11 – Corrupted

  The shuttle train leading back into the city was almost empty when Hector, Lemon, and the wayward doll, Sadie, stepped into the car. The two women sat together, and he picked a seat across from them, more than a little ready for some time to himself.

  It turned out that he’d guessed right about the rusters; they’d been terrorizing the people on Sadie’s level of the stack for nearly three days. Apparently, the criminals had placed some jammers around the level, blocking out most of the calls for help, and the few that got through had resulted in lackluster attempts to root out the problem. After getting the story from Sadie, he and Lemon had waited, crowded together in her little cube, until the residents had dispersed; it was never an easy bet what crowds would do.

  Hector had spent plenty of time in some of the rough cities of the system, especially when he’d first joined the Imperial Guard. He knew how thinly stretched peacekeepers were, and he also knew that a certain level of cynicism and contempt for the people they “served” was baked into the job. Even the most noble-minded of them were eventually beaten down by the system. Too many people, too much crime, and not enough funding eventually led to corruption—if not overt, then second- or third-hand.

  Not particularly enjoying the trajectory of his thoughts, Hector decided to distract himself. “Where’s your guy?” he asked, looking across the aisle at Lemon.

  “My guy?”

  He narrowed his eyes at Sadie, remembering his promise. “For my bit-locker.”

  She picked up on his usage of “my” and the singular rather than plural for the bit-locker. “Oh, right.” She stood and approached one of the train doors, briefly tapping a touchscreen there. “We’ll get off a couple of stops early. Sadie, you’ll be good to go on without us, right?”

  “Um, sure.” Sadie was younger than Lemon, though on the surface they could’ve been the same age. Her blue hair was longer, and she had shiny chrome eyes—contacts or retina jobs; Hector couldn’t tell. Her skin was an exotic tint, too—yellow that darkened toward blue on the backs of her hands. It was unusual, and it might have made him curious once upon a time, but he wasn’t looking.

  Leave that to the suckers at the club.

  “How’s your foot?” Lemon asked, giving him something better to think about.

  He flexed his toes, noting the discomfort on the top of his foot. “Fine.”

  “But you were limping,” Sadie observed.

  “Maybe we could buy a health pack,” Lemon suggested. “We can stop for food after we talk to my friend. You said you were hungry, right?”

  Hector grunted. “Yeah.”

  Sadie was staring at him while Lemon spoke, and when he shifted his eyes toward her, she quickly looked away. He turned back to the window, staring out at the sprawl of industrial structures and, beyond them, the taller silhouettes near the city center. The haze was thicker than when they’d taken the train out, and there wasn’t much blue left in the sky. He could see one of the enormous conical terraforming constructs on the horizon to the right. North? The tech from the rifts made terraforming possible, but nothing about it was perfect—and nothing about it was quick.

  “How far out?” he asked, sudden curiosity stirring his tongue. Both women looked at him with searching expressions. “From the cities. How far can you breathe now?”

  “Depends on the city,” Lemon replied.

  “Why do you ask?” Sadie asked. “Not from Mars?” When Hector ignored the question, she looked at Lemon, arching a blue eyebrow. “He’s a strange one, isn’t he?”

  “Hush, Sadie. He just cleaned up your level, didn’t he?”

  “Well, that was for Grando, though—”

  Hector interrupted her. “What about from Helio, though? How far?”

  “Oh, hmm…” Lemon looked at Sadie, and the other woman shrugged.

  “Twenty kilometers?”

  Lemon nodded. “Something like that. We’re not in a valley, so…” She shrugged as if that explained everything. Hector supposed it did. Even back when he’d last been alive, the Martian cities that sat in the trench had been surrounded by millions of breathable hectares.

  He focused his gaze out the window again, tuning the women out as Sadie whispered, “Why is he so intense?”

  Hector barely registered the comment. He was having trouble keeping his thoughts in the present. Ever since he’d asked Lemon to look up the Conti family—to look him up—he’d been struggling. Where are my devil-damned memories?

  //Neural pattern remapping: 89% complete. Gray-matter restructuring is ongoing. Temporary memory unavailability is expected. Transient nausea and disorientation within normal operational parameters.//

  Hector scowled. His system was trying to be helpful, but all it did was remind him he was hiding from the truth: the “gray matter patterning” shouldn’t be taking so long. He should have had his memories back already. He decided to rip the thorn out; inhaling deeply, he mentally prompted his system for an explanation.

  //Processing request… standby.//

  “Is that true?” Sadie asked.

  Hector narrowed his eyes at her, more because he had no idea what she was talking about than because he was irritated.

  “Fine, don’t answer. Creep.”

  “Don’t be a bitch.” Lemon looked at Hector, her eyebrows tented in concern. “She doesn’t mean it.”

