Backstab Read online

  Backstab

  Worlds of Deception Book 1

  Everet Martins

  Illustrated by

  Sebastian Horoszko

  Contents

  DRM

  Newsletter

  1. Desmond Pomar

  2. First Team

  3. Second Team

  4. Message from a Friend

  5. New Plans

  6. Mint

  7. The Hangar

  8. Visitor

  9. Nightmare

  10. Hacking and Chopping

  11. Intel

  12. Paragon

  13. Infiltration

  14. Inside

  15. Cutthroats

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  DRM

  The author has provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management (DRM) software applied so you can read it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices. Copyright infringement is against the law.

  To video games.

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  1

  Desmond Pomar

  Everything is shit.

  The water from the shower is tepid. It spatters against my body like the piss from a man with a cancer choked prostate. It’s not hot enough, and I need it to be hot. It’s supposed to be my scalding refuge in this wasteland.

  There’s something magical about a hot shower. It cleanses the grime born of sleep and revives the spirit.

  What dribbles on me is urine, vacillating between frozen and warm. It’s wrong. It leads you astray. It leads you to believe an ancient boiler has sputtered to life and glorious hot water will console you with its loving embrace. That brief warmth is a lie, a subtle temptress. It fills you with hope and drops you like a regrettable one-night stand.

  The shower curtain is a thick vinyl that might’ve been clear once, now blurred by a layer of dark mold. Behind it, the flicker of a lone bulb watches me like a hovering demon’s eye. It’s all a murky dream.

  The bathroom is awful with a shitty pink tub. The stainless-steel sink is rimmed with rust. The faucet leaks. The dated 2030 style hexagonal tiles are cracked.

  My employer put me up in the worst Hilton Boston had to offer.

  A bunch of fucking nerds took over the city for some bullshit convention. They’re running around the streets playing dress up, acting like they’re comic book characters. I’d find it hard to believe if even a few of the guys claimed to have experienced the bliss of a warm vagina. Because of those assholes, this is the best my employer, Erinas, could get. At least that’s what the company told me.

  The bulb darkens the shower stall in a long flicker, then buzzes back to life. It belongs in a Dead Technology Museum. The thing even has a filament.

  The bedroom is laced with the stink of nicotine vapor, Thai, and sex. I asked for a non-vaping and non-smoking room. I hate curry, and I haven’t had sex, yet. Even the greasy curtains are heavy with the stench. I know because I sniffed them. I like things clean. This is an affront to all that should be.

  I’m not a racist. I don’t hate Thais. The hotel workers are mostly from that beautiful country, so it’s bound to smell like this. That curry stink is a plague on the world. Fucking Thai people. Maybe I do hate Thais. Fuck them all. Maybe I am a racist after all.

  I turn off the shower faucet, the damn thing naturally squealing in indignation. I rip the curtain aside and dry myself off with a towel that feels like a cracker against my skin. I wait for the steam to clear from the warped mirror to glimpse my abs.

  Still there.

  I’m not muscular, lean, maybe haggard. My abs are like big tits on a fat girl—they don’t count—because my appearance borders on anorexic. It doesn’t make me like them any less.

  My skin is sallow from too little time outside and too much time behind closed doors and on the Net. My eyes are rimmed with permanent bags born of insomnia. I turn my head, admiring my strong jawline. People like a man with a strong jaw. It signals virility, but this jaw broke like glass when punched.

  I sigh and blow out my cheeks. At least I had a good haircut, short on the sides and messy on top, blond bordering on white. With this style, the differences between manicured and rising from a park bench were slight.

  The cycle of appearing civilized begins again. I shave and make my way to the hotel’s foyer. I cross my fingers in the vain hope that there will be something edible at the complimentary breakfast. It’s complimentary because it too is shit.

  Contrary to what the management might think, the human body needs more than sugar and oxidized vegetable oils. I snatch a donut from a sanitized aluminum tray, glaring at the hologram of a woman in a tailored suit pontificating on the virtues of the most critical meal of the day. She clutches a gleaming scarlet apple that could only be produced in a biolab. Apples that look like that are high-end luxury items.

  There is cereal that tastes like paper and pancakes with the texture of rubber. I had those earlier this week. The French toast was passable, but how many times can you eat bread dipped in egg?

  I make the hand gesture for coffee before the BevBot, a C shape traced with my index finger. A second or so later comes a steaming cup of joe on a tiny conveyor belt from its cuboid form. With sustenance in tow, I make my way to cold steel tables lacking in any ornamentation but the occasional dent.

  I steer away from a group of five Bionics huddled over a light projected 3D map of what appears to be a new gun design. Bionics are cyberware junkies, men who have augmented themselves to such a degree that they’re more machine than flesh. All Bionics seem to lose some vital humanity after a certain indiscernible point. It’s as if there’s a cellular threshold where empathy and passion live, and they’ve carved it all away.

