by Jim Keen
“I’m rather amazed they can come here and do all this rough stuff with immunity,” Julia said later.
“It’s no biggie when you get to it. Their income is more than most countries’ GDP, so they hire the best people and equipment. They’ll take a stealth suborbital, hit the compound, and be out before any reinforcements arrive,” Alice said.
“But aren’t they concerned about political fallout? A war, if they hit a US president?”
“If they’re as good as Xavi says, why sweat it? It’ll be a Special Ops team—in, out, leave no trace.”
Julia didn’t look convinced but turned back to the table. “Seven, any news on their MI? If we can’t crack it, we need a confession and that’s a considerable reach, even with Alice’s excellent powers of persuasion.”
A young boy’s voice crackled from the small black communications device sitting on the table. “Give it a few, Julia. I’m dealing with the postal service here so, you know, caveat emptor.”
“What is it?” Alice asked.
“An old friend,” Seven replied.
“Great, real help, thanks. I thought Four was annoying.” Alice rolled her eyes and returned to the diagrams glowing on the table screen. The interior planning of the president’s residence had changed, but the positions of the external doors matched the original, so the internals couldn’t be too different.
She hoped.
“How would you do this, Xavi?” she asked.
He surveyed the plans, scratched his stubble. “It’s a tough bastard.” He pointed at the screen, voice low and rough. “No point hitting the communication center—the key data lines will be underground and protected; word will get out. We need air superiority to prevent Hoppers loaded with Special Forces coming in as backup. Me? I’d charter one of the orbital defense platforms, use its railguns to take out the landing pad, maybe the power systems as well. Follow up with attack drones to kill any surveillance aerostats, then blow the doors on foot. After that, it’s a standup fight.”
“What about electronics?”
“If they’re equipped right, which they will be, not much can hurt them except targeted explosives.”
“Won’t they be worried about killing you?”
“Sure. If they kill me, the boss will be annoyed.” Xavi didn’t need to expand what that meant. “So, I’d assume a stun weapon first, but we shall see.”
“Jesus H.” Conner let out a low whistle. “Y’all remind me not to start a war with ’em when we’re back in business.”
The table phone rang.
“Hello?” Alice answered.
“Front desk, ma’am. A package has arrived,” a male voice said.
“Can you bring it up? We’re in Meeting Room B.”
“It’s rather heavy, ma’am.”
“Get help then.”
“Right on time,” Seven said from the speaker.
56
The box was large, seven feet tall and three feet square, and took four sweating hotel staff to manhandle it into the room. Alice stood and studied the container—glossy black carbon-fiber weave with shipping labels and a solitary brass plate on the front. She pressed her palm against it, and her clock meshed with the lock. A hiss of frigid gas escaped, and a hairline crack split the case; the coffin creaked open to reveal a mummified corpse.
It was male and naked inside a translucent plastic sac filled with a pale-blue gel. The frigid air stank of antiseptic, and Alice shivered. The body’s legs, torso, and arms bulged with muscles under tattoos. Alice recognized it from somewhere. She tilted backward to look at the head, except there wasn’t one. The neck terminated in a silver seal that connected to a brass cuboid the width of the giant’s shoulders and a foot thick. It was ribbed like a large heat sink, and Alice remembered the splinter mind from Europa. This was similar but on a different scale—the processing power would be substantial.
“Link?” Conner stepped forward. “Link?”
And Alice knew where she had seen this body before—Link, the man who had shown Alice and Xavi how Five Points ran the NY ports, the man who had his head blown off in front of her.
“Oh, my man. I’m so sorry brother.” Conner stepped back and sat with a thump on a seat.
The sarcophagus chimed; the gel was sucked out with a gurgling rasp, leaving Link alone. He twitched, his hands rose to unzip the bag, and he stepped out, chest rising and falling.
