Artificial Absolutes (Jane Colt Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter 3

What the Hell?

A
t the end of the
workday, Devin remained at his desk, but not reviewing reports or double-checking numbers. The usual assortment of historical data applications and market news Netsites stretched across his monitor, which surrounded him in a semi-circle. All had been unattended for hours.

Meanwhile, he devoted his attention to the message window on his slate.

Corsair: I was finally able to trace the Seer’s signal. He’s out on the Fringe, somewhere in the Viatian region.

The Seer was a notoriously untraceable person who lurked around the online forums of various Netcrews. He posted as “Anonymous” and had been given the Netname by the Collective. Although Netcrews were accustomed to people browsing their conversations, the Seer had gained a kind of notoriety due to his tendency to write mysteriously well-informed posts containing explosive information and return to silence. He never once showed up in the virtual reality forums where demons, represented by avatars, gathered to speak “in person,” their words transposed to the typed-out forums.

One of the Seer’s recent posts had caught Devin’s attention, one that seemed uncannily relevant to Sarah’s strange reaction to his proposal. Devin had tried to contact the Seer ever since. Corsair claimed to have traced the most heavily veiled person on the Net, a deed many of the Networld’s most sophisticated demons—and more than a few cybersecurity teams—had failed to do. Although Devin trusted Corsair, he couldn’t help his skepticism.

Archangel: How did you find him?

Corsair: I won’t bore you with the details, but it was too easy. The Seer must have wanted to be found.

Before Devin could respond, a window popped up on the screen: Jane Colt calling. He pressed “accept.” A video of Jane filled the slate.

“Devin! I-I didn’t know who else to call.” Her eyes were wide as she backed up against a mirror.

Devin had never seen her so scared before. “What’s wrong?”

Jane pointed at something out of view. “It came after me and—I can’t think. Devin, I don’t know what to do!”

“Okay, calm—”

“
Don’t tell me to calm down
!” Her expression turned from frightened to irritated.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“I went to see Adam at his dorm, and there was this—this
machine
. It was
kidnapping
him!”

“What?”

“You heard me! It—It came after me! I’m stuck in the elevator, and I tried calling for help, but I couldn’t get through—” Jane dug her fingers into her hair. “I—I don’t know what to do!”

Whatever was going on, his kid sister was terrified, and he had to help. “Okay, Jane. Can you show me the elevator?”

Jane panned her slate.

The elevator was a Festiind model. An older one, but standard. “Take down the mirror. You should find a small glass door on the wall. The button behind it—that’s the emergency door release.”

The screen went blank as Jane folded her slate. Devin heard her struggling to take down the mirror. He turned to his monitor, opened a communication window, and typed a message to the local authorities.

“I’m sorry. Your message to the Via Theological Seminary’s Office of Public Safety cannot be sent at this time.”

That’s odd.

The video of Jane reappeared. The mirror leaned against the elevator doors behind her. She looked over the camera. “I just press the button, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay… Um…” Repeated clicking. Jane opened her mouth in panic. “It’s—it’s not working. Devin, it’s not working! It’s broken or… Shit, it’s coming!”

Something whirred in the video’s background.
What’s that?
“Do you have your stunner?” The small weapon could fire non-lethal blasts that would knock out most would-be attackers.

Jane shrank against the wall. “No… I forgot it…”

Devin thought for a moment. There was something else about Festiind models, something that had caught his attention back when…

“Jane, lift up the carpet. There’s a maintenance hatch in the center of the floor. Pull out the handle, twist clockwise, and push. It opens down.”

Jane dropped the slate by the elevator door and tore up the carpet.

Open communication window, retype message, send.

“I’m sorry. Your message to the Via Theological Seminary’s Office of Public Safety cannot be sent at this time.”

Jane picked up the slate. “Um… Devin?” Her eyes tilted down with worry.

“What’s wrong?”

“
That
.” She pointed the camera down the circular hatch, revealing the long elevator shaft below.

Shit.
The maintenance workers used cable systems to navigate the shaft.
I should’ve remembered.

Jane looked into the camera. “Where do I go from here?”

The whirring grew louder. Devin thought quickly. “There should be some utility conduits on the side of… Forget it. You’re not going down there.”

“What the hell
am
I supposed to do?”

Open window, retype, send. Error.
“Hang in there. I’m trying to—”

A loud
crash
split the air as the mirror fell. The elevator doors had opened.

Jane screamed. “
Screw it
!”

“What’re you doing?”

The video blurred. When the image steadied, the camera pointed vaguely in the direction of the door.

A wheeled machine with several appendages came into view.

What the hell?

Devin pressed the “record” icon on his slate. The machine raised a pointed appendage over the camera and slammed into it.

Jane had never been afraid of heights. As a child, she’d enjoyed alarming her mother by climbing the tallest Venovian evergreens on the Colt estate. Comparing her size then to her size currently, she probably wasn’t much higher up. It was a little different hanging from the underside of an elevator with only a hastily slammed hatch between her and a killer robot.

Well, this sucks.

That she’d caught the bar after sliding down the hatch could only be attributed to super reflexes reserved for times of great danger or to the grace of the Absolute. If only those super reflexes or that divine grace would allow her to reach the conduit Devin had mentioned…

The faint lights along shaft’s walls let her vaguely make out the conduit’s square entrance. Jane saw another bar under the elevator, parallel to the conduit’s top edge. She’d played on jungle gyms when she was little and remembered the motion of swinging her body to catch a bar an arm’s length away, but she’d forgotten how much the friction burned her palms.

