Thrill switch, p.25
Thrill Switch, page 25
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But we have more information.’
Switch waited for it impatiently.
‘A man called Entown Stephenson is behind this,’ Joon said.
Switch hissed. ‘The fucking troll!’
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. How could she know who Entown Stephenson was?
‘So Fukami is involved then?’ she continued.
‘What?’ I snapped. I was still grappling with the fact Switch knew this spook’s identity. Switch obviously realized my confusion, so explained.
‘Fukami became friends with that despicable creature as part of a soldier rehabilitation program we ran. He wanted to let him become a Guardian of the Web. Like I would ever allow that.’
I grasped to make sense of what I was hearing. Fukami knew. He had become friendly with Stephenson. Had he played us? He must have known Bleesh would be a dead end. A bone to throw us without being the whole carcass. Did that mean Fukami was also involved on a deeper level? The puppet master to all of this, keeping freedom through fear? Or were these more of Switch’s lies? Surely not. It fit too well with there being a conspiracy to the highest levels. It didn’t get any higher than Fukami.
Joon pushed on, apparently conscious of time. Fukami and his involvement would have to be sorted once we had this part of the puzzle. It would be in the file that Corpus could crack.
‘We estimate we have half a day left at most to get to your brother’, Joon said to Switch. ‘After that…’ he left the thought hanging.
Switch kept her hands straight at her sides.
‘And I assume you’re ready for me to assist?’
‘Yes,’ I said slowly, deciding to make a play. ‘But you tell us how to get to his jack-in point from here. We’re not letting you out.’
‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘That won’t work.’
I crossed my arms over my chest.
‘Why?’
‘Were you not listening?’ she said. ‘He’s defended by DNA locks. It’ll take days to drill through the doors otherwise. Time we don’t have.’
‘And you’ll open the DNA lock because you’re his sister and there’s enough of a match? How convenient. If that’s the case, then this Entown Stephenson won’t be able to get in either,’ I persisted.
‘A fiend like that finds ways,’ she said. ‘And you want to catch him, don’t you?’
‘Of course we do,’ Joon said.
‘Then you’ll need to fly there first, or you’ll be in the Spider’s Web instead.’
I clenched my fists, not willing to give in, but knowing we needed to roll the dice on this. There was too much pressure from Rommel not to. Thankfully, Switch was feeling the pressure too. She wanted to save her brother as much as anyone.
‘Look,’ she reasoned. ‘I can lead you verbally from here to my physical venue. You’ll be able to verify it’s me, chain my body, and wheel me out. There is no risk for you. After that, I escort you straight to Corpus. Cross my cardio musculus.’
She made a cross over her heart. It made me shudder. Every hair on my body must’ve stood on end in the real world. ‘How will we know it’s you?’ I asked.
‘Because I look like my avatar without tattoos,’ she said. ‘Although, I imagine I’m eminently older by now.’
‘Okay,’ Joon said before I could cut in. ‘After we secure Corpus, you’ll be held at a maximum-security prison for life, no plea bargains.’
God bless the little spankblanket. We were singing from the same hymn sheet there.
Switch considered Joon for a long while. Then nodded.
‘As long as I get visitations from Corpus and a computer to read on.’
‘No computer,’ I said. ‘You can have books. Read like a philosopher.’
Switch narrowed her eyes at my jab, but didn’t say anything.
‘Fine,’ she said, opening her palms toward me. ‘We have an understanding. Do you want me to tell you my address, or should I manifest a map?’
50
ENCLAVE COURT WAS in an exclusive part of Vegas. Golf course surrounds. Swimming pools in every yard. Security guards at every gate.
Except one.
If Switch was to be believed, this was her address—a three-story mansion that stood seemingly empty. The lawn was trimmed but the house itself was worn. Paint flaked on the edges. The pool was swimming with frogs. Still, it was an ostentatious address for someone who lived her entire life in the Holos before this. She obviously had money. Lots of it. Was it from before or from what she’d earned in helping shape the virtual world? That was something I’d have to find out later. For now, Joon and I were on the hunt. We were backed up by SWAT leader Raimes and his key offsiders, Wells and Orson—muscle to combat Switch’s cunning. Gibson’s voice crackled in my ear. We’d run by the terms with Rommel and all had been agreed to. Sheriff Mendez tasked Gibson with personally escorting Switch out of digital confinement. We had the more dangerous part: actually cuffing her in the flesh. Evening was starting to fall already, with its dusty pink and desert orange hues.
