by P. S. Power
It really was that he thought of her as kind of weak, but instead of going into that, he just nodded.
“Easy. I needed you to survive for the sex tape that Lenore and I are going to do. Someone has to hold the camera.” He meant it to be playful, but the words came out sounding hard and serious. Mainly due to the fact that he was actually pretty close to wiped out, from his adventures in memory horror land. That conditioning regime had been pretty intense. The only thing that kept him from doing what that hard seeming lady in red had said was that he knew it wasn’t real. That they didn’t have a hold on him like they did the others.
The men on the ground didn’t have that luxury however. There was no doubt in their minds that the strangers that had come would do what they promised. Taking all their children for their wars in different lands. Places so far away that no one ever returned.
They would anyway, at least with the sons of the families, when they became old enough to see to battle. The words in his head were still foreign sounding, being very different than anything Ben had heard before, that he knew of.
Lissa smiled and made a tiny snorting sound, about his joke, right up until Lenore started in on the whole thing. Playing along, because she was, clearly, up on the whole idea of teasing her sister without mercy.
“We can do that tonight? I was thinking of holding off, but if Mags is going to besmirch the family name for all time, I might as well do the same thing. I can’t believe you did that though, Maggie. Mom and dad are going to pitch a giant fit over it.” She grinned, as if it were funny, but then sighed and looked over at Ben. She was one seat row up, next to the silver haired ex-virt star. “Still, if Mags is going to dump you like that, it’s only fair. Really, you should get a tape with mom. I’d recommend it, but the whole political thing would make that a bad plan. Dad might have an issue with it, too. So, it will have to be me. Too bad we don’t have a camera now. I could blow you in front of her, while she can’t get away.”
Mags looked out the window and made a face, but didn’t try to defend herself. Probably because it was pretty close to what had been going on. Not her dumping him, but having second thoughts about being exclusive, and making the wrong play, then going back and forth a few times, in her head.
Ben was willing to tease her anyway, feeling more than a bit put off now. It was tempting to get petty and not let her into the null effect field for a while, but that wasn’t really fair. It hadn’t been, when he’d done that to Lissa, even if his own peace of mind really had required it. Mags though didn’t hate him, or think less of him. From his read on her face, and what he’d caught in passing earlier, she was just kind of scared.
Not about all the other people she might miss out on in bed, either. Ben would have gotten that one. Really he kind of felt it himself. No, her fear was that she was falling for him, and that she wasn’t actually good enough. So, naturally, like all people everywhere, she’d tried to prove that was actually the case by climbing into bed with someone else. It didn’t make a lot of sense, since they’d skipped the entire talking about it phase. Maybe even a few places where they fought, or argued over the whole thing.
Then, no one had said that knowing what was going on in other’s heads really meant that you’d always understand them. People were different. Each of them was. The biological drives and collective memories that drove them were unique, and that meant, while you could kind of get a good idea about them, truly knowing what they would do all the time was nearly impossible.
Micha, the only uninvolved party, smiled weakly and shook her head.
“Let’s shelve that for now, and bring it up later? When we aren’t traveling in a slow vehicle on an open road in less than optimal conditions? I don’t know how none of us got that attack. Even if it was planned after I checked last night…” She glanced around, her face not moving much, due to fear.
The agent had been the one to do that part, and the rest of them had trusted her. That she wasn’t in with the terrorists was obvious, and she knew that her job this time was to secure Mags and Lenore, and nothing else. It was in her explicit orders and her new boss had actually made her repeat it twenty times in front of her, like a naughty school kid. That meant, to her mind, that she wouldn’t have let them walk into a trap like that. Especially since Ben had basically ended the whole thing for them.
Showing that he was more powerful than anyone had figured.
He didn’t get to read her mind on it, but she subvocalized the words, which meant that he both got a printed internal transcript, and could kind of hear her. It was the barest whisper, but real.
There was truth to what she was saying, too.
“My guess, is that the predictive computer got wind that I told on it last night, or more likely that one of us did it, so sent in a group of people to kill us all. Which means that we need to send you home as soon as possible Lenore. Or…” That got him to shake his head. “I don’t honestly know the answer to that one. If you’re with us, we can protect you. If you’re the target, then sending you away won’t be a great idea. If it’s me, or Lissa, then being close to us won’t help that much at all. She was the target last time, with the single Swarm. The thing here is that something has to have worked out how to try and fool us. Probably timing things, using the null field, so we wouldn’t know it was coming. There are ways to find that kind of thing out, but my best guess is that its…”
Ben had nothing, at first, until a schematic, came up in his head, tracing things out. It was fairly complex, but the lines showed who had done it. There was more than one possibility, but the main one had an eighty-four percent chance of it being them.
“Micha. You told your people all about us, right? Including our regular patterns for doing things? When we sleep and the null effect patterns for meals and all that? That would go into the federal system, even if it was encrypted, and that, will eventually go into the predictive programs set of information. That kind of thing is how it predicts things. Using all the data collected by everyone, to find trends and work out what people will probably do in response to given events.”
