Rune Zero: A Cyberpunk Thriller (Rune Universe)

by Hugo Huesca

  Digital data is not only lost through a natural disaster. It’s also subject to the same passage of time as clay or paper. Erosion.

  Give it a thousand years or more, eventually, the bytes stored in the hard-drive will die. Or change its place. It will become corrupted.

  With all the power of our civilization, we haven’t been able to beat the fact that all information comes with its own expiration date.

  Some in the scientific community would call a discovery of that magnitude a Deity-rivaling transformation. Meaning, humanity would no longer be subject to the tendrils of entropy, which is nothing more than the expiration date of the data stored in the entire universe.

  We may be, as a species, still far away from that battle. But its first steps may be achievable today. The secret may be hidden in our humble beginnings.

  The most basic method of data storage of a civilization is the spoken language. In other words, information stored directly in the human brain.

  The most important truth of the human brain is that it dies. Its information becomes lost forever. Furthermore, as it ages, that information becomes corrupt at a faster rate than any other storage method in current history.

  Nonetheless, it does not let go of that information willingly. As it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, when we, through medicine and science give the human brain the tools to fight the limitations of its biology, it pushes to take back what belongs to it. And when the damage isn’t big enough, it often succeeds. A man can learn to walk again, people born blind can see for the first time.

  Amnesia can be restored. If any memories are permanently lost, the neurons will take the remaining ones and build a metaphorical patch around the missing files, effectively filling the holes in the patient’s connections. This recent discovery by my colleagues at the San Mabrada University is the foundation of my proposal today.

  We have the technology to create information that fights to preserve itself. Information that veils for its own integrity. We are already using the human brain as the basis of our new chips and storage devices.

  We may as well learn to add its own safeguards to our machines. Improve upon them. Rid our machine’s neurons of its biological limitations.

  So we may, someday, rid our own brains of them, too.

  The rest of the document was a plea for extra funding. David put his phone down and realized he was sweating.

  They were using the brain cells of corpses to create better drones. They planned on using even more to achieve a sort of digital immortality. They were creating in their labs a Frankenstein's monster and then talking among themselves: “Oy, you know what would be sweet? To take this clump of human cells and machine components, and put it in our brains!”

  Phillips had known his craft well enough. The entire document had been tailor-made for the directors of a corporation. Call upon their fear of death, remind them how vulnerable they are, even with all their power and money. Then, offer them salvation. Then, offer them immortality.

  After those documents, Phillips had gotten all the funds he needed.

  And David Terrance had the last remaining connection he needed to solve the murder of Senator Morrow.

  Corporate had funded Phillips’ research. Phillips had made great strides, but his research was definitely unethical. Just how many human cells was he using? Take enough of them, and you’re essentially using a human brain.

  Phillips had been eaten away by guilt, in his remaining days. After Morrow —the man he loved— had been murdered, something had snapped inside him. He wanted to talk to the CIA. Come clean about it all.

  He had been summarily executed by a drone in front of David. Someone fired Wade Phillips via drone to the back of the head.

  David suspected he already knew which someone was involved. But, he was a computer guy. He didn’t act on hunches. He investigated first.

  His investigation consisted of a very fast Internet search. It was about Sleipnir Inc. Turns out, it was a subsidiary of a bigger corporation.

  That corporation was named Odin.

  Hey there, Charli, thought David Terrance, I can see you.

  David Terrance had spent less than a day inside the prison’s vat-tank before Orville and co. broke him out. Before anyone caught word of his escape —he was counting on the fact that the police and John Derry didn’t get along— he would have an early lead to do whatever he wanted.

  Which was just excellent, because David was investing said early lead to break into John Derry’s apartment.

  The first step in his plan was to find out where the agent lived. It was easier than it looked. First of all, he assumed John Derry wasn’t the agent’s real name. But, David knew what he looked like, and he knew his way into old CIA databases.

  David left the motel in the middle of the night and took a bus to the outskirts of a gang-controlled district. He made a stop near a small, graffiti-laden mall with bulletproof windows. He bought a cheap t-shirt, jeans, and running shoes. K-Sec’s loan was almost dry by the end, but it was vital that he wasn’t seen walking around dressed like a security guard of the prison where David Terrance had just broken out of.

  Also, a uniform like that would easily get him killed in a place like this. He walked only in illuminated streets, never straying far from the avenues. He tried his best to appear non-threatening (not very hard) and not a part of a rival gang. It wasn’t easy. Lately there were a lot of gangs and they all used different uniforms.

  He had to take the risk. He was going to make a lot of weird Internet searches and someone was going to take notice sooner or later.

  Finally, he found the place he was looking for, in the middle of a down-on-their-luck cluster of storefronts, most of them closed, some of them with their windows busted.

  It was a tiny locale with Japanese kanji as a name, drawn with happy, neon colors under a patina of dirt and rust.

