Dawn of the Courtezan: Phase 01 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  A small school of silvery cod circled the tank pensively. Two aquatic, janitorial spider-bots, each the size of a cantaloupe, busily combed the sand, rocks and corals. The spider-bots recycled waste products out of the artificial ecosystem and maintained healthy algae levels, monitoring water temperature, salinity and PH. Every two meters, the polarized glass wall was structurally reinforced with iron girders that disappeared up from the floor into the blackness of the ceiling. Aside from the cod and the spider-bots, the gargantuan aquarium appeared to be devoid of life.

  Your primary task will be coding synthetic plant genomes… that was a good one, Dax.

  Though it was unnecessary for her to turn her body in order to communicate with the supercomputer’s driver, Dorothy did so out of habit. She felt it was a simple matter of respect.

  She spoke in a normal voice, “The boys are 6/10th of a kilom from the southeast perimeter. Probably a good time to come plug in. You got anymore pings on those ferals?”

  There was no response at first.

  After several seconds, from one of the many lavastone cave openings at the aquarium’s center, a gray-blue Maui dolphin flashed into sight. The tiny cetacean wore the ubiquitous dolphin smile. She was just under a meter in length and swam in an elegant, swift arc around the perimeter of her habitat. The cod panicked. She tore through their numbers and snapped one of the fish in her beak, devouring it in a few quick, scaly bites before swimming back around to the side of the enclosure that faced Dorothy and the bank of holoscreens.

  Dorothy smiled happily at the sight.

  The dolphin centered herself, floating with grace to the top of the aquarium so her blowhole and rounded dorsal fin protruded from the surface. She positioned her head between a pair of small, glowing electroencephalogram terminals that hung down into the water. The terminal interface was mounted to a track that rolled it along the aquarium’s edge, providing 360 degree access. Once in place on either side of the dolphin’s brain, the electroencephalogram diodes blinked from red to green. Dorothy saw the small subdermal processing chip similar to a human combud begin to glow blue on the dolphin’s forehead as she floated.

  Dorothy nodded at the dolphin with a grin, “Good morning, Joan,” and spun back to the holodesk.

  A monotone female vocal avatar resonated evenly from invisible loudspeakers embedded in the ceiling, “Greetings, Dorothy Marie Angevine. Accessing Drone B datastream now.”

  Fourteen meters above them stood the enormous barn. Two of the wall mounted holoscreens had been displaying a visual of the land immediately surrounding it. The surveillance image faded and was replaced by a slow, cascading waterfall of white computer text trickling down the monitors. When the dolphin closed her eyes, the stream of digits accelerated to a blurring pace, moving so fast that Dorothy could now only see morphing, abstract patterns in the characters.

  Joan spoke, “Network spooling complete. Median processing 256 petaflops/s. Please note, Drone B power supply is at 53% and falling.”

  Dorothy glanced at their drone’s power read, “We’re fine. Should have 45 minutes of fly time easy. I’m a lot more worried about those wild fusion sigs. Update please?”

  Joan corrected, “It is recommended that Drone B dock with the charging nest in 37 minutes 24 seconds to avoid antigrav failure. Scanning perimeter data, contact affirmative. Assuming maintained trajectory, eighteen unregistered micro-fusion cyborgs will breach our perimeter within 3 minutes 59 seconds. Feral cyborgs are traveling in a single file orientation across open land, average velocity, 51 kph. Likelihood of Coyote Pack estimated at 97.2%.”

  “Oh my skies!” said Dorothy, covering her mouth, “It’s really them.”

  The dolphin continued, “Two Douglas County SD-A7 combat drones are pursuing hovcar license number KS4-137. The vehicle is presently traveling west on County Hovway 1500 at a velocity of 199 kph. Drones in sync with Douglas County Sheriff central command, recording complete holoscript, monitor four. Please note; A7 drones armed with both self-propelling botulinum and Faraday electrical dampening micro-torpedoes. Human field team should hold current position. Defensive engagement, DOGS units only.”

  “Those things sound nasty,” said Dorothy.