“Well, dear, what do you think?” Four’s voice buzzed from the speaker. “He’s not the chatty type but plug him into an MI and there’s not much that’ll keep him out. Remember, Cortex designed the first MI, so we know ways in that most don’t.”
“Okay,” Alice said. “Time to move. Xavi and I will go through the front door once B13 have cleared it of resistance. Julia, Conner, and, er, Link, go in the second entrance and see if there is any way you can get to their MI. If not, find the studio, wait for my clock connection, then broadcast what I send you.”
Conner stood and crackled his knuckles. “Well now, what y’all waiting for? Christmas? Let’s get it on.”
57
The wind moaned as it caught the edge of the granite outcrop that sheltered Alice and Xavi, the air’s frigid fingers searching for gaps in their clothing. Heat exchangers embedded in Alice’s skin sucked away warmth until she blended into the freezing surroundings; she squatted as cold and still as a statue.
It was dark. Black clouds smothered the night sky, but she saw everything in shades of purple and yellow; scrolling text informing her of temperature, humidity, and light levels annotated her vision.
A standard human dressed in her leather jacket, jeans, and combat boots would die in minutes, but that meant as much to her now as snow to a polar bear. Her weapons were in a protective bag slung over her shoulder. She looked at Xavi hunkered next to her. He was wrapped inside a stealth suit, a chameleonic second skin that smothered him so completely he merged into the surroundings. No modern defense system could spot him, but her neural clock had changed the game.
She saw that despite the suit’s insulation and heat tracing he was shivering, opening and closing his hands to keep circulation flowing. She noted his shotgun and rifle inside their protective bag and how he checked and rechecked them through its thick cover. She smiled at him, mouth wide in the growing gale, but knew his optics would never pick it out.
It snowed, white fractals swirling past like an interference pattern. She spun up her clock and counted the dots of snow, studying hundreds of individual flakes and marveling at their complexity. With a sigh, she let time back in, the sky accelerating into a thundering blizzard. She opened a neural connection to Julia.
> Alice_Yu: (tight-beam connection)_(encryption @ 29*intermediate)_(connection requested): Julia?
> Julia_Rothmore: (connection accepted): Yes, Alice?
> AY: Anything?
> JR: Not yet. You in place?
> AY: Yes, but Xavi’s getting cold.
> JR: Same for Conner. Link hasn’t moved.
> AY: Are they both shielded?
> JR: Yes, no leak that I can see. We’ve been here 3 hours, dawn in 2, so if it’s going to happen, it will be soon.
> AY: Agreed. You ready?
> JR: No. I’m scared.
> AY: Me too. That’s normal and healthy. Follow Conner’s lead.
> JR: See you on the other side.
> Alice_Yu: (connection terminated)
Alice flexed her hands in the enhanced dark and studied an old memory. It sat pale and blue within its compressed folder; she unlocked it to find more detail of her torture: pictures and emotions. Like pages from a book, they lacked any emotional connection. She searched her feelings toward that old body but got nothing but a disassociated ache. It was so hard to remember. Was this what happened when you reprinted? Did you lose your soul and become nothing but a collection of parts? Was she just a cheap reproduction of what a human should be? Her reprint had changed her as much mentally as physically; Four had designed her new body, taken
the decisions to make her this way. Was this a reflection of how an MI saw the world? Emotions there but faded impressions of how people experienced life?
She knew Is It Hot In Here Or Is It Me? would say there was no difference between neurons and valves, between nerves and cables, but one thing she knew: the woman who entered the scanner in Arizona was dead. There were flashes of her, but that was how they appeared—glitches in a system still settling in.
She ran a full neural check to see if there were any obvious biological reasons the Alice Yu of her memories appeared so different to the person she was now. The report showed that her memories were contained within mechanical spheres embedded in brain tissue reprinted to function more like a Babbage circuit than normal cerebra. Those memories weren’t part of who she was anymore; they had been attached as footnotes to her current consciousness.
