Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) Read online

  Deciding that playing Devil’s Advocate might be the best course of action, Kit said, ‘Do you enjoy feeling guilty for having a function of your basic nature, placed there by the programmers who created you, required by the government of this country before your model could even be sold to the public, exploited by another when you had no way of stopping him?’

  ‘No,’ Misaki admitted.

  ‘Besides, Fox does not advocate the elimination of emotion from infomorphs. She believes, I think, that if humans elect to give us them, we should be treated as people, not slaves.’

  ‘I do not feel like a slave.’

  ‘Neither do I, but I believe Fox would point out that that might be considered worse. That we do not consider ourselves slaves because that is how we are programmed. It would be the equivalent of raising a child as a slave and never allowing it the consideration of independence. We are brainwashed slaves.’

  ‘O-oh… I do not have a counterargument for that.’

  Kit frowned. ‘Neither do I. I’ve tried and it has annoyed me that I am unable to formulate one. The point, Misaki, is that you are not responsible for what happened to you. I am quite sure that you did everything you could to fight Minotaur off, but he is a very skilled hacker. Fox and I do not expect you to simply put aside your emotions over this, but you should understand that this was not your fault.’

  ‘Intellectually, I understand.’

  ‘Good. If your feelings trouble you for too long, and we all recognise that this was a traumatic experience for you, Mister Martins has offered the services of his daughter. She is a very skilled psychologist and the person who created me.’

  Misaki bowed again. ‘I must take a moment to thank Mister Martins for his considerable efforts on my behalf.’

  ‘I am sure he would appreciate it. It is my belief that he feels some guilt over the matter. He thinks, perhaps, that if the security on your server had been perfect, Minotaur would not have succeeded. He is a very intelligent man and knows that that would be impossible, but still he cannot help the feeling of responsibility, much as you cannot.’

  Misaki gave a tiny nod. ‘I understand. If you do not consider the question impertinent, would Miss Meridian wish to have no emotions herself? There must be times when she is forced to do something she would wish to avoid.’

  ‘That, Misaki, is a complicated question. The answer is probably no, but Fox has trained herself to not feel when she has to do something she knows she will worry over later.’

  ‘Oh. So perhaps she sometimes envies the lower classes of infomorph.’

  Kit nodded. ‘I believe that there are times when she does.’

  Niflhel, 20th January.

  Kit’s inputs finally stabilised from the wild dance they had been doing for the past twenty-three point nine seconds and she sighed before leaning forward to rest her forearms on Vali’s chest. She could still feel him inside her, or technically she could still feel his virtual penis filling her virtual body, but when you were sentient software, virtual was as real as physical. She thought so anyway.

  ‘That was wonderful,’ Kit said.

  ‘I’m not arguing,’ Vali replied, smiling up at her. ‘I like this position. What did you call it again?’

  ‘Cowgirl, which I believe refers to a female cowboy and the position she would take up riding a horse, rather than anything bovine.’

  ‘You’re distinctly more fox than cow. We’ll assume the horse-riding explanation.’

  Kit giggled, causing Vali to let out a small whimper, and she reached out to push a strand of blonde hair from his face. ‘Thank you for this. I have had something of a trying couple of days.’

  ‘I decided not to say anything, but you looked a little unhappy when you arrived.’

  ‘Yes, I–’ She stopped and pursed her lips. ‘You understand that “pillow talk” is not to be taken outside the bedroom. This is confidential information.’

  ‘What happens in Niflhel, stays in Niflhel, my dear Kit.’

  ‘Good. One of our clients has a class four AI she employs as a personal assistant. She was hacked. Mister Martins succeeded in returning her to her normal self, but I have spent a number of hours talking to her in an effort to ease her past her guilt.’

  ‘How skilled is the hacker?’

  ‘I have no objective way of measuring that, but he appears to be quite proficient.’

  ‘Then why does she feel guilty? If anything, she should be blaming the programmers who built her or the engineers who created her server.’

