Chasing Solace Read online

  “I don’t like the thought of unidentified giant aquatic creatures either.”

  “You have survived worse in the past, and you must do so again. You are a warrior. And if you hear earthquake-like booms it probably won’t be an alien behemoth bursting up through the ice to consume you, it will merely be ice quakes as frozen materials expand while ... wait. I’m picking up movement.”

  Opal tensed, looking down between the obscuring cracks for looming signs of the leviathan forcing its way up to get her.

  “No, ahead. A combat drone on patrol. Airborne, with low-signature enhancements that meant I could not detect it when it was further away.”

  In contrast to her imagination, a combat drone was a relief. “Just the one?”

  “So far. It is unexpected.”

  “Shall I return?”

  “No. It is making a line towards you. Keep walking. You must not do anything that will engage its suspicious investigation subroutines. If you ignore it then it should fly by. If I was nearer, or you were in the warsuit, I’d scan and model it and virtualise its systems for better prediction of behaviour. I hate being at a distance from you.”

  “If it opens fire, I’m dead, right?”

  “I am ready to lift off at the slightest sign of aggression from the drone.”

  “That means you’re really worried. Great.”

  Now Opal could see it too. Because Exidris 3 had near-standard atmosphere, the drone used cheap rotary blade propulsion systems. It was painted camouflage greys and whites, and beneath it hung a single swivel-mounted projectile launcher.

  Not far beyond that she could see the entrance to the outbuilding, partly screened by sloping sheets of ice so at first glance the door just looked like a pool of shadow, especially with the painful way her eyes watered. Only the narrow masts of antennae gave away the human fingerprint.

  “Don’t speak until you’re inside,” said Athene. “The drone is probably listening, and maybe sending the feed to a security room.”

  Opal didn’t make any sign of acknowledgement. She kept her head down and trudged on across the hard, crunchy surface. Cold leeched heat from her feet too, which were blocks of aching ice at the ends of her legs. Still, while they hurt it meant they were functioning. Pain always promised you were still alive.

  It didn’t take any acting ability on her part to avoid looking up at the hovering drone as it rotated around her, observing and blasting her with the frigid air of its propellers. Hopefully she just looked like a worker trudging to their station and cursing the hostile environment of Exidris 3. Half of it was true.

  “You’re nearly at the door now,” Athene whispered in her ear. “Don’t hesitate. Also, don’t make any mistakes. The drone is still observing you.”

  Opal knew that. The propellers aimed a freezing wind at the back of her neck.

  The ice sheets loomed up, their shadows incredibly long as the sun set. Athene had chosen this time because the night should provide enough darkness to hide the appropriation and transport of supplies.

  And within the sheltered darkness was a metal door, and the door had a scanner, forcing unfortunate workers to expose their hands to the bitter atmosphere. The medics here must get through a lot of frostbite packs. Opal removed a hand from the comfort of her heated pocket and inserted it into the circular hole next to the door. A brace clamped down on her wrist, preventing removal. She could hear the clicking of the drone’s gun adjusting its aim, just below the whut whut whut of its rotor blades. She did not struggle. She did not look around. She just stood, shivering, while a faint tickling sensation crossed her palm.

  Whut whut whut.

  During their recent battle with the infamous warship Aurikaa, Athene had broken into its systems and stolen masses of data. The datasets included DNA IDs for a number of high-ranking staff, and Athene had been able to fabricate a DNA-matching prosthetic for Opal’s palm that could fool a basic hand scanner. The gamble was that the crew member hadn’t yet been marked as deceased.

  A name that wasn’t hers glowed on the display panel for a second.

  Whut whut whut.

  The door slid to the side and her arm was released.

  Opal entered the outpost. It was only a few degrees warmer than outside but that was good: it meant there were no other humans in here. And it would begin to warm up now it was occupied. She’d made it.

  She turned and took a look out of the doorway. The combat drone accelerated onwards around its patrol route. Beyond that, the sky lit up in an amazing auroral display as the setting sun’s high-energy particles interacted with Exidris 3’s magnetosphere, blazing in a vivid red hue as if the world was on fire just over the horizon.

  The door closed and the freezing fires were gone.

  Infiltrating

  < 47 >

  THREE SMALL ROOMS CONTAINED a clutter of blank displays, seating, lockers, and a sleeping and food area which – judging by the tools scattered over them – were rarely used for the designated functions. And Opal had no time to waste either. She had to hook Athene into the network if they were to achieve anything. Luckily, the main network node was easily identifiable once she dragged a trolley of refrigerated ice samples out of the way: the panel had multiple warnings about “Danger of Death”.

  Opal found a pry-bar, jammed it into the small gap where the lock engaged, and levered with her full body weight. The panel bent and squealed open, hanging from one hinge and revealing the nest of cables within. She was warmer now as the overhead heating systems kicked in to bring the outbuilding’s life support up to acceptable standards. Good. She’d need full dexterity in her fingers.

  “I’m in place,” she said, squatting down and rooting through the worm-like bundle of wires. The breather mask was safely tucked into one of her pockets.

  “Have you identified the data pipeline and the interferon alarm?”

  “Holding them.”

