Code Breakers: Beta (4 page)

The journey took them through the mostly glass and steel structures of the financial and business district. There was no stock exchange to speak of, but the citizens did have a banking system. To the Family’s credit, at least in this situation, it actually worked reasonably well. Everyone was paid a fair salary, with just nine different salary levels depending on the job done. Benedict Loas worked as a senior analyst for the bank.

Because it was afternoon, the early shift had finished, and the late shift started. People buzzed around, either heading home or going into work.

Being a twenty-four-hour city, the running of it was divided into two shifts, and every individual took their turns doing a week of four early days and a week of three late days. Again, this was a system that the city was built around, and Liberty had decided to keep it the same so as to not upset most people’s lives.

Turning into a great, open square, Sasha admired the huge, central fountain. Rising up in the centre of the square, the fibre-optic and silicon structure resembled a tall redwood tree that Sasha had only ever seen in an old piece of video footage. Benches lined the edges, providing gathering places for teenagers and adults. The place felt abuzz with all the citizens going about their business. To the far side of the square, in front of the tower containing Benedict’s apartment, a group of people seemed to just stop what they were doing, turn, and then run screaming towards her and Malik.

“Oh, shit,” Malik said, quickly looking for means of escape. It was too late, though; the group were upon them, surrounding them.

Sasha sighed. “Really?”

“I can’t help it,” Malik said as he was jostled by a group of teenaged girls eager for him to sign one thing or another.

The high-pitched squealing made Sasha quite stabby. “You don’t look like you hate it.”

“The Silver Sisters are passionate. What can I say?”

Sasha pushed a couple of the girls away as they tried to pull her away from him. “Hey,” she said. “Get your little grabby hands off. Show some damn respect.” It had no result, so Sasha pushed her way clear and sat on a bench, leaving Malik to hilariously fend for himself. A part of her found the girls annoying. She couldn’t help but feel a certain attachment to Malik given the time they had spent with each other over the last month during his recovery.

She watched as Malik smiled and hugged one girl after another.

Two young blonde girls, no older than fifteen, had got him into a kind of headlock, smothering him with kisses while their friends took pictures and recorded the video on their smart-glasses. Sasha sneered, shaking her head.

Despite their hormonal fixation on him as some super war hero, in reality, Malik was a doofus—a lovely, kind doofus, but a doofus nonetheless—and yet, since the ‘Silverman Sacrifice’ documentary had gone out, he was now the closest the city had to a bona fide celebrity.

Despite the girls’ shrill attention, Sasha was pleased for him; his achievements and sacrifices deserved the accolades, but she also wished that everyone else got the same recognition. Maybe not the annoying hysterical girls... but her, James, Gabe, Cheska, Jess, Malik, and many more, specifically Petal and Gerry, had also sacrificed a great deal for the city.

Over time, once things had settled down, it would be time to tell what had really happened and what the stakes were, but for now, she was focussing on dealing with the ronin insurgents.

Losing her patience, Sasha got up from her bench and shooed the screeching harpies away. “I bet you’re enjoying all the female attention, eh?” Sasha said.

Malik blushed. “It’s not quite the attention I want. They’re... erm... a little high-pitched.”

“You can’t blame them, though. You’re a stone-cold hero.” She reached up and wiped lipstick from his face. “You look ridiculous.”

“What can I do? Sometimes I wish James had given me a new face. Would make this job a lot easier.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sasha said. “You have a certain rugged charm. Sure, it’s a face that scares small children and animals, but in a certain light and at a certain angle, on the right day of the week when the sun is at the right height and the wind is blowing in the right direction, you do have a slight attractiveness to you... occasionally.”

“Gee, thanks a lot. The Sisters don’t seem too afraid of it.”

“See, I knew you were lovin’ the attention, ya dirty dog.”

“Jealous weasel.”

“Motherfucker!”

“Yup, you’re jealous all right.”

“Of having a bunch of screaming teens gushing over me? I don’t think so.”

