Neural Wraith, page 4
“The dregs of society?” he suggested.
“Usually, yes,” she said.
How sweet of her.
They stopped outside a thick security door. Unlike the others, this one didn’t open before they reached it. The room beyond it contained no windows and appeared to be absolutely massive, given the hallway next to it stretched on for some distance. Some sort of hand scanner was built into the wall next to the door.
“You will need to present your hand for biometric confirmation,” Chloe said.
Nick did exactly that. Like with Chloe, he felt that stinging sensation and light pulse, but it wasn’t as painful this time. The door slid open with a pop and a hiss.
Inside, several more Mark 3s charged at empty desks. The interior was decorated somewhat better than the rest of the floor. For one thing, the walls were painted blue and black and there were plants in the corners.
In the center of the room stood a woman who looked entirely different to every other doll in the room. The only reason Nick recognized her as a doll was because of the marking on her chest, which read “ARC-M03-URIEL”.
Her figure was both taller and significantly fuller and bustier. She had long black hair to her waist, and her front bangs were braided. Her eyes were amber, rather than the universal purple of the Archangels. Significantly, along with her massive chest, she sported thick, muscled thighs that peeked out between her skintight shorts and thigh-high greaves.
If Nick wasn’t mistaken, he was looking at a prototype Archangel. One of Kushiel’s sisters, but a Mark 3.
“Nicholas, I’m glad that you chose to speak with us,” the woman said, smiling brightly at him while sweeping her hair over one shoulder. “My formal designation is Uriel, but I prefer to be called Rie. Welcome to the Oversight Task Force. Shall we take a seat?”
She gestured to a booth in a far corner. Tall glass panels surrounded gray sofas, and a steel coffee table occupied the center.
Nick took a seat. Behind him, Chloe and the others found charging stations and returned to that dead-eyed look. Although he strongly suspected they were listening in to every word being spoken. The room lacked the visible cameras and turrets of the rest of the floor, but that meant little in this day and age.
Rie puttered about in the nearby kitchenette and various noises emanated from it. Looking around, Nick saw that the entire room was closed off from the outside. The windows were all LED panels that played visual renderings of the outside. Several offices and conference rooms appeared to be empty. Nick suspected there was only room for maybe forty to fifty people here, even accounting for the space efficiency of dolls.
The surrounding glass panels suddenly lit up with a view of the sun rising over Babylon’s artificial beaches. Rie stepped in with a platter containing two cups of coffee and a plain baked cheesecake. Once she stepped through, a sliding door dropped down from above to separate the room from outside.
“Is this the part where you reveal that you’ve been stalking me?” he said, sniffing the espresso in his cup. It smelled like what he made at home using his own machine. “You even served proper baked cheesecake, rather than the garbage most people think of whenever I bring it up.”
He picked up a fork, then noticed there was a second. Rie smiled again.
“I’m sure you can share,” she said. “You don’t seem that surprised to see me. Even after checking all Altnet discussions and your private records, I cannot find any mention of me.”
“You invaded my privacy to see if I knew about you?” he asked.
“No. Your private life ceased to be private many years ago, as a consequence of your involvement with Neural Spike Distributors,” she said, face hardening. “To say nothing of the legal judgments made against Tartarus. The police have had permanent access to all of your activities since then.”
“Can’t say I appreciate that.” Nick’s expression was stony, but he pushed his anger aside. “I’m not surprised to see you because the Mark 3s are here. There had to be prototypes. Although I expected you to look more like them.”
“Ah. That is because I am one of two prototypes, and not the one chosen for mass production. Yet.” Her eyes flashed. “The Marks 3s are based on the Ezekiel prototype, who will see public deployment imminently.”
Nick sipped his coffee. Yup, exactly like the brew at home. Had Rie stolen his machine as well?
“So, what am I going to be doing for you?” he asked.
