The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  “Unlikely. Devereaux knows how to build a firewall. You think someone might launch an actual physical attack against him?”

  “That’s the most likely scenario.”

  “I’ll get some Elite Ops troopers on the scene.”

  “Good idea. Call Major Payne. Have him bring a squad or two.”

  “Maybe I should come as well.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re in charge of CINTEP—well, you and Dr. Poole. I don’t think you should both be out of the office at this time.”

  “I could leave Dr. Poole here.”

  “I’d rather have her in case we need her medical skills. Don’t worry. You’ll be connected. Get them here as quick as you can. I’ll see what I can do in the meantime.”

  “Have you tried a reboot request?”

  “The first thing I tried. Nothing.”

  Lendra shrugged and said, “What about a forced reboot?”

  “I wouldn’t do that to him.”

  “Even if it could save him?”

  “We don’t know his situation. He may have done this on his own. That’s why I want Curtik and Zora and Dr. Poole. They may be able to ascertain whether he’s in distress without invading his privacy. Either way, I have no intention of tampering with his organic computer.”

  “All right. They’ll be there in twenty minutes, as will Major Payne and his squad. Keep me informed.”

  “Right.” Jeremiah disconnected. He went around the lab examining the data cubes still running their diagnostics and found nothing out of the ordinary. Every few minutes he checked on Devereaux again, but the robot remained catatonic.

  He accessed the surveillance feeds outside the lab and studied those as well, but found nothing out of the ordinary, no signs of imminent attack, nothing but people and vehicles passing.

  Then a bullet appeared—an armored vehicle containing a squad of Elite Ops troopers. The bullet opened. Zora, Curtik and Dr. Poole stepped out, followed by a half-dozen armored troopers and Major Payne. They looked huge next to the three civilians, more like robots than even Devereaux. The troopers spread out to surround the building, while Major Payne herded the others inside.

  Chapter 9

  Curtik entered the lab, the Crystal Skull Bangers’ latest song, After Reality, playing on his implant:

  When you finally concede that this world blows

  And you come to realize life is only a pose

  When nothing that’s real can offer repose

  Then you’ll find me an orange with an ear for a nose

  He loved their insane lyrics.

  As Zora and Dr. Poole began running scans on Devereaux, Major Payne halted by the door, a Las-rifle in his right hand. Curtik wondered if he could take Payne in a fight and almost immediately had that thought displaced by the memory of Jack Marschenko falling at his hands, which made him feel guilty.

  He glanced at Dr. Poole and Jeremiah, who had both loved Marschenko in different ways, then clapped the stationary robot that was Devereaux on the shoulder and said, “How you doin’, old sport?”

  “He’s still out of it,” Jeremiah said, looking pale and tired.

  “Can I pose him in obscene positions?” Curtik laughed. “I could bend him over a table and—”

  “Just see if you can figure out what’s wrong with him.”

  “I’ll let Zora and Dr. Poole start the scan process and save my heroics for later. Why don’t you sit and relax?”

  Curtik gestured for Jeremiah to sit and was a little surprised when Jeremiah did so without complaint. The old man must be tired. Curtik really ought to get out to visit him more often, but he sensed that it was as much a chore for Jeremiah as it was for him. Neither knew what to say. Jeremiah still saw him as the little boy who’d been abducted years ago while Curtik had transcended his roots into something beyond human. He was still searching for an orange with an ear for a nose, an answer for the lunacy of existence.

  He began studying the data cubes Devereaux had been running to see if any of them had encountered a virus or hack. The first one showed no signs of entry. The second was also clear.

  “Curtik,” Zora said.

  “What’ve you got?”

  “An odd reading in the mobility controls. It looks like a message came from that data cube over there.” She pointed to a data cube across the room.

  Curtik made his way over and perused the data stream. Nothing, nothing, nothing. “It looks okay,” he said. “No, wait a minute.”

  One of the data cube’s searches had gone askew, as if the data cube had experienced a glitch. Curtik accessed it with his implant and followed the thread as it weaved through cyberspace. The search had indeed gone off track, reverting back on itself at the point where it attempted to connect to a Department of Defense computer, re-routing itself back into the data cube and over to the organic computer that held Devereaux’s mind.

  “Got something,” he said. “Looks like some sort of firewall stopped a search here and twisted it back on itself. That shouldn’t be enough by itself to cause this kind of damage, however. It’s just a tiny filament—almost no data entering the link and it’s completely internal. It was created by the data cube, not by an outside computer. Could that be the problem?”

  “Possibly,” said Zora. “Dr. Poole?”

  “I’m working on it,” Dr. Poole replied. “I’m no expert in robotics. There’s definitely an interruption that looks like a systemic breach, but as Curtik pointed out, it seems to be originating inside Devereaux.”

  Jeremiah said, “So it’s the God hackers.”

  Zora nodded. “That’s the logical conclusion.”

  “What do we do?” Curtik asked. “Babysit him until he wakes up? Take him back to CINTEP?”

  Major Payne walked to the window. “Armored drones, headed this way,” he said. “Six of them.”

