Hard Wired Trilogy DeAnna Pearce (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📖

“Why?” Ari asked the obvious question.

“Because he is an evil bastard. Do you need more of a reason?” Tricky snarled at her.

“Sometimes the why holds the way to stop him.” Patrick turned to Blur. “What else did you find?”

“The Indian embassy has been a big opponent against Maxim stealing finite resources from their country. Reading through VLEX sessions, I found they also protested his assignment to the board. They were the minority, but they recently put forth legislation to look into Maxim’s conflict of interest by his position on the board.”

The pictures continued to flash by of people, even teenagers, lying unconscious and without the resources to take care of that many people, Ari knew they would die. Would there be any other option for these people? Tricky recovered because she was manually pulled out of the system. These users didn’t have that option.

“We no longer have months,” Tricky reiterated.

“You’re right.” Patrick turned off the projection and rubbed the back of his neck. “I still can’t put anyone back in a vulnerable machine.”

“Wait,” Ari lifted a hand as the mass whirlwind of thought settled into an idea. “What if instead of bringing the machines here, we go to them?”

Her gaze flicked to Patrick and she continued, “If we’re going to take on Maxim and who knows how many members of the VLEX board he’s in bed with, we’ll need to come at him from several different locations. Hit him all at once and hard. The others also need to know that Maxim is using VLEX, their trusted worldwide realm, to run his business.”

“Could we just forward the information to the country heads and let them deal with it?” Harini asked.

“Do you think the information would even get to the right people or would Maxim shut them up before they get a chance?” Tricky asked. “They have turned a blind eye over and over against these elitists. We need to use their own program against them.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Patrick said. “If we unleash this program to the public, we don’t know where it could end up.”

“It’s already out there,” Ari pointed out. “Every country will be studying it to see how to weaponize it. The people need to know about this. We can’t trust the governments not to be under Maxim’s influence. And I think I know how.” The ideas started building in her mind like a snowball gathering speed.

“How?” Patrick asked.

“Give me a chance to work through something, but I’ll let you know.”

“We need to draw Maxim out.” Tricky’s voice carried a bite to it. “We need to kill him.”

Blur took the empty chair next to his sister. “Maxim is a collector of all things unique and important. Warpers are no exception.”

“Before any decision is made, let’s do the research. We have a couple of aliases, but we’ll need to use these ancient machines. It will take work. Let’s see if it is even possible before we plan any further.”

“We’ll meet back here after dinner.” Patrick clicked the screen off, signaling the end of the meeting.

Ari remained seated for a minute, the images from the news report still flashing in her mind. Would it stop in India? From the reports, they tried to blame a sickness of some kind, something transmitted from person to person. Maybe they didn’t want to know the truth, that the disease was online. It would be a hard truth for humankind to believe. And if government leaders wouldn’t stand against people like Maxim, they really wouldn’t know.

“Are you okay?” Marco placed an arm on her shoulder.

She touched her cheek and realized she had been crying. Quickly wiping them away she stood. “No. I’m not okay, but nothing really is right now.”

The afternoon speed by seamlessly. Ari wasn’t sure if it was a sign, but she took it as one. Since the older models of VR machines were not in abundance, it narrowed their searched quickly. But with fewer options, they could focus on what they did have. Joe and Patrick led the research assigning countries to focus on. Most were poor, small without the resources to upgrade their machines. But that worked in their favor as well. The poor countries should be easier to sneak into.

Their biggest challenge will be working within the confines of the old tech to get new skins. Why would an important diplomat use a second-class machine in the middle of nowhere? Blur was writing a new program for that, using a closed circuit VR machine to speed up the process.

With the others working on the VR machines, Ari had time to follow through with her idea. If the governments were influenced by Maxim, then how could they distribute information to the people without the governments’ approval? The first person that came to mind was Tessa. With her father in the entertainment industry, and Tessa’s games having almost a million followers, they had access to the people.

She had sent Tessa a message. They didn’t dare chance meeting in the VR, but they had a chance to talk in an encrypted gaming room. Tessa was willing to help get a message out to her followers and gave Ari the name of some other influential gamers with access to other countries. Every country had regulations about gaming and information coming in. It took a while for Ari to understand the red tape, but soon it looked like her idea just might work.

Ari left her workstation to head down to the kitchen for a late afternoon snack. Marco met her in the hall, walking out of the VR room.

“I thought everyone gave up on working on the hardware?” She thought it peculiar that he was in there.

“Yeah.”

An uneasy feeling rolled around in her stomach. “Were you in a VR?”

He kept his aloof demeanor. “Yeah, had to make a quick trip with some connections back home. Nothing big.”

“Nothing big?” Ari didn’t mean for her voice to raise like it did. “There’s a program out there that kills people. It’s not safe.”