Neon Dust [Progression Cyberpunk]

48 – Unpacking the Box

"You sure you two don't want to come in?" Glitch asked, peering in from the open rear door. Tony glanced at Addie, and she didn't say anything, but he knew what she was thinking: if they joined Glitch and Beef for "a drink," they'd never get around to talking, at least not for the rest of the night and most of the next day. He smiled, looking past Glitch to where Beef stood, rubbing his face with a sanitizing napkin under a streetlight. They were outside a bar in Glitch's neighborhood, and there were quite a few night owls meandering up and down the sidewalk.

Tony shook his head. "Nah, thanks, though. I think we're both a little fried."

Glitch winked, nodding her head so her white mohawk, blue-tinted in the neon lights, bounced forward and back. "I get it." Her smile said she thought Tony and Addie weren't too fried for some things. "Call me soon."

Beef approached, looming over her to speak into the van. "And don't try to screw us over on the salvage!"

Before Tony could object, the big meathead slammed the door. Tony glanced at Addie, and she smiled as Beef's booming laugh sounded from further away. He was in a good mood. "They'll have fun."

Addie nodded. "Yeah. I'm surprised Glitch took to him so quickly."

"She's a character, that's for sure." He pulled up the van's nav system on his AUI and asked, "Where should we go? Are you hungry?"

"I dunno…" Addie looked out the window, her face glowing in the neon lights as she watched the shadowy figures walking by. "It's after midnight…"

Tony shrugged. "Lots of places are still open. What about that diner down past the NGE, the one on the way toward the warehouse?"

Addie smiled, nodding. "I could use something filling."

Tony entered the address and then leaned back with a sigh as the van began moving. "You wanna tell me how you got us out of that mess? How'd you subdue those Boxer goons?"

Addie's smile widened as she turned toward him, but her hands gave away her nervousness as she folded them in her lap, rubbing her thumbs against one another. "I faded, Tony. I snuck right up to them and shot them with my needler." Tony's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak, but she wasn't done. "Then I faded through the glass on the transport and shot Ross and the other exec."

"Damn, Ads. What are you? A ghost?" Tony smiled as he spoke; it was a compliment in the business, but maybe she didn't know that, because she looked a little defensive and shrank in on herself.

"Was it wrong? I feel almost like I cheated—"

"Are you kidding me? You know what those damn goons would do if they could pull off what you're capable of? You know what most people would do? You're a goddamn saint by comparison. You're so good that…" Tony trailed off when he saw Addie smile and let out a pent-up breath. "Are you fishing for compliments?"

"No, I just feel good knowing I've got you in my corner."

"Always."

"So, anyway, I think I can learn to fade even better. I think there's a uh, Dust pattern for it, but I haven't learned it yet. Right now, the way I do it drains my reactor really quickly."

"Pretty cool that you figured it out, though."

Addie nodded. "Necessity is the mother of invention. Where did I hear that? Oh…" Her eyes unfocused momentarily, then she said, "JJ says it originates in Ancient Greece from someone named Plato, but that it's been used by lots of famous people throughout history."

"I get it." Tony nodded. "You felt like you needed to help me and Beef, so you forced yourself to figure it out."

Addie smiled, putting her feet up on the seat and hugging her knees to her chest. "Exactly. I'm just glad it worked out. I was so stressed, Tony."

"Yeah, me too. I felt better thinking you and Glitch got away, though. Damn—" Tony shook his head, breathing deeply, refusing to let his earlier frustration return. "I just wish you—damn it, I want to be irritated that you risked so much to help us, but I can't. I'd do the same thing."

Addie reached over to squeeze his plasteel wrist even though he couldn't feel it. "I know you would. That's why I did what I did. I'm not a delicate flower, Tony. We're partners, right? It's not like you're my protector."

Tony shrugged. "Honestly, you could probably get into some much higher-tier outfits with your current talents. I mean that seriously; you've outclassed me. A spark who can fade like that—forget your lightning skills and that other trick your mentor taught you." Tony shook his head. "Hell! Even your connection to Humpty. You're like, pulling off tier-two stuff, Ads."

Addie looked at him over her knees, her blue eyes the only part of her face he could see. "Really?"

"Yeah. Honestly, in my old life…" Tony trailed off, remembering what he'd promised her: he had to spill his guts when they reached the restaurant. He had to face everything he'd been locking away. He licked his lips and swallowed. Trying to quell the trembling in his guts. "In my old life, I would have been ecstatic to work with someone with your talents."

"Well, too bad, because I'm not gonna try to get any jobs you can't do."

Tony looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Good, 'cause I like having an ace up my sleeve."

Addie perked up a little, tilting her head up so her smile was evident over the top of her knees. "I'm your ace?"

"Hell yes, you're my ace."

