The Beam: Season One (10 page)

“You
wanted
to get caught.”
 

Leah shrugged. “I needed something to handshake with. Not that this makes things any easier. Hax0r encryption has evolved to ridiculous levels. One of the advantages of having computers doing all of the computer development in The Beam.”
 

Dominic closed his eyes and shook his head. “Dangerous. They could find out.”
 

“They won’t.”
 

“They’ll trace you. And then they’ll wonder why you weren’t questioned further. They’ll look into the records and notice that all trace of your visit today was purged. Then maybe a few people will remember who took you in for that supposed further questioning.” He made a fist and planted his thumb in his chest.
 

Leah extended her hand and slapped Dominic lightly a few times on the cheek. She had to strain to reach him. She was probably five-five and Dominic was over six feet tall, at least fifty pounds too heavy. Being a captain, he could afford fat scavenger treatment, but he didn’t give a big enough shit about his potbelly to put machines in his body.
 

“I’ll see you around, Dom,” she said.
 

“Fuck you, Leah,” he said. But of course he didn’t mean it.
 

“I’ll say hi to Crumb for you,” she said, and was gone.

Chapter 10

Doc Stahl was grinding like hell down the A05, the airborne avenue that roughly followed Broadway from above. All of the autocops stationed by the buoy lines marking the skyroad’s sides should have been lighting up and following, but Doc’s hover had a jammer — a good one, too, bought from the same crooked son of a bitch who’d sold him his anonymous router. Doc had another anonymous router in the car, but given what had happened back at his apartment, he was afraid to use it. Luckily he knew where to go without Beam guidance. That was unusual these days. Most people couldn’t find their asses without The Beam showing them where to wipe. Doc saw both sides of the tech coin. Selling add-ons — some of questionable legality — had made him rich, but dependence on machines was fucking society six ways from Sunday. The Enterprise, at least, still had a work ethic. But the Directorate? If their Beam connections blitzed out for a day, a handful would be despondent and panicked enough to commit suicide. You could set your nano-tattoo watch by it.
 

Doc exited at A14, then banked like a maniac down toward the AP41. Noah Fucking West was the air map complicated. No wonder people couldn’t find shit up here.
 

The AP41 was packed. Autocops were patrolling a stopped line of hovers jammed in tight as if they might catch the dead line of vehicles for speeding. Doc almost rear-ended a Daimler Sport, veered to the side, and crossed the buoy line. The car behind him, which he’d just cut off, laid on the horn. The line inched up and he jockeyed back into the column of cars. Doc swore. Back when hovers were new, they were few enough that District Zero had let them simply float up and go where they wanted. But after hovers went from novelty to seeming necessity and there were enough mid-air accidents, the skyroads were built. Now there was barely an advantage to driving above the ground. Gridlock was officially everywhere, even on a Saturday.

Duly halted, Doc looked down at his dashboard’s small screen, where his guidance map would normally be. He had to get onto The Beam, if for no other reason than to figure out who might have broken into his apartment. It had to be because of what he’d seen at Xenia. He remembered Vanessa’s and Killian’s reactions when they’d realized that Doc was where he wasn’t supposed to be. He remembered how the guards had moved to block the door. He remembered the implication that he was going to have his mind wiped whether he was willing or not. Doc wondered what people so paranoid might do if they knew about his wipe-blocking implant.
 

Of course, it now seemed likely that they did know.

He put himself in Killian’s shoes, or the shoes of whoever Killian reported to. Would they simply let a man leave after having seen classified wares and chalk it up as a mistake? Would that be enough? Or would they do some research to find out if the man might be a problem? Doc knew he would, and Xenia had deeper access to The Beam than Doc’s official level — maybe even deeper than Doc’s
actual
level. Xenia could probably find out that Doc sometimes bought wholesale from a man in Little Harajuku named Ryu. They might be able to find the rumors that Ryu dealt in illegal wares… such as autocop jammers, anonymous routers, and implants that could deflect handheld memory wipers.
 

