Voices in the Stream: Phase 02 (The Eighteenth Shadow) Page 16

  “Yes sir,” said Sapet, anger bubbling beneath his words.

  “What of the other eight operatives you sent out?”

  “No data.”

  Dennis Slopes’ palms began to sweat, “So, you have ten proven CNED’s leaving on a hunt. Eight return with nothing. No HLIR triggers, no grid fluctuations, no unregistered wells. Not even a solar still in the back of someone’s closet?”

  “That’s correct, sir. But if I could, our real priority here should be our missing operatives. Their families…”

  Slopes interrupted, “Yes, yes… and two, unofficially reporting they were going to search quadrant A, vanish entirely. Then the next GPS ping puts one by the lake across county? And another up river near Lecompton?”

  “Yes sir, the data is real. We’ve verified it with our source at Garmin, as well as the Federal Citizen GPS Archive. That’s the way it happened. But to maintain Division honor, we should…”

  Slopes squeezed his fingers into a bony fist and popped the top of his desk, “Ken, you’re the highest ranking CNED citizen. You’re respected, that’s it.” Slopes snapped his fingers, his tone becoming perverse, “Tell the families… that The Lawrence Police Department and CNED are terribly sorry for their loss, that we’re cooperating with local and Federal officials to help them find their missing loved ones, that their service to CNED has been invaluable, yada yada… Give them D$10,000 a piece. And a free round trip subspace anywhere on Terra. More questions?”

  Ken Sapet’s voice was thin and dry, “No sir.”

  “Thank you then. That will be all,” chimed Slopes. He tapped his combud and cut the stream.

  “This is all just distressing. Distressing, distressing,” he mumbled, drifting in consideration. He had a thought and tapped his combud eagerly, “Mrs. Kitters? Where are you? I need to hear you meow.”

  Slopes swiped his holotab and remote activated the holoscreen in his apartment living room. The room was dark, with towels and old sheets serving as curtains to obscure most shreds of natural light coming through the windows. His beloved synthleather holovision couch was empty, littered with a few errant candy wrappers and his favorite snuggle blanket.

  Slopes clicked his fingers impatiently, then exclaimed, “Oh, thank Dog!” when a silky Burmese Felix sprang onto the couch and rolled over, exposing her downy, chocolate belly.

  “Mrs. Kitters! I was worried!” Slopes gushed. “Where have you been? Snuggled to your solar charger, I’ll bet.”

  The small feline cyborg rolled to its paws and began parading back in forth on the couch, occasionally flashing its orange eyes flirtatiously at the holoscreen.

  “Now meow for me,” said Slopes, licking his lips. “Meow like a good girl.”

  The Felix stopped and faced the holocam and vocalized, a long, luxuriant, “Meooowwll…”

  Slopes gleamed with pride, “That’s my little chestnut queen.” The overhead office com chimed and a male voice said plainly, “Analysis complete.” Slopes blanched and reached a finger to caress the holoscreen, “Work calls, Mrs. Kitters. Daddy has to work so he can come home and put you on his lap. Be a good Kitters. I’ll touch you soon. Do you want to touch me too?”

  The gray Felix mewled with melancholy desire.

  “Oh, I can just feel your fur. Very soon, Mrs. Kitters,” said Slopes. “Very soon we’ll be together again.”

  He tapped his combud and collapsed the private stream. His eyes jolted to the unused pieces littering the puzzle desk before him, and his nose curled with distaste. This Montana landscape puzzle he had been working on so purposefully was more difficult than anticipated.

  He rocked his head back and forth and said, “Meow meow, I’m a cow, don’t peek yet, just be here now… Simon?”

  The computer answered after several seconds, “Yes, Detective Slopes.”

  “Why did you take so long to answer?”

  “You recently gave me the moniker Simon, sir. I was unsure if you were addressing me directly or simply talking out loud.”

  Slopes turned red, “Why would I say Simon if I wasn’t talking to you?”

  “Simon is a common name. My apologies.”

  “Simon, you’re a very stupid computer.”

  “Yes sir,” said the com.

  “You said analysis was complete. So… do the hunters’ hovtruck courses take them through any part of the city with standard FR cameras installed? Past traffic lights?”