"Speaking of aces, Glitch was pretty great tonight, wasn't she?"

Tony laughed, then whistled softly. "Damn right, she was. We would've been cooked if she didn't capture those drones and hack their command console."

"Yeah, I was thinking that. Even if we took out that second squad that was in there with you, they would have had footage of us from the drones and the vehicles." She paused for a few seconds, then asked, "Do you think Glitch got it all? She seemed pretty confident, but it felt like we were moving too quickly. What if she missed something?"

Tony leaned back and watched the road while he thought about how to answer. Of course, he'd had the same concerns. What if there had been some active cams in the lab that they missed? What if one of the techs who'd managed to hide during the firefight had recorded him and Beef? What if the synths did? He and Beef had done what they could to ruin their hardware, but there was a chance—

He shook his head and voiced the arguments he'd already made to himself, "I had my face covered, and Beef was scrambling his with that visor. He took it off toward the end 'cause of his injuries, but we were already on our way out, well past anyone who might have seen or recorded us. As for you guys, up top, we're going to have to trust Glitch. It's not just her, though; she's got daemons that run scripts on hardware she breaks into. We have to hope they covered all the devices up there, and that they deleted anything that points at us."

Addie turned her chair so she could lean her head against the window. "I figured that was all we could do. What about Ross's job?"

"What? To mess with his competition? Weaver?" Tony laughed, shaking his head. "I dunno about that. We're going to have to see how Ross comes out of this. I mean, you guys pulled his PAI, and we just ruined his chances of salvaging a pretty big project he was working on. He might not be an exec at Boxer come Monday."

"That's fine with me. I'd like to distance ourselves from Boxer."

Tony thumped the steering wheel with his thumbs, nodding. "Yeah, I got a big enough dose of Boxer to last me a while."

"I feel sorry for Clementine, though."

Tony snorted. "His daughter? Seriously? She's probably in 'Hattan with her mom right now. If anything, we might have helped her avoid having to spend time alone in her dad's apartment for a while."

"She was a sweet kid." Addie sighed heavily and hugged her knees closer as she peered out the window. "Funny how people change. I wonder if she'd end up like her dad. I wonder what her mom is like."

"Hard to say what makes people… what they end up being. I mean, I used to think people couldn't change, but I think I'm pretty different right now than I was…" Again, Tony trailed off as a lump of dread rose in his chest. Somewhere, deep in his mind, his subconscious was trying to start preparing for what he knew he had to do.

"Are you okay, Tony?" Addie was staring at him, and he knew his facial expression must have looked haunted.

"I won't lie. I'm starting to freak out a little. I mean, about our talk."

"Are you sure you want to talk at a diner? We could just park somewhere."

"Nah. I think some bright lights and some greasy food will help." Tony nodded to the windshield. "Besides, we're almost there." Addie followed his gaze and got quiet, watching their slow progress through a few lights and then a left turn to the parking lot of Deke's Diner. They'd driven by dozens of times while they were moving, and they'd both remarked that they'd like to stop in sometime. They never had, though—not until now.

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As luck would have it, the van found a spot right away, even though the scene through the bright windows made it clear the place was busy. Tony started having second thoughts, wondering whether he ought to take Addie's suggestion to heart; maybe they should sit in the van for a while. Something made him get out, though, and he moved around to open Addie's door, but she didn't wait. She hopped out and met him near the front bumper.

She grabbed ahold of his sleeve. "Smells good."

"Yeah," Tony inhaled the grease-scented air. "I guess give me a minute to get this stuff off." He walked to the back of the van, opened the right-hand door, and then started unbuckling his body armor. He'd already taken the helmet off, and he could see it on the cabin floor up by the center console. The van looked a mess—guns, drones, Beef's shredded, blood-stained coat…

Tony's mental inventory stopped when he laid eyes on the gauss rifle lying beside the storage rack. "Holy shit."

"What?"

He grunted, pulling his armored vest over his head. "Where'd that rifle come from?"

"The pretty one?"

Tony barked a short laugh. "Pretty?"

Addie poked his ribs, wrinkling her nose at his sweat-soaked T-shirt. "You know what I mean. Look how nice it is."

"Yeah, I guess so." Tony hefted the gun, admiring the smooth lines and the sleek ergonomic molding of its high-capacity mag coils. Nora picked up the maker's mark right away, highlighting it for him. "Tennessee Arms, 2066. This model is famous, Ads. It was made during the war." Sudden panic, accompanied by a jolt of adrenaline, had Tony furiously flipping the gun this way and that, staring at every nook and cranny of its sleek frame. "Nora, is there any tracking signal coming from this thing?"

His vision flashed as Nora ran his sensory inputs through all of her available frequencies. "Nothing I can detect. Should I pair with it?"

"Yeah, just a minute." Tony found the pairing button and pressed it. "Why no biometrics, I wonder?"