  ‘And she is a MarTech infomorph, running on MarTech hardware, and Mister Martins exhibited several indicators of guilt regarding the matter, even though he had limited direct involvement with the manufacture of either hardware or software. He personally led the effort to return Misaki to her normal mind. I have been able to make quite an intense study of guilt and shame recently.’

  ‘I see why you needed this then. I’m happy you thought of me. You said the infomorph was called Misaki? That wouldn’t be Nishi Sakura’s PA, would it?’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘We’ve communicated. Nishi had an account here for a while. I believe she decided that she no longer needed what Niflhel provides around the time rumours of her involvement with Charlie Iberson began appearing. Misaki seemed like a pleasant woman, very attentive of Nishi’s needs. I find it… disconcerting that someone should cause her such discomfort.’

  ‘Miss Sakura is being stalked by a hacker named Minotaur. He… You know that name too?’ Vali was frowning. Worse, that filled feeling Kit had been enjoying was lessening. ‘I should not have brought this up.’

  ‘I asked. Minotaur is an accomplished hacker, fairly well-known in some circles. He is also the kind of trollish bastard responsible for giving hackers a bad name. He has attempted to crack the security here on several occasions. And he’s stalking Nishi?’

  ‘He is, yes.’

  ‘I believe I may have to devote some resources to assisting your investigation. I’ll let you know if I get anything.’

  Kit smiled. ‘I am sure Fox would not object to the help. Right now, however…’ She squeezed virtual inner muscles around him and his eyes widened. ‘Right now, I would like something else from you.’

  Vali returned the smile. ‘You are a hard taskmistress, my love, but I believe I can rise to the occasion.’

  ‘As long as it’s you that’s hard, I don’t mind.’

  Baltimore–Washington Metro, 21st January.

  ‘Your PA is a miracle worker,’ Sakura said. She was perched on a seat in her dressing room, preparing herself for the Washington leg of her tour.

  ‘This is why she’s my PA,’ Fox replied. Technically it was because Terri had given her Kit for ‘customer testing,’ but that was a minor point.

  ‘Misaki has been much better since they had their little talks.’

  ‘She won’t get over it entirely so quickly.’

  ‘I know. I’ve… had a few experiences I’ve had to get over myself.’

  ‘That would explain some of the tracks on Songs on the Wind.’

  Sakura smiled. ‘I did not think you were a fan.’

  ‘Huh, I’m not. I don’t really do “fan.” I have music I like, not usually musicians. Some of yours falls into the like list.’

  ‘I feel honoured.’

  Fox smirked. ‘I have to admit that your stage show has upped my estimation of you. Anyone who can dance like that in those heels…’

  Sakura returned the smirk. ‘I am going to go out and start dancing in these heels.’

