Reconfigure (17 page)

“Like what?” Concern filled her voice.

“A different fractal level of abstraction might allow a person to change their mindset, find and swap engrams. It would be possible to change genetic codes too, altering appearance and even gender.” He said it dispassionately but she knew inside he felt fear.

“Alex might even be a man now with someone else’s brain mixed with hers?” She asked.

“It is possible, which would explain why I can’t find her too. Dead she would be just a body no classification, just components, alive she could be someone else completely."

It made Roisin ponder the Playdoh separation conundrum again. This was on a completely different level.

“So, when you said we might be able to identify her at a different fractal level, you meant find her DNA or a trace of her brain activity?” She asked him.

“I did mean that, though I am starting to realise the enormity of that task. Your description of just getting your NAS drive back made me realise that at other fractal levels, ones we only know the minutest amount about, we can’t just go searching and fiddling around. We have no idea where Alex is to start with.”

Roisin went into detective mode.

“So, these CCSO people must have a base or two right? We need to find one.”

He looked at her and said.

“They don’t advertise their presence, their bases must be the same? Surely they will be hidden? You don’t see CCSO signposts!”

“Hey! I am brainstorming here, don't stand on the butterflies!” She retorted. He nodded. “CCSO bases? We can trace something in one of their bases and we then can go and investigate, either in person or remotely?” She waited a second to see if there was any counter proposal. There was not. “We need something unique, something Ray K. will easily find and I have just the thing in mind."

She turned to the FMM v1.3 running on her Mac desktop. She had not synched with the phone yet as she felt she should keep the logs from v1.2 just in case.

“If I widen the zone and look for a Drone with a chemical composition that includes a lot of Copper and Nickel…”

“The drone you joined and mixed with the ten pence piece? Brilliant! They would have surely taken it to a lab to analyse it.” He cottoned on to her plan.

“Do you have any more phones or tablets, this one is going to be too hot out there.” She asked hopefully.

“The first cupboard on the left over there. We have a whole collection of burners.” It sounded odd coming from him, but even northern accented scientists are allowed to be a bit street.

Roisin looked across at him, he was again stationary, Melded, at one with RK.

The full system was running, David was locked in place. Roisin used her new updated FMM application to start finding any Copper and Nickel enhanced drones. First she extended the Zone to 5000 km in every direction. She was going to type 10000 but 9999 was quicker to type and would do the trick. The air changed a little, as the instant, yet very complex, search took place and RK looked everywhere in the huge target zone. Size and distance were of no consequence to a quantum computer, but she figured David would be breaking into a mental sweat processing all the data coming back. A block highlighted on the screen. Drone9870. There were no more. This was a very good start she thought. She checked its coords, mapped them back to GPS and applied them to her improved interface. Now she had maps, proper Web satellite maps to provide a 2D background for the position of anything she looked at in FMM 1.3. The 10p drone was in an office block right in the heart of the city, several hundred kilometres away. It looked like the CCSO liked to keep near the money and near the corporate bosses that called the shots.

She had retrieved a pile of phones from the cupboard. All charged and ready to go. Different models, different makes, but these were all Android. That was a relief as deploying the licences to a new iPhone would have been tricky. She didn’t exactly want to be reregistering as a developer under a fake identity, her old account would be no use. She recompiled her code with an Android target and started flashing the application to each device. She now had three separate phones, three lives in case she got tracked. The other two phones she kept as vanilla installs. She had a plan to use those, a more elegant version of what she had done at Faith’s house.

She had a place and its location. Time to pay a visit. Before she went she checked her new process, LifeJacket. It was running on the main Ray K., terminal alongside David’s Safety. She wanted to make sure, if she did not press her new Base button within 4 hours she would be Translated back anyway. It was a digital dead man’s handle. She checked the capitalisation, she checked the schedule and the reset code. It all was fine, besides she wasn't going to need it, she hoped!

The Translate went well. She had dragged and dropped herself just near the drone, avoiding any walls, and having checked there were no Human or Camera cubes on FMM. The drone was now just a lump of metal, plastic and carbon fibre. To the CCSO it was evidence, but it did not seem to warrant an armed guard. She could see looking at it, on the workbench in the brightly lit garage, a few gouges in it where tools had been applied to poke at it and also some drill holes. She had seen this sort of garage set up before, red tool chests with lots of thin drawers in each. Overhead neon coloured hydraulic cables supported pristine lifting gear. She half expected to turn around and see a Formula One car stripped to its bare bones. Instead the shiny, clean blue floor was empty. There was certainly room for a large vehicle in here. The main doors were closed. They were a series of metal batons making a roller door that took up very little space in the roof when opened.

