One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2)

by Mark J Maxwell

  Louisa took a step back. ‘Shouldn’t we leave the room while this thing’s working?’

  ‘Nah.’ Ed waved his hand dismissively. ‘Terahertz radiation is non-ionising. It’s perfectly safe. We used this particular scanner on our implant prototypes to check for flaws. It scans to the molecular level. The terminals we use are so small, it’s the only way to ensure the assemblers have constructed them correctly.’ He tapped on the console. A grating noise came from within the machine. ‘The results should be ready by the time we jack in.’

  ‘You get the results virtually?’

  Ed nodded. ‘We do all our work in full immersion. The office down town is only used for sales and marketing.’

  Louisa wasn’t a fan of virtual environments. The cranial implant could discern basic body language from the brain’s electrical impulses, like head movements, but interpreting the subtlety of human emotions proved problematic. They were either ignored, or amplified. Happiness became rictus grins on avatars, and mild discomfort twisted the simulated faces almost beyond recognition. Most people disabled the ability, which brought its own problems. When everyone had their facial expressions stripped away interactions became strained, to say the least. Half the time you couldn’t tell if a colleague was serious, or joking, or even annoyed with you. Then Louisa realised that was perhaps why Ed liked working virtually. He always did have difficulty gauging emotional subtleties. In a virtual environment everyone would be on a level playing field.

  They returned to his office and Ed sat in the recliner. He flipped a lever on its side and it lurched back. ‘I’ve sent you an invite. Jack in when you’re ready.’

  When she activated the link a Nanometrix extension added itself to her profile. It popped up a message indicating she was about to enter full immersion and requested permission to access her implants. She took a seat at the bench, closed her eyes, rested her head on her arms, and authorised the interaction.

  Louisa found herself facing a window, looking down on planet earth from orbit.

  ‘Pretty cool, huh?’

  She turned and found Ed staring at her, his avatar’s face a blank mask. Well, the avatar looked somewhat similar to Ed. This version had lost at least six stone and possessed the athletic physique of someone who spent long hours in the gym. Thankfully her avatar was limited in its facial expressions, otherwise she’d have had to hide a smile.

  The room was a quartered circle, with the curved wall transparent. The other walls, floor and ceiling were sleek and metallic. Apart from a desk in the corner and a large wall screen the room was devoid of furnishings. Ed raised a hand and a hidden door slid into the wall. She followed him onto a balcony overlooking a vast circular chamber the size of a sports arena. It was filled with hundreds of people. They stood in front of screens in groups of five or six, locked in animated discussions. A real sense of vibrancy and dynamism emanated from the room.

  ‘Everyone here is ether supporting existing implants or researching new product lines,’ Ed said. ‘We recruit from across the globe. Some of them don’t even speak English. There’s only a slight delay during translation.’

  Like Ed, the men and women were all represented by young and toned avatars. She felt distinctly self-conscious looking down on all the model types. Louisa’s own avatar was an exact replica of herself.

  ‘Our avatars are limited to representations derived from our genetic makeup.’ Ed sounded disappointed. ‘Back when we first created this space much more leeway was allowed. You could jack in as anything you wanted, human or not. Then one time we had a meeting and one of our senior engineers, Jeff Zimmerman, came as a six-foot tall black widow spider. The detailing was very realistic.’ Ed glanced at her. ‘Did you know Ken suffers from arachnophobia?’ She shook her head. ‘None of us did, either. He dived under the table and curled into a ball. He wasn’t able to jack out or anything. It took us hours to coax him out. The doctor said he suffered a complete mental shutdown.’

  Louisa knew she was silently shaking with laughter back in the garage, even if her avatar remained impassive. It was childish, but the thought of Ken cowering before a concerned giant spider cracked her up. ‘Well they’re certainly all very…pretty.’

  ‘Once Ken recovered he restricted avatars to aspirational templates only. They’re what we’re using as a basis for our physical improvement targets.’

  ‘You mean you’re having plastic surgery?’

  Ed sighed. ‘Nothing so drastic. It’ll be easier to explain if I show you.’ He retreated to the office.

