Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘It sounds like you landed on your feet.’

  ‘Well, it’s not easy at times. I have trouble sleeping. Sandy wants me to start dating. “Get back out there, Mom,” she says. “You’re a beauty. You could hook a nice guy easy.”’

  ‘It’s not so easy though, is it? What if the next one turns out like Mal?’

  ‘That’s… exactly the problem.’

  ‘For every Mal, there are dozens of good ones, Crystal. I… had a bad experience last year, but when I’d worked through it, I found a good one. Tall, handsome, blonde, and caring. There’s one out there for you, if you want it. Don’t let Sandy push you into it if you’d prefer to go it alone for a while.’

  ‘No. No, I… Even if he was a bastard, and he was, he filled a space in the bed at night which I find I miss. Is that pathetic, or what?’

  Fox grinned. ‘It’s not.’

  Crystal returned the grin and met Fox’s eyes again, holding for longer this time. And when she looked away, it was not down. ‘Is Detective Rogers single?’ she asked in as casual a way as she could.

  ‘He’s just Ray Rogers now, and he’s never mentioned a girlfriend…’

  ‘Hmm… Interesting.’

  11th January.

  ‘They managed to trace all the attacks to a server in Chicago,’ Helen’s virtual image said. ‘There was a class one AI set up there to fire them out, all automated. Whoever planted it managed to cover their tracks exceptionally well.’

  Fox was getting dressed after a bit of a late start so Helen was seeing a masked image in reply. ‘Anything to definitely indicate that Minotaur was the culprit?’

  ‘Well… nothing specific. The techs managed to extract the AI code and they’re analysing it. Only thing I’ve got from them so far is that it’s not nearly as sophisticated as some of the packages it was distributing. On the other hand, who else is it going to be?’

  Fox shrugged. ‘Could have been someone hoping to bootleg the concert. We can’t assume it was Minotaur without proof. We also can’t assume it wasn’t, however. I know they’re probably doing this already, but just make sure they’re toughening the network security for tonight.’

  ‘Hardening,’ Helen replied. ‘They call it hardening and yes, they are.’

  ‘See? I left all this in good hands while I schmoozed. I’ll be back tonight, assuming no delays. I’ve got a meeting with the local NAPA liaison this afternoon.’

  ‘Good luck with that. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Later, Helen.’ As Helen’s image faded, Fox pulled on her boots and then started down the stairs to find her parents who were, she knew, up and about after a slightly earlier late start. They would be in the kitchen so that was where she headed. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she began as she walked in, ‘I got a call f–’ She came to a grinding halt as her brain processed what she was seeing.

  Fox’s parents were kissing in the kitchen, and that would have been really cute if it were not for the obvious passion and the fact that Andrea was only wearing a large shirt. Jonathan’s hands were cupped around his wife’s buttocks. Fox spun on the spot and faced the door.

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ Fox squeaked.

  ‘I’ll go check that agribot now,’ Jonathan said with a very wide smirk in his voice.

  When Fox turned around again, Andrea was pouring coffee. ‘I am not going to be embarrassed about kissing your father.’ Except that there was a little added red to Andrea’s cheeks, right over the sex flush which was trailing down her throat.

  ‘Well, you should be,’ Fox told her. ‘That kind of thing is traumatising for a child.’

  ‘You have not been a child for a number of decades, young lady.’

  ‘Not the point. So not the point.’ Fox grinned. ‘I’m glad you’re getting on better. I don’t need to see it, but I’m glad. That why you were late down today?’

  ‘Your father woke up frisky. Very frisky.’ Andrea ignored Fox’s strangling noises and went on. ‘After what we got up to before we went to sleep’ – more strangling noises – ‘I was a little surprised, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Honestly, I have no idea why I felt the need to have any kind of affair. I should’ve just bought some crotchless panties.’

  Fox settled down on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. ‘Mom, I’m sort of liking this “girlfriends” thing we have going, but there are limits. When I’m feeling rational, the fact you two are still banging each other senseless at your age gives me hope for my own sex life, but not right after I’ve walked in on Dad feeling you up in the kitchen.’