"My research shows that this model was originally manufactured with a retinal scan security system. Many aftermarket dealers removed it because the originals were nearly impossible to remap without the owner's cooperation."

"What's going on, Tony?" Addie leaned close, and, despite everything they'd been through, Tony couldn't help inhaling, savoring the air as the strawberry scent of her hair hit him.

"Just making sure nobody's looking for this. It's valuable."

Nora reported, "I'm not seeing any active beacons, and now that I'm paired, I can change the authentication key. Would you like me to—"

"Yeah, do it." Tony watched as the display at the neck of the rifle's stock flashed, cycling through its various states—ammo display, range finder, battery status, firing state, lock screen, and a few he didn't recognize before they cycled away.

"The gun has been reset, and I've encoded a new key. No one with the old key should be able to locate it wirelessly."

"All right, good job, Nora." Tony set the gun down, then continued peeling off his armor.

"Why's it so valuable?" Addie asked, leaning against the van door.

"It's just rare. It's a real gauss rifle. It, um, can fire a small metal projectile at incredible velocity."

"Like your electro-shotgun?"

"Similar principle, but instead of a bunch of pellets at deadly speeds, this thing will shoot one projectile at ridiculous speeds. You can take out a vehicle with one shot. You can hit a person from kilometers away—stuff like that."

Addie stared at the gun with its long, shrouded barrel. "Wow."

"Yeah. Nice job picking it up, by the way." Tony pushed the van door shut, then put his arm around Addie, steering her toward the diner. They were parked close enough that he felt fine leaving the van out there. It was locked, and the AI would alert him if anyone messed with it. He was still wearing his .40, and if some bangers tried to rip them off, he'd make sure it was a decision they'd regret.

The diner was busy, but not full; they didn't have to wait and were seated in a booth near the back corner right away. The menu featured old-American foods—burgers, sandwiches, fries, milkshakes, and that sort of thing. Of course, none of the meat was real, but the pictures made it all look convincingly like the stuff you saw on the vids. Addie ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a vanilla shake. Tony chuckled and told Nora to do the same. "I mean, who would order something else at a place like this?"

Addie smiled as she scooted to the edge of her seat and got up, walking over next to him. "Let me sit on the same side as you."

Tony shrugged, standing up to let her in. "Yeah, sure."

"Gotta have the outside?" She smirked as she sat down and scooted over.

"I mean, if someone messes with the van, I want to be able to—"

"I'm just teasing, Tony."

Tony held up his left hand. "Besides, this way, you're on this side and I can hold your hand better."

Addie's smile spread to her eyes as she entwined her fingers with his. "That's the best reason I can think of." She pulled his hand close, holding it against her belly on her lap as she leaned into him. She always felt so damn good against him. Like, she knew how to find all the right angles to mold into.

When the synth, a rough, gray plastic model, brought over some water, it asked, "Would you like anything other than your shakes to drink, lovebirds? How about some coffee or soda?"

Tony nodded. "Coffee sounds good."

"Not for me," Addie replied.

As the synth shuffled away, Addie squeezed his hand and asked, "You're not stressed about talking to me, are you?"

Tony looked down at her, searching her eyes for the full meaning of her words. After a second, he shrugged. "Not really. I'm stressed about facing some stuff that I've been boxing up. I mean, literally. Like, I have deluded myself into thinking those memories aren't even there. Don't get me wrong. I was hurt, I was drugged, then I was hurt and drugged some more. It was easy to convince myself that I lost something in all that." Tony tapped his forehead. "I think it's in here, though. I think that if I start digging, I'm going to find more than I want."

"Like back at the Ninety-nine that first night? When you went to the bathroom?"

Tony saw himself in the mirror, felt his hands gripping the sink as he told himself to stop. He nodded. "Yeah, like that."

"So, start a little back from the…painful memories. What do you think you were doing that got Eric and, um, Jen angry with you?"

Tony smiled, clicking his tongue as he shook his head. "That's easy. I was talking about getting out. I was talking about moving away, working for myself. God, what an idiot!"

"Why would that make you an idiot?"

"Because I knew. Once you get to a certain level in a corp like Cross, it's assumed you're a lifer. I knew too many secrets about too many execs. I just, well, I just thought I could trust Eric. I thought I was different, you see? We were like brothers. Then there was Jen, and…" Tony looked at Addie, wondering if his baggage would change things between them. "Well, we had a thing before. I thought she cared about me."

Addie didn't seem fazed in the least. "But?" she pressed.

"But, I was stupid because it wasn't just me. I wasn't going to leave by myself." Tony squeezed his eye shut, let go of Addie's hand, and reached up to rub his temple, his ears suddenly ringing with the pain of a localized headache. "Dammit."

