Digital Chimera

by J N Chaney

  This wasn’t a request, but a demand from the Black Kuei to keep the conversation limited to as few ears as possible. Andrea took a breath. “Stay where you can see me, everyone.”

  I turned to Ivanovich. “Come on. Let’s go look at some art.”

  He shrugged. “Why not? It looks like they have some Socialist Realism pieces over here.”

  He led me over to the far right, where the museum had a small but impressive collection of 20th century Russian artwork. One piece had a colossal factory worker pouring molten metal. Another had a blonde woman with a sickle, harvesting grain beneath a bright blue sky.

  Jones came up from behind us. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for an art fan, Sasha.”

  Ivanovich grunted. “You know nothing. Russian people are highly cultured, and the Soviet period was one of the greatest in our history.”

  “I’m not an expert,” I commented. “But weren’t they radicals? Liberate the people from their oppressors and so on, like Hafidi’s people?”

  The scientist shrugged. “Every empire has some faith to peddle. That’s what keeps the scum working so hard. Like our hero here, slaving away at a foundry while his betters run the empire. That’s what went wrong here in East Hellas. The company never created an ideology, they just expected people to do whatever they were told. But with a good ideology, they would want to do it. It was a stupid oversight.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to his cynical speech, and I stood there silently as we both looked at the art and saw different things. A few minutes later he moved on, wandering slowly along the wall in search of more Russian items. When he’d exhausted their collection, he drifted over to the other wall to grimace at the Chinese works: T’ang Dynasty jade figurines, Sung Dynasty landscape paintings, and Ming calligraphy.

  Even back on Earth, there weren’t many museums left with such a deep collection of ancient Chinese items. The combined value of all this artwork was probably more than the property values of every building in Great Wall combined. Outside these walls, people lived and died in crumbling plasticrete block housing, while men with guns stood guard around this gallery filled with pretty pictures from long ago.

  I looked around, taking in the sheer opulence the Black Kuei had slathered over every inch of space—glittering crystal chandeliers and bright silk tapestries, huge paintings worth more than I would make in my lifetime, an emerald necklace, a collection of porcelain.

  I heard nervous laughter and realized too late that I was the one who was laughing. Tatiana Xiao came wandering over with Andrea just behind her.

  “Something amuses you?” Xiao didn’t sound offended, but something told me she never would. She didn’t seem like the sort to wear her emotions on her sleeve. Quite the opposite, I imagined. She’d be inscrutable even if she had already decided to kill me.

  “It’s the contrast.” I gestured around the room and she nodded slowly.

  “If we were in a story, this would be the part where I explain my criminal philosophy to you. Something pretentious and nihilistic. Yes?”

  I raised my eyebrows, and Andrea flashed me a warning look.

  Xiao continued. “I will not do that. We live in hell here, and the syndicates are the only means out. Do you understand?”

  I understood, but I wasn’t at all sure it applied to her. I was certain she wasn’t even a native Martian, so how could this ever have been her only way out?

  Andrea stepped in. “My colleague has had a long day. Please forgive his impertinence.”

  “There is nothing to forgive. The Black Kuei is truly monstrous; we are all in agreement on that. Every member of the Black Kuei is well aware of it. No one likes it, everyone does it. That is the way of things.”

  She shook her head as if to clear it, then she strode rapidly to the guest information table in the back of the hall and opened a drawer. She pulled out a black bag. “Travel documents and pocket litter to support your cover, along with a selection of clothing and accessories to alter your appearance. You are no longer spies from this point, but simple refugees in need of asylum. Please get changed then we will go up to the roof. Our private train is waiting.”

  18

  Once again, I was in a stupid outfit. We were posing as refugees, foreign contractors deported by Ares Terrestrial as scapegoats for the uprising. Under East Hellas labor law, protections and benefits were only for citizens and did not apply to precarious workers hired from off-world for short-term projects.