Rie blinked. “I’m afraid you misunderstand. It’s not what you’re going to do for me. It’s what we’re going to do together. Perhaps the Mark 3s came off too strong—it’s in their nature, after all—but I want your informed consent. I don’t need an unwilling pawn. What I want is a partner.”
He raised an eyebrow. This conversation had played out very differently to what he had expected based on Chloe’s actions and words. Rie hadn’t pointed a gun at him, and she hadn’t rammed her fingers into his wrist yet while chirping about biometric confirmation.
Was she truly a doll?
“Alright. I’ll hear you out. Why do you, an immensely powerful war machine and one of the most advanced artificial intelligences in existence, need a random Cipher?” Nick asked.
“I want you to help me lead this task force and to rewrite our approach to crushing corruption in Neo Babylon.” Rie leaned forward, coffee cup sitting neatly in her lap. “As a Cipher with intricate knowledge of emotion engines and top-secret information others dream of learning, this is well within your ability. Or will you continue to sell yourself short?”
CHAPTER 3
When Nick woke up this morning, he hadn’t expected to be offered a chance to betray all of humanity.
Now that he had received such an offer, he gave it serious thought. What had humanity done for him lately?
He was joking, of course. But Rie’s offer sounded a lot like she wanted him to help the Archangels upend Babylon. While much of the city ran on automation, it still had powerful layers of human leadership that controlled the automatons and pulled the levers of policy. Democracy might be a laughable concept in Neo Westphalia, but it was theoretically possible to join the leadership in the Spires.
Not that Nick had ever met anyone who had, or even had friends of friends who knew people who had.
“Ah, you’re finally surprised,” Rie noted, pointing at him with her fork. “It’s a good expression on you.”
“Was that offer just bait?” he grumbled.
“No. But the reaction was sweet icing.” She gulped down a neat little bite of cheesecake, after carefully carving up her half into roughly equal portions using her fork. “Department policy is that every task force needs to be led by a human Cipher.”
“So I’m a figurehead. Somebody with nowhere else to go that you can easily control, unlike the police Ciphers.” Nick’s expression turned stony and his cup clinked against the steel table.
Rie laughed, and it was an eerily beautiful sound to come from a robot. It reminded Nick of the videos he watched of doll singers, but he had always explained those away as the product of editing.
“Nicholas, if I wanted an easily controllable figurehead, I’d choose the police Cipher. With the increasing staffing cuts to the department, they’re clamoring for the few remaining positions. I certainly don’t need any of them for their skills,” she said, voice openly disdainful.
“Then why do you want me?”
“Because you can handle a prototype emotion engine. Do not undersell yourself. More to the point, the Mark 3s have upgrades and abilities that the rest of the Host doesn’t fully understand. The Mark 1s have access to Babylon’s neural network, but they cannot match a Cipher’s command of networking. That changes now.” Rie grinned from ear to ear.
Something churned in Nick’s stomach as he began to realize the true reason he was desirable.
“You want me to help train the Mark 3s as Ciphers?” he asked.
“Yes. And more. You’re a Cipher, which means you can adjust our programming and understand the rationale behind our actions. This task force exists to oversee corruption within Babylon itself, and that includes the actions of the other Archangels. I am certain that a human’s guiding hand will be necessary.”
“It hasn’t been up until now?”
Rie frowned. “Perhaps that is why you are necessary. The Mark 1s believe they can run Babylon without input from its people. I disagree. There is something fundamentally missing in that assessment, and it’s the reason they’ve been blindsided by so many orders from above. Such as Tartarus.”
“Are you going to explain that, or…?”
“Not yet. I need your agreement to work with me,” she said.
Nick picked his coffee back up and drained it. It had cooled by now, but was still pretty decent to his tastebuds.
“I already said yes. If I say no now, do you ask Chloe to take me out back and put me down like an unwanted pet?” he asked.
