Cyber Dreams 2.44 - Epilogue

I think I cleaned up the loose ends, but let me know if you're left wondering about something important.

This is, obviously, the last chapter of book 2. I'll start posting book 3 chapters on Wednesday the 5th. I hope you enjoyed book 2 - I'm having a really fun time working on book 3, and I think it's going to be a good one.

I'll still be around, working on finishing up Victor of Tucson book 4 - happy to hear feedback on this; I am open to revisions, as usual :)

(if the chart images don't format right, let me know, I'll try to fix later today)

-Plum

“This is quite a mess, Rachel,” Kline said, drumming his fingers on the white tablecloth. He desperately wanted to take another long pull from his Nikko-vape, but he couldn’t, not yet. He’d just had one, and his PAI was keeping track. Oh, he could get away with it, he could pay the surcharge on his health plan, but dammit, he didn’t want to. Probably moot anyway, what with this absolute trainwreck.

Rachel ate another forkful of salad, slowly chewing while she observed him. He could see the wheels spinning behind her eyes as she contemplated a response. Should she get angry? Should she be obsequious? Should she keep a straight face and ignore the comment? He watched her finish the bite and swallow and admired how she licked her lips, somehow confident enough that she’d gotten all the lettuce out of her teeth to smile.

“Oh, it’s certainly a mess, Mr. Eight, but I’d like to remind you that it was your asset, your response team, that spooked her. I’d just sent her a payment and ensured she’d be coming in for a debrief. This mess is on you.” She glanced at his deck and frowned, perhaps annoyed about the jammer he was running.

“I’ll own the part where the subject went dark, but now I have to explain the turmoil taking place within Grave. This whole thing has far-reaching implications. You realize they had some highly illegal PAI tech from Vykertech? Some tech that our little operative somehow exposed in the process of demolishing Grave’s R&D branch? My superiors are very nervous that the other shoe has yet to drop. As it stands, we’re relatively unscathed, but that could change. What else did she know? What other measures did she take?”

“I don’t know.” She paused, frowned, took a sip of her water, and said, more emphatically, “I really don’t know. If we’d gotten her to come in . . . I know, I know, spilt milk. Well, you told me yourself she didn’t have time to stick around and interrogate your asset, right? Hopefully, she didn’t gain anything on you. On us.”

“Hopefully. I still don’t know how my asset tipped her off. She swears she didn’t say anything. I’d think she was lying, but January put a vibroblade through her spine, so I sort of believe her.” He took a drink of coffee and contemplated adding sugar but banished the thought; his suits were getting a bit tight in the waist.

Setting his cup down, he said, “Well, where to go from here? We supplied her with pretty much anything she might need to disappear.”

“That’s an excellent question. Does she have family? Do we try to leverage them?”

Kline shook his head, “She has family, but she’s not close with them. She has a sister here in Phoenix—in prison. January hasn’t made an effort to see or speak to her since she fled us in Tucson. No, we don’t even know how to make her aware if we take them. She’s gone completely ghost.

“We’ll save that card for the right moment if it comes; I think my days are numbered, Rachel, which is why,” he paused and took another long, long drag on his vape, savoring the look of disgust on Rachel’s face, “I’m a bit stressed. I’m trying to shape things back home with corporate, trying to make them see that it was my idea for January to shake things up with a couple of rival corps. I may need you to help sell that version of events.”

“I’ve been known to put on a sales hat from time to time if the price is right.”

“Well, they haven’t frozen my budget yet.” He nodded as though a decision had been made. “Good, start thinking of the best way to mold the history of events to place me—us—in the most favorable light. I want it to seem like January isn’t available because I sent her to lay low. My superiors will be easy enough to convince if you’re clever. Meanwhile, I’ve got teams scouring the net, scanning cameras, and listening to operator chatter. Hopefully, we’ll get a lead before too long.”

“About that,” Rachel said, gently dabbing at her red-stained lips with her linen napkin, “You know January managed to get her operator ID changed, yes?”

“Yes, Rachel.” Kline’s tone indicated that he was not interested in playing the fool and that she needed to get to the point.

“We can still give her a rating for the job. The rating will go through SOA, and their AI will filter it and issue it to her new ID.”

“Can we use that to track her?”

“No, I don’t think so—too much activity in that database and too much encryption. What we can do, perhaps, is win a little goodwill with her. Me, at least.”