  To ensure that such workers didn’t forget their place, they were required to wear one-piece neon work uniforms stating their place of employment. Mine, for instance, said TOBOL GAS WORKS and was a sickly shade of bright orange. Jones was a fellow employee of Tobol, while Young was a low-level engineer for the Brixton Sand Refinery in a bright purple outfit. Andrea wore the yellowish-green uniform of the Sanitation Corps, and Bray’s arms and legs jutted out ridiculously from the not-quite-huge-enough pink uniform of the Medical Waste Disposal Unit. Veraldi’s pink outfit was a much better fit, but Ivanovich was grimacing awkwardly in the extremely yellow and baggy work clothing of one of Ares Terrestrial’s cafeteria staff.

  “They’re mocking us intentionally,” I muttered to Jones, but all he did was shrug and grin.

  “You look…fairly convincing.” Xiao was looking us up and down with an expression that suggested we weren’t fooling anyone. “Please follow me, and we can complete your extraction from East Hellas.”

  She led us up a white marble staircase, the drones trailing behind her like obedient dogs. They must have been tethered to her dataspike, and I suspected they were programmed to kill everyone in the room if anything critical happened to her vital signs. When we reached the top, she opened a door and led us out onto the museum rooftop. Just as she’d said, there was a private maglev waiting for us on a track that curved all around the district before eventually disappearing from sight in the direction of the Wall.

  “This is our VIP maglev. It’s typically used for special guests of state. We do not want StateSec to think you are VIPs, though. It would attract too much attention.”

  Andrea was looking at the train with some trepidation. “So what’s our cover story?”

  “We have already sent three loads of genuine refugees to establish that cover story. It is a humanitarian campaign by the Black Kuei to assist noncitizens threatened by political oppression. It will not be questioned.”

  “Are you sure about that?” asked Bray, looking nonsensical in his uniform. “This gun doesn’t look like something you’d use to clear medical waste.”

  “I agree. It will not do to have you approach the border control gate as heavily armed as you are. West Hellas sentries will not allow you to pass while armed at all. For this subterfuge to succeed, you must surrender your weapons.”

  “Uh-uh.” Bray shook his head. “No way. I had to fight some mythic shit just a couple of hours ago. There’s no way in hell I’m giving this gun up.”

  “I understand your concern.” Xiao frowned. “Yet there is no other way. Please, take a moment to consult with your commanding officer. Discuss the matter among yourselves. I would not have you do anything you would feel uncomfortable with.”

  She went back through the door to give us time to talk, but the drones were still hovering directly above our heads. It was obvious to me that if we refused to comply, it would be just as easy for them to kill us all.

  Andrea looked around at us. “Opinions. Tycho first.”

  “Why is Tycho going first?” asked Jones.

  “Because he’s the most opinionated. Easiest thing to do is to let him say his piece and get it out of the way.”

  I glanced up at the drones as I started speaking. “I’m not sure we have a choice. If we decide to refuse, they could give the order for those drones to kill us. We can’t just hack them because of the security failsafe. We can’t just shoot them down, not even with Bray’s cannon, unless we’re willing to take some casualties. If we decide to refuse, there’s no way ou
t without losing some people.”

  “And no guarantee we wouldn’t lose everyone,” Veraldi added. “But I don’t know. If they’re planning to kill us, then disarming us first is their safest option. Which implies that they aren’t so confident we wouldn’t survive the drone attack. This is a lesser of two evils problem. The only question is which one is the lesser?”

  Andrea nodded. “Bray?”

  “I vote we shoot everything.”

  “Always a valid option. Young?”

  “We hack their drones. The notion that I can’t figure out a way around their detection systems is frankly nonsense.”

  “That isn’t the question we’re deciding here. Jones?”

  Ivanovich scowled. “You’re not going to ask me my opinion, are you?”

