Insomnia

44

Devoe pulled up to a guard shack outside the Fantasian lunar campus. She flashed her credentials to get them both through. Mouth agape beneath her mask, Esme stared at the sweeping lawns and clean white buildings. She smelled the filtered air. That was real grass. A few employees walked to and fro. Some were even carrying grocery bags. She saw more than a few restaurants as they rolled along the clean asphalt.

"Are those... apartments?" she asked.

"Yeah," Devoe said. "They've basically got their own city out here. Shopping outlets. Day care. Schools. You never need to leave work when you live at work." A frown. "I used to live here too."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Remember? I told you I worked security here. Before..."

"Before what?"

"Before I got brought back down to Earth. Literally. Doesn't matter. You got that address?"

"Oh, yeah, right. Um, take a right here."

Devoe kept driving. Esme had trouble keeping her eye on the map when there was so much to stare at. Even in monochrome, Esme was awestruck by the sight of a real lake. The stars glowed in its surface like slivers of ice.

A thought occurred to her as they rolled through the campus. "We need to be careful. There are at least a couple of Omens who work here."

"And how do you know that?"

"Well, I infiltrated the group, right? I, um, met a few. Nice people, actually."

Devoe snorted. "Yeah, they were real nice about laying a beatdown on my coworkers."

"She wasn't involved!" Esme thought guiltily of Serena. "She was there for the politics, not the..."

"Don't be naive, Esme. You work with a group like that, and everything you say is tainted by association. No matter what you say, or what you argue, you'll be drowned out by your militant associates."

"Doesn't really seem fair."

"It's the way things are. It's why that surveillance resolution is going to get passed into law."

"Why do you say that?"

Devoe sighed. "The Omens have become the face of its opposition, and even though some Psions are okay with that, the vast majority of voters don't exactly feel comfortable being on the same side as psychopathic cultists." A frown. "Okay, maybe not the vast majority. But a majority. Probably." Her frown deepened. "Hopefully."

"So, what?" Esme turned away from staring through the window, and fixed her gaze on her cybernetic companion. "Now the swing vote is going to be sympathetic to the bill?"

"Yeah. If for no other reason than to demonstrate that they're not on the Omens' side, god help us all."

"What do you mean? You don't support the surveillance bill?"

"Of course not!" Devoe tugged a little too firmly on the steering wheel, and the tires made a slight skidding sound as they rolled through another turn. This place was huge. "Putting that kind of power into someone's hands, especially Fantasian's... well, that's just asking for trouble."

"I would've thought you supported them," Esme said, sitting up a little straighter, and looking nervously out the window as they approached another turn. "You're WBI. You used to work for Fantasian."

"That's exactly why I'm against this thing. You really think a gang of twenty something techines can hunt down criminals? The WBI is a better choice, but we're so understaffed that it would take us weeks to comb through one day of data." Another sharp turn. A Fantasian employee waved angrily out of her window as they cut her off. Devoe flashed an offensive gesture. "And besides, government agents make mistakes too. More intel isn't always an improvement. It's got to be good, actionable stuff."

"What do you do then?" Esme leaned back, hiding her face from the other driver in embarrassment. "What's the solution?"

"I think the first thing we need to do is hire more Psions to work in law enforcement. Techies too. We don't have the manpower or the specialized skills to even capture the criminals who are being reported to us right now. Hell, they're so desperate, they hired me to be an agent. Just because I can dream worth a damn." She scoffed. "Anyway. We're here."

They pulled over in front of a massive tower. Stone and glass gave it the shape of an old cathedral, although streaks of steel lent it an aura of unmistakable modernity. The front door was unlocked. No one was inside.

"If you don't work here anymore," Esme said, lowering her voice to a whisper as she turned on the light in her mask, "then why did they let you in?"

"I'm still WBI," Devoe moved past her, taking the lead. Esme frowned as the cyborg agent kept an outstretched arm between them, as if she were a child likely to cross the street without looking. "They can't just shut me out. Although I bet the Fantasian execs are freaking out right now and searching the area for us. We should move fast."

This room looked like an old lobby. Long since abandoned. It was bare save for a single desk in the center - likely for a receptionist. There was a single stairwell in the back corner, next to a pair of elevators.

The front doors slammed shut behind them. Devoe whirled around and paced back to try and get them open. Even faced with her cybernetic limb, they wouldn't budge.

The power came back on. Light washed over them both as the facility hummed back to life. A set of security cameras whirred as they resumed monitoring the floor. A hidden hatch in the back wall opened and a pair of security bots lumbered forwards. They were tall, maybe an inch taller than Esme, with a humanoid shape and unusually long arms.

"You shouldn't have come here," Oz's voice echoed through the chamber. "It's not safe."