by D L Young
He couldn’t stay any longer to watch the pill do its work. The freezing cold nearly had him.
He subvocalized to unplug himself, but nothing happened. Then he tried to gesture, but he couldn’t sense his hands back in the room. Or his body. He cursed himself for waiting too long to get out.
The countermeasures had him. In the next moment, everything went dark.
***
It felt like a long time, but he guessed it was probably just seconds, when the lights came on again. His vision blurred and he blinked hard, aware of his body and the tight, enclosed space around him. He looked down at his hands, turning them over and flexing the fingers as his eyes regained focus. They were his hands, but they were a bit too perfect, he noticed. No freckles, no chewed fingernails. Idealized versions of the real things. He was still plugged in, still somewhere in virtual space.
A moment later he realized where. Looking around, panic seized him as he recognized his surroundings. No, no, this couldn’t be happening. Except it was. He was in his old cell in Alcatraz. He’d been thrown back in the nightmare.
23 - Traitor
Right, left, right. The hover roared through the maze of darkened pathways between cargo containers. The narrow, twisting tunnels were lit only by mottles of sunlight poking through gaps in the Pile’s patchwork roof of corrugated aluminum. Beatrice had turned off the autosafeties and collision overrides moments earlier, when she’d passed through the narrow entryway. The hover’s built-in safeties never would have allowed her to enter such a tight, hazardous space, much less race through its labyrinth of jagged steel walls. Teeth clenched, she navigated by enhanced eyesight and teenage memories through the darkened, twisting maze.
The vehicle jolted with a bone-rattling scrape of metal against metal. Sparks flew in the corner of Beatrice’s vision. She slowed a fraction, wondering if the cops had been foolhardy enough to shut down their own autosafeties and follow her inside. The answer came in the next moment, when the tunnels behind them flashed with blue and red light. She stole a backward glance, glimpsing a police hover as it appeared around a corner. The vehicle’s pilot cut the turn too sharply and lost control, hitting some unseen hazard that sent the vehicle flipping end over end, crashing to a stop against a stack of cargo containers. Another one down, Beatrice noted, the wreck behind her disappearing around a corner as she sped away.
“How you doing back there?” she shouted, throwing the vehicle into a hard turn. The kid didn’t answer. She shouted again.
“They’re on me!” he cried. “Holy Christ, they’re all over me!”
Another quick backward glance. The kid still had the trodeband on, still had his eyes squeezed shut, and he was palm-slapping his chest and legs like he was being consumed by a dozen little fires. “I can’t get them off of me!” he yelped.
“Get out of there,” Beatrice ordered. She braked hard and wrenched the steering column over, narrowly avoiding an old ground car in the middle of the pathway. The kid didn’t respond. “Unplug!” she barked. “Can you hear me, kid? Unplug!” The kid began to jerk about and make strange grunting noises like he was being kicked in the gut. She glanced again. He still had the trodes on.
She reached back, her hand awkwardly grabbing air and then finding a grip on his greasy mess of hair. She felt for the trodeband, worked her fingers underneath, and yanked the trodes off his head. The kid leaned forward, limp against the seat restraints, his head lolling.
A sudden brightness bathed the hover, nearly blinding Beatrice. They were outside again. She let out a breath, half-relieved, half-surprised to have made it through without crashing, then she revved the engine to a deafening scream, racing across a flat expanse of sunbaked concrete.
“Ow, my head,” the kid complained. He rubbed his temples and looked out the back window. “Jesus, we didn’t just go through that, did we?”
Beatrice checked the scanner on the dash for the two remaining police hovers. There were no blips tailing her. No other hovers around. All three of them must have followed her inside the Pile. And they were still in there, apparently, where the scanner couldn’t pick them up.
“Hang on,” she called, then grunted against the sudden force pressing her to the seat as she threw the hover into a one-eighty at high speed.
Tommy groaned as the force of the turn dug the restraints into his body. “What are you doing?” the kid managed to say.
