All characters are over eighteen. The author does not condone violence or non-consensual sex.
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RECAP: Society is divided between upper-class High Risers and Servicers, who make up 95% of the city. Tom, an extraordinarily gifted Servicer, has the ability to hack the neural implants worn by everyone in the city. He used that to steal nanites (body modifying injections) from Silvia South, a High Riser who insulted him. After discovering she and her husband were trying to conceive, Tom impregnated her before hacking her implant to remove her memories.
"Come on, Laura. We're almost home."
Emily held the door open while Tom did his best to help her heavily drunk roommate into her apartment. She hadn't even had that many drinks, but because Laura was a total lightweight, she was totally zonked.
Laura was a platinum blonde with the movie-star looks to match. Her youthful face, short hair, and slim body contrasted with Emily's more natural girl-next-door appearance. The latter might've been his best friend, but if push came to shove, Tom had to admit Laura might've won in the looks department.
Not that he'd ever planned on saying that to Emily's face, though. She was quite protective of her roommate.
"Thanks, Tom," Emily said as he laid Laura down on the sofa.
"No problem," he replied. "Mind if I stay for a while?"
"Sure," she said. "Grab a drink from the fridge and something to eat. I'll join as soon as I finish with Laura."
Tom knew Emily wouldn't have kept the cheapest beer in the world within spitting distance of Laura, so he settled for a glass of water. He grabbed a pan and set a chicken breast to low heat while checking his latest notification feed.
Most of it was work-related, but there was one important message from his home server.
In the four months since his encounter with Mrs. South, Tom had spent most of his time planning his next move. Like every Servicer in the city, he'd always dreamed of becoming a High Riser. In a city of tens of millions that had seen entire generations come and go, no more than a handful had ever risen beyond the Lower Levels.
A false identity would be his best bet. Make it appear he died and wipe every trace the old Tom ever existed. The 'new' Tom wouldn't even be new at all; all the records would show that he had been a successful High Riser his entire life.
The subtlety of that plan made him smile, but there was much to do before it could happen. At the top of his agenda was finding more nanites. There was also a pressing need for money. Being a master hacker would only get him so far. He needed to make real transactions.
Easier said than done. Making a direct move on a major bank or nanite manufacturer was too risky. There would be many independent systems involved. Even if he could hack each one, all would have to remain undetected. One failed attempt would set him back a long way.
To help him, he had a new generation of neural interface codes. One flaw with the muscle control codes he'd used on Mrs. South was how tedious they were. These new codes were designed to leave the target in a blank slate, able to answer questions and obey directives, but essentially unable to make conscious decisions.
After months of simulations to verify their safety, they were finally ready for use. He just had to pick his target.
Thinking of Silvia South reminded him of another goal. The successful High Riser had been rich, beautiful, and arrogant. The thought of a lowly Servicer in her presence was beneath her contempt.
That made it all the more satisfying when he impregnated her.
Using his hacking abilities for sex hadn't been high on his priority list before. Now it was. There was something inherently satisfying about giving a High Riser his child. Of fusing his genes with the rich and powerful and allowing a piece of himself to grow up in a life he had never known.
He did have limits, though. He would only impregnate High Risers who wanted a child. Forcing a life—or conceiving one only to have it ended early—was something he would never do. Everyone deserved to be loved. Sometimes Tom wondered if that was the problem with High Risers.
Laura's problem, it turned out, was not unrelated.
"Director—
hiccup
—Anderson is gonna shut down our entire hospital. Hui—
hiccup
—told me so."
"Hui?" Emily asked.
"She's—
hiccup
—Mrs. Anderson's secretary, so she should know."
Tom's guess was that Laura would not be feeling pleasant for some time.
"Ohhh...
hiccup
," she moaned. "Daddy is gonna be so disappointed in me."
She buried her face in her hands as if it were the most awful thought in the world.
Tom's memories of his father stopped with his death when he was five, and he never had any memories of his mother. Even he knew this was not the way family was supposed to treat family.
Nothing Laura ever did was good enough for them. Despite following the family's traditional career of becoming an accomplished physician, she always complained they never treated her like real family. That didn't stop her from constantly trying to please them.
"She'll be out for the night," Emily announced once she joined him and grabbed a salad.
Tom could never understand vegetarians and why they would willingly give up so many treats, and Emily was no exception. She often tried to flip things by jokingly terrorizing him with the thought of greens.
"You'll never change," he said with a shake of his head. It wasn't a question.
