Nanodaemons

by George Saoulidis

  Chapter 18:// Bumping off

  The huge cobra reported back to her master.

  “Yes, nice,” he said and petted her enormous hood. “What did you taste, my Kaur?”

  She tasted the air a few times, her forked tongue whipping in a blur.

  “Blood…” he said. She tasted a couple more times. “Brains. Excellent,” her master said and threw a rat at her.

  The cobra gulped the snack in a single motion and slid around the street, making herself comfortable.

  “It seems those sleeper programs do work after all,” Bhai Sharan said to himself and rubbed his chin. It was a troubling thought for assassins worldwide. What would they do, if computers could simply take their jobs like that? Would they turn obsolete, go the way of the pharmacists and the commercial pilots? Replaced by trained machine learning applications?

  The world was changing fast. He had no illusions about the age old adage, ‘adapt or die.’ Despite his traditional theme, he was a man who went with the times. These nanodaemons were worrisome.

  No, he thought to himself. He needn’t worry about that. The old man had let something slip, about them being suitable for an urban environment. A city environment, that is. But, weren’t all the important things happening in cities? Weren’t all the assassination targets there?

  Bhai Sharan breathed out loudly, and sat down on his little carpet. He needn’t worry. The payment from this job would be enough for him to retire. The bonus, for a job well done, would make a nice donation to the temple. He’d have to do it anonymously, of course, but he didn’t mind that. Bhai Sharan never craved for recognition. That was a thing only stupid serial murderers did, and who got caught.

  He could retire. Heck, he could finally visit India. He’d been saying he will go back to the homeland since he was a boy. Years went past, his promise unfulfilled.

  Kaur slid around him in a wide circle and brought her head close to him. He petted her.

  “Want to see India, my Kaur? We can find a way to get you there, somehow. I read there are mountains higher than any man can climb, fertile plains full of rice and wheat, as far as the eye can see. People all around, music. Dancing. Colours are everywhere, the clothes, the food, the decorations. You should see Bandi Chhor, the Day of Liberation, same day as Diwali, the Festival of Lights. Firecrackers and fireworks, though I think you won’t appreciate those. People celebrating all over the country, millions upon millions. How does that sound, my princess? Nice, huh? Yeah. Sounds nice…” Bhai Sharan said and smiled at the horizon.

  Eastward.

  Chapter 19// Booting up

  BANG, the foreman came back in his office slapping the door open as he usually did. Leo came to, shaking his head out of the daze.

  A metallic taste was in his mouth. His forehead was feeling wet, beady. He looked at the mayor’s tie again. It was bloody. The noose was around a stiff neck, head squished like a lemon. An eye was still falling slowly from the mess. Leo looked at his newly acquired prosthetic arm. It was wound in a fist and was dripping brain matter.

  The fat foreman took off his hardhat and brought it to his chest. He wheezed, out of breath, “Pappas, what have you done? What the hell have you done?”

  Chapter 20:// Eating up

  Singh bit down on the sinful meat, and closed his eyes in delight.

  Sacred indeed.

  He waited for the old man, so he might as well feed himself, since he was already here in the fast food restaurant.

  He didn’t have to wait long, the old man was always punctual. That might have to do with being the errand boy for self-appointed gods, and living to tell the tale.

  He was nervous, his eyes darted around to the other customers. He waited for some sort of confirmation, a facial scan perhaps? He must have gotten an all-clear, because Bhai Sharan saw his shoulders relax visibly.

  Singh didn’t like all those augmented reality things people pun on their heads these days. It made everyone distracted, twitchy. You could see a user from a mile away, glancing around at invisible stuff, grinning to himself like an idiot, distracted all the time. He could understand the need for them, but he didn’t like the disconnect one got from the universe. These techno-freaks thought they were connecting themselves to the world, but in reality they were disconnecting from what mattered.

  The old man sat across him on the table and tapped on the menupad for an order of coke.

  Bhai Sharan greeted politely, nodding. You could be fearsome and polite at the same time.

