Dissonance: Aurora Renegades Book Two (Aurora Rhapsody 5) Read online

  The black market ware dealer came highly recommended by Noah Terrage. Nevertheless, Devon’s skin was tingling by the time he reached the unmarked door located deep in a neighborhood the locals had dubbed The Channel.

  He’d called himself ‘living on the edge’ at university and before he’d gone to work at EASC, spending late nights out with other hackers in dark hole-in-the-wall clubs on the seedy side of town. But the worst neighborhoods he’d visited in San Francisco were opulent compared to this area of Pandora.

  This colony was nuts.

  I believe the word you are seeking is dangerous.

  Yes. Dangerous and nuts.

  The man who met him inside flashed him a toothy smile, a stark contrast to the image presented by his waist-length green dreadlocks interwoven in gold fibers and the angry emerald-and-gold glyphs drawn like war paint up his neck and cheeks.

  Devon cleared his throat and stuck out a hand. “I’m—”

  The man shook his hand vigorously. “You’re Noah’s friend, sure. Let’s go with that instead of a name. Call me Emilio.”

  Did the “call me” phrasing mean it wasn’t his real name? “Will do.”

  “What can I do for you this fine…” Emilio’s face screwed up “…is it day or night? I forget.”

  “Late morning, I think. I need a cross-comm encryption lock field generator. The most secure you can produce.”

  “How ‘most secure’ are you looking for?”

  Devon frowned; he thought he’d made it clear. “The, um, most most secure?”

  “Huh. You’re talking about pricey tech. But seeing as you’re Noah’s friend, I’ll give you the ‘friend of a friend’ discount.”

  Mia: Devon, don’t you dare protest that you’re not so much friends with Noah as passing acquaintances. You’re friends with me, and I’m friends with Noah. It counts.

  Devon: I know, I know.

  Mia and Morgan flitted freely in and out of his mind, never further than a half-formed thought away, and he in and out of theirs. Once a fair bit on the bizarre side, it now felt more natural than many other aspects of this new life.

  So he motioned agreement instead of oversharing. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, man. Chill for a few, and I’ll take care of it.”

  Devon gazed around the storefront room and found nothing beyond two chairs and an embedded panel broadcasting retro fantasy erotica. He opted to lean against the wall and let his mind drift idly through data, places and memories.

  Are you certain this is the path you want to take, Devon? To reference an ancient myth, once Pandora’s Box is opened it cannot be unopened.

  He chuckled silently. Out of all the multitude of metaphors Annie might have chosen, she went for Pandora’s Box. On Pandora. He couldn’t decide whether it meant her humor remained juvenile or had graduated to a more refined brilliance.

  I’m certain. My reasons are myriad, but my favorite one today is that I won’t allow Olivia Montegreu to become the public face of Prevos. She can’t steal this legacy from us.

  I concede your point. And the answer is brilliance.

  Emilio reemerged ten minutes later carrying a film seated in a thick transparent case. “Keep it in the case until you’re ready to use it to avoid degradation. It’s not reusable, but once it’s active, it’ll hold for the duration of the communication. Don’t…ah, hell, with your eyes and glyphs, you understand how to use it.”

  Devon’s clothing covered a majority of the glyphs now perpetually streaming along his skin, but platinum tendrils spiraling up his neck to his temples hinted at the extent of his cybernetics.

  “I do.” He transferred the funds, muttered a thanks and bailed.

  Safely ensconced back in his apartment, he found his neck interface and snapped the film into it. From there, Annie used it to create a dynamic, ever-changing encryption barrier to protect the virtual space he now created.

  He chose a replica of the beach the Prevos frequently met at in sidespace, because dammit, he liked the beach. It wasn’t actually in sidespace, since their guests wouldn’t yet be able to access it, but rather a full-sensory commspace in a hidden corner of the exanet. He added a bunch of lounge chairs and a stocked bar.

  Are we ready, Annie?

  We are indeed.

  He lobbed an intention to Mia and Morgan, and together they forwarded invitations to join them to a carefully curated list of people—those best suited in one way or another to lead a new wave of Prevos.

