Three men in a hovercraft were gliding through the night of Old Manaus. They were dressed nicely, but casually, with black leather pants and brown fringed hooded jackets over red shirts and bolo ties. They had their hoods up.

Just three well-off men out on the seedy side of town for a night of fun and frivolity. Of course, any dweller in the old city, and many from the new, could tell you that for these men, fun and frivolity tended to involve a variety of human suffering. There was a reason for the red shirts after all.

Two of the men sat, subvocally messaging back and forth.

“...but don’t you think this is a bit overkill for a gob?”

“Petrus couldn’t get the job done. He got pulped and quartered, no joke!”

“That’s on the Maasai. Big mofo must have gotten one down on him.”

“Well fuck. I guess you better go tell Boss that he’s got this all wrong. He shoulda sent your mom instead.”

“Sheeit.”

Their conversation concluded to mutual satisfaction, the two men gazed lazily as the decrepit neighborhood slid by.

The third man stood, arms at his side, looking forward. His face, under the shadow of the hood, was relaxed, but every few seconds his eyes swiveled to one area of darkness or another, tracking the body heat and movement of the small creatures of the night. After another minute the hovercraft passed into an open area, its lights going dark, and he spoke out loud.

“Absolute silence from this point forward. Stay out of my scent zone. Don’t fuck up.”

The two seated men’s eyes met, perhaps with the faintest roll.

“Yes sir,” they messaged to the leader.

They approached the end of a large corrugated building and stopped just off the corner, to the side of a wide rolling door. The men disembarked, moving to either side of the entrance and the door began to roll up into the building. After scanning the dark empty space within, the leader moved forward confidently into the space with one hand raised in a fist. He walked the fifty feet or so to the small door at the back, and then allowed the other two to follow. They proceeded like this, accordion style, past piles of junk, down hallways and stairs, until they reached the closed heavy doors. The door buzzed, and he pulled it open, sampling the air beyond. Then he messaged the others.

“No one is here currently. The entire building reeks of gob, no more than six hours old. We will go in and secure the shelter and then I will decide our next move.”

They moved in, closing the doors after, and brought the lights up, noting signs of recent habitation. The leader sniffed around the rooms. After a minute he said out loud.

“The Maasai was here, his scent is about two days old. It seems like the gob got lonely and left when he didn’t return. There was a strong trail in the hallway. Let’s go back up and start from there. Stay out of my scent zone.”

The men nodded, and then they all returned to the main floor. The leader glided calmly down the hallway, following an invisible trail through several unexplored areas of the building up to a closed single door. A message came to the others.

“Room past this door has no exits, two secured windows. Scent out here is very strong with blood. It’s probably injured and holed up in there. On three, let’s make an entrance.”

He counted down with his fingers. One of the men kicked open the door, the leader went high, the other low and they burst into the room violently, seeing rows of chairs and an ancient yellowed whiteboard at the front. Propped at the bottom of the whiteboard was a glowing rectangle, a tablet. The leader grabbed it up and read,

Have gob with legacy bugs.

Want to trade.

Let Anda go with hovercraft.

Give him this tablet and 3 med bug pills

Await next message, Bye.

“We’re going to kick this upstairs guys,” he said.

***

Lilijoy lay quietly in the dark thinking over the time since she had received the message on the tablet. After she implemented her plan, close to seven hours ago, she checked in with Jiannu to cultivate briefly and verify a few ideas that might give her more options. It wasn’t absolutely necessary, but she hoped to be able to send messages to the tablet remotely with her flowers, without being traced herself.

When she pulled up the communications window for the first time. It was a bit overwhelming. Who knew communicating via bugs was so complicated? All she wanted to do was put messages on the tablet without anyone being able to trace her. Jiannu had pointed her in the right direction, so she knew that first she had to find the tablet’s signal. She selected ‘Environment’ from the top communications menu.

