Reality Hack (30 page)

‘Sounds tiring,’ Nisa replied, trying not to sound dejected.

‘It’s going to be…’ Alaina ground to a halt and frowned, and then said, ‘It’s going to be weeks of not being able to see you. He did have the good grace to look apologetic about it.’

Nisa gave her new sort-of-girlfriend her best smile. ‘Think what the reunion sex will be like when you get back. And you’ll be here for Christmas. And I’ve got a load of work I need to concentrate on, so it’s kind of good timing.’

‘It’s not,’ Alaina moaned. ‘I only just got my hands on that body of yours and now I’m being dragged off. It’s not fair. Though… the reunion sex sounds good.’

‘And, you know, we have these things called “telephones” now. They let you communicate with other people across great distances.’

Alaina giggled. ‘Now you’re being silly. I want to see you before I go.’

‘You leaving from Heathrow?’ That got a nod. ‘So we get a room out there Friday night. Hotel sex, and you’re right there at the airport when it’s time to go.’

‘Now I see why you’re a cop,’ Alaina said, smiling. ‘It’s clear that you’re a genius.’

Heathrow Airport, November 15
^th
.

Nisa turned, her eyes falling on the blonde hair spread on the pillow beside her. She smiled. Her muscles were probably going to ache in the morning, but it would be worth it. Damn, but they had tried to make sure neither of them would forget the other before Alaina left. The thought made her squirm a little and she thought of waking her bedmate for another round, but… No, it was too late now… Or too early now… And they were both tired…

‘…still does not know.’

‘She does not need…’

‘She hears us!’

