“Hey, good morning sweetheart.”
Sophie’s slumber was broken by a soft kiss on her cheek and fingers running through her hair. She responded by grabbing her lover’s pillow and squeezing it tightly to her body, making a rebellious groan as she did.
“No, no.” The woman said to her. “I let you sleep in long enough.” A moment later, Sophie felt the cool air against her naked body as the comforter was pulled off. She finally gave in, rolling onto her back and pandiculating to satisfaction. She opened her eyes and looked over to Violet, who was standing in front of the vanity brushing her hair.
“What’s up, V? You’re showering without me now?” Sophie asked.
“Only when I need to actually get clean.” Violet responded with a reserved smile.
Violet was the kind of woman who presented herself as professional and serious as possible. Generally, she was able to manage and suppress emotion so well that many of her colleagues believed her to be a clinical psychopath. Even the most misogynistic of her peers would avoid looking at her for fear of inviting her wrath. Sophie herself was often intimidated, if not by the woman’s calculating gaze, than by her stunning beauty and imposing stature. Sophie was glad to be on her good side.
After rolling herself out of bed, Sophie stood up and basked in the warm light from Apollon’s main star. She stretched again as she looked over Violet’s estate, then moved over to Violet and gave her a kiss. She may have been practiced at hiding her emotions from sight, but she wasn’t nearly as good at hiding them from touch. When Sophie’s lips touched hers, it was like all of Violet’s suppressed passion came out at once. When they parted again, Violet looked deep into Sophie’s eyes, but then looked away with a hint of shame hidden underneath an instantly stoic expression.
“Misty’s going to be returning today...” Violet said. Sophie pulled away, reminded of their current situation. “She’s scheduled to arrive before dusk. We... might not be able to see each other in person for a few weeks.”
“Okay.” It was all that Sophie could say. She thought about having the conversation, the one where she asks Violet to consider leaving her wife, but Sophie was well aware of her role in this relationship, and in the larger context as well. Running off with a married woman was an unrealistic pipedream in every sense. Just considering the scenario was a waste of time, but Sophie couldn’t help letting the fantasy play out in her mind. When she quietly moved toward the shower, Violet grabbed her wrist and pulled her back for another kiss.
“Maybe I can set up a meeting or two...” Violet said, caressing Sophie’s cheek, who smiled in kind.
As Sophie showered, Violet dressed herself and left the house. Sophie heard the faint atmospheric boom of an OTech Transport appearing in the sky, and a few seconds later, another pop as the air fills the vacuum where the transport used to be. Sophie rolled her eyes. After getting to know her, Sophie was starting to realize that a lot of the things Violet did to seem so cool and intimidating were lifted straight from the movies, like leaving the girl without saying goodbye, for example. Sophie wondered if she left a cheesy note on the dresser as well. When she walked back to the bedroom, sure enough, there was a note projected against the mirror that read ‘Until next time. XOXO’. Sophie would have liked a physical note that she could keep in her pocket, but understood Violet’s choice to do it digitally, in which only Sophie would be able to see it, and it wouldn’t be forgotten and discovered by Misty later.
She waived away the message, then dressed herself and left the house. Instead of taking an OTech Transport, Sophie opted to order an automated ground taxi, as it was much easier to obscure her identity. She ordered it to meet her a few kilometers down the road so she could get in her morning jog. Sophie loved the smell of the forest around her. It continued to surprise her how large the trees were after only 10 years since being planted. It reminded her of being back on Earth, which she supposed was the point.
When she finally met with the taxi, she hopped in the cab and set her destination to a condemned lumbermill outside of Apollon’s Capitol City. During her ride, she dove into her feed which primarily consisted of the current state of interstellar politics and OTech related science and technologies. The biggest news was from Apophis, the largest farming colony in the core. The local government declared martial law after widespread protests over Military Intelligence’s influence had become violent. Sophie expected it was going to happen eventually. Even she wasn’t fully on-board with some of the thing’s MI was doing. She thought it was entirely the fault of poor leadership, but part of her suspected that the whole mess was intentional to begin with. That wouldn’t surprise her either considering some of the jobs she had done in the past.
The next headline read ‘Scientists Hold Gathering to Discuss New Evidence for Intelligent Beings.’ Clickbait, Sophie thought. The last dozen times something like that had been reported, it ended up being ‘Monkey-like creature seems to cook food before eating it’ or something just as mundane. Even so, Sophie opened the link to read the article further. The article had no information about the evidence itself, only a list of a few of the top minds in the field who have confirmed that they are attending the conference.
Sophie consumed several articles by the time the Taxi came to a stop. The automated voice notified Sophie that there was an obstruction in the road, which was her cue to exit and continue on foot. She walked around the large tree that had conveniently fallen across the poorly maintained dirt trail. It was another kilometer before she arrived at the lumbermill. She went into the abandoned processing floor and down a stairwell to an unassuming metal door. She gripped the handle, making sure her fingers were specifically and evenly placed. When she pulled, the hidden biometric lock clicked and allowed her inside.