Roisin looked around for a dark corner, or somewhere to place one of her spare Android phones. Over to the back, away from the door there was a worktop. Some diagnostic equipment and a laptop sat patiently on it. There were a lot of lights and switches, one more little device wouldn’t hurt? She turned on the blank phone, and set the camera to work at a very low rez but with audio. She placed it carefully amongst the equipment, the lens facing the door and the defunct drone. On FMM she centred on herself and checked the area. She tagged the phone in her interface, adding it to her new ‘keep an eye this at all times’ function. She could have saved a lot of time with the NAS if she had that in the first place! It meant she had easy, quick access to the location and to send the device anywhere, even if it moved. She then zoomed in carefully on the phone. All its components dotted onto the screen. She was able to identify the physical power button amongst all the other boxes. She Translated the power button to the same coords she had used for the NAS earlier. These tags and bookmarks were really making things easier for her. The phone screen stayed on, the camera stayed recording, it would be hard to turn off if it was found.

She scanned wider, with FMM and found a large collection of humans gathered in rows above her. It looked like it was two floors up. The garage was part of an underground car park in a tall office block, by the looks of the satellite imagery. That must be a large meeting room or hall above her, and yes they were having a meeting. Not every human block was there. A number stood motionless at various points stacked up for several more floors. She had not extended the range up too much, but she saw there were definitely blocks positioned regularly all the way vertically.

She heard an engine, the slight squeak of rubber on shiny concrete. FMM showed a vehicle decreasing in z order and approaching the garage. The engine noise got louder though the revs dropped and ticked over very shortly afterwards. She dived behind one of the tool draw sets, obscuring her from the view of the roller door. The clatter of the roller door started with a snap as the tension was taken in. Then each pane lifted the one below it as they folded over neatly. An acrid smell of diesel exhaust wafted in and the vehicle pulled into the garage. The driver parked up. Roisin hovered over the jump home button on her phone. The engine clattered to a stop. She heard a door open, footsteps squeak across the blue floor and out and away. The door stayed rolled open. She poked her head around the case. There was a matt black armoured van. There were no markings, no number plates. It was an imposing and familiar piece of machinery.

Keeping low she scuttled on the squeaky floor towards the van. She looked through and under its wheels, seeing the driver head to a stair well behind a plain grey fire door. Through the small pane of glass in the door she could see him heading up. Out in the rest of the bay through the door was a parking area and two ramps, one for up and one for down. There were no other vehicles in sight, nor people. She looked down at FMM and it all matched. Keeping close to the wall she worked around towards the door that the driver had taken. She slowly opened it and peered up. FMM was still showing the area clear but she was still going to use her eyes and ears. She slinked around the door making sure it closed slowly and quietly, by keeping a gentle and reducing pressure on it. She pulled herself up the staircase, holding the bannister tightly in her right hand, and her new Android pal in her left, ready to go. She had a surprisingly good signal for an underground car park. She guessed they used standard mobile tech all the time and must have a set of repeater masts down here.

At the next door, she crouched down and checked her FMM cubes. There were some milling about at the end of a corridor. She noticed some cubes labelled ShowerHead and collections of droplets of Water rapidly arriving and leaving near a few of the Human cubes. A changing room? She rotated her view a little more. Rows of cubes labelled Locker each containing collections of Clothing, some with Firearm cubes, some without. She took a wild guess that the ones without a firearm object were probably full of civilian clothing, and those with weapons were going to have uniforms, ready and waiting for the next shift. She zoomed in on the first Locker cube that had a Firearm cube close to it. Other blocks on her screen showed ElectricRazor and Toothbrush, the next weaponised locker contained identical clothing descriptions but had no razor. A Toothbrush cube was there. There were a number of blocks marked as Clip, another as ElasticatedBand. She did a Translate of one of the Clip objects to the step she was crouched on. A black hair clip tinkled on the floor in front of her. That was the closest she was going to get to reading a size label remotely. Men wore hair clips and tied up their long locks, but usually they were overpaid footballers. Seldom were they badass military types. She Translated the entire clothing collection and firearm holster arrangement to her with a drag and a drop. She picked up the pile. It looked as if it was once hanging straight, but the rail had broken and it had now hit the floor. Roisin scooted back down the stairs.

