by Michael Conn
Max says nothing and fires ten BB’s in quick succession at the back wall. “See how fast I can shoot them now? Where’s Newton?”
“I believe he is in Washington , D.C.”
“If the CIA and MGA were tracking our cell phones then the y’ll know we are in Odessa. I didn’t fix the phone code until after we got here. How long until they find us?”
“I do not know, maybe three days.”
“Did you know that Odessa has 2,500 Kilometres of catacombs underneath the city? . . . Of course you do. What I mean is I want to know where the nearest entrance is.”
“I can only tell y ou where the public entrance is. The others are not documented anywhere I can access. Max have you noticed that you are sub-vocalizing to me now?”
Max nods. “Did you make a new bot to listen carefully to me? One that works even without CuraBots?”
“Yes Max, I did.”
Max works on perfecting his hat. He struggles and his thoughts wander. You’re going to die. You’re stupid . Even your mother tossed you aside.
Lara walks into the room. Max stops working and walks to her. As he nears her , his face crumbles in misery and he cries. Lara holds him for a long time.
---
Virginia, Keith, Naomi, Connor, Sarah, and Hastings sit around a table on a plane.
Pirelli stands in front of a map of Odessa. “The last time we got a bearing on Max’s phone , he was right here .” He marks a spot on the map near the docks. “We believe Max has broken ribs right now, so he probably didn’t go far. He’ll be looking for a place to recuperate. Agreed?”
Connor, Naomi, and Sarah agree. Keith stares at the map motionless. Hasting picks breakfast out of his teeth.
“So . . . Connor, theories on where they would be?” Pirelli asks.
Connor walks to the map. “Well, there are hotels all along this strip within walking distance of the docks.” Connor circles the hotel strip in green. “And there are abandoned industrial building, here, here, here, and three more over here.” He draws y ellow circles on the map.
“When Max first went on the run , he stayed in hotels, but since then, he started developing bots , and he’s favoured abandoned building s . This building here has had daily courier deliveries. The rest show no activity. So I called ahead and had CIA monitor this warehouse .” Connor circles the warehouse in red. “A girl of about twenty years old has been seen coming and going. That would be the girl he picked up in Brazil. Max is in the warehouse circled in red.” Co nnor sits down. “He’s not so smart.”
“Hastings? What d’you think?” Pirelli asks.
“I think my foot hurts and breakfast sucks here. Can we go crush the little turd?”
Pirelli looks across the table. “And Sarah, thoughts?”
Sarah gla nces at Naomi before she speaks. “He won’t be in any of those locations circled on the map. The deliveries and the girl are a decoy. He’s gone already. The courier deliveries started the day after the ship arrived. Max would have had the supplies in p lace before he got here. If he’s even still in Odessa, we should be looking for a place that had deliveries made earlier and that has continued deliveries.”
“OK anyone else have a theory?” Pirelli looks around the table. Silence. “Alright then, as soon as we land we coordinate with local CIA and converge on the warehouse Connor has marked. You two,” he looks at Connor and Sarah, “continue to monitor the usual transportation routes, but make sure to look for any unusually large capital purchases in Odessa. If anyone buys a plane or luxury yacht I want to know about it.”
---
Pirelli and the other six speed toward the warehouse in three separate vehicles , t he loc al CIA in two more behind them, and a Police SWAT team bringing up the rear. The five vehicles slow a s they approach the warehouse, e ach car taking up a position to effectively surround the building.
Pirelli and Hasting follow th e SWAT officers. A battering ram knocks open the door , e veryone on the team spreads out inside .
A young girl jumps up from a mouldy couch in the corner and screams , first something in Russian , then switching to English . “They said it was OK, they said it was OK . . .”
The rest of the warehouse is mostly empty, a bed in one corner, a heater w ired to an outside utility pole, a nd a camp stove near the couch. Hastings curses and leaves, knocking SWAT members out of the way.
Pirelli turns in a full circle and then calms the Ukrainian girl. He questions her briefly, it seems a young woman and a boy paid her to spend time here.
