by Cam Daly
He sat up and made a minute adjustment to his vest. “Young man, we went through the other recordings you mentioned and made a thorough accounting of every single piece and part we could find. We recovered all the rest of it. But the unit you saw was the only one which appeared to be largely intact. And at some point after you saw it, it disappeared. We don’t have it. We want to know if you saw something that might tell us who does.”
The Senator paused for a moment to let that sink in. There had been a huge number of people at the Dogpatch site, from all the different emergency services in the city and nearby. There hadn’t been any living victims near the meteor impact point, so the footage was from the edge of the blast radius. “Maybe during the clean up, someone scooped it up with a backhoe and didn’t notice it. Have you checked the rubble piles?”
Maxwell seemed a bit exasperated by the question. “Have we checked…? We had people from my team scour the area after the casualties were addressed. VSE had a team on the ground. The Senator’s office even sent over some experts from Homeland Security. Before the next morning, someone took that Knight and it hasn’t shown up anywhere.”
Kery spoke for the first time in a few minutes. “Knight? Is that what you call them? Perhaps if Connor could see one in person, it might jog his memory.”
“Out of the question.” DeVries seemed angered by the request.
Maxwell turned to Senator Ormlan once more. “If it helps get to the bottom of this, I think it’s worthwhile. We were planning to unveil them soon anyway.”
The Senator seemed to ponder the question for a moment, then nodded his assent. “Have them send one up here. No need for our guests to dirty themselves down in your basement.”
Maxwell pulled out a phone and gave orders to someone to bring a Knight to the conference room. DeVries excused himself to make a call from the hallway, while Senator Ormlan took the moment to clean his glasses with a well-worn handkerchief.
Connor found the gesture strangely comforting. “So you’re hoping that I'll remember seeing something, or someone, out of place? Something that wasn’t obvious from the spectral data recording. And that will let you figure out what happened.”
Ormlan held his glasses up towards the light to inspect his handiwork. “Young man, we can already deduce ‘what happened’. That’s always the first question people ask, but it isn’t the most important.”
Maxwell finished his call. “We need to know who did it.”
Ormlan slowly and deliberately folded his handkerchief. “That is a critical detail to determine, and right now ESWAT has no leads. But what we really need to answer is…”
Kery finished for him. “Why.”
Ormlan pointed at her with a look of pleasant surprise, a teacher acknowledging a star pupil. “Exactly. ‘Why’ will tell us a great deal about ‘who did it’ and ‘what happened’. That is the question we need to answer.”
A heavy knock sounded from the door that DeVries had gone out. Maxwell smiled in expectation. “Enter.”
#
As soon as the door started to open, Keryapt’s sensor alarm went off. She had just barely been able to hear murmurings from DeVries’ phone conversation in the hall, but the thing entering the room had been inaudible as it approached. Now it was actively scanning the slice of the room in front of the opening door.
Still seated, and without looking away, she yanked her attache case off the floor with her left hand and inserted her right forearm all the way to the bottom of it, preparing for a fight if the thing was actively hostile. Connor was focused on the door and apparently didn’t notice the speed of Kery’s action.
Shadow had, and prompted the Active on their private audio channel. “Stay at 3x. Stay cool.” If Keryapt accelerated her mental processing rate, it might give away her non-human nature as heat escaped her cranial pod through her superconducting hair.
The door continued its inexorable swing open, the area of active scanning growing wider and wider until it enveloped her. She kept her own active sensors off, certain that any signal from her would be treated as a precursor to a hostile act.
The Knight drone was moving in slow motion compared to her perception as it walked through the door. Its matte black body was roughly of human proportions, smooth armor covering its framework and actuators. This unit’s hands were empty and it didn’t have the disposable missile system that Mezerello had encountered, but it was definitely the same model as the ones that attacked her.