“I didn’t say you were jealous of me...”

“Them? You think I’m jealous of them?” She made a loud ‘pfft’ noise and pulled ahead of him. The truth of it, though, was that deep down, yes, she was a little jealous. Not that she could ever admit to such a thing, of course.

Breaking the tense silence that had built up, Malik finally said, “So, what tactic are we using? What’s the plan? How are we gonna take this bastard down?”

Sasha laughed. Because of their time spent together Malik had picked up some of her language use. Most Libertas citizens were eloquent and well spoken. Sasha felt like some kind of primitive ape by comparison, but Jimmy had insisted she not change for anyone. So she kept on being her, and surprisingly, people accepted her for that.

“Tactics? Don’t know about that. I was thinking of just knocking on his door, then knocking him out. If he’s guilty, it’s unlikely he’s going to do anything suspicious. And we ain’t exactly the image of justice and vengeance.”

“Are you suggesting I’m not scary enough for this work?”

“You’re plenty scary. See how you made all those girls scream?”

It was Malik’s turn to retort with a ‘pfft’ sound.

They passed through the main doors of the building. Luckily there were no Silvermaniacs around to be a pain in the ass. She pressed the button on the elevator and stepped into the car. They were alone inside. She tapped number forty-three on the holocontrols.

As they ascended, Sasha wanted to say something, break the silence. They both stood there, occasionally glancing at each other before staring ahead, neither getting too close, ensuring a polite distance remained between them. Malik appeared tense, his shoulders all hunched up.

She wondered if he was claustrophobic or perhaps feeling the effects of his surgery. She’d grown quite protective over him given the extent of his injuries and the physiotherapy. She looked up at him; he stood nearly thirty centimetres taller than her. He seemed to be staring off into the distance, thinking about something.

“Everything okay in there, bud?” She tapped gently on the side of his head.

“What? Yeah? Of course, just thinking.”

“What about?”

“You seemed a little ticked off back there. With the Silvermaniacs.”

Sasha rolled her eyes, ignoring his question. “That’s such a stupid name, by the way.”

“I didn’t coin it; they did.”

“You’re like their god now. Can’t you decree they change it to something that sucks less?”

“Are you suggesting I abuse my power?”

“Why not? With all those hot girls begging at your feet, are you telling me you don’t get a little... you know... excited about that?”

Malik’s face reddened. He looked away. “That’s not me. I wouldn’t take advantage like that. I’d want to be with someone I cared about, anyway. I’m not openly available like that.”

“Oh, have someone in mind, do you? Someone already lined up? You sneaky goat.”

“No, nothing like that—”

The elevator reached the forty-third floor. The doors opened, and Sasha went first to spare him his embarrassment. She gave a little extra swing with her hips as she went.

She stopped outside Benedict’s door. Knocked twice.

Malik joined her as the door opened.

A man, in a charcoal-coloured suit and with tightly cropped brown hair with a dusting of grey at his temples, stood in the doorway. Confusion spread across his face. “Can I help you?”

“Mr Loas?” Malik asked. “We’re part of the interim government. It’s nothing to worry about; we just hoped to have five minutes of your time to help clear something up for us.”

Benedict sighed. “Is this about Li Fei? I told her the finance system wasn’t changing, but she just went ahead and... Oh, it’s not that, is it?”

“No, Mr Loas,” Sasha said, “can we come in and talk?”

His eyes narrowed, and then his face relaxed. “Ah, you’re Malik Silverman! Come in!”

Sasha sighed inwardly, but was grateful Malik’s stardom at least helped occasionally.

Benedict turned, stepped away from the door, and invited them in.

His suite was sparse, but pleasant—bright colours and soft fabrics. A fractal piece of art from the local artist ‘K-bit’ hung on the wall opposite his kitchen area. He approached the drinks dispenser. A half-drunk glass was already on the side.

