Dreams in the Tower Part 2 Read online

  “I know, man, I know.” Seito sighed, looked away. “It’s just that people are disappearing here. They got Hrothguard—or Danny Dialanza is probably what you still know him as. Nobody’s heard from him in days, and no one is sure where he was living last.”

  “Danny?” Jason sat back up with only one shoe on. Danny Dialanza had been a founding member of non-E along with Seito, Jason and Steph; he had been the designated coding extraordinaire, able to build whatever Jason dreamed up—and fix just about anything he screwed up. The last Jason had heard Danny was pulling in a huge salary high up in the ranks of Google. They hadn’t spoken in several years, but Jason still felt a little jab of loss remembering how close they had once been, back in that magical time when a group of idealistic kids were going to take on the world together. And he couldn’t help but think that this made two non-E members Silte had targeted. If they went after the others…

  “Are you sure the private cops got him?” Jason asked, stooping again to finish with his other shoe.

  “Probably,” Seito said. “I mean, it could’ve been the virus, I guess. If he was alone, and he got sick…I don’t know.”

  “How’s Steph, by the way?” Talk of the dreaded disease, Silte’s heinous act of bio warfare, made Jason wonder about her. She had apparently contracted the virus, along with many demonstrators who had been on the streets that night.

  “Same,” Seito said with obvious distaste, before lapsing into a tense silence.

  Since the medical and scientific communities continued to refuse to classify the new virus, the media had taken to calling it the mind virus, so named because, after the initial day or two of flulike symptoms, the effects of the disease took place almost entirely in the victims’ brains, affecting their conscious minds. Jason wasn’t sure about the specifics (he had, after all, studied computer science—not real science), but anyone who contracted the mind virus ended up in a pseudo-vegetative state; they could talk and act on their own, but they didn’t seem to want to. Seito claimed he had to practically force Steph to do the simplest things—things like eating and going to the toilet rather than pissing the bed. He also said that she often seemed to only be halfway in reality, as if she were sleepwalking, living in a waking dream, only partially aware of her surroundings. Seito had taken her to a hotel somewhere and was struggling to take care of her and keep both of them hidden.

  From what Seito gathered from his Anti-Corp connections, the same thing was happening to hundreds within the movement. It was only in the last few days that the virus had seeped into the rest of society and become sensational enough for the mainstream media to report on—as long as they did so in the way Silte wanted them to, that is. Somehow, though, the looming pandemic hadn’t created much of a stir yet among the masses.

  “So,” Seito said, ending an eternity of silence. “Where are you guys, anyway?”

  “Good question,” Jason said, trying to remember. “Hey Sabrina, what’s this town called again?”

  “Raton,” Sabrina called from behind the half-open door to the bathroom, where she had just gotten out of the shower. Jason had learned in the nearly two weeks they’d been sharing hotel rooms that she wasn’t too concerned with privacy.

  “Raton,” Jason relayed to Seito. “New Mexico.”

  “Then you’ll be in Dallas in a day or two, right?”

  “Not me.” Jason picked up the tablet so he could engage fully in the conversation. “I convinced Sabrina to take a detour down to Austin and drop me off. I always wanted to move there when I was younger.” This had been a point of contention of the last week. Sabrina wanted to go to Dallas to meet up with another ex-Guardian officer she knew, with whom she seemingly still nurtured the idea of taking on Silte Corp. Blinded by the idea of true justice, whatever that might be, she was probably going to end up in a cage—assuming she didn’t die first. Jason just wanted to hide until it was all over, but she needed him because he was her only link to the AC and their intelligence resources. He had finally assured her that he would stay in contact with her and keep her connected, and she had agreed to drop him off before she went into the real danger zone. It had been the AC people who had advised them—via Seito—to head toward Dallas if they wanted to help. But Jason wasn’t sure he did.

  “Oh,” Seito said distractedly. He seemed to be in deep thought. “Hey, can you get somewhere private?”

