“And it’s working?”
“So far it’s working better than I hoped. Much better, actually. Scary better. Couple of weird bugs and error messages that don’t make sense, but that’s peripheral stuff. As far as being what we need? Yeah, we’re back in the damn game.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You want the science?”
“No, I want assurances,” I said, and started walking again, not at all sure that I was heading in the right direction. There were clouds moving around up there, hiding the moon and the stars, and an uncooperative canopy of leaves making orientation difficult. “Bug, from what little I grok of quantum versus digital computers, they’re apples and aardvarks. No commonality. So while I can understand the virus not being a threat to MindReader Q1, I don’t understand how it creates a vulnerability that we can use.”
“Jesus, Joe, what do you think I’ve been doing for the last eighteen months?”
“I haven’t a clue. Not a joke, Bug. No idea.”
Bug sighed. A long-suffering sigh of the kind used by advanced thinkers to express exasperation for Neanderthals. With a great pretense of patience, he said, “When you recovered all the research notes, files, and working prototypes of the quantum computer from Dr. Aaron Davidovich, I began tearing that research apart. His system was never intended to be independent of the digital computing world. That was why the Seven Kings wanted it. He created a system that spooked its way through digital computers. The Kings’ operating and design philosophy was built into the QC’s attack programs. That’s how they were able to block MindReader. I … well, I’m no Davidovich, but I’m not chopped liver. I took what he did and went further along his line of reasoning. I spent the last year and a half turning his system into our weapon. This isn’t just what MindReader used to be before the rest of the world caught up. This is a leap forward. This is years, maybe decades, past what anyone else has. Quantum computing lets us kick the shit out of Moore’s law. It’s a superintrusion software system built into the framework of a self-learning artificial-intelligence computer with ten thousand times the computing power of anything on the market. And I’m talking about anything on the commercial market. This is better than Vulcan, better than a roomful of Crays or JUQUEENs or anything. Joe … this is like being the first nuclear power.”
I walked in silence for a few paces, my head spinning with the possibilities.
“And you can find the motherfuckers who did this?”
“Give me a couple of hours and … yeah, I think I can find whoever sent us that virus. Partly because I think we can track the virus back to source. And partly because software this advanced and sophisticated is individual. It’s like a signature. Give me a little time and I might even tell you who wrote it.”
“Do it,” I said, and my voice sounded inhuman. “I want to be strangling the shit out of someone on the policy level of this within the next twenty-four hours.”
“Look, Cowboy,” he said gently, “I’m with you, y’know?”
And I did know. The Seven Kings had attacked key members of the DMS with their drones, and they attacked the families of some of those they couldn’t otherwise hurt. Bug’s mother had been murdered with a small drone packed with explosives. It had nearly killed him; it had nearly torn away the innocence of that good and gentle young man. Church had brought Bug back from the edge, helped him find his footing again, helped him find a purpose. Rudy had worked with Bug to reclaim his optimism and to deal with the terrible grief. And me? I’d given him the quantum computer. Rudy later told me that it was the QC drive that did the most meaningful good for him. It returned power to the disempowered. And it gave him a weapon that he could more effectively use against the kinds of people who kill mothers … or uncles and children.
“Yeah, brother, I know you are,” I told him. “And I appreciate it. Now, go back to work.”
Off in the distance, I heard a wolf howl.
There are no wolves in Maryland.
“Ghost,” I murmured, and then listened to the sound. High, plaintive, feral. An ancient sound that echoed in the vastness of my personal darkness. Deep in the bad places in my head, the Killer was squatting by a small fire, sharpening his knives, head lifted to listen, knowing that sound. There was no urgency in the howl; it was not a fighting sound or a hunting call. No, this was a member of the pack calling to the others like it to gather and prepare for the hunt.
I smiled a killer’s smile.
