Insidious

by Michael McCloskey

  “What is your real name?”

  “Aldriena Niachi.”

  “Wow. Weird name. Okay. Are you working for the UNSF?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you here to steal information?”

  “No.”

  “Hrm. You did pass.”

  Aldriena smiled. “Keep it on.”

  “Okay?”

  “I am a giant purple elephant. I eat plutonium for breakfast. I have been to the center of the sun.”

  Sheridan frowned.

  “You see, Sheridan? I’m espionage operative. I can pass the T check no problem, whether I’m lying or not.”

  “I guess I should have known that,” Sheridan said. “If you’re an operative though, your story could be fake. You could actually want into that lab to steal company secrets.”

  “Then go to the spaceport. Wait for me there. If I don’t show up, call security. If the UNSF shows up, then you’ll know I was telling the truth and it won’t matter.”

  Sheridan looked thoughtful. “If you don’t want anything in the lab, then why go in? Why don’t you just bring Claw to you and then use the grenade on him?”

  “How?”

  “I’ll contact him and tell him it’s an emergency. I’ll tell him I’ve found a spy. Then when he comes here, you can get him.”

  “He’d be suspicious. Forewarned. I’d never catch him. He’d kill me.”

  “Then I can tell Claw that the fabricator is broken and his project will be affected. He’ll come here to see for himself. Then you can ambush him.”

  Aldriena thought it over. Clearly, Sheridan didn’t completely trust her, which made sense.

  Eh, maybe I shouldn’t have told her so much. I don’t want to have to force things from here.

  “Okay. I guess. You’ll need to leave. If you stay here, you could end up dead.”

  “Oh, I won’t be here. You shouldn’t be either. This is a fabricator for god’s sake. Make a booby trap. Should only take us a few minutes. We’ll rig the door to activate the grenade. Then it’ll go off when he arrives. We won’t be anywhere near it.”

  Aldriena nodded. “That’s a great idea.”

  Sheridan smiled. “People aren’t used to making anything they want on the spur of the moment. They buy things that are mass produced.”

  “True. I didn’t design this grenade. Or C4B.”

  “What’s that?”

  Aldriena shrugged. “Long story. Look, we don’t need to make a trap. The door here has a cybloc. We’ll set it to signal the grenade next time it opens.”

  “Claw will be able to see the door has the notification.”

  “I’ll disguise it as an innocent notification. Like one to let you know he’s here.”

  “What if someone else opens the door?”

  “The grenade is smart enough. I’ll give it a signature that only matches Claw,” Aldriena said. She set the grenade down on the floor across from the door. She accessed the door’s service interface and set the grenade up to listen for an opening event. Then she paused.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Sheridan.

  “The grenade has an ambush mode,” Aldriena said. “I’m trying to decide which is more likely to give us away, an active grenade or the door signal.”

  “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. The last one I had was about how well cooked my eggs should be with my room servant. Hey, the grenade must be stealthy. Probably only uses passive detection. Or else how could it work on other soldiers?”

  “Yeah, it is stealthy to us. But Claw is a warrior and very advanced. So he might be alert for some trap like that and might overlook the simple door notification signal to wake it up. Especially when you’ve just called him.”

  “Use the ambush mode. The designers had more time to think about hiding the grenade than you’ve got to set up the door signal.”

  She’s right. The grenade will be passive and off the network. The only thing that would give it away would be a power source and a chemical signature, both of which are there whether it’s in ambush mode or not.

  “Okay, it’s in ambush mode. Screw the door signal.”

  “We could have had a lot of fun making an old-fashioned booby trap,” Sheridan said.

  Aldriena smiled. “Some other time, perhaps.”

  “Now what?” asked Sheridan.

  “Like you said. We make sure we aren’t here when Claw opens this door.”

  “When should I call?”

  “Not yet. We need to wait. We should time it so that the trap goes off right before the space force arrives.”

