Cyber Dreams 2.38 - Checklist

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-Plum

Juliet slept well that night in the Palo Verde. She’d worried that she’d be plagued by thoughts of Houston or Delma, thoughts of Gordon and Vance, and the nightmares they’d inflicted on her and her friends. She’d worried that the thoughts of slumbering guests would intrude on her mind, overwhelming her psionics lattice and damaging her brain. All that said, when she hit the pillow with Angel’s soft playlist pushing her thoughts away from reality, she’d slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When Angel woke her the following day, Juliet felt rested and full of purpose. When her eyes snapped open, and she remembered where she was, the first thing she said was, “Does Angela Chaudhry live in Grave Tower?”

“She does not. She resides in a private residential arcology called Chroma Tower on the northern edge of the Phoenix downtown district,” Angel replied calmly.

“Perfect. Call us a cab; we’re going to the gun store where I bought my Taipan. Oh, and can you confirm with the courier service that they’re set to pick up my orders?”

“I’m receiving real-time updates from the Hermes Courier Service—they’ve yet to depart their hub, but it’s still an hour until your order is supposed to be ready. Will you be heading out right away?”

“No, give me twenty to take a shower and grab breakfast. Hey, while you’re at it, can you send an encrypted message to Rachel?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, let’s see. Say, ‘Rachel, can’t talk now. If you hear something to the contrary, don’t worry—I’m still on the job. I’m going to have a lot of data on Grave for you in a day or two, and I also have details on a rival corp’s deep plant, and I mean deep. I’m still looking for a Sol-bit deposit. January.’”

“When shall I send it?”

“Hmm, anytime now. I am looking for a deposit, right? Nothing new yet?”

“Correct. After your purchases last night, your balance is 101,233 Sol-bits.”

“Funny to think I never received my first monthly payroll from Grave. I suppose, now that they think Lydia Roman is dead, I never will.”

“It was only a few thousand bits, in any case.”

Juliet sighed, nodding, as she climbed into the shower. She took a long, hot soak and then dressed in her only clothes—her black leggings, a gray long-sleeved flex-weave shirt, and her cross-trainer-like footwear—they all reeked of sweat. As she dried out her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail, she smiled to see it was now a shade of brown close to what her natural color used to be. By the evening, she figured Angel would have it dark enough to match Chaudhry’s.

“Speaking of Chaudhry,” she said, leaning close to the mirror and looking into the reflection of her eyes. They were silvery and reflective, with tiny black concentric circles starting near the pupils. “They’re kind of pretty but weird-looking if you ask me.”

“It was difficult to match the exact pattern in Chaudhry’s photo, and I’m afraid the reflective sheen is slightly different. It could be that the manufacturer of her optical implants has a patent on that particular design. Still, anyone who sees you in passing won’t know the difference, and I’ll be able to spoof your image easily for cameras, meaning Kent.”

Juliet left her Grave jacket, ballistic vest, helmet, and pack in the room. When she walked down through the lobby to her cab, she had her needler and vibroblade on her belt and appreciated the fact that not one person on the premises of the Palo Verde gave her a second glance. She climbed into the Easycab, and the ride to Mackenzie Arms took only five minutes.

When Juliet stepped out in front of the familiar storefront, she was struck with a powerful wave of something akin to deja vu. She looked at the heavily modded doorman, trying to remember if he was the same one who’d searched her the first time. He was bulky with two black enameled wire-job arms. His brow, just visible above his dark specs, glowered at her, but Juliet didn’t feel intimidated.

She felt like she was a different person than the Juliet who had awkwardly gone into the store a few months ago and bought gear for her new career as an operator. As she approached the door, the man crossed his metal arms, glared at her through the red LEDs on his visor, and gestured to her belt.

“That gun loaded?”

“Yes.”

“Make it safe,” he grunted, and Juliet nodded, pulling the needler out of its holster. She pointed it at the ground, ejected the magazine, and placed it into her slim, nearly useless front pocket where it bulged uncomfortably. She racked back the slide and pointed the gun to the sky, looking through the breach to see daylight, confirming no round was in the barrel.

