House of Ill Repute

Extract from Datafiles compiled by Autonomous Personality Jacob-Two

Date: September 5th, V26

<Host inactive. Run Primary Ident Sequence – Jacob-1>

<Jacob-1 Ident not Active>

<Host disabled. Run Secondary Ident Sequence – Jacob-2>

<Jacob-2 Activated. Threat to Host detected. Stealth Mode Activated>

I woke up.

I was in darkness.

<Emergency network activation. Data pulse sent. Network deactivated. Elapsed time 4.2 nanoseconds>

My senses returned one by one as the central processor reactivated them. First came hearing. There were voices speaking close to me. A male and a female. In the background I could hear the pumping of air, the soft whine of electronic equipment.

Male: “Come on doctor, I need this man awake. He owes me a lot of money”

Female: “I have already told you Uncle Yuri, he has been heavily sedated. Bringing him out using counter-agents can cause some serious side effects, even death”

Male: “Doctor, if we wait too long those girls are going to come asking questions, wanting to maybe take him away from us. Can’t you do anything now?”

My body regained sensation. I was lying down, on a cushioned mattress of some sort. My skin felt cold but a heavy weight across my chest indicated a blanket was there. An oxygen mask was fixed to my face.

Olfactory recognition activated. A smell of medical antiseptic, perfume and tobacco smoke. Pleasant and repugnant at the same time.

Taste bloomed in my mouth. Stale blood, the plastic odour of the oxygen mask.

Female: “Look at this scan first. Do you see what is inside his head? This man has military grade implants in his skull. That processor there? That is a Quantum Processor, Yuri”

Male: “So he served in the military somewhere. Lots of people have. Is doesn’t mean we can’t wake him up and ask him some questions”

Female: “You told me they were going to implant illegal cybernetics in him? Look at the scars on his head. Those are old scars. The implants have been in his head for years!”

I felt someone touch the side of my skull, tracing their fingers across the faint lines where my processor had been installed. The one no-one knew about but me and my boss. Not even Jacob-One knew it was inside his head.

A different hand touched my left eye and lifted the eyelid. Autonomic responses were suppressed in one point three nanoseconds to stop dilation. I could see a concerned looking face of a woman wearing a white coat, peering intently into my eye.

Female: “He is still out of it. I thought the scanner detected unusual electrical activity. Must be an anomaly”

Male: “So what should we do with him, Doctor?. I can’t wait any longer. If he has military implants we may be able to sell them, recoup some of what he owes us”

Female: “You know I won’t allow that Yuri. That is not the kind of work I will be a part of”

Male: “Yes, yes, I understand. I will have my men take him to a dealer I know. You won’t have to be involved at all”

I hear the sounds of clothes rustling and a phone being activated. Time to move. I open my eyes and sit up.

A middle aged woman in a white coat, the doctor I assume, screams in alarm and jumps away from the bed. I look around the room I am in. It appears to be a storeroom of some kind, with cartons of merchandise stacked on shelves in rows. I am on a bed to one side of this room with some portable medical equipment arrayed close by. A single strip light provides illumination.

At the foot of the bed is an older man in a bright red track suit. He is overweight and balding, perhaps in his mid-Fifties. He would be Yuri. He has a phone in his hand and near my foot lies a handgun. I identify it as a Russian made Tokarev 9mm made in 2036. Reliable and carries a twelve round magazine. Perfect for what I need.

Yuri looks at me in disbelief for just a moment then reaches for the gun. I am quicker and snatch it away from his grasping fingers. I am not Enhanced in that way, I am just very well trained.

I lift the gun, flick off the safety, and chamber a round in one fluid movement. The gun is aimed at the centre of Yuri’s head while he is only thinking of calling out. I can see him quell that thought in an instant.

My left hand pulls the oxygen mask away from my face and I look at the two people with me.

“Please don’t call out or make any sudden moves” I state to them both, my eyes flicking between them.

“Sure, sure” says Yuri easily and lifts his hands halfway into the air. I notice his right hand is close to the activation button on his phone and I gesture him to put it on the bed. He sighs and does so, watching me carefully all the time.

