I stared at Taylor in disbelief.
“You’re probably wondering how I know you are here?” Taylor asked rhetorically, one of her eyebrows rising. “That’s easy. A common acquaintance told me you were on a mission.”
I’d never met Taylor, knew almost nothing about her. Worse, she was a researcher for the lab division of the very company that had made the technology that now coursed through my veins, and the veins of practically every living organism on the face of the planet. Unlike the test subjects like myself and those I had met on my journey here, Taylor was someone intimately involved in the process of developing these very machines that now existed everywhere. I had no idea if I could trust her.
She was no Rochelle, that was for sure.
“I’m wondering who you are, and why you’re here in what should have been a deserted technology campus,” I told her, careful not to give any specifics while also trying to get her to give up something that might explain her presence here.
“Who told you this place should have been deserted?” Taylor asked, as though it was supposed to be normal for a relatively intact and operational server farm inside a reasonably intact and functioning technology park to exist in a nation that had practically fallen apart from civil war and the collapse of society.
“In case it has escaped your notice,” I began. “The world outside isn’t exactly what you could call business-as-usual.”
Taylor shrugged. “No,” she admitted, her shoulders giving me a shrug. “But this place is important for many reasons, so it’s maintained. I’m partly responsible for that.”
“You’re also not really giving me anything,” I pointed out.
Taylor gave me a measuring look. “The same is true for you, Rick,” she told me. “You’re here for your own reasons. What those are, I don’t know. Nevertheless, I’m not here to stop you from satisfying your curiosity, I’m only here to make sure that this place isn’t destroyed or any of the equipment damaged.”
A caretaker for this place? Really? I thought to myself. This was weird in the current climate, and I couldn’t help but wonder why there would be someone making sure this place was kept safe when there was an entire planet outside that had made this place practically irrelevant.
“Why?” I asked.
“I have my own reasons,” Taylor told me in a flat tone, her expression closed in an instant. “Just as I’m sure you have your own reasons for infiltrating the data systems in this building.”
Resource query complete.
My nanocloud proceeded to download a list of the drive’s contents, my brain immediately began working with the nanocloud interface to catalogue and sort the results into a meaningful form that I could process in an instant. The servers here stored data on everything from personnel records assigned to the lab experiments for Synergy (among other projects that IBM Watson had responsibility for processing) to experimental findings in the various tests that were conducted for Synergy until the outbreak, right up until a few months post-war. My nanocloud picked up my intentions from the cursory thoughts that crossed my mind upon receiving this information, and sent instructions to download and sort the information into usable records for me to examine at a later date.
However, it meant I would be tethered to this machine during the transfer of data from the servers to my nanocloud storage, and I had a limited amount of storage I could use, so any information that wasn’t able to be processed by the servers directly before displaying in readable form were prioritised for download, before the nanocloud processed audio and video streams, images and other human-processable data for translation to long-term memory in my brain, and finally, the nanocloud processed raw data into information that I would be able to understand and recall as if I had read everything and absorbed it all myself.
But the raw data download took the longest time, and the nanocloud predicted it would take me at least five minutes before I would be able to detach from the port and be free to move around.
“What do you know about the situation happening around the world?” I asked Taylor, in an attempt to buy myself enough time for this process to complete.
Taylor slowly entered the room and took the nearest available office chair, sitting easily and reclining in a relaxed pose. “I know you’re only doing this to buy time for the download you initiated to complete, but I’ll bite,” she told me, her expression containing no hint of guile or deceit. “I assume you’re aware of the outbreak that occurred forty-three years ago?”
I nodded. “It sounds to me like you know I haven’t been awake for the whole of that time.”
“It’s obvious,” Taylor told me, a slight smile appearing in the corner of her mouth. “You don’t have some of the hard edged aggressiveness or the deep-rooted cynicism of someone whose life has consisted of forty-three years of post-apocalypse struggle.”
I frowned, not sure about the implications of that statement. “Neither do you,” I suddenly realised, and said so. “You’re-”
“Civil and courteous,” Taylor interrupted me. “Yes, but beyond that, you know nothing about me other than what I tell you, and what you managed to get from whatever data you retrieved from the UK.”
