Connect

by Julian Gough

  A stealth-mode override.

  And the only local booster good enough, strong enough, is mine. On the hill behind the house. Hot damn, and I built it. My soldering iron, my circuits. And gave it a local telecoms address, to keep me out of trouble, and to join it seamlessly to the local networks. So they can’t know it’s mine.

  Oh man, and I know exactly what I can replace their pictures with . . .

  Colt goes into the game.

  Feeds the drones’ FAA location pings into the game’s mapping code.

  Now, instead of generating a live view of his house and the land around it from Colt’s helmet position, the code generates a live view from the drones’ positions.

  Colt examines the view critically.

  Hmm . . .

  He grabs a block of Sasha’s code; adjusts the light. Makes it more realistic.

  Very carefully, he feeds the live pictures into the booster station, and forwards them on to the drone brain, in place of the signals from the eyeballs . . .

  That switchover is the hardest. The point where the drone cloud might detect him; realize it’s been compromised.

  Kill him and Mama.

  He breathes out when it’s done.

  ‘Ooooh . . . Kay. Finished,’ he says.

  Naomi has been studying his face, watching it twitch, frown, smile; his thoughts and actions rippling across it, like gusts of wind crossing a lake.

  ‘So . . .’ she says, looking away. ‘What do we do now?’

  Colt looks up at the top of the low hill, imagining the house beyond. The watching drones.

  ‘Now we find out if it has worked,’ he says.

  ‘Do we need to disguise ourselves, or . . .’

  ‘No,’ says Colt, and Naomi is reassured by how firmly he says it. ‘No point.’ He shrugs. ‘It will react or it won’t.’

  OK, that bit isn’t reassuring at all. ‘You’re sure the drones can’t see us?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll see us,’ says Colt. ‘The eyes will register us, and send the signal to the brain . . . But if I’ve done everything right, that picture won’t get there.’ Colt reviews the intercept code again in his head. It should work. It should.

  Naomi is still frowning. Twisting at that red thread on her wrist.

  Say something. Reassure her. ‘The immune system . . . its brain will just see a gameworld picture of the house,’ he says. ‘My picture. No people. No movement. Nothing to trigger it. Just . . . weather. Bushes moving in the breeze.’

  Naomi looks up, at the cloudless blue above the ridge.

  She’s still frowning.

  *

  They walk, quietly, carefully, up the sloping road, in the direction of the house.

  The first raven soars high above them, circling in a thermal, a dot in the blue sky.

  As they come over the crest of the hill, Colt looks around for the second raven.

  Nope.

  He runs his eye along the power line that leads up and over the iron-red ridge beyond the house. The old wire sags in the heat, between rusty pylons.

  There.

  The drone sits in the dip of the power line.

  But there’s no charging station there. There are no charging stations on that old line at all . . . Ah.

  Colt can see where the drone’s thin cobalt-steel feeder spike, like a mosquito’s bladed proboscis, has sliced though the insulation, into the high-tension wire.

  It’s feeding in the wild.

  It stares at them. An open eye.

  But its brain, somewhere in the blue sky high above, sees nothing.

  They walk carefully towards the house, under the blind eyes of the ravens.

  As they approach the door, Colt stops.

  ‘Wait,’ he whispers, holding out his hand to block Naomi.

  He checks the house security system.

  Oh boy.

  The immune system has taken over all the electronics inside the house.

  Of course. Of course. It’s reading data from all the sensors. The internal alarm system, the refrigerator, lights, water, entertainment, aircon . . .

  If Naomi had taken two more steps, she’d have triggered the door lock; she’d have triggered everything.

  Colt breathes out, a surprisingly loud rush of air. Beside him, Naomi gives a little involuntary jump.

  OK, he can’t just disable the sensors; all the house sensors suddenly going dead would be as much a giveaway as all the sensors saying, hey, they’ve arrived and they’re having a party . . .

  Colt grabs Naomi’s hand, and backs them away from the door, into the soft shade of the senna bushes. ‘Sorry, Mama. Give me a minute . . .’

  He hacks together some fake data streams for the sensors. They show a quiet, empty house, no movement. Nothing happening.