"Slow down, Tony. Here comes your coffee. Come on." Tony felt Addie's warm fingers on his neck, gently kneading. Little tingles ran down his spine, and he opened his eye, inhaling deeply through his nose.

"God, that feels good."

The synth set his coffee on the table. "Your food will be out in a couple of minutes."

Tony picked up the coffee, glancing at the little flavored cream dispenser by the window. He didn't want any of it. He sipped the black brew, and it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad, either. As he set the cup down, he inhaled shakily, then said, like he was ripping a band-aid off, "So, I didn't realize how petty Jen was. I didn't realize she thought she owned me. She tolerated my relationship with Emily, but that was because she figured it would pass. When I told her I wanted to leave, I realized my mistake right away."

"Did you love her?"

Tony looked at her sharply. Was this her trying to compare herself against an old girlfriend, or was this her trying to figure out how much he'd lost? She looked innocent—sweet, even. He couldn't detect any malice there, and why would he? Had he ever seen her do a mean or petty thing? He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I thought I did." Of course, whether she meant to compare herself to Jen or not, Tony couldn't help doing it, and he realized things were different. He couldn't imagine wanting to go on without Addie. He couldn't imagine locking her away in a mental box; he didn't think he could. Emily had been great, but she'd been so different…

"I'm sorry, Tony. That was a stupid question." Addie continued to knead his neck, and Tony inhaled slowly, shaking his head.

"It wasn't stupid. I need to face this stuff. Emily was good to me, but she had her own kind of problems, and yeah, maybe Jen was right; I don't know how long we would have lasted. Still, that doesn't make—" Tony shook his head, blinking rapidly as he reflexively pushed down a memory that tried to surface.

It was the first time he'd spoken about Emily without choking up and slamming the door on his thoughts and memories. He didn't want to lose his momentum, so he tried to dredge up some earlier memories, untroubled ones—dinners, clubs, sitting on the couch in his loft. Addie continued to rub his neck and shoulder, and he tried to press on. He started to unpack that dark, dense little box, the one holding the memory he'd been hiding from. "I think I was oblivious, right up to the end. We were having dinner in one of the restaurants that Jen's family owned. A private room—chef's table. It was me, Eric, Jen, and Em."

Tony closed his eye again, and Nora correctly assumed he was trying to close both and turned off the feed from his chrome one. Sitting there in the blackness, he focused on Addie's warm, gentle touch. He focused on his feelings for her—the love he felt for her—and realized that it was with the strength she gave him, the strength of his truly profound feelings for her, that he could finally face what happened.

"Yeah. We were sitting there eating. I can hear Jen's voice, 'So, T, tell me about where you two kids in love want to go. What kind of work are you gonna do?' I started to answer, and then—Bang! Hot blood hit my face. Jen was sitting there smiling like a damn cat with a mouse, a smoking, built-up chrome stinger in her hand." Tony felt his breathing getting ragged, and hot tears welled up in his eye. Addie stopped rubbing and just held his neck, maybe frozen by what he'd just said.

"It took me a couple of seconds to realize what had happened. I turned away from Jen, reaching up to rub the blood off my face, and then I saw her—Emily. Her head had been thrown back by the shot, and she was slowly sliding down off the seat, under the table." Tony felt like something had broken loose in him. Some essential band had snapped, but for some reason, he wasn't losing it. He wasn't flying into a rage. He wasn't running away. He blinked the tears away and turned to look into Addie's eyes—they were full of tears, too.

"Tony—"

When she said his name, a dark fragment of himself woke. It stirred deep in his gut and howled at his betrayal—his release of a memory that he'd worked so hard to imprison. He didn't care. He pressed on. "When I finally broke out of my trance, I started to boost—I fired off my reflexes, and powered up my plasma forge. I was gonna kill them all, Ads. I was gonna rip their bones out. Of course, she'd been expecting that. Her goons were there, behind me. They must have had a signal from her. They fired their auto-needlers into me, and they were loaded with something a hell of a lot nastier than the botu-rounds you use."

Addie reached up with both hands to cup the sides of his face, rubbing the tears away from his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Tony."

He smiled—a grim, false one—shaking his head. "That's the story, I guess. I…" He inhaled and exhaled shakily. "I feel better, Ads." He meant it, too. He really did. It was like Addie had taken half his load.

She leaned her cheek against his shoulder, her hand still gently stroking his neck. She stayed like that for a while, and Tony sipped his coffee, hardly believing he'd faced the demon in that box, his worst nightmare, and rather than feel exhausted or awful, he felt like a thousand-pound gorilla that had been standing on his chest had finally moved off. After a while, when he saw the synth moving their way with a tray of food, he lifted his arm and put it over Addie's shoulders.

"I guess, all we need to do now is figure out what I'm going to do about all that."

Addie made a murmur of agreement, then she added, "We can figure it out. We'll do it together."