The London Project (Portal Book 1)

by Mark J Maxwell

  ‘I see the plan worked,’ White Hat said.

  ‘This was your plan?’ Louisa said incredulously.

  ‘More or less.’

  Louisa muttered an expletive under her breath. ‘You never needed his terminal, did you?’

  ‘No, that was a falsehood. It was necessary to lend a certain degree of credibility to your venture. I postulated Benoit would somehow manage to extract our plan from you. He can be quite manipulative.’

  ‘He threatened to kill my daughter! Was that part of the plan as well?’

  ‘To be truthful I didn’t have enough information to discern the nature of the leverage he would employ. But all I needed was for Benoit to try and access the lab’s subnet directly using his profile and attempt to kill the process running my virtual mind. In actual fact, he was doing no such thing. The server Benoit thought he was accessing was in fact a honey trap, designed to query for Benoit’s encryption key as part of a profile authentication exploit. He could have taken any number of precautions to protect his profile’s integrity, like sandboxing his connection to the server, but I counted on him acting impulsively. I did need his private key, by the way. That was the truth. I’m sorry for the deception, but it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?’

  ‘Jesus, Adam.’ Louisa shook her head. ‘Were you this much of an asshole when you were still alive?’

  White Hat flinched. He appeared to be giving it some thought and then abruptly his face split in a wide grin. ‘Actually Detective, I believe I was this much of an asshole. I find that extremely reassuring.’

  ‘I’m happy for you,’ Louisa said, with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘You called me Adam. Does this mean you finally believe I am Adam Walsh?’

  Louisa realised she’d stopped questioning whether or not she was talking to a real person, or an artificial intelligence, or merely some clever Adam Walsh mimic. ‘Let’s just say I’m coming round to the idea at least part of Adam Walsh might have survived.’

  ‘I’ll take that,’ White Hat said with a wry smile. ‘You know, Alan Turing devised a test to determine if a machine could demonstrate intelligence indistinguishable from a human. I bet he never thought the first artificial mind would have to go out of its way to convince the first person it talked to that it wasn’t human. It’s quite amusing, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, hilarious,’ Louisa said, deadpan. She looked over at Benoit still lying on the floor. ‘What did you do to him?’

  ‘The neural lattice interface can just as easily stimulate the brain as record its activity. I instructed his lattice to interpret an intense burst of pain. Imagine the worst possible migraine, multiply it a hundred-fold and you might get close to what he experienced. It disabled him quite effectively. He’s still alive, though. The pain wasn’t real.’

  God, Simon! ‘Can you request an ambulance? Simon is in a bad way.’

  ‘Relax, Detective. An ambulance is on-route. Followed by a substantial number of your fellow officers, I imagine.’

  ‘You did it then? His profile—it’s been released?’

  ‘It’s making headlines in news agencies around the globe as we speak. He will be incarcerated for a long, long time.’ Adam shook his head sadly. ‘The best place for him, I’m afraid to say.’

  Louisa felt relief wash over her. It’s over. Please let it be over. ‘Good, that’s…good.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, Detective. I’m sorry for making use of you as I did. I didn’t intend for your daughter to be put at risk.’

  Was he really sorry? Louisa couldn’t tell. For all she knew he couldn’t feel anything. But no matter whether his apology came from Adam Walsh’s mind, or was something the simulation calculated he would have said, she accepted it anyway.

  ‘I have one last request, Detective,’ White Hat said.

  ‘Yes?’ Louisa asked warily.

  ‘I think it would be better for both of us, me especially, if you left my involvement out of your official report. I’ve removed all mention of the virtual mind experiment from Benoit’s profile.’

  ‘But how do I explain this?’ Louisa gestured towards Simon and Benoit.

  ‘Did you tell Simon about me?’

  ‘Well…no, but—’

  ‘Then you only have to worry about Benoit. He has a neural lattice. The experiment’s records will confirm its instability. The lattices have already caused a number of deaths, after all. If you feign ignorance about what happened to him then Benoit’s collapse will be explained away as a malfunction, or some sort of neural feedback resonance.’

