Lockdown Tales

by Neal Asher

  Jonas hadn’t used his aug since shutting it down when the surgical robot had been working on him. He felt reluctant to reactivate the thing since the Polity agents had used it to trace him. That was irrelevant now since, if they had survived, they knew precisely where he was. He reached up and pressed a finger against it, turning it back on. Multiple screens and controls opened to his inner perception. In an instant he saw the coded feed locking him from contact with the overall AI net. The Fist had its own informational network cut off from that. Also numerous other coded links became available to him locally. Ganzen tapped a finger against his own aug and nodded. A message had just arrived from him and Jonas opened it, getting the code for those local links and inputting it. In semi-virtuality the laboratory around him opened to him. He now had access to all its equipment and functional control over it.

  ‘So, open your present,’ said Ganzen.

  Jonas nodded and looked up to the ceiling. He targeted a spiderbot and accessed its system bringing up a sub-AI menu. A nod brought it down from the ceiling on a thread of umbilicals to land beside the crate. He chose a simple unwrapping procedure from the menu and plugged in a telefactoring option stored in his own aug, and, feeling he had gained a number of limbs, moved the spiderbot forwards. It scanned the package then reached out with one limb terminating in shearfield scissors and snipped the straps, pulling them aside and discarding them. Next it ran a vibro-blade around the join in the box and pushed up the top half to reveal shaped foam packing. Jonas had it probe gently, slitting some packing and pulling at other stuff. It all came away easily to reveal the object within, which, with four of its limbs he had the robot grasp and lift out. With the flick of a limb it sent the box skittering across the floor, then lowered the object and released it.

  Jonas waved a hand, dispatching the robot back to the ceiling. He walked over, abruptly enjoying the sensation of his heart thumping with both excitement and guilt. The thing was a large brownish grey lump with the shape of a thick coin, edges rounded, three feet across and two feet thick, faces and edges dished inwards. He reached down and pressed a hand against its surface. It felt cold and inert but he knew the potential here, for this was a breeding segment of a hooder.

  ‘You removed the transponder and other tracers I presume?’ he asked.

  ‘Two imbedded tracers and a scattering of micro scanners.’

  Jonas looked up. As far as he knew there had only been one hooder that had an array of micro scanners put on it. There had been no others the Polity had seen go through that process and all those prior to that had been buried in the Masadan mud. He returned his attention to the thing. The segment was smaller than it had been on the hooder but that followed his extrapolation of what would happen when a segment was produced in the spring. It consolidated and lost moisture, compacted and grew dense so that when the ground softened again at the end of the summer its density would take it down. A gestation period would then ensue.

  ‘It might be dead,’ he said. ‘If it had micro scanner on it this is one of those I saw three years ago.’ He added no more, astounded by the lie, since hooder segments could sit inactive in Masadan soil for decades before gestation.

  ‘That is for you to find out.’ Ganzen stood with his head dipped, fingers up against his aug. After a moment he looked up. ‘I’ll leave you here to familiarise yourself with the equipment, and expect a report on any progress you make.’ He tapped his aug again, indicating how he expected the report. ‘I meanwhile have matters to attend to.’

  Jonas considered things that should be his concern, if that wasn’t to get out of this place as fast as he could.

  ‘My money?’ he asked.

  ‘Your first payment is in your account.’ Ganzen headed to the door.

  ‘Not something I can check,’ Jonas replied.

  Ganzen paused on the way out. ‘I’ll give you access to the Polity net when I’m satisfied my money is being well spent.’ He departed.

  Jonas returned his attention to the segment, his internal conflict now arising again. He had thought that Ganzen Combine wanted data on hooder biology – something it could sell. Even that, he now realised, was not a great idea, there being stuff here that the Polity had edited from his own mind. He now felt that Ganzen himself simply wanted another cruel toy – another pet. In its way that was better on the larger scale of things, but it would be utterly horrific and agonising for any of the man’s victims. He should go. He knew on an intellectual level he needed to leave this place. But also he really needed to examine this segment… But then, even if he did find a way to leave, surely Ganzen would get someone to bring the creature inside this thing into the world? He would stay, for now. If he left he would have no control on events and some fool would be here in his position… Jonas grimaced, wondering who the fool might be.

