Supplejack

by Les Petersen

  “Sansan, deep search. All files including hidden content. Grendel Corporation take-over. And I want a run down on the request for my DNA. Who initiated the request? Also, I want prep for full Invasion of Bell’s system. I want to know everything there is to know about why I was recruited into Bell and I want a list of all the passwords we used while we were working for them. Also, see if you can come up with a few of Kren’s. See if you can predict the updates he might have used.

  “Also, double check on Feral action over the last five or so days. I want to know what all of this has to do with them, and whether this is coincidence or not. Medusa, lock us away for a while from all exterior input, all systems except mobile. All Email routed out to sifters and close all subscriptions. Bleeder, GaZe, get me what you can from the military about this gangway. Charlie, I want complete background working on the PAN. Check for Trojans, limpets, all the usual...and check for security coding. Give me a log on unusual commands instituted in the last sixteen hours.”

  Each of them, except Charlie of course, acknowledged the commands and settled down to invading the databases they needed to.

  I tried to think through the course of action that had led us to this invasion. “And while I’m thinking about it, let’s sort out any loose ends. Give me an inquiries and command log.”

  The holoface gave me a run down on their responses to my previous commands and filled me in on other actions required. I read it through, asked for a reminder later in the day and then asked Bleeder what had happened to the Drone.

  “Drone has returned to active service, Jack. I have planted a bookmark to allow us access again, though it is being scrutinised by the system. Forty-eight percent chance of complete recapture by High Command. The bookmark will self-destruct if actioned by any other source than ours.”

  Well, that answered one reference. “So, it’ll come down almost to a toss of a coin. Heads or Tails, it seems. OK. Scrap the bookmark. Clean off fingerprints. Sansan, what happened to the pick-up you arranged yesterday when I was doing my great dead-as-a-dodo on the river bank.”

  “Still available, Jack; currently on the bed of the river, fifteen klicks downstream. Shall I dismiss?”

  “Negative. Keep it active. What is it?”

  “Ex-military shuttle life-raft acquired for you by SmartGuy as compensation for the trace on the call. Room for one passenger only.”

  Well, the old guy was feeling guilty, was he? I doubted that! “What did it cost me, Sansan?”

  “Twelve million, Jack.”

  I whistled at that figure. You could buy a penthouse in London for that amount. “The bastard is bleeding me dry for a single seater. That’s typical.” As if I’d someone else to take with me. “Is it fully stocked?”

  “Affirmative. Additional supplies have also been packed in a wing pod, Jack, as per standard ops.”

  “Thank you, Sansan. At least I still have an escape exit. Bring it to me if Grey-cards haven’t arrived in say twenty minutes.” I could last that long without a drink. If I pushed myself.

  “Twenty minutes to rescue. Acknowledged.”

  “Information, Jack.”

  “Yes, Bleeder?”

  “Information Centres at Bell are closed to external sources due to construction work. Heavy ICE.”

  Building barricades no doubt. “Thank you, Bleeder.”

  Ten minutes later I’d hobbled maybe another five hundred meters up the road and the mobile warbled. Before I answered it, I had Medusa run a check on the source and found Shapocket requesting response. I tapped up the holoface, patched it through and came on-line with Medusa armed to the teeth at my side. Even then I went in covered. I sent in a Cameo online. “Danny’s Dance Studio, step up and tango!”

  “Stromlo?”

  “No, it’s not. You have the wrong number!”

  The voice sounded very distant. “Your washing has been cleaned, but we cannot find an address to deliver it to.”

  What the hell did that mean? Was it the Grey-cards’ pickup? They’d feed through Shapocket to find me, surely. I tapped it into mute. “Medusa…confirm origin. Check frequency and match with all known data on Gilamens.”

  She was slow in responding, but when she did I knew the game was still being played. “Location is nearby, but the modulation is not comparable to the 620 series, Jack. Does not match with Shapocket’s status. Possible alternative source.”

