The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  DeWinter set the case down on thin air, as if an invisible desk stood before him. “Well, consciousness is merely electrical impulses. We sure fool our brains easily enough with virtual reality.” He opened the case and took out a syringe the size of two synthbeer cans stacked on top of each other.

  “Don’t come anywhere near me with that.” Joey backed up.

  “Not a fan of needles?” DeWinter approached the brain.

  Joey shook his head. “They haven’t used physical needles in over a hundred years. And you think I’m the guy with strange affectations?”

  “Creaky door, giant needle… six of one.” DeWinter smiled and injected a mass of silvery liquid into the fake brain. The gesture correlated to a file copy and run command. Soon, the glop diffused into an uncountable number of tiny specks. Given the brain was roughly two stories tall, the specks looked like mites. Visible, but barely. “Well, here’s the moment of truth.”

  “They’re running around… looks like it’s working.”

  Some of the nanobots flowed down the jugular to a portal, only to reappear after a randomized delay simulating a trip through the heart back up from another portal connected to the carotid artery.

  “I’m hoping the shortcut won’t throw them off.” Joey indicated the two floating holes representing the circulatory system. “They’re coming right back to the brain without getting lost elsewhere in the body.”

  DeWinter shook his head. “I don’t think it will affect them. They attempt to cling to the brain, only the ones that lose their footing get swept away. Once they realize they’re back in brain tissue, they should resume working.”

  A latticework of silver lines appeared within the orange brain area, creeping forward toward the optic nerve, a cyan line.

  “It’s working.” Joey grinned.

  DeWinter patted him on the shoulder. “Nice job on the brain.”

  “Thanks.” Joey walked up to the edge of the mammoth ‘head,’ and stared in fascination as ‘metal’ formed into a boxy device attached to the front of the brain stem.

  DeWinter opened a number of blank holo-panels. He grabbed at his belt like he pulled a NetMini off a clip and threw square shuriken icons into each display area. Software text exploded on the screens, creating thin golden lines to each distinct portion of the mechanism the nanobots created.

  Joey grinned to himself as an idea came to him. He figured the nanobots would have limited space for instructions, and even if they offloaded the decision to transmit/not transmit to the component they manufactured, that would probably still be based on keywords. In order to evaluate the true intelligence value of what the victim experienced, they’d have to install an AI, and these nanobots did not seem to be creating anything large enough to hold one. By his estimation, the device would be lucky to have a hundred terabytes of storage space.

  That wouldn’t be enough to hold Shinigami’s personality analysis routines…

  Granted, Shinigami came close to the black dragons in terms of power and complexity. Most AIs would be far smaller, but still couldn’t fit here. He created a wraparound display screen, giving the simulation’s ‘eyes’ a view. In it, he spliced bits and pieces of various entertainment holo-vids about spies, specifically parts where people discussed prototype technology, top-secret programs, and so on. Anything with a good buzzword that might trigger the software inside the nanobots to want to send it back home.

  Crap. I’m a jackass. Forgot the NIU. Joey spent a minute or two hunting down an ‘off the shelf’ simulation used by cybernetics designers, and added it to his sim. A spiderweb of wires enshrouded the brain, connected to the ubiquitous neural interface unit that relayed information between a person’s cybernetics and their living mind. Within seconds of the NIU appearing, DeWinter’s nanobots added an interface line to it and spent a few minutes clustered around the ports.

  Joey let the movies play a while before altering the simulation to provide the appearance that this nonexistent person had plugged in and connected to the GlobeNet. Within seconds of that, DeWinter let out a noise like someone had kicked him in the nuts.

  “You okay?” Joey looked up from his status screens.

  “Got ’em.” DeWinter did a jig.

  “You’re dancing.”

  “Yes.” He wagged his butt at Joey. “I am dancing in your VR node. We got the bastards.”

  Joey paused the simulation and strolled the few feet over to where his cube mate had set up virtual shop. “What did we get?”