Connor was struggling to his feet, gaping mouth and wide eyes a clear indicator that he had never encountered an automaton such as this in person. The Knight’s face was an asymmetrical tangle of cameras and sensors, with armored plates folded back along the sides of its head. The Interloper’s combat control system was automatically cataloging the estimated capabilities of the unit as it turned to face her.
The Knight’s active sensors washed over her, scanning every inch which wasn’t blocked by the table. She felt it as a tingling on her synthetic skin where it was exposed, almost irritating but not enough to trigger a reflexive response. Shadow gave her details. “Short range infrared, human grade rangefinder system. Active electromagnetic transmitters, using local network frequencies. Mass around a hundred kilograms. No weapons detected. Musculature tech unknown, but no more than 20% of your physical strength. Get your hand out of the Gunsleeve.”
Keryapt’s forearm was lined up with the metallic ribs along the side of her “purse” and it would take only the briefest of movements to wrap them all the way around, arming the weapon.
Maxwell had risen to his feet, his features a mixture of pride and awe. “I never get tired of seeing them move. So lifelike. Mr. Senator, we are going to do great things with these drones.” He didn’t seem to notice that Ormlan was still seated, staring at Keryapt intently.
“You don’t seem so impressed, Miss Lee. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
That Active didn’t reply immediately. Shadow tried to goad her into some sort of response. “Keryapt! This is apex technology for them. Say something!”
The Knight continued to stare directly at her. She was paralyzed, trying to remember if she had ever been in a situation quite like this. What should she do? Were the six legged mechs in this building as well? If they realized what she was, would they just detonate another antimatter device?
“Snap out of it!” Shadow’s shout shook Kery out of her trance. She slowly and deliberately pulled her hand out of the bag and placed it back on the floor, then rose to her feet. If the Knight hadn’t detected any hint of her Interloper body yet, it probably wasn’t going to. She approached it, affecting an air of curiosity.
Ormlan rose to his feet as well and walked around Maxwell to the humanoid drone. Keryapt studied it up close, gathering visual data on its armor, range of motion and access ports. “I’ve seen so many things like this in the movies. It almost seems surreal that this is the first time I’ve actually seen one.”
Ormlan laughed at Maxwell’s sour face. “I told you, Todd. Hollywood has ruined your audience. People will expect it to fly and shoot lasers.”
“Wait until they see a squad in action. No one will laugh at that.”
Mezerello had seen a squad of them in action. Keryapt wasn’t laughing.
Shadow interrupted her inspection of the Knight. “We’ve got…something…a data event - happening there. A background check on the Lee identity.”
“So? We expected that.”
“Not like this. This seems above local tech level. It's a massively parallel search, including multiple real time voice calls. Someone suspects you aren’t who you say you are.”
The timing couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone in the room or watching through the Knight’s sensor system was a member of, or somehow connected to, one of the advanced races with a presence here on Earth. Almost certainly the same group that had killed Mez.
DeVries re-entered the room through the door that the Knight had left open. Keryapt was painfully aware that her Gunsleeve
s were on the floor under the conference room table, at least a quarter second away. She wished the Interloper had some sort of built in weaponry.
CHAPTER 3
She tensed for DeVries to come across the table at her, but the tall man headed back to his seat. When nothing happened for another moment, she switched her sensorium to the Planning Stage.
A colored web of the social graph for Kery Lee floated in front of Shadow, bright orange pulses vividly revealing where the unknown attackers were searching for contradictions or unexplained dead ends. Blue barriers sprang up on the display as she watched, showing where Shadow’s team was actively intercepting calls and messages to convince the enemy that Kery was a real person.
Shadow noticed her presence. “We’re holding them off, for now, but they will find inconsistencies if they keep pushing. Don’t answer any personal questions about where you lived or what your favorite restaurant was. The humans have too many different record and data storage systems for us to have altered them all.” She executed a quick hand motion which reduced the entire graph to a single value, which stood at 20%. “That’s how far into your background they are. The more of the dead ends and discrepancies they discover, the more likely they will decide you aren’t who you seem.”
