CD & EA 1.19 - Getting Situated

Another day goes by for Juliet . . .

Enjoy! - back to the keyboard for me!

-Plum

The next day, Angel convinced Juliet to work out in the hotel’s facilities again. She promised that Juliet would use different muscle groups and that the movement would help with the soreness she was experiencing from the previous day’s activities. The PAI hadn’t been lying about the muscle groups—Juliet became familiar with a whole different set of machines. Afterward, exhausted yet feeling good about herself, Juliet sat in the attached sauna and contemplated getting a massage.

“I could get used to this life,” she said aloud; being the only person in the room, she didn’t feel she needed to be quiet.

“If you continue with successful missions, you can make a good living as an operator, Juliet. I should remind you, though—your friend is due to arrive any time now, and you don’t have a place to hide her.”

“Yeah, I know. I was thinking about that, Angel. What if I get a place on the edge of the city, you know, near the ABZ? It would be easier to hide her without all the cams, drones, and corpo-sec that patrol around here.” This time, she subvocalized, her eyes darting to the data pad near the door.

“There are advertisements for privacy-minded communities that might suit you,” Angel said.

“See? That doesn’t sound so bad—we’ll get a place, put Ghoul in it, and then we can work on phase two.”

“I’ll compile a list for you to peruse. Perhaps after your shower, you should check out of the hotel and then examine your top choices?”

“God, do I have to?” Juliet knew it wasn’t practical to stay in the hotel—not only because of the high daily expense but because she was, technically, still hiding from very powerful, dangerous people. While Angel seemed adept at masking her visage from cameras and satellites, she couldn’t protect Juliet if she walked past someone that might recognize her. She could only imagine that WBD and perhaps Vikker’s old client might have people in the Phoenix area looking for her.

Angel didn't reply to Juliet's whine, illustrating her uncanny ability to discern a real question from a rhetorical one. Juliet sighed, stood up, and went into the locker room, where she showered off the sweat, washed her hair, and got dressed. She’d taken to wearing her new vest everywhere, and now that it was clean, she slipped it over her blue-collar chic shirt and pants and returned to her room.

Her vibroblade had been a real mess after her encounter with the dreamer, but when she’d returned to the hotel, Juliet had cleaned it with soap and hot water, and now it sat snuggly under the flap of her vest, ready for another nightmarish encounter. She’d left her pistol in her room when she went to work out, and now she slipped the holster into her waistband. She gathered up her other clothes and toiletries, stuffed them into her backpack, and gave the room a solid once-over making sure she didn’t forget anything.

That done, Juliet made her way out of the hotel and into an Easycab already waiting outside. “Good job on the cab, Angel. Do you think I should buy another vehicle? I think I’m good with just using cabs for now—it seems I have bad luck hanging onto cars and bikes.”

“If you can maintain the pace of one successful job per week, the expense of automated taxi services will not be a significant cost for you.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Juliet said, sitting back in the seat and clicking on the tab Angel had put on her AUI that contained the housing options she’d collated. “Still,” she added, flicking through the list, “I do like to drive, and there’s something about having a cool car . . .” She trailed off, reading the list, and stopped to read the details of one called “Shady Park Lots.”

It looked like a trailer park, and it was clearly on the city's outskirts, judging by the distant view of the megatowers on their sales site. She flicked through the pictures and saw well-manicured common areas, shaded picnic tables, and lots and lots of neat little trailer plots. “Any open trailers?” she wondered, flicking through the images to the details. “Here we go,” she said, “open plots from five hundred and furnished trailers starting at eight-fifty.”

“That’s not bad—less than I was paying in the arcology!” she said aloud, and Angel took the clue that she was speaking to her.

“Yes, though you’d be quite a lot further from downtown, won’t have the amenities of the arcology, and will be far less secure out near the ABZ.”

“Are you, like, working for some corp? That sounded like you’re trying to sell me an apartment in an arcology!”

“Just playing devil’s advocate, Juliet.”

