Trail of Evil - eARC (21 page)

Chapter 31

December 2, 2406 AD

61 Ursae Majoris

31 Light-years from the Sol System

Friday, 11:25 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

The inner solar system was not all that unlike Sol’s. The moon of the fourth planet was covered with domes and lights the same way Luna was. The planet below didn’t appear much different from Earth, only more developed. There was little in the way of what looked like uninhabited real estate. After several orbits around the planet Nancy had assured them that they had taken enough data from optical images, ambient radio and data transmissions, vibrational surface waves, and quantum membrane sensors to create a good high resolution map of the planet. There was also an ample amount of data floating around the system that was unencrypted on open system-wide networks. Jack spent a few minutes looking at it, but soon realized it would take a significant amount of his time to figure out the relevant information for his team. One of the weirdest aspects of the network was that there were no entertainment sites or links. The thing was one hundred percent down to business. There were no ads, movies, songs, no politics, and no porn. This was certainly not a network created by and for humanity in the typical sense. Jack decided it would be best to let Nancy handle this part of the recon, or in actuality let her AIC do it.

Nancy’s AIC had developed a data-mining agent that was crawling around the open network gathering pertinent information while at the same time logging ambient signals and imagery from the Archangels. The hopes were for the team to create a complete map of the system, find the highest priority targets, and spy on them. The AICs were working on compiling the map and determining the most highly valued targets.

Nancy and Amari pinpointed the largest city on the planet, it was about the size of Arizona. It stretched across a complete land mass that was surrounded by oceans on all sides. It was right above the equator of the planet. There were spaceports located all across the city with air traffic moving continuously. A few more spacecraft coming in shouldn’t draw any suspicion as long as nobody realized they weren’t being picked up on other sensors at the same time.

The team sat down at the outermost edge of one of the smaller spaceports. It looked nearly abandoned compared to the buildings around it. It was likely that this was an older port that had lost traffic to a newer, more updated one further inward.

Jack cycled the canopy of his mecha and leapt to the ground. The canopy closed itself. He hated leaving the safety of his mecha and he wasn’t sure what the general would have to say about it, but they were there and somebody needed to gather intel. He certainly wasn’t going to sit put in his fighter while the AEMs had all the fun.

“Okay, here’s the plan.” He gathered the team around him. “Fish, you take the rest of the Archangels and see if you can blend in with the local air traffic. Get as much data as you can at all wavelengths. Dee and I will join the ground team from here.”

“Jack, I think we should leave Amari in the shuttle running the sigint package until we get back.” Nancy suggested.

“Okay, Amari, you stay here. Any sign of trouble snap-back to the Oort rendezvous point. Corporal Simms, stay here with Amari and keep an eye out.” DeathRay paused and did a quick headcount. “We keep the jammers going and maybe nobody will notice our suits with Mark I Eyeballs. The only way they’ll see us is if they actually see us. These new jammers Buckley and the STO have been reverse engineering from the ships we found are getting their first real test. Hopefully, we’ll be invisible to everything but an actual eyeball. And hopefully, those eyeballs will be too busy going about their daily business to catch us doing our thing. We’ll stay either on rooftops or in the sewers if they have them or in alleyways. In other words, we stay the fuck out of sight. Out of sight and we will be able to get this job done. Everybody got it?”

Jack waited for a nod of affirmation from the team and then started looking around for a route to take. The imagery they had taken on the way in had enabled them to build up a three-dimensional topographical map of the city to pretty good resolution. As they explored and improved the map they would be able to generate very detailed maps for later use.

Candis?

Due North there are plenty of high-rise buildings, Jack.
His AIC said.
We could bounce from those.

Good.

“Everybody spread out with at least a half klick between you. Find some vantage points to look and listen and start doing it. Move out.”

The city was unlike anything that Jack had ever seen before. It was larger than any human-made city that had ever existed, and it was populated with humans everywhere he looked. Or at least to the best he could tell, they all looked human. The problem was that there were only about a hundred different faces. In fact, after about sixteen hours of moving from ground level to skyscraper level and back down again, he had seen the same set of faces more times than he could count. Candis had counted and said that it was one hundred three different faces so far. Everyone else was exact duplicates of one of the other hundred and three faces. She had yet to find a single face that hadn’t had a duplicate somewhere along the way.

Clones?
Jack thought.
But, I thought clones were just empty bodies with no mind? Spare parts. Nobody has grown a real clone with a sentient brain in centuries other than pets and farm animals. How are they sentient?

Either they are clones or a shitload of multituplets,
his AIC replied.
A clone grown from birth and released at birth into the world would grow and develop like a normal human.

Yeah, but, none of these look to be different ages. They all look like they are thirty years old and there is no variation.

Perhaps whoever created them has figured out a way to upload a mind into them?
His AIC suggested.

Do they have AICs?

Unclear at this point, Jack. We’d have to take one and make a much more detailed medical examination.

Maybe later.
Jack replied.
Have you noticed any of the thousand-yard AIC conversational stares?

I have been looking for that. And no, I haven’t seen it.
Candis added.

Private channel to Penzington.

Channel is open, Jack.

“Hey sweetness. Miss me?” He laughed.

“Not really,” Nancy replied nonchalantly. “Is this a business or pleasure call?”

“Well, if you put it that way, I haven’t noticed any AIC conversational stares. Have you?”

“No. And that is wierding me out,” Nancy said over the com. “Allison doesn’t quite know what to make of it either.”

“Any news on your end?”

“I have a little.” She said. “Allison has pinpointed, through several different ways and means that we don’t have to go into, what she thinks is a capitol city district just a bit south of here. I’m going to take Rackman and move into that area.”