  He shrugged, tuning the two of them out again as his system gave him the bad news:

  //Explanation for delayed neurodeck-memory integration: Gray-matter patterning has been auto-paused 317 times to prioritize corrupted-data reconstruction.//

  He clenched his fist and thumped it on the plastic seat beside him. The skin on his middle knuckle split, but he didn’t feel it. “Corrupted how?” he growled.

  //Cause of corruption: entropic degradation due to improper neurodeck decoupling, improper storage conditions, and prolonged power-preservation mode.//

  Again, Hector thumped his fist into the seat, this time leaving a red smear. He was too stressed to think a clean request to the system, so he spoke again, grinding the words out through a clenched jaw, “Why can’t I remember the most goddamn important thing, but I can remember shore leave fresh out of Proving?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  //Analyzing request… standby.//

  “Hector?” Lemon asked, leaning forward into the aisle. He could see she wanted to come over. “Are you okay?”

  He took in her expression, saw the worry in her eyes, and then glanced toward the only other passengers in the car—four people seated on the other side of the door, a good ten meters away. They were all zoned out, absorbed in one form of media or another. “Fine. I just—”

  //Corruption-pattern analysis: Entropic degradation in neurodeck solid-state arrays typically affects the most recent data first, progressing inward toward older memory blocks. Current corruption signatures align with this pattern.//

  “How much—” Hector’s voice caught in his throat, and he coughed, clearing it. “How much can you recover?”

  //Reconstruction status: 67.3% of corrupted data recovered. Projected permanent loss: 7%. Estimated completion time: 85 hours, 29 minutes.//

  Hector inhaled shakily, closing his eyes as he leaned back in his seat. Not ideal, but not the end of the world. Still, it was a sobering idea that seven percent of who he was had been lost. Seven percent of his life—how many years was that? Not for the first time, he wished he had some augs so he could properly talk to his AI—do some math, make some visualizations. In any event, it was moot. It was what it was. He hoped he’d still remember enough of those last days to know what the hell really happened with the Contis.

  The thought brought his scowl back. It felt too damn convenient that he’d been written off as a traitor and now he couldn’t remember enough even to defend himself from…himself.

  “This is us,” Lemon said, and Hector realized the train was slowing.

  When he looked at her and Sadie, the blue-haired woman looked down. He stood and walked over to the door, leaning against the pull as the train’s brakes really engaged. When the doors hissed open, he stepped out, walked to the railing, and looked down at the mix of industrial and residential construction. The district looked newer than where Grando had his club—gray, rectangular plasteel structures with rounded corners. The roads were some kind of polymer blacktop, though. Gray and black everywhere; the only real color came from the street art.

  On the building directly below, a mural had been painted on the side facing the station. Battlecruisers soared through the black, cannons blazing as they passed each other amid an asteroid belt. Hector whistled softly, running his eyes over the details appreciatively. The ships were different from what he remembered, but only marginally—bigger command decks, more drives, and broader shield arrays. He wondered how much the artist knew. Were they accurate?

  “You good?” Lemon asked, startling him.

  He shook his head. “Not really. Head’s all messed up.”

  “Did you get hurt? Fighting, I mean?”

  He snorted, starting for the stairs. Lemon hurried to walk beside him.

  “Hey, don’t be an asshole. I’m just trying to understand.”

  He looked at her, and she flinched. Calm down, asshole. It’s not her fault. “Sorry.”

  She smiled. “I can tell you’re having a bad time. Don’t let Sadie bother you. Grando treats her like a princess, and it gets to her head.”

  Hector couldn’t help it when that one sneaky corner of his mouth curled up in a half-smile. Let Sadie bother him? Can’t even remember what she said. “I’m good.”

  They reached the ground level, and Lemon pointed to the left. “That way.” As they walked, she said, “You know, it’s not normal for a guy to go around beating gigantic, chrome-gut bangers to a pulp. Like, I don’t even understand it, to be honest. I could hardly see you move, and why aren’t your, like, hands broken or something? How do you even—”

  Hector held up a hand, cutting off her stream of questions. “Those guys weren’t anything.”

  “Weren’t anything? What does that even mean? They were enough to terrorize a whole bunch of people! How do you explain that?”

  “Fear.” He looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Like Jam.”

  Her face drained of color, and she looked down. “That’s not nice. He’s a creep, okay? What am I supposed to do? You’ve seen how strong he is, and besides, he’s one of Grando’s top guys.”

  Hector nodded. “Don’t worry.” What are you doing, fool? You’ve got enough on your plate.

  Lemon looked at him sharply, her blonde bangs swinging with the motion of her head. “What does that mean?”

  He gestured to the stoop of the building they’d approached. “This it?”

