The Sixth Extinction

by Bob Blink

  "Sammi," she said, taking the hand.

  "Mike," he replied in turn, with the hint of a smile.

  "I just connected with Don a short time ago, and he hasn't been very forthcoming with what this is all about. Hopefully you can tell me more. Your Lieutenant said I'd be briefed once you arrived."

  "Don was probably given strict instructions from my boss if it was known he was coming," Sammi said. "This is Rao, by the way. For now, she didn't use the prefix that was starting to become second nature to her, at least mentally. How about we get him settled, and then we can sit down and discuss this situation?" The way she looked at Lee, he picked up on the fact she wasn't eager to provide details with the other man present.

  "We all have rooms in the Marriott just up the street from the Precinct House," Don said. "Let's get Mr. Rao situated, then we can talk."

  At the Marriott, DC-Rao was checked in under the name Neerav Patel.

  "Oh, that is very good," Rao said delighted by the subterfuge. "Patel is of the Gujarati from Western India. No one would connect him with a southerner like me."

  "I doubt the subtlety would be noted by someone like Walker," Sammi said in reply. "It's not the kind of thing us Westerners would be aware of." Once again she was bothered by the lack of openness they were giving this Rao. He didn't know how much potential danger was facing him, since she hadn't told him how easily he could be found. Once located, he could be easily targeted, and they weren't making a concerted effort to see him protected.

  After getting him situated, and warning him not to leave the hotel, but to rely on room service for the time being, the rest of the small group retired to Don's room where they could talk.

  "That was a lot of baggage for such a little guy," Don said, referring to the four large suitcases that they had brought into the hotel for Rao.

  "What do you think he brought along?" Sammi asked with a twinkle in her eye.

  "Clothes, maybe some research materials," suggested Sgt. Lee. "He must be quite a dresser if he needs that many items of clothing."

  "The small bag held his clothes," Sammi informed them. "He also brought a couple of pads, one of the large eighteen inch professional units and a couple of smaller units, along with his phones and a few other electronics. The rest of the space in the three larger bags is filled with food."

  "Food?" Don asked, not expecting that.

  "Food," Sammi repeated.

  "He doesn't think he can get a decent meal in Washington?" Lee asked.

  "I asked him about it on the Tube," Sammi explained. "He says he doesn't know his way around this city, and would feel more confident and prepared for a long stay by having some of the special items that aren't easily found in this country. I guess it's not all that uncommon for Indians to do this any time they travel."

  Lee shook his head at the strangeness of it all, but was more interested in the story Sammi had to tell about Chicago as well as her locating and transporting Rao.

  "That's a remarkable story," Mike Lee said some time later after Sammi had finished her summary of events.

  "I can show you the DNA results, and pictures of the two Rao's we know of," she said. "You have supposedly had experience with vanishing attackers. We will connect you with people in Chicago who have experienced the same, and I can tell you that I saw Rao vanish before my eyes just last night when I attempted to take him somewhere this Simulation wouldn't allow."

  "I'm not saying I accept all of this, but even assuming it is true, just what are we supposed to do about it?" Lee asked.

  "I think that's what my Lieutenant wants us to figure out," Sammi replied.

  Chapter 18

  Sequoia Facility

  "It wasn't them," Joe said after entering Glenn's office and closing the door behind him.

  Glenn Walker had already thought through the matter and come to that conclusion himself, but he was interested what had convinced his second in command, especially as eager as the man had been to push the blame in that direction. He'd had three days now to investigate the situation, and Glenn knew he'd have been thorough.

  For his own part, Glenn had decided that their failure had been simple bad luck, maybe with a bit of bad planning and overconfidence thrown in. Anthony Rossetti hadn't survived as long as he had by being careless, and unlike most of the others they'd gone after, had planned for the possibility of personal attack. Unfortunately, now he was alerted to the reality that someone wanted him dead and, worse, had to be puzzled by the mystery that their disappearing bodies would have created. He hadn't decided how to deal with the mess their failure had created, but maybe Joe would have some ideas.

  "Tell me why you seem so certain," Glenn directed.

  Joe slid into the chair opposite his boss.

  "I know pretty much everywhere they'd been for the past month. They haven't been anywhere near the resort, nor do they spend time in the Control Center where the system provides access to the nodes. You assigned them to the offline systems, and they have been spending their days in the basement working on those computers trying to figure out how to edit those memory files. Their efforts are traceable, and frankly, they haven't made much progress just as some of our people warned. Those files are compiled, and we don't have a copy of the compiler, and the nature is complex to say the least. Despite their other successes, I don't think they are ever going to get there. That aside, they haven't been connected to any of the nodes to be able to influence events there, even if they had somehow learned of your plans, and had found a way to bypass the constraints built into the system."

  Glenn nodded. He'd done some checking himself, although apparently not as thorough as Joe's.

  "I also had Harris run some video of both of them in the Simulation, just to see if they are acting normally."

  "What were you hoping to find?" Glenn asked, surprised. "Their Sim-selves wouldn't be aware of anything, and they could no more link to them than you can link to the version of yourself living in the Chicago node."