We came to the front door. It was locked tight with a ten-digit keypad; old tech for someone who should be a technophile. I looked around. A window was broken on the second floor—another sign of the disrepair this place had fallen into. There were no easily accessible points on the ground level though.
‘I’ll do a sweep ‘round back,’ Orson said. Raimes nodded.
I hit my wrist-comm. ‘Gibson. Ask Switch what the code is to get in.’
Some murmuring and Gibson came back online. ‘She said you should have been able to guess it. It’s her birth date.’
I dredged my memory bank for the number, then punched in 06061992. It was one tiny scrap of real information we had about her identity. Since The Great Reboot wiped all records from online, it had done nothing to help us find out who she was in the real world though. Plenty of people were born on that day.
A grinding behind the pad unclicked the lock. The door cracked open. Inside was oddly clean. No heaps of dust and cobwebs like I expected. Maybe she had a contractor that cleaned the house and mowed the lawn occasionally. I turned on the hallway light but nothing happened. No globe.
‘Head down the left-hand staircase at the end of the foyer,’ Gibson relayed. ‘You’ll get to the bottom and find a locked door to the basement.’
Raimes held his earpiece and spoke. ‘Orson, how’s that sweep going?’
‘All clear,’ his gruff voice said on the other end. ‘There’s a back entrance here that’s locked tight too.’
‘Good,’ Raimes said. ‘You stand guard there in case Switch somehow breaks free of us and tries to get out that way. Wells, you guard this door. I’ll cover the top of the stairs when these guys go down.’
All confirmed, Joon, Raimes, and I crept cautiously through the house. There was just enough natural light from the windows to see. Shadows filled the place and my imagination put a stalking killer inside each one. I noticed a reprint of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights on the hallway wall. There were other classical works as well, all showing other worlds, neatly arranged but unlit. An old Apple Mac sat on a desk in a glass casing. One of the first-ever models, I guessed. There was a creaking upstairs. Both Raimes and I swung our taze guns toward it. It was nothing. Just the sounds of an old house. We moved on through the place and came to the basement stairs Switch mentioned. It was a descent straight down into the dark. Joon clicked on the torch at the front of his taze gun. I did the same. Raimes waited silently at the top of the stairs as we went down. At the bottom was another 10-key pad.
‘Right, we’re here,’ I said to Gibson. ‘Same code?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘This one is the date she was reborn, Switch says.’
I thought about it for a second. The date of the Specter Slaughter? Surely not, that would be too obvious. Instead, I tried 01012025. The date of The Great Reboot. It was a chance for everyone to leave behind an old life if they wanted to.
The door clicked open. The moment of truth. Time to enter the Specter’s cave.
51
ENTOWN STEPHENSON STALKED through the upstairs hallway of Corpus’s home. He’d done it, finally. Mission objective was almost signed off. The hacker had held out, not cracking until the computer trace program cracked for him. Entown had left his bots to continue torturing the pathetic programmer too. He was now in an endless cycle of physical anguish to keep the mapping signal strong. This assassination would feel extra sweet. Corpus and his sister had blocked him from joining The Guardians of the Web. Corpus had turned truly soft afterward too. He’d said law in the Holos could be a positive thing and that Switch had gone too far in her murders. Entown knew now she hadn’t gone far enough! If she’d wiped out all of the pretenders in the virtual paradise, it would still be a pure Eden of deliciously dark delights.
