GOD OF THE MACHINE
By
Elijah Stephens
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PUBLISHED BY:
Liquid Heaven Productions™
God of the Machine
Copyright © 2013 by Elijah Stephens
Futuristic Science Fiction
Infinity Point™ Anthology Volume 1
Dynasty Zero
Diabolos
Anamorphosis
The Violent Awakening
The Moonlight Child
Paranormal Science Fiction
The Pattern Volume 1
The Overlap
The Harvest of Area 51
The Apocalypse Internal
The Pattern Volume 2
Frankenstein’s Shadow (Part 1)
The Shepherds of Arcadia (Part 2)
The Dark Crown Goddess (Part 3)
The Golden Door (Part 4)
The World Within (Part 5)
Asylum (Part 6)
Historical Epics
Otherworld
Prophets of the Wasteland
Hellrunner
Pride of the Britons
Ancient Japan
The Poison Lotus
The Floating World (Book 1)
The Rise of the Last Rebellion (Book 2)
The Lotus and the Sword (Book 3)
The White Rider
Short Story Compilation
Ghost Dance
Poetry Compilation
The Woman Clothed with the Sun
Non-Fiction
The Cycle of the Infinite:
Metaphysical Handbook for the Sublime Oddity of Creation
Being and Non-Being:
The Alchemist Guide for Transpersonal Psychology
The Royal House of Terra:
A Semiotic Introduction to Comparative Mythology
Sin-eaters:
Ascension Principles and the Shamanic Tradition
Reviews are greatly appreciated and there are plenty of free eBooks available at my website: www.liquidheavenlive.com
* * * * *
GOD OF THE MACHINE
* * * * *
Kyle Arkane ushered a dazed Jordan Kepp into the cell-block built between the Special Police headquarters and their underground parking garage. The suspect’s arms were locked up to his elbows in steel encasement, and wires attached to an electro-inhibitor sent short bursts into his cybernetics, overloading the motors and making his movements sluggish. Once through the door, Kyle left him with an android guard who was big enough to physically dominate any criminal brought in. At the front desk, a robot took care of the bureaucratic filing already downloaded from the Assistant’s database.
An impatient man with them was dressed as an on-duty medic. “I don’t understand why I’ve been brought here,” said Rowan Merrick, who seemed devoid of any sense of humor.
Arkane pushed his dark hair out of his green eyes and walked through an armory with supplies locked behind reinforced barriers. “Neither do I, but it was an order from higher up. Stop complaining or they’ll threaten you with indictment.”
In the main office, they were greeted by a preoccupied Captain who came to personally deliver an official request. He was holding a paper-thin computer screen that organized the tasks of their MegaBureaucracy with constant updates on field agents investigating robotics infractions citywide.
“Why am I here?” Rowan asked. “I wasn’t finished with my shift.”
“It’s not my jurisdiction,” the Captain replied with a permanent scowl.
“I brought in the target,” said Kyle.
“I thought you were ordered to desist...”
“He doubled back to his car, so I ambushed him.”
His boss shook his head in dismay. “And I take it your arrest wasn’t recorded by any spybots again? Stay smart with procedure or the entire department will be gutted by a slew of First World Government inquiries. I’ll have to leave AMBIS out of the arrest report,” he concluded, referring to the Advanced Magneto Brain Impulse Scanner which acted as an MRI equivalent, using radio waves reflecting off neurons with an atomic magnetometer to detect and translate magnetic fields in the brain. “My office has been taken over by the Director of the Los Angeles Office of International Security. He’s the one who called you in.” The Captain gestured to Rowan. “You as well.”
Arkane led the medic beyond a dormitory section for officers on extended duty and into the Captain’s office, where the lights were dimmed. A middle-aged man sat in the corner on one of the lounge chairs attached to remote Braincase units. He stood after clearing his vision and replaced the wireless dome to its locked position above him. His gray hair was cut short like all government workers and there was a kind of brutal intelligence within him.
Kyle didn’t wait for introductions. “What is this about?”
“I should remind you first that this is legally unnecessary, by law I can draft you into new positions without asking for your consent. To be polite, I decided to come in person. I’m the Director of the OIS, are you aware of what our subdivision of the International Security Council was created for?”
“I’m a medic for district twelve of the Skyride Emergency Outfit,” said Rowan. “There’s no reason this has anything to do with me. Whoever this officer brought in was recorded on enough local external cameras to assure a conviction for causing that accident on the el-road. I didn’t arrive to the scene until afterwards, so my testimony can prove nothing.”
“Call me Odin,” said the Director, stretching his mostly organic body before accessing the monitor. “You managed to bring in Jordan Kepp after being told to abandon your pursuit. How did your Captain react to this?”
“He wasn’t surprised, if that’s what you mean.” Kyle thought he might be entering the preliminary stages of an internal investigation, even if the Director didn’t seem to be connected to the IAD. “The official record of tonight’s events is stored on the Wire for reference. The spybots –”
“This is a matter that should be handled individually,” Odin interrupted, then he said to Rowan, “I will be with you shortly in interrogation room three.”
