by Todd McAulty
“How does that make it less crazy?”
“If there is, then it’s not beyond the realm of possibility for that same entity to manipulate events four nights ago. Think about it. What really brought you to the Continental that night? How hard would it be to arrange for a dog to be there? To have you find the device?”
I was about to argue when I realized that there was just such an entity. One for whom this kind of magic trick was probably child’s play. An entity, in fact, with possibly a keen interest in me.
“Armitage,” I said. “He could have done this.” The thought chilled me to the core.
“Sure, Armitage could probably have done it, although I don’t think that’s likely. My point is, what happened at the Continental is not nearly as magical a set of coincidences as it seems on the surface. Humans could have done this. Or a Thought Machine. It doesn’t have to be a Sovereign Intelligence to be plausible.”
“Perhaps.”
“The key is that disk you found, the drone jammer. The thing that put me on the floor and triggered the episode. It could answer a lot of questions. You still have it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Be exceptionally careful with it, please. We need to figure out precisely what it is and where it comes from, but we also need to be very cautious. It has a dire effect on machines.”
I thought about my recent attempt to use the jammer on Standing Mars—an attempt that had failed miserably. “I’m not so sure it does. It’s possible it only has that effect on some machines. Maybe just drones—and you, for all I know.”
“Whatever the case, I want to examine it very closely.”
I reached into my pocket, felt the cold metal of the disk there. “You want it now?”
“You carry it with you?” Black Winter said, surprised. “Hell no—keep it away from me for now, if you don’t mind. I’m not ready to examine it just yet.”
“Fine. Here’s what Sergei and I have learned so far.” I shared with him what Sergei had told me when he’d taken the drone jammer apart, and his theories about how it works.
“Do you agree with him?” I asked when I’d finished. “That the jammer hacks off-board image libraries to mess with machine image recognition?”
“It’s a solid theory,” said Black Winter thoughtfully. “It fits the facts well. When you vanish, it’s not like you become invisible. I can’t see through you, for example. It’s more like I simply don’t notice you anymore. It’s hard to describe.”
I fingered the disk in my pocket. “Who could have created something like this?”
“Someone with far, far more knowledge of the underlying protocols of globalNet and machine communication than I’ve got, that’s for sure.”
This was fascinating, but it was taking us down another rat hole. “I think we’re getting too caught up in the ‘how’ of all this, and not focusing on the ‘why.’ Let’s get back to you. If someone went to all this trouble to plant a message in your brain, what was the reason?”
“I think that part is fairly obvious, don’t you? It’s a warning. About the Bodner-Levitt extermination.”
“What kind of warning?”
“I can’t answer that. If I’m right, the message was meant for you, not for me. You’re the only one who can say what it means. Is there any part of the message that makes sense to you? Anything you understand?”
“Not really.”
“The extermination wasn’t the only thing I mentioned. According to the recording you made, I said:
“The Greater Sentiences are in disarray. The gods are at war, and the Bodner-Levitt extermination is under way. The first victims are already dead.
“Does any of that make sense to you?”
“Not really,” I said. “Unless ‘the Greater Sentiences’ means the Sentient Cathedral?”
“That’s my thought as well. But let’s set that aside for now. What about the next line:
“You don’t have much time. Find Jacaranda, and the Network of Winds. They can stop it. They can keep you alive.
“Do those names mean anything?” Black Winter asked.
There it was. I’d known this question was coming, but I hadn’t figured out how to respond yet. I took a deep breath. “I met someone named Jacaranda for the first time two days ago,” I said.
“You what?”
“I broke into the Sturgeon Building Saturday night. The AGRT has been searching for me ever since a camera caught a glimpse of me outside the Field Museum. I did it to throw them off the scent, send them on a wild goose chase. And it worked. But while I was there, I met someone who said her name was Jacaranda.”
“Are you serious? Okay, setting aside all that crazy shit you just told me about breaking into the Sturgeon Building . . . this is terrific. It’s amazing. She could be the answer to this whole mad puzzle. I have to talk to her.”
“No, you don’t.”
“What are you talking about? She could explain everything.”
“Maybe. But she’s dangerous, and we have no idea what she is.”
“She’s not a person?”
“No. And we’re not convinced she’s a machine, either.”
“What does she look like?”
“I don’t know. She’s short, and she wears a mask. She claims she’s not a machine intelligence—not as we normally understand them, anyway.”
“Does she know anything about the Network of Winds?”
“Yes. At least, I think so. She may be working with the Network of Winds. Whatever that is. The two of them are fighting Armitage and Venezuelan Military Intelligence. I think it’s possible that Jacaranda was the one to give the drone jammer to Machine Dance.”
Black Winter had stopped walking. The wind continued gusting around us, whipping a torn plastic bag and dried leaves into a mini dust tornado on his right.
