Dream Drive Ch. 05

Chaki didn't have a ticket. More importantly, the TOM would also tell the officer if the person being scanned was wanted for kidnapping.

"Chaki, if he's seen the picture, he might recognize you. You need another color, now."

Chaki's eyes darted around. They were almost alone in their car, but people could easily see them if they looked down the center of the train. "I can't!"

"Stay low in the seat."

"But –"

"You don't have a choice!"

Chaki slithered into the very bottom of her seat and started struggling to get the hoodie over her arms. She got it off – exposing the smooth brown skin of her stomach and breasts. Despite the situation, Jackson found himself doing a small double-take. Right. This is what I don't want to marry because I'm a giant fuckhead.

She blushed maroon at his look, then jammed her new orange hoodie on. Jackson went back to his tablet and worked it furiously, hacking into the phone of their closest neighbor - a lonely businessman in a suit and tie a few seats ahead of them.

The police officer reached businessman. The TOM's blue beam flickered on the windows as it passed over the man's body. It beeped a bright green.

"Sorry for the trouble," the officer said.

The businessman was blinking from the bright light. He waved a hand vaguely. "Just doing your job."

"You know, I appreciate that," the cop said. "Have a good one."

"You too."

Jackson relished the few extra moments while the software package on his tablet cycled. He tucked the computer between his legs, out of sight of the officer. "Kiss me," Jackson said.

Chaki's mouth fell open a bit. She looked between the oncoming policeman and Jackson's face. "Um, well...I mean..."

Jackson grabbed Chaki and pulled her into a kiss. She resisted for a moment, for one reason or another, and then her lips parted. Jackson only half paid attention to the feeling of his tongue on hers. One eye was locked on his tablet.

The officer made a sort of sighed groan that told Jackson he'd seen what they were doing about ten thousand times. He didn't bother walking down the end of the car; he just sent the TOM after them.

Jackson felt Chaki tense up as it approached. Her eyes opened; she was turning to look at it. He kissed her harder and snuck a hand up under her hoodie, reaching up along her hip and groping at her breast. She forgot about the TOM.

The blue light flashed over Jackson. It beeped green. It flashed over Chaki, beeped green again.

The officer didn't bother to check the TOM's detailed readout, which would now be telling him that it had just scanned the businessman for the third time. He started back toward the other end of the train, and the machine duly followed. Jackson broke off the kiss and watched him walk away until he was in the next car over.

"Hey," Chaki said. "Why'd you stop?"

Jackson kept his face forward. "Keep your guard up. We aren't home until the –"

Chaki pressed her lips back on top of his. It was his turn to be a little surprised – but he let the kiss happen. And then he started to answer it.

It turned into something hungry very quickly. They were both trying to take the other in, taste each other, fight each other with their tongues. Jackson's sense of her through their bond surged; he felt golden coals starting to burn hotter. The kiss was fuel.

The past few days, they'd been close, physically. But Jackson had inserted something between them. He'd been scared.

He found that fear to be melting away quickly. He wanted this. She wanted this.

She'd seen his world, seen him, and she still wanted to kiss him. Shouldn't that be enough?

Jackson broke off the kiss; he just wanted to look at her, to take her in, as if to remind himself that she wasn't a dream. She looked back at him, breathing softly after their effort. He brushed a loose strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear. She smiled.

"...once more into the breach?" Jackson said.

"Is that a saying?" Chaki asked.

He nodded. "It means...gathering yourself, and taking one more risk. One more try."

"I see."

The rest of the train ride was quiet, interrupted only by soft, easy kisses.

****
"We weren't able to identify him. We're still searching the registry, but we didn't get a clear photo, and he was using a jammer. Do you have any idea who he was?"

Charles hesitated, his head cocked to his phone. The officer he was speaking to was relatively reliable, but if Charles made the ID, his name would get written down at some point. He'd have to come into the station. He didn't particularly care to set metaphorical fingerprints on this incident - not until he was sure that Jackson wouldn't be able to slip away again.

"No," Charles said. "I remain an anonymous tip. The authorities will catch him after that escapade in the plaza. Let me know if he's found."

"Understood. I'll keep you posted."