“Can I get you both a d—”

Thwump
. A single sub-bass note broke his speech as parts of his skull splattered the wall behind him, creating its own meaty fractal. The body slumped to the ground.

Sasha blinked, stunned. “What the holy fuck was that?”

“Outside!” Malik was at the window overlooking the square. There was a centimetre-wide-hole in the glass. Sasha followed Malik’s gaze outside. A figure dressed as a window engineer descended the face of the building on an anti-grav platform. A rifle hung across the figure’s back.

“Fucking sniper!” Sasha said. “I’m going after them. You sweep this place for evidence.”

Before Malik had a chance to speak, Sasha opened the window and jumped out.

She soared through the air, a bird catching thermal updrafts. Between her ribs and her arms, NanoFibre webs stretched out, creating weblike wings. She flew to the side of the fountain, barrel-rolling in time to avoid colliding with it. The Silver Sisters looked up as she flew past their heads—admittedly a little closer than was polite.

She focussed on her target as the sniper leapt from the platform and dashed into the throng of people within the square. She tracked her target’s movements by the way the citizens broke apart like waves.

Her target looked round and noticed Sasha gliding ever closer. A mask obscured the sniper’s face. She lowered her head, brought her arms in closer to her body, and increased her speed. The sniper was no more than twenty metres away when he dived into an alley. Sasha had no alternative but to land and proceed on foot.

As she turned into the narrow passage, she realised it was a dead end.

The sniper did too. They faced each other.

Sasha continued to move forward. She reached to her back, pulled out her duelling daggers, and stalked closer. The sniper pulled the mask away. It was a young man, no older than eighteen or nineteen.

“Stop there!” Sasha said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

He seemed not to hear her as he took from his pocket a small black device. He clicked a button on its surface. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his body became limp. He started to laugh, and white foam frothed from his lips. He broke off, fixed his blank stare on her, and said, “You’re too late...”

“For what?”

His laugh cut short. His chest exploded outwards. The blast ricocheted off the close walls, making her ears pop with the sound pressure. She fell back as his body slumped to the ground, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. Sasha saw that he was wearing a ronin-chip: one of Elliot’s drones.

“Holy crap!” Malik said, running to her. “Are you okay?”

Sasha turned to him, wiping her face. “You know what? I’ve been better.”

He reached out and held her by her arms. “I thought for a moment you...” He shook his head. “You’re crazy, you know that? You near enough gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry, dude. Did you find anything back at Loas’ place?”

“A stash of chips and a manifest, but nothing else.”

Sasha approached the body and investigated the remains. She didn’t recognise the make of the rifle. It was matte black, light, and supremely balanced, featuring a semi-automatic mode. It wasn’t a mass-produced item, suggesting the ronin had an expert gunsmith within their ranks.

The sniper’s black tactical jacket had split apart during the suicide blast. Strips of wire and a smouldering white gel coated the inside.

“Must be a homemade explosive substance. It’s nothing I immediately recognise,” Malik said. “We’ll get the guys in the lab to check it out. If the ronin are developing bombs too, it shows that they might be looking to step up their attack on the city.”

“There’s something else here,” Sasha said. She reached into the breast pocket of the jacket, wincing at the heat. With her fingertips she pulled out the dented remains of a slate.

“Now this might be useful. I wonder if the guys at Cemprom can lift some data off it?”

Malik shrugged as he opened his arms to indicate the mess. “Fuentes is going to have a shit-fit when she hears about all this.”

Sasha shrugged her shoulders. “Not our fault. We’re just doing our job, right? Although I should call this in before people get freaked out.”

Given how wide Malik’s eyes were, she guessed he already was.

“Fun first day in the new job, huh?” she said.

Chapter 3

Petal helped Enna clear up the mess and remove Natalya’s body from her compound. Two Bachians took away the Russian’s body. It’d soon be staked outside the city as a warning.

“I’m worried about Gabe,” Petal said as she sat at Enna’s operating table.