If they knew that, they’d know that Doc hadn’t forgotten the upgrades he’d seen. Doc knew that biological enhancement ability had far, far,
far
surpassed public awareness. What might the people in charge of that dangerous secret do to preserve it? And how good might their own tracking ability be, given their superior technology? Might they be able to trace a connection even through one of Ryu’s routers?
 

Doc looked down at his dark screen and resisted the urge to log on. He took a deep breath, telling himself that he wasn’t like the fools who couldn’t be disconnected from The Beam for more than a few hours without their worlds crumbling. He was able to walk to the wall and flip his own manual light switch. He could use a match to start a fire in his apartment’s fireplace. He knew how to write letters with a pen, on real fucking paper.
 

And he didn’t need to know who’d broken into his apartment. He only needed to know that they hadn’t been coming to say hi, that they had the ability to hack (or force) their way into a highly secure building and an even more secure penthouse apartment. And, of course, that they were surely still somewhere behind him.

Doc swore at the line of traffic, then made a decision.
 

He decreased altitude, submerging below the line of hovers. The car behind him honked, as did several others. But Doc was already gone, speeding through the open air off the skyroad like a land car crashing through a barricaded highway median. Several autocop cars broke from the buoys and descended after him. They were behind; he could outrun them. His destination was nearly directly below him, so he dove, nearly nose-down. His back pressed into his seat like an astronaut in a centrifuge. The gap between Doc and the autocops widened as they shied from his reckless dive, taking a more level approach. Official-sounding entreaties to stop where he was blasted around him, but even if Doc stopped now, he’d end up being fined half a year’s profits just to retrieve his license — if, that was, he was lucky enough to remain undiscovered by his pursuers.

Doc’s hover dove between the buildings below. He banked hard right, nearly striking a large glass office spire. You weren’t allowed to fly this low, and Doc caught sight of several shocked faces staring out at him. He slipped down a street he didn’t recognize, then darted down a smaller one lined with quaint looking shops and parked with a lot of wheeled vehicles. Pedestrians looked up and hoverbikes braked hard as drivers rubbernecked at him. He heard at least one accident, and hoped no one was hurt.

Doc sped through a residential neighborhood, eventually flying out near Houston, by the old bomb crater that had been kept as a themed tourist district.

Shops. Spires. People still watched him, aghast. So he slowed down, dipped into a line of traffic and continued at street level. After a few more blocks, people stopped looking. The autocops were long gone. They’d communicate his car’s description along The Beam and every traffic light would be looking for him, but Doc drove a Ford Magnum, powder blue — the most popular hovercar and color on the market. And thanks to his jammer, they’d only gotten the car’s spoofed Auto ID, which he’d already toggled to a new value.
 

His heart still thumping, Doc pulled the car to the side of the road, engaged the security, and half-walked, half-jogged the remaining five blocks on foot.
 

It was noon. Doc knew he’d wake Kai when he rang her buzzer because she worked at night. And he knew she’d be pissed.

But Kai was also the only person in the world Doc could trust to help him.

Chapter 11

Isaac swiped his connection closed by raking his hand in front of his kitchen wall. In its place, his projection of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon reappeared. This was bullshit. Nicolai earned an incredible living, placing him just below Isaac and Natasha in the Directorate. A few more notches up and Nicolai would be in the Beau Monde, the top 1% of the wealthiest NAU citizens, where life truly got interesting… not that anyone in the lower 99 had any idea about that, of course.
 

And what was Nicolai paid so well for? Not just for being Isaac’s speechwriter, but his right fucking hand. The person Isaac bitched at. The person who, when he was fired up about something, made it all better — just like he’d done when that riot erupted at Natasha’s concert. Isaac was supposed to be able to reach Nicolai 24/7, and right now he needed a sounding board: someone to make the bullshit disappear.

He should have left a message.
 

Isaac sighed, swiped the connection open again, and waited while his canvas tried to locate Nicolai’s ID on The Beam. If he was anywhere remotely civilized (and alive, Isaac mentally added), The Beam should know where he was and should light up any Beam-enabled surface around him — the wall of a building, a counter in his apartment, the tabletop in a coffee shop. Failing that, Nicolai wore a communicator in his ear. He seldom answered with video, but wouldn’t flat-out ignore the call even if he was with a woman. Isaac had tried to call half a dozen times, so Nicolai was sure to see the missed calls and know it was urgent. But still. Isaac should leave a message, even if only to put it in bold type.