  Aldriena led the way out of the fabricator room.

  “Can you mark the room as out of operation? I don’t want anyone to come across the grenade. Not that I think they would steal it. But if no one is around when Claw goes in there, all the better.”

  Sheridan fell silent for a moment.

  “Done.”

  Aldriena walked about two hundred paces back toward the spaceport. She found a long faux wood bench nested between two massive support struts decorated with virtual advertisements.

  They sat down on the bench and waited. People walked by on their silent marches down the concourse. It made Aldriena think of a scene in a link flick where some toxin had been released into the atmosphere and everyone had to wear biowarfare armor everywhere. Except this was real, not a computer-rendered scenario.

  Aldriena’s Cascavel monitored Sheridan’s link. But Sheridan hadn’t tried to signal anyone.

  Is she smart enough to feed me bad information and then wait patiently without giving herself away?

  “It is, you know,” Sheridan said.

  “What?”

  “Incredibly dull. This place is incredibly dull. It used to be a wonderful place, better than any place on Earth. Before Claw showed up and the execs started acting wonky. I believe you about the AI. Your explanation fits perfectly.”

  “I must admit, I wondered why you were being so helpful to a stranger,” Aldriena said.

  “You trusted me by taking your helmet off.”

  “When the UNSF announces their arrival, take your helmet off quickly,” Aldriena said.

  “Why?”

  “It may … the AI might pull some tricks. There’s something in the helmets we don’t understand.”

  “So our execs screwed up … I guess they figured it would be safe to play with AI this far from Earth? But it seems to me that it could spread through our communications links anyway, couldn’t it? Has it?”

  “So far, no. But I honestly don’t know why not. I think the UNSF has new systems to screen for such events.”

  “I don’t think so. How can you detect the data movements designed by something smarter than you are? That’s scary. That means it probably did spread and you don’t know about it.”

  That’s why the space force people said aliens taking over a space station was actually good news. Better than a rogue AI.

  “You know what? We should eat. The UNSF will probably throw you into a holding cell, and it may be awhile before things settle down and they get around to feeding you more than a subsistence ration.”

  Sheridan looked at Aldriena. “Yes, I suppose that’s a good idea. I’m not particularly hungry but I can appreciate the necessity.”

  Sheridan led the way to her quarters. With the addition of the gear to everyone’s lifestyle on the workstations, eating only occurred in the private areas of the station. All of Avalon’s restaurants and snack bars had been closed down, another of the edicts contained in the archaically styled books distributed to the citizens.

  Sheridan’s quarters were small by Earth standards but luxurious for a deep space station. Her quarters extended across a twenty by twenty meter block of the housing level. The cost of every cubic foot this far from the home planet had to be, well, astronomical.

  “Time to blow my best,” Sheridan said, ordering her food. “You’re welcome to whatever I have left for this month.”

  Aldrien
a shrugged. “Pasta is good,” she said.

  “No problem. Pardon me for asking, but do you have some Asian blood?”

  Aldriena smiled. “Japanese.”

  “Ah. Good. Because I’d hate to think I’d been fooled by a Chinese agent,” Sheridan said. She watched Aldriena carefully.

  “My name is a bastardization of … never mind. I could have lied to you about my name. My father brought me to Brazil from Japan. Having some Asian blood often helps me in my job, since we’re rare in the West now. I guess in this case, it hurts me.”

  “I still believe you. You gave up on the idea of getting into the lab once we decided it wasn’t necessary for your claimed objective. If you hadn’t, I’d still be suspicious.”

  Sheridan brought the food over to her simple round table. They sat down on leather strap chairs and started to eat.

  “On some of the stations, they have Asian slaves,” Aldriena said.

  “Really? Are they really slaves, or just paid to pretend?” Sheridan asked.

  “I think they’re real slaves. Chinese most likely. A Chinese person caught in the West would have limited options. It would be easy to traffic them out here and trap them.”

