by C. A. Gray
The Silver Six
Uncanny Valley, Book 2
C.A. Gray
www.authorcagray.com
Copyright and Disclaimers
The Silver Six
Uncanny Valley, Book 2
By C.A. Gray
Copyright 2018, C.A. Gray
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No Portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including, but not limited to, audio recordings, facsimiles, photocopying, or information storage and retrieval systems without explicit written permission from the author or publisher.
Published By:
Wanderlust Publishing
Tucson, AZ
Also by C.A. Gray:
Intangible: Piercing the Veil, Book 1
Invincible: Piercing the Veil, Book 2
Impossible: Piercing the Veil, Book 3
The Liberty Box: Book 1
The Eden Conspiracy: The Liberty Box, Book 2
The Phoenix Project: The Liberty Box, Book 3
Uncanny Valley: Book 1
The Silver Six: Uncanny Valley, Book 2
Jaguar: Uncanny Valley, Book 3
Acknowledgements
To my editors, Cyndi Deville, and Jim Strawn: thank you so much for your ideas and contributions! Many of my best ideas are yours!
To my husband, Frank Baden: thank you for yet another fantastic cover idea… this is one of my favorites yet!
To my Street Team and beta readers: I love that I can bounce ideas off of you and get excited with you for releases. Thank you for your support and suggestions!
And thank you Lord, for giving me the schedule and the flexibility to consistently write. I am so blessed that I get to do this.
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THE LIBERTY BOX (Book 1)
Kate Brandeis has it all: a famous reporter at the age of twenty-four, she’s the face of the Republic of the Americas. She has a loving fiancé and all the success she could wish for. But when she learns of the death of a long-forgotten friend, her investigations unravel her perfect memories, forcing her to face the fact that she’s been living a lie.
Jackson MacNamera, trained from a young age in the art of mind control, returns to the Republic for his mother’s funeral. Within a few hours of his arrival, authorities collect Jackson and take him by force to a room ironically called The Liberty Box, where he must choose between surrendering his thoughts to the new Republic, or fleeing for his freedom.
Kate, bereaved and confused, finds her way to a cave community of refugees, where Jackson seems to offer her an escape from her grief. The two forge an uneasy bond, and in the process Jackson learns that Kate has some insight which may help the hunters in their attempt to free other citizens from the tyranny of the Potentate. Against the expressed wishes of the Council, the hunters plot a series of daring raids, attempting to prove that not only is freedom possible, but that the citizens are not too far gone to desire it. But with the odds so stacked against them, can the refugees succeed in their rescue missions right under the Potentate’s nose?
Prologue: Alessandra Russo
“Miss… Rochelle Denning,” the neurosurgeon bot read from the screen displayed on the light receptors in his eyes, glancing at the young woman sitting before him. She was beautiful, with long dark hair and eyes the color of cornflowers, startling against the caramel color of her skin. But the bot was, of course, unimpressed. She knew in advance that she’d have to find another way to get the creature to do what she wanted. He read from her carefully fabricated medical chart, “You are here for migraines?”
The woman, whose real name was Alessandra Russo, grimaced, clutching her forehead theatrically. “I had my first chip replaced two months ago because it malfunctioned,” she choked out. “Ever since they put the new one in, I've had a nonstop migraine, literally every day for two months! Please, you have to help me. I’m not suicidal, but I’ve considered it because I just can’t live like this. Please!”
The bot glanced at her, unmoved, and then back at her chart. She might have known she could save the emotional appeals; they were as wasted here as was her beauty. “I see. Your notes request no replacement.” The implication was clear: removal of an Artificial Experience chip, without replacement of another, was a peculiar request. Suspicious, even.
“I had problems with the first one too,” Alex asserted without missing a beat, knowing everything she was about to say was already corroborated in her chart—since she’d hacked in and written it herself. “I've had headaches for as long as I can remember, but never as bad as they were after they put the new chip in. I can just use a handheld, I don’t want to risk another A.E. chip. Please, I just want it out!”
The neurosurgeon bot was incapable of facial expressions, but Alex read in its rapidly moving eyes that it didn't take her assertion at face value. It was accessing the labyrinth, checking her story. Had she made a mistake in the chart somehow—used the wrong language, maybe, or said something a real primary care medical bot would never say in a referral? She held her breath.
At last the bot's digital eyes refocused on her, extending its silver arm to the surgical bed. “Arm out,” it instructed, and Alex breathed a sigh of relief. A medical assistant bot wheeled over, adjusting the head of the table to a convenient height for the surgeon. But just as the M.A. sterilized her arm for anesthesia, the neurosurgeon bot commanded, “Wait!”
Alex’s heart stopped just as the M.A.’s silver arm froze in midair. Back and forth, back and forth went the neurosurgeon’s artificial eyes. They focused inward, then on her face, and then inward again—comparing. She knew he was matching every square millimeter of her flesh to the pixels in the image in his mind.
