Project 17 (5 page)

“Look,” Jamie said, zooming in and highlighting a passage.

“A Sentry force was not able to reach the assailant in time?” Jamie said. “How is that even possible? Was the assailant a
bullet train?”

“Maybe the Sentry force arrived late at the scene?” Lillian handed her phone to Max, who was eating spaghetti in front of her monitors. Max distrusted Cloud service (“I could
hack those”) and would rather get files directly.

“Well, that’s even more problematic,” Jamie said.

“God, Jamie, do you want her to investigate that, too?” Max said.

Jamie sighed. “Maxine’s testy today,” he said. “A date stiffed her.”

“He’s going to lose all his Cloud files, the lying son of a bitch,” Max said. “What’s this?”

“That’s from Caleb’s laptop.”

“You stole a file from someone?” Jamie said.

Max put her hand on her chest and smiled at Lillian. “My baby.”

“They’re ongoing projects by Northpoint-Pascual,” she said. “He’s working for them.”

“So many locked files,” Max said, and slurped up her spaghetti.

“There’s one that you can open. Here.”

“Wow,” Jamie said as they stared at the screen. “Big blocks of text. I’m too lazy to read all that.” He sat down. “Give me the Cliff Notes version.”

“I don’t get it,” Lillian said. “What’s Urbana?”

“
Urbana at Felisa
?” Jamie said, and he was greeted with blank looks. “You don’t—?

Never mind. It’s a book.”

Max blew up a prototype photo of Felisa. The robot was made in the likeness of a woman in her 20s. Brown skin, black hair, black eyes, long lashes, thin lips. She was wearing a scrub suit. The
robot was made pretty, but not seductive-pretty like a Dancer. A blue C was tattooed on the back of her hand.

“There’s an AVI file,” Lillian said, pointing. “I didn’t see that before. Thought it was another blueprint.”

It turned out to be a simulation video. Simple graphics, choppy animation. An old man was lying in a hospital bed. He was dying. Felisa stepped out of the darkness and held his hand. “My
name is Felisa,” the robot said in a soothing voice. “I am here. You are not alone. Everything will be all right.”

Do they still call them candy stripers? The hospital volunteers?

“Well,” Jamie said. “That was depressing.”

Lillian said, “He named the robot after his mother.”

“Don’t tell me that’s what Northpoint had on him. It’s not even sinister in the slightest.”

“I don’t think it is,” Max said. “Look at all the date stamps. ‘Candy Striper 2016’. Last modified 2017. It’s an old project. And it has not been
modified recently.”

“One of these locked folders should have been modified recently,” Lillian said.

“I have an idea,” Max said and tried entering variations on “Felisa Ruiz”.

The folders were unlocked with “felisa_ruiz”.

“Well?” Lillian’s heart was racing.

“Damn it!” Max said, slamming a fist on her desk and making Jamie and Lillian jump. “Encrypted files.”

“You know,” Jamie said. “We should take them to Lester.”

Max slurped up more spaghetti, giving Jamie the stink-eye. After ruminating for a few seconds she said, “You’ll pay for it?”

Jamie shrugged. “He still owes you one.”

“Who’s Lester?” Lillian asked.

“Maxine’s first love.”

“We went to the same science high school,” Max said. “Come on. We can get dinner afterwards.”

Lester lived within Hagonoy in a dilapidated apartment building in Sagrada Familia. Despite the Sentry standing guard at the entrance, the building looked like it came from another century. It
was so old it didn’t even have an intercom system, so they just waltzed into the vestibule that smelled faintly of chao fan and sweat. The creaking elevator had yellow walls and a broken
adpad that filled Lillian’s head with images that you were not supposed to have inside a creaking elevator.

Unit 613 had a doorbell but Max ignored it. “Special delivery for Lester Sabado!” she said, knocking hard on the door.

