The Infinity Mainframe (Tombs Rising Book 3)

by Robert Scott-Norton

  “Nikoli was investigating something. I heard him talk about tombs.”

  Aura put the bottle back under the counter and sipped from her glass. “That hadn't been on his mind until I'd say, three weeks before he was killed.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Implanting a Grade A pattern takes a little time and a little poking around in here,” she said, tapping the side of her forehead. “I know what was on his mind.”

  “So, what can you tell me?”

  Aura sighed, then sat back down on her stool. “I'm only telling you this because he was a good customer, and I'd like to do what's right by him.”

  Ruby nodded. A light fluttering began in her stomach.

  “The tombs are old. Its influence has been felt for more than a century. And the tombs are dangerous. Nikoli knew that he had to stop it.” Aura paused, her gaze never settling on any one thing. Then she looked straight into Ruby’s eyes. “The tombs are rising.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. It’s what Nikoli believed.”

  “I’ve been looking. I can’t find out anything about these tombs. What are they?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “You didn’t sneak that from Nikoli’s mind?”

  Aura smirked. “You don’t have to like what I do, but I was looking out for him.”

  “The patterns you gave him weren’t enough to stop him being read at OsMiTech.”

  “A poor workman…”

  Ruby sighed. “He thought he was safe. I think what he knew got him killed.”

  “If that’s true, he’d have been caught at some point. Blocking patterns only get you so far. If you’re distracted, or hurt, or angry, the protection they offer you is limited.”

  “What else did you find out about the tombs? I need to find them.”

  “To stop whatever Nikoli started?” Aura shook her head. “It’s a dangerous path. Nikoli knew it, and he knew that it would take more than himself to stop it. He knew it would be the death of him.”

  Devan Oster

  17 years ago

  Devan didn’t think he’d ever get used to sleeping in an empty bed. Milford drank excessively, and snored, and seized most of the covers and when he’d been working too hard and forgotten to take a shower, he smelt stale. But, as Devan tossed and turned and fought with the bed clothes to get comfortable, he’d have him back with those issues in a heartbeat.

  The clinic had had nothing useful to say for days now. Milford was stable but beyond that… hell wasn’t it enough he was still alive? By rights he should be dead; no scrub that—by rights, Devan should be the one lying in the hospital bed, that bullet had been meant for him. Whether by luck or divine intervention or whatever, the sniper had missed and taken out the one man whom Devan trusted. Now, all he had were the walls in this penthouse and whilst they never interrupted Devan when he ranted, they didn’t add to the debate either.

  Earlier, his head had been pounding, and he’d taken four painkillers. One should have been ample, but it had been a crappy day and he’d been hoping that the extra meds would knock him straight to the land of nod. They didn’t and now his mind was flying and he probably should have got out of bed and to hell with the early meeting tomorrow—he could always cancel and just what was he doing this for, anyway?

  Wake up

  Someone was in the room with him.

  “Lights,” he called to Butler. The artificial construct obeyed and the illumination rose, too slowly to convince Devan that an intruder wouldn’t have had time to hide. He hauled himself upright, felt the chilly wall against his naked back, and for a moment rested with his knees hunched to his rib cage, paralysed. Goosebumps broke out over his arms and he fought against the impulse to call security. What the hell would they think when they raced upstairs to the penthouse to find their noble employer cowering behind Egyptian cotton sheets?

  The pain in his head had drifted from the left to the right side of his skull. The extra meds couldn’t have made him hallucinate, could they? He was tired, though; it would make much more sense to just assume that he’d fallen into that half-sleep half-waking state and had dreamt the noise he’d heard.

  Heart calming down, he peered at the clock on the wall and seeing that he’d been in bed for over an hour with little success, he got up and grabbed his robe. Butler kept ahead of him and lit the rest of the penthouse as he left the bedroom.

  “Can I make you some coffee?” The construct asked, the synthesised voice spilling from discrete speakers along all the walls, unnervingly close after his shock waking.

  “Yeah, that would be great.”

  As he stepped into the kitchen, the coffee machine had switched on and a fresh pot of Columbian Dark dripped into the pot. He took a mug from the cupboard and placed it down in readiness. The lights of Southport across the lake were muted and felt like a million miles away. Butler illuminated the lounge.

  “No, keep it dim. I can’t see through the glass.”

  Butler complied, and Devan rested his forehead against the window, the biting chill from the glass felt wonderful but over too soon. His breath fogged his reflection. Devan extended a finger and drew a frowny face. Milford might have appreciated it, but Butler wouldn’t. The self-cleaning glass would be cleared of smudges by the time he returned to the kitchen.

  Only, that didn’t seem such a great idea anymore. Perhaps there was something better he could be doing.

  Derelict

  This time, the word was spoken so loudly that Devan spun ready to face the person who must surely have been speaking by his ear.

  He was alone. Devan stumbled as he stepped away from the source of the voice. A man’s voice, a woman’s voice?

  “Where are you?” His words hung in the air. No reply. No one to reply.

  The stupid meds. What the hell have I taken?

  He dashed back to the bedroom and snatched the box of pills, before skimming the label for the description. Regular headache pills. But that didn’t explain the hallucination, nor his thumping head.

