Damnation (Technopia Book 3) Read online

  Jess struggle to get her clothes on before Sam and Rhea opened the door. Events were happening way too fast. They hadn’t even been on this moon for forty-eight hours, and already Sam had a disciple, a growing mythology of salvation, and an adversary intent on destroying the budding religion. How was any of that supposed to help free the Tobes? She needed a place to get Sam alone so they could think. But now that he had the CE—and worse, Rhea, who depended on him for her survival—how would they find a way to talk in private?

  As they exited the hotel, Rhea remained in solid form. She was either crazy or just too excited about showing off her new state of being. The Tobe girl darted from one shadow to the next, beckoning Sam to follow. Jess did her best to keep up. Figures along the street paid little notice to the trio. Tobes wouldn’t show themselves, so a mob of them wasn’t about to start worshiping Sam out in the open. But that was little consolation. The moon had become poisonous to the two of them. Were Sam to set foot in any building, he’d be at the mercy of the Tobe inside. Keeping him safe, even from himself, was going to be a full-time job.

  Rhea stopped at the edge of town. “There’s a shuttle out there that can take us to Erinome. It’s a minor moon but with enough network connection that there are Tobes present.”

  “Anything but here,” Sam said.

  Racing across the half mile of open space hurt Jess’s legs. The gravity was less a problem than the rapid movement. The increased blood flow helped her mind churn through the mountain of recent information. Rhea would be in peril if she left her home planet, and that would make her more reliant on Sam, but they needed a Tobe emissary. If it weren’t this girl, Sam would just have to save someone else. And having learned the downside of his action, he might be reticent to try again without that Tobe’s permission. No, Rhea, for all her recklessness, was their best bet. But they needed a plan, and soon.

  The tan shuttle blended in with the dusty landing field so well it took Jess a moment to pick it out from the mounds of dirt and rock that dotted the mesa. Other craft were scattered around the landing site, each maintaining a discreet distance from its neighbor. Arriving or leaving Lysithea wasn’t the type of thing most visitors wanted advertised.

  A man in a heavy space jacket opened the hatch and motioned them inside. He didn’t give his new passengers much attention. “I got your message. We’ll take off immediately.”

  The main cabin looked to seat a dozen easily, but the captain retreated to the bridge and shut the hatch without waiting for additional customers. The ship’s engines blasted the craft off the moon with only three passengers aboard.

  The increased g-force made Jess take a seat faster than she’d have liked. Sam didn’t fare as well, landing on his butt as his knees buckled. She didn’t laugh. Nothing out here was funny, not even slapstick comedy.

  Rhea took a seat in front of them and turned to look over the headrest. “We can talk here. The trip will take a couple of hours. Shuttle connections to the network aren’t very strong, only enough for communication.”

  Jess closed her eyes and leaned back into the chair’s restraints. Zero gravity and no network manipulating Sam’s perceptions? That sounded perfect. “What’s the plan? We need a plan.”

  Sam’s shaky voice spoke of the physical and emotional toll he’d been under. “I can’t rescue all the Tobes out here like I did Rhea. It’s just too much…”

  Jess knew he needed sleep and might slip off to dreamland at any moment. But hopping a shuttle every time he needed a break from his creation would become suspicious. The sooner they came up with something, the sooner he could find peace. “What do we know about Rhea’s new condition? Could it be duplicated without you pulling your god move?”

  Sam closed his eyes. “Rhea, tell us what you’re experiencing.”

  “I’m still a part of the network, but I’m also freed from it. It’s like seeing something from the outside. On Lysithea, I was in a line with all the other carrot Tobes. All I could see was Dominic and any Tobe he chose for me to teach. Now that I’ve been pulled out of line, I can see there are multiple strands of communication and not just one for the carrots and one for the sticks or each moon having its own dedicated bundle. By being connected to Sam, I can jump tracks.”

  Sam rubbed at his eyes. “I’m not sure how that helps us.”