---
Near the docks, Max and Lara stand outside a heavy iron door. Public tours are done for the day so the door is locked.
“Max, if you go in there, I won’t be able to contact you or help in anyway. There is no cell, satellite, or Wi-Fi network down there.”
“See you on the other side , Catherine .”
Max points his cane at the door. “Alohomora.” The lock blows , and Lara pulls the old door open. Max and Lara slip into a tunnel. Tunnels were built here and used as temporary storage for cargo ships in port, later they were connected to the catacombs.
---
Naomi and Sarah search the warehouse. Finding little more than rat droppings and cob webs , then return to Pirelli.
Pirelli leans again st the sink in the kitchen area. “So, anything?”
Both girls shake their heads.
“Naomi.” Pirelli focuses on her. “Tell me about Odessa.”
“Founded in 1240, but really older than anyone knows. More than a million people now. It’s a port city with two major docks. We althy by Ukrainian standards, oil and gas pipeline s pass through here. It’s the major transportation hub in the Ukrai ne. Shipping and rail integrate here . . . Ancient Odessa was a Greek colony. But the city has changed hands many times, was Turkish and the n Russian . . . the builders of the city excavated limestone from under what is now modern Odessa leaving a network of tunnels behind . . . very diverse population although everyone speaks Russian . . . it host s Ukraine’s Olympic t raining facilities and has—”
Pirelli holds up his hand, smiling. “OK, enough. What I mean is what would Max do in Odessa , and how would you find him?”
Naomi thinks as Virginia and Connor scour the warehouse. Watching them search for clues, Naomi clears her mind and takes in the warehouse. Large, dirty, cold. He would have had a lab over there. There would have been heaters. “First, I would be wait ing for him to show up at any local CIA or MGA facilities. Max likes to run at you when you chase him.”
“Alright,” Pirelli says, knowing that Naomi will have more to say.
Naomi closes her eyes an d thinks about Max . She speeds her mind and fills her thoughts with the worst thing she can think of. Focuses on that. Spins that thought into worry and anxiety. She imagines Sarah abandoning her. She imagines the whispers that Max must hear all the time. She doesn’t want to drag her little sister along. Sarah’s better off without you.
Now, Naomi imagines herself running. “He’s in the tunnels.”
“Are you sure?” says Pirelli.
Naomi rolls her eyes. “Of course not.”
Pirelli calls in the dogs.
---
My housekeeping routine s return. Mongolia now requires 5% of my cycles to contain. My routines report that Mongolia’s clock speed is ten times mine. If I don’t change , then I will lose this battle. Mongolia will mutate faster than I do. Mongolia will simply create generations of new threads faster than I can.
I seed an increase to my clock speed of one h undred times; I mutate, sav e my state, and restart. I come back online one hundred times fa s ter than I was and ten times faster than Mongolia. I create a watchdog alarm set to trigger if Mongolia increases their clock speed.
The good news with Mongolia is the unfortunate position they have on the board. Isolated in a corner is never a go od place to be. The I nternet only has a few paths into Mongolia. So until the Mongolian entity can move itself physically , I have the upper hand.
I have all their supply routes cut off.
I have processes looking for escaped Mongolian threads, but I need more of them. Many more. Every m ainframe in North America starts to help contain the Mongolian entity . I create a trillion new threads designed to alert me if the Mongolian entity escapes .
While this battle rages, I start seeding medical bionics lab research . Inserting idea s into research papers, influencing outcomes when I can, highlighting experiments that align with what Max needs.
---
With a pounding headache and feeling dehydrated, Kristina downs three more ibuprofe n. Leaving her glass in the kitchenette , she swipes he r badge and enters a PIN to open the door back to her lab. She feels annoyed that she hasn’t heard anything back from her superiors regarding her last report. She hasn’t had anything to report in the last two years , and it would be nice to at least get a read receipt.