  “Butler, check for known side-effects of Graminpracil. Are hallucinations mentioned?”

  “No, sir. There is nothing in the records to that effect. Shall I call a doctor for you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The doctor on call is Dr Cuttle. I can have him up here in five minutes.”

  That nagging personality matrix was so typical of Milford. Someone else should unquestionably have overseen that phase of the programming. He made a mental note to initiate a review of the construct should they ever decide to market this particular version.

  The coffee was ready and after adding a splash of cool water to his cup, Devan decided it wasn’t coffee after all he needed. It was fresh air. He placed the cup down and went to his room to get dressed. He’d had enough of being alone.

  We will never be alone again.

  Friday, 3 May 2115

  4:35 PM

  Ruby had spent the day digging into Scott Logan’s past, trying to track the man’s whereabouts over the last few weeks. The ATL tip-off had been unusual but not unheard of and she was wary of the group’s leader, Frazier Growden. Rumours were that he didn’t give a toss about telepaths; the league was just a massive distraction from his other illicit activities.

  But Scott Logan had an ordinary boring history so typical of many young men. An average student, he’d done well to secure himself work as a trainee driver at Metro Travel. That paid a good wage and would have kept him out of the habitat blocks and district factories. But when his regular screening date arrived, he didn't keep the appointment. It was noted on his file that he’d be sent another two reminders before he was due to be referred to the DRT for investigation. Scott had known what the registration tests would show, and he was doing all he could to avoid taking them. How did he manage to get himself caught up with the Anti-telepath League, though? His police interviews were still marked as classified. Now that the DRT had done their bit, the legal
process was moving quickly.

  They’d all filed their reports after Scott’s failed assassination attempt at the Arts Centre. Glynn had been the DRT representative at Scott’s interview and he’d told Ruby that the man seemed calm, ready for whatever fate the legal process deemed fit. The chance of him now being accepted into OsMiTech was non-existent, so that meant he’d be signed onto the teep register and if he was lucky, he’d be given the choice between diminishment or prison. Neither would have been Ruby’s preferred choice.

  Glynn appeared in her office doorway. He kneaded his shoulder. His eyebrows rose. Ruby was just about to ask if he knew any more about the Logan case when he raised a hand to stop her question before it left her lips.

  His voice was heightened, agitated. “Nikoli’s remnant keeper has been attacked.”

  Ruby blinked. “What? How?”

  “The police have been in contact. An intruder broke into Jack Winston’s house whilst he was reading Lavinia Wei’s remnant. When Jack woke, he found his wife dead and the intruder still present.”

  Ruby raised a clenched fist to her mouth. “Oh God, that’s terrible.” Her mind raced. Could it have been a coincidence? No one would know that he had Lavinia’s eyes.

  Focus. This was just the start.

  “There’s worse.” Glynn came into the office and tugged at his tie, loosening it from his neck. “The intruder stole the memory box and one of Lavinia’s eyes.”

  “One of?”

  “Jack still has one in his head.”

  “Do you think he knew what he was taking?”

  “It’s the only thing he took. It wasn’t some robbery gone wrong; it was a targeted attack. They wanted to take the memory box.”

  “And Jack’s wife?”

  “Keeley Winston. Journalist at Fuse Media. She shouldn’t even have been there. She’d been at work all morning. She made a phone call to her husband shortly after one thirty this afternoon then left her office. The intruder destroyed her eyes.”

  Ruby stared straight ahead, into the distance. Eye destruction was becoming more commonplace now that murderers were considering what would happen should their victim’s eyes get assigned to a remnant keeper. The intruder didn’t want to be caught, obviously, but that supported her concern that the intruder had come solely for the Wei’s eyes.

  “Where’s Jack now?”

  “With his handler, Anna Lovett.”

  Anna Lovett. The name struck a chord with Ruby and she couldn’t think why. Something else to check.

  Glynn paced. A common trait of his whenever he got worked up. “It wasn’t common knowledge that Jack was a remnant keeper, so this wasn’t a chance attack. Somebody knew that he would be assigned a case today and they went after him.” He paused and turned to look down at Ruby. “Who has access to the remnant keeper database?”

  “Enough to make that line of enquiry difficult. There’s you and me, plus the rest of the DRT network. Plus OsMiTech.” Ruby stood to look out of her window, out across the town. The rain had started. “If there’s been a breach it will take someone inside OsMiTech to help establish its origin. I could check the archives. See if I can find evidence of tampering.”

  Glynn nodded.

  She watched the water streaking down the glass and tried to guess what Glynn was thinking. Only a few days ago, she’d asked to be assigned Nikoli’s work at OsMiTech headquarters, now it seemed that the best way to prove how their systems were breached was to go there. He wouldn’t be happy. He’d tell her there was a process, that if people were getting killed over memories, the situation was worse than they’d thought and Ruby would be safer to keep out of it. She’d have to be forceful then, remind Glynn that she was assigned to the department to catch the bad guys and it did no one any favours to keep her out of harm’s way.

  “I’ll make it happen,” he said. “I’ll speak to the liaison group and tell them you’re Nikoli’s replacement.”

