by Ryk E. Spoor
Table of Contents
Foreword
Part I: Gone in a Flash Chapter 1: Dead Man Knocking
Chapter 2: Picture Imperfect
Chapter 3: Contingency Planning
Chapter 4: Flirting and Clues
Chapter 5: An Invitation You Can’t Refuse
Chapter 6: Fright and Flight
Chapter 7: Unwrapped Wrap-Up
Part II: Lawyers, Ghouls, and Mummies Chapter 8: New Client, Closed Case
Chapter 9: Join Me for a Bite?
Chapter 10: Career Counseling
Chapter 11: Personal History
Chapter 12: Mystery of a Brother
Chapter 13: Interview With the Artist
Chapter 14: A Sudden Trip Downstate
Chapter 15: Enter Freely and of Your Own Will
Chapter 16: The Only Thing He has to Fear…
Chapter 17: Laughing Assassin
Part III: Photo Finish Chapter 18: Action and Reaction
Chapter 19: Blood and Moonlight
Chapter 20: An Unusual Consultant
Chapter 21: Admissions and Evidence
Chapter 22: Three Conversations, One Problem
Chapter 23: Remembering Old Times
Chapter 24: Gone and Dead
Chapter 25: Ways to Make You Talk
Chapter 26: Special Guest Appearance By…
Chapter 27: Empathy and Electronics
Chapter 28: A Nice Evening Drive, with Gunfire
Chapter 29: Intensive Combat Unit
Chapter 30: Endings and Beginnings
Part IV: Viewed in a Harsh Light Chapter 31: Presentations in High Places
Chapter 32: Upgrades and Relationships
Chapter 33: Who’s Your Daddy?
Chapter 34: Reunion Jitters
Chapter 35: A Test of Trust
Chapter 36: Fleeing From Frankenstein
Chapter 37: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Chapter 38: It was an Age Undreamed of…
Chapter 39: But Wait, There’s MORE!
Chapter 40: Solve One Problem, Get Two Free
Chapter 41: Worries and Joys
Chapter 42: Reaching Limits
Chapter 43: Beware of Spooks Leaving Gifts
Chapter 44: Paternity and Possibility
Chapter 45: That Future is Past
Chapter 46: Explanations
Part V: Live and Let Spy Chapter 47: Categorization and Catharsis
Chapter 48: Femme Formidable
Chapter 49: Mother and Father
Chapter 50: Proposal
Chapter 51: An Evening in Bondage
Chapter 52: Fangs for the Recommendation
Chapter 53: Reception of Revelation
Chapter 54: Home Security
Chapter 55: They Never Knock
Chapter 56: Vows and Threats
Part VI: Mirror Image Chapter 57: Honeymoon Hotel
Chapter 58: Never Off-Duty
Chapter 59: Problems and Premonitions
Chapter 60: Touched with Silver
Chapter 61: Close Call
Chapter 62: A Perfect Little Vacation Spot
Chapter 63: Dealing With a Devil
Chapter 64: Set in Stone
Chapter 65: They Don’t Just Come From Nowhere
Chapter 66: Research Expedition
Chapter 67: Showing Up Without Being There
Chapter 68: Hiding in Plain Sight?
Chapter 69: Lie Down and Reflect
Chapter 70: Souvenir
Chapter 71: Saved For Later
Chapter 72: Blasts From The Past
Part VII: Shadow of Fear Chapter 73: Rude Awakening
Chapter 74: Smoking Gun
Chapter 75: Client Referral
Chapter 76: Camp Fear
Chapter 77: Awakening Power
Chapter 78: And Then There Was One
Chapter 79: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep…
Chapter 80: Nightmares on Demand
Chapter 81: Secrets of Ancient Days
Chapter 82: Truth and Dare
Chapter 83: Rage and Loss
Chapter 84: Consequences of Hope
Chapter 85: Happy Endings
Chapter 86: Answers of Mystery
Part VIII: Trial Run Chapter 87: Back from the Dead
Chapter 88: Bad Day, Bad Client
Chapter 89: Inhuman Rights
Chapter 90: Attorney-to-Wolves
Chapter 91: Innocent Monster
Chapter 92: All So Different, They’re Exactly the Same
Chapter 93: Proving Her Identity
Chapter 94: Opening Statements
Chapter 95: Testimony and Tactics
Chapter 96: Connect the Dots
Chapter 97: Reasonable Fear
Chapter 98:…Lest You Become Monsters Yourselves
Chapter 99: Perry Jason
Chapter 100: Free to be Tried
Chapter 101: Horror and Home
Paradigms Lost — eARC
Ryk E. Spoor
Advance Reader Copy
Unproofed
Being an expert in information searches, image processing and enhancement, pattern matching, and data forensics earned Jason Wood a lot of money – from private contracts and working with the police. And it was a nice, comfortable job most of the time. But then an informant showed up dead on his doorstep, a photograph didn't show someone who'd been in the viewfinder when the picture was taken, and Jason's world is suddenly turned upside-down.
