Aika (Keepers of the Flame: Origins)

Chapter Five

                                                                 FIVE

Dreamtech, she discovered, was located in the recently-completed pyramid in Hyde Park, constructed of glittering obsidian glass and gleaming blue steel. It looked, to Aika, like nothing so much as a spider’s eye. She shivered, and entered the building.

The agent was waiting for her with one of his slightly bemused smiles. “Welcome.” He led her down the hall from the lobby, all blue-veined black marble and a front desk of smoky black manned by security personnel in matching black uniforms and expressions of quiet, alert respect. He handed her a security card, black with the blue Dreamtech logo on it.

“This will get you to all the common, free-access rooms. But your Identichip serial number has been upgraded to security level eight so you can get everywhere but the top three floors.” The ruling board had been very specific about that.

Aika nodded. Last year, all citizens of the U.K. had been fitted with Identichips so that picture IDs and other physical cards were now defunct. Serial numbers were registered into a government network, and entering that number facilitated any number of transactions linked to a government code—banking, health care, use of the Underground, ration control, taxes, payroll and timekeeping for employees—all was now logged, tracked, and analyzed.

Aika had been among the first to receive hers, for the militia had been the test base and hers had been implanted as part of her physical before she entered basic training. Her chip included all personal information, rank, full medical profile, employment, and personal history, plus every account from her bank accounts to her government ration ledgers. Hard currency no longer existed.

She had, for example, spared no expense in having her Bonneville transported from a storage unit in Dublin all the way to a military compound garage in London. Once the request had been approved by her captain, monetary transactions and delivery status had the all taken place on the government network, designed and secured by—as it turned out—Dreamtech.

Her Identichip was also how her superiors tracked her movements whether on the base or in the field. It wouldn’t surprise her know this was how the agent had tracked her down and accessed her military and mission records.

“What do I call you?” she asked as the agent led her to an elevator of dark mirrored doors.

“Charles is fine. I’m your handler and S.O.” When it opened, he gestured her to enter first. To her surprise, instead of rising, the elevator sank. “The majority of our work takes place at the basement levels,” he explained. “For security reasons.”

If Aika hadn’t known she were in the basement, she would never have guessed by its interior. In place of windows, flat monitors of unframed mounted glass provided everything from unbroken, majestic cityscapes to beaches and meadows to virtual fish tanks. It resembled any other pleasant, high end office space to still be found in many parts of the city. Everyone looked busy, but happy.

Charles smiled at the look on her face. “What were you expecting? Leaky dungeons with flickering torchlight?”

“Not exactly,” she said, amused. “But not this, either.”

“Dreamtech is now the largest—and highest rated—employer in many parts of the world. London isn’t the only city in trouble.”

“So where do I come in?”

He led her another elevator, this one encased in smoked black glass. “Security, of course.” Inside, he entered his serial number and thumb print and invited her to do the same. Only then did the elevator descend. “We are still new and largely untried. Therefore our own defenses must be in place before we go breeching anyone else’s.”