Asterion Noir: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 4) Read online

  Nika enthusiastically joined in his disgust. “Fuckers.”

  Perrin started giggling. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard our most revered, ancient and wise leaders called ‘fuckers’ before.”

  “The first step in toppling them is removing the spell of reverence they’ve cast over the people.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Joaquim’s brow furrowed. “Um, did we decide removing them was a goal of ours? Loosening restrictions and monitoring, increasing personal freedoms and government accountability, yes, but removing the Guides? In my most tripped dreams maybe, but in the real world? That’s a more delusional idea than usual, even for you.”

  Nika tried to dial down her fervor. Her emotions were off the chain today, and it was becoming a problem—one she couldn’t spare the time to address at the moment.

  “No, we didn’t. Only I have to wonder—if the Guides harbor these sorts of totalitarian inclinations, will we ever be able to trust any concessions we do win? But it doesn’t matter right now. We need to concentrate on figuring out what happened to Parc and using the information to help him. If he won’t tell us himself, then we need to find out another way.”

  Joaquim pushed off the wall. “I’ve reviewed all his NOIR-related activities for the last month, and nothing stands out….” He stopped to stare at the window projection, which currently featured a verdant mountain meadow.

  Nika studied him curiously. “Is there something else?”

  He glanced back without looking directly at her. “It’s probably nothing, but…I sat in on a Justice hearing the other day for this guy I used to know. He’d been charged with assault. Now, I think he’s up-genned since I last saw him, but the guy in the hearing was unrecognizable to me. The reason it came to mind now is that he acted exactly like how you described Parc acting—listless, emotionally flat, seemingly uninterested in the gravity of his situation.”

  She assumed this related to the news that had Joaquim so off-kilter the night of the Dominion Transit operation…and apparently continued to trouble him. “Can you find out more about what your friend’s been up to, or what could have provoked the assault?”

  “Former friend. And no.” Joaquim’s expression closed down. “Like I said, I haven’t seen him, or any of the people we used to hang with, for a long time—decades. It was just a thought, but it’s not that important. Let’s do like you said and concentrate on Parc.”

  Perrin’s lips twitched as she peered at Joaquim, but if Perrin didn’t know whether they should press the topic, Nika sure didn’t. She wasn’t perturbed by Joaquim’s brief sharing then abrupt clamming up, as it was not a secret that he kept the details of his past to himself. She was troubled, however, by the possibility of other prisoners displaying radical personality shifts as well.

  After a few seconds Perrin sighed and sat on the couch. “I’ve talked to those closest to Parc, and they all say the only noteworthy events in his life lately were the Dominion Transit operation and the new limb augment he was so damn giddy over.”

  “He also told me he hadn’t added any other new augments or routines in the last few weeks. He bought the limb augment from Roqe. It was a new model, and he got it at a discount in exchange for telling Roqe how it performed. Is it possible it came loaded with a virutox of some kind?”

  Perrin gasped in horror. “Roqe would never traffic in contaminated gear!”

  “I want to believe that, but we have to consider all the possibilities. Besides, any malicious code it contained would have to be expertly buried, or Parc would have spotted it instantly. And if Parc didn’t spot it, odds are Roqe didn’t, either.”

  “So you’re going to see Roqe, then?”

  She nodded. “I have to start somewhere.”

  Perrin lifted her chin defiantly. “I’m going with you. I want to make sure you don’t bully them with that deadly smile of yours.”

  Roqe Ovet’s gear shop was located in the Western Market, a fairly low-end district of Mirai One that would be considered the height of chic on Namino. Unlike many of his mercantile neighbors, however, Roqe kept their shop spotlessly clean, brightly lit and scrupulously organized. This, along with Roqe’s breadth of knowledge about the products they sold, made it a favored destination in the Western Market for experienced augment modders and slice junkies.

  The shop was doing brisk business when Nika and Perrin walked in, but Roqe transitioned the active customers off to the store’s automaton interface then motioned for them to come into the back.

  For the last two generations, Roqe had been unigendered and asexual. Having sworn off romantic and sexual entanglements alike for a minimum of five centuries, they had altered both their psyche and their body to ensure they kept the vow.

  Sporting trimmed white hair, ivory skin and haunting blue eyes so light they were almost white as well, Roqe’s ethereal appearance matched their contemplative, detached-but-not-aloof demeanor.

  “My dear rebellious friends, to what do I owe a visit from the both of you?”

  Perrin smiled warmly. “We were in the neighborhood and wanted to drop by and see how you were doing.”

  Roqe tsked her reproachfully. “You are kind and good-hearted, Perrin, but you are a terrible liar. Nika, I do hope that you don’t allow her to perform any undercover operations.”

  “Not even if my only other options are a reprogrammed dyne or the communal feline pet.”

  “Hey!”

  She shrugged at Perrin but kept her focus on Roqe. “We are glad to see you, but you’re right—it’s not a social call. You sold Parc Eshett a new model of limb augment last week, didn’t you?”

  “I did. I had hoped he would have sent along some feedback by now, but I realize he does get distracted.”

