Micky’s phone rang.

Micky said, “It’s our hacker.”

Lusso said, “Wait a sec.”

Micky picked up. Lusso raised his arm to slam his fist into the wall again, but stopped himself when he saw Micky looking at him. He raised his other arm up too, and stretched. Micky put her phone on speaker.

Micky said, “Hello?”

Ph-2 said, “Hi.”

His voice was gravelly, deep, like he was speaking from inside a cave. Lusso imagined a tall, barrel-chested man on the other side, holding his phone like a small toy in his bear-like paw. It was something he didn’t expect from someone who voluntarily spent most of their time plugged into cyberspace. Lusso wondered if he’d used a voice mod.

“I looked briefly into the text message. It was just like the last time. No immediate digital footprint. The news article seems legit though. That server hasn’t been tampered with.”

Lusso’s irises widened, but he didn’t let himself react.

Lusso said, “Are you sure there was nothing?”

Ph-2 said, “It was just like last time. It’s not like I’m finding nothing. But there’s only tiny bits of data left behind, and it’s all encrypted. You touch it the wrong way, it’ll blow up your system.

Micky said, “How long?”

Ph-2 said, “Maybe a couple days. Maybe a week. This is some government, or corpo grade shit.”

Micky said, “Hey Lusso, go tell your friend, what’s his name, Liso, Lima—”

Lusso said, “Lino.”

Micky said, “Yeah, first go tell to him fuck himself, then find yourself some new friends. This guy hasn’t given us jack shit since we hired him.”

Lusso said, “Hey, lower your standards. If our guy was really good, he wouldn’t be working for us.”

Micky said, “Point taken. But we still paid him a shitload, and we got nothing.”

Lusso said, “Not our money anyways.”

Micky said, “Another thing. Ph-2, you still there?”

“Yeah, listening.”

“Yeah, so there’s this idol named Ria Jun. Don’t know if you know her, but are you her boyfriend?”

“No, why?”

Micky looked back at Lusso and shrugged. Lusso walked up to Micky.

Lusso talked into the phone, “This will be mutually beneficial. She’s blackmailing us to help her out anyways. Has she not told you about us?”

Ph-2 paused, then said, “How did you know?”

Lusso said, “Normally, when contract hackers encounter heat they can’t handle, they back off, or they ask for more money. You just said you’d do it.”

Ph-2 said, “It doesn’t matter much now, anyways.”

Lusso said, “Yeah, it doesn’t. How long have you been following us?”

“Since the beginning of the tour.”

“Oh, then do you know who fed a loop to the cameras on the day of the first concert?”

“They had a professional on board, but they didn’t do a perfect job. I traced them back to a basement in Felicity’s outskirts.”

“Who were they?”

“I didn’t dig deeper because the security around it was too dense to break in a short time. I’d guess they were hired, like I was.”

“Not corpo?”

“No. Not corpo.”

Ph-2 said, “How’s she doing?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Lusso said, “She’s been rejected by her manager, crying again and again, and she’s had her first panic attack. Also, I suspect she has an eating disorder. All in all, she’s doing just fine.”

Ph-2 said, “God. She’s in no position to perform. They’re still making her do it?”

Lusso said, “Probably. The concert should start in about an hour or so.”

Ph-2 said, “Tell her to call me.”

Lusso said, “If we can talk to her, we will. Tell me, was she always like this?”

Ph-2 said, “No, but she’s had it coming. Look, tell her to call me, alright? I’ve got to get back to something.”

Lusso said, “Ok.”

But Ph-2 had already hung up. Lusso sat back down against the wall. Micky sat down on her stool. Ding was browsing the rows of various cleaning and maintenance equipment on the shelves, like a child at the candy aisle of a grocery store. Ding took a canister from one of the shelves and opened it, sticking his nose inside. Ding sniffed once, and his eyes widened.

Ding said, “I knew I’d seen it somewhere. Lusso, look!”

Ding tilted the canister to one side so Lusso could see inside. Navy blue, viscous liquid sloshed around inside. The fragrance of flower perfume wafted from the canister. It was how Jin had smelled. Lusso and Micky were beside Ding in an instant. Lusso lifted the canister off of Ding’s hands, and read the label: Grade A Preservative.

Lusso said, “So it seems they were going to put Ria’s DNA samples in this, and keep it for later use. But why’s there preservative in a cleaning closet?”

Ding said, “It’s semi useful. You can mix it with paint.”

Micky nodded in approval.

