Base Metal (The Sword Book 2)

by J. M. Kaukola

  They touched the sphere, and it responded.

  Access codes flashed before him, and tumblers toppled into place. Security gates, encryption, and passcodes dissolved. Their will, their command, 'open', pulsed through the net, called up a thousand unnameable programs. One lock fell. A second followed. The third gate resisted, but they adapted. A wrench became a hammer, became a scalpel, and the final barrier yielded.

  They stood in the sphere host, in a Zeta vault in the North African Hub. They ghosted through servers and read the naked source. They stared down from high orbitals and measured the green-amid-brown of the gleaming desert campus. They turned their gaze through a pivoting camera in the maintenance access hallway and watched the maintenance man push his rickety cart. They were Argos All-Seeing, a hundred hungry eyes fixed upon all the world. They were Grant Firenze, laying helpless in filth and squalor. They were an emulation of the ancient, molded to their user, five years beyond the purge limit.

  This was why the hardjack was illegal: not because it was bad, but because it was good. It might have been God. They were not programming, not anymore; they were not merely acting upon the world. They conducted a symphony of will. They moved, and the ocean crashed over the Zeta firewalls. A wall of pure, brilliant logic battered aside the defenses. The sphere lay open. They entered, and the seas followed.

  They rode the tide, intent and actualization in harmony.

  The sphere crashed down around them, tried to seal them within. A hundred ICE programs hunted, sharks in the sea. The waters thickened, attempted to turn to stone, and lock their location. Their counters were reflexive and absolute: block, shield, spike. They unleashed spoofers, schools of pseudofish which pulled away the sharks.

  There, at the heart of the sea, crystal lay shimmering in the depths. They descended, and the water turned to acid. Their skin blackened, peeled flesh from bone. In the torrent, they knew the threat: burner viruses, the most dangerous, illegal sort of anti-wetware intrusion countermeasures. Burners directly targeted hardjacks, tried to jump the machine-mind barrier, and cook the gray matter. They were too deep to withdraw, too close to turn back.

  In a far-away world, a young man convulsed on a mattress. This was not important.

  They reached for the crystal, and a thousand hands reached with them, mirrors and shells which burned away to shield them from the attack. A false mask disintegrated. Another. A dozen imaginary hardjacks snapped, a dozen imaginary people died, and with each, the burner would retreat, announce success to its master, then discover it had been spoofed, and return. Each iteration bought them time.

  Fingers closed over stone, and the crystal melted away, loaded into their conscious.

  They snapped back from the server, from the sphere.

  They were no longer in orbit, in the hallway camera, or ghosting through the server. They were no longer one.

  Firenze staggered back and gasped in two worlds. His mind was rubber, his vision doubled. The expanse faded, bliss and perfection slid from his grasp like memories of a dream. He laid on the ground of the fullbright room, Lauren beside him, both staring half-dazed at empty air, the last shared thought an expression of absolute triumph/satisfaction. They'd done it.

  She recovered first, tapping his arm and beginning the diagnostic. Beside his bedridden body, the assist box pinged, checked for physical damage, which might warrant a medical call. Satisfied, the scan terminated.

  He could hear again, see again, note the sweeps over his systems. He rose to his digital feet and assured, "I'm fine. I'm fine." He blinked, checked simulation veracity, and asked, "You?"

  "All systems functional." She replied. "We did it."

  "Yes, we did." He said. He unfurled his hand, revealed the shimmering crystal file.

  "Should I call Kendrix?" She asked. She nearly cloaked the disgust-tic, this time.

  "Yeah, give him a ring. Tell him I've got it." Firenze shivered, energy still coursing through him.

  She vanished, and Kendrix appeared. The ratlike hacker scanned the room, more nervous than usual. When he'd packed up his scaffolds, he demanded, "You got it?!" He twitched, then asked, "I mean, are you okay? You're pretty... um... banged up."

  Firenze tried to answer, but his avatar glitched, flickered transparent. He pulled up a repair tool, ran it over his integrator, and excused, "I'm fine. Give me a minute. Still coming down."

