Binary Storm

by Christopher Hinz

  Olinda continued. “The World Bank maintains a for-profit arm that brings in heaps of cash, all of which is supposed to flow into the bank’s general fund. But a few months ago there was an incident of serious fraud on the profit side. I won’t go into all the details. Suffice it to say, the perpetrator was caught. He was a mid-level manager. I was brought in as part of the interrogation team to see if we could track down the extent of his damage.

  “I knew right away the perp was binary, a tway. He’d been well trained to hide it but I’d spent enough years with my husband to be able to spot the signs. I didn’t tell the rest of the team. But after we finished with him and he was turned over to the authorities, I launched my own private investigation.

  “This manager insisted he’d acted alone but I knew he couldn’t have pulled off fraud of this magnitude without help from someone much higher up the food chain. The bank has a large board of directors, more than twice the size of E-Tech’s. One of those people had to have been in on the scam.

  “I wasn’t able to ID this person. And they’re too well insulated for me to probe any deeper, not without alerting all the directors that they’re being investigated. But yesterday, the financial manipulations I’d uncovered crystalized into something solid. I have incontrovertible evidence of Codrus’s hand in all this. Bottom line, I’ve confirmed that one of his tways is a World Bank director.

  “Last year, not long before my husband was found out, he overhead Sappho and Theophrastus talking about Codrus, about the fact that one of his tways was in charge of a large international organization with satellite locations in nearly every country.”

  “But not the World Bank.”

  “No, he’s only a director there. Codrus apparently had been complaining about the duties of running this massive organization, that it kept him too busy traveling, and that he missed being able to be in the same physical location as his other tway. Unfortunately, the organization’s name wasn’t mentioned.”

  “That leaves a pretty big list of suspects,” Bel said. There were thousands of businesses, institutions and agencies with such global reach.

  “True enough. But the conversation led Ektor to conclude that this organization was so time-consuming that he had no hours left for being a bank director or an E-Tech regent.”

  Bel’s excitement grew as she grasped the impact of that statement. “Then Codrus’s other tway, our mole, must also be the same tway who’s the bank director.”

  “Exactly.”

  Olinda withdrew a folded piece of paper from an inner pocket, passed it across the table as the faux-Nicole Kidman arrived with their lunch. Ektora had drifted to sleep while they were talking. Olinda placed the baby back inside the strap-on carrier and dug into her meal.

  Bel opened the folded paper. It was a short list, just three names.

  Olinda forked a clump of lettuce from her salad, froze the utensil at the edge of her lips.

  “These are the only three regents who also serve as directors of the World Bank. One of them is your mole.”

  Fifty

  Nick sat in the control room of the training warehouse, mulling over Bel’s latest news, that she’d hired Olinda Shining as her new chief assistant.

  He had mixed feelings about the surprise reappearance of Ektor Fang’s wife. On one hand, presuming Olinda was correct and her list of three suspects valid, she’d paved the way for a plan that could finally expose the Codrus tway among the regents. On the other hand, he just couldn’t bring himself to completely trust a servitor.

  Sosoome had calculated that there was a three percent chance that Olinda Shining was actually a Paratwa double agent dispatched to infiltrate the office of the E-Tech director.

  “Still, ninety-seven percent trustworthy ain’t bad,” the mech had added. “Hell, dude, that’s a higher rating than I give you.”

  Nick had to admit the odds were with them moving forward with his plan. Still, even presuming Olinda was on the level, he’d never liked the effect she had on Bel. From their very first meeting more than a year ago, Bel seemed to regard the wife of a Paratwa assassin as some kind of long-lost soul mate. He didn’t understand how the two of them could be so simpatico.

  He’d toyed with the idea of an intervention, confronting Bel with a stack of evidence on the devious nature of servitors in general, on how they all too frequently betrayed humanity. He knew what she’d say, that Olinda was different from those others. In any case, he’d held off. A confrontation might push her even farther into Olinda’s corner. Besides, there was already enough tension between them with Bel’s desire for a baby.