Charles hung up and looked at his smiling reflection in the window. The hovercar drifted in lane a hundred feet above the ground. The sun glinted off the steel of Boston's skyline. Hundreds of feet below, the streets teamed with the organized armies of self-driven cars and hordes of ant-like pedestrians. It felt like a vibrant sort of day.

Jackson was better than he'd thought. Charles had been on the brink of clearing out his schedule to prepare for a long night with Chaki before he'd gotten the call from his man at the station. He'd dodged an Atlas and three Sprawl Troopers. Not bad.

Charles sat back in his leather seat and put on his Ftaps. The glove-computers looked like simple black leather from the outside, but they housed state-of-the-art technology. Steel plates on the knuckles and fingertips provided cushioning from impacts; the rest was backed fiber-carbon mesh. He could punch a man in the jaw, turn about, and keep working.

Charles stretched his right palm, extending his fingers out wide, and held there a moment. The command set an invisible keyboard in the air in front of him, at the same level as his hand.

A visual holographic keyboard would have made the Ftaps almost a pound heavier. Charles didn't want the weight; instead, he had the position of every key memorized - easy enough when you used a keyboard every day. The plates on his fingers tips shined green as his fingers moved over the air; the intensity of the light was a subtle indicator of the distance between his fingers and the 'keys'.

His gloves had automatically connected to the monitor on the car seat in front of him, though they could project their own screen up a wall in a pinch. He dragged the screen around remotely, using his finger like a mouse, and quickly found what he was looking for – a fresh news story had a video clip of Jackson running through an open subway station, dragging Chaki behind him. A bold red headline read Abduction in Broad Daylight?

Charles closed the tab of his web browser and connected to a new piece of hardware he'd just installed. After slipping the device into the school computers, he had access to the entire student database, grades included. His own were already adjusted. Good.

He was competent with technology, but he was smart enough to admit he wasn't a power user like Jackson. The device was something manufactured by men who didn't ask questions if enough money was provided.

Jackson wasn't like those men; he was much better than those bottom-feeders. That also made him nearly impossible to control. They'd long since left that stage in their relationship.

Charles hadn't had time in two years to pay attention to his grades. He had more important things to do. The piggybacked drive on the institute's network would let him alter his scholastic credentials as needed; he was getting tired of going through the effort of cheating. A pleasant side effect would be the ability to take care of a few lingering issues – issues like Jackson Vedalt.

Charles quickly brought up Jackson's personal information. He sent his address and a photograph of his good friend to the head of his father's personal security team. He fingers flashed green as he typed out a message.

Put two men on Jackson Vedalt's apartment. Learn his routine. I want to know when he eats, when he sleeps, when he shits. Find out everything about his family and anything else that can be used against him. I want a report every three days.

Charles hit the enter key. He waited patiently, smiling up at the driver in the rear-view mirror. The man's eyes flicked to Charles's face, then back to the skyway. Sweat beaded in the lines of his forehead.

Charles heard a soft beep. He opened the reply.

Understood. Anything I need to know about this guy?

Charles typed a brief response. He's a modder, and a good one. Use caution where tech is involved. Deal with this gently. It's a personal matter.

Charles sent the message, then clenched his fist. That shut down the Ftap keyboard. He settled back into the seat to watch the green-and-purple Glenstadd Engineering building soar by. He liked that aesthetic – the slightly gaudy style of men that were good at what they did and painted their building whatever colors they felt like.

The head of security, Dan Miller, would understand what Charles meant by 'a personal matter'. Charles was confident that Jackson would be in hand once again very shortly. A personal matter for Charles was a top priority for Mr. Miller.

Charles looked at his driver. The man was making the final turn to the rooftop of Ransfeld General Hospital and Mental Health Research Center. The hovercar reversed two of its ten rotary turboprops, slowing quickly. "How is the matter with my sister?"

The man's throat bobbed as he swallowed. "Nothing yet, sir."

"I see. Send a call ahead to Dr. Chi that I'd like to see her once I arrive. I want her waiting in the research ward's atrium." Charles's perpetual smile brightened. "Do that for me immediately."

