The Incubus Gambit

By D. Clarence Snyder

Killer new firewall protects data from hackers!

The all natural diet corporations don’t want you to know about!

She turned her cell phone off; the reason why is shocking!

108,903 words you need to read. #98,641 is insane!

Not everyone was delighted by the advent of synthetic body parts. Some people protested the new technology, some fled “The Altered State” to form Naturalist colonies, and others took more direct actions.

Hackers have turned up dead all over the city. When a friend goes missing, one hacker hires Canbe to discover what happened. The shape-shifting freelance mercenary discovers more about the people in her life than she ever wanted to know as she takes on her most difficult infiltration yet—living in a cult dedicated to reducing the use of synthetic parts by murdering people who have them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Clarence Snyder
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463571569

D. Clarence Snyder

D. Clarence Snyder is a retired Master Sergeant and unabashed nerd. His previous work includes uncredited technical articles; several issues of the comic book series The Tick; and an infrequently updated blog and web comic.

Book preview

The Incubus Gambit

A Short Story in the Bright Future

by D. Clarence Snyder

Copyright 2016 by D. Snyder

Cover: model Lori Alix, photographer Jamey Lynn

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

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If you enjoy this book, please return to your favorite ebook retailer, post a review, and discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

Forward

Prologue

Chapter 1.0: Plan W

Chapter 1.5: Zealosy

Chapter 2.0: Fall Waiting

Chapter 3.0: Click Clique Cliche

Chapter 3.5: The Better the Fence

Chapter 4.0: Unfriending

Chapter 5.0: Deceitful Apparitions

Chapter 6.0: Possibilities Ltd.

Chapter 6.5: Targeting Language

Chapter 7.0: What the Coroner Said

Chapter 7.5: Daemon Assisted Suicide

Chapter 8.0: The Office Club

Chapter 9.0: The Omun Reveal

Chapter 10.0: Cereal Killers

Chapter 11.0: Dive Time Radio

Chapter 11.5: The Failure Option

Chapter 12.0: The Biggs Idea

Chapter 13.0: Canbe Colonist

Chapter 14.0: Organic Infrastructure

Chapter 15.0: The Friend of My Enemy is My Dinner Guest

Chapter 16.0: Watching the Grass Grow

Chapter 17.0: The Finding of the Prize

Chapter 18.0: Confronting the Demon

Chapter 18.5: Confronting the Demoness

Chapter 19.0: Round 2, Fight!

Chapter 20.0: Zeus’ Former Girlfriend

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by D. Clarence Snyder

Dedication: is required when striving to be worthy of the expectations of those I don’t want to disappoint.

Forward:

Author’s note on sign language

There are several cases in this story where people use sign language to communicate. The power of the synthetic neural technology, which is central to the Bright Future, has rendered conditions like deafness nearly nonexistent. I offer my apologies to the Deaf Community, but there is no Deaf Community in a world with only one Deaf person.

The sign language used for the writing of this story is American Sign Language. Any specific signs I describe are the ASL versions. Though I am not fluent in the language, cases where someone uses an incorrect sign are based on mistakes that I believe are realistically plausible errors in ASL.

The actual sign language being used by the characters is a resurrected version of a dead language. In fact, there are three different dialects being used at different points in the story.

Sign Languages are natural languages developed by communities of Deaf people over time throughout history. ASL does not use the same syntax as spoken English. This syntactic difference is not represented in this story. This was an intentional decision to make the dialog accessible to readers while realistically portraying Deaf people. Any quoted dialog should be considered to have been translated into English for the benefit of the reader and not as a precise transcription of the words being signed.

Prologue: Exorcising

If there had been anyone around to see it, the daemon would have dropped the woman’s limp and lifeless body onto the stone floor. In that moment, she ceased to exist, and her effective world ended with her. The daemon’s work was finished. Without witnesses, its flair for the dramatic was no longer required.

