Artificial Evolution

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “It hasn’t come to that yet. I’ve still got the freelancer gig, which was designed entirely around avoiding VectorCorp Security, so they can’t really touch that one any more than they are. There’s also the beta-test stuff for Karter.”

  “Not exactly safer than what Garotte is offering, hon,” Silo said.

  “Granted, but less chance of someone trying to kill me on purpose.”

  “We are talking about Karter. Do you mean to tell me he’s never tried to kill you?” Garotte asked.

  “… Well, okay, once. In one of his less stable moments. But mostly Ma has kept him in check.”

  They continued to chat. Garotte spoke in vague terms about his recent activities, peppered with banter and witticisms as always. Silo took the opportunity to talk about family, friends, and all of the other little slices of life that she’d been missing out on since she had been locked up. Just as the food arrived, Lex’s slidepad played the snippet of custom music that heralded a long-overdue call from Michella.

  “Hey, babe. Been having a good time?” Lex said.

  “It’s fascinating, Trev,” she said, the pressure of a story she couldn’t wait to tell showing in her voice. “The NDA is seventy pages, they are the real deal. We should have some firmer data tomorrow and hopefully permission to share some of it. Where are you right now?”

  “At a cafe on the edge of town. The sign says Pappy’s. I wasn’t able to find a decent rental car. They have these hoverbikes with sidecars; I picked one of them up. That’s going to limit my top speed, so I might be a while.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Stu is letting me use the automated shuttle bus. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I can’t wait to tell you as much as I’m allowed, but I can’t talk now. They only left me alone for a minute before the shuttle gets here, and I don’t know if it’ll have cameras, so I’ve got to get a call out to my contact to see if we can set up a meeting soon. I’ll call you back with the answer. See ya soon.”

  Before he could give much of a reply, she’d dropped the call, leaving pressing questions like Who is Stu? unanswered.

  “So you guys are sticking around to meet Michella face-to-face?”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Silo said, slipping Squee a fry. “Campaigns like this are all hurry up and wait anyway. It’ll be nice to have someone new to talk to.”

  He turned to Garotte. “You’re sure you want to stick around? She’s going to have a ton of questions.”

  The debonair vigilante was distracted by his own slidepad chirping. He glanced at it, then tapped off a message in reply. When he was through he looked up. “That’s the plan.”

  Immediately Lex’s slidepad rang again. He answered. “Lex, keep your eyes open. The informant said he’s on planet. I told him about the cafe and he said he would meet me there.”

  Lex turned to Garotte, who grinned in satisfaction.

  “Yeah,” Lex said, “I see him.”

  Chapter 8

  “I don’t believe this,” Michella said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You mean to tell me that you were one of my informants all along?”

  Garotte nodded and sipped at his drink. “Two of them, actually.”

  After Michella had arrived and found Lex waiting with the two soldiers, they decided to take the meeting to someplace a bit more isolated. A nearby park, just as deserted as most of the rest of the outskirts, gave them a clear view of several hundred meters in all directions, which seemed to set Silo’s and Garotte’s minds at ease. Perhaps in an effort to earn a reputation as a party neighborhood, the outskirts of Gloria proudly permitted alcoholic beverages to be consumed in public, so Garotte stopped by a liquor store to pick up his rarely indulged “relaxation” of choice before they selected a gazebo and got down to business.

  “Two? Which other one were you?” she asked, flipping back through her notes. “You weren’t the one who helped me break that toxic waste shipment they tried to sabotage last month, were you?”

  He nodded again.

  “Damn it. I was proud of digging that one up, too.”

  “You are to be commended. In that case you were perilously close to revealing the meeting place of a group of low-level Neo-Luddite commanders during the planning phase. I drip-fed you some information to lead you toward their eventual plans so that you wouldn’t expose them before they could bring together the strike force and thus cost me the opportunity to swat a much larger group of them at once.”

  “I don’t like being manipulated for other people’s purposes, Mr. Garotte.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s his primary interaction with most people,” Silo said.

  “One must play to one’s strengths after all,” he said with a shrug.

  “What did you drag me out here to tell me?”

  “I can state with some level of certainty that the Neo-Luddites are targeting this planet. More specifically, they are after the very facility you were just now visiting.”

  “You didn’t tell me that!” Lex snapped. “You knew terrorists were targeting the building my girlfriend was in and you didn’t think to warn me?”

  “The Neo-Luddites don’t have any operatives on this planet, and there is no intel to suggest they would be ready or able to deploy for several days,” Garotte said.

  “I’m not comfortable trusting my girlfriend’s life to your intelligence-gathering skills.”

  “Trevor, you need to calm down,” Michella said.

  “I need to calm down? I need to calm down? He let you walk into a potential death trap, and I need to calm down? If anything you should get riled up!”

  “It isn’t as though I didn’t know there would be risks with this kind of investigation.”

  “Lex, please. Ms. Modane and I have important matters to discuss. If you can’t restrain your outbursts, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “Come on, hon,” Silo said, standing up. “Let’s go stretch our legs. Squee looks like she could use a walk.”

