The Gobo Bride: A Lewis Gregory Mystery

by Mason Adgett

  “Yes,” I said. I looked carefully at the network of tunnels in several maps but they were never quite consistent. Such inaccuracies nowadays were unusual but hardly unheard of. “There’s just something not right about him.”

  "Maybe," said Charles. "It may just be he's a gobo and you're letting your thing for India Phoenix cloud your judgment."

  I admitted it was a slim possibility.

  "What's going on with you and Miss Phoenix?" Mike asked. I certainly didn't want to discuss it with him so I turned back to the maps. After looking them over one more time I called Lewis back.

  "You're coming back?" he said hopefully.

  I ignored the question. "I need civilization authority to do a little hacking."

  He looked at me like I was crazy then made sure I knew what he was thinking: "Are you insane?"

  "Just enough to bypass security. Not for any invasion of privacy."

  "Bypass security into what? That is an invasion of privacy."

  "Can you make it happen?"

  "How am I supposed to do that?"

  "Remind them who found India the first time," I said. "Tell them I believe I have evidence Vavaka was colluding with Boldt or other members of the Alliance Against Civilization." I didn't have this yet, but I intended to find some.

  He sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

  "I need it in like twenty minutes or less." He repeated the crazy look. "I know you can do it," I said. "I'll wait for your call." After disconnecting I turned to Charles.

  “I know you’ve said before you don’t use Greaves on your cell because he’s too big for the cloud, yes?”

  He nodded. “He can prepare apps for me but I can’t carry all of Greaves.”

  “How much hardware would he really take, though?” Cells carried very little storage usually since everything was done through the cloud. But for what I wanted it had to be completely local. “Do you think this guide car could do it?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sounds like a question for Greaves.”

  “Can you call Greaves.”

  “I can call the house,” he said.

  “Do it.”

  He called his house, and I told Greaves what I wanted. “It can be done,” he told me, “but I will be slightly limited in power. I also cannot perform said functions without approval from civilization authority.”

  “Working on that,” I said.

  Lewis called back quicker than I expected. “You are about to receive an encrypted warrant,” he said. “Limited hacking for surveillance and investigative purposes. You’re not trying to break into Vavaka’s estate, are you? Please tell me you’re not trying to do that. But in case you are I’m also working on a warrant to search. I don’t have it yet though. Please, please, please don’t do anything uncivilized.”

  I didn’t say so but if Vavaka – or anyone else – hurt India I might get very uncivilized.

  I disconnected and downloaded the warrant, which unlocked Greaves to do what I needed. We downloaded him into the guide car and in a few minutes he had rebooted and taken control. The warrant allowed him to turn off the car’s ID tag and stop transmitting location information. I didn’t know what kind of security Vavaka might have but if the car was transmitting he wouldn’t need any to be aware of our approach as the car would alert his estate as soon as we entered the property. The warrant also allowed Greaves to go even farther and actively shut down any firewalls, cameras, or proximity alerts that might be hidden in the tunnels.

  “Take us there,” I said and Greaves started navigating the tunnels. The route was open-ended as he was relying on maps that differed in their details, but he created a likely composite and we were able to work closer and closer to the estate. As we left Jebala proper and moved to the outskirts of the caverns the tunnels became tighter with fewer exits, and finally Greaves alerted us that we were about to enter private property. We couldn’t tell this by looking. We were alone in a tunnel with very little lighting that seemed like it hadn’t been used in some time. It looked abandoned and unused. I said this aloud.

  “I have had to disable multiple layers of security,” said Greaves.

  “Seems unlikely,” Charles interjected, “that it would need that kind of security if it was abandoned and unused.”

  “Could be every tunnel around the estate has that kind of security,” I said, thinking it likely.

  We followed the tunnel to where it ended at a metal door that blocked us from continuing. It was huge, like a hangar door, secured, and looked impenetrable.

  But I wasn’t thinking about that. My eyes were glued to the bottom of the door, where a tiny plate identified the maker as KrossTek.

  ····18····

  Until that moment I hadn’t been completely sure Vavaka was in league with Boldt but nothing could be clearer to me than having what I knew to be Kantsky’s call-sign right there on his doorway. It made me feel better about our actions so far, which if Vavaka turned out to be innocent definitely bordered on the uncivilized.

  The door followed none of the conventions of gobo design, the chief one being to appear as part of the environment. The cavern was lit – not very brightly, but enough – by the glowing sludge that clung to all the walls. Here the ambient light was primarily a dark bluish bordering on purple so everything had a gloomy, indigo cast. It was one of the stranger things about Jebala, how the different colors painted themselves around the caverns. The solid block of metal had its own slight artificial lighting from rectangular illumination panels inset just above it. The door made no attempt to blend in. What looked to be an access panel or security touch-plate graced the wall to the right side but we stopped well short of it as Greaves tried to access it remotely.

  “There is a proximity sensor,” he warned us, “that will begin an identification protocol. Please stay back until I have made necessary adjustments.” We waited and in a short while he said, “I have almost succeeded in replacing the identity parameters but there is a possibility – round to 10 percent – that doing so will trigger a modification alert. Should I continue?”