In the moments before her end, she had been alive, naked, and wailing in the throes of passion, and he acted to seduce, enrapture, and hold her to that end.

The room was a strange mix of modern and ancient designs built from stonework materials. Marbled tiles made up the floor in gray and white swirls. The walls rose up from the floor, glistening in their smoothness. The light color of the floor and walls gave an impression that the space was well lit. At the same time, the ceiling was completely hidden from view by an impenetrable shadow. It was designed to give the space a dark, secret feeling. The design was successful.

The room was a home for the daemon and the antechamber of a tremendous vault. Cloaked by heavy curtains, a short stair descended into the space, serving as the entranceway. Opposite the stair, the vault’s large, heavy door was set in a frame of square columns. It looked foreboding. It looked heavy. It looked locked. Behind the impressive features of the door, treasures obviously laid.

Several pieces of Victorian-styled furniture were laid out to make the antechamber into a formal lounge. Deep crimson upholstery gave the impression of crushed velvet, though it had the texture of fine silk. Their color evoked a sense of formal seduction.

When the woman had entered, the daemon was casually reclining on the chaise lounge. It seemed inadequate to describe him as handsome. He was the epitome of the male form. He resembled Michelangelo’s David, in both shape and firmness. His skin was the rich, deep hue of a golden tan and smooth as the marble from which the original had been carved. His black hair was short but lush. Unburdened of concern for style, its wild combing added an air of adventure to his handsome face and heroically chiseled jaw.

They were both dressed as if their meeting had been arranged for their carnal intentions. He wore a silk robe, which was open to display his nakedness within. She was dressed in a diaphanous wrap, which was too short and too thin to conceal her own nudity properly. He seemed to be waiting for her, as she seemed to be ready for him.

There was no posturing or words between them. She stepped down from the stone stairs and glided to his side. The daemon was standing before she reached him. His evident arousal parted his robe, letting the garment slip from his strong shoulders and drop to the floor. She reached for his erection, eager to satisfy him with her hands, but he stopped her. He had different plans.

The daemon grasped her wrists and held them at the level of her shoulders. With a flex of his chest, her transparent clothes burst into flame and vanished. He lacked horns, wings, and tail; he wasn’t that sort of demon, but he had power in his room. Wisps of smoke and embers drifted and settled around the pair. Her face wore an expression of shock before she surrendered herself to her powerlessness before him.

Like him, her body was a perfect specimen of the female form. She wasn’t overtly sexy, so much as very pretty, which was unusual for the kinds of women who visited the daemon. Her breasts were modest, suggesting that they were natural. Her face was softer, with a girlish quality. Her eyes were unnaturally green and framed by her hair, which fell about her shoulders like auburn curtains. Except for her lips, she wore soft make-up, colored to accent the brilliance of her flawless emerald eyes. Her lips were like rubies; they were brightly colored to attract attention.

Fear left her, and a faint smile crossed her gemstone features. The daemon’s grip denied her use of her usual weapons, so she prepared to set a different trap. To spring it, she lay on the crimson silk cushion beside her.

The daemon gave her no option – and no time. He moved atop her body and entered it effortlessly. Unprepared for his directness she winced in a semblance of pain. The daemon’s prowess made up for his impatience, and she was quickly writhing and moaning in pleasure.

She didn’t go to the daemon’s room because of his handsome looks or sexual abilities. She wasn’t attracted to him. It was his vault that she desired. She wanted something from beyond the big door and he knew it. To get it, he demanded a high toll. As soon as they touched, she felt she wanted – needed – to pay that toll.

She reacted to him enthusiastically, and their lovemaking became a thing of momentary beauty. It was not the sort of beauty made by a pair of dancers; there was no audience to entertain. The choreography involved no movement, save for his short, powerful thrusts. The motions were not artful; they were pornographic. The moment of beauty was a poem of sensation; intense pleasure flowed from him and over her.

