The IO Tower
By JeffreyVonHauger

The father sat smoking a fat hand-rolled cigarillo. He puffed foul smoke into the windowless subbasement unit his family occupied. Three children in dirty undershirts stood around him. One held a charging datapad with a cord running to the wall, another a holo-game controller getting no signal, and the littlest hugged a hand-me-down stuffed unicorn. The toddlers spoke to Samantha in Mandarin and she replied in English. They didn't understand but their dad did. He eyed her as she worked.

"Your router needs to be replaced," said Sam.

"It still works," said the dad.

"This thing is twenty years old if it's a day and not strong enough to get a signal down here."

He looked away and smoked. Sam already knew he was piggybacking off their upper neighbor's signal. He stared at an old laptop that was useless without a network connection.

"How much for a new one?"

"At least $1800." She knew he couldn't afford it and he looked away again. "I could splice your unit, suck a little speed from the three hundred other protected connections in the building, but it's technically illegal."

"Would we have free net again?" asked the dad.

"Yeah and I'll do it better than before so no one will find you and kick you off."

The dad got up pulling a wad of crumpled hundreds out of his pocket and the children cheered.

Back on the surface, Sam grabbed a water taxi at Canal street and headed up Broadway to the parts of town that still had sidewalks. She jumped off at Washington Square and stopped at a bank machine to digitize the $700 she just got. Only one was a fake.

She took the sky rail uptown to her next job. When she finished she grabbed a slice of pizza and ate it on the platform scanning the classifieds on her wrist-o-phone for another job. The air always felt more breathable above the twentieth-floor level.

A message popped up on her private channel.

PERSON TO PERSON
Excel Tug 9732 to Earth, NYC Subnet 2

Sammy,

Old 97 is doing a layover on the Moon's orbital repair station. We'll be docked here for three days. Our splicer jumped ship six months ago and we've been doing double duty. I told my boss you're the best and he agreed to bring you on for the Earth to Saturn to Mars run.

I put a downpayment on a badass 3D printed home inside the newly terraformed Apache crater on Mars. They have the best air quality on the inner planets. I spent my entire savings on it, so you'll need to make it up here on your own.

You have three days!!!

Charlie

Level 1, dock 4127

END OF MESSAGE

"Way to wait to the last minute," she said to herself.

Sam swiped over to the ECSE (East Coast Space Elevator) reservation site and looked at availability. In two days she could get a seat for $35,000.

"Fuck."

She'd just paid the rent and her account balance hovered below twenty grand. It would take a month to make enough money. She didn't even bother to look at flights, let alone the IO Tower Matter Transportation Systems. They were for people who could throw around six digits like it was pocket change. Inflation on the Earth dollar destroyed its value ever since the planet was deemed dangerous for human existence.

Sam looked across the platform at graffiti that read, "all the animals died, guess who's next?"

She filled her oxygen recycler, finished her slice, and called Lenny.

"Hey, babe, what-ta you up to?" said his projection on her wrist.

"I need to make twenty grand fast, like in the next two days."

"Shit, I doubt I could pull together enough jobs to make that, even if you worked twenty-four-seven."

"My brother's in orbit and I have a chance to get off-world. Got a job lined up and a place at the end of it."

"I'm jealous. Any chance to can come with?"

Lenny was one of the best splicers on the east coast and he couldn't get out.

"I only got the offer because of nepotism."

"Sounds like your long-lost bro finally made it."

"I need to get up there somehow," said Sam looking sad.

"I do have one job, you won't like it, but you might be able to negotiate an IO jump out of it."

"What is it? Something with the transport division?"

"This is outside the government IO project."

"How far outside?"

"It's for the Technowizard. He's setting up a private IO tower on Block Island," said Lenny raising his eyebrows.

"Isn't that whole place underwater?"

"Most of it. There's a wind farm, a relay tower, and an automated lighthouse. Somehow he got ahold of the top floor."

"Doesn't he have a price on his head? There's got to be something else?"

"Every other gig pays four or five a day max and you need twenty."

"It'll take me a day just to get out there. Is the tower up and running?"

"It will be once you splice it," said Lenny with confidence.

"Splice it into what?"