  “The SD-A7 drone is a remote controlled aerial robot. Nastiness is not a factor.” said Joan. “If current velocities are maintained, hovcar KS4-137 will intercept Coyote Pack in 1 minute 59 seconds. Note; lead A7 unit has opened fire on hovcar operator. Extreme caution advised. Human law enforcement units will not arrive for another 13 minutes, 48 seconds.”

  Employment as a genetic botanist…

  Dorothy tapped a holographic icon floating over the glass table in front of her, “You guys getting this? Don’t you all dare take another step towards those Dogdamn Coyotes! I don’t care how curious you are.”

  Her husband’s voice was gritty, southern-tinged, “Roger that.” Winter wind whistled across his comdot feed, “Flip me to intra with Joan.”

  Dorothy slid another icon to the right and knitted her fingers together as she studied the 3D display.

  “Joan? How are you this morning?” asked her husband.

  The dolphin’s transcribed voice responded, “William Thomas Angevine, unnecessary verbal contributions to the stream add no empirical benefit to our mission objective.”

  Dorothy dropped her head in her hands as her husband replied, “Sorry, Joan. Didn’t mean to break your heart so early in the day.”

  “My heart is a four chambered, mammalian organ distributing oxygenated blood across my pulmonary system at a rate of 28 beats per minute. The human predisposition for assigning spirituality to non-sentient cellular matter elicits my ongoing request for additional explanation at a later date. Given present circumstances, I shall truncate my reply to say that I am operating within normal parameters. Geo-mapping with our drone is established. Adjusting Drone B elevation to 500 meter stealth hover, increasing scan resolution to maximum. All transmissions now black-fractal encrypted. Please limit unnecessary com activity. Thank you.”

  William said, “Joan, you’re a dish.”

  Dorothy frowned, irritated, “Don’t, Will. There’s a pack of ragged cyborgs, a stolen hovcar being piloted by Dog knows who and two armed combat drones converging on our property! The map’s up now. You sure we don’t need to spool THOR?”

  “No time. The Rottweilers have this.”

  Dorothy felt herself chill slightly at the perpetual calm in his voice.

  Sometimes it’s like he’s not real…

  She replied quietly, “Whatever you say.”

  The hologram before her had transformed from a low resolution map into a perfect virtual reproduction. Every detail of the land was revealed as it would appear to the naked eye. Even the near-full moon hung in a virtual night sky, shining ambient light across the dark field. Wispy clouds blew west to east, occasionally obscuring the view of their drone, causing it to adjust its position.

  “Joan, can you increase model illumination by a factor of ten?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Joan waved her tail up and down faster and the holographic map artificially brightened. Everything was now visible. Dorothy touched the holocontrols and drew two fingers apart, magnifying the view of her field team.

  My family.

  They were positioned at the far end of the pumpkin field on a small rise that provided a clear view of the farm’s only access road, County Hovway 1500. Thousands of acres of neighboring agricultural fields stretched out in the blackness around them, seemingly infinite. Dax Abner sat beside their distributions manager, Hugo Velasquez, in the six-wheeled, Kawasaki Solar Mule. Their boss was being unusually reticent. He methodically scanned the horizon line through night vision HUD-goggles and was dressed in the only other outfit Dorothy had ever seen him wear besides a pressed suit: a set of tan overalls paired with black farm boots. The resolution on the drone’s camera was so exact she could see the wind-disheveled tosses in his normally perfect, reddish-brown hair.

 
Hugo the mule sat leaned back, one leg resting on the Kawasaki’s dash. His other knee bounced nervously as he aggressively puffed on an old school joint. Unbelievable volumes of marijuana smoke billowed from his nostrils, exacerbated by the cold. Dorothy could see Hugo’s dark, bushy mustache flitting in the wind as he chattered eagerly at Dax. She wished she could hear what they were saying. Like her husband, Hugo did not have a human biosync processing drive installed, and Dax had forbidden unnecessary com traffic with the aquarium before they left the house.

  To the right of the Solar Mule was their chief of security, William Thomas Angevine. The man Dorothy had recently made her husband. A silver comdot the size of an antique quarter stuck to the skin near his left ear perfectly replicated his speech. She could hear his steady breathing. He knelt on the bare dirt of the pumpkin field dressed in blue jeans, synthleather cowboy boots and a black WarmCoure©. Dirt-blonde hair poked out from under the hempstraw cowboy hat that was perpetually propped on his head.

