Chapter 20 - Electric love

Discarded metal

Chapter 20 - Electric love

"What happens when you fall in love with ones and zeros?"

Gloria is pacing back and forth in the HQ of BinaryGhosts, she looks restless and angry, she suddenly punches the closest table.

"Why? Why the fuck are they targeting us?" She spurts with anger.

"We aren't stealing from them or anything…" She continues.

Syntex's face on the holoscreen is still but the colors are changing, indicating that it's processing information.

Pulse enters through the front door in a hurry.

"I got confirmation… Several of our chooms have been taken down… We have pissed someone… " Pulse says in a hurry.

"Fuck! Why?" Gloria asks with a kind of despair in her voice.

Pulse gets closer to her and just puts his hand on her shoulder in a sign of comfort.

"What does Syntex says about it?" He asks as he watches the colors changing on the holoscreen.

"Nothing! He is still…'thinking'." She says while waving her hand in front of the screen as if it would wake up the AI.

"We have to take measures or we will all be zeroed by whoever we pissed off!" Pulse says angrily.

"Agreed." Syntex's voice suddenly spurts through the room speakers.

Both Pulse and Gloria look at the screen expecting the answer to their problems.

They have been using Syntex a lot during the past months, it improved their hacking skills to a point they would never even imagine before.

Syntex proved itself to be the most valuable member of the BinaryGhosts, it can take over any types of networks and Gloria had used it without restraints.

"I know exactly which group is after you." Syntex says in a monotonous tone.

"Spit it out!" Gloria shouts as she gets very impatient.

"You know them well, it's 'The Scorched'." Syntex says.

Pulse grabs a chair and sits on it, slouching on it.

"We are fucked…" He says as he watches the ground with empty eyes.

"Why? What have we done to them?" Gloria starts asking, clearly panicked by the information.

"BinaryGhosts are growing too big, too fast. It's only logical that you attracted their attention." Syntex explains in the same monotonous tone.

"No… We bought from them before… Why would they want to take us down… " Gloria tries to make sense of the situation but her brain seems stuck in the same loop of thoughts.

"Gloria… Your thoughts are irrational now, I already prepared a plan, you just need to listen to me." Syntex says through the speakers of the room.

Gloria keeps shaking her head, her hands clenched into fists on the table she is leaning over.

She tries to gather her thoughts but only panic is coming to her. She knows 'The Scorched' well, she has done business with them in the past, they are heavily modified and they freak her out.

'The Scorched' does not seem to follow any codes or even leaders, the strongest members just become natural decision makers. They often fight internally for power.

Suddenly Gloria starts hoping for that, an internal fight for power that would just annihilate them all, but she knows it won't happen.

Everytime The Scorched had an internal power struggle, they rose from it, stronger and more aggressive.

"Gloria!" Syntex calls her out again.

Gloria shakes her head one last time and stares at the screen.

"Speak out." She tells the AI.

"The meditech implants, we can use them, we can get corpos to do what we can't." Syntex explains.

Gloria seems to hear only half but reacts instantly.

"Corpos! No! Fuck it! Are you insane?" She shouts at the screen.

Pulse seems to come back to life on his chair, as if what Syntex said has turned on a light bulb in his head.

"G. Wait… Listen to him… He might be onto something." He says while grabbing one of her sleeves.

"What? Are you insane too? We steal from corpos… We don't deal with them!" She says in panic, as if the idea of using corpos freaks her out more than taking on The Scorched by herself.

"Gloria, BinaryGhosts don't even have to get involved, my plan will save your lives." Syntex says calmly.

The AI's calm voice coming out of the speakers contrasts with the panic Gloria is feeling inside her.

The whole room seems electrified, all the other members of BinaryGhosts are feeding on Gloria's panic.

"We will bring the implants to The Scorched, I can be deployed in their network, from there I can reactivate the trackers. Corpos will probably send a tactical team to recover the implants." Syntex explains its plan.

Pulse looks extremely satisfied and nods his head frantically.

"There! There! That's a fucking awesome plan! G.!" He says excitedly.

