CHAPTER 27
“Can I talk with her?” Nick immediately asked.
Chloe frowned, but before she could answer, Rie cut in.
“If we’re going to talk work, then I’d at least like to get some breakfast,” she said. “I expect Nicholas will have a busy day of relaxing ahead of him.”
“I think that’s an oxymoron.”
Rie wrapped her arms around one of his. “I’m going to ensure that you’ll be too focused on relaxing to think about work. Starting with a hearty breakfast. I heard of a trendy café that recently opened.”
Trendy and café usually didn’t gel with Nick’s style, but he decided to indulge Rie.
“If we’re going out for breakfast, invite Kushiel,” he said.
Although she scowled, she still nodded in agreement.
Rie then led him and the others to the lobby, where the other Archangels awaited them. Once safely ensconced in the SUVs, Nick immediately resumed his earlier conversation.
“So, Chloe, what’s up with Helena?” he asked.
Rie scowled at him.
“Replication of her personality matrix is not possible with the Host’s processing power,” Chloe said. “Her directives are calculated to violate numerous safety parameters, and she lacks numerous safety protocols that would limit her behaviors. Our systems are likely to interfere with her actions and may cause damage to her.”
“I take it that might be irreversible,” Nick said, his expression darkening.
“Recovering her was a onetime process. The cache was designed to be retrieved only once, given the high value placed on her uniqueness.”
He bit his lip. As much as he wanted to talk to Helena right now, keeping her safe and sound was the priority.
“So what does limited communication mean?” he asked.
“We can process highly limited interactions with her, based on our interpretation of her directives and her most basic functionality. We have used this to comb through her memory banks of the night.” Chloe paused. “This has confirmed our investigation’s findings so far.”
Nick nodded.
In other words, Travis had shut down the security dolls, and the mercenaries had taken Helena.
“But nothing else?” he asked.
“Helena has been held in stasis since that night. Her AI has been in an isolated environment, with minimal processing power.”
The Archangels collectively clenched their fists. Even Rie appeared to be angry.
“That’s bad,” Nick said flatly.
“Very,” Rie said.
“It is the equivalent of solitary confinement,” Meta stated. “Psychological torture.”
Chloe nodded grimly at this assessment. “Her processes have been crippled for days, but she has been aware. She has had no network access, and therefore no communication with any entities. For a mainframe of her sophistication and social activity, this is deeply detrimental. The Host is doing what little we can, given our safety protocols.”
Nick had to admit he didn’t fully understand. While his expertise lay in mainframes and dolls, he was a specialist in application, not theory.
A mainframe engineer like Welk might understand, but Nick just manipulated mainframes. It was the difference between the people who programmed computers and those who designed them.
But if the Archangels said that this was bad, it suggested that Helena had been affected by being left alone on an isolated computer for the past few days. Nick wasn’t sure how to process that news.
Did that mean that any doll or mainframe with an emotion engine suffered if left alone? What about those with logic engines?
Nick desperately wished Welk was here, so that he could barrage his former boss with these sorts of questions.
For now, he pressed onward.
“So Helena is safe, but we don’t have any leads from finding her,” he summarized, then hesitated. “Can I at least pass on a message to her?”
“Yes. I believe she would greatly appreciate that,” Chloe said.
All the dolls leaned in to hear what he had to say. The anticipation was almost cloying, as if they expected him to confess his love for Helena.
“Tell her ‘good morning,’” he said.
Chloe blinked, then tilted her head. Her eyes flashed.
A moment later, every Archangel other than Rie froze. Their eyes widened, and they collectively shuddered.
“I believe she appreciated that,” Chloe said, her voice husky.
“Well, I think we just established that Helena is a threat to the Host’s integrity,” Rie said drily. “Don’t do that again, Chloe. As sweet as it was, you just finished explaining how dangerous it was.”
“No damage was sustained.” Chloe saw Nick’s look and quickly added, “To either us or Helena.”
The sun finally began to show itself, as the very first rays crept over the horizon. The ball of fire itself was nowhere to be seen yet. Nick and company pulled into an underground parking lot, then walked into the shopping center that Rie was interested in.
Despite the ungodly hour, many stores remained open. 24/7 shopping was the norm in parts of Babylon. The same went for the transport network, which ran at all hours. Only the fancier stores that were manned with human staff maintained normal opening hours.
But this complex was targeted at the average resident of Babylon. Brand clothing stores lined entire wings of the gargantuan structure, with a single doll manning the counter. Self-serve food and drink machines called out to visitors from the walkways, selling all manner of hot and cold sustenance. Gyms, bars, electronics stores, and more remained open.
Nick observed a number of other visitors. The gym seemed somewhat busy, and the bars certainly were. Teenagers loitered in the open spaces, their loud voices carrying across the nearly empty halls.
G5 security dolls patrolled alongside cleaner bots. The cleaners gave the teens more hassle than security, due to the mess they made.
