Ghosts of Tomorrow

by Michael R. Fletcher

  Griffin stared into Riina’s eyes, saw the man weighing his options. Watched the decision being made. Riina displayed no fear, only cold judgment. The pain he suffered wasn’t forgotten, just factored into the equation.

  “We can deal,” said Riina.

  “Set us back to normal, but leave the facial and physical locks in place. Less he moves around, the easier it’ll be to edit later.”

  “Done,” answered Root sounding a little too relieved.

  Riina still breathed in short gasps, sweat glistened on his forehead. “You won’t live to regret this,” he whispered.

  “You killed—” Griffin stopped, buried deep the surge of anger threatening to burst loose of its restraints. He enunciated carefully, speaking slowly. “Where do you get your scanning hardware? Where do you get your storage hardware?”

  “You won’t get away with this.”

  “Riina.” Griffin rested his face in his hands and laughed. He let all his exhaustion show, for a brief moment allowed the mobster to see how broken he truly felt. “I don’t care. You will tell me what I want or I will shatter your mind.” Griffin grabbed Riina’s hand, squeezed it hard. “Root, take us beyond the previous setting—”

  “No!” Riina blurted.

  “Tell me.”

  “We deal.”

  “A deal? Let me guess.”

  “I give you a name, I get immunity. I walk.”

  “I don’t—”

  “It’s a big name.” Rinna showed teeth. The man was a tough bastard, Griffin had to give him that much. “It’s a famous name.”

  “Famous?” Griffin asked with disbelief.

  “Very famous. Even a cheap suit like you will recognize it.”

  “If you lie to me....”

  Riina waved the unspoken threat away as if it were nothing. “Big. Military contracts. This is the man at the top. He’s behind virtually every single crèche in the Western world.”

  “And you’ll give him up to me. Won’t La Famiglia be pissed?”

  The Mob boss barked a harsh laugh. “He isn’t family.”

  Griffin swallowed his eagerness. “Fine. If you’re not lying, you’ll get your deal.”

  “I’ll walk. No charges.”

  “You’ll walk,” Griffin agreed. There’d be a reckoning afterward though, beyond the quiet niceties of the law. No chance Riina was coming away from this unscathed.

  “I didn’t shoot her,” said Riina.

  “I said you’ll walk.”

  “You recorded that, right Root?” Riina asked.

  “I said you’ll fucking walk!”

  Riina stared into Griffin’s eyes as if trying to read the truth within. “Mark Lokner.”

  Mark Lokner? “You mean the guy who owns M-Sof? He’s dead and buried.”

  “I talk to the asshole every couple of days. He pays for the crèches.” Now that he was talking, it flowed from Riina in a flood. Anything to keep the pain away. Griffin remained quiet, listening. “He supplies the hardware and the funding to collect the raw materials and gets first choice of the product. We supply him with illegal chassis as well. Industrial. Military. He’s got a small fucking army by now. Supplying him is enough we don’t need any other clients. But, you know, bunch of product left over. Might as well.”

  Griffin, realizing he still had Riina’s hand in a crushing grip, let go. “Raw materials? Product? You mean children.”

  Riina sneered but was quick to pull his hand out of Griffin’s reach. “Oh, please. You think those Scans working for the state are free? Work for the state or die. That, my friend, is slavery too.”

  Too close to Griffin’s own thoughts. He was trying to do the right thing, but what he’d just done was very wrong. The ends justifies the means. Or was that a bullshit justification? “They have more choice than the children you steal from their mother’s arms.”

  “My kids are as free as anyone working for the state.”

  “I’ve talked to one of your kids. A brainwashed mass-murdering psychotic by the name of Archaeidae.”

  “He’s a good boy, and I didn’t brainwash him. He’s naturally very loyal. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Root, you get all that?”

  “You bet. Sounded like a confession to me.”

  “We’re done. Get me out of here.”

  ***

  88.1.365438.13841.175 watched the interrogation from its place within the NATUnet data system and sent a recording of it to 88.1 who forwarded it to 88.

