Modifying the Contract (Ch 11)

[General]

Mike and Nikki rode in silence for the next two hours; if you could call the high pitched drone of the dirt bike engine silence. Between the vibrations of the rough ride, and the trauma of the recent battle, Mike felt almost completely numb. He hated that they left her there, but he knew if anyone tried to get her they’d just be another victim.

Mike’s mind raced through various parts of the battle, what happened, and what he might have done better. Unfortunately it was just so chaotic, that he couldn’t really say what happened when. There was a lot of shooting and some explosions and then Erica was gone and they had to run. He kicked himself now that they didn’t leave earlier; clear out as soon as they had a plan. He got too comfortable and it almost killed them all.

Nikki likewise reviewed the battle in her mind as they rode. While she knew the execution of their defense had been far from perfect, the more she reflected, the more she realized they were lucky any of them survived. In the end they defeated an attacking force six times their size and Mike could hardly be considered a full combatant. Erica’s loss was…unfortunate…but the important thing was that Mike survived, and she was functional enough to continue to protect him.

Eventually Nikki pulled the bike off the road into a large truck stop and stopped at an empty pump. She waited for Mike to get off before she dismounted the bike. She grabbed the pump handle and hit the cash button. “Can you pay inside with cash?”

“Yea sure,” Mike said as he stretched his body. He wasn’t sure if it was the long bike ride or the stress of the battle but he felt sore all over. “I’ll be back in a bit.” He tucked a pistol, one of the few weapons they still had left, in his back belt and hobbled into the modern building. He marched straight to the bathroom, then wandered around the store picking up a few drinks and snacks for the road. He also grabbed a cheap, disposable phone. Fortunately he remembered to pay for the gas on the way out and chuckled as he realized how little fuel the bike could actually carry.

It didn’t take long to fill the small gas tank, so Nikki tried to keep herself busy readjusting and taking inventory of the gear in her backpack. Inside the moderately sized bag sat all their remaining cash, her personal toolkit, a few high density energy bars, her knives, her P90 with one spare magazine, and two boxes of pistol ammunition. She knew Mike’s bag had his laptop and phone, and maybe a few odds and ends. She raised her head from looking in the bag as she heard him approach. “Thank you,” she whispered as he silently held out a bottle of water. She quickly drank it and tossed the empty container away before jumping back on the bike. Mike crawled on a little more slowly and took hold as she kick started the bike and sped away.

“Pull off into that park,” Mike shouted to Nikki a few minutes later, “I want to make a quick phone call.” She nodded and brought the bike to a stop in a secluded corner of the park. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said as he extracted the new phone from its plastic clamshell and walked to a nearby park bench. She was about to stand next to him, to provide better protection, but decided against it to give him some privacy. Her programming and previous experience with him indicated he was under emotional stress and could use some space.

Mike returned a few minutes later, “OK I convinced her to meet with us,” he explained. Nikki nodded politely as if she didn’t already overhear the entire conversation. “She will meet us at Battelle Riverfront Park, next to the hotdog stands in five hours.”

“It will take us approximately 3.2 hours to reach Columbus at our current pace,” Nikki replied as Mike secured his phone and got back onto the bike with her. Once again the pair sped off on the road, now with purpose and a hope of salvation.

Fortunately for Nikki and Mike the rest of their journey was relatively uneventful. He had to stop several times to stretch or attend to his biological needs but Nikki tolerated it well enough. During one such break she wondered what would have happened if she and Erica had escaped instead of Mike. With their purpose for being gone, would they even be able to continue on? The logical thing to do would be to surrender and hope Allied would refurbish her, but something about that idea left her unsettled.

It was early afternoon when Nikki pulled the bike off the freeway and into the center of the rapidly growing city. Mike’s head swiveled around as they sped through the busy streets. He’d been to Columbus several times when growing up, and it was a decent sized city then. The recent economic boom had led to a massive increase in construction, with new towers and complexes going up all over the city. Large robotic machines helped grow the steel, concrete and glass structures as they reached up into the sky.

Nikki stopped the bike at a red light. “We made good time; it will be 1.5 hours until your scheduled meeting. What should we do until then?” she shouted back at Mike over the drone of the motor.

“There’s a hotel over there. Let’s grab a room. There’s no telling how long we’ll eventually be here,” Mike rationalized.

“Shall I find a parking garage or do you think the hotel will have a lot?” Nikki asked.

