The Orb

by Tara Basi

  Zip clamped her jaw shut, desperate to restrain the little voice that was screaming at her to get out, get away. It took a moment to push the panic and the dark cold back down. “I get it that you’re some sort of super systems professor, but how’s that even possible? A Record’s encrypted to an individual’s subconscious. It can’t be cracked. I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Zip said, gesturing towards Quattro.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just treat Quattro like any other client,” Peter answered.

  Zip paused, looked down at her beautiful shoes and shook her head in disbelief. She should leave now. Run and forget. This could get her killed. “Doesn’t matter? Listen very carefully, Peter. We’re going to agree that Quattro here is an avatar for a real person, a close friend of Kiki’s who wants to remain anonymous. That’s what I heard you say, understand? I didn’t hear you say anything else. If you say anything else, I’ll leave immediately. Do we understand each other?”

  Before Peter could say anything, Quattro spoke up. “You’re right. I’m Kiki’s very best friend. We shared everything. I know her better than you could ever imagine.” Quattro gave Zip a sickly smile. “It’s a better truth.”

  “Peter, are we OK?” Zip pressed.

  “Yes … of course. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  Zip decided to carry on, for now. “OK, Quattro, let’s talk about this murder thing. How’s that unsolved? Kiki’s killer is serving a life sentence, and there was nothing in the coverage of the trial about suicide. What’s the mystery?”

  Quattro smoothed back her already tightly bound hair before answering. “The man who slaughtered Kiki was a professional killer. The police found overwhelming evidence that Kiki hired him to kill her.”

  Zip’s forehead creased up like a squeezed accordion. How tortuous was this puzzle going to get? “Is that what the killer said? That he’d been hired? By whom?”

  Peter shrugged. “He’s never said much of anything. He didn’t even enter a plea at his trial.”

  Zip felt she had to ask, “No offence, and admittedly it’s an odd way to go, but couldn’t it be true?”

  Quattro’s bloody eyes flashed. “No. Unless something terrible happened to her in the missing three months that changed everything. It’s just not believable, and a contract killer is a crazy idea. It’s not Kiki.”

  Peter continued, “I tried challenging the whole theory with the police. How would Kiki even know where to find a professional assassin? It transpires that two years earlier, Kiki interviewed a number of contract killers for a documentary. As far as the police were concerned, that explains how Kiki found him.”

  Zip stood up and started pacing the room, her tail upright and gently swaying. She needed to think for a moment. Quattro seemed so real. Could she really be a simulation? There was only the one way. It would explain the professor’s fortified house and why the VR was private and offline.

  Peter broke into her thoughts. “Will you please help us?”

  Zip turned to look at Quattro and Peter, sitting slightly apart on the VR couch. Peter looked exhausted. Quattro was staring into space, seemingly uninterested after her brief flash of anger.

  “A few more questions. Why me? Why can’t you just follow Kiki’s Net breadcrumbs for the missing three months?”

  Peter’s reaction was unexpected; he looked like he was going to throw up. The professor shuddered and turned away to stare at the wall.

  Quattro looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then wiped her eyes. “Mathew, the killer, decapitated Kiki and microwaved her head and with it her Headgear and her Recorder. Then he sent a worm to erase her breadcrumbs. There’s nothing left of those three months.”

  “Why in Tramp’s name would he do that?” Zip asked, taken aback by the unexpected brutality of the killing.

  Quattro looked across to Peter. He just nodded, and she continued, “The police think Kiki did something in those missing three months that changed her, made her want to kill herself. And it was something Kiki was so ashamed of that she wanted to wipe away any trace.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Peter re-joined the conversation. “You know that my daughter was an investigative journalist?”

  Zip nodded. It was one of the few things that Peter had revealed to her.

  Peter was looking at his shoes.

  “I’m waiting, Peter. It’s late,” Zip said.

  Peter sighed. “Quattro has a theory.”

  Quattro shrugged. “My voices say Professor Simmons was secretly communicating with the Orb. Maybe Kiki found out something about it.”

  Peter shook his head. “Kiki never mentioned it to me. It’s a crazy idea.”

  Zip was stunned. “The Professor Simmons? The Bloody Mother of the Mutiny AI? She was communicating with the Orb?”

