Gone Dark (The Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Book 2)

by P. R. Adams

  “Not an AI. Not logical. It acts weird. But it’s Jacinto.”

  “So it’s some sort of application using a human’s thoughts to try to emulate what an artificial intelligence would be like. It’s close. Right? It’s similar to what an AI would be.”

  Chan shrugged. “Sure.”

  Clouds blocked the sun. It would be getting dark soon. “Let’s get moving.”

  While Danny set Huiyin in the car, I gathered a jacket off a corpse for her. I hated the idea of leaving gear behind, especially potential evidence, but even a remote area like we were in, someone would report the smoke and noises eventually, and I was just too damned beat to search the woods. If we came out of this with something valuable, we could probably call on Merkel to wipe everything clean anyway.

  Danny sped away on his motorcycle, and a minute later I followed, chugging down water and slurping gel. Ichi and Chan scowled at me in the rearview mirror.

  Once I had the rhythm of driving the mountain roads, I glanced up again. Still scowling. I muted my connection to Danny, then asked, “Do I even need to ask what I did wrong?”

  Ichi looked out the window. The conversation was apparently not going to happen. I had screwed up and would have to figure out how.

  Chan looked out the other window, then immediately turned back on me. “It’s wrong.”

  I watched the road and let that sink in. “What’s wrong? I mean, exactly.”

  “Sticking up for him.”

  So, anger at Danny had become anger at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stick up for him. How did I do that?”

  “Chimera. It was our term.”

  “Right. Like I said, I think you’re both right. I was going—”

  Chan’s lips pursed. “No. I was right.”

  “What if Jacinto was talking about attacks hitting you with constantly changing patterns because your attacker wasn’t an attacker at all but a whole bunch of attackers.”

  Confusion replaced anger. “Another snowcrash?”

  “Another snowcrash. And what if that’s what you saw today, what we’ve been dealing with all along?” I sent Chan the image I’d recorded of the Chinese snowcrash, hoping Huiyin’s face wasn’t so obvious. “Like these guys.”

  “No other snowcrash could do that. Could deal with another snowcrash.” Chan glanced up from the computing device display, teetering toward pouting again.

  “Because you’re the best. And you were part of the best snowcrash ever, right?”

  Chan nodded.

  “But they’re dead now.”

  “Yeah.” Chan’s head bowed. “Same as these guys. Fire Dragons.”

  “You’ve heard of them? Is that the American name for them?”

  “Heard of them. Chinese. Pretty good. Rebels. That was their name: Fire Dragons. Didn’t like speaking Chinese. Worked for the government but liked Western things. Became too independent, started doing things for themselves.”

  Before Huiyin handled them? “They still around?”

  “Dead. Heard they overdosed. Their alpha, one other. Blown up. The rest. Retribution. Failed the Chinese government. Some big mission. Gave up on them. Gave up on snowcrashes. Hire mercenaries now.”

  Overdosed? Blown up? Would Huiyin have been the one to do that? Was she trying to recruit Chan now? I needed to keep an eye on the two of them. “The chimera, Chan? Maybe your old snowcrash isn’t fully dead. That’s not just Jacinto hitting you when we get those odd attacks. It’s the rest of your snowcrash.”

  Chan’s head popped up, disgusted.

  “You saw them in that little virtual dungeon of his. They’re in this machine with him. He’s controlling them, just like he used to. He’s making them attack you.”

  Chan made a gagging sound. “No.” There was no conviction behind that word.

  “Getting Stovall means breaking Jacinto. And your old snowcrash.”

  Black-metallic nails covered magenta eyes as Chan seemed to process what I was asking. All that remained of the people who had been like family to Chan were whatever now existed in this theoretical AI. Killing those copies, no matter how flawed, would probably feel like murder. Could Chan do that? Could I in the same situation?

  I imagined putting a pillow over my mother’s face. She was just a poor copy of her old self since the Old Man knocked her into a countertop and creased her skull, wasn’t she?

