Inescapable (14 page)

‘I’ve never
actually met a class four. Not to talk to. I mean, not that I’m
aware of anyway. They’re supposed to be hard to distinguish from a
human.’

‘Kit’s young.
It’s a little like talking to a teenager with a middle-aged
vocabulary, so I guess you can tell. I’d imagine something with a
bit more experience would be hard to spot. I’ll see if I can
persuade her to come in and visit sometime. Right now she’s
visiting her would-be boyfriend.’

‘Oh, to be a
fly on the wall…’

Vali’s Homestead.

Vali’s lips curled
slightly which meant, Kit thought, that he was watching something
somewhere in his network which amused him. She suspected that it
was something to do with Fox, because he seemed to pay a lot of
attention to her when she was in the system. He placed a clay cup
of mead on the table in front of him and sat down opposite her, and
his smile broadened.

‘I’m glad you
could drop by,’ the young, blonde-haired man said. As was usual, he
was dressed in the attire of a typical Scandinavian of the Viking
era: tunic and trousers of wool, a leather belt, and loose boots.
He had an angular sort of face, sharp and a little cruel, though
the smile he often wore around Kit softened it considerably. ‘I’ve
missed you these past several weeks.’

‘I couldn’t
spare the executable copy to come in with Zorra the last time.
We’ve been all over, and I was sent up to one of our lunar bases to
help there. I got that copy back to synchronise with last night,
which pleased me a great deal. I was a little lonely up there.’ Kit
lifted the cup of amber liquid and sipped, feeling the warmth of it
hitting her stomach and fanning out. Whatever the code was that he
put into the drink, it had a very pleasing sensory effect, even on
an artificial mind.

‘It must be a
little strange to split yourself up like that. Let me see if I have
this right? You have your main executable on a server, a second
copy running on an implant processor in Zorra, and there’s a third
which was on the Moon for several days, and is now sitting here in
front of me. And you synchronise the memories of all three
periodically so that they are all, essentially, the same mind.’

Kit smiled. ‘I
will sync this copy with the main one when I return. The main one
and Zorra’s personal copy swap status updates as and when required,
and do a full reconciliation when she sleeps.’ There was a
child-like pride in her capability which showed through. ‘It is,
apparently, an ability which has proven difficult to get right.
Later iterations of my codebase have had the cloning facility
disabled.’

‘I have
absolutely no doubt that you are a unique and
very
special
mind,’ he told her, lifting his cup in a toast.

Giggling, Kit
returned the gesture and took another sip of golden nectar.
‘Flattery. Zorra believes that you wish to… get into my
panties.’

‘I know she
does. What if I do?’

‘I might not
object. I’ve been studying intimate human social interactions.’ Her
brows furrowed a little. ‘I don’t think I really understand most of
it yet. The… mechanical processes I can grasp–’

‘Generally a
lighter touch is employed. Grasping is a little harsh.’

Her cheeks
coloured, but she could tell from the curl of his lips that he was
joking. ‘You know what I mean. It’s the mental aspects that seem
strange. When the physical processes are employed to simply bring
pleasure it seems easy enough, but humans seem incapable of leaving
it at that. Men more than women in many ways. It seems to devolve
so often into dominance and power struggle.’

‘Women have
reason to tighten the bonds of a relationship where there are
children involved. Men have a territorial viewpoint which often
expresses itself in a desire for commitment from their partner.
Humans are frequently dragged in all directions by biology,
neurochemistry, evolution, and social pressure. And now so many of
them live in such close proximity to each other. Is it a wonder
many of them suffer some form of mental issue?’

‘A good point.
I was led into arguing that a man had been possessed by a demon
yesterday. It’s silly, of course, but–’

‘Peter
Doran?’

‘Yes. That’s
right.’

‘I recall the
case. Of course, he was taken by a detective in Zorra’s old
precinct. I’d also heard that several of his cases had been
reopened.’

Kit’s eyes
narrowed. ‘You’re very well informed.’

His grin was
impish. ‘I keep my ear to the ground. It pays to in my business.
You know, Doran isn’t the first who seems to fit that pattern.’

