"Miss Nolan? Wake up, Cassandra." A male voice tells her. Groggily she opens her eyes.
Cass looks around at the white tiles and the chair she is tied to and is suddenly treated to a horrible feeling of deja vu. She has woken up in a room like this before. She has got a lot better at telling virtual from reality in the two years since she woke up in this era. To her now trained eye the signs are obvious.
Less obvious is how she came to be here. She mentally scans her last memories. Tak teasing her for singing in the shower. That was before Homestead's water cycler had failed. She had been dispatched to find a replacement. She squints at the man in front of her.
"So you decided to join me. Fantastic." He says "I apologise for the virtual setting but given your...history I felt it best to take precautions. We are in a standard interrogation construct."
"I know that, I wasn't born yesterday. What exactly is it I'm here for?"
"Sharp little tongue..." He sits on the chair in front of her, steepleing his fingers "you are currently travelling with a man named Takeshi Kovacs, correct?" Cass merely looks at him.
"The both of you once belonged to the Quellist cause, did you not? Kovacs was given an official but, in my opinion, ill-advised pardon several years ago after a period of...activity. Your stack was lost to the authorities two years ago and was assumed to have been destroyed. A supposition we can now take to be false. The Protectorate have been keeping somewhat of an eye on Kovacs's movements. We know you have become a fixture in his life."
"So I take it I'm in a bit of trouble for existing still, that it?"
The man smiles genially "Not if you cooperate. I have...a proposal for you."
"And you are?"
"A concerned observer. Here, I have something to show you." A glitchy video feed switches on on the wall behind him showing a familiar woman. Her tattoo is missing but it is unmistakably her. Rei is talking directly to the camera.
"I personally retrieved this footage from an eyecam in a police lock up in Bay City. I felt it could be useful in apprehending Kovacs if his pardon were ever to be reconsidered. It contains a few...interesting revelations. Since she is dead, real dead, Reileen Kawahara's crimes are of little concern-"
"Well her victims were only poor people, right? Totally expendable." Cass can speak freely on this point. The Bancroft Case has made it into textbooks after all.
The man ignores her interruption, clearing his throat "However, there is one thing which, if substantiated, could prove very interesting. It concerns the late terrorist Quellcrist Falconer. Allegedly, a copy of her DHF still exists. Of course, you are already privy to this information, being Kovacs's companion."
"You're taking a big risk telling me, if not." Cass examines her fingernails.
"Perhaps. Perhaps avoiding the resurrection of an agent of chaos is worth a few risks."
"'Agent of chaos'" Cass laughs derisively "you talk like she's some sort of Antichrist!"
"To most people in this era, she is."
"Most people in this era are full of shit." Cass glares brazenly.
"I understand you were very young when you were radicalised by Falconer. It is understandable that you would feel...attached. But you must understand, you were a victim of some terrible crimes. You were kidnapped by Falconer and inducted into her cause, having been raised by political criminals. You are not to be blamed for any involvement you may have had. I'm...truly sorry for what's happened to you."
Cass hadn't expected that. "That's the angle you're going with?"
"That, my girl, is the truth. In time, you will come to see it. And you'll want to help us."
"Is that so? Funny, those people that supposedly victimised me never tied me to any chairs."
"An act of faith, then?" The man crosses the room and flicks a switch. With a beep, the restraints that hold her biceps click open. Cass tenses, ready to fight.
"So what exactly am I going to want to help you with?"
"Locating and apprehending what is left of Falconer."
"No chance in hell." Cass growls.
"We will see." The man responds with a small, knowing smile and vanishes from the construct.
/
"Where the hell is she?" Tak watches the shadows lengthen outside the cockpit window, tacking the passage of time.
Cass had disappeared earlier to procure spare parts. She had waved to him as she left the rear hatch "Look after each other while I'm gone!"
"Cass, it's a ship."
"How many times, Tak? She. She's a ship."
By now he had simply learned to roll his eyes. Cass had, after all, worked hard on the crate of metal that they now called home. If she insisted on anthropomorphising it then that was her call. He decided to call her. Surely it did not take four hours to walk three blocks, ask the local scrapyard if they had any suitable replacements for their ancient water cycler and come back with or without it?
He resolves to call her. His irritation starts to soften into concern as the connection to her ONI fails. She never misses a call. Ever.
