Daughter of Mars #83 | (Tempting Fate Part 2)
Risa stared at a blurry patch of color upon the metal box in her hand. Brushed plastisteel didn’t make for much of a mirror, her reflection little more than random smears of beige and sparkling violet. Why am I putting this off? She tucked the tool pouch and her NetMini in her purse and took out a pair of cheap cloth shoes with plastic soles. They weren’t comfortable, but it beat going outside barefoot.
With her bag over one shoulder and the box under her other arm, Risa left the hotel room and made her way outside. A clerk at the front desk offered a polite nod as she passed. The bustle outside the hotel had only increased since she’d arrived. Two street musicians worked opposite ends of the courtyard between the building and the street. The man on the right paraded around, wearing a dozen different electronic instruments bedecked with flashing holograms and multicolored fiberoptic threads. His rival, seated like a monk, flailed at a stationary rig of round, hovering platforms. Far enough to one side or the other existed music, though a disharmonic mash of sound raged at the point where their reach overlapped.
Her nondescript grey dress and brown hair attracted little notice as she darted through the spectators and turned right at the bottom of a short staircase. Five manual taxis lurked on the street; three men and two women flashed eager smiles at her, which melted to grumbles when she walked right past them. Dire stares from the drivers relaxed to bored disregard when she also bypassed the PubTran terminal and kept going on foot.
A thin trail of yellow light guided her down the street. The visual artifact created by her cybernetic eyes passed under the glare of numerous holographic signs. All the shops within walking distance of Arcadia Estates were undoubtedly overpriced, even the restaurants. Risa kept her purse pressed to her side with her elbow, hand on the strap. The downside of looking like a visitor was wearing a sign begging to be taken advantage of. Not that she worried about a pack of gangers, at least not now that her ‘ware was online. She feared attention, anything that could draw notice to her being in the area around the time of a splice.
She passed through a cloud of fragrant steam rolling from the counter of a chicken booth. All manner of spices danced through her nostrils, every ethnic flavor combination one could ask for―or at least what some computer thought came closest. Scenes of Earth appeared on a massive holographic panel about four portly chefs in bright red Chinese tunics. She paused, mesmerized by the sight of trees, lakes, and grey mountains. A golden statue of Buddha appeared, followed by a scene of a city bedecked with minarets. Next came a forest with a cluster of blonde women, their hair in long pigtails, their dresses anachronistic.
I never thought of Earth as beautiful. She grumbled and looked away. What’s the point of visiting Mars to be reminded of Earth? Is it possible to be homesick as a species?
After walking for another four blocks, she hooked a left and followed a narrower street flooded with dark blue light. A few cyber-junkies lingered in the shadow of a shiny, teal pyramid above a door. The word ‘Míngtiān’ scrolled in a graceful arc over it, alternating with Chinese symbols. Artificial limbs, implanted blades, furry tails, and other cybernetic parts perched on stark white pedestals and clear stands inside.
Risa smiled to herself as some of the young people loitering there made fun of her for being a ‘norm.’ They couldn’t see the millions of credits of parts inside her; a chintzy 30,000 credit metal arm or a visible street-graft on the side of the head impressed them more. She resisted the temptation to flash her eyes at them; as satisfying as that would be, she could not risk standing out in anyone’s memory.
The Arcadia Exchange lay ahead. Financial and corporate skyscrapers circled a wide-open piazza divided into three tiers. Artificial plants adorned elevated platforms at the northwest and southeast corner. Aside from flower-lined walkways, benches and small fountains dominated the ground level, where the workaday types often came for lunch. Four stairways to the lower level glowed with flickering pastel colors from no less than forty tiny restaurants and a few bars. With Arcadia time edging on ten p.m., most of the activity gravitated to the areas below.
Acting the tourist again, Risa wandered the edges of the half-mile opening in the city. Much to her surprise, most of the flowers along the walkpaths were real. A glance up at the dark gem-like dome made her feel like an outsider. Life above ground offered space and beauty. She felt like an unwanted trespasser, as if Martian society pushed her underground, out of sight, away from their attempt to mimic Earth.
I’m being melodramatic. At the westernmost wall of the courtyard, a patch of bare plastisteel wall full of wire conduits and utility boxes caught her eye. There’s my baby. Risa diverted for the closest alley, about thirty yards to the right, working in a few ‘tourist gazing around’ spins to make sure no one watched her. She lingered at the corner for a moment, observing three visible MDF officers on patrol. When none of them faced in her direction, she slipped into the alley and backed out of sight.
