So after the woman, the officer and I exchanged a bit more small talk that was of little consequence I decided to get going. I have much to think about and investigate. I need to find out who these strange men are and why they're after Sophie. I also need to find out if Sophie really did just blow herself up like that. I could see her doing it if it was her only option but rarely has she ever been backed into such a corner. Especially if the personal shield indicates she knew an attack was coming.
I feel like she would've prepared an escape route just in case or had some sort of weapons systems built into her apartment even if they were crude because she couldn't afford any better but all she had was a personal shield and a self-destruct. That seems lacklustre by her standards.
With those contemplations running through my mind I headed back home and started to think about ways to gather the information I need.
Once I arrived back at the house I sat down on the sofa again but this time I didn't turn on the news. I don't need to hear about it. Most of it's not true anyway and even if it was they don't provide significant enough proof for me to believe them so it's best to be sceptical.
Instead I should reach out to other sources. I decide I need to make some calls so I head back into my bedroom and look on my bedside table. There I find what appears to be a black metal rod with red accents lining it's surface like veins. They pulsate with light every so often and give the whole rod a very evil aura.
Obviously it's just a holo tablet and another casualty of Soph's fashion sense. Thinking of Soph gets my brain racing again. Maybe I'm just making this up because I want her to be ok? Maybe she really is dead. Even if she is and I just find a corpse at the end of this road, I want to know who killed her and why.
With that resolve I take my tablet and once again head back into the other room where I sit on the sofa. I then turn on the tablet and use it to make some calls. First I contact my usual information brokers. I ask about the implosion in town yesterday and what they know about it.
Unfortunately they all respond with something along the lines of 'it only happened yesterday you think I've had time to investigate it.' Even if they're lying I can't prove it and I can't pressure them for the information so I hang up and try the next one.
I continue calling different information brokers but not one of them knows anything about Sophie's disappearance. No matter who I ask or how they all respond that there just hasn't been enough time to learn yet.
Even the expensive ones I usually avoid talking to for their jacked up prices but further reaching networks don't have a clue what's happening or aren't willing to share. I was starting to think that I just might have to wait a few days until that excuse becomes invalid but I decided to just go out of my comfort zone instead.
I make a call to an information broker who I know always has the information but charges extortionate prices and is an all around awful guy. "Hello what can I do for you?" Despite being called suddenly and by someone he barely knows his voice is steady and calm. It has the experience of years behind it.
But it also has a heavy undertone of smoke. His voice is raspy, frail and gravely. The sound is like dragging a bag of gravel across a row of metal spikes. It's grating on the ears and yet also comforting in a way.
Well it would be if it wasn't for the similar hint of venom and slime in his tone that only people like me recognise. His tone makes me want to reel back in disgust. The sheer arrogance and merchant's slime dripping from his voice is staggering.
Regardless I grit my teeth and ask my question plainly. "I'll be straight with you Alonso. I want information on the incident that happened yesterday. All the details if you can and I'm willing to pay near well anything for it." Perhaps not the best idea to tell someone like Alonso that I'm willing to pay anything for some information especially right off the bat.
But I am desperate here and I've asked around all day already. It's getting near evening by this point and asking so many brokers about it means the rumours already spread to him probably. I don't really have a choice but to be honest. He probably already knows so it's best to come out sincerely even if he's going to ring me dry for it.
The only response I get back however is an amused laugh. His laugh too is grating. Every time I hear it, I remember the nail and chalkboard my teachers would use to punish me. It doesn't cause me any physical pain but it's like my soul is screaming at me to block my ears from this terrible sound.
"Even your whole fortune plus doing a free job for me wouldn't be enough to get the information out of me this time. You'd need to be willing to put in some serious effort to get this from me. After all I'd have to put in some serious effort to obscure where you got it. The stakes would be rather high for me too." He sounds a little like a weasel to my ears. Waiting and stalking, playing dead in front of it's prey. Just waiting to snatch up the mouse that just walked in front of him.
I can't tell if he's playing hard to get so he can get a better deal or if this would be genuinely risky for him but I don't really have a choice either way. I'm not going to work for him exclusively or anything like that but if he wanted me to take on jobs for a few years for him without questions for a few years I'd be willing to consider it.
