Binary Storm

by Christopher Hinz

  Still, such lapses shouldn’t be an issue. The doc claimed that even a radically different countenance was no guarantee against occasional mnemonic leakage. As long as it didn’t happen in the heat of battle, Jannik’s mind would rationalize such moments and not attach undue importance to them. Everyone daydreamed and experienced random odd thoughts, not just those with falsified memories.

  His backstory had him being born in Berlin-sec but immigrating to Algeria as a child along with his big brother, who’d raised him and who had been as close to a father and mother as Jannik had ever known. Following the brutal murder of his sibling by an assassin under the sway of the Royals, he’d needed a change of scenery. Moving to Philadelphia, the story went, he’d worked a series of odd jobs and become fluent in English. But always he’d dreamed of avenging his brother’s death.

  Because German was Jannik’s native language, it was more deeply ingrained than most other aspects of his personality. That had led to the decision not to try concealing his Teutonic heritage and to give him another German name. Doc believed that would help him better deal with any prototype memories that seeped past the implanted filters.

  His command of English was part of a standard language matrix embedded during the neurosurgery and assimilated via a high-speed diction program. He’d adapted well to his cloned dialect, displaying only a faint accent and the periodic use of a German word or phrase.

  “We are more than good, Nick?” he uttered, alternately snapping his fingers. It was another oddity, possibly a habit from his binary life. “We are ready to kick arsch!”

  “Yeah, you’re almost there. Binaries, watch out! I can’t wait to see you get some payback.”

  “Payback, ja!” He did a 360-three sixty degree pirouette on his back heel, came to a jarring halt and repeated the snapping routine. “We are whirlwind fast. Lightning in a bottle! A donnerwetter on the prowl!”

  His speech was as frenetic as his movements. The doc had expressed some concern about that but Nick wasn’t worried. Everyone had quirks. As long as they didn’t impact his reactions under fire.

  “Whirlwind fast, definitely,” Nick said. “But there’s one thing we should discuss, Jannik. That hesitation with the Cohe. My instruments are still picking up on it.”

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But I’d feel a lot better if you’d work on a fix.”

  “A fix?” Jannik looked puzzled. “How can I fix something that’s not broken?”

  “Not broken. Just something that needs a bit of refinement.”

  “Unnecessary. Trust me, it’s not a problem.”

  Nick tried another angle. “Remember what you quoted to me the other day. ‘The man who seeks perfection is the man who seeks the ultimate truth.’”

  “What are you talking about? I never heard that before.” He grinned. “Did you just make that up, kleiner mann?”

  Nick didn’t care that Jannik called him “little man,” which he’d been doing since the awakening. But he felt a tinge of worry about his reaction to the seeking perfection quote. It was another implant, meant to inspire Jannik to strive to achieve peak performance levels. But now he was claiming not to remember it.

  Nick repeated the quote. Jannik snapped his fingers.

  “Words are meaningless, it’s all about action. And I say we are ready for some! So how about it, give us a greenlight. The team is ready to hunt twofer!”

  He whirled to face the others. “Right?”

  “Yeah, mate,” Slag offered. “We’re good.”

  Jannik spun back to Nick. “See? They know. All we need is our first target. Let’s get out of this scheifhaus. Let’s kill us some tways!”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Jannik. And it’s going to happen soon. But the thing is, I believe you can still improve–”

  “Let’s kill us some tways!”

  “Yeah, man, I know you’re eager. But I still think–”

  “Let’s kill us some tways! Kill us some tways. Kill us some…”

  He trailed off. Vacant eyes stared straight ahead as if he was in a trance. Nick reached out and touched his arm.

  “Are you all right?”

  Contorting with sudden fury, Jannik pulled away from him.

  “Dummkopf! Dummkopf! Dummkopf!”

  He screamed the word over and over at the top of his lungs. Slag and the others roared to their feet, hands reaching for holstered weapons.