The connection trilled. Then, instead of hearing Nicolai’s voice, Isaac watched as a young man with a sober, professional haircut appeared in the connection window.
 

“My name is Simon. How can I help you, for Nicolai Costa?” said the young man, giving no indication that Isaac had slammed a window in his face thirty seconds ago. Virtual assistants reset if no business was transacted, so the program was oblivious to Isaac’s earlier brash manners.
 

“Where is Nicolai?” Isaac demanded. But this was already stupid. If the assistant had picked up, Nicolai was unreachable. He was only asking out of frustration, as if the man in the window were a real person who would respond to anger.
 

“Nicolai is unavailable,” Simon said. “How may I help you?”
 

“Tell Nicolai to call me,” he grumbled at the composed young man. The assistant was infuriating. He was grinning at Isaac like an idiot.

“Of course, Mr. Ryan,” said Simon, reading Isaac’s Beam ID.
 

“Tell him it’s urgent.”
 

“I will.”
 

Isaac stared at Simon’s perfectly combed virtual hair and wanted to yank it in frustration. But of course, Simon’s hair was fake, just like his wide public relations smile.
 

“Where the fuck is he?” Isaac demanded again.
 

“Nicolai is unavailable,” said Simon.
 

“He’s paid a ton of money to
stay
available! He can’t just go off the grid! Not without okaying it with me first!”

“Of course, Mr. Ryan.”
 

“If he doesn’t return this call soon, he’s going to lose his fucking job!”
 

“Certainly, Mr. Ryan.”
 

Isaac was moments from slamming the connection closed in Simon’s face (Simon would remember it this time because Isaac had left a message), but he couldn’t quite let the whole thing go. If Nicolai was gone for a while, then he was gone for a while. But Isaac needed an estimate of how long he’d have to wait, at the very least. The open-ended nature of Nicolai’s desertion was intolerable.
 

“Simon,” said Isaac, calming himself — again, as if Simon might respond to emotion, which he wouldn’t.
 

“Yes, sir.”
 

“Could you please tell me where and when you last tracked Nicolai?”
 

“I’m sorry Mr. Ryan,” he said, “but I cannot reveal private information.”
 

Well, that wasn’t a surprise, but it caused ire to bubble into Isaac’s throat anyway. He was in a crisis. Who was he supposed to vent to if not Nicolai?

“Simon,” said Isaac again.
 

“Yes, Mr. Ryan?”
 

“Go fuck yourself!”
 

Simon started to reply, but Isaac raked the connection shut and once again found himself staring at Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and the naked figures that weren’t quite naked. They were ideas articulated in broad strokes, like so many manifestations birthed from The Beam.

Isaac paced his apartment. He knotted his hands behind his back and lowered his head, treading heavily as if showing the universe his agitation, hoping to encourage its sympathy. But the world, the universe, and the room remained impassive, and all Isaac heard were his own footfalls echoing off the Plasteel walls. Maybe Natasha knew he was out here pacing and maybe she didn’t. The last time Isaac had seen her, she was slamming the door to her “office.” Not that it was an office of any sort. Isaac wasn’t sure what she did on the Beam while she was “indisposed” in there, but Natasha allowed no interruption and the walls were soundproofed. She wouldn’t hear him or likely care if she could (Natasha could be a real self-absorbed bitch sometimes, if not most times) yet still Isaac paced, as if to show someone how intolerable this situation was.
Anyone
.
 

This should be a moment of celebration. His speech had gone beautifully. For the appropriate number of hours, the entire Directorate had praised their Czar of Internal Satisfaction and told him in various sycophantic ways that he’d managed yet again to turn lemons into lemonade. Isaac’s peers had promised him great swings in pro-Directorate sentiment. Underlings had kissed Isaac’s ass. Natasha had stood beside him, looking beautiful, even with her stupid dog peeking out from the open mouth of her purse. For a few hours, things had looked rosy. He’d seen Nicolai sneak out, and even his right hand man had seemed pleased.