Wavering faith

Margit felt like she was finally back into the swing of things. Even though her technical skills were kept sharp by her day job, she had been losing her physical skills. Now whether she liked it or not, sometimes her missions involved or at least ended in running away.

She waited behind the corner of the street, leaning on the wall of a run-down apartment building. Her mark was coming closer. He was wearing a long beige trench coat, hand buried in the pockets and the collar high. He was trying to hide the fact that he was looking around nervously, but for someone that knew what to look for in was obvious. It wasn’t hard for Margit to believe that a man like that was leaking information from a company to a terrorist group. When he was just a meter from the corner she suddenly began walking around the corner and collided with the man. He yelped and in the confusion she attached a bug to the inside of his coat. The small device was both a tracker and a microphone. If this worked, it could lead to a dismantlement of another terror cell, more likely though it would lead nowhere. Even a successful mission didn’t guarantee important results.

“Hey, watch it,” the man shouted. The nervousness was replaced with red faced anger. He reached for Margit’s arm, but she drew back and ran. She was shocked at the fact that he even started after while her, though he gave up after a couple of steps. She kept running until she disappeared behind a corner. She waited for a moment, then looked around and saw the man moving on. She sighed. Apparently she wasn’t quite as graceful and nimble as she had thought, at least not yet. Be that as it may, her job was done.

Despite this slight mishap, she still felt fairly confident. Things had been looking up for her lately. Working for Flora had become something like a part-time job for her. The money was certainly good. On top of her day job, that meant that she was finally making a dent in her debt. Eventually she might need to make her real job into a part-time one, since Flora’s jobs took up progressively more time, they did however also pay a lot better. In truth she no longer needed to sleep in her pod, but remaining there anyway meant that her debt would be paid off in about six years instead of nine. It was still a long time, but compared to decades that had awaited her before, a faint light of hope glowed inside her. One day she just might be free.

Even her food quality seemed to improve. The square blocks seemed to taste better, even though it was hard to tell as her increased physical activity also improved her appetite. Right there next to the blocks were still the small grey pills. Will I be free of them before I’m free of my debt? Perhaps she might be healed some day, at least Flora said she might be. She didn’t fully understand why it mattered so much to her, since it was just another augmentation and compared to the one everyone had in their heads it wasn’t even such a big one. It did add to her debt, but it was more than that. Even though she was never keen on the idea of having her own children, it felt wrong. Do I even have a right to complain with what happened to Gabor? Will he disapprove of me if I think like this? I can’t help it even with the guilt squeezing my throat. I care. It should have been my decision.

Margit was summoned to Flora’s office. She still had no idea where it was nor did she know a name of any of the others that were there.

“We are still tracking the man,” said Flora.

“But you won’t tell me if it leads to anything even after you know,” Margit responded.

Flora smirked. “Not unless we decide you need to know. I’m glad you have become so accustomed to our way of work. I might need to employ you some time in the future, but enough chatter. Your next mission has already been decided. This time you will infiltrate a surveillance company.”

Margit stared with wide open mouth. After a moment she collected herself. “So far the targets have always been criminal organizations or corrupt individuals. Are we really going after a legitimate company.” There was always a chance of casualties on their missions. Targeting a company like this meant that the victims would be innocent civilians.

“I see you are reluctant. Let me remind you, that we aren’t targeting simple criminals and terrorists. Our enemy is a Cerb. Supporting an AI at that scale means that the organization behind it is a huge corporation, if not even a branch of the government. Of course almost no one knows it, even if their actions are being manipulated by it. We aren’t the police, depending on the outcome of our actions we are either rebels or the worst kind of terrorists. In either case we are not good people.”

Margit bit the inside of her lip. It wasn’t strictly speaking the first time she would do something like that. Even her first mission for Flora involved infiltrating a legitimate facility. That time however it was in order to save it. Is it any different from what has happened to me? Was that also just some mission someone needed to carry out? Under the control of an AI or perhaps not even that. What if I create more people like me, break them? The questions swirled around her head, but answers refused to come into existence. I’ve just begun my life anew, running away from all I’ve done and sacrificed everything, but now I’m becoming a pawn again. She felt ill. When she looked up she saw Flora looking at her and thought she saw a shadow of concern, that disappeared as soon as they made eye contact.

"I see you need a moment to come to terms with this, but if it helps, I can assure you, that at the very least no one needs to die for this mission. In fact if there was a casualty it would most likely be you.”

Margit frowned. “That makes me fell a lot better.”

“I will take your sarcasm as a sign that we can proceed. So about this surveillance company. You will need to plant a virus on one of the computers inside. That is it.”

“Isn’t this something I can do without infiltration?”

“No. They have their own closed system. You need to access their internal network. To be safe you will carry the virus inside your pretty little head,” Flora said with a nasty smile. “Do you know about sandbox environments?”

“My day job is programming, so yes.”

“In truth it shouldn’t be necessary to contain the virus like this, but as they say: better safe than sorry.”

“Great,” Margit said, trying not to sound overly sarcastic. “And what will you tell me of the significance of the mission?”

Flora’s smile almost seemed genuine. “If possible I’d tell you nothing, but to please you I will say, that this will have both short term consequences on our other missions, as well as probable long term ones, that could shift the tide in our favour. Also try to leave as soon as you’re done. If I were you, I’d not like to be there if they find out what you did. Not that you have any reason to linger there.”