Unity code, p.25
Unity Code, page 25
“I don’t know what the Hatchery was thinking,” Argo said. “Modifying a military weapon system has to violate a number of federal laws, right?”
The deep cut of the River Walk was opening up now, the banks lower and further apart. The white angular roofline of the Tobin Center was coming into view.
“Yeah, the kind that’ll send you to jail for a long time,” Daelia replied. “But let me talk to these people. Come at them like that and I’m guessing we won’t get anywhere.”
“Come at them like what?”
“Could you be any more military if you tried?”
“Probably,” he said. She glared at him, but he just shoved his hands in his pockets, smiling. “I’ll let you handle this, ahh, abiota stuff.”
She wanted to be irritated with him, but somehow she couldn’t quite summon the anger. What was it with this guy? It was like he was somehow forcing her to be nice to him. Really weird. “Thanks,” she said instead.
And then, they were at the base of the terraces.
The Tobin Center was an odd amalgamation of architecture, the pale adobe curves of the Spanish colonial period topped with a boxy edifice of steel and light. The theater was built into the riverbank, progressive levels of concrete terraces spilling down from street level to the water’s edge.
Work crews were busy here, a mix of abiota and human, all laboring to get the larger displays set up. Daelia recognized several of them; they weren’t as impressive in the middle of the day.
Asking around, armed with the verbiage that Raijinn had given her, Daelia finally got somebody to take her to the foreman. They were shown inside the building’s main entrance hall, to a blank-faced kugu in comically ill-fitting orange overalls. It greeted them politely enough, but Daelia could read its unease through its TGLP-enhanced body language.
“They said you had a cypher to pass along?” it finally asked.
Daelia blink-clicked up Raijinn’s exact hash and used the export feature in her monocle’s system to generate a data transfer request with the receptors in her arm brace. The kugu tilted its head slightly as the package coalesced. Daelia wasn’t exactly sure what to expect either; the contents of an export usually determined how that export package looked in AR.
This one was small, golden, and spiky, like an oversized seed pod from a sweet gum.
The kugu didn’t take it, though.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the processing power in this kugu unit to handle that particular package,” it said. “We’ll have to do a direct upload, and I’ll need permission.”
“Great. From who?”
The kugu’s head dipped. “Follow me, please.”
The kugu led her back through the building, down into the main theater itself, straight ahead to the front row, just in front of the orchestra pit.
Where a human man was talking to a few more kugus, gesturing in the kind of odd, wild manner that suggested object manipulation in a shared, but private, overlay.
“Pranav,” the kugu said. “I have a human here who needs to speak with you.”
“I thought you were the creative director for all this,” Daelia said as she sat down in one of the red velvet theater chairs.
“I am.” He smiled at her, faintly. “I also have a doctorate in mechatronics, and a deep fascination with some of the more esoteric TGLP variants out there. The Hatchery helps me stave off boredom, you might say.”
Daelia shook her head. “But what you do to emergents…”
“Never without an invitation. And payment, I might add. It’s not primarily for the money, of course, but they understand the concept of exchange and currency fairly well. In their own way. It’s a resource that is not limitless for them and thus, they have to choose how and when to spend it, just like we do. Charging them money forces them to decide between options, which makes quite a few of them ultimately opt not to undergo a mod.”
“I still don’t see how you can do it.”
“Did you come here, go to all the trouble of finding me, just to give me a lecture? I have a show to run.”
“No, no, I understand that. I came here for a friend.”
“Ah. A friend we performed a mod on?”
“Yeah. I think so, anyway. She needs it fixed.”
Pranav’s eyes unfocused for a moment, clearly reading something in his visor, and then nodded.
“Give me her name and machine body serial number, and I’ll see what I can—”
“She’s an MQ-9.”
And at that, Pranav got very quiet.
Waiting out on the terrace, Argo found himself increasingly unsettled by the kugu work crews.
These weren’t the standard-use kugus, the ones you could buy at the Toyota or Audi dealerships. These were highly custom, clearly designed for their specific tasks in mind, as strange and unique as the artwork they were erecting on the grass and concrete of the theater’s outer grounds.
It pulled at the eye, tugged at the mind. TGLP might have given them a veneer of human body language, but most of those kugus were still moving, still working, in a way that wasn’t quite right. Like some kind of dystopian version of the Muppets.
There was a coffee place across the street. Corporate-owned place. Still open. Argo stared at it for a moment, wondering if maybe he didn’t have time to go get himself something to drink and break up this monotony, when he noticed it.
An unmarked box truck. Just rounding the corner, down the street.
He wasn’t sure what it was about it that caught his eye. Something in the way it moved, maybe. Not quite right. But as it passed, he could see the driver quite clearly.
A kugu.
The same three-eyed model that he and Daelia had rolled into that quiet box at Aunt June’s.
With another sitting beside it, some kind of gun clutched in its hands.
“Shit,” Argo muttered to himself, and pulled out his cell phone.
The van stopped.
The lights in the coffee shop across the street flickered. And flickered. The crowd of Cirque personnel working on setup stopped, looking around.
