Cyber Dreams 1.38 - Epilogue (Patreon)

How do you all feel about this ending for the first book? Let me know in the comments :)

2.1 coming on Friday!

-Plum

Juliet kicked at her blanket and stretched, arching her back. Just as the stretch was getting good, she felt a straining of her flesh, a needle of pain in her chest, and cut it short. She huffed, flopping her arms down to the surprisingly comfortable gel mattress. “Can’t even get a good stretch in,” she yawned, looking around the spartan, white-walled room. Bright, diffuse light came through the frosted glass of the window, and again, she groaned, “Would it kill Tsakanikas to put some curtains in here?”

“Good morning, Juliet,” Angel said. If Juliet closed her eyes, she could imagine the clear, pleasant voice coming from a dear friend sitting by her bedside.

“Hey, Angel. Any updates?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes. She only felt a minor twinge of discomfort as she twisted her bandaged wrist, putting some pressure on the bonded flesh.

“You have two messages—one from Honey and one from Ghoul.”

“Really? Ghoul?”

“Yes, would you like to see that one first?”

“Ye . . . no. Give me Honey’s first.” Juliet was excited to hear from Ghoul but wanted to focus on it without worrying about what Honey had to say. A blinking tab appeared on her AUI, and she selected it, opening up a vid message from Honey. She was smiling, standing in a hallway that looked suspiciously like the one outside the room Juliet was convalescing in.

“Hey, Juliet! You were conked out, so I went to get you some breakfast and make some calls to the gang. They’ve had a productive couple of days, and I’ll give you an update on everything they got up to when I come back. Don’t worry; I’ve been keeping tabs on your good doctor, and everything seems up and up so far. He’s kinda shifty, but I get a serious honor among thieves vibe from him; I think we’re still good here for a couple of days. See you soon!” The vid stopped on a freeze frame of Honey’s smiling, fresh face.

“I don’t think so, Hon,” Juliet whispered, shaking her head. “Heading home today if I have anything to say about it.” She cleared her throat, about to ask Angel to play Ghoul’s message, when an urge to cough hit her, which she did, painfully, for the next minute or so. When she finally got over the fit, her face was bright red, and her chest wound was aching.

“Don’t worry, Juliet,” Angel said, “the doctor cleared most of the blood from your lungs, but he said you’d have some discomfort and coughing for a few days.”

“Yeah, I just don’t wanna rip this cut open,” Juliet said, gently patting the gauze pad on her chest.

“There’s little chance of that; the wound was sealed with a powerful bonding agent. It will hold together as it heals.”

“Right, well, play me Ghoul’s message, please.” Juliet had woken from surgery sometime around noon the previous day, and Honey hadn’t had any updates on Ghoul other than that Mags had gotten her to St. Mary’s emergency room okay and was waiting with her to learn more.

“It’s a text message, Juliet,” Angel replied, displaying the text in an opaque amber window on her AUI:

Juliet,

I hear you got hurt helping me. I’m so sorry about that and everything else. I know you think this is somehow your fault, that I was taking the blame for Vikker. You don’t know the whole truth, though. That night, the night Vikker and Don almost killed you, they told me they were going to question you. They told me they thought you were a corpo rat. I argued a little, but I was kind of out of it. I sat in a recliner drinking a craft beer while they fucked you over in the garage.

No, I didn’t know they’d take it so far, but I could have stopped them; I could have come out to the garage to see how things were going, to make sure they treated you right. I was not unconscious, no matter what they said or what I said before. So you see? I deserved what Reynold was doing. I earned the shit that came my way.

Still, somehow fate or the universe or God, I don’t know, saw fit to give me another chance, put you in my path—a true friend, an actual good person in this fucking hell we’ve crafted for ourselves. I’m kind of a mess right now; my emotions are all over, and I’m still coming to terms with the idea that Reynold is no longer a threat. I’m going to trust that it’s true, though. I’m going to believe your friend, Mags.

I don’t deserve you or your friendship, nor do I deserve the sister Reynold found. I’d thought she was lost, and dammit, I need to make some things up to her. That’s where I’m going to start, start working to turn shit around in my life and become worthy of people like you and Allison, my sister. So, this is thank you and goodbye for now. I'll understand if you never want to see me again, but I will look you up someday and give you the chance to say it to my face.

I know sending you this text message is cowardly. I should have called, let you cuss me out. I would’ve sent a vid, but my PAI wasn’t sure he could encrypt it as well as this text message—I really need an upgrade.

Take care of yourself.

