Chapter 29
“WOW. WOW. THEY MUST HAVE kept the whole thing off-net because I never knew about any of this,” says Atti when I’m done.
“You sure?” I fiddle with the sleeve of my slightly too-tight change of clothing, which I fortunately found lying next to the pulse shower when I used it.
“You know there’s no way to tamper with my memory.”
“But if the Keres have restricted you from revealing something…”
“Pfft. You’re the majority shareholder now, Azure: I can’t lie to you, and I can’t be locked down like some neural either. Minority shareholders can request that I not volunteer proprietary information, but if you directly ask me something…” She sounds almost indignant.
“Alright, alright. Settle down. I believe you.” Useful to know. Doesn’t sound like the Keres will be actively able to hide anything that Atti was previously aware of.
“And I believe you, by the way. Or, I believe the DNA result. It’s you. They actually went and made a Dupe of you.” She makes a noise as if she’s shuddering.
Confirmation rather than news. “I’m guessing they started the process after Oceanus.”
“Makes sense. You were out for months, and it really looked like you were going to die. And they do rather like your rev compatibility.”
I grunt.
“And your delightful personality, of course, Azure,” adds Atti. “I’m sure they were super worried on a personal level as well.”
I give a baleful look at the nearest camera, and keep working.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how to kill this thing when it arrives.”
“When it what, now?”
“I left a trail for it.”
“You did what, now?”
“I can’t let it run free.” If it’s actually intelligent and not just a bio—a reasonable assumption, because I don’t see the Keres having many use cases for it otherwise—then it should be able to follow the hints I left it from where Verity dropped me.
“And based on what it did at Sanctum, it’s not going to stop. Better to choose the place and time.”
“You can absolutely let it run free! You’re richer than God, Azure. You have some pretty nice alternatives to the stabby-stab life, now.”
I finish what I’m doing with a flourish. “I wasn’t and I didn’t when I decided to do this. And, you know what? I like this plan. We’re going with this plan.”
“So you bought me so you could ignore my advice, I take it,” grumbles Atti.
“Pretty much. Now. I need you to run some scenarios. Full sim. I have Jasa de Alwes’s body, this lab, this Dupe hand, and you. If I go to DeGov and try to get the Keres proscribed under Ten-O-Ten, what happens?”
A long silence.
“It’s… not great,” says Atti eventually.
“Why?”
“Well, this lab is run from a cold start; it’s off-net, but otherwise there’s nothing in here to suggest anything improper is going on.
Having de Alwes’s body is probably enough to trigger an investigation into whether the Keres illegally took crowdfunded tokens fifteen years ago, but ultimately that’s public fallout, and if DeGov eventually finds anything, a big fine.
There’s no proof she’s been working with them since.
No proof of cloning, either. The hand could have been printed at any limb replacement clinic or any of a dozen labs specialising in growing transplant organs.
It’s weird, Azure, but it’s a long way from evidence that the Keres made a killer Dupe. ”
“So it ends up just kind of irritating them.” What I’d thought, but I needed the confirmation.
“Yeah. And we both know how that ends.”
“Alright. So run the sim again, but we catch the Dupe alive.”
Another silence.
“Best-case scenario gets a little better. Sort of.” Atti sighs.
“The Keres directors of the Themis branch get a public listing by DeGov and are made available for proscription. The outrage over de Alwes generates enough crowdfunding for another Ten-O-Ten corp to risk taking the contract. Every asset the Keres have in Themis gets seized by DeGov, which then informs the other megacities of the violation. It’s a big enough hit that the other branches decide it’s better to cooperate with their respective DeGovs, take the loss and focus on PR in their own regions, rather than go scorched earth here and try to take you out. ”
“But?”
“But they’re a corp, Azure. They’re a distributed entity that has a hand in every aspect of life inside every megacity: not only do they have all the tokens, but they’re key clients for half the other major corps as well.
No one really wants them gone. Even if you get them in Themis, they’ll just disappear for a while, then come back with different people and under a different name.
You inconvenience them, yes—you piss them off, certainly—but you sure as hell don’t beat them. ”
“That’s fine. I’ll settle for the pissing them off part. You have to start somewhere.”
“Do you, though? I feel like that’s what people without tokens say.” When I don’t respond, she sighs. “Oh, and if I extend the sim? DeGov legally requires you to remain as physical proof of the Keres’ breach. You become evidence. They tag you.”
I pause. “Riiight.” I hadn’t thought of that.
“There really is no world in which you can do what you’re planning to do, and be safe.
No world in which you take them down. No world in which you can even give them the finger and slip into the shadows.
” She’s quieter. Apologetic. “There is a world where you get out, and you’re happy. You want to hear how?”
I don’t speak for a long time. Happy. Does Atti even really understand the word, in the way a human would?
“Azure?”
“Yeah, yeah. Tell me the plan.”
“No. It’s not that. It’s just… I think there’s someone trying to get in.”
I’m about to respond when the door to the sewer flies inward off its hinges, a massive torn-off tentacle gets flung into the lab, and a very angry-looking version of me follows it into the room.