Ghost of the Gods - 02 (10 page)

“You know what else this means,” said Sarah. “Those antennas mean these hybrids need to communicate. So there’s got be more people or hybrids involved. What if their whole goal is to encrypt everything about their operation to keep it from other hybrids? That singularity could be some kind of n-web privacy screen. It’s throwing up a field around that townhouse, blocking stray thoughts and emotions from leaking out. We can’t pick up squeak, but most assists work.”

“I’ve got it,” said Mark. “Autonomic nervous system.”

“What?”

“Assists
are like the autonomic nervous system of the n-web. Assists use low level control protocols that seem to be unaffected by the singularity while high level protocols that carry thoughts or emotions are devoured and—”

A movement on the notebook screen made them both stop talking. A shadowy shape was growing on the drapes and taking form as someone walked toward the window. The fabric parted and a woman looked out as if directly at them. Even in the low light video she was amazing in appearance—European, definitely not American. Her eyes were large and hypnotic. Mark felt nervous. It was as if the woman could see him through the notebook screen. She turned and disappeared back into the room like a rare endangered species returning to her forest—and that’s exactly what she was, thought Mark.

“That felt very odd,” said Sarah.

“She has to be a hybrid.”

“Well, now we know there’s more than one of them,” she said. “A man and a woman just like us.”

“What I want to see is one of them walk out that front door,” said Mark. “When we see that, we’ll know this singularity isn’t some kind Venus flytrap for hybrids. I want to know that once you go inside, you can still leave.”

After completing their close examination, the second camera was zoomed out and refocused to give Mark and Sarah a view of the entire front of the townhouse. The first camera was kept as a tight shot covering the front door. Through the night they took turns watching the surveillance video. It was long, boring, mind numbing work.

Mark awoke with Sarah tugging his arm. There was an instant of confusion before the nanotech in his brain also awoke and achieved full processing throughout. It was 9:26 in the morning. The notebook screen showed four men dressed in identical parkas and black cargo pants leaving the house. The way they moved and acted smelled of military training. Mark didn’t recognize any of them from the murder scene. He raced to the broken window and tried to invoke a medial assist, but nothing happened. He was afraid it was pointless at this range. Sarah was talking, but his mind was acutely focused. From this distance the four men were tiny shapes. The medical assist finally came up, but as he suspected, at this range it showed nothing of value. His intense focus caused the assist to zoom in as much as possible. The processed still-image viewed in his mind was not enough to see any of the details he wanted amid the grainy results, but it was just enough to reach a conclusion. The medical schematics showed orange blurs that had to be large COBIC swarms in the back of each head. The swarms were larger than an organic could have possibly had. Mark turned back to Sarah. She was hunched over the notebook screen.

“They look dangerous,” she said.

“I think it’s instinct warning us off,” he said. “Let’s go. I want a closer look.”

The twenty-eight flights of stairs took forever. Mark slowed down to a walk as he exited the broken front door, as did Sarah. They were both dressed in sweats so they looked like a couple out for some morning exercise. Mark did a little stretching to put on a show for the benefit of the Enforcer surveillance cameras, then they started jogging down a parallel block in the same direction the hybrids were headed. After clearing two parallel blocks he cut down to the same street the hybrids had been on. It was impossible to see more than a block ahead. They ran, hoping the hybrids had not turned off somewhere or entered a building. One block turned into the next block and the next with still no sign of their quarry. Mark was ready to give up but kept jogging. Without a full connection to the god-machine, he was flying blind while the negative effects from the singularity further dulled his thinking and coordination. By now if the hybrids had turned off on a cross street they could be a quarter mile in almost any direction.

“There they are!” huffed Sarah.

“Speed up,” said Mark. “I want a closer look.”

Mark watched medical assists assemble themselves over the hybrids. As he got closer, the overlaid medical schematics took on the high resolution fluoroscopic like detail he wanted. He could see a large portion of each brain had nanotech seeds nesting inside neurons. The assist indicated that the men had anywhere from 76 to 84 percent of their brains restructured. Fanning out from the nanotech brains were orange roots, which extended a distance down the spinal column. They were all highly evolved like the killer hybrid and probably just as dangerous. For some reason he thought they seemed xenophobic.

