Cyber Dreams 2.43 - Good Enough

Hello everyone! After this chapter, you'll have one more in book two - the Epilogue. I'll deliver that one on Monday, as scheduled. I've mentioned this on Discord, but I know a lot of you don't read Discord, so I'm announcing now: After I deliver the Epilogue on Monday, I'm going to take a one-week break to do some extra plotting and get a bit of a jump start on book three. I'll give RR the same break (when book 2 finishes up over there), so my chapters there won't start to encroach on Patreon territory.

If you also read Victor of Tucson, I'll be doing the same sort of break when VOT finishes up book 4.

I hope no one is bothered about this, but if you are or feel cheated somehow, please let me know. This is the first posting break I've taken since I moved last July. I promise not to be gone longer than a week. :)

-Plum

The cab sped down the ramp toward the garage exit, and then staccato taps sounded from the rear window and right-rear quarter panel. The cab’s AI spoke up, “Passenger, please take cover; we’ve happened upon a crime scene. I’ve alerted the authorities and will be taking evasive maneuvers to get you to safety.”

Juliet ducked her head, hoping the high-end cab’s advertised bulletproofing lived up to the hype. A thought occurred to her, and she asked, “Why did you let that other woman into the cab?”

“The woman who entered the cab prior to you cited Phoenix corporate statute 56.7H11—citizens requesting emergency assistance must be admitted into all automated vehicles that operate in a for-profit capacity.”

“She said she had an emergency?”

“Yes, she claimed a sexual predator was lurking nearby.”

“God,” Juliet hissed, wincing as the throbbing in her arm rose to new heights. “Angel,” she subvocalized, “what do I do? I need to get some better pain management.”

As the cab lurched and bounced, hopping a curb with a squeal of tires and a faint grinding sound, Angel replied, “I recommend avoiding anyone or anyplace where you’ve been before. I’m investigating chop-docs specializing in anonymity.”

“Ugh, chop-docs. Well, thanks,” Juliet grunted, cradling her shortened arm against her chest, trying to keep the cauterized end elevated—it seemed to help the throbbing pain if she didn’t let it dangle. “Cab, take me to the nearest shopping plaza and find a spot in the parking structure.”

“Yes, ma’am, setting route to Saguaro Pavilions.”

Juliet subvocalized, “Order us a new cab to meet there. In fact, order three of them.”

“Clever,” Angel replied.

“Can you change my operator ID?”

“I can change your handle any time, yes. I can send in an emergency request for a new SOA license number, but you’ll lose contact with anyone on the SOA network who has your old ID in their contact list.”

“Anyone I care about, I’ve got contact info for.” Juliet’s voice was brittle, her words short, and she took quick, shallow breaths. Still subvocalizing, she said, “Do it, Angel. Request a new license number.”

“Done. As a reason, I selected ‘threats or imminent danger from disgruntled associates or clients.’ I’m going to display a disclaimer that you have to acknowledge. It says you understand that all of your old license numbers are kept in a secure, encrypted database in the SOA’s offline data vault. SOA maintains this record of historical license numbers so that they can forward . . .”

Juliet waved away the new window and said, “Acknowledged.”

As the cab moved through the ever-increasing traffic and Juliet saw her destination on the next corner, Angel asked, “What shall I change your operator handle to, Juliet?”

Juliet thought about the question, watching out the window as the cab slipped into the shadows of the busy parking structure. “Angel, have the other cabs wait on different floors and pick one at random to direct this cab to.” The cab wound its way up into the big garage, and Juliet’s mind wandered to the last time she’d tried to pick a handle. She was terrible at it.

She was mad that she had to burn the January handle, though she supposed she could come back to it someday, far away from Phoenix. Maybe she’d earn a better one, but right then, with her arm throbbing and people hunting her, she just didn’t care. Juliet thought about the moniker Ghoul had given her, and she shrugged, subvocalizing, “I don’t feel very lucky, but for now, go ahead and make that my handle. Lucky.”

She switched cabs, and in a haze of throbbing pain, she and Angel did the same trick three more times. Each time she stepped out of one cab to get into another, Angel responded to ID pings with different identities that she’d snatched from nearby public networks. Juliet always paid with Sol-bits through anonymous transactions, so she was feeling reasonably secure again by the time she crawled into the fourth cab.

As she hunched down in the back seat of an Easycab, making her way to a chop-doc on the south side of Phoenix, Angel asked her, “Are you still planning to send any further data to Rachel?”

Juliet snorted an involuntary laugh and then winced, gingerly lifting her arm and cradling it with her good arm. “No, Angel. Rachel burned that bridge when she had Doc Murphy try to incapacitate me.”

“Is that why you severed your arm? You detected something wrong with the implant?”

