Everything Abridged, page 23
Each location in the Cousin Auntie’s franchise was burdened with finding a unique gimmick. Their locale housed a gallery of famous movie posters. The left wall showcased pre-war classics, hinting at a golden age when only one in four blockbusters was thinly veiled propaganda. The more recent hits on the right wall featured an array of square-jawed Dominion Navy veterans teaming up with salt-of-the-earth Central Ward police officers. A pair of spy thrillers represented 2I, starring a suave agent’s one-man war against dark-skinned, vaguely accented terrorists and their endless henchmen.
“Have you tested this information at all?” asked Diana.
“Well, no. I guess I just trusted the video. And Avery really was arrested.”
“Purely circumstantial. Living with a neo-communist isn’t smart. I’m surprised you didn’t have an incident sooner. But accepting untested intel’s worse. We aren’t doing anything without confirming it.”
“You’re taking this well,” Nero noted.
“I don’t believe you yet. If we prove Logan’s behind the rebels, and the last seven years of my life were a waste, I’ll be murderous.”
Nero started his third cup of coffee. His sunglasses, a traditional summer hangover accessory, rested on his nose.
“Here’s an experiment. The file says they’ve actively radicalized ninety percent of the civilian population. If that’s accurate, anyone that I walk up to in this coffee shop is, statistically, a member of some secret society.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yup. Which means it’ll prove my point if it works.”
Nero picked a hairless old man sitting in the back of the coffee shop, huddled underneath an oversized wool coat. He looked like he wanted to be left alone, which made him perfect for the test.
“Brother,” Nero hazarded. He took the opposite seat.
“What? Who are you? Have you seen my son?”
“You can drop the act. I’m your contact.”
The old man’s back straightened, his eyes narrowed, and his hands curled into small fists. He slid a small roll of tightly coiled bills toward Nero’s side of the table.
“It’s good to see you, brother. Here’s the product of the dead drop, minus operational fees. You know, for a moment I thought that Command had forgotten me. I should have known better: the Society for Explicit Fascism looks after their own. What do you need?”
“That’s it,” said Nero. “Thanks.” He shuffled back to Diana.
“A fluke,” she said, impassive.
“I’ll try another.” He turned toward the waitress and flagged her down. She approached with admirable speed and a guileless customer service smile.
“What can I get you?”
Nero clasped her arm. “Sister. Soon we rise.”
“Not here, brother,” said the waitress. “The Anarcho-Capitalist Union is not ready to strike. Not while a single member of the Anarcho-Communist Corporation still breathes.”
“Those dogs don’t deserve to live,” Diana added, taking over without hesitation. “Breaking from them and the Children was the best move we ever made.” She sounded like a lifelong revolutionary.
“They were ideological poison,” said the waitress. “Who even reads Stirner anymore? And the Children had no economic plan. Rothbard, however, is the future.”
It might have been the two and a half full servings of unregulated stimulants, but Nero was impressed. He could barely track the exponential growth of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary groups in the Free Dominion. In fact, he’d barely even heard of the Children of Kali before they crashed violently into his life.
The waitress filled Diana in on her plot to seduce, poison, and replace Governor Cantrell’s personal chef. During her rant, Nero noticed the prison barcode tattooed onto her right arm. He scanned it with the Biclops and learned that her name was Cassidy Green, her prison labor had been sponsored by SportsMax, and she’d earned an early release after winning the sneaker construction contest for five weeks in a row. After three minutes of stone-faced nodding, Diana shooed her off.
“You might be onto something, but so far you’ve picked shifty-looking targets. Show me a proper citizen roped into this nonsense and I’ll believe you.”
Nero searched Cousin Auntie’s for someone sufficiently white bread to prove his point. The pickings were slim: coffee shops attracted people that at least wanted to look like members of the counterculture. Then he peered through the wall and saw the outline of a child twirling a toy on the sidewalk. That had potential. He settled the check and gestured for Diana to follow.