She grabbed the bar and swung forward. Her face banged into the wall.
Ow.

After taking a moment to let the pain in her face subside, she extended her body as far as she could, barely touching the conduit’s floor with her foot.

Dammit! Wish my legs were longer. Good thing I wore flats today. And pants. If I had to do this in heels and a skirt…

The inane thoughts kept her from freaking out. Something about talking to her brother had done away with the panic she’d felt before. She wasn’t about to let it take over again.

The conduit was only half her height. Even if she could stand, she would probably fall backward if she tried.

Why are utility conduits so small? Are maintenance workers all midgets or something?

A small handle below her, right by the conduit, looked within reach. She grabbed it with one hand. She had to let go of the bar under the elevator to enter the conduit, but the thought was too scary.

Above her, the machine whirred.

Jane had never been remotely religious, but in a situation as unthinkable as the one she was in, even she prayed, albeit facetiously.

Hello, Absolute One. Please let the machine be too big to fit through the hatch. And please keep me from falling. In return, I will compose a magnificent motet for You. So be it, truly.

Jane closed her eyes and let go of the bar. She bit her lip to stifle a yelp as she dropped her body weight onto one arm.

She reached up with her free hand and pressed her forearm into the conduit’s cold metal floor. By pulling, bending, and twisting, she managed to fold herself into the conduit.

She collapsed against the wall in relief.
Whew! Made it!

Jane listened for the machine, half expecting it to appear right behind her. Instead, a
beep
emitted from her pocket. Wondering what the hell it was—and why the hell she didn’t know the contents of her own pocket—she reached in. She pulled out her company-issued videophone.

Oh, right. This thing.

Devin sprinted down the office corridor, eyes fixed on the slate in his hand.
Dammit, Jane. Please have your videophone…

Jane’s face appeared in a window. “Devin?”

“
Jane
!” He stopped and exhaled. She hadn’t fallen. “What happened?”

“Don’t worry, bro. I’m all right.” Even in the darkness, Devin could tell Jane was trying to reassure him with one of her cocky smirks. “I caught the bar under the elevator and used my super jungle gym skills to get into the conduit.” The smirk faded. “I don’t know where the machine went, but I don’t hear it anymore.”

Devin rearranged his face into a calm expression. He continued down the corridor, heading for the nearby hangar where Dad kept an air transport. “I’m coming to the seminary. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You don’t expect me to
wait
, do you?”

“Of course not.” Devin ran through his memories. “Look back at the conduit’s entrance. There’s always a manual control panel there.”

“Okay, I see it.” The panel creaked as it opened. Jane aimed the camera at it. “Um… There are, like, ten thousand switches here.”

“Flip the green one marked seven-three-one. That’ll turn on the emergency lights.”

A few seconds later, a line of dim green lights flickered on along the conduit’s wall, illuminating the funny look Jane gave him. “How’d you know?”

“Never mind that.” Devin turned a corner. “Follow the lights. They’ll lead you to the building’s control room. You’ll probably have to go down some ladders.”

“Okay, do you have a second job as an art thief?” Keeping her videophone in her hand, Jane crawled through the conduit. “How do you know so much about the inner workings of buildings?”

I wish I didn’t.
“I’ll tell you later.”

Jane stopped and looked into the camera. “You always say that! Why do you have to keep these dumb secrets? I’m your freaking sister, Devin, and I know
nothing
about you. You never tell me anything, and whenever I ask, you act all mysterious. It’s irritating as hell!”

Oh, Pony.
Only Jane could lecture him while hiding from a dangerous machine in the dimly lit innards of a dormitory. Devin knew better than to defend himself. “Just follow the lights. That’s what they’re there for. When you reach the end, you’ll see a clearly marked door.”

He reached the elevator and punched “G” for
Ground
into the control panel. As he waited, he minimized the video, opened a communication window, and contacted the police.

“I’m sorry. Your message to the Kydera City Police Department cannot be sent at this time.”

Something’s wrong.

The elevator arrived. Devin entered. He considered trying the police again, then changed his mind and typed a message to Corsair.

Archangel: I’m sending you a video of a robot spotted at the Via Theological Seminary of Kydera Major. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Corsair: Is it remote-controlled or programmed to operate independently?

Archangel: I don’t know.

Corsair: Who sent it?

Devin summarized what he knew. The elevator doors opened. He stepped out. As he speed-walked toward the building’s exit, he began uploading the brief video he’d recorded.

“Error. File does not exist.”

What?

Devin whisked through the pages on his slate, checking filenames and locations, but found nothing.

Archangel: Someone erased the file. Did you get any of it?

Corsair: A few frames. I’ll upload them onto Citizen Zero’s network.

Citizen Zero was an anti-establishment Netcrew often derided as being full of conspiracy theorists. Due to the combined paranoia of its members, its network was one of the safest places to secure files in danger of deletion. As soon as Corsair posted the images on the forum dedicated to that purpose—usually saving corporate documents or political memos from cybersecurity teams attempting to remove them from the public’s view—they would be automatically downloaded and disseminated so widely it would be impossible to track down all the copies.