Lusso said, “At least we know that for sure now. I’m going to connect. I haven’t checked up on her for a while now.”

Lusso leaned back on the wall and hit connect.

Lusso first felt soft bristles pat his face. Then he could see. Ria was staring at her own reflection in the mirror set on the makeup table. Samantha was absorbed with her phone, texting someone while sitting half a meter away from Ria. Behind Ria was a cyclops of a bot. It only had one camera eye near the top of its bottom heavy torso. Lusso barely made out on the side, a label that read: Makeup Bot v2.231. Three chrome arms protruded from either side of the bot, each moving freely on their own. The arms held hair shadow, eye shadow, eyeliner, and more, picking up, setting down its equipment from an open three tier cart. Dextrous, precise chrome hands constructed a layer of perfect, personalized beauty on Ria’s face. The layer was a conglomerate of perfect features machine learning algorithms had generated based on Ria’s face and public beauty standards. Lusso found himself dumbly staring back at Ria through the mirror. Ria’s face was pretty enough on its own, but she looked like a goddess with makeup on.

In ten minutes, the make-up bot announced that it was done and left the room, pulling the cart along with it.

Before the make-up bot left the room, it said, “Good luck on your concert, Ms. Jun! We hope you were satisfied with our services.”

When Ria heard the word “concert,” her heart skipped a beat. Ria checked the time on her phone.

Without looking up from her phone, Samantha said, “You’re up on stage in 40 minutes, honey.”

Ria said, “I know.”

Samantha raised her eyebrows, but she kept her eyes on her phone. As Ria swallowed, a drop of sweat trickled down her back. Pressure built up in the back of her throat, like something was trying to push its way out. Waves of nausea washed over her. Eventually, Ria stood up, and left the room. The pitter patter of her footsteps echoed in the empty hallway to the bathroom. Most of the staff were making final preparations backstage. Ria threw open a stall door, and crouched over a pristine, marble toilet bowl. Ria retched a couple times, and vomited. Ria tried to stop the puke from coming out of her nose by holding her breath. She was half-successful. Ria groaned, and used the toilet bowl as support to stand up.

Ria stumbled toward the sink. Miraculously, none of it had gotten on her clothes, a short one-piece dress that covered just a fourth of her thighs. It was the color of white noise, or television static, millions of black specks densely dotting a white background, making it confusing as to whether the background was white, and the specks were black, or if the background was black and the specks were white. The puke had barely left a trace on Ria’s face either. Yellow green bile trailed from her mouth and nose, but it was nothing a good wash couldn't fix. Ria gathered frigid water in cupped hands and splashed it over her face, gasping at the sensation of a million small needles pricking into her skin.

Ria dried her face and examined herself in the mirror. She looked exactly like she’d looked just five minutes ago when the bot had finished its job. The makeup would fade away on its own after just six hours, which was plenty of time for Ria to finish her concert. But before then, it would be permanent.

Ria headed back towards the dressing room. Ria’s arms swung listlessly by her side, and her legs and feet connected with the ground in awkward angles, sending shockwaves up her legs with every step she took. The dressing room was empty when she entered. Her purse was where she’d left it, on top of the makeup desk. Ria opened a pocket inside the purse, sliding two fingers in there to check for its contents, then finding nothing.

Ria hissed, “My phone!”

Ria half-emptied the bag and checked the clothes she’d been wearing before she’d changed into her dress. As Ria rummaged through her clothes, Samantha opened the door.

Samantha said, “Time to shine.”

Ria bit her lips. She took one last look back at the room, then followed her backstage. Staff rushed this way and that, making last minute adjustments and double checking all the equipment. Ria stood in the midst of it, like a lone pedestrian stuck in the middle of an intersection during rush hour. From the side of the stage, she stared out at the dark, unlit stage, catching glimpses of people in the crowd holding glow sticks, flashing signs, and phones recording video. Small murmurs each member of the crowd made combined, magnified into a deep, heavy roar of sound trapped Ria from all sides, choking her, cornering her. Ria closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, but to no avail. Her pulse kept increasing, and every breath became shallow and picked up speed.

A single electric guitar note cut through the crowd’s noise, signaling the beginning of the concert, and the beginning of Ria’s first song. The crowd was silent for a moment, then erupted into cheer. There was no going back now. Ria ran onto stage, already feeling dizzy. Lusso thought he could hear a small high pitched ringing, steadily getting louder. He hoped he was imagining it.