“If a cube can be cracked so easily, what need did those knowledge Machines have to physically possess the array?”
“Note, Major General Imus, that I said standard Vaunton cubes. The cubes before you have altered and enhanced security measures due to the cradle they sit within. I have not probed those measures in depth, but it is common for critical security information to be safeguarded behind techniques that erase said information if an intrusion is detected.”
“I see.” Leon glanced at Orissa.
She contemplated the drone’s offer in silence, eyes wandering from her feet to the ceiling. Finally, with the enthusiasm of a rebellious teenager being asked if she loved her parents, she said, “Sure, Droll. Go ahead.” Then, “But just tell us the activity you find during the last day of use.”
She wants to know more than that, thought Leon, but she wants to read it. To see it herself. He understood. It was a personal matter, one he need not be involved in until she decided he should. If she decided.
Taking her mother’s laptop from her backpack, Orissa unscrewed the bottom, giving Droll access to the secured Vaunton cube. A compartment door opened on his shell, and out snaked a long tendril of wire capped with a tiny metal oval that he placed on the cube.
“Rebecca Servoni’s last actions taken on this computer,” began Droll, seconds after interfacing with the Vaunton cube, “were comprising an email. It was addressed to Mattias Varugus and saved twenty-nine times. The message was never sent.”
“Strange last action to take,” said Leon.
“That was the second-to-last action, Major General Imus. The last action Doctor Servoni took on this computer was changing the encryption key.”
Before Leon could wonder aloud why she would do that, Orissa interrupted.
“Tell me the message my mother wrote.”
“Of course, Doctor Servoni.”
Mattias,
You know the brilliant minds they tie me to. Newton, Einstein, Galileo, and the list goes on. But I stand on their shoulders and witness only heaps of failure.
The media hailed my engineering of friendly Machines as the turning point in this war. Until my constructs were swept aside with the ease of an ocean thundering over a sandcastle.
Former President Tortillis heaped praise on the STARS algorithm, but did it save lives? No.
They say Quantum Disruptors would not be realized if not for my contributions, but they often leave out the bug my code introduced which led to the first batch being inoperable—killing thousands of soldiers.
I am leaving you with a drone I’ve named Droll. He’s quite helpful and more intelligent than… well, you’ll see.
“Wait,” said Leon, interrupting. “You… all right, look. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I’m having trouble putting two and two together and not coming to the conclusion that this Droll is your mom’s Droll.”
No one—human or otherwise—said a word. Leon understood Orissa’s silence. Leon never doubted her allusions that she didn’t know much about her mother, save what little she’d discerned from her dreams. Having a drove of information dumped on her, the blanks of her mother’s life suddenly filled in without tact or discretion, had to be startling at best.
Utterly unwanted at worst.
But what of the drone’s quietness? If Leon were to cast away all notions of what Machines were, that little bot’s ensuing silence might have convinced him they could feel. Not just process, but actually feel.
Probably, however, it was just a matter of Droll allocating the necessary processing power to understand what he’d just learned.
“Why did you tell us your owner was Doctor Varugus?” Orissa asked.
“That is the information stamped into my memory banks,” Droll answered.
“But you remember Rebecca?” questioned Leon.
“Quite well, Major General Imus.”
Leon thumbed through the wiry patches of his beard. It was becoming itchy, and he disliked the way the mustache curled into the corners of his mouth. “What about this medicinal chip? Do you recall Rebecca giving it to you?”
“I only know that Doctor Varugus claimed it was his creation and that he entrusted me with it.”
Leon frowned. “I don’t know about this. I don’t like it.”
“I wouldn’t suspect much,” said Orissa. “My mother, I think, was like me. She didn’t trust easily. If she trusted Mattias, he earned it. Maybe he had to refit the drone as his own because my mother…” She let the thought wander. “Droll, is there more to the email?”
“Yes, Doctor Servoni.”
The drone recited the text.
This sounds like goodbye, Mattias, because it is. I gained access to personal data belonging to RayTech Solutions CEO Ivan Kravst. RayTech completed the EMP shield a year ago. Ivan intends to reveal it soon, possibly as early as tomorrow morning during the cabinet meeting.
But there are two shields, Mattias, and RayTech is keeping one of them locked away in a vault at their R&D lab in the Blue Ridge Mountains (38.423, -78.470). Ivan mentions unspecific fears as the reason why RayTech is keeping the second shield secret and locked away. I don’t know what those fears are, but I intend to find out.
I disliked the sight of Ivan Kravst the second I met that man. Do not trust him, Mattias. I know you’re not keen on religion and you’ll never take my god, but remember this: The devil doesn’t have horns and hooves. He wears a suit and tie, and he talks like you and I.
I will likely not return before the Machines take the eastern seaboard.
Godspeed, Mattias Varugus. Kiss my daughter for me. I would advise you to keep her safe, lest you feel my wrath from the grave, but she is a woman like me. Nothing, man or Machine, may keep her down.
- Rebecca Servoni
Orissa winked a lone tear from her eye. With an incline of her head and a sniff, she wetted her lips as another tear, then three, dotted her cheeks.
