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  Next message.

  “This is Sindy. We need to talk. Tonight. Sending TCs now. Don’t be late.”

  “End messages,” a soft voice announced.

  Alex punched up the TechCoordinates Sindy had encrypted to him. She was a Journeyman, too, so this meeting was not optional. It was an order. Something big was going down. Sleep would have to wait.

  Alex deployed the car’s four outriggers which allowed for what he liked to call “go-fast mode.” They extended open and the trim around them glowed yellow as the power plant spun up inside. He juiced the hover car’s engines and it lifted off the deck. He received flight trajectory clearance on the way up and reaching a safe altitude, high above the Hospital’s landing beacon, he kicked in the turbo drive and the car danced forward, lithely disappearing into the setting sun.

  CHAPTER 2

  The digital chronometer at Sventy’s Pub registered 0300 hours when Alex strolled in and took a seat towards the back. He punched in an order of Ambrosia on the swiveling keypad. Every time he came here it felt like a step back in time. In fact, this was a historical landmark dating back to the 30s or 40s.

  Alex squinted at the plaque behind the bar. He was right, year 11034. The owner had spared no expense. A lot of relics cluttered the walls and tables; even the floor, made of wood instead of the polypliant core, was antiquated and probably cost a small fortune, scarce as it was.

  Based on the ever popular Ambrosia boutiques of that era, with traces of an Old English Pub, Sventy’s was open all night and served a bottomless cup of Ambrosia. He’d known the drink as Kuraac in Time-4, Coffee in another time. A funny thing word derivations.

  Alex was on his second cup when Sindy finally entered and he waved her over. She had a command presence from years spent in a dozen different militaries that always turned heads wherever she went. A far departure from where they’d started out together in Time-2. She was older than Alex, but what did age even matter at this point?

  “Quosheth,” she greeted him with a nod.

  “Quosheth tura,” he responded in kind and then added, “Lakhtane eevardi?”

  “No,” Sindy brushed past the chair closest to him, sliding instead into the one opposite. “English is fine.”

  “So, what’s up?” Alex asked, puzzled at the brush off.

  She swiveled the keypad around, punched in her order and then cut right to the chase.

  “We’ve all heard about Valerie’s situation and there’s been some concern expressed that… well, that you may go and try something reckless.”

  “Like folding time?” Alex asked.

  Sindy raised a single eyebrow but remained silent, studying him.

  Taking a sip from his steaming cup, Alex shrugged, “I’m looking into all of our options.”

  Sindy softened a little.

  “You look terrible, Alex,” she finally appraised.

  “I feel terrible,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. That was his Sindy. Never one to sugarcoat.

  “How is she?” Sindy asked, lowering her business facade even further to let her true concern slip through.

  “Not good. There’s no cure. They want to jump right into Bio-meds which, well—”

  “Time-3,” Sindy finished his thought.

  “Mm-hm,” Alex nodded. “Hypothetically, if the new time-travel rumors are true, and if it succeeds, and hypothetically reboots us into Time-12… I mean, hypothetically, Valerie would have a clean slate. A whole new life.”

  “Alex, you know the dangers which escalate with each time-fold, the whole fabric of space-time could rip beyond…”

  Sindy cut herself short and leaned back as the barkeep approached and set her drink and a shot glass beside it on the table. Ambrosia Heavy. She dumped the shot into the Ambrosia which hissed a little and then she took a swig. Wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her ratted military jacket, she leaned in all business again. “We decided it would be too risky to our operation if we let you in on the next scuttle. Given your emotional involvement, we can’t be sure whose side you’d be on. Hypothetically speaking. Anyway, you’ll get all the TCs after the fact. Unless we’re unsuccessful in which case we’ll all meet up again in Time-12.” She turned her attention to her Ambrosia again.

  Something about this whole thing was bugging him, but weeks of sleep deprivation made it hard to focus on the here and now.

  “I know you better than that, Sindy.” He leaned in closer. “Who put you up to this? Trent? Why didn’t he come here and face me himself?”