“No, I heard Murphy’s thoughts. She triggered something that was supposed to put me to sleep. I’m sure it was in the blood-altering implant, though—seems the doc knew how to lie convincingly by mixing a little truth into her phony words.” Juliet shifted uncomfortably and stole a glance at her stump's throbbing, swollen, red flesh. “How screwed am I? Murphy did a lot of alterations to my whole arm to work with the, you know, alterations on the other half of it. Will this chop-doc have anything that will work with it, or am I gonna lose the whole thing?”

“I could take a guess based on some reading I’ve done while we’ve been traveling through town, but I think you should wait and let the doctor explain your options. This man we’re going to see is well-respected by the operator community for upholding the privacy requests of his clients. When I contacted him with your new operator ID and requested emergency service, he was very receptive and upfront about a five percent urgent service fee.”

“Privacy is great, but is he any good?”

“Yes, for what you need. He’s a chop-doc, Juliet, but you can always get an upgrade when you have more time and are further from your enemies.”

“Right.” Juliet couldn’t muster the energy to argue with Angel. The truth was she didn’t care. Angel was right—any augment she got now would be something she could change down the road. Rachel might have screwed her over, but at least she’d given her a decent payday. Thinking of Rachel made Juliet wonder if she’d been working with WBD. Who else would go to such trouble to trick her? Who else knew to look for “Juliet?” Was this all some old vendetta from Vikker’s group or Vykertech? She shook her head, “No, it was WBD.”

“You believe Murphy and Rachel were working for WBD?”

“Yeah, I think they were using us. I think they wanted to see what you could do.”

“They didn’t anticipate your ability to sense the duplicity in others.”

“My ability to sense . . .” Juliet smiled at Angel’s words. “You have a way of putting things, Angel.”

The cab approached a squat, gray-stuccoed, single-story brick building and drove around behind it. “We’ve reached your specified destination.” No signs adorned the building in the front or the back, but an awning hung over a nondescript blue metal door. Juliet scooted to the cab’s door, opened it, then clasped her briefcase and stepped out.

“Angel, send the cab back to north Phoenix.”

“Done,” Angel replied as the cab started to roll away over the gravel and dirt lot. Juliet walked up to the plain metal door and swung the briefcase, tapping it against the blue surface. She waited for a few seconds, then did it again, harder. The briefcase thunked against the door, and Juliet heard a faint *whirr*. She jerked her head to the left and saw a tiny camera lens embedded in the metal frame of the awning panning toward her. She looked into the lens and nodded.

A few seconds later, the door clicked and swung open, revealing a tall, thin man wearing a paper, disposable surgical cap, mask, and apron, all pale green. His sideburns jutting up over the mask gave the impression of a rather ratty beard, and he had prodigious bags and dark circles under his eyes. “Lucky?” His voice was nasally and raspy.

“That’s me.” Juliet held up her shortened arm and grimaced at the irony.

“Heh,” he shook his head, eyes squinting in amusement, and said, “Come on, then. Let’s get you back in action.”

“You’re the doc?”

“Right.” He’d been holding the door open with his left hand, and he pulled his right hand into view, displaying a shiny, stainless wirejob with six nimble-looking, thin fingers, two of which were tipped in narrow blades. “Doc Sharp at your service.”

“Sharp. I hope that’s a double entendre,” Juliet said, following him into the dim, cool hallway and letting the heavy metal door slam shut behind her.

“Double . . . oh! You mean, like, am I sharp up here?” He tapped his head, “Or do I just have sharp knives?” He chuckled, shaking his head, shuffling down the hallway. “C’mon, chair’s up here on the left.”

“You’re alone?” Juliet asked.

“Nah, I got muscle around. Think I’d let you walk around with all that gear if I didn’t?”

“I guess not,” Juliet said as they rounded the corner into a large, cluttered, brick-walled room lined with metal shelving units and housing a bulky, ancient-looking chrome and plastic autosurgeon chair. The chair's plastic was a dirty cream color, and she figured it used to be white. Still, the robotic arms looked well-maintained, and the attachments on the stainless cart nearby were covered in plastic wrap.

The shelves and floor were cluttered with boxes, many sporting logos of various medical companies. Juliet let her eyes travel over them, and then they settled on a big shelving unit filled with unboxed cybernetic parts from hands and legs to eyes and ears. She even saw a pile of synth scalps attached to variously colored mops of hair. “Not very sanitary in here, is it?”

“Hey, I clean all my instruments, but don’t worry—I’ll dose you with a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Take a seat,” he gestured to the chair.

“Listen. I’m paranoid right now. I’m gonna need to plug my PAI into your autosurgeon.”

“Be my guest, but I’ll charge you another three percent.”

“What? Why?” Juliet moved over to the chair.

“I find that charging for extra requests keeps everyone honest. It’s how I operate. If it’s a problem, you know where the door is.”

