BREATHE

1

The election of MiliCorp’s presiding officer was announced earlier that morning, but Luna didn’t find out until she got back to Vanderman’s place and browsed the dark web for the anti-virus. The advertisement had emerged from the top-right corner of the screen. At first she figured it was just another porn pop-up, but then she saw Chyna Deadman, the current CEO of their military. She clicked on it. The link brought her to an article published by the Electric Pen. Yeah, this was real all right.

She was shocked. For the past seven years Chyna Deadman had controlled the flow of technology coming into police stations; she was the one who gave the go-ahead for HPAs, those giant robots, and she was the reason places like Zinc were able to control so much of the ZLB Triangle.

This meant someone else could take over and completely change the way people lived; whoever controlled the federation controlled the people, and whoever controlled the people controlled the crime and development (or undevelopment) of Zemon, of places like L’illian and West L’ankor and anyplace with MiliCorp's name on it.

Luna didn’t know what to think. There were so many factors to take into consideration. For one: Would it change the work industry? Would she have access to a wider range of jobs if, say, new technology was being manufactured and included in more aspects of daily life? Was that a possibility at all?

But Luna knew that the only way she could have possibly gotten a job, at this stage at least, was by leaving the city, and even the triangle. Where would she go if she ever got the opportunity? She wasn’t sure, but heading farther south against the coast seemed like a good start.

Then there was the issue with how people actually reacted to new governmental powers. Not everyone would be so accepting – as was proven in the past – and not everyone would be willing to change themselves, whether it be by cleaning up their act or following the absolute bare-minimum. They simply wouldn't. People weren't designed to follow instructions.

“New presiding officer,” said Luna dubiously, leaning back on the red-and-yellow swivel chair.

“What?” Vanderman stepped up and pressed his hand on the desk. He was wearing a scuffed black jacket over a plaid shirt.

“Election,” she said.

“For MiliCorp?”

A nod. “Deadman’s retiring before the ten-year mark.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “this is huge, Luna.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” she said.

“When’s the election?”

Luna scrolled up the screen and stopped on DECEMBER 26, 2197. “Three weeks from now,” she said, focused. “Somethin’ must have come up.”

“Finally getting done for all the illegal drug trades with other cities,” Vanderman said, and laughed. He pulled away from the computer and went back to sitting on his low-end sofa.

Vanderman’s basement was separated into two areas: the box room, which of course contained boxes full of old mechanical junk – car parts and dated engines – and the garage, which had been turned into a second living room over the course of four years. A ceiling fan spun lazily, falling at the wire, while twill-weave carpets spattered the reinforced concrete like blue holes on the bank of carbonated rock. It wasn’t often that Luna came to Vanderman’s house, never mind the basement, but when she did, it was mostly to use his computer whenever hers was in need of a replacement.

She would use it to pin down details about businesses and then, after careful planning, break into them. From there she would use her MD and wrist-cable to steal hundreds, sometimes thousands, from unsuspecting clerks.

She thought about this while perusing the dark web, listening to the rain beat against the hopper window, brought about by an intense wind. The blue argon light thrummed above her, while various cables trailed along the box room and snaked over to the garage’s slightly upraised deck, on top of which Vanderman’s 2178 Legacy jeep sat, busted at the bonnet and rusty at the body. It’s a reminder, thought Luna: Don’t let him drive.

She returned to the dark-web window which showed the image of the HelpMe anti-virus and plugged her wrist cable into the iridescent case socket, watching the system’s firewall flow across her MD. She cracked it after thirty seconds (old-tier computers were just so, so easy) and navigated to . From there she deciphered the username of the anonymous user behind the anti-virus – (which translated to ‘Ace’) – and did a background check on the account. After thirty minutes, she found not only the IP of the user but also the IP the image had been taken at. Inputting them in her , she saw both led to one location: OXING JUNCTION.

“Bingo!” she said. “Tracked it.”

“Where?” said Vanderman excitedly.

“Silent Grains,” she said.

“The desert coast?”

“Where else?” Luna unhooked herself from the computer. More porn ads popped up on the display, and suddenly she was hit with a dizzy spell.

“Figures the Legion would hide their shit somewhere isolated,” he said. “So where is it exactly? Don’t tell me it’s another hotel.”

She shook her head, running her hands across her face. “Underground.”

“Underground?” said Vanderman with disbelief.

She wheeled away on the chair and navigated through her System Map again. “Yup, underground. And they might have a camera system, but I don’t think I can access them from here.”

“Nah,” he said, agreeing. “Underground base in Betoda? Not sure even Chip could tap into somethin’ like that.”

“Even if he could, there’d still be a problem,” said Luna. “Getting in.”

