Solar Singularity

by Peter J. Wacks

  Dead GENIE nodes, mindlessly broadcasting and receiving but devoid of any actual data and fighting too much interference from the solar flare to reach the next node, hungrily grabbed the command and sparked back to life. He imagined the code, painting with his mind, and pushed as hard as he could. Nearby digital boards responded, flashing patterns similar to the one on the back of his hand. And the Hyper Reality code responded. Fire coiled away, turning into flaming serpents, phoenixes, and rocket ships that drifted off towards the clouds. The flame dispersed in smoky sputters and gusts of ash.

  On the other side, the water sluiced into the form of whales, mermaids, and pirate ships. It funneled down into every crack in the ground until a few last bubbles of foam popped and vanished. The people caught up in the wave shook their heads as though waking up from a nightmare, wondering why they were lying on the pavement.

  Anansi remained standing, heaving for breath, unable to comprehend what just happened. All around him, people had collapsed, leaving him in the center of several concentric rings of bodies. At first he feared he’d killed them somehow, but then a few stirred, and he noted most of them still breathed. The respite had been temporary … but these people had a chance now.

  Those who looked his way cried out and ran off, as if it hurt them to just see him. Before anything else could block his path, Anansi gathered his wits and resumed his run for the band studio …

  The memory folded back in and tucked itself away in a corner of his mind. The details of it remained a little muzzy, but the recollection left Anansi with one thing he hadn’t felt in a long time: certainty.

  The band studio had plenty of HR projectors, and he dropped his filters enough to let their data streams seep into his awareness. Most were his own creations: starscapes, and cloudscapes, dancing figures wearing masks of diamond, life-sized puppets on string capering in jester costumes. Other HR code had wormed into the system, though. That wasn’t possible unless someone had hacked in from the outside and dropped the code in. Better than 90 percent of each projection was based on the paintings he made, and it was only the remaining 10 percent that relied on external code.

  Mind-jarring malware mingled with augmented advertisements, spamblasts flashed their incessantly looping messages, and a cacophony of voices tried to burrow into his auditory canal. Someone had intentionally planted that code.

  Anansi raised his hands like a conductor and began sweeping whole feeds in and out of existence. Where he pointed, images brightened and exploded as the studio’s sensors responded to his entire body. He pinched forefinger and thumb, cutting off the nattering spambots. A tap of several Holo Tags conjured a map of Chicago, and a flick of a wrist turned the map into a fully dimensional simulation that he cupped in his palms. When he released it, the city broke down into golden coils that spun away and dissolved.

  He could … play the code. It gave him a killer headache, but with GENIE down he could control the localized nodes and use them. The code was his! He could twist and twine it, dampen and boost it, make it dance like he did during a show. Not perfect control by far, as his changes faded back into the chaotic feeds the moment he stopped paying attention to them, but enough to affect the data in his immediate vicinity. A small part of him wondered how many other people had figured this out and what they were doing with it.

  Anansi stared at his hands and laughed in childish delight. What more could he do? How? In all his years of working for the band, hard-coding his displays and ending every show drenched in sweat from the effort of keeping them seamless, he only ever dreamed of this sort of mastery of HR and Holo Tags. GENIE was too choked with traffic for a single mind to control even a single node. With practice, he might learn to summon image and sensation straight from his imagination, converting thought directly to augmented reality. This sort of skill could make him famous and fabulously wealthy … of course he would lose control of the nodes once GENIE came back on line.

  He flinched as the studio door burst open. Several figures appeared through the opening, wearing sleek body armor that glistened as they moved.

  Anansi turned and considered them. The figures came from an interesting program. Must be a kid’s game or military sim … or perhaps even a recruiting advertisement. He waved to turn off the distraction, but the commandos didn’t budge. One stepped right up to him, ignorant of all the HR projections floating in the air around Anansi.

  He clicked his filters back into place, but the invaders remained quite solid in his sight. Anansi swallowed hard as he noted the tri-helix on their shoulders.

