Masada's Gate

by Chris Pourteau

I resumed my climb, begrudging every sound. When I reached the top, the corridor was empty. And completely lit. Either Bekah had overridden that part of Erkennen’s program, or someone had just walked through there.

  I pulled myself from the maintenance tube and willed blood back into my extremities. The station was still as cold as hell. I surely wished Bekah would fix that heat.

  Richter’s quarters weren’t far.

  I took a step and stumbled. My knee, taking its revenge for ladder servitude. Once you pass a certain age, the things you took for granted—taking a reliable step, let’s say—have a way of humbling you by their absence. A few seconds of willpower, and I was limping toward Richter’s apartment. I passed the skeleton coder Erkennen had given me over the lock, and the door slid aside. I ducked in quickly.

  Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

  “Lights.”

  The place lit up with emptiness. The aquariums were there, and the rest of his stuff. But no Richter. There were a thousand other places on the station he could be, I reminded myself.

  Maybe I’d outthought myself after all.

  A sound came from his bedroom.

  Or maybe I hadn’t.

  I grabbed a pillow from the couch and moved swiftly across the room. My knee played ball for once. It knew if I died, it wouldn’t have anybody to bitch to anymore. The bedroom had gone silent. A glance inside made it look deserted. My ears knew better.

  “Out, Richter,” I said. “Let’s wrap this two-man play up right now.”

  Richter was smarter than he looked. I moved in. When I rounded the bed where the little prick was hiding, I’d shoot first. None of those so-this-is-how-it-ends speeches.

  Just one dead traitor.

  “Don’t shoot! It’s just me!”

  The geek who loved to argue with Bekah crouched on his knees beside Richter’s bed, a pair of very shaky hands over his head. Could his eyes bulge any bigger?

  “Tripp? What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, holding my gun on him. It was a damned good question. Richter wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe Daniel Tripp had helped Ole Bruno compromise the station.

  “What’s it look like?” he squeaked, squirming out of his hiding place.

  I stepped back. “Getting ready to die, maybe.”

  “No, please,” he said, “you can’t.”

  “Wanna bet? Hard to miss at this range.”

  Backing away, Tripp bumped into the wall. “No, you don’t understand. You kill me, you kill the Company.”

  My brain took a second to process that. My knee started to whine again. Hold, please. There’s a customer in front of you named Curiosity.

  I turned and tossed a command behind me. “Engage lock.” The door to Richter’s bedroom slipped shut. Then, “Explain what you just said.”

  He winced. “I—it’s a secret.”

  I wagged my head. “Okay, then.” My pistol firmed up its argument. “You and your secret can hug each other in the grave.”

  “Wait! Okay, okay!” Tripp deflated a little, like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. “I guess it doesn’t matter now anyway.”

  “Clock’s ticking,” I said. Whatever this was, it needed to be over. Richter needed killing.

  “I’m working on a secret project for Regent Erkennen. A way to stop Cassandra.”

  I blinked. That’s how you know I’m thinking. When I’d arrived at Masada Station, I remembered Erkennen mentioning something about “curing Cassandra.” A tech miracle that would give SynCorp the edge.

  Okay. Attention gotten.

  “You’re Gregor Erkennen’s secret weapon?” I said. “He left you here to work on the Cassandra killer?”

  Tripp nodded like his neck was a spring.

  But it seemed too thin by half. Tripp, squatting in Richter’s quarters? And why would Erkennen leave his secret project up here, so exposed?

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, taking a step forward. “You argue with Bekah Franklin all the time.”

  “Sure!” he said, his hands coming up like they were bulletproof. “That’s to make it look good! Besides, she doesn’t appreciate my specialty, not really.” When Tripp said that, a little professional pride crept in. Ego trumping fear.

  “And that is?”

  “Machine learning. Specifically, the heuristics that define how programming can become sentient. How we bridge the gap between if/then binary thinking and the infinite possibilities of human decision-making.”

  I regarded him a moment. “In English.”

  Tripp rolled his eyes, and I almost shot him on principle. “I’m figuring out what makes Cassandra tick,” he said.