  “Yes Detective Slopes. Both CNED agents would have been required to pass numerous FR cams on their course between documented GPS tags.”

  “How many FR ticks do we have logged on their combuds along that course, Simon? I’m betting none, Simon. I’m betting our little prostitute is in fact to the east!”

  The computer hesitated.

  After a few seconds, the voice replied soberly, “No FR ticks were registered along that route, Detective Slopes. Hovercraft IPv7’s only.”

  “Hah! The old man can’t complain now! Haha!”

  He pounded his fist on the surface of his puzzle desk, causing several loose pieces to scatter to the floor.

  “No!” he exclaimed with alarm and nearly fell forward, fingers desperately rummaging for the hempboard puzzle pieces. He gathered them one at a time, stacking the pieces in one hand like poker chips. His lips shook, and a sheen of sweat glistened across his brow by the time he’d finished. One by one, he placed the pieces back on the desk with the others.

  Slopes’ mouth breathing was fast and uneven, eyes darting nervously for any pieces he might have missed, “There you go, babies,” he managed. “There you go. Daddy’s so sorry. He’ll never let you get lost again. That’s a promise. Daddy’s so sorry. Meow meow, I’m a cow…”

  “Detective Slopes?” said the com.

  “Yes, Simon?”

  “You have an incoming, encrypted holoconference from The Office of The Architect.”

  Dennis Slopes closed his eyes and swallowed, immediately forgetting the puzzle.

  The Day After the Rain Storm

  Tara Dean rolled her eyes with an unusual amount of verve, even for her. She brought her chin to rest on one hand and leaned an elbow against the glass edge of the holodesk. In front of her was a life size projection of Coyote One. The hologram looked organic towards the rear, then cutaway through meticulously detailed layers of BIOSKIN© all the way down to the titanalum skeletal chassis. By the time one’s eyes made it midway up the holographic body, the metal rib cage and other physio-mechanical components of the cyborg’s structure were represented by transparent blue lines akin to an engineering blueprint.

  The tangerine-sized fusion core glowed a deep blue at the center of the rib cage. Directly below the structural matrix of the core’s levitation chamber was the graphene-diamond motherboard, which contoured perfectly around the Coyote’s interior architecture. The dated quantum processor at the tip of the motherboard glowed the same blue color as the fusion core, receiving three pulses of wireless energy per second. Hundreds of fiber optic cables radiated outwards from the heatsink linking the cyborg’s various control systems, sensors and nanomotors. The fiber optic cables began as pencil thick trunk lines, radiating outward from this central nexus and leading eventually to the extremities like a biological cardiovascular system.

  Dax and William stood on the opposite side of the holographic projection. From where Tara sat, it looked as if the fiddle player in the Thomas Hart Benton painting behind them was being consulted on the hologram as well.

  Dax pointed, “See this line? It’s a behavioral cortex feed, the same as in our DOGS units. Low bandwidth, but phenomenal for its time. The Coyotes can perceive person to person variance based on EM field fluctuations, just like SIEGFRIED.”

  Dax reached down and petted SIEGFRIED absentmindedly. The big Rottweiler sat dutifully between him and William, as though studying the hologram himself.

  Dax Abner looked over his shoulder towards Joan floating peacefully in her habitat, “You’re absolutely certain the com is working on
this unit? The other six?”

  Despite her monotone voice, one could almost hear the disdain in the dolphin’s response, “Daxane Julius Abner, that is the thirteenth time that you have leveled this specific query. This, despite my extensive report on Coyote schematics provided this morning. Following their bios update, these seven cybernetic organisms are functioning perfectly given their archaic components. Com relay included. I can hear basic communications from the units – fear, mistrust, warning, safe, calm, attack, flee, etc. I can push them rudimentary messages as well; however, that is it. A contemporary verbal to binary encoding processor similar to those found in the DOGS units does not exist. Any attempt to further modify their code will result in a core implosion. These seven remaining units are unlike modern cyborgs. Their nascent version of The Adler Code is absolutely unique.”

  Tara pulled Dax’s focus, irritating him because he was unable to resist her telepathic call, “So there you have it, love! Even Joan is pissed! We’re tired, totally over you guys standing around asking the same questions for two days! It’s a shame that you can’t hack the Coyotes! It’s just what it is. Can we please let them go?”

