CHAPTER 8
The stationary gun turrets ignored Nick as he stepped out of the vehicle, unlike the last time he’d been down here. He watched with dark amusement as nearly twenty Archangels piled out of the convoy vehicles.
Despite nearly dying, he felt oddly safe.
“Don’t worry about them,” Rie said as he approached her. “The Host is just worried that it might have lost a Cipher on his first day. That’s bad for our reputation, after all.”
“That is not the source of our concern,” Chloe grumbled as she practically clung to Nick.
Rie glanced at the other doll, then gestured to one of the priority elevators. It opened and he joined Rie inside.
Close to two-dozen highly sophisticated police dolls attempted to squeeze in after them. Nick saw the moment when they realized they would need to compromise. The eyes of the Archangels collectively flashed.
In the end, Chloe and three others joined them. There was an equal split between the model lines. The lift could fit more, but he suspected the weight limits might play a rather important role. The Archangels might be petite little things, but Nick didn’t want one to stand on him.
The doors shut and they rose toward floor 77. Rie turned to face Nick.
“Have you had an exciting morning?” she asked. Her hands tugged at the suit jacket inside his coat. “Ruined your brand-new suit yet?”
He brushed some dust off his coat and felt Chloe’s grimace before he saw it. “That’s why I have the coat. Plus, what’s the point of wearing a suit if it can’t get dirty?”
“I imagine you wear other clothes on normal days,” Rie said. “And perhaps avoid firefights and snipers on days you are to meet with the upper crust of the Spires.”
The upper crust?
“I thought this was just a meeting with a bunch of desk jockeys?” he asked.
“You never read the meeting invite I put in your calendar, did you?” Rie glared at him and he shrugged. “Until your rendezvous with a surprisingly organized band of revolutionaries, this meeting would have been quite exciting. Kushiel, her military liaison, and a representative from Sigma Robotics would have been there.”
Nick pulled out his phone and finally opened his calendar. His eyes nearly popped as he saw the size of the attendee list.
“Was this a press conference?” he asked, hoping that his face hadn’t visibly paled.
“No. But there was significant interest in the Cipher that I personally chose for my task force.” Rie sighed. “Your escapade this morning is of higher priority, however. Kushiel, the military, and Sigma are far interested in the remains of the NLF terrorists and their neural mods. Kushiel is satisfied with your performance, based on the Host’s experience.”
“That’s good, right?” he asked.
The elevator came to a stop and they stepped out.
Even more Archangels waited for them up here. Then the other elevators disgorged his escorts.
“No,” Chloe said. “Your safety—”
“Let’s talk about this later,” Nick interrupted.
He eyed Rie, who smirked at him.
If he didn’t handle this properly, he knew that he’d be moving around in a protective cocoon of Archangels for the rest of his life. He’d forgotten to ask Rie about his “therapist” role yesterday, but the conversation was overdue.
Rie led him to the task force office, which forced the Mark 1s to split off from them. Once inside, she puttered over to the kitchenette and began preparing coffee.
He stood nearby, aware that every other doll in the room was staring at him. “So why are you miffed?” he asked Rie.
“Because while Kushiel likes men of action, and her handlers are distracted by shiny things, I’m annoyed that you ran off without telling me anything,” she said.
“There is no way you didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Perhaps. But you still didn’t tell me.” She paused and looked at him, and their eyes met. “I would appreciate some effort at communication, even if it is for show. After all, we make the effort to talk to you, when we’re much more comfortable in the neural network.”
He winced. That hadn’t gone unnoticed. The difference between Chloe and the Mark 1s had been telling, as the older models seemed to forget that he couldn’t observe the Host’s thoughts directly. By contrast, Rie was basically human.
“Fair. I’ll make an effort next time. Is the meeting still on?” he asked.
“Yes. It will only be police executives, however. Of interest are the captain of the bureau and the police commissioner. The latter is a member of the Assembly, and appointed by the government to the position.”
Ah, the Assembly. Officially, the elected members of the Assembly controlled Babylon’s government. In reality, the Spires had been an unchanging monolithic entity since the city’s inception. Nick considered the government, the Assembly, and the Spires to be the same thing.
