Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3) Read online

  Substrate psychosis. A thing of legend and nightmare. The Trinity AI rampaged when one of It’s lesser creations went insane, apparently going so far as to destroy entire solar systems to prevent the infection from spreading … and spread it did, like wildfire. There was some … trick … to how AI minds communicated amongst themselves, some base quantum translation, and it was through that instantaneous –if short-ranged- link that the psychosis grew from one to two.

  Worrying about multiple psychoses was moot, though, when one considered that a single mad AI could coerce and dominate any computer-based machinery within range.

  The first thing a mad AI did was seek control of every form of broadcast communication available. When that failed, the diseased mind began building machines to hunt AI spheres down. Hunt them, trap them, conscript them. And so on and so on until … apocalypse.

  Naoko swallowed, her intellect made feverish by the mere concept of a psychotic AI ‘LINKed to Hospitalis. Their entire world, their entire system was a solar system-sized virtual communication net. There was no thing, no procedure, in place to prevent an artificially intelligent mind from moving from place to place, at least not one merged with Latelian science as Ashok’s baffle-sphere allowed. Faced with the reality of an artificial intelligence on Hospitalis, it was an unconscionable failure.

  Garth’s AI mind, driven mad, could turn Hospitalis into Ground Zero for a robot apocalypse within days. An apocalypse that could, with the sophistication of Latelian science, make the mythical ADAM Wars seem inconsequential.

  ‘Huey’s’ solution, amazingly reverse-engineered during the course of ‘his’ incarceration inside the baffle-sphere and worked on while battling insane versions of himself, looked as though it should work. Much the same as Ashok’s solution, Huey’s programming to weed out psychotic iterations was superlative in form and function; the internal rewiring of the main alone required someone intimately familiar with the technology. The coding was another thing entirely and here is where Naoko found herself thinking uncharacteristically smug thoughts.

  No one, not even Ashok Guillfoyle, could do what Huey needed done, or in the time available; Huey’s Sieve demanded someone learn, and quickly, how to use the staggeringly convoluted 3D language.

  A grin flashed across Naoko’s lips. She’d known from the moment she’d read Huey’s files that there was only one choice available. She was going to execute the Sheet’s demands and she was going to be the first person in the entire system to speak to an AI mind.

  The hardware modifications to the main were –technically- simple enough to do in the way that only someone with masterclass expertise would find them ’simple’; anyone not at her level would think they could accomplish the task only to find that they’d failed. It was vital that they be done perfectly, first time out. She could do those mods with her eyes closed.

  The programming challenge, though … that was exciting.

  Naoko got started. She contacted the ever-ready Guest Services department and explained what she wanted. With the Palazzo’s absurd range of facilities, all it took was verification that she was legally permitted to be fooling around with Mains. Once checked and rechecked, Guest Services promised Naoko someone would be up within minutes with the equipment she’d requested.

  From there … from there, it was just a matter of buckling down.

  xxx

  “There.” She whispered, exhausted. Building the Sieve had required every ounce of her considerable intellect. Even now, drenched with sweat, brain on fire, eyes aching, Naoko Kamagana was uncertain. There were too many variables, too many randomizers built in for her to be able to point at her work and say ‘it is done, it is good’.

  It was brilliance incarnate, though. From beginning to end, from the moment she’d started following the hellishly complex diagrams and schematics, Naoko had understood what it was to look upon something created by a true mastermind and had almost wept with the joy of it. The Latelian wasn’t precisely humbled by Huey’s Sieve or the work it had created, but close enough. Other words lacked the raw emotional power.

  No other Latelian could’ve done it. She knew that. Friends of hers from school might’ve been able to make the hardware changes, might’ve been able to form the delicate bridgework and wiring connecting new portions of the baffle-sphere to the main in ways that made no sense, held no tangible adherence to either form or function. Certainly, she could name a half-dozen of her peers with the skill necessary to make the new chips…

  But none could’ve written the program. None. Naoko had done it. By herself. Here, in the Ultra Suite in the Hotel Palazzo, with her boyfriend not-so-mysteriously vanished, she had played an orchestral masterpiece worthy of immortality. The young woman trembled, worn out through and through. A shaky grin crossed her lips. If Garth saw her now, what would he think? How would he react to what she’d done?

