Silicon Uprising

by Conor McCarthy

  “Touch it if you like,” Lowgrave said.

  Slowly Jason reached out for it. An inch away he felt a warmth between his hand and the metal. It felt as if his fingers should glow dull red in reaction.

  At last his hand settled upon the surface. Subtle vibration from turbulence in the coolant flow massaged his palm and moved up his wrist. He shut his eyes and silently thanked the man behind him, who had allowed this moment, and thanked the genius of the CMC beneath his own skin.

  A moment later he felt unworthy to remain any longer. He pulled away and went out the door.

  Back in cell one, he felt relief and a deep sense of peace.

  The video from Zarather’s office sealed it. Nothing suggested tampering. Zarather’s hint of perplexity went unexplained, but one of many trivial causes must have been behind it.

  Thirty-Two

  IN THE MORNING, ascending in the elevator with Wilberforce and the jailer, Jason felt the inner peace of certainty and power. At one time he had worked for the enemy, arriving each morning at its lair in the Zarather building. He’d even been in the very office where that head of a great snake had met his fellow conspirators. Jason could have shot him that day. It would have meant prison, but soon Lowgrave would have recruited him from there. He’d have been a hero.

  In his mind he replayed the meeting. Waiting outside Zarather’s office, he eased his anxiety by breathing deeply, sitting straight, and expanding his chest. The personal assistant ushered him in. If Zarather looked closely he might have seen the subtle shaking of Jason’s hands, but he must have seen that in low-level employees before.

  As he sat down, Jason felt confident enough to comment on an object on Zarather’s desk. A small bowl carved from opalized petrified wood and polished to perfection.

  “That’s beautiful,” Jason said as he gazed at it.

  “I saw it in an auction last week. I wasn’t planning on buying anything like this, but just look at it. It’s going on the shelf when I clear a space.”

  That conversation had taken place only two years ago. The conspirators had met seven years ago, before the CMC took office in 2033.

  In the conspiracy video, on the wall-mounted shelf beyond Zarather’s desk, the bowl had sat on display, five years before he bought it.

  Jason’s lips parted and he nearly swore aloud. Wilberforce and the jailer showed no sign of noticing.

  Kerr was rotting in a maximum-security prison, convicted of treason and of several murders he’d arranged to cover up the plan. That left one probable explanation. They’d pulled him out of prison, applied makeup, and shot his half of the video in a studio. A CMC subsystem had stitched together the video out of two separate scenes. Mostly likely done along the front edge of the desk and up around the outline of the shelving. A hidden camera had shot Zarather’s half in his office. Only an expert examination using professional software might spot the stitching, but the CMC’s ability probably stretched beyond that. With the right lighting on Kerr and his companion, the video could have convinced anyone.

  Now Zarather’s perplexed expression made sense. Somehow they’d gotten him to say what he said, but he found the situation odd. Some minor antiaging effects done by Half-Bit could have made him look like he had seven years before and been impossible to detect.

  Jason stood frozen and stared at the doors. He wanted to grab Wilberforce and shout the truth at him. And what about the Black Doves? They executed traitors, so would they assume he had turned and track him down after he left the bunker?

  The elevator reached the top. Jason kept his composure as he walked along the corridor, waited for the heavy door, and turned left toward the rear exit.

  At last he could channel his nervous energy into running alongside Wilberforce. Unintentionally he surged ahead with a burst of power.

  “You’re full of beans this morning,” Wilberforce said.

  Jason slowed to keep pace. When they’d put some distance between them and the jailer, he opened up.

  “That video is fake.”

  “Are you sure? You want it to be fake. Don’t go seeing things that aren’t there to fit your desire.”

  “There’s an opal bowl on the shelf in the background. Zarather didn’t own it in those days. I know that because I went to see him right after he bought it. He had it on his desk and he told me about it.”

  “Well, the video established he’s a liar and deceiver. Maybe he talked bullshit about the bowl all the time. A favorite trick of his, perhaps for pure enjoyment.”

  “I think you’re projecting what happens here onto Zarather. I know the bowl was new. My boss asked me about the meeting when I returned to our floor, and I mentioned the bowl. He’d never seen it.”

  “Maybe he was in on it.”

  “This is getting ridiculous.”

  Wilberforce remained silent and drifted away a few feet as they jogged.

  With more distance between them and the jailer, Jason raised his voice.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Wilberforce looked him in the eyes.

  “Who are you, Roger Wilberforce, defender of liberty?”

  The politician stopped dead in his tracks and gazed off into the distance, panting. Then he bent over and grabbed his thighs.

  Jason waited and wandered in a circle to keep his limbs moving.

  Wilberforce straightened and looked at him. “A bowl, you say? You think he didn’t own it back then? You know, I found his wording a little strange.”

  It was true. Jason hadn’t noticed it at all until Wilberforce pointed it out. “Yeah, who talks like that? Maybe they fed him a script designed to produce a series of mouth movements that would fit what they wanted him to say, but the fake wording had to be a bit odd to match. He could have been reading a shareholder statement or some marketing thing. The power of the CMC and its subsystems faked his voice.”

