24 – Tier Nine

Addie collapsed onto the pile of moving-blankets, making an exaggerated groan of exhaustion. “Please tell me that was the last load!”

Tony chuckled, leaning a shoulder against the van, while her dad rolled up the cargo straps. “You know it was. I already told you.”

“Tony,” Addie sighed, waving a dismissive hand, “I’m trying to be dramatic here! Three days, Dad! Three days moving your old inventory, and let’s be honest, half that junk has been in your store since I was a teen!”

“Addie, my love, you’ve been saying the same thing for three days. I can’t think of any more creative ways to tell you you’re wrong. Now, if you want me to pay my share of the rent, you’ll have to accept that I sell a lot of stuff you consider junk!” To Addie’s utter sense of betrayal, her dad put the strap down and held out a hand to Tony, who shook it. “Thanks for all the help, Tony. I’m glad I didn’t have to hire movers.”

“Not a problem.”

“Excuse me?” Addie jumped up. “I moved twice as much as Tony on Sunday!”

Tony snickered as he walked toward their little apartment in the back of the warehouse. “I’m going to get cleaned up.”

“Oh, hush, sweetie. You know I appreciate you.” Her Dad held up one of his big arms, and Addie felt the gravitational pull of his invitation to hug. He squeezed her against his ribs and asked, “You two are going to take that exam today?”

“Yep.”

“Are you all studied up?”

“I think so.” Addie shrugged as she extracted herself from his embrace. “Tony says tier nine is a breeze.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Addie smiled at her dad’s usual encouragement. She wasn’t very worried. Tony said she might have to answer some basic tactics questions or take a quiz on SOA agreements with the major corporation consortiums, but it was all up to the official administering the evaluation, and most of them were pretty laid back, especially when it came to the bottom tiers. She grabbed one of the moving blankets and started folding it, watching her dad do the same. “Speaking of doing fine, your back seems to be holding up pretty well.”

“Yep. I told you I got an injection. Peters had a little serum left over from a house call to one of those Boxer execs, and he gave me a deal.”

“Serum?”

“Some kind of synthetic stem cell mixture. He said it’ll add a little life to my ruptured disc.”

“Oh really? That’s great, Dad!”

He nodded, grinning. “Just gotta lose a little weight now to take more of the strain off. I mean, if I’m going to listen to the doc’s advice…”

“Well, you should. Come on, Dad—it’s nice to see you happy and moving around without pain.”

“Yeah, right, right. I will, sweetie.” He smiled, chuckling, as he added, “Rene said she has the name of a food prep company. They deliver meals tailored to your diet, and—”

Addie dropped her blanket and slapped his chest. “Rene? Oh my gosh! Dad! I knew you two were hanging out, but if you’re taking diet advice from her—”

“Oh, leave me alone!” he groaned, stooping to pick up the blanket Addie dropped.

He was rescued from further teasing questions when Tony reappeared. “Yo, Ads, ready?”

Her dad grabbed her shoulder and gently propelled her toward him. “Yes, please take her so I can have a little peace.”

“You still giving your old man a hard time?” Tony asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Ugh! Why do you two automatically take each other’s side?” Addie opened the passenger door and climbed into the van, slamming the door shut. She wasn’t actually irritated. In fact, she loved that Tony and her dad got along so well. Even so, she had to maintain appearances, and being outraged by the men ganging up on her was part of her thing.

When Tony climbed into the driver’s seat, he glanced at her, perhaps to gauge her mood, then smiled and reached over to gently squeeze her thigh, just above her knee. Addie grabbed his hand, holding it, loving how her fingers curled against his palm. As he got the van moving, she ran her fingertips along the calluses there, smiling softly at the gentle intimacy.

“We probably have time to get a coffee or something, if you want.”

Addie shook her head. “I’m fine. Get something for yourself, though.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

They rode in silence for a little while, but after they’d crossed the halfway point, according to her mini-map, Addie asked, “Will we get evaluated together?”

“One by one.”

“And we can’t use our PAIs?”

“Right. He’ll make you throw a muzzle in your data port.”

“Like, to block JJ?”

“Right. It’s just a temporary blocker—no malware. The SOA wouldn’t stand for that.”

Addie squeezed his hand tighter. “You’re sure I’m ready?”

He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Yeah. Seriously, some absolute morons are tier-nine operators. If it were just the test, I’d say we could probably get you to tier five today. Doesn’t work that way, though. The evaluator will look at our job history, and if we haven’t done whatever he deems is enough between tiers, he’ll just turn us away.”