  “Shit. You’re real.”

  The CHIMERA commando stared at him, face hidden behind an opaque helmet. A flicker of motion proved Anansi’s only warning before the butt of the man’s rifle caught him under the chin and flipped him backwards into darkness.

  “Real enough, scumbag,” said Raider through the helm speaker.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Raider

  Raider tore off his helmet and examined the prone, bleeding youth at his feet. He couldn’t be older than his late twenties, and the janitorial uniform hung loose on his lanky frame. Rich brown skin contrasted starkly with hair that had been dyed electric blue. Maven had continued to home in on his location thanks to the odd data patterns he kept emitting. She continued to chatter in his ear about HR acting even more erratically, that the squad’s filters were showing signs of stress in keeping the info overload at bay.

  It only reinforced Raider’s belief that the target, despite his unimpressive appearance, posed a great danger to the CHIMERA. What sort of secrets did he hold?

  Sub Commander Chu phased into sight and joined him, studying the kid. He primed his assault rifle, pointing it at the unconscious Anansi. “Orders, sir? Do we execute and move on?”

  Raider cracked his neck back and forth. The ease of this takedown suggested Anansi didn’t have any particular tactical skill or combat strength. The target’s lack of muscle tone and choice of hair colors told him that the kid probably played more video games than ever actually working in any physical way. He would be an easy prize to hold.

  “No. I don’t think that would be prudent. We’re taking him with us.”

  Chu looked at him sidewise, faceplate now transparent so his confusion was evident. “Sir?”

  Raider chopped a hand through the air. “We have no direct line to our other four targets. The best Maven has done is connect briefly to Jenkins and pinpoint where the other three started before the event. This man …” this kid “may have information we can use to track down the rest. Better yet, if he’s valuable to them, we can use him as bait. I don’t want to just eliminate them. I want to understand exactly what they’re planning so we can stop the worst from happening.”

  He caught Maven’s attention. “Scan this studio and have the rest of the team check each of the spaces within a sphere of thirty meters, including the decks above and below this one. See if you can pick up any broadcast equipment or other tech that might be responsible for the readings you’ve been getting.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As she headed off to carry out his orders, Raider looked over at Chu and noted a pained look lining the man’s otherwise smooth face. “Something wrong, Sub Commander?”

  Chu grimaced and opaqued his faceplate. “Sorry, sir. HR is pretty heavy in here. Had to adjust my filters. All good now, though.”

  Raider gestured to Anansi. “Get him chipped and radio the transport. We’ll have a new mission vector soon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chu put in the call as two others worked on prepping the unconscious target. While they worked, Raider took his own little stroll around the studio, seeking what answers it might hold.

  Despite what his soldiers might think, Raider didn’t enjoy senselessly neutralizing Chicago citizens. While his ultimate loyalty lay with CHIMERA and its mission of elevating humanity, he had served within the Chicagoland sprawl long enough to sympathize with its particular plight. Most of the people here just w
anted to make a living and do so without having to worry about bullets or black code ending their efforts in sudden and messy manners.

  It was the others … the troublemakers … the terrorists … the ones who wanted to chuck the whole system to make a quick credit … they were the minority threat who impacted the majority the most. The ones who made existence dangerous and difficult for all the rest. They were disease vectors. Contaminants in the water and code that made every faucet and feed potentially unsafe to drink from.

  Raider looked over his shoulder as Chu and the others dragged Anansi’s comatose body outside. The man hung limp in their grip, such an unlikely danger if one considered the surface factors alone. Yet no less potent in his ability to cause rampant death and destruction.