"Come on, Cass" he grinds out after the third attempt. She is really pushing it. He wonders if there is any way he could ground her. "That's it, Cass. I'm doing it."
Some time ago, he had insisted on putting trackers in their ONIs.
"Oh my Gods, Tak, you are such a fucking mother hen. Why do we need microchips?." Cass had complained.
"You'll thank me for it someday, Kid." He had told her.
He fires up the computer and connects to the ONI trackers with a few keystrokes. The readout troubles him. Her ONI has been removed. There is only one reason she would be without it. He lets out a string of swear words as he drags a duffel bag across the floor. He extracts a gun and a knife, shoving them into his pack. He slides a longer blade in for good measure.
'Hang on Cass.' He thinks, swinging the pack over his shoulder, taking one last look at the readout.
/
Cass groans into the floor. Just as she had fallen asleep on the cold, hard tiles, a sharp 'clack' had accompanied strobe lights once again. She has no idea how long it has been in the real. She tried to count the hours in this scenario at first but lost it about thirty six hours in. She knows exactly why they are doing this. Exhaustion weakens a person's resolve. She wonders how long it will be before they talk to her again.
Suddenly, the door opens. "Miss Nolan, how did you sleep?"
"Seriously? You're gonna pretend that you haven't kept me up for nearly two days?"
"I must say, you are not looking well. Are you ready to hear my offer yet?"
Cass huffs "yeah. I could do with a laugh. Or an argument. Hit me."
"We can offer you money, security, protection. A gentler life."
Cass leans on the wall. "Is that the best you can do? I betray my only friends and get credits and some cushy house?"
The smile she is greeted with is strained "With the technology we have developed in recent centuries we have the capacity to perform miracles. What miracle would you wish for, Miss Nolan?"
"Some sleep."
"Come now. You lost your entire family. Now you have heard of people selling their memories, yes? It is possible to reconstruct entire personalities. Now your father, he was quite a prolific journalist. His articles covered nearly every aspect of his life. His favourite food, his hometown. There is a rather sweet one about how happy he was when your first word was 'Daddy'."
Cass's tiredness has gone. She stares at her jailer intently. "What?"
"Tell you what, let's show you what we are offering you." The man opens the metal door he entered through and extends his arm through it, inviting her in. She hesitates, getting stiffly to her feet and stumbles through the door. The sight she sees takes her breath away in a sob.
Her father's salt and pepper head turns to face her as he sits, typing at his desk. "Cassy bear! I'll be with you in a sec." Gods even his voice sounded the same.
"Stop it. Just stop it now, shut it off!" She yells. No one hears her.
The artificial replica of her father crosses the room "Cass, darlin'! You changed your hair?"
Cass stares at him, her vision blurring "Dad...Daddy?"
"What's the matter, Cassy? Not feeling good? How about some ginger tea?"
She can't help it. Cass falls into the arms of her father, enveloping his wide girth in a hug. She cries into his ratty old band T-Shirt. "What's wrong, honey?" He nestles his bristly head on her scalp.
How many nights after she arrived at Stronghold had she spent crying herself to sleep, wishing for this? Rei had encouraged her to pack up her grief, telling her it would only bring weakness and further pain. "Gentleness is not an advantage. My mother was gentle. It got her killed.". She thought she had. For years she has believed herself free from it's effects. A scar still there but the wound closed. She is reminded now, as it bleeds anew, how much of it she still carries. "I...I just wish you were real so much." She murmurs.
"He can be. We can make him a new body. Maybe your mother and brother too. All you have to do is bring us Falconer's stack when you find it." The voice behind her says.
She looks at the room, the desk in the corner where her father did his work. Where he assisted a revolution he believed in. "We can't let the cruel people in this world own it." Her father had told her once.
"To which family do you owe your loyalty, Cassandra? The one who gave birth to you, or the one that got them killed?"
Cass lets go of her now silent replica father. She swallows her tears and stands "to me, they are one and the same. I won't turn on Quell. I won't turn on Kovacs." She stands and walks back into the room she came from.
The expression on the man's face shifts. His polite, affable air cracks slightly. A flash of frustration peaks through the facade.
"Well you're an ungrateful little bitch, aren't you? What kind of daughter do you call yourself?"
"One that doesn't utterly abandon her parent's values because she misses them!" Cass yells.
