Code Breakers: Beta (5 page)

“No, Gabe, I don’t want that. Not anymore.”

“Ya sure? What about the pain? Ya broke ya nose and lost two teeth.”

It didn’t really matter to her. Somehow, despite her injuries, she did not suffer excessive pain. She had a sneaking suspicion Gerry was behind it. If there was anyone who could work out the human system and manipulate it, it was he. She thought of him then as a kind of internal guardian angel. Not that she ever believed in religion. Even Gabe didn’t, despite his religious style and penchant for overly dramatic coding.

She’d always thought Gabe took on that persona so he could somehow forgive himself for his actions. Or perhaps it was nothing more than a costume. He always liked to keep everyone at a distance, but Natalya’s revelation earlier forced him to come out of hiding and face reality.

“Why did you come back?” she asked.

Gabe rubbed his face and sighed. “I couldn’t just leave ya behind. Not after all these years. I feel responsible for ya, and let’s face it, ya’re a hot mess without me looking after ya.”

“I could say likewise, old friend. What’s the real reason? You miss the elegant charm of Bachia and its whores?”

He shook his head, his face becoming serious. “Nothing like that. I analysed the data on the slate. Natalya was right; it was my parents and their people in that video. They’d crossed the border into China. They were probably heading for the Dome when the Widows found ’em.”

“So what did you find? Are they still alive, do you think? You mentioned that she was using them to bargain for her life—how would the Red Widows know if she died and take action on her behalf?”

“That’s the thing right there. They couldn’t. The bitch was bluffin’. Since Jess decoupled Alpha and Omega and we took ’em offline, there’s no Meshwork, no connection between here and the Widows. Natalya was here for nearly a month, locked up. She had no access to anything. The date-stamp on the video was from before she left to join the rest in Darkhan before the battle.”

“So that means they could still be alive!”

“I really don’t think so.”

“What is it?”

Gabe handed her the slate and played the video. “See that man there in the line-up? That’s my father. The rest of the people in front of him were killed.”

She couldn’t watch beyond the first few seconds of footage. Dread-faced men shuffled forwards; the sounds of screams coming after a gunshot, the results of which were mercifully out of frame; Gabe’s father reached the front of the line... no, she couldn’t contemplate it. She handed the slate back to Gabe, tried to offer him some form of condolence, but it seemed entirely trivial.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, expecting him to be riled up, wanting vengeance. But he just shrugged his shoulders. A single tear welled up in his right eye before he turned and wiped it away.

“I dunno. I could kill every single one of those bitches and dance on their corpses, but would that change anything? Would that achieve anything? I have family here now. You, Enna, Gerry. If I go after the Widows, I’ll be deserting you like I did my first family, and look what happened there. I couldn’t handle it if anything happened... and besides, I don’t know where they are. This video could have been taken anywhere.”

Petal reached out for him. “It’s okay; I understand.” She didn’t, though. She could never even begin to understand what he was going through. “If you want to go, I’ll come with you. I’ll have your back all the way. Maybe there’ll be some redemption there. Maybe...”

She broke off, unwilling to suggest some of his family were still alive. That would be a cruel hope to give. But, unable to resist, knowing hope might be the only thing she could offer, she added, “Look, the video file is only a few weeks old. They could still be alive, right? It makes sense, no? We’ve got to go for them at least. We have vehicles now, plenty of food and water. We could take some Bachians with us. Let me have some time with the video, to see if with Gerry’s skills and mine we can crack the encryption and find a lead on where this was taken. All video data streams have data in there somewhere—”

“Ya can’t come,” Gabe said, cutting her enthusiasm. “We need to deal with the Gerry situation.”

“I think it’s getting better,” Petal said. “I mean... our minds seem to be merging, or at least finding a way of existing together.”

“It ain’t that simple.”

“What do you mean?”

“Enna analysed the transcendent. The reason it went mad? The capacity wasn’t enough to take all of Gerry’s consciousness. Only a fragment downloaded. Which means ya don’t have the full thing inside ya; he’s split and breaking down. It’s only a matter of time before his code mutates like Elliot’s did. Only this time, it’s inside ya.”

Falling back into the pillows, Petal sighed. “Life’d be much easier if that lying bastard James made me a damned sexbot or something. Seriously, Gabe, this life sucks.”

“It does so far, yeah. But who knows what the future holds? Get some sleep; it’s getting late. Tomorrow we’ll sort something out.”

