A Break in the Sunlight

19. Absolute Threshold

 Note: Adult sexual themes here.

"Screw you."

Jaren felt a vicious kick connect with the back of her leg. Her arm shot out sideways, fist connecting firmly with soft flesh. Balqis squealed and kicked again, even harder.

"Get out of my bed, you frigid little bitch."

Jaren rolled over, throwing the covers carelessly onto the other woman. "Happily," she muttered, sitting up and setting bare feet onto the industrial grade carpet. She rubbed at her face. "See?" she yawned, "All you had to do was ask politely."

"Get the hell out."

Jaren shook her head, pushed herself up and walked to the open closet door. She grabbed a pair of jeans off the floor and yanked them on, and located a clean tank top in Balqis' dresser drawer.

"And send Larson in here. Maybe he can accomplish what you won't."

"I wouldn't hold my breath, Bal."

"You wouldn't hold anything, Najwa," the other woman sneered.

Jaren smirked. "Who are we kidding? You don't care who holds what, as long as you get some of it."

"Screw you."

"Exactly," Jaren returned, opening the cockpit door. She closed it behind her just in time to avoid a thrown pillow and a flood of Arcadian curse words.

"Her majesty wants you," she said to the man at the front console, and threw herself into the navigator's chair. Her voice sounded a little muted over the loud humming of the internal fan, particularly after listening to Balqis' sharp contralto.

Lar grunted, shifting in his seat and turning a page of his magazine. Jaren flicked on the scanner and began studying it for their matrix crossovers.

"I don't know why we put up with her crap," he said, after a moment of companionable silence.

"She owns the ship," Jaren replied, clicking through the screens manually until she found what she wanted. "She's good in bed." She looked over at him. "And she can be amusing, when she isn't busy being a raving nympho bitch."

Lar sighed and tossed the magazine onto the console. "Well, I guess I'd better go deal with her."

"Um hm."

"I've got the AP on.. keep an eye on it, will you? And when we enter the Dex system call me. I have to feed in some manual co-ords or we'll over-shoot Refsi. So make sure you call... No matter when."

Jaren shot him an amused smile and he left the cockpit. She glanced over at the console, and satisfied that it all seemed to be in order, leaned back, propped her feet up on the nav table and jacked Inside.

If the SONANet was any indicator, Balqis was probably right about Sona. They'd come into direct range of it two days ago, and Jaren had jacked in greedily. She had been greatly disappointed by what she found there.

On Arden, when Goron and the others had talked of Sona, it had always been in terms of awe. It had a free network, unlinked to the CenNet and therefore unregulated. Located at the center of the Dex sector, Sona served as an information zone for the Five Sisters. Like most freenets, users could jack in from any node without a Cen registration ID, but unlike most freenets, there were backdoors–that if worked properly, could ghost you into other networks, undetected. Or at least that was the rumour.

She wasn't sure what she had expected the cyber-bastion of the free world to look like–but the SONANet certainly wasn't it. It had one of those old-fashioned domain VR metaphors, unchanged from probably 50 years ago. This one was of a resort. At some point, presumably, users had been expected to visit here recreationally. Beach chairs sat by a pool whose waves were just a little too solid-looking. In the distance, the rolling surf pounded onto plasticene rocks and drained off the sand in smooth sheets.

Something was strange about SONANet, though. Aside from the cheesy, outdated graphics and the way some complicated elements had of bugging out into static, or refusing to fall into perspective when she passed. The thing was... SONANet was all but deserted.

She'd been here all day yesterday, poking around in the cabanas and conference rooms, and aside from a few automated staff members, she hadn't seen more than a few hundred users anywhere in the metaphor.

She'd thought of asking around, but knew that her best chance for getting any information was to simply lurk and keep her eyes open–to watch the traffic patterns and see if she could puzzle it out on her own. Without a guide of some kind for an introduction, she hadn't a prayer of getting anyone to open up. But she knew there must be something going on here.. some way either to a deeper level, or directly into the packet stream. At least if she could get into some code, she could maybe find the right direction to travel.

The evening before, she'd tapped into the DexNet as well, but that turned out to be nothing more than an oversized directory, simply offering connections to SONA, not information about it.

While she was in there, she'd typed up a search for Goron, but the inquiry came up empty. Just as well, anyhow. If he were in there, he'd know someone was looking for him, and Goron was notoriously paranoid. She'd be better off surprising him when they actually arrived in the system. She entered a couple of red herrings to throw anyone watching off the scent, and then had unjacked as Balqis called for her to come to bed.

But Bal had kicked her out of bed, and now she was back. With an idea. One of the public rooms on the lower level, presumably designed for cyber-conferencing, had been particularly buggy, so much so that she had merely stepped in and out again, wanting to avoid any screw-ups with her own software.

A few hours ago, when she'd awaked in the dark, Balqis' arm flung across her waist, she had wondered... Why would a simple geometric like that be having so much trouble? Presumably it was built on a template, just like all the others?

There were really only two ways that Jaren knew of that an anomaly like that could have cropped up. One, the hardware was bad... which, given Sona's design was virtually impossible, or Two, someone had been screwing around in the code.

Now why would anyone be screwing with the code for a simple conference room? She'd lain there, thinking, putting pieces together, until Balqis stirred.

"Are you awake?"

"Yeah."

"Oh good," Bal had purred, nuzzling her. "I was just dreaming about you, Kalila. About this..." She'd pressed in, her lips against Jaren's neck and fingers sliding in across her stomach, gliding downward. Jaren had stopped her hand.

"I'm tired, Bal."

Balqis had sat up, her hip, the outline of her small breasts and the side of her face reflected in green relief from the LED on the bedside. Her eyes were flashing. "How goddamned tired can you be?"

Oh, here, we go, thought Jaren. As used as she had become to Balqis' little fits, she never quite understood them. And she certainly hadn't learned how to head them off. They hit like lightening, unexpected, brief and scorching everything in their path.

"I'm just tired."

"You ungrateful little cow," Balqis had hissed. "If it wasn't for me you'd be dead of boredom by now, and you know it. It wouldn't kill you to be a little more grateful, instead of such a whining little brat."

"And it wouldn't kill you to sleep through a night once in a while," Jaren stated. A frustrated day of searching hadn't done much for her diplomacy.

And so it had gone, until she found herself here, back in the navigator's chair, which was where she most wanted to be, anyhow. She would never have left it in the first place if Balqis hadn't demanded she go to bed.

She skipped the DexNet and went straight to SONA, coasting around the pavilions and potted palms, not bothering to punch up a digital form. She headed straight for the conference rooms, this time not turning aside at the static, but gliding on through...

She emerged with triumph directly into the underbelly of the SONANet. There was no overlying metaphor here. Here, the information simply flowed in packets, clustering into groups and moved by unseen hands. In the distance she could see the citadels of a small Data City.

Jaren's hunch had paid off. She had found the entrance.

All rights reserved. Copyright Jae Darcy 2016.