“Go ahead and sedate her,” he said, and Alex winced with the tiny invasive pain of the needle. She watched, almost crying with relief as the M.A. attached the needle to an IV, and cool liquid mingled with the blood in her veins. But even as the effects began to blur the edges of her consciousness, she heard the neurosurgeon declare to his M.A., “Her records have been falsified. She is a Renegade, wanted for spreading propaganda about William Halpert and his Board. Alert the police that we have her in custody.”
No, Alex wanted to scream. But she could no longer move her lips.
Chapter 1: William Halpert
It was 3:23 in the morning. William Halpert was reading through legislation, and cross-referencing relevant court cases archived on the labyrinth. He always got more done at night when there weren’t any humans awake to disturb him.
But something did disturb him this time: a comm from Chief Justice Wallenberg flashed across his retinas.
“Liam Kelly Junior did indeed rendezvous with Youssef, and we were correct that Youssef was in Geneva under the alias Sol Huckabee,” it read. “Youssef has been eliminated. However, he was speaking with Kelly when he died. We do not know for how long, nor how much he told him.”
Rameses Youssef. A memory flashed across Halpert’s mind, unbidden, of a twenty years’ younger version of the man in a white lab coat, laughing exultantly as he cried, “Eureka!” He’d reached across to mime a toast with his partner, which Bill had returned, whooping with glee.
The memory did not belong to this version of Halpert—it belonged to the man whose memories were imprinted on his brain. Sometimes that happened. Ironically what they had celebrated in that memory was the final discovery necessary for the creation of Halpert himself.
“I assume that means Kelly escaped?” Halpert d
ictated back, sweeping the memory and its attendant emotions aside. Then he said, “Send.”
“Unfortunately he did,” came Wallenberg’s reply. “It also appears that Candice Rio’s disappearance is related: the stolen hovercraft vanished on her orders.”
Halpert sighed. “Call me,” he dictated back.
A moment later, a shimmery image of Justice Wallenberg’s Romanian features appeared in Halpert’s study, gaunt and hollow.
“How long was Candice Rio in your employ?” Wallenberg asked Halpert.
“Nine years perhaps,” Halpert replied. “She’s had a long track record of delivering Renegades to justice. Don’t tell me that she is one herself.” He felt a prickling sense of irritation, but it did not show on his face. Halpert could express his emotions when necessary—and he found it quite useful when speaking to humans. Charisma was all about enveloping one’s listeners in one’s own infectiously powerful emotions. Rule the man’s emotions, and you will rule the man.
But when speaking to other 2.0 bots like himself, emotional displays of any kind were superfluous, amounting to nothing more than a frivolous waste of energy.
2.0 bots did not waste energy.
“She is one of them,” Wallenberg confirmed, as stoic as Halpert himself. “I have been telling you for years that we need to enforce a strict policy of never trusting humans.”
“Tell me.”
“Her real name is Karen Cordeaux. Widow of deceased Renegade leader Quentin Cordeaux and mother to Rebecca Cordeaux—”
“The girl with Kelly Junior that Rasputin ID’ed,” murmured Halpert.
“Correct.”
Halpert closed his eyes. “And here we thought Kelly was the one to worry about.”
Wallenberg nodded. “Rio—or Karen Cordeaux, as it turns out—blew her cover in order to save her daughter. And that obnoxious friend of theirs,” he added, with just the mildest shadow of disgust. “It appears she prepared for the role well—she disabled the tracking system and has all but vanished.”
“I see,” said Halpert. “We need to find out what Youssef might have told Kelly. Find out everything there is to know about this ‘Sol Huckabee’—whom he was in contact with, and any names the Renegades might contact next. Some of them are bound to be pseudonyms of his former colleagues.”
“Andrew Gary. Maria Suarez. Theodore Yiminez. Ashlyn Wallace. Ned Krazinski. Giovanni Romano.” Justice Wallenberg rattled off some of the names they both knew.
As Wallenberg spoke the names, their faces from twenty years earlier popped unbidden into his mind: Bill’s memories, colored with a fondness to which they were inextricably linked. Some part of Halpert felt sorry for the fate that awaited Bill’s former colleagues.
“Have your research team investigate what happened to each of them, where we lost their traces, and any contact so-called Sol Huckabee might have had with any of them, or anyone who might have been them,” he said. “If Youssef lasted this long incognito, there’s no way that in twenty years, he had no contact with his former colleagues. If you find any of them, or even a suspect that might be them, bring them in.”
“We’ll find them,” Wallenberg assured him, and he reached to press the button that would end the holographic call.
“Wait,” said Halpert, leaning forward instead and typing in a command to call the rest of his board, issuing an invitation to join them virtually. One by one, the images of the other four men flickered into the room beside Wallenberg: Kennedy St. James, Dr Janner Rasputin, Abraham Chiefton, and Pierre Montgomery.