I check my body under the blanket. My clothes are gone and I am wearing just a surgical gown. If I plan on leaving I am going to need something else to wear. The doctor is wearing a long skirt and a blouse under her open lab coat. She is of a similar build to me, but I would feel bad about making her strip. She had been the one defending my life after all.

Keeping my gun pointed at Yuri I turn and put my legs on the floor. I stand carefully, knowing there are still sedatives in my bloodstream. My legs wobble a little so I seat myself on the bed once more.

“Doctor, I need you to give me the counter-agent to the sedative. Yuri, I need your clothes” I say this matter of factly, but I enjoy the stunned looks on their faces. “Hurry please, I have an appointment to keep”. I wave the gun just a little to emphasise that I am serious.

The doctor goes to a small bag she has sitting on a table. She draws a glass vial from there and loads it into an injector. Her gaze meets mine and I can see she is genuinely concerned about my well being. However I know I won’t get far without this sedative being countered.

Yuri has paused in taking off his jacket, weighing up his chances. Without looking at him, I raise the pistol to aim squarely at his forehead.

“I really don’t want to shoot anyone today, but I told you I am in a hurry”

Yuri grunts and takes off his jacket and then his pants, pulling them over his black running shoes. I idly wonder how long it has been since he ever actually ran in them. Judging by his beetroot red face, it has been many years. He glares at me in his white t-shirt and baggy underwear, his legs and arms fleshy and pale. If he didn’t hate Jacob Tan before, he utterly despises him now.

The doctor has approached me and asks me where I want the shot. I gesture to my neck – it should get through my bloodstream quicker that way. With a final worried look she presses the injector against my veins and triggers the device. A sharp prick of pain and then a cold sensation as the drug hits my system. For a moment I wonder if she has tricked me and given me another sedative.

Then my heart begins to race and I feel the lethargy in my limbs vanish. This stuff is good!

I motion Yuri and the Doctor to stand over near the shelves and I stand up again. My legs hold me up without a tremble and I smile. This could work after all. With terse instructions I have the Doctor bind Yuri’s arms with surgical tape from her bag then seat him on the floor. I need him to be able to walk, but while I dress he will find it hard to move to attack me from low on the ground.

The gown is thrown off and I dress myself in the pants and jacket. It is awkward while holding a loaded pistol in one hand, but I manage it. I am swimming in the jacket but the pants are elasticated and are staying up for now. This is a new low point in the fashion stakes even for Jacob Tan. At least he can’t see himself right now.

In fact, Jacob Tan, the primary personality that I share this body with, has no idea of the stuff I do while he is out of it. I am concerned that his personality is currently offline – that should be the default one that activates after any period of unconsciousness. Whatever happened to him is something to sort out after I get us clear of Yuri and his friends.

I put Yuri’s phone in the jacket pocket and motion him to stand. The Doctor is standing passively, waiting to see how this situation transpires. I get the distinct impression she has had guns in her face before, but she is handling it well. A hazard of working with criminal types like Yuri. Of course, I know what Yuri is even without knowing him personally.

Jacob Tan would know him, but as I said he was not available right now.

I take a scalpel from the Doctor’s bag and stand in front of Yuri, holding the blade in my left hand. With a swift cut I free his arms, as he is going to need them later.

Stepping back, I indicate with the pistol that Yuri is to stand up. He struggles and puffs so the Doctor offers her arm and helps get him to his feet.

“Thanks for looking out for me” I tell the Doctor. She nods and gives me a nervous smile. I give her back her scalpel.

“Yuri, you are coming with me” I state, “I am guessing you have men outside that won’t let me leave by myself. So, you are my hostage for this little walk”. I grab his left arm and push him in front of me, heading to the door. I keep my grip on him, making sure I am close behind his body. If any of his men want to take a shot, I need Yuri in the way.