  I toggled the line active. “I’m sorry, please check your number and dial again.”

  “Where the hell are you, Boris?”

  Well, that proved it. Gilamens knew it was Dayzen. She and Shapocket would call me Flintlock or Dayzen. Even Jack, since they wanted me to steal a billion dollars. If it were the rescue team, they’d have used that name as well.

  I cut the link. “It’s not over, team. Looks like Gilamens is having a little trouble dissuading them. Christ, I need a break from this! Sansan get me the rescue. GaZe…could they have tracked that call?”

  GaZe growled into life, happy to have something important to do. “Negative, Jack. They’d need to triangulate the response. We’re in heavy vegetation so it won’t be easy. They’ll be aware you’re local only.”

  But the military always had something up their sleeves. “Which means they’ll at least know I’m alive and they’ll have some idea of where we are. OK, GaZe, can you hide us for a while, at least till we can get a little more information or a haven somewhere?”

  “Sorry, Jack, insufficient data.”

  I had to decide. “All right. Listen up team. Ignore the Grey-card pickup. We can’t wait. We go for the Druss and take our chances the tall lady gets us what she said she would. GaZe, Bleeder, give me schematic on the weather station and see if you can capture a secure line out of the Druss. Sansan, bring the rescue to our present location mid-stream and keep it submerged. Open the air lock and I’ll go out to it. We’ll take it from here. Medusa, stealth mode. Send that caller a torpedo, will you? And make it loud. If they’re close, I want to hear them scream.”

  They all acknowledged. I held my breath when the torpedo went out, but no one screamed.

  While I waited for the life-raft to arrive I shut off the holoface and made sure everything was lashed down – the knives I threaded through my belt and my boots I tucked into each pocket. When Sansan gave me the twitch, I scrambled down the bank where a tree was hanging over the water, took a few deep breaths, then dived under water and swam out to the boat. The water was colder than a witch’s kiss and it tore at the wounds in my chest and shoulder. Only my ankle seemed to enjoy it., but the water was just clear enough for me to see the life-raft lying on the bottom. It looked like a giant puffer fish wearing a tutu and big enough to swallow a football team whole, including the cheerleaders. Its outer surface was spined with ordinance, sensors and wings and just about every propulsion device you could think of. I couldn’t talk to the team, but it didn’t matter. The airlock was open on top and guidance lights pulsed out instructions. I swung into the seat inside the airlock, slipped on the belt, pulled the cover down and hit the switch.

  The airlock activated. It was like sitting in a washtub at full spin cycle. It spun me through six gee revolutions until I was drier than a lizard’s dick. Air rapidly replaced water and when the airlock stopped spinning and I had contact with the team, I tapped up control. “Sansan, take the helm, will you? All ahead slow to the weather station. Maintain submergence as deep as you can without lifting any muck off the bottom. No surface disturbance. I’m going to change. Soon as I’m in fresh clothes I want a run down on everything you have.”

  I keyed up for the interior and the side panel of the inner door slid back. The cockpit was as Spartan as possible and as cramped as a caravan toilet. The designer had opted for the cool soothing colours of chrome and stainless steel, inlaid with a few areas of anodised mauve. I eased myself out of the airlock and dropped down behind the single seat into the galley, which, to be generous, was also the exercise room, shower, boardroom and grand entrancew
ay. If I didn’t mind doing a three-point turn, I could even turn around. A locker above my head deposited a fresh set of fatigues, a pair of boots and even the latest PAN – a 620 series that’d rival the one used by Gilamens – into my waiting arms.

  It took ten minutes to get undressed, check the wounds and tend to them with the aid of a medical kit hidden in another locker near my knees. I threaded the two knives onto my belt. Once I was redressed, the old clothes went into a laundry chute under the seat. I foraged for biscuits, keyed for vodka, then cancelled the order and took coffee instead. Heads-up gave me the procedure manuals and I started throwing switches.

