3.3 Level for Level

3 – Level for Level

Xan Silver took them down a short hallway and then into a room featuring a rectangular glass table, wooden paneling—Hector couldn’t tell if it was real—and a wide viewscreen that currently displayed Mars. The broad green belt around its rust-colored girth was still startling; it had grown considerably broader during the two centuries he’d been “dead.”

There were three chairs arrayed on the near side of the table, and Xan moved around to the other side where a single chair awaited. Beside him was a cart dressed in a white cloth and carrying three nondescript black boxes, each about the size of a deck of cards.

“Please sit down,” Xan said.

Hector stood to the side, giving Iris and Sass the opportunity to choose their seats, and was mildly amused when they left the central one for him. He’d expected Iris to sit there, to needle him if nothing else.

While he sat, Xan asked, “Shall I have Tamla bring more refreshments? Something stronger, perhaps?”

Iris saved Hector the trouble of responding by saying, “Now, now, Mr. Silver—you won’t be impairing our judgment before a deal is made.”

Hector only grunted in agreement. He nodded to the cart. “You found some suitable systems?”

Xan leaned one elbow on the table and carefully stroked his red beard, drawing his fingers through the pointed tuft at the end of his chin. “A man who values the direct approach, I see.”

Hector didn’t respond, and Iris, apparently feeling pressed by the awkwardness, said, “Our port time is limited, Mr. Silver. Let’s do try to take care of Mr. Valerius’s business because you and I will also need to discuss my request—I trust Lady Ventress forwarded my specifications?”

“Just Xan, please, though I appreciate your etiquette, Miss Sparling. As for your order, I believe you’ll be pleased with what I’ve found.”

The corner of Hector’s mouth, regardless of his intentions, curled into a slightly sardonic smile when Iris didn’t insist he call her by her first name. He cleared his throat. “Let’s see what you’ve got here.” Again, he nodded to the cart.

Xan made a clicking sound with his tongue, nodding. “Right, right! Straight to business.” He picked up one of the black boxes and set it on the glass table before Hector. As Xan began to lift off the lid, Hector was aware of Sass squirming beside him, and he glanced at her. She was leaning forward, hands gripping the arms of her chair as she stared. He wondered if she’d ever seen an aura system chip.

He stretched out his arm and put a finger on the box’s lid before Xan could fully remove it. “Just a minute.” Xan froze, and Hector looked back at Sass. “It doesn’t matter what the chip looks like.”

She blinked at him, her violet eyes bright, but the confusion was clear. “What are we doing, then?”

“We’re listening to this man’s sales pitch. He’ll tell us about the system—its history or lack thereof. He’ll tell us how fast the processor is and whether it has built-in scraping capabilities. Those are the important qualities—not whether it’s in a pretty package.”

She made an affirmative sound, jerking her head in a quick nod. “Understood.”

Hector turned back to Xan and pulled his hand away from the box. “Okay.”

“Your mentor is very correct, Miss Jane.”

“How’d you know my last name?” Sass asked, frowning.

“Gladia,” Hector said.

“Quite right, Mr. Valer—”

Hector interrupted him. “Hector. Now, go ahead.” He gestured to the box, and he was sure everyone could hear the irritation in his voice.

Xan Silver was a cool operator, but Hector discerned a slight tremble in his hand as he hastily set the lid aside, lifted away a white cloth and laid it out on the glass table. Then he delicately pried a small silver capsule from the box. One end glittered with golden contact points as he turned it in the light and set it on the table.

“I’ll start with this offering, Mr.—erm, Hector. Lady Ventress was very firm in her demand that I find gold-class aura systems to show you, but the supply was very limited, and I thought this one might still be of interest. It’s a new product from LLS Corp—Levity Light Streams.” He looked at Hector, searching for recognition, and when Hector only frowned, he said, “They’re highly regarded in the aura system AI development arena. It’s only rated at silver, but—”

“Silver with an untested AI?”

“Oh no! When I say new, I mean it’s their latest model. This one, however, was implanted in a highly regarded mercenary until…recently. I’ve run its logs through an analytic AI. The previous user allocated nearly ten thousand aura potentia, reached a system level of fifty-five, and worked through four different archetypes, two of which were Advanced.”

“He died?” Hector asked.

“Indeed. His mercenary unit put this chip on auction only yesterday.” When Hector failed to display any sort of reaction, he added, “I thought this system was a fine addition to my lineup because it has a new processor that puts it on par with or faster than many older gold-class systems. The same goes for its memory cache, and LLS claims their new AIs outperform the average gold-class system on the Rand Creativity Calculator.”

