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There was a kno the small plastic hatch leading to Caldwell’s capsule and the sound of scurryi. The sudden interruption caused him to spill part of the vial’s tents down his . What the hell? Who or what could that be? It was definitely human. His capsule was at least six feet off the ground ohird rao less. At first, he couldn’t quite believe his ears. This was the first time anyone had ever k the capsule door. There was an unspoken code of privacy among the tele and capsule hotel staff, such that they existed, he’d never seen one, would never kno a capsule hatch when it was occupied. That was tantamount to a gross invasion of privad a sure way of redug life expecy.Caldwell had a decision to make. Should he just ighe intrusion and go ahead and drink the tents of the vial or should he see what the otion was all about? He relutly opted for the latter. It could be important. He placed the vial gingerly on the side shelf, wiped the droplets of death liquid from his with the back of his hand and slowly twisted his body until he was fag the entrao the capsule. He reached for the hatch. The capsule’s plastic hatch felt cold and awkward on the palm of his hands. Caldwell moved his hand away from the hatch.
He pressed the buttoo small LCD s in the ceiling. It displayed the image picked up by the security camera outside. There was nobody there, but on the outside the hatch was what looked like a package. He released the latd peered outside. The miscellaneous sounds of various states of sleep grew louder. Caldwell could hear the muffled din of Europorn emanating from one of the nearby capsules. Whoever had left the package there had already disappeared into the Byzantine maze of corridors. He wasn’t surprised. With its proliferation of cheap capsule hotels, Angel, despite its name, wasn’t the of neighborhoods. And the Angel Capsule Hotel, one of the area’s better establishments, was still the kind of place that could give even the most hardened courier palpitations.
Caldwell stared at the package, an expensive looking gray box bearing a DHL Japan logo. There was a small sticker attached to it with his name, capsule number and a return-to-sender anonymous postal box at Union Mail. It was obviously not a wrong delivery. He wondered who could have sent him the package and perhaps more importantly how the hell did they know he was holed up at the Angel Capsule Hotel? What was in the box? He had made tless enemies in cybe<a></a>rspace, disgraced many a sys-op, puter tei or security expert. One of them could have tracked him down a him an explosive package of reve that was close to impossible. At any rate, they would be doing him a favor. He prodded the package with his left hand, expeg it to do the vial’s job in a much quicker and messier way. Nothing. The box felt heavy against his fingers. He picked it up carefully, holding it as though it tained uranium rods areated crawling backwards into the capsule.
Caldwell placed the package oon, slid the hatch shut and turned his attention once again to the half-empty vial on the side shelf. He wasn’t even sure if what was left would do the job effectively. At least he should see what was in the box before proceeding with his suicide mission. If he hadn’t heard the kno the door he probably would have been dead by now. That fact was not lost on him. Destiny? He proceeded to open the package. Inside a protective bubble of Styrofoam was yet another blaade out of a ductile syic material.
Fetting for a moment his preoccupation with the question of how whoever had sent the package had found out where he lived, Caldwell removed the black box from its Styrofoam and shook it. The tents of the box did not make any sound but it had a weight that bore ionship to its perceived size. Whatever was in<s></s> the box was dehen his eye caught the edge of a triangular plastic card half hidden below the clutter of Styrofoam ier box. It was a holographic tag from a Kenzo Yamamoto and it read: A window into your future, Caldwell-san. The letters, written in some calligraphit, seemed to float in mid air. The name meant nothing to him but it was Japanese and Caldwell felt a bubble of hope start to form. He rubbed his hand over the black box and for the first time noticed that it was made out of minute geometric shapes held together by some invisible force. He lifted the cover off.
Ihe box, ed in a smart protective skin sat a smooth blaputer sole and an expensive-looki of virtual reality goggles and gloves. He was no sole expert but he had seen state-of-the-art soles before and nothing came even close to what he was looking at. A cyberspace sole.
Hands trembling and his mind looping through all the possibilities, Caldwell picked up the sole and exami carefully. There was no power socket, no standard input deviterface, just twular optical sockets of a shape and type he had never seen before. The gloves where made of a translut material that may or may not have been some kind of plastier. This was a closed system sole designed not to ect with any other hardware.
