Chapter 4

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Cal raced to take cover, tripping over building debris, and struggling to gain footing in the sand. His back smacked against the wall as he spun and slid into it, just in time to watch the man running toward him fall, head jerking violently forward as the shot rang out from a hidden sniper. He gripped the small cylinder in his hand, ringing his thumb gently around the outside edge of the raised button on top before depressing it. It gave an audible 'click' as it released, and he began half running, half crawling along destroyed interior wall. He could hear voices screaming in his helmet's headset, and he quickly flicked his eyes upward to bring up his ocular HUD. There were three heat signatures coming up the opposite side of the wall he, and half his group, were currently hiding behind.

"Fuck," he breathed, before collapsing his HUD.

"What's going on?"

The man in front of him panted heavily, he had been struck in the center of his back by a bullet and the impact on his Kevlar had knocked the wind out of him.

Cal clicked the device again.

"There's three coming up the other side, from behind, we've got nowhere to go - back into the open and we're sitting ducks for the snipers, staying here means we're going to have to fight them head on without slipping out from under this overhang."

He gestured up, the small overhang of ruined roof was providing them just enough cover to avoid the snipers, but mean they were going to have to stay flush against the wall while fighting the guys coming up from behind.

"How long until the drones can lock on the snipers?"

"Their inbound eta is less than five minutes, but we have no idea how many we're actually dealing with, and the old buildings they're in are impenetrable with the drones. We might get lucky and pop one while he's peeking out a window, but once they know the drones are here, they'll take more aggressive cloaking measures."

Unfortunately, as advanced as unmanned sniper drones were, they could easily be fooled with basic evasive measures, like lowering the blinds in the window you were shooting from.

"I can't take this anymore, we can't just sit here and wait to get shot. We can break and make it back to the truck, we'll all go at once, they can't shoot us all."

Cal recognized the man in the back talking, he was a younger guy, and had a familiar panicking break to his voice. Cal pushed the button.

"No, we stay, we'll wait until they come through the opening in the wall lhere, and we can collectively fire. There isn't that many, they'll either flee backward, or we'll be able to pick them all off."

"I'm not going to sit here and fucking wait for them to come get us! I don't want to die like this!"

The panic was pitching the kid's voice much higher, Cal knew he was on the verge of losing him.

"Andy's right, the snipers probably already figure the drones are inbound, they're probably either setting up blinds or have left the area, let's just beat it back to the car!"

Several of the other guy's in his group started to grumble their consent.

"No. We're staying here! We can't risk trying to cover that much grou-"

But it was too late. Cal watched as first one, than two, than four more of his men dashed out of the safety of the collapsed roof. Their feet kicked up sand as they pounded the earth, slowly closing the gap to the truck. The first shot rang out and a man in the middle of the group fell, his momentum slamming his face into the sand as his feet arched over his head, and his body came to rest on his back. Cal clicked his button. Two more shots and three men tumbled and hit the ground. His heart was pounding as he swore, and clicked his button three times, and watched the man under the two fallen bodies try to stand. Another shot and he fell to the dirt. There were still three men running for the truck, they were very close and Cal gulped a breath as he froze and waited for them to make it. Suddenly, there was a deafening crack and his head smacked into the ground. His vision swam as the ringing in his ears grew unbearable. He struggled to move his head around, to see what had hit him, when three pair of bare feet ran past him, into the open expanse before him.

He stared into the palm trees and marsh plants beyond the beach. How could he have forgotten the ones coming from behind the wall? He exhaled long and hard, he could feel the blood pooling inside his helmet as he tightly squeezed shut his eyes. His body jerked as each of the three shots rang out. And eternity passed before he felt a sharp kick in his ribs, and a hand roughly rolling him onto his back.

"Who the fuck are you?" a voice demanded in a sharp, southern drawl.

Cal groaned as he peeled his eyes apart and stared into the face of a young man, no more than thirty, with long red hair pulled in a ponytail behind his head, and unkempt goatee erupting from his chin. Cal clicked the button.

A pistol was shoved into his mouth.

"I said, who the fuck are you? Are you someone we should care about? You got differn't colors on than those boys, but I bet yer brains still look the same."

Cal gagged and tried to pull his head back, the cold steel of the gun had split his lip against his teeth and his mouth was filling with blood. The man threw his head back down to the ground.

"Wrap 'eem up, I don't know who this fucker is, but I'd be willing to bet somebody's gonna pay somethin' for 'im. If not, we'll feed the gators, they hungry too."

The other two men grabbed him roughly and began to zip tie his arms and feet together. He clicked his button twice. One of the men kicked him in the back and he curled is body into the fetal position. He kept his eyes closed as the sound of an engine pulled near, it stopped and he felt a rope, no not a rope, he cracked his lids to see it was in fact a cable, wrapped around his legs. A low whining noise began and Cal felt his body drug along the sand, upward, as his body pulled painfully against his ankles. The men rolled his upper body into the UTV as the winch pulling him up reached it's limit. He lay helpless, ankles suspended against the winch's frame, ankles pulled raw and bleeding by the heavy steel cable. His body arched and curled around itself as his neck bent awkwardly to press his face into the cold metal of the UTV's box.

