14 – Losttech

As Addie's consciousness spread into the drone, and she felt the familiar hooks—a word she’d coined for things she could grasp onto mentally to make the drone do things—she was immediately aware that there were more than usual. There were the usual ones that allowed her to open and close the camera apertures, that made the drone move this way and that, and the new one she’d found to open the data port. Now, though, she felt several others.

“How do I know what the different functions are?” she asked, hesitating.

“Well, I can describe some standard ones to you, but I have no idea how you, um, see them. Maybe just try each one? There shouldn’t be anything dangerous…” Glitch trailed off, and, to Addie, she sounded a little unsure.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Well, I mean, I unlocked everything, so you should have control of its gravity field now, but it’s a small gravity drive, and you don’t have a million Dust units to feed it, so I don’t think you can do much harm.”

Addie nodded, licking her lips in concentration, and then she grabbed ahold of one of the new hooks and stretched her consciousness into it. “Oh,” she said softly as she felt it out.

“What?” Tony asked, scooting forward to look at the little drone hovering in the space before the couch.

“Watch,” Addie said, smiling. A new aperture snicked open in the top half of Humpty’s shell, and a slender, multi-jointed metallic tentacle, for lack of a better word, snaked out, waving in the air.

“Oh! It has that for grasping and manipulating objects!” Glitch rolled her chair closer, peering closely at the little limb as it swayed left and right. “Can you control it?”

Addie grinned. She certainly could; she could feel it almost like her own hand. To illustrate, she made it stretch toward Glitch’s face, gently tapping the netjacker on the cheek before pulling back. “It’s easy.”

“Try another!” Glitch said, near breathless with her enthusiasm.

Addie nodded and retracted the tentacle to conserve Dust. Then, she grasped the next hook. “Hmm,” she said, manipulating it. “This feels very similar.” Another aperture opened, and she extended a second hidden limb, but this one was a straight, telescoping rod about thirty centimeters long. At its tip were a dozen tiny tentacles with shiny, golden tips.

“It’s a data jack!” Glitch crowed, clapping her hands. “You can configure the tip to match all sorts of ports.”

“Ah!” Addie nodded as the explanation helped her understanding of the new limb click into place. She stretched her consciousness into the limb, and there she felt the little hooks for the tiny tentacles. The drone dropped toward the floor, and she had to refocus her attention, bringing it back up before it crashed. “It’s a little difficult to manipulate all these, but I can do it.”

“I, um”—Glitchwitch looked from Addie to Tony, then back again—“don’t think most people could work that without the drone’s AI to help.”

“I told you she’s good.” Of course, Tony’s words brought a little flush to Addie’s cheeks, and she tried to tune them out as she withdrew the data jack and moved her focus to the next new function. As she slid her consciousness around it, she immediately felt a close connection to the gravity drive. It was similar to the hook that let her move Humpty around—another function of the gravity drive—but this one was clearly meant to allow her to project the field without moving the drone.

As the others watched, she flew the drone over to Glitch’s desk and, using Humpty’s cameras, not her eyes, she focused on a little soldering iron, projecting and wrapping the drone’s gravity field out and around it. Grinning, she moved the drone, and the soldering iron moved with it, floating about half a meter below Humpty.

“Oh, now that’s shiny!” Glitch said, eyes wide as her mouth hung open, practically drooling. “How much can you lift?”

“Not sure,” Addie whispered, concentrating. “JJ, Dust report.” A window flickered into being on her AUI:

Dust Purity: Impure -

Dust Capacity: 145/200

“I think it’s burning a lot. My Dust reactor was almost full when I got here.” An idea occurred to her, and she said, “JJ, start a timer for thirty seconds, with the start being when you displayed my Dust report.”

“Good idea, sis!” Glitch flashed her a smile, and Tony grunted his agreement, leaning back.

“I won’t do anything else until the time’s up.”

“Are there more functions?” Tony asked.

Before Addie could respond, Glitch said, “I’m not sure. I just removed the governor software after I deleted the ICE the reseller put in there.”

Addie smiled. “There’s one more hook.”

“Hook?” Glitch and Tony both asked.

“It’s what I call the little, um, connections I can feel inside Humpty. I mean, inside my spider, too.”

Glitch wriggled her fingers, making her hand crawl through the air. “You have a spider?”

“It’s not like Humpty,” Tony said. “Just a piece of modern tech—a little spy drone.”

“Ah.”

