Supplejack

by Les Petersen

  The dials were correct. Maybe the AI WM was giving the flow of data a physical presence. I logged the discrepancy and walked further into the room. The navigation Cameo, a short red-haired woman of what I supposed was English stock, wore the blue and red uniform of Bell. Quite a severe dress suit, which she had tried to soften by wearing a floral scarf. She waved a cheerful greeting and came toward us with a graceful flowing step. Medusa appeared at her side and accompanied her toward me as she wove around the fountains. I could see Medusa had taken a long ribbon of steel from her waist and was threading it through her hands the same way a rodeo rider prepared a lariat.

  The Cameo stopped five meters away and bowed ever so slightly. When she raised her head, she smiled and said, “Greetings Mr Stromlo. It is pleasant to see you again. Where would you like to travel today?”

  I returned her bow though I noted she hadn’t acknowledged any of the others. The Cameo Bell had used when I’d been on the team had been the latest, a Clarion Duet capable of sensing a wide range of PAN modules. If this Cameo wasn’t looking at my team then she was either a plant and had been instructed not to acknowledge them, or a second hidden Cameo was running her actions. Possibly the system had even been downgraded. Deliberately to drag me in. I wondered if I’d stepped into an entrance trap and decided to alter my approach. I ignored the Cameo for a moment. “Double safety, team. Check for overlay. Bleeder, give me immediate notification of URL shift. Go covered voice, team.”

  Bleeder acknowledged the shift to encrypted speech, as did the rest of the team. All the while the little redhead stood smiling at me as if I was the embodiment of all things important. When the team had doubled the safeties, I asked the Guide for a pamphlet and took the one she offered.

  Bell Corp had two research facilities. The first was for worldwide coverage of Bell Internationals activities and I leafed through the pages, shifting from room to room around the complex with each page, taking notice of all the extravagance in its construction. Some of the entrances were wreathed in gold, others in kaleidoscopic colours to interest the younger viewers and some in soft pastels that made them seem like a comfortable embrace. While we travelled, GaZe logged the shifts and Bleeder cross-referenced the sites. I was seeking anything I could focus the search on.

  Only one page held any interest, that of the Seu Vella cathedral in Spain –, which was being refurbished for the Tourist Trade – and was now to be modified for office space for those in control of the reforestation of Catalonia. Lerida. Bell had only recently taken ownership, but I remembered international opposition to the move., but no mention of a shift of opinion. I bookmarked the page and then flipped over to the local search facility.

  The page on acquisitions gave me the point of interest I was seeking. Grendel was the fifth entry and I asked the Guide to take us to the room that held all the information on the acquisition. She nodded, gave me an even brighter smile and indicated I should follow her while she took us back to the room with the fountains and then through one of the doors to the west. Bleeder moved ahead of us and paced off into the passageway like a bodyguard checking the closet for hidden assassins. The rest of the team followed me, Medusa so close to the Cameo they could’ve been Siamese twins. Sansan walked along beside me, saying nothing though Charlie’s flapping wings, the burble of the fountains and the crunch of our footsteps broke through the silence.

  As we walked through the entrance the Guide began the blurb and kept it up while we travelled the two hundred paces toward the next point. I listened with only half an ear, checking the lock-match Bleeder had in place.

  “Bell’s acquisition of Grendel Corporation began with the purchase of Stayder Medical,” the Guide was saying, “a research facility into the causes of Klinfelter’s Syndrome and Turner’s Syndrome, which, you will know, are both genetic imbalances resulting in additional chromosomes. The…”

  I tongued up comm. “Medusa, check on Mainframe activity. Keep me posted.”

  She confirmed acquisition of target, ran a continuous finger into it to gauge response time. The Guide was enthusiastically giving us the full Drone, “…and after this initial purchase, Bell International moved into the field of robotics, purchasing the Tan Daewa factory and producing the first completely mobile skeleton only four months later…”

  I closed her out and looked ahead to where Bleeder was stationed just outside the entrance to the next door. On the wall was a touchpad and he was already playing games with it. He let me know the doors beyond it were going to be hard to open without the code. The little redhead was still burbling along about a flexible cryogenic cage built by Tsunami Industries and she walked up to the touchpad without stopping in her commentary until she was reaching for the pad.