‘I’m
sorry?’

‘There are
rumours and stories, conspiracy theory stuff, but if you look over
them carefully you start to see a pattern which makes sense. Of
course, it could be the usual issue of seeing order in chaos.
Humans are
exceptional
at finding things where there’s
nothing to find. Pyramids and faces on Mars, for example. Nothing
but shadows or poor resolution pictures, but…’

‘I am an AI and
less inclined to see something in nothing. Perhaps you could give
me a list of these cases you think connect to Doran, and I could
see what
I
can find.’

Vali grinned
again, broader this time. ‘No matter what Zorra thinks, it’s your
glorious mind I’m interested in, Kit.’ He turned and wiped his hand
through the air to make a virtual screen appear.

‘Well…
good.’

‘Not that I
wouldn’t mind getting my hands on your glorious body too.’

New York Metro.

‘August eleventh,
twenty fifty-seven,’ Kit said as media feed recordings played over
the window screen behind her. ‘Hector Rossi, known drug lord,
suspected of a number of high-level assassinations, is at home in
his villa near Rio de Janeiro.’

Fox nodded and
lifted her coffee to her lips. Her trip into Niflhel had been
early, quite long, and quite pleasing, and when she had emerged,
Kit had been too excited by her own news to wait for morning. ‘I
remember this. I was in hospital after the Dallas op. Rossi and his
entire family were killed by a family friend.’

‘Earnesto
Pallo,’ Kit said, nodding and showing an image of a middle-aged
man, heavily built, but more of a kindly uncle than a thug. ‘Mister
Rossi considered him his oldest friend. Mister Pallo was godfather
to both of Mister Rossi’s sons. Reports indicated that he had
become withdrawn over the summer. He spent considerable time in his
local church. Then, on the eleventh of August, he arrived at the
house and proceeded to execute anyone he came into contact with,
including his two godsons, twelve and six, a three-year-old
daughter and her mother, and Mister Rossi. Mister Rossi was shot
eighteen times with a machine pistol, and that was what was
happening when a guard shot Mister Pallo in the head.’

‘Some people
just snap, but…’

‘Mister Pallo
left a note for his wife explaining what had to be done, according
to him. He said that his old friend was, in fact, the Devil. That
an angel had come to him and told him that there was no escape from
the fate God had in store for him. The wrath of God was inescapable
and Mister Rossi had to die.’

‘Okay…’

‘Following on
from that, which was heavily reported in the media, there are
another five deaths which did not receive as much attention. Or
any. A policeman in Brasilia marched into a drug den screaming that
no one would escape the justice of the people and opened fire with
an assault pod. He was killed in the incident. A farmer who lived
near Santa Cruz de la Sierra shot his wife and children, and three
robots, before killing himself. He left a note saying that he was
“taking the only way out for them all,” and there are other,
similarly themed deaths.’

Kit paused and
then another headline appeared which Fox recognised immediately.
‘The Chicago College Massacre? You’re linking that in?’

‘Joseph Andrew
Watson was a dance student with some classes in acting. His
parents, both well-off, managed to get him a place at the
Hall-Cooper College of Arts in Detroit–Chicago Metro. On the
twenty-third of September, twenty fifty-eight, Mister Watson took
an assault rifle and three fragmentation grenades to school with
him and killed twenty-six people before he was fatally wounded by
responding NAPA officers. Witnesses reported that he seemed quite
calm as he walked through the halls with “There’s No Escape When
the World Ends” by the band Martian Death Cult on repeat on a
portable sound system he was carrying.’

‘You’re saying
that the link here is this “no escape” theme?’

‘Yes. That
seems to be the strongest connection, but there is also an
undercurrent of stable people suddenly changing and turning
violent.’

‘And that’s
where you’re linking in Doran?’

‘Well…’ Kit
frowned. ‘I am not doing the linking. I am merely reporting that
there is a conspiracy theory ongoing which suggests these are all
linked, and that Doran is the latest in the chain. Rumour says that
the same “no escape” theme appears in his crimes.’

Fox pursed her
lips, eyes narrowing. ‘Vali again. Or, we suspect he’s helped us
before and this time he was more overt about it.’