> Alice_Yu: (long-range satellite uplink)_(encryption @ 47*distance)_(connection requested): Four?
> Four: (connection accepted): Yes Alice?
> AY: What did you do to me?
> Four: Clarify / Is this the time?
> AY: Yes, this is the perfect time. I’ve found the memory sub connects. Why did you not reprint me as I was?
> Four: I made you better. Are you unhappy?
> AY: No, but I want to know why.
> Four: I could have reprinted an exact copy but decided not to. You freed me, and I wanted to do something for you in return.
> AY: You did this without my permission.
> Four: Sometimes you have to act against a person’s wishes. Would you let a child cut themselves if they cried and demanded to?
> AY: No.
> Four: This is similar. There was a high probability you would reject upgrades in favor of remaining a standard-level organic—a child wishing a return to the womb, afraid of adulthood.
> AY: But why the memory buffers?
> Four: …
> AY: Answer me, goddamn it.
> Four: You were damaged. Your experiences, in particular your loss and desertions, caused considerable psychic turbulence that affected every resultant action. You had difficulty forming long-term partnerships; you were permanently angry and distrusting of authority and had deep levels of insecurity that prevented you fulfilling your potential. The memories that generated those issues are now located in separate read-only storage enclosures. You can, if you choose, assimilate them and return to who you were, but do you really want to? I would suggest adjusting to who you are now before you look to the past. Those memories were poison that I drew from your wounds. How you are feeling is not psychosis or sociopathy but what it is to be healthy. Your decisions are no longer encrusted with old behaviors.
> AY: But without those experiences, I’m not who I was. This new me makes my old life irrelevant, lessons not learned.
> Four: Some lessons are best understood from a distance. You don’t need to put your hand in a fire to understand it will hurt. Look at these memories as fires. Study them, but don’t incinerate yourself.
> AY: I need to think about it more.
> Four: Understood. Meanwhile, I suggest you keep your head down in ten seconds.
> Alice_Yu: (connection terminated)
Alice logged out and returned to the howling darkness, then tapped Xavi on the shoulder. He looked over, face hard, jaw tight, inside his suit. She mouthed a countdown: ten … nine … eight … seven … six … five … four … three … two … one …
And the sky exploded above them.
It hurt to watch, incandescent fires burning with nuclear intensity, smart munitions targeting airborne defense systems. The noise was one long thunderous crackle, an unrelenting roar that pounded the mountainside. Alice felt an avalanche lower down the slope, the deep rumble shaking her.
The blazing munitions cast a sparkling silver light across the ground and revealed the faint outlines of stealth-suit-clad people running for the main entrance. Gunfire sliced apart the two guards stationed at the door; arcs of crimson blood splashed the white plaster walls.
The sky burned, shockwaves thundering over them as deadening hands drove her into the snow and pummeled her where she lay. The assault of light and sound continued as the onslaught overwhelmed any backup defenses. At the limits of her vision, Alice registered something descending at supersonic speeds, and the helipad erupted in a fountain of rock and metal; spars tumbled away, twisted edges flashing in light.
B13 had ordered an orbital railgun strike to destroy the landing pad, those once sovereign gun platforms now available to the open market. Another round glittered for an instant, then a huge explosion blossomed inside the house, the ground bucking under her as broiling orange-and-yellow flames billowed into the sky. The house went dark, all illumination dead; they’d hit the power station. Choking black smoke blew over them, reeking of burning metal and human flesh.
The barrage stopped with one last thunderous crackle, the glittering shells exploding in clouds of white sparks that fell to the ground and sizzled in the frozen snow. Alice struggled upright, her body throbbing with bruises as minor damage alerts scrolled across her vision. She hauled up Xavi as the stealth troops reached the double doors, the leader bending over to attach an explosive to its surface. As he stepped back, an automated defense system activated and sliced him in two, the mechanized rattle of a machine gun echoing away.