My frown deepened. “What about it?”
Taylor’s head tilted slightly, as if considering me. “While I’m not exactly famous, or infamous, I am well-known around these parts. To answer your question, if you had been awake and working in the world over the last four decades, you might have come across mention of me in various circles. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Synergy Nanotech Corporation?”
I nodded. “Synergy Nanotechnology Solutions Limited,” I told her.
“Yes,” Taylor replied. “Although they’re a subsidiary of what we know of as SynTech. The parent company funded the nanotechnology research that eventually led to the machines that run through the veins of possibly hundreds of thousands of people today.”
I didn’t know the significance of this information, nor did I know where Taylor was leading with this. “Right, so what’s the point?” I asked pointedly.
Taylor sighed, stepping to a nearby chair and lowering herself to it. Eveline remained out of sight, though I know she was listening carefully. “So here’s the story.
“My role with SynTech was as principal researcher for their AI division. I’m responsible for the embryonic stage of development that would eventually become the cloud-based nanotech intelligence that everyone with Synergy Nanotech possesses.
“My colleagues here were responsible for the nanoscale technology that allowed us to fit the computational hardware down to a scale sufficient to allow these machines to exist. We’re talking multi-hundred-picometer technology, something at the very edge of material science for silicon-based processing systems, and the only technology capable of allowing each nano unit to operate at all.
“Together, we came up with the tech specs and design blueprints that would allow the first nanoscopic machines to become a reality.”
This was interesting, I mused, but didn’t really tell me much about why she was here now. “So you helped develop nanocloud technology?” I asked.
“That’s the name you came up for the clustered intelligence that is built from the quadrillions of individual nannies that are flowing through your bloodstream as we speak?” Taylor asked, her tone curious.
I nodded. “So?” I promoted.
Taylor nodded. “This technology is what has granted many people on the planet the ability to halt, even reverse the ageing process, a side effect of the UK division’s work on medical treatments derived from this research. But it wasn’t intended. It was a side effect.”
I suspected that halting the ageing process was not something that SynTech would have intended. “It wouldn’t do for a nanotechnology company to develop self-replicating, cell-repairing technology that could operate independently and perpetually,” I quipped. “Wouldn’t do to hurt their bottom line like that, would it?”
Taylor raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “Well, those old systems are pretty much toast,” she told me. “But the original purpose of the nanites was to provide a multi-staged all-in-one tool for military applications, where a nanite cloud could be deployed that would treat combat injuries, provide field combat data directly to the brain, and finally, counteract radiation. Our units were hardened against EMP to allow for operation in theatres where nuclear weapons might be fired or where ECM devices might be launched. The UK nanotechnology division was a subsidiary designed to disguise much of the development work from the Federal Government. Much of the military processing of the data we needed, while officially governed by UK regulations, was done in computational centres in free-ports near the south coast of England, or in data processing banks underwater in international waters.”
While Taylor had moved on to data storage in the UK, I was still pondering her statements about EMP hardening. It explained why I hadn’t been killed by the effects of EMP surges into my body while in Sept Iles during that spat with the local police force, despite Phil’s warning about EMP devices killing people who had nanotechnology in their bodies.
Then it occurred to me. Taylor had just admitted that Synergy Nanotechnology Solutions Limited was a front for some pretty devastating military research that the parent company had not wanted to fall into the auspices of the US Government, which likely meant they intended to be able to sell the technology to anyone that the US might have once considered enemies of the nation.
That explained the use of freeport zones in England, and the use of data storage locations in international waters. I suspected some of them were those processing systems that a certain OS manufacturer had created and located in the ocean…
Or at least in similar constructs in other locations that the US didn’t know about.
“Is the current situation a direct result of that decision?” I asked pointedly.
Taylor nodded, her face grim. “Yes.”