  Ruby was taken aback. She turned and looked into the sad crinkled face of her boss, a man who’d never looked so helpless. She didn’t want to let him down, or the department, or Nikoli.

  *

  When eventually she arrived at the archive halls, Ruby flashed her pass at the security guard and smiled politely when he asked her to enter her reasons for entering the archives into the system. After writing a nonsense statement about researching the geography of district borders, the guard gave her a dusty smile and handed her a plastic swipe card on a lanyard.

  “I’ll need that back when you’re finished. Don’t wander too far past section 31—you shouldn’t be heading that way but I’m obliged to tell you—health and safety.”

  Ruby didn’t dare ask what was past section 31 and hoped that the actual records she wanted weren’t in that section.

  “Miss?” The pass was held in the guard’s outstretched hand. Ruby dragged her attention back and took it.

  “A guide.” The guard held out a slim device. “It’s a personal curator to make sure you find what you need.”

  “Right,” she said and smiled.

  “If you need help, you can call me on that as well.”

  Ruby was unsure quite what help the old guy could be. The man didn’t look like he’d ever moved from behind his desk; the dust seemed to have spread over the desk surfaces and up along his jacket sleeves and across his snowy beard.

  When the archive door clanged shut behind her, a shiver ran down her legs and she blew a controlled sigh out through her mouth. The light came from lines of old-fashioned fluorescent tubes that followed the racks of shelving and filing cabinets running in parallel lines in front of her. Several were flickering, causing the shadows to dance around her feet. The air had a dry chalky flavour and the lack of windows reminded her that the metal door behind her was the only way out of this place. Her footfalls clipped precisely on the concrete floor as she crossed to a huddle of desks with access points and reading lights. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Ruby took a chair and sat down at a desk, placing the curator beside her.

  Understanding how a breach in security could have occurred with the remnant keeper database would be crucial in resolving this case. What she’d told Glynn had been correct. Other branches of the DRT network had the same level of access as she and Glynn did. That meant they could see which victim’s eyes went to which remnant keeper. Allocating eyes was done centrally, and for all Ruby knew, that side of it was automatic and random. Efficiently, she opened a spike into the database and searched for the Weis’ records. It showed her what Glynn had already told her—that Lavinia’s had gone to Jack Winston and Nikoli’s to Honey Brown. It didn’t say in the system whether that allocation was still going ahead—she presumed that due to it still being in the system it was.

  She noted that both Jack Winston and Honey Brown were under the same handler, Anna Lovett. The name was again nagging away at her like it should mean more than just a jumble of letters on the screen. She closed her eyes.

  Anna Lovett.

  Shaking her head, she opened her eyes and stared back at the screen. With deft fingers, she accessed the audit history of the remnant records and saw several scrambled names she didn’t recognise, presumably OsMiTech obfuscating their own security. She noticed Glynn’s name recorded on the day of Nikoli’s funeral. She copied the file and transferred it to her personal datastack.

  Next, she searched for Keeley Winston. Glynn said she’d been a journalist at Fuse Media, a news centre notoriously in the pocket of the government. Had she pissed anyone off recently? Searching back through Keeley’s latest news reports, it seemed she had more than a passing interest in the rise of the telepaths. It must have been difficult for her being married to a remnant keeper. They were not well loved by the public. When the government introduced the remnant programme, they had decreed that eyes from all the dead needed to be preserved for a period before disposal in case it was necessary to use a remnant keeper. Riots broke out across several cities and the army was eventually called in to put a
stop to the violence. The government didn’t change their policy, though, and over time the hatred shifted to those employed to carry out those orders—namely, the remnant keepers.

  Jack Winston’s records were locked. Ruby frowned as she glared at the access point, challenging its authority. Her DRT credentials weren’t enough to get past the blocks and it was unclear whether they were locked because of the police case into his wife’s death or because of his remnant keeper status.

  Instead, she tried looking up Anna Lovett.

  A photo of a woman in her early fifties appeared. A heart-shaped face with sharp cheekbones looked back at Ruby from out of the screen and then Ruby realised she’d met her.

  When joining the DRT it’s compulsory to have regular telepathic screenings. Ruby had hers as soon as she’d passed the main application exam and had been sent to OsMiTech headquarters.

  Anna had met her in the reception and taken her to the examination suite. She ran all the tests, and that was the last time that Ruby had ever allowed anyone inside her mind. The test lasted less than a minute, but for Ruby, it might as well have taken hours. The smile at the end of the test, the touch of Anna’s hand on her arm, the reassuring smile. None of it mattered. Only when Anna told her she displayed no telepathic ability did Ruby relax and allow herself to smile.

  And now, Anna was the handler for the remnant keeper whose wife had been killed. A quick check showed that Anna was the same tester who’d tested Nikoli.

  The fluorescent lights buzzed loudly above, and she glanced away from the screen.

  Focus.

  Ruby closed her eyes again and clenched her hands into balls, letting the nails dig into her palms as she felt the pattern of her chest rising and falling with each breath.

  What did this mean?

  Nikoli was a telepath. This had been confirmed by two sources, Devan Oster and Nikoli’s mistress, Candice.