Sandy exhaled softly and kissed him absently on the head. “Who you think?”
Danya shrugged. “Who knows the Talee? But Cai’s synthetic. And synthtech caused the Talee to self-destruct, twice. That stuff’s gotta be controversial with them like it is with us. I mean, look how we split on it, Federation and League, had a big war and everything. So now we’ve got the Talee, one moment the most peaceful neighbours ever, then suddenly trying to kill us, only Cai’s trying to protect us and killing his own people. You think maybe Cai’s faction was running their human-policy all along? And now the other faction has taken over, only Cai’s not going quietly?”
“That would imply there’s others like him who might help,” Sandy said quietly. “Takewashi said he got a visit from another one like Cai, who warned him not to pursue Kiril’s technology.”
Danya nodded. “Only maybe that wasn’t a threat? Maybe it was a warning, not ‘I’m going to kill you,’ but ‘watch out ’cause these other guys will try and kill you’?”
“Dangerous to assume all Talee-made human synthetics are on the same side,” Sandy cautioned. “The ones trying to kill us now certainly aren’t, they’re human-looking just like Cai.”
“And Cai said he was offended by them even existing. What if his faction never would have made GIs like that, and that’s why he was offended? What if Talee are all split on this synthetics thing, like I said? They certainly like to outlaw some kinds of tech, to the point they’ll kill anyone who has it. If that’s a thing in their society, a trend . . . maybe that’s their politics. Or part of it. The synths or synth-users against the rest. And maybe it’s dangerous too, ’cause Cai might not just be trying to help us, he might be using us to fight his enemies back home.”
Sandy thought hard for a moment. Distant through the trees, rising smoke from the river. No emergency vehicles yet though, that was odd . . . but maybe not that odd, given how the Talee screwed up the whole network.
“That’s it,” Sandy said finally, “I’m deputising you to FSA Agent. That’s as good an analysis on the spot as I’ve heard from anyone.”
Danya managed a smile. “Doing that and school will be a bitch.”
“You’ll manage.”
Svetlana reemerged at their side, quiet as a ghost and lugging a full backpack. “Jesus, Svet,” said Danya, “you steal a whole banquet?”
Svetlana beckoned urgently for them to follow, and they did, along the wall and up the hill to where Kiril and Dodger were. Jane, wherever she was, stayed put.
“Sandy, I saw the weirdest thing,” Svetlana said urgently. “There were people in the house.”
“Did they see you?” asked Sandy.
“No, that’s the weird bit. They weren’t in bed, they were watching TV. Explosions next door and everything, just watching TV. Only it looked . . . strange.” Svetlana’s eyes were wide, face pale. “I was going to run, but they just . . . I made a noise on purpose, just to see, and nothing. No response. So I figured the Talee were hacking them, and I just got into the kitchen, took stuff and left, and nothing from them. It was so creepy.”
“Wow,” Danya murmured. “Even out here. How much of the city can they cover at once?”
“Lots and lots,” said Kiril quite matter-of-factly, seated on a tree root with one arm around Dodger. “I can see flashes of it on my uplinks. It looks really complex when it gets close, like when the missiles were incoming. I think they could put the entire city into VR if they wanted.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was 4:30 in the morning, and Poole drove along streets as deserted as Tanushan streets ever got. He was dripping wet, as they all were, and newly a thief (or Cai was) in the stolen groundcar that was now the safest way to traverse the city. Or so Cai insisted.
“So how can you VR hack an entire city?” Poole asked, letting traffic central steer the car onto the winding outback road, lest some Talee monitor register his precise GI-driving style and get suspicious. Auto-drive wasn’t compulsory out here beyond the Tanushan perimeter, but you needed to register as licenced to do it—the usual Tanushan regulatory straitjacket the free-everythingers complained about.
“It’s a self-adapting matrix,” said Cai in the passenger seat. “It takes a lot of work to keep it running. I think there’s at least fifty infiltrators here.”
“Some running the matrix, some hunting down Kiril and Sandy?” Poole glanced in the rear vision display to see Ragi in the rear seat. His damaged arm was stuffed under an armpit, and advanced GI or not, he didn’t look well. “What percentage?”
