Myst and Ink, Book 1

by HD Smith

  DEXTER: Does he know Liam folded space to bring you here?

  GEN: I didn’t even know that, so how would he? If the question is, did he ask about Liam, the answer is no

  Dexter breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

  GEN: Why are we texting?

  DEXTER: I need to scan for bugs, in case Wyatt left one behind

  SUSAN9: I can scan for the bugs

  DEXTER: How the hell are you on our private chat?

  SUSAN9: I told you … I can read the myst … finding bugs now

  What did she mean by reading the myst? Was she now attuned to anything with a significant myst link? Susan9 and I need to have a long conversation about privacy, or people were going to figure out very quickly what she was and then try to destroy her. I wasn’t sure if I should stand in their way.

  GEN: If he’s been listening he now knows about Live Ink

  DEXTER: The entire building is on lockdown, so he’s trapped here until I release him

  GEN: This is going to be a problem

  DEXTER: I can’t argue with that … him knowing anything about Liam is a problem

  GEN: Wyatt said Blythe Donovan was here yesterday to see Liam. Is that true?

  DEXTER: She tried to force Liam to take a job. He was planning to refuse. Of course it’s a moot point now, because the CME is gone … a lot of people are going to be pissed about that

  GEN: Who?

  DEXTER: Byron Storm and Dalton Vance … they’re tied to it by a guild called Harko Royale

  “Harko Royale?” I blurted.

  Dexter shushed me.

  I twirled my finger in the air and added Wyatt’s soundproofing spell to the wards.

  Dexter just stared at me.

  “I stole it from Wyatt,” I said.

  Frustrated, Dexter held his finger to his lips.

  DEXTER: Wait until the bug sweep is done

  I glanced at Susan9. Her eyes were closed. She turned three times in a circle then headed back toward the living room. I followed her as she walked over to Liam’s body, reached down, and pointed behind his right ear. I found a transparent tracker. It looked new.

  I called up my EMP spell and manifested it on my palm, then activated it and zapped the bug.

  DEXTER: What was that?

  “An EMP spell. We should be good now,” I said.

  “Monday morning you had no magic at all, right?” Dexter asked. “And now you manifest spells and steal wards?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And let’s not forget, my makeover.”

  Dexter tipped his imaginary hat. “How do you know about Harko Royale?”

  “I was injected with an experimental drug Conor Cortez created,” I said.

  “X86 Live Ink, right?”

  “Right. Apparently the patent was transferred from Harko Royale to House Cortez the day before Conor committed suicide.”

  “There’s nothing sketchy about that,” Dexter said sarcastically. Susan9 started to speak, then Dexter said, “Sarcasm. It’s sketchy as hell.”

  Susan9 nodded her head.

  “So you know what Harko Royale is?” Dexter asked.

  “I know it’s tied to four second-born sons of great Houses,” I said, “but that’s it.”

  All the sudden, Liam’s body rose up as he took in a deep breath.

  Wild eyed, he stared. “What the hell did you do to me?”

  Right on cue, another blast of energy surged from me to the construct, this time lowering her arms to her sides.

  In a blink, Susan9 disappeared… and the construct took her first breath.

  Fucking hell.

  17

  Ancient Antiquities, Tau, Wednesday, 02:00 LTZ

  Liam

  I was awake, sitting on the floor of my apartment, and feeling better than I had in months. It took me a minute to remember what had happened. I’d been at the K12 lab. I’d brought the girl with Zar Pink hair and the construct back to my apartment. During the jump, an energy surge between the two had run through me, knocking me unconscious.

  Now I was awake, feeling incredible, and I’d just seen the same blue arc of energy flow from the girl to the construct, whose arms were now down by her side. Then the AI, Susan9, disappeared, and the construct woke up.

  “Liam,” Dexter said. “Thank Lucy you’re okay. As you can see, there’s a lot going on.”

  I pushed myself to my feet.

  “No shit,” I said. “Any chance it isn’t as bad as it looks?”

  “Nope,” he said. “We passed DEFCON 5 a half hour ago.”