  Quattro was staring pointedly at Peter. There was disgust in her eyes. “Well, Peter would know. They were close, really close.”

  Zip turned to Peter. “You were?”

  Peter avoided Quattro’s gaze. “Petula Simmons and I were colleagues for a while.”

  Quattro laughed, a cold, empty sound.

  Zip didn’t see what was funny. Her eye’s narrowed. “Peter, did you have anything to do with the Mutiny AIs?”

  Peter shook his head. “No. I objected to that line of research. Another reason we ended our collaboration.”

  Zip was irritated with herself. She was relieved. She couldn’t work for Peter if he’d helped create the AI monsters. She was still suspicious. “What else stopped you working together?”

  Peter’s shoulders sagged. “She converted.”

  Zip had forgotten that Simmons had become a Pilgrim shortly before the bitch killed herself. Good riddance as far as Zip was concerned. Simmons’ murderous machines had killed millions. “Was Simmons talking to the Orb?”

  “As a scientist, Petula was obsessed with the Orb from the beginning. She never discovered anything. The damn ball isn’t talking, isn’t listening. Never has. Only a Pilgrim would think otherwise. Maybe Petula suffered from Pilgrimists’ delusions towards the end, but Kiki was an Ungodly, an atheist.”

  Quattro made a harsh sound in her throat. “Like Kiki’s mother?”

  Peter gritted his teeth and pointedly ignored Quattro’s question.

  Zip resumed her pacing, with her tail swinging faster, while she collected her thoughts. Quattro got up off the couch and approached Zip, putting her hand on her arm. “Are you offended?”

  Zip was startled by Quattro’s touch. It was warm, not the ice cold she might have anticipated. “Offended? Oh, because I’m a Pilgrim? No, we don’t all believe the Orb is a god. I’m just a bit startled at the idea. I mean it’s not very likely is it. Orb Industries has insisted the Orb has been mute since it arrived forty-odd years ago. Besides, Professor Simmons is dead, so we’re never going to know, are we? Why contact me? You still haven’t said. Peter told you that I’ve never met Kiki, right?”

  Peter stood up and joined the two women. “Quattro knows, but you’re our only lead. Quattro can tell you more.”

  The pale girl didn’t immediately speak; she was staring into space again as if seeing or hearing something that Zip couldn’t. Either way, Zip didn’t want to spend all night in Peter’s creepy VR cellar with a forlorn ghost.

  “I’m listening,” Zip said, hoping to prompt Quattro into carrying on.

  Quattro’s dark eyes focused on Zip. “It’s hard to explain how I know what I know.”

  “Just tell me,” Zip said, starting to get a little annoyed with the strange girl who wasn’t making much sense.

  “Kiki’s death somehow involves you.”

  Zip was startled by the unexpected accusation. “Me? That’s crazy. I told you, I’ve never even met the poor woman.”

  “It involves the Orb, too, and its message,” Quattro added, ignoring Zip’s protestations.

  Zip sighed. “Anything else?”

  Quattro put a hand on Zip’s shoulder. She could hardly feel the
weight. “There’s someone else involved. It’s not clear who, not yet.”

  Zip didn’t really like Quattro standing so close, or being touched by her, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she kept her mounting irritation and discomfort under control. “Not clear? Do you know or not?”

  Quattro smiled. “I’m not like you. My mind is still settling. Things come to me as if a voice I can barely hear is whispering secrets. I call it the Whisperer. Occasionally, I catch a phrase, and there are more fragments every day. Maybe Kiki was investigating the idea of the Orb talking. Maybe she thought you knew something.”

  Zip struggled to understand what Quattro was saying. “In August, she wasn’t connected with anything involving the Orb or me. Right? So how do you know anything about what happened after August? Did you find a message from her?”

  Quattro screwed up her face as though Zip’s question was a conundrum requiring all of her concentration. “No, there’s no message. Nothing like that. The Whisperer tells me things.”

  Zip was starting to think that Quattro was completely mad, and it was time to leave. “There’s one more thing,” Quattro said.

  Against her better judgement, Zip asked, “Yes, what?”