As soon as they stepped out, the child pocketed the toy and stared at the floor. He looked like he was elementary school age, complete with a worn backpack and the absence of any form of supervision.
“Seems unlikely,” Diana said dryly. Nero approached the target, leaned forward, and tried to look serious.
“Hello, brother,” Nero said. “How goes the mission?”
The child beamed. “Hey there! I forgot how to use the thingie. Do you tug the fuse or light it?” He pulled a pipe bomb out of his sky-blue jacket, clutching the bottom like a thermos. “Mom worked really hard on it and I don’t want to mess up.”
Somehow, Nero still wasn’t used to weapons being drawn around him. His heart inched one step closer to a full-blown attack. Yet he managed to shift his grimace back into a smile before the child noticed.
“Y-you’d better let me handle it.”
Without warning, the child underhand-lobbed the improvised explosive toward Nero. He nearly fumbled it but grasped it before it hit the sidewalk.
“Thank you, mister! Viva la revolución!” the student said, before picking up his backpack and skipping down the block. Nero marched back to Diana feeling ten years older.
“Hmm, the old child-with-pipe-bomb trick,” said Diana. She grabbed, disassembled, and trashed the explosive while Nero waited for his heart to start beating properly.
“This time you’re joking.”
“I’m not, but I do believe you. Multiple coincidences prove enemy action. I’m not, however, convinced that helping you is the best thing I could do with this information.”
“What would be?”
“Turning you in for an easy promotion.”
Nero’s heart rate spiked again. There was no running from her at this distance—or any distance. He could try hacking one of her organs, but she’d probably tear out his kidneys before he could detonate—
“That’s a joke. I pitched startin’ our own conspiracy last night, if you remember. That offer’s still on the table. But don’t run off if I have to shoot someone.”
24. Pitch Session
1:40 p.m.
2I’s East Ward headquarters occupied one of seven identical skyscrapers. The other six were fully staffed with people paid just over minimum wage to sit in front of computers and look busy for any insurgents or foreign agents that might be watching. This would have been Nero’s ideal job if it weren’t for the pay.
The real business of surveilling the Dominion went down in the second building from the left. The location was something of an open secret. Rumor had it that 2I maintained the six decoys because the director found them amusing. After his encounters with Riley Logan, Nero was inclined to agree.
While the exterior endeavored to look generic, the interior remained one of the glossiest places Nero had seen in his life. Cleanliness was part of 2I discipline, and every tile, panel, and shelf shone. The dominant color was black, making small fragments of dust stand out until they were dealt with.
Diana and Nero were stuck in the lobby, conducting what could generously be called brainstorming.
The main issue, beyond the mechanical business of somehow removing a human package from a fortresslike skyscraper, was getting into headquarters without arousing suspicion. Diana, against all reason, held on to the idea that her accomplice was a smart guy. As the main witness to his recent choices, Nero was less certain. But he’d torn off too much of his psychological safety blanket to go home and watch videos without hating himself.
True to form, Diana suggested arresting someone. That would give them access to the holding cells with minimal chicanery, which appealed to Nero’s lazy side. But the obvious logic trail between two agents entering and one closely related prisoner leaving had less appeal.
Then he remembered the birthday party. Once he pitched using it as cover, she seemed less confident that he was a smart guy. Nonetheless, they bypassed three layers of security checkpoints and full-body scans without incident, save a pair of bugheads asking Nero where they could pick up a Biclops on the cheap.
“Gabriel Logan’s not a great guy,” Diana warned. She held one arm of their joint present: an oversized toy bear with 2I-style mirrored sunglasses. Nero wanted to buy an old spy movie poster, but they had different senses of humor.
“Why’s that?” Nero pressed “33” and “Close,” shutting the elevator doors in the face of a coworker.
“Standard boss’s son syndrome. I’d have arranged an accident, but partners are the first suspects when an agent disappears. Which makes sense, since I plotted to make ’im disappear.”
