Under the Flickering Light by Russ Linton

Author:Russ Linton [Linton, Russ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: superhero, solar punk, genetic engineering, robots, hacking, Science Fiction, cyberpunk, blade runner, litrpg, ready player one
Publisher: Fictional Work
Published: 2019-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

24

The hyperloop train glided so smoothly she couldn’t be sure they’d even left the station. Wider than the jaunty subway car, the cabin contained three rows of seats. No windows, there wasn’t even a view to distract her. The woman across from her had retinal implants. Not long under that dead stare and M@ti thought maybe she wouldn’t be better off logging some Nexus time of her own.

The seat on the hyperloop which M@ti had been directed to was no where near Knuckles. With Loadi’s delay, she hadn’t been given time to spring the new plan on him. They were in the same car at least, but she’d lost him in the shuffle. They’d promised to find one another as soon as the loop got them to San Diego.

She searched for Knuckles’ topknot above the seat backs. Even though hairstyles were an acceptable body modification, most people didn’t bother. In her own way, she’d been lazy too. She wanted to claim she’d first shaved her head as a form of protest, but the style had its pluses while spelunking through garbage.

Before she’d found Knuckles’ topknot, M@ti spotted a shock of white hair. Four rows up and one aisle over. She stared, willing the person to turn around. When they didn’t budge, she raised out of her seat to get a better look. Specs? She couldn’t see any.

She sank back into her seat. Could be they’d found her, just like Loadi said. These cryptoanarchists did have plenty of knowledge and tech that could be useful. She needed to play both ends until she had enough information to make her own move.

M@ti pulled the stolen data tablet from her pocket. The little green cursor was blinking again, no messages or warnings. If it had been able to cloak her, it could have also told the hackers where she was. Turning that off and sending a giant middle finger their way would be entertaining. Knowing more about how their hardware could fool even wardens would give her an edge when facing Chroma. She turned her full attention to the archaic device.

Thirty minutes later M@ti had made little headway. Since the technology was so old, she couldn’t get it to interface with her own to really start cracking. Tweaking TrueSight had revealed a faint signal in a band nobody ever used, but each time she tried to grab the tiny, glowing filament, it slipped between her fingers.

It wasn’t even a shielded connection. More like it had a mind of its own. It made constant hops to keep from being isolated. All she needed to do was figure out the pattern and predict the next few leaps.

Her seatmate got up. M@ti hunched protectively over the device but the woman’s vacant stare remained as she walked away. Probably needed a bio break. M@ti was just thankful she’d thought to do it elsewhere.

“Is this seat taken?”

There he was in his brown three piece suit, an orange striped bow tie beneath his neatly trimmed beard. Yet somebody else she couldn’t trust, but the guy definitely had a pair.

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