  Louisa wondered at his dejected tone. Ed had always approached his work with a passion bordering on obsession. Now he almost seemed embarrassed to be showing it to her. He made a waving motion in the air and a man popped into view. He was naked apart from a pair of shorts. He didn’t look to be in great shape either, with blotchy skin and a protruding belly.

  ‘We currently have implants on the market facilitating sight, sound, taste and smell. Plus our cranial neural sampler and the subvocalisation implant.’ Ed pointed out the locations of each one on the man and as he did so layers of flesh and bone sliced away to reveal each implant site. It was a realistic representation of human anatomy, and as such, quite gruesome. ‘Ken decided our new product line will focus on cosmetic alterations.’ The man-model’s inner thigh peeled away layers of tissue and fat, exposing a muscle. Ed waved his hand and a cross section of muscle moved outside the body and enlarged. ‘We’ve developed nanoscopic filaments which stimulate the muscles’ cells. They’re programmed to activate concurrently with normal muscle contractions, amplifying the effect. When you move, they activate, causing the muscle to work harder than normal. We’ve even tested them on subjects while they were asleep. Random movements during a normal night’s sleep cycle equated to a two hour gym session for every implanted muscle.’

  ‘A workout while you sleep?’

  Ed nodded. ‘That’s Ken’s marketing plan.’

  ‘Isn’t there still a health risk though?’ Louisa asked. ‘People are going to eat a lot more junk food if they can stay thin. They’ll be dropping dead from heart attacks.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Ed said, a measure of his old enthusiasm creeping back in, ‘we thought of that too and came up with an effective range of blood filtration implants. They function similarly to the spleen, and can remove harmful substances like saturated fat from the user’s blood stream. We believe the risk to the internal organs including the heart will be minimised.’

  ‘It’s an interesting concept,’ Louisa said, after giving the idea some thought, ‘but I’m surprised this is the direction you want Nanometrix to take.’

  ‘Ken believes we need to prioritise on global market penetration. He wants to take Nanometrix public next year and our bottom line isn’t good enough. He says cosmetic alteration implants offer the best risk to return ratio.’

  ‘I thought you and Ken were partners. Don’t you have a say?’

  Ed didn’t reply. He waved his hand, and the man vanished. Even with his avatar’s blank features, Louisa knew he was upset. Back when he pitched his vision of the implants to her, he described a future where the implants could actively treat disease, perhaps even through the direct synthesis and dispersal of drugs or the repair of body tissue. He wanted his implants to diagnose illnesses in their infancy, where the chances of patient recovery were much higher. In effect, he aimed to negate the need for doctors and hospitals entirely. She didn’t believe for a second Ed wanted Nanometrix to manufacture weight loss aids. They were Ken’s idea. Ed hated conflict even more than having to interact with people he didn’t know.

  ‘Ed, did I ever say how proud I was when you formed Nanometrix with Ken?’

  He blinked. ‘I don’t think so. You seemed…angry.’

  ‘Yes, well, I may have been angry, but I was proud too.’ Ed’s avatar stared blankly at her. ‘What I’m trying to say is, you had the courage to leave a job you were comfortable in, a safe job, and take a risk. You’ve achieved so much in only a few ye
ars. Don’t falter now, not when you’re so close to achieving your vision. Your mother believed in you, and so do I.’

  Ed bowed his head. As the silence stretched out Louisa knew she’d made him deeply uncomfortable, but she’d made a promise to his mother before she passed. Ed may have been a genius, but he needed someone to have his back, to give him a little push when he needed one.

  A soft chime sounded in the room. Ed perked up. ‘The scan is complete.’ He waved his hand and the figure vanished. In its place Louisa’s cube appeared, hovering in the air. When Ed parted his hands it grew larger. He studied text that scrolled alongside the cube. ‘Its exterior is a thin shell, constructed from single walled carbon nanotubes with an iron core,’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘As a construction material? Yes. Its manufacture would be expensive. I can only conclude the iron core is present to facilitate the cube’s high magnetic permeability.’

  ‘Could that explain how they were able to fuse together?’

