The Ascension Myth Box Set

by Ell Leigh Clark

  “Off-world. A fresh enough start for you?”

  “You mean, outside the System?” Crash asked, a glint in his eye.

  “That’s right.” Joel was watching his reactions carefully, studying his every inflection and mannerism now he’d established a baseline in Crash’s behavior.

  “Hell, yeah. I’m game for that!” He appeared genuinely excited. Joel was relieved. He liked the guy, but he wasn’t going to bring anyone on board who didn’t want it 150%.

  Joel nodded and leaned forward. “Okay, let’s have a chat about where this project is going, and what your duties might be…”

  The pair talked for nearly two hours, far longer than Joel had intended they would.

  Joel was thinking about ordering some mochas, but then his eye caught the time on his holo.

  “Gosh, is that the time? I have another interviewee showing up in five minutes.”

  “Not for my job, I hope?” Crash said playfully. Joel could tell there was a note of seriousness behind the comment, though.

  Good, he thought.

  “No, we’re going to need a good mechanic to keep us up in the sky,” Joel admitted, setting Crash’s mind somewhat at ease.

  “Anyone I might know? Service is a big family.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t disclose that at this point. Not unless you both end up in the roles. You understand.”

  “Yes, of course. Of course. Sorry, curiosity.” Crash rolled his eyes at himself as he shook Joel’s hand. He wanted to kick himself for being so…forward.

  “Okay, so I’ll be in touch very soon, if you’re successful; then we’ll be looking to move fast. As in next few days fast.”

  “That works for me,” smiled Crash, showing the whites of his teeth. His enthusiasm was barely contained. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

  “Great! Speak to you very soon.”

  Joel watched Crash leave the bar, then sat down again to study the notes on his next candidate.

  Downtown Spire, Senate Council Building

  Molly had been waiting in the parking space for a good twenty minutes. Luckily, she had an excellent view of the building. What’s more, the quick patch she had written and had Oz install on Paige’s holo was working like a dream. She could listen in on anything around Paige, and as long as there was a reasonable XtraNET signal, she got a clear reading.

  Molly, your system seems to be running junk processes. Is everything okay?

  Yeah, everything is fine, Oz. You’re probably just picking up on me being a bit nervous.

  What would cause that?

  Well, I’m nervous about Paige going into this building, after potentially already being exposed. I’d feel much more comfortable grabbing her and Garet and getting them the hell out of here. But then they’d never be able to come back, and Dewitt would be able to continue doing whatever the fuck he’s doing as long as he pleases.

  So, you’re feeling guilty for putting her at risk?

  Molly realized there was another reason Oz irritated her, and it didn’t have anything to do with the restrictions he made on her actions. It had everything to do with his increasing ability to call her out on her shit.

  Facing reality was becoming such a bitch.

  Yes, Oz. I’m feeling guilty, but that’s not a good enough reason to not do this.

  Oz fell silent, like he was churning. Molly wondered if it had anything to do with her altering his code at such a late stage of his development. Heck, who knew if it was even possible for the human mind to rewrite an AI’s code, once it had taken over rewriting itself. She hoped it wouldn’t do any damage to him. That would make her feel really bad.

  At least it had seemed to work. He hadn’t raised even a question when she set up some trades on the markets last night. And now he was monitoring them for her, and hadn’t resisted her direction at all. Maybe it was going to be fine.

  Just then, Molly caught sight of Paige’s pale blue atmosuit breezing past her car. She had a mocha in her hand, and the same bag she had with her last night.

  There’s our girl…

  Right on schedule, I believe.

  Correct. Wanna pull the security cam footage to make sure she isn’t being followed by anyone?

  Can do.

  Oz started processing, and Molly got an alert on her holo.

  Looks like we’re proud owners of a new XC-0094B! She announced to Oz.

  That’s great! I can’t wait to drive that, too.

  Molly rolled her eyes at the hilarious resemblance between the AI consciousness and an adolescent boy.

  They’re going to let us know when we can take possession, but they said no more than forty-eight hours if everything checks out with the paperwork. You wanna make sure that the paperwork goes through okay?

  On that, too. Regarding Paige, it doesn’t look like she was followed.

  Okay, great. I’m going to pull the car around to another location so we can monitor her communications until she comes out at lunch time. This is going to be a looooong morning.

  Downtown Spire, Senate Council Building

  Four hours and fifty-four minutes later, Molly was convinced she could never work a normal job. In just one morning, she had heard all about Margretina’s new boyfriend, why Jaquire wasn’t talking to Elsie, and what Elsie really thought of Robert, her boss.

  She was also privy to all kinds of minutiae about the docudramas that normal folk feasted on each night, only to discuss them in meaningless detail as they drank mocha and gossiped in the hallways. Molly would have been amazed if anyone in that building ever got any work done.

  She certainly didn’t hear Paige doing much.

  She hoped to hell that at some point she had managed to download the files they needed, though. Otherwise this would all have been for nothing.

  Alert and parked on the other side of the road now, Molly watched and waited for Paige to emerge. Two minutes after she heard the elevator doors open, Paige stepped out onto the sidewalk and turned right as instructed.