  The old man was nervous. Again. He was waiting for his sugar fix.

  Bhai Sharan rolled his eye. The glass one didn’t roll that well. How did spineless men like that one, have the power to order assassinations and determine the fate of thousands of lives?

  How did these men even survive?

  A pretty young girl brought the coke to the table, and the old man grabbed it and sipped it down.

  He composed himself, and then, visibly relaxed, he said, “Part two of the plan is complete. This is where you come in again.”

  “Yes, I kept an eye on the mark. News have already reported it,” the snake-charmer said.

  “Now, for the next part, you are to capture the mark and run this device next to him,” the old man said taking out a device from his briefcase. He slipped it under the table discreetly.

  Bhai Sharan felt the device, and glanced at it quickly before slipping it in his belt pouch. It was a wiper, he had used one before. It forcibly connected to nearby devices and wiped data, erasing all evidence. For the operator, it was simply a single push thing, the whole process would have been programmed by techs beforehand. “Understood,” he said.

  The old man sipped some more coke. “You have a plan for capturing the mark?”

  “He’s in a temporary holding cell for augmented people, one of those automated ones. It will be done tonight,” Singh said.

  “How do you plan on subduing him?”

  “My Kaur has a genetically modified venom, for that precise purpose,” Bhai Sharan said and smiled. “She likes them raw and squirming…”

  The old man gulped. “I hope you can handle her. We need the mark to… To take the fall for this. An ordinary worker, getting evicted, underpaid, with a barrage of medical expenses following a work accident? The well documented shock and depression after the loss of a limb? Who then gets a visit from the man lobbying publicly to shut down his job? It fits the criminal profile, they won’t take a second glance at it. He must be kept alive, but with no evidence of tampering.”

  Bhai Sharan nodded in agreement.

  “Your plan is perfect. I’ve already wired the bonus, the results are better that we ever anticipated.” The old man finished his coke loudly.

  The snake charmer frowned.

  “What?” the old man asked.

  “What if someone believes him? That he’s innocent?”

  “But this is the perfect crime!” the old man whispered. “Having a man’s own prosthetics murder someone, then erasing the evidence? Who would believe him?”

  Chapter 21// Pushing on

  In prison, there was no frickin wifi. Leo was held in a jail cell especially designed for augmented people. They couldn’t just rip out his arm, and sure, there were police officers with much more strength and gizmos, but this was supposed to be easy lockup. His jail cell was also a Faraday cage, which meant no electromagnetic signals coming in or out, and he was locked behind a metal alloy door that not even black market cyberarms could rip out.

  But he wasn’t gonna try to get out.

  Leo was really bummed out.

  They had taken his walkman too.

  The prison warden had taken it right in front of him, out of his confiscated possessions and had plugged in his own headphones, enjoying the old tunes.

  “Hey! Put that away,” Leo had yelled at the warden, but the response he’d gotten was an angry snarl. “Hey, listen to me you big blue bastard, take those headphones off! That’s mine, those belong to impound, that thing
and that player is mine!”

  The warden had shoved his shockstick up his belly and electrocuted him repeatedly after that.

  Without parrotd, the daemons that were left had cooked up an ad-hoc network so they could communicate.

  armd> Now I’m the session leader.

  eyed> Not many daemons to lead over, smartass. Plus, you are the one who bugged out and punched the mayor to death!

  armd> I did not have physical confrontations with that man.

  eyed> Yeah right. His brain just appeared in your fist out of nowhere.

  httpd> Stop arguing. I have no net access. I’m useless. I can’t handle the pressure right now.

  eyed> Plus, all you do is talk about punching stuff.

  armd> I will punch your bits out!

  eyed> See?

  Leo looked at wall through the prison bars and sighed. It was lights-out, the warden yelled and the corridor went dark.