  Numerous high intensity scans finally, when stitched together, gave a clear image of the inside of the segment. The spiral of the hooder body had formed, nutrient stores were depleted and the nodules containing those root-like growths had expanded and now only lay under a thin skin at the surface. He wondered how long the thing had been off Masada. He had not asked Ganzen about that and felt he should. He suspected it must have been taken from that world years ago and this accounted for its dehydration. Quite possibly various concerns had been trading it between each other for some years. Was it now beyond recovery? He considered how he could present the data, garnered to say this was the case, and thus rendering his employment here redundant. He also considered how Ganzen might react and shelved the idea.

  Now again lowering another spiderbot, he had it approach the segment. Meanwhile a previous bot was in place, its limbs terminating in scanner heads poised over a particular area of the surface. The second bot inserted a limb between scanning heads in readiness. Jonas was about to initiate the program then paused and looked up. He got out of his seat before the array of screens and controls that gave him more data and ways to control it than just his aug and walked over to the big bung door. He pressed a hand against the touchplate, wondering if it was keyed to him, and both inner and outer door drew closed. He expected little reaction from the segment at this point, but best to be sure. Young hooders moved fast and fed voraciously to achieve their pre-adult size of about twenty feet long and three feet thick.

  Back at his seat he sent his instructions. The second bot sprayed the surface of the segment with a nutrient gel of his own design – based on what would be found in the soil of Masada. He focused on the scan returns as it went on. For some minutes nothing happened at all, and then the node of ‘roots’ shifted as if uncomfortable, before settling. It seemed a confirmation. He had already picked up on numerous sensory pores over the surface of the thing and supposed some factor here prevented initiation unless the segment was completely buried with nutrients accessible to every root. Or perhaps some other factor? This led on to speculations about the exact makeup of those nutrients. Hooder segments dropped down deep so the soil around them would have a different constituency from that at the surface. He accessed his aug-stored data on Masadan soil chemistry, noted its paucity and wished for access to the Polity AI net. He then thought about how that might not be a good idea because, with a hooder segment missing and agents following him here, he guessed some AI might have sketched out the scenario. He sat back.

  Anger momentarily swirled in his chest. Damned AIs. They had allowed him to study the data on the quantum storage in the hooder genome but not allowed him to remember it, so why the hell should he be concerned about them? Again he felt that stab of panic thinking that maybe they did know… He closed his eyes, abruptly stood up and began pacing. His intellect would give him no rest because he knew his thinking wasn’t right. Those surges of emotion were indicators of someone going into ennui. He knew that his old self would get out of here fast – would not have come here in the first place – but his new self felt the attraction of risk and novelty and, if he stayed here long enough, would win the battle. />
  ‘Ganzen wants you.’

  He looked up. The mercenary character Hoskins must have entered quietly, for he was now sitting on a box beside the open door.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Jonas asked.

  ‘About ten minutes. He told me not to interrupt you if you were in the middle of something.’ Hoskins stood and walked across the lab. He peered in through the window at the hooder segment, then back round at Jonas. ‘You know what he wants that for, don’t you?’

  ‘Biotech research,’ said Jonas, not believing it for a moment.

  Hoskins smiled without humour. ‘Do you know what Ganzen Combine does?’

  ‘As far as I can gather a bit of everything – they buy and sell a great deal.’

  ‘You got that right, but seem to be ignoring the direction of that trade.’ Hoskins shook his head. ‘They buy in the Polity and sell into the Graveyard. So what do you reckon their customers are like?’

  Jonas understood at once, but quelled any reaction. ‘You’re a mercenary, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yup. Ex ECS.’

  ‘Does the direction of trade here concern you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘And so it is with me. I get a chance to work with something I have a great deal of interest in and I get to walk away with a large payment.’