The daemon brought her to orgasm. Spasms wracked her muscles, as tsunami-like waves of endorphins crashed over her consciousness. Her cries of ecstasy informed the daemon he was doing well.

As she subsided, she realized that he was not finished. He hadn’t stopped or even slowed down. She was not a virgin, and her previous experiences told her that the daemon should have been tensing for his own release. He wasn’t. Instead, he kissed, caressed, and fondled her even as he continued his thrusting. She felt her body tense. Again, she lost all control as his efforts called forth another orgasm.

She recognized danger in their impromptu tryst. She attempted to withdraw from her demon lover, but he would not allow it. He was insatiable. Fear crossed her face as she realized she was stuck. His weight bore down on her, holding her on the soft, antique-styled furniture.

She had intended to use sex as a weapon to get past the daemon. She had planned to satisfy his lusts then casually stroll away from his exhausted body. She had willingly accepted – even encouraged – his actions, but her consent no longer mattered. In that moment, their lustful encounter became a passively violent rape. His mastery of her weapon exceeded hers, and he did not intend to simply wear her out.

She thought briefly of irony. Often engaged in such acts, she had thought that being in coitus would be an enjoyable end to her life. Her understanding of biology was that brain chemistry and confused psychology would keep her on a natural high. In a purely scientific sense, it was true. Her body would not stop feeling the physical pleasure.

Faced with the reality of her impending demise, her mind recognized that she was not in the embrace of a lover who cared for her happiness. The daemon wasn’t even a person who recognized her as a living thing. He didn’t have some pent-up desire for the withheld touch of a woman. He saw her as an object – a sort of plumbing of the proper size. If he had felt anything about her, it would have been loathing for the person attached to that plumbing.

His vault had drawn her near. In feeling no emotions, he disregarded the person part of the woman. He dominated and humiliated her, but she didn’t matter. To protect the vault, he would kill her. If he had felt joy, it would have come from the knowledge that she surrendered to his force of will.

That surrender was the last conscious act of her life.

If the room was real, and the daemon could observe it, he would have watched the light leave her eyes. However, it wasn’t a real place. The entire room, the stonework, the furniture, and the vault door were computer-simulated imagery. Codes were communicated through data networks and interfaces, to bundles of synaptically plastic synthetic neurons, which were integrated directly into an organic brain. Those codes brought the entire experience to life, simulating every sensation in that organic brain. Every touch had been felt, and the autonomic reactions of biology occurred. An organic heart raced; breathing quickened; muscles clenched.

When she died, the data connections ended. With no other person connected to the simulation, the room ceased to exist. The girl left no body behind to be callously discarded by the daemon. There was no daemon to commit that final act of domination. There was no couch with crimson pillows stained by vaginal secretions.

There was a body, but it was fully clothed and lying in a chair, miles away from the computer processors that calculated the codes to generate the room. It bore one important similarity to the girl.

It was also dead.

Chapter 1.0: Plan W

The PepsiCo Business Complex Tower was not the tallest building in the cluster of skyscrapers that made up downtown. It boasted forty-five floors accessible for commercial use, and another ten tween-decks for maintenance and facilities. At slightly over seven hundred feet tall, it was prominent enough to be seen as part of the city’s official skyline. The building was a shining example of corporate power in the city. Its windows were tinted in colors to emblazon the structure with the corporate logo. It made for a distinctive presence in downtown.

Specifically, the tower itself was not unique. Four other, exact copies of the tower had been built around the world. They were nicknamed the PepsiCo Watchtowers. They were intended as a symbol of uniformity in product; PepsiCo delivered exactly the same quality products and services everywhere. To most people, the message sent by the towers was we are everywhere, we see all. Presence of a watchtower was an effective way to eliminate competitors from a city. They also dissuaded traditional, geography-based governments from trifling with the nation-status corporation. Even the most primitive municipalities recognized the global sovereignty of The Corporate Empire of PepsiCo.