  She stared at him, but when he didn’t answer her question, she turned to the building and nodded. “Yeah. Let me ring him.” They climbed the steps, and she tapped on the door panel until a voice crackled from the speaker.

  “Is that you, Lemon? What are you doing all the way out here?”

  “Hey, Philly. I’ve got some work for you.” She glanced over her shoulder at Hector. “I have a friend with me. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Uh, what kind of work?”

  “The kind you enjoy. Nothing to do with the club.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, if he’s cool, come on up.” The door buzzed, and Hector pulled it open.

  Inside, Lemon said, “Third floor.” She gestured to the stairwell—the door was missing—and added, “The elevator never works.”

  They climbed the steps in silence, but on the second-floor landing, Lemon said, “Don’t get me in trouble. I mean, with Jam—or Grando. Okay?”

  Hector smiled his crooked smile again. “I won’t.”

  The locks rattled, and then the door opened inward a few inches. The man from the vid screen looked out—handsome, if a bit pasty. He had wavy brown hair, augmented retinas that flickered like polished, violet gemstones, and teeth that’d make a vid-star jealous. When he saw Lemon and pulled the door wide, displaying his beige bathrobe and plaid house slippers, the good impression he’d initially given fell apart.

  “Hey, Phil,” Lemon said, stepping through into a surprisingly large space. It always amazed Hector, the variety of living situations one could find in a modern city. It seemed nothing much had changed in that regard. Phil’s place was a loft with about four times the square footage of Lemon’s apartment. Better still, one of his walls, facing downtown, was floor-to-ceiling plastiglass windows, each equipped with smart displays. The rest of the décor made it look like a pawnshop combined with a used furniture store.

  “Phil, this is Hector, and he has some extra work for you, if you can keep it between us.”

  “Oh?” He held out a slender hand, fingers tipped with stainless micro-tools instead of nail beds. Hector took it, careful not to squeeze hard. For his part, Phil just let his fingers hang in his grasp.

  When Hector released his hand, the strange man gestured to a well-used couch near a window panel. “Sit down. I’ll get us a drink.”

  “Oh, honestly, you don’t have to—”

  “Juice if you have it,” Hector said, cutting Lemon off.

  “Juice? Um, yeah, I think my dispenser has a cartridge.” He walked toward the far corner of the loft where a kitchen area had been set up, and Hector followed Lemon to the couch.

  He sat down beside her, but his eyes were on the view. The first orbital ship he’d seen since waking was drifting down through the blue toward the yellow haze of the city. It was a big Hercules-class lifter—its egg-shaped bulk marked with fifty-meter letters and numerals: NZ 443.

  “That’s a big one,” Lemon remarked.

  “Yeah. Bigger than this building.”

  “Ever been on one? A spaceship, I mean?”

  “Many.” Hector’s voice was soft, his gaze distant. Troops marched through his mind’s eye, and a Guard commander screamed his faux outrage at their sloppy maneuvers. It was the sounds that stuck with him, the way their boots and his voice echoed off the plasteel walls of the dropship vault.

  “How many?” Phil asked, and Hector started, turning to look at the man in surprise. He was seated on an ottoman in front of Lemon. He was even more surprised to find a chilled glass of something that looked a lot like orange juice sitting on the table before him. Had he really been so out of it? He decided it had to be his aura system messing with him—doing something in its efforts to advance his level.

  “Four altogether.” Lemon held out her palm, displaying the encrypted bit-lockers they’d taken from Hector’s various victims. She held up the unlocked one between her thumb and forefinger. “If you can just transfer all the bits onto this one, that would be sweet.”

  “Sweet ain’t got anything to do with it.” He turned his shimmering eyes toward Hector. “I want ten percent.”

  “Ten?” Lemon closed her fist around the rings. “You only charge Grando five.”

  “Yeah, well, Grando has options.” He shrugged. “Besides, my discretion costs extra. I’m not quiet about what I do for Grando.”

  Lemon looked at Hector, and he shrugged. “Just don’t be dumb.”

  “Dumb?”

  “He means, don’t lie about what’s on the rings, Phil! We can look at the logs.”

  “Oh. You want the empty ones back?”

  Hector nodded. “Lemon does.” He didn’t care what she did with them after she checked Phil’s honesty.

  She looked at him sharply, but after a second, his meaning clicked, and she nodded. “Deal?” she asked, holding her hand out again.

  Phil groaned, scooping the rings out of her palm. “Fine. Just don’t breathe down my neck. This might take my algos a minute.”

  Hector drained his juice and held the glass up. “Could I get some more? Anything to eat?”

  Phil scratched his pale, hairless chest. Looking at Hector in much the same way another person might look at an unwelcome insect. “Where’d you say you met this guy, Lemon?”