  About a day’s worth, should be enough . . .

  When he’s done, he very, very carefully replaces the live, real feeds from the house with the fake data streams. Feeds the fakes out to the immune system through his booster tower.

  ‘OK, we’re good,’ he says to Naomi. ‘Let’s go.’

  Naomi walks on stiff, nervous legs up to the front door, Colt by her side.

  Click.

  She triggers the front door.

  It swings open.

  They walk away from the blind drones outside, into the blind house.

  113

  Naomi goes to her room to change out of her bridal gown, while Colt goes to his room, and fires up everything. First the generator, then the servers. He can’t take electricity from the grid; a power spike to their house would tip off distant parts of the watching, wary immune system.

  He pulls in electricity, instead, from all the solar sheets he’s installed out on the ridge.

  Aircon on full. It’s going to get hot. He’s overdriving everything.

  Naomi enters his room in work clothes, adjusting some heavy tools in her pockets, trying to get her silk jacket to hang right.

  ‘I’m going to get my research,’ she says. Colt tells his visor to go clear, and makes his questioning face. She makes her don’t worry face. ‘I can’t let Ryan use it.’

  Oh yeah. She has to physically go and take it from the big fireproof data safes in her office. Offline, airgapped, secure . . . Colt frowns. ‘But Donnie works for Dad. If Donnie’s at the lab . . .’

  ‘I know, I need your help. The lab should be closed today, but . . .’

  Colt nods. ‘I’ll check if he’s there . . .’

  Hah. The passive location tag Colt hid in Donnie’s Lexus still works. And it’s been constantly updating a server, here in the house, with the car’s movements. Colt doesn’t even need to risk going out to search for the information . . .

  ‘His car’s in Pahrump . . . Yes, he’s parked outside a brothel. I think you’re fine . . .’

  ‘Good.’ She moves to go, but he’s not done.

  ‘I still don’t think it’s safe. To go.’

  ‘Colt, it’s not safe to stay.’

  ‘Well . . .’ True.

  ‘It’s my whole life’s work, Colt. Imagine if your father took the only copies of everything you’d ever done, and erased them. Or used them to kill people.’

  He dutifully imagines it. Oh. Oh, wow. He feels a little sick.

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘I get it . . . I’ll give you my override codes, for the lab, and your office. In case they’ve cancelled your employee access.’

  She shapes her mouth to say he shouldn’t have override codes for her office, but immediately realizes how absurd that would be. She twists out a smile, and says, ‘Thank you.’

  Something else occurs to him. ‘Mama, if you’re going to the lab . . . I need more servers, here, under my control.’

  ‘More servers?’ She gestures at the equipment filling his room.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘But you’ve all that stuff in the cloud . . .’

  ‘They’ll cut me off from my distributed network as soon as they know what I’m doing. I need to do a lot of the stuff loca
lly.’

  ‘Ah.’ Naomi thinks; nods. ‘I could take some of the new servers in Lab 2. We’ve upgraded everything, they’re pretty powerful.’

  ‘Yes. Perfect. Do. And bring all the cables you can find. I want physical connections. More secure than wireless . . .’

  ‘OK,’ says Naomi.

  ‘Oh, and I need a biological accelerant. To help the neurons lay down connections faster.’

  ‘OK,’ says Naomi. ‘StemStim B7? It’s optimized to accelerate Drosophila neuron growth.’

  ‘Perfect,’ says Colt.

  Naomi smiles. ‘Good. Shannon did the last order after eating a couple of Audrey’s homemade hash cookies at lunch. Misplaced a decimal point. The lab has fridges full of it.’ She moves towards the door.

  ‘Wait,’ says Colt; and it occurs to Naomi at the same instant.

  ‘The lab will be under observation,’ she says. ‘Even if Donnie’s not there. Especially if Donnie’s not there.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Colt. ‘It would have to be.’ He checks, sifting the metadata from the local base stations, looking for anomalies, looking for drones. ‘Yep. Observation drone over your lab.’

  Naomi looks out the window, over the desert, as though she could see the lab from here, as though she could see the drone. ‘Can you deal with it?’

