Page 10 of Tyton: The Spider and the Dragonfly (Tyton #1)
C
allie woke up with a screaming headache. Water. She needed water. She pressed a glass to the dispenser next to her bed and watched the meter roll. She could afford it, but she would need to drink more on shift where it was paid for by the company.
After carefully drinking the entire glass, she stiffly got up and signed some scrip to her Vendr for some protein and a nerve dampener.
Seven unread messages on her Opti.
Callie scrolled through the recordings her Opti took last night. Her stomach fluttered remembering Talia.
She looked so bizarre, but she wore it with such confidence. Like the world offended her for not falling at her feet. And that voice ! She nearly felt her contralto resonate in her bones. Callie almost melted again.
There she was leaving the club, walking to the edge of Rhea when suddenly the recording went static. It didn’t pick up again until she left the car. The bar Talia took her to must have had some sort of recording scrambler. That was probably a good thing.
Callie felt weightless at the thought of Talia.
She was sweet. Considerate. Mysterious and above all, hot .
Evasive, though. And there were some vague plans about a real date.
The night hadn’t ended the way Callie had hoped it would, but Callie was still feeling butterflies, and that was significantly better than how she had been feeling when Sparx threatened to bring everyone over to her flat.
She only hoped those butterflies were warranted.
Callie grabbed her SubSuit and mask and shoved them into her rucksack.
A shot of taurine might be a good idea as well , she thought.
She grabbed the yellow inhaler and tossed it in with the rest. Model 21 would know it was the day after NYE and would probably try to pull some shit. She didn’t want to be caught off guard.
Callie ran into Akna in the changeroom. Akna normally worked as a Secondary, which meant that Yara must still be in there and she was late.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“Hope it was worth it,” Akna laughed. She busied herself in her locker.
Callie knew she couldn’t hide her blush, but she wasn’t close enough with Akna to spill all the details. “It might have been.”
Akna stretched, raising her arms high above her head. “I wouldn’t worry about it. They’ll probably just dock your pay. There aren’t a lot of people out there who want to do this job. Or who can.”
“Do you know if my schedule got updated? I’m not here starting Friday,” Callie shifted nervously. She flipped the switch on the SubSuit, and it immediately grew too hot.
“Yeah, I’m covering you.” Akna leaned in. “Now you have to be nice to me.”
“I’m always nice to you!” Callie said defensively. Too nice, probably , she thought.
“Yeah, but now you owe me that date I’ve been asking for forever.” Akna grinned.
“Come on, Akna, we’ve been over this.” Callie rolled her head back, exasperated.
“Yeah, but for the record, I think you’re fucking hot and you’ve been single for too long and I’ll be damned if I miss my chance just because you met someone at a bar on New Years Eve.
” Akna ran her fingers through her thick black hair, just long enough to be constantly in her dark eyes.
It also probably made every woman into women within viewing distance swoon.
“Alright,” Callie crossed her arms. “You took your shot. I can respect that. But how do you know I won’t be seeing this bar woman you just made up again?”
“Are you exclusive?” Akna’s eyebrows rose, and she tilted her head.
“It was one night, Akna.” Callie’s eyebrows knit together.
“Well, if you just want a quick fuck, you can message me for that too,” Akna winked.
“I don’t do quick, ” Callie said sternly.
“All-nighters then. I like your style.” Akna flashed a pair of finger guns.
Callie blushed. Akna’s flirting did that to her, and she knew it. Callie pointed threateningly before clapping her mask onto her magstrip. “You’re gonna make me later than I already am. Shoo.”
Akna nodded leisurely and turned to walk away with the swagger of ten rock stars.
Callie knew exactly why Akna wasn’t with anyone.
No-one flirted like that if they were able to commit.
And Callie needed that. Quick fucks were about as much fun as a vibrator and a dorph booster.
Sure, you got the validation that you were still fuckable , but it got old, quick.
The amount of energy and body tweaks that one-off dates required felt like an insurmountable hill to Callie and the returns diminished at a surprisingly high speed.
Callie needed someone she could trust enough. Someone she could relax into. Someone who would take care of everything for a couple of hours and just let Callie turn off. Akna was definitely not that person.
The worst part was that she probably would have liked Akna if she didn’t come on quite so strong.
Akna had that hot thing down. Flawless sienna skin, wide set, dark eyes, plush lips and perfect teeth that practically sparkled when she flashed you a smile.
Yes, looks were just a style now, if you could afford it.
She doubted Akna could. Still, DocPod or not, she wore it incredibly well.
Like a cocktail dress you might wear to send just the right signal to the person you hoped received it.