There was a dark gap under the stairs near the door she had used to enter. It was obscured enough, should anyone suddenly appear, that she could keep hidden. The clothes were a little bigger than her usual size, probably to accommodate a slightly more muscular build. She untied her Converse laces and kicked the shoes off. She swapped her comfy trousers for the cold rough combat trousers. Pulled on the standard issue heavy boots and laced them up. They were not a bad fit. She dumped her hoody, but kept her t-shirt on under the black shirt and hoisted on the heavy pocket laden jacket. The army shaped baseball cap fitted with her hair pushed up into it a little. She picked up the heavy belt and dangling holster. The weight of the gun surprised her. She buckled on the belt, having to use the last hole to make sure it was tight. She bookmarked her removed clothing on FMM and zapped them back to RK’s lab. She stepped out of the dark, stood up tall and to attention, just for the sake of getting into character. She was no avatar in a game, this was real and they all had real bullets and a will to use them on her. She was going to hide in plain sight.

She stepped forwards, the boots weighed her legs down. It helped her walk in a more direct military way as she stomped up the stairs. She went past the changing room level and on up to the next door. A brightly lit corridor was visible through the glass pane. She checked her phone and sure enough she was on the level with all the other gathering humans. She held the phone partly up her slightly baggy military sleeve. The lack of fit meant she could walk, or march along the corridor, thumb hovering over her panic button without looking suspicious. Two heavily armed guards stood either side of an open double door at the end of the corridor. Either side were regular looking, if not rather neat, offices. She heard the mumbling of voices, the chatter that happens before any gathering as a crowd acts as small collections of individuals. Either gossiping, doing deals or providing useful information to one another. She wheeled past the guards into the large conference room. Three large screens, a podium and dim lighting greeted her. There were a few glances from the mass of identically dressed gossipers. The low hum, a mix of voices and accents were almost monotonous. She took a seat on the end of a row, there were not many to choose from. She was glad these military types liked to fill a room from the front. It was not like a lecture hall at Uni, where the back row was prime territory. Late comers would shamefully trudge to the front mid lecture under the glare of the lecturer and face a barrage of sarcastic wit regarding timekeeping.

No sooner had she sat down, hat down across her eyes, almost looking through the cap visor, than a very loud voice barked some sort of order that definitely ended in ’YUN!’ Everyone in the room rippled to their feet with a material straightening snap. Boots came together and a salute was raised by each. Roisin joined in, albeit a little less sharp, but not so anyone noticed. She felt the part in the kit she was wearing.

An imposing figure strode directly to the podium. No waving or accepting of admiration from the fifty or so rigid saluting figures.

“At Ease!” He barked.

The crowd sat down as one. Each of the three screens sparked to life. Each showing different portrait photos of a person along with associated text down the side. Roisin took them all in instantly. Alexandra Wight, an elegant looking lady with shoulder length black hair, David Henry, slightly spiked up hair harder to see on the passport photo, and her, Roisin Kincade. Her passport photo was from a few years ago and showed her with a delicate blonde quiff, not her current loose hazel bob. She recognised the podium soldier. The stance and the manner were the same as when he had shot her with that dart.

He used a calm but loud voice as he briefed the gathered force.

“Dr Alexandra Wight and Dr David Henry, scientists, specialists in quantum computing. They disappeared off the grid not long after one of our clients had made an offer for their work into quantum search. We provided some of the convincing and subsequent cleanup operations before they disappeared. We had believed they had abandoned their work until the intel branch was alerted in this building. It led to the capture of Dr Wight. We have been unable to interrogate her as she appears to have entered what our medical staff describe as a catatonic state. They continue to work around the clock on her in the med lab. It would appear Miss Wight was engaged in some sort of espionage. The target is unclear, the reason, potentially revenge. We have yet to locate Dr David Henry. Our previous surveillance of their activities indicates a close relationship so we expect he will be in the vicinity too. The third criminal is a Roisin Kincade. A 26 year old technology specialist. She is a very recent addition to our roster. Several anomalies led us to this house of…”

The first screen flicked from showing Alex to showing a still of a cowering mother and child in their hallway.

“Faith Ruby Devonshire. She had filmed this event…”

The centre screen stopped showing Dr Henry and the boat and giggles YouTube played. Despite the infectious laugh there was total silence.

“Tough crowd.” She said to herself under her breath. The presenter continued.

“We arrived to search the premises and we were confronted by…”

The left screen changed again showing a still of her, in Faith’s garden. It looked like a wide angle GoPro skateboard still.

“The unit experienced an equipment malfunction across all lethal firearms. A non lethal dart was delivered to the target."

The still sparked into motion, a large gun barrel loomed into view, slightly warped by the angle of the lens. In slow motion the dart left the barrel. She could see its feathers bristling and fighting to align in the right place, to steer the dart, as it lurched forward. She relived the thud of it impacting her. Then next frame the garden was empty. A small star of light had appeared in one frame. There was a definite altering of the combined breathing pattern in the room.