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archergrid · 12 days

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Chapters 1-5 Chapters 6-10 >>

“I had a dream. I was in a strange land. A vast wilderness. I went on and on, but met no one. I called, I shouted... but no one answered. I was alone.”

-Akira Kurosawa, Ran

Chapter 1

Look, I get this question a lot for obvious reasons, so I know you won’t like the answer. It’s dissatisfying. But, because you asked, the best cybersecurity commercially available is something called an air-gapped computer.

An air-gapped computer has no network card. You won’t see a cerulean ethernet cord spouting from the stern of the case. There’s no hard, hollow plastic antenna to receive a wifi signal. It doesn’t have Bluetooth. My compsci professor at Tech explained it like this: there’s a literal wall of air—a gap—between the computer and anything that could inject it with compromising code. This abstinence-only approach makes air-gapped computers cheap, simple, and impenetrably secure.

But much like celibacy, not a lot of people opt for the air-gapped method. What’s the point of a computer, they ask, without e-mail and Twitter and porn? And I understand that. There were days I got so dog-tired of the manual data dumps, of examining each file down to the binary before connecting the USB, of hand-transcribing scraps of code onto sheets of paper, of the day-to-day ennui of existence inside those invisible walls. But when I broke into a system, all I saw back then was each and every way very, very bad things could get in.

The air wall was better. It let me breathe.

My laptop had to be online so I could access those vulnerable systems, but my desktop was air-gapped—a little black lockbox of my pdfs, jpgs, pngs, mp3s, mp4s, xls, txts, zips, bins, bats, dats, all my associate backgrounds and every line of my code. Knowing how safe they were in there calmed me at times like this, when I felt Julian Ek’s omniscient data network watching me like an enormous, electronic eye.

Notifications came like machine-gun fire into my phone. My apartment was dark, black under blackout curtains. I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but automated search alert after automated search alert filling my notifications: ek trial, julian ek trial, ek trial update, ek trial verdict, ek inc, joseph chambers, joseph chambers shooting, joseph chambers deepfaEk, deepfaEk, deepfaEk scandal, deepfaEk shooting edit, deepfaEk trial. More and more, on and on. I With dread, I went to Twitter, and there it was in blue and white. #EkAcquitted. It was the #2 trending topic, below #NationalVideoGamesDay. My hands began to shake. It had to be misreported—a mistake. I searched “Ek trial” and clicked the first link, scrolling past Ashlan’s disbarment and the Marshals’ conspiracy convictions to read the 6 words I’d dreaded for 4 years.

Julian Ek acquitted on all charges.

Ek walked. I went to the Herald for nothing; became a fugitive for nothing. I gave up my parents, my friends, my condo—my dream job obviously. I blew my whole life up, and now I’m stuck here, all alone on the other side of the world. Jeopardy attached, meaning I was officially of no use to anyone; meaning I could never, ever go back home. This dusty, pitch-black 300-square foot apartment really was my life.

I was hyperventilating. Breath after keening breath, air refused to reach my lungs, only rattle in the back of my throat. My head and stomach and knees went fuzzy. My phone screen smeared as it slipped from my hands. I reached for it and missed. The clatter of it hitting the floor—the dull pain of my thigh hitting the floor too—degraded into garbling static as I sank into gasping, grasping unconsciousness.

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archergrid · 12 days

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<< Chapters 1-5 Chapters 6-10

Chapter 6

The brewery was an unassuming stucco building a few blocks from the university. One of Lear’s murals covered the east wall—a massive, dynamic figure carved with intricate geometric textures. An article once described his work as Klimpt meets Basquiat, but Lear’s murals were mathier—frenetic, for sure, but playing more with geometry and dimension. He used clay and wood to give the paint and figures a kinetic, blocky depth, painted gold and carved with reticulated patterns. Even amidst Valpo’s cacophony of street art, it stood out.

I checked my phone. 2:04 PM. Lear’s been to jail, I thought. I could ask him what it’s like. If the gang does have something nefarious planned, I could just offer to turn myself in. I’d get swept off to the US federal prison system, and they’d never see or hear from me again, as good as dead. After a few more shaky breaths, I marched my badass black boots through the graffitied steel door.

The brewery proper was a maze of stainless steel metal vessels, lined up like redwoods on either side of the cavernous back room. It was like walking into a grand estate, or a prison. Squat windows near the ceiling drained light in, casting the brewery in sleepy, afternoon blue. Every step echoed. I was almost at the opposite end of the building when Lear popped out from behind a brew kettle. I nearly shot out of my shoes.

