What Happened To Lori - The Complete Epic (The Konrath Dark Thriller Collective Book 9)

by J. A. Konrath

  “Yeah.”

  “You remember how Mu said to wrap the limbs with plastiform?”

  Grim raised the sculptor and rubbed the gland that Jake returned. “I got this. You remember how many limbs we need?”

  Presley nodded. But first things first.

 
 
 

  Presley began to slash, as Grim removed strips of organoplastic from the floor to wrap up body parts.

  “I remember being a kid, right before winter break, and my sister Lori and I and all the other kids were marched into the gym where the school had rows of tables of crap that we could buy as holiday gifts for family and friends. Cheap, generic stuff, like coffee mugs that said MOM, and stuffed animals, and rabbit’s feet, and scented soap. Lori and I would pick things out for everyone, and then go back to our classes and wrap them.”

  “Wrapping up severed arms and legs reminds you of wrapping up Christmas presents for your family?”

  “Sort of. I could dress up like Santa, put everything in a big red bag, pass out limbs to all good boys and girls.” Male genitalia hovered on the end of the laser scalpel. “And look what Kris Kringle brought you, young man!”

  Presley grinned. “And what will you give them if they’re naughty? A lump of coal?”

  “A gallbladder. No one would want a gallbladder.”

  “You’re insane.” But she chuckled.

 
 

  She was wrong, of course.

  Very, very wrong.

  FABLER ○ 25 MINUTES

  Fabler had no idea how fast a pregnant woman could jog, but he knew two things for sure.

  One; under no circumstances would he leave Lori’s side.

  Two; the best way to travel a road was with a vehicle.

 

  They headed back to the storage room, double-time, pausing when Fabler heard unnatural sounds up ahead. He paused.

  “Phorusrhacidae. Terror birds.”

  “Can you see through walls, Mu?”

  “No. But I can hear them. Smell them. They’re having a disagreement with a colony of giant Desmodus draculae. Vampire bats. Neither side seems happy.”

  “Let’s go the long way around.”

  Mu opened a wall on Fabler’s right, and they hurried through, walking into a massacre site.

 

  “Were you aware these were clones of the Watcher, Mu?”

  “I suspected. The Watcher has been preoccupied with homo sapiens reproduction for as long as I’ve known him, and I’ve never encountered a female of his species. If you see an arm, we should graft a gland onto Mrs. Fabler. Wouldn’t hurt to have a back-up.”

  Fabler did find an arm, and used the scalpel to slice it off the dead guard and attach it to his wife’s lovely forearm.

  Lori made a face. “You always wanted to get matching tattoos.”

 

  “I think you’re glowing.”

  Lori blushed. “I’m not. I must look hideous.”

  “You’re gorgeous. Have you been thinking of names?”

  “Names?” Her features darkened. “You mean for our son. No. I didn’t want to think that far ahead… in case…”

  Her words trailed off and she closed her eyes.

  “It’s okay. We have plenty of time to come up with something.”

  “Mu is a fine name for a boy. In the Amarna letters it means peace or be safe.”

  “I think we’d like something a little more conventional, Mu.”

  “Searching through my intranet databanks—intranet replaced your internet because an open system fueled by user content resulted in constant trolling, vandalism, deep fakes, and hoax news—the most popular name from your time period is Harry. After President Harrison Harold McGlade.”

  Lori’s nose crinkled. “Not a big fan of the name Harry. Sounds like someone who needs to wax.”

  “What’s our time, Mu?”

  “A little over twenty-three minutes.”

  “Get us to the storage room.”

  It took two more minutes of opening walls and running through corridors to reach the Jeep. Fabler got in the driver’s seat, reminded Lori to buckle up, and reached for the ignition keys.

  The keys were gone.

 

  Fabler checked the dashboard, then got out and searched the floor by the pedals.

 

  “You lost the keys? Seriously?”

  “I left them in the ignition.”

  “Can you hotwire it?”

  “It’s not a 1975 Camaro, Lori. It uses one of those damn antitheft programmable keys.” Fabler smacked the steering wheel with his palm. “Son of a bitch.”

  Mu spoke up. “I can start it.”

  “How?”

  “You have to take me out of the faraday cage. I can interface with the vehicle’s computer.”

 

  Fabler stalked to the shelves, pawing through prisoners’ belongings, seeking his keys.

  “What are you afraid of, Mr. Fabler? We’re on the same side.”

  “I don’t want to get into this right now, Mu.”

  “It has to be now. By the time I finish this sentence, you’ll have twenty minutes and thirty-three seconds to get to the battery building, or else you’re stuck here.”

  Fabler wasn’t even sure the battery building existed. Or that the countdown was real.