"It could have been so easy, so gentle. But you had to play tough, didn't you? Right then. I will get you to comply. One way or another." He picks up a knife with a deft twirl.
/
Tak shrugs on the uniform he has pilfered from a security guard, who will wake in an alleyway with both a blinding headache and a deficiency of decent clothing. The uniform feels cheap and ill fitting but he would prefer not to bring every officer of the local law enforcement agencies down on his head so some semblance of stealth is needed. At least until he gets in to the building.
He walks past the two other guards. They are so deep in conversation about the merits of fast food chains that they barely grunt when he passes them. These are the amateurs. A strategy sometimes used to lull intruders into a false sense of lack of security. He crosses the highly polished floor to the elevator at the other side. It has taken him nearly twenty hours to reach and recon this place. He doesn't want to think about what they could have been doing to Cass in all that time. He simply marches forward.
The two guys that flank the elevator have clocked him. He knows it. As soon as he approaches they ask "which floor you riding to?"
"Sixteenth." Tak responds.
"Mind if we tag along? We're due up there in five."
"Not at all." Tak says stepping in ahead of them "got something to pick up upstairs."
The taller of the two men jabs a button, the door slides closed without a word.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Lofty brings a fist round to hit Tak in the jaw. With a fluid motion, Tak draws his longer knife, opening his the guy's windpipe. He sinks to the floor, leaving a red stain as he slides down the wall. Average draws his weapon and aims at Tak's stack. Without missing a beat, Tak thrusts the knife through the top of his attacker's mouth. He sheds the now bloody uniform he wore on top of his regular clothes and draws his gun.
It's all done in less than fifteen seconds.
He walks into a familiar looking room. White walls, bright sunlight, clean surfaces. All very civilised. And there Cass is. A bruise across her temple visible under the VR connections. She gives the occasional twitch and wince. No one else here, he could just walk out with her. But disconnecting her from this kind of rig without proper procedures could cause permanent mental fragmentation.
He's got to go in after her.
He sits next to her, attaching connectors of another headset to his temples before a man enters the room, wearing a similar set up. Tak raises his gun.
"What are you doing to her in there you sick bastard?"
"I'm sure you don't have to use your imagination Mr Kovacs. We are making her an offer in a way that, we hope, she will soon fail to resist."
"You have five seconds to let her GO!." Tak has perfected the art of holding a gun steady while shaking with anger over the years. Cass whimpers in her nightmare sleep next to him. He counts slowly and the man stares back at him, unwavering.
He fires through the guy's stack. That should have worked. Cass should be awake. She isn't. Her head tosses and she lets out a quiet keening wail that shoots through Tak's chest. Her tormenter has needlecast into the simulation, Tak realises. He brushes sweat soaked hair back from Cass's forehead before crossing to the monitor and keying himself in.
/
Cass rises from the ash covered dirt. She had been wondering how long it would take them to get here. Cutting, drowning, beating. Through it all she has tried to end her scream in a laugh. She won't give them a damn inch. Finally they have brought her to the place she died once. The man who torments her stands next to her and takes a lungful of the virtual air.
"Do you smell it? Now, that, my dear, is the smell of order rising from chaos."
"Really? To me it smells like freedom dying."
"This obsession with freedom, again! People shouldn't have freedom. They go on and on about it without knowing what it means. They don't know what to do with it. And still the slogan cries 'freedom!' From what?"
"From having the same people in power. From having entire classes of people yelling and being ignored or shot down. From assholes like you who want to snuff out any semblance of-"
"Do you even know what she did on those missions? Falconer personally murdered nearly two hundred people, not to mention the countless others who's deaths she was also responsible for. She was going to abandon the rest of you, you know. She and your beloved Kovacs were going to run off and blow themselves up destroying all traces of stack technology. We had taken eternal life from the Gods and she wanted to cast us into the mud again."
"Eternal life. If you happen to win the family lottery. She had the right idea. You can shove that ideology where no sun shines because I am NOT helping you make a name for yourself killing her." Cass tenses "I'd rather help her finish what she started." She launches herself at him. He dematerialises in a flurry of pixels and is deposited on her opposite side.
"You'd better run, Miss Nolan. I have taken the liberty of programming in the final hours of your previous sleeve. The soldiers are coming for you."