"Yes sir." The man reached up to touch the communicator at his ear and relay the command.

The car settled to the hoverpad, landing on wheels that protruded from the undercarriage. The rush of wind from the turboprops outside the windows slowly died. The driver switched to ground controls and peeled into the open parking spot closest to the door, heralded by a sign that read Ransfeld.

Charles got out of the car without bothering to wait for the driver to open his door. "You know, you should smile a little more. You practically look depressed."

"Yes sir," the man said. A smile as fake as the car's leather interior was instantly plastered on his face.

"Needs improvement," Charles said, "but effort is important." He swept through the door.

The hallways of Ransfeld General were pale green, lined with an off-white baseboard. Lights embedded in shaded fixtures kept them bright without being harsh. Charles ran his finger along one wall, testing to see if his eyesight was fooling him. Not a speck of dust – that was good. He'd gotten tired of hiring a new cleaning crew every few weeks. This latest batch seemed to understand that they had a job to do.

Charles grinned and nodded at the personnel he passed; nurses, doctors, green-clad surgeons, security guards. They all smiled back admirably. Few of the expressions were genuine. It was a routine for them, an obsequious acknowledgement of his position. But effort was important.

There was that one guard that made more of an ugly smirk than a smile, but it was the best he could do. Half his face had been burned off in an unfortunate accident two years, three months, and twenty seven days prior. Charles could only imagine the excruciating pain he must have felt.

Of course, after that experience, he always remembered to smile when Charles walked by. A smile was the least he could ask of his employees, wasn't it? He believed in appreciating the small things. His employees should behave in a manner that reflected his beliefs, because Charles's beliefs were Ransfeld International's sacred tenants.

His father's suite was a standard hospital room on the 15th floor. Charles had wanted him in better accommodations, like his sister, but he'd refused. It wasn't because he believed he didn't deserve it, but because he didn't want to put any unnecessary burden on company resources - not even for himself. He was a man of ruthless efficiency.

Charles opened the door. The nurse was in attendance, arranging flowers on his bedside. The freckles on her nose were cute.

His father, George, was hooked by wires, cables, and tubes to a dozen machines; he would not have been alive without them. His wispy grey hair still had streaks of their family's blonde. His face was covered by the stress lines that defined his life in a quest for workplace perfection.

"Charlie. How are..." George started coughing, a long, wheezing hack. "Ugh. Damn lungs. How are things today?"

"Up."

"How up?"

Charles swept his hands out. The black gloves threw a projection up on the wall. Charles used his fingers to open a web browser.

His home page was centered with the latest from the G.A.U. Exchange. Headlines blazed across the screen in a border around that small core, floating in from news stations that he had feeds on. The recent push against the Bloc from Eastern Cameroon into the wasteland that was formerly the Central African Republic was going well, though Charles new better than to trust mainstream media where the war was concerned. Another story revealed high cancer rates in fusion plant workers; a joint venture was on to sue the government of France for hiding the risks from new hires.

The third headline announced the impending beta release of Isis, the latest and greatest from Crux software and genius software designer Emil Mohammed. Charles had two problems with this; first, the fact that news about a video game had somehow made it onto his homepage; and second, that people considered the man a genius when Rachel could probably outdo him. Charles did not spend much time in cyberspace; it was a device, useful as a tool of communication, but only the real world mattered in the end. The Dream Hub's twisted promise of perfected unreality was poison to the human race.

Charles's eyes flicked to the side. His favorite stocks and derivatives were shown in a table on the right. "We're up 0.6% from this morning, despite the loss of the Davidson contract," he said. "I was able to play it down. Most investors are still happy after we won the patent fight over Mentra last month."

His father narrowed his eyes. "Did those upstarts beat us to it?"

"Highland Pharmaceutics," Charles confirmed. He watched as the nurse left the room. She answered his smile with a sincere smile of her own. He'd look her up later.

"What pushed them over?" George asked.

"They lead the world in advanced prosthetics," Charles said. "They're smaller than us, but their greater foundational quality in the field won them the contract."

"So what actually happened?"

"The CEO's niece happened to get engaged to the son of a man on the I.C.R.B. two weeks ago," Charles said. "I knew it was a lost cause at that point."

