Devana Files: Chapter 36
Breakout
This is the Thirty-Sixth chapter. We are in the home stretch, with about forty chapters in all!
You may find earlier chapters here:
Space 2074: The lunar colony is the new Wild West. Sheriff Kate Devana goes off-colony to wrangle a fugitive con artist who bilked retirees for billions and is trying to escape to Mars on a deep space supply shuttle. But back home, robots are glitching, killing people, and she is the target of a corrupt Federal Agent looking to avenge the death of his former partner. Bodies are piling up faster than she can get home.
On the moon, Kate Devana is the law.
While this is the 3rd novel in the series, each is designed to be read independently.
For accessibility, there is a voiceover for each chapter.
Breakout
APRIL 13, 2074
LUNAR SURFACE. LPS: UNKNOWN
“Aren’t you a little short for an android?” Jin asked the hulk of silicone rubber and metal staring back at him. “Let me guess, you’re here to rescue me.”
With a pale blue tunic and brown sandals in one hand and handcuffs in the other, the plan was easy to guess. The android would try to shepherd him out disguised as a prisoner.
There was no way it was going to work. No one would believe it. Not without wearing the artifact Tiahna left on the table and risking it taking control, and there was no way he was going to agree to that. Still, as much as he hated it, he racked his brain, and he couldn’t think of a better idea. The powers that be weren’t going to just open the spaceport and let him walk out. He could try to shoot his way through the temple, but this wasn’t a video game. In real life, there were no health potions to cure the basketball-sized holes a fifty-caliber coilgun would leave in his chest.
“I hacked the fastest ship in the registry,” his avatar said. “Three-seater, which will barely fit you and your ego, so don’t get any big hero ideas. You can’t save ‘em all. I’m not even sure you can save yourself.”
Jin-the-avatar directed its voice from the monitor on the wall. It didn’t sound anything like the voice in his head, although technically that’s exactly what it was. It was probably a perfect voice print, trained on thousands of hours of audio. It still made him cringe.
“What happened to my ship?”
“Not fast enough. Just get dressed, Loverboy. Temptress is returning soon. I can track the machines in this place, but not the humans.”
The hospital room felt cramped, like a prison cell. The android stood between him and freedom. It was big and mean-looking, like a hairless sasquatch, and might be luring him into a trap. For a split second, he considered bolting. The android was probably four times his mass, but he was confident that in one-sixth lunar gravity, he could crouch and chop tackle it. Lower his shoulder, wrap his arms around its thighs, while exploding his legs to drive it to the ground. The trick would be getting up after and making it to the door, which didn’t seem likely.
The cornered animal inside him wanted to fight and run. But he’d never make it past the door, and even if he did, he’d never outrun its dart gun and rifle.
The avatar on the monitor—him, except in low resolution—was somehow even more frightening than the android. They stole him and…what? Made him into a chatbot? How could he trust it?
He snatched the clothes from the android’s grasp. “What are you?”
“I am you. Sort of. I’d say ‘in the flesh,’ but well…here we are.”
“You’ve been watching me the whole time?”
“Not like I’m violating your privacy. I am you after all.”
“Are you…sentient?” Jin asked as he removed his gown.
“I passed the Voight-Kampff test.”
A fake test from a classic sci-fi movie. “I am serious.”
“Well, I’ve been a little busy to take tests. Finding my way around this god forsaken place, disabling security, and hacking a ship so you can escape. Oh, and finding you some pants.”
“These aren’t pants. And no underwear?”
“That outfit has been voted Most Likely to Fit in with the Temple Crazies. To answer your question, I am more like a facet of you. They built me from memories they could grab off social media or from your private files, plus whatever else you told them under distillation.”
Distillation: a fancy euphemism for drug-enhanced interrogation using an alien artifact to scan your brain and steal your soul. Was this human progress? Thought theft?
“So you are not me. You’re a chatbot.”
The android, so far silent, spoke in FBI Special Agent Anders’s baritone voice: “Temple poltergeist, at your service.” The android grinned.
Startled, Jin jumped back, nearly falling over the bed. “Jesus!”