“Thanks, devil, but you just listed off more pros. Send the cab to this place, will you?”

“Adjusting destination,” the Easycab announced.

They’d been driving for a few minutes when an incoming call flashed on her AUI. Juliet accepted the call and Ghoul’s face came into view. She looked fine, standing still with a rough concrete wall behind her. “I’m in the ABZ south of town, Juliet.”

“Okay, I’m trying to get us a place where you can lay low. I’m working on a plan for a longer-term solution, too.”

“Juliet, I don’t know how to thank you for helping me. You could have blocked my calls and written me off. I won’t forget this.”

“C’mon, Ghoul. We’ve got a bond formed by bullets. I won’t leave you hanging. Are you safe there?”

“Yeah, I saw some scavs hanging around the old gas station nearby, but this building’s empty. They won’t mess with me.”

“Okay, give me an hour or two, and then I’ll get back to you. Stay under the roof, and don’t let your PAI answer any pings!”

“Right. I’m not an idiot,” Ghoul chuckled, then said, “Talk to you soon, Jules.”

“Yep,” Juliet said, and then the call cut out.

“Are you doing all right, Juliet?” Angel asked.

“What? Why?”

“You are remarkably flippant about the recent gunshot wounds you and Ghoul suffered. I hope you aren’t suppressing or repressing your feelings.”

“Oh God, Angel! No, I’m just in a good mood, all right? I know it's not really funny, but it was just, oh, I don’t know . . . gallows humor.” Angel didn’t respond, and they rode in silence for another thirty-five minutes.

When the cab started to ease toward the east-side ABZ, it announced, “This vehicle is approaching territories adjacent to corporate-controlled city districts. There’s a likelihood that crime will be more prevalent in this area. Your destination is within the permitted range of this vehicle, but Easycab would like to ask you to be safe and to consider Easycab for your return to safer territory.”

“Thanks,” Juliet said. She’d heard the message before—when she’d gone to meet Honey and her crew. Still, she sat up and looked out the window, taking in the sights as the cab wended through the last few turns toward the trailer park. The road was rough, with badly patched potholes, but at least they were patched. The buildings looked old—cracked stucco storefronts, signs on faded-paint poles, and lots and lots of old cars, many of which looked abandoned.

She saw plenty of people going about their business, though, and the neighborhood reminded her a lot of the one where she and her cousins had grown up. They turned right at the corner where a big “Sooper Don’s” grocery store still held court. The S in the sign had broken blue plastic hanging from the bottom, and the rest of the letters were very faded, but the place was still in business—the lot was full, and people were lined up to shop for bargains.

As they drove up the street, they passed away from the businesses and through some ancient suburbs, then they came to a high chainlink fence lined with azaleas and a big, green, and yellow sign on a tall pole that read, “Shady Park.” The cab eased into the entry lane, and Juliet was surprised to see a security booth by the automated gate operated by a human guard. The taxi pulled up, and Juliet rolled down her window, smiling at the mustachioed man.

“Here to see a resident?” he asked.

“Actually, I want to speak to someone in your sales office.”

“Sales office, huh? I’ll get the manager for you.” He turned toward the front of the cab and said, “Park straight ahead.”

“Thank you,” the Easycab said, and then it pulled forward through the open gate into one of the parking slots labeled “Visitor.” Juliet climbed out of the cab and looked around. The park had several lanes wending back through the plots, past campers, and trailers of all sorts. Some looked like they were a hundred years old, and a few were modern, battery-powered RVs with sleek designs. Overall, though, the place made her feel like she’d traveled back in time.

An old lady in a flowery housecoat sat outside her beat-up beige trailer, shaded from the sun by a brown and white-striped awning, and she stared at Juliet over the tops of her thick sunglasses. A kid pushed an electric mower over the grass between two plots, and dogs barked in the distance. “Weird,” Juliet said, shading her eyes and looking around in a circle. “I don’t see any cameras, do you, Angel?”

