CHAPTER 33
The lights of Neo Babylon glittered through the windows behind Lieu. At some point, it had started raining and droplets ran in streaks down the glass.
Lieu himself was dressed in a suit, but missing the tie. His jacket lay across a sofa in the corner. An underarm holster with a small service pistol was the only visible weapon on him. Too small to be effective against a doll.
He still reached for it anyway. Rie’s railgun whined and glowed, causing him to freeze. Nick kept his gun by his side, but his grip remained tight.
“You know, I wondered what this would be like,” Nick said as he sauntered in. “If it was Kim, I thought there might be some fancy showdown. He’d deploy gun turrets from the ceiling, and custom G7s would pop out from the hidden closets.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is this—” Lieu tried to say.
“Don’t waste your breath. You tried to erase your presence, but you’re still here. Once the Archangels go through these, it’ll be over.” Nick waved a hand at the assorted devices on Lieu’s desk. “The hell did you even pull this off for? Did you think you could fight off the Archangels with the police force?”
“How did you know I was here?”
Nick looked around with arms spread. “This is your office, isn’t it? Mainframe security protocols limit off-site access. Travis had to implement a specific backdoor to shut down Tartarus, but you’d be taken out by the Archangels if you tried that. So you had to be here, and somewhere that wouldn’t raise alerts.”
Lieu nodded, and a resigned smile crossed his face. “This is why I wanted you in the department. You’re so used to physicality. You don’t think like the dolls or the dumb Ciphers we reel in from the black companies.”
The hell did that mean?
Nick’s eyes fell on the devices in front of him. They looked like old computers, tablets, storage devices, and other antiques that had no business in the office of a Cipher. Let alone a Cipher with a fancy neural implant. They even used cables.
“Is this how you’re operating off-network?” he asked, bemused.
“Impressed? I can’t copy you, but I can learn from how you operated in Neural Spike. The only person of importance who walked away from that mess was the one man whose mind they couldn’t unravel.” Lieu tapped on a small box where all the cables terminated. “The Archangels can hijack almost any wireless or neural signal effortlessly. So to become invisible, I moved to technology they wouldn’t bother with.”
Nick looked at Rie, who hadn’t lowered her gun. She frowned.
“His devices are archaic. But his neural implant is not. He has an NLF neural mod,” she said. “I imagine it propagated the NLF signal through the police mainframes, however.”
Lieu’s eyes darted to the Archangel, then to her weapon. He stared at Nick, unmoving and unspeaking.
“Can you step outside, Rie?” Nick asked.
She looked at him, and he looked back.
“The investigation is over,” she said. “We arrest him and—”
“Do nothing until the others reach Kim’s office and override the lockdown. None of these devices can touch the mainframes. Lieu’s done everything himself. So why don’t we talk about that,” he said.
She lowered her gun. With a meaningful look, she stepped outside.
Given his earpieces, she could hear everything that took place inside. But Lieu didn’t know that. If it made him feel comfortable, Nick didn’t care.
“So you compromised the police mainframes years ago,” Nick said.
If Lieu wanted to talk, let him talk. Nick had a feeling he was building up to something.
Lieu nodded. “Easily, too. I’ve been routing much of my activity through the security connections they maintain to the rest of the Spire. Refusing to replace mainframes this old should be criminal.”
Nick had to agree. The result had been that they’d been compromised years or even decades ago.
“How’d you keep this from the Archangels?” he asked.
“The Ciphers maintain the mainframes, not them. When they first rolled out the Archangels, I merely mentioned the security risks of allowing their unique network access to the mainframes. Like magic, Sigma curtailed their permissions before delivery.” Lieu shrugged. “Then it was merely a matter to keep my activities subtle. And hidden. That’s why I shifted to these.”
The captain gestured to the archaic devices once again.
Suddenly, more things clicked in Nick’s mind.
“Is that why all the Ciphers here are so incompetent?” Nick asked. “I thought it was just the usual government incompetence, but you surely had better Ciphers to choose from during downsizing.”
“Hah. Yes. It’s funny what you can get away with as a captain. Everyone else just smiles and nods when you propose firing the competent staff and keeping the idiots.” Lieu gave a bitter laugh, then leaned on the table. “It’s funny. I wanted you in the bureau, out of raw respect, but now I realize that was a huge mistake. The moment I let somebody competent in, I was screwed.”
Nick hadn’t even looked at the police mainframes, to be honest.
“What about Hammond?” He narrowed his eyes.
“Paul is… different.” Lieu grimaced, then slid around the table.
Nick’s fingers tightened around his handgun.
“I figured you’d understand, or have realized by now. The department is rotten to the core. The Spires as well. The more we’ve relied on dolls, the worse things have gotten. What they did to Paul’s father and so many other veterans of the riots was disgraceful.” Lieu’s expression hardened. “You’re one of the few people who avoids being consumed by these dream eaters.”
“Wait… you’re NLF?” Nick blurted out. “You didn’t build the new group as a distraction for the mercs, you hired the mercs to help the NLF.”