  Activating his com suite, Raider tried to establish a link with Command to update them on mission progress and see if any further details might be funneled his way. Nothing. Every channel he tried remained either dead or crowded with static. Raider glowered at a wall. He’d run silent ops like this numerous times before but, he had to admit, never without the option of real time data flow. These days, a soldier lived and died in their digital footprint. It had always been true that field intel was important. Knowing enemy positions, troop coordination, armament arrays—these were all critical to successful operations, and they relied on being able to patch into surveillance drones, security systems, and central Command for consistent updates. Otherwise one might as well be going into battle blind and limbless. But these days, when the very internet nodes in the air around you could be hacked to attack … yeah, digital footprint was everything.

  Ceasing attempts to contact Command, he instead radioed the other two units he’d sent along different routes. One pinged him back right away with an “All Clear and Operational.” The other stayed quiet for a disconcerting minute until a voice finally crackled through.

  “Sir, this is Sub Commander Warrel. Team Theta.”

  “Yes? Report in, Warrel.”

  “Sir, we just came under heavy fire and took two casualties. Attackers used hand cannons and railguns just as we came into the sector. It appears that there are also coordinated militias at work in the city, but these were corporate.”

  “Third Life?” Raider asked.

  “No, sir. Ravenlocke, according to their badges and tags. Five of them.”

  “Were they acting erratic?”

  “Not that I could tell. They coordinated their attack smoothly enough. We got lucky and landed a grenade right in the middle that took out most of their squad before they could pin us down.”

  Raider ground his back molars. Why were other corporations proving so aggressive? They had to be acting on orders to block or beat the CHIMERA strike team’s objective. CHIMERA Command hadn’t suggested any other megacorps that might even be aware and after the same targets. Raider had thought they might have the edge in this operation, especially since one of the targets had a direct connection to the CHIMERA arcology. Now it appeared that Command either had a double agent leaking information to others or multiple corporations were being manipulated by a figure even further behind the scenes.

  Both were disturbing options.

  Without any way to contact Command, he couldn’t warn them about this development. He’d just have to keep trying to establish a link. To do that, they needed a defensible position for the time being.

  “Team Theta, Team Gamma,” he said, “prepare to rendezvous at the transport. We’re transferring to a more secure operating base until we lock down on the next targets.”

  Once they confirmed his orders, Raider spun about-face and headed to rejoin his unit. This would be a trial by fire, and he was determined to see his team through to the other side.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Gyro

  Gyro woke up and immediately pulled up the internal clock on her TAP. Four hours had passed. Crap! She scrabbled some clean clothes on, topping them off with one of Nova’s workout hoodies, and scampered out into the living room. Both Nova and Chicken Fingers were already awake, packing gear.

  Nova glanced up as she walked into the room. “Good, you’re up.”

  Gyro rubbed at her eyes. “You let me sleep too long!”

  Chicken Fingers chuckled while Nova eased Gyro’s worries. “Nope. Just a nap. Whether you had been awake or not, we’d still be getting ready.”

  Gyro clipped her belt on and slung her pack across her back, then realized with a start that the other two were still loading ammo into magazines and shoving them in various pockets. Chicken Fingers looked like a walking arsenal while Nova looked like … herself. Ready to go clubbing.

  Gyro sat down and waited. She started fiddling with the strings of the hoodie, then whistled softly under her breath.

  Nova glanced over at her and raised an eyebrow. “Told you that you didn’t sleep too long.”

  “Ya, ya.” Gyro kept fiddling.

  “Toss me a can of fizzy water, CF?”

  The man obliged and tossed Nova a can from her fridge. It hissed as she popped the sealant and threw it down in three chugs, then burped. Chicken Fingers looked mildly surprised but hid his expression by the time Nova crumpled the can and flung it back at him. “Might be our last day on earth. I’m allowed to cut loose.”

  He caught it in midair and dropped it in the trash next to the fridge. “You’re assuming death’s the only option.”

  Nova jabbed a thumb at the front door. “Once we stick our noses back out there, I’d say it’s just a matter of time.”

  He snickered. “There y’go again, stating the obvious. Death is always a matter of time. It’s whatcha do with now that makes the difference. ’S’why I don’t bother planning for the future.”