A small helipad, large air-cooling units, and blocks of lockers and bunkers for storing equipment adorned the roof of the tower. There were three access points to the roof from the building. One was an elevator near the helipad. The other two were the tops of stairwells on opposite corners. The stairwell doors were normally locked to prevent unauthorized access to the roof. The lock on the south corner’s door had been secretly cheated to let the door pop open once. It wasn’t a complex adjustment. The lock had been disengaged and the door opened. Spring tension closed the door on a plastic card placed between the latch and the door jamb. When rapid egress was necessary, the door would be opened, the card would fall, and the spring would close the door, locking it again. The cheat wasn’t useful to most purposes, but it was exactly what would be needed by someone fleeing pursuit.

The card had been placed in the door twenty-four hours earlier. The card was unmarred by fingerprints or other identifying marks. The woman who had placed it did not sign in with any office, but she had arrived by public transportation. Careful examination of video surveillance could have found her entering the stairwell ten floors from the roof. With that, investigators could have tracked her movements through the building, to the taxicab that had dropped her off. From there, they could have requested the name on her travel payment card. The name would not reveal much about the woman, though.

Candice Blalock was little more than a name on a bus pass. A few months earlier, she received a local travel card as a part of her compensation for a job she had done. The card could be used to pay for any kind of ground travel anywhere in the city, and bills would be sent to the issuing corporation. For their own accounting purposes, the nation-status corporation required a name. The one on her regular bus pass seemed to be the natural choice.

As an identity, Candice Blalock only existed on travel cards, a few car rental agreements, and Metropolitan Mass Transit passes. None of those things required a photograph, and she paid their fees with cash vouchers. She didn’t have a driver’s license, but she could go anywhere in the city without owning a car. She had no home which could be staked out. Her only address was a rented Parcel Service delivery box. Analysis of her consumer data would conclude that she was probably a fake identity.

It was the literal truth. Candice Blalock didn’t exist. The name was one of several cover identities for a mercenary agent – a freelancer – who specialized in infiltration. Her professional name was Canbe. It wasn’t a reference to the Blalock identity – Candice B. The handle was meant to imply that she can be anything. It was more accurate to say almost anything. For example: the moment she burst through the stairwell door onto the roof of the PepsiCo Watchtower, she wanted to be approximately two hundred pounds lighter.

She wasn’t overweight. Canbe was physically fit and well proportioned. If she lost two hundred pounds of her own weight, she would cease to exist and then become a slightly smaller negative copy of herself. She wasn’t carrying anything so heavy, per se. As she pulled the door open with one hand, her other was wrapped around the wrist of another freelancer, Tommy Jones.

Tommy was a security specialist she had worked with once before, though Canbe considered that statement as a euphemism. They hadn’t worked together by choice on that other job. He had accidentally stumbled onto her when she was performing an act of data theft for a mutual employer. They each blew the other’s cover and became stuck with one another. Canbe was irritated by the situation, but Tommy had been useful. He was a fighter, quick to react but slow to plan.

In the months since that job, they maintained a mutually beneficial, professional relationship. Canbe taught Tommy how to maintain a cover identity. In exchange, Tommy helped protect one of hers by posing as an illicit boyfriend. But, they hadn’t worked on any other jobs together. It wasn’t that she didn’t like or trust him; she did. Normally, she actively avoided the kinds of jobs where she would need help from someone like Tommy.

Canbe had been hired to infiltrate PepsiCo to steal a synthetic sugar molecule, authenticated copies of its clinical trials, and its original patent applications. It was a lawsuit gig. Someone was suing the Corporate Empire of PepsiCo over some aspect of the nation-status corporation’s newest, unreleased ingredient. Canbe didn’t know the details of the case, only what was needed by the counselor who had hired her.