Argo slipped off the wall and started off, as fast as he could go without running, into the Tobin Center. And as he went, he made his call.
“121st Siren Operations Center.”
“It’s Argo. I’m in downtown San Antonio right now. I think we’re on the verge of a klaatuu event down here.”
There was no answer. He looked at the screen. Dead. “Shit,” he muttered again, and picked up his pace.
Pranav looked disturbed. Daelia pressed on. “Did you sell anything to one of our planes at Ellington?”
“MQ-9,” he mused, obviously trying to buy himself some time. “I can’t say that we touched one of those.”
“Can’t say it, or won’t?”
“I assume she’s still active in her military duties?”
Daelia nodded.
“Then I would not have modified her in any way. I can’t say I know anybody who would. Working on a military abiota is extremely specialized, which is why people like your dad get paid big money to make it happen.”
“Somebody modified her.”
“Nobody could.” Pranav thought for a moment. “Are you talking about the MQ-9 who ran down the FQ-47s at the air show?”
Daelia nodded.
“If you’re wondering about how she was able to do that, or if you think it was something I did to her, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“It’s not that. She spoofed imagery.”
He took a deep breath. “Did she?”
“Yes, absolutely. And the imagery was perfect.”
“That’s a very difficult task to pull off. I don’t believe an MQ-9 possesses the hardware for such things, regardless of what I could do to her.”
“Then what happened?”
Pranav considered Daelia for a moment, then took off his monocle, turning it off. Unsure what was going on, she did the same. “You are Daelia Hall, correct? The one who was at Ware, working on her doctorate last semester, correct? You recently extended your leave of absence from the program.”
“I was.” She hesitated. “How’d you know that? Did Ulrich tell you?”
“No, no, no. Your name is on the SAAL grant roster. And it comes up from time to time in discussion,” he said, and then laughed at her confused look. “I’m a platinum member. I don’t agree with all their politics, but if one wants to work in these fields, one needs to be part of it.”
“No, what do you mean about me? Coming up in conversation?”
“There’s a strong interest in you in some quarters. You can imagine why.” He nodded at her left arm; she pulled it back reflexively. “But that isn’t why I’m asking. Have you ever heard of an emergent who calls herself Eleutheria?”
“She runs research bounty games in the Chans. Crazy Internet shit,” Daelia said. “Who hasn’t heard of her?”
“She does much more than that.” Pranav scratched his chin. “She brokers in information. And she has been piecing together some very disturbing information about Unity. It involves quite a bit of spoofed imagery.”
“The altered Orpheus Watch episodes, right?”
He tensed. “Yes, that, and other things. One of my good friends, a compiler I’ve worked with for years, was killed recently. I heard you were there.”
“You saw me last weekend. Why didn’t you—”
“I only found out about this yesterday,” Pranav said, still on edge. “And it’s not just my friends. There are other incidents, happening in other places, organized around people asking similar questions. Eleutheria believes there is a coordinated attempt to prevent inquiry into the nature of Unity.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because Eleutheria told me something else. She believes that the Hatchery only has a five percent chance of making it through to next week.”
And then, as if on some kind of cue, the lights in the theater flickered.
32
With the air show debacle well and truly behind them now, Sausage had finally given the order to shut down the EMC. Rover and JP had already pulled most of their people off that duty, let them go back to their regular jobs or re-tasked them elsewhere in the Group. They were in the boring part of things right now, the part where they were sitting around and waiting for orders to come through. The calm before the storm. It always made Rover nervous.
So maybe he was just looking for some outlet for all that pent-up energy.
But the cyber shop still hadn’t gotten the computer equipment out of the training room.
And for some reason, the realization was extremely irritating.
“Isn’t this why Norris is here? To get things fucking organized?” he asked.
Hack, the OSS commander, shrugged as they surveyed the mess. Cables were everywhere, a rat’s-nest tangle made worse as people had taken out monitors piecemeal. It was the other lieutenant colonel’s first day back to work, and he was clearly overwhelmed by the amount of crap that had happened while he’d been away.
“Norris has quite the mess on his hands,” Hack finally said. “We were already in a mess with the shop before that shit over at Clark. Captain Franklin was a good technician, but he was shit at the leadership stuff. God rest his soul.”
“I know, I know,” Rover said, rubbing his forehead. “Hack, we gotta have a functional cyber shop. I can’t fly the girls with a fucked-up, back-end network.”
“I hear you, Rover, but you have to understand, I have to work with what I’ve got. You’ve got guys begging to transfer in here off active duty. But I’ve got to compete with all the civilian employers downtown.” Hack had a habit of talking with his hands; his gestures got jerky. “You have any idea how hard it is to get a cyber officer hired on full time?”
“I’m familiar,” Rover replied.
“I wouldn’t have forced Norris in on orders if I had any other option.”
Rover rubbed his NULI. “I’m not trying to add more shit to your plate, Hack, but I need my training room back.”