“No, as you read on their sales materials, Shady Park doesn’t employ surveillance in order to ‘better protect the privacy of our residents.’”

“That, and it takes them off the hook for installing and maintaining all that equipment,” Juliet snorted.

“Hello?” Juliet turned to see the source of the voice and saw a small man in a pale, cream-colored suit approaching her from the other side of the little parking lot.

“Hello,” Juliet replied, striding forward and holding out a hand. “I’m Juliet, and I’m hoping to rent a trailer.”

The man was named Mr. Howell, and he was happy to show Juliet around the park. He had several furnished trailers available, and she settled on a single-wide model that was easily half a century old. She didn’t care, though, because it was well maintained and plenty spacious for her and another person, with a bedroom at each end.

A kitchen, a table, and a built-in couch occupied the center of the trailer. An ancient vid screen hung on the wall opposite the sofa, and Mr. Howell suggested she and her friends might like to watch “shows” on it together. Each bedroom had a full-sized bed and built-in dresser, and Juliet figured she’d claim the one at the rear of the trailer near the bathroom and sani-spray shower.

The monthly rent for the trailer was 900 bits, including sewer and water. She’d have to pay for electricity because, according to Howell, there were people who drew more wattage to their trailers than he’d need to power the whole park. Mr. Howell allowed Juliet to sign up for her trailer using her operator ID, and Angel handled most of the paperwork. She transferred the rent payment for September, pro-rated, and October, in addition to a five hundred-bit security deposit.

When all of that was done, and Juliet stood outside the management office with Mr. Howell, going through one of the most protracted goodbyes she’d ever had to deal with, she asked, “I noticed you have a guard at the gate—is there one there all the time?”

“Oh yes. We’ll have someone on duty at the gate twenty-four-seven. It’s not a big expense, mind you—two of the guards live here in the park, and we discount their rent for their work. Anyway, Miss, you should feel nice and safe here in your new home.”

“Okay, thank you again, Mr. Howell. I’m going to do some shopping and maybe pick up a friend. You know, to see my new place,” Juliet offered him a warm smile, and then she added, “Are you the one I should contact if I have any problems?”

“That’s right, Juliet. You’ve got my number, or at least your PAI does! Enjoy yourself, now.” With that, Mr. Howell finally walked away, and Juliet made her way to the little sidewalk that ran through the gate next to the road.

“My ride almost here, Angel?”

“Yes, ETA three minutes.”

“Good; contact Ghoul’s PAI and get her location. Let her know we’re coming.”

“In progress,” Angel said, and the machine-like phrasing and shortness of her tone made her sound more like an AI than ever.

“Ew, Angel,” Juliet said, “That made you sound like a robot. Try a different phrase, like ‘will do’ or ‘working on it.’”

“Will do,” Angel said, and Juliet laughed. Shortly after, an AutoCab pulled up, and Juliet climbed into the passenger compartment.

“Greetings. I have your destination, and the best route will take forty-two minutes. I’ll take you through the city's corporate-sponsored sections to avoid hostilities and poor driving conditions. Due to corporate vandalism avoidance policies, I am authorized to travel to your desired destination but am limited to only a brief traversal.”

“Okay, cab,” Juliet said. “I guess that’s another downside to not having my own wheels—can’t really drive anywhere I want to. Out of curiosity, cab, how long would the trip take if we went through the ABZ?”

“Provided we didn’t meet with unexpected road closures, we’d reach your destination in twenty-three minutes.”

“Sheesh—almost twice as fast, Mr. Cab.”

“Would you like to lodge a complaint with corporate?”

“No, but I’d like you to stop exactly half a mile from our destination. Please pull to the side of the road and wait for further instructions.”

“I will do so; however, I must warn you that my stationary wait time in that locale is a maximum of seven minutes.”