  She plugged the machine in and flipped it on, struggling to her feet so she could look at the visual interface. Huey had constructed the programs with human impatience in mind; a simple counter combined with a simple clock would display for Garth –or for anyone he trusted, for that matter- how long remained until Huey was free and how many iterations existed.

  Naoko’s stomach sank. Her heart followed Suit until she was leaning against the modified main so she wouldn’t fall to the ground.

  Millions of iterations. Millions of insane Hueys, spawned willingly by other mad copies in a desperate attempt to use the awesome power of parallel computing to resolve their issues. What was it like in there? Was it an endless and eternal battlefield? Populated by soldiers willing to risk further fragmentation in the hopes that the copies of themselves they created would find cause to join their intellects together to wrest control and always, inevitably, failing?

  Hundreds of thousands, if not hundreds of millions of experiential years had to’ve passed inside the AI sphere, spawning mentalities so lethal, so … experienced in the art of mayhem that there was every chance that Huey, the … the … ‘fathermind’, might not even exist any longer. If Huey did still exist, what manner of being would ‘he’ be? Being freed from the poisonous copies of himself would mean very little if the main mind himself were cracked. Or worse … completely sane but enraged.

  The architecture of the device was a complete mystery to her. There was no way of knowing what kind of landscape existed inside the sphere, but Naoko wished fervently that Huey had found a place to hide.

  “At least,” Naoko said to herself, astonished at how tired she sounded, “it will only take a week.”

  On-screen, the numbers of copies –which had continued rising even after activation- were dwindling now, first in single digits, then in droves. Naoko envisioned a new entity inside Huey’s Sphere, an armor-clad, unstoppable being bent on rescuing Huey the AI, banishing the terrible minds hunting their progenitor down. A conceit, naturally.

  No matter how sophisticated, how artificially intelligent, programs were programs. They didn’t really take on the aspects of warlords and soldiers, assassins and kings.

  Though she could stand there and watch the counter count down for the next week, Naoko turned the screen off. She wanted to explain to Garth when he returned from his unknowable task what she’d done, and the last thing she wanted was for him to come upon those changes before she’d had that opportunity. Garth spoke of Huey with fondness, a father talking about a precocious child. There was no telling how the Trinity Man would react to her impromptu efforts.

  “At least he didn’t see me.” Naoko was perversely glad for that. No one had ever seen her in her Lady Ha guise, not even Sa Turuin. That would be like being seen nude in the shower.

  “Actually,” a heavily masculine voice said directly behind her, “we’re extremely glad of that, too.”

  As a parent raising a daughter alone in the wild streets of Port City, Tomas Kamagana had not failed to provide the necessary means for Naoko to protect herself. Having been raised on a ‘core’ Emperor-for-Life planet, the d
iminutive EuroJapanese man knew several ancient and venerable hand-to-hand techniques that had –happily- translated into forms usable by the preposterously lanky Latelian body.

  There was only one person on the planet who knew Jiu Jitsu, and that was his daughter. It wasn’t much of an edge, given that the great majority of men in Port City who might find cause to prey on young women usually possessed black market modifications of one degree or another, but the shock value of a slight slip of a girl defending herself at all might give her enough time to run away.

  Naoko pivoted on the ball of a foot, leg already in the air. She delivered the spinning kick with a precision her Father would approve of. While the unnamed man toppled backwards into the arms of someone behind him, Naoko dashed towards the bedroom, instinctively planning to use that wonderful staircase to escape.

  “Stop.”

  Naoko did as she was commanded. A rifle pointed at your head will convince you to do almost anything. Where she’d just moments ago been pleased that Garth had snuck off in the middle of the night to do who knew what, Naoko suddenly felt herself wishing desperately that he hadn’t.

