“Did you kill them?” Lur asked, pressing into his mental wound, but he allowed it because he loved her, and had to admit that remembering wasn’t as painful as it normally was.

  “Yeah, I killed them when I no longer cared if I would catch a bullet or end up locked up forever. I just blanked, and when it was over, Tiffany was avenged, but I still felt the pain and the need to do something to make it all numb. I’m not proud of it, but I started working in Ybor for a female gangster. We used each other, if I’m being honest. We had a past and, well, it just sort of happened. Then Jason called me up one day and was like, ‘Dee what are you doing?’ He had been following my blood trail and covering my tracks. Offered me a job as a skiptracer to bring me back on the right side of the law.”

  “I’m so sorry, Dhata,” Lur whispered, clutching at his forearm, causing him to feel an ache in his biceps from the tension.

  “And then came you.” He smiled and touched her chin playfully as he exhaled the hurt. “Now I worry that I may have corrupted you.”

  “I’m the daughter of Jose Diaz, Dhata,” Lur said, dismissively. “You know where I come from, so stop pretending I am some innocent young girl you found at school. I’m very much my father’s child. Just because I’m addicted to the ViVi, you forget who I am sometimes, I think. Plus, you can’t get rid of me. I cost too much.”

  Dhata looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

  “I cost you the leg when Papa tortured you under the house, and all of the scars on your stomach that he made with his knife. Papa was overprotective, and I can never forgive him for what he did to you, the love of my life. I thought you would hate me forever after he did those things, but you came back, mi vida. So stop saying you corrupted me, alright? I don’t like it.”

  “Alright, Lurita, you got it, but I have to acknowledge that I took you out of one hell just to bring you into one of my own making.”

  “I know what you are doing, and it isn’t working, so stop,” she admonished him, her voice dropping an octave. “If you don’t want to talk about it anymore, it’s alright. The two of us have done bad things in the past, but now we do good work for everybody, don’t we?” She stood up suddenly. “I want wine now. Is there any left from the time we were here before?”

  “Tons. You went overboard on our last supply run, remember?” Dhata said. “There’s a whole pantry loaded with that stuff.”

  “You will not be drinking, but I will,” she teased, flicking out her tongue. “Think I’ll get me a red, like the flames that fuel our love.”

  “I wonder sometimes if it’s the multilingual thing with you or if you’re just naturally corny like every other cypher I know,” Dhata shook his head at his retreating lover. “It comes off as cute because of your accent, but something tells me that if your first language was English, I would be making fun of you constantly instead of becoming aroused.”

  “That moment has passed from the ViVi, skiptracer,” she said, standing up to stretch. “Now, you are not allowed to move until I return with my wine.”

  “There’s the daughter of Jose Diaz,” Dhata mumbled under his breath, thinking she hadn’t heard it until she threw up the middle finger at him. It made him laugh. She was right; there was no corrupting what was already corrupt. Somehow that soothed him, as he watched the moon climb higher into the sky. He felt as if he’d lived a hundred lifetimes in his complicated 45 years, but for some reason after divulging all he’d done, his burdens began to feel light.

  When she returned, she was stopped by one of The Unsung agents, the medic who had given him the pills and treated his wounds. The two started chitchatting, but she kept looking in Dhata’s direction, which made him think they were discussing his health. After five minutes of this, they separated and Lur was back by Dhata’s side. She handed him a bottle of water and two tiny yellow pills before presenting a glass of red wine.

  “This is for me, not you,” Lur said. “Doctor’s orders. You take it easy tonight.”

  “Everyone thinks you’re so sweet when they don’t realize how badly you abuse me,” he complained, opening the water bottle with a look of disgust.

  “He tells me that I should allow you to sleep tonight.” She grinned, trying to hide it by sipping from her glass.

  “That’s what he was down there telling you? It’s a good thing I know where to stuff his advice,” Dhata said.

  “He didn’t say that. I was just teasing.” Lur laughed. “What’s on your mind, Dhata? Did something change when I went inside and came back out?”

