Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

to break in. All the improvements were there to make her life comfortable and efficient, to protect her from corporate espionage, not from personal attack. She felt violated.

She retched again, nothing but stomach juices coming up. Her throat and nose burnt. She didn’t even have the strength to wipe her face clean. She rocked back and forth on the floor, smearing the offending fluids into her own hair and clothes. She forgot how to care. Tears washed her face.

CHAPTER 6

Lyon’s 4th Police Station

South-Central Lyon

Afro-European Alliance

Tuesday 21 April 2725

DAY 2

If someone had asked Eloise what she had done in the last dozen or so hours, she wouldn’t have been able to answer the question. It was the next day, and she was currently sitting in the waiting room at Lyon’s 4th Police Station with her whole body focused on one task. Breathing.

She had no recollection of how she had got up from the floor and washed the day before. She must have, because she was definitely not covered in her own puke or blood anymore.

If someone asked Tilly the same question, they would have a chance of getting a more precise answer. Assuming that the loyal AI was willing to answer it honestly, of course. Which she probably wasn’t.

Tilly had never seen her creator so… so out of it. She was a computer program, and computer programs can’t feel emotions, but Tilly was terrified. It was like her circuits were tingling, working themselves into heat exhaustion trying to fix a problem they couldn’t fix. There was nothing in the medicine cabinet to deal with that sort of problem. Her creator had never needed to be dragged out of such a non-responsive state. Systems installed around the house could analyse exactly what was going on in her creator’s body, but that had only served to terrify Tilly even more, underscoring her helplessness.

Jeff had laboured for hours, trying hopelessly to get through to their creator. The nano-relaxants slowed down her rapid, hyperventilating breathing, and with it the dangerously high heart rate lowered as well, but the creator wouldn’t get up, or even acknowledge his presence in any way. She just kept rocking back and forth on the floor, albeit in a slower and less jerky way.

There was no reason why Jeff couldn’t have physically picked his creator up. He wasn’t designed for physical labour, but his structural components were virtually indestructible and he could carry Eloise’s not quite seventy kilogrammes as easily as a food tray. But such an option didn’t occur to Jeff. It was possible that his programming didn’t allow him to improvise and exceed his standard duties to such an extent. But even more likely, the subroutines that defined who he was had instilled such a deep respect that in an old-fashioned sense he was literally unable to violate Eloise’s privacy by manhandling her without permission. Even if it meant washing her body and placing her somewhere more comfortable.

‘Ms Moretti, I am sorry to have kept you waiting,’ Inspector Bellefeuille said. A well-polished smile split her face, and Eloise flinched as her attention was brought back to the room. ‘Commissioner Wagner is now ready for you. If you would just follow me, please.’

Eloise rose from her chair, mechanically moving towards the door. A distant corner of her mind wondered if the heavy doses of nano-meds were making her behave and look as artificial as she felt. Her body seemed to warm up into a smoother motion with each step, but it continued to feel clunky and strange.

Commissioner Louis Wagner was exceptionally handsome, she noticed. He was tall and well built with just a hint of facial hair that looked as nano-designed as the rest of his face. Any signs of cosmetic nano-surgeries had long since healed, but Eloise had designed too many VR faces and bodies to be fooled. The features were too perfect, too symmetrical, too striking. His bottle-green eyes matched his dark, perfectly tanned complexion and raven-black hair, creating an old-fashioned sexy look, but with a slight rough-and-tough undertone. He moved with confidence, aware not only of his impeccable physical appearance but also of the effect he generated.

Eloise found herself smiling, and it didn’t feel mechanical at all.

‘Ms Moretti, I am delighted to make your acquaintance.’ He smiled back and extended his hand.

Eloise’s heart skipped as her eyes dropped to his outstretched fingers. She wasn’t sure what to do. Memories of the events of the last day intensified, and she felt her nano-patches tingle. All three of them. No wonder her body didn’t feel like hers; there were probably more artificial chemicals in her than those produced naturally by her body.

If Commissioner Wagner felt insulted by her distance, he hid it well. His smile never wavered as he pointed Eloise to an armchair in front of his desk.

‘I am delighted that you were able to come to the 4th at such short notice. I hope you enjoyed the ride. I instructed the pilot to take you up through the outer lanes. This isn’t strictly an emergency, but the inner lanes can get awfully crowded in the morning and Lyon proper is simply so beautiful bathed in the rising sun. I hope you enjoyed the view?’

Airtraffic above Lyon, and other big cities of the Afro-European Alliance, moved in a strictly organised way, not too dissimilar to how ground traffic operated around Europe in the 21st century. The majority of airtraffic, long-distance public transport as well as privately owned aircars, cruised at a height of forty metres. All vehicles had to drop down to twenty metres at a distance of five hundred metres from their destination to safely decrease their speed and manoeuvre for landing. Short-distance, automated public transports such as airtaxis or those with multiple stops such as airbuses cruised at a height of ten metres and had their own dedicated airspace. These were the inner lanes.

The outer lanes, over fifty metres from the ground, were for emergency use only. With no other traffic permitted there,