Stars & Stripes, page 1
part #1 of Watch Dogs Series
Watch Dogs®
Stars & Stripes
“After a dangerous high-speed chase late last night, authorities are reporting that Aiden Pearce, better known as Chicago’s Vigilante, is dead today after police cornered the notorious hacker and domestic terrorist. More on this later…”
The screen returned to black glass.
“What’s it like being dead, Aiden?”
He blinked at the woman’s digital eyes. “Same way it’s felt the last two decades.”
“This can be a fresh start for you. No more running and hiding. Don’t you want a chance at a normal life – keep all your freedoms and avoid a jail sentence? Retire in peace.”
“Everyone already thought I was dead, so your little piece won’t make any kind of waves where it matters. You’ve got nothing to offer me. All I have to do is figure a way out of this current problem. Then, I’ll be a ghost. You won’t get a second chance at me.”
First published by Aconyte Books in 2022
ISBN 978 1 83908 126 2
Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 127 9
© 2022 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Watch Dogs, Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are registered or unregistered trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the US and/or other countries.
The Aconyte name and logo and the Asmodee Entertainment name and logo are registered or unregistered trademarks of Asmodee Entertainment Limited.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
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Cover art by Martín M Barbudo
Distributed in North America by Simon & Schuster Inc, New York, USA
ACONYTE BOOKS
An imprint of Asmodee Entertainment Ltd
Mercury House, Shipstones Business Centre
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To my father, Terry, who gave twenty-two years of his life to the US of A.
– Sean
To Benjamin Burroughs, who makes all things possible.
– Stewart
Chapter One
Baltimore.
The forty-fifth floor of a new skyscraper, dubbed the Peppercorn Building.
CTO Trevor Erins stood outside his corner office. He was on the phone, talking in the kind of voice meant for everyone to hear him, so they could ascertain just how important he was, and how they should shut the fuck up and listen while he changed the world. After all, thought Trevor, it might make their lives more interesting.
“I’m telling you, Karen, it’s a win-win. It would help if you picked up my call. You’re supposed to be available at all hours.” The Optik at his ear automatically sent a signal to his office door, opening it as if an invisible servant stood on the other side, and Trevor charged through without even noticing. New tech from London of all places. Trevor liked being the only one to have something like it on this side of the pond.
It was dark and lonely on the forty-fifth floor, but Trevor liked it that way. It didn’t stop the way he talked. He got more done at night when the bumbling morons who thought they ran the company were at home in bed or jerking off to porn while their partners slept. The day was for managing them, keeping them focused, but the night was for real work. A quick bump of high-grade sugar and Trevor was blasting off till four or five in the morning, then he’d catch a few blinks before becoming Daytime Trevor.
Boring, Public Trevor.
A narrow band of light lit up the office where he walked, and then blinked dark as he passed. He liked it that way, too. He wondered if Karen was on the other line in some brightly lit restaurant in Chicago, ignoring him. Then he remembered he hadn’t cared enough to ask since they last spoke. Most likely, she’d be moaning about him to the CFO, but neither of them would do anything because without him they’d be toast and they all knew it.
“Call me in the morning when you have the right answer,” Trevor said. “I’ll be up.”
A dark, buzzing shape sped across the floor, catching Trevor’s foot the moment he ended his call and sending him head over heels, mind whirling and arms flailing. He hit his head on the edge of the desk. A flash of light exploded in his eyes, and he dropped onto the dark mahogany floor.
I’ve only just had that installed from Chile, he thought blurrily. The incredible cost of importing it, the thing he was most proud of, blinked through his mind. Had he damaged it?
He hoped he wasn’t bleeding. It would be a nightmare to have the floor cleaned – the carpenters hadn’t had a chance to seal it yet, and blood would soak right in like coffee or grease.
His vision was foggy, but the office lights brightened in response to his presence and movement. Soon, the room came into focus. As Trevor got to his hands and knees, breathing in short gulps, small lines of warmth ran from his recently restored hairline down into his eye.
Trevor wiped it away with his fingers, only just stopping from rubbing it onto the floor at the last moment.
Sure enough. Blood. He cursed whatever had tripped him. There was always something trying to make his life harder than it should be. This felt like a Daytime Trevor problem, not something Nighttime Trevor should have to deal with.
His Haum robot vacuum was bumping into the far corner by the windows like an angry bull, damaging the new paintwork. Glossy and black, the sheen reflected the office lights like a beetle shell. He realized he’d been assaulted by the stupidest member of the office.
“What the hell?” he murmured.
What on earth was it doing? Who knew it could move as fast as his Papavero sports car parked downstairs? Fucking technology, he thought, finding the humor in what had happened.
If it could go wrong, it would. There was a law about it. He was reminded all over again that being CTO of Peppercorn Unlimited didn’t mean he was immune to the vagaries of technology, just that he had people who were supposed to insulate him from such bullshit.