Fuck. I wasn’t really prepared for this, I realised. “What exactly do you know of the fighting and the deaths that followed?” I asked, feeling anger rising within. “We’re talking near enough the entire planet killed off. Less than ten million survivors… Worldwide.”
Taylor at least had the grace to look sick. “And the other eight or so billion people on the planet killed in the aftermath, including everyone I’d ever known,” she told me, her face like stone. “I’ve had forty-three years to come to terms with what happened, Rick,” she paused for a moment, her face reddening, whether in anger or grief I didn’t know. “And I still struggle, both personally and professionally.”
For some reason, that touched a nerve. It reeked of someone trying to compete for grief points or something. “Yeah, tell that to-”
Eveline suddenly stepped out, looking at me with an indecipherable look on her face. I knew she was cautioning me to be more understanding, and while it rankled, I subsided.
Taylor frowned at Eveline, her expression otherwise a mask.
“You’ll have to forgive Rick,” Eveline said, and I felt a burst of irritation at her attempt to speak for me, but I mastered it, knowing her judgment might be more reliable than mine at the moment. “He’s struggled with what has happened over the last half century of our lives, and doesn’t like the idea that someone might be… Suffering… While trying to curry favour by describing it.”
Taylor’s expression momentarily flashed in anger, but she soon settled back into a more neutral expression. “Who are you, anyway?” She asked.
“I’m Eveline Cuisset,” Eveline told Taylor. “My father is responsible for a hybrid rescue programme. You may know of it?”
I frowned as Eveline gave Taylor potentially-dangerous information. I was about to speak about it when Taylor replied. “Laurent Cuisset, a founder and CEO who built his fortune from being one of the biggest textile manufacturers across the planet. I know of him; he invested in Synergy Nanotechnology UK, back in the twenties. It wasn’t exactly a small investment,” Taylor shrugged.
“I imagine it wasn’t,” Eveline continued. “What else do you know about him?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Only what I hear through rumours,” Taylor admitted. “Mostly that he is in charge of a Foundation that occasionally sends personnel to infiltrate hybrid breeding camps and shut them down. He’s made quite a few enemies among those who are putting resources into those places.”
“That’s my father.”
I could feel the admiration and pride in her voice as she spoke.
“Well, while he’s been making enemies of them,” Taylor nodded as she continued. “He’s made my job a lot easier. You see, the Cuisset Foundation has been getting their attention for some time now, leaving me to continue my own work unnoticed.”
“What kind of work are you talking about?” I asked, cutting in to the conversation to bring us back to the point of everything.
“My colleagues and I never intended for these nano machines to be used for genetic manipulation to the point of creating sub-classes of living beings for slavery, pleasure or shock troops. We’re scientists, not war-mongers. I’ve been working with them to send out a new class of nano machine that is designed to invade a foreign host and re-write their nanites to operate according to the code that we specify. The old program would be erased, and ours would run in-place.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Eveline asked.
Taylor looked at her significantly. “It means that anyone who is tagged as an enemy and then invaded by the nano machines will find their nanites deactivated and their nanite-driven abilities stripped. They’ll be human again, without the abilities that nanotechnology confer to them. The machines will do only what we instruct them to do from that point forward.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That would render them all powerless against others. And doesn’t the nanocloud transfer from one host to another as part of its directives?”
Taylor stopped for a moment, frowning more severely. “Yes, it does. What’s your point?”
“My point is that you are going to put a lot of people at a severe disadvantage against their peers, and while some of them undoubtedly deserve it, you are also going to end up with this deactivation spreading throughout the population until everyone is stripped of nanites and their abilities. You’ll end up with everyone being susceptible to humanity’s frailties once more.”
“Isn’t that how it should be?” Taylor retorted, her expression hardening. “We never intended to give everyone the ability to live forever or to have superhuman abilities-”
“Except for soldiers and those who are selected for special treatment, right?” I cut her off. “Except for the elites of the world who want to buy immortality with nanotechnology and withhold it from everyone else, right? Except for soldiers who are sent to go conquer other places, right?” I was angered more as I thought through the implications of Taylor’s plan. “Except for the trillionaires-”
“Look around you, Rick,” Taylor retorted sharply. “Look at the world we live in. We’re living in a post-apocalyptic society. Did you ever wonder why nothing has changed in many parts of the world for four decades? Did it ever occur to you to wonder why we’re not seeing nanotech-derived infrastructure or technology in the macro scale?”