  Kendrix shuddered. "You ran a full integration, didn't you? Mindfucked the deep web?" His eyes flicked towards the crystal file in Firenze's hand, and he licked his lips. "You got it, though. You're the fucking man!" He paused to compose himself and added, "Just... uh... be careful. I don't want my best guy to strew his kidneys. I've seen it, and it's not pretty." He paused again, stumbled over his words. "Look, I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life, but you should really purge that shit and take some time. It can get weird."

  "I'm fine." Firenze insisted. "Do you want to see what I got?"

  Kendrix all but lunged across the room, hands steepled and eyes gleaming. "Show it!" He whispered.

  Firenze held the crystal forward, let the other man run his scans.

  Kendrix ran a wand over the file and muttered, "Definitely not mundane." He adjusted his glasses, reran the pass, "Now that's-" he stared at Firenze in horror.

  "What?" Firenze demanded.

  "It's a goddamn tracker!"

  Firenze hurled the crystal into a slashbin. Cleaners scoured his records, and the burn-safe roared, consigning the poisoned data to oblivion. He cut the room, severed external links, and threw up every flag and barrier in his arsenal. The cleanroom became a fortress.

  But Kendrix was still here, which meant Firenze was still broadcasting.

  Kendrix backed away, terror clear on his face and scanner in hand. He demanded, "What was it? What was inside?!"

  "Nothing!" Firenze snapped. "Just this!"

  "It's in your wetware! Your goddamn brain is transmitting! It's running through your whole fucking rig! Shit! Why'd they bury a tracker?!" Kendrix twirled his hand, cut a portal from the room. He stopped at the escape hatch and gave one last, "I'm sorry!." Then he was gone.

  Firenze panicked. He tried to close every tainted system, but no commands would respond. He was compromised.

  This made no sense. Why build a snare which required a hardjack? What kind of sadistic honey trap was this? And for who?!

  Firenze tried to log out. His fortress flickered but did not fade.

  He tried to call for Lauren, but no one answered.

  He whirled and beheld a gleaming silver star, radiant in his saferoom.

  This was impossible! The data was erased. There should be no sun!

  Kendrix's words echoed, 'It's in your wetware.'

  He tried to carve a door, but none formed. He triggered a reset. Nothing. The walls began to melt, turning as silver as the sun.

  "Lauren!" He screamed. "I need an assist, now!"

  Only the growing chime responded.

  He tried to pull his vitals. No response. Terror spread, and he remembered every story he'd ever heard about ghosts in the net, and how he might be joining them.

  The walls flowed into the floor, a mercury tide that sealed his legs in place. He tried to swim, tried to pull himself from the grip, but it clawed up his sides, freezing death. He forgot to code. He forgot to intend. He thrashed like a drowning man as the sphere shrank ever smaller, and the tide rose.

  Silver poured through his mouth and nose. His lungs filled, fire blazing through his chest. He tried to choke, tried to vomit, but the cement clogged his throat. Pressure built in his cheeks, in his ears, behind his eyes. He tried to scream, but there was only silver. Searing pain blinded, and quicksilver waterfalls vomited from his ruined eyes. The world was gone. In its wake, pain transmuted into a voiceless digital screech.

  It was a mercy when his brain shut down and plunged him into darkness.

  Crashout

  Grant Firenze woke on frozen concrete, and every inch of him hurt.

&nb
sp; He pried open his eyes, but the light faded in and out of focus. The stone beneath him was cold and wet, and a single glowpanel bathed him in sterile blue. The room stank. He stank.

  It took him a long moment to realize the most crucial fact in the universe: he was alive.

  Memories flooded back, of terror and silver and melting walls. He screamed, scrambled to the center of the room, hands dancing over his chest, over his face, making sure everything was intact.

  He was alive. He was whole.

  The room wasn't melting.

  He collapsed onto the floor with relief, a sigh escaping his frozen lips. He'd never been so glad for something so base. The nightmare wasn't real.

  Was it?