Embedded withierial of the gloves was a thin layer of resin. Transparent optical cables floating in the resin disappeared into small sensors at the tips of each finger which were ed with LEDs. There was circuitry embedded within the resiched on a thin layer of plastic. The goggles were a shiny oblong of black optics behind which sat six tiny devices, three for each eye, and a bank of small LEDs. He dohe gloves and the goggles and plugged them into the sole’s triangular sockets. The sockets looked identical. Despite the black coating on the goggles he could see just as clearly as if he wasn’t wearing them. These were no mirror shades. There was a low whir and a switch illuminated with green light emerged from the front of the sole.
Caldwell held his breath and pressed the switch. The LEDs painted a wall of pixels on his retina. A virtual keyboard appeared before him, virtual fingers at the ready. Millions of lumi pixels swirled around the s and then gealed into a digital rendition of a human face. It was an oriental face, a Japanese face. Kenzo Yamamoto?
“Caldwell-san, I see you received the package,” said the face, in a voiot too dissimilar to talons scraping on an antique blackboard, modulated slightly not to grate the he movement of the lips on the face was in perfect symphony with the voice. There was no disable lag.
“Yes I did. Who are you? And why did you sehis?” Caldwell asked. There were powerful microphones and speakers embedded somewhere in the goggles. He could hear the speaker and himself as though they were both in an acoustically enhanced room.
The face broke into a smile.
“You call me<figure></figure> Kenzo, Caldwell-san. Yamamoto is the surname if you wish to be formal. In ao your other question, you’ve proven yourself over the months Caldwell-san, with the exception of Sumitomo Bank of course. Now I am about to give you the biggest freaking score in all of Europe, a ticket to the big time.”
Caldwell eechless. It knew about that. He eyed the mask suspiciously.
“How do you know about Sumitomo?” was all he could muster, dreams of cyberspace rising phoenix-like in his mind. Kenzo Yamamoto, or his associates, must have been behind many of the scores ing out of Japan.
Peals of laughter emerged from the goggles, atteo a high pitch.
“Caldwell-san, Caldwell-san. This is no time for questions. This is a time for answers. I have been your beor for quite a while. Of course it’s all quid pro quo. You do for me, I do for you. Sumitomo Bank I stacked against you, I set it up so you would fail. Failure, Caldwell-san, hohe senses like nothing else.” The mask paused for dramatic effect.
“That was a setup?” Caldwell asked incredulously. It was all starting to make sense now. What looked like a routine score, turned out to be a huge failure and what’s worse the result was broadcast all over the hacker boards of cyberspace resulting in his most severe hag winter.
“Yes. I repping you for the real deal Caldwell. The biggest freaking score in all of Europe. You have a talent, Caldwell-san. But it is wasted on the kind of stuff you used to do. How does three million sound to you? Union Euros, not the currency of the black market.”
Caldwell couldn’t believe his ears but he knew he had heard Yamamht. Three million Union Euros was a small fortune. He could buy a mobile home, boat or vehicle it didn’t matter, outfitted with the latest cyberspace decks and spend the rest of his life getting lost in the ubiquitous black zones of the Union.
“What do I o do to get it? And what does this sole have to do with it?”
“A thing of beauty isn’t it? There is currently only oher like it in the world. It’s expensive beyond your wildest dreams, priceless. The artiste responsible for creating these takes his time but it’s worth it so we tolerate it. Unfortunately, he is currently, shall we say, indisposed.”
“What is it exactly or is that a stupid question?”
“Caldwell-san. I see that yhe cutting edge when you see it. This is not just a puter, Caldwell-san. This is a work of art. But let’s talk about sce. sole and peripherals lio each other through a high-speed proprietary closed wireless work. Transmitters and receivers to the same all built in, range is fifty kilometers. Encrypted of course. Impressive, yes? The sole itself is lio cyberspad beyond via encrypted high-speed satellite links. Take the peripherals on the road, leave the sole at home, still ected. I’m sure you see the power of this. Paradigm shift no less. This is one of the most powerful soles available, Caldwell-san. The satellite-enabled goggles makes it truly portable. sider yourself a lucky man to be looking at one now. Let alooug one.”