So I wait for his verdict as he pauses apparently for dramatic effect. Once he's done dragging out the tension and toying with his prey, he finally gives his demand. "I want you to tell me where Tommy Filavar is. Do that and I'll tell you all I know about your precious Soph's incident." He says in that same slimy voice.
Tommy? Why does he want Tommy? He's been gone for years and sure I could contact him but I don't see why that information would be valuable to Alonso. Shouldn't he know where Tommy is? Even if he didn't why would he need to know? Who's asking for that information?
I consider asking but realize quickly that I'm not going to get an answer. Obviously he wouldn't tell me what he needed the information for. I can't imagine it's anything good and Tommy was like an older brother to me. Well to everyone at Filavar. Even Sophie took to the guy albeit in a different way than the rest of us.
There's no way I'd be able to sell him out if it would hurt him. That would go against my code. I don't pry into people's private lives without permission or a serious reason. Is this an order I can't refuse though? Instead of hesitating over the phone I decide to postpone the decision for now.
Maybe the people I asked earlier will have information for me if I wait a few days. However as if reading my mind Alonso states firmly in his usual slimy voice. "You won't be able to get this information anywhere else. Everyone knows about it but no one is dumb enough to tell anyone. I have the resources to escape the star-system and hide out on a primitive planet for a while but most people would just ignore you."
Well there goes that idea. So everyone already knows? Whoever is pulling the strings here is clearly larger than I thought. Regardless I can't show hesitation to Alonso he'd snap me up in an instant. As good as I am with negotiating client deals, Alonso is a whole different story.
"I'll think about it." I say quickly in a monotone before hanging up the call. Once I do I sigh to myself and slink back in my chair. Is this breaking my rules? Tommy isn't a threat to me certainly and I would honestly consider him under my protection. But does that mean I should disobey an order I can't refuse. Can I refuse this order?
I mull that over to myself as I stare at the tablet. "Well it wouldn't be bad to check up on Tommy anyway. It's not like they can trace my call to him thanks to that weird gift from Soph a while ago. She gave me a way to encrypt phone calls saying it was a gift from a client and 'super safe'. Apparently if she had it she might be suspected of actually needing it while I actually did need it.
I open the app that encrypts my phone calls and use it as an intermediary to call up Tommy. I hear the phone's ringtone ring once. The sound is oddly loud in my ears. What have you gotten yourself into Tommy? I thought to myself as the second ring rang loudly once again.
The third ring appeared to be taking so much time to me that I thought the world slowed down. Is this really safe? Maybe I should call it off? Or I should tell him someone's after him? He probably already knows. I hope he isn't in any real danger. Would he even tell me where he is?
With thoughts whirling through my mind on both sides of the coin I finally hear Tommy's voice. "If it isn't Ams. What brings you to contact me of all people?" His voice is soothing in a way that healed my soul after the torment of listening to Alonso. It's a little high pitched for a man and far too soft yet it also has a quiet baritone behind it that feels like a gentle blanket wrapping around me and healing my mental scars.
"Hey Tommy." I make sure my voice doesn't choke up from sobs. I would never cry in front of the others but back when me and Tommy were at the orphanage we used to be the big sister and brother respectively for the whole group. I used to cry with him about our circumstances all the time. So the others wouldn't see. We were the big brother and sister after all. Gotta keep my 'big sis energy' as Soph calls it.
The thought of Sophie almost actually brings me to tears so I speak up to stop myself. "You heard what happened right?" My voice was low and somewhat weak. If the others or even Soph were to hear me like this they'd probably feint on the spot. At least the image of Sophie being surprised by something perked me up a bit.
"I did. You and Sophie were close weren't'cha? I feel bad for you I really do." He says comfortingly possibly hearing the sadness in my voice or just being his usual considerate self. It sounds like he's given up on her though which makes me a little mad for some reason.
"You've given up on her surviving then?" I asked with a barb to my tone I can't quite hide. Obviously I'm not really angry at him. Or I'm trying not to be. But this has to go somewhere right?
"'Fraid so Ams. I can give you the details about it if you want but you won't find it comforting." He says sounding striken with grief himself. He's still got his happy go lucky tone but I of all people can hear the sadness he's choking back for me.
"I already looked into how she died. Blew herself up apparently. That doesn't sound like her at all." I said reading it off as though there was a teleprompter in front of me. I have to detach myself if I want to stay stable in this situation.
