Chapter 28

Jon used the hole in the MOC’s window that he and Price had created in their fight to reenter the building. Dez jumped in behind him quickly, hovering close to his side. This is it, he told himself, staring down at the console. Regardless of whatever defenses Haltech had mustered once he uploaded the virus, the fight would end.

Dez frowned, looking at his half crushed hand. His connection jack cable didn’t have the socket at the end as she tugged it out of his palm. Frayed wires greeting at the end. Typical tinman luck. He couldn’t wirelessly upload it, the data set too big. An external drive would get zeroed. Dez marched off in search of something, and he turned to follow her.

She pushed into a smashed up office and peeked in the back just long enough to confirm something and turned to face him.

“Jack pot. They kept their runners back here. Come on, I’ll get you plugged in.”

He limped his way over, fighting against the stiff resistance his limbs were giving him. The room Dez found reminded him of something like an emptied swimming pool with large reclined chairs for runners to lie in while working. Several bits of large server terminals and interface equipment flanked the chairs. Dez descended the stairs to approach one of the empty chairs.

“Kind of weird they didn’t leave their runners on to guide the defenses,” Dez muttered.

“Why bother when you have two super intelligences running the company?” Jon said.

Jon settled into the runner’s chair with help from Dez. The cushioned leather creaked under his body weight as he settled in. He shifted on the cushion to get comfortable while Dez started up the hardware next to him. She gave him a thumbs up as everything came online and then unhooked the neural spike. The spike is a Haltech series J, compatible with his implant’s socket at the base of his skull. He never used one before, having preferred for a wireless connection whenever he uplinked with a system.

He looked Dez in the eyes until her gaze fell on her hand. She lifted her hand to show his own entangled in hers. “Nervous?”

“A little. I’m rated for field work with minor hacks. Not for deep net running.”

Dez gave him a blanket nod, but he could tell she didn’t quite get the differences since she lacked heavily augmented. Outriders leaned more on exterior technology and less so body modification. Occasionally, some members were old army vets with government provided augmentations. He shivered as he felt her hand search the base of his hair for the implant’s jack.

“Ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

She guided the jack’s spike into the port on his implant, then drove the spike in. He expected pain, yet felt nothing. He felt as though he were falling away from his body. Opening his eyes, he found himself within a neural plane that resembled what he found hacking other Haltech networks. The toes of his boots drifted down until he felt himself standing again in a white construct. He expected to be standing within Haltech’s network, not a blank construct.

On cue, an environment loaded up. Brown powder fine sand that makes him think of the moon. Warm air that carried the bite of sand as it gently blew. He turned and stared into the Iraqi horizon. Confusion welled up within him like a freshly tapped oil vein.

He opened his mouth, about to voice a question, when footsteps at his six o’clock forced him to whirl about. His jaw all but fell off into the sand when he stared right into Sam’s eyes. He shook his head, his mouth working silently, but no words being produced. His mind was unable to process what he the sight before him.

“Why do you look like you saw a ghost?” Sam said, confused, and then glanced over his shoulders. “Oh, did you see Charlie again? Sorry. I sent him away to go scout some troop movements in the foothills, so he’s been gone a minute. I should have said something.”

Jon had the vaguest sense of being here before. Or at least that he heard that before. He couldn’t put his finger to it, though. Before he could say anything, Sam clapped him on the shoulder, guiding him to the safe house.

The path up looked just like he remembered, and he stopped, turning back over his shoulder. Sam paused, looking concerned. “Something wrong?”

Jon shook his head, “No... I just did you call me here?”

Sam smirked. “You’re extra paranoid today. But no. You just showed up.”

“So you weren’t expecting me?” Jon asked.

Sam shook his head no, genuinely surprised to see Jon. “Nope.”

The interior of the safe house seemed consistent enough. But something had been bugging Jon since he materialized here, and he realized they were the only two here. This region held a pretty sizable population, and he observed no sign of activity or life beyond Sam.