“Empty,” she announced, holding it toward the big man, grip first. He just nodded and waved to proceed, apparently satisfied with her word. Juliet snapped the slide closed and put the gun into her holster, empty. Then she walked into the store.

She shopped around for a little while, walking between racks of gear and looking at shelves of knives and then into the cases lined with pistols before one of the salespeople hanging around behind the big U-shaped counter walked over to her. He was a young man with short, buzzed blond hair and very blue, backlit eyes. He had a wispy mustache and friendly laugh lines, and when he spoke with a faint southern drawl, he reminded her of Hot Mustard, and she instantly liked him.

“What can I help you find, miss?”

“Not much today. I was just browsing these guns, but I’m really just here for a new knife and some specialty ammo.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, um, here,” Juliet said, pulling her needler out and setting it on the glass counter. “Finch Executive, four-millimeter. You have magazines that’ll fit this?”

“Oh, sure.” He glanced down at her pocket and said, “Standard thirty-six round like that, or you want extended ones? Fifty-eight rounds.”

“Standard’s fine. Just one more for now, please.”

“All right.” He turned and perused the shelves behind the counter for a few seconds before saying, “Aha!” and then plucking a magazine like the one in her pocket from a peg. He set it on the counter before Juliet and said, “What kind of ammo?”

“I’ll take a box of shredders, a box of low-velocity rounds, and I also need something special—my PAI did some research and said there are needler rounds that can cause paralysis. Do you have anything like that?”

“Well, sure, but they’re illegal to use in Phoenix city limits. You know that, right?”

“I mean, I’m not exactly supposed to go around shooting regular rounds in the city, am I?”

“No, but self-defense, corpo-security, etcetera, etcetera are cause for exceptions; there aren’t any exceptions about the botu-rounds.”

“Got it. Botu-rounds?”

“Yeah, the needles are coated with an engineered variant of the botulinum neurotoxin. Um, each round has two needles, and if you hit someone with more than four individual needles, they’ll probably die. Just FYI. Obviously, size makes a difference.”

“Okay, perfect. I’ll take a box.”

“Right.” He nodded and turned to, once again, go through his shelves, returning with three small boxes of needler rounds, each manufactured by a company called Veschet and each a different color—black, green, and blue. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Juliet gestured toward a nearby display case of knives and said, “I need a slender vibroblade weighted for throwing.”

“Smaller than that one on your belt?”

“Yeah, this is too bulky. You know, something I can wear under a sleeve for protection.”

“Oh, sure, I’ve got just what you mean.” He walked over to the case and pointed to the third row of knives, and Juliet saw that they were all similarly shaped, though they started out long and wide, like her Grave-issued knife, and gradually grew smaller, ending in one with a narrow, tiny, two-inch blade. Juliet looked at them, imagining each one on her wrist, and finally pointed to a slender four-inch blade with a ridged, narrow plasteel hilt.

“That one.”

“That’s a nice knife. The battery is shaped like a rod and runs the length of the blade, wider near the tip—that’s what gives it its throwing weight and allows for a slender hilt. Um, I’m not trying to sound like I don’t think you know what you’re doing, but be careful sheathing a vibroblade on your wrist; pull it out wrong, and you can really hurt yourself.”

“Yep,” Juliet nodded and offered him a smile. “That does it for me. Can I get a bag?”

“Sure.” He unlocked the case, took the knife out, and walked over to the counter where her ammo and magazine waited.

“Send a secure transaction request to my PAI—it’s open,” she said as he put her purchases into a black plastic sack with a stylized red M on the side.

Still grinning, he handed her the bag and said, “Hey, my name’s John.” He tapped his nametag, and his smile broadened as he looked down sheepishly, having embarrassed himself. “Anyway, I’m happy to help you anytime. You can message ahead, and I can get your order ready next time. I sent my details with the invoice to your PAI.”

