The Unseen (7 page)

A few people invited her to join them in playing games or hacking on projects, but she just wanted some time alone to process everything. Everywhere she went there were experimental robotics running around, or hackers designing new things. She couldn’t remember what time it had been when Joseth had eventually left last night, but she knew it had been late.

When she woke up, there was a brand new processing unit next to her bed, but she hadn’t felt like putting it on yet. There was something unexpectedly soothing about not being connected. She rolled the processing unit over in her hand before deciding to plug herself back into the digital world.

She strolled up to the closest bench and took a seat.
Lars jumped up next to her for a minute, but decided he was happier chasing a small robotic dog. Kari sighed and slid her new processing unit behind her ear, which immediately connected to the mind chip in her brain, causing screens and alerts to pop up in her vision.

Oh no . . .
There were thirty-seven missed calls from David and nearly that many from Aubrey. They had also sent her a number of messages on every communication platform conceivable, begging her to get in contact with them.
They are probably going crazy with me being off the grid for so long.
Kari felt a surge of guilt at not letting them know what was going on at her earliest opportunity. She knew how mad she would be if the roles were reversed.
Nothing I can do about that now.

Kari took a deep breath and a final sip of coffee before calling David. The little camera attached to her new processing unit behind her ear detached and floated in front of her, broadcasting her face to the person on the other side of the call. It took a second longer to connect than it should have.
Joseth probably set up some sort of secure proxy here that communication has to pass through.
Kari wasn’t a fan of her calls having to be approved by Joseth’s system, but she understood the need for extra security. David answered immediately.

“Kari! Thank God!” David exclaimed. He took a deep breath that looked to be his first in days. His hair was messed up, and his eyes were weary.

“That’s Kari?” Kari could hear Aubrey say from the other line. A second later she saw her face scrunch up next to David’s. She wouldn’t be able to see Kari without being invited to join the call, but she knew that Kari would be able to see her.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Kari said.

“Oh my God. Are you OK? I mean, are you safe?” David said, as his eyes searched Kari’s face over for signs of trouble.

“Yeah—I’m fine, and I’m safe,” Kari said, trying to keep her voice calm.

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Then where the hell have you been? We’re halfway up to your house right now,” David said. Aubrey punched David in the arm, and a second later, her face joined the conversation.

“Kari, I’m so glad you’re all right! We have been crazy worried about you!” Aubrey said.

“Well . . . thanks for caring about me, but I promise you I’m fine.”

“So what happened? Why haven’t you been answering our calls, then, if everything is fine?” David said. Kari wasn’t sure if his voice was relieved, suspicious, or upset.

“I was attacked by some Middle States soldiers and had to run away from home,” Kari said. For the first time, she was starting to think about how much she wanted to tell them.
Too much information won’t help them feel better.

“You were attacked?” David asked by reflex. “I hope they are OK.” Kari smiled at that. No one believed in Kari more than David Pratt did. It was one of her favorite things about their relationship. He cared for her and believed in her in a way that no one else ever had.

“I mean, I might have broken a few of their bones and given them a few shocks, but I made it out fine.”

“I thought you weren’t going to hurt people with technology anymore,” Aubrey said.

“It’s not my fault; they started this one. They attacked me in the middle of the night, and I did as little as I could to escape.”
Maybe that’s not a good enough excuse to cause harm . . .

“So you’re not a total pacifist after all,” David said with a smile. “I hope you roughed them up enough for them to leave you alone for good.”

“Yeah,” Kari searched for her words carefully now. “I’m not sure they are ever going to leave me alone.”

“What do you mean?” David and Aubrey asked in unison.

“I mean, while there is still war going on, I think there are always going to be people who will try to manipulate or control me. I was silly to think that they were just going to let me live my life in West Dakota.”

“So what are you saying?” David said. It was clear he didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s going to be safe for me to go back home, or near you guys, until things settle down for good. I thought it was, but I was wrong. I was lucky to make it out of this scrape alive, I can’t even imagine what things would be like if they had come for me while I was at your house.”

