The Unseen (9 page)

Lars nuzzled her hand, letting her know that she was slacking on her duties of throwing his toy octopus. She tossed it across the room, sending Lars chasing after it. It landed on the ground and scrambled away from Lars, who followed after it fervently. She pushed thoughts of David and Joseth out of her mind and focused on studying the neglected map that filled her view.

She flipped through each marker on the map, reviewing the data. There wasn’t any obvious connection between the cases besides the fact that all of the individuals had been inexplicably assassinated in the last three months. Every death caused the war to intensify, giving both sides even more cause to dig themselves in deeper.
There is something that connects all of them, but I’m just not seeing it.
She scanned them again.
But I can feel it.

The door to her room opened, which caused Lars to forget about his toy and instead focused his energies on growling at whoever was coming in. Kari rolled over and blocked out part of her overridden vision to show her room. Lars jumped up and down at Joseth’s feet, trying to gain his attention. He stooped over and picked Lars up, which sent Lars’s tail wagging.
Kari closed down her research and sat up on her bed, unsure whether to smile because she was glad see him or give him a hint that she was a little upset with his lack of a visit.
He’s the Oedipus! He can’t stop by all the time.
Kari went with the smile.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Joseth said. He set Lars down on the floor, but the little dog just went right to stretching on Joseth’s legs for attention.

“Not anything I can’t finish later,” Kari said. “Come in.”

“What were you working on?” Joseth walked in and hopped onto the bed next to her.

“Just hanging out.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“And why not?”

“You looked engaged, like how you looked when we were exploring that pyramid last week.”

“How would you know what I looked like? You were exploring the pyramid with me, if I do recall.”

“I couldn’t help but sneak a few glances at you during our adventure.” Joseth winked at her, and Kari fought the blush ineffectively.
He’s making fun of me. He obviously knows I’m a huge fan girl, and now he’s teasing me about it. Great.

“OK . . . I was just doing some research.”

“On?” Joseth’s interest made her nervous; she didn’t want to disappoint him.

“The assassinations,” Kari said.

“You mean of the presidents?”
Technically one was a CEO . . .
The Middle States’ obsession with business had led them to model their government after a corporation. It was confusing enough that many people ignored their official titles and simply referred to the Middle States leaders by their more traditional titles.

“Yeah, but not only that. There have been a lot more—General Emil, for example. And Secretary Meyer and dozens of others.”

“Really?” Joseth’s reaction was impossible to read. “I didn’t see any news about assassinations.”

“Well, that’s the thing—the news doesn’t call them assassinations. But there have been so many untimely, unexplained deaths at high levels that it just doesn’t add up. There’s a pattern to them all. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I know there is one.” Joseth started to laugh lightly, and Kari had never felt so uncomfortable in her own skin.

“I’m sorry, but you sound like a conspiracy theorist.”

Kari pulled away from him and felt her defenses go up.

“I do not.”
Wonderful response, very intellectual.
“Here, I can show you.”

“No, no. That’s all right.” Joseth said. “If you say there is something to it, I’m sure you’re right. I’ll look into it.”
He thinks I’m crazy.

“Why are you here?” Kari said, trying to change the subject naturally, but flinching at the awkwardness of it.

“Two reasons,” Joseth said. He looked to be as happy to change the subject as she was. “I wanted to show you something I’ve been working on since last week, and I wanted to ask for your help on a project.”

“You need my help?” Kari wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. She couldn’t imagine why the world’s premier hacker would possibly need her help.
He invented a new architecture for mind chips and revolutionized the way data was processed, and he wants my help?

“Yes, I need your help. We have an anonymous client that wants us to do some thorough penetration testing on their security software. They have offered us a substantial bonus if we are able to compromise their system, and that’s where I need your help.”

“I mean, I can try, but I don’t know how much help I’ll be if you’re already looking at it . . .”

“Don’t sell yourself short Kari; there’s no one else I would rather have working on this project than you.”

