13 – Cozy

Addie sat on the well-worn couch at the center of Glitchwitch’s very cluttered apartment. Tony was beside her, but he was distracted, reviewing the recon data with his PAI and, presumably, making plans for their operation. Addie would have been helping, but she was far more interested in what Glitch was doing. The netjacker was sitting at a very cluttered desk—more a table, really—staring at a holo display through her pink-shaded visor.

That visor was something; it almost looked like rust-tech, but the mods were too well done. The exposed wires looked purposeful, and the 3D-printed additions to the housing were elegant and blended seamlessly with the original frame. Heat spreaders rising out of them told the tale of extra processing power or maybe just high-speed memory modules. Whatever the case, it looked cool and was just one of the things that made Addie a little envious of the netjacker’s style.

Humpty sat on Glitch’s cluttered workstation, but he hadn’t been connected to anything yet. That was what Glitch was looking up—the specs for a cable she’d have to custom-fab. While the netjacker hummed, drumming her fingers on the arms of her weird half-chair, half-immersion rig, Addie looked around the space, taking in all the tech, collectibles, posters, and stuff. It made her own room, which her father called a disaster area, look positively neat.

She was reading the names of various local bands on the venue posters stapled to one wall when a clicking, humming sound erupted from the left corner of Glitch’s desk. Looking over, she saw it was one of the printers. The netjacker announced, “Printing the prong. I’ve got some cable over here somewhere.” She stood and began rummaging through a stack of plastic crates brimming with spools of wire.

“Anything I can do to help?” Addie asked.

“Nah, just chill. You want a drink? Fridge is under the table on the window wall.”

Tony lurched to his feet. “I’m thirsty. I’ll get you a drink, Ember.”

Addie smiled. “Something—”

“Sweet and fizzy?”

Before Addie could confirm or deny his assumption, Glitch added, “I’ve got strawberry Eye Poppers. Please drink them.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at Addie, and she shrugged, nodding. She’d had the drink before; it wasn’t bad, but a little more sour than she’d usually pick. As Tony moved around the couch toward the wall with high basement windows that allowed some diffuse neon from the nighttime street into the apartment, Addie turned back to Glitchwitch. “How’d you learn so much about this? I mean, Dust-tech and the Aurora Gate and all that.”

“Oh, when you’re a jacker, you tend to find lots of online communities where people discuss things the corpos don’t want you to know. Mostly so you can learn how to break encryptions, bypass hardware, and all that good stuff, but there’s plenty of talk about cool shit like your little egg-shaped buddy.” She pulled out a narrow, tubular black cable. “Aha!”

By then, the printer had stopped its noisy process, and she went over to it, opening the plastic shell to remove a tiny, silvery piece of tech. She held it up, examining its every angle. “This’ll let me plug my deck into your drone without soldering anything to the little guy.” She sat down and, with some tiny pliers and a crimper, began threading the individual wires from the cable into the prong’s housing. “The trick is getting the pinout right—Horizon didn’t exactly color-code things, but the specs were online. Not where you’d find ’em”—she winked at Addie—“but I knew where to look.”

Just then, Tony pressed an ice-cold beverage pouch against her neck, and Addie nearly jumped out of her shoes. “T—Shepherd!” She covered the slip-up well enough; the “t” had sounded almost like an exclamation. Tony chuckled, holding the pouch toward her, and she took it, scowling. “I’ll get you back.” She really emphasized her glare. “I hope you know that.”

As Addie twisted the tab on the pouch, releasing a hiss of strawberry-scented air, Glitch announced, “All right, plugging in.” Addie watched, interested more than she’d expected, as Glitch tugged a wire out of her wrist, plugged it into her deck, and then plugged the new cable into another port. Finally, she took the shiny new data prong and clicked it into the port Addie had opened on the bottom of Humpty’s matte-gray shell. “Oh, we have contact!”

“You’re in?” Tony asked.