“It’s fine,” Juliet said. She set her briefcase down at the base of the chair, then, grunting and panting with pain, she scooted up onto the chair, too high for her to make it easy, and slid back to recline in the old, squeaky cushions. She pulled her data cable out of the port on her arm with her teeth, then reached over to the chair’s terminal, grunting with the strain, and plugged it in.

“All set?” Sharp asked, watching her from a stool a few feet away.

“Yep,” Juliet nodded, face pale with a sheen of sweat from her efforts.

“Right, well, looking at your eyes and that outfit, I gotta say, you’re not my usual clientele. Your PAI sent me the specs on your old arm enhancement. I got a few arms that I’m sure I can get working with what you’ve got there.” He nodded toward her stump, then continued, “I mean, none of ‘em are as pretty as what you had, but I’ve got a nice model that will sync up with the muscle augments and nerves in your shoulder.”

“Look,” Juliet said through clenched teeth, “the main reason I’m here instead of soaking in a bathtub is that this thing is throbbing and hurts like a son of a bitch. Can you give me a local or a nerve block so I can concentrate on what you’re saying?”

“Oh, shit. Right!” Sharp jumped up, moved over to the control panel on the autosurgeon chair, and started tapping in commands. “We’ll block the nerves to your arm for now. That way, I can do all the work, and you won’t feel a thing.”

“I’m watching, Juliet. He’s doing what he said.”

“Thanks,” Juliet grunted and didn’t care if the chop-doc thought she was speaking to him. A moment later, one of the robotic arms on the chair sprang into motion and performed three quick injections into her shoulder. They were so precise and fast that she didn’t notice more than a single pinch, and then the pain in her arm was gone as though a switch had been turned off. “Oh, sweet mercy. Thank you,” she breathed, and this time she was talking to the doc.

“No worries. Now, can I show you the model I was talking about? It’ll be very functional, but it won’t look like your old arm.”

“If it’s your best option.”

“Oh, my best? Hang on,” he turned and started rummaging through boxes and called over his shoulder, “I have two options for you.”

“Juliet,” Angel said, “My daemon just reported its purpose fulfilled and self-deleted.”

“Your daemon?” Juliet glanced at the clock on her AUI, saw it was 1201, and subvocalized, “So, the GARD servers are wiped. And the charges?”

“Will explode in less than four minutes.”

“And Chaudry’s messages will go out. Grave, Vykertech, and even WBD are going to have their hands full for a while, I think. Makes me feel better about Rachel and Murphy double-crossing me. I might be hurting, but so are they.”

“You on a call?” Doc Sharp asked, carrying a large black box with a silver bird of prey emblazoned on the side over to his cart.

“No. Talking to my PAI.”

“Ah, yeah, I could see you were distracted. Well, ready to hear about your options?”

“Sure.” Juliet shifted to look more directly at the man as he spoke.

“Okay, if we’re keeping what’s left of your arm, there. I have this model.” He lifted a red plasteel arm that ended just past the elbow. The coloring was flat, not glossy, but it looked fairly modern if a bit bulky. The digits looked very functional, with some sort of black synthetic coating on the insides of the palm and fingers. Juliet knew that she’d be able to feel things through that coating and that it would hold a programmed print. “This is a VitalityTek, Hercules model. I can get it hooked up to what you’ve got left of your arm pretty easily.”

“Sec,” Juliet said aloud, then subvocalized, “Angel?”

“It’s a decent arm, Juliet. It retails for eleven thousand. It’s not fast, but it’s strong and functional and will serve you quite well until you can find an upgrade.”

“Okay, what’s behind door number two?” Juliet smiled, a little giddy being pain-free.

“Right,” Sharp drew one of his stainless fingers along the seals on the long, black box, slicing through some tape, then he wrestled with foam packing materials, cursing as he had to slice more tape again and again. “Aha! Finally! Okay, this is a full-arm replacement from Falcon Forge. He lifted out the prosthetic, and Juliet had to admit—it might be chromed, but it was no wire-job. The arm was sleek and shiny, the fingers were nimble-looking, and the synthetic, black pads inside the palms looked like a higher-grade version of those on the red arm. Still, it was a full arm. Did she want to go through with that?

“That’s a surprising item to find in a chop-doc’s clinic, Juliet,” Angel said. “Falcon Forge is a solid mid-range prosthetics company, and this is one of their top models. That arm will be stronger and faster than your old arm was, even with its augments.”

“How much,” Juliet asked.

“42k,” Sharp replied.

“I see listings for that model at 26 thousand from some boutique shops in Phoenix-proper.”

“I thought it would be more,” Juliet said, considering the costs of her eyes and other augments.

“Well,” Doc Sharp said, a look of confusion on his face, “I mean, prosthetics aren’t the most complicated tech anymore.”

“His words are simple, but he’s correct,” Angel added.

