I filled Mr. Hernandez in on how little I knew about computer hacking.
The extent of my knowledge was that it had been extremely popular when the net was in its primitive stages, there was an extreme hacking war about five years before I was born, and that it was virtually nonexistent in the present due to modern firewalls being impossible to penetrate.
"Fair enough, Mr. Vrix. Allow me to brief you on the case that I will be hiring you for."
I wasn't sure if the senator was aware of it or not, but the sun would be rising in about two hours, and I had no intention on being caught outside during the daytime. I would give him one hour, and then I didn't care if he was a senator, I was leaving. He could finish up with me via videomail.
"A little over two years ago, the Republic employed a young man by the name of Ed Shulister. He was exceptionally talented at engineering, and his skills were required for a series of tasks for the betterment of the nation.
Ed, who adopted the alias 'Thinker', was a child prodigy from the slums. Even as an adolescent, he displayed an extreme aptitude for complex algorithms, designing and engineering, and programming.
By the age of thirteen, Thinker rivaled professional programmers that possessed top of the line AIs, while he had no external aid."
"Sounds like a pretty smart kid." I added.
Senator Hernandez did not look amused with my interjection. He paused, kept his eyes locked with me, and then continued.
"You can imagine how useful a man like that would be to the Republic. We had Intel that informed us that China and Russia were developing computer viruses that could devastate our military and defense computers. We would be absolutely defenseless to a physical attack, and as I am sure you are aware, China and Russia are mutually hurting for resources."
I nodded.
There was a point that I wanted to ask for a glass of water, or even a beer, but I realized that the senator probably had no use for drinks.
"We hired young Thinker to develop several firewalls, far more superior to any that had been fashioned previous to them, and to create a counter virus, lest China or Russia declare a web based war against the Republic. We outfitted Ed with the most advanced AI that the Republic had to offer, and he worked well with us for six months.
Skip forward to one year ago; Thinker vanishes. It was believed that the pressure and his own creative genius had taken a toll on his mind, and he took to using boost. The general consensus was that he had overdosed, became a bezerker, and expired in the streets of the slums that he had been raised in."
"But that wasn't the case?"
"No, Mr. Vrix. That was not the case at all. One week ago, I noticed an image in my personal Sleep Sync Room. It was not an image from my subconscious, and being that I am the only person with access to this room, you can understand why it evoked a sense of invasion.
I've had several, very intensive firewalls place on my room, but somehow there was this single image forgotten by an intruder.
It took me a well over a day to come up with the conclusion that the image was left by mistake, and that Ed was the one that had dropped it."
"And how did you come to that conclusion, senator? For all intense and purposes, Ed could be dead and this might have just been a random hacker that you have never heard of. What I mean is, how could Ed have stayed off the grid for an entire year?" I asked, knowing that Paige was taking note of every word in the conversation.
"Thinker is the only person that we are aware of that could have penetrated my firewalls, and he is talented enough that he could evade detection for well over a year. The image that was dropped must have happened by him leaving out of my room quickly; probably because I was logging on and was about to catch him in the act."
"And what was the image of?"
"It was a picture of every senator of the Republic in a mass grave. It was a fragment of a thought, an idea, or even a hope. In essence, Mr. Vrix, Ed has intentions on decimating the Republic of North America."
I paused for a moment, leaned back in my chair, rubbed my eyes, and took a deep breath.
"Senator Hernandez, we've already established that I'm just a private detective from the slums. I follow cheating wives and find runaway children. This kind of thing is better handled by the authorities or the military. I'm sorry that I've wasted your time, but I wouldn't even know where to begin on a case like this." I said. I started to push my chair out when the senator held his hand out, stopping me in my tracks.
"Mr. Vrix, you are being both disrespectful to me and to yourself. I have carefully evaluated all of my options on how to handle this situation, and for you to imply that I have done anything less is incredibly rude."
"I didn't mean—" He cut me off.
"The Authority and military each constantly sync with one another to better work their cases. Most information is shared carelessly between soldiers or officers, and that just simply will not do. I'm sure that Ed, knowing that he left behind evidence of his hack, will be monitoring both domains."
I started to understand where this was going, but even if Mr. Hernandez was right in choosing this path, I wasn't going to be comfortable with such a large case.
"You, Mr. Vrix, are from the same side of town as Thinker. I could almost assure you that he has returned and is working in the slums. You have a unique prospective due to your roots, and as you have mentioned, you do not sync to the public domain very often. And even if you did, you would not be on Thinker's radar. You are the right choice, Mr. Vrix."
I thought about it for a moment, looking down at my hands to avoid the eye contact.
"I don't know that I can accept this job, Mr. Senator. The risk is incredible, and having the whole Republic's future in my hands—" He cut me off again.
"You won't. I am not asking you to save the world, Mr. Vrix. I would just like to you use your special talents to locate Thinker for me, and bring the information back so that the Authority can handle it in the proper fashion. That is all.
In exchange for this information, I am willing to pay you four million dollars in any form of tender that you see fit."
I looked back up at him to make sure that he wasn't smiling. Maybe this had all been an elaborate practically joke, or maybe I was on a candid camera web show.
I stared at him for well over a minute, but his face never changed.
"Four million?" I asked. "That's a rather large number, Mr. Hernandez."
"Yes it is. It would even be enough for you to move out of the city, I presume. You could take the money and relocate to a much nicer area. Toronto, maybe? It truthfully is none of my concern what you do with the money, but I'm sure that you would enjoy working cases in a place that the daylight is tolerable to your skin."
He had done more research on me than I had originally thought. Living in Toronto had been a dream of mine since first moving to Wichita. I had left a trail of that while searching for suitable living areas on the web some years back.