  Perrin opened her mouth to reply, but Nika waved her silent. She didn’t want to spook Roqe too soon. “He really does. Can I ask who supplied the augment?”

  “A smaller intermediary trader. Which, as I think about it, was a bit unusual. The manufacturer usually funnels its products through the major distributors.”

  “Oh? What manufacturer?”

  “Ridani Enterprises.”

  Only the largest, most ubiquitous maker of personal and network hardware in existence. This muddled up the sinister story which had been coalescing in her mind. She mentally sand-washed the theory canvas and prepared to start fresh.

  Perhaps reading her expression, Roqe frowned. “Is there a problem with the hardware? I hope not, as I’ve already sold nearly my entire stock. A recall will be most inconvenient, not to mention unprofitable.”

  They really did sound genuine, and also oblivious to the fact there might in fact be a significant problem. She hadn’t seriously suspected Roqe of being involved in something nefarious, and the little suspicion she’d had was fading rapidly.

  She stepped closer and dropped her voice. “Roqe, I think you should pull your remaining stock off the shelves. Don’t sell any more units for now. And we need to take one back with us. We’ll pay you for it.”

  Their pale lips drew inward in concern. “Of course you can take one, but will you explain your concerns to me?”

  She checked with Perrin over Roqe’s shoulder, who nodded. Perrin was always more trusting than her, but it felt like she had the right of it this time. “Parc was arrested early this morning for burglary and attempted theft. But that’s not the worst of it. His entire personality has been altered, if not rewritten completely. I believe that some sort of virutox has infected his core programming. Now, he could have picked one up in any number of ways, but so far the limb augment is our best candidate.”

  Roqe drew back in horror. “Ridani Enterprises is the most reputable and respected of manufacturers. The company would never allow malicious code to be embedded in one of its products.”

  “I recognize the nature of the company’s reputation, but this is the best lead we have. Frankly, it’s the only lead we have.”

  What she didn’t point out—because
though Roqe was a NOIR ally, they were a long way from being a credo-spouting member—was that the head of Ridani Enterprises, Dashiel Ridani, acted as an Advisor for the Industry Division.

  She had never trusted the Guides, not since waking up with her memory erased. But the developments inside Justice suggested a larger malfeasance could be at work, and if so it would of necessity extend upward through the highest levels of the government—i.e., the Guides and the Advisors who served them. If the Guides were involved, the Advisors certainly could be as well.

  Roqe nodded slowly. “I see. I’ll get you one of the units—no charge. If it played any role in Parc’s misfortune, I want to make amends.”

  17

  * * *

  Nika dropped a rectangular box on Joaquim’s workbench. “The limb augment model Parc bought from Roqe.”

  He glanced up at her from the disassembled Glaser he’d been modifying, then at the box, then began gathering up components scattered across the workbench’s surface. “Let’s take a look.”

  She opened the box and started removing its contents while he cleaned up. A sleeve held ten thin wires encased in sheaths of semi-solid gel. The wires were designed to be inserted beneath the skin of the forearm using a needle guide, at which point the gel liquefied and began to bond to the cybernetic nerve fibers leading to the hand. The process only took a few minutes. Also included in the box was a weave containing the necessary operating software.

  It made for a simple and straightforward setup—technically advanced but designed with the consumer market in mind.

  Joaquim returned to the workbench and slid the wire sleeve over in front of him. “If there’s a virutox, it could be embedded in the hardware, software or both. I’ll tackle the hardware, but I’m not as skilled with this type of software. Do you want to handle it?”

  Nika hesitated. She was good with software—no, she was great with it. But according to Perrin, she wasn’t the best in the building. “I think I’ll ask Cair to help.”

  All she got was a ‘hmm’ in response, so she left Joaquim to his work and went downstairs.

  She could have simply pinged Cair with a request to come upstairs, but one of the little ways in which she tried to foster a feeling of inclusiveness and comradery among NOIR members was by being present. By interacting with her people in person, in real, physical space whenever possible, and by letting the others see her doing so.

  The mood on The Floor remained somber, but it was far from subdued. Agitation crackled in the air like a static charge; they’d had two physical altercations and one violent destruction of equipment in the last day.

  She wasn’t surprised. In many ways, Parc had acted as the beating heart of this group. Its showman, its clown, its cheerleader. The reactions to his inexplicable actions and subsequent capture varied from anger to dismay to bitterness, but overwhelmingly there was a sense of not knowing what to do, yet needing to do something. She knew the feeling, and she made a note to ask Joaquim to draw up several low-risk operations to give people a something to expend their pent-up energy on. It wouldn’t be enough to fix things, but it might calm things down a little.

  Cair sat alone at the bank of hardware interfaces along the far wall. A natural loner who reverted to shyness in groups, under normal circumstances she’d be more apt to find him in the dorm wing, working alone in a quiet cubbyhole. Perhaps after Parc’s arrest he was spending more time on The Floor to be nearer to other people, if not quite socializing.

  Nika paused on the way to offer encouragement to those she passed, but she didn’t linger to chat with anyone in particular. Cair looked to be heavily involved in his work, and she stopped well outside any definition of his personal space. “Cair?”

