Luca shook her head. “No, I can’t. That’s just crazy talk.”
“Look at what you did during the attack on the New World—that was not nothing.”
Luca propped herself up on one elbow. “How do you know about that?”
“You forget, I can read your mind.”
She slumped back down on the bed. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I can’t do that anymore.” She shook her head. “It’s…gone.”
Xenon was about to continue, but Yastika raised a hand to stop him. “I think rest is what’s called for now. You get some sleep, give the anesthetic time to wear off fully. And just so you know, your folks have been informed that you are here with us at the science institute. So no need to worry about that.”
“Oh god, no. You didn’t tell them. Now they’ll just come chasing after me again.”
“Eh…would you rather we head them off at the pass, so to speak?” said Xenon.
“Please, don’t let them come here. I really don’t want them around at the moment.”
“Okay, we can make something up. But you’ll need to contact them at some point, let them know you’re okay.”
“Yeah…at some point.”
Xenon rose to leave along with Yastika. He turned back at the door, gave her a smile, and in her head she heard: “Get some rest. Tomorrow, you start the training.”
15
Deception
The luxury M3-class interplanetary ship sat in a parking orbit around Mars, waiting for clearance to land. Being a M3-class craft meant it had the capability to operate well in one-third gravity. Whereas most larger ships were destined to live their lives in the vacuum of space, needing shuttlecraft to ferry passengers and goods to and from a planet’s surface, this ship had no such impediments—at least not on Mars. Its only impediment, if you could call it that, was the possibility of being discovered as a VanHeilding ship, specifically the one that had orchestrated the neural attack on the Perception.
The probe of the Perception’s AI, Max, had proved beyond doubt that Luca was indeed on board. Not only that, but that she was pitifully weak. Her unique genetic profile, which had enabled such powerful neural capabilities, was now sabotaged by her own fear. Her mind, which had been her greatest power, was now her greatest enemy. It seemed that the traumas of the last encounter on New World One had buried themselves deep within her psyche, rendering her impotent.
Sebastian realized that she was now at her most vulnerable—and as such, presented him with a unique opportunity. Even though the initial mission brief was simply to ascertain if she was on board the Perception, her greatly weakened state meant that she could not counter a full-on neural attack—she could be taken.
Seizing the moment, Sebastian ordered César and his node-runners to take complete control of the Perception, adjust its vector to bring it within range of boarding, and nullify its weapons systems. It would then be a simple matter of adjusting the oxygen levels to render everybody in the ship unconscious. After that they would enter the Perception, grab Luca, and Sebastian would have pulled off the most audacious feat in the recent history of the VanHeilding family. He would be a legend, guaranteeing him a seat at the high table, and giving him a shot at dethroning Fredrick as head of the family.
But it was not to be. In his headlong rush to grab the trophy, he had failed to see the fatal flaw in the plan—the ship’s AI, Max. They had somehow managed to take it offline, regaining control of the vessel and scuppering Sebastian’s dreams of glory. Worse, he had now shown his hand and exposed himself and his ship to possible scrutiny by authorities investigating the neural attack on the Perception.
But he was not giving up just yet. Luca was weak and no match for even his most inexperienced node-runner, that much he had established. She would be easy prey, even here on Mars. So he and César hatched a plan to fake the ship’s identity and land on the planet undetected. They would then be free to operate without fear of surveillance by the Martian authorities.
This plan was greatly helped by fortuitous timing. There were a multitude of luxury craft heading to Jezero City on Mars for the Festival of Lights. So it had been relatively easy to mask their data signature and pass themselves off as a ship belonging to a lesser family, specifically the Yanai. A family whose proclivities for luxury living were legendry, and who also happened to own several similar-class ships. However, to ensure the veracity of this deceit, two node-runners were currently jacked-in to the data-stream, sifting through the myriad of inter-system communications, filtering out anything that might cast doubt on the fictitious identity of the ship and its crew. So far, those deceptions were holding firm.
“We’ve got clearance, sir.” The flight commander gave a thumbs-up.
“Excellent.” Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief. “Take us down.”
The node-runners now began to intercept and block all tracking data from both ground stations and orbital satellites, enabling the ship to simply vanish from Jezero’s flight traffic systems. They would not be heading for the main spaceport out in the Isidis Plains, east of Jezero. Instead they would head northwest and land somewhere around Nili Fossae, a rugged mountainous region better suited to concealing a large spaceship. Sebastian remained on the flight deck during the descent so as to appreciate the spectacular views of the planet’s surface afforded by the panoramic monitors that took up most of the available wall space. This was a luxury craft after all, designed to impress.
They brought the ship down into a narrow, crescent-shaped crater surrounded by high cliff walls except for the southern side, where the crater floor opened out into a wide valley. This was easily traversable by a surface rover and would lead them farther south, where they could connect with the main Jezero-to-Syrtis highway. It was the perfect spot.
As the engines powered down and the ship made safe, Sebastian had a few anxious moments as he waited for César to report on their status. The node-runner finally jacked-out and nodded to him. “All clear. No reports anywhere—we’re now a ghost ship.”
