by Bob Blink
"And you are giving me this information when the police have neglected to do so because?"
"The official attitude appears to be that the individuals inside the Simulation aren't actually guilty of the crimes their external counterparts are committing. Strictly speaking that may be true if we understand this whole situation properly, but I'm of the belief we might not be able to resolve this without action against these men. I'm not certain the police are willing to take the kind of direct action required."
"But I am?" Rossetti asked, watching Don carefully.
"You indicated as much," Don replied without flinching. "It might be premature just yet, but if you have the resources to locate and watch them, we might learn something."
"I see," Rossetti said. "I was of the impression that you weren't fully convinced by the tale our new Mr. Rao told us. Has something changed?"
"Quite a bit, actually," Don said. He described the events surrounding the second Subha Rao, Sammi's witnessing the man vanishing before her eyes, and results of the various tests she had run on the two men.
"He's an exact copy DNA-wise, and he looks just like him, other than a scar he apparently got as a child. The cloned version in the secret Facility doesn't have the scar, and I guess when he sent the Rao we first met into the Sim, that Rao decided to do away with the disfigurement."
"This is very interesting information. I will have Sal arrange for monitoring, and for the moment will hold off acting, but if anything happens where I believe it in my interests to eliminate these bastards, I won't hesitate. Is that acceptable?"
Don swallowed hard, but nodded. "Since I am convinced that as impossible as it sounds, this is all a Simulation designed to preserve us for later repopulation, then those men are risking all of our lives. That includes my wife and children. I believe a more intense confrontation lies ahead, and that such an action might be warranted."
Rossetti nodded. "I appreciate the information. I hope you will be willing to keep me properly informed of future developments, since those officially working this appear inclined not to do so."
"I'll do what I can," Don agreed.
Chapter 21
Los Angeles
Despite sleeping in, Don was still tired, and considered whether he could manage a couple of more hours sleep. Unfortunately, his wife would be unlikely to let him sleep the morning away, wondering why he wasn't heading in to work. She was currently away with the kids, having fed them, pushed them to get dressed, and now was driving them to school. She'd be home soon, and he'd have to consider how to deal with the fact she didn't know he'd taken time off from the paper, and the trip to Washington had been personal, and not chasing a story for the paper. He didn't want to have that conversation as he wasn't good at hiding things, and she was skilled at digging out whatever secrets he tried to keep. He was going to have to decide how to deal with the knowledge he was holding back.
He finished his toast, the only thing he'd had the ambition to make, and took another sip of his coffee as he scanned the morning news. Mostly it was the usual stuff, but he stopped abruptly when he came across an article reporting the death of billionaire industrialist, Scott Langley. A couple of weeks ago he would have passed the article by without a thought. A quick look showed that the cause of death was unknown, but natural causes were suspected because he'd died alone inside his apartment on the thirty-first floor of the security building where he lived. There was no sign of foul play.
Langley wasn't your average citizen. The well known, highly visible businessman wouldn't be one of the background 'ghosts' that Rao had told them about. Langley had to be a real person and, if everything Rao had told them was correct, wouldn't be expected to die during the course of the Simulation. That meant he had to have been targeted. Another elimination, probably at the hands of this Director Walker fellow. That Langley was thought to have died of normal causes meant nothing.
Suddenly very much awake, Don initiated a call to the police department. He wondered if anyone there was aware of this killing.
"Detective Donaldson," said a slightly husky voice that he recognized.
"Good morning, Sammi," he said. "This is Don Russell," he added although she would have known that from the call identifier.
"What's up Don?" she asked. He thought she sounded as tired as he felt.
He told her about the story he had just read.
"I didn't see it," she admitted. "I've been busy since getting back. I think Lt. Rodriguez would have said something, so it's a fair bet that it slipped past everyone. Dallas is a bit out of our area of interest."
"Could you check with Rodriguez and maybe see what you can learn from the police in Dallas?" he asked. "I'm coming in. I'll stop by the hotel and grab Rao as well. It looks like Walker and his team might be at it again."
"Don is right," Rao agreed a bit later when the four of them were assembled. "This man is too important to be a background character. If I were in the Facility it would be simple to run a check of the Dallas memory lattice, but I am not believing that is necessary."
"How would Walker and his men be able to circumvent the security that Langley had in place?" Lt. Rodriquez asked. "Whatever they did, it was effective enough to get them inside without leaving any evidence of their access."
"They are getting better," Rao agreed. "In theory, the Simulation should allow insertion at any point one desires, if that location can be specified precisely enough. They must have done some advance scouting to allow themselves to be placed within the apartment where this man lived. I don't know what they used on him, but once he was dead, they would simply disconnect from the Simulation, and awaken back in the Facility."
"I'm told there are several drugs that could be used to induce death. At least two of them would be very hard to trace after an hour or so, and the Dallas police had no reason to look for such a possibility."
