Proxy, page 29
“Six sighted so far,” the proxy replied, “all within two miles of our location and all confirmed armed.”
“Give me a hand,” Elijah said to Stacy.
She helped Elijah back upstairs. When they emerged into the hallway, she saw through one of the few windows only partly boarded-up that the light was already fading.
“Remember,” said the proxy, following behind them, “we want to avoid bloodshed if at all humanly possible.” She glanced towards the front entrance. “If you’ll forgive me, I’m required elsewhere.”
“Damn machine acts like this is a game of chess,” Elijah growled under his breath once the proxy had hurried away. “Let’s head upstairs.”
They found another of Zero’s tactical proxies crouched next to an upstairs window, peering through the sights of a powerful-looking rifle, its barrel resting on the sill and poking between two rough planks nailed over the glass.
“Nine armed intruders now confirmed,” the proxy announced without looking around. “Four are approaching from the rear of the building, and another five from the front. I don’t think they’ve seen any of my own proxies yet.”
“How many of your own proxies do you have around the house?” asked Elijah.
“There are five in the immediate vicinity of the house,” the proxy replied.
The reply sent a jolt of alarm through Stacy. “So we’re outnumbered?”
“I have overall tactical superiority and access to vast databases of military strategy,” Zero replied. “To my knowledge, David Markov does not.”
“But there’s still more of them,” said Stacy.
“True,” the AI admitted. “And as for his proxies out there, he won’t be at all reticent about inflicting—”
The proxy jerked his head around mid-sentence, his attention focused on the door behind them as if he had heard something.
A steel band tightened around Stacy’s lungs.
“Wait here,” said the proxy, quickly standing and disappearing through the door in a low crouch, the rifle gripped close to his chest.
Stacy heard the creak of wooden stairs as the proxy hurried downstairs.
Elijah meanwhile moved over next to the window, crouching down to peer out between the planks.
“I don’t see anything,” he muttered. “Let Zero take care of things for now, like he says.”
“But how will we be sure which proxies are his and which are—?”
Elijah raised a hand, his palm towards her. “Wait. I think I saw…”
Stacy dropped onto her knees next to Elijah and tried to see outside.
What I’d give, she thought, to be back in my little Paris flat.
Peering between the planks, she saw two figures standing at the edge of the woods, half-concealed behind the trunks of two trees. They wore military-style fatigues and might have been David Markov’s or, equally, Zero’s proxies. The one thing she was most afraid of was having no easy or obvious way to tell them apart.
Without warning they moved, hurrying across the ruined lawn towards the house. Moonlight glinted from the snub-nosed weapons gripped in their black-gloved hands.
Stacy whirled around at the sound of movement behind her, her hands hot and slick against the grip of her handgun. She nearly cried with relief when she saw the female proxy that had provided them both with their weapons now standing at the open doorway.
“Easy,” Elijah murmured from beside her. He reached out and used one hand to lower the barrel of Stacy’s gun towards the floor. She’d pointed it at the proxy without even thinking.
“Your trigger safety is on, Miss Cotter,” the proxy said. “You couldn’t have hurt me unless you used it like a club.”
Stacy’s face grew hot with embarrassment. Elijah chuckled softly from behind her, his feet shifting on the dusty floorboards as he stood back up.
“I need you both to come with me,” said Zero. “Make as little noise as possible. Please refrain from using your weapons except in an outright emergency.”
Stacy opened her mouth to ask how she’d know when that was, but the proxy had turned and exited the room before she could say anything.
“Here,” said Elijah, and showed Stacy how to use the trigger safety. “Got it?”
She nodded tightly. “I think so.”
“Good,” said Elijah, keeping his own weapon close by his side and reaching for Stacy’s shoulder with his other hand. “Now help me out here.”
It was dark enough by now that when they stepped back out into the corridor, Stacy could only just make out the outline of the mercenary proxy, standing at the top of the stairs and waiting for them. Moonlight trickled through the wooden slats covering a window at the opposite end of the corridor.
Every creak of the building around them, every sigh of the wind, felt full of deadly significance.
“Hurry,” the proxy hissed.
They followed her downstairs, Elijah leaning heavily on Stacy.
From somewhere else in the house came a burst of noise so loud and so abrupt that Stacy’s insides turned to burning acid. It was a rattling, mechanical sort of noise, like an old-fashioned petrol-driven engine stuttering as someone tried and failed to start it up.
In response, muffled voices shouted from elsewhere in the house.
“We’re going outside,” said the proxy, her voice terse.
But what about staying inside where it’s safe? Stacy wanted to cry out.
But the proxy was already on the move, swinging her own handgun from side to side and moving with a weird, shuffling motion towards the front entrance.
When they got outside, Stacy saw a pile of discarded clothes lying close to the tree line. Her heart lurched when she realized it wasn’t a pile of clothes, but a body.
More gunfire came from inside the house, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. Elijah’s fingers dug deep into Stacy’s shoulder and she almost cried out in pain.
The proxy leading them had meanwhile reached the tree line, and she turned to look back at them, gesturing for them to hurry.
