Insignia (36 page)

Vik nobly offered to help.

Tom put down ten thousand dollars for his father the next time he stayed at the Dusty Squanto Casino. Then he and Vik decided to have some fun of their own.

They spent an evening in the Pentagon City Mall, and made the acquaintance of a group of girls who were unimpressed with them until Tom paid for every purchase they made at the most expensive stores. The girls liked them after that. Then they took the girls out to dinner at Chris Majal’s Indian Hall, and Tom left their waiter his first-ever thousand-dollar tip. He also treated everyone in the place to their dinners, too.

Then the girls found out they were fourteen and fifteen, and all the money in the world couldn’t get them a second night out after that. Tom and Vik didn’t care, though. There were other great things they could do with a ridiculous amount of money and very little time to spend it. They bought suits for some homeless people hanging around Dupont Circle. They played the most expensive VR sims that cost a few hundred bucks a pop. Friday night, they rented out a fusion club and arcade to put on the first ever Spire party, due to end thirty minutes before the 2300 weekend curfew.

Tom showed the bouncers a digital image of Karl. “If you see this guy, I have special instructions. First of all, bring him to the coat room.”

“And after that?”

“Don’t be gentle,” Tom said, drawing out the words in vicious delight. “Then come get me.”

The bouncer wasn’t gentle. He called Tom over and pointed out Karl’s unconscious body, sprawled on the floor. Tom swiped him a thousand-dollar tip just for that. Then he whipped out his portable data chip and neural wire, and set to work on Karl.

No one knew who was behind the last-minute party. Tom, Vik, Yuri, and Wyatt sat together on a table overlooking the rest of the club.

“What is the total now?” Yuri asked him, surveying their opulent surroundings.

“We’ve spent $47,912,” Tom said. “If you think of something I can drop another two grand on tonight, let me know.”

“Don’t they suspect fraud yet?” Wyatt asked.

Vik laughed. “Yeah. The company’s called three times now, but his retina scan and voice imprint checks out, and his name’s on the card. Nothing Dalton Prestwick can do but …”

“Pay,” Tom finished, relishing it.

It was Dalton’s misfortune that he had no idea what was happening with his credit card, and he wasn’t even due to get a statement for several weeks.

It was Karl’s misfortune that he didn’t hear who was behind the Spire party before getting in a limo with Tom the next evening at 1800 for their ride to the Beringer Club.

Tom grinned at the large boy as he piled into the other seat. He couldn’t help it. He could see streaks of orange on Karl’s rough skin where he’d tried to cover up the bruised face.

“Hiya, Karl!” Tom said, delighted. “Wow, are you wearing makeup? It looks real pretty on you.”

“Shut up, Fido,” Karl muttered.

Tom had gelled up his hair before flushing the rest of the stuff down the toilet. He’d donned the suit Dalton bought him, worn the tie, and as far as Karl was concerned, he was a nice little zombie. Tom had believed it would be hard, being civil, playing Karl’s respectful, mindless underling, but it wasn’t. His whole body thrummed in malevolent anticipation. He knew what was coming.

When they walked into the Beringer Club together, Dalton clapped eyes on them and demanded, “Karl, are you wearing makeup?”

It was all Tom could do not to crack up.

“Go wash your face,” Dalton said.

Karl’s cheeks flushed purple. “But—”

“Go! Before anyone sees you!”

Karl scrambled away.

Dalton’s gaze moved to Tom. His eyes swept him up and down, like he was regarding a piece of property.

Tom went along with it, his blood boiling with malice, his face as calm as he could keep it.

“Tom, you know anything you do here reflects on me,” Dalton said.

“Of course I know that, Mr. Prestwick.” He was counting on it.

“So does anything Karl does, unfortunately, though I’d never have chosen him as one of our CamCo Members.” His hand began to rub Tom’s shoulder. “Try to keep him in line, will you?”

It was hard not to bust out laughing, just thinking of how Karl would react if he ever heard that. Tom suppressed it by biting the inside of his cheek. “Of course I’ll definitely keep Karl from embarrassing you, Mr. Prestwick.”

Dalton nodded appreciatively, his hazel eyes searching Tom’s. “Good. You’re a good boy, Tom. You’ve made me proud. You’ve become a very respectful, polite young man.”

Tom felt his nails digging into his palms. It was all he could do not to puke all over him.

“Karl, on the other hand …” Dalton gave a sigh. “His father was an exec here. We had to take him as one of ours. He was friends with Elliot, so we were hoping he might connect us with him. No help with that. Nobridis, Inc., snapped Ramirez up like hot cakes. So we were stuck with Karl. That is, until I acquired you. You’ve shaped up well, haven’t you? I think I’ll have a golden opportunity for you not so far in the future.”

He patted Tom’s cheek. Tom wanted to clamp his teeth down and rip some fingers off.

“Too bad Mr. Vengerov couldn’t be here,” Dalton lamented. “He’d be impressed to see the end result of his software. I think once the lot of you are public, I may have to slip some behavior modification into Karl’s datastream, too. Just”—he winked—“some secrecy between us, eh, sport?”

Tom winked back. “Totally between us, Mr. Prestwick. Too bad about Mr. Vengerov.”

Too,
too
bad. He would’ve loved to get that guy, too.

“Now, I’ve got some last-minute etiquette instructions, and a who’s who guide waiting in the neural access booth. Go download that.” Dalton paused, looking him over again, congratulating himself for destroying the old Tom and replacing him with this one.

Tom fought to keep the placid look on his face as he headed off. If he gave into his feelings, he’d end up leaping forward and ripping Dalton’s face off, gorilla-style.

He shut himself in the private neural access room. He felt sweat break out on his forehead at the sight of the neural access port, but he knew this would be okay. It would be.

