Code Breakers: Beta (3 page)

“For what?” Petal asked. “You can’t blame yourself for—”

“I can’t stay. I need to...”

He turned away from her, unable to take it anymore, and walked away towards the gates of the city.

Petal followed him. “Where are you going?”

Without looking back and increasing his pace, he simply said, “I don’t know.”

Chapter 2

4:30pm — Presidential Suite, Libertas

Sasha read Jimmy Robertson’s report on her slate while sitting in the Presidential Suite: the top floor of the finest hotel in the city. Jimmy, just hours before, had finished interviewing the boy called Steven, who had provided the Libertas interim government with information about these ‘hot’ chips that allowed users to remove themselves from the automation of the citywide network and thus out of the D-lottery. The latter had since been abolished as soon as they set up the temporary government.

The report went on to explain that these chip users referred to themselves as ronin to indicate their independence from the control of the Dome. Sasha thought it stupid; they might be free of the citywide network and the Family’s control, but now they were just slaves to Elliot, the mad digital entity, existing somewhere out there in the ether, hiding in some vast network, manipulating these human drones.

The report detailed how Steven had met with a man in the warehousing district of the Dome. As a favour to Gerry, a boy named Kaden gave Steven one of these chips. Desperate and running out of time, Steven installed it, successfully removing himself from the D-Lottery. However, there was a side effect that Gerry was unaware of. One that led to his death—or at least the death of his body: the side effect was a direct line to Elliot’s influence.

The problem now was that since Petal had killed Kaden in furious vengeance, there was no way of knowing how many of these dangerous chips had been distributed throughout the city. All they knew at this stage was what Steven had told them. That Elliot, via the chip, got inside his head and made him do things he wouldn’t normally do. Elliot could see what Steven saw, thought, and felt. Each ronin became a physical manifestation of Elliot’s will.

When the two servers, Alpha & Omega, were rejoined and when the Family’s satellite that dampened computer networks across the globe was destroyed, it freed Elliot from his temporary prison. Through these chips, the crazy bastard had ample opportunity to do what he wanted within the city.

When Sasha finished reading the report, she looked up at the others gathered around the round oak table in the middle of the hotel suite. It overlooked the great lake and park. The artificial light made it seem like a perfect summer’s day. There were numerous citizens sitting on the banks by the lake, playing with their children, no doubt relieved and enjoying their newfound freedom from the tyrannical, controlling Family.

Across the table from her sat the temporary president, Justiciar Rosario Fuentes, the head of the city’s justice system before the Family left. Fuentes was a woman who stood up for the citizens by refusing to leave with the rest of the government officials.

In a unanimous result, the public had voted for her while the city recovered from its huge loss of people in important positions and set up a new government that worked for the people. Unlike most of those who had lead roles in the running of the city before the revolution, she wasn’t born in the Dome.

At fifty-nine years old, she was a toddler when the Cataclysm happened. She was in her native Mexico during the first wave, and by some miracle, she survived and was eventually picked up by a passing Family battleship.

Showing great aptitude in her proceeding years, the Family instated her within the Dome and exploited her loyalty to them.

Next to her, and fanning around the table, sat a task force made up of ten other men and women elected by their peers. Among the group was James ‘Jimmy’ Robertson, Sasha, and surprisingly, young Jess, who’d proved so instrumental in working with the two servers. Her role in the group was as a ‘listener’. Using her unique talent for hearing and understanding computer traffic, it was decided she would help with interrogating those found wearing the chips in order to track down the source.

“Well?” Rosario said to Sasha. “What are your thoughts?”

The entire task force, codenamed Liberty, were all looking towards her now. It’s strange, Sasha thought. All the time she spent at Criborg, no one really gave her credit or respect, apart from Jimmy, who was mostly just protecting her. But here, in Libertas, she was elevated to chief security officer and tasked to find and eliminate all users, dealers, and makers of the chips.

So far she was losing that battle. There were daily murders now, and the public were demanding something be done. Some of the ronin had organised groups of citizens to protest on their behalf. Some people just didn’t want the freedom after all. They wanted the safety of the network, the lack of responsibility. And there was the mad bastard Elliot, waiting, and willing, to provide them with the control they appeared to desire.