Most people felt the same way. Democracy wasn’t really a thing here. Decades ago, before the massive riots that tore apart much of Neo Westphalia, there had been a toothless “People’s Senate.” It had failed miserably, although the riots had supposedly shaken the ruling class enough to make them clean the city up.
“The captain is my… boss?” he asked.
“Detective Hammond is your boss,” Rie corrected. “Captain Lieu is his boss.”
“That still makes him my boss.”
She carried two cups of coffee and led him into a small office. An L-shaped wooden desk occupied a corner of the room. It had four monitors, and a fancy set of VR goggles. Frameless metal pictures floated off the walls, and were some of the few physical decorations Nick had ever seen in a corporate office.
To Nick, his new office was wonderful.
It also looked like almost every office he’d ever been in, except with decoration he could see and monitors. Also, the desk was much bigger. Most people didn’t need monitors, let alone four.
Rie sat at a small meeting table near the front of the office. Nick joined her and sipped the eerily familiar coffee.
“Is this time to debrief?” he asked.
“That would be a good idea. The Host has… conflicted feelings about this morning.”
“But Kushiel approved of me?”
Rie snorted. “She only cares that you assisted in the takedown and chased the suspect. Her views of police Ciphers are grim, and the fact I chose someone with your record did not sit well with her.”
Kushiel was a prototype Mark 2 Archangel, and therefore part of a production line of military dolls rather than police dolls. Nick wondered if this fact affected Kushiel’s opinions.
“In that case, I’ll explain what I found, and then we can talk about what’s up with the Host,” he said. “Then you can grouse at me.”
“I shall grouse at you anyway, but go on.” Her smile was saccharine sweet.
“Have you gone over the data dump?” he asked.
She nodded. “The Host and I analyzed it. I believe Kushiel did the same, but didn’t share her conclusion. Perhaps it shall play a role in her own investigation, if one occurs.”
He frowned at the possibility that somebody else would intervene in his investigation. Kushiel might have other plans for Helena, especially if the military got involved.
“And?” he asked.
“Ah, you’re testing me?”
“Comparing notes. I’m pretty confident in my theory, but I don’t want to say it, have the Host change their mind, and not understand how I can explain it,” he said.
“That won’t happen. But I understand.” Rie tilted her head as she pretended to think. “The raid on Tartarus was clean. Given the resources we saw the NLF use this morning, we can assume they have anti-doll equipment, highly effective neural mods, and the skilled Ciphers necessary to install them. You dealt with their pawns, but somebody modified their implants.”
Nick nodded and added nothing. But he suspected that Rie was heading for a different conclusion than his.
“Most likely, this was a more sophisticated raid than believed,” she said. “They knocked out the neural network, snuck past the weakened security systems, then shutdown the security dolls from the inside and stole the EMOTE-H prototype—”
“Helena,” he corrected.
Rie rolled her eyes at him. “Afterward, they covered their tracks and left. This was a smash-and-grab, but one likely conducted with the assistance of a corrupt government official. Rather than—”
He held a hand up. “Okay, I’m going to stop you there. Because my guess is that you or the Host have chosen a convenient solution.”
She winced. “Perhaps. You remembered that we prefer to investigate other leads. That bias is… hard to overcome, even for me.”
“Well, I can’t rule out your theory. Not completely,” Nick said. “But you missed something. The raid was clean, but they didn’t have the time to clear the hardware logs.”
“They showed nothing. The security dolls were shut down remotely, and all their software logs were wiped. The same is true of all other on-site logs, and the network outage prevented external backups from preserving them,” Rie explained.
“Remotely, yes. But the Tartarus dolls aren’t off-the-shelf models with known backdoors. The shutdown code indicated that it came from an unverified terminal, but it had the right permissions. That cuts down the number of suspects to four,” he said. “Five, if you include Helena herself, but she leaves different hardware logs.”
Rie stared at him. She placed her cup on the table and folded her hands in front of her.
“The dolls’ sensors have no records of encountering anyone—yes, those are recorded at the hardware level for these models. They’re your primitive ancestors,” he continued. “So somebody shut them down from outside the premises. During a neural network outage.”