  Hoskins snorted and gestured to the door. ‘Let’s go.’

  As he followed the man Jonas understood the reaction. If a live hooder as a pet was Ganzen’s aim then yes he had a chance of walking away from this. However, if the man’s aim was to produce hooders to sell into the Graveyard, then he knew that, from Ganzen’s point of view, his work would never be done.

  Hoskins led him through the Fist and finally into what looked like an empty shuttle bay. Here a number of people were gathered – most of them with the same look as Hoskins. He didn’t spot Ganzen for a moment but he did see the tiger, so knew he was near. Hoskins caught his arm and pulled him through the crowd, which parted around them to reveal a man lying on the floor. Jonas thought for a moment this must be one of the agents that had chased him, but the man wore stylish strap-weave trousers, a blouse-like shirt in ever-white and extremely pointed mirror boots. It struck Jonas as unlikely that a Polity agent here would shed combat clothing for this attire.

  ‘Apparently he knows nothing about them,’ said Ganzen at his shoulder.

  Jonas looked round. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Ganzen peered down at the man, then stepped in and drove a boot into his guts, seemingly just as a matter of form, then turned back to Jonas. ‘You’ve been around so I’m guessing you know about places like this sitting on the border with the Polity on one side and prador on the other. Both sides let places like this exist so they can put their operatives in them.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that.’

  ‘Some of their operatives can be a bit inept and everyone knows who they are. Skerr the prador, supposedly having fled the kingdom during the usurpation, is their well-known operative. Heathic here is the Polity one.’

  ‘You asked him about the two that came after me?’

  ‘I did, but he says he knows nothing.’ Ganzen looked round at the crowd. ‘Move back,’ he instructed.

  Jonas noted that mercenaries weren’t the only ones here since others were in more conventional attire. He saw the female doctor from before, peering grimly down at the bound man before moving off. He returned his attention to this Heathic. The man had a bloody mouth but showed little else in the way of damage. He knew in an instant that none of this was about getting information, else Heathic would have been in much worse condition than this. Ganzen stooped down, drawing a combat knife from his boot, flipped Heathic over and cut the bonds about his wrists and ankles before stepping back. The man struggled to his feet, rubbing his wrists.

  ‘Polity agents killed many people here,’ said Ganzen. ‘Recompense must be made.’

  Jonas felt slightly sick and couldn’t help feeling some guilt about what he was sure would happen next. Heathic stood there looking forlorn for a second, then it was as if a switch clicked over in his mind. He abruptly threw himself towards Ganzen but the tiger, moving fast and smooth for something so huge, hit him in mid-air. Two swipes of its claws sent him sprawling with his shirt ripped open and rapidly darkening with blood. He tried to get up to run but it came in and clawed him again, opening the back of his thigh. Then it lunged forwards to close its jaws on the back of his neck and shook him. They all heard the vertebrae crunching and breaking. It then moved off, dragging its kill with it to the other side of the hold.

  Jonas had expected something like this, but still the reality of it shocked him. Ganzen had just grabbed someone to deliver a lesson – just plain ugly murder. There would be no police, Polity monitors or agents to come in and drag Ganzen off for trial or otherwise dispense justice, and none of them here to protect Jonas. His malfunctioning mind had walked him into a situation he would struggle to extract himself from. The spectators filtered away leaving only Ganzen, Hoskins and Jonas. Ganzen was watching him, a slight smile on his face.

  ‘So how are things going with the segment?’ he finally asked.

  Jonas stared back at him, acknowledged what he had just seen with a brief nod, then said, ‘It still shows signs of life. Once I sink it in the required substrate things should proceed well, though I can give you no timeline.’

  Ganzen nodded. ‘Take a break for now, then get back to it when you’re ready. Hoskins will show you our facilities.’

  Jonas turned to follow Hoskins out, hearing the tiger tearing and crunching.