JJ announced, “It has been thirty seconds.”

“Dust report.”

Dust Purity: Impure -

Dust Capacity: 109/200

“Oh wow,” Addie chuckled. “I’m chewing through Dust. Just lifting this little soldering iron cost me thirty-six Dust.”

Glitch didn’t seem discouraged. “For thirty seconds, though. Set it down; let’s try something else.”

Addie sent Humpty over to the desk and deposited the soldering iron. “Dust report.”

Dust Purity: Impure -

Dust Capacity: 105/200

She looked at Glitch. “Okay, what do you want me to try?”

The netjacker grinned broadly. “Try picking me up.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. How much Dust do you have?”

“At the moment? Just about one hundred.”

Glitch nodded. “Pick me up, but do a Dust report like two seconds afterward. If my theory is correct, the heavier the object, the more Dust you’ll burn, but I don’t think the cost will be linear. If it’s linear, you shouldn’t be able to pick me up at all because I’m about two hundred times heavier than that soldering iron.”

“Why wouldn’t it be linear?” Tony asked.

“I’m not a gravity drive expert, so I don’t know the math; I just know they function on exponential curves. A drive the size of the one in your drone can do a lot if you feed it enough Dust, especially if it’s not dirty like the drek we get here in the Blast. Honestly, if you wanted to make enough scratch to get out of the Blast and start a career in ’Hattan, there are companies that would pay a lot for that little gravity drive.”

“Not happening,” Tony growled.

“Hey”—Glitch held up her hands, palms out—“I wouldn’t sell it either. Bits come easy, but this is losttech.” She looked at Addie. “You ever tried to price drones like Humpty?”

Addie nodded. “Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t find one just like him, but I’ve seen similar for a few thousand bits—”

“Hah!” Glitch shook her head, chuckling. “No, you didn’t! Did those drones have gravity drives?”

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“Um, most had props. Some had air jets, but they had good Dust engines, so they could fly without fuel—”

“That’s modern tech, sis. This is AI-era stuff. Corps can’t make shit that elegant anymore.” She jerked her thumb at Humpty. “You could get half a million for this little buddy.”

Tony cleared his throat, and Addie looked at him, her heart fluttering a little after Glitch’s pronouncement. She felt stupid all of a sudden. Could she really be so ignorant? Was Glitch right? Tony must have recognized something in her expression because he smiled encouragingly as he said, “Well, I’ve got to admit, I’ve worked with a lot of techs, and none of them had a drone like Humpty. I’ve seen gravity drives in operation, though—usually in a high-level exec’s private jet. Brightstar Corp has a shuttle with one—it can fly to Luna, but I guess it’s not fast enough to make the trip to Mars…”

Glitch chuckled, shaking her head. “Nah, you need a fusion reactor and drive for that, but I promise you, those ships also have gravity drives on board.” She scooted a little closer and nudged Addie’s knee with hers. “Well, sis? You gonna try to pick me up, or what?”

“Um, all right, one sec. JJ, Dust report.”

Dust Purity:

Impure -

Dust Capacity: 105/200

“Okay, good. He’s hardly burning anything, just hovering there. That’s normal.” Part of her had been worried that unlocking his other abilities would make him more inefficient. Addie concentrated, felt the controls for Humpty’s gravity drive, and then stretched it out to encompass Glitch. She only managed to stretch it about halfway down her torso before it just wouldn’t go any further. Chuckling nervously, she said, “I can’t do it. The drive can’t project the field that far.”

“Oh. Hmm…” Glitch pulled her feet onto her seat and hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them. “How about now?”

“Let me try.” This time, when Addie tried to stretch the field around Glitch, it reached. “Okay, hold on.” She lifted Humpty toward the ceiling, and Glitch yelped as she floated off her seat. Addie laughed and called up her Dust report again:

Dust Purity: Impure -

Dust Capacity: 45/200

“Oh, shoot! Look out—”

Humpty sputtered, his constant gentle hum fading, and then he fell, and so did Glitch. Luckily, the netjacker was only about half a meter off her seat, and she caught herself. Tony stood and snatched Humpty before he could fall to the floor.

Addie tried to thank him, but she swooned, light-headed from the sudden separation of her consciousness from Humpty. Palming Humpty in one hand, Tony grabbed her shoulder, keeping her from toppling out of the couch. “Th-thanks.”

“Oof!” Glitch laughed, spinning her chair. “That was wild! Imagine if you had a better reactor or cleaner Dust!”