  Dax frowned, “Darling, I literally feel your distress. However, I agree with William. Setting them free, without some guarantee of control? Unwise. They did attack you initially.”

  “And, let’s not forget,” said William, “murder your father and his entire staff at Darkpool.”

  Tara stood and glared at the men, “They were desperate!” she said emphatically. “They don’t know why they did that. They don’t remember Darkpool!”

  “How do you know they don’t remember?” asked Dax incredulously.

  “Because they just don’t! Maybe Joan can’t, but I hear their thoughts. They’re remorseful when you discuss it. They’ve been waiting years to find me! Living in ditches, chased, shot at, run over by hovtrucks, unable to communicate with the outside world. They freaked out one time! No one knows why.”

  William said, “Tara, they pushed your hovcar off the road. There was no guarantee they were just going to nicely ask for a blood sample and then prance away in the moonlight. They tore LOFN to shreds!”

  “You attacked them!” yelled Tara.

  “To protect you, my sweet,” Dax interjected.

  “Maybe I didn’t need protecting!”

  William dropped his thumbs to his belt, “You were doing a bang up job of escaping from Greystone on your own.”

  Tara extended her middle finger and raised her chin defiantly, “Blow me, William.” She looked at the ceiling and spoke, “Dory babe? You hearing this in the yard?”

  “Loud and clear,” came Dorothy’s voice.

  “Can you please tell your husband to stop being an asshole? And tell my boyfriend to stop being a control freak?”

  Dax and William glanced at one another with resignation.

  Dorothy replied matter of factly, “Honey, quit being an asshole. Dax, boss, I think you gotta let this go. The Coyotes are just wild. Their programming is fixed if I understand what Joan’s saying? This is why I’m up here enjoying the sunshine. The conversation is over. You got three options, boys. Kill them. Use our resources to imprison them. Or set them free and see what happens. Has Joan ever been wrong before? Joan?”

  The dolphin’s response was instantaneous, “I do not do wrong.”

  William rubbed his eyes with frustration and walked halfway around the curved glass wall of Joan’s habitat, “As if citizen mercenaries weren’t enough. Let’s throw seven freakin’ feral cyborgs in the mix.”

  Tara whistled after him, “Awww, what’s wrong, Hunts with Gunpowder? You don’t like them because they don’t talk to you. Or tether. Or whatever the stupid Rotties do? They aren’t gonna hurt us! I know it.”

  “If you don’t mind elaborating, how precisely do you know that, darling?” asked Dax pointedly.

  Tara grabbed a fistful of her own black hair and pretended to yank it out in great pain, “Well I don’t know, BOSS!” She turned to William, “William, how do you know when your little puppies here want something? Huh?”

  “’Cause I just know.”

  “Exactly!” said Tara. “I just know! Why can’t you just trust me?! I’m like gagging on your patronizing bullshit right now. Ugh!”

  “We trust you,” said Dax, appealing for calm. “We don’t trust them. The DOGS units have IR overrides in their code that allow the central computer to take command. Or shut them down completely in case of an emergency. These Coyotes have no such code. Any attempt at modification results in termination.” He turned again to face the floating dolphin, “Am I correct, Joan?”

  Joan’s voice was distinguished by its lack of emotion, “That is correct, Daxane Julius Abner. Unwittingly, when the original Darkpool Laboratories’ mainframe was shredded in 2064, humans destroyed the only system capable of externally controlling the Coyotes. They are now a free-roaming, autonomously networked organism. I return to the allegory of a flock of birds. These cyborgs are similarly predictable, yet ultimately free.”

  Tara’s glare was fierce as she fixed her eyes on Dax and William, “So there you go. Dory, you still with me, girlfriend?”

  Dorothy’s resignation on the matter was long since apparent, “I’m here…”

  “Good. Then you’ll agree with me? Perhaps encourage your pig-headed husband to be of the same mind…” They all heard Dorothy laugh as Tara continued, “…and realize that sometimes, you just gotta have faith.”

  “Faith?” said William. “We’re running a super still, not a Sunday school.”

  Dorothy’s voice exclaimed, “Boys! All she’s trying to say is that if you love something, let it go. Do you respect these Coyotes, Dax?”