“That’s very nice, don’t you think, Hector?” Iris prompted after he sat there for a moment, thinking. The truth was, he wasn’t very impressed with the system. If it had reached level fifty-five with only ten thousand aura potentia, then that meant its archetypes weren’t well-developed—anemic pathways, weak talents, and subpar corpus vivum improvements.

“What else do you have?” he asked. While Xan put the first chip back in the box and pushed it to the side, Hector looked at Sass and said, “I’ll give you my thoughts after we see them all.”

“Okay. That one sounded amazing, though, didn’t it?”

He only smiled, but Iris said, “He doesn’t want to give Mr. Silver any clues, Sass. Don’t be discouraged.”

“Ah, a savvy negotiator!” Xan chuckled, placing another box on the table. “Now, I’m going to be honest with you, Hector; I included that silver-class system primarily because the two gold-class systems I was able to acquire on such short notice were…more than aura systems.” He took the lid off the box, and Hector saw what he meant; there was a neurodeck, much like his own, glinting with golden luster, nestled in the soft lining.

“I don’t think that would fit my port,” Sass said.

Iris snorted. “That’s a neurodeck, Saskia.”

Hector clenched his fist, and one of his knuckles popped. “I’m not putting someone’s ghost into Sass’s head.”

Xan waved his hand. “No, no! There are no human engrams on these decks! In both cases—” He hastily picked up the third box and set it beside the first one. “—these are gold-class aura systems that have been integrated with blank neurodecks. You see, the clientele who most often purchase this level of aura system tend to expect it to be part of a neurodeck. Most often, it’s a child of one of the wealthy elite or someone newly wealthy, looking for more than just an upgraded aura system.”

Hector nodded. “Okay, let’s hear about them.”

Xan opened the third box, displaying another neurodeck, this one matte black with a golden sun embossed at the center. “The hardware is similar between these two. This one contains an aura system manufactured in AE 540 by Xerxes Corporation—a Mentat model. The system in the golden case is significantly newer—AE 587—and was manufactured by Chan-West Corporation. I only have logs for the most recent owners of each.”

“Why?” Hector asked.

“Well, in the case of the Chan-West system”—he tapped the golden neurodeck—“I’m fairly sure there was only a single former user. I don’t have any personal information, but I can tell you he or she allocated thirty thousand aura potentia, and that the highest any of the user’s archetypes reached was level eighty-two.”

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“And the other?”

“I believe the logs were wiped prior to the most recent owner’s acquisition. Again, I don’t have personal details, but there were fourteen thousand aura potentia allocated into an archetype that only reached level twenty-eight.”

As the man finished speaking, Hector nodded. He’d already made a decision. Still, he turned to Sass and asked, “What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t have a port for a ghost—er, a neurodeck, so…”

Hector shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. Ports are the cheap part.”

“That’s true,” Iris chimed in. “It’s the deck that costs an emperor’s ransom.”

“So?” Hector prodded, ignoring the comment.

Sass shrugged. “Are the gold-class systems really better than the silver one?”

Hector looked at Xan and arched an eyebrow. The man made a pained expression and clasped his hands together. “Oh, well, if I’m truly honest, then yes, ma’am—in many regards. In all three cases, the aura systems have potentia-gathering functions, but the gold-class systems are thirty percent more efficient. Well, and though this silver system has memory and processor speed that rival many gold-class systems, it doesn’t rival these systems.” He shrugged, looking a little chagrined.

Sass looked up at Hector, then pointed to the gold-encased aura system. “That one, then? Because it’s newer, and it got its former user all the way to level eighty-two? I’ve never even heard of someone getting that high.”

“Well, first of all,” he said, “Mr. Silver didn’t give us any of the hardware specs for either system. I’m assuming that’s because they’re similar.”

“Indeed!” Xan nodded. “Slightly more memory in the case of the Xerxes model, but not enough to quibble over. Why, I think your intuition is right on the mark, Miss Jane! This—”

Hector shook his head, holding up a hand. He was about to explain, but then stopped, frowning. “Can you give us a minute?”

Xan stood, pushing his chair back. “Absolutely.”

“Before you go,” Hector said, “I’d appreciate you sending me the prices for these three systems.” He tapped his head, and Xan nodded.

“Naturally, though I was sure to stay within Lady Ventress’s authorized budget.”

