Cyber Dreams 4.36 - Easy Bits

Enjoy the Chapter!

-Plum

As they followed TC through the base, occasionally ducking through corridors welded together at odd angles, passing by every manner of shady character and those not so shady, she began to feel her nerves returning, wondering if she was walking into a trap. The thought brought to mind her more recent encounters with trouble, from Frida to Tono to Eve, back on the cruise liner. Thinking about Eve, she reflexively felt for the hard lump of polymer in her pocket, only to remember she’d left her “souvenir” back on the Lady Hawk with her other belongings. “I should put that on a chain,” she muttered. When Nick looked at her for clarification, she just frowned and shook her head.

In a way, she felt a little bad for playing her hard-ass Lacy Blake persona with Nick, but in another way, she was enjoying it. What did that say about her? Was she too nice on a regular basis? Is that why it felt good to “act” out a mean character? Her mental debate about her motives began to irritate her, which only deepened her scowl and added to her grumpy persona. She turned her attention back to the task at hand—following TC and looking for an access point she and Angel, or really, Fido, could exploit.

As they walked, Angel highlighted cameras, the occasional scanner, and hard-wired terminals. Though some of them looked promising, there wasn’t any chance Juliet could pause long enough to jack in without alerting TC or being caught by one of the cameras. “You think those cameras are well-monitored, or you think they’ve got a pseudo-AI watching them?”

“Considering the number, I doubt there’s a human monitoring them all. I’m sure they’re automated, and if the AI flags something, it will alert the security personnel.” Angel paused, then added, “If Fido can gain access, he could delete incriminating footage once he takes control, but that may take several minutes, even hours, depending on the ICE.”

“So I need to get him uploaded without being noticed.” Juliet wasn’t worried about TC or anyone else spotting her subvocalizations; she more thought her words to Angel these days; there wasn’t a scanner or AI in existence that could decipher what she was saying by scrutinizing her throat. Nick couldn’t say the same, so she didn’t try communicating with him. It could spell disaster if he gave something away with his clumsy subvocalizations. With that in mind, she decided to keep her thoughts between herself and Angel. If she saw an opportunity for Nick to help out, she’d message him at the time.

“Who’s gonna be at the dinner, TC?” Nick asked as they came to a section of corridor that was in far better upkeep than the areas closer to their docking bay.

“Well, as you know, Simon, Captain Moon invited you. Likely, some of her crew will be in attendance, and I’ve heard at least one other member of the Five will be there. I’m sure there are other guests from other crews, but I haven’t been given a comprehensive list. My apologies.”

“No worries. So, I take it we’re in some restricted area now? We passed a few red-painted junctions. If I get sick or something, will you be available to guide me out of here?”

TC paused and turned to regard Nick, his synthetic face pulling off a damn good impression of someone being concerned. “If I’m not available, someone will. Are you not feeling well, Simon?” Juliet, too, looked at Nick, wondering what he was up to.

“Nah, nothing to worry about. Sometimes artificial gravity messes with my system, you know? Heavy food and drink can give me,” he glanced at Juliet, then back to TC, held a hand to the side of his mouth, and whispered, “the runs.”

Juliet snorted, but TC looked appropriately sympathetic. “Goodness! When we arrive, I’ll point out the nearest restroom for your convenience.”

“Thanks.” Nick winked at TC, and they continued on their way. After a few minutes, they came to a closed automatic door with a burly man, clearly filling a “muscle” role, standing outside. Like many of the pirates Juliet had seen, he was filthy, but his cyberware and weapons looked high-end. He had a bulky blue, plasteel arm with a barrel wide enough to handle something like shotgun shells protruding from the forearm. He also wore a heavy pistol that looked like the big brother to Juliet’s needler. More importantly, he sported a cybernetic, chrome visor that seamlessly melded with the skin around his brow. It flashed with blue LEDs that traversed its length in regular intervals.

“Trashcan, you’re late.”

“Apologies, Mister Galaxy.”

The man stared at TC with his visor for a minute, then shifted toward Nick, his slab-like pectorals bouncing under his dirty black and red jumper. “Simon, huh? No gear?”

“Nothing of note.” Nick shrugged. “I have good eyes and ears and a decent PAI. I’m a pilot, man.”