  The Internet cafe, open 24/7, was probably the last of its kind. At least, it looked like it was. Few people needed one when you could connect to the Internet from your phone. Also, the police, in general, didn’t look kindly to that kind of stores anymore. After all, the only remaining clientele of an Internet cafe were people doing something traceable and probably illegal. Like David Terrance, as he walked inside the locale.

  An old Japanese lady greeted him from behind a glass counter lined with weird, colorful sex toys, hentai videos, and yellowing manga from the nineties. He paid her for an hour of WiFi and she pointed at a row of private cubicles that filled the remaining space of the locale.

  His cubicle had an old computer thrown into a plastic desk with a plastic chair. The smell of disinfectant filled the tiny space. David decided quickly that he preferred said smell that the alternative lack of it, and its implications. He nevertheless sat only on the edge of the chair and made a point of avoiding touching anything with his bare skin.

  The keyboard was an unavoidable exception that filled him with dread.

  The computer was slow, but clean software-wise. The lady knew her way around a network. David logged to the old hacking forums under his old username. He didn’t bother with a proxy. He was going to be there for less than an hour, and the cafe had its own security measures.

  He didn’t recognize most of the usernames around the forum anymore. The old guard, like himself, had either moved on or were languishing in jail.

  Hell, perhaps some of them worked under the Intel team of John Derry. It was a strange thought. David never considered those usernames his friends, but he had grown accustomed to their presence.

  What hadn’t changed was the way things worked around the net. He posted a message asking for the credentials of John Derry, his rank, and description. As payment, he offered the remaining K-Sec loan minus bus fare. Which was next to nothing, but some hackers used to do this kind of thing for free in the good old days. Perhaps he’d get lucky.

  The first dozen messages came a few minutes after he posted. They were all some variance of a meme he no longer
understood, polite petitions for him to go kill himself, ramblings about a CIA trap, and scam attempts. Yeah, some things would never change.

  The thirtieth message was from a username he recognized from before. It was promising. The hacker was a local, like David, and John Derry had tried to jail him or her a while ago, which they only avoided by the skin of their teeth. So, they had kept tabs on the agent.

  Furthermore, they were happy to give him a discount on the information after David pretended he was going to use it for evil.

  They completed the transaction and David paid the hacker in virtual cryptocurrency as an extra layer of security.

  He was left with a bunch of different addresses, phone numbers, and photos stolen from the city’s security grid. David got to work.

  Normally, trying to find out which of those addresses were real, which ones were one-time-hideouts, and which ones were plain fake would take a hacker a couple days.

  David Terrance was older and his time was more valuable. He went for the easiest method to disprove an address.

  He got into the city’s civil services network —it was painfully easy—, then made several phone calls pretending to be the agent. Most of the addresses had too small of an electricity bill, so he discarded them. He was left with a list of only three addresses which had a bill big enough for someone to live there.

  Then he called those addresses. In two of them, people answered. One did so in Cantonese. David politely thanked them and then he circled the address where no one had picked up.

  John lived alone but David was sure the agent had mentioned a daughter before. It seemed that John Derry had paid the toll of success on a demanding job.

  David left the booth, thanked the lady, and waited inside the cafe until a bus drove slowly down the street.

  It was two in the morning when David finally arrived at Derry’s place. The agent lived in a better part of the city than a gang-infested district, but it was nothing luxurious. A residential unit, with several apartment complexes clustered inside a steel-and-concrete wall.

  “Resident or visit?” asked the security guard at a toll booth by the entrance. David caught sight of a couple kid’s bikes rusting slowly under the concrete parking lot, which was filled to capacity with old car models.

  “Resident,” said David, with confidence. He faked annoyance and fatigue. The guard looked suspiciously at his cheap clothes, so he added, “building 402-A, department 91? Registered under James Denvers?”

  He was taking the chance that the guard would recognize James Denvers (an alias of John Derry). If the guard did so, David would pretend he was his boyfriend or something. As it turned out, there was no need.

  “Alright, alright.” The guard waved him in and the steel doors parted with an electronic screech.

  After all, a thousand different people lived in the complexes. Impossible to tell them apart. Not that the guard cared. As David was walking inside the 402-A, he saw the guy go back to watching videos on his phone.

  Department 91 had a metal door with a password and keycard protected lock. John Derry was either paranoid or very realistic. He didn’t have lots of friends.

  A small security camera watched David get near the door, recording with interest. Derry’s security was solid —but old. David looked at the camera, then at the keycard.

  He left the field-of-vision of the camera and started typing on his phone.

  Less than ten minutes later (and a call to the keycard’s company pretending to be John Derry) he was inside the agent’s apartment, feeling quite giddy with himself.

  He had never broken into a home before.

  Who’s the super spy now, Derry?

  The agent lived under spartan conditions. His kitchen was bare and next to the living room, which was at the same time, his bedroom. It didn’t have a TV or a sofa. It had a table with old ramen boxes and a sink filled with dirty dishes. Derry’s bed was barely big enough for the agent to fit in, it was unmade and the sheets were lying in a bunch by the bed.