“You think it’ll be the same guy we signed up with?”

Tony frowned, shrugging. “I guess I’ve been assuming so, but it could be someone else. I’m sure there’s more than one rep at this office.” He let go of her hand and held up a finger. “Just a sec, Torque’s calling.”

Addie nodded, listening to Tony’s one-sided conversation: “What’s up?”… “Yeah? Um, sure, that’s a little weird.”… “Uh-uh. We’re going right now.”… “No, man. I want this new rating before we do more jobs. We need to start accumulating—”

“Right, sure. We’ll come by right after.”

When his eyes refocused and he turned to look at her, Addie asked, “What?”

“I guess there’s a spark killing people in one of the Takumi stacks. You familiar?”

Addie nodded. “They’re on the north side of the district. Takumi’s one of the biggest manufacturing companies in the Blast. What else did he say? I mean about the spark?”

Tony clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “He was saying some BS about how it was sure a weird coincidence that we were asking about sparks, and now he’s got a client looking for help with one.”

“What else, though?”

“Oh, he wanted us to drop everything and go over there, but I told him—”

“We want our new rating first.” Addie nodded. It made sense; they’d need jobs at tier nine if they wanted to apply for tier eight soon. “Why does he want us, though?”

Tony looked at her sideways, shaking his head again. “I think…” He sighed, then reached out to take her hand again. “I think he probably saw what you did to that banger outside the club. I’m sure the security team was watching—you know they’ve got cams all over the building—and I’m sure Torque has buddies on the team. He probably figures, you know, send a spark to deal with a spark.”

Addie felt a sudden nervous flutter in her gut. “Seriously? But I’m hardly a spark, Tony!”

He shrugged. “How many people do you know who can blast someone with a bolt of lightning? To Torque—hell, to me, that makes you a spark.” He squeezed her hand again. “Besides, I bet the pay will be good. This is an urgent situation, so the client will be paying a premium for us to tackle it right away.”

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Addie nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. She couldn’t help voicing her mental objections. “If someone is killing people in a Takumi stack and they can’t deal with it with their corpo-sec, this must be a really bad situation. Don’t you think?”

“Could be they don’t know exactly who the spark is. An investigation takes resources, and maybe they’re spread thin. You know how corps do it; their budget for that kind of thing is probably paper thin.”

As usual, Tony made sense. If the spark were an active threat—like, on a rampage—surely Takumi would have handled it with overwhelming force. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Yeah, you’re probably right. They probably need someone to figure out exactly what’s going on.”

“Which is another good reason for Torque to call us. I happen to be partners with a genius investigative reporter.”

Addie laughed, pulling her hand free and giving his shoulder a shove. “You’re stupid.”

Tony just smiled, and they finished the rest of the drive in comfortable silence. The SOA office was in a business tower with a parking garage, but when Tony signaled to turn in there, Addie said, “Let’s do valet, Tony. Our appointment is in five minutes and it’s only ten bits.”

“Oh, um, yeah, that’s a good idea.” Tony pulled into the pass-through, and a robotic-looking synth ran out from behind the valet kiosk. It wore a blue jumper with a stylized yellow “G” on the breast—the symbol for Gallant Business Complex—and when Tony put the window down, it said, “My port’s open. Ten bits. Please set your vehicle to valet mode, and I’ll direct its parking.”

“Right,” Tony replied, climbing out of the van. Addie followed suit, sliding down from the seat to land lightly on the concrete. The van was a good five inches higher after the work Tony had done on the suspension. Tony came around behind her as the van began to drive off. Its AI was, apparently, already in communication with the valet synth. “Shall we?” He nodded to the revolving door.

“Yep!” Addie led the way through the lobby, to the elevator, and up to the fortieth floor. She’d only been to the office once, when they’d registered as SOA operatives, but she remembered the occasion vividly. It had only been a couple of days after her abduction and rescue, and she’d been in an excellent mood, having walked across the district with Tony, his arm around her shoulders the entire way. Somehow, through some magical association in her memory, the SOA office had taken on those same good vibes for her.

So, she had a spring in her step and a silly smile on her face as she led Tony down the quiet hallway to suite 401 B. However, when she pulled the door open, things were suddenly very different than in her memory. When they’d come to register, the office had been quiet, and they’d been seen right away. This time, the waiting area had half a dozen esoteric individuals sitting around waiting for service.