“Crying over a woman I don’t even remember,” she said, choked for breath. “Stupid.”
Leon pressed forward, taking her firmly by the shoulders. “You remember her from your dreams, Orissa. You say dreams are real. Real as—”
“Maybe they aren’t.”
Knuckle under her chin, he lifted up her face. She resisted at first, gave a little fight, but that was part of her defense to keep out people who didn’t care. People who didn’t want to extol the effort, whose empathy was skin-deep.
When her eyes met his, he tilted his head forward into hers. “You believe dreams are real like a Christian holding a Bible to his chest believes that book is real. I don’t admonish you one bit for that belief. Everything your mother did for you… you’ll know, you’ll remember. Maybe not at this very instant, but eventually. Everything’ll be unlocked eventually.”
Her breath was hot on his neck. She shivered in an attempt to compose herself. “You’re always so sure, Leon. But ‘eventually’ is a long time.”
“Sure it is. But your mother sounds like she was a badass, and from what I can tell, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” To that, she smiled, and not even the tears that ran over her lips could take it away. “And I’m a major general. I don’t know what that means, but it suggests I was damn good at killing Machines.”
A laugh, slight and fleeting, but it was there. He heard it.
What a beautiful sound it was.
“We got this drone with us too,” added Leon. “He’s, uh…”
“Helpful,” offered Orissa.
“Very. So trust me when I tell you we will learn who we were. What we were. No Machine may take that away, try as they might.”
Orissa looked up, the tip of her nose brushing against his. If the first time he touched her felt like a middling little firework exploding in his stomach, then this felt like the grand finale: unmaintainable, unsustainable, and unexplainable. But he wasn’t sure he wanted it to stop.
“Thank you, Leon Imus. You’re a good person.”
Leon grinned. “You know, if most people told me that, I’d take it as a welcome compliment. But that’s high marks from you, right up there with a mean old grump of a father telling his son he’s proud of him.”
She wiped away the last tears. “I’m a grump of a father, am I?”
“You’re much better looking than any father I’ve laid eyes on.”
Orissa laughed and pushed him away. “We should finish the video.”
“Agreed. Hydra, resume.”
The video continued with Doctor Varugus expressing concern over Rebecca’s whereabouts.
Then Ivan Kravst stood. “I think we’re all grateful for what Doctor Rebecca Servoni championed—everything, I mean, not just the servers—but this is a discussion we need to have.”
Servers? Thought Leon. Must be connected to the topic of persistent consciousness. Wonder why Rebecca didn’t mention that.
“The servers,” began the president, “still present with numerous problems, chief among them—”
A siren blared on the screen. Those still seated jumped to their feet.
A synthesized voice announced a warning. “Imminent arrival of Machines detected. Eighty-two Friggs detected. Three hundred Primes detected. Four hundred Ballistics detected. Six hundred Duelists detected. Evacuate immediately.”
Past Leon picked up a phone. “Yes. Good. Scramble them all.” He hung up and pointed to the stairs. “Everyone out. Gemini will be waiting for us above.”
“Where are we going?” asked Ivan.
“That’s a decision for the president.”
“Mrs. President,” Doctor Varugus interjected, “might I suggest—”
“We will discuss our destination on the way, Doctor.”
Present-Leon clicked his tongue. “I know where we’re going, and it isn’t Halley’s Hangar. Not yet.” He looked at Orissa. “Your mother—” He pursed his lips. “I don’t want to be grim, but—”
“Speak your mind, Leon.”
He nodded. “Chances are, she didn’t make it to RayTech’s R&D lab. But, unless the Machines combed the Blue Ridge Mountains or had advanced knowledge of RayTech’s lab, chances are it’s still intact. Now, I don’t know if that EMP shield is even there, or if it’s still operable.”
“It’s worth trying for,” said Orissa.
“It is. I don’t want to be that annoying optimist, but—”
“Too late,” said Orissa wryly.
He smiled. “Maybe you’re right and there are no humans left, besides us. But if there’s a chance those before us left something behind, that they were close to completing the Governor… We owe it to them, Orissa. I say we get this shield, take it to the Atlas Mountains, and set foot into where humanity supposedly made its last stand.”
“Hydra,” said Orissa. “Erase your memory.”
The computer warned that such action would be irreversible and required an authorized biometric handprint. Orissa was all too happy to provide it with one.
Before the screen went black, Leon stared at the room as it was four hundred and ninety-four years ago, noting the last among those who departed as Ivan Kravst.
He would never forget the look on that man’s face.
Chapter Twelve
Seventy miles. That was the distance from D.C. to RayTech’s lab nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near the old Shenandoah National Park, according to the coordinates Orissa had punched into her watch from her mother’s email.
Orissa had expected the journey to take a couple hours. But fifteen miles out from D.C., the terrain turned ugly and rugged. Hills sliced the horizon, layers of impassable rock and deep forests forced the Helrider into lengthy detours.
Four hours in and they were still forty miles out.
Orissa swapped places with Leon in the passenger seat and closed her eyes. Despite the creaky chassis of the Helrider and the vehicle’s unrelenting bobbing, sleep came on like night in winter, fast and with little warning.