“How?”

“Enna and I spoke with James and Jess—”

“You did what?”

“Wait, hear me out.”

“I don’t want that bastard anywhere near me, you understand? If he comes within an arm’s distance, I’ll fuckin’ rip his balls off. This is all his fault.”

“That might be, but with his and Jess’ help, he could also be ya only chance. Swallow ya damned pride and fury and give the guy a chance. Hell, he isn’t the only one who’s fucked up in this life, is he? Here’s the thing; he and Jess are bringing the servers over to Enna’s place in the morning. With their help and added processing power, we should have a better shot at sorting out the fragments of Gerry in ya head and that transcendent. But ya need to get some rest, okay?”

“Don’t look like I got much choice, does it?”

“No choice at all.”

Gabe leant in, kissing her on the forehead before leaving the room.

At least one thing was certain: Gabe had her back. Before he could leave, she asked, “What are you going to do about the video? Your family.”

He didn’t respond before closing the door behind him. But she noticed he’d left the slate behind. She took it, hoping to find a lead.

Chapter 4

Sasha yawned at herself in the mirror. She looked washed out, pale, beat up.

She liked it. Made her feel tough, gave her a sense of actually doing something, being productive. She poked at the scabs on her cheek, created by the ’Stem solution. She hoped to have a scar like Malik. Maybe that’d get her a little more respect for what she was capable of. She still seethed from Fuentes’ bullshit.

Instead of congratulating her on stopping the sniper and recovering information, Sasha got a strip torn off for endangering the public and summoned to the Presidential Suite for a debriefing.

The cold lights of the medical pod flickered. The city’s power system, mostly from solar and fission reactors, was still being regulated now that Cemprom had started dismantling the pervasive, citywide network. It was one thing disconnecting the lottery from the citizens’ inbuilt AIAs, but it was another to ensure the consistent running of the Dome’s various systems.

They were currently having a series of controlled brownouts during the night in order to fix the system. She hoped they’d sort it soon; she didn’t like the idea of the ronin lurking about the city in the dark, hiding from the security force’s patrol cars and drones.

It was nearly 20:00. The city grew dark outside the window of the thirty-third floor of the medical centre: a floor taken over by Jimmy for his various theatres.

Two rooms were dedicated to his personal work: his clones. Always the goddamned clones. Despite having her and Petal, he still focussed on those suspended broken ones as if they were all he wanted. As if she and Petal didn’t even exist.

Their relationship had developed a few fractures since the truth came out. Still, she certainly didn’t hold a grudge to the extent Petal did. She worried for her, for them both. They’d barely spoken since the battle. With Petal spending most of her time with Gabe and Enna, a divide had developed between them. Each day that passed made it harder to reach out. Petal had only come to the Dome twice in the last month, preferring to stay in Bachia.

Sasha knew she’d have to get in touch soon. Jess and Jimmy were taking Alpha to Bachia in the morning. Sasha would have gone, but the bullshit with Fuentes and the sniper meant she had to stay behind and deal with the fallout.

The journey to Fuentes’ meeting room took her twenty minutes by foot. The cool evening air soothed the wounds on her face and shoulder. ’Stem always made flesh wounds feel hot and itchy as those nanobots created new cells and stitched together proteins and biomaterial. She imagined there were thousands of tiny spiders crawling under her skin, spinning genetic silk.

Now that the evening shift was a couple of hours underway and the early shift were in their homes with their families, enjoying the new media entertainment channels on their holoscreens, the city took on a quiet hush. It reminded her of working late hours back at Criborg. A pang of sadness came over her as she thought about Vickers and the men she’d trained with for the previous five years.

These quiet periods brought an extra-sharp focus to how much she truly missed the times before coming to the surface. Considering how it all went down, she had to wonder if it was worth it.

Were these people here in the Dome worth saving from the Red Widows at the cost of Vickers and his men? Given how an increasingly large portion of the population were calling for the Widows’ release and the return of the network and the Family’s rule, she thought it might have been better to have left them to it. It seemed some people were beyond saving, while others didn’t want to be saved in the first place.

She stepped over the sleeping body of a drunken protestor at the steps to the president’s building. He clutched a ‘Find the Family, Free the Widows’ sign. She ‘accidentally’ kicked him in the ribs as she passed. So drunk, the guy didn’t even react. She reported him to the night patrol. If they could spare the resources, he’d spend the next few nights in the cells.