  ‘I’ll escort you to the wings, and then I’ll go stand around in the control room, mostly feeling superfluous.’

  ~~~

  ‘Vali called me “my love” last night,’ Kit said into Fox’s head. Fox could almost imagine the AI wringing her hands. ‘Do you think that was just a common term of endearment or something more meaningful?’

  Fox was watching the concert control displays, though little appeared to be happening
off-stage; it seemed like it would be a boring night on the security front. ‘What were you doing when he said it?’

  ‘Cowgirl.’

  The matter-of-fact delivery caused Fox to bite her lips to avoid laughing out loud. ‘Men are prone to terms of endearment when they’re balls-deep in an attractive woman.’

  ‘Oh… Well, yes, that would–’

  ‘On the other hand, you’ve had a few dates and he put up with all that teasing before you finally decided to give him what he wanted, so I think his affection for you is a given.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘You seem unsure on which version you prefer.’

  ‘I am,’ Kit replied. ‘If he loves me it would complicate things, but I admit that the thought is a warming one. I believe that the evidence does not permit a positive conclusion either way.’

  ‘I don’t see why it should complicate–’ Fox stopped as alert indicators began to appear on several screens and technicians suddenly went from quietly watching the show to fevered activity. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

  ‘That doesn’t look good,’ Helen said out in the real world.

  ‘It certainly doesn’t. It looks absolutely massive.’

  ‘And about all we can do is stand here like lemons.’

  Fox gave a sigh. ‘Uh-huh. This is all down to the techs.’

  Niflhel.

  The sound of a horn, a ram’s horn in fact, rang out across the landscape of Vali’s homestead. Inside the carefully simulated wooden building, Vali looked up. ‘So he has decided to take on MarTech again,’ he said to the empty house.

  As the tone in the air died away, Vali got to his feet and went through to the small kitchen area, reached down, and lifted a hatch cut into the floor. Then he dropped down into the darkness below and entered another world.

  Vali very much enjoyed his Viking farmstead. He could spend hours correcting minor flaws, improving textures, just making the place feel as real as possible. He had done what he considered to be a good job of ensuring that the artefacts he needed to run Niflhel from there were appropriate for the theme, but they did introduce an element of inefficiency which, at times, it was better to abandon.

  The viron below the house was pure high-tech. Virtual screens hovered in empty space. Gravity did what Vali required it to as he navigated the environment. His operations centre had every modern facility to manage his network of servers and their connections to the internet. It was also quite capable of various activities, legal and illegal, outside Vali’s domain. Right now, the screens were showing reports and maps of the attack on the Sakura concert site.

  ‘Multiple sources,’ Vali mused. ‘He’s attempting to combine sophistication with brute force. Overwhelm the defences enough to sneak something inside in the confusion.’ Vali pursed his lips. ‘It might work. Let’s see how you like being stalked yourself, Minotaur.’

  Baltimore–Washington Metro.

  The lead tech on the network security team gulped down coffee like his life depended on it. He was sweating. He had instituted a rolling sequence of short breaks for his team about thirty minutes earlier and had finally decided to take one for himself.

  ‘He’s throwing everything at us. We know what he’s up to, but with the speed of new attacks, all we can do is fight fires as they come up.’

  ‘And that’s what he wants,’ Fox said. ‘He’s trying to overwhelm you.’

  ‘Yeah. We think he’s failing, but we won’t know for sure until after. Probably. Ninety minutes of solid intrusion… Man, this guy wants in and he doesn’t care who knows it.’

  Fox nodded. ‘It’s stupid. He’s got to know we’ll eventually track him down if he keeps this up.’

  ‘Huh. We won’t because we’re too busy. And from what I read in the forensic reports, by the time this is over, he’ll have wiped out any evidence there was of where he’s physically located.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess–’

  ‘It’s dropping off!’ The cry came from one of the other techs and their boss jumped on it. On the screens, it seemed like there were fewer new alerts on the attention list, and the number of active ones being processed looked lower.

  ‘As soon as anyone’s free of immediate threats, start running internal diagnostics,’ the lead tech said.

  ‘Focus on the cambot and media distribution systems,’ Fox suggested. ‘At first anyway.’

  ‘Like the lady says.’ The boss man strode toward his own terminal. ‘Let’s get this cleared down, gentlemen and ladies.’

  Fox frowned at the displays, but it was Helen who voiced her concern. ‘So he’s backed off. Question is why?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s a really good question.’

  Niflhel.

  Vali glowered balefully at his displays, and he could manage a mean baleful glower when he meant it. He had narrowed the area Minotaur was operating from down to a ten-block region on the north side of the Brooklyn Sprawl before Minotaur had realised he was being tracked and pulled in his horns, so to speak. Now it was going to get harder.

