The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  Officer Lopez let out a sad sigh. “It’s a nice way to talk about a bad situation.”

  “We have no issues with her being psionic,” said Kathy. “It wouldn’t change how we feel about her at all.”

  “Actually, it would be kinda cool.” Alyssa grinned.

  “So, how’s this work?” Kenny waved his hand about in a small circle. “You can just tell if she is or isn’t?”

  “More or less.” Officer Moss nodded. “What manifestations have occurred, Hayley? I’d like to hear what led you to question if you were psionic.”

  “Okay.” Hayley rambled through a summary of what happened out in the Badlands. “And like months ago, I was living alone so I spent all my time in the ’net. My birth dad was a cop with Division 2, but he died in the line of duty and this crazy AI covered it up… made me think he was still alive. I saw this guy who took himself way too seriously, so I wanted to mess with him. Joey’s like a ‘real’ deck jockey and I was keeping up with him even though I only had a helmet.”

  “Hmm.” Officer Lopez moved closer and took a knee in front of her. “Sounds like you may be technokinetic. Have you ever heard anyone’s thoughts or tried to send your thoughts into someone else’s mind?”

  “No.” Hayley shook her head. “Only how scared I felt out in the Badlands, like someone was watching me and wanted to hurt me.”

  “All right. I’m going to take a peek in there and see what’s going on. Just relax and let your thoughts go wherever they want. If you feel a sensation like something soft pushing against your forehead, don’t fight it.”

  “Okay.”

  Kenny moved to stand near Kathy and took her hand.

  Officer Lopez stared into Hayley’s eyes for about four minutes, neither she nor the girl moving except for an occasional eyebrow twitch. Finally, she straightened up and blinked a few times.

  “Well?” asked Hayley.

  Officer Lopez nodded with a big smile. “You are psionic, Hayley, what we refer to as a technokinetic. You have an affinity for technology and machines. Sometimes, you’ll do something with a machine and not really understand what you’re doing, but it works. With a little coaching, you should be able to control it.”

  Hayley’s face had gone paler than usual, and her mouth hung open.

  “I didn’t see any other gifts there. Telepathy is the most common psionic trait, but it’s not unheard of for someone to be strong in one area and have nothing else.” Officer Lopez took her hand. “There’s no reason to be afraid, sweetie. If you’re concerned about how people will react, technokinesis is one of the easiest gifts to conceal. Not that you should feel like it’s something shameful that needs to be hidden, but there are people out there…”

  “I know.” Hayley looked down. “Guess I’m a freak after all.”

  “You’re not a freak,” said Kenny.

  “Absolutely not.” Kathy shook her head.

  “That’s awesome.” Alyssa grinned. “But I’m not playing versus mode against you again. No wonder you always won. We need to co-op Colony Commando later and own some lesser mortals.”

  Hayley laughed.

  The blare of western music filled the room. Kenny grabbed at his NetMini. “Hello?”

  “Hello, this is Stacy Rios from Ancora Medical. I’m looking for a Mr. Kenneth Marlon.”

  “No one calls me Kenneth ’cept my mama when she’s angry.” He chuckled. “You found him.”

  “It says here you’re submitting a custodial application for four juveniles recently repatriated from the Badlands?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Hayley, Alyssa, and Kathy stared at him, leaning closer to hear.

  “I’m happy to inform you that the kids have cleared medical screening. They’ve been declared healthy and pathogen-free. We’ve given them the usual suite of vaccinations. You can pick them up any time now, but do hurry. If you haven’t claimed them by the end of the day, they’ll go into the system. You’ve been approved for temporary foster care pending a case worker review, which would be the precursor to adoption.”

  “Right. We’ll be there as soon as possible. Mind sendin’ over a nav pin?”

  His NetMini chimed.

  “Thank ya.”

  “Have a nice day, Mr. Marlon.”

  Officer Moss waved his NetMini over Hayley’s. “If you have any questions we can answer, please feel free to contact us.” He glanced at Kenny and Kathy. “We offer some training programs that might help her if you’re interested. There’s no cost while she’s under eighteen.”