  Quattro leaned in close to Zip and spoke softly in her ear. “Everything might be connected back to your lost week, when you tried to kill yourself.”

  Zip recoiled. How did this girl know anything about that? Jesus and the Tramp, even Zip didn’t know what had gone on during that missing week. A net was tightening; they were drawing her in like a fish, and she wasn’t even struggling. If anything, she was only getting more curious. How could she be involved in the death of a girl she’d never heard of. Nothing Zip was being told made any sense.

  “You think Kiki’s Orb investigation is connected to her death?”

  Quattro shrugged. It was an apathetic gesture. “We don’t know. My Whisperer is sure the Orb told Professor Simmons something. Something important. I’d like to know what it said, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t everybody?”

  Zip looked at Peter and Quattro in turn and sighed. They had no idea what they could be getting into. She’d try and enlighten them. “Listen, anything involving the Orb is dangerous. Since it turned up, there’s been two world wars for Tramp’s sake. And if you mess with the Orb, you mess with Orb Industries and the Church of the Orb, the two most powerful organisations on the planet.”

  Peter looked surprised. “We’re not interested in politics or religion, only in finding out who was behind my daughter’s death and why.”

  Zip sighed, “If I take this on, understand one thing: I don’t believe the Orb is talking. And you may not like what I find. It’s most likely just as it seems. Kiki killed herself, probably over some man or woman or a mix of both.”

  Quattro wore a half-smile like a wreath. “We just want the truth. Thank you.”

  Zip took a deep breath and decided. “I’m not cheap. Tomorrow I want to exercise your victims’ visit rights to go and see this killer, Mathew.”

  Peter’s shoulders relaxed, and he smiled. “Send me a contract, and I’ll get it processed tonight.”

  It was just after 2.00 a.m. when she found herself standing in the stone, arched doorway saying goodbye to Peter. The storm had passed. As she was about to head off for her waiting ’bot cab, Peter unexpectedly whispered, “Kiki is dying. We don’t have much time left.”

  Surprised, Zip turned around. “Kiki?”

  “Sorry, Quattro. The sim—sorry.” He rubbed his face. “Kiki’s friend is sick; it’s like dementia. After tonight, we might only have a couple more hours of VR with a lucid Quattro. Use the time wisely. And … at the end, I’d like some time with her, alone, just a few minutes.”

  Zip thought that Peter’s description of Quattro’s condition might explain the voices the unhappy girl thought she was hearing, but not how she knew so much about Zip. She looked into Peter’s tormented eyes and realised he was reliving Kiki’s death. He must be desperate to know why his daughter had died to go through it all again.

  Peter continued, “And, of course, you can’t tell anyone about Quattro.”

  Zip couldn’t help herself. She’d lost too many friends to the murdering machines. “I’m only saying this once. If Quattro is an AI simulation, you’re committing a war crime. If you’re caught, they’ll take away your citizenship and dump you in the Clear and Safe. There are no excuses. No one’s forgetting the AI Mutiny. Don’t involve me in any of that or I’ll turn you in myself.”

  Peter nodded. He gave no sign that he was concerned. Taking her hand in both of his, he shook it. “I’m glad you’re helping us and that you’re not a crazy Orb fanatic, a Pilgrimist. A lot of Pilgrims are.”

  Zip didn’t bother answering. She turned away and started walking quickly then slowed down. A wave of dizziness swept over her. It was not far to the ’bot cab waiting for her beyond the garden wall. The metal exit swung open as she approached and clanged shut behind her. Reconnecting to the Net and catching sight of the waiting cab lights were a welcome return to normality. She carefully took her seat in the back of the cab but didn’t immediately close the door. The warning signs – trembling hands, tight forehead, a cold sweat and clammy waves running up and down her back – were too familiar. In the dark, listening to the night noises from the nearby woods, a bad memory surfaced. It filled her mind with flashing images of the final assault on the Vatican. It pulsed at the back of her closed eyes. She leant out of the cab and retched.

  As the cab moved off, she dabbed at her mouth with a tissue and checked her clothes. They were unmarked. Good. The panic had faded, as it always did. Part of her craved the excitement of Peter’s challenge, despite the danger. Even though she’d be terrified, Zip was half looking forward to meeting what was left of Kiki’s killer, Mathew. She wasn’t looking forward to getting home and sleeping through what was left of the night. There would be nightmares. There always were.

