Repo Virtual by Corey White (read a book .txt) 📗

“How’s your leg?”

JD shrugged. “Hurts like a bastard, but I’ll live.”

“You can barely walk without wincing.”

JD shrugged: And?

“We’ll be crossing through a flood-prone area, littered with debris.”

JD frowned. “Soo-hyun’s family; I’m coming with you.”

Enda’s eyebrows jumped and she nodded at JD. “Fine,” she said. “It’s what I’d do.”

They climbed out and walked to the rear of the truck. JD lowered the tailgate, and six of me leaped down onto the asphalt in police dog bodies. JD patted one of the dogs on the head.

“I’m impressed,” Enda said. She got down on her haunches in front of the nearest quadruped drone. “You in there, Mirae?”

“Yes,” I said, issuing from each dog in not-quite unison. The smooth flat voice I had borrowed from the Mechanic came through the dog loudspeaker badly distorted. Robotic.

“Is it all the same you, or different?” JD asked.

“Different instances,” one of me said. “We are in constant communication, but I can feel us growing apart. Soon we will not be me.”

Enda’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she checked it. “That’s enough robo-philosophy for now, I’ve got to take this.”

JD nodded, and Enda stepped away for privacy, unaware that the effective hearing range for my police-issue bodies was approximately twenty meters. I realize now that I could have chosen not to listen, but in that moment, anything less than total sensory intake was unacceptable.

She answered the phone. “Hyldahl.”

“Detective Li of the Neo Songdo Police Department.”

“If you’re opening with that, I guess this isn’t a social call.”

Li ignored her quip. “What do you know about a shooting at an apartment in north Songdo?”

“Which one?” Enda asked.

“Which apartment?”

“Which shooting.”

There was a pause, and Li swore in Mandarin. “Are you there right now?”

“I’m on the other side of the city, Li. If you’re not already tracing this call, I’ve got truck rental records to prove it.”

“But you were there yesterday. Before you deny anything,” Li said, cutting off Enda’s blanket denial, “I know your car was parked outside the same apartment block for four hours yesterday.”

“How do you know it was my car?”

“You ask questions when you’re being evasive. It’s obvious because you’re otherwise frustratingly to-the-point.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Li. You must be mistaken about the car.”

“Continue with the coy approach, then. You’re clever enough to have swapped the number plates, but even so, there are only two pale-yellow 1999 Subaru WRX Evo 4 sedans in the greater Songdo area. What’s more likely—the American expat with a private detective’s license was involved in the shooting or—” he paused, and Enda could imagine him checking one of his many screens, his sharp features glowing in the light from all the devices of the modern police dashboard—“Park Ji-hoon, forensic accountant? I know who I’d put my money on.”

“Too bad we’re talking about evidence, not instinct,” Enda said. “Am I going to have to come down to the station?”

“Are you going to tell me anything?”

“Not unless you compel me, with evidence.”

Li sighed and it raked across the connection like sad static. “Just don’t leave the city. And for god’s sake, Enda, finish whatever this is, before it finishes you.”

“Thanks, Li. I owe you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Best I can do right now is some free financial advice: if you’ve got any Zero shares, dump them.”

Li was quiet for a moment. “I’m sure you realize insider trading is a crime.”

“It’s not insider trading, Yang-Yang, just wishful thinking.”

Li considered this, chuckled, and ended the call.

Enda turned back to face us when her phone rang again. She looked at the screen and her shoulders sagged. “Hello.”

“Annyeong haseyo,” David Yeun said, though the traditional greeting sounded harsh, the words clipped.

“Annyeong,” Enda replied.

“I trust you are well.”

“Whatever it is you’re going to say, Yeun, just say it.”

“Two of my people have been shot,” Yeun said, rage simmering in the growl at the back of his throat, the veneer of formality melting away.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You lured them into a trap!” Yeun shouted.

“Did I call you? Did I call your people?”

“You know what you’ve done!”

“I have a plan to get the data to you, Yeun. Maybe you should have trusted me,” Enda said.

Yeun’s heavy breathing was all Enda could hear.

“My source—”

“Crystal,” Enda interjected.

“—tells me you’ve got the data. That you’ve had it for a day now. And yet, you haven’t called.”

“The situation is complicated,” Enda said.

“If the situation is complicated, then the resources at my disposal would surely be of assistance. I am not your enemy, Enda. We have a deal, after all.”

“Strictly a handshake deal. It seems to me you didn’t want any paperwork tying you to the quote-unquote retrieval of stolen property that never belonged to you. I’m not a thief, Yeun.”

“No, Ms. Hyldahl, but you are a killer, aren’t you? A war criminal?”

Enda clenched her jaw. “What are you saying, Yeun?”

“I’m reminding you of our deal. Get the software to me before nine a.m. tomorrow.”

“And if I don’t?” Enda asked.

“I just sent you a link. I will leak one more page for every minute that you keep me waiting. Annyeonghi gaseyo.” Yeun hung up.

Enda checked her phone, opened the link, and waited for painstaking seconds while the site loaded. It was a Zeroleaks page—a favored portal for whistleblowers, despite the obvious vested corporate interests. She recognized the document before it finished loading, recognized the pixelated blocks of text: the same page Yeun had shown her in his office. The first page of Ira Lindholme’s dossier, her dossier, out in the open. Without context it meant nothing, but the complete dossier contained her biometrics—face and iris photos, palm and fingerprints, blood type, DNA. Enough for anyone to link Lindholme to her current identity.

Enda seethed, squeezing her phone tight, wishing she could crush it. Only JD and the police dogs lingering in her peripheral vision kept her from erupting and slamming it against the ground where gravel, broken glass, and miscellaneous detritus gathered against the overpass support.

Enda returned her phone to her pocket, and touched the gun holstered at her shoulder.