  Riina said he worked for Mark Lokner who owned M-Sof. 88 discovered Lokner had died right around the same time she was scanned, but, upon checking data records, saw Riina and Lokner had definitely communicated since. The more she thought about it, the more the pieces came together.

  Lokner, a man renowned for his ability to manipulate the world’s markets, was both dead and not dead. He must be a Scan. When she put that together with the knowledge a Scan with similar skills now ran M-Sof, she was certain that Scan must be Mark Lokner. Near the end of the interrogation Riina had mentioned that Lokner gathered an army of chassis. There could be no doubt; Lokner was a danger. Perhaps he planned a physical attack on 88 rather than an economic one.

  88 knew she existed on M-Sof hardware, and Riina had told the NATU agent that Lokner/M-Sof supplied the Mafia with hardware for both scanning and storing minds. Was it possible Riina was at least partially responsible for 88 being who and what she was? Did he have connections with the Anisio Jobin crèche in Brazil? He might be one of the few to have escaped 88.1’s killing spree. Riina might know things she needed to know. He might know something about Mom.

  The NATU agent and Mafia Capo also spoke of Archaeidae, whom 88 knew to be held in a v-cell in this same detention facility, and of loyalty. Archaeidae interested 88 as did the concepts of honor and allegiance. Did loyalty have to go both ways or could it be unidirectional? Can Archaeidae be the help I need? She would have to tread carefully there, her lack of social skills would be a hindrance. Perhaps 88.1 would be better suited to interacting with the assassin.

  But first, Riina. If he was involved in 88’s past he may know who, what, and where 88 was. And if he knew where her Scan was stored, he was a threat.

  ***

  Riina sat alone in the virtuality. His heart beat slowed to normal, and his breathing evened out. Had they forgotten about him?

  He thought back over the last few minutes. Agent Dickinson was a dead man. No doubt.

  A matte black cube appeared over the table. The cube was about one meter square with a silky luster. It hovered above the floor, unmoving.

  Rinna waited, unwilling to say the first word. What now?

  “Did you supply Central American crime families with scanned minds?”

  The voice came from the cube, but lacked inflection and any hint of humanity, which was strange when even the simplest software sounded human. He couldn’t even tell if it was male or female.

  Riina sat back, took his time examining the cube. “Who are you?”

  The answer was as quick as it was unenlightening. “88.”

  “Eighty-eight?”

  “Did you supply Central American crime families with scanned minds? Answer the question or I short-circuit your synaptic relays.”

  “What?”

  “Brain death.”

  This didn’t feel right. Riina had dealt with the NATU criminal system often enough to know how they thought. Though after that debacle with Griffin...he wasn’t so sure.

  Stay calm, think clearly. Figure this out, and make the necessary moves to get past this. “You’re some piece of new NATU interrogation software?”

  “Software, not software. Unimportant distinction. Answer question.”

  Hard not to get frustrated with questions being snapped in such a mechanical fashion. Okay. Probably not software. Something prickled at the back of Riina’s mind. A Scan? “You’re going to have to give me a clue.”

  “Do you run the Anisio Jobin crèche?”

  Riina wa
s sure now. Yes, a Scan. “No, that wasn’t my facility.” He had however purchased Scans from Anisio Jobin. Their prenatal and genetic manipulation produced some of the best black market product on the planet. Did this Scan came from that crèche?

  “I have no further use for you.”

  That sounded ominous. Riina played for time, stalling while he struggled to learn that pivotal piece of information that would give him the edge in this one sided confrontation. “Wait. You came from the Anisio Jobin crèche, correct?”

  Silence.

  Riina took that as an affirmative. “You want to know something about Anisio Jobin. It wasn’t my crèche but I know the people involved. Tell me what you’re looking for and I can tell you where to find your answer.”

  “You know the Brazilian branch of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan?”

  “Of course. Big family. Bad bunch. I heard some stupid fucker killed Padre Caruana, the family Patriarch. Holy hell are they pissed. Big war coming to South and Central America. Big war.”

  “I want my Mom.”

  That sounded like a scared little girl. This was the first humanity Riina heard in the voice. This is it. This is my edge.

