Chromed: Restore: Future Forfeit, #3

CHAPTER ONE

Sadie checked her sidearm. It was a short Metatech pistol Mike called a relic, but it had the advantage of not needing link architecture. Point, pull the trigger, then plan for the funeral.

She wasn’t in the habit of using a sidearm in her club, but two weeks back Heimo Bonafont tried to murder her with a loop of cable. He’d complemented Sadie on her black lipstick, something she should have taken as a warning sign. Moment of weakness, Sadie. When she’d nodded, looking away, he’d slammed her against a wall, fingers tangled in her black hair, nails scraping her undercut. Sadie, no stranger to the excitement of fans-turned-stalker, beat him senseless. Wouldn’t have needed to do that if he was afraid in the first place. Hence the sidearm. Sadie holstered the pistol, pulled out a pack of Treasurers, and lit one with a long finger of flame. She blew smoke toward the ceiling fans, turning their lazy slow circles above an empty bar.

Afterlife hadn’t been pumping in months. Not since she’d taken ownership, changing its name from The Hole. The name didn’t have anything to do with it: people didn’t need the music to feel alive anymore. The Human Energetics talking head made it sound so easy. Get your link upgraded. Lose your reliance on drugs, caffeine, hell, even sleep. People on his brand of bullshit seemed to be rising in the ranks, too. It felt like a cult, but without meetings or membership dues.

She sighed, then squatted beside the bar. They might not need music, but you do. The old Bang and Olufsen sound system she’d rescued from Mason’s apartment nestled between glassware. Sadie scrubbed through the tracks on file, selecting something with a low, insistent beat. It was as quietly urgent as she felt. Neither Sadie nor the track had words for the feelings inside them.

You’ve got words. You want to kiss him again.

Fair enough, too. What kind of man kisses you before walking through a devil gate to another world?

Mike gave her a nod as she surfaced from behind the bar, leaning on his mop. It wasn’t really a mop, any more than he was a janitor. Nobody in a service industry job had clinic-perfect Japanese good looks like his. Since Metatech downsized, they’d been playing it loose and easy at Afterlife. Sadie had the cash. She had the fucking purpose. What she didn’t have was enough muscle to stop assholes coming in here, hence Mike standing guard.

Negative thinking leads to a negative day. Mike polished off a smile, just for her.

She took it. "It is a negative day. Sadie pointed her cigarette toward the back of the club, past the empty stage and the vacant tables. There’s a man back there trying his level best to screw us over."

Bonafont’s a dick.

Bonafont’s the man with all the answers. Sadie drew on her cigarette, trying to find comfort hidden in the tobacco. You seem happy enough for a man without a job.

I’ve got a job.

Metatech fired your ass.

Metatech’s going through a difficult time, admitted Mike. Besides, it’s a leave of absence. I’m still in the system. In a couple weeks, they’ll have their shit together. My stock’s taken a waterboarding.

No one wants weapons when they’ve got happiness on tap, that it?

"I’m not sure that’s the way to put it. People are rioting. Mike jabbed a hand at the door, outside which lay the rest of Seattle, and by proxy, the world. Happy people don’t riot."

Sadie nodded, slouching against a rack of liquor. Smith was supposed to come today.

Smith’s not his real name.

She considered Mike over her cigarette, the ember glowing a handspan from her face. Do you know something?

I know what you know. People who HumanE reject⁠—

HumanE?

Human Energetics.

Sadie snorted. They have excellent PR.

Mike nodded. Capital team of assholes, sure. Anyway, people who reject their link upgrades seem more inclined to take to the streets.

The door slammed open, Zacharies striding through, the noise of the city nipping at his heels. The kid was all youthful ranginess, dark eyes looking at everything at once. He carried something red and metallic in a hand. Zacharies shut Afterlife away from the world, then made a straight line for her. Sadie, this is the answer. He tossed the tiny metal and crystal sliver to the bar top. It clattered, monofilament wires trailing red droplets on the dark wood.

Sadie tried to step back, but a liquor rack held her firm. Is that what I think it is?

Mike joined them, mop and all. "Kid, did you rip out someone’s link architecture? And then take this to Sadie rather than me?"

Yes, Mike. Zacharies looked confused as he glanced between them. She’s in charge.

Mike said something that sounded like sonofabitch as he took his mop away. Sadie peered at the bloody uplink. Where did you get this?

From a man trying to kill me. The kid shrugged. "The link made him do it. I can see it."

I can see you need a drink. Help yourself, said Sadie. I’m off to meet Doctor Frankenstein.

