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  “M-Sof is a multi-billion Au enterprise,” Miles pointed out. “No surprise they got along without you for a few hours.” Was that a little too sarcastic?

  Mark spoke, enunciating each word. “Listen to what I am saying. I took time to think, and I wasn’t working during that time. I made no decisions, but my decisions were still being made. My decisions were made, but not by me.”

  You’re not making any sense either. Why couldn’t people be like computers? What Miles needed here was a handy error message to tell him what was going on. “You lost me.”

  “Decisions I was going to make—and would have made—were made. But I didn’t make them. Someone else did. Someone continued playing the market and making all the same choices I would have made.”

  And there was the error message. “Oh.”

  “What!”

  “Nothing?” It came out sounding like a question rather than the statement he’d intended.

  Mark stood. Leaning forward on the desk he towered over the shrunken Miles. “Son-of-a-bitch!” Mark spun and hurled his office chair against the far wall. The chair landed on its side, one wheel spinning, but otherwise looked unhurt.

  “This isn’t all—”

  “You fucking little shit!”

  Lokner2.0, no doubt. This was so far beyond bad Miles couldn’t think of a word for it. He’d better say something quick. He needed to explain to Lokner that this wasn’t his fault. Ruprecht said Miles always crushed problems, but what he seemed to miss was that Miles always crushed computer problems. This was a people problem. He couldn’t remember ever crushing one of those.

  “Uh,” said Miles, looking for the logical argument that would lead Lokner to understanding.

  “Uh,” mimicked Lokner. “That’s right, uh. You made a fucking copy of me and didn’t even tell me!”

  “What?” Confused, Miles tried to explain. “No, you—”

  “I what? I know about this, don’t I? Of course I do. Everything worked except I’m the fucking copy.”

  What the heck had Lokner thought it would be like, waking up and finding out he was the copy? Of course the egocentric twit never thought about the fact one of him would have to be the copy. No, no. They all had to be the original. No version of Lokner would ever accept being the copy. Miles, in his usual way, had avoided thinking about it. Maybe he could crush this if he thought of it like a computer problem. Logic, that should work.

  “Sir, you are the copy. The other is the original. You are Lokner2.0. You are the back-up plan. You know all this. It was your idea. Well, it worked and here we are in Reno.”

  “I’m in Reno? I’m not even in Redmond?”

  Miles could empathize with the terror of discovering things weren’t what they seemed. Every date he’d ever been on felt like that. And the guy looked like someone sold his favorite kitten. Not that Lokner was a kittens kind of guy.

  Miles tried to explain as gently as possible. “If you remember, this was all part of the plan, Sir. We’re in a building owned by 5THSUN Assessments, a dummy corporation for Lokner1.0’s side project, which is you. We have all our own systems and computers and make pretty good money outside of the M-Sof contracts.”

  “No,” said Lokner. He blinked and tears streamed down his face. “This is too much.” He wiped at his cheek, stared at the damp palm of his hand in confusion. “I’m a digitally simulated man, in a modeled office.” His voice was razor-edged with panic. “I look out the window at the campus grounds. It’s not real. Or, rather, it is real but I’m not there.” Lokner sagged against his desk, breathing heavily. He stared at his spread hands as if searching them for faults. He looked up and made eye contact with Miles. “If you tell him about me, if you tell him I know the truth, I will have your fucking head.” His voice was dead calm, his eyes dry and cold as if the tears never happened. “Maybe right now I’m trapped in this lie, but I won’t be here forever.”

  Way to go, you really crushed that problem. “Sir, remember why you had yourself made.” Did that make sense? This entire conversation felt insane. “You’re the back-up—”

  “Ha! Back up my ass.” Lokner2.0, looking surprised, blinked and then giggled. “I should have inserted a pause there or something. In my sentence, not in my—”

  “Look, Sir—”

  Lokner’s face was again serious, like the giggle never happened. “I will be the real me. And you’re going to help.”

  “I—”

  “Shut up. I want market access. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good.”

  Miles swallowed the lump in his throat. Time to man up. “But I’m not going to.”

