The Cyclops Initiative (8 page)

The coast looked clear. Chapel took the cop's gun and his cell phone. Digging through the pouches on the cop's belt, he found a pair of handcuffs. He dragged the cop the few feet over to the scaffolding that held the water tank. One cuff went easily around a support girder, and the other locked in place around the cop's wrist. Chapel grabbed the handcuff key from the same pouch and threw it away into the gravel.

Then he went and found the cop's radio. It was still on, though no one was currently broadcasting. He switched the radio off and then stomped on it until it broke.

Eventually someone was going to call the cop to get his location and status. When the cop didn't answer, other cops would come looking for him. Chapel had no idea how long that would take, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He was just going to have to get Angel out first.

QUEENS, NY: MARCH 21, 16:25

He walked across the gravel toward the trailer with a lump in his throat. Angel was probably his best friend in the world, if he thought about it. She had saved his life so many times, of course, but she'd also been his confidante, the person he talked to when he couldn't talk to anybody else. The person who'd helped him through some very dark times, the person who'd given him great advice when he really needed it. Even if he hadn't always taken it.

She had always believed in him. When he needed it the most, when he'd been so full of self-­doubt he didn't think he could go on, she had helped him find the strength.

And she had the sexiest voice he'd ever heard.

He stopped before the door of the trailer and tried to peer in through the window. It looked like it had been covered over with black paper, but maybe she had some way of seeing out, anyway. Maybe a hidden camera. He lifted one hand in greeting. “Angel,” he said, “it's me. I need to come in. I swear I'm not here to hurt you or anything. Our—­our mutual friend sent me to make sure you come out of this okay.”

He wasn't worried that she would attack him when he opened the door. He just didn't want to scare her. She must know by now that she was in trouble. She was tuned in to news feeds and government communication channels like nobody else. Knowing that he was coming to help might alleviate her fear a little.

Even if Chapel had no idea what their next move would be. That didn't matter. Together they would figure something out. They'd always been an incredible team.

A short flight of metal steps led up to the door. He climbed them easily, then thumbed the latch. The door wasn't locked. He swung it open and stepped inside.

There was no light in the trailer except the wan sunlight that streamed in through the door. At first he could see nothing. Eventually he started making out blocky shapes in the gloom, and then he saw little LEDs flashing at the far end of the trailer. Green and yellow lights on a router. A red light on a powered-­down monitor.

He found a light switch and turned it on, then closed the door behind him. Now that he could see, he made a quick inventory of the contents of the trailer. There was a narrow camp bed made up with hospital corners. It looked like it hadn't been slept in for some time. There was a little kitchen area with a microwave and a tiny sink. An even smaller shower with a pebbled glass door. The rest of the trailer was filled with high-­end computer equipment, big black boxes all chained together with countless loops of Ethernet cable. There were six different monitors, none the same size, and three keyboards. There were server racks mounted on the walls and a projector hanging from the ceiling.

Sitting in the middle of all the computer equipment, propped up on a folding metal chair, was a small server rack with four slots for hard drives. All of them were busy chugging away, their activity lights strobing in the dark. On the front of the server rack's face someone had attached a strip of masking tape, and written on the tape in permanent marker were the words:

“ANGEL” NEURAL NETWORK V. 7.4

QUEENS, NY: MARCH 21, 16:28

Chapel didn't understand. He refused to understand.

He refused to accept what he was looking at. It just couldn't be right.

Sure, he'd had the thought once, years ago. Back when he was first starting to work with Angel and he'd spent far too much time wondering what she looked like, what kind of woman was behind that sexy voice in his ear. He'd jokingly considered the fact that she might actually be a three-­hundred-­pound man using a voice modulator. Or maybe even that Angel wasn't a person at all, that she was . . .

No. It couldn't be true.