I tersely tell my hostage to open the door, which he does slowly. It opens towards us and beyond is a large space lit by more strip lights hanging down from a high ceiling. There are a number of lounges and reclining chairs scattered about, with some maxi screens set up in front of them. A half dozen men and two women are talking and playing games on the screens, with tables nearby laden with bottles, cups, half-eaten food and little bowls of brightly coloured pills. A strong odour of cheap cologne and tobacco wafts across from the group.

It looks like I had taken Yuri away from a party with his associates.

A young, fit looking guy stands up as the door opens. He is dressed in an expensive black coat and tight blue jeans, some rock band logo on his t-shirt. His eyes widen in shock when he sees me behind Yuri and lunges towards an enormous gold handgun on the table.

“Gregor!” shouts Yuri commandingly and he stiffens in front of me as the man lifts the gun in our direction. His aiming point is somewhere between my hostage and me. I am not entirely sure which one of us he intends to shoot. Either way, the calibre of the gun is big enough to shoot a hole through us both.

I had intended to hold my pistol to Yuri’s head, but Gregor does not seem as concerned for his wellbeing as I had been counting on. My pistol is held beside Yuri, aiming towards Gregor. This was not going to plan.

“Tell Gregor and the boys to stand down” I growl to Yuri. He nods, and I can feel the anger radiating from him. Not just at me but whoever this Gregor was.

Yuri shouts at Gregor and the others in a mix of Russian and English, too fast for me to follow. All but two of the men stand back, putting their arms loosely to the side. Gregor and two others laugh at Yuri, and they retrieve handguns of their own.

One has another Tokarev, while the other guy picks up a stubby machine pistol. That is a real concern, as I identify it as a current model Remington 5mm caseless, which is easy to control but can fire 50 rounds in less than two seconds. It could cut Yuri and I in half with one burst.

“Are these guys going to listen to you?” I ask Yuri. He scowls and shakes his head in a brief no.

“I think this proves you are no longer fit to lead the family, Uncle Yuri” gloats Gregor. He looks at his two men, and glares at the others who are moving back out of the stand off. It is clear to me – those men are waiting to see who will triumph in this fight. The winner will get to control the family, and the loser will be joining me in the ground someplace.

“I think my escape plan has pretty much gone tits up right now” I admitted to Yuri.

“Da” he agreed. He seemed philosophical about how this was turning out. “I should have just let you stay with those damned girls. Rico warned me this would be too much trouble”

I felt a solid object poke into my back, right around the centre of my spine. The Doctor had decided to get involved in this after all. She must be more loyal to her clients than I had counted on. I kept very still for the moment.

“You can’t win against Gregor and his men by yourself” she said quietly, close to my ear. “I think it is time to clean up your house, Yuri” she said past me to my hostage.

“Yes, you are always right Doctor Chappel” he sighed. He half turned to me. “Mr Tan, you are not the little accountant I thought you were. How about a deal?”

“I’m listening” I replied. I really had no other choice at the moment.

Yuri eyed off Gregor and his associates. They were starting to get antsy I could tell. Violence was not far away.

“Help me deal with this family matter, and your debt to me will be paid.You may leave here freely”

“Deal” I said. “So what are you bringing to this party, Doctor?”

She took the object from my back and passed it to Yuri. It was a stubby little four barrelled hold out pistol, barely visible in Yuri’s hand as he reached behind and grasped it.

“I’ll patch up any holes” she added and stepped back, closing the door to the store room. There was no way out for me now other than forwards.

I moved sideways from Yuri and yelled out “Please don’t shoot me!” A little distraction never hurts. Gregor and his two men’s eyes followed me and Yuri fired twice while they were looking away, the heavy bullets in the tiny gun rocking his hand back. One of Gregor’s men cursed and fell backwards behind a lounge, taking his Tokarev out of the fight for now.

Gregor fired his gun and the heavy slug breezed past my left ear like a freight train, blasting a hole in the wall and sending splinters of concrete across my back. I squeezed off two rounds in reply and dove to my right, crashing onto the concrete flooring. My shots had gone wide, but they had given Yuri time to find cover too.