The medic walked to the door. “Am I under arrest?”
“Both of you are being rewarded, not punished,” replied the Director, but after they were alone, his demeanor became stilted. “Kyle Arkane, you’re a distinguished agent with an exemplary conduct record full of holes that nobody seems to pay attention to.”
“What is this really about?”
“It’s a long story and most of it is classified, for that we’ll have to use the Wire. I was just arranging a meeting with Regional Directors.” Odin motioned to the chairs and Braincase units as he used the touchscreen monitor to upload an encrypted file. “The official record will never display your talents, will it? Jordan Kepp evaded the four spybots originally allowed for your investigation, and he did so due to the archaic design of the models assigned to you. The fifth one that you had your Assistant deploy maintained its transmission, even when you caught him returning to his vehicle.”
“You were the one riding the signal,” Kyle realized. “The Assistant told me that the Feds were observing.”
“They were, but for different reasons. And they only saw the official record, I made sure of it.”
“The android I saw near the Flesh Scene, that watcher was yours too.”
The Director nodded. “Yes, but that recon droid wasn’t there for you.”
The video of the fifth spybot was an aerial view of an empty street. Jordan Kepp landed from a three-story drop near his car. As soon as he entered the frame, Arkane ambushed him in a blitz attack. With blue light expanding from his fist, he overloaded the man’s electrical
core and shorted out his new implants.
“I can explain,” he started.
“The Hammer is a suitable non-lethal device,” said Odin. “But it isn’t capable of incapacitating the criminals you routinely collar. I helped to design the Hammer and its prototype cousin, a new technology created with an entirely different purpose, but the first electro-stunner model did not do what is on this video.”
“Then I guess I can’t explain. Have I broken any laws?”
“More than I can count, which is the problem,” replied the Director. “No one else has seen this and no one will.”
“Jordan Kepp was apprehended with an untraceable firearm that he purchased along with upgrades from the Engineer,” Kyle said defensively. “You should have eyes on him.”
“We do, I said so before.”
“That’s why the scout-spy was collecting intel?”
Odin nodded. “The Engineer is what this is all about. The fact is, I am fully aware that you’re a genosapien, the only problem is that your current career isn’t using you to your full potential. They send you on futile missions and use your work to bypass their efforts on a Federal level. You’re seen as less important than other agents because you’re not artificial, and you haven’t replaced any organs through recombinant fabrication. You’re a genetic miracle and the only reason they keep you around is because you do the job better than they can. You rate higher than agents who are seventy-percent biomech, yet they send you out with ancient spybot technology. When you do succeed, you have to step outside the lines and waste energy covering your tracks. I’m here to offer you a new job.”
“And how did you find out about me?”
“Don’t worry, this story is stranger than you can imagine. I assume you’d like to move to the next level, so I’m offering you a shortcut to the top.”
Kyle nodded. “You must be desperate if you need someone with zero robotics and little control over his powers.”
“Do you want to understand them? I’ve already recruited some brilliant men who have a pet theory about you involving quantum hydrodynamics. They believe that you can channel kinetic energy. We also have a replacement to the chameleon projector you’ve been using, but metamaterials that bend electromagnetic waves are completely untested in the field.”
“So I’ll become a weapon for the OIS and Rowan will be a healer? Who’s overseeing funding that would allow this?”
“I guarantee that you’ll be completely unrestrained before this mission is over,” the Director promised. “As part of an auxiliary team behind biomechs and androids, your involvement doesn’t have to be revealed to the Senate Sub-Committee.”
“So this is a polite introduction, if you’re recruiting me.”
“The Office of International Security is a subdivision that polices corporate mercenary action globally, so yes, this is a severe situation.”
“And the rest is classified, right?” Arkane assumed. “I have to agree to the mission before you tell me what it is.”
“And you’ll be dismantled like a robot if you do anything to hinder the primary team,” Odin replied, as if the risk was outweighed by the reward.
“I don’t think I’ll refuse a promotion...”
“Then have a seat and we’ll begin. Our secured line within the global network is called the Cave, it’s used by the government for debriefings and formal inquests.”
Kyle sat on one of the comfortable chairs and lowered the Braincase unit from its sedentary position above him, adjusting it so that the goggles covered his eyes. He was soon staring at a loadscreen as flashing pixels broke apart and flooded towards him. The first code-barriers dropped to a quick retinal scan of the Director. When the cascading flare disintegrated, only a virtual room with no walls or ceiling remained. Surrounded by infinite light, a circle of seats were filled with stern bureaucrats referencing semi-translucent projectors.
“These are all First World Government officials,” said the foreperson of the virtual meeting in the Cave. She was unusually monotone, and it seemed that the others were synthetic after spending most of their time as emotionless intellects. “We should refer to each Director by regional influence to avoid excessively identifying ourselves. This is a debriefing of case number four-oh-seven-seven of the Office of International Security for new recruit Kyle Arkane, former agent with the Robotics Division of the Special Police. I will leave the rest of these proceedings to the Regional Director of the Los Angeles office. We have now gone secure.”
