Uroboros Saga Book 2

by Arthur Walker

  Vance could only smile in response, looking up at the afterglow of sunset as the city grew dark around them. They walked the rest of the way to her car in silence, nearly ten city blocks. She had been careful to park away from cameras and where she wouldn’t be ticketed or noticed.

  “Already acquainted with the lifestyle it seems,” Vance remarked, looking over his shoulder toward the empty street.

  “I did not understand why I had to be so careful until tonight. Did you have any idea a monster like that could exist?” Cerise asked, shuddering at the thought of what she witnessed earlier.

  “No, that was new,” Vance replied, all joviality draining from his expression.

  “Still want that ride?”

  “No, the bus station isn’t far, and I’d like to get out of town for a while. Take care, Cerise.”

  “You do as well, Vance Uroboros.”

  Chapter 11

  Silverstein’s Log, Part 4

  After Taylor and Dragos came back, everyone began to question our next destination, but none more than I. I’d done the calculations in my head more than once, letting myself go into a trance-like fugue to contemplate the math that lay behind trying to exit orbit while avoiding the CGG’s satellites. The questions I asked Matthias to that end were driving him crazy, but to put it as mildly as possible, things weren’t adding up.

  “Silverstein, I do not understand why you persist in asking me these questions,” Matthias said, tossing his notepad on the floor of the cargo hold.

  “I’m curious, and I need to reach some conclusions before we attempt to break orbit,” I persisted.

  “Yes, it is feasible to put an AI into a restful sleep and theoretically it would dream,” Matthias replied, rolling his eyes.

  “Would the dreams be random or could they follow a pre-programmed sequence?” I replied.

  “I’ve no idea. My own ethics prevented me from messing with an AI once it achieved a state of being self-aware,” Matthias said throwing his hands up in exasperation.

  “If an AI were to dream and it had global access to the CGG network, would other systems perceive those dreams to be real. Are other systems designed to discern the difference between what is present in the real world, and augmented realities created by a dreaming artificial intelligence?” I asked.

  “What does this have to do with the military satellites?” Matthias asked.

  “I’m trying to figure out how these military grade orbitals pass through one another without having a collision. In trying to track and predict their movements based on the information we have available, there should have been six such collisions in the last fifty years since they were put into orbit,” I replied.

  “You did this in your head? Thousands of rotations over fifty years by two dozen military grade orbitals?” Matthias was astonished.

  “You apparently thought I could, or you wouldn’t have made the deal,” I replied beginning to lose some patience of my own.

  “Relative to our current context, and taking into account rotations completed in the last few months, I didn’t think you’d go rogue human computer on me,” Matthias said laughing.

  “I got suspicious because from the known rotations one of those six collisions should have happened earlier this year. I thought it might give us a better chance with two satellites out of commission. Then it occurred to me that this might have happened before so I sat down and figured out how often such a thing could have come about” I explained.

  “Then, you got excited thinking that six collisions would mean half as many satellites in orbit, making the calculations child’s play,” Matthias said, nodding.

  “Right, but when I checked the onboard computer aboard Tullia’s transport it still detects twenty four military orbitals,” I explained as I counted my fingers for emphasis.

  Matthias stood there quiet for a moment, stroking a lock of his long white hair with one hand, his beard with the other. He turned and paced back and forth as if deep in thought.

  “The only AI with that kind of global access would be one of the two resident within, and responsible for, the operation of the lunar colony. You said there were, or should have been, six collisions in the last fifty years?” Matthias said, a worried edge to his voice.

  “Right.”

  “What’s going on? Just about got the calculations figured out?” Taylor asked walking into the cargo bay with Tullia.

  “No, we’ve got a problem,” Matthias replied.

  “Well, so do we,” Taylor replied.

  “Oh?” Matthias and I said in unison.

  “We just got an encrypted radio signal from somewhere nearby from Vance Uroboros. It is instructing us to head to a drop point in North America and pick up details on our first job we’d agreed to do” Tullia replied sullenly.

  “Vance claims to have their mother as his guest and that she will remain comfortable as long as we do what he says,” Taylor continued, giving me a knowing look.

  In hindsight, what I did next probably wasn’t the best plan, but they say the truth will set you free.

  “There’s a problem with that. I am Vance Uroboros, and I haven’t kidnapped anyone that I’m aware of,” I confessed.

  “I know,” Tullia replied.

  Matthias, Taylor, and I looked at her somewhat shocked.

  “I hear you talking when you come on board. There is very little that happens on board my transport I don’t hear,” Tullia said tapping her auditory implant.

  “If you knew, why didn’t you do anything?” I asked.

  “My brothers are trigger happy and foolish at times, as Taylor has already learned the hard way. I had to see how this would play out before taking action,” Tullia replied calmly.

  “I guess it’s playing out now,” I said sadly.

  “Yes, it is. I do not know who I am dealing with, but I have a feeling you do. He wants me to take you to Port Montaigne and gain access to a research facility, take a piece of hardware, and make a delivery,” Tullia said, folding her arms.