  Andrea giggled and reached out to lay a hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘Oh, honey, Jonathan “banged me senseless” on this very table just last week. What would you like for breakfast?’

  Looking down at the table in mild horror, Fox reached for her coffee mug. ‘Uh, toast or something is fine. I’m going to go drink my coffee in the lounge.’ And she got up and started for the door to the sound of her mother’s ringing laughter.

  New York Metro.

  ‘How were your parents?’

  Fox looked around at Helen. ‘Kind of horny.’ Helen laughed. ‘Hey, they had problems, they’ve found a new lease of married life, I’m happy for them. I don’t need to find them making out in the kitchen after breakfast. Any news on the AI they found?’ Fox returned her attention to the screens showing the concert in progress and the network data for the event.

  ‘It’s custom, but based on a modified standard package anyone can pick up to experiment with infomorph programming.’

  ‘Modified?’

  ‘Whoever modified it tweaked the code to cut out most of the morality filtering.’

  ‘That,’ Kit said, appearing nearby, ‘is immoral and dangerous.’

  ‘But kind of a requirement for a hacking system,’ Helen pointed out.

  ‘And not excessively dangerous in a class one, I guess. They don’t learn. Do what they’re told and little else.’

  ‘If this is Minotaur,’ Fox said, apparently out of nowhere, ‘he lives in this metro.’

  ‘Where do you get that?’ Helen asked.

  ‘He didn’t try anything in Boston. This is his home town and he thinks he should be able to watch the concerts here.’ She frowned as a barrage of alerts flashed up on one of the security monitors. It looked like this was a multipoint attack trying to overwhelm the defences, and from the way the techs had suddenly burst into action, there was a chance it might work. ‘Here we go again.’

  ‘I hate just sitting here and watching.’

  ‘Not much else we can do. If all he does is try to break the gig security, I’m going to be a happy woman.’

  12th January.

  Jackson Martins was in his office reviewing reports when Fox walked in with Terri. ‘Morning, Jackson,’ Fox said, ‘why’d you drag me over so early?’

  ‘Because I prefer delivering bad news in person,’ Jackson replied. ‘Your mysterious hacker deployed a couple of military-grade instruments last night. He’s escalating. I took a personal interest since… Well, I like this kind of forensic analysis, actually. I believe I can confirm within a small probability of error that “Minotaur” is responsible.’

  ‘Okay, but did he get anything last night?’

  ‘No. Primarily through luck rather than anything else. Some of our technicians need a bonus for catching the infections early and isolating the boxes.’

  ‘That’s something. And your proof?’

  ‘It’s a little subjective. The infomorph code he uses has a number of references to classical myth, specifically to Ariadne. She was the daughter of King Minos of Crete. It was her who gave Theseus a ball of yarn to lay a trail he could follow out of the labyrinth.’

  ‘Thanks for the Classics lesson. Another reference to the minotaur in the labyrinth and I’m going to suggest that’s far too much of a coincidence to ignore, but if he’s got his hands on military cracking code…’

  ‘No, he has written military-grade cracking code. This man i
s an expert in computer security. He may have done work for the military. I’m having a search run to determine whether he has worked for MarTech at any time.’

  ‘He could have?’

  ‘We employ people all over the world for various programming tasks,’ Terri supplied. ‘We don’t even see the majority of the freelancers we hire. They work out of small offices or from home. But we don’t hire them for security-sensitive projects. He won’t have done anything like this for us, but we might catch his coding style in something else.’

  ‘Helen said he used a common base package for the AI.’

  Terri nodded. ‘Actually, Poppa released a basic AI framework on the internet and this is the current iteration of that codebase. It’s been community property for…’

  ‘Too many years to mention,’ Jackson said. ‘Unless you want me to feel old.’

  ‘Oh, far be it from me to make you feel old.’

