Abaddonian Dream

by M. K. Woollard

  The lift was still broken and still untrustworthy, so he was gasping for breath as he hung up his dripping wet trench coat on the hook. Kicking off his heavy boots, he walked into the kitchen and nearly tripped over the cat, which had managed to slip between his legs undetected. He gave her some food from an open can in the fridge and she sauntered off on her own business without even touching it. Strange creature. Finally he flopped onto his huge L-shaped white faux-leather sofa, from where he could see out across the city. It was still just about nighttime and it was raining hard. Even with a reduced population, the streetlights, nats and night owls ensured that it never got really dark, even on nights like this. The blanket of cloud over the city would glow orange or pink by night and he had to admit that he did find a kind of beauty in it, even in the megastructures which loomed over the skyscrapers like enormous upended spaceships.

  He considered going straight to bed, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep; partly because his mind was aware it was almost morning and partly because of what he had discovered. Instead he lay down on his sofa with a very small, almost negligible, bottle of scotch and turned on his skywall. The quality was infinitely better than the ones at the station. Real flesh and blood people seemingly appeared in his house and the empty half of his living room turned suddenly into a city beach; part of some commercial for moving east. The skywall could be disorienting like that. It wasn’t for everyone, not with these settings, but it did have its upsides. The party mode allowed him to get his fill of sociability while being able to kick his guests out at a moment’s notice without offence. It had its downsides too though, one of them being its near total infiltration of the home and the sometimes surprising effects that could have. One time he’d awoken on the sofa needing the bathroom to find a horror movie playing. The decayed, shrieking corpse hanging above his head made him urinate a touch sooner than he’d have preferred.

  Sending out his usual dinner order, he flicked over to his personal news channel. The stories were supposedly the top rated ones and the ones he would most be interested in, but tonight they were mostly about things going on in the eastern megacities or on Abaddon and Bellerophon; food shortages and health issues and the like. The only interesting segment to do with Earth was about how the equatorial regions were becoming practically uninhabitable now and the havoc that was causing. Nothing much was happening locally. Arthur’s story didn’t make the main headlines. Hammell had to search for it and even then the report was only about an assault, with no mention of acid or a downed fire engine or a second victim who had not survived, and not even the vaguest hint about the Red Hands. He supposed it was a decision of Providence, or the people at Interpol or Intergov who controlled things. No need to spook the masses.

  As he waited for his food to arrive, he decided to take a shower. He poked at the newsreader’s face with a finger as he passed and she leaned away and then sprang back, continuing to read as if nothing had happened. In the bathroom he took off his barely-knotted tie, preserving it as best he could - he reused knots whenever he could; recycling was important - and then slowly unbuttoned his shirt to assess it. It smelled acceptable, and it was actually less creased than when he’d put it on this morning; a consequence of him not even owning an iron, since he considered the use of one to be a waste of life. Li had attempted to bring one in once, but she’d soon learned when he’d taken every perfectly ironed item of clothing from its hanger and formed a giant ball of material at the bottom of his wardrobe. She’d said nothing about it but the iron had vanished the next day and Li had made no further attempts to reintroduce it.

  He stared at his ageing face in the mirror. He was unkempt, he decided; that was the best word for him. His dark hair was shaggy and curled in strange places, but he was lucky to have it to cover his protruding ears. His face was rugged, weather-beaten and was covered in perpetual stubble which he only hacked down when it ventured too far into beard territory. His skin was naturally dark, a consequence of a standard mixed heritage and the sheer power of the sunlight even after it had diffused through the clouds. His was a face which was interesting to look at rather than being conventionally handsome. His father had once told him he was no oil painting, but he remembered thinking that painters probably liked to paint interesting faces, so maybe he was.

  Rubbing at his chin, considered the beard question. It was good for another day, he decided. As of today, he was actually working, and working long hours too. He didn’t want to risk giving Yun the impression he was becoming conscientious.

  The food arrived almost immediately after he stepped out of the shower. The front door of the building had been broken open - he had a vague memory of kicking it while drunk - but the delivery guy buzzed anyway. Unhappy about having to come up so many stairs, as usual, he wouldn’t move until he’d negotiated a decent tip, as usual. Hammell’s implant informed him that, at the rate the tip was increasing, it would be higher than the cost of the meal within six months.

  The cat appeared the moment the food did, of course, rubbing against his leg and begging shamelessly. He threw her a chicken ball and for once she turned her nose up at it and walked away again, leaving him to pick it up from the floor to stop it festering. Strange creature, he thought again.

  He finished his food alone as he stared out of the enormous windows at the city laid out before him, his newsreader talking softly in the background. The sky was already lightening, so he decided to skip bed altogether. Even if he did manage to drift off now, he knew he would be awake for the sunrise. It was always the same, no matter what time he turned in. He attributed it to his body missing the sun. Every morning, millions upon millions of self-aligning orbital mirrors would deflect away the majority of the sunlight to help cool the planet, keeping the world beneath frozen in perpetual twilight. The mirrors, combined with the cloud blanket thrown out by the spouter, meant that nobody in the city got to live in the sunlight anymore. These were the solutions constructed in the wake of The Storm, that devastating global event which finally forced humanity to gain control of the runaway greenhouse effect. That same event which had indirectly led to the reintroduction of artificial intelligences, brought back to help design and build the megastructures.