“Uh-huh.” He turned to Juliet. “This your muscle, huh? Pretty wired-up, aren’t you? Nice arm.” Juliet just stared at him, her gold-star eyes impassive. He frowned and gestured to her Texan. “That your only iron?” She nodded, and he held out his non-cyber left hand, “Better pass it over. You give me psycho vibes.” Juliet folded her arms and shook her head.

“She, uh, doesn’t like to be unarmed.” Nick took a step to the side so he could better look at Juliet while still facing the door guard. “Um, Mister Galaxy? She won’t do anything violent, but she’s in charge of my safety so . . .”

“I’m in charge of everyone’s safety,” he growled. “Gun.” Again, he held out his hand, staring at Juliet with that high-tech visor.

TC held up a hand and stammered, “Ex, er, Excuse me, Mister Galaxy, but Captain Moon told me they would be allowed a sidearm.”

“Yeah, well? Captain Moon ain’t guarding the door, is she? This chick ain’t coming through with that cannon on her hip.”

Juliet feigned a yawn, lifting one fist to block her mouth, then she turned and took a step back, leaning against the plasteel wall. “I’ll wait here then,” she rasped.

“Oh, dear!” TC said, genuine concern in his voice. “Captain Moon isn’t going to like this. Well, let us through then, Mister Galaxy.”

Mister Galaxy frowned at Juliet, ignoring TC, but he slowly lowered his hand and nodded. “All right, you can go in with that piece, but I’ll be watching you. You so much as twitch toward that pistol grip, and I’ll erase that pretty face of yours.” He tapped the fat barrel sticking out of his other arm. Juliet didn’t respond but stared into his visor without blinking as she straightened up and moved to stand next to TC again. The pirate muscle grumbled something unintelligible, then turned and slapped his hand to the security pad, opening the door.

The room beyond was abuzz with activity, noise, and smells. Dozens of people in all manner of dress mingled in a space that reminded Juliet more of a saloon than a dining room. Dance music thumped through the metallic floor and echoed off the walls, and Angel immediately squelched most of it. Though the table was far across the room, past the mingling, drinking people, she could smell the food being heated beneath stainless steel lids on rolling carts lined up behind it. The scents were mouthwatering, and Juliet could swear she picked up the odor of real, baked chicken.

A bar was on the left, attended by a much more mechanical-looking synth than TC. Many of the pirates leaned against the bar, drinking and laughing. To her right, she saw the dance floor, a white and black checked engineered floor with an actual disco ball hanging above it. Only four or five attendees were dancing, but they looked like they were having fun.

“Come on, move in,” Mister Galaxy growled from behind them, and Juliet shoved Nick to get him moving. As she stepped forward behind him, the door hissed shut, and she turned to see the surly door guard standing in front of it, arms crossed over his barrel chest.

“Simon, sir, I hope you and Lacy will make yourselves comfortable. I’m sure dinner will start sometime soon, but please avail yourselves of the open bar and the dance floor in the meantime. I’ll let Captain Moon know that you’ve arrived.” With that, TC turned and walked across the room, approaching a closed door on the far side of the table. Juliet walked to the bar, angling for the left end where nobody was standing or sitting. When she got there, she leaned against the wood and gazed out over the crowd, carefully scrutinizing the wide, high-ceilinged place.

The flooring was plasteel, other than the dance area, but it was a different grade of plasteel, tinted burgundy with an almost reflective sheen. The walls were paneled with faux wood, and the vaulted ceiling was sprayed with cream-colored, noise-dampening material and hung with fancy lighting fixtures that gave the bar area a moody red vibe and the dining area a more cheery, yellow hue. “This place was part of the original ship, I guess.”

“Yes, I believe it was a recreation area for the original crew. There are likely several such spaces.”

“See anything we can exploit?”

“Not yet, though when TC opened that far door, I saw terminals and a bank of data decks.” Angel displayed a freeze frame in Juliet’s AUI, highlighting what she’d missed entirely as she’d watched the synth walk out of the room.

“No way we’re getting in there with all these people around.”

“You want something, sweetie?” Juliet jerked her head toward the gruff voice to find the robot-like synth standing on the other side of the bar, staring at her.

“Sweetie?” she growled.

“That’s right, toots.”

