Neural Wraith, page 24
“I’ll take it I need to return and put on a suit.”
She nodded and gestured for them to walk toward the exit. They began to leave, escorted by a bubble of Mark 1s and his usual guards. Chloe remained behind, busy with the servers.
Nick felt a little naked leaving her behind, as he’d been almost everywhere with her for a few days now.
“The Aesir news story still dominates the Altnet, so we have time, but the commissioner is concerned for personal reasons.” Rie’s expression tightened. “While I suggested that the board could wait a day or two for results, he insisted that you immediately brief the board.”
Nick stopped dead. “Me?”
“You, yes.”
They resumed walking, but his mind buzzed with the fact he’d been personally summoned.
He hoped this wasn’t an execution. What even was the police board? Presumably it was some sort of government committee, right?
“Uh, I have no idea what I’m being asked to do,” Nick said.
“Oh? You sounded so confident on the ride here. Just tell them to wait and everything will be fine.” Rie’s saccharine sweetness had returned, and he took it as a warning sign.
“I said that’s how Welk did things. I’ve spoken to suits like the commissioner before, but a board? Who even are they? I bet they’re a bunch of wealthy bastards that could buy and sell my future fifty times over.”
“Perhaps. Board appointments to the Neo Babylon Police Department are quite competitive. Several of the members aspire to the wealth you imagine those in the Spires hold,” she said.
“I guarantee they’re still filthy rich by my standards.”
Rie rolled her eyes. “Your standards include renting a condemned apartment. To elaborate, Lucas is substantially better off than half the board.”
That made things much clearer. Nick tried to hide his surprise and suspected he failed.
In his imagination, the denizens of the Spires had always been the 1% of the 1%. Anyone who lived in a gigantic fuck-off skyscraper called Olympus, featuring its own internal climate, surely had the money to buy half the population of Babylon.
But if that were truly the case, would there even be room for people like Lucas to elbow their way into power? If liquid gold didn’t run through the veins of the Spires’ residents, what did they bring to the city?
He stepped outside the factory. The bright sunlight shined directly into his face and he shielded his eyes reflexively.
Little had changed out here. Red and blue lights glowed around him, while countless Archangels maintained their positions.
Their convoy sat in front of them, doors open. Rie waved a hand toward one, and Nick stepped inside. His escort piled into the vehicles.
Some sort of neural fight broke out between Juliet, Rosa, and Meta about who would sit next to him, while Rie claimed one side. After a few seconds of glaring, Meta plopped down beside him.
The doors closed and they rocketed off. This time, the blockade opened up in anticipation of them. They only slowed down to protect the civilians in their way, but were soon jetting toward the Spires.
“So what does the board do?” Nick asked after settling in.
“Oversight, officially.” Rie placed a finger over his lips before he cracked a joke about the task force’s name. “While the Spires and the government are seen as one and the same, the police commissioner isn’t given free rein. He still answers to the Spires, and through him, the entire department does as well.”
“So… I’m being held to account for raiding factories that belonged to RTM.”
“Yes.”
“Am I about to be fired?”
“No.”
Well, that was good to know.
Nick leaned back and focused. If he assumed this was an executive board, like in Tartarus, or maybe even the company’s board of directors, he could imagine what they might be interested in.
“Do you know what they’re asking about?” he asked Rie.
Her lips thinned. “No. Commissioner Kim merely asked for you to brief the board about the circumstances of the factory raids and the investigation.”
“So they might be spooked that we’re digging too deep or…” He paused. “Or they’re just worried about the idea that a terrorist group might be targeting them. If the Spires are driven by anything, it’s self-preservation. They only started cleaning everything up after the riots reached their turf.”
Rie remained silent.
“I don’t think I can make them feel better,” Nick admitted. “But after what Travis revealed, I have enough clues about why they’re after Helena. They’re just the worst ones.”
“Care to share them?” Rie asked.
He eyed her. “You heard the same things I did. Travis is working with somebody he thinks has pull in the police, but who is also able to cover their tracks. They hired foreign mercs to grab Helena, but left the NLF out to dry. Why? I don’t know.”
“Because they served their purpose.” Rie’s eyes narrowed. “You know something about the server set-up that you’re not telling me. That’s why you panicked when Travis talked about granting a mainframe access to his implants.”
Nick stared out the window and watched as the city flew past. The Spires rapidly approached. Traffic stayed well clear of the convoy, which rocketed along the highway with lights blaring.
“I thought you had access to all the military files?” he asked.
No response.
After a few seconds, he turned back and looked at Rie. Her eyes were blank. A sure sign she was thoroughly checking some sort of database.
It took nearly a minute for her to return to reality. The other Archangels seemed uncomfortable with her prolonged absence.