  Molly pulled out into traffic and followed along, aiming to intercept her on a corner. She pulled across the other lane of traffic and turned right into a side street, right in Paige’s path. Paige saw her turning across the traffic and slowed her pace to wait while Molly pulled into the side street.

  “You going my way?” Molly grinned at Paige.

  Paige ran around to the passenger’s side and hopped in, unzipping the top of her atmosuit to make herself more comfortable.

  She was smiling, clearly relieved.

  “Did you get it?”

  “Of course!” Paige’s grin widened as she made sure the door was shut.

  Molly looked around at the traffic. “Honestly, the amount of gossiping you girls do in there, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to find time to do the download.”

  “Ah, I did it while I was talking to Elsie. No one would suspect I was up to no good, sitting there with the PA of the COO of the company.” Paige winked.

  Molly shook her head, smiling, as she pulled the car onto the strato highway, to take them back to the safe house.

  Two minutes later a second car with blacked out windows followed them out of the same side street.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, a holo call was being made.

  “Erik for Mr. Dewitt, please,”

  Erik listened as his holocall was passed through to Dewitt’s holo. The call was connected. After a little scrambling on the other end of the line, and rustling of fabric, Dewitt grunted. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Dewitt. Your employee, Paige Montgomery, left the office at lunchtime, and was picked up by a human female in a dark blue vehicle. We followed them about fifty kilometers west of Uptarlung, to a small village, before we lost them.”

  “So you think they’re based nearby?”

  “More than likely, sir. Yes.”

  “Start canvassing the area, but be discreet. We don’t want people r
ecognizing her picture when she disappears.”

  “Yes, sir. Discreet, sir. Got it.”

  “Let me know when you get a lead on her.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Dewitt clicked the holo closed, and rolled over in bed.

  “Everything okay?” Kasandra asked, snuggling herself up against Dewitt’s chest.

  “Yeah. It will be. Looks like the girl was a traitor. She downloaded data and left the building. My guys have just watched her being picked up in the middle of the day, and they’ve tracked her to somewhere outside the city. No doubt she’s running.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I’m sorry, honey.” Kasandra stroked his chest, now deep in thought. “Honestly, you think you know someone and they go and betray you…just like that. I hope you find her.”

  “We will,” sighed Dewitt. “We certainly will.”

  He stared up at the ceiling, enjoying the quiet of Kasandra’s bedroom. The silk sheets and the sweet smell of her perfume always transported him far away from the troubles he had to manage on a daily basis. This time, the trouble felt a little more difficult to shake.

  That’s all right, he thought to himself. It will all be over soon.

  Chapter 15

  Safe house, fifty kilometers west of Uptarlung

  Molly wandered into Joel’s room. He was packing up his kit and had been talking through some details with Paige about her job with Dewitt.

  “Anything you can think of might help us,” he told her, as he packed another weapon into his kit bag.

  “Okay. I’ll keep thinking.” She acknowledged Molly at the doorway as she turned and headed out towards the kitchen where Garet was working away on the pod drive.

  “You look happy.” Joel noticed the big, satisfied smile on Molly’s face. He couldn’t help but smile back.

  She arched her eyebrows, “Well, we are the new proud owners of an XC-0094B.”

  “We got the ship?” He confirmed, the little gears in the back of his head running ahead full tilt.

  “Yep. We can go and pick it up in a few hours. Just waiting for confirmation. Wondered if you’d made a decision on the guys you met? Either any good?”

  He stood up, a small bag in his hand she assumed was going into the kit next. “Yes, both. In fact, I was waiting to check with you before we made them offers. But as far as I’m concerned, both our first choices for pilot and engineer are good to go as soon as we’re ready.”

  She looked around his room, tidy and neat. “Well, let’s get them confirmed, and then perhaps they can meet me down at the port to pick this baby up tonight? I have no idea how to fly a space-going ship!”

  Joel shrugged, “I’m sure they’ll be up for that. I told them it was going to be a quick turnaround if they got the job. I’m guessing we’re not leaving the system yet?” Joel looked concerned. Things had been moving awfully fast around here since their first meeting in the bar only a few weeks ago.

  Molly turned around to check where the door was and took a step back. She leaned against the frame. “No, we just need to take possession and do a maintenance check.”

  She noticed he was talking with his hands, but each time they came together, he would grab the little bag like it was a ball he was about to throw. “Okay, so I know that Garet’s funds have paid for some of the down-payment, and Oz managed to find some creative financing…but you’re buying a goddamn spaceship. Those don’t come cheap, no matter which way you cut it. So what about the rest of the payments that will be due? And what about these two salaries we’re about to take on?”

  She waved his concern away, “Oh, I’ve been working on that. It’ll be covered by the time they all fall due.”

  Joel had been about to put his bag in his kit but stopped and turned back to her. “How? What do you mean? We’ve got a new client?”

  This time, it took a second for her to answer. “Kinda. Sorta. Er. No.” Molly took a breath before answering, “I’ve been trading in the markets.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You mean the stock markets?”

