The Biocrime Spectrum (Books 1-4)

by Erik Tabain

  The autotram approached the South San Francisco station and, after alighting, he walked to the point where he could access the tunnel passage to Banda’s apartment. He pulled on another Biocrime poncho Banda had given to him, effective in protecting him from the dirt and the smell of the tunnel sewerage. He slowly walked past the sewer and the rats scrimmaging through rubbish, found the correct access point, and slithered across to the apartment. Banda was prepared by the time Katcher arrived, they departed her apartment and continued the descent back down to Anika-6.

  Twenty-One

  A mysterious disappearance

  Marine Lestre had a habit of working around the clock and tonight was no exception. It was two o’clock and the aura of the soft green light from the lava lamp matched the early hours of the morning, although the noises from the streets below reminded her that there wasn’t too much downtime in this city.

  She occasionally glanced across to the incubator kits housing the three developing fetuses, the lightscreen displays comforting her with the information that everything was functioning normally, and there were no concerns about the impending inceptions. She had almost filled herself to the brim with synth coffee, which at least guarded her from the sleep she so desperately needed but also kept her brainwaves ticking over.

  And she had much to think about. She had been given a new and important task but was bemused by the approach by Biocrime and laughed internally at the prospect of resolving the same type of case—the theft of secrets—that she herself was accused of.

  Her watch list of Biocrime profiles had two-hundred-and-fifty names to scan through and her mind fluctuated between the need to assess all the potential fugitives on her list, and why Biocrime tried to frame an act of espionage on her.

  Several years before, Lestre was accused within Biocrime of acquiring corporate and technology research data and trading this in a range of black market spheres. Glitches had occurred within the development of this new technology and Biocrime, rather than adopting the correct protocols to determine exactly what occurred, allocated the cause of the incident to Lestre. Once the legal mechanics from BioLaw were installed, it was difficult to backtrack from the web of legalities and Lestre almost ended up being sent to a universal penal zone, before the case against her was suddenly retracted and dismissed.

  No explanation was offered at the time, and Lestre never found out who retracted the case against her but, eventually, she could no longer work within the confines of Biocrime and remade herself as a citizen stalker, and became one of the best in the field. The most difficult part for Lestre was the accusation of an egregious crime—and accusations once made, stick forever.

  She pondered the inaccurate application of law from the perspectives of the innocent and the guilty. BioLaw had incorrectly accused her of a serious criminal event; she was innocent, yet she was almost incarcerated and suffered the indignity of having her name smeared. Lestre recalled the case against Jonathan Katcher from a decade ago, where, as far as she was concerned, he was guilty of every shocking crime he was alleged to have committed. He retained his freedom, albeit with very strict controls, because of a range of legal loopholes exploited by Katcher’s team and Biocrime incompetence. It was a conundrum Lestre had difficulty reconciling, but it was also a driving force behind her quest to eliminate crime wherever she could. Injustice of the kind she suffered could either leave the victim with life-long scars, but Lestre decided a long time ago that to burn up on the inside was counterproductive and would only inflict more damage upon herself.

  Lestre continued to scan through her watch list and checked each one of the two-hundred-and-fifty, as she cultivated her mind to create mental links between the people that could have caused the East End Bombings and possible links back to Biocrime. Her lightscreen also used interpretive software to match any possible links between her searches and Lifebook activity, but no obvious links appeared. She checked the profiles of all the most likely, but there was no activity or register on any of them.

  She finally came around to checking Katcher’s Biocrime profile and it came up with surprising results. Not only was there no negative activity, but there was no activity at all from over the past four days. She scanned deeper through the world memory bank data, and couldn’t see Katcher anywhere. She called up the Lifebook Live function, which could retrieve the most recent visual recording and activity and he couldn’t be seen in his apartment, he wasn’t out and about on the nearby streets, and he wasn’t at the community hub. Has he died? she wondered. She delved deeper into the world memory bank and there was no DNA or genetic connection for Katcher anywhere. It was a costly exercise to extract deeper data from the world memory bank through the continuum but she decided it was worth it, if it led to the big catch she was after.

  Using data analytics software for her deeper delve, Lestre also saw there was no link for Katcher within any form of travel or death data. Even after death, the process of genetic capture continued, but with Katcher it was like he had completed disappeared.

  It was late at night, but Lestre sent a message to Lumbardo through her personal private network, asking for any details he had about the fallibility of genetic capture and the world memory bank through the continuum. She wasn’t expecting a reply until daylight, but Lumbardo also had night owl tendencies and responded with a short précis which outlined what he had heard about glitches in the system before, and where hacktivists had deceived Biocrime into accessing alternative genetic data as a diversion, but he had not heard of the genetic recording of a person becoming untrackable. He added that glitches didn’t happen very often, but they did happen. Sometimes it was a maintenance glitch, but self-repair software usually resolved the problem quickly and efficiently.