“So that’s it? You’re just going to keep running forever?” David said. He was angry. Kari didn’t blame him. It wasn’t good news, and she knew how much David liked to spend time with her.

“What else am I supposed to do, David? I can’t risk you or your family, and I can’t just sit around waiting for them to round me up again. So for now, I’m going to stay where no one can find me, where no one knows where I am.”
Where I’ll be unseen.

“Even me?” he said.

“Even you and even Aubrey. The less you know, the better.”

“Doesn’t this feel a little rushed? Why don’t you meet us somewhere, and we can talk it over,” Aubrey said. She was trying to be kind, but Kari just felt herself growing frustrated with them both.

“No! That’s the whole point!” Kari said. “I’m not happy about this either, but it’s the way it’s got to be, at least until things settle down.”

“That might be years!” David protested, his face growing redder by the minute.

“It might be,” Kari said. Aubrey sighed, and David shook his head and bit his lip. “But you never know, things were looking pretty good until the assassinations started everything up again.” It wasn’t much, but it was the best thing she could come up with to try to comfort them. Everyone on the call considered those words thoughtfully, knowing deep inside that the war was likely to last for the foreseeable future.

“So why don’t we stop the assassinations and end the war?” David said, breaking the pensive silence.

“Great idea, David,” Aubrey said. “Why didn’t we just think about stopping the war before? Man, all this wasted time . . .”

Kari knew Aubrey must be upset, because she was rarely sarcastic and never mean. David looked over to her in real life and glared.

“How are we supposed to do that, David?” Kari said.

“I don’t know,” David admitted. “But what I do know is that you can figure it out. Or at least you can get close enough to speed the process up. Write software to keep people secure, or figure out the next target or something.”

“I . . .” Kari didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know where to start with that suggestion, but she didn’t want to ruin David’s belief in her.

“You can try,” David said, pleading with her to give him some hope. “Tell me you can try at least, Kari. I need something here!”

“Fine,” Kari said. “I should have plenty of time anyway, but I’m not promising anything.” David sighed with relief, and Aubrey shook her head.

“I guess for now, I should just be happy you’re alive and safe,” Aubrey said. “I suppose we can turn this car around and head back home.”

“Can you call me later?” David asked.

“Yeah—yeah, I’ll call you tonight.”

“Well, great, we should be almost home by then,” Aubrey said. “You just keep yourself safe Kari.”

“Will do, Aubrey.”

“I—” David cut himself off, and Aubrey and Kari both looked at him curiously. “I look forward to talking to you later.”

“Great, and sorry for not getting in contact earlier, guys. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a civil war to stop.”

“You got it?” Hermes asked. He was old for a resident of Valhalla, somewhere in his forties, whereas most the Unseen were fairly young. His real name was Tylar Johnston, but like most people at Valhalla, he liked to go by his hacker handle.
Hermes . . . what is it with hackers and mythology?

“I think so. Ten minutes to customize and program the three mechs, and then it’s a free-for-all capture the flag game,” Kari said. She was a little uncertain about some of the finer details and rules of the game, but she was confident she would get along.
Besides, they’ll probably take it easy on a beginner
.

“And then no direct control of any the mechs during the game,” Motorcad said. “Only orders.”

“Of course,” Kari said. Motorcad was an athletic guy in his midtwenties. He didn’t have the typical look of a hacker, as most of them focused more on their minds than their bodies, but Kari knew his handle well.

He had competed against Kari and won several big contracts from clients over the past few years. Despite his skills as a hacker, he was best known for his skills at video games. Motorcad held the world record for eleven of the most popular games and made a substantial income from winning tournaments. He was hot, but he lacked something that kept Kari from being too interested in him.
But he is nice to look at.