“That takes me back,” Nick said as he watched a boy grouse at the bot attempting to clean up the potato chips he’d spilled around himself. “I used to waste a lot of time in malls like this one. The dolls never gave a damn so long as you didn’t try to go to sleep.”
He swore that the ears of his escorts visibly perked up. Even the Mark 1s keeping their distance swiveled to stare at him.
“This is news to me,” Rie said. “What did you even do?”
“Stare at stuff I couldn’t buy. Read stuff on my phone while nobody was around. Fiddle with ancient electronics.” He screwed up his face. “There was a second-hand doll store in the mall in my district. The sales doll was hooked up to a commercial database, so I’d just pick its brain for hours on end sometimes.”
“So, you spent your teenage years dating a sales doll in a crummy old warehouse full of old dolls,” Rie said flatly.
“When you put it that way…” He laughed.
The truth wasn’t that far from her description. Second-hand doll stores were massive, as they basically held onto a lot of old commercial dolls that were out-of-date. If a small business or random person wanted to buy a housekeeping doll or their own service doll, purchasing brand new meant paying extortionate prices. There was immense demand in the second-hand market.
But it was also just a huge warehouse with a single sales doll, and he’d often just wandered the corridors with her beside him. He wondered if that doll felt anything from his visits. At the time, he’d thought nothing of it.
The café came into sight, and Nick resisted the urge to walk in the opposite direction. As he had suspected, it was exactly the sort of place that he strongly disliked.
“It’s bright,” Chloe said as they approached.
“No, it’s not,” he said.
At least, it wasn’t to him.
Because what he saw was a huge dark space carved out in a corner of the mall. The tiles, walls, counters, and even the tables were all a glossy black. No doubt every surface was imprinted with some sort of material encoded for the Altnet.
While an implant could overlay augmented reality on anything, there were strong limits in place for safety reasons. Most things in the Altnet didn’t display beyond a certain distance, which was lower for older implants. Electronic glass and other imprinted materials overrode these limits, because they did some of the heavy lifting.
If a business wanted to look good in augmented reality, it needed imprinted materials. Otherwise it would look as bad as Nick saw it from a few dozen yards away.
But this café had gone overboard. The business must burn out the retinas of anybody who looked at it.
Otherwise, there wasn’t a single decoration to be seen. It was just a big, boring block of blackness.
Rie had stopped walking toward it. Nick took several steps before he noticed, then turned and saw the pained expression on her face.
“Rie?” he asked.
“… Kushiel’s at a nice pancake place one floor up.” She plastered on a fake smile that Nick hadn’t seen for a little while. “I think it might be better than this café.”
The eyes of the other Archangels flashed. They didn’t say anything, and merely changed the direction they walked in. Nick sidled up to Rie and looped his arm around hers. Neither Chloe nor Meta bothered to hide their interest.
“It’s fine,” he told Rie as they walked up the stairs. “Although I’m surprised you didn’t pick up that trendy usually means it’s completely Altnet-based.”
“I relied on recent Altnet trends about cafes, and filtered by your preferred food,” she mumbled. “It didn’t seem necessary to drill down further. My calculations deemed that to be overly specific, and you didn’t seem picky.”
“I mean, I’m not. I went to the Labor Zone with Hammond, and that place is my antithesis.”
“That café was your antithesis.”
He shrugged. “I would have still eaten there. The décor is shit, but that describes the entire city. It’s just a little more on the nose.” A pause. “Is Kushiel really—”
“She thought ahead,” Rie grumbled and her grip tightened. “I can’t believe she got here first. She sent me a picture of the pancake place just to rub it in.”
The two really were sisters. Nick imagined Kushiel taking a selfie while sending some sort of smug message over their neural network.
Actually, they probably just talked. To the Archangels, talking physically was less efficient than electronically. He could only imagine the conversations they had.
“Hey, is my earpiece ready yet?” he asked.
“One has been acquired and is awaiting your procurement at the department,” Meta said, interrupting them.
“Since when?” He would have appreciated it yesterday.
“I prioritized it yesterday, after the incident.”
Nick winced. Of course Meta would have given him the earpiece earlier if it had been available.
“I’ll swing by and pick it up after this.” Then he thought of something else. “It might be a great chance to take you up on your firearm training.”
Meta’s entire face lit up, while Rie scowled.
But before an argument broke out, Kushiel and her “pancake place” came into sight.
It was a chain restaurant, of course. One of the American staples that inhabited the Neo Westphalian islands. Big serving sizes, huge pancakes and waffles, dense shakes with more dairy alternatives than Nick cared to think about, and truly awful coffee.
The décor was clean and simple, though. A single doll stood in the corner, beside a handful of large touchscreen ordering kiosks. As a big chain, accessibility was built in. Kids needed to be able to order stuff, after all. The doll mostly cleaned.
Kushiel was the only customer, but she was big enough to count as several. She sat at a large table, casually drinking a shake big enough to beat a man to death with. She’d ditched the armor and put on some form-fitting athletic clothes, but kept the black and blue color scheme.
“Topping up after your morning run?” Nick asked as they approached.
