by Brandt Legg
“Great minds think alike,” Flint said. “My guy will meet you, plane waiting. It’ll fly you to an airstrip on the border. It’s remote there. The US side is part of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. About two miles in, you’ll see a small clearing. Helicopter will pick you up and take you to Seattle Tacoma International Airport.”
“This is the simplest way?” Chase asked.
“Only if you want to live.”
“Okay, and in Seattle?”
“I’ve got another plane waiting to fly you to SFO.”
“And you’ll be there?”
“Maybe, but I’m trying to shake a tail from Tess Federgreen. She’s got a few agents on me—can’t believe she thinks I don’t know. Anyway, they’re following me to get to you. They also have people on your parents, to keep them away from the Chinese, and hoping you’ll go to them, so don’t.”
“All right. SFO is about twenty-five ‘ifs’ away from us now, so we’ll take that when it comes.”
“I have a guy going to meet you just in case I can’t get there clean. Name’s Rhino. You’ll see why when you meet him. He’s friendlier than he looks.”
“I’ve accessed US immigration,” 0830 said. He’d been working the only lead they had—Flint Jones. “Flint reentered the United States via Edmonton earlier today and he hasn’t come back to Canada.”
“Not very helpful,” Franco said. “Although, why would he leave the country if Chase wasn’t also leaving?”
“I’ve run all known associates of Flint,” 0830 replied. “An interesting group. I found several that entered Edmonton this morning and have not yet returned to the United States.”
“So they’re still here,” Franco mused.
“And one of them just chartered a small plane at the Kamloops airport for a morning flight.”
“Then we need to get to that airport immediately,” Franco said.
Seventy
Dez opened his eyes. The strange sensation of warmth and being dry confused him for a moment. It had been so cold in that black water. So, so critically cold and entirely wet—wet inside and out. He’d felt more liquid than human. Now the darkness had traded for light, it seemed incredibly bright. Too bright.
“Are you back? Can you hear me?” It was his sister’s voice.
“Am I alive?” Dez asked quietly, hopefully, although he could not hear his words at all.
She could barely hear him, but he had said something, and his sister started to cry. “Yes, yes. You are alive.”
He wasn’t sure he believed her. It seemed impossible. He’d been far below in the endless vacuum that is the ocean at night. He wanted to believe her, but he remembered dying.
“What happened?” he whispered.
“The Captain, he saved you,” she said in a tone filled with reverence, as if saying a prayer. “Pulled you out of the water. Somehow swam with you on his back . . . got you to Alcatraz Island.”
“Captain?” Although he had no memory of the rescue, it didn’t surprise him that the man who’d taught him so much, who he already considered a mystical figure, had not only been able to survive the blast, but also stole Dez back from the greedy clutches of death.
“It only took a few minutes for boats to get there,” his sister continued the story. “Then a helicopter airlifted you here. Amazing.”
Dez thought, Yes, it was the miraculous brand of amazing, but those words didn’t make it to his mouth. “I couldn’t swim. I tried, but my boots were full of water.”
“You weren’t wearing boots,” his sister said sadly.
“What?” he asked, confused. He knew it was the boots that had weighed him down, why he couldn’t get his legs to work. “The boots,” he said again.
“No,” she said softly.
Terror filled his heart as Dez digested the fearful understanding. No, no!
He used all his strength to reach his legs.
One of them was not there.
Franco looked at the scattering of planes littering the tarmac at the small Kamloops Airport and rubbed his hands together. “‘A screaming comes across the sky,’” he said.
“What does the first line of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow have to do with our current situation?” 0830 asked.
“Nothing really,” Franco said, as if contemplating a fantastic conquering of a forgotten medieval castle. “But at dramatic times such as this, that line often comes to mind. A remarkable string of words, don’t you think? ‘A screaming comes across the sky.’ Truly remarkable.”
“There!” 0630 said, pointing to Chase peeling up a chain link fence on the north side of the airport property.
“Where is the girl?” 0830 asked.
“Maybe the Chinese got her,” Franco said. “Or he ditched her.”
“Not likely,” 0830 said. “The chances that—”
“I don’t care about the odds,” Franco said. “Just go get him!”
Chase was almost to the plane when he spotted 0830, remembering him from racing through Edmonton streets. He considered running the other way, but there was another one—presumably the driver of the white Honda—coming toward him simultaneously. Instead, Chase kept moving toward the plane. The two pursuers picked up their paces until they were jogging. Chase walked briskly, not wanting to prompt a shootout.
“Malone, don’t be stupid!” 0830 shouted as he passed a dumpster, raising what appeared to be a machine gun.
Chase stopped and looked at the other one, who was pointing a similar weapon at him. Each GlobeTec Security agent was no more than thirty feet away from him. The distance to the plane was still at least fifty feet.
“We’re too close, Malone. You won’t make it,” 0830 said, still hoping to take him alive.
Franco, watching through binoculars from the car, smiled. “We got you genius-boy. Can’t outsmart CHIPs, even if you invented the engine that drives their super intelligence. The irony!” He laughed, then said the first line of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, directing it to Chase. “‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’”
Chase, as if hearing Franco’s words, slowly raised his hands.