  Jackson gave his daughter a mock scowl. ‘I’ve authorised the use of a tertiary firewall layer using some of our military routers. That should put an end to his attempts. We’ll deploy the same equipment in Washington. Tokyo will be more difficult. Exporting equipment like that is subject to some fairly tight controls. I’ll have someone work on getting something there anyway.’

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll try, even in Washington,’ Fox said. ‘I think he’s targeted New York because he lives here.’

  Terri shook her head. ‘You may be right, but this kind of personality will consider his failure to be a challenge. He’ll be frustrated by his defeats and try harder. That may result in him making a mistake which can be exploited, but it also makes him more dangerous. He may try something else to get Miss Sakura’s attention.’

  ‘Like?’

  Terri shrugged. ‘He’s unstable, violent, and obsessive. It could be anything.’

  13th January.

  Charlie Iberson was running late. There had been a production meeting at Athena which had overrun, and then she had rushed to get back to the MarTech tower only to have trouble deciding on a dress for the evening… Okay, so that last one was her own fault, but with all the trouble over Minotaur and the attempts to hack the concert network, Nishi was stressed and Charlie felt that looking good for her girlfriend was the least she could do.

  Of course, Nishi had already left for the venue, so Charlie had had her VA call an autocab. If she could have ordered up a vertol, that would have been her preferred option. As it was, the cab was waiting in the tower’s ground transport hub and Charlie piled into it. ‘You’ve got the destination,’ she said to the car’s AI, ‘so step on it.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Iberson,’ the cab replied. ‘Within posted speed limits, you will be there as soon as possible.’

  Charlie quietly cursed the honest nature of AI driver programs. There was a time when you could have doubled the tip and told the driver to break any law he thought he could get away with. Not that Charlie remembered that time, but she had seen a lot of old vids.

  It was not exactly a long trip anyway. Charlie would have used the monorail – the LI-line ran right through the Meadows Event Centre – but she had a strong feeling that Fox might have ripped her a new one if she had. Autocabs were safe. As she expected, the cab got on the route of the old 495, heading west. The monorail followed essentially the same route. Charlie pulled up some briefing documents Athena had sent through for the Friday night guests and began to read.

  The shifts in direction did not really register until the third time, and then she looked out of the cab, frowning at the landscape. She could see a wall of arcologies ahead of them, which was not what she had expected. Then she noticed a sign saying that they were heading for JFK.

  ‘Hey! We’re going the wrong way. I thought you cabs were supposed to be honest.’ Another thing she had seen in old vids was the cabbie taking tourists the long way around to up the fair, but autocabs always took the shortest route they could. The cab did not answer. ‘Hey, you. Respond.’ Nothing.

  Confused and a little alarmed, Charlie put a call through to Fox and got an immediate ‘no connection’ indicator. She queried her VA.

  ‘All internet connectivity via the autocab’s repeater is currently offline,’ the infomorph told her.

  ‘That’s not possible. That’s why these things have repeaters, so that passengers can always get access.’

  ‘All internet connectivity–’

  ‘I heard you.’

  The cab turned, heading west again. Charlie blanched. From here, heading west, there was only one place the cab could be taking her. She pulled up a virtual keyboard and began to type a text message. ‘I want you to scan for networks outside the cab,’ she told her VA. ‘There’s an arcology coming up on the right, so we might get a link from that. As soon as you get something, you’ll send this message. As soon. You probably won’t have long. Tag it with our geolocation.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Iberson,’ the VA replied. Charlie had never named the software, never let it call her by her first name. If it got this right, maybe she would get to know it better.

  ~~~

  ‘I have a message from Miss Iberson,’ Kit said into Fox’s head. ‘It is marked urgent.’

  ‘Probably wants us to know why she’s late,’ Fox replied, opening the message.

  Fox. In autocab at attached location, heading west. Kidnapped. Help. Charlie.

  ‘Not an excuse,’ Kit said.

  ‘Damn good excuse. What’s west of that location?’

  ‘The Brooklyn Sprawl.’

  ‘I want rapid response units out there hunting for her ten minutes ago. Tell Pythia to get her ass over here. She can pick me up from the roof. Get the Palladium AIs hunting for a cab in the Sprawl. And forward this to Helen, FYI.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘Charlie’s in trouble. I’m going to deal with it.’

  ‘Just got the message,’ Helen replied. ‘Think this is Minotaur again?’

  ‘The new firewalls slammed the door on him pretty hard last night, and Terri did say he might try something extreme to compensate.’

  ‘Keep me up to date.’

  Fox headed for the door. ‘As soon as I know what’s going on, you will.’