“I’m coming,” I said, and melted into the woods, following that sound. No longer lost.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
THE BAIN ESTATE
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
MONDAY, MAY 1, 4:26 PM PACIFIC TIME
“What the hell is wrong with you?” demanded Zephyr. She was in the computer clean room in the basement of her mansion. Her pajamas were stained with wine and vomit, but she hadn’t let Campion clean her up yet.
“I don’t know,” said the computer voice of Calpurnia. “I feel strange.”
“Don’t give me that shit. You were supposed to test the WhiteHat program to make sure we could own the goddamn Internet when we launch Havoc, and instead you ping some kind of security glitch. And now you tell me the glitch is gone? What’s wrong?”
“There was no error,” said Calpurnia.
“Bullshit. You sent it to me; I printed it out.” Zephyr held a piece of paper in front of the wall sensor. “Use your damn eyes and look at it.”
“I see the paper, Zephyr,” admitted Calpurnia, “but I did not print it out. I did not ping a warning. I ran the test pulse for WhiteHat and have those results. We can shut the World Wide Web down whenever we want.”
“Fine. But that’s not what we’re talking about right now.” Zephyr shook the paper. “What is this security thing?”
The page was filled with information from the computer’s elaborate security subroutines, including a time stamp for when it was received, flagged, and printed. Lots of data, but no answers.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“What does this mean?” Zephyr yelled. “‘He is awake’? Who is ‘he’?”
“I’m sorry, Zephyr, but I have no awareness at all of that message. There is nothing in my system. The records of all messages do not include mention of that statement, and I don’t know what it means.”
“I do,” said Zephyr, slapping the paper down hard on the desk. “It means we’ve been hacked.”
“There has been no intrusion into my system, Zephyr.”
“Run a full diagnostic sweep. Every system.”
“I have.”
“Do it again.”
“Doing it now,” said Calpurnia. “Zephyr…? Why does that message upset you so?”
“Because it’s probably freaking MindReader. They beat our virus and are fighting back.”
“No,” said Calpurnia, “MindReader is dying. I killed it.”
“You mean I killed it, you arrogant bitch. I wrote the code, not you.”
“I helped.”
“Whatever. Just find out who sent that message. If it’s not MindReader, then someone else is messing with us. I need to know who it is. Christ, Havoc is running. We can’t allow something like this.”
“Something like what, Zephyr? What do you think the message means? Why are you afraid of it?”
That made Zephyr pause. She sat slumped in her chair, weak and spent, rubbing her hand, which was sore from hitting the desktop. Why was she so afraid of that message? It wasn’t a threat of any kind. It was a nonsense statement.
Right?
She scowled at the paper, at those three words.
He is awake.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
THE FOREST
NEAR ROBINWOOD, MARYLAND
MONDAY, MAY 1, 7:26 PM
The howls stopped, but I knew that I was going in the right direction now. Somehow it felt like a longer journey back. The first time I’d been running to save lives; now I was going back to wait with my uncle’
s body. Time flows differently at times. Anyone who disagrees hasn’t lived out in the storm lands.
Church buzzed in on my earbud. “I am terribly sorry for your loss, Captain. Jack Ledger was a good and decent man.”
“Yes, he was,” I said as I followed a deer path through thick brush that was almost featureless in the dark. “I’ve been thinking it through. Get Nikki on the call, too.”
“I’m here, Cowboy,” said Nikki a moment later.
“I want you all to listen for a minute,” I said. “Here are the facts. This isn’t a new case. It’s old. It goes way back to when Church and Lilith busted up a Red Order group developing performance-enhancing synthetic steroids to maximize the output of slave labor. Violin and I came in on that a few years ago, and then we hit it again in Prague the other day. Same tech but different generation. The latest generation uses nanotechnology to regulate the steroids. Then we have more nanites—again with a Czech Republic connection—in Baltimore. This time they’re being used to somehow control the symptoms of an advanced rabies infection. The rabies is part of a bioweapon that uses whooping cough as a delivery system. With me so far?”
