14.5

On the night before the Lumina trucks were set to depart, Sloan announced that a top-brass emissary would be conducting a sweep. I can only assume – since no one bothered to say it outright – that Ward sent them to make sure everything involving her precious brain-liquid was airtight. Especially after Fingers and I had, well, completely wrecked her chimp lab.

It's dicey, of course, because this is the night we're supposed to pull everything off. This is what the last few weeks of busting ass have been gearing towards. If we mess up – or someone causes us to mess up – then we'll either have to spend another month playing blue-collar until we get another chance – or, and this I'm particularly worried about, Sloan will suss us out and throw us behind bars before we can even blink, if not kill us where we stand.

For that reason I thought it was important we got an early start on things. We set up a time with Dance to overheat the booth in the lobby. At first I had argued that it would be best to execute the plan when most of the workers were on break – that way there would be fewer eyes to spot me heading for the locker, but Dance disagreed, saying with Aussie fixation that 'the more people, the better'. The point he made was that it was easier for people to ignore you, for you to 'blend in', when there was noise to cover your footsteps. And I agreed: a crowd is the best kind of camouflage because nobody looks twice at the slightly-off things happening inside it.

So, we wait until the hour before midnight, when the lobby is completely jam-packed. Dance sends a signal through the Cloud Room – because it's too risky to call, especially since, as Arden once said, 'you never know who's listening' – right when he's about to hack into the heating system. Vander and I, who have been slumped at a desk by the mezzanine for the last ten minutes of break, keep a careful eye on the man in the booth.

One minute after Dance's ping to the Cloud Room, I hear – and feel – the heaters blowing even from this distance. After another minute the man starts pulling on his workshirt as a right pinball of sweat starts whirling its way down the wrinkles of his face. He frantically sips at his tumbler, wheels back on his seat, turns around to see if he can adjust the heating himself. Of course, he'd have to travel to the security office outside for that, and if Sloan catches him leaving his post he'll be in a whole lot of trouble.

But there's a problem: no matter how much time passes, no matter how much he squirms and chugs from his tumbler, he seems a little too concerned with the idea of getting caught, because he's not leaving at all. Even now, when he's drenched in sweat and absolutely begging for a breath of fresh air, he does not move one bit.

Shit.

Before I can say anything, Vander steps up from his seat, telling me to get into position, that he's going to try something else. So, wasting no time – there's not much left of our break, after all – I hurry over to the booth and wait behind it, my arm hugging my torso in some casual half-fold. Then Vander marches up to the front desk with a spanner in his hand. He leans over the counter, stares at the man, and says:

"You kner you're not supposed to be in the er booth?"

The receptionist breathes harshly. "What's… what's going on here? Why's it so damn hot? I thought we had someone to fix the temperature problem."

Vander nods, swinging the spanner around on one finger. "That'd be me. You might want to er step out while I work on getting it fixed. Take ferv. Should be working by the time you get back."

"I'd have to talk to Sloan about that." Yeah, there it is: that infamous line that locks half the people in this station by the ankles. "We're not supposed to leave the post."

"Wernt be too long," Vander says. "Beserds, Slern terld me I have to fix up the coolant and heating issures around here. I need to work on the booth for a little bit; otherwise you'll cook alerv. I'm sure Slern would understand that."

"Wait," the receptionist says, "you're Lander, aren't you? The new guy fixin' this damn fire-and-ice fiasco that's been killin' the place for the last couple months."

"Yer," says Vander. "Just give me ferv minutes – I'll watch the post for you. If Slern asks, I'll take the blame – alder, I doubt she'll cer."

The receptionist takes another chug of his water, swirls it around in his mouth for a bit, swallows, and says, "Alright. I'm gonna catch some air. Be back in five, Lander. And don't leave it unaccompanied. And don't sign anyone in until I'm back."

"I wouldn't kner how ter anywer," says Vander.

He lets out a chuckle. "Okay, funny man." Then he slides open a drawer and grabs, to my horror, the keys to the lockers.

Shit – stop him!

Immediately, as if reading my mind, Vander shoots him a wavy, just-relax hand. "Don't worry about dose. I prermise I'm nert gonna let someone steal erm."

He lets out a chuckle, then slides the drawer shut again. "I hope not," he says. "Christ – I need a smoke. If only." And he steps out of the booth, walking towards the outside area.

