Page 35 of Coldwire
There’s a couple walking out from the automatic doors when I step through. One of them looks right at me. She continues staring for a beat too long. Maybe she’s wondering whether she knows me, where she knows me from. Far more Medans access Atahua’s feeds than either government would ever admit. It’s easy to tell when there are Medan users debating in the comments of touchy posts because they’ll use a very particular nose-picking emoji that Atahuans don’t have access to.
The couple walk on. I enter the lobby. They don’t call out, and when I do turn my head back to track where they’ve gone, they’re already around the corner, off to enjoy their night.
“In case you’re wondering,” Nik calls from the elevator, “Miz is posted in your room, so don’t try to run.”
Miz comes through the automatic doors then, grimacing. The directory beside the elevator shows the first three floors to be offices. Fourth and fifth are hotel rooms. No formal lobby anywhere to be seen, and six, seven, and eight are blanked out, rendered undecipherable by scratch marks. Maybeanother company’s office space, collapsing downcountry after automation took over their industry.
“We start in the morning.”
The elevator doors open. An elderly woman steps out, pushing a cleaning cart. The scent of heavy bleach wafts alongside her slow amble, her supplies rattling. She pushes into the door for the back stairwell, a loud slam declaring her exit.
In the ensuing silence, no one moves until I do, waiting for me to step into the elevator first. I oblige. There’s a camera blinking in the corner, but when I follow the wire trailing out its base, it goes nowhere.
Miz enters and stands to my side. Blare is similarly close when they find a spot in front of me. I’m almost surprised this team of kidnappers hasn’t bothered handcuffing me, hasn’t made the move to keep me sedated until we get where we need to be. It’s a lot of faith that I’ll remain reasonable. NileCorp’s private forces aren’t known for that. NileCorp has a 99.91 percent survival rate for its soldiers because we aren’t trained to care about who gets caught in the line of fire. Shoot first and pay for it later amid a mess of corporate jargon. We’re not going to get into trouble because NileCorp as an entity is too big, too nebulous, to bring down for one soldier’s trigger-happy fingers.
“Bymorning,” Nik continues when the doors close after him, “I mean the break of dawn. We’re going to get to these files before companies like your NileCorp pick up the scent.”
“If you want me to get us into Kunlun,” I say, “you’ll have a better chance of success if you tell me what you’re looking for there. What sort of data is it? What kind of file? Every part of Kunlun is stored in Offron’s servers anyway—can’t you break into Offron’s data center and search there instead?”
We reach the fourth floor. The elevator doors slide back.
“No. We can’t.” Nik steps out, strolling down the corridor. Blare hurries to follow him, the two disappearing into a door on the left.
I turn to Miz, slowly, menacingly, and she barely blinks. It reminds me a lot of myself when I’m in those mixed-reality rooms trying not to look out the corner of my eye, because I know I’m about to encounter the rogue NileCorp unit again and it takes all of my discipline not to fight off some fake soldiers. Better to keep them at bay as much as possible and focus on the actual mission. In this case, I’m Miz’s annoying rogue unit.
I follow closely when she exits the elevator. She scans her palm on the door opposite the one Nik and Blare went into, and the lock pops open.
“You have your palm data stored with reception?” I ask.
“It’s a 3D-printed skin layer,” she mutters.
“Fake bio-credentials?”
“Yes.”
Miz tosses her bags on the floor, then plants herself on the chair, a handheld device on her knee and her glasses snug. Now that she’s pointed it out, I see the thin line across her fingers where the layer she’s wearing over her palm ends.
I walk around the bed on the left, inspecting the moth-bitten sheets. Miz doesn’t want to chat, which is fine by me, but it strikes me as bizarre that I’m feeling an air of blame. As if I’ve done something to warrant this treatment.
“What’s your problem?”
I’ve asked the question casually, equal to an inquiry into what temperature it is or what we’re having for dinner.
Miz lowers her glasses. Her brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
“Surely I’m the one who should be mad,” I say, “given that you kidnapped me. What’s with the cold shoulder?”
Now Miz scoffs. She reaches into her bag and takes out a second handheld, balancing it on her other knee.
“Don’t take it personally,” she replies. “You just seem a little soulless, and I don’t see the point of acting otherwise.”
I sit on the bed. “All right.”
Miz frowns to herself. If she expected to offend me, she’ll be disappointed. I have no urge to counter that.
She taps her glasses. They turn opaque from my side, ensuring I can’t see any hint of what’s displayed before her eyes.
“Get some sleep,” Miz says plainly. “Let me know if I’m making too much noise.”