Love,

Cassie

Juliet leaned back on her pillows and wiped at the tears that had sprung from her eyes when she’d read Ghoul’s confession and continued to flow as she read the rest. “Dammit, Ghoul,” she breathed. She felt the urge to call her, to demand she come back, to scream at her for lying about Vikker, and to tell her she didn’t care, that she could forgive her.

“I’m sorry, Juliet,” Angel said, her voice soft and full of simulated emotion.

“Yeah, well, alone again, I guess.”

“Not exactly, Juliet. You have me. You have Honey and the others that helped on your rescue mission. You have Sensei and his dojo, and someday we’ll get you clear of WBD, and you can reconnect with your older friends and family.”

“Will we? It doesn’t feel like it, Angel. It feels like I’m going to be hiding for the rest of my life, which, judging by the last couple of weeks, might not be very long at all.”

“You’ve accomplished a great deal already, Juliet!” Angel’s voice was emphatic. “You took down a quasi-criminal syndicate two nights ago! You did so by leveraging an immoral corporation and using them as a weapon. You subverted the goals and motivations of powerful organizations! If you can learn from this and continue to gain strength and reputation, I truly believe we can bring WBD down just as you brought Reynold down.”

“Just as I . . . you think I can get other big corpos to turn on WBD?” Juliet’s eyes were dry now, and she sat up in the bed, distant glimmers of ideas tickling the edges of her consciousness.

“That’s one angle you might consider, but you should know from what you’ve accomplished so far that it wouldn’t be impossible. You have a long way to go until you’re ready for that fight, but you will be ready, Juliet. Ghoul wasn’t wrong—there’s something special about you, and there’s much more to your exceptional nature than me.”

“Well, Angel,” Juliet said, wincing as she scooted her legs over the side of her bed, “you’re pretty damn exceptional, yourself. Now, c’mon, help me figure out where my clothes are; we have work to do.”

###

Alec Kline frowned as he drove his Gault Motors Urban Charger over the winding, rough dirt road. The outskirts of Tucson were even worse than Phoenix; open pit mines were everywhere, and the artificial hills and mountains built up from the tailings made getting anywhere without wings rather a pain in his very busy ass. “Tom, take a note.”

“Yes,” his PAI said, succinct as always.

“Remind me to call Yessenia again about getting access to one of the corporate fluttercraft.”

“Time?”

“After breakfast.” He rounded a bend in the dirt road and saw floodlights and activity ahead. He gently reduced pressure on the accelerator and coasted down the gravelly dirt road toward the two SUVs and the temporary barricade that seemed to be blocking access to a ranchhouse of some sort. As he rolled to a stop next to the fully geared-out corpo-sec guards, he let the black-tinted window roll down and displayed his WBD corporate securities badge, holding it out toward the visored guard.

None of the guards had pointed their weapons at the sedan, and Kline took a moment to admire their professionalism. Vykertech did a few things right, and corpo-sec was one of them. “I’m here to see Mrs. Green.”

“A moment, please,” the guard said, then his eyes went distant as he communicated through his PAI to someone, checking Kline’s credentials, no doubt. Kline sat back and tucked his designer Nikko-vape between his lips, sucking the berry-flavored vapor into his lungs. As the nicotine coursed into his bloodstream, he felt like the lights outside got a little brighter, and the dial of his impatience wound back a bit. He’d been close to snapping at the guard to hurry, but now he just inhaled deeply through his nose and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

“You’re clear, sir. Mrs. Green will meet you at the house.” The guard backed up and gestured toward the gate, and it slowly trundled open. Kline put his window up and drove through, not sparing a glance for the guards; his eyes were too occupied by the massive forensics team Vykertech had deployed around the ranch property. He saw ten or twelve people in white clean-suits walking around purposefully and two very large, very well-equipped box trucks with the Vykertech logo painted on the sides.

Kline pulled his sedan up to the ranch house, turned the H-cell off, and stepped out. He hadn’t seen Tasha Green in nearly five years, but he recognized her right away, standing near the open front door. Tall with neatly quaffed black hair pulled into a bun so tight it looked like a plastic ornament. She wore a baggy white clean-suit, though he imagined she had on a sleek, high-fashion business suit underneath. He walked toward her, holding out a hand.

“Tasha! It’s been too long.”

“Kline,” she said, her voice warm and smooth with the hint of an edge, a bit of a rasp from too many self-inflicted carbon inhalations. “You made good time.”

“Well, you said you had something that would interest me, and you’ve never been one to joke around, so here I am. This is quite an operation you’ve got here—Vykertech moving into Tucson?”