I send Dance a quick ping to dial the heater back down, then, with Vander planted like a boulder in the doorway, pretending to scroll through logs on his phone, I shove into the booth while the crowd outside breaks and reforms in restless riptides. My heart hammers so hard it feels like it's trying to leave my throat, and my skin buzzes with the heat even as the vents cough cooler air, but I don't look around or stall; I go straight for the drawer, yank out the ring of keys, hustle to my locker at the back, and fumble them through one by one until the right one finds the lockplate and I twist it home.

Inside is, sure enough, my visor. I stash it in my jumpsuit pocket, put the keys back into the drawer, and step out while Vander slips in, pretending to work. By the time this is done, five minutes have already passed, and the receptionist is back with a smile on his face; he can feel the cool air blowing out, I'd say.

"You really weren't kidding," he says. "What was the problem?"

"Serfwer issure," says Vander. "Der capatulator grer kner der—"

"You know what," the man says, "I don't even wanna know. Thanks for fixin' it. Now you just have to worry about the rest of this shithole."

Like that, he heads into the booth, gives the drawer a quick peek just to verify that the keys had in fact not been stolen, and begins typing away at his computer, doing whatever it is that receptionists do when there's no one to bother them in a queue. Probably browsing for a new job, or perhaps he spends his time ogling women on questionable websites. Who knows? All that matters is I have it: the visor, and now all I have to do is wait for Sloan Harrow to leave her office so I can nab a copy of that logistics shard.

Which doesn't take very long, because in the early mornings Sloan likes to go for walks – just to clear her mind, but lately I've begun to think it's actually to make sure that everyone is doing their jobs correctly and not taking unregulated smoke-breaks. After all, there was the situation with that poor security officer, Harris. How people work for a woman like that long-term is simply beyond me. I'd be more convinced if half the employees in this place were secretly plotting against her too. Against Calyx Ward. Against the State.

Regardless, it's not worth my time, or mind, to get caught up with a wobbly work economy. So I carry out my duties as normal for the time being. Same shit, different day: carrying fuel drums with Riven, disposing of empties, and at my next break I use the same excuse as last time, that I've got to use the bathroom and will only be gone a few minutes. Granted, Riven doesn't exactly believe me this time around, especially after the amount of time I took before, but she doesn't seem to mind so long as I'm back for the next task rather than pulling an American classic of shitting on the clock.

It's almost three in the morning, and many of the workers have already clocked out. With such little people, it makes me stand out, especially since I have no reason to be heading near Sloan's office, but I walk with confidence anyway, as if I have someplace to be. I go down the corridors, following the path Cassandra Holt had taken me during induction, up the mezzanine, and stop in the hallway outside her office. I can hear Sloan's piston limbs moving in horrific syncopation even from this far away. I step into a side-corridor by the janitor's closet and hide behind a housekeeping trolley. She's on the holo to someone when she passes, talking about 'innovation' and a 'new project in the works' involving repurposed android parts. Can't be anything good. Especially with a leader as insane as Ward.

Sloan doesn't notice me, just passes without so much as a glance. Once she clears the corridor, I step out from behind the trolley, head into her office, and slide the door shut behind me. Inside is exactly as I remember: a camera room on the left, separated by a transparent partition, and her desk on the far right, where she kept the shard last time. I head over to it, once again with my heart hammering in my throat, and start opening drawers. It doesn't take me long to find the shard stashed inside, and it doesn't take me long to copy it either. I just pull out my visor, attach it to my neural ports, and run Routine Doppelcast; once it's copied, I pull out my neural wire and insert it into the dummy shard. Once the upload is complete, I get a confirmation on my neural display, and the shard emits a lovely green light.

I'm about to book it, about to head outside and take the opposite path back to the external loading bay – just in case I run into Sloan Harrow or a snippy supervisor – but my eyes catch something on the computer monitor set atop the desk. It's a blueprint, one for an android – but there's something completely off about it; the android's head isn't a basic human shape with an eye slit. No, this one has rabbit ears – massive rabbit ears. Even though its body is that of a fully grown man, the proportions are uncanny: elongated limbs sheathed in segmented plating, servos coiled tight like muscle fiber. The ears aren't decorative either; they're studded with fine sensory nodes, antennae disguised as cartilage. Its faceplate is smooth except for a vertical seam where the mouth should be, as if it could split open and speak – or scream – when activated. A name flashes on the corner of the blueprint: PROJECT LAPIS-9. And beneath that, a single note scrawled in someone's hand:

Lumina Entry Point: Awaiting Engineer's report.