She moved away from the protestor and entered the building. She chose to take the stairs and took the steps two at a time, enjoying the feeling of exercise. She came to the main suite on the top floor and entered without knocking.

The various members of the interim government turned to stare at her. Jimmy was there, sitting rather close to Fuentes, whose jaw was set. She reminded Sasha of Vickers when he attempted to control an outburst.

Malik sat opposite them at the table and nearest to the door. He turned and gave her a reassuring smile. It didn’t help assuage her anxiety, or anger. How dare they call her in here like some criminal when her actions had stopped a sniper from running freely in the city. Not to mention the wounds she took in the process. Fuckers should be giving me a medal, she thought.

“Nice of you to join us,” Fuentes said, all pretend smile and insincere voice. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

Sasha zoned out after fifteen minutes of nonstop crap from Fuentes. Some lecture about the safety of the citizens, protocols, blah, blah, blah. No wonder Jimmy had a hard-on for her. She was like a female version of him.

“Are you listening?” Fuentes said, stopping in mid-sentence.

“Not really, no,” Sasha said. “The painkillers for my blast wounds are making me drowsy. But I suppose that don’t matter, does it? I could have died in that blast. And yet I don’t get even a single damn thanks for recovering the data. Have you even bothered to analyse what’s on it?”

Jimmy shot her a fierce look. “Sasha! Now, that’s not fair—”

“Give me a break,” Sasha said, standing. “I’m fed up with all the bullshit here. For God’s sake, we’ve got a bunch of computer-controlled snipers and insurgents running around, and all you want to do is complain about my approach. Here’s what I suggest; we get to the damn point. What was on the slate?”

She stared Jimmy down until eventually he conceded. His face reddened with embarrassment or perhaps it was anger. Sasha no longer cared. When he didn’t move, Malik stood up with a slate in his hands.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll take that question.”

“Please,” Fuentes said, “go ahead, Mr Silverman.”

“With the help of Jess and the Alpha server, we’ve managed to crack a portion of the encrypted information. Unfortunately it’s incomplete. We’re unable to decrypt the rest at this present time.”

“So what did you recover?” Sasha asked.

“Like the manifest I found in Benedict Laos’ apartment, it’s a list of individuals within the city. I believe they are targets for assassination.”

“Wait,” Sasha said. “If Benedict had a hit list, why was he assassinated by another of Elliot’s ronin?”

“That’s a good question. From the data on the slate you so bravely recovered...”

Sasha flashed him a quick grin.

“I think that Benedict wasn’t doing his job properly. The chips we found in his apartment should have been dealt out last week. He was holding on to them.”

“Do you think he was trying to make some extra money on the side? Deal to his own people rather than Elliot’s preferred targets?”

“We don’t know if it is Elliot,” Jimmy said. “It could well be the controller on the ground.”

Malik shrugged. “Could be, but his financial records show no extra income, and there was no sign of any cash found in his apartment or recent purchases. I think it’s more likely, given how he was initially welcoming of our arrival to his apartment, that he was purposely holding on to them and not adding to the number of ronin.”

“Huh,” Sasha said, pondering on it. “That would certainly give them motivation to do away with him. It also means that there was probably someone else working with the sniper, someone who would recover the chips. Can we get the video security feed to see who was in the building at the time?”

“No need,” Fuentes said. “The slate included a list of identities of targets, but also one other name: the name of the sniper’s accomplice. We’re assuming she’s still at large and within the city currently.”

“What’s her name?”

“Nothing that can be directly tracked. This group have given themselves code names. The sniper was referred to as Jin, and his accomplice, Tang. It appears their identifiers are based on Chinese emperors. This makes us think that the controller is of Chinese descent.”

“There’s something else,” Malik said. “We managed to recover a number of communications between seven people named on the slate. Although we can’t crack the encryption fully, we have managed to triangulate a single common location.”

“Where is it?” Sasha asked, eager to know of a decent lead.

“An undesignated square mile within the warehouse district. We’re currently trying to narrow it down and intercept their communications. Dr Robertson here has built an interface for one of the chips. Doctor?”