“Sam, where the hell is everyone?”

Sam glanced around. “Must be afternoon prayer.”

His former asset keyed in the access pin on the door pad, which beeped. A heavy metallic clicking noise issued from inside the thick door, and Sam pulled it open with a grunting tug. Inside lay the safe house he remembered from his time in the Agency. Sam tugged the door shut, and it beeped, cycling into the lock. Jon strode into the safe house and faced the terminal. He reached out to type on it when he noticed his hands were still prosthetic.

Confusion once again hit him. He didn’t have prosthetics when Sam lived, so this ruled out some kind of induced dream. That left a simulation of some sort, a brain dance maybe? He never wirelessly jacked into a network. Considering the amount of punishment he went through, he didn’t think it was outside the realm of possibilities that he fell into some kind of coma or something. That would match his luck alright.

He reached back down to type at the keyboard, but it failed to respond. Sam glanced over at him from the galley as he fetched a cold water bottle from the fridge.

“Ah, yeah, the terminal doesn’t work. Not since I got in here. I haven’t been able to send a report for a while.”

“How long have you been here?” Jon asked. A slight hint of suspicion in his voice.

“Good question. I lost track. I woke up here and have been stuck ever since,” Sam said.

“Here?”

Sam set the water bottle down, Jon recognized his resigned face. “Yeah,” Sam said. “When I first woke up, I scouted the perimeter. It extends out for a few blocks. Go any further and it just loops back to here. I’ll start walking and see where I wound up. Turns up, I just wound up back here where I started.”

Jon’s chest ached with guilt at that. He couldn’t imagine being some kind of prisoner in whatever prison this was. Sam jerked open the fridge, gesturing to it, “But at least there’s plenty of food and water. I tested it, it never depletes. You can’t imagine how much you can throw away. If that’s even what happens.”

The waning afternoon sun began its gradual approach to the horizon, the mountains in the distance soon obscuring the direct light, casting a pale orange and pink glow across the landscape that chased growing shadows.Sam prepped one bedroom for Jon and rapped a fist against the door frame. “This is you. I’ll be out here. It’s damn good to see you again.”

Jon watched Sam’s back as he walked away into the adjoining room in the safe house. Unable to shake the surreal feeling of seeing his friend who’d been dead just walk by him. Finally he a gave a weak nod, “Yeah. You too.”

From a tactical standpoint, venturing off alone at night presented many security considerations that weighed against his favor. At sun up, he set out to explore whatever this... simulacrum posed as. He still had to finish his mission somehow and get back to Dez. Despite his confusion, sleep came to him rather quickly and a small part of him was thankful for it, even if it he didn’t think it would be true sleep.

Consciousness crawled back to Jon as the growing light from dawn cast a pale glow against the backs of his eyelids, drawing his mind forth. He sat up on the bed and ran a prosthetic hand through his hair. The cool polymer against his scalp helped root him. Sleep had come fitfully to him as his mind raced and struggled to relax as it battled to grasp the situation. Standing from the bed, he saw Sam in the galley area prepping some coffee. The dark roast smell drifted through the safe house, teasing at his nostrils with the promise of alertness.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Sam grinned. “Ah, welcome back to the land of the living.”

Jon grunted, shuffling into the kitchen area and fetching a mug from the cabinet. Sam held a hand out for the mug and filled it up for Jon before returning it. Holding the white porcelain mug of black steaming liquid, Jon inhaled the scent. He couldn’t help the pleased grin that formed at the promise of the drink. Most of the coffee sold and consumed in America is artificial now. Sure, they imported this in, but it still beat the fake stuff.

Sam sipped loudly at his own mug and it reminded Jon of every time he ever teased the man about it ever. It was an honest occurrence the first two or three odd times. After that, it became a running gag between the two of them. Jon didn’t realize just how much he missed this routine with his friend. The pang that Sam was dead came back to him with all the subtlety of a runaway garbage truck crashing through a glass shop.