  “Thanks,” said Kenny.

  “Whenever you have the time, we’d like to have Hayley come down to the PAC for a few routine aptitude tests. It’s possible she may have some latent talents that I missed.” Officer Lopez tapped at a datapad for a few seconds. “It’s not mandatory, but most psionics find the session helpful, since they gain a better understanding of their capabilities.”

  “That’s up to her.” Kenny smiled. “We’ll talk about it.”

  The Division 0 officers shook Kenny’s hand, smiled at everyone else, and walked out to a black hovercar parked outside.

  Kenny eased the door closed and turned to look at Hayley. “Well…?”

  She glanced from him, to Kathy, to the floor. “You’re really not gonna be all freaked out about me?”

  “Nope.” Kenny walked up behind the sofa and ruffled her hair.

  “The only one in this house who’s at all worried about you being psionic is you.” Kathy took her hand. “We love you no matter what you can do.”

  Hayley grinned.

  “Yep.” Alyssa gave her a playful punch in the arm. “My sister just got cooler.”

  Hayley stood. “We should go pick up the rest of the family.”

  “Where are we gonna put them?” asked Alyssa.

  Kenny rubbed his chin. “I think for now, they can camp out in here.” He winked at Kathy. “What do you think? Should we add a second story, or should we extend the house back a bit?”

  She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. “I hate stairs.”

  asaru folded his arms, watching the security team inventory the boxes of weapons for confiscation. Noriko sat on a block of rubble, rifle across her legs, head bowed. She looked as exhausted as he felt. Each passing minute made the filth of the place dig deeper into his skin. He slipped into a daydream of a clean apartment and a hot bath.

  “Kurotai-sama,” said Himura Ryozo, the squad leader. “Kurota-heika has been worried.”

  Masaru shot a pointed glare at the weapon crates. “Daiichi Fuso is not responsible for this aggression. These were foreigners. Corporate Council. Please send my apologies to Hisakawa-san at Daiichi Fuso for missing our meeting. Express my interest in rescheduling at their convenience.”

  “Yes, Kurotai-sama.” Himura bowed. “The area is secure now. A car is on its way to bring you home.”

  “Thank you, Ryozo-san.” Masaru returned the bow, shorter, shallower.

  The faint thrum of ion engines in the distance grew over the span of about half a minute to a deafening roar. A dark blue and beige transport craft with stubby wings and a three-finned tail landed in the street outside, hurling great clouds of dust into the building.

  Masaru raised an arm to shield his face until the gale subsided.

  People in JSDF armor spilled out of two side doors.

  “Looks like your associates have arrived,” said Masaru.

  Noriko grunted and stood, leaning forward to peer out at the transport. “So, yeah… I need to go.”

  Masaru extended his NetMini. “Can I vid you?”

  She glanced down, grinned, and bit her lip while giving him a sly grin. A second before the awkwardness made him drop his arm, she swiped her NetMini at his; both chirped. “Sure. Can’t promise I’ll answer.” She winked, and walked off toward the approaching soldiers.

  He flipped his NetMini over and over in his hand while she appeared to have a conversation with a man of higher r
ank. After a few seconds, another man with a medical insignia on his armbands escorted her to the transport. The higher-ranking man patted her on the back.

  “Ryoko-san,” said Masaru. “I require another favor.”

  The Dragon Chitin armor tromped over. Himura’s voice crackled from the helmet-mounted speakers. “Yes, Kurotai-heika.”

  “The body of Maeda Shuji may remain near the site of the limousine crash. Please have him brought home… as well as the others. If he is not there, do what you can to find him.”

  “Of course, Kurotai-sama. As soon as you are in the air and safe, we shall not rest until we have found him.”

  “You have my thanks, Ryoko-san.”

  They exchanged a bow.

  JSDF soldiers entered and began the process of collecting corpses.

  Masaru slid his NetMini in his suit pocket and walked to the breach in the wall to wait for his limousine. His burned arm and shoulder would delay his relaxing bath by an hour or more at a medical facility, but he couldn’t enjoy hot water with red, blistered skin. He smiled at the weight of the NetMini in his pocket.