  Joe shrugged.

  "I guess, but that foreign guy in particular bugs me for some reason. He seems to know too much, and I worried that maybe he found a way."

  "He would still need access to the system, which you've already decided he didn't have," Glenn pointed out. "What did you find?"

  "I looked at this Rao fellow first. The Sim version is at Berkeley, busy working on his thesis, just as when you found him for extraction a few months ago. I could see nothing to indicate something had changed, so I'm certain he didn't know anything about the true nature of his situation or what we are doing. It's too bad there aren't historical files so we could scan back over a character for a couple of days. We can only see what is currently happening."

  "Can you imagine the amount of memory and data that would represent for twenty million subjects?" Glenn asked. "The system designers never envisioned a need for something like that, and it would have required a massive investment in memory. In a thousand plus years of operation there has never been a desire to use something like that."

  "I know, but now it would have been helpful."

  "What about the other one?"

  "I didn't spend as long on him. After most of the morning watching Rao, I was getting tired of looking at nothing happening. Rao spent the entire time in his office digging through books. Besides, I had to wait for Harris to be free to set up the new search profile, and it was late in the day when that was ready."

  "And?"

  "Same result. There's nothing there."

  Joe couldn't know that had he run the check in the reverse order his report would be considerably different.

  "So you no longer think they need to be dealt with?"

  "I'd feel better if we could remove them from the equation, but I know you have a need for them."

  "Good, because if they can find a way to complete their current task, they've also solved the problem of what to do with them as well."

  "So, you think it was just bad luck and Rossetti's good defense team that rui
ned the hit?" Joe asked.

  "That seems the most probable explanation," Glenn agreed, "but I've got to admit, I feel a little uneasy about all this just as you do. Maybe I've just become used to success, but I've been wondering about others in the Facility."

  "Who?" Joe asked, a bit surprised. "There's no one who has both access to the system, and has any awareness of the fact we are doing something differently than normal."

  "No one person, but maybe a couple who have inadvertently combined their observations. There are other programmers, and a number who have access to the system. I don't think there are any with the skill to make the kinds of modifications that would be required, but maybe my estimation of their skills is wrong. Maybe they were lucky. If such a person does exist, and he is linked to someone who has the wrong kind of knowledge, there could be a leak."

  "Who could have that kind of knowledge?" Joe asked.

  "I've started to worry about Carol. I don't think she is comfortable with what we are doing, and she has been around enough to figure out some of what we are doing inside. The receptionist at the Resort has started paying more attention to our coming and going as well. Once we are finished, I think it'll be time for a premature retirement there."

  "Anyone else?" Joe asked.

  Glenn had a fleeting vision of Jessica, naked in their bed. She was a programmer, although her activities didn't bring her in contact with the nodes. But she was around him all the time of late, and maybe he'd been careless in some way he didn't realize.

  "No one specific at the moment," he replied, pushing aside his momentary thought. "But why don't you put a watch on anyone who works in the Command Center who might have sufficient access. Just because we don't believe they could have found a way in, doesn't mean they haven't. Many of them have had years, most of them with not too much to do, to fiddle and play around. Maybe someone got lucky and has a secret we should know."

  "I'll put a watch on Carol and her receptionist as well," Joe agreed.

  "And while you have that going, we need to consider how to move forward," Glenn said. "I think we need to table Mr. Rossetti for now, as much as I hate to do so. He was one of the more important targets on my list, but now both the cops in DC and Chicago have an anomaly to try to explain away. We shouldn't risk giving them any more to worry about. In the very worst case, we might have to plan to target Rossetti in a couple of years when both his and the cop's memories of this time have been electronically fuzzed sufficiently. That would mean another shift in the date inside, which I don't like, but it may be necessary."

  "Who is next on the list?" Joe asked.

  "Another industrialist. This one is in Dallas."

  "That means I get to go and you can't" Joe grinned. "We'll see if I have any better luck."

  "When?"

  "Part of me says we should wait, but I want to know if there is going to be a problem. How about you make the hit tomorrow?"

  Joe nodded. "I'll go and alert the guys as soon as we are done here. Do you have the information we'll need for the mission yet?"

  Glenn slid a small stack of notes across the table.

  "This one should be easy. Hopefully you can get in and out without being spotted and it'll look like an accident. He's a ripe target for a car accident. Likes his fast cars. That might be an opening you can use. Of course, that approach is always tricky and sometimes doesn't work out."

  "I'll get to work on it right away," Joe said, preparing to stand.

  "One more thing," Glenn said. "I'd like to have Kurt think about how we can quietly have some weapons manufactured. We have the long guns, not many, but enough for our group, but they are too visible. No handguns were included in the stores when the Facility was set up, but I'd like to have access to some. One for each team member in case there is something we haven't picked up on going on. See what he knows. Okay?"

  "The guns shouldn't be hard," Joe replied, "but from what I know about the manufacturing process, we can't simply print the ammunition. The chemical compounds can't be manufactured like a mechanical device. The projectile is simple, but loading it with the necessary propellant might take some doing."