  “Okay. But do you know what makes her stop ticking?”

  Tripp drew himself up, his ego inflating again. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  I lowered my gun a whit. If that were true, Daniel Tripp could be the key to popping the mainspring on Cassie Kisaan’s clock. If it were true. For all I knew, this Yahoo was in it to win it with Richter—a butcher with a blade and a techspert. Brawn and brains, the classic combination. But my conversation with Erkennen lent enough truth to his testimony that I elected to let Tripp keep breathing. For now.

  “Okay, then. You’re with me.”

  “What do you mean?” he said. Worry lines furrowed his forehead.

  “I can’t leave you here.”

  “He’ll never come here,” Tripp said, reading my mind. “That’s why I hid here.”

  “And it was smart. But…”

  Tripp waited for my counterargument.

  “Tripp … don’t move.”

  “What? Why—”

  Then he heard what I’d seen. The slithering hiss from the vent overhead. One of Richter’s pets, its black tongue flicking, tasting Tripp’s heat.

  “Stand very still.”

  “You’re goddamned right I will…” His eyes tried hard to see through the top of his skull. He didn’t dare turn his head up to look.

  The mamba extended unnaturally longer. I brought my revolver up and braced it with my off hand. I warned Left Knee to stand fast.

  Tripp’s eyes widened. “Now, what a second—”

  Crack!

  The snake dropped straight onto his head.

  Tripp screamed, arms flailing.

  The door slid open behind me.

  “That’s the last fucking one you kill, Fischer!”

  Richter charged into the bedroom.

  I started to turn. Two quick pops from the ferret’s stunner bounced off the midsection of my coat.

  Punk! Punk!

  I fell backward, firing in Richter’s direction.

  Crack! Crack!

  The shots went high. The bitter smell of gunpowder filled the air.

  The ferret barreled into me, and we both went down. Tripp’s screaming bounced off the walls. He was still struggling with the snake.

  Richter brought his stunner up again. In that half second, I could feel the cold of its barrel mouth tattooing the underside of my chin. I batted it away with my gun hand, and his shot went wild.

  Punk!

  I brought my .38 up into his gut, but Richter countered, hitting a pressure point on my wrist. The revolver flew out of my hand.

  His face hovered close to mine.

  “Thanks for leading me right to him, dumbass,” he said. Richter’s spit speckled my face. His stunner came around again. I sprung my blade from under my wrist, blocking him like he’d blocked me. The knife sliced deep into his forearm.

  “Fuck!”

  He dropped his stunner and rolled away from me. Away from Tripp, who was screaming about blood. I was too busy to tell him it was all from the snake. Its headless body kept jerking.

  Richter found a knife of his own somewhere. I had the quick-witted concern that it might be coated with venom.

  He spider-crawled toward me, faster than I expected. I couldn’t risk retreating or he’d be in striking distance of Tripp.

  I’d barely rolled onto all fours when Richter
diverted, springing to his feet and onto the bed. His crawling charge had been a feint. He was flanking me, going for Tripp.

  I dropped the knife, grabbed the bedcovers with both hands, and yanked as hard as I could. Richter lost his balance and fell onto the mattress, cursing. Tripp realized the danger and backed against the wall, as far as possible from Richter.

  “Enough of this shit,” Richter said. He rolled off the bed and stood on his feet. “You first, Fischer. Then him.”

  I grabbed up my knife again and rose to meet him, my breathing hard and ragged. I tried like hell to inhale big gulps of air. My muscles needed the fuel. My knee didn’t say a fucking word.

  I showed Richter my teeth. “Bring it, Ferret Face.”

  Richter snatched a pillow from the bed and backhanded it at me. I deflected, but he was on me then, sliding the knife into my right side before I could counter. The wound missed the vitals, but if it was poisoned… Richter tensed to rip it upward and through my innards. I thrust my own blade forward, but he blocked me. The effort pushed me away from him, and his knife slid out, leaving a wildfire of pain behind. Blood flowed, red and slick.