Juliet scowled at the impassive robot face with its speaker-grill mouth and LED eyes. It had to be its programming; surely, it wasn’t trying to get a rise out of her. Choosing to ignore its irritating words, she almost ordered a beer, then decided Lacy Blake was a whisky drinker. “Bourbon.”

“Neat or on the rocks?”

Juliet frowned at it and growled, “I look like I want ice in my drink?”

“Coming right up, sweetie.”

“It’s unlikely that this pirate base in the Junk Belt has true bourbon.”

“Oh?”

“These days, you’ll find some debate on the matter, but aficionados agree that true bourbon must be made in certain areas of the former United States of America from corn grown on the North American continent.”

“Whatever. Next time, I’ll just say whisky.”

“Here you go, toots.” The bartending synth set a short glass on the bar half-filled with an amber liquid. Juliet picked it up, admiring the heavy feel of the glass, and then she lifted the drink to her nose and gave it a good sniff. It surprised her how much she enjoyed the heady aroma.

“My nanites ready to look for poison?”

“Always! By the way, you should take a small sip of that; true bourbon aficionados think it should be savored . . .”

Juliet smirked and tossed the drink back, swallowing the fiery liquid with a loud exhalation. Lacy Blake didn’t give a shit what aficionados thought. She slammed the glass down, turned to the synth, already mixing a drink for someone else, and rasped, “Water.” Then she scanned the room, looking for Nick, only to find him surrounded by three young women, laughing and gesticulating while he told some story about a dogfight he’d been in. He was a lot better at socializing than she was, no question about it. “It's not my fault I’m Lacy Blake right now, is it?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, I could be chatting people up, but I kinda painted myself into a corner with this role.” She noticed movement over by the dining table and turned that way to see TC come back into the room. “He’d be a good vector if you could infect him with Fido.”

“TC may not be a true AI, but he’s certainly something of an individual. I’m not sure I’d feel good about infecting him.”

“I don’t mean to, like, take him over, but to hide Fido in his code. Next time he plugs into a network, Fido could get out.”

“I suppose that’s a possibility. Did you bring your deck?”

“No.” Juliet drummed her fingers on the bar. She was about to say more when the door opened again, and a woman who very much fit the part of a pirate queen stepped into the room. She was a big lady, tall and wide, wearing bright, silky clothes in various shades of red. The pirate boss sported three cybernetic limbs, all with different styles, from a shiny, gold-plated left hand to a leg that looked like a piston you’d see in a manufacturing plant to a right arm with a matte-black plastic shell. She had gold eyes and not just the irises; they were like shimmering golden marbles. Long black dreads hung down from her scalp under a bright red bandana, and, as she walked, calling out to TC, Juliet saw her teeth wink with gold. “Mary Moon, I bet.”

“Yes, her face matches the wanted notices.”

“All right, everyone!” the pirate captain bellowed, and the music cut off instantly. “If I invited you to dinner, get over to the table and take your seat. If I didn’t invite you, then hang around the bar if you want, but keep your damn noise down!” She laughed, then turned and plopped her large, silk-clad body down at the head of the table. Juliet hung back, watching the other pirates hurry over to the table. Nick sent her a questioning glance, and she offered him a quick, reassuring nod, and he went to find his seat. After a few seconds, Juliet ambled over, aiming for the empty seat near Nick.

She’d just walked around to the back of the table when Mary Moon said, “Uh-uh, sweetie. Right up here.” She pointed to a chair to her right.

Juliet looked at it, then at Mary’s grinning face, then over to Nick. It was his turn to shrug, so she just let her frown deepen and walked back around the table to the empty chair. There were at least twenty people at the big table, but now she was right next to the host. What was that supposed to mean? Was she in trouble? Did they want her to know they were watching her? Was she about to get grilled? Lacy Blake didn’t care. The thought made Juliet smirk as she pulled out the big, heavy wooden chair, noisily dragging it on the plasteel.

She’d picked up an audience when Mary Moon called her out, so she hammed it up, sitting a bit away from the table so she could cross one leg over. She leaned back, looking around at the other guests, meeting the eyes of every person staring her way. Many of them looked away.

“Good. Right there, doll face.” Juliet turned toward her but fought her urge to scowl. What was this lady’s deal? Was she another Sharkey? Was she just flexing in front of her crew? She knew she could find out easily enough but was reluctant to get into another pirate’s head.