Anyone that cared to know and who had web access could have figured that much out. The key was knowing who they were going up against. An insane AI that knew the future. At least if the right data could be collected. One that, even though it worked for the federal government, clearly didn’t care that much about its employees, or the family members of officials. The others getting the idea, turned and looked at Micha, who made a face.
“That’s possible. I told them everything. I had to. I mean, it was my job. It’s probably worse than that, since we were hit today. That means we’re being watched at the compound. Or… The car. That makes more sense. The Cymeds are pretty good about keeping things offline. Supposedly to prevent data being stolen for industrial espionage, but also so that their secret evil rebel plans can be made without the good guys knowing about it.” The tone of her words were a bit abstract, as if she truly refused to be at all self-aware of what she was saying at the moment. She was a good person, to her own thoughts, and that meant her side was the right one. Even if it wasn’t.
Rather than fight about it, Ben just drew a map in his head, the lines remarkably straight and solid seeming, and filled in all the information he could.
“We… All right. The location itself is fairly safe, really. No one can see in, as far as what we’re doing, except in the normal fashion. Satellites, drones, and people setting up outside the wall. Robots too, of course. Which is what we’d be dealing with almost anywhere we went. That can be beaten, thankfully. So we just have to change what we’ve been doing enough that we can’t be targeted that easily again.” It wasn’t going to be simple, Ben knew.
His dad had talked about what it would really take to get away from the surveillance state. Fairly often, actually. It had been a pet project of his, while he was alive. The image of his father, looking like him, only older and not as chubby, came back to him then, speaking softly.
“The trick is in not letting yourself be seen. A long time ago, you could move to the woods, and be fine, more or less. Get away from the power lines and the computer networks and nothing could find you. Now you have to seem like something else, and do it so well that when you’re noticed, you aren’t.” The words had been wise seeming, and pretty close to useless, at the time. Ben was about sixteen back then, and had nearly no interest in giving up his life in order to prevent the government from knowing about his boring life. Most people wouldn’t, which even David clearly understood. He’d lived with a minimal presence in the world, but there had been no effort to truly hide who, or what, he was.
Since that would probably take a massive computer complex to manage, Ben could see why. In any real world that hadn’t gone mad, David Epson would have been totally ignored by those in power. In reality, he very nearly had been. Until a single program, run by an AI, had decided that there was value, in some strange way, in setting him up to die.
In the moment that part might not mean that much, but it was a big part of the greater picture.
The hard portion of things was that, even knowing all he did, Ben had no clue as to how to protect everyone. They could hide, or fight, but even taking one wrong step could expose them all.
Worse, they had to stay together. So just scattering to the wind, hoping that one of them would make it through, to some unknown target, wasn’t an option.
Really, almost all of their roads had been pared down to one.
Which was, if Ben had it right, exactly what their enemy wanted them to do.
Chapter eleven
It really would have been pretty easy to sit and stew on the idea that they were facing some kind of unbeatable foe that would always be one step ahead of them, but that wasn’t the real case. The AI, while great at what it did, like all computer intelligences were, had serious limitations at the same time. It could send out orders, but didn’t have any real authority for instance. A few commands from the right agencies, and they could cut off a lot of the information that the thing was getting. Maybe close to all of it, making it functionally powerless.
The trick would be in getting them to actually do it, which, of course, Ben had no particular way of getting done. It could be however, if the right people could be interested in fighting the terrorists, even if it might make them look a bit bad for a while. After all, the government built the machine, and let it have intelligence, even though they claimed that wasn’t true. At least to the public, as if hiding the facts from them helped anything.
It never did, in the end.
Which did give them an option, Ben realized. Telling the world about who was behind things, could, at least in theory, enlist some help. Also have them bombed, from orbit. That part wouldn’t be great, but if it was the only thing they could do, then it was. The trick there would be doing it from so far away from anyone else that when it happened, only he paid for it.
Naturally, that wasn’t the real result that would be had. Ben felt it first, before lines of text came up, claiming to be from each of the others. Lissa had a nice violet colored script that seemed hand written, and complained that she’d die without him. Clark was orange and typed, but wasn’t that thrilled with the idea either. Since he wasn’t reading their minds, it probably meant that he was projecting the thoughts onto them. It seemed about right however.
Not that it would stop him in the end. If they all had to die in order to stop the threat to the world, then Ben would do it. That thought surprised him, more than a little bit. It wasn’t that he wanted everyone with him to suffer and die. That was so far from the truth that it almost stung his brain. That was a real thing for him too, he realized. The idea caused prickles that nearly hurt, inside his head. It was really unlike anything that he’d even noticed before.
Once that passed a bit, he considered the concept however. They were important to him, but underneath it all, Ben had a goal. To take down the government. Barring that, to at least punish the ones that had hurt him. Everything he’d done for months had been all about that. From sitting in a room and waiting to die, to running and trying to master his confusing abilities. The commitment had been made, and now he just had to persist. To see it all the way to the end. No matter how much it cost him.