"Maybe we should alert them to the possibility?" Don asked.
"What good would it do?" Sammi asked, frustration evident in her voice. "We know who did this, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. If we could find him, or even arrest him, it wouldn't matter. We've seen that killing them isn't permanent, they just go back home and are ready to move forward again. We arrest them, and they'll just fade away, smiling at our impotence. We are helpless against these people!"
Rodriguez was nodding his head.
"It appears we can't do very much against this threat. Even protecting people, should we know in advance isn't going to work very long. We might chase the attackers off one time, or even two, but they can keep trying. And that assumes their targets are somewhere in our jurisdiction. Dallas hasn't been a target area before, at least as far as we know."
"Do we inform the police there what has happened?" Don asked again. "Maybe we should alert the police in all of the ten cities what might be going on?"
"Waste of time," Sammi said. "Would you believe such a story without the evidence you have seen? Sgt. Lee has decided not to tell his superiors what he and I discussed while I was in Washington. They already question the story he and his men told about the assailants disappearing. It's not the kind of thing that's easy to accept."
"I am thinking it would be unwise to spread awareness so widely," Rao said. "It would quickly become known to the public, and even if most didn't believe it, such knowledge might very well destabilize the Simulation. There was good reason the builders of this artifact didn't wish those living inside to know. We must be careful not to allow our actions to disrupt the normal operation."
"Then we are completely helpless," Sammi said. "These bastards are going to be able to kill whoever they want."
"If we knew who they were after we might be able to hide them like you did with Rao's other self," Rodriguez suggested.
Rao shook his head.
"Sooner or later they would realize what was happening. That would mean they simply have to search the ten databases to find where the people they want have been hidden. It would also alert them that
their plans were known within the Simulation and might initiate additional responses on a much larger scale to hide their actions. At some point they would become frustrated with us and they'll figure out who we are, and simply remove us from the simulation so they can go on unhindered."
"Do you think they are aware of us?" Don asked uneasily.
"I am not believing so," Rao said. "For one thing, there have been no recent actions in Los Angeles, at least none we are aware of or have been involved in. The actions where they have run into trouble have been in Washington and in Chicago. They would be looking in those cities should they be suspicious, not here in Los Angeles. There is a slim chance that they might watch San Francisco or Denver."
"Why there?" Sammi asked.
"San Francisco is where I was located, and Denver is where Dale, the other programmer they brought into the facility, is from. They might be concerned we have found a way to communicate with our Simselves."
"So what do we do?" Sammi asked angrily. "Just let them kill off whoever they want, and go about our business? That doesn't sit very well with me."
"Clearly we are pretty helpless in here," Don noted. "Isn't there a way to communicate with Rao's real-world self and have them take action?"
"It is relatively straightforward for my outside self to send me information," Rao said. "He can simply edit my memory file as we have seen. Communicating back to him is considerably more of a problem. We have yet to find an efficient means of doing that. Besides, he is an engineer, not a policeman. What can he be expected to do?"
"Is there any chance he can sabotage the software that opened this path into the Simulation that Walker is using to get here?" Rodriguez asked. "That would cut him of from his intended victims."
"I am not knowing the details of what was done," Rao said, "but from knowing how such systems are controlled, everything would be well documented and backed up. It would be known by many of the people there by now. Others that Walker has working for him would be aware of how the pathway was opened. It wouldn't be possible to hide that now, and any corruption to the system could be easily corrected. Besides, any attempt of this nature would expose my other self to serious reprisals, probably death. If that were to happen, we'd lose what little insight into what is happening there and be at the complete mercy of Walker and his men."
"In short, we are screwed," Sammi succinctly summarized what they were all thinking.
Chapter 22
Sequoia Facility
"What have you got?" Glenn asked when Joe Thomas appeared and quietly closed the door to Walker's office two days after the successful raid in Dallas.
Joe walked over to the Director's desk and smiling, laid a new looking Springfield M&P on his desk. It matched the company's model exactly, down to the logo and markings that were required by federal law warning the user of various safety concerns. But Walker knew this had to be something that the Springfield factory had never touched.
"This is it?" he asked eagerly, picking up the lightweight pistol.
"First one that Gunner has been able to get made," Joe confirmed. "It's better than I could have hoped. I stripped it down to the components and checked everything. As near as I can tell without firing it, it is perfect. Every bit as good as the factory original product. Even better in that all the restrictive monitoring and control electronics have been left out."
"You sound surprised by the result."
"Actually, I am," Joe admitted. "I expected the guns Gunner could make would be a bit cruder."
"When can you test it?" Glenn asked hopefully.