  Gyro hopped over and plunked her elbows down on the counter. “I like the way you think, Chickie.”

  “Chicken Fingers!”

  “Uh-huh. That’s a lot better.” Gyro spun around, bracing her back against the ledge. “So, Sis, you knew Billy Black Eyes once, right?”

  Nova blinked. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

  “He’s the tagger I learned about Prophet from. He’s always sayin’ Prophet this and Prophet that. I think we need to talk to him.”

  “You think? When did you have time to think?” Nova asked.

  “Uh. While I was asleep?” Gyro looked sheepishly off to the side.

  “I told you those feeds weren’t worth paying attention to. Billy is just a crazy.”

  “But you have worked for him? Do you know where he is?”

  Nova scrubbed her forehead, looking like she wanted to be anywhere other than where she was. “Yeah. Yeah, I know where to find him. At least, I used to. Guy is harder to pin down than a roach. Paranoid beyond all-get-out.”

  Chicken Fingers came around to drop into a chair, holding a beer. “If he’s so scurry,” he mouthed the words around the lip of the can, “how’d you wind up doin’ biznezz wif him?”

  Nova picked at the skin around a fingernail. She kept glancing side looks at Gyro, as if bothered at having to say anything out loud in front of her—as if Gyro hadn’t figured it out on her own already.

  “Well, everyone ends up working for everyone sooner or later. I just cut out any pretense that I was doing otherwise. Sometimes I run a data snatch, but I’m doing it for two or three clients at a time, see? They just don’t know it. I do one job, get paid three times over. Billy loves dirty data and is always willing to pay well when I shoot a copy of whatever muck I’ve dug up his way. We’ve stayed in touch. Haven’t seen him in a few months though.”

  “Righto,” Gyro said. “Like I said, that’s where we gotta go then. Meet up with old Billy boy and use what is hopefully his vast intellect to sort out where our other two friends are.”

  “Nope.” Nova shook her head. “We walk into Billy’s uninvited and he’ll torch us before he even sees who we are. It’s a non-starter; sorry, Gyro.”

  “Uh, yeah, well, I’ll just give him a ping on his board so
he knows we’re coming and not kill us and stuff when we show up, ’kay?”

  “But the network’s down,” Chicken Fingers said as he crumpled his now empty beer can and tossed it in the trash. “GENIE is dead.”

  “It’s not down,” Gyro said. “It’s just empty—not working right. There’s still ways to connect, but most of them are so blasted with data right now, you plug in and get burnt out.”

  She shut her eyes to concentrate as she called up a few TAP protocols. “Gotta little peer-to-peer net we hashtaggers run, half on the hardlines, half in the Deep. We drop juicy bits here and there when we can. Little ‘scratch yours, scratch mine.’ I just gotta pop a few blips in there, seed a few queries about Billy and Prophet. If he’s out there and not loco like the rest of the locals, he’ll see them. He’ll know we’re coming. I actually tried back at my cube, but, uh … my lines are too clogged. There’s no internal filters. Raw data, you know?”

  “Is that smart?” Nova asked. “Knowing Billy, if he thinks people are coming after him, he’ll duck for deep cover.”

  Gyro could tell both of them were clueless. It was probably better they didn’t understand what she was going to try. “Gotta figure he’ll want to know more about the people who know about Prophet. Besides, he knows you, yeah? I’m just a poster, but you should be our card in.”

  “Not to belabor the obvious, but why don’t you just post the question if you can suddenly tap into the boards and talk with people?” Nova asked.

  “Yeah. That’s seems like it’d be a lot faster,” Chicken Fingers added.

  “So noob,” Gyro sighed. “No, it wouldn’t. It’s a matter of bandwidth. I can sneak a short post on, but no way can I sustain an exchange. I’d burn out anything we tried to use, just trying to press back corporate ice. It’s just … look. I post a short message but that’s it. I won’t be able to use the same access point twice either. Talking is out.”