Two men jumped into the box with him, and in a daze he looked up into the face of the one he could see. Another young man, this one also sported a ponytail and goatee, but in a dirtier, blonder variety. He seemed gaunt, probably addicted to meth or heroin, or maybe he just wasn't eating as well as the rest. Cal clicked his button and the man looked down.

"What the fuck are you looking at you fucking degen?"

He kicked him sharply in the face and Cal felt himself drift away into dark oblivion.

"Yo, are you in the middle of something?"

"What?"

Cal opened his eyes again, there was nothing but blackness.

"Are you in the middle of something or do you want to get lunch with me? It's almost 11."

Cal gulped and squinted as a bright light accosted his eyes.

"Jesus Kate, I was in the middle of something, you know I get in the zone when I'm face tagging, you scared the shit out of me."

Cal pulled off the VR headset and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the brightness of his late afternoon office. One of the top perks of getting promoted to head of editing was his corner office. It was modest in size comparatively, but had excellent views of downtown, and got some spectacular afternoon sun. Unfortunately it also meant he just about blinded himself on a semi weekly basis when removing the VR. He had intended to talk to his department head to see if he could get some blinds installed, but bigger things had come up.

"So we're going to lunch?"

Cal spun in his chair to look at Kate standing in his doorway. The late morning sun shone beautifully on her, highlighting several curls that had escaped her bun. They had been married three years, and he was still stunned she said yes. He smiled and stood to embrace her. She laughed, swatting him away.

"Come on, I'm serious! I'm hungry now! Plus I've got some good gossip to tell you."

"Oh?" He pulled her in the office and shut the door. "Maybe you can tell me in here? In private?"

"Not going to happen, lover boy. I've got things to do today." Her face soured. "Ugh, that's another thing I've got to tell you about. Come on, are you ready?"

He wrapped his arms around her dramatically and noisily nibbled her neck.

"I cannot, you have me trapped, captivated by your beauty mademoiselle! It is a spell I cannot break!"

She laughed again and pushed him away. "Alright! I'll go by myself then! You're a fucking animal!"

He finally flopped back into his chair. "Actually love, I can't go with you right now, can you wait until like, two?"

"Two?! No, come on! That's so late. I'm hungry now."

"Well I don't know what to tell you. I have a department meeting today, we're going to talk a little about the leak, and I'm supposed to give that presentation I've been working on about the Swedish black code problem."

"You told me that wasn't until this afternoon."

"It was supposed to be, but the company scheduled that motivational speaker to come in today for our monthly 'inclusion' meeting, and Jamie didn't want to bump the meeting to another day, so we're just going to do it this morning."

"Son of a bitch, I forgot about that. Do I have to go?"

"Everyone's supposed to. It's going to be the first one meeting they have in the Futurity Center, so they're going to make it a little more grand than our monthly meetings, or so I hear. That's why they've got the motivational speaker coming in, there's a photographer that's going to be taking pictures for the press release, they've hired a caterer, and we were all told to 'highly encourage' our teams to go, as it would 'reflect poorly' on those who did not attend."

"So you're going?"

"Well yeah, I have to. Just come down, it gets you out of shredding stuff for a couple hours, and there's going to be cake..."

"Fine. Maybe I can convince HR to do my ocular upload another day too, if I've got company assemblies to attend."

Cal looked at her sharply.

"Why do you have an ocular upload with HR?"

She sighed. "Don't worry, it's not anything major. Fucking Jermyn wants to review my ocular feed because of this leak. They figure because I work with all the hardcopy employee records and inter-office stuff I'm a prime target for selling info. Jokes on them though, most of the time I spend shredding stuff I'm also playing Shark Dash, so all they're going to get to see is me killing it at racing sharks."

"Are you for real right now?"

"What, it's fun. This morning I unlocked the hammer head. Want to see?" She pulled out her phone and began swiping.

Cal laughed again, "No Kate, I actually have work to do. Plus I unlocked the hammer head like a week ago, get good."

She scowled.

"Alright, I'll grab something quick to tide me over until hors d'oeuvres at the center opening. But don't fill up too much, we've still got our dinner date tonight, right?"

Cal groaned. "Shoot, I forgot. Where are we going?"

"Seriously Cal? We planned this like two weeks ago. We're going to that place over on Fourth and Elmhurst, I already made reservations."

"Oh, is that the place that still serves real cow beef? That place is good." He pulled her into the chair with him, "Let's just stay home. We'll get get some good old fashioned lab grown burgers, hang out of the couch, and see where the night takes us."

"No Cal. I made reservations. We're going." She pulled herself out of his embrace. "I'm not talking about it anymore. Meet me in the lobby at 2?"

He frowned. "Fine, but I don't think the festivities start until like 2:30 or 3."
"That's fine." She straightened her shirt as she headed toward the door, "We'll just get extra good seats and end up really motivated."

