by Todd McAulty
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I went down to the lobby around four. I found Martin sitting in the sun in the west corner. I dropped into the leather chair next to him.
“Look at this,” he said, holding up the slender newspaper he was reading. It was black and white, and a banner on the front page read The Chicago Courier.
“It’s printed on paper,” he said. “They got a printing press down by the docks. They crank off thousands of these things, then run ’em out through the whole city. Probably on horseback, for God’s sake. I swear, I don’t know how they do it. The manpower alone must be staggering. How do you suppose they get lumber to make the paper?”
“TCP/IP networks have been dead in Chicago for almost a year,” I said. “But last I checked, the river was still flowing. Maybe they bring it in by boat?”
“This city is unreal. I brought my electronic reader from Edinburgh, but I might as well have brought a brick. It has a global range, but all the bandwidth is jammed. If it weren’t for a bunch of entrepreneurs down by the docks living in the 1930s I wouldn’t get any news at all.” He folded the newspaper with reverence, shaking his head. “God, I’d love to see their printing press.”
“What’s going on in the world?” I said, trying to read the headlines upside down.
“The usual. Looks like the president of the Dominican Republic just stepped down; governmental authority has been assumed by the Burning Prefecture.”
“I know Burning. A Sovereign Intelligence with a lot of territorial ambitions.”
“Yeah. Something of a dick, that one. He’s making a lot of Caribbean nations pretty damn nervous. Makes no secret of his desire to annex Haiti and unify Hispaniola, and he’s got the military muscle to do it. He’s exactly the kind of machine wacko the Sentient Cathedral should be keeping in check—he sure as hell doesn’t listen to anyone else.”
“You could say that about a lot of Sovereign Intelligences,” I said.
“Far too many,” he agreed. “You all right? You look exhausted.”
I was exhausted. I’d spent much of the night keeping Sergei company as he manually monitored the purification process for the antivirus. He took twenty-minute catnaps between batches as we slowly produced a few dozen vials at a time.
I had been headed for bed when I found an AGRT soldier standing outside my door. “Are you here to arrest me?” I asked sleepily.
“No, señor,” he said, looking confused. “The colonel wishes to speak with you.”
That was overstating it. After I’d trooped down to the sixth floor and dozed in a chair for long minutes, the colonel’s attaché showed up. She had a case with a hardware-encrypted data slate inside, and she spent ten minutes taking biometric readings and keying them into the slate. Then she handed it to me.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Reports on the American terrorist, compiled by Venezuelan Military Intelligence,” she said. “The colonel wishes you to have them.”
I took the slate back to my room. I should have just left it alone and gone to sleep. But I didn’t. I turned it on and started reading. And after that, I couldn’t sleep. The reports were far more detailed and insightful than I’d imagined, but that wasn’t what frightened me. If the information they contained was accurate, life was about to get a whole lot worse.
By midafternoon, I’d long ceased being productive and decided to head down to the lobby to check on preparations for the ball. I felt like a mess, and I probably looked it. “It’s been a long day already,” I said to Martin. “Thanks for doing this for me.”
He shrugged. “Don’t mind. Glad I could help, really. So. When does the old girl get here?”
“Mrs. Domeko? Late, I understand. She’s got some other commitment, a dinner or something at the Art Institute. But we don’t know for sure, and I promised we’d have someone here in the lobby to meet her when she arrives. You could be sitting around for a while, I’m afraid.”
“No worries.” He held up the paper again. “There’s an afternoon edition. And she’s worth it, I hear. Speaking of which . . . how much are we asking?”
“From her? One hundred thousand dollars.”
He whistled. “That’s a lot of money.”
“She’s got it. She hasn’t made a commitment yet, but I think she will.”
“Should I bring her upstairs? Introduce her to the other volunteers setting up for the ball, let her attend the planning meeting?”
“No. She knows she’s important, and she expects to be treated like she’s important. Don’t take her up to the meeting where she’ll feel ordinary. Get her to the bar, sit her down. Look her in the eyes, and let her do most of the talking. Make sure she feels special.”
“Damn,” said Martin appreciatively. “Sounds to me like you’ve been hitting up lonely women for money all your life.”
I laughed. “It’s no different than any other deal. I wish I could meet her myself, to be honest—she’s got quite a reputation. But I have more urgent business. I really appreciate you covering for me.”
By “urgent business,” of course, I meant “probably getting arrested.” Today was Monday, the day Van de Velde had said she’d turn me in to Perez. I’d spent much of the day yesterday and this morning attempting to put my affairs in order so that everything could tick along manageably well without me . . . but the fact was, there was still a lot to do, and not much time left to do it.
“Glad to help,” Martin said. He didn’t inquire what my other “urgent business” might be, for which I was grateful.
“Look, Martin. I don’t care how you want to play this. I find out tomorrow you two kids ran off to city hall and got married, you have my blessing. But the one thing you absolutely have to do is convince her that without her hundred thousand, we are sunk. The fate of this whole enterprise, and a great many refugees, rests with her.”