  “Fuck no, we’re not,” Jones replied. He turned back to Andrea. “We’ve been in worse situations than this before. Are those drones more dangerous than August Marcenn’s androids? More dangerous than a cyborg chimera? I don’t think so. On the other hand, Tycho may be right that we would take some casualties. Our safest bet is to get on the train then reassess when we’re no longer under the gun.”

  Andrea nodded. “Agreed. We accept the train ride.”

  As soon as she said that, Tatiana Xiao stepped out onto the roof. She must have heard every word we’d said, including Bray’s cheerful vote for shooting “everything.”

  “You have come to a decision then?”

  “We have,” replied Andrea. “And we thank you for your assistance. The people we work for will not forget what you’ve done for us.”

  “I should expect not. We will hear from you, should the Sol Federation choose to target our operations, yes?”

  This was a dirty business, but the deal we were making was grimy. Telling the Black Kuei about a law enforcement operation was something I didn’t think I could stomach. Andrea must have seen the look on my face, because she sent me a message.

  Lock it up.

  She smiled at Xiao. “Of course. One good deed deserves another.”

  Xiao returned the smile. “The maglev is yours. It will take you directly to a West Hellas border control checkpoint. I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors.” She bowed slightly with her hands together.

  “Come on, team. Leave your weapons here.”

  Nobody looked happy, but Bray looked more miserable than anyone else. He was giving up a weapon so powerful that it made him the equal of any cyborg the company could throw at us. We stacked up our guns, all of which would no doubt be going straight into the armory of the Black Kuei. Without another word, Andrea led us into the private train. It started moving as soon as the door closed, and Vincenzo turned to Andrea with a nervous expression. “Do you think we can trust Tatiana Xiao? Or the Black Kuei, for that matter?”

  “I do not. I just wanted to get us out from under those drones. There are dozens of methods to cross the border, but Xiao chose the one with the most exposure, the least egress, and of course the one that would leave us completely unarmed. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a trap.”

  The maglev was smooth, speeding around Great Wall on a dedicated track. The rail took us past the rooftops of luxury hotels, high-end restaurants, and trendy nightclubs. Every syndicate hot spot in the otherwise dreary district of Great Wall.

  Bray put a hand up to his head. “I’m confused. We walked into a trap on purpose?”

  “No time to talk about it. You can criticize my decision over beers later if you want. The important point now is to get out of the trap. Tycho, do you still have that skeleton key of yours?”

  I nodded. That thing had come in handy so many times, I was hardly likely to give it up.

  “I need you to go up front and see if you can disable the train’s AI. Think you can handle that?”

  “He did it before,” said Veraldi. “When we jumped off the train.”

  Thomas frowned. “You’re joking, right Andrea?”

  Andrea sending me on a hacking job must have really offended him. It would be like asking me to take Raven’s place as the team sniper, or Veraldi’s as the close quarters combatives expert.

  “Not at all, and I don’t have time to argue about it. Get going, Tycho.”

  I walked down the aisle as the train streaked past its usual stops. On one of the rooftops we passed, I caught a glimpse of a syndicate gunman watching us through a pair of binoculars. As I headed for the door, I heard Andrea giving Young his instructions.

  “I need you to do something else, something that should be more of a challenge for you. Can you falsify the rail sensor data and make it appear as though the maglev is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing? To anyone watching those sensors, it needs to look like the train is on course at all times and operating normally.”

  Thomas scoffed. “You call that a challenge?” Those were the last words I heard him say before I went through to the control room. The layout in there was different than on the city train I’d hacked before, but using a skeleton key is a simple matter of plug and play. It only took me a few seconds to find the spot where the key would fit, and my expectation was that the train’s AI would be fully under my control immediately afterward.

  Instead, all the lights on the control board started blinking at once.

  I just stood there staring at it for a second in a total panic, then I pushed the door open. “Andrea, I need some help in here.” Thomas threw me a smug little look, despite the fact that he’d been given the much more exciting job.

  Andrea turned in my direction, but Andrew touched her arm. “I’ll deal with it. That skeleton key can’t do everything.” He came up front and saw the blinking lights all over the control panel, then he shook his head mournfully. “What did you do?”