“This looks like the elevator we met in.” He’d done subtler subject changes in his time.
“It isn’t,” she said curtly.
“Well, yeah, but it looks like it.”
They rode in silence for ten floors.
“Something’s been bothering me,” said Nero.
“Insomnia? Try drinking less.”
“No. Now, I’ve been wondering: How much of my reaction to the project was because of how I learned about it? If I’d watched that video in my cubicle as scheduled, wouldn’t I have seen it as just another small concession?”
“How deep.”
The same probably goes for you. If this thing has an enforcement arm, you can’t be too far from getting promoted to it. Would you have passed it up?”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“I think you’re missing my point.”
“Again, kidding. You take most things more straightforwardly than you should. It’s not good for a spy.”
“I’m not a spy.”
“Hmm. So you work at an intelligence agency, wear black, and manipulate information. But you’re not a spy.”
“I think I liked you better when you talked like a robot.”
The elevator doors parted. Nero walked in with an artificial grin and hoped that he was a decent spy.
25. The Party
3:00 p.m.
The conference room had the basics of a successful office party: fifty thinly acquainted drunks, toothless music played at comfortable volume, and enough clandestine workplace affairs to add some tension to the air. Thanks to his long night and undergraduate fashion sense, Nero found himself the least professional-looking person in sight. He drifted to the edge of the crowd and hoped no one asked if he was an intern.
After fifteen minutes in the corner, Nero hadn’t touched the beer or hard liquor. He held a glass of white wine, but today it was reduced to a stage prop. However bacchanal his instincts were, today’s work demanded clarity.
Besides, Diana’s coworkers didn’t look like the most fun crowd to drink with. That might have been a snap judgment, but they certainly weren’t subtle about judging him. Passing agents gave him open stares of evaluation, followed by either a smile or a scowl. So far the scowls were ahead by two. Nero couldn’t be too harsh on the agents that mistrusted him; he’d been cracking phones, ID badges, and OdinEyes since entering the conference room. The right access code would make getting into holding infinitely easier. Acting out also satisfied some of his antisocial fury, but that was a bonus.
“You look nervous,” said Diana. “Stop that.”
Diana had wrapped her elbow around his, and the steel-reinforced hold was unbreakable. While Nero may have been ready for suicidal conspiracy pacts, locked arms marked a level of commitment that he hadn’t planned for. He chalked it up to the demands of spycraft and went back to stealing passwords.
The Biclops trivialized identity theft, allowing Nero to track multiple targets and combine visual filters. After putting the X-ray filter over I/O vision, he discovered that almost every party guest was armed without losing any hacking time. Two dozen attendees carried party favors including piano wire, dart guns, ballistic knives, old-school revolvers, new-school revolvers, and pocket flamethrowers. He sincerely hoped Diana didn’t plan to shoot their way out of the building.
Surprisingly, there were no guns among the presents piled onto the conference room table. Gift-wrapped boxes covered a sprawling map of East Ward, with red X’s marking the targets of a recent operation. At a see-through glance, the contents included playing cards, a coupon for Discreet Angels Escort Agency, a hardcover copy of Moderate Liberty, and a bottle of aged bourbon. Diana’s stuffed bear stood out as the only gift that didn’t feed an addiction.
“Personally, I’d have my birthday party at a bar, coworkers or not.” Nero lifted the bear’s leg and zoomed in on his part of town. His neighborhood was covered in tiny red X’s.
“That is fair.” Diana picked the last pig in a blanket.
“We’re back to the robot talk?”
“We are back to the professional talk. This is a room full of my peers.”
“Contractions won’t kill your peers,” Nero said, before his brain caught up. It wasn’t the best time for Diana to change her highly visible habits. Abnormal behavior—in this case, less abnormal than usual—would put her near the top of the post-breakout suspects. She gave his arm a squeeze communicating the same idea in harsher terms.