“Is that true?”
“We’re working on a few other donors, and there’s a slim chance they’ll come through in time,” I admitted. “But don’t tell her that. She has a reputation for large-scale generosity. It won’t hurt if she believes she’s our last hope. Let’s just leave it at that. The truth is, even with her money, we’re still a long way from having what we need to compensate Renkain.”
“How are you going to get the rest of the money?”
“You let me worry about that. Tonight, let’s focus on the charming Mrs. Domeko.”
“Fair enough,” said Martin. “What else do we know about her?”
“I did a little homework. We know she’s a widow. Husband died in a boating accident just over a year ago. War-related, I think. Made most of his money manufacturing dental equipment.”
“I’ll be sure to compliment her on her teeth.”
“You do that. I’ve also heard she drinks like a fish. Likes expensive wines. That could come in handy, actually. But let her buy most of the drinks. You need to stay professional—or at least appear that way.”
We spent the next few minutes finalizing details. I gave Martin a card to handle expenses at the hotel bar. “And a suite upstairs if that’s, you know, the way you want to play this,” I told him.
He shook his head and stood up. “You’re a sick bastard,” he said, clapping me on the back. “I worry for your twisted little soul. I do.”
“Hey, Martin. Joy’s been asking for a job to do. She knows how to dress, and her manners are impeccable. What if I asked her to join you two at the bar? Domeko might appreciate a little more attention.”
Martin nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
I felt better after that. I went upstairs and found Joy and explained the situation.
“I can help,” she said. “But not until the docum
entation is complete this evening.”
“What documentation?”
“Dr. Thibault has instructed the team to outline the complete instructions for biosynthesis of the antivirus. Step-by-step, for submission to the Venezuelan surgeon general.”
“I thought the surgeon general was still under arrest?”
“Yes. But he still has staff scattered across the sector, and they are anxious for the formula.”
“That’s reassuring. When will you be done?”
“I need to digitally authenticate and sign the document and prepare it for delivery. Maybe by eight o’clock?”
We’d followed Hayduk’s instructions for creating the antivirus exactly. Writing out step-by-step instructions for its biosynthesis was the equivalent of signing a confession that we’d stolen Hayduk’s data drive. I wondered if Joy knew that.
“Joy, do me a favor,” I said. “Can you keep your name off the document?”
She frowned. “Probably, but not forever. We can’t count on army inefficiency indefinitely. They’ll ask for authentication sooner or later. Why does my name matter?”
“It’s for your own protection. Wrap it up and join Martin as soon as you can.”
I spent the next hour working in my room, responding to bid requests and trying to get an update out of Leonard in Halifax. When that was done, I had just enough bandwidth left to check for responses to the discreet inquiries I’d sent on Thursday, seeing if I could finger just who it was that had sent a YOW directive to Leonard demanding Ghost Impulse’s source code. Seeing as how I would likely be in custody in a few hours, this amounted to little more than idle curiosity, but it helped keep my mind off my grim future.
To my surprise, there were two responses. Both were very brief, and both named the same intelligence.
Primrose.
That was unexpected. I didn’t know much about Primrose . . . but then again, nobody really did. She lived in Zimbabwe; her origins were unknown. She was believed to be from a unique machine bloodline, not related to Duchess or any of the other great machine mothers, possibly arising unexpectedly from a Zimbabwean gestational tank. She kept to herself and was generally pacifistic. No known ties to the Sentient Cathedral.
I was working on the theory that the intelligence that had sent the Dieu Tueur war drone that had almost killed Van de Velde and me in the tunnels was the same one that sent the YOW directive twenty-four hours later. The timing was too close to be coincidental. The machine we’d frustrated in the tunnels was sniffing around, trying to learn more about me.
If it had been Primrose who’d sent the Godkiller, that theory would explain why she’d demanded my source code. But it was still just a theory. Now that I knew her identity, Ghost Impulse could start making subtle inquiries . . . and mounting a defense. But one thing at a time.
I went down to the front desk to see if I could reserve some time on the phone to call Halifax, but it was useless. The girl behind the counter told me the lines had been down for two days.
“Do you know when they’ll be back up again?” I asked.
“No, sir,” she said.
By then, it was almost time for my meeting with Van de Velde. At that point my affairs were not nearly in order—not even close—but there was no point trying to put it off. If she’d decided to go through with telling Perez the truth, avoiding her wasn’t going to make that go away.
I’d written a letter that would be auto-delivered to Ghost Impulse tomorrow morning and had arranged for Black Winter to come by and pick up Croaker if he hadn’t heard from me in twenty-four hours. Mac and Martin had the charity ball well in hand—well, mostly. And I trusted Sergei to destroy both the suit and Hayduk’s data drive if I vanished in the next two hours.