  After receiving the information from Lumbardo, Lestre decided to place an investigative task through Lifebook, actions that were usually taken on by prospective bounty hunters, and of great value. Lestre would more than likely have to pay for most of the crowd fees, but there were always a few citizens willing to crowd fund a task like this, even if it was only for personal curiosity.

  She collected her thoughts momentarily and summoned her lightscreen to create the new investigative task on Lifebook.

  “Whereabouts of Jonathan Katcher,” Lestre said and after she spoke these words, an auto-fill voice completed the description:

  Query about sighting of Jonathan Katcher in San Francisco region. Unlinked to world memory bank and Biocrime profiles for three days. Possibly a glitch but confirmation is required.

  Course of action: Report and verifiable confirmation of sighting.

  Crowd pledge: €1

  Bounty payment: €50 + 50% of crowd fund. Half-fee only, if no sighting.

  She glanced at the screen and, after she checked the details and felt confident of its contents, she summoned the task to automatically appear through a wide range of crowd source options through the continuum and onto Lifebook.

  Lifebook then allocated Lestre’s post to a number of different crowd source locations, including Tasker, Uber and WorkOn, the more common platforms. The response was swift, but that was expected, as Jonathan Katcher was on most people’s watch list. Even though it now approached three in the morning, within an hour, over four-hundred citizens had pledged €1 each—a good result for someone with low Biocrime activity on their profile over the past ten years. Soon, a bounty hunter called ‘RoboPhile’ accepted the task—a few hundred ucas wasn’t too bad for just checking up on someone, and receiving half of that even if they didn’t end up seeing Katcher at all.

  RoboPhile was an experienced surveillance stalker and did her inspective work in the morning, just around 9:00; she checked around at the community hub, and then made the long trek back to the environs of Katcher’s apartment. She was a rather non-descript middle-aged Technocrat—perfect for this type of task—and asked questions with some local people and enquired at nearby businesses, but there were no sightings by anyone, and no-one had seen Katcher for almos
t a week. Katcher did keep a low profile, but it was unusual that he hadn’t been seen by anyone, and even more unusual that there was no genetic data available to determine his whereabouts.

  RoboPhile went to Katcher’s ground floor apartment and peered through the back windows. Although she couldn’t really tell if Katcher hadn’t been there recently, she peered through every crack in the windows she could find, and there was no evidence of him inside. Everything in the apartment seemed neat and tidy, almost as though he could walk in through the doorway at any time. But the fact was, he wasn’t there.

  After several hours, RoboPhile decided to confirm there was no sighting of Katcher to Lestre, and received her payment of €150. It wasn’t as much as a confirmed sighting but, nevertheless, it was still money for jam.

  It was late morning by the time Lestre received the report, after managing to snatch a few hours of sleep. She scrolled through the information and visual recordings submitted by RoboPhile and decided to keep the new information to herself, without updating Katcher’s Biocrime profile. She needed to find out what was going on first and she knew that any reports she added would alert other watch lists and more interest than it warranted.

  Twenty-Two

  The propaganda machine

  “Synth?” asked Katcher. Banda nodded with approval and the familiar sound of the food processing machine created the coffees that would start the day with a boost of caffeine.

  Katcher was in his new surroundings in Anika-6, still acquiring what this new world meant to him and the Movement. But, just like a sports tactician and strategist, he couldn’t think too far ahead, and kept repeating in his mind that he had to take one step at a time, and to think too far into the future meant there was always the chance the present could evaporate in a flash.

  The ‘ding’ from the food processor triggered a Pavlovian response for Katcher, and he rose to collect the coffees and sat next to Banda. Katcher and Banda were in the ‘strategy tent’ in Anika-6, a high tech zone that contained all the communication devices they’d ever need. Soon after, Renalda, Scanlen and Weller entered the tent, exchanged pleasantries, and the Revolution Five were ready to continue with their business.

  “This is pretty impressive stuff,” Katcher said, as his eyes scanned the vast array of technology and gadgetry. “How did you get it all down here?”

  “It’s been a long process,” Scanlen said. “There’s different access points to this bank of caverns, but we couldn’t bring anything that was too big or cumbersome. We brought in most of the equipment piece by piece and assembled it down here…”

  “…and you can see that everything is small scale,” Renalda said. “The lightscreens, food processors, lighting, energy storage. We just had to think small and agile, and the ability to move quickly at short notice. Small and agile, but we’ve actually got more tech power than anything on the surface, thanks to Mav, our technical genius.”

  “Well, I can’t take credit for all of it,” Weller said, with a touch of rare modesty. “But taking most of it will do.”

  Katcher continued to scan the collection of lightscreens and devices in the tent, which showed a range of surveillance points on the surface in a range of cities from different zones around the world, key data and information of temperature, and inputs into Lifebook and Biocrime profiling.

  “Our plan is,” Banda said, “to hack the continuum, insert our own viral videos to all systems on the surface: Lifebook, Biocrime, public lightscreens, broadcasts, narrowcasts—large scale disruption, create havoc and confusion, activate radicals on the surface.

