Thrill switch, p.31
Thrill Switch, page 31
I shook my head. Right now, that felt like it might never happen. But I would do my damned best as lead detective of the LVPD, that was for sure.
‘You can at least help finish putting these case files in proper order,’ I sighed. ‘That brain cap lets you work quicker than my old analogue eyes and swipes.’
I indicated the screen in front of me. He stepped in, sifting through things on the left-hand side of the screen. I kept working on the right. I wasn’t just going to stand there like a lump, even though I wasn’t as fast. I minimized the footage of Stephenson and pushed it away. There was also the footage of Rommel pleading that she wasn’t the mastermind. I pushed a few more files into folders. Joon stepped back, showing he’d done his lot. He was too polite to ask if I wanted to help with my end. I was almost done anyway. I was about to seal it in a zip folder when a message alert pinged on my screen.
I looked at it and laughed. ‘Too little too late,’ I said.
Mercury had finally released their currency data to us. The group had gone into free-fall once the conspiracy broke. It had been impossible to get records, even for the trial. It had been a mess of finger-pointing instead. Now, it looked like someone had finally grown a conscience and dragged it up. It was a token that didn’t matter anyway. Curious, I still opened it, scanning the contents. Fukami was there. Rommel was there. The amounts were staggering. Rommel had lost it all. Fukami had sold at a good time but it had been verified he had indeed given it to charity. It didn’t make me feel better. He was probably just doing it for his image.
‘Holy shit,’ Joon said, reading ahead of me.
A name I didn’t recognize caught my eye. The amounts were as big as the Senators’, yet I had no idea who it was. Robert Rezz. How could that be right? I checked the buy and sell dates. The amounts. More about money than power. This didn’t make sense. I clicked the name and more info came up. After all, everyone had to have a verified identity to get a Mercury account. I found the birthdate and social security number.
‘Can you check that social security number in your federal system?’ I asked Joon.
‘On it,’ he said. His eyes flickered and a beep sounded. He swiped the info directly onto my screen. We both stood there dumbfounded. From out of the screen stared Switch—but not. Short hair. Glasses. Male affect. It was Corpus. The address wasn’t hers but the date of birth was one that chilled me. I hadn’t paid enough attention on the previous screen, but now it seemed ominous. The date my father died. The date of the first Specter Slaughters.
‘When did Rommel say the mastermind last contacted her?’ I asked slowly.
‘April 5th,’ Joon said.
‘And what date was Corpus reported missing?’
He paused. Looked it up. ‘Same date,’ he said.
We both stood in silence for a while.
‘Free the body and the spirit will soar,’ I murmured.
‘What?’ Joon asked.
Finally, things clicked into place. Too little. Too late.
‘Corpus. It means body in Latin,’ I said absently, only just making the connection. ‘Switch is the Specter. The spirit. Free the body and the spirit will soar. Free Corpus and Switch will soar.’
‘Shit,’ Joon said, letting it sink in. ‘He had it planned from the start?’
‘Do you think Corpus could have used Entown to send Switch a message by writing that phrase at the crime scenes?’ I asked. ‘Like he was signaling the plan? That if Switch helped the police free Corpus, she could break free herself?’
Joon just stared. We were both looking at the screen but really looking into space. I couldn’t quite believe it. Corpus had been kidnapped, hadn’t he? Tortured. Or was that part of his deception from the start to free his sister and avoid suspicion?
‘We walked right into it,’ I said.
‘But why everything else?’ Joon said. ‘It seems pretty elaborate just to free his sister. If he was such a great hacker, why not do it earlier?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, my mind a whirl. ‘But there’s one way to find out.’
Joon turned to me. I grimaced. ‘Are you game to jack in if it means you might die?’ I asked. ‘If Switch is waiting?’
To his credit, he didn’t even think. ‘I wouldn’t leave my partner hanging now, would I?’ he said.
We left the room, marching as fast as we could to the closest jack-in port.
67
JOON AND I rushed through the marble streets of the Politisphere. Already, Mendez supporters were handing out leaflets pushing new legal reform. I knew it was propaganda. She hadn’t even officially resigned her sheriff’s post yet.
Keeping focused, Joon and I twisted down the alleys, bee-lining for Corpus’s office. If we were lucky, he’d still be there. He’d been so careful with his plan to be tripped up by a tiny detail. Perhaps he was arrogant enough to resume life as normal, thinking he was in the clear. If we were right. But there couldn’t be any other explanation, could there? He’d invested in Mercury. Bought and sold at exactly the right moment. He’d said he thought Switch was evil, but that could easily be a lie. What if they were planning this escape all along?
