Subtle Weapon, page 19
part #2 of ShadowTech Series
“You’re doing it!”
“Tell me what this is all about?”
She understood. <I can feel the door. I’ve been testing it out, and when I push I get an ‘access denied’ message. And it feels normal. It’s not like a total block, just—oh, how do I explain this? I’ve been down here before, couple of months ago. Work thing. Tried one of the cell doors, just for the hell of it. Got exactly the same message. Which makes me think I’ve still got my old access.>
Brice bit his lower lip. She couldn’t get through the cell door, so she must still have access to other doors? Where was the logic in that?
If he hadn’t heard her conversation with Macklyn, he’d be tempted to sit down and ignore this pathetic game. But she—they—were up to something, and to find out what he had to play along.
“I feel stupid doing this,” he said, turning at the bucket again. There was a coat of bubbly scum on the top. “How about you give me a bit more to go on. Don’t reckon this is helping at all.”
“You need to relax. Your movements are all tense. You need to walk normally.”
“Don’t normally walk in tiny spaces. Could do with a longer stroll. Corridor would be nice. Shame they haven’t taken me for any more tests.”
Not that he wanted that. But maybe their probing had triggered something. He had more control over his lattice now, didn’t he?
“Can only use what we’ve got.” <And I’m certain about my access. Pushed a bit further, caught the system. Colleague showed me how to do that, even though we’re not supposed to, right? Checked my file. You know, the personal one, with all the levels and stuff. Looked at my access, and it hasn’t changed. So, once we get out of this cell, I can open doors for us.>
“Doesn’t help much.” Brice reached the door and stopped. He shook his head, as if the whole situation was hitting him hard, and reached out. His left palm rested on the cold metal of the door.
Thankfully, she understood. <Okay, I haven’t figured out how to get into the corridor. But I’ve got a few ideas. We could try to rush the guards. You’re fast, right? Or…or when the guard opens it you leap up to grab his weapon and I use my foot to close the door enough to stop others coming in. Then you use the guard’s gun, and we get out. Or we fake an illness, just one of us, and if we play it right the guard gets all suspicious, comes over, and we make our move.>
And there, Brice thought, was the reason for the special ingredient in her food. It would add a bit of realism to her feigned illness.
The whole thing was laughable. They expected him to fall for this?
But he’d play along, see what came of it.
He frowned at her. “Don’t look too good yourself. Should try your own medicine.”
She shook her head. “I was walking earlier.” <And, yes, I can play the victim.>
Her acting wasn’t that good. But Brice kept his thoughts to himself, said, “That was hours ago.”
Fen pulled a face. Brice watched her, waiting.
“Fine. I’ll show you how it’s done. If you’d been paying attention a few hours ago, you’d know.”
She pushed away from the wall. There was a hole in the side of her top, where the seam was coming unstitched. He wondered if she’d been picking at it.
She took a long breath and pushed her shoulders back. One hand remained on the wall. She grimaced.
“You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He glanced at the bucket.
<You sure the side effects aren’t dangerous?> she asked Macklyn.
<We’ve been through that. Convince him!>
She swallowed, and lifted her hand from the wall. She wobbled, smiled, took a step. Yelled in pain.
Brice rushed forward.
He grabbed her before she hit the ground. One hand gripped her waist—far too thin, could feel her ribs—and the other brushed the back of her neck.
A flame raced through his body, white heat surging along his limbs. His fingers, against her flesh, tingled then went numb.
He cried out. The cell swayed. His legs gave way.
He crashed to the ground, Fen on top of him. Her elbow slammed into his chest.
His hand still rested on her neck, over her lattice node.
The hand throbbed. He couldn’t move it.
And when he heard her voice, heard her suss to Macklyn, it was as if she was a part of him, as if he was listening in through her very thoughts.
<That bloody stuff! How the hell can I lead him anywhere if I can’t bloody walk?>
<Relax. I’ll get the lab to check the dosage, administer a rebounder if necessary. And while you’re down there, use the situation.>
<He’s squeezing my neck!>
<And you’ve got one knee dangerously close to his groin. But use the intimacy. I know you can do that.>
Intimacy. Like they could get any more intimate than this.
He wanted to laugh. She turned to him, already batting her eyelids like some pathetic teenager, but he was already inside her. He felt her heart pounding, felt the blood rushing through her arteries and veins. He felt her lungs expand, the warm breath flowing down her windpipe, the oxygen crossing over to join the blood.
And he felt her connection with Macklyn.
The memory of her recent conversation hung heavy, and Brice latched onto it, read the data in a way he couldn’t understand. And he felt Macklyn at the other end.
But he didn’t push into the man. Not yet. He needed to try something else first.
“Sorry.” Her breath was stale and warm, but her lips were soft where they brushed his throat.
Brice rode her lattice, and he glanced at the door. In a flash, it appeared in his faulty lenses as a schematic, and he knew he was seeing the door’s system through Fen’s lattice.
Other data flooded in, unbidden. It was too much. He pulled out of her lattice—again, he didn’t know exactly how, only knew that he didn’t want to be there any longer—and the data faded along with the heat.