“Oh, melt it!” she subvocalized, and as Mary turned to the rest of the table and began to welcome them all to dinner, talking about some recent achievements, she stared into those golden orbs and tried to dig out her thoughts. It was hard, at first, to get anything other than a weird mental echo of the words she was speaking, so Juliet dug a little deeper, and strange, shadowy scenes began to play through her mind’s eye.

Mary stood before a terminal, watching camera footage of a tall, angry-looking woman walking behind TC. “That’s her?”

“Yeah.”

“She does look like a mean bitch. You think she’ll do it?”

“Why not? She slaughtered a whole crew of cargo shippers. You pay her enough, she’d probably kill that partner of hers, let alone whoever else you want dead.”

“Okay, I’ll make her an offer at dinner.” Mary looked up from the terminal and regarded Greg. Galaxy Greg! She almost laughed, thinking of his nickname. “You’re getting sexy, you know? That new arm is turning me on. We got time for . . .”

“Nah, Mary! I gotta get to the door. Screen people.”

“You all right? Hey!” Juliet heard fingers snapping in her face and blinked rapidly, banishing the vision. She shook her head and scowled, Lacy’s go-to response to any attention.

“What?” she rasped.

Mary Moon was staring at her, and Juliet realized everyone else was talking and laughing, drinking from wine glasses that hadn’t been on the table a moment ago. How much time had she lost in that weird little vision?

“Did you stroke out, or are you watching a vid or something?”

Juliet continued to scowl, trusting her Lacy persona and what she’d learned about Mary from her vision to cover her weird behavior. “I’m here.” She grunted, then picked up her wine glass, smelled it, and set it down. She turned the corners of her mouth down even further and leaned back in her chair.

“Don’t like the wine?”

“Whisky.”

Mary lifted her big black-plastic arm into the air and snapped her fingers with a click that would have sounded like a gunshot had Angel not dampened it. A moment later, the bartender synth hurried over, and she said, “Bring this woman a glass and a bottle of whisky.” Juliet locked eyes with Mary and offered her a brief nod, relaxing her frown just a little. “You don’t talk much?”

“No.”

“Huh. TC didn’t have any trouble speaking with you. Should I take it personally?”

Juliet touched her throat and rasped, “Sometimes it’s not so bad.”

“Ah! You should get that looked at. We have a pretty good chop-doc here. You want me to have him swing by your ship?”

Juliet shrugged, knowing that always saying no was sure to arouse suspicion. “Won’t be the first.”

“Okay then!” Mary slapped her gold hand down on the arm of her chair, visibly marring the wood. “Listen . . . ah, hold on, here comes your drink.” Mary sat back while the bartender set a bottle of “Galveston’s Best” bourbon in front of her. He placed a tumbler just like the one she’d drunk from earlier in front of her.

“Shall I pour?”

“Of course, you lazy bum!” Mary barked. The synth didn’t react, but he quickly pulled the cork and poured Juliet a generous amount of the amber liquid. When he set the bottle down and backed away, Juliet noted a tremor in his hand, and she wondered if synths could be programmed to feel fear. Why would manufacturers do that? To make them more believable, she told herself. She noticed Mary staring again, so she nodded and picked up the glass. Mary lifted her wine glass to clink against it. “To new friends! I’m Mary Moon, by the way.”

“Lacy,” Juliet said hoarsely, then gulped about half the whiskey. She set the glass down, and her frown was natural when she realized she was starting to sort of like the burning, heady aroma of the amber liquor. It had a cloying, sweet aftertaste, but not really sweet, like you could tell it wasn’t sugar. Still, there were definitely different notes about its flavor—hidden depths.

“Good?”

“Good.” Juliet looked up, and her frown was almost gone. She’d have to work harder to be a hard-ass with the buzz she was starting to feel.

Mary Moon smiled, flashing her gold-tipped canines, and leaned forward, speaking in a hushed voice, “Listen, Lacy. How’d you like to make some easy money and earn some points with me? I understand you’ve got a bit of a mean streak.”

“I . . .” Juliet’s instinct was to try to turn the woman down, to come up with an excuse for why she couldn’t work just now. Then she thought better of it; she was trying to get some sway among these people. Maybe taking a job, whether she completed it or not, would give her a little access. She cleared her throat and tried again, rasping, “I’m always looking for easy bits.”