New York Nights [Virex 01]

by Eric Brown

  He left the VR Bar and drove along West 23rd to Madison, then turned uptown, driving slowly. The streets were deserted but for the occasional cop car and yellow cab, but the sidewalks were packed with humanity. Enterprising refugees had constructed makeshift tents from scrap sheets of polycarbon; here and there they had started fires to ward off the sub-zero temperature.

  Halliday wondered how the hell those without fires managed to survive the night. Even in the car, his breath plumed. He turned the heater to full and sat back, going over what Kosinski had told him.

  The abrupt conclusion of the Nigeria case had troubled him, earlier. There had been no sense of closure, no satisfactory explanation of motivation. He had wanted to know more, the ‘why’ behind the seemingly random acts of violence.

  Well, now he did know more, and a part of him wished that he were still in ignorance.

  He smiled as he thought of what Kim had said about the case two or three days ago, that the person who had attacked him on the rooftop had been possessed by an evil spirit. Perhaps not possessed by an evil spirit, he thought, but certainly possessed. Kim would probably claim that it was one and the same thing.

  Ten minutes later, he pulled up outside the Chinese laundry and sat in the warmth of the car for a long minute. The sight of all the steaming food-stalls, stretching down either side of the road, the bright neon signs in meaningless Chinese, were reassuring in their familiarity. When he opened the car door, the cries of the street traders hit him in a barrage, along with the aroma of cooked food. He pushed his way through the crowded sidewalk and up the steps to the office.

  Barney looked up when he entered. He misinterpreted Halliday’s expression. ‘Don’t tell me, the kid was full of hot air, right? The case is still closed?’

  Halliday poured himself a coffee. ‘Case is back open, Barney. If we want it.’ He sat on the chesterfield and warmed himself before the puttering fire.

  ‘What did Kosinski say?’

  Halliday looked up at Barney. ‘You’re not going to believe this, Barney. I’m not sure I know what to think, either.’ He stopped, looked around. ‘The com isn’t activated, is it?’

  ‘No - it’s switched off.’ Barney stared at him. ‘Hal, what the hell. . .’

  ‘It’s okay. I’m probably being paranoid.’ He shook his head. ‘This is what Joe told me.’

  He tried to report the conversation as he recalled it, first easing Barney into accepting the idea of artificial intelligence, explaining about Nigeria’s implant, and then detailing Kosinski’s work with LINx.

  ‘You’re trying to tell me,’ Barney began, leaning forward on the swivel chair so that his gut bulged, ‘that Nigeria was controlled by the artificial intelligence, and that it’s still out there?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, Barney. There’s a guy called Reeves, he was implanted like Nigeria.’ He went through what Kosinski had explained, the plan to lure Reeves.

  Barney sat in silence for a long time when Halliday had finished. At last he said, ‘What do you think, Hal?’

  Halliday shrugged. ‘If we can capture Reeves, then we’ve eliminated the danger that LINx presents when in control of a human. It’ll still exist in the Net, but that’s Kosinski’s baby, then. We’ll have done our bit.’

  Barney nodded. ‘It won’t be easy, Hal. You saw what Nigeria did. Armed, and with a chu . . . Christ, it was difficult enough when we were dealing with a human. Now that we know we’re up against an artificial intelligence . . .’ He looked at Halliday. ‘It’s not a walk in the park.’

  ‘So, do we do it?’

  Barney considered. ‘We’ll go see Wellman, find out what he thinks. It’s a hard one to walk away from, Hal. I’ll contact him, tell him we’re on our way.’

  Halliday reached out, stayed Barney’s hand as it went for the com. ‘It’d be safer if we arrived cold. For all we know, LINx might be monitoring all calls into Wellman.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s best not to take risks.’

  As they left the office, Halliday wondered if there was any way LINx might possibly have discovered that he and Barney were linked to the case.

  Barney eased the Ford from the kerb and headed north. He glanced across at Halliday. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Probably nothing. I was just wondering . . .’ He told Barney what he’d been thinking, trying to work out if he were seeing danger where none really existed.

  Barney peered through the windscreen into the darkness. ‘LINx in the guise of Nigeria, in the guise of the Latino . . . when it attacked you the other night, that was the only contact you had with it, right? And as far as it was aware, it left you for dead. Far as I can make out, we’re okay.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, Barney. What if it’s been monitoring the calls we made to Jeff Simmons? What if it intercepted the report I made for Jeff on the Nigeria case the other day? And then there was the day we called on Kosinski at Cyber-Tech . . . For all we know it could’ve been watching our arrival through the company’s security cameras . . .’ He stopped there. ‘Jesus Christ, what if it can hack into the police traffic surveillance cameras? I mean, we can do it, so I’m damned sure it’s a piece of cake for LINx.’

  ‘Well, we’re okay tonight, at least. Wellman’s place is way off the beaten track.’

  Halliday felt his scalp prickle at the thought that, even now, LINx might be monitoring their progress via the surveillance cameras as they drove out of town.

  ‘How do we know it isn’t linked to satellites, Barney?’ Halliday said.

