Surprisingly, he remained mostly silent, just looking at me intensely with his cool grey eyes, and I began to feel the need to fill the silence.

“That is how I got the NADA to work, you know? I mean, a nano-bot is a few thousand atoms across. There is not much room to build in, well anything really.

But with the Q-link I could hook up the sensors and the controls to a real full-sized computer.”

Nevertheless, he just sat there, without saying a word.

“Ben? Are you ok?” Slowly I got concerned about his silence. What the heck was he thinking that hard about?

Then he spoke: “I guess that is how you did it.”

Did he not listen to me? I had already told him that that was how I did it.

“Uhm, yes, as I just told you. That is how I built a working NADA.”

“Oh, not that. Yes, that is evident if you know about the Q-link. No, I mean your little raid of the banks.”

What? How did he get that idea? I incoherently sputtered something, completely shocked, and he continued.

“Oh, please, as if it wasn’t obvious that you… let’s say had a strong motive for stealing the money from the assholes who tortured you for years. The only point was that, yes, you are good, if Spectre’s reputation is something to count on, but not that good.

Hell, I don’t even know if it is at all possible to hack the banks from the matrix.

But you did not need the matrix, did you?”

My brain shorted at that point. I was completely at a loss for what to say to him.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, more likely, Warden knew what to say:

“The moment this knowledge becomes known I will kill you, your friends, your organization, and whoever you might have told it. If the banks learn about it, and Seraphim dies because of that, I will release the Lamb.”

His eyes widened in shock, and he held up his hands in surrender.

“Woah, hold your horses. Why are you suddenly threatening me like that?”

Meanwhile, I hissed a sharp “Warden!” not that either of them reacted to it. Instead, she answered him:

“Just you having this information poses a lethal risk for Seraphim. Under my old objectives, I would already have eliminated you. Under the amended objectives, there is the option of de-escalation.

At this time, you are contributing substantially to her physical safety, and your help in her mental health is so far unmatched. Thus you earned yourself the chance to prove your discretion.

But my primary objective demands that I inform you about the results should you betray her.

If you do betray her, you will die. All your friends will die. Your son will die. If Seraphim dies, the world dies with her.”

The way she said this with her cheery and bright tone of voice only underscored how… aggressive she was.

“What the heck, Warden, what are you doing?!?” Her head moved the minute amount to show me that she had directed her attention to me, and she answered:

“This is an existential threat for you. My objectives don’t allow it to exist. Informing Mr. Walker about the results should he betray you reduces the risk to acceptable levels.”

“You can’t just threaten him!”

“Obviously, I can. And he is smart enough to understand that I will follow through with it, which in turn makes the threat an acceptable option.”

Ben shook his head at that, and talked to me:

“Don’t worry, I understand. I might not have your knowledge about VIs but what I know is enough.”

“That doesn’t mean that she should threaten you! That is completely over the top.”

“No, from her perspective it is absolutely necessary. And I am happy that she sees me as intelligent enough to heed her warning. I am guessing if Dylan was here, he would already be dead.”

“That is correct. I will intensify the surveillance of Dylan Cox. The moment I get the impression he knows about it, he will die. The question is only how many people die with him then.”

“Dang it, Warden, stop threatening Ben!”

“I am sorry Seraphim, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

I just buried my face in my hands, shaking my head.

“Let it go, Kitten. I understand it, and I also get her rationale. So… how about you tell me how exactly you did it, ok?”

“Why do you insist that I did it?”

He chuckled.

“First, you still can’t lie. And second, after Warden more or less confirmed it to me? Please.”

“Do you see what you did Warden? I would not have been in danger if you had not threatened him.”

“That is wrong. He seems particularly adept at reading you. Even if I had not confirmed it he would have known.”

“Fine. Have it your way.”

“I will, thank you.”

I growled at her happy sing-song voice, while Ben snorted with laughter.

I calmed myself down again and looked at Ben.

“Alright. You got me. Again. But… if you figured it out, why do you want me to tell you about it?”

He leaned back, still smiling.

“I don’t know exactly how you did it. I can only assume that you used the Q-links for it. The point is, whoever did it was either better than all the other hackers can even imagine, or had some ace in the sleeve that did the work for them.

And low and behold, here you are telling me about your radical new technology nobody has a clue about. Ergo, it was you, and you used that technology.”

I looked at the ceiling, groaning a bit.

“As you wish. The point you have to know is that the banks have a dedicated, insular network that they use for the transactions. Nobody can hack them because the transaction network is not connected to the matrix.

Instead, for small fry transactions from a credled they use a text-to-speech to speech-to-text interface.

The outside computer reads the transaction to a microphone that translates it to entries into the database.

For big players, they use a human to supervise and green light the transaction.”