COMMUNICATIONS: Environment Signals 89 Local Systems 0 Known, 2 Unknown (2 encrypted) Systems 0 Known, 17 Unknown (17 encrypted) People 0 Known, 0 Unknown Devices 0 Known, 5 Unknown (5 encrypted) Broadcasts 0 Known, 58 Unknown (54 encrypted) Conduits 0 Known Uncategorized 7 Modes: Stealth | Anonymous | Private | Public | Proximity | Custom | Edit Power | People | Systems | Devices | Broadcasts | Mode Parameters | Surveillance Encryption | Interception | Spoofing | Jamming | Hardened | Routing | Firewall

And then ‘Devices.'

COMMUNICATIONS: Environment: Devices: 0 Known, 5 Unknown (5 encrypted) Device Label Decrypt Time (Seconds) 0x1ef45aa19271 1167 0xffe7723b1112 1.35e+6 9x99999999999 57 JBTab0034 2586 Wand23 .3 Modes: Stealth | Anonymous | Private | Public | Proximity | Custom | Edit Power | People | Systems | Devices | Broadcasts | Mode Parameters | Surveillance Encryption | Interception | Spoofing | Jamming | Hardened | Routing | Firewall

JBTab0034 looked the most promising, and by her flower’s calculations it wouldn’t even take an hour.

Just under three quarters of an hour later the decryption finished. She selected anonymous mode and added it to her devices list as “Bomb Shelter Tablet.” Now she could not only send messages, but also use it to connect to the shelter’s local network of devices and systems.

She spent about thirty minutes exploring the various files and messages that were on the tablet. As far as she could tell, the shelter was owned by one ‘Jim Boggs’, but he allowed it to be used as a safe house and gathering place for a group known as ‘Renaissance.’ They seemed to value their privacy, as most of the messages were ‘sender unknown’, with initials or codes used for identification. The text of some were entirely encoded as well.

The tablet contained a huge library of historic books on history and politics, and many text files with different versions of something called “Renaissance Manifesto”. She didn’t bother reading them past a quick scan; they were boring, and she just didn’t have any context for most of the contents. They went on about the ‘tyranny of clans’ and ‘oppression’ and ‘birth permits’ and ‘bug equity’ until her eyes glazed over. She searched for Anda’s name, hoping something would come up that would allow her to reach him, but nothing did. She searched for “A” and quickly realized why that was a bad idea.

She was sure there were any number of clever things she could do, if only she knew more. Her plan was not fancy, but she thought it might work, at least to some extent. They wouldn’t think to look for her at the supply depot if they thought some mysterious person had stolen her away. It was certainly better than running into Old Manaus and hoping she could somehow lose a vampire tracker, if they had one of those.

She still wasn’t sure they would be looking for her, but that was fine. If there was no tracker, then they would never even find the tablet with her message, and she would know it was safe to leave. If they were after her, then, putting herself in their place, they might be willing to release Anda if they thought someone else had her.

She was quite sure they would never think they were being tricked by a twelve year old girl ‘gob’.

She had verified with Jiannu that she could visit her mind space and be alerted if anything interesting happened Outside, so she decided to cultivate some more while she waited. Soon she was back among the golden energy of the Flower, where she remained until she heard the rolling door begin to open.

She quickly withdrew from cultivation. Now the fun was going to start!

***

Jim Boggs was feeling mildly irritated. One of his top enforcers had just sent him a picture of a tablet’s screen, along with “Next step?”

He had learned over the years not to get upset or angered by life’s twists and turns. He expected to be thwarted, betrayed and disrespected, because he lived and worked with people. And without a doubt, people sucked.

All power started from power over the self, and at its core, Jim felt, the self was a needy, whiny bitch. He had kicked his down the cellar stairs and locked the door long ago. He had invested in a special Bug when he reached Rank 2 which let him control his mood and emotions very nicely, and truthfully, he thought, he was a little addicted. He could watch plans unravel and fall apart without a single twitch of emotion.

He was an excellent actor though and used displays of emotion to push other people’s buttons quite virtuosically; their weakness would always be his strength. And so, the news that someone took the gob first did not bother him in the least. Nor did the demands to release the Maasai, Anda, or even to throw in some med bugs.