  ‘Perhaps. But it would require a power source to generate the required magnetic field.’ Ed waved at the cube and an outer layer peeled away. ‘Here we have the cube’s computational engine. It’s similar to a terminal’s silicon core.’ He waved at the cube and another layer floated free. ‘Ah. Now this is interesting. I think we’ve found its power source.’

  A polished silver sphere had been exposed. Ed cracked it down the middle. Inside was another, marginally smaller sphere.

  ‘What is it?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘It’s an ultracapacitor. The outer sphere is a capacitor plate and the inner layer is a dielectric material. Underneath is another plate. The two plates hold alternate charges that causes them to counter-rotate. This in turn generates a magnetic field.’ Ed stroked his goatee. ‘In fact, given the iron-infused shell, this cube has the potential to exhibit an incredible magnetic force for its diminutive size.’

  ‘Does it carry a manufacturer’s mark?’

  ‘Not as such, but I know who made them, or had a hand in their design. The nanoware was written by Portal.’

  Portal? The technology involved certainly looked advanced enough for Portal to have a hand in its construction. Portal terminals had been known to turn up on the black market, stolen from Portal’s factories in the Far East. Was Fletcher dealing in stolen Portal tech? And if so, did he plan on selling them to the clan along with the guns? Had they gone haywire before he could make the deal, or could Harrow and Baker have activated them to cover their escape?

  ‘Are you sure?’ Louisa asked.

  Ed shrugged. ‘As part of our deal with Portal they supply us with the technology we need to manufacture terminals for our implants. I was able to extract the cube’s nanoware without its micro assemblers scrambling the core. The source code is stamped with a Portal copyright signature.’

  ‘Can you tell what it was designed to do?’

  ‘It isn’t programmed to do anything. Its nanoware exposes an API, which allows the cube to be operated remotely.

  ‘You’re saying someone was controlling these things?’

  Ed blinked. ‘Of course. They didn’t just come alive by themselves.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘That I can’t tell. They don’t write any logs. The signal could have come from anywhere. Each cube maintains an uplink to the Global Web, and when their power died the source got burned from their memory.’

  Whoever was controlling them didn’t want to be found.

  ‘Ed,’ Louisa said, ‘how secure is the simulation we’re currently in?’

  ‘Very. I coded the authentication myself and it’s hosted on our own server farms.’

  ‘So we can talk privately here? We don’t need to disconnect?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Louisa wasn’t sure where to begin. He didn’t deal in subtleties. She’d need to be direct. ‘Do you remember my foster son, Ben Kingston?’

  ‘Of course. He did great work defining our implant APIs. When he left I told him he could come back any time.’

  ‘He’s missing, and I need you to find him.’

  ‘Me? Why don’t you just backtrack his movements on the sense grid.’

  ‘I can’t look for him using CADET. I was hoping you could help me out, unofficially.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ed’s voice brightened. ‘Like the Claire Harris case?’

  Louisa hesitated. Her first instincts were to tell Ed as little as possible. He wasn’t in SIU any more. But he deserved to know what he was getting himself into. ‘Ed, it could be risky. The NCA is involved and I’ve been warned to stay clear.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t care. If Ben’s in trouble I want to help.’

  Louisa smiled. She hadn’t expected any less from him. Ed didn’t make many friends, but when he did he’d do anything for them, without any thought of the consequences. ‘Have you heard of a Multiverse clan called the Sons of Babel?’

  ‘Sure. They used to score highly on the clan charts until they stopped participating in ranking matches.’

  ‘Ben’s mixed up with them, and now I can’t find him. I found this cube at a crime scene where the clan was attempting to purchase automatic weapons. The NCA believe the clan is planning an act of terrorism. I need to find Ben before that happens.’

  ‘The Sons have a Multiverse realm. I could check it out.’

  ‘A Multiverse realm?’

  ‘It’s a clan’s base of operations within Multiverse. I might be able to find a way in. But let’s jack out first. I don’t want anything getting traced back to the company servers.’

  Louisa spoke her disconnection command. She winced at the pulse of pain when she opened her eyes. She’d have to lay off the implants soon; otherwise she’d get a migraine for sure.

  ‘I’m going to create a ring-fenced sandbox for us to work out of,’ Ed said. ‘That way, we can’t be tracked if we get caught poking around.’ He stared off into the distance for less than a minute. ‘I sent you a link.’