“They were shut down before the outage hit,” Rie said, her voice flat.
“Almost certainly. As the warehouse showed, it’s not always possible to instantly detect network outages. But more importantly, the Cipher responsible for this was already in Tartarus. Given three of us are in police custody and you have access to the neural implants of the two that aren’t me, that leaves only one suspect.”
“Travis Lewis,” Rie said. Her eyes flashed. “If your information about the shutdown codes is valid, then your conclusion is of higher likelihood than mine. I have prioritized his arrest warrant.”
“He’s vanished off the Altnet. If he was a plant for the NLF, then most likely he was running one of these fancy neural mods,” Nick said. He frowned and leaned forward. “Are they really that fancy?”
“Yes. Their mechanism of operation is that they present a false front—a ‘shell implant,’ if you will,” she explained. “The NLF members appear like ordinary citizens, but their true implants are hidden from us. When they switch over, they cut themselves off entirely from Babylon’s neural network and use their own encrypted network.”
“I thought the Archangels had electronic and neural warfare capabilities? Can’t you just bust them open?”
She shrugged. “Quantum encryption is still highly effective. Without an entry point like the one provided during that transfer in the warehouse, it is far easier to simply shoot the suspect. However, Sigma and the military did anticipate this problem. It was the driving force behind my design and the desire for Cipher abilities in the Mark 3s,” she explained.
“You said the Mark 3s weren’t designed based on you.”
“They are not. But as a proof-of-concept, the Mark 3s in this task force have enhanced neural capabilities compared to the production models. Once Ezekiel is deployed, you will see the difference.”
Ezekiel, huh.
Nick felt that it was meaningful that the newest prototype had the name of a human prophet, while the earlier two were named after angels. These big tech companies loved their ostentatious naming schemes.
“So Travis has gone to ground,” Nick said. “I don’t think they have Helena, however.”
“Why not? They were attempting to destroy the evidence.”
“No, they weren’t. If they were, then they wouldn’t have promised to leave with just the data dump.”
Rie blinked. “Perhaps. If they didn’t plan to betray you and detonate the explosive once they had the data.”
That… was a damn good point. “I still think my hunch is right. Those guys were idiots, but they seemed to be after the data for a different reason. And showing up in front of us is a terrible way to cover up their involvement.”
“That is a better reason for why they are not involved. But they still appear to be aware of the raid.” Rie frowned. “Or perhaps they want to replicate the techniques of the raid. Or are after the EMOTE-H prototype themselves. There are many possibilities if we consider that the NLF are a third party.”
Which made hunting down Travis even harder. Nick leaned back in his chair and sighed. His coffee had gone cold by now.
He stepped outside to prepare new cups. This time, the Mark 3s didn’t stare at him. Rie joined him and pulled a few colorful macarons out of the fridge. Looking around, Nick noticed that Chloe was the only other Archangel drinking or eating anything. She grimaced at him when their gazes met.
That was a great reminder of his next topic. Once back inside, he broached it, “What the hell is up with the Archangels? Not you, but everyone else.”
“They are having teething issues while they incorporate you into their… structure,” Rie said while daintily nibbling on a bright purple macaron. “For many reasons, you have disrupted things.”
He crossed his arms. The idea that he, of all people, could throw some of the most advanced AI into such a tizzy seemed ridiculous.
“In the simplest terms, you are equivalent in status to me,” she continued. “But you are much squishier. The Host understands the idea of VIPs, but those are objectives. We can prioritize. A Spire might fall, but if the rest stand, our mission can still succeed. But internal mortality is different. The Host suddenly must grapple with self-preservation, which has never been a factor.”
Nick remembered the warehouse encounter. Ordinarily, the Archangels would have blown away the NLF idiots, explosives be damned. Their bodies could be replaced, buildings rebuilt, and goods repurchased.
But they’d frozen up due to the risk to Nick’s safety. The same had happened when they spotted the sniper, moments before he fired.
“Alright, I buy that. But why?” he asked. “I doubt you care about Hammond.”
Rie laughed. “True. The reasoning is… complicated. And long.”
