⊶ 2.5.00 ⊷

Somewhere in New White Sands

Coordinates in the message lead her to a maze of ruined stairwells and crumbling passages under the old city. A high-security door has been installed at the end of the final corridor.

It unlocks at her touch and opens into a circular chamber made of burnished concrete.

Cold air spills out. It smells of bleach, ozone, and running electronics. It’s meant to be unsettling. In that regard, it fails. Every place she works eventually smells like this.

She knows that the world is an ebb and flow of dominance and submission, of power and control.

This place has been designed to subvert dominance and demand submission.

Light panels spaced around the perimeter glow a dim crimson. Most of the room is in shadow. A high-backed chair stands in the center, lit by a single pin-dot of harsh white light.

She acknowledges the feelings of pride and amusement that well up inside her. They’re trying so hard. She knows this game well, and she knows that she plays it better than they do.

She walks in and sits. The chair is stiff and uncomfortable beneath her. She arranges herself on it as though it were a cherished piece from her own collection.

A holo-projection materializes. It shows a narrow, unmoving field of view: a night-vision cam fixed to a ceiling. An unlikely looking group of people moves down a cramped hallway.

She’s seen teams of mercenaries, corporate paramilitary, and police forces in operation. It’s obvious that some of the group is untrained: their movements panicked and clumsy. Even the trained members move as though they’ve never worked together…. A contracted team, possibly selected to be expendable.

The cam footage freezes. Its crisp resolution enhances even further and switches to a full daylight filter.

“This individual.” A male voice echoes around her as one of the figures expands to fill the projection. Her audio processor indicates the voice is manufactured, a simulacrum of human speech.

The enlarged image shows a male in his mid-teens.

A second holo-screen opens; lines of data race upward faster than her enhanced vision can track. Flagged keywords mark points of deeper analysis throughout the text. She studies the young face, tracing its smooth lines with her eyes.

She wonders who the young man is. What made him so important that she needed to be called? She’s secretly delighted by him, by what he represents.

Her processor indicates an Intelligence file is waiting for permission to download. She accepts the contract by permitting the file access.

The holo-screens vanish. The light panels begin to fade.

She leaves the carefully constructed space. The door closes at her back, and she hears a sleeting hiss of movement as nano-disassemblers devour the room. Her hair tightens across her scalp in a primal reaction. A smile ghosts across her lips. What a curious thing.

She opens the INT-File.

SUBJECT: (M) Takashi, James Leroy.

KNOWN ALIASES: (1) Jimmy the Slip.

*****

Find this book on Amazon here: Jimmy the Slip: New White Sands City Cyberpunk Book 2.5

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