‘Let her. She hears, but does not listen.’

~~~

Nisa watched as Alaina followed Alexander Maxim through the security barriers and on into the interior of the airport. Maxim had given Nisa a smile as the two women kissed goodbye, which was kind of nice. He seemed pleased that they had hooked up, which Nisa was a little surprised about given that he did not really seem the type to view same-sex relationships with favour. She waited and was rewarded by a quick look back and a wave before Alaina was swallowed by the tight security which accompanied international travel these days.

‘Damn good reason not to leave the country,’ Nisa muttered and then turned to leave. She had promised Faline she would be back as soon as possible
and
that she would cuddle the cat thoroughly for putting up with a lovesick owner. Faline had said that that was unnecessary. Nisa’s lips twitched. Actually, she had looked horrified at the idea of excessive cuddling which meant it had to happen. Oh yes, it did.

Anyway, there
was
going to be some hard work, even if it was the weekend: Nisa was sure she was close to a solution on the statistical analysis, but the tests she was doing on her program kept coming back wrong. That either meant her software was wrong or her maths was incorrect. The only way to be sure was to go over both, carefully, thoroughly… again. Okay, so police work could be tedious, monotonous, downright boring at times, but statistics…

Poplar, November 21
^st
.

‘I know it’s not exactly your area,’ Nisa said as she showed Spike her laptop and the program it was displaying, ‘and I know it’s police stuff and against your principles, but…’

Spike huffed out a breath. ‘And you just expect me to find some bug in your code, just by looking?’

‘Well, you’re a genius wizard hacker, right?’

‘Right…’

‘We all know you can do it, Spike,’ Jenna put in, grinning. ‘You’re just holding back because the keyboard might give you cop cooties.’

‘Hadn’t thought of that. Anyone got any rubber gloves?’

Giggling, Nisa dug in her bag and produced a pair of blue latex gloves. ‘Actually…’

Spike raised an eyebrow. ‘What on Earth have you got those in there for?’ He waved it away, focussing on the code. ‘Never mind, let’s see what I can see, uh…’

And that was when Nisa felt it. As he focussed and you could almost see his mind narrowing in on the screen and the code, and the flow of it all, and how the code would react when data was put in… There was the unmistakable sensation of magic being worked in her presence. She had to stifle a gasp, because it so felt like it was really coming from Spike, but it could not be him… Could it?

‘There you go,’ he said and the feeling was gone, but that just made it seem more likely that he was the source. ‘This loop… No,
these loops
are going to terminate prematurely. You’ll be failing to scan some of the data each time it iterates.’

‘Told you,’ Nisa said quickly. ‘Told you you were a wizard.’ Though the correct term was ‘technomancer.’

‘Huh,’ he grunted, and she believed the sincerity of his dismissal. ‘I’m just good. Anyone could do it.
I
never got your little light trick working.
I’m
no wizard.’

‘Just keep telling yourself that, Spike.’ Nisa pulled her laptop over and peered at the code loops he had indicated, already half lost in fixing them.

‘What I want to know,’ Lena said, ‘is who the new love of Nisa’s life is?’

‘Who says I have a new love in my life?’

‘The way your cheeks flushed when I asked.’

‘And the way your back is straighter when you walk,’ Jenna added. ‘You kind of floated in, even if you had a problem to solve. That’s love.’

‘Her name’s Alaina,’ Nisa said, not looking up, ‘and she’s blonde, very cute,
fantastic
in bed.’

Wallace let out a groan. ‘Why are all the best ones gay? At least tell me you have video.’

‘I do,’ Nisa lied, ‘and you can’t watch it.’

Tower Hamlets, November 23
^rd
.

‘It’s a weird number,’ Nisa said into her phone, ‘so it must be Alaina. Where are you?’

‘Oh… uh… Hang on, it’s Sunday… Washington. Washington, D.C. not the state. We’re flying out there day after tomorrow.’ Alaina sounded jetlagged. Certainly tired.

‘Be careful out there. I hear sparkling vampires are all the rage on the north-west coast.’

‘Huh? Oh, that. You know people in our, um, business don’t talk about that book.’

‘Probably not. You sound tired.’

‘I haven’t been up long. Time difference and stuff. Just not awake yet. We have been pushing kind of hard. Alexander’s a bit irritable, but he’s under a lot of pressure.’

Nisa frowned, leaning back from her laptop where she was busy arranging data files for processing by her newly fixed and validated software. ‘You’re okay though, right?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, and we have a two-day break in the schedule once we get to Seattle. That’ll ease the tension. Gotta say, the academic types in New England make the Order seem normal. I mean… You ever read any Lovecraft?’

‘Some, yeah.’

‘Well, now I know where he got it from. Wee-erd. I kept expecting people with fish heads for, well, heads to turn up.’

Nisa giggled. ‘Well, take it easy, and don’t take any lip from Alexander. You’re his PA, not his whipping girl.’

‘Oh yeah. If I’m letting anyone whip me it’s you, and I was thinking more of–’

‘A good spanking?’ Nisa asked before she could stop herself.

‘How did you know I liked…? Now I’m blushing. We’ll discuss that, at length, when I get back. I need some breakfast, gotta go. Love you. Bye.’

The connection went before Nisa could reply and she sat there, her stomach fluttering. Love? Did she really, or was it just a cute thing to say before hanging up? And now was not the time to worry over that given that the woman was thousands of miles away.

‘Back to work,’ Nisa grumbled, and leaned forward again, peering at her screen.

November 26
^th
.

‘How is your analysis going?’ Faline asked as she walked in from the bedroom, straightening the shift-like dress she had agreed was ‘not too bad.’

Nisa gave her a quick smile, mostly to encourage the clothing use. ‘I got everything onto the PC at the office. I mean, it’s more like a small server. Way more powerful than my laptop.’ She frowned. ‘Maybe I should have asked Spike about multithreading the thing. Anyway, as it stands it’s going to be days of processing before it spits out results. It’s doing a pretty complex regression analysis–’

‘Nisa, I may be quite bright, and I am knowledgeable about many things, but mathematics is not one of them. I have no idea what a “regression analysis” is.’

‘No, probably not. You and most of the population, to be honest. Doesn’t really matter; the point I was making is that it’s going to take time so I’m waiting.’

‘Oh… Perhaps that’s why I thought you should look at this again.’ Faline raised her hand and flipped the coin toward Nisa.

Nisa watched it twirling, turning end over end, as the world seemed to slow, and she saw the glyphs marking the surface flickering in the overhead light, and… Everything snapped back to normal as she reached up and plucked the coin from the air. ‘This thing…’ Her thumb slid over the sigil which drew out the pattern she recognised as belonging, somehow, to energy magic. ‘I still don’t really…’ Her brow furrowed as she moved her thumb and another pattern sprang up. Something new, another intricate, multidimensional shape which seemed to pull at her mind… Mind? Something about it felt like the spell she used to speak to Faline in cat form.

‘Nisa?’ Faline sounded a little concerned.

‘I think… Somehow I’ve opened up more of this thing. Maybe it’s all the practice with that telepathy spell.’

‘You can see more?’ Faline settled down beside her friend, peering at the coin, even though she could not see the patterns Nisa could.

Nisa moved her thumb and another pattern rose from the coin. This one was somehow more solid, harder, sharper, though it was just as complex as the other ones and it was twisted into more than three dimensions as they were. Matter. This was the pattern of matter and it was right there, waiting for her to discover just exactly what it was.

‘Yeah, I can see more. A lot more.’

Westminster, December 1
^st
.

Kellog’s birthday was marked by a small departmental outing to the pub at lunchtime, and that was only because there was not much going on and Hanson thought they could all do with the amusement. The amusement was largely that of watching Kellog squirm at turning thirty-one and having his nose rubbed in it.

‘I tell you what,’ Nisa said in consolation, ‘I turn twenty-five in a couple of years. I’ll let you embarrass me horribly then.’

‘Thank you,’ Kellog replied, an eyebrow shifting slightly. ‘So kind of you. You’re looking… oddly enthused. There’s something of a confident quality about you which I don’t believe I’ve noticed before.’

He was, she thought, changing the subject. ‘Well…’

‘He’s right,’ Sandra said. ‘He’s trying to change the subject from his advancing age, but he’s right. I’d say it was down to this Alaina, but she’s not here and I think that’s only part of it.’

‘The statistics program I’m running may actually turn up something,’ Nisa said, ‘and I’m quite jazzed about getting it working. I think my studies with more arcane forms of manipulation are coming along too. I had… an epiphany.’ She was still unable to mention the agents, and the coin seemed to be part of that. At least she could skirt around it and sound like she was being obscure for anyone listening who might not be in the know.

‘A very big word,’ Norbery said, ‘especially considering it isn’t a very big word.’

‘You seem to suffer from them,’ Kellog commented.

‘Yeah,’ Nisa agreed, ‘but this one didn’t require a week in a coma. I guess I’m starting to feel more confident. That’s good, right?’

‘It can’t hurt,’ Norbery replied. ‘Now, Brandon, old man, have you considered making a will yet? What with your advancing years and such?’

Nisa giggled, mostly because of the way Kellog’s shoulders sagged, and the conversation was refocussed on ribbing their American colleague.