  If I hadn’t been feeling so good right then, I was sure a pressure headache would have been pounding against my skull.

  Opening a panel, I retrieved a blanket and tossed it at the construct, who let it drop to the ground at her feet.

  “Okay,” I said turning to Genevieve, whose eyes were incredibly distinct. With the hair, there would be no question she was House Zar. “I’m Liam, and this is Dexter—”

  “We’ve been introduced. Sort of. I’m Gen,” she said. Pointing to the construct, she added, “This is Susan9. I think?”

  “Yes,” the construct said, moving her eyes back and forth to look at us. “I’m Susan9,” she said in the AI’s voice, but her appearance was still that of the naked construct—a tall, dark-skinned woman with burgundy hair and shocking purple eyes. Without warning, her body twitched, and she morphed into an older, olive-skinned man in dress slacks and a lab coat with gray hair, a large nose, and what looked like inventor House tats on his face. “I’m Stephan,” he said in a cultured voice with an accent the computers called Intellectual. The construct twitched again, and as we watched, six different personas emerged: Stephan the inventor, Tomas the security expert, Anastasia the scientist, Maximus the computer expert, Kimber the geneticist, and Laurence the nutritionist.

  “What the hell is this?” Dexter said. “Our own private evil villain starter kit?”

  What the hell was happening?

  Stephan and Anastasia were both older, with gray hair and weathered skin. Tomas and Kimber could have passed for Gemini citizens, their straight black hair and golden skin unmistakable. Laurence had a pale complexion, but his bright blue eyes pegged him as having House Vasilli ancestry. Maximus was a brown-skinned man with a shaved head.

  “If only we had an assassin,” I quipped.

  Gen cleared her throat as the construct morphed back into Susan9, this time with her pale skin, petite frame, and dark straight hair, wearing her navy blue polka dot dress and navy blazer with sensible white pumps. The Eleanor Delicious clone.

  “Technically,” Gen said, “the construct’s original form was an assassin. Susan9 used her corrupted archive and the Solaris Accords as justification for melding the two of them together.”

  “That explains something, but why are there so many? And you know the Solaris Accords won’t protect the AI from the WLA, right?”

  “I think we’re all aware,” Gen said.

  “Yes,” Susan 9 said.

  “Yep,” Dexter added.

  “As long as we’re all on the same page.”

  Looking at Susan9, I said, “Is the morphing to other people going to happen often?”

  “Not if I’m able to gain control,” Susan9 said, “but first I must figure out how to move the body.”

  Dexter snorted. “You can’t move?”

  Susan9’s holographic arm came up and smacked Dexter upside the head, which dispersed his holo-vid, causing it to reform in a different configuration. Gone was the twenty-something in baggy jeans and white tank top. The holo-vid in front of us now was barely legal; a kid in his late teens or early twenties. He was dressed in a black t-shirt with black military-style cargo pants. His skin was the palest I’d ever seen on anyone. His hair was a messy mop of pure white, which matched his eyebrows. I expected his eyes to be pink, to match his obvious Albinism, a very rare genetic disorder that was generally cured in the Petri dish stage of human development, but they were the bright blue of House Vasilli.
Dexter had never said what his House affiliation was or if he was still a corporate citizen. Since I was trying to hide my own past, I’d made it a point to never ask.

  His House tats were extensive for someone so young. He had three lines of glyphs, side by side and staggered, running from his temple, ear, and side of the neck to below the line of his collar. The ink starting at his scalp continued down his arm to each finger on his left hand.

  Dexter flicked his wrist, and what I assumed was his in-real-life holo-vid disappeared.

  “Not cool,” his disembodied voice said.

  Dexter’s holo-vid reappeared a moment later. This time the gangly teen was sporting jeans, sneakers, and a ball cap for the Green Angels, the best Danger Ball team on Tau. His military school dropout look was gone. His hair was still white, but he’d cast an illusion to show his eyes as a normal blue and his skin with a warm creamy complexion.

  The House tats were gone.