Where many large corporations were sovereign nations, criminal law was a hodgepodge of jurisdictions, making enforcement difficult. Consequently, civil law became more subjective and nigh impossible to enforce. An individual could bring suit against a nation-status corporation in a traditional government court, and treaties ensured the results of that suit would be binding. However, without a state of war between the corporation and the traditional government, the court could not force the corporation to produce evidence. As a result, PepsiCo had no obligation to provide access to documents that might prove the plaintiff’s claims. It was a system that nearly guaranteed the nation-status corporation would prevail.

In the interest of justice for the common man, courts accepted stolen documents. Their sources had to be authenticated, but that was a simple matter of applying a digital signature from the computer where the documents were stored. It gave rise to a new meaning for a particular specialty called e-Discovery. Freelancers would steal documents from nation-status corporations for presentation in court.

Canbe had done quite a lot of e-Discovery work over the years. It paid well but was often high-risk. In high profile cases, corporations took steps to protect, alter, or destroy related data. As a result, the highest paying jobs had the shortest deadlines. Canbe wasn’t a smash and grab data thief. She specialized in infiltration, which required finesse and time. If a deadline were too short, she would pass on the job.

The deadline on the synthetic sugar gig was seventy-two hours. There were all of the usual pressures: impending hearings, lack of planning emergencies, rescheduled court dates, late discovery – all the things that attorneys used to make their staff and vendors run around frantically.

The Corporate Empire of PepsiCo was powerful and ubiquitous. The local watchtower was the empire’s only government presence in the city, but a member state, the Yum! Brands Republic, assured that no one in the city was more than two miles from a piece of PepsiCo controlled territory. The Yum! Brands Republic was a collection of convenience restaurants. None of the restaurants was large enough to warrant its own police force, but modern corporate empires were not built on military might. Their strength was information. Sales data, customer tracking, regional eating habits, and drive through cameras from nearly a million locations worldwide provided PepsiCo’s real power. If PepsiCo wanted a person found, restaurants all over the city could form a giant sensor web. Filtered by facial recognition software operated by artificial and augmented biological intelligence, that web could track a person with enough accuracy that PepsiCo could respond with a single car, driven directly to their wanted fugitive’s location.

It was too dangerous on too short a clock for Canbe. She gained a certain pride in being skilled enough to beat such odds, but the consummate professional in her knew that the risk was too great. She would have passed, except she needed the money. She had lost a car on that job with Tommy. Lost as in it was destroyed by an anti-tank rocket, and her insurance didn’t cover the damage.

Working with Tommy Jones should have made the job easier. Because they redirected attention away from her activities, diversions were a fast and dirty way of improving her odds of success. His boyish good looks and uplifting personality made him good at attracting attention. Having him deliver a gigantic bouquet of flowers to a secretary’s desk at the right time was simple and innocuous.

Canbe only needed seconds. She attached a wireless Standard Bus Interface cable to the terminal of a secretary, Diana. The w-SBI cable was a pair of linked transceivers that operated like a straight piece of wire, without the actual wire. Usually, its range was limited to about ten feet, but that was more than enough for Canbe’s purpose. One end was plugged into the terminal; its mate was plugged into the SBI jack behind Canbe’s ear.

Like most adults, Canbe had a cell phone implanted in her head. Synaptically plastic synthetic neurons clipped the phone to her cochlear, laryngeal, and optic nerves. This allowed her to use Silent Talk technology to have conversations – or command – the phone without any actual sounds being made and see the phone’s display without actual images. Less expensive – cheap – phones used earring speakers and contact lenses or implanted synthetic corneas to present their displays, but it was valuable to Canbe to be able to use her phone without anyone around her being able to detect it.

As long as she remained within the range of her w-SBI cable, she could use her smartphone to control Diana’s terminal and transfer information from it without being noticed.

Canbe navigated to a network file location. It was one to which all secretaries had access. Remote controlling Diana’s terminal bypassed the usual troubles of having to log in and authenticate to PepsiCo’s network. As far as the PepsiCo network knew, Canbe was Diana.

