Daria 2

by Martin E. Silenus

  “We can make the bad guys go away permanently!” says D.

  “And how are we going to do that D, explain it to me?” says Frosty stiffly.

  “We create another straw man, a master criminal, a master drug dealer, we kill the existing scumbags and ship them in barrels back to the gang head office in Germany, we take the several million in cash the local gang has stored and we set up an investment fund that pays for the drug clinic and homeless street kids shelter, that’s how!” replies D.

  “You have to be fucking kidding me?” spits Frosty.

  “Not in the least, we do this work for governments vague biddings for ridiculous amounts of money, so we can do it for free to help the children, they deserve a fair and fighting chance at their lives, not screwed up on drugs from some German drug cartel.” replies D.

  An uneasy silence falls over the three of us. Frosty is pissed, D is standing in the hologram with arms on hips looking mad and annoyed, and I don’t know what the fuck to think as this whole thing just blew up while I was trying to inhale some coffee. Pretty early in the day for such shit, so I get up and go for a walk and let the two of them beat one another up. Besides, no one was listening to me anyway.

  Twenty minutes later I am relaxing on a rock overlooking the valley and just drinking in the peacefulness and the view. D speaks softly in my mind.

  “Matt, can you come back, please?”

  “You guys done arguing?”

  “Yeah kinda, we’re both pretty stubborn.”

  “I don’t appreciate being ignored on matters like this you know.”

  “I’m sorry Matt, sometimes Frosty just pisses me off and I want to beat him like a rented mule. I shouldn’t have ignored you.”

  “Jesus D, alright, I’ll be back in 10.”

  Chapter 35: The Details

  “So, you guys figure out who the boss is yet? I ask as I enter the monitor room.

  Both Frosty and D look at me sheepishly.

  “Yeah,” sighs Frosty. “I think that D has a valid argument. As much as I would like to stay invisible and not connected locally I do see the travesty afoot and agree we should intervene. But we want to hear your views on the matter.”

  “We’re a team Matt, and if you don’t agree with this operation then we won’t proceed.” says D softly.

  “Yes we’re a team and I’m the boots on the ground, so let’s hear the details.” I say.

  D spends the next half hour briefing us on the situation analysis of this operation that she has discovered, tracked down, monitored voice calls and text messages, and stolen from hacked data bases. She then moves into the logistics and various steps to neutralize this threat and to ensure it stays neutralized by way of creating our own constructed strawman threat, and finishes up with her investment plan to generate revenue for the funding of the drug clinic and shelter. As usual she has done an extremely thorough job.

  There is really no question as to whether we will, or should, or could. We can, and it is for the sake of the children and their futures. D is right; we do this work for government whims, so why would we not help children in need. Something which is much closer, more real and tangible for us, where we can take pride in the affect and results.

  Chapter 36: The Ugly Stuff

  The local gang is structured with a local regional manager, reporting to a high ranking business man/criminal connected to the German cartel. The local regional manager has two bodyguard enforcers and half dozen street dealers. They are small potatoes trying to become big potatoes.

  To ensure this operation looks like rival cartel actions we will snatch the high ranking business man soak him in gas and diesel fuel and set him on fire. That should make a statement!

  The local boss and the muscle we will kill, cut up into pieces and stuff the remains in steel fuel drums and ship them back to the cartel in Germany. The local street dealers we will simply shoot them in the head with the 9mm and leave them where they drop. The local Police can clean up the mess.

  D and sisters will cook up some shadowy video for the security cameras of a guy who looks suspiciously like Mr. Clean the kitchen cleaner guy, and make sure that the media gets ahold of it. Along with a direct message to the German Cartel to cease and desist, and fuck off, or you die!

  We grab the local gang’s cash and feed it slowly into an account to be invested and the revenue interest thereby generated will be directed to an account for the funding of the children’s drug clinic and homeless shelter.

  To get all the killing and mayhem done in one night will be a bit of a rush, but D will know exactly where each one of these guys will be by tracking their cell phone. An illegal hack of their phones of course that they installed themselves by clicking on a YouTube video that D had cooked up to enable the hacking code to be installed. Very slick, those that deserve, get!

  Chapter 37: Childhood Revenge

  It’s early evening when D drops me on the property of Hubert W. Culbertson, high-end businessman. High-end as it appears he is very successful. Drives very expensive BMW’s, lives on an exclusive acreage, with all the associated toys, in a sprawling multi-million dollar house. Lots of stone-work and heavy beams on the house façade, connected five car garage, with a lovely curved driveway, surrounded on three sides by tall thick pine trees. Apparently his considerable wealth comes from his plumbing distribution business. That is until you examine his books for the last ten years and see how he has bled the business to death with his own personal greed. The business about to go under and facing the embarrassment and humiliation of corporate and personal bankruptcy, Hubert turned to distribution of another product type. One that provides him with enormous cash flow to feed his expensive habits. The fact that his drug distribution business is killing those that can’t adequately defend themselves means nothing to Hubert. He is a fat, self-centered, arrogant, greedy maggot of a human being.