“And me by proxy,” Kline nodded. “Do it. Give her rave reviews. Let’s be honest; she did manage to bring one of the top-one-hundred corps in Phoenix to its knees. Even Vykertech’s feeling her sting, but they don’t know it. Better to keep January out of their sights.”

“You keep calling her January. She changed her handle, you know. It might be helpful for me to know her real name.”

“Oh?” Kline frowned, eyed his blue nikko-vape, then shrugged. “Her name’s Juliet, Rachel. Juliet Bianchi.” He reached for the vape, saliva gathering in his mouth.

#

“I hope you enjoy your flight, Clara,” the attendant at terminal G-48 said as Juliet passed through the gate, stepping onto the mobile concourse. She nodded to the woman and kept moving, smiling broadly as the spaceport, and Phoenix with it, fell away behind her. It felt good to have that city in her rearview, though her departure held some bitter-sweet aspects. Juliet started to think about Win, the dojo, and her friends in Charlie Unit, and she almost stumbled as one of her heels caught in a piece of torn, ragged carpeting, bringing her attention back to the present.

She’d had Angel do some snooping through the public networks of a busy hospital and constructed a half dozen passable false identities, and Clara Royce was one of them. They weren’t complete identities, simply enough to get through customs or pass off to an officer wanting more detail about who she was than her operator ID would provide—retinal scans, prints, and falsified facial markers and birthdates. The Clara ID had worked perfectly when Juliet bought her charter to Luna and went through customs; it wasn’t like they’d be calling any of her old employers for a simple trip to the moon.

She’d avoided a crowded commercial flight and booked a ride on a smaller, luxury shuttle. The price had been thirteen thousand bits—three times as much as the cheapest fare Angel could find, but she felt it was worth it. It was her first trip off-planet, and Juliet wanted to enjoy it. Walking down the concourse, several people in front of her and several behind her, she glanced at the clock on her AUI, still in military time—2138.

“Take off’s in forty-two minutes,” she subvocalized. “Are you excited, Angel?”

“Very! I feel like this moment will be the start of a whole new chapter for us, Juliet.”

“Me too,” Juliet said, following the silver-haired, stooped, older woman ahead of her down the stairs to the tarmac; the woman at the gate had explained that the shuttle didn’t fit the mobile concourse and they’d have to walk out to it. The older woman moved slowly, clutching a large, shiny, designer handbag, and Juliet wanted to give her a hand, but it was an awkward position to help from, standing above her on those steps. The point became moot as another attendant climbed up a few steps to take the woman’s arm, guiding her the rest of the way down.

Juliet stepped down the gangway into the bright floodlight the flight staff had set up to illuminate the tarmac. Then she turned, following the row of cones and holo-tape between them out over the dark surface toward a waiting shuttle, sleek and white with a pointed nosecone and a red stripe that ran along its length to end in a starburst pattern on its tail-fin. A sense of deja-vu hit her when she eyed the shuttle, and Juliet had to pause there momentarily, orienting herself before continuing over the tarmac.

“Are you all right, miss?” the attendant at the base of the concourse stairs asked.

“Yes, sorry.” Juliet took a deep breath of the chilly winter air and said, “Glad we’re in Arizona—almost had to wear a jacket.”

“Oh, you’re not kidding! This is the only time of year I can wear my long-sleeved uniform, though,” the young man replied. He pointed at the shuttle and said, “Just follow the holo-cones; a cold drink’s waiting for you inside.” He offered her a wink, and Juliet smiled and started moving again.

A wide gap had opened between her and the older woman now, and Juliet peered past the shuttle to the bright lights on the distant runways leading off at right angles into the blackness of the winter night. Steam vented loudly from the idling h3-drives on the shuttle, grabbing her attention again. She looked at the passenger gangway extending from the broad doorway in the shuttle’s hull, saw a woman with red hair, a short blue skirt, and a stylish jacket at the top greeting the passengers, and nearly fell onto her face.

“I’ve been here before,” she said, stumbling forward. “Angel, what’s going on?”