“It’s what, Wednesday afternoon?” Hack said. “I’ll get Norris in here, first thing in the morning, and get this shit cleaned up.” The OSS commander folded his arms, shaking his head. “They should have taken care of it over the weekend, when they had bodies in for drill. I’ll talk to Norris about it.”
“I appreciate it.”
“I’m going to have to get them to track down all the monitors that were being used in here, too,” Hack added. “I’m sure not every single one of those made it back to the correct desk. Your guys steal those things with impunity. So that’ll be fun.”
Fuck fun, Rover thought savagely. “Well, let’s get this stood down properly. We’ve still got another month in hurricane season and—”
He was cut off by the ringing of a phone. One of the official hardline handsets, over at the EMC/CC position.
Hack frowned but walked over. Picked it up. “Hello?” he asked.
Rover’s own cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out. It was a mass text from the TMD.
PERSONNEL RECALL UNDERWAY, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. IDENTIFY ALL MEMBERS IN GREATER SAN ANTONIO AREA.
Hack snapped his fingers, waving Rover over. “You’re going to want to hear this, buddy.”
“Recall?” he asked
But before Hack even got a chance to answer, the training lab door burst open.
“Thank fuck,” Tin Man said. “You’re still here, sir. Need you down in the SyROC.”
“What’s going on?” Rover asked.
“San Antonio just went dark,” Tin Man said. “Looks like it might be a klaatuu strike.”
“We need to go,” Argo said, striding down the central aisle toward the band pit. “Daelia, come on. Right now.”
“Why?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
The lights in the theater flickered again.
This time, they stayed off.
Went out.
Dim emergency lighting came on, barely enough to see by.
Pranav’s voice trembled as he spoke. “The entire AR field is down. Both ours and the theater’s.”
Shoving her monocle back on, booting it up, Daelia saw exactly what he meant.
“Those kugus are here,” Argo said. His voice was nearby. In the darkness, Daelia felt his hand find hers. “They got those guns you told me about, Daelia.”
“What?”
“Kugus?” Pranav asked.
“The same ones that killed Maas,” Daelia replied. Her eyes were adjusting now, just enough to see the irritation in Argo’s stance. “Argo’s right, we need to go.”
“We can’t,” Pranav said. In the darkness, the art director held up both his hands, pleading. “Most of my team is emergent. Their equipment is extremely sensitive. If this is that klaatuu effect, it’ll kill them. I need to make sure the quiet box is holding.”
Argo looked at Daelia, then sighed.
“Where?” the pilot asked.
“I’ll show you. Thank you, thank you.” He stood up, nearly falling over a chair again, catching himself just in time. “It’s this way, behind the stage, in the greenrooms.”
Still half-blind, Daelia followed, picking her way across the front row of chairs, following Pranav. But no sooner had they gotten back to the aisle than the far doors of the theater banged open.
Glowing green tripod eye-lights fixated on them.
“Go!” Argo grunted.
The human ran.
A few of the things started racing toward them, while one just raised its strange DEW gun. Daelia felt a prickle in front of her face, the wash off a superheated column of air.
Pranav screamed and tumbled back. She caught him, managing to just keep him from spilling over into the open band pit. His weight slammed down on her left arm and her brace’s sensory capacity went haywire.
Pain shot through the false nerves.
Her fingertips went numb.
Argo hauled the art director back to his feet and half carried, half dragged Pranav to the stairs. Daelia followed, holding on to her left elbow. The air felt like it was boiling now, shot after shot, but they scrambled up the stairs low and behind the edge of the curtain.
The emergency lighting was better back here, and Daelia found herself wondering at that. Battery backup, disconnected from main building power, sure, but the klaatuu blasts were supposed to take out the entirety of anything with an electric circuit. So why was this still on?
“Wonder later,” Argo said, catching her as she stopped at one of the lights to examine it. He had a heavy section of pipe he’d grabbed from somewhere backstage in hand.
“Right,” she said, and followed.
In the bright illumination of the hallway, Pranav’s injuries were stark. He had taken a blast clean in the shoulder, melting his polyester jacket and scorching the skin underneath. The smell was awful.
He seemed heedless of it, though, rushing through the maze of road cases, props, curtains, and pulleys. Eyes wide. Breathing labored. “This way, this way,” he was saying over and over. “They’re this way.”
They went through a door, then down a pitch-black hall. The only light in the space was a flashing dot, the indicator light of an electronic door lock. Pranav fumbled the combination the first time, and Argo stepped in to key it in instead.
Daelia watched the hallway. It ran off into darkness in both directions. Something inside of her, deep and primal, rebelled at the idea of being here. It reminded her of high school, back when the bombs started falling and Dad wasn’t home and she hadn’t known what else to do but grab Ginger and—
“Daelia!” Argo hissed.
There was light again.
The door was open.
Pranav was already through.
She blinked. Put the memory away. Fear. It was just fear. She’d be okay. “Right,” she muttered, and followed, back into the blue-white glow of daylight.
She found herself on an elevated platform in what had to be the theater’s loading dock. The roller doors were down, but light was leaking in around the sides and bottom.