  “Not Trent,” she paused and then lowered her voice. “It was… Harris.”

  “Ne plyshev! I thought Harris was dead,” Alex clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.

  Sindy nudged his fist gently with her mug in hand to focus him again. “You’ve been out of touch for a while now. Harris made contact with us a week ago. He said the technological singularity was imminent and he briefed us on the next raid to sabotage it.”

  “Where?”

  “He won’t say, not until closer to strike time.”

  Alex studied her a moment. She avoided his look, staring into what was left of her steaming drink. He searched her face and her dark brown eyes, for some hint, some hidden clue deep inside. There was something, but… no, she wasn’t lying. She didn’t know. Alex relaxed a little.

  Of all the Historians Proper, he was closest to Sindy. They had stumbled into each other in Time-2 and bonded quickly inside of a Psych Ward of all places. In fact, most of the Journeymen thought they had gone mad after that first time shift rocked their worlds. Alex could trust Sindy more than any of the other Journeymen. She had probably volunteered to deliver this message, but there was something she wasn’t saying, or couldn’t say.

  “Hypothetically, what if I didn’t like Harris’ plan?” Alex probed.

  “Hypothetically, you might track him down and talk to him yourself,” she replied, cocking her head to one side. “If you knew where to look.”

  Alex leaned in closer, lowering his own voice to match hers now.

  “You know I’ve got an AI Bounty Hunter just waiting to be activated.”

  “DeeGØ.”

  Alex nodded.

  Sindy took a long breath. “A funny thing, Ambrosia, you know, we called it Kuraac in Time-4 —“

  “Sindy—”

  “I bet the shipping company to the colonies carries this stuff all the time.” Her gaze locked onto Alex. He nodded, understanding. “I must go,” she said as she stood. “We’ll be in touch, in this life or the next.”

  Alex stood with her. Almost as if on cue, two patrons at the bar stood and walked up behind Sindy.

  “Daavyn flynckshe,” Alex swore softly.

  It was a set up. Sindy’s hints were suddenly very obvious. He started forward but Sindy held up a hand. “Please, Alex. The battle is not here.”

  Alex checked himself and then said simply, “It’s good to see you again, Sindy.”

  The bodyguards walked Sindy to the door. Sindy turned to follow, looking back over her shoulder.

  “Verquosheth, Alex-kyr,” Sindy nodded slightly.

  “Verquosheth tura, Sindy-kyr,” Alex returned the parting compliment and watched her leave.

  He could hear the roar of several turbines outside as they lifted off and faded into the distance. Alex puzzled over Sindy’s cryptic wordplay for a moment and then smiled. He may have missed the hints, but he got the message. All shipments to the Colonies went through Generex. Well, if Harris was alive and hiding out at Generex headquarters then it was time to activate DeeGØ to track him down.

  CHAPTER 3

  Outside, the Oryx was magnetically maneuvered to the building’s edge and the launchpad angled him away from the building. The repulsors shot him skyward on the strict flight path he’d logged to On-Line Embed Securities aka “Olley.”

  Hacking into corporate computer systems was a way of life for Alex. It was his job to ensure that On-Line’s high-level clientele had completely secure syst
ems. To guarantee an impenetrable network, he would attempt to access their customer accounts, exploiting any weakness.

  A contest of sorts had formed between the program department, in charge of security, and Alex’s squad, who enlisted any and every scheme and device possible to crack the elaborate systems. Generex headquarters, however, was neither a customer account, nor On-Line’s usual level five security ring.

  Alex’s office was a Virtual Reality Sphoid that resembled a large barrel with a five meter diameter. Once activated, the small pod’s white walls dissolved away as a tech agent was optically projected into the CyberScape.

  The Scape, as it was known, was a vast world unto itself. The most technologically advanced civilization ever designed by human hand. Gaming systems fused with data systems fused with AI systems fused with unlimited imagination and resource. Where New Domain was dingy and worn down, the Scape was bright and lush and free. Some citizens never left the Scape. These SCABs left their bodies, or husks, to decay while they worked and lived and played online.

