Page 72 of Coldwire
Turns out, though, the vehicle is electric, which means plugging in for more power halfway through. Stolen electric vehicles don’t hold much charge. At least not enough to risk the full journey.
I stir from my light doze, shifting to face the window. Miz suggested stopping in either Satisci or Peacebrate, whichever ended up being easiest for refueling. On the map, it’s a straight shot from Upsie to Threto. On the actual roads, the curving lines and squiggling hills add far more travel time. Our route so far has cut through the middle of several residential low-rises, which I gather is common in places where they needed to build an expressway but didn’t want to demolish the buildings in its path. We’ve had to detour twice: the map didn’t realize parts of the expressways were shut down from a lack of usage and led us into dead ends.
The horizon seeps grayer the farther west we go. The clouds grow darker too. Night arrives with the flip of a switch. I blink, and what I assumed tobe a decrease in air quality snatches the sun away at once, the sky a canvas of blotted ink.
“You’re awake?”
Nik’s voice sounds suddenly in my ear. I didn’t hear him change seats to get behind me, and I jolt, spinning around.
“Sorry,” he rushes to say, holding his hands up. “I come in peace.”
My eyes flicker to the window. My pulse is thudding. “I think we’re in Satisci, actually.”
It takes Nik a beat to realize I made a joke. It takes him another to react, emitting a half laugh, begrudgingly gifted. Land of Satisfied Civilian and Land of Peaceful Celebration are close together, both smaller cities that continue hemorrhaging civilians with the years that pass. Downcountry, whether in Medaluo or Atahua, every midsized point on the map flows in one of two directions: into a big city where there is still a population, still jobs to be found, or the very opposite if someone has enough funds, into remote areas where they can be left alone to plug into a Pod and live in the virtual rendering of whichever city where they own property. Upcountry Satisci and Peacebrate remain well occupied, even as the real ones turn into arenas of ghosts.
“I looked at the two lists of Kunlun citizens that Blare got you in Upsie,” Nik says. His expression has returned to its resting state—impassive. “What’s the plan?”
I shift to cross my legs. On a bathroom break, I put away Teryn’s tracker to keep it safe. It’s in the sole of my shoe.
“We’re already going to Threto next,” I say. “You can’t guess?”
“I can likely guess,” Nik replies. “But I’d appreciate you talking me through it.”
The unfortunate result of keeping the tracker in my shoe is that my left foot feels an infinitesimal amount heavier than my right. Though I know it must weigh less than a grain of rice, I still sense it, and I’m finding it difficult to ignore the difference. It lurks ever-present in my field of awareness. Itreminds me of what waits at the end of this. NileCorp will want Nik dead eventually. It won’t be called an execution—it’ll be a hazard that no one could have foreseen, an inmate with a shiv. They’ll want Miz, even Blare, imprisoned. They’ll put Blare in prison garb far too big for them. NileCorp will not care that they’re a kid.
I push the thought away quickly, then cross my legs again in the other order.
“It’s nothing complex. You already have business in Threto’s data center—and it’s Medaluo’s largest data facility. Exactly the place to hit for the most variety of information.” I look over at Blare, who’s lightly napping. “We run the names of the Kunlun citizens we retrieved in Upsie. See if any of their StrangeLoom credentials are retrievable. We’ll need several options in case they log back in faster than we can change their primary passwords.”
The StrangeLoom system will only allow one active log-in at a time: understandably, to prevent families who try to share one subscription. The moment we enter Kunlun, we’ll be booting out the user whose avatar we stole, and we have to finish our business before they call for help to recover their account.
Nik nods. “And we’ll retrieve their second passwords into Kunlun as well?”
“No.” Kunlun is home to the richest people in the world. Their personal security, personal engineer teams, and personal publicity will have a system set up to rotate new second passwords—weekly, daily, maybe even hourly. The second password is too precious to risk. “After we finish up in Threto, our next stop needs to be Offron.”
My eyes flicker up. I don’t know what I’m looking for—some signal, perhaps, that Nik knows I’m double-crossing him. Some gesture to point to him bugging me, wiring me, having recorded my entire exchange with Teryn.
We stare at each other too long. He has not reacted, so instead I’m the one who twitches suspiciously.
“What do they call Kunlun, after all?” I ask.
“The City in the Cloud,” Nik answers, not missing a beat.
I nod. “You need to store the City in the Cloud somewhere. Kunlun was invented in Offron—all the data is there.”
We haven’t seen any cars on our tail. If Teryn’s team is following us, they’re either maintaining drone watch or waiting for the tracker to stop. Or maybe they’re not following at all. Maybe they’ve proceeded ahead and stationed themselves in Offron to prepare. Three days is not a long time.
“To break into Kunlun,” I continue, “we primarily need to break into Offron’s data center. If we plug a Claw into the maintenance ports that the engineers use, I expect that means we bypass the second password and log into upcountry the regular way. Use the credentials we’ve siphoned, and we enter as Kunlun citizens without raising their alarms.”
The vehicle falls quiet. We’ve pulled off the main road, chugging toward the electric charging booth at a gas station. While the van parks itself into a slot, Miz reaches up at the front to turn on the interior lights. We all flinch. The bulbs are clinically bright, dousing us with such vigor that my eyes physically sting.
“I’m going to go activate charging,” she announces. “Don’t wake Blare if you can help it. We’ll be on the move again shortly.”
Miz steps out. Her door shuts. While she fiddles with the charging station cord, Nik mutters a complaint under his breath, leaning forward for the dashboard to dim the lights. A loud click reverberates from the van’s exterior. The vehicle begins to hum to indicate a charge in progress.
“Do you even still have your chip?”
Nik turns slowly at my question, perched on the central console. He props his hands on his knees, keeping himself upright.