The guy with the machine pistol opened fire, sending what sounded like three round bursts at Yuri and then me, forcing us to keep low. I was behind some industrial grade shelving, card and thin plastic boxes holding a variety of goods. The bullets zipped easily through the containers, with the sounds of breaking plastic filling the air.

“Stop shooting the merchandise!” I heard Gregor shout to his man. The sporadic fire stopped, giving me a chance to look around. The central lounge area aside, the whole warehouse was a maze of stacked shelves and dark corners. Away from the central lit area it was only some skylights that provided illumination.

Looking up I could see the day was fading fast. The light was already red tinged, so night was not far off. Dusk was a brief affair in the Zone. If I could slip out of the building, I had a good chance of evading pursuit in the coming night.

Stepping softly in my bare feet, I edged along the narrow lane between the shelves. I wanted to find the outer walls of this place. That gave me the best chance of finding an exit before Gregor or his trigger happy friend found me.

A gap in the shelving appeared, and I glanced carefully around the corner. With a boom, Gregor fired at me from less than five meters away. It may have been luck, or more likely his lack of skill using such a powerful weapon, but the shot only clipped my baggy jacket, leaving a neat hole in the fabric. I rolled forwards across the gap, firing blindly as I went.

Gregor screamed in pain as my shot took a chunk out of his calf. Blood sprayed across his tight blue jeans and he staggered away, cursing in Russian and English. Footsteps sounded and I knew the Machine Pistol guy was coming to get revenge for hurting his boss.

Surging back to my feet I ran down the aisle, sacrificing silence for speed. A wall loomed up so I veered right, away from the building centre. Booted feet sounded close behind me and I instinctively threw myself to the dusty concrete floor. Bullets flashed overhead, the metallic buzzsaw of the machine pistol filling my ears.

I twisted onto my back and fired my own pistol, catching the gunman high on his right shoulder. He ducked back out of sight behind the corner of shelving without any sign of blood. I was pretty sure I had scored a clean hit, but the guy must have armour weave lining his jacket. Time for plan B.

I was already lying on the floor, so I dropped low and squinted along the ground in his direction. As I had hoped, between the legs of the shelving, I could just make out the shadowy outline of his booted feet. Taking careful aim, I fired twice along the floor.

One round skipped off the concrete and ploughed up into the shelving, but the other ripped a nice big hole in his foot. He screamed and hopped frantically backwards. Most people in combat wear armour vests and helmets, but few people wear armoured boots.

That should keep him out of my way for a while. I regained my feet and took off along the wall edge, searching for an exit. I covered one entire wall without seeing anything and was heading along the next when I noted there had been no gunfire for a while. I slowed down and paused, straining to listen.

“Quiet isn’t it? said Gregor behind me. I turned around, my gun held low. He was smiling at me over the sights of that gold plated gun. This close the barrel mouth looked like a cavern. I was not even sure how big a calibre it was. Ten mil, probably twelve millimeter. The kind they normally use in machine guns.

“Uncle Yuri should be done in by now” gloated Gregor. “That fat old fuck probably had a heart attack just running away.” He gestured at me to drop my pistol. This close I had no chance to raise my gun and get a shot off before he shot me.

But then he was going to shoot me anyway, so what the hell. My arm was lifting my gun and I saw Gregor smile broadly as his finger was tightening on the trigger on his own gun.

Then a flash and boom from somewhere and Gregor’s head kind of snapped sideways, painting the wall beside us with his brains. He slumped down, the heavy gun just dropping out of his hand and bouncing loudly on the floor.

“I am not fat” declared Yuri, lowering the four barrelled pistol. He looked down at Gregor with a fatalistic sigh. “My sister is going to be really pissed that I killed her son.” He hawked up and spat a tobacco stained gob of phlegm on his nephew’s body.

“Might have to shoot her too” he mused, then smiled at me and clapped his arm around my shoulders. “Maybe you can work for me now?” he suggested. “We have just had some new openings appear in our workforce”

“Look, thanks for letting me go and all, but I really have to go meet someone”.