Against things that violate the very reality he thought he understood, Jason has only three weapons: his best friend Sylvie, his talent for seeing patterns… and his ability to think beyond the pattern and see a solution that no one else imagined. Against the darkness of the unknown, the greatest weapon is the light of reason.
A vastly expanded and revised edition of Digital Knight, Ryk E. Spoor's first published novel, Paradigms Lost adds two brand new adventures for Jason and includes many chapters of additional material within the originals.
Baen Books by Ryk E. Spoor
Digital Knight
Phoenix Rising
Paradigms Lost
Grand Central Arena Series
Grand Central Arena
Spheres of Influence
Baen Books by Ryk E. Spoor and Eric Flint
Boundary
Threshold
Portal
For a complete list of Ryk E. Spoor books and to purchase all of these titles in e-book format, please go to www.baen.com.
PARADIGMS LOST
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Ryk E. Spoor
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3693-8
Cover art by Todd Lockwood
First printing, October 2003
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: TK
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to:
Jim Baen, for giving me a chance;
My wife, Kathleen, for her constant support;
The “Butcher of Baen” for his invaluable help.
Foreword
Paradigms Lost is a greatly expanded edition of Digital Knight, my first published work. It is not just a polishing and slight reworking of Digital Knight—indeed, in many areas I have tried not to touch the writing overmuch, as I don’t want to damage the “flavor” that made it work in the first place.
What I have done is add incidents and actions that would have happened—foreshadowing and “crossover” events that are part of Jason’s universe—but which I didn’t fully know when I first wrote Digital Knight, some portions of which were written as far back as 1987 and 1988. I have also reconciled a few contradictions and confusing incidents to make more sense and clarified the dating of the stories, as some readers might have found it unclear; Jason’s adventures begin in April 1999.
In addition to these changes—some of which are quite substantial—I have included two more of Jason’s adventures, “Shadow of Fear” and “Trial Run,” to make this a truly worthwhile read for those of you who may have read the original. Overall, this means that more than a short novel’s worth of material has been added to Paradigms Lost; the original Digital Knight was about 103,000 words, while Paradigms Lost runs well over 160,000.
Jason’s world is very like ours…but not precisely, and it changes for him as time goes on. His adventures also connect—sometimes in surprising ways—with other stories and events in his universe. Those who have read Phoenix Rising will perhaps not be surprised to see his encounters with a certain young man, and possibly make other connections with things that have happened…or will happen.
Join Jason, then…on the day that everything changed.
Part I: Gone in a Flash
April 1999
Chapter 1: Dead Man Knocking
I clicked on the JAPES icon. A second picture appeared on the Lumiere RAN-7X workstation screen next to the digitized original, said original being a pretty blurry picture of two men exchanging something. At first the two pictures looked identical, as always, but then rippling changes started: colors brightening and darkening, objects becoming so sharp as to look almost animated, a dozen things at once. I controlled the process with a mouse, pointing and clicking to denote key items that would help JAPES interpret the meaning in the image and bring out details.
Fortunately, I had a lot of pictures of the same area—and the same individuals—from the same batch of photos Lieutenant Klein had given me, which provided me with a considerable amount of material for enhancing and interpreting what was in this photo. JAPES, which stood for Jason’s Automatic Photo Enhancing System, was the whimsical name I’d given to my own specialized image analysis and processing suite which combined multiple standard (and not so standard) photographic enhancement techniques into a single complex operation controlled partly by me and partly by a learning expert system.
I stiffened; suddenly I was overwhelmed by the sense that I was being watched. Some people say they get that feeling often when they’re alone; since I live alone, and work in the same building I live in, I’ve never been prone to that sensation. But the feeling was so strong that I turned quickly to the plate-glass window that was the front of Wood’s Information Service.
For just an instant—that split-second between turning and focusing—I thought I saw something: a very tall figure in the mist of evening, dressed in what seemed—in that vague glimpse—to be robes or a longcoat of some sort, with a peculiar wide-swept hat like nothing I’d ever seen. Long white hair trailed off below the hat, and the figure was leaning on, or holding, some kind of staff.
But when I focused, I could see there was nothing there at all; just mist and the cotton-fog glow of a streetlamp beyond. I stared out for several minutes, then shrugged. What the hell, brain? I thought to myself. Not even seeing things that make sense.
