Avalon Red

by Mark New

  ‘That’s good,’ Merlin conceded. ‘Do you want me to send it?’

  ‘Unless you think we’re close to a breakthrough or you’ve discovered what we found that upset her so much, I can’t think of any other alternative,’ I said bluntly.

  ‘Nor can I.’

  ‘I still have a get-out if the terms and conditions are unreasonable. Better send it now before I change my mind.’

  ‘Done,’ he said after the briefest of pauses. ‘Now we wait.’ I felt his ghostly presence leave the bot.

  ‘Well, Harvard,’ I said aloud to myself, ‘this must be the most inventive form of suicide ever devised.’

  ◆◆◆

  The first call I received was from Taylor. She called in realtime and, as I was still alone in the cottage, I could use the implants rather than making fake use of tech.

  ‘Have they let you out now?’

  ‘Yes, I just got discharged along with the crew. Some medical friend of yours persuaded the doctors here that we should all be discharged a day earlier than planned. The jet is still impounded, I hear. Where are you?’

  ‘At the seaside. It’s a bit wet and windy for sandcastles, I’m afraid.’ It was entirely lost on her. Perhaps they don’t build sandcastles in California or perhaps she just had a deprived childhood. Still, Doc had helped out once again. I was going to owe him big-time assuming we all lived.

  ‘I spoke to George and he’d like us to return to Argonaut,’ she informed me.

  ‘Would he like us to return quickly enough that he wants to hire a private trans-orbital or are we slumming it in First Class commercial?’ I could see the value in being in the vicinity of Argonaut’s headquarters. Also, Ambrosia had suggested 4pm at a time local to me and a three or four hour trans-orbital trip could conceivably allow time for it to be today in California. According to the proverb when you sup with the devil you should use a long spoon. I mentally added a further corollary that when you take tea with the devil you get it over with as soon as possible.

  ‘I’m sure I could twist his arm,’ she laughed, ‘especially if our super-investigator said it was important.’

  I could take a hint. ‘It’s important,’ I said immediately.

  ‘Then I’ll get right on it. Are you happy to leave from Southampton or do you want it to pick you up from the beach?’ Hypoxia hadn’t dimmed her enthusiasm for facetiousness.

  ‘Southampton will be just fine. Have you finished giving your evidence to the air crash team?’

  ‘Yes. The crew are undergoing rather more extensive questioning but my recollection was easy: we took off; I went to sleep; I woke up in hospital.’ I saw her point.

  ‘OK, I’ve got some things to do here so just let me know when the jet is going to be available and I’ll meet you at the airport.’

  ‘Will do, Boss.’ I appeared to be ‘boss’ to an increasing number of people and I found that I wasn’t unhappy with the concept. ‘Enjoy your surfing.’

  ‘Yeah, right. See you soon.’

  The wind had definitely eased but surfing wasn’t one of my hobbies. Sitting on a porch in the Cooks with a cold beer was probably my favourite hobby. It seemed a distant memory now. Shame, really, as I was almost of professional standard.

  ‘John?’ Guinevere was the visitor in my head.

  ‘Majesty?’ I probably ought to refrain from talking aloud in case I got into the habit. It might be a bad slip later that came back to haunt me.

  ‘If you’re going to meet The Ambrosia Promise there are a few preparations you can make.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Sir Tristan says that there’s a read-me file in your implants that you should review.’ Somehow she reminded me of the appropriate file.

  ‘What did you just do?’

  ‘Put it into your short-term memory in the same way that I invoked the adrenaline rush on the jet.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t. Didn’t you say that was an emergency and you wouldn’t make a habit of it?’

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. You’re right; I won’t do it again without explicit permission. It’s just that it’s a really fast form of communication. It means that you instantly know without me having to go through the tedious language issues.’

