There’s a wet crack as Ilaria’s modded bolt gun fires the jack into his skull. A filagree of threadlike wires follow, tracing the folds of his cerebral cortex, then sparks light up her vision as the connection is made. Time to see how much processing power he has, and how much storage space—probably not enough, there never is. How much data can the human brain push anyway? She can never remember—actually, she chooses not to. Why waste her own space on that, or rack up more debits for just accessing such low priority information? Whatever amount the initial scans show, she should be able to squeeze out more once she optimizes it—something she would never attempt on herself. She’s seen enough backstreet optimizations go bad and has no desire to end up some glitched out zombie stuck in a head-bashing loop. This guy’s offline, so no worries there. All she has to do now is keep the head from rotting.
There are a few ports already installed, outdated but potentially useful. She didn’t have to jack a new one herself, but she doesn’t trust backstreet tech unless she’s the one who rigged it. At least the head’s a lot fresher than the ones from the dump, and in better shape—aside from the mess her combat knife made of the neck.
She really needs a cleaner blade if this is going to be a regular thing. And seeing as her resource allocation increase was denied, she’s going to have to build her own processing array—which means this thing is going to be pretty damn regular, and also pretty damn hers. Damn. She really loves that knife. It’s so badass: a single piece of high-impact ceramic, serrated edge, shadow black and glistening with this sheen of “oh yeah, frickin’ try me.” It cost an arm and a leg—someone else’s of course, she would never put her own body up as collateral. It’s bad enough Massi did…now his corpse is who knows where working off debt for some SectorCorp subsidiary. And it’s up to her to find his sorry, dead ass—haul it back home for a proper burial. She just needs to break through SectorCorp’s encryption and scan every single node in their network to ID his location—and all she needs for that is a little extra processing power…which, of course, she doesn’t have thanks to Prav.
***
“Hmm? Oh right, the allocation…truly sorry but I can’t. You see, stipulated right here…I can’t increase it, it’s out of my hands.”
“Nothing like that’s stipulated anywhere Prav.”
“What do you need it for?”
“You know that’s not required.”
“Hmm.”
“Look, I’ve increased my output exponentially this quarter—my contract says I can request an increase.”
“Uh huh, yes, I can see that…Section 376, Subsection 78h—it does say you can.”
“And?”
“You did.”
“And?!”
“It doesn’t say I’m required to grant it.”
Prav’s parents obviously had a sense of humor. They named him after Pravda, a Soviet era state-sponsored mouthpiece. Its name translates, unironically, to truth. And he was prequalified in synthutero to be a sector admin, a middle management position whose main function is exploiting loopholes in workers’ contracts while lying to their faces about it. He must have had the genetic markers for round shoulders and a weak chin—definitely pre-qualifiers for the position.
Fine. She’d build her own processing array. And if Prav wasn’t careful, she just might add his head to it.
***
Ilaria set Fred’s head down on her worktable with a squish. The table’s scavenged like just about everything else in her workshop. She likes to think of it, and her whole aesthetic, as junkyard chic. Admittedly, it’s not so much a stylistic choice as a necessity; no one in this sector recycles because of any moralistic code. There’s simply not enough credit available to buy anything and an overabundance of perfectly good everything thrown out by the top level, the ones making sure there’s not enough credit—at least for anyone at street level, which is basically everyone not born to the right subsidiary.
His name wasn’t originally Fred. She doesn’t know what it was, but seeing as he was her first, she feels he should have something better than the numerical designations the rest of the heads…she means processing units, will eventually have. Also, it’s the first name that came to mind, and it rhymes with dead. That’s the extent of her poetic abilities and aspirations. She’s much more comfortable getting her hands dirty—mechanically speaking; this necrotech is going to take some getting used to, and need a metric ton of bioscrub.
***
Ilaria’s workshop looks more zombie chic than junkyard now—or maybe mad scientist would be more accurate. Crowdsourcing is a rather effective shadow economy in the back sector. Offer people an alternative to something SectorCorp controls, like processing power or network access, and you’d be amazed at how resourceful they can be at procuring what you need—hence the block of shelving units packed with heads floating in preservative-filled glass jars that now occupies most of her workshop. One thousand twenty-four heads, each a unit in her new array, sparking with unrestricted processing power; enough to crack SectorCorp’s encryption and have surplus to keep her sectormates from going further into debt—at least for a little while. Once SectorCorp notices a drop in usage, they’ll just increase costs across all services to make up the loss.
With a complex series of finger gestures, the array is brought online, its glass-jarred heads buzzing as data pulses wirelessly into Ilaria’s brain. A frenzy of code-based attacks and countermeasures overwhelms her visual display, then short circuits, sending her convulsing to the floor. She didn’t think breaking into SectorCorp’s system would be easy, but after a week of failed attempts she’s not sure how much more she can take. She doesn’t want to end up at the dump with her brain burned out like just another discarded necrobot. She wants that even less for Massi, which is why she keeps trying—and keeps failing.
***
She comes to on the floor again, her clothes soaked with urine—she must have completely lost control of her bodily functions this time. She has no idea what number this latest attempt was, but instead of the usual glitch field, her visual display is filled by a vast network of glowing lines with pulsating nodes at their intersections. She almost can’t believe it. She’s in—next up, find Massi…then break some shit.
***
“Prav!”
“Ilaria, I already told you…” He starts before toggling his visual display’s opacity to clear, then makes a little choking gurgle.
“You remember Massi.”
“Um…necrobots aren’t allowed in SectorHQ, how did…” Prav wiggles his fingers in the air, surprised when the gestures don’t effect any commands.
Massi stands behind Ilaria, a hunk of grey flesh haphazardly patched with biosolar panels and riddled with preservative pumping tubes. His jaw, were it not wired shut, would hang slack as he stares over her shoulder in Prav’s general direction, not seeming to register the scene.
“This necrobot has a name. And he was allowed in here…” she watches with growing amusement as Prav’s fingers become more frantic, “back when you were helping restructure his contract. You know, before he conveniently died.”
“Wha…what is that supposed to mean?”
“Come on Prav.”
“Look, he chose to take on the debt…I, I had nothing to do with…”
“With what, appropriating cheap labor for SectorCorp?”
“He…he came to me. I was just…”
“He came to you…completely on his own?” She flashes a quick series of finger gestures that Prav doesn’t recognize.
“Of course! What are you…”
“And how about them?” She flicks her head back as the opacity of Prav’s office wall drops to zero. Behind her, a legion of necrobotic former sectormates occupy the entire office floor, their eyes track to fix on Prav.
“Now just wait a…”
“Stop waving your fingers around. I already deactivated your command access…and the security protocols.”
“What do you want?” His eyes widen as the necrobots start to advance, shatter through the glass of his office wall and shamble inside. “I…I can give you…Massi! I can amend his contract. Anything, just make them stop.”
Ilaria’s body suddenly jerks, then her head and arms slump forward. She makes a buzzing hum with her mouth like a machine winding down.
“Sorry, Prav…I’ve reached my resource allocation limit. It’s out of my hands.”
END
First published in Black Sheep, Aug. 23.