limited posting on the web.” He scanned the desk top, glanced again at the bed. “Where’s my mobile?”
Gabe stretched toward the nightstand and the mobile. Tetsu reached it first, started working the keypad.
“Shit, everything with an anchor symbol is gone! Stripped from the servers, even the liberty servers.”
“Someone hacked Free Net?” Gabe’s brows shot up. “It’s supposed to be hack proof.”
Tetsu held his mobile up and shook it. “Hack proof, maybe. Bulletproof--no.”
“You’re kid --” Gabe dropped his gaze to the mattress, nervously smoothed the top sheet. “No, you aren’t kidding.” He sat up, back to the wall, and studied Tetsu’s worried face for a moment. “How does this change things?”
“I can’t put anything with an anchor in--”
“A what?”
“It’s kind of like waving a red flag at those who know the Code. Tori never put any anchor symbols on you because I already knew to look.” Tetsu picked up his last scan and showed Gabe. “See these?” He pointed at one crane standing, its legs bent in the wrong direction, then at the reverse fold of the geisha’s kimono and finally at the cloth she had spread on the ground with its bowl of rice with its upright chopsticks. The first was unnatural, the other two signaled death among an otherwise peaceful, traditional scene.
“No one would draw it like that,” Gabe answered.
“Right.” He tossed the scan on the bed, started to pace. “The anchors are used to throw the design off -- to signal the right people and avoid duplication by those outside the Code.”
“And now you can’t use them on the web?”
Tetsu stopped, rubbed at his jaw. “Dangerous to use them at all -- but we really needed the web on this to reach everyone quickly.”
“What about a vid cast?”
Tetsu shook his head, began pacing again. “What, get to a pirate station, keep it on air more than five seconds? Sorry, I just don’t see that.”
“No,” Gabe laughed. “I didn’t mean some boat in the bay or another one of your rundown buildings. I meant the six o’clock news, the news at nine. J-vid on the hour every hour.”
Tetsu stopped in front of the bed, stared down at Gabe. “How?”
Another laugh from Gabe, slightly unhinged. “I always wanted to be a vid star.” He showed Tetsu his profile, drew two fingers lightly along his jaw line. “There’s a ValCo board meeting Wednesday afternoon -- annual shareholder vid cast. Is that too late?”
Tetsu shrugged. “Wednesday would work, but who watches vid programming like that and how do we get the Code broadcast?”
“Think, Tetsu-san. It’s like when the G8 used to meet up, all that economic power in one place. Remember the coverage outside those events?”
Tetsu nodded.
“And if a trillionaire CEO’s gorgeous, deranged son shows up, screaming about blackmail and suicide and lovers and a father’s exploitation.” Gabe paused, saw that Tetsu was catching on. “If he tears his shirt off, beats his chest, moons the god damn building… where is the camera going to be, what goes into heavy rotation on the vid casts?”
Tetsu smiled. “You covered in the Code.”
Gabe rolled onto his back, laughing, his hands pressed to his stomach. “Magnus is going to freak.”
“Wait -- that’s bad. The guards --”
"The guards will take me to him.” Gabe patted the mattress, inviting Tetsu back to bed. “When the world goes more to shit than it already is, I’ll already be deep in ValCo, close to Daddy and ready to strike a second time.”
Tetsu put a knee back on the mattress, hovering while he tapped the mobile’s keypad and hit “send.”
“Done?” Gabe asked.
Tetsu nodded and placed the mobile back on the nightstand.
“Good.” He grabbed the band of Tetsu’s shorts, pulled him down to the bed. “Because these little flashes of brilliance make me horny.”
Chapter Seven
Late Wednesday morning in a Nu Edo hotel room, Gabe was stretched naked on the bed. Next to
Natasha Solomons
Poul Anderson
Joseph Turkot
Eric Chevillard
Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Summer Newman
Maisey Yates
Mark Urban
Josh Greenfield
Bentley Little