She thought on the report, considered the spree of crime that had occurred shortly after Liberty was setup, and compiled the reams of intelligence gathered so far.

“From what I can tell,” Sasha began, trying to sound professional and competent in front of her new peers, “we have a sleeper cell within the city. An individual or individuals are manufacturing the ronin-chips and installing them on very specific people. I believe the operation is carried out by someone here on the ground, but directed by Elliot from his as-yet-unknown location.”

Jess caught Sasha’s eye. The young girl gave her a supportive thumbs-up, having listened to Sasha confide in her about her nervousness about her new role and the responsibilities that came with it just hours before the meeting.

It was also a prompt.

“Speaking with Jess earlier today, I... erm... ascertained a pattern. Having caught one of the ronin the day before prior to carrying out plans to commit...” Sasha stopped, the words tripping over in her mouth. She took a breath, felt her body get hot and sweat form on her forehead. Everyone was staring at her, expectant.

Eventually, she looked up and said, “Look, I can’t do all this politics talk, right, so I’ll just say it how I want, and you’ll just have to live with that, okay?”

Rosario laughed, and the others followed. Jimmy joined in and gave her a wink. “Sasha, love, you communicate however you want,” he added.

“Thanks, Jimmy. Okay, so these bastard ronin are basically looking to cause as much mayhem as possible. Elliot is using ’em as nodes and outposts. They’re like a walking network, all exchanging data and receiving instructions from a controller somewhere. Elliot’s in charge, all right, and they’re dancing to his tune, but there’s one meat-bag down here who’s putting it all into place.

“Jess here analysed the data and the traffic, and although we’ve yet to break the encryption, we can tell the level of traffic is increasing. More and more citizens are being turned into damned drones. If we find this meat-bag, we can find a way into the network and put a stop to it.”

“Thank you, Sasha,” a man said with a growling, wheezing voice: Malik Silverman. He was presumed dead after falling in battle, but when the Red Widows were captured and imprisoned, Sasha and some of the others were tasked with clearing the battlefield and preparing the dead for burial. It was there, in a pile of limbs, she heard breathing. Somehow, against all the odds, Malik had managed to cling to life where his brothers, and many others, were unable.

Requiring extensive surgery and implants, Malik was almost more of a machine than man. And yet his will to survive had kept him going. Jimmy, probably in an effort to prove he wasn’t a liar and betrayer, had taken Malik on as his personal project, working around the clock to treat his injuries.

Malik was a war hero to the people of Libertas. Television, radio, and network media shows talked of his acts of bravery on the battlefield and played interviews where he spoke passionately about how Gerry, a Dome citizen, had led the way, showed him that there was more to the world, and life, than living under the Family’s rule.

Due to his position within the city, he was elected as their defence minister. He worked closely with Sasha on dealing with the threat of these Elliot-controlled insurgents.

“I’d like to add,” Malik continued, “we need to act quickly on this issue. Although most of the population are glad of their freedom, there are portions that cling to the ideas of the Family and would rather we go back to living under their control. It’s a splinter group within that number who I suspect are being targeted by the insurgent ronin.

“Early estimates, provided to us by the guys at Cemprom, who are working with Jess to analyse the data traffic, show that this group are recruiting upwards of ten people a day, and we expect that to start changing exponentially as more and more are taken from us.”

Rosario looked at both Malik and Sasha. “What would you suggest we do next? We’re still in the process of training new security officers, and we’re dealing with murders, looting, and civil unrest across a wide expanse of the city. We can’t manage it all, and we need to nip this in the bud before our citizens start to feel unsafe. We had another murder this morning—a reporter for the Libertas Daily.”

“I’d like permission to take a small squad with me out into the financial district,” Sasha said.

James looked at Sasha, raising his eyebrows. “Why there?”

“It’s there,” Malik interjected, rubbing at the scars across his cheek, “that we believe we’ve identified a main ronin-chip dealer. He’s a relation of Kaden Willis’ mother. And I believe it was through that relationship that he entangled the boy into all this.”