Entown checked the syringe in his pocket. Inside it was the nerve agent he’d used for the other killings. The Master had given him the chemical and mapped out everything. Had given him purpose again after he’d lacked it for so long. Entown had laid low in his bunker like a coward for years, only lurking in the most shadowed parts of the Holos lest he be discovered and dragged back into his military prison. He needed to be free in both worlds. If you were imprisoned in one, the other felt tainted somehow. The Master had reinstated the glory he deserved. He was a goddamned war hero. He should be celebrated, not shunned! Now, he could move between both worlds again. Creeping in one, yes, hobbling on his mechanical leg, but still, it felt powerful. It felt… right. In the Holos, he had a new avatar built using a symphony of coding to morph to his desires and ghost to nothing. It was a weapon worthy of his spirit. All thanks to The Master. Entown would be able to repay him soon. This was the final piece of the puzzle. It would shut the gate to opening the file, killing the last opposition to full virtual freedom. He would alert the media to Corpus’s body and pass it off as another Specter slaying. It would make that Holos Crime bill crumble to dust, keeping things as they were—a brave world for brave souls. And he would be free to move amongst them again. His payment for loyal service. Repaid in full.
Entown reached the top of the stairs when a noise from outside caught his attention. Someone was at the door. He melted back into the shadows, hiding behind a pillar. Beeps from outside heralded a newcomer. But who?
The door opened and three people stepped inside. A short Korean man, a tall redheaded woman, and a cop the size of a line-backer. Entown nearly hissed. The police. He’d seen the woman on The Feed. These were the agents he’d crashed into in Corpus’s office. They’d somehow gotten here too. Never mind. This was a chance to kill more of those who might bring oppression to the Holos. The syringe would only kill one person, but he had his knives.
The floorboards creaked beneath Entown’s feet. He held his breath and moved fully behind a column. He waited, listened, and heard the police walking through the house again. They were going down some stairs. There might be more officers outside. Very good. They’d all save him some time searching for Corpus’s jack-in room and breaking in. They’d trap themselves with nowhere to go and he’d come at them from behind.
Entown pulled a blade from his boot. Silent kills weren’t as satisfying, but they’d have to do.
He made his way to the window he’d come in through and climbed back out, as quiet as a spider on its dragline.
52
SWITCH’S JACK-IN room smelled like a cheese maker’s underarms. You’d think she’d have put in proper ventilation in a house like that. But where she’d skimped on airflow, she’d spent big on digital equipment. Tubes ran from the wall into her body, which lay tilted back at 45 degrees against a thin, run-disk platform emerging from the floor. Some of the tubes were for food. Some were for waste, inserted in areas that could also be stimulated by the very same pipes for sexual pleasure. Some people really had no shame, as long as they were getting rubbed the right way. Screens scrolled with inputs and outputs. Switch’s eyes were covered with a streamlined visor display. State of the art, even for now. I studied the facial features I could see. They were indeed very similar to her avatar. Strong cheekbones, diamond-cutter chin, thin lips. The whole thing set me on edge. It felt like someone was watching us. I couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness.
‘You in?’ Gibson said in my ear.
‘Yeah, we’re in,’ Joon replied. He had the same comm link in his ear too. He checked the display units for god-knew-what and nodded. ‘There’s a serious amount of input coming in through the system, consistent with deep-brain stimulation. It’s definitely her.’
‘You want me to start taking her through the firewalls?’ Gibson asked.
‘Wait a moment,’ I said.
I pulled out a set of police-issue, magnet-powered manacles and snapped them over Switch’s wrists. Then I pulled out some of my own manual lock cuffs I’d bought at an antique store. I put those around her ankles. Finally, I leveled my taze gun at her evil face. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Clear.’
There was a long pause on the other end, before it crackled to life again. ‘Right. Exiting first firewall,’ Gibson replied.
Sounds of movement filtered through my earpiece. I kept a sharp eye on Switch’s real body, while Joon watched the display panels. Her face grimaced in pain. Good. I hoped coming up from that prison hurt her as much as it hurt me going in the first time.
‘We’re through the first firewall,’ Gibson confirmed.
‘No significant change on display input here,’ Joon said. ‘We can’t jack her out yet. Go through the next one.’
Again noises on the other end suggested they were moving. Switch’s real face grimaced again. My gut churned more. Something really wasn’t right here, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then her finger twitched.