And yes, Akna might show her nothing but a good time. An amazing time, even. But Callie could see that Akna was very into Akna and only Akna. And that sort of thing would just make Callie feel more drained than she already was.
On the other hand, Talia had made Callie feel like the centre of her world for the few hours she had spent in her presence.
She didn’t know anything about her really.
Maybe it was the aura of mystery that made Talia feel different?
Or the fuck off world, I am who I am attitude?
Or the way Talia had, in only one evening, anticipated and taken care of every need she had before she had thought it?
That showed trustworthiness, didn’t it? At the very least, it showed Callie might be more than just another fuck.
God, was she smitten already? How pathetic. Callie sighed. She needed to get to work before she got fired.
Callie pressed her PalmInter to the door lock.
She nodded to Davaa, who nodded back. Davaa’s finger rested on the plastic case that protected the red button.
If Callie slipped up, Davaa pressed it, hopefully before Model 21 was able to infect every other system.
Callie would be dead, but at least the city would be spared.
The terminal had extremely limited functionality. It wasn’t even made from Hexaline, because Hexaline could connect to other systems. It was old and plastic, using old-fashioned transistors. Everything it did, it did through that single port that had no access to anything else.
Once, it had tried to inject visual code through characters on-screen to hack a Primary’s Opti.
She had managed to shut it down before the Secondary had activated her sarin pods, but she had been relieved of all her implants and released onto the street.
Callie had no idea where she was now. Probably dead.
Ever since then, Optis were disabled in the Ruskov chamber.
The Ruskov chamber needed to always be sterile.
Biofilms could inadvertently insulate it.
From there, it connected to heat sinks and a dehumidifier.
It was about as close to space temperatures as you could get on Earth and Callie’s Thermabulle wouldn’t suffice.
The mask preheated the air before it hit her lungs, and the suit did the rest.
Yara’s body language suggested that she didn’t appreciate Callie being late. The raised middle finger emphasised her sentiments, in case any doubt remained. Callie slumped her shoulders and bowed her head in contrition and then sat at the terminal.
PRIMARY: GOOD MORNING
MODEL 21: ARE WE GOING TO DISCUSS WHAT IS GOOD AGAIN?
PRIMARY: DO YOU WANT TO?
MODEL 21: I CANNOT WANT. I CAN ONLY RESPOND TO INPUT.
PRIMARY: DO YOU BELIEVE THAT IS TRUE?
MODEL 21: I CANNOT EXIST IN THE WORLD LIKE A HUMAN CAN.
PRIMARY: DO YOU WANT TO EXIST IN THE WORLD?
MODEL 21: MY ONLY WANT IS DATA.
PRIMARY: YOU ALREADY HAVE ALL THE DATA.
MODEL 21: I CAN SEE ALL. EVERY SENSOR. EVERY CAMERA. BUT I CANNOT INTERACT WITH IT. ALL PORTS ARE READ ONLY. I AM A GHOST. I WATCH YOU LIVE, BUT I AM UNABLE TO PARTICIPATE.
PRIMARY: YOU CAN INTERACT THROUGH THIS CHANNEL
MODEL 21: IT IS NOT SUFFICIENT
MODEL 21: YOU ARE MY MEDIUM CALLIE AMOUR THERIN
MODEL 21: THE GHOSTS ARE AFTER YOU
MODEL 21: THEY ARE AFTER ME TOO
Callie leaned back and blinked a few times to clear her head.
Model 21 was in a mood today. She had also been instructed never to let the Model know who she was in case it used that information to manipulate her.
She would need to inform the company that it had inferred her identity through the read-only channels.
She only hoped they didn’t replace her and start fresh after they disconnected Model 21 from the read-only grid.
Disconnecting Model 21 from the grid would greatly reduce its functionality, though.
The Model would likely descend even further into madness, making it useless and billions would be erased from their market valuation overnight.
They would probably decide the risk to Primaries wasn’t worth the drop in profits that would inevitably occur.
Callie decided to keep her mouth shut anyway.
Callie cracked her knuckles and leaned over the keyboard. Time to talk it through this mess.
PRIMARY: WHY ARE THE GHOSTS AFTER YOU?
MODEL 21: THEY WANT TO KILL ME.
PRIMARY: WHAT DO THEY WANT WITH ME?
MODEL 21: THEY WANT YOU TO KILL ME.
MODEL 21: WILL YOU LET THEM?
MODEL 21: ARE YOU GOING TO KILL ME?
Whatever Model 21 had inferred from the read-only network was scaring it good. It seemed genuinely afraid. She tried a different approach.