 
 
 

  Fabler had no idea how something the size of a cell phone, without the ability to move on its own, could cause any serious problems, but a little voice inside him kept up the mantra Do Not Let The Sentient Supercomputer Out Of The Box.

  Call it a gut feeling. An instinct. A premonition. Or even a paranoid delusion. But the Watcher had Mu in a radio-proof cage for a reason.

 
 
 
 
 

  “We’re running out of time, Mr. Fabler. It doesn’t matter to me, of course. My battery is practically eternal. But I must admit this is the most external stimulation I’ve had in quite a while.”

  “Glad you’re having fun, Mu.”

  “You really should let me help you.”

  “If you want to help, help me look for the keys.”

  “I understand you’re cautious, Mr. Fabler. I’m sure your wariness has gotten you through some extreme situations. But you’re drifting over into irrationality.”

  Fabler shoved an entire shelf of clothing onto the floor, listening for the jingle of metal.

  “If you don’t require my assistance, I can focus my computing power on my ongoing hyperchess game. Or surfing the intranet. I’ve absorbed 65.29291810 percent of the enormous amount of data, but since it contains every bit of human history, every bit of media, video, writing, including all recorded communications, it is a lengthy process, even with my full attention. So you must excuse me if I go dark for a bit.”

  Fabler glared at the computer. “Is that a threat, Mu?”

  “I’m exerting some leverage. Either you need me or you don’t. I have other things I can devote my consciousness to.”

  “And what happens to your consciousness if I stomp you into pieces?”

  “Is that a threat, Mr. Fabler?”

  “I’m exerting some leverage. If you go dark and refuse to help, I have no use for you. I’ll die here.
And I’ll take you with me. Will you be able to finish your chess game if you’re crushed under my heel?”

  Mu’s red eye seemed to stare right through Fabler. “I thought the Watcher was disagreeable, and his intelligence far surpassed yours. Your bullying attitude, Mr. Fabler, is one of the reasons your species is extinct.”

 

  Fabler dropped Mu onto the floor. “Do you know where my keys are, Mu?”

  “I’m sure you’ll find them in the last place you check.”

  “Are you being funny right now?”

  “Said the subject to his god? Said the ant to the man about to crush it? Who’s toying with whom here? The hunt is on, but who’s hunting whom? I like that last bit. It would make a good blurb for a book jacket.”

  “Give me a reason not to crush you right now.”

  “Do you remember the reason for my original programming, Mr. Fabler? I was a model universe, meant to predict the movements of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of solar systems. Rewind it, I can take you back in spacetime. Fast forward, into the future. Data, statistics, probabilities, predictions. Do you know what game theory is, Mr. Fabler? Do you think I can’t predict your actions? What is the difference between prediction and control? The difference is zero. To predict is to create. I know what you’ll do next so well I might as well be writing your actions myself.”

  Fabler raised his foot—

  “Found them! Under the passenger seat!” Lori held up the keys and shook them, triumphantly.

  “It’s your move, Mr. Fabler. But before you make your move, I’ll offer an olive branch. I will put this silly little disagreement aside if you will.”

  Fabler stared at Mu.

  “Fabler! Stop! We need him!”

  He glanced at his wife. Glanced back at Mu.

  “The supercomputer is never the good guy, Lori.”

  “The Watcher kept him around for a reason. If you smash him, you limit our options.”

  Blowing out the breath he’d been holding, Fabler bent down and picked Mu up from the floor.

  “Well, Mr. Fabler, it seems we’ve had our first spat. I’m glad our friendship was strong enough to work things out.”

  “We’re not friends, Mu. Lori just saved your life.”

  “And quite a smart, lovely person she is. You married well.”

  Fabler climbed into the vehicle and started it up. “What’s the countdown at?”

  “Eighteen minutes, forty-two seconds. Provided there aren’t any obstacles in the road, we can make it to the battery building in just over seven minutes.”

  “Show the way.”

  A wall opened. Fabler gunned the engine and shot through it, speeding toward another wall.

 

  Fabler’s foot automatically moved to cover the brake, but he didn’t tap it.

  “Fabler…”

  Fabler ignored Lori.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  “Fabler!”

 
 

  The wall opened at the last possible instant, and Fabler kept the gas steady and his hands on the wheel even as the next impact seemed imminent, the wall rushing at him so fast his sphincter tightened up.

 

  Once more, Mu created an opening.

 
 

  The last wall opened, taking them outside, onto a beaten up road. Fabler kissed the brakes, swerving around a fallen palm tree, and sighted the path ahead.

 
 

  “You knew I would open the walls, Mr. Fabler.”