“You okay?” Tony asked, gently squeezing Addie’s shoulder as she blinked her eyes, shaking her head.

“I’m okay. It’s just disorienting when the connection severs suddenly.”

Glitch, caught up in her mania, stopped spinning and cocked her head at Addie. “Oh, shoot. I’m sorry, sis. I should’ve thought of that.”

“No, no.” Addie waved a hand, finally able to force a convincing smile. “I knew what I was doing. It’s not the first time I’ve run Humpty until my last unit was gone.”

Glitch nodded, smiling. “Well, that answers our question, at least. Until you have more Dust, you can’t be hauling around heavy stuff.”

Tony held Humpty out to her, and Addie took him, gently resting him on her lap. “I don’t really need to use the gravity drive for what we need. The um, tentacle—”

“It’s called an MFL,” Glitch interjected. “Multi-function limb.”

“Oh, cool.” Addie chuckled, gently patting the drone’s casing. “I’d rather say that than tentacle. Anyway, the MFL will work for what we need, right? I can carry your jammer wherever we need it.”

“Yes! And the data jack will allow you to transmit my programs into their network. I saw ports on their security panel, but even better, on the camera array above the main entry. Your drone is so quiet and small—it’ll be super easy to get him into position.”

“Awesome,” Tony said, slapping his knees and then standing. “Should we head out, Ember?”

“Hey!” Glitch pouted, folding her arms over her chest with a huff. “Just use me and bail? How about a drink to celebrate? We can also test out Humpty’s last function after Ember’s rested a while.”

“Ah…” Tony looked at Addie, raising an eyebrow. He was thinking about how she’d asked to hang out with him after Glitch was done, and the thought made her smile.

She flashed him a thumbs-up. “Let’s have a drink, but not another one of those Eye Poppers!”

Glitch laughed, shaking her head. “How about if I mix up some margs?”

Tony collapsed back onto the couch, smiling from ear to ear. “Now you’re talking.”

Glitch clapped her hands together, leaping out of her chair. “Give me five!” She walked—no, Addie corrected herself, she sauntered—between her stacks of things to the other side of the apartment, where her kitchen counter and fridge were.

Tony nudged Addie’s shoulder. “You sure you’re cool?”

Addie hugged Humpty to her chest, leaning back into the couch cushions beside him. “I’m more than cool. Thank you for saving Humpty. I don’t know how durable he is when it comes to falls.”

“No problem. Are you freaking out about how valuable he is? I feel kind of stupid having not realizing it, myself. I mean, there’s a reason every car isn’t running around with a gravity drive.”

Addie nodded. She’d sort of put it out of her mind after the attempt to lift Glitch, but now it was front and center again. “I mean, we aren’t the only ones. I’ve run him all over the district, and people have commented about how nice he is or that it’s primo Dust-tech, but if anyone really knew what he was worth—I feel like one of the gangs would have robbed me by now.”

“The corps keep knowledge about that level of tech tightly guarded. I think people see Humpty floating around and don’t really make the connection. I mean, his gravity drive… Air jets can mimic them pretty convincingly, especially from a distance when you can’t hear ’em. Then you’ve got the mil-sec drones with actual jets and enclosed props.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you with Humpty—it’s like walking around with a rhodium-plated arm. People would just think it’s chrome.”

“Rhodium?”

He laughed. “Expensive metal.”

“Oh!” Addie blushed a little, looking down at Humpty. “Yeah, that makes sense.” She drummed her fingers lightly on the drone’s casing, then asked, “Are we going to do the job tomorrow?”

“I think we ought to, yeah. I don’t like waiting until the last day. I mean, in case something goes wrong and we have to push it.”

“Are you nervous?”

Tony chuckled, arching an eyebrow at her. “Me? Nah. I’m a little concerned about Beef, but you were right when you said he knows how to get serious when needed. I think we’ll be good.”

“Do you think you’ll have to…” Addie cleared her throat a little nervously. “Um, hurt anyone?”

“I hope not, but Ads—” He caught himself using her nickname and looked over his shoulder. Glitch was humming to herself, pouring stuff into a blender. “Sorry about that. Anyway, I was gonna say you gotta remember who we’re dealing with. Boxer is a major corp. You don’t need me to spell out why that makes them the bad guys, do you?”