The pain almost distracted him from the guest of honor’s arrival. Four well-dressed sycophants flanked his entry, each determined to be standing closest without violating his personal space. While each of the professional climbers outranked him—the lowest ranking sycophant ran a counter-journalism task force—Gabriel’s last name was enough to demand their undivided attention. He showed no signs of resenting this.
Gabriel looked like he would have done well in undercover. He had the natural looseness—and neck covered in tattoos—one associated with revolutionaries. If an observer ignored the badges, Diana and Nero looked far more like appendages of the surveillance state. This chafed with Nero, who maintained that sidecuts should have died with credible elections.
“Who wears sunglasses inside?” Nero whispered.
“You,” said Diana.
“He rocks it pretty well,” said a raspy male voice to Nero’s left. Gabriel had, without making a sound or spilling his drink, moved across the room in seconds. This offered two pieces of free information: he had inordinately expensive stealth and speed mods, and he was the type to use them to gain a minor social edge.
“Hello, Gabriel,” Diana said rotely. “How does turning thirty feel?”
“Eh, it’s a number. Is this your brother? Husband? Baby daddy? You never talk about yourself, and Dad won’t let me get at the records.”
“Baby daddy,” Nero volunteered. He started working on Gabriel’s phone. Diana’s partner seemed like the type to keep classified access codes on his personal device.
“I wouldn’t even know if you were bullshitting. We’ve been partners for two months, which is a decade in 2I time, and all I’ve learned is that she has a special pen for paperwork.”
“He works here,” said Diana. “Otherwise he would be tranquilized and detained.”
“Whatever, you picked a hell of a night to take off. Dad had us out arresting every commie in East Ward.” Gabriel picked the shrimp out of a passing cocktail glass. “One apartment had an old lady with a literal hammer and sickle. I don’t know if they were symbolic or what, but she got the drop on me. If my neck was still skin and bone, you’d be at my funeral.”
“I hope you filed an incident report,” Diana said impassively.
“What do you think about this thing she does?” Gabriel said, turning back to Nero. “The dry post-sarcasm thing? I hope you can take it; I think it makes her impossible to talk to.”
“You two should bond. Without me.” Diana released Nero’s arm and slipped into a nearby conversation about proper interrogation techniques for minors. A veteran agent demonstrated a rear naked choke on the stuffed bear.
“Hmm. You look all soft and breaky, so you’re probably not in the field,” said Gabriel. “It’s cool to have a bughead here. Especially a black one; those normally go over to the other side.”
“Thanks.”
“Seriously, it’s good that you don’t let petty shit get in the way of the work. I’ve always said that 2I’s the least biased agency out there. The EWPD might have issues with some types, but 2I watches everyone. Feel me?”
Nero didn’t feel him, and the wine was starting to look more appealing. He considered the chance that he might be a genuine alcoholic before refocusing on present problems. Gabriel’s password rested between personal memos to call his mother and clean out his heat sinks. The discovery brought a natural, unaffected grin to Nero’s face.
“You get it,” said Gabriel. “Between you and me, start distancing yourself from Diana. She’s one of the best, so she has to go. I’d like to replace Dad when he gets bored with running the world, and I don’t need any competition.”
“I don’t think anyone gets tired of running the world.” Nero stared at the thin spiderweb crack on Gabriel’s neck. On a vanilla human, the wound would have opened an artery.
“That’s a solid point. I might move some of my plans up. As for Diana, I’m sure you’ll miss her figure-eight body, but that’s replaceable. I know places where the escorts can remodel their faces. All you need is a decent photo and a little scratch. In fact, I’ll cover it if you join my crew. I’ll have to throw some kind of coup if Dad doesn’t feel like retiring, and I could use a tech guy to cover my tracks. That’s a Biclops, right? Your brain’s gotta be half-metal to use one of those.”
“Just a third. I appreciate the offer. It definitely sounds more engaging than censoring bird memes.”