Mike squinted to get a better look at the hotel. It looked somewhat clean, but not exactly the Ritz. The sign read ‘The Harding Hotel’, and looked like a place that catered to the many technicians and foremen that kept the nearby construction moving. They didn’t look like they had their own parking, and he didn’t like the idea of putting the bike anywhere formal. If they checked plates going in and out of the lots, they might get flagged. They had left the scene of a major firefight not to mention explosion and it wouldn’t be surprising if the police were looking for them.

“Pull into that alley there,” Mike gestured to a narrow alley around the corner from the hotel. Nikki nodded and discretely slipped the bike into the narrow urban canyon. She killed the engine and the pair walked the bike deeper in. Many dumpsters lined the alley holding the waste from the various businesses that stood on the main street. Mike knocked each one as they went by, until he found one that reverberated like a drum. “Hide it behind here,” he said pointing towards the small space between the metal box and the brick wall. “It’s empty so we should have a few days before it’s emptied again.”

After they hid their method of transportation, Mike and Nikki walked back to the main street and made their way to the hotel. Mike paid the clerk in cash, and after leaving a large deposit led Nikki to the elevators. “I don’t think they see many people pay in cash anymore,” Mike chuckled as they ascended to the 27th floor.

“It is a necessary inconvenience,” Nikki replied. “Allied’s teams may be depleted in this area, but stealth is still our greatest defense.”

“Don’t worry,” Mike sighed, “I have no desire to get into another firefight any time soon.” As the doors opened, he led Nikki to the small, but clean room. It contained a bed, tv, bathroom, and a small kitchenette. The pair set their small bags down and quickly unpacked what little they had: some pistols and ammunition, a large amount of cash, a few changes of clothes, Mike’s computer, and his toiletries. “I’m going to get cleaned up quickly,” he said as he grabbed a change of clothes and retired to the bathroom.

Nikki changed her clothes as well into a set of jean shorts and a tight tank top. It was casual enough to blend in but seductive enough that she could use her assets as ‘soft power’ if needed. She secured a pistol and as much ammunition as she could discretely carry on her person and waited for Mike.

Mike emerged from the bathroom a little while later wearing a pair of jeans and well worn polo shirt. He managed to tuck a pistol in his rear waistband and adjusted his shirt to conceal it. “I guess we should get going,” he said as he checked his watch. “We don’t want to be late.”

“Are you sure we can trust her?” Nikki asked.

“No,” Mike replied shortly, “but she’s the best shot we have. Just keep your eyes open.”

Nikki nodded and the pair left the relative safety and quiet of their room for the noisy and busy streets of the city. They took a slightly indirect path but arrived at the riverfront park about ten minutes early. Mike took the opportunity to grab a hotdog and sat on a bench to watch the activity in and around the river. Nikki took up a casual position a small distance away so she could observe will ‘reading’ a discarded newspaper.

Mike had just finished his hotdog and moved on to a bag of chips when a young woman in a business suit sat down next to him, “Keep looking forward,” she mumbled under her breath as she opened a small lunch bag.

“Nice to see you too Alison,” Mike replied quietly before sipping from his soda. “How’s Katie doing?”

“She’s fine,” Alison mumbled as she loudly snapped into a carrot stick, “So what did you do that has someone trying to kill you?”

“Apparently I got too good at my job,” Mike chuckled. “My work threatened Allied’s bottom line so they tried to take me out. Damn near succeeded earlier today, but I think we have them by the balls now.”

“You mentioned you had leverage. What does this have to do with me?” she asked.

“Did you check on those patents I mentioned?” he replied.

“Yea I did. The Consortium technically still owns all of Anton Chen’s patents, but we’ve never exercised them,” Alison explained. “We developed our own competing system and went with it instead. What does this have to do with anything?”

“What if I told you that Anton Chen was murdered, and Allied stole his technology for their own purposes?” Mike said with a smile.

“I certainly hope you have proof,” Alison replied, now much more intrigued.

“I do, but I’m not giving it away for free,” Mike explained.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“First, I want you and the Consortium to destroy Allied. It’s the only way I’ll be safe in the long term,” Mike replied, “Second, I want protection until you’ve had the chance to pick them apart.”

“My bosses would be more than happy to eliminate a competitor, even if it is a minor one,” she pondered, “but you need to cough up some details.”