“There isn’t anything about implant access in your experiments,” she said slowly. “All neural implants have neural protections against mainframe and doll intrusion, but—”
“Those are to stop accidents,” Nick interrupted. “If you tap into the mind of a doll, you don’t want to mix up commands. You could damage your own implant, or the doll might accidentally harm you. That’s what was happening with Lumen—her mainframe kept treating her interface as part of the main computer, which would have destroyed the interface.”
No matter how humanlike a doll ever acted, the fact was that they were nothing more than silicon at their heart. If a doll directive was ever accidentally executed on the bare metal of a neural implant, the results could be horrifying. The reverse was also true, and manufacturers protected their dolls and interfaces for economic reasons.
But what if a mainframe was explicitly designed to circumvent those protections?
“Our suspect isn’t interested in Helena for her processing power or because she designed emotion engines,” he explained. “He wants her because she can control dolls, interfaces, and implants in bulk. Regardless of safety features. Mainframes aren’t built to do that.”
“But you needed one that did, in order to gather the training data for emotion engines,” Rie said.
She closed her eyes and sighed. Her fingers rubbed the bridge of her nose.
The convoy blew past the last checkpoint around the Spires. They swiftly pulled into the underground parking beneath the police Spire, but the car doors didn’t open.
“You might be wrong,” she said.
“You heard what Travis wanted. And Chloe will confirm how their servers work anyway,” he replied. “But I think it’s a safe assumption.”
Nick turned and faced Rie directly. She stared back at him, her expression stiff.
“I think we might want to bring the military into this,” he said.
CHAPTER 19
“That’s not our decision,” Rie instantly responded.
Nick scowled, but waited for her to continue.
The SUV doors finally opened, and they walked toward the elevators. His escort split up, using different lifts without an argument.
“The military will have access to all the evidence, plus the same information you have,” she said. “If the NLF implants have been constructed to support this plan, it’s possible they’re already acting.”
He blinked. “That… would make a hell of a lot of sense. They might have even cottoned on immediately.”
“It might explain why they didn’t feel the need to take over the factory raid. If your theory is correct, then their concerns would be with the primary suspect, not his patsies. They allowed Helena to remain in the wild, and if she becomes a threat to national security, then it is their reputation on the line.”
Reputation. Nick tried not to scoff.
Because all the politics had been about reputation. Not protecting the city, or doing the right thing, or getting shit done.
Commissioner Kim cared about his position and his beloved RTM. The military were concerned that they might be embarrassed or lose influence. Lieu and Hammond seemed to only care about hanging on. Chief Andrews seemed to have stopped caring because she got sidelined. Most detectives were busy job-hunting because they were about to be fired.
Did anybody in this fucking Spire give a damn about their actual job?
He looked at the Archangels around him.
The only police officers who seemed to care were those that were literally programmed to care. The irony was not lost on him, given his ongoing concerns about helping Rie shape the city.
“Do you think the military already have a suspect in mind?” he asked.
The elevator stopped at floor 77. Rie stepped out and he followed. His escort joined him shortly after.
“If they do, then they’re not acting against them,” she said. “I think it’s best to assume that we have the lead on them. They will act once they see danger and not a moment sooner. The Spires don’t appreciate the military overstepping their bounds.”
“Who authorizes the deployment of soldiers into Neo Westphalia anyway?”
“In emergencies? There are a number of sophisticated mainframes custom-built for the military that inform the generals that they might need to intervene in the city. They are considerably newer than those that run the department. Otherwise, all deployments must be approved by a board of three members. Commissioner Kim is one of these members.”
An explosive breath left Nick as he walked. “Hell of a duty. I’d always wondered how they changed things after the riots. Back then, the Assembly had to vote to call in the troops. The thousands killed were on the hands of the Spires.”
Would Kim even have the balls to call in the troops to gun down the citizens of his own city?
Nick shook his head at such a callous thought. He barely knew the man.
For all he knew, Kim might not even flinch at the idea. Or he might be doing everything in his power to avoid such a decision. Whatever the case, it was an awful position to be in.
As Nick’s group approached the Task Force office, he noticed how empty the floor seemed to be. Normally, there were countless Mark 1s milling about the charging stations and armory outside the office.
He only saw a handful there.
“Are you fully deployed?” he asked Rie as he scanned into the task force office.
“We are fully deployed,” she corrected. “Raiding both factories at short notice was a significant endeavor. We are also searching for the NLF safe house. Our regular patrol duties are also a greater burden due to expectations of a surge in crime following the Tartarus arrests.”
“That seems dangerous.”
“It is. But it is only a brief situation. We’ll hand over the factories to the Liberators and Custodians in short order.”
He nodded. While there were thousands of Archangels, the true power of the police force came in the regular doll police force. A city the size of Babylon couldn’t be maintained without them.
Once inside the office, Rie beelined to a closet hidden in the wall. Nick didn’t even get a chance to make some coffee before Juliet and Rosa were removing his coat.
“I can change myself,” he grumbled, brushing off the insistent Archangels.
Rie approached with a suit that looked oddly similar to the one that had been tailored for him the other day.
Probably because it was identical to that one.
