Foreign Devil (Unreal Universe Book 1)

by Lee Bond

  “Oh,” Garth said cheerily, “I’m sure you’ll find I’m a totally persuasive dude. Uhm, you guys hang loose. I should warn you the cannons and robots and things all have orders to kill you if come up to this floor, if you try to blow up any of the walls leading to the outside world, or if you try to cut the power. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that while you might succeed in shutting the main power off, the defense systems all run on coded backup generators that need Ashok’s personal access codes to shut down. Unfortunately, by the time he gets here, you’d all be very dead. So head on over to the cafeteria and eat some food. Join the rest of your pals. You’re on the bench.”

  Garth tracked the despondent security teams as they made their way to the cafeteria. To make their lives easier, he’d reactivated internal communications for all of them; watching grown men stumble around, cut off from the perpetually streaming presence of other people, was depressing.

  Ashok Guillfoyle’s prote-sign was unlike any he’d seen so far; standard prote links were strikingly similar to IP addresses used to identify computers and servers on the Internet of his own time. The primary difference between that long ago format and the Latelian sequences was the addition of an extended, unique algorithm based on a person’s name or something similar. As a person moved through the streets and across relay boundaries, the proteus was continually pinged, making it easy to locate average citizens. If someone was offline, messages were stored in Central units; through properly configured Sheets or a prote, you could download those messages for a small fee. If someone was offline for a long period of time, someone went looking.

  Ashok’s lacked the identifying algorithm or the sequential numbers that were prote-standard. Head cocked to one side, mind running over various possibilities, Garth found the answer after a few minutes.

  The bastard wasn’t even using Hospitalian netLINKs. He was using a Q-Comm netLINK to organize the Portsiders. The brilliance of the thing was shocking.

  As a government-funded Research and Development company, Ashok needed to guarantee that a net-savvy hacker looking for massive data transfers along the netLINKs stole nothing he worked on. Hacking a quantumly-entangled communication beam was fiendishly complex with a top-of-the-line AI. Without one, there was no way anyone in Latelyspace could even dent the phenomenally complex counter-intrusion measures. By agreeing to let Ashok work for them, the government had given him all the things he’d need to fund his own personal criminal empire. And the bastard had run with it.

  It was genius. Garth wanted a Q-Comm system for himself, especially if he was going to continue being the target for disgruntled people with far too many resources at their fingertips.

  Inspiration spoke, so when he placed the call to his number one mortal enemy of the day, he did so as Harry Bosch.

  “Who is this?” Ashok demanded, his dark skin going darker with rage the moment he realized that the call came from inside his own office.

  “Call me … call me Harry.”

  Ashok smiled, his face twisting with obscene pleasure. “Well, Sa Harry, I can assure you that whatever you think you’ve accomplished, you haven’t. God soldiers will soon be on their way.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Garth said through Harry. To show the man who was boss, Garth flashed some of Ashok’s own decrypted files. “I think Chairwoman Doans would be very interested in learning that you’ve been working on ways to counter a God soldiers effectiveness with things like Experimental Drug #467-a, don’t you? Or that you’ve begun implementing your own hardwired commands into all the protean systems you develop for other people? Why don’t you come on down here so we can have a little talk?”

  “Possession of those files proves nothing.” Ashok snapped, though with considerably less vehemence than before. “They could be faked.”

  “Uhuh, uhuh, that they could.” Garth admitted this readily, even as he flashed Ashok video feeds from laboratories where Guillfoyle scientists worked on their illegal projects. “But these files couldn’t be faked. Not if I ran them real-time out to one of the Entertainment netLINK feeds with a mile-wide trace signal. I am in control of your entire life, Ashok Guillfoyle. If you call in the soldiers, two things will happen. One, I will gut your data systems –I’ll keep copies of all the good stuff for myself, of course. You’ve got some interesting ideas. Two, before I kill your enterprise, I’ll make sure people who find this kind of info interesting get copies as well. Actually, there’s a third thing, too, because I am in a shit-ass mood. I’ll shut down all the security systems and invite all the fucking gangsters and thugs and thieves down here for an auction. You follow me?”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Ashok hissed.