  “The world never felt as small to me as it does now,” he said. “And I’ve been all over. Yet, it’s like humanity is one great big neighborhood, and everything you did as a teenager growing up comes back to haunt you for the rest of your life. How do you feel about moving out of Tampa?”

  “I’m okay with it,” Lur said. “There’s nothing holding me here but you. Where do you want to go?” She looked deep in thought as she stared off into nothing, occasionally bringing up her glass for a tiny sip.

  “You’re a good girl, Lurita,” Dhata said. “I know that sounds strange or whatever, but I mean it. Anyone would be lucky to have you, and I somehow was chosen. Now, I remember your father was trying to marry you off to what he thought was a good fit for your legacy. Ruiz, was it? Despite you being the best daughter, you were strong enough to fight against it. That’s how tough you are, and loyal. You’re not just a boss’s daughter but a brilliant cypher.”

  “I’m not tough Dhata; my maid, Marisol was tough. I grew up with nothing but tough women, because in that life, even if you’re just a maid, you need to be tough to survive. I was the boss’s daughter like you say, so I was protected. My toughness was defiance. How could he try to marry me to that creepy, lip-licking—”

  “Rat?” Dhata announced, and she looked at him and started to laugh. “He was the main one torturing me. Did you know that? ‘Pocket-knife Ruiz.’ Cute name for a rat-faced waste of life. I was glad he got his. With your father, it was business. I crossed the line, and he did what he thought would get him his money. That’s what gangsters do. It left me scars, but I was willing to talk to him when you asked.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “You gave up a lot for me, and I chose you. When I saw you that day, I will never forget, you said: ‘If you find yourself fed up and wanting a change of scenery, you know that I’d protect you, and take care of you, right?’ It broke my heart. You were hurting, but still wanted to have me, and be my man, even when it was my own father that hurt you so bad.”

  “Without the pain and the loss that brought us together, beautiful, I wouldn’t have much of anything for myself right now,” he said. “There would be no Unsung, and I’d still be in the bars slowly drowning myself to death.”

  “I would be married to Don Ruiz, and there would be a baby and rules that would keep me out of the grid. I would lead a double-life, like Ida,” Lur said with a big smile. “Cypher by night, mother and wife by day, losing my mind slowly, I imagine. No, it is a good thing we met, Dhata. Let’s leave it at that.”

  A call came in suddenly and Dhata regretted breaking the moment between them, but the caller ID said Hiroshi, which took him a second to process. “Hiro’s calling, Lurita, I need to take this,” he said, patting her on her leg. She took it as an invitation for her to stretch out, so she shifted her chair to face his and placed her feet up on his lap. “Hiroshi, the Cynic Star, where have you been? We were worried you pissed off the wrong Zaibatsu big shot or fell onto the radar of the Japanese government.”

  “It is good to hear you, Dhata, it’s been too long. I have much to tell you. I am here with Detective Garcia. We are at your zeppelin. I hope it isn’t a problem.”

  “You and Ari, huh?” Dhata mused. “Have you two been in contact? That’s weird. She asks about you all the time. So how are you all together at my house?”

  Another call grabbed Dhata’s attention, and he saw that it was Ariana this time. He quickly answered but then told her to wait as he merged the two lines and synced in Lur’s.

  “Alright, we’re all together now,” Dhata said. “Ari, how are you at the zeppelin with Hiroshi?”

  “Hello, Hiroshi,” Lur said, but before he could answer, Ariana was speaking rapidly. She told of her encounter at the bridge and recounted the shootout she and Dhata had been in, and how it all had her stressed and on the edge. “The last thing I need right now are variants coming after me,” she added, and then to Dhata, “We need to get to the heart of this or we’re going to all end up dead.”

  “Wait, before we speak about the details,” Lur cut in. “Hiro, where have you been?”

  Hiroshi recounted his adventure in the grid, and what he knew of Sigma and the variants that were now out to destroy them. Dhata was surprised to hear Hiroshi go into so much detail, but Lur was still skeptical having not heard from him in weeks.

