The Ones We're Meant to Find(13)
“How does one obtain a search warrant?”
David’s stylus didn’t stop moving across his desk. “You’ll need to talk to Barry.”
“We’ve talked.” Technically. Her dad was the faster route, and fast, Kasey knew, was what she needed before her brain shut down this whole operation.
Seconds later, a search warrant app appeared in Kasey’s Intraface. She selected it. A digital rendering of the P2C officer badge materialized before her chest.
Other dads went to their kids’ swim meets and remembered their birthdays, but Kasey didn’t value swim meets and birthdays and liked her dad as is, especially in this moment.
“I trust you to use it responsibly,” said David. His stylus stilled and finally, he glanced up.
How they communicated: without words. One silent look was their mutual acknowledgment of the incident that’d corrupted Kasey’s life and nearly evicted her from the eco-city. She was only here due to David’s intervention. He’d acted when it mattered most. Kasey respected that. Even related to her dad. David was no longer an architect. Kasey was no longer a scientist. Life went on, subpar for the course.
“I’ll try,” said Kasey, which was enough to satisfy David.
He looked back to his work. “Go in holo.”
“I can’t.”
Another dad might have asked why. It wasn’t like the weekly maximum, set by the Coles to preserve the “endangered spirit of humanity” in their tech-reliant worlds, was low.
“Then take the REM,” said David, and Kasey commended her dad for being so solution-oriented.
Minutes later, she was on the duct to stratum-22, the REM immobilizer holstered at her side.
She’d been down-stratum before. Gone even lower than S-22 with Celia, who’d insisted lower stratums were more real, when technically, all stratums were equally real, built from the same raw materials, stacked to form one city lifted by antigravity and protected by one filtration shield. Any visible differences stemmed from how the stratums managed their residents. Upper stratum dwellers were encouraged to max out their holo quotas to lessen the burden on infrastructure, while lower stratums embraced … a different lifestyle, one that ingested Kasey the second she stepped out of the duct.
Heat. Stink. Clamor. Groaning pipes and rattling generators, trashbots and busbots working overtime to support the humans out and about, coughing, sneezing, and secreting other humanoid sounds as they traversed the corridors between unit complexes. Their ranks, displayed overhead in accordance with P2C’s accountability laws, were the only virtual things to them. Everything else was in the flesh, like Kasey herself. Aside from her single-digit 2 floating overhead among a sea of 1000s, 10,000s, 50,000s, she fit right in. She’d rather not. Without Celia, this place was worse than she recalled. She breathed through her mouth to nullify the odor, and set her visuals to monochrome. A black-and-white world seemed less real and, consequently, less overwhelming.
The heat was the one thing she couldn’t adjust, and sweat drenched Kasey by the time she arrived at her destination: GRAPHYC, a body shop that performed physical alterations deemed nonessential by medical hospels. Unable to imagine much demand when appearances could be modified in holo, Kasey relaxed as she went down the steps recessed between two ground-level stoops. Her rank blipped away as she pushed through the door and entered the private domain. Finally, a breather from her species.
This was her first mistake: assuming she understood other people.
Compared to the outside, GRAPHYC was positively arctic. Goose bumps sprouted on Kasey’s skin. Her teeth chattered. Or maybe it was the machines, buzzing into her eardrums. The lights overhead were harsh. Industrial. The space—as windowless as a basement but large—was sectioned off into cubes. In one, an employee was plucking out teeth down an assembly line of unconscious clientele. Kasey stared, head ducking when Tooth Tweezer looked up. She hurried along, witnessing a number of other questionable things before she found what she was looking for:
An idle employee around her size.
You could never too be careful outside of holo, though, and Kasey’s hand drifted to the REM as she closed in on the tattooist with spiky orange hair and golden temple studs. “P2C officer, here to conduct an authorized search of Unit Five.”
“Be with you in a nano,” said the tattooist, in the middle of cleaning his machine—machine slipping when Kasey flashed her e-badge. She flinched at the clatter—then at his shout. “Jinx!” he called.
“What?” Moments later, a person strode into the cubicle. She wore a fuchsia utility jumpsuit, sleeves of equally colorful tattoos, and black gloves that flecked red onto the cement ground as she snapped them off and tossed them into the trash bin. “Who died now?”
“Jinx,” moaned the employee.
“Joules, loosen up, will you?” Then she saw Kasey. Her eyes narrowed. The employee’s stayed wide. Both looked at Kasey as if she was someone important.
She’d better start acting like it. She flashed her e-badge again, fresh sweat forming. “Authorized search warrant for Unit Five.”
It came to mind, somewhat belatedly, that they couldn’t know what she was here for. Maybe they feared her because GRAPHYC was in violation of regulations, or Unit 5 was stashed full of contraband. Kasey didn’t care—not today, not with INTRAFACE LOCATED branded in her brain—but before she could say so, Jinx turned to her employee.