Mark stopped walking. He realized he was far enough from the singularity that his connection to the god-machine was returning. The sense of xenophobia was likely a stray thought he had picked up subconsciously and probably very accurate. He took Sarah’s hand and started walking slowly, trying to blend in like an ordinary couple out on the streets. He did not want to get too close to the evolved hybrids as their n-web senses came back. He couldn’t risk them detecting someone on their tail and feigned interest in a restaurant, staring at the menu posted in a window.

“Let’s go back to the nest,” said Mark.

“Doesn’t it feel wonderful to have the god-machine back,” said Sarah. “It’s like being able to breathe again. Let’s walk a little before heading back into that storm.”

Using double sided tape, Mark placed the last MSK intrusion detector on a girder that was high up in the corner of the first floor stairwell of their tower. He looked at the sentry tablet to check system status. The screen showed a good signal from all the detectors he’d planted. Because GPS did not work inside the building, he entered a note next to the detector he’d just placed, describing its location.

During the endless climb up the flights of stairs Mark could not shake the lucid dream he’d had of a commando team of hybrids sneaking into the building like ghosts to hunt him and Sarah down. It was because of this dream that he’d set up the perimeter sentry.

Winded from the long climb, Mark walked into the nest. Sarah had been watching the surveillance video of the townhouse the entire time he’d been setting up the sentry. A strong gust of wind rustled the debris on the floor. It was late in the afternoon. The weather forecast was high wind combined with light snow around midnight. It was going to be unpleasant in the exposed room. They didn’t dare cover the windows with plastic sheeting or do anything to advertise their position. Mark sat down next to Sarah and settled in to watch a scene of mundane life slowly evolving on the street in front of the singularity. Deliveries of food and laundry arrived. People could be seen inside as they neared windows and then moved on. No hybrids other than the four men had left the property or arrived.

The sun had set and the moon glowed brightly on a near cloudless night. Time dragged on. A little after eight o’clock the four hybrids returned with a man in tow. The man was dressed in an overcoat and suit, and Mark assumed he was a hybrid. There was not enough time for him to get to the window to use an assist. This new hybrid shuffled a bit, as if he were sleepwalking. Both Mark and Sarah had a strong sense he was under duress. One of the team of four gripped the man by his upper arm.

The moon had set an hour ago. The block was dark except for working street lamps at the corners. Sarah was napping. Mark was watching the screens and waiting. He took a sip of coffee and a bite of a peanut butter sandwich. For hours the image of the front door and the wider angle image of the entire townhouse had not changed at all. They could have been still photos. Mark periodically checked to make sure the images were not frozen by a software malfunction.

As he clicked on an icon to check status, a shadow moved on the rooftop of the townhouse next door to the singularity. His pulse quickened as he digitally zoomed in the video to follow the shadow. The figure was dressed in dark clothing. The shadow paused at the parapet separating the two townhouses, then slowly, gracefully eased over from one roof to the next.

“Sarah, wake up,” called Mark.

The shadow glided across the top of the townhouse in which the singularity was contained, then paused at a roof access doorway. There was movement of some kind and a small penlight flashed on. The access door was bathed in red light, making the shadow that much harder to see as the low light camera was partially blinded by the contrast of light to dark. Mark zoomed in for a better view. The shadow attached what looked like a magnet at the top of the door. Mark thought it might be some kind of bypass for a burglar alarm. Sarah had not stirred.

“Sarah!” he shouted.

“What?”

“Wake up. We have an uninvited guest dropping in to visit our happy hybrids! Take over.”

Mark jumped up, removed the camera from the second telescope, and aimed it at the visitor to see if he could get an assist. The optical image was very dark. All he could see was a red blur, which had to be the penlight. He focused and was rewarded with indistinguishable shapes of red tinted darkness, but maybe it was just enough. For Mark to access a medical assist on someone they had to be within physical eyesight of him. Images on screens didn’t work. The god-machine and nanotech interface had to map out coordinates to identify the subject from whom to pull data. Someone on a screen could be anywhere in the world or nowhere at all. The interface operator’s eyes acted like a mouse pointer for physical reality.