The next room was a small, much more highly technical scanner that verified her identity using a variety of methods. The scanning cycle took 15 seconds and was complimented by flashing lights and an unnecessary siren. Once it was complete, the inner door opened to a spacious underground area. One side was furnished with a couple of comfortable sofas and armchairs, a large coffee table, and a wall mounted display currently tuned to six different live news channels. The chaotic sound of six anchors was only barely audible over the combined sound of heavy metal music and the crackling of a welding torch.
Sophie descended the stairs and tried to access the volume controls through her interface, finding it to be blocked to nobody’s surprise. She followed the welding sound around the corner to a workshop area. In the middle of a lowered elevator platform lay the bones and gore of several vehicles that were in the process of being torn apart and re-assembled into a Frankenstein’s monster of machinery. On the other side of the pile of wreckage sat an exceptionally large man huddled over an outwardly disorganized worktable. Sophie approached him and stood at his side. She made no attempt to be quiet or sneak, but he still hadn’t noticed her. Just as he started making a new weld line, Sophie pushed on his elbow, causing the line to go wide and make an ugly mark on the otherwise pristine aluminum plate. The man jumped as it happened, then snuffed the torch and dropped it to the table. He then looked over to Sophie with an annoyed glare.
“Can you turn this shit down a little?” She mouthed, and a moment later, the music and television were at a comfortable level.
“That was dangerous, I could have hurt myself, you know?” Yarim said.
Yarim-Kish was a towering presence. Even in a sitting position he was nearly a head taller than Sophie, and he weighed nearly 3 times what his appearance would indicate due to the extensive prosthetics throughout his body. The man could break Sophie’s spine with one hand, but in the years that she had known him, she came to see him as a giant teddy bear without a drop of hate inside him.
“That’s funny, coming from the guy welding without a mask.”
“Cyber-eyes.” Yarim says, pointing to his temple.
“Yeah, and when an errant spark gets caught between your sclera and eyelid?”
“I’ll just thank God that the government is paying for it.”
“I don’t think Daddy Warbucks is going to be very happy about it.” As Sophie was speaking, Yarim continued welding, staring directly into the flame. Sophie rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Speaking of government property, home base has been hounding me about maintenance and practice, so... here I am.”
“Alright, take a seat over there and I’ll be with you after I’m finished with this piece.” Sophie sat on a stool on the other side of an adjacent table. She could see one of the streams on the display in the living area. It showed scenes of rioters clashing with police and entire city blocks burning.
“What do you think about the whole Apophis situation?” Sophie asked. Yarim sighed and shook his head.
“Seems like a royal fuck up to me. I don’t even really understand why we were there in the first place.”
“Well, official statement is Military Intelligence wasn’t there at all.”
“Do you really believe that?” Yarim chuckled. “MI isn’t ‘officially’ here either.”
“Why a farming colony though? The farmers on Apophis have got to be among the happiest people in the galaxy. Before this shitshow, I never would have seen them threatening rebellion or forming anything like ‘The Apophis Faction’.”
“I agree. Smells fucky to me.” Yarim finished the piece he was working on, then rolled across the floor on his custom reinforced stool to meet Sophie. “Alright, arms up.” Yarim instructed. Sophie followed his lead, holding both arms out in front of her. “Maintenance mode on.” He said.
Sophie scrolled through her interface to find the correct option. She could never remember where it was. She smiled nervously at Yarim, who rolled his eyes at her. It was a dance they had done several times before. Where Yarim used to tell her that she needed to do more maintenance, now all that was needed was a look. When Sophie finally found the option, her arms were locked in position and control was relinquished to Yarim. He took a moment to browse the selection of Sophie’s overdue practice courses, then loaded her into the Close Quarters Combat and Disarming course.
After a short loading bar, Sophie’s vision faded out, then back into a digital combat simulation. Sophie enjoyed practice enough, but she wasn’t a particular fan of the unrealistic, hyper digitized aesthetic of the practice programs. However, the program used an open-source, commonly used game engine, and Sophie had learned how to replace the character models to anything she wished. When the course started, instead of an onslaught of boring, featureless mannequins, Sophie was surrounded by insect-like bipedal monsters ripped straight from her favorite videogame. Yarim had forgotten about that and laughed as he saw Sophie go to town on these creatures.
“You know, that might make it difficult if you have to defend yourself against an actual human.” Yarim said.
“Oh? And I suppose the robot-mannequins make it easier?”
Yarim had no response. After he finished gathering his necessary tools, he adjusted Sophie’s arms into a comfortable position for him and instructed them to open. Both forearms suddenly split down the middle, her hands and fingers folding and curling away from the 20 cm blades as they extended outward. While Yarim went to work polishing the blades and tightening internal fasteners, he continued watching Sophie’s digital practice. She was a natural, easily disarming the monsters, often literally, with her hidden blades. After finishing a wave, Sophie continued speaking.