  Greuz smiled a sardonic smile that curled the corner of one side only; the great and poorly healed gash from fifteen years ago had killed the muscles on the other side. It made people think he was always smirking. He jerked his head at Naoko. “Back into the room.”

  Naoko followed orders. She found herself smiling when she saw the man who’d spoken; her kick had broken his nose. Blood was streaming down his face and the person who’d kept him from falling was tending to him.

  Greuz chuckled. “Caught you by surprise, did she?”

  Alligorni flexed his jaws rhythmically. “Bitch.”

  “Now, now, Alli. No need to be rude.” Greuz shrugged apologetically at Naoko.

  Naoko looked from the men to the guns and then back at the man who was in charge. They weren’t Latelians at all, but some version of Trinityfolk! What was going on? “How did you get in here?”

  Greuz shrugged again. “Nowhere is as secure as anyone thinks, sweetheart.”

  The man tending to Alli sucked at a tooth. “The Peak is tough.”

  Greuz nodded. “Yeah, The Peak is tough. No one’s paying us to get in there, though.”

  “We should do it for free. Just to put on our resume.”

  Greuz pursed his lips. They’d broken into places that were on the top of everyone’s ‘Impossible List’, sometimes with such skill that no one even knew that they’d been broken into. Bodysnatching was a nice, easy job with a regular paycheck and –usually- little in the way of difficulty.

  Getting this girl, though, had proven surprisingly tough; it’d taken nearly all their resources to get into the Palazzo in one piece.

  He shook his head. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, we’ve got to deliver the message.”

  “You broke into the Palazzo to deliver a message?” Naoko could scarcely believe her ears.

  Greuz shrugged. “Broke into worse for stupider. Broke into a bank once, to put something in. Didn’t make no sense then, don’t make no sense now.” The device in his pocket made a noise. The mercenary leader grunted. “Here”

  He tossed the device onto the ground between them.

  Jordan Bishop, Lord and Master of BishopCo, mightiest and most powerful human being in thousands upon thousands of years, flickered into life, his image translated across hundreds of trillions of lightyears through the power of Quantum Communication. He narrowed his shrewd eyes thoughtfully at Naoko Kamagana before turning to Greuz. “You are certain you are in the right room.”

  Greuz nodded. “Right room. No doubt.”

  Jordan flicked his eyes back at Naoko for a moment. “Were there any difficulties?”

  “Nope. The guy you told us about wasn’t even here.”

  An actual smile, full of real pleasure, spread across Jordan’s haughty face. “Did you hear that, Spur? The caveman isn’t even there. Lucky days. You. Girl. What is your name?”

  Naoko refused to speak. She knew whom she was talking to, and she knew what was going on. The Dead’s revenge had come home at last, and far sooner than expected. The washed-out hologram was none other than Jordan Bishop, the callous Conglomerate owner who continually stole the best and brightest from Latelyspace for his own twisted purposes.

  “Make her answer me.” Jordan snapped.

  “Girl.” Greuz said warningly, pointing his rifle at Naoko.

  Naoko didn’t flinch. After the night she’d had, having a gun pointed at her was barely even noticeable. “You don’t dare fire that weapon in here, sa. You may have broken in, you may have fooled the systems, but the security systems will pinpoint weapon fire immediately.”

  Alli lurched forward and grabbed Naoko by the elbows, squeezing as hard as he could. Whispering fiercely into her ears, enjoying the girl’s pain, he said, “Sure, but they don’t do nothing about screams, little bitch. Some of the people who come here like screaming, so they had to program the ears to ignore them.”

  Naoko brought one of her heels up in the most unladylike fashion. Even as she felt her foot connect with the man’s groin in a solid thump, her cheeks burned bright with shame.

  Sandlak, the man who’d tended to Alligorni’s broken nose, cackled merrily. Some people never learned. “This girl’s got stones.”

  Jordan Bishop shouted incoherently for a second before resuming in much calmer tones. “I thought you would be older.”

  “I thought you would have horns and a tail, sa.” Naoko countered evenly. Garth. She’d picked his mannerisms up. They were going to get her killed, and yet, she found she was enjoying the look of shock on the man’s face.