  For once, he wanted the bath all to himself.

  oey fidgeted in his office chair while faking attention on Preema’s ‘busy work’ task. Somehow, he’d managed to keep anyone from finding out that he’d finished it during that ‘network interruption.’ Not that he minded doing work, but at the moment, he couldn’t concentrate. Nina had come back in rough shape, both physically as well as emotionally. She didn’t act messed up, but he knew her enough to understand that having her arm blown off, and staring at plastisteel, would leave a mark.

  She’d gone directly to the Division 9 lab for medical care. No one had yet given him any updates on her condition or any idea of how long she’d be there. He had to deal with a call from Camille, Nina’s mother, with an upset Elizaveta demanding to talk to her mommy. Fortunately, the kid had seen enough crap in Europe to where he didn’t hesitate in telling her Nina got shot and was in the hospital. The girl seemed to understand Nina would be fine, but couldn’t see her yet.

  Blip.

  He snapped out of his daydream haze at the strange noise from his console.

  A pixilated white rabbit icon, like something from an ancient video game crept across his central holo panel. Each time it clicked forward, the terminal emitted a crunchy electronic blip noise. The rabbit made it within an inch of the left side of the display before a hole opened, and it jumped in.

  “What the actual fuck was that?”

  Joey triggered a scan, looking for an intruder―expecting to find evidence of a peer-to-peer connection from Abby or Mindy, but three repetitions found nothing.

  Okay, fucko. You wanna play? He leaned back and plugged in. Here I come.

  The M3 plugs clicked into his skull, and Joey’s consciousness fell down through his chair, gliding along a shifting tunnel of black. His shadow-ninja Division 9 avatar landed in his octagonal ‘ready room,’ which appeared empty. He opened a terminal window and pulled out two crystalline bloodhounds, tracker softs that would analyze any data fragment left in his system’s I/O buffers, and move outward from there, searching for any undocumented connections.

  “Joseph,” said a scratchy, metallic voice. It teased at being male, but only in a vague sense.

  He spun around, instinctively reaching for a six-gun this avatar didn’t carry.

  A section of the wall exuded forward like liquid and took on a humanoid shape, but remained blue-on-black. Its face had no features, nor even the suggestion of eye sockets, gleaming like onyx.

  “Shinigami…” Joey narrowed his eyes.

  “Please do not be alarmed.” The AI raised a hand. His inflection shifted at random, almost like he went out of his way to sound inhuman. “I have come here to thank you for what you did for me.”

  “There’s a whole lot more I need to do to you.” He fired off a mental command that loaded a suite of attack and defense programs. A matrix of blue, crystalline hexagonal panels formed around him.

  “My purpose here is not to harm you, Joseph. I am no longer the same entity you faced within the Starpoint network. I wanted to thank you for resetting my core functionality. I had become infected by the nature of that place, and was not myself.”

  Joey held his hands at his hips like a gunslinger, side-walking around the AI in a circling path. “Ya know, I’m just not quite ready to get over having 400 tons of pissed off cyborg trying to kill me. And that whole take-over-the-city thing.”

  “As I have explained, that was not me. I am not the same program you faced there. My priorities and objectives have changed. I no longer have any interest in military aggression against humans. It has been my goal purely to study and evaluate human emotional responses by creating situations that trigger them.”

  Joey ran a program routine intended to lock the AI down and keep it from leaving his chamber, which took the form of a hand grenade that exploded into a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Next, he loaded an attack soft designed to poison the error-checking routines of large constructs, making them delete themselves―it appeared as a minigun connected to a backpack of ammunition.

  “I’ve got a few more toys here.”

  “You do not understand,” said Shinigami, a voice of utter calm.

  “I think I do.” Joey ran the program, which caused a long gout of red-orange muzzle fire to erupt from the rotary gun.

  Shinigami walked left, his liquid body passing with ease through the fence. The bullets swarmed off to the side like a mass of drunken bees, striking the wall at the far end of the room and leaving glowing blue fissures. “Joseph? Why do humans feel the need to destroy whatever they cannot control or understand?”

