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IC 2076 Pt2
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[Thursday November 5th, 2076; Al’s Boathouse, Seattle Metroplex]
The girl was shivering from contact with the frigid waters of the Sound, and perhaps the adrenalin rush, and she gratefully accepted the proffered change of clothing – preferable to the flimsy pyjamas EVO had clad her in.
“Thank you” she said quietly “I am glad to be out of there. The things that they were doing…” and the shivers were back… “so much for the hardened runner, I guess that’s what dying and coming back in a teenager’s body will do for you…”
#44
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“Thank your daughter. She’s the one who set all this in motion. Once you are as clean as we can make you, we need to talk about what you know about these nanites they sprayed on us.”
With that he gave her a piece of leather to bite into as Al had suggested. -
Putting that girl into the bath would get rid of the nanites they’d been hit with. Watching her get in, Al couldn’t help but wish it would also nuke all the ones that had taken over the teenage girl’s soul and replaced it with this creepily convincing facsimile of Silky’s mother…Silky would be disappointed, sure, but there were no such thing as e-ghosts anyway…and no one else seemed to mind that they were stealing the life of some little girl to create a chassis for what was nothing more than a wishful delusion.
He was having serious second thoughts about this whole mess. Who was this girl? Where was her family? Who had infected her with those creepy things in the first place? Was she a random victim, soul lost through no fault of Evo’s anyway, the corp just taking advantage of an already tragic situation to further their experiment? He doubted it. An expensive, high-stakes project like this, the girl’s selection had certainly not been left to the vagaries of incidental availability. Rather, she had been painstakingly selected based on whatever ideal host criteria they had. And then they – the enlightened butchers of Evo, not the nanites – had taken her self from herself.
And now he was a part of it, all to help his grieving friend convince herself her dead mother was still alive. People used to have Christianity for that. For him, that was still an idea – nay, a reality – that worked. And now, it might force some hard choices on him….
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Robyn
Thursday November 5th, 2076; The Boathouse, Seattle MetroplexRobyn watches Al go through the current and takes every step she can think of to protect her precious implants from getting fried. She is sitting next to the girl when Al comes over. After listening to Isaint and Al, she interjects a couple of questions. “So, who is next? Is this going to hurt my implants any?”
90
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“As long as you keep the armor on, you should be safe. Those things are nasty, but they can’t penetrate a chemical seal within the limited amount of time you were exposed. Just keep the seal up and you should be fine.”
Isaint reasured his friend. -
As Isaint prepped Alyce for her spa treatment, Al approached the girl. The things he was thinking about….going against his friends was about the worst thing he could ever imagine doing, but to be part of stealing some poor girl’s soul for their own selfish purposes….but everything he was thinking was pure conjecture.
Maybe – astronomically unlikely though it was – maybe he was wrong. “Listen, I ain’t gon’ beat around the bush here. Who’s body’s that yer in? An’ if’n ya don’t know, then find out. Yer what they say ya are, than trackin’ the info down should be somethin’ you can do afore ol’ Al finishes talkin’.”
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[Thursday November 5th, 2076; Al’s Boathouse, Seattle Metroplex]
The girl looked sad “Her name was Olivia Gill, EVO citizen…I can give you her SIN reference if you want so that you can verify all this? She was a beautiful dancer…” she paused
“Olivia was part of an EVO sponsored donor program. She was involved in a traffic accident three months ago and pronounced brain dead in a Doc Wagon clinic shortly thereafter. EVO preserved the body for their Monad program and I was next on their list. It was meant to avoid the accusations of body snatching that have dogged the Monads since they emerged…I’m not sure it’s enough but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful to them for it. The thought of taking over an unwilling mind is as abhorrent to me as it clearly is to you. I don’t know if that’s true of all Monads, but I have clearer and clearer recollections of my life before all this and I would never condone it. But equally I have tasted death and I have no intention of going back there again any time soon! So now Olivia is Hope, a Dark Hope certainly but a promise of my future. Particularly now that you have broken me away from EVO’s clutches. They were all set to renege on their part of the deal that offered me freedom in exchange for information on my nature.