  Her hand hovered in mid-air. She turned to me, dropped her hand and asked me for the code.

  I was prepared for her. “Flintlock 408, please.”

  She looked at the team then – the first signal exterior control was monitoring what we were doing. She sucked in her lower lip and chewed on it. Medusa was standing close enough to swallow her and the Guide looked around at the others who gathered nearer.

  Suddenly Bleeder almost howled in alarm. “Shift occurrence, Jack! We have gone global. I’m tracking.”

  He was telling me we were being shuffled along a backbone somewhere outside the local network. Medusa confirmed additional activity in the Mainframe. She looked at me for instructions, but I held up a hand and called her to my side. “Acknowledged, Bleeder. Maintain track for as long as you can. Watch for pop-up abduction. Immediate retaliation if actioned.”

  The Guide was scrutinising Medusa. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said with a little fear in her voice when Medusa snarled at her. She looked back at me; “Flintlock 408 isn’t recognised here, Mr Earner. Do you have local clearance? If not, it is possible to apply for access.”

  She’d called me Earner. They were waiting for me. I shook my head at her question. I could almost feel the whole passageway rolling along somewhere in Cyberspace. “Would you care to confirm the non-acceptance of 408 coding before we take further action?” I asked the Guide.

  She nodded slowly, dropping the pamphlets as she did so. They slid toward the ground in a shower of colour. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m only doing my job.”

  “I understand. We will report your dedication to duty and will not harm you in any way.” I took her gently by the shoulder and turned her to face the touch pad. “Would you care to select a maintenance code for us?”

  She looked at the keypad, glanced at Medusa and Bleeder who were standing very close to her now and then back at me. “I’m sorry, sir: I need proper authorisation.”

  I nodded again. I hadn’t been able to circumvent her security, but I didn’t want to destroy the Cameo. It would be a waste of time trying to cover the footprint, especially since we were already being channelled somewhere and besides, she was kind of cute, something I would have liked to create. “In that case, would you tell me what password Jack Dayzen should use to open the door?”

  She looked at me, her eyebrows rising in surprise. “Oh, Mr Dayzen would know the code. Are you Mr Dayzen? Are you testing me?” She eyed me warily. “Mr Stromlo, I’m a little confused. Are you Boris Stromlo or Harold Earner or Jack Dayzen?”

  I told her the truth and lied for all I was worth at the same time. “I’m Jack Dayzen. You are being assessed. We have altered the time clock into the future and are checking your responses. It seems you are a little slow in noticing the changes.”

  She rubbed the side of her head and looked confused. “I have no awareness of time change. Maybe…systems conflict. Please remain where you are.” She started off for the other room, very slowly. Ten paces further away she stopped and stood looking confused.

  Bleeder sent an update. “Shift on hold for the moment, Jack. I have us located. Should we evacuate?”

  “Negative. We came here to do a job, so let’s play a while longer.” I stepped up to the keypad and began punching in the last
password I’d left on the system. Almost five years had passed since I’d used it and I doubted it would still be active. But, of course, it worked. The door popped open right after the last key came up, just as I suspected it would. Kren was setting a trap for me. Medusa went through it like a lightning strike and Bleeder was only one step behind her. I craned my head and looked in.

  The room was barely large enough to hold the row of prison cells. Inside were grey concrete walls, a set of six morbid steel cages and a low visitor’s bench set against the far wall. Each of the other three walls to the square room contained a flat iron-studded door. In the roof was an Escher pathway; a hallway at odds to the geometry of the virtual world, which began as an opening without doors.

  In the middle of the room stood SmartGuy. He was chained by wrist and ankle and looked weary and soiled. I followed the others into the room.

  He looked up when I came in. “Ah, Jack, you finally made it.”

  I assessed the room for immediate danger, but was confident nothing could happen without us knowing about it. “What are you doing here?”

