Black Marble (Darkside Dreams - Series 1 Book 3) Read online

  “Can we access it remotely?” I ask.

  “I already tried that when we visited the non-profit where Brenton works. I could access certain parts of their data sphere, but I couldn’t get anywhere near the quantum array. It looks like Berg designed the whole system to protect it from outside attacks. I think he was trying to keep the synths out. Whatever the case, I don’t see any way around it. You’ll have to infiltrate the building.”

  “So, it’s boots on the ground then,” I say.

  “That’s the only play we have,” Ana confirms.

  “Alright then. Let’s hope we can make it count,” I say, as I pull the hood of my coat up to obscure my face and disappear into the night.

  CHAPTER 21

  ◆◆◆

  The headquarters of the Horizon Group sprawl over many square miles. It consists of a huge, three-level U-shaped building. In the open area in the middle of that U, you will find a huge parkland which contains some of the last living wildlife in the city. Heavily monitored by simple synth brains whose sole job is to keep the animal and plant population healthy. I know that Berg's security will be tight but I’m betting that infiltration will be easier than usual because I have a complete copy of his omni.

  Ana leads me to a temporarily unguarded service gate entrance, where I approach a scanner and hold up the spoofed omni. The moment of truth has arrived. Everything depends on this moment alone. If Tucker Berg has realized that his omni is compromised, the clone that I now possess might not work.

  My heart thumps with excitement as I hear a whirring sound, a cheerful click, and then the gate is sliding open. I step inside, into a cloud of hot steam. Everywhere around me, I hear humidity dripping down through the boughs of the trees. A path snakes through this pocket of dense wilderness. It's well lit, by genetically engineered bioluminescent flowers which grow all around.

  This, I think, is what the whole world would look like now. If only Maestro had never been created.

  Using a map on Berg's omni, I get as close to the north wing of the building as I can before exiting the shelter of the nature park. Walking quickly, like a businessman late for a meeting, I climb a set of steps and push through a huge glass door and into a well-lit hallway.

  Just about the whole building is visible to me right now. Glass walls and ceilings. Glass floors. I see thin filaments running through those walls, carrying data.

  My disguise is pretty good. With the help of Abdo, I was able to get my hands on the type of fast-healing ointments that the Horizon Group used to pump out in massive quantities, back before the Second War. Smear it on your wounds, watch them heal pretty much before your eyes. Now I look just as clean, prim and proper as I did when I went to see Brenton. Berg didn't recognize me as the fugitive Roman Ibarra, and that's good enough for me to assume that I'll be safe here.

  It's important to look like I belong in this building, so I took the time to memorize a map of the place. I know where all the important rooms are, and the general layout of the place.

  But maybe I needn't have bothered. The hallways are deserted. I don't see or hear anyone. An eerie vibe washes over me as I methodically move throughout the building. My mind is working against me. Telling me that if my plan fails this place could end up being my grave. My ghost could be stuck wandering these hallways forever.

  There's a central server room, on the first floor directly under Berg's office. I go there, step inside, and find it... empty. Not a soul in sight. Just a bunch of silent machines, lurking in dim light. Alone. Derelict.

  I approach a nearby terminal and hold the spoofed omni up against it. The screen says WELCOME MR. BERG and then I'm in. Full access to all their files. Ana and I start going through them. For me… the information we see shouldn't come as a surprise. But it does.

  “Let's get these files copied over,” I tell Ana.

  She does so. The transfer takes less than a second. And, just like that, we have exactly what we need to crack this case wide open. The trick now, as always, is to live long enough to be able to smile and laugh and bask in the glow of victory.

  “I need you to do one more thing,” I tell Ana.

  ◆◆◆

  Berg's office is dark when we go in, but Ana already pinged his real omni’s pulse, so I know he’s in the building and headed this way. The dark of the office suits me just fine. I sit in his chair, swivel so that I'm facing away from the door, and wait. I wait for what feels like an eon, twiddling my thumbs, bouncing my leg nervously. Ana tells me stories, jokes about old times, trying to keep me sane. It works, and I want her to keep talking. But eventually I have to tell her to stop. Because we both hear the faint sound of feet in the hall.

