By Jove

Her eyelids fluttered open to the sight of a concrete ceiling. She didn’t move, not wanting her overlay to notice she was awake. She lay there for a moment, the first rays of the sun’s light streaking the ceiling. With a sigh she hauled herself up and walked towards the window, greeted by the familiar green blinking in the corner of her vision. She looked out across the stark grey rectangles that made up her home. This was her favourite time of day, before the overlay kicked in, when she got to see the city as it truly was, harsh concrete framed by orange sunlight. The overlay finished booting and the city was painted with bursts of virtual colour. Bright reds and greens spread across the rooftops and down into the streets as glowing signs and advertisements flickered into being. This was her city, a place of bright lights and bold colours. The grey concrete that had seemed so real just a moment before was only a dream that swiftly faded as she rose from her sleep. Today was a big day and tomorrow she began the rest of her life. With a glance upward she checked her feeds. Nothing important. She turned from the window and walked towards the shower.

“Ers?”, a voice called as she was finishing up, “You awake?”
“One second,” she replied, stepping from under the warm spray and taking the towel hanging on the wall.
“Breakfast is ready when you are,” shouted Silent’s voice as he retreated down the hall.

A few minutes later she walked into the cramped kitchen and sat at a low metal table shoved against the wall. Silent stood leaning against a counter, the old microwave warming up some oats behind him.

“Good morning champ.” He always called her champ when he was feeling fatherly. “Ready for your big day?”
“Yeah, but I figure that’s not today. Today I just check into a hotel and go to sleep.”

He smiled and nodded slightly. The ping of the microwave sounded and Silent turned to open it, laying out their food on the table in front of them. They sat in silence and ate, the tension thick in the air. After some time there was a knock, the harsh clang of iron betraying that the wooden appearance of the front door was just a virtual overlay. Ersatz looked worried and turned to her mentor.

“That’ll be our guests,” he said with a smile.

“Guests? Who?” In the three years she had lived with Silent they had never had guests. They did very little outside the wired, it was just a liability. He walked the two steps across the room to open the door, revealing the smiling face of a short, black woman and behind her a heavy set man who looked almost ready to run. She’d never seen them before in her life.

“Come in, come in,” said Silent, ushering them into the room, “Please take a seat.”

They sat at the table across from Ersatz, the man looked a little calmer now, though the woman still wore a smile from ear to ear.

“Are you not going to say hello to your old friends?” she teased. The man shifted to rest his chin on his hands, hiding the bottom of his face. She continued, “We heard across the wired that one of our favourite hackers wasn’t going to be around much any more and we weren’t going to just let her go without saying goodbye. Isn’t that right dear?”

The man quickly removed his hands, shifted his chair forward and said,

“Absolutely.”
“It’s us Ersatz, Axon and Other.” Ersatz face lit up.
“I-I never thought I meet you in person. How did you know? Silent - why didn’t you tell me?” she stammered quickly, her voice just a little shrill.
“We thought we’d surprise you,” said the man, Other, who now seemed a little more at ease.
“You mean you thought it was a trap and going to get us both killed,” the woman shot at him with a smile on her face.
“You know as well as I do that this isn’t safe, but let’s not worry about that now. We’re here to wish you goodbye, let’s just enjoy it.”

Axon smiled, hesitated for a moment and then slowly leaned across the table and wrapped her arms around Ersatz. She stiffened, real physical contact was not a part of her life, she hadn’t been touched in meatspace since she left the orphanage.

“I’ll miss you, kiddo.” Axon paused for a moment before hugging her tighter.
“Oh look at me, we haven’t even been here for 2 minutes,” she said, pulling away from Ersatz and wiping her eyes on threadbare sleeves.

They sat and talked for the rest of the day, reminiscing about past work they’d done together and talking shop about the latest tech and its flaws. Silent and Axon had been partners when they were younger, both at work and at home, though for over a decade they’d just been friends. Quickly they sank into their conversation. It was easy to forget that meeting in meatspace was such a risk - theirs wasn’t a safe profession. It was easy to forget that this was the last night she was Ersatz.

Suddenly her vision was obstructed slightly by a translucent red dot flashing in the lower corner of her eye.

“Only an hour left,” she said. “We should get going then,” said Axon, “You two will want to say your goodbyes.”

They left without much fuss, Axon pausing to hug Ersatz tightly as they were at the door. After they were gone, Ersatz turned to Silent and slowly began to cry.

***

An alarm blared, four – maybe five hundred yards behind him. It might be enough. It had to be enough. He turned the corner and stopped for just a second as his mind blanked. Third door on the right. He’d recited his route a thousand times, he wouldn’t forget now. He ran, his muscles burning as he heard the repetitive buzz of a helicopter quickly build intensity. He was too old for this, hell, even when he was young he wasn’t cut out for this. He looked down at the little girl he carried in his arms and ran faster. He pushed open the door, ran down the stairs two at a time and walked into the small, dark basement. He hurried over to one of the walls and placed the child on the floor. She started to speak, her expression terrified and he quickly shushed her as he began to remove a metal grating. They’d be close now, he ushered the child into the hole left by the grate and said “Quickly, you must hurry down there. There’ll be a man waiting at the other end for you, just do as he says.” The child nodded, and began to scurry down the small pipe, clearly she’d understood the gravity of the situation. He was proud. He picked up the grate and began to fasten it back in place. The tunnel wasn’t large enough for an adult, that’s how he knew they couldn’t follow her.

Shortly, his work was done. Now, he just had to have faith. He smiled as he remembered what his grandmother had taught him of their old religion. He sat on the floor, took a deep breath, began reciting a mantra he’d thought he’d forgotten and he waited.

