Omega point

CHAPTER 5

Kolosev's mother didn't know where her son was, but the servers delivering her mail did. Veronique cracked the old lady's Grid profile quickly, Kolosev's cryptography a little less so, but by 3.30 she had him.

"South," Valdaire said over a glass of black tea. Kolosev's mother was handing out cake, as eager to find her darling son as they were. Always the way, thought Otto. Every time Oleg went underground, Otto and Richards came to see his dear old mama. She was as helpful as she was the last time.

"Here." Valdaire pointed to Chloe's screen, at a locator point flaring on a map.

"He is a mummy's boy," said Otto quietly to Valdaire as Mrs Kolosev flirted with an uncomfortable-looking Chures. "All his super hacker crap. He still needs his socks washing, this is how we find him every time."

Otto, Veronique, Lehmann and Chures left Kiev that evening. They travelled along the E95 in a rented groundcar, Kiev being a city where Richards amp; Klein had no garage. Systems cracked by Valdaire, the car proved suitably anonymous. Otto debated taking an aircar, but ground vehicles drew less attention, especially so far east. As was his habit, Otto drove himself, not trusting the vehicle's automated systems against outside interference. He turned down Lehmann's offer of help. He said he wanted to think, but in reality he didn't want to sleep, he could do without the temptation of the mentaug's dreams.

The forests of the north turned to steppe as they headed south, fertile plains tilled by enormous, automated harvesters. The highway was eight lanes wide, full of slaved cars in tight road trains, as busy as any in Europe, but once they turned off the highway AI guidance cut out, and traffic dwindled until they were the only car, sharing the road with robot grain trucks shuttling ceaselessly between the fields and rail depots and heavy lifter stations, busy with the second harvest.

Valdaire sat up front with Otto for a day, watching the plains roll by. She talked a little about her early childhood in Cote d'Ivoire, about her life with Chloe before the country had exploded into violence and her family had fled. She was speaking more to herself than Otto. She seemed content talking levelly this way, staring out of the window as she made sense of her life to herself. She probably does this a lot, thought Otto, I may as well not be here. He was willing to let her continue, until she looked at him and asked suddenly, "Have you ever been married, Klein?"

"Once," he said reluctantly.

She waited for more. He didn't offer any. "You don't talk much about yourself, Klein," she said.

"Read my files," he said, even though that's what Richards always said to him. He wished she'd leave him be. He didn't mind listening to Valdaire. It helped some people; the last sixty years or so had been such that half the people on the planet had some kind of horror story to tell, but he preferred to keep his pain to himself.

"I have. Not the personal stuff," she added hurriedly. "I feel like I'm prying."

"You are."

"Sorry."

Otto grunted through a half-smile at that. "You'd make a poor security consultant."

"Maybe that's why I'm not one," she said.

"There is not much to tell," said Otto.

Valdaire looked as if she didn't believe him.

"I work. That's all," he said and kept his silence. Lehmann swapped over with her at the next stop. At least he knew how to keep quiet.

They passed the grassed-over sites of collective farms and abandoned towns, by low arcologies, through freshly cut fields being tilled for winter wheat, through a million-hectare rewilded patch of steppe teeming with Saiga, Przewalski's horse and gengineered megafauna. Through sleeping villages little changed in centuries, past the neat rows of a Han agri-engineering dormitory town. Night deepened, and lightened into day, and came once more. They stopped twice in nowhere towns grey with sad histories, and were gone quickly.

The second morning. Otto steered on to an unmetalled road, nothing but crops of all kinds around them, low rumble of the auto-harvesters at work carrying over the rolling vastness of the country, trails of dust marking their progress.

They approached an abandoned farm complex, mid-twentieth century, most of its concrete crumbled to ivy-choked grit. Weedy mounds of stone to one side of the road marked the remains of the village it had sprung from, windowless brick walls on the other the Soviet failure it had become. Ancient and newer parts were as ruinous as each other. They arrived at a square before a dilapidated office block. A few barns from the early twenty-first century tottered round its edges. A camouflaged satellite dish sat inside one barn with no sides, pointed through a hole in the roof, cables snaking across the dusty ground.

"We are here," said Otto, setting the car to park itself.

