Time Bandits Page 6

  “And why are you telling me this?” Kendra asked the hologram. “Surely you have security protocols in place for releasing information that’s this classified. I can’t believe my earlier intimidation tactics did more than bump me up one clearance level.”

  “The AI running the building and communicating with you now has an intellect several quantum measures above any human’s. What’s more, she is able to scan the minds of all the geniuses working within the building and is thus able to procure a networked intelligence from the synthesis that none of them is capable of in isolation. Neither uber-mind has any problem with your chasing down Clyde Barker on your own. The sooner he’s found and taken out of commission the better for everybody.”

  “Who’s to say I won’t take his side of things?” Kendra asked.

  “Because now that you’re inside the building I can scan your mind as well.” The old geezer’s voice had changed to a beguiling female voice to indicate the building’s AI was no longer maintaining the ruse of dialoging only indirectly with her. Kendra found herself taking a half step back.

  She swallowed hard. “I presume you’re networked with other building AIs across the city. You’re telling me that hive mind can’t track him either?”

  “That should tell you something.”

  “Yes, it tells me quite a lot, actually,” Kendra mumbled, her mind reeling.

  Torin made a throat clearing sound to help with redirecting the conversation. “What psychic tech enhancement abilities are you focused on that Clyde Barker was impatient with?”

  “Mind chips, better yet, nano capable of migrating to synaptic junctions in the brain, are the best way to do genuine psychic enhancement. Though we use the word “psychic” loosely. Minds could simply radio one another whatever thoughts they desired to share one-to-one, or transmit across the internet to any number of minds. We’re already prototyping these abilities. They’ll be available to the public in less than a year. For many, it will simply be an upgrade to their existing mind chips.”

  “So whatever Clyde is up to, it couldn’t wait, even for your accelerated timeline,” Torin said.

  “A reasonable conclusion to draw,” the building AI replied.

  Kendra groaned, took one last look around at the building, and headed for the door. “You coming, Torin? Or you planning on marrying the hologram, or possibly mating with the building itself?”

  “Can I have a second to think about it?” She hadn’t slowed any. He mumbled, “Guess not,” before she heard his footsteps following behind her.

  Back inside the car he asked, “So what do we know now that we didn’t know when we went in there, beside the name of our bioenhanced murderer?”

  “We know that he’s able to psychically shield himself from a city full of cameras, and a city full of building AIs with no shortage of software for running data mining operations to track any criminal across the city. The police should be so well endowed. So, you tell me, Sherlock, why would someone like this need to test his psychic abilities?”

  Torin made another of his unique whistling sounds that conveyed a panoply of emotions she didn’t have the time, energy, or inclination to unravel. “Good question.”

  “You just run that speculation engine you have up in your head on overdrive while I motor down the street doing everything I can to clear my head.” Kendra set the car in gear and headed for the turnpike.

  She had fun speeding down the expressway and not even intending to avoid other cars. Just the opposite, she thought playing bumper cars with them would help de-stress her. The ones being driven by their onboard AIs had faster reflexes than she did, of course, darting out of the way as she changed lanes and causing her to have to overcorrect at the wheel to avoid turning Torin and her into urban graffiti against the wall of some tunnel or a road divider. The cars not being driven by AIs took the hits directly, but those impacts were buffered by the cars electrostatic shields, magnetizing both her vehicle and theirs with opposite charges at the instant of contact and thus avoiding actual metal buckling. Apparently the lightweight complex polymer bodies had just enough metal in them to foster this add-on feature for the financially well-endowed, in no short supply in the corporate plaza area. The vehicles she managed to overturn rolled harmlessly, their self-mending metals flexing back into shape even after major collisions, and the passengers inside the cars protected, womblike, by hydraulic arms that made countless micro adjustments throughout the impact thanks to the onboard AIs, making the ride for the “babies” inside no different than floating in amniotic fluid. The concussions she was less intent on causing were likely prevented anyway by nano-shock absorbers lining the brain. Accident prevention could neutralize even the likes of her nowadays rather effectively.

  She was still wrong for what she was doing, messing with people like this; the guilt caused her to return to her old fashion driving method of simply trying to outdrive car AIs rated for safety over sportsmanship. Torin had kept his eyes straight ahead and unblinking, his face expressionless, suggesting he was more interested in what he was thinking than anything she was doing. He obviously didn’t feel threatened either, probably understanding more about highway safety technology and just how unbeatable it was in high end areas than she was. She knew he hadn’t tuned out entirely because his mind took in everything; he was a multitasker, working on several levels at once more so than he was a vacationer from reality floating away on clouds of pensiveness.

  “The most obvious answer,” Torin said, responding to her earlier question finally about why Clyde Barker, a psychic who could avoid detection even from uber-minds, needed to test his psychic powers with a couple innocuous murders. “…is his mind is failing, and he needs to run these periodic tests to see if he has the mental energy still to maintain his psychic shielding. That or… he already has a pretty good idea of how much time he has left, and he’s making the most of it by training a new protégé in his methods, and more disturbingly, indoctrinating him into his paranoid, perverse way of seeing the world.”