As he walked around the table and reached for the door, Iris asked, “I trust our privacy is assured?”

“Entirely. I’ll stake my reputation on it!”

Hector reviewed the three prices. The gold-class system housed in the matte-black neurodeck was almost two million bits. The other gold-class system was nearly three million. The silver-class system was only a touch over six hundred thousand. He waited until Xan stepped out and the door slid shut before he said, “The black one.” Leaning forward, he picked up the case containing the matte-black neurodeck and handed it to Sass.

“This one took fourteen thousand potentia and built an archetype that only reached level twenty-eight. Some people might think that’s a negative, but in reality, it means that the archetype must have been high-tier. It had dense pathways, costly abilities, and potent corpus vivum—that’s your body—upgrades.”

“So, higher level isn’t always better?”

Hector smiled. “Not at all. A poor aura system might help its user build up an archetype that reaches a staggering baseline level, but when it does that, the result will lack depth. Even on a shallow build like that, the higher levels grow exponentially more costly, and as a result, the users eventually get stuck—powerful, but not truly powerful.”

He tapped the box Sass held. “I’d bet all my potentia that the previous owner of this deck wiped the logs because he didn’t want people to know what this system did for him. Maybe he retired, maybe he died and his kids wiped it—I don’t know—but based on that single log, it’s better than the other one.”

“Is that true?” Iris asked, also staring at the deck Sass held. “I always thought levels were an almost absolute measure of power.”

Hector snorted. “There are so many Royals with levels in the triple digits…” He shook his head, chuckling. “If they had power equivalent, level for level, to killers like Lux or fighters like Flint—well, they wouldn’t need armies or battleships.”

Iris’s eyes were wide, and she looked like she’d just swallowed something that had been surprisingly sour. “Is this common knowledge?”

Hector shrugged. “About as common as high-level aura users—so, no.”

Sass turned the box in her hands, examining the neurodeck inside from every angle. “Can I take it out of the box?”

Hector nodded. “Sure.”

She did so, lifting it out of the soft lining and turning it so the back was exposed, revealing a golden moon to complement the sun on the other side. “It’s pretty.”

Iris leaned closer, uncomfortably close to Hector. “It really is, isn’t it? My neurodeck is, too—platinum with diamonds.”

“You have one?” Sass asked.

“You guys know nobody is ever going to see those damn things, right?” Hector asked, nudging Iris back toward her seat.

Iris ignored him, nodding to Sass. “I do, but like I told you—no aura system.” She looked at Hector. “Is there a danger from the AI being so old? Will she have to worry about its…personality?”

He shrugged. “I doubt it. Aura systems have symbiote-class AIs. They’ll do a lot to try to get along with their host.”

Sass made a sound, almost as though she were choking, and then grabbed his arm. “That’s not what you told me! You said I should get a raw aura system because old ones can pick up baggage and bad habits!”

Hector sighed, gripping his forehead and massaging his temple with his thumb. “That was before we had a way to get you a gold-class system! Yeah, if you were buying something a lot more affordable, we’d want to go with new, but these”—he gestured to the boxes on the table—“are not so easy to get. We’ve got to take some risks with the AI’s history, but…there’s a big difference between a gold-class AI and what you’d find in the more common systems—even bronze.”

“You’re sure?”

Hector shook his head, dropping his hand back to his lap. “No, you can never be sure, but the odds of a gold-class AI being damaged beyond adjustment are pretty slim. It could have bad habits or personality quirks, but the partial log tells me this one wasn’t timid or unimaginative. It built a solid archetype.” He nodded toward the neurodeck in Sass’s hand.

Iris leaned past Hector to say, “Now I know how to get Hector to say more than three words at a time—just ask him about aura systems!” When Hector glowered at her, she slid out of her chair. “I’ll get Mr. Silver.”

She’d barely opened the door and called the man’s name before Hector heard him approach and ask, “Has he made a decision?”

“Yes. He wants the Xerxes model.”

“Ah, what an interesting choice.” By then, Xan was walking back around the table, and he smiled at Sass, who was still holding the box. “Shall I wrap it or—”

“No need,” Hector replied, already feeling antsy—ready to get back to the ship and talk to Gladia about scheduling a neural port implant for Sass.

“Well, then!” Xan smiled, coming around the table. He held out a hand to Hector, and as they shook, he said, “You may as well hold on to that, Miss Jane; Lady Ventress has extended her own line of credit, so we won’t need to arrange any sort of payment.”

