Cy looked at me again. “Doesn’t it?” I liked the way his dark eyebrows arched when he thought he was being clever.
“POM doesn’t leave backdoors for jobs like this?” I asked.
Cy shook his head. “Nah, not since they got caught for it back in ’62. It’s the second-biggest part of their business now. They actually have to be good at it.” He scrolled through some schematics on his terminal. “Full palm biometrics, with all Flux-resistant overrides. Damn, these fuckers really are hiding something.”
“That’s why I go in, get to their internal mainframe, and pull the data.”
“Don’t need to do it by yourself, doll. Besides, if they’ve got biometric security, they probably have security forces. Why are you fighting me on this?”
He knew why. I could see it in the sparkle in his eyes, just waiting for me to admit it.
“I don’t like this cover,” I said with a sigh.
“There it is. Sorry, doll, but I don’t think the tax collector and prostitute look is going to work with this holier-than-thou crowd—despite what the gospel says. We’re going to have to polish you up.”
“Me? That’s not the issue. Do you really have to be my…” I trailed off. I couldn’t say it, and he knew it.
His face shifted into mock hurt. “Now I’m not good enough for you? After I slave away every day at the office for you and the kids?”
I hit him in the chest. “Shut up, pendejo.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,wife.”
“DO NOT call me that.”
“Sorry, that’s the cover.” He was absolutely loving this—he knew it was getting under my skin. But he was also right. It was the best option we had.
My hand was still on his chest, and the current between us started to flow. My Flux rose up so naturally, so ready to join his. It almost felt like when I used Vector, but this was softer. That made it more dangerous. I knew Vector was bad for me. POM claimed they’d engineered out most of the negative physical side effects, but months of broken memories and blurred boundaries told me that wasn’t the only harm it could cause. It focused everything down to simple, logical choices. A robot who had to deal with the human consequences when the high wore off.
What was between me and Cy—it felt even better than that. And I was having a harder and harder time convincing myself I shouldn’t give in. My fingers gripped his chest, and they didn’t shake. It made me feel more human, more alive—not deadened to the world.
“Fine,” I muttered, “but I get to dress you.” I enjoyed watching the color drain from his face. “Who’s the doll now, corpo?”
He smirked, about to respond, when DITA lit up on his desk again.
“I’ve managed to recover another file from the Kitsune database.”
Cy’s gaze lingered on me a moment longer before we broke apart. “Well, what is it?”
The proximity withdrawal hit immediately—a strange emptiness where the warmth of his chest had been. I focused on DITA’s holographic interface instead, watching data patterns swirl into coherence.
“It appears to be a vid file,” DITA answered, her voice cool and measured in a way that never quite masked how very human she sounded. “Created by Renard Beaufort approximately eleven hours and forty-three minutes before his death.”
My pulse quickened. “Authentication markers?”
“Verified. This is genuine POM executive-level encoding.”
Cy moved closer again, his electric field brushing against mine like a question asked without words.
“Play it,” Cy commanded, his corporate authority sliding back into place.
The hologram expanded above DITA’s interface, resolving into Renard Beaufort’s face. Nothing like the polished executive whose memorial had dominated feeds after his death. This Renard was haggard, with shadows like bruises beneath his eyes.
“If you’re seeing this, I’ve either succeeded or failed spectacularly.” His voice carried the precise diction of Tech District privilege, but it fractured at the edges. “I’m recording this as…insurance. Documentation. Proof that I tried.”
He glanced over his shoulder, tension visible in the tight coil of his neck muscles. The room behind him was sparse—a deliberately blank wall revealing nothing of his location.
“The Church believes they’ve found a pathway to transcendence.” A bitter smile twisted Renard’s lips. “They’re not entirely wrong. Liberation requires separation.”
