The Brutus Code

by John Lane

  “I don’t know. It may be a memory, or just a hunch. Can your micro avatars access the inside of the box?” she asked.

  “I’m doing it now. This is a very tightly machined unit,” Alfred shared. Agnes followed the progress on her monitor. She saw the locations of the spiders as each explored the unit for a way in. Finally, one squeezed into the lid. Inside displayed a bug’s eye view of the two slots for media units. Where Agnes’ had the slots and no players, this unit had one empty and one full slot. The media unit had a Quick Response code on it.

  Alfred scanned the code and said, “The code reads Christine’s name and gives a document of her condition.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “There’s more,” he continued. “The document contains information for the antivirus and cure. The other slot has Annie Judson’s name and her condition as well as the antivirus information.”

  Dr. Ann monitored their progress from her isolated media unit in the medical bay. She interjected, “I have no record of an antivirus in any of my memories. As I scan information about Christine, there are holes. It’s strange, but I never even thought to look for my own, sorry, Annie’s medical records. They are locked. Why would she do that? As her avatar I could have treated her.”

  As Tommy slid into the bay and took a seat, Alfred explained. “I called Tommy. He needs to be here. Annie’s condition indicates that she is the true patient zero. She carries the antivirus within her casket. She has made herself a weapon against this biological threat.”

  They all took a moment to digest this information. Then Agnes crawled under her own casket. “What are you doing?” Tommy asked.

  “Everyone who has a casket has a media player. Annie, Christine,” she answered. “In a good design there is redundancy. Since Dr. Ann is a copy of Annie, I’m going to assume that the media player in Christine’s casket should hold a copy of her personality. My casket had two empty slots and no matrix scan code that we could see.” She grabbed a micro scanner from her toolbox and crawled under her own casket removing access panels. Her muffled voice sounded a moment later, “Ah ha!” Agnes crawled out from under her casket holding the scanner. “Here Alfred, let’s run this ultraviolet scan through a filter to get better resolution.” She found the residue of the matrix codes on both interfaces.

  “The first is incomplete, but this slot is for a media player that bears Agnes’ name. We might assume that there was a media player with a virtual Agnes here. The scoring on the interface shows that it was used, but not for over sixty years.”

  “I have a copy out there somewhere,” Agnes said with a mixture of shock and excitement. “It holds my history and my memories. Who is the second interface for?”

  “It is for your father, Caesar Zephyr,” Alfred answered.

  “Nothing else?” Tommy asked. With no reply, he said, “It’s late. Get to bed.” He saw Agnes’ exhaustion. Maybe tonight she’ll get some sleep, he thought.

  But she didn’t. She awoke later with a piercing headache. Dr. Ann gave her something for the pain. Once she could think past the pain, she remembered the dream. She was running down a long hall to her laboratory at home. She couldn’t see what was chasing her, but she knew she had to get to her casket. This time there was no Ogre blocking her path. This dream was more memory. She had climbed into her casket and given the code, “Flush me,” to an Ai, and then she panicked as she remembered she didn’t have her media player installed. It was still sitting on her workbench just a few steps away. She pounded against the sealed lid of her casket in her dream. Then she woke up.

  If only Tommy and Anne Judson-Ai hadn’t dug into Annie’s media player and found the medical database they wouldn’t have found her home system. But it still came back to her. Her headaches and dreams of her home persisted. Agnes insisted they follow this lead. Maybe the headaches would stop and she hoped they found answers.

  *****

  All of these improbable decisions and discoveries led her here with her nephew hanging outside that hanger door waiting to die. No, not to die, waiting for Agnes to do a job she didn’t even know she knew how to do.

  All the circuits and data chips fit so easily in place as she worked to reconstruct the interface. The massive mess they were in worried Agnes. She could fix it. She wasn’t sure she could fix it in time for Tommy to dock. Then she had to find the correct access code to override the control Ai and allow their modern ship to be identified by this antique system.

