Burn Code

One

TWO YEARS LATER…

The last person I ever wanted to see again walked a wide circle around the room. Without a port disguise, he lit up like a firework and scattered all my paying customers to the wind.

“Don’t worry — I gave you extra,” he said, smirking as he sat on the low couch in front of me.

“You’re a bastard coming in here like this — you didn’t even bother to mask your PIP!” My avatar in all her half-naked glory shook a finger at him. “I’m not going to get another client for a month!”

“Relax. I got it all worked out.” He lounged where he sat, his arms stretching across the backrest. “In about thirty seconds, you’re going to do or say something to provoke me. After that — well, I bust you, and it’ll just look like another limp cop taking his frustrations out on a poor little cyber tease.”

Angry, I took the bait without thinking. “You got the limp part right.”

“See, what did I tell you?” His smirk widened into a smile. It dimpled both of his avatar’s cheeks. “How you been, Cara?”

I swore at him. “How do you think? You pricks have me low-jacked. I can’t even order a pizza without you knowing about it!”

“Terms of your parole.” Shrugging, he wagged a finger in my direction. “And you know as well as I do, we’ve let a few things slide.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fesserton.” I dead-panned. “I’m just a cyber dancer for hire.”

He snorted a laugh and shook his head while he tapped at his temple. “You always were terrible at playing innocent, even before I had the ability to sense it.”

Leaning forward, Fesserton rested elbows on thighs and fixed me with a hard stare. “You’ve been skimming. All these clients of yours open the door to their neuralnets so you can connect into whatever weird stim implants they have.

Once they’re open, you exploit whatever you can. Personal data, bank and credit card info — you name it. Then you turn around and sell it to the highest bidder after taking a bit extra for yourself.”

His smile widened. “You’d be doing the same to me right now, but you’re not that stupid, are you?”

The police jack prevented me from going in directly from the tattoo technology implanted throughout my body, but I did have some minor functions. The basics like communications protocols, data storage, and augmented senses were allowed to me, but any higher level hacking functions required the use of an outside system. It was slow but still netted a profit.

The auto protocols on my computer traced any open ports I sent it and the only one available on Fesserton was the account he had used to pay.

Scrolling along the edges of the lens optics in my eyes was feedback from the port sniffer program. I watched as it encountered dead end after dead end. Fesserton had used a prepaid card. Smart men and women knew enough to use one of those at a site like mine. I had nothing to hack.

“Generally, no.” My avatar smiled wide. “But then again, if you’re stupid enough to open your ports, you have it coming.”

“Close your shop.” Fesserton said, his voice suddenly serious. “I need to talk to you. In person.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain when I see you.” He stood. “Maggie’s in an hour?”

“What’s in it for me?”

A heavy sigh passed his lips. “How about I don’t haul your ass in for skimming? I already have enough evidence to make your life even more miserable.”

Not seeing an alternative, I sighed. “Fine, but you’re buying me dinner.”