  ‘But what if Benoit tells the investigating officers?’

  White Hat chuckled. ‘Who’s going to believe him? Some mad-sounding theory about his father still being alive and attacking him? They’ll section him under the Mental Health Act.’

  Louisa briefly considered refusing White Hat’s request. She felt an almost-irresistible urge to come clean and divulge everything she knew about the experiments, Benoit and White Hat. But would anyone believe her? Even if Benoit corroborated her story? She wanted this whole episode behind her, but if she came clean about White Hat then it would never be over. She’d have Guerrilla Casters hounding her for details for the rest of her life. That’s if they didn’t decide to make her a laughing stock. She could imagine the news feed titles: ‘MET Detective loses the plot and attacks Portal CEO, claims she can talk to his dead father’.

  Reluctantly, she nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll leave you out of it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but there’s life outside Portal. I never got the chance to experience much of it when I was alive. I mean to remedy that.’

  Louisa nodded. ‘Good luck, Adam.’

  White Hat smiled, then the screen went dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ‘It was your discovery of Professor Keenan’s involvement in Claire Harris’ medical trial which led you to request a meeting with Benoit Walsh. Is that correct?’ Superintendent Morris looked up from his terminal.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Louisa replied. ‘Once I confirmed Professor Keenan’s research had been used to create the synthetic cells that were found in Claire’s brain and he worked for Portal, I decided to take up the matter with the Portal CEO. Simon Carlyle arranged the meeting.’

  Louisa was in a conference room on the fifth floor of Scotland Yard. The building had an open-plan layout on every floor but the fifth, which had been converted into a private dining area and a small number of plush offices and meeting rooms for the ranks of Superintendent and higher. The conference room had seating around the long oval table for twenty, but it was just herself, Superintendent Morris, his secretary and Detective Inspector Spears present. The super’s secretary was taking minutes of the meeting on her terminal, which seemed absurd given the meeting was being recorded by sense strips lining the room. Superintendent Morris had made that particular point clear at the start of their meeting.

  After Benoit’s arrest, Louisa had submitted her reports on both the SCD7 operation and the Claire Harris investigation to DI Fuller. She hadn’t been suspended, which came as a shock, but he had told her to take some leave. At the time Louisa hadn’t felt the need to enquire about her position, she just wanted to be with her daughter.

  She spent the next two days at the hospital with Jess. Her daughter was brought out of the artificial coma and had regained consciousness. Dr Lane was confident Jess hadn’t suffered any long-term harm.

  It had been easy to put her other problems to one side whilst she was taking care of Jess. Her daughter was all that mattered. But then she received the meeting request from the superintendent and she realised she couldn’t put things off any longer.

  Louisa hadn’t any illusions over the likely outcome of the meeting. She could only pray the super didn’t want a protracted investigation into her conduct any more than she did. If news of the investigation leaked then the associated negative Portal coverage wouldn’t do the MET any
favours. Her resignation, quietly handled, was the best she could hope for.

  And the worst? Well, if they’d found out about her use of Dietrich’s profile, that she’d trespassed in a private Portal facility, or she’d witnessed the killing of a MI6 agent and had fled the scene, then she’d be lucky to escape a custodial sentence if the DPS decided to charge her.

  ‘Yes, I see,’ the super continued. ‘You then go on to cover your meeting with Benoit Walsh and Simon Carlyle.’ The super hesitated while he scanned his terminal. ‘The former Portal CEO assaulted Mr Carlyle and then admitted to the false imprisonment and assault of Claire Harris. He then collapsed, at which point you arrested him. Is that an accurate summary of your submission?’

  Louisa cleared her throat and took a sip of water. They had been talking for hours, covering every action she undertook during Claire’s investigation. She hadn’t included her meeting with Ken, the trip to see Dietrich or the Portal facility in her report. She hadn’t lied up to then; she simply didn’t include what had taken place in the report. Her transcript of the meeting with Benoit, however, was not entirely accurate. ‘Yes, sir. Some sort of problem with his neural lattice, I believe.’