  The thought of smothering her, the image, became more real. Her fingernails dug into the flesh of my hands, but I didn’t bleed.

  I shook my head and righted the car back into the center of the lane.

  And in the back of my mind, I heard a voice saying, You’re just a bad copy, too.

  Chapter 26

  Rain pattered against the tin roof of our temporary home, then dribbled down through rusted-out holes and cracks to splash into muddy pools, one of which was not far from where I leaned against an outer wall. Long-dead barnacles clung to the bottom of the thick, wooden posts holding the roof up. I imagined they had probably once been reddish brown, but they were now a gray brown, paler where saltwater had covered them. A thin film of sand covered the barn floor, almost hiding dark, packed dirt. The place smelled like a beach house rather than a barn reclaimed from rising water.

  But it was free, and that was all we could afford. Our money had run out, and time was close behind.

  The barn was old, modest-sized, with a loft to my left, and the sagging remnants of a chicken-wire pen in the far corner. The one-by-four strips of the pen were warped and frail. We’d piled our gear inside, including Danny’s motorcycle and drones. Everything was covered by grease-stained tarps to keep bugs away. A tent had been erected in the other back corner of the barn. Our headquarters, now being overseen by Chan.

  Seagulls cried somewhere beyond the overgrown pasture that separated the barn from the beach. The land was fighting back, recovering. I glanced at my still-discolored hands, felt the tender flesh beneath my dark T-shirt. Would we have what it took to recover?

  Danny came out from behind the gear pile, once again in denim jacket and jeans. He had a black plastic tool case the size of a small purse in one hand, what looked like a motor in the other. He set the tool case down, then lowered himself into a cross-legged sitting position. In short order, he had the case open, tools out, and the battery panels removed from the motor.

  I came over to watch. “Drone?”

  Danny pulled a brush from the case, stroked the battery leads and motor casing, and then set the brush back in the case. “Yeah.”

  “Did it take damage?”

  “Just maintenance.” He glanced up at me. “We’re going to need the drones again, right?”

  “Soon, yeah.”

  He went back to work, pulling out a fold-over pouch. Without missing a beat, he said, “Pretty desperate situation.”

  It was. He wasn’t looking for confirmation.

  With a few turns of a jeweler’s screwdriver, he had the motor further broken apart. He brought a piece of the assembly up so close to his eyes that the plastic almost touched the tip of his long nose. “I, um, I don’t suppose you have…” His head came up suddenly. “What would you consider this? A disaster? A conundrum? Maybe hopeless situation?”

  “Let’s go with challenging situation. I think there’s still hope.”

  “Right.” He took the brush to the part he’d been examining. “So, do you have a plan you can share? Some idea of how we can extricate ourselves from this?”

  “We just need to take this Lilly Duvreau and her company down.”

  “What about Stovall? I thought you’d want him, too.”

  “Stovall and Jacinto, yeah. I want them all.”

  His eyes came around, looked me up and down, then he returned his attention to the motor piece. “Good idea. You give yourself a look recently? I saw what Ichi and Huiyin looked like. They’re, um, still flesh and blood.”

  “I’m fine. We can rest when this is all behind us.”

  “The eternal kind? Of rest? Dirt n
ap? I mean, well, you’re going up against a lot of resources, and it’s just five of us. We need…” He shrugged. “A miracle, I guess.”

  “We’re working on a plan.”

  He pointed the brush at the tent. “That why your friend’s in there?”

  I shoved my hands into my jean pockets. “Chan’s walking Abhishek through an idea.”

  Danny began reassembling the motor. “Chan. Um, you remember how we used to keep people out of the field when they had that look in their eye? Like you get after you see your squad turned into bite-sized chunks by a mortar round?”

  “Chan’s got this. It’s a good idea.”

  Danny folded the pouch up and put it back in the case, then focused on reassembling the larger pieces of the motor. His tongue peeked from the corner of his mouth as he worked. When he was done, he closed the tool case, stood, and brushed his pants free of dirt and sand.