"What is this place?" said Chures.

"Ancient village turned Soviet collective farm, abandoned eighty years ago," said Otto.

"What, one of your ancestors burn it down?" said Chures.

"Don't start on the Nazi shit, SudAmigo, that was near two hundred years ago," said Lehmann.

"This place was hit hard by the Christmas Flu," said Otto. "A fifth of villages inhabited a century ago are like this. It is still endemic; there was another outbreak last year. That's why you see so many biofilters on faces out here." Otto looked around. "Kolosev has worked out of here before. He's short on imagination."

"Kind of desolate, even for a criminal," murmured Valdaire.

"He is useful," said Otto. "Let us approach him gently. He is prone to nervousness, and he will have seen us approach. We go in too hard, he'll wipe it all. Lucky for us he's curious; he'll want to know what we want. This barn — " he pointed to one less damaged than the rest "- it has a high EM field, plenty of equipment working. The rest of this place is inactive, as dead as it looks."

"Veev!" piped Chloe. "That is incorrect, there is minor activity detectable in the office building also."

"More there in the barn though, yes?" said Otto.

"Yes," said Chloe.

"Then we check the barn first. Lehmann, activate squad interface."

Otto's iHUD flickered on; squad icons, years unused, came on, but most blinked off, leaving Lehmann's signifier alone in his mind. A squad of two, he thought, better than no squad at all.

"Shouldn't we be more cautious?" asked Valdaire, snagging Chloe from the backseat. Lehmann unfolded his body from the car, groaning as joints sounded an unnerving percussion of pops. He swung his arms round a few times. Valdaire found herself entranced by the unnatural shapes his artificial muscles made.

"This is Kolosev," said Otto.

Lehmann grinned, went round to the boot and pulled out three components that he snapped together into a long rifle.

"I'll check out the offices," said Lehmann. "Better to be safe. I'll take up position on the roof, cover you all."

" Stimmt," said Otto. Lehmann jogged off.

The light of day was growing stronger, heat coming with it, taking the chill off the autumn. Otto led them to a building whose sides were made of ragged cement sheeting, cracked single-glazed windows high up in its sides. He slid the door aside and stepped into a dark space shot through with mote-laden sunbeams. Efforts had been made to insulate the insides of the building with foamcrete, but it had been inexpertly applied and was full of gaps. Rusting girders dragged from other buildings propped up the roof. An array of computer hardware was stacked carelessly in a horseshoe round a mouldy desk, a tarpaulin strung above it. Farm machinery lined the walls, unidentifiable with age and splattered with foamcrete. The place smelled of old food and strong cannabis.

"Kolosev. Lazy. He should have set up in the office. His cables probably aren't long enough to reach his satellite dish, and he could not take the time to move his fat arse and buy more." Otto looked around. "He's still in here."

Chures drew his gun. "What about the offices?"

"Not bedtime yet," said Otto. "Little hackers are allergic to the sun. He's probably just finishing up for the night."

"This is normal, to hang around when you're coming to visit?" said Valdaire.

"He doesn't have anywhere to go," said Otto, "and a rat's maze like this, he'll see it is a good place to hide. It's either that, or booby-traps and a remote camera to catch us all being blown up. Gloaters, lurkers, runners — your three kinds of reluctant informant, so Richards says. Kolosev is a little of each."

"Great," said Valdaire.

"Kolosev won't blow us up. I know him, this is all he owns, all he's ever likely to own, because no matter how well he does he always loses it all because he can't bear to be parted from his mama. No," said Otto, "he's still in here." A coffee mug sat on Kolosev's desk, cooling in Otto's IR capable eyesight from yellow to green. He walked over to it, touched the back of his hand to it. "Still warm, so is the chair." He pulled out his gun. "Amateur."

"Kolosev!" called out Chures. "This is the VIA, come out now!"

" Genau, if he's not already shitting himself, he is now," said Otto. "Go easy on the threats, Chures, there's nothing these little hackers fear more than a visit from the VIA, and your agency's busted him a lot of times. He didn't much like his last stretch in the freezer. You will make him run."

"I was about to say we are only here to talk, Klein."

"It will not make any difference." Otto indicated upwards with his eyes.

"What?" mouthed Valdaire.

