by D L Young
The “guest lounge,” as Nguyen had referred to it, was a holding cell on the FBI’s fifth floor, and it was by far the nicest one Maddox had ever seen. Clean and tidy, the place had a pleasant, flowery aroma. With its high ceiling, tall windows, and low-slung furniture, it might have been the lobby of a tiny hotel—the only difference being two armed guards instead of desk clerks.
Nguyen sat Maddox down on a padded leather bench. He removed the left cuff and locked it onto a polished steel bar running along the bench’s edge. Then he backed up two steps, crossed his arms, and glared down at Maddox. “So how’d you get in?”
Maddox glanced around, looking for cams or listening devices, but found none. But did it matter at this point? He’d been hustled down several corridors by this point, nakedfaced, so by now a detailed scan had surely swept over his face, identifying him and storing the information in an archive somewhere. Probably multiple somewheres. Blackburn Maddox, known datajacker, bar owner, and general fuck up, the entry said, with a timestamp and a location tag. And there was no way of knowing if that information was secure, if eyes outside of the FBI were watching him at this very moment.
He again doubted the wisdom of his unannounced visit to Special Agent Nguyen.
“Look,” Maddox said, “it doesn’t matter how I got in here.”
“I’ll decide what matters and what doesn’t, jacker. Answer the question.”
Maddox took a breath. He had to be patient, he reminded himself. Had to put himself in Nguyen’s shiny wingtip, law-abiding shoes. The man was starting his day, having a coffee, reading the news. Then some criminal appeared in his doorway and dropped a bomb of a story on him.
“I know this is hitting you out of nowhere,” Maddox said, “but you have to hear me out.”
Nguyen looked at him like he was crazy. “I already have.”
Not true, Maddox thought. The agent had only heard a small portion of what Maddox had planned to share with him. Nguyen had slapped cuffs on Maddox’s wrists before he’d been able to get very far into his story. At first, the agent had seemed genuinely intrigued, but at the first mention of ’Nettes and their secret society, Nguyen had apparently heard enough.
“Just hear me out,” Maddox implored him. “Please.”
Nguyen stared at him a moment, then unfolded his arms and sat across the table from the datajacker. “All right,” he said, sighing, “let’s hear your grand tale, jacker.”
Maddox wanted to ask if he could smoke but decided against it. “Like I said in your office, there’s a network of people, thousands of them around the world, all of them connected to a rogue AI by brainjacks.”
Nguyen nodded. “The infamous ’Nettes we’re always hearing about.”
“Right,” Maddox said, going on to explain how he’d become involved with the movement’s leader, a powerful unconstrained AI, and its secret war with another AI, the Latour-Fisher entity.
“As in Latour-Fisher Biotech?” Nguyen asked.
“Yes,” Maddox confirmed. “I worked there for a while.” He went on, recounting the trajectory of his last couple of years. His interactions with both AIs, his failed efforts to distance himself from their ongoing war. He ended with the Latour-Fisher entity’s apparent resurrection and its attempts to kill him.
“That disaster in Manhattan yesterday?” Nguyen asked. “The one I saw on the news?”
Maddox nodded. “That was him…it.”
“I see,” the agent said. Maddox couldn’t tell if Nguyen believed him or any part of the story. There were no telltales at all in the agent’s blank stare. He simply listened as the datajacker related his tale, nodding occasionally. Maddox wasn’t sure if this was good or bad, but at least now—unlike back in his office—the man seemed receptive enough to listen.
“And then I came to your office,” Maddox said, then added, “and that’s it.”
The agent’s blank unblinking stare didn’t change.
“You think I’m full of it, don’t you?” Maddox asked.
“Are you?” Nguyen asked.
God, Maddox wanted a cigarette. “Does anyone ever answer yes to that question?”