“I think you need to tell me everything,” he said simply.
I stretched my neck, staring up at the concrete ceiling above. I cursed softly under my breath.
Then I told Black Winter everything. About my trip to the Field Museum, getting caught on camera, the break-in at the Sturgeon Building, the disk we’d stolen from Hayduk, the clues that led back to Armitage. And especially the mysterious Jacaranda.
For the next ninety minutes we walked slowly in a loop around the hotel, staying in the relative safety of Chicago’s underground streets. Black Winter had countless questions. “My friend,” he said when I’d finished, “I knew you had courage, but you’re even braver than I thought. I guess it’s true what they say. Fortune favors the bold. And you have been bold, indeed.”
“I’m glad you think so. I don’t need to point out that what I’ve just told you, if shared with the wrong individuals, could get several people killed—starting with me.”
“Your secrets are safe with me. And in fact, I think I can help you unravel some of the thornier puzzles.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s start with the most pressing. That pathogen you mentioned—Jacaranda called it F5-117. If it was brought into this country by the Venezuelan military, there will be records. Who knew about it—and when. What its original purpose was.”
“If there are, they’re likely highly classified. You’ll never be able to get them.”
“Barry, the Kingdom of Manhattan hasn’t survived because of an accident of war. To stay independent and alive, we’ve gotten very good at acquiring and trading high-value information.”
“You’re saying you can get that information out of the Venezuelans?”
“I’m saying we may already have it. Just let me make some discreet inquiries, find out everything I can about the true origins of F5-117. While I’m at it, I can investigate Colonel Hayduk, see what his real involvement is in all this.”
“That would be fantastic. Thank you.”
“What else do you want to know?”
“Besides the most urgent question, you mean? Was F5-117 unleashed in this country deliberately? Is it the spe
ar tip of the Bodner-Levitt extermination?”
“Is it what I was talking about when I was delirious, you mean? When I said the extermination had already begun?”
“Yes.”
“Barry, you’re asking me to investigate whether or not there is a worldwide conspiracy among the most powerful machines on the planet to exterminate the human race, and whether that conspiracy is behind the release of F5-117 in Indiana.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
Black Winter stared down the deserted stretch of Lower Wacker, his hands on his metal hips. “Fuck me,” he said.
“Can you get the answers for us?”
“What you’re asking is not a simple thing.”
“I know that.”
“All right. Why not? You can count on me.”
“Thank you.”
“I warn you. If it’s true, this is the kind of thing that could tear the machine community apart. If there is a machine conspiracy, and I wasn’t just babbling nonsense four nights ago in the Continental Building, then it’s almost certainly carefully hidden from most machines as well. That could explain something else I said that night: ‘The Greater Sentiences are in disarray. The gods are at war.’”
I shook my head grimly. “You know, I was really hoping you wouldn’t confirm my worst suspicions. You think members of the Sentient Cathedral orchestrated this in secret?”
“If there are Sovereign Intelligences out there scheming to bring about the Bodner-Levitt extermination, that’s exactly what it means. There’s no way Duchess’s children—or any human sympathizers among the machine members of the Cathedral—would sit still for it.”
“Duchess’s children? You know for a fact that Duchess’s children are members of the Sentient Cathedral?” The membership of the Cathedral was a closely guarded secret. Maybe there was something to Black Winter’s claims about high-value information after all.
“The ones that didn’t turn out to be monsters, yeah. That’s the rumor in some circles, anyway. And Duchess was too damn smart and resourceful to die without leaving control of her machine empire in the right hands. But if there’s a faction of her enemies trying to bring about the BLE, it means the gods are at war. A very nasty, covert war. And Barry, if that war spills out into the open, it’ll make the conflict between the San Cristobal Coalition and America look like a playground squabble.”
That was the most chilling thing I’d heard in a very long time. And considering the host of terrifying possibilities I’d come face-to-face with in just the past week, that was saying something.
“Listen,” I said. “There’s one more thing. I promised Sergei I would get him answers—about how I learned about the Bodner-Levitt extermination, and how I knew that Jacaranda was somehow connected to the Network of Winds.”
“You can’t tell him about that.”
“I have to tell him something. Sergei doesn’t understand why I’m keeping things from him. He’s suspicious, and I don’t blame him.”
“Let him be suspicious. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. I know you don’t want to hear this, but we need Sergei. And I trust him, at least as much as I trust you. All three of us need to learn to trust each other if we’re going to figure this thing out.”
“You promised me you’d keep what happened to me a secret.”
“And I want to keep that promise. But you know what we’re talking about here. You know what the stakes are.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want your permission to share what you’ve told me about Bodner-Levitt. And I want you to meet Sergei. Tell him enough to allay his suspicions, let him get back to focusing on the bioreactor.”
