Dreams in the Tower Part 2 (5 page)

13

“One more case for you to review today, Mr. Torres.”

“Thank you, Elle.” His virtual secretary disappeared and a case profile popped up. Mike stared at the middle-aged man named Lorne Adelson on his desk screen. The man was
Silte’s appointed Lab Director at OpenLife Biomedical, a research facility just up the highway in North Dallas. Mike guessed this was going to be a long one; it wasn’t just some CEO having second thoughts—this was much worse. A trusted Silte Corp agent showing disloyalty was on par with high treason.

The recently-promoted administrators had begun their new task of identifying and exami
ning cases of potential problems in the Silte hierarchy a few days ago, but Mike had just started getting completed cases for review and approval yesterday. He had been shocked by some of the information his team had dug up. There were scores of senior employees who were either regularly talking to known activists or were openly sympathizing with the movement. The CEO of some smalltime Silicon Valley tech company had recently held a secret board meeting and soon after expelled the Silte representatives at their office. There were even several executives suspected of directly funding the Anti-Corp. None of these, though, were as serious a slight against Silte as the betrayal of one of its own trusted employees, someone whose job it was to make sure things at the other companies ran the way Silte wanted them to. This would be a long one.

So much for leaving early.
He grimaced as he massaged his eyes.

“Would you like me to help you?” Elle asked, detecting his weariness.

“Yes, thank you.” Mike would be grateful for the reprieve. “First, why is Adelson up for removal?”

“Lorne Adelson is designated for removal from his current position and relocation within the
Silte Corporation family for aiding through inaction a top-level enemy of Silte Corporation then failing to report this encounter with the enemy, resulting in the theft of invaluable company assets and endangering its corporate infrastructure.”

“Who is this…enemy?” Mike still didn’t like to use that word. It made the whole thing sound like a war, and that terrified him.

“Dellia Thomas,” Elle said. A basic profile showing a pretty, dark-haired young woman came on his screen. “Former researcher at OpenLife Biomedical, now listed as the number one threat to Silte Corporation and Guardian Police Association.”

“And Adelson willingly aided her?”

“I’m sorry,” Elle said, her usually bright face showing concern (one of the few human emotions artificial personalities got right). “Please modify your question, Mr. Torres.”

“Hmm.”
Mike thought for a moment. “Do we have evidence that Adelson knew he was aiding an enemy rather than simply neglecting to carry out his orders?”

“Lorne Adelson aided the enemy through inaction,” Elle said. “I can’t say anything more based on the report.”

“Dammit.” Mike was tired of reports lacking the information he wanted. Based on the alarmingly precise and intimate knowledge his company had gathered about almost every enemy or threat, there was no good reason he shouldn’t be getting the answers he needed. He made a mental note to address this incompetence during the next team meeting.

“I am sorry for upsetting you, Mr. Torres.”

“No, it’s not you,” Mike assured her, before realizing how strange it was to be concerned about the feelings of an artificial personality. Choosing a different tactic, he thought carefully about how to word his next line of questioning. “Was Dellia Thomas an enemy before this incident at OpenLife occurred?”

“
Dellia Thomas was never listed as a suspicious or disloyal employee,” Elle said. “She did not become an enemy of Silte Corporation until after her theft at OpenLife Biomedical.”

At last, Mike got the answer he was looking for. “So,” he said, absently reaching for the glass decanter of single malt scotch he had recently taken to keeping on the table behind his desk. “Neither Adelson nor
Silte had any reason to suspect Miss Thomas before this event. We have no evidence that Adelson was helping her in any way. I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to punish someone so severely for a lapse in judgment.” He poured out a glass, took a sip. “Does he have any past infractions?”

“No, Mr. Torres.”

“Good employee record?”

“Yes, Mr. Torres.”

The empty glass clunked on the desk as Mike put it down. “Then there’s no reason to get rid of him. Send this one back. Lorne Adelson keeps his job for now.”

“Yes, Mr. Torres.”