Kari wasn’t sure, but she thought she felt her heart flutter just a little bit. She’d never received such meaningful praise.

“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Kari said.

“Great—that means you aren’t saying no, as that’s a fairly easy thing to say,” Joseth said. “Besides, you can think of it as your rent. Your personal contribution to helping Valhalla keep its doors open to people like us. All of the Unseen contribute in one way or another.”

Us.

“Well, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best.”

“Perfect. I guess we’ll see who can hack their system first, you or me.”

“If your hacking skills are anything like your rock-climbing skills, I’m sure I’ll have nothing to worry about,” Kari said. She laughed at the sour face that Joseth made.

“I knew you would bring that up.”

Last week when they had been working on Kari’s jungle simulation together, they had come to a cliff that Joseth insisted he could scale without the help of any technology. Kari watched him fall to his simulated death over and over again until she finally commanded the simulation to place him at the top of the cliff with her. He had been faux-infuriated at her cheating to get him to the top of the cliff, but they had continued on to solve the puzzle. It had been the most fun that Kari had ever had while doing a simulation.

“I’m sorry, but the epic display of raw masculinity left a lasting impression.”

“You know, you’re not the first to say that to me.” Joseth leaned up on the bed and flexed his modest arm.

“Stop! My heart can’t handle it!” Kari said.

Joseth collapsed onto the bed again with a satisfied sigh that Kari could hardly hear over her laughter.

“Actually, I’m glad you brought it up, because that was the second thing I came to show you. I spent some time last week working on my rock-climbing skills, and I feel like you owe me the chance to impress you.”

“I don’t know . . . it’s getting kind of late. I’m not sure I have time to watch you try to impress me again.”

“I only need one attempt this time,” Joseth paused. “And I’ll practically fly up those rocks.”

Kari eyed him skeptically. “So you invented something to help you be an expert rock climber, then?”

Joseth grinned and sheepishly nodded his head. Kari sighed loudly.

“Fine, but only one chance. I have hacking to do.”

“So you’re not any closer, then,” David said. His enthusiasm had been falling steadily during the conversation as she explained her progress on the assassinations. It had been several days since she had answered his calls, but not because she didn’t want to talk to him—she just didn’t want to break her concentration. She had spent the week working exclusively on trying to hack the security software that Joseth wanted her to work on, which had come at the expense of making progress on stopping the civil war.

“What did you expect, David? If there were an obvious answer the governments would have stopped assassinating each other’s leaders by now,” Kari said, showing her frustration for the first time.

“But doesn’t that feel weird? How can they both keep assassinating people on the other side and not figure out how to stop it from happening to themselves?”

“Even the best hackers can get hacked themselves, David.”
I don’t have time to explain this to him
. David shrugged and curled half of his lips as he shook his head.

“I know, but it just doesn’t add up.”

“We both agree on that. Look, I’ll keep working on it. There may not be a lot of visible progress, but I feel like my mind is starting to understand connections between things. Hopefully that’ll lead to a breakthrough soon.”
When did lying to David become so natural to me?
The truth was, she was no closer to figuring out how to stop the assassinations than she had been two weeks ago when she arrived.

“I guess that’s all we can do . . .” David’s voice faded off as Kari nodded her agreement.

“Yup.”

“You feel kind of distant.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I was just hoping my girlfriend would seem more excited to talk to me.”

“Girlfriend?” Kari didn’t know what to say. She knew the conversation was going to have to happen eventually; she just didn’t want to think about that now. She had enough on her mind then to try to label their relationship. “David . . .”

“Oh.”

“I mean, we never talked about that . . .”

“That’s fine, I guess . . .”

The long pause before David said anything was painful. Kari could tell he was hurt, but it wasn’t her fault he had assumed something she had never agreed to.

“I just miss you, Kari.”