  “Take ‘em out,” said Jeremiah. “But don’t fry the memories if you don’t have to. We want to see who sent them.”

  “Ooh, ooh, ooh,” Curtik found himself reaching for his Las-pistol and bouncing on his feet. “Can I take a couple out?”

  Jeremiah looked at Dr. Poole, who said, “Let’s leave that to the Elite Ops and focus on Devereaux.”

  Curtik sighed. “What do you want me to do next?”

  “Can you tap into that feed and figure out what data is being transmitted?”

  “Easy peasy. But if I finish before the drones arrive, can I go out and shoot one?”

  Jeremiah smiled. He stood and joined Major Payne by the window, looking small next to the Elite Ops trooper. Was that just because Major Payne was wearing armor? Curtik worried about his father. Perhaps Zora was right and Jeremiah was preparing to disappear. Might he kill himself? Or would he just vanish some day, leaving no trace of his whereabouts, relying on the skills he’d learned as a CINTEP ghost to escape the pressures and commitments he seemed no longer willing to endure?

  How could he not want to be involved in such exciting times? Armed drones on the way, the world under attack by either God or God hackers, the Susquehanna Virus changing or potentially changing humanity: how could anyone walk away from that?

  Curtik tapped into the feed and studied the data but it was just a series of numbers, nothing that made sense. “Um, okay, maybe not so easy peasy. It’s a series of numbers that don’t seem to have any order. Not primes or odds or evens, not Fibonacci or geometric or anything I can identify.”

  “Send it to my interface,” said Zora. “I’ll have a look at it.”

  As Curtik complied, Major Payne said, “We’ve got a problem. These are no ordinary drones. They’re shielded.”

  Jeremiah said, “Can’t you use your particle beam cannons?”

  “We can, but that’ll obliterate them and possibly blow up the missiles they’re carrying. And
since we don’t know what kind of missiles they are, they might take out a large area, us included.”

  “Suggestions?”

  “I think we’ve got to move.”

  “Curtik,” Jeremiah said as he got to his feet, “you and Major Payne grab Devereaux. Zora and Dr. Poole, take everything you think you might need. I’ll get Devereaux’s data cubes.”

  Zora said, “I’ve got everything I need. Dr. Poole?”

  “Just a moment.”

  “Quickly,” Jeremiah said as he moved around the room picking up the data cubes, walking like an old man, favoring his left side, while Curtik and Major Payne each took an arm and lifted Devereaux. Even as a robot Devereaux weighed less than two hundred pounds so Curtik could have hoisted him by himself but he didn’t question Jeremiah.

  As they carried Devereaux out the door to the waiting Bullet, Major Payne said, “Getting a signal now. Those are our drones.”

  Jeremiah, herding Zora and Dr. Poole out of the lab, said, “US military drones?”

  “Elite Ops drones,” Major Payne replied.

  “Gotta be the God hackers,” said Curtik. “Or maybe the actual God. Who else could hack into your systems?”

  “Nobody,” Major Payne replied. “That’s what worries me.”

  “What kind of ordnance are the drones carrying?” Jeremiah asked. “Can we take them out safely?”

  “Since they’re ours, I think so, but I’d like to get everyone into the Bullet first, just in case.”

  They piled into the Bullet, Major Payne helping Curtik get Devereaux seated beside Jeremiah and Zora while Dr. Poole clambered in last. The major took the controls and sealed them inside, leaving his fellow Elite Ops troopers to deal with the threat.

  As they drove away, Curtik activated the viewscreen and sighed.

  Zora laughed.

  “What?”

  “You wanted to stay behind and shoot down drones.”

  “So? It woulda been a blast.” He looked at Jeremiah. “Speaking of blasts, think it’ll be big?”

  “There shouldn’t be a blast from the drones’ missiles,” Jeremiah replied.

  “Contact in ten seconds,” Major Payne said.

  Curtik stared at the viewscreen. A micro-drone sent back footage that showed the Elite Ops troopers waiting, particle beam cannons lined up, as the drones closed in on them. When the clock hit zero, the troopers fired.

  The blasts from the particle beam cannons annihilated the drones, which exploded in mid-air, their missiles dropping straight down. Curtik noticed that his mechanical hand had clenched into a fist and his left hand held a Las-pistol. He forced himself to relax. He said, “That was kind of . . .”

  “Anticlimactic?” Zora offered.

  “I was gonna say boring, but yeah.”

  Dr. Poole said, “Are those missiles safe?”

  “We’ve got the override codes,” said Major Payne. “They’ll be deactivated before they hit the ground. I’ve got another Bullet headed this way to pick up the troopers and the missiles.” He looked at Jeremiah. “Where do you want to go?”

  “I suppose we ought to head back to CINTEP.”

  “Wasn’t that a little too easy?” Zora asked.

  Jeremiah nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “You think it was a setup?” Curtik asked.

  Dr. Poole said, “And it was odd that there were six drones sent against six troopers.”

  “What about me?” Major Payne asked.

  “You were inside the lab with us. That may have influenced the attack.”

  Jeremiah said, “Can you save any of the data?”