Lear looked like an arrow—rail-thin, sharp features, long gray hair puffing out from under his beanie. The wrinkles of his drawn face pointed up towards his high forehead, so he always looked like he was pitying you. “Whoa, whoa!” He checked his watch, then spread his balsa-wood arms, snapping his fingers like jabs. “Don’t be so jumpy-y-y.”

There was a dark spot under his linen shirt where he kept his gun. A deep breath balmed my frazzled nerves. “H-hey, Lear. The crew around?”

“Might be. You got your computer?”

I hugged my laptop bag and nodded.

“Cool. Let’s jam.” Lear swaggered into the shadow between the back 2 brew kettles, checking his wrist and whistling Ennio Morricone.

I didn’t follow. “Lear, p-please tell me what this is about.”

Lear’s tight shoulders slumped. He pursed his heart-shaped lips. “Come on, now, don’t make this hard on me.” His voice was flat. Panic reached up from my stomach and choked me. I backed up, but bumped something solid and warm. I spun, twitchy as prey. Cat raised her wooly-bear-caterpillar eyebrows at me.

Cat was the muscle in the crew, a big woman with a strong jaw, long silky hair, and a manslaughter rap Lear helped her out of. Her grease-stained tank top showed off meaty arms holding a tall baking dish with a lid on it. “Hey, Dom.”

“You’re late!” Lear scolded, jutting his knobby chin out at her. “Jig’s up, I guess.” Throwing an arm around my shoulders, Lear pulled me with him around the corner towards a black shadow between cylinders. My heart hammered my ribs. The dark alcove in front of me, Cat behind me blocking the exit. There was nowhere to go.

“Lear, please, just wait. You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, I think I do.” Lear clapped his hands once, the sound shuddering against the stainless-steel kettles.

“No, really, I promise, I’ll leave and you’ll never-”

Overhead fluorescents blinked to life over the picnic table we used to look over blueprints, count money, and eat greasy takeout. It was Jackson-Pollucked with every color of sticky acrylic paint. Unfamiliar paper cones were stacked on it. Inscrutable chalk-scrawls covered an ancient, wheeled blackboard situated beside an equally antique television, also on wheels. Paper streamers hung haphazardly off pipes and valves. A few feet back, U.H. stood beside the fuse box in skinny jeans and a pornhub hoodie, their phone in one hand. “Um. Surprise?”

Behind me, Lear crackled out a raucous chorus of cumpleaños feliz. I twisted around in time to see him elbow Cat, who grudgingly joined in. U.H. pointed their fingers at me as they ran up, hooked an arm around my neck, shouting the song in my face.

“Wh-what?”

“Well, you wouldn’t tell us when your birthday is, so I thought we’d pick one for you,” Lear said. “September 18th. One hell of a surprise party, right?” One hell of a surprise party was right. September 18th wasn’t my birthday of course, it was… January, definitely January. The 27th, maybe? The 23rd? “Look at her face, Cat! Told you she’d never see it coming.”

“Yeah, Boss, you made up a birthday for her,” Cat said flatly, bumping past Lear to set her ice-white dish down on the picnic table.

“Why did you tell me to bring my computer if you were just throwing a party?”

“You’re so paranoid, I had to pretend it was for work. Plus, I want to talk over your idea.”

“It’s not an idea, Lear, I’m just curious.”

Cat lifted the lid of her baking dish. The cake was a puffy cloud of chantilly cream drizzled with caramel. A rum-colored puddle covered the bottom of the plate. U.H. sat down across from us, smoking weed from an electric-green vape pen.

U.H. was an adrenaline-junky from a young age. By the time their rich parents gave up on them, the teenager had accrued 10 charges for driving without a license, 8 for reckless endangerment, 13 for destruction of property, 6 for grand theft auto, 24 for drug possession, and 1 for public nudity. U.H. was a gearhead with an obscene knowledge of cars and no slouch when it came to gadgets either. They once escaped from a Hyundai they crashed by fashioning a high-powered laser cutter out of the CD player, but beyond working Tinder, they weren’t very good with the software side.

Cat slid a slice of cake my way. The yellow sponge glistened with rum, bifurcated by a layer of icing and dulce de leche in the center. U.H. promptly reached across the table, dragging the plate towards them with a single finger. Cat flicked them behind the ear. “That’s for Dom, you gremlin.” U.H. flinched but took a bite anyway.