Jimmy stood, addressed the table of ministers, and very briefly, Sasha. “That’s right. I’ve discovered that the chip installs on the network like any AIA or node did. Now that Cemprom are altering the network, to remove the autonomous actions such as the D-lottery, I’ve been able to take a closer look at how they work: they create a kind of feedback loop so it’s very difficult for the network to recognise them. That’s how they managed to bypass the D-Lottery. On an encrypted channel that piggybacks the network, they communicate with each other in an ad hoc way, but they also receive information from a single source—presumably Elliot.”

“How does any of this help us?” Sasha asked.

Jimmy sighed briefly, hiding his annoyance. “It means that eventually I should be able to come up with an algorithm to track the chip wearers.”

“Eventually? That might be too late. We need to get out on the streets and hunt these bastards down before they spread too wide. The pro Widows and Family groups have joined up to make a lot of noise. How long before they are infiltrated? How long before we have complete anarchy?”

“We can’t do anything rash,” Fuentes said. “We just don’t have the resources at hand to track down all the names on the slate. We have to be patient, break the encryption. We’re getting help from a group of programmers at Cemprom. It’s just a matter of—”

“Time we probably don’t have!” Sasha said, slamming her fist down on the table. “For fuck’s sake, take a look at yourselves. All sitting here in your comfortable, secure office while the city is taken away from you piece by piece. I lost good friends fighting for this damned place, and I ain’t about to waste their lives by sitting around a table being scared and cautious.”

Fuentes and Jimmy both stood and were about to remonstrate when Sasha grabbed the report from Malik’s hand and turned to the door. Before she left, she looked back at the shocked faces of the ministers. “You do what the hell you want; I’m gonna do what I think is best. And I warn you all, don’t get in my way.”

She kicked open the door, feeling the adrenaline flood her body as the effects of the ’Stems wore off. She’d find these bastards herself and deal her own brand of justice. She rushed down the grand staircase and stormed across the open plaza of the building. Crashing through the double doors, she ignored the nods of acknowledgement from the president’s security force.

Outside, still on the steps, the drunken man mumbled something and turned over in a pool of his own vomit.

Sasha heard a ‘t
hwump
’ sound followed by the squish of meat and fluids. The man at her feet rolled over on to his back, showing a gunshot wound in his guts. She dashed to the side as another round embedded in the Polymar steps by her feet, spraying fragments of material in a cloud around her.

As she rolled away, she looked up and traced the trajectory of the shot. There, by a four-storey commercial building, she saw a shadow peel away from the edge and disappear into the evening. Something didn’t quite add up. The distance wasn’t very far. They shouldn’t have missed. Were they shooting the drunk guy and got surprised by Sasha storming out of the building?

She regained her balance and readied to sprint after her shooter when a hand grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back. Her heart jumped. She spun round, simultaneously withdrawing a dagger from her concealed thigh pocket, ready to strike. “Malik? What the fuck, man?”

“Come on,” he said, pulling her away and into the narrow gap between buildings. They had to stand close together, their backs against the walls. When they were shrouded by darkness, Malik lowered his voice and said, “Are you okay?”

She checked herself over. “I think so. I wasn’t hit. Did you see them?”

He shook his head. “No. There was movement across the street, but I didn’t see much else. You?”

“Nah, too quick. Why’d you stop me?”

Malik reached up a hand between their bodies and gently touched the wound on her face. “Look what happened to you the last time we separated.”

She shrugged. “Just a flesh wound, I’ve had worse.”

“Not the point, someone needs to have your back. Hell, we all do. Let’s stick together, yeah? It’s a dangerous time in the city these days. Listen, I didn’t tell them everything... there was something on the slate that James missed. I recognised it from my previous time in security.”

“What is it?” Sasha asked, thankful that the darkness hid her blushing. She felt the warmth of his body against hers through her form-fitting suit.

“A location. I recognised the binary address of a non-networked node. It’s in an old engineering plant that was used to help build the Dome. For years it was offline: all non-networked nodes had to be reported to Cemprom because of the whole AIA automation thing. If there’s a controller who’s beaming data to and from Elliot and the chips, it’s gonna be there.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“A hundred percent. It’s why I didn’t say anything. I knew they would take it out of our hands, and I don’t trust them. James was even talking about using the ’droids. And we know what happened in Bachia... can you imagine if these bastards got access to the ’droids too? Not to mention that he and Fuentes are clearly more than professional acquaintances. No, we need to handle this ourselves, discreetly and quickly.”

“And you’re aware of the risks?” Sasha said, resisting the temptation to move her body closer to his. “There are snipers potentially everywhere.”