I forced myself to slow down as we neared his door. We could be walking into anything here. To Switch. To her way of killing. I had my Sabi avatar though. She’d patched the holes in my thigh. Left a golden scar there to remind me of my strength. My protection—the ability to scramble Switch’s avatar at the curl of my finger—calmed me. If she was there, I’d fry her in a blink. No chances given.
Joon met my eye. Gave a single nod. Knocked.
No answer.
I was about to knock again when the door swung open. There was no one inside. Hairs prickled up my neck. I braced for an attack.
Joon cautiously stepped inside. He was in a new avatar that looked closer to his real-world body: just a bit taller and more androgynous. He had his claws up. Glowing. Ready.
The space inside Corpus’s office was well lit, ordered. On the desk was a little ball, like a solid packet of green code. I saw immediately what it was—a replica of the file Corpus had hacked for us. It was just sitting there, like a lure. Bait.
I knew then that Corpus realized we were coming. Perhaps he’d left that final clue at Mercury for us to find, hoping to continue some kind of game.
Knowing I shouldn’t, but doing it anyway, I picked up the code packet. My touch sparked a hologram keypad to life. Ten digits. I didn’t even need to pause to know what it was.
‘Don’t,’ Joon said, as I punched a zero into the first box. I didn’t stop. I quickly put in the date of the Specter Slaughters. 07/07/2035.’
The file opened like a flower. A single streaming link sat inside. I clicked it. The screen enlarged to full height, looking like a portal to another room. It wasn’t though. It was simply a virtual meeting link. A screen with True-Resolution graphics so it felt like you were face to face. Corpus’s avatar stood there, waiting. He grinned, expectant.
‘Hello my saviors,’ he said, holding out his arms to welcome us.
Another dark figure stood behind him. She emerged from the shadows. Switch. It was her. No tricks. She wore her singlet, spider web tattoos shining bright. She didn’t speak, just stepped aside to reveal someone with them as well. The figure was sitting. He was bound. Hands tied. Mouth gagged. Tears streamed down his senatorial face. Fukami.
I stood stock-still. My finger itched at my side. I wanted nothing more than to blast the whole scene, but that wouldn’t achieve anything. This was just a window link into what was happening somewhere else in the Holos. A conference call. Corpus smiled again.
‘I’m glad you made it,’ Corpus said. ‘You really are a smart one, aren’t you?’
He paused. There was no warmth in his eyes like I was used to, just the unemotional calculation of someone who’d planned this all along.
‘There are a few things my sister and I wanted to say to you. But first, I want to show you exactly what happens when you try to bring laws we don’t want to our web,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at Fukami. ‘To ruin our experiment.’
‘Your experiment?’ I said, my mind racing for ideas on how I could stop this. ‘What experiment?’
‘To see if full freedom can work, of course,’ Corpus said. ‘I used to think that a few laws might be a good thing. That my sister had been wrong in wanting total freedom of choice. Now, I know that laws can never bring real order. Worms like this always want more power,’ she looked at Fukami. ‘You put in one law and they want one more, then one more, until it’s all control. Be warned. Do not try to put laws in place yourself or you’ll become corrupt as well. Balance by degrees is an illusion.’
‘Total freedom can only be balanced with one total consequence,’ Switch added.
‘I see that now,’ Corpus said, holding his sister’s hand. ‘I’m sorry it took so long.’
‘You’ve paid your penance,’ Switch soothed her brother. ‘Seven days of torture. One day for each year I was inside. We both needed to know what true pain feels like if we are going to make others experience it.’
Switch then looked at me. ‘And you.’ She smiled.
My whole body recoiled. I wasn’t afraid of her anymore. I just knew she’d start lying now. I wished I could jump through this link and strangle her with my bare hands. All I could do was watch. Listen for a way to find her while my whole body shook with rage.
‘I recognize you now,’ Switch smiled. ‘I read up on your history. You’re the innocent girl I let go on the day I brought the thrill of death to my world. You know, I remember your father too.’
I did bring up my arm then, hissing beneath my breath. I held my right hand out toward her in a stop signal. It trembled. The weapon in my palm could disintegrate this link with a twitch of my fingers. I couldn’t stop her, but I could silence her. Joon placed a soft hand on my back, as if to stop me.
‘I remember everyone I erase,’ Switch said softly. ‘All of their faces. I forget no one. It’s all in my access memory.’ She tapped her temple.
‘Don’t you dare,’ I managed to get out in a whisper.
‘I’d like you to know,’ Switch continued, ‘that of all the lives I took that day, he was the only one who ran toward me instead of away. He was trying to stop me. He was the only truly good soul I had to kill. That necessary evil still haunts me.’