  I took a step toward him. “Danny, I know you’ve been taking on more and more risk—”

  His head spun around, fast, bird-like, and he blinked rapidly. “You don’t think I’m worried about me, right?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  His eyes squeezed shut. “We’re all getting chewed up. After what happened in Seoul, I thought we might’ve just been sloppy. Or compromised. Jacinto, you just never knew with him. And Clemens…” He sighed. “But they had us stretched so thin. Stovall, I mean. Pushing us from one operation to another, never filling us in on what was behind everything. And then you all died, or I thought…” His face screwed up. “You said you’d think about walking if it was looking like we couldn’t handle it.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yeah. Always.”

  “I think we’ve got a shot. A real shot.”

  “You trust her? Huiyin? The way she’s manipulating Chan?”

  “And me.” I’d seen what she was doing myself since we’d been forced to live in an open space. “I have to trust her for a little while more.”

  Danny nodded. “Yeah. I guess. She’s a good resource. Fast. Capable.”

  “I’m pretty fast, too. But I’ve got your back. Our team. We’re a team. Right?”

  That seemed to hurt Danny. “Of course. I just want us all to come out of this.”

  “I think we can take Cytek down, maybe even get Stovall.”

  “Then I believe you.” He headed back to the storage area and rustled around beneath the tarps. A few minutes later, he pushed his bike out. He was dressed in the black bodysuit and had the helmet balanced between the seat and his right hip. He put the kickstand down and pulled the helmet on, then stared into the rain. “Is this what you want?” he asked.

  “Getting Stovall?”

  “No.” He threw a leg over the bike. “This fight you can’t win.”

  I chuckled. That’s what Stovall had always said about me. “I told you before—I want to be left alone, maybe have a deep sea fishing boat I can take people out on. Just enjoy the tranquility of the sea, watch the pretty ladies laugh and fish.”

  “Pretty ladies fish, huh?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  He started the motorcycle. “I guess you know yourself best.”

  With a twist of the throttle, he sent the bike into the rain. Its engine sounded smoother now, but the sound receded quickly and was soon lost completely.

  The rustle of heavy fabric drew my attention to the tent in the back corner of the barn. Abhishek hurried out through a flap, little shoes kicking up divots as he rushed to the open barn front. He leaned against a post, examined a barnacle, then yanked a cigarette from the pocket of his wrinkled shirt. With his hand cupping the light, it took a while before the wind could suck away the telltale cloud of smoke from his first drag.

  I crossed to where I’d been leaning, covered up the gun I’d been cleaning, and strode over to his side, following his gaze to the pasture. The distant beach had his attention.

  He blew out a noxious cloud, then shook his head. “This is not a good plan. Not a safe plan. Not safe at all.”

  I shoved my hands into pockets that felt empty and worn. “You have something better?”

  His larger eye stared at me over the glow of his cigarette. “Go away. Give this up.”

  “One day. When I’ve cracked this nut.”

  “No. This Stovall, he is not a nut you crack. He’s a rock you break against.”

  “Maybe.”

  Waves crashed far away, but I imagined I could hear them if I listened hard. Mostly, it was the rain drumming on the roof and vehicles splashing down the highway Danny had headed for, somewhere beyond the weed-choked, dead lawn. The seagulls were quiet now, hiding somewhere, waiting for the miserable, pelting drops to ease up.

  Abhishek waved his cigarette at the gray eastern sky, and said, “This thing you fight, it will not get you Stovall.”

  “It’s his baby. He was part of it before he left me to die in Korea.”

  “But he will not die protecting it. No. He will use it like you use a gun. When it fails, he will walk away and find another weapon.”

  “Good. If he walks away, I’ll get him later. It’s this chimera AI I want for now. Jacinto. He may be Stovall’s tool, but he’s a deadly, twisted one, and he needs to be shut down.”

  “Yes.” Abhishek licked the stained crease of his bottom lip. “This idea you have…”

  “I know.” I shivered. “But we don’t have any choice. It’s who Jacinto was.”