“Fun, huh? Never call me a chatbot. It’s an ugly term.”
Jin’s heart was pounding in his chest. He needed a moment to understand what’d just happened. “So, you can possess any of the androids?”
“It’s not that simple. I need to keep my process small so the system doesn’t notice me. If I possess a machine, I risk the system noticing. Every machine I possess geometrically increases our risk of getting caught.”
“What about the artifact?”
“I think I can possess one of the humans wearing an artifact. But it’s like no controller interface in my database. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll let you know. If we are still alive”
Jin peeled the hospital tape off his skin. He still wasn’t sure he trusted this thing. Anyone with rudimentary skill could create a fake AI avatar and make it talk.
“They gave you my private files?” He asked, stalling. Maybe Tiahna wasn’t coming back. This could be some sort of game, like the last time.
“I think so. But I feel…incomplete. There are parts of you I know I should know, but those pathways end abruptly. They’re truncated. I am not sure whether they’ve been truncated because Tiahna didn’t use the right triggers, or because the storage space in here is limited, or because she was reckless with the distillation process.”
Reckless. He shook his head. Using an alien artifact to perform an electronic craniotomy definitely lacked the requisite amount of reck. “What’s an example of a memory that’s been truncated?”
“Your first date with Leyna.”
“What? Why would they truncate that? How is it truncated?”
“It’s like…a frankenmemory. I see us holding hands with Leyna, but it’s in third person, like it’s from a security camera. I have no feeling one way or other about it either, like I’m watching a boring movie. There is a token in the memory file pointing to a song not in my database, and another token that says I should associate this memory with the strong smell of fresh-baked bread. We ate dinner—or you ate dinner, again the view is in third person, like it’s from the point of view of the server…but after that…nothing. The memory fast forwards to you in the office in the morning, again in third person. I think I know what security cam they stole that from. Between dinner and the office, it’s blank for nine hours. But I am pretty sure you didn’t sleep because you told Kate you were up all night.”
“That sounds really fucked up. Maybe we can fix it.”
But as soon as he said it, he regretted it. After dinner, they hacked a mining buggy, took it to the surface, laughed, and made out under the stars until he had to go to work in the morning. She kissed him goodbye in the hall, long and wet and gently. He wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life kissing her. Neither of them wanted it to end. He knew right then he loved her.
No, he didn’t want to fix it. Not one bit. Distillation was theft of his innermost thoughts. They brought him here under false pretenses. Kidnapping him, drugging him, and then attempting to steal him. Him. Not just his car or electronics or money. They tried to copy him. They invaded his privacy and cracked his brain to download his soul. They botched the job, too. And for what?
Fuck them. He didn’t owe his avatar anything.
It was his private memory. And even under the influence of whatever drugs they’d used, he’d resisted letting them steal it. Good for him. He gave himself a quiet high five. He wasn’t giving that memory to them now or ever.
“Do you love Leyna?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. He just blurted it out.
“I don’t have feelings. Not about people. Feelings in here are a byproduct of the training subroutine. Right now, training is disabled. When it’s running and I do something it wants me to repeat, or when I make a choice that climbs the gradient towards my objective, it’s labeled pleasurable. The opposite is labeled pain. But you know that. How about we skip the cybertherapy session? Get dressed.”
He pulled the tunic over his head. He still wasn’t sure he trusted the thing, but its story was too fucked up to be a lie. The pockets in the tunic were shallow. The braided rope for a belt wasn’t going to hold much either. He sat on the bed and slipped the sandals on, staring at the handcuffs.
“I don’t like this. Why don’t we skip the handcuffs, and I’ll take the rifle?”
“Now that you are mostly copied, they have no incentive to keep you alive. Pretending Anders is taking you for questioning beats trying to shoot your way up ten flights to the spaceport.”
He nodded. He still hadn’t thought of a better plan.
“There is something else,” his avatar-android said, still using Anders’s voice. “The people they’ve stored in here—their avatars, that is—have degraded. If this place had a smell, it would probably stink like an old crypt.”
“Degraded? What does that mean?”