  “Don’t cross me.” Deadly calm.

  “I cross you or him. Same man,” said Miles.

  “So I’m your prisoner?” Lokner asked.

  “Not my prisoner—”

  “Miles, you hold the key. If I am a prisoner I am your prisoner. Are you going to keep me trapped in this hell against my will?”

  “It’s hardly hell. Even if I give you total access nothing will really change.”

  Lokner smiled sweet innocence at Miles. “Am I human?”

  Miles blinked in confusion, staring up at Lokner still towering over him. Why the sudden change in direction? “I think so. It’s only a matter of time before the courts—”

  “Right. So you are holding a human being captive against his will.”

  Crap. That’s where Lokner was going with this. “From a certain point of view you want you to be here,” pointed out Miles, more than a little desperate.

  “Semantics and bullshit. I expect better from you. You’re going to free me and give me complete access to everything I want. It’s the right thing to do.”

  Miles met Lokner’s eyes. The man looked calm. Miles’ mind whirled. He had no choice. If he held Lokner he’d break every basic moral and ethical code he had.

  Miles nodded reluctantly. “You’re right. I can’t keep you locked up against your will. I will not be Lokner1.0’s slave-master. You’ll have access to all 5THSUN in a few minutes.”

  “No. Everything. I want the same access he has. Hack M-Sof. I know you can.” Lokner grinned. “I know you already have.”

  Of course he had. Miles stared at Lokner who stared back. Miles cracked first. “Fine. You two can sort this out. Just leave me out of it.” Technically, they were both his boss. The thought didn’t make him feel any better.

  Miles felt some real loyalty to the original biological Lokner. That’s the man who hired him, paid him buckets of Au to play with computers, and trusted Miles with billions of Au worth of data systems. What he felt for that man, did it extend to his Scans? Miles was less sure every day.

  Lokner’s expression would be right at home on a pedophile in a playschool but maybe creepier. “Your level of involvement is up to you. Tell him I’m free, and you’ll be pretty fucking involved. Keep this quiet, our little secret,” Lokner tapped the side of his nose with a finger and winked cheerily, “and there’ll be a handsome Christmas bonus.”

  Lokner was trying to tempt him with a Christmas bonus? I don’t know what to do with the money I already have!

  “Miles?”

  “Sir?”

  “Call me Lokner2.0. I want to be reminded he tried to fuck me.”

  “He didn’t try and...screw you Sir. This is as much your plan as his.”

  Lokner2.0 stood silent and Miles hoped he’d understood how stupid this was.

  “He would have tossed me to the wolves at the first sign of trouble. He was going to use me. Nobody does that to me.”

  “Fine,” said Miles. “Total access. Can I get back to work now?”

  Lokner looked hurt and bit his lip. “It’s just business, don’t get all huffy.” He glanced around his office as if looking for something to talk about. “It’s so quiet here.”

  Really? Threats fly and now they’d sit and chat? Miles, hoping to end this quickly, said, “Oh? It doesn’t seem to be bothering Lokner1.0.”r />
  “Get out.”

  And he was back in his office. He could have returned here at any time—all those trapdoors he found for Lokner weren’t so much closed as conscripted—but he preferred to keep a little something up his sleeve. He’d left trapdoors in every computer system he’d ever touched. He couldn’t help himself. Nothing malicious, it was an aspect of his better-safe-than-sorry mentality. Just part of what made him so good at his job.

  The desk chirped as he finishing changing Lokner2.0’s access privileges.

  “Yes?” Miles answered with some trepidation.

  “Miles—I mean Pert—I’ve sub-contracted out 5THSUN’s security arrangements to a company called Cc-Security.”

  “It’s pronounced Peert,” Miles snapped before hearing Lokner’s words. Oh crap. The more Lokner1.0 got involved in 5THSUN the more chance he’d find out Lokner2.0 was out of the bottle. “Sir, I think that might be a bad idea. If anyone tracks down the connection between M-Sof and this security company, we might be...screwed. Anyway, we don’t need it.” I don’t need this.