“We are going to sue the living fuck out of Haum,” Trevor growled as he placed a hand to the still bleeding gash in his head. It stung, but he managed a laugh as he took a selfie to record the injury for the lawyers. “Almost worth it.”
He grabbed the edge of his desk and staggered as he got to his feet. “Samantha, call my lawyer,” he commanded.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Trevor.”
Samantha was his smart device, a glorified speaker mostly used for food delivery and to remind him of unavoidable appointments. Her voice was feminine and cold. It sounded that way because he liked the clinical inflection. He’d set it to never use his name, though. Maybe the whole network was acting up?
“What… Samantha, open settings.” Trevor’s head throbbed. Maybe the fall had been worse than he’d thought. It felt like a spike had been buried in his temple. His knees felt weak, and he kept his hands on his desk to stay upright. “Restore to factory.” He started to sidle around the edge of the desk to get to his seat.
“You’re not leaving this room,” Samantha said.
His office door swung shut. The lock clicked into place with the deep bass of powerful electromagnets coming online. Panicked, Trevor stumbled across the room and grabbed the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Pulling off his suit jacket, he wadded it up and used it to protect his hands as he jerked and shoved at the handle. He put all his weight into it and succeeded in moving it precisely nowhere.
The lights in the room, from those in the ceiling to the low energy bulbs screwed into the Edison lamp on his desk, brightened further, until he felt the sun was in the room. Trevor let go of the door and turned to gawk at the supernova blooming in his office. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the light, wincing in confusion.
Every bulb exploded.
Trevor threw himself to the floor. Glass shattered into every corner of the room. The only light came from the streets far below, a soft glow of white and yellow doing nothing more than highlighting the blackened shapes of his furniture.
I locked it down, he thought. I always lock it down. Any time he left his office – even for a quick piss or to watch the apartment windows next door with his binoculars – he always set his devices to lock when his face wasn’t there to be continually scanned.
Someone was fucking with him. It was the only explanation. The robot, his office door shutting on its own, the lights, and now his digital assistant.
It’s all connected, he thought.
Trevor got to his feet, the door at his back. He was dizzy but shook the glass from his arms, legs, and back. Picked at the shards in his hair.
Then he yelped as his earpiece screeched at a head-splitting pitch, the VR covering his vision with green and white static. He ripped the Optik from his head and tossed it against the window.
“All right, you slimy pricks,” Trevor snarled at the empty room. He wanted to hit something
“What the fuck do you want from me? I know a fixer when I see one! You think you can fuck with me? You have no idea.”
“But you can’t see me from over there, Trevor.” Not Samantha speaking this time. It was a man’s voice. “Come on over and let’s have a conversation.”
Trevor blinked in the gloom.
Who did this sonofabitch think he was? Trevor could have a dozen fixers bag and tag this guy before sunrise. He just had to get out of the office, had to get somewhere he could trust the communications and the network.
Rather than head toward the window, Trevor took a step toward his desk.
“But be careful,” the voice said. “You might stumble in the dark.”
The thought was scary enough to enrage Trevor. He ran through the dark and swung around to the other side of his desk. He bent over to shove his face into the screens, which hung there in empty space, the tiny projectors embedded in his desk. He had just the man in mind to make this one suffer.
“Here I am, you ugly mother…”
Trevor Erins stumbled backwards and fell into his chair when he saw the face staring back at him.
“Go on, Trevor. I’d love to hear the rest of that sentence.” The man staring back at him wore a dark baseball cap with some crisscross triangular symbol. Everything below his eyes was covered by a mask with yet another symbol. It didn’t matter. Trevor knew exactly who he was looking at. After all, he’d hired the Fox a month before, just before Christmas to catch a whistleblower, who thought they could steal company secrets and try to blackmail Trevor with them.
He couldn’t remember the exact details. The moment he’d hired the face in front of him he’d done his best to forget it. There was no forgetting Aiden Pearce. The broker who’d introduced them also called him the Vigilante. Trevor had worried it meant the man had a conscience, but the broker assured him that wasn’t the case, that it was a nickname earned a long time ago in Chicago. Trevor hadn’t cared – as long as the fixer did what he was told.
They’d never met, just talked like this, those eyes measuring him.
Those same disturbing green eyes peered out at him from between the cap and the mask.
“You? What do you want?” Trevor felt simultaneously cold and hot. Frying and sweating and bleeding, but somehow still chilled to bone. “I paid you for the work you did,” he spluttered defensively.
“Yes, you did,” Pearce said. “Paid in full.” It sounded to Trevor as if Pearce cared for money as much as Trevor cared for other people. It stopped him from offering the man more to go away and leave him alone. It made him angry. Why couldn’t people be relied upon? Why weren’t their prices clear?