  His eyes flashed open, once more, and he recognized a prison cell. There was a bunk welded to the wall and a toilet beside it. There were no windows, but for a slit panel high on the armored door, and all the walls were smooth concrete. He may be alive, but he wasn't free.

  His stomach plunged again. Everything he'd done, everything he'd built, all of it was gone. His first thought was his mother, waiting in the dole office for the credit transfer, her coffers unfilled, his promise broken. He'd failed her, just like the rest.

  He staggered to his knees, lunged for the toilet, and wretched up his loss. He gagged and hurled until the pain in his guts matched the ache in his heart, and he wished, desperately, that this was still just a dream.

  He collapsed onto his side, too exhausted to drag himself from the disgusting toilet. He lay on the stone floor, unable to think.

  Then the door buzzed.

  A bolt slammed, and two guards poured through the gap, weapons in hand. He didn't resist as they pulled him to his feet. He didn't fight as they yanked the hood over his head and buried him in black. He didn't even struggle when they clapped his hands behind his back, bound them in steel, and marched him into darkness.

  He felt the clang of metal deck-plates under his padded slippers. He heard the buzzes and wails of electronic gates and locks as he passed. Hard hands shoved his back, yanked his shoulders nearly clean from their sockets, and rough voices snarled commands of "Move!" and "Stand up!" every time he stumbled.

  A final buzz and thunk passed with the wind of a closing door, and they shoved him into a freezing chair. His manacles clattered, loosened, and then fell away. The hood ripped back, rose like a curtain, and he found himself staring into the face of the State across a brushed-steel table.

  The man seated opposite him was late into middle age, with white-wings cutting through his receding black hair and steely eyes glaring out from a leathery grimace. The man's scarred lips peeled into a shark's grin under the glowpanel's glare. The man wore a suit, flat black-on-white, with the only points of color from the golden clip on his tie and pin in his lapel. It was the pin that commanded Firenze's attention and sucked the breath from his lungs. The golden eagle sat upon the world, set against the starburst field and the all-seeing-eye. He was not sat across from some detective, but from the Agency itself.

  Firenze wished he had another bathroom.

  The man noted his panicked stare. He gave a knowing smirk and a slight, almost-accidental brush of his collar, then leaned back and greeted, "Glad to see you're awake, Mister Firenze."

  Firenze could only stare, mouth moving without sound.

  The agent continued, savoring his words like a jungle cat circling its prey, "I think this was a decent demonstration of why we restrict the hardjack. Do you agree?"

  This time, Firenze managed a mumble-gasp noise.

  "I'll take that as a yes." The man said.

  "I... alive?" Firenze forced out.

  "We got to you just in time. You were foaming, seizing, shitting the bed- it was pretty close for a while, but the docs are good at resuscitating ledheads. You're welcome."

  "What do you want?" Firenze managed.

  "Now, that is a good question." The agent reached down into his briefcase and pulled out a stack of yellow paper, three centimeters thick, and thumped it onto the table. Firenze flinched, and the man continued, "A lot of people like everything high-tech, but me, I think paper lands with more gravitas."

  Firenze opened his mouth, but the agent cut him off, "You're in a bad spot, Grant. You broke into a government installation and stole State secrets. If you don't start thinking right, you're gonna wish those doctors hadn't brought you back."

  The man spun the paper stack, let Firenze read the bold red-and-black text. He traced his finger along the bullet-points, summarized aloud as Firenze reeled from the charges. The agent read, "The charges start with illegal wetware and end in..." he trailed off into a mock gasp, then stated, "Oh my. That's treason."

  Firenze couldn't think. He couldn't feel. The agent let him flip through the paper, as the information rolled over him dumbly. Every page was stuffed with pictures, logs, and records, a damning diary of his every sin. Every time he'd helped Kendrix, every time he'd hung out with Suze, all of it documented with dates, times, and people, built into a growing network of subterfuge and sedition. He flipped the pages faster, even as his mind grew dumber, until he landed on the capper. He hadn't broken into just any Zeta vault; he'd breached the Terran Provisional Authority High Energy and Quantum Event Research Facility, Arclight.