Lear passed us 4 unlabeled beer bottles, each one foaming at the mouth. “You tell her about the bike?”

“Oh yeah,” U.H. said, hopping to their feet as they licked their plastic fork clean. “Cat ’n me stole you a bike. It’s out back, wanna see?”

Still gobsmacked by my fake birthday party, I followed Cat and U.H. in a daze, unable to process this new piece of information. We took 2 lefts through brew kettles and mash tuns to the loading bay doors that led to the brewery’s gravel back lot. Cat slid the garage-style door up.

When U.H. said they stole me a bike, I assumed they meant something with a basket and some tassels. I didn’t expect the sleek-black paint job, angry headlamps and chunky engine. I should have—Cat and U.H. didn’t run a chop-shop for bicycles, after all.

“I know the 400 is baby’s first bike, but I didn’t know how much experience you had with motorcycles,” U.H. said (none was how much experience I had with motorcycles). “They had this moronic turbo setup—because, y’know, let’s strap a rocket to a tricycle—but I fixed it for you. We figured you don’t come out much because you must live real far away, right?”

It was less than 2 miles, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them that. I couldn’t explain why it wasn’t safe to be around me; that if I get caught, the crew will too. Besides, trying to drive a motorcycle through the roller-coaster hills of Valpo sounded like the definition of a death wish.

“Anyway,” U.H. went on as we walked back inside, “buy a helmet, not a shitty one, spend half a mil at least, otherwise your head’ll be-” U.H. made a wet noise as they scraped the palm of their hand across their skull. “Can’t let you die until we kill your new job.”

“It’s not a job,” I said as we walked back to Lear at the table. “Is that really why you called me down here?”

“Nah, nah nah,” Lear protested. “It’s about the party, a rowdy row wrapped in ribbons. Job’s just the bow on top. After what you said about the campaign I confabbed with a few folks around town who might be in the know. You weren’t kidding about this law and order angle.”

“The kids are out of control!” U.H. mocked. “They’re delinquents, they’re violent, they stole my 1984 Pontiac Firebird and crashed it into a Starbucks!”

“So, I took your advice and sent Cat and U.H. in. Told ’em to push the mayhem angle.”

“Yeah. I threw a brick through a window,” U.H. bragged.

“That was you?”

“Oh yeah. Didn’t even get yelled at. I might quit boosting cars and just do this now.”

“You got in no trouble at all?”

“No,” Cat said. “They said to keep up the good work.”

“My god… He’s really doing it, he’s paying people to be violent to validate his message.”

“And when U.H. is already validating his message so well already,” Lear japed.

“Fuck yeah I am!”

Chile had seen fascism. The right-wing dictator installed by the CIA in the ‘70s “disappeared” thousands of Chilean citizens for protesting his “presidency.” If Godoy played dirty like this, he could go full Pinochet once elected. What would happen to Valparaíso, Chile’s bastion of bohemian revolt? “You’ve sent all this to Teresa, right?”

“Nope,” Lear said, checking his watch. “In fact, it’s imperative she doesn’t find out.”

“Lear, there’s no score.”

“Oh, but there is,” he said, walking to the ancient TV. “See, I did send Teresa one tidbit from the whisper mill. It was just a rumor to me, but she did her multiple sources thing. She said it’d break at 2:30.” Lear switched the TV on.

There was Teresa’s scolding gaze and severe haircut. She leaned over a glass desk, oversized and gleaming with studio lights. A picture-in-picture of the Ek building was up on the screen beside her. “In an unexpected move,” Teresa told the camera, “presidential candidate and television personality Adalberto Godoy is holding his campaign fundraiser in the city of Valparaíso instead of Chile’s capital, Santiago. Ek Inc., the tech company best known for its Ekko mobile phones, plans to host Godoy’s gala in its newly-constructed and controversial office building in Valparaíso’s historic district. Godoy’s pro-business agenda is expected to attract corporate donors from across the globe who use Chilean copper and lithium in a broad range of electronics. Sources close to the campaign report they expect up to $20 billion pesos in donations the night of the gala.”

Lear whistled, muting the TV. “I’ve been to plenty of charity blowouts. Small donations go into envelopes on the tables, but the big stuff gets entered into a tablet.”

My job. $20 billion Chilean pesos—about $20 million USD—donated through a piece of technology. “You want to rob the fundraiser,” I realized aloud.

Lear grinned, all graveyard teeth. “No, you want to rob the fundraiser. This was your call, D-zero, and you called it. It’s only right that you manage it.”

