back. She spent the next two hours explaining everything that had happened. By the end, Lillian had grown very quiet.

She gazed past Urban. “This is dangerous,” she finally said.

“You’re not going to tell Mother and Father?”

Lillian considered it. “No. But we do need additional security for you. Leave it to me. I’ll make something up that won’t get you in trouble but will get you a guard for protection.”

Urban looked at her. “How will you manage that?’

“Don’t worry about it. Just leave it to me.”

Urban thought a moment. “Okay. Oh! I just ordered a RET-Anti-Hack to help.”

“Perfect.” Lillian nodded approvingly. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

“How do you know about that?” Urban asked curiously. “I’d never heard of it before today.”

“I know all about the latest tech and trends; I’m an Inventor.” Before Urban could ask more questions, Lillian rushed on. “Now, you also need some self-defense weapons.” She chewed her lip in thought. “I have an idea.” Her eyes began darting, searching in QuanNao. “Okay, I speed ordered something for you. It should be here right about when dinner arrives.”

“Dinner?”

“I also ordered your favorite street food while I was at it.”

Urban sat up in bed. “You ordered fried jiaozi?”

Lillian smiled broadly.

“You’re the best! I love jiaozi.”

Jiaozi the cat suddenly appeared on the floor. “Not you.” Urban rolled her eyes. “How did I know you were hiding in here?” She darted a glance at her sister. “Remind me why you had to name your cat after my favorite food again?”

Later, Lillian asked in between bites, “How’s birthday planning coming?”

“I’m dreading it,” Urban moaned. “Thankfully my roommate is helping me.” She stopped short. “Oh no! I forgot to ask Father if I could use the Underwater Bar!”

“Let me take care of it, all right?” Lillian put a hand on Urban’s shoulder. “All you really need is good food, drinks, a reliable DJ, and a couple of KOLs, and you’re set. Do you have those?”

“I think so.” Urban looked gratefully at her sister. “At least I heard Hazel talking about them.”

“Then you’ll be fine.” Lillian dipped her jiaozi in soy sauce. “Besides, you’re not going to have a perfect sosh on the first day. It takes consistent practice to pull it up. Mine was only 58 on my birthday. Everyone has to start somewhere. Don’t worry about it.”

When Urban’s package arrived, Lillian helped Urban install it.

“Oh, cool, you got the latest version of the RET-Anti-Hack. It uses digital-key cryptography to sign all messages. That way, you know it really came from your retina display rather than someone else’s. If any memories come from anyone other than you, it will alert the Jingcha and you. Pretty awesome, huh?”

Urban shook her head. “Seriously, how do you know so much about this?”

Lilian looked away. “I just . . . really care about safety.” She gazed at the ceiling. “That’s why I take jiujitsu and work out and—”

“All right, I get it,” Urban interrupted as she stared bewilderedly at her sister. Something was suddenly off about Lillian.

“Here, you also need this.” Lillian handed Urban another box.

Urban held up what looked like a miniature metal hula-hoop with another, smaller ring inside it. “What is this?”

“It’s a stun shield,” Lillian said. “It’s to keep you safe.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Watch this.” Lillian took the stun shield and activated it. Instantly, it filled with a blue, pulsing laser. “You hold it by this outer ring, and the inner one acts as a defense against any sort of weapon attack. It’s a shield.” She demonstrated by poking a hanger into it. The hanger popped, sizzled, and bounced back—seared at the edges.

“You can also use it on the offensive.” Lillian threw the stun shield, and it bounced onto the ground where it rolled then hit one of Urban’s chairs. There was an electrical buzz as blue fingers licked up the legs of the chair. The shield fell over and deactivated to just a metallic hoop again, leaving nothing but the smell of burnt wood.

“Wow.” Urban raced over to pick up the shield. “How did you do that?”

“You can activate it so once it’s thrown, it administers 70,000 volts to the first object it strikes.”

Urban cautiously activated it and took a turn throwing it. The stun shield flew through the air and hit a pillow on the floor. Blue fire shot through the pillow, and it erupted in flames. Jiaozi meowed in terror and leaped off the bed, knocking Lillian over in his mad scramble out of the room.

“Ah! Fire!” Urban frantically snatched a blanket off the bed and smothered the flames. The comforter hissed, and smoke poured out from it, but the flames died out.

When she finally lifted the blanket, only a few charred remains of the pillow were left.

“That was my favorite pillow.” Urban stared down at the remains.

Lillian tried to stifle a laugh. “Maybe we should practice on the rooftop.”

She picked up one of Urban’s paint brushes and some paint. In the quiet gardens of the roof, she drew a target on the side of the wall.

Urban tried throwing the stun shield again. She struck the wall a meter away from the target. The wall turned a burnt black where it had been struck.

Urban cast a worried glance at Lillian. “Think Mother will be mad about the wall?”

Lillian shook her head. “They never come up here. Besides, they’re about to have the whole roof repainted. They won’t notice.”

They spent the next hour practicing activating the defense field and then throwing it at the target.

“Thanks, sis,” Urban said with gratitude after hitting the target for the eighth consecutive time. “I think this is good for now.”

Watch out, Angel. Two can play at this.