Jaguar

by C. A. Gray

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “We’ve got to get back to the new compound. We’ve already stayed here too long. We’re putting the Hendersons at risk.”

  “I know,” she said heavily. Then, with a sardonic half smile, she added, “Half an hour is all the reprieve we get, huh?”

  “For now,” I agreed, standing up to pack what little we could take with us. “But someday…” I let the implication hang in the air, watching her so intently that she finally blushed and dropped her eyes. I felt myself grinning back at her.

  Man. I would never get tired of that.

  Chapter 28: Francis

  M wanted to send Rick with the hovercraft back to pick up Cordeaux and Liam, of course. It was Mack who convinced her that they could make their own way back on the Quantum Track with Cordeaux’s prosthetic makeup and their false identities. Besides, the clock was ticking, and my mission was more important. If we were going to release the virus, we needed to do it soon. And if we wanted it to deliver maximum impact, we needed to pit the Silver Six and Jaguar against each other first. And if we wanted that to happen, we’d need to talk to Liam Senior.

  What I didn’t explain was why I had to be the one to go.

  Larissa emerged from the cockpit and sat beside me, watching as I navigated through loci via the Commune.

  “Are you gonna tell me what you’re doing?” she asked finally.

  I spared her a glance, deliberating for a second whether I should spare the energy to explain. But articulating my thought process can often clarify it for me when I don’t yet know the conclusion. It’s exceedingly rare that I don’t know the conclusion—but this was just such an occasion.

  “Fine. You remember when I was looking at Giovanni’s database, and I said we were off on Brian Kelly’s code, and he wasn’t sent to Goliath after all?”

  She scrunched up her face, in that way she did when she was concentrating, giving her a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. “Yes…”

  I nodded. “Well, I started digging after that, to see what else I could discover about where Brian ended up.” Her expression softened the way it might if she saw a pair of baby otters holding hands. I scowled at her. “Yes, yes, I did it for Liam. Shut up.” Now she covered her mouth with one hand, as if that could hide her grin. I ignored this and plunged on. “It turned out, the actual code was for a surgical lab in Milwaukee, for medical experimentation.”

  “They turned him into a cyborg?” Larissa gasped.

  I shook my head. “Not so far as I can tell—it looks like his was a brain surgery experiment, but just with his own tissue. They were trying to see if they could alter certain aspects of the human brain to render it hyper-rational—more like machines. It was a pet project of Justice Wallenberg’s. But in the process, they had to wipe his memories, presumably because there are too many memories that are emotionally charged, and might interfere.”

  Larissa’s eyes widened, and she tilted her head to the side, regarding me warily. “What are you saying?”

  I had a visceral sensation in my chest at her reaction, which I ignored. She knew exactly where I was going with this, but I wasn’t going to leap to conclusions, and I didn’t want her to, either. “I got far enough to see that he was alive after the surgery—looks like most of these subjects survived, and Wallenberg was really only curious to find out whether it worked or not. Then they just released the subjects into the world. But that was as far as I got when I had to change focus to breaking Liam free. So right now, I’m pulling up Brian’s A.E. chip tracking data to see what happened to him.”

  Larissa shifted to peer at the netscreen beside me. “So—Brian’s just wandering around out there somewhere, but doesn’t know who he is?”

  “That would be my assumption.” I traced my finger on the map. “Looks like he left Milwaukee and went to… San Jose.” I froze. So did Larissa.

  “Okay…” she said slowly. “And… then what?”

  The map didn’t show me movement over time, so I had to pull up that screen beside the map to make sense of it. My voice trembled of its own accord. “It looks like he stayed there for years. Until… his A.E. feed disappeared about two months ago. He vanished from the grid after that.”

  Neither of us spoke. Finally she ventured, “Does that mean he died?”

  Of course that isn’t what it means, what kind of a ridiculous coincidence would that be? I thought, but did not say. She knew as well as I did that Geneva, and M’s rescue, and Hepzibah’s removal and destruction of all of our A.E. chips, was about two months ago. But aloud, I said, “Perhaps.”