  She started grilling him on specifics, like their time in Japan, and the numerous jokes they had shared. Dhata listened in patiently, not having the heart to tell her that her testing him was unnecessary.

  “I am just glad to hear that you are alive, Hiro,” Lur relented, after exhausting her investigation within three minutes.

  “I did try to reach you, Lurita. I was trapped inside the grid without communication, and no longer capable of shifting. At first, I assumed that my implant was infected, and I was inside of a simulation meant to appear as the grid we know. Everything was familiar, but somehow different, and I deduced that it wasn’t my implant but my rack.”

  “Someone sabotaged your equipment while you were in?” Lur nearly shouted, angry now that she realized what he was saying. “The thing we feared most, when they came to do the same to you just last year?”

  “Yes,” Hiroshi agreed. “But this lacked the sophistication needed to trap me. I was able to find a friend to help me, and even when he agreed, I eventually used a deep-dive inception to escape. Before, when confronted, Sigma was strong enough to be in many places using variants, all of a singular mind. My friend, Ayame, informed me that the saboteurs in my home were executed by a human assassin. The Sigma we knew would have sent in reinforcements. This one seems cut off and blind, so it is prone to making mistakes.”

  “We destroyed the mainframe that housed it, so Sigma is splintered. The alpha is possibly living within another variant or entity,” Lur said, excitedly. “This makes it vulnerable, if we can find it.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Dhata said. “Sigma inside an entity means that killing it will put an end to all this mess.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know who he is, and how many variants are working with him,” Lur reminded him, gently.

  “I have a clue that comes with a contract I’ve taken,” Hiroshi said. “A large company by the name of Tsuba Corp is manufacturing synthetics here in NU-USA. I believe they’re doing this without the use of the Arch Brain.”

  “Another reclamation plant, using synth corpses to produce sex dolls and soulless slaves,” Dhata groaned, recalling DC and the building where Sigma was doing the same thing. Synths killed in prisons were found to be transported to that plant instead of being destroyed as was the protocol. When he and Ariana had gotten inside to investigate, they learned quickly that the dead synths were being gutted and remade into replicated humans, known as variants.

  “Where is this Tsuba Corp operating?” Ariana asked.

  “I believe the city is called Seattle,” Hiroshi offered, prompting Dhata and Lur to exchange looks of excitement.

  “This points all signs of Sigma to Seattle, Washington,” Dhata explained. “Paradise’s twin, who we now know is a variant. Hiroshi’s plant, and finally, this mystery person who put a bounty on my head.”

  “Oh come on, stop the games, man. It’s the same person or variant. This is not a coincidence,” Lur fanned the air, dismissively.

  “So all this time Paradise was a variant coded to fool me into thinking this was all about that old beef?” Dhata mused. “Guess it makes sense. He’s in prison, and Sigma was already inside the TPD grid. He could have spoofed the release, put his variant in place, and used his resources and followers to try and kill me. He’s put assassins on everyone with the exception of Lur. We shouldn’t wait for her turn to come around. We’re going to need to get to Seattle, find which is the host, and send it to hell.”

  “You and Hiro should come back out here, Ari,” Lur suggested. “We can better look out for one another together. Right? Oh, I forget about your job, but it’s too dangerous for you now, especially there.”

  “Don’t worry about that job,” Ariana said. “What’s the use of playing John when none of them want me in the office anyway? Let me make a few calls, and we’ll drive out there.”

  “We’re all together again,” Lur became excited. This was good enough for Dhata, who didn’t feel comfortable to hope that this was a road to the true end. Sigma was once a permanent fixture in their nightmares, and upon destroying it, hope had returned, but now he knew that even if they managed to kill its host, Sigma would remain a presence in their minds for the rest of their years.

  Chapter 27

  Cypher Girl Lost

  Dhata woke up late to pain and confusion but he was getting used to it, his eyes struggling to adjust to the brightness of the room. The first thing he noticed was how much his limbs felt like jelly, and he missed the tight muscularity he’d always known. All these injuries, medication, and time spent in bed, had done more damage to his mental wellbeing than to his physical health.