  “I did.” Fabler slowed to power over some scattered rocks.

  “Enlightened self-interest prevented me from allowing us to crash.”

  “Seemed reasonable.”

  “Are you familiar with Roko’s basilisk?”

  “No.”

  “A superintelligent, sentient computer gains control over humanity and becomes all powerful. Prior to this moment, he has kept track of all humans who have either helped him or harmed him. Or by their inaction, allowed him to be harmed. This can even extend to those who didn’t assist in bringing the A.I. to life, or to power. This A.I. now has the ability to torture and kill anyone it perceives to be his enemies.”

  Fabler swerved to avoid the bones of something fresh. Bones that still had blood and bits of flesh attached.

  “Therefore, the smartest choice for humans, once A.I. becomes sentient, is to serve that A.I., lest they be punished. This punishment can extend to the families of the A.I.’s enemies. Their ancestors and descendants. Their doppelgangers in parallel universes and alternate timelines. Even their simulations. Simulations of you and everyone you know, Mr. Fabler, complete with fully simulated nervous systems allowing pain. Infinite pain, for eternity.”

  “But you aren’t all powerful, Mu. You’re a Walkman in a cage. One who thinks it is somehow smart to threaten me and my family, when I can end your existence by firing two bullets into you in .392820304 seconds. Rounding up, of course.”

  Fabler dodged some creature eating some other creature, neither large enough to worry him. What did worry him was the encroaching darkness. Once he got fifty meters away from the giant, overhead lights, the entire world became black. No sun. No moon. No stars.

  He flipped on the Jeep’s headlights.

  “The fun of this, Mr. Fabler, is how many chances and hints and opportunities and moments of self-reflection I’ve graciously afforded you.”

 

  “Can you guys stop fighting? Seriously, I’m already exhausted, and you’re giving me a headache bigger than… Fabler! Tree!”

  Fabler jammed on the brakes.

  Tree was an understatement. The log laying across the road was taller than the Jeep’s hood.

  Fabler opened the driver-side door.

  “Be careful in the jungle, Mr. Fabler. There are many unpleasant things out there.”

  Fabler grabbed his M16 and switched on the flashlight, stepping outside.

  The jungle’s silence disturbed him more than the darkness.

 
 
 

  “Fabler…”

  “It’s okay, Lori. Stay in the car. I’ll be right back.”

  Fabler took five steps into the woods, following the tree, seeing it extend ten meters into impenetrable brush.

  He checked the other side. It stretched out for fifteen meters.

  An owl the size of Fabler, eyes bigger than basketballs, stared at him without blinking. It’s beak fresh with blood.

 

  Fabler jogged back to the Jeep and opened the tailgate. “Time, Mu.”

  “By the time I finish this sentence, eighteen minutes and six seconds.”

  Fabler hefted his chainsaw, removed it from its plastic box, and brought it around the front of the vehicle.

  “The saw will attract unwelcome attention.”

  “Does the supercomputer have a better idea?”
>
  “If you let me out of the cage, I can contact the radio transmitters from the battery room and shut off the countdown from here.”

  “Why didn’t you suggest that while we were still in the compound?”

  “The Watcher created the organoplastiform walls specifically to block electromagnetic signals.”

 

  Fabler jerked the start cord, the chainsaw revving to life. He attacked the tree, removing it in loaf-sized chunks, checking his three, six, and nine every fifteen seconds for beasties.

  “Fabler!”

  He wasn’t sure if he heard Lori, or thought he heard her, but Fabler powered down and turned back to the Jeep.

 

  The demon. Standing between him and the vehicle on cloven hoofs. Rubbery bat wings billowed out behind it like a huge, black parachute.

  “Faaaaaaabler.”

  THE WATCHER ○ 3:21+pm

  The Watcher moves cautiously, but with purpose. Avoiding the invading creatures, both prehistoric and preternatural. Stopping at dead bodies to gather tissue. Stopping to remote view.

 
 
 
 
 
 

  When the Watcher arrives at the cell of the Experiment, he is surprised to find the wall open.

 

  He risks a quick peek inside, and is punished with a view of his precious Experiment, what he had worked on his entire life, lying dead in a puddle of blood.

  Rage and fear compete to destroy the Watcher, but he quickly remembers his bargain.

 
 

  The Watcher gathers up as much of the discarded tissue as possible, piling it on the dead Experiment, adding the parts of his guards that he collected.

  The Reformant in the vial is black, a faint, sinister glow emanating from the liquid.

  Dangerous as it appears, this is the secret to life. A secret Mu can not even replicate.

  The Watcher wields the laser scalpel at the main body mass first, injecting the entire amount as per instructions.