"The government's IO satellite orbital radar system."

Sam blew out all her breath and didn't breathe back in until she had to.

"Is this the only way?"

"If you were younger and hadn't grown up here, I'd say you could sell your eggs."

"That's low, man."

"Sorry. Look, I'll send you his contact protocol and you can talk it over with him. If it doesn't pan out, we'll get you working the best we can and try to figure something out."

"You couldn't lend me the-."

"Sam, I like you. You're one of my best workers, but no one's gonna lend money to someone planning to jump planet, even me."

"Fine, send me the contact."

"Great! If anyone can make this happen, you can."

Lenny hung up and a new message popped into her wrist device. She called her landlord first in a pointless attempt to get her rent money back. Then she opened the contact protocol document. He only took calls from dampening cubes.

Sam went to her closet apartment, stuffed the things she needed into a backpack, took the train to Jamacia, and went to one of the less sketchy spots in the adjoining neighborhood. She paid the fee, locked herself in a secure pod, connected to a virtual network, and put in the call. A blank screen answered and a modularized voice asked who was calling.

"Hi, I'm from Pink Lady Cleaning and I'd like to confirm an appointment for tomorrow," Sam said following the protocol script.

The screen turned into a picture of a weird old man with a robotic left eye.

"Are you Lenny's gal? What's your name?"

"Sam."

"Good, he speaks highly of you. Train out to Montauk and hire a water taxi to take you to Block Island, you won't be able to miss my lighthouse. I'll see you tonight." He hung up.

"Great," she said to herself and called Lenny.

"Hey, babe, I talked to the Technowizard and he says he'll pay ten large plus a free transport to the shipyard. You gotta take this job. If you haven't already?"

"I just got off the phone with him. Seems way shady."

"It's two days work, max, and your off-world. Do I come through for you or what?"

"What are you getting out of it?" she asked.

"My usual commission and a bonus if you pull it off," smiled Lenny.

"You're getting more than I am, aren't you?"

"Client privilege, babe. If this is your last job for me, think of it as a personal favor, a favor that will make all your dreams come true. Now, don't let me down."

"I never do."

"When you're living large off-world, you'll thank me!"

She took the next train to the end of Long Island. The City swelled in the last century; five boroughs became seven as endless skyscrapers and high-density housing spanned from Philadelphia to the Hamptons. The maglev hovertrain was fast but she missed the express and would spend hours making local stops.

Sam replied to Charlie that she would meet him in two days. He responded with a virtual thumbs up. She hadn't seen him since she was thirteen and he filled her childhood memories.

A steady stream of buildings whizzed by the train window and she huffed oxygen when the air got stale. At the end of the line, she stepped out onto a dark windswept platform. Neon lights flickered, rain fell, and water surrounded her on every side. She followed the signs to the ferry launch.

A seasick hour later, she saw giant turbines tipped with red lights spinning above the waves. She paid the taxi, climbed the slippery steps, and banged on the lighthouse door. The old man's glowing red eye filled the door's window before he opened it. A prosthetic leg and mechanical arm completed his cybernetic left side.

"Do come in. I'm known on the net and by the authorities as the Technowizard, but you may call me Tykö."

"Sam."

He led her up a spiral stairwell to a computer control room far more advanced than the ancient wood and brick building that housed it. He had all the cutting-edge equipment; a Hexagon quantum processor, multi-tiered storage cascades, 3D monitors, second life virtual interfaces, plasma cooling systems, and a teleportation platform in the center of the room.

"Impressive," said Sam with a whistle.

"It's the only private IO unit in North America. If they knew I was running this, they'd shut me down tomorrow," said Tykö.

"Well, yeah."

"You can log in here. I have a new headset with tier-three orbital satellite support credentials."

"What do you need me for then?"

"While I'm an expert with hardware and software to run it, splicing into encrypted networks and standing up undetectable private systems isn't in my skill set," admitted Tykö, "even a polymath has limitations."

"Brag much?" Sam mumbled under her breath.

"What's that?"

"Nothing. Is it true the interstellar government confiscated your matter transference technology and booted you off the project and out of academia?"

"Is it true you sunk a secret back door into the global rail system forcing them to make train travel universally free?"