  The closet was next to the door and it was filled with black suits. The bathroom was closed and the windows were covered by black curtains.

  “Boy, I bet you get laid a lot,” muttered David with a hypocritical smile. He reached for the light switch and the place was filled with yellowish light.

  What David thought were a bunch of sheets by the bed moved. John Derry stood up. He was wearing a ridiculous black nightgown and his gun.

  “Not like you’re some Casanova yourself, you know,” the agent told David.

  David went pale, jumped, and squealed in a very unmanly way. He tried to recover quickly. “You were supposed to be outside. I checked.”

  John Derry shrugged. “You know the CIA trains us in counter-intelligence, right? You had some of the manuals with you. I contacted an old hacker who had a chip against me and pretended I was another criminal I had caught. Then, I sold him part of my own —controlled— information. After that, it was only a matter of putting a cyberbug for my own name. Every time anyone wants to know about me, I get notified, so they go to a place I can control.”

  “That’s just not fair.”

  “Life is not fair, Terrance.” John smiled.

  David returned the smile and then turned around, towards the door, and got ready to make a run for it.

  “Now, wait just one second,” came Derry’s voice, now impossibly close to David’s ear, “realize that I’m alone, instead of with a small army of agents. Why don’t you take a seat and we have a nice chat?”

  David thought of running anyway, but he was a realist, too, and suspected he’d only get himself painfully tackled to the ground if he tried.

  He turned around. John was standing in front of him, gun in hand, but pointed at the ground. The agent gestured at the table, where David caught sight of Phillips phone.

  “I’ve been doing some reading on my own,” explained the agent. “I think you and I can see eye to eye on this, after all.”

  Chapter11

  The engine roared as the black car soared through the highway. It was a German car from a well-known brand, last year’s model. David had seen a couple ads on the Internet before he was hauled to jail. Marketed to people seriously overcompensating for something, guys with a death-wish, or the occasional, rich, adrenaline junkie. John Derry didn’t fit any of those profiles, which meant that David didn’t know the man as well as he had thought. Before being caught in his own trap, obviously.

  John Derry may have lived in a psychologically unhealthy state of disrepair, but he traveled in style. Hand-driven, no drone brain inside that baby.

  “You read all of Phillips’ documents?” asked David.

  “Enough to put two and two together. He was working for Charli Dervaux.”

  “That’s the link we’re looking for, yes,” said David.

  “Some kind of new drone software, with human cells.”

  “A bit worse than that,” said David. “Human brain cells used as CPUs.”

  “Sounds a bit far-fetched.”

  The agent’s car reached a speed fast enough to give David a panic attack when he saw the miles-per-hour on the board. He clung to the copilot’s door and hand-holds and quietly prayed for his life. No street camera caught the speeding black demon, no police car registered any violation to the city’s regulations on modded engines. Being a CIA agent had its perks, after all.

  “I don’t think so. Scientists have used rat’s brains in their experiments before. Our bodies are ruled by the same principles as any machine, if you think about it. We run on energy, we have software, we use hardware to move around—Dude, can you slow down a bit?” The car’s speed indicator rose a notch.

  Prosthesis, in many case, was already rivaling the original body part. Wade Phillips had simply moved his investigation in the other direction. Human-assisted machine software.

  “Well, someone out there believed Wade Phillips was making progress,” conceded John Derry. “They killed him for that. You still suspect
Odin?”

  “Wade was going to talk to you,” David reminded him. “He wanted to get the CIA’s protection. He wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough.” Only a big corporation like Odin had the resources to rival a US agency in such a way.

  “It wasn’t,” said John. Then, he added:

  “He had been working for them for a long time, hadn’t he? Why do you think he had the sudden change of heart?”

  David exhaled slowly, trying to order his thoughts. He remembered Wade’s pained expression when he had learned that the man he loved was dead. The way he talked about his own family. He had been a complex man, which was a kind way of talking about a dead person when said person was mostly an asshole in life.

  But, Wade Phillips had a conscience. Whatever happened inside his head, he had remembered that. After all those years.

  Family had that effect on people. David knew it well enough.

  “He wanted to redeem himself.”

  “It doesn’t explain why they killed K-Sec’s leader. Or why they killed Morrow,” said John. He floored the brakes and his car skittered around a supply truck like a ballet-dancer doing circles around an ogre. David closed his eyes and pretended he was in a happy, stationary place.

  “I have my suspicions about both of those. Nothing concrete. We have enough evidence to talk to Charli, so I’ll figure things out, then.”

  “Yes. Evidence. About that. You may be wondering why I’m bringing you along to interrogate a high profile target instead of thanking you for your help and then sending you back to jail…”

  David knew the answer because he had broken into John’s apartment to talk to him about it. “Your boss is in cahoots with Dervaux, isn’t he?”

  “Go on,” said the agent with his best poker face. “Show me why you think this.”