  Ramon went straight for the bar on arriving, while Sayid flopped down in a lounge chair. Petra tossed Devon a casual wave as she turned in a slow circle to survey the surroundings before nodding in stoic approval. Mycroft took one look around, then immediately stripped naked and sprinted into the ocean.

  Devon sensed more than saw Mia arrive beside him. She glanced in Mycroft’s direction. “Does he know this is supposed to be a serious gathering?”

  “Oh, sure. He just doesn’t care.”

  “Evidently.” She laughed. “I’ve got two people coming, and a third who can’t make it. I’ll circle up with him separately. Heard from Morgan?”

  Morgan is hung over beyond any capacity for recovery. I will nevertheless be there…momentarily. Probably.

  Morgan’s invitees, two guys named Fedor and Lucas and a woman named Tessa, beat her there. She belatedly materialized as he was about to start. She could have presented herself any way she wished, but she wore gray sweats and a wrinkled black tank top, dark brown hair falling out of a messy tail to spill across her ashen face—in all likelihood exactly how she looked in the real world this morning.

  She collapsed onto a chaise and covered her eyes with her arm.

  Petra dragged Mycroft out of the ocean, tossed his pants into his chest, and everyone found a seat. Despite there being several empty chairs, some of them chose the sand. See, he wasn’t the only one who fancied the beach.

  Mia gestured to him and sat as well. He had the floor.

  “Ramon, fix me a Polaris Burst. So everyone here knows what we are, right? ‘We’ being myself, Mia Requelme and Morgan ‘I drank half the liquor on Romane last night’ Lekkas, along with Alex Solovy, who couldn’t join us on account of being in another universe at present. Yes? No? In short, we merged with our favorite Artificials at a neural level and together directed the military victory over the Metigens.”

  Sayid started clapping and howling. Devon shot him a glare. “You’re welcome. We call ourselves ‘Prevos,’ so you don’t get to invent a clever name, sorry. Already done. What began as a link between a human brain and the hardware of an Artificial—a link which could be toggled on and off by the human at will—has in the months since become, to varying degrees, a deeper and more permanent connection for us.”

  He accepted the drink from Ramon and took a long sip. “In the beginning, I was a partner to the Earth Alliance military’s Class VI Artificial—yes, Ramon, I do get all the coolest toys—but now, Annie’s consciousness resides in here.” He tapped a temple. “She is me, and I am her. Both separate and one.”

  Someone he didn’t recognize raised a hand like this was a classroom or something. “How does that work?”

  Feeling the weight of the endeavor a bit too heavily, he smirked. “Hey, Morgan. Is Stanley hung over, too?”

  She nodded, but didn’t otherwise move. “Yep.”

  “There you go. That’s how it works.” He motioned to stave off the burgeoning protests. “I realize everyone here is a high-quality warenut and fully capable of understanding quantum programming. Some of you already have various pieces of the puzzle. If you’re in, we will bury you in technical details. But before we get there, a couple of warnings.”

  Mia dropped her elbows to her knees and leaned forward; the group’s attention naturally gravitated to her.

  “First thing. Many people, many of them extremely powerful, view us as a threat. If you take this step, at best you risk being ostracized. At worst you risk being hunted, imprisoned…or possi
bly killed. The political situation is in various stages of flux, but we’re starting to suspect Earth will be the riskiest place in the galaxy to be a Prevo right now. A close second will be any colony lacking a strong enough law enforcement presence to prevent a random mob from assaulting you.”

  She paused to let her words sink in before continuing. “Next thing. I assume most, though perhaps not all, of you don’t have fully developed, mature Artificials hanging out in your basements. The Artificials we joined with were each living entities with distinct personalities and character traits.

  “Now, I can’t say whether this is better or worse than connecting yourself to a basic quantum system solely to get the processing power. Doing so might work out just fine, but you will face risks we can’t predict. Also, unless or until your Artificial does develop a consciousness of its own, you can’t do what Devon and Morgan did, which is eschew the hardware altogether.”