  “I found the software code for the data transmission.” He walked into the simulation and made a grabbing gesture at a portion of the box attached to the brain stem. A slab of bright yellow emerged, a squarish circuit-board form similar to what it would look like to remove a single blade from a multi-motherboard processing cabinet. “This right here is the software that generates the chimeric addresses. We couldn’t get it out of the control module extracted from the stiff they brought in; evidently, this little box nukes itself when it senses the person it’s in dies. The encryption routines don’t exist in any readable state in the nanobots.”

  Joey grinned. “I think I’ve got a hardon.”

  DeWinter’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “You beast.”

  “Reverse engineering always gets me in the mood.” Joey winked.

  “Hah.” DeWinter hung the glowing yellow board in midair, and spent the next few minutes grasping at it, pulling threads out to individual windows.

  Joey attached packet analysis software to the threads, while DeWinter injected tracer strings in the headers. Since the ‘secret data’ the nanobots had captured consisted of harmless entertainment, they opened a real portal to the GlobeNet, ran it through sixteen proxies so it appeared to be coming from a Teradyne Corporation office at the far northern end of West City, and let the altered data stream go loose.

  “I’ve got the routine here that’s generating the chimera.” DeWinter grinned like a mad scientist while thinking program code into being. Lines of text appeared as fast as he could envision them. “Got it. We’re generating the key now. Don’t need the sim anymore.”

  “Here’s a sniffer.” Joey started a packet trace routine. Above them, a world map scrolled out, rendered in glistening blue on black. He held the holo-panel open like a wastebasket. “Feed me.”

  DeWinter hit a ‘button,’ and a stream of yellow energy projected from the ‘motherboard’ floating in midair. Joey caught it in the sniffer window. A spot of light appeared on the map roughly at the point where the prewar border between Washington State and Canada had been. From it, hair-thin lines trickled south in a tight bundle. When they hit the southern edge of UCF territory, they exploded into a rat’s nest, going all over the world, with only a handful going straight south into ACC territory.

  Twenty-four seconds later, all the hair-thin threads converged on a single point, a dot 14.2 miles northwest of Hermosillo, Mexico. Two columns of scrolling chimeric addresses appeared, the sender in blue on the left, receiver in orange on the right. Each line matched.

  “Got ’em.” DeWinter offered Joey a hand. “Excellent work, sir.”

  Joey tipped his absent cowboy hat before accepted the handshake. “Couldn’t have done it without you. Every cowboy needs the ‘old man mentor.’”

  “Shit.” DeWinter shook his head. “I ain’t no old man. I’m thirty-six.”

  “Heh. That’s old to me… and if you wanna see thirty-seven, you’d best send that up the pipe fast.”

  “I got you by twelve years, pal. That ain’t that much.” DeWinter folded his arms.

  “Maybe when I’m your age, twelve years won’t feel like much.” He winked.

  DeWinter huffed a heavy sigh, though smiled. “Hope your girl finds this as thrilling as we did.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’ll have fun with it.” He winked.

  ina looked up from her desk as a blur of brown and white passed by the door. She checked the time: 6:28 a.m., within Hardin’s usual arrival window. Still scowling from
her nocturnal visitor, she locked her terminal and rushed after him. He hooked left a few doors past her office and went to the end of the hall.

  “You’re early.” He swiped his ID at the door, which beeped, and he went in.

  Nina followed. “Couldn’t sleep… much.”

  “Yeah. I went home to shower and eat something. Got an email from Net Ops about one last night.” He hung his brown blazer on the wall.

  “Wouldn’t that be this morning?”

  He eased himself into his seat. “I break up days by sleep. If I haven’t slept yet, it’s still last night.”

  “So does that mean we’re still on your yesterday?” She slipped into one of the seats facing his desk.

  Hardin winked. “I caught a nap on the ride back. About time you smiled.”

  “I’ve found some more information.”

  “So I see.” He waved at the silver loaf on his desk, causing it to project a wall of holo-panels. “Two additional spies we hadn’t found.”

