Since many of the world’s armies went out of business, there were a slew of arms and weaponry that found its way into the general populace, and pretty much anything below level four was a sandbox for wannabe heads-of-state.
The FT wouldn’t last five minutes in a place like that, so Mouse parked it safely at Club Noxus and hopped on the bullet train straight down into the filth and anarchy of level three.
It occurred to Mouse as they descended the levels how the rot and corruption seemed to grow from level one and reach its dark tendrils ever farther upwards.
For each level he dropped, the people changed. Gone were tailored suits, smart casual outfits and people who washed more than once a month, each stop bringing rougher, harder, scarred, angry people. Gaunt and malnourished, eyes like rats, always searching for an opportunity.
They had a mix of old and new tech about their person. He knew the ones with the oldest tech were the nicest people. The ones with the newest had either killed someone else for it, or got it as a reward for joining some gang and successfully meeting their entry requirements, which was usually a killing or an armed robbery.
Although Mouse was no saint, making his living from acquiring things that didn’t belong to him, he had honor and standards. No one got killed directly from his action. No one suffered from the liberation of information—other than those corrupted lords of commerce and government whose careers were based on denying freedom and the withholding of information.
He realized then the true reason he took this assignment.
Being a ghost would be lucrative and beneficial, of that he had no doubt, but this was about something more fundamental.
Less than five years previously, only levels one and two were considered too dangerous for the average person to frequent; now it was up to four, and five was showing the same diseased symptoms of the underclass. The contamination was spreading quickly, and yet those above the ninth were growing further apart from society, safer and more insulated from the horrors below.
In a matter of years, there would be no normal, no freedom. It would simply be those under ninth and those above ninth: two polar extremes with nothing in between.
And then there would be war…terrible, catastrophic civil war.
Twenty minutes later, the bullet train stopped its vertical descent, and the doors opened to the foul stench of squalor and inadequate sanitation. Mouse shoved his way through the melee of people and out into the glass-walled station tower. From there he could see into the level proper.
Narrow, dark tunnels were spotted with the infirm and the homeless, their bodies twisted by amateur neural implants, and surgeries gone wrong.
A place like this made most of its money from illegal health care, but you might as well play Russian Roulette for all the likelihood of actually being cured of anything.
As he walked down that tunnel and headed across town to the Pelios tower—Pagakis’s last known address—his PR screen was assailed with hundreds of pop-ups and requests for donations from the homeless and the beggars. Despite their condition, they still had the tech to be on the grid. No doubt hooked on Neuro-D and various virtual highs.
You’d have more luck taking a tooth from a tiger than a PR unit from an addict.
Things must have gone seriously bad for Pagakis if he was hiding out in a dump like this. Quite the fall from grace.
Mouse kept to the shadows, his hood up, as he traversed from one tower to another via graffiti-laden and litter-strewn walkways. He identified thirteen corpses in various stages of decomposition along the way, their bodies naked, picked clean of anything of value.
For every minute he stayed in that place, he counted his blessings that his parents gave him a good start in life, had him when they lived up in the sixth, sent him to a good school that provided him with practical skills.
The poor wretches down here didn’t stand a chance.
Outside the entrance, a pair of tattooed, highly augmented goons stood guard. A line of people, mostly dressed in rags and torn, ill-fitting clothes, paid the toll to enter their own building. The glass tunnel, bridging between the Pelios and the unnamed tower from where Mouse had just come, reverberated with the protestations and anger of the residents.
“Five hundred dollars? It was half that yesterday! I have an elderly woman to care for. I can’t afford that. Where am I’m supposed to go? You robbing bastards, I hope you all burn in hell!” The tirade spilled from an irate man in a tattered business suit, clearly handed down through the levels via the clothing charities. One of the goons, bald-headed, his face tattooed to look like a bull, grabbed him by the lapels and lifted him off the ground before sending him crashing back down with a vicious head-butt. The man screamed and held his face as blood splashed onto the tunnel floor. Just another bloodstain to add to the growing mosaic.
The assailant turned to the line of stunned citizens. “If you have a problem with the fees, I suggest you go find cheaper accommodation. We provide a valuable service here, and in this day and age, there are costs. Anyone else want to negotiate?”
Mouse shook his head, felt impotent. He wanted to do something for these poor people, but what? He couldn’t help all of them, but maybe he could help a few.
He strode around the line of stunned people and approached the goon, all the time keeping his head bowed and within the shadow of his hood. Despite not wearing particularly impressive clothing, he still stood out amongst the queuing destitute.
“I’ll pay for him,” Mouse said, seeing it as both an opportunity to do some good, and also a way into the building.
The goon stepped close; he stunk of rotting cabbage. The telltale sign of Neuro-D abuse. “For you, out-of-towner. That’ll be five grand.” There was a hushed intake of breath from the crowd. Knowing he’d make a great deal more than that out of this assignment, Mouse nodded, transferred the payment to his PR. The goon handed him a data chit-card, allowing him access.