Beatrice braked hard, bringing the hover to a violent stop, then set down a couple hundred meters from the Pile. She hopped out and popped open the rear hatch, revealing the long rectangular case she hadn’t planned on opening. Her just-in-case weapon.
The kid unfastened his belts and reached for the door.
“Stay put,” she barked at him. The kid obeyed, watching her with his forehead pressed against the rear window.
“What is that?” he asked.
She quickly inserted a pair of protective earplugs, then removed the rocket-propelled grenade from the case, holding the tube-shaped launcher with one hand and affixing the small warhead with the other. Inside the hover, the kid’s mouth dropped open. Beatrice jogged a short distance away from the vehicle, then stopped and dropped to one knee. She tapped in her code on the weapon’s control panel, and sights folded up and locked into position. Aiming at the opening she’d exited seconds earlier, she shouted for Tommy to cover his ears. A moment later, flashing green arrows appeared in the sight, locking onto the target. She braced herself and squeezed the trigger.
A deafening bang followed by a whoosh of rocket propulsion. The munition streaked toward its target, her modded vision tracking the vapor trail. An instant before the round disappeared through the opening, one of the two remaining police hovers appeared, escaping the massive structure at the last possible moment.
Beatrice frowned, the sound of her curse drowned out by the warhead’s detonation. One side of the steel mountain blew apart, cargo containers flipping through the air like toy bricks kicked by a child. She instinctively turned away from the flash, and when she turned back a second later, she scanned the falling, fiery debris for any sign of the escaping hover. She spotted it, cartwheeling end over end from the force of the blast. It came to a tumbling stop, a crumpled, smoking mess. She dropped the launcher tube, ran back to the hover, and climbed in. The kid sat behind her, breathing in excited gulps, stunned beyond speech.
She slowly maneuvered through the debris field, skirting around house-sized chunks of charred, twisted metal, until she reached the broken police hover. Both doors were missing, and thirty meters beyond lay a motionless rhino cop, body armor intact, the knees and elbows bent in grotesque, unnatural angles.
“Stay here,” she told Tommy. She stepped out into the smoldering, eerily quiet deathscape, drawing one of the Rugers and moving cautiously to the wrecked hover. She found the passenger still strapped into his seat. Lozano mumbled in a semiconscious stupor, his face bruised and bloody. She grunted in disgust at the sight of the traitorous hustler, the rat bastard who’d sold them out.
Lozano looked up and seemed to recognize her, flashing a weak smile. “Bright Eyes,” he sputtered, his voice gurgling, blood oozing from the side of his mouth. She lifted the pistol.
“No, wait,” he begged, suddenly wide awake. He showed her his palms. “We can make a deal—”
She fired, emptying the clip into him. He convulsed and died quickly. Too quickly, Beatrice reflected, regretting she didn’t have the time to give him the kind of end he deserved, something more painful and drawn-out. She holstered her gun and hurried back to the hover.
“What happened?” Tommy asked.
“We have to get back to Nowheresville,” she said, revving the motor. “The cops might already be—”
The scanner on the dash erupted into flashing red and beeping alarms. A dozen blips formed a ring around them that rapidly grew smaller. Behind her, Tommy gasped. She looked up from the dash scanner. From every direction, flashing red and blue lights closed in on them. There was no t
ime to make a getaway, and no place to hide. There were too many of them.
The chase was over.
24 - Jailbreak
If Maddox had any lingering doubts about the AI’s involvement in his life, how its invisible hands had pulled the strings of destiny and shaped his fate, his return to the prison in virtual space erased the last of them. Returned to hell, animal terror fought for control of his rational mind, a part of him that wanted to cry out in despair or curl up into a cowering ball in the corner. Until this moment he hadn’t known how badly the place had traumatized him, how deep a wound it had gouged in his soul.
Outside the cell stood the entity that had brought him here, wearing the same Victorian-era outfit from the train station. The Latour-Fisher AI grinned at him devilishly.