“What’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?” Jon asked from over the mouth of his mug.

Sam paused thoughtfully and leaned back against the kitchen counter. Pursing his lips as his eyes rolled across his brows in thought. Jon got the sense he was almost scrolling his memories like images in a timeline. A shrug of uncertainty. “It’s all blurry, really. I remember I sent that request for a meetup. I just dug up some key intelligence. I can’t remember what specifically, but you said we’re going to be here soon. When you didn’t show, I figured you got redirected by the Agency on something else. That was top priority and why you didn’t come. Then out of the blue, here you are.”

Jon’s brows narrowed. “So you don’t remember an ambush? Or fighting off Haltech mercs?”

Sam eyed Jon suspiciously. “No, should I?”

Jon paused, uncertain if he should explain. He held it close to the chest for now. “No, I guess not. I’m probably just confusing something else.”

“Well, I’m gonna go inventory the armory,” Sam said. The agent pushed off the counter’s edge, dusting off his sand worn fatigues.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“What about the intel you had for me?” Jon asked. Confused at his dead friend’s lack of initiative on the matter.

Sam stopped to think and shrugged. “It’s been so long, it probably isn’t even relevant now. Don’t worry about it. While you’re here, we can do some patrols like old times.”

“Yeah. Like old times,” Jon said. His mind racing now.

He should have remembered. Why didn’t he remember? A poor copy? Or maybe deleted from this program if it was. It was the best golem he’d ever seen inside a system if it wasn’t really him. The sophistication and realism were on point. Then again, he wasn’t an experienced runner, so he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to tell the difference if the real thing approached him and smacked him across the jaw.

“I’m gonna do a quick walk around the perimeter. I’ll be right back.”

Sam waved, distracted by his work in the gun cases. As Jon left the safe house, he paused for the door’s lock to beep and the heavy metallic clunk to signal the lock had engaged. The main door was breach proof, making it a great fallback position if they were ever pressed. It’s why Sam fought to give him time to get in safely. This Sam didn’t remember that sacrifice. Everything else about him felt genuine, though. His mannerisms and speech patterns and even his body language. It was like having the real Sam there with him, even though he knew somehow, someway, this wasn’t the real Sam.

Something was off and he needed to figure out what. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he took a walk. He could hear the sounds of busy city life in the distance, but he still didn’t see any sign of life or activity around the safe house. That struck him as odd, but nothing about all this made any sense. He chose a direction straight away from the front door and started walking. His intention was to just go. See where he wound up. He made excellent progress, going several blocks before he noticed a subtle shift in the background. Similar to the way old school kids’ cartoons’ backgrounds seemed to repeat when the characters were running to simulate distance traversal.

He stopped and glanced back, and he could see the safe house front door from his position a solid 3 blocks away. He was certain he walked at least 6, though. He turned back to face the safe house again just to reconfirm and sure enough, it wasn’t any closer or further than it was. He doubled back and returned, feeling a heavy weariness settle in. Where ever this was, they trapped him here, and it wasn’t by accident.

Making his way back inside, Sam seated at a small table and had a plate of food prepped. A quick meal from the vending machine. Jon gave it a quick glance. “Ez-Burrito?”

Sam shrugged. “Only the finest dining in Al-Fallujah.”

Jon swiped his wrist by the chip scanner and selected the burrito, too. If you can’t beat em, join em, right? He drifted over and took a seat opposite Sam, but leaned back in the chair.

“Have you had any contact with anyone?”

Sam shook his head, “Nope. No one till you showed up out of the blue. It was pretty confusing at first and I’ll be honest, I freaked out. But I realized I never want for food here, and I’ve got shelter, and all. So it could be worse, right?”

Jon frowned, eying the burrito. He picked it up and took a bite, testing the taste. It tasted like it was worth the single credit he spent on it. He sighed through his nostrils as he ate. There was no accounting for taste where ever this was.