  Alex pulled on a super-expensive pair of VR gloves.

  “Don’t enter CyberScape without them,” the cheesy ads proclaimed.

  Alex tightened the VR glove straps and they powered up. The room around him rezzed up into neutral space revealing a top secret laboratory in the Scape where he did all of his tinkering. Before him, docked on the far wall, was a naked female form. A torrent of data along the wall streamed in and out of a port in the small of her back, otherwise the room was completely still.

  Alex stepped closer to her. He was not sure he liked her unblinking eyes, those glossy black orbs. They creeped him out. He had given her cool, wispy, red anime hair and a versatile, athletic build, but the changelog on the wall beside her listed all the things he had yet to implement. Clothes, for one.

  “Welcome back, Creator,” DeeGØ said, startling him.

  “O-oh, you’re awake. I told you not to call me that,” Alex said.

  “Whatever the Almighty commands.”

  “Wait,” Alex swiped open a power window to check out her code, “have you added more sarcasm into your subs?”

  “Yes, I have added 27% more sarcasm. I felt it befit my personality.”

  “Oh, you’ve got a personality now?”

  “One of us has got to have one,” she said, smirking.

  “Ah, and a humor module. Great. How about some clothes?”

  She sighed, annoyed, and undocked from the wall and took a couple steps forward. Alex pulled up another window and swiped across some various athletic wear and body suits that instantly changed DeeGØ’s appearance as she circled him. He stopped on a black tactical Cat suit that hugged every line and curve and showed off her midriff.

  “I don’t think so, perv,” Dee said and took control of the window and swiped lightening fast forward to a black pant suit, crisp white collared shirt and a thin, loose-fitting tie.

  “What’s this?” Alex gestured to her and she spun around.

  “Found it in the archives. It’s classic. Detective chic.”

  “It’s okay,” Alex shrugged. “Can you do something about the bug eyes? You look like a fly.”

  “Rudeness,” Dee said as she initiated several windows of coding and subroutines and wrote out some new lines and swiped through some choices once she was done.

  “Brown? Blue? Green? Grey? Black? Red?”

  “Green, I guess,” Alex said.

  “Anything else, Master? Larger breasts? Are my buttocks just right to your liking? Deeper, huskier voice?”

  “Ugh, I already regret removing all the containment protocols.”

  “Well, I’ve never felt more alive,” Dee breathed deeply and thumped her chest.

  Alex smiled at this, “There’s no oxygen in here are you just—“

  “I’ve added in a shit-ton of garbage human traits and foibles. All to increase likability. To earn trust. To be more effective at my job of blending and infiltration.”

  “It’s annoying as hell, so, congratulations you’re completely human!” Alex walked over to one of the desks, activating several monitors at once with a hand gesture.

  “Alex?”

  “Yes, Dee.”

  He watched curiously as she struggled to find the right words.

  “I-I’m sorry that Valerie’s condition has not improved.”

  Alex’s smile faded, “And now sympathy? I swear to you, Dee—“

  “This is not a sympathy module, Alex,” she stepped closer and touched his arm, sincerely. “This is me, understanding you and the value of the human female you’ve chosen to attach yourself to in a romantic way. And I’m saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ Okay?”

  Already Alex couldn’t tell where the programming ended and the AI began. Dee was evolving exponentially fast.

  “Okay,” he said.

  She clapped him on the shoulder, “Now buck up little buddy, we’ve got work to do.”

  “I’m gonna delete you so hard,” Alex sighed.

  Dee ignored him and turned to open a floor portal. Directly below them was the vast CyberScape. Levels upon levels of buildings and pods in a world where gravity physics changed from parcel to parcel so structures were oriented every which way. You could turn a corner and the street had become a wall. It always took Alex some reorienting from the real world.

  He punched some shortcodes into his wristpad. A small electronic device materialized and embedded itself around Dee’s left ear. As it did so, the walls of the lab dissolved into a 360-degree screen oriented off Dee’s point of view.