That left the drone jammer. I’d debated various complicated methods of destroying it, and in the end, I opted for something simple, sure, and quick. I had a six-inch ball hammer Nguyen had loaned me in my pocket. Provided I had any warning at all before being carted away, I knew I could reduce the slender disk to a pile of broken ceramic and pulverized silicon. I probably wouldn’t have time to smash all the chips, but I was certain I could turn the thing into an unsolvable riddle in fifteen seconds or less.
Van de Velde had contacted me yesterday to give me instructions on where she wanted to meet. I left the hotel around seven, heading west on the shadowy concrete enclosure of Lower Wacker, right on schedule.
I got about three blocks west when an AGRT armored truck pulled up beside me. It was sleek and dark, and it sat at the side of the road, its engine rumbling softly.
This wasn’t the time to be shy. I opened the door. Van de Velde was behind the wheel.
I climbed inside. “Hi,” I said. I glanced in the back, half expecting to find soldiers with her. But we were alone.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said.
“Figured there was no point hiding,” I said truthfully. “Besides, I wanted to see you. I have something important to show you.”
The look she gave me wasn’t friendly. “What’s so damn important?”
“Drive, please.”
She obeyed. The truck rumbled down the road.
“Where are we going?”
“Away from the hotel,” I said. “And prying eyes and ears.”
She took me to Millennium Park. She drove right up onto the grass, crashing through low shrubs, until she was in the middle of a muddy field. There was no one—no roads, not even any paths—in a hundred feet in all directions.
She stopped the engine. “The van is shielded,” she said. “There’s no one listening in. Is this private enough for you?”
I looked around. The sun had set, and most of the skyscrapers surrounding the park were completely dark. About three hundred feet north, I could see the twisted ruin of the Bean, the great reflective sculpture that had made the park famous. Whatever drones were overhead were lost in the overcast sky.
“Yeah,” I said.
She turned in the driver’s seat. “What do you want to show me?” she said.
I pulled out the data slate Perez had given me. “This,” I said.
“What is that?” she said suspiciously.
“It’s part of an assignment Perez gave me. To help him track down the American in the combat suit.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not. He’s paying me to help him gather intelligence on this guy.”
She started to laugh.
“I hope you’re not laughing at the colonel,” I said sternly.
“I’m laughing at you!” she said. “You’re unbelievable. How’s he going to react when I tell him who you are?”
I shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out. I didn’t want the job. The colonel asked me to do it. Made me a very compelling offer, actually.”
“Bullshit. You talked him into it somehow. I knew you were a fast talker, but this surpasses even my expectations. Now you have the colonel paying you, from a military budget, to find yourself. It’s incredible.”
“I’m trying to help,” I said stubbornly.
“You’re profiting from the situation! I think this is what you do. You sell stories. You sell lies.” She leaned back against the door. “You know, every day when I wake up, I picture the look on your face when the colonel arrests you.”
“I hope you get your money’s worth,” I said dryly.
She didn’t respond right away. We sat quietly, side by side in the gathering dark. “It would be nice,” she said at last, “if I could trust you.”
“Yes, I think it would.”
She took my left hand in hers, toying with my fingers. She pulled my hand a little closer, almost absently.
Sweet baby Jesus, I thought. Help me keep my hands off this woman. Because if we get involved, she’s going to get killed.
As gently as I could, I tugged back my hand, and turned on the slate. It was time to share the bad news.
I signed in, and the screen unlocked. “Look at this,” I said.
> “What is it?”
“I asked Perez to get me all the information he had on the American. This is his biometric profile. It was compiled by military intelligence—Hayduk’s goons.”
“I don’t think you should be sharing this. This is confidential—”
“Damn it, Noa, just look at the file.”
She complied, at first reading reluctantly, and then reading in disbelief. And finally, in horror.
“Is this true?” she asked.
“Yes. Venezuelan Military Intelligence has already arrested and tortured two men who match the profile. They’ve identified six other suspects and will do the same to them. Two at a time, for maximum efficiency.”
I reached over and thumbed one of the six small tabs at the top of the screen. One of the images rapidly enlarged. It was a profile shot of Van de Velde.
“And you’re fourth on the list,” I said.
“That’s not possible—”
“It is. You’re an almost perfect biometric match. The military intelligence machine algorithm also matched your psychological profile for independent action, your knowledge of the locations involved, your unknown whereabouts at the times in question, your height and weight—”
She stopped me there. “That’s idiotic. You outweigh me by over fifty pounds.”
“The profile Venezuelan Military Intelligence has created on the American shows him to be thinner than me and a lot shorter.”
“That’s impossible.”
I brought up the various scans the slate had stored. Me walking out of the Field Museum. Me in the Sturgeon Building. I overlaid them with the video forensics military intelligence had done to create my profile.
“Look. Hayduk’s team estimates the American at about five foot eight and a hundred and thirty pounds.” That was five inches shorter than me, and easily fifty pounds lighter.
“This is bullshit. What about the scans my team took?”
I tapped the screen, bringing up shaky body camera images from the night Van de Velde and her team chased me through the underground tunnels. I overlaid them with their corresponding forensic analysis.