Do you need any help? She could see the need in his eyes which, at his age, could turn to a powerful level of violence.

Sadie flicked ash to the floor. No. I’ve got this one. She nodded to Mike. Floor needs cleaning.

Clean it yourself.

You’re the man with the mop. Sadie sauntered from behind the bar. She checked her sidearm was at her side, hand on the butt of the pistol, then headed to the rear of Afterlife. To where the monster lived.

The engine room of Afterlife used to be for storage. Racks that held the heady weight of beer casks now housed servers, thousands of lights blinking in the gloom. Smoke swirled through the air, sluggish despite the air conditioning. Sadie closed the door behind her, the security seal hissing shut.

The fat black man glared hate at her.

Sadie ignored him for a moment, turning to the woman seated on a couch. The couch was old and comfortable like most of the things at Afterlife. The woman looked too young for the rifle she carried. How you doing, Sam?

I hate babysitting. Sam’s clinic-bought features made boredom look fashionable.

I hear you. Sadie straightened her shoulders. Heimo, how’s progress?

You’ll die for this. Heimo sighed, shoulders slumped in defeat despite his words. His sweat-stained shirt looked like he’d found it dumpster-diving, a far cry from the top-shelf attire he was used to. You’ve heard the expression, ‘have a tiger by the tail?’

Sadie gave Heimo a once-over. He was still fat, but months inside working under duress leaned him down a kilo or two. You’re no tiger.

"Apsel is a dragon. Heimo tried on a leer, couldn’t get it to stick, so let it drop. They’re coming for me."

They’re in a death-spiral. Sam hid a little glee in the words. She was Metatech right to the core, and worked as Mike’s handler before they’d taken their leave. Their stock is being used to light fire barrels in the slums. They’re one step away from Reed’s crumble after the incident in Amsterdam.

Heimo shook his head. They’ve destroyed a city before. He meant Richland, lost and forgotten.

Motherfuckers, agreed Sadie. "I’m not here to talk about whether I’m pissing people off. I always piss people off. It’s my superpower. I’m here, Heimo, to find out whether we need to have another discussion about your performance."

He blanched. No.

Then it’s done?

"It’s almost done. At the expression on Sadie’s face, something she felt was close to white-lipped rage, Heimo held up his hands. I have the quantum frame ready. Its code⁠—"

Her code.

Her code is installed. The baseline cortex fabric took the code.

The what the what?

He rolled his eyes. You didn’t read the memo?

Sadie glanced at Sam. Is he speaking English?

He said Carter’s code is fine, and the computer is working. Sam pointed her rifle at the floor, looking down the scope. She sounded distracted, like this wasn’t worth all her cycles to care about. To be honest I’m waiting for the punchline.

Sadie looked around the room of servers. What’s the punchline, Heimo?

It’s not my fault.

Let’s pretend that’s true. What’s wrong?

All this, Heimo waved a flabby arm at the racks, is not the hardware it was⁠—

She.

Heimo gave a small growl. It’s not the hardware she was designed for.

Sadie glanced to Sam. Sam sighed. He means it’s like trying to make wine with a still.

Okay. Sadie frowned. You knew this already.

You can’t backup a soul. Heimo glanced at the racks. "It … she won’t come back."

You let me worry about that, said Sadie.

I just need a little more time. Heimo glanced to Sam, maybe hoping for an assist, but the Metatech handler wasn’t throwing him a lifeline. Sam hadn’t known Carter, but she trusted Mike Takahashi.

Whatever works. Sadie put her hand on the butt of the Metatech pistol. How much time?

Days. Maybe weeks.

Sadie showed her teeth. What if I said three days?

I’d say I’d need more time.

"Great. You’ve got two days."

"Two days? Heimo looked around the same way animals did when cornered. That’s impossible."

Your wife stopped writing. Sadie leaned against the door. She hated doing this. It wasn’t part of the music. Might be why the strings won’t sing for you anymore. Your account hasn’t seen any messages for a week.

Heimo blinked. She … what?

Sam put on a sing-song voice. ‘Dear Heimo, you left me. I’m taking everything.’ She shouldered the rifle. Sound familiar?

She wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t wait forever. Sadie shrugged. "She’s young and pretty. And she’s got access to your accounts. She filed papers. Sadie kept her eyes down. She feared looking at Heimo’s face would break her resolve. She thinks you’re dead."

You’ve got to let me talk to her.

No problem. Sadie looked up. In two days.