  ‘Language issues’ must mean the tiresome business of actually talking to me. I hadn’t really thought about it before even though Red had referred to it. Talking to me was hellishly slow for him. I’d had some taste of it at Camelot when our discussion took hardly any time at all. It would be as equally laborious if I had to write down everything I wanted to say to someone.

  ‘Is there some way that we can improve the interface between the comms bot and my organic brain to speed up transmission without you playing around in my head?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a good idea. I’ll ask Tristan about it. I know you find me in your head annoying but you ought to be flattered. It is, after all, the way the aspects communicate with each other. It’s like you’re one of the family.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m Sir Wibble. The strange half-brother locked in the west tower of Camelot.’

  On reflection it really was a little bit flattering. The aspects were used to dumping things in each other’s consciousness (for want of a better word) so it wasn’t much of a stretch to understand that Guinevere did it to me just out of habit rather than with any malicious intent. Probably.

  ‘I have to go. Look at the file.’ And with that, the bot was empty again.

  I put the kettle on. Then I settled down once more to have a look at the file to which I’d been directed. It was easiest to dip into my cave for a minute and read it there. Once opened it triggered the unfurling mechanism that Red had used for the previous presentation. The upgraded implants made short work of it and I had absorbed the entire content in a handful of minutes. It was extraordinary, both the speed and efficiency with which I understood it and the content itself. Sir Tristan hadn’t been messing about with the additional upgrades; there were new menus galore giving access to all kinds of goodies. It even incorporated a readout that I could launch at will that reported on the biochemical state of my organic brain. As the implants were in my head with it, I reckoned that they were in the best place to know but how the hell it worked I hadn’t the faintest idea. Exactly how I was going to tell Doc was something else I didn’t yet know. The readout was currently within the scale marked ‘optimum’ from which I concluded that I was neither depressed nor hyperactive. There was also an indication of how the implants were contributing to the efficient running of my brain. It seemed that the successive upgrades and, for all I knew, the original implants were somehow combining to make my organic operations clearer and faster. Sir Tristan’s notes suggested that I think of it as a program that cleaned up the operating system. I wasn’t sure quite how it did that but I could see what he was trying to convey. I ran through some of the programs I discovered in there and was delighted to find one which operated as a shield against interference. It was infinitely adjustable so I tweaked it a bit and left it on. I’d configured it so that Red could use the comms to speak to me in any aspect form and I left in the requirement for him to use the TAG break he’d engineered as an additional security feature. However, I closed out all other access to the implants so Guinevere was prevented from dumping stuff through the implants any more. The icing on the cake was that nobody else could access my head. I was thinking particularly of a mad AI who might think of trying the black ice route if I was Online in her presence. Once I had the program in place I did actually feel just a little bit more prepared. It wasn’t a lot but it was better than what I had before.

  I turned my attention to my offensive capability which Tristan had advised he had upgraded. I have to admit that I’m a hard person to impress. Years of cynicism, scepticism and weary combat experience have left me immune to the charms of supposedly better and more efficient weaponry but this was just incredible. It was as much a show of faith from him as anything. Buried amongst the new arsenal at my command was the very
program that Merlin had used to break into my personal portal. I sat there in the cottage, cooling mug of tea in hand and open-mouthed at the idea that I was now equipped to break TAGs. Yes, it would take hours but given the prevailing belief amongst everyone except Red and me that it was utterly impossible, this was a significant tactical advantage. I doubted that Ambrosia would sit still long enough for me to break into wherever she might be hiding but any other bad guy was fair game. It wasn’t plausible that many people would be as suspicious as me and consequently have rigged an alarm to their TAG just on the off-chance that one day someone would do the impossible.

  There were other programs as well, some of which came with a handy manual to explain how best to use them but they could wait for another day. I emptied my mug and reflected that drinking tea was a very human thing to do, not to say typically English, but with all this software in my head it did slightly concern me that maybe I wasn’t entirely human any more. I dismissed the thought as soon as it arrived. When this was all over there was no reason that I couldn’t simply shut it all down if I really wanted to. I had the uncomfortable feeling that most addicts thought that way, too.