The agent chuckled, finally breaking his expressionless gaze. “Probably not.” Nguyen blew out a long breath and leaned back in his chair. “Do you know how many people show up at this office every week with that ’Nette conspiracy nonsense?” He waved his hand dismissively. “Rogue AIs and all that business?”
“I’m telling you,” Maddox said, “I’m not some crazy—”
“You need to get help, man,” Nguyen interrupted. “I think all that time you’ve spent plugged into virtual space has warped your mind.” He leaned forward. “You’re seeing things that aren’t there, jacker. Now, listen to me carefully. If you’re smart, which, delusions aside, I think you are, as soon as you leave here, you’ll get yourself to a good neurologist and have them give you a brain scan.”
Maddox’s shoulders slumped as the truth hit him like a body blow. Nguyen hadn’t taken a single word he’d said seriously. The agent thought he was crazy. Like one of those street-corner cranks holding a THE END IS NEAR sign. Maddox hadn’t expected that. He’d been prepared for surprise, shock, even a fair amount of healthy skepticism. But blown off as some kook? No, he hadn’t seen that one coming.
Things were not looking up.
Mindjacked Chapter 2 - Playing with Fire
“Can I smoke?” Maddox asked.
“Absolutely not,” Nguyen said.
Outside the room’s narrow window, the morning rush hour was in full swing. Five stories down, pedestrians moved along walkways and ground cars rolled slowly by. There were no megastructures here, only a scattering of tall standalone buildings. The greater Washington, D.C. area marked the southern boundary of the City. In a bygone era, long before Maddox was born, the City’s population clusters had once been separate metropolitan centers: New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. Then over time, like separate corals coming together to form a giant reef, the cities had gradually grown into one another, eventually forming a continuous, massive urban archipelago known simply as the City, home to an estimated hundred million residents. Of the City’s five population clusters, four of them were teeming hives of densely packed, overcrowded buildings. D.C., where Maddox found himself now, was the sole exception, its local officials having managed to exert some measure of control over its urban sprawl. He found it hard not to gaze in wonder at the world outside the window. Unlike home, where towering structures blocked out everything but a narrow strip of clouds far overhead, here he could see the whole of the blue sky, the view virtually unimpeded. He might have even found the view pleasant, had his morning been anything other than a complete failure.
Maddox turned to Nguyen. “Do I strike you as someone who’s nuts?”
The agent shrugged. “Not particularly.”
“So why the knee jerk reaction, then? You really think I’d risk coming here—breaking in here—if I didn’t have a good reason to? Why not check out my story?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Nguyen laced his fingers together and placed his hands on the tabletop. A calm, collected gesture that somehow managed to project condescension. Maddox felt a lecture coming on.
“AIs have put a lot of people out of work in the last fifty or so years. Some want to see them as the enemy, as soulless, job-stealing monsters. So they make up stories. They invent conspiracies.” He leaned forward. “Rogue AIs are a sci-fi movie fantasy, Maddox. They don’t exist. And this cult of people with brainjacks, these so-called ’Nettes people talk about—they’ve been an urban legend for years. There’s not an ounce of truth to it.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
“Because we’ve investigated it, dozens of times over the years. And on tips far more credible than yours.”
“What?” Maddox said, stunned. “You’ve investigated it?”
“Not me personally,
but the bureau. And nothing ever came of it. Not once. All that stuff is an inside joke around here.”
“Just because you couldn’t find them,” Maddox said, though the lack of conviction in his voice was unmistakable, “doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
“Said every conspiracy theorist ever,” Nguyen added. Then after a moment, he said, “Look, I’ve got the heaviest caseload I’ve had in months, and the last thing I need is to lose the rest of my morning arresting you, getting charges filed, and handing you off to some pain-in-the-ass prosecutor. So I’m going to do you a huge favor. I’m going to walk you out of this building right now, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll drop all this conspiracy junk and get your head checked out.” Then he pointed a finger in warning. “But if you ever think about bothering me or anyone else around here again with this craziness, I’ll throw the book at you so hard you’ll wish you never got anywhere near me or this building.” He glared at the datajacker, saying nothing more.