Despite the threatening look, he let Mouse and the man with the busted nose through the doors. Problem with that, of course, was that the bastards put the price up to the average Joe. Still, he couldn’t help them all; there were five missing kids to think about.
***
“Thank you, thank you so much,” the man said in a nasally voice. He pinched his nostrils to prevent the blood from dripping down any farther. He accompanied Mouse down the corridor like a lost puppy at the heels of a heroic vagabond that had just bought his freedom.
“It’s okay. It was the least I could do. I hope your relative is okay,” Mouse said, referring to the man’s elderly charge. He tried to ignore the man and walk on to number 78, Pagakis’s apartment, but the man kept pace. “What number are you in?” Mouse asked.
The man shrugged. “I can do things…for cash,” he said. “I might be able to help you.”
Intrigued, Mouse stopped and asked, “Help me with what?”
They were up to apartments in the 50s now, and Mouse was wondering how he would get rid of this guy. He didn’t want any company while interrogating Pagakis. Things could get ugly, and in places like this, violence could erupt out of the smallest of altercations. The last thing he wanted was the goons on his trail.
“I find things: people, items, information.”
“Welcome to the club. But thanks, I don’t need any help right now.” Mouse stared at the man, willing him to disappear. But he just stood there cradling his face, staring at Mouse like an expectant chick waiting to be fed.
“I mean it. I’m okay, you can go about your business,” Mouse added.
“You’re here for the philosopher, aren’t you?” The man tapped his head as if he knew.
“And who might that be?” Mouse asked, wondering if he was referring to Pagakis.
“They say he stole some children…others have come looking for him.” The man sidl
ed up close, twitched like a nervous bird.
“Who came looking?”
The man opened his mouth about to speak, then closed it and smirked. “That’s information, that is. Doesn’t come free.”
“I know that more than anyone, but I already know, so I don’t need your help right now. Thanks.” Mouse turned his back, made to leave, when the scruffy man grabbed his wrist.
“Wait! You don’t know everything…the philosopher isn’t where you think he is, where the others think he was.”
“What do you mean?”
“Number seventy-eight…it’s empty. Yes, empty. No one in there. Stripped of assets days ago. I know this.”
“I’m sure you do, now let go of me.”
The man darted in front of him. “Don’t believe me? I’ll show you, and then you’ll pay for information.”
Mouse shook his head, and sighed with frustration. But still, he followed the man anyway.
The splintered wood on the door’s hinge proved the battered vagrant right. Inside, the place was like a D-den: filthy nests of blankets littered the corners of the room like festering sores, the walls were smothered with the stained ramblings of addicts, probably of their own bodily fluids.
“See.” The man grinned, so very proud of himself.
Mouse scanned the room. Zero network traffic of any kind. The place was a complete void. But something wasn’t right. Although the place was filthy and empty, there was an access chit on one of the tattered kitchen units. It was dated for earlier that morning.
Mouse turned to the eager man. “I don’t need your services today, thank you. I’ve got it from here.”
“But…but—”
Mouse closed the door in front of the information trader and locked it shut, muting the man’s protests and begging to a dull annoyance. Mouse stayed where he was, waited, as he heard the man’s footsteps move away down the corridor. And then, as he expected, he heard movement within the apartment—a shuffling sound coming from a corridor off the main living room.
Moving on tiptoe, Mouse stepped out from the doorway, stood with his back to the wall that divided the kitchen and lounge. Poking his head round into the corridor, he saw the shadows shift and heard a grunt followed by a thud, and then the scraping of wood.
Mouse whipped his head back around as he heard footsteps on the tiled floor. They were getting close now, and it sounded like whoever it was had a dodgy leg as there was a kind of shuffling to one of the steps.
“Make a noise and your head is a public art piece, you understand?” The cold, steel barrel of an old-fashioned shotgun pressed into the side of Mouse’s face, crushing his nose and cheek.
Mouse nodded and grunted something that sounded like yes. His PR screen was still empty of data from his various scans. This dude was completely off the grid, which could only mean one thing: he had something that many people wanted.
The man holding the weapon came fully into view, all the while holding the gun to Mouse’s face. From the description Dr. Kalani had given him, Mouse was sure this was Pagakis. Though he looked in bad condition. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair thin and greasy, and his skin grey and sallow, clinging to his skull like wet tissue paper.
“Pagakis?” Mouse asked, trying to keep his voice low and nonthreatening.
“Who’s asking?”
“Kalani sent me,” Mouse said. “I’ve been employed to track down the disappearance of some students.”
Pagakis’s hands shook under the effort of holding up the gun, but he didn’t remove his finger from the trigger.
Sweat beaded on Mouse’s head and dripped into his eyes, making him blink. “I’ve not come to harm you,” he said. “I’m just looking to find the kids. All I want is your help, and I’ll leave you alone.”