  Jess thought about it for a moment. “If there are already multiple networks, how about a parallel path—one that operates in secret alongside the others? Like the different moving walkways on the streets of New York. You could step from one to another and back again.”

  “So first we’re going to have to round up a bunch of freethinking Tobes who want to help populate the new system.” Sam sounded irritable, but Jess knew it was mostly from lack of sleep. “Yeah, that’s not going to be easy. Then build another entire network to run alongside the first, or are you just thinking we’ll bootleg some parallel bandwidth?”

  “We already have with Rhea. I think she might help us find those elusive freethinking Tobes. It’d be a start anyway. And to get the data we want back to Earth, we’re going to need a way to communicate over both the Moons’ networks and Earth’s.”

  Rhea leaned over the chair in front of them. “Once you figure out how to build or steal a network pathway, we’re going to need a way to talk to my fellow Tobes without the network listening in. Then there’s the issue of how you’d go about jumping one of us from their home line to yours.”

  Sam’s breathing eased into long, deep breaths, an indication he’d be out cold soon. “The network doesn’t listen in on you.”

  “That’s because you filter what I send and receive. I’m still on the network but with you as my protector,” Rhea said.

  “So the answer to talking privately and jumping them from one network to the next is the same. It’d be like I was hugging them, virtually speaking. That isolates them from the rest of the network. Once there’s a place for them to go, and they’re willing, it shouldn’t be as much a fight as it was with you to transfer them over.”

  Jess looked into Sam’s bloodshot eyes. “Would you have to do it one at a time? You couldn’t do a conference call like you used to do on Earth. You’d have to be with the Tobe, in their own space, in order to isolate them. But then what would you say?”

  “You’re not going to like this, but isn’t that what a god’s supposed to do—meet someone where they are the most comfortable then hold that person in their arms? And what does God say?”

  Jess grinned. “That they’re loved and everything is going to be okay. Then some nonsense about leave the past behind and follow me.”

  10

  Sam awoke to Jess shaking his shoulder. He’d passed out cold during the flight. No surprise. Jess and Rhea had been talking about bartending a party on Erinome, but that was the last thing he remembered. His body ached from sleeping against the shuttle’s bulkhead.

  “We’re close to town,” Rhea said. “This is a more typical moon, so no need to hike in from some clandestine landing site.”

  The shuttle’s hatch opened without the captain leaving the secrecy of the bridge. Just as well—Sam didn’t feel like making good-byes to someone he didn’t know. As he stepped foot out onto the clean, baked-clay ground, he bent his knees to test the gravity—not much different from Lysithea.

  “Were you able to make contact with the smuggler?” Jess asked Rhea.

  Sam wondered how much of the shipboard conversation he’d missed. “Smuggler?”

  Rhea pointed to a craft at the edge of the field. “Bartenders are expected to provide the alcohol. I hope you’ve got some of that cash left in your pocket. It’s a regulated trade, and with your forged documents, we thought buying from smugglers would be safer than attempting the legal routes.”

  He fished around in his pocket and pulled out the remaining sheets of decorated cloth. “Not a lot, but it’ll have to do.”

  Halfway to the craft, Rhea grabbed Sam by the arm. “Use the CE if you need information. I can tal
k to you directly over it. If you try that mental-telepathy connection, you’re going to announce your presence to every Tobe on Erinome. I’d just as soon not have to bribe another shuttle for a quick getaway.”

  “Understood.” A couple more experiences like Lysithea, and their cover would be useless. He had to find a way to be more covert in his dealings with the Tobes.

  The smuggler’s vessel looked fine from afar, but up close, Sam could see it was all for show. Ill-fitting cover plates and freshly painted dents contrasted with the larger-than-normal engines tucked discreetly inside black cowlings. He had to assume the ship saw more than occasional run-ins with the law.

