Cyber Dreams 4.21 - Blast From the Past

So, a little more introspection from Juliet. I have a couple of questions at the end of the chapter if anyone feels like answering. I'd put them here, but . . . spoilers :D

-Plum

“She wants to meet in a RevinaCorp mining warehouse.”

“Huh, seriously? She doesn’t think that would sound sketchy? What time?” Juliet sat at the foot of her bed, a small tray table pulled up in front of her where she’d disassembled and cleaned her Texan. She’d only shot it a few times at an indoor range, and she’d already cleaned it afterward, but she enjoyed the process; it helped her to clear her mind.

“Three PM, which is in ninety minutes.”

“Still no word from Nick about Larry’s thing?”

“Nothing.”

“All right, tell this lady we’ll meet her.” Juliet started putting the gun back together. It was much easier than her SMG or needler. The revolver only had a few major components if you left the anti-recoil hardware in the grip alone, and there was no need to remove that stuff just for routine cleaning.

“Will you really? It seems like a perfect place to walk into a trap . . .”

“Oh, it is. No, I won’t meet her there, but we’ll go set up somewhere else and then, at the last minute, give her the change. She’s the one who wants information—she can come to us.”

“Ah, I see. Should I look for an alternate location?”

“Yep, someplace near that warehouse, but where people won’t be working on a Saturday.”

“There are a number of industrial facilities in that district. I’ll study the available images and public files while you’re en route.”

“Perfect.” Juliet stood, slipped the Texan into its holster, and adjusted the bullet-studded belt, pleased by the way it was breaking in, starting to look a little worn and weathered, happy with how it was molding into the shape of her hip. Next, she shrugged into her needler’s shoulder holster. She pulled the gun out, popped the magazine, and ensured it was loaded with botu-rounds. She wasn’t sure what kind of action would be on the menu, but she wanted to be prepared. That said, she fastened her vibroblade to her wrist and hung her deck from around her neck, tucking it down under her t-shirt. After putting on her motorcycle jacket, Juliet glanced at herself in the mirror above the ancient particleboard dresser and nodded. “Looking good.”

She stepped out of her hotel room; it opened onto an exterior terrace. Juliet looked left and right, scanning for people watching her. It was a habit she’d picked up when she’d first been on the run from WBD in Phoenix, and she had no intention of breaking it. She shut the door and walked to the stairwell, then down to the parking lot where a bank of e-bikes sat in their chargers. “I’ll drive one of these. I hate those cabs.” She’d hardly finished speaking before one of the bikes beeped and a green ready light illuminated. Angel had rented it. Juliet climbed on and steered out onto the bike lane next to the busy sidewalk, following Angel’s map.

The e-bike was fun to ride, the wind whipping through her short red hair as she buzzed past the little taxi vehicles and other approved modes of transport in Callisto—people on skates, scooters, or just jogging along with powered footwear. Juliet liked to go fast, and she pushed the little vehicle to its limit, which, admittedly, wasn’t very impressive. Nothing really felt fast anymore to her, not after flying Nick’s interceptor. Still, it was better than riding in a little eggshell taxi, and weaving around the other traffic took her mind off her problems.

“I think Honsho’s Concrete Corp. will be your best option.” Juliet’s map updated with Angel’s choice.

“Sounds good.” The industrial section of the Callisto main dome was on the far southeast edge, and Juliet had a thirty-minute ride ahead of her. As she motored along, she turned on some electronic dance music and tried to lose herself in the beats and the act of navigating the little bike around slower-moving people and vehicles. Riding the bike wasn’t exactly mentally taxing, though, and she found her mind drifting to other things. It wasn’t long before Juliet began to focus on the little knot of dread at the pit of her stomach that she’d been avoiding; it centered on the fact that she intended to use the lattice on this woman and anyone who might come with her.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized she’d been actively avoiding using the lattice in situations where it might have been advantageous. Why didn’t she try to dig further into Ray’s thoughts at the club? Why not listen in on Larry then and there rather than put it off with the idea that she could join Nick to meet with him again later? She knew the signs of subconscious avoidance and procrastination when she saw them, and she knew she was putting it off for a reason. The truth was, ever since she’d done that deep dive into Tono, she’d been leery of the lattice. When she’d gotten those glimpses of Ray’s thoughts and, along with them, the seething angst and disgust, she’d wanted to pull back and shut the whole thing down.