  Tullia was a tough lady. I doubted there was anything I could tell her that would make her think twice about messing with Madmar. Also, I didn’t want to lie to her.

  “It’s probably a man named Dr. Maurice Madmar. He’s had it in for us because we’re in possession of a key he needs to access the artificial intelligences that run the Lunar Colony. I believe that the financial shutdown was something I did before losing my memory, and that Dr. Madmar has hijacked the assets and resources I used to do that for his own purposes,” I explained.

  “You are the one responsible for the shutdown?” Tullia said, eyebrows raised.

  “I don’t recollect honestly, but everything I’ve been able to figure out about myself so far indicates that is the case,” I replied.

  “Why?” Tullia asked.

  “Why did I engineer a shutdown of the global financial system and cause a worldwide repossession of everything connected to the grid?”

  “Yes.”

  “It might have been revenge. I think I had a family maybe, but I did a really good job of putting out a lot of misinformation about myself to keep my movements concealed. Also, there are clones of me wandering about, or there were before the shutdown at least,” I explained.

  “Could one of your clones be behind this? Taken my mother?” Tullia asked letting her arms drop to her sides.

  “It’s possible, but my money is on Madmar. They wrecked his server farm and he’ll need to build another if he hopes to hack into the Lunar Colony AI and gain control. Making us help him get what he needs is just the sort of sick revenge he’s into. Is it possible you or one of your brothers has a connection to Dr. Madmar?” Matthias said.

  “This Dr. Madmar, what did he do before the shutdown?” Tullia asked.

  “He was part
of the MDC program, and helped build tailored life forms,” Taylor said, looking to Matthias.

  “The MDC program is just one tentacle of a monster the Central Global Government built in secret to combat an alleged alien invasion, the details of which were never released to the public. The program was called ‘Colossus’ and Maurice Madmar was on the board with me, Also, Dr. Helmet, and a few other individuals I should think are all dead by now,” Matthias said, almost whispering.

  “Where are Dragos, Truman, and Ezra right now?” I asked.

  “Out trading for supplies and fuel,” Taylor replied.

  “As soon as they get back, we should probably discuss our next move. My vote is that we go to Port Montaigne and get the item in question,” I suggested.

  “What?” Taylor said delivering a savage poke to my ribs.

  “Silverstein is right,” Matthias said as he sat down on a crate. “Whatever it is that Madmar wants, we have to make sure he doesn’t get it.”

  “What about my mother?” Tullia said stepping uncomfortably close to me.

  “If it is Madmar, no one he’s taken in the past has ever been seen again,” I said biting my lower lip.

  Tullia bowed her head slightly.

  “Then all I should hope for is some payback?” Tullia said after a moment.

  “Madmar’s a blight on the world. We all agreed before that he needed to die. Maybe we should start thinking about how that’s going to happen,” Taylor whispered, grasping my arm.

  We sat in the cargo hold in silence until Dragos, Truman, and Ezra returned. They had managed to scare up some necessities for the transport and canned food. Ezra seemed cheerful for once until he saw our collective expressions.

  “What’s wrong now?” he said setting the supplies down on the cargo hold floor.

  “Our trip to the Lunar Colony might be delayed somewhat,” I said.

  “Vance Uroboros did not hire us. Silverstein is Uroboros, and he claims another man, Dr. Madmar, is the one who hired us and that he’s the one that has taken our mother from her home,” Tullia said, her two brothers quickly becoming distraught.

  “How do you know this?” Truman muttered.

  “Dragos, you shot your friend Bratislav because he was being controlled. Something exactly like that happened to some of our friends, and the person responsible is this Dr. Madmar. It’s a long story, but he’s been employing resources and contacts that belonged to Vance Uroboros to hurt people and get what he wants,” Taylor explained.

  “What does this Madmar want?” Dragos asked as calmly as he could.

  “I can explain everything on the way. Do you trust me?” Taylor asked looking up at Dragos.

  Dragos rubbed his hands up and down on his unshaven face as if to clear his mind of everything he’d just heard. He turned to Truman who just shrugged and then to Tullia who just nodded.

  “We trust you. How do you know this man has our mother?” Dragos said at last.

  “The transport just received an encrypted message from someone claiming to be me. It basically said you need to carry out the job you agreed to or your mother would get uncomfortable. Your first target is in Port Montaigne, where we came from,” I explained.

  “I suspect that is no coincidence,” Dragos said in a low tone of voice.

  The plan was to pass over the Adriatic Sea and skirt the coast line of Italy until we rounded Sicily and then out to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean beyond that. If we were careful to avoid land and flew as quickly as we could while maintaining a fairly low altitude, we should avoid trouble like we experienced in Turkey. Once we’d all agreed on a flight plan, we prepped the transport for flight and took to the sky in the middle of the night.