Addie’s smile fell away as several of them glared her way, and she slowed her stride, waiting for Tony to come up beside her. She followed him up to the counter, doing her best not to look intimidated by the stares. None of the people seemed overtly hostile; it was more an intensity of curiosity that made her a little uncomfortable. She was sure part of that feeling was rooted in her impostor syndrome. Who did she think she was playing at being an SOA operative?

One of the women—buzzed purple hair, one chrome eye and another that could’ve belonged to a cat, and a skin-tight pink bodysuit—gave her a crooked smile, exposing a gleaming gold canine. The smile was unexpected, and it startled Addie, but her reflexive instinct was to smile shyly, which earned her a wink.

“We’ve got appointments,” Tony said to the frumpy-looking man at the counter.

The receptionist pushed his long, stringy hair out of his face and gestured to a little crystal-glass terminal on the counter. “Sign in with your SOA numbers and we’ll get to you as soon as we can. We’re, uh, backed up. Jerome called in sick.”

Tony frowned, but didn’t argue, tapping the display. “I’ll sign you in, Ember.”

“Thanks,” Addie said, looking around the waiting room, noting all the hardware on display. Lots of cybernetic limbs, high-end-looking optics, and quite a few people decked out with body armor and holstered weapons like they were about to go on a raid.

“Oh, you two are here for an evaluation?” the clerk asked.

“Right,” Tony grunted.

“Shouldn’t be too long a wait. Most of these others are waiting for arbitration and legal advice.” He gestured to an empty row of plastic chairs. “Have a seat and we’ll call you back one at a time.”

“Thanks.” Tony turned and led the way over to the chairs. Addie could have kissed him when he sat on the end, putting himself between her and a hulking guy with a dyed, black handlebar mustache, and wearing a denim vest over jeans and leather chaps. She felt his eyes following her as she walked beside Tony. When she sat down, she glanced his way, but Tony was leaning forward, one elbow on a knee, completely blocking him off from her.

She focused on her comm app and silently typed a message to Tony, “Thank you! These guys are stressing me out!”

He looked at her and smiled. “They’re not so bad.” A second later, a silent message appeared on her screen, “Just remember you belong here. These are just low-tier scrubs trying to look hard.”

No sooner had Addie read the message than the woman in the pink bodysuit, arriving with a waft of strawberry-scented body wash, came forward from behind her and sat on her other side. “Hey, girl. You’re an operator?” Her voice was bright and pleasant, and Addie decided maybe she’d been nervous for no reason.

“Um, yeah. You?”

“Yeah! Been at it nearly six months now. Got Boxer on my case, though, ’cause of a job I did a while back. That’s why I’m here. Waiting to see one of the legal reps.” She nudged Addie’s knee with her knuckles, jangling the many silver rings on her fingers. “What about you?”

“Oh, um, we’re applying for the next tier.” Addie gestured with her thumb at Tony, who was studiously ignoring them.

“Yeah? Nice one. I’m tier seven, myself. Not too shabby for an old low-chrome chick working alone, right?”

Addie blinked at her. “Old?”

“Well, I ain’t old-old, but I’m past my doll days, you know what I mean?” She winked, and Addie chuckled nervously. The truth was that she didn’t know what she meant.

“Um, honestly, you look young to me, and I think you’re really pretty.”

“Oh, lordy! I knew I wanted to talk to you, I just didn’t know why! Thank you, sweetie! I’m VelvetHex, by the way. You can call me Velvet, though.”

Addie smiled. “Nice to meet you. I’m Ember.” She nudged Tony with her elbow. “This is Shepherd.”

Tony grunted and glanced over at Velvet, nodding. “Hey.” Before she could respond, he looked away, clearly projecting his disinterest.

Velvet chuckled and brushed her knuckles against Addie’s knee again. “He’s your man?”

Addie felt her cheeks get hot at the question, and she struggled not to stammer as she replied, “He’s my partner…”

Something about her answer made the other woman snicker. “Fair enough, honey. Say, I work as a face and recon, so why don’t you take my details? I’m always looking for solid people to work with, and I get a good feeling about you and Mr. Quiet over there.”

“Um, sure! It’s really cool to meet you, Velvet.”

“I’ve received a request for a contact exchange,” JJ announced. “Shall I use your SOA credentials?”

“Yes,” Addie subvocalized.