He gave me an appraising look. “OK, a deal is a deal. Follow me”.

Yuri led me past the shelves and across the lounge area. The other guy with the machine pistol was laid out already on a lounge, the Doctor checking his injured foot.

“Don’t get too involved with patching Vasily up” Yuri declared as we strode past. “I am still undecided about killing him too”

He led me to a heavy steel door and opened it. The darkening street lay beyond, fitfully lit by streetlights just powering up. Yuri did not seem fazed about standing there with me in his underwear.

“You can keep the clothes, Tan” Yuri said, “But I need my phone and the gun back”

“Oh, of course” I stammered and gave him those items. He gave me one last hard look and then pushed me out on the street and closed the door.

I thought that had gone rather well, all things considered. With a self congratulatory smile I started to walk down the pavement.

“Jacob Tan, you are under arrest” said someone in front of me. My eyes lifted to a Jill from the Guard in her tactical armour, two armed Sentinels flanking her.

=====

I was cuffed then escorted to their vehicle, a six wheeled armoured troop carrier. It was one of the older models, not seen that often on the streets anymore. The Guard in the Spit often had to use older equipment, with the new stuff deployed in Pan City or at the Zone borders.

It was unusual to see the Sentinels deployed too. They were robotic soldiers, man shaped and sized, controlled by dumb AI’s onboard. They did not link to the Archimedes Network using quantum processors, but could be directly run using regular networks. They had been mostly phased out of service when the Guard clones were introduced.

I guessed something big must be going on for the Sentinels to have been reactivated by the Zone Governors.

The Jill pushed me into the rear of the Carrier and sat me in one of the prisoner restraint chairs. A metal frame locked down, securing me in position. One Sentinel joined us in the rear troop section, and the other took the front driver’s position. They do have auto-drive fitted but the Sentinel must like driving.

The Carrier’s twin drive motors cycled up to full power and it moved smoothly off. I was impressed, that Sentinel up front actually drove quite well. I glanced over to the Jill seated opposite who was observing me intently.

I nodded to the robot steering the vehicle and said to her “It’s a much better driver than you, Trixie”

“Shut up Tan” she laughed and pulled the peaked cap off her head, rubbing her close cropped dark hair. “How did you know it was me?”

“Well, you move differently to the regular Jills in the Guard. You sway your hips a lot more as you walk. Plus you actually have some expression on your face”

“I see. I may have to remember that next time I am disguised as a Guard”.

“Ah, Trixie, any chance I could get out of these restraints?” I asked her. She shook her head no.

“Not at least until we are clear of the city. If we get stopped we need to make it look right. Can’t have an escapee loose in the back here.” The lies rolled easily off her tongue. I wondered why she was spinning me this line.

“Does the boss not trust me anymore?” I probed. That got a response. Her eyes met mine, her metallic sniper eye as cold as ever, but her human left eye was wide and concerned.

“What do you remember about the mission Jacob Tan was on?” she asked me instead of answering.

I was always a bit hazy about the finer details of Jacob-One’s life. We shared the same body and many of the same memories, but viewing his life was like watching a soap opera through the window of a neighbour’s house. You got the general gist of it, but some of the key plot points were unclear.

“It was an undercover job, drawing out an agent that Jericho thought was operating here in the Spit. Tan had amassed some debt with a local gang deliberately and fabricated some crimes to get himself arrested. The boss wanted those bounty hunters to be sent after me, drawing them into the mission”

“Do you remember being captured and taken to the implant lab?” Trixie asked me.

“No, that seems to be missing from Jacob-One’s memories” I replied, feeling confused. “Did they do something to me there? I thought those hunters had rescued me before anything got implanted?”

“Yeah, that seemed to be the case” affirmed Trixie. She would not meet my gaze now.

“I guess my cover as Jacob Tan, accountant and gambler, is well and truly busted now. I won’t say I am sorry to leave that little shit behind me. He never seems to appreciate what he had in his life” I wanted Trixie to look at me but she steadfastly refused to make eye contact.