Gloria doesn't share the same enthusiasm, she looks at Pulse and shakes her head.

"You idiots!" She spits out.

"How the fuck we will get the implants to them? And how the hell we will deploy Syntex in their network?" She shouts as she starts punching and slapping Pulse.

Pulse dodges most of the blows and starts laughing hysterically.

"Stop laughing! You maniac!" She shouts at him.

Her hits are getting weaker and she starts slowing down until eventually she stops beating him.

"You actually think it's a good plan…" She says between heavy breaths.

Pulse doesn't stop laughing and just nods his head.

"I'm sure I can pull it off!" He says between laughs.

Pulse knows what Syntex is capable of, as he is always the one who executes the plans that Gloria agrees on.

This one doesn't feel different from the others, deploying Syntex in a network is extremely easy, getting The Scorched to acquire the implants without tracing back to BinaryGhosts, is the hard part.

"I think I know how to get the implants to their HQ." Pulse says confidently.

"Care to develop, for my slow brain?" Gloria says teasingly, her mood seems to slowly change from panic to curiosity.

"Let's say that, I know a guy who knows a guy… " Before he can even finish Gloria stops him.

"Fuck you, Pulse!" She starts screaming and punching him again.

Pulse tries to dodge most of the punches.

"Just hear me out, damn it! G." He says.

Gloria slowly stops hitting him and tries to calm down.

"Just listen… Ok?" Pulse tries to check if she is going to explode again.

Gloria just nods but her expression shows that she is clearly pissed at him.

"I know someone who deals with The Scorched and he spilled some locations to me a while back. One of them is a warehouse they use to stock their shit." Pulse explains calmly.

"It's too risky, it will be guarded… heavily guarded." Gloria stammers.

"It's not, nobody is crazy enough to hit their warehouses, they know it." Pulse says.

"No… It's too risky… I forbid you to even go anywhere near there! You hear me?" She shouts at him, clearly pissed at his suggestion.

Pulse tries to grab her hands and looks in her eyes.

"No! Pulse!" She shouts at him instantly as soon as he grabs her hands.

"You listen to me! Don't you fucking try to talk me into it! I don't agree! Do you hear?" Gloria keeps spurting but slowly tears form and starts falling on her face.

"Nooo…" She says with a pleading face as to beg him.

She knows him well, he will get her to accept the crazy plans, she will end up accepting despite how much she hates it.

Her eyes are drenched in tears and she stares right back at him. She wants to fight it but she knows she can't. When Pulse thinks he can do it, it doesn't matter that Gloria is in charge anymore.

She grabs his hands tightly and pulls him into a tight hug, like it's the last time she will ever see him.

She does that everytime.

"It will be fine, I always come back." Pulse says softly to her.

"I know… But… Fuck you…" She says as she breaks the hug and turns toward the screen.

"You better make sure your plan is tight." She says as she stares at Syntex's holographic face on the screen.

"My plan is tight." Syntex answers as to mimic her way of talking.

"Fuck you both." She says as she points at Syntex and Pulse alternatively.

She grabs the Meditech implants from a drawer and throws them at Pulse. He grabs them mid air with a smirk on his face.

Pulse then grabs an empty shard and slots it in the holoscreen, the process is fairly fast, Syntex deploys itself in the shard.

The shard will be a way of transporting Syntex, this way it can deploy itself in any network the shard will be inserted to.

After a few minutes, Pulse takes the shard and puts it inside his jacket.

"If there's any sign of trouble, you just run… understood?" Gloria says to pulse as she stares at him with angry eyes.

Pulse nods and leaves the BinaryGhosts HQ.

Gloria turns back to the holoscreen to face Syntex, but his holographic head is frozen.

"Syntex?" She calls.

There's no answers and she starts to understand that this time Syntex transferred itself completely into the shard.

She starts to realize that the AI can be hosted on different networks but it seems to have a sort of central consciousness that it can move on its own.

A sense of fascination starts growing inside her, mixed with a helpless feeling as she knows she has put Pulse's life in the care of the AI.