“In France, Holland, Germany and some regions of Canada, there are signs, such as glass structures that could never have been-”
“Why only those things? Why no vehicles? Why haven’t there been any major changes to cities and towns? Why are most of the buildings in major cities completely abandoned and in a poor state of repair?”
“Ninety-nine point nine percent of humanity was wiped out, Taylor. Where are the bodies going to come from-”
“You’re not thinking in terms of the galactic technological leap that the nanites represent,” Taylor replied with heat. “Bodies aren’t needed, Rick. Only instructions. The concentration of nanites in the atmosphere is enough now, that instructions can be transmitted across the air to nanite concentrations in any given area to build, strip down, reform and reconfigure any structure in existence. This would be true even if only a hundred people were alive across the entire planet, so why hasn’t this ability been taken advantage of?”
My own nanocloud accelerated my synaptic processing speed to a point where I could reach conclusions on complex trains of thought in milliseconds instead of minutes, so I was already prepared with a possible explanation. “I didn’t know it was possible, so how do you think it would occur to others?”
“How do you think it wouldn’t occur to others?” Taylor retorted. “Even accounting for survival concerns being a priority for most survivors, there are those of us who have a vested interest in re-developing the world and helping rebuild society to be safer for our future children. I’m not even close to being the only one, and all of us would start using the nano machines present across the planet to build a better future for all of us if we could do it, so why hasn’t it happened anywhere beyond some really basic tasks, such as your glass lookout towers and the occasional reinforcement of natural building materials?”
I had to admit, Taylor had a point. In forty-three years, there was no possible way that someone hadn’t come across this ability, even accidentally, through the normal course of experimentation. Laurent and his foundation were organised, well-supplied and secured through a variety of methods from employing security and combat specialists to locating their headquarters in low-risk zones like Eindhoven and Quebec City.
It had to be deliberate, so who was responsible?
The Harvesters would probably engineer this kind of situation, but I couldn’t see them having the resources or the networking to pull off something as widespread and pervasive as preventing a global nanocloud network capable of building and carrying out configuration changes of the kind Taylor had described. But if not them, who?
I couldn’t see Laurent or the Cuisset Foundation having anything to do with this.
That didn’t leave me with any ideas who could be responsible, but it was clear that Taylor was determined to stop whoever they were. The only issue was the way she had chosen to go about the job.
“It’s hard to argue with you there,” I admitted carefully. “Still, you’re intent on stripping the majority of Earth’s survivors and the ecosystem of abilities and protections that everyone has adapted to, and the absence of which would put them all at a severe disadvantage, all for… What? As a way of stopping the people you are concerned might be responsible for this latest form of… Apartheid?”
My nanocloud alerted me at that moment.
Data query complete.
“Apartheid?” Taylor asked incredulously, as I quickly assembled a data request in my mind and sent it back to the nanocloud.
Pull the included items of data any way that you can in the shortest possible time, and let me know when it’s done.
Request acknowledged. Working.
“Yes, Apartheid,” I told her. “Look at Eveline, here. She’s far from being the only member of a brand new species of life on this planet that wouldn’t have ever existed without the support of the nanocloud. Her very existence is owed to the abilities of the nanocloud to make real-time modifications to her genetics so that she was viable and could grow healthy and strong. Do you think she was brought into existence out of compassion and a desire for her species to thrive? Or do you think she was created to serve a specific purpose?”
I knew that Eveline wouldn’t thank me for bringing up her past with someone who, to all intents and purposes, was a complete stranger who neither of us knew we might be able to trust. Nonetheless, I hoped my attempt to be circumspect while making my point was something that would help her overlook this well-meaning transgression on my part.
Right now, I couldn’t tell.