They ran towards her as fast as they could, given Elijah’s injured ankle. Stacy’s lungs already ached from the effort of supporting his weight. Her ribs, only just healed, began again to grate against each other. It felt like razor blades slicing into her bones.
They stumbled into the woods, following the proxy deeper between the tall pines and gnarled oaks. In less than a minute, Stacy felt utterly lost. Yet the proxy waited patiently for them, guiding them further and further from the house.
After what felt like an eternity, they ascended a steep slope and halted at a pair of conjoined trees with a narrow gap between their trunks.
Only when she was standing almost next to the two trees did Stacy see that the gap separating them was taken up by a tent of some kind, or perhaps a minuscule hut. It was hard to tell, hidden as it was beneath layers of camouflage netting. From a distance it looked like a bush.
“It’s a hunting blind,” the proxy explained, pushing aside netting. “Tarpaulin over a steel frame. We’ve been secreting these through the woods in case we needed them.” She pulled a flap open. “Inside, please. And hurry.”
Stacy squeezed into the dim interior, Elijah following close behind, his breath coming in pained gasps. Once inside, Stacy found a narrow slit in the tarpaulin through which she could see down the slope of the hill.
“Wait here while I find transport,” said the proxy, standing at the open flap and bathed in moonlight. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“What’s happening out there?” Elijah demanded.
The proxy turned to look over her shoulder, her attention drawn elsewhere.
“Things are proving more difficult than expected,” the proxy replied after a lengthy pause. She sounded distracted. “I—”
The proxy blinked and shook her head. She swayed, her expression quite visible in the moonlight, and for a moment Stacy thought she might faint.
“Zero?” asked Stacy. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m having a little trouble…”
The proxy stumbled and fell backwards, hitting the ground with a thud.
Stacy quickly scrambled back out of the blind, afraid the proxy had been shot, but there was no sign of any visible injury.
She watched with increasing alarm as the proxy twitched and then began to shake with increasing violence. Her eyes were open, but all Stacy could see were their whites. Her teeth were bared in a rictus.
“What’s wrong with her?” Stacy demanded, her voice edged with panic.
“She’s having a fit or something,” said Elijah, hobbling back out of the blind to join her.
The proxy’s heels dug at the dirt, her head jerking and twisting from side to side.
Then, as suddenly as they had started, the tremors ceased.
“Zero?” asked Elijah, leaning in closer to the proxy. “What happened?”
The proxy’s gaze settled on Elijah for a moment. Then she reached for her weapon where she’d dropped it and, in a single swift movement, brought it to bear on Elijah, her fingers tightening around the trigger.
Before Stacy could even react, let alone think, Elijah had thrown himself on top of the proxy, grabbing hold of the barrel of her gun and presumably struggling to rip it from her grasp.
The gun went off, and Elijah cursed. For a moment Stacy thought he had been shot. She watched, open-mouthed, not understanding and not able to clearly see what was happening.
“Shoot her,” Elijah gasped. “For Christ’s sake, Stacy, shoot her now!”
But Stacy couldn’t move. Nor could she understand what Elijah was saying, or if she had, then she must have misunderstood, because he couldn’t seriously be asking her to kill the same woman who’d helped them practice—
Elijah slammed one fist into the side of the proxy’s head and it was enough for her fingers to loosen around her weapon. He tore it free, struggled upright with a grunt of pain, and then shot the proxy in the chest.
The noise was even worse than it had been when they had been practising in the basement. It sounded like the final judgement, like a hammer striking Stacy’s head.
She saw there was a hole in the proxy’s chest where there hadn’t been one a moment before.
Elijah stared down at her, his chest heaving. “Something’s gone wrong,” he said. “She was about to kill both of us.” He turned to look at Stacy with a hollow-eyed stare. “We need to get away from here.”
“Zero said something,” said Stacy, stumbling over her words. “He…he said he lost contact with some of his own proxies last night. Even he couldn’t figure it out.”
He stared back down at the dead proxy. No, thought Stacy; at a dead person, someone whose real name she would never know, and who had died without ever knowing why or for what purpose her body had been used.
The thought hollowed her out, leaving an empty void deep inside of her.
“Maybe Markov’s got some way of taking over control of the proxies Zero’s using,” Elijah suggested. “Listen, we can work out what happened later. For now, we’re on our own. So let’s just get moving.”
“But where?” asked Stacy. She still couldn’t pull her gaze away from the woman’s face. “We can’t...we can’t go back to the house.”
“Anywhere as long as it isn’t here,” said Elijah.
He tilted his head back to stare up at the moon and stars through a break in the clouds, then peered down the slope of the hill towards a far-away thread of silver winding its way through the woods. He directed her attention to it.
“That way looks good enough,” he said.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
RAY
They had just got out of a car on the edge of the Markov estate when Zero fell silent mid-sentence.
Ray, who had been staring off into the darkness of the surrounding forest, turned to look back at the woman through whom Zero was proxying. She had tired eyes and stooped shoulders, her unkempt blonde hair pulled into an untidy ponytail. They had found her waiting for them in a battered-looking Land Rover a hundred kilometres from the Markov estate, ready for their third vehicle switch of the day.