  ‘Ah yes, the experimental brain interface.’ The super made it sound like it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard of. ‘Portal have provided us with a report detailing what they believe happened to Mr Walsh.’

  Portal were going with the malfunction angle too. The story had been peaking since his arrest. A neural lattice defect, which simultaneously incapacitated the former CEO and sent his entire Profile history to every major media outlet around the globe. As malfunctions went—it was a whopper. It wasn’t surprising the non-Portal news feeds were skeptical as to its cause.

  White Hat had proven true to his word when he promised to leak Benoit’s profile, but even Louisa had been surprised at the comprehensiveness of the exposed data. White Hat hadn’t just transferred a subset of Benoit’s profile—he’d released Benoit’s entire Portal history right from the start of the London Project.

  Benoit and Professor Keenan’s torture of Claire Harris was the first story to be uncovered and made headlines around the world. It was hard enough for Louisa to see the footage again, but she couldn’t imagine the effect it must have had on Claire’s family. The sense footage had been streamed to Benoit’s profile, so the leak provided access to every brutal second. Public pressure for the MET to act became too intense for the government to ignore. Benoit was charged within an hour of the footage being uploaded to an American blogger’s site. He was still recovering in hospital from his collapse at the time.

  Two women then came forward alleging Benoit had held them captive and physically assaulted them. It resulted in an immediate frenzy from the global media to parse the rest of the leaked data for evidence of more scandal. Determined to be seen to be taking a proactive stance in Benoit’s investigation, the MET set up a task force to examine the data themselves. It was a SIU officer, one of Ed’s colleagues, who discovered the link between Benoit and Victor Korehkov. Benoit had been using Korehkov’s people-trafficking expertise to obtain test subjects for the neural lattice experiments. They were drugged, kidnapped and delivered to the research lab by Korehkov. Benoit in turn paid Korehkov millions. The girl Louisa had seen in the glass cube in the research lab had been one such unfortunate, but there were dozens more. At that point SCD7 joined the investigation.

  SCD7’s suspicions were aroused by a payload of illegally obtained sense data which Benoit had transferred to Korehkov. They quickly realised it was the sense data Korehkov used to plan the assassination of the Clothwell Syndicate bosses. Benoit was charged with a privacy breach under the CSCA and accessory to murder. But SCD7 and SIU still couldn’t work out how Benoit had managed to breach the MET Subnet’s encryption. They came to the conclusion he must have paid off a SIU officer and the DPS started an internal investigation. Louisa didn’t think they would find anything. She suspected Benoit gained access to the subnet using the subcarrier signal he’d created for MI6. All he would have needed to do was to gain access to the profile of a SIU officer who in turn had the rights to query the sense logs.

  One thing still puzzled Louisa. Benoit’s involvement with MI6 should have been evident from his profile data, but no-one had come across any evidence of a link between Benoit and the intelligence service. Kane Shepherd was notable in his absence. Any profile data implicating MI6 in illegal activity must have been filtered out by White Hat. Why he had done so was a mystery. Perhaps he feared the attention such a revelation might attract. Hanging a Portal CEO out to dry was one thing, but implicating MI6 in a criminal conspiracy was perhaps a risk White Hat didn’t want to take.

  Then Louisa found herself thrust unwillingly into the limelight. An American news agency uncovered a communication between Benoit and Victor Korehkov. A request was made by Benoit to ‘remove a threat’ to their operation. Benoit provided Korehkov with a scan of the target and her home address. The news agency identified the target as one Detective Sergeant Louisa Bennett. The agency was quick to link the request to the shooting of Ouza outside Louisa’s apartment block. The list of crimes laid at the feet of Benoit now grew by one instance of attempted murder. Louisa became the peaking topic on newscasts, private feeds and global web news sites.

  Her temporary fame had actually proven useful in one respect. Louisa had decided to sell her apartment, determined Jess would have a room to call her own by the time she was discharged from hospital. When Louisa put the apartment on the market she was astounded to find that a bidding war had broken out amongst Portal users keen to own the apartment where a small part of the Benoit scandal had played out. It was the apartment where the gangland hit-man had tried to kill the MET detective, after all. Louisa made enough money to finally afford the small terraced house she’d always wanted.