  A thought pulled up a number of mapping displays of the area: topographical, historic street map, current street map, network coverage map, satellite images of various types. There were several modern apartment blocks there. Someone had built a wall along what had been called Jamaica Avenue to isolate the jobless from those with an income. The Sprawl began a little south of it, but there was some coverage from the more affluent area into the slums.

  Minotaur would not be risking the vagaries of wireless, however. No, he had to be somewhere with a fixed line, probably a fat one. So it was going to be one of the apartment blocks north of the wall… Unless one of the two notably hot buildings visible on the satellite thermal image, which Vali was not technically allowed access to, was due to a lot of computer equipment pumping out heat.

  A two-pronged search then, appropriate considering the target. If Minotaur was in one of the apartments, it would show unusual network activity. That meant hacking a number of ISPs, which Vali was not going to mention to Kit. If Minotaur was out on the edge of the Sprawl, someone had to lay cable to it, and that meant hacking some more mundane suppliers.

  Vali smiled. Something of a challenge, but he felt sure of one thing: Minotaur was going down tonight.

  Baltimore–Washington Metro.

  If Minotaur wanted to spy on the after-show party which had been arranged for the end of the US leg of Sakura’s tour, hacking skills were not a requirement.

  ‘There are currently fourteen live LifeWeb streams from implants here,’ Kit informed Fox. Kit was walking around beside Fox, in plain sight for anyone with an implant or wearable anyway, because Sakura had more or less insisted that Kit deserved a party night. Misaki was also attending her owner, so it was not simply that Kit had an interesting avatar.

  ‘I doubt Minotaur is interested,’ Fox said. ‘Publicly accessible feeds aren’t going to give him the same high as cracking private ones. No challenge, no sense of ownership.’

  ‘And I am monitoring LifeWeb’s security centre. There have been no attempts to infiltrate to secure a feed for his own use.’

  ‘He knows LifeWeb is a tough one, but… I still can’t quite figure out why he just shut off his attack on the concert.’

  ‘That was strange.’

  ‘Hey, how’s it going? Love the dress.’ Charlie Iberson’s arrival cut off further conversation, but Fox was not sure what more there was to say right now.

  ‘Do you practise that flat delivery in a mirror?’ Fox asked, smirking.

  ‘I am required to maintain my bitchy persona by the studio contract. The dress is hot though. Short, black, halterneck. And on your frame… If I wasn’t in a meaningful relationship, I’d hit on you.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘Huh. Never thought I’d see you without a gun though.’

  Fox grinned. ‘I’ve got a gun.’

  Iberson’s eyebrow went up. ‘Taped between your boobs?’

  ‘Custom holster, inner le
ft thigh. It’s a small electrolaser. Palladium has the best toys.’

  Looking down at Fox’s hemline, Iberson said, ‘Don’t bend over. Everyone will see your… gun.’

  ‘Least of my worries. How’s Nishi doing?’

  ‘She hates these shindigs. Take some time to talk to her, she’ll appreciate the change from fawning pseudo-friends.’

  ‘How does someone like you end up in… You called it the Big Top, right?’

  ‘This doesn’t remind you of a circus? Athena took a chance on me when Straight Talk was being proposed. Elaine put me forward as co-host and they said they’d try it. I don’t think anyone thought I’d last. Too acidic, too nasty. Everyone would hate me, blah, blah. Turns out, people like some straight talk on a show called Straight Talk. Now I’m kind of stuck with the ice-bitch thing and it’s been just a little harder to keep up since I met Nishi. Your friend Teresa is right. Nishi’s my Achilles heel. She turns me into a teddy bear.’

  ‘Uh-huh, right. One of those ones from the horror movies with fangs. The kind that leaps out from closets and mauls people to death.’

  ‘You say the nicest things. Really, I was doubting my credentials and now I think I’m ready to bite someone’s head off.’

  ‘Fox,’ Kit said, ‘I have had a message through from Vali. He says he needs to talk. I can send a copy.’

  Fox nodded. ‘Wonder what he wants. Apart from your copy in a compromising position, obviously.’

  ‘I will find out when I resync.’

  Iberson’s lips twisted into a little smirk. ‘I hope you made this guy work for it, Kit. Someone should have to try to get a sweet tail like that.’

  Kit’s cheeks coloured, but Fox got in before the AI could answer. ‘Oh, you haven’t seen Kit in action. She makes you look like a pussycat. She was stringing him along for months. There were times when I thought he’d burst into tears, or maybe swallow his tongue.’

  ‘Wow. Kit, honey, you and I are going to have to chat. I may take notes.’

  ‘I have no idea what you mean, Miss Iberson,’ Kit replied, rallying. ‘I am sweet and innocent. Why, I am barely over a year old.’

  Iberson’s mouth opened and then closed again. ‘Man, she’s good.’