~~~

‘Is she ready?’

‘Soon she will have to be.’

‘She hears us clearly now. That was not–’

‘She hears but does not remember. And she
must
be ready.’

Nisa rolled over in her bed and, for a second, thought she saw shadows in the corners of her room. The fear that gripped her pulled her up from sleep, but…

‘They are not here.’ The assurance sent her tumbling back into deep sleep. ‘But they
are
waiting…’

Tower Hamlets, December 6
^th
.

Nisa was lying on the sofa with her laptop actually in her lap, her eyes glued to the data her analysis program had dumped out, when the phone rang. She picked up almost absently and answered without looking. ‘Hey.’

‘Nisa? It’s Alaina.’

‘Hey! Sorry, I’m distracted. I’ve got a load of statistical data to go through. Where are you?’

‘Berlin.’ There was a weary quality to the blonde’s voice. ‘We got in this morning, but I barely slept on the flight and I crashed when I got in.’

‘You sound like you’re apologising.’

‘Do I? Yeah… I guess I do. Sorry. I just seem to be doing it a lot recently.’

‘Maxim giving you Hell?’

‘Oh… He’s just stressed.’

Turning, Nisa sat up and focussed properly on the call. ‘You’ve been saying that since you got out there.’

‘I know… I know. He’ll be better once we’re settled into this circuit. He’s been sleeping badly.’

‘Sure.’

‘Uh… I need to go. We’ve got a meeting with some guy about… Oh, I need to find the notes. I’ll call. Bye.’

Nisa stared at the phone for a few seconds. Maxim had seemed like a nice enough sort of guy with an edge of the control freak Kellog had suggested was there, but maybe Kellog had been closer to the mark after all. ‘Just another week, Alaina,’ she said to the quiet phone. ‘Then you can forget about him for a bit.’ She looked back at her laptop. ‘I, on the other hand, can’t forget about this, even if I want to.’ And she returned to studying correspondence figures.