  He leaned back and tried to relax. He was keeping his newly replaced cyberarm away from his body, the least he could do since he couldn’t really pop it out and put it in the corner. He wished for that exact feature at that point, and made a mental note to demand popability in his next cybernetic limb. The dark was nice, because he couldn’t really see the matte black surface of it. It was clean now of course, but all he could see was the mayor’s brain matter dripping from his black fingers.

  He just wished he had his walkman. He could put on some old tunes, make him relax, at least get some rest. Or take his mind off the conviction for a moment or two. Leo closed his eyes and hummed slowly.

  It’s funny how the subconscious brings out buried aural memories at random times. He hummed the snake charmer’s tune, eastern and mesmerising. The flute’s notes were easy to mimic with his mouth, so he did. He was certain that whistling too hard would bring a series of curses and yells from the only other inmate, so he basically hummed to himself.

  But the tune became louder.

  Funny that.

  He closed his mouth and could still hear the flute, locked in a slow and repeating motif.

  A hiss echoed in the silence and made him jerk up and kneel on the bed, pulling his feet off the ground.

  His eyes had adjusted but it was simply too dark, just some faint lights from the city outside.

  The hiss grew louder and he saw the outline of the huge cobra, backlit colourfully from the night glow.

  The cobra was thick. Thank god for that, cause it was too thick to creep through the prison bars.

  Leo saw the wide hood of the cobra touching the bars, and let out a short breath of relief as he noted it would never let the snake fit through.

  That’s when the cobra pushed on, bent the unbendable bars and Leo shrieked like a little girl.

  Chapter 22:// Breaking out

  It was a mess. Leo screamed, the daemons screamed, the inmates yelled, the cobra hissed.

  Leo backed up into the corner, trying to keep himself as far away from the serpent as possible. The cobra’s enormous bulk stood up, almost as tall as a man. It waved slowly, sizing him up for attack.

  eyed> We’re gonna die!

  fingerd> I can’t finger her. I’ll keep trying, but no fingering is possible at the moment.

  httpd> What the hell are you talking about? This is it. Our user is gonna get deleted, and us with him!

  armd> I can hold her off.

  eyed> Sorry man, but you can’t. I still have your specs cached, these bars are made to withstand your above-normal 120 psi strength, and this cobra tore through it with a slight squeeze.

  armd> A meatbag is a meatbag. I’m just gonna punch this one till it bleeds.

  The cobra moved its body around, it’s tail still in the widened gap between the prison bars, tearing it open slightly as it writhed. The cobras eyes focused on the user, and her tongue extended, thin, fast and split at the end.

  Leo gulped. “Please don’t eat me. Remember, at the street? You were nice then, be nice now. Don’t eat me.”

  She replied by tasting the air once again.

  A fellow prisoner banged the bars of his cell with something hard, that made a deep ringing sound. The cobra twitched and turned her head towards the noise.

  Time slowed down.

  Well, it didn’t actually slow down, it was the normal processing speed for computer daemons. Real life was the one that flowed with glacial speeds, and they had invented ways to keep themselves busy between the huge millisecond gaps where nothing actually happened. Floating point mathematical problems helped a lot.

  eyed> Now. Do it now.

  armd> Yeah, I’m gonna punch her…

  httpd> Wait! Is no one seeing what I’m seeing? This cobra can’t possibly be real.

  armd> That’s exactly why I’m punching her. For tactile confirmation.

  httpd> No, no. I mean, it didn’t come from a zoo. It seems to be augmented, not natural.

  fingerd> Fingered! The cobra has no specific email address but here’s a bunch of image tags on various social media streams.

  httpd> Shut up you idiot, we are trying to save the user here.

  armd> Yeah, it’s clobbering time.

  eyed> This is a tough spot to be in.

  httpd> Hey! What did you say?

  armd> Yeah, it’s clobbering time.

  httpd> Not you, fingerd. Did you connect?

  fingerd> Sure. I have a strict work ethic. I retry every 60 ms. You are welcome. Now my work here is done.

