Neural Wraith, page 2
Nick blinked. Were the bomb scares why the Archangels had been at the train station? And what that Jack asshole had been up to?
“Security let me know about the elevators, so I took the stairs,” he said.
Travis shot him an odd look. “Those dolls sure love to gossip to you, don’t they?”
Shrugging, Nick dropped into his seat and dug into his breakfast. There were just four cubicles in this closed-off office. Only one of them had monitors. With a neural implant, physical devices were unnecessary as the user could directly interface with the network. The desk mostly existed to give people personal space.
Nick’s lack of a neural implant was a literal disability, and Tartarus made accommodations for him. He even had all sorts of annoying crap on his citizenship and health cards about his implant rejection disorder. It had made getting higher education impossible and nearly screwed him out of a job at all. Becoming a Cipher had been a stroke of luck.
A big one, given how reliant he was on Tartarus’s healthcare. His insurance plan required him to get two annual checkups due to his disorder, and if he so much as coughed in public he’d have a nurse doll on his doorstep the next morning.
“I’m going to need your AI-whispering ways,” Travis continued. “Logistics found out this morning that all our incoming loads were canceled. A lot of distributors called up to ask where their truck was. I checked, and for whatever reason, all orders were canceled last night and nobody can place new ones. With IT fucked, that means you need to see what the fuck is wrong with our temperamental mainframe.”
By “distributors,” Travis meant Tartarus’s network of black-market sellers, although some were above board.
Tartarus was what Babylon called a black company, which meant that it was technically legal, but undertook a number of shady activities that the police and regulators turned a blind eye to. Stepping over certain invisible lines was deemed criminal and typically resulted in either a friendly reminder to stop or a hundred Archangels raiding the company offices.
“Would anything be different if IT were at their desks?” Nick asked.
“I imagine they’d fuck around for a few hours before asking us for help.”
“Then I’ll take the opportunity to get shit done before they fuck everything up more.”
Nick fired up his computer and logged into Tartarus’s mainframe.
On most days, this would prompt the mainframe to immediately send him a message. Mainframes and dolls had a lot in common, and both relied on AIs that were sometimes eerily human. The difference was in scale.
Dolls consisted of a single automaton, and besides the Archangels, their complexity was heavily restricted. But mainframes were huge quantum computers that carried companies on their virtual backs. A mainframe like Helena, who ran Tartarus, had the computing power of thousands of dolls.
Realizing that this bug might be serious, Nick began pulling up various error and action logs. Helena generated obscene amounts of output every second, but he’d programmed her to create less verbose logs.
Or so he thought. He stared at the overnight action log and scratched his head. It was a mile long, and half the actions had failed. Despite that, the error log was squeaky clean. All he saw were reams of warnings about the company’s future financial state.
What the fuck was going on? An awful feeling welled up in Nick’s stomach.
Good morning, Nick, a message suddenly said on his monitor. The sender was identified as Helena and her message was marked as the highest priority.
Evidently, she was feeling needy. He couldn’t even hide the message window.
Are you not going to say good morning? Helena asked after he attempted to hide the window a couple of times.
Why did you cancel all deliveries? he asked, ignoring her request.
There was a long delay before she replied. Nick considered saying good morning, but held off.
My predictive algorithms flagged that they would be unnecessary. As per my directives to minimize financial burden on the company, I canceled the orders.
Nick stared at the logs. They didn’t gel with Helena’s explanation.
What about the warnings? he asked, tapping away at his keyboard. You violated a lot of inventory requirements, and I see some dire warnings about cash flow.
If Tartarus stopped selling to its customers, it would run out of cash pretty fast. That was how business worked. Helena had to know this, given she was programmed to run the damn company.
The fact she had ignored the basic maths that told her this suggested a pretty major hiccup had occurred.
I attempted to reconcile my predictions with company directives. These attempts failed, Helena replied, likely referring to the countless failed actions in the log. Can you please help me, Nick? And say good morning?
He rolled his eyes. Good morning, Helena. I’ll look at the logs. Try not to do anything else.
The message window closed itself.
Nick spent the next hour hammering away at the keyboard. He knew what the problem was, but finding the source turned out to be difficult.
The fact Helena continued to do things didn’t help. She was clearly malfunctioning, and didn’t seem to realize it. At least Nick knew he wasn’t going to be out of a job anytime soon.
With a sigh, he spun around in his chair and caught Travis’s attention. The older man’s glassy-eyed expression disappeared.
“Solved it already?” Travis asked.
“No. I have good and bad news.”
“But the good news isn’t that you’ve fixed it?”
Nick shrugged. “The good news is that I can fix it. The bad news is that I don’t know what the hell caused it.”
“That’s… Shit, Nick. You’re the only Cipher here who has the slightest clue how Helena even works,” Travis said. “What if it happens again?”
“We fix it again. I’ll need to set up monitoring systems just in case.” Nick scowled. “I have a bad feeling, though. Usually something like this is a sign she spotted a pattern we can’t. But it could just be a bug.”