“Got it, hon!” Velvet said. “So, testing for a new tier, huh? Are you nerv—”

A plain wooden door to the left of the reception desk opened, and a woman in a plain gray executive skirt and jacket stood in the opening. “Ember?” When Addie looked up and made eye contact, she motioned her over. “You can come with me.”

“Okay.” Addie stood and looked at Velvet. “Um, sorry about—”

“Nothing to apologize for. Good luck!” Velvet waved, and Addie turned her attention to Tony. He smiled and winked his silver eye.

“You got this.”

Addie nodded, smoothed down the front of her bomber jacket, and approached the doorway. The SOA rep was friendly and decidedly not exotic in her appearance—brown hair drawn up in a bun, simple eyeliner, and just a hint of pale red lipstick. Her eyes were pretty, natural-looking brown, and Addie couldn’t see a single cybernetic augment on her other than a slightly unorthodox placement of her data jack above and behind her right ear. “I’m Iris, and I’ll be your evaluator.”

Addie shook her proffered hand. “Um, Ember.”

Iris lifted one of her thick brown eyebrows. “Right.”

Addie felt her cheeks get hot again. “Oh, of course, you know that.”

“Nah, you’re just being polite. Come with me.” Iris turned and led the way down a short hallway with ancient-looking, well-worn, brown industrial carpeting, then stepped into a small office. “Take a seat there.” She gestured to a small circular table with three chairs around it—the only furnishings in the room.

Addie sat in the nearest chair, and Iris took the one to her right. “Okay, Ember. Looks like we received your payment last night when you and your partner made your appointments, that right?”

Addie consciously avoided saying “um” again. “Yes. That sounds right.”

“Okay, I’ll be straight with you. This is an evaluation for Tier Nine, which is the SOA’s lowest-ranked tier, as I’m sure you're aware. I’ll ask you a few questions, and as long as you don’t sound like a complete lunatic, I’m probably going to pass you, so please relax. You’re so nervous it’s making me nervous, you know?” She smiled as she spoke, and Addie felt the tension drain from her neck and shoulders as Iris’s pleasant, kind demeanor began to register.

She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly before nodding. “Thank you. That sounds good.”

Iris tapped at something on her AUI before refocusing her gaze on Addie’s eyes. “All right, Ember. You’ve already got several jobs under your belt, and one of them was billed as tier-six. No complaints, no outstanding legal filings—that’s a great start. Now, let me just get a couple of random questions from the knowledge base…” Her eyes, natural as they seemed, flickered with tiny LEDs. “Oh, one thing…” She reached under her gray blazer, into her breast pocket, and produced a small chip with a bright red LED tab. “Just need you to plug this muzzler in.”

“That’s to silence my PAI?”

“Right, and to keep you from accessing the net. It doesn’t leave any software behind when you pull it.”

Addie took the little chip and reached behind her neck, probing for her data port with her fingertips. When she felt it, she slipped the little chip into the slot. Suddenly, her AUI elements shaded red, and a bright, flashing notification appeared in the center of her vision that read: SOA Assessment Block in effect—no Net Access.

Iris watched her install the chip, then smiled. “Okay, all set. Ready?”

Addie nodded. “Ready.”

“Tell me, what’s the general rule regarding SOA operatives carrying firearms on corporate premises?”

“We’re licensed, but, unless we’re just passing through, we need to get clearance from the corporate security officer on duty.”

“That’s right. And if they deny you permission?”

“Then we have to comply or leave. My partner said if a corporation wants to hire us but won’t give us permission to defend ourselves, we should drop the contract.”

Iris nodded. “Not a bad policy. That won’t happen often. Easy right? I have a feeling you’ll be my quickest appointment of the day. If you get it right, we can wrap this up with one more question. Here we go: describe your understanding of escalation of force.”

Addie struggled to keep from letting out a sigh of relief or smiling too broadly. Of course, Tony had drilled her on the topic. It was one of the first things he’d made her memorize. She took a deep breath, then rattled off the textbook response, “Escalation of force means using the minimum force necessary to neutralize a threat. We’re supposed to start with verbal warnings, then non-lethal measures like physical restraint or deterrence if possible. Only if those fail, or if there’s an immediate danger to life, are we cleared to use lethal force. It’s about controlling the situation, not making it worse."

“Perfect! See, I knew you were a sharp one. Well, congratulations, Ember. Welcome to Tier Nine.”