“Besides, don’t you reskin your chess pieces with pinup girls?”
“Well, yeah. What’s your point?”
“Don’t the girls distract you from focusing on your tactics?”
“Maybe.” Yarim smiled, but Sophie couldn’t see it. “Are you sure I’m not doing it to distract you?”
“Is that why you do it?” Sophie laughed.
The practice program was very basic, having her simply stand in one spot while waves of enemies came at her. No matter what weapon the practice had been started with, when she made it through 100 enemies, practice was completed for the week. It was as simple as it was boring. When she first had her brain interface implanted, she was blown away by the level of realism and control that was put into the Military Intelligence training and practice programs. They were her first experiences with fully cybernetic VR, and she had a soft spot in her heart for the program, but it had been 10 years since she had the surgeries, and the program hadn’t changed at all.
It was really getting stale, especially when compared to modern videogames like Wonderland. Unfortunately, even though it used the same engine and she played it often, her favorite videogame didn’t count towards her practice. It was a minor inconvenience. It was so basic that Sophie was able to achieve a state of flow, her bladed body slaughtering enemies in a dance of pure reflex, while her mind had a pleasant conversation with Yarim.
“So, how are you doing?” Yarim asked. His job wasn’t necessarily the therapist of the cell, but in working so closely during maintenance, the role had basically fallen on him.
“Pretty good, actually.” Sophie smiled, but it only reached her simulated lips.
“Yeah, there’s a little pep in your stabbin’ arm this morning. I guess you had a good night?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, how would you say it?” Yarim asked.
“It was...” Sophie lightly swooned as she thought about it. “It was a good night.” She said, and Yarim laughed.
“Okay... And how is the venerable Ms. Hodges?”
“She is great. God, she is so cool. Do you mind if I gush over her real quick?”
“That’s fine, just as long as I don’t have to clean it up.” Yarim laughed, Sophie would have called him a pervert had she actually heard what he said instead of talking over him.
“She’s a great cook, she’s absurdly smart and well spoken, and when she smiles at me, it just makes me weak in the knees. And she is just... So! Fucking! Hot!” Sophie punctuated her words by shanking some poor and helpless alien monster.
“She’s gotta have a prosthetic body, right? Lord knows she can afford one.”
“You know, I thought that at first too, but after a close inspection or two... I can confirm that she has a hundred percent flesh-and-blood human body.”
“Wow!” Yarim said. He took a moment to pull up public photos of her and swiped through a few. “There are models out there that pay millions in body mods to look half as good as she does.”
“I dunno, I think my arms look pretty good.”
“Yeah, and your arms cost millions, but also, your maintenance tech is a God.” As Yarim spoke, he was applying a salve to the edges of Sophie’s skin where it had split apart. Not only did it help the skin maintain a graft to the mechanical parts within, but it also helped the skin come back together without a visible seam.
“Yes, Yarim. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with them.”
“As it should be. So, she’s fully human then?”
“Well, she does have a cybernetic brain interface.” Sophie said as she finished the CQC course. Yarim quickly loaded the next course in the queue; Sidearms Practice. Sophie took the M1911 that materialized in front of her, starting the course.
“Did you guys... you know... touch brains?”
“Ugh, God, don’t say it like that! It sounds so gross!” Sophie compromised her combat stance to emphasize her disgust in the phrase. Yarim laughed. “No, Yarim. She’s made it clear that a direct connection to her interface is off limits to everyone except Misty.”
“Ehh, cyber-lovin’ is overrated anyway.”
“Speak for yourself, man.”
“I dunno. I prefer to feel my partner’s physical body. Maybe that’s just me.” Yarim said, shrugging his shoulders in a playfully smug manner. Sophie couldn’t see it, but she could tell that it was there.
“There’s something to be said about being able to change your body however you want and do things that aren’t possible in a civilized society, or in reality even, but I do get where you’re coming from. Some things, like the way she looks at me after a long day of work, the way her lips taste after she’s had her coffee, and the way she grips me when we’re sleeping, those subtleties don’t come through digitally. I mean, I wouldn’t go to Wonderland to sit in a living room and listen to someone complain about bureaucracy, but when it comes to Violet, I just can’t get enough!”
“You seem to like her a lot.”
“I do, man. I really do.”
“That’s really nice to hear, but as your friend, and your colleague, it’s my duty to remind you that Violet Hodges is under suspicion of developing OTech Weapons, and your goal in the relationship is not to fall in love, as much as I want to see it happen.” The dose of reality in Yarim’s voice was enough to bring Sophie to relative reality.