  One of the Bionics raises a head dotted in white sprigs to regard me. His lone cybereye appraises me with a dozen microlenses, the other eye organic. They whir as they oscillate and flex within his eye socket, taking in thousands of data points to ascertain my likelihood of posing a threat. I’m careful to only watch him with my peripheral vision as he lowers his head. His lips press into a firm line. Most corporations always send at least one Mercenary, or Merc, to watch over their brightest employees. Fucking slaves.

  When I take the first bite of my pitifully plain donut, a commotion erupts from the Bionics. The floating hologram of the gun flickers then goes dark. The Bionics leap to their feet in a deft show of their augmented nervous systems. Coffee seems to flow in every direction over the table’s edge. Even in 2046, coffee still lays waste to the best of gadgets. I snicker to myself and sip on my brew. I swish it in my mouth, mixing it with the donut, turning it into an almost palatable slurry.

  I look back at the Bionics, one red faced while the other four glare at the fumbler. I hate to admit that we’re more alike than not. We’re both drones working for a different taskmaster. The Bionics have been here at least every day I have. I can see they’re dead inside. They’ve lost that fire that drives them to aspire to something more. They expect nothing but the soma of a salary.

  The Bionics and I are at the bottom of the corporate machine. We go th
rough the motions. They too suffer, and it makes me feel better about my life. A hollow forms in my gut, but I do what I do best and crush it down.

  I console myself by fantasizing about fucking the hotel’s concierge from behind. She winked at me yesterday, and I’ve had a hardon for her ever since. She’s hot, and I can practically feel her round ass slap against my hips as I growl at her moans. I chew, drink and swallow the last of my donut in quiet revelry. I let this thread go when I feel myself stiffen more than I can easily hide.

  I should be done with this shit hole in another week, then it’s back to Chicago. Fuck Boston and its frozen winters. Fuck snow too.

  What I appear to be doing here is teaching, but it’s a guise for the real work. By day, I run workshops teaching hapless employees how to use the Okox Dashboarding software. It’s stupid simple stuff, but these are non-tech types. The software makes it dead simple to produce pretty charts and graphs that management swoons over, regardless of the data’s accuracy. The upside is that the less complex the subject matter, the more attractive the women it seems to garner. This week’s lot has provided a lustful bounty.

  I hate the work, but I know the codebase because I developed the majority of it in my former life. I’m still a drone, but at least now I’m a well-paid one. Today is Friday and marks the fifth day of my class.

  The class has eleven students in all, five of them women. The women are low-level marketing types and not used to getting any attention from managers and even less from their poor and out of shape husbands. They don’t typically work with illustrious and attractive consultants like myself.

  My confidence is ebullient. They’re not used to it. It makes them wet. They think I’m a world-traveling bachelor sporting the latest in Tesla’s autonomous supercars. They want me, and I know it. It’s all a game.

  Three of them have slipped into an almost comical rivalry, vying for my attention. They work for the same employer, carrying their grievances and struggles for power with them into class. They fight to be called on when I ask questions, twiddling fingers in the air for me to select. They diligently do the homework and come in with answers at my behest. They all sit at the front of the class, eyes magnetically drawn to mine.

  I wonder if Mary has told the other two we slept together Wednesday. That would hurt my probability of successfully bedding the others. Maybe it’s best I try to arrange a three-way before emotions get involved. Emotions ruin things.

  Mary is skinny with big fake tits and not much of an ass. I don’t mind them. Everything about her screams needy. She has beautiful dark skin that feels like silk and smells like vanilla. She told me she loved me when it was done and then I told her she had to leave. She still gives me that cloying smile. She’s all sugar and would give me diabetes if I kept her around too long.

  Ashley has put up a challenge, nothing insurmountable. She’s tough and dresses like a goth. Not pretend tough, but actually tough. She told me over a drink that she was raised in the lawless suburbs of Boston. That will harden you up like nothing else. Gangs run the majority of the outskirts. They battle the Mutants for controlling more turf through spilled blood and a hail of clattering firearm casings.

  Despite that hell, Ashley has managed to preserve her beauty. She’s a little on the heavy side by conventional standards, but I like when a woman has something to grab that isn’t produced in a factory. She kept her distance during the date and wouldn’t come back to my hotel room to check out the view.

  She wants me. She’s just putting on the good girl facade, maybe thinks I’ll respect her more after the deed is done. She’ll come around by the end of the week. Some men would’ve just drugged her after so much resistance. Not me. I hold myself to a higher honor. I’m a lot of unsavory things, but a rapist isn’t one of them.

  The days are a long grind. Twelve hours of standing and discussing a subject I could care a shit about anymore. The commute to the conference room isn’t bad. It’s a five-minute walk from my room down to the lobby and into one of the expansive halls where the curry stench is strongest.