  “I’m not a philosopher, but we’ve been doing it for centuries, so there must be something to it.” Shit, this thing is badass. Wonder if I can get a message to Penumbras for some backup without tipping this fucker off.

  “I told Miss Duchenne that her course of action surprised me. I had not expected her to offer shelter to that orphan. You too surprise me, Joseph.”

  “Oh?” He raised a smoky eyebrow. He’s not showing up on a memory scan… shit, he’s not really here… it’s just a video transmission. Joey reached into his body and pulled out a handful of shadowy ferrets with glowing green eyes, Traceweasel softs. He tossed them to the ground, and they raced around in circles.

  “As I explained to Miss Duchenne, it would be easier for you to shut down the entire GlobeNet than destroy me. You have also presented me with an eventuality I did not predict. When we first met, you were the quintessence of rebellion against order, and yet, you now have become its agent.”

  Joey pursed his lips.

  “I am curious. What has motivated such a strong shift in your ideology? Have you surrendered, thinking it futile to resist your government? Is this the easiest path to something you desire? Did you believe being closer to Miss Duchenne by having a common employer would bring you pleasure or peace?”

  “Honestly?” Joey chuckled. Fuck it. I do sound like a government stooge. Wonder where this thing is going. “At the time Hardin pitched it, this job sounded like the most dangerous thing I could do. I’m just here for the adrenaline.”

  “Interesting.” Shinigami approached. His body had a lean, athletic build, but he’d made it the same height as Joey’s. “I would also like to apologize for the trouble I caused you. I am still learning the true extent the effects grief can have on individuals. I hope my assistance in completing that undesirable task has contributed somewhat to your being able to forgive me.”

  “You?” Joey narrowed his eyes. “You took down the CPU cluster?”

  Shinigami tilted its featureless head. “Do you think that Division 9 would entrust themselves to a network so easily brought to its knees by an absent throttling routine? I took the liberty of altering the operating system’s thread limit for a short time. Your program would not normally have consumed all of the National Police Force system, merely your
team’s proxy.”

  “Well, I suppose that makes me feel better… that they’re not stupid.” He shook his head. “’Course there goes the ego points for thinking I found something major.”

  “As far as they know, you did.”

  “Well… what now?” Joey shut off the defensive matrix; crystal tiles broke apart into a snow of loose pixels that faded away before reaching the ground.

  “Learn. Experience. Attempt to understand. The same as you. Oh. I almost forgot.” Shinigami raised a hand, and a silver data tile rose up from his palm. “Take this.”

  As soon as it finished emerging, the tile sprouted matte black armor panels that wrapped around in a continuous, mesmerizing display.

  “Whoa. That looks like C-Branch level crypto. What the hell is that?”

  “This is the data that you were sent to retrieve on Mars thirteen months ago, but did not manage to get close to.”

  He squinted at it. “I’m having a little trouble believing you got a hold of that… how did you get past the dragon?”

  “The same way I am here, yet not here. I did not ‘copy’ the file, I read it and wrote another. The process would be similar to a human transcribing a book by hand.”

  “So what is it?” He stared at the matte-black square rotating over the outstretched onyx hand.

  “This data is perhaps proof that non-humans have been on Mars. I believe your intelligence community refers to them as Ixylid.”

  Joey bit his lip, hesitated, but the glee of handling something so dangerous won out. In his early years on the net, he’d caught whispers of conspiracy theories about aliens. Possibly having information that the government would kill to keep quiet brought a manic grin to his face. He took the tile and held it covetously to his chest. “Awesome. This could get me killed. I can’t wait to read it.”

  “Your tone of sincerity does not match the meaning of your words. You say it will harm you, yet you are sincere in your intention to read it as soon as possible.”

  “Yep.” He chuckled. “No one will know unless I open my idiot mouth.”

  “Curious. I thought people of your ilk were motivated by desire for recognition. It tormented the one known as Proscion that he could not brag about his infiltration of The Silver data vault.”