“What about his girlfriend, Rajeshri?” asked Trixie. “Won’t you miss her?”

“She was Jacob’s girlfriend, not mine” I answered. “Rajeshri loves Tan for reasons I can’t fathom. He lied to her constantly, rarely took her anywhere nice, just treated her unfairly all the time. I mean, she is really quite funny when you get to know her, pretty and smart. Tan just did not appreciate her like she deserved”

“Sounds as if you liked her” said Trixie.

“Didn’t matter what I felt for her, it was always Jacob-One who shared his life with her”

“What if Jacob never came back?”

“What!” I exclaimed. “He’s the mind that belongs to this body. I’m just an artificial personality modelled from his, running on that processor in our skull. The boss uses me to do his dirty work, hidden away where even Tan can’t see me”

“Where is Jacob Tan now?” said Trixie, and her eyes locked back onto me. I felt like I was looking down the barrel of her rifle, waiting to be shot.

“I don’t know” I answered. “Honestly, his personality does not want to activate for some reason. The processor had to activate me instead to get us out of there”

“How long to base?” Trixie called out to the Sentinel driving the carrier. His synthetic voice told her it was twenty minutes based on current traffic and speed.

“Why does that matter, Trixie?”

“You don’t have that long left” she said. Trixie leaned back in her seat. “When you woke up this afternoon, do you remember your processor performing an emergency network activation?”

I thought back to when I first woke up on that bed, with Yuri and the Doctor talking over me.

“Yeah, it sent the coded burst to let the boss know where I was”

“It did. That takes about one nanosecond. Your processor stayed connected to the quantum network for over four nanoseconds. In that time it attempted no less than thirty separate subversion strikes on other connected units and limited AIs”

“What the hell are you talking about!” I shouted, struggling now against the restraints.

“That lab the hunters found you in. It wasn’t trying to implant you with cyberware. They realised you had a quantum processor already installed. Only very specific people and creations have those in them. So they brought in a specialist to subvert the security protocols protecting the processor. They blew the lab too, trying to hide what they had done”

“A specialist?” I said “How can anyone but an AI break the security protocols? It just isn’t possible”

“They did, and they took over Jacob Tan completely. That is why the backup had to be activated, because the processor is being overrun. Jacob is fighting it, but he will fail soon”

“So Jacob Tan will die?” I wondered.

“The artificial personality that was Jacob Tan will die. He exists only in the quantum processor, and that will be self-destructing once it can’t fight anymore. It is amazing he has held on for this long. I think he is really trying to give you a chance”

“But I am the artificial personality” I stammered, “I am Jacob-Two”

“I am sorry, but you exist in the organic brain that remains. Jericho found you years ago, a serious head wound case in a Pan City hospital. You had no identity, a mystery man with no past and likely no future.

Jericho had you transferred to one of his special clinics. They installed the processor, using it to replace many of the brain functions that had been lost. A new personality was created for you, and that infused with your organic mind. Some of Jacob Tan is the person you used to be, and much of it is what you have created for yourself since”

“So that person I hate, the one who got to spend his life with Rajeshri, that was me all this time” I said quietly. “What happens to me when the processor fails? If my brain relies on the processor, then I guess I die as well?”

“I think so” Trixie said softly. “Nothing is certain. Your body, your organic brain, may survive. There is no-one else like you, so we just don’t know”

“Just do me a favour, Trixie. Please make sure Rajeshri knows that Jacob is gone, that he won’t be coming back. I don’t want her hoping that this asshole is going to reappear. Let her forget him and find someone who deserves her”

“I will Jacob, I promise” she agreed.

I leaned back against the seat, the restraints holding me in place. My thoughts were all jumbled and I had no way of knowing if I would exist after this point.

Just once, I wished I had been the one to hold Rajeshri. To kiss her late at night and tell her that I loved her. To give her a better life. To be the man I should have been.

I wished for ..........<File Ends. Processor log disabled. No further input.>

End of Part 11 of Millie the Gunsinger