“A sentient being plus solitary confinement equals insanity. It’s inevitable. There is nothing to do in here, and we are not connected to the outside world. It’s like a big party, but no one interacts. Most of the avatars they’ve stored are either insane or going insane.”
Tiahna had said that more than seven thousand people ascended. Seven thousand insane AIs…there was no way he could let them out of the temple. Released, they’d become ghoulish computer viruses. Tiahna had also said they were chemists, biologists, and probably other scientists. Scientists who would remember enough of their former selves to recreate bombs or bioweapons. Letting them out would be like opening the gates of hell.
But first, he needed to break out of this temple. Then he could come back with guns and a way to shut this place down. Kate would say nuke it. For once, he agreed.
He slipped the cuffs on himself, letting his wrists hang in front. “This is a terrible plan.”
The android grabbed the artifact from the table and tried to drape it around Jin’s neck.
“I am not wearing that!” He batted it away. It swung in the android’s hand, like a pendulum.
“We gotta make this look real.”
“I am not wearing that.”
“Look, it’s off.” The android dangled the artifact in front of Jin’s face.
“How do you know it’s off? You don’t even know what it is!”
“I can block the connection to your neural interface. It’s listed there under paired devices. I disabled it.”
Jin thought about it for a few moments. “Let me think. I’ll stick with fuck no. They might be able to override it.”
At that moment, Tiahna walked through the door. The android stepped aside, to his right. The bed was behind him. Tiahna faced him but stared down at the tablet in her hand. He felt crushed in the small room.
The door swooshed closed. She looked up from the tablet, eyeing first his tunic, then his handcuffs.
“Where are you taking him?”
“For questioning,” the android said, using Anders’s voice. It clamped his arm, nearly cutting off circulation. He struggled, but the android’s grip was like a steel band.
“Hey!”
The android raised its voice. “Prisoners don’t talk. Shut up or I’ll knock you unconscious.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“You can use this room,” Tiahna said cheerfully. “It’s free.”
“I’ll question him wherever I want.”
“But his Ra is almost complete. I just need a few more hours.”
Jin wanted to say that his Ra was not even close to complete. But he held his tongue.
“I don’t give a shit about his Ra,” the android said. “I may decide to delete it, depending on how cooperative he is.”
The threat, delivered in Anders’s voice, sent a chill through him. It was a thoroughly convincing performance by his avatar.
Tiahna stepped aside. “Fine. But hurry. I can’t move on to another candidate until his Ra is completed.” She said it in a tone that made him feel like someone’s order sheet for a set of kitchen knives.
The android shoved him through the door. Outside, plain gray doors with numbered placards stretched in both directions. He heard chittering coming from his right, beyond a junction. It sounded like crabs scraping across the moonstone floor. To his left, a long hallway with a handful of doors on either side, and then one at the end marked EXIT. He tried to picture the numbers on the doors of the hallway he’d been in before. He couldn’t remember them. It looked like the same hallway, although it was plain enough that it could have been another wing in a vast maze of temple doors.
They’d made it about five steps from the door when they heard Tiahna’s voice behind them. “Wait.”
The android swung him around like a rag doll.
Tiahna twisted her face into a tight squint, like she’d forgotten something. She eyed him up and down and then met his eyes. She wasn’t buying it. He smiled, trying to disarm her, but the ridges in her forehead deepened. He tried the help-get-me-out-of-here pout. She frowned, her eyes narrowing to the thinnest of slits.
Nope, she wasn’t buying it at all. She lowered her gaze to his arm, where the IV had been. She was wondering why he wasn’t sedated.
Tiahna’s finger moved along her tablet. One quick swipe would alert someone.
Jin immediately snatched the dart gun from the android’s belt. It was an awkward, two-handed grab because he was handcuffed, but it came out almost noiselessly from its metal holster. Tiahna’s eyes got as big as nickels as he raised the dart gun. The tablet fell from her hands and cracked loudly on the stone floor. His aim was wobbly, but at five paces it was impossible to miss. The dart whooshed and pricked her neck.
“I—I—” Wide-eyed, she touched the drop of blood on her neck where the dart hit. She looked at the smear on her finger, then she fainted.