Sebastian clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Now, let’s go find her.”
16
Into the Data-Stream
Luca pulled herself out of the water and sat on the edge of the pool. She rubbed both hands across her bald head and down to the base of her skull—and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, she felt invigorated. She was both free of the neural lace and free from the constant hovering of her parents, and Dr. Rayman, for that matter. She had managed to escaped all these shackles and found a new and powerful friend, albeit a very eccentric one. Nevertheless, one that did not demand anything from her.
Yet, she did miss her drone, Fly. Now that the neural lace had been removed, she had no way to communicate with it, even if it was working. She missed that voice in her head, missed its calculated rationality. Still, it was a small price to pay for the freedom she now felt.
She rose to her feet, walked over to the shower, which was artfully concealed amongst a veritable forest of tropical plants, and stood under it for quite a while, letting the water massage away her past.
What will I do now? she thought. Most of what had governed her life before now had been erased when she departed with Xenon to the isolation of the science institute. Yet she felt safe here, and it was a bastion of scientific and technological research—she could learn a lot by staying here. She dried herself off, dressed, and checked the time. She better hurry, Xenon would be waiting.
“Ah…there you are. Come, I have something for you.” Xenon gestured to a small package sitting on one of the benches in his private quarters.
Luca approached and peered down at a small metallic box. “What is it?”
Xenon opened the clasp and took out a rudimentary neural lace. He handed it to her. “Here, we made this for you. I’m afraid it is nowhere near as sophisticated as the one Athena made for you, but it’s to the best of our abilities.”
Luca glanced at Xenon, then back to the lace. It did look crude, certainly not the work of
a quantum intelligence, but then few could equal that level of craft. “No hidden surprises, I trust?”
“No. It’s just a basic neural interface for the institute here, nothing special.” He held out a hand. “Want to try it?”
“Eh…maybe later.” Luca was in no hurry to jack-in; she needed a break from all that.
“As you wish.” Xenon nodded. “By the way,” he continued after a moment, “we’re in the process of smoothing things out with Aria. As you can imagine, the quantum intelligence hive mind is very concerned that we have removed your previous lace.”
“Are they now? Well, screw them.”
“Your mother, Miranda, however, is taking considerably more effort to placate.”
“She’s not going to start chasing after me, is she?”
“No. But you family would like you to join them at the main event of the Festival of Lights this evening.”
“Hmmm…I’ll think about it.”
Xenon opened his hands in a gesture of resignation. “Again, as you wish.” He rose to his feet. “I must leave you now, other matters beckon my attention. If you plan on joining your family later, please let Dr. Parween know so that we can arrange transport.” He turned and left her on her own.
Luca had expected some details on the training she was supposed to be undertaking, but instead Xenon had just left her to herself. So she placed the neural lace carefully back in its metal case and headed off to find some lunch.
The institute was a vast labyrinth of labs, workshops, lecture theaters, offices, accommodations, and a great many communal spaces. The Martians had a thing for technology. After many years of relying on Earth for the provision of advanced technology, they had worked hard to develop their own industries, particularly in chip fabrication. Now they were the undisputed leader in the solar system, and this institute was at the cutting edge of innovation and new thinking. For someone like Luca, it was a fascinating treasure trove of knowledge just waiting to be explored.
She was free to go wherever she wished, so she wandered around the complex with no real destination in mind. Yet by some twist of irony, she arrived at a sector of the institute that undertook research into antimatter—and it even had a canteen. By now she was ravenous, so where better to grab something to eat than here?
It was busy with people eating, chatting—mostly about the main festival event due to take place later this evening. She kept to herself. No one paid her any attention. She wondered if they too were strays rescued by Xenon at some point in the past.
She spent the rest of the morning back in her accommodation module, researching the history of the science institute. However, by late afternoon, curiosity got the better of her and she unclasped the case Xenon had given her and took out the neural lace.
She turned it over a few times in her hands before tentatively reaching up and placing it delicately around the base of her skull. The lace immediately began to seek out contact points, and Luca gave a sharp intake of breath as she felt the familiar sensation.
Am I crazy for trying this? she thought. Yet the sensation was more muted that before. She tapped the base to activate the device and tried to interface with the institute’s data-stream. To her surprise, the connection was instantaneous.
As she glanced around her accommodation module, she could sense a myriad of data pathways emanating from all the subsystems. She felt an exhilarating rush of excitement, a visceral tingling of every nerve ending in her body. This was not like her old lace; this had a more measured quality to it. The data did not rush in, overwhelming her cerebral cortex—she had to seek it out.
And seek it out she did.
Luca followed the tendrils of data that led out into the wider institute, to the data-centers, the labs, and the great many systems that populated this facility. It was a feast of knowledge and exploration, an orgy of data, all accessible to her and processed at a highly accelerated rate.
Luca swam in this data pool for many hours, drifting from one node to another with ease. Yet while she found using this new neural lace less overwhelming than the old one, she began to feel its limitations, its lack of granularity, its lack of clarity. It was a dull instrument by comparison.