  Nick took a step back and slipped a hand into his left pocket, grasped the trigger for the hidden smartnet. He’d had the soldiers disguise the net in a light fixture and mount it to the gym ceiling prior to the first training session. Its software was keyed to one of Jannik’s mnemonic cursors. All Nick had to do in an emergency was pull the trigger and the net would drop and enshroud its victim. The cords were coated in a fast-acting knockout drug activated on contact with skin or clothing. A full dose would put a man down in three seconds flat.

  If this didn’t qualify as an emergency, Nick didn’t know what did. Yet he hesitated. Once that net came down, Jannik’s trust in them would be shattered and everything they’d done thus far thrown out the window. They’d have to start from scratch, subject him to fresh neurosurgery and implants, and with the added worry that worse behavioral glitches would surface – a common problem when a second round of mnemonic falsification was required. Factoring in recovery time and having to start from scratch with the training sessions, the team would be set back weeks, perhaps months.

  Jannik snapped his fingers madly and began pacing in wide circles. The circumference of the circles shrank, spiraling inward. He picked up speed, reached a full gallop. His head darted behind him as if looking for someone. Each time he realized no one was there his face crumpled into an agonized expression.

  His actions were clear to Nick. Subconsciously, he was looking for his tway. Whatever mnemonic misfires were occurring, they were swiftly getting out of control.

  Nick’s remaining doubts were vanquished. He depressed the trigger.

  The smartnet exploded from its ceiling pouch with a hissing bang. Blossoming into a three-meter wingspan, the net swept down upon its target.

  But Jannik was quicker. He launched the Cohe into his waiting fingers. The black beam whipped upward, slashing wildly. He cut the net into three pieces before it could touch him.

  The largest piece retained enough homing savvy to land on his left side. Its cords wiggled and thrashed, tightening as they entangled one of his arms and legs. Jannik twisted like a madman, frantically trying to break free.

  “Nein! Nein! Nein!”

  His protests morphed into a piercing scream as he flogged at the net with his Cohe. He cut through enough cords to sap the net of its remaining intelligence. It fell to the floor and writhed for a few seconds before expiring.

  The knockout drug had oozed from the net the moment the cords touched him. He hadn’t received a full dose but it was enough to render his movements sluggish.

  His pain and rage had dissipated, replaced by a haunted look, like that of a child who’d just learned of some horrid parental betrayal. Nick was surprised to realize that Jannik’s expression was tugging at his own emotions. A sense of guilt touched him over his role in creating such a false persona, a persona that was now crumbling.

  Jannik pivoted slowly to face the team. Slag, Basher and Stone Face had spread into a triangular attack configuration and had their thrusters trained on him.

  Even physically impaired by the drug, Jannik would still be dangerous in a firefight. He could maim or kill the team, making a bad situation far worse.

  Silence gripped the gym. The only discernible sound was the faint hum of four crescent webs.

  Nick had a second emergency device. But it was only intended to be used if all was lost, if no hope remained for salvaging and reconfiguring the tway’s memories and endowing him with a fresh personality.

  As much as Nick hated admitting it, they’d arrived at the point.

  He tapped the
side of his neck, activated his attaboy. A shiny scarlet button, recently installed, glowed ominously in his mind’s eye.

  Jannik turned his back on the team and faced Nick. Their eyes met. The haunted look was gone, replaced by an expression of a man resigned to his fate.

  His fingers tightened around the Cohe. It was clear to Nick that he was preparing to attack. Enough of the drug had been absorbed to make his movements seem like they were happening in slow motion. Either that or Jannik knew what was coming and was deliberately slowing his reactions, giving Nick and the soldiers time to end it.

  He thunked the attaboy, depressed the virtual button. The action instantaneously transmitted a signal to all of Jannik’s mnemonic cursors. They exploded in sequence, microseconds apart. Medically, it was equivalent to a massive and fatal stroke.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick whispered.

