by Drew Cordell
“Of course,” he said, standing and walking over to the exit. “Sleep well.”
Edgar flipped off the lights and walked out of the room. I wanted to think about what Edgar said to me, to try to find the truth in his words, but my body had other plans. Seconds later, sleep overwhelmed me.
“Jake, come on. We need you to wake up,” a voice said. It sounded like Marwin.
I reached up to clear the crust that had formed on my eyes and groaned as the simple motion sent fresh waves of pain through my back and chest. I cleared my throat. “How long was I asleep?” I asked, opening my eyes and shielding them against the bright light.
“Long enough,” Mary said.
Caeldra, Mary, Marwin, and Martinez were standing around me. Martinez was holding his clunky toolbox and had another box of parts set off to the side.
I closed my eyes, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep.
“Jake, wake up or Caeldra is going to hit you,” Marwin said. “Trust me, you don’t want that.”
I forced my eyes open again and with the help of Marwin, sat up on the bed.
“There we go. Martinez is going to fix your arm, but he’s going to disable the tactile functions. You’ll be able to control the arm like before, but you probably won’t be able to feel it.”
“Shouldn’t this be a surgical procedure?” I asked.
“Yeah, it should, but we don’t have the required tech here. Martinez can fix it, but we’re not going to risk frying your nerves in the process. The neural wiring in your upper arm should be undamaged, but we’re going to check it just in case,” Marwin said.
Martinez set his boxes down on a wheeled table and pushed it over to me. Flipping open the toolbox, he pulled out a scanner and plugged it into one of intact sockets on my arm. “You may feel something; just let me know if it hurts. I’m going to have to pump enough power into this thing to get it to boot if the central processor still works.”
“And if doesn’t?” I asked.
Martinez rotated my cybernetic arm and inspected the hole in the center. “It looks like it will,” he said, taking a small claw device and pointing it at the hole. “See those wires? The blast went right through, and the cybernetic was built with overload protection. Those disruptor weapons are all kinetic; the projectile doesn’t carry a charge, so I don’t think your arm’s processor was damaged. It’s just out of power and disconnected from your body. If my diagnostics prove it, then I just need to rewire your arm, fix some of the structural damage, and you’ll be good to go.”
I nodded and turned toward Mary. “So, are you mad at me for discussing my relationship struggles with Caeldra?” I asked. Caeldra and Mary smiled.
“No, I think it’s cute,” Mary said. I returned her smile then winced as a sting surged through my upper arm.
“Sorry. I have the power back online, going to run those diagnostics now,” Martinez said, putting down his tool and grabbing the scanner again.
“Any luck with the data from the Omniscience Engine drives?” I asked Marwin.
“Well, we’re hard at work analyzing the data from the files we recovered. Nothing yet, but the entire system is impossibly complex. We have no idea how the Paragon Thoughts work in reality, only a theoretical understanding of them.”
“What’s the theoretical understanding?” My fingers on the cybernetic arm closed shut as Martinez ran the tests. I could feel the movements, but they were distant.
“When someone comes up with a Paragon Thought which, as we understand it, is a coordinate in space and time, the system then broadcasts a frequency with the processed Paragon Thought. Once that’s happened it gets something back, either from something else or its own calculations—we can’t tell. We can’t see what it’s learning, or where it’s coming from, but after it finishes processing, the project moves forward exponentially and the Omniscience Engine creates a lot of new things. It’s somehow able to learn from the Paragon Thought coordinates, and we need to learn why that is.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Can you see the code defining the Paragon Thoughts?”
“Yeah, but it’s spread out through millions of dependencies and active calculations; we can’t make sense of it. It’s also calculating this stuff with computational power that we can’t hope to match with our infrastructure here. Even if you and Master Aarlen worked through the code with your fancy mind tricks, we’d barely make a dent. If we discover something, it’s going to be through blind luck at this point.”
“Can I see the code with neuro connectors? Like what I did in Adrihel’s office?”
“No, that was a specialized security mechanism. I’m still not sure how you cracked that, but this is entirely different. You’d probably see the code projected as an endless stream of meaningless data if you tried to reformat it to something that would work with a modified collector canister. We’ve got to keep chugging through the data to try to figure it out the old-fashioned way.” Marwin paused. “It’s all AI, so there isn’t any documentation built into the code. The system literally built itself. Ideally, we could just remove whatever created Infinitum, and go back to a human-run government, but I don’t know if that would even be possible. I just can’t believe someone would code something that could give itself unlimited power without anyone noticing.”
“All right, good news. I just need to rewire your arm and reinforce the frame, then you should be good to go. Systems and fine motor controls are intact,” Martinez said.
“Great, thanks,” I said, flashing him a smile. Martinez got back to work. “What about the Rail? Do they know why it’s running?”
“They just told me about that too, but no, I have no idea why they’re running it, especially since there isn’t a population to feed anymore. The Mids have farms that could sustain an entire population, and from what I’ve seen and heard, the population is gone.”
“Could they be building something else? More infrastructure for the Omniscience Engine?” Mary asked.