  “You knew he was like this?”

  “We knew he was into some strange shit. The Agency didn’t seem to care, so long as he delivered. They probably would’ve thrown him in jail the second he started failing. It’s always like that: Laws and rules only apply when you aren’t valuable anymore.”

  Abhishek shrugged and looked at the dying cigarette. “Life is that way.”

  “Can you help? Chan described the idea to me, but it’s outside my field.”

  Abhishek nudged the thick-lensed glasses up his nose. “It is feasible, of course. These androids, if there are more, you will—”

  “Stovall’s going to keep throwing them at us until we’re dead or he’s out of money. Or he loses his AI.”

  The wind shifted, and rain splashed on us. We drifted deeper into the barn, and Abhishek patted at his damp shirt. He pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket and muttered as he drained water out of it. After digging around, he pulled another cigarette out and lit it.

  After a few puffs, he glanced over his shoulder at the makeshift tent Chan had turned into our headquarters. “You are sure this is something she can handle?”

  “Chan?”

  An irritated wave. “Yes, yes—Chan. Why you must make this so difficult—”

  “It’s what Chan wants.” I knocked a chunk of the sandy ground free with a kick and nearly jumped at the sight of a spider crawling out of the dirt. The bug scampered away, quickly disappearing in the rain. “Chan’s going to be our biggest problem but also our only chance at success.”

  Abhishek nodded and inhaled. “They will have packet sniffers, all sorts of other things. Those videos, they cannot be sent as they are.”

  “Chan has a tool that can tear them apart. Encrypted, embedded, password-locked, with links to everything you need to reassemble them. Apparently, it’s something Jacinto and his type know well enough.”

  That drew a disgusted snort. “These things Chan has. Did you see them?”

  “It’s where the last of my money went. I had to see some of it.”

  He threw his cigarette into the storm. “Where there is no money, where life means less than even a cheap meal here, people do terrible things.”

  “No, people do terrible things here. What we do is terrible. What those people did? They’re not human anymore.”

  Abhishek sighed. “If Chan embeds the codes, I will be able to track the packets.”

  “What do you think the odds of success are?”

  “If this AI is really emulating Jacinto, and he was as bad as C
han says, there is a chance. The odds go up as we send more packets. It is up to this AI that is running the Jacinto simulation, this chimera. Would a computer want this sort of thing?”

  “Chan thinks so. It certainly acts like Jacinto.”

  Ichi popped her head out of the flap, looked away when she saw I was watching her, then climbed up to the loft. She wore a sleeveless black leotard and had a white hotel towel thrown over her shoulder. Her normally fair skin was darkened by bruises and scabbed-over scrapes. She set the towel down near the edge of the loft and stretched out on it with an unmistakable wince.

  I caught Huiyin watching from the tent flap. Her face was still puffy and bruised, but she was healing quicker than the rest of us. Blood filtering? Chemical enhancements? Something her MSS benefactors had gifted her with.

  As an orphan, or as a recruit from her aunt’s house? What’s the truth with her?

  Huiyin bowed toward me slightly, then retreated back into the tent.

  Abhishek licked his lips while Ichi went through a routine of leg lifts and abdominal crunches. “You are going to get them all turned into machines, like you.”

  That hurt, partly because I had been feeling the same thing for a while. “Not if I can help it. If I could send her away now, I would.”

  “I would help you. For Norimitsu.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this Wendy Politkovskaya?”

  He seemed to slump a little. “She was from a different life. A young man’s life. I’m old now.”

  “She seemed to still have a little something there for you.”

  “No, no. All gone.” His features softened. Wistful, maybe. Regrets?

  I wanted to ask him about working for the other side. Had he been an Agency tool all these years? “Would you have done anything differently?”

  “It has been a good life.” He was silent for a moment, then scuffed away.

  “Abhishek?”

  He stopped.

  “How much do I owe you? For all of this?”

  He seemed to think about it for a while, then said, “You destroy this Jacinto thing, and we will call it even.”