The Sentient Collector (The Sentient Trilogy Book 1)

by Ian Williams

  “I knew it! They already know,” Dino said.

  What had previously been, among other things, his sole means of communicating with others, had now betrayed him. Like the earlier police notice on his wall screen at home, Graham’s wrist screen flashed an ominous red. Only this time the message put them in the role of criminal rather than victim. Scrolling along the length of the device, and wrapping all around his wrist, were the words: Crime detected. Authorities inbound.

  “What, why?” Graham said with a futile tap of the screen. “Ruth, check yours.”

  Ruth’s was the same, which caused her to suddenly jab her arm toward Dino. “Who called them?”

  “Jeez, you two really haven’t got a clue have you? This is what the Simova network does, it spies on you. When you attacked me it sent for the police.” Dino began to scramble to his feet as Graham stood with a dumbfounded look spreading quickly across his face.

  “Shit. What do we do?” Graham said.

  “We? No, no, no. You got yourself in this mess. I’m off the radar, only tech I use is kept at home. I’m leaving before they get here.” Dino swayed as he straightened himself out, with an exaggerated stretch of his back to add to his dishevelled state.

  “That’s it, I’m gonna shock him again,” Ruth said as she stepped forward, only to be blocked by Graham’s extended arm.

  The sudden movement made Dino raise his arms and a leg to protect himself from another hit of electricity. “Keep her away from me,” he said.

  “Look Dino, I’m getting a name from you one way or another,” Graham said. “Either you tell me or I begin doing the beating myself. Or should I keep you here until the police show up? I’m betting your crimes amount to a lot more than a minor charge of assault.”

  The suggestion he could be held had evidently only just occurred to him. He no longer pushed for his chance to leave and while he stared into Graham’s unblinking eyes, he became quiet.

  “Well?” Graham continued.

  “I’m thinking.” Seconds passed while Dino considered, again joined by a repetitive movement. This time he took to patting his right arm against the side of his thigh.

  “Time is running out, Dino. Now, are you going to help or not?”

  The patting stopped abruptly. “For fuck’s sake, yes I’ll help. I can’t believe this is happening,” Dino said with a long, drawn out sigh. “First you both need to ditch the tech. We won’t get out of this street with those things snitching on us.”

  “Thank you, Dino. Elliot’s life–”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll take you to where I usually take the boxes Elliot gives me. But I won’t go in with you. If Petra finds out I helped you, she’ll have me dumped in a river somewhere.”

  Graham turned to his sister and walked her a couple of paces away. As they conferred, Dino attempted to tidy himself up by brushing the dirt from his jeans. “What do you think? Trust him?”

  With a look of contempt, Ruth sized up the inferior form of Dino as she thought it over. When she turned her gaze back to Graham it was obvious she had come to the same conclusion he had. “We’ve no choice, we have to.”

  “Fine. It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do.” Graham returned to Dino and removed his wrist screen. He held it up to show he was intending on leaving it behind, as asked. Ruth then did the same, placing both of their devices in a neat pile upon the floor.

  “Good, now we can go,” Dino said. “You first. If the police are waiting for us around the corner then you can meet them first.”

  They did as ordered and both walked toward the exit of the alleyway with a growing realisation that they were taking a step into Dino’s world. A crime had been committed and their names were top of the list, yet they were now running. And with no tech to help them or allow them the basic level of connectivity each person expected these days, they were alone. Except for their newly cooperative, though with a questionable loyalty, drug dealer companion.

  As they approached the halfway point with only a dozen metres or so until reaching the street, an unexpected smashing and crashing noise shot past them. With a quick spin around it was confirmed to be coming from their friend Dino. Graham watched in horror as the two wrist devices they left behind shattered into a million tiny pieces under the impact of Dino’s bodyweight. The plastic gave way with little resistance as his foot crushed them to dust. He even threw in a few heel twists, just to make sure the remains were buried under the dry gravel.

  “What the hell,” Ruth shouted. When she went to move toward the devastating scene of glass and plastic, Graham again put his arm in front of her. “We could have come back for them later.”

  “We have to do things his way, Ruth. Otherwise he won’t help us.”

  “I’m sure you kind of people can afford replacements,” Dino called from behind them. “This will guarantee there’s nothing for the police to find.”

  Graham turned away in an attempt to appear unaffected by the destruction of his personal property, then carried on along the alleyway. Ruth was less enthusiastic about continuing. It took a gentle tug on her arm for her to join him in leaving. When she did they chose a slow speed, partly out of caution about possibly walking into the police, and partly to force Dino to take a more involved position by their side. If their drug-dealer friend was planning on screwing them over, he wanted to make sure he could grab him before he did.

  Thankfully, once they made it to the street, and they were not suddenly nabbed by a hidden police line, he took a short breath in. Their mission could now continue without the added worry of outside interference. Of course they were now one with the likes of Dino, with no tech of any kind to tie them to the Simova network. However necessary it was to stay under the radar for the time being, he felt strangely naked without it. If they were to find themselves in trouble from this point on they were on their own.

