by Eliza Green
‘Where are you?’
‘In the tunnels beneath the city,’ the man said in perfect English with a Swedish accent. ‘We were waiting for your call.’
Bill frowned. ‘How did you hear about the power outage?’
‘Some were at home when everything went down. We figured you’d want us to stay put, not to turn up at the ITF in case things were compromised.’
‘You did the right thing, Gunnar. More than ever, we need people operating on the outside.’
Gunnar nodded. ‘I assume we’re talking about Harvey Buchanan here and not the Elite or Conditioned this time?’
‘He freed Marcus Murphy and they took Ben.’
Gunnar cursed.
‘At least, we think they did. How did you know it was Harvey this time?’
The Swede smiled. ‘You’ve been asking us to watch him all week. I figured this man’s a big deal. There aren’t too many who rattle you, Bill.’
He could handle dipshits like Marcus Murphy, but Harvey was on a different level. ‘He trained with Deighton in his early days as a geneticist. He was also Deighton’s doctor for a while.’
Gunnar whistled low. ‘We had limited information on him here and I know you were reluctant to say who he was back on Earth, but any colleague of Deighton’s is no friend of mine.’
The head of his underground network in New London had lost his family on Earth, thanks to Deighton’s eviction of residents from a building set to become another genetic clinic. Gunnar’s family had run out of food and oxygen before Gunnar had even heard about it. He’d been working on a special assignment overseas, which Bill guessed had been planned to keep the Swede away. Deighton had done the same thing to Bill when Isla had gone missing.
‘I’m promoting you to commander of all the underground networks. I want to know where Harvey is. And Jameson. He’s missing too.’
Gunner lifted a blond brow. ‘Does that expanded title include a pay rise?’
‘You get us out of this mess and I’ll give you the damn keys to this city.’
‘I’ll get on it, Bill. The team here is ready to go.’
Bill heard a chorus of agreement in the background. ‘Thanks, everyone. Gunnar, what about the Indigene operatives? Have you heard from any of them?’
‘Not for a week. They returned to their districts before the cure was administered to help out. We haven’t heard from them since.’
Bill should get in touch with Stephen next, to make sure everything was okay. But everything was pointing to this being a non-Indigene battle.
‘Okay, let’s focus on matters here. Your priority is finding out where Harvey Buchanan is. Head over to his clinic and secure it. Also, check the halfway house at the construction site. We find Harvey, we find Ben Watson.’
‘We’ll locate that bastard; don’t you worry.’
Gunnar clicked off just as Julie knocked on the door.
At a wave from Bill, she opened it and poked her head in. ‘Just to let you both know I’ve been in touch with the other ITFs. They’re in the process of mobilising troops there. And ground troops here are heading out now. The ways in and out of New London will be secured shortly. If Harvey is in New London, he won’t get out.’
Bill guessed Harvey was long gone from this city already. ‘Thank you, Julie.’
She hesitated. ‘Anything else you—both of you—need me to do?’
Bill shook his head. ‘Just keep in touch with the military, make sure the residents are not stirring up trouble of their own. And let me know if there’s any activity on the Wave—public or private channels. Just because the power’s down doesn’t mean they haven’t found a way to activate it from their end. We can’t assume anything at this stage.’
Julie flashed a quick, closed smile at both of them and left.
Laura, who had been standing next to him, perched on the edge of the desk. Only then did he notice her fists were clenched.
With a sigh, she unfurled them. ‘I don’t think I can look at her the same way again.’
He squeezed her knee. ‘She’s a good member of the team. When you left, she filled a void.’
Laura snorted. ‘So you told me.’
Bill rubbed her leg. ‘I don’t mean that. I needed someone to take care of things here. Julie did what was asked of her.’
Laura sighed again. ‘I know. These are strange times. We need everyone on board.’
‘Including Julie?’
Laura nodded. ‘Including Julie.’
‘I think we should call Stephen, find out what he knows.’ Bill stood up and offered her seat to her. ‘Take the seat. This is your office.’
Laura stood uneasily. ‘It no longer feels like it. Can we go to yours?’
3
A buzz of activity greeted Bill and Laura on the sixth floor. The usual low chatter had been replaced by a palpable, nervous energy. His team of twelve men and women rushed from desk to desk, a group of people he trusted to keep this city and others like it running smoothly—from designating resources to the settlement programme for those returning or arriving from Earth to keeping the power grid running to managing security on the streets of New London. The last two items were in disarray. Inside his normally well-oiled machine, the various comms devices sounded like a chorus of panicked birds.
Laura looked around.
‘The other ITFs are calling and they’re not happy,’ she said matter-of-factly.
He guessed her Indigene hearing allowed her to pick up more than he could. ‘I assume they’re in the same position as us.’
If Harvey had more control than the power grid allowed—and he assumed he did—Bill was in no hurry to rectify the power problem here or elsewhere.
The team looked up from their latest calls, questions in their eyes. This scenario had never happened before. He would make sure it never happened again.