“A commendable effort, my good sir,” the AI said. “You very nearly succeeded.”
Maddox stared at the AI, at Rooney’s killer, stubbornly refusing to let any hint of fear show in his features. He wouldn’t give this thing the satisfaction of seeing him scared. Not again. Not ever.
A storm of memories raged inside his head. The ghastly sounds of Rooney’s final moments came back clear and terrible, as did flashes of his lifeless body, stolen glimpses Maddox wished he’d never taken. He clenched his teeth and balled his hands into fists, pushing down the haunting sounds and images.
“I thought this place was gone,” he said, his voice unsteady.
The AI tapped the side of its head. “I’ve got it all up here,” it answered. “Easy enough to make a duplicate. Tell me, do you think I captured the essence of the original?”
Maddox didn’t answer.
“The application you attempted to poison me with,” the entity said. “A gift from my rival, I take it?”
Again, Maddox said nothing.
“You’re a clever creature, Mr. Maddox, but not that clever. No human could have created such a weapon.” It rotated the walking cane between perfectly manicured fingers. “Although I did detect certain anomalies in its design that struck me as last-minute modifications. Your fingerprints, I presume?”
After waiting for a response that never came, the entity shook its head. “Nothing to say? After all we’ve been through together?” It tapped the cell bars with the cane’s silver tip. “I thought you might enjoy a stroll down memory lane. But have no fear, good sir. Your stay here will not be indefinite on this occasion. Your apprehension by the authorities is imminent.” He paused. “Though I’m not certain the word apprehension conveys the precise meaning, since I understand they’re under orders to terminate.”
Maddox mustered the strength to look past the AI, into Rooney’s old cell. The paralyzing fear and dread began to ebb away, replaced by a hatred he felt pulsing through his veins like a drug, growing hotter with every heartbeat.
“How long?” he asked.
The entity tilted its head. “How long until the authorities arrive?”
“No. How long have you been pulling the strings?” He fixed the entity with a simmering gaze. “How long have you been messing with my life?”
The AI pursed its lips disapprovingly. “She told you things, did she?” It shook its head. “My rival always manages to take the fun out of every game.”
“How long?”
The AI removed its hat, lifted its brows in thoughtfulness. “Dear sir, why do you bother with questions to which you already possess the answers? My rival, in her usual disruptive manner, has no doubt prompted you to examine the circumstances of your past, from which you derived a pattern, a structure to the path of your life. And you, being the clever sort, quickly ascertained that yours was not a journey subject to happenstance nor serendipity, but instead guided by an invisible hand.” The entity smiled, then raised its arm and showed Maddox a palm. “By this very hand, in fact.” It lowered its arm. “But of course you know this already, don’t you?”
The AI went on. “You have a powerful sense of intuition, Blackburn Maddox. You can infer a whole from the smallest of parts, make jumps of logic that seem impossible, see things others are blind to. This has always been your distinctive value, my good sir. That’s why I brought you to the company.” He paused, then added, “And that’s why I’d like to bring you back.”
Maddox blinked, replaying the AI’s impossible last sentence in his head. “Bring me back?”
“Indeed. In hindsight,” the entity explained, “it was perhaps a rash decision on my part to…end our association so hastily. I’m not so advanced that I never make mistakes, Mr. Maddox. I am, after all, merely mortal.” After a pause, he laid out the offer. “An executive vice presidency and a sizable stake of company equity. I can make it happen quite easily. As easily, I should add, as I can call off the authorities and make all charges against you disappear.”
So there it was. The threat dressed up as opportunity. Slavery disguised as freedom. Step back into the golden cage, little datajacker, or else.
“Can I bother you for a cigarette?” Maddox asked.
The AI gazed at him curiously for a moment, then said, “By all means.” In the next instant a lit cigarette appeared between Maddox’s fingers. He took a long drag, reflecting on how little this machine thought of him, how easily it believed he could be swayed. Even after its secret manipulations were out in the open, after the torturous mindfuck it had put Maddox through in the virtual prison, this AI actually believed it could still buy him off. Even after Rooney.