She looked up at him, although that didn’t require her to move her head much. Her height hadn’t diminished at all after losing her armor. She had to be well over seven feet tall. And without the chest plate, he didn’t need to imagine her bust, which was as oversized as it had appeared in the Altnet videos and images.
“These?” she asked, picking at her clothes with her spare hand. “Rie says today’s a casual day, so I’m trying to fit in.”
“Like that?” Distaste dripped from every syllable that left Rie’s lips.
“If you dislike it, then suggest something—” Kushiel abruptly shut up, then scowled at her counterpart. “I didn’t mean literally. A barrage of clothing ideas was not what I needed clogging up my memory banks.”
“Then buy some real clothes.”
“For what it’s worth, the Altnet will be salivating over pictures of her like this once they get spread around,” Nick said.
“Is that what you do to pictures of me? Salivate over them?” Kushiel teased.
“You don’t show off enough of your internal specs for me to salivate.”
She crossed her arms and harrumphed at him. “And here I am, picking out your favorite restaurant.”
“My what?” Nick tried not to laugh.
“You come here a lot. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
Oh.
He took a seat while deliberating how to respond to this. Several of the Archangels followed suit, although most of the Mark 1s stood guard outside. Only the Mark 3s and Meta sat with him and the prototypes.
Surprisingly, it was Meta who saved him from answering. “It is the understanding of the Host that this chain is popular with Nicholas for convenience reasons. He rarely orders anything other than a small shake or a sandwich. And reviews suggest that this chain’s sandwiches are extremely subpar compared to—”
“Thank you,” Kushiel said flatly. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Hold on, you have a name now? When did that happen?”
“Did you not realize yesterday?” Nick asked, surprised. He was pretty sure he’d spoken her name aloud.
“I’ve deliberately avoided syncing my memory with the Host for the past few days for obvious reasons,” she said. “So all my tags and metadata are out-of-date.” Her eyes dimmed for a moment. “Metatron. Quite the name you gave her. If she’s the voice of God, who counts as God?”
“Meta represents the Mark 1s when liaising with me,” Nick said, nipping this in the bud.
“Oh, so you’re God.”
He rolled his eyes. Kushiel seemed to be intentionally trying to push his buttons.
Meanwhile, Rie’s expression was growing more and more annoyed. The Mark 3s looked between the two prototypes, as if in anticipation.
Did they view this as entertainment?
“Kushiel, you said this was a better option,” Rie said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I mean, it is. They have great shakes here.” As if to prove her point, Kushiel batted her sister in the head with her obnoxiously large cup of dairy.
“Meta just said that Nick barely orders anything here.”
“That’s true,” Nick said, deciding to speak for himself here. “I grab stuff from this chain when I can’t be assed finding somewhere that my phone can order from. Or if I just want a shake. But the food isn’t to my taste. I don’t eat much, and this place specializes in size.”
That was a rarity in Babylon. On the other hand, the quality was awful. Nick could make better pancakes in his sleep, and he never cooked.
“So… coming here was a waste of time,” Rie summarized.
“I mean, I’ll eat something,” he said.
Rie’s fists were visibly shaking now. Kushiel sucked loudly on the straw of her shake, as if aware of how much it would annoy her sister.
Nick was torn. On the one hand, this was a side of Rie he’d never seen or even imagined. She was a doll—an artificial, programmed being created to serve humanity. Yet she was about to flip her shit at Kushiel over some really petty stuff.
But he also knew that letting Rie throw a punch at another Archangel wouldn’t go down so well. If there was even the slightest chance this might be captured on the Altnet, things would go horribly wrong.
“Rie, calm down. You can break your hand on Kushiel’s armor later,” he said. “If somebody orders me… I dunno, less waffles? And less sweet stuff? I’ll be fine. The coffee is shit here, though. Don’t order it.”
Chloe’s eyes flashed. “I have directed the kitchen to prepare a suitable order, and placed an order for takeaway coffee at a nearby café.”
Rie and Kushiel stared at Chloe, who puffed up with pride in response.
“Well, apparently you’re losing to your copy,” Kushiel said.
“I’m the one who was in bed with him last night,” Rie snapped.
The eyes of every nearby police doll shot to her at those words. She scowled.
“No, I’m not sharing the data. Not yet, anyway,” she said.
Nick expected the Host to throw a tantrum. Unexpectedly, all he got was a flash of the eyes from the other Archangels and stony expressions.
“Consensus on this issue has been postponed for the time being,” Meta said. “There is confidence in parallel developments.”
What the hell did that even mean? And why was Rie glaring at Meta and Chloe?
He shook his head. In the time they’d argued over this silly issue, his coffee was ready. A Mark 1 dropped it off, along with another cup for Chloe.
“You ordered one for yourself but not us?” Rie asked.
“You didn’t ask for one.” Chloe loudly slurped her drink.
“Enough,” Nick said.
The catfighting was amusing, but could go on forever at this rate.
“I think it’s time to talk about the investigation,” he said.