  The gap in the cage meant also a gap in the Faraday cage. Those prevalent wifi signals bounced around the walls and managed to get inside the cell. The daemons suddenly had a lot more information to work with.

  So they argued.

  armd> OK, that was helpful. I’ll punch her lower, where the bend is, see?

  httpd> No, that makes no difference. There must be something here we can use.

  eyed> Just don’t hit her in the eyes.

  armd> Good idea! The eyes, yeah, that’ll show her who’s boss.

  eyed> You barbarian!

  The web-connection daemon httpd cycled through the various social media pictures that random people had tagged the cobra in. By the 103th loop he realised he was basically procrastinating, so he took his mind off it for a few cycles and shifted through his cache to come back with fresh eyes. He did, taking note of the comments under the pictures as well. One of the pictures had the cobra bent awkwardly, when a little boy had pulled her tongue. The comments were “OMG I thought my Timmy was gonna die! #worstdayever #bansnakes” and “I hope our little Timmy is OK *scared smiley face*”

  Httpd pulled up another picture from a different account that showed little Timmy stepping on the cobra’s tail on purpose, shunning any sense of self-preservation since the snake could eat him as a light snack. A next one from the crowd that gathered was showing the mother scolding the Turban-wearing snake charmer, him taking it stoically, staring with his beady white eye at her. It was the face of a bad man, keeping his anger in check.

  httpd> Pull her tongue!

  eyed> Oh great, he lost it too. Do me a favour, check yourself for any corrupted files.

  httpd> Listen to me, I found an exploit. Pull her tongue!

  armd> And then punch her?

  httpd> No! Just pull her tongue and she’ll crash.

  armd> So no punching? Nah. Let’s do it my way.

  httpd> I bet you aren’t fast enough.

  armd> Me? Not fast enough? Hah. Look at this!

  The cobra turned back to Leo, hissed once more and took out her thin tongue to taste the air. The cyberarm snatched the reptile’s tongue out of the air and kept it high. Leo yelped “Ahhh!” in surprise as his evil hand toyed with the killer beast with a mind of its own. The cyberarm pulled the tongue left and right, forcing the cobra to follow with her head.

  armd> Look at me! I’m a snake charmer! *whistles*

  httpd> She should be stunned now. Drop it and let’s go!

  An arrow showed up in the user’s veil, pointing towards the ga
p the cobra’s entrance had left in the prison bars. He was shocked and didn’t move at all. A glowing red display counting down 10 seconds also appeared next to it.

  “Huh? What’s that? Who’s doing that?” Leo asked to the air.

  The seconds reached down to five.

  Leo jumped past the stunned cobra, pulled her tail out of the gap, failed, and pulled even harder. The heavy snake’s body slid through. He squeezed below the prison bars, he was barely thin enough to fit his chest. He got stuck, under the prison door.

  He craned his head back and saw the cobra coming to her senses and twisting her scaly body around to face him.

  Chapter 23:// Ripping out

  The wifi named aresholding3 had monitored net access and a whole lot of failed-to-deliver packets of data.

  It was a miracle they had even gotten that precious info moments before.

  But the user was still stuck between the bars, at the bottom of the prison door. The huge cobra was about to prey on him, and the only consolation was the inmate across the hall urging him to push and get free (so he could let him free as well).

  eyed> We’ll never fit through.

  fingerd> Maybe the snake is friendly after all.

  eyed> Yeah right.

  httpd> There has to be something. There always is. WWPD? WWPD people?

  eyed> Wha’?

  rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

  armd> Oh great, now everyone is speaking nonsense.

  httpd> WWPD. What Would Parrotd Do? Let’s revise our situation. Come on.

  armd> Well, we’re stuck. If I had punched that cobra we might have had more time to squeeze through, but now it is attacking again. The worst part is, the user is scraping the shit out of my shoulder on the prison bars. That joint will never be smooth again.

  httpd> That’s it! Armd, rip yourself out of your socket!

  armd> Are You Mad Daemon? NO! N-O. That’s a negative.