As he poured himself one more glass of scotch, he wondered if he had just made a mistake. Perhaps he had been too eager to finally let one get off; it had been wearying work, sending so many top-level employees to reassignment. Mike had suspected from the beginning that Silvan or Monika Leutz or someone was using this as a way to get rid of people they didn’t like; the cases were built so strongly there was no investigation or evaluation needed. All Mike and the others were doing was reading reports and sending them on. But this case was different: Mike had found a sound logical reason to let Adelson go free. Now he just had to wait and see if anyone objected.

He didn’t wait long.

“Mike,” Leutz called from across his office.

“
Shit
,” Mike hissed. She had startled him so badly that he’d spilled the last few sips of scotch all over his desk. He hurriedly grabbed a handful of tissues and sopped the liquor up before it ran into the edge of his desk screen.
Why the hell didn’t Elle warn me?

“Please,”
Leutz said as she took a seat across the desk, “don’t get up.”

“Sorry, you surprised me.”

“Well, Mike, I could say the same about you.” She eyed him sharply, her eyes focused on him rather than the display on her glasses for once. “Why didn’t you approve the Adelson case?”

There was no more doubt: Mike was never supposed to let any of them go. This was just an elaborate way of cleaning up what remained of
Silte’s hierarchy. The administrators, the reports—none of it mattered. “There was no evidence,” he said bravely. “Absolutely nothing in the report proved that Adelson had any idea what he was doing. We can get rid of people who might hurt the company, but we can’t remove model employees just for making mistakes. The ones we fired for no reason are already rioting.”

“I know,”
Leutz said. “And you did exactly what we wanted, though not what I expected. Just now you proved to me that you’re not like these other drones in the building. I could piss into a wine glass and every single one would praise the vintage. But not you. You think and act for yourself. You haven’t gone through the change yet, probably never will now that Unify is in motion.”

She slid her data ring off her finger and held it up on the side of her smart glasses. “The truth is,” she said, “Lorne Adelson is an Anti-Corp agent. Many of the other cases are as well. We haven’t told anyone about this because we believe there may be agents or sympathizers in this very building and we need to keep them from getting scared i
nto hiding.” She brought the ring down and held it over the input strip on Mike’s desk.

“The Anti-Corp is here?” Mike had a hard time believing that. Even that some of the high-ranking members of the
Silte family were involved in the activist group was hard to accept.

“Yes, it’s become a bit of a
clusterfuck, if I may be blunt. Something we didn’t completely prepare for. But that’s okay, we have you with us now. Lom.”

“Yes, Monika?” The head of an older man with fluorescent white hair popped up in a virt
ual secretary window next to Elle’s on Mike’s desk screen.

“Mike,” said
Leutz, “this is Lom, my own secretary. He’ll be working with you from now on.”

“Doing what?” Mike asked.

“What we wanted you to do from the beginning,” Leutz said, now preoccupied with something on the lenses of her glasses. “Find out who is working with the activists and what damage they’ve done. Carl Bellowe is your lead, but Lom will fill you in on that. I’m very busy right now.” She stood up.

“You want me to spy on my coworkers?
On Bellowe?”

“We want you to do what needs to be done, Mike.” Her expression was serious, and she sounded almost exasperated. “We’re running out of options. You’re the only one who can do this. We need you.”

This was something new, and Mike wasn’t sure he liked it. Was it Fear? Vulnerability? The indestructible diamond wall was showing cracks; for the first time, Mike wondered if he was on the right side.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

“Good,” Leutz said. “Lom will give you access to much of the information you have so far not been privy to. But first you’ll approve that Adelson report so we can get him relocated.”

Suddenly wanting to solve the biggest mystery of the past week, Mike asked, “Where are we sending these people.”

“The Houston Warehouse,” Leutz answered languidly.

“And what happens to them there?”

“Well, Mike.” She uncharacteristically leaned over his desk, making Mike uncomfortably aware that she had left her top few buttons undone. “That’s something I still can’t give you access to.”

Mike watched her go until his office door closed behind her.