"No one can prove that nor link it to me," she said with a smirk.

"Wouldn't you like to do that with the IO towers before you leave Earth?"

She looked at the gnarled old half-machine man and saw the rebel so many had idolized in her youth. Five hours later, she had an A.I. bot called Rudransh Ganesh handling software issue tickets for the orbital satellite network out of an update center in Bangalore, and with each ticket, it built out a little more space on their vast server network. She backdoored into the orbital map and sunk into virtual reality.

In her visor and on Tykö's 3D monitors, was every orbiting body in the solar system; planets, moons, comets, asteroids, ships, satellites, space stations, debris fields, spacewalkers, command centers, and the entire Oort cloud. She huffed some purified oxygen and started mapping the IO teleportation network, endpoint to endpoint.

Sam woke with a start to the smell of strong coffee. Tykö set breakfast on the desk in front of her. She stood up from the chair she passed out in and stretched the stiffness away. Then picked up the coffee.

"This is delicious."

"You're welcome," said Tykö, "your work is quite remarkable. I've uploaded my tracking and plotting program. I need you to integrate it so all transits from here appear as registered teleports from one of the five hubs in New York. I'd recommend randomly assigning a change pattern between the different locations to ensure that no one else is jumping from the start point you're spoofing. But I defer to your expertise."

Sam looked at the old man and at the plotting program running on a copy of her virtual map.

"This is big. Hiding all its functionality is gonna be tough."

"I believe you are the one to achieve where others have failed," said Tykö.

Sam sipped more coffee, ate breakfast, and had an epiphany. She dove deep into the virtual representation of the massive multiplanet computer system. She didn't need to recreate the wheel by hiding a system within a system. Tykö's tower could send in the split microseconds between the other hubs all around the planet. Spoofing New York was too limited. Feigning start coordinates from a random, not transmitting, site on Earth gave her splice nearly unlimited flexibility. Tykö could use the government's course plotter, send from his tower, and land with a buffer pattern logged as an official teleport. No one and more importantly no system would question it. Then the A.I. bot could alter the transmission as a test pattern. Global IO towers sent tests throughout the day to ensure efficiency.

When she finished setting it all up two meals later, she felt Tykö's hand on her shoulder.

"Amazing. So simple, yet so elegant. They won't unravel this for a hundred years. You must help me set up my Zurich tower."

She wiggled her shoulder out from under him.

"This is a one-off job. I'm meeting my brother."

"I'll pay you $300,000. Right now," said the old man with a crazed look of excitement in his eye.

"Sorry, I've got to be in orbit by tomorrow."

"You've done in a day what would take others a year. We can open up the whole system. We could evacuate billions. In time, we could save the Earth!" said Tykö raising his mechanical arm.

"You need to honor our original agreement."

"We can get you a million, maybe two, you can travel first class to meet your brother."

"Tricking a government-run satellite system is one thing, the banks would red flag any account as low as mine ballooning past a million. And there is no splicing past their security. Plus this is dangerous enough. If they find out, anyone associated will never see the light of day again. I'm sorry, I gotta go. We made a deal."

The old man looked defeated. He huffed, rubbed his face, and stood up straight. "Ok. Let's send you on your way. You've held up your end."

Sam got herself together and stood on the platform. "Thanks for understanding."

"I transferred ten thousand to your account. Good luck," said Tykö as he entered the engage command.

Light flashed, her body went numb, time froze, darkness took her, feeling slowly returned, and fuzziness turned into crisp light. She saw a fashionable attractive dark-complexioned woman standing in front of a massive window with snow-peaked mountains behind her.

"Welcome to Zurich," said the woman in a heavy accent.

Sam stumbled forward righting her footing. "What!? Fuck no, I told Tykö I'm not doing it. I don't care about the money. I have to meet my brother!"

"We understand," she said.

Two men in designer suits stepped into the room.

"My name is Abeba. I'm Tykö's assistant. He sent me your destination coordinates, you don't need to do as much here as you did there. You just need to patch us into your splice and double-duty your A.I. bot," said the woman.

"It won't work. The bot can't cover two locations simultaneously."

"That's a problem then," said one of the men pulling a gun from his jacket.