“No, no. The cable’s working, though. Now, I just need to see if I can get past all this ICE. They didn’t want folks like me undoing all these governors and firmware locks. This might take a while, and I need to concentrate, so, um, talk amongst yourselves.”

Tony chuckled and sat beside Addie, twisting the tab off a drink like hers. She smiled, nodding toward the pouch. “In the mood for strawberry?”

He shrugged. “She said to drink these.” He tipped it into his mouth, squeezing a thin trickle of the pink, fizzy fluid into it. He made a face like he’d bitten into a lemon and hastily swallowed.

Addie laughed, sipping her own fizzy, sour, semi-sweet mouthful. “Ah!” she said with a satisfied smile. “That hits the spot. What’s the matter? Too sour for you?”

Her taunting worked, and as he lifted the pouch for another sip, she reached over and nudged his elbow. Her timing was perfect, and he squirted a thin stream onto his face. He didn’t exclaim or cuss; he just frowned at her as he used his sleeve to wipe his chin. Addie couldn’t contain her giggle as she leaned away from him, protecting her drink from retaliation. “I warned you!”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess you did. You understand how escalation works in warfare, right?”

“Escalation…” Addie’s giggles faded as she put her feet onto the couch, putting her legs between herself and Tony for protection. “We’re even! No escalation!”

He shrugged, looking at her feet. “I’m a patient man.”

Addie suddenly felt bad, putting her shoes on the couch, regardless of its stained, ancient status, so she said, “Untie my shoes, would you?” It wasn’t that she couldn’t slip them off without untying them; it was more that she wanted to see if he’d do it. He narrowed his eyes, taking another sour sip, then reached down and tugged the laces on her old-school canvas tennies. He didn’t stop there, though. He wormed his finger under the laces and tugged, loosening them up, then, one by one, he pulled her shoes off, dropping them onto the cluttered rug.

“Good?”

Addie wriggled her toes in her mismatched pink and yellow socks. “Good. Thank you.” She shifted, tugging one of Glitch’s colorful pillows up under her shoulders so she could comfortably lie back.

Tony threw one arm over the back of the couch and sank into the cushions, and she thought he was going to close his eye and doze off or something, but then JJ announced, “Tony wants to open comms with you.”

Addie stared at the accept button, mentally accepting. JJ wasn’t great at picking up her mental intentions, but when it came to something as direct as pushing a button on her AUI, he was pretty good. When the comm link was established, Tony’s voice came through immediately. “How are your subvocalizations?”

He hadn’t moved a muscle, and Addie hadn’t noticed his throat moving. Subvocalizing was a way of speaking, kind of in the back of your throat, that any PAI, even a cheapo like JJ, could pick up. It was something a lot of people did automatically when they read silently or verbalized a thought without…verbalizing—like saying the words silently, just barely moving the tongue. Addie stared at the comm link and subvocalized, “I’m okay at it, but JJ misses a word here and there.”

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“Cool. We’ll use this type of thing more and more as we get into jobs where we need to communicate around people we don’t trust.”

“You don’t trust Glitchwitch?”

“I’m not saying that,” came his immediate reply. “I just thought it would be a good chance to practice.”

“I like her,” Addie said. She wondered why she did that—blurted her feelings.

“She likes you too.” His reply, conveyed via his PAI’s interpretation of his silently formed words, didn’t carry any connotation, but Addie wondered if there was something there. Was he jealous? Was he saying their new team member liked her more than she liked Tony? Something else? Nothing?

She decided to assume there wasn’t anything ulterior to the words. “I’m glad. Now all we have to do is see if she gets along with Beef.”

Tony chuckled audibly, and Addie jostled him with her foot. He tilted his head to peer at her, narrowing his one human-looking eye, and then, quicker than she could blink, he snatched her ankle with his cybernetic hand. He didn’t squeeze, but she panicked anyway, tugging her foot, but it was hopeless; it was like being caught by a gentle bear trap. His voice came through comms, “How about we test your tolerance for torture?” He held up his other hand, wriggling his fingers.