A sob burst out of me. My left hand went to my mouth. My right hand was still held out as a shield. I wouldn’t show weakness here. I wouldn’t. But tears were already pooling in my eyes. I brushed them away. Was this another lie? I didn’t think so. Didn’t want it to be. I wanted to believe my father was a good person. To know it beyond all doubt.
‘Unfortunately, sometimes even innocents have to die for the greater good,’ Switch said calmly. ‘It’s why I did my time in peace. I deserved some punishment for killing him. But now I have to resume my work. My brother has seen to that. Now, you’ll finally see how our experiment can be reality. How death keeps the thrill of dark deeds alive. How it will help freedom find balance with justice. We will only kill those who deserve it. Kidnappers. Thieves. Rapists. Pederasts. You have my vow that no more innocents will die like your father had to.’
Corpus stepped closer to us as Switch melted back to Fukami’s side.
‘The rest of the world acted as I predicted,’ Corpus said. ‘If this, then that. Cause and effect. A code script executed perfectly. This next phase will be the same. It’s not so hard when you see the ones and zeros.’ He counted off ones on his fingers, curling them back down again as he did to represent nothing. ‘Rommel taken out for wanting laws. That troll Entown dead so he couldn’t darken our playground further. The very idea of virtual laws corrupted by association with the market. You doing your job as officers to have the senators take the blame. Of course, there’s always a few glitches. That reporter Yu Ying almost figured it out. Thankfully, Stephenson patched that bug. You, Ada, got close to being unique too, but ultimately you helped the code. Now, we just have this loose end.’
I had so many questions, but all I could do was stare hatred at Switch. She put her hand on Fukami’s shoulder. He flinched. Started whimpering.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ I said. ‘If laws were in place there, it would be more like the real world, not less. We know the law works. We know it.’
‘We can use cultural norms too,’ Joon said. ‘Nuance. Absolutes solve nothing.’
‘Is the real world free of suffering then?’ Corpus’s eyes widened. ‘Have we tamed our darker nature by putting each other in cages? By appealing to culture?’
Switch shook her head. ‘We need to go through to the other side.’
‘See this through to the end,’ Corpus echoed.
‘This time, we’ll do it properly, together,’ Switch continued. ‘We’ll only kill those who have hurt others, or those who try to stop us,’ she locked eyes with me then. A warning. A challenge.
Before I could react, she tightened her grip on Fukami’s shoulder.
‘And we’ll start with this tyrant,’ she said.
Fukami whimpered loudly. Switch closed her eyes. But nothing happened. Fukami had said he’d patched the code allowing Switch to cross the reality of death into the Holos. Maybe he’d been right.
Then Fukami began to shudder.
‘No!’ Joon said. He clicked his wrist-comm. ‘All agents, listen. If anyone knows where Filton Fukami is in real life, get to him now. He’s in danger. I repeat. Jazlin Switch is active.’
There was a cracking in response. Voices barking back over the comm. But it was too late. Much too late. All we could do was stand there and bear witness.
Fukami’s eyes started bleeding. A howl escaped through his gag. Vomit began to seep through. This wasn’t the light show of an avatar melting. It was a real body dying.
This was no copycat. The master had returned. The Specter. Thanks to her twin, the ultimate mastermind.
Free the body and the spirit will soar.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE FIRST PERSON I have to thank is you. If you made it this far and are now digging into the acknowledgments, that’s serious commitment. Like, who normally reads this part? Without readers of similar commitment I could never pull this weird career off.
To those who helped make this book what it is, you’re all responsible. Alexis Orosa for your insightful editorial feedback. Charlie Bewley for your continued humouring of my insanity. Scott Walker for your eagle-eye edits. Kalle Carranza for your colourful Spanish knowledge. Elvin Verlaat for your programmer’s language. Stefan Koidl, Johan Aberg and Tom Jilesen for your epic cover art. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
To my Kickstarter backers. You guys put the zap in my electric boogaloo. Thrill Switch would never have gotten to print without your support so I’m eternally grateful. Keep backing independent art, it keeps the world much more interesting.
Finally to Tara and my boys. Thank you for your patience, love and support. You’re my inspiration.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TIM HAWKEN IS a literary hooligan from Western Australia who writes dark sci-fi and fantasy. He is a 2-times winner of the AHWA’s Flash Fiction Competition, has been shortlisted for an Australian Shadows Award, and likes to add a twist of wicked humour to his work.
Tim posts a 100-word, art-inspired story most days on Instagram (@tim_hawken).
Find out more about his work by visiting timhawken.com
Tim Hawken, Thrill Switch