“She’s got it, she’s got it,” SeptemberMist said. She was a tall woman who looked to be in her early thirties, but it was hard to tell because her outgoing personality and impossible-to-place heritage made it difficult to know for sure. Those were all traits she leveraged to hack systems that no one else could, not because she was the best at code, but because she was a world-class social engineer. Simply put, she was the best at convincing people to trust her with secure information that she had no right to know.
If everyone at Valhalla is the best at something, why am I here?

Kari had gone wandering around Valhalla that evening after spending the afternoon in her room trying in vain to figure out where to start with the mission of world peace that David had given her.

Joseth had never shown up, which was a disappointment, so Kari eventually decided to go on a stroll through the house, hoping to find something to do. She was relieved when SeptemberMist had asked her to join her small group, insisting that if she didn’t play with them she wouldn’t be a true member of the Unseen.

“All right, sending invites to all of you to join my game,” SeptemberMist said.

An alert showed up in the corner of Kari’s eye as the mind chip overrode a small part of her vision. She immediately accepted and joined the game session that SeptemberMist was hosting, allowing it to fill her entire vision. Kari felt herself start to tense up, these were some well-known hackers, and she didn’t want to embarrass herself.

“Don’t override your ears,” Motorcad said.

“Yeah, you don’t want to miss out on hearing all of his noobish trash talk,” SeptemberMist quipped.

“Good luck, Freelancer,” Hermes said. Kari wasn’t as familiar with Hermes’s handle as she was with the others, but she remembered seeing his name float around on several contracts that specialized in older software. From that, Kari assumed he was a specialized hacker of legacy code.

A showroom with three identical mechs spinning slowly filled Kari’s vision. She checked them all quickly, finding that they had medium capabilities in all major diagnostic categories, such as speed, agility, energy, and firepower. Kari dug into the mechs’ design more and found that they were standard modern military mechs. They were around fifteen feet tall, made of black graphium, and sported a number of weapon systems already.
Kari shivered slightly looking at them, remembering the night of her escape when she had become well acquainted with some older versions of these mechs. Even the brief reminder of that night made Kari want to quit the game. She didn’t want to fight anyone, but this was a game, and she didn’t want the hackers to look down on her.

OK, what do I do here? Three of the same is boring, so that gives me around three minutes to work on each of them.
Kari selected the first mech and switched to edit mode. The other mechs disappeared as her consciousness centered on the mech she was editing. Panels and code filled the sides of her mind, and the mech came to life in front of her. It walked in place, showing how it would look in the game.
It’s not my development environment, but I can work with this.

Kari moved the weapon systems first and then upgraded them, increasing the number of energy cannons and missile launchers. She then made the two primary arm cannons larger, which required her to increase the motors that moved them to prevent their use from being prohibitively slow. The increased firepower would require a better energy system, so Kari upgraded that as well. The mech’s movement was slow and heavy now.
This guy isn’t going to be moving anywhere fast. I’ll have him guard the flag.
She named the mech Karold after herself and moved onto the next mech.

“Boom. Done and done,” Motorcad said.

“No one believes you, Caddy,” Hermes said.

Kari slimmed down the second mech, cutting out many of its heavy weapons, and focused on improving its movement. After just a few seconds the mech moved briskly rather than with the measured steps it had started with. Kari removed the arm cannons and replaced them with a pair of long arms that would allow the mech to run on all fours like a gorilla.

On each arm and leg Kari added a retractable blade that could superheat with energy on demand, not unlike how her hacking-drones worked. The mech now galloped forward using all four limbs at a good pace; its agility and speed scores had more than quadrupled, but it had come at the expense of firepower. Her gorilla mech wouldn’t be able to eliminate any opponents from a distance, but Kari had designed it to capture the flag.

Defender, attacker, now time for something a little different.
Kari pulled up the available parts list and flipped through the components until she found engines from a jet fighter. She copied those over and attached them to the back of the mech. It took her the entire three minutes to get the jet engines working in a way that wouldn’t destroy the mech on takeoff. It wasn’t a great solution, but Kari was hopeful that it would at least allow the mech to fly vertically up into the sky to gain a better vantage point.