Cass takes off through the forest, seeing the nightmare helmeted figures passing in and out of view. She shoves her body into one of them sending his rifle flying. She takes it up at a run, firing shot after shot. For every kill she makes, three more appear.
"You can't outrun this, Miss Nolan." She thinks she could have a bloody good go.
Then she has fallen, face down in the familiar stream, breaking her nose and staining the clear water. She turns to face the army that hunts her. This time she doesn't try to beg as they shoot her.
Then she is back, running, running, running. She trips and falls into the same stream. The shot rings out. Then she resets again. No matter which way she runs she always ends up here.
"That all you got?" She yells through the trees before landing once again in the stream. The man has returned, standing above her. Something's different this time. The distinctive stench of gasoline hits her nose as she kneels in the water, suddenly paralysed.
"You know what the chief factor in death by burning is, do you?" The man asks "Dehydration. The body just haemorrhages water molecules. It's really quite interesting what a body does under extreme stress. I've had the opportunity over the years to become quite familiar with the processes by which we cling to life." He clicks a lighter as an explosion splits the air above him. "I'm going to give you one last chance..."
"Screw you!"
Cass's response sets his jaw. He lets go of the lighter and Cass can't help but stare at it as it falls.
A third person materialises in the construct. A flash of raven hair and grey combat clothes runs out of the thicket and catches the lighter before it hits the wet earth.
"Tak!" Cass yells. He has barely flinched from the flame he holds, sending it back to it's originator.
"Arm yourself." He flings her a sword. The one from their training sessions. The construct is more evenly balanced now.
"Even if you do get her out, she'll be useless to you Kovacs. I've made sure of it." He turns to Cass "see then how much he values your loyalty. Don't say I didn't warn you."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"Ignore him, Cass. Focus."
The fight is both elegant and swift. As soon as Tak and Cass stab their enemy through the heart. The construct resets and they again win the fight. Ten, twenty, thirty times. Then the simulation dissolves around them.
/
Cass suddenly wakes on the table, shivering violently.
"Hey. Hey. Cass, steady." Tak is actually there.
"Tak? You...got me out? I'm out?"
"Yep. You're in the real. How you feeling?"
Cass mentally assess herself. She feels exhausted, hungry, dehydrated and shaky. But there's something else. A cold dread settles in her. "Tak, I...I can't feel my legs."
"What do you mean?"
"They won't move. He...he said..."She'll be useless to you"..."
Tak casts about the room. If his experiences are anything to go by, there should be a medical scanner here. He finds it, next to the monitor. Images of both of Cass's sleeves, along with a medical diagram of a spine accompany text. Tak scans it. Cold fury fills him as he realises what Cass's captor meant.
They have paralysed Cass, severing her spine inches from the base. That could be worked with. He hates to do this now after she has been through so much but he can simply dig her stack out and find a new sleeve. But there's more. A phrase at the bottom of the file. The place reserved for a person's religious status.
"Neo-C". No resleeving facility would help her. She might be able to remove the coding but he sure as hell doesn't know how.
"He did this, didn't he?"
"He wanted to trap you. Even if you got out you couldn't run...fuck!" Tak looks like he wants to break something. "He coded you, Cass. I...can't resleeve you on my own."
Cass swallows "Tak, just...just go. You can get out of here, I'm...just leave me. It's ok. I...I'll never give them what they want. They can do what they want. Go find Quell. It's ok." She looks at her knees "good luck, Tak."
Tak stares at her, then without a word, he crosses the room, gently sliding his arms under her shoulder blades and her knees. She bends as much of her body into an easy to carry shape as she can, reaching around his neck. He lifts her and they start for the elevator. "Hold my gun. I'll need you to shoot." He tells her.
"Wait...wait. Take me to the monitor. That man found something. I need to erase it."
He carries her over to the monitor. With shaking hands, she calls up the video file. Recognition of his own footage passes over Tak's face. "He knew about Quell. I'm erasing the file. Plus writing a virus that will wipe out the other copies. Any computer that opens it get's insta-fried."
After a few minutes work she is done. Tak again hoists her, looking glad to be on the move. "You ready, Kid?"
She cocks the gun he bought with him and fires at the bank of monitors, destroying the DHF of her tormenter along with his work "yeah, let's go."
/
The woman behind the counter shakes her shaven head "you do realise resleeving a coded chick is highly illegal, right? Like, we could get iced illegal, right?"