Otto pointed to Chloe. I can hear him. Otto sent the message via his MT to Chloe, his thoughts writing themselves across her screen. Breathing. Otto pointed his chin to a roof crux, flaking steel butted by a makeshift half-floor. A creak, audible enough for the others to hear. "Come down, Kolosev! Uncle Otto has come to say hello!"

Kolosev wasn't hanging around. There was a series of rapid scuffs followed by a crash as he flung himself out of one of the barn's filthy windows. Otto ran to the door to see Kolosev bounding through the wheat at close on fifty klicks an hour, high atop a pair of 'roo springers. "And there we are," said Otto, and tore off after the hacker.

Chures put up his gun. "Klein can handle that, let's crack the pendejo's system and see what he's got."

"I could do with some help." Valdaire grimaced, sweeping aside the sticky detritus of food, joints' butts and crusty tissues cluttering Kolosev's desk. She placed Chloe down on the cleanest part.

"You'll get it, in a moment," said Chures. "Klein was right about one thing. I need to sweep this place for booby traps."

Otto engaged his full suite of cybernetic and biophysical enhancements as he hit the man-high corn, pushing his body well past human norms. His secondary heart drove doctored blood hard through his body, assisted lungs wringing the air of oxygen. His adapted adrenal glands issued synthetically optimised ephinephrine, feeding his muscles with energy at an accelerated rate. Otto's enhanced biochemistry was not intended to make him stronger, although it did, but to enable his body to keep pace with his secondary polymer musculature. These muscles, contracting to carefully timed impulses drawn off his rewired nervous system, were what provided him with his inhuman strength, driving his limbs like pistons as he hurtled across the field. Without boosting, his organic muscles would be ripped to pieces by the actions of the polymer bundles.

Wheat stalks whipped at his hands and face as he ran. Kolosev was ahead of him still. Kolosev had aged badly, fatter, pastier than his mugshots. Passing into middle age, he dressed like a child in stained Gridkid gear, tight luminous pants and puffsleeved shirt. On the 'roo springers he ran like a cheetah, a simple mechanism of levers and springs known for a hundred years lengthening his legs, mimicking the efficiency of a kangaroo's limbs. Under Kolosev's own power, the rig would have sped him, but like Otto's limbs the springer was heavy with polymer muscle bunches, lending the fugitive speed that Otto could not match. He tore through the wheat like the wind, rig bouncing over the summer-dried earth in bounding strides. Past harvest and ploughing, it would have been different, for Kolosev's rig would surely have foundered in the sticky black chernozem. Right now Otto could never catch him.

"Oleg!" Otto shouted. "Stop, or I'll have to shoot you! Oleg!"

The fleeing hacker kept his face forward. Kolosev leapt high as he cleared some obstacle, and Otto lost him to a wrinkle in the steppe. Otto let out a long string of hard German expletives and ran on. His shoulder hurt, and his stomach burned with acid reflux. He could keep a pace of thirty kilometres an hour for a couple of hours, even at his age, but this speed was draining his resources fast.

Otto burst into the open, stubble beneath his feet. A hundred and fifty metres to his left the staggered wall of giant harvesters droned forward slowly. Staple-shaped front ends terminating in multiple wheel units, flails on a wide drum between them, cutting and winnowing. Long hoppers ran behind the main bodies, raised high off the ground, rears supported on pillars with their own wheel units at the base — from the air they looked like insectile letter Ts crawling across the earth. Chaff escaping from secondary pods harvesting waste for biofuel blew in a constant stream toward Otto, obscuring his view in showers of shivered straw and grit.

Otto stopped to get his bearings. A glimpse of movement, quicker than the harvesters; Kolosev was well ahead of him, nearing the wall of machines and its shroud of dust.

"Oleg! Stop!" The Ukrainian carried on running, each step a high leap.

Otto levelled his caseless automatic two-handed at the fleeing hacker. His adjutant ran his ocular magnification up to the absolute maximum. The Ukrainian bounced around in his vision like a fly trapped in a jar, close to the furthest effective range of Otto's pistol, and he wished he'd brought a bigger gun.

If I hit him, it's his own fault for running, he told himself, and fired.

The bullet missed.