The plaintiff in the case was probably a former PepsiCo citizen. He had given specific information about where in the network to find the reports. That made e-Discovery much easier. Diana had access to what Canbe needed, so it was Canbe’s for the taking.

The clinical trials and an executive summary were right where the plaintiff’s attorney said they’d be. The model of the molecule and the patent application weren’t, but an index in the executive summary revealed the location of those files. They were in a data vault. Diana didn’t have direct access. To crack a data vault could take hours. Canbe didn’t have hours. She also didn’t have the expertise to break into a vault that secure. What Canbe did have was an expert knowledge in human behavior and corporate operations. She checked Diana’s profile for a key ring.

A key-ring was an electronic copy of credentials to make accessing different electronic systems simpler. Instead of providing a long password and a fingerprint, the secretary could use a copy of those credentials stored in the specialty file.

Diana’s key ring was made up of her boss’s credentials instead of her own. It allowed her easy access to set up meetings, prepare reports, and print documents. The key-ring also let Canbe into the data vault. Key rings themselves were usually protected; to use Diana’s key ring, the secretary had to unlock the file. That would have slowed Canbe down, if Diana didn’t always leave the file open and ready for use.

It was risky for Canbe to rely on Diana having an open key ring. It was a common mistake, but Canbe had a backup plan to copy the key ring and use a cracking app against it. It would have taken more time, but the results would have been the same.

The flower delivery distraction worked for the time she needed. Tommy was charming enough to keep the three women and one man who served as executive assistants entertained by the giant bouquet. Getting real flowers delivered at work was considered something of an event.

It seemed to be working perfectly, until the card was read.

With three days to deliver the files, Canbe had spent the first one learning the names and positions of the people who worked on the executive levels of the watchtower. The woman who received the flowers was Bev. The two people who sat closest to the executive suite were Kira and Troy. Bev and Kira worked for Larry Whiseman, a regional vice president for foreign affairs. Diana and Troy worked for Bob Kearsarge. Bob was a director in corporate development. He didn’t report to Larry but often worked under him. Bob’s responsibilities warranted his own staff. A mid-tier secretary for a busy executive working with new products made Diana the perfect target for Canbe’s infiltration. Taking direct-attention away from Diana’s terminal was necessary.

The card was addressed to Bev. Kira was something of a nosey busybody, so she snatched the card and read it, Thanks for all the late nights –Larry.

Late nights? Bev wondered aloud. In the world of corporate citizenship, personal time was a secondary concern. A thank you for some unpaid overtime seemed like a safe guess.

What does he mean late nights? Kira was visibly angry.

Canbe didn’t know that Kira was having an affair with Larry, and Bev hadn’t worked an hour of overtime in months. The late nights comment was exactly the wrong thing to put on the card.

I have no idea, Bev confessed.

Kira had confided in Bev about her affair with their boss. What Kira didn’t know was Bev and Larry had had sex once, years earlier. Bev was secretive about the tryst as it had been the night before her wedding. Bev and Larry had worked together for years, and both had wondered about the other. With the help of a bottle of scotch, they mutually decided to find out if there was anything to their curious attractions. There was not. All of that was before Kira had started working for Larry, and Kira did not know about it.

There’s no name on the card, Troy tried, sensing the escalating tension.

I might have the wrong name. Posing as the deliveryman, Tommy held up a slip of paper and pretended to check it.

It’s not the wrong name. He would never send me flowers. Kira poked Bev in the shoulder. You don’t work over time. What have you been doing?

As Bev protested, the two women’s voices grew louder and higher pitched. Diana’s voice was added to the furor as she tried to shout the two women down. Troy lightly grasped Kira’s wrist to stop her poking Bev.

Troy was tall but slight of build and temperament. Kira shook off his grip, and what had been an angry poking became an accidental punch. Bev shrieked and tackled Kira. Shouting became screaming as the two women grappled with each other. Troy tried to break them up but was pushed aside. Diana stood shouting unintelligibly.

