Part 20

“Wrong time for conceiving. If there was a risk for that, I would ask you to use a condom,” Carla smiled. “Could you please turn aside while I put some clothes on?”

I did, jokingly protesting:

“Hey, we even had sex! And I am a woman five days out of seven, I can look in the mirror as much as I want. What is the problem with seeing you naked?”

“Precisely that.” I could hear some hesitation in Carla’s voice. “I look like a piece of trash next to Lexie. It’s hard to believe that without the bodysuit your figure isn’t girlish.”

“You look great! Let a man decide that.”

“You are a woman five days out of seven.” Carla tapped me on the shoulder and stick her tongue at me when I turned to her.

“You understand nothing in women if you think you look bad!”

“You too, if you think I look good. Pumpkin on a stick, that’s what the other kids in the orphanage called me.”

“To me, you do look good. And if someone thinks you aren’t beautiful, it’s their loss. And my gain.”

“Okay, okay… Seems like being a girl for some time teaches a man to be really caring and nice. If all men could spend a year as women, the world would be a better place.”

“Ditto for women spending a year as men. You are nothing like the spoiled and nasty brat the typical woman is with men.”

“Not every woman is that.” Carla took out her phone and started typing quickly something on it.

“True, but many are. Like many men are rude and condescending towards women.”

“Unhappily. But… Okay, having grown up in an orphanage has taught me to not be spoiled and nasty first. But, thinking of it, being a man for a month opened my eyes too. Had I been a spoiled princess before that, I would get beaten several times per day as Carlo.”

“I doubt it. The way you lifted up that… protected file storage? That was impressive even for a man with Carlo’s build. Did the bodysuit helped you?”

“Of course. Didn’t you read the manual of yours?”

“Partially. And since I learned who is after the bodysuits, I didn’t dare to. I have watched in movies how people that access a Net resource get found by that.”

“Very smart of you. Remember, there are tons of bodysuit abilities, they call them options, that can be activated if you buy packages of them? For my model some are turned on by default. One of them is tripling my strength if the bodysuit is charged.”

“Charged? How do you do that? I haven’t seen a power plug on it—”

Carla exploded in laughter. Some time passed before she could stop.

“I guess your bodysuit has a charger too, some packages that would require it are likely available to you too. Wasn’t there one in the box?”

“No… How does it look?”

“Do you keep the box?”

“Yes, it is there.” I pointed to the wardrobe.

Carla took the box out and opened it.

“Here it is.” She took out of it a piece of thin cloth that I had mistaken for box lining. Unfolded, it turned out the size of a bed sheet, and from one of its corners was coming out a two-meter piece of thin wire with a plug at the end. “Put it on the bed under the sheet, plug it in, should charge the bodysuit wirelessly from zero to max in less than a week of normal sleep on it. And that’s a lot of charge, enough for me to easily do heaviest manual labor for over a month.”

“Wow. I remember there was such an option for my bodysuit too, but it costed a lot of money… Wait a bit. Increasing strength three times – that would still not suffice for lifting 115 kg. Girls can’t lift 40 kg—”

“They can if they have to. It’s just more convenient to leave that to boys.” She giggled. “But there is something else, too. I also carry almost 45 kg of myself. So if I lift 20 kg, that is actually carrying 65 kg. Triple that and you get 195 kg, 150 in addition to me. The bodysuit could easily lift more than the PFS.”

“I see… Hope Filippo never decides to teach a lesson to you.”

“He can’t really harm me inside the bodysuit, and if he decides that, I would likely deserve it. So, I would just take the beating… Now, I am curious to compare the options for our bodysuits. Let’s take a look—”

“Stop! Wouldn’t you get caught?!”

Carla smiled triumphantly.

“While we were traveling to the zoo yesterday, I hacked into their security cameras. Replaced their recordings with a stream replaying the recordings from the previous Saturday, the weather then was about the same. Nobody will see on them us being in the zoo, during that or after.”

“What is the problem with seeing us there?”

“I also set an account on a social network for photos, on the name of a German teenage tourist. Then, before entering, I hacked it through a relay server chain and booby-trapped it with a virus. Happens often with poorly secured accounts on poorly secured social networks, and they both were that.”

I blinked several times. All this sounded like a high-tech movie.