Enna had changed her clothes from traditional Bachian robes into her scrubs. Her hair was pulled up into a tight bun.

“He’ll be okay,” Enna said. “He’s one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met.”

“But he’s gonna do something stupid like try to infiltrate the Red Widows. He’s going to want vengeance. I should go after him.” Petal made to leave the room.

Enna pulled her back, grabbing her wrist. “No. You have to let him go. He’s hurting; he’ll come to his senses in his own time, or if not, then what he does is up to him.”

“But he’s severed our VPN. I can’t even message him.”

“We need to think about you right now. You and Gerry. I don’t even know if this will work, and we need time to iron things out.”

“Besides,” Petal added, “we could really use his help with this. What if things don’t go right?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We could always enlist the help of Sasha and James Rober—”

“He’s a fucking traitor and liar. I wouldn’t trust him anywhere near me.”

Enna put her hands up. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

The atmosphere in the room grew tense, and Petal knew it was her fault. It was bad enough that she lost Gerry and had him living inside her mind in some weird fucked-up way, but now she was on the verge of losing her oldest friend, mentor, and father figure.

Sure, their relationship over the years was a little odd, but the fact is that without Gabe, she wouldn’t be alive today. To see him so distraught killed her. It was the first glimpse into his previous life that she’d had, and seeing how that hope of him finding his family again was cruelly taken from him, she wished she could do something. Wished that she could go with him and help him exact his revenge.

But growing inside her mind, Gerry’s consciousness needed to be set free. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold him. Her memories were already mixing with his, and at times she heard his thoughts and words as if they were her own.

After a few moments of watching Enna prepare the operation room, Petal said, “So, do you have a body in mind to receive Gerry’s consciousness?”

“I do. It’s one I grew with the idea of increasing the cognitive connection bandwidth of the transcendents. After getting a close look at the AI that Gerry defeated at Cemprom, I saw a way that I thought I could design the nervous system and the neural cortex to accommodate a greater capacity AI personality.”

“Can I see it?” Petal asked.

“Sure.” Enna left the room and returned in a few minutes with a tall, tubular tank on a wheeled platform. Inside the tube a naked male floated like the clones James had kept. Even thinking about them and James brought bile to her throat. All those lies he told her... She took a deep breath, letting her anger go.

“He looks good,” she said, not thinking of what else to say. It didn’t look much like Gerry. It was more athletic, taller, and its face was younger. It had none of Gerry’s softness and kindness in its face. She wondered if it would have been possible to grow a clone body from Gerry’s, but then she remembered how damaged it was. After the battle, his body was buried with the others at a monument and memorial cemetery outside the Dome.

Petal thought it was a weird experience watching the burial of the person whose mind was now inside hers. That was when she first felt Gerry’s emotions. She already missed looking at him, being in his company. Or maybe that was just because he was there inside her, doing whatever a digitally uploaded and subsequently downloaded entity does.

“Would the body look different in any way, like the eyes and facial expressions, when the mind is downloaded?”

Enna thought for a moment. “I can’t say for sure, but there might be some change. The consciousness will have its own set of emotions, and that’ll affect how the nerves and muscles work, so there might be some similarity in their mannerisms.”

“How long will it take?” Petal asked.

“Surprisingly, not very long. For a regular transcendent AI personality download, it’s about a thirty-minute procedure. But we’re dealing with something far more complicated, and I’m still not entirely sure if this will work.”

Petal had put off thinking about the consequences of failure. It boiled down to either her losing her mind completely and turning into a vegetable or a homicidal lunatic, or destroying Gerry’s mind completely. There seemed no middle ground, like a headache or slight nausea for a few days. Petal saw it from Enna’s point of view, knew that it’d either be a wonderful success, and they’d get Gerry back, albeit in a different body, or it would be utter catastrophe.

“Story of my life,” Petal said aloud.

“Pardon?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking. Any chance there could be, like, some backup procedure? Or maybe some kind of... I don’t know... a contingency in case things get screwed up?”

