"There are larger purposes at work here Dana," Alice said. "Sacrificing one cyc component constitutes an acceptable-"
"No," Dana cut in. "I mean the old man. He had nothing to do
with-"
"Mr. Graydon's mind was removed from that brain and copied onto the DataStreams Intranet moments after the cycs took it. It is true that the body once his has suffered a catastrophic failure, but that was no longer DataStreams' CEO. It's important that you know this. When you get to the island, you will find all DataStreams personnel in the same state. You must not let them fool you."
"I won't kill them. If that's what you mean," Dana resolved.
"Hopefully it won't come to that," Alice said. "There are too many variables involved in such a confrontation, but we must hurry. I almost have the satellite in position and I won't be able to keep it there long without the cyc hive-mind taking notice."
"Satellite?" Dana asked warily.
"Raise sail Dana," Alice commanded.
Once Dana was able to get back into herself mentally, it was scant minutes before her tiny boat was cutting through the water again under Alice's direction. After another quarter-hour of traveling, Dana marveled that the old man lying dead nearby was able to swim such a distance. The human body was capable of incredible feats under duress, and apparently under AI mind-control as well.
Finally, the island came into view. Wide and flat, covered with marshland, it would be nothing spectacular were it not for the DataStreams complex consuming most of its real estate. One squat building sat in the center of four towering spires. All five structures were connected with a network of walkways. Surrounding this complex were the brief suburbs, model neighborhoods for the corporations' employees.
Then there were the AI modifications. The many wires wrapped around the complex like a spider's web gave it a haunting appearance. Satellite dishes and radio towers bristled all over the buildings, along with other unidentifiable technologies. More of the towering sentinels marched slowly through the neighborhood streets, keeping watch over the ghost town.
Despite this new, alien layer the scene did bring back certain nostalgia for the detective. Dana's youth as an independent contractor brought her to this place many times. Once to take into custody one anti-social would be hacker of a systems engineer named Almeric Lim.
Dana thought about her late partner, Murphy, and hoped Lim's mind was still somewhere on that corporate network.
Zai pulled herself out of the SDC and heaved the fluid from her lungs. Scrambling, naked and wet on all fours, she found her way down to the system's base and felt around for the power cord. She found the CPU between Devin and her SDC's. Tracing the chords there, she found one of the appropriate gauge and followed it to the wall socket. She unplugged it and the backup power supply started beeping to her satisfaction.
She circled around back into the room and her hand met something soft and sticky.
"Devin?" she asked, but received no response. Her hands traced a path along his chest, and, finding no signs of life there, continued to his face.
She did not like what she found in his frozen expression. Zai took a deep breath and allowed one, quiet sob to escape her chest. She would process this grief later. She found the personalized mini-CD in her clothes bag and loaded it into her SDC.
Samantha peeked around the sacrificial altar and scanned the courtyard. Only three of the six cycs were visible. These took a triangle formation, each facing a third of the ancient temple. They were connected with black cords that ran from their backs, to converge in an obsidian ball hovering in the air inside their circle.
One AI raised a trapezium-shaped appendage at a nearby boulder, which slowly faded away without a trace. The other two followed suit, making the trees and shrubs vanish one by one. The ground around the cycs' feet corroded black as their veins took root.
Samantha returned to the half-coded data-purger lying in her lap, her hands working at lightning speed to finish the program. It was a basic weapon, and she was uncertain it would work against these AI's, which were now immune to all standard data-corruption methods.
A shadow fell over her and she rolled to one side, evading the shambling thing's lunge. The cyc pulled its appendage from the stone. The many tendrils pulling from the rock like roots from soil. It took a few stuttering steps toward her, its processes slowed as it communicated her location to the other's.
The cyc launched a flood of tendrils at her from one arm. Samantha fell to the ground, curling around the sector editor. Everything went black weaved into the cyc's cocoon.
Zai stood face to face with three cycs. They worked in unison, rewriting the local hard drive with their code. She listened to them diligently erase the environment, bit by bit, growing into the freed space. They could not see her, thanks to the IWA avatar-masking program.
She would smile at her advantageous position, were it not for Devin. Having so many things left unsaid was a very bitter pill. Guilt weighed heavily on her, how their final moments were spent in constant bickering.
Zai breathed deeply and focused on the situation. Concentrating on the cycs before her, allowing the feelings of guilt and sorrow to burn Her real knuckles went white as she balled them into trembling fists. Zai always imagined the color red as this emotion. The heat washed over her, the injustice fueling it. She toggled her command line.
A cyc froze as a cartoon doll tore through its chest. It trembled in place, electricity rolling all over it, and dropped to a kneel. Falling forward, it burst into a pile of writhing tentacles, which immediately fell lifeless.
The other two cycs pulled apart, loosing their connection. Zai's punk-rock doll-baby avatar swirled into spinning roundhouse kicks that struck the head clean off another. Waving arms reached up, trying to find its missing head, before the body collapsed. Black Sheep ground a dying tentacle underfoot.
She laughed sadistically as the third cyc took a cautious step back. She put one foot forward, increasing the animosity in her countenance. This was purely for her own benefit; the angry frown on her doll's face was meaningless to the cyc. This was savoring the moment, satisfying her bloodlust.
Samantha strained against the constricting web. The cyc was simultaneously hacking her persona, indicating the hive-mind knew of her presence here and equipped this cyc with her mind's schemata. It was now using that to deconstruct her thoughts.
But it had to get past her conscious resistance, break her will. So it squeezed harder, applying more pressure to her mind's physical associations. It was difficult for Samantha, fighting off the sensation of being crushed to death while maintaining guard over her psyche. Her hands slowed in their efforts to build the weapon, as her attentions were drawn to survival.
Samantha felt herself losing the battle.
The cyc fell into two halves, disintegrating. Zai was energized with this catharsis, this power surge replacing the hopelessness. She listened for other cycs, but detected none. Then she tried locating Samantha, calling out to her through an instant messenger. There was no response, but also no error message. Samantha was still on the system.
Zai toggled her command line and instant messaged Samantha again. This time she used the connection not to send a message, but a file, her avatar. A trick she learned playing hide and seek online with Devin.
She stood before a cyc grotesquely distorted with the process of digesting Samantha. Zai hesitated. With her command toggle, she lacked the precision to attack the cyc without risking Samantha. The helpless frustration welled up inside of her again. The baby-doll covered in tribal tattoos glared at the cyc impotently.