  This time when she entered full immersion she and Ed were standing on a square platform of neon blue light. She’d jacked in close to the edge and there was nothing but darkness below. She took a step closer to the center.

  ‘I’ve created a Multiverse account from a counterfeit Portal developer profile,’ Ed said. ‘It should be untraceable. Are you sure you want to proceed?’

  Louisa didn’t hesitate. She trusted Ed implicitly. ‘Yes.’

  He gestured and a solar system appeared before them, hovering in the darkness. The system was dominated by a red giant at its center, circled by a few much smaller planetary bodies. ‘This is the Sons of Babel realm inside Multiverse. Their main base is located on a planet called Goldhaven.’

  The view focussed on a yellow-hued planet and zoomed in. The planet appeared to be mostly desert, but as they approached its surface a city appeared out of the sand. As they floated closer it took on the look of a fortress, with tall surrounding walls offering no obvious means of entry.

  ‘This is where the clan members congregate inside Multiverse?’ Louisa asked.

  Ed nodded. ‘The walls are a representation of the realm’s security.’

  ‘Can we get in?’

  ‘It shouldn’t be a problem. Multiverse used an off-the-shelf authentication module for their realm authentication. I vetted the software for use by Nanometrix and ultimately rejected it because of a serious flaw in its TLS implementation. The vulnerability allows access to the module’s memory when it receives a customised ping command. All we have to do is wait until a clan member issues a login request and then we can grab their authentication token.’

  They only had to wait a few minutes before Ed spoke again. ‘Here we go. Someone’s logging in.’

  The perimeter walls faded away. On the other side rested a sparkling globe. Looking more closely Louisa noticed the sparkling effect came from thousands of twinkling lights shining through from the other side. A vast galaxy captured behind glass.

  ‘This is the realm’s communica
tions module. From here we should be able to eavesdrop on any conversations between clan members.’ Ed paused, then turned to Louisa. ‘Ah.’

  ‘There’s a problem?’

  ‘Do you see all of those lights?’

  Louisa nodded.

  ‘The clan have incorporated Matryoshka routing for their messaging. It was pioneered within the Global Web as a means of enforcing communications privacy. Each light is a node within the framework.’

  ‘Matryoshka? You mean like those Russian nesting dolls?’

  Ed nodded. ‘Normally a user would take over a node and use it to send a message to a user on another node. Do you see the streaks of blue light flashing between them?’ Louisa nodded. She could barely make the lines out they flashed up and disappeared so quickly. ‘Each streak is a message. They’re encrypted by default, of course, and normally I could attempt to infiltrate the two nodes and extract the encryption keys, gaining access to the message payload. Matryoshka routing operates differently, using several randomly selected nodes to relay the message. The message is encrypted, and not just the once. Think of it like the nesting dolls, with each shell acting as a layer of encryption containing another doll within. The encrypted payload starts off at one end of the node chain, and as it passes from node to node, a new layer is removed. The message itself is contained in its very center.’

  Louisa thought for a moment. ‘Can you not infiltrate all the nodes? That way the whole chain would be compromised?’

  ‘In theory, yes, but this particular Matryoshka setup seems to be based on the Viral Darknet.’

  Louisa knew about darknets of course. Every officer who’d worked pre-Portal would have come across them at some stage. They’d been used by criminals for years to hide activities on the Global Web. But as far as she knew they were an old technology, and compromised. ‘I thought darknets weren’t used much any more?’

  ‘They aren’t. Or, the old versions aren’t, at any rate. Their main flaw was always the limited amount of nodes. The Viral Darknet is spread by a virus, hence the name. The media refer to it as the WAM Darknet, with WAM standing for whack-a-mole. Whenever a node is targeted, it somehow detects the intrusion, shuts down, and another one pops up. The majority of nodes are located on personal computers, with their owners not even realising what they’re hosting. Latest estimates reckon the Viral Darknet has spread across half of all devices connected to the Global Web. Anti-virus scanners aren’t having any luck cleaning the infection. Like the Darknet, they’re constantly evolving, regularly self-erasing and reemerging with a modified code base.’