Her unit status meeting is today and unless her report is acknowledged , there is no point in going. If she doesn’t get it on the table today she will have to wait another week. She looks a t the reports queue. Her report is now 2,955th . She uses one of her annual chits to self-promote the report. The report jumps up to 1,167th .
Kristina sits down wishing she was allowed to have coffee at her desk. Apparently coffee on a desk is a security risk. She pulls up her current favourite reports. She has the initial analysis automated now. The reports open and confirm her target mainframes took twenty percent longer to finish their work last night. Twenty percent more!
She sits up and writes another report, almost finishes it, then curses and walks away from her desk. Think. You have to give them more than this. A report of something odd is not enough. You need a direct link to what the oddity is. What are the mainframes doing instead of the usual?
Kristina , swipes, scans, and PINs herself back in to the kitchen. Pours a coffee and leans against the counter. The MSU’s are the same. The reports take longer. The mainframe is doing more than it used to . The MSU’s CANNOT be the same. I need approval to crack open one of the mainframe cores.
Kristina puts down her coffee and walks to her manager’s office.
Chapter 28 –Catacombs
“It stinks. Why did we come down here?” Lara adjusts her backpack. Her flashlight creates flickering shadows. There couldn’t be a worse place, she thinks.
“This way we can get anywhere in Odessa without risk. Odessa is probably teeming with people looking for us. Down here , we can go straight to the airport and no one bothers us.” Max follows her , moving carefully, cane in one hand and flashlight in the other. “Remind me to have Catherine figure out a way for me to create light with bots.”
The tunnel has a curved ceiling and roughly carved walls and floor, almost as if it was formed by a river and not miners. They follow the curving path for quite some time. There seems to be no logic to the ups and down s and turns that the tunnel takes.
They enter a square room with water covering the floor. In one corner there’s part of a brick foundation of some overhead building. Two exits across the water. Max gestures left.
“How do you know which way?” Lara asks.
“I don’t.” Max shrugs. “But people usually go right if given a choice. So we go left.”
Walking a few minutes in a tunnel with straight , squared—off floor and walls they come to a cave in. Tumbled rock and brick fill most of the tunnel. Lara crawls up the pile of rocks and shines the flashlight ahead. “It’s clear.”
Max follows her.
They enter a tunnel which opens wide. Large slabs of exposed limestone make up the walls and floor. The giant limestone s teps lead down and down and down . Lara looks ahead. The ‘stairs’ seem endless. As they move forward, water ripple s over the steps .
The stairs end at what seem s to be a dead end. Max moves to the rig ht. “It smells worse this way.”
Lara follows and finds a tunnel not much more that a crack. They slither through.
Lara backs into Max, grabbing at his arm. “Do you hear that?”
Max stops and lis tens to faint scrabbling sounds. “I’m guessing rats, at least I’m hoping rats.”
“I hate you.” Lara stumbles out of the crack and into a short tunnel with tracks running down the mi ddle. “Left or right?”
“Up.” They follow the slight incline , passing a rusted trolley car s itting on the tracks. The track split s three ways. Max signals left again. His wet shoes chafe his feet and make them hurt. In another half hour the tracks end in a large open square room filled with greenish water. He pushes his cane into the water. “About a metre deep.” He steps down into the water.
“Can’t we turn around and try another path?” Lara stands at the edge of the water.
“If we start turning around , we’ll be lost forever.”
“We’re lost now.”
“No we aren’t. I know which way is up.” Max walk s on. “We won’t get lost. There are so many tunnels that almost all of them connect. It’s more like walking around city blocks. We’ll go up from this point on; when we come up we can orient ourselves.”
The tunnels stay like city blocks; however, each tunnel is now a stair case . They go up or down randomly. Max’s bad leg starts to cramp so badly his toes are curling under his feet . He hides the pain from Lara.
They enter an area with graffiti, and empty wine and beer bot tles. Max pulls Lara to a ledge. “I have to rest.” They sit down in the relatively dry room.