The wall of the Planning Stage which showed Keryapt’s view in the real world was split between the Knight mech and DeVries. Keryapt added the discrepancy value into the corner of her own field of vision. “Any thresholds I should keep in mind?”
“We don’t know who we’re up against. Amongst the likely threats? Craven would’ve taken action already. Slightly less paranoid races like Vreen, Meliarch or Tetatotetot would probably be somewhere near 30. Molu above 40, maybe even higher. Or, it could be someone from farther away.”
Keryapt knew the numbers were just speculation, but let the Planning Stage add Shadow’s thresholds for the different races to her own readout. She switched back to the real world, where Connor had finally taken a few steps closer to the Knight.
He reached towards it slowly, but when he was a half meter away the armored panel on either side of its face snicked forward to form a protective mask over most of the sensors. He jerked his hand back. “Wow. I definitely did not see one of these walking around that night. But now I see why you call them Knights.” He moved from side to side and watched the thing’s head track him.
A second later Shadow sent an image to Keryapt of a medieval knight’s helmet, explaining his comment.
DeVries didn’t seem to take any more notice of the Knight in the room than he had of the injured woman in the video clip. “Okay, he’s had a good look at it. Are we done here?”
Maxwell ignored the comment. “Mr. James, your cameras were made for short range work, and it was a dark night, so there's a lot that we couldn’t make out in the video. Did you notice anyone who might have been acting like they were looking for something, other than the injured people? Or anyone taking materials away from the area?”
Keryapt’s readout jumped to 23%. Whoever was behind the background check wouldn’t necessarily be anywhere near here. All the advanced races had entanglement communications which would let them operate a remote from whatever hiding place they wanted without fear of detection or jamming. Especially the Craven - if they were operating on Earth then they would be physically located in the last place anyone would look.
Connor took a moment to think before replying to Maxwell. “At first we all thought it might be a little briefcase nuke, like the ones that got used in the middle east last year, and everyone was afraid to get near or touch anything. But they told us there was no radiation. It still would have been really obvious for anyone to go carrying something away, though. I would remember that.” He thought to himself for a moment. “There were a bunch of guys in suits kind of coordinating everything and looking around without doing much real work, but they all seemed to be FBI or Homeland Security.”
27%. Shadow’s team couldn’t keep up with the rate at which human records were being trawled for information on Kery Lee. Keryapt returned to her seat and lifted the attache case back to her lap. If the Lee identity was compromised, she didn’t want to be in this room with one or more unknown opponents. Without using her active sensors she couldn’t tell if one of the three apparent humans was an advanced remote, disguised as well as her Interloper. Or they could even be occupied units, like a Meliarch samesuit or Molu familycraft. The Knight itself could be a facade, hiding something more dangerous inside or just a bomb of some sort. At this range she wouldn’t survive any attack from Fleet-equivalent technology. The smart decision was to get out of the room.
“Gentlemen, it doesn’t appear that Mr. James has any real information to offer you. You clearly have a lot going on, so we will let you get back to your work. If anything more comes to him, we will make certain he contacts you.”
Connor looked crestfallen at her abrupt announcement. “But…I was thinking that, now that I know about the Knights, I could do more to help.”
Maxwell pressed a few buttons and the Knight turned to leave. “Young man, we have an active investigation into this apparent theft. Homeland Security is not taking it lightly. But Miss Lee is right, there isn’t anything else that a civilian like yourself could do.”
28%. Keryapt stood, keeping an eye on the Knight as it opened the door it came through. DeVries followed it without any sort of farewell. She felt a wave of relief as the tingling sensation caused by its sensors faded.
Senator Ormlan took Connor’s hand to shake it and guided him to the opposite door. “We appreciate you coming in here to help us out. Obviously this is all classified, but we know we can trust you to not say a word to anyone. We will take care of everything.”