“This is the jurisdiction of my agents,” Odin said with his domineering presence. “Pertaining to the capture of Eperiam Townsend, also known as the Engineer, a former upper-level mechanical technician with the First World Government before he was discovered selling licensed secrets to both sides of the war between India and China. Their tension and its localization in the wastelands of Asia, along with the scale of robotic massacre instead of human casualties, have politically made it a constant but minor nuisance. That is, until China revealed its new annihilation model, the stolen Prototype XR-41.” The other Directors shifted in their seats at the mention of what kept them awake at night, an imbalance in revolutionary technology.
Odin took a breath and continued. “When Eperiam Townsend was fired from his position handling brain-machine integration in emerging technologies, he came to LA and set up shop in the underground. Traveling within unregulated districts and removing standard legal limitations on Black Market cybernetics, the Engineer has become a major thorn in our collective side. Unfortunately, Townsend is getting back at us through his minions, and the slave-circuitry he alters is unleashing a crime wave. Have you heard of the Africa Corps?”
“Only what is televised by the Free Press,” said Kyle.
“After the century of storms, the First World Government hired extended squads of corporate mercenaries to help gentrify the corrupt rulers of the African continent. One group in particular became famous and their leader, Commander John Lothian, was elevated behind the scenes. He was universally trusted for a brief time until the OIS gathered proof that after the Africa Corps achieved autonomy for the African Union, Lothian helped mastermind Yoto Ombulo’s imperialist strategy of coercing the black population of Brazil to create political instability. His intention was to annex what was left of South America after the wars of indigenous independence were lost, but it led to a decade of revolutionaries being captured by Titan-mechs and executed in the streets. No one knew that the Africa Corps was involved until we investigated further and found a trail of investments that ended abruptly. The Tolliver MegaCorporation that asserted itself as a philanthropic force, sending in the Africa Corps to help pacify diplomatic tensions on the continent, was merely trying to expand its conglomerate to every city on the planet. With Lothian leading on-ground incursions, they became rich by going public in the United States with updated nano-technology research. Recently, the head of the OIS recorded a traced contact between Lothian and an insider at a Chinese robotics laboratory. When their money trail connected to the seemingly unrelated theft of the XR-41, we realized that the Africa Corps was planning another revolution, this time against the First World Government in Beijing.”
“So why is Los Angeles important?” Kyle wondered.
“We’ve tracked the Africa Corps here, where they hope to force the Engineer to reconfigure the Prototype.” Odin hoped the situation seemed as precarious as it was. “We’re going to assault their extraction of Eperiam Townsend, then track them back to the Prototype. We need to retrieve the XR-41 before it’s initiated, otherwise any programmed targets become ingrained within its cell core. It’s a defensive addition to make sure that it can’t be captured by the enemy and recalibrated. Are you in?”
Arkane looked over the serious countenances of the Directors and agreed, even if it was just a legal formality. The Cave transmission ended and they pulled the Braincase units from their heads.
“Good,” said Odin.
“Your willingness to fight is important. This mission won’t be your usual night on the Flesh Scene.”
Kyle rubbed his eyes. “I hope the rest of the team you’re gathering is as anxious to get the training wheels off. Rowan Merrick didn’t seem too pleased.”
“I’m sure I’ll have to convince him of his usefulness, even if he won’t be fighting on the frontline. It’s getting late, you can use the dorms here before we transfer to the OIS in the morning.”
* * * * *
The previous night was damp with an irregular weather system pulling in off the coast. A mist was moving through the city streets in the glow of radiating super-structures, and the megalithic buildings were towers with internal worlds only visible in the distance by their perpetual light. In a poorly illuminated area, under a nexus of elevated highways, Kyle stopped his car and the mechanical hum of his engine slowly faded.
“The suspect has entered the Flesh Scene. He must be on his way to the Engineer,” he said, and the communications device in his ear transmitted.
“It’s a good bet, but he hasn’t broken the law yet.”
“It’ll be a lot more difficult to arrest him afterwards.”
“Yes, that’s why they sent you, isn’t it?”
Kyle ignored the sarcastic tone and stepped into the unnatural moisture of the breeze. Local dealers considered the place a sanctuary, to avoid the intensely-regulated identity scans near the interior of the Business District, and the streets were empty except for persistent monsters roaming the Black Market. To clean up the area periodically, politicians wasted waves of augmented cops.
“Get the spybots up and I’ll track him from the ground.”
The buildings were constructed, as limited space allowed, near winding elevated roads that curved like strands of a folded web. His earpiece clicked, changing service-relay towers under the highways raised on platforms by intermediary columns. Despite being buried in the mainstream commerce, the colors of the nightclubs were enough to overwhelm him.
“And see what kind of response you get when you pursue a warrant against the Engineer himself.”