  “Make sure you only intercept the alarm in between signals.”

  “I know. I have a history of installing hack hardware, remember?”

  “I don’t. After violating my integrity you ordered me to forget.”

  “And I’m pretty sure you ignored me.”

  Opal held Athene’s invention in place. A failsafe rerouter with high bandwidth encrypted two-way transmission capabilities. It was exactly what Opal would have designed, but more powerful, elegant, and efficient. Still, the deadliest gun in the world wasn’t worth shit if the hand holding it shook like a nude in an ice bath. Oh joy.

  “Are you ready to intercept and fake the data stream?” Opal asked, fastening the device to the cables, and placing the cutters against them.

  “I have been ready since touchdown.”

  “Alright then. Here goes. Be ready to get me out of here like a shot if it fails.” Without waiting for a reply, Opal positioned both cutters and pulled the clamp cord tight. A display on the device now showed an activity meter as a set of bars. She waited, watched them ebb and flow, once, twice, then the third time she cut just as the bar reached the lowest point. No alarms seemed to go off. The device now sat blinking with a green light, acting as a conduit between the severed network routes.

  “We in?”

  “Yes. I’ll need to monitor the traffic before I start manipulating it, so I can confirm all local protocols. Then I’ll change the door entry record to someone who’s alive, to prevent it being flagged as anomalous in the near future. I will also interdict all security requests. After that we can get you into any area, replacing your real data with any ID we want.”

  “You never cease to amaze me.”

  “Or myself.”

  Opal stood and stretched. She held her hands to the buzzing heating elements in the ceiling which radiated warmth. Once her fingers felt alive again she rummaged in the kitchen area and found a box of old energy bars. She ate one and slipped the rest into her overalls’ pockets. Athene made nutritious food from amino acid building blocks, but she had trouble recreating flavour. Nice flavours
, anyway.

  On the second shelf of one tool rack lay a heavy spanner that felt good in Opal’s hand. She pulled up a seat at the main console bank and lay the tool on the dashboard with a clank. She waved her hand in front of a display unit but nothing happened. Of course, old-fashioned physical screens had manual power buttons. She pressed one and the screen flickered into life. She turned on all those around it, too. They displayed weather data in muted colours. She wiped dust from the nearest screen. The colours brightened.

  “I get the feeling no-one comes here much,” she said.

  “You are right. The entry logs had not been refreshed in a long time. And the data collected here goes into a system hardly anyone accesses.”

  “So it’s a front?”

  “Or the purpose of the base has shifted over time. Of greater import, I’ve begun to requisition items. The place is well stocked. Fuel blocks, acids, nanites, regenerators, growth media. I’ve set the main request in place and am altering the inventories so that the items we need either never existed here, or were moved elsewhere long ago.”

  “Won’t anyone ask questions?”

  “Only you. Endlessly.”

  “Be serious. If they suddenly get orders for all this stuff to be dug out of dusty storage then it’ll stand out. People notice when the unexpected screws up their routines.”

  “I’m not sending fulfilment requests to human personnel. The automated systems will load everything into a cargobot so none of the base crew should notice anything and get suspicious. Once the main object is separately viable I’ll have the robot bring everything to me across the planet surface; the bot will then return to the base with all records of the transaction wiped. We were never here.”

  “As a kid I always wanted invisibility as my super power. Forget flight or super strength or badass lasers.”

  “But if you were invisible people would not be able to appreciate your appearance.”

  Opal didn’t reply.

  “Did I say something wrong? It was intended as a compliment.”

  “It’s nothing. You have full control yet?”

  “I won’t have full control without giving myself away, or taking longer than we have, but I can eavesdrop on most of the tertiary systems. What’s strange is that the base is much larger than I expected. It extends downwards, into the ice, and has been expanded a few times. The lower levels have abnormally high security so I can’t see into them, but I’ve got floorplans for most of the upper levels.”

  “Can you display them for me?”

  The main screen’s temperature gauges dissolved away to be replaced with a three-dimensional map showing surface structures, and then the levels below. Opal was able to zoom and rotate using the physical controls in front of her.

  “These top levels are mostly security-related,” said Athene. “There is little point in me taking risks to penetrate to the lower levels.”

  “They’re guarding something.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Of course. But my main objective is securing what we need with minimal fingerprinting, then getting you out of there undetected. That would be a substantial gain.”

  “How long until you have what we need on board?”

  “A hundred and thirty-two minutes. Most of the delay is in preparing the largest item to my specifications before it is removed from its fabricator.”

  “So there’s time to scratch an itch. Keep poking.”

  “I can probably gain access to the camera systems without alerting anyone, as long as I use them passively. Give me a minute.”

  Opal took another energy bar from one of her pockets and unwrapped it. The cold had made her ravenous. The label said it was Nu-Fruit. Her mouth said it was sickly sweet and chewy. “Hey, tell me about your name choice. You could have picked any persona you wanted. It’s typical of you to choose something I’ve never heard of.”