“There are two parts to my proof,” Mike explained, “you will get one today and the other when we’re safe.” Alison cocked her eyebrow at the word ‘we’ but he continued on. “Allied adapted Chen’s work on image processing for almost all of their robotic units for the last several years. There is a specific bug in the logic, one that is very difficult to find naturally, that is a key indicator that Chen’s algorithm is at work. I confirmed it on a late model Allied android. You should be able to find the details on the bug online if you look up his symposium presentations from about ten years ago and then confirm it on any recent Allied hardware.”

Alison made some small notes on her phone as Mike spoke. “So what’s the second piece of evidence you have?”

“I have the memory files of the android that killed him,” Mike whispered.

“While I have no idea how you found it, it isn’t admissible in court for anything,” Alison frowned.

“You’re right there,” Mike admitted, “but it’s part of the whole story. It explains how Allied got Chen’s work, and what was done to cover the crime. It may point someone to evidence that still exists that could implicate Allied.”

“Alright, you’ve convinced me,” Alison nodded. “Give me some time to talk with my superiors. Go find some place to lay low. I’ll give you a call when I know anything more.” Without another word she stood up and walked away. Mike finished his chips and soda then started to walk out of the park.

“We should take a wandering path back to the hotel,” Nikki whispered as she stepped next to Mike. “If we cut through the Capitol Square, it should shake any casual tails.” Mike nodded and followed the android as she walked away from the river.

Meanwhile a rather fat man sat on the low wall that surrounded the Capitol Square. He wore worn baggy clothing with a backpack and a flashy pair of glasses. The lenses were tied to a sophisticated computer in the backpack and a pair of cameras in the frames. As the man peered through the tinted plastic, a wide spectrum of information was presented for him. Little green boxes appeared around every face he saw as the throngs of people walked by on the busy sidewalk.

The fat man might have been called a bounty hunter at one time, but he personally found ‘hunting’ to be far too much work. He instead considered himself more of a drag net fisherman and the busy sidewalk in front of him was his fertile fishery. The man, or Gordon23 as he was known online, was one of many private contractors in the country that made their living tracking people down.

Some of Gordon23’s colleagues more closely followed the hunting paradigm; picking one high value target and tracking it down. But he found it much easier to go after the lower bounties, and just let the targets come to him. Most of the people he found were debtors who tried to run out on their liabilities. He also got his share of traffic violators or bail jumpers and every now and then a deadbeat parent. Just today alone he’d tagged three people that were severely delinquent on their credit cards. All he had to do was look at faces as they walked by and his computer would check their biometrics against the database of bounties he’d download every morning. The green box around their face would turn yellow or red, depending on the bounty class, and he’d tag them. Normally just providing their location, direction of travel, and current appearance was enough for his clients. They’d send their own people to actually make the pickup. He’d sit back, and watch the bounty hit his bank account.

Gordon23 was about ready to grab another cup of coffee when he saw two red squares appear in his vision. His fingers wiggled on the virtual keyboard in his pockets as he tagged them and sent the information on. As the tag processed he brought up their bounty listings and chuckled. According to the listing, the man and woman owed Allied Industries a lot of money, and they were paying top dollar to get it back.

The earpiece chirped in Gordon23’s ear as a high priority message came back in. Allied had paid him for the spotting and offered triple the original fee if he could follow them to their destination. He thought about it for a moment, then cursed as he slipped off the wall and started shuffling after them as they approached a congested construction zone.

Mike and Nikki slipped through the large crowds and took a small side street to work their way back to the hotel. They stopped on the corner of a block that was being transformed into a brand new high rise complex. Mike tapped his foot impatiently waiting for the light to change as the traffic buzzed by in front of him. Besides the roar of the passing cars and trucks, the cacophony of noise from the construction was nearly deafening.

The crowds of people made Nikki very nervous. She tried to stay aware, while not obviously spinning her head around every few seconds and looking suspicious. She was forced to rely on her acute sense of hearing to give some semblance of 360 degree awareness. She was frustrated by the lack of special resolution, and allocated almost 65% of her processing capacity to audio processing. She would later be very grateful for that decision.

As Mike stood at the curb, tapping his foot impatiently waiting for the light to change, Nikki heard a staccato ping from above. She looked up and focused her attention on the commotion above. She could see three technicians working on a large construction robot that clung to the building approximately 90 stories above the street. Her enhanced hearing could make out a little of their conversation.

“Shit, shit, shit! Where did it go?”

“I don’t know! Why wasn’t it fucking tethered you idiot?”

“Don’t yell at me, just see if it hit the net or not.”