  Jannik’s head jerked sideways. His arms and legs spasmed. He tried to say something but the words came out too slurred to comprehend.

  His eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the floor.

  Slag and the others approached warily, thrusters still at the ready. But Nick knew he was dead. The scarlet button was a kill switch. Its sole function was the termination of a malfunctioning unit.

  “What now?” Basher asked. “Try to capture another of these crazy bastards alive?”

  Nick had no answer. At the moment he was too frustrated to dwell on one. Doctor Emanuel’s plan might have proved a bust, but he wasn’t about to give up – yet he had a sinking feeling about the workability of his four-person team. Although validated by the sim, it just might be impossible to implement under real world operating conditions. Finding someone who not only had mastered the Cohe wand but didn’t suffer from excessive swagger or outright craziness was looking more and more like an impossible task.

  Twenty-Six

  Bel tried to control her growing annoyance as she heard her assistant getting increasingly frustrated on the line to Pablo Dominguez’s chief assistant.

  “The director is about to leave for the day,” Dominguez’s assistant was saying, using the haughty tone of a man accustomed to not being contradicted. “He has an important dinner engagement. I’m sure this can wait until morning.”

  Bel leaned over and cut in to the conversation. “This is Director Bakana. No, it can’t wait until morning. Find your boss and get him in my office now!”

  Long before Bel’s promotion to director, she’d cultivated professional relationships with individuals in most E-Tech departments. A short time ago, one of those connections had paid a major dividend. A high-ranking operative in Intelligence, a man who’d lived with Dominguez for a time and had gone through an ugly breakup with him, had sent her some surprising information.

  Although the man claimed to want to do what was right, Bel was sure he was leaking the information to get back at Dominguez over the unpleasant end to their relationship. But it didn’t matter if this former lover had petty reasons. All that was important was whether or not his information was correct.

  Dominguez strolled into her office, friendly and confident as always. His amicable vibe departed when he saw the look on her face.

  She wasted no time on pleasantries. “You deliberately held back intel from me. Director Witherstone came into possession of vital information from an unknown source. And you sat on it.”

  He eased his imposing frame into a chair, intertwined his fingers as if contemplating a response.

  Dominguez’s lover claimed not to know the nature of the intel. But given what Bel had learned from the meeting with Ektor Fang and Olinda Shining, she guessed it must have something to do with Thi Maloca and the secret Ash Ock research project.

  “Well, Pablo?” she demanded. “I’m waiting for an explanation.”

  “Director Witherstone did inform me that he’d come into some hot intel. But he never revealed the nature of it. And this all occurred just after he arrived in the office, less than an hour before his assassination.”

  “But you’ve been keeping this knowledge to yourself ever since. Why?”

  “As I stated, there was nothing specific to pass on. The only information I had was the director stating that he’d learned something that could have great impact.”

  “And he didn’t so much as drop a hint?”

  “Not a word, other than mentioning it had something to do with the assassins. But a majority of our intel these days is related to the Paratwa. He’d verbally scheduled a meeting with me for early the next morning and mentioned that he’d be asking several other department heads to attend. Presumably he intended to reveal what he’d learned at that time.”

  “If it was so important, why would he delay?”

  “I’m guessing he wanted to do some prep work, put together a formal presentation. Maybe outline a specific action plan.”

  Bel nodded. That had been Director Witherstone’s working style.

  “Could he have revealed the details to anyone else?”

  “I checked and double-checked with every department head.” Dominguez paused, aware that the statement excluded Bel. “Every relevant department head, those who he’d normally take into his confidence on matters involving sensitive intel. But he apparently didn’t pass it on to anyone.”

  “Could he have made notes, jotted something down in his pad?”

  “I’ve been over his files, both here and at his home. I couldn’t find a thing.”

  Bel believed him. Yet if it truly was priority intel, Witherstone wouldn’t have taken the chance of it being lost in the event something happened to him. He was far too careful. Somehow, somewhere, he would have taken steps to preserve the information.