Fuck! Heimo rushed her, his bulk shoving aside a table with a clatter of components. The tick-tick-tick of a taser sounded, Sam already on her feet. Heimo dropped to the floor with an ooomph of expelled air, groaning.

Sadie crouched next to him. Heimo, bring my friend back to life.

Or what? he croaked. Sadie spent enough time around drunks to speak the language of slur like a native.

You’re a smart guy. She nodded to Sam, then palmed the door, the biometric locks yielding to her touch. The corridor outside welcomed her with its scrawled graffiti and cracked plaster. She leaned against the opposite wall, dragging in lungfuls of clean air.

It wasn’t the smoke or being with Heimo. She felt toxic because of what she did. All to get a dead woman’s pulse beating again.

Sadie stood, smoothing her shirt. She’d do it for me.

CHAPTER TWO

Delilah hated heights. It wasn’t the fall. It wasn’t even the sudden stop at the end. Delilah hated heights because there was nowhere to go. All other planes of movement were cut off. Up and down felt too binary. She huddled two hundred and twelve stories above the streets of Seattle, a row of angry gargoyles keeping vigil with her. Delilah’s active camouflage cloak covered laminar armor. She wasn’t concerned about losing her grip and tumbling into the long fall. Metatech bionics didn’t allow for accidental failure.

Hers was the highest building next to her target. Wind howled as Delilah investigated the street below. Her optics zoomed, giving her a close-up view. Looters swirled like angry ants. At least it’s not raining. It hadn’t rained; last time it had, the water came down sweet and clean. She’d tasted it, expecting the overlay to warn about toxicity levels. Nothing like that happened. Just pure water sent from the sky above.

It felt like the world gave them a second chance.

Across from her, the Human Energetics tower shouldered the sky. The stock darling bought up real estate like money was a concern to lesser syndicates. The building she surveilled was smooth white, the windows milky, not a blemish on the surface. Keeping something like that clean would be murder. Above, HumanE’s logo shone. It was five stories tall, lit in purple neon. A dice, rolling through numbers, settling on a square with a smiling face. Roll the dice, you’ll always be happy. It was an easy message to get behind.

An air car flashed overhead, seeking the top of HumanE’s tower. Delilah’s optics zoomed, marking the underside. It was a Mercedes luxury sedan. She probed the airwaves, looking for a signal. Beside her, nestled in the crook of a gargoyle’s arms, her sniper rifle waited. Heavy and black, the Metatech cross sabers reminded her of where she came from.

Delilah got a scattering of signal, most of it encrypted. Good enough. She hefted the rifle, looking through the scope. She focused on the air car, finger tightening on the trigger. Delilah breathed in and out once.

The signal chattered into silence. Delilah froze, crouching low. The air car hovered above, waiting. Inside, the world’s latest tyrant, Austin Ainley. A single shot into one of the drive cowls, and he would plummet to the street below. Ainley wouldn’t survive the long fall.

Austin Ainley is the chief executive of Human Energetics. He wouldn’t fly in a single air car. She pointed the palm of her hand at the air car, triggering a focused EMP blast. Her overlay complained, the EMP misfiring. Delilah hadn’t been at a hundred percent since her tangle with Reed. She grunted, slamming her hand into the side of the rifle. The overlay’s error cleared. Delilah pointed the EMP emitter in her palm at the air car again. This time, it fired.

The air car shed its silver-white form, active camouflage shuddering aside. Delilah glimpsed a very different kind of aircraft. A gunship, weapons bristling, rode the sky before her before its active camouflage flowed back into place like a second skin. The Mercedes remained.

Up and down. Those are your choices. Delilah hated heights.

She yanked the rifle’s tripod from her belt in a fluid motion, dropping her weapon onto it. She keyed the link, issuing the tiny AI instructions. Autotarget the gunship. Fire until empty. Randomize firing frequency. Go. The tripod crawled up a gargoyle on insectile legs, pointing the heavy weapon at the sky.

Delilah didn’t wait. She latched herself to a drop line, then jumped from the building. She fell, windows whisking by in a howl of air. The rifle’s boom-rack, boom-crack grew fainter as she fell, before a roiling ball of fire raged atop the tower.

Her line sheared from above. Delilah fell.

She tucked her arms by her side, angling her fall away from the building. Pieces of gargoyle would be joining her descent soon enough and she didn’t want to get tackled by one.

Fifty floors from the pavement, she yanked her chute. Black gossamer bloomed above, yanking her shoulders. Her overlay estimated she was moving at fifty-five meters a second when the chute deployed. Fast enough for her augmented hundred kilograms to crack the street below. The chute cut the speed down like an angry savage hauling her short. Delilah tucked into a roll as she hit the pavement, cutting the parachute free with a quick link command.