He shuddered.
“This isn’t comfortable,” he said, wriggling so that his beard raked her cheek.
She rolled off, still trying to massage his arm. He climbed to his feet.
“Need to sit down,” he said, moving further away. As far as he could in this tiny cell.
He closed his eyes, and focused. The door was still there, somehow connected to his own screwy lattice. And he still had a link to Fen, even though they no longer touched.
And through her, he could still feel the residue of the connection to Macklyn Grivas.
Piran
Was this happening? Piran couldn’t be sure. No—he was sure, but he was afraid. Yes, that was it. Afraid of being right.
He could use the lava-crawler to access everything. Which meant he could do anything, didn’t it? He could open the cell door, let Brice out. He could give Ryann access, let her leave. He could…he could escape.
“Too much! Breathe. Take it easy, Piran. Do this old-style—pull data, correlate, analyse. Don’t jump to conclusions. This is Kaiahive, right? Always one bloody step ahead.”
He grabbed another drink, drained half the water straight off. Sat down. Focused.
Brice first.
The arsehole was in a small cell, but he wasn’t alone. Had some woman with him—bit thin, but not unattractive. Didn’t seem to like Brice, from the way she acted in the sensor feed. So she had taste.
Piran prodded, found her lattice ident. Cross-referenced with a database his crawler had found, a list of personnel.
Fenella Teresi. Worked in data—admin rather than tech. A few disciplinaries, bit of a loose cannon. Last disciplinary file was secured—not a problem for the lava-crawler, but Piran would look later—but she’d ended up incarcerated.
And they’d put her in with Brice, even though there were other cells. Didn’t make sense.
Piran left Brice for now, concentrated on Ryann. She was in lower levels, some dig site. And she was working.
For the company? Didn’t make sense either. Unless she’d…not sold out, but given in. Yeah, decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, accepted whatever Kaiahive offered.
“No way. Not Ryann.”
Sensor feeds showed her working with Moyna Lambros, site co-ordinator—Piran got that from another cross-reference to the database. The Lambros woman seemed to be in charge of the dig, so maybe this was like a prison work thing for Ryann. Or she’d gone along with Kaiahive while gathering intel.
“Not like her to be that sneaky. Smart, though.”
Piran had a live feed running, from one of the many sensors at the dig. And the image shook. Both Ryann and the boss-lady looked up. But only for a moment. Moyna said something, Ryann shrugged, and they got on with scraping away at rock.
A tremor? Piran had felt something, a day or so ago. But he’d put it down to his imagination, nothing to worry about. Looked worse down in that cavern, though—which made sense. They were more exposed down there, didn’t have artificial, strengthened walls around them.
He pulled up another sensor feed. That one showed a cavern with fresh rock-fall—at least, it looked fresh to Piran. Might’ve been like that for centuries, for all he knew. But there wasn’t anyone working, and there was a guard at the entrance.
Yeah, problems down there, definitely. The deeper you went, the worse things got. Best place to be was outside
“Like Keelin and Deva.”
Piran pulled up the database, set loose an algo—wrapped in the lava-crawler’s sheath, obviously. Came back null for Keelin. Tried her fake name, Brienne Lambros. Algo came back with data on Moyna. Same second name—what were the chances? Not that uncommon, he supposed. Didn’t help him, though.
He searched for Deva—real and fake name—and the system had nothing.
“So they’re safe.”
At least, as far as he could tell. He could’ve pulled up search files, checked for sensor data outside the base. But…
“Assume they’re safe. Kee can look after the both of them. They’re fine.”
Piran rose, paced around the desks, came to the dispenser. Filled his flask again. Ran a hand over his cheek—still smooth. Ran fingers through his clean hair. And his shirt still held that freshly-laundered smell. Noticed that when he got up, opened that little storage door. Must replace clothes when he was out. Because they’d be able to know when that was, wouldn’t they? Use his location. And they’d check sensor data, know when he needed them. Even if they didn’t see the discarded ones from the day before—seemed to work leaving them in a heap by the door—they could tell by air analysis, pick up on sweat markers. Must be some in the air, right? Could smell when someone needed a shower, so it must be chemicals following them around. Like those traces Ryann kept on about, the ones Brice reckoned he could see—wrong word, but let it pass. Yeah, indications of movement.
It was all about data. And…and that dormant routine reinforced data.
The idea came out of nowhere, but it made sense. The internal feedback, the way the coding folded over itself—it could be a multiplier of sorts. Took in data and…enhanced it. Central to his whole hypothesis, wasn’t it? Selective enhancement.
Wasn’t a new idea. The lattice enhanced the body, by emphasising already-present traits. Because bodies were data, weren’t they? Biological, chemical. Physical, even. Still autonomous as units, though, under control. At least, to an extent. There were always autonomous reactions. Duck before even registering the object flying at you, pull your hand from something burning before conscious of the heat. Bodies weren’t under full control of the consciousness.
And bodies could be worked on. That’s why there were training rooms, why there were mental exercises. Think of Keelin as a pilot—started with the basics, but she learnt and developed. She adapted to craft, reached a point where she became the craft. Learnt behaviour—reinforcement of positive traits, rejection of negative ones.