For a moment, Sophie lost her focus and was rewarded by her alien opponents with a six-inch laceration to her lower stomach. The gout of blood and protruding intestines didn’t look particularly realistic, but it certainly felt that way. Sophie let out a painful cry as she regained her composure. She continued without a response to Yarim, holding her gut together with her off hand until the end of the course. Fortunately, she only had a few kills to go.
“On the whole ‘doing our job’ front, how would you say things are going?” Yarim asked, loading up her Assault Rifle practice course. This one was far and away the easiest course for her, as it was her weapon of choice in Wonderland, with over a thousand hours in it’s operation.
“Not great. Or really great, I guess, depending on your perspective. I’ve been inside her office at ORD Headquarters and looked through as many physical documents I could find. I even placed a worm in her terminal for Cari over a month ago. Still, nobody’s found anything.”
“Maybe it is time for some brain-bumpin’.”
“Ugh, stop, that’s even worse!” Sophie shook her head in disgust. “Besides, isn’t doing a direct connection a big no-no? I remember Mirror nearly having a coronary when Cari wanted to connect with me. God forbid what she would do if she knew I had done it with my mark.”
“I’m pretty sure Ms. Hodges doesn’t have any programming or digital systems expertise. I don’t think there’s any threat to our benefactors.”
“That’s true, but I’m also not very graceful when it comes to online safety, I’ll admit. My anti-virus suite is probably laughably out of date.”
“As someone who’s currently networked with you and polishing your digitally controlled murder-arms, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” Yarim said. He was nearly finished adding a final protective coat to the metallic parts. “I do think you should meet with the Mirror though, ask her what she thinks.”
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“Uhh... I think I’m good. There’s no rush, right? I mean, considering Apophis, it might be a good idea to take a step back and take it easy for a little while. It’s not like I can do much for a while anyway since Misty’s returning for a few weeks or so.”
“Yeah, I suppose taking a break’s not a bad idea.” Yarim finished his work just as Sophie mopped up the last of her simulated combatants.
Yarim commanded the blades to retract and Sophies arms to close up, then gently traced the seams with his finger to make sure they sealed properly. When they dropped out of maintenance mode, Sophie took back control of her physical body with a series of satisfying stretches. She stood up from the stool and moved to a relatively uncluttered space to do some kinesthetic exercises, recalibrating her brain to her physical body.
“So... are you hanging around for a while? Wanna play chess?” Yarim asked.
“No, sorry. I gotta be at the shop soon. If I’m late again, my boss’s passive-aggressiveness will boil over into a psychotic murder-rampage.”
“Ugh. You’re still working at that coffee shop? Aren’t you like, a 30-something Intelligence Operative?”
“I’m 28, dick.” Sophie snapped. “And that’s only in Earth-years.”
“Yeah, Earth time is still the standard, unless you know something I don’t...” Yarim smirked, enjoying the banter. “Don’t you want a job that’s a little closer to your skillset? Like public or private security, or maybe journalism or something?”
“I like the coffee shop though.”
“You were just complaining about your overbearing boss...”
“I also like complaining about him. Furthermore, knowing that I could kill him 20 different ways before he hits the ground really takes the bite away from his bark.” After Sophie was finished recalibrating, she started gathering her things and heading for the door. “If you ever step outside of this Faraday cage, shoot me a message and we’ll get a chess game going.”
“And have Mirror rip my head off? No thanks.” Yarim chuckled. Sophie rolled her eyes and made a rude gesture to the air, brushing off Mirror’s no-contact rule. Yarim laughed and waved at Sophie. She was just about to step through the exit when Yarim yelled up to her, “And update your anti-virus software, for fuck’s sake!”
The ride back to the city was relatively short as Sophie listened to the news coverage of the riots on Apophis spreading like wildfire across the planet’s surface. It seemed to get worse with every hourly update. Sparks were even starting to flare in a few other systems. Sophie was hooked to the feed in morbid curiosity. It didn’t seem quite real to her. Watching it happen through a display in her interface, it felt more like a movie. She was reminded of films and documentaries about the cold war, about the Old Earth superpowers that started proxy wars and funded political revolutions. A chill ran down her spine as it began to sink in that she wasn’t thousands of light-years away from these events. In fact, she was smack-dab in the middle of this galaxy spanning crisis, and based on how the public was responding, she was on the wrong side.
The vehicle approached the massive monolithic tower in the center of the city that housed 90 percent of the planet’s 50 million people. She was so engrossed in the feed that she didn’t notice the vehicle come to a stop on a funicular just inside the tower. She always liked to watch Apollon curve away beneath her as she rose to the planet’s stratosphere, but today, she didn’t even step outside of the vehicle. Her attention was only pulled away when the vehicle announced its arrival outside of the coffee shop. Sophie didn’t end the news feed, only resized the window and placed it on mute before she entered the business. She was twelve minutes early, but even so, George already looked like he was going to have an aneurism.
