“But why the human flesh?”
“Cause you guys weren’t from Clearfield, or Lockhaven, and you were asking for the merc. I figured you might be like the Allegheny.”
“So the Allegheny… eat people?”
The wanderer stared at Duncan for a moment, then snickered. “You all really ain’t from around here, are you?”
The pieces fell together. Song doctor or not, the wanderer must be the only one willing to deal with the Allegheny, the only one willing to trade with cannibals. It must be how he made a living, as the main intermediary for exchanges of goods. And the merc came here, with Cecile, to do some sort of business.
Duncan could think of only one kind of business.
Duncan doubted the wanderer would be any help. He would have to find these Allegheny himself, and time was of the essence.
“Thank you for your hospitality, wanderer. We were just leaving,” Duncan said.
His men slowly gathered their belongings and backed away from the wanderer, his shotgun, and his slobbering hounds. The wanderer only looked at them quizzically, with one solitary eyebrow raised over an eyeless socket.
When they were a stone’s throw away, the wanderer followed, leaning back as he walked to hold the dogs in check. He kept following, even until they opened and closed the fence door behind them.
“You’re really leaving?” he asked.
“It seems that way, doesn’t it?” Duncan said with a touch of mirth.
“You’re not going to offer nothing? For more information on your friends, like?” The wanderer seemed genuinely confused.
“No, wanderer.”
“Listen. Okay, okay. You got me. Give me one of those fancy knives you got, and a jar of the marinade.”
Duncan halted his stride. “For what?”
“For the location. You know, where your friends are going to meet the Allegheny. None of my business really, but information has value, right? And not one done told me not to tell.”
Duncan turned and kept walking away.
“Okay, just a jar of that marinade. That’s all I need,” the wanderer called after him.
Duncan turned and stopped. He nodded to one of his men, who took out a small jar of the marinade. Gerard didn’t look happy to be parting with it.
Duncan walked closer to the wanderer and tossed it to him. The wanderer smiled toothily in return. “They’ll be by the Milk junction clearing, up Erie trail about five miles. Meeting’s planned for first light tomorrow.”
There was no way to test the truth of it, but he had to admit, if it was true, the added information could be a gift.
“Thank you, wanderer,” Duncan said. Then, without another word, he and his group left for good, cutting into the forest with speed, knowing Cecile’s life might hang in the balance.
RELEVANT HUMAN CAPITAL
The two young men shifted their toes precariously on the floor, trying to take on some of their weight. Above them the nylon ropes were pinching into their wrists, leaving red lines on their skin where they extended to loop up over the ceiling rafters. Their mouths were covered with tight-fitting gags. Around them, what had been a well-organized, open-space office was littered with papers and electronic devices, plus one prostrated body.
Axel walked over to the body and kicked it in the stomach. It didn’t move.
“He’s dead, boss. Checked him earlier,” Wade said as he continued to rifle through the file cabinets.
“Like I said, don’t try to be a hero,” Axel said to the hanging men, who blinked their eyes back at him in acknowledgement.
Axel opened up the duffel bag and examined the host of hard drives, flash drives, phones and laptops. Then he looked at the list on his phone again:
Secure relevant human capital—check
Gain credentials for access to servers—check
Verify server access credentials—check
Apply cleansing virus to system—check
Collect all hand-held devices, computers, flash drives, hard drives—check
Collect all relevant paper files—in process.
Terminate relevant human capital.
The latter had been a specific request of Bhavin’s. Bhavin was worried that once someone was able to build a functioning AGI system, they could rebuild it again with relative ease. Axel preferred to give them a stern warning. Realistically, who would try again after being threatened—after they knew they were being watched? Still, Bhavin was adamant. Axel hoped the one dead man on the floor would be enough to satisfy him.
Axel pressed on his earbud. “Teams one through three report in.”
“This is team one—home purge in process.”
“This is team two—home purge complete.”
“This is team three—home purge in process.”
It was possible they could continue to clear the office for hours. It was also possible someone might have heard the commotion, or seen them through the windows before they pulled the shades, in which case the police could be here soon.
“Let’s wrap this up Wade.”
“Yes sir. Two more minutes.”
“Okay, gentlemen.” Axel pulled a chair up below the dangling men. “Listen very, very carefully. You’ve gone somewhere you shouldn’t have with your software development—somewhere dangerous to all of us. After we leave here, you can go about living your life to the fullest. You can even continue to develop software, unless you choose to, one—tell anyone what happened here today, like for example what I am telling you now; or two—ever seek to develop software that incorporates AGI. Narrow AI is fine, but stay miles away from anything that can recursively self-improve or uses anything like the Wog abstraction modules. Got it?”
Their faces showed some confusion but they nodded. It was certainly a better deal than being dead.
“This is team one—home purge completed,” his earbud chirped.
“Okay boss,” Wade said, zipping up his duffel bag.
Axel cut the nylon ropes that were looped over the rafters with his pocket laser. The two young men slumped to the ground and began rubbing their wrists. It would take some time for them to get the wrist ties off and remove their gags.
Axel and Wade hoisted their duffel bags over their shoulders and left.
Outside they hopped in the jeep and tore out of the parking lot of the small plaza. They stayed outside of Currie and headed west, away from Edinburgh.
“This is team three—home purge completed,” his earbud chirped.
Too slow. He would have to audit team three.
Axel wrote a quick summary on his secure phone and messaged it to Grant and Bhavin.
Bhavin had become very interested in the ops. He was almost overbearing, weighing in on details that shouldn’t concern him, or that he wasn’t qualified to provide input on.
Like whether or not certain people should live or die.
Bhavin had been happy Axel decided to stay, for sure, but he didn’t so much as pause to thank him, or even explore how he came around. Instead, Axel was immediately thrust into planning and executing ops, while Bhavin had daily meetings with Axel and multiple meetings a day with the Fortient division folks. The fact that Bhavin was doing so much work with the defense arm was disconcerting, since their work was essentially a precaution in case Axel failed.
Adding to the frenzy was the fact that Nadar Corp was being investigated by the SEC for accounting irregularities. Nadar Corporation stock price had dropped twenty percent since the news. Rather than assuage investors like any normal CEO, however, Bhavin had ignored the problem and stayed silent. And he would regularly blow off meetings with lawyers and accountants in order to spend more time with Axel or Fortient.