Jack noticed that she didn’t ask permission to take the SEAL she just said she was going to do it. But Nancy always did was she wanted to do. That was what Jack loved about her. The greatest thing about it was that somehow what Nancy wanted to do was always what needed to get done.

“Okay, keep me in the loop.” Jack thought about his wife for a brief second and didn’t like her being in harm’s way. And then he remembered who his wife was and how they had met and all the things they had been through together and the feeling slipped away. Neither he nor a freight train could keep her from doing what she wanted to do and he wasn’t about to start trying now. He half suspected that was the same way General Moore must feel about his wife and daughter. “Nancy, one more thing.”

“What’s that, flyboy?”

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

The city, state, country, continent, was vast, much larger than Washington D.C. and New York City combined, much larger than the expanse of Los Angeles, California, and much larger than Moscow, or Paris, all combined and on a land mass the size of Olympus Mons. It was clear that the entire continent was one large city. How had anybody managed to do this without humanity knowing about it? Or at least without the rest of humanity knowing about it. As far as his AIC could estimate there were nearly one hundred million inhabitants on the island continent alone. From space, the rest of the planet had appeared as heavily populated. Best estimates by Nancy and Allison had been over ten billion people—if they were people.

Candis, hit me with some stims again, I’m getting a little tired.

Roger that.
The AIC triggered a release of chemicals through the organogel layer of the suit that would time release stimulants and calories into his system. In the new suits a soldier could go for days without sleep and never lose alertness. Without eating though, the stomach still would feel empty. There were drugs for that feeling too, but there was also food. He preferred food.

Jack popped his visor for some fresh night air and then fumbled through his chest pouch for some rations. He found a very dense energy bar and decided to chew on that for a bit. The peanut butter and chocolate flavor was actually inviting even if the damned thing was as chewy as glue. He looked up at the night sky as he chewed. The moon of the planet wasn’t much smaller than Luna back home. The surface of this entire moon, however, was covered with lit-up structures. It looked very much alive.

Jack continued to carefully position himself to watch and catalog movement of the people and vehicles. His suit’s sensors logged any motion detectable, including aircraft. All of the information might prove useful to the analysts in the “looney bin” when they returned. After another five or so hours of bouncing from rooftop to rooftop he decided it was time to take a break. He found a rooftop that had a mechanical maintenance alcove on top of it and backed himself into the shadows of the structural gridwork.

Jack adjusted his position within the structural members of the alcove near the precipice of the building. He estimated where he was to be about fifty stories high. There were taller buildings further to the north, but he would be able to learn a lot about the city from where he was. He could see entrances for the subways and private vehicles. What he didn’t see were no billboards, magazines, or movie theaters. It unnerved Jack because there was something not, well, not human about it.

He sat down and then propped himself up against one of the girders on the building top that jutted upward to something that might have been a water tank, but Jack wasn’t sure. He made certain his sensors and his visor would be pointed in such a way as to give him maximum field of view. Then he closed his visor and then closed his eyes.

Candis, I’m going to take a nap. Keep me posted if anything happens
. He thought.

Roger that, Jack. From the motion on the blue force tracker and through AIC affirmation most of the recon team is sacked out too.
Candis said.

How long to sunrise?

About three hours.

If nothing happens, wait til then to wake me up.

Aye sir.

“DeathRay, this is Apple One.” Jack opened his eyes. It took him a few seconds to orient his mind as to where he was. His stomach growled as well. Jack could tell the yellow sun was on the verge of breaking across the horizon. The sky to the east was bright and turning pink and blue.

I was about to wake you anyway, sir
, Candis said into his mind.

Right. Time to earn our pay.
He reached into his chest pack for some breakfast.

“Go ahead, Dee.”

“I’m on the north side of the largest spire a bit west of you. You can see in the DTM. I think there’s something here you ought to see.”

“What have you got?” DeathRay said.

“My AIC and Amari have been scanning the QM bands for large noise floor or any evidence for a signal. They’ve found what we think is similar to the background noise created when Copernicus hacks other AICs, but it is a much much larger noise background. Nancy’s AIC agrees with us.”

“I can confirm that, sir,” Amari’s voice came in through the tac-net open channel. “Using data from every known encounter with Copernicus over the last eighteen months I can correlate the present background with a ninety nine point nine eight seven percent certainty. It is definitely Copernicus, but on a very large scale, sir.”

“Okay, so what?” DeathRay asked. “Copernicus is hacking a bunch of people at once?”

“No sir,” Dee said. “I think it is something bigger than just hacking. The problem is that I don’t know what.”

“Okay, anything else?”

“Well, yes,” Amari added. “I’ve been using data from all your suits and Major Moore and Mrs. Penzington have been moving around in directions I needed them to go to better triangulate the multi-path noise signals. Then I linked into the Archangels and generated an algorithm to track the peak noise level. Major Moore is there now.”

“I’m right on top of it. I think it’s some sort of communications nexus.” Dee said. “I’m not so sure that these clones aren’t just humans slaved by an AIC. They’re all run by a Copernicus or perhaps one central Copernicus, if that is possible. And I think this is the factory that’s creating, distributing, and controlling the Copernicus computers or transceivers or whatever they are.”

“Hold on, Dee. Let’s hold off on the speculation until we have more data. We’re going to converge on you. Hold your position, and stay out of sight.”

“Affirmative.”

“Okay, team, you heard the lady. We’re converging on Apple Ones’s location, and everybody, stay calm, cool, collected, and out of sight.”

Jack tuned over the comm to a private channel to Nancy Penzington. He wanted to tell his wife good morning anyway.

“Good morning, gorgeous. What’s up over there?”

“I’m pretty sure that Dee’s right about this, but there’s something about it that doesn’t sit well with me.”

“What’s that?”

“I just saw a hundred and fourth face. Alison has confirmed it.”