Sophie smiled at him as she passed by his office on her way to the breakroom. She set her things aside, then tied her hair back and slipped into an apron. The job was an easy one. Most of the time, much like her combat practice, she could do the job on autopilot. She rarely needed to take orders and make the orders herself thanks to the automated barista. Mostly, she just cleaned and maintained the storefront and the automated barista itself. Before long, she had finished the previous shifts duties and her own, and all there was left to do was stand behind the counter and look busy.
Most days, she would go an entire shift without interacting with a single customer. She was watching more news as she mindlessly polished the countertop, and it took her a moment to notice a woman standing across from her. The figure startled her when she noticed it but maintained her composure.
“Welcome! How can I-” Sophie professionally turned and smiled to greet the woman, but when she looked up, Sophie was rendered speechless, and the blood ran from her face. Out of nearly 50 million people and thousands of coffee shops, it seemed unlikely that Sophie would be looking into the face of her illicit lover’s wife, but that was the situation she was in now.
“Hello.” Misty said with a smile that seemed to instill more hostility than friendliness. “I would like a large, iced coffee with caramel and cream, please.”
“Uh, s-sure.” Sophie stuttered. She grabbed a cup and went to work on the order, but it was as if she had forgotten how to make coffee, second-guessing her movements. “Are you sure you don’t want to use the machine? It can make your drink more quickly and with much more accurate measurements than I can.”
“No, thank you. I prefer the work of human hands. Imperfect measurements mean that the drink is slightly different every time, and the difference makes each cup more enjoyable, and less likely to become boring.”
Misty watched Sophie’s movements closely, maintaining her strained and creepy smile the entire time. The thoughts running through Sophie’s mind were overwhelming her. She was so nervous, even her mechanically augmented hands were trembling. When she finished the drink and handed it to Misty, Sophie half expected the woman to throw the cold drink right back in her face, but instead, Misty politely nodded.
“Thank you, Sophie.” Misty said, and a chill ran down Sophie’s spine. She was frozen in fear, a feeling she had never expected to experience in such a mundane situation. She had been trained to remain calm under pressure in countless life-threatening situations. ‘Encountering the other woman’ was not one of them. Misty stood in her place, simply smiling at Sophie. She thought, perhaps, Misty was waiting for a response.
“I-it’s no problem, ma’am. Is there anything else I can do for you?” Sophie squeaked out.
“No, thank you.” Misty said, then turned to leave the shop, but as she moved, she maintained eye contact and her uncanny smile. Just before she passed the threshold she spoke again. “Until next time.”
The moment Misty was out of sight, Sophie grabbed the counter to prevent herself buckling to the floor. She breathed heavily, working to suppress the building urge to vomit. She was shaking in terror as a flood of scenarios filled her thoughts. She wasn’t sure how long she stared at the counter, but it was long enough for her to receive concerned looks from the other seated patrons. When she noticed them, she gave them a polite smile, then slinked away to the back of the shop.
“I think I’m coming down with something, gotta go.” Sophie said as she passed George’s office.
“What?” George said, startled by Sophie’s abrupt statement. He shuffled to his feet, and by the time he was at his door, Sophie had already grabbed her things from the breakroom and was passing his door again on her way out. “You have like 2 more hours on your shift, it can’t wait until then?” George was turning from his standard angry-red color to a furious purple when Sophie didn’t respond to him. “Sophie!?” He yelled, just as she left the storefront.
Sophie wasted no time. She browsed through her interface file system until she found a script with an unintelligible name. Upon execution, the script launched a series of programs designed to obfuscate her identity while sending an urgent request to meet with the Mirror. Only a moment later, she received a message through her interface’s developer console.
>M: Sit at a corner table in Benning’s Courtyard on level 250. 20 minutes.
After Sophie confirmed receipt of the message, the console disappeared, and the script ended by removing itself from her system. She was restless. Instead of ordering another taxi, she decided to burn away her nervous energy by walking to her destination. When she entered the nearest pedestrian elevator, however, the confined space restricted her pacing and triggered a feeling of claustrophobia. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She clutched her chest as she slid down to the floor in the corner.
It was a feeling she had never felt before. She thought she knew what fear was. She thought she had felt it when playing horror videogames, or at least when she was being put under prior to her cybernetic surgeries, but this was completely different. Her only respite was that the elevator was empty, and nobody could see her ball up into the fetal position. The lift took several minutes to descend nearly 100 levels, but it felt like hours to Sophie. When the elevator began to slow, Sophie shot back up, dusted off her backside, and wiped the tears from her eyes before the door opened.
Level 250 was a beautiful arboretum that appeared more like a dense forest with a digital sky 20 floors above it. From the elevator, there was a set of branching paths, one of which was labeled with a sign reading ‘Benning’s Courtyard’. Sophie followed that path for nearly a kilometer until she entered a clearing that butted up into the corner of the tower. There were two small strip malls against the walls, and between them was the courtyard. As she was told, Sophie took a seat at the table in the farthest corner and proceeded to stare blankly out the window over Apollon city and the surrounding landscape.