George coughed, then cleared his throat with the frustrated heave of someone that was sick of coughing. "Davidson was the edge we needed to gain stable market share in prosthetics."

Charles shrugged. "Apparently our low-budget design couldn't beat out the soft hearts that wanted the best for crippled soldiers."

George chuckled bitterly. "I wonder how big the dowry was?" He looked at Charles. "We have to brute force this. We gave Highland too much slack for two long. What do we have on them?"

"Three of their eight board members are in our pocket," Charles said. "The director will be soon. He has an unfortunate drug habit."

"How did you learn that?"

"Rumors I heard at the wedding." Charles's smile went small, until his lips were thin pink lines drawn across his face. "I've absorbed the dealers that supply him."

George started chuckling again, but it turned into another cough. He shifted his body, heading it off somewhat before it could get started. He sighed and fell back into his pillows. "How is school? You mentioned something about grades."

"I've got more important things to worry about than attendance; I made the dean see reason."

"There's something else bothering you."

Charles hated how his father could read him. He was smiling, wasn't he? He looked happy, didn't he? How did his father know that?

"Well?" George asked.

Charles clenched his fist again; the projection on the wall flicked off. He turned his gloved palms up. "I had a run in with an old friend today. A former friend, I suppose."

"Former?" His father struggled to sit up a little straighter.

"We worked well together," Charles said, "but we had differing visions, you might say."

"He must have been of small vision, then."

"No," Charles said. His smile turned into somewhat of a smirk. "He had visions even bigger than mine. He just didn't know how to capitalize on them."

"I remember this," George said. "He's the one that made your right leg, isn't he? That's what got you thinking we needed to get into prosthetics."

"He did." Charles sighed. "It's a shame, really. We had a falling out, but it was only today that he made it personal."

His father eyed him for a moment, then nodded. "For a time, boy, I was afraid you wouldn't want to take the company. I thought you'd want out from under my shadow. I'm glad that didn't happen."

Charles made his smile a little brighter. "I suppose I am, too. But why the change in subject?"

"I need to get the words out while I can."

"It's not that bad."

"Don't tell me it's not bad," the old man spat. The effort was too harsh – he started coughing again, wheezing in long, heavy gasps. It was almost a minute before he caught his breath again. He put a hand on his chest, as if steadying his body against the pillows. "I don't have much time left. We need to talk about your sister. How is she?"

"She's being taken care of."

"I need more than that, Charlie."

"Her condition remains unchanged."

George sighed; it was a crackling sound, sent out through a mucus-filled throat. "Dammit. I don't know how...you're twins, for god's sake. How is it that you're so different?"

"Fraternal."

"I'm out of time," George said. "We went wrong somewhere, Charlie. It's up to you to find out where."

Charles considered the proposition for a moment, pushed his smile up a little more, and nodded. "I will."

"I know. Thank God for that."

"Do you believe in God?" Charles asked.

George hacked a cough – it sounded wet. He drew a tissue from a plastic side-table and spat into it. Charles didn't miss the red spot in the phlegm.

"I don't know," George said, "but he seems pretty appealing at the moment. No atheists in foxholes." The man sat back and closed his eyes. His wrinkles smoothed a bit. "Tired, today. I feel like I'm sleeping half my days away lately."

You are. "You seem fine to me."

"Take care of her."

"I am. I will." Charles's smile shrunk as small as it had ever in his many years of smiling. "Nothing will happen to her."

"Good."

Charles sat there for a time. The analogue clock on the wall, a quaint anachronism in a room filled with digital machinery, steadily ticked away the seconds, and then minutes. George's breathing slowed, evened out, and he slipped into sleep.

Charles stood.

Each morning, he examined his schedule, which he usually prepared in full the previous week, barring the small day-to-day adjustments. He always sent a copy to his father's computer; George knew that Charles would show up at precisely this time today.

Charles followed that schedule religiously. He readied himself for each day based on what he had to do. His suit was tailored with quite a bit more pocket space than it seemed, but a certain level of foresight was required when you had a financial empire to run. Especially for the bits that were not on his father's copy of the schedule.