Emergence (A DRMR Novel Book 2) Read online

  “Oh, shit!” She grabbed Jacob’s arm.

  Surprised, he followed the length of her gaze, and then they were off. All of the surface details doubled over the primary mem stitch, creating an immersion loop of causation and depth.

  Losing the drone on foot was useless.

  Lisa had managed to roll over and get her scraped-raw knees under herself when Jacob wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to her feet. She clung to him, one arm around his neck, her legs refusing to move. He dragged her, and she kept trying to get her legs to cooperate, but they were sluggish and clumsy. Her feet kept catching on one another.

  Jacob’s chest was rising and falling rapidly. Lines of sweat cut deep swaths through the dirt streaking his face. Clinging to him was like riding on a rough sea. She made the mistake of glancing up at the sight of a black cluster of sky falling toward them. Not falling. Raining.

  She got her feet under herself and pulled free from Jacob. Her brain was disconnected. The images her eyes transmitted were confused muddy thoughts she couldn’t piece together.

  Jacob tried to grab at her again, but he was too slow. They were both too slow, and he was injured.

  She hadn’t even noticed. His shirt was shredded and blackened, revealing a burned torso. She saw now that his every step drew a pained wince. He cradled his belly, and she wondered how long he’d been doing that. She couldn’t even remember.

  She shut her eyes against the black clumps of rain coming for her. Her hand found Jacob’s as the earth shook and the sky grew warm.

  Mesa was shaken back to reality. Her arm flicked out in reflex, knocking the martini aside. The orange fluid spilled against the bar, and the glass rolled away then crashed to the ground.

  “Miss?” the bartender asked.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Mesa said. “I’m sorry.”

  The bartender frowned at her then offered her the bill, clearly ready for her to leave. She dug around her pocket for a hundred dollars, more than enough to cover the bill and leave a tip large enough to sooth the bartender’s impatience.

  She broadcast a simple thought through the CommNet. “Rameez?”

  “Yeah, Mesa?”

  “Watch out for drones, sweetie.”

  He blushed and nodded, a bashful grin crossing his lips. “You, too.”

  Chapter 7

  Kaften was feeling remarkably upbeat. That state of mind was dangerous, he knew, and he tried to keep it in check. No need to get cocky, especially after their earlier screw-ups.

  Hours ago, Kaften had squeezed Crassen’s shoulder in congratulations. It had been a good op. As far as the PRC’s drone operator was concerned, a software glitch had led to a weapons malfunction. No lives were lost. The ordnance had simply fallen into the ruins, no harm no foul.

  Should make that suit prick happy. Two less things to worry about.

  The data recovery from Everitt’s apartment had led to a rich trove of information, and he was confident that they would have the girl soon. Mesa was a diligent memory recorder, which made sense, all things considered.

  She was proving difficult to locate. Crassen speculated that she had gone off the grid, gone completely dark, and buried herself under layers of smokescreens. He was probably right. That didn’t bother Kaften in the least. If Crassen was correct, Mesa would have needed experienced help in doing that. If the mem chips were anything to go by, he guessed she would have turned to Rameez for help.

  They had a whole list of subjects to locate now, in addition to Mesa. Kaizhou, clearly her boyfriend. Jade. Doris. Sri and Ashita. And, of course, Rameez.

  Crassen had updated their backdoor search bots, throwing images of Mesa’s friends into the mix. They were bound to get a hit on at least some of them, sooner or later. From there, Mesa would be a stone’s throw away.

  A tight little convergence web. Kaften had to smile at the irony.

  He figured Kaizhou would be the jackpot. But Jade… there was certainly something about her, and Kaften anticipated meeting her. She was a firecracker, a Japanese Brit with spiky hair and attitude to spare. She was the one to break. She and Mesa had a clear affection for one another, which gave him immediate leverage. He never relished an enhanced interrogation, which some would call flat-out torture, but he knew it was a necessity of the job. Another day, another dollar.