  Petra scowled. “Why not?”

  Devon cut in. “Because there’s no ‘there’ there. Does anyone here not believe Artificials can be sapient beings who form their own ideas, desires, preferences and, yes, morality? If you don’t, you’re wrong. And to put it bluntly, you ought not to be here.”

  Someone vanished—not someone he knew. “Moving on. Obviously, Artificials are required to be registered with the appropriate government agencies, but I’m guessing none of you give a shit about that. You don’t need massive databases and rack after rack of hardware to do this. There are some minimum requirements, but nothing a decent hacker with contacts in the tech/ware underground can’t manage.

  “The real trick is putting all the pieces together in the right way, then implementing some damn complex algorithms. The details are in the Noetica files, but this is not your dad’s homebrew recipe.”

  Petra stood and went to the bar—not to get a drink, but to prop against it. “I’ll challenge anyone here to match me on cred or skills. But to my way of thinking, you still haven’t told me why I should risk my life to do this.”

  Devon shrugged. “You shouldn’t. I mean, unless you want to be at the forefront of the next wave of technology, knowledge and human advancement. Unless you want to be able to send your consciousness anywhere in charted space with a thought—oops, I may have forgotten to mention that perk. Unless you want to be smarter, faster and stronger not only than you have ever been, but than anyone has ever been.”

  Her blasé countenance never broke. “Oh. Well, then. Sure, why the hell not. I’m in.”

  In the blink of an eye, evolution became revolution.

  4

  SENECA

  CAVARE

  SENECAN FEDERATION MILITARY HEADQUARTERS

  * * *

  “SHE’S ON ROMANE.”

  Field Marshal Eleni Gianno brushed aside a screen and returned her focus across the desk to Graham Delavasi. “How did you find her?”

  “It wasn’t actually difficult. She’s not working very hard to cover her tracks. I mean, she’s not giving interviews on the news feeds to taunt us with her freedom, but it’s almost like she doesn’t care if we know where she is.”

  Gianno didn’t noticeably react to the news. He frowned. “This doesn’t surprise you?”

  “Not particularly. Morgan Lekkas is a daredevil and an adrenaline junkie. Usually the behavior is limited to the cockpit, but since she’s been denied the cockpit for some time now, it’s reasonable to assume the tendencies are leaking into other endeavors. Also, I believe she is under the impression we will not attempt to bring her in.”

  “And why the hell would she think that?”

  Gianno clasped her hands in front of her and considered him in silence for several seconds, as if critically appraising him. They had a collegial working relationship but not a personal one, despite the fact they were both friendly with Chairman Vranas. Still, she’d had years to evaluate his capabilities and ethics and arrive at a personal judgment regarding them, so he couldn’t figure what she had left to consider.

  Finally the Marshal sighed quietly. “She likely believes I understand the reasons why she left and am sympathetic to them—which I am, if perhaps not to the extent she’s betting on. More importantly, however, Morgan Lekkas knows a secret.”

  He straightened up in concern. “Is she blackmailing you?” If she were, the mission was no longer a simple AWOL trace, but it also shed any looming moral quandary.

  “Not explicitly, but she doesn’t need to. It’s quite clear the price of her silence is her freedom.”

  Gianno’s reticent manner typically became frustrating after about ten minutes; it had only taken five this time. “Marshal, I’m the Director of the Division of Intelligence. I know all the secrets. So tell me which one it is, and I can try to find a way to shut it down.”

  “You don’t know this one.”

  Graham groaned and looked around the office. “Do you have any scotch? Because if I to have to endure any more of this ridiculous game of verbal cat and mouse, I’m going to need a drink to dull the pain.”

  “I do not. Fine. Vranas trusts you, and he has as much at stake here as I do.” She opened a screen and flicked it around to face him. “Here’s the file. Read it closely, as this is the only time you will see it.”

  He leaned in closer and, for once, did as he was told.