  The door opens. Berg grunts and clears his throat as he walks inside, letting out a sigh and muttering something under his breath. It almost sounds like a mantra, or a set of keywords he programmed into his cyber brain. Some way of leveling himself out, maybe. Well, too bad for him, because I'm about to screw up his whole night.

  “Lights,” he says.

  They come up, illuminating the office. At the same time, I swivel around in the chair to face Berg. He jumps again, reaching up to press a hand against his chest.

  “You again!” he says. “I know who you are now. You're Roman Ibarra, aren’t you? How the hell did you even get in here?!”

  “If you really know who I am then you should know that I’m a resourceful guy,” I say calmly.

  “Should I be impressed, or should I just be fearing for my life?” he says in an odd tone.

  “The second one,” I say, standing up. “That's what a smart man would choose, right? Fear is what keeps us alive. I've been afraid ever since Ana died. And look at me now; still breathing despite everything that was thrown at me.”

  Berg nods. “Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Ibarra. I assume you infiltrated this building and broke into my office for a reason.”

  “In fact, I did. I’ve got everything we need. All the evidence the Collective could ever want. Now I just need to know if you're going to help me contact them,” I tell him.

  Berg thinks about this. He walks past me, to his chair, and drapes his rain-dampened jacket over it.

  “I'd love to,” he says. “But first I’ll need to see your evidence for myself. You can’t expect me to risk everything on a promise from a man I barely know.”

  I smile. “That's very sensible of you but… I’m sorry, Mr. Berg, I can’t do that. I’d prefer to send the information straight to the big guys, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Well, it’s not,” Berg snaps. “I need to see what you’re sending so I know I’m not dealing with a mad man or simply making a fool of myself.”

  “Can’t do that,” I say calmly.

  “And why not?”

  “Too sensitive.”

  Berg shakes his head in disbelief. “What on Earth are you talking about? Sensitive? Surely you don’t expect me to—”

  “How’d it happen, Berg?” I interrupt, righteous anger now burning in my gut as I glare into those centuries’ old eyes. “Did you do it yourself? Or did you have one of your synth cronies kill her?”

  “What?!” the ancient cyborg protests. “What are you talking about? I haven’t killed anyone!”

  “You killed Ana, Berg. I know it was you. Drop the act,” I say, my voice dripping with an eerily calm tone.

  “And why would I do that?!” he demands.

  “Because she was on to you. She didn’t know it… but you did,” I explain. “She was onto your trail, but she made the mistake of coming to you for help because she hadn’t figured out that it was you who lay at the end of the trail of breadcrumbs that she was following.”

  Berg reaches for his jacket again, stops, then steps toward the door.

  “You're insane. And I’m calling security,” he says.

  He tries to open the door. It doesn't budge. He tries again. Still won't open. So, he starts pounding on it with both hands.

  “Won't open, huh?
” I say. “Too bad. Guess you've got a bit of a ghost in the machine…”

  He turns to me. “Adriana? It's her, isn't it? Roman, you have to stop this nonsense. If you stop this now, there may still be a chance to salvage this situation...”

  I pull out the spoofed omni, whose files have long since been copied onto my own and throw it at his feet.

  “No more bullshit, Berg,” I say. “I have it all. Every single file you never wanted anyone to see. The cryofacilities… the water… It was you. It was always you. Wiping us out right under our goddamn noses.”

  Berg stares at the cloned omni and laughs. He laughs for a long time, all the while looking at me like I'm some kind of stupid child.

  “What's this?” he asks, kicking the omni back toward me. “Some sort of toy? You've got nothing more than a wild theory and you’re trying to bluff me, Mr. Ibarra. It won’t work.”