I need to speak to Silk, can you give me a commlink? I don’t know how much you know about the way these nanites work but they don’t give me any miraculous matrix connection. Unlike those that infected you at the lab. Those were based on a defence mechanism developed by Stillwater. They enter the host and form an internal trode net inside the brain and forcibly jack the host in to a specific matrix host. Don’t worry, without a hive to sustain them they will lose power and be flushed out of your system shortly. Until then they will continue trying to reach the matrix so I suggest you maintain as much noise around you as possible unless you want to wind up in the EVO host again.”
#45
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Al smiled at the…whatever she was…and handed it his Fairlight. “I’ll need that back,” was all he said.
He was incredibly relieved about the whole thing. It was still nothing but a sophisticated bit of software going through the motions of being Silky’s mother by mimicking her behaviors and speech and then animating a corpse. But that was no never-mind for him as long as said corpse was not stolen. He was sure it wasn’t. How? He figured she’d know he’d check and so not bother lying. Unless of course she knew he’d figure that, and then lie. But she’d know he was smart enough to know that she’d do that, so then she wouldn’t dare lie. So he didn’t really need to check.
He supposed he could run a quick search on the name Olivia Gill. Auto fatalities usually made it into public record. But that data could easily be planted. The only way to be reasonably sure would be to go out and find people that had first-hand knowledge of the girl and the accident – and he’d have to find a lot of them, because people like that could be planted too. Maybe he’d go poking around. Except that he was way behind on his shows again.
And speaking of shows, the last one he wanted to see was the inside of another UV host. He lifted up his shirt and attached an O2 tank to the intake valve that flipped out from between two ribs. A minute later he caught Isaint’s attention – “Lemme know when yer ready ta move.” And with that, he stepped off the edge of the boat mooring and let himself once again be enveloped in the frigid waters.
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“We have to get you away from here before they can conclude their spirit search.
Al, we need the Snakehandler. Once we are in the air, you can make the call. Right now you risk getting blown away by a uranium bullet from half a klick away.”
Isaint replied. -
It had been cold, hanging out again under the water. But the baths were done soon and he was out, wasting no time getting into the heated cab os his truck. “Had it moved to a moorin’ off Alki Beach, lousy three klicks from here through Seacrest Park. Hop in. Already toggled the plates an’ reg AROs from our last run-in with those assholes. Be there in less’n five, even without trippin’ any traffic cams. An’ I got an elecronics shielded hidey-hole fer our passenger. Should stop ’em gittin’ a fix, an’ if they do they’ll have ta take the Gaz out ta git a shot at her while she’s in there.”
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Isaint kept his armor on – both because he still had his doubts about the nanites and because it was cold and he didn’t want to risk getting caught with his trousers down.
So when the Gaz arrived, he made sure both Al and the girl were covered with an emergency mylar blanket before they went out and into the car. Meanwhile he kept his eyes peeled for that damned sniper while also instructing his Agent to keep looking for smartgun activity within 500m. -
Al was glad to be behind the wheel again. What fake artificial intelligence inhabiting the girl had said had been tremendously reassuring, and he made time to let Isaint know what she’d told him about the nonites in him being the sort that would flush out naturally.
He’d already planned his route out of the maze of workshops and storehouses that crowded Harbor Island, tracing a path that would minimize sightlines. `He knew where the few open spots were, and darted through them at speed. Once they hit the open areas of Seacrest Park he stayed within the speed limit and stuck with the light traffic flow – they didn’t even know if they bad guys had acquired them, and tripping traffic cams was the surest way to catch the attention of their matrix jockeys.
Still, he changed lanes frequently and unpredictably, kept large trucks between himself and the inland horizon, and watched the sea to their left for anything that might serve as a floating platform.
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Isaint couldn’t believe it. They had made it.
The transfer to the plane had worked without another interruption – no strike team had been deployed at their location and not even the mercenaries with their depleted uranium rounds had made an appearance.Now they were 2km above sea level and rising, leaving Seattle behind them. With the loss of the car it had been not the most profitable run he ever made, but then, it had been a favor to Silk anyway. Now they just had to deliver the e-ghost and pray that they had done the right thing after all.
