Cyber Dreams 4.34 - Sharkey

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-Plum

When she lost sight of Nick in the crowd, Juliet turned back to Sharkey’s little tabletop emporium and contemplated what she would do next. She knew she had to get into the pirate base’s secure network and find Antigone. Was a connected pirate like Sharkey the key? If so, how deep would she need to go to find what she wanted? Juliet had been leery about digging deeply into people’s minds ever since Tono. She’d broken down and done it with Larry, and she wasn’t too sure she liked where that had gotten her.

Despite the gravity of her current situation and what she had to accomplish, the more she tried to think about it, the more Nick’s parting thoughts kept creeping into her mind, vying for attention. She groaned, wanting to massage her temple but unable to through the thick polymer shell of her helmet. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard similar thoughts from him already. The poor man was clearly smitten with her and conflicted about his sense of propriety. Juliet didn’t really mind the attention; Nick was a nice guy, handsome too, and he seemed to understand that their age gap and different stages in life meant his fleeting romantic feelings were probably best left as such. Still, it was one of those things that bothered her about hearing other peoples’ thoughts—a little less clarity on such topics would be fine with her.

“Anything you want to talk about?” Angel had noticed her distracted mood.

“I need to dig into that Sharkey guy’s mind, and I’m dreading it. What if it’s another experience like Tono? What if I have trouble distinguishing my memories from the ones I pick up? I’m just starting to feel normal again after acting all weird back on Callisto.”

“You don’t think you can find what you want listening to his surface thoughts?”

“I doubt it! I’m looking for Antigone and info about the pirate’s security net. You think he’s just sitting over there thinking about things like that while he’s managing his shop?”

“What if we prompted him to think about them somehow?”

Juliet idly fiddled with the strap on her shotgun as she considered the idea. “I’m listening if you’ve got more ideas.”

“We could fabricate some sort of data sheet with a woman’s picture who looked very similar to our photo of Antigone. It might prompt him to think about her if he saw it.”

“Hmm.” Juliet thought about the idea. They could anonymously drop the datasheet into any open wireless ports in the area. If they made it about something that might be of interest, in general, to the pirates, it wouldn’t be very suspicious—junk data files were constantly being tossed around in public spaces like this. Angel filtered almost all of them, but occasionally, she’d show something to Juliet that she thought might be interesting. “What would we say to get it past his PAI’s filters?”

“Couldn’t you listen to him for a while to see what he’s interested in? Just surface thoughts?”

Juliet nodded, standing up. “I like how you think, Angel. I’m going to need a reason to be sitting here, though.” She walked over to a food vendor selling hotdogs. She had no idea what they were made of, but his beat-up, homemade-looking cart was stenciled with the words ‘plant-based,’ so Juliet decided she’d risk it. She didn’t know what kinds of meat might be ground into a sausage on a pirate base, and she was happy not to find out. “Two dogs.” She rasped through her helmet’s speaker, holding up two fingers for clarity.

“Onions? Peppers?”

“Everything.”

“I like it!” The merchant was a scrawny, greasy man with long, thin blond hair pulled back in an old yellow bandana printed with cartoon cats. He put together her hotdogs nimbly, and while she watched him, Juliet noticed he had two mechanical fingers. She’d seen a lot of cybernetic limbs in her life, but rarely such small ones. That thought struck her as kind of strange. Why was that? Did people just opt for total hand replacements when they lost a finger? Did it make more sense from a surgical or mechanical standpoint? “Chips? Fresh fried right here! Got a real hookup on some genned potatoes over the weekend.”

“Why not?”

He smiled a big, gap-toothed smile and got to work, dropping some frosty rounds of unpeeled potatoes out of a clear plastic bag into his fry basket. “You’re gonna love ‘em!”

A few minutes later, Juliet sat down at her table, back to the wall, straddling the bench so she could keep her eyes on Sharkey’s booth without craning her neck. She took her helmet off for the first time in a few hours, and the air gently blowing over her sweaty neck felt heavenly. Maybe she was just hungry and stressed, but the food was better than anything she’d had in a while. She had a hard time eating it slowly, making it last so she could have an excuse to be sitting there, occasionally looking Sharkey’s way.

“All right, Angel. Here goes.” She set her first dog down, half-eaten, and sipped the frosty ‘cola,’ then stole a quick look at Sharkey’s face, using her retinal implants to give her a close-up of his eyes. As she relaxed her breathing, his thoughts came rushing her way.

Ah dammit! My balls are itching like nobody’s business today. Did I pick something up from the crapper? I told Mack to clean that damn toilet! Why does he always have to be reminded when it’s his turn? If I weren’t already down an engineer, I’d give that punk his walking . . . Oh, hello! Who’s this? My, my! Look at the heroic job that shirt’s doing holding those puppies in. Hmm, not a big fan of those weird ear-jobs. Who wants to see speakers sticking out of a girl’s head when she’s going to town? Oh well, easy to focus on other body parts, especially when they . . .

