They walked in silence, broken only by soft chuckling from the priest, and she let her mind complete the assignment. It hadn't been difficult, but she'd been too distracted by this new handler to devote her entire mind to it. According to her internal clock, it had taken over forty minutes, much too long, but he had a way of altering her priorities. Mainly by making her say much more than she should.
With each step, she cursed herself. She knew the words and had read them repeatedly on the net, but until she met Sinclair, she'd never heard anyone speak foul language. The way he cursed was strong and powerful, each of the offensive words rolling off his tongue with a demand for the listener to stop and pay attention. She liked it. He was rash, brutish, and relied too much on his strength, but maybe he wasn't shallow.
The way he'd used the window as a mirror to observe her hinted at intelligence. The way he used his language to keep people at a distance or to shatter their expectations hinted at planning. The way he'd automatically realized her reticence? That hinted at kindness, although Ingénue R1554-9370S-02K16 had never experienced true kindness.
But they were almost there. DCB was a smaller business, and it must have put a very large dent in their profits to hire an Ingénue, but she had the solution to their problem completed moments before they entered the front door. Sin's boots pounded on the wooden floor, announcing their arrivalbetter than any chime or alert. At the sound, a well-dressed businessman hurried toward them.
"Ingénue, handler. We're so pleased you made it safely," he said.
"Yeah," Sin grunted. "So, you want her answer?"
"Yes. Yes, of course." He gestured to an elevator. "Our equipment is on the third floor. Please, follow me?"
The priest placed his hand lightly on the girl's back, high enough to be nothing more than polite, and walked beside her onto the elevator. He could've led and expected her to follow. He could've paced after her, pretending to be her subordinate, but instead, he walked at her side, touching her as if a partner. It was a nice change.
They were escorted to a large pair of metal doors, the electric hum of servers loud even though they were closed. The executive paused, looking at Sin. "If you'd like to wait in the lounge..."
"I go with her," the priest said, surprising both her and the executive.
The man shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, but only authorized personnel are allowed inside. You have not passed clearance."
"Then she doesn't go either."
The Ingénue lifted her hand and touched his arm lightly. "This is standard procedure, Legate."
He looked at her for a moment then sighed, his jaw clenched tightly. "Fine, but I don't like it. If you make a sound, I'll be in there." He leaned closer. "Anysound."
"Good, then if you'll follow me, Ingénue?" The executive hadn't offered his name, although that was typical. His smile was as fake as every other corporate leader, the glint in his eyes for the information she carried, nothing more.
Stepping into the room, she left Sinclair standing in the hall. Her gaze immediately fell on a large cable laying across the floor, connected to a bank of computers behind it. At the sight of it, herskin went first cold, then hot as pinpricks of fear trickled down her spine. The access port that matched was the one at the base of her neck. But she wouldn't falter, not with so many eyes on her.
With her face turned to the ground, she made her way over and knelt, like she'd been programmed. In a well-orchestrated movement, she opened the button at the back of her neck, and bowed her head, holding it open for the technician to reach her ports. Hopefully, if she made it easy, they'd be gentle when inserting the cable.
"Please connect the cable," she said softly.
The executive stepped forward, grabbing the heavy cable from the ground in one hand, his other touching her skin, sliding down her neck, comparing each outlet to the metal prong in his hand. She felt nothing for a moment, then the hard metal shaft teased the edge, raking against her senses before it slammed deep inside her. Clenching her mouth against the gasp begging to escape, she reminded herself it was just a data cable and nothing personal, but then he twisted, locking it into place and securing her to the network whether she desired it or not.
"Start the transfer," he ordered.
She did. Reaching through the network, she initiated a handshake with the servers, authenticated her clearance, then began pushing the answer across. It was heavy, much too heavy for the simple problem they'd assigned her. What should have taken seconds seemed like an eternity, extra ones and zeros tucked in places that shouldn't have mattered. It fit in her mind, the client had paid for the contract, so it shouldn't matter if they were smuggling illegal data.
But it made her curious. The reason Ingénue were trained to think of only their assignment and nothing else, the reason submission was drilled into them, was because they were the only unmonitored method to transport data across the city.Even their high contract fees were reasonable if the data was important enough. That meant whatever was in her head was worth a few million credits, and she wanted to know what it was.
To distract herself from the anguish of the transfer, her mental fingers played in the stream as it crossed from her to the server, testing the content, sampling a bit here and there. It wasn't enough for anyone to notice, not with the transfer speed she was working at, but she caught glimpses, enough to make her look for more. With one hand tasting the stream, her other moved slowly into DCB's internal network, feeling for the bumps and knots that signaled too much encryption or extra layers of security.
She found plenty of them. Like pebbles on a beach, they blended in but didn't exactly fit the scenery. One pulled at her more than the others, its irregular edges hinting at too much paranoia. While she moved the file from her mind to their drives, she looked, easily able to convince the system she was allowed. Her brain was more electronic than biological, after all, and she'd been welcomed into their system with open arms, carrying data that had even more protections.
In the base of her skull, she saw it. Her hands clenched in her lap, her knuckles nearly white, yet she didn't dare copy what she was looking at. It was a complex chemical structure, yet simple enough it could be made in massive quantities. It was elegant, and locked tightly away from the world. As she was withdrawing from the network, the data flow nearly complete, she glanced at the layers of security. Over and over, it was keyed to Pharmacon, the largest developer of pharmaceuticals on the planet.
Ingénue R1554-9370S-02K16 wasn't a chemist. She wasn't a doctor. No, she was a cybernetically enhanced genius, smarter than any system in existence, and she knew exactly what they were smuggling.
Chapter Eleven
The door finally opened and Sin pushed himself away from the wall. He'd stood there for nearly thirty minutes waiting for her, but when she staggered out, she didn't even bother to thank him. Her veil was crooked, the skin around her eyes pale, and her hands shook slightly. She looked ready to collapse, like only her will was keeping her on her feet.
"Ingénue?" he asked.
Her eyes flicked to his before falling to the floor. They were the color of a stormy sky right now, he thought, reaching out to grab her shoulder, hoping to offer support. Even though the fabric, he could feel her bones.
