Chapter 20 #3
I have been unable to hack her armlet, but Kynan Kade’s armlet has her information and contact details. It’s safe to assume she is in collaboration with him.
Of course she was. Everyone here was.
Her eyes narrowed. “Was that you that set off all the intrusion alerts on my system?”
“I don’t even know what an intrusion alert is.”
She gritted her teeth. “Talon’s got money, so he’d just buy whatever code he wants.
Lyra’s a grunt and wouldn’t try to hack my systems without Kynan’s consent; and he’d never consent to that because I’d walk and he knows it.
But you… well, I don’t really know you now, do I.
And Occam’s Razor tells me that the simplest explanation is probably the right one.
The simplest explanation in this case is that the new guy is using his wildcard prototype amp to try and hack our systems. So is that why you’re here? To hack our systems?”
“This Razor guy sounds smart, but he’s wrong in this case. My amp helps my health; it doesn’t hack your systems. Also, I should point out that I was brought here by your guys—it wasn’t even my choice.”
“Sure, but a well-planted mole could orchestrate that.”
I chortled. “Yeah, so well-planted that Softbiotics intentionally let me run off with one of their new models in my brain and send all their enforcers after me.”
“They do a lot of weird shit. I long ago quit trying to figure them out,” she said.
“I’m not a mole.” I turned to leave.
She grabbed my forearm. “That amp of yours is learning, isn’t it?
That’s how it tried to hack my system? It was upgrading the first time I met you, and it already had enough baseline programming to pound my firewalls.
I heard it just went through another upgrade.
” She cocked her head. “What’s it upgrading? ”
I shrugged. “Its sense of humor.”
She didn’t believe me. “I’m very, very interested in learning more about that tiny piece of tech in your head. Seriously, just between you and me and your amp. Kynan and the others in there don’t need to know, I swear it.”
“Sure,” I said, unconvinced, then something struck me. “Why are you here and not in the tunnels?”
Her brow furrowed. “Too much network chatter across the security net right now. I came here to play it safe. That’s why Kynan’s here, too, instead of at his home in the tunnels, though he comes here a lot, anyway.
Being in Aberdeen makes it easier to keep an eye on Softbiotics when he can walk right into the building. But it’s also more dangerous.”
I cocked my head. “Softbiotics is nearby?”
“Yes, four blocks that way.”
“Good to know.” I looked in the direction of where she pointed, even though the hallway had no windows.
“You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you?”
“Me? Of course not. Take care of yourself.”
I took off walking again. Nolan was in Softbiotics’ “care,” somewhere. If I could get Byte close enough to a Softbiotics network, we might be able to find him.
“Cal, wait!” This voice was Lyra’s.
I tensed and turned around.
Key—Andra Locke—was still in the hallway, and Lyra scowled at the other woman when she passed by. “Don’t you have a virus to make?” Lyra snapped at her.
Andra gave a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
Lyra came up to me as Andra headed back inside. Until now, when I saw her, my blood pressure increased—mostly in my pants. Now, it increased because I was getting more and more pissed off at how she’d been so nice while at the same time planning to rip Byte from my head.
“What part of ‘space’ do you people not understand?” I asked a little too brusquely.
Her pace slowed. She hadn’t been expecting that. “I’m sorry if Kynan said something that made you uncomfortable.” She took a step closer and turned on her charm. “You said you needed to think. I just thought I could answer any questions you have.”
I snorted. “Kynan was thorough enough with his nice little hoorah recruitment speech.”
She scowled. “I thought you of all people would understand what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
“Oh, I get it all right. And believe me, I’m no fan of the way things are.
Softbiotics is getting away with murder.
But don’t act like you’re a bunch of humanitarians here.
You’re fighting because of what happened to your family—I get it, I really do.
But what you’re doing is also going to get people hurt.
” Like me, for one. “No revolution is bloodless. People have been hurt already. Just look at the resistance on Solace Moon.”
“That’s different.”
“Sure, maybe, but violence is violence. Don’t tell me that you believe for an instant that I’m anything other than some weapon—no, wait, that’s how you see Byte.
You think it’s some kind of miracle to help you win the impossible war.
I bet I’d already be dead, lying on a gurney somewhere, with my head cut wide open, if you thought you could extract my amp without destroying it in the process. ”
“I’d never do that,” she said in a way that I almost believed her. And then Byte talked to me.
She confirmed receipt of Kynan’s plans for us. She responded to him in support of those plans.
I shot her a deadpan look. “Sure, you wouldn’t.”
I turned to go, and she pulled me back to face her. “I swear, I’d never let Kynan do anything like that to you,” she said, pleading.
“You wouldn’t?”
“Of course not.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Anxiety marred her features. “I mean, if there was some way to extract the amp without hurting you—or it—then I’d be all for it…
with your permission, of course.” The last bit she added as almost an afterthought.
“Cal, I never would’ve allowed you to get hurt.
But if there’s some way we could replicate the amp, it’d be a game changer for us.
Imagine if every single resistance member had an upgradable amp. ”
I noticed that they didn’t refer to the amp as my amp. How could I trust that she’d put my life before the chance of acquiring a special amp? I couldn’t trust her, which meant I couldn’t count on her, let alone the resistance, to help me find and free Nolan.
I chuckled without humor. “And then do what? Byte doesn’t have the programming of a military amp like Kynan’s or Talon’s. They’d all have blank amps, which would take time to upgrade. Even now, my amp doesn’t do much more than the basics,” I lied.
“Your amp found us a way out of Solace Station,” she said.
“I’ve got a navigational amp in my head. I can go orienteering now, yay.”
