“What’s our next move?” I said.
“You get the heck out of there, that’s what. We’ll figure out what to do next once you’re safely out of there. Matthias says the Canary should be there in a couple minutes,” Silverstein said.
I made sure no one was about before I started to make the climb back to the bodega’s roof. Silverstein stayed on the line relaying the Canary’s proximity to me as it got closer. I hung up with him as it broke the roofline in the distance slowing to descend on my position.
“See you soon.”
Chapter 12
Rural Georgia – Matthias’s Hideout
9:13 AM, December 28th, 2199
Ezra’s War Journal Part 3
The Canary sped me back across the seaboard toward where Matthias and my friends were holed up. The journey gave me time to heal, and think. At the time, I was pretty sure intel on both Finland and Arctic were setups. Madmar probably had plans inside of plans.
I hoped that between Matthias and Silverstein and what I’d told them, they’d have something figured out by the time I showed up. The whole thing struck me as odd, replaying what had happened over and over again in my mind. It was almost as though Madmar was doing this just to hurt Taylor.
The Canary came to a rest at last. The hatch opened and harsh artificial light spilled across the interior. I got a look at myself for the first time following all the action I saw in downtown Port Montaigne. I looked like hell.
“Oh my God, Ezra! What did they do to you?” Taylor exclaimed as she wrapped her arms around me.
“I’m okay. You should have seen the other guys.”
Taylor helped me out onto the concrete floor of the area Matthias stored all his vehicles. I looked around for Silverstein and Matthias, but we were alone. Taylor helped me to my feet and frowned at me.
“No, I didn’t bring any of your stuff. Didn’t even make it inside the building,” I said.
“It’s okay. I can always get more stuff. You’re a little harder to replace,” Taylor said.
It was good to be wanted. We walked the narrow walkways back toward the laboratory proper. Taylor was her usual bubbly and optimistic self along the way, but it did little to throw salve on my worry. I assumed Silverstein hadn’t told her what happened to Russ.
We entered the laboratory and made our way down to the work tables arrayed at the center. Silverstein and Matthias sat at one of the tables chatting quietly. I could tell by their expressions they weren’t expecting to see me so torn up.
“Ezra--”
“I’m fine. What’s the plan, Silverstein?”
“Matthias thinks Madmar has a self-sustainable facility up in the Arctic. He’s probably got contingencies set up there to make sure this economic shutdown goes down even if someone gets to the CGG servers in Finland.”
“Does he?” I replied, somewhat sarcastically.
Silverstein was somewhat taken back by my tone and looked back at Matthias. Matthias lowered his head, putting his hand head in hands before responding to my accusatory glare.
“I know he has a facility,” Matthias replied wearily. “There were a few isolated incidents with the MDC Project during the war. One resulted in an Arctic facility going dark. A team of Orbital Response Marines were dropped in, but were never heard from again”
Silverstein turned and looked at Matthias, somewhat surprised. Then he said what I was already thinking.
“Matthias, what is it you’re not telling us?” Silverstein demanded. “What is this really about?”
Matthias rubbed his chin, now covered with stubble and blinked his tired eyes at us. “This has always been about Taylor, I think.”
“Wait, I don’t understand,” Taylor said, looking at Matthias.
I walked slowly over to Matthias so I was standing right next to him and let my claws slowly slide out, clicking into place. Matthias just hung his head.
“Madmar needs Taylor to hack the orbital relays and the Moon Colony,” Matthias explained. “I’ve already seen to it that Mars and the outlying colonies are beyond his reach, for now. He’s doing this to hurt Dr. Helmet and me for pushing him out of the MDC Project.”
I bristled at the thought of anyone trying to hurt Taylor while simultaneously trying to grasp whether Matthias was a friend or an enemy.
“I should have killed Madmar when I had the chance, years ago. I knew he would never let this go. Every time he looks up into the night sky he sees what Helmet and I intended to leave behind as our legacy. He means to corrupt and control the two Lunar Control AIs,” Matthias said.
“And he will watch the world burn, consumed in this economic catastrophe in the process?” Silverstein asked.
“You tell me, you’re the one that set it all up,” Matthias replied coldly.
“Helmet is dead. Been dead at least a year if Madmar was telling the truth,” I said.
“No. Like everything, that too must be a lie. There’s no way he would kill Helmet before he’d taken control of the Lunar Control AIs. He wants Helmet and I to both see our creation taken from us and used for his own twisted purposes,” Matthias said.
I shook my head at the thought of what sort of madness could consume a person and allow them to seek vengeance in this way. At the time I had no idea how evil Madmar was, or what he was willing to do in order to achieve his goals. I still thought I was dealing with a human that had lost his way. What Matthias told us next was the first real hint at what sort of monster we were dealing with.
“The classified war and the invasion, does Madmar have the tech to fake something like that?” Silverstein asked.
“Yes. It would have fooled everyone except for a self-contained intelligent agent with access to their own satellite array,” Matthias admitted.
“How many people died in this fake war no one but CGG officials knew about?” Taylor asked.