‘Wait a moment,’ I said to Joon slowly. ‘If she’s walking in digital confinement, shouldn’t her run disk be moving too?’
Joon turned. Switch still lay back at a 45-degree angle on her run disk’s plank.
‘Maybe it’s broken after all these years,’ Joon said. ‘This must have been one of the first prototypes of this design I’m guessing.’
‘Okay, we’re through to the next section,’ Gibson interrupted. ‘One more to go. Tell me when to proceed.’
Again Switch’s mouth sneered. Her nose crinkled in pain. Her fists clenched and whole body tensed.
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t her feet be moving if she’s walking? Something? I’m not sure this is Switch.’
Joon looked at me like I was crazy. ‘What do you mean it’s not Switch?’ he asked. ‘Look at her face.’
I did and she groaned, gritting her teeth.
‘Gibson? Status?’ I asked.
‘All fine here. Switch under control, getting ready to move to the next firewall.’
‘No. Stop.’ I said. I studied the body in front of me. If she’d been here for years, totally unkempt, her nails should be longer. Her hair too. This wasn’t right.
‘What’s wrong?’ Gibson asked.
The body in front of me moaned loudly. Thrashed for a moment, then went still again, panting. Panic crept into me.
‘Gibson, take her back into confinement, now!’
‘What are you doing?’ Gibson said.
‘Byron’s got the jitters,’ Joon said.
‘Stand up!’ Gibson barked. ‘Get off the ground.’
Static buzzed on the connection
‘What?’ I asked, pressing my finger to my ear.
‘Not you,’ Gibson replied. ‘Switch. She just sat down and closed her eyes. Stand up!’
I looked at the body in front of us, my hunch becoming a howl. We’d been had. This was all a trick!
‘Gibson! Drag her back through the firewall now!’ I yelled. ‘Raimes, you up there?’
‘All clear still,’ Raimes confirmed. ‘Wells? Orson? Status.’
Silence.
‘Hey!’ Gibson’s voice rang out. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Her avatar’s gone slack. I think she’s dead.’
Joon looked to the screen frantically.
‘Vitals are the same as before here,’ he reported.
‘You idiots,’ I said, looking at the body plugged in before me. ‘This isn’t Switch. It’s Corpus. Switch isn’t here!’
‘Wells, Orson, report,’ Raimes voice crackled on the link. ‘Hey, you…’
A trio of zaps from a taze gun sung out from above.
‘Secure Corpus!’ I snapped at Joon.
Things were happening too fast. My gut was twisting in fear. We’d let Switch trick us. Was she somewhere else already and got to Raimes?
I rushed out into the stairwell. Just as I got out the door, Raimes’s body crashed into me. His neck was cut from ear to ear. His weight pushed me against the wall. I struggled to get out from beneath him. Behind Raimes’s shoulder, I could make out someone stalking down the stairs, knife in one hand and syringe in the other. No. It wasn’t Switch. It was Entown Stephenson. He’d found Corpus ahead of us.
‘Joon!’ I managed, getting an arm loose.
He turned to see me in trouble, moved to help.
The Spider took his time. One slow step after the next.
‘No, Joon,’ I called. ‘Secure Corpus. Stephenson is here!’
With my free hand, I slammed the door to the jack-in room closed. Corpus was too important. The digital lock of the room snapped shut. Heaving Raimes’ body off me, I raised my taze gun. Too late. Stephenson’s foot speared at me from out of nowhere. My gun crunched out of my hands. I swung a punch to crack Stephenson but hit nothing but air. His arm wrapped around my throat. Squeezed. I grasped at it helplessly. Tried to kick back or gain some leverage. My feet slipped on Raimes’s blood.
‘Help,’ I managed between breaths. ‘Joon.’
Stephenson was too strong. Had caught me off guard. I tried to pry my fingers between his arm and my throat. No air. Stars flashed at the edges of my vision. Black was closing in.
‘Orson! Gibson! Anyone!’ I heard Joon’s voice in my ear. ‘Send back up, now. Byron? Talk to me!’