  Controlling the climate was essential, even Hammell would admit, but with no sun in the day and so many lights at night, how could he tell when to sleep?

  Walking out onto his balcony, he sat at the table in the bearably warm air, watching the eastern sky lightening. The cat jumped up and sat on the table, begging now for a chicken ball. “Good job I know you,” Hammell said, feeling pleased with himself as he slipped one out of his pocket wrapped in a sheet of kitchen paper. The cat wolfed the ball down and then curled up in his lap and promptly started snoring, as if to show how easy it was. Hammell stroked the sleeping creature as he chewed on a vitamin D tablet, watching for the mirror lag effect. Sometimes, just sometimes, he would catch as much as a full minute. The lag was due to the orbital mirrors taking time to charge in the sunlight before they repositioned themselves. Such a day required the regular southwesterly winds to switch to northerly, and be strong enough to clear away the spouter cloud. It happened only once or maybe twice a year.

  Today turned out to be one of those days. The sunlight hit his face, energizing him, and he sat there smiling to himself, basking in the light. The cat too stretched out. She was even more of a solarphile than he was. Maybe it’s my lucky day, he thought as he stroked Kitty’s upturned belly. The sun was shining and he had discovered something that all the androids, satellites and supercomputers of Providence had missed; something to show that maybe I.A.s weren’t quite so obsolete as everyone thought.

  Part II: The Red King

  Chapter 6

  Having barely slept, Hammell was surprised at just how sprightly he was feeling. He shocked himself when a ‘good morning’ escaped from his lips in the direction of the android at the front desk. It probably wasn’t normal to wake up feeling more tired than when he went to bed, but that was how
it was most days. Today though he felt like anything was possible. He could book a holiday, give up chocolate, or even take up jogging. He wondered if this was how most people felt every day, and what effect feeling like this all the time might have on his life. He would definitely be more active and more fun to be around, he decided.

  He’d barely drunk last night, which turned out to be a good thing this time, and for once he’d managed to doze for a couple of hours after the sun had risen. The result was an unfamiliar feeling of wellbeing and a two and a half hour delay to his shift.

  Not bothering with the lift, he bounded up the stairs like a blissfully unaware lamb in springtime, already beginning to despise himself by the time he reached the cupboard. Given his tardiness and Toskan’s recent private activities, he wondered briefly whether he should knock before entering. In the end he opened the door slowly while clearing his throat; he didn’t want to set a precedent. He was relieved to find that Toskan wasn’t doing anything suspicious, but was merely packing things into a small cardboard box on his desk.

  “Spring cleaning?” Hammell asked, his voice positively chipper.

  Toskan shook his head slowly and Hammell could tell instantly that something was wrong. “What is it?” he asked and he glanced down at the box, feeling a familiar sinking feeling in his stomach. They couldn’t have.

  “Yeah,” Toskan managed to say. “It’s my turn today.”

  “Why?” Hammell spluttered. “They can’t. Why?”

  “It’s happening to all of us,” Toskan replied. “You know that.”

  “But they need a reason.”

  The older man mumbled something inaudible and went back to clearing the shelf above his desk.

  “This isn’t right,” Hammell said as he stormed out into the main office, his good mood utterly ruined, and accosted the nearest android. “Why is Dave Toskan being fired?”

  “I do not know,” the android said and Hammell let it go, knowing word would spread quickly through their secret networks.

  Sure enough, a civilian android soon appeared on the stairs - a Human Resources model, without a doubt. HR androids were some of the few which still adhered to the soft robotics mantra. People didn’t generally like being fired, which had been a large part of their job over the last decade, so HR androids were made to look as friendly as possible. This particular one was cream-coloured and inflatable, and Hammell knew that even if he tried to assault the thing, it would simply inflate even more and he would never get near its essential parts. Its very name was non-threatening: FLOAT-4531.

  “I.A. Hammell,” the android began, its voice feminine and annoyingly serene. “Shall we go to a private room?”

  “No,” Hammell replied. “Tell me now.”

  “Hammell…” Toskan said from where he was hiding in the cupboard doorway. “Don’t.”

  “No problem at all,” Float said smoothly. “David Toskan has been released from his contract for looking at…” it paused discretely and continued in a whisper, “inappropriate files in the workplace.”

  “Inappropriate files?” Hammell asked, but he already understood.

  “A catalogue which was… pornographic in nature,” Float said delicately.

  “The android sex dolls,” Hammell said. The rubber at the door had seen, and the little shit had reported it.

  “Not androids,” Toskan said defensively as he glanced around the office in case anyone was listening. “I don’t like robots. They were andromorphs.” He looked thoroughly miserable as he attempted to justify his proclivities. In other circumstances, it would have been hilarious. “I was just looking through an old case file.”