  “I guess assault isn’t that high on the police’s priorities right now,” Ruth said. “Maybe I could hit him again?” she asked.

  She was right too, it occurred to Graham as he shook his head in response. After years of living with the promise that the computer systems they relied upon each day would take care of everything, things were unusually quiet. Had their crime gone unnoticed somehow? In his experience the police were on hand at the slightest whiff of a transgression of any kind – of course he was never the one being chased. For some reason the police appeared otherwise engaged. Whatever it was, it was requiring their full attention and man power.

  Chapter 10

  Not in the job description

  Bridget’s expansive table now doubled as the epicentre for Kristof’s citywide investigation into recent tampering issues. He had made his temporary nest in her home. What spread across the surface was his growing collection of evidence to aid in his task of finding those responsible, and the reason behind their interference of Simova’s technology. Among a handful of commandeered tablet devices were a mass of paper notes, from diagrams of internal workings of company tech to maps of buildings of interest.

  People surrounded the table as they worked. Although they often found themselves in each other's way. It had become a mess of bodies, one which was trying Kristof’s patience almost to breaking point.

  In the middle of the table sat his prized asset: a tactile 3D modelling display with holographic assistance. This was a much larger, and more capable, version of the small wrist and tablet screens he and everyone else used. When off, these displays were all simply flat screens. But when this one in particular was on it could produce any object and bring it to life right out of the plastic surface. Where the smaller tablets and wrist screens could produce buttons or sliders to interact with physically, this could do far more.

  In this case Kristof had told it to create a model of the city. What stood out of the surface reached no more than six inches in height. Still it was impressive nonetheless. To add details such as Mag-Lev traffic levels or highlight certain destinations, he only had to activate the holographic overlay.


  Out of all of his recent finds, the information shown on the 3D representation of the city had proved the most useful. It represented all of the different routes one of Simova’s tech guys had taken just after going off the clock. Most notably the strange and seemingly random ones he took when they expected him to return the collected MARCs to them.

  Of course this kind of big data was really only supposed to be used to make helpful assumptions about people’s days, to provide automated assistance and nothing more. The type of which everyone relied upon within the city without question. Kristof, however, had used it – rather unethically – to strengthen his own assumptions about the man in question. To call such an act an invasion of privacy did it a great injustice. It was so much worse. But it had helped him in laying a huge amount of the guilt at one man’s feet.

  One of the worker bees scurrying by him misjudged her step and forced his elbow across the screen he was working on. It caused the image to fly off the edge and become plastered onto the large wall screen unexpectedly. “Sorry sir,” the woman said before continuing out the room.

  “That’s it, everyone out,” he proclaimed, pointing at the door being propped open by a small metal bin. “I need space.”

  His sudden order initially froze those in the room. Then one by one they looked to each other as if the abrupt request had been given to only one of them. When they realised he meant exactly what he said, that all of them should leave, each placed their work down and made for the door. After nearly half had vanished from his proximity he could already feel the air clearing. They had all been messing with his things anyway.

  He returned the image he tinkered with to his tablet, with a pinch and a swipe from the wall screen back to him. Now he could finally grab the tiny portion he had become interested in. After cleaning it up a little and adding some extra brightness, he could see all he needed.

  It was an outside shot of Elliot Sumner’s home. He had managed to find it in the database. At first he thought he caught a smudge across the window the camera peered through. Then on closer inspection he spotted it. Painted across the wall screen in Elliot’s home – or the tiny part of it he could spy from the street camera’s video feed at least – was the glowing and defined image of an adolescent MARC. He had seen only a few in his time and this one looked impressive, with a curious purpose to its movements. Unfortunately, every time he restarted the video the image had immediately blurred beyond usability. For now he would have to make do with a still image.

  What it represented to him was proof that Elliot Sumner, and possibly his partner Graham Denehey, were involved in the same criminal schemes as those caught at the warehouse. Of which he had only seen pictures of one of the perpetrators caught there. He instantly knew that guy had not been the mastermind behind such a complex and disruptive plan, what with his caveman looks and generally unkempt appearance. Elliot on the other hand was overwhelmingly capable, and this new evidence only backed that up.

  For all he knew Elliot and his group were some well-prepared tech force hell-bent on creating an army of AI’s. He quickly shrugged that idea off as being beyond absurd. To prove such a thing was a stretch at best, even for him. For now he could only guess at their intentions. Still, why anyone wanted to damage the Simova system at all was something he never understood. What possible reason could there be to try and destroy something so perfectly created for the job it did?

  As for Isaac, Kristof had been brought up to speed and then sent straight out to deal with the situation. His superiors had not given him much time to absorb the idea that tiny fragments of the AI were still roaming the country unhindered. That had instilled a sense of unease in him. Before then he had had no idea. Of course, enough of Isaac had been destroyed to see him remain gone forever. At least he was told as much by his superiors.