“Not really,” Enna said, sitting on a stool next to Petal. She reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The only thing I thought of was enlisting the help of Alpha & Omega to help with the integration, but given what happened the last time they were used, I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“When do you want to get started?” Petal asked.

Enna checked her watch. “It’s getting on for five, so if we start now, we should be finished by this evening and give you, and hopefully Gerry, the night to recover. We could wait, but from what you were saying, it seems you and Gerry are entwining in ever more complex ways, which will complicate any transfer. Even as it is, I’ll have to do quite a lot of manual work.”

“What do you mean manual work?” Petal had a terrible image of Enna poking about in her brain.

“Nothing too bad. It just means that I have to observe your neural network and make sure the right data is being downloaded. It’s okay; I’ve done it before in a related procedure. It’s not dangerous, as such. It just adds a little more time to it.”

“Oh God. We’re really going to have to do this, aren’t we?”

“It’s your call,” Enna said. “But we don’t know what will happen if you leave him in there long term.”

Petal closed her eyes and concentrated her mind. She tried to find Gerry in there amongst her thoughts, wanted to know what he was thinking. Was he aware of what she planned to do? Did he want her to go ahead with it? When nothing came to her, no instinct or warning, she opened her eyes. “Okay, let’s get it underway.”

Enna got Petal set up in the operating theatre. Various wires and sensors were attached to her body. A jack plug from her neck port was attached to a lead that came from the compound’s mainframe. After a shot of tranquilliser, Enna strapped Petal’s arms down for safety.

Whose exactly, she couldn’t be sure. To one side of the table, the tank with the destination body stood like a silent god waiting for its reanimation. The lights of the operating theatre dimmed. Along the walls, various status lights blinked, and a metre-tall, rectangular holoscreen stood at the end of the operating table. Like the smaller one that was next to her bed when she was at Criborg, a flowing stream of data filled the screen.

They became blurry until they were white stripes floating in front of her eyes.

The three overhead lights were sheer clouds, wide and diaphanous. In the background, Enna’s voice muffled, sounding as though it came from the end of a tunnel. And then another sound: Gerry’s mind screamed.

***

Something was terribly wrong. She’d never heard Gerry’s mind communicate before. There were a few vague emotions and memories; this was a real, audible scream of anguish. It woke her up, sending her body into a shock against the tranquillisers.

Warning notices flashed on the holoscreen. The data download spiked before flatlining.

Petal let out a throat-rending scream as her brain became a pyre, searing against her skull. Her heart pounded so hard she fully expected it to give out at any moment.

Gerry’s scream rattling around inside her head made it unbearable. She arched her body in response to the pain, every muscle fibre tensed with defiance.

“Stay calm,” Enna said, her voice ripe with panic as she busied herself at the control desk.

It was too late, though, the procedure had botched. Petal was in meltdown. She thrashed against her restraints, eventually breaking them. Sitting up, she yanked the lead from her neck port.

A smash of glass and the destination body broke its way out of the tube, sending the amnioticlike fluid gushing across the floor. It lurched out, snapping the cable attached to the rear of its head. As soon as it looked up, Petal recognised the look in its wide, crazy eyes.

They were Gerry’s eyes... or at least a fragment of him. She felt him inside her mind still, only much stronger. Gone were the vague connections. Gerry beamed like a radio broadcast directly into her brain. But she couldn’t understand the words.

Enna stood from the desk, turned, and grabbed Petal, pulling her away from the body. She wasn’t quick enough. The thing grabbed Petal by the throat and tossed her across the theatre as though she were an insignificant piece of trash. A hideous high-pitched keening noise came from it as it continued to smash up the place, tearing wires and cables, turning over the table, and throwing the holoscreen to the floor.

Petal tried to stand, but her limbs refused to obey her; the tranquillising drug in her system fought with her adrenaline and fear.

“Oh God,” Enna said. “Get away... get away!”