“It’s possible. The Inquisitor memo I received with information about the Slums being dropped said most of them were being pulled to the Mids, but we barely saw any while we were there. If that internment camp is still active in the Mids, then the Omniscience Engine may have run out of food, but I was told the reactors in the Undercity are all still on, and that’s an unreasonable amount of energy for just Olympus.”
Martinez jumped in as he was wiring my arm. “Simple. The power is being run long distance to somewhere else. With more reactors, they can up the voltage and lower energy loss at longer ranges. From an engineering standpoint, it sounds like they’re cutting resources here to boost them somewhere else. We’ve got eight reactors in the Slums, five in the Mids, and six in Olympus. We can assume each of the levels runs on less power than is possible to safely output with its reactors, so even if they are putting some extra power toward Olympus, the rest has to be going somewhere else.”
“Are you sure those districts only accessible by the Rail are what you think they are?” I asked Marwin.
“Hell no. No one has ever seen them; they could be anything. They do or did have some sort of farming system set up though, because there was never a food shortage. It’s looking more and more like we need to take a trip on the Rail and see what Infinitum is hiding.”
Martinez finished the repairs and ran through some diagnostics. I was good to go.
Marwin put a hand on my shoulder. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we need you to talk to your father, Jake.”
14 BLACKBOX
“I’m not talking to that thing; it’s not my father. If the Government already has Mindshift, the robot is clearly an infiltrator designed to learn more about our Guild.”
“Maybe, but it says it can tell you how to unlock the box we recovered. We’ve got it secured in a way where it can’t do what it did before. It’s not going to hurt you or anyone else. Please, just do this for us.”
Mary didn’t look confused, so I guessed someone filled her in
on the previous events with the robot.
It was frustrating; I didn’t want anything to do with that thing. It brought nothing but pain. “Can’t you see what’s in the box with a scanner or something?”
“Yeah, it’s just paper inside. The scanner can’t read the words through the box’s material, though.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yeah,” Martinez said.
“And you can’t cut through the box?” I asked.
Martinez shook his head. “There is a security mechanism in in place that will destroy what’s inside if it detects tampering.”
Edgar poked his head in the door. “We all set, Jake?”
“Yeah,” I said, standing. I stretched in small increments, trying to relieve the tension and unbelievable soreness in my back and chest. Everything hurt.
Edgar brought in a pile of clothes, including my Guild leathers, and escorted everyone out so I could change from the damaged Inquisitor undersuit I was wearing.
I followed behind Edgar and Marwin toward the stairs. Caeldra and Mary walked alongside me. The pub was abandoned, and the whole atmosphere of the Guild Hall had changed. It was darker, and the pain, diminishing hope, and hurting hearts were clear on the faces of everyone we passed.
We walked to the elevators and descended to one of the lower levels. No one was in a talking mood, and I was trying to mentally prepare myself to talk to the robot. If I could help save lives, then this needed to be done, no matter how much I wanted to avoid it.
The staging ground looked unchanged, and the people working in the manufacturing floor were just as busy. Leroy waved and smiled as we walked through. I waved back, making a mental note to go talk to him later.
“This place is amazing,” Mary commented, taking in all the sights as I once had. Had it not been for the circumstances that led us back to the Guild, I probably would have been a lot more enthusiastic to return. I still needed to finish my conversation with Edgar, and I had no desire to talk with this robot.
Martinez brought us to a cell. The wall was lined with a thick panel of reinforced glass which allowed us to see inside. The robot was bolted to the wall, and its arms and legs had been removed. It was hooked up to several cables that connected to a console in the room. Marwin and Edgar walked me over to the door.
Edgar slid a plastic card down a scanner on the front of the glass door. “Just talk with it, try to figure out how to open the box, and get out. We’ve been working on trying to replicate its armor, but we’ve been unsuccessful so far. The alloys are too advanced for any of our manufacturing systems. If you can learn the secrets of the armor, or where to get it or the equipment to manufacture it, do that as well.”
I nodded and walked inside. The remnants of the robot looked up at me, appraising me as the door slid closed.
“Hi,” I said.
“Jake, it’s good to see you again. Everything is falling apart, my code, my memories; it’s all fading.”
“You’re not my father.”
“I’m your only shot of seeing him again—your actual father.”
“He’s dead. Why the hell would I trust you?” I spat.
“The Council meeting was a slip-up. The version of Mindshift I used was compromised by the Omniscience Engine. It didn’t have access for long enough to copy all the files, but it injected shellcode that’s been tearing me apart.”
“There’s no way,” I said. “If the Omniscience Engine had even a portion of Mindshift, it would solve it. Besides, the Omniscience Engine already used Mindshift on the Mids.”
The robot’s head twitched. “Listen. It’s not after Mindshift; it’s after you, Jake. I need to talk to you in private.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said.
The robot tilted its head toward the console in the room. The screen lit up with hundreds of warning windows, and sparks started spraying from the sides as it flickered then turned black. The lights in the room burned out, and we were left in darkness. Edgar and Marwin ran over to the door, trying to force it open, but it was no good. They were yelling, but the thick glass drowned out all sound from the outside.