14

They didn’t see any signs of the violence from the road, but they saw the news reports. Shots had been exchanged with private police in Dallas and Brooklyn. L.A. and San Diego were warzones—or so they surmised based on a few quick aerial shots, and the fact that the reporters were trying hard to ignore that part of California. They only showed Houston once and it had been strangely quiet. The protesters had shown up beneath the skyscrapers by the thousands, but they weren’t creating chaos just yet. It was as if they were waiting for something, more like a siege than an assault.
Will it hold off through the night?
Jason wondered. It would make their job much easier.

Sabrina returned from the travel stop bathroom and leaned on the car beside him; she stretched her arms until both her shoulders popped audibly. “Corsicana went by fast.”

“It did,” Jason agreed. The car was charged and ready to go, but Jason didn’t feel like moving just yet. Apparently Sabrina didn’t either. They went on leaning against the car, watching the people going in and out of the store. They had chosen a relatively small town to stop in to avoid any possible confrontation, but it seemed like this travel stop was the one place everyone in the area went to. Watching them go on about their lives was strange and somehow soothing, like being reminded that everything hadn’t gone to shit just yet.

After a few minutes of their ongoing reluctance to acknowledge the flow of time, Sabrina said, “We should probably get back on the road.”

“Yeah, I know. But…” He trailed off when he noticed a faint mumbling sound coming from the car. “You hear that?” Sabrina stepped away from the passenger door, and he opened it and grabbed his tablet from the floor, where it had fallen at some point.

“Finally,” said a voice that sounded like a duck speaking through a web of static and fee
dback. Jason lifted the tablet facedown from the car and flipped it over to see a smooth, silver-skinned ellipsoid face with tiny black eyes and a misshapen mouth. The vid-call was showing up through a communication app that Jason had never had on his tablet, one that he sometimes saw Seito using when he talked to AC people.

“
Joans,” the alien-thing buzzed. “It’s just you and cop, right?” It spoke with a strange accent that didn’t quite seem foreign.

“Yeah.”

“This’ll be quick,” it said. “I’m Skexka, with Anti-Corp. I’m giving you orders from now on. I put our com app on your tab. Use when you need me. I think you designed original.”

“I guess I did.” He looked at the window around the video; it did seem to faintly remind him of his original creation from years ago he’d been using to talk to Seito. This confirmed his suspicion that Steph had brought the non-E stuff over when she joined the movement. It made him feel a weird sense of pride.

“Great to have you in the ranks,” Skexka said.

“In the ranks?”
Sabrina looked at Jason, puzzled.

“I’ll explain later,” Jason said to her. “So, why isn’t
Seit—Sei-kai giving me my orders anymore?”

“Reassigned,”
Skexka said, his lopsided mouth flopping as he spoke. “And you’re more important now. Wanted you dealing with someone high up. Me.” Sabrina moved over right up against Jason to get a better view; the stale odor of long travel clung to her, just as it did to him. “I have orders,” Skexka continued, “for both of you. Joans, plan for you has changed; you are to drop Sorensen at rendezvous then head to safe location—the extraction point—and await further orders there. You’ll receive directions at rendezvous. Sorensen: nothing changed. We will send exact location for rendezvous when you enter city. Everything clear?”

They both said it was, Jason with an immense feeling of relief. So far he hadn’t had an o
pportunity to feel afraid about what was coming, being focused on the danger closer to them. But the dread had been growing in him, coming on stronger with every mile that brought them closer to Houston; he wasn’t a cop or a soldier, so how could he possibly help infiltrate a secure prison facility, one probably crawling with armed private police? Now that he knew he wouldn’t have to he could breathe the night air without feeling like it was trying to choke him to death.

“Good,”
Skexka said. “I’m out. Be in touch.”

Once the alien face was gone from his tablet, Jason said, “I guess we should get moving.”

“Okay,” Sabrina said distantly; she didn’t sound nearly as ready as Jason felt.