  Hubert’s family is out doing school children related activities. I walk right into the house as D disables the security system and feeds the images of our Mr. Clean gangster into the security data-recorder. Hubert’s in his office yelling into the phone and pounding the desk as I enter. He can’t see me as I am cloaked so I walk right up to him and yank the phone out of his hand. For just an instance I drop the cloaking so he can see the serious shit he is in. The image of me in my full combat outfit towering over him scares the hell out of Hubert and he screams in fright. I hit him in the face, not too hard, just enough to stun him, and hang up the phone.

  “Hubert W. Culbertson, it is time you paid your dues for your vicious, sinful actions!”

  He screams again as I drag him half walking half falling out of the house and through the garage, pick up a gas can, then out into the driveway. He’s on the ground slobbering and crying with an occasional scream for good measure. I glance around and estimate that I am far enough away from the house and outbuildings so they will not catch fire. Pulling my silenced 9mm Glock from its holster I shoot Hubert in both knees. That will keep him in one spot and now he has a reason to scream his guts out. The thought crosses my mind the fat puke may have a heart attack before he gets to enjoy his flaming finale. Holstering the 9mm I reach for the gas can and pour gasoline liberally all over fat Hubert. In his excruciating state of pain and screaming I doubt he even knows he is soaked in gasoline. Setting the gas can back a safe distance I walk over to Hubert and toss a lit match onto him. Hubert goes “WOOF” and becomes engulfed in flames. The screaming soon stops as Hubert has no air left to scream with, but he gets very animated thrashing around on the ground making all sorts of grunting, gagging, screeching sounds. Greasy black smoke coils off his body as his hair, clothes, and face burn off, and the thrashing begins to slow. Hubert is a big man and I estimate he will burn and smolder for another hour or so.

  Back in Hubert’s office, I rummage around until I find the wall safe. Of course D has the combination as she has been watching him as she put this operation together. In the safe is a very healthy supply of cash, stacks of
hundreds in fact. I borrow a plastic grocery bag and fill it with bundles of money. Then double bag it as it is surprisingly heavy.

  Back outside, D brings the quad copter in and I clip back into the harness. She is calling the Police and the fire department as we liftoff.

  The remains of Hubert W. Cuthbertson lay smoking heavily with some small flames. His body pulled tight into a fetal position.

  “Nicely done Matt, you do quality work.” says D.

  “Thanks D, it’s pretty easy when you provide all the tech info we need.” I reply.

  Chapter 38: Gang War

  Next on our agenda are the gang regional manager and his two guard/enforcers. I have a few minutes of rest while D pilots the quad copter, in full cloaking back into town and over to the gang location. She sets me down a half block away and I walk the rest of the way down an alley. It’s dark now and there isn’t much light in the alley, but I find the loading dock behind the low warehouse without any difficulty. D has had a couple of forty-five gallon fuel drums delivered to the loading dock. I see they have an address in Germany stenciled on them. The back door is unlocked and of course the security system has been adjusted as per D’s talents. More Mr. Clean shadowy video’s inserted into the data security stream.

  Our three citizens of the year are sitting in a spacious office relaxing, passing around a crack pipe and working their way through a case of beer. There is a large flat screen TV in the corner with a soccer game on, the volume is set to loud. The beer does all the work for me. I just wait until they need to use the bathroom and intercept them one by one. When they come out of the bathroom I tap them on the head and haul them into the back of the warehouse past the pallets of merchandise. Unsheathing the sonic Kukri I make very short work of dismembering them and placing the pieces in the steel barrels. The two guard/enforcers are too stoned stupid to even realize something is not right. They are lambs to the slaughter.

  The manager finally wonders where the hell his boys have gone, so during a commercial break in the soccer game he comes looking for them. I’m in the back of the warehouse when he is cursing and yelling for them. I tap the Kukri against a barrel of body parts to attract his attention. He draws out his gun and comes sneaking back around the pallets. I let him get to where I have dismembered his guards. He screams in terror just once before the sonic Kukri slips through his neck decapitating him. A few more strokes and I add the pieces to the barrels. Task completed I place the lids on the barrels and with a mallet tap them down and lock them in place. A very special delivery and direct warning to the German drug cartel.

  Back in the office I open the safe and haul out bags of cash. I’m surprised once again how much these stacks of bills actually weigh. D may have to make another trip just to carry all the damn money. On the way out the back I place thermite charges on each of the pallets of product. Set the timer for 2 hours and walk back down the alley carrying the bags of money to where D has the quad copter.

  “Hi sailor, need a ride?” teases D.

  “I do pretty woman, but we have enough weight from the cash that you are going to need to make a trip just to haul it back to Frosty,” I reply.

  “Excellent, I’m pleased about that, so much better for the children. If you’re done with the barrels of body parts I’ll call for a truck pickup.”

  “For sure I am, I set the thermite charges for two hours. Have you got the locations for our friendly neighborhood street dealers?”

  “You bet I do, downloading the locations to your HUD display as we speak.”

  Six red blips appear on my helmet display. A couple of them are not far away, easy walking distance.

  “Cool, I’ll walk over and work on the ‘meet and greet’ with the closest dealers while you haul the money back to Frosty. This area is going to become very busy when the thermite charges go off and the fire starts.”