The thing had leant down, grabbed Enna, and lifted her up clear from the floor, squeezing her head with its considerably powerful hands. Muscles bunched in its forearms and biceps. Its mouth contorted into a weird twisted mockery of a smile. It uttered something unintelligible as Enna continued to thrash uselessly against its body.

One of Gerry’s memories broke through the screaming inside Petal’s head, making it appear as though she were looking through his eyes. She was taken back to the first day she had met Gerry at their hideout within the city. In the back room they had his boss, Mike. He was infected with a particularly nasty demon AI that turned him into a raving, zombielike monster.

The crazed transcendent body was just like Mike. Only this time, Petal was of no help. And Gerry was not there with Gabe’s old revolver, ready to blow it away. She tried to move, but the signals from her brain seemed to have no effect on her limbs as the drugs continued to battle within her body.

Blood dripped from Enna’s nose under the pressure of the assault. Tears ran down her face, and her kicks and punches had weakened to pathetic slaps. As if knowing it was close to killing her, the transcendent flung her to the floor like a rag doll and turned its attention to Petal as she squirmed like an injured kitten among the debris of his rampage.

She tried to form words, but Gerry’s panic inside her head messed with her communications, so that only a choking came out.

The crazed transcendent learned quickly. However much of a personality it had gained from the download, it seemed to be enough for it to control its motor functions. It reached down to the floor just in front of Petal and, keeping eye contact with her, fished around the floor until it found what it was looking for: a scalpel.

It thrust out a meaty hand and grabbed a fistful of her hair. It lifted her off the ground with ease. Only this time, it slammed her face down hard onto the edge of the overturned operating table, creating blinding flashes of colour and shapes in her vision.

Due to the drugs and fear, she didn’t feel the pain. Just saw the reflection in the chrome of her face smashing against it again and again, her features becoming distorted and blood smearing the details.

As the assault continued and the maelstrom increased inside her head, a shadow appeared in the doorway. The creature lifted her head, ready to slam it down once more when she suddenly realised it had let go. Its heavy body toppled over the table and crumpled into a heap of meat in front of her.

There, standing over its prone body, Gabe stood, his duster jacket flailing in the breeze. He wielded a stun-sickle in his right hand. The electricity crackled, lighting up the room with flickering blue light.

With one last burst of energy she managed to lift her head up to look at him.

“Fuck, girl. I go away for five goddamned minutes and ya get yourself in trouble again.”

She tried to smile. A number of teeth fell out, clattering onto the table’s surface. Blood dripped from her mouth. “Urghagh,” she said before collapsing to her knees and passing out.

***

“Hey. How ya doin’, girl?” Gabe looked down at Petal. His head blocked the light.

“You’re not wearing your hat,” she said uneasily, knowing it was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was the first thing that came to mind; she’d rarely seen him without it. She’d got so used to his face being in shadow and partially hidden by his dreads. Now that he wasn’t wearing the hat and had tied his dreads back, she noticed just how old and tired he looked.

“You took one helluva beating.” Gabe reached down and helped her sit up.

“I didn’t feel most of it.” Realising she was no longer at Enna’s place, Petal asked, “Where am I?” Then it dawned on her. “You didn’t bring me to the freakin’ whore rooms in the Spider’s Byte, did you?”

Gabe smiled. “It was the nearest place with an available bed. Besides, I had some credit to use.”

“Too much information.” Petal groaned and winced as she pushed up on to her elbows.

While Gabe busied himself around her, fetching water, plumping her pillows, she realised her mind no longer roiled with Gerry’s anguish. Although she could definitely tell he still lurked inside. “Where’s Enna? What happened to the transcendent’s body? You didn’t kill it, did you?”

“Nah, girl. It’s safe. Enna’s got it over in her lab. Analysing it, trying to work out what went wrong. Enna’s okay. A bit of a headache, but nothing a shot of ’Stem won’t fix.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a shot for her. He reached for her arm, but Petal snatched it away.