  She’d been increasingly bringing up the idea of her getting pregnant, which he’d been resisting. He didn’t think she’d trick him into a pregnancy. Just to be on the safe side, he’d switched over to an even more potent spermicide. Bottom line, he had no intention of being a biodad, not with the whole goddamn world unable to pull out of its crash dive. Not today, not tomorrow.

  Not ever again.

  Then why don’t I have an irreversible vasectomy, permanently put the issue to bed, so to speak?

  He wasn’t sure. He supposed that deep down, avoiding that option had something to do with the fundamental notion of his masculinity, the idea that his seed should remain vibrant even though he had no intention of ever planting it anywhere.

  His attention was snared by an exterior surveillance cam. A driverless van pulled off the dark evening street and slid into the warehouse garage. Interior cams revealed Gillian and the team disembarking from the back of the vehicle.

  Moments later, the four of them entered the control room. Nick hopped up on a stool and opened a two-liter bottle of cabernet sauvignon imported from the fledgling space Colonies. Wine was one of the few products being exported to Earth and oenophiles were claiming that grapes raised in the agricultural cylinder of Lamalan, where the wine was bottled, boasted a flavor unrivaled by any earthly vineyard. Nick wasn’t enough of a connoisseur to make such distinctions but at nine thousand dollars a bottle, his hopes were running high.

  “Congratulations!” he exclaimed, pouring the wine into a line of goblets and handing them out. “You four are the men of the moment!”

  His upbeat reaction was more than a bit forced, as it had been following the team’s other recent triumphs. But after twenty-three straight Paratwa kills, it was hard to match the genuine excitement he’d felt after their earliest victories.

  Still, number twenty-three was unique and worth a special celebration. For the first time, the team had faced one of the premier breeds, a Voshkof Rabbit, combat-trained by Russia’s reincarnated KGB. Nick had been more nervous than usual observing the battle through the live feeds from the team’s helmet cams.

  In an alley behind the Push ‘n’ Shove speedball arena in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Slag, Basher and Stone Face had performed to perfection. Their fluid yet precise mix of lunges and feints – attacking one tway, defending against the other – had kept the assassin off balance. But as always, it was Gillian and his incredible skill with the Cohe that made the difference.

  Basher grinned at Nick’s praise and downed five hundred dollars worth of cabernet in a single gulp. Slag sipped the wine slowly while Stone Face gently swirled his goblet to aerate the beverage. Gillian took an infinitesimal sip and set the glass aside.

  “A fantastic accomplishment,” Nick went on. “I mean, wow, think about it! You guys took down a Voshkof Rabbit!”

  “Fuck yeah, we did,” Basher said with a mad grin, swallowing the rest of his wine and extending the glass. Nick gave him a refill.

  “So, any problems or issues we need to review?” Nick asked. He’d do a formal debriefing in the morning but always liked to ask the question with the battle only hours old and their memories still fresh.

  “It was a clean kill,” Gillian said, staring intensely at some spot in the distance.

  “All good, mate,” Slag added. “No worries.”

  Basher agreed. “So much for one of those kick
ass Voshkofs. Just another twofer. Sucker went down like a bowl of rabbit-fucking-stew!”

  Nick repressed an urge to warn Basher against getting too cocky. But he kept his mouth shut. This was, after all, a victory celebration. There’d be time enough tomorrow for reviewing his notes, mostly a series of minor criticisms he’d noted during the battle. He dished out a similar list after every victory.

  “You see me put the screamer out of its misery?” Basher asked.

  “I did,” Nick said.

  “Did you see his fuckin’ head implode?”

  “It was hard to miss.”

  Gillian had killed the Rabbit’s first tway, which was the inevitable way the team’s battles ended. The crazed survivor, aka the screamer, was then finished off by one of the soldiers. Lately, Basher had been doing the honors, silencing the Paratwa’s horrendous racket by setting his thruster to microburst and pressing the barrel against the tway’s forehead.

