Episode XXIV

Raff looks over at Gummo again, obviously nervous, thinking over his options. He blinks rapidly several times, then begins bobbing his head. His tics would be funny if he weren’t so obviously about to lose it.

Finally he seems to make a decision.

Yeah. yeah, okay. She’s not here. I think they sent her to Bugtown. Wait! Wait! Wait, you know, I know how it sounds . . . but I can help get you there. Listen . . here’s how it went down . . .

He settles in to his story, chewing on his lips gesturing with his hands as he talks. Occasionally he stops as if having to remind himself again that he’s not in podspace. It’s cool in the room and he’s dressed only in his tee shirt and shorts, but he’s sweating as he talks. His body is tight and his eyes dart around the room.

Okay. Here we go. Okay. Fuck. Okay. Listen, you know, you know, a guy has to make a living right? This place is a hole and a guy has a right to make a living and they suck it out of you and don’t give you shit, so a guy has to do what he can to make it right, right? Check. So. So, you know, and I know you know or you wouldn’t be here, you know, I gotta make a living, so I do. What? I’m not hurting anyone. I just keep my eyes open and maybe if something goes by and I happen to see it — I’m still working my shift and all, but I happen to see it is all, you know — and some smart arb can make something off it, then maybe I let him know. Maybe he gets a jump in the market and makes a pot of cash and he cuts me in. I got skills. I use ‘em. Me? My skills? I code agents. So now I’m in biz, I got my agents out there keeping an eye out and laying low, and they see something they let me know and I pass it on is all. That’s it. I do my job clean and I’m not hurting anyone you know but a guy has to make a living, sav? Check.

So, okay, so, you know, okay. So fuck. A few days ago one of my code slips, one of my little agents checks in and she’s all hot and bothered ’cause there’s something new in the stream, right? So I check what triggered her and its a bunch of things. Seems like a new test subject came in during the night, which is nothing ’cause we get them all the time, so that’s not enough for a trigger, right? But seems like this one comes in kinda roughed up and trussed up. So that happens–sometimes they change their minds. Take a note, file it, whatever, not enough trigger to come bother me, slip. But this one is set of a reco. Sav? Reco? A face recog, right?

Raff takes a deep breath, slowing down a little and narrowing his eyes as if he’s about to go out on a limb. When he begins talking again he’s talking even faster than before, as if trying to spill something out before he can be stopped.

So, okay. So. Okay. So. Listen, fuck you, okay, but I’m not stupid. Everybody knows that Farin and Estes were screwing around during Diamond Ghost and Estes was fucking knocked up before the fucking accident — accident, psh-yah right — I mean everyone saw her she was ready to fucking burst — and you look at the autopsy report and there is no fucking mention of a fetus, right, nothing and it’s like 75 cykes before they pull the report and push that bullshit second report with the “trauma induced miscarriage” I mean does anyone believe that shit? I mean anyone with a brain? I mean I know a guy who saw the original report before they pulled it, and there’s nothing in it about a fetus, so she must have had the kid right? So . . . what? What? Fuck you. You can believe whatever you want, be a fucking sheep. Oh no, the kid died. Oh no, it was a tragic accident. Well fuck that, she’s out there.

Raff looks defiantly at A.C. and Gummo, the face of a conspiracy theorist used to dealing with skeptics. After a moment, he calms down somewhat.

Anyway whatever, you know. You know. So. Anyway I ran a few models. You know. WHAT? Fuck you, you don’t have to look like that. There’s pictures of Farin and Estes — plenty of ‘em — and there’s gene mix algos and morph algos and aging algos and you can do it and all it takes is cykes and fuck knows I got cykes. So I run up a few. Actually I run up a prob-den cloud of likely faces and stick it in an offsite and link it to my agents. You know. Just in case. So you stop fucking smirking now, genius, because fuck if it didn’t fucking trigger. Yeah. Sure. Now you’re interested. Now who’s a fucking psycho, right?

So, yeah. So natch I’m curious. There’s a lot of combos in a face probability cloud, sure, and mine’s pretty fucking dense, so it’s a long shot, but shit it’s something. I’m all: TS-214-11899-UC-N, who the fuck are you? So I peep her. But they got it blacked. No cams at all in her cell. So grab a mic. No mic. So I check the stream. Ready? No fucking stream. No stream man! They got her in a black cell — full on, no rads at all. Totally Zero EM. Now I’m thinking shit. Shit. I start up the recorders and get to digging. Check the entrance vid that my agent peeped. It’s there, you can see ‘em bringing her in, see her face. Kinda hot for a tough chick. What? Fuck you. So now I’m looking for an entrance record. Deep in, but I’m good. There it is. Leave it, find the back up, less footprint. There it is — follow it to MIND — there it is. OK so she’s real. What does the MIND know? Piper Coleman they’re calling her. Bullshit, but whatever. Picked her up outside some flop in the U-City. OK. Orders from. . . ready? D-Sec. She’s some kind of netcrimer. What? What? Such bullshit right? Yeah I know! They give here a Test Subject desig and the record says she’s a netcrimer? Which IS it assholes?

