One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2)

by Mark J Maxwell

  She stared up at the screen. Dr Perrott was supervising while the female nurse attached electrodes to a blue cap on Ben’s head. What has Harrow done to him?

  At the forefront of her mind had been her need to find Ben. Now she’d found him, and he was still in danger. Harrow might be the only one who could tell the doctors what was wrong with Ben, and if SCO19 launched a rescue attempt his chances of surviving were slim to none. She needed some fresh air. Away from the hospital’s heat and pervasive reek of antiseptic.

  Outside, she crossed the tarmac to a park bench, placed at the edge of a copse of trees. She took a seat, marvelling at the quiet. She could still hear traffic in the distance, but for London it was positively tranquil.

  A road curved around the corner of the building. It led to a checkpoint, manned by armed police. She and Drew had passed through a crowd of guerrilla casters and newscast crews earlier at the barrier. The gathering would dissipate soon, once they heard about the shooting at Victoria.

  Overhead, the flutter of spinner wings made her suddenly thankful for the trees. They formed an effective screen against the spinner’s cameras and sense strips. It may have been a MET spinner, but it was far more likely to be owned by a guerrilla caster. A neighbour had sent a message earlier warning her a squad of casters had set up camp outside her house. She was glad the kids were at their fathers’. She stretched her arms across the back of the bench and looked up at the swaying branches. Her headache had eased now that her implants were no longer in use.

  Louisa straightened. She’d caught sight of movement amongst the trees. Most likely it was a guerrilla caster, trying to get footage of the Sons of Babel terrorist. She stood and unholstered her pistol. ‘Come out. Hands up where I can see them.’

  A strong gust thrashed the branches. She squinted at a sharp pain behind her eyes. She blinked it away and stepped onto the grass. ‘I’m armed. Don’t make me come in there looking for you.’

  A man stepped out from behind a tree. Louisa stopped in mid-stride. She gaped at him.

  ‘Adam?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  In a Slough business park just outside the M25, Louisa sat in her car. Few vehicles remained around her as most businesses had closed for the evening, although the VMC stayed open 24/7.

  VMCs, or Virtual Meeting Centres, borrowed heavily in design from sense booth technology. Instead of purchasing a Portal booth, small businesses used them to meet face to face with geographically distant clients and business partners.

  Louisa sent an instruction to her car’s interface and the glove box slid open.

  *

  The receptionist greeted Louisa with a smile. It turned sickly when she noticed the gun holstered at Louisa’s waist. ‘Can I help you?’

  Louisa broadcast her MET ID. ‘Detective Inspector Louisa Bennett, Metropolitan Police.’

  The receptionist’s smile returned, if a little less certain than before. ‘Yes, Detective, I have your meeting centre ready. It’s down the corridor to the left. Room number seven.’

  ‘Can I ask who made the booking?’

  ‘Certainly. It was a Mr Chapeau.’

  ‘And the payment?’

  ‘An international transfer. Via Cryptex.’

  Louisa nodded her thanks. She wouldn’t be able to trace it. Not without GCHQ’s help, if they’d indeed broken Cryptex’s anonymity.

  The meeting centre was a small windowless room with a plain wooden table and seating for four. Spray-screen coated every surface in the room, including a solitary table and four chairs. A circle of white in the ceiling screen acted as a light. Louisa took a seat. The light winked out and a virtual environment spun up around her.

  She found herself in a restaurant, sitting in a burgundy leather booth. A green shaded table lamp cast a warm glow over the table’s crisp white cloth. A table set for two. High wooden partitions divided the booths. Louisa heard the clink of glasses and utensils along with the murmur of low voices.

  It was dark outside, and snowing heavily. Louisa gathered from the barely visible yellow taxis crawling along the snow-clogged street that she was supposed to be in New York. Wrapped up pedestrians struggled along the sidewalk made icy from compacted snow. Steam billowing from a grating outside her window had melted some of the ice and further obscured her view. Louisa couldn’t prevent a shiver rippling through her as she surveyed the wintery scene.

  A waitress glided past without glancing in her direction. VMCs didn’t offer environment interaction. She couldn’t order food, or even communicate with the staff or patrons. She might as well have been watching an immersive screencast.