“Satellite link is always on? Who pays?”
“Yours truly. My satellite. Stratelite to be exact. Low-flying bird. Rest assured you won’t be receiving any bills. What you’ll be receiving are instrus. I’ve been impressed with your work so far Caldwell-san. sider this an iment in your future. I’ll be in touch,” the Japanese said, voice diminishing into white noise, pixels restituting into black s.
“But wait ...” Caldwell protested, his voice eg back from the depths of cyberspace. Kenzo or whoever the face was had disappeared.
Caldwell removed the goggles and stared at the black sole. Was this the lifeline he needed so badly? Had he really been snatched back from the brink of suicide? This Kenzo Yamamoto had apparently engineered his downward spiral, spread news of his failure all over the hacker domains of cyberspace culminating in his exclusion from the deal flow of The HUB. All this just to set him up for this three million Euro score. The biggest freaking score in all of Europe, Kenzo had said. Of course he was referring to the Union, which had subsumed Europe pletely a long time ago.
Kenzo Yamamoto had said he’d be in touch, but when? Caldwell reed he’d be hearing from the Japanese soon. After all, he still had possession of the expensive sole and the satellite uplink worked allowing him to boot up and ja to cyberspace from anywhere he chose. If Kenzo didn’t make tact soon, he could fehe sole and disappear. job like this would fetch tens of thousands of Union Euros on the black market. Not quite the same as three million Union Euros but an OK living for about a year or so. Enough time to land something that would keep him i. The sole represented a renewed lease on life.
He dohe goggles again. This time, instead of a barrage of pixels he was greeted with a simple and lihe sole appeared to possess no user interface. Caldwell suspected that it created interfaces on the fly depending on what job it was called upon to do. It was the state of the art no less, the cutting edge.
Caldwell ehe address of his base and crossed his fingers. The base came up lightning fast with a totally different interface from what he was used to seeing. The sole had rendered a visually-rich three-dimensional spa the fly that he could walk around in. The goggles had an embedded motion trag device.
He looked around the base. In the room was a meticulously rendered antique writing desk, his read messages represented in the virtual space as opened letters plete with postage stamps. There was one unopened letter, a new message. He picked the letter up with his left hand, the tactile funs of the resin in the gloves faithfully reprodug the feel of coarse paper.
He felt a sudden flash of pain. Today’s quota of migraines had started early and roving uing. The quotient was almost intolerably high, the pain rising rapidly and peaking violently like the finale of a particularly upbeat musical performance. He wiped the blood trig from his h the back of his hand.
Caldwell ighe pain and used a silver letter opener on the writio cut through the envelope. He uood perfectly. The letter opener was the sole’s rendition of his personal encryption/decryption module which stopped his unications from getting into the wrong hands, decrypting the tents of his message so he could read it. This sole was some piece of work.
Ign the mounting pain that was gradually cresting deep within his brain he began to read the message. It was a message from Glyph, owner of the underground hacker spa<s></s>own as The HUB. The message was brief and to the point.
Cad, get the hell out of wherever you are. They are after you. Your life is in so much danger dude. Message me from The Puzzle pub, Isle of Dogs.
Caldwell stared at the simple paragraph. His headache was suddenly unbearable. He had to get out of the capsule. His credit was almost up anyway. He removed the goggles and gloves and started to pack the sole away in his rucksack. Glyph was no practical joker and he only ever sent messages when absolutely necessary. They had not unicated in a while. He had to find Glyph and he had to not black<abbr>藏书网</abbr>out from his headache. He logged on to the capsule’s terminal and quickly white paged The Puzzle.
Feeling that his migraine was rapidly reag the point where a plete blackout was immi, Caldwell mind-ed bato another memory space, one of the few he kept handy to stop himself from succumbing to the pain. In that space, he found himself sitting in a decrepit illicit -up laue in his underwear watg the industrial laundry maes the hell out of his last threads. Kat’s blonde head was bobbing around to the rhythm of the wash cycle. She was sittio him in her floral underwear, eyes masked by a scratched up old personal video display.
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