  “Thirty minutes. Wind is picking up,” Tommy updated her.

  “Alfred, check the red line, please.”

  “I have a clean signal,” Alfred replied.

  “Thank you. And now the yellow,” Agnes continued entering a focused state of concentration. She neither rushed nor gave up. Alfred noticed that her efficiency increased as time ran out. “Good, now try some access codes, please,” Agnes requested.

  Alfred could not directly access the software through the port that Agnes repaired. His avatar manipulated a keypad to enter code. Not as efficient as a direct link, they could not risk setting off any security software that would see Alfred as a threat. The first four attempts failed, and the message appeared on the small screen above the keypad, “Incorrect password. You have five more tries available.” As a mining settlement security was not a premium when the settlement was established. “No good on standard access codes,” Alfred shared with his crew.

  Agnes tripped a couple of circuits and switched three more connections. “Try again.”

  Incorrect password. You have four more tries available. The message glared back at both Agnes and Alfred’s avatar. “Try this code,” Tommy signaled a universal Postal Service access code and Alfred entered it.

  “Still no good,” Agnes groaned. She hummed a tune aloud.

  “What is that?” Alfred asked. “I cannot identify it in any data bases.”

  “I’m not sure. I started hearing the melody in my head as I was repairing the ship’s systems. It calms me and focuses me while I work on difficult problems,” Agnes replied.

  “Three minutes until full atmospheric emersion,” Tommy signaled. “The wind is bad out here.”

  Agnes left her channel open as she worked. She entered another code she hoped she remembered. Two more attempts glowed back at her now. “Ann, is there anything in your memories that might help?”

  “No, Annie had moved away from this planetoid before she could read. Her memories are of childhood stories. She never had access to the hanger or functions of the settlement.”

  Agnes now focused harder, pulling a power unit and testing its level before reattaching it to the access panel. “Ta dum, ta dum, ta dum te dah tum.” She sang aloud to help her focus.

  “The monkey chased the weasel,” Ann sang the lyric. “I know this tune.”

  “I do, too,” Tommy chimed in. “The monkey thought t’was all in fun...”

  “Pop goes the weasel,” suddenly popped into her head as she sang the lyric. “The notes.” Agnes taped in the intervals of the notes on the access keypad. There was a grinding of motors within the hanger and dust fell from the rafters. A crack opened in the center of the hanger bay doors as light spilled in and wind blew from outside.

  “You got it,” Ann signaled, and the others joined in to congratulate Agnes.

  “Don’t get too excited. These doors haven’t opened in almost a century.” Agnes was right. They opened only enough for Tommy to taxi the shuttle into the protection of the bay, but the doors had difficulty cycling through the closing sequence. They ground to a stop and remained stuck open by six feet.

  “I’ve got this. Just give me a minute, and yes I know we may not have that with the wind picking up,” Alfred said. He sent his avatar into the rafters of the hanger to the door mechanism. Moments later the door closed.

  Agnes joined Tommy as he exited the shuttle. “We’re in and trapped for at least the next ninety hours,” she said.

  “Yup,” Tommy replied. He shined a flashlight through the dus
t clouds in the hanger. “Which way?”

  “Over here.” Following her instinct and hazy memories, Agnes led the way to an elevator shaft. The lift had long ago lost power and settled to the bottom of the shaft. “I guess we’ve got some climbing to do.” Agnes sniffled back her running nose and unhooked a safety line. Hooking one end around a protruding structural support, one carabineer to her suit and the other to Tommy, descended into the shaft. A humanoid avatar and several spider avatars followed them down the shaft into the darkness of Agnes’ past.

  *****

  Tania slipped into the Tattoo Parlor and looked back guiltily. Some of the feeling was well earned. She’d put this operation together herself and was determined to follow the code where it led. She decided that she was the best qualified to confront the code when she found it. The rest of her guilty glance fit her cover. She was playing a disenfranchised intelligence analyst looking to get out and find excitement away from the rows of cubicles where her talents were wasted for a government that doesn’t appreciate her.