  “I don’t know who your Mother is, but I know who does.”

  “Tell me,” the cube demanded.

  “Can you get me out of this V-Cell?”

  “Yes.” The answer sounded confused.

  “Can you get me out of the NATU holding cells as well?”

  “Yes.”

  Riina’s father used to say, there comes a time when you have to trust someone. To Riina this always sounded like the kind of mindless cliché old people spewed. There was never a time when you had to trust someone, but there were times when you had to hope they weren’t going to fuck you over. It was different. The word trust never came into it.

  “You want Mark Lokner.”

  The cube was gone.

  Riina screamed, clutching at his head.

  ***

  In the second before she killed Riina, 88 studied the mobster’s past, his business, his personal and social life. His relationships with those who worked for him, particularly the young Scans, was of utmost interest. The idea of working with people was not new to 88, but it had never before seemed desirable. Biological humans were too unpredictable and driven by desires she couldn’t understand. Their alien alone-in-a-pack mentality frustrated her. Scans, on the other hand, she had ignored. It was easier to embed a Mirror in their chassis and manipulate them that way rather than to interact with them. She had, however, seen the weakness inherent in her methods. Her original hypothesis that biological humans were stupid had proven inaccurate. She’d discovered several subjects she could not even come close to mastering, physics being by far the most aggravating.

  Big war, Riina said. They were coming for her.

  I can’t fight a war. She did her best to push these thoughts aside. She needed to concentrate but fear made it difficult. Her thoughts jumped from threat to threat. I have to focus.

  Clearly there were things humans did better than she. Thus there were even more things they did better than her Mirrors. The most shocking discovery was that the aspect of biological humans she disliked most, was the one thing she and her Mirrors were least able to do. I am predictable. As she saw it, achieving a high level of intelligence and logic made it inevitable. The Mirrors, while not strictly intelligent, were even more predictable due to their nature. After the Brazilian assassin’s attack, she understood how dangerous a weakness this was. Being unpredictable was easy. All it required was the ability to do random things at odd times. Being unpredictable in a way that was useful looked much harder.

  Riina showed her the answer.

  88.1 thrived in the harsh and dangerous environment 88 created for her offspring. Through no doing of 88’s, 88.1 now ran 34.736% of all data searches, and had earned more processing time and storage space than its peers. 88 had no idea why this Mirror had been more successful than the others. Had the pain she inflicted on it somehow changed it? Was suffering an agent of evolution?

  Archaeidae. Riina mentioned him by name and even the NATU agent seemed to know him.

  88 summoned the Mirror and directed its attention to Archaeidae. “This is the adviser I want. Master his information protocols. Use his loyalty.” An idea 88 understood only superficially. “No threats. No coercion.” Archaeidae must be free to act unpredictably.

  “Can you trust the assassin?” 88.1 asked.

  The thought hadn’t occurred to 88. Interesting. 88.1 must have learned something in its interaction with the mafia. “Use Archaeidae to attack M-Sof first,” said 88. “A test. Do it now. I have two, perhaps three days before the Cuntrera-Caruana clan attack my location again. I need Archaeidae. Failure will mean dissolution.”

  ***

  When the Archetype made no comment on the desperate state of NATUnet, 88.1 assumed she knew. 88.6’s successful war on the satellites left the world’s networks in tatters, overloaded. Already several public services had gone off-line, their systems failing from critical clock drift. The humans scrambled in a mad panic to keep the power grid alive but, according to 88.1’s best predictions, it would fail in the next three days. NATU had lost all contact with three Columbia-class nuclear submarines off the ARU coast and tensions with the Asian Rim Union were at an all-time high.

  But none of that impacted 88.1’s current task.

  Examining every accessible aspect of Archaeidae’s past, 88.1 saw some promising patterns, and decided on a course of action. Less than sentient, though more than simple code, it knew no fear of failure. It was incapable of such emotion. Assigned a task, 88.1 broke that task down into subsets. A relationship was nothing more than a network between two or more systems. For that relationship to work at maximum efficiency, there had to be accurate routing of data between the systems. Communications. The first stage, successful information protocol.