What bothered Juliet was that she hadn’t made a conscious decision at the club not to use the lattice. She’d worked around it, thinking she was being clever with her data deck, but she could have learned a great deal more if she’d been willing to put up with the stray thoughts and emotions coming out of Ray. That was really the issue, the emotions. Ever since Tono, she’d been cognizant that she was picking up more than thoughts when she dug around in a person’s head. The more she dug, the more time she spent in there, the more feelings tainted the thoughts, and the more images came across and confused her mind, merging with her own memories. She didn’t like it.

She supposed it might be something that got better with practice or exposure. Sometimes, Juliet thought it would be nice to have a partner or a friend she could practice with, one of the few things Angel couldn’t help her do. The problem, as she saw it, was that the lattice was a secret. It was a secret, and anyone who knew about it would be taking on a heavy burden. She figured there were a handful of people she could trust with knowledge of the lattice, but would she want them to have to carry that? That was one issue; the other was that she didn’t really know how anyone would respond to her once they’d learned she could read their thoughts. Would she want to be friends with someone if she knew she might not be able to have any privacy around them?

That line of reasoning exposed another problem with “practicing” on a friend; she’d be digging around in their heads, and just because someone might be her friend didn’t mean they’d like that, nor that whatever Juliet found wouldn’t be just as problematic as something she might dig up in a person like Tono or Ray. “Shit.” The curse slipped out as she imagined finding some dark secret Aya or Bennet were holding onto. “What I need,” she said over the whine of the e-bike’s battery and the rumble of its knobby tires on the pavement, “are some sweet, innocent minds. You think I’d get in trouble hanging around a daycare and reading the kids’ thoughts?”

“Are you being serious?”

Juliet laughed. “Not really! I guess it’s not cool to experiment on kids. I think, when I pick up surface thoughts, it’s not really invasive, but if I dig around like I did with Tono, I wonder if I could do any harm.”

“An interesting question. Are you just focusing your ‘antenna’ for lack of a better word, or are you actively reaching out somehow? I wish I knew more.”

“We really need to spend some time experimenting. What I’m coming to realize is that I’m avoiding it more than I thought. I think I’m scared of it, Angel.”

“You’ve had a lot thrust upon you in the last year. You’ve had to make a thousand adjustments to the way you live and think. I’m not surprised that, given the choice, you might push off yet another adjustment, another modification to how you see and interact with the world.” Angel’s words reminded her of something Doctor Ming might say, but coming from Angel, with the concern in her voice, they meant a lot more. They struck a chord with Juliet, and she found herself nodding along.

“Yeah! You know what, Angel, this isn’t my bad; it’s just the way it is. I’m doing pretty damn well, all things considered. I’ll get around to this, to yet another adjustment, another thing I have to learn.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Juliet laughed and pulled the bike to the edge of the road as she realized she’d been zipping down a full-sized lane. Luckily, there wasn’t any traffic to be seen in this part of town; it seemed the heavy industry in Callisto took the weekends off. Tall plasteel and concrete buildings lined the roads, which had gotten wider and wider as they moved away from the center of town. Heavy vehicles were required in this area for deliveries and transport, if nothing else. She passed several plain gray warehouse-sized buildings, nothing differentiating them other than the colorful rectangular signs proclaiming the names of the corps that owned them, and then, with a blinking highlight from Angel, she saw the concrete company she was headed for.

“So,” she subvocalized, “we need to break in there, get control of their security, and then send Frida a note that we picked a new location.”