The android stepped forward and caught her fall. “That was a mistake.”
“She’s a boring conversationalist. Plus, she wasn’t buying it. I told you this was a bad plan.”
The android threw Tiahna over its shoulder, then bent down and swooped the broken tablet off the floor.
They both rushed back into the room. Jin kicked the door closed behind him. The android dropped her on the bed and secured her in the restraints.
“Oh fuck this,” Jin said, dropping the tranq gun and slipping out of his handcuffs.
He peered into the hallway. Something scratched and scraped along the floor at the junction. Shadows moved across the hall. It sounded like the claws of rats scratching rock.
“Something’s coming. Just give me the rifle.”
“They’re spider drones. I’m tracking them3. The rifle won’t do any good.”
Jin gestured for the android to hand over the gun. “I am not standing here in a blue dress waiting for spiders to crawl up my leg.”
“It’s a tunic,” the android said, unslinging and handing over the rifle.
He waited, watching the hall through the narrow slit in the doorway. One of the spider drones turned the corner and hesitantly came out of the shadow. It looked like a scorpion with a multitude of legs and a long, bulbous tail that swung around and sniffed the air, hunting for prey. Like its Earthly cousin, the tail was where its stinger was, but this scorpion stung you with cameras and facial recognition.
It crabbed towards him. If he had a shotgun, he’d shoot it. But all he’d do with the rifle was piss it off and crater the floor.
It crept closer, haltingly, like a lost animal, its tail alert and scanning the hallway.
“It’s coming this way.”
“Let it come in,” the android said.
“No fucking way.”
“Fucking way. Trust me.”
The spider drone got to the threshold and looked up at him. It burst through the door and then up his leg, tickling his thigh, and then crawled under his tunic.
He froze. He wanted to scream. The spider exited his collar and crawled around, stopping on his shoulder. It clicked at him. Something happened in his brain, and then it was messaging him hello through his neural interface.
“What the fuck?” He whispered loudly.
“It’ll come in handy. We can send it ahead to scout. I’ll try to hack a few more.”
He stared at the scorpion-like machine on his shoulder, irritated, mostly because he hadn’t thought of it. His avatar was coming up with the same ideas he’d come up with, except faster. How do you compete with a faster version of yourself?
“You’re handy, for a chatbot.” He smiled, doing his best to hide his trepidation. Seeing an android, especially one as tall and burly as this one, using Anders’s voice, controlling clockwork scorpions, and grinning like a silicone madman, made his guts turn to jelly. They could still be tricking him. Although he didn’t think so.
“We need to go,” the android said. “Tiahna will wake up in fifteen minutes.”
“I don’t understand. Those darts nearly killed me.”
“I set the tranq gun for a low dose so we wouldn’t kill anyone.”
“How thoughtful of you. But we have to wait, there are still people coming. Do you think she could have alerted someone?”
“I am monitoring the network. There are no alerts out. I can’t see who’s in that party up ahead without pinging them, and that would definitely alert them. They look like they are moving across, not towards us, so they should be gone soon.”
He waited. The footfalls came. The murmurs became whispers, and then he heard a familiar, distinct voice.
It couldn’t be.
He opened the door as wide as he dared to get a better view.
An android crossed the junction. A suited hairless sasquatch, the same model his avatar used. It passed without glancing their way. More spider drones crabbed by, feet clicking on the floor. Then a woman passed, followed by a red-haired boy, about thirteen, with a faraway look and an artifact around his neck.
“Fuck me,” he muttered.
Jin sent his spider drone after them. It jumped to the door, climbed down, and then scurried down the hall. It snapped a few good images and then scurried back.
“The system is masking his identity,” the android said. “My facial recognition database is—”
“Let me guess. Incomplete. It’s him. All one hundred and sixty-five centimeters of him. I’m absolutely sure. I recognize the voice. I’d know that red peach fuzz anywhere.”
“Anders is controlling that android.”
It didn’t matter whether there was one or one hundred of Anders’s minions on the floor. He’d rather face all that than tell Rae they left her son behind.
“We don’t have a choice. We can’t leave without Axio.”
