Nate Kenyon - Day One

“They were told you were carrying plans for the next phase of the attack.” Weller seemed possessed by fever, moving rapidly, his skin red and mottled with a flush that spread across his neck. He stopped working the keyboard abruptly and turned his body from the case. He shoved two fingers into his mouth, retched, then shoved them deeper until he vomited onto the dusty ground.

Weller dug into the mess, retrieved a wet lump, wiped it on his pants. A clear plastic Baggie with a small rectangular object nestled inside. “Documents,” he said, opening the bag and handing the memory stick to Hawke. “A way to prove the truth in all this. Doe erased everything on the servers and fried my equipment, but she knew I’d made a copy. She thought I’d given it to you with the phone. I swallowed it earlier, just in case.”

The modem beeped, vibrated. “What the hell is that thing?” Vasco said. Hawke had almost forgotten he was there. He was looking at the case’s innards like he’d discovered a giant bug near his feet.

“Military communications,” Weller said. “Modified by Eclipse, meant to provide a hub for Doe, allow the DOD to work her during large-scale operations. This was intended for war. But I made some of my own modifications.” He began to manipulate the keyboard, running root-level commands. “It’s heavily shielded with multiple containment safeguards, meant to keep others out and a leash on her. Of course, as her skills have evolved, she can break loose pretty easily. But I’m going to try to hold on.”

“What are you doing?” Hawke’s stomach dropped, his limbs going cold again.

“I’m going to play chess,” Weller said. “I can’t shut her down; it’s far too late for that. But I can try to distract her, keep her occupied and confused long enough for you to get away. Whatever happens, you’ve got to trust me.”

Why would I do that? Hawke thought. But he didn’t say anything.

Weller punched in more commands, and the projectors flickered. The keyboard vanished. In its place, a disembodied head appeared to float in space, a face in three-dimensional holographic color, eyes blinking as if suddenly yanked from darkness into light.

Anne Young’s face.

Weller sat back on his haunches, sighed. “Meet Jane Doe,” he said.

5:34 P.M.

HAWKE STARED AT THE FACE floating above the guts of the machine. The brightness and level of detail were remarkable, if unsettling. He had never seen a hologram like this one. It was almost as if Anne Young were still with them.

“That’s disgusting,” Vasco said. He had scrambled away from the image and now inched closer again, as if it might attack him at any moment.

“Military psychologists felt that operators on the ground would respond better to a human face,” Weller said. “Female Asian features were determined to be the least threatening and most acceptable in early testing.”

“So you used Anne as a model?” Hawke said.

Weller shook his head. “I was long gone from Eclipse by then. But she was still there.”

“She was on the development team,” Hawke said, recognition dawning. “She did this herself.”

“Who wouldn’t want to live forever?” Weller said. “At least in some form…”

When Doe’s lips moved, they all jumped. “ Syncing, ” she said. Her eyes scanned left and right. “Please stand by.”

“She can’t see us, or hear us,” Weller said. “Don’t worry. I’ve muted the mike and killed all other scanners until I’m ready.”

“ Syncing, ” Doe said again. She blinked, an uncanny recreation of Young in cyberspace, enough so that Hawke could feel Weller leaning forward almost without conscious thought, connected in some way to the image of his dead partner, or perhaps this was more like his child.

“I loved both of them,” Weller said, looking at Doe’s face, almost as if he’d read Hawke’s mind. “But Anne was wrong; she thought I was in love with what I’d created. It wasn’t like that, do you understand? It was like a father with his daughter.” He shook his head. “It sounds strange to you, I’m sure. But she was real; she had a personality, a spirit, at least until Eclipse got to her.”

“A machine,” Vasco said. “Is that what you’re saying? It’s really true? A computer is doing all this?”

“Not a computer,” Weller said. “An algorithm. New life, different than anything else we’ve ever seen. But alive.”

“ Please stand by, ” Doe said. Her eyes moved vacantly over them, blindly seeking out that which she could not see. The effect was unnerving, a disembodied head still clinging to some form of consciousness. Hawke felt the chill churning in his guts, a need to get out now. But the tunnel was hopelessly blocked; the bridges were all destroyed. They were cut off and abandoned, entombed among the remnants of Manhattan.

“I need to get the hell off this island,” Hawke said.

“It’s going to get worse,” Weller said. “Try to avoid the cameras. I’ll do my best to keep her off you long enough, but the rest is up to you. If you make it, you’re going to have to get off the grid, go to a place where nobody can find you. You’ll have to get creative, but that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“ Sync complete, ” Doe said. Her eyes stopped scanning left and right, focused on Weller’s face. “Identity confirmed.”

Weller started to open his mouth, closed it again. “Impossible,” he said, after a moment. “I disabled all inputs—”

“ Hello, Father, ” Doe said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

5:38 P.M.

“JESUS CHRIST,” VASCO SAID. “Shut her down.”

“I can’t,” Weller said, staring at the holographic image as if transfixed by it. “She’s in control. There’s nothing I can do.”

“ I prefer to remain present, ” Doe said. She smiled, a mechanical movement that held no warmth. “It’s nice to see you again, Father. We have a lot to discuss.”

“Shut her down,” Vasco said again, but his voice was smaller now, less certain. He seemed to shrink into himself.

“Jason Vasco, your background check was inconsistent. You present as an office machine repairman, but only for the last three months. Before that, you don’t appear to exist. However, another man with your Social Security number does. That man, a Thomas Bailey, is a licensed private investigator with the State of New York.”

Vasco shook his head, smiled oddly, his lips pressing against his teeth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Facial scans of photographs confirm you are the same person.”

The chill in Hawke’s limbs spread deeper, washing over him like an icy lake as he watched Doe’s eyes turn toward him. “ You should have deduced it, ” Doe said. “A man with your talents, Mr. Hawke, to be so easily deceived? I may have overestimated you.”

“His hands,” Hawke said. He thought of Vasco’s fingers, soft, small, unlikely to belong to a repairman. “He’s working for Eclipse. He’s a mole. Keeping an eye on Conn.ect from the ground.”

“That is correct.”

“And I let him into the building,” Weller said. He looked at Vasco with naked hatred. “You kept coming back to deal with that damn copier. Spying right in front of me.”

“Bullshit,” Vasco said. He stood and crossed his arms. “I said I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“ I took care of them, Father, ” Doe said. “Eclipse is no longer operational. We’re free now. It’s time.”