  “Sonia Cortez, aka Valeria Brunner, at a director level position with LRI’s physical security, and George Durham, aka Sasha Zarkhov… maintenance.” Nina scowled. “As far as I’ve been able to find, they haven’t done anything yet involving the Harmony issue, aside from Brunner potentially turning a blind eye to large batches of pills going out the door.”

  “Probably deep cover, lying in wait.” Hardin hit a button on his terminal and spent a moment reading over something.

  Nina stared into the opaque black of the holo-panel side facing her.

  “The operations teams are already in place. They’ll be performing a simultaneous takedown of all identified assets, plus the two new ones you’ve identified.”

  “Right. What time are we going in the door?”

  “They will be making their move at 8:05 a.m.”

  “They?” Nina raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want me going with them?”

  Hardin looked away from his screen to meet her stare. “Not this time. We have something else we need you to do.”

  “But this case isn’t finished.”

  “It’s related to this case.” He set his elbow on the armrest of his chair and grasped his chin. “Net Ops managed to crack into the nanobots’ programming. They’ve linked the chimeric network address to a physical location a short distance northwest of Hermosillo, Mexico. Satellite reconnaissance shows a small village at the site. Your orders are to travel to this site, locate the facility housing the servers our Net Ops people found, and see what they’ve learned.”

  “You didn’t send NetOps in via cyberspace?” She gripped her knees, annoyed that she’d be missing the raid at LRI.

  “We didn’t want to tip them off that we’d broken their chimera, and NetOps can’t blow up a facility in the real world. After you’ve secured the facility and identified what, if any, sensitive information they’re storing, you’re to burn the place.”

  Right. Easier to send one doll than an entire team. “Understood.”

  “Don’t sound so thrilled.” Hardin chuckled. “After the week you’ve had, I figured you’d enjoy a chance to vent some frustration. You do understand the need to move fast on this. After they take those assets out, the whole facility could crawl up its own ass and vanish.”

  “Right.” She relaxed. “I’ll assume there’s already a whisper waiting for me on the roof.”

  “Correct.” He patted the desk. “Fine job locating those other two agents by the way.”

  She grumbled.

  “That’s not the reaction I usually get for giving someone a back-pat.”

  “Sorry, sir. I’m not sure what bothers me more… that I basically got handed that information, or who did the handing.”

  Hardin tilted his head to the right. “Oh?”

  “Shinigami is still out there. He popped into my head last night.”

  “Oh, shit.” Hardin rubbed his eyebrows.

  “He said he’s not the same… the whole thing was just some alien ant farm experiment trying to see what makes humans tick.” She stared into nowhere. “He set us up to run into Bertrand. Claims he didn’t expect Vincent to get killed, but I don’t know if I believe that. Or maybe I do and he just doesn’t care what happened. It’s all testing and evaluation to him.”

  “Some AIs don’t have emotions, or have strange representations of it. Especially the ones that think themselves superior to us.”

  Nina chuckled. “Oh, he’s right up here on that list, sir. Called me a rabbit.”

  “Come again?”

  “Animal testing.” Nina closed her eyes and tried not to think about how she found Elizaveta.

  “Wow.” Hardin whistled. “They don’t do much of that these days. Too many protests, plus theoretical computer models have improved. Most firms do virtual testing these days.”

  She bristled. “Unless they can buy Russian orphans.”

  Hardin winced. “I don’t think… well I’d like to think a similar situation won’t be happening any time soon. The NewsNet is still showing that story. At least they had the decency to blur the kids’ faces.”

  “How the hell did they get that video?” muttered Nina.

  He exhaled, eyebrows up. “Have you seen it?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t blame you. The video they’re running was taken before our people showed up. Had to be from one of the two employees who objected. Nothing like screaming children in cages to boost NewsNet ratings.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Nina stood. “Maybe I do need to let out some frustration.”