“Oh? Jeez, thanks, John,” Juliet said, smiling back, somewhat amused by his goofiness. She shook her head, took her bag, and started toward the door.

“Hey, I didn’t catch your name!” he called after her. Juliet just looked over her shoulder, winked one of her chromed eyes, and walked outside.

“Was that man flirting with you?” Angel asked as Juliet paused on the sidewalk to slap her needler magazine into the little pistol’s grip.

Shrugging, Juliet racked the first round and put it back into the holster. “Oh, I’d say so.”

She climbed into the cab Angel had waiting for her and said, “Back to the hotel, please.” It felt strange driving around, conducting business just a few miles away from Grave Tower, where some sort of coup was happening and enemies she’d somehow made thought she was dead. Whenever she started to get the urge to just pack up and get the hell out of town, though, she thought of Gordon’s face, of how Vance had locked her to a bed and drilled into her skull, and her resolve would tighten.

The cab pulled up in front of the Palo Verde, and Juliet climbed out, looking up and down the sidewalk. People in business attire walked shoulder to shoulder with people in trench coats and leather jackets. She saw plenty of armed individuals now that she knew what to look for, and she reflected on what a truly violent world it was.

A big man jostled her as he passed by, and Juliet stepped back, reaching for her gun’s hilt before she realized what had happened. He kept walking, and she relaxed or tried to, wondering if she’d ever really be able to relax in public again. Angel informed her that the front desk had a message for her, so she walked through the doors and over to the counter and said, “Hello,” to the young woman with pretty pink curls, round cheeks, and a green uniform blazer.

“Ms. January?” she asked, looking up from her thin, transparent terminal screen.

“That’s right.”

“Packages came for you,” she turned and opened a cabinet behind the counter and produced a garment bag and two other large paper bags with handles.

“Thank you,” Juliet said, reaching for the deliveries, adding them to the Mackenzie Arms bag in her grip, and then walking to the elevator bank. As she rode up to her room, Juliet asked Angel, “How fast do you think a standard PAI would respond to its host being paralyzed? I mean, how quickly would it call for help with no input from its host?”

“That’s a difficult question to answer accurately. A standard PAI with no biometric input from connected cybernetics would possibly take a long while to realize something was amiss, especially if it didn’t witness whatever caused the paralysis. If the person in question had a biomonitoring suite and had set up protocols with his or her PAI beforehand, the response could be much quicker—a matter of seconds.”

“Mmhmm,” Juliet nodded, stepping out of the elevator and walking to her suite.

“Are you planning on paralyzing someone, Juliet?”

“I need to take Chaudhry out of commission, so we both aren’t wandering around Grave Tower tomorrow.”

“You’re going to Grave Tower tomorrow?” To her credit, Angel didn’t sound particularly alarmed.

“Yeah. Tomorrow I’m going to set some things right and finish my business with Grave.” Juliet stepped into her room, closed and locked her door, then unpacked her purchases on the round dining table near the suite’s kitchenette. Out of habit, she’d been subvocalizing her conversation with Angel, and she kept that up as she went through her new things, “Schedule a ride over to Chroma Tower, Angel, and make sure you’ve got convincing projections to pass me off as Chaudhry when we get there. I mean for cameras.”

“I prepared those when you had me alter your biometrics.”

“Good,” Juliet said, adjusting the straps on her new underarm holster for the needler. She snapped it into place over her gray shirt, then unpacked her wrist sheath for the vibroblade. It was adjustable in many ways, capable of holding a knife smaller than hers and one nearly two inches longer. Still, when she had it on and the blade firmly seated within, it was comfortable and hardly visible under her tight shirt—there was no way it would be apparent under a blazer.

Her dark skirt and blazer had been packed carefully on hangers and looked perfect to Juliet. She unpacked her new shirt, her bras and underwear, stockings, and shoes and laid out her outfit, looking for anything that might be wrong. She couldn’t see any problems. The briefcase she’d ordered was beautiful and elegant; if she didn’t know it was shielded, there was no way she’d be able to tell. She snapped it open and put her four shape charges and detonators inside, pleased to see plenty of room left over.

