by Rick Scott
Maxis still doesn’t look happy about it, but the logic must get through to him, because he doesn’t really say anything else. Val Helena pats him gently on the forearm.
“Hey,” she says. “We all want to save Citadel. And I know you need to save your mom too.”
The mention of our mother shifts my thoughts again. Do we really have the time to be trying to sort all this out? I understand where Maxis is coming from now and it leaves anxiety in my stomach. We could restore everything and save Citadel and still not save Mom if we don’t get back in time. My brother and I share a silent glance and I can tell he’s thinking the exact same thing.
I send him a PM.
Me: We’ll make it, man. We’ll get the nano back in time to save her.
Maxis: Yeah… I hope so.
I look around the table. Everyone seems to have had their say, but it doesn’t seem like we’ve made a proper decision as yet. I clear my throat.
“All right, it looks like heading to New London could be our best move for a lot of reasons. We can better search for Citadel, look for this new sphere and hopefully restore more game functionality and maybe even restore my memories too, which will tell us how to defeat those giant monsters down in the mines.” I look to Maxis. “And if all else fails, we head to the mines afterwards regardless. It’d be our only lead left.”
Maxis tilts his head while giving a small nod. “Okay.”
“It shouldn’t be too much harder getting through the wild than what we’ve done already,” Rembrandt says. “According to Blacktop’s map it was due west of where we are now. A day’s travel max.”
It doesn’t sound like much, but having to dodge cyberdogs and giant robots for a whole day seems almost as bad as the labyrinth.
“Looks like our course is charted,” Gilly says. “Just one problem left.”
“What’s that?” I say.
“We still have an army to get through.”
Chapter 30: Preparations
Bruce hovered over Carl’s shoulder, peering into the holographic image on the sonar screen. The confines of Carl’s work habitat was freezing cold as usual, but quite welcome after Bruce’s short dash through the blistering power house.
“So what am I looking at?” Bruce asked.
On the screen was a grainy image of Dennis in a small enclosed room, a view from above, like a camera placed in the upper corner of an elevator. For a moment Bruce wondered if it was indeed in some kind of elevator, but he could see no obvious door or means of exit.
“This is a three-dimensional construct of what my trace program captured,” Carl said. “You can’t really take what you see as literal. It’s just representing what’s happening inside the system.”
“Which is what?”
Carl traced a finger through the image. “What he’s inside is a form of encryption. Masking.”
“Huh?”
“He created something to isolate himself from the rest of the network. That’s what drew my attention to it. He was doing something in there he wanted no one else to know about.”
“And you were able to get inside it?” Bruce asked, somewhat mystified by the whole thing. Bruce was an engineer, but of the physical variety. He understood the basic concepts of virtual architecture, but it never ceased to amaze him just what was possible through VR.
“Binary hack,” Carl said with a grin. “I don’t think I could have cracked it with straight code versus code, but there are gaps in the quantum latticework that make up the code itself. I was able to create a binary subroutine that would detect the absence of certain qubits in entanglement by monitoring their Bell states and then infer what was being communicated inversely.”
Bruce stared at him blankly—no idea what he just said.
Carl chuckled. “Think of it like reading a book, but instead of seeing letters, you’re seeing the entire alphabet and are looking for the letters that aren’t there.”
“Ah,” Bruce said nodding. Although his layman’s explanation seemed just as complex and mind-boggling as his scientific one. “So what did you find?”
“I’ll let the man speak for himself.”
Carl touched the controls and the image of Dennis unfroze. The software engineer shifted from foot to foot within the tiny room as if anxious or impatient. Finally, he spoke aloud, seemingly to no one. “That was not my doing. Atonement, yes, but not that!”
Bruce squinted. “What did he just say?”
Carl huffed out a breath. “It gets weirder. Wait.”
Dennis continued to speak in short bursts—a one sided conversation, like overhearing someone on a comm call.
“Nothing has changed! Please listen—!”
His voice cut off as if being interrupted. Silence followed.
“That was always the promise…but I’m not the one in breach here. You are!”
More silence.
“A second what? Ko…what? I don’t understand the phrase you keep using….”
“No…I am now.”
“Soon…yes.”
The image froze again.
“That’s as much as I got,” Carl said, easing back from the hologram. “The construct dissipates after that.”
“Who the hell was he talking to?” Bruce asked.
Carl shook his head. “Can’t tell.”
“There’s no way to trace it?”
“I can detect something there, but it’s…indecipherable.”
“Like more encryption?” Bruce asked.
“No, it’s kind of like…like someone blowing a dog whistle. The communication is there; I just can’t seem to be able to perceive it.”
Bruce frowned as he mulled it over. But even more than what they couldn’t hear, there was what they could. “Was he communicating with someone outside the system?”
Carl shrugged. “Like I said, I can’t tell.”
“You know what I mean, though.”
Carl’s jaw set in a grimace. “It’s why I called you.”
Bruce’s stomach churned as the possibility entered his mind. He spoke it aloud. “Could he be communicating with the AIs?”