  He panned his head to her when she didn’t respond. “Can I take it by your lack of smarmy retorts that you agree with me?”

  “I was trying not to listen.”

  “You need another sexual destressor?” he said rubbing the back of her neck. “I suppose it’s positively shameless of me to work the whole Future Shock angle to my benefit, but it does seem ripe for the picking.”

  “Future shock, my ass. This is Present Shock I’m trying to deal with.”

  “You have to admit it’s pretty exciting to be tasked with going after the few people who can manage to get around the uber-minds of the planet, either individual AIs or networked consortiums of artificial and biological intelligences, hive minds, et al. It’s got to make you feel rather special.”

  “Actually, all it does is highlight my expiration date.”

  “Well, let’s face it, it’s not like there are police and detectives anymore. The City AI handles the bulk of those duties, deploying its droids where it needs to get its hands dirty. You and your coworkers are just part of an experiment to see if keeping some humans in the loop still benefits the greater good.”

  “I’m starting to think much of that falls under good PR, like Spec City’s efforts to coddle the public interest with its corporate image makeover.”

  “That, or drama therapy. The City AI’s got to do something with the humans who just couldn’t make the adjustment, you know, accept their obsolescence without some kind of chip upgrade.”

  “You’re doing it again, trying to get a rise out of me.” She realized she was clenching the steering wheel a bit too tightly as she watched her knuckles bleed white. Her face had turned red in the rearview mirror in tandem with the hands going white. She had to stop being such an easy mark.

  “Maybe Clyde Barker can do something about your feelings of inadequacy. For all we know that’s what he’s about. And he’s just an amped up, slightly more stressed out version of you, who’s that much more desperate to fo
restall what he sees as a progressive apocalypse.”

  “Progressive apocalypse?”

  “You know, one that happens in slow motion rather than all at once. Most people harbor the delusion that it will happen all at once. But some, like yourself, tally the technological breakthroughs happening by the day, hell, by the hour, and wonder if instead, it’s not a slow fade to black.”

  “I would never have thought to put it in words.”

  “But that is how you feel. Don’t deny it.” They locked eyes for a moment before she returned her eyes to the road with the same absent attention she’d been giving the driving. Her mind still blown by his latest revelations, she doubted she’d remember how she got to where she was driving by the time she got there. At least he was taking it easy on her, perhaps realizing it didn’t do much good to mess with someone’s fragile grip on reality; crazy people are just a little too unpredictable.

  “Leastways, your being able to empathize with this guy,” Torin said, “should allow us to close the net on him. Looks like I’m not the only one who can get inside his head from here on out. A ton of empathy beats what a psychic can do any day.”

  “Assuming he’s more like me than like you, fighting the inertia carrying us forward into the future, rather than surfing the wave shouting ‘whoopie’! and doing what he can to hasten the process.”

  “Better hope I’m right, or we’re not likely to do any better tracking him than the City AIs.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to have to work too hard to find him.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Inside of a day, two bodies have been linked to him. His mind is failing faster than he can plug the holes with this apprentice of his. He or she is clearly not up to speed enough to keep them both off the radar for much longer.”

  “Assuming there’s anything to my theory.”

  “You don’t have theories, Torin, I have theories. You have psychic intuitions and damn me for saying it, but they’re usually right.”

  “Then why are you shopping a la cart for possible explanations instead of just asking for my best guess? You’re not buying the fact that he’s more like you than like me? Oh, I see, you don’t much like looking at that reflection in the mirror.” He returned his eyes to the road. “What you say about his inability to plug the holes in his psychic shielding, even with the help of his apprentice, makes sense. That means he’s about to do something even more desperate.”

  “Or he’s already done it.”

  NINE

  The alarms were sounding throughout the CDC compound. It wasn’t their unsanctioned physical presence that was creating all the pandemonium. It was the fact that Notchka had taken over the robotics involved with the gene splicing. She was moving them through their paces so fast they were overheating and starting to smoke, no small feat, considering that they were built to operate blindingly fast by human standards.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  “And we’re outa here.” Clyde looked up at the security team pointing machine guns at them. The only reason they hadn’t fired their weapons yet was that he and Notchka were contained in a chamber surrounded with glass that was in all likelihood bulletproof. Even if it wasn’t, they probably weren’t sure if they wanted whatever it was Clyde and Notchka were working on getting out of the containment lab.

  “Where to?” Kendra asked innocently.

  “We’re going to time travel into the past. I want my community of psychics up and running by the time they glom on to us in the present.”

  “Apparently you think there’s nothing I can’t do.”

  “There’s nothing any of us can’t do. But it takes powerful belief. And it takes opening a channel between the physical body and the energy bodies that interpenetrate us. Something you’re way ahead of the rest of us on. Way ahead of most yogis, I imagine.”

  “I have no idea how to time travel. Besides, traveling into the past will create paradoxes.”