“Her and her people shouldn’t exist,” Taylor replied, looking between the two of us, at me, then at Eveline’s increasingly-angered expression, and back at me again. “If the nanocloud hadn’t been allowed to exist in the wild in the form that it did, there would be no hybrids needing our protection now-”
“But it did happen,” I overrode her objection. “It’s too late for what-if’s, Taylor. Like it or not, whether stopping the nanocloud at the source before the outbreak ever happened would have prevented a hybrid underclass of subservient slaves intended to service some human elite or not, these people do exist,” I stopped for a moment to look at Eveline’s stony expression, feeling an overwhelming respect and compassion for all who were like her, before turning back to Taylor. “And I for one, can’t imagine my life without so many of them that I’ve met over the recent months.”
Eveline, Amélie, Philippe, Ralf, Charles and so many others all came to mind in those moments, and all of them had made their presence known, had impacted me in ways I never could have predicted.
“How does stopping the nanites from continuing to work the way they do now, factor into this?”
“Because,” I sighed patiently. “We have no way to know at the moment whether or not hybrids need the support of the nanocloud throughout their lives to ensure they remain healthy. As I said, they shouldn’t have ever existed. There’s a delicate balance of genetic factors that all go into how a being forms in-utero, but also in how they grow over time. The nanocloud has no doubt been tuning this for every single host that has ever existed since the beginning. It’s not always perfect,” I admitted, stopping and swallowing when I remembered the shocking scenes in New Salem where I’d seen so many corpses in varying states from deformed and failed attempts to combine traits, to those who had not been deemed suitable for the purposes of the Harvesters, to those who had simply refused to be enslaved. All of them were young, and every single young life I had seen was seared into my mind as a crime against humanity-
No. Not humanity.
A crime against the right to exist for all intelligent life.
Eveline, as always, was right there by my side, and her quiet presence steadied me.
“It’s not always perfect,” I said once more, after I had regained my composure. “But they have a right to exist, just as we do, and I don’t want to risk their demise and extinction by taking what is basically a nuclear warhead to swat a fly, if we can find a more precise and less destructive option.”
I knew at that moment, I’d reached Taylor. She was clearly a scientist on a mission to correct a mistake she felt some responsibility for, and I knew little of the details of her involvement, but she wasn’t a monster. As I saw the conflicting emotions flicker on her face, she sighed, and then took a breath.
“It’s a valid point,” she acknowledged quietly. “I won’t dismiss the idea entirely. I can’t afford to, but I’ll hold off for now. My colleagues and I have been exploring other options to subvert the projects of certain groups that are currently operating, trying to prevent them from succeeding in their efforts to create what they would deem to be perfect specimens.”
This was interesting, and I was curious. Eveline was, as well, if her suddenly attentive expression was anything to go by. “What kind of subversion tactics have you been using?” I asked.
“What remains of the scientific community of geneticists are in consensus on this issue, that we won’t be helping these people with their goal of creating the perfect, compliant and dangerous super-soldier that they would want. We’ve been infiltrating local operations throughout the world since maybe twenty-thirty years ago, right as we discovered this was happening, and while some geneticists working with these people are amoral assholes who are in it for the rewards they’re being given, we’re managed to spread our influence worldwide. Every facility we’re aware of so far has one of our people embedded among the staff, mostly in research and development as ancillary staff. Once in a while, we get lucky and can get one of our scientists in as a member of their research teams, directly able to influence either the genetics paths or the nanotechnology divisions. This way, we can either subvert their nanotech efforts in controlling their creations, or introduce certain gene sequences we know will encourage individual will and frustrate their efforts to make their subjects compliant.
“Rarely, we have a chance to do both in the same facility, and the results can be spectacular.”
“Is that what one of your people did in Amsterdam twenty-five to thirty years ago?” Eveline asked, surprising me immensely, her expression like stone.
Taylor shrugged. “I don’t have details on the specifics of each breeding operation we come across, but it’s likely, yes,” she admitted, pausing as she stared at Eveline for a moment. “I take it you were originally bred in Amsterdam?” Eveline said nothing in those seconds after Taylor’s question, then nodded once. “And I suspect you also knew others who may… Or may not be alive now to tell their own story?”
