Page 124 of Coldwire
34LIA
I wait for Kieren to go to sleep.
We start slowing when Wespic’s glowing horizon creeps into the distance, the roads turning narrower to accommodate the approaching city. Seven of the seventeen hours have passed. It’s almost three in the morning. A steady rain drizzles down the windows.
Without Weston, there is no commentary from the bot. I don’t know if he shut down the original guide on purpose, or if the AI tour bus went on the fritz after his occupation. My eyes flicker once more to the window. I track a bead racing along the exterior, but in truth I’m using the reflection as a subtle method to keep tabs on Kieren. He’s three rows back, having moved closer since he and Hailey ended their conversation. Hailey is curled up in one of the other rows, and Rayna has been knocked out for who knows how long.
At this point, it’s only me and Kieren in a race to stay awake, and he doesn’t know he’s participating.
His eyes have been fluttering for over an hour, his head tipped back. Just when I think he’s closing his eyes fully, he opens them again, his lips ever so pursed, pensive at some imaginary spot on the bus ceiling.
Just sleep,I want to snap.Be normal and rest for once.
Kieren sighs out loud, as though he can hear me. His gaze wanders around, and I hurry to look away from the reflection of the window, fixing my own attention forward. A few minutes later, I glance back, and his eyes are finally closed.
It took long enough.
I twiddle my thumbs for five minutes. Then ten. When I’m finally certain that he must be asleep, and there’s no chance he’ll open his display and see it moving around, I click in, activating remote access.
It’s jarring to have someone else’s display overlaid. Though there’s nothing different from mine on a structural level, I have the disorientation akin to suddenly finding my left hand on the right: his default buttons are in another order, his shortcuts go to different places. I’m already committing several moral infractions being connected without permission, so I don’t go idly browsing.
Kieren has been watching me. That much I am certain of now. The refusal to ask me more about Chung, the readiness to accept how I’ve been getting into each secure location. From the morning before we were injected into the server, he’s been doing all he can not to trip my suspicion.
Didn’t I suspect this from the very beginning? One cadet for bait, another cadet to work the actual posting.
My hands are shaking as I go to open his files. His briefing for the exam posting is labeled the same as mine, pinned at the top. It pulls up the last page he must have left it on. I flip through the remaining pages, reaching the end. When I find nothing out of the ordinary, I go in the opposite direction, flipping page after page to the front.
There’s nothing new here.
I go back to his file catalog. This time I sort them by date added. I want to see what came in most recently.
His files reshuffle. At the top is one simply titledADDENDUM. It was sent to him nine hours ago.
Which was when he left the bus, giving the excuse of searching for food.
I stare at it too long. Before I’m fully ready, my display opens it, putting the text in front of my eyes.
ADDITIONAL BRIEFING—CONFIDENTIAL
Kieren Murray
1. INTRODUCTION:
There are times where we find ourselves embarking on what the academy must call a double-prong effort. Rarely are investigations as clean-cut as obtaining the truth or exposing a traitor. More so than doers, the field requires watchers.
Thank you for your patience regarding your primary posting. Any duplicity was not intended as a comment on your loyalty. Given your proximity to the suspects involved, there was a certain criteria to be met before confidential information could be shared. Upon receiving your submissions, the board has unanimously voted to proceed.
I have to put my hands underneath my thighs, sitting on them so I don’t shake hard enough to wake Rayna beside me. The academy’s written briefs are always opaque, but worse is their tone, as though they’re addressed to an imaginary adoring audience. A cadet reads it now, but a hundred years down the line, Nile Military Academy will prepare to declassify its files, let the world know how many times it was saved.
2. IMPORTANT NOTES:
i) CHUNG YIN
Mr. Chung has been missing since he was last seen leaving the Upper Sea National Data Center downcountry. He has not been located in any upcountry server; nor has he appearedanywhere on Medaluo’s extensive surveillance network. The most likely possibility is that he is dead.
ii) HENRY SULLIVAN
Prior to his disappearance, Chung exchanged several heated phone calls with Sullivan. They had not been in touch since Chung renounced his Atahuan citizenship and left for Medaluo. While neither spoke in clear terms, one phrase was repeatedly used by Chung: “I need Lia. It’s time.” Sullivan declined, and quickly ended each phone call. He may already suspect our surveillance of his communications. If he has found ways to circumvent our monitoring, we cannot be certain that he hasn’t exchanged further correspondences with either Chung or other Medans.