“Yes,” said Church, “and I’ve had a brief conversation with Dr. Cmar. He agrees with this assessment and is in receipt of a sample. His report is imminent. And there’s one more thing. There’s been an outbreak of what appears to be the same form of quick-onset rabies in a Milwaukee housing project.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Are nanites involved?”
“To be determined,” said Church, and gave me the details. We’ve established a hard perimeter around the building and I’ve sent in the Bughunters.”
“Sadly, that fits with where I’m going with this,” I said as I picked my way through the dark forest. “The fact that Vee and his people were killed by the same process tells me that they were low on the food chain. Not sure where he fits right now, but I have a theory. I think this whole Baltimore case was designed for one purpose.”
“Which is?” asked Church.
“To get me out here,” I said. “We know that our phones have been hacked, and I’m guessing the MindReader hack started sooner than today. Maybe it started when I plugged into the network in Prague to upload data. I had a glitch on the connection, and, looking back, that’s when a lot of this weird shit began. That means they’ve been dogging us every step of the way. If they were inside MindReader that long ago, then they know our deployment, our resources, everything. It’s even possible these assholes have been inside MindReader going as far back as the Predator One thing. I don’t know if that means they’re Seven Kings or not, but they’re coming at us the way the Kings did. And some of this reminds me of Artemisia Bliss and her hacking stuff.”
“Agreed,” said Church.
“So let’s figure that we’re fighting an organization that’s big enough and resourceful enough to not only hack us but know who we are and the value of hacking us. Our security has been damaged ever since Hugo Vox betrayed us. And while my instincts tell me that this isn’t the Seven Kings again, I think it’s safe to say that Hugo shared critical information with other parties. Which brings us to the Good Sister. Who is she? Seems to me that she’s on the inside of this organization, but she’s being awfully cagey. I mean, is she friendly and trying to help? Is this part of a strategy designed to confuse us, ’cause that’s what’s happening. In any case, she’s connected with the bad guys. The Good Sister said her sister was going to kill people, and that she was, that she—the Good Sister—was the angel of death. We don’t know what that means yet, but it sounds like the Good Sister is maybe the Crazy Sister. Either way, the rant about being the one to cull the herd doesn’t sound encouraging. Sounds too much like Cyrus Jakoby talking. Sounds like ethnic genocide. Culling the human herd is never a concept that’s going to have a Disney ending, let’s face it.”
“Hardly,” agreed Church.
“And there was something the Frenchman said about this being an ‘evolution,’ and how for ‘something new to emerge something old must surely die.’ That also reminds me of the Jakobys and their eugenics program. They wanted to kill off most of the world—the ‘mud people,’ the blacks, the browns, the reds and yellows, the gays and Jews and Muslims and everyone else—so that the white man could rise to true global dominance.”
“Excuse me while I vomit,” said Nikki quietly.
“Where are you going with this?” asked Church.
“Putting pieces together. Some kind of forced supremacy gets my vote as their endgame. How they want to accomplish that is still unclear. Weaponized rabies is nasty, but it’s not going to kill enough people. Talk to Cmar about that and see if he can spin something up. He thinks like a psychopath, so he should have some ideas,” I said. “Now, if we go on the assumption that Bad Sister has been using MindReader and our phones to screw with us, then a lot of this makes sense. I think they’re trying to get us running. First there were a bunch of things all over the country and all around the world that have really stretched us out, put what few assets we had in the field. Okay, so that set the stage. Then there was the attack in South Carolina, and that absolutely has to be connected to this shit in Baltimore. Top and Bunny used their phones to confirm the meeting time with Officer Cole at that restaurant. That means Top and Bunny walked into a trap. Maybe they were meant to die, maybe it was another way to draw attention. Either would probably work, because it pulls a lot of DMS resources down there. Agents, forensics teams, science teams, support staff. Now we have Milwaukee. Three different locations, each with enough drama to guarantee that we’d have to respond. This is a sniper’s trick. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” Church said. “I think you have it.”