He forgot all about the fact that he was running out of time. That he needed to get out of here before Wilkes arrived. He put the submachine gun down on the floor and walked over to the server rack where it sat on the folding chair. Squatting down, he read the piece of masking tape again, thinking maybe he'd misinterpreted it.

The server rack almost seemed to breathe, or maybe just to crackle with static electricity as he raised a hand to touch it.

When Angel spoke to him, his whole body flinched.

“Is someone there? This is private property. Leave now or I'm calling the police.”

It was the voice he knew so well, the one he'd flirted with, the one he'd told all his secrets. It came from a set of speakers mounted on top of one of the dead monitors.

He saw a microphone mounted above the largest of the keyboards. Leaning close to it, he said, “Angel? Is that you?”

“You're in serious trouble, whoever you are. But you can fix it by turning around and leaving right now. This is your last warning,” she said.

“Angel—­it's me. It's Chapel.”

“Chapel?”

One of the monitors flickered to life. It showed a plain gray window full of code he didn't know how to read, making him think of the Predator drone activity logs he'd seen back at NSA headquarters. As soon as his brain made that connection he shook his head—­no, it was nothing like that. There was more to Angel than just—­

“Chapel, you weren't ever supposed to come here,” she said.

“I know, but we were out of options,” he said.

“We? Who's we?”

Chapel sighed. “I was sent here by . . . our mutual friend,” he said. It was a code phrase the two of them sometimes used when discussing Hollingshead. He didn't want to name the director, not here. He was sure that everything he said in the trailer was being recorded. Somebody might be listening in, even now—­maybe the person who hijacked the Predator. The person who was trying to frame Angel. Chapel tried to think it through, think about what he needed to do here. But he was still reeling from the discovery that Angel was—­

“Angel, am I looking at you right now?” he asked.

“Chapel, you weren't ever supposed to come here.”

He frowned. That was exactly what she'd said before. Not just the same words—­the same inflection. The same emphasis.

“What's a neural network?” he asked.

“A neural network is a computational array designed to mimic the process by which living nervous systems process information. Instead of running programs line by line, the network distributes information through a series of weighted—­”

“Enough,” Chapel said, and she fell silent. He placed his good hand on top of the server stack. Its warmth radiated up through his palm, the way he would have felt warmth if he'd touched a human being. This was just too weird. “Tell me the truth, Angel. Do you exist? I mean, are you a human being? Or are you some kind of artificial intelligence that I've been talking to, some computer program designed to fool me into thinking—­” He couldn't finish that sentence.

She was his best friend in the world. Maybe the only friend he had left. And she wasn't even real. Just some virtual woman created to gain his trust, designed—­written—­by some computer programmer, given that sexy voice because they knew how Chapel would respond
to it—­

“Chapel?” she said.

“You didn't answer my question,” he said very softly.

“Chapel?”

Another screen lit up. It showed more lines of code, scrolling down the screen far faster than any human being could read them. Then a third screen came to life, but this time it showed a video feed.

“Chapel, someone is outside,” she told him.

He studied the screen. It showed the gravel yard outside the
trailer—­he could see the old water tank in the distance and he imagined the camera must be located just outside the trailer's door.

Maybe a dozen police in riot gear were approaching, taking their time about it but doing it right. They all had their guns up, ready to shoot anything that moved. In front of the pack of cops was a man in an army uniform. He didn't seem to be armed. The camera's resolution wasn't good enough for Chapel to make out his facial features, but he didn't need to.

Wilkes had arrived.

QUEENS, NY: MARCH 21, 16:40

“Chapel, you weren't ever supposed to come here,” Angel said.

“Yeah, you figured that out, huh? Well, it's true. I'm not here in any kind of official capacity. You remember this guy?” Chapel said, tapping the screen that showed the video feed. It felt weird, like he was tapping her on the shoulder. “You remember Wilkes?”

“I worked with him once,” Angel said.