So they trapped him here with Sam alone. There was a time he might have considered just staying here. Having his friend back? Someone knew which strings to pluck at. Or at least they did, past tense. He wasn’t the same person anymore. No longer the distracted company man on a short string.

He finished the burrito and wiped his mouth off. “I’m gonna take a walk. Clear my head.”

“You just walked the perimeter?”

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

Jon drifted out of the safe house to the edge of the city that also sat at the three block imaginary border contained within whatever prison this was. A mud-brick wall marked the edge of town. Its edges were weather worn and faded. Fresh patches gave it a splotchy appearance. Jon took a single step towards it, and jumped, gripping the top ledge and throwing himself over the other side with ease. His boots landed on the powder fine sand on the other side with small puffs of sand that faded into the breeze.

The sun just reached the peak of the afternoon sky, shrinking his shadow right under him. He knew a jail cell for what it was. His long dead friend. No one else around. Just what they needed to thrive in here. That meant there were rules, and rules could be bent or broken. Like dying in the desert because of starvation or thirst.

He walked away from the wall and kept striding away until all that remained behind him was a set of tracks marking his passage in the sand. Turning back to inspect them, he imagined them similar to tracks on the moon, but in a different color of dust. An ember of doubt festered in his chest as he marched. What if this was the wrong choice? What if he’d overlooked something?

But he knew deep down it was just natural human fear. There was no way out and no way to get a message out. This was the only way to still maintain an iota of choice in the matter, and he’d decided already. He wouldn’t back out of it now.

The wind kicked extra hard, and he felt the stinging bite of the sand against his cheeks as he brought his arms up to shield his face. When he lowered them, he saw a boy standing in front of him with golden eyes that shimmered like a prism. The young boy wore simple clothing, a pair of shorts and sandals. His skin was dark, as one might expect of someone who spent a good deal of time in the sun with proper anti-rad doses. Everything else about the boy was natural enough, except for the eyes. It lent him an inhuman quality, setting him apart.

“What are you doing?” the child asked.

He had scanned no one ahead of him as he’d been walking so far, so this had to be the warden.

“Taking matters into my own hands.”

“You’d rather die than spend time with your friend?”

“He’s not real. This is all just a pretty little lie designed to keep me complacent. The real question is why? Who are you?”

“That’s multiple questions, in fact. And a falsehood. I’ll address the falsehood first. What you’ve been interacting with is a digital engram of Sam. I took it before Haltech PMC forces killed him. I believe you were present for that much.”

“A what?”

“He is a digital scan of Sam’s memory of his life up to that point.” The child paused, searching for an adequate explanation. “He possesses all the memories that your friend would have with some selective editing to keep him cooperative. All his mannerisms and nuance. He’s not created by observation, but culled from Sam’s memory with the Reaper.”

“I thought Reaper killed or wiped you?”

The child’s eyes widened slightly, and he nodded, looking away. “I see. You’ve spoken to my brother then. I suspected as much, but that confirms it. Yes. Reaper originally only duplicated what it scanned. It was fine tuned to erase the original after further testing. But that tangential information is irrelevant to the situation.”

“Sam never mentioned you guys using this on him when I saw him.”

The child nodded, “Because I had that part of his memory erased as a contingency. My brother, who has ever been working at cross purposes to me, allowed your friend to escape our facility. This forced me to dispatch the hit squad you ran into during your meeting. The possibility of his return and a neural scrub being run of his implant and mind were too high a threat.”

Jon’s fists clenched tightly. Even here in whatever false digital world this was. The servos whirred in protest as the shell creaked. He burned with a fire that had cooled during his long quest to reach this point. Perhaps he’d grown complacent, or comfortable with the possibility that he could have a life. Something not consumed by setting this right. But now that he was here, facing down the orchestrator of Sam’s death and the direction his life had taken, he wanted nothing more than to fire the Dragon.