She sat with her back to the corner and remained hyper aware of anyone walking by in her peripheral vision, so when Sophie noticed a woman suddenly appear sitting in the seat next to her, Sophie’s frayed nerves led her to overreact, throwing a fist in the stranger’s direction. She even tried to use her hidden blade, but the request was interrupted, and her entire arm locked in place before it could make contact with the woman’s face, who was simply staring at Sophie with a blank expression behind her feature-obscuring sunglasses.
“You need to update your virus software.” The Mirror said. Sophie sighed shakily as she realized who it was. The Mirror didn’t mess around with her identity. She always appeared different, and often didn’t appear at all, blocking her image from the cybernetic eyes of onlookers, as she had just done to Sophie. The Mirror unlocked Sophie’s arms, and Sophie sat back in her chair. “What do you need?” The Mirror said.
“I umm... I think I may have been compromised.” The shame that Sophie felt was palpable as she looked down at her feet.
“What makes you think that?”
“Violet Hodges’ wife spoke to me while I was working at my cover job.”
“Okay. What did she say?”
“Not a lot. She wanted a handmade iced coffee... And she called me by my name.”
“Alright.” The Mirror was silent for a moment. “I see you are listed publicly as an employee on the shop’s website. You may as well have been wearing a nametag. Was there anything else that may have indicated her suspicion in you?”
“Uh, I suppose she didn’t say anything else but... the way she looked at me was... unnerving.”
“Hmm...” The Mirror contemplated. “I’m accessing your footage of the encounter.”
Sophie sank in her chair. She had forgotten that her eyes and ears were constantly recording every moment of her conscious life. The data was only stored for two weeks, but that was plenty long enough for The Mirror to witness Sophie’s recent sexual exploits, as well as a few conversations in which she may have shit-talked behind the Mirror’s back. Frankly, Sophie assumed the Mirror watched all that anyway, but it was still uncomfortable to know it was happening in real-time.
“Wow. You weren’t lying. That’s really fuckin creepy.” The Mirror said with an uncharacteristic chuckle. “I’m glad that you came to me with this, and I am going to be keeping an eye on Misty Hodges out of an abundance of caution, but at this point, there’s no way to know whether she suspects you of sleeping with her wife, if she thinks you’re a Military Intelligence Operative, or if the whole thing was a coincidence.”
Sophie sighed heavily and rubbed her face. There was a small sense of relief, but she was still shaken by the experience. She didn’t know what she was hoping to hear.
“I’ve placed a new script in your system. If you encounter Misty again, run the script and you’ll be directly connected to me.” The Mirror paused, inspecting Sophie’s body language. “Do you understand?”
“Yeah, yes I do.” Sophie said. The Mirror stood up, then vanished from Sophie’s vision. Sophie sighed again and leaned back in her chair. She was then startled by the Mirror’s disembodied voice.
“And update your fucking virus software. Jesus Christ.”
Sophie rolled her eyes, though she expected the Mirror could still see her. She finally relented and remained seated for the next few minutes while her Anti-Virus software updated to its latest version. A part of her still felt it was annoying and a waste of time as another update would seemingly come along the day after she finally did it. However, she was now also considering the importance of her security. Once the update was complete, Sophie decided to head home.
She lived in the primary living complex within the tower. She took the elevator down over 100 more floors, then rode the mag-lev to her apartment. It was little more than a collapsible bed, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. After visiting with her faithful toilet, Sophie collapsed onto her bed and loaded up Wonderland. Generally, she would unwind by playing something violent and action heavy, but today, that didn’t seem very appealing. Instead, she loaded into an ecology simulation, where she could explore the wilderness and build a peaceful mountainside cottage. It wasn’t long before she had completely forgotten about her encounter.
A couple of hours into her session, she had completed her fantasy cabin. She took a seat on the porch overlooking the valley below and spawned a pipe filled with a substance simulating the appearance of cannabis, but with effects from a range of different drugs curated by Sophie. The intensity was controlled by how long she burned the substance, and today, the flame was particularly heavy. Within seconds of taking the first puff, Sophie felt weightless, and the vibrant intensity of colors in this world compelled her to giggle uncontrollably. It was a level of happiness that she only felt in one place in the real world. Just as she was thinking about her, Sophie received a message.
>V: Hey. You available?
Sophie smiled. Simply seeing a message from Violet made her feel butterflies, a feeling that was magnified by the digital drugs she was enjoying. Sophie went to reply, but hesitated. It was rare that Violet would contact Sophie at all while her wife was planetside. The prospect that this was an errant booty call was seeming less likely by the second. Sophie responded.
>S: Yeah Whatsup?