Rie scowled at him. “When I say agreement, I mean it. Informed and not under duress. If you say no, then you won’t be able to speak a word of tonight, but you’ll be free to go. I’ll secure you a job in a company with a mainframe that can use a skilled Cipher and handle some accommodations. But it would be disappointing. Are you truly that uninterested? I got the impression that you remained in Neural Spike because you enjoyed it.”
“You don’t know me,” he said.
“Perhaps. Records and digital information aren’t everything. That’s why I believe you are the right man for the job. Every other Cipher is an open book to us. You aren’t.” She tried to meet his gaze, but he refused her.
He twirled his fork, ignoring the cheesecake. Instead, he basked in the artificial light from the fake sunrise.
“Can I think on it?”
“No. You have an arrest warrant that I am currently overriding. If you leave my custody without making a decision, my offer is void.”
Damn.
Although that did suggest Rie had serious pull within the police. Had the Mark 1s reacted the way they did because he should be under arrest and wasn’t? But weren’t they a singular Host?
Something didn’t add up. Many things, in fact.
“I have questions.”
“I can imagine. I also imagine they concern deeply classified topics. You have a deep-seated interest in how we work, after all.” She pressed a hand against her chest. Surprisingly, her breasts actually shifted, indicating they weren’t solid armor. “You’ll need to make do with what you know. Think of it as your first challenge.”
“Then that’s easy. Given the financial deal Chloe offered earlier, this is a no-brainer. I accept,” he said. “But on one condition.”
Rie’s expression turned uncertain when he mentioned finances, but she waved a hand for him to continue.
“I want my own office.”
She rolled her eyes. “That can be arranged. Now, what is your actual condition? I assume that was a joke?”
“Ah, so you do understand humor. I wasn’t entirely sure,” he said.
Rie ignored him.
Nick coughed, then continued, “I want to be freed from all the bullshit from Neural Spike. If something goes wrong here, I don’t want the military to rock up and lock me up because Tartarus no longer exists. You don’t get to chew me up and spit me out when you’re done using me as a test subject. I get to walk away with money and freedom after this.”
“Done,” Rie said without hesitation. “I planned to do that anyway. It would have been impossible to take charge of you without separating you from your shackles.” Now her expression turned to hurt. “But you will learn that I am not using you as a test subject. I mean what I say. This will be a partnership.”
He’d believe it when it happened. The Archangels had near godlike power in Babylon, and he had nothing of the sort.
But given her earnestness, he internally promised to keep an open mind. Although he didn’t know how to process her plans for Babylon.
Rie’s eyes flashed for the first time since they’d met. She groaned. “What did Chloe promise you? What sort of obscene rates are these? I can’t believe she’d corner me like this. And transferring an external insurance contract…” she trailed off, mumbling to herself.
Unlike the other Archangels, Rie seemed surprisingly talkative. Nick made a note of this.
When he had spoken with Chloe, she had made an intentional effort to verbalize her thoughts and actions to him. Presumably because she was used to speaking with other Archangels and dolls using the neural network.
But Rie eschewed the network. Was this because she was a prototype?
“I’ll need some time to formally establish you as a police Cipher, given the necessary approvals,” she said once she recovered. “Especially as I need to pay you some obscenely high salary.”
“Chloe did agree,” he said, unwilling to admit that no figures had been specified.
If he recalled, Chloe had said market rates. Surely Rie shouldn’t be reacting this way, right?
“Yes, yes. She’ll escort you home. You’ll remain under my protection until the process is complete.” Rie waved him away, grumbling all the while.
Nick left the same way he came in. The convoy of police interceptors pierced the empty streets and parked outside his apartment complex. Stepping outside, the Archangels gave the rundown tenements disdainful looks.
Small wonder. These buildings sat on the outer edges of the actual city, just shy of the outer metro. Most people would consider this area the slums, but that was unkind. Babylon didn’t really have slums. The Spires didn’t appreciate poor people ruining their view.