  Something was wrong in the cab. Zip sensed it but couldn’t identify the source of her anxiety, and it was real, not the usual imaginary menace. Jesus and the Tramp, it wasn’t a ’bot cab. Someone was driving. “Who the hell are you?”

  The driver turned around to look at Zip. It was a shrunken, old woman with a sea-sponge complexion and gummy eyes set in a river of wrinkles. She had to be a hundred at least. Her deeply lined face was haloed with a pink froth of wispy hair. The colour matched her badly applied lipstick.

  “Sorry, love, didn’t mean to startle you. I’m your driver this evening. Are you OK, you know, with the sicking up an’ all?”

  “Is this a joke? I ordered a ’bot cab. I’m not paying for some retro-limo service,” Zip said, exasperated that she was being ripped off.

  “I get that a lot, love. Don’t you worry. This is a ’bot-rate cab. No difference. No difference at all. Except for me instead of the ’bot. Hope that’s OK.”

  Zip couldn’t stop herself from smiling. The old woman had a weird, ancient accent, like something out of a play. There was still a nagging worry. “Is this legal? A person driving a ’bot cab?”

  “Absolutely. Got a proper license an’ all. Don’t you worry. Lucy’ll get you home right as rain and snug as a bug.”

  Despite herself and her constant anxiety, Zip was starting to enjoy the company, especially tonight, even if she couldn’t understand half of what the old woman was saying.

  “Sorry, I didn’t even know it was possible for a person to drive a cab.”

  “Equal opportunities, innit? Can’t say no, can they? Not to a qualified person, like me. No bugger bothers applying, usually. You know? What citizen wants to work for ’bot pay? Right?”

  A dark night drive back to the lift and the long descent to her lonely office was something Zip had been dreading. This was a welcome distraction.

  “Guess you must like driving?”

  “You hit the head on the nail, my lovely. Likes my driving. Out on my tod. Nothing like it. Sometimes I meets nice people. Sometimes. Mostly, they migh
t as well be bloody dead. Doing VR. Think it’s sad when there’s like a couple, a nice young couple, and they’re lying back there like corpses. Wouldn’t mind getting an eyeful of some full-on live canoodling. VR ain’t the same, not at my age. But its them Pilgrimist types is what I really can’t stand. You know, they’re like, ‘You atheist Ungodly gotta convert, else we’re all screwed.’ Can’t shut the buggers up. No offence. You ain’t no Pilgrimist, are ya?”

  Zip sighed. There was no escaping the cold war. “No. I’m an ordinary Pilgrim, but it’s a private thing. Everyone has to make their own choices.”

  “Exactly. You smacked that nail on the head again. Still, it’s inevitable, ain’t it? We gonna be going at it again soon. Reckon we got one more big one in us.”

  Zip was starting to wish it were a ’bot cab being driven by a ’bot. “Big one?”

  “Another genocidal shit-storm holocaust. All the signs are flashing red. Had a Church director back there last week, effing and blinding. Said Orb Industries got to be taught a lesson. I’m thinking, if he’s thinking that then Industries got to be thinking the same thing. Know what I mean?”

  Zip felt cold. She didn’t say anything, only wanting the woman to shut up or at least talk about something else.

  The driver took Zip’s silence as encouragement. “Course that’s another reason I’m up here, doing this. Got clobbered in the last Orb War, that bloody God one, didn’t I, by one of them bore bombs. Ain’t nothing boring about them, right?” The chatty driver cackled at her own joke. “They dug me out of the shelter rubble a week later.” The old woman sighed and her voice dropped, “Just me, mind; all me family was gone.” There was a dry cough and then she was back to her loud self. “So, I stay up here. Sleep in the cab. You know. No more shelters for me. Bloody expensive coffins, that’s all they are. Rather go out quick, with a bang.”

  Her driver was coughing and spluttering. Zip thought she might be laughing again at her own sick humour. Either way, she couldn’t stand anymore. “I’m going to try and sleep now, if that’s OK? It’s been a long day.”