  “Oh God, what do we do?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jason replied. “I noticed they don’t handle common criminals here. They’re used to dealing with law-abiding professionals who’ve become . . . problematic. Which makes the whole operation soft. I’m going to unleash destruction.”

  “You know how?”

  “The typical cooling system setup is to have high-pressure pipes take coolant out to the heat exchangers, and the coolant returns to the pumps at low pressure. So those return pipes are made of thin steel. The coolant is inert fluorocarbon, so it won’t hurt me if it gets everywhere. I need to find a way to cut those pipes. The pumps need coolant for lubrication. Know what happens without lube?” He grinned. “Boom! I’ve seen photos.”

  “And that’d destroy the CMC? It can’t be that simple.”

  “It isn’t. Without coolant Half-Bit will go into low-power mode, making it into an idiot. If security in this place is like other AI security systems, nobody watches CCTV monitors. There are no monitors.”

  “Because the CMC watches everything.”

  “Exactly. Nobody will know where we are. Gaining access to something that will destroy Half-Bit I think is impossible, but we can try to escape. I don’t know how to take out the pipes without being stopped, but sometimes there’s no staff at all on the Bowels level. If I’m sent there for punishment, escape the cell, block off the stairwell door, and delay the elevator, maybe there’s time.”

  “That’s a lot to do.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll work it out. And without Half-Bit monitoring transportation, it’ll be easier to use undetected. The bunker must have spare pumps in storage, but everything needs to be repaired, the coolant refilled, and the system purged of air before the machine can watch us again.”

  “It’s a stretch,” Wilberforce said. “But I’ll be on the lookout for anything useful.”

  “As will I. Don’t know how good the CMC is at recognizing that sort of behavior. We need to be subtle.”

  They circled around and headed back toward the building in the distance. The jailer sitting up on the roof appeared small. He had grown used to t
he two men and chain-smoked while looking at his phone screen. Maybe he managed to get a signal up there away from the jammers below. In the still morning air he left a series of smoke clouds drifting slowly off.

  “Come to think of it,” Wilberforce said, “I went down below the pipes one morning to talk bullshit to a prisoner, like I did with you. Our heavy friend over there was hosing some poor sod out of bed.”

  “He did it to me too.”

  “I’m not surprised. I spotted an ax in the fire hose cabinet. Makes no sense with all the steel doors down there.”

  Jason chuckled. “Regulations. But if I can get the key to the cabinet . . .”

  “It’s not on the same ring as the others. Must keep it in his pocket. Now, if his car key is in there too you can get them both.”

  “Then I’ll learn to pick his pocket by practicing on you.”

  Wilberforce stroked his chin and breathed out heavily. “You’d better be able to punch the bastard’s lights out if he catches you.”

  “I won’t let it come to that. We need something key-sized in your pocket tomorrow so I can start.”

  “You know what? I doubt he’s worked in a real prison. He’s not like any of the prison guards I met many years ago when I looked into prison reform. Probably used to do crowd control or something, which means he’s less savvy about prison tricks.”

  Jason examined the ground ahead of him. “Let’s do it. I can probably find a stone of the right size and shape tomorrow.”

  “I wonder if Brick over there would get suspicious if you picked something up.”

  “Not if we get into the habit of throwing stones for kicks. That’s a good name for him, by the way.”

  “Trying to have a conversation with him is like talking to a brick. And he’s built like a brick shit house.”

  “Oh, damn,” Jason said. “We need the elevator security key for surface access.”

  “He keeps that on the outside of his pants on the big ring. Easier to take.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Fortunately he doesn’t need it going between lower levels, so he won’t miss it right away.”

  They neared the elevator building, and Brick began descending the ladder from the roof.

  “Let’s kick this off tomorrow morning,” Jason said quietly.

  “Right,” Wilberforce replied.

  Thirty-Three

  OUT IN THE desert the next morning, Brick sat smoking as usual with his nose buried in his phone screen.

  A quarter-mile away Jason and Wilberforce threw stones for a few minutes, working both arms and going for maximum distance. During the workout they drifted across the ground searching for a good practice stone. Jason found a long, thin key-sized one and Wilberforce pocketed it. He also practiced distracting his target by touching Wilberforce’s upper arm while making a point in conversation.

  They circled around and slowed to walking pace at an angle that hid Wilberforce’s back pocket from Brick’s view. Jason walked slightly behind and shifted his eyes down far enough to glimpse the pocket. He tried to get his pinched fingers in there with little disturbance but knew he’d failed badly.

  “Well,” Wilberforce said, “an elephant stealing food from my pocket with its trunk would be about as obvious.”

  “Yeah, I know. Again.”

  He pulled the stone out over and over again as they walked slowly across the desert. By the time they were too close to the building to continue, it was going far more smoothly. He dropped the practice stone near one of the larger rocks to make it easier to find.

  “Still noticeable, but you’re getting there. Maybe if you can get him talking it will help.”

  Jason laughed. “The guy can’t be drawn to say anything not related to his function.”

  “There must be something he’s interested in. He might talk about that.”

  “Fat chance of finding out what that is.”