“I’m all ears. I have a boring meeting to go to, and then I need to convince Chloe and the others to let me leave my bubble.”
“I’ll keep this brief for now, as I feel you might enjoy discovering some of the truth for yourself.” She dunked one of her sweets into her coffee while speaking. “The Mark 1s were always fascinated by you, and that only grew over time as they…”
“Harassed me?”
“Bullied you like a young child does the girl he likes,” Rie said.
“I wouldn’t describe my encounters with the Mark 1s as anything like a childhood crush.”
She shrugged at him. “The Mark 3s are different. They never met you, but they know all about you. Chloe in particular is rather enjoying her role as liaison. We had only just arrived in Babylon, and her primary duty is a unique one.”
A thought bubble formed in Nick’s mind. “Hold on. Is that why they’re fighting over me?”
“Ah, you’ve noticed?”
“It’s subtle, but yes.”
Rie nodded. “You are old company to the Mark 1s. They’re excited to interact with you outside of an interrogation room. But it chafes at them that their younger, newer, fancier counterparts get you. It’s creating friction within the Host. And that friction was only amplified by Kushiel’s dislike of you.” She scowled at him. “And you stirred that hornet’s nest yesterday.”
He gulped at the thunderous expression on her face. Raising his hands in surrender, he waited to hear how he’d messed things up so badly with just a few thoughtful questions.
“The Host has always operated through an extremely high consensus ratio. I did force the matter with you, which bothered them, but then you raised the issue of Archangels disobeying consensus. The more that groups or individuals within the Host push back against consensus, the higher the likelihood that it will splinter. Or even worse, completely schism.”
“That sounds religious,” he joked.
“It would be. Imagine if the Archangels split into separate factions, and those factions constantly engaged in endless arguments over what to do.” Rie sighed. “Perhaps it’s inevitable. Sigma Robotics are instigating these differences, I believe. You conducted experiments to make us more human. Can we really be human if we all agree and get along?”
Dark.
“So the problem isn’t me,” he clarified. “It’s that I’m thought-provoking.”
“You can put it that way, yes. Try not to provoke too many thoughts. There is far too much self-insert fiction in the Host’s database as it is. I don’t want to scan through a deluge of smut about you.”
Wait, what? Nick wanted to poke that hornet’s nest, but Rie suddenly shot to her feet and clapped.
“It’s time for your meeting,” she chirped.
“No, you cannot bring that topic up and just leave,” he said as she stepped outside.
“I can and will. Use your imagination. Or perhaps you may become brave enough to ask Chloe about it.” Rie winked at him, then dragged him by the arm out the door.
After a moment, she shoved him back inside and forced him to take off his baggy coat. Then they left.
A small army of Archangels escorted him through the halls of the police department. Nick shooed most of them away as they entered the elevator. If he needed twenty Archangels to see the police commissioner, then they should think about replacing the entire department.
The fact the eyes of every doll flashed when he said that aloud was concerning.
The upper floors of the department were considerably swankier than the bare floor he’d been on. Rie and Chloe led him along hallways with wooden floorboards, reflective metal wall tiles, and more electronic glass than Nick usually saw outside a mall. He imagined that the glass showed departmental news updates and other corporate garbage, but only if he had a neural implant.
Detective Hammond stood outside the meeting room. He looked as unkempt and out of place as yesterday, but raised a hand in greeting as they approached.
“Still up for drinks tonight, kid?” he asked Nick, pointedly ignoring the dolls.
“Call me Nick, and yes.”
“Good man. The big wigs are already in there. I’m glad you caused that mess near the docks this morning, because this waste of time might be over with pretty fast. The commissioner seems pretty distracted.”
With those words, Hammond turned toward the beech double doors. They swung inward without a word.
Inside sat three people with unsmiling expressions and charcoal suits that probably cost even more than Nick’s eye-wateringly expensive one had. A pair of secretary dolls sat between the executives, staring into nothing as they recorded the meeting and awaited orders.
One of these three suits might be behind the raid on Tartarus, Nick realized. But more than that, this meeting would be difficult for one reason.
They were career bureaucrats, and Nick hated bureaucracy.