Otto squinted down the barrel of his pistol for another shot, and lowered it. Kolosev was too far away.

" Scheisse."

His MT lit up. Lehmann. Don't worry, Leutnant, I have him.

A gun fired, way back behind him. A second later Kolosev staggered. Lehmann's shot took the 'roo springer's left heel assembly out, the sound of the shot following the bullet. The springer's damaged leg dragged. Otto accelerated. Panic showed on Kolosev's bearded face as he undid the springer's straps, hammering at the quick release until his legs popped out of the rig. He fell free and made a hopping run toward the nearest harvester. He was up the ladder on the left wheel pod pillar as Otto reached the vehicle. Otto was on to the ladder as Kolosev scrambled round the harvester's machine cabin.

Otto followed hard behind.

Kolosev stood in the middle of the catwalk that spanned the width of the harvester, looking wildly from side to side, shirt stained with sweat.

"Kolosev, stop. You've nowhere to run, and I'm getting indigestion."

Kolosev stared at the hopper full of wheat kernels, as if he were thinking of jumping in, and thought better of it. "You're getting old, Klein," he panted. He stepped back as Otto holstered his gun. Kolosev was unmodded: the real Grid experts never wore hardwired mentaugs. Kolosev was free of cybernetics, not even base-level healthtech; they knew how it could be used against them.

"Look at yourself, Oleg, you're out of shape. Don't run like that again, you'll have a heart attack."

"You come in here with the VIA? What was I supposed to do? After all I've done for you in the past, you bring them here! I've been busted out of every place I've ever been by them. Ten years' cold storage they've cost me. Why you think I ran?" Kolosev spoke in terse Grid English, truncated and peppered with invogue leetspeak, smeared over with a thick Slavic accent.

"I'm not with them, Kolosev, they're with me. We're not here to bust you. I only need some information, the usual."

"Yeah?" Kolosev's fat face pulled an unconvincing hardman sneer. "Your kind 'ways does. You loot me, Klein, it upset me."

"I am looking for Waldo, Oleg."

Kolosev snorted and slapped the railings of the catwalk. "You know he and I do no see eye to eye no more. I no run with him, I work free."

"Solo?" said Otto.

"I never said that."

"But you're alone now."

Kolosev glared, trapped. "Yeah, I'm alone now," he said, his English losing its posture, wandering closer to standard.

"I'll pay," said Otto. "I'll pay a lot."

"How much?" said Kolosev.

"A million, Euro."

"You need him bad, huh? Two million. And you broke my springer, you can buy me a new one. I want that as extra."

"I'll buy you an aircar if that's what you want."

"Thanks. I'm trying shed some kilos."

"And springers aren't tracked."

Kolosev shrugged.

"Fine, Oleg, just tell me where he is."

Kolosev fished a phone from a pocket on his sleeve. "Money first."

Otto sent a coded transfer instruction out through his adjutant. Kolosev's phone binged, filled with the VIA's money. EuPol had given him unlimited funds for this expedition. Otto figured they'd find a way to claw it back later.

"Heh," Kolosev said, licking his lips. "You do need him. Why?"

"Where is he, Kolosev? I'm losing my patience," said Otto, and stepped nearer.

The fat man held up his hand. His eyes were screwed tight against the sun; he really didn't get outside much. "Relax, Klein, I tell you. What's the big deal? Let me guess — " a triumphant grin flickered across the Ukrainian's face "- k52's small adventure in the RealWorlds, yes? Am I close?"

The likes of Kolosev always dug out what others tried to hide. No harm in letting him know; if Otto didn't succeed, then everyone would know anyhow. Otto nodded.

"Damn fucking bastards! I am good, no, Klein? Huh? Huh? Every Class A gold hacker know about that. Me, I one of. We the future, you big mob, Klein. Fuck me!"

"Big talk, Oleg."

"You look at me, Klein, you see fat man. I look at you, I see an extinct species. You are needing Waldo to get you in, in past the security. Only he can do it, no?"

"You are a genuine genius, Oleg," said Otto flatly.

"Ah, now you flatter. Well — " the Ukrainian gave an extravagant shrug "- what if I tell you that it no matter? You no hear?"