Juliet let his thoughts fade as he started speaking, and Angel adjusted her audio gain to hear his words. The object of his earlier scrutiny stood before him, holding a package containing a data deck. “Yeah, sure, it’s in the original packaging. Nothing fake about that baby. Came right off a cargo ship Shinzo himself raided last month.”

“You don’t swap out processors or put doctored memory in? I’ve heard some of the goods sold here are fake . . .”

“Listen here, you little squirt! Sharkey doesn’t sell fake shit. If you’re hearing rumors like that, they aren’t about my stuff!” Sharkey was so strident that Juliet didn’t think she’d have needed her enhanced auditory implants to hear him.

“Whatever!” The young woman turned back to perusing his goods, setting the deck back on the table.

Whatever? Come into my place of business and accuse me of scamming? Hah, if I scammed you, you’d never know it. Shit, maybe I should offer her a discount if she puts out a little . . .

“Ugh. Angel, this guy’s a total creep. He might be connected, but all he thinks about is sex. Well, sex and his testicles and toilets . . .”

“That sounds unpleasant. Still, it might give us an angle. What if we released an advertisement for adult services? I could generate a scantily clad image of a woman with a face similar to Antigone’s and then make up some promo text about ‘massage services’ on the base. Perhaps if you were listening to his thoughts when he received it . . .”

“Yeah, you know, that’s the kind of thing I could see his PAI letting through his filters.” Juliet chuckled and ate a couple of crisps, thinking about it. “I won’t be surprised if he responds to it, too. You know, the more I think about it, the more I’d like to get this guy alone and just question him, get his biomarkers—all that. Too bad we don’t have a private spot on the ship to lure him in.”

“Why not use the cargo vessel? You won’t be restricted from going in and out. In fact, you’re expected to sleep there.”

“Hold on, Angel, let’s be smart about this. If Sharkey’s seen going onto my ship, won’t that raise some flags? I guess if we get what we need, that won’t matter. You can alter the security footage if you get access to the base’s net.” Juliet thought for a couple of seconds, then shook her head. “Hang on a second! What are we doing? This went from me trying to see if he recognized an image of Antigone to us trying to lure him onto the ship.”

“Good point! Let’s slow down a little and take this one step at a time. Shall I make the flyer for ‘massage’ services?”

Juliet drummed her fingers on the table and then took a long drink of her soda. “Yeah, do it. Tell me when you’re ready to release . . .”

“Ready!”

“Good grief! You should get a job in advertising. Do I want to look at it?” As she subvocalized the question, a window appeared in her AUI, and she mentally groaned as she selected it. An animated high-res flyer took form, advertising “massage” services in quotes and showing a woman leaning over a large man’s back, exposing way too much butt cheek beneath her very short skirt as she kneaded his doughy flesh. When she turned to wink at the viewer, Juliet could swear it was Antigone’s face. An animated, scrolling subheading repeatedly proclaimed, “Have your PAI schedule a session with Cherry today! She’ll come to any berth!”

“How’s that?” Angel asked smugly.

“Well, I hate it, but I think Sharkey will like it.” Juliet picked up the remnants of her second hotdog and stuffed it into her mouth. She focused on Sharkey, relaxing with a deep breath and inviting his thoughts. “Send it out.” At that moment, Sharkey was sitting on a stool, staring into space, his eyes darting around as he did something in his AUI. Juliet only had to stare for a second before his thoughts started to drift her way.

Nah, that one’s too cheap. Think I’m gonna let Jay get off so easy? Punk owes me at least a CoffeeMaster, gen four or newer! Don’t let him scam you.

Juliet could tell from the cadence and tone of his thoughts that he was composing a message. The tone abruptly shifted, though still in the tempo of a conversation:

Ho, ho! What’s this? You dirty little bastard, Vince! Jesus H! Look at the can on that broad. You think she really wears that? Vince, make me an appointment. Holy! Hey, wait a melting second here! Look at that face—freeze it. Yeah, ain’t that Tornado’s new chick? Holy, holy, holy shit! He’s gonna go apeshit when he sees this flyer! . . . Oh? It ain’t? Shit, Vince, it sure looks like her to me, but if you say the faces don’t match, I guess I’ll buy it. Make me an appointment!

“He’s seen her!” Juliet subvocalized, trying to pull out of Sharkey’s mind. “He called her ‘Tornado’s new chick.’ Why does Tornado sound familiar?”

“Captain Ron Tornado is one of the Five. It seems you’ve come up with some good intel but also some troubling news. I can’t imagine it will be easy to gain access to her if she’s with Tornado’s crew. There’s also the matter that if she’s his ‘chick,’ she may not want to leave the pirate base as we’ve been led to believe.”

“Dammit! We need access to cameras and stuff, Angel. You can’t find any wireless access points you can exploit?”

“I’ve found some very vulnerable network access points, but they're all to the tiny local, public nets like the one in this mercantile area where I dropped that massage flyer. By the way, Sharkey’s requesting an appointment. He wants ‘Cherry’ to come to his ship this afternoon.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“You might be interested to know that he specified the designation of his ship as the Rude Boy and indicated that he’d need to send an escort to get her through restricted access points. The Rude Boy is one of the largest known ships in the Hereford’s Vengeance pirate group. It’s a salvaged Donovan Mercantile destroyer, circa 2078.”