“Did you steal my suit?” he asked.
“No. I just had two of them made. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” She pressed it into his hands. “There are some changing rooms around the corner if you want to pretend that you have privacy.”
He stared at her. “Do you seriously have cameras in the changing rooms?”
“This is a police station. Explosive devices are a serious danger,” she chirped with a bright smile. “You shouldn’t be too surprised. We placed cameras in your apartment earlier, although I’ve been kind enough not to tap into them.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake…
“I knew it was suspicious that all of you waited outside,” he grumbled.
“They are for your safety,” the other Archangels intoned simultaneously.
“Thanks.”
He shook his head and wandered into his office. At this point, pretending that the Archangels weren’t recording his every action was a pointless delusion. They were androids that thrived on data and felt that privacy was for lesser beings.
Which made sense given they were a hive mind that were discomforted by the idea of their own kin keeping secrets. Nick decided there were worse situations to be in.
He changed into his suit. Before leaving, he looked up how to tie a Windsor knot on his phone. It took a few tries, and didn’t look half as good as the one Chloe had tied, but he eventually succeeded.
Naturally, the moment he stepped outside, Rie retied the knot properly.
“I feel you should buy a housekeeper doll when you move,” she said, looking him up and down.
“I am being judged.”
“Yes. I am the Archangel of Wisdom, after all.” She winked at him.
“So Sigma didn’t just make a prototype, they crafted you from the heavens?”
Rie placed her hands on her hips. “You’re suggesting otherwise?”
“I remain a skeptic.”
She clicked her tongue. Her hands ran along the edges of his shirt and pants, fixing up the worst elements of his appearance with a deft touch.
Nick sincerely wondered why the Archangels had strong opinions on how he looked. Had it been all the domestic dolls Neural Spike had used during testing? Had their programming directives somehow leaked through?
By the door, Meta twisted nervously. The Mark 3s had allowed her entrance but kept the other Mark 1s out. When Nick looked at her, she pursed her lips.
“I am attempting to parse why Rie’s name makes her heavenly,” Meta said.
“It’s a joke,” he explained. “Because she’s named after a religious figure.”
Her mouth widened into an “O”-shape. “Then does my name also grant me heavenly status?”
“No,” Rie said flatly.
“Her actions might,” Nick said.
Rie crossed her arms. “I am the prototype. You can call her Metatron, but I’m the one that Sigma Robotics and Industrial named Uriel.”
“The host has recognized my name,” Meta said with a pout.
When Rie rounded on her older counterpart, Nick decided to end the catfight before it worsened. Rie’s possessive streak evidently included her name.
Was that why she disliked calling Helena and Lumen by their names?
“Enough,” Nick said. “I doubt we should keep the board waiting. Let’s go.”
They left. This time, Meta was the only Mark 1 who escorted him to a higher floor.
Unlike last time, a detachment of Custodians guarded the corridors here. Their anti-doll weapons hummed ominously. None of them had energy weapons, however. Right now, only the Mark 3s were rated to use any without an external power supply.
Well, them and Kushiel. She was a genuine military doll.
Rie led Nick and the others past the first group of stone-faced Custodians outside the elevators. The polished wooden floorboards almost seemed to sag under the weight of the armored dolls, but he was pretty sure that was his imagination.
What wasn’t his imagination was the fact the Custodians stared at him, and only him. This was as uncomfortable as ever.
Like all police dolls, the Custodians were a monolith. Nick had heard that this was intended to cut production costs. The Spires didn’t want to spend more on the police than they truly had to, and a small army of autonomous police officers burned a hell of a hole in the pockets of the uber rich.
In this case, the Custodians were all dark-skinned and heavily armored. They were even taller and bustier than the Liberators, and towered over Nick. Their heavy black armor shined with silver police badges and golden all caps “POLICE” lettering. He only knew what they looked like beneath it because he’d read their schematics.
Otherwise, he only saw the dark skin beneath their raised visors. The Custodians weren’t intended to be approachable.
“Good morning, Detective Waite,” one of them abruptly said when he got close. “Please present your arm and pull up your sleeve for detailed biometric confirmation of identity.”
The Archangels stopped abruptly. Rie glared at the doll who had spoken.
“Nicholas is already inside the department and with us,” she ground out. “I’ve already undertaken biometric identification.”
“Please present evidence of your most recent occurrence,” the Custodian replied.
“About twenty minutes ago, in the Oversight Task Force office,” Nick drawled. “Shouldn’t that be in the mainframe?”
The police dolls collectively frowned. While the Archangels slowly nodded, the others bit their lips.
After a few long seconds, the Custodian shook her head. “My apologies, Detective Waite. The mainframe system contains that access record, but it lacks sufficient information to validate your identity.”
“Is this because the police mainframes are old, or because I don’t have an implant?” he asked. “Because even shitty fly-by-night sex shops can usually attach a visual token for security dolls to verify who I am if they have to.”