>V: She isn’t home yet, but she hasn’t contacted or responded to me since yesterday.
The uneasy feeling grew into alarm bells in Sophie’s head over the course of her reading the message. She wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a hallucination, so she stumbled through her interface menu and disabled the drug simulation. In a jarring instant, she was no longer impaired and re-read the message. The alarm bells didn’t go away. Sophie wanted to appease her by telling her that she saw Misty just a few hours ago, but immediately realized that was a bad idea.
>S: Maybe she’s trying to surprise you?
>V: Doubt it.
>V: The last time she surprised me, I nearly divorced her.
>S: I’m sure she’s fine
>S: And I’m always here if you need anything ❤
>V: (...)
Sophie watched Violet start typing, then stop, then start again several times before receiving the next message.
>V: Could you come by?
>S: You sure that’s a good idea?
>V: I don’t know.
>V: I’m just getting in my head about it
>V: And there was some heavy stuff at work
>V: I just need to be with somebody rn.
>V: Please?
The level of vulnerability that Violet was displaying was something that Sophie had never seen before. Sophie didn’t know what else she could say, except
>S: Sure thing
>S: Be there soon
>S: ❤
Sophie pulled herself out of Wonderland and back into the real world. She stood up and was out the door in seconds and was in a taxi and on her way out of the tower in minutes. She was racking her brain, thinking about how off the situation seemed. She toiled over whether this was important enough to contact the Mirror again, even if it wasn’t quite the situation she had laid out. Ultimately, she decided to err on the side of caution. She ran the Mirror’s new script.
“Are you in immediate danger?” The Mirror’s voice came in less than a second, along with a prompt that would allow Sophie to affirm silently, should she have needed to.
“Not at the moment, no.” Sophie replied.
“Did you encounter Misty again? I don’t see her.”
“Not exactly. In fact, it’s kindof the opposite. Violet contacted me a few minutes ago, saying that she hasn’t heard from Misty in over a day.”
“Hmm... It’s interesting that you say that. But that seems like information that could have waited until your check in at home base tomorrow.”
“Violet also asked me to go back to her place. It seems very fucky to me, so I thought you’d want to ride along just in case.” Sophie said. “What’s interesting about what I said?”
“Well, I’ve been monitoring Misty’s movements since your encounter with her. Or, I’ve been trying to. I lost her as soon as she left the coffee shop, and I could see her here and there throughout the city using facial recognition, which never provided a hundred percent match. I even ran facial recognition on the video from your eyes, and it only came out as a sixty-four percent match to Misty Hodges.”
“That seems low.”
“It does. Is it possible that you weren’t even speaking to Misty Hodges at all?”
“I... suppose so. I mean, I haven’t actually met her before, but I’m pretty familiar with her image and profile. It looked a hell of a lot like her.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of a long-lost twin?” If the Mirror was emotionally capable of laughter, this is where Sophie would have heard it. “Who am I kidding, of course you have.”
“That’s low, Mirror.”
“Feel free to send a complaint up the ladder.”
“Okay, so it may not have been Misty that spoke with me today. In a way, that makes me feel a little better. But the question remains. Violet said she was missing, so... where is Misty?”
“I don’t know. She was on the transport manifest, but otherwise, her interface has been offline for 27 hours now.” There was a quiet pause as the Mirror browsed for more information. Sophie did much the same, but lacking the online connections that the Mirror had, she was relegated to Misty’s intelligence profile. “Tell me more about Violet’s messages to you.”
“Go see for yourself.” Sophie said, knowing the Mirror likely already had access. “The last few messages are the equivalent to a wall of text from this woman. She’s insanely direct and short spoken over message. You’d think you were texting a psychopath.”
“Yeah, you’re not kidding.” The Mirror said. Sophie knew she was looking through some of their previous messages, and just as Sophie was about to give a warning, the Mirror interjected. “Whoa, Nelly!”
“Those photos aren’t for you, Mirror...”
“No. No they are not.” The Mirror said. There was a long pause, and Sophie was growing more irritated, knowing the Mirror was still scrolling up. “However, I would argue that it’s part of my job to monitor the communications of my operatives.”
“I’m pretty sure your job is just to communicate with MI. I don’t think you’re supposed to be doing intel at all.”
“Do you really think I get paid to just sit here day in and day out just waiting for daddy’s phone call?”
“Yes. I do.”
“I hate to break it to you, but it’s not nearly as glamorous. In fact, I get a lot more orders than you do.”
“Fine.” Sophie said, sensing that the Mirror was about to start in on a lecture. “Just try not to linger on my personal stuff. It’s creepy.”
“Don’t worry, you’re not my type.”
During the course of their conversation, the taxi made its way to the Hodges’ Estate.
“Whoa, there’s a pretty big black spot on the network around here.” The Mirror said.