The delay had, at least, allowed JAPES to complete its work. The computer-enhanced version was crisp as a posed photo—except that I don’t think either the assemblyman or the coke dealer had intended a pose. Yeah, that ought to give Elias Klein another nail to put in the crooks’ coffins. I glanced at my watch: eight-twenty. Time enough to digitize and enhance one more photo before Sylvie came over. I decided to do the last of Lieutenant Klein’s; drug cases make me nervous, you never know what might happen. Come to think of it, I realized, that’s probably why I had that weird feeling; I’m twitchy over this one.
So let’s get back to it. I inserted the negative into the enlarger/digitizer, popped into the kitchen for a cream soda, sat down and picked up my book. After seventeen minutes the computer pinged; for this kind of work, I have to scan at the best possible resolution, and that takes time. I checked to make sure the scan went okay, then coded in the parameters, set JAPES going, and went back to Phantoms. Great yarn.
After the automatic functions were done, I started in on what I really get paid for here at Wood’s Information Service (“Need info? Knock on Wood!”): the ability to find the best “finishing touches” that make enhancement still an art rather than a science.
A distant scraping sound came from the backdoor, and then a faint clank. I checked the time again: nine-twenty-five. Still too early; Sylvie’s occult shop, the Silver Stake, always closed precisely at nine-thirty, and besides, Syl would just ring the bell or walk in from the front. “Lewis?” I called out.
Lewis was what social workers might call a displaced person, others called a bum, and I called a contact. Lewis sometimes did scutwork for me—as long as he was sober, he was a good worker. Unfortunately, when he was drunk, he was a belligerent nuisance, and at six-foot-seven, a belligerent Lewis was an ugly sight. Since it was the first Friday of the month, he was probably drunk.
But I didn’t hear an answer, neither his voice nor the funny ringing knock that the chains on his jacket cuffs made. Instead, I heard another clank and then a muffled thud. At that point, the computer pinged again, having just finished my last instructions. I checked the final version—it looked pretty good, another pose of the assemblyman alone with his hand partly extended—then downloaded all the data onto two disks for the lieutenant. I sealed them in an envelope with the original negatives, dropped the envelope into the safe, swung it shut, pulled the wall panel down and locked it. Then I stepped out and turned toward the backdoor, grabbing my book as I left. Just then the front doorbell rang.
It was Sylvie, of course. “Hi, Jason!” she said, bouncing through the door. “Look at these, we just got the shipment in today! Aren’t they great?” She dangled some crystal and silver earrings in front of me, continuing, “They’re genuine Brazil crystal and the settings were handmade; the lady who makes them says she gets her directions from an Aztec she channels—”
There was a tremendous bang from the rear and the windows shivered. “What the hell was that?” Sylvie demanded. “Sounded like a cannon!”
“I don’t know,” I answered, “but it wasn’t a gun. Something hit the building.” I thought of the photos I was enhancing. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had decided to erase the evidence before I finished improving it. I yanked open the righthand drawer of the front desk, pulled out my .45, snicked the safety off.
“You’re that worried, Jason?”
“Could be bad, Syl; working for cops has its drawbacks.”
She nodded, her face serious now. To other people, she comes across as a New Age bimbo, or a gypsy with long black hair and colored handkerchief clothes. I know better. She reached into her purse, yanked out a small .32 automatic, pulled the slide once. I heard a round chamber itself. “Ready.”
One of the things I have always liked about Syl: she isn’t afraid of much and is ready to deal with anything.
She started towards the back. “Let’s go.”
I cut in front of her. “You cover me.”
I approached the door carefully, swinging to the hinge side. It opened inward, which could be trouble if someone slammed it open. I took a piece of pipe that I keep around and put it on the floor in the path of the door so it would act as an impromptu doorstop. Then I yanked the bo
lt and turned the handle.
I felt a slight pressure, but not anything like something trying to force the door. Sylvie had lined up opposite me. She glanced at me and I nodded. I let the door start to open, then let go and stood aside.
The metal fire door swung open and Lewis flopped down in front of us. Sylvie gasped and I grunted. Drunk like I thought. I reached out for him. That’s when he finished rolling onto his back.
His eyes stared up, glassy and unseeing. There was no doubt in my mind that he was very dead.
I stepped over the body, to stand just inside the doorway, and peered up and down the alley. To the right I saw nothing but rolling fog—God must be playing director with mood machines tonight—but to the left there was a tall, angular figure, silhouetted by a streetlamp. Pressing myself up against the doorframe in case bullets answered me, I called out, “Hey! You up there! We could use some help here!”
The figure neither answered nor came closer; he just seemed to melt silently into the surrounding fog. It’s a night for seeing men who aren’t there, I guess. I watched for a few seconds, but saw nothing else and turned back to Lewis.
Fortunately, there wasn’t any blood. I hate blood. “Aw Christ…” I muttered. I knelt and gingerly touched the body. The weather was cool for a spring evening, but the body was still warm. Dammit. Lewis was probably dying all the time I was reading Phantoms.