Base Metal (The Sword Book 2)

was over, now.
He glanced to his feet, checked his suit. In the virtual world, his avatar remained pristine. His digital self looked every bit the professional he'd once been: crisp suit, sleek tie, perfect curl to his hair, and best of all, it didn't stink. He'd once debated getting a scent-pak, just in case he dealt with jackers, but he'd always found it just the wrong side of tasteful. Even without that, at least he could face the end with some dignity.
He opened the line.
The avatar that appeared was a cutout - straight off the shelf, with no personalization nor tailoring, merely a low-rez default-male face and clumsy animation. High-end avatars, like Vonner's, tried to mimic the movements from the anchor pyramid and blend them with canned "natural" animations. This cutout stood stock still, blocky hands crossed over its chest. It was, in every way, so unremarkable as to border on offensive. The voice that emerged, though, was unmistakably distinct. No one could shatter a man's calm as well as the thundering, slicing snarl of Chief Raschel. "Karl, what the hell is going on?"
With more fear than he'd admit, Vonner answered, "Sir! We've lost control of the EBS! Something hijacked it!"
"Then un-hijack it!" Raschel snapped.
"I'm trying, sir!" Vonner hit the override, once more. Nothing. "My controls are locked out -" he could feel the weight of the cutout's blank stare. He fought back the panic, and tried to think around the problem, "Sir, I have an idea." He zoomed out of the broadcast. "I have the signal source. It's coming from the Mirror. I'm going to see if someone there can cut a line, physically."
"Do it." Raschel ordered.
Vonner opened a new call to the programming boss at the Mirror. Miranda Owens was a hell of an ego-trip, but she was a professional. She might snap back at some of his edits, but she played ball. This kind of black mark? Letting her signal get jacked by some hacker? She knew the score. If she wanted to stay atop the media pile, she'd dance.
The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
It kept ringing.
Vonner tried to call up a drone feed of the Mirror headquarters, but the EBS kept overriding him. He tried satellite. Blocked.
This was impossible! ISA systems were immune to an emergency lockout, the net shouldn't allow it! Someone had to have changed the parameters. Vonner scanned the registry. The only channels clear of the EBS were encoded direct-lines and emergency services. That last part stunned him. Whoever had hacked them had taken the time to exempt EMS. How kind. Vonner choked back a laugh. They'd been hacked by humanitarians.
It was hilarious.
The Mirror's phone kept ringing. Miss Owens and her staff had three more before he sent the police down.
With one chime to go, the phone picked up. Another off-the-shelf avatar appeared before Vonner, albeit dressed in corporate regalia. This was a punch-clock model, a young woman, generically attractive, with "The Mirror" scrawled over the left breast of her black-on-white shirt. She greeted, "Hello! Welcome to the Mirror - your world, reflected. How may I direct your call?"
Vonner didn't know if this was human or concierge bot, not that it mattered. He flashed his badge and sent his authorization codes as a chaser. He put on his best smile and hoped his clean-shaven avatar could sell the charm. He'd spent a week, trying to capture that grin in his avatar database. Now, he called it with a flick of his finger, and his digital-self blended from "neutral" into "friendly mod 3". He stated, "I need to speak to Miss Owens. Tell her it's Karl."
"I'm sorry, we're having technical-"
"I noticed." He did his best to capture the Chief's je nais se quoi. "Get me, Miranda, so we can fix this, or I'll come down there, and fix it myself."
The secretary froze, her doll-face flat and emotionless. Somewhere in meatspace, the operator was scrambling.
A moment later came the reply, "Yes, sir. Transferring you."
The secretary was gone, and Vonner stood face to face with Miranda Owens, Senior Programming Director at the Mirror. Finally, he met someone who put as much care into her avatar as he did. Owens' avatar was corporate, high-end, nearly flesh-and-blood. It was the little details that sold it - the tick of the cheek, the slightly-arrhythmic pattern of breath, the way the eyes shifted focus from point to point. Despite himself, he found himself wondering if she'd sprung for a scent-pak.
Vonner upped the wattage on his smile to 'Friendly mod 4, with Authority'. He greeted, "Miranda!"
"Karl." She replied flatly. "You stole my broadcast."
"That's not my signal."
"It's got your seal." She said with professional coldness.
"It's coming from your root." He replied and dialed the smile back to a 'mod 2'.
"That's not-"
"It is. I have the source." Vonner held out his hand, a map of the broadcast spinning on his open palm. "It's coming from your feed, and I need you to shut it down."
Owens reeled back, sucked air through pursed lips. Her movement was so fluid, Vonner knew she was using a jack - a soft one, certainly, she didn't strike him as a leadhead - but no canned goggle-jockey animation was that smooth. This was useful data, it gave him more context, and let him know that what he was seeing was real shock and a bit of fear. That was good.
She said, "I… didn't know that."
"I didn't think you did." Vonner said softly. "Turn it off."
"Yes, sir." She replied. "Give me a moment to find out what's going on-"
"Just get it offline, Miranda. Pull the plug, cut the cable, turn off the power, I don't care. Get it gone!"
"I just need a moment-" her avatar faded away, as she stepped out of the call.
Vonner muted her and pulled Raschel's cutout back into view.
"Well?" Raschel demanded.
"I know her." Vonner said. There was a rock in his stomach and a slow-building pressure in the back of his head. The wheels were turning, and he knew