  Jordan looked off to the left for a moment. “What is this man’s name, Spur? Greuz? Greuz. You. How long can you be in that damnable Hotel before security or surveillance discovers your presence?”

  The mercenary leader made a noise as he consulted his prote. “Awhile.”

  “And you are equipped to take this woman with you?”

  “Jetpacks.” Greuz replied bluntly. “Anti-track flak. netLINK fuzzy bombs. This is going to cost triple. We burned many resources just getting in. Getting out will be harder. Plus, we’re like as not going to wind up being identifiable from this one. This little slip will be our last job in Latelyspace.”

  Alli and Sandlak’s faces brightened at that. They’d been trying to get out of Latelyspace for more than five years. They hated Latelyspace with a florid passion. They wanted to get their asses back to the core systems of Trinityspace in a bad, bad way.

  “What makes you think I will willingly go anywhere with you?” Naoko interrupted, stamping her feet. “When my boyfriend gets back, he will kill you all.”

  Jordan paused, as if he’d not given that any thought. Of course, the girl was correct. He’d been so amazed that the man wasn’t present to ruin his plans that he’d simply forgotten the caveman altogether. “Quite right, young lady. How foolish. And yes, you will be going with these men or you will find yourself responsible for quite a few innocent deaths.”

  Alli broke into the conversation raggedly. “Hey, running around killing randoms is my idea of a good time as much as anyone’s, but this place is in a bad way right now. The stuff going on is out-of-this-world crazy. We didn’t sign...”

  Greuz rolled his eyes.

  “Gentlemen.” Jordan’s voice cut through the incipient argument with powerful and abrupt finality. “I believe the young woman was in the process of attempting to argue her way out of this predicament before you interrupted.”

  Naoko reiterated her sentiment. “I will not go with these men.” If she could delay, somehow, Garth would save her.

  Jordan held up a finger, and suddenly the Q-comm hologram split into thousands of tiny thumbnail images that spun and spiraled around his head. “Each of these images represents a man or woman currently, ah, in my ‘employ’. As you have been described to me as a woman of extreme brilliance, my dear Lady Ha, you have no do
ubt already realized that the people you look at are, well, I suppose one would call them your colleagues? Some of them have been with me for longer than you’ve been alive. Your motivation for going with these mercenaries is twofold -and quite frankly- the extent of my graciousness is staggering, even for me.”

  White with fear and outrage, Naoko had to try several times to speak. “Plainly, then.”

  Jordan smiled beneficently at the younger woman. “A woman after my own heart. You will travel willingly with … Greuz? Greuz here and his men, to my home system or I will kill every last Latelian man and woman in my employ. I will not kill them in order; I will not kill them one at a time. Wherever they are, whatever they are doing, they will die in the next three minutes. You will see them die. And then because I am who I am, I will release this information to your netLINKs and all of Latelyspace will know that Naoko Kamagana was responsible.”

  Naoko opened her mouth, but found herself falling backwards. The shock of the threat was too much to bear. The cruel man Alligorni caught her and brought her roughly to her feet, slapping her in the back of the head until she focused on the Q-comm once more.

  Jordan continued, gesturing peacefully. “If, however, you agree to come willingly and with all due haste to Trinity Prime, not only shall their lives be spared, little one, they shall be set free. Free to return home to their loved ones.”

  “Monster!” Naoko tried to shout, but the word came out weakly. “Mo… monster.” Nevertheless, she nodded all the same. There was no choice. At last estimate, Jordan Bishop was responsible for … ‘hiring’ … somewhere in the neighborhood of three thousand Latelian programmers in the last fifty years alone, spiriting them away in the dead of night. The Conglomerate’s predation on the greatest intellects in Latelyspace was the worst kept secret in the solar system, but until now, no one had been able to do anything. The Chair held all the power. The Chair sold those names to Bishop and used the funds to keep things running. You needed coin to keep a realm working properly, and rumor had it Jordan paid exorbitantly well for his crop.