The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) (6 page)

“
What we know so far,”
Tavia narrated, as the screen brought up pictures of several famous
museums and universities, “is that there’s no record of
unidentified pieces in the Medieval Studies departments in any of
these fine institutions.”

“
We spent a long time
checking,” Dresan added. He sighed, then turned to Nin for a
moment. “I told you it’d be quicker if you’d just…”

“
Nah-ah,” Nin went. “I’m
not going to allow anyone here to use SystemOD to hack into a
security system.”

Anya listened, wondering if she’d be able to
follow, or piece together the conversation.

“
It’d be super convenient…”
Dresan went on. “I could be hooked up, here, controlling everything
with my mind, or you could use it on the move, instead
of—”

“
I’m not going to be stuck
in limbo,” Nin interrupted. “It’s still the beta version, isn’t
it?”

“
Yeah, most products are
released nowadays when they aren’t perfect anyway—”

“
Too dangerous—it’s still
very unstable. I don’t want anyone of us getting stuck in the
middle of a virtual world.”

Anya had no idea what Nin
was talking about, though she remembered the name in case she had
the chance to bring it up later:
SystemOD.

“
Anyway,” Tavia re-focused
the topic of their conversation. “We started researching on private
collectors, and ended up locating this.”

Anya almost started to drool when she saw
the picture on the screen. It was the one place Leticia and she had
wanted to break into, but couldn’t so far, due to the tight
external security, and above-average data base security systems
installed.

“
And we came across Mister
Varian Gilbreth,” Nin carried on the discussion at bullet speed.
“Founder of The Gilbreth Institute. Gilbreth spends more time in
the museum than in his own house. He also collects rare items of
medieval art—jewel boxes, paintings, canes…and fragments of unknown
parchments.”

The screen showed Zouk City’s renowned
research institute and associated museum, a sprawling complex. The
building had two basements, three courtyards, and a glass brick
dome in the center which diffused natural light into the building’s
levels. The library building alone featured ten round shaped
self-contained blocks—seven blocks on the outer periphery, and
three in the inner circle. The museum focused on the evolution of
communication in human society—from ancient texts and parchments,
to the first telegram, to the first $3,000 bulky, brick-like cell
phone model in the early 1970s, the iPhone and iTouch, and Nokia’s
Morph phone, which was self-cleaning and featured nano-sensors that
plugged in to one’s immediate environment.

“
Here’s the
catch.”

Anya and Leticia held their breath.

“
M. Gilbreth is a paranoid
schizophrenic, who believes aliens are on a single-minded mission
to abduct him.”

“
Is that true?” Anya
wondered out loud, eyes widening. “I’ve heard rumors,
but…”

Nin gave a shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t
know about the aliens—but the man does suffer from paranoia. He has
a sensor system set up, to keep people like us from raiding his
beloved treasure trove.”

On the computer screen, Tavia superimposed
an image onto a secret vault located within the Gilbreth Institute.
Red lines criss-crossed all over the place.

“
This is an underground
vault in the GI,” Nin explained. “It is filled with expensive
watches, ancient timepieces, a few skulls…”

“
Skulls?” Anya
inquired.

“
Gilbreth has a lot
of…interests. We believe he’s hiding something here, under the
guise or protection of his beloved museum.”

“
Like what?” Anya didn’t
know much about the underground activities of the museum. She’d
been more concerned with doing a good job for the assignments she
and Leticia did undergo.

“
We think there might be a
secret lab of saints’ bones, and artificial organs like brains and
body parts—an organ-harvesting side business that Gilbreth dabbles
in.”

“
Are you sure?” Anya
positively squirmed in disdain.

“
We don’t know for sure
since we haven’t been able to hack into the system,” Dresan gave a
narrow, sideward glance and slight eye-roll to
Nin—
SystemOD,
Anya
remembered—“but we overheard some scientists at the tree talking
about a rumor about how they were extracting blood from the tree.
Later we figured they were talking about the red roots, which they
carried in vials to…guess where.”

Anya blinked. “The museum?”

“
Yes indeed,” Dresan
concurred. “What are they doing there? Distilling it? Purifying
it?”

“
We’re blocked from network
access to their security system,” Tavia explained to the girls.
“There seems to be a virtual fake one set in place, that’s a decoy,
to throw hacktivists like us off track.”

“
Huh,” Anya said, as a
statement. So the museum did have something to hide from the
public.

“
Isn’t there any way to…get
past the security system? Or…turn it off?” Leticia took a gulp,
remembering the red criss-cross lasers set in place.

“
We couldn’t figure that
part out—it seems far more complicated than anything we’ve seen and
worked with. And we’ve worked on a lot of such systems.” Dresan’s
lower lip protruded in a glum pout.

Leticia’s knees felt shaky now.

“
We need help getting a
couple of keys.” Nin conveyed more specifics. “One to the vault,
and another to the glass cabinet that holds the parchment pieces—so
we need someone with a very precise touch. And someone who can move
quickly and skillfully in extremely small, tight spaces.” He looked
at Anya, and held his gaze. “There’s a slight depression and the
vent is a little twisted—it’s hard to maneuver about in, unless
you’re…” He paused for the right word. “Compact-sized. No room for
error. The night guards will open fire.” The tight space in the
vent was where he’d fumbled in the past.

“
They will?” Anya wondered
about the clandestine operations so far, that she and Leticia had
undertaken.

Nin nodded slowly. “We know. We barely
escaped with our lives, on the first attempt.”

It was deadly quiet—quiet enough to hear a
snowflake fall upon the ground.

Anya was studying the
picture of the 3-point system lock on the screen, which held the
two keys that the elves wanted to get. That the elves were
asking
her
to
get.

“
She’s the expert,” Leticia
said in a husky, sickly sweet voice. She joined the rest of the
smiling faces, leaving Anya as the lucky recipient of the
job.

Anya pulled her brows together. “Haven’t we
been a team effort, all along?” Anya posed the question to Leticia.
Her voice was a little throaty.

Leticia bobbed her head, half in agreement.
“I’m there to help. You’ve more practice.”

That was true. Anya had actually been the
one to swipe the dozen or so items they had successfully gotten.
Thus far, that is. Her small build did allow her to move fast,
which she used to her advantage.

“
I…really…” Anya started.
She felt like she was croaking. “Don’t…”

Elves are superior,
she said to herself. At least they seemed to be,
with their plasma guns and solar-powered rooms and ability to walk
noiselessly across all types of surfaces. If they hadn’t been able
to pull this operation off, what were her chances?

“
I can see
your…hesitation.” Nin was up close to her, his voice a satiny warm
delight draping over her skin. “What is it you’re not comfortable
with?” He laid a hand on Anya’s shoulder, in reassurance. Then his
hand went a little lower, as he lightly stroked her back, when he
didn’t feel any resistance from her. His touches were smooth like
chocolate.
“How to Work Your Charm with
Body Language,”
Nin remembered the article
he’d downloaded onto his N-Gage device. He’d read it so many times,
it was as good as having downloaded it into his memory. Maybe he
wouldn’t even have to consider Dresan’s take on blending one’s body
with technology. Maybe he was already halfway there.

“
I…” Anya usually jumped at
each new thieving task—but apparently not when it was
Elven-assigned, as she was discovering. She decided to just state
her concerns, to the Elven trio. “I just do what I can. I don’t
know if I’d be better than you.”

“
I can guide you through
the building,” Nin sounded gracious and generous, “but you’ll have
to commit the actual, art of the theft. The overhead vent is very
narrow—it’s the only way in to the key room. Apart from waltzing in
through the door, after getting past hordes of guards armed to the
teeth.”

“
Armed, like all of you?”
Anya asked.

Nin shrugged. “About the same—they’re
deadlier because they open fire to kill intruders or suspicious
characters, no questions about it.”

The first item Anya had ever stolen was a
colorful marble from a store, years ago when she was six. The
incident had been relatively devoid of problems. What Nin was
requesting was way more technically advanced.

“
We were planning on
breaking in tomorrow, at night.” Nin talked casually, as if he was
describing the weather.

“
I…need some time to think
about it.” It was the best answer Anya could give.

Nin seemed happy. “Twenty-four hours enough
for you?”

Anya tilted her head to one side, ear almost
touching her shoulder. “What’s the rush?”

A shade of deep solemnity came over Nin’s
face. “The branches can actually morph into roots, so even if the
original tree decays, its branches underneath are young and
continue to enclose the parent. But the tree has been under severe
attack recently. We’ve linked the scientists to the museum. We’ve
found a very likely location for the missing parchment piece, given
Gilbreth’s private collection. We’re not exactly sure what they
want it for…but we have our theories. We think the missing piece in
the puzzle will tell us more.”

“
We had a simulated version
of the break-in…” Dresan mused, ever one to share his passion for
technology and creation, “where we wanted to take down all the
guards at the museum by putting up a semi-laser sphere around the
whole institute. But there would have been too many complications,
what with the isotopes, to calibrate the forcefield, and many other
technicalities.”

Leticia bobbed her head up and down slowly,
hearing what he said, but not having a clue about the scientific
details behind such a move.

“
We have to act…now,” Tavia
concluded. “Or it might be too late.”

Anya felt a bitter taste in her mouth. If
what Nin said was true, the tree in trouble meant that all of life
lay in their hands. Her hands, especially. She wasn’t accustomed to
shouldering that huge an amount of responsibility. A chill crept
through her veins as she recalled what had been said about the
“prophecy” too, even though no one was sure how much of it really
was factual. Was she being led to the grave? But Tavia did mention
it could be nothing more than an urban legend.

“
Twenty-four hours,” Anya
nodded, not really agreeing, but not disagreeing, either. Did she
really have much of a choice? Besides, she was being recruited to
locate a missing parchment piece—not sacrifice herself on behalf of
all humanity. “I’m only doing it, because you asked me to,” she
added quietly, addressing the last part specifically to
Nin.

“
Great!” Nin gave her a
quick hug, his heart singing the praises of the good nature she
extended to him. Anya was a little taken aback to admit (to
herself) that it somehow felt so right being in his arms, even if
it was for a short while. There was something comforting and
protective about his touch, which appealed to her much more than
his words.

Nin added that there were a few more things
to sort out on their end. “I’ll send you the details,
tomorrow.”

Anya was glad when they exchanged cell
numbers. The elves had thirty-seven digit numbers.

“
Bypasses all the human
cell phone networks,” Dresan explained, as Anya and Leticia stored
the numbers in their cell’s address books. “We call our wrist
device the ‘N-Gage’.”

“
It’s more straightforward
than the insidious human GVMT,” Tavia added, as she re-adjusted the
time on her device.

“
We have those at home,”
Anya said, glancing up to admire Nin’s lithe figure from the back.
She and Leticia had received complimentary models that the company
was pilot-testing.

“
We don’t use it that much
though,” Leticia added. “I think ours have a heat-up
problem.”

“
Good,” said Nin, with
slight disdain. “What does it stand for again?”

“
Great-Value-More-Time,”
Anya replied, in the exact same pitch and tone as the syrupy voice
of Cyborg Mi$$y, the alluring avatar spokesperson in the GVMT
advertisement that aired everywhere.

“
When it actually stands
for ‘government’.” Nin shook his head. He sympathized with humans
half the time. The other half the time was influenced by the fact
that history seemed to repeat itself far too many times.

“
I’ve been trying to crack
the embedded code of the second version,” Dresan carried on, since
hacking was a subject he was endlessly fascinated with. “The GVMT
plants subliminal political messages. Your cell phones are keeping
you connected to a world of automatons.”