He did not put the rifle down. He did, however, allow it to relax further, the barrel pointing all the way at the earth. “I suspect I know why you are here. I pray that you weren’t followed.” He pointed to a freestanding garage—easily large enough to hold four or five cars, and maybe a boat or two, but in the same disrepair as the house. “Put your car in there, then come inside.” He tilted his head, in a manner so similar to the one Silas used from time to time that it could have been genetic. “I will be watching you. I grant you a reprieve from my normal treatment of visitors, but I take no chances. Leave your weapons in the car—and don’t bother telling me you don’t have any.” An ironic smile twisted his lips. “After all, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
I wasn’t terribly keen on disarming, particularly when I knew Al’awwal—if the man who had met us even was Al’awwal—was heavily armed. But I didn’t have much choice. As we pulled the car into the garage, Silas nodded to several cameras that I had missed. I swear he had a sixth sense when it came to the damn things. I silently prayed that they weren’t connected to any network that the government would bother to go looking for, because if they were, this might be a real short trip. So, in full view of one of the watching eyes, I pulled the forty-five from my hip holster and tossed it on the car seat. I then reached down to my ankle and pulled the snub-nosed thirty-eight revolver I’d stashed there this morning. I normally didn’t bother with a backup gun, but after the shooting in the sewer, I was done taking chances. The thirty-eight followed the forty-five, and I closed the door on both. I did not, however, toss the tactical folder that was tucked into my pocket. I didn’t want to bring a knife to a gunfight, but better a knife than nothing at all.
“We ready?” I asked.
“When you are, Jason,” Silas replied.
We walked from the garage to the house, with Silas nodding to a few more well-concealed cameras. Given that I’d spent the last month doing everything in my power to stay away from the damn things, the very presence of the surveillance devices made my stomach churn. “I really hope these things aren’t plugged in to the net,” I groused.
Silas didn’t dignify the obvious comment with a response and didn’t seem particularly bothered. Maybe he was used to the possibility of summary execution from every Tom, Dick, and Harry that crossed his path. I supposed that adding the NLPD, the feds, and the National Guard to that list didn’t really change anything. But it was still a new feeling for me, and the churning in my stomach intensified.
Despite the overall dilapidated appearance of the house, the door was modern, solid, and possessed of a high-end magnetic locking mechanism. The readout was green, though, indicating that the door was unlocked. Unsurprising, given the level of surveillance equipment we’d seen. He’d probably known the moment we crossed his driveway. Plenty of time to grab the nearest gun and meet us on the front porch like a good Southern gentleman.
Well, he had invited us in, so I skipped knocking and pushed the door open. It took us into a grand entryway, straight out of Gone With the Wind, complete with the double grand staircase. I half expected Al’awwal to be standing on the mezzanine, perhaps with his rifle still trained on us, perched upon the balustrade. Instead, he stood calmly in the middle of the floor.
“This way,” he said.
I didn’t have much time to view the place as he led us down one long, broad hallway. My initial impression was that of size—the place was big. It seemed somehow bigger on the inside than even the outside would have indicated, in that way that a room with furniture in it always seems bigger somehow than an empty room. It also felt disused. Not that it was dirty or dusty per se. In fact, despite the exterior appearance, the interior appeared to be quite well-maintained, as if the dilapidated façade were no more than camouflage. Even so, the place had that air of a museum, as if everything we were seeing was a monument to a different time, maintained out of a duty to that past but not actually used.
“Here,” the man with the gun said, waving us into a room that in a different time might have been called a study. There were shelves lined with actual books, their colorful spines creating a mosaic along one wall. A broad fireplace—unlit—stood against another wall. Chairs, large, comfortable leather affairs that made me miss my old recliner, were arrayed in a rough semicircle around a low table. In perhaps the most shocking decorating choice, there was no indication of screens, overt or concealed.
“Sit.” He indicated a pair of chairs. Then he sank down into a chair opposite, the rifle resting across his lap. We sat, Silas and I each taking one of the other chairs.
The synthetic—assuming that’s what he was—stared as us. The glance he gave me was almost casual, a quick once-over that put me into a particular category. Silas got more consideration. But the man with the gun didn’t speak.
“Well,” I said at last. “You’re the one with the gun. In my experience, that means you’re the one that gets to drive the conversation.”
“Perhaps. On the other hand, you’re the ones who came here seeking me.”
“True.” I replied. “And I have to say, you look great for an eighty-year-old.” That was more than true. Al’awwal looked younger than Silas, despite being twenty or thirty years older. Whatever magic genetic juice Dr. Kaphiri had unlocked, it was clear that Walton had tinkered with it—or the doctor himself had.
“Why are you here?” Al’awwal asked again, ignoring my quip. There was more than a hint of anger in his voice, and his hands tightened on the polymer frame of the rifle. It was strange seeing that much expression of anger from someone I knew was a synthetic.
“Because someone dropped a body on my door,” I answered, feeling my own anger rising in response. “And because I just gunned down a whole fucking Walton Biogenics security team to find you. And, if you didn’t fucking notice, because I’ve got about a week before we do our level best to burn society down from the ground up. And your father, or creator, or whatever the fuck Dr. Kaphiri is to you, said you just might be able to help us with that little endeavor.”