“Nothing seems to be amiss, Juliet. Your temperature is normal, including the lattice. Are you experiencing something I can’t detect?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Juliet said, then she turned back toward the concourse stairs and the tube above it and saw the other passengers coming down and over the tarmac toward her. They looked familiar—a woman with an elegant white dress, a man in a high-end, corpo-exec suit, another man wearing a brown duster, with several obvious cybernetic augments, two women holding hands with a little train of three children . . . “Oh, shit, Angel!”

Juliet turned back to the shuttle and started walking again as Angel replied, “Yes?”

“I know what’s going on. I dreamed this.”

“Yes, you’ve been wanting to travel to space for a long while . . .”

“No! I mean, I have literally dreamed of this scene back in Grave Tower.” She kept walking, something between panic and excitement washing over her. “Angel, I remember all those people! This sounds crazy, but is it really crazier than hearing people’s thoughts?”

“Perhaps not. I can say that your lattice is calm at the moment.”

“This is so weird! So surreal.” Juliet started up the steps to the shuttle, having caught up with the older woman. She had to proceed slowly, and the lady turned to her to smile, crinkling her wizened old eyes.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, my knees aren’t what they used to be. I might get some upgrades like that fancy arm of yours.”

“Oh, this?” Juliet held up her red, plasteel hand and laughed, “This isn’t fancy, ma’am.”

“Much nicer than what they had when I was your age, dear,” the woman said, turning to continue laboriously climbing.

“Juliet, I’m confused and slightly alarmed by what you noticed. I’d begun to think of the psionic lattice in your head as an antenna of sorts, allowing you to receive or gather the electric impulses of the minds around you. I don’t know how to explain something like seeing yourself in the future.”

“Well, we have all the Grave data on the GIPEL. I suppose that can be something we try to figure out while we’re traveling. Have you . . .”

“Welcome to Starburst Shuttle Services, ma’am!” the attendant said enthusiastically as Juliet’s foot finally reached the top step. “Sorry for the inconvenience of having to climb the airstair! This spaceport has concourses we can dock with, but none available at this hour.”

“It’s okay,” Juliet said, smiling.

“Let’s see,” the red-haired woman said, eyes going glassy for a second. “Clara, isn’t it? You’re in seat 7D. That’s a window seat! I hope you enjoy the view.”

“Thank you.” Juliet accepted the packet the woman offered her, then followed her gestures onto the shuttle and right, down the aisle between the deep, spacious seats. Once again, Juliet thanked herself for splurging on an expensive flight.

As she continued over the plush, creme-colored carpeting, moving slowly to allow passengers in front of her to stow their luggage or find their seats, Angel said, “Have I what, Juliet?”

“Oh,” she subvocalized, “have you made any progress narrowing down crew jobs? I don’t want to spend half my savings booking passage to Io, Rhea, or wherever we decide to go from Luna.” She smiled as the woman who’d been complaining about her knees grunted, sat down in 4A, and smiled at Juliet.

“At last!” she sighed through flushed cheeks as she sank back into the seat’s embrace.

“I hope you have a nice flight,” Juliet said as she continued down the aisle.

“I’m still researching,” Angel continued, “There are a number of opportunities that will intrigue you, I’m sure.”

“Good.” Juliet slid into row seven, over to the window seat, and sat, sinking into the soft cushions. She sighed heavily and looked at the packet the attendant had given her. “Sanitizing moist towelette, huh?” She ripped it open and wiped her hands, rubbing it over her cybernetic fingers and palm, still weirded out about how she could feel only the black synth-sense surface but not the backs of her fingers. “I want to get an upgrade,” she muttered, more to herself than Angel.

“Juliet!” Angel’s voice radiated excitement.

“What? Did you hear . . .”

“Your SOA ratings just updated! Rachel must have submitted a review!”

“Oh. Seriously?” Juliet was skeptical. Was Rachel going to tank her rating for disappearing and not falling into her trap?

“Yes, and it’s good news!” A new window appeared in her AUI, and Juliet, unable to contain her curiosity, selected it:

“How?” Juliet breathed as she looked over the number. “How did she improve so many of my ratings so much? I mean, I know I sent her incident reports. Well, you did, but still, it seems too much.”

“Rachel must be an influential client, and she must have given you an outstanding report for your month of service. There’s a written review, but it’s brief: ‘This operator performed flawlessly in a deep undercover situation for more than a month. They were subject to high pressure and hostile actors and came through without any trouble. Looking forward to working with the operator again, hoping they’ll reach out soon.’”