"What the fuck…?" I whisper, and screenshot the monitor with my neural display. This seems exactly like the sort of thing Calyx Ward would use to attack Neo Arcadia – except with hundreds of copies that don't care for the good of mankind.

It also feels like the Priest situation all over again, where I discovered some messed-up ulterior motive to Ward's power.

But I won't let it happen. Not this time.

I close the drawer, step up, and head over to the door when—

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh from the other side. That sound: it's her – again. She's already back. Oh no – I took too much time. I got too damn curious.

I need to hide. Come on.

I look around, realising that a place like this isn't exactly packed with hiding spots. It especially doesn't have any beds of foliage. No – this time I have only two options: either I hide in the dark of the security room, or I hide under the desk.

And Sloan's getting close. Closer. Closer. Almost right at the door now.

Fuck it. I hurry over to the desk, right where I came from, and slide in under the shadow, visor turned off, peeping through a small slit in the wood.

The door slides open, and Sloan walks in, not with a stroke of lightning this time, but another person: a woman dressed in a perfectly pressed white suit, with white hair, and half an Oni mask that covers the lower half of her face. It's purple, and the front molars are twisted into an awful snarl.

"I hope your security is tight, Sloan," the woman says with her hands behind her back, and they approach the window overseeing the internal loading bay. Her voice is familiar, eerily familiar. And those eyes: I've seen them before, the eyes of a dragon.

Wait… Is that…?

"Dr. Ward," begins Sloan.

Calyx Ward. She's the person doing the sweep?

"I can-szzzz assure you that the Lumina trucks-szzzz have not been fiddled with. Our security-szzzz is—"

"Speak clearly," Calyx Ward says. "Others might have time for your speech impediment, but it just annoys me. Think about what you have to say, and be certain it's worth the oxygen I'm wasting listening to you – because if it isn't, Sloan, I'll find someone who can speak without stuttering, even after their tongue's been cut out."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I expect Sloan to react harshly, to put her in line and make Ward aware of their technological difference – perhaps naively – but she doesn't. Amazingly, Sloan stays quiet before speaking with unnerving clarity: "Yes, Dr. Ward."

The titan, the embodiment of everything wrong with this place, obeyed. Why obey such an evil witch? Why not kill her where she stands?

Sloan continues: "We'll be able to handle the demands of Project Lapis-9. I'm sure of it. My employees are trained for 100% efficiency and zero errors. Any that occur will promptly be corrected, and if not, they will be terminated, for lack of better terms."

"You may not kill employees," Calyx Ward says. "Do – and I kill you. That is our agreement."

How noble.

"But I admit…" she continues. "You have done a splendid job keeping the place secure. Aside from the ventilation problem, you're rather competent at what you do, and that large eyeball is a nice touch. I'm sure it keeps even the laziest of workers in line."

They spend a bit of time discussing how everything works: how employees get caught for little mistakes by The Overseer, for taking unapproved breaks, for not clocking in and out on time. But Sloan mentions a weakness: The Overseer doesn't see as much as it tracks; it relies on thermal gradients: shapes and motion painted in heat. Too many hot surfaces, and its vision falters. Steam vents, engine bays, or even a room full of running servers can turn it blind, like drowning an eye in fire.

"I'm sure I can find a solution for that," Calyx says. "But it's not entirely my concern right now. I have a different matter which I wish to discuss with you."

Sloan stays stiff and silent with her hands behind her back.

Then, Calyx Ward says:

"Rhea Steele is alive."

My heart drops, my eyes shoot open, and everything in my body is covered in hot, steaming terror.

I repeat the words in my head just to make sure I heard her right: Rhea Steele is alive.

How does she know? How is that possible?

Then, more terrifyingly, she adds: "And I believe she's in this building right now."

I don't understand – she can't possibly know this. She can't know I'm alive.

"Rhea Steele," Sloan says slowly. "It sounds like the name of a new recruit: Rita Scale."

"Does she have green hair?" Calyx says.

"Yes," Sloan answers, further adding to my looming anxiety, "and she had one arm. She also had a friend with her… Lander."