  Dexter’s glamour had been part of his persona for as long as I’d known him. I understood why he wanted the anonymity. His age would have been a concern. Had I known he was so young, I might not have hired him. The skin condition was a non-issue, but I assumed he never went out without a glamour. Maybe that was why he hesitated to take on in-person missions. He and I would talk later. If I could help him, I would.

  “Let’s chill,” I said. “Susan9, perhaps you should check the specs on the MHC. Maybe you missed a step.”

  Dexter raised his hand. “Do we really want this thing mobile?”

  His avatar then ducked out of Susan9’s range.

  I held up my hand in a settle down gesture. “I get that we have a problem, but having Susan9 bound to an MHC may make it easier to hide her.”

  “You mean control me,” Susan9 said.

  “No,” Dexter sniped, “he means contain you. The WLA is going to eventually find out. We all know that.”

  “I won’t be that easy to destroy,” Susan9 said.

  “Stop,” Gen said. “Susan9. Do you intend to harm anyone in this room, including Dexter?”

  She narrowed her eyes, which I found unnerving. “No,” she grumbled. “Not unless someone tries to hurt me.”

  "Okay,” Gen said. “Let’s all make a compact. Until this issue is resolved, we will work together to stay safe. We won’t deliberately try to hurt any of us, and Susan9 will avoid exposing herself. We’ll help her learn to control it, whatever it is. Do we all agree?”

  “And if she can’t control it?” I asked.

  “I will shut myself down,” Susan9 said. “If I can’t control it, I will disable myself.”

  “And if you can’t?” Dexter asked.

  “You are allowed to assist,” she said.

  “Okay,” Gen said. “Are we all agreed?”

  Dexter didn’t look convinced, but my concerns were still valid. I would destroy the technology before I let Dalton have it. “As long as House Vance never gets the technology, I’m in.”

  We all looked at Dexter. He shrugged and pulled up a floating panel. “Whatever. Fine. What’s a possible 50-90 year sentence for harboring an AI when we weight it against an all-for-one team experience?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking, but I’d make damn sure this never came back on him.

  Without missing a beat, he said, “The warehouse vid-feeds finally downloaded. I had the spiders grab some footage after we left, too, and then had them self-destruct.”

  “Good call. Let’s see it,” I said.

  “By the way, our girl knows how to slip the stream,” Dexter said.

  What the hell? Did everyone now have House Vance super-secret tech?

  I turned to Gen. “You have JumpNav tech?”

  “I have a lot of stuff in my head,” Gen said. “Things I can’t explain. Spells and knowledge and a crap ton of data. I have no idea if it’s JumpNav or what slip the stream even means, but I can travel from thought. And I don’t have to know where I’m going.”

  “Slip the stream is slang for wormhole travel,” I said. “Nyx Corp trademarked Slip Stream as the name for portal-to-portal travel within the KW. JumpNav is House Vance terminology for the same tech,” I explained. “When did you get this tech?”

  “According to Susan9, I’ve had everything since birth,” Gen said.

  “Then it can’t be JumpNav,” I said.

  “Does it matter what it’s called?” Dexter asked.

  “Not really,” I said. “It just means she has a Zar version.”

  Dexter cleared his throat. “And, um, Wyatt knows she can do it.”

  “Wyatt? How the hell?” I asked.

  “Our Zar Princess here let him into the apartment, then decided to jump out.”

  Gen bristled. “Letting him in was an accident, and there was more to it than that.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. “Where is he now?” I didn’t need the Underworld Doctor in my business.

  “The entire building is locked down,” Dexter said. “He can’t leave his apartment. He’s pissed about that, of course, but we’ll have to deal with it later.”

  “What exactly happened while I was unconscious?” I asked.

  “Let’s watch the vid-feed first,” Dexter said, directing my attention to the floating panel.

  He’d teed up all four video feeds to the point Genevieve materialized in the room. There were four cameras, each showing a different section of the warehouse. Gen was in the upper left, the lab was in the lower left, and the warehouse was on both videos on the right, taken from different angles.