  Barney turned and stared. ‘Let’s just hope you’re being a hopelessly paranoid bastard,’ he said.

  One hour later they turned onto the track leading up to Wellman’s country house. It was still an hour until dawn, and overhead the stars sparkled with frosty brilliance. They were matched, ahead, by the perimeter fence lights.

  In the drive, Halliday made out a white van bearing the familiar logo of a freelance security team. He saw armed guards patrolling the fence.

  Barney grunted. ‘Good to see he’s improved his security since last time.’

  He braked before the gate and half a dozen heavily-armed guards, outfitted in military camouflage, deployed themselves behind the mesh fence and levelled weapons. Halliday climbed from the car, arms raised, and approached the gate.

  ‘Kruger and Halliday,’ he said to an older guy with sergeant’s stripes. ‘We work for Wellman. We need to see him.’

  He passed his identity card through the gate, and one of the guards edged forward cautiously and took it. The guard passed it to the sergeant, who turned away and spoke hurriedly into his com. A minute later a light appeared in the villa.

  The sergeant looked from the picture on the card to Halliday, then nodded. He signalled for a guard to open the gate and gestured Barney through. Halliday climbed back into the car and they drove up the drive and stopped before the steps leading up to the double front door.

  Halliday climbed out. The door opened, and yet another guard showed them through the hall and into the room where they’d met Wellman a couple of days before.

  Two minutes later Wellman appeared, knotting the belt of a royal blue dressing gown. Even roused from sleep, he managed to maintain an air of groomed sophistication.

  ‘Gentlemen, sit down. I take it you’ve had word from Joseph?’

  ‘I met Joe in VR,’ Halliday said. ‘He filled me in.’

  Barney said, ‘You knew about LINx all along, Wellman . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ Wellman admitted, ‘but how could I divulge something of that magnitude to a couple of private investigators I didn’t know from Adam? Joseph has only just filled me in on the extent of LINx’s activities, however. They far exceed my gravest fears.’

  ‘Do you think you’re personally in danger?’ Barney asked.

  ‘I honestly don’t know, Mr Kluger. I’m technically the head of Cyber-Tech, and LINx must know that I’m aware of what’s going on ... so I’m taking no chances.’
r />   ‘Did Joe tell you about Reeves?’ Halliday asked.

  ‘He mentioned that Reeves was augmented with an implant similar to Nigeria’s.’

  ‘But he didn’t tell you how he planned to apprehend Reeves?’

  ‘He was extremely reluctant to divulge anything in detail over the com.’

  Halliday nodded. ‘Do you think LINx might be monitoring incoming calls to Cyber-Tech’s HQ?’ he asked.

  ‘And a thousand other calls besides, I’ve no doubt.’

  Halliday looked at Barney. To Wellman he said, ‘Joe had an idea how we might apprehend Reeves. It’d involve either me or Barney contacting you at Cyber-Tech HQ and giving away Joe’s supposed whereabouts. Then we stake the place and wait for Reeves to show . . . Trouble is, if we’re too obvious about giving away where he is, LINx will suspect something. But if we’re too subtle, it might not take the bait.’

  Wellman nodded, considering. ‘Very well, gentlemen. I think I know how we might go about this.’

  Halliday felt something lurch within him, a kick of primal fear, as he realised that now there was no turning back.

  They talked, and outside another cold winter’s day dawned over the blighted landscape.

  * * * *

  Eleven

  Halliday checked the loft, but Kim had not returned.

  He made his way down to the street. It was midday, the time they had arranged to meet and go for a meal. He crossed the sidewalk and leaned into the car window. ‘She’s not there. I’ll leave a note, tell her I’ll be back tonight.’

  Barney looked at his watch. ‘We don’t have to meet Wellman till one. Might as well hang on.’

  Halliday nodded and stood up, looking up and down the street. A police drone sped along at head height, its dome flashing red with a security alert, followed by a posse of screaming kids. The sidewalk was packed with pedestrians, bundled up and hunched against the cold north wind. He dug his fists deep into the pockets of his jacket and cursed the cold. He was impatient to be away; the sooner they met Wellman, arranged the details of the ambush, the sooner he would be back with Kim, making up for not being able to meet her for lunch.

  The canister of freeze was a cold weight in the inner pocket of his jacket. For the first time in weeks, Barney had broken out the bullet-proof jackets, in anticipation of the ambush, and the form-fitting armour clasped Halliday’s torso like a beetle’s carapace.

  ‘Hal!’ Kim called out.

  She skipped the last few metres towards him, resplendent in her primrose climbing jacket. She hugged him, rocking from foot to foot like a toy robot. ‘Hal, where are we going? How about the Vietnamese place down the block, or there’s . . .’ She stopped and pulled away. ‘Hal, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I can’t make it, Kim. Something’s come up.’

  ‘But you promised!’

  ‘I know I did. You think I’d rather work? Something big’s come up and I can’t get away.’

  Kim looked across at Barney in the car, entreaty in her expression.

  Barney gave a life’s-tough shrug. ‘That’s how it goes, sweetheart.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kim.’