  Jonas sat on the edge of his bed and, trying to get his mind in order, weighed pros and cons. He was entering ennui or perhaps already in it, the condition not being clearly defined. He had reached a point where interest and emotion outweighed his life. He was seeking novelty like all the others and that novelty might end up killing him. However, over the last week he had felt more alive than he had for years. So what should he do?

  Ganzen was obviously a nasty character who probably had some terrible purpose for a hooder. The killing of that man with a tiger perfectly illustrated that. The right thing to do would be to undermine Ganzen, maybe kill the segment, or simply escape and report what was happening here. But attempting either of them would likely lead to his death. He shook his head. Despite many ideas to the contrary, being without emotion did not necessarily lead to pristine logic. He closed his eyes, tried again to put things in order. What did he want?

  That was difficult from his present perspective but he could get to the bones of it. He wanted to survive ennui and return to gaining pleasure from existence. Yeah, fine, but that did not make his future actions any clearer. Perhaps it would be better to think about what he would have done, before ennui, and in the unlikely event he would have ended up in a situation like this. The thought gave him discomfort, but at least that made him feel alive and he pursued things to a logical conclusion. Despite ennui he was still a moral creature and knew that his past self would not have countenanced his work being used by the likes of Ganzen. However, despite being a moral creature, he had never been prepared to sacrifice his life to that end. He would have calculated risks and gains and tried to ensure his own survival while screwing up Ganzen’s plans. This was a delicate scale to balance considering the present state of his mind. What to do?

  Jonas woke with utter calm, his aug muttering to his mind and pages of text constantly scrolling for his inner vision. He had set it to refreshing his knowledge of hooders while he slept and he dreamed of their biology, always waking up with new insights and remembered detail. He even now had some hint of what he had known and now didn’t know – those memories excised from his mind. Upon thoughts of this he often reached up to touch his scalp – just feeling the slight lump under his hair. Thankfully Ganzen knew nothing of the mem-tab made of bone he had inserted there three years ago.

  As was his
custom he then turned off the aug replay, climbed out of bed and headed straight for the shower. After cleaning himself and inserting a tooth-cleaning bot in his mouth he dressed in an insulated body suit that allowed access for urine collection and the anal catheter of his envirosuit, and then put that on. He had cleaned it last night and replaced the cartridges storing unrecycled products of his bowels and bladder, as had become his custom too. Hoskins had been curious about him constantly wearing the suit. It allowed him to continue working without interruption, Jonas told him, and he needed it now he had filled the segment enclosure with the air of Masada.

  Once dressed, he ate a breakfast of porridge and coffee from his fabricator, meanwhile accessing the data stream from his laboratory. The tanks were filled and ready to run the gel fluid into the chamber containing the hooder segment. He had engineered it so that it remained transparent despite being loaded with the nutrients of deep Masadan soil. The additional nanites he had made were in and propagating, and today it would be time to open the spigot. He had seen increased activity within the segment since adding the new atmosphere, which told him it was ready for this. Finishing his food he sat back, contemplating what he was about to do, his thinking now as clear as that gel would be.

  Next, he headed out of the apartment and, as he had done for over a week now, he went for his morning constitutional. He had the free run of the Fist, and his laboratory with all its manufacturing capability, had provided. He walked his usual route – he’d told Hoskins it helped him relax. Hoskins had been doubtful but when it became evident Jonas was walking in those areas of the ship that did not lie near the exit tunnels, had ceased following him.

  Soon he entered that part of the ship unoccupied by Ganzen staff. And finally he reached the airlock. Stupid of them, he felt, not to have taken his envirosuit away. Stupid also to think that the central lock-down on these airlocks would be enough, or that watching through the cams here a suitable precaution. He quickly took the vibro-knife and decoder out of his pocket – the former taken from the lab and the latter put together by one of his micro-factories from schematics stored in his aug. He ran the knife around the edge of the simple keypad lock and pulled it off, detached the optic feed then plugged in the one from the decoder and initiated it. The inner door thumped off its seals and the manual locking wheel spun. Pulling the door open he stepped inside, disappointed that he felt no excitement at all – that what he was doing now just seemed a natural progression from before.