  She’d done her homework. This profile was a common theme across the list of recruits she had profiled in her research on the pirates active in this sector. The break came when she saw Sheriff Johnson’s action report on the station attack. The tattoo designs on each pirate created the list, and her analysis had revealed the pattern.

  Sutton hadn’t liked her operational plan, especially putting Tania in the field. That’s why Sutton had vetoed the plan knowing that Tania would go anyway. Tania had the training just as the last war ended. It was because of her high scores she became an analyst. It was either that or find a job outside the intelligence field and Tania was too driven for that. So she did her spying behind a desk.

  Now, as her eyes adjusted, she began to have some doubts as to the wisdom of going into the field. The soul inhabitant of the shop sat at a counter, flipping through pages of tattoo art on his tablet. He perked up when a possible canvas walked through the door. “Well, hello there sweetie. What can we do for you today?”

  “Interested in a tattoo design,” Tania said, advancing deeper into the darkness.

  “Well, of course. Did you have something in mind?” said Tattoo Man, his short rotund form moving from behind the counter. He was still dressed from neck to toe in a pink plastic smock and leggings. His droopy eyes darted around taking Tania in from under heavy eyelids. Tania’s reflection showed in his glassy pupils.

  “My friends recommended you. They said I might find the change more exciting, and they had one of these.” Tania showed the scythe design of Zephyr INC on a piece of real paper. “Of course their design was more,” she paused for effect and meaning, “visceral.”

  The Tattoo Man flashed a weak grin showing no teeth. “Right this way, pretty lady,” he said as he gestured toward a complicated chair with hinged pads and straps. Tania sat down, anticipating an interrogation to see where she got her intel on the pirate operation. Instead, as she sat back in the chair, she felt a sting on her cheek. As she lost consciousness, she saw a woman’s head grinning at her from the ceiling above.

  “Nice shot,” the Tattoo Man said as he dissolved into the specks of light that made him. “Get back with her casket. I have some questions for Tania Smith. How are you getting her off the station?” The sound of his voice reverberated through the room.

  What remained of Cassie Anderson, the Angel Reaper, slid from the ceiling and landed on top of Tania, straddling her with tentacle legs and lifting her body. “Through the sewer,” she said, placing Tania in a casket hidden under the chair. “She’ll get flushed out with the garbage and we pick her up on our way out of the system.”

  “Good,” the disembodied voice of Brutus faded away.

  With a last look from the Angel Reaper’s fleshless skull, the lid snapped shut on Tania. Her casket slid with a splash into the sewer beneath the Tattoo Parlor.

  Outside the Tattoo shop, a tourist sat having her portrait completed. “The package is delivered,” she shared.

  “Thank you,” the artist replied as he added highlights to her smile.

  “I don’t like putting her in play.”

  “I know. Tania knows the risk and going in with the truth will keep her alive a little longer. And she has the training,” the artist’s replied.

  “Control has no access to her now,” Sutton’s said.

  “Not directly.”

  “How many do we lose?”

  “Too many and as many as it takes,” the artist and painting faded away as the masquerading tourist, Admiral Sutton stood and walked out of the alley of shops back to the main thoroughfare.

  *****

  Tommy and Agnes had repelled to the bottom of the shaft. The lights on their helmets picked up the dust particles in the atmosphere as they looked around. Their steps kicked up even more clouds of dust as they moved to the door. Tommy hefted a large pipe from the remains of the lift car and wedged open the door.

  As they stepped into the carpeted hallway of a residential level, lights came on. A panel activated in the wall opposite the lift. “Access code, please,” a pleasant Ai asked. Agnes looked at Tommy and shrugged. She had no idea what to do.

  “Ah, I’m Agnes Zephyr. I’ve forgotten my access code. Help menu, please.”

  The screen shifted to a palm shape. “Hand print and DNA requested access,” it said.