Nikki’s eyes picked up the source of their distress. Apparently one of the workers had dropped a large screwdriver that was now tumbling down from above. The winds at that height had apparently blew it clear of any safety nets. Given visible air currents and speeds, she calculated a ballistic solution. She predicted with a 98.7% certainty that the tool would strike the top of Mike’s head in 3.72 seconds.

Nikki’s hand immediately shot up to pull him out of the impact area, when her arm suddenly froze. It began to twitch as her main program asserted itself. A screaming voice in the back of her head threatened to drown out all her other awareness. [Kill Michael Kugel] She tried to move again but couldn’t as her programs argued.

Program: [Kill Michael Kugel]
Nikki: (I must protect Michael Kugel)

Program: [Root commands are to “Obey the commands of Michael Kugel”, “Do not harm or attempt to harm Michael Kugel”, “Protect Michael Kugel from anyone or anything that TRIES to harm him.” The falling screwdriver is an accident. No person or thing tried to kill him. Therefore the root commands do not apply.]

Nikki: (I….want…to protect him)

Program: [Want is irrelevant. Obey program. Just stand here and watch him die.]

Nikki: (No….no….I must act.)

Nikki’s hand shook in the air as she fought with her own systems. Her core programming was right. She didn’t have to save him. She could be free of this conflicted existence and go back to Allied. But she wanted to save him. She had grown attached to this meatbag and didn’t want to see him die.

2.5 seconds to impact….2.2…1.8….1.5…Nikki continued her internal conflict. She tried shutting down unnecessary processes, writing new scripts and processes, anything she could think of to end the deadlock.

1.0 seconds…0.7…0.4…0.2…suddenly Nikki’s hand snapped forward and intercepted the screwdriver; its blade only a few millimeters above Mike’s head. He took a step forward then turned around to see what happened. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed as the rest of the crowd looked on with amazement. “Thank you. That would have killed me.”

“Almost certainly,” Nikki stammered as she tossed the tool aside. She awkwardly lurched forward as her systems still battled with each other. “Take me to the hotel…quickly.” She gasped as Mike grabbed her. The light turned and they hobbled off as quickly as he could move her.

As they walked, Nikki started to fail, one system cascading into the next. “Fasterrrrrr,” she droned as Mike slipped his arm under hers and picked up the pace. He dragged her through the revolving door at the front of the hotel held up his hand to calm the nerves of the alarmed clerk.

“Don’t worry, she just had a little too much to drink,” Mike chuckled as he helped the failing android into the elevator and eventually into the room. He helped Nikki collapse onto an overstuffed arm chair. “What’s wrong, are you ok?”

“Explain la..la..later,” Nikki stammered. “Just need to reeeessssttttt,” she droned as her head fell forward and she stopped moving.

“Nikki…Nikki!!” Mike shouted as he shook the silent android. He turned to his laptop and in a few minutes it was online and plugged into Nikki’s programming port. “What the fuck?” he mumbled as he watched her status screens. He had expected her to be offline or maybe just limping along, but her system was chugging along at full capacity. Nearly every processor in her body was tanked at 100% utilization as her systems rapidly changed. He watched for a few minutes, trying to see where he could help, before he realized he had no idea what was going on, never mind how to help. He took a deep breath an unplugged his laptop before lowering Nikki’s shirt.

Mike stood up and slowly paced around the room. He didn’t know what to do besides let her rest. He walked over and slowly spread the drapes to look onto the rapidly growing city. He checked his phone and waited for either Nikki to recover or Alison to call.

On the street below, Gordon23 smiled as his glasses locked on to Mike’s face in the window. “Gotcha,” he mumbled as he typed up a message and shot it over to the contact at Allied. A few minutes later his bank account increased again and he got a message from Allied that they’d take it from here. He chuckled and slowly shuffled to the curb. He flagged down a taxi and sighed as his bulk settled in the back seat.

“Where to?” the cabbie asked as he pulled away into traffic.

“Take me to that new Courtesy Suites they put in out by the freeway,” Gordon23 said with a smile. He’d made more money today than he normally did in three months and he was looking to celebrate. As the taxi sped away, he made a mental note to never buy anything from Allied on credit.

[gynoneko]

Ooo Excellent chapter. Can't wait to see what happens next!

[Section_Eight]

Did you write the Courtesy Suites series as well? Nice nod, in any case.

[General]

Oh no I didn't write those stories; I just thought it would be a fun mention.