She is unable to control the sense of fear rising within her despite the numerous times that Syntex has proven itself, it remains a machine.

Slowly she reaches behind the holographic screen and switches it off. As the face disappeared she let out a deep sigh.

Meanwhile, Pulse is riding his bike full speed through the streets of the commons.

The sun is setting down in the horizon, partially hidden by the high buildings towering the streets.

His bike zigzags through fairly dense traffic, in the background some police sirens can be heard, indication of probably another homicide.

After about half an hour riding, the background is slowly changing, less people in the streets and less neon lights on the buildings.

It's clear that Pulse has reached the outskirts of New Paris, he is slowing down his bike. The holoscreen on his bike displays his GPS location on a map, his marker moves in real time in a 3d representation of his surroundings.

Finally, he stops the bike near a huge abandoned building that looks like a type of warehouse. The logo of Meditech corporation can be seen on the front of the building, but it's partially covered by tags.

Pulse recognizes one of the tags, The Scorched symbol, a flame inside a robotic hand.

"This is it…" He thinks to himself as he walks around the building to find an entrance.

After spending a few minutes scouting the building, he notices a back door with a camera on top of it.

"Fuck… need to be careful…" He mutters to himself.

He sticks to the wall and walks slowly toward the door, avoiding being in the field of view of the camera.

As he reaches closer to the door, he realizes that the camera is a very old model and that it's fixed.

"This thing belongs to a museum…" He says as he waves his hand in front of it.

The camera is clearly out of service for a very long time, Pulse shrugs and focuses his attention to the door. The handle is clearly modern and there's a panel controlling it on the side.

"Time for some magic…" He mutters as he slides the panel open.

Behind the panel is an access port with several slots, Pulse reaches in his vest and pulls out the shard.

He carefully inserts it in one of the slots, hoping it won't trigger anything unwanted and to his surprise, everything remains calm.

Few leds on the panel indicates some activities but no alarms, after a few blips, the door opens by itself.

Pulse leans in the doorway to take a look and it leads to an empty corridor, slowly he squats and he starts moving along the corridor.

He sees a big double door at the end of the corridor and starts moving a bit faster to reach it quickly.

As he leans against the double doors, trying to listen for any noises coming from the other sides, He suddenly receives an unknown call on his Neural network.

The call makes him jump.

He picks up.

"Pulse… It's me… Syntex… I have been successfully deployed in this network, it's old but I have access to everything. There are cameras that I control now. You can move into the main room." Syntex says through the call.

"Fuck… You scared me… Keep the comm open." Pulse says as he slowly enters the main room.

Inside, there are several shelves scattered around with boxes on them, it looks like The Scorched do not even bother to classify them.

"Any boxes will do, I can reactivate the implants tracking signals remotely from here, but I will have to remain in this network, I won't be able to go back with you Pulse." Syntex explains to Pulse through the comm.

Pulse looks surprised by the revelation.

"What do you mean? You will be trapped here… Can't you just make a program that will activate the signals?" Pulse asks, trying to find a more pleasant solution.

"No, it's the only way, we will lose contact, this network is isolated to only the warehouse. You will have to trust me and I will have to trust you to come pick me up after The Scorched are being dealt with." Syntex says.

Pulse remains silent, his mind is racing, he has used Syntex so much the past months that it feels like abandoning the best member of BinaryGhosts.

"I will come back for you, Syntex." He says calmly.

Syntex doesn't answer.

Pulse puts the implants in a fairly new box, inside there are already a bunch of small implants with various corpos logos on them.

He closes the box and slowly heads back to the main corridor.

Before leaving the building, he stops a moment at the entryway.

"Syntex, are you still here?" He asks through the comm.

"Yes, Pulse." The AI voice comes out on Pulse Neural network.

"Thank you for what you are doing for us, I will be back for you." Pulse says with a shaky voice as he slowly walks through the door.

Pulse hopes the signal will remain with him as if Syntex would find a way to access communication's networks, but he knows eventually he will lose contact with the AI.

One step at a time he is getting closer to his bike.

One more step…

And one more…

Connection lost…