Vanderman grunted his agreement. “And out.”

“It’s extremely risky,” she said. “And I don’t think the invis-suits’ll be enough this time. Think we gotta…”

“Kill a couple people?” finished Vanderman with a disapproving grin.

“Unless you have any other ideas?” she said.

Vanderman took a moment to reply. “The best we can do is bring the haptic suits and chance it. They might not notice us if we’re quiet enough.”

She gave him a hard look. “They have infrared tech,” she said. “They’re gonna see us.”

Vanderman blinked, twice, and then said, “Well then our only solution is to break in when it’s dark. You know how big the place is exactly?”

“No,” she said.

“How we find that out then?”

She looked at the ceiling and thought about it. The only possible way to get a look at the place was through the camera system, if they had one. If not, then there was no saying how large the base could have been. There weren’t any hacks or techniques out there to determine such things, not that Luna knew of, so this might have been a lot more challenging than she had originally planned. Even more challenging than finding Grimes Paolini, and even more challenging than killing him.

Suddenly, before she could come up with an answer – and Luna was pretty close to saying I have no idea – Vanderman’s phone rang. The ringtone was an old EDM song called Slack Off Smoke. Catchy.

Vanderman looked at the screen with downturned eyes. “It’s Liz,” he said.

“What's she want?” said Luna, still remembering what happened earlier.

He tapped the screen and placed the phone against his ear. “Liz?”

A tinny voice from the line; low, soft.

“What?”

“What is it?” said Luna, stepping closer.

Vanderman raised his hand and splayed his fingers. “One second.” And he covered the screen like a domestic-abuse victim hiding a bruise. “She wants to talk to you.” He brought the phone up to his mouth and hit speaker. “Yo, Liz.”

“Yeah?” Liz said, and Luna could hear the concern in her tone; she sounded like someone who had recently lost their pet.

“She's here,” he said.

“Luna,” said Liz, now suddenly energised. “Can you hear me?”

Vanderman handed her the phone. “All yours, kid.”

Luna raised the screen to her mouth. She could feel the electric charge interacting with her cybernetic hand. “What’s this about?”

“Business,” she said, and Luna was immediately struck with an odd sense of foreboding, as though Liz were about to tell her that she owed her a case full of money. Like in those movies Sarah always stayed up watching…. The ones she shouldn’t have…. “Didja find out where the anti-virus is being held?”

Luna nodded. “Yeah?”

“You… need a hand with it?” she said.

Her lips felt curiously cold. “What?”

“I talked to Dyker, managed to calm him down a little. He said you two have no chance of getting that anti-virus without some, quote-unquote, technological help.” She placed eerie emphasis on the quote.

Luna leaned back on the seat and threw her feet up on the desk. “Enlighten me.”

“You still have those invis-suits?” she said.

Luna brushed a curl of hair from her eye, knitting her brows. “How do you know about – ”

“Chip told me,” she answered.

Shock ran across her face. “That bastard told you about our plans?”

Liz let out a high-pitched laugh – a witch’s cackle of sorts. It was even more surprising than her answer. “He used to tell me everything.”

“You two date?” she asked abruptly. Didja do it, didja do it!

“Heavens no,” Liz said, detesting the idea. “Just sex, and that was it.”

In a low, snarky voice, Luna said, “Suppose you enjoyed that nerd’s cybernetic cock alright.” She grinned at Vanderman and he started chuckling.

“Hmph,” said Liz sharply. “Whatever. Point is, Luna, those suits aren’t just able to turn invisible. They have hybrid arachnofibre capable of storing up to two hundred zettabytes of information at once.”

Luna lifted an eyebrow and dropped her feet from the desk. “English please?”

“They’re Tier-3 haptic suits,” she explained. “They’re capable of transforming information from the MD Cloud. Things like sounds, smells, feelings, even thoughts, and yes… images.”

“So?” said Luna.

“It means they can mimic whatever you want, so long as it fits the description of the dimensions of the suit itself, things like clothing and armour…. The weave transmutes into the selected data.”

“So, in theory, we can use the suits to disguise ourselves? Is that what you’re saying?”

“In theory, yes,” Liz said. “I thought I’d let you know in case you decided to be gung-ho ’bout things. If you’re gonna take risks like this, then you’ll need to be inconspicuous. Ya know?”

Luna’s suspicion rose. “Why are you telling me this?”

Liz took a moment to respond, and as soon as the first words left her mouth – “I just…” – Vanderman cut her off:

“She still loves him.” He was smiling from ear to ear. “Ain’t that right, Liz?”