  He rattled the chains on his wrists. “Remember when we first met and I said there was no Hell involved in all this?” he asked. “Well, it seems like I found a little Hell after all, Jack, though I thought I’d escaped all of this years ago. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop you coming here. You should leave now while you can.”

  “Why? I know this is a trap of sorts.” I looked around the room and then at the Heads-up ribbon, which still held the exit pathway. “Not a very good one though. Let’s get you free of those.”

  He stepped away when I moved toward him. “No, Jack, it is a lot more complex than you realise. You’ve come looking for the truth and you’ve found me. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you?”

  I stood still. “Like what?”

  “You will want to hear the truth and who better to tell you it than one you trust.”

  Sansan alerted me to movement in the vicinity. I put the team on extra defence and returned to SmartGuy. “Look, Old Salt, the WM has activated his forces. We should get a little further away if we want to talk.”

  He shook his head. “We do not need to talk, Jack. You need to get out of here before Kren arrives.”

  “Kren is here? I thought he was out hunting clones.”

  He hung his head. “See what they have done to me, Jack. I’ve been reprogrammed. It’s begun already.”

  You could’ve knocked me over with a wooden spoon. “Reprogrammed? You’re a Cameo? You’re AI?” I’d never expected that. He was too imperfect to be AI.

  He nodded and looked at the PAN going about their business. GaZe and Charlie were holding the door we had come through open and Bleeder and Sansan were investigating the other doors for fields of fire. “Yes, Jack, just like all your other friends.”

  “But that’s… You’re perfect…It’s…”

  “Impossible? No. I’m the last act of Grendel Corporation.” He giggled to himself. “I’m your bodyguard, sort of.”

  “Grendel? Bodyguard?”

  A look of horror crossed over his face. He tried to bring his hands up to cover his mouth, but the chains prevented him from doing so. “Don’t listen to me, Jack,” he wailed. “I’ll only say the things you want to hear and you will be caught by these evil people. Get out of here; take your friends and leave. It’s too dangerous knowing the truth about why they’re hunting for you. You’ll start asking questions and then you’ll find out about your son. Go.”

  “Harry?”

  Sansan jumped across the room and grabbed me by the sleeve, pulled me around to look at her. “Jack, they’re using a Spirit trap! You are being caught by fascination. You can’t know he’s telling you the truth. Either cut him free and get him out of here, or finish him off.” She created a laser pistol and shoved it into my hands. “Either rescue him or destroy him.”

  SmartGuy almost dropped to his knees. “Destroy me, Jack! For your own sake.”

  Gunfire erupted in the doorway and GaZe replied with calm perfection. He duplicated quickly, created a squad of identical soldiers and lay down suppressing fire at a swarm of insectoid creatures racing up the passageway. The creature’s pixilation was chunky, even with full 3D, but when they blew apart from the hits they still left behind carcasses. Behind were a swarm of Gliders. GaZe sent them afire with rapid bursts. Bleeder warped the wall nearest to the door where GaZe stood and he and Charlie began welding the door shut. Medusa opened the door on the opposite wall and began sending dark red torpedoes down it, tracers spat past her in reply. I hefted the pistol and took aim at the chains.

  SmartGuy tried to prevent me. “No, Jack. Leave me here. They want you to take me! Finish me off!” I ignored him, began cutting away the restraints. The laser left smouldering tracks in the floor as SmartGuy yanked the chains out of the way.

  “No, Jack!” he yelled, trying to knock my hands away. “I don’t want this on my conscience. You don’t need to know Shahn was planted into your life by Grendel.”

  A smoke canister bounced into the room, then a second and a third. Charlie morphed to pelican shape; scooped the canisters up in his beak and raced out through the door GaZe was holding open. I heard him drop them in the corridor, heard the hiss as they spumed out target blocking smoke and then a distant detonation. The air filled with flying debris. Smoke billowed into the room.

  “Charlie?”

  GaZe gave me a thumbs up. “He okay, Jack. He is bombing their arms cache.”

  “Get him back here, GaZe! Before he is surrounded.”