“Angel, do you have voice data on Chaudhry?”

“Yes—there are many verbal notation files in the GARD database tagged with her employee ID.”

“Good.” Juliet nodded and sat at the table to load her new needler magazine. She put twenty-six shredder rounds into the magazine and ten paralytic rounds on top of them, then she popped her old magazine out, ejecting the cartridge from the chamber. She inserted the new one, put the lone cartridge back into the other magazine, and slipped it into the pouch in the shoulder holster.

“Angel,” Juliet said, “thirty minutes, and then we’ll go pay Chaudhry a visit.”

“Will she not be at work?”

“It’s Sunday.”

“Even so . . .”

“You can check if you want—spoof your ID and make an encrypted call to the Tower; see if you can get ahold of her.” While Angel did that, Juliet got undressed and started putting on her new clothes. She might not go to Grave Tower until the next day, but no matter what happened with Chaudhry, she wasn’t planning to return to the Palo Verde and might end up going into Grave sooner.

“You were correct; Chaudhry is not at work today. I’m ordering your cab.”

“I love you, Angel.” Juliet smiled, wondering what her affection meant to the PAI.

She dressed quickly, and Juliet felt her clothes fit nicely, though a little loose around the chest and waist—she’d lost some weight over the last few weeks. Still, she was glad for the extra room when she had the blazer on over the needler. It wasn’t obvious as long as she kept her arms close.

She stood in front of the mirror and practiced drawing the vibroblade several times. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. Her augmented arm was quick and nimble, and she knew she could move twice as fast, but she was afraid of slicing her other arm or hand if she moved her augmented arm before her other, slower arm could adjust. “Just need practice and more practice,” she said, repeating the move several times until she felt good about it.

“Angel, I’d like to practice throwing this thing until I don’t need your assistance, but I’m not in a place where we can do that. That said, if I feel like I need to throw this blade, please be ready to help me get it right.”

“You can count on me!”

“I know I can.” A sudden surge of emotion made Juliet’s eyes water, and she shook her head, focusing on the job at hand. She wadded up her old Grave clothes and stuffed them into the waste bin along with the kill squad’s backpack and provisions. She felt bad about abandoning her ballistics vest, helmet, and personalized visor, but it couldn’t be helped.

She put her MP5 and extra magazines into the briefcase with the little, square shape charges, and slipped her data deck over her head, annoyed that she’d lost, probably for good, the extra battery pack for it. “Easy to replace,” she mumbled, rebuttoning her shirt.

She stood in front of the mirror one more time, giving herself a once-over, “Needler? Check. Vibroblade? Check. Briefcase? Check. Shape charges? Check. SMG? Check. Extra ammo? Check. Data deck? Check. Fake identity? Check. Badass PAI? Check!” She laughed, imagining Angel puffing up her chest in pride, then she turned and walked out of the hotel room.

On her way out through the lobby, she stopped by the front desk and said, to the same woman who’d given her the courier’s packages, “Please have the cleaners dispose of my old clothes. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and I’d like to authorize a hundred-bit tip for them.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Am I to take it that you’re checking out?”

“I am. I hope I can return soon. I’m always happy with your service.”

“Likewise, ma’am. I hope you’ll be back soon.”

Striding tall and confident, Juliet walked through the lobby, out the doors, and, as a light, chilly rain began to fall on the concrete landscape, she sat down in the back of her cab. “How long is the drive, Angel?”

“You’ll be at Chroma Tower in fourteen minutes.”

Juliet nodded and tried to figure out why she wasn’t more nervous. She gripped her hands into fists and relaxed them several times, marveling at how dry they were, not a hint of clamminess. She was about to break into a woman’s home and subdue her. Shouldn’t she be sweating with nerves? “No,” she whispered, deciding she shouldn’t be. Grave should be nervous.