  Louisa may have been hating the attention, but Charlie loved it. He was now the most popular kid in his school and received thousands of subscription requests every day. Louisa allowed him to accept some of them, but only from friends in his school. Still, it was enough for Charlie to receive a huge boost to his Portal credits. It had made him so happy.

  ‘Now, we also have a submission from DI Fuller.’ The super tapped on his terminal screen. ‘The DI has brought it to our attention that you continued to pursue your investigation into the Claire Harris case after he explicitly instructed you not to. Is that accurate?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Louisa saw no point in trying to contradict DI Fuller. She’d been surprised not to find him present at the review, twisting the knife.

  ‘Yes, well, DI Fuller has decided to take early retirement. DI Spears will be assuming his duties.’

  Louisa nodded, barely managing to hide her surprise. She was grateful the DI wasn’t present, but early retirement? Had she screwed up the DI’s career along with her own?

  ‘Which brings us to the Directorate of Professional Standards.’ The super frowned at the screen.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Here it comes.

  ‘They have found nothing in their investigation to suggest there was any misconduct on your part with regard to the SCD7 gangland operation or your investigation of Claire Harris and the subsequent arrest of Benoit Walsh.’ He set his terminal on the table and looked up at her expectantly.

  Louisa nodded again. She was aware she must look like one of those nodding toy dogs people used to have in the back of their car windows. She forced herself to speak. ‘Yes, sir. That’s…good news, sir.’

  ‘Indeed. DI Lenihan, or should I say DCI Lenihan, submitted a glowing report of your actions during the SCD7 operation to the DPS. He sent me a copy.’

  DCI Lenihan? So James Lenihan had been promoted. Louisa was glad for him. She hadn’t realised she’d made such a good impression on him. And you didn’t even visit him in hospital. Louisa winced. She was going to have to thank him in person.

  ‘That brings us neatly onto our next topic,’ the super said.

  Louisa
took a deep breath and straightened. It’s not over yet.

  ‘DCI Lenihan’s promotion has left a vacancy within SCD7. A vacancy which he has recommended you fill.’

  Louisa’s jaw dropped. A promotion? They wanted to give her a promotion? ‘That’s…very kind of the DCI, sir.’

  ‘Yes, the post will have to be advertised, of course. Then there will be the usual interview process, but I believe you would be a good fit for the job. In fact I am authorised to make you acting Inspector in the meantime. If you wish to accept the role?’

  ‘Yes…yes, sir,’ Louisa stammered. ‘I would very much like that. To accept the role, I mean.’

  ‘Good. We have to put our best foot forward when it comes to dealing with the media, don’t we Inspector?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Louisa paused. ‘Sorry, sir. The media?’

  ‘Yes, the media. It’s a burden all senior officers have to take on these days, I’m afraid. Since Benoit Walsh’s arrest we’ve been inundated with requests for interviews. Interviews with you, Detective.’

  ‘Me?’ Louisa was taken aback. She had received thousands of requests herself since the arrest, but she’d ignored them. She hadn’t even opened them to look at their contents. She assumed they were all digging for more dirt on Benoit Walsh.

  ‘Yes, Detective. I want you to know we’ve been very impressed by your discretion with regard to the media. We all know how dogged they can be when they have the bit between their teeth. Your circumspection does you credit, but we feel it may now be necessary to provide our side of the story. We’d like you to be our spokesperson. That’s if you do still want to be acting Inspector.’

  There was little Louisa could do but agree, whether she liked it or not. She tried not to think about what it would entail. She hated dealing with the press with a passion. ‘Yes, sir. It sounds like something I could really get my teeth into.’

  ‘Good.’ The super smiled. ‘We’re keen to impart a sense of the unique professionalism the Metropolitan Police apply to all of our day-to-day duties. Ms Hargreaves here will provide you with a list of the appointments we have scheduled for you over the next few days.’