Halfheroes

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  "You heard me scream, right?"

  Daniel looked across at TripleDee. His beard was coming through, blonde and silver. His eyes were hooded and dark, the lines around them more pronounced than Daniel remembered. He looked older. Years older. Daniel knew he had fared no better.

  "Yeah, we heard you. Could hardly miss it. I'm surprised he fed you at all after that."

  "Right, but you didn't see me do it. I timed it perfectly. I'm the first one he passes. It was dead quiet, like. I backed away from the door so he couldn't see I was lying there waiting. The closest he gets is just before he flicks the tray under the door. When I saw him step forward to do it, I stuck my mouth up to the gap and screamed as loudly as I could."

  "Yep," said Sara. "I remember. I was glad I was sitting on the crapper."

  "He didn't flinch. Nothing. No reaction at all. No earbuds, no headphones. Stone deaf."

  There was silence for a moment.

  "Well, bloody hell," said Sara. "You are full of surprises, Triple."

  "Nah. Not really. You just underestimated me cause I'm a criminal and a Geordie. Wouldn't be the first time."

  Another silence before Sara spoke again.

  "You're right. I have underestimated you. I'm sorry."

  "Sorry?" Daniel almost choked on the word.

  "Yes, sorry. Daniel, you're going to have to get past this if we're going to work together. And we have to work together if we want to get out."

  "You heard the lady. Get over it, big boy."

  Daniel drew breath but didn't speak straight away. Sara was right. He had to put aside the urge to punch the drug-dealing, human-trafficking waster until they had broken out. Then he could punch him very hard.

  "Okay," he said, "they're deaf. Smart move by Gorman. You can't bribe or threaten someone who can't hear you."

  "Maybe not so smart." Sara always spoke more slowly when she was thinking things out. "If he can't hear a scream, he can't hear a door being broken open and someone coming up behind him."

  "And what about your guard upstairs, watching it all?"

  "One problem at a time. As much as I'm enjoying the wonderful library our host has provided, I want out of here. The longer we wait, the weaker we become."

  TripleDee spoke. "Ready when you are, pet."

  "Daniel," said Sara, "we've got to try something. You're the strongest. What if we give you most of our food for a day or two? Would you be able to break down the door? And ours?"

  Daniel rolled on to his back and looked up at the solid metal.

  "No problem at all if I'm fit."

  TripleDee called over. "You'd better be bloody sure if I'm ganna give you me scran."

  Daniel had no idea what that meant.

  "Un homme seul est toujours en mauvaise compagnie," he said, a snatch of conversation from his dream coming back to him.

  Sara, surprised, translated.

  "A man alone is always bad company. Paul Valéry. I didn't know you liked French poetry."

  "I don't." Daniel hadn't even known he was quoting someone.

  "You never told me you speak French. Que cachez-vous d'autre?"

  "Um. I can't speak French, Sara. I just must have heard it somewhere. You never said you could speak French, either."

  "Oui. I lived in Paris for a few years."

  Daniel experienced a sudden sense of certainty, although there was no logic behind it. Before he could stop himself, he said it out loud.

  "Did you know someone called Sophie? Did you break up with her there?"

  The silence that followed his question was so long that he knew he was right. When she answered, her voice was tight.

  "How the fuck did you know that?"

  26

  Financial institutions do not hold all the money in the world. At one end of the scale, there are people who keep their cash under the mattress or in a biscuit tin behind the cookbooks. At the other end, there are those who would rather keep their cash reserves low, instead holding gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or diamonds. Classic cars are another favourite, as are art, wine, racehorses, and first editions of classic novels.

  The Utopia Algorithm caused chaos, but there were unexpected winners and losers in the immediate fallout. The richest were hit hardest, but there were no riots on the streets. Privilege is an easy state of mind to get used to, and the vast majority of the wealthy, seeing their money disappear overnight, decided that their best course of action was to complain to the authorities, then sit it out. Riots are anti-establishment in nature. The rich were the establishment. Who were they supposed to rage against?

  The cash-rich did well. Drug dealers thought Christmas had come early. For the first time in history, pawnbrokers got most of their business through house calls, as the wealthy became regular customers, handing over watches, jewellery, and heirlooms for a fraction of their true value.

  The super-rich made calls to their peers, and to politicians who owed them favours. Those that had inherited their wealth felt the beginnings of panic while those who had built their own empires—the initial shock wearing off more quickly—shored up the resources they could still access and prepared themselves to rebuild.

  Pensioners were hit hard when their savings disappeared, but an email to the banks from Glob promised a monthly payment equivalent to the average national wage would be paid into the accounts of those over seventy years old.

  The president of the United States government received an email from Titus Gorman the day after the algorithm ran. A copy was sent to every other government and all major international news outlets. It was concise.

  Mr. President,

  My name is Titus Gorman. As of yesterday, I control the world's financial systems. Please don't waste too much time trying to undo what I have done. I appreciate that you have to make the effort, but you won't succeed. Here's why. The bots I sent out three years ago were programmed to hide in the world's banking systems and learn. They are intelligent, tireless, and perfectly coded. I should know. I coded them.