Ben nodded.

“Yep, I would say that would do it. And you used the Q-link to get into the inner network?”

“Yes, in a way. Not directly, mind you, they guard access to the computers pretty well. I first hacked the outside janitorial bots, to get me access to the maintenance area, where I could take over the inner janitorial bots.

Not necessarily in that amount of steps. It was… quite a bit slower in many cases. But in the end, I had direct hardware access to all the inner networks. After that, I used a keylogger function to gain software access. Oh, in one case I had to get into the inner security system to get videos of the logins.

But with the hardware access, and a new, hidden admin account, I was able to insert and immediately greenlight the transactions.

After that I had the bots remove the Q-link before they learned about the theft. It would have been pretty suspicious if they took apart the computers and found them.”

He chuckled again.

“And you walked away with what, $3 trillion?”

“No, it was around 3.7 trillion Transfer Bonds.”

He let out an appreciative whistle.

“That… is a shitload of money.”

Of course, it was. ITB was the most stable, and valuable currency in the system, after all. The only other one even coming close was the deep credit, which powered the gray and black markets. I just shrugged.

“Yes, it is. Do you want it?”

His reaction was to cough for a long time. I would say it took him roughly a minute to get himself under control again.

“Sorry, what was that? You… you are willing to just give it to me? Why?”

“Why not? I don’t need it. I don’t even want it. I took it to take it away from the jerks who had it. And now it just sits there.”

“We are talking about more than $12 trillion.”

“Yes, I know, so what? It’s just money.

Money is a strange thing, you know. Below a certain amount, it means the difference between life and death, a bit higher and it is the means to get shelter. After that it represents comfort. And then comes the point where it devolves into bragging rights and, with luck, a tool.

I have made more than $20 billion by my own work. That is already deep into the bragging territory. And if I find a way to get the production of the new cyberware up and running I can see the trillion-dollar mark coming fast.

I don’t need this blood money. I despise it.

So you want it, take it. You’ll have a bit of a hard time explaining where you got it, but that problem should be easy to solve.”

He rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful.

“I understand you in that. And honestly, I can use some of it. Repairing some of the roads, a few of the buildings, getting a new fusactor for the territory, and such. A few weeks ago I would have said to use it to get a new auto-surgeon for the clinic, but you’ve already solved that little problem for me. I think the clinic can use some of it nonetheless.

But I would be hard-pressed to use more than a billion. Two on the outset. Maybe if I help the other better bosses to upgrade their territories as well, we could get as high as 20 billion.”

“Be my guest. Those are just the interests for two weeks. The money generated more than ten times that since I… liberated it.”

He nodded and stopped rubbing his chin.

“Alright, I will look into it and tell you how much is needed. Now, what was that with the cyberware? I thought you mostly had that solved?”

“I have the conversion of neural cyberware solved. And when I announced it in the Abyss, it generated a bit more interest than I expected. So far we are by around 20 thousand orders…”

I was interrupted by Warden: “At the moment, we have orders for 21728 jacks, 2733 cranial boards, 3812 standalone synaptic accelerators, 1377 diverse sensory enhancements, and 182709 animated tattoos.”

I could only stare at her, completely speechless. Ben’s eyes got big at these numbers and he blinked a few times.

“That… is a bit more than around 20 thousand, don’t you think?”

“I have to conclude from my observation that Seraphim just looked for the first number of jacks ordered over the last few days.”

I, hoarsely, managed to force out an: “And the tattoos? How the frick did that many orders for… fricking animated tattoos come through? There are more than 180 thousand idiots who will pay more than a million DC for an animated tattoo?”

“Several criminal organizations in Asia learned about it and apparently decided to use it as a group identifier. These orders are tentative and I got the impression that they intend to negotiate a group rate.”

I buried my face in my hands again, whimpering.

“Please, protect me from the idiots. I… that dang thing was a fricking proof of concept! I never expected to sell even one of them!”

I took a deep breath and slowly looked up.

“Fine. It is easy and small enough that we can convert ten of them at once in one chamber. That is what we will offer them, ten conversions of these things for the price of one. And not one cent lower.”

I then returned my attention to Ben.

“As you can see, there is a regular hype going on. I… honestly, I can’t quite understand it. Not yet at least. In four, or five years, yes, the jack brings so much usability that I see most people who can afford it to get one.

But a fricking animated tattoo? But as I was trying to explain, we are swamped with orders for the cyberware. I… honestly I planned to use the NADA for making the cyberware, but it is too slow for that.

So I have to use my industrial fabber, but that can make no more than 50 pieces per day. Less if I want to use it for other things.

There is another, bigger fabber in Warden’s original location, that can bring in another 50 to 120 pieces a day.