  They walked in silence for a few steps. Jason glanced at Brick, who still puffed away, absorbed in something on the small screen.

  Wilberforce grinned and mumbled, “Tobacco?”

  Jason smiled back. “Well, you can try.”

  Brick came down from the roof when they approached the building. Inside, standing still and silent in the elevator, the three descended into the earth.

  Wilberforce turned to the dense bulk of the jailer. “Ever try anything more adventurous? Cigars? Pipe?”

  “No,” he said.

  Silence resumed. They stood there in an awkward stalemate. Did Brick resent all personal questions? Wilberforce seemed to have given up, and Jason couldn’t think of any way forward.

  “We’re all in this together now,” Wilberforce said, “so I’m asking as a friend. What do you look forward to when you’re driving away from here at the end of a long shift?”

  Brick frowned. “I don’t take long shits here.”

  Jason held himself bolt upright to suppress his convulsive laughter. Wilberforce looked mortified.

  The elevator reached the bottom and they headed for their cells.

  Jason lay on his bed contemplating the plan. Even if he managed to get the keys, the idea of escaping to the outside was far-fetched. But at least he could make a mess of the equipment as revenge for all that had happened.

  He sat at the desk and pondered the book list while he waited for a robot to bring breakfast. After that he expected another indoctrination session with Lowgrave, so he would probably fabricate images and profiles of one or two more Crimson Unity or Black Dove members. When he’d arrived he would have frozen in terror at the thought of creating entirely imaginary profiles, but now he reveled in it, as if these people were real. In his head they were.

  A small ventilation outlet was fitted to the wall lower down beside the desk. A faint rumbling drifted up from it. He rested his chin on the desk to put his ear nearer to the opening and sat still, focusing his attention. The sound became clear.

  More than forty stories above, the supply train was rolling out of the bunker. They’d repaired the tracks in record time. Probably they’d rerouted them around the worst damage, using workers in radiation suits. Or maybe if there weren’t enough suits for that many workers, they’d worked without protection and been fed lies about the contamination risk.

  The train presented another escape option, but first he needed the skill to steal the keys to the fire cabinet.

  Thirty-Four

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jason stepped out onto the desert sand once again, but Wilberforce stopped and asked Brick, “How far out can we go?”

  Like a squat statue, the jailer stood and examined the landscape. After a while he raised his arm and pointed. “That hill. There’s a lot of desert out there. Doesn’t bother me if you go far, but then you gotta come back without water. Not rescuing you.”

  Jason followed the outstretched finger to a rocky mound about a half mile away. Perfect.

  They jogged out nearly the whole half mile so that the jailer couldn’t really see what they were doing anymore. After coming to a halt, Jason picked up a stone and pitched it as far as he could. Wilberforce took a little longer to recover from the effort of running, then started a stone-throwing competition. It made sense tactically because Brick would get used to seeing them tooling around doing random stuff.

  Jason found a good-shaped stone to practice with and Wilberforce put it in his pocket. They set off walking.

  “Good news,” Wilberforce said. “I saw Brick manhandling a refrigerator into one of the elevators. He—”

  “A refrigerator?”

  Wilberforce shrugged his shoulders. “Guess they gotta keep their drinks cool in the rec room.”

  “Just like humans do. And?”

  “He locked the elevator in place with the doors open using a red fire service key on the same ring as the fire hose key. There are two elevator keys, so we can lock both.”

  Jason pumped his fist in the air. “Brilliant. What about distracting him?”

  “He won’t talk about
music, TV shows, off-road vehicles, working out, or firearms,” Wilberforce said. “My persistence hasn’t paid off and I keep thinking a fist will crash on top of my skull if I press on.”

  Sweeping his outstretched hand to gesture at the building and surrounding desert, Jason said, “Maybe this is all he’s got.”

  “The poor tyrannical sod must have at least one source of meaning in his life.”

  Jason grinned. “Being tyrannical.”

  “Cynical. Maybe accurate. Anyway, are you going to steal that stone sometime?”

  Jason held out his left hand and grinned from ear to ear. He’d taken it while Wilberforce talked.

  “You sneaky bastard. Now pick a random time while we walk and try to do it again.”

  By the time their recreation ended back at the building, Jason had failed to repeat the performance.

  Thirty-Five

  JASON PLANNED TO pull off the theft again the next morning, but Wiseman prevented that by joining them on the surface. The group paused outside while Brick climbed the ladder to his perch.

  “Do you run?” Jason asked Wiseman.

  “Oh, not much. You go on ahead and I’ll catch up.”

  Jason and Wilberforce jogged away. When they had warmed up Jason looked back at Wiseman, who plodded across the desert in a kind of half jog while trying to look as if what he was doing were cool.

  “Let’s not go too far,” Wilberforce said. “I want to see what he has to say. We might get something useful from him.”

  They did a stone-throwing workout while Wiseman found his way there.

  “I heard you guys were fully on board,” Wiseman said.

  Jason smiled. “Yeah, definitely.” He widened his eyes. “I got to touch the machine.”

  “So did I some time ago. What did you think?”