Neural Wraith, page 41
“I could use her to do everything,” Lieu continued. “Control the police mainframes. Run the NLF. Train an army capable of undermining the Spires. You said the NLF were idiots? You’re right. But imagine if they had a mainframe backing them. The two of us could even work together. You understand her better than I do. Imagine what we could accomplish!”
Briefly, Nick did. He imagined Helena throwing one of her patented tantrums and canceling the revolution because she suspected something bad might happen.
Sure, she might be right, but he doubted that was the dream Lieu had in mind.
“Would you tell her ‘good morning?’” Nick asked. “Because I don’t think we’re all that compatible.”
“What? Why would I—”
“Have you ever worked with an emotion engine mainframe before? Done any training? I bet you don’t even know what a pile is, do you?” Nick fired off questions rapid-fire. “For that matter, why would you use humans? Do you think that little of the people you think you’re protecting from the Spires? Even the military abandoned this idea.”
“What?”
“Neural Spike tested this for Sigma and the military, Lieu,” Nick said. “I was there. I just… said I wasn’t, and I didn’t leave any records. But we tested Helena’s capability to manipulate implants. And, sure, it works. But it’s terrible. If you want to create a zombie apocalypse, sure, go nuts. But for soldiers? Fuck no.”
He paced, but kept his walking track short and never took his eyes off Lieu. The man was too taken aback by Nick’s words to even try to jump him.
“Dolls, drones, and robots replaced human soldiers ages ago. The military is full of people who monitor automated systems, create plans, and maintain the army of robots they have. And you know what that means? Nobody fucking dies. The military took one look at their supersoldier plan, realized it was worse than just creating the Archangels, and shrugged their shoulders. Buried the whole thing. And us.”
Lieu stared at Nick. No doubt Rie and the Host was reeling in surprise as well, as this had been hidden even from them.
Because that was, in the end, the truth of Neural Spike.
The dirtiest secret was that the real reason they went down was because they had done human experimentation, and it failed. No public hearings, no press conferences. The military wanted the evidence gone, so they shut the company down.
And Nick had somehow walked away unscathed, despite being up to his neck in it.
“I never read that,” Lieu said.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that line before.” Nick shrugged. “It’s common knowledge that this is a dead-end, too. RTM and Sigma can shit out hardware like Helena’s without trying—the hard part is the AI itself, due to all the training data we gathered. Sigma nuked a lot of that in her when they erased the evidence of our dirty secret.”
But apparently they hadn’t been able to reproduce it. If they had, then Rie wouldn’t need Cipher training.
What the hell was going on in the Sigma labs? Welk had been the researcher who did this in the first place. Why couldn’t he do it again?
Nick sighed. “So? Do you have some other grand plan? Or was that it? Steal Helena, try to start a revolution using a project idea that got Neural Spike killed, and then bail once we got too close?”
Lieu’s fists clenched. “You don’t care, do you?”
“Care? I care a lot. My life went down the drain years ago. And then you took one of the last pieces of it away,” Nick snapped. “But about your shitty little dream? No. And especially not in the way you’re trying to bring it about.”
“I thought I knew you,” Lieu said, his eyes wide and furious.
Nick had heard those words before.
That person had known him just as little as the balding Cipher in front of him.
Lieu lunged for him. Nick reacted. The door burst open.
The room filled with the roar of a handgun, and Lieu crashed to the ground at Nick’s feet. Blood poured out from the gaping hole in his chest. Nick hurriedly stepped away.
His heart beat a thousand miles a minute. His grip on his gun slipped, and it clattered to the floor.
“It’s alright,” Rie said, grabbing him by the shoulders.
Chloe and the others charged inside as well, then calmed down when they saw Lieu’s corpse.
Nick stood like that for longer than he cared to admit. Chloe collected his gun and cleaned it off, then waited in the corner.
At some point, the lockdown ended. A series of thumping noises rumbled through the walls.
“This seems louder than earlier,” he said.
“The evidence vault is fireproof, bombproof, soundproofed—” Chloe began to say.
“I get it,” he said. “Is it stab proof?”
She stared at him for several seconds, then smiled. “Perhaps you can catch the knives for it.”
He snorted, then stumbled over to the windows. Rie followed him.
Behind him stood the Archangels that had been with him for most of the past few days. He felt he knew them better than almost any person he knew in his life.
He stared down at the glowing nightscape of his home. For several long minutes, he imagined what it might look like if more riots broke out. The images and video taken forty years ago were widely shared on the Altnet.
It wasn’t hard to imagine, but he hated the vision. This was his home, after all.
“Rie, you asked me if I’d shape Babylon with you,” he said.
She nodded and slipped her hand into his.
“You’re right that everyone is trying. Kim wants to automate it. Hammond hates what it has become, and wishes he was a force to stop it from changing. Lieu wanted to tear it down. Who knows what other crazy plans people have,” he said.
“But?” Rie asked.
He shrugged. “Fear made me worry before. But even if I don’t do anything, things will change. Somebody will act. Many somebodies. Doing nothing won’t stop them.”
Silence.
Nick knew that Rie was waiting for a hard answer from him. Something more affirmative.