The door opened to reveal a tall, gangly man in a sleeveless shirt and black jeans. “Jesus, Maxine,” Lester said. “What did I say about calling first? Hello, James.”

“Hello,” Jamie said.

“Mark didn’t show up,” Max said.

“That’s not on me!” Lester said. “I just gave you his number.”

“Didn’t you tell him who I am? What I can do?”

“You sound like a mob boss,” Lester said.

“He’s in for a life of pain,” Max said. “And you are too, if you don’t step aside.”

“Call first, I said. I’m busy.”

“Come on, you son of a bitch,” Max said, and forced her way in.

“Shoes!” Lester shouted.

They took off their shoes, using the doorjamb as support. Lester walked around barefoot in his studio apartment. Every square inch of the floor was covered in a thick rug.

“Nice digs,” Lillian said, feeling the rug with her toes.

“Thanks,” Lester said. “I just moved in last week. Lester, by the way.”

“Lillian.”

“Now what awful sin did you commit that you ended up with these two?”

“I’m still trying to figure it out.”

“Yes,” Lester said, solemnly. “They have that effect.”

Lillian’s gaze strayed to a corner. “Are you assembling a Desktop?” she asked, and stepped closer before Lester could stop her.

The mechanical parts were partially covered by a black cloth. Another glance and Lillian knew it wasn’t any ordinary computer.

“Is that a Dancer?” Max asked.

Lester sounded petulant. “I told you I’m busy.”

Max laughed so hard Lillian thought she might bust a lung. “Oh my God. This is black market shit. How much did you pay for it?”

“I’m reprogramming it, okay,” Lester said, stepping between them and the robot. “I’m turning it into a Cleaner.”

“A Cleaner you can bend over?”

“I didn’t know you could reprogram robots,” Lillian said.

“A Sentry would bash your face in if you tried to turn it off for reprogramming,” Jamie said. “Dancers are more—”

“Pliable,” Max said, and smiled at Lester.

“Can you just tell me what you want so I can kick you out of here?” Lester said.

“Encrypted files,” Max said, and threw him a thumb drive. “Decrypt them.”

“Is this Mark’s?” Lester asked in a soft voice.

“Just do it.”

Lester opened the drive on his computer. “Oh, come on, Maxine. Fifty folders?”

“Latest modified first.”

Lester rearranged the files. He whistled. “That’s still a lot of folders.”

“Any modified file with the word ‘project’ in it?” Lillian said.

“Fine,” Lester said, typing the task on his Memo. “When do you need it? And don’t say yester—”

“Yesterday,” Max said.

Lester sighed. “Okay. But before you leave—”

He walked into the bathroom and came out with an orange Persian.

“Mimsy!” Jamie exclaimed, and took the cat from Lester.

“Mimsy?” Lillian said.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Max said.

“You’re making me
decrypt
for free,” Lester said. “Least you can do is take care of my fucking cat.”

“She said her name was Laura?”

Max was craving Japanese, so she led them to a tiny restaurant near Lester’s building and ordered three steaming bowls of spicy ramen and twelve pieces of maki. Mimsy accepted some rice,
walked around their bowls, and curled up on one end of the table and went to sleep.

“That’s what she said when my call got transferred,” Lillian said. She never learned how to use chopsticks, so she used a fork to skewer a roll of maki.
“’You’ve reached Northpoint-Pascual. This is Laura. How may I help you?’”

“Wonder what her designation is,” Jamie said, and glanced at Max.

“Like I said,” Max told him, “I can’t hack Northpoint-Pascual’s databases. Crazy firewalls are crazy.”

“Maybe it was supposed to be a dedicated line and she answered by mistake,” Lillian chimed in. “A secretary?”

“Or she’s the head honcho for the Caleb Protection Program.”

“No. I think a head honcho would just go straight to the point. ‘What’s wrong with him again? Why are you ruining my lunch?’”

“So we’re profiling people now based on how they answer their phones?” Max said.

“I just say ‘Yo’” Jamie said.