"Ammunition is going to take a bit longer," Joe replied. They had chosen an underground section of warehouse in the storage area that was now empty for testing. The deserted building was far enough away that any sounds of the firing would be masked from curious ears. "We have everything but the propellant. Once we have that Gunner says he can use the press he had made to load up some test rounds. He warns they probably won't have the performance of the factory ammo that used to be manufactured. They had far more exotic equipment and a serious quality control system that we can't reasonably expect to duplicate. As a result consistency in performance won't be as good, but he says more than adequate for any needs we should have. We aren't planning on shooting in matches."
"How many people know about this?" Glenn asked.
"Three besides our inner circle. We needed to get the help of a chemist and a couple of machinists to complete the project."
"We are certain we can trust them to stay quiet about what you have them making?" Walker asked.
Joe nodded. "They are among those that Gunner and some of the others have known for some time aren't entirely happy with the situation here in the cavern. They don't know of the rest of our activities. They only know that a small group of us have some different ideas how things should be done, and are making preparations for the day we can move out from this place."
"So you've let them know that the data shows the Freeze appears to be abating?"
"That's right," Joe agreed. "And used the usual bribes to bring them along."
Glenn expected as much. It was surprising how many responded favorably to the offer of a modified cloning when their time came. The planners had been too removed from reality when they set up the staffing for the Facility. Idealistically, knowing that your Simself exists in the computers and will replace you when you aged and needed to be retired during the years the Facility needed to be operated, and then someday would be allowed back into the world was one thing. But the reality was that the flesh and blood incarnation was a distinct entity from the computer simulated individuals. People came to think of that other self as the equivalent of a twin. Not really themselves, and as they aged the idea that they would be replaced by a younger copy of themselves didn't change the fact they saw the whole process as dying, and being replaced by that twin. When Glenn's small band revealed to them it was possible for them to be reinserted into a new younger body, with all their current memories and awareness, it was equivalent to being given an extension of their life. No longer did they have to face an approaching death, but instead they could look forward to a whole lifetime ahead of them to be lived, expanding on the years they had already accumulated. It was a powerful motivator. Walker hoped to use that with a growing number of people once he had everything in place.
"Good!" he said. "They know how important maintaining secrecy is?" he asked.
"They know that talking about any of this will cost them their opportunity for extended life."
Walker nodded, and picked up the pistol again. It had been multiple lifetimes since he'd held a handgun outside of the Simulation, but his recent experiences and the training sessions they'd held inside the computer made it feel entirely natural in his hand. Reluctantly he passed it back to Joe. He looked forward to the day he had one for himself, complete with the still missing ammunition. It would provide leverage against any in the Facility that might disagree with the direction he was moving things. Given that the number of people who knew bits and pieces of what was going on, the chances of a leak were increasing dramatically. He was a firm believer of the adage that the only real secret was one known by a single person.
Changing the subject, he asked, "Have you checked any farther on your action in Dallas?"
"There is nothing to show that anyone suspects anything beyond natural causes, just as we hoped. The funeral was held this morning, and the papers are reporting it as an unfortunate and unexpected medical problem. We appear to have made it in and out without anyone noting our having been there."
Walker was more than a little pleased with the result. The list he had of people that would have reason to oppose his having any significant role after the repopulation was down to a double handful of individuals. One, of course, was Anthony Rossetti, and he still didn't know what he was going to do about him, but Joe's success with the latest mission reinforced his belief that the failure in Chicago had been a fluke, and almost certainly the result of Rosse
tti living a life that caused him to have a skilled team of enforcers on hand that had simply been better than Glenn had anticipated. Langley hadn't been anywhere near as prepared, and hadn't expected that someone might have targeted him. The watch he'd had Joe place on Rossetti showed the man had settled back into his estate, but had increased the number of his soldiers on hand. The man could wait, as much as Glenn itched to have him dealt with. In the end, if they couldn't surgically deal with the man, there was a more drastic alternative he might elect to use.
"That's good," Glenn said. "It means we can stay on schedule, and finish off the removals."
Joe was the only other person that knew who Glenn wanted taken down. The list was written down the old fashioned way, along with the nominal order the killings were to take place. Walker didn't want anything recorded electronically, and with just the two of them aware of the targets, he hoped that each hit would be a surprise.
"Afterwards, there are a couple people here in the Facility we might want to replace," he added. "I've been getting some uncomfortable feelings about Carol and some of her staff, and they are too aware of our frequent use of the place. We may have an overly curious programmer or two as well."
"How about those two programmers you imported?" Joe asked. They were still a lingering risk to his way of thinking. "From what I have seen, they still aren't getting anywhere on the task you assigned them. They might not be as good as you thought, and just got lucky with the insertion technique. That Nesbitt fellow was into gaming, and even consulted with a couple of the larger gaming companies at one time. That might be why they succeeded. Their knowledge of the data structure and compiling probably isn't any better than the people we had here already."