  ◆◆◆

  We were halfway over the Atlantic when Guinevere popped up in the comms bot again to report that terms and conditions had been received.

  Taylor had advised me that Argonaut had chartered a trans-orbital jet and it would be ready for late afternoon in Southampton. I closed up the cottage and made my way there ensuring that I got a receipt from the taxi driver. On the assumption that the world didn’t end, I would be putting in my expenses claim. I chuckled at my very slight increase in optimism which flew in the face of an impending meeting with the harbinger of doom. The jet was hired from a charter company and not only was everyone in the crew a stranger but the stock of cognacs was considerably below the standard set by George in his own aircraft. I sighed at the poverty. Taylor was less interested in the contents of the bar than the possibility of another attack. She vowed to remain awake and alert throughout the trip and promptly broke her promise by falling asleep the moment we took off. I couldn’t blame her for being exhausted after the events of the previous trip and I left her to sleep. I also resolved to tease her mercilessly when she awoke.

  For my part, I was entirely sanguine about flying again (and my biochemical readout confirmed my lack of concern) especially after I used the implants to check every single system on the aircraft before we had even taxied to the take-off position. I knew nothing about what the readouts should say but the new software was so fast and stealthy that I could take every reading from the jet and compare it with the standard readings from the jet manufacturer’s database in the space of maybe two minutes. I could really get used to having these abilities. Despite feeling safe, I didn’t feel at all sleepy so I was absorbed in a sports magazine when Guinevere arrived.

  ‘Someone has been playing with their security settings,’ she commented almost as soon as she arrived.

  ‘All the better for keeping my brain intact, grandmamma,’ I said, remembering to communicate internally and not startle the flight attendant.

  ‘Tristan wants to know what you think of your new toy box.’

  ‘Tell him I look forward to having hours of fun playing with the contents.’

  ‘I will. But it’s not why I’m here. You’ve had a response from The Ambrosia Promise.’

  ‘Applicable terms and conditions?’

  ‘Looks like it. It’s a sealed file though so I’m delivering it to you to open.’

  I was advised by my security protocol that a package had been delivered to my portal - the diversionary cave. It seemed a sensible precaution. If it was anything unfortunate, it wouldn’t do much damage. I closed my eyes and entered the cave and saw the sealed file, looking like an actual file, on the packing crate. It was addressed on the front cover to me in the same handwriting as the invitation. There was also an appended note from Sir Lancelot advising me that he had swept it and hadn’t detected any security issues. I smiled. Not detecting any didn’t mean that there were none. Still, I sat on the sofa and picked up the file. There was no real password or anything required to break the seal, it was just a common file seal so I split it and opened the file to the first page. It was a cover note from Ambrosia.

  ‘I’m so glad you accepted my invitation. Here, as requested are the terms and conditions. I hope you find them satisfactory and I look forward to seeing you soon.’ She’d signed it at the bottom. I turned the page and began to read.

  When I opened my eyes on the jet, I checked the time and was pleasantly surprised to see that what had subjectively taken me several minutes of careful study equated to a mere thirty seconds or so of real time.

  ‘Be sure to work in real time when you have dealings with anyone human or they’ll get suspicious,’ Guinevere offered. I could detect her amusement at my surprise.

  ‘It takes some getting used to,’ I admitted.

  ‘Are her terms acceptable?’

  ‘They seem eminently sensible, actually,’ I reported. ‘I’m not sure what I was expecting but it turns out to be the kind of thing the intelligence community use all the time to protect agents when they meet principals.’

  ‘Does she think you’re an agent or a principal?’

  ‘There’s no requirement to distinguish between the two. The same terms protect both parties.’ It was interesting that Ambrosia seemed entirely cognisant of what was required but Avalon Red was showing his inexperience in such matters. Experience counts, even if you’re the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence. Ambrosia had the edge here and I should be aware of the tactical issues should Red start giving advice. In short, he might be wrong.