Max looked at him and squinted. “I have an idea.”

“You got something from ‘Yo’?” Jamie said.

“We need to go to the city,” Max said.

They were at the MRT the next day. Lillian, so used to lining up with the crowd, had to be reminded that she was now a Titanium card carrier. “This way,” Max said. She was dressed to
the nines, going the vavavoom route with a beige sleeveless dress, white pumps, dark shades, and a white satchel to carry Mimsy in. Jamie also looked trim and proper, dressed all in black. Lillian
was dressed her usual way: sling bag, too-large shirt, jeans, and a Candy Stripe in her mouth.

The Titanium train car was almost empty. “Road trip!” Max told the cat, holding it up like a baby. Mimsy mewed. Lillian sat back on the metallic gray recliner and checked her emails.
Still no angry missive from Paul, which meant he had not noticed the calcium pills.

They arrived at Ayala and began walking. “There’s a florist in this street,” Jamie said. They stopped by the sidewalk. He and Max attached their no-hands.

“I can’t believe you don’t own one of these,” Max said, handing a no-hands to Lillian. “Get with the times, sweetheart.”

Lillian snorted and put it on.

“Make sure it’s on Conference, Jamie,” Max said. “Meet you there?”

“Have I told you yet that this is a bad idea?” Jamie said.

“Hurry up,” Max said, looking at him from head to toe. “You look too posh. You need to get dressed.”

In some provinces the Sentries still looked like the policemen of old—blue uniforms, bare faces—but in major cities the Sentries were dressed all in black, their eyes covered by a
black shield made of glass, making them look like Zoned-out citizens. They lined Ayala Avenue, where Northpoint-Pascual’s main offices were located inside Pascual Tower, a glass-and-steel
building 10 stories high. From the sidewalk, a pedestrian could look directly through the glass wall and observe the lobby like a child looking at fish. Insured and well-compensated fish. There
were five receptionists who sat behind a circular granite desk the size of a behemoth. Beyond them, a mini-garden lit by artificial sunlight served as shelter for genetically altered birds and
butterflies. The effect of the garden was tremendous; it made the lobby look less cold, broke the corporate gloom.

There was a waiting shed not far from the company doors. Lillian and Max sat there. The walls and even the seat were covered in ads. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Max told a model
aggressively endorsing Candy Stripe over her right shoulder, and clicked on her to mute the sound.

“Storm is coming,” Lillian said, studying the weather reports near her butt. Right now, however, the sky was blue and the breeze light and cool. A perfect day.

There was a couple in the shed with them. Lillian couldn’t stop staring at the girl. Max leaned close and said, “Stop. Staring.”

“Is that a Dancer?” Lillian whispered back.

“Look at the hand.”

Of course. The Dancer looked so lifelike she could have been a girl in Lillian’s class, save for the silver D on the back of her hand. It had been a trend before, tattooing that silver
letter on your hand. What for, though? To test the integrity of your one-night stands?

“I look like your Dancer,” Max said, and snickered.

“I look like your maid,” Lillian said.

Jamie came around the corner, carrying a vase of pale yellow roses and bright pink lilies in one hand. He was now wearing a blue collared shirt and a blue and yellow cap.

“Why’d you have to go and buy an expensive bouquet?” Max whispered, and Lillian heard Jamie through the no-hands.

“It’s Northpoint,” Jamie said. “Corporate chicks like ‘em expensive.”

“You know,” Lillian began, “if we had a listening device—”

“Northpoint’s scans will pick it up the moment Laura returns to her office,” Max said. “And the florist that sold Jamie that bouquet is dead.” Max quickly amended
herself. “Not
dead
, like, gunned down. I mean dead, like, legally.”

“Like, yeah,” Lillian said, “I get it.”

They watched him enter the building and approach a receptionist. “Flowers for Miss Laura?” Jamie said.

“We have two Lauras here. Do you have a last name?”