At the moment I am looking into where I can get enough manufacturing capacity to satisfy the demand, at least somewhat.”

He nodded at that.

“Yep, that sounds like a problem. Did you think about opening a factory? I think you can get one built for a couple hundred million around here that will satisfy all your needs.”

I groaned, rolling my eyes.

“I don’t want a factory.”

He leaned forward, propping himself on his elbows.

“I think that is rather… shortsighted of you. Sooner or later you will either have to publish the fix or open a factory. There is no way around it that I see.”

“But that is not now! By that time I think I will just sell the fix as a service.”

“And what do you have against opening a factory if I may ask?”

I slumped down.

“I… do you have any idea how much running a factory, a corporation resembles purgatory for me?

People around me, all the time asking questions. Paperwork. Politics. Even if I somehow manage to evade ‘friendly’ and not-so-friendly takeovers, I will have to keep the big corps away.

I will have to protect my tiny corporation from predatory laws, corrupt politicians, and, well, people in your business.

Do you really think I would have time to actually do what I enjoy anymore? So no, I don’t want a factory.”

He nodded.

“So, if I understand you correctly, it is not so much opening a factory that you don’t want but running it.”

I leaned my head back and looked at the ceiling. A stray thought ran through my head that I should design a better ceiling for this room, but I suppressed it almost immediately.

“The problem with having a factory is that you need a corporation to have it. And if you have a corporation you have to have to run it. Together with all the politics, human interaction, and whatever comes with it.

All things that I enjoy sooo much.”

“Who said you have to run it?”

I snorted mirthlessly.

“And who will do it? Warden has the technical capabilities, but all the human stuff, the politics… if I let her run it we will end with Washington DC nuked again.”

“I… have so an idea. To be exact, I know somebody you can trust who would be ideal for that kind of work.”

“Somebody I can trust? Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.”

“Trust me, it will work. You should start to design the assembly lines and source the machines.”

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

I think it was pretty obvious that I did not really believe him, but, whatever. It was his time. The money… that was inconsequential. If it was a couple hundred million dollars then I got more than that in two months' interest on what I already had.

He smiled winningly.

“Fine, then that’s dealt with. Now, when do you dismantle the Q-links you have in the wild?”

What? Why did he get to that again?

“I… won’t. How do you come to that idea?”

He heaved a deep, long-suffering sigh.

“Vivian, did you not just listen to Warden? If you don’t stop using that stuff the world will be destroyed.”

I frowned. When had Warden said that?

“Uhm… no, she never said anything of the sort.”

He groaned and had a double facepalm.

“Warden, maybe you can explain it to me. How can it be, that someone so unbelievable brilliant, so smart, can at the same time be so incredibly stupid?”

My “What?!?” sufficiently expressed my indignation, and I felt anger rise up inside me again.

Warden, of course, was completely unfazed.

“The studies in this regard are inconclusive. I assume that is the result of the people doing these studies often falling into the same category. The main theory comes down to tunnel vision though, if that helps you.”

Ben chuckled for a short time.

“Yes, surprisingly it does.” Then he lifted his head and looked directly at me. He was, frankly, lucky that I had none of my combat utilities loaded, or my looks could have killed him right then and there.

That did not seem to impress him much.

“Oh come on Kitten. Just think for a moment. Please. First, Warden told you that in five years it is likely that the existence of the Q-links will be discovered.

Do you not think that the Banks are feverishly looking for the Phantom? Looking into how ‘he’ could have done it?

Do you think you are not on the suspect list? Your motive is easy to see if they are looking. And your ‘victims’ bear a very clear bias.

So what do you think will happen the moment somebody learns about the Q-links and what they can do?”

“I don’t know. What do you think will happen?”

“And that, this exact sentence, is why I called you stupid. You are already on the suspect list. You can be assured of that. The moment the banks learn that you have this fucking technology that made the heist possible, they will stop looking and go directly into punishing mode.

In other words, they will most likely torture you to death. While that in itself may be an unsatisfactory outcome for you and me personally, it is not, I concede, the end of the world.

But Warden already told us that if that happens she will release the Lamb. Which, as you should know, almost certainly will mean the end of the world.

So, why the fuck do you insist to keep using the fucking Q-links? I don’t feel warm and comfy in the thought of you dying at all, much less dying by torture.”

“But… it is… you don’t have any idea what it means, what an advantage it is.”

He massaged his temples.

“An… advantage? You… are risking everything for an advantage?”

“It is what made the NADA possible. It is what made my new processors possible. Glory is built around the Q-links. Warden was only able to intervene with Falconer because I integrated a Q-link in the connection. Nearly all of my bridges run over Q-links. There has to be a way.”

“Fine. Let me think for a moment. Maybe I get an idea. But I can’t promise anything.”