“Me? I-I just wanted to see what Godoy was up to.”

Lear lowered his voice as U.H. chatted to Cat. “Exactly. You’re in it for the right reasons, D-zero, just like I am. The money isn’t what you’re after, that’s just icing.” Lear dipped a knobby finger into his slice of cake, popping the wad of chantilly cream in his mouth. “We want to even the odds. We want these bastards out of Valpo. What do you say?”

What a stupid, sloppy idea, I thought. The last time I went up against Ek directly, he ended up acquitted and I ended up here. I’d be risking detection, capture, federal prison, or worse: another 4000 white-knuckle miles of static. Yet, how could I sit back and watch Ek and Godoy take over Valparaíso, the town that had sheltered me for 4 terrified years? How many more times would I let Julian run me from my own home? Lear, as off-kilter as he was, took care of me when I arrived in Valpo in a broken down car, delicate as an exposed wire. Paula too, who gave me a dark and quiet place where I felt safe. I loved Valparaíso, with its crooked streets you couldn’t help but get lost in; never be found in. I felt safe cradled between the mountains and the sea, holding me in cupped hands with paint-stained fingers.

He can’t just get away with it. Not this time; not your thumb; not this scale. If the law can’t stop Julian Ek, I’ll black his eye for them. “I’ll do it. I’m in.”

“Good,” Lear said. “I’ll take care of staffing, you just figure logistics. U.H. and Cat will keep looking for limits on hell-raising. I’ll drag for contractors.”

“We should get someone in the campaign staff.”

“See? You’re bossing me around already.” Lear’s smile went soft around the edges. “You’re a peach, Ms. Mysterio. Sorry to do this on your birthday.”

“It’s OK. It’s not my birthday.”

“Oh, you about to tell me when it really is?”

“No.”

“Then far as I’m concerned, it’s September 18th, baby.”

“Don’t call me ’baby’,” I said, rolling my eyes while trying to decide between 1/23 or 1/27. Lear set an occupied brown paper bag on the table. Whatever was inside was the mass, volume, and density of a textbook. “What’s this?”

“What’d I just say? Sept-tem-ber 18th, baby.” Lear tapped the bag with each syllable.

“And what did I just say?” Reaching inside, my fingers found something solid and poly-smooth. It was heavy, and I needed both hands to pull it up and out of the bag. The sturdy frame had hinges drilled into one side, attaching a small, squat door. A dollar-store lock held the door shut, covering whatever painting the frame was framing. With a bit of digging I fished the small, notched key from the bottom of the bag. The lock clicked open with spring-loaded satisfaction. I unhooked it from the latch, then opened the door like a book.

It was me. Bands of butter yellow and daubs of ultraviolet chiseled me out from the black canvas. Gold geometric patterns marched along the seams of my jacket and zigzagged through my textured hair. It still smelled like turpentine. In the painting, I was laughing, my sunglasses in my hand and my eyes wet with molten gold. Looking at it was uncomfortable. The girl in that painting wasn’t a big, bad cyber-revolutionary. She was small and jagged, laughing through her tears. That girl couldn’t do what I’m about to. That girl was an open wound. “It’s beautiful, Lear,” I said, and meant it. “How is it meant to be displayed? With the door open or closed?”

“Suppose that’s up to you, D-zero.” Lear smiled, but barely. “That’s not my name, y’know.” He tapped 4 sweeping, capital letters in the bottom-right corner. L-E-A-R. “It’s Reyes. But you knew that already, right?”

Yes. You were arrested by Pinochet’s military police after one too many avant-garde acts of vandalism. After that, the Universidad de Chile’s art program revoked your admission.

“Why do you think they call me that?”

“Seems obvious. You’re the king, and…”

“And?”

“And you’re a little crazy.”

Lear nearly fell off his seat, howling with laughter. “Nah, that ain’t why. It’s because I let little girls like you push me around.”

You treated jail like the university you couldn’t go to. You learned; networked, and not just with the other political prisoners. You graduated from avant-garde to direct action. “I’m not a princess,” I said.

“Don’t I know it. So? I showed you mine, you show me yours.”

You have a real daughter in Santiago that refuses to see you. I know what kind of soap you use, what kind of porn you watch, what kind of emails you write but never send. I know everything about you, and you don’t even know my name. “I think it’s better if you call me Domino,” I said as I shut the door on the painting, “and I call you Lear.”

“4 years and you still don’t trust me.” With a heavy sigh, Lear stood up from the table. “Guess that makes you a good criminal.”