Connor acted as if it were a great honor to shake the man’s hand, so Kery made sure to follow suit. She would take all the DNA samples she could get, for later analysis with those of Maxwell and DeVries. DNA from the cells that she automatically shed were engineered to show characteristics consistent with her appearance.
“Keryapt, one of the techs has come up with an alternative escape plan. In case you think you might be under imminent risk of attack.” Shadow had a team of Analysis & Observation technicians working for her on the Labworld Command ship. None of them were Actives, but they had sophisticated support systems for Labworld missions which could gather and manipulate data faster than Shadow could.
“I’m not certain about imminent attack. But tell me, quickly.”
Keryapt and Shadow both accelerated to ten times normal processing for a few seconds while Shadow explained further. “Ruut has discovered a guard there who roughly matches your physique and is in a personal relationship which we could use to get her alone for at least ten minutes. You could switch to her identity and be back in San Francisco before anyone realizes it. But it would definitely compromise the Lee identity.”
At one tenth normal speed, watching Connor turn away from the Senator and open the door was almost comical. She decided she didn’t want to risk the tell tale heat build up to learn more - she trusted Shadow and her team on this type of matter. She knew that if the Lee identity was compromised then it could mean a lot more questions for Connor, but it seemed likely to happen anyway. And that might shed more light on who was behind the Dogpatch incident. “Do it. Where am I going?”
Shadow superimposed a path on Keryapt’s vision, leading further into the building. “Women’s bathroom. Your Dove remote has eyes on the target.”
Keryapt had positioned the ersatz pigeon near the front windows of the building with a view of the check in area. She switched to that view and saw the one female guard there check something on a phone, say something to the other guard at her post then head into the building towards Keryapt’s location. She slowed herself back to three times normal speed and double checked that her cranial thermal levels hadn’t risen significantly.
Connor paused for a moment outside the closed conference room door and stared off into space for a moment. K
eryapt let him stand there, eyes on him but paying attention to the young guard as she rushed past them. The woman was talking to someone in a hushed but clearly distressed voice. “I’m at work. Hold on. Just hold on! Let me get someplace private.”
The guard’s passing seemed to stir Connor. “Sorry - I just needed a second. That was all very…weird.” He paused again. “What next? We just take the ferry back, I guess?”
“You go ahead. I need to use the restroom and might arrange another appointment as long as I’m here. Maybe I'll catch up to you.”
“Oh. Okay.” He seemed a little lost. She had managed to extract a little more than half of the spectral data from his card while holding it, and suspected it would reveal that he had been exposed to a lot more injury and pain than the few seconds she had seen in the conference room. “I guess I'll hear from you later?”
From his bio signs in the meeting, she was nearly certain that he had been lying about deleting the data. It might be possible for her to retrieve the rest of it from him if she asked in the right way, assuming he wasn’t imprisoned somewhere and being interrogated about who she was. “Probably. I'll contact you. You should probably head back to the ferry now - the next one leaves in a few minutes.”
It would be good for him to get off Alcatraz before the enemy decided that Kery Lee wasn’t a real person. The discrepancy readout was at 31%. Above the marker for Vreen, Meliarch or Tetatotetot to make a decision about her background.
She turned and headed towards where the guard had just entered the women’s bathroom. Connor headed the other direction. “Shadow, what’s the situation with the guard?”
“Follow her into the bathroom. Through social media connections and hacked message data, Ruut figured out her boyfriend has been cheating on her. I’m pretending to be him, calling her to confess in a way which will make her very emotional. In a few minutes I'll pretend to be her and call him, confronting him and causing a break up which will make it highly unlikely they will compare notes about the calls. We almost have a full voice sample from her for you to use, but try to scan her ID badge before you switch to her appearance. On the way out you can tell her boss that you aren’t feeling well and leave on the same ferry as Connor. By the time she comes out of the bathroom, you’ll be back in the city.”