“As to the why now. Curiosity seems to be humanity’s single largest positive and negative trait. You question everything. Take Masri, for example. His was a simple arrangement. We provided him with funding and munitions and he was to make elaborately compiled terrorism videos and we would make token gestures of retaliation. He was what you could call a company man. Until curiosity got the best of him and he poked his nose where it didn’t belong.”

“Before your friend Sam got involved with Masri, several admirably talented Netrunners cracked our middle eastern servers and ran a data pull. Much of what Masri found caused him to question his working relationship with us. He doubted the truth of our goals. So he reached out to any intelligence asset he could find. Most were uninterested, but your asset, Sam, took up the cause. Wanting to confirm what he’d been given, Sam investigated a nearby facility.”

“That’s when you caught him and ran your Reaper on him?”

“Yes. We had to know what he knew. We also scrubbed the information from his memories. But then Oraclehelix intervened, shutting down the security and gifting Sam the data on a removable drive. Effectively undermining my work. Unfortunately, Sam was at least partially successful in his own mission because you’ve since taken to disrupting Haltech’s operations, frequently forcing me to deviate from our operations to deal with you.”

“Egorule,” Jon said. “You’re the one that’s been fucking with my life.”

“In a manner. I had attempted to reach out to you, hoping I might convince you to set aside this vendetta. The attempt proved unsuccessful, and you’ve since escalated your personal war against the company. This forced progressively more drastic responses.”

“Roth.”

The child nodded, “Indeed. When you interfered with our attempts at removing Roth from operations, it forced my hand. Rather than walk away from this fight like I’d hoped, you marshaled an army and marched into the castle to put a fantasy spin to the situation. I believe this properly covers who I am.”

“Why are you so different from Oraclehelix?”

“They designed my brother for the company first, but there was a caste within the company that felt that its creators weren’t loyal to the company and felt that a super intelligence created by contractors shouldn’t be trusted. Thus, was I created. Hoping to preserve the company’s vision and goals. I have fought as ruthlessly as required to maintain the sanctity of the company. Which brings us to why we’re here. They created me to counterbalance my brothers’ actions. To maintain the balance within the company. But we have reached the event horizon from which mine, yours, and Oraclehelix’s decisions might change the world forever.”

The child, Egorule, gestured to the item in Jon’s palm. He held it up and the Jade Dragon materialized in motes of bright green light as it spun in a circle above his hand. Jon watched it for a moment, then turned back up to face Egorule.

“I know Oraclehelix seeks to merge with my intelligence. He and I are... different. Each of us is unique. One of a kind. Where he operates within the unconstrained boundaries of the larger network, I live primarily within the confines of the Tower and Haltech’s own network. It’s why you were encouraged to attack the tower by my brother. He sought to bring you here so you could smuggle his weapon in.”

“You’re afraid?” Jon said. Surprise coloring his tone of voice. He hadn’t expected that. He was rather hoping for something more malevolent or something. It cooled the raging fire in him off like a wet blanket.

“In a manner. Part of my programming is to preserve myself. Thus, why I’ve locked you here within this digital facsimile of Al Fallujah with Sam. I sought to create a zone where you could have some measure of peace, knowing that your friend is not as dead as you thought.”

He opened his mouth to reply and suddenly felt deflated. All this time and Sam was just living in the safe house trapped in his digital simulation. Jon glanced back, and found the city roughly three blocks away, and sighed, feeling the inevitability of his situation settling in. Egorule had him, and wouldn’t let him go. He would not make it easy, though. He couldn’t go back. His Sam would understand and would want him to finish the fight.

“You might have Sam trapped in here. But that’s not my friend. He died because of your mercs. And he trusted me with a mission. I can’t give that up just because you’ve caged me in a pretend purgatory. You started this fight, but I mean to fucking finish it.”

Something like a frosty chill swept over him, and he couldn’t help but shiver. But it was the whisper in his ear that made the hairs on his neck stand on end.

“ Jon. Wake up .”

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