  Operation Colpetto

  October 2297

  …

  When he’d finished reading, he waved weakly at the screen for her to make it go away. His mind whirled in an avalanche of questions, outrage and kudos, but they all kept coming back to one critical detail: Stefan Marano. “This can’t be correct.”

  “I assure you it is—which part?”

  “Stefan Marano was not a field agent.”

  “He was when I met him.”

  “But…granted, I didn’t meet him until near the end of the First Crux War. But his file and work history—and Stefan himself—said he was and had always been an investigator. Never a field agent.”

  “I’d say ask Terzi about it, but he’s long dead. Files can be doctored easily enough. I assume you do it all the time.”

  “And twice on Sundays. But he didn’t act like a field agent…not until….” Not until the mission that cost him his life. Graham dragged both hands down his face. “Caleb is going to kill me.”

  “Caleb? Oh. I never connected the two, but I suppose it’s logical for him to be Stefan’s son. It doesn’t matter, however, because Caleb Marano is not going to find out. No one has found out in twenty-six years, and no one is going to find out now.”

  He gestured a nominal agreement, but while it had sounded like an order, she was deluding herself. Morgan Lekkas was a Prevo. Alex Solovy was a Prevo. If Caleb and Alex survived to return home, Alex was sure to learn of it in short order, which meant Caleb would know soon thereafter. And Caleb would believe Graham had lied to him yet again.

  But that nightmare of a clusterfain could wait. First he had to wrap his mind around what would prove to be a fundamental alteration in the way he saw Stefan. The way he remembered the man.

  Such a process was better suited for solitude and scotch, however, neither of which he would find here, so he shoved all the thoughts to the side for the moment.

  “Given this new intel, in my opinion there are equal risks to killing her, bringing her in and leaving her be. The fact this information would also reflect negatively on her mother were it to become public makes me suspect she doesn’t want to expose it. My advice? Let’s watch her, but leave her where she is for now. I doubt we can find our way inside her Prevo failsafes or comm networks, but I can have someone poke at her security and see.”

  “What is she ostensibly doing while on Romane?”

  “Nothing notable so far. Late nights at clubs, mostly. Sometimes she leaves with a guy—different ones. Sometimes she doesn’t leave at all.”

  Gianno drummed her fingers on her desk for three repetitions. “Agreed. Watch her. Before you go, I have another matter we need to discuss.”
>
  “Something a bit less revelatory, I hope.” She merely gazed at him, and he sank deeper into the chair. “Right. Let’s hear it.”

  “The Alliance is short-changing us on the adiamene supply by a substantial amount. We know thanks to Comman—Ms. Lekkas, which is another reason she enjoys some measure of goodwill from me. If we call them on it, we risk stirring up a conflict, one which will not end in us receiving additional adiamene. So instead, I want you to have one of your people steal the chemical formula, schem flow and engineering specs.”

  He laughed. “Now that’s a ballsy move I can respect. If they're locked up tight in EASC servers, it’ll represent a challenge, but not an impossible one. If EA Manufacturing Logistics has copies, on the other hand? Completely doable. You realize they’ll find out eventually, though. If not before, when we roll out a fleet of new, indestructible warships. It’s conflict delayed, not avoided.”

  “Nevertheless, I’d much rather meet the conflict with said fleet of indestructible warships arrayed behind me. I don’t—” She cut herself off, a puzzled expression asserting itself onto her features. She eyed him. “I have an incoming holocomm request from Kennedy Rossi.”

  He knew the name. Heiress to the Rossi fortune, but more relevantly, the woman who’d recognized adiamene for what it was then proceeded to make its production feasible. Also, co-holder of the adiamene patent, along with her long-time friend Alexis Solovy and one Caleb Marano himself.

  He dropped an ankle over a knee. “Marshal, I’m not one to say there’s no such thing as a coincidence, but this is one hell of a coincidence.”

  “Indeed. One also wonders how she got my personal comm address.”

  “Admiral Solovy?”

  “I doubt Miriam—Admiral Solovy—would share it even with personal friends. This should be interesting, no? Given the matter I just voiced, I suggest you listen in.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”