“Hard to say,” said Cai. “Depends on circumstance.”
“The inherent contradictions within the matrix will cause an implosion in time,” said Ragi, head back on his seat rest, eyes half-closed. “People not directly hacked will notice those that are hacked aren’t responding. I assume they’ve hacked the FSA and CSA . . . both institutions talk to thousands of people every day, they’ll notice if they’re not replying.”
“But they are replying,” Cai said grimly. “False conversations, false interactions, or hacking the interlocutor’s brain to change their mind about interaction in the first place.”
“That gets obscenely complicated,” said Ragi.
“VR is obscenely complicated.”
“But this tries to seamlessly mesh together VR and real-world, one controlled and the other random. To track every permutation, every interaction, to infiltrate that many minds to prevent suspicion leading to realisation and a crash . . .”
“Yes,” Cai agreed. “It has a twenty-four hour shelf life. Much longer, and the internal contradictions will cause implosion, as you say.”
“So we need to keep Cassandra and the kids alive for twenty-four hours,” said Poole.
Cai shook his head. “They won’t last that long. I’m running interference on the infiltration matrix. I use the same technology so they haven’t registered it’s me. I’m fooling them the same way they fool everyone else, they’re looking on aerial surveillance and seeing nothing, not realising I’m hacking them. But that won’t last more than a few hours, if that. We need a distraction.”
“We need more than a distraction,” Poole muttered, noting a street sign, ten kilometres to the perimeter. Out here it was mostly trees, dark with no street lights, just the occasional glow of a small, passing settlement. “We need to take out the whole fucking matrix.”
“That’s just the distraction I mean,” Cai agreed. “We need a place with a big, internally secure network. Independent processors. FSA and CSA are out, they’re too compromised by now. Some place unsuspected.”
“Sadar Institute of Technology,” said Ragi. “Not the largest intranet, but largely autistic since they do so many classified things there. I’m friends with some researchers there, they’ll help.”
“Not in this they won’t,” said Cai. “Uplinked minds are too easily controlled. Human minds, straights. I can help, but I’ll be most proficient helping GIs. Humans are too difficult. We need as many GIs as we can get, and we need to get them to Sadar Institute of Technology. There I can make us a little bubble of resistance, from where we might be able to mount a counter-attack.”
“And how do we do that?” Ragi asked. “Even if we have numbers, you’re the only one with a chance of unravelling the infiltration matrix. And if there’s fifty of them, and one of you. . . .”
“I can disrupt it. We can, using the Institute systems, which I can reinforce from their net assaults. They’ll have to attack it in person.”
“Which they’re sure to do,” Poole observed.
“Which is where our GIs come in,” said Cai. “If we can assemble a strong enough fighting force, we might be able to kill enough of the attackers to get their numbers down to somewhere manageable.”
“So that’s your grand high-technology plan?” Ragi wondered, staring at the car ceiling. “Kill enough of the operators that they can’t run their matrix?”
“Yes,” said Cai decisively. “And bullets and bombs r
emain the most effective ways to deal with high-des combat GIs as well. Or a well-timed punch in the head, as Cassandra just proved. The most effective solution to high-tech offence is low-tech defence, always will be.”
Sandy crouched in cold water at the inner bend of a shallow stream. Undergrowth overhung, drooping green fronds into the flow. From above came the keening of a flyer’s engines. Perhaps half a kilometre away and passing. They’d be back soon, sweeping on a search pattern. Behind her, Danya and Svetlana were sharing food with Kiril. Svetlana was shivering, skinny and worst affected by the cold.
About the stream bend Jane appeared, keeping her rifle above the water. “They’ll figure we’re in the water,” she murmured. “They’ll put boots on the ground to flush us.”
“Good,” said Sandy. “I want a better gun. Better yet, I’d like that flyer.” They kept voices low, in case someone already was on the ground. It was an hour after dawn, and already their pursuers seemed to have figured out their aerial surveillance wasn’t trustworthy.
“They won’t fly that low,” said Jane. “But you’re right, we have to hit them. We’re better than them in a fight, individually. Especially away from the city.”