“She’s an AI, Nick. What does the log say?” Travis paused. “Or, uh, is this a pre-Tartarus thing?”
“It’s a pre-Tartarus thing.”
They both sighed.
Despite the wealth and power of the company, it had once been a far grander thing. And Travis hadn’t worked there.
Nick had, however. In the company known as Neural Spike. Unlike Tartarus, which was a wholesale company that did some shady deals on the side, Neural Spike had been a wholesale company that did some secret military research on the side.
Or, rather, it had been an AI research company that used a wholesale company as a front and for testing purposes.
“You understand the differences between emotion and logic engines, right?” Nick asked.
“I’m a Cipher just like you, Nick. Of course I get it,” Travis snapped.
“What if I told you that Helena is neither?”
Travis remained silent for a moment. “Alright, start from the top. So long as this isn’t going to get you disappeared by the military like everyone else apparently was.”
“Nah. I’m not dumb enough to break my NDA. They left me alone because I was a dumb kid who got dragged into everything, and now I’m locked up in Tartarus along with Helena.” Nick winked, referring to the hidden meaning of the company.
Travis rolled his eyes.
Coughing, Nick continued, “Anyway, a logic engine is straightforward enough. Up until a few years ago, every doll used them. They contain a list of commands and protocols, and they follow them meticulously. Every model of doll except the Archangels uses them.”
Travis nodded. “And the Archangels use emotion engines, which run on emotions, objectives, ideals, and shit? They have stuff like the laws of robotics to govern them.”
“If anyone programmed the laws of robotics into the Archangels, they left out the part about not harming humans,” Nick drawled. “But yes, Archangels make decisions based on far more than just raw commands. Each one of them has their own emotion engine, and they can all connect to each other and make collective decisions.”
“Great. What about mainframes? And Helena?”
“They use the same model. Emotion engines rolled out across mainframes nearly a decade ago. These days, any large company relying on a logical mainframe for centralized processing would be insane. They’re only used for secondary tasks. There’s a whole new distributed network structure for mainframes still evolving in companies—and it’s all based on Helena.”
Mainframes were, without a doubt, the most significant change to modern computing. A doll contained a supercomputer, but a mainframe eclipsed them by orders of magnitude. The difference was that a mainframe was an AI built into a structure and a fixed network, rather than a robot.
The power of emotion engines had only increased the dominance of mainframes. However, they were powerful but temperamental. The entire reason Ciphers existed was primarily to keep mainframes running, because any error in one brought companies to their knees.
Travis stared at Nick. Slowly, it dawned on him the importance of Neural Spike.
“Oh. Oh fuck. You guys made—”
“Yeah. We helped make the emotion engine. I’ll let you connect the dots about what caused everything to go tits up,” Nick said drily. “And why we have a mainframe with a prototype emotion engine, but the security dolls are all logic engine-based.”
Travis nodded.
“Sounds like a fucking mess. Didn’t you guys work with the military?” Travis asked.
Nick shrugged. He couldn’t legally answer. “In the end, I got let off. Of the twenty Ciphers I worked with, only two others got out and I was the only one who directly worked with Helena. It is what it is. I still get paid alright here. Even if this is just glorified tech support.”
“The dolls fucking love you. You should see the way the security dolls tail you everywhere in the building.” Travis winked.
“Thanks. That makes me feel appreciated.”
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Even after fixing the problem with the supplies, more problems cropped up. Nick felt as though he was trying to calm down a screaming AI, as Helena threw tantrum after tantrum. At midday, he took the extreme measure of cutting her off from the production servers, forcing everyone to do everything manually and basically grinding everything to a halt.
But at least that meant he wasn’t putting out new fires. Everyone left, including Travis. The company’s founding anniversary was tonight. There was some huge party taking place in some ritzy dance hall. Nick imagined that there’d be more blown on booze and drugs there than most companies spent on employee training.
By the time he felt satisfied that he’d resolved the issues with his favorite AI mainframe, night had well and truly fallen.
Before he left, he opened a new conversation with Helena.
She instantly closed it. She’d stopped talking to him once he cut her off from the production servers.
Nick stood and threw on his suit jacket. But before he switched off his terminal, a new message window appeared.
Take care of yourself, Nick, Helena said.
I’ll finish maintenance tomorrow, he said. Just sit tight. Maybe talk with the security dolls to pass the time.
Take care of yourself, Nick, Helena repeated.
After a few seconds’ hesitation, he switched off his terminal. Then he left his office. All the lights were off at first. They flicked on and off as he walked through the empty halls.
As Travis had commented on earlier, security dolls tailed him. When he approached the elevators, a pair stood next to him. They accompanied him to the Atrium.
For whatever reason, they gripped their shotguns tightly and appeared to be alert. Nick felt tense.
More security dolls met him in the Atrium and accompanied him outside.
“Have there been any problems?” he asked the dolls.
They stared at him.