  “Ashok Guillfoyle, there is very little in this life that I wouldn’t dare. Crushing you like a puny bug is an aperitif to what I really want done, so unless you get your ass down here in … fifteen minutes, you should start looking for a new home. Any longer than that, buy a coffin. Soldiers show up, your face will be the most widely known face in the entire system. And don’t do anything stupid like bring your own security teams in, because I control the defensive netLINK and I’ve reprogrammed it, all right? Hugs and kisses, see you soon.” Garth ended the comm as Ashok fishmouthed his way through a bout of apoplectic fury.

  It was time to find out why Ashok Guillfoyle wanted an AI so desperately he was willing to sacrifice his own personal crime organization to get hold of one.

  Garth had to give it to Ashok: the man was ambitious. Stupid, but ambitious beyond the dreams of avarice.

  Metallurgical sciences in Latelyspace had stalled out three thousand years ago, leaving the Latelians with a very durable metallic alloy that could be applied to virtually any frame they wanted through a complicated electroplating rig; duronium was insanely heat-ablative, and, depending on the thickness, resilient to a staggering level of physical punishment. With the final secrets of their glorious Box eternally at arm’s reach, research teams turned their attention elsewhere, caring little for the repercussions of their wonder alloy.

  While the scientists toiled onwards, some few theoreticians maintained that the possibilities of alloys a hundred times, a thousand times more efficient than mere duronium existed. And they were not wrong.

  All it would take, these poor few who turned their eyes away from the glory in search of answers claimed, was the right inspiration. Everyone, even their detractors in the academic world, admitted quite readily that duronium wasn’t the end of the road; you only needed to look at The Box see the truth of this. Wherever The Box had come from was the only place where the final key could be found; it was a fool who tried to crack a secret like that. Peer-pressure and the disappearance of all-important grant money eventually convinced all but a few diehard fanatics that their time and efforts were better put to use working on the-then fledgling science called cybernetics. Those that persisted died ignored, forgotten, dismissed.

  And so it was that dreams of the Final Metal disappeared, relegated to dusty shelves and ancient, long-forgotten corners of the netLINK. Until Ashok Guillfoyle arrived, brash, young, and idealistic. He had promised in the most explicit phrases that his teams were close to a breakthrough of epic proportions, one so profound that the entire duronium market would be revolutionized overnight.

  Of course, the whole thing had been a spiel designed to lure eager government agencies in hook, line and sinker. The experiments, which Garth amused himself with briefly, had enough pizzazz and flare to convince the layperson, and maybe even hopeful literati, into believing otherwise. But Garth, who knew just what The Box was made out of and how to make the metallic alloy if he was ever given a chance, found Ashok’s ballsiness just about the funniest damned thing in the world.

  A bold move, one resulting in massive benefits along with renewed contracts for preexisting agreements. Large sums of money that the government couldn’t really afford to spend anywhere else except on keeping their society running wound up in Ashok’s pockets, money he immediatel
y turned over to illegal R&D teams digging into the deepest corners of madness.

  Bold, and yet uncompromisingly stupid, because sooner or later, the lie would be revealed.

  Without an AI capable of processing phenomenal amounts of data at unrestricted speeds, it was impossible to crack The Final Solution. Yes, a Muslim ceremony had sparked the entire concept of harmonic reinforcement in the mind of an attending scientist, and yes, human minds had eventually come to understand how to combine harmonies with other ‘invisible’ influences like gravity and n-space manipulation to reorganize the atomic structure of duronium. Without an AI mind to organize and coordinate the thousands of different processes that occurred on a molecular level, though, there was simply no way. The human mind, while wonderful and virtually limitless in terms of potential, was incapable.

  Garth wished he could travel back in time to the moment when Ashok and his development teams had realized their big flub; the look on the man’s face must’ve been awesome. In all likelihood, Ashok’s original claims hadn’t even started out as lies, merely brash confidence; no one stupid enough to lie outright to a woman with Doans’ temperament would have made it as far in the business world as Guillfoyle.