By now, Isaint had shaken off the effects of the stun weapon, although he still felt a bit shaky. He wasn’t getting younger and soon would surpass Al in physical age.
He was shaken from his gloomy mood when Al returned from the cockpit, drinking from a freshly opened can of cheap beer.
“Seems like we got away once more where others failed and died.
Maybe we should give our team an official name – the amount of drek we went through by now certainly would qualify us to do so.” -
Robyn
Thursday November 5th, 2076; In The Air, Outside SeattleRobyn watches Al come in from the cockpit with her sensors and smiles at Isaint’s comment. The only title that she is really interested in is one she will probably never get……………..Mrs Alouicious Harlan Guthrie, Esquire. She sighs softly and turns her head away from the man to hide the tears that suddenly come to her eyes. Casually wiping her face, she removes the traces of her crying and faces forward again. She pulls a cigarette from a battered pack and lights it before opening a beer of her own and saluting the team. “I think that is a bloody capital idea. Any suggestions?”
91
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“The unlikely four wouldn’t be too far out. “Three bad men and Robin” is still my favorite pun.” Isaint stopped as a heavy sense of deja vu came over him.
“Faithful Fatebreakers” would work too.” -
Al shrugged. He wasn’t much of a joiner, though for these people he would make an exception.
“They’s each of ’em a hell of a mouthful. Reckon I’m partial ta shorter an’ snappier. An’ preferably somethin’ that don’t reveal nothin’ we might not want revealed….That last one, them as needs ta know already do…No point advertisin’.”
He put his feet up on a crate and reminded himself to install some bunks in the hold.
“But I ain’t got no better suggestions, so call us what ya want.”
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Robyn
Thursday November 5th, 2076; In The Air, Outside SeattleRobyn smiles. She might have been close in guessing what Al would say in response to the idea. He can be predictable at some times and yet so completely hard to read the very next minute.
Shaking her head, Alyce takes a last drag from her fag and chugs the last of her beer before stretching out along the seat. As she settles back, she calls out to Al. “Hey, Al, you ever put much thought into putting some bunk beds for the longer trips? Given that we usually do not fill the hold up, there ought to be enough room. What do you think?”
92
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“I think yer definitely onto somethin’,” he answered, yawning. Why did she always know what he was thinking? “Soon’s I git some time. Ya know how busy I am with my shows.”
He lit a fresh Lucky and spun the idea of a team name around his brain a little more. Nothing popped, but he was a Thespian, not a poet. He looked at their passenger. “You comfortable? Ya need anythin’?”
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Robyn
Thursday November 5th, 2076; In The Air, Outside SeattleRobyn nods and yawns then takes the opportunity to say something while waiting for the girl to respond. “Good thinking, Al. Say, you want to practice your card tricks for a while? I will stay up for that.”
93
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“Heh heh, funny you should bring that up.” Al produced a bandana from one pocket and a deck of cards from another. His sighted companions could see they were not adorned with the characteristic porn stars or vintage cars. “Last time I done magic for ya – an’ ever’ other time – felt kinda like I was punchin’ down, you not bein’ able ta see an’ all. Sure, ya got all yer sensors an’ shit. But none o’ them let’s ya see the card face. Always need Grace or some other innocent bystander ta keep ol’ Al honest. Well, I done fixed these up a while back.”
He fanned the cards out face up on the crate where his boots had been. And Alyce could see them. “Checked the specs on some o’ yer ware – the stuff that ain’t custom anyhoo. Marked these cards with isotope markers. Weak enough. Safe as houses. Thought a bit ironic, given our recent opposition. But jist like yer sensors let ya make out the shape an’ movement o’ the cards, those isotopes’ll let ya read ’em.” He grinned. “An’ weep,” he added.
He folded them back into a neat deck and did a one-handed shuffle at eye level. “Fact is, ya tweak yer settin’s, you’ll be able ta track a given card on ‘er journey through the deck. An’ meanwhile,” he tossed the bandana to Rick, “Ol’ Al’s gon’ be as blind as you.”
Once the blindfold was in place, he shuffled some more and asked her to pick a card….
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