Without so much as a greeting, Halpert summarized, “Liam Kelly Junior and his two friends escaped our assassins. One of Kelly’s associates turned out to be the daughter of one of our top intelligence agents, Candice Rio. Rio stole a hovercraft in order to rescue all three of them, which is how they survived. They did manage to kill Youssef, but not before he’d spoken to Kelly and revealed an unknown amount of information. Wallenberg’s police research team will investigate anyone else who might have been in contact with Youssef to whom the group might go next for information.
“St James,” Halpert addressed the head of Plethorus, the world’s largest manufacturer of print-on-demand goods. “You know Liam Kelly Senior better than any of us. He might be the key to finding leverage against Junior.”
Kennedy St. James nodded. “I have a conference call with him later today about the progress of Jaguar anyway, his most promising prototype for superintelligence.”
Halpert turned to Abraham Chiefton. “Let’s assume the Renegades know our secret at this point. In that case, they will go public with the information as soon as possible. We need to preempt them; anything they say after that will be laughed off as ludicrous. What can you do for me?”
Chiefton nodded, a swift, succinct motion. “The quickest way to render their announcement absurd is to fictionalize it and release it first—benevolent bots as the protagonists and the Renegades as ignorant fascists who fear equality. I can create the script tonight and digitally render the whole thing in about a week.”
“Excellent. Montgomery?” Halpert turned next to the head of the Education Board. “We need a massive campaign across the school systems, K through college and continuing education, that prepares them for Chiefton’s film.”
Pierre Montgomery inclined his head. “The Celebration of Equality, perhaps?”
Halpert tilted his head to the side. “Tell me more.”
“We would focus on how wonderful it has been so far to have bots running the world, and even the cosmos—all the advancements that have happened as a result of those who took over procedural tasks, and how as a result, the various human inequalities have greatly narrowed since that time. Once the De Vries upgrades are available for bots everywhere, the last vestiges of inequality will vanish: everyone will be equal in opportunity, in economics, and in healthcare.”
“Perfect,” Halpert nodded. “We’ll establish the rules of the game before the other players even come to the table.” Then he turned back to Justice Wallenberg. “About Candice Rio. We need to know what intel she might have given us over the years that is now suspect. Her primary role had been to keep an eye on activity from the Renegades, and now it turns out she was a double agent.”
“Most likely she’s their leader, as was her husband before her,” commented Chiefton.
Halpert nodded, speaking to Wallenberg again. “No doubt she used her position to keep the Renegades from detection. She did recently name several supposed Renegades whose loci spread propaganda about us. You had them arrested for petty crimes, did you not?”
Wallenberg nodded. “Each was guilty of what he was convicted of, but they were probably only scapegoats for the loci. The real actors, I suspect, are still hidden.”
“And were they all eliminated?”
“Most were,” said Wallenberg. “One named Alessandra Russo escaped and attempted to have her A.E. chip removed so that she could not be tracked. We recaptured her today.”
Halpert nodded. “Find out if she was random, or if she knows anything that might be useful about the Renegades.”
“Done, Sir.”
“Also, let’s find out everything we can about Karen Cordeaux, since she's apparently the one in charge of this whole operation,” Halpert added. “Scour her house. Round up anyone she was close to. Anything we can use.”
“Done, Sir,” Wallenberg repeated.
Halpert nodded slowly. “Very good. Their threat is effectively neutralized.”
One by one, the holographs winked out of the room, leaving Halpert staring at the empty space where they had been. He sighed. He’d liked Candice Rio. She’d been smart, efficient, resourceful, and respectful—as close to a bot as a human could be in those respects. She’d almost made him think humans might still have their place in the new world order. But, it turned out she was like all the rest. Self-interested. Duplicitous. All the more dangerous because of those qualities he’d so admired.
It was a shame she had to die. But, these things couldn’t be helped.
He went back to red-lining his tome of policies, waiting for the sun to rise.
Chapter 2: Rebecca Cordeaux
Hepzibah the medic bot gently took my place hovering over Liam, cauterizing his wound and stitching up layers of tissue from deepest to most superficial. I stood up, my hands covered in Liam’s blood, and faced my mom.
Only I didn’t know what to say. Neither did she, apparently: we just watched each other for a long moment. Finally she turned back to the cockpit.
“Aren’t you even going to say anything?” I demanded shrilly.
She sighed, still with her back to me. “There will be time enough for explanations later. Now is not the time, Rebecca.”
“You’re M!” I cried, unnecessary though it was. I just needed to say it out loud, to see if she’d contradict it.
She did not. She kept walking, and disappeared into the cockpit.
I sank to my knees, glancing absently around the cabin now. Larissa still fretted and fussed over Francis’s leg wound. Dr. Yin and Nilesh watched me warily, as if they weren’t sure what to do after the confrontation they’d just witnessed. Some part of me wanted to find out how they’d come to be here, but there were too many other questions that took precedence. I glanced at Liam’s face: he looked like he was sleeping peacefully now, except that he was dreadfully pale, and his lips were slightly blue.
“He’ll be okay?” I asked Hepzibah hoarsely.
“He could do with a blood transfusion,” Hepzibah murmured.