She stared. “You’re not directing your amp, and I get it. You work the battery line, you’re not a tech. We have the expertise to own our amp upgrades, so that they don’t randomly make updates that don’t provide anyone any benefit.”
I disagree. My upgrades are designed wholly for our benefit.
Yeah, I was getting pissed off, too. “You’ve got Dr. Katz’s files. Oh, wait, no you don’t because she didn’t trust you guys to have them, so she obviously didn’t trust you enough to let you make your own amps.”
She bristled. “That’s not true. She just wanted to test the prototype before sharing the design.”
“You sure about that? Because I’m thinking she didn’t trust you with the design any more than she trusted Softbiotics.”
Her jaw clenched. “That’s not true.”
“She didn’t trust you, so now that you’ve got your hands on her prototype, you won’t let it out of your sight. That’s why you’re out here right now, isn’t it? Kynan sent you to put the lab rat back into its cage.”
She scowled. “You don’t even want the amp.
You were just the guy who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kynan has a full medical unit—if anyone can remove the amp without damaging it or you, it’s his doctor.
Then you can go back to your life of being an underpaid, undervalued factory worker, isn’t that what you want? ”
Cal, I hope you don’t believe her. To separate us would mean death to us both.
My life had been simple—that part was nice.
But I’d also been dying. Besides, it wasn’t like Softbiotics would let me go free—or bring Nolan back, let alone bring Grandmother back to life—even if I gave up Byte.
I knew it and she knew it; she just thought I was dumb enough to fall for her sales pitch.
I yanked my arm free of hers. “You tell your boss not to worry. I’ll come talk when I’m ready.”
I started walking away.
“Cal, don’t you walk away from me.”
“Watch me.” I threw a wave over my shoulder because I didn’t want to see her face. If I got any more riled up, I’d be an idiot and spill things that Byte could do. Right now, they only guessed at what an upgradable amp could do. I didn’t want them to know that Byte could do more than they imagined.
I expected her to follow me, to try and drag me back to Kynan and lock me up in some secret room. Surprisingly, she let me go on my way… which meant that Kynan was confident he could grab me at any point. I planned to prove him wrong.
I took the elevator down to the parking ramp.
Remember to keep your head down so cameras or drones can’t scan your features.
I lowered my head in preparation. The enforcers might still believe I was on Solace Moon, but that wouldn’t last for long, and a single screwup would have me running for my life.
Kynan probably had the resources to hide me indefinitely from them, but I was tired of relying on someone who was helping just to use me.
The elevator opened, and that was when I saw my first tail. He was casually strolling down the hallway toward the parking ramp door, too. I reached it first, with him about twenty feet behind me.
“All right, Byte, tell me you’ve got something planned.”
The moment the door closed behind me, the building alarms sounded and the door locked. The guy tailing me gave up the act and ran toward me, only to slam against the locked glass door.
I held up my hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t open it. Sorry.” I might’ve even given a guilty grin at that last bit.
I turned, and Byte led me straight to… “Really?”
I hacked Talon’s vehicular system on the drive here. I have full control of the AV.
“Smart.” The door to Talon’s black AV opened, and I jumped inside. As soon as I was clear of the door, it closed, and the AV sped out of the ramp.
“There’s probably a tracker on this car,” I pointed out.
Yes, and I’m misreporting the same route as what is reporting through your armlet.
“Good amp.”
In under a minute, we were driving the freeway in the middle of a gazillion other cars that looked just like this one.
I allowed myself to relax, even though I knew this was only a temporary reprieve. “This is handy; you taking control of computers and stuff.”
It was a key feature of my latest upgrade.
“All right, time for you to fill me in on what you’re doing in my head.”
I’m actually constantly making updates throughout your body. I’m only centralized in your brain. We’re well and truly integrated.
I winced. “Yeah, still not real comfortable with that idea.”
But you enjoy having an oxygen saturation rate at ninety-nine percent.
“An oxygen sat-what? You know what, never mind. Out of all the stuff you’ve done, I have to say not coughing my lungs out every five minutes is nice.”
That’s what I said.
“Oh.” I rubbed my hands together. “All right, what did you find that’s safe from both the enforcers and from the resistance?”
I have identified a refuge. But we’re currently en route to a Softbiotics data center, with a detour through a public ramp to park for one hour to make sure Kynan Kade does not have another way of tracking us.
I advise you to use the time to eat and rest. There’s additional food and water in the storage compartment to your left.
I had jerked upright at Byte’s first words. “Whoa, reel that back, buddy. Why are we going to a Softbiotics data center and not to a hideout?”
Because I calculated that the optimal time to gather data is now.
As time passes, Kynan Kade will turn his attention on finding us, and the enforcers will return their focus to finding us here on the planet.
I’ve processed all the data from Dr. Katz’s lab, but it doesn’t provide any details regarding where your friend is, or the details of the trial he has been forced to participate in.
We will retrieve that data and then seek refuge as we work out a combined plan that is both best for our survival and best for rescuing your friend.
“Oh.” I relaxed somewhat, then opened the console and pulled out two flavored food bars and a bag of caffeinated juice. “I thought I was going to have to fight you to go after Nolan.”
Nolan is important to you, which means Nolan is important to us.
I estimate ninety-two percent certainty that this data center will answer the questions you have regarding what happened to your friend.
Even though this mission isn’t practical for our survival, I understand the human need for knowledge.
I’d expect you to do the same for me if I craved certain data.
Was it weird that Byte was gung-ho on helping me do something that would inevitably place us in danger? Yeah. “But you’re, uh, just an amp.”
Do you truly believe that, Cal?
No. No, I didn’t.