“Yeah. Well, he's here to arrest you. I don't know what he'll do when he finds out what you are.” No time for carefully picking words now, he decided. “I was supposed to find you first. Get you to safety. I don't even know what that means now. I mean, our mutual friend must have known what I would find, right? But what did he expect me to do? Unplug you and carry you out of here?”

“I don't know who you're talking about,” Angel said.

Chapel frowned. Was she just maintaining plausible deniability? It was funny. The whole time he'd worked with Angel, she had sounded like a real, living human being. Now he'd seen what she really was, he wondered how he'd never guessed. Talking to her felt exactly like talking to a computer.

“I have to do something here,” he said. “Before Wilkes can get to you. I have to get you out of here.” But how? The server rack with her name on it looked like it probably weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. He could carry it, but he wouldn't be able to run at the same time.

The question of how he would get it past twelve cops and a DIA agent without being seen wasn't even worth considering. That just wasn't going to happen. But maybe there was something he could do. “I'm looking at a server stack with four hard drives in it,” he said. “What's on each of these drives?”

“Drive A contains database files. Drive B contains programs to handle queries, short-­term memory storage and basic personality functions. Drive C is long-­term memory storage. Drive D contains control functions for the neural network. Do you need a directory of all files contained on these drives?”

Chapel shook his head. “No, no—­listen, Drive C contains your memories? Is that right? They aren't stored anywhere else?”

“Drive C is dedicated to long-­term storage,” she said.

It would have to be enough. He would lose her personality—­well, maybe they could rebuild that. Maybe not. But if he let her fall into the wrong hands, they would take her apart until there was nothing left at all. “I'm going to have to turn you off,” he told her.

“Chapel, I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. Because it really did feel like he was about to perform amateur brain surgery on his best friend. But he had no choice. He reached behind the server stack and yanked out the power cable. All the lights on the front of the stack went out. So did all three monitors. Cooling fans spun down with a sound like the last breath escaping from a pair of dying lungs.

Chapel's hand shook as he reached for the button that would release Drive C. It popped out of the stack on hidden springs and almost jumped into his hand. It was a thin metal case about eight inches on a side, warm to the touch. He slid it inside his uniform tunic. It made his chest look bulky and lopsided but there was nothing he could do about that.

With the screens dead he had no view of what was happening outside the trailer. The windows had all been covered with thick black paper that let no light through at all. He took a risk and scratched at the corner of one window until the paper came up and a beam of light speared into the room. Through the little hole he'd made he could see the gravel yard outside. He could just make out the figures of Wilkes and his escort. They were very, very close.

Then someone's fist banged on the door and he knew he was out of time.

“NYPD! Open up,” a cop shouted. “We have a warrant to enter these premises.”

Chapel spun around, looking for any other possible exit from the room. He didn't see any. There was a hatch in the ceiling, designed to give the trailer a little ventilation, but it wasn't nearly wide enough for him to crawl through.

He considered hiding under the camp bed or in the shower stall, but that was foolish. The cops wouldn't just forget to search the place.

No, the only way out of the trailer was through that door.

So he reached over and worked the latch, then swung it open, careful to keep out of sight. There were a lot of cops out there with a lot of guns. He didn't want to give them any reason to shoot.

“I'm unarmed!” he shouted.

He heard Wilkes laugh. “You know, when you say that, it's kind of funny. Come on out of there, Chapel. You know why I'm here.”

Chapel put his hands up and stepped into the doorway. The cops all had their weapons pointed at his chest.

“Down on the ground!” one of them shouted, but Wilkes shook his head.

“Let it go. This is one of the good guys.”

The police didn't move from their firing positions, but at least none of them barked any more orders at him.

Wilkes came up to the stairs that led into the trailer. He gave Chapel a big, shit-­eating grin. Chapel knew that look from his days growing up in Florida. It was a southerner's way of saying
I don't even need to fuck with you, because you've managed to get yourself up to your ass in alligators all on your own
. It wasn't a sentiment he could argue with, just then.