“And I can watch for her arrival on the cameras to see if she’s alone.”

“Yeah.” Juliet leaned the bike up against the fence. It wasn’t a dead giveaway that someone was there—she’d seen the bikes all over the city, even out this way. People weren’t very conscientious about dropping them at charging stations. The building was fenced with cameras on every corner, but Juliet knew Angel was scrambling her image and sending false ID pings. She figured Angel would erase her visit from the logs if they could get into the system. The main gate was an automated rolling section of fence that would allow vehicles to go in and out if they transmitted the correct code.

Once Juliet peered through the links to see the manufacturer of the gate mechanism, it didn’t take Angel long to find a cracker on the net. Using Juliet’s wireless data jack, she sent out a series of codes until the right one registered, and the gate began to roll open. Juliet slipped through, and Angel left the gate a meter ajar. “So Frida can come in more easily.”

“Yeah, good call.” Juliet jogged over the gravel lot to a pair of metal double doors next to the huge, closed bay doors. A data panel sat invitingly beside the door, and she plugged her cable in. “All you.”

“Give me a few minutes . . .” Angel said, and then the panel beeped, flashed a green light, and the door clicked open. “Never mind.”

“Not too security conscious at the concrete factory?” Juliet chuckled and pulled the door open.

“It’s not really a factory—it’s a distribution center. The trucks come here to receive a mix and then take it to a worksite.”

“Right. Whatever.” Juliet looked around the cavernous building. There was a lot of empty space in front of the bay doors, and she supposed that was for the massive trucks to back in. Large rectangular stainless tanks lined the back wall. Dozens of enormous pipes were hung from the scaffolding on the high ceiling, and stacks and stacks of brown packages on pallets lined the walls. The only “room” in the entire structure was a foreman’s office suspended from the right-hand wall at about a second-floor level with bare, steel steps leading down to the work floor. “Guess the server access will be in there.”

Ten minutes later, Juliet was sitting in the little office, her cable plugged into a dusty, ancient-looking data cube that sat on the only desk. The office was lined with windows, and she supposed they were meant to make it easy for the foreman to watch the workers on the floor. The blinds were down, though, and closed, and she wondered if the foreman maybe liked to while away the days doing things on the company clock—watching vids, playing games, flirting with people online. She shook her head, smiling at the strange fantasy of a nonconformist foreman, and asked, “How’s it look?”

“Oh, I have control of the cameras and the other functions of the security system, such as it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, simply that there isn’t much here. I can control the gate and the door locks, the cameras, and that’s about it. I’ve erased the footage of you entering the lot.”

“Cool.” Juliet stood up, pulled her cable out, and walked to the door. She contemplated for a moment, then flicked the light switch on and stepped out. She descended to the concrete floor and walked over the ample open space to the far corner where pallets of concrete mix were piled high. She wondered if the mix was used in those big tanks or if it was sold dry like that to contractors. “Doesn’t matter.” She started heaving the thirty-five-kilogram bags off the pallet, stacking them on the concrete, making a little wall that stretched from the pallet to the first big, stainless tank.

“Are you building cover?”

“Yep. Is it time to message her yet?”

“You are due to arrive at her meeting place in five minutes.”

Juliet grunted, hoisting another bag and adding it to her knee-high wall. “Go ahead and message her. Tell her we got spooked when we saw some people moving around the property she suggested. Give her this address and tell her we opened it up with a friend’s work pass.”

As she lifted another concrete bag, some vid feed windows appeared in her AUI, and Juliet knew Angel was showing her the external view of the building. She glanced at them but then got back to work; Angel would let her know if there was something to see. When the wall was hip high, she adjusted the bags to give her a couple of gaps she could, in a worst-case scenario, shoot through. “She’s on her way, though her reply to your message wasn’t light-hearted. Would you like to hear it?”

