Circa Tempore: The Artificial Organic
Copyright© 2026 by E. B. Redfield
Chapter 23 - An Offer They Can't Refuse
Glyph’s breath caught in their lungs. They scrambled, immediately throwing up their firewall and defense screening. Panicking, they kicked their antivirus on and began running expulsion protocols. They had to move fast! Their QPU was almost completely drained, and if it did there would be nothing stopping the hacker from accessing their exact location ping. HorridTorrid grunted in discomfort and immediately began pushing back against Glyph’s defense.
“Wait!” the smuggler insisted urgently, “Wait! I come in peace! I swear!”
Glyph paused in their aggression and scowled at the silhouette. They closed their eyes, narrowing their focus. Block them from accessing location, block them from determining access points and travel distances. Block, block, block, block...
“I can get you the ID matrix!”
Glyph paused, glancing back up at them. The shadowy figure held their hands up in a gesture of truce, waving frantically. Glyph’s brow furrowed, their ears flattened back against their head distrustfully and they paused their expulsion protocols.
“That got your attention!” HorridTorrid laughed, “Holy shit, I can’t believe this is actually happening. I’m gonna be so goddam rich.” They sounded too much like a predator reveling in the hunt. It made Glyph sick to their stomach.
“Am I supposed to trust you?” they asked, “After everything I heard in that forum? What was it you said? You hate it when we plead?”
“Of course I don’t expect you to trust me, kid,” the smuggler replied, sitting down. An odd sight, given that Glyph couldn’t see the seat. “I ain’t gonna fault you for good common sense; but hear me out anyway. You already got enough protections up. I can’t track you.”
“Oh yeah?” Glyph snorted, “You followed me here! I’m supposed to believe you can’t do more?”
“Well, first of all, I didn’t exactly receive an invitation; and in my line of work, you learn quick that it’s easier to ask forgiveness ... so to speak,” HorridTorrid replied with a shrug, “My offer is legit, though. If you got the tender, I can get you an ID right now.”
Glyph stared at them and slowly caught their breath. Their QPU screamed at them to finish expelling this person. To not trust them. But this had been their first and only lead. They needed to follow it through.
“Explain.”
“My boss is Mercy Deveraux.”
“Convenient,” Glyph scoffed.
“Oh, I know. I mentioned her on purpose back there,” the hacker continued, “Wanted to see how you’d react. I believe you when you say you don’t know her, or I wouldn’t have followed you here. She’s got enough IUSS goons prowling around the dark space to worry about, and I don’t want to be the idiot who leads them to her. Here’s the short of it. Mercy’s had it in her head for quite a while that at some point a Glyph AO would probably start askin’ round about gaining freedom. Guess she reads a lot of horror stories. She created this entire system of IDs in anticipation for it, and told us to sell to any Glyph we came across if they were askin’.”
“How very generous of her,” Glyph replied sarcastically, “Why would she do that?”
“Hell if I know,” Horrid shrugged, “Not like I talk to her or nuthin’. I just do her dirty work. And you’ll wanna wait on using the word, ‘generous,’ ‘til you’ve seen the price tag.”
Glyph pulled their ears in agonized frustration. This felt real, though they certainly couldn’t trust it; but they did trust their own ability to respond to the smuggler if the idiot were to try anything stupid now. Their QPU began working on escape plans and contingencies.
“First, tell me how you followed me here,” they demanded, “Then we can talk about the ID.”
“Well, we’ve been dealing with Glyph AO’s for a while now,” HorridTorrid tried to dodge the question, “We know ‘bout some blind spots you might have in the QPU. I just planted a little hook there and followed the line until, bam! I’m here.”
“Where are the blind spots?” Glyph pressed.
The distorted image of the hacker was nearly impossible to read, but the subtle movement of their head told Glyph they were grinning.
“You’re pretty sharp for a fucking robot, you know that? All you Glyphs are, its fucking uncanny,” the hacker said with a laugh. Glyph scowled in disgust, a growl inadvertently building in their throat. Funny, they didn’t know they growled. They felt a signal from their QPU: three different folders were receiving large downloads. A scan of the download files showed that it was three instances of the same terabyte of porn in each. They canceled the downloads, then marked the folders and began assessing why they weren’t being scanned in security sweeps. They then set their QPU to search for any similar vulnerabilities.
“Those files won’t hurt you ... I mean, as long as you don’t look at them,” HorridTorrid chuckled, “They’re just the biggest files I had, ya know, to get your attention.”
“Wonderful,” Glyph seethed, feeling more at ease now that they had closed those vulnerabilities, but violated by the glimpse they had gotten into the contents, “But there’s still the matter that you’re in the business of smuggling AOs. Why should I trust you?”
“Well, for one: I’m being downright amenable. Honest, even,” they answered curtly, “If I was aiming to scalp ya, I’d probably have avoided this conversation altogether, bided my time until I could fully track you, and then just set off an EMP Virus when you were most vulnerable. I had two other places to hide the EMP, as you know, and I didn’t. Also, I went to the trouble of blocking those other chode-wagons from tracking you, so really, I did you a pretty big favor already.”
Glyph hated how much sense that made and kicked themselves. This person had easily caught them off-guard. How could they possibly be so exploitable? Their pride in their ability to detect and defend themselves from danger had taken a hit, and their QPU seemed eager to point out that this was the problem with relying on emotional, organic mindpower; but of all the people who could have done this to them, they had somehow managed to find someone who might actually have an answer.
“Ok, that’s logical,” they admitted, “So what’s in this for you?”
“A quarter of the take,” HorridTorrid replied, “You pay two million tender, and I get 500,000.”
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