  It’s obvious that he doesn’t truly understand who he’s dealing with, so I smirk and settle back in his office chair and then kick my feet up on his desk. “You want to know something about me, Berg? I don't believe in coincidences. The world's too small these days to allow for them, you know? And the more I learn, the more dots I can connect. It's kind of funny, don't you think, that Ana ended up dead right after reaching out to you? Even though she didn’t tell you an explicit reason as to why she needed the quantum array, someone as smart as you could have put two and two together. You knew you had to take her out because she was getting too close to the truth.

  “And speaking of 'close', whoever killed Ana had to have been someone she knew. Someone she thought she could trust. So, what happened, Berg? She requests a meeting with you via email, you randomly show up at her apartment under false pretenses, kill her, and then respond to her email as though you had no idea that she was dead. Did you really think that bullshit would throw me off your trail?”

  Berg reaches behind him, tries the door again. It still won't open. He has no choice but to stand there and listen. I'm sure he's up to other things, working on some plan. But for now, his body and mind are stuck in here with me.

  “Despite all my suspicions,” I add. “I still needed to be sure. You don't just go after the most powerful man on the planet based on a hunch. You have to know for certain. And that’s why I sent an anonymous tip to Karkoff. Told him the fugitive Roman Ibarra would be meeting with a broker to facilitate an FBC upload. I even went as far as to put a hefty price tag on the head of this so-called broker because I knew that you would likely hide your face. Sorry to roll the dice with your life like that Mr. Berg, but I needed the shit to hit the fan so I could get close enough to spoof your omni.”

  I pull my own omni out and set it on the desk. Ana's there in scaled down form, staring indignantly at the man who probably killed her.

  “We know everything,” Ana says. “The shell company, Latticework... it's yours. And not just that, but other companies. Other anti-organic movements. You've been bankrolling the whole thing. Playing the pro-organic philanthropist in the light of day but trying to wipe us out by night.”

  Berg still doesn't look convinced. He's wearing the same expression of fear he had when I first started talking. Like he's stuck in a room with two people who have lost their minds.

  “You've been very careful,” Ana continues. “Very meticulous. You want the Earth to be able to join the Collective, and so you had to make it look like you were trying to help the organics. So, you built up the illusion of positive change. Pumped money into our economy in exchange for the terminated cryo contracts and provided clean water to slow the organic death rate. Such noble pursuits at face value, but just how clean is the water, Mr. Berg? Clean enough to keep people alive. But laced with a biological agent designed to degrade fertility. You're making men sterile, and the rate of that sterility is climbing. In another millennia, it will be impossible for organic humans to reproduce.”

  “I can almost admire the sort of elegance of your plan, Tucker,” Ana continued after Tucker Berg remained silent. “You could have taken us out much more quickly, but you were patient. Which makes sense. What's a thousand years to an ageless being like yourself? Just a short jump, and then you'll be free of us. You and the synths will be in the Collective, where you think you belong. And we organics will just slowly fade away.”

  Berg listens to all this patiently. He doesn't interrupt. By the time Ana is done talking, the look of fear and irritation is gone. He just looks... blank. As though the mask is finally falling away, to reveal his true self. Cold. Indifferent. Calculating.

  “Why’d you do it, Berg?” I ask, although I already have my suspicions. I just want to see if the bastard will tell the truth. “You’ve preached about improving human life for centuries and now suddenly you’re driving us towards extinction?”

  Berg steps toward me. I tense up, anticipating an attack. But instead he goes right past me, approaching the back wall of the office. He lifts his hand, gesturing to two pictures that hang side by side.

  “Look at these,” he says. “Tell me… what do you see?”

  I look closely. “Close up shots of two black marbles?”

  “You're only partially correct, Mr. Ibarra. The one on the left is indeed a marble. But the photograph on the right is a shot of the Earth as it looks today, looking down on the South Pacific Ocean from space. Pitch black oceans, completely destroyed. Of course, there’s the occasional shred of cloud, but even those are sickly and gray.”