  “Uh, sure.” This was the first time Seito had cared about whether or not Sabrina heard their conversations, so Jason was a little puzzled. But all the same he went out through the hotel room’s door and looked around the deserted second-story outdoor walkway before he said, “Okay, go ahead.”

  “I’ve been talking to Ra52, you know,” Seito said, “and the AC is… Well, thing’s aren’t good. Half of us are either sick or caught. Or dead. A lot also ditched the group and ran. And there’s some sort of disagreement or something. They split into two factions after the protest. There’s the regular Anti-Corp still—that’s who me and Ra are with—and now there’s also the People Against Corporatocracy, the PAC. It looks like they fight each other as much as they fight Silte.

  “The thing is, man, we need people. People who have been there and who we can trust. People out on the streets, in Dallas for instance, who won’t join the other faction. I’ve been talking to Ra about you—didn’t mention your name or anything—and we really think you could help.”

  “No,” Jason said vehemently. “You know how I feel about that. I—”

  “Shut the fuck up for a second.” His voice was almost a shriek, slapping Jason into a shocked silence. “What do you have left after this? You’re blacklisted now—or worse. There is no steady job again for you, probably no normal life either if Silte wins. We’ve seen the proof of that. Jason, the AC will give you everything you had at your old job and more. We need you and you need us. It’s your only choice.”

  This was a new side of Seito, and Jason was taken aback by it. He was right, of course; if Silte got everything they wanted, Jason would likely spend the rest of his life off the grid, as a fugitive. But alone, he could at least keep a low profile. With the AC, he automatically brought himself right into Silte’s crosshairs, sealed his fate with that of the movement. And anyway, he wasn’t a fighter, not even if his belief in a cause was unshakeable.

  “They gave me a choice,” Seito said, sullen now. “Recruit you or stop getting info for you guys. You can say no if you want, but I can’t promise any more help for you and that rogue cop.”

  “Dammit, Sei.” Jason rubbed the stubble on his face and stared out at the endlessly stretching highway. I should have stayed at home. I should have kept my head down and hoped they never came for me. But they would’ve come. Sabrina had been certain of it, and the disappearance of Danny Dialanza now seemed to prove it.

  Leaning against the railing, he looked out at the highway. A lonely semi crept along the quiet stretch of asphalt past the hotel, catching Jason’s eye. It was funny: out here in the desert where the air was fresh there were still diesel trucks spewing their carbon death into the world, while back in the smoggy cities of California non-electric vehicles had been banned for years. Preserving the filth and polluting the pure. It was a strange dichotomy. Jason watched until the truck became a dot in the distance.

  “I’ll do it.”

  Seito’s relief was almost audible. “You’re making the right decision,” he said, smiling. “You know what this means right? About Austin?”

  “I’m going to Dallas, aren’t I?

  “Yeah,” Seito said. “Unless they need you somewhere else. But from what I know, the whole point of getting you was to have someone with that privy-cop when she gets to Dallas. You’re our link to her now.”

  “Sabrina will be happy,” Jason said.

  “Oh, by the way, don’t tell her you’re part of the movement yet. I was supposed to stress that. Oh, and that Dellia girl you were asking about? They’re working hard trying to track her down. Silte’s not the only one that wan
ts her. But it’s like someone is hiding her—from us and them.”

  “So what should I do?” It felt strange, asking Seito for orders.

  “Just keep on the way you are,” Seito said. “You’ll hear from me soon. ’Til then…later Joans.”

  “See you, Sei-kai.”

  For a long time after the call ended, Jason stared out at the red mountains, aglow with the light of the sunrise. Only a few more stood between them and the city in the East, and very soon those would be in the past as well. Jason and Sabrina had taken their time and weaved what they hoped was a confusing and imperceptible path through the Southwest, but they had decided this would be the day they began sacrificing caution for speed. Without the detour to Austin, they could be in Dallas by that night. He expected this would be welcome news to Sabrina.

