Venus in Red by Knite Therin

Author:Knite, Therin [Knite, Therin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knite and Day Publishing
Published: 2015-04-09T18:30:00+00:00

5

Floor 250, The Office

My, Mick Grayson has grown ugly. In a tall-backed chair he sits hunched. His pinstripe suit hangs off his frame, his tie loose around his skinny neck. His beard is gray and patchy. His dark eyes sunken in. And his once thick hair—gone. He’s bald. For a reason.

A configuration of external nodes protrude from the sallow skin on his skull. An advanced neural link system. Sixty billion nano-filaments embedded in his brain. Downloading every scrap of data Mick believes he needs to win the world. From public knowledge to stolen secrets—they’ve infected him. The flesh around his nodes is inflamed by some bacteria. Experimental tech gone wrong.

Like he cares.

Until I shut down Venus, he was Master of the Earth.

Behind him, three large screens glow blue, are blank. Former data filter feeds; they summarized Mick’s collective knowledge into directives for his minions. But no data flows now. No orders to the ants. My viruses broke his system.

And Mick is furious—yet frightened that I have come this far.

Though he holds his head high still. Puts on an arrogant show. There is a gun in his hand he unclipped from a strap glued to the underside of his expensive wood desk. An old-fashioned revolver. With shaking, wrinkled fingers and yellowed nails, he points that gun my way. But he doesn’t pull the trigger. Too soon.

Our final showdown must begin with a conversation.

We haven’t spoken in six years, after all.

So he says, voice rasping, “You’ve grown violent.” He eyes the pile of bodies in the hall.

I pad across the red-patterned carpet and reply, “You’ve grown old. Your augmentations have accelerated your aging, Mick. You look eighty. What a waste—you were handsome once. On the outside.”

“But my soul has always been grotesque?” His puckered lips catch flecks of spit. “Demonic?”

“Demonic is too kind a word for you.” The barrel of his gun tracks my forward shuffling steps. “Now. As a child, I might have dubbed you that.”

My gaze drifts from the silver gun toward the panorama window on my right. I examine the obscured cityscape beyond. Towers taller than the sky. Blocking half the view. Behind them, a veil of orange smog. It sets in daily after two o’clock in the afternoon.

This is how the king sees the world—as nothing outside his own domain.

“You’re still a child. That’s why you’re here,” Mick says. “For vengeance worthy of a little girl.” He sweeps his hands at his blank screens. “Look at what you’ve done. Risked millions with your antics.”

“Millions of people or millions of dollars?” I try to make a balance scale gesture but fail. Forgot one of my arms is paralyzed forever. Neural pathways blocked for good by my capacity reroute. Oh, well. One hand can flip Mick off.

He sneers. “People aren’t worth nearly so much as you think. And their value fluctuates.”

“But the value of money doesn’t?”

“Not when you have as much as I do. As I will.”

“Infinity is infinity no matter the denomination? Too bad your EXO System is kaput then.

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