  "See what's possible," Glenn urged. "My intuition says we might need the guns before our plans are concluded, and we should be prepared."

  Chapter 19

  Sequoia Facility

  Ray Burke checked the door, responding to the light knock a few moments earlier. It was Cindy as expected. Everyone else was already there. The same group had taken to meeting covertly, arriving mostly alone, except for Dale and Matti, who always showed up as a pair. They were gathering in a medium sized apartment in the northeast corner of the residential complex; one of the unused units. As a senior member of the security force, Ray had knowledge and access to such places. For now there were only the seven of them, but they all sensed a need to grow their numbers.

  "No one followed you?" Ray asked, earning a sour look from Cindy. He knew without asking that if she had any doubts, she wouldn't have come to the apartment, and would have called Ray indicating a problem. That would have aborted the meeting for the day, and they would have each slipped away over a period of time, making their way back to their daily routine.

  The meetings had begun almost by accident, when Sarah, the woman Rao had started seeing, mentioned she had a friend who was suspicious of the Director as well. Sarah knew that Rao was uncomfortable with the Director, even if he hadn't revealed his reasons at the time. Realizing they needed information and allies, Rao had talked to Dale, and they had decided to see what Sarah's friend might have to say. That had led to their current situation.

  "What are they doing?" Jessica asked once they were settled in around the oversized dining room table. "I know you said they were entering the Simulation for some reason, but why?"

  After watching the events unfold at the Chicago home of Anthony Rossetti, Rao and Dale had decided it was time to let the others in on what they knew. Thanks to Cindy and, indirectly, Sarah, both of whom worked in Facilities and had access to a cavern-wide net that touched on everything other than the Node Ring Simulation, they had been provided with the computer resources they needed. Rao and Dale had created an untraceable concealed network that allowed them to interact with the full Simulation independent of the Command Center, which was normally the only point of access. This had been accomplished by tapping the very same hidden link from the Resort to the Command Center and then the Ring they had created for the Director, adding their own second level of private access. As a result of the covert link and Rao's backdoor access, they had a means of monitoring what the Director and his people had been doing, without exposing themselves.

  "They are selectively killing people," Rao said bluntly.

  "I don't understand," Ray said confused. "The people in the Simulation aren't really alive."

  "That's where we all came from," Dale pointed out. "Each time you are cloned, your memories are taken from the Simulation and inserted into the new body created for you."

  "Yeah, but . . ." Cindy objected.

  "They have discovered that if someone in the Sim is deliberately 'killed', the Simulation eliminates them from the system," Rao explained. "Completely. That means their memories are no longer kept, and they can't ever be cloned."

  "They are no longer stored anywhere?" Ray asked.

  Dale nodded.

  "But why would they do that?" Jessica asked.

  "We don't know," Rao admitted. "It's a bit of work to figure out who. A search of the Simulation reports on deaths compared to who is listed in the memory lattices shows which 'deaths' are real. We know that at least three Senators and four industrialists have been killed. And we know about the attempt on Anthony Rossetti which we managed to thwart. What we don't understand is exactly why these men were targeted."

  "Wouldn't that cause problems with the Simulation?" Cindy asked. "As the time cycles and people believe that a year is just starting, wouldn't they think those people should be alive, or somehow forget they had
died?"

  "It's clearly a risk, but Walker doesn't seem to care," Dale said. "He's had us investigating how to increment the operational year, so people will think the year the deaths occurred was the one past. It looks possible, but shows how far he's willing to go with whatever he has planned."

  "Wouldn't that put him at risk as well?" Ray asked.

  "So far there have been no actions in the Dallas node where he is from," Dale pointed out. "If the other nodes crash, that one could still survive, and his memories would be intact."

  "We don't think that ultimately is his concern," Rao added. "He has sent his killers into nodes where some of his people exist, so he either doesn't care about them, or they have a different plan. From what we have learned, we believe that the Director and his inner circle are not cloning from the Simulation any longer. We believe he has access to one of the Memory Mapping devices, and they are using their current memories, complete with their experiences here in the caverns, to populate their replacement bodies."

  "That's supposed to be dangerous," Jessica said. "We were taught that the founders of this place deliberately wanted to avoid that."

  "Whatever the case, there is ample evidence that is what is happening," Dale replied.

  "Who else are they after?" Ray asked.

  "We don't know," Rao replied. "We discovered Rossetti by the barest of chances. That's when I pushed a copy of myself with carefully edited memories into the Simulation. I chose a different node, and fortunately the individual I wanted to attempt to convince of their unusual living state was in a node where I could send myself. That worked out, and he/I was able to alert Rossetti to what was planned."

  "You are still in there, right?" Ray asked.

  "That's right," Rao agreed. "There is no way to extract that version of myself. It's not like the insertions in the Resort where you are controlling yourself and disappear when the gaming couch shuts down. This Rao is now a fully independent individual, and is unaware of what is happening here, just as I am not privy to his actual experiences. I can monitor him, but I don't control him."