“Shit.” Sophie shook her head. “Violet’s entire house has an air gapped network. I won’t have net access while I’m inside.”
“Dammit. Well, I won’t be much help to you while you’re inside. Just, uhh... talk to Violet, find out what’s going on, and make an excuse to go outside at some point, maybe just to help her get some fresh air or something. If you don’t contact me within 10 minutes after you step through the door, I’m going to have to contact home base and request an extraction. We really don’t need that kind of attention right now.”
“Copy that.” Sophie said. The vehicle had already driven much closer to the house than Sophie was usually comfortable with, but she still ended the ride before making it to the door.
Sophie continued on foot up the winding path, and when the entrance to the home came into view, Sophie noticed that the doors were already open. Knowing that Violet was not one to be slapdash about personal security, Sophie slowed her approach and inspected the doors more closely, finding the latches to have been broken open. As soon as she noticed it, so did the Mirror.
“Actually, I’m calling MI right now. Find some cover outside and wait for orders. The next packet is in 6 minutes.”
Sophie made no sound but made an affirmative gesture. As she started to retreat to the edge of the forest, Sophie noticed the hanging blinders moving in a nearby window, then heard an ear shattering scream cut short, coming from within the house. Sophie froze for a moment, then began to sprint toward the entrance.
“Sophie?” The Mirror shouted. Sophie continued running. “Sophie stop! That’s an or-“ The Mirror was cut off by digital artifacting and silence as Sophie crossed the threshold into the house. After passing the foyer, she turned into the living room to see Violet standing near the center of the room wearing a black nightgown.
“Violet...?” Sophie said. Violet turned toward her. She had a look of confusion and absolute terror on her face, and a dark red line across her throat. She took a step towards Sophie and tried to call out to her, but a torrent of blood began pouring out her neck and mouth. She stumbled with the first step, and Sophie rushed in to catch her. She wrapped her arms around the bloodied woman and gently tried to bring her to the ground.
That’s when she noticed the figure standing in the corner of the room. It was Misty, or not-Misty, the same one that Sophie had encountered earlier in the day. She was standing completely nude, and she was still bearing that unnerving, and considering current context, inhuman smile. Misty was a direct threat, and as she was trained to do, Sophie tried to rise to her feet and activated both of her concealed blades, but before she could lunge at the threat, she felt Violet pull her back down in a desperate attempt to hold on to her. Sophie looked back down at her. The woman she loved was crying profusely, and her screams came as a muffled gurgle. She looked at Sophie as if she could do something, anything to help.
Sophie looked back at Misty to find that she was gone. She looked in every direction, and again started to get up, but Violet grabbed the sides of her face and guided her gaze back to meet hers. As Sophie thought about the situation, her eyes began to well up. She was at a complete loss for options. All she could do was hold Violet as she began to convulse and watch as the life left her eyes.
Tears fell from Sophie’s eyes and mixed with the blood that was now covering them both. She sat there, motionless, staring into the eyes of a corpse until a loud boom rattled the entire house. It was the sound of an Emergency OTech Transport arriving in the atmosphere above her location. As much as Sophie wanted to stay with Violet, to die with her, Sophie’s well-honed flight response kicked in. She slid out from under Violet’s body and stood up. As she did, she scanned her immediate surroundings again, taking just a few seconds to look again for Misty, but she came up empty, and now she could hear the approaching chatter of medics and a security team rappelling down to the house.
Before they could surround her, Sophie sprinted out the front entrance. As soon as she was visible from the sky, Sophie heard one of the medics call out to her.
“Hey, you! Stop!” He yelled. Simultaneously, Sophie heard the Mirror screeching back into her head.
“Sophie?! What the fuck just happened?!” The mirror shouted. Sophie didn’t respond, she just continued sprinting toward the forest, then a moment later, she heard the distinct crack of bullets flying in her direction. She weaved through the trees until she was sure the security team had lost their line of site. She took shelter behind a large tree to respond to the Mirror who was still barking in her ear. “Is that gunfire?! You’re covered in blood! What in the hell happened in there?!”
“Violet’s dead...” Sophie spoke low.
“Excuse me?! Repeat fucking last!”
“Violet Hodges is dead!” Sophie shouted through gritted teeth, trying to maintain her fragile concealment. “She was killed by Misty Hodges!” Her voice broke, only barely able to get the message across. “Fuck!”
“Fuck is right! They must have captured your image as you left, they could be tracking you any second. I’m bricking your wireless firmware. Get to the safehouse within 8 hours for extraction. Otherwise, consider yourself burned.” The Mirror waited a moment for Sophie’s response, which came as a barely intelligible, frustrated grunt. “Good luck, Sophie.” The Mirror said, then the connection was cut, and Sophie’s vision was suddenly filled with network connection errors.
Sophie threw her head back against the tree with another expletive. She quickly wiped her tears away and took a deep breath, then continued sprinting into the dense forest.