He’s laughing now as if AC were on the joke as well. Once he’s gotten over it, Raff continues.

So now I start to dig, you know? Looking into the cover and trying to get some bones for this chick. Looks like she’s got her U-C cover ok. Some kind of low-jack PI or something. But I can’t get much cause my shift is on and the shit hits the fan in someone’s corp net,so I gotta stow my stuff it in my crypt and work for the MIND for few hundred cykes. When I come back out I get back on it, you know, get to work, right? But it’s gone. It’s fucking gone, sav? I can’t find the entry record, can’t find the vid — except what’s in my crypt — can’t find shit. Send out my code slips and they can’t find shit, sav? I’m like, well fuck that then, hit the backs. But the backs are gone too. The fucking backs are fucking gone, man. Not like that DOESN’T happen, that fucking CAN’T happen. So, now I’m freaking, right. I’m in the stream thinking what the fucking fuck, sav? I’m getting ready to backpath into the MIND and then I’m like, “well fuck, maybe not” so I’m like, “Twist, check the CM-812 sub-cell for me will you, I think there’s some data loss in one of the MIND understreams”. And Twist is all “Cool!” cause Twist loves his backpaths and he’s like psycho into MIND access and like 2 cykes later Twist’s pod is offline and they’re taking him down to medical. So I’m all “well fuck me”.

So, you know, now I’m scared. They found Estes’ kid . . . What? OK, or whatever, fuck you. They found someone and picked her up and stuck her in the box and now they’re unpersoning her on the inside stream. But you can’t fucking do that, right? Once the bits are in the stream they’re in, sav? The stream flows, and shit what MIND knows it does NOT fucking forget, amiright? So, you know, fuck, I’m all “stay cool, Raff” and I go hunting for the scraps. Cause this is big, right? Someone is going to pay big. But I gotta go slow. I stay in the pod. I’m coding behind me, stitching up, staying clean. And then I catch it. I’m going after a record trace and while I’m recording the fucking thing just . . . disappears . . . not like a record delete or something, man, fuck, no it’s just gone. And then I feel the well starting to collapse and my path start to degrade, like I’m on some kind of fucking link-line and I’m “all what the FUCK” ’cause, you know, hello, fucking podspace, man, sav? And suddenly I realize that something is tearing up the fab — okay you’re not gonna get this, but anyway something is really fucking things up. So I meta down a lev and there it is.

He gestures to the data tablet as if the symbols on it explain everything.

Fucking. Eater. So I cap as much as I can and then get the fuck out before it tears up the fabric and jellies me along with the local datspace. It’s a fucking monster, right? Props to the coder, serusly. Anyone tells you there’s no such thing as eaters. . . well . . . fuck ‘em, right?

He laughs again, very nervous now, wiping his face on his shirt.

So now I been inside and watching. That fucking thing is a real shitstorm, man. Et up the whole datspace around TS-214-11899-UC-N for as many metas and backups as there are. She was never here man. They never took her, there was no order, there was no TS-214-11899-UC-N. And the only reason, I mean, fuck, you know, fuck, you know, I mean, fuck, the ONLY reason, I mean the ONLY FUCKING REASON you stick a fucking eater in your own stream — and you KNOW D-Sec did this, ’cause nobody puts rogue code inside this little fucking house of horrors — is because . . . is because . . . you know, because . . . you want to cut something out of MIND.

He looks at you, defiantly again, like this is the most transgressive of all the insane ramblings he’s spouted so far.

I. Fucking. Know. So don’t look at me, sav? Don’t. Cause I. Fucking. Know. But that’s what it is, is what it is, you know. And TS-214-11899-UC-N is gone from the frontups and gone from the backups and gone gone gone from the stream and the substream and the backstream and you know what else? TS-214-11899-UC-N is gone from MIND as well. That’s right, yeah. I checked, fuckers. So suck it. I’m not dumb, I didn’t use my backpath and I did a massive misdirect and all — I’m good at this, sav? But MIND doesn’t know. MIND knew, and now MIND doesn’t. And that is a fucking eater and a fucking half in anyone’s fucking dicto, dude. And That. Is. All.

Raff slides down into a chair by the control desk and stares into space, mopping his face with his tee shirt.