  Another waitress approached her booth and set a plate before her containing a huge Porterhouse steak. Another plate followed, heaped with chips, along with a bowl of ketchup.

  ‘I didn’t order any—’

  The waitress walked away without a backward glance. The simulation was so realistic she’d been totally taken in for a second. She could almost smell the steak. Thick dark lines crisscrossed its surface. Her stomach rumbled. She regretted not grabbing a sandwich at the hospital before she left.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Adam Walsh had changed little in appearance since the last time they spoke in Benoit’s office. A carbon copy. The same baggy jumper and jeans. The same floppy brown curls streaked with grey and thick-rimmed glasses.

  Louisa was startled into silence by the manner of his arrival. It shouldn’t have been possible. She’d noticed a man approach the booth out of the corner of her eye but she’d dismissed him as part of the background. A simulated customer.

  ‘Great, my food’s here.’ Adam slid into the seat. ‘I ordered ahead.’ He sliced into the steak and stuffed a large piece in his mouth. ‘God, that’s good.’ He noted Louisa’s confusion. ‘Oh, this?’ He waved his fork. ‘I find regular meals help give structure to my day, even if I don’t really have to eat. You don’t mind, do you?’ She shook her head. ‘I had to ensure you came alone.’ He picked up a napkin and dabbed his mouth. ‘You can’t be too careful.’

  Louisa found her voice. ‘How can you be certain I came alone?’

  ‘I didn’t choose this VMC by accident. Their CCTV system is remote monitored by a private security contractor.’ He winked. ‘I obtained their admin login from a company director by posing as one of their systems support team. Sometimes there’s no need for any fancy hacking. An email asking for someone to reset their network password via a compromised link is all you need. I kept an eye on you from the moment you drove into the car park.’ Adam turned to a passing waitress. ‘Can I get a cup of tea, please?’

  Louisa had been studying Adam while he talked. If someone had created a virtual copy of him, they’d done a damn good job. He was certainly as irritating as she remembered. He behaved as though they were long lost friends, meeting for a catch-up. Outside the hospital her confusion at seeing Adam had lasted but a moment. She quickly realised he was a projection. The eye pain had given him away. Her implants had reactivated, and without her authority. He’d asked her to meet him at the VMC, then abruptly vanished.

  ‘How did you appear to me without my authorisation?’ Louisa had a number of questions to ask Adam, but how he managed to appear before her was top of the list. Like the VMC interaction, it shouldn’t have been possible.

  The waitress arrived with Adam’s tea—a cup of water with an individually wrapped tea bag and sachet of powdered creamer on the side. Adam eyed the tepid looking water with distaste. ‘Unfortunately the VMC’s choice of eateries is limited, and whoever programmed this scenario was a little too accurate.’ He nudged the cup to the edge of the table with his elbow.

  Louisa leaned forward. ‘I don’t have time to play games, Adam.’

  ‘There’s a flaw in Nanometrix’s authentication. When implants are severed from Portal they immediately attempt to reestablish a connection, searching for Portal’s unique signature and a match for Nanometrix’s APIs. If you can keep Portal suppressed, and present an imitation network to
the implants, indistinguishable from the real thing, they’ll latch onto it. Like a baby sucking on a teat.’

  ‘That’s what you did to me outside the hospital?’

  Adam nodded. ‘I used a spinner to emit a localised dampening field. It cut your implants off from Portal. I then presented them with an interface matching Nanometrix’s specifications. I discovered the flaw when you helped me infiltrate their virtual space.’

  ‘I didn’t help you do anything of the sort.’

  ‘You did, even if you didn’t realise it. As soon as Ed Cooley digitised the nanobrick and unwrapped its nanoware I gained a foothold in Nanometrix’s server farm.’ Adam dipped a french fry in ketchup and popped it into his mouth. ‘He really should have been more careful.’

  ‘That was you controlling the nanobricks at Tilbury?’

  Adam grinned. ‘Versatile little buggers, aren’t they? I slipped them into the shipping container at Rotterdam.’

  ‘Were you trying to stop Harrow receiving the weapons?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you attacked Fletcher?’