  “Acknowledged.” GaZe screamed out a command and sent half of his troops into the passage in a suicide raid, and then duplicated the whole force again. Bleeder rose to the roof and began firing up the Escher passage just as a horde of spiralling cubes tumbled out of the gap. Most disintegrated, but a few escaped his sharp shooting, dropped to the floor and raced toward me. Sansan fell on them like a demon squashing ants. When she mopped up the few who survived the initial onslaught, she raced up to assist Bleeder. They fell back a little so they could cover both doorways.

  SmartGuy yanked at the chains. “Jack! Leave me here!”

  I grabbed SmartGuy by the throat. “Shut up! We’re taking you and the truth out of here. Now keep what you know to yourself for a moment. Help me do this! You know you want to survive.”

  He clamped his mouth shut and nodded reluctantly, then held out the chain so I could cut it cleanly. My eyes were burning from the smoke and the stench of cordite and blood and it took some effort to focus on the chain. The white sparks from the laser cutting were brighter than the holoface could suppress, but I screwed up my eyes and kept cutting.

  Bleeder called for more ammunition. Sansan dropped a cache at his feet. Even though he reloaded as fast as possible, thirty or so of the cubes got passed him and descended on me. They latched onto my back and began boring into me. It felt like a horde of bees stinging my flesh and I clenched my teeth against the agony. The holoface began to spark with interference. Medusa dropped off her position and seared them off my back with precise shots from her weapon and for a moment I felt like a knife thrower’s assistant. When the cubes lay around me steaming, she rose to stand beside Bleeder and the pair of them blasted away as if they were in an automatic shooting gallery.

  As soon as SmartGuy was free I hailed the team. “Sansan, Needle here now. GaZe, how’re you going?”

  “They’re breaking through, Jack. Charlie is dive bombing the resurrection point, but they have secured a beachhead. He’s hurt badly. We need back up!”

  The Needle hummed into existence near the bench.

  “Coming. Medusa…fall back. Get SmartGuy to a safe berth. He has priority. Do it.”

  She looked at me sternly. “My directives–”

  I glared at her. “Do it!” Bullets snarled past us. The sound of battle and screams of defiance in the small space was deafening.

  She gritted her teeth, grabbed SmartGuy, lifted him off his feet and ra
ced through the Needle.

  I raced to assist GaZe, calling over my shoulder to Sansan to close the Needle.

  She glanced at me. “Confirm Needle closure?”

  “You heard me! Close the Needle. We’re going to fight our way out of here. About time we had a bit of fun.”

  “Acknowledged.” The Needle disappeared.

  “Bleeder, seal that Escher passageway and the one Medusa was holding. We are going back out the way we came in.”

  “Acknowledged.” He sent a pulse along the lower passageway, blew whatever had survived the data charge apart and slammed the doorway closed while Sansan covered the Escher. It reduced his effective power by almost fifty percent. I tapped up recharge and hoped it was soon enough. I began building a new force to break us out of the area. Bleeder sealed the lower door by blowing the locking mechanism to pieces. Sansan plugged the Escher with the steel cages and they again sealed it by inverting the gravitational references. Anything coming down the passageway would read the wrong frame reference and be left blinded and blocked.

  I dived across the room and crouched amongst a group of GaZe’s creations. The passageway outside the doorway was densely packed with bodies and belching smoke. And standing against one wall, looking confused and scared, was the Guide. She had picked up some of the pamphlets she had dropped earlier and she seemed to be trying to wipe off some of the stains.

  “Sansan, capture the Guide. Give me a rollover reading of her. She must have some coding we can use. Check for military languages and go foreign tongue. Fill me in.”

  Sansan dropped a targeting cursor on the Guide, who wavered a little yet retained her form. “She had fifteen petabytes of images, Jack. Three of her formats are null and have sort functions. One is controlled by the Mainframe as default.”

  “Good. Severe it and refresh. I want her without external control.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The discrepancy in the first room was bugging me. My mind kept going back to it, like a hunch niggling at me. If it concealed a secret entrance, then we could well be trapped. “Sansan…discursive search. Main entrance. Cut the code for me and check REM. There must be some sort of blockage. Check for secret entrance.”