"That's not his real name," Calyx says. "He's a crook from Neo Arcadia. Vander. They're trying to fool you. They have fooled you."

This is absolutely insane. The only possible way Ward could know any of this is if…

Shit, Riven.

Did she report me? That fucking cunt!

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is really bad.

"I would rather not get the police involved," Calyx says. "Because then I'd have to justify why I want you to kill them both. I don't need that sort of publicity, that sort of backlash. I need you to do what you were built to do: to exterminate the vermin from the shrubs. You don't have to do it right away. Just grab them both at the end of their shifts, bring them up here, and finish the job. Or just kill them now. I don't care. Just get it done."

Sloan nods even more stiffly. "Yes, Dr. Ward. But, if I may ah-ah-ask-szzzzzzzzz…" She couldn't help but let that one slip out. "... how did you find this out?"

There it is: the big question, and it deserves a damn good answer.

But Ward merely shrugs and walks towards the exit. "If you enter my den, you've already told me everything I need to know. She's dumb enough to think I forget things, that I'm incompetent. But I never forget things. I have an excellent memory, and an even stronger foresight. Now, stop asking questions, and be more aware of who you let into this building in future – otherwise it's you who'll be on the receiving end. You don't want me to send Adam after you, do you?"

Adam. I remember that name. The man who poured Ghostfire over my father. The man in the power armour that Lucian built.

Sloan answers: "No, Dr. Ward. I'll take care of it."

Calyx chuckles. "Good girl." And she walks off. Gone. Just like that.

And all I can think is: I am so royally screwed.

Sloan leaves the office shortly thereafter, probably looking for me and Vander. Probably to skip to the last step and end us before we even have a chance to finish the shift. After hearing a threat like that from Calyx Fucking Ward, it seems only right.

I hurry from my hiding spot and out the door. I pull my phone out of my pocket and ring Vander, all while rushing down the steps and watching for that killing-machine titan. He picks up rather quickly.

"Yer?" he says.

"Bad news," I say. "Calyx Ward showed up and blew this whole shit out of the water. Sloan's looking for us – do not let her find you. She's gonna fucking kill us!"

"Shert," Vander says. "How did she kner?"

"Fuck if I know!" I say. "She's some fucking witch with ears the size of a city, a whole damn planet. Riven probably ratted me out."

"What do you wanner do? Bail, or keep er goin'?"

"I have the shard-copy," I reply, looking out at the lobby, where the reception booth is. "I didn't come this far for nothing. I'm heading out onto the floor now while it's quiet. Tell Fingers to come early. I'll meet you guys outside. And please – don't let her catch you."

A sigh. "Be careful, Monner."

"I'll try," I say, hurrying past the reception booth towards the scanner preceding the loading bay area. "Good luck, Vander. Be safe." I hang up, put the phone away, and take out the visor. I run a manual override on the scanner, turn it off, and head into the loading bay. It's really quiet now, with most of the machines switched off and much of the material stocked away.

I head over to the Lumina trucks, sitting smack dab in the centre of the loading bay station, give a quick look around, and, when the coast is clear, head up to the side of the leader truck, where the control panel is. I insert Carrow's TOK shard into the seal, and it releases, revealing a miniature computer. A quick look back, another, and then I insert the logistics shard-copy. The screen of the mini computer terminal pops up with a map of its path highlighted by a red line through a blue mock-up of Paxson and the Capital. The order of locations is listed at the top. Wasting no time, I insert my neural wire into the mini-computer and use 'Data Alter' to change the middle stopping point to the Orion Scrubland – near the Capital, but not too near, swapping out the Lumina lab. Then I change the penultimate destination to be a secluded area in the Capital, one of Dance's recommendations. Once it's done, I unhook my wire, pull out the logistics shard, and lock the seal with Carrow's TOK key.

Done.

I turn around.

"What are you doing?" Riven asks, staring right into my face, with a clipboard in hand.

I'm taken aback for a moment, then remember what she did. "What? Gonna report me again? Seriously? After everything we've done together you're just gonna throw me under the bus like that?"

She scowls at me. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You know," I say. "You reported me to Calyx Ward – or to someone. I don't know – the point is she found out who I am."

She cocks an eyebrow. "Rita, I didn't report jackshit to anybody."

"Then how did she find out?"