  I pulled back, trying to get my feet under me, a fighter needing recovery from a bell-ringing blow. My vision clouded with three Richters, then reduced to two, then became the real one again. My free hand went under my coat, but I’d no sooner pulled my stunner than he’d advanced, fast as a serpent himself, and batted it away. It disappeared under the bed.

  “Let’s do this old school,” Richter hissed.

  His knife came up, and I countered too slow again. But I’d jogged left, and it found my thigh instead of my belly. It slid into me like my flesh was warm butter. This time the pain didn’t wait so long. My vision fogged over with it. Everything around me swam in red seas.

  Richter’s other fist came up, then down, cracking my left eye. My head swiveled under the blow, and I fell to my bad knee. He yanked the blade out to stick it somewhere deadlier. I countered without thinking, without seeing really. My instinct was true.

  My knife gored his solar plexus.

  Richter grunted surprise.

  A rage bloomed spotty and red on his face. I jerked the knife up and left, gutting him.

  Richter screamed in pain.

  Tripp screamed in fear.

  I howled like a caveman getting over on a sabretooth.

  Richter grabbed my knife hand and pulled me in. His blade thrust out so fast, I felt it in my chest before I saw it move. Now it was me screaming, three wounds bleeding. He faltered, letting go of his knife, and I twisted my blade still opening his intestines. Crying out, Richter brought his bony fist down once, twice, cracking my skull again and again.

  My knife hand came to the rescue, twisting my spring blade and ripping a new angle upward.

  When Richter screamed his holy ghost wail, my hair stood on end.

  Then Tripp was there. He wrapped a belt around the ferret’s neck and pulled up and backward. Richter’s free hand clawed weakly at the belt. Tripp twisted it tighter. I fell away, leaving my knife at the center of a blooming, purple-red gore welling out of Richter’s center. I’d opened his intestines, and it smelled like death from downwind. The whole scene wavered, out of focus and awash in a crimson haze. Richter’s struggles loosened as life and lunch bled out of his belly. Before I blacked out, I realized Tripp hadn’t used a belt at all to kill that traitorous sonofabitch.

  He’d used the still-twitching carcass of Richter’s own snake.

  Chapter 24

  Rebekah Franklin • Masada Station, Orbiting Titan

  At least she’d managed to get the lights back on for Fischer. That had been a considerably less overwhelming problem to solve than what was in front of her. Cassandra’s cyberattacks were overwhelming her. The fifth security gate had just fallen, setting off an automated alarm. Only two security gates remained to protect Masada’s mainframe.

  If only Bekah had still had Carrin Bohannon to help her. But she didn’t. And she refused to look at Carrin’s body. That would only distract her. She didn’t have time for that. Not now.

  “Sound off,” Bekah said. The audible alarm ceased, leaving only a flashing red light to mark the threat.

  She rotated the model she’d been studying. The 3D image hovered over the biggest smart desktop in the War Room, helping her to visualize Cassandra’s progress in wearing down their defenses. At the center, resembling a small planetoid, was Masada’s computer core. The two remaining firewalls surrounded the core like dermal layers. Thousands of tiny dots constantly assaulted the outermost wall, and it reminded Bekah of an image from a long-ago biology class showing thousands of sperm attempting to fertilize a human egg. A more striking metaphor came to mind—the dots resembled piranha eating their way past the muscle and sinew of security protecting the Company’s secrets.

  She grabbed the outer security layer surrounding Masada’s core from the air and threw it to the main screen. The spheroid shield morphed into thousands of lines of nested security code. Most of the lines still appeared green, indicating they were uncompromised. An entire section suddenly turned yellow, showing a threat. In places, the yellow had become red.

  Bekah touched the Hammer around her neck. She’d never quite believed she’d need to use it but now … after watching five gates eaten away by Cassandra’s piranha code, Gregor’s nuclear option seemed inevitable.

  But it wasn’t necessary yet. She targeted her diagnostic algorithm on the red bits of code. The cleaning program constantly trolled the code underlying the mainframe’s security to identify weakness. It monitored, evaluated, and diagnosed how the assaulting code acted, then targeted that same friendly code for rewrite. Using the algorithm, Bekah could update, test, and shore up code on the fly like a medieval defender bracing the castle gate against an enemy’s battering ram.