“Sandy,” Danya said urgently, repressing his shaking jaw in the cold water. “You should go, both of you. If you stay and try to protect us, you’ll get tied down. And by attacking and killing them, you not only do what you’re best at—you take their attention away from us.”
Sandy stared at him for a moment. Then out of their little overhang hiding spot, across the stream. “Kid’s got a point,” said Jane.
“Where’s Dodger?” Kiril wondered. Looking at him up to his chin in river water, eating and shivering, was nearly more than Sandy’s combat reflex could take. She steeled herself and forced down her thumping heart. Her kids hunted by anything but GIs, she could handle. But against the likes of these, she knew the odds. And it took a full-on effort to stay locked so hard into combat reflex that she didn’t break down completely.
“I think he’s scouting,” Svetlana volunteered. “Lots of animals in the jungle, the Talee will think he’s just another one. He won’t give us away.”
“Asura aren’t native to Callay,” Danya corrected. “If they bothered to check, he might.”
He offered Jane some cold meat from Svetlana’s food stash. “Kid’s uplinks aren’t transmitting,” Jane observed around the mouthful, peering upstream. “If they were, we’d be dead. He’s receiving, but he’s passive.”
Sandy looked at her. Jane returned a sombre gaze. “Kiri,” Sandy murmured. “Over here.”
Kiril waded past Danya, and Sandy helped him onto a low rock. The water up to his waist, he looked up at her, wet and scruffy and trusting. Again the desperate fight to keep combat reflex in place.
“Kiri, can you see anything else on your uplinks?”
Kiril shook his head. “No, I think we’re out of range of any networks here. But when they scan it’s like . . . I don’t know. I just feel it, more than see it. It’s like a dream.”
“Kids’ brains are wired differently,” said Jane. “He might have a better intuitive sense of it than straights do. But that thing in his head is Talee, and no question it recognises what these guys are using against us. If he can do it passively, it might be our only chance to see what’s coming before they see us.”
Jane was right, of course. Sandy had been terrified of making serious use of Kiril’s uplinks because of the dangers it posed to his young brain. But the worst that could happen was injury, and now they were facing near-certain death . . . unless they could find some kind of advantage.
“Kiri,” she said, pulling the booster cord from her pocket and plugging it in to the back of her head. “I’m going to make a connection with you. A proper connection, you understand?”
“Wait, won’t they see it?” Svetlana asked. Danya looked scared for an entirely different reason.
“I don’t think so, the booster creates its own network.” Sandy patted her pocket, where the cord connected to the booster unit. “It’s all self-contained.”
“But you have to make wireless contact with me,” said Kiril, glancing up at the rock overhang above them. “But I guess it won’t penetrate this.”
“But keep an eye on it,” said Jane, “because from what we’ve seen of Talee, they can hack into any network, wireless or otherwise, whether it was meant to be hacked or not. Autistic-external won’t help you.”
“Sure, but they have to see it first,” said Sandy. The hum in her head indicated a network presence, the booster creating a cyberspace construct of its own. It felt like a line, an artificial horizon, running through her head. One flip, and all reality would reverse itself. “Danya, just hold onto him and make sure he doesn’t fall over.”
“You don’t need that?” Danya asked, doing that.
Sandy shook her head. “Are you ready?
“Yeah,” said Kiril a little nervously. “Is it going to feel weird, or . . .”
She flipped it . . .
. . . and was in a blank space. There were no walls or floor, which was always disorienting at first, so she tuned in the detail just a little more . . . and a floor appeared. Walls, corners. A square room.
“Sandy?” It was Kiril’s voice, and she turned. He sounded tinny, bereft of detail. A light hovered, head height, above the floor. “Sandy, is that you?”
“Hi, Kiri. What can you see?”
“Um . . . I think I see a room. And a shape, it looks . . . yeah, it definitely looks like you.”
“Okay . . . we’re still not sharing very much data, that’s why all the detail is low. How do you feel?”
“Um . . . okay. It’s a bit strange.”
“Do you feel the water? Anything from the river?”