  Which was why Ashok’s mains were also crammed full of new technologies designed to stop, immobilize, and otherwise kill the theoretically unkillable God soldiers: when Doans found out, the tide of God soldiers crushing him would be relentless.

  Garth was banking on the fact that Ashok Guillfoyle would do whatever it took to keep his secret research secret.

  Ashok sent the necessary landing permissions through to the nearest Regimist relay system and touched down inside the plaza, angrier than mere words could sum up. He couldn’t imagine how a thug had accomplished the impossible feat of breaking into his research facility. If it weren’t for the fact that the man, whoever he was, had sent proof corroborating his bold statements, he’d’ve considered the whole thing a hoax.

  Except it wasn’t. His proteus, automatically configured to dredge through the buildings protean mains within ten feet of the door, did nothing. As a man who liked to keep on top of what he was attaching his name to, Ashok was dependent on being kept up to date one everything that happened; the only way someone could prevent his prote from updating itself was if they were in control of the building. Unbelievable.

  The doors wouldn’t open. Ashok pounded angrily on them until his prote chimed. He looked at the caller. It was the thug. “I cannot imagine you want me outside attracting attention.”

  “No.” Harry Bosch said with a sly grin. “Of course not. Hold on a sec while I check some stuff out.”

  Ashok’s proteus began spilling data into the ether. Unable to stop it, the businessman watched, horrified, as everything he kept closest to him was drained out of the proteus’ capacious memory banks until he was left with nothing but an empty shell. Even his modified operating system was gone, replaced by the most basic of codes.

  “Good boy!” Harry nodded. “You didn’t make any calls or warn anyone, just like I asked. You’re smart, Ashok. Come on in. Don’t mind the laser cannons and things. They think you’re a designated target. Sort of like an emissary from another country whose considered a threat until they’re gone. Don’t go anywhere except to the elevator that’s already open, don’t push any button other than the one that’s for your personal offices. The internal communication system is up, so if you want to talk to your security guards to see how they’re feeling, go right ahead.”

  Ashok waited for the doors to open, fuming. He had no intentions of talking to his security staff. The situation was untenable but there was nothing he could do except meet this man; the nature of the files this master thief had access to made him untouchable until something permanent could be arranged.

  Ashok hurried quickly through the doors and made a beeline for the elevator. Obviously the intruder was untouchable within the confines of the building. Once the intruder left, though, a call to Chairwoman Doans would straighten the bastard out soon enough; she was very willing to use her soldiers at the smallest pretense. Someone breaking into a research facility with government and military contracts would give her an excuse to roll out the very best of her God soldiers in the most spectacular way possible.

  Ashok was angry, yes, but that didn’t make him stupid. There was no way the intruder could expect to make it through the night, no matter how talented, no matter how ‘untouchable’.

  xxx

  Garth watched Ashok through spEyes, vastly amused by the man’s obvious discomfort. As far as he was concerned, Ashok Guillfoyle was the editor of his doom. If it wasn’t for the overreaching grasp of one single businessman, his entire experience on Hospitalis could very well have been completely different. For one, the death toll wouldn’t be as high. For another, well, Garth couldn’t think of another, but it’d come to him eventually. Every few seconds, Ashok attempted to access the main servers for the building, each time meeting with absolute failure. The dark-skinned corporate executive met each of these disappointments with a shocking display of cursing and kicking of walls.

  Not once during the ten minute trip did Ashok make any effort to get in touch with his security teams.

  If the idiot weren’t so concerned about proprietary information, he’d learn within seconds that an Offworlder, not a Latelian, was in command. And that bit of news could’ve changed everything for the man.

  “Strike one.” Garth said to himself, priming one of the viral programs he’d loaded into Ashok’s systems in preparation for the man’s own stupidity; the lowest and most non-essential string of databases and information caches instantly purged themselves. The other two viruses Garth had installed were far more complex and insidious than the first and were dependent on actions directly undertaken by Ashok; he would be warned that the viruses were there and how to avoid activating them, but only that. After Ashok’s unconcern about his staffers, there was nothing but doom in the near future for the stupid idiot.