When she came to her feet, she ran. Small arms fire raked the ground where she’d landed. Behind her, pieces of gargoyle and other building materials crunched to the ground. Screams of looters and rioters filled the air.

Delilah slid behind a car, digging bionic fingers into the doorframe. She tore the door off with a squeal of metal, sliding into the seat. It took less than two seconds for her mil-spec mods to jack the car’s computer, and it screeched into motion with a whine of its tiny drive. Delilah risked a glance behind her, optics zooming on the Human Energetics tower.

A woman with bright-red hair stood outside the main entrance. Her arms were crossed, light combat armor under a wide smile. The red-haired woman made gun fingers at Delilah, then gave a lazy salute as she returned inside Human Energetics.

Delilah knew that face.

Ruby Page, back from the dead.

Samson was dead, but his work wasn’t. Delilah followed a trail through the syndicates, cold as ice, pale as hope. Her exploration into Reed showed tenuous connections to Apsel and Metatech, but those were dead ends. The nets were alive with Metatech’s plummet as people wanted fewer weapons and more happiness. Gairovald Apsel had taken a leave of absence, the board stepping in. All seemed well until Amsterdam.

The titans fall, leaving burning trails as they scorch the sky.

A lead more tenuous than most drew Delilah to Human Energetics. She was used to working from the shadows. The info that drew her missions to success were rarely printed in clean twelve-point font. Hunches were her loadstone.

When Austin Ainley, a lead researcher from the failed Reed Interactive, started his own company Delilah’s hunch said that motherfucker. Startups could do well with the right product at the right time. They didn’t buy up all Seattle’s uptown real estate within three months. That never happened.

Two blocks from Human Energetics, Delilah slowed the stolen car. She told it to drive to the waterfront, then slipped free as it coasted at a walking pace. Back on the street, she drew her hood up, merging with the mass of humanity. Rioters mixed with looters. The real difference between the two types of people was what they carried. Rioters carried weapons, most looters carried tech. Smarter looters carried food and water.

Police watched from the safety of barricades. They protected those who sought sanctuary but didn’t get involved in anything else. They weren’t paid enough for that kind of stupid.

Delilah snuck behind two augmented men arguing over a dropped video unit. Her cloak and hood were coated in active camouflage. The material struggled with the environment, flames from burning storefronts running red and orange over the fabric. As Delilah passed a broken auto car, her cloak tried to match the prismatic confusion of light through broken glass.

She spied a wailing child standing in the middle of the sidewalk. The tears looked authentic, but she doubted any parent would take a child into a hellscape like this. Her optics scanned, finding lurking thugs in the alley behind. Bait, a trap for the unwary. They weren’t Delilah’s prey. She had no time to right all the wrongs.

Ruby Page is back from the dead.

It took minutes to backtrack a block closer to HumanE’s office. The gunship no longer hovered in the sky high above. Ruby Page wasn’t visible, but Delilah was sure the woman watched from cams. She drew her cloak closer, laminar armor sliding underneath. A subway beckoned. Seattle’s failed transport network riddled the city like tumors. Most of the routes were marked on the public networks.

Most, but not all.

Delilah went below the noise and violence of the streets. A police drone dogged her path for a handful of steps, then buzzed away in confusion, unable to get a lock through the shifting shadow she wore.

Ten steps below the streets, the light faded. Twenty, it was as if it had never been. Delilah’s optics switched to IR, the black and white graininess guiding her steps. She brought up the map she’d stolen from the city archives, tossing it to the top right of her overlay.

Stepping over a man covered in a silver emergency blanket, the material flaring on her IR, she found what she was looking for. A blank wall rose before Delilah, crude brick sealing off an old tunnel. The plans said it used to disgorge commuters from a planned shopping facility. The mall never arrived, shoved aside by syndicate interests. The foundations became a building owned by Samsung before hostile takeover by Tencent. A careful laundered money trail showed bōryokudan taking an interest. The yakuza knew good property when they saw it. More recently, HumanE purchased the deed. Their tower prime rested on the headstones of dead empires.

All the money in the world couldn’t buy a desire to learn ancient history. It was likely Human Energetics didn’t know all the backdoors into their building.

Delilah planned for this day. She’d figured shooting Ainley after scooping a badly-hidden flight plan from the networks too good to be true. Worth a shot but unlikely to succeed. Always have five ways in and ten ways out. She pulled an explosive cable from the pouch at her hip, sticking it to the brick.