  “They’re looking into that now,” Major Payne replied. “The preliminary scan shows only an unidentified directive to proceed to Devereaux’s lab and fire upon arrival. The order came from a public server bounced off a satellite. We’ll see if we can trace it.”

  Curtik laughed. “Don’t hold your breath. You know, this just might be God after all.”

  Zora said, “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  Curtik held up his hands. “Who else could it be? The only person I would have believed could be behind it is Devereaux. And I’m not even sure he could have pulled it off. But with him in a catatonic state,” Curtik lifted Devereaux’s hand and smiled when it stayed in that position, “I think we can rule him out.”

  Dr. Poole said, “It could be a sophisticated group of hackers, working together in multiple countries to achieve this effect.”

  Curtik nodded. “I suppose. But wouldn’t we have seen some sort of buildup? I mean, the analysts and computers at CINTEP monitor communications around the world. Other countries and agencies have similar programs. Surely there would have been some sort of warning. Somebody would have slipped up.”

  Zora said, “I get the sense that you want to believe in God.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if there is one. It would be kind of nice knowing there’s some purpose behind it all, some kind of meaning.”

  Jeremiah sighed. “It might be something else.”

  “What?” Curtik asked.

  “Someone in our government, someone who wants to shut Devereaux down.”

  Zora said, “Who would have the expertise or authority to pull it off?”

  Major Payne shook his head. “I’ve seen no orders, no communications regarding such a mission. I find it hard to believe it could be one of my superiors.”

  “So maybe it really is God,” Curtik said, “even if the rest of you don’t believe that.”

  Jeremiah shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  Curtik wasn’t certain it was God, but he knew enough to know it couldn’t be Lendra or Zora or anyone else in CINTEP. He supposed it could be somebody in the government or Devereaux, but Devereaux had been incapacitated by someone or something. Plus, Devereaux was the obvious choice, so Curtik was reluctant to assign blame there. And he didn’t figure the government would try to pull this off without Major Payne’s assistance. No, this was either some new player, some heavy hitter who hadn’t showed his chops before, or it was the Almighty himself—an orange with an ear for a nose.

  Chapter 10

  Aspen sat in the Chescala dining hall across the table from General Ban, Colonel Hong, Captain Chin and Dr. Li Wen. The rest of the Chinese Escala stood behind them, a unified front against her. Sixteen against one: better odds than they’d face if they attacked the robots. She focused on Li Wen, figuring the other woman might be reasoned with better than the men.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “They know everything you’re plotting. They’re monitoring our conversation right now. You can’t possibly hope to surprise them. Do you think their human-first programming will somehow enable you to defeat them?”

  General Ban nodded. He wore an interface that allowed him to translate her words into Chinese.

  He spoke a few words that Aspen’s implant translated into English: “That’s exactly what we think.”

  Aspen looked at Li Wen. “They’re faster, smarter, stronger. And they have more than twice your number.”

  Li Wen said nothing. General Ban spoke again: “They can’t attack us. They can’t harm us. If you and your fellow cadets help us, we can take the ship.”

  Aspen laughed. “How do you plan to make the ship change course? It’s doing what it was built to do. It’s not going to turn around just because you tell it to.”

  “We can disconnect its brain—its organic computer—from the controls.”

  “Maybe,” Aspen said. “But if you’re wrong . . .”

  “It has human-first programming too,” Li Wen spoke in English. “That’s why it keeps the atmosphere livable and allows us to keep growing food. So even if we fail, as long as we destroy or at least defeat the other robots, it will have to listen to us.”

  “All rig
ht,” Aspen replied. “Suppose you attack and win. Where do you go?”

  “Back to Mars,” said General Ban.

  “And what happens to the robots and the ship?”

  “They will be reprogrammed to do their jobs.”

  “Without the interference of free will,” Aspen said. “Turned back into slaves.”

  “No. They would be treated humanely. We would not ask them to put themselves in danger any more than we would put ourselves in danger.”

  “Here’s a bigger question,” Aspen said. “Why?”

  They looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language, which of course she was.

  “I mean, why do it at all? Why do you want to go back to Mars? What’s there that’s so special? Why not work instead to convince the ship to go somewhere new and exciting. We could explore beyond the solar system, or at least the outer planets. Why so determined to attack the robots?”

  “We are supposed to be in charge,” General Ban said. “Not them. We give the orders. They follow them.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “We’re slaves,” General Ban said. “Can’t you see that? We do what they tell us to do—menial tasks—while they make all the decisions.”

  “We’re not slaves,” said Aspen. “They don’t make us do anything. You can sit in your cabin all day long if you wish.”

  “I don’t wish.” General Ban scowled. “This is no better than Earth. We’re becoming slaves there too.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Trust me, girl. They’re taking over—the robots. They’re doing almost all the hard jobs now, leaving us with the dregs. They can even do service jobs that require a personal touch.”

  Even without understanding Chinese, Aspen caught the bitterness in his voice.

  “And yet,” she said, “here you are. Escala. Sent to Mars.”

  “Yes. Stuck on this ship doing nothing.”

  “That’s your choice. You could help Xinliu or Mei-Xing with robotics or solving medical problems.”