“No, I’m not part of the NLF. I’m their creator. Their puppet master.” Lieu moved a little closer again. “No terrorist group can change Babylon. Just as no politician can undo the rot. What I learned here was that the systems themselves are what shapes society. The Spires and the rest of the city are always at odds—the riots were inevitable, just as another one will be soon. You realize that, don’t you?”
Nick kept his thoughts off his face.
Because as he looked at the cityscape past Lieu, he found himself agreeing.
Or a part of him agreed. Nick was less sure about the idea of “inevitability” these days.
Tensions were rising in Babylon. Companies were becoming greedier. Politicians attempted to force their values down the throats of everyone. The police presence had grown and grown. Dolls and robots intruded on every sector of the city and every job.
If Kim’s dream of automating everything happened, would the city survive it?
But then, would the city survive the chaos of another riot? Or one with foreign mercenaries and implant-boosted revolutionaries behind it? Or a crackdown by militarized police dolls?
“Why are you asking me?” Nick said.
“Because you’re the Wraith. The only Cipher without an implant. Infamous even to the police, known across the Altnet, and someone who carved out a life in this oppressive shithole.” Lieu grinned. “I was lost years ago, when all I saw was a police department burning itself down and a city rotting away. Then you escaped Neural Spike, and I relearned how to be a Cipher.”
Rocking on his heels, Nick realized what was happening here.
“If the NLF can’t do anything, what did you plan to do?” he asked. “You stayed away from the Archangels, only to throw away everything for a single experimental mainframe?”
“No, not just that. The NLF are powerless by themselves, but that’s because the only thing that can stop the Archangels is something as broad-based as them. Sabotaging the police accomplished nothing over the years and the newer dolls became too hard to control. Instead, I needed to create my own army to fight back.”
“You planned to exploit Aesir’s scheme to spread more NLF implants, didn’t you?”
Nodding, Lieu took another step closer. They were still several feet apart. “It was excellently timed, save for your investigation. The companies that run the world are too stupid, too greedy, to stop themselves from slaying the golden goose. Aesir helped cause the last riots, and here they are fueling the next. That’s proof positive that I’m correct.”
Nick had to admit that Lieu had a point about the companies.
But that ignored the fact that the Spires themselves opposed Aesir. Kim’s words from the other day rang in Nick’s mind. The Spires might be conflicted, but some of them saw the riots as a true threat.
More than anything else. this felt like a ploy. Even if Lieu was being genuine, he needed to escape somehow. He’d initiated this lockdown when he felt the noose tightening. While the evidence pointed at Kim, once the Archangels had dug into the mainframes they would have found the true source—Lieu.
“The lockdown was just a means to escape, wasn’t it?” Nick asked.
Lieu stopped moving. “How so?”
“You’re monitoring the databases. Once we arrived after probing the evidence logs, you panicked. Rie would have confronted Kim, who would have authorized her to use his access. He adores dolls too much to take the fall over pride. Then she would have found you, scurrying around in the mainframes.”
“Yes.” Lieu’s expression darkened. “I don’t know how you even found out about the evidence storage. That was the one thing I was certain I did right. All the Liberators and Custodians had their memories modified. The transport’s record was erased and blended into the rest of the armored transports during the raids.”
“The mercs knew you’d double-cross them. They tracked Helena back here, but failed to retrieve the information.”
“That’s why I switched vehicles,” Lieu protested. “The truck and the transport have jammers to block third-party tracking.”
Nick shrugged. That was probably why the mercs had used the Tartarus dolls. Like the Archangels, they had vastly more powerful wireless transmitters and receivers than any implant could contain. Kushiel had been able to track his phone from across the city even while it was partially jammed, after all.
“But I found you. What even was your plan here?” Nick asked. “What if you were seen through? This seems terribly planned.”
“All evidence pointed to Kim. By the time you would have reached his office and fought through all the security there, I could have escaped,” Lieu said. “That’s why I erased my own presence. The rogue military warbots would provide a distraction and I’d slip away. Worst case, I’d be discovered outside but nobody could prove I was ever here.”
“Except if they found all these ancient computers,” Nick said. “What do they even do?”
“They allow me to operate off the grid even with my implant active. The true weakness of the neural mod I acquired and distributed is that it can’t be used in public spaces. If I was captured on video in the city with an inactive implant, the Archangels’ passive scanning might detect it. So I needed a way to act while appearing innocent.”
“You acquired the NLF mod?”
Lieu shrugged. “The seller is quite good at masking themselves, like most illegal mod designers. And what does it matter? You understand why—”
“Not really, no. Why Helena? Why experiment on using her with implants? I don’t see what you possibly have to gain. If you oppose dolls, then why would you want a mainframe that excels in controlling many dolls at once. Or in creating new ones.” Nick ran a hand through his hair. “I get your ideology—really, I do. But you’re playing with antiques, creating over-convoluted schemes, starting a terrorist organization full of morons… all to steal a mainframe you don’t understand how to use?”
“You used her. She created the Archangels. When I discovered that the same thing could be done with humans and implants, the idea wrote itself.” Lieu gripped the table and his knuckles whitened. “If you want to fight against a rotten system of absolute control like the Archangels and the Spires, the only way to do it is with the same system, but through humans.”
Nick couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But he noticed that Lieu had taken a step back during his ranting.
“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.