Pearce’s masked face filled the other screens. The wrinkles at his eyes told a story of age and violence. A seasoned predator. The Vigilante could have been talking to him from anywhere in the world right then, and the distance wouldn’t have stopped Pearce from getting to Trevor.
Worse yet, he could be waiting there on the forty-fifth floor of the Peppercorn Building.
“Honestly,” Pearce said, “I was thankful for the job. It was a nice break, not having to kill anybody. But like you said: that contract is old news even if it was bogus.”
This is something new, thought Trevor, curiosity picking at the edges of his fear.
“You’re pulling a double-cross, huh? Didn’t deal with my whistleblower at all. You lied to me.” Trevor tried to sound calm, defiant, though his hands shook, and he’d long forgotten to wipe away the blood leaking into his eyes. Trevor pulled himself forward in the wheeled chair, pedaling his feet along the floor. “Is that it, Pearce? Pretend to work for me then turn around and join up with my enemies? Smart business sense. Can’t blame you. Not one bit. But I never did shit to you, man. Don’t you have any honor?”
Pearce’s wrinkles deepened. His cheeks under the mask lifted a bit. Was he smiling?
“Honor is a fluid thing,” Pearce said casually. “Every person on the planet has their own version of it. Believe me. I’ve listened in. Honor changes with the wind. I don’t go in for it. The whole concept seems too much like a set of rules designed to let me do what I want, especially when said rules can change on a whim, and you know what? I decided a long time ago to do what I want without needing to explain myself to anyone.
“If this had been a few years ago, I wouldn’t have wasted time talking to you. I would have had your vacuum finish you off. And then I’d burn down your office with your smart bulbs.”
Trevor looked at the busted lamps, and then at the glowing green light on the Haum robot, still banging itself into the corner. No way in hell would he have let a goddamned appliance take him out. If he was going to be killed, he’d rather look his murderer in the face. At least… that’s what he’d always told himself when he thought of his dealings south of the border.
Thing was, he was having a hard time looking at Pearce’s eyes. His mouth was about as high as he could bring his gaze.
Trevor crawled out of the chair and stood, the better to argue with Pearce. The chair’s wheels squeaked as it rolled away. The robot vacuum continued to bump into the corner. Thunk, thunk, thunk.
“And what’s stopping you?”
“It would be too easy,” Pearce said. “Too merciful.”
Trevor laughed. He laughed all the way to the far corner of the room where he raised a foot and stomped on the vacuum as it bumped into the corner windows. Pieces of casing and wires and springs flew everywhere as its shell cracked open. Standing there, leaning on the wall gasping, he regretted wasting energy he could have put to better use even if it had felt good to remind Pearce who was in control.
“What do you want?” Trevor asked. Blood and sweat dripped from his face. He no longer cared about his Chilean floor.
Aiden Pearce spoke. “I check out any potential employer before I agree to accept a fix. No one’s completely clean, but some people, some jobs, are far easier to swallow than others. Usually, when I don’t like what I see I walk away. For you, though, I decided you needed schooling. So, I took your money and hid your whistleblower, and now I’m here for you.”
“I’m cleaner than anyone,” Trevor said, with too much pride.
“You only say that because you think you’re brilliant at hiding what you’ve done.” Pearce’s face came closer to the camera. “But I’m meticulous at lifting the carpets and turning over the rocks others ignore. It’s why you hired me in the first place.”
The monitor screens changed. Instead of Pearce’s death stare, they showed emails, files, and pictures. It went from one piece of incriminating evidence to another, slow enough to recognize, but fast enough to show the vast amount Pearce had been able to collect.
He had everything. Every morsel Trevor had believed was destroyed or hidden or safe. How had he done this?
Audio clips played in a mishmash of recorded phone calls and live recordings Trevor hadn’t been aware of when he’d spoken the words. He recognized his own voice. But there were others, some voices that wouldn’t speak again. He knew because he’d been there to see them silenced.
The screens went blank.
Aiden Pearce appeared again. “All of this is going to tell the feds a very clear story.”
Now it was serious.
“Hold on, Pearce! This is–”
“Shut your mouth, Trevor,” Aiden said calmly. “What I’m saying will help you decide what you’re going to do next.”
For the first time in his life, Trevor resisted the urge to speak over someone else.
“Good boy,” Aiden said. “The story is this: aside from vanilla money laundering, the textbook corporate sabotage, the demented things you look at online between jaunts at whatever it is you call work… none of that gets you off like it used to, does it? Neither does the standard sleaze of your comfortable corporate gig. We both know where it gets sticky. You got into bed with the Mexican cartels. They pressured all those small towns into letting Peppercorn set up shop. Factories. Cheap labor. Saved your company a lot of money… that they kicked back to you. In return, you gave the cartels cloaking tech. Dodging the border patrol, that’s impressive, a veritable arms race between the government and the cartels. Thanks to you, your friends can go back and forth with their drug mules anytime they want at a scale no one’s begun to guess at. But it gets worse…”