  It hadn’t been her idea to come to Dallas. After taking the hyperloop down to L.A. (both of them immensely relieved when they weren’t apprehended at either security checkpoint), Sabrina’s plan had apparently been to wander around and wait for something to happen. They passed the time with him telling her all he knew about Silte Corp and its above-the-law business practices and providing updates from Seito on what had become a full-scale cyberwar. What finally pushed her into action was when he relayed Seito’s message about the leaked Project Unify report; that had driven her to offer to do whatever she could to help the movement. Two days later, Seito delivered the message that she and Jason should start heading towards Dallas. But why, Jason had wondered, go there, into Silte’s swarming hive? Could it really be just about saving some girl Silte wanted to kill? Jason didn’t know. He just went where they told him; that’s all he could do now. The fact that Sabrina had some ex-cop friend there who she swore would be sympathetic to the cause was enough to justify the suicide mission in her mind, so it had to be good enough for him as well.

  “You about ready?”

  Jason turned to find Sabrina standing in the open doorway of their room. The soapy fragrance of her recent shower wafted to him: a pleasant change from the stench of the road. “Whenever you are,” he said.

  “Great.” She smiled solemnly at him. “You want to risk stopping for some real breakfast? I’m tired of motel food.”

  * * *

  As Sabrina merged her little Honda e-car (a civilian car that was untraceable thanks to Seito’s remote masking job) back onto the highway, Jason gulped his now-lukewarm coffee. His stomach was full of bacon and egg croissant and he was somehow much more optimistic than he had been in recent days. It was amazing what a nice meal and a cup of fresh coffee could do after almost two weeks of gas station food and cheap caffeinated dirt-water.

  Maybe it was the breakfast that sparked his good mood, or maybe it was acceptance; what it surely was not was the conversation with Seito. His friend had forced him to examine, for the first time, the unsavory choice of either jumping into a pool of raw sewage or gradually wading out until the muck finally rose above his head. The decision he had made, to jump right in, seemed like the better option simply because he might help save a few people. But it was all the same in the end. At least I have Sabrina. With her cop training and years of experience, Jason did feel a little safer when he was with her. Still, one detective didn’t mean much when the other side had an army.

  “You know,” he said as Sabrina tuned the satellite radio to a news station, “I was thinking earlier, about Silte and Dellia Thomas and everything else. I want to help. I want to go with you to Dallas.” He wanted to tell her the truth just then. They hadn’t been together long, but being on the run had brought them much closer than anything could have in their former lives. He had come to fully trust this woman; he even considered her one of his only real friends. But he had orders to follow now. It would be better not to forget them so soon.

  “Really?” She shot a quick glance over at him, her eyebrows rising up over the frames of her black sunglasses. “That’s great. What made you change your mind?”

  “Reality,” he said. He may not be able to tell her the whole truth, but he wasn’t going to lie.

  11

  “That’ll be ten seventy-six. Wallet app? All right, tap ‘OK’ when your total appears.”

  Obliging the peppy barista, Dellia paid for her drink and joined the second long queue at the other side of the counter. This Starbucks was one of the busiest places in Uptown in the morning and the fact that thousands of people in the city were recently out of work didn’t change that; the difference now was that instead of drinking their coffee on the way to work many of these people would be drinking it on sidewalks in the ranks of the protesters. She was uncomfortably conscious of the fact that the people around her surely noticed the unpleasant smell emanating from her body. Good hygiene was hard to maintain when you were the most wanted person in the city…maybe the world.

  Since deciding that the best place to hide while tracking down the right people was right on the streets of the city that Silte Corp had turned into its capital, Dellia had determined that spending a night at a hotel should be a rare occasion; she had only done it twice since going into hiding, and the last time was several days ago now. The other nights she had spent sleeplessly, curled up in a DART train, tensing as every would-be mugger or rapist walked by, and more recently she slept in tents alongside the growing mass of protesters camping in every park across the city. She liked staying with the protesters because they didn’t expect her to answer any questions she didn’t want to. In fact, many of them used only nicknames and were never seen without hoods or masks. Blending in with them had made hiding much easier, especially once the crowds lining the streets grew large enough that she could move through them without the constant fear of a camera identifying her. The crowd, though, wouldn’t help protect her against the secret surveillance cameras here in Starbucks.

