Graham chuckled under his breath. “You keep on like this and you’re going to die of a stroke long before one of Montegreu’s people gets you.”
“I’ll worry about my own health, thank you. I’ll also be brief—my sources inform me Montegreu is behind the kidnapping of Dr. Abigail Canivon on Earth. Something to do with this rumored new breed of Artificial.”
The odds of Ferre telling the truth were high, if only because Canivon’s kidnapping hadn’t yet hit the news feeds. It hadn’t hit anything, in point of fact—Graham wouldn’t know about it if it weren’t for a directive straight from Chairman Vranas to scrupulously watch everything related to Noetica, on Earth and elsewhere.
As for the ‘new breed of Artificial,’ the fact that the truth—the new breed was humans—hadn’t leaked out was nothing short of a miracle. A miracle whose time appeared to be coming to an end, as it appeared Olivia Montegreu knew the truth. Why kidnap the doctor behind Noetica, if not to become a Prevo herself?
The notion chilled Graham to the bone. Montegreu was extremely dangerous and powerful on her own; couple her with an Artificial, even a tiny private one, and she became a far more formidable threat.
“How certain are your sources? I assume you’re referring to people on the inside, but how high? She and her organization are quite secretive.”
“High enough. She couldn’t be so secretive this time—snatching the woman off the streets of Seattle took extensive resources.”
“Where did they take the doctor?”
“Back to New Babel. That’s all I know.”
“I sincerely hope this information isn’t six hours old.” If Ferre’s paranoia had led him to waste critical time traveling to Seneca solely so he could share the news in person, it may be too late.
“No more than two hours. I was in the area.”
Time to end the meeting, then. “If it checks out, you’re good.”
Ferre scoffed. “And if it doesn’t check out?”
“You’d be wise not to send me on any additional fool’s errands, lest I decide to reconsider our arrangement.”
“As if I don’t have enough problems.” Ferre turned and vanished into the crowd.
Graham gave it five seconds, then pushed off the table and walked fifteen meters to where Richard sat at a proper table and eased into the chair across from him. “Ferre says Montegreu took Dr. Canivon. You and I both realize that doesn’t mean anything good, so you’d better tell Admiral Solovy. Offer our services if there’s any way we can assist, though I expect she’ll decline. I’ll see what I can do for corroboration.”
Richard stared at him, the muscles in his jaw flexing, almost as if he was about to pretend he didn’t know Graham knew he was sharing information with the Alliance Fleet Admiral.
Finally he nodded. “Right.” He pushed the beer sitting in front of him toward Graham. “In that case, feel free to finish my drink for me.”
Richard slipped inside his skycar—he was forcing himself to use it instead of the levtrams when possible in order to familiarize himself with the city—and sent Miriam an encrypted pulse the instant the door closed.
We’ve received information indicating it was agents of Olivia Montegreu who kidnapped Dr. Canivon.
The response was a dozen or so seconds in coming; given recent events he imagined she was rather busy.
That is…less than ideal. Confidence level?
Reasonable to high. The intel came from the guy who gave us Montegreu for the Aguirre Conspiracy, but second-hand. Delavasi has a few people inside Zelones, and he’s going to try to get some corroboration. Talk to Vera Yanez down at HQ in San Francisco—she also has a plant or two in the cartel.
I will. Did this source have any information on the doctor’s whereabouts?
Only New Babel, but it should mean the main Zelones compound. Montegreu keeps her core resources close at hand.
True. We need to be as confident as possible, since mounting an incursion onto New Babel is a high-risk endeavor. But we also need to move quickly if we want to prevent….
Miriam trailed off, and it wasn’t difficult to guess why. One reason the true nature of the Prevos had successfully been kept secret thus far was they never discussed it over comms, no matter the circumstances. But she obviously jumped to the same conclusion he and Graham had regarding Montegreu’s intentions.
She opted for a less revealing statement.
If we want to prevent whatever Ms. Montegreu has planned for Dr. Canivon.
Yes. I’ll let you know as soon as we have any more information. Delavasi has offered his assistance.
You told him you were passing information to me?
I believe he’d want me to pass this particular information on irrespective of our arrangement, but he’s far from an idiot. We haven’t discussed it, but clearly he knows.
Well. Tell the director thank you, but we can handle any operations ourselves.
Another pause.
How are you?
He laughed faintly.
I’m…adjusting. Don’t worry about me. You have bigger problems right now.
I fear I do. I confess to being a little disappointed the Oversight Committee isn’t behind the kidnapping. It would have made certain things easier—but that’s neither here nor there, and now irrelevant.
Sorry to complicate your life further. Before you go, how is Devon holding up?
He is physically intact—bruises and scrapes. Psychologically, somewhat less intact. But if anything, Dr. Canivon’s kidnapping has given him something to focus his anger on. He wants to focus it by personally dismembering the perpetrators, but it is an improvement on the spasmodic flailing.
That doesn’t sound great, but I’m not surprised. Tell him I’m thinking about him.
I will.
She cut the connection without ceremony, as there was no need for any.
