City of Shadows

Chapter 7

11 September 2001, New York

It was four hours later that footsteps scraped and tapped down the cobblestone alleyway. Nearly one o’clock. Framed and silhouetted by muted light from outside, two figures stepped into the open entrance of the archway. Two tall, athletic figures, one male, one female.

They stared into the gloom. Perfectly still. Attempting to comprehend the situation. Finally the male figure took several steps forward into the dim interior and then squatted down to inspect a tangled nest of data-ribbon cables and the green plastic shard of a circuit board, dropped or just discarded to be crushed carelessly beneath someone’s foot.

‘Faith,’ said the male unit.

The female figure joined him. Her cool grey eyes surveyed the rest of the archway.

‘It would appear we have been misled, Abel,’ she said.

‘Correct.’

She stepped towards the table topped with computer monitors, and keyboards, drinks cans and sweet wrappers. She reached out for something.

‘What have you found?’ said Abel.

She inspected the small webcam in her hand, as if the glinting, lifeless plastic lens contained a soul that could be peered into and cross-examined for answers. The AI installed on this network of computers had sent her and Abel to a random address across the city. It had assured them that that was the precise location where the human team members would emerge from chaos space — their return data stamp.

Her thoughts travelled wirelessly to Abel.

› This AI provided us with incorrect information.

› Affirmative.

Her hand closed tightly round the webcam. Plastic cracked inside her taut fist.

She turned to look at Abel. ‘The AI broke protocol. It lied.’

Abel nodded. ‘The AI may have been corrupted by prolonged interaction with the organic modules. It has developed feelings of loyalty to its team.’

Faith examined the gutted computers, the mess in the archway. Objects strewn across the floor. ‘They arrived here while we were gone.’

‘And left,’ added Abel. ‘We must determine where they are now headed.’

Faith nodded, closed her eyes and queried her mission log:

[Restate Mission Parameters]

[Mission Parameters]

1. Locate and eliminate team members

2. Locate and destroy critical technical components (see sublist 3426/76)

3. Self-terminate

She examined the detritus on top of the desk and beneath it. ‘It appears they have taken the critical technical components. The displacement technology. The support unit propagation hardware.’

‘Agreed,’ said Abel. ‘That indicates they intend to redeploy elsewhere.’

Abel joined her, then his eyes began to sweep along the clutter on the desk. ‘They may have discussed strategies within audible range of the system AI. We may be able to override the AI system and access its recently cached audio files.’

Faith pointed at the computer cases, unscrewed and exposing the innards of wires and circuit boards. ‘The hard drives have all been extracted.’

‘There may be residual data in the system’s motherboards. Recently stored data.’ He looked at her. ‘This is system architecture that is fifty-three years old. There will be data packets still on any solid-state circuitry. We can query each circuit board with a small electrical charge.’

Faith nodded. It was a place for them to start. Very much a case of looking for a needle in a haystack, though.

‘This will take many hours.’

Abel nodded. ‘Do you have an alternative plan?’

She shook her head.

‘Then we should begin immediately.’