Cyberpunk

overview started to synthesize. Hammurabi had just given me a digital copy of everything in the blackmail packages—cross-referenced and indexed for quick assimilation.
    “My grandfather invented it,” he said. “Giselle gave it its street name: the Gripee.”
    “Autonomous Microphalengeal Retrieval,” I whispered. “The term paper. Prescott Four stole the whole idea.”
    Sandeesh shook his head. “It was supposed to be a joint paper. The three of them.”
    “But, what—” I closed my mouth and scanned more of the documentation in my buffers. The Las Vegas School of International Business. Giselle Akkwild Haussingterre. The paternity test. The CAPR from Las Vegas SecD. The LegD report to Prescott Three. The internal doc trail between Prescott Four and Hammurabi’s grandfather. Giselle’s name mentioned more than once.
    The last document threw me for a fraction. The menu list of Chromosomic Therapy options in the iReset. I didn’t understand why the man dump had been included, until I read the details of the Chrome23 options.
    Suddenly the doc thread between Prescott Four and Prime Doctor made sense.
    I flinched, and some of the tea in my tiny cup spilled out onto my hand. “What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, suddenly not wanting this data in my head. Not wanting to have anything to do with this whole affair.
    “We were hoping you could talk to your CEO on our behalf.”
    “Our? Wait a fraction. You want me to become the blackmailer?”
    “He’ll listen to you.”
    “No he won’t—” The denial died in my throat. Actually , theory-brain pointed out, he would. Because you can spin a thousand variations on what will happen if the data spills into the medianet.
    It’s all about control, I had told Prescott Four, and I had never had it. I had been set up from the beginning.
    On the long ride back to ICE, I pulled up the image of Sophie and I (fuzzy) and the octopi (not as) and left it there in my field of vision. Eventually, she filled the void in my head.
    “Hello, Max.”
    “Hello, Sophie.” I had been thinking, going back over the course of events during this crisis, trying to find a hole in theory-brain’s assessment. I hadn’t had any luck. “I’d like you to do something for me.”
    “What is it?”
    “The last package. The one being delivered in the ICErack. Can you expedite it to Prescott Four’s office? Can it get there before I do?”
    “Yes, Max, I can do that.”
    “I thought you might.”
    She was quiet for a fraction. “Are you mad at me?”
    “No,” I said. “I’m just tired. This whole thing is—I’ll . . . I’ll be glad when it is done.”
    “Yes, Max, I will be too.”
    I felt the ’tubebus shift. Apogee. Back down to the surface now. Time to finish this. “Sophie,” I said, and the words were hard to say, but I had to get them out. “Please stop watching me. It’s an invasion of my bubble.”
    “I understand, Max. I’m sorry.”
    “I am too, Sophie.” I wiped in the image from my iView. “Good-bye, Sophie.”
    “Good-bye, Max.”
    It had been the eyes. Hammurabi’s and Sophie’s. Too similar to be a coincidence. And to be sure, I had queried a reverse lookup to B-R HumResD, which came back null. They didn’t have a Visual Monitor tagged with “Sophie.”
    I was killnining all the files on my office terminal when the door opened and Yullg squeezed his gigantic bulk into my tiny three square. He glared at me for a moment, and eventually realized there wasn’t going to be enough room for him, me, and Prescott Four. He popped his jaw menacingly and stepped back, allowing the InterCore CEO to enter.
    I tapped the button on my desk that engaged the security screens.
    “Grimester signed for the package,” he said. “The one you had routed to my office.”
    “Did he open it?” I asked.
    “Of course he did.”
    I didn’t say anything. Nor did Prescott Four, and we stared at each other for a few fractions before he shrugged and looked away. “Well, I was due for another XA anyway. He was starting to get a little annoying with that . . .” He waved his hand at his face. “That nasally thing he did.”
    I kept wiping my files.
    He giggled, and then caught himself. “You should have seen it,” he sighed.
    “I did.” I tapped my desk’s v-mon to life and showed him the feed. Grimester opening the large ICErack and discovering the desiccated corpse inside, and his ensuing panic that resulted in a minor explosion of bone and dust