Free Versim by Curtis Hox Page A

she listens to mine.”
    “Care to share?”
    “A heretic, Pizer? Really”
    “I think for myself.”
    “Good for you.” She waited, eyebrows raised. “Eaten lunch?”
    “You dropped some Spinner lore on the shrine, didn’t you?”
    Krista smiled. “And no fiery hand of the Artificers has smitten me, has it?”
    Pizer returned the smile. “I’m a heretic just for listening to you. Lunch can’t hurt.”
    “Not usually.”
    “Tell me what you asked of our host.”
    “Asked?” She waited as Pizer paused, the familiar look crossing his face of someone standing before a Spinner and realizing the truth of what she does. Pizer’s eyes flickered with fear. “I’m sure you’re aware of the importance of the New York Public Library in Collides .”
    “It’s unofficial policy to leave it alone.”
    “I want it protected, no matter what.”
    “Of course you would.”
    12
    “It’s worse than we thought,” Tripp said. He sat on his cot, hands behind his head, legs straight. Around him, the equipment blinked and hummed.
    Krista had just walked in. She looked flustered. “I know.”
    Tripp righted himself, placing his feet on the floor. “What do you mean you know? I thought you were just dropping off one of your magical pieces of paper.”
    Sammy was in the other room, peering into Garce’s vat. He had on headphones, listening to whatever data the unenhanced listened to for information.
    Krista stood with arms crossed in a warning sign that everyone knew meant she might go ballistic.  
    Tripp loved it when she got like this. Hark was the clown everyone adored and who always came up glowing because he also had a “heart of gold,” as Mom liked to say. Krista was their older sister who would stomp the lilies in a brand new garden just to kill the bugs. Tripp, he was the realist who never looked away from what was before him. And Krista appeared troubled. Someone’s garden was about to be messed up.
    “What happened?”
    Krista moved to her cot. “I dropped the prayer. It’ll do its job. It’s a little warning that if my library isn’t protected, Celia Preston in her immersion vat might start having some headaches. I hate twisting a cogno’s arm that way. But it had to be done. Also, I ran into Pizer. Must have known I was coming.”
    “He have information?”
    “Not much, but the Voxyprog know, and they’ve got their hacker corps onto us.”
    “Shit.”
    “We have to be careful. Like you said, Pizer’s got Miesha Preston on the payroll as a director, for sure. He’s backing her and allowing her to run Ervé for her own ends. Miesha’s got a green light with some elements in the Vox. I think they want to rewrite versim rules. That means the entire V could flip. I’ve got to protect it.” Krista nodded her head, another sure sign she was going to that scary place.
    Tripp edged knee to knee with her. He grabbed her hands. “I know what you do. I know who you are. We both have the same goals. But Hark’s involved.”
    Her hands gripped his, and she looked into his eyes. She was his big sister, and she’d backed him so many times. But now it was his turn. He couldn’t turn away from the fact she was a Spinner, even if it was off the books. Her clandestine organization’s existence was denied by every official branch of the Pan Allied Consortium. She claimed she wanted to protect society from the ravages of bleedover. But, some whispered, Spinners used bleedover for their own agendas. Something about all this made him think Krista was involved. But she wasn’t telling.
    None of that mattered now that Hark’s life was on the line. Not for Tripp and, he knew, not for his sister.
    “Whatever you need, from me, Krista,” he said, “you got it.”
    “My bet is they want to flip Collides to prove a point. It’s about political power between factions in EA and the Voxyprog. Pizer’s in it for his own unknown reasons. Miesha wants to further her radical aims. And Ervé wants to hurt Hark. I have