Abeba stepped between them signaling the men to stand down.

"OK, Sam, you can just patch us in, we'll figure out the rest, and we'll send you on your way."

"This is bullshit!" she said clenching her fist.

"I know it's not what you wanted, but you can still meet your brother in time. I'm transferring half a million to your account right now."

She held up a datapad and Sam watched the money move.

"How am I supposed to trust you?"

"The money should help smooth over hurt feelings," said Abeba, "please understand the kind of change you can make possible."

"Fuck that, you kidnapped me!"

"We can go with plan B," said the other man threateningly.

"Please," said Abeba, "I'll handle this."

She led Sam over to a setup identical to the one Tykö had on Block Island.

"You can plugin here, use the same credentials as before, and splice our system into the overall program. We'll only run one at a time until we figure out how to cover both locations. It shouldn't take too long as you've already done most of the work."

Sam looked at the woman's beautiful pleading smile, at the breathtaking mountain range, and at the two armed thugs standing behind her.

"Fuck it."

She sat down, plugged in, did everything right, and spliced the Zurich IO into the orbital satellite array. It took several hours and Abeba watched her every move on the split 3D viewer. When she finished, Sam got up and walked over to the platform.

"It's done. Now, send me to the moon."

"Did she do it right?" asked one of the thugs.

"She sure did! Tykö was right about you," said Abeba.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go," said Sam.

"You know, you and I are about the same size. You can't be porting to the orbital base with half a million dollars dressed like some kind of street kid."

Abeba gave her a pile of clothing and sent her to the restroom to change. Sam stood in front of the full-length mirror in a bathroom bigger than her whole apartment. She wore a black carbon-nano shirt and pants, a white fitted poly-leather space jacket, and a brand new pair of gravity boots that were suspiciously her exact size. She never looked so good in her whole life.

She stuffed her old clothes and her dad's old fiberoptic linemen's jacket into her bag, reached for the door handle, and froze in her tracks. Gunfire erupted outside, followed by yelling, and panicked running through the house.

Sam made it back to the transport room in time to see the two thugs vanish from the platform. Abeba was nowhere to be seen and out the window, three drone ships hovered above the building. Loud bangs preceded the door downstairs being bashed in.

Sam ran to the computer terminal, set a follow jump, and a shutdown protocol that would hide everything they'd been doing. Then she went over to the platform and hoped it would take her somewhere safe. Light flashed and she experienced her second matter transfer.

She arrived to screams, yells from police officers, and a single weapon blast. She looked around the arrival terminal. One gunman lay dead on the ground and the other was being chased down a hall by a squad of police. Someone grabbed her arm and ushered her away from the platform.

"We're so sorry about this disturbance, mam. Please follow the yellow lines to the safe exit doors," said a uniformed young woman.

Sam was ushered out of the arrivals exit. She stood in the panicked emptying terminal station and had no idea where she was. She looked up at the signs; taxis, trains, baggage claim, departures. She was still on Earth. She walked upstairs casually to the departure area.

"I'd like a one way to the moon orbital shipyards. Is everything alright here? These alarms are disheartening," she told a man at the ticket counter.

"Arrivals are being paused but departures have not been affected. Just you? Any luggage?" he asked.

"Just my pack."

"You can carry that through. Is this your first transfer trip?"

"My third," she said.

"Ah, then you know the drill. That will be $362,495 even."

Sam transferred the money to the IO System, received a digital pass assigned to her ID profile, and was directed to the departure platform waiting area. They scanned her through glass doors and she immediately noticed the improved air quality. Complimentary farm-grown sushi and bubbly water lay on a snack table. She watched another woman pop a little colorful treat into her mouth and close her eyes enjoying the flavor. Sam picked one up and was surprised by how cool it felt. She looked around and ate it. The texture and taste were like nothing she'd ever had.

"It's wonderful," she said stuffing four more into her face.

Sam used the free net connection to inform Charlie of her arrival time at the orbital station. Her name was called, she was advised to activate her gravity boots, they placed her on the platform, and sent her into orbit.

"Welcome to outer space."

She hadn't seen her brother in twenty years but she recognized Charlie's goofy grin immediately.