  “What about the source of this intel?” she asked. “Any leads there?”

  “I reviewed the director’s movements throughout the twenty-four hours leading up to his death. I checked on every meeting he attended and had my people interview every person he encountered.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. If one of those individuals fed him the information, they’re not admitting to it. But frankly, none of them rise to the level of suspicion.”

  “I want a list of those people anyway.”

  Earlier, she’d debated whether to bring Dominguez into her confidence and reveal some of what they’d learned from Ektor Fang. But she’d decided to hold back, which was her prerogative as head of E-Tech. And right now, she was too upset with him for keeping her out of the loop.

  Dominguez transmitted the list of people Witherstone had come in contact with to her pad. He ran a hand through his long hair, using the motion to disguise a glance at his antique analog wristwatch.

  “Maybe the director didn’t meet this source in person,” Bel proposed, recalling what she’d learned from Ektor Fang. “The intel could have been communicated some other way.”

  “I checked all his recorded messages as well. There’s nothing there. Of course, he might have erased something.”

  “What about people in Director Witherstone’s personal life?” He had an ex-wife and an adolescent daughter who lived apart from him. The divorce had been finalized only a month before the attack.

  “The ex was in Hanoi, a business trip for her firm. No recent contact between them. He did speak to his daughter about fifteen minutes before the attack. But according to her, it was all family stuff, inconsequential.”

  Bel had met thirteen year-old Mattia Witherstone at a few E-Tech functions. It was a long shot, but maybe her father had said something to her that Dominguez and his people had overlooked. Bel would do her own interview.

  Her anger cooled. Had she been in the Intelligence director’s shoes, she probably would have had similar reticence about passing along such vague information. Her initial suspicion that Dominguez hadn’t divulged it because he remained resentful of Bel’s promotion and wanted to undermine her efforts as director now seemed petty. She’d never seen a shred of evidence suggesting he’d do something like that. Still, there was a
more ominous reason why he might have held back.

  She recalled Ektor Fang’s words. Be very careful about who you trust within your own headquarters. The Paratwa have spies everywhere. There are rumors that one of them is a deeply embedded sleeper agent operating at your highest levels, perhaps even one of your associate directors.

  Pablo Dominguez was a loyal twenty-five year employee. Any suspicions she might entertain to the contrary had to be pure paranoia. He was passionately dedicated to E-Tech’s cause and would never betray it.

  But what if the real Dominguez was the victim of a sapient supersedure like the Codrus mole on E-Tech’s board? Or what if Bull Idwicki was a sleeper and the incompetence of his Security department a deliberate ploy to better enable E-Tech to be penetrated by spies, as well as hindering the organization’s defenses to make it easier for them to be attacked?

  I’m getting like Nick, distrustful of everyone.

  “Is there anything else?” Dominguez asked, clearly in a hurry to depart.

  “Pablo, in the future, please keep me in the loop on anything of this nature. Even if the intel is vague, I’d like to know about it.”

  “Understood. My mistake.”

  He departed. Bel called Nick, told him what she’d learned. He had news of his own and revealed the latest failure regarding the team, the death of the former tway, Jannik Mutter.

  She could tell by Nick’s voice just how disheartened he was. It made her feel glum as well. Despite the sense of kinship she’d felt last night with Olinda Shining, the knowledge that they shared a dream of seeking a brighter path, the cruel attack on headquarters was never far from her mind. It remained important to strike back, to show humanity that it needn’t be helpless against the onslaught of the assassins.

  Twenty-Seven

  Stone Face had disposed of Jannik Mutter’s body, at least from the neck down. The severed head had been preserved in a chill box and taken to the mobile surgical theater where the false memories had been implanted. The skull had been cracked open and removed, and a polycon laser used to melt away inconsequential tissue. That left Doctor Emanuel with a cerebrum he could work with.