  “What it will in fact do is take us to a parallel universe in which we embed ourselves. We will change that timeline, not this one. Because, in truth, you’re right, we can’t travel into the past.”

  “What if that world is worse than this one? What if I have to do even worse things?”

  “What did I tell you about glass half-empty psychology, Notchka? If you’re ever to be happy you have to learn to look on the bright side.”

  “Like?”

  “Like, if we’re successful we may do more than save that timeline. We may save them all.”

  “How?”

  “There’ll be versions of ourselves in that timeline. If they’re thinking as we are, they too will hop back in time. If enough versions of us do that in enough timelines…”

  Notchka nodded. “Like a fusion reaction feeding on itself.”

  She smiled. “I like that. I much prefer to save people than to hurt them.” She squeezed his hand as it dawned on her. “But what if this experiment of yours goes horribly wrong?”

  “Negative energy—that includes bad ideas—doesn’t spread as rapidly or as far as positive energy, Notchka. Remember? We went over this already.”

  Sensing her calming down as she relaxed her grip, he said, “Just do as you did before, baby, and tap into my mind. Let me visualize the details and you just make it happen. Easy-peasy.”

  Big dramatic sigh. “I don’t know.”

  He fought with his rising frustration over just how much harder it was getting with each passing day to get things past her. Speaking in a strained manner, he said, “A big part of learning and maturing as fast as you can, Notchka, comes from a willingness to stay outside of your safe zone. If you can abide by being uncomfortable with change, then you won’t ever impede your own progress.”

  “You have a way of making what’s wrong seem so right.”

  “That’s because you’re still somewhat reliant on me to consider all the ramifications of our actions for you. One day soon, if you let me continue to mentor you, you will be able to calculate the fallout for yourself, better than any supercomputer. You’ll just feel what’s right intuitively.”

  “Maybe I do already and that’s what feels so wrong about all this.”

  “We can’t think clearly through fear, sweetheart. Only with a bigger heart and a bigger mind can we embrace the truth, and only by intertwining them better can each get bigger. Do you love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then you know what you must do to grow your mind and your heart. You must love me more and that means trusting me more.”

  “Fine. Settle your mind down so it doesn’t make me seasick like last time, and concentrate on what you want me to do.”

  “How are we doing?”

  “It’s already done. You just have to open your eyes.”

  “Oh my.”

  ***

  Clyde assessed his and Notchka’s new surroundings. Snow, about twelve inches deep, had been pushed to the sides of the road. It was dirty looking, indicating the snowfall wasn’t recent. It was a small downtown setting, the architecture entirely uninspired, some of it even impractical, considering flat roofs was not something you wanted to go with in heavy snow country.

  Clyde shuddered. “You couldn’t find someplace less frigid?”

  “You wanted a place and a time when the townspeople would be gathered together. So don’t gripe to me.” She pointed across the street. “They’re clustered together in there.”

  “And why, might I ask, did they call a town meeting?” Before she could answer the mountain in the distance erupted, spewing black smoke, the earth shook, and he got a pretty clear idea of what was coming next. “Oh, I see.” The Main Street they were standing on carved a straight line path, seemingly right up the mountain. They couldn’t have planned it better if they wanted the lava to come flowing through town if they’d tried. The idiots. They should have snaked the streets around the surrounding hills and built on top of the foothills to give themselves some kind of a fighting cha
nce.

  A glance at the automobiles told him this was 2014, the year Ford debuted their aluminum trucks. These folks were big on their pickup trucks and on their Fords and their shotguns. About the only thing which had changed for them in the last hundred years was probably the aluminum shells on those trucks, detectible because of the heavier payloads the trucks could carry in the beds, and the “All Aluminum” proudly emblazoned on the sides of the trucks. Though some drivers had gone with the brushed aluminum look to take advantage of the corrosive-free metal. It was just twenty years back in time, but far enough to accomplish what he needed. “Let’s head on into that meeting and see what we can do to spread some good cheer.”

  “You mean spread your virus.”

  “Same thing. With the kinds of godlike powers we’re about to give them, that pesky volcano will be the least of their concerns.”

  “You’re not very good at controlling your own mind. Which is why I can’t stand to be inside it for very long. Gives me a headache. What makes you think they’ll do any better? And with all the powers we’re about to give them, won’t that just create even worse problems?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out. Some things, there’s just no way of knowing without running the experiment. I’m hoping that a small tightknit community who knows more about one another than any human has a right to know might be able to keep tabs on each other enough to keep a lid on community members’ errant behaviors.”

  “What if you’re right? Then what? Still won’t stop others from blowing up the world if the abilities ever get transferred to outsiders. I swear you’ve mastered being smart and dumb at the same time, sort of like me being old and young at the same time.”

  “I’m hoping the group mind that this community will become will be able to psychically monitor the breakouts for the entire planet, the ones who can’t control their minds well enough to be anything but a menace to everyone else. They’ll either be able to rein them in, or shut them down.”

  “One thing I’ve learned being by your side is nothing ever works out the way you have planned.”