  The transport shook for hours until we were able to climb higher out over the sea. In spite of the turbulence, Tullia was getting very good at flying from what I could tell. I was a fair pilot, but she’d likely surpass me with more practice. It was our hope that with these countermeasures, or the lack of anyone to stop us, we’d get out over the Atlantic without incident.

  I sat on the floor just outside the pilot’s compartment and prepared for a long sit with one of Truman’s romance novels. I had volunteered to take the helm if Tullia needed a break or to stretch her legs. Matthias was going to monitor the engine since she had never logged a flight the length required for a transatlantic flight. The closest non-stop was their trip to the Arctic zone.

  “How long do you think the flight will take?” I asked.

  “You’ve already done the math to get this craft to the moon and you’re unsure of how long it’ll take to get from Serbia to North America?” she said laughing from the cockpit.

  “With me driving, it’d probably take almost 30 hours, but I bet you’re faster,” I replied.

  “I think we can do it in 25 hours depending on how soon we ascend after clearing the Mediterranean,” she said, looking over her shoulder through the oval entrance to the hallway where I sat.

  I nodded and resumed my attempt to mentally digest the contents of Truman’s romance novel. It was one of those corset rippers filled to the brim with heaving bosoms and so forth. It was better than playing cards with Matthias or attempting a conversation with Taylor at the moment. The episode in town with Dragos had changed her for the worse. I was a little angry about that.

  Ezra appeared at the oval entrance opposite and stepped inside and crouched down next to me. He looked at my book covetously and waited patiently. I sighed and handed him the book.

  “Thanks, this is the only one that I haven’t read. I must find out what happens,” Ezra said sitting down beside me.

  “I can guess what happens. Lady Tassel Russet and Lord Gentry Frogham probably...”

  “Please don’t guess,” Ezra hissed, as he shushed me with a finger to his purplish lips.

  I smiled and did my best to catch some sleep. Ezra woke me some time later, pressing the book into my jacket pocket. I looked over and saw Tullia still at the controls, the sky outside the cockpit window slowly getting brighter. I rubbed my eyes and stood up to stretch as the hallway wasn’t the most comfortable place for a catnap.

  “Thanks. The suspense was killing me,” Ezra said departing for his own cabin, probably to bother Taylor for some breakfast.

  I was hungry, too.

  “Tullia, I’m going to get something to eat. Can I bring you something?” I asked.

  “Coffee.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  I walked out and rounded the corner to pass by the crew cabins. The door to mine was partially open so I peeked in. Matthias wasn’t there, but it looked like someone had gone through the room searching for something. I frowned, wondering what new drama was transpiring on board.

  Taylor was in the kitchen making something on the stove. Ezra stood beside her watching from his tip toes as she cooked what looked like sliced ham in a skillet. She smiled at me then turned back to what she was doing.

  “Have you seen Matthias this morning?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think he ever went to bed,” Taylor replied.

  “He was worried this old bird might overheat or something if the engine wasn’t properly monitored. I’ll take him some coffee, see if he managed to find a comfortable place to sleep in that tangle of cables and pressure hoses down there,” I said pouring two cups of coffee.

  I headed back out into the hallway and then for the stairs down to the engine room. I had to duck under all sorts of obstacles to get there, as cables and other bits of the ship dangled down from the upper decks to connect to various machines, filters, ducts, and finally the engine itself. Matthias was there, his hand pressed against the industrial glass that separated the engine core from the outside.

  “Brought you some coffee,” I said trying to juggle one of the three cups
I carried onto a flat surface near him.

  Matthias came to my rescue, taking one of the cups off my hands.

  “I need your help with something,” Matthias began, taking a sip of the coffee.

  “Okay.”

  “When I went to the Arctic, I was attacked by Acrididae Metasapients. They tore my armor apart. I lost consciousness when my power armor lost pressure and was compromised. I should have been killed. When I woke up, I was alive and relatively unharmed, laying in what remained of my powered armor,” Matthias explained.

  “You think you might be hanging in a plastic tube somewhere, controlling a replica of yourself? An unwitting agent of Dr. Madmar?” I ventured, suddenly understanding his apprehension.

  “It’s possible. The Metasapients were long gone by the time I woke up. It wasn’t long before I was captured by Dragos and his crew. They seemed to know right where to look for me, and I didn’t wait even a day before they showed up. I have to wonder if there are plans inside of Madmar’s plans we can’t even see yet,” Matthias whispered sadly.

  “How do we check you out?” I asked.

  “Taylor might be able to detect if my body is synthetic, particularly if it is receiving a radio signal,” Matthias replied.

  “Why haven’t you asked her?” I replied, somewhat frantic.

  “I’ve been able to make use of my psychic abilities, but the man-machine interface a person has with a created replica might allow for such a thing. I’ve been trying to figure it out on my own and I’ve also been a little scared of the answer,” Matthias said, turning to look at the console mounted to the side of the engine column.

  “Whatever you decide to do, it should probably happen before we get back to Port Montaigne.”

  Matthias nodded his agreement.

  “That coffee for Tullia?” Matthias asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You should take it to her, it’s getting cold.”