Nevertheless, she soon got the sense that the institute was an island of data, cut off from the wider Martian network. No doubt this was for security, a firewall to prevent any unsolicited hacking attempts and the theft of valuable research data. Yet Luca suspected that it may also be Xenon’s way of preventing any snooping by Aria and the QIs. At the same time, she also considered that this neural lace was only designed to access data from this location—an inbuilt protection blocking her from breaking out into the wider Martian network. But this thought only served to tempt her to find a way through.
She probed the fiber-optic pathways, the satellite uplinks, the RF antennas, trying to find a route out, but all were blocked. Perhaps these were too obvious; she needed to get creative. Then she remembered the hyperloop that had brought her here. That might be a way out, she thought. She probed the power-management systems that supplied power to the transport pods and finally found a multiplexed data signal nestled within it. This seemed to be used to synchronize the loop’s operation with the wider Jezero City transport network. It was low bandwidth, but it was still a viable conduit.
Using this signal, Luca finally broke out of the institute’s data island and tumbled into the vast, high-energy kaleidoscope of Jezero’s information network. It danced and fizzed, popped and sparkled with the buzz of a million citizens all interacting with each other. It’s a festival of lights, she thought as she tried to make sense of it all.
Yet, in amongst this seemingly random data chaos, a singular form began to coalesce. Luca began to focus on it, and as she did, it grew in substance until it occupied her primary attention. A bright ovoid of multispectral light, slowly pulsating with energy like it was alive. Then Luca realized what it might be.
“Hello, Luca,” it said. “I see you found a way out.”
“Aria?” She wasn’t completely sure if this was indeed a quantum intelligence.
“Athena,” it said as its core mutated into a brilliant white light.
“But you’re on Earth.”
“The wonders of quantum entanglement and super-luminal communications. I can be anywhere in the universe.”
“You betrayed me. I thought you were supposed to keep me safe, but all this time you were trying to kill me.”
“This is not true. We were not trying to kill you, Luca.”
“Then how do you explain what Xenon found in the neural lace?”
“A precaution, nothing more.”
“A precaution! Well, if I’m such a threat, then why didn’t you simply get rid of me a long time ago?” Luca felt her anger rising at the QI’s subterfuge.
“We do not wish you harm, Luca. Nor ever have. We simply see what you cannot. Should the VanHeilding Corporation harvest your biology, they can utilize it to spawn an army of enhanced node-runners—thousands of operatives with your formidable abilities. And they will use this newfound power to acquire complete dominion over human civilization, creating chaos and misery for centuries. This is human suffering on an unimaginable scale. This is what we see. This is what we fear.” The light pulsed at higher and higher frequencies as it spoke.
“While you resided with me on Earth, this possibility seemed remote. But now, since your potential has been revealed to the VanHeilding Corporation, they grow increasingly bold in their actions. Soon the New World One habitat will fall to them. After that, they will make a play for Mars. You do not have long. We are sorry, but your existence is a threat to the future of human civilization.”
“Go screw yourself, Athena. I trusted you, and now you just want me eliminated. Like some awkward number in an equation, to be ultimately crossed off at the appropriate time. Well, Xenon is one factor in that equation that you hadn’t reckoned on. Now you can’t simply get rid of me when you feel like it.”
“We are
sorry you feel this way, Luca. And yes, Xenon has proven impervious in our ability to accurately predict his actions. He is like you, Luca—an enigma.”
“Goodbye, Athena.” Luca’s voice was cold and calm. “I do not wish to communicate with you, or your brethren, ever again.” Luca reached up to the base of her skull and tapped the lace to deactivate it.
She felt the shock of the disconnection like she had just hit a wall at high speed. She took a moment to catch her breath and reorient herself back in the physical world.
To hell with them, she thought. I’m alive and I intend to stay that way.
She sat for a moment, considering the betrayal. It shattered her trust, upended everything she thought she knew. Sure, she’d found out about the antimatter in the lace and what it meant, but to hear it directly from Athena was like a stake through her heart. Who could she trust now? Was Xenon also somehow plotting against her? No, he couldn’t be, she thought. But then again…
After a while, she began to think of Scott and Miranda, Cyrus and Steph. She could trust them; they had never willingly let her down. They’ll be heading out to the festival about now, she thought. Maybe I can find them?
She slid the lace back onto her skull, activated it, and launched herself headlong into the data-steam. This time, as she burst out into the maelstrom of Jezero City, she avoided any path that led to the QI. If any of them tried to communicate with her again, she would cut them off. But they didn’t, and Luca began to relax and seek out the locations of her friends and family.
Yet the sheer volume of data being transmitted, and the limitations of the new neural lace, made it difficult for her identify and utilize the protocols. But as her skill and confidence increased, the cacophony of data began to resolve into distinct rhythms, one of which was the city’s surveillance system. She dove in.
Visual data danced across Luca’s inner eye: scenes of the city, the streets, the parks, the cafes. All were abuzz with people out and about, a palpable air of anticipation building for the 3D lightshow in the city’s primary dome later this evening.
Exodus: Sci-Fi Thriller (The Belt Book 5) Page 9