  This time he couldn't hold back. Firenze vomited over the side of the table.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw the agent's bored eye-roll.

  He was still gasping when he heard the man ask, "I take it you do know the penalty for treason?"

  Firenze had no words, no answer.

  "You had so much going for you," the agent commiserated, "but you threw it away. What will your mother think? She was counting on you, boy."

  Firenze rocked slowly, the world ringing around him.

  "Tell me, was it worth it?"

  He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He tried to vomit again, but there was nothing left.

  "Oh, give it up." The man chided. "You're not thinking."

  Firenze glanced at him, confusion and desperation blended.

  "Christ, they said you smart, but I'm not seeing it."

  A spark of anger set his words in motion, and Firenze demanded, "What do you want?"

  "Me? Nothing. I'm just waiting to hear your side of the story."

  "My... side?"

  "Yeah." The man nodded, his pulled-leather face crinkled into a mockery of conciliation. "These charges are pretty damning, but maybe they're not the whole picture. Maybe you aren't an enemy agent, but a naive pawn in a greater game. Maybe you've screwed up, but you're a good boy and want to help work off that debt, turn State-side and cooperate with the investigation. That might lead to lower charges, something like conspiracy to commit sedition. It's the difference between life in prison and the rope."

  He continued, "Of course, you wouldn't last long in that prison. Inmates don't like narcs, they don't like deviants, and they really like soft young boys. Not a good combination. I'd hate to be that warden, explaining to your mother how her baby died from pink slop."

  Firenze stared.

  "You know what that is, right?" The agent asked. "It's when you get fucked so hard by the prison bull that your sphincter snaps like a rubber band, and everything falls out. It's a real shit way to die."

  "What do you want?"

  "The funeral would be awful. They'd have to close half the casket, at least, just so your mom wouldn't have to see her son died from his gooey bits tumbling out his broken, sodden-."

  "What do you want?!" Firenze cried.

  "There's no need to scream, kid. I'm just laying out scenarios."

  "What do I do?" Firenze asked. "You're goading me. What do you want?"

  "I want you to consider a third path. You cooperate, you volunteer for civil service to make up for your crimes of naivete. A man of your talents could be of great use to the State. We might even be able to waiver your hardjack."

  Firenze stared.

  The agent leaned forward and added, "You might even
get your assist box back before we dissect the mask."

  "I'll do it." Firenze snapped.

  "Just like that?" The agent sounded a little surprised. Amused, even.

  "Yeah. But I get my mask back, unaltered. And I want my mom-"

  The man turned his hands open as if to protest his innocence, "Of course. You'll be paid for your service, and we'll defer whatever you think is proper. Play this right, and you might get some social credit for your work. That kind of prestige is priceless." His smile vanished, his voice darkened, and he advised, "But know this: there are no go-backs. From the moment you leave this room, you'll be squeaky-clean, or we will revisit this file." The smile returned in all its demonic glory. "We wouldn't want that, now would we?"

  "No." Firenze agreed.

  "Glad we agree." The man stated. "Here's how this plays. I'm going to leave. Some guards are going to bring you to a washroom. You'll clean yourself up, get that shame off. You'll go back to your cell until the lawyer arrives. You'll cooperate fully, give up everything you know about Kendrix and Suze. You will not mention me or this conversation. You will be charged with receiving illegal wetware, you will waive your right to a trial, and you will submit yourself to civil service as summary judgment. Upon release, you will board the waiting cab and join your new life. You will contact no one, bring nothing. Do you understand?"

  Firenze nodded.

  "Good. Welcome to your new life, citizen. You've just made the best choice."

  The man stood, smoothing his tie as he rose. Only when he'd reached the door did Firenze recover enough wits to protest, "But I'm not a soldier!"

  The agent froze, framed in the light from the hall, and promised, "Don't worry. We'll take care of that." His worn face crinkled into a mockery of good humor, and he assured, "We'll take care of everything."