“I’m suggesting,” Sasha said, “that Malik and I, with a little backup, go pay this sleazeball a visit and politely enquire about this situation.”

Rosario squirmed on her chair, anxiety tightening her face. She looked around the table, assessing the reaction of the others.

“Well, I think it’s understandable that this individual is questioned. But we can’t just go killing and torturing people. We’d be no better than those that left us. Do we still have cell space after taking in the Red Widow POWs?”

A blonde woman wearing bright red lipstick and a tailored suit with silver thread spoke up. “There is space, Justiciar. But I have to say, if we are dealing with a sleeper cell of insurgents, run and manipulated by the ronin and Elliot, we can’t be expected to play fair. Malik lost his dear brother and many friends on the battlefield. Gerry Cardle sacrificed his very body and who knows what else for us. It’s not the time to be weak willed. People fought for our freedom, and I’m damn well not willing to just let that be taken from us again.”

The woman slammed her fist on the table triumphantly, clearly getting a little excited with her own speech. She wasn’t even anything to do with security. She was an economic representative. She was showing all signs of ‘Silvermania’, which had taken over a portion of the city since Malik Silverman’s heroic acts were promoted around the various media. The suit she wore was a common sight around the city now. Malik even had his own fan club that called themselves the Silvermaniacs.

Those around the table hid their mirth while muttering their agreement.

Jimmy spoke up. “President Fuentes, I’m sure Sasha and Malik will show intelligence and restraint. We currently have twenty-three cells free, but I’m not sure we should take the justice approach on this rather than the intelligence-gathering process. I’d like for them to recover this individual and bring him to a cell where we can question him. And, before you object, I’m absolutely not suggesting torture. I’m suggesting we let the boys and girls at Cemprom and young Jess here, analyse the chip in more detail and see if we can crack the encryption. At the very least, we should be able to find some way of tracking the other ronin via their connection if we’re able to reverse engineer it.”

Rosario Fuentes stood and raised her hand up. “Okay, okay, I’m convinced, but we really don’t have the manpower for a squad. If I take anyone off the streets, I’ll have no one left to deal with the current spate of crime. It’s going to take some time to re-engineer the security protocols without having to resort to using the citywide AIA network, which at this point is not an option until Cemprom can disable the Family-installed functionality.

“Malik, Sasha, you’ll have to go visit this man on your own. And besides, a full squad will cause suspicion and perhaps scare away the target. Go speak with him quietly, and bring him back here so that Jim...” She coughed, scratching at her face. “Erm... I mean Dr Robertson, can lead a team to crack the encryption.”

“That’s fine by me,” Malik said.

“Me too,” Sasha said.

“One last thing. Keep me informed with developments.”

As President Fuentes left the room, Sasha noticed a slight blushing on her face. Her earlier slip-up seemed to hint at a more personal relationship with ol’ Jimmy than she had let on. Sasha would have to interrogate him later on that juicy morsel of gossip.

The rest of Liberty departed the suite, leaving Sasha and Malik behind.

He stood up, straightened his blue uniform, and smiled at her. “You ready?”

“Sure, let’s go get this scumbag.”

As Sasha led Malik out of the room, she couldn’t help but notice in the reflection of the glass doors that he was checking her out. She was wearing her favourite outfit, a form-fitting black suit, and even she had to agree that her butt was looking particularly fine in it. She couldn’t blame him for looking.

***

Benedict Loas, the man they suspected of being a dealer, lived a twenty-minute walk away from the Presidential Suite. They would have taken the tram, but with it being controlled by the network, it too was currently offline. Besides, it was a nice walk. Most of the citizens, although on alert after the recent problems, were going about their business, crowding the sidewalks, making it difficult for Sasha and Malik to make quick progress.

They passed a group of protestors, no doubt under the influence of a ronin. They stood at the edge of the park with banners decrying the return of the network and its various systems.

The hustle and bustle of the protestors and the citizens made for a lively presence in the city. Still, Sasha didn’t mind. She’d spent almost all her life underground at Criborg’s island—which the scientists who had been left behind were redesigning into an outpost—and having the open air, albeit beneath the Dome, to wander around in was a nice change.