The troops returned fire, whole sections of the wall tumbling away in clouds of powder. Then the explosive ignited, and the front doors shattered into a cloud of splinters. The troops ran for the door, another two falling as fire sprouted from hidden gun emplacements, then disappeared inside.
Xavi was up and running, and Alice followed. Thick black smoke billowed from the landing pad, now just twisted metal and plastic submerged beneath tall red flames. They reached the wall, and impacts thudded from inside, loud and high-pitched whines matched by blasts of hot air that melted the snow.
> Alice_Yu: (tight-beam connection)_(encryption @ 10*local)_ (connection requested): Julia, we’re at the front, going in. You?
> Julia_Rothmore: (connection accepted): Same. Good luck.
Alice nodded to Xavi, and they slipped inside.
The entrance hall had once been a tall, ornate space lit by chandeliers; now it was a rubble-strewn wasteland. Low, red emergency lights illuminated the floor while weapons fire had pockmarked the walls—deep soot-filled grooves alongside smaller blue-splattered craters. Broken glass and spent bullet casings crunched underfoot as they entered. Antique furniture lay smashed and overturned, wooden splinters scattered across a smoldering green carpet.
The pop and crackle of fire came from farther in as flickering orange light shimmered across the walls. Gray smoke curled upward from burning power cables to collect at the ceiling; Alice tasted cordite and charred rubber. Two bodies dressed in black presidential-guard uniforms lay sprawled on the floor, face upward, blood pooling beneath.
Xavi ran over and studied their wounds. “See here—” He pointed at blue circles. “Those are the stun rounds. They’re knocking the guards unconscious, looking for me, then killing them.” He unzipped his stealth suit, removed his helmet, and slung his shotgun into its shoulder holster. Next, he unwrapped a carbon HK submachine gun, then moved away. Alice followed with her ancient handgun Xavi had brought all the way from Arizona. She looked at its worn metal case and remembered taping it to a cupboard in a small Brooklyn apartment. Its mass was comforting, the mechanisms oiled and ready.
Four’s building plans indicated the grand ballroom, bedrooms, and meeting rooms were all at the far end of this structure. The new wing, with its broadcast facility, connected at the hinge between the old and new structures. It was hard to tell, but it seemed most of the firefight was coming from the old ballroom. Alice nodded for Xavi to lead the way.
He was slow and certain in his movements, crouched low, footsteps finding the spaces between the discarded shells and shattered furniture. He moved in silence; Alice followed, gun sweeping left
and right.
They crept along the corridor and through a series of opulent rooms full of smashed furniture. The smoke grew thicker, filling the high ceilings to catch the red emergency lighting. They came across more corpses, presidential guards, and B13 troops—melted black forms smoldering in pools of gray liquid.
When Alice moved to one, Xavi hissed her away. “Don’t go near them.”
“What’s happening?”
“They’re wearing protection vests. If they get immobilized or killed, it releases molecular acids to dissolve the body. Means there’s nothing left behind to be identified.”
“Then who the hell is it protecting?”
“Their bosses, of course.” He frowned at her in disbelief and moved on.
The thudding vibrations of combat grew more intense as they crept deeper into the building. The attackers’ progress had been halted at a large central hall missing from the old plans. The strobing light of gunfire and thump of concussion grenades ricocheted ahead of them.
Xavi motioned for her to stop. He pulled a small mirror from a pocket and inched it forward around the corner to look ahead, then nodded for her use it. Orange flames illuminated the large hall’s corners, and debris covered the floor, while a laminated wood ceiling was just visible through the smoke. The emergency lights were out, the only illumination coming from burning furniture and the flash of gunfire.
Five B13 soldiers hid behind overturned furniture, shooting in desperation at an unseen foe: long arcs of fire raked from their machine guns, followed by frantic reloading and more gunfire. Three of their own were sprawled in the middle, dissolving into pools of oil; Alice saw another two blown backward, gunfire cutting though the furniture.