  To frighten and demoralize Ashok, all of the counter-insurgency weapons responded to the man’s presence by moving around and making a lot of noise. The first time Ashok walked by a laser cluster on the top floor, it began spiraling madly, each of the emitters pulsing low-level –and absolutely non-dangerous- beams of light. Ashok let out a very girlish scream and hurried down the long hallway, no doubt regretting his decision to force supplicants to his endless wisdom to take the ‘Long Walk’ to his office.

  Garth indulged in a hearty round of laughter before activating the comprehensive hologram program he’d designed using Ashok’s own detailed library and information from his prote. Garth had a big surprise planned for Guillfoyle.

  Such fun.

  Ashok banged open the door to his office. He hurried inside and slammed the door shut, gratified that none of the weapons had fired. His lovely hallway was a terrifying gauntlet that had to go, if only for his own peace of mind. It was his sincere intention to reduce the hallway to a third its present size and to personally oversee the removal of all the weapons systems.

  “Right on time.” a voice commented gruffly from just behind his finely engraved wooden desk.

  Ashok couldn’t believe his eyes. The intruder -a man who’d made short work of a multi-billion dollar security system and who’d turned the mains against the rightful owner- was a God soldier. One that’d been out of the military for some time, if his ability to accurately judge the ill-effects of being taken off the supplements wasn’t impaired; as part of the program to defeat God soldiers, Ashok was now as knowledgeable on systemic degradation as any military physician. At first, the symptoms were relatively mild, a barely noticeable reduction in the machine/mind interface controlling the cybernetic joints and a slight aphasia with the software avatars. From there, things declined rapidly; as the vitamin, chemicals and nutrients completely washed out, rejection rates for the joints, and other ‘onboard’ systems began destroying the organic portions of the body with a vengeance. As the rejection con
tinued, more and more of the afflicted soldier’s organics –heart, lungs, liver, bones, brain, and blood vessels- got eaten by decaying deleterious machinery. Death, painful and prolonged, took them swiftly at that point.

  Ashok had it on good authority that death by consumption was unpleasant. The stereotypical scarring and obvious signs of pain that pointed to the latter stages of rejection marked the trespasser. “You’re a type III soldier, aren’t you?”

  Harry Bosch’s hologram was controlled directly by Garth, who was cunningly hidden by the same machinery giving his Latelian alter ego life. Continually mapped by sensors mounted into the walls and ceiling, anything Garth did would affect Harry; by the same token, the audio filters running Harry’s voice damped out any chance Ashok had of hearing anything but what good old Bosch had to say. “Yeah.” Harry admitted grudgingly.

  “How long have you been decommissioned?” Ashok asked, hoping he sounded paternal. He knew from previous experience that dying soldiers responded well to concern and interest in their military careers. The situation was thankfully still salvageable if he could manipulate the beast.

  “Year and a half.” Garth had picked the length of time based on the figures in Ashok’s database; Harry and his grossly malformed body –some of his machined parts had already been jettisoned, leaving behind grotesque, barely healed wounds- fell right into the median of survivability.

  Ashok moved further into the room, eyeing the man. “What’s your name, soldier?”

  Garth had to resist the urge to laugh at Ashok’s audacity. The fool was actually trying to handle the situation. “Harry Bosch.”

  “Well, Harry,” Ashok said soothingly, “what’s this all about?”

  Garth had given a great deal of thought to that. Clearly, Guillfoyle was using the Portsiders as a blind so he could steal the majority of nutrients targeted for decommissioned soldiers to further his own tests without endangering his own men; the bastards probably had no idea they were contributing to their own friends’ terrible deaths. Ashok had already bought the lie about Harry being a God soldier, so he would also choose to believe that the poor man was interested only in acquiring an unlimited supply of the drug. Garth knew from Jimmy –may he rest in peace- that the Portsiders had been planning a raid on the Space Port that very night. “I need the drug, Guillfoyle.”