“Why?! I’m not getting it.”

“While we were in the zoo, I mixed in the photos of animals I was uploading with commands to the virus, hiding them in the data stream. It had to connect to a network that a gang of cybercriminals use for hiding the origin of an attack. Through it, it had to hack a server in India, enter from there a similar network that however belongs to a rival cybergang. From there, it hacked another server in Brazil, then again went through a third network, belonging to a third cybergang.”

“Huh?!”

“And from there, it downloaded the entire help and the full list of options for all bodysuits offered by the company that offered them. Whoever hit on them had retained their website, as a trap. But even the most powerful intelligence services cannot track someone through three different top-quality obfuscating networks, controlled by three fiercely rivaling cybergangs.”

I looked at Carla with awe. If she really could do such things…

“Yes, I am a good hacker. Really good.” She proudly smiled.

“Who is stupid enough to tell all that to someone she barely knows?”

“Oh, come on. I know you for a month already, and in very unusual circumstances. Where your real identity was hidden, but precisely because of that your real personality was more obvious than ever… Also, after learning who you are, I was afraid that someone has sent you to track me. The chances for two bodysuit user to hit one on another…”

“Statistically speaking?” I smiled.

“Yeah. So I investigated you very thoroughly the previous night. Sorry – as you understand, in our situation it pays to be extra cautious.”

“And you might need to avoid tracking even more than me? I guess one cannot learn all that about cybercriminals and their networks without having used them…”

“You are too smart for your own good.” She smiled again. “Well, I had the virus post the bodysuits manuals and lists of options, encrypted and named like a porn movie, in an anonymous file service often used for porn stashes. In a few hours they will be there. We will download them through an ordinary anonymous proxy, the kind they use for accessing porn sites, and will compare them. Wanna take a walk meanwhile?”

* * *

“Hello, Damiano!”

“Hi, Aunt Lauretta! Is there something I can help you with?”

“What a polite young man you are! And who is this beautiful girl, if the silly old me may ask?”

This was the first time I stopped at all to talk with Aunt Lauretta. As myself, that is. Before meeting her as Lexie, I considered her an old gossipy witch. Now however I knew that she is a lonely and vulnerable old woman. Couldn’t just mumble some excuse and pass by.

And a woman that would say nice things about people, even if they don’t deserve them…

“This is Carla Gatti, a colleague of mine.”

“Oh, I see! Dear Carla, are you a mountain rescuer too?”

Shit. Was I also dumber while being Damiano?! To set up Carla like this…

“I am an IT engineer with the mountain services,” answered Carla instantly. “Got the job two weeks ago. Had three days ago to fix a damaged relay up the mountain, colleagues put it on me to see if I’m up to the job. I had no experience in climbing, but luckily I met Damiano and he helped me. So we met and well, I promised to visit him during the weekend.”

“What a story! Helping is so him, he is a really nice young man… Would you come in for a tea? I won’t keep you for long. My place is small and old, but I make a good tea!”

“It would be honor for us, Aunt Lauretta.”

Inside I did my best to pretend that I have never seen her apartment. The tea the Aunt served us was from a box I had bought for her as Lexie. Obviously she kept it for guests only. She and Carla chatted for some time, until Carla mentioned that we have to shop. Aunt Lauretta smiled:

“Shopping together? Good, very good. Have a great day, both of you! Will you soon be here full time?”

“Likely not very soon,” Carla replied. “Damiano still works up the mountain five days a week. And he told me that he leases his place during the workdays to some girl who works here in Milan, but goes home for the weekends. So for now I will live at my place. Maybe will come here some weekends.”

“That other girl, I have seen her. Great beauty. But do not be afraid for Damiano, she has a boyfriend. Both look like very nice and decent people, just like you two.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Aunt Lauretta. Let’s see how the life unfolds.”

“Oh, sure, dear! I just hope that everything with you is okay and you start being together more.” Aunt Lauretta smiled toothlessly.

“We will see.” Carla smiled back and pulled me towards the exit.

“I should have bought something for her,” I said while Carla was trying a set of climbing shoes. “She might have finished the previous batch.”