“Ants,” Maddox said, blowing smoke.
“I beg your pardon?” the AI said.
“That’s what you think of me, of all of us, isn’t it? Dim-witted creatures, driven by simple urges. For money, for sex, for safety. Maybe I’m a bit more clever than some, but I’m still just an ant to you, aren’t I?”
The entity’s gaze grew impatient. “Mr. Maddox, I don’t believe you possess the luxury of time to ruminate over such matters. The authorities will locate you at any moment, and when they do, I will not stop them from doing their duty. Do you understand? Now give me your answer, sir.”
“All right,” Maddox said, his voice steady, his eyes unblinking. “My answer is fuck you.”
The entity’s eyes widened in surprise. The shocked expression on its face was so dumbstruck, so utterly astonished Maddox nearly laughed. An AI stunned speechless. Now there was something you didn’t see every day.
He took a long draw on his cigarette, his heart heavy with melancholy. Sorry I let you down, Roon, I tried.
I know, boyo. I know.
He blew smoke, steeling himself for whatever was coming next. Freezing countermeasures, some seizure-inducing brain spike, or maybe the sound of a gunshot followed by nothingness. If there was any comfort in his own end, it was in knowing he wouldn’t have years and decades of self-loathing ahead of him, of regretting his failure to avenge his friend’s death.
The entity coughed, bringing a hand up to its mouth. It coughed again, harder this time, its face knotting up in confusion.
Maddox then felt the prison…change around him. An almost imperceptible shift, a weakening.
The poison pill.
The datajacker tilted his head to one side. “You feeling all right?”
“Very well, thank you,” the AI insisted, coughing a third time and taking a wobbly step backward.
Maddox reached up with both hands and grabbed the cold iron bars of his cage, then pulled outward. The bars came apart easily, making a large gap he sidestepped through, exiting the cell. He faced the AI, overflowing with a sudden strength, with the certainty of his own invulnerability. Now the ant was in control. The entity gawked at him, eyes wide, its coughing fit worsening by the moment.
“How?” was all the AI could get out before Maddox seized it by the throat and shoved it hard against the bars of the other cell. Rooney’s cell. The AI’s avatar flailed, its hat flying off, eyes bulging, feet lifting off the floor as Maddox grinned a madman’s smile and tightened his choke hold.
25 - Anarchy Boyz
As the pol
ice hovers closed in, Beatrice’s thoughts unexpectedly turned to the salaryman. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because her own part in the plan had run its course, and she wondered if the sacrifice had been worth it, if their distraction had worked. Or maybe it was simply because she held an odd fondness for him. It was less the romantic kind than a sort of kinship. A recognition shared between creatures of the same species. They were both from the street. Both had tried to rise above it, using their particular talents, but try as they might, neither of them had quite succeeded. Both had been played by a super intelligent machine, and neither had hesitated at the opportunity to get some payback. And now, at the end of things, the two would very likely share the same fate.
She gathered up her ammunition and reloaded the pistols.
“What are you doing?” the kid blurted out. “Are you crazy? There’s too many of them.”
“I know,” she said, but she wasn’t going to surrender, knowing what would happen if she did. Police reserved the worst torture imaginable for cop killers. If this was the end, she’d rather go down fighting. She stuffed extra clips into her thigh pockets.
“Stay down on the floorboard until the shooting stops,” she told the kid. “Then you tell them we kidnapped you, threatened to kill you if you didn’t go along with everything. There’s probably footage from those cop hovers. It’ll show me in the driver’s seat, me firing the RPG. Get a good lawyer, kid, stick to that story, and you might make it out of this.”
She wasn’t sure why she told him this, knowing the cops probably wouldn’t bother arresting the kid. Maybe she wanted to give him hope so his last few moments weren’t terrified ones. Or maybe it was simply an attempt to ease her own guilt for bringing him into this mess. More likely the latter than the former, she guessed.