“Hundreds of thousands, sent into space to die or starve. I can’t be sure honestly,” Matthias asked.
“Meanwhile, you sat here and did nothing?” Silverstein said, shaking his head.
“No, not nothing. I couldn’t let on that either I or the Lunar AI array knew anything about it. All I could do was try to expose CGG’s involvement to the right people. I looked for other idealistic individuals with the skills to pull the rug out from under the whole thing,” Matthias said.
“People like Vance Uroboros, A.K.A., Silverstein,” Taylor said, finding a seat at the table.
Matthias nodded solemnly. “I suppose, but Vance appeared to be at the game longer than I.”
“When were you going to tell us all this?” I flexed my claws.
“I wasn’t. I hoped that none of it would come to light until Taylor returned to the parent AIs on the moon. I was just trying to protect her,” Matthias said.
“You’d burn Silverstein and me to do that?” I growled turning my back to Matthias.
“Taylor eventually returning home is far more important than any one or two people’s lives,” Matthias said.
“Glad you feel that way,” I said before leaping on Matthias.
I took him out of his chair to the ground and wrapped one of my clawed hands around his throat.
“No!” Taylor protested, grabbing me around the arm.
Silverstein pulled her away as I turned my attention back to Matthias. He didn’t struggle, just laid there, looking up into my eyes. I nicked him across his cheek, taking in the aroma of his blood.
“It’s really you, and not some synthetic body double. That’s a bad move if you were planning on double-crossing us,” I said, looking over at Silverstein.
“A really bad move. If that were my plan, or if I operated like Madmar,” Matthias replied calmly.
I got down off Matthias and helped him up. He stood up and dusted himself off
as Taylor breathed a sigh of relief. Silverstein came over beside me, putting his hand on my shoulder. In hindsight, it was good to know someone had my back.
“Okay, Grampa, how do we stop Madmar, keep him from hurting any more people?” Taylor asked.
“We kill him,” Silverstein replied.
Matthias stood there, lost in thought for a moment, before nodding his assent. Taylor looked around in disbelief for a moment before storming over toward the door. Just before she hit the door, she turned and shot us a glance that made me wither.
“Isn’t killing Madmar going to make us no better than he is?” Taylor scolded.
Silverstein and Matthias just looked up at her, both unmoved by her question.
“Remember Russ, the guy who managed your apartment building? Madmar tortured and killed him,” I said. “He’s probably got Officer Collins, your boss Joe, and a few dozen other of your neighbors.”
Taylor stared at me angrily for a moment.
“It’s only murder when a human kills another human. This will be a Drone, a broken down old scientist, a terrestrial AI, and an amnesiac killing a monster. Madmar is a blight, even by downtown standards,” I said shaking my head.
Taylor’s expression softened as she began to understand that we were trying to protect her.
“What else haven’t you guys told me about what happened while Ezra was on safari in downtown Port Montaigne?” Taylor sighed.
I availed her of everything Silverstein was too soft-hearted to tell her. I described the look in Russ’s eyes. I gave her the details of the guilt he felt betraying his friend, and the terrible agony he felt before he died. I told her that my home, the place she’d lovingly decorated, and the rest of downtown, and the world, would not be safe as long as Madmar lived.
“Why are you telling me all this?” Taylor said, tears appearing in the corners of her eyes.
“He wants you to know so that you can tell your mom and dad when you go home to the moon. They need to be warned,” Silverstein said, pulling out one of his special cigarettes.
“I’m not going home, I’m going with you guys,” Taylor said pointing a finger at us.
“No, they’re right. It might be the only way to protect you and the Lunar AIs, your mother and father, from Madmar,” Matthias said, turning his chair upright and sitting down in it.
“I don’t ditch on my friends, so you can forget that noise!” Taylor growled.
Matthias pushed components from a screen on one of the table. He pressed a couple of buttons on the side causing the ceramic clad display to hum to life. He brought up a full color topographical of the world that showed every hill and valley, the position of day and night, and the path of certain satellites in orbit.
We gathered around the table quietly as he pulled up his data slate and started entering in information. Two areas on the map lit up, a point in the Arctic and one in Finland. We gazed at the two points unsure of what we were seeing.
“These translucent lines passing over these two points are orbitals critical to Earth’s defenses. Madmar was able to push through having them built in the wake of the war with alien invaders. These two points, the Arctic base and the CGG’s server farm in Finland are nexus points where, every 24 hours, these satellites pass overhead,” Matthias said in a hushed tone.
“There are gaps. Points when the satellites aren’t overhead and he can’t see what’s happening. Moments of sensory darkness,” Silverstein remarked after a few moments watching the patterns.
“You’re pretty good. Took me a day or two to figure that out, but you can tell just from looking a few moments,” Matthias replied.
“Naw, I was just guessing,” Silverstein replied with a smile.
“Right. The windows of sensory darkness do not correspond and there isn’t enough time elapsed between the two, even in my fastest transport, to get between both places in the same twenty-four hour period,” Matthias said.
“We’ll have to split up,” I said.
