Pattern Black by Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant

Author:Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone

FORTY

Extraction Complete

On the other end of the room, Calliope opened a concealed door between consoles.

Dakota and Mason followed her into the hidden place, a new chamber stuffed with furnishings and equipment that looked less like tech than art. The previous room had reminded Mason of missile command, but this one made it look like the milking parlor at an Amish farm. The tech was like nothing he’d ever seen, cobbled from bits and pieces Calliope had found, scavenged, or sourced through her snitch proxies.

There was an object the size of a dresser in the room’s center, covered with curved and riveted armor like an alien seed pod. Wires protruded from every station, running across the floor in a nest as thick as rainforest underbrush. Calliope hadn’t bothered with cowlings or neatness and had connected everything without fanfare or polish. A few of the thicker cables had been patched and recycled, ringed with colorful tape like the bands on a coral snake. Others weren’t long enough to lay nicely and were thus draped across the space like out-of-control clotheslines. Crossing from one end to the other was less like strolling than doing the limbo.

“Did you make all of this?” Dakota’s anger took a backseat to wonder.

“Bits and pieces at a time. There’s a lot of smart hardware still out there in the city, just waiting to be scavenged. Cars, TVs, refrigerators, you name it. The hard part was finding codeable chips. Most of what I needed didn’t exist. I had to use blank chips then train the AI.”

Calliope moved to a workstation and beckoned Mason forward. She gave him what looked like a chrome bicycle handle to hold, turned away, then used one finger to scan through lines on a screen — lines, Mason assumed, he was somehow feeding the computer through the implement in his hands.

She peered into his eyes using something large and mounted to a wheel, then pushed it aside on a hinge. “You’re right. He’s got my print on him.” She turned to Mason. “You went in when?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Dakota answered for him. “He ‘went in’ three years back. Nothing changed since you were with the group.”

“I’m not being clear,” Calliope said, still addressing Mason. “After you woke in your pod, when did you re-immerse into a simulation?”

“I didn’t re-immerse.” Mason had barely gotten out of immersion after losing a chunk of his life. Damned if he’d ever do it again.

Calliope sighed and turned back to Dakota. “When?”

“He’s telling the truth.”

“Why would I not tell the truth?” Mason asked.

“I guess I need to spell this out. You claim,” Calliope said, using her eyes to poke Mason in the chest, “you saw me inside your sim. Strange as I find the idea, my equipment agrees you were, somehow, influenced by my code — and more specifically, that I used a bio-disruptor of my own creation on you. It’s called a Muse, and you saw it as a scroll made of shiny fabric.

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