  “And how do you feel about that? About Chinese slaves?”

  Aldriena shrugged. “Living at subsistence on Earth is worse than being a slave out here. I hear they made slaves out of my people after the invasion.”

  They finished the food in silence. Aldriena watched the time in her PV.

  “You should send the message. I think the UNSF will arrive sometime within the hour,” Aldriena said.

  “Okay,” Sheridan said. “I’m nervous.”

  “Of course you are. But send the message anyway.”

  “I sent it,” she said. “Maybe we should move out closer to the spaceport, though.”

  “Sure.”

  She must assume the UNSF will arrive at the spaceport. I won’t mention the police cruisers breach the station wherever they want. The spaceport is as good as any place though, plenty of elbow room there if things get tricky.

  They walked quietly for a minute. They still weren’t too far from where the grenade had been set. The thought that the spinner approached their trap nearby gave Aldriena an irrational urge to sprint away to the opposite side of the station. But she kept her stride relaxed.

  It wouldn’t do to trigger some HIT now. Who knows how many of them are hidden around here?

  “Why didn’t it make more than just Claw? Why hasn’t it spaced us all?”

  “There is more than Claw. On other stations,” Aldriena said. “I think it wants to control the people for now. I don’t know … can any human really understand the AIs?”

  “I wonder if he is going to respond to my message,” Sheridan said.

  Aldriena’s Cascavel received a transmission.

  Target acquired. Actuating.

  “It went off,” she said.

  “Do you think it got him?”

  “No idea,” Aldriena said. “Keep heading to the spaceport. When the marines come, don’t resist and don’t get in the way of the heavies. Other than your helmet, leave your gear on, just in case. It might protect you from shrapnel or a rubber bullet.”

  They walked beside a large trafficway and took a branch toward the spaceport. Aldriena and Sheridan approached one of the long conveyors moving people in and out of the area.

  Crump.

  A distant explosion shook the deck. The other people around Aldriena didn’t take it well. Aldriena heard a woman’s scream muffled by a gear helmet. The base inhabitants broke like a herd of gazelles. Clumsy gazelles, Aldriena thought, jogging along as everyone around her struggled to run in their gear.

  This is the United Nations Space Force. We are conducting a surprise inspection of this facility. Report to your personal quarters and stay there or face possible severe injury or death.

  Sheridan took her helmet off. “Thank Cthulhu,” she said. “You were telling me the truth.”

  Aldriena fell into the stream of people. Like Sheridan, she wanted to know if the grenade had worked, but didn’t dare investigate. She imagined the ordnance bolting forward, rolling toward its logged target to activate at its base … then what? The machine had been enveloped in foam and helplessly trapped? Or had it evaded with superhuman agility, and even now roamed the halls seeking its attacker?

  A person pushed Aldriena aside, trying to sprint in their gear. He tripped stepping between conveyors and sprawled. Aldriena laughed. Then she tore her helmet off and tossed it aside.

  No reason to put up with this. I’ve already put my money down on the UNSF as the winner of this fight.

  She pulled off the suit coverings on her arms.

  “Don’t do that!” someone said behind her. “It’s against the rules!”

  Aldriena laughed again and shed the frontal torso section. Her Veer skinsuit showed under the remains of her gear.

  She danced aside off the walkway and started to run, working on her gear as she went. She had managed to get her back piece off when she felt a sharp pain in her left leg. Her run faltered. She felt another flash of pain in her right arm. An ominous whining noise grew behind her.

  She turned around and reached for her new C4B. Another flash of pain struck her other leg and she fell backward onto her rear end. She brought her gun up in her right hand, but it was smacked away in an instant.

  The next second a shining orb hovered over her. A single straight flamingo leg of silvery metal extended straight downward, pressing into her chest above her heart. The other legs of the machine extended outward radially, except for one, which extended toward her throat. It had a long curved blade built into the tip that resembled nothing so much as an oversized silvery claw.