Addie snorted, shaking her head. “You know you don’t. I’ve spent years writing stories about the unethical stuff they do. But people who work for a corp aren’t necessarily—”

“Bad? These are corpo-sec officers we’ll be dealing with—corpo-sec who are actively holding a man against his will. I might be willing to give a new recruit a little slack, a little leeway, considering they might not really know what kind of dirty shit corporate security gets up to. But anyone who’s worked in that role for more than a week has to know they’re the bad guys. If everyone living in the Blast feels like they have to run and hide when Boxer corpo-sec is en route, what does that tell you?”

Addie sighed, nodding. “Fair.”

The blender kicked on in the kitchen, filling the apartment with its grinding noise, and Tony nudged Addie. “I used to be one of those assholes. I mean, not by title, but by deed. I hope you can remember that and weigh it against any feelings you might be—”

Addie stretched out her hand, pressing a finger to his lips. “Hush, T.” She didn’t try to cover her use of his nickname, not with the blender roaring in the kitchen. “As far as I’m concerned, that person never came to the Blast. Your slate was clean with me when we met, and you’ve never done anything to make me regret being close to you.”

Tony took her hand and pulled it away from his mouth. He didn’t let go. In fact, he gently caressed her knuckles with his thumb as a sly grin spread on his lips. “I wonder if Eric knows what a massive goddamn favor he did me by dumping me in Helldog territory?”

Addie snorted. “Do you think he thought he was signing your death warrant?”

“Yeah. That or Jen told him to do it. I heard something when they drugged me up, but it’s all kind of a blur. Maybe Eric was supposed to kill me…” He shook his head, sighing. “I don’t want to think about that stuff anymore tonight, okay?”

Addie squeezed his fingers. “Fair enough.”

When Glitch came their way, three glasses clinking and wobbling precariously in one hand and the pitcher of icy margarita mix in the other, Tony let go of Addie’s hand and said, “Looks good, Glitch.”

The netjacker smiled and tilted her head, eyeing Tony and Addie. Addie had a feeling she was about to ask something personal, but the question surprised her: “Why do people do that?”

Tony looked at Addie, puzzled, and when she shrugged, he looked back at Glitch. “What?”

“Shorten my name to Glitch? I mean, instead of Witch?” She laughed and plopped down in her chair, scooting closer to the couch.

“You want us to call you Witch?” Addie asked, incredulous.

“If you call me ‘Glitch,’ it implies I’m the glitch. Whereas my intent with my self-made moniker is to give people the impression that I am the architect of the glitches.”

“Ah!” Addie laughed and took a glass that Glitchwitch offered. “You’re like a sorceress who creates glitches with her magic!”

“Right,” the netjacker said, beaming. She handed Tony a glass and then proceeded to pour her icy mix into it. She repeated the process for Addie and herself, saying, “Don’t worry. I’m mostly teasing. I’m happy to answer to Glitch, but just know: I will never be offended if you call me ‘Witch’ instead.”

“Right on,” Tony said, sipping his drink. “For the record, I think Glitchwitch is a pretty damn shiny handle.”

Addie nodded, slurping some of the icy, sour-sweet mix. As she swallowed, the afterburn of potent alcohol made her eyes water. “Sheesh, Witch! Are you trying to get me drunk?”

The netjacker grinned, licking her lips as her pretty blue eyes twinkled. “How else am I going to talk you into letting me put some ink on you?”

Tony laughed as Addie’s eyes widened, and she looked at Glitchwitch’s many tattoos in a new light. “Oh, um—”

Glitch grinned and winked. “Oh, don’t panic, sis. I’d never force the issue. But shoot, I think you’d be even cuter with a little Humpty tatt on your shoulder or, hmm, maybe your chest…” She giggled and sipped her drink.

Tony clicked his tongue, nudging Addie with his elbow. “Glitch, let’s get some jobs under our belts together before we start commemorating our friendship with ink, yeah?”

“Oh, fine, Mr. Buzzkill.” She spun in her chair, and when she was facing them again, she asked, “So, tell me about this fourth member. You said he’s muscle, right?”

Addie licked her lips and took another sip of her drink, pleased to be out of the spotlight. When Tony looked at her to answer the question, she shook her head and said, “You tell her about him. I want to hear how you’d describe him, too.”

Tony shrugged, took a huge gulp of his drink, and held his glass out to Glitch for a refill. “I might as well get a buzz going if I’m going to be telling stories. I think a good way to introduce Beef to you is if I tell you about the time he and Ember came to bust my ass out of a freezer where some guys were going to chop me up for spare parts…”