  Before him, arranged in a line, four Rottweilers lay on the ground panting happily. The animals’ eyes fixated on William’s every move. The two animals on the left were visibly larger than the two on the right. As her husband tilted his head, all four Rottweilers tilted their heads. When Dax said something to William and he turned to listen, the animals simultaneously changed their gaze to focus on Dax. Their fuzzy, bobbed, black tails wagged with excitement. She could see their tufts of white chest fur blowing in the cold night breeze.

  Red text on the holomap above each Rottweiler provided their respective designations; AK9CIVbeta [SIEGFRIED], AK9CIVgamma [FREYA], AK9CIVdelta [LOFN], AK9CIVepsilon [SNOTRA].

  Despite her anxiety, Dorothy couldn’t help but smile as she watched LOFN’s back leg jut out, kicking her sister, SNOTRA in the rib cage. Only then did SNOTRA’s gaze leave William as she snarled and nipped at LOFN’s flopping ear. LOFN dodged the strike and snarled in turn, flashing her three centimeter carbide tipped canines at her sister. Their movements were completely organic. If one didn’t know that the Rottweilers were, in fact, cybernetic organisms wrapped in living BIOSKIN©, they could easily mistake them for frisky, jumbo sized litter mates.

  LOFN and SNOTRA are the runts of that litter I suppose?

  The replicated perfection of the animals’ appearance gave Dorothy a renewed sense of faith in their ability to get everyone she cared about through the coming battle.

  Joan’s computerized voice cut her thoughts, “Hovcraft vehicle KS4-137 and Coyote One’s pack will intersect in 61 seconds.”

  William snapped his fingers. All four DOGS units immediately came to attention.

  He said, “It’s time.”

  It was to be a defensive-only mission. Extract the hovcar pilot, get out.

  But why get involved, Dax? thought Dorothy.

  Everything had happened too quickly. There was too little time, too many unpredictable variables. The sheriff and his posse of human snipers and assault cyborgs would arrive only minutes after the Rottweilers made contact. The Coyotes were the basis of a popular, worldwide mythology across the entire holostream. The last thing they needed was a media circus on their own doorstep. The extraction had to be precise.

  Dorothy narrowed the magnification further. She watched her husband’s hand signals bring the DOGS units to a sitting position. He closed his eyes, touching each cyborg on the head, SIEGFRIED, FREYA, LOFN and lastly, SNOTRA. The DOGS units one by one closed their own large, peaceful brown eyes in response. Their titanalum rib cages rose and fell with the simulated breath that was part of every cyborg’s basic bio-mimic function. Their paws contracted and relaxed, digging into the earth in a manner that was entirely… she searched for the word.

  Biological? Natural.

  “Eyes,” said William.

  The Rottweilers’ true nature was revealed. Their eight vidorbs opened simultaneously, burning with a robotic, magenta hue that gave Dorothy goosebumps. She had only seen the creatures on battle-stat twice. One of those two times, she had watched LOFN run straight through the brick wall of a residential speakeasy like it was a hemplinen drape hanging from a clothesline. Her respect for the animals’ strength was immense.

  Her husband’s eyes were still closed, his voice clear and low, “SIEGFRIED, FREYA, spool TOHO cannons. You two are gonna burn the sheriff’s birds where they fly, then fall to assist your sisters. Establish a ten meter perimeter around that hovcar operator, minimize contact. No matter what, cosmetic damage only to Coyote One. Joan has uploaded her Ipv5 address. Check and recheck. Her reactor signature floats dynamically between units, only one character off from her pack mates.” William tilted the brim of his hat towards the yet unseen forces hurriedly converging on the hovroad, “Okay. Let’s see what the boss is paying me for. Freedom.”

  William swept both hands away from his chest and opened his eyes.

  The Rottweilers leapt to their paws, yipping. They turned abruptly southeast, flaring their wet nostrils to scan the wind. SIEGFRIED’S black lips curled into a menacing snarl. All four DOGS units fell to their haunches and jumped through the air, landing in a spray of dust a dozen meters off, blurring away in tandem at incomprehensible speeds across the pumpkin field’s desiccated winter surface.