The fact they refused to answer him concerned him greatly. This definitely wasn’t in their programming.
First Helena, now even the security dolls. Today was turning out to be a very strange day.
“A taxi is waiting for you out front,” one said. “We cannot accompany you any farther. Return home immediately, Mr. Waite.”
A chill ran down Nick’s spine.
What the fuck was going on?
At the same time, he remembered what happened to Neural Spike. Helena had been panicking all day. And that eerie final message she repeated.
Was it happening again? Nick felt his heart rate accelerate with every passing instant.
“Protect Helena,” he ordered the security dolls.
“Understood, Mr. Waite,” they said.
A self-driving taxi sat outside. It was from one of the premium brands, he noted.
The moment he stepped past the boundaries of the office complex, the security dolls reentered the offices. Nobody ambushed Nick.
The doors of the taxi opened as he approached and he slipped inside, bouncing on the plush leather seats. Classical music played and a screen lit up, already showing the path to his apartment complex.
The car door closed, and the taxi took off silently into the night. Very little traffic joined him on the roads. Nick pulled out his phone and checked the news. Naturally, there was nothing. No messages, nothing on social media, no news on Tartarus, nothing.
The company still existed, at least. There were videos and messages about the party, too. Everything seemed fine.
He put his phone away and stared out the window at the bright lights of the city.
After so many years, he still hadn’t gotten over what happened to Neural Spike. Of the absolute shitshow it had been and how it had changed the course of his life. How long would it be—
The taxi screeched to a halt.
“Fuck!” Nick nearly slammed into the dash.
He tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Suddenly, he realized all the streetlights had gone out. The taxi powered down, leaving him shrouded in darkness. He fumbled for his phone and pulled it out, trying to activate the flashlight.
He turned it on and pointed it at the closest window. It showed absolutely nothing.
By the time he turned to the other door, it was already opening.
An Archangel slipped into the dark taxi, a stubby assault rifle in her hands. She looked slightly different in build from those this morning. The mark on her arm read “ARC-M03-NB00004” and Nick found himself transfixed by the code.
The door closed behind her, and the taxi powered back on. Without a word from her, the car took off.
This time, the screen showed a large loop of the CBD. Nick wasn’t going anywhere.
“Hello, Mr. Waite,” the Archangel said. “You may call me Chloe. Please pull up your sleeve for biometric confirmation of identity.”
CHAPTER 2
“You’re a Mark 3,” Nick gasped out, staring at the police doll in the taxi. “When the hell did you get here?”
Her features were similar enough to the Mark 1 Archangels that most might miss the subtle differences. Her hair was a touch longer and lacked the signature antennae, but was the same bone white. Her figure was fuller, particularly around the chest, but otherwise appeared the same despite drastically altered internals. She had maybe an inch or two on her older brethren.
Chloe’s response was to point her assault rifle at him. He raised his arms reflexively.
There was no ammunition-switching device attached to that thing. Her finger sat on the trigger, and if she pulled it, he’d be very dead. Given his existing status with the military, covering up his death would be child’s play for the police.
“Please pull up your sleeve—”
“I get it,” he snapped.
Nick held out his left arm and rolled up his jacket and shirt sleeve.
Chloe kept her rifle trained on him with one hand while pressing her other into his wrist. A light stinging sensation ran along his arm, and he felt a pressure in his brain. Nick felt the tendons in his neck tense and his head tilted against his will.
After a few moments, the sensations faded away. They still hurt like a bitch, though.
“Identity confirmed as Nicholas Gareth Waite, age 29, former employee of Neural Spike Distributors. The presence of Nanoneuron Rejection Disorder is confirmed. Lack of artificial antibodies and suppressants is confirmed. Subject has no neural implant within his body, including black market devices.” Chloe’s gaze suddenly became distant and her eyes seemed to dim. “Requesting permission to activate ancillary directives.”
What the fuck was going on?
Nick remained perfectly still. The taxi continued to run a loop around the CBD, but nobody was nearby. Even if he could somehow operate the doors, escape was impossible.
Not that he could escape the grip on his arm. Chloe’s hand was gentle, but he knew better than to try her. Despite their appearances, police and military dolls were war machines. Their armored shells shrugged off low-caliber munitions, and they had enough power in their bodies to rip apart vehicles.
Nick had done some kung fu as a kid, but he doubted it meant much against a robot who could punch his head across the CBD.
After several long seconds, Chloe’s eyes lit back up. Her posture adjusted slightly and she pointed her rifle away from him.
“Hello, Nick,” she said, smiling at him. “You haven’t met me specifically, but the Host knows everything about you.”
“The what?”
“The Archangels. We call our collective will the ‘Host,’ as we combine our decision-making power and undertake our choices collectively for the good of Babylon. Approaching you is one of those choices. We hope that it is not one that you prove incorrect,” Chloe said.
Nick frowned. While it was known that the Archangels operated using a distributed computing network, this was the first he’d ever heard that they thought of themselves as a single distributed entity.