When she woke, it was within a dream she had not suffered before. The fear of what secrets it might hold dueled the excitement she had to learn of her past. In the end, excitement and curiosity prevailed, for her mind remained trapped in the dream. Held in its grasp like metal in a vice.
She was in a robe, walking down a dark hallway with a cup of steaming tea clutched to her chest. Orissa breathed in deeply the warmth of honey and ginseng, bathing her lungs in the tranquilizing vapor.
She stopped in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom, peeking in to see her face aglow with the artificial lights of her three monitors. Rebecca Servoni typed away furiously.
“What are you working on?” Orissa asked.
The click-clacking stopped. Her mother swiveled around in her chair, a spitting image of Orissa. They were both long in the face, had a blade of nose, and low-set brows that always gave strangers the impression of being judged and suspected of something. Her mother’s skin was a touch lighter, more copper than brown, and age had roughened its smoothness that Orissa’s still held. The years couldn’t take away the silk of Rebecca’s hair, though, even if they had drawn out its black sheen and replaced it with the wisdom of silver.
“I’m writing the next great American novel,” said her mother, smiling. Her teeth were perfect, straight and white. Her voice was like honey.
Orissa laughed. “You might give up your pursuit of science one day, but it won’t be to write a book.”
Her mother glanced at her wrist. “It’s three in the morning. You’re never up this early.”
Orissa leaned into the doorjamb. She brought the mug to her lips, sipping. “A lot on my mind, I guess.”
Rebecca patted the bed. “Tell me all about it.”
Orissa was twenty-six. Too old to still be wandering into Momma’s room at night for her to quench her nightmares. Yet, her mother was the only shoulder she could lean on. And cry on.
She shuffled into the room and settled onto the downy comforter.
“Is it boy trouble?” her mother asked. “Oh, I wish. It’s something about your work, isn’t it?” She cupped Orissa’s knee. “You’re just like me in too many ways.”
Orissa drank more of her tea, letting it scald her throat to chase the chill in her bones. “The new company I’m working for, Blyme Technologies, is everything I’ve wanted. The tools, the funding… it’s all there. Everything you want, you get.”
“Dreamy,” said her mother.
“That part is. But… I don’t know. I think the project is progressing too rapidly and there’s not enough oversight. It feels like we’re playing loose and fast with something that could have enormous consequences.” She looked down at her swinging feet, eyes slowly rising to meet her mother’s. “Some of the research we’re doing is downright shady, and the company itself is… it just doesn’t feel right, you know?”
Her mother listened without response, those soft green eyes full of understanding. Of empathy.
“I hate to ask this,” said Orissa, “but could you use your contacts within the government to run up a bio on the company’s CEO?”
Her mother leaned back. “You really are suspicious about this.”
“I am,” confirmed Orissa. “It’s… to use a word you love, multi-factorial.”
Rebecca laughed. “I need to open up my vocabulary, it would seem. All right, give me a name and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Gentry Tygus,” said Orissa. “No one I work with has ever seen him. No one knows what he looks like.”
“Some CEOs enjoy the spotlight. Others lurk in the shadows like wolves.”
“If he’s just a wolf, then I’ll rest easy.”
Her mother wagged a finger at her. “There’s something more going on here. You know the field of AI research is rife with morally ambiguous goals. It’s wholly unregulated still. You’re too smart to think companies wouldn’t push the envelope, so to speak.”
Orissa looked longingly into her empty mug. She could go for another tea right now. One with a few shots of bour
bon. “I hacked my way into top-level data files of the company.”
A smile lifted Rebecca’s cheeks into her eyes. “There’s a girl after my own heart.”
Orissa chuckled. “You have to be the only mother on Earth who wouldn’t chastise me for that.”
“How could I? You know I’ve done worse. Go on. What dark little secrets did you find?”
“A lot. But there’s one in particular that’s been keeping me up at night. A program by the name of Project Riven. It’s an AI that’s more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen or heard of. It’s been developed by the merging of human consciousness with the mind of a Machine. That’s verbatim, straight from the files.”
She seemed to lose her mother’s devoted attention at that, her face turning sour. It felt like a shadow hung over the room, that the windows were open and a cold wintry gust blew in. Orissa shivered.
“Did your intrusion into the data trip a security system?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Did you leave behind breadcrumbs?”
“What? No, I—”
“Can anything be linked back to you?”
Orissa set her mug between her thighs. “No. Can you tell me why you’re suddenly interrogating me?”
Rebecca swung around in her chair and slapped her hand on the desk, grabbing her phone. Swiping her finger across the screen, she talked quietly to herself, voice so low Orissa couldn’t make out a single word.
“Mother,” said Orissa. “Mother!”
Her mother looked up, green fire in her eyes. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this unless I absolutely needed you to, Orissa.”
“Ask me what?”
“Keep working for this ‘company’. Do your job. Raise no suspicions. But keep access to the top-level data. I want every byte of information on those servers. Preferably by the end of the week, if you’re able.”
Rebirth (Archives of Humanity Book 1) Page 12