  Susan9 appeared a few seconds after Gen popped in. Gen immediately fell to the floor where we’d found her. Susan9 held her hand over Genevieve’s lab coat pocket, and something in the pocket lit up.

  “Is that a Link?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Gen said, reaching into her pocket and retrieving her device.

  Dexter sped up the video to a point where there was movement. On the right side of the screen that showed the warehouse, a forklift bot started moving. One at a time, the bot pulled out the barrels for another bot to remove the lid. The barrels were then returned.

  The CME was a blue powdery substance that began to flow from the barrels. As if caught by the wind, the powder swirled into the air and traveled through the building to where Genevieve was lying. It swirled around her feet, then started coalescing where Naked Barbie had been standing.

  Dexter sped up the video again. I watched as the time ticked up from 13:00 to just before I’d entered the warehouse. It had taken twelve hours to build the construct.

  The program or spell or whatever the hell had built the construct was on Gen’s data core. Did that mean it could be accessed with her Link? Or was that a feature Susan9 had added once she had permission to Gen’s data?

  Dexter skipped ahead to us leaving. The Peacekeepers that stormed the place weren’t directly from House Vance. They were stealth models sold to paramilitary operations that could be hired to kill governments or political opponents or people with ideas.

  At the head of the pack was a commando I recognized.

  “Ace Larson, The Biker,” Dexter said, recognizing him too. “You must have spooked him and they decided not to wait until the morning.”

  “How exactly did raw CME build the construct?” I asked.

  “It’s morphable,” Dexter said. “Maybe it’s like an OE golem. Weren’t they made of clay?”

  “Those weren’t real,” Gen said. “Were they?”

  I chuckled. “No, they weren’t real, but that doesn’t mean the MHC wasn’t modeled after the idea of them. Which means I might have been closer to the truth than I thought with the missed step idea. The spell isn’t complete. The form is built, but it hasn’t been fully animated.”

  “Explain,” Susan9 said.

  “You found the recipe for making the MHC,” I said, “but what if it needs a spark to complete the process?”

  Susan9 looked at Gen, hopeful.

  “I’ve been sucking up myst and zap
ping the construct with it for a while now,” Gen said. “I’m not sure what else I can do.”

  “Actually,” Dexter said, “I’ve been monitoring your fluctuations. You seem to have leveled out a bit. As if you’ve topped off your reserves and are no longer using it.”

  “People can’t store myst,” I argued.

  Dexter held up his hands. “I’m just saying what I’ve seen. The way she was using the myst is why Wyatt came over here in the first place.”

  “It’s leveled out now?” I asked.

  “I’ll keep monitoring, but as far as I can tell, she’s stable.”

  “Genevieve,” Susan9 said. “Please look for anything I may have missed.”

  “Okay,” Gen said, “but don’t expect much. I’m not exactly an expert on the tech and spells in my head.”

  Using her Link, Gen appeared to search the stream.

  “Isn’t the data on your core?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Gen said, “but I’m still getting used to my VF and I’m more comfortable with using my Link.

  “That’s a serious security risk,” I warned her.

  “You should practice the mental interface,” Dexter said. “Because once you get the hang of it, it will be wicked fast and you won’t need the Link.”

  “Says the guy who uses an old-school keyboard,” I jokingly chided.

  “I use a combination of both, actually,” Dexter said.

  I held up my hands, conceding.

  “Interesting,” Gen said, then closed her eyes. “Wow, that is crazy fast.”

  I waited for more, but it was several seconds until she spoke again.

  “Oh-my-Lucy,” Gen said.

  A few seconds later, dark glyphs formed on her arms.

  “Gen,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve almost got it,” Gen said. “The mental interface is as fluid as thought. Reading the data is intuitive.”

  Dexter pointed to the ink on Gen’s skin. “That’s Live Ink, the patent started by Conor Cortez, which has ties to Harko Royale. She was injected with a serum by House Cortez senior scientist Dr. Robert Monroe. He was trying to kill her. The serum allows her to manifest spells.”