"Nah I looked into the details of the incident on my own. Actually I was already looking into it before it happened. I was gonna warn her but she blew herself up before I could." He says nonchalantly. All the sadness in my mind disappears replaced by shock. He was already looking into this beforehand? So this was premeditated?
"You know why she was attacked then?" I ask hope lacing my voice with every word. I was just hoping that I could get this information out of Alonso but if I don't have to deal with that slimy weasel then that'd be perfect.
"So you figured that out on your own? Pretty impressive Ams all said. But yeah I have a pretty good idea why she was attacked. Like I said was trynna warn the girl before she up and died." He said before starting his explanation.
"I'll leave out the deets because it ain't for the ears of an innocent maiden like yourself but basically I always keep a watch on what flux is up to and I happened to catch Sophie's impending doom by mistake." I roll my eyes at him calling me an innocent maiden. I am neither of those things and you know it. Is my immediate thought but I also know what he actually means when he says that. In other words he seduced one of the officers from the company to give him details every so often.
"So I was chatting with this lovely fella from Flux and he told me that there was a big company in the market they're recently expanding into that they want gone and he was in charge of getting rid of them. Being the gentle person I am I congratulated the guy on his promotion and he told me that they had found the shadow CEO of this company completely by accident."
What's this got to do with Sophie? Some shadow CEO of a major company wouldn't have anything to do with her. That was my thought but the revelations Tommy dropped on me next truly shocked me to my core.
"Apparently their hacker lot were ecstatic when they found a piece of code in the company's servers that lead back to a certain hacker from way back when. They only knew of them because one of the hackers was a fan of hers but they found the identifying mark and instead of investigating the company they investigated this hacker. They looked at their early works and found a few kinks that lead to her identity."
He paused to ready me for the news before he continued. "The hacker's real identity was a girl by the name of Sophie Filavar" He then once again paused to let that news sink in and be processed.
Sophie was a hacker? If it was from a while ago wouldn't that mean she was under 10 years old when they were a fan of her. A while wouldn't be less than a decade which would make her around 9 years old and she already had a hacker fanbase? What was she doing in that time?
Tommy went on after I'd taken in the information. "After discovering Sophie was this hacker they were after and she had some sort of connection with the company they realized that there was a good bit of traffic between Sophie's apartment and the CEO of the company's personal computer. They couldn't make a lick of sense of the stuff because of how well it was encrypted but they did notice that something looking similar to reports was being sent to Sophie on a regular basis."
Even I can see where this is going and it shocks me. Sophie was…
"Finding it fishy that what they originally thought was a freelance hacker was getting reports and important looking ones too they decided to investigate Sophie's past and found a delivery she made to a certain waste planet for a girl named Emily. Conveniently that would happen to be the name of the CEO. So they decided eliminating Sophie was likely to get a reaction out of them at least and it wasn't until they got to her house that they noticed she was the shadow CEO." Tommy finally finished explaining in his usual bright tone.
That's just… Sophie was fighting Flux in her own way and it got her killed. Didn't she say she wouldn't die for any cause? The thought made me almost burst into tears again. Clearly she did not expect that making money like this would cause her death. Which is why there was no escape route. She wasn't expecting to need one. I'm still not sure what the personal shield is for though.
Regardless now that I've learned the story I don't need to talk to Alonso that's something I suppose. It does mean there's nearly no chance that Sophie survived though… I sigh to myself before thanking Tommy for the information.
"Thanks Tommy, I know this must've been hard to get your hands on." I said dejected by the news. The fact that Sophie's gone hasn't really sunk in yet. If I do enough training maybe my mind'll clear up. With that thought I'm about to cut off the call and get to that training when Tommy says something at the last second.
"You know I'm up for a drink anytime if you wanna cry about it yeah? Good then I'll let you grieve in your own way 'till you need me. Laters Ams" He soothes me in a gentle tone, offering to let me grieve with or without him which I appreciate. Before he goes though I just remembered that since I don't need Alonso any more I may as well.
"Thanks. Before you go Tommy, I should tell you that a good number of information brokers are after you. They contacted me offering the information you just shared in exchange for your location. Better watch out." I warn him gently trying not to startle him.
He still seems a little surprised and it causes him to pause for a moment before finally finishing the call with "Thanks for the warning Ams. I'm aware. Keep yourself safe alright?" With that he finally hangs up.