***

She shouldn’t have done that. As she was leaving he’d asked her, fighting back tears, what her new name would be. She shouldn’t have told him. It was just a risk. It was stupid. He was gone. She was Kate now. Kate who attended the New Kuth academy of science and computing and liked romance sims. Kate who regularly rented a dental bot and Kate who’s birthday was 07/06/XX. Ersatz didn’t know her birthday but Ersatz was gone. Silent was gone, all of it gone like it had never happened.

She refocused as she walked down the dark street, flanked by the illusion of brightly painted brick hiding cold concrete. She was being watched. She’d get used to it. Kate was always being watched now, but she was OK with that, Kate had nothing to hide. The hotel had accepted Kate’s booking without incident. For a moment amid the chaos in her mind she felt free. No more needing to dodge official scans, no more needing to hijack secured feeds. No more being able to. She smiled. She wasn’t so different.

The hotel was only a block or so away now. She’d be able to take a bath, she hadn’t had a bath since she’d left the orphanage. It hadn’t been cheap to book a place like this but she could afford it and soon she’d be able to afford whatever she wanted. She’d wanted this, a normal life away from the dangers of running the wired. A life of safety, security and comfort. Excuses.

Memories came unbidden. Gunshots, blood and the whispers of a dying man. She pushed them down. She was away from all that now.

The hotel’s automatic doors slid open as she walked through them. Her overlay indicated elevator D and it opened for her as she walked towards it. Inside the walls were mirrored spreading her reflection out to either side of her. It was a show of wealth, reflection needed extra camera relays to overlay properly. She flipped her overlay off, expecting to see the lens on each wall. Instead she was greeted only by her infinite reflections. Real glass, this really was a nice hotel. She flipped her overlay back on guiltily. Had they noticed? She sighed and laughed at herself. Nobody was watching her overlay and half the people who came into this elevator probably flipped it off just to check. Anyway her ident could withstand inspection, it was made to last a lifetime.

The elevator doors slid open and her room was highlighted for her. She walked down the corridor, into the room and flopped on the bed. It was done. She was Kate now and this was Kate’s room that opened to Kate’s ident key. She giggled just a little, she’d done it, more than that it had been easy. An alert flashed on her overlay. A message, to her new ident. She stiffened, who could be sending her messages? The ident had only existed for a few hours. She relaxed when she saw it was from the hotel. She frowned, the subject was important safety information. This was unusual, what could be unsafe here? It looked like a phishing attempt, she’d sent a few herself in the past. She opened the message and saw that it was a simple video file, slim chance of anything malicious.

With a little trepidation she opened the video. Harsh shapes of muted colour filled the center of her vision and began changing and bleeding into one another. What was this? There was a pattern to it though she couldn’t quite discern what. There was some inescapable logic behind the motion and the changes of colour. She began working through different explanations each time to find that the video shortly broke the pattern she’d constructed. This only increased her curiosity. There was a meaning behind this and she was going to work out what. The door flew from its hinges as three armed men burst into the room. She couldn’t let it distract her, she was just so close to figuring this out.

***

Silent sat, alone. It had barely been an hour and already he felt old. While Ersatz had been saving for her new life, so had he. It wasn’t smart to run without a partner, some of the kids did it, but they never grew old doing it. Now, he was getting old, though he wasn’t sure he was quite ready to retire. He had a nice amount stashed away, he’d be able to live comfortably but he’d have to find something to do with himself.

He turned his attention back to the table top as a message feed arrived. It didn’t come through one of his authenticated relays and the sender was scrambled. He quickly ran a trace on the route the feed was taking through the wired only to find that it had been reconstructed from a myriad of data streams scattered across the network. He’d seen this before. It was military tech, corp even, they were the only ones with access to enough relays to pull something like this off.

His mind whirred in the background but no explanations offered themselves. Time to see what all this was about. He opened the feed to see a non-descript bedroom, the concrete of the walls showing it wasn’t being overlayed. He looked closely for signs the scene was digitally rendered. He didn’t find any, but it was hard to be sure. The camera panned and twisted. This was a visual feed, a recording of somebody’s vision, potentially live, or made to look like one at least. The camera twisted suddenly and a small firearm came into view, held out in front of the camera. Corp security issue by the looks of it, Silent had taken a shot in the leg from one nearly a decade earlier. There was a roar of noise as the gun fired, shattering a window. The gun fell out of sight and the camera turned towards the door and began to quickly move, bobbing up and down as it went. What the hell was this? Outside the room there was a corridor, filled with identical doors. There was no time wasted as they charged down the corridor, a metal door at the end sliding open for them just as they arrived.

The reflection he saw on the other side of that door sent chills through his spine. Ersatz? What the hell was going on? She quickly stepped into the elevator, her bloodstained figure visible a thousand times in the walls, and turned to face the door. Suddenly, the feed cut off. He sat for a moment and then breathed deeply. What was this? Who sent it? And why? Was it real? It had looked convincing but that didn’t mean he could be certain. He swore, then he swore again, louder. He couldn’t risk it. If she was in trouble he had to do something. He sighed, rewound the feed to the beginning and started playing it at half speed.

***

End of part one.

PROMETHEUS, meaning “forethought” is a Titan in Greek mythology, best known as the deity in Greek mythology who was the creator of mankind and its greatest benefactor, who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind. Prometheus sided with Zeus and the ascending Olympian gods in the vast cosmological struggle against Cronus (Kronos) and the other Titans. Prometheus was therefore on the conquering side of the cataclysmic war of the Greek gods, the Titanomachy, where Zeus and the Olympian gods ultimately defeated Cronus and the other Titans.