  “Oh, Francis!” Larissa encircled my arm with her hands, and pressed her face into my shoulder.

  We landed the hovercraft at a parking garage near the suburb where Cathy Kelly’s mansion was, and took a hovercar to her door. We still had the LED glasses, but surely those would trigger an alert in the camera systems as being associated with the Renegades—so I thought it would be far more elegant to just disable the cameras in the general vicinity. Fortunately, they were connected to the labyrinth in city blocks, rather than individually. So I disabled the cameras for ten city blocks just before we arrived. We wore the glasses too, though—just in case.

  When Cathy opened the door, her face was red and puffy, and her eyes bloodshot. Her lower chin quivered as she looked at me, clutching a tissue close to her face. But she was smart enough not to say anything out in the open; she ushered Larissa and me inside, shut the door, and closed the blinds. Then she spun on me.

  “Is he alive?” she demanded.

  I felt a strange sensation in my throat. It was as if I had just swallowed something and it had gotten stuck. My voice caught as I said, “Yes. Liam survived the rescue and the surgery, and he is apparently fine now.”

  She burst into tears, covering her face with both hands. I felt very uncomfortable, and wasn’t sure why the lump in my own throat seemed to grow bigger.

  “Cathy,” I said loudly, thinking that perhaps if I shouted over her wailing, she would stop. “Cathy, we need to talk to Liam Senior. Can you call him here, please?”

  She tried to curb her emotions, but sniffled and wiped her face almost compulsively. She nodded, and her eyes became glassy and unfocused for a minute. I knew she was composing and sending a comm.

  “He said was on his way over already,” she gasped, “he’s nearly here.” Then she looked at me, her trembling lips pressed together tightly. “You… understood my message, didn’t you? That’s why you came in person.”

  “It said, ‘Jaguar is on to us,’” I said, and she nodded, her face crumpling again.

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” she demanded through her tears.

  Larissa, apparently thinking she was referring to the message and not how I’d deciphered it, said, “That’s why we’re here, Mrs. Kelly. Francis had an idea of how to at least buy us some time, and get Jaguar’s attention off of you for awhile.”

  She sniffed, and looked at Larissa for the first time. Then she turned back to me. “Is this your girlfriend?”

  “Oh. Um… no,” Larissa said at last, but she hesitated, looking at me to see if I would contradict her. She swallowed, and stepped forward, jutting out her hand to Cathy. “I’m Larissa Price. Francis’s… colleague. And I worked with Liam in Dublin, too.”

  Cathy nodded, shaking Larissa’s hand and dabbing at the corners of her eyes. She still focused primarily on me.

  We all jumped at the knock on the door. Cathy moved toward it, but Elsie, her companion bot, got there first. Liam Senior looked much worse than he had the last time I’d seen him, too, with deep circles under his bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothing. Elsie shut the door again before anyone spoke, but Liam Senior also focused upon me immediately.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Francis Kilpatrick,” I told him, stepping forward and sticking out my hand, which he shook with an iron grip. “And this is Larissa Price.”


  “Ah. So you’re Francis.” He shook Larissa’s hand too, and then glanced at Cathy, who blurted, “Liam’s alive! He’s safe.”

  Liam Senior swallowed hard, the only evidence of emotion on his tightly controlled face. I had to admire that. “He’s out of the woods? From the surgery?”

  “He was functional enough to build a VMI machine and take his own new A.E. chip offline,” Larissa piped, “so we assume that means he’s going to be fine.”

  Cathy crossed to Liam Senior, and threw her arms around him, pressing her wet face into his shirt. He squeezed back at once, breathing in her hair. Both of them shook silently.

  They still love each other, I realized. I had the foreign instinct to look away. Ordinarily I relished these insights into strangers that they didn’t even have about themselves. So why I wished to preserve the Kellys’ privacy, I could not explain.

  Larissa cleared her throat and stepped forward, and Cathy pulled away from her ex-husband to look at her. She glanced at me as if asking permission, and I shrugged. When she spoke, her voice sounded pitchy and a little breathless.