“Learnt behaviour.”
And that was the spark Piran needed.
He sat, so fast the chair almost spun away from under him. Pulled himself into the desk.
The dormant routine—a sleeper—needed a working partner. Not a crawler, though.
He pulled up his old routines, found something he’d been tinkering with for years. A manipulator. Not the best name, but it served—twisted data, turned it into…something else.
Wild fancy at the time, and it had never worked. Not properly. Spewed out garbage. But he knew more now, didn’t he?
Piran worked. He ran through code. He modified. And he pulled in that sleeper, hijacked processes and call-backs. Formed a mutation. No, a hybrid. Analysed, knew it functioned—no more garbage.
He stopped.
He couldn’t feet it lattice data. There were too many variables. The lattice was so complex that even experts couldn’t predict outcomes from start-points, not one hundred percent. No, if he was going to test this, he needed something simple. Something…binary. Like a switch, either on or off.
“Like lights.”
He searched the map. Second level from the top, looked like some admin area. Space off a main corridor, visual sensor showed it to be cleaning storage.
Piran found the sub-room system, analysed the data. Yep—on/off light. Record tagged, told him it didn’t get used much. Had to be manual-triggered, switch or lattice, and most times cleaners didn’t bother, used the light from the corridor. Wasn’t like they needed to see in detail to pull out a mop and cleanser, right?
So, resting state was off, triggered state was on. Use that as input, but suggest a reverse. Create a bias, lean toward resting state being on.
Piran played with the data, ran it through a dry copy of the hybrid. Didn’t do what he wanted first time. Wasn’t an issue with internals, so he re-jigged, found another variable—something to do with corridor lighting—as a secondary, strengthened the inverse of that. Ran the input again—and got it. The hybrid spat out figures that reinforced the light’s on-state.
He checked, double-checked. Looked at his lava-crawler, at the cloak it threw up. Still in place, no signs of detection. Good.
He inserted the hybrid, ran it. Watched the data. Output—reverse of previous—re-entered the sub-room system. It rebelled, recognised an issue—and the crawler’s cloak caught the outgoing alert, stifled it. Piran ran the procedure again, a third time. Fourth run, the sub-system was convinced, polarities deep in the code now inverted.
The corridor vis-feed remained the same, the door to the unit sealed tight. But internal data showed illumination, the strip on the inside of the door frame casting its light over the shelving and the mops.
And there were no alerts, nothing to give any indication that this was an error. Because it wasn’t. The hybrid had physically changed the sub-room’s system code. As far as the system was concerned, the light was supposed to be on when the door was sealed.
He’d done it!
But this was only the start. This was a simple test.
Piran took a gulp of water, draining the flask, and set to work.
Ryann
The damage to the caverns wasn’t as bad as expected, and Moyna was positive the dig wouldn’t be held up too long.
“Even chamber five?” Ryann asked as she sifted through dust and rubble, the sifter’s readings running across the edge of her lens.
“That one’ll take a bit longer. Surveyors reckon it’s unsafe.”
“It’s a shame the original work’s on hold, though. Inese said they were close to something.”
“You spoke to her?”
“I bumped into her in the rec room. She seemed excited about what they’d already found.”
“They’re young. Sure I used to be idealistic once. But things did look good. The stone they uncovered could well be a sign.”
“I take it we’re not talking a metaphorical sign here.”
“Nope. Real thing. Signpost, guiding the Ancients to something important. Or maybe not. Could be a sign for the shower-rooms for all we know. And I guess we’ll have to wait to find out now.”
“The rock-fall’s opened up other opportunities, though, hasn’t it?” Ryann said.
“Oh, definitely.”
“Do we know where that new passage leads?”
“Survey guys did a whole spectra-thing, deep into the rock. Whole warren of tunnels, and a few more chambers. It’s promising.”
“Spectra-thing?”
Moyna shrugged, and looked sheepish. “Full name used to confuse me, got used to calling it a spectra-thing. Bane of my instructors. You want, I can give you a doc on it. Might be good bedtime reading, if you know what I mean.”
“I did a stint in admin. I doubt it can be worse than the files I had to deal with back then.”
Moyna did a double-take. “They had you riding a desk? What d’ya do to deserve that?”
“I was the newbie, and the woman in charge had a warped sense of humour. She said it was important for me—and I quote—‘to have a firm understanding of the inter-connectedness of the operation at an analytical and foundational level.’”
“Bet she was fun on nights out.”
“I wouldn’t know. She moved me on to a tracker position—the role I’d signed up for—after a couple of weeks. I think it annoyed her that I smiled the whole time.”
“Grimaced, more like.”
“No. I knew the smile wouldn’t go down well with her, so it was easy to keep up.”
Moyna laughed, and shook her head. “You’re bad, Ryann. I like that.”
“I have my moments.”
Ryann returned to her work. Beside her, Moyna shook with another laugh. She picked up her scraper—and, now, Ryann was certain this wasn’t the technical term for it, but another of Moyna’s pet names—but hesitated.