  “All right gang. Let’s have a lookee-see, shall we?” The screen came alive with satellite feed of Haven.

  The good thing about satellite feed is that you can see almost anywhere in the world and you can jump from point to point with amazing fluidity. The bad thing about satellite feed is it’s almost always top down, rather than the preferred 45 down isometrics like most Cloud navigation, so anything hidden or undercover is near invisible. The first thing I saw was a long streak of smoke covering Haven and gunships hovering around it. Only when I pumped up the magnification was I able to identify the smaller remotes of Grey-cards pushing their way through the Pack. “Sansan, you see any casualties or captives?”

  “Insufficient information, Jack. The smoke is concealing sixty percent of the area we were in last night.”

  I ignored that possibility of military cleansing being carried out in the area, but was pleased to see one downed gunship and assumed Medusa’s torpedo had brought it down. It is amazing what virtual pain can do to someone’s jangled nerves. I panned around the area, looking for any sign of the Grey-card pickup, but the sky over the river was empty and the road looked as ancient and as unused as an Incan temple, minus the tourists.

  “Bleeder, run a manifest check on all vessels going to and from the area over the past twelve hours and any that arrive or leave from now on. Keep me posted on that. All right, team, respond to previous requests in say five minutes.”

  While they were running out over the Cloud I picked up the PAN that had been stored in the locker. The holoface driver and maintenance box unclipped easily and I transferred them into the slots GaZe and Charlie had used before. “GaZe…new units ready for incorporation. Check these before you migrate.”

  “Acknowledged, Jack.” He cut a thread through the PAN and began the move, but was still able to give me a feed on the new hardware. “Do you want Directory readout?”

  The coffee had arrived on the tray in front of me. “No, thanks, GaZe. Give me a break down on them, please.”

  “Unit alpha contains fifty terabytes of various weapon systems and sixty terabytes on tactical responses to military strikes. Also, full biological data on the planet Earth...”

  “Discard what you consider to be replaceable, GaZe. Anything interesting?”

  “Full cooking lessons, Jack? I could programme the life-raft to provide a nutritious meal for you.”

  I could’ve sworn he almost laughed. He was enjoying the freedom of his new home. Any moment now he’d have the interior decorators dropping by with curtain swatches. “All right, GaZe. Keep the cooking lessons for a quiet night together. New unit Rename: Kimbo. Now, what is the second unit?”

  “Beta unit contains basic medical tools, bots with tissue collection arms, x-ray scanner and a surgical laser. Fifty percent of the information will be lost with the inserting of HaRf.”

  “Well, that can’t be helped. A medical unit. That’ll help. Charlie can play the mad doctor. He’ll love that. New unit Rename: Nighting Gale. Are they ready for docking?”

  “Yes, Jack.”

  “Good. Let’s run diagnostics as we dock and GaZe, update any information as it comes off them.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  I put the cup down and sat there humming to myself. GaZe fed me data as it came off, but then he suddenly fell silent. His LED stopped flashing.

  “GaZe?”

  Sansan came on-line. “Jack, we have discovered important information about your induction to Bell International.”

  A soother dropped into my mouth and wiggled toward the back of my tongue. They never did that unless it was really bad. I sucked it down my throat and sat there, knowing something was terribly wrong.

  “Sansan?”

  “This information may compromise your right to life, Jack. We ask you to authorise delegation of co-ordination to Medusa.”

  “What?!”

  The holoface shut down. Sansan spoke through the lifeboat’s radio. “Please confirm authorisation. Non-confirmation will result in your total shutdown. The nano you have swallowed will activate cyanide poisoning. You have fifteen seconds to comply.” The lifeboat’s main screen went dead, its propulsion unit stopped working and it settled against the river bottom.

  My first thought was they had been interfered with or attacked by the new units…

  “Fourteen seconds, Jack.”

  My second thought was mutiny…

  “Twelve seconds.”

  My third thought was Invasion by outside sources…

  “Ten seconds.”