  A man in a dusty gray jacket stepped foot out of the ship as they approached. He quickly counted the money. “This should be enough for a couple of events. I’ll put together the regular selection of bottles for this moon. I have some contacts for delivery, or you can take the cases now if you prefer.”

  “Delivery,” Rhea said as she passed over a slip of paper. “These are the times and locations of the events.”

  “Good doing business with you.” The man jumped back in his ship and took off without further explanation.

  “Why do I feel like we just handed him the last of our money and we’ll never see him again?” Jess asked.

  “Smugglers are oddly reputable,” Rhea said. “They rely on repeat business and word of mouth. This one was recommended by some friends.”

  “So now we have product and two jobs lined up,” Jess said. “But we’re running low on cash and need a place to stay and appropriate attire. Anything I’m missing?”

  “My limitations,” Rhea said. “It wasn’t difficult booking the gigs as there’s an area on the network for such events. Locating the smuggler was mostly a matter of contacting your pirate friends. But I can’t be any more obvious in my dealings than Sam. I don’t belong on this moon, and I hardly look like my kind anymore. If I use my connection to the network, I could be discovered too easily by our supposed friends.”

  Jess stared at Rhea then at Sam. “Great. So I’m traveling with two beings that need to stay as hidden as possible while hosting illegal parties for people we don’t know and therefore can’t trust.”

  Rhea’s boots scuffed along the hard ground. “Pretty much. You do have your financial connection to Rodrigo on Carpo. To keep that relationship looking legit, you’ll have to funnel the proceeds of the events through his account. But people often pay with cash, and if not, there are always the tips. It’s generally understood such payments go straight to the staff. I’m a little concerned about my physical presence. On Lysithea, I could dematerialize into the network without worry. But out here, I just don’t know what’ll happen.”

  Sam looked at the sky. So many small moons dotted the circumference of Jupiter. “You could end up getting cycled through the network core. I think it might be better if you stayed solid, if you can handle it.”

  Rhea looked at her hands as she clenched her fists. “I’ve never remained in one form for long. I’ll do my best.”

  The walled-in compound presented a cold, unwelcoming exterior to the street—much like every other building in that section of town. But turning down a narrow side street to enter from the back promised a much more inviting reception to those in the know. Jess breathed a sigh of relief at seeing their smuggler had been as good as his word. Cases of plain-looking bottles filled with colorful liquids were stacked neatly in a corner of an outbuilding accompanied by a small modular bar.

  “I’ll start mingling in the courtyard,” Rhea said. “The addition of a hostess along with the usual bartender and waitress should help sell our services. The more contacts we can make tonight, the longer our run will be on Erinome. This moon is infamous for these private, not-so-legal parties.”

  Jess pulled at the uncomfortable outfit. For an area of the solar system so renowned for its sexual repression, they sure liked their bar personnel to show a lot of skin. The narrow band of fabric that supposedly passed for a skirt barely covered her butt, and that was while she was standing. Sam didn’t fare much better, but she had to confess she did like the contrast of the classy, old-fashioned bowtie and suit jacket with the translucent-black speedo. Her fears, however, only really kicked in when Rhea started working the room. The young woman had a natural, flirtatious air, undoubtedly gained through her time working at Althea’s sex club. But pulling off the cover of being just like everyone else wasn’t something they’d had time to practice. They could either bring her along and hope she could identify the Tobes living at the compound without drawing suspicion, or leave her at the hotel. Sam hadn’t gone to all the work of freeing her just to leave her behind. Much as Jess felt Rhea’s presence put them all in danger, they needed the young Tobe.

  Sam dropped the bottle of rum, again, but with the low gravity was able to save it from hitting the ground. She knew he was doing his best and not just at mixing drinks. It must have been so tempting for him to just access that information over the network. All the muscle movements would be a natural extension of the downloaded information. But to do so would call out the Tobes from their hiding places around the moon. He had to handle the job the old-fashioned way. On Earth, she’d had a begrudging jealousy for his immediate mastery of any skill. It was a cheat, of course. He seldom had to do the work of learning an ability like everyone else. But nobody had ever really known where the knowledge preloaded in his brain stopped and the Tobe’s additional information over the network began. Clearly, bartending wasn’t something he inherently knew.