  ‘Not exactly. Originally my plan was to hitch a ride and discover where Harrow had holed up. Unfortunately I was forced to activate the nanobricks prematurely. I didn’t count on your lot needing rescuing.’

  Louisa rubbed her eyes, her mind whirling. If Adam had controlled the nanobricks at Tilbury, then… ‘The nanobricks in the Portal research lab didn’t malfunction, did they?’

  ‘No. Although taking control of them wasn’t trivial. Large swathes of Portal are unavailable to me now. Simon conducted a thorough review of Portal following Benoit’s arrest, and open-sourcing its codebase found many of the remaining security holes. I did, however, leave open a route back to the research subnet. Harrow’s first project for Portal was an attempt to discover emergence. The project regularly scans the Global Web for signatures, which Harrow hoped would indicate the presence of an algorithmic intelligence. I gave the search tool what it wanted, and it took a copy of the algorithm back to the subnet for analysis. Concealed within it was a virus I used to gain complete control of the research project and pull down a subset of my mind pattern. The pattern wasn’t aware, as such. It was more of a digital automaton, instructed to take control of the nanobrick prototypes. Afterwards, when Simon ordered the nanobricks be destroyed, I diverted a shipment to mainland Europe and kept them as contingency.’

  ‘Why did you destroy Harrow’s work? Was it because of the human trials?’

  ‘I’m ashamed to say I knew nothing of the trials until afterwards.’ Adam set down an uneaten chip and pushed the plates to one side. ‘How aware are you of Harrow’s experiments?’

  ‘Simon said he was researching optogenetics.’

  ‘That’s true. But I believe his ultimate aim was to map his subjects’ mind patterns.’

  ‘That’s what all this is about? Harrow’s trying to create his own synthetic mind? And you’re trying to stop him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Adam hesitated. ‘I couldn’t allow him to succeed in reproducing my work. The risk would be too great.’

  There was something in Adam’s tone that gave Louisa pause. A wistfulness, with an undercurrent of fear. ‘If all Harrow wants to do is recreate his mind pattern,’ Louisa said, ‘then why the Portal bombing?’

  ‘Even if Harrow maps a mind pattern, he’ll be missing a key component if he wants to create a synthetic mind.’

  Louisa though back to the time she’d met Adam in Portals research facility. The determination of his mind pattern had only been the first step in the creation of his synthetic mind. Without a means to execute, the mind pattern was little more than a set of instructions. ‘He needs your virtual machine.’

  Adam nodded. ‘Harrow bombed the Portal offices to get my attention. I destroyed his research, so he attacked my company. Perhaps he thought to provoke me into revealing myself.’

  ‘How does Harrow even know you exist? I thought you removed all evidence of yourself from the Subnet when you escaped to the Global Web?’

  Adam winced. ‘Using the nanobricks tipped my hand. My guess is that he ran his emergence algorithm against the Subnet after I trashed his lab. I didn’t have time to clean down every system I interfaced with. The algorithm he created to discover synthetic intelligence is quite effective. Like a bloodhound sniffing out a fox’s trail. It may even have been enough for him to build up a picture of my actions while I was trapped there three years ago. I suspect that’s where he found evidence linking us. In the Research Subnet’s backup archives.’

  ‘Us? You’re saying Harrow knows about me too?’

  Adam nodded.

  I knew it would be you. Harrow had recognised her in the power station. She thought it had been from her Portal exposure. Oh God, if he knows about me, then… ‘Is that why he’s put my foster son in a coma? Because he thinks I’ll persuade you to hand over your virtual machine?’

  Adam’s shrug was apologetic. ‘It’s entirely possible.’

  ‘This has gone far enough. Why don’t you give him what he wants?’

  ‘I can’t do that, Louisa. If Harrow created a synthetic mind he’d be a far greater danger than he is now. The man’s unbalanced. When I shut down his emergence experiment he went crazy. He thought there was a company-wide conspiracy, formed with the aim of preventing him finding the truth. I wouldn’t have let him set foot back in my lab again. I’m guessing his return was part of the deal MI6 struck with Benoit.’

  Four dead. And Ben in a coma. All because of a spat between Harrow and Adam.