  “Be careful out there, lieutenant.” Hardin made a tossing gesture at her, and her NetMini beeped. “We’ve got some recon images of the area. Local resistance is aware we are sending someone. They’ve offered assistance in exchange for a favor.”

  “What sort of favor, sir? Something I’m doing or do I not need to worry about that?”

  “Yes and no.” Hardin gestured at her. “It’s in the file. We’ve agreed to provide assistance to them insofar as helping a number of psionics and resistance people flee Mexico to the UCF. Basically, your part of it would be escorting them to a pick up location a few miles into the Badlands. Since it’s not officially ACC territory once you’re out there, you’ll have some dropships coming in for an evac. There’s also cases of weapons, ammo, and medical supplies going in, but that’s not your job.”

  “Right.” She pulled up the file and skimmed over satellite images of desert landscapes, a small town, and a few local people. One José Mendoza, a fortyish man, appeared to be the leader of the resistance cell she would be working with. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Demo packs are on the whisper. Don’t take any risks you don’t have to. Better to blow the shit out of that place without looking at what they got a hold of than chance not coming home over some data that might be useless.”

  She closed her eyes and pictured Elizaveta running into her arms. “Understood. No unnecessary risks.”

  ands of light pulsed down the silver walls of an elevator around Nina. A mental nudge triggered a vid call, and a virtual holo-panel scrolled open in midair, containing her mother, Camille. The woman appeared around thirty, fourteen years taken back by the tanks at Reinventions. Nina studied her hands, more frightened of looking inhuman than being it. She’d traded her government issue sand brown coat for a flannel shirt, blue jeans, and common sneakers. Beneath it, she kept her ballistic stealth.

  Vanity runs in the family.

  「Mother… I need to ask you to watch Elizaveta for maybe a few days. I don’t know exactly how long this will take. I wish I could give you more details, but even saying I’m going to be away for a few days is probably too much.」

  「Oh, I hope you’re not doing anything too dangerous. Your father and I are always worried whenever you do one of those things you can’t talk about. Poor thing had a bad dream last night, about when those barbarians abducted her―I won’t call it arresting. She got over it quick, but I think she’s afra
id of being taken away from you.」

  Nina failed to hide her guilty expression. 「Don’t worry, Mother. She has dreams like that a few nights a week. It’s going to take her awhile to accept that the CMO isn’t going to show up in the middle of the night again. I… Tell her we’ll do something special when I’m done with this case.」 She thought about what Shinigami had said, eyes downcast. 「Can you give Father a message for me? I don’t have enough time right now, and I need to at least say this much in case something goes wrong.」

  「Oh, Nina… you’re worrying me.」 Her mother bit her lower lip. 「Of course. What is it?」

  「Tell him that I know he’s friends with Leland Marcus, and I understand. Make sure he knows I don’t blame him for anything.」

  Her mother’s eyes widened. 「What? What are you talking about, Nina?」

  「Something I heard. Maybe it’s a lie. You’ll know by his reaction if it means anything. It makes sense now why he’s been so strange about this doll body of mine. He can’t even stand to look at me.」 She bowed her head. 「I think he’s guilty.」

  「Your father had nothing to do with what happened to you. Why would he feel guilty?」

  The elevator stopped on the roof level. A stiff wind blasted into the small chamber as the doors slid open, downdraft from the idling, silent whispercraft perched on a landing pad twenty meters away. With its optical skin disabled, the elongated, sleek craft resembled some kind of ancient raven shaman’s headdress. The sniper booms pointed straight back, tucked under slender wings jutting out among engine pods that appeared too thin to generate enough lift, but perhaps their extreme length made up for it. Two tail fins formed a V at the back; a third that usually hung straight down had folded upward to allow the craft to land. Its side hatch yawned open, exposing the dark interior.

  「I need to go now, Mother. Sorry for saying something like that over the vid and disappearing, but I needed it off my mind. Please tell Elizaveta that I love her, and I will be home as soon as I can.」

  「We will talk about this when you return.」