One of his more senior team members rushed over to him. ‘Bill, I’m glad you’re here.’ He nodded at Laura. ‘Good to see you back.’
‘Good to be back, Eddie. What’s the situation with the ITFs?’ she asked.
‘They’re reporting mounting chaos. The power is down elsewhere too. Julie called up just now. She said we should deploy the military and she’ll manage them.’
Bill nodded. ‘She’s taking point on this. Until further notice, we will do whatever jobs are necessary. When Laura or I are not around, call her.’
‘Got it.’
Bill eyed the rest of the team, who seemed panicked but in control. ‘Do I need to say something to them?’
Eddie shook his head. ‘They might look scared but they’re good. They know what this is. We all trained for a cyber attack just like this when we worked on Earth. I just never thought we’d see it happen here.’
With tensions high, Bill was surprised it hadn’t happened before now. He guessed it took someone like Harvey to harness those tensions and turn them into real action.
Eddie added, ‘Oh, Jeff called up from the fifth floor. He says he needs to speak to you.’
The head of the IT team was in charge of the AI systems that made the interstellar wave and the operation of other sentient programs around the city possible.
‘Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Laura walked on to his office and opened the door. She was already standing behind the desk when he entered the room.
She paced the area behind the desk faster than Bill could see. Her edginess unsettled him.
‘Could you not do that?’
Laura stopped. ‘Sorry. I picked up the habit from Stephen. Does it bother you?’
‘Under normal circumstances I’d say no, but carry on.’ She could levitate for all he cared. All that mattered was his wife and best friend was back in his life.
He sat down heavily and set his bag on his lap. He pulled his DPad out and propped it up against the monitor. At least the devices operated off their own supply of power.
Bi
ll activated his screen with his security chip, embedded in his thumb. He’d thought about getting rid of it and his identity chip, but they weren’t bothering him enough. The DPad sprang to life and Bill air-punched in his encryption code to activate his private channel. From there, he inputted Stephen’s direct line.
The connection shrilled but nobody answered. After three attempts, Bill gave up. He considered leaving a message but he worried about who might intercept it.
‘We can try him later,’ he said.
Laura didn’t look happy. She leaned against the wall. ‘I hope they’re okay. Do you think he knows about what’s going on?’
He didn’t think so. ‘If Gunnar is right, then the Indigene underground operatives have all returned to their districts and are in the dark too.’
Laura chewed on her thumb. ‘What if Harvey’s really after the Indigenes and the power outage is just a distraction? We should warn Stephen.’
Bill had been thinking about Harvey’s true motives ever since leaving the hospital.
He leaned back. ‘Why free Marcus, then? Why take Ben if his target was Stephen all along? He could have taken Stephen hostage when half of the district was sick. Instead, he administered the cure and allowed the Indigenes to regain close to their former strength.’
‘I know; it doesn’t make sense to me, either. But why Ben? The only connection I can think of is Stephen.’
‘The teen has a stronger connection to this city than Stephen,’ said Bill. ‘He used to live here. Harvey also freed Marcus, and that criminal scum has no leverage against the Indigenes that I know of.’
Laura paced the tight space again, slower this time. ‘Maybe Harvey wanted people he could control. And Marcus simply wanted Ben.’
‘Maybe.’ But he sensed there was more to it than that.
Laura stopped pacing. ‘What’s our next move?’
Bill stood with a sigh. ‘You keep trying Stephen. I need to pay a visit to Jeff on Five.’
He left her and entered the stairwell, taking the stairs down one flight to the fifth floor, where the AI was being kept. It was also the same floor with a private room and secret entrance to the city’s tunnels. Bill often met Gunnar and the other underground operatives in the room.
He found Jeff standing at one of the control panels for the AI servers, checking his DPad.
‘You wanted to see me?’
Jeff looked up. He was a pasty-white male in his forties. He spent most of his time indoors and it showed.
The head of the IT team nodded at him. ‘I thought you’d like a report on Susie.’
‘Susie?’ Bill asked.
Jeff grinned. ‘It’s what I call the AI program who runs the show.’
Bill blinked and folded his arms. He’d never understand techies. ‘What’s the report?’
‘Well, Susie hasn’t been able to re-establish a connection to the Wave or the sentient AI program controlling the power to Base Station One. That one station provides power to New London, New Tokyo and New Melbourne.’
Three cities covering six million people.
He uncrossed his arms. ‘About that, I’m concerned the renegades who issued the cyber attack might have stolen more than the control codes to the base station.’
Jeff frowned. ‘What are you worried about exactly?’
‘That the AI—Susie—has been compromised.’
Jeff let out a long laugh. ‘Susie? Not possible.’
Bill was no expert on IT, sentient programs or AI anything—hell, he even hated those avatars that came with the Light Box. But everything could be compromised—with the right help.
‘We need to consider all possibilities here. If the AI—’
‘—Susie.’
‘If Susie re-establishes the link with the sentient program controlling the closest base station and we get the city back online, we risk further attacks.’
‘That’s already been happening.’
‘Excuse me?’
