Up Against It - M. J. Locke [142]
“Just being a good soldier, eh?” she told Harbaugh. To Obyx, she said, “So. Here’s a rider on our agreement. You ever mess with my neurochemistry again, and I will not rest till I bring you down. Mind-hacking is a serious crime, and I will pursue it. I will use every last shred of my power, every last connection I have left, to take your organization apart, piece by piece, and leave you with nothing. Even if it kills me. Understand?”
Obyx and Jane studied each other for a long, tense moment. Then Obyx gave a single nod. “Fair enough.”
Sarah was eyeing them both. She did not look happy. “Where does all this leave us?”
“Let’s review terms,” Obyx said. “You want all my resources at your disposal to produce your anti-‘Stroiders’ hack. When do you need it?”
“Right away.”
Obyx lifted hir eyebrows at Harbaugh, who said, “It so happens that we occasionally have need of such a technology. We have it on hand.”
“And in return you agree to keep silent about your suspicions regarding the feral sapient,” Obyx said, “and to give us a berth on Sisyphus, to use as we see fit, no questions asked. Without alerting anyone that something out of the ordinary might be happening.”
“Yes.”
Obyx looked at her askance, as though doubtful she could bring herself to do such a thing. Ze extended both upper sets of hands, and Jane brushed hands with hir, both right and left, thinking, and now I’ve made my own deal with the devil. Sarah was shaking her head in dismay.
“Draw up the papers for us, won’t you?” Obyx said to Sarah. “For your usual fee.”
“I think I deserve hazardous duty pay for this one,” Sarah muttered.
While Sarah and Obyx stayed behind to discuss other matters, Harbaugh took Jane down the way to outfit her waveware. Jane felt as if she were walking through an amusement park ride that had gone overboard with the biologicals. Inside one room they passed she got a glimpse of someone in a nutrient cocoon, reaching out to adjust a monitor, and realized that that must be how they hacked themselves.
Harbaugh took her to a chamber with several different nooks and technology stations. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing at a chair. “This will only take a few minutes. What waveware do you use?”
She removed her ear unit and handed it to him.
“It’s Intel’s latest quantum processor, I forget the model. Plenty of free memory—I keep it clean. I have a cortical interface with standard gold and an RS-1482 bus.” She tipped her head to show him the tiny gold connector that rested in her ear canal.
“Good. This will just take a minute.” He pulled down a screen and plugged her computer into it, and started the download. Then he leaned against the counter, arms folded, eyeing her. She sensed he did not truly trust her.
“Was Ivan Kovak really a Viridian?” she asked.
“Depends on your definition. He wasn’t modded. But he and his family attended services occasionally. We never turn people away.”
“I can’t help wondering about him,” Jane said. “He surely knew he would not be able to get out alive. The mob doesn’t inspire the obsessive, delusional sort of mind-set that leads people to throw their lives away in a grand gesture. What could have led him to end his life in such a way?”
Harbaugh frowned. “From everything I saw, up till near the end, he seemed … content. He loved his spouses; he loved his kids. They had money struggles—they were trying to survive as artists by doing skilled and unskilled labor. But of the three partners, he seemed least disturbed by it. He said to me one time that wealth begins when your belly is full, which always struck me as a healthy attitude.” He shrugged. “All I can surmise is that the financial strain ultimately split the partnership, and their leaving broke him. They were everything to him. The kids especially.”
Jane shook her head, lips pursed. “Learned, we don’t have firm proof yet, but the police are convinced that the Ogilvies used their connection with him from his days on Vesta. They promised him that his family would be provided for if he would do this thing.”
She could tell she had shocked him. “What makes