“Like you said, if somebody has to, why not me?”
He laughed as he realized that was the reason he’d given Lucas for working with Rie in the first place.
CHAPTER 34
“I have confirmed that the hot water is fully functional,” Juliet said, her voice echoing throughout the largely empty apartment.
“I’d hope so. This place is nearly brand new,” Nick replied.
“We are merely confirming the suitability of your new accommodation,” Chloe chided.
She stood in the greatly expanded kitchen, which was the size of his old bedroom, and was poking at the robot barista built into the cupboard. A bag of beans hung from one of her hands, and she had one of those fancy thermo-sealed glasses in another.
Nick watched them from the only furniture in the place: his old dining table and chairs. The Host had assessed it and decided it was permissible. They’d forced him to buy everything else new, and it was supposed to be delivered by lunchtime.
The new apartment gleamed and glowed in a way that only new buildings could. The tiles lacked any blemishes. The slate countertops begged to be used. When Nick had first stepped into his bedroom, his toes had sunk into the high pile carpet as though it was a fine rug.
All of which made this place too good for him, and way out of his price range. His savings were meager, and he’d been in the job for all of three weeks.
But in the two weeks since he’d taken down Lieu, a lot had happened.
Most of it had involved long briefings, lots of paperwork, and a press conference or two. Hammond still owed him drinks, though.
The door opened and Kushiel ducked through the entryway. She had a six-pack of beer in one hand.
“Thought I’d bring a present,” she said, hefting the alcohol. “You’re still on leave, right? Not going to bullshit about how you can’t drink on duty?”
“It is 10AM,” Rie said, appearing from the bedroom. “This is deeply unhealthy.”
“Good thing I’m a robot and he’s a detective.” Kushiel cracked open two cans and slid one across the table.
“One of those is irrelevant.”
“Nah. You see, Rie, we’re robots and therefore alcohol can’t—”
Rie finally lost her temper and hit her sister upside the head. The thud that resulted was a sound that Nick never wanted to hear from a human skull. Because it probably meant it was being shattered by the force Rie put into her blow.
“Can’t take a joke, huh? But seriously, he’s on leave. Let him drink in the morning if he wants to,” Kushiel said.
Despite his reservations, Nick sipped the beer. Rie glared at him.
“Just this one, and only because it’s a housewarming,” he said. “We’re heading into the Spires to see Helena and the commissioner later.”
She sighed, then took a seat herself. Soon enough, the three of them were drinking beer together, despite the hour.
“So, you accepted it after all,” Kushiel said, looking at the huge apartment around her. “It’s a massive upgrade over the shithole you lived in before.”
“Thanks,” Nick said drily. “And I’m not one to turn down a performance bonus.”
“You mean a bribe,” Rie said. “Performance bonuses are usually a percentage of your salary. Not an apartment worth several times it.”
“That’s technically still a percentage of my salary. It’s just over 100%.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, if you’re happy to move up in life, then I believe you’ll accept my recommendation to purchase a housekeeping doll?”
“I thought you were talking about hiring one.”
“Oh? But you’re so wealthy now. Surely you can afford to simply buy one.” Her tone oozed with acid.
A loud noise interrupted them, and they all looked over to see Chloe tensed up in front of the coffee machine. The grinder kept running, churning through the beans. After a few seconds, it stopped.
“That was louder than in the manufacturer specifications,” she said.
Juliet and Rosa wandered out of the bathroom to see what the fuss was. Upon realizing that nothing was happening, they returned to their detailed inspection of the bathroom. Nick genuinely wondered what they were doing in there.
Meta stood by the door, her eyes dim. At some point, she’d joined Juliet and Rosa in bodyguard duty. All three of them were with him 24/7. Chloe typically came around during the day, and sometimes lingered at night if he went out.
Even though he was on leave, the Archangels insisted that they remain with him. He had merely shrugged and let them do what they wanted. Although he had removed his earpieces and placed them inside a new soundproof container he’d purchased off the Altnet.
He’d had Lucas inspect the container when it arrived, in case the Archangels had intercepted it and tampered with it during passage.
“My issue with this bribe is the source,” Rie said.
“We’ve discussed this,” Nick said.
“And I still feel it’s pertinent to raise. Perhaps if the commissioner had authorized it himself, I would have shrugged it off. I do not doubt your ability to hold Commissioner Kim to account. But this came from the military.”
He grimaced.
Rie was telling the truth. While the paperwork said the apartment was a “performance bonus,” the reality was that a general in the military had gifted it to him. The police board had signed off on it.
“I’ve never even met General Griffiths,” Nick said. “He’s not even in your line of command, right, Kushiel?”
The older Archangel shrugged. “There are a bunch of generals, and some oversee others. I’m part of Babylon Command, but Griffiths currently oversees the Aerial Command.”
“Which Kushiel would be part of, were she not working with the police,” Rie stressed.
Nick shrugged again. He still barely understood the structure of the police department, let alone that of a military he wanted nothing to do with.