  My final thought was that if I gave over delegation to Medusa and the PAN was compromised by the new units, or any other influence, then I was on my way to the death chamber…

  “Five seconds, Jack.”

  I was dead anyway.

  “Sansan, verbal authorisation, delegation of co-ordination to Medusa.”

  “Acknowledged, Jack.”

  Medusa came on-line. She sounded as if she was carrying a very big stick with a sharp nail sticking out of it. “Mr Dayzen, please submit security code and password.”

  I knew this stream backward and I gave it to her without hesitating. “Security code: Glockenspiel fifteen hundred Adam. Password: Mind_hash_7_Query_your_3_own_1_business. What’s happening, Medusa?”

  Sansan answered me. “Mr Dayzen, we have obtained three cross references on the results from the blood samples sent by the Ferals to the Mannum pathology clinic.”

  You could’ve cut the silence into big chunks and used them to hold back history.

  “And? So? Sansan, what’s going on?”

  “We…” She didn’t say anything else.

  I tried to pull the new unit off her side, but a low voltage charge zapped me as a warning. “Hey, come on! I didn’t programme you guys to muck around with this sort of emotional play. Have you been compromised? Give it to me straight.”

  Medusa came on-line. “New Units are AI neutral and all systems secured, Mr Dayzen. Though it appears as if you are not who you say you are. Jack Dayzen is dead. We have a coroner’s report.”

  I laughed at her remark. Some of it was nervous tension; some of it was incredulous disbelief, but a lot of it from sheer delight. “Well, that solves it. They’ve got me on the slab and I just think I’m sitting here. And I just thought I was having a bad day. Well, now that that’s over, you can remove your little—”

  Then the walls came down: the steel walls of doubt, of suspicion, of utter disbelief – and they clanged with doom. All of this could well be disillusionment, I realised – a metaphysical construction, like my life flashing before my eyes. I may have fallen into a trap of believing I’d escaped the squad at the Library. I sat back in the chair and held my head in my hands. I worked it out painfully slow in case I was missing something. And it came down to the fact that the PAN was first and foremost a team of factual machines. They weren’t prone to making mistakes. GIGO sometimes, but nothing inappropriate when I wanted truth. I decided to go with the flow. “Test results?”

  Sansan sounded very uneasy. “Mr Dayzen, I have copies of the coroner’s report if you wish to see them.”

  Then the answer hit me hard between the eyes. I could’ve slapped them and myself, for not anticipating. “Oh, Christ, of course, Sansan. That’s SmartGuy’s doing. Replay his charge. He’s changed facts around me. He has set up the coroner’s report when he co
nverted me to Boris Stromlo. I can assure you I’m alive. I’m still breathing, I’m still thinking naughty thoughts about the woman Lucy Clarke and I’m wearing a scratchy old army uniform that does nothing for the libido. I was Jack Dayzen. SmartGuy changed me to Boris Stromlo.”

  Medusa was being particularly pedantic about it. “Mr Dayzen. Are we in, or have we in the recent past been placed in, a media chamber?” She was asking me if I was running the PAN through a simulation, testing out their external sensors. She was looking at all possibilities. She didn’t want to make a mistake.

  “Negative, Medusa. I can’t guarantee the Ferals didn’t place you in a media chamber, but you are with me currently, and I’m pretty certain we are in Prime.” It was the reality God had created. Big ‘R’ reality. All other realities were man-made. “SmartGuy has altered the report. Disregard all external information on my body’s state. I’m here.” I tapped my chest. “See!”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Good. You had me worried there for a moment. Now about that tick you put inside me.”

  Something nipped me inside my throat and the image of the nano-assassin pumping poison into my system splashed across my mind. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Bleeder interrupted my rising panic. “The tick has latched to your oesophagus to prevent it being swept into your stomach by peristalsis, Jack. You are swallowing more than usual. Please relax.”

  Sweat beaded along my lip and chin. “Could you relax in a situation like this, Bleeder?”