Jeff pointed at a black box with an array of flashing blue lights. ‘Susie has been under attack since the renegades bypassed her secondary commands. They now control some of the sentient AI programs—including the one at Base Station One. They’ve been attempting to hack Susie’s primary commands ever since.’
‘What do the primary ones control?’
‘The security codes, the ship codes, personnel files. The secrets of this place.’
His heart beat faster. ‘And how likely are they to access them?’
Jeff lifted his brows, as if this news amused him. ‘Susie is not your usual AI.’
Bill sighed. ‘What do you mean not usual?’
He needed the facts, plain and simple.
‘She trained herself to recognise attacks and to hide from them. When the attack occurred on her secondary commands, she most likely turned herself invisible to the next wave of attacks on her primary system.’
That was the first Bill had heard of AI hiding from an attack. ‘When did the AI... Susie... learn to do that?’
‘It was before you took over. Charles Deighton visited this place once. I was just a lackey then but I remember he was all over this place, wanted to know the ins and outs, and where the vulnerabilities lay.’ He blew out a breath. ‘Paranoid son of a bitch... Anyway, he wanted a list of all areas where the AI could be vulnerable to an attack.’
With Deighton in charge of the World Government at the time, Exilon 5 had been more vulnerable to physical threats than cyber ones.
‘Who was Deighton worried about? This planet didn’t have the same threats back then.’
Jeff smiled. ‘Oh yes it did.’
‘From whom?’
‘The Indigenes. There were records of stock going missing. The crew assumed the Indigenes were simply curious, but Deighton said the race was trying to figure out their tech. He warned that while they existed, we needed to be smarter.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He ordered a bunch of us to hack our own system.’
‘That’s all?’ Bill had expected a better plan from Deighton than that.
Jeff shook his head. ‘It was a pretty brutal attack. It exposed Susie’s one weakness.’
‘Which is?’
‘Being made obsolete. Her biggest fear. We removed her responsibilities one by one, until she began to notice and put protections in place, to stop us from taking the rest.’
‘So now she hides?’
‘Whenever she senses an attack, yes. If you want a visual, think of a scared child hiding in the closet.’
Bill pictured instead one of the annoying sentients from the Light Boxes, manifesting in 3D form and hiding behind one of the servers.
‘Then what?’
‘She waits for them to leave and locks the door, so to speak.’
‘She makes the system secure?’
‘No, the system is already that. Susie learns from the attack and adds new layers of security, to prevent another similar attack from happening.’
Bill shivered at the idea of sentient programs having so much control. But for things to run smoothly, he needed them.
He thought about the damage the organic, free-thinking Nexus had inflicted upon the Indigenes. He thought about the AI personalities the Light Boxes created. After the final move to Exilon 5, Tanya—still in human form and chair of the World Government—had dedicated an entire ship run to transferring as much tech over as possible. It had been the end of Earth for them; the less tech on Earth, the less the criminals could do with it.
‘And what if the AI—Susie—goes rogue?’
Jeff laughed nervously. ‘I don’t think she will. But I also don’t want to find out what happens if she ever does.’
‘What about the Light Boxes in people’s houses or apartments? Are they still operational?’
The guy shrugged. ‘They were most likely disabled by the power outage.’ He patted the server unit. Susie has her own power supply. She will
be our best defence against the renegades.’
‘And how long before she’s up and running fully?’
‘It’s hard to say. She works at her own pace. That depends on the severity of the attack. There’s always a roadblock to recovery. It may take her a while to figure out how to get everything back.’
‘Well, the priority now is getting back control of the AI for Base Station One. But before you re-establish a link, I want Susie to check for any code that might be attempting to hijack the connection. The renegades may be counting on us to fix that connection.’
‘What I was thinking too. I’ll make sure she knows.’ He typed something on his DPad and the blue server lights turned red for an instant.
Bill stared at them. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means she’s not listening to me right now.’
Bill headed for the stairs. ‘Well, make sure you get the message through before she does anything.’ He walked backwards. ‘Her primary systems are to be protected at all costs. And update me when you can. Call me on my private line if you need to.’
‘Will do.’
Bill returned to the sixth floor, his office and Laura. She was sitting now, staring into space, her hands clasped on the desk.
He shut the door, breaking her out of her thoughts.
She looked up at him. ‘What’s the word?’
He filled her in on what Jeff had said about Susie. ‘Any luck with Stephen?’
She shook her head. ‘The connection keeps ringing out.’ She looked up at him. ‘I’m worried.’
‘Don’t be. Stephen knows how to handle himself. They all do.’
‘I know, but they’re like my second family. I should go to them.’
He came round to the other side of the desk and cupped her neck. She leaned into it with a sigh. Touching her, being near her, calmed him instantly. ‘We’ll try him again. It could be the lack of connectivity here that’s causing the issue. For now, let’s concentrate on things in the city. Things we can control.’
‘Is there any point in heading out to the base station?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so. Frank can’t access anything and the AI here can’t establish a link to the sentient program there. Yet.’