“No, but . . . hey, I can see more now.”
Sandy did a subconscious dart into the data stream and saw that, sure enough, the data feed was increasing. “Well, I’m not doing that,” she said. It scared her, the sudden rate of increase. Almost as though . . . “I think your uplinks are doing that on their own.”
“Cool!” said Kiril. Back in the VR room, the light representing Kiril was slowly materialising. Kiril-sized and Kiril-shaped . . . and god knew how it knew those dimensions so exactly. Most non-GIs doing VR for the first time had to have that data fed in externally. It even had Kiril’s clothes. Detail continued to resolve, far beyond what it should at this level of integration.
Finally it was Kiril. He gawked at himself, looking at his hands and arms, then turning to stare at the unnaturally bare room. Then he turned to Sandy, grinned, and ran to hug her. Sandy hugged him back. Even that felt real, almost to natural standard.
“We shouldn’t be able to make VR this real on a wireless connection off a booster, should we?” he suggested.
“No.” She frowned and stepped back to look at him. “You still feel okay?”
“This is amazing!” He stepped back to look around. “I guess it knows what you think I look like, huh?”
Damn, of course it did. It amazed her that Kiril just seemed to grasp what the technology was doing. But then, as Jane said, he was intuiting as much as thinking.
“Can we go someplace?” he asked, all excitement. “Can we load some VR place?”
“No, we need a network to do that,” said Sandy. “Something to connect us to a big computer. Right now we’re just inside my little booster.” Kiril jumped up and down. Then danced on one leg. Sandy repressed a grin. “What are you doing?”
“It feels a bit funny. Like . . . I don’t know.”
“It’s a simulation,” Sandy explained. “All the signal receptors in your brain that work when you’re walking or jumping have to be stimulated exactly the same as when you’re doing it for real. Since you’re so new to it, your brain isn’t reading quite the same signals, that’s why it feels strange. But after a while, your brain will fill in the gaps on its own, without needing to be told.” Because the human brain, worryingly enough,
liked to be fooled and would compliantly play along when directed. Except for high-des GI brains, which broke information down into pieces and refused to accept the overall narrative quite so easily.
“I can’t believe we’re not actually here,” said Kiril, looking around. “This is so cool.” Most people in VR for the first time had some kind of nausea or cognitive difficulty before their brains adjusted. Sandy couldn’t help but feel proud that Kiril showed nothing like it.
“Now, Kiri,” she said, “come here, take my hand.” He took it. “We’re going to go into data mode.”
“You mean cyberspace?” It remained the colloquial term. “I’ve been there lots, I can see that fine on my AR glasses.”
“You ready?” She flipped again, and the blank walls disappeared. About them was infinite space . . . and yet finite, close range, and lit with light. Here was a huge, massively complex golden half-sphere, layered and gleaming with complexity.
“Woaw!” She could still see him, physical representations were not necessary in cyber, but for Kiril on his first adventure, it was probably easier. His figure was transparent, postureless with nothing to react against in this space. “What’s that? Is that you?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Or that’s every bit of my brain and systems that’s connected to a network.”
“It’s huge!” Again she had to smile. A seven-year-old’s enthusiasm was infectious. “That’s ’cause you’re a GI, right?”
“Yeah, there’s much more in my brain that connects to something. And all of that is able to connect to a network. See that over there? Look to your left.” He looked. Not far off was a much smaller globe with a similar radiant layer, like atmosphere over a planet. “That’s you. See these little fuzzy links between us? They’re kind of whizzing around all over the place?”
“Is that the wireless? I mean, that’s cyberspace showing a wireless connection?”
“Yep. Now let’s go over and have a look at you. . . .” She did it slowly, because sudden movement in here could really create nausea, which the disem-bodied brain struggled to process, leading to a VR breakdown. Kiril’s network construct came closer, intricate details emerging, like a tightly wound ball of microfilament wires. “Each of those little wires is an information pathway. And this outer shield is your barriers. So right here your barriers are hardly active at all, you’re admitting me no trouble at all. That’s why we can share a VR space together so easily without a proper network.”
Originator Page 27
