Collateral

Ellie puts her spoon in her cereal and looks at it with little interest.

“Mom, why can’t I have a banner?”

Rose sighs. “I have explained it to you, darling. I don’t work for a big corporation. Now eat, your cornflakes are getting soggy.”

Rose shakes her head. Every kid in Ellie’s class was asked to bring a banner with the name and corporation their parents worked for. Indoctrinating a bunch of nine-year-olds to worship corporations. Rose shakes her head.

“But Mom,” Ellie says. “I will be the only one in my whole class without a banner.”

Rose sighs. “If you really want to, I’ll just buy you a banner. Cortex Tech has a nice one, Nexus too. Ooh, or Omcor, their banner is nicely red. You like a red banner, right?”

Ellie shakes her head, still ignoring her cereal. “You don’t work for any of those companies. It is not the same.”

“I know darling. But I am independent. I don’t work for a company.” Rose says. “What if you bring a UCWS flag?”

Ellie looks her Mom in the eye, puts her spoon back into the cereal, and demonstratively rolls her eyes.

“The UCWS is a country Mom, not a corporation.”

“You know, back when I was in school, which isn’t that long ago, people were proud of their country, way more than the corporation they happened to work for.”

Ellie shakes her head again. “You are old Mom. When I arrive with a UCWS flag, children are gonna make fun of me. Finn says only poor people are proud of the UCWS. People who cannot cope with not scoring a high-paying position in one of the big corporations.”

Rose shakes her head. “Did Finn say that to you?”

Ellie nods. “Finn is an idiot.”

Rose smiles. “Then why are you listening to anything he says? Little angel, eat your cereal, you are gonna be late for school.”

“But it is all soggy.”

“Ellie!”

After the stern look from her mother, Ellie quickly finishes her bowl of cereal.

After breakfast, Ellie grabs her schoolbag, and they walk out.

Ellie is awfully quiet until they get into the car. Then she speaks up.

“Mom?”

“Yes, little angel.”

“Why am I not like the other kids?”

“Don’t worry Ellie we will find you a banner you like.”

“It’s not about the banner, Mom.”

“Then what it is about?”

“Well, yesterday, Finn called me and Sophia fledglings.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I like birds. I thought it was a compliment, but Sophia was really upset.”

“What did she do?” Rose asks

“She said ‘Better be a Vulture than a corpse rider’ ”

“Sophia is right,” Rose says.

“I don’t get it.” Ellie shrugs. “Sophia’s dad is not a bird.”

Rose laughs “Vultures is an insult for people who don’t work for corporations, but feed off the scraps left behind by them.”

Ellie laughs. “I like vultures. Vultures are cool.”

“They are. I don’t get why people dislike them.” Rose says.

Rose enters the parking lot of the school.

“Bye Mom,” Ellie says when opening the door. “Will you miss me?”

“Of course, I will miss you, little angel! I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

Ellie jumps out of the car and runs in into the school.

Rose keeps staring at the school gate when a man steps into her car. She reaches for her gun until she notices it is Mr Johnson.

“Can you stop doing that?”

“Sorry to bother you, Rose. But I have a client who needs a job done with uttermost importance.”

“Maybe you should try calling people. They invented a very handy device for that almost 80 years ago. It’s called a cell phone.”

Mr Johnson gestures at the school gate. “Our daughters seem to have become very close the last few years. I guess fixer kids stick together.”

“What are you getting at, Mr Johnson?”

“Just saying that I am glad Sophia had a good friend. You raised your daughter well.”

“I must admit,” Rose says, “That I am impressed a scumbag like you raised such a sweet and well-mannered young lady.”

Mr Johnson smiles, “I suppose she is more like her Mom. She did most of the raising, not me.”

“Anyway” he continues. “I have a new job for you.”

“What is it?”

Mr Johnson hands Rose a data stick. “This device was stolen from NexusCorp yesterday. They want it back immediately.”

Rose plugs the data stick into her tablet. “What kind of device is it.”

“A new AGI-driven implant called the ‘AI guardian’ ”

“AGI?” Rose asks. “As in Artificial General Intelligence?”

“Exactly.”

“Never seen one that truly works.”

“Me neither, and this probably doesn’t either, but the company wants to keep its blueprint secret.”

Rose shrugs. “What does the implant do? Why would someone implant an AGI into their -” Rose checks the table “lower arm?”

“Company wouldn’t tell.” Mr Johnson says. “And in the end, it doesn’t matter. One of their employees sold it to a ripper doc. The address of the doc is in the file.”

Rose sighs. “I don’t like ripper docs. Bad memories.”

Mr Johnson ignores her. “I suggest you go to the doc and ask him nicely to hand over the stolen device”

“And if he refuses?”

“Then you ask him less nicely.”

Rose looks at the address and gasps. “I know this guy.”

“Is that gonna be a problem?”

“No.” Rose laughs. “I’d love to pay him a visit.”