  “I just inserted the skeleton key right there.”

  “Oh shit, okay. I think I know what happened. Hold on.”

  He pressed on a spot on the control panel then lifted it away. Behind the panel, there was a mess of circuit boards and wires that meant absolutely nothing to me.

  “Yeah.” Jones pointed. “See? The AI itself uses standard parts, so it probably has all the backdoors the Arbiter Force insists on. But that wasn’t good enough for the Black Kuei, so they had their own experts install this little setup here. You can put in a skeleton key, but it never connects. Instead, it goes to this secondary system and locks it out.”

  “So there’s nothing we can do?

  Jones snorted. “Hardly.” He reached into the panel, disconnected a few wires, then reconnected them in a different spot. “Try it now.”

  I pulled the skeleton key out and stuck it back in. The lights stopped blinking, but nothing remotely useful happened.

  “Huh.” Jones scratched his head then rearranged the wires a different way. “Go ahead and try it again.”

  I tried it again, and this time the maglev’s AI rebooted. It took far too long, and with every passing second, we came closer to the border, but when it finally booted up again I was in complete control.

  Andrea came in. “What’s taking so long?”

  Jones turned to her. “They left a little surprise for anyone trying to override the controls. We’re good now.”

  She went up to the window and looked out at the buildings speeding past. “This is going to get messy.”

  “What’s the plan, chief?” I asked her.

  “The trap is probably waiting for us at the border control station, so we’re not going to stop for it.”

  “We’re not going to stop for it?” Jones frowned, confused. “You mean we’re going to stop the maglev early and jump off? Like we did before?”

  “No, we’re going to weaponize the train.”

  “We’re going to weaponize the… oh. Oh shit, Andrea.”

  “That’s how border control is going to feel about it.”

  Thomas Young stuck his head in the door. “A challenge you said? I’m done. The sensor data is being ghosted. To anyone watching, this train will appear
to be behaving normally no matter what it’s actually doing.”

  “Excellent work as always, Thomas. Okay, Tycho, time to shine. Open the throttle as far as it can go.”

  Jones grabbed her arm. “You’re serious, Andrea?”

  “You’ve survived one derailment, you can survive another. Come with me. Tycho, join us in the rear car as soon as you’re done.”

  They went out the door, and I did exactly as she’d ordered. Her plan meant turning the maglev into a kinetic missile. When we hit the border station, we’d punch right through it. Anyone waiting for us at the other end was as good as dead.

  The train accelerated forward, rocketing through the city at such a terrifying speed that I was barely able to make it through to the rear car with everyone else even holding onto the seatbacks for stability as I went. From the looks on their faces, only Andrea was genuinely unconcerned. Her jaw was clenched, but more from determination than fear.

  Even Ivanovich was scared, and as I’ve mentioned, he wasn’t a man who seemed to scare all that easily. His eyes were huge as he stared out the window at the buildings flying by. Andrea pointed to the wall. “There’s a manual control panel for the car right there. Tycho, you’re on the brakes. Jonathan, I need you to get up there and be ready to decouple us from the lead car on my signal.”

  As I made my way to the control panel, Jones shook his head. “I cannot believe we are actually doing this.”

  “But why?” asked Ivanovich. “Why? Why are we doing this?”

  “Shut up, Sasha!” snapped Jones.

  Sasha was getting even more agitated. “If I’d known what you people were like, I never would have come! I would have taken my chances with the company! I would have made my own way out of the city! You’re a bunch of goddamned lunatics!”

  Bizarrely enough, Sasha’s little rant at the effect of calming me down a little. It was just so funny, and a little unfair too. Andrea Capanelli might well be a lunatic, if lunacy is defined as intentionally crashing a train after having survived a train crash. Still, it wasn’t my idea.

  On the other hand, is going along with someone else’s crazy idea any less crazy than coming up with the idea yourself?