  ‘Well, it’s not communicating through my booster station, so I can’t blind it directly . . . But I think I might be able to . . .’

  He works out what model of drone it must be. Thinks about that.

  ‘Hah!’ says Colt. ‘Yeah. It’s got slightly different specs to the two drones observing our house.’

  ‘Different?’ Naomi doesn’t find that reassuring. ‘You mean missiles?’

  ‘No, strictly observation. But it’s a new-generation Gorgon; wider viewing angle, more cameras. So, if I fake up a little suspicious action at the edge of the viewing area for our guys . . .’ Colt generates a plume of smoke in the gameworld view that the two ravens are sending back to the drone brain. And now another plume of smoke, from outside the drones’ viewing area. ‘The smoke will arrive in their view soon . . . It’s kind of like throwing a rock into the bushes, to distract a dog . . .’

  She marvels, that he’s making comparisons, that he’s carefully explaining; that he’s aware of her mind, of its needs.

  Colt squints at his data, looking for a reaction. ‘The system’s protocols should . . . Yes! It’s sending your lab drone over to investigate, because it’s nearest. I can blind it once it connects to my booster.’

  ‘So there will definitely be no observer over the lab?’

  ‘It’s being relieved by one of our drones.’ Colt points out the window. The drone on the power line is already moving away, in the direction of the lab. ‘But I can keep that one blind. You’ll be OK, Mama. I’ll look after you.’

  ‘Thank you, Colt.’ Naomi smiles. ‘But I’ll bring this too, just in case.’ She reaches into the sagging pocket of her own mother’s silk jacket, shyly tugs at something. Shows him the stubby grip of the Beretta pistol Ryan left her.

  Colt stares at her.

  ‘Yeah, I know. What would Jesus do.’ Naomi shrugs. ‘Look, Jesus didn’t have Donnie as a boss. And he definitely didn’t marry your dad . . .’

  ‘Mama . . .’

  ‘I won’t use it. But I might have to point it at someone.’

  ‘You have ammo?’

  She pats her other pocket. ‘I’ll be careful. But I can’t let your father get that data.’

  They look into each other’s eyes; she marvels, that they can look into each other’s eyes. A second passes. Two. Three.

  ‘Mama . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have to work.’ Colt darkens his visor, and turns away.

  She makes a face. Then a wry – a very wry – smile.

  Heads for the car.

  114

  ‘. . . biological creatures can be conflicted. The term conflicted could not sensibly be applied to an entity that has a single program.’

  — David Eagleman, Incognito

  She drives to the lab fast, glancing up constantly at the sky, wondering where the blind eyes are now. Taking the final corner, at the bottom of the hill, she feels the car drift too wide, and she overcorrects, hauls the car to the right.

  The BMW’s front right wheel comes off the hard high-grip black surface into deep gravel, and the car fishtails wildly, as she tries to get it back on the solar road.

  There’s a sound like machine-gun fire.

  Oh crap.

  Gravel, ricocheting off the underside of the car beneath her feet.

  A hot, dusty smell comes through the aircon.

  She comes out of the curve barely in control, tyres spinning. As soon as they grip the road again, she hits the accelerator, hard.

  Naomi is still laughing as she drives into the empty parking lot. She swings the car to a halt, sideways, right outside the front door.

  9

  I Wish I Had A River I Could Skate Away On

  ‘This despair about love is coupled with a callous cynicism that frowns upon any suggestion that love is as important as work, as crucial to our survival as a nation as the drive to succeed.’

  — bell hooks, All About Love

  ‘Whenever their lives were set aflame, through desire or suffering, or even reflection, the Homeric heroes knew that a god was at work. They endured the god, and observed him, but what actually happened as a result was a surprise most of all for themselves.’

  — Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, translated by Tim Parks

  ‘What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? Like sleep without dreams.’

  — Werner Herzog

  115

  She walks through the empty labs, on her way to her office. Stops to study a stack of the Banyans that Colt needs, shelved in one corner; server after shielded, high-security server.

  Hmm, can I take these servers . . . What if they’re bolted down?

  She examines them. No bolts. Good. She reaches into the gap behind the shelves, and pulls out a cable. Another cable.