“I don’t love him!” she said defiantly. “That's ridiculous! He’s a good friend of mine, yes, but that's it. If you’re gonna get him out of this mess then you’ll need all the help you can get. Besides, I’ve been… I’ve been thinking about your sister. Peach, too. She hasn’t seen her brother since she got adopted.”

“Jesus.” Luna licked her lips and looked over at the sofa where Vanderman was still sitting, his legs spread apart, hands together like someone taking a silent dump. “That’s awful,” she said harshly.

“Well maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it…. A long time ago Peach told Dyker about her brother and how she really missed him. Dyker would have taken them both, but the rule was that you could only adopt one. Dyker and his wife picked her, and for the first few months she hadn’t seen her brother. So, you know, Dyker said he would ring the orphanage and see if he could schedule a meet-up between his sister and her brother.

“But when he did the orphanage told him he'd transferred somewhere else because the old one burned down. Silver Oak in Lucklanta, near the coast. So Dyker checked and… well, they told him that he wasn’t there. That he never showed up and that a missing-person case was not only filed for him but the entire busful of kids.

“Turns out the bus was hijacked with the kids on it. No one knows where it was taken.”

“Fucking Christ,” said Luna, feeling sick at the notion of it. “Are you serious? Like are you actually serious?”

“I wouldn't lie about that – ” she said.

“No, I know.” She closed her eyes, sat up straight, then opened them. “Just... what does this mean, Liz?”

“I think there’s a link,” said Liz. “I think that, maybe, Glitch is behind those kidnappings. I don’t know why, but I feel it. Call it a hunch, doesn’t matter. But I can’t let the chance slide when it might be the only way to find those kids.”

Luna nodded. She was aware that there were a lot of missing people in the ZLB Triangle, more than five hundred if she remembered correctly, but most of them were adults. She didn’t exactly agree with Liz’s logic, but she did agree with one thing: getting help.

“So how can you help me?” Luna asked. “I take it that’s the part you wanted to talk about.”

“The part I’ve been waitin’ on too,” said Vanderman.

Luna looked at him, startled. She had completely forgotten he was there; his voice was like a pull-out from a particularly haunting dream.

“We can help each other,” said Liz. “Let me have a look at those suits. I’ll install the upgrades free of charge and, hell, maybe I’ll add in some extra things if I can. In exchange, I’d like you to look for Peach’s brother if you do get around to finding Chip.”

“And my sister,” added Luna in an almost formal tone. “And trust me, I will. She’s what’s important to me. I love her.”

“... So, we have a deal?” said Liz.

“Yeah,” Luna replied. “Just one question though.”

“Yes?”

“What’s his name?”

Liz took a moment to respond. Then, in a serious voice, she said, “Andy Butler.”

“Andy Butler,” repeated Luna, thinking for a short moment that she had heard that somewhere before. Of course, it was the name of a famous actor from upstate New York, and her sister found him devilishly handsome.

The discussion ended shortly after that: Luna told Liz that she and Vanderman would meet up with her sometime in the evening. Said they’d bring the suits along and, in a small, conversational way, Luna told her she’d buy her that margarita sometime as a token of her gratitude.

Later on, when Vanderman and Luna went over everything, they packed the invis-suits (which were still in need of a wash), headed into the metropolis, and caught another cab up to West L’ankor. Instant fifty bucks down the drain once again. At this rate Luna wondered how many trips she would be able to supply herself and Vanderman with before she started having real money issues. Like in the old days.

The ideal solution was that they needed a car. Plain and simple. Maybe Vanderman could get around to fixing up that old Legacy with some new parts, but last she checked they went for upwards of eight hundred a piece.

She stared out the window and listened to the AI driver keeping them up to date on the week’s news. This time she didn’t fall asleep; instead, she paid close attention to the city lights glowing beneath the starless dark. Pedestrians were streaming across the zebra crossings and filling the bottleneck of the carriageway, carrying umbrellas and dressed in glimmering jackets.

On the high-rise buildings, animated billboards flipped between images every so often; sometimes showing news (today had been focused on the election), but mostly sneaking in enough ads to run Channel 9 out of business.

HANDS FOR SALE! one read. It was a picture of a man in a balding brown jacket clutching his cybernetic wrist. ONLY $750! And beneath: contact your local cyber doctor.

TRUST VADCHIA! proclaimed another. The image was a kaleidoscope of Chinese dragons, each varying in colour.

What caught Luna’s eye most, however, was the man in the gas mask and trench coat. It shone from the tallest edifice in the city. Written above the wavy, rain-soaked tarp was a single word (maybe two):

BREATHE.

呼吸

And she thought about what that word could have meant, especially to someone like her. A criminal.

Breathe, Luna. Breatheeeeee.