All that was easy. The Maasai was a problem he didn’t need anyway, and he had a whole supply of barely functional med bugs he happily sold to desperate suckers or their families. He would even provide financing for them! He always got a kick out of loaning money to some cancer-ridden twat’s family, and then collecting for years after the dumbass kicked the bucket anyway.

No, what had Jim Boggs mildly irritated was the last word of the message.

“Bye.”

What the fuck was that?

“Await next message, Bye.”

That single word got under his skin for reasons he couldn’t fully understand. It was like beating someone bloody, and then asking for a ride to the store. No, it was signing a letter of condolence with a heart over the ‘i’ in his name and a smiley face in the ‘o’. It just didn’t fit, was vaguely insulting, and went against some unwritten code serious people used to conduct business. It was... insouciant; that was the word for it.

And so it pissed him off. A little.

Jim looked over the picture of the message again, tapping his fingers on his knee. This was a question of gambling. From what he had heard, this really could be a legacy bug. All signs pointed to ‘yes’.

“Lets say ten percent odds it’s a legacy.” he thought aloud.

He had heard that the bug would not be easy to extract, but that counted as a win, as it was a sign of novelty. Jim had no experience with legacy bugs; who the fuck did, after all? He knew that they had value along several dimensions, not just function, but pride of ownership, status and novelty. If a big clan were reasonably sure about it, they would spend a vast sum, millions of credits, even tens of millions, enough to buy dozens or more top of the line med bugs, or enough even for him to finish Rank 6 and 7. That would absolutely seal the deal with Lone Star Clan. Or he could parlay the sale to membership of an even higher ranked clan.

He took a moment to fantasize about Jim Boggs, third level member of Walton Clan.

Getting back to his calculations, he decided that the cost of entering into negotiations were negligible and needn’t be factored in.

But he had to factor in the possibility of other interested parties, though he hoped to hell he could avoid some kind of auction scenario. If one of the big independent auction houses got their fingers in the pie...well, he wouldn’t be in the running. If it were him holding the gob, the best play would be to get it into the city and camp out at a branch office of Sothechrists. Or even make arrangements from the Inside with a branch there.

So that begged the question, why wasn’t the person holding the gob going through normal channels? Why deal with him at all?

The usual reasons would be criminal status of some kind, or particularly dangerous enemies. He considered that releasing Anda might play a role, as that was the only unique quality Jim brought to the table. But any friend of the Maasai former nobleman would surely know he was in no real danger from the likes of Jim. The Maasai clan were not to be trifled with, and despite Anda’s disgraced status, they would not hesitate to crush any non-Maasai who harmed him. That was, after all, why Jim allowed him to send a message from his bug letting his people know he was unharmed.

The look on Anda's face when he was allowed only twenty characters to do so was also hilarious however. No use letting a disgraced exile get full of himself!

Jim kicked himself for getting sidetracked again. He felt like he was missing something, and his brain kept digressing because of it. So, what did he know about the mystery party? He knew Anda well enough to ask for his release, but not that well otherwise. He wanted med bugs but didn’t know what to ask for. He...wait a second.

Why did he want Anda to have the tablet? That made no sense unless...no. Maybe he didn't have Anda’s address. Perhaps the whole Anda thing was a red herring, to make Jim think he had more leverage than he did. It still didn’t fit together – if someone were so clever to try and mislead him, then why would they be dealing with him at all?

Back to the profile.

Mystery one: Asks for Anda’s release, doesn’t know him well, or his address.

Mystery two: Asks for med bugs without any specifications, showing ignorance.

Mystery three: Insouciant!

Jim smiled. I’ve got this guy’s number now. Gob misses Anda, goes looking. What would a peasant, a lowlife, do if he found a gob wandering around in Old Manaus? Probably try to roll her. And what is she carrying? A tablet. So he wants to know the story and kicks her around until she spills.