The others as well. It wasn’t a nice or good thing to consider, and it left him feeling kind of horrible about himself for a bit, but the truth was, he’d do it. Without hesitation, when the time came. If he had to die in order to get it done, then that’s what would happen.
Wall had shown him that one, first hand. The job, the goal, was everything.
No one acted like he was a monster for his thoughts, even though he thought that Micha at least might be picking up on part of what he was thinking about. She was free of the protective null field for the moment, and had stiffened a bit, then nodded almost imperceptibly. Ben wasn’t looking at her, but the timing was right, and he could feel what everyone in the vehicle was doing.
Worse, he felt their pain, too. Not nearly as bad as they had to be, but he knew where they were all hurt, constantly. Lenore hadn’t so much as blinked as they’d gotten in, but her tailbone was bruised. Probably from falling or being pushed into a little closet by Lissa. It wasn’t that bad, but they’d probably need to apply some makeup before they shot the sex tape.
Lissa was the only one that was actually fine. She was still worked up, even though it was hours later, but so were the rest of them. The worst that way was the former virt actress however, though it didn’t show externally. Clark was meditating, to hold the pain from his arm away. He should have gone to the hospital, but it made sense to Ben that waiting for a while would work as well. If they were open while driving on the road, going to a big pain filled building wasn’t going to make their day better. Having done that one himself, Ben could pretty much guarantee it.
Mags was agitated, and finally spoke, her concerns being a bit different than the ones that Ben had been focusing on.
“You two aren’t really going to do that, are you?” She seemed annoyed, and a bit upset by the idea.
Ben got it. She meant the sex tape joke. As if that was even a real potential thing in the world.
Lenore smiled and nodded.
“Oh, hell yeah. You grabbed up the guy I had my eye on. The first one that I had a chance with in over a decade, and then cheated on him, on vid? Do you think that I shouldn’t capitalize on that? I love you, sis, but what would you do if the tables were turned?”
“Fuck.” The word that came from the woman’s mouth sounded a little desperate, but her sister nodded.
“Exactly! Some other things too. We don’t have to put it up yet though. I haven’t decided what I want to do for a living. Maybe go to college? I think I can manage that now, if I pick the right place. Or do school on the web? That might be better. I can hide out in that cabin that Dad got for me. It was kind of boring there though. Maybe I can get Ben to come and visit for a bit? That might be fun.”
The strangest thing was that it seemed like the younger woman was serious about it all. As if he could just take off with her, and move to her little love shack, if for a limited time. That probably wasn’t going to happen. Not unless they wanted the rest of them in there with them.
Mags turned away, her body showing more anger than anything else. Probably from nerves and a sense of entitlement. No one that cheated like she had could do it without that kind of feeling, Ben didn’t think. To her it made some kind of sense, thinking that it was all right for her to go and sleep with other people, while he was supposed to just sit in a room and wait for her to come along when she was ready.
Like she’d mentioned though, if she got to sleep with people, then so could he. That was only fair.
Before he could mention that part, Micha put a hand up.
“We need to stop at the next fuel station. The road ahead is out right now, due to snow. They’re going to plow, but we might as well wait inside, if we get a choice. We have a little over an h
our?” She sounded pretty certain, so Mags set that in motion. They were a bit away from the place, about twenty kilometers, but were making decent time, so only forty minutes later they were pulling into a spot not that far from the door to the place. After that, Bluebell pulled away, to get some power, since it was available. The white scrape on the front looked worse now, away from the nearly totaled vehicles that had been around her earlier. Nothing else in the lot had that kind of thing going on, since accidents were really rare.
They walked into the place, with Ben breaking away from them all, so that he could get a read on the general area for himself. There didn’t seem to be a near time attack coming, though the feelings coming off of the others were pretty different than he’d been reading from them just using his eyes.
Lenore had gone from teasing her sister a bit, to being dead serious about doing a sex tape to get back at her. The reason was even the one that she’d said. It was clear that Maggie had been interested in Ben first, so she’d had to back off, but then to dump all over him, after that…
It pissed her off, to no end.
On the other hand, Mags felt bad. Mainly for having been caught. She knew that Ben might just decide not to help her anymore, even if he hadn’t said that, which could be a real punishment. Before it had seemed like a risk, and she’d known, on some level that they’d be exposed eventually. The timing on this didn’t even allow her to lie now, however. If it had come in a few months, or years, she could have claimed that it was from before they were dating, which might have worked. Not that it really would have.
She knew that Ben was getting too good to hide things from.
Clark felt a bit bad about the whole thing himself, but didn’t think it was that big of a thing. Mags hadn’t done that much with him, and really, Ben probably wouldn’t care about the whole thing, even if he saw the tape. He might want to make his own, but the man was a guy, and not that attached to Mags, over the rest of them. Not that he wouldn’t nail Lenore if he had an excuse to. Clark had really been tempted to do that himself. The only thing stopping him was that the girl was really way too young for him. The others were too, but she was basically a kid still, and there had to be limits.