Page 10

EON

W ork was slow. An endless stream of people walked past the bioChip shop I worked in.

The shop was so deep in the labyrinth of the Magenta District, no sunlight reached us.

We were on about the twentieth floor of the megabuilding, but might as well have been underground with how much concrete and metal surrounded us.

Only the artificial flickering from the alleyway lights lit the facade.

It flashed in the cracks of our very busted tetraglass door that was hardly held together with a few pieces of conduit tape.

No flashy neon lights for us. Our clients found us all the same.

I worked for Dev Chopra, one of the best Modders in the city. What he was doing running a back-alley operation in Magenta, I had no idea. No, that wasn’t true. I knew exactly why he did it.

He was currently in the back, prepping for the day. The only sound in the front store was the tapping of my nails and the white noise of the vid screen I had running some asinine news network in the corner.

I liked Dev—part of why I still worked for him even though the pay was shit.

The other was he let me do all of my less-than- legal side jobs under his clinic’s VPN—which I had set up.

Even back-alley bioChip shops got more leeway for their data security, part of some of the last clean legislation that got passed right after the emergence of Flux.

Luckily, what I needed today wasn’t in POM’s high-security network, just their basic corporate one.

I used the login of a middle manager I’d taken home three months ago.

I likely didn’t have much time left, but the access I’d gotten from it had been worth the very mediocre sex.

He’d taken a call immediately after, and it had made easy work of cloning his ID card and going through his work terminal.

My screen was lit up with the profiles of two employees.

Almost no data could escape me once I wanted it, but these two had almost no digital footprint.

Red at the top read POM Security—Alpha for their department.

To the public, they were practically nonexistent; ghosts in a world where everything was online and logged. Kaijin. I knew better.

Maddox Johnson was first, a tall and thick Black man with short dreads that sprawled over the top of his head, tipped in red.

Even in his ID photo he wore a darkened Vysor with unusually thick rims, his expression stern.

His profile showed he had been an NSPD lieutenant, and in the corner a white hexagon marked him as an aeroteknik.

One look at that nerdy Vysor and I knew Mercy was going to love him. This was almost too easy. At least one part of this job will be easy.

I swiped the page away and just stared at the next.

Cy Hoshina. A shock of blue hair had been casually swept back from his face, and he grinned at the camera in an irreverent way, like the whole world was some big joke.

That grin bore into me, and I could practically feel the grip of his hand on my neck.

His profile was almost completely empty except for the black hexagon in the corner—an electroteknik. But I’d already known that.

Sparks flew between my fingers as I tapped on the counter, my agitation showing.

I shook my hand, willing them away. I looked into his dark eyes again and felt the memory of his power surge through me; my ribs ached, my Flux pulsed in my blood, and between my legs.

My hand started sparking again. The surrounding lights flickered in response, and I pushed it down, swiping away his profile.

I didn’t know why I was even looking at it again, like I hadn’t been looking at it for the last six months.

I whipped out my mechanical keyboard and got to work, skipping around the POM internal message boards.

I needed some way to snare them, something I could use as bait.

Nothing was coming up, and I had already lingered inside their network too long, so I had to make something up.

I wrote the post and flagged it to POM Security before clearing my cache and logging out.

“Oh, the keyboard is out. You must be up to something naughty.” Dev teased, coming out of the back room, a grin across his face as his pair of golden nose rings caught the overhead lights.

His wavy black hair was pushed back out of his face, and it curled at the nape of his neck.

He leaned on my shoulder, trying to spy on what I was doing on my Vysor.

“You’re going to get in trouble for cyberrunning on the job,” he quipped.

“Luckily, the boss doesn’t seem to care,” I retorted, giving him a playful shove and closing down my screen.

“That’s true.” Dev chuckled. “So, what sort of trouble are you getting into today?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” We quarreled lightheartedly. He even rubbed his dark stubble over the side of my face, trying to see my very empty screen.

“Did you download those episodes of Flux Bonded like I asked?”

I let out a long sigh. “You can torrent shows on your own. You don’t need me to do it for you.” I shoved him off, but he just gave me a cheeky grin.

“Yeah, but I’m lazy and you’re the tech wiz. That’s why I hired you.”

“It’s downloading files, Dev. You literally operate on people.”

He shrugged.

I rolled my eyes but flicked my fingers along the side of my Vysor toward him, and the files transferred over.

“I don’t know how you can watch such trash,” I said.

“It’s not trash ,” Dev grumbled with false annoyance. “It’s romantic. Finding someone you’re meant to be with. You’re just a nuller, probably going on forums to talk about how Flux bonds are propaganda to further divide up society.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you think I have better things to do?”

“No way. I can see you moderating a whole conspiracy forum. Bet it’s about how POM set this whole show up as breeder propaganda.” He winked at me.