“When she opened the fridge for the milk, there were some things inside,” Carla said. “Obviously she economies on food. Buy her groceries, but during the workdays, as Lexie. She will be less embarrassed if she takes gifts from one person only… And, speaking of gifts, did you noticed that she doesn’t even have dentures?”

“Yes, I was thinking on paying for dentures for her.”

“I will chip in for that too, to give her better ones. A place I applied for a job at before Montafun Statistics, they sell vouchers for medical services. We can buy a voucher for dentures from there for her, as a gift for her birthday.”

“Can you learn when that is?”

“Remember these old letters on her table she had been reading before inviting us? The top one was a birthday card. Almost 50 years old. The date on it is less than a month away…”

“Wow, you are observant. And an unbelievably quick thinker. Concocted so complex and convincing story in an eyeblink.”

“Don’t be offended, but you are a bad liar. I expected that you might slip and say that I am a colleague of yours, and had prepared the story in advance… These shoes look to be a good fit.”

“And are good quality and durable, I know this line. Clothes, shoes, hat – you have everything you need for climbing. The other weekend we might try it!”

“Great! And now we might go back home and see if we can learn something interesting.”

* * *

At home, we had to wait for a quarter of hour until the manuals and the other info downloaded. Carla opened the manual for my bodysuit on the wall screen:

“I will read about mine on my phone…”

It was already dark when I finally came to its end. And I had just glossed over most of it. There were thousands of options, many of them interesting, but costly. And trying to buy them would be dangerous…

“Carla, did you find something interesting?”

“Yeah…” Carla answered slowly. “A lot of… Did you read the tech specs?”

“Tried to, but understood next to nothing. Tons of buzzwords.”

“There are some useful things. Did you see this?” She stuck a finger to the screen of her phone.

“Let me see… ‘Approximately 200 basic and over 4000 derived types of nanoelements’? What that should mean?”

“Complexity. If they are not lying, that is – but from what the bodysuits can do with all these options, it appears plausible. The typical good space or military nanotech has about 50 basic and up to 800 types of derived elements.”

“So that of our bodysuits is five times more complex? Sounds logical for such a marvel.”

“That our bodysuits are trillions of times more complex to design. Every type of element must be designed for work with many thousands of other types, in many combinations of different kinds and different numbers of a kind. Can you guess what can create such a design?”

“AI of course, what else?”

The expression of Carla was grim.

“Not just AI. Designing the space and military nanotech takes the most powerful officially existing AIs. Designing our bodysuits would take several months of work of an AIs that officially doesn’t even exist, its owners too. Highly likely there are less than half a dozen such AIs. One per most powerful country, owned by its intelligence services… That’s how big is the shit we are in.”

“But… Wait… That cannot be! Why such services would design bodysuits instead of, say, predicting the others, plotting and scheming against them?! This makes no sense.”

“Plots and schemes rely on people to implement. If these people can do what people cannot do, they can implement plots and schemes that people cannot implement. So they break the predictions of the enemy… Also, some intelligence services traditionally favor live action.”

I suddenly had the feeling that the world is coming down on my head.

These bodysuits could make you practically invulnerable. Inhumanly strong. Able to easily climb vertical walls and cling to ceilings. To last for days and months without food, water, even air, in a cold or heat where nothing living survives. To change your appearance to any human one. Likely to anything at all that could contain a human body, including some things that look like they cannot. Maybe able to form any instruments out of apparently your naked body. God knows what else, too… A secret agent would be superhuman with them. Kilometers beyond John Bond, or whoever was that British super-agent from the old movies…

“But… Why they would sell these bodysuits through some company, to the public?! This can’t be!… Or, how such a company would be able to steal their technology, it would be guarded better than anything?!… This makes absolutely no sense!”

“If you are an adversarial secret service and manage to steal this technology, what do you do with it? Developing it faster and better is not an option, even if you have an equally powerful AI, those who created it will keep being ahead of you… Your best option is to compromise it as a technology. Probably not all of it, to not disseminate the most dangerous elements, but to still make its existence known. Everybody will get prepared against it, the developer will lose their advantage.”

“Create a company that will make it public? Smart!”