“If everything doesn’t go exactly as planned, I don’t think humanity is going to make it. I can’t influence your decisions, I can only guide you on what has to happen when this is all over. That starts with you opening the box—the real box. The one they have here is a fake, and you need to get to the real one. It’s in another bunker in the Undercity. It’s deep; we’re talking the Depths. The real box is only for you. It has three envelopes. There are specific instructions for when you can open them. You have to follow my words to the letter. It’s the only way to save New York.”
“Why should I believe any of this?”
“You don’t have a choice. You need to trust me before it’s too late. At this point it’s the only thing that is going to work. Trust me, and you can save New York; don’t and everyone dies. To open the box the Guild has here, press your fingers on both bottom corners of the front face. It will pull up a number pad. The code is 7652. Remember that code; it will work with the real box as well. There’s a USB stick in the box you have here; it will help the Guild work through the code you recovered, but it won’t do all the work for you. Do what I’m telling you, and we’ll meet again. Say the code.”
“7652. How will I know where the bunker is?” I asked.
“Open my back-maintenance port,” the robot said.
The port slid open to reveal access to a block filled with data cards. Tangles of green energy swirled underneath, and dark, blue light flowed from the metal itself.
“What the hell?” I had never seen anything like it.
“You’ll see a small red card. Pull it out and put it in your pocket. Press the card on your wrist computer, and it will upload the coordinates. Be careful, get to the bunker, and only take people you know you can trust. This is for you, and you alone, Jake. Wait until things settle down and don’t involve the Guild officially. They can’t find the real box or everyone will die. You need to trust me.”
I was scared; nothing he said made any sense. “I need more than this,” I said as I pulled the red card from a slot in the strange metal and put it in my pocket.
“Trust in me, and trust in yourself. Save New York, Jake. Save humanity. We’ll meet again.”
The robot started sparking and its head sunk down, unmoving for several seconds. I shook the robot, trying to bring it back to life, but I knew it was gone for good this time. The console powered back on, and the door to the cell slid open. Everyone rushed in, grabbing me and inspecting the robot.
“Did you get anything?” Edgar asked.
“I can open the box,” I said.
Martinez was checking the robot, but it was clear repair wasn’t an option. Something had destroyed it; maybe it was only holding on because it needed to tell me about the other box. Despite everything that had happened, I sensed truth in its words. Something was going on, and I knew without a doubt I needed to recover the real box. It could be a trap, but our options were scarce at the moment. If I could save New York, then I had to try.
“What did it say?” Marwin asked.
“That I had to open the box. The box can help us in our fight against Infinitum.”
“How did it break through the cell’s console?” Edgar asked Martinez.
“I don’t know, but we’re not recovering anything from the bot. This thing is fried,” he said.
“Let’s go open the box,” Edgar said, leading us over to a table and setting it in front of me. I grabbed the two front corners and pressed down on them as the robot had instructed. Bright, cyan lights erupted from the case, shining through a slightly translucent layer of composite on the front. The lights flashed, displaying a number pad. I punched in the digits, and the box clicked open. Lifting the lid, I removed a USB 3.0 data stick and passed it to Edgar curiously. I hadn’t seen a working USB 3.0 stick in my life; they were an archaic collector’s item. There was a letter insi
de too, sealed and addressed to the Council. Edgar took the letter and tucked it in the inside of his jacket.
“We’re going to need to go over this with the Council. We’ll fill you in afterward,” Marwin said, following Edgar toward the elevator and disappearing around the corner.
I was still a little shaken up and nearly jumped when a hand landed on my shoulder and gave it a firm shake.
“It’s good to see you again, Jake,” Leroy said, smiling and pulling me in for a hug. He walked over to Caeldra and gave her a kiss on the cheek before wrapping his arm around her waist.
“You as well, Leroy,” I said, trying to be friendly while I was actively processing everything the robot had told me.
“Trust me, and you can save New York; don’t and everyone will die.” The robot’s words reverberated in my mind, clouding everything else.
Pulling myself back into reality, I introduced Mary to Leroy. Taking a glance around, Leroy waved for us to follow him into the back room of the shop. He pulled chairs from a rack and positioned them in a circle. Moving to the back of the room, he grabbed four cans of soda from a small refrigerator and passed them out.
“We’re out of beer unfortunately, but I think it would be good to relax a little. We’ve got to take the opportunity when we can to kick back,” he said, flashing me his signature smile.
I cracked open my soda and sipped thoughtfully. Life in Olympus had spoiled me, but the soda was still good.
Mary and I told our story to Leroy and filled him in on everything going on that wasn’t official Guild knowledge. He nodded thoughtfully throughout, asked a few questions, and commented on things.
“That arm is pretty badass though, Jake,” he said, after I finished my story.
“I’m glad Martinez was able to fix it up. You can’t even tell it was broken,” I said.
“That man can fix anything. Has Edgar filled you in on what’s going on here or anything?”
“Not really. I’ve been asleep for most of the time since we arrived.”