Another long, searching silence. I expected it from Silas. In our time together, he seemed more than willing to leave the confrontation to me. He had no choice on the physical side, but I knew he could carry his own weight and then some when it came to the mental side. I wasn’t sure why he didn’t jump into any of the gaps. Knowing him, it could equally have been because he thought I was handling it fine or because he thought I was an idiot. But fuck it. Someone had to say something.
“He was a father to me,” Al’awwal said at last. “More than anything else, he was that.” The words were heavy with sadness and regret, and they took the wind out of my anger. “He would weep to see the state of things today, Mr. Campbell.” Al’awwal smiled. “Of course, I know who you are. Your face has been plastered across every netshow for weeks. I believe my father would want me to help you.” He sighed. “I knew, of course, that he had made arrangements to have certain information available if things ever got… Well, where they are today, I suppose. I was not a direct part of those arrangements, however. My father wanted to avoid the possibility of them leading directly to me. Or vice-versa, I suppose.” A small smile flashed across his face. “He was always trying to protect me, to keep me safe.”
“Seems like you do that for yourself pretty well.” I nodded at the rifle lying across his knees.
“Dangerous times, Mr. Campbell. And not about to get any less so, I fear. At least not if you want the information that my father gathered over the years.”
“We were led to believe that it was in your possession,” Silas said, entering the conversation for the first time. “If it contains everything your father,” the word sounded strange from Silas’s mouth, “claimed, it may well be the final straw to push the majority of the population to our side. If we are to have any chance of winning the war that is to come, it is vital that we win the hearts and minds of the common citizens.” He paused and drew
a breath, and for a brief second I saw the shadow of deep pain cloud his eyes. “It is also the only thing that, if things get worse, will prevent the complete genocide of our race. We have people questioning, and that has kept the atrocities to a minimum. But as things worsen, those atrocities will happen, unless we have truly incontrovertible proof that the real enemy is not the synthetics. We must convince the people that Walton Biogenics has done more than create a slave race, that they have actively been suppressing medical breakthroughs that could save millions of human lives as well.”
I knew Silas was right. There had always been some number of synthetics turning up dead—their only true protection was the expense of purchasing one in the first place. You didn’t casually destroy a valuable product. Most of the time. But if they came to be seen as a threat, as an actual enemy, by the majority of people… Without the rule of law to protect them and with no means of fighting back, it would be a massacre.
That had been the one glaring flaw in the rebellion from the start, and I’d been amazed at the willingness of the synthetics I’d met to take that risk. But it wasn’t lost on me—or on Silas—that the risk being taken wouldn’t only affect those who chose to take it, those who openly chose to rebel. It had the potential to bring harm to every synthetic on the planet, even those who would prefer not to risk their lives, no matter how harsh those lives were. If there was a way to turn public opinion, not just in dribs and drabs, but en masse, and place the blame where it belonged, then we had to do everything in our power, take any risk, to exploit that way.
“My father’s work, his research, his notes—it is in my care,” Al’awwal acknowledged. “But not in my possession. I’m afraid that would have been quite impossible.”
“Fantastic,” I sighed. “Then where is it?”
“I’m afraid it’s buried deep inside one of Walton Biogenics’ research labs. The lab where my father worked.”
“What?” Silas snarled. Actually snarled. Silas. “What damn use is that?”
I had never heard Silas speak so harshly. I understood the sentiment, though.
“He has a point, Al,” I said. “I don’t suppose this lab is a low-security facility staffed only by out-of-shape and unarmed guards who will faint at the first sign of violence?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Campbell. In point of fact, it is one of the most secure facilities, complete with armed guards and state-of-the-art security systems.”
“It can’t be fucking easy, can it?” I asked rhetorically. “And just what is it we’re after at this secure facility?” I couldn’t keep the exasperation from my voice. “And why in the world is what we’re after at this facility in the first place? From the video we saw, the entire point of what Kaphiri was doing was to gather evidence against Walton Biogenics. If we have to fight our way into Walton Biogenics to get it, doesn’t that defeat the point?”
“Gathering is not the same as making off with, Mr. Campbell,” Al’awwal said. “Do you think they did not have security measures in place when my father was alive? That they would allow him to simply walk out the doors with sensitive information? No. Every byte of data produced at that lab, every document, every study, has stayed either completely within the doors of the building or firmly embedded behind firewalls that would take an army of hackers years to crack. There was no way my father could have smuggled information out of that lab. He could, however, gather it, slowly, over decades, and create a cache that, with just a little bit of luck, would remain hidden long after his death. I know the location of the cache, the codes to access it. But we still have to get in, retrieve it, and get out again. I assure you, it will not be an easy task.”
“It never is,” I said.
Chapter 17
We were gathered around a large screen set into one wall of the mansion’s living room. Or one of its living rooms, anyway. This one at least looked somewhat lived in, without the museum quality the rest of the house boasted. The screen displayed satellite imagery of the Walton Biogenics lab where Dr. Kaphiri had once worked, still in operation all these years later. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, as it gave us some hope the information was intact, or a bad one, since if the building had been abandoned or turned over to other enterprises, it would have been a hell of a lot easier to get in and search the place.