“Smart move,” 0830 said.
Chase suddenly dropped to the ground.
“What!” Franco blasted, accidentally smacking his forehead into the windshield. “Did those damn CHIP idiots shoot him when he was about to surrender?”
The instant Chase hit the ground, Wen came out of the dumpster like an alligator emerging from a swamp to snatch a rabbit off the shore. 0830 didn’t have time for a final thought as Wen slit his throat. Even before 0830’s body crumpled onto the concrete, Wen turned the CHIP’s gun on 0630. The bullets cut across his chest before he got a shot off. She’d been so fast, even the CHIP’s advanced intelligence wasn’t enough to anticipate her baited ambush.
Chase scrambled to his feet, and the two fugitives sprinted to the plane. A former CIA agent piloted the small craft, which had already been cleared for takeoff. They were wheels up less than three minutes after 0630 took his last breath.
Franco, furious and frustrated, slid into the driver’s seat and drove away. He’d missed another chance at Chase Malone, but he still had a final shot to save the mission in Seattle.
By the time Canadian authorities got up to speed on the situation at Kamloops Airport, Chase and Wen were already in the United States, walking through the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. The jagged mountains, still covered in snow, seemed to tear at the heavy blue sky. The rugged trail, with its steep climbs and rapid descents, kept talking to a minimum. They pushed deeper into the dense forest, desperate to increase the distance between them and whoever was coming behind.
They heard the helicopter even before reaching the clearing, and hoped it belonged to the good guys.
Seventy-One
After checking his computer, Franco discovered driving to Seattle would be faster than catching a commercial flight. However, that wouldn’t be fast enough, so the Chairman arranged for a helicopter out
of Bellingham, Washington to meet him halfway. A showdown in Seattle, Franco thought, and then the first line of Kevin Brockmeier’s A Brief History of the Dead inexplicably came to mind: “‘When the blind man arrived in the city, he claimed that he had travelled across a desert of living sand.’”
As the kilometers blurred past at 135 kph, Franco placed a series of calls to make certain everything was set—no more mistakes. Just after the Chilliwack exit on the Trans Canada Highway, the Chairman phoned with his final orders.
“You like quotes, Franco, well here’s one for you: ‘Death is the solution to all problems. No man—no problem.’”
“What book is that from?” Franco asked.
“No book,” the Chairman responded coolly. “That’s the wisdom of Joseph Stalin. Now get it done!”
Franco knew Seattle was the best—and maybe last—chance to bring the situation back under control. If not, the messy situation between TruNeural and Balance Engineering would spill into the mainstream and attract the notice of multiple US intelligence agencies, as well as the full attention of the Chinese government. The Chairman and members of the GlobeTec Board of Directors would only be able to stem some of those issues. With thousands of CHIPs running around loose in the world, this was no longer a quiet little problem between competitors. Even if Franco made the kill in Seattle, there would be more work to do, but at least the insanity would slow.
The helicopter Wen and Chase heard did turn out to be friendly. The pilot—another ex-CIA operative—had been contracted through Flint. He handed both of them aviation headsets so they could communicate with him, and each other, during the short flight. As they lifted up out of the clearing in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Chase finally received an encrypted text message back from Boone.
Mom and Dad with me. Security taking them to safe house. Got your message about getting to that place. I’ll take care of it. Love you, brother.
“We’re in,” Chase told Wen through the headsets, after replying to the text.
“Excellent, but will you really be able to do it?”
“I have all their keys and my back door is still in place. I’m sure she’ll talk to me . . . ”
“She?”
“Ray,” Chase replied as the sprawl of Seattle and the Space Needle came into view.
Wen shrugged her shoulders and opened her hands.
“R-A-I isn’t just a binary computer program,” he continued. “Once the system starts writing and creating itself, it becomes . . . It’s like she’s alive. So when I talk about the original program, I use RAI. But when I’m dealing with the form it now represents, the unknown entity, I call her Ray. She learns, and grows, and is constantly changing.”
“Evolving?” Wen said.
“Yes, evolving.” He stared away for a moment.
“Will she remember you?”
“I gave birth to her. She will never forget me. The question is, will she still trust me.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“I let her go.”
“She’s just a machine,” Wen admonished.
“Advanced AI is not ‘just’ a machine.”
“What is it then? Human?”
He shook his head. “No, not human, but something beyond a machine, and, in many ways, beyond human.”
Another text came in as they landed in Seattle, this time from Adya.
Money moved. Wadogo destroyed. Captain and I are okay. Dez still in hospital. He’ll survive, but he lost a leg.
“No!” Chase moaned through the headset as he read the words. “Why?” he cried after telling Wen.
“This is the work of GlobeTec,” she said, reaching over and gently loosening his white knuckle grip on the phone.
“How can you be sure?” Chase implored.
“Because if it had been Rong Lo, then Dez and the others would be dead at the bottom of the bay.”