Maddox exhaled in frustration and turned his gaze back to the window. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. For the general population, the nameless rogue entity and its followers were nothing more than an urban legend, like Nguyen had said. Only the most gullible, fringe types believed in the existence of their secret cult. But Maddox had assumed the FBI would know otherwise, or at least have some suspicion there might be some truth behind the myth. Apparently, the nameless AI and her followers had kept themselves hidden far better than Maddox ever suspected.
It had been naive, maybe even stupid, to assume he’d be able to cut a deal with the FBI as easily as he could with the shady types he normally negotiated with. He should have expected Nguyen not to take him at his word. It was a hell of a story, he admitted inwardly, and without a shred of supporting evidence, Maddox might not have believed it himself, had the two men’s positions been reversed.
Still, he had one card left to play.
“Agent Nguyen,” he said evenly, “tell me something. Why haven’t you asked me why I came to see you?”
“Didn’t you just tell me why?”
“I don’t mean what I told you. I mean why I came to you, in particular.”
Nguyen’s eyes narrowed. “My bad luck, I suppose.”
“Come on,” Maddox said. “Aren’t you the least bit curious how I even know your name? Seeing as before today, we’ve never met or had any interaction whatsoever. You can’t possibly think it’s bad luck, can you, that I showed up in your office, of all the ones I might have chosen.”
Nguyen’s expression dropped. “What are you getting at?”
“So right about now, you’re wondering what I know and what I don’t know,” Maddox said. “About you, about what went down in Manhattan last year with that NYPD bribery scandal, about how dirty your hands got while you were there on the case.”
The agent’s mouth dropped open. Maddox finally had the man’s full, sober attention. And as satisfying as it was to make the smug grin on Nguyen’s face disappear, Maddox knew he couldn’t let himself get distracted by relishing the moment. He’d just poked a hornet’s nest.
“You’re not going to arrest me,” Maddox said. “And it’s not because of your caseload. It’s because you don’t want me putting anything on the record. Because you don’t know what I might say, and you don’t know if that’ll lead back to your little professional indiscretions back in Manhattan. Isn’t that why you brought me here?” Maddox gestured around to the blank walls. “To this particular room, with no cams or listening devices? So whatever I said wouldn’t be transcribed, archived away, and chewed over by some AI? That’s the last thing you want to happen, isn’t it?”
The agent’s surprise melted into unfettered anger. He clenched his jaw and stood up slowly. “You’re playing with fire, jacker. I’d be very careful if I were you.”
Nguyen turned on his heel and left the room, leaving an armed guard stationed outside the door.
Relieved he hadn’t been punched in the face, Maddox sat there with no cards left to play. It had been a ruse, of course. He had no intention of letting anyone know about the FBI agent’s questionable dealings, since doing so might land him in as much hot water as Nguyen. All Maddox wanted was a chance to prove he wasn’t full of it, and maybe now he’d get that chance. And maybe after that, he could negotiate a deal. He sighed. There were too many maybes for his liking.
Had his last card been a brilliant ploy or a foolish bluff? He’d find out soon enough, he supposed.
Christ, what he wouldn’t do for a smoke right now.
**END OF PREVIEW**
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Acknowledgments
My sincerest thanks to Audie Wallbrink, Ki Harrison, and Darren Oram, three daring souls who once again braved the unchartered territory of an early draft in this series. Thank you all so much for your help!
Thanks also to Holly Walrath, my incomparable editor, and to Eliza Dee for her amazing line edits.
Copyright
CYBERPUNK CITY BOOK THREE
The Blayze War
By
D.L. Young
Copyright Notice
©2020 David L. Young. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, or distributed without the expressed written permission of the Author.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this novel are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN-10: 1-7346522-4-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-7346522-4-6
Cover art by Ignacio Bazan-Lazcano