  “We’ve completed most of the visuals—but we needed to record you and your call to arms, and insert you into our messaging and videos. Propaganda, you know, like pirate TV. We smash the continuum, and we control information.

  “After we’ve hacked Biocrime, the viral messaging and videos will be up for at least a few weeks—that’s how long it would take Biocrime to work out what’s going on and to recode, and stop our attacks. But it would be too late for them.”

  “But what about arms?” asked Katcher. “What are people going to do—just roam the streets and shout out they’ve had enough and want change? That’s a revolution that’s not going to last long.”

  “We wanted some sort of peaceful change,” Banda said, oblivious to the irony of expecting a smooth transition, just after she had murdered almost six-hundred Technocrats. “If we can—”

  “—but you know throughout history, that has rarely happened,” Katcher responded. “Power has to be taken by force.”

  “Everyone’s got a laser gun, right?” Weller interjected, “with stun and kill modes, but the kill mode is controlled by Biocrime and we know less than one per cent of the population has access to that. Our hacking can unlock the kill mode on the laser guns, instantly turning them into killing machines. We can exclude Technocrats from the unlock and disable their laser guns completely—no stun or kill modes. Sure, an unfair advantage, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Could be a blood bath if they try to resist.”

  “We war-gamed this many times,” Banda said. “It will work, our technology is set up and we could finally get the plan underway within a few days. We’ll finish adding your agitprop and then send it out.”

  “But surely it can’t be so simple,” Katcher said. “And besides, if it’s already to go, why haven’t you already set it up?” Katcher knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from the others.

  “Having you as part of it,” Renalda said, “is the icing on the cake. If we tried to do this while you’re still under virtual house arrest, it wouldn’t have had the same meaning, the same value. But if the world can see that Jonathan Katcher has escaped house arrest, that’s a big coup for us all and the Movement.”

  “And,” Banda added, “if citizens can see Jonathan Katcher leading from the front, it gives them more reason to rise with the Movement.”

  Katcher had the demeanor and aura of inclusiveness, deferring credit to others—he wanted all to share in the spoils of victory. But he was as ruthless and self-centered as any other political leader.

  People gravitate to the centers of power and control, and Katcher wanted to be at the center of that power. He knew he was an important figure but for the past decade, he’d been engulfed by a sea of irrelevance, where he’d offered his considerable skill and intellect to young wannabes that didn’t know anything at all about struggle, and probably not even interested in the struggle.

  He felt he was almost back at the center of the universe: it was an opportunity that he thought had slipped away and he could see that he could just be several weeks away from seizing the power he’d been craving for most of his lifetime. He knew it was also the work of many people in the underground over the past decade. For the many natural humans that had risked their lives for the Movement—some deported to universal penal zones and never to return—they had all worked towards revolutionary change and had waited for the day of reckoning to arrive. Katcher was the figurehead of this movement and, as Banda suggested, he was the icing on the cake. He was wanted, he was needed, and he was needed right now.

  It was time to move quickly. Katcher and Weller had moved to another tent, known as the ‘communications center’. Like many of the other tents in Anika-6, this one was high-tech, and had all the tools of trade for visual and holographic production, voice manipulation, editing and projection.

  Essentially, they were recording and creating a series of viral propaganda and news messages: announcements that Katcher was free and back with the Movement, the oppression by the Technocrats was going to end soon, the uprising had commenced and laser guns could be used for protection, aggression and self-defense.

  The viral videos were short and sharp—there would be a series of thirty-second, one-minute and two-minute visuals, advertisement-style propaganda that would incite the masses. The storyboards on the larger lightscreens were simple and sharp, which opened with the key message: ‘Jonathan Katcher is Fr
ee’; ‘The oppression ends, the revolution starts now’; with images of Katcher being arrested in 3024; the crowd trial; images of maltreatment of natural humans by Technocrats; scenes of revolutionary moments throughout history, teamed up with emotionally-charged inspirational music. And the key message at the end was that laser guns were now fully unlocked.

  The hacktivists in Anika-6 had also created a new predictive algorithm that would hack into holographic billboards and lightscreens, overriding the existing video streaming information, insert their own propaganda material, while predicting which actions Biocrime’s detection software would implement to try and counter their actions, creating realtime recoding to bypass their message in a continuous loop. Even with its immediate response, it would take some time for Biocrime to set up its own recoding program and resume normal transmission, and the hacktivists estimated they could keep the viral propaganda videos online for at least a fortnight.

  It meant Katcher’s viral videos would appear in homes on lightscreens, and public billboards where normal advertising material usually appeared. Natural humans would then hear about Katcher’s return to the Movement, and seeing his videos on their screens and public places, would rise up against Biocrime and the system of the Technocrats.

  They were underground in Anika-6 for now, but they were moving quickly towards the key release day to hack and undermine the continuum, Lifebook and Biocrime, when all worlds would change. They were confident in their work and they were sure they were on their way towards the revolutionary change they had craved for a very long time.

  Twenty-Three

  Death in the underground