  “Yeah.” She agreed.

  “I thought we agreed that was out?” he asked.

  One nod was all he got from her. “We did, but we need money to fund this operation. It’s not scalable, just using client money from ops here and there.”

  There was something else. His training in body language kicked in, and he caught something else flicker across her face. Was that…fear?

  “What aren’t you telling me, Molly?” he asked, not taking his eyes off her.

  “Nothing.” Molly hesitated, suddenly realizing that he was going to have a problem with this.

  “Molly…” His voice was firm, and a little demanding.

  She pressed her lips together, then went for broke. “Okay Joel, I found that if I had a bit of intel from inside some companies, then I could perfect the trading model I was using and generate the cash we needed much faster.”

  This time, the bag he was holding was thrown on the bed as he raised both hands in frustration. “You’ve GOT to be fucking kidding me!” He turned to look her in the eyes. “You know that’s called insider trading, right? That you can go to jail for that, for a very long time? And now,” he pointed to himself, “you’ve pulled me and my company into it, by buying your assets through me, dammit!”

  Molly froze, suddenly realizing the impact that one decision could potentially have. Joel was still monitoring her expressions.

  He could see she hadn’t even considered these consequences until he was standing here spelling it all out for her.

  He was about to speak again when she jumped to defend herself, her face flickering back into her normal operations mode. “Right now, in the short term, we need cash to get us off-world and start building an operation that is going to do some good. And keep our people protected at the same time!”

  He took a step closer, but lowered his voice, “That’s not a justification Molly. That’s not how this works. You should have come to me first, so we could talk this through.”

  Joel was fuming.

  Molly dropped her operations face again and her posture shifted, leaving her looking like a little girl who was feeling guilty for doing something terrible.

  “It didn’t cross my mind.” she admitted quietly, looking down.

  Joel kept up his hissing questions. “And how the fuck did Oz not stop you? I thought he was wired for ethics, or some shit?”

  Molly’s voice was now flat. “I disabled him.”

  Joel’s neck was pumped, and she could see veins standing out like he was lifting weights too heavy for him. “You fucking did what?”

  Joel didn’t say a word. He turned around, took a step over to his bed and grabbed a t-shirt, wringing it in his hands, his packing forgotten.

  Molly, her voice still quiet, continued. “Well, just the ethics code. I think I managed to isolate it so as not to affect anything else. I’m not sure if it’s disturbed any part of his personality, but he’s stable.”

  In describing her logic, she looked less vulnerable. More neutral. Even though Joel was upset, his training kept him alert. He was learning a lot about her through this interaction. And through his anger, he saw a way to reach her, through logic and rules.

  “Molly, you can’t just alter the system just because you don’t like the limitations it puts on you.”

  She blinked twice, “Why not?” she asked blankly.

  “Because that’s exactly what these fucks in the political system are doing. That’s why Andus and the Syndicate have all the power they want, because when the laws don’t agree with them, they just fuck people over until they change the laws. These are the very justifications they use to do all the awful things they’ve done.” He answered.

  “This is different.” She justified, without even pausing.

  “Damn right, this is different. This is worse. Oz is alive. He’s the first living fucking entity of his kind, and you’ve gone and screwed with h
is code because it suited you.”

  Molly was silent. Shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her that what she was doing was so fundamentally flawed by all these other factors.

  Joel watched her face as she processed this new perspective. Time to push the lesson home, he thought.

  “Tell me something, Molly. What if I get in your way? What if I don’t agree with you? Would you reprogram my personality? Or kill me?”

  “Joel, that’s…that’s ridiculous.” She was scrambling for some logic to fight back with, but coming up with nothing.

  He cocked his head and looked her in her eyes. “Is it? I’m not so sure, at this point.”

  He dropped the t-shirt down on the bed and left the room, carefully sidestepping her when passing through the doorway. Had it been anyone else, anyone with more understanding about what they’d done, he’d be more furious than he was.

  But having seen what he’d just read in her micro-expressions, he understood it wasn’t entirely her fault. She just didn’t compute things like most people did.

  The only consolation in all of this was because he was paying attention, he may have given her the logical foundation to start the formation of her own internal moral code.

  Shit, this is like programming a human, he thought to himself, thinking back to all the ways that he’d learned to influence his teams in the past.

  Of all the work he’d done with those squaddies, this was by far the most clinical and logical discussion he’d ever had. And man, he knew something about squaddies who could get tangled up in their own thoughts.

  He shook his head, calming down quicker than he expected. Still, he needed some space.

  Molly, stunned and emotionally bombarded, just turned and sat on his bed next to where his shirt had landed. Half in a daze, crying inside, she stared blankly into a space, one hand subconsciously stroking his shirt.

  A moment later, she heard the front door open and close. Then silence.

  A tiny tear tracked down her face.

  A few blocks from safe house, fifty kilometers west of Uptarlung

  “Let’s try the next place.” Erik walked determinedly back down the garden path from the last house, having just had the door slammed in their faces.