  ~~~

  The cab came to a stop in the middle of what had once been a fairly large crossroads. According to the map in Charlie’s head, they were on the junction of Rockaway and Cross Bay boulevards, but she doubted many people who had known the area when the streets had had names would have recognised the place. The car died, its lights shutting down and plunging Charlie into near-total darkness. No streetlights, no moon…

  In the semi-ruined buildings around her, she could make out a few dim lights as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Those gave her no cheer at all. She knew there were good people in the Sprawl, the ones just trying to stay alive amid the ruins. She also knew that there were plenty of others who would view a rich woman, from their point of view anyway, in a micro-dress and heels as a surprise present. The best she could hope for was to be robbed.

  The cab’s doors had unlocked when it shut down. She had heard them so she was sure that she could get out and start walking. That seemed like a fairly dumb idea. The car was no longer lit up, but it was still larger than she was and easier to spot. Of course, anything Fox sent out would be competing to find her before sprawlers did and the cab was easy to spot. With the doors unlocked, it also provided no protection at all.

  She was still trying to decide what to do when she heard something, some noise, from outside. Slipping to the floor of the cab, flattening herself against the mercifully clean carpeting, Charlie held her breath and listened. She heard words, just snatches. ‘Cab,’ ‘doing here,’ ‘see anyone?’ Oh, Charlie hoped to God that they thought the cab was empty. ‘Take a look.’ Charlie was just thinking a lot of expletives she dared not say out loud when the door jerked open. She looked up into the rough face of a very large man in scruffy but serviceable clothes. He was holding an old baseball bat which had more than a few notches in it and developing a g
rin that said, ‘well just look what I’ve found.’

  And then there was a lot of sound and light. The roar of vectored-thrust engines and the blaze of some sort of searchlight first. Then a voice, very loud and with the flat timbre of an infomorph. ‘This vehicle is under the protection of Palladium Security Solutions. Back away from the vehicle. I am authorised to employ force in the protection of this vehicle and its passenger.’

  ‘Shit!’ That was the sprawler with the bat. Charlie figured he could see whatever was out there and whatever it was, it had Bat Guy bolting away in a hurry.

  More light flooded in from the other side of the cab and Charlie pushed herself up until she could just see out of the window. Something sleek, black, and big was coming to a landing outside the cab’s door. She had no idea whether it was armed, but if it was not, she would have been really surprised.

  ‘Please remain within the vehicle, Miss Iberson,’ the amplified voice said. ‘Miss Meridian will be here in sixty-eight seconds.’

  The absurdity of the exact time measurement under the circumstances hit Charlie right in the funny bone. She started giggling, knowing she sounded just a little hysterical, but unable to stop, and she was still laughing when, sixty-eight seconds later, Fox marched down the rear ramp of Pythia’s transport and headed for the cab.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’re in good humour over being kidnapped,’ Fox said. The only immediate response she got was more giggling. ‘Do I need to get a sedative?’

  ‘No,’ Charlie forced out. With tears streaming down her face, she managed to get up onto her knees and looked over at Fox. ‘I was scared out of my head, and then… then the robot killing machine said… said you’d be here in sixty-eight… seconds.’

  ‘Hilarious. Come on, we’ll get you into Pythia. I want you out of harm’s way while we get this wrapped up.’ Fox looked up at the RRU hovering above them. ‘Stay on watch. I’m going to have this cab hauled in for analysis.’