  “But I…! But you…! Fine,” he grumbled. “Let’s go, Squee.”

  “That’s a good chap. Do come back when you’ve had a moment to cool off.”

  Lex marched angrily away with Silo, Squee doing figure eights around their legs as they went.

  Garotte watched the trio leave. “That boy’s a bit on edge.”

  “He’s been having a rough few days. Now what have you got for me?”

  “Some time ago the Neo-Luddites acquired a very complex piece of communications technology. It is far beyond consumer-grade. Far beyond standard-issue military specification even. This is something reserved for special operations, and even then only in the highest levels of the best-funded forces. Mostly this is the sort of thing that corporations would custom make for governments. Not experimental like their usual kit. Tried and true. Rock solid.”

  “How did they get their hands on them?”

  “A black-market equipment dealer scored a few of the units. How he got them is a matter for further discussion, but right now the important thing is that I acquired some as well. My plan was fairly simple. Using these devices they would be able to have a much easier time of escaping the grasp of the usual authorities. If I acquired one and made no secret of it, it would require them to abandon the device and thus restore their vulnerability to traditional investigative methods, like yours and those of the military and civilian forces. In the meantime, I would eavesdrop on their plans.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “After a fashion we were able to determine that they are after something called a Gen-Mech. Not only has there been no indication of what precisely that is, there has been little indication that they are even aware of what that is. The depth of their knowledge ends at the operation of another esoteric device we recently acquired from them. Its name is a pointless accumulation of scientific buzzwords, but it can detect this device they are after, or so they believe. And I’ll tell you this, whatever this Gen-Mech is, they are treating it with extreme caution. If the Neo-Lu
ddites are afraid of a bit of technology, then I think you’ll agree it isn’t something to be trifled with.”

  “Well, considering you say they are going to target this place, and the most significant arrival to this planet in the last few years has been the potential extraterrestrial, I imagine you are suggesting that is the Gen-Mech.”

  “I don’t know if it is or it isn’t, but I know the Neo-Luddites think it is, and they mean to have it. Did you get a good look at it?”

  “I did, and I can’t say it strikes me as anything they might want. I’ve got no intention of violating their NDA, but I can tell you it is a stitched-together pile of spare yak parts wrapped around a wad of transistors and wires. The thing can barely move. But you’d asked me to a nearby planet before I even knew this specimen existed. You didn’t ask to meet me just to get me to investigate it, did you?”

  “No, that was merely a happy coincidence.”

  “Then you had a use for me in mind.”

  “An astute observation. To be perfectly frank, Ms. Modane, Silo and I are stretched a bit thin. The conventional wisdom is that to kill the snake you must cut off the head, and it is quite true, but to do so you must get past the fangs. These are dangerous people, and since their attack on Tessera, they’ve been more than a little desperate. We’ve countered or prevented at least seven large-scale attacks, mostly on weapons depots and the like. It has consumed our time and resources, and it has prevented us from making much progress in the most crucial part of bringing their schemes to a permanent end.”

  “Finding the person who sparked their recent spree in the first place.”

  “Precisely. The mere fact that this mastermind has taken such pains to keep his or her identity hidden even from those he or she has been aiding suggests that terrorism is not his or her aim… I do wish we’d discover the scoundrel’s gender. This doubling of pronouns is growing tiresome. Regardless, if notoriety is his or her fear, then you are uniquely suited to play the role of his or her worst nightmare. I am quite confident that with some of the breadcrumbs Silo and I have been able to uncover, you will find your way to our mastermind and shine a bright light on his or her dark corner.”

  “And why did this have to wait until now?”

  “Because some of the information I intend to give you is not of the sort that you could simply find your way to on your own, and neither of us can afford to have the general public discover that you’ve been in league with a fugitive. We shall have to… massage circumstances to give you plausible access to the appropriate clues. Thus, you needed to be here for this attack. When it is foiled—Silo and I will see that it is—you will be free to pick through the feast of clues left behind and publicize yet another shameful defeat to ratchet up their fury and desperation.”

  “This feels a little like making a deal with an arsonist in exchange for exclusive coverage of his next blaze.”

  “Perhaps, but it is all for a good cause. Now, down to brass tacks. I think the key to finding your way to our mastermind is following the equipment…”

  #

  “So… that was a fun little outburst,” Silo said, after she and Lex had walked long enough for his breathing to drop back down to nonfurious levels. “Care to explain where it came from?”

  “What’s to explain?”

  “You’re upset that Michella’s life was in danger. But the last time we worked together, you were willing to chase down a half-dozen missiles heading for a star. You don’t strike me as the sort of fellow who believes in playing it safe.”

  “Yes, okay, I’m an adrenaline junky. I’ve come to terms with that. But I’d never risk her life.”

  “How’d you two get to the planet?”

  “In the SOB.”

  “Via the nice, safe VectorCorp corridors?”

  “Well, no, we did the whole sprint-and-juke routine.”

  “And that’s not dangerous at all?”

  “… Well, it is. But I’m in control of it.”