Seventy-Two
Franco drove as fast as the speed limit and the horrendous Seattle traffic would allow. He was less than half a mile from his destination when his phone rang. Franco accepted the call through the car’s bluetooth system. “Good morning, Irvin,” he said to Sliske. He’d thought of saying the opening line from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams: “This time there would be no witnesses.” But then, why create stress?
“It is a remarkable day!” Sliske said, sounding uncharacteristically happy. “I’ve been implanted with RAIN! I’m a CHIP! It’s beyond incredible, I must say.”
“Are you serious?” he asked rhetorically, pushing harder on the accelerator and weaving dangerously through traffic.
“Quite serious,” Sliske replied. “RAIN has made me the smartest man in the world. That’s how I know you’re coming here to kill me.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“No, I’m not. Even before my implant, I never trusted you. But with RAIN, oh my God, Franco, I can see and do anything. I know everything that has ever been known. It’s beyond any high you can imagine. And even though I’ve just told you that I’m expecting you, you’re still coming. So predictable.”
“I don’t know where you get your information, but—”
“Save it for someone who cares, Franco. I can’t be bothered with the trivialities of your worthless existence. You think you’re so smart, quoting from books. I have read every book ever published. Every. Single. One. You’re a self-aggrandizing nobody, Franco, and in an hour, I’ll have forgotten you ever lived.”
Franco smiled, suddenly amused. “Really?”
“You fool, the fact that you’re still driving toward me proves my point. You’re coming to your own funeral. See you soon.” The line went dead.
Franco cursed as the car ahead of him stopped at a yellow light, causing him to be stuck behind a red light he knew to be notoriously long. At least it would give him an extra few minutes to formulate a plan, given this new information. He was sure the Chairman would authorize a building fire, or even a terrorist attack to blow up the whole building, but there wasn’t time. He’d need something more creative.
The phone rang. Incredibly, the caller ID showed Sliske’s cell number again.
“Say hello to 0628 and 0008,” Sliske said as Franco picked up.
“Who?” Franco asked, confused.
“Them,” Sliske said, as both front doors of Franco’s car opened and two men with guns quickly shoved him down on the seat, handcuffed him, and hoisted him into the backseat before the light turned green. 0628 drove while 0008 sat in the back with Franco.
“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t decide not to come,” Sliske said through the car’s speaker. “Funerals are so lovely this time of year, don’t you think?”
“Sliske, how are you planning to explain this to the Chairman?”
“He’ll be out of a job before he even finds out. But I had nothing to do with your death anyway. A couple of our friendliest CHIPs are going to take you to the roof and watch you jump off—seems you were overcome with guilt about killing Porter and Lori.”
“I jumped while handcuffed?”
“Don’t worry, they’ll take those off. But don’t get any ideas. A drop of mucus in one of 0628’s sneezes is smarter than you.”
“Is that why 0630 and 0830 are dead?”
“No, that’s your fault. But I’m not interested in debating an inferior mind. Good luck with death. Say hello to Porter for me. Ohhh, I wish I could see you jump, but I’m still in recovery. I’m certain it will be marvelous.”
Travis reported in to Tess from Seattle. “No sign of Chase.”
“Flint is in San Francisco,” Tess said. “Maybe we guessed wrong.”
“We’re covered, we’ve got a team there. I’m on my way to TruNeural. I’ll have a chat with Irvin Sliske anyway.”
Tess read an update coming across her screen. “It seems Franco is in Seattle. An airport camera picked him up. He landed there in a helicopter.”
“Then where’d he go?”
“Still
working on that, but if Franco is in Seattle, maybe Chase is there, too. We may not have much time.
Chase used the time on the private jet en route to San Francisco to test his theory for cracking RAIN by communicating with Ray through his back door. The idea was to send a command via the untraceable Antimatter Machine.
“If this works,” he said to Wen, “then we might have a chance.”
“I don’t understand,” Wen said. “If you can talk to Ray right now, why do we need to go to the Salesforce Tower?”
“This will just tell me if the keys work, if the door is still there, but I could never get enough data through to dismantle the whole thing without direct server access.”
“Won’t they detect you? If you get it, you’ll leave a trail—digital footprints. Then they could block you before we get to the servers.”
“No. It’s an invisible path. It’s like a thread that weaves between huge swaths of thick fabric. The only way to see the thread is to be on it. Everyone else, all audits and trackers, will be blind to my ping.”
Chase transferred data from his laptop to the Antimatter Machine.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Wen asked.
“The sixth extinction,” Chase said.
“Meaning?”
“We’ll have passed the tipping point and humanity will be caught in an irreversible dystopian road to the apocalypse.”
Wen and Chase exchanged a desperate, knowing glance.
“How will we know it worked?” Wen asked.
“Ray will answer with a single return ping . . . at least that’s how it was set up. She could have changed that a million ways by now. Remember, RAI is beyond ASI—artificial super intelligence—and it rewrites itself, constantly improving—”
“I know, it’s what makes the RAIN CHIPs so dangerous.”