  Each time she revised the security protocols—the mortar between the layers of Masada’s virtual walls—Cassandra’s piranha code adapted to attack another, weaker spot. Carrin had been right, Bekah thought, grief at her friend’s loss returning. This time, she couldn’t avoid a glance at Carrin, a kind of acknowledgment of the dead woman’s wisdom. Not all the collective brain power of the entire human species could best Cassandra’s ability to process trillions of decisions per second. Humans grow tired. Humans make mistakes. Cassandra’s layered, constant assault was too sophisticated, too relentless.

  Break it down, Bekkalleh.

  Opa Simon’s wisdom came on its own.

  Complex problems often have the simplest solutions. Hearing his voice in her head calmed Bekah’s racing heartbeat. Don’t let the drama distract. Find stillness, find the answer.

  The red, blinking code had multiplied tenfold. It must have made up a quarter of the code onscreen now. Already, Bekah could see the metaphorical mortar crumbling faster than her algorithms could plug the gaps.

  The Hammer hanging around her neck felt heavier. Her mind playing tricks on her.

  Simplify, Opa Simon said. Solve the problem.

  “In the beginning…” she said. The phrase her grandfather had always used to help Bekah clear her mind and focus on the fundamentals.

  What was computer code? A mathematical language used to generate predictable outputs via executed operations. And like all language, a way to communicate. And communication requires—

  “Connection,” Bekah said aloud.

  She stood up so fast from her console, her chair toppled over behind her. She turned and was stopped hard by the sight of Carrin’s corpse.

  No, she thought, shaking her head. That comes later.

  Masada’s second to last security gate had fallen.

  The console alarm began barking again.

  A glance at the model showed the piranha code already gnawing at the thick, green code-skin of the last wall protecting SynCorp from extinction.

  Bekah yanked the Hammer from around her neck, the gold chain snapping in two, and inserted it into the mainframe’s quantum port. One turn
, that’s all it would take. One turn to wipe away all those secrets. They’d exist only in the engrams of the Hammer itself, waiting for Gregor’s magic ingredient of human DNA to return them to life as human knowledge.

  She glanced up at the 3D model. The last wall still stood strong. For now.

  “Sound off,” Bekah said. The barking alarm disappeared again. Stabbing herself with Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! she moved quickly to the communications station. She didn’t need to use the Hammer, not yet. The answer was the simplest solution to every computer problem that had ever existed.

  Pull the goddamned plug!

  Bekah called up the station’s communications array. Onscreen, the large dishes on the roof of the station appeared, a pale line of eight battleship-gray sentries arranged in a horseshoe, pointing at deep space. Saturn hung behind them, a curtain of orange and white.

  She’d tried closing the infiltration point Richter’s betrayal had created, giving Cassandra access. But Cassandra’s worm merely adapted, hopping to a new port channel and reopening access to continue the attack. But there was something Bekah could do—she could simply turn off the array. Cut off all connection to the universe outside Masada Station and, with it, Cassandra’s ability to reach the mainframe at all.

  Bekah brought up the array’s controls, her fingertips dancing a happy ballet over them, powering down the eight dishes, one at a time. She watched with exhausted glee as the power indicators dropped to zero.

  So simple, she thought, turning her attention to her 3D model. So simple it was hard to think of.

  The final wall guarding Masada’s mainframe stood strong, its perimeter a thick, healthy green. The thousands of viral attackers had vanished. Cassandra was cut off.

  “Take that, bitch!”

  Bekah took a moment to enjoy the sound of her own voice in her moment of victory. Human ingenuity—perhaps a bit late in the game, but better late than never—had triumphed over the shock and awe of artificial intelligence. She couldn’t wait to tell Daniel Tripp all about her solution.

  Closing her eyes, Bekah conjured the image of her opa’s smiling face. He would be proud, she thought. A complex problem solved with the simplest solution imaginable.