  “There was evidence to suggest you were…” Float said, “how shall I put this? Playing-”

  “Ok,” Hammell said to the android, “you’re done. You can go.”

  Float bowed and complied and Hammell turned for the stairs, thinking quickly, his mind much clearer than normal for this time of morning, especially in its pre-caffeinated state. He knew he wasn’t ready yet. He really wasn’t ready… But what choice did he have?

  “Where are you going?” Toskan called after him, but Hammell was already in the stairwell. Four flights later, he emerged breathless on the tenth floor where he threw Commissioner Yun’s door open.

  “It’s polite to knock,” the big man said without looking up from his desk display.

  “Yes,” Hammell agreed, “it is.”

  The Commissioner had little real power these days, but he still presented an imposing sight. Like Asha Ishi, Yun’s features showed hints of an Asian heritage, though they were less pronounced in the Commissioner’s case. He was a man at least as wide as he was tall; a magnificent beachball stomach somehow out-girthed by the sheer immensity of his shoulders. Hammell could never be sure whether he was muscular or just fat. He certainly appeared flabby, but whatever flesh popped out between the buttons of his shirt appeared rock hard. So far Hammell had retained enough sense not to prod it to check, but he knew that day was probably coming.

  “Ok,” Yun sighed, “say your piece.”

  “Dave Toskan,” Hammell began. “It was my fault. I chose that file and I threw it onto-”

  “Are you implicating yourself?” the Commissioner asked quickly, staring at Hammell through narrowed eyes. “Are you confessing to an improper action in addition to David Toskan’s?”

  Hammell stopped. One of Yun’s shadows, his android P.A., was sat at its desk in the corner of the room, working away but covertly listening too. He had to be careful. “No,” Hammell continued, trying a different approach. “Look, it’s only a misdemeanor-”

  “And not his first of that sort,” Yun countered. “His third, in fact.”

  “The dirty little…” Hammell shook his head to clear it and tried to get back on track. “How can we investigate if you keep firing all the investigators? Dave’s a good one. For something so petty-”

  “There’s nothing to investigate,” Yun said, cutting him off. “The time of the I.A.s is over. This is the time of Providence.”

  Hammell had known these arguments would fail, but he still had to try them first. Now though he was out of options. Taking a deep breath, he prepared to make his real case. “Unless it’s flawed.”

  “What?” Yun asked. “Providence? A 92.7% conviction rate within two hours, 95.4% within twelve hours, 98.8% within twenty four, 99.9% in total. How does that compare to your figures, even in your prime?”

  “Not well,” Hammell admitted, “but the percentages are only as good as the numbers that go in to calculate them. Bullshit in, bullshit out.”

  “What is this about?” Yun asked, placing his hands on the desk and giving Hammell his full attention for the first time. “Let’s have it.”

  “I think Providence has been compromised-”

  “You think?” Yun said, cutting him off again. “You mean you don’t know?”

  Hammell’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly and the Commissioner sat back, staring, making him feel like a bug under a microscope. Why does Yun always have this effect on me?

  “Do you know how many failsafes Providence has?” the Commissioner continued. “How many systems checking the systems?”

  “But they’re all systems,” Hammell said, finding his voice again. “They all share the same weakness.”

  “Correct. None.”

  “To think that a system has no weaknesses at all is just…”

  “Ok, go ahead,” Yun said as he folded his arms across his massive stomach. “I’m listening. You’d best have something good though.”

  Hammell gulped and scratched his head nervously. He was going off half-cocked here, and was probably ruining any chance of ever convincing Yun in the future. But Toskan’s job was on the line... Reluctantly, he tossed the recordings onto Yun’s skywall display and the Commissioner grumbled at the breach of social etiquette. Hammell hit play and the drone footage started, but the surveillor recording did not.

  “What am I supposed to be getting from
this?” Yun asked as he watched the drone flying over the park.

  “The file must have…” Hammell said, flustered. “Something must have… Wait, I’ll find the original.” Logging into the surveillor network, he located the unit by its serial number, finding to his dismay that its memory had been wiped. Conspiracy! his mind screamed, but then he spotted that the surveillor had been scheduled for a periodic reset today. He hadn’t noticed last night. “Uh-oh,” he said aloud.

  “Ok, so you lost a video,” Yun said. “What else do you have?”

  Hammell stared into space.

  “Is that it?” Yun asked, his customary anger creeping into his voice. “You came in here claiming that the whole of Providence is flawed based on one bit of evidence?”

  It was useless to describe his discovery without providing the evidence to back it up, but Hammell was trapped. He had to play it out to the bitter end. "It was a surveillor,” he began, “which was programmed to only see what's always there. Anything new or transitory wasn’t recorded - really advanced programming. I had simultaneous drone footage to prove the hack. You know the Red Hands and their history of black spotting Providence-"

  “Hold on there,” Yun said as he raised a hand. “Slow down. Concluding that it’s a hack is premature. Concluding it’s the Red Hands is premature. Even if that kind of hack is possible, which I’m really not sure it is, and even if you’d provided evidence of it, which you haven’t, it would still be a stretch to claim that the whole of Providence is flawed from one fault.”