I couldn’t process any kind of answer to that. Had 4 years turned me into a criminal, or did my chemical makeup fundamentally change the moment I opened that video? It seemed like a lifetime since I’d gone on the run, that 2-month road-trip panic-attack, screaming south until no one knew my name.

A strange revelation hit me then—a bug in my code. What was my real name again? I hadn’t used it since I left, and the news only referred to me as “Former Ek Inc. Employee.” It was on the tip of my tongue. My brows pressed together, as though the information could be folded back into my brain. My thumb was running down the stained wood of the painting’s closed door when the syllables floated up from a dusty corner of my mind, like a piece of trivia.

Lia. My name is Lia.

<< Chapters 1-5 Chapters 6-10

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archergrid · 13 days

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GIRL WITH NO NAME Chapter 6 is live on archergrid.substack.com! If you like...

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩Butch/femme 💰Steal from the rich 👾Latina hacker FMC 🌹Asian butch-fatale love interest 🌶️spicy love scenes

...then subscribe to this serial novel or follow this account for chapter updates.

BE GAY DO CRIME • NEW CHAPTER EVERY WEDNESDAY

"Ocean's 8" meets "Delilah Green Doesn't Care" in this snappy sapphic heist full of colorful criminals ripping off a megalomaniacal tech CEO in the South American port city of Valparaíso.

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archergrid · 15 days

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BE GAY DO CRIME

archergrid.substack.com

SUBSCRIBE to read GIRL WITH NO NAME, a serial sapphic heist novel. NEW CHAPTER EVERY WEDNESDAY. Support women's wrongs--subscribe today!

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 Butch/femme 💰 Steal from the rich 👾 Latina hacker main character 🌹 Asian lesbian love interest 🌶️ spicy love scenes

When her former boss is acquitted of the crime she gave up everything to expose, a reclusive hacker organizes a heist to get revenge. But when a sexy but reckless ex-yakuza joins the crew, the hacker’s plans begin to unravel. "Portrait of a Thief" meets "Delilah Green Doesn’t Care" in this snappy sapphic heist full of colorful criminals ripping off a megalomaniacal tech CEO in the South American port city of Valparaíso.

Check it out if you like: "Bound," Portrait of a Thief, Six of Crows, "Shadow and Bone," "Mr. Robot," Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, or lesbian smut lol

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archergrid · 19 days

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Chapter 5

After setting the PC trap and taking a long, slow panoramic photo of the apartment, I tapped the motion detection camera on. I slid loose the chain, then pinched the doorknob’s little nipple that turned like it wouldn’t keep a toddler out. The barrel bolt skated free with a wonderful clack. Last was the double-cylinder deadbolt. The hard tension as I twisted the cigar-thick knob, the way it didn’t want to unlock, was the most reassuring. The door at last opened with a jolt.

Out in the hallway the scent of oil and spices, cool of sea air, and chirps of a video game wafted up to me. After double-locking behind me, I wound down the helix of steep steps to find Pia sitting at the base of the stairs, playing her Nintendo Switch. She leaned her head back, giving me a view up her nostrils. “Hey, Lola. Wanna see the bug I caught?”

“Lola” was the fake alias I used to get this apartment. Paula rented it to me under the table, which meant no taxes for her and no paper trail for me. Perfect, except it turns out both her and her daughter, Pia, were very friendly. It took a long time to use the fake name without becoming a stuttering mess. Lying made my head spin, racing through possibilities and their myriad consequences until my brain became an overheating Galaxy Note 7. My former life wasn’t the kind that teaches you to lie, not about your name—just about being pissed off at your manager and having plans for the weekend.

“I can’t right now, Pia,” I said. “But show me your museum when I get back.” If I get back.

“The princess emerges from her tower!” Paula pulled a broad pan of empanadas from the oven. “Here, take one!”

And here I’d hoped to sneak out the back door. “No, thanks, Paula. I’m good.”

Paula Soto is my landlord, but don’t hold that against her—she needs the money. Paula and I were close in height and weight, 5-foot-nothing and rubenesque, but she always felt bigger. Her cloud of long hair, wide hips, and circle-skirt dresses all gave her a whimsical mass. I liked her. She wasn’t a criminal or computer geek, just a single mom running a homestyle restaurant. She had no criminal record, just an obscene amount of unpaid parking tickets.

“Nonsense!” Paula crowed, setting the pan down on a stainless-steel counter. Pulling off her oven mitt, she plucked a steaming empanada up with her bare hand before wrapping it in parchment paper. “They came out of the oven just as you walked down. It’s fate!”