  “Would a modification alert set off an alarm?” I asked.

  “An alert is an alarm,” Greaves informed me.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Do it anyway.”

  “Of course.” Seconds later: “You may approach the door. When the light powers on speak the name ‘Niles Kantsky.’ The system will now accept your voice as identification instead of the original entity’s.”

  “Kantsky!” I said.

  “Please wait until you have approached the door,” Greaves said.

  “I’ll go alone,” I told the others, “and once the door is open you can follow me in.” I got out of the car and walked up to the door. It was easily twice my height. I saw the plate light up as Greaves had said and did as he had told me to do. As soon as I finished saying Kantsky’s name the door started to roll upward, opening into what looked like a large elevator similar to the one I had ridden not so long ago in Kantsky’s virtual nightmare. I waved the others over. “It looks like some kind of freight elevator. Maybe Vavaka gets large deliveries.” I said. “Are we going in?”

  “I’m sending you an app I just had Greaves make,” Charles said. “He’s going to run a CAP from the car in case we need to get through any more checkpoints.”

  I accepted it and opened it immediately. Greaves had done a good job, putting a map right in front of my eye that filled out as he worked his way through the security system. I can’t say the map meant a lot to me though as it had little detail and just showed a layout of tunnels and the rooms and caverns they opened into.

  “Maybe I should stay by the car,” Mike said. “Just in case somebody comes through this way. I can warn you.”

  “Not a bad idea,” I said. The car seemed a bit exposed where it sat in the middle of the tunnel but I saw no way to hide it. “Back the car up some, Mike, so you’re not right on the door. At least then you can claim you got lost or something if s
omeone does come by. Just make sure you stay in range of the CAP.”

  Mike nodded and Charles followed me into the elevator. Inside a panel had an array of buttons, a four-by-four square of clean silver circles raised from a solid white plate. They were unlabeled. Not, I thought, a very user-friendly system. “Greaves,” I said, “what do I press here?”

  “The conveyor unit routes to sixteen possible destinations,” he said. “Each button is assigned to a separate location. I have numbered these locations on your map to align with the buttons in top-down left-right one-to-one correspondence.”

  I looked at Charles and he just shrugged. “The map doesn’t mean a thing to me. These rooms could be anything. Try one at random?”

  Greaves said, “I have also acquired access to video feeds in nine of the sixteen locations. The estate has a total of eighty-six security video sources each with its own encryption. I can allocate some resources towards the encryption of these individually. Would viewing these be of assistance?”

  “Hold the phone,” I said, an archaic expression that right that moment seemed exactly the one to express my feelings. “You’re telling me you’ve got access to Vavaka’s video feeds?”

  “As I indicated there are still many I have not been able to access. Also the probability I have set off a modification alert has increased to nearly nineteen percent.”

  “Show me one of the feeds you’ve already decrypted,” I said. “Any of them will do.”

  A second later an overhead view of a room appeared and I felt my legs go weak. It took me a moment to steady myself.

  “It’s here,” I said. “This is where he kept me.” I felt sick, my stomach suddenly turning.

  “What?” said Charles.

  “I’ve seen this place,” I said. It was the laboratory where he had cut into my skull. Not the operating room itself, but the laboratory outside where I had attempted to escape and been shot down by a security bot. It was exactly the same in every detail. The same unit in the center littered with devices, the same contraptions around it, though when I had been held there by Kantsky the machines had all been in motion and now all were still. “It’s real, Charles,” I said. “This is where he kept me.”

  He got a worried look on his face. “Maybe we should turn back.”

  “What button is that, Greaves? Which one takes us there?” I said. He told me it was the second. I touched it but didn’t press, just let my finger feel the cold button under my finger. “Show me another feed.” The screen changed to a scene I didn’t recognize but it had that tell-tale Kantsky look. Sterile, metal, tile, indescribable machinery. “I don’t know this place. I didn’t see this before.”

  “I can adjust the viewing angle if you wish,” said Greaves, but there was no need. I saw nothing of interest.

  “Can you locate Vavaka? Or anyone at all inside?” I asked. “How deeply into his estate have you penetrated?”

  “I have penetrated the estate completely,” said Greaves. His voice was incapable of sounding proud of itself but somehow succeeded anyway. “I now have access to all video, audio, thermal, pressure, and chemical sensors within the facility. I have not yet fully deconstructed all encrypted digital locations or simulated all software processes and examination of some would be time consuming. However there are no living organisms identifiable by my analytics. Facial recognition has located sixteen instances of Vavaka portrayed throughout the facility including four three-dimensional models. The probability I have raised a modification alert has increased to 27 percent. Should I attempt to identify, isolate, and quarantine the alert procedure? There is a high probability of success.”

  “Do it,” I said.

  ‘Yes sir,” Greaves acknowledged, then: “It will require all two hundred eleven of my current active processors to achieve. It is quite complex. I have never seen such advanced programming from a nucleite before.”

  “More advanced than you?” I asked. “Are you sure you’re capable?”