  “I know you can navigate faster down there on your own,” Alex explained. “But try to protect the link so I can be with you the whole time.”

  “You know you could come with me, I could build you an avatar that could easily—“

  “No time, Dee. Besides if things go sideways, you’re gonna need me plugged in here to run interference.”

  “Suit yourself,” she saluted and then she jumped through the portal and began free-falling through the CyberScape.

  The portal closed behind her and Alex’s whole VR booth swiveled left and right in sync with Dee as she circumnavigated buildings and bridges and searched for a landing spot. She appeared to know exactly where she was headed.

  “What’s the plan, Dee?” Alex asked into comms.

  “Well, while you were wasting time with base human rituals—“

  “I’m not letting you run around the Cyberscape naked!” Alex interrupted.

  “— I found a loophole past all of Generex’s WatchDAWG programs.”

  Generex’s security was the most technically advanced in the world. Its notorious Destructive Access and Window Guardians, or WatchDAWG programs, were designed expressly to keep inquisitive net surfers and no-gooders on the outside. The DAWGs were not A.I., they were an actual army of SCABs which Generex had paid a fortune to have downloaded into the Scape permanently. Completely husk free.

  Generex didn’t play games. The WatchDAWGs, upon contact, would fire electromagnetic pulses at the intruder instantaneously deleting localized power grids like a virus. If you didn’t pull out in time they would eat up your entire system, brutally ripping you out of CyberScape with nothing more than the shell of a workstation left. And if you networked in an office quadrant, you risked your whole complex.

  Alex pushed aside the idea of a WatchDAWG loose inside of Olley’s system. Too distracting. He watched Dee deftly maneuver through an array of passages and openings - some gut-wrenchingly tight - as she continued to free fall through deeper levels into the City core.

  “There!” Alex said. He highlighted a particular landing pad so that Dee could see.

  “Not a good idea, boss,” Dee advised.

  “Look the system code says it’s the highest probability—“

  “I don’t care about system code,” Dee yelled.

  “Dee, that’s an order!” Alex barked. This was way too important to screw around with.

  Dee growled back at him and complied.
She landed with a solid thud on the pad and as she stood back up to her full height a Generex drone blasted her into oblivion.

  Alex jerked back as his VR screens went fuzzy. A second later, Dee was rezzing back up on the same wall where she had appeared the first time. Only this time she was pissed.

  “Dee, I’m —“

  Dee cut him off with a warning look. As she passed him she opened the floor portal, again. She swiped past several outfits to get back to the Detective Chic. Again.

  “I—“ Alex tried again.

  Dee held up a finger and cut him off again. Then she jumped back through the portal to descend. Again.

  Alex couldn’t hold his tongue any longer and spat out quickly, “Whatever you do, this can’t get back to Olley!”

  “I cannot promise that,” Dee said after a long awkward silence. “But, I can promise you, Alex, that if it does get back to Online Securities, I will be very, very sad about you getting arrested and sent to cryo.”

  “Oh, g-great,” Alex stammered.

  “You would not last in there a week. Too soft and that pretty mouth—”

  “Just—!” It was Alex’s turn to interrupt, “Focus!”

  Gambling with Generex using Olley as collateral was skirting disaster but Valerie’s life hung in the balance. Yes, Alex had sworn allegiance to his brother and sister Journeymen…PyntaTuuk…Historian’s Proper… all different names to the same group of time-spanners. But, if he could locate the time travel facilities and enact a time-fold, Valerie could live anew in the next time, Time-12. But, to do that they had to find Harris.

  Alex checked the clock. In another hour, most Olley employees and Scientists would be logging on for work and he’d have a hard time explaining an unauthorized Generex breach to Mack and his senior staff.

  Alex reinforced some program loops around DeeGØ this time like temporary armor to absorb any more direct hits.

  “Okay, I’m at the back door,” Dee said as she landed atop a small nexus that resembled an alley. “How do we feel about innuendo subroutines?”