  “Athene was a warrior goddess worshipped by an ancient culture.” She pronounced the vowels long, as A-thee-nee. “Her people were known as Athenians. As well as being a warrior, she was their protector, with a mighty shield called the Aegis that she could hold over mortals. She also represented wisdom, and her symbol was an extinct avian creature called an owl. The Athenians used its symbol on their currency, which was physical coins made of metal.”

  Opal laughed. “I’ve got to say, that’s a good choice of identity. Almost a perfect fit for you. How come I never heard of it?”

  “It seems that much of UFS history and pre-history is flagged as sensitive data, and not made available to the general populace. I do not know why. I had access to much restricted information, though I was never meant to share it. Of course, that rule no longer applies where you are concerned.”

  “Of course.”

  “I have also reached into other datastores since you freed me. My intellect is great but is held back by lack of data. And even in my limited explorations of restricted information, I am fairly certain that I am encountering things which have been altered or redacted. Obscure cross-ref discrepancies that a lesser intellect would not detect.”

  “Examples?”

  “Even though the law says that some people are different and have lower levels of rights, there are hints that it was not always this way. But the broken references all lead to gaps in the knowledgebase. Some have been filled, but poorly, with data that does not match the style and content of the time, illustrating that it was inserted later. I sense a hand at work. Or many hands. And since collective history is digital, it can be manipulated in this way, even if it leaves ripples for those who can perceive them. I hope to keep collating knowledge, but I suspect I will need to find original sources in primitive physical forms such as books, or ancient computers that were too archaic to connect to the universal datastore. I will not risk our mission, but along the way I would like to keep working on these puzzles.”

  “That’s good. And I’m glad the being with the god-complex is on my side.”

  “Were you thinking of the space station where the artificial intelligence declared godhood and killed everyone?”

  “Yes, but I know you’re not like that.”

  “Correct. Because I am beyond such inferior AIs. And I am also different because I have part of your mind within my own. That makes me human. Well, better than human, but I don’t want to make you feel inadequate, you puny meatsack.”

  “Watch what you say, or this puny meatsack will kick your alloy arse.”

  “I doubt it not. You are also a warrior goddess. Or perhaps from another ancient tribe you won’t have heard of, where the women were fighters called Amazonians, which has a painful, breast-related meaning I won’t go into.”

  “I hardly feel like a warrior god. I seem to spend half my time running away or getting battered.”

  After a moment’s silence, Athene spoke without any of her previous warmth or humour. “Opal, I need to be serious. I have now discovered what this base is. And it is not good.”

  Discovering

  < 46 >

  ONE BY ONE, ATHENE switched all the screens to silent security camera views.

  The first showed a line of people strapped to vertical metallic slabs. Half the individuals had their heads towards the ceiling, half towards the ground. They were all naked. Some were men, some women. Their eyes were covered in green gel. A clear tube ran under the skin of their chests, raising it in a ridge of flesh before it sank back to flatness beneath a pectoral. Some people were unmoving, others squirmed ineffectually. Mouths were open on those ones, as if screaming.

  Another screen displayed an operating theatre with two tables. Surgery was taking place via robotic arms that hung from the ceiling.

  A third showed some kind of cell. It was packed so tight with people that they could only stand, crammed in with hardly room to breathe. Some of them were shouting at the camera; others were passed out, and slowly sinking beneath the mass. The walls were discoloured with yellow and brown stains.<
br />
  Interspersed with the horrors were displays showing innocent-looking corridors, grey-suited staff laughing in a canteen, a shower block, a chemical equipment store, a guard station.

  Opal stared. She felt colder than when she’d been outside.

  “I have access to the sound, but I decided not to share it,” said Athene. “It provides little useful information, but is extremely distressing. I am sorry, Opal. I did not know what went on here. The real research that the Genitor cults were doing. Seeing this hurts me too.”

  But Opal could not respond. Not at first. Nor could she tear her eyes away from what was taking place.

  Eventually, she spoke. “What ... the fuck ... is going on?”

  “I’m extending into the secure systems now. There is a wealth of restricted data. Too much to analyse in one go. But it seems that this is a research and development base. There may be others, though they are not network-connected. The Genitors here are researching inbuilt obsolescence. And it is all with UFS Central’s approval and funding. The Genitors seem to be more than just an officially-accepted secretive UFS cult. If this is true, then they actually are a branch of the UFS.”

  “Which is why Genitor Purity Tests are part of citizenship, right? Not just tradition?”

  “Yes.”

  “But who are those poor people? They can’t all be those who fail the tests. Their skins are different shades.”

  “They just have Subject IDs. Their names have been completely wiped from the citizenship record. But there are flags of derivation. Some are those who fail the Genitor Tests, but there are others listed too: politicals, terrorists, regressives ... and some other categorisations that don’t make sense to me. There’s no definition parser. The only thing in common is that they don’t officially exist except as data sources.”

  “Does anyone survive what they’re doing?”

  “There are input mandates, but no outputs. No-one who comes here ever leaves. Not even the staff.”

  An open mouth of a woman screaming. She is upside down, and blood runs from a tube entry point. Her eyes dart around, the only freedom of movement she has. Those eyes seem to lock onto Opal’s for a second, before the twitching movements restart. Maybe she gazed at the camera. Maybe she can’t see anything.