Echelon by Josh Conviser

Author:Josh Conviser
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345493415
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2006-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

19

While being a ghost had its benefits, remaining ethereal posed a constant struggle. Getting from Alaska to New Jersey without triggering a trace would require some creativity. The Bullet wasn’t an option; security scans would tag her. While Echelon may not be running five by five, Sarah couldn’t risk generating any flow wake.

So she drove. She rented a car using Gwen, Tex’s digital identity. While Sarah scoffed at the construct’s erogenous link to the flow, she had to admire its engineering. The doll was a hell of a cover. Sarah assumed Tex had a thriving business creating such ether-dolls.

Waiting for the car to arrive at a haul stop outside Nome, Sarah fingered the hard disk she’d dug from the listening station. She looked around furtively, but no one seemed interested in her. She pried open its casing, losing herself in its mirror-smooth surface. Pulling code from the relic would be a bitch.

The car arrived, dropped in the lot off a hauler. Sarah paid for her stale coffee and headed outside. At the car, she punched in a prearranged code and the door popped open. It was no beauty. Dull green exterior with aged gray, faux-leather seats. She’d chosen a self-propelled model. Too many ID checks on the electrified superways.

Sarah got comfortable, keyed the ignition and hit the road, churning klicks. No one bothered to flow-link country roads. That meant she actually had to drive the car. While she readily admitted to a cycle fetish, cars bored her to death. She didn’t like being boxed in. But after about a thousand klicks, and a liter of coffee, she sank into the relaxation of driving. Sarah fell into the easy rhythms of the countryside, the high plains of Dakota and enduring congruity of the Midwest. Her shoulder throbbed and her head hurt like hell. She hiked the climate control well above norm. If she never saw snow again it would be too soon.

Driving gave her time. Time forced recollection—something she wasn’t quite ready for. She skimmed past fields of corn and wheat, skirting down and around the Great Lakes. She was born here, raised in Chicago. Topography settled, remembered and familiar. But the scenery pulled no emotional trigger. Childhood had been a void for Sarah.

Sarah’s parents had loved her, satisfied all her material needs. They were both programmers for megacorps, code pullers. Her childhood had been fine, utterly average, grindingly dull. An eggshell happiness encrusted her memories, its brittle skin masking an emotional wasteland. Her earliest memories were discordant, filled with rebellion. Sarah didn’t fit, couldn’t embrace the cool economy of her parents’ meager emotional output.

She had learned from them. They taught her the elegant purity of numbers and patterns drawn from chaos. Their knowledge shaped her prodigious abilities, honed them. She had her parents to thank for that. But her life was in the flow. There, she found friends, romance, connection. She’d left Chicago and never looked back. Every now and then, she’d link to her ’rents, check in. They didn’t seem to care.

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