"Where is he, Oleg?" growled Otto. He pulled his gun out again. "Or that money is coming right back out of your account, and I'll deposit a bullet in your face instead."

"I tell you! Calm, calm, big mob, you Germans so serious." Kolosev was giggling, he was still high. "He's in Sinosiberia, man, hiding out in an old Soviet army base from way back when."

Otto put his gun up. "That wasn't so hard."

"Yeah, won't do you no good. I'm working for some big fishes now, big fishes! They're not going to like you roughing me one bit, cyborg man." Kolosev laughed. "You want to get in to the Realms? You have no idea! I tried it 'cyborg' — " he hooked his fingers round the word, mocking it "- I try it and 'ffft'." He held his hand to his head like a gun, thumb falling like a hammer. "I no do it, so you no do it. I found him, my old buddy Waldo. I had so much I want to say to him, right before I smack him in the mouth. But you have no idea what's going on, big mob, you so…"

Kolosev's right temple exploded, taking most of his face with it. He slumped, last breath gurgling in his throat, and pitched over the railing into the teeth of the harvester.

For a second, the chaff blew red.

A bullet stung Otto's cheek, gouging flesh as it ricocheted off his reinforced skull, knocking his head round. It hurt like hell, but its momentum was too spent to do him real harm. Otto dropped, pressing himself as far as he could into the grill of the catwalk, making the most of the low lip running along its base. A further bullet thunked into the carbon body of the harvester a few centimetres from his head. No report from the weapon; the shooter was far off, the harvester too loud, his gun probably silenced. Otto crawled backward, trailing blood, seeking the shelter of the hopper humped up behind the harvester. By the time he was in its cover, his healthtech had staunched the blood. His wound itched as it healed.

Otto called up an aerial view. Grain silos to the west. The shooter had to be there. His adjutant reported a minor viral attack on his systems, easily fought off.

In the satellite view, Otto saw a bike rising into the air.

The silos were four kilometres away. Whoever had shot at him had been good, Ky-tech good.

An unused squad icon in his iHUD flickered briefly and guttered out.

"Kaplinski," growled Otto.

Otto ran back to the village, his face numb. He ordered Lehmann to keep watch from the office block, just in case.

"What happened to you?" said Chures. Valdaire looked up from her work at the desk and gave a small gasp.

"I got shot. We have to leave here, now. Kaplinski is here."

"How do you know?"

"I know," said Otto. "He's taken out Kolosev. Come on! We have to go. He probably won't chance a close approach with me and Lehmann here, but he is unpredictable, and he is not working alone."

"Just a minute!" said Valdaire.

"We do not have a minute," said Otto, and he made to grab Valdaire.

"Lay off for a moment, Klein! Chloe, is there anyone here that should not be?" asked Valdaire.

"We're the only sentients for ten kilometres," chirruped Chloe. "Brainless things elsewise."

Chures stared at Otto, an open challenge. "Finish your data rip," he said. "We need this information."

Otto stared back, and shrugged. He went to the door and checked the yard right to left and back again. He seemed nervous, and that worried Valdaire.

Five seconds passed. "Download complete," said Chloe.

"Now we can go," said Valdaire. She picked Chloe up off the desk.

"Veronique," said Chloe. "I have access to Kolosev's network, including the other source of EM activity. There is something you should see there, in the office block. Six more humans."

"What are they doing?" asked Valdaire.

"They are inactive."

Otto looked out over the yard. No movement or noise, just corn crake and combines rattling over the plain. He tapped Lehmann's feed, looking out through his eyes, something he'd not done for many years, and it brought a rush of unwelcome memories. "OK, but we are leaving as soon as we can."

"You're lucky Kaplinski shot Kolosev first," said Chures.

"Luck has nothing to do with it. He killed Kolosev because Kolosev knew something. If Oleg had known nothing he would have shot me first. Kaplinski is insane, but he is not stupid," said Otto.

"What is his problem?" asked Valdaire.

"All of the Ky-tech had neurosurgery," said Chures. "One of the things done as routine was an empathetic damper. It was supposed to stop PTSD in Ky-tech soldiers. It didn't work so well."

"Because it turned you all into sociopaths?" said Valdaire to Otto.

"You were in the army too, you know what it is like," said Otto. "They wanted to stop us feeling guilty for performing our duty."