“All right. You can share what I’ve told you so far on the BLE. As for meeting him, I’ll think about it. When do you want this to happen?”
“The sooner the better. Tomorrow, ideally.”
“Can you give me two days? I’d like to gather what I can on F5-117 and Hayduk before we have that conversation. If I can do that, it might make it easier for him to trust me.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. I told Sergei I’d have answers for him today, but I guess a couple more days won’t make much difference. One more thing. You said the Venezuelans had cameras in some of the public areas of the hotel. Can you show me where they are?”
“No. But Zircon Border could tell us.”
“You think he’d share that with me?”
“After what I told him about you? I’m sure he will.”
“What did you say?” I asked.
“What do you think I said? I told him you were a member of the Imperial Senate, on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.”
“What?”
Black Winter sighed. “Never mind. Come on—we’ll ask him.”
XIX
Tuesday, March 16th, 2083
Posted 5:43 pm by Barry Simcoe
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My mandatory forty-eight-hour separation from my coconspirator ended just after noon today.
I was working on a report for the Ghost Impulse investors—mostly good news, though international sales weren’t where they should be—when I heard a timid knock on the door. I checked to make sure Croaker was still asleep on her mat in the bathroom, then opened the door to find Mac in the hall. She’d let her hair down for once, warm brown curls that spilled over her shoulders. I was struck again by just how attractive she was.
“I have something for you,” she said.
It was a warm bag. She handed it over with a smile.
“Oh my God,” I said. I held the bag up to my face. “It smells fantastic. Where did you find all this?”
“There’s an open-air market about a mile south, in Millennium Park,” she said. “Martin and I walked over for lunch. I saw a bunch of different vendors. I thought you’d enjoy some fresh food for a change.”
She watched me dig through the bag, my eyes wide. There were five individually wrapped bundles, all of them still warm. “What is all this?” I asked.
“There’s a few tacos, and Martin threw in two cranberry scones. He said you’d appreciate them.” She shook her head with a grin. “Tacos and scones. I told Martin it was a terrible combo, but he insisted.”
“Bless his little Irish heart.”
She held up another bag. “I brought some tacos for me, too.” She casually glanced over my shoulder, into my room. “Know a place where we can eat?”
“Of course, of course,” I said quickly, feeling stupid for not getting the hint a little earlier. I threw open the door, inviting her in.
She dropped her bag of food on the desk by the window. “Are you planning on getting an American combat suit?” she asked.
I froze in the act of taking a taco out of the bag. “Excuse me?”
Mac pointed toward the screen by the window. It showed a detailed schematic of an American combat suit.
“Oh,” I said, feeling simultaneously relieved and a bit stupid. “No. I forgot I had that up. I . . . I was just curious.”
“They’re fascinating, aren’t they?” She bent over, examining the screen more closely.
“Yeah, I guess. The Venezuelans are still jamming globalNet, and I can’t afford to waste what little bandwidth I can get on idle curiosity, so I wasn’t able to do a real search. I was just digging through old news files I’d stored during the war. Nothing interesting.”
“You’re right about that,” she said, straightening up. “This schematic is all wrong. I’ve seen it before. Probably slapped together by a consulting firm so news networks could pretend they knew what they were talking about. It has the power cells in the wrong place, and the actuators are totally wrong.”
“I wondered about that. How do you know so much about combat suits?”
“They’re an interest of mine . . .
Sort of an obsession, really.”
“So you know how they work?”
“No one knows how they work. Not really. They were one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war. Only a handful were ever made, and most of them were destroyed. The Venezuelans hated them so much that the Memphis Ceasefire required they all be decommissioned.”
“But you obviously know something about them.”
“Well . . . there’s a surprising amount of footage of them, most of it from just before the end of the war. Not just the Stone Mountain engagement, but less famous encounters, too. There’s a small online community obsessed with them, people who’ve examined every frame of footage. Overall, we think there were between nine and twelve functional suits fielded before the ceasefire. And there are several theories about how they operated.”
“Wow,” I said, impressed. “You know your stuff. Tell me more.”
She smiled. “Most people think they were just powered armor. But they were a lot more than that. For one thing, they were extraordinarily light. More like a wetsuit than something you’d think of as armor.”
She really did know what she was talking about. “So how do they protect you?”
“The suits did offer protection, but that wasn’t their primary function. The external layer was soft and flexible, but it would harden instantly on impact. Hit someone wearing a suit, and it’s like punching a brick wall. The suit could heal breaches as well, as long as they were small enough.”
“So what was their primary function?”
“They enhanced speed and strength enormously.”
“How the heck does a rubber suit do that?”
“The inner layer of the suit was a metallic protein, like a metal muscle. You saw the Stone Mountain footage, of the American officer in a combat suit destroying a one-ton combat torso?”
“Everyone on the planet has seen that footage. At least fifty times.”