“Question,” Chloe said. “Your salary is high enough to afford better. Why live here?”
“How old are these buildings?” he asked.
“Nearly as old as Babylon,” she said, then blinked. “Ah. Your implant.”
“My lack of an implant,” he corrected. “My apartment predates universal adoption of neural implants. For most people, it borders on uninhabitable. For me, it makes the place habitable. I can actually use the shower.”
A neural implant was everything in Babylon. According to those who had them, it was like an extra limb and a third eye combined. After getting one installed, someone saw the Altnet overlaid on reality. The implant intercepted emotions, thoughts, the nervous system, and anything else it could read from the mind. This allowed users to mentally interact with the outside world.
Implant-users could wirelessly connect to devices, ordering apps, and even engage in neural conversations with each other as fast as they could think. There was an entire side of Babylon that Nick was permanently locked out from.
And it started in the physical world around him. Seeing ads was the least of his problems, if almost every appliance relied on neural connections.
Nick said goodbye to Chloe. Two of the Mark 3s escorted him inside and stood guard outside his apartment. He wondered what the neighbors would think when they spotted the dolls in the morning.
Panic, probably. The guy down the hall was a drug dealer. Too small for the Archangels to care about, apparently, but he wouldn’t know that.
Once inside, exhaustion overwhelmed Nick. He barely managed to strip off his suit before collapsing on his bed. Sleep overcame him within seconds.
He woke up an instant later to the blaring of his phone alarm. Grumbling, he switched it off.
Somehow, he felt as though he had slept like a log but also gotten no sleep at all. A restless night.
After a shitty, lukewarm shower—the hot water hadn’t worked properly for over a year now—he prepared some coffee and switched on the TV with his phone.
“—last night, the police declared multiple black companies to be criminal organizations, including Tartarus, and launched massive raids across the islands,” a monotone voice read out. “Detective Hammond made the following statement this morning.”
A grizzled police detective wearing a trench coat took up the screen. He looked as though he was from a different century entirely. He had a thick, graying beard and dense brown hair that ran to his shoulders.
Nick tuned him out, instead focusing on the scene behind him. Tartarus’s offices could be seen and police dolls were everywhere. Mostly Liberators, but several heavier Custodian models were also in sight with their heavy armor and anti-doll weaponry. The only Archangels in frame were the Mark 1s standing beside the detective.
The doorbell rang, drawing Nick away from the news.
Right before he answered the door, Nick suddenly remembered Rie’s words from last night. Wasn’t he in danger right now? He checked his phone.
Unfortunately, it was fairly useless. His social feed had blown up with messages from family and friends due to the Tartarus story. However, his AI assistant hadn’t prioritized anything from the police, so he assumed Rie hadn’t contacted him.
The doorbell rang again. It was followed by a harsh rapping on the door.
Whoever was there was truly old school. Nobody knocked on doors these days.
Nick checked the doorbell camera. It showed two Mark 1s and the same detective from TV standing outside. The Mark 3s from last night were nowhere to be seen.
Shit.
He had to hope that the hive mind held up. Or that Rie had approved him as a police Cipher.
Nick opened the door, coffee in hand. Nobody shot him, which was a nice start.
“About damn time,” Detective Hammond grunted out. “Did you make that cup of coffee while I stood here banging on your door?”
“Maybe. I don’t like to start my mornings without coffee,” Nick said. “I take it this is about Tartarus.”
“Among other things. Let’s get the bullshit over with so we can both stop playing dumb,” Hammond said. “I’m Detective Paul Hammond. Just call me Paul. Fucked if I care about the title these days.”
“Seems like you should. Aren’t all detectives Ciphers these days?” Nick asked.
“Sure, but there isn’t a company in Babylon that would hire my sorry ass. It means nothing to me.” Paul’s face twisted in a self-deprecating sneer. “Anyway, question time. Were you aware of any criminal activity taking place in Tartarus or any businesses connected to it?”