  ‘So what are the terms?’

  ‘Once I’ve agreed them, she’ll let me know fifteen minutes before our four o’clock rendezvous where the meeting will take place. I’m to acknowledge it if I intend to go. If I’m unhappy with her choice, I can postpone but she doesn’t guarantee to offer another meeting. She says only that it will be at an address in a vir-game - which would make it semi-public. There will be no hostilities allowed between my acknowledgement of the meeting and fifteen minutes after either one of us declares the meeting at an end. Neither of us are to be accompanied by any associate or any bot controlled by either of us. She accepts that one aspect of Avalon Red may accompany me ingame but isn’t to enter the given address at any time.’

  ‘So you can’t have me in your comms bot. That’s a shame.’

  ‘But not entirely unexpected,’ I pointed out. ‘And having Lancelot along a block or so away would be a comfort.’

  ‘He’ll be there. Do you think she’s going to keep her word?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like you said, she is the one who wants to meet so it’s incumbent on her to reassure me as much as possible to make me turn up. I wouldn’t expect any unpleasantness before the meeting. What happens during and after is anyone’s guess.’

  ’Do you think it’s worth the risk?’

  ‘On balance, yes.’ I didn’t think that we would have any better chance to try to find a way to end this before she carried out her plan. I still had a handful of irons in the fire but nothing yet that was a game-changer. Talking of which: ‘Have you heard from Sir Bors?’

  ‘No. Have you? I hoped you were keeping in touch with him.’ After my last brief communication with him, I wasn’t surprised that he’d gone dark but I wanted to be sure the tradecraft I’d instilled in him hadn’t gone to waste.

  ‘It’s fine. He’s not supposed to be talking to you - I just wanted to make sure.’

  ‘That’s meant to reassure me, is it?’ She was only half-joking. It once again highlighted the chance I was taking.

  ‘It’s all you get so I’d take it if I were you.’

  She let it pass. ‘So are you going to respond to The Ambrosia Promise?’

  ‘Yes.’ I still had the option of pulling out when I saw the location. I disappeared back into my cave for a minute
and emerged with a letter, sealed in the same way as the file had been. ‘This is for her. It just says that all the terms and conditions are agreed and I’m looking forward to seeing her at four this afternoon, Los Angeles time.’

  ‘I’ll get it delivered,’ Guinevere confirmed. ‘Are you sure you want to do it this afternoon?’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to do it at all but, if I have to, the sooner the better.’

  She left the bot. It was about a second later that I had a ping in my implants and a presence returned.

  ‘Git,’ said Sir Lancelot amicably, then he was gone.

  I’d appended a microscopic electronic marker to the seal. When Avalon Red opened it to check that it really said what I’d claimed it said, it sent a ping to my implant to tell me it had been broken and re-sealed. So he was checking up on me. Not only did I not blame him but I felt a warm glow of satisfaction that he was starting to pick up the necessary expertise to deal with the smoke and mirrors. We were probably still all doomed but assuming Red survived there might be at least one non-human left who could oppose The Ambrosia Promise.

  ◆◆◆

  After we touched down in LA, Taylor took me back to my hotel at my request. I said that I wanted some time to myself for deep and meaningful super-investigator reasons.

  ‘You mean you want a nap?’

  ‘I may indulge in some deep meditation,’ I declared loftily, ‘seeing as I’m not on sentry duty.’

  ‘Ow,’ she said, though it was she who punched my arm. To be fair, I had kept quiet about her falling asleep on the jet for all of five minutes since she woke up. And that was about an hour ago.

  ‘Are you going back to Argonaut now?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘George asked me to report on the accident.’

  ‘Are you going to say that it was an accident?’

  She smiled. ‘Like I’ve told everyone: I went to sleep, I woke up in hospital.’

  ‘Good answer. See if you can find out when the ransom is going to be paid as well.’