  “Um, Mr. and Mrs. Kelly? Er—wait. I’m sorry. I know you’re not ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ anymore, but…” she giggled, and I rolled my eyes. She cleared her throat, embarrassed, and plunged on, “We came because we have an idea. Or really, Francis had an idea, but he couldn’t come by himself because he got shot rescuing Liam and had to have a blood transfusion—”

  Cathy’s eyes sharpened upon me. “You got shot?”

  I shrugged, even though I felt a prickle of pleasure at the attention. “I’m fine now.”

  Larissa coughed again to refocus their attention. “So um, the idea is this.” She glanced at me again.

  “Spit it out, you’ve come this far,” I said dryly.

  “We have two enemies, right? The Silver Six are the ones who have been trying to kill all of us, but now Jaguar is watching you too. Both of them are much stronger and smarter than we are—”

  “I don’t know about smarter,” I cut in, annoyed.

  “So,” she went on, casting me a tiny smile, “what if we make Jaguar seem like a threat to the Silver Six, and get them to band together to try to dismantle her? Then Jaguar will respond in kind, and maybe we can get them to destroy each other!”

  Cathy and Liam Senior exchanged a look. “And how do you propose that we do that?” Senior asked her, glancing from Larissa to me.

  Larissa said, “Well, Sir, you’re in close communication with both of them, and they both know it…”

  “Yes, and my every move is being monitored by Jaguar now, too,” he huffed.

  “But not here,” Larissa pointed out, gesturing around us.

  “Not in private residences that choose not to have cameras, no,” Senior agreed, “but that won’t help me with the Silver Six. They have cameras around them at all times…”

  “Liam, let them talk,” Cathy urged him under her breath, putting a placating hand on his forearm. Just like a wife. It didn’t escape his notice either, as he spared her a startled little glance before giving her a tight nod and turning back to us.

  I took over here. “We haven’t deployed the virus yet, even though we’ve now verified that it will have no effect on humans, and Liam’s offline, so it can’t hurt him anymore. But if we wait until we’ve planted the idea in the minds of the Silver Six that Jaguar is against them, when we do release the virus, they’ll have twelve hours for a counter-strike before the virus kills all the humanoid bots worldwide.”

  “The Advanced Molecular Detonator,” Liam Senior murmured slowly, and we all turned to look at him. Cathy shook her head at him, puzzled, and he went on, “The Silver Six commissioned General Specs to produce a targeted weapon for them that would vaporize all matter, splitting it apart at the atomic level and releasing the energy as heat. We call it the AMDr for short. We built it last year.”

  “Oh, Liam, you didn’t!” Cathy groaned.

  “What was I supposed to say, no?” he demanded, running a hand through his thick dark hair. “I work for them now, remember?”

  “But that’s good,” I cut in, snapping my fingers. “They could use that against her, if you plant the idea to the Silver Six that Jaguar is trying to wipe them out first—”

  “Because she feels threatened!” Larissa added, enthusiastic. “They could be developing a rival super intelligence that could supersede her!”

  “Bots don’t feel anything,” I pointed out to Larissa with slight disdain. “They’re pure logic. She wouldn’t ‘feel threatened,’ just because.”

  “You haven’t met her,” Senior disagreed, shaking his head at me. “Jaguar is… unlike any bot before or since. She’s long since surpassed us intellectually, so we can no longer truly explain how she works. But I can guarantee you—she’s emotional. The tantrums are something else.”

  I was struck dumb by this. I could feel the wheels in my head attempting to assimilate this new information, rewriting all of my previous constructs.

  “Well okay then!” Larissa continued with gusto, “so the Silver Six basically eat hydrochloric acid, right? And they order raw materials in bulk from chemical factories. What if we told the Silver Six that Jaguar was after them, and then shut down the factories and mines that supply the acid? Won’t that look like Jaguar is trying to weaken them?”