*  *  *

By the time they were back on the highway (with Sabrina driving now), Jason had explained to her about Seito recruiting him into the AC early that morning. He figured it was safe now that a legitimate, high-ranking member had spoken directly to her. If it wasn’t…well, it didn’t matter because being honest with her was more important.

“And you do realize,” she said, “there’s no going back from this, right? Guardian will have you down in their records for good.
Silte too.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but they already did, remember? Knowing what you know now, do you really think they would’ve just let me go on living my life?”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Hey.” He suddenly had an idea he couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered sooner. “Do you think—after we’re through with this stuff—
is there some way you could talk to someone still with the GPA about getting me removed from their records? Like maybe the other detective, your, uh…girlfriend?” Sabrina had said very little of her personal life as far as romance was concerned, but Jason had gathered that the other woman who had helped interview him was more than just her friend and housemate.

“
Erris,” Sabrina said. “And I don’t think it would work. I mean, I want to help you, but I’m almost positive they would catch on quick if a lowly detective like Erris attempted to modify records. All I would be doing is putting her in danger for probably no good reason. If you want to go that route, your best chance would be to find an expert hacker with the AC who also happens to be a Guardian lieutenant, if there is such a person.”

There very well could be. The people being held prisoner in the Houston Warehouse were all AC spies and associates who had been executives and other high-level employees in
Silte companies. Why couldn’t the movement also have people in the private police organizations? If they were there, they would certainly be high up. He would have to ask Seito or Skexka after the Warehouse ordeal was over.

“It must have been hard to leave her there,” Jason said, watching headlights blur by on the other side of the highway.

“Yes it was.” She was paying almost too much attention to the road in front of the car.

“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to sound comforting. Then, hoping to lessen the gloom now heavy on her side of the car, he said, “All this time I had anxiety about you insisting that I sleep in the hotel beds with you, but I guess there was no reason to worry.”
Idiot
, he thought immediately. But to his surprise her mouth stretched into a genuine smile.

“Oh, I never said I didn’t like men,” she said, glancing over at Jason, who was a little taken aback. “Don’t worry,” she added. “I’m loyal to
Erris. And anyway, I may like younger women, but men your age are a little too impulsive for me.”

“Hey, my impulsiveness is why I’m here with you now, so be grateful.”

She burst out laughing and, in a sudden release of the emotions built up inside him, he laughed along with her until his tablet faintly buzzed in his lap. Still smiling, he swiped it to find that he had received a text-only message on his communication app—the old one, not the one Skexka had put on it. “A message from Seito,” he announced to Sabrina, laughter still fresh on his breath.

As he began to read the message, his mirth immediately turned to alarm. “For
Joans only,” it read. “DO NOT let S read. AC and PAC breaking apart. Every leader going own way. Don’t trust Ra52. Don’t trust Skexka. Don’t trust valenC. DON”T TRUST ANYONE. Silte wanted riots to happen. Dellia Thomas at extraction point in Houston. Has way to stop virus. Virus is Silte’s final solution. Skexka maybe others want to sell her to Silte. DO NOT let them. Our people already in contact with her. Get to her go with her GET OUT. Me and Steph heading north along bay. Getting on plane and leaving country. You won’t hear from us again. Go with Dellia. Get her to CDC. Get back to Dallas and find the right people. STOP SILTE.”

After he had read the whole thing twice, Jason was silent, his mind racing with every impl
ication this had on their current situation. “What is it,” Sabrina said, jolting him in his seat.

“Nothing.”
He hoped he sounded calm enough for her to believe him. “Seito and Steph are safe. I mean, not dead or captured or anything.”

“Good,” she said, but Jason got the idea she was skeptical.

Secrets, lies, betrayals: when did it end? For all he knew this message was bogus and Seito, his oldest friend, was turning against him to save himself—as horrible and alienating a thought as that was. But he had to trust Seito, because Seito was a friend; if Jason couldn’t trust his friends to help him through this whirling mess his life had become then he might as well just give in and get blown away.

That was something he really wasn’t ready to do.