As far as he was concerned, the fact Griffiths wasn’t from the Research Command was good enough. They had been responsible for the entire Neural Spike incident. And if the military wanted to give him a pile of money, then they’d have to learn the hard way that Nick’s ill feelings were ingrained into his body.
An apartment didn’t change what happened to Neural Spike and Tartarus.
“Have any of the Tartarus cases proceeded?” he asked after a particularly long sip of his beer.
“Aesir is still clogging up the civil courts. They’ve even allocated more mainframe resources from the criminal courts recently,” Rie said.
“But they’re still going to court?”
She shrugged. “The commissioner is highly likely to negotiate individual deals with everyone affected. At present, the incident with Lieu is being treated as a terrorist attack by the NLF. Lieu’s involvement with Tartarus is merely a rumor.”
A powerful rumor. Lucas’s fingers were all over this. Nick was surprised that Rie hadn’t cracked down on him.
“So are they going to set up Second Tartarus?” Nick joked. “For all the poor souls needlessly caught up in this mess.”
“No. The infrastructure left behind by Neural Spike’s wholesale arm has been completely dismantled. However, the deals will likely allow many individuals to continue their careers in other black companies.” She smiled. “I am glad that Lucas is expanding in this direction, rather than enlarging his supply of illicit imports.”
“He’s just taking over distribution of his own product,” Nick said drily. “Tartarus used to purchase from importers like him all over Neo Westphalia, then sell it to middlemen. Now he’s just replacing them, but prioritizing his own business.”
It was ruthless, but also highly profitable. Most black companies had laid low and avoided expanding after the Tartarus raids, out of fear that they’d be next. Once Lucas knew that the incident was entirely related to corruption, he’d moved faster than Nick imagined possible.
That eased a lot of the growing tensions in Babylon. A direct attack on the Spires had also chilled out a lot of people.
Nick wasn’t the only person who saw what might be coming and decided it was shit. For now, things had calmed down. Even the Spires had shut up about new regulations that might anger the public and instead talked about security.
But he knew it was borrowed time unless more was done.
Once he finished his beer, his new furniture arrived. Kushiel seemed keen to prove her value and handled a lot of the heavy lifting.
Nick wished that human delivery drivers still existed. The face of one when the Archangels helped collect the delivery would have been amazing. Instead, he merely met a laborer doll who requested that he confirm delivery.
He didn’t really have the time to unpack, however. Checking the time, he realized he’d barely have time to grab lunch if he wanted to check up on Helena and meet Kim.
Throwing on his coat and slipping his earpieces in, he prepared to leave. He didn’t bother to put on a suit.
“I’ll be back to—” he began to say.
The dolls stared at him as if he was crazy. Except Kushiel, who had cracked open another beer.
“I’m heading to the Spires. I’ll see you… whenever, Kushiel,” he said, turning to leave.
“Tomorrow, probably. I wanna see what this place looks like when you’re done. And see if Rie breaks your bed tonight.”
Based on how fiercely Rie glared at her sister, she was attempting to demonstrate her laser eye functionality. Nick dragged her out of his apartment.
“You’re leaving her in there?” she asked.
“She has the same access permissions as the rest of you. You can kick her out, but then she’ll just wander back in out of spite.”
A pair of additional SUVs joined them on the trip to the Spires. Nick went everywhere with a huge police escort. It made Rie’s insistence on visiting furniture stores in person incredibly awkward. Even more so because most furniture stores used AR displays, and he’d had to use his phone to see what everything looked like.
On the way, Nick had them pull into one of the huge fast food drive-thrus. He grabbed a sushi pack and devoured it on the way into the Spires.
“You can and should eat better,” Rie admonished.
“Cooking is a pain,” he said.
“There is a solution to that. One you can afford.”
He shrugged and continued to wolf down his food.
A Spires checkpoint stopped them, and a Mark 1 used this as an excuse to biometrically authenticate Nick. Officially, this was happening because of the security crackdown following the Lieu incident. But the Mark 1s just beelined to Nick every time he approached the Spires and ignored the rest of the convoy.
This happened twice more on the way. He was not looking forward to returning to work, although Meta insisted that the Host had reached a consensus to minimize this when he was on active duty.
Which meant the Mark 1s were going to bully him on his days off. Lovely.
Archangels patrolled the exterior of the Spires as he approached. The military warbots were still active at night, but had been joined by Archangels patrols. Rumors on the Altnet abounded that the military would be pulled out entirely.
The convoy pulled into the underground parking, and a woman’s voice entered Nick’s earpiece.
“Good afternoon, Nick. I believe you are still on leave.”
The voice was like honey. Soft, golden, and sticky. The sort of thing that grown men dreamed of falling asleep to, and teenage boys merely dreamed of, before they woke up and changed their underwear in the middle of the night.
“I have to meet with the commissioner, Helena,” he said.
There was a pause. The Archangels looked at him and sighed.
“Your meeting is not for 81 minutes and 23 seconds,” Helena said. “It is recommended to minimize time at the workplace while on leave for mental health reasons. And is it not a good afternoon?”
He tried not to crack a smile. He’d missed teasing Helena like this.
“Oh, I think I can find some things to do,” he said.
Rie pinched him and he swore.
