Seven hours later, Max stood in the kitchen area of his cramped apartment, inhaling the brewing coffee and trying to stifle the erection in his shorts. Theoretically and technically, Scions of Sorcery was a massively-multiplayer online roleplaying game. With the advent of virtual reality, cranial electrodes and full-body haptic suits, the game had become - with specific and largely illegal mods and patches - an online sex extravaganza. Yes, it was possible to slay the dragon, butcher the orcs and rescue the princess, but the 'quest' was now a sideline compared to online pimps and virtual hookers.

​

Bo stalked from the bed, clad only in the thong she had been wearing. She slipped her arms around Max's chest and snuggled close. "Coffee smells good," she rasped. "Don't suppose you could add something a little stronger?"

​

"You'll find a bottle of Bushmills in the back of the TV cabinet. That's the real stuff, not some cheap knock-off." Max watched as Bo bent to retrieve the bottle, unsurprised at her flexibility and grace.

 

As she straightened, Bo blew the dust off the bottle. "You've had this for how long and never told me? And we spent all last night drinking that yellow water you called beer!"

 

"Not all of last night," Max defended himself as he poured the coffee into china mugs. "Besides, you know the prohibition rules. Anything imported is strictly off limits."

 

Bo splashed generous measures of the golden liquid into the mugs and corked the bottle. They clinked mugs and Bo raised hers to her lips. She paused, inhaling the whiskey-enriched coffee scent. "You keep a fifty-year-old bottle of illegal whiskey hidden where any agent could find it even if they were asleep," she murmured, "yet you won't publish what you find with that program of yours."

​

Max gazed at Bo with the same longing he had when he first saw her, up on stage, rivulets of perspiration glistening on her body, deft fingers flying along the fret-board of her guitar, an angel given voice as she sang the songs she had been writing since her teens. Two years into their relationship, Max still couldn't fathom what she saw in him, a lowly data analyst for Frontier Technology. "Five years for possession of contraband liquor versus twenty-to-life for sedition? You know how they'll inflate the charges. It's a no-brainer, babe."

​

Bo sipped her drink, silky smooth coffee with a kick, before replying. "Sometimes you have to take a stand."

Max was about to answer when his computer pinged. "That'll be the connect finished."

​

***

 

The connect program had sifted through nearly three terabytes of data on Apex Sciences, deforestation of the Amazon jungle, and the overlap between the two, presented on screen as a Venn diagram with clickable links to view more information. Half a dozen incidents and coincidences had gone unreported by the official news outlets.

Two indigenous Amazonian tribes had been forcibly relocated from their homelands to other tracts of land. Other data suggested they had been moved across the borders to Bolivia and Peru or eliminated entirely. The genocide data was strengthened by the presence 'in country' of a security team from Moscow Heavy Engineering, widely known to be hired out as private military contractors to other companies. Comprised of ex-Spetznas commandos, this particular team had been implicated in a number of sweep and clear operations in the former Soviet republics and acquitted in two courts martial on charges of brutality and murder.

​

Connect had found a link. Through a series of fronts, blinds and shell corporations, a small Brazilian company, Dynologistics, had been contracted to arrange security for an Apex Sciences research expedition. Dynologistics hired the Russian commando team and Apex footed the bill.

​

Three weeks after the tribes had disappeared, literally or figuratively, Apex Sciences had announced the discovery of new plant and animal species in the former tribal areas, which would be instrumental in the production of new drugs. The Apex stock price sky-rocketed.

​

Max's results were close to 85% accurate.

 

***

 

The coffee was long gone. The whiskey, however, was flowing freely and fuelling Max's fulmination. "Apex paid to have over two hundred people displaced or disappeared," he ranted, "then stood back and raked in the profits!"

​

Bo, from where she was lounging on the sofa, watched as Max paced the apartment. She had never seen him so agitated. Maybe it was the drink, she thought, or, like millions around the world, life in the 2030's was starting to grate on his nerves. "It's been like that for decades. Centuries, even."

​

"But it's wrong!" Max stopped pacing and drained his glass. "You said I might be able to make things better. I'm just a tiny cog in a huge machine, bossed by a bloody AI. Nobody'll listen to the little guy."

​

"Hey!" Bo snapped. "I don't like it when you run yourself down." She got to her feet and slinked across to where Max stood with a look of bewilderment and frustration on his face. Stroking his cheek, she leaned in close. "The truth will come out."

​

Max savoured her body heat and the warmth and whiskey-scent of her breath on his face. He snaked one arm around her waist.

​

Bo began to move, a slow, sinuous motion tight up against him. Her right hand moved down. "And you're not a little guy to me."

​

***

Max rolled over and made to get out of bed. Bo had other ideas. She moulded herself to him and began kissing the scratches she had left on his back. Punctuated by warm, wet smooches, Bo murmured, "What if ... I ... could find you ... a voice?"

​

A shiver ran down Max's spine. He squirmed around and turned to face Bo. "What do you mean?"

​

"My job is to send a message through my songs. Yours could be to connect an audience to the real story."

​

"I already have a job, baby." Max nuzzled against the side of Bo's neck. "I can't risk that. There are close to seven million unemployed right now and jobs are disappearing like mist in the morning."

​

"Your job makes you hit the bottle as soon as you're off duty. And you're rarely off duty because you work unpaid overtime for a bloody robot. We should be having times like this every weekend, not once every other month."

​

"It's not a ro ..." Max shut his mouth at Bo's glare.

​

"Don't start that techno-babble with me," she hissed. "I'm talking about taking a stand against a system that has you working like a slave for a machine." Her voice softened, the same tone she used in her love songs. "It's a system that'll have you in an early grave."

​

Max kissed the tip of her nose, a gesture that elicited her girlish grin. "I'll give it some thought, I promise. But I have to get busy, honey." He got out of bed and slipped into his shorts.