“Dumb. If those who created the tech have such an AI, they will have plenty of other resources too. Will grab the bosses of your company, torture them into confessing who they work for, find a way for revenge… No. You find some cheats that promised to develop a wonder nano, tricked some investors into giving them money and pretend to develop, preparing to run away with the money. There are always plenty of such ones around. Pose as a disgrunted employee of the best nano developers around, offer to sell their brilliant top-secret project, which will make them trillionaires. Leave the cheats see the chance to deliver what they lied to be capable of, and much more. They will not miss it, cheats are great at grabbing the chance… Give them the tech and what you could reverse-engineer of its workings, junk out their payment to avoid being tracked by it, watch what happens and drink champagne.”

“So our lives hang on a spider’s thread now,” bitterly said I.

“I think they don’t. The damage is already done, tech secrecy is compromised. Making us disappear achieves nothing and might only attract attention. A few people who use dumbed down bodysuits are harmless for them, a private person will not have the resources to even just copy the technology, even richest corporations will not be able to catch up with its creators. Best confiscate what hasn’t reached customers, then leave things lie and watch. Some who bought bodysuits will try buying options or some other stupid things, agents will come to them, pretend to be manufacturer employees who recall suits due to a dangerous problem with them. If some aren’t caught, good riddance to them. Who stole the tech might be stupid enough to try and keep watch on these, you might be able to notice who this is, get a chance to target your revenge.”

It took me some time to digest this. It was… surreal. And the fact that this harsh revelation was delivered by a girl who looked twelve years old and cartoonish didn’t helped it.

“So… you mean we are safe?”

“From the services who created these bodysuits – yes, if we keep quiet about them. From other people who might want to lay a hand on these bodysuits we might not be safe.”

“These will have to discover us first,” I noted. “Do you think the bodysuits would be discoverable somehow? From a distance, by something?”

“Do you think bodysuits for secret agents on a mission will be made to be discoverable in some way?… Apart from that however, I am afraid that someone might already have found us. Luckily, he is smart enough to know that trying to take them from us by force will likely bring him in contact with their developers, and he wouldn’t want that… No, I won’t tell you who that is, you can do nothing about it. Maybe later, but not now. And let’s not start an argument who is the man here, the bodysuits make this matter complex enough… Thinking of it, why not try unlocking some options? I think I have an idea how to do it without being tracked. I know a huge distributed rainbow table, accessible through anonymizing chain, they might have some keys…” She started quickly typing something on her phone.

“What if we just dump the suits somewhere? Can they track them back to us?”

“They wouldn’t care at all who might have worn it. But where will you be working the next day? I have enough money from the reward to survive about a year, but after that? You think The Boss will keep us working after we cheated on him in such a way?”

“I have even less money, and The Boss appears to hate dishonesty… Can’t we somehow prepare the ground for taking them off?”

“We can, but it will take time… And, very frankly, I would prefer to keep the bodysuit. Being Carlo is not being me, but still, you can’t imagine how liberating it feels. Worth the inconvenience to feel it from time to time… Don’t you feel the same about being Lexie?”

“Well… umm… ummmmm…” I felt embarrassed like hell, but forced myself to speak the truth. “Being Lexie is absolutely not being myself, I don’t feel a single bit female. But still, I learned a ton from… well, being her. Likely still have plenty to learn. Enough to maybe be worth continuing with it for some time. Don’t know for after that yet…”

“Same with me… Okay, time for a dinner. And we have to go to work tomorrow. Just let me see if the table has some option key…” She looked at her phone and typed something again. Then suddenly her eyes glinted with anger:

“Yeah… hint taken!”

“What’s up? They found us?”

“No, but they warned us. Nastily… I guess you read the sex-related options of your suit? Which is your least favorite one?”

“Dunno. Didn’t read all of them…”

“There is an option that turns it into a controlled sexdoll. The bodysuit speaks and does what is ordered. You inside it can see, hear and feel everything, but can do or say nothing. Probably designed originally as means to hijack people and keep them imprisoned in plain sight, maybe as a form of a perverted torture too. That is the option whose key was in the table. Turns out, this option can be applied to any bodysuit variant, including mine. Transforming its appearance into one appropriate for this. That is the warning – if you try to dig around it, you might end up as a fucktoy.”

“Sick bastards! If I get to them—”

“If you do, it will be as a fucktoy that does what they order it… Just ignore it. We tried to unlock options and failed, that’s all… Let’s put the bodysuits on and go sleep.”