“No!” Addie blurted aloud. “Don’t. Please, T—Shepherd!”

He snorted, releasing her ankle and returning to his reclined position. Addie looked at Glitch, wondering if she had taken note of the outburst, but the netjacker was fully absorbed in her task. Tony’s voice came to her again, “Sorry if I upset you; I guess some people have a thing about tickling…”

Addie subvocalized back, “I’m just really ticklish. It’s nothing bad. Thank you for listening.”

By way of answer, he put his hand on her foot—his warm, human hand—just resting it on the top near her ankle. It was nice, and for some reason, it meant more to Addie than the times he’d put his arm over her shoulders—it was an affectionate touch that you couldn’t really explain away as something he might do to any old chum. As the warmth built between his hand and her foot, she felt an answering heat in her chest, a comfortable, safe feeling, and she found herself hoping that Glitch would take a long time to puzzle through Humpty’s “governors and firmware locks.”

“What are you thinking about?” Tony asked through their comms.

Something in Addie made her push her luck, risking him pulling away. “I was thinking about you. I was wondering, um, why you’re broke. You talk about being paranoid as an operator; didn’t you have a secret stash?” She was only half lying; she had been thinking about that, just not at that moment.

“Ah. Yeah, I did, but the problem was that even though I was smart about some things, I was an idiot about others. I trusted one person in the world with everything I knew—one person I thought would never betray me.” Just as before, Addie couldn’t recognize any discernable emotion in his words, thanks to the fact that he was subvocalizing, but she took it as a good sign that he didn’t move his hand.

“Eric?” she guessed.

“Yep. When I got Nora installed and tried to connect to our backup bit-vaults, they were gone. I might still have some things I can recover in ’Hattan; I had other friends and stashed a go-bag here and there. Problem is, they were Eric’s friends, too, and the way things shook out, those folks will either have turned on me, or I’ll get ’em killed if I come knocking.”

“Cross Corp. is really that powerful?”

“They really are.”

“You seem different lately. You’re answering my questions.” Addie tried to take the words back, but as always, they had a no-refund policy.

To her surprise, even her blunt observations didn’t send him into a retreat. “I… You promise you won’t laugh?”

“I wouldn’t!” Addie said the words aloud and glanced at Glitch, hoping she hadn’t broken some kind of spell. The netjacker was still staring into her visor, though, motionless as she fought her obscure, digital battle.

Tony looked at her, hesitating, then, idly tapping his fingers on her ankle, he subvocalized, “I’ve been talking to a shrink program that Nora downloaded.”

Addie stared at him, wondering if a joke was coming. Was he being serious? It didn’t seem possible. She licked her lips, aware that her response would probably have a significant impact on their relationship. She decided some honest sharing of her own was the right move. “I did that before. When my mom died, and my dad kind of…folded into himself.”

Tony arched an eyebrow at her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. If you can believe it, one of the synth instructors at Boxer Secondary suggested it. I had to use the public decks at the school, but I remember sitting there for hours after classes talking to that AI.” Addie smiled and stretched her legs, pressing the soles of her feet against Tony’s leg. He didn’t take his hand away.

When she didn’t say anything more, Addie swore she could see some tension bleed out of him as he sank a little further into the cushions, exhaling through his nose. After a while, he said, “That’s cool.”

Addie smiled, gently nudging his thigh with her foot. Rather than subvocalize, she spoke softly, saying, “It is cool. I’m glad we can talk a little more.”

“Yeah, me too.” Apparently, he wasn’t done, though, because his voice came through comms again: “You know, I don’t want to sound all mysterious and ominous, but there’s still a…topic that I’m avoiding. I’m not quite ready to face it, to, um, deal with it. I’m working on it, though, okay?”

Addie stared at him until he turned toward her, and their eyes locked. “Okay, Tony. You don’t have to hurry things on my account. I’m not going anywhere.”