He dropped his head back on the seat. They’d had Olivia Montegreu in their grasp eight months ago—sitting across the table from him and Graham in a locked room—and they let her walk away. It had felt like the right decision at the time, when the stakes were incalculable and she possessed what they so desperately needed. But deep down he’d suspected making the deal with her would come back to bite them in the ass.
And here they were.
He wished like hell he were in Vancouver, because if he were in Vancouver he could be helping Devon. Helping Miriam. Being separated from her was affecting him more than he’d expected; she had been his closest friend for so many years now.
Surely there was some way he could help from here, beyond what he’d just done….
He straightened up and pulsed Will.
Meet me at the office.
Intelligence Division Headquarters
By the time Graham walked into the top-floor conference room at Division, Richard had an annotated map and two screens open above the table. Will was transferring notes from one of the screens to the map while Richard did the same from the second one.
Graham leaned on the door frame shaking his head. “Something told me I’d find you here.”
Richard shrugged distractedly. “And something told me I didn’t need to comm you and ask you to come in.”
Graham jerked his head at the displays. “What you got?”
“With any luck, a way to help Miriam stop Olivia Montegreu from becoming a Prevo and possibly even rescue Dr. Canivon.”
“Good news. But I have to ask again…what you got?”
Richard motioned him closer. The annotations overlaid the map to form a multi-hubbed web of interconnections. “Every known member or associate of the Order of the True Sentients, their locations and where they’ve made contact with other members.”
Graham frowned as Will added an additional name to the map above Pandora then streamed a line from it to a name above Seneca. “OTS is still primarily an Alliance problem, which is why it’s interesting that there are fourteen names attached to Seneca.”
“Congratulations,
they’re now your problem, too. Faith Quillen, one of the chief lieutenants in the organization, moved to Pandora two months ago to start up a new cell. She recruited Ulric Toscano while he was vacationing there. Toscano returned to Seneca and started his own cell.”
“How did you find this out?”
Richard proffered a small smile. “They’ve been my primary focus for the last three months, because as you noted, they are an Alliance problem and a fairly big one.”
“Consider me interested in this new cell, but how is any of this going to help stop Montegreu?”
“I want to unleash OTS on her. As you can see, they have a large presence on New Babel. At the very least doing so may buy Miriam some breathing room, and if timed correctly the distraction can help increase an infiltration rescue op’s chances of success.”
“It can. How do you propose to do it?”
Richard swiped the two screens toward Will and settled back against the table. “That’s the tricky part. We’ll need to utilize your remote eVi hacking tool.”
Graham’s expression was admirably blank. “What remote eVi hacking tool?”
He chuckled, secretly glad to have a chance to tweak Graham for once. “The one your Strategic Development group has been working on for the last year. I believe it’s currently in the advanced prototype stage?”
Graham rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “And we worked so damn hard to keep that one under wraps. We call it the Reverb. It works, but it requires line of sight to the target for a minimum of three minutes.”
“Makes it harder, but still doable. The clearest way in is through Toscano, but we have to find him. Is that something you can do?”
“Well, we don’t make a habit of surveilling our citizens without cause, but the infrastructure is in place. If I put a priority flag on him, we should know where he is within a few hours, assuming he’s not at home asleep. I’ll send someone by his home address to check.”
“If he is, we’ll have to find another way in, because we can’t wait until morning. So will you flag him?”
“Done. Now we need a plan.”
He had one of those, too. “OTS operates a private comm network. Since it relies on person-to-person connections, we thus far haven’t found a way to access it. I want to use the Reverb to implant information in their network suggesting Olivia Montegreu is preparing to bring one of the new-style Artificials online. We can also imply that after she does so she intends to take out the other cartels on New Babel then make a big play on Pandora.”
Will had finished transferring names to the map and turned his attention to them. “That’s thin. How do we make it believable?”
“I think…spoof a member of the organization, someone positioned to have access to this kind of information. You’re right, it’ll be wafer-thin, but if we create a sense of time pressure it could be enough.”
Graham held up a hand. “Maybe not so thin. Let’s go see Hennessey in Strategic Development.”
Tessa Hennessey spun her chair around to face them, sending thick orange and black braids whipping over her shoulder. Irises altered to match the orange in her hair sparkled with flecks of gold. A network of the most elaborate, intricate glyphs Richard had ever seen pulsed in rainbow colors down her mocha arms. Her tank top was made entirely of interwoven conductive threads.
“Hey, director dude and friends.”
Graham dipped his chin. “Tessa. We need to take a VISH out for a spin.”
“How long of a spin?”
“If it works? Until it doesn’t.”
“Hmm.” She eyed him and Will. “You, I’ve seen around…Willie something? You, though? You’re new.” She thrust out a hand at Richard. “Hi, I’m Tessa. Resident warenut and fashion consultant.”
“Richard. Nice to meet you. We’re on a tight timetable, but perhaps you could explain what a VISH is?”
She checked with Graham; he nodded assent, and she reached behind her and tapped in a few commands. Her screen shifted, but not to anything he recognized. “VISH is what we call a ‘simulated human’—designed from the ground up to mimic human conduct and nothing else. It took an Artificial to develop it, but the finished package is quite compact, particularly if we limit its parameters before deploying it.”