Wyatt had tweaked his firewall to higher levels to ensure he resisted anything he was exposed to tonight. He still felt a sick wave of apprehension when he contemplated the open port. It was hard to lift his legs, to force himself to stretch out on the lounger. His hand shook so much when he tried hooking himself up that he kept missing the brain stem access port.

Tom closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to force his hands to stop trembling. God. He was
acting
like a pansy. At this rate, he’d need another one of Vik’s interventions.

“Do it already. Plug it in, you coward,” Tom growled.

He jammed the wire into the port.

The connection swept over him, his body going numb and senses dimming, lines of code rushing toward him, which almost sent him over the edge into terror until he felt them resound against Wyatt’s firewall. He tuned into the process, because watching it made him feel better, seeing every line deleted as it was added, neutralized when it could not be by a few extra 0s and 1s. Tom relaxed. His expensive suit was plastered to his body with sweat.

Time ticked itself down as Tom watched, waiting for the moment he could yank out the wire.

And then it happened.

Text planted itself in his vision center:

You’ve stopped dueling me, Mordred. Have you finally realized you can never defeat me?

Tom stared at the text, shocked. Medusa. She’d used net-send. She’d figured out somehow how to hack in and drop something in his neural processor, the way he’d done to her.

In the last couple weeks, he’d completely stopped checking the gaming message board he used to arrange meetings with Medusa. It hadn’t seemed like something worth doing, not while the Dominion Agra programs were jammed in his head. He’d thought of it as a pointless, needless risk.

Now he felt a sick, swooping sensation, realizing how close he’d come to severing their connection.

Tom rolled up his sleeve, glad he’d brought his keyboard, and messaged back quickly,
Is that wishful thinking I see? I’ll never surrender. How’d you hack my firewall, anyway?

I’d kill you before telling you
, she retorted.

That made Tom chuckle.
I will live to duel you another day, but I don’t have time now. I am about to carry out an elaborate vengeance scheme. Everyone with Dominion Agra is going to have a really, really bad night
.

She didn’t reply for a long instant. He wondered again how she’d hacked him.

What are your GPS coordinates?
she asked finally.

Why?

Because I like revenge. I can help
.

Tom began laughing suddenly. He couldn’t help it. It was brilliant.
Yes, Medusa, I think you can help
.

A
S THE ETIQUETTE
installation ceased, neutralized entirely by Wyatt’s firewall, Tom knew it was time. He set about the elaborate scheme that he’d planned thanks to an idea of Vik’s. Following the directions Vik had given him, he hacked straight into the city’s central septic system.

“So at my primary school in Delhi, we played a prank, once,” Vik had told him, and Tom thought the idea was sheer genius.

Now he isolated the system for the Beringer Club. There he stopped. Vik had given him a complicated sequence of coding, but Tom didn’t even recognize this system. It wasn’t like the schematic Vik showed him of the other septic tank.

He faltered, dismayed. And then he decided to try that thing
he
could do. The same way he’d linked to the Spire, to the satellites, to the security cameras....

Tom gritted his teeth. Concentrated. Sensed the connection, sensed the elaborate system of codes and commands and algorithms controlling that machine. The electrical impulses in his brain sparked …

And he wasn’t all in his brain anymore. His organic body grew distant. It was a cold, numb thing unlike the cortex controlling the wastewater for the Beringer Club.

Panic spiked through him in this disengaged state, because there was so much data, streams of code pulling him in every direction and he wasn’t sure what he was—

Tom Raines. I’m Tom Raines
.

And the thought saved him. Saved him enough to begin using that thing he had that no machine did. A will. He had a will and the machine only had a single, fixed program dictating its functions, and he seeded Vik’s codes to alter its function. It all fell into place.

T
OM ENTERED THE
club for the first part of the show. He walked through the well-dressed executives, their pet US congressmen, their trophy spouses. He saw Dalton and Karl in conversation with Mr. Carolac, Dominion Agra’s CEO, and headed over to them.

Dalton swept Tom into the conversation. “Mr. Carolac, this is him. Our newest acquisition. Thomas Raines.”

Mr. Carolac was a sickly-looking man with bags under his eyes, and a grayish tint to his skin. He shook Tom’s hand, looking him over. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Tom.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you, too, Mr. Carolac.” Tom smiled, aware that the Trojan he’d planted in Karl while he was unconscious last night was about to activate right …
now
.

“You and Karl are both making us very—”

Karl farted.

Mr. Carolac swung his watery gaze to Karl’s, shocked.

Karl flushed bright red.

He farted again, a loud one that rumbled all the way across the room.

Karl’s eyes widened and swung toward Tom, because Frequent Noisome Farts had to be flashing across his vision center, and only now did he understand what was going on.

“You!” Karl jabbed an accusing finger at Tom. “His programming’s not working!”

Tom made a show of furrowing his brow, all cavemanlike, as Karl farted again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Karl. Don’t blame me if you need a change of diet.”

Karl took a menacing step toward him, farting with each movement. The stench mounted in the air.

Dalton seized him. “Karl, for God’s sake, go to the restroom.”

“It’s not my fault. It’s Raines! I’m telling you, he—”

“GO!”

Karl dashed through the crowd of silent partygoers. Everyone in sight had hands clamped over their noses at the ghastly smell pervading the air.

They didn’t realize it wasn’t Karl they were smelling.

It was the septic tank Tom had reprogrammed. Gallons and gallons of sewer water were pumping in reverse, filling the sinks, the toilets, soon to be overflowing on the floor.

Tom cleared his throat. “Well, that was just awkward.” He gave a canned laugh, and looked at all the adults around him. “I’m going to fetch you ladies and gentlemen some drinks so we can pretend it didn’t happen.”

Mr. Carolac seemed mollified. “At least you got it right with one of them, Dalton.”