He inhaled deeply, slowly breathing out through his nose, and then he squeezed her foot again, nodding and leaning back. Addie had a good idea of what the “topic” was. She was sure it had to do with a woman—someone he’d lost or someone who’d betrayed him. Whoever she was and whatever had happened, it was still too fresh and raw for him to face, and unlike her, Tony seemed capable of stuffing his feelings in a box and locking them away. She was just glad he was taking things out of that box and working on them. As long as he was trying, she was willing to be patient.

She sipped her—frankly awful—drink and luxuriated in the cozy closeness she and Tony were sharing on Glitchwitch’s couch, content to be quiet for a while, content to just be. Glitchwitch occasionally made little exclamations, and her fingers would sometimes fly up, tapping some element of her AUI. However, for the most part, the woman was still while she worked, though Addie could tell from the tiny twitches of her toes that she was listening to music.

Addie was eager to see what was hidden inside Humpty’s shell, and she spent a while fantasizing about that. Would he have an AI? Did that mean he’d finally have a voice? What else would he be capable of doing? The idea that she’d be able to have him pick up and move things around was a game-changer in itself. She didn’t want to count on it, though. She didn’t want to get too excited, only for Glitchwitch to tell her that she’d been mistaken and that his hidden functions were beyond her or, worse, completely removed.

Her thoughts drifted to the lab they’d staked out earlier. They’d gotten a good idea of the security on hand and the movements of the staff as they changed shifts. It seemed like almost everyone went home before seven, and, as far as they’d been able to discern, there were only a handful of guards on duty at night. Tony had been encouraged, and when Glitch had proclaimed that the security systems were “cobwebbed,” he’d been even more so. Addie hadn’t wanted to look dumb and ask what she meant, but it didn’t matter; JJ found the slang on the city net. It just meant “out of date.”

She looked at Tony again, noting that, even with his head back, reclining on the couch, a tiny muscle at the base of his jaw twitched regularly. Was he grinding his teeth, or was it a spasm? She’d had little facial muscle spasms like that before. She stared for another few seconds, and he must have felt it because he looked at her. “What?” his voice asked, coming through comms.

“Are you grinding your teeth?”

He snorted, shaking his head. “Nah. I don’t think so.”

Out of the blue, she asked, “Wanna do something after this?”

“It’s already almost midnight.”

“I mean, if you—”

“Yeah, sure. What do you have in mind?”

“Wanna watch a vid? Like an old movie or something?”

“Yeah. Hell yeah.”

Addie nudged his leg with her foot again. “Good answer, mister.”

Before she could savor her victory, Glitch announced, “I think I’ve done everything I can.” She spun in her chair, facing the two of them as she lifted her pink-lensed visor onto her forehead, revealing sky-blue eyes that looked way too pretty to be real. “I unlocked all of his features, but his AI chip is dormant, and none of the activation codes I found on the city net are working to wake it up.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I’ll keep digging. Everything seems to be intact, so that’s good, at least.”

Addie reluctantly pulled her feet away from Tony and sat up on the couch. “That’s okay, Glitch. Thank you for trying! You said you unlocked some other features?”

The netjacker grinned, exposing a small gap between her two front teeth. “Oh, I sure did, sis. You’ve got a hell of a little buddy here. Why don’t you establish a connection, and we can run through it all.”

Addie scooted forward, her heart rate quickening. Humpty was her favorite thing in the world, and he’d just been changed. Would she be able to tell? He’d belonged to her grandma, and… What if he wasn’t the same? Shouldn’t she have considered that before allowing Glitchwitch to mess around with him? What if she couldn’t control him as well? What if—

Suddenly, Tony’s fingers curled around her wrist, sliding down to cup her hand in his. She looked at him, and he nodded encouragingly. How had he known she needed a little support? She smiled at him, and then she sent her consciousness out along the Dust-laden pathways of her matrix, into the air, and then into the cozy, familiar embrace of her trusty little drone.