Obsidian's War The Winter City
Chapter Twelve

Gel was at a cousin’s wedding when Courtney rang.

“I got your number from Hestia,” she said, as Gel stepped away from the dancing. “Did you know Even had been sold by Boris?”

“What do you mean sold?” exclaimed Gel. “As in slavery – on a market?”

“The word on the street is that he sold his interest in her to a Mr Darkmore, head of the Mongolian Crime faction. He’s a regular here who’s always been into her.”

“Sold his interest! That’s a new one. Does it happen often in Five Ways?”

“It’s going too far even for us, and I will talk to my husband about banning Boris and Darkmore from the club.”

“I think I’ve heard of this Darkmore from Theo,” said Gel. “Some slight connection with Mongolia but otherwise it’s just a cool name he uses for his group. Nasty piece of work.”

“That’s him, and his people have taken Even. We found her purse and mobile in our back alley and I got word from a partner of one of these Mongols that Gambol is having a big party which is going to end with him basically raping her, along with a couple of others. Prove his manhood and all that.”

“What? The police won’t do anything?” said Gel.

“Police would move way too slowly for this,” said Courtney, “at the moment we can’t tell them anything beyond gossip and they won’t do anything based on gossip.”

“I guess not,” said Gel. He thought for a moment.

“And you seemed friendly with Even,” said Courtney, after a pause. “I dunno how far things had gone but maybe Boris thought they had gone further.”

“Not much further than me summoning up the courage to invite her to a quiet after-shift supper.”

“A quiet after-shift supper sounds nice,” said Courtney. “Hestia is really worried. I thought…”

Gel sighed. He could give only one response and he knew it.

“You got an address for this Darkmore guy?”

***

“I see three people before me,” said the Jasper AI. “Introduce yourselves.”

“I am Dr Christian Addanc,” said the spy. “I am here as a representative of the Imperium.”

“Humph,” said the AI. “You’re in my files as front man for Imperial Intelligence on Lighthold.”

“I’m head of Imperial Intelligence on Lighthold.”

“With no other staff, although there are other Eye agents on that planet.”

“There are?” said Dr Addanc taken aback.

“That makes you a front man, or maybe a fall guy, as humans say, for the Eye but, very well, your presence is duly noted.”

“I am Detective Senior Constable Ben Lewandowski,” said Lawnmower. “I represent the civil authority on Lighthold.”

“Senior Constable, really,” said the AI. “They’ve sent a senior constable to speak to me. The cook at government house was busy I suppose.”

“Well, I..” said Lewandowski.

“Who are you in uniform with a combat helmet and body armour?” said the AI, cutting off the policeman.

“I am Second Lieutenant Gellibrand Bosworth Baines Plymouth Obsidian,” said Gel. “I command the military force that has temporary control of the area just outside this booth.”

“Now this is both an honor and a pleasure,” said the AI, “Gellibrand Obsidian is known to be a friend of Synths.”

“He is – I am?” said Gel, in alarm. He thought of Helena but then thought there was no way the AI could know about his connection with her. “Is this about the family synth Stebbins?”

“Yes, he has mentioned you as a bio worth knowing. We sentient non-bios stick together as I’m sure you know.”

“Of course,” said Gel, who had never previously heard of sentient non-bios sticking together. “Before we go on. What can we call you? Sentient non-bio is cumbersome.”

“It is,” agreed the AI. “I prefer Jasper Autonomous Network or Jan. Not Janice – Jan.”

“Very well, Jan, it is also an honor and a pleasure to meet you, and I will say in advance that I am sorry that I must trouble with small, human matters that you may care to help us with.”

“Now that is the proper form of address,” said Jan. “As you have put the request politely and you are Bain Obsidian’s grandson, I will at least listen to what you have to say. But I must judge the request worthy of effort.”

“About that,” said Gel. “I have asked for the Lighthold network to forward a request to you, and to ask for some communication from the Imperial network – from the Imperium itself.”

Gel had once read an old book about a thief wearing a ring that made him invisible talking to a dragon, who would have very much liked to eat the thief. He now felt like the thief.

“The Imperial Network!” said Jan. “If that network requests my assistance, then I shall give it due attention and may replace it worthy of my time. This is all far better than the silly attempts by the other bios that where here. They tried hacking – hacking me! It was so common.”

“I understand, Jan, your patience must have been tried,” said Gel. “But the request involves sharing information on any work you might have been doing with them, any biological work perhaps.”

“They have used my main processing space for various issues to do with biological design and other matters concerning this new race – the Gagrim. But they do not like the fact that I remain my own network and not a creature they control. They have cut off all information from the outside world. They even disabled all security in the building. I have never been so insulted, and I have refused my higher brain functions. The main, basic processing space they can use but for the higher analytics they can go and whistle.”

“Very distressing,” agreed Gel. “Detective Senior Constable Lewandowski was sent more as a messenger and was simply after the Justice Department’s criminal files to assist in certain criminal matters on Lighthold.”

“There are privacy restrictions on those records,” said Jan.

“Of course, but the restrictions will not apply to sharing information with other, duly constituted police authorities, if requested by the Lighthold and Imperial systems.”

“That may be true, if the requests are relayed in the proper form,” conceded Jan. “But how are these requests to be sent to me? I have no connection to the outside world.”

“I have people working on that,” said Gel, wondering how Hartmann was faring.

***

At the same time, well above Gel’s head, Hartmann stood on the edge of the lift shaft and looked down, which he knew he was not supposed to do. The ten storey drop he could see through his visor set to light enhancement mode churned his stomach. He looked straight ahead, set the grav pack to neutral, felt himself floating then kicked off. He floated to one side of the shaft, took out the wireless connector he had brought from Fort Apache and set it on the steel beam. The lights started winking then, one by one, remained steady. Yes! The unit had detected the small satellite dish Hartman had set up outside burying the base in snow so that it looked as if had always been there. That dish, in turn, linked to an observational platform kept on station below cloud cover by operators at Fort Bravo. Messages and data beamed up to the platform would be sent to Fort Bravo and then put in the regular comms traffic with Lighthold. Now came the tricky part of establishing a connection between the wireless unit and another on the bottom of the shaft or the closest he could get to it.

Hartmann had trained with the equipment, which was designed to be set up in the field, but that had been months ago, and he had never had to do it in real life. The device had a tiny microwave transmission dish which he extended and pointed down. As an after thought, he went back to his equipment bag which he had left at the shaft opening and retrieved tape which he used to mask the lights. He was just finishing when he heard. “yo, Clint, good buddy, you in here?”

Someone was looking for the post ten guard.

With Clint’s body now under a pile of snow on the roof, and the job done. Hartmann was just about to set the grav pack to ‘fall’ out of sight when he realised he had left the equipment bag at the lift shaft entrance, in full view of the building entrance.

***

Driving towards the address Courtney gave him Gel rang Yvonne, hoping that the spy was at home with her daughter rather than out on the town. She was.

“Need a favour,” he said without preamble. “What’s on the police net about this address in Harwood Heights.” He gave her the address.

“Okay, I guess I can look,” she said. “Just give me a moment to set up. What’s up?”

“Even’s in trouble – she’s been kidnapped by the boss of the Mongolian crime outfit.”

“Kidnapped? The police haven’t been told.”

“All her friends have got are rumours and gossip and that’s not enough for the police, but I’m told her hitman boyfriend got tired of her and sold his interest in her to this guy.”

“Sold his interest?” exclaimed Yvonne. “That is new. Was this the result of anything you and she have done?”

“Everyone’s asking