  Several seconds elapsed before she got a response, which consisted of a glance black then a straightening up in his chair. “Nika. Sorry, I was…what can I do for you?”

  “Any chance I can borrow you for a project? I’ve got some augment software I suspect might have a virutox embedded in it. If it does, it’ll be sophisticated and subtle. Perrin tells me you’re the best software deriver here, so I’d like for you to take a look.”

  He glanced away. “Parc’s the best software deriver in NOIR.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But the reality is, now you’re the best software deriver.” A corner of her lips curled up higher. “Own it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was working on the new algorithm for the Board data. Give me two minutes to wrap up this function and close out the file.”

  “Thanks. Come up to Joaquim’s room when you’re free. And bring whatever gear you need.”

  At the sound of a nervous throat clearing behind her, Nika turned toward the door. Cair fidgeted in the entrance to Joaquim’s room, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Had he ever been invited up here before? Possibly as part of a group, but…she searched her memories…no, not alone.

  Joaquim was already deeply engaged in his deconstruction of the wire filaments. He remained oblivious to their guest, head down and surrounded by equipment and sensor readouts, so she waved Cair inside. “Come on in. Do I need to clear off the other table? Or kick Perrin off the couch?” She jerked her head toward where Perrin lounged, immersed in a simex and as oblivious to the outside world as Joaquim.

  Cair took a couple of hesitant steps into the room. “The chair is fine. I don’t need a work surface—all the work will be in my head.”

  She retrieved the software weave while he settled into the chair and fitted on a portable buffer to the base of his neck. She held the weave out toward him, but paused before giving it to him. “You’ll be sufficiently shielded, won’t you? If there’s malicious code, it’s dangerous.”

  He arched an eyebrow.

  “Right. Sorry, I’m being overprotective.” She handed him the weave.

  Cair stared at Joaquim’s back for a second. “This is from the model of limb augment Parc installed, isn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  His mouth set into a grim line. “I understand.”

  “The manufacturer is—”

  “Don’t tell me. I should go in as blind as possible.”

  “I’ll get out of your way, then, but ping me if you run into any problems or have questions.”

  She stepped away from the chair he’d claimed and wandered over to the storage rack. She wanted to watch Cair’s work, out of equal parts curiosity, safety concerns, and a desire to ensure it was done properly. But she had to display trust in her people, or they would never become trustworthy.

  Finding nothing of interest on the storage rack, she looked around the room again. Cair had promptly dived into the software; Joaquim hadn’t so much as glanced up since she’d returned; Perrin’s eyes were closed. Everyone was fully engaged in their projects, leaving her no one to interact with and, for the moment, nothing to do.

  With a sigh she shifted her thoughts to the next moment—the one where they would know something about the virutox that she both hoped and feared resided in the augment. The moment when she would need a plan.

  The answer was more than she’d hoped for and worse than she’d feared. There was a virutox embedded in the augment, all right. A multi-stage laddered one which began as a tiny package of boot-up commands buried in the installation software. The next stage was triggered by first contact with a nerve fiber. From there the corruption grew with each natural nerve signal the code encountered, creating a feedback loop that snaked into the user’s core firmware, where it exploded into full bloom—but not until it had flagged itself as benign.

  “Cair says it’s the most sophisticated implementation sequence he’s ever seen, and I’m forced to agree. The initial footprint is so tiny as to be virtually unnoticeable even if you’re scouring for it, but by full implementation it has completely taken over the user’s OS. Impulses and suggestibility go through the roof, while emotion expression and control regulators are suppressed. The highest-order processes, those that elevate us above mere organics, are…” she choke
d out the word “…erased.”

  Joaquim glared, though not at her. “I cannot believe Parc allowed himself to be taken over by something so invasive. I thought he was smarter than that.”

  Nika shrugged weakly. “He is, but he also tends to be a tad reckless when it comes to his own experimentation. I’m sure he had tripwires, traps and safety catches installed, but their settings probably weren’t as strict as yours or mine are. He likes to play. Plus, this code appears to have been designed specifically to evade detection until such time as the user no longer cares if it is detected. No one wants their personality altered without their permission—but once it’s happened, will they even notice?”

  Perrin had buried her face in her hands almost as soon as Nika had started delivering the bad news. Now she peered out from behind splayed fingers. “Is it reversible?”

  Nika shook her head. “Only with a hard wipe and reinitialization, followed by a new imprint of a backup.”

  “Retirement? What kind of solution is that?”

  “It’s not retirement if you load a backup. Then it’s the same person, absent a few missing days.”

  “Well…Parc kept backups, right?”

  She met Perrin’s hopeful gaze. “Everyone here keeps backups—that’s the rule. He checked one in eight days ago.”

  Perrin sank into the couch, temporarily mollified.

  Joaquim toed his chair in semicircles. “What’s our plan? I’d suggest one, but I suspect you’ve beaten me to it.”

  She absolutely had. “All evidence points to it being written and embedded organically—which is to say during production.”

  “You’re saying Ridani Enterprises did this?”