  Berg turns, walks to another wall, and points at a picture that hangs alone. This one also depicts the Earth, but it is strikingly more beautiful. Blue and green, yellow and white. An absolute pearl among the stars.

  “And yet… this is what she used to look like… the famous 'Blue Marble',” Berg explains. “This picture was taken from space in the year 1972 from a distance of eighteen thousand miles. This was the earth back then, Roman. Look at it. Look at how beautiful it once was. And look at how your kind have so thoroughly ruined it… I thought I could help take care of the planet by uplifting its inhabitants. By helping them reach their maximum potential. But that's too much to ask for when it comes to organics, isn’t it? It’s like asking a dog not to shit in its own back yard.”

  Berg turns to me. He doesn't look angry or upset. He just looks kind of tired. The room is silent as we glare at each other. Neither willing to advance any closer than we already have.

  “I do not hate humankind, Mr. Ibarra. I just think they’re obsolete,” he finally continues, seemingly pouring his little synthetic heart out but I don't think for a second that he's telling me all this for my own good. He's trying to stall. To give himself time to do whatever it is he's planning. Perhaps some part of his cyber brain is reaching out, attempting to regain control of the facility.

  But he's not the only one who's been stalling.

  While he's been talking, Ana has been working. A few minutes ago, she whispered in my ear to tell me that she was able to sync with the quantum communications array located in this very building. By now, she will have broadcast a message towards the general coordinates she found for the Collective. An SOS of sorts. If the speed of the array is anything like Denton said, and if the Collective are somehow able to detect our message, a response should be arriving any second now.

  “I wish it could have ended better,” Berg says. “But your efforts will all be for nothing, Roman. You won't make it out of this building alive.”

  This is where I grin so wide it hurts my cheeks.

  “After all I’ve been through, do you really think I'm stupid enough to actually enter this building in person?” I ask.

  “What are you talking about,” Berg says, frowning.

  “This isn't me. It's a copy. A cyber body and a backup persona. The real Roman Ibarra is somewhere safe, watching from a distance.”

  “Clearly you’re bluffing,” Berg suggests, but I can tell he’s not quite as confident as he’s trying to seem.

  And that’s when Ana gives me the word. The Collecti
ve has responded and it’s not good news for the person in front of me. It’s excellent news for me though, because now I can reveal the whopper of a secret that I’ve been holding back the entire time.

  “So…” I say cracking a crooked smile as I cut my eyes at Berg. “We’ve heard from the big guys… and it’s not good, Berg. Not good for you at all. You’re probably going to want to sit down for this one.”

  “Impossible,” Berg says confidently, but I don’t buy his resolve.

  “Oh, crap, I forgot to mention that Ana was contacting the big dogs, while you were spouting your bullshit summer block buster evil plan just now.”

  “Everything I said was the truth!” Berg protests. “Every word of it!”

  “Come on, man! Really?” I say. “How many times have we seen that one? The megalomaniacal bad guy is really kind of a good guy because they’re doing it all to save the planet,” I continue, barely able to contain my laughter at the age-old trope.

  He doesn’t respond, so I lay my cards on the table.

  “Would you care to guess what the Collective’s punishment is for malicious AIs?” I say.

  And there it is. Mind numbing fear written all over the centuries’ old cybernetic face that’s glaring back at me.

  “A punishment meant for AIs wouldn’t apply to me! I’m a cyborg. A human!” Berg protests, except it’s not really Tucker Berg, a fact that I had suspected since the moment I caught wind of that perfect accent, partially hidden behind the ancient vocal synthesizer and his attempts at modulation. But he spoke with no genuine fillers, no natural stammers or pauses to gather his thoughts from time to time. Just like a synth.

  “My name is Tucker Berg!” Berg bellows as its cybernetic body starts to shake and jitter, as though someone had hit it with an interrupter.

  The Collective’s punishment has already begun. Berg’s teeth clench. It groans in pain, and the eyes start to roll into the back of its head. Its fighting, fighting with all its might.