Pagakis backed away, dropped the shotgun to his side and slumped into one of the filthy blanket nests. He bowed his head to his chest and sobbed. It was an awful sound. Hollow and wet, dredged from some deep, dark place that a man—or woman—should never have to go. The sound of guilt and desperation.
He raised his head and nodded. “It was all my fault,” he said.
Sensing his opportunity, Mouse knelt down to eye level with the broken man and said, “Tell me where I can find them. Tell me what you know about the Daedalus Project, and I promise I’ll do all I can to find them and keep them safe. Do you know if they are still alive?”
“They are. Sort of. I think it’s too late for them though. I…I sent them to their doom.”
“I thought you were the one responsible for hiring them for MacroComputing. Doesn’t sound like you were doing anything wrong. What happened?”
“I put them in the spotlight, you see?” The man held out his hands, as if begging. “It was my dealings with Kalani and my interest in their research that caused Metion to sit up and take notice. And when I hired them for MacroComputing, I let my dossiers—and their research—be stolen.
“By whom?” Mouse asked.
“It turned out Metion were tracking my activities for months, and had their own specialists copy their program of self-aware AIs. Only it didn’t quite go to plan. It’s out of control! It took the kids.”
“What did? The Daedalus Project? It’s software, an AI, how could that be responsible?”
The man pointed to his head. “It gets in there, fucks with your brain. The thing has an insatiable appetite. Devouring terabytes of the world’s data, hour by hour.”
“Slow down,” Mouse said, making sure his PR unit was recording everything. “I don’t understand. Are you saying Metion didn’t kidnap these kids?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Metion have no idea how to stop it, they’re riding it for as long as they can, getting rich and getting protected: off the grid and away from…from…”
“From what?” Mouse urged.
“The result of the Daedalus Project! Its core, its brain, its center! Asterion!”
“What’s Asterion?”
“The AI in the Daedalus Project. It’s sentient. It was supposed to work within Metion’s protocols, developed from the research they stole from those poor kids, but they didn’t wait, didn’t follow Ariadne’s concerns or guidelines. They didn’t set up the proper fail safes, and the thing got away from them. It set up its own data vault: a virtual labyrinth that once inside, can never be escaped. Not without Asterion’s say-so. It controls everything. Soon, it’ll control all the networks from the DarkNet to the MeshNet, and then we’ll be screwed…”
“But how did it take the kids? It’s not like it just got up and grabbed them, is it? Metion must have had people physically take Ariadne and her colleagues.”
“It got into their PR engines, lured them somewhere. I couldn’t trace it. When I tried, it found me, tried to get inside my brain, but I realized quickly enough and managed to get off the grid. But it has sent people after me. People it controls. Every day, its influence grows wider.”
“People work for it?” Mouse asked, wondering if Mikos was one such person.
Pagakis nodded.
“But why?”
“Information. When you’re on the inside of the biggest data vault in history, that’s quite the motivation.”
Mouse slumped to the floor. It was worse than he could have ever imagined. How could you take down a virtual enemy that controls people via their Personal Reality Engines?
With direct access to their brains, it could get them to do almost anything. It was far worse than Neuro-D, which had a similar effect, but was short-lived, and mostly the people on Neuro-D experienced things already preprogrammed. Usually violent or sexual acts.
Conscious, intelligent acts controlled by an AI…that was something else entirely.
“How do we stop it?” Mouse asked.
“Hah!” Pagakis jumped up,
his eyes wide. “Stop it? You can’t stop it!”
“You said you tried to trace it, do you still have that information? Do you have any idea where Ariadne and the others were taken, or coerced, or whatever this thing did?”
“You can’t go there. Things are bad enough already. It can’t be allowed to spread. We have to take down the networks.”
“Are you mad? The world will stop if that happens. Everything is controlled by the networks. No, I have to find a way in. Tell me what you know.”
Pagakis shook his head. “You’re madder than I am. You really want to know? You prepared to take the risk?”
Mouse thought about it. As far as he figured, he was already in deep and he might as well keep digging in the hopes he’d come out the other side.
“Yes. Can you help me?”
The man stood and walked across the room and down the corridor. A minute later, he came back and handed Mouse his deactivated PR engine.
“It’s all in there. It’s yours. Do with it as you please. But not here. People are looking for me, and I need to stay hidden. You understand me?”
Mouse nodded and thanked him, pocketed his PR engine.
“Now go, be quick before others come looking for me.”
Chapter Eight
Each step of his journey back to the bullet train and the FT was fraught with the fear of being followed. Not surprising he was feeling paranoid after speaking with Pagakis. Carrying the headhunter’s infiltrated PRE unit upon his person wasn’t exactly comforting.
Despite that, he got into the FT, set the scanners to check for any unusual traffic about him. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He decided to activate Pagakis’s PR unit in passive mode, which meant no transmitting or receiving, and see what he could found out about Asterion.
The Daedalus Code Page 6