"Bye love, I'll see you then."

Cal turned back to his desk as she left the room. He spend a few minutes jotting down notes as he swiped through his presentation one last time. As satisfied as he could be, he closed down his HUD and put his tablet in his bag. The walk from his office to the conference room was short, but he detoured through the office, both to check that his team was getting ready to attend the meeting and to swing by the break room vending machines. He swiped his watch and started scrolling through menu options.

"Hey Cal, did you get a chance to look the gender swap work I finished on that surgeon project yet?"

Cal looked over his shoulder in acknowledgement at one of the newer members of his team, Johnson.

"Oh hey! No, I didn't get a chance to yet, but the earlier memories you sent were really good, I should be able to get around to this batch later this week. It should be smoother sailing from here, usually once you get past the mid to late twenties, gender identity is less relevant."

Johnson was an excellent hire, Cal had poached him from another editing team a few months back, and he had proven himself to not only be a quick and efficient worker, but really easy to get along with.

"Ha, good god I hope so. I understand people have motives for getting into their line of work, but I would have passed on this edit if I would have known the old bitch got into plastic surgery to work on her own body. Do you have any idea how much time she spent analyzing her own tits?"

Cal gave an eyebrow raise of agreement as he tapped the screen for his snack.

"Yeah, well we usually get the heavy edits anyway."

He smacked Johnson in the shoulder.

"That's what makes us the A team, buddy. Come on, walk with me, we've got a meeting anyway."

Cal unwrapped his pastry and started in, Kate would kill him if she knew how often he snuck these snacks, she had such a carefully planned diet for the two of them. But he had always been a stress eater, and while his presentation wasn't a do or die situation, he still got jitters talking in front people.

"So what's the deal with this meeting, Cal? Is it about the leak? Everyone's been talking, they're saying it came from some analogue up in hard copy."

So word did travel fast. Probably fucking Jermyn telling everyone Kate was the leak.

"No, we're going to be talking about the suicide codes that keep popping up with Intelletec's name on them."

"What, like black brain stuff?"

"Yeah, upper management is worried some of our teams might be supplementing with pirated memories, or black brain knowledge, and they want us to go over the dangers of unlicensed stuff, nothing you guys haven't heard before. As far as I know, it doesn't have anything to do with the leak."

"Oh, I thought it was something important the way everyone was hyping this morning."

"Well, it is important, these kill codes are making their way into more and more unlicensed memories. Brain Power and Mindful Destinations have both lost employees in the last few months, so we're trying to shut down anything before someone from one of our teams gets hurt."

The younger man shrugged, "Everyone knows the risks already. Neither of those companies pay their guys a living wage, that's why their looking to beef up their memory banks, so they can find someplace else to work. If Intelletec really wants to make sure no one is downloading unlicensed experiences, all they need to do is pay us better."

Cal shot him a sideways glance as he thoughtfully chewed his pastry. His team was one of the highest paid, not just in the company, but in the industry. He couldn't tell if Johnson was giving him a subtle nudge at a raise, or just making conversation.

"Well, that does factor into it. Definitely bring it up at the meeting, I'll stand behind you with it. That being said, I hope you guys aren't dumb enough to mess around with that shit. Black brain stuff is so dangerous, I'd hate to see one of you guys get hurt."

A smiling, conversational tone returned.

"Oh God no. Before I worked here, I tried a few times, just experimental shit when I was working toward a full programming download. The first two were too corrupted to even remember, my brain immediately rejected them for what they were. I did download a 3 day Jamacian vacation that worked though, felt like I had spent a long weekend on the beach, complete with phantom sunburn pain. But I hadn't heard about the guerrilla soda wars going on, so I ended up also remembering getting violently ill right after drinking a bunch of Pepsi. The taste of it still makes me gag."

"Haha, oh yeah, I forgot about that. One of my roommates before I was with Kate downloaded one of Coke's free vacation memories and had the same thing happen. He got a couple hundred bucks out of the class action suit."

Cal held the door open for Johnson and several other team members, before closing it behind him. He pulled his tablet from his bag and laid it on the table as everyone found their seats.

"Alright guys, good to see everyone. So listen, we're going to have a quick meeting today about the suicide codes that are popping up in some of the unlicensed memory downloads floating around in the torrenting world. I'm going to be live streaming my visual feed to corporate and a couple other satellite teams here in a minute, so make sure you wait until I make eye contact and acknowledge you before you ask any questions or anything. After this, don't forget, we've got the new product unveiling in the new Futurity center downstairs. It's not technically mandatory," he gave over exaggerated finger quotes, "but having a good representation from our department will reflect positively on us, and also there's going to be cake and those good little stuffed cream cheese mushrooms, so be cool and get your asses down there."

Everyone chuckled, his team was pretty good about making a good face for the company, and he knew he didn't have to twist their collective arms to make them spend an afternoon not working.

"Alright, well if there's nothing, let's begin." 



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