  I try to go slow so the girls and the dumber of the guys can understand me. Despite the guise of this job, I do want them to learn something, even though I’m faced with a lot of blank stares and vacant nods. I care.

  After lunch, Ashley asks me what I’m doing tonight as the class shuffles back to their seats. It’s on. I give her all the social validation she needs. I give her my winning smile and try to think of something shameful to make my cheeks redden to display a hint of vulnerability.

  “You’re a great teacher, you know,” Ashely says with a grin, showing her bright teeth.

  I give my best sheepish smile and look down at my shoes, hand rising to grip the back of my neck. I dredge up the thoughts of my father whipping my bare ass with his belt as a child. I can feel it working, heat clawing at my throat. “Thanks, Ash, I appreciate you saying that. Just trying my best. Well, I hope it’s helpful.”

  She seems to like this, stifling a cute little laugh. It’s my turn to reject her, and I tell her I need to prepare my lessons for next week. I play the game. She understands. She eye-fucks me for the rest of the class.

  I want to fuck Mary again. During the next afternoon break, I make dinner arrangements for the two of us tonight. She touches my arm and gives it a gentle squeeze as she agrees. I’ll find a new hotel and get a nice room. Fuck this Hilton and fuck Boston.

  I think Ashley might’ve seen our correspondence. A little jealousy never hurt anyone. If Ashley decides to hate Mary, then maybe she’ll fuck me better in an attempt to lodge herself deep in my psyche.

  As predicted, Ashely’s performance is wonderful. She’s amazing. I thought she might have a suppressed dominant side, but she lets me lead. She tells me she’s glad I want to be with her, even though she thinks she’s fat. She’s not, but I don’t tell her. Her body is nothing short of perfect, but I say nothing. I learned long ago the less you say, the better things go, both in business and in relationships.

  The work week is long with punctuated moments of joy. Saturday is when the real work begins.

  2

  First Team

  I can finally drop the guise of IT trainer and get on with the real work. I work for Erinas, a defense contractor. I do the dark work that keeps the gears of the corporate machine well oiled. When diplomats need to be influenced and lobbyists quieted, they call me. When startups need to be put down and their discoveries and patents acquired, I make it happen.

  There are many like me. Most call those in my position Strings. The colloquialism was born of what we do, pull strings. It’s sort of silly. I don’t love the name. A full acceptance of reality is required to survive in this role. I accept reality.

  Saturday morning, I take the high-speed rail over to Chicago. The rail’s interior has a blinding amount of chrome. It travels over six hundred mph and gets me there in short order. Neon lights blur behind dancing squares of glass.

  I book a nice room in the Hyatt. It’s dappled in layers of luxury that most can only dream about. The bed alone is worth more than half of the population’s dwellings. It has a bidet that uses warm activated charcoal filtered water. You could eat off my asshole.

  I put on my night clothes, nothing too ostentatious but nice enough that no club worth their salt would turn me away. My jeans are stylishly torn across the thighs and lined with dozens of chrome zippers. I top it off with a midnight v-neck t-shirt, above it a dark vest with violet hues. My shoes are a deep black Italian leather, pliable and practical and good for walking. It’s all Gucci, naturally.

  What I like most about Gucci is that they destroy their unsold stock. They won’t donate it or discount it. They don’t give their stuff to poor people. I like that. It preserves the brand’s integrity. If you want to wear Gucci, don’t be poor.

  I met some of their mid-level executives at a mixer once. They’re everything you’d expect from a company who values such actions: stubborn and full of themselves. We bonded, and I secu
red their Net contacts. They give me a good discount in exchange for my influence.

  I feel whole again. I depart from the Hyatt and hail an autocar. It whispers to a stop at a granite curbside. The streets are pristine and free refuse in this part of the city. The sky is hemmed in by skyscrapers of grim steel and glass. The corporations build for the heavens, obstructing all that remains of the natural sky in Chicago.

  You can still glimpse the sky if you leave the city and head into gang territory, which is unwise. The sky is a murky yellowish haze, colored by nuclear radiation when the US bombed North Korea. Naturally, they counterattacked, radiating the majority of the country. From the Pacific Northwest down to Mexico is essentially uninhabitable.

  Sometimes, we get radiation storms that force us inside for a day or two to wait until it blows over another country. It’s taken twenty or so years from the average human lifespan, despite breakthroughs in medical technology.

  Even more fearsome than the roving gangs are the Mutants. They’re the husks of men who survived the bombardment. Their bodies were rendered hairless and gigantic, minds a twisted wreck of savagery. Most are dumb fucks and no brighter than children. Brave journalists have reported that they’ve even started to build their own settlements. They’re primitive, all plank and harvested sheet metal constructs. Food is hard to come by in the Wastelands. The Mutants are cannibals who will eat anything they can get their hands on, from dogs to men.