  “Hunt carefully Matt,” says D as she spools up the quad copter and lifts off with the money bags dangling below.

  Chapter 39: Street Skids

  When I was young, which seemed like a lifetime ago, we used to shoot gophers out on the prairies. If you were over a hundred yards away and not moving the gophers could not see you and had no idea that Bert, the gopher beside them, had been shot. One minute he was there and the next he exploded, what the hell was that, and Ernie would sit up to have a better look around, then waddle over to sniff at the remains of Bert and maybe eat some of his tasty parts, just prior to exploding himself. They had no clue as to what was happening.

  The street dealers were not near as smart as gophers. Most were shaking twitching crystal meth heads barely cognizant of their surroundings and would break out in hysterical laughter for no reason whatsoever. Killing these shit skids was an exercise in walking only. Just walk up cloaked to a few feet away and if there were not too many people around just shoot them in the face. Poof... whack, dead dealer in a bleeding heap. Walk on to the next one repeat as necessary. The biggest effort required was to not knock other pedestrians down as while you could see them, they couldn’t see me at all and tended to bump into me.

  In terms of eliminating filthy street trash of utterly no redeeming value, and making the city a safer place, it was a relaxing and rewarding experience. D returned with the quad copter and we moved locations twice to terminate the other four dealer skids. The whole operation was over before two am in the morning.

  Back at our remote farm yard D released her investigation report complete with names, dates, addresses, times and whatnot to the local police so they could understand what had transpired and have a complete picture of the scope of the drug cartel gang infection. Of course it was semi anonymous and might be traced through the Internet anonymous sites to a certain Mr. Clean if the investigators were any good at what they do.

  “I have to say I am very pleased with this operation. It just made me feel good to deal out some medicine so richly deserved by drug cartels.” I say.

  “Told you it was gonna be a feel good operation.” says D. “And the best part is still to come funding the drug clinic and youth hostel.”

  “You were right D, it was a good operation and I feel bad now for arguing against it as it did." says Frosty. “I think there is a lesson here for us, well at least for me. Perhaps I have become too focused on the dollars for the “gun for hire” aspect of what we do. While that is important we must not ignore the issues of the day for our children. The very nature of our youth and the new generation dictates they should have access to the best that can be provided for them. I cannot imagine a fouler crime than the corruption of the youth generation expected to take over when we pass on. The payment for assisting where needed in this area is not one of dollars and cents. It is payment of a smart and healthy generation of successful youth who we can be very proud of. That is something not measured monetarily; it is measured by pride and the feeling of your heart to realize you have made a significant difference.”

  It was very easy actually, amid the media frenzy over the grainy pictures of a “Mister Clean” looking gang boss, to contact a lawyer and make financial arrangements for the bags of money, and to locate and purchase appropriate property for the drug clinic and youth hostel. We never met them of course, telephone instructions from an unknown number, internet correspondence washed through identity scrubbers around the world. Operational rules, all very legal and above board, complete with a well-known firm of auditors to ensure all the checks and balances were met. They were very efficient and effective these businessmen of Switzerland. Very helpful indeed.

  Meanwhile the media firestorm flashed and burned many that were on the fringe of the dirty drug business. Some very prominent members of distinguished families suddenly had severe and terminal accidents or illness, or just disappeared. The authorities kept a very low key position, neither confirming this, nor condemning that, except in the broadest terms. They were intelligent enough to recognize a gift when it was handed to them and were determined to make the best of it.

  Cha
pter 40: Re-engineering

  Along with the hardware upgrade, and subsequent re-engineering of equipment configurations, D and her sisters had been experimenting with graphene based processor chips in place of silicon based processor chips that had showed incredible speed increases with no appreciable heat gain. They also had ideas on the refinement of their learning algorithms. The neural and adversarial networks would definitely be stepped up in performance from the hardware speed increase. But by modifying and adding to the algorithms D would be able to utilize her ability to compute in dimensions well beyond our simplified four dimensional states. More likely she would be thinking in ten to twenty dimensions simultaneously. While the human brain functions at about 200Hz, and moves data at 120m/sec, D’s computers would be using multiples of parallel processors each running at 3.5GHz at and moving data over fiber optic circuits and cables at the speed of light. Thousands of times the speed of the human mind, consequently for D humanity slows down as in slow motion. Her ability to goal set and utilize her adversarial network to perform millions of iterations to refine the process of attaining her objectives would be increased exponentially and far beyond what even the brightest human mind could hope to grasp.

  This new improved state of computing ability provided opportunity for many things, not only could D be exploring science and technology at levels we could not comprehend, it also meant that her ability to perceive the world, learn directly from the environment, have a much higher level of abstracting thought, and could substantially increase her reasoning capability. There is no denying that D is an Artilect.

  Frosty was like an expectant parent. While jubilant and excited about the increased domain of D’s capabilities he was also fearful of the absence of his control. Frosty was a parent with an incredibly gifted wonderful teenager who is about to be released into the world. Fearful for what might happen to her, yet knowing she must be allowed to go forth. It’s one of every parent’s most soul searching dilemmas and times in the process of child rearing.