Free Light Shaper by Albert Nothlit Page B

would not do to have Blake come to harm while still in CradleCorp facilities, not today at least. Aaron Blake needed to feel that he had gotten away so suspicion would not be aroused. The less attention given to the anomalous data readings from the time Blake had been connected, the better.
    That task accomplished, Tanner took out an encrypted-line handset. He felt a twinge of regret as he called up his personal assassin. She would deal with Blake permanently. So much potential lost… but in the larger scale of things, it was probably not such a big loss. Other talented artists and programmers could pick up where Blake had left off, and Tanner would make sure to monitor their interactions with Atlas closely when they did. He would personally prevent those from escalating into whatever Blake had done that was making Atlas self-aware, struggling against the safeguards that kept its software from achieving autonomy. After all, it was not as if realistic environment rendering was impossible without that one man, no matter how unique his mind might be. If he had succeeded, then somebody else was bound to, eventually. Tanner was nothing if not patient.

Chapter Five
     
     
    RIGEL GOT off the Skytrain at Green Park Station and wearily swiped his youth card to be allowed through on the way out. He was tired, he had a monumental headache, and he still was a little bit freaked out by the incident at CradleCorp. It had been like something out of a movie. Armed security guards had burst into the room as he and Misha were trying to escape, then there were shouts, yells, and drawn weapons, and finally confinement for hours in a small cell. Rigel didn’t have any idea what had happened to Misha. When they had finally let him out, he’d asked, but nobody answered his questions.
    In truth, he was so relieved to have been let go without criminal charges being pressed that he didn’t stay in CradleCorp for a second longer than he had to. He had been sure he was either going to be imprisoned for trespassing or charged with identity theft or something. After all, he was legally an adult, and connecting to Otherlife with someone else’s credentials was a crime.
    Nothing of the sort had happened. He had gotten lucky, he guessed. And he didn’t have the slightest intention of going back to the place. Ever.
    As he walked through the train station, his phone buzzed twice. He took it out and saw that he had two messages. The first one was a text from Misha, telling him that she was already at the apartment. Rigel breathed a sigh of relief. The second text, though, had no sender. Rigel opened it and saw a single line.
    Be careful. You may be targeted soon—Atlas.
    Rigel felt a small shiver of fear at reading those words. He had already half convinced himself the awful stuff that had happened when he had been inside Otherlife had been a hallucination of some kind. But this…. How had they gotten his phone number? Was somebody playing games with him? Who or what the hell was Atlas?
    Resolutely, he deleted the text message and promised himself he wouldn’t think of it again. This little adventure was over as far as he was concerned.
    He stepped out into the hot, dry night. The streets around Green Park train station were busy with commuters coming and going to the different sectors in the city. The station stood close to the financial center of Aurora, and the streets here were always full of people. As he made his way to the park, Rigel had to avoid throngs of office workers crowding the sidewalks as they had a quick bite from the many food stands on either side of the wide street. Silent buses zoomed by in both directions, and the glare of hundreds of lights illuminated storefronts that ranged from ordinary coffee shops to not-so-clandestine implant and tattoo parlors. Rigel was tempted by the smell of hot dogs at his favorite stand two blocks away from the park, but he and Misha had an ongoing contest to see who lost the most weight now that