“You think so lowly of me,” I said with overdramatic hurt. I spun the chair I was in around once, before continuing quieter. “People used to believe in soulmates too. Just another false hope to distract the masses.”

“Sounds like something someone who hasn’t been on a date in three months would say,” Dev retorted with his sarcastic smile.

I flipped him off but couldn’t help mirroring his smile. “Watch it, Doc—better no dates than a date with a guy with no sheets on his bed.”

“That was one time! He was just a minimalist.”

We both laughed, and it felt good. Not as good as other things, but it was enough, at least for now.

The TV in the corner flipped to a news program of protests outside the capital.

Vocal minority continues to fight for their right to marry their AI companions.

“See, at least I’m not that desperate,” I huffed, waving at the screen.

Dev looked me up and down. “Didn’t you program an AI for yourself?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to marry her!”

“I’m hurt, E,” DITA chimed in my ear. “After all the nights we’ve spent together.”

My cheeks flushed. I was not about to discuss those activities with Dev.

He continued to eye me, about to say something, when Beaufort Renard, the CTO of POM Enterprises, appeared on screen.

“It is the continued stance of POM and myself that these supposed ‘digital beings’ are nothing more than fictional constructs. Programmed by humans to act like humans, they can appear real, but they are not. Giving them rights would only be a slippery slope to the infringement of rights of actual human beings.”

Dev flipped off the screen. “And you call Flux Bonded trash.”

Before I could respond, the door chime sounded.

In walked a woman, a bit older than me, maybe thirty-five. She wore a loose coat with a large hood that swung as she walked. Her Vysor flared red, illuminating the rich color of her skin. Plastered to her side was a young boy, his fingers gripping that coat like he was hanging on for dear life.

Dev’s face shifted from the jokester I knew well to his calmer, soothing face he saved for patients. He walked around the small counter we sat at.

“You must be Ms. Smith. And you, Mr. Tom Smith,” he said, looking between the woman and her son.

“Yes, I know you said Tommy was too young for the procedure, but—”

Dev gave a sad smile. “Yes, we do not perform the procedure before twelve years of age. Such a thing is against HIRCA regulations and would endanger my practice. I explained this all in my communications.”

“I know, it’s just—” Ms. Smith began, when Tommy interrupted her.

“You have to! I can’t control it!” His eyes were wide with fear—a fear I knew well. His dark eyes swirled with it and a raw power that was just awakening in him.

Dev knelt down at Tommy’s level. “I know what’s happening to your body is scary, but giving you a Flux chip early can cause major harm to your—”

“No! You have to! I don’t care about me. I don’t want to hurt my mom again.” Tears streamed from his eyes as his mother jerked him back.

“Tommy, that’s enough. Dr. Chopra knows what’s best.”

Dev and I exchanged a look when Tommy wrenched out of his mother’s grasp.

“No!” He yanked on the sleeve of her jacket and the hood fell back. Dev let out a soft gasp.

Ms. Smith had long, braided hair. She’d tried to use it to hide the burn on her neck, but it was too large. It had singed from her collarbone, up her neck, and into her hairline. The wound was still fresh enough to be oozing under the makeshift bandages she’d tried to apply.

Tommy was crying in earnest now. “I didn’t mean to! I—I just get so angry sometimes, I don’t know why. And then I can’t control it.” His shoulders heaved with sobs, and I rushed out from behind the counter and wrapped an arm around him.

“It’s all right. We know. We know you didn’t mean to.”

He leaned into my shoulder and cried, and beneath my hand, I felt all of his skin heat to an uncomfortable temperature.

Dev was still looking at the women’s neck. “How long has he been manifesting to this level?”

Ms. Smith pulled her hood back up. “A few months. Please, he’s my baby. I can’t let him—” Now she was crying too, but silently, hiding it from her son who still sobbed on my shoulder.

Dev pushed back her hood again, looking at her burn. “Did you see someone to have this treated?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve heard rumor about kids who manifest early…disappearing.”

Dev’s lips set into a hard line. “You don’t need to worry anymore, Ms. Smith. I’ll take care of you both.”

He walked behind the counter and pulled out a bottle of healing gel.

We watered it down—too expensive otherwise—but it was still effective.

He unscrewed the cap before gently removing her sagging bandages, then waved his fingers.

I watched the liquid rise out of the bottle, float through the air, and spread itself over her wounds.

Dev used his water Flux to hold the gel in place, and Ms. Smith let out a sigh of relief.

One hand still raised in concentration, he grabbed Tommy’s shoulder and gently pulled him out of my grasp, leading him back to his operating theater.

“E, you’ll watch the front,” he said with a hard edge. No need to voice the unspoken warning. Keep prying eyes out.

“Of course, Dev. I’ve got it.”