  By the time I triggered the algorithm, each bot had learned the structural language of the system in which it had been placed. The Utopia Algorithm isn't an algorithm per se. I just thought the name was catchy. I sent a packet of instructions to my bots yesterday, and they implemented them by translating my orders into the unique structural language they have learned in their individual placements.

  Can you undo that? No. Your tech experts will explain, once they've understood my achievement, that the only way to stop me would be to build new, sandboxed systems. Eventually, you'll work out a way to connect them again without leaving a backdoor for me to exploit. It'll take years, though, by which time the landscape will have irrevocably changed.

  The world is a fairer place today. I've levelled the playing field. And I'm watching you.

  I expect you'll be calling me a cyber-terrorist by now. Whatever. It's mostly the rich who are terrified, so I'm sure you'll get that label to stick. I don't care either way. It's almost accurate. Terrorists take hostages and make demands, right? I have hostages, trillions of them. And I'm prepared to release them. You'll never be as rich as you were, but I'll let you pursue your dreams of wealth and power again. Just so long as you meet my demands.

  1. All employers must change their pay structure. No individual can earn over ten times the salary of the lowest-paid employee.

  2. Education and healthcare are rights, not privileges. No profit allowed. Same pay structure imposed.

  3. The national average salary is now the national minimum salary.

  That's it for now. I know the wheels of government turn slowly, and I'm not an unreasonable man. You have until Thanksgiving.

  At this point, you're thinking, "or what?" It's a fair question. Yesterday, you met six of my titans (I preferred Protectors, but who am I to resist the opinion of social media?). I have more. It's not an army, but considering that Britain felt The Deterrent was powerful enough to protect a whole country, I'd suggest you think twice before crossing me
.

  I'm not a violent man, Mr. President. I think our foreign policy sucks. Every time I hear the words "civilian casualties" or "collateral damage" I want to scream. However, I'm not a pacifist either, and the weapons at my disposal are not blunt instruments. Compared to military intervention, drones, or threats of nuclear strikes, the titans are the equivalent of pinhole surgery.

  Consider this. If I gave the order, one of my titans could be at the White House within an hour. Your firepower would be useless against him. He has none of my scruples about violence, he just does as he's told. Think on that, Mr. President, think on that.

  In the meantime, I will have to take a few lives. I fear you won't work on my demands otherwise.

  I'll be back in touch in a few days.

  Titus Gorman

  While every country felt the impact of the Utopia Algorithm, some were more damaged than others. America was doubly wounded. Not only did it hold most the richest, or previously richest, individuals in the world, but Titus Gorman was one of their own.

  A huge manhunt was underway before the end of the first day of the algorithm running. Gorman's face was everywhere, and the unprecedented fifty-million-dollar reward drew plenty of attention. The FBI, CIA, and NSA put aside professional enmity and combined forces, shared every piece of information, dropping everything to, in the words of their Commander-in-Chief, "catch that sorry sonofabitch."

  While the nation's covert specialists were hunting, the US military was ordered to make an example of Titus Gorman's company, send him a message the rest of the world would see. Maybe even lure him out into the open.

  Glob's headquarters were just outside San Diego, an anonymous cluster of white-fronted, smoked-glass buildings. The company had moved there five years earlier, but, over the last eighteen months, the staff had thinned out considerably. Programmers had been told to work from home, managers were encouraged to find positions in rival organisations. Anyone coming with a glowing reference from Glob was guaranteed a prestigious job.

  Four days after the algorithm ran, watched by the world's media, US army tanks rolled over the gates and closed off all exits, their barrels pointing directly at the Glob buildings. Staff emerged with their hands in the air. They were herded into a field behind the line of tanks and soldiers and held there. As helicopter gunships approached, names, addresses, and occupations of the assorted employees were noted by the officer in charge. Once the gunships were in place, a three-minute warning was issued through a PA system to anyone yet to leave the buildings. No one else emerged.

  The helicopters landed and stood ready.

  The lieutenant collecting the names from the terrified employees called the nearest one forward.

  "Where is everyone else?"

  The young Mexican man looked at the hard-faced woman in military uniform, a heavy gun on her hip.

  "There is no one else, Ma'am. No one. We are the only ones who work here."

  The Lieutenant looked out at forty-eight scared faces, some crying, some white-faced, some praying. She nodded at the soldiers guarding the employees, then reported to the general.

  "Sir, there are only forty-eight of them."

  "Where are the rest?"

  "There aren't any more. And the ones we have, sir, none of them really work for Glob."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "They're all contract staff, sir. Temporary. We have twenty-seven cleaners, nine maintenance engineers, six receptionists, and six telephone operators."

  "Shit."

  The general turned to a nearby subordinate.

  "Send them in."

  A squad of military technology experts were escorted into each building. They knew what they were looking for, and it took two hours for them to confirm that it wasn't there.

  "No mainframe?" The General rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I figured as much. He knew we'd come here first. But the boss wants a show, and we can't let the TV folk down."

  He gave the order, the tanks pulled back, and the gunships moved back into position.