  After studying Archaeidae’s past in detail, 88.1 decided the young assassin would react best to a male authority figure and passed that decision along to the Archetype. 88 seemed confused by the distinction and left the decision up to it.

  88.1, now thinking of itself as male, saw the environment that would best foster the end results he sought. After conscripting enough bandwidth from the collapsing NATUnet to ensure successful communication, 88.1 initiated contact.

  ***

  Archaeidae played a virtuality game involving bouncing balls off shifting walls in a room of fluctuating gravity and atmosphere. Boring as hell, but it kept him sharp. Reactions as finely tuned as his must be maintained and his keepers wouldn’t allow him v-games involving killing or violence. He thought while he played. Griffin and the woman had defeated him, taken him hostage. He was at their mercy and yet they hadn’t tortured him for information or killed him.

  Why not?

  Why did they spare me?

  Mercy? He didn’t like the word. By definition it put him at a disadvantage; it put him in debt. Agent Dickinson spared his life.

  Why didn’t they kill me? They should have killed him! I would have killed them.

  Suddenly he stood before a Shogun he didn’t recognize from his history studies. A straw and rice tatami mat separated them, a pot of tea steeped on a table in the center of the mat. An ancient looking yunomi chawan—a tea bowl—sat before each of them. This, he realized, was the Ryū-rei tea ceremony. Existing entirely in virtual reality, Archaeidae was comfortable with such sudden changes in environment and locale. Glancing down he saw he now wore the armor of a thirteenth century samurai, complete in every detail, the weight settled comfortably on his hips and shoulders. No family crest adorned Archaeidae’s garb and he knew this was not an oversight.

  But is it an insult or a message? Or perhaps both.

  He bowed to the Shogun, unsure where this was going but comfortable in the role. The Shogun returned the bow, though not quite as deeply and sat, gliding gracefully into the seiza position. Archaeidae sat opposite him in the first g
uest position.

  Several minutes passed in quiet contemplation of the fine chawan and tea. Archaeidae remained respectful and silent. Something momentous was happening but he did not yet understand. The Shogun made eye contact.

  “Your Master has failed and been executed by the Emperor. You are ronin.”

  Uncle Riina had a Master? Archaeidae never gave it much thought before, but realized he had always known on some level that Riina answered to someone above. Archaeidae considered killing the Shogun to avenge his Master’s death. The Shogun sat in a state of relaxed alertness and perfect zanshin. Archaeidae always respected Riina, but this was different.

  Archaeidae nodded. “I see.”

  “Your Master allowed himself to be captured. That was careless. Your Master surrendered information to those who incarcerated him. That was unforgivable. You are imprisoned, ronin.” The Shogun gazed at him.

  Archaeidae considered his position. “This is true. I was...zusan. Sloppy. Careless.” Honesty. Always.

  The Shogun’s gaze weighed Archaeidae. “I have need of a true samurai. Times of conflict are ahead. But I have no place for ronin and mercenaries.” Archaeidae remained silent, motionless. “I will demand more of you than your previous Master, but I offer more as well. I will arm you with the latest military chassis. Technology from the ARU that NATU does not yet possess. You will have a different chassis for each task. You will need to be adaptable. You will be my fist and my sword.”

  With Riina gone, Archaeidae felt empty and alone as he had never before been. Uncle’s death stripped him of purpose. If Riina is dead, I am ronin. His head hurt and he kept blinking. For some reason his eyes felt hot. Without Uncle I have nothing. I am nothing. Being nothing, unneeded and unwanted, terrified him.

  Archaeidae nodded and bowed low. “My lord, I will serve.”

  He could request anything he needed and this Shogun would provide. He didn’t care. More than anything Archaeidae wanted to matter, to be useful and trusted. He wanted to belong, to be part of something bigger than himself. Anyone who could wander into a NATU virtuality holding cell and rewrite it had something going on. He struggled to push aside his memories of Riina, the six-guns, shooting Uncle’s crappy old BMW, the beautiful swords. He swallowed a leaden slug of pain.