They head back to the shelter and set up the tablet. He knows I’ve got med bugs, so he asks for some. She likes Anda, cause he’s a bleeding-heart Renaissance gob lover, and begs for our ignorant friend to ask for his release. He figures ‘why not?’, it might muddy the waters. Anda gets the tablet cause the guy just wants it back. He figures he’ll get three med bugs and a tablet and maybe a hovercraft if he plays his cards right.

He’s probably getting some friends together to take Anda down at this moment. Then he’s sitting pretty and can sell the gob to me.

Jim congratulated himself on an elegant deduction.

I’m going to let this play out. If I follow Anda back to the gob, I’m set. Just need to make a tracker look like a med bug pill and the whole thing will fall in my lap. Even if he ditches them for some reason, my mysterious friend will probably come through.

All that was needed was a plan for the worst-case scenario in which Anda ditches the tracker, beats the guy, takes the gob and heads for the hills. Luckily, he had a few friends who could help if it came to that.

He messaged a lieutenant to take care of Anda.

“Tracker in the med bug, trackers in the Hovercraft, and scent it up real good too while you’re at it.”

Then he messaged another lieutenant “Have your guys on the scene beat the surrounding area, maybe find her that way.”

Finally his third lieutenant “I want all ears on Old Manaus. Something might be going down, and we need to know if someone’s planning on a fight.”

Jim loved his life! And now, he didn’t feel irritated at all.

***

Resting in her hiding place, Lilijoy listened through the tablet. After the door crashed open, there were a few scuffling noises, then a sigh of disgust.

“We’re going to kick this upstairs, guys,” one of the men said. There were a couple groans in the background.

Honestly, Lilijoy had been hoping for a different reaction, something more along the lines of “Curses! Our fiendish plan to kidnap a poor defenseless girl has been foiled by a dastardly mastermind! Whatever shall we do?” followed by audible tooth gnashing.

Though perhaps Lilijoy did not conceive of their reaction in precisely those terms.

She then realized that the men involved were more or less doing the same kind of thing they did on a usual basis. They probably didn’t care about her at all. She was just an object to be retrieved, so they could go back to doing whatever such men did when not hunting down and kidnapping people. She was just another day’s work, nothing personal.

All she had to do was stay out of their way until they got different orders, and all would be well.

She went back to listening carefully, but was met with only the sounds of footsteps and occasional sniffing sounds. When she first left the shelter, she had torn up several sets of old bandages from the trash in the bunker, and hidden them around the building, though only after dragging them along the floor to create a trail to the tablet. She just hoped that the tracker’s nose was not up to sorting out the messy puzzle she had created for him.

She had even hidden several deep in the ducts of the building’s defunct air supply system, with the idea that the scent would permeate the entire structure over time. Then, she had tucked herself in the ceiling ductwork high above the garage floor. Here was one advantage of being small – the round tubes would be a very tight squeeze for a regular sized person, if they could even support their weight. Her body still ached from the process of clambering around inside the vents with only one working arm, so unless they a had a very small, very nimble and very motivated member on the team, she felt pretty good about her chances.

Sure enough, after another minute the men left the building and she heard the sound of the hovercraft leaving.

She ate a food bar, and turned her attention to her nanobodies’ status.

NANOBODY COUNT 4,104 [Urgent Action Needed] 4,104 : 50,000 minimum recommended Current Average Attrition 178/hour (stable) Estimated Time to Failure 34 hours Cultivation Rate 73/hour over 24 hours

ATTENTION! A cultivation rate of 178/hour is necessary to sustain current levels. Begin cultivation process to avoid system failure.

Cultivate | Differentiate | Assign

The numbers continued to improve, thanks to her second round of cultivation. There were now over eighteen hundred of her long vine-flowers (as she’d decided to call them) swimming around. She had a feeling that once the old flowers were replaced, all of the numbers would look much better. It was the older generation that was dying off so quickly.

She would miss them though, and wondered how difficult it would be to make some more of the flowers that actually looked like flowers! Her new vine-flowers were beautiful too, but she would never forget her first vision of the petaled gems floating gracefully through the fluid of her mind space.

Shelving that thought for another time, she settled in for a nap.