"I was behind a desk," said Valdaire.

"You still killed people," said Otto, "even if you only pushed buttons. You know what it means to end a life; the feeling is the same if you can see them die or not." He ushered her through a broken glass door into the office block. Wind gusted through empty steel window frames, concrete walls streaked with moisture, ancient linoleum tiles flaked to fragments. "The conditioning was reversible: flick a switch after the war, be back to normal, even scrub the bad memories away. But it went too far with Kaplinski."

"Turn left, up the stairs, first door on the left," sang Chloe.

Otto went on. "Kaplinski did not take to renormalisation. He never felt anything but the urge to fight ever again. He got out of the hospital, killed half the damn security. I was ordered to hunt him down."

"He got away," said Chures.

" Ja, he got away," agreed Otto. "And now he is trying to kill me."

No sign of him, said Lehmann over the MT. The air bike is im mobile, 50 kilometres away. I've called in the local EuPol.

He'll be gone when they get there, thought Otto back.

He's gone already, said Lehmann.

Did you check out the EM signature in this office?

Negative. No time.

"This is it," said Chloe. They stopped in front of a door.

Chures looked to Otto. He nodded. Both readied their guns.

Chures silently counted down on his fingers. On three, Otto kicked the door in, his augmented legs sending the ancient wood to pieces. Chures darted into the room, covering all angles.

"Holy…" said Valdaire.

"Well, I did tell you," said Chloe smugly.

The room was weatherproofed, its one window foamed up and ceiling repaired. Inside were six functioning v-jack set-ups, each worth a fortune, each highly illicit: couches, medical gear, nutrient tanks and hook-up. On every couch was a body, face contorted with pain.

"They're all dead," said Chloe. "Bio-neural feedback."

Otto checked the corpses one at a time; cold, stomachs bloated, dead long enough for rigor mortis to have come and gone, but not dead long. With the September heat outside, probably 50–70 hours, as he counted it, though he was no expert. Then his adjutant consulted the Grid and came back with a similar figure. Anything more precise would need tests. All were emaciated.

The last was different. "This one's alive," said Otto.

"I'll get the v-jack off him," said Valdaire. "See if I can pull him back into the Real."

"It'll kill him," said Chures.

"He's dead already," said Otto. "Pulse is weak, ECG erratic — look at him. He might be able to tell us something useful before he goes."

"Klein is correct," said Chloe. "The subject is undergoing total neural disassociation. He has minutes of life left."

"Who is he?" said Chures. He was checking the room carefully. He knocked some of the foam out off the window, allowing dusty sunlight into the room.

"Unknown. He has no Grid signature, no ID chip," said Chloe.

"Han Chinese," said Otto. He picked up a limp arm. His enhanced eyes picked out the traces of an erased judicial tattoo on his wrist. "Political exile." He let the arm drop.

Valdaire removed the v-jack from the Han. She studied the medical unit attached to the wall, then pressed a few buttons. There was a hiss and a mixing wheel spun round. A gasp of air escaped the man's lips. His eyelids fluttered.

He sighed something in Mandarin, so quietly Valdaire had to bend in to hear it.

He smiled, said something else, and went limp.

"What did he say?" said Chures.

Chloe spoke. "He said he dreamed of golden fields, that is what he said. Veev, it is."

Otto looked out the window at the corn. "That is to be expected."

"He's dead," said Valdaire.

"You said Kolosev knew something?" said Chures. "He's been trying to get into the Realms himself."

"Unsuccessfully," said Valdaire.

"He was looking for Waldo, and not on his own," said Otto. "This level of set-up is beyond Kolosev's means. Damn shame our only leads are dead."

"Chloe will tell us why," said Valdaire.

"You do not need to. Tell me, why has Kaplinski not destroyed this place with us in it?"

"He's looking for Waldo too," said Chures.

" Ja," said Otto. "And I would say that he paid for all this."

"Then we frag the lot, and stay one step ahead of him," said Chures. "We've got Kolosev's data."

"That could work," said Otto. "Or maybe Kaplinski couldn't get Kolosev to give the data up himself, and can not get at it remotely, and he is waiting for us to lead him right to Waldo instead."