"I don't know," Riven says, and her eyes take on a momentarily startled look that seems very like concern. "I didn't say anything – I've kept my mouth shut. Now what the hell are you doing with a visor out on the floor?" She looks around, as if someone's listening in. She approaches me. "You lied to me, didn't you?"

My mouth gapes, and I realise there's no time for this. No time to lie anymore. "Yeah, I did. But I have my reasons—"

"Shove it," she says. "I don't even wanna know. You're all the same."

"All the same?" I say.

"Yeah." She tosses the clipboard on a nearby dumpster lid. "Liars. Crooks. Whatever."

"Listen," I say. "I'm sorry I lied – but this is bigger than you think. Ward is trying to take over N.A. I can't just let her do that."

She scoffs. "Yeah, right. With an army of fools running on Lumina. Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"You don't have to believe me." I pull out my phone and transfer the snapshot of the computer in Sloan's office to the storage. When it's up on screen, I show the picture of the rabbit android blueprint, and she stares at it intensely.

"What is…? Is that a… rabbit?"

"Worse: a war-machine. She's been planning to take over N.A. for decades. And this is the weapon she'll use to achieve that. You don't have to believe me, but it's the truth."

"I... This will hurt so many people... Why would she...?"

"Because she's fucking evil. And—"

Before I can finish, I hear that awful sound: the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of hydraulics pounding through the loading bay. There's no time to talk this over. I've already spent enough of it trying to prove I'm not a piece of crap.

I skulk away, hiding behind the Lumina truck, leaving Riven with a final pleading eye as the shadow sucks me in.

Sloan Harrow turns a corner, paces over to the truck, and starts talking to Riven. "Where did she go? Where's Ree-tah?"

And I'm praying, hoping she doesn't give it away. Doesn't reveal my spot and doom me to hell.

There's so much silence that it's painful, so horribly painful.

But Riven speaks, eventually: "She left."

"She left?" Sloan says, and I can hear her step closer to Riven, frustrated. "What do you mean-szzzz she left? She-szzzz never left the building. I heard you talking to her."

Then, quite bravely: "I don't think I want to work here anymore."

"What?"

"Here," she says. "I don't want to work here – it's awful, and you're awful."

I peek around the wheel of the truck.

Sloan takes another step closer to her, fists clenched at her sides. In practice this is an opportunity for me to flee, to get the hell out of this godforsaken place and be done with it, but I can't – not while she's standing over Riven like that.

Sloan gives no argument whatsoever – just grabs Riven by the throat and holds her in the air with one hand. "You let her escape, didn't you?" she says coldly. "You were in on it this whole time: with Vander, with Rhea. You tried to break my system."

Riven chokes and coughs and cackles, kicking, clawing for freedom. Her face is quickly turning red, and her eyes are bulging out of her skull. Any more pressure and Sloan will crush her windpipe.

"So be it," she says. "Ward says I can't kill employees, but since you quit, you're no longer a piece of this mechanism. You lost the privilege. And I'm sure the world would be better off without a worthless-szzzz little rat like you."

Riven's feet thrash in the air. Sloan's grip tightens, her augmented fingers humming with servo pressure. The hiss of metal knuckles compressing flesh makes my stomach twist.

And Riven's eyes, those hollow, dying eyes, meet mine, as I so stupidly – and so recklessly – peek my head completely around the wheel, run a scan on Sloan Harrow—

NAME: Sloan Harrow AFFILIATION: Ward Logistics Ltd. WEAKNESS(ES): //////////////////////// [DATA INCONCLUSIVE] RESISTANT TO: Quick-hacks (99%); External Penetration (100%); Biochemical Sabotage (100%); Neural Overload / Stimulant Feedback Loops (100%)

WARNING: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

WARNING: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

WARNING: Subject holds ///////// systems.

WARNING: Military-Grade Cyberware Detected.

Subject Threat Level is Extremely High.

Any interaction(s) should be taken with caution. Engaging is not recommended.

—and hit her with 'Short-circuit'. The quick-hack crawls to 100% in what feels like slow motion, and then….

Sloan's grip loosens.

No shock. Not even a spark.

"There you areeeeeee," she says, and then with lightning-quick speed her head snaps towards me. Locks dead-on.

I step back from the truck, prime my mantisblade—

She whips forward and—

CLANG!

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