  "Waste of time and money," he muttered as four missiles left the helicopters with tails of orange flame and levelled the entire business park. Every news channel showed it on a loop for most of the day.

  Titus Gorman emailed again, as promised, an hour after his headquarters was reduced to a pile of smoking rubble.

  Mr. President,

  Remember my analogy about pinhole surgery? What you just did, destroying empty buildings that housed nothing important, was the equivalent of using a massive dose of chemotherapy. On the wrong patient. You achieved nothing other than making yourself look foolish.

  I warned you I was prepared to use violence. I need to convince you, and everyone watching, of your impotence and my strength.

  One week from today, therefore, three individuals will die. They will be notified, as will you, on the morning of their deaths. You cannot save them, but I, and the world, expect you to try. They will be dead before midnight a week from today. All of them. I need you to understand this: you cannot protect anyone now. I will post their files online the day after their deaths so that anyone interested can see who they were, and what they have done. None of them will deserve to be mourned. One of them is a politician, another a serving member of the US army. The third is a prominent entertainment lawyer. I will email their names to you at six am on the day of their execution.

  Their lives are in your hands. You will fail. Please take this as a warning, and a promise. I can get to anyone, I am not negotiating, and I have given you a generous deadline before which you must meet my initial demands.

  Until Thanksgiving, then.

  TG

  A week later, in Washington, in Nevada, and in Los Angeles, two men and one woman received identical emails.

  You thought your crimes would go unpunished, but you were wrong. You die today. Make your peace with whoever you think might give a damn.

  Titus Gorman

  27

  The sun had gone down in Cornwall, and Abos, Shuck, and Susan were testing their limits. With plenty of cloud cover to obscure their flight, they headed for the coast, leaving the land behind and soaring south, before coming to a stop above the Bay of Biscay. Two thousand feet below them, the water surged and roared as storms that had raged across the Atlantic hit the continental shelf and found themselves with nowhere to go.

  They looked at each other as they hovered in the deceptive calm above the clouds. Abos spoke to Susan without words.

  —You're sure —

  —Yes. I'm ready—

  Susan had woken into her new human body just as Abos, and Shuck, had done before her. Shuck's mental development had been blindingly fast compared to the weeks of adaptation Abos had gone through, but Susan had taken it to a new level.

  When she opened her eyes for the first time, Susan had climbed out of the bath, walked over to the farmhouse, and fixed herself some soup. Shuck had been picking up supplies at the nearest shop but had been immediately aware she was conscious. When he'd returned, Susan had displayed no disorientation at all. As he'd put the shopping bags on the floor, she had pointed at the hob.

  "Soup's still hot. Here's a bowl."

  Without a word, Shuck had filled his bowl and sat down opposite her. She'd finished her soup before speaking again.

  "I understand why Abos is looking for Daniel. However, she is unlikely to find him. But we can sense other titans, even in their dormant state. We need to find them, wake them. Starting with those who are being used. Call Abos. She is the alpha."

  No one has to teach a dog to cock its leg when it takes a piss. As puppies, dogs urinate by stretching their back legs away from the business end and leaning close to the ground. In the first year, the dog will start cocking his leg and marking his territory. As a domesticated animal, he has no parent to teach him this behaviour. He just starts doing it. Something in his brain, linked to sexual maturity and territorial urges, tells him how.

  This was the analogy Abos had thought of when
she met Susan, who exhibited no signs of disorientation.

  Something new was happening, some biological change was unlocking new abilities.

  Abos knew her brain was changing. Something had triggered it when Shuck had emerged, and Susan's awakening, thousands of miles away, had accelerated the pace of change.

  Whatever she was—whatever her species was—did not conform to the human model of individual consciousness. She was an individual, but she was more than that. How much more, she was yet to find out.

  —You remember nothing of your life as Rasputin? St Petersburg? Your death?—

  Abos looked at Susan as they communicated without words. The stars glittered above all three of them, reflecting on the motorcycle helmets they held by their sides. A few thousand feet up, a passenger jet began its descent to Bilbao airport, unaware of the unlikely triumvirate occupying the airspace below.

  Susan closed her eyes.

  Images, sounds, and odours surfaced and disappeared in her mind. Abos experienced them almost as a listener might hear sounds on headphones, each one placed in a different part of the stereo spectrum. Panned hard right, an image of a group of bearded men huddled in a cave, murmuring the same phrase over and over. Just left of centre, a woman, eyes closed, rough fingers on her body, unclasping her underwear. Further left, a child, pale and ill. In the centre, the smell of food and the clench of poison in the guts, a weakened body, bullets causing pain, nearly penetrating the skin, the shock of cold water and no strength left to get to the surface of the river. A man leaning over the bridge as the body shut down.

  —I remember little—

  Abos was glad. Rasputin had been power-crazed, deluded. What if her species carried the ghosts of previous incarnations in their new bodies, the same way that a glass of water might still taste of the wine it held previously? Fortunately, Susan's new body seemed to have shaken off Rasputin, just as Shuck showed few signs of his life as a mythical dog. Another effect of their combined consciousness, perhaps? Or just a gradual loss of influence due to the passage of time between the death of their last bodies and the birth of their new ones?