“No, no. We had a bit of a breach, but I think we’ve tied up the loose ends. I think I found one for you, though. Follow me, if you will.”

“Do I need to, uh . . .” Kline trailed off, pointing at her clean-suit.

“No, we’re past these now. I could take this off, but my shirt’s soaked in sweat underneath; I wouldn’t want to subject you to that.”

“Been there and done that!” Kline laughed, “Had to wear one of those for nearly forty hours in Chicago. I couldn’t salvage the suit I had on underneath.”

“Don’t say that, Kline! I’m wearing my favorite outfit!” She chuckled and turned to walk down the main hallway that led from the living area of the ranch home back to, presumably, the bedrooms. Kline followed her, noting the lack of furniture and the bare concrete floors; the place had been stripped clean. She surprised him by walking into a closet near the end of the hall, and then he saw her step onto a wooden ladder built from two-by-four scraps. “Down here.”

“All right,” Kline said, then, as he put his foot onto the first rung, he added, “You aren’t leading me to my doom, are you?”

“Come on, Kline. You know Vykertech has people better suited for things like that.”

“Yeah,” Kline said, stepping down the ladder, “just a bit of a joke.” He looked around the small, concrete room, probably twenty feet by twenty, taking it in. The only furnishings were a small card table and two folding chairs. A man was sitting on one of the chairs, his chest and face lying on the table like he’d fallen asleep, but Kline saw the data cable running from his implant to the little deck in one of his hands, and he figured the guy wasn’t simply sleeping.

After glancing over the table and its occupant, he scanned the room, but all he saw was stained concrete. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of bleach or some other harsh cleaning chemical and said, “This guy got something to do with WBD?”

“Not exactly,” Tasha said. “He’s of interest to us regarding our breach, but something about him raised a flag. Looking into it, I thought I’d extend the professional courtesy and let you know what we found.”

“Go on,” Kline said, moving closer to the unconscious man. He noted how the man’s eyes fluttered madly beneath his lids and how a puddle of drool had collected on the table. “Drugged?”

“Dreamer,” Tasha said with a shrug as if that explained everything.

“Please elucidate,” Kline said, straightening up with a frown. “What’s this got to do with WBD?”

“When we got here, the place had been stripped.” She gestured around the room and up over their heads, indicating the ranch house. “We found a few people of interest and this guy, but they couldn’t tell us anything, especially him—he’s locked into an experimental dreamer program; his brain’s half gone due to a malfunctioning PAI.”

“Seriously? I haven’t heard of a PAI causing brain damage in. . . God, it’s been since I was a kid, I think.”

“Yes, well, Vykertech doesn’t have a statement for you at this time. Trust that we’re handling the matter and will get to the bottom of things. We’ll prosecute the guilty party to the fullest extent of corpo-law.” She held up a hand as Kline was about to speak and said, “Let me finish. So, someone scrubbed the place pretty damn well, but I found something while I was analyzing this fellow.”

She walked over to the card table and, to Kline’s fascination, reached up to her bun to pull out a hairpin about the size of his favorite pen. When she held it out, a needle-like blade sprang forth from the tip with a *snick*.

Tasha Green pointed her wicked little scalpel at the sleeping man’s elbow, and, with the precision of a surgeon, she inserted it into his flesh. Kline heard a definite click, and then the sleeper’s forearm split, and a bloody, eighteen-inch blade sprang forth, hanging out over his knuckles and the scuffed card table. “Do you have a med scanner?” she asked.

“In my car . . .”

“No need to run out and get it; you trust me, right?”

“To a degree . . .”

“You wound me, Kline,” Tasha said, reaching a hand to her chest over her heart. “No matter, hear what I have to say, and then you can take your own sample.”

“Go on,” Kline said, leaning over the table to examine the bloody blade. “Damn fine work, that implant.”

“Very fine. Much about this man was exceptional, but that’s not the point of our discussion. As I said, the place was scrubbed clean, but whoever did the scrubbing didn’t know about this man’s dirty blade. Either that or they didn’t care—we’re not sure the blood is related to anything that has to do with the people who cleaned the place out.”

“Okay, so, what’s the deal with the blood? I assume that’s the point of all this, considering you asked about a med scanner.”

“I sampled the blood, and the DNA raised a flag. Your employer, WBD, wants the owner of that blood.”

“Ah! And my name was attached to the case. Well, which one was it?”

“WBD corpo-security case number A49.1.”

“Juliet . . .” Kline breathed, looking at the blade and thick, dried blood in a new light.