He looked to Carl for some kind of affirmation. But the sonar tech again raised his shoulders in a shrug. “I can’t confirm anything. Just a weird one-sided conversation, I know that.”
The puzzle pieces began to fall into place. The increased vibrations. Dennis forcing them into the Shards. “If he’s communicating with a Builder, he could be leading one straight to us.”
Carl shrugged again. “Yeah, but why?”
That was the only puzzle piece that didn’t fit.
Why indeed?
“Maybe I’m reading too much into this,” Bruce said. “Play it again. I mean, I suppose he could be….talking to someone about some business deal, right?”
Again Bruce looked to Carl for affirmation, but the sonar tech seemed non-committal either way.
“I say we need more information,” he said. “Could be something, could be nothing. He went through a lot of effort to conceal this though. And the time was limited too.”
“Just like a broadcast,” Bruce said, already grasping what Carl was getting at.
“What do you want to do?” Carl asked.
“You certain he can’t detect this?” Bruce motioned to the sonar array.
“Pretty certain.”
Bruce paused mulling it over. If he was wrong about this—and he hoped he was—revealing he’d resorted to spying on another board member, without warrant, would rock the administration to its core. But if he was right, if Dennis was somehow communicating with the enemy, Bruce had to know how and why, and even more so, gain proof.
“Keep watching him. Closely. If he’s just being paranoid about something mundane, then no foul. But if he’s actually conversing with the AIs then things just escalated to a whole new level. And if so, the more we know and the less he knows about what we know…the better.”
Carl nodded. “There is one way to find out for sure.”
“H
ow?”
“Find out what’s being said on the other side of that conversation.”
Bruce’s heartbeat sped. “You think you can do that?”
“The signal is there,” he said. “Just a matter of finding the right means to interpret it. Might take a bit of time, but I think it’s possible.”
“Fine. Work on that too,” Bruce said. “Let me know as soon as you have something. I don’t want to act in error here, but if we need to do something to stop him, we need to know fast.”
“I’ll get to work on it,” Carl said with a nod. And then he smiled. “Let’s hope we’re both just overreacting, huh?”
Bruce swallowed dryly.
“Yeah…let’s hope so.”
* * *
We spend the next half hour discussing what we’re going to do once the storm eventually breaks. Already the winds seem to be lessening and when the storm finally passes, we’ll have a big decision to make.
“I say we just make a run for it,” Aiko says. “They may have even retreated all the way back to the caldera to wait out the storm. If we move early we might be able to sneak right past them.”
“And what if they didn’t?” Gilly says. “We’ll be stuck in the open facing a whole army. If we stay here we’ll at least have protection while we get our exit strategy together. Plus, we ensure that the army is here, at the keep. A known location. Better that than guessing where they are.”
“Explain what this involves again?” Maxis says. “And in detail please. Not just, ‘we dig a tunnel and get out’.”
Gilly releases a frustrated sigh and lays down her plan for what seems like the umpteenth time. “First we build the drill. That’s going to take a lot of iron. Then we start excavating towards the surface at the farthest end of the cave. Once that’s started, we build siege weapons to defend the keep while the drill is going. With luck, the exit point will be well beyond their back lines.”
Aiko rolls her eyes. “‘With luck’?”
Gilly shoots her a glare. “I don’t have a crystal ball, you know? I’m estimating here. That worm tunnel is like two hundred feet long at least. That’s a pretty good distance away. It should be fine.”
“And where does it exit exactly?” Maxis asks. “Can we even tell?”
“I dunno, Max!” Gilly says defensively. “It’s snowing outside.”
I can tell Gilly’s getting mad at being questioned. I jump in to rescue her. “It’s a risk either way guys, but I think we have a better chance at fooling them than trying to sneak past them. That’s a big army we’re talking about.”
Aiko scoffs, rolling her eyes at me this time. “Sure, you would side with your girlfriend, Reece. Your vote doesn’t count.”
I frown at the not-so-subtle jab. I really hope she isn’t being contrary just because of Gilly and I’s relationship. That’d be ridiculous and maybe a bit egotistical to think on my part, but it would match Aiko’s nutty MO just fine.
“I’m putting my faith in Gilly,” Rembrandt says, giving her a smile. “She hasn’t let us down yet.”
Gilly beams at the cyberpunker as he tips his fedora.
“Great…” Aiko says wryly. She turns to Becky and Val Helena. “What about you two?”
Becky immediately defers to Val Helena, looking up at the Half-Giant for an answer.
Val Helena blows out a sigh and seems torn between siding with Maxis or with Gilly. Finally, she looks straight at me. “If Reece and Rem thinks it’s worth a shot then I guess we should go for it.”
Aiko stands from the table, looking disgusted. “Yeah? Well, don’t expect me to hang around if things go south.”
What the heck?
I stand along with her. “Hey! What does that mean?”
She stares down at me with a scowl. “Figure it out, pretty boy.”
She spins on her heel and heads towards the common room. My stomach boils. Did she really just say she was going to abandon us?
“What the heck is wrong with you?” I shout after her. “We need to stick together! Aiko!”