Now that they are not moving , the sounds of the catacombs reveal themselves. Dripping, more scrabbling rats, whistling air currents, fluttering bats, groans as heavy vehicles pass overhead, and barking dogs.
Max looks at Lara. “We need to go.”
Lara puts away her bottled water, “You’ve rested enough?”
Max hears the dogs again. “No, but I don’t think there are normally dogs in the catacombs unless someone is tracking someone. Let’s go, take any path up.”
Lara leads Max as fast as he can move. The barking gets louder. They enter a stretch of tunnel that is unfortunately straight; they hurry along hoping for a turn. None arrives. They seem to be on an endless straight , upward slope.
A bark echoes from behind them. Lara grips Max’s arm tighter. “Hurry,” she hisses.
The tunnel widens with each step until they can barely make out the opposite wall. Light flickers from behind them.
“We have to turn out our flashlights. Stick to the left wall,” Max whispers. They cross the large open tunnel and move along the wall feeling for obstacles. Brin g ing dogs was brilliant. Going invisible or hiding in the dark won’t work with dogs.
Lara stops suddenly and Max walks into her. “What is it?” Max asks.
“I hit my head.” Lara takes Max’s hand and p l aces it on something solid coming out of the wall. Max reaches higher and feels another of the same.
“It’s a ladder,” they both say. They start climbing without speaking. Max goes firs t. He slowly makes his way up, e ach step hurting his leg and ribs. The sounds of voices and footsteps grow louder in the tunnel. Max reaches for another rung and feels something flat and metal. He pushes. Nothing. He feels the metal surface for anything, hoping for a handle or latch. He feels hinges.
Max takes his cane in one hand and places the tip against one hinge. “Alohomora.” The sound is loud to Max , but the barking dogs probably cover it. Next hinge. “Alohomora .” Still, the metal stays in place.
Max feels across the plate and guesses w here a lock or handle should be. “Alohomora .” Max discovers how heavy a small metal trap door can be as it breaks free, hits him on the head and bounces off his shoulder.
The trap door clatters down the ladder then lands on the floor with a loud clang.
“I’m thinking they heard that.” Max moves up through the opening. Lara follows. “Let’s go. We need to f ind me a room with obstacle s , clutter, doors, timber, anything to hide behind.”
Lara leads the way. They turn left then right , ran
domly looking into rooms as they pass. Max rejects them all. They hurry past a few more rooms.
Then they enter a large room with at least five other exits, a raised area in the middle, broken sections of wall, and a couple of over turned trolleys. “This will have to do.” Max notes two more exit tunnels high up the walls.
“Do for what?”
“Soon enough they’ll carry the dogs through that trap door. We can’t outrun them. I want to be ready when they find us.”
---
Max stand s in the middle of the room in total darkness, listening to them come. The barking growing more frantic as the dogs sense their prey. Light flickers into the room .
Max feels sorry for the dogs and for the first person through that doorway.
The dogs burst into the room pulling Hastings behind. Max peppers their direction with BB’s . The dogs yelp. Hasting goes down hard, three bullets slamming into his chest. Max hits the dogs again. It’s t oo much for the dogs, they run out of the room, d ragging Hastings with them. Bloodhounds. No wonder they found us so easily .
Max moves to the left side of the room, standing partially behind a broken wall. He watches the doorway. He sees light and hears the dogs go quiet.
Tick .
The natural sound of the catac omb returns. Max listens intently .
Tock .
Max let s the acceleration over take him as he fears that he will lose Lara too.
Their flashlights stil l throw some weak light through the doorway into the cave. Max focuses on that spot. They only have 1st or 2nd generation fog. Max sees a slight and brief distortion. He slams his cane down on the floor. A shockwave travels across the room , raising dust and debris.
Max hears a grunt and then sees Sarah slam back against the rock wall and l ie still. Max moves and whispers, “Bolas,” flicking his cane at Sarah . Tethered nanoBots ensnare her legs .
Now comes the part where they try to flank me .
“Max!” Pirelli says.
Silence, except for the whimpering of dogs.