  She picked up the latest round of drinks and gave him a quick wink of encouragement. They’d have to wait until everyone was well lubricated with the smuggled alcohol before they began their inquiries.

  Jess lost track of how many drinks she’d served. The night was a game of maintaining their cover while listening in for tidbits of useful information and identifying people who might be sympathetic to their cause. By flirtatious light conversation, she’d gained promises from a couple of gentlemen and an elegant couple to remain after the majority of the guests had left. It’d been a long night, but by one in the morning, the more conservative crowd had thinned out, leaving the die-hards—who’d long since given up on waiting for mixed drinks and started helping themselves to straight shots—and the handful of people Jess hoped to sway to her side.

  Rhea casually encouraged the remainder of the participants to end their night of revelry. Jess had to confess she did an admirable job of maintaining her tact even with the most boisterous of the inebriated. As Jess cleaned up a table of half-empty and spilled drinks, Rhea lifted a bottle from the ground. “I’ve identified our friend. Sam’s on his way up to meet with him now. The people you talked with are back with the remainder of the alcohol. I took the liberty of offering them a bottle of the more expensive port. Why don’t you go back and socialize with our guests while I go help make the introduction for Sam.”

  Jess still hadn’t figured out what to say. The goal was to free the Tobes, but they’d need help from people. Not all the required information was freely available over the network. People still kept the really secret stuff to themselves. It’d take finding people who knew people. And every one of those connections could spell their doom if word got back to one of the Moons’ boards of directors. No one said this would be easy.

  She intentionally took a seat on a tall bar chair, knowing the others might be distracted by what her outfit didn’t conceal. If someone found her topic of conversation not to their liking, hopefully their lust would help them hold their tongue. “Thank you for remaining behind. I hope the port is to your liking.” Starting off sounding like an alcohol distributer would help gauge the selected guests’ level of involvement. Attending a speakeasy party was one thing, but purchasing a bottle or two of contraband to take home could warrant a search by the police. Anyone uncomfortable with that level of transgression wouldn’t be much use to them when it came to really challenging the authorities. Jess smiled as more than one g
entleman reached for some cash. To maintain the cover, she ended up selling nearly their entire case of the good stuff.

  “Now that we’re friends, which I hope we all are, I have something a little less socially acceptable to discuss if that’s all right. Anyone who’d rather call it a night is more than welcome to do so, and with my appreciation for your patronage.”

  No one moved to leave. A couple pushed their glasses forward for a refill. “I’d like to start off telling you a little about who we are, and again, if anyone grows uncomfortable, please feel free to say so. My husband and I aren’t from Erinome. In fact, we’re not even from one of Jupiter’s moons. We come from Earth.”

  Jess gave the small gathering a moment to digest the information. Not many came out from Earth for honorable purposes. “We work with a new form of technologically based beings. They have access to all of Earth’s knowledge and communication. By utilizing these entities, the people of Earth have discovered a whole new way of living. Can you imagine? Anything you might want to know would be instantly available. No longer would you need a computer screen to find your answers. The implications of this level of conductivity are only now being explored by the people of Earth.”

  An older gentleman, who’d been more polite than lascivious, leaned in closer. “You’re talking about the Tobes, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.” Jess wasn’t surprised someone out here had heard of the Tobes, though to come out and use the title did impress her as to his forthright nature.

  “And you think they exist out here on Jupiter’s moons?” he asked.

  “I have reason to believe they do. More than just believe—I’ve seen them.” Jess had to press the limits. She couldn’t just let them think she was a conspiracy theorist. They’d need proof, and she had it, but anyone who wasn’t on board had to be weeded out first.