  Within minutes, their data trove grew all the richer. Rameez was captured on over fifty securiclouds as he passed through Seattle Port to board the passenger ship Meridian. Local authorities had no idea he was traveling under a false identity, but that was just one of the problems of standard security protocols.

  Securiclouds, body scanners, and Transportation Security officers were all an illusion. They existed largely to make people feel safe, rather than to provide actual security or preventive measures. The number of security breaches that occurred on an annual basis was a staggering indictment on the failure of these illusions.

  Ironically, the security protocols operated on the assumption of human honesty. When Rameez presented an identity for Abdulrahman Sufi, the security terminals ran the name and matched it to a photo ID. The picture matched Rameez, which matched the ID of Sufi, so Rameez was allowed to proceed without any trouble. If the facial-recognition scanners had been set up to act as a deterrent, security may have caught the multiple images of Rameez and the multiple identities he had uploaded after hacking into the city’s security system. The security web’s AI should have freaked out over the multiple return vectors and triggered a warning, but Rameez had been careful, and a little care was all that was needed to fool the system.

  Kaften couldn’t help but laugh at the incompetence and the staggering failure of relying on cheapest-bid civilian contractors to provide illusory-enhanced security. That was the problem with illusions, though; watch too closely, and they fall apart. From behind the scenes, it was all ridiculously fragile. No wonder Liberty’s Children operated with such impunity down south.

  For the moment, Rameez-slash-Abdulrahman was in the wind, and the transit authority was none the wiser. He’d walked right through a billion dollars’ worth of security and boarded Meridian with a one-way ticket to the seasteaders.

  Welcome to fucking amateur hour in Seattle, British Columbia. Good job, boys.

  Doris hadn’t surfaced anywhere yet, probably keeping to his parent’s basement, dicking around in some MMORPG with a masked IP to keep him hidden from local radar. He would turn up eventually.

  But Jade… she was clearly relying on her own natural state of belligerence to see her through her friend’s absence. She’d been radio-silent, but at around ten thirty that evening, Kaften got a ping when she resurfaced. They were able to track her in real time.

  Dressed in a loud blouse busy with dragon prints, a plaid miniskirt, fishnets, and calf-high boots, Jade had spiked her hair into a faux-hawk and adorned one arm with thick leather cuffs. Kaften watched the hacked city-cam feeds live-track her as she marched down Yesler, took Occidental to Washington, and joined the line waiting to pass through nightclub security. She fist-bumped a bouncer and went through the nano-securicloud without any hesitation, head already bouncing to the music, her palms bouncing against her thighs in rhythm.

  As far as he could tell, everyone was dressed as a reject from an ancient 1980s retro-punk historical holo.

  “How’s the knee, Boyd?”

  “Doing better.”

  “Think you’re up to some dancing?”

  Boyd eyed the hacked feed from the nightclub, watching the writhing bodies, the fake smoke, and the flashing laser light show. He sighed, his distaste for clubbing apparent.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Pretend you’re a young, dumb anti-establishment guy and score a hottie to bring back here.” Kaften tapped the holo, his fingernail causing Jade’s image to flicker and
warp around the digit.

  Crassen chuckled, but Boyd was clearly up to the task, regardless of how little he enjoyed the undercover crap. Fortunately, plenty of guys at the club weren’t playing along with the night’s theme, and Boyd wouldn’t appear entirely out of place in his black tee and tactical pants. Waiting around for a snatch-and-grab could be too complicated, especially if she scored a date while inside the club or left with a group of people. By taking the initiative, he could enter the club, and Crassen could mask him from the security protocols and clean up his digital footprints. If local authorities ever got interested enough to trace back as far as the club, Boyd wouldn’t even be a speck on their radar.

  “OK, let’s do this,” he said.

  Jade’s direct approach sometimes intimidated men. Other times, it gave them the wrong idea about what they could get away with. In those instances, she was quick to correct them, oftentimes forcefully. Those encounters typically ended in predictable slurs that equated her to a singular female organ in the crassest possible verbiage or a socially inappropriate comparison to a female dog.