“Madmar is my problem, always was. I’ll go to the Arctic and try to deal with him. You three need to head to Finland. If Silverstein and Taylor can get access to the server farm, they might be able to avert this tragedy,” Matthias said.
“Won’t we need the catalyst?” Silverstein asked.
“The catalyst helps her to do things she can already do on her own. Taylor, you haven’t scratched the surface of your abilities. Given the right motivation, I have faith you’ll come through.”
“That stuff I was injected with, that made me run really fast, was that a result of the catalyst?” Taylor asked.
“I have similar questions about the catalyst as it was not of my design. Maybe it’s simply another lie to obscure Madmar’s true motivations?” Matthias mused, motioning for his digital assistant to bring him a data slate.
“I hadn’t thought of this before, but like any computer, and the human body itself, there will be a sort of record of all she has endured, maybe even a log,” Matthias held up his data slate, pressing the palm of Taylor’s hand to the glass display. After a few moments he reviewed the data. He smiled slightly as he slid the data over to Silverstein.
“Catalyst is a misnomer, one that even misled Madmar’s own unwitting agents. It was a sort of virus, written to take control of you,” Silverstein said after reviewing the collected data.
“While I can’t discern the catalyst’s exact nature, it apparently failed to override your free will. Your own body does keep a sort of log detailing the basic responses to everything it encounters, probably to add to your findings when you return home to the Lunar AIs. They tried to take control of you and the nano-machines that comprise your body deployed powerful countermeasures to protect itself. Even collecting this data was difficult, requiring software I wrote myself,” Matthias continued, reviewing the information displayed on his data slate.
“Why would they need so much catalyst if they were just trying to control Taylor?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“I suspect as you do, that Taylor is not the only terrestrial intelligent agent left wandering the Earth. Others must have survived,” Matthias replied.
“You’ve only got one Transport down there Matthias, and I don’t think you’re going to ride in the Canary all the way to the Arctic,” I said.
Matthias nodded. Taking back his data slate he tapped across the screen. Red warning lights began to flash as a section of ceiling opened up. A lift began to descend, bearing a large suit of matte black powered armor to the laboratory floor.
“What is it?” Taylor asked, putting her hand on the suit.
“S-AC Aquiline Class Jump Trooper Combat Suit, designed by Victor Seraphim,” Matthias said looking up at the ominous hunk of metal. “It is a sleeker version of the S-A0, outfitted with a refraction field, and modified for stealth. It’s completely invisible on radar and thermal imaging. Silent as a ghost, the joints collectively moving to produce less than three decibels of sound. The suit provides the wearer with increased strength allowing the use of heavy weapons. It comes standard with thermal imaging, light amplification, laser targeting technology, a fully encrypted communications system, and an AI based computer system that warns the user of dangers while automatically redirecting the refraction fields to intercept incoming attacks. Victor Seraphim only manufactured one hundred of these special suits. Less than twenty five survived the war.”
“You’ll need it if you plan on taking Madmar by yourself,” Silverstein remarked.
“It’s a one way trip. I don’t plan on coming back,” Matthias stated plainly.
Taylor looked back at him, her face filling with worry.
“If we fail and this economic disaster takes place, the world will need Mechanics, tele-mechanical psychics like yourself, to put the world back together again. I don’t see how this is a good plan,” S
ilverstein said.
“Agreed,” Taylor and I said almost at the same time.
“My choice,” Matthias said heading up the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Taylor asked.
“To suit up, we’ve got precious little time,” Matthias said, exiting the laboratory.
Silverstein furrowed his brow in deep thought, trying like he usually did to put all the variables into place. He turned to Taylor and I pulling out his mobile. He waited for a moment then started scrolling through some text on the display.
“You guys trust Matthias?” Silverstein said.
“Nope,” I replied without hesitation.
“I don’t know,” Taylor said with great trepidation in her voice.
“There’s nothing in the news about what happened in Downtown. There’s not even a blurb. What if we are underestimating Madmar and our role in all this? He could have key individuals around the globe replaced with synthetic replicas, and a lot more control over the situation than we realize,” Silverstein remarked.
“What makes you think that?” Taylor asked.
“It’s what I would have done in his position. Heck, it’s probably what I did do by cloning myself. I’ve been trying to figure out why I had so many clones set up to age at different rates. At some point I had his whole game figured out,” Silverstein rambled angrily.
“That is weird,” I replied.
“Unless, the clones being different ages wasn’t intentional. There is some piece of this puzzle that just doesn’t fit. One of these things is not like the others,” Silverstein said while he paced back and forth.
“It’s time to quit thinking about what Madmar might be doing and worry about what we are going to do. I suggest we get whatever we think we’ll need, get on the transport and head to Finland, and try to put a stop to this mess,” Taylor said.
She was right. We couldn’t keep trying to grasp for direction through unknowable things. We started going through the laboratory and the vehicle warehouse for supplies. Then, we went out and picked enough fresh fruit and vegetables to last us the trip and beyond.
Uroboros Saga Book 1 Page 18