Hector tugged open Sass’s coat, checking to see if she had an inner pocket. He saw she did and said, “Keep it in there and zip up. There’ll be people with sticky fingers in the crowds.”

“Isn’t that the sad truth!” Xan said, clicking his tongue.

Hector started to get up, but Iris put her hand on his arm. “Please wait, Hector; I’ll just need a minute with Mr. Silver, and I’d appreciate you and Sass escorting me back to the ship.”

Images of Iris getting shoved around in the jostling crowds of the central ring ran through his mind, and Hector nodded, leaning back again. “All right.”

“I have your product here,” Xan said, moving closer to the cloth-covered cart where he’d kept the aura systems. “Lady Ventress said white, pale blue, yellow, gold, or silver.” He straightened, holding an oblong white box tied with a big, looping pink bow. “I found this one; it’s primarily white with a pink lining. There weren’t many options in your size, but—”

Iris stood, holding out her hands. “Let me see.”

Xan handed her the box, and Iris immediately yanked the ribbon off, sliding her fingers under the lid and peeling it away. As she threw aside the tissue paper packing, she said, “My father insisted I buy one of these—not something I really wanted to spend my hard-earned savings on, but I suppose a bit of extra caution never went amiss.” She pulled out a silky garment that was, to Hector’s untrained eye, more pearl-colored than white, and as she held it up, letting the fabric fall from its folds, it crackled as a charge of strange, shimmering energy ran through it.

“A shield cape?” he guessed.

Iris smiled, swinging the short, thigh-length cloak around behind her shoulders and holding it close around her neck. “Does it suit me?”

“Oh, bravo!” Xan said, clapping politely. “It’s stunning!”

“It’s beautiful!” Sass agreed.

Iris ignored them. “Hector?” She stared into his eyes. For the first time that day, he noticed that her irises were silver. That’s new, isn’t it?

Evie didn’t respond, and he cleared his throat, nodding. “Yeah, the cape looks nice.” He turned to Xan. “What can it stop?”

“Most small-arms bullets. It will also dissipate plasma-based blaster fire, conserving some of the energy to charge its batteries.”

Hector whistled softly. It was nice—nowhere near as valuable as the gravity mantle he had back on the ship, but still, very nice.

“Well, I love it,” Iris said, fastening the buttons around her neck. “I’ll wear it now.”

“Um, there’s the small matter of payment—” Xan looked mortified to have to mention it.

Iris waved a hand. “You have my account information. Submit an invoice.”

“Of course, of course.” Xan hurried around the table to help Iris with one of the buttons that was giving her trouble. “You’re just off slightly here…there we go!”

As the thought of the gravity mantle crossed Hector’s mind, he’d begun to mull over a possibility. He cleared his throat and said, “Xan, could you put me in touch with someone who knows a thing or two about Expansion-Era tech? I need someone discreet.”

“Well, Hector,” Xan said, holding a hand to his chest. “I’m your man! I deal in all manner of lost-tech!”

Hector stood, shaking his head. “I’m not looking to buy or sell. I need something serviced.”

“Ah! In that case, I have just the man—er, synth.”

“That right? Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d have him contact the ship—or just stop by before 2200; that’s when we’re leaving.”

Xan nodded, walking them to the door. “I’ll do my best, but that’s rather short notice.”

“Tell him I’ll double his usual rate.”

“That should help lubricate the wheels.”

As they walked out of Xan’s shop, Hector looked from Iris to Sass, and his stomach rumbled, anticipating his words. “How about a quick bite?”

“Yes!” Iris cried.

Sass nodded enthusiastically. “I’m starved!” Hector couldn’t help smiling at the way she had her arms folded across her chest—no doubt protecting the box she’d stowed inside her jacket.

“Okay, but then I need to buy some clothes. I’ll drop you two off at the ship first—”

“Oh!” Sass grabbed his arm. “Let us help you!”

“I agree, Hector,” Iris said, looping her fingers around Sass’s elbow. “Your tastes are far too utilitarian.”

“I’m going to be spending weeks aboard a spaceship, and training for—”

“That’s no excuse to look sloppy,” Iris said. “We’ll help. Besides, you’ll want a few dinner suits, won’t you? I’m sure we’ll be spending many evenings at the captain’s table.”

Hector drove his fingers through his hair in frustration, but he couldn’t think of a good reason to object. Instead, he started walking, figuring he’d already said plenty.