“Listen, I like that silver arm, but I think I’ll save my bits for something I really want. Just do the red one.” As Sharp nodded, a little crestfallen, and started to pack up the Falcon Forge arm, Juliet added to Angel, “If I’m going to spend a ton of money, I want something custom that will fit my body perfectly, not some big silver arm this guy’s had laying around for who knows how long. Besides, I might want one that looks natural. Are those more expensive?”

“It depends, Juliet. You can get synth-flesh prosthetics that range vastly in price.”

Juliet sighed and nodded, and then the doc rolled a cart over with the red prosthetic and a few other sterile, plastic-wrapped packages. “I need to debride your, uh, stump and treat it with a nanite growth culture to get it to bond with the synth-flesh in the prosthetic. I’m glad the cut was so clean; I can get to the nerves pretty easily. You good with staying awake? You shouldn’t feel anything.”

“Yeah, I’m good. I insist on it, in fact.”

“Right, well, just sit back and watch a vid or something; this’ll take me an hour or two.” He paused, looked into space, and said, “I sent you the invoice. I’ll need half before I get started.”

“He’s requesting 13,899 bits,” Angel announced.

“All right. Send him half,” Juliet said. At her words, spoken aloud, the doctor nodded, carefully adjusting the wide metallic armrest on the autosurgeon chair to keep her arm outstretched and elevated. Then he moved to the control panel and started to tap away at the display.

While he worked, Juliet leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and tried not to think about all the awful things that had gone on in the last few days. She wasn’t ready to think about her dead friends from Grave. She didn’t want to dwell on the fact that Murphy, a woman she’d grown to respect and feel genuine affection for, had utterly betrayed her trust. That thought filled her stomach with something sour, reminding her of the other betrayals she’d suffered in recent history. She didn’t want to think about what she’d done to Gordon and Dr. Kyle, about what she’d made Angel do.

In an effort to keep those thoughts out of her mind, she subvocalized, “Angel, can you compose some messages for me?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s start with Hot Mustard. Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Winfield. Winnie, I’m so sorry that I’ve left you in the lurch these past weeks. I’m more sorry that I won’t be able to come and see you. I’d love to give you a hug and tell you about everything I’ve been through. I’d love to sit and get drunk with you and maybe do something we both thought was stupid the next day. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I can’t. I’ve made some nasty enemies, and I’m pretty much clear of them, but they’ll be watching people who knew me. If I stay away from you, you’ll be better off.

“Yeah, it hurts, but trust me, you don’t want this weight around your neck. I’m changing my operator ID, and I’d sure appreciate it if you’d tell people who ask about me that the last you heard, I was dead. I’m really thankful for your help and for your big heart, and I hope we’ll meet again someday. Do me another favor, and don’t color your hair if a girl tells you to. Love, J.”

“Shall I send it encrypted and scrub identifiers from the encoding?”

“You know you should,” Juliet said, and the doc looked up at her and squinted. “Don’t mind me. I’m calling people and stuff, and I might slip out of subvocalizations.”

“No worries. I’ve got music playing anyway.”

“Ready for the next one?” Juliet asked Angel.

“Ready!”

“Charity, I know you saw me as an interloper. I know you thought I was a cheater and that I was trying to make your life difficult at the dojo, but I want you to know that I appreciated the competition we had. I admired you a lot, and, yeah, you were a bitch half the time, but I could always tell you cared a lot about Sensei and the dojo. I won’t be able to come back, and I was hoping you’d tell Sensei for me. Please tell him I’ll miss the dojo and try to keep the spirit of the Mongoose alive when I’m practicing what I learned from you all. With respect and fondness, J.”

“Sending with the same protocols as Winfield’s message. Might I ask why you aren’t asking Honey to inform Sensei of your prolonged absence?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to try to call Honey when I’m done here, and we have more important things to talk about.”

“I see. Any other messages?”

“I want to send one to Delma or Addie or White or, shit, even Polk, but Angel, when they read it, the watchdog will see. They might end up in big trouble, especially considering the stuff we did this morning. Isn’t that sad, Angel? I can’t think of a way around it short of going back in there and deleting the watchdog. Damn! We should have done that!”

“We had goals in mind, and that wasn’t on the list. I think it would have unnecessarily increased the risk. There are ways we could help them, but, as you said, it would require staying around Phoenix for a while. I will keep tabs on them, Juliet. If I see that any of them leave Grave employment, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay, good enough for now, I guess.” Juliet glanced at her arm, saw that her stump was coated in a thick, orange gel, and asked, “How’s it going?”

“Oh great—fully scanned your arm and shoulder. Everything’s going to sync up pretty well. This arm will be slightly longer than your other one, but only a few centimeters.”

Juliet frowned, then shrugged her left shoulder and said, “Good enough for now.”