  But that line of thinking was a little too paranoid.

  She had resolved in the beginning not to succumb to fear; she would accomplish nothing if she was too afraid to poke her head out occasionally. As far as she knew, her frenzied drive down to Austin (in a rented car she knew would be traced to her) and subsequent train ride back to Dallas with a false ID had fooled Silte. Or maybe it hadn’t, but she wouldn’t worry about that.

  “Green tea latte for Lucy.”

  It was a couple of seconds Before Dellia’s sleep-deprived brain registered the false name she had ordered with. “Excuse me,” she said, creeping through the tired people waiting for their morning energy.

  Grabbing her drink, she hurried out of the shop to give those in her vicinity relief from her unwashed body. She found a table outside behind a particularly dense patch of protesters, some holding large signs that would act as a nice shield from the street and the buildings on the other side. Feeling secure, she deposited her bag on the table, tossed windblown oily hair away from her face and pulled out her tablet to pass the time while she waited; she had no idea if her contact would be punctual in meeting her here. When the screen lit up it was already showing the video archive on a citizen news app called Bare Facts News, which she had found earlier. She had come to realize that the big media networks weren’t worth bothering with anymore.

  It took only a single swipe to find a new report on the so-called mind virus epidemic. Finally, it seemed like people were starting to make a big deal about it. Dellia put in one earbud and listened to the smooth male voice speaking over recent footage and stock photos.

  “The mysterious mind virus is the new epidemic nobody is talking about. Across America, thousands lie in nearly catatonic states, while abroad major cities like Beijing, Tokyo, and London have already contained those infected with the virus in quarantine zones. The CDC and WHO have kept relatively quiet so far, unwilling to give definitive statements until they know more about the true nature of the disease. Meanwhile, doctors and scientists alike say we could be facing the biggest crisis in modern history. The world is at a loss to explain just what is going on, but BFN has spent the last week uncovering new infor
mation that could save your life.”

  This was probably going to be a lot of speculative journalism that she did not need to hear, so she skipped ahead until a gray-haired Indian man (Dr. S. Hunjali, MD, Viral Pathogen Expert, according to the graphic) appeared on screen. She let the video resume.

  “…seems clear to me,” Dr. Hunjali said through a vaguely British accent, “that this virus does not occur in nature, nor did the outbreak begin naturally. I am calling it the very first example of a true designer virus, and one initiated, accidentally or otherwise, in multiple regions at once.”

  It took them long enough. She had to admit, it wasn’t an easy thing to figure out—not unless you were expecting to find it. Even with Silte covering it up, it wouldn’t be particularly difficult to find that there wasn’t just one ‘patient zero’ in this case; you could trace the virus back to many geographical points of origin and find that the first reports all came from people who were at the demonstrations the night this war began. After that, all it took was some rational thinking—or paranoia—to make the jump to an engineered bioweapon rather than some undiscovered dormant strain that had been lying in wait for years and finally became active in every host at once. Even if they believed the latter, no reasonable scientist would deny that this virus was just too weird to exist in nature.

  That is, unless someone was forcing them to deny it.

  “This morning, we have uncovered startling new information,” the narrator said after Dellia skipped forward again. “New reports speak of patients who carry the virus but are asymptomatic for days, perhaps even weeks, and possibly contagious for the duration of this period. Doctors urge that anyone who has come into close contact with a person known to be sick should seek medical attention immediately.”

  “Shit.” A few protesters turned at Dellia’s outburst. She didn’t care: things were happening much too fast and she was still unable to do anything about it. As she pulled out the ear bud, she thought, Where is that damn—