  “Want to know something I figured out about screamers?” Basher asked, motioning with his goblet for another refill. “Want to know why they carry on like that?”

  “Bisectional hemiosis,” Nick said.

  “Nah, that’s not it at all. It’s because they’re angry. They can’t deal with the fact that they’re dead. It pisses ’em off.”

  Basher laughed heartily, inordinately pleased by his observation. No one joined in.

  Nick offered a few more choice words of praise but he could tell the four of them were losing interest. That wasn’t surprising. Their string of triumphs had produced a jaded cynicism, a sense of boredom with the routine of it all.

  Of course, there was nothing routine about going up against a Paratwa assassin, something he endlessly reminded them. Still, a growing monotony had become apparent of late, particularly among the soldiers.

  They continued to perform at peak levels. The problem came at these down times, between kills. As soon as Nick’s computer programs identified the location of a new potential target and Gillian approved the selection, they’d be all business again and train rigorously for the next mission. Under Gillian’s tutelage, the practice sessions would be tailored for the breed they were going up against.

  Nick tried to offset the monotony with extravagant bonuses and other perks. After their last victory against an assassin from the Loshito breed in the south of France, he’d given the four of them an unlimited weekend pass to Marseille-sec’s famed Palais des Prostituées, said to employ the most exquisitely trained sex workers in all of Europe.

  But such offerings were losing their effectiveness. Slag, once the most talkative member of the team, of late offered only the most cursory remarks, keeping his thoughts tightly leashed. Basher, besides taking an unhealthy delight in the blood-and-guts aspects of the battles, was drinking way too much. Stone Face, who had developed an odd relationship with Nick’s son, had never seemed quite the same since Weldon’s passing. The big man spoke even less these days and withdrew more deeply into his vintage books.

  Nick had tried other appeals to keep them motivated. He frequently pointed out that the continuing success of Humanity’s Avenger remained a bright spot and a source of hope in a world growing ever more dismal and pessimistic. Still, even those reminders seemed to be having less of an impact of late.

  One of the problems was a backlash from the public. Its earlier pride in the team’s accomplishments was morphing into less savory emotions. On the black market for assassinations, the Ash Ock had upped the price on the team to a hundred million dollars if taken alive, ten percent of that amount upon proof of death via intact bodies.

  The net was exploding with discussions on how best to collect such prizes. A large portion of the citizenry who earlier had cheered the team’s successes was now making underground wagers about when and how a Paratwa would finally take them down. VAHA lotteries – Victory against Humanity’s Avenger – were springing up all over the world.

  Basher polished off the rest of his goblet. He snatched the bottle from Nick’s hand, upended it and took a long guzzle.

  “I’m outta here,” he said. “Anybody in the mood for some serious partying?”

  Slag and Stone Face took him up on the offer, leaving Gillian and Nick alone in the control room.

  “They’re getting jaded,” Gillian said. “Overconfident.”

  “I’m glad you noticed. What can we do about it?”

  “Up the ante. We need to go after even bigger fish. The team wasn’t ready a year ago but now I believe we are. I want us to take on Yiska.”

  Nick was abruptly reminded of that famous old business theory, the Peter Principle, whereby managers were promoted until they reached the level of their incompetence. Applied to the current situation, it meant that Gillian and the team would seek to fight ever more dangerous assassins until they reached the level of their incompetence.

  At which point, the assassin would win and they would die.

  He shook off such dismal thoughts. “I see what you’re saying. Escalate the challenge, keep the team focused. But there’s just one little problem. I can’t locate Yiska.” A good thing, since I still don’t think you’re ready.

  “Not enough data?” Gillian asked.

  “Just the opposite.”

  When it came to Yiska, there was more than enough information about his movements. Since the slaughter at E-Tech headquarters, the Shonto Prong had been among the most active of the assassins.