  “If they don’t see right through us,” Senior muttered, pacing. “Let’s forget for the moment about how I’m to get a message to the Silver Six without Jaguar’s knowledge, when she’s trying her darnedest to watch my every move. If either side discovers my duplicity, it’s a one way ticket to Exmorton for me!”

  “If you’ve got any alternate ideas, let’s hear them,” I snapped, and they all turned to look at me. I could see the shock on Larissa’s face, but I didn’t care. I got right up in Senior’s face. “You’ve already lost one son, and the other could have been killed many times over—and still might be, before this is all over. Why is your life so special?”

  “Francis!” Larissa tugged on my arm, but I shook her off. For his part, Senior looked shaken, which encouraged me—much the way blood might encourage a shark.

  “So here’s what you’re going to do,” I went on, jabbing a finger in his face. “You’re going to give me your A.E. chip LP address—not just your netscreen—and I’m going to network it to the Commune, so we can stream it when you’re talking to them. I want to watch the whole thing go down.”

  “But won’t that mean Jaguar can stream it too?” Cathy protested in whisper to Larissa. Behind us, I heard Larissa explain, “There are two settings on the labyrinth: tracking and streaming. Unless people are intentionally streaming their entire lives to the labyrinth—which is basically just reality TV stars—only the tracking is on all the time. But we can disable the LP from the labyrinth while enabling it on the Commune, and we can password protect it so that only those of us on the Commune with the code can access the streaming.”

  Senior took a step away from me and pointed at Larissa. “But the only way to keep Jaguar from accessing the Commune too is to disconnect my chip from the labyrinth entirely. Do you know how suspicious that will look?”

  “So I won’t disable you until you arrive in some red herring destination in the middle of nowhere without a lot of cameras. Maybe she’ll think your hovercraft crashed. Then you go on to San Jose, and confront the Silver Six. You stream it all to the Commune, and I can comm you to help direct the conversation in real time.”

  “You? Who are you?” Senior balked. “What makes you think you can direct the conversation with the Silver Six better than I can?”

  “Because I am their creation!” I roared. “They surgically altered my brain to make it as close a match to theirs as possible. They stole my memories, they stole my identity, and they made their own greatest enemy. I am their equal!”

  Senior’s mouth hung open in the dead silence that followed. Cathy broke the silence by sucking in a breath. Her voice tre
mbled as she asked, “How… long ago was your surgery?”

  I blinked, breaking eye contact with Senior as I glanced at her. “I don’t know,” I muttered. “But my earliest memory is from five years ago.”

  Her chin quivered as she shot a significant look at Senior—who completely missed it, the moron. Cathy got it. But he was too busy worrying about his own sorry skin.

  Cathy stepped toward me, tentatively reaching her hands toward my face. “Did they… do any other surgery?” she whispered. I stood frozen as her fingers stroked my cheeks, my forehead, and my chin. She searched my face as if looking for something she could not see. The lump in my throat returned.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice low and husky. “I—only found out I’d had brain surgery when Cordeaux saw it on VMI.”

  “Cathy,” Senior cut in. His voice was thick now too, and he reached out for his ex-wife’s arm. “I know what you’re thinking. But Liam said Brian is on Lunar Station Goliath—”

  “He’s not, actually,” Larissa cut in, casting an anxious glance at me. “Liam must have transposed two of the numbers. Brian had brain surgery, and then he was released. They tracked him to San Jose—where Francis has been living—and then his A.E. tracking data vanished two months ago—when Francis had his chip removed.”

  Senior’s face snapped back to mine as he absorbed this, scrutinizing me now. I gave him one quick nod, to indicate that this was all true. Then I cleared my throat and pulled a small package from my jacket pocket that I’d manufactured before we’d left the other compound: a cotton swab. I held it out to Liam Senior, who stared at it, eyes widening.

  “I’ll sequence this and let you know,” I said. “Via your A.E.”

  Without a word, Senior took the swab and ran it along the inside of his cheek. He handed it back to me. I wrapped it in its wax paper packaging and tucked it back into my jacket. Then he scribbled his A.E. chip LP address on a fragment of paper and handed it to Larissa. But his eyes remained on me.