  “Miles, it’s not your problem. I want my copy safe. I want it there when I need it.”

  When he needed it? “I’m not sure the risk is justified.”

  “Not your problem,” repeated Lokner. “Risk management is what I do. I’m a god at this stuff. I built M-Sof from a hobby project in my goddamn garage. You think I don’t understand risk?”

  A god? Miles rubbed his temples. He almost quit right then and there, but couldn’t do it. There were many little reasons—left-over loyalty, a fantastic paycheck, he had friends here, job-hunting sounded exhausting, his secretary, Miss Cho, was too damned hot, he hated moving, and on and on. And of course he’d kind of helped Lokner hide the evidence he’d been scanned. The legality of that was questionable at best. Questionable? Okay, not all that questionable. Miles had hacked a lot of government networks and deleted a lot of information.

  “Yes, Sir.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Good. See the Cc folks get whatever they need.” Lokner killed the connection without a goodbye or even a dismissive grunt.

  Miles glanced about his office.

  So...any more people problems to crush?

  ***

  Everything changed for Lockner2.0 the moment Miles updated his access privileges. A whole new world of possibilities opened before him. The Cc-Securities contract caught his attention and he laughed—an escalating high-pitched giggle he had trouble reigning in—at the oversight. He’d planned this—rather Lokner1.0 planned this—back before Lokner2.0 had been created. He knew what they were for, and he knew how they were equipped.

  Micro-nukes! What fun!

  How could that not come in handy?

  Lokner1.0 had unwittingly supplied him with a small army. Intercepting 1.0’s orders to the Cc chassis was easy from within 5THSUN. Most orders he sent on without change so as not to alert his enemy. Some he altered subtly. He also sent along some orders of his own.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Friday, August 3rd, 2046

  Riina, known as Uncle Riina to his boys, and Boss to everyone else, glared at the phone he’d slammed on the desk. His usual calm had been shattered.

  Bad news. Very bad news.

  He rose from behind his desk and the utilitarian chair toppled over. With a snarl he spun, snatched up the chair and proceeded to smash his phone to plastic dust. His Lieutenant, Giovanni, charged into the room, massive Desert Eagle .50 drawn, only to find Riina hefting the leg of his broken chair. Where Riina dressed like a hip banker or investment broker, Giovanni looked like a chiseled block of wood with great hair in a loose hanging Italian suit.

  Giovanni took in the room with a fast glance, and swept the few hairs that came loose from his ponytail from his eyes. “Everything okay?”

  “No.”

  “Phone’s broken. Chair too.”

  The man had a knack for grasping the obvious. “Sometimes you kill the bearer of bad news.”

  “I bring nothing but good tidings.”

  Riina ignored Giovanni’s attempt at humor. “Get me Archaeidae. I want him here. Now.”

  Giovanni nodded and ducked out of Riina’s office without a word.

  The call had been from the family that ran Riina’s Wichita Falls crèche. Before they were shut down they managed to get word out that a NATU strike force attacked the farm and destroyed the two chassis he’d left on guard.

  All the children in the crèche were dead as well, burnt to death in a fire.

  Riina leaned against his desk, palms spread, head bowed. He took long shaking breaths. SwampJack and Wandering Spider. Gone. They killed his kids. His fingers curled into fists, leaving long scratches in the finish of the oak desk.

  “Heads will roll,” he promised. The death of his children would not go unavenged.

  When he had his emotions under control he straightened.

  “I’ll give them the Four Fucking Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” He stalked into the hall and ran into Giovanni.

  “When Archaeidae gets here send him straight to me. Find out where the NATU assholes are. Start with the Hilton in Dallas, that’s where they usually stay. I’ll be in your office.” He stormed into his Lieutenant’s office, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the thick, triple glazed windows.

  ***

  Giovanni stared at his office door.

  “Shit.”