  “I am not solely nucleic architecture,” Greaves said, even more coldly than his usual. “I am the synthesis of nine systems’ most advanced mechanical intelligence work combined into a powerful sub-conscious automation module with a single consciousness pipeline.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking maybe I hurt his feelings. “Sorry.”

  “Three of the contributing systems are first-galaxy exemplars of technological advancement.”

  “I said I was sorry.” Then because I didn’t like being scolded, “If you’re so advanced examine your feeds and tell us what we’re looking for.”

  “It is intriguing,” Greaves said, “to be released from the strictures of civilized procedures. I will now simulate your personality. Complete. I have identified three locations that show a high correlation to your current simulated interest matrix.”

  A new view appeared. I almost thought Greaves was mocking me for a moment. My cell now showed Vavaka after Greaves had just told me there were no people present. I was about to raise this objection then took a closer look. It was indeed Vavaka, exactly as I remembered him, sitting at a desk, but though I waited for several moments he remained perfectly still.

  “Is that him?” I asked Greaves. “Is that Vavaka?”

  “It would appear to be Vavaka as’Tatim by appearance,” said Greaves, “yet I have recorded no signs of biological function. I have catalogued it as a non-biological three-dimensional representation.”

  “What is that, an office? Which button is it?” I said. “I’m checking it out.”

  “It is the fifth button,” Greaves said. “There is however security code associated with the location that I have not fully been able to deconstruct, as my resources are still largely consumed with disabling the modification alert.”

  “Might as well take a look at all the feeds first,” Charles said and I acknowledged he was right. The sight of Kantsky’s labs kept me from thinking straight, the blood rushing in my ears making me want to run, run, fight, fight, go, go.

  “Show us in order of the buttons on the panel,” I said. “Just a little of each.”

  We watched as he flipped through scenes, about 5 seconds of each. Three looked like normal rooms, what you might expect at Vavaka’s estate, including a bedroom, another study of some sort, this one a bit more high tech than the one that had the replica, and a lounge area. Others looked like Kantsky-style laboratories but didn’t seem on the surface to have anything of interest to us. But the ones Greaves had already selected as of possible interest stood out.

  One had the same devices that had trapped India and I in our virtual worlds, several rows of the machines, the wires hanging loose and unconnected to anything. This room gave me a chill but the other was worse.

  “There,” I said. Button four. “First we go there.”

  The room contained India Phoenix. And myself. Also two others I recognized: Adula and Ruisha, the servers from our shuttle flight. There were other figures that were unknown to me. Finally I could see clearly what was going on. They were robots. Some of the figures were only partially completed, limbs and torsos ending abruptly to expose complex circuitry and electronics. The figures were naked and as far as I could tell from the video feed very accurate. I felt a complex series of emotions including fear, disgust, embarrassment. I could feel my face flush and told myself it was in anger.

  “It’s Boldt’s robots,” Charles said. “These are just like the ones he had, although to be honest these look even more realistic.” I hadn’t seen the others, but to me these looked completely convincing. If it weren’t for the half-built few and the fact they didn’t move they could easily have passed for the real thing.

  “That’s me,” I said. I couldn’t begin to make sense of my own figure’s presence there. It seemed Vavaka wasn’t obsessed just with India Phoenix but also had more than a passing interest in me. How long had Vavaka or Boldt or whoever was behind it been stalking us? He had said so from the first, of course, on the shuttle: “I look forward to meeting you,” as though h
e had expected me all along. Vavaka, India had told me, was a Lewis Gregory fan. Loved the show. I grimaced as I remembered this.

  I pressed the button and we heard a mild hum as the conveyer started. The motion was barely perceptible but I could sense when we stopped. The door opened and I went immediately not to my own figure but to the one of India Phoenix. I wanted to cover her up somehow. I felt more embarrassed for her than for myself though I don’t know why exactly. I saw nothing to cover her with. Instead I stood awkwardly in front of her trying not to make it obvious I was hiding her from Charles’s view.

  “My sincerest apologies,” interrupted Greaves. “I am now almost certain I have failed to quarantine the alert procedure and have instead activated it.”

  “Dammit, Greaves!” I said, but I had encouraged him to try. Still no sign of an alarm had yet been raised. “Greaves, I need you to get this footage back to Lewis as quickly as possible. Can you do that?”

  “Of course.”

  I was thinking too quickly and not necessarily well. I wanted to take the robots. I didn’t want to leave them in this room. It creeped me out to see myself like that, to see India like that. I tried to pick up India’s body and was able, but it felt as heavy as the real thing It felt, actually, exactly like the real thing, and I dropped it – not her but it – with a sudden feeling of revulsion. I did not even want to imagine his purpose for these creations.

  “The Vavaka we just saw has to be one of these, too. A robot,” I said. “Why would he be making a robot version of himself?” But Charles had a look on his face like he expected me to get it, and a moment later I did. “It’s not Vavaka,” I said. “There is no Vavaka. There has never been a Vavaka.” Or there was once, but somehow he had been replaced. That’s why he was so reclusive – because he wasn’t real. Someone else – some hacker – had been using his online presence to act in his stead. I thought back to the Vavaka we had met before. The expressionless, silent, nearly invisible presence. No wonder he had seemed so mechanical – he was mechanical.