Tommy stepped back. He knew the fight worked for him and Canbe, so he positioned himself to keep a clear path to the door. Canbe hovered close to Diana’s terminal but backed away to seem that her attention was on avoiding the fight.

Behind the tussling women, two other visitors, both men, backed up to a door, which led to a conference room. One stood in front of it, blocking the chaos. The other slipped inside the conference room. A moment later, the fight stopped working for Canbe. The male visitors were dressed in stylish dark suits, giving no hints to their purpose. The conference room door opened, and Bob Kearsarge stepped out.

What is going on? his voice bellowed. Bob was a happy looking man, normally. He stood five foot ten and significantly overweight. When he raised his voice, it carried.

Bev and Kira took notice and stopped wrestling to answer Bob, both speaking at once and rapidly.

Whoa whoa whoa, Bob raised his hands. One at a time.

Behind Bob, another visitor exited the conference room. He was dressed in the same sort of suit as the men who had waited outside the door. His clothing didn’t give away his purpose, but Tommy and Canbe both knew what it was.

The man standing behind Bob wasn’t a PepsiCo employee. He was a security guard for the nation-status corporation Kraft Foods and Services. His name was Richard, and Tommy had sort of worked for him once.

At the time, Tommy had been a spy. He worked as an office guard in one of Kraft Foods’ laboratories, but he was being paid by a competitor to report on the lab’s activities. When Richard discovered that, he had tried to detain Tommy. During his escape, Tommy shot Richard three times. Because of armor woven into his skin, Richard wasn’t seriously wounded, but he held a grudge against Tommy.

Richard recognized Tommy instantly and jumped to a conclusion about Tommy’s presence.

Tommy? Tommy Jones! Richard delighted. How, the hell, are you? he added with sadistic glee. Richard drew his sidearm from a concealed holster. He tried to take aim, but Troy and the angry women prevented him having a clear shot.

Seeing Richard, Tommy knew he had to run, but he was there to help Canbe get the data. Chaos worked in their favor, so Tommy thought of a way to add more. He drew his own pistol and immediately fired two shots into Bev’s desk.

The wrestling match had been a calm, polite game compared to the eruption of panic at the sound of gunfire. Bev and Kira forgot their feud, looked at Tommy, and ran toward the conference room. Troy dropped to the floor, and Bev tripped over him. Diana stood still and started screaming. Bob turned and immediately pushed his way back into the conference room. Richard was knocked aside and lost sight of Tommy.

Along with Richard, the two men who had waited outside the door were a security contingent from Kraft Foods and Services. Their purpose was to protect one of their executives during a meeting with the PepsiCo executives. The guards were supposed to be ceremonial; the meeting was friendly and mutually beneficial. Richard was preoccupied with his anger at Tommy, but the other guards took their jobs seriously. At the sound of gunfire, they moved to form a bullet-shield for the man they were there to protect. Richard recovered in time to be pushed aside again.

Tommy took aim at the doorway but looked at Canbe. He didn’t want to shoot through the secretaries, but he prepared himself for the possibility. They weren’t his friends, and Richard was an immediate threat. Tommy needed to leave, but he knew he would only be paid if the job were successful. His priority was Canbe.

Canbe liked the commotion. It kept attention away from her, giving her time to unlock the data vault and retrieve the files she needed. She continued to work even as Tommy had fired into the desk. While he aimed at the door, a copy of the molecule was transferring across PepsiCo’s internal network through Diana’s terminal, over Canbe’s w-SBI cable, into her phone, and onto an extra memory block. The extra memory block was external to the phone, but it was still inside her head. After transferring data to it, Canbe would selectively shut off its connections, so that it couldn’t be detected or accessed – a precaution in case she failed to get away.

The molecule’s file was large, and she needed another few seconds. Canbe didn’t speak, but she reached for the plug in Diana’s