Juliet didn’t answer the cab; she sat back and contemplated her options. She knew she wanted to help Ghoul—just rented a trailer in a sketchy part of town so she could hide her, in fact. Still, there was some worry that Ghoul wasn’t being a hundred percent transparent with her. If Vikker’s old clients were after her and were putting enough pressure on her, would Ghoul sell Juliet out? “Angel?” she subvocalized.

“Yes, Juliet?”

“How close will we need to get to Ghoul’s location before you can spot signals from drones or people observing the location?”

“It depends on the strength and the duration of the signal. I recommend a slow and measured approach. Stop several times, and I’ll scan with your wireless data jack—the passive antenna is quite robust.”

“Yeah, and then I’ll do a drive-by to see if anything jumps out at us. Another question: you’ll need to connect to her PAI to manage her ID spoofs until we get her fake straightened out, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I feel like dirt for this, but I want you to plant a bug in there. I don’t wanna know about her private calls or what she looks up on the net or any of that stuff, but I want you to listen for any sign that she’s selling me out. If she contacts WBD or Helios, I wanna hear from you instantly. If she calls Tsakanikas or anyone else and mentions me? I wanna hear about it. Can you do that?”

“It should be trivial once you’ve established a physical connection. Her PAI is quite dated. May I also recommend performing a thorough scan in case she’s been compromised without her knowing it?”

“Yes!” Juliet said aloud, sighing and clenching her fists. She felt dirty, planning to snoop on Ghoul like that, but it just felt stupid not to. She really didn’t know the woman all that well, regardless of the horrific night they’d shared.

An hour later, after Juliet and Angel hadn’t been able to spot any evidence that people were observing or lurking near Ghoul’s hiding spot, she finally instructed the cab to park in front of the building. Juliet peered out the windows skeptically. They were outside a boarded-up shopfront in an abandoned strip mall. The shop looked like it had once been a pet food store, judging from the faded, broken sign. The remaining letters still read, “. . . n’s . . . per . . . Pets.”

“Wait for me, cab,” she said as she opened the door.

“I can only wait five minutes in this location. Please make haste,” the AutoCab announced, and Juliet slammed the door, perhaps a bit vindictively. When she approached the boarded-up door, she could see the nails had been partially pulled out, and with one hand on her vibroblade’s handle, she tugged the plywood aside and peered into the dark interior. With her new ocular implants, she could see quite well, even in the dim light, and she spotted Ghoul sitting on the old sales counter, waving to her.

“I didn’t want to get too close in case the cab pinged my PAI for ID.”

“Hey,” Juliet said in greeting and stepped into the shadowed, dusty interior, letting the plywood fall closed behind her. “I can help with that, I think.”

“I was hoping you could.”

“Uncover your data port, please,” Juliet said as she walked toward her.

“Okay,” Ghoul said, reaching up and peeling back the synth skin over her data port. “It’s just a basic model, though; I can’t run any good spoofing software. My PAI’s about ten generations old.” She paused a moment, then said, “Oh hush, she knows what I mean.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Juliet said, pulling out her three-foot data cable. “I’ll have to run it for the both of us. While you’re out and about, you’re going to be tethered to me.”

“Oh! Good thing I took a shower, huh?” She laughed.

Forty minutes later, Juliet and Ghoul, wearing dark glasses and a medical mask, returned to the trailer park in the same cab. Once they were out of the cab and safely sitting in Juliet’s trailer, Ghoul ripped her mask off and sighed heavily. “This sucks!” she said. “I hate being on the run, and I know this is a pain in the ass for you, too. Thanks for helping me out with the software—I know it can’t be easy to run that stuff and block those ID queries on the fly.” She sat down on the old, greenish-yellow fabric couch, her heavy duffel at her feet.

“Well,” Juliet said, “There were only a couple of queries when we got out to the east side, and there won’t be any here in the park. Anyway, I’ve been thinking of a way to fix your issue a little more permanently.”

“Oh?” Ghoul leaned forward in interest. She looked a lot better than the last time Juliet had spoken to her in person—the bruising around her eyes was almost gone, her cheeks were flushed with color, and more than anything else, she was sitting up, fully clothed, like she hadn’t had half her guts out on a chop-doc’s table a couple of days ago.