"That's why were came here." Tak says from behind Cass's wheelchair, already regretting his choice of resleeving centre. Threadbare carpets and scratched countertops do not inspire much confidence. It had the reputation of being the only place in the city that was remotely willing to bypass the rigamarole of removing religious coding officially and questionable IDs. For a fee of course.
"I didn't want to." Cass says her part of their story "since he lost my Mum, Dad has found God in a pretty big way. Made me code myself. That was before the accident. He still won't let me remove it. I just wanna walk again." She looks as pathetic as she can.
"Fine. Spare me the sob story. That'll be fifty thousand credits. For decoding."
How much?" Both Cass and Tak ask.
"Don't like our price? You can always go through official channels. Should only take you about a year to be de-crippled."
Cass groans, leaning heavily on the armrests. If she thought she was tired when she woke up, that was nothing compared to how she feels after acting as the cannon to Tak's tank on the way out of the building she had been held in. Her arm still aches from holding the gun steady.
"Fine." Tak says, taking his short knife and pressing into his thumb, breaking the skin. He presses the drop of blood that rises from the wound to the biometric scanner on the woman's desk.
She gives him a look "Eww. Was that really necessary?"
/
Tak is once again back at the facility he rescued Cass from, taking the VR equipment off her face. She blinks up at him in confusion.
"Tak?"
"Yeah, I'm here." Tak finds himself halfway across the room, looking at a screen when he hears the distinctive click of a gun being loaded. He turns to see Cass holding his weapon in her lap, staring at it numbly. Suddenly she clutches her head, screaming. Tak starts across the room but is stopped by the sight of Cass raising the gun to her throat, the place just next to her stack. Tears quiver in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Tak. They infected me...I can't fight it."
"No no no no, Cass just breathe, ok? Put the gun down..."
"I can't" she sobs "I can't."
"Yes you can, Cass. You're strong enough. Fight this!"
"I'm sorry." She cries before pulling the trigger.
"NO!" Tak sprints to her side, pulling her lifeless form into his lap "oh, Cass...". He brushes the hair from her face as he holds her.
Suddenly, he is looking into the face of his sister. "Oh Takeshi, Failed another one. You really can't catch a break, can you?" She tells him, a note of regret in her voice.
Tak gasps back into consciousness, finding himself semi lying on the scruffy sofa of the recovery room, momentary amnesia ebbing away. He rubs his forehead with a grunt.
It takes him a while to notice Cass is awake on her hospital bed. "Hey" she says softly, her throat still a little raw from the resleeving process. She wriggles stiffly to a seated position and looks at him as though she wants to say something. Eventually she gets out "Thanks for saving my ass back there."
Tak stands and crosses the room, resting a hand on her shoulder. This sleeve is a replica of her last. "Are you ok?" He asks.
She shakes her head and tears spring to her eyes. Tak slides next to her, gently leaning her body against his. Suddenly she turns and holds him like a lifeline. "It hurt so much! I..." She sobs.
Tak rubs comforting circles on her back for a long while. "I know. I got you, Cassy. It's ok. I got you." He now realises how relieved he is, how much this ridiculous teenager has come to mean to him.
"Yeah. And you always will." She sags against him for a while before noticing a subtle shift. She looks up at him in surprise "oh my Gods Tak are you...are you crying?" He can't entirely deny it. "Awww. You really do care!"
Tak laughs "way to ruin a moment you little shithead." She gives him a gentle elbow.
"Can we get the hell out of here and go home? I'm starving."
The ship. Their Homestead. Home.
"Thought you'd never ask." Tak jumps up and helps Cass to her feet before starting for the door. Cass passes a mirrored panel, the sole concession to decoration in this room.
"A clone? Seriously Tak, you bought me a clone? How much did that blow?"
"Hey, I'm protecting my investment." The old joke makes Cass laugh. "I had your tattoo grafted too. I know what it means to you." The necklace that belonged to his mother and sister now rests in a drawer in his room on board Homestead. It was only fair Cass got to keep hers too.
He can tell she has stopped walking. He turns and frowns quizzically at her.
"I mean it, Tak." She says "You've got me. Kinda stuck with me."
He would have it no other way. "Chinese?"
"Oh, you really do love me! Yeees."
"Dork." He murmurs. She raises a middle finger as she follows him out the room.