She slipped to the side, triggering the blast through her link. Her audio scattered at the roar, brick showering the wall opposite. Dust hazed her IR. Delilah waited, patient. No alarms. She checked the way she’d come. The vagrant was gone, taking his thermal blanket with him. He might run to the police.

More likely, he’d just keep running. Plenty of old tunnels you could sleep in without tangling with company agents.

Delilah put a hand on the broken teeth of warm brick. Her new arm worked well, a much-needed replacement bionic after her job with Samson. Another spare from Metatech, not as good as her last employee-only one, but she wasn’t on payroll anymore. Synthskin made both arms look clinic-perfect like the rest of her.

The passage ahead showed smooth tile beyond the small cascade of broken mortar. She stepped inside the disused tunnel, boots crunching on stone. Careful. Keep the noise down as you get deeper. Delilah slowed her pace. As she drew closer to HumanE, she had to remain quiet.

The overlay promised a door ahead. Sure enough, rusted steel blocked her way. Delilah wondered what Samson would do. Would he even be here?

Of course he would. Before the chair took his grace, he’d have been the first through the tunnel.

She put her hand on the cold, old surface of the door. Spot welds joined the door to the frame near the handle. Delilah wrapped fingers around the handle, leaning back. Her new arm gave a soft whine, a ratchet of gears, and the welds popped with a harsh crack.

Behind the door, drywall. She switched optics to thermal, seeing the dim orange and sullen red of heat beyond. A communications room with its cache of local servers and a power grid. No guards, because you don’t guard walls.

She smiled, shucking her cloak for a moment. The refractive field stuttered out, leaving a material that would be transparent gray in the light of day. Delilah punched through the drywall, plaster crumbling as her bionics tore their way into the underbelly of HumanE. She shouldered inside, white particles clinging to her laminar armor. Once inside, she donned the cloak after giving it a quick shake. It could cope with a little dirt, but too much and it would be less effective.

The hum of servers welcomed her to the comm room like a hive of happy bees. She unclipped a vampire probe from her belt, locking it to a thick bundle of cables rising from the floor. The tech scanned EM, picking up signals in the wires. Most comms were encrypted, but she might get lucky.

Not for the first time, she wished she had a handler. Ollie might have helped, but Ollie was on vacation. Uruguay, planting trees for the locals. The memory of his earnest face made her smile again. Since Samson’s sacrifice let Ollie walk again, all he’d wanted to do was move.

Her link chattered to the probe. As she suspected, most of it was the meaningless noise of encrypted comms. Delilah let the hiss flow through her audio, the susurration of syndicate static a torrent of information no human could hope to understand. She told the link to look for words, then shifted her attention to her route.

Austin Ainley wouldn’t be here. But since Delilah was and had time to kill, she’d locate what she could. Maybe she’d come up empty, or maybe she’d find something to help next time.

City planning said the lower and ground levels were maintenance and public access. Delilah needed to climb higher. A hundred floors to get to the offices of people who worked here, the legion of souls doing the bidding of a man who promised happiness.

She padded on silent feet to the elevator risers, mighty shafts reaching through the core of the building. There were fifteen elevators in the building. Delilah broke the mechanical lock on riser four, slipping inside and feeling the rush of air and roar of the cars rising and falling.

Except, not as much as she expected. Only a couple of the cars rode the building’s floors. That’s unusual. Delilah jacked the control module at the riser’s base, bringing elevator four down for maintenance. She grabbed the underside, then let the car rise. Delilah’s cloak billowed in the rush of wind.

Small bulbs glowed sullen yellow in the shaft, fireflies keeping her company as the high-speed elevator rocketed to the skies. A hundred and fifty stories up, she stopped the car. This floor’s as good as any other. Optics still on thermal, she scanned the lobby. Not a soul around, the dull blues of an empty room waiting for her.

A quick link command and the lobby’s elevator door opened. Delilah slipped inside, closing the door behind her. She switched her optics back to normal vision. Her adaptive cloak shifted, matching the world around her. Delilah pulled the hood’s cover across her face, letting the gauzy fabric hide her. Anyone looking at Delilah might see a shimmer in the air, figure they’d done enough fifteen-hour back-to-back shifts, and go grab a coffee.

Why is this floor empty?

Delilah padded to an office. It stood vacant, a deck waiting by a large screen. No plants. A bookcase hungered for mementos. She walked to another office. It was the same. Hurrying on, Delilah made it to a cube farm. All orderly rows, decks waiting for workers.

There were no workers. Not a soul walked this