  “Respect for their design would be an understatement.”

  “Joan is now locked on their Ipv5 addresses, has their schematics, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s time to release them. They’re tagged. Joan can trace their movements, study them, and obviously they’re not going to kill Tara or they would have in the yard. So let’s just see what happens.”

  Dax raised his eyebrows and looked at William pensively. William shook his head but kept quiet.

  “That’s right,” Tara said lightly, twirling her hair, “What she said.”

  William scratched his sideburns and spoke to the ceiling, “Faith. Great.” He didn’t look at Dax and Tara as he walked out of the aquarium, “I’ll be upstairs.”

  “Thank you, Hunts with Gunpowder!” Tara called pluckily after him.

  I don’t know how fond he is of that nickname, pushed Dax.

  Tara shrugged and smiled, Whatever. I win.

  Outside the aquarium door, in the warehouse, the seven Coyotes lay together in a tight formation, muzzles tucked neatly into BIOSKIN© tails that had regrown bushy and sleek for the first time in over a decade. In front of them lay the DOGS units arranged in a flanking half circle. Behind SIEGFRIED, FREYA, LOFN and SNOTRA was the hulking mass of THOR. The warehouse echoed with little metal pings and scrapes every time THOR moved a claw or foreleg across the cement. The lights of the warehouse reflected brightly off the still’s brass fractionating columns towering behind the cyborgs.

  All five animals popped their heads up eagerly as William walked out of the aquarium, “Two through five, let’s go. They’re setting them free.”

  The Rottweilers leapt to their feet, eagerly darting up the stairs into the barn. THOR, as always, remained dutiful and motionless before the Coyote pack. His blue eyes glowed mournfully as he watched William pass.

  “Don’t worry, big boy. Your time will come.”

  THOR seemed satisfied with this acknowledgment and again lowered his head to the cement with a metallic clunk. He turned back towards the Coyotes, who had not moved, though Coyote One’s vidorbs shifted constantly, absorbing every sound and motion. Despite the tactical information downloaded to his data core by SIEGFRIED the night of Tara’s escape, the giant, military grade cyborg st
ill did not consider the Coyotes to be a threat. Though yet shunned by the Rottweilers, THOR had allowed the small gray borgs to curl up beside him in the warehouse as the humans slept through the night.

  Dorothy, William and the four Rottweilers were outside the barn when Dax and Tara appeared a few minutes later. The Coyotes followed them. Dorothy knelt calmly on the still wet grass before a square of turned dirt where she had been planting lily bulbs, the soil easy and pliable from the rains. FREYA growled as Coyote One hopped nervously through the barn’s doorway into the humid sunshine.

  “Silence,” commanded William.

  FREYA whined and was quiet. William folded his arms across his chest proudly. He watched, attentive as a school teacher, as his DOGS units anxiously peddled their front paws. It was difficult for them to maintain control as they watched the rest of the pack appear.

  The Coyotes emerged from the barn one at a time. Each came with a nervous sniff of the air before leaping through the door like a poof of gray smoke. The pack wound itself in a tight, anxious circle around Tara’s legs, muzzles and tongues licking her skin cautiously as they scanned their surroundings and tested the wind.

  “This may very well be the first time these bots have seen midday sunshine,” said Dax, observing their behavior.

  Joan’s voice came through his combud, “That is correct, Daxane Julius Abner. These creatures usually hibernate in camouflaged dens along the river bank during daylight hours.”

  Despite his reservations, William was taken aback by the beauty of the Coyotes in their newly repaired BIOSKIN©. Their muzzles had a flecked brownish-orange color, while their chests were streaked with a pale white that gradually gave way to the dark gray hue that composed the rest of their coats. Their oversized ears were dark, nearly black, fur triangles that twitched excitedly. To a civilian, their motions would have seemed totally natural. William, however, could see in his mind the layers of graphene circuitry that functioned as the cyborgs’ ear cartilage. The arrays in their ears were sensitive enough to detect the fluctuations in air pressure caused by a hawk changing its flight course overhead. The Coyotes were nowhere near as advanced as the DOGS units, but for their time, the design was nothing short of astounding. They represented the aurora of conscious cyborg life.