Come on,
he thought.
Point and click
. A medial assist came up over the subject. Their intruder was male, five feet six inches, thirty-eight years old, excellent health, and not a hybrid.

When Mark returned to the notebook screen, the shadow was hard at work on the door lock. He had the penlight in his mouth and was kneeling in front of the lock. He inserted a key and tapped on the end of it with a screwdriver handle, as if driving the key a little deeper into the cylinder.

“Lock bumping,” said Sarah.

The door immediately opened and the shadow slipped inside. Mark rewound the video and froze it at the point where the intruder was best illuminated. He tried adjusting the contrast to get a better view of the man.

“Take a snapshot and try the underexposed image enhancement tool,” said Sarah. “The tool is under the edit menu…. Yeah, right there.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I took a class at the police academy on surveillance and wiretapping. We used the same video software. That’s why I picked it out at the store. I buy what I know.”

“Why don’t you drive?”

After ten minutes of playing with sliders and other adjustments Sarah had an image that clearly showed the outlines of someone dressed in dark clothing, a baseball cap, and stocking cap ski mask. The man had a small backpack and was wearing night vision goggles. This was not your average junkie breaking into a mansion for some quick cash.

“Come on,” said Mark. “When this guy leaves, I want to follow him home and have a little chat.”

“With e-money and free big screen TVs, would anyone burglarize a home?” said Sarah. “This guy is after something other than money.”

“How about revenge?” said Mark.

They stationed themselves at a spot in a small park that was across from the alley that serviced the townhouse. The park was romantically lit with antique streetlights. They’d chosen the spot assuming the shadow would leave from the same direction he’d arrived. The far end of the alley was blocked, which helped their odds, though Mark was sure there had to be other avenues of escape. Setting their stakeout in the park was a calculated risk but they had no other option. Mark knew Enforces were watching through a thousand electronic eyes. It would have looked suspicious if he and Sarah had split up and stationed themselves at opposite ends of a row of townhouses.

They were pretending to be a couple out on a late date, which was a common sight in this neighborhood. Another couple had walked past just a short time ago and they were not alone in the park. Two other couples occupied benches. Mark and Sarah were sitting on a wood and granite bench nestled in each other’s arms, facing the alley. Mark was thoroughly enjoying their little romantic performance for the surveillance cameras. The alley was dimly illuminated with small floodlights mounted on the rear walls of the townhouses. Unless the shadow used a rope, he was going to come off the roof into the alley on a fire escape. As far as Mark could see, the fire escape closest to the townhouse was located just a few feet inside the alley. It had a drop ladder that was locked in the raised position.

“How do you think he got up that fire escape without the Enforcers spotting him?” whispered Sarah. “There’s a camera aimed straight down that alley, and you can bet there’s more.”

“Maybe the camera’s broken? Maybe Enforcers can be bribed? This guy does not look like a low rent crook. He could even be a government intelligence officer working a black bag job.”

An Enforcer Humvee turned onto their street a block away. The powerful headlights washed over them. Mark didn’t want to invite questions and liked that he now had an excuse to play a little more. He unbuttoned Sarah’s coat and moved her into his lap in a very intimate embrace. He could feel her lower body through the sweats she was wearing. His imagination filled in the remaining details.

“Enjoying yourself?” whispered Sarah.

“Can’t you feel my answer?”

“I’d like to explore that in a little more depth when we get back inside.”

“Why wait?”

Sarah laughed. Mark knew she was enjoying the moment. The Enforcer Humvee slowed at the entrance to the alley. Its brakes squeaked to a stop. Mark’s heart was pounding as he pretended to ignore the Enforcer’s presence less than 50 feet away. He heard a radio squelch and some faint, garbled message. The Humvee sat there idling. He heard a spotlight click on and saw the light sweeping the alley. Sarah was accidently or intentionally moving against him. It took all of his self-control not to go too far and that self-control was fading rapidly. He lost all rational thought when they had sex. Total loss of control was something new to him, exciting, and more than a little risky. He heard the spotlight click off and the tires start to slowly roll down the street. Soon the neighborhood felt deserted. He knew at least one USAG surveillance camera had to be watching their little scene. He didn’t want to stop and rationalized that if they stopped too quickly it would look suspicious. He knew he was losing control.