“Yeah. You’re looking good, by the way. I’m surprised you’re back on your feet so soon.”

“Eh, I still have a tube sticking out of my stitches so I can drain the fluid from my abdomen, so don’t let my rosy complexion fool ya. My back hurts all the time, and I’m still getting used to this thing.” Ghoul held up her new arm, squeezing her fingers into a fist, and then she winked at Juliet. “Beats being dead, though, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Juliet nodded and forced a smile, then she went to the kitchen and ripped open the case of beer she’d picked up on the way to meet Ghoul. She took out two cans, tossed one to Ghoul, and cracked hers open. She took a long, gulping pull, glad that it hadn’t gotten warm yet, and then, with a burp, she said, “I need to hack a major corp’s HR database, steal a bunch of info, and then I can make you a fake ID that should pass security checkpoints.”

“Uh, like, can you do that?” Ghoul asked as she cracked the tab on her beer. Her voice was low and scratchy, but Juliet didn’t detect any judgment—no skepticism.

“Yeah, I think I can. I just need to figure out a way to get a hardline connection to one of their servers.”

“It sounds to me like you want to run a heist, hmm?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I think I can do this by myself. It’s just . . .”

“Hey, none of that; listen, there’s a reason people don’t do heists alone. Operators have skill sets, and there’s no shame in relying on someone with more talent in a certain area than you have. Like, you’re great with tech, right? What we need is a face, someone who can get you past security, make you look legit, give you a reason for being where you want to be.”

“There are people like that?”

“You betcha, there are. People have been fucking with the corpos since there were corpos to fuck with. We need to get a line on a fixer around here, and then they can hook us up with a face—someone good at bullshitting and faking, someone with databases of corpo lingo, departments, personnel, and legit reasons for being just about anywhere we need to go. You got any contacts up here yet? If not, we just need to do a few jobs, meet some other operators, and then . . .”

“I know a couple of people,” Juliet said, cutting Ghoul off.

“Yeah? Can you make contact? Ask about a fixer?”

“Yeah, I think I can, actually. This one operator invited me to come train at her dojo. Well, I mean, she said I should check it out. I don’t know if I’m invited to join . . .”

“That’s perfect! She’s been in the area a while?”

“I think so,” Juliet sat down on the couch next to Ghoul and took another drink. “She seemed pretty cool—called herself muscle, like you do.”

“Oh? Yeah, that’s pretty common among operators—we’ve got a million nicknames for all the different roles people play. Most common are things like fixer, muscle, medic, tech, gear-head . . . shit, I could sit here all night rattling this stuff off. When can you meet your friend? I’m not trying to rush you, Juliet, but I feel like I have an axe hanging over my neck. I’d like to get some cover, you know?”

“Yeah, Ghoul, I get it. I’ll go to her dojo tomorrow morning.”

“Perfect! We might need to raise some funds to put together a proper operation, but as long as we work outside the city center, I should be able to operate. I mean, as long as I’m with you, right?”

“Yeah. I can help cover your ID as long as we’re together.”

“Sweet,” Ghoul reached out and squeezed Juliet’s wrist gently and said, “Juliet, I owe you big for all this. Don’t think I’m taking it for granted.” She gestured around the trailer and winked, “I mean, it’s not a primo suite in a megatower, but it’s quiet, and I don't think anyone’s gonna find us here. Thank you.”

“No worries, Ghoul. To be honest, I was feeling a little lonely when you called. I’m happy I can help you out.”

“Great! Well, let’s see if we can put a dent in that case of beer while we wait for the pizza to cook, hmm?” Juliet laughed and nodded, chugging the rest of her beer and then squeezing the can in her hand like the gang at the scrapyard liked to do. She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d been feeling lonely—Angel was great, and Juliet felt lucky to have her, but it wasn’t the same as laughing and drinking a beer with a friend.