  “This is going to be cold,” Agnes complained as she took off the glove of her suit. Placing her palm on the panel, it scanned her and then she felt a prick on her finger where a sample of blood was taken. Agnes quickly replaced the glove and rubbed her hand to get the circulation that the subfreezing temperatures had stolen from her.

  “Please follow the wall indicators to your apartment.” Tommy and Agnes, followed by Alfred’s avatars, traced a broken line of lights on the wall deeper into the facility. It led them to a platform that opened into a large underground highway. Darkness cloaked everything except the platform. The design of this settlement was common for many of the larger settlements on the Frontier. In mining communities of one to two hundred thousand souls, they had dug into a planetoid. The entire community lived in tunnels under the surface. The large highways were for personal transport and moving supplies, equipment and ore on automated trucks and trams.

  Agnes looked around confused. This was her home, but she remembered none of it. “This way, I think,” she said cautiously as she turned to her left, took two steps and then reversed to her right. Now more sure she strode off with her companions following. Her suit light landed on several tramcars sitting in a queue waiting to be boarded and take their passengers to a destination. When they got to the cars they could see that the first tram in the line was inoperable. It listed to one side, and the last car of the tram rested off the tracks. The next two had no power. The last one looked like it could carry them, but with two others in the way, they couldn’t move. “Oh, well. It was a good idea.” As Agnes said this, three cargo trams sped by, kicking up dust from the apparently deserted highway.

  “Can’t hike either,” Tommy noted. He panned his light around and found what looked like a control booth sitting to the rear of the platform. “Agnes, look.”

  “Hmmm, let’s see.” Agnes forced the door open and slipped into the booth. “I might be able to work with this,” she said. Ducking under the counter, she restored power to the monitors and control links. “Okay I’ll pull up the schematics of the local tracks. Here we are,” she spoke to herself as much as Tommy to help her focus. “Just need to order a maintenance bot to recover the dead trams and route them to the shed.” As she said this, the bots rolled up, lifted the dead trams onto their truck and sped away. “That should do it. But I’m surprised it worked at all. All of these systems should be shut down.”

  “Yeah. It’s warmer,” Tommy observed. He held out one of Alfred’s spiders. “Breathable?”

  “My sample indicates it will be. The oxygen, nitrogen content is rising. Air pressure is increasing, and the temperature continues t
o rise. There is a stiff breeze blowing up from below this level through the ventilation shafts. I would surmise that this level has been abandoned, but there appears to be functioning systems below,” Alfred reported.

  “If it wasn’t creepy enough coming back to a home I can’t remember. Now it’s alive, and we’re trapped here for four days,” Agnes quipped. “Should we go on, Tommy?”

  Tommy could have reminded her that this was her idea or that the only lead they had to find his mother led them to this haunted settlement. He could have given any number of reasons to stop now and go back. But he knew somehow that it was his job at that moment, to be an emotional support for Agnes. So he put his helmet’s faceplate against hers and said only, “Yes.” Then he smiled.

  Hearing what she needed Agnes’ humor returned as she nodded and said, “In that case, our chariot awaits. All aboard.” They took seats in the first car of the tram, placing their pack of supplies on the floor. At another hand scanner Agnes took her glove off again, noting the temperature had risen, but still feeling cold on her skin. She placed her hand on the panel and said, “Zephyr quarters, please.” A chime sounded, and the tram pulled away from the station, shuttering with spits and coughs of the motor resisting years of abandonment.

  The tram pulled out onto the highway and took a spiral path deeper into the planetoid. As they descended, the air continued to grow warmer and breathable. Neither Tommy nor Agnes trusted this good fortune, yet. Alfred sent gnats, small winged versions of his smallest spider avatars, ahead of the tram to scout. “So far nothing out of the ordinary for an active mining colony. Which only make’s it very extraordinary that we are finding these conditions in a deserted planetoid,” Alfred commented.