  “Merda,” she whispered.

  Thirteen

  Only seven ASSAIL units warmed up in the Guts while Jameson and Jackson played their delicate games of stealth with the Avalon detection grid. Bren didn’t understand the details of hiding the Vigilant’s approach to the space station. He only knew that the electronic warfare folks strove to avoid detection for as long as possible so the BCP would have the element of surprise.

  Officially, Gauss Systems had constructed Avalon for the production of Internet infrastructure equipment and software. Like most of the corporation facilities placed millions of miles from Earth, it didn’t need to be out this far to do zero-G manufacturing. It was a way of escaping the grasp of the world government.

  Bren worked with his ASSAIL handlers through their pre-mission checklist. They monitored logs, measured resource usages, and ran tests to verify the cold intelligences inside the hard metal spheres. Bren embraced the monotony of the launch ritual because it helped him forget the nerves that had prevented normal eating and sleeping for the last twenty-four hours. It bothered him deeply that they didn’t have enough machines to assure victory. At least they had a lot of new marines to back up the ASSAILs.

  I wonder if that amazing woman managed to take out the radar on Avalon. She probably succeeded, if she didn’t turn on us. She seemed supremely confident. Then again, maybe she held her position solely through her astounding looks.

  He’d moved up the core startup schedule another twenty minutes, allowing for even older cores going into the assault. What else could they do to compensate for having only seven heavies? The cores would be more mature, more capable, and more dangerous to both the Avalonians and the UNSF.

  Finally, the ASSAIL units stood ready. Their cores were grown, tested, and placed inside the chassis that would carry them into combat. As soon as the Vigilant breached the hull, they would move through. Bren listened to the activity as the breach team worked on another channel.

  “Soon now,” Bren said. “The breach is near the spaceport, just beyond the arrival security points.”

  “You’re hunting these creatures. They’re very intelligent. They’ll escalate their defense,” a voice said over Bren’s link.

  Bren was startled. He hadn’t
prepared himself for the possibility that one of the ASSAILs would talk to him so early on. His PV showed that Meridian had engaged him in conversation. He reminded himself that the cores had been started earlier than last time.

  “Advise a counter strategy,” Bren said calmly.

  “Send the ASSAIL contingent forward alone,” said the ASSAIL. “The marines are vulnerable. They’ll need to withdraw or face heavy losses.”

  “That isn’t possible. We can’t comply. The marines provide support and consolidate what you’ve cleared out. You don’t believe that the operative Niachi has given us the element of surprise?”

  Bren referred to Aldriena’s mission, which had been included on the pre-mission information module supplied to all the cores.

  “The attempt at containment failed. There’s a high probability that the operative Aldriena Niachi is dead,” said Meridian.

  “How in the hell does it know that?” he yelled aloud in the Guts. He kept his comment off the link traffic with careful concentration. He didn’t want the machine to overhear his emotional outburst.

  “Which one is talking to you?” Hoffman asked.

  “Meridian. It’s Meridian again.” Bren said, and then transmitted on the channel. “The decision has been made to send the marines in with you. You’ll have to plan accordingly.”

  Bren considered repeating the mission priorities but he stopped himself. The machine wouldn’t overlook them. Saying everything again, as if talking to a child would speed the machine’s negative judgment of its masters.

  “I advise the soldiers to shoot at anything that moves,” Meridian transmitted.

  Bren’s eyebrows rose. For a moment, he thought he’d been the victim of a practical joke. Was someone pretending to be Meridian? He ruled it out. He didn’t have a single handler or tech who wasn’t utterly serious about the mission.

  “Major Henley,” Bren transmitted directly to the major. “I have it on good authority that the marines are … you may be a direct target of the Reds this time.”

  “They’re trained for it. There’s nothing more we can do.”

  “Meridian says … you should shoot anything that moves. That’s a direct quote.”