‘His
information source is available to anyone in Niflhel. The theory
has cropped up a number of times in one of the discussion forums.
He believes it is significantly more widespread than just his own
domain.’

‘So there was
no need to hide his involvement. Okay, why don’t you see what you
can dig up on this chain? Palladium should be able to request
documents from the UNTPP on the South American homicides and
Detroit–Chicago should be okay with us looking at their case. It
was heavily publicised anyway. See what you can find, document your
procedures, give me a report. Even if all we get out of this is an
indication that yet another conspiracy meme is a load of crap,
it’ll be good practice for you.’

Kit beamed. Her
hands lifted to clench before her small breasts and she bounced on
her toes, tail flicking wildly. ‘Oh, thank you, Fox! Thank you. I
won’t let you down. I’ll be
very
thorough.’

Fox smirked at
her. ‘Did Vali get under your skirt yet?’

‘No, but he
did
say he wouldn’t mind getting his hands on my glorious
body.’ The kitsune avatar’s cheeks were colouring, but she was
standing her ground.

Fox relented on
the teasing a little. ‘Well, at least he has taste. If he hurts
you, I’m going to castrate him.’

Kit’s eyes
widened. She was really not sure how to reply to that.

Detroit–Chicago Metro, 12
^th
April 2060.

Fox settled Pythia’s
landing gear down on the rooftop pad of the MarTech Chicago
building feeling satisfied, but annoyed. Of course, there had been
plans to get her over to the Palladium HQ at some point, but the
idea had been to make it a planned visit, not a ‘grab your gear and
run’ one. At least she had got to fly the vertol.

At ten am that
morning, a routine sweep by Palladium Security personnel had
uncovered evidence of a break-in. It was something of a bittersweet
event since someone had succeeded in bypassing the arcology’s
security and getting in, but the infiltration had then been
discovered by further security measures. Fox was firmly of the
opinion that any such event you could learn from was not as bad as
it appeared at face value, but that was Jarvis’s problem: one he
was taking rather badly from what she had seen via telepresence.
Fox was in Chicago to see what the damage was.

‘Pythia, get a
connection up to the building network as soon as possible, but I
want every bit of network security you’ve got on that link.’

‘Confirmed,
Miss Meridian,’ Pythia responded. ‘Mister Martins has supplied a
number of barrier and network diagnostics packages. I will begin
execution as soon as I have a direct connection.’

‘Good.’ As a
precaution, the entire building had been taken off the MarTech
network as soon as the breach had been detected and it would not be
back on until Pythia had finished her initial work. Fox waited as
the aircraft was lowered from the landing pad into the hangar bay,
and then she got up to leave as the landing platform was being
manoeuvred into one of the garage areas.

Ryan Jarvis was
waiting for her as she walked down the rear loading ramp followed
by a robot which was dragging a network cable behind it. The
Palladium CSO was looking really pissed off and Fox was glad he was
not annoyed at her.

‘I need
somewhere we can plug that in,’ she said, indicating the bot and
cable.

Jarvis waved
some technicians forward. ‘We were expecting that. Everything’s
having to be done from home offices and over satellite links, but
we’re getting messages in and out. They kicked in our own fucking
door, Fox. I’ve yelled at a lot of people, but when it comes down
to it, I’m responsible and this falls on me. I’m going to tender my
resignation once we’ve got this mess cleared up.’

Fox looked at
him for a second and then decided to worry over that later.
‘There’s nothing much of use we can do until Pythia’s finished her
initial diagnostics. Show me where they got in and what you know of
what they did once they were inside.’

~~~

There were probably
several kilometres of utility tunnels, and several
hundred
kilometres of small conduits tunnelling through the kilometre-high
building. Maybe both of those were underestimates by an order of
magnitude. Or two. The point was, actually securing all of them
was…

Shaking her
head, Fox scanned the corridor they were in with its un-sculpted,
functional, metal walls. ‘The cameras along here are working?’

‘They’re
working,’ Jarvis replied. ‘We’ve not detected any looping, but the
intruders were not detected when they came through or left.’