“STAN developed it?”
“Ha. As if the military would let us play with their prize synthetic. No, we have a far smaller but in my opinion more clever Artificial here. I call it Cleo. So how compact do we need the VISH to be?”
“Small enough to be contained in an eVi or transmitted through a comm-based quantum tunnel?”
She made a hedging motion with her hand. “If we narrow its directives and cut a few corners, I can probably make it happen.”
Graham leaned forward and planted his hands on the edge of her desk. “Mid-level security officer in Defense. Not a tech job, but overhears things in the halls. Male, single, no SO, no kids. Strong distrust of Artificials.”
“Cleo will get a kick out of that. When do you need it by?”
He and Graham exchanged a look. “Pretty much now.”
Her odd orange eyes widened briefly. “Come back in twenty-five minutes.” Then she spun around to the screens and her fingers began flying over the keys, a soft white luminescence occasionally escaping from the space between her fingertips and the virtual keypad.
“No.”
Will dropped a shoulder on the wall and crossed his arms at his waist. “I won’t be in any danger. All I have to do is talk up a guy for three minutes.”
“Not a guy—a terrorist.”
“Maybe, but I doubt he’s planning to take out the pub.”
They had picked up Toscano’s location five minutes earlier when he paid for a beer at Fuori Point Grille, a pub near the river. Agents would be in place in the next several minutes to tail him if he should leave, but the pub represented the perfect opportunity if they could catch up to him in time. “Let Graham use one of his agents trained in undercover work.”
“Richard, I’m trained in undercover work. And I can charm anyone. People relax around me.”
He stared at Will, working to push away the twinge of acrimony that had flared. It was so close to being permanently banished…but the admission had allowed it to worm its way up to the surface once again. Judging by the expression on Will’s face, he knew it, too.
“No more lies, remember? It is what it is.”
Richard exhaled. “I know. Sorry.”
“I can’t say if any qualified agents are here right now, but I’m here right now, and ‘here’ is ten minutes from the pub.”
He threw his hands in the air. “Okay. Let’s go. We’ll tell Graham on the way.”
Cavare
Richard studied the device in his palm curiously. Made of a smooth obsidian and oblong in shape, it reminded him of old-style sci-fi depictions of a phaser gun. It even glowed an icy green at the transmitting end. The near end displayed a narrow band of controls; the options were limited and essentially consisted of ‘lock on target,’ ‘transmit’ and ‘end transmit.’ Definitely still a prototype. But it had been preloaded with the code to manifest the VISH, and it contained the ware necessary to hack into the targeted eVi.
Due to its extensive integration with the human nervous system, an eVi had always been believed to be secure—unhackable and incorruptible absent direct interaction via the two tiny ports at the base of the neck.
He didn’t know the details of how the device worked, but it appeared the belief had now become a false one, even if no one knew it yet. The Reverb and its development were beyond classified, and rightfully so, for it was dangerous technology: small, undetectable and easy to operate.
He sat at a table inside Fuori Point Grille, in the most shadowy corner available offering line of sight to the bar running the length of the left wall. A mug of beer and a bowl of chips sat in front of him to complete the charade. He brought the mug to his lips and mimicked a sip, nudging the device a couple of centimeters out from behind the
bowl as Will sidled up beside Toscano, nodded a greeting at the man and ordered a drink.
He centered the device on Toscano’s skull and activated the ‘transmit’ command.
The light emanating from the front of the device shone too brightly for comfort in the dim environment, but covering it would break the signal. Due to the delivery of the complex VISH, it was going to take 4.3 minutes to complete, longer than normal. The seconds began to tick by.
Toscano had turned to half-face Will. The microphone dot behind Will’s ear was active, and Richard listened in.
“You should try one of their custom brews. They’re not bad for the price.”
Will gestured a thanks, waved the bartender over and changed his order, then also shifted his posture subtly toward Toscano. “Thanks for the recommendation. It’s my first time here—I just moved to Cavare from Elathan.” He chuckled under his breath. “Truth be told, I’m flailing a little. I don’t suppose you can also recommend a place that serves a decent steak?”
Toscano seemed to consider the question a moment—and possibly whether to respond or brush Will off. The man glanced around the room, his gaze passing over Richard without incident, before returning his attention to Will. “Not here. There’s a respectable red meat rotisserie two blocks in from the promenade. It’s pricey, though.”
The beer arrived, and Will took a long sip then indicated approval. “This is good. Pricey’s not a problem—I don’t really have anything else to spend my money on. Might as well spend it on a few visceral pleasures.”
“I hear that.” Toscano’s bearing relaxed and he faced Will more fully. “Cavare has a lot of those for sale, if you’re looking.”
The tiny display blinked green.
Transmission complete
Richard casually pressed the ‘end transmit’ control and slid the Reverb closer, into his lap and finally into his pocket.
Will now had Toscano deeply engaged in conversation. He truly did have a way with people. Richard sent him a pulse giving the all-clear and nibbled on a chip.
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