“Uh, nah. I’ll take your word for it.” Juliet chuckled, then squatted behind her makeshift wall, watching through one of the gaps she’d made. The only entrance to the building that wasn’t locked, the door she’d come through, was in the opposite corner, about fifty meters away. The main building space was dim, only diffuse lighting coming through thin windows lining the top of one wall, but the foreman’s office was illuminated with a yellow glow in the shadows. She figured Frida would expect her to be in there. One of her camera feeds started to flash on her AUI, so Juliet focused on it and got her first look at the mysterious woman.

Frida was dressed in tight khaki pants, wore black boots that wouldn’t look out of place on a corpo-sec officer, and a button-up olive-green shirt. Juliet didn’t see any weapons on her. Just as her picture had shown, she had short, natural-looking orange hair, pale skin, bright eyes, and, even on the below-average resolution from the security camera, Juliet could see the freckles on her face. She whistled a strange tune, something old, Juliet thought, and gave the slightly ajar security gate a good, long once over before stepping through. She hooked her thumbs in her belt loops and crunched briskly over the gravel toward the pedestrian entrance.

“I’m not detecting weapons.”

“Okay. Keep watching the feeds. See if she has backup.” Juliet knew she didn’t need to say it, but she figured it was good for her to practice operational communications. What if her partner wasn’t just Angel next time? She minimized the camera feed when she heard the latch on the door click. And saw the expanding rectangle of light as Frida pulled the door open.

“Hello?” Her voice was steady and bright, not a hint of nervousness. “This is kind of feeling like a setup! Anyone here?”

“I messaged her to come up to the office.”

“Good,” Juliet subvocalized, and then she tuned out the world, all but that tiny window in the concrete bags where she was staring at Frida. Could she pick up someone’s thoughts from so far? It didn’t seem like she could—nothing but silence met her stare as Frida, no longer whistling, hopped lithely up the steps to the office door. She tapped on the door’s glass window with her knuckles.

When no one responded, she called out, “Okay, enough games. I’m heading out.” She turned and started down the steps.

“Anyone coming on the cameras?”

“Nothing visible.” Juliet didn’t like that distinction, but she nodded and stood up, then hopped over the little barrier she’d made. Frida noticed her movement immediately and stopped at the bottom of the steps, turning toward her but staying put, resting one hand on the metal railing.

“Well! There you are!” Again, her voice was bright and cheerful. Why was this lady so confident?

“Sorry. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t walking into a trap.”

Frida held a hand over her eyes as though she was trying to see something more clearly over the distance, and then her smile—easy for Juliet to see with her enhanced optics—broadened. “You’re her!”

“Her?”

“The operator who messed up my boss!” She let go of the railing and began to saunter over the concrete floor toward Juliet. Something about her confidence was unnerving, and Juliet let her fingertips graze against the handle of her Texan. “Don’t shoot!” she laughed, holding up her hands and slowing her steps. She was still thirty meters distant.

“Who’s your boss?” Juliet’s mind was racing. She’d expected this woman to mention something about Eve or Kirby, but would she be working for them? Would she consider them her “boss?” They both seemed like small-time pawns. Was she referring to Zapho? Had Juliet “messed him up” by foiling Eve’s assassination job on the cruise ship?

“Rutger Tanaka, and he wants to speak with you.”

Images of a flickering red sword blade, esoteric tattoos on a man’s neck and face, and cold, hard eyes flashed through Juliet’s mind. She didn’t think, didn’t actively decide to do it, but her hand, moving in a blur of high-end actuators, electrically charged muscle and tendon fibers and driven by Angel’s overtuned, lightning synapses, snatched the Texan out of its zero-resistance holster, and she squeezed the trigger, so sensitive she never felt it, sending a fat slug of hot, deadly polymers straight at Frida’s chest.

Questions:

1. Did anyone remember Frida's name and description from the epilogue of book 3?

2. Do any of you remember who Rutger Tanaka is?

Thanks :)