Classic Paula—a sweet bully of a mom. It would be faster to take one. Stepping past Pia, I held my hand out like a white flag. Paula passed the empanada to me with unpainted fingernails and a sunny smile. The heat cooked my fingers through the cloudy paper, a hint of sweet onion beneath the heady scent of buttery, baked dough. “Add it to my rent,” I said.

Paula waved her hand. “After 6 days, I’m just happy to see you leave your room.” She sounded like my dad. I gripped the pastry, crust tumbling to the smoothed-concrete floor.

“Mama, can I have one too?” Pia peered at us through the spokes of the banister.

Paula and her ex-husband shared custody of their 11-year-old daughter, Pia. She was a little kidney-bean of a girl with hair as puffy as her mom’s. Really shy, but because she hid in the kitchen more often than not, I saw a lot of her. I liked her, too.

“You had one from the last batch, Pia,” Paula said. “You’ll spoil your dinner.”

Pia stuck out her lower lip, folding back into her video game. With a muttered thank you, I made for the back door at the base of the stairs. Paula always propped it open to let the cooking smells waft out into the street. The best kind of advertising, she said. I’d accessed the restaurant’s financials. She needed all the free advertising she could get. From the doorway, I checked over my shoulder. Paula was busy transferring the empanadas to the warmer at the front counter.

“Psst. Pia,” I whispered, trying to catch her attention without alerting her mom. She peered up from her game like a stray cat. While Paula’s back was turned, I handed my empanada to Pia. “Don’t let your mom see.”

Pia looked up at me with wide, brown eyes. “Really? Thank you!”

My smirk turned into a smile. “See you later.” I exited out the back door into the cobblestone alleyway as Pia munched down on the pastry, crust flaking onto her Switch screen. My nerves tightened again as I climbed the piano staircase up to the sidewalk, heading toward the funicular.

If you ever wondered what it was like to live in a vandalized MC Escher painting, Valparaíso is about as close as you get. Every square foot of the city was at some angle, from jaunty to downright gut-wrenching. Stair-step houses climbed up the high cliff that encircled the bay like an amphitheater. Streets coiled up steep hills. Mysterious stairways lead you down to secret gardens and graffiti-covered speakeasies. Every surface has a mural: blue women and skeletal photographers, peacefully-reading children and psychedelic landscapes, tags and protests and declarations against the police and the government and the gender binary. The A’s in circles matched the anarcho-punk blasting from my earbuds. I never understood people who fell in love with cities until I came here. Valparaíso holds you, a colorful quilt of jagged row houses, secret stairwells, and street art. It made me feel safe—hidden, like I could lose any pursuer in its spray-painted, labyrinthine streets.

Gulls laughed overhead as I queued up for the funicular that would take me down the hill to the waterfront. Valparaíso is a city built on jagged cliffs, and most major neighborhoods are atop one of its many hills. Valpo solved the problem of getting around the city by building a series of funiculars that bring you up and down hills for the Chilean equivalent of a dime. When the cart arrived, an attendant opened the doors for me and the half-dozen other people lined up. I hugged my laptop bag in the crowded little box, facing out the cloudy window and away from the clutch of people stuffed inside with me. A briar of cacti covered the hill we descended, the funicular’s ancient pulley system clicking like a coaster. We reached the bottom with a rattle. I escaped into Plaza Sotomayor, a wide-open cobblestone piazza surrounded by huge and beautiful turn-of-the-century government buildings. I followed the train line that traced Valparaíso bay and its all-important imports port. Yellow-striped barriers stared me down the whole walk, until I was in the shadow of Ek Inc.’s newest skyscraper, shooting up from what had once been the Echaurren fountain. The whole building was a wall of dark glass, pinstriped with steel and crowned by the Ek Inc. logo—a visual portmanteau of expanding signal lines and a winking face. It bent my head back, making me sick with vertigo, as though Julian Ek himself was standing over me, 40-stories tall, smirking and saying, I see you. Without the trial, he could use his thumbs for different scales. I hunched my shoulders, hid my face, and headed for the coiling concrete stairs up to Playa Ancha, my anxiety walking me up them like a countdown.

“I had a dream. I was in a strange land. A vast wilderness. I went on and on, but met no one. I called, I shouted... but no one answered. I was alone.”

-Akira Kurosawa, Ran

Chapter 1

The air wall was better. It let me breathe.

Julian Ek acquitted on all charges.

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