Again, Eveline nodded sharply, saying nothing. I knew that the memory was tearing her apart mentally, and she was likely remembering the lion hybrid who had befriended her when they grew up in the facility. Tactfully, I remained silent, letting Eveline deal with this in her own way.
“I would guess you are fiercely independent, utterly lethal in combat, and shrewd in dealing with others,” Taylor continued. “Mind if I get a reading on your nanites so I can see what they originally-”
I cut her off. “That’s unlikely to help,” I told Taylor, partly because I wanted to spare Eveline any pain, and partly because of what I told Taylor next. “Several weeks ago, Eveline was injured saving my life from a panther hybrid intent on killing me. Her wounds would have been fatal had I not intervened. Her nanocloud is now mainly representative of the Synergy originals as opposed to whatever model they provided her as part of their breeding programme.”
Taylor nodded. “Well, I don’t know your story, but it’s clear you’ve earned enough of her respect that she would risk her life for you, and that’s having seen her long enough to know she doesn’t exactly endear herself to others.”
I got the impression that Eveline would have liked to ask Taylor who asked for her opinion, but Eveline was circumspect enough not to say anything at that moment.
“Regardless, your assistance would be helpful in the future, so I hope you are willing to help. Now,” I changed the subject. “How do we keep in touch?”
Taylor stood, and Eveline immediately adopted a combative stance, but Taylor only shook her head as she stepped toward the doorway. “You know Sophia Wagner,” she said as she paused on the threshold. “Her nanites were gifted to you after your companion saved her life. She’ll be able to find you if I need to contact you, assuming you intend to return to mainland Europe any time soon. When I have information to communicate, or if I need your input, I’ll let her know, and she will seek you out.”
“What about if we need to find you?” I asked.
Taylor opened the door. “You know where this building is,” she replied quietly. “While many seek safety in obscurity through constant relocation, I have enough defensive measures in place here in Albany, that I don’t need to go anywhere. If you need to contact me, you can find me here.”
“That seems unnecessarily restrictive,” Eveline spoke up once more. “No cell communications? Face to face contact only?”
Taylor shrugged. “I didn’t stay alive this long by being stupid,” she told Eveline. “Cellular communications can be broken, and I’m a high priority target given my knowledge, so I never maintain a permanent cellular presence. Any time I need to communicate out, I can provision a new device somewhere in the forty-eight, do what I need to, then scuttle the device to avoid it being traced back to me. Inefficient and wasteful of material, but I’ve become adept at it. If you need to reach me, you’ll need to come here.
“Also, don’t reveal my presence here or the importance of the work I’m doing to anyone unless I approve it first. If I’m forced to relocate because word has gotten out about my operations here, I will find out the source of the leak, and whoever it is will be permanently excommunicated from our operations. Understood?”
It was a harsh threat, and one I didn’t take kindly to under most circumstances, but I could tell Taylor meant business, and her precautions and concerns were entirely reasonable, so I accepted the caution and the reproving tone she used. “Understood,” I told her. “Neither Eveline nor I will reveal your operations without your permission first, or if you betray us in any way. If you do, all bets are off.”
After all, fair was fair.
Taylor agreed, apparently. “Understood,” she said in a firm but quiet tone. “I’ll be in touch.”
With that, Taylor left the room, leaving Eveline and I in silence. Eveline frowned at the spot that Taylor had just vacated. After a moment, she shrugged, turning to me.
“Let me just query the server in this room,” I told her quickly, getting to my own feet and stepping to the server that I’d previously selected for data analysis, touching my finger to the IO port and waiting for my nanocloud to make the necessary physical adaptations to connect to it. “Then we can get out of here and back to the real work!”
Eveline arched an eyebrow at me, as my nanocloud started reporting the content of the server I was accessing. The volume of data I was examining now, would take me a long time to sift through once I’d downloaded it, so I concentrated on the task and chose what I needed quickly.