The proxy’s gaze remained unfocused for several more seconds, an amount of time that, Ray had gleaned from his conversation with Isaac on the long drive down, might as well be an eternity for an entity such as Zero.
Then the proxy blinked and looked around at them. “We have a problem.”
Hearing the crunch of leaves underfoot, Ray turned to see Isaac Sizemore emerge from amidst the trees by the side of the road, tugging his fly up.
“What’s going on?” he asked, looking between them. Clearly, he’d read something in their expressions.
“I’ve lost contact with a number of my proxies just in the last few minutes,” Zero explained. “Mostly around or inside the Kielder Forest safe house.”
Ray stared at the proxy. “Lost contact, how? Do you mean their proxy sessions ran out?”
“Nothing so simple, I’m afraid,” Zero replied. “Of greater concern is my inability to locate either Stacy or Mr Waits.”
Isaac looked confused. “Elijah Waits? He left before we did. Are you saying something happened to him?”
The proxy nodded. “Mr Waits returned to the safe house a few hours ago. It appears he came under attack shortly after departing us and was forced to flee on foot back to the house.”
Ray could hardly believe what he was hearing. He shot a look at Isaac, whose hands had twisted into claws at his sides, then back at the proxy. “Why the hell did you wait until now to tell us?”
“I believed I could handle the situation adequately given the number and type of proxies available to me,” Zero replied. “Unfortunately, as I say, there have been...unexpected developments within the last few minutes.”
Isaac, his expression intent, stepped up close to the proxy. “How many are still under your control?”
“Most remain under my command,” Zero replied. “They’re actively searching for both Stacy and for Mr Waits, but the safe house is currently under attack from what I believe to be proxies under David Markov’s control. Making a clear assessment under the circumstances is proving difficult.”
“Maybe you were right, Isaac,” Ray muttered, feeling as if his legs were about to give way beneath him. He stepped over to the Land Rover and leaned heavily against it. “Maybe Markov has won.”
“We’re not quite down and out yet, Mr Thomas,” Zero countered. “For one, it’s been my observation that I only lost control over those of my proxies that came into direct line of sight of those under Markov’s control. Some of them now appear to be under his direct control. For the moment, I’m operating under the assumption that so long as my remaining proxies stay out of sight of Markov’s, they’ll remain mine.”
Isaac stared at the proxy, his expression thunderstruck. “He can do that? Take over your proxies just by seeing them? How?”
“Zero took over those people at the Peartree even though they were all proxying with someone else,” said Ray. “Surely it’s the same thing?”
“Mr Thomas is correct,” said Zero. “But I wasn’t aware until now that David Markov could do the same thing to proxies that I controlled. This reveals potentialities within the technology of which even I was not yet aware.”
“Then can you take over his proxies too?” Isaac asked, a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
“If there’s a way to do it,” said Zero, “I haven’t found it yet.”
Ray imagined some glittering matrix of silicon and light buried in a darkened vault running innumerable processes even as it spoke to them through a human throat.
“Whatever network David Markov is uploading his mind to is, most likely, dozens of generations more advanced than my own,” Zero continued. “That alone gives him a considerable advantage.”
“So is it possible Markov could take control of the proxy you’re speaking to us through right now?” Ray asked.
“It’s possible, yes,” the machine replied blithely. “I have to exercise extreme caution to avoid that happening.”
“Very well,” said Isaac, his tone decisive. “If anything, it makes our mission even more urgent.” He turned in a slow circle, peering into the trees around them before pointing into the darkness. “We should go that way,” he said at last. “There’s a gate set into a security fence ringing the estate.”
Ray nodded, remembering how Amy Cotter had described sneaking Isaac in and out of the Markov estate. “What about cameras?”
“There’s a camera,” said Isaac, “but it’d been busted for years the last I remember. It’s possibly they’ve repaired it since, but I’ll be surprised if they have.”
“Shortly after we departed the Kielder Forest,” said Zero, “I took the opportunity to explore the woods around this estate through the eyes of a few hired proxies. A member of Markov’s security team replaced that camera within just the last few hours, most likely in response to Amy Cotter’s intrusion.”
Ray swore under his breath. “So is there any other way we can get inside without being seen?”
The proxy shook her head. “No, but I have another proxy waiting for you near that same gate. Go there, and he can get you inside the estate.”
“And you’re sure it’ll be safe?” Ray asked sceptically.
“Nothing we’re doing is safe, Mr Thomas,” Zero replied. “The best I can do is minimize the risk.” The proxy stepped towards the Land Rover and pulled its door open. “Time is of the essence, Mr Thomas,” she said, climbing in. “Don’t delay.”
“This way,” said Isaac, stepping off the road and into the trees without looking back.
Ray took a last glance at the Land Rover as it hummed into the distance, then made to follow the scientist. In less than a minute, he could see no sign of the road through the trees.
They walked for perhaps twenty minutes, with Isaac frequently stopping to stare around before continuing, and not always in the same direction. The terrain became increasingly rough, and at one point they were forced to scramble down a slope, grabbing hold of tree roots and rocks to keep from slipping or falling.