She keeps walking.
Val Helena then stands as well. “Aiko!”
She disappears into the common room and Val Helena gives me a heated stare.
Val Helena: You need to fix this please.
Me: Me fix it? She’s your crazy sister.
Val Helena: And I told you I would. It’s what I wanted to do in the first place, remember?
She’s talking about confronting her. I release a sigh. I don’t want to expose Gilly to all that mess.
Me: Fine. I’ll do it.
But part of me is almost too ticked off to care at the moment. Why is it all my responsibility anyway? I can’t control how she behaves.
“I really hope she’s not serious,” I say, taking my seat again.
Becky shakes her head with an eye roll. “That’s my little sister. Trust her to pee in the pool at the worst time possible.”
“Yup.” Val Helena retakes her seat as well. “Back to her old self again. I guess that’s something.”
“Are one of you going to go talk to her?” Rembrandt asks, looking between Val Helena and Becky.
“She’ll calm down,” Val Helena says. “We all might go a little stir crazy in here for a while.”
“I’ll go talk to her,” I say. “But later. We need to plan this strategy out first.”
“Why you?” Gilly asks with a questioning stare.
She squints at me with suspicion and my mind goes blank. Crap. I can’t let on that something weird is going on between Aiko and me.
“It’s a Ninja thing,” I say stupidly and hope she buys the lie.
Gilly stares at me a moment more and my stomach sinks when she looks away from me with a frown. I think I just hurt her again. Darn it, why did Aiko have to cause all this mess? I really do need to sort out whatever this is between her and I. And soon.
But we have work to do first.
* * *
We spend the next couple of hours going over the battle plan. I have to admit, with Aiko gone and everyone focusing on the same goal, the ideas flow pretty quickly. Gilly determines we’ll require another 250 or so units of iron to build the drill and the anti-siege equipment that we’ll need. I pull the items up on my HUD to check them out as Gilly links them from her crafting menu.
Iron Steam Mining Drill: Strength 250
Iron Drill Bit [8]
Iron Ingot x 2 (for 1)
Iron Boiler [1]
Iron Sheet [10]
Iron Ingot x 4 (for 1)
Iron Rivet [100]
Iron Ingot x 1 (For 5)
Iron Gear Box [1]
Iron Gears [4]
Iron Ingot x 5 (for 1)
Oil x 20
Iron Steam Pump [1]
Iron Sheet [6]
Iron ingot x 4 (for 1)
Iron Rod [2]
Iron Ingot x 2 (for 1)
Oil x 2
I marvel at how much stuff needs to be crafted—first to make the component parts and then to put them all together to build the whole thing. I look up and down the list. “You have to make all this, Gilly?”
“Yuppers,” she says with a smile. “Thankfully the Ballista falls under the keep inventory, so that can be nano-grown like the buildings, but the drill is from my Smith class.”
I nod. “Where will we get the oil?”
“I’m going to render the worm meat,” Becky says and then she grins. “Culinary skill has more uses than people think.”
“Cool,” I say and then check the Ballista next.
Ballista: Attack: 300 Range 500
Labor: 50
Wood: 200
Iron: 30
“This stuff is all pretty expensive,” I say. “Even the Ballista.”
“We’ll need it though,” Val Helena says. “We need something that can take down those giants and mammoths so they don’t destroy walls or the door.”
That makes my stomach dip.
“I dunno, man,” Max
is says, blowing out a sigh. “I understand the plan but Aiko might have a point. How long will this piece of crap fort hold up against a real army? If they break through that door or get over the walls we’re done for.”
“I could use my clones to keep them pinned down as much as possible,” Rembrandt says. “But that’ll still be only twenty versus who knows how many Braxus has.”
“We just need to be quick digging the tunnel,” Gilly says. “The sooner we have a means to escape, the less time the keep needs to hold up.”
“How much time do you need?” Becky asks.
Gilly only shrugs however. “I’m not sure. Can’t really tell until we start digging. There are a lot of factors. Like how hard the rock is. And I’m not sure how the drill will react to frost and ice. It could take a while. Plus, there are a lot of crafting pre-requisites as you can see, just to build the thing.”
I view the 3D image of the keep on my HUD. My brother is right. If Braxus gets through the wall, we’re doomed. Maybe Aiko isn’t acting out after all. Maybe she’s just thought things through a bit more thoroughly than the rest of us.
“We need more walls,” Val Helena says, studying her own HUD. “And higher ones.”
“That’s an idea,” Maxis says.
I check for options.
Outer perimeter wall (Stone): +150% security +100% morale
Labor: 1000
Stone: 1000
“Holy crap,” I say. “1000 stone? No way we can build that.”
Rembrandt shrugs. “I hate to say it, but unless we can dig a moat or something, another wall will probably be our best bet to slow them down. We can pick them off as they try to scale it or break through. With just the one wall, it takes just one breach and then we’re done.”
“Maybe it doesn’t need to be stone,” Val Helena says. “There are plenty of trees left out there. We had what? A good half a day’s lead on them right? We’d just have to go all out chopping down as many as we can.”