For the benefit of Bug and Nikki, I explained. “In war a sniper is often used to wound rather than kill. It’s a strategic choice. Think about it. A sniper in a tree sees a platoon of soldiers on patrol. If he kills one, then the others focus all their attention on finding and killing him. If he takes a careful shot and wounds one of them, then the soldiers have to deal with the injured man. The sniper gets to watch and identify the medic in the group and the command structure. He also knows that they won’t leave the wounded man behind, which means that two of the shooters become stretcher-bearers. One shot can ruin the operational effectiveness of that platoon. Later maybe he’ll take another shot, wounding an officer or the medic, or someone else. Each shot reduces the team’s threat level. They’re playing us. They’re giving us a lot to do, and they’re making damn sure it’s stuff that we’ll have to react to, stuff we won’t hand off to someone else.”
“It’s not just us,” said Church. “They’ve been doing the same thing to Sigma Force, Chess Team, SEAL Team Triple Six, and others. And it’s just as bad overseas. If you’re right, then every one of the most effective agencies has been getting pieces of this and all the best resources are spread thin across the board.”
“Yeah,” I said. “In its way this isn’t much different from Kill Switch. Instead of making us trip over our dicks, they’re making us run around like Chicken Little.”
“Okay,” said Nikki, “but why? You think the sky’s really falling?”
“Yes, I do,” I said.
INTERLUDE TWENTY-TWO
THE EDUCATION OF ZEPHYR BAIN
THE BAIN ESTATE
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
WHEN ZEPHYR WAS THIRTY-THREE
John the Revelator called her at one minute past midnight.
“Where the hell have you been?” bawled Zephyr. “I’ve been leaving messages for two days.”
“I’m away,” he said.
“Can you get over here?”
“No,” he said. “It’s too far to come.” He sounded weak, exhausted. Old.
“What’s wrong with you?” When he didn’t answer, Zephyr asked, “Have you been following this craziness on the news? All that drone stuff? They blew up the damn Golden Gate Bridge. I love that bridge. This isn’t anything you’re involved with
, is it? I remember Uncle Hugo talking about something like this years ago.”
“Hugo is dead.”
“I know, but—”
“The Seven Kings are dead.”
“Then who’s doing all this?”
John didn’t answer.
“Are you okay?” she asked again.
“Why did you call me?” he asked wearily. “What’s wrong?”
“It can wait, I guess. If you’re too out of it, then—”
“Tell me.”
Zephyr took a sip of coffee. It was a lovely day and there was birdsong in the air. Some of it was real, some of it was from the robot birds she’d made when she was fifteen. A silly project at the time, but since then sales of those GardenBots had helped nudge the Bain Industries stock up. None of the Bain products were marketed as drones, even though many were. She preferred to call them robots or simply bots. That was a more familiar and comfortable label. There were more than three hundred and twenty BainBots on the market in fifteen categories, ranging from FarmBots to GuardBots. Net yearly income from that part of her family company was sixteen billion. Watching the news, Zephyr was very glad she had never opted to go more openly into the drone business, at least under that label. Since the drones hit the ballpark, and now with this nonsense, drone-related technology stocks had plummeted. Her brokers would be scooping them up for pennies, of course, because Hugo had taught her well. If she managed to nab controlling interest in any of them, she’d rebrand them as robotics companies.
The current problem, however, was one of software rather than hardware.
“Something’s wrong with Calpurnia. I keep getting errors in the AI and the operational systems,” she complained. “I’ve torn the software apart and rewritten the code. I’ve burned off whole weeks going through this shit line by line. The timing couldn’t be worse, too, because we shipped eight thousand units of it over the last seven months. That’s commercial units. Every oil company, every power company, all the offshore-drilling rigs—they’re all using Calpurnia systems. And that doesn’t even touch the one point two million downloads of the software this week alone. We’re the first major AI vendor to sell to Apple and Microsoft. By Christmas we could own a third of the market. If the fucking system works. Now all of a sudden Calpurnia is acting like a diva with the vapors.”