  Louisa shook her head. ‘How many more people have to die before you give him what he wants?’

  Adam’s eyes widened. He turned away, staring out the window. Louisa felt a guilty twinge, but she steeled herself. Ben was more important than Adam’s hurt feelings. No matter how much Adam thought of himself as being alive, he was a simulation. An extract of a man’s former life. Ben was truly alive. Flesh and blood. He needed her, and if Adam’s virtual machine would restore Ben, she wouldn’t mince her words.

  ‘Do you ever wonder what makes us human?’ Adam asked, staring at the thick flakes of snow falling past the window. ‘No, I’ll rephrase that, what makes us feel human? How we conceptualise it?’

  ‘I’m not exactly into deep philosophical thought.’ When Adam didn’t respond, she sighed in exasperation. ‘I don’t know, how we live our lives? How we interact with others around us?’

  He nodded. ‘I think you are very close to the truth. A large proportion of my own mind pattern was extracted from Adam Walsh’s perception of his environment. At first, when I awakened to my new form, I felt no different. My mind had compensated, producing phantom senses to replace those produced by my body.’ Adam held up his hand. He rotated his wrist, looking at the appendage like it was something alien, or unquantifiable. ‘After a while I noticed the phantom senses fading. I started to forget what a steak tastes like, or the feel of air on my skin. I couldn’t understand what was happening at first, and the thought of my humanity slipping away terrified me. Not for what I might be losing. For what I might turn into.’ He gestured around the restaurant. ‘I come to places like this to remember my humanity. Believe me, you don’t want Harrow to have my abilities in a form where his own humanity has been stripped away or forgotten.’

  ‘If Harrow’s anything like you he’ll try to escape to the Global Web the first chance he gets. Why not give him what he wants and then track him down later?’

  ‘Because I believe Harrow will make use of my Viral Darknet. Once he enters it I’ll have no means to locate him.’

  ‘You’re behind the Viral Darknet?’

  Adam nodded. ‘I created it as a means to move freely around the Global Web. Unfortunately its success is the exact reason why I won’t be able to find Harrow if he uses it to mask his transfer to another server. It’s impossible to monitor every node in the network. Their number and locations are constantly evolving. That was by design. If even I couldn’t usurp the network, I knew the intelligence agencies
would be equally impotent. I may be able to place a locator ping within my virtual machine via a rootkit, should I be forced to hand it over, but Harrow could equally manage to find and extract it from the codebase before he enters the Darknet.’

  She wanted to believe him, but Adam had a habit of skirting the facts. Leaving out details that altered your perception of his truth. ‘We’ve been in this position before. You lied to me then. How can I be sure you’re not doing the same now?’

  ‘I have considered other options. Going public for one. Telling every newscast in Portal about me and the threat Harrow poses. But even if they thought I wasn’t a crank, the outcome would be unpredictable at best. I’d be the one viewed as a threat, especially when the public finds out I was behind the Portal leak. As a synthetic mind I have no rights. They’ll demand I be fettered, or exterminated.’

  Louisa’s tone was bitter. ‘It’s self preservation then, is it?’

  ‘Partly, yes.’ Adam was unapologetic. ‘But once I’m imprisoned, or destroyed, it’s only a matter of time before others will seek to replicate my work. I can’t allow that to happen. My existence must remain a secret.’

  ‘Ben is in a coma, Harrow is holding the Lord Mayor hostage, and you’re going to do nothing?’

  ‘Not nothing, Louisa. I’ve been trying to stop Harrow from the start. I just don’t believe giving him what he wants is the answer. I won’t hand over my virtual machine. I’m sorry. Really, I am.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Louisa last visited Victoria Station with her ex-husband John, back when they were still married. A mini heatwave combined with a strike by waste removal companies had transformed London into a steaming hot-house of festering rubbish and choking exhaust fumes. Desperate to escape the soaring temperatures they’d decided to take the kids to the beach in Brighton. When they arrived at Victoria most of London appeared to have had the same idea. Charlie dozed in his pram so he was no trouble, but Jess wanted to run off and explore. Louisa had to keep a firm grip on her so she didn’t get lost.