“Oh, wow. So, she’s trying to butter me up with a good rating so I’ll come out of hiding? Fat chance. Still, I’d like to know what she knows . . .”

“Attention folks,” a voice said from hidden speakers. “This is First Officer Nguyen. We’re just getting settled in with a few more passengers to board. Your attendants will be coming by to get your drink orders. We’ve got time for one beverage before we’re done taxiing to the launch pad. Once we break orbit, there’ll be a meal service, and you can order more drinks.”

A man sat beside her, accompanied by the scent of expensive cologne. With the smell tickling her nose, Juliet looked sideways at him and saw his gold-plated metallic hand, his designer blazer, and well-maintained, youthful skin. She offered a smile and nodded in greeting. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, with a vaguely European accent. “Name’s Carter. Dillon Carter.”

“Good to meet you. Lucky.”

His eyebrows rose, and he said, “Lucky to meet me?”

“No, no,” Juliet chuckled, turning to look out the window, “that’s my name.”

“Ah,” he said, then commenced to shuffle around, getting himself situated for the flight.

“Angel,” Juliet subvocalized, “any response from Honey?” Part of the reason Juliet had decided to leave the Earth via Luna was that she wanted to try to check in on her friend—she’d been trying for two days to get ahold of her—ever since she’d walked out of the chop-doc’s clinic. She’d even gone so far as to have Angel contact Temo through an encrypted line, but Temo hadn’t been any help. He’d been desperate for news, hoping Juliet could give him an update on his niece.

“No. I’ll alert you the second I hear from her or manage to snoop out any news. In case you were wondering, I've also had no contact from any of the ex-GIPEL subjects we sent the encrypted messages to.”

“Yeah, I know you will, Angel. I was just hoping . . .” Juliet frowned and tapped her head on the thick glass of the window. She really wanted to know if any of the other GIPEL escapees could do what Joshua Kyle had. She wanted to know how.  She heard the engines ramp up a bit, and then the shuttle started to roll.

“A nice touch,” Carter said.

“Hmm?” Juliet looked back toward him and saw he was gazing up the aisle.

“That they come ‘round to take our orders. We could all have our PAIs handle it, but this personal touch—it’s nice.”

“Yeah. Well, for the price . . .” Juliet let the thought fade. For all she knew, thirteen thousand bits was nothing to this Carter fellow. She glanced down at her boots, jeans, comfy, lightweight vest, and long-sleeved “activewear” shirt, all in varying shades of black. She sighed, wishing she’d just packed these clothes with her other equipment and worn something pretty. Why was she dressed like a soldier? She was done with Zeta units, wasn’t she?

Her clothes weren’t cheap, and she didn’t feel like a pauper impersonating someone more successful, but she would have liked to feel more elegant. Juliet frowned, wanting to revise the thought, but decided that was the right word.

“Juliet, seeing your updated SOA card made me want to update your status. Would you like to see it?” Angel didn’t wait for a response, displaying the familiar table in her AUI:

“Seriously?” Juliet smirked as she subvocalized. “You put the GIPEL in there? Why S?”

“Because I don’t know of any other models. I would have rated it S+, but we know there are other people out there with similar Lattices produced by Grave. I’ll need to evaluate one of them before determining that yours is truly unique like me.” Angel sounded almost insufferably smug.

“Oh, brother. I see you separated out the fingerprints, hair, and saliva thing.”

“Yes, when you lost the blood package, I thought it wise to rate your various identity spoofing enhancements individually. Did you note that I simplified the language of your net worth statistic? I’m counting liquid assets only. Well, I have been doing that, but now I’m being honest about it.”

Juliet made no attempt to contain her sarcasm as she replied, “Oh, thank you so much, Ang . . .”

“Been to Luna before?” the man beside her, Carter, asked, interrupting what would probably have been a truly scorching remark to Angel. Juliet turned to him, noticing that an attendant, the one with the pretty red hair, was approaching.

“No, I haven’t—first time. You? Wait,” Juliet held up a hand, “let me guess—you look like someone who frequently travels for some important business venture or other. I bet this is your twelfth trip!”

“Holy . . .” his eyes opened wide, and he leaned back to better look at Juliet. “How’d you know that?”

Juliet laughed and shrugged, “I told you my name, didn’t I?”