Risa crouched in a gap between two refuse compressors and frowned. Last chance to change your mind. “Oh, Hell.”
She grumbled as she slipped out of the dress and shoes, which she stuffed in her purse in exchange for the tool pouch. Thankfully, Arcadia City didn’t simulate seasons. All year round, they kept it at a pleasant seventy degrees. Still, a bit chilly for traipsing about nude, but if everything went well, she wouldn’t be long.
After secreting her purse under one of the refuse machines, Risa stood with her back against the wall and activated her CamNano. Silvery metal coloration spread through her skin and hair. Within forty seconds, she’d become as close to invisible as one could get. She retrieved the cube and tools, holding them against the wall to disguise the apparently floating objects as much as possible while edging at a snail’s pace out of the alley to the square. Not that it helped; the CamNano recreated the items on her stomach, as if she were transparent.
Without a time constraint on the operation, she favored stealth at the expense of speed. Despite the relative warmth of the air, the chilly plastisteel ground numbed her toes before she arrived at her target twenty minutes later. Slow, controlled movements kept her invisible as she turned her back to the populated courtyard and knelt before a six-inch plastisteel tube. She shimmied to the left, where an armored panel offered access to the fiberoptic lines within.
A flick of the eyes through her command menu set the CamNano’s control software to record the wall in front of her for ten minutes. She pulled her hair in front of herself so her back could act like a terminal monitor, displaying an image of an unmolested wall while she worked. After setting the recorded image to loop playback, she unrolled the toolkit and proceeded to work the first of twenty-six screws out of the pipe housing.
People more than thirty feet away had little chance of noticing her as long as she kept her motions slow and short. Whenever voices or footsteps drew close, she froze. Only a technician would have any reason to get as close to this part of the wall as she was. If anyone did approach too close, they could see around her to the hole in the pipe. Having no idea what to use as an excuse for getting caught here, she worked as fast as her nerves would allow.
When the last screw came loose, she dug her fingernails around the eight-by-ten inch plastisteel plate and lifted it away. Careful not to make a sound, she set it against the wall below the bright cobalt-blue glow emanating from the opening. The image processor in her head compensated, adding a similar highlight to the false image of an unopened wall on her back to avoid a woman-shaped outline of ‘non-glow’.
She had memorized her target, AC4F-088D. Inch diameter cables bundled together inside a massive cable shroud. Within the access point she’d opened, they separated to allow the smaller wires to spread apart through a plastic separator where black bands bore barcodes identifying each one. Inside every sub-wire lay hundreds of fiberoptic strands half a millimeter thick. Floating translations appeared below each barcode, courtesy of her electronic eyes. Her gaze ran up and down the strands until she found the one she wanted, and a surgical Nano claw split the insulation.
As soon as she grabbed the cube, footsteps approached. Risa stopped breathing as a quartet of drunken suits walked by. Three women and a man, all with their arms over each other’s shoulders and laughing as if they’d heard the funniest joke ever told. Fear and a cold breeze on her bare bottom conspired to make her shiver. They’re coming over here to throw up where no one will care. Shit.
She remained motionless as an inebriated woman collapsed against the wall ten feet to her left. At that angle, the open conduit was as obvious as the sun, but the drunken office worker remained too focused on what wanted out of her gut. Risa reduced her breathing to shallow sips of air as the sound of vomiting nauseated her. Each splatter sounded a siren call to the contents of her own stomach, trying to lure it out. When the smell washed over her, a sour mixture of steak, whiskey, and fruity alcohol, Risa risked moving to cover her mouth.
The woman’s companions helped her up.
“Wait, I gotta pee,” said the woman.
“Not here.” The man pulled her upright. “Too many people with too many cameras.”
The other two women laughed almost to the point of falling over.
“But―” The woman who’d vomited grabbed at her expensive-looking skirt suit, hiking it up.
“No. The hotel is a two minute walk, you can wait.” The man pulled her away.
Risa exhaled.
When the sounds of their ungainly stumble faded, she opened the box and tugged the fiber tap out of the protective foam. A delicate wire strand dangled from a three-inch box, tipped with a mass of tiny photosensitive clamps.
“That was close,” said Shiro.
Risa’s heart stopped for a half second. By some miracle, she didn’t drop the cube.
He moved closer, turned, and leaned his back against the wall, standing within arm’s reach of her right side.
Shiro! She had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. Oh, God… I’m naked.
Related posts:
Daughter of Mars #82 | (Tempting Fate Part 1)Daughter of Mars #75 | (A Plea In Darkness part 1)Daughter of Mars #76 | A Plea in Darkness part 2