  Nick’s tracking programs were based on ferreting out subtle patterns in the deeds and movements of the assassins. However, certain Paratwa like Yiska and the deadliest of the Jeeks, including Reemul and Meridian, didn’t fit neatly into any of his probability matrixes. Such Paratwa remained ciphers, their actions unpredictable.

  “Yiska’s like a piece on a chessboard that doesn’t move in accordance with logical rules,” he said.

  Gillian gave a thoughtful nod. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. But it’s more than just unpredictability. There are things about Yiska that don’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing, the fact he’s shifted from Pa to Ma killings. Why would he do that?”

  Nick shrugged. Since the attack on E-Tech, it was certainly true. Prior to that, all of Yiska’s known killings had targeted a single person or a small group. But over the past year, he’d been leaving a trail of destruction that encompassed more than a dozen mass annihilations. The pinpoint assassinations typical of his breed, and his own earlier exploits, had been abandoned.

  Last month he’d attacked a science lecture hall at the University of Oxford in England. The target had been a professor who’d published a paper suggesting that binaries, despite their great prowess, were fundamentally inferior to humans on a genetic level.

  Yiska had killed the professor and then, for no apparent good reason, slaughtered everyone in the hall as well as a number of citizens outside. Equally confusing, Cohe wands and thrusters remained his primary weapons of choice rather than the bombs, poisons or micronukes more characteristic of Ma-type killings.

  “It’s a mystery,” Nick concluded. “I can’t get a handle on it either. At any rate, our only hope of locating an assassin like that would probably be to have a deep throat within the Royal Caste.”

  He could have added, someone as highly placed as Ektor Fang. But Gillian had been kept in the dark about the Du Pal, who’d been dead almost a year now. Nick saw no reason to loop him into the matter at this juncture.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “it’s all moot. Certain assassins we’re just not going to be able to take on.”

  But Gillian wasn’t deterred. “If we defeated Yiska, it would be a big morale boost for the team. And a real shot in the arm to everyone associated with E-Tech. They’re losing the high ground, you know. More people are favoring unlimited technology as the world’s ultimate salvation.”

  “I know,” Nick said, taking his first sip of wine. It wasn’t dreadful but he’d tasted better. Even with the high transportation
charges to bring it down from the Colonies, the bottle was overpriced.

  “We need to think outside the box,” Gillian said.

  Nick shrugged. In truth, he’d fantasized about the team killing Yiska as a kind of weird gift to Bel. That was about as far outside the box as one could get. But the devil was in the details.

  He knew why Gillian kept pushing the issue. It wasn’t like he really cared about such abstract notions as the good of the team or E-Tech morale. The tway of Empedocles was driven by an almost fanatical hunger to hunt the assassins. It was a hunger that, unlike the motivations of the soldiers, seemed to grow more intense with each new kill, driving him to seek ever more dangerous game.

  “We’re talking in circles here,” Nick said. “Bottom line, we’re limited to going after assassins we can find.”

  “What if there was another way?”

  He sighed. Gillian had a bone and wouldn’t let go. “I’m listening.”

  “I know how to make Yiska come to us. We just need to offer the right kind of incentive.”

  Gillian unleashed his idea, which he’d obviously been considering well before this evening. Nick extended him the courtesy of hearing him out before responding in the strongest possible terms.

  “Absolutely not! That is crazy dangerous.”

  “Life is dangerous. And it’s my life we’re talking about, not yours.”

  “Let’s not forget the team. They’ve got a say in this.”

  “I never said they didn’t.”

  Gillian seemed ready to push the argument further but apparently changed his mind. “I was just floating ideas. I guess that one does sound impractical.”

  Nick was instantly suspicious. Gillian backing off and admitting he might be wrong about something was as unnatural as Sosoome being modest.

  Gillian left. Nick stared after him for a long moment, pondering his behavior. Then he turned his attention to a more vital matter, assembling the final pieces of the plan to expose an Ash Ock Paratwa.