  She hugged him. ‘Hokay, Hal. How about tonight, then?’

  ‘I’ll call. I’ll try to make it tonight, okay?’

  He kissed her and ducked into the car. As they pulled away from the kerb, he looked back. She was a small figure standing on the edge of the sidewalk, folding a small gloved hand in a wave of pantomime self-pity.

  They made the drive downtown in silence. The sky was blue and a winter sun was out, reflected in a blinding dazzle from the million windows of the city’s skyscrapers.

  He reviewed what lay ahead. In theory, the task of apprehending and disabling Dan Reeves did not seem that difficult. If he showed, then to restrain him with freeze before he could put up a fight, injuring or killing his assailants, should prove to be a routine operation. Why then was he filled with a nebulous and nagging apprehension?

  If Reeves showed, that was ... Of course, LINx might not fall for the bait, and then they would be back to square one.

  Barney parked the car in Little Italy, down a sidestreet where they knew no traffic surveillance cameras were positioned. They took a cab down to Battery Park, Halliday looking out for the office block where Cyber-Tech had its city research establishment.

  The skyscraper overlooked the grey water of the Hudson, a fifty-storey obelisk with jet-black windows like a strip of under-exposed negatives. They took the elevator up to the fortieth floor, watched by a surveillance camera in the corner of the lift. Even though Wellman had earlier assured them that he had had every camera in the building disabled, Halliday felt as if he were being observed by the ubiquitous presence of LINx. He wondered if the artificial intelligence could take control of the elevator itself.

  They passed through stringent security checks and were allowed at last into the open-plan floorspace of the Cyber-Tech suite. It was much as Halliday recalled the shop-floor at the headquarters up in Westchester: rows of desks with technicians working away at computer screens, the occasional larger screens surrounded by teams of two or three scientists.

  Wellman, dressed today in a sharp navy blue suit, ushered them into an adjoining room almost as large as the first. In this one, though, only three technicians worked, hovering around a flat-screen on a desk beside the floor-to-ceiling window.

  He closed the door behind them and spoke in a hushed voice. ‘A change of plan. The Westchester HQ has been closed down.’

  Halliday stared at him. ‘Closed down?’

  ‘We think - we assume - LINx did it. The power supply has been cut, and the emergency back-up is down. Also, a number of computers have gone haywire. I’ve sent the staff home.’ He paused. ‘It’d look suspicious if I were to go up there and take the call from Joseph.’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’ Barney asked.

  ‘I’ll take it here.’

  ‘But what if LINx isn’t monitoring incoming calls?’ Barney said.

  Wellman cocked a perfectly manicured eyebrow, angled like a French grammatical accent. ‘We can only hope that it is. The chances are that it’s monitoring everything that’s going on in every Cyber-Tech property across America.’

  Halliday gestured to where the techs were working on the flat-screen. ‘I just hope it isn’t monitoring this.’

  ‘Don’t worry. The room is sealed.’

  ‘How’s it going?’ Barney asked.

  ‘We’ve almost finished. I’ll give you a demonstration.’

  They crossed the room and Wellman spoke to one of the technicians, who played his fingers across the touchpad on a com-terminal. The flatscreen flared, settled into the image of Joe Kosinski, staring out at them with his habitual air of fidgety nervousness. ‘Hi, Wellman.’

  For a second, Halliday thought that this actually was Kosinski, live.

  Then Joe Kosinski said. ‘It’s okay, it’s encrypted . . .’ He waited a few seconds. ‘Sure I’m sure. It’s safe.’

  Another pause. ‘It’s going okay. I’m working on it.’ Joe stared from the screen, nodding.

  ‘That’s right, I know. I’m pretty confident I can rig something up.’

  Kosinski moved out of the picture briefly, returned holding a needle. ‘This is the little beauty. What do you think?’ Another, longer pause. Joe listened, nodding from time to time. ‘Okay, yeah. Take care. I’ll catch you later.’

  Joe reached out and the screen blanked.

  ‘A simple computer-generated image,’ Wellman said. ‘We’ll set it up in Joseph’s supposed safe house, positioned before a com-screen’s camera. I’ll take the call here, say my lines, and it will appear as natural as if Joe is really calling in.’

  ‘LINx won’t rumble it?’ Halliday asked.

  Wellman shook his head, lips pursed seriously. ‘There’s no way it could tell that this electronic image of Joseph is not the real thing. It’ll be filtered through a com-screen, remember.’

  ‘Won’t it be su
spicious when a call from Kosinski comes in here, unencrypted?’ Barney objected.

  ‘We’ve thought of that. The technicians have rigged the program with an encryption device, but it’s dysfunctional. LINx will tag the call coming in here, monitor it and see that its encryption program isn’t working correctly, and won’t suspect a thing.’

  ‘And then it’ll send Dan Reeves to the safe house to do the dirty work,’ Halliday said.

  ‘If all goes well, that is precisely what will happen, gentlemen.’

  ‘Where’s the location?’ Barney asked. ‘We’d like to take a good look around before we get things going.’