  Funny how security pushes the technology backwards, away from the weightless, wireless future.

  Back to cables.

  Sheets of paper.

  A village you can defend.

  The cables make a satisfying suck and click as they come out of their tight sockets in the backs of the servers.

  ‘Naomi.’

  She turns.

  ‘Oh. Donnie.’

  He’s swaying very slightly, and his eyes are bloodshot.

  A little drunk, she thinks, but not quite drunk enough.

  And he’s holding a pistol of some kind.

  Great, that’s all my day needed. An idiot with a gun.

  All the men in my life, waving their weapons in my face.

  She eyes him warily. He’s out of shape, but he’s still big, he’s still muscular; he’s still twice her weight.

  With his free left hand, he tries to adjust the straps of the leather holster slung under his left armpit. It looks uncomfortably high and tight. Like a bad bra, thinks Naomi. Clearly still a guy who’s picking his own clothes. Brown leather holster and black leather boots, with piss-coloured khakis, and a purple shirt . . . She wonders idly for a moment, in one of those odd, random, stress-induced thoughts, if he is colour-blind.

  ‘Oh, Naomi . . .’ He makes his fake I’m-very-sad-and-disappointed-in-you face. He turns his head a fraction, and speaks to someone she can’t see. ‘She’s here. Lab 2.’ Someone who isn’t there.

  Ryan. Donnie is talking to Ryan. Oh shit . . . But, by his face, looks like there’s no reply . . . OK, Donnie was just leaving a message. But why, how, is he . . .

  ‘You’re supposed to be in Pahrump . . .’ She immediately regrets saying it. Now he’ll know they can track him . . .

  But he smiles, unfazed. ‘Yeah, Colt tagged my car a while back. Smart kid. We found it. Maybe we’re a little smarte
r. Left the tag in place.’

  Dumb bastard can’t resist boasting. Trying to prove he’s outwitted me . . .

  His smile gets wider. ‘There’s a guy in Pahrump with my car, having a good time on my credit . . .’

  Keep him happy. Lead him on. Play dumb. ‘Why?’

  ‘C’mon, we wanted you to think the lab was empty.’ With his left hand, Donnie pulls a small fireproof, crushproof bright orange data block from the pocket of his khakis. Holds it out, so she can recognize it.

  ‘You’ve opened my data safes? Donnie!’

  ‘Don’t worry, we haven’t read your precious data.’ He’s still smiling, but it’s going sour. ‘We’ve tried. Pretty good encryption. Colt, huh?’

  Naomi says nothing. But yes, Colt set up her encryption routines. They’re ridiculously good. He’d had fun with it. Overkill.

  ‘Ryan figured, easiest way to decrypt that data . . . was get you to do it.’

  Her mind is racing to join all the dots. ‘So the observation drone leaving . . .’

  ‘Oh, we let it go. It meant you must be coming here.’

  ‘A trap.’

  He shrugs. ‘You’d vanished. Where are you most likely to reappear? Your house, or here.’ He seems a little distracted. Staring at her breasts. Ugh. ‘Surprised you didn’t go home first. You snuck up on me a little, here . . .’ Sharper, ‘Where’s Colt?’

  Naomi says nothing. Keeps her face still.

  They don’t know we blinded the ravens. They don’t know Colt’s at the house. Thank God . . .

  ‘Where’s Colt?’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘What, spying, for Ryan?’ says Naomi. She shifts the server she’s holding, as though it’s heavy, so it shields her chest from his gaze. ‘Some job.’

  Donnie scowls. ‘I report on you, as my contract obliges me to do.’

  Oh, so he doesn’t like being called a spy.

  ‘Spy,’ says Naomi.

  She shifts the weight of the server again, onto her hip, to free her right hand. Reaches for the gun in her pocket, her hand’s awkward movements hidden by the metal box. But, as soon as she thumbs off the safety, with that soft, familiar click, he knows what she’s trying to do.

  He may be drunk, but, as he tells everybody at least once a week, he grew up in the Big Bend, rural Texas, with a dad who patrolled the Mexican border. Got his first gun aged ten. Spent a couple of years in the military. For him, it’s muscle memory; he doesn’t even think, he just fires.