Lia the Guarded

I was in the middle of a serious session of doing nothing when Valeria threw open the container’s doors. Her shoulders hunched, an uncharacteristic tension to her jaw. I asked if something went wrong, but she didn’t respond. I went back to doing nothing, when Valeria spoke without looking at me:

‘If you want to rest, rest, but if you say you’ll help me at the clinic, I expect you to be there.’

I processed her words, dissecting each, since the surface meaning was spotted and unknowable, a rock tossed into a puddle. Without reaching a conclusion, I asked her to explain. Apparently, according to Valeria, I’d promised to help at the underground clinic throughout the day, but I didn’t show up. I didn’t recall promising, let alone being asked.

I couldn’t ask a follow-up question, as Valeria said:

‘Your cyber-side activity is an issue, too,’ she warned. ‘I’ve got sensors here, in the container. You interacted with two people recently, didn’t you?’

Priscilla and Aemilia.

I admitted to it but didn’t see the issue, though Valeria was glad to offer a caustic explanation: Cyber-side interaction put people in danger, in case the Horace assassination got traced to them. They could also hack into Valeria’s systems. Or leak information. Or find them. Or all sorts of things.

I didn’t like seeing Valeria in the current state, manic and frenzied, borderline foaming at the mouth, panicking about a thousand scenarios that hadn’t happened. Had something happened at the clinic? Had I really promised her my help, and without attending something disastrous had occurred?

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay real-side until Horace is dealt with.’

Valeria calmed down enough to stop pacing the container like she’d been entombed alive. Her following action shocked me in a different way. Striding to me in the hammock, she kneeled against a box and rested her head on my stomach. I felt the warmth of her head through artificial sensory receptors, and perhaps she felt my heartbeat. My weird, double-barrel heartbeat.

Did I not mention that? Since getting the God-Heart implant, I had a double heartbeat. The first came from my regular heart, but a slighter, less noticeable one followed. Press two fingers to your wrist, find the pulse, and you’ll feel a dun-dun-dun. Mine went DUN-dun…DUN-dun…DUN-dun. Almost legato, in terms of biological flowing notes.

My heart had another reason for beating irregularly. Despite telling Valeria I’d avoid going cyber-side, I awaited a message from Aemilia. She’d promised to contact me, shortly after our group meeting with Priscilla. That was the primary reason I hadn’t left the container, and that was the greatest cause for self-doubt when it came to Valeria’s complaints about the clinic. Had I been too love-struck to remember a promise?

I couldn’t forget all that Valeria had done for me.

#

My feelings weren’t a matter of memory or debt. I’d lived a naïve and sheltered life, filtering myself through the wishes of my mum, but I didn’t lack the ability to pursue suspicions. Maybe perfectionism makes you “know” when things are right, so when things are wrong, you sense them implicitly.

All this is to say that, some days later, I hired an Aquinor hacker to look into Priscilla and Aemilia. Everything came up normal; they lived the lives we’d discussed. But an unusual factor arose: When processing information through my internal system, my access to cyber-side, I couldn’t find them. My systems had data wipes and blocked access to certain networks. The hacker said, I quote: You’ve got the digital equivalent of a termite infestation.

The hacker couldn’t pinpoint a cause. I mentioned my recent cybernetics and implants. He didn’t recognise the name of them, adding to the assumption that the implants slipped ulterior software in during the installation process. Yet, I had doubts. Any other causes? He asked if I had enemies, or worse, friends who were secretly enemies.

How would I know if my friends were enemies if they’d kept it a secret?

If the existence of these hypothetical friend-but-enemy, wolf-but-sheep was valid, it was perfectly possible for the cyber-side tampering to come from them.

I, again, had my suspicions. But they could not be pursued. The time wasn’t ideal. I had an assassination to conduct.

When I got back from the hacker’s apartment, Valeria reported a message from Aki. He’d landed in Hong Kong ahead of schedule and awaited the start of the plan. The Montim Aquinor Leadership Summit drew near. Checking our funds and planning, we bought two plane tickets and prepared to leave.

My thoughts drifted to Mum. I didn’t know how she fared, out in the town of exiles. In those thoughts, doubt served no purpose. I had to hope her health endured, and that she’d last just a few weeks more, until I committed the necessary act.