  This would only be a temporary problem then. A quick investigation followed by a swift close. He was just missing the concrete leads to really get stuck in. Elliot’s involvement was based on circumstantial evidence and an overwhelming suspicion on Kristof’s part. Not exactly the answers his boss’ had been expecting. Even this new development only helped a little. Nothing short of catching Elliot or his partner Graham would now suffice.

  “Everything OK?” Bridget leaned into the room, keeping most of her body outside. It demonstrated just how forced her sudden appearance was; more to check they had not screwed something up than to see how he got on.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” he replied as he turned back to clearing up the image on his tablet.

  “Good, it’s just you ordered my people out for no reason.”

  “No, I had my reasons. They were getting in my way.”

  Stepping into the room meant she had not finished. She closed the door gingerly behind herself, then crossed her arms and stood waiting. Annoyingly, she expected him to reply regardless of the very obvious fact he did not want to. He could see her in the corner of his eye and kept her there for an uncomfortable amount of time before giving in to the interruption.

  “Fine, what it is?” he said.

  She spoke without approaching him again, at least she read this sign well enough. “I know you’re in charge of this whole thing, but please don’t treat my staff like that. They do a very good job here and I’d like you to treat them appropriately.”

  “My apologies. Can I get back to this now?”

  “Sure, and thank you. Now, did you need anything?”

  With a flick of his finger toward the 3D tactile display the view of the city spun around in a dizzying display of lines and curves. When it eventually settled and reformed the solid structures, he zoomed in on a particularly cluttered part. It was a mess of criss-crossing and intersecting red holographic lines, tracing streets and alleyways all over the place. “Tell me what you see.”

  “It’s a map. This is impressive tech,” Bridget replied.

  “Yes, thanks. More specifically though, what is this?” After seconds of silence he began to explain where he was going with his current line of thought. Her tech envy had enlivened his mind suddenly, but he quickly needed to move things along. “The red lines are the recorded paths of your tech guy, Elliot Sumner. What’s wrong with this picture?”

  Kristof watched as she followed one path and then another. Each time her eyes stopped at the end of one route her forehead scrunched up, before resetting the moment she continued along the next.

  “That can’t be right,” she said.

  “Exactly the response I was hoping for. Almost every time he and Graham were sent to a MARC job, Elliot Sumner then goes off on some strange journey across the city before returning here. These are the times, I think, when he’s stolen the MARCs. The problem is each route ends somewhere different. That is deliberate. It’s random and ultimately unpredictable.”

  “But he’s brought something back at some point,” Bridget said. She rested her hands on the table and looked closer at the display before continuing. “He can’t have stolen them all.”

  Kristof placed his tablet down on the table and studied the display alongside her. He was glad she reacted in such a way. It meant she fully grasped just how big a cluster-fuck it had become. “Statistically, over 85% of the jobs this pair have been sent to have resulted in no reported MARCs. That’s many times higher than any others. The rest were ones where Mr. Denehey returned the Cage. I think just to keep us happy.”

  “If that’s true then you’re suggesting these two have been falsifying their job sheets?”

  “They must be. No-one else encounters this many of the two lesser types of corruptions. They steal the MARCs, then report only having dealt with a RANDI or a NIC corruption instead. We don’t need to check anything unless a problem goes unsolved. It’s been easy to ignore such discrepancies. As long as the customer is left happy with our service, no-one cares otherwise.”

  “Hang on.” Bridget spoke sidelong to him. “What about the warehouse? It doesn’t fit with your theory of what Elliot’s been up to. Why would
he build that? It clearly isn’t where he’s been taking them?”

  “Good question. We’ve had a specialised team look into the evidence I’ve already forwarded them. They’ve concluded that the equipment is still a big concern. They found some things that they couldn’t explain at all. So we still don’t know for sure why it existed. Even if it had no chance of endangering Simova’s system, they are understandably worried. I guess Mr. Sumner has been doing this for a while unnoticed. Though why is again the big question.”

  “It still doesn’t mean he’s behind that,” Bridget said stubbornly.

  The room fell quiet as each thought over the trouble that would probably follow such a revelation. For the past few years there had been a serious problem forming beneath the corporate covers, undisturbed by any attempt at housekeeping. This house was well and truly out of order now and in desperate need of a clean out.

  Before Kristof could think of what he had intended on asking Bridget for earlier – he had since lost track after showing off his progress with the investigation – someone burst into the room. The man wore a dark brown shirt and an equally brown tie that he had done up far too tightly around his slightly chubby neck. His face told of a recent and surprising incident that he wanted desperately to share with them.

  “What’s the matter, Derek?” Bridget asked.

  “Something big is happening downtown,” he blurted out with a gasp for air at the end. “Shopping complex has been taken by terrorists, they think. Loads of hostages.”

  It had sounded like something hugely important at first, but already Kristof had begun to shut off his interest for favour of his much more important work. The situation had nothing to do with what he faced. It was of no importance at all. So what if some shoppers were being held, what did he have to worry about? He was not one of them after all.

  “The police are there,” Derek added.

  “How many?” Bridget asked.

  “All of them I think. Most of the force has turned out to help. So far they’ve heard nothing from the people inside.”