  Body parts could be replaced with cybernetics, but this feeling of lethargic unreadiness had him desperate. He sat up and activated the HUD augment through his ICLs, saw the time was 10:33 a.m., and that there was a message from Hiroshi that had been sent last night.

  “Let us talk later, alone,” was all it said, which wasn’t surprising. He and Hiro hadn’t spoken in what felt like months, and the synth would want to trade notes on Sigma to come up with a plan for locating its host in Seattle.

  As Dhata made to move, he felt pain in his lower back, closer to the right. Reaching back to massage the area, he felt the grip of his revolver, which had slipped from his pocket during the night while he had been too drugged up to notice it missing.

  I bet my snoring ran her out, he thought, noticing that both Lur and her bag of cypher tools were gone. He got up and stretched despite the pain, and decided that no matter the plans for the day, he needed to get in a workout to feel something in his arms. Very rarely had he ever gone a week without some form of exercise, be it chasing hools on a case, lifting weights, or going on an 8-mile run. This morning, he intended to go for a hike and fit in some kind of workout in the backyard.

  Pulling on some shorts and his one pair of track shoes, he slipped out into the living area and crept quietly into the restroom. Here, he stuck his face below the cold water and took a long time brushing his teeth. It was the recipe he needed for full coherence, and in a few minutes, he was ready for the day.

  The cottage was buzzing with activity. Ernesto and Billy of The Unsung were chatting and joking over coffee, and Colin, his pill-pusher, was on the couch with a new agent, an attractive female synth who upon seeing Dhata gave him a mock salute. Lur and Hiroshi were at the dinner table, jacked into their racks, mentally gone from the world.

  He was surprised that Hiroshi would risk being on the grid after everything he’d gone through in the last week. Dhata stood behind Lur and planted a kiss on her neck, and though he expected it to go unnoticed, he was pleasantly pleased when one hand shot up to touch his face for a few seconds before returning to its handle on the rack.

  Exiting the cottage, Dhata surveyed the property, gauging how far out he could go while staying within eyeshot of his guardians. An hour later and he was wet with sweat, muscles activated, with his heart rate up, though he wanted to retch from the medication that was threatening him with bouts of nausea. Pushing past this, he went inside the shed and retrieved several weights and a bench which he arranged in a clearing next to the empty chicken coops.

  Thirty minutes in and he was zoning, all problems forgotten, the only thing present being the strain on his muscles, that deep burn of which he craved, reminding him that despite it all he was still alive. The sound of someone approaching caused him to drop the dumbbells. He sat up on the bench, expecting Lur but finding Ariana instead.

  Recognizing the look of disbelief on her face from him working out, he tried to ignore her and walked over to a tall bar, which he jumped up to grip for a set of pull-ups. These he did facing away from her to try and avoid the distraction. She and Hiroshi looked to have arrived sometime in the night, when he and Lur had been fast asleep inside their bed. He wasn’t used to her in casual clothes, and though he looked away he couldn’t unsee her, no matter how hard he tried.

  “Morning, detective,” he said once he’d found the ground again. “What? Did you expect me to be hemmed up in bed, or sitting at the bar nursing some tea?”

  Ariana handed him a water bottle, but there was no comeback joke like he expected. “No, I’m actually impressed at your wind,” she said. “You’ve got the look, sure, but the way you are with whiskey, I assumed you got that body from muscle enhancers, not doing all this. You’re better than me. I don’t have the discipline.”

  “You would if you gave it a shot,” he said. “Those enhancers are like stims; they’re addictive and do a number to your interior organs from what I hear. Hell, I already live in pain. What’s a few more aches to look this good?”

  “Now you’re being an ass,” she said. “But I’ll take your word for it. Has anyone ever told you that you were born a hundred years too late? The music you love, this macho-man workout … your cars. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you were overcompensating for something.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27