  Before she zoomed out to track the battle, Dorothy panned their drone’s telescoping lens over her husband’s face. She noted with a sudden lump in her throat that a tear had formed in the corner of his eye. How strange that was.

  William? Must just be the wind.

  His neuro-psychic link to the Rottweilers was powerful.

  Tethering, Dax calls it.

  This would be the cyborgs’ most complicated engagement to date. Everyone had felt the tension steadily mounting like a roving electric storm since Dax had awoken them 29 minutes earlier. It felt like years to Dorothy since klaxons notifying law enforcement of a terrorist attack at Greystone Behavioral Modification Hospital had begun flooding the holostream.

  She knitted her fingers with nervous anticipation. Only the sky itself knew what savagery the next few minutes might bring.

  The Lawrence Journal World – January 30, 2080 – Front Page – FERAL CYBORG CARCASS FOUND / ARSONIST AT LARGE. Your Ten-Sent Federal News by Martin Wringle, LJW

  Moments ago, The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the image (see projected) trending on social media platforms is indeed one of the legendary Darkpool Labs’ Coyotes. On PingMe alone, the projection received nearly 3,000,000 hits in less than nine hours before being taken down by officials at the Federal Cyborg Commission. The leaked holograph of the cybernetic creature shows an internal metal chassis containing a deactivated fusion core and is proof positive for conspiracy theorists who have long speculated that the Coyote Pack yet roams the countryside here in Kansas. Journalists are frantically seeking information on how an animal powered by fusion was able to maintain a stable code stream for seventeen years. Of greater speculation; are the remaining seventeen Coyotes still at large?

  Further complicating events in our sleepy town of 1,000,000 souls: the crash of a stolen hovcar at the same location where the Coyote chassis was discovered. In the early morning hours of January 28th, a 2079 Mustang GT was stolen from Greystone Behavioral Modification Hospital (the same facility where just last month we reported on an act of arson by alcohol addict Tara Dean of New Riverside, California). Sources within Greystone’s security department have confirmed that this same individual escaped and stole the hovcar by hacking the owner’s personal holotab, floating 15.8 kilometers before the vehicle was disabled by law enforcement drones.

  The sheriff’s department has declined to provide us with footage of the actual chase and crash that ended with the hovcar’s emergency collision sphere being discharged. Citizen Tara Dean has escaped, and as of this time is considered an armed and dangerous fugitive.

  Thank you for reading today’s Ten-Sent Federal News – Sponsored by PingMe

  Chapter 1.10 – The Prophet of War

  Dorothy spun in h
er chair and looked at Joan. The dolphin’s tail was moving slightly faster under the increased data load. Her pectoral fins gyrated back and forth smoothly to compensate, keeping the temporal lobes of her head in precise balance between the aquarium’s cetacean electroencephalogram terminals. The dolphin’s eyes were closed.

  I have to remember she’s an animal. Am I an animal?

  “How you doing back there, Joan?”

  “Dorothy Nichols-Angevine, your combud is reporting a 19% rise in adrenal gland cortisol saturation. You are experiencing psychological stress. Please be aware it is well within my capacity to process this volume of data. Your concern is noted. At this juncture however, I will recommend that you return to your interface console. AK9CIV DOGS units will engage feral targets on County Hovroad 1500 adjacent to Anderson Corn in twenty seconds, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…”

  Dorothy twisted back to the holoscreen array and reoriented the drone’s camera to focus on the various converging elements in the field. From the wide angle, 3D perspective she could now see the small, boxy Ford Mustang being rendered at the perimeter of the holomap. Only one headlight was functioning. The vehicle was floating so fast that its prop fans threw up clouds of gravel dust from the hovway shoulders flowing behind it like an airplane’s contrail.

  At this perspective, the black bodies of their Rottweilers were invisible, only their vidorbs represented by eight minuscule blips of red light. The DOGS units had reached the road. SIEGFRIED, the most advanced model, was running six meters in front of FREYA, who followed at a close second, clocking 146 kph. At a steadily growing distance, the identical twins, SNOTRA and LOFN, galloped side by side at their lesser maximum velocity of 120 kph.