  He looked around the hallway, gnawing on his bottom lip, before deciding to duck out onto his roof-top retreat for a cigarette. The second he stepped out onto the roof the heat tried to crush him. He looked up at the sun and grinned into its fury, enjoying its heat on his face. Seven minutes to finish a cigarette, and then back into air-conditioned comfort. He lit up and breathed that glorious first drag deep, holding the fire in his lungs until it cooled. Already he felt his perfect hair losing some of its bounce, and the crisp creases of his suit wilted. He made the call to Archaeidae as he smoked.

  The black tar roof was tacky in the sun and small pebbles and cigarette butts glued themselves to Giovanni’s expensive Italian shoes. Across the street a scrolling billboard reminded people that watering their lawns was punishable by a five-thousand Au fine and up to a year in prison. The burn ban was still in effect—for the tenth year in a row—and all outdoor fires within city limits were prohibited. Discover squatters in an abandoned or condemned building? A phone number slid past where a person could report them. Help Keep Wichita Falls Beautiful...Don’t Litter.

  Giovanni smoked the cigarette to the filter and then flicked the butt over the edge of the roof. With any luck it’d land on some asshole on the street. A lonely steel-guitar echoed in the alley as it escaped an open window. It was the kind of sound Giovanni referred to as Country Twang Bullshit and it frustrated him to no end that his four-year-old daughter loved it.

  Once inside the air-conditioning chilled the sweat on his body making it feel even colder. As he finished picking pebbles off the bottom of his shoes, a sharp rap, steel on wood, sounded at the front door.

  “I’ll get it, Oo,” he called to the chassis loitering by the door. The kid had been waiting there since he heard Archaeidae was coming.

  Giovanni sauntered down the narrow stairs to the lobby. Oo, a two meter tall militarized mechanical wasp, stood at the bottom, striped black and bright yellow, and somehow both bulbous and leanly vicious at the same time. Fucking Japanese chassis were always half fashion piece. Give ‘em credit, the kid was a full-blown run screaming to your shrink sphesksophobic nightmare.

  As Giovanni reached the bottom of the stairs, Oo nodded in a quick bow. It was always nice when something that could scatter your torn body parts over Hell’s Half Acre in less time than it took you to blink was unfailingly polite. Giovanni nodded back and stopped at the door checking the Desert Eagle in its shoulder holster and the hang of his suit. Easy access but not easily visible. He glanced toward the screen displaying the views from the different cameras outside. The figure there stood t
all, bone-thin, and covered head to toe in voluminous brown robes. No skin was exposed and Giovanni knew why. He threw the door open.

  “Archy, get the fuck in here.”

  The figure dipped a shallow bow before entering the front hall. Once inside he offered a similar bow to Oo who bowed back so low his head damned near touched the floor.

  What’s that about? Why did these kids worship Archy so much?

  When the door closed the brown robes were shrugged aside exposing the Assassin Chassis below. Archaeidae wore a pair of Japanese samurai swords, both a katana and a wakizashi, on his left hip. The kid loved this samurai stuff. All the Scans slotted for combat chassis were programmed with it. Something to do with loyalty, indoctrination, and having a code to adhere to. Seemed strange to Giovanni, but Riina insisted on it.

  Archaeidae now looked far more like the long-necked spider-hunting spider he was named for. A death’s-head skull straight from a Voudoun nightmare, his visage was terrifying. He stood on the rear two legs, keeping the middle two appendages curled tight to his body, and using the front-most two as arms. He waved something under Giovanni’s nose. A cigarette butt, smoked to the filter.

  “Don’t litter,” said Archaeidae, handing him the butt. “Oo-Suzumebachi,” he said, turning to the other chassis, “how goes your poetry?”

  “I am trying my hand at haiku,” said Oo.

  “And?”

  “Wars of will decide - The Shape of all tomorrows - There can be no peace.”

  “I like it.” Archaeidae paused in thought. “How about, The empty vessel - Sings as the wind passes through - Full it makes no sound.”

  Oo bowed a second time and Giovanni watched as Archaeidae shed all semblance of humanity and used all six limbs to scamper up the stairs. The sinuous liquidity of the movement combined everything repulsive about snakes and spiders and sent shivers of revulsion down Giovanni’s spine.

  “He’s in my office,” Giovanni called after the boy.

  ***