  “Are you, hon? No chance of a little hunk of space rock hitting you at a gazillion kilometers per hour?”

  “Well, yeah, there’s always a chance of that.”

  “So why would you bring her that way?”

  “Because… look, don’t even pretend like I’m the one who’s wrong here.”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong, and I’m not saying we weren’t wrong to lead Michella into the jaws of the beast like we did. But ask yourself this question: If Michella had known the Luddites were going to strike here, would she have changed her mind about coming?”

  “No, she would have been even more excited about it.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Without any words to properly communicate his irritation, Lex simply furrowed his brow and squared his jaw.

  “Listen, hon. You’re an old-fashioned kind of guy, and us ladies love an old-fashioned kind of guy, riiight up until he starts getting in the way of what we want to do with our lives. So if you love Michella, and I think you do, start trusting her to make her own decisions.”

  “Okay. And if I do that, will she start trusting me to make my own decisions?”

  “You’re a man, honey. If we let you make your own decisions, society never would have progressed beyond the creation of the nacho.”

  “Okay, so what you’re saying is women get to make all of their own decisions, and they also get to make all of our decisions.”

  Silo shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

  “Evidently you do.”

  “I mean I specifically don’t make the rules. We do it by committee.”

  “So that’s how it happens.”

  “Come on. Let’s go back and see what they’re up to.”

  They turned around and began to work their way back to the gazebo.

  “Incidentally,” Lex said, “as far as I’m concerned, society didn’t progress past the creation of the nacho. After that the curve just sort of leveled out.”

  “What about faster-than-light travel?”

  “It’s nice, but where’s the melted cheese?”

  #

  Later that evening, Dr. Dreyfus was hard at work in the laboratory. After verifying that the specimen showed no special vulnerability to a few of their more detailed scans, the day had been a nonstop barrage of tantalizing new data. He and his assistants worked long into the evening, sifting through scan after scan and trying to fill in the missing gaps in their understanding.

  “Remarkable,” Dr. Dreyfus remarked, looking over the results of the latest set of scans as an assistant took notes. “Look at this. See here, on this internal support strut on the mechanical node. That’s… what is that, French? And this is part of a logo underneath the semiconductor layer. There, on the rim of that leg socket, it looks like some sort of kanji. Do we have the oxide analysis back yet?”

  His assistant brought it up and displayed it on one of the large laboratory screens. Dreyfus squinted at it, then fiddled with some settings to switch the screen to holographic mode. The analysis results appeared to be a semitransparent representation of the bundle of electronics inside the specimen. Without the fleshy exterior, the mechanism looked to be a cross between a beetle, a millipede, and an internal-combustion engine. Spindly legs of various lengths jutted out of an incomprehensible jumble of tubes, wires, and jagged metal shapes. The outermost components were color coded, ranging from green to red.

  “Let’s see. Taking into consideration the conditions on the surface of the planet and inside the organic portion, these cuts are the freshest. Just a few months old. Give me a macro view of this area.” The scan enlarged. “It was definitely cut and reshaped. Bring up the schematics for the monitoring station that was lost. Perform a pattern match on these components. Let’s see if they come from the station.”

  The program went to work, isolating the indicated pieces and visually unwrapping and reorienting them to search for similarities. A small “confidence” meter jumped between 0 and 10 percent with each compare, cl
imbing slowly as the algorithm zeroed in on additional similar structures. The research team clustered around the display, waiting for a result.

  A small jump had brought the confidence rating to 40 percent when one of the computers began to blare out a rhythmic alert tone. All eyes turned to the computer earmarked for communication. The tone in question was reserved for messages from high-level sponsors and contractors. It was the sort of tone that heralded either a fund infusion to a project or, more often if the call came during research, the sudden loss of funding. The junior researchers called it The Money Hotline, and at this stage of the project, it wasn’t the sort of sound anyone was looking forward to hearing. Dreyfus himself drifted over and accepted the voice-only call.

  “Stuart Dreyfus,” he said.

  “Dr. Dreyfus. I understand you are the research lead for the Myer-Delta specimen.” The voice was low, authoritarian, and humorless, with a gritty and raspy edge to it.

  “I am.”

  “Are any assistant researchers present?”

  “Several. We are just finishing up some analysis before closing up shop for the day.”

  “Dismiss anyone without level-five security clearance.”

  “That would be everyone but myself.”

  “Do it.”

  “I’m sorry, to whom am I speaking?”

  “Col. Joseph Bradley. Credentials attached.”

  Dreyfus opened the attachment. It was a deeply encoded file. Applying his laboratory’s designated cryptokey revealed unquestionably legitimate security clearances and notices of authority. The lead researcher nodded to his underlings, who quickly departed.

  “You aren’t our regular military overseer,” said the doctor once he was alone.

  A video feed flicked to life, revealing a face to match the voice: stern, serious, and grizzled. He was easily in his sixties, a thick white mustache the only hair anywhere on his head.

  “I’m with a special branch. I’ve been reviewing your findings. Are there any reports you have not submitted?”