Juliet groaned, leaning back and kicking one of her heels up onto the bench. “So you’re saying he’s even more connected than we thought. Still, I’m not trying to sneak onto his ship pretending to be a sexdoll giving massages . . .”

“No, I wouldn’t suggest that.”

Juliet narrowed her eyes, watching Sharkey as he organized some of the items for sale on his central counter. She could probably find what she wanted in his head if she were willing to go deep enough. She could learn where the access points were to the network, learn what kinds of passcodes he might know in addition to his biomarkers, and even learn the layout of the place if she dug around for a current memory. Did she want to do that, though? Did she want to risk bringing pieces of that creep back into her head? “I can’t do it. I won’t.”

“What?”

“I won’t go for a deep dive into that guy’s head.”

“I’m glad. I think it would be even worse than Tono.”

“Thanks for not pushing me, Angel. Hey, can you review my close-up interaction with Sharkey? Any chance we got a high enough res image of his eyes to steal his retinal imprint?”

“I’m sorry, but no; it’s possible I could get a good enough image of his retina using the right visual filters, but we’d need to get close and achieve the right angle so that his pupil and iris don’t obscure the retina. It wouldn’t be something we could do instantly.”

“All right. Hang on, I have an idea.” Juliet took a minute to wipe the condensation off her mostly empty plastic soda cup. The red plastic had a thin layer of grease on it when she was done, no doubt caused by her fingers as she’d been eating the fried potato crisps. She pulled her gloves back on, then stood up, hooked her helmet to her belt, and made her way back over to Sharkey’s shop. She did her best to make her voice rough and hoarse, speaking from low in her throat, “Hey, Sharkey.”

“Oh? Hey, doll! Damn, glad to see your face ain’t all messed up like I thought.”

Juliet ignored the comment and pointed to the case behind him. “The cube.”

“Huh?” He turned, looked where she pointed, and said, “Oh yeah! That’s a real beauty—Aurora Corp. Ultra-Simulate holo-projector. It can make a whole room look like something else.”

“I know. Can I see?” Juliet held out her empty hand, still gripping the cup in her other.

“Okay. It’s forty K, though.” He turned and held his thumb to the bio lock on the case, then, as he took the cube out, added, “Unless you wanna try to earn a discount . . .”

“I’m good.” Juliet took the cube and turned it slowly, examining the various facets, then, offhandedly, pushed her plastic cup toward Sharkey. “Hold this.” She did it nonchalantly like it was the most natural thing in the world, and Sharkey took the bait. He gripped the cup in his thick, meaty hand and, breathing loudly through his nose, watched Juliet fiddle with the specialized data cube. “Get ready to scan, Angel,” she subvocalized. Then, she took her data cable from her wrist and plugged it into the cube. She flipped through the menus again, pulling up the cube’s camera app. When she saw herself reflected on the high-res screen, she held it close to Sharkey’s face. “Something’s wrong with the screen. Do you see those glitching pixels?”

“Huh? Bullshit! That thing’s only been used twice. I got it straight outta the box!” He narrowed his eyes and peered at the screen.

Juliet rotated it left and right, “You’re sure? I think I noticed it when I looked at it from an angle.

“Goddammit!” Sharkey slammed her cup down on the counter, then took the cube in his hands. “Why are you even plugged in?”

“I was making sure the software is legit! These things aren’t cheap.”

“Yeah, no shit!” He held the cube close, turning it left and right.

“I have enough data now,” Angel said.

“There’s nothing wrong with this thing, crazy bitch. Trying to get a discount?”

Juliet reached forward and pulled her data cable out of it. “Nah, but you’re really not a great salesperson, you know? You shouldn’t treat a potential customer with such hostility.”

“C’mon! Quit wasting my time!” He jerked the cube away and turned to put it back in the case.

Juliet picked up her cup, barely gripping the plastic lip as she turned. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind.” Unable to stop the grin tugging the corners of her mouth, she returned to her table. “Well?” she subvocalized.

“You’re wondering if I can get his prints off that cup?”

“Yeah. Can my optics pick up the pattern?”

“Easily. We just need to dust that cup with something. I’m sure the ship has something we can use—graphite powder in the engineering shop, perhaps? If not, I’m sure the mess hall has some kind of powder we could repurpose. If nothing else, some adhesive tape will work.”

“Right on! I’d say that’s enough intel for today—we learned Antigone’s here, roughly where she probably is, and I got some biometrics from one of the more connected pirates. Let’s go back to the ship and figure out our next steps.” Juliet grabbed her helmet and pushed it onto her head, feeling a strange sense of security as the anonymity-creating mirrored visor snicked shut over her face.

She hurried back through the twisting corridors Angel had mapped out for her and was only a few minutes from the docking collar where the cargo ship waited when Nick’s comm channel lit up. “Hey, Lucky, er, uh, Lacy. I just got an invite to go and talk to a member of the Five. I get a distinct feeling it’s not an optional meeting. Care to tag along?