“So, as you can see, there is no simple way to enter the labs, not even under the best of cirucmstances. And since these labs are well-known to be a major research facility for Walton Biogenics, these are definitely not the best of times. Protesters and counter-protesters have been gathering here for weeks. Law enforcement has responded in turn, though there are not as many officers as the crowds might dictate, as things have remained peaceful so far, unlike other areas of the city. Walton, however, has almost certainly increased its security presence as well, and there’s no way to know how many officers might be inside.”
The satellite imagery wasn’t a live feed, just a typical overhead shot from a mapping program, so all it showed us was the building itself and the surrounding structures. Al’awwal had drawn some rough blobs at various positions, indicating where groups of protesters had gathered. It looked like they’d done so near the main entrance to the building, keeping off the actual premises—which would have been trespass—but blocking large swaths of the sidewalk and even spilling into the roadway. The lab was in downtown New Lyons but not in the heart of the city. It sat on the blurry edge, where downtown started to blend into residential zones but where neither label really applied. As a result, it hadn’t received the same kind of media coverage, or the same number of protesters, that the Walton headquarters had garnered.
“We can’t wade through that crowd,” I said. “Even the blindest protester is bound to recognize me. And even if we did, it’s not like we can walk through the front door. We’re going to have to go in at night.” The mayor, working in conjunction with law enforcement officials, had decreed a curfew that started two hours after sunset and held until dawn for the denser areas of the city. “Do you know if the crowds have been dispersing once the sun sets?” I asked Al’awwal.
“Yes,” the synthetic replied. “They tend to clear out around the same time the majority of the Walton employees do. They stay long enough to disrupt the workday as much as possible and hurl insults at the people going in and out of the building. But so far, none of them have been risking arrest for violating the curfew.”
“Good. So how do we get in?” I thought for a moment. “Are the sewers a possibility?” I directed the question at Silas.
“No, Jason, I’m afraid not. They can, perhaps, get us close to the building. But there is no direct access. We would have to come up to street level.”
“Damn. These labs are far enough on the perimeter that they’re not going to warrant the same kind of policing as downtown, especially not when night falls, but there’s no way NLPD or Walton are going to leave one of their labs unpatrolled. And with the curfew, anybody on the streets is going to stand out. How close can we get, if we go subterranean?”
Silas shrugged. “I would have to check to be sure, but certainly within a block or so.”
I stared at the screen, brain churning. I didn’t see any other way. The buildings were too far apart to attempt any harebrained rooftop entry, at least not unless we could get our hands on a helicopter—unlikely—and somehow infiltrate it over the city—impossible. So we would have to go in on the ground. But just popping out of a manhole and casually strolling a block or two?
“Shit,” I muttered. “I just don’t see it. There’s no way in hell we avoid the cops and get into the building without alerting someone.”
“What if they let us in?” Al’awwal asked.
“Yeah, that’d be fucking fantastic,” I growled. “And just why would they do that?”
He shrugged. “They must get deliveries. I saw your video, of course. Saw what the hackers associated with your organization ac
complished. Surely, they could find something so mundane as a delivery schedule? The next truck bringing some sort of shipment to the labs? An operation that large… They must receive deliveries on a daily basis. If we can intercept one of them, we can insert ourselves.”
The idea definitely had its strengths. La Sorte, for one, seemed more than capable of cracking a delivery schedule, particularly if a little proactive net crawling could figure out exactly which carrier Walton Biogenics used. We wouldn’t even have to hack Walton. We could target the carrier or even one of the suppliers, whichever seemed likely to have the least intensive security measures. “Can we do it?” I asked Silas.
It was the albino’s turn to consider. He tilted his head in thought, and then nodded, slowly. “We can find the information, Detective. It’s likely the freight process is fully automated. The protections against electronic intrusion on shipping processes are fairly robust, but I think we have some people who might be up to the task. We will have to be very precise, however. Any unexpected delays in the truck’s journey would be certain to raise red flags with the shipping service.”
Time was always the problem. Our plan for the first—releasing the waves of compromising information on a number of politicians and public figures that had been collected over the years—was solid enough. But that arrow was aimed at the politicians and the elites, the people that, ultimately, made the rules and signed the laws. We’d always been thin on true evidence of the synthetics’ humanity. We had Evelyn, and now Jacinda. And I knew, deep in my guts, that at some point in our current plan, we’d have to turn them over. We’d have to let them be examined, allow their provenance to be confirmed. An image of Annabelle strapped to the St. Andrew’s Cross flashed through my head. I didn’t have a lot of trust in turning any synthetic over.
But if we could get the information from Dr. Kaphiri’s cache, we wouldn’t have to. We wouldn’t have to rely on outside confirmation in order to show people the truth. We wouldn’t have to risk Evelyn or her child. Hell, we might even put an end to things without the tumultuous waves of violence I knew were coming.
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