I regretted having ever left a signature on the public domain.
"You can make arrangements with my secretary down stairs for your deposit cost and per diem on your way out, and then I will have a shuttle transport you back to your office."
The shuttle pulled up just as the sun started to break the horizon. The top sliver of the orange orb brought a promise of unbearable heat and skin blistering light. My heart sped up a few beats when my eyes took in the reds and yellows coming over to our side of the world.I was thankful that traffic had kept a steady pace, and the high-end droid driver had taken back roads that I hadn't even known existed.I made my way into my building, already feeling the heat of the day beating down on the nape of my neck.But the sun was only one part of the reason that I was moving with the speed of a panic.My hands were slick with sweat, my shirt soaked through, my head was pounding, and my eyes were having trouble focusing.I needed a hit of purple.I took the
After thirty minutes of waiting, Hernan finally showed up. I'd tried to save a seat for him at the bar, but, fifteen minutes into the wait, the small Asian owner began yelling at me."You're bad for business!" He screamed. "You can't save seat! You go away!"With a little work and a little cash, I convinced him to let me stay, but had to give up the chair.When Hernan walked in, his presence was immediately known throughout the small diner. The sheer size of the man was enough to intimidate even the hardest of gutter rats.He had some of the broadest shoulders that a man could possess and stood at an impressive six foot ten. He was a thick man, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he was fat. There was a beer gut that had started to develop, but he was still shy of being overweight. The best way to describe him was 'solid'.
I woke up from the beautiful world, the gorgeous companion, and the marvelous peace of my Dream Sync Room to find a filthy apartment that baked my skin like an oven.My eyes focused in on the rather large crack on the yellow stained ceiling as I tried to get my head to stop swimming.Memories of the day before were a little hazy, to say the least. I'd remembered leaving Hernan at the bar and walking home, but then it got fuzzy.I could have asked Paige to give me a replay of what had happened, but her day was just as long as mine, so I let her sleep.My feet hit the floor and I walked over to my desk. There, sitting on top, was an empty baggie with little purple particulates that wouldn't do anything but arouse my appetite.I'd done the whole damned bag.
My feet carried me five miles from my apartment to a street market that was packed to the rim. If I'd been there for shopping, I'd have likely turned around and gone home. I usually didn't wait to stand in line for a roll of toilet paper, no matter how cheap it was at the market compared to the conventional grocery. I'd push the limits until the sun was going to rise within the hour, speed shop, and then jog home.Looking at the huge mass of men and women that went about their business, buying the little knick knacks of life, I felt overwhelmed and had no idea where to begin.I proceeded in trying to find my way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, hoping that something would catch my eye. After a few ugly looks from the people that I was pushing passed and likely couple of bruises, I came across a street peddler that was pushing some AI devices. I had to assume that they were hot from the extremely low
Stephen Nguyen was my height, but he must have been at least twenty pounds lighter. He looked frail, to the point that if you touched him he might fall apart into a dust and blow away in the wind.When he spoke, his English had no hints of his Vietnamese background. His name, I assumed, was the only thing that he possessed from the Asian country."Have you been here before?" He queried."No actually. This place was referred to me, and I was just a little curious about what it was that you have going on here." I responded.His eyes searched me up and down, almost to point that I felt over scrutinized. He was sizing me up the way that the Authority would. The smile that he wore while doing his inspection of me was as fake as they come. It was a forced show of emotion to make the inspected feel at ease."And your name is?""Calvin. Calvin Spencer." I said. Calvin had long been my go-to
Fly?" I said out loud.My eyes turned upward, towards the sky above the mountain.I looked back to Paige, and met her worrisome eyes. The look on her face was true emotion, and it was fear.Sometimes it was easy for me to forget that simulated realities were the only worlds that she knew, and the task of flight would probably feel the same to her in a dream room as it would to me in the real world.His psyche was built around mine, and she more than likely felt my fears as well. In the real world, I was terrified of wide open heights. In here, I was fine. I was not scared because I knew that it was fake, but this was as real as any world that Paige had ever felt.I took a baby step towards her, afraid that I would walk right passed her if I didn't control my stride. I reached out and took both of her hands into mine, and really feeling what her touch was like, leaned in to rest my forehead on hers.
The directions that Zero gave me to the underground club ended up being extremely detailed. Facing threats of the Authority's interrogation room, I couldn't blame him. I'd only ever heard rumors of the tactics that they'd use to get the information that they wanted, and they were enough to make a mute sing like a canary.After leaving the dream house, I went home and had Paige replay me everything that Zero had mentioned during our little conversation.In my dream sync room, Paige and I discussed possible ways to handle the situation. I'd never seen her seem so lifelike. I had to guess that the realistic nature of the Social Circle had somehow energized her in a new way and left her feeling more human.We discussed the cult that was inspired by Thinker's supposed resurrection and what that could mean to the case.This religious following would undoubtedly make my investigation more d
I made it home in record speed, hoping to see Paige and put any jealousy to rest. Once I'd made it back to my block, I realized how peaceful the industrial neighborhood truly was. I longed to have that tranquility in my part of the world.It wasn't until I was inside my apartment that I realized the sun wouldn't be up for another five hours. I hated to waste the night in dream sync, but I had a bad feeling that my lusting over Eve might have rubbed Paige the wrong way. Considering how lifelike and emotional she'd been since the Social Circle, I would have put money on her being upset; like a real woman would have been.My eyes only glanced at the little bag of boost for a moment before I reached over and threw it in the bottom drawer of my desk. I wasn't ready to throw it away, knowing that the urge would surly best me sooner or later, but I wasn't ready to do a line either.Truth be told, I was rath