  Such was the case with the blond boy who’d bought her a drink and tried to dry hump her on the dance floor. When she refused to repay him with a hand job at the booth his friends occupied, she suggested several colorful ways he could get himself off instead, all them anatomically impossible.

  “Fucking cunt,” he said.

  Then he tried to put his arms around her waist, utterly clueless. She stomped on his instep with the steel-lined heel of an army boot and threw a quick jab with two stiff fingers into the hollow of his throat. His scream died on a sudden choke, his face empurpled. He was far too distracted by trying to breathe to even notice her lifting his wallet in the process.

  She worked her way back to the bar, her heart racing. Hands shaking, she snatched the cash and dropped the billfold. Rich ponces, always thinking they’re so much better than they are. Always so fucking entitled. He could afford the loss, and she knew the money would be far more useful in her pocket than in his. Stealing didn’t bother her in the least, but she hated physical confrontations and the cold sweats they always brought. The adrenaline was already flushing out, leaving her shaky and in need of a drink.

  “JD,” she said, “straight up.”

  The bartender gave a brisk nod, and she slapped some of Blondie’s cash on the bar. The bartender slid the whisky over, and Jade finished it in two quick swallows.

  “That was nice work over there,” a man said from beside her. Politely, he squeezed between her and the crowd, signaling the bartender. “You want another?” he asked, shouting over the noise.

  Jade loved free drinks and hoped this asshat didn’t try to leverage his generosity into something more. Her fingers were sore, and she didn’t feel up to clocking another douchebag in the throat if she could avoid it. Her fun evening out was starting to leave a stale taste in her mouth, as if her tongue were coated in the ashes of funky old cigars.

  “Sure,” she said, nodding. She folded her stolen currency in half, then halved it again, and stuffed it into her skirt’s tiny hip pocket. The bartender poured out the two rounds of Jack, and she waited for the guy to make small talk. When he didn’t, she wondered what his deal was.

  “Cheers,” he said, holding up his glass.

  She said cheers back, clinked her drink against his, then shot it back.

  He caught the bartender’s eye and held up two fingers.

  “I should warn you, I’m a violent drunk,” she said.

  His laugh was surprisingly buttery. She took a good look at him, suddenly more interested. He had a solid, muscular build but wasn’t egotistical alpha-male, muscle-head big. The black tee fit nicely, and his brown hair was trim and precise. She pegged him for a law dog or something similar but didn’t dismiss him outright. Cuffs could be fun when used properly.

  “I’m Ben.” He held out his hand.

  She introduced herself and took the proffered hand. His skin was warm and callused. The web between thumb and forefinger was a rough patch of taut skin. She’d dated gun enthusiasts before, and his hands were definitely those of a shooter.

  All of a sudden, Jade regretted leaving her flat for a quick romp around town. Alarm bells were going off, loudly. That was the other thing she hated about getting into confrontations—they left her paranoid afterward. And this guy was starting to seem all kinds of wrong, even if his smile was warm honey, all sweet and inviting. Even two shots in, she started to realize his smile didn’t quite reach up into his eyes.

  “Hey, it was nice meeting you,” she said, taking the fresh drink and detaching herself from the bar. “My friends are probably wondering where I’m at, though.”

  “You should stick around,” he said.

  She shrugged. “They worry. I’ll come find you in a few, if that’s cool.”

  Nodding, he pursed his lips. “Sure, that’s cool.” He turned his back to her and nursed the whisky.

  She wondered if she’d overreacted, but went with her gut. It was time to leave.

  “She’s moving,” Kaften said.

  “Alone?” Crassen.

  “Yup. Poor Boyd. Him and that nice-guy act.”

  “When’s he gonna learn, huh?”

  Kaften laughed and fist-bumped Crassen. Boyd was a nice guy, but he had an innate ability to dry up girls that always marveled Kaften.

  “When the fuck are you going to learn?” Kaften asked. “Pay up.”

  He held out his hand, waiting for Crassen to lay the ten-spot down.

  Getting serious, he said, “All right. We go for the bag and tag. Let’s hussle.”

  Kaften started up the van and maneuvered into traffic, spotting Jade before she got to the mouth of the alley. He cut the wheel sharp, stomping on the brakes. She took a small, surprised step back, swinging to turn around and run as Crassen slid open the side door.

  When Jade turned, her shoulder collided with Boyd’s chest, and he was wrapping her in a bear hug, lifting her off her feet, rolling his head into her shoulder, and covering her mouth with one hand. She kicked and flailed, jerking her head back. She clipped his ear but didn’t do any damage.

  Taking one step forward, he threw her inside. After a second step, he was inside, sliding the door shut.

  Crassen jabbed a shock stick into her belly, turning her screams of protest into a gurgle of pain. She threw up on the floor then gagged on the dry heaves. Her face was red, her eyes watering.

  Kaften continued down the alley, rejoining traffic on Occidental.

  Jade’s belly burned with an acidic heat, and she felt as if a thick, heavy vise encircled her skull. The combination of light and movement made her wince, and the plush mattress surprised her even as she pushed up into a sitting position.

  The room was a study in whites: white bed linens, white tile floors broken by thin lines of white caulk, and smooth white walls. Even the noise was white, muffling any outside sounds. She searched for a door, but the seam was hidden, and she couldn’t find the entrance. Someone had taken her clothes, left her barefoot, and redressed her in white hospital scrubs. Her short black hair and tanned skin were the most colorful aspects of the tiny cell.

  Her head felt heavy, but the sensation was strangely disconnected from the painful tension wrapping the upper half of her torso. DRMR was down and the OS frozen. She reached behind her ear and felt a large metal disc clamped over the port, flush with her skin. She probed the inhibitor with her fingers, sending spikes of pain through her neck. The disc wasn’t simply plugged in; it was embedded in her. The skin surrounding the device was encrusted with scabs, and her brief ministrations left her fingers red and sticky. She noticed the rust-colored stains on the pillowcase.

  Where the fuck am I? she wondered, with a rising sense of fear.

  Heart racing, she felt th
e shakes coming on. She wanted to panic but bit down that response—and choked on it. She refused to let the terror engulf her and fought to own it. Her ribs ached, but she tried to inhale deeply, sending shiny splotches across her field of vision. She squeezed her eyes shut, which made the headache more violent and, in turn, quickened the sickening churning within her stomach. Bile rose, and she choked that down, too, grimacing at the foul, bitter taste. It hurt, but she worked to keep calm, forcing her breathing to be steady and rhythmic. She tucked her face down, between her knees, and sat there, hunched over, waiting for the awfulness to pass.

  She needed to calm down. Being distraught was useless. She needed to be rational, to examine her situation and figure out a way to escape. Although she was physically confined, she could not allow herself to become a prisoner to her own out-of-control emotions.

  Counting to one hundred, she methodically relaxed her muscles one limb at a time, working her way up from her toes to her waist. After a second one hundred count, she willed her stomach muscles to loosen, and she mentally massaged her torso and arms, up to the crown of her head, demanding the tightness in her scalp to release. By the time she hit two hundred, she felt better.

  Then she threw up between her bare feet.

  Chapter 8

  Mesa had been shaky since leaving the restaurant. Kaizhou drove, circling through downtown in an erratic pattern, both of them watching for tails and studying the skies for drone reconnaissance. They spent forty minutes making sure they were safe before blowing out sighs of relief.

  Despite the safety protocols, the death of the Kesslers had rocked her to her core. She couldn’t imagine experiencing the snuff in its purest form or riding the highs of the chemical reactions of a life being extinguished. In its dying moments, the brain flooded the system with DMT, a powerful psychedelic that made those final seconds much less lucid.