Kari smiled at that; she knew David missed her. He cared for her in a way that no one else ever had. And she cared for him, but deep inside she knew she hadn’t missed him much.
Being here at Valhalla has been the happiest few weeks of my life.
These are my people, and this where I’m meant to be.
David loves me, but for the first time in my life I feel like I belong, and I can’t leave that any time soon.

“I miss you, too,” Kari said. The guilt formed a ball in her stomach and made her feel a little queasy, but she didn’t show any of that to David. “I need to get going, but we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

“Promise?”

“Of course,” Kari said before disconnecting from the call. The small camera that had been floating in front of her face, broadcasting it to David, reattached to the processing unit behind her ear.
So when are you going to tell him you never want to leave this place?

Kari didn’t feel like working on either of her projects, so she whistled for Lars. Walks around Valhalla were an effective break that had become a critical part of her daily routine.

It was beautiful outside, and there was always someone testing out a new project that provided plenty of distraction. If she saw some of her friends she’d stop and hang out for a while before getting back to work. Having friends she would randomly run into was starting to feel normal.

It was well into the warm summer night by the time Kari climbed the set of stairs leading back to her room. She had casually designed a new collar for Lars that featured Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the underworld in Greek mythology. She thought Joseth might like it. But when she had tried to order it to print in the basement, she had found that all of the printers were busy for the rest of the day. She couldn’t think of anything that would occupy the printers for that long, so she had headed toward the basement to find out. But she never made it there.

SeptemberMist and Motorcad had physically forced her to join in a round of Black Hat Tycoon, a strategy board game that, when played with teams, took hours to complete. All of the players connected to the same game, and the virtual board and pieces were displayed holographically in an augmented-reality setting. She had partnered with SeptemberMist, and together they had managed to eventually subdue all other botnets—rogue networks of virus-controlled computers—and win the game.

Motorcad’s team had been eliminated early, but he had stuck around to provide witty commentary and try to exact posthumous revenge on the people who had conquered his networks. Kari’s abs hurt from laughing so much, which made her even more eager to get back to her room to rest.

Lars came running out of the open door to Kari’s room to greet her. She had sent him up to the room before she had started the game. One of the best luxuries about Valhalla was the endless supply of someone or something available to help out with the little things, like taking care of Lars. Kari jumped when she noticed someone else was in the room, but she tried to play it off as getting shocked when she saw it was Joseth.
Hopefully he’s overriding his vision.

“Sorry to scare you,” Joseth said.
Perfect.

“You didn’t scare me,” Kari said.
Even better.

“Well good. I just wanted to stop by and see how things are going.”

“Things are going great. I’m not sure I’m ever going to leave this place, honestly.” Kari sat down in a chair across from him, holding Lars in arms.

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that.”
Maybe happy enough to stop by more than once a week.

“But,” Kari frowned, “I haven’t had much luck paying that rent.”

“Me neither.”

“Does that mean you aren’t going to evict me?”

“I’d have to evict myself as well for failing to hack the system, and I rather like it here. While I’m sad that you haven’t figured it out, I’m glad that I get to keep my ego intact for now.” Joseth flashed a friendly smile at her.

“I’m sure you’ll get it soon.”

“I hope so. The hardest thing is just trying to get myself to focus on it. It’s hard when you have to split your mind across multiple projects.”

“What else are you working on?”

“I’ll show you soon. In a few days perhaps, but not right now. I’d rather just talk tonight than do anything with code. I’ve had my fill for the day.”

“Fine with me, as long as we order something good for dessert.”

“Sounds like a fair deal. We’ll have whatever you fancy this evening.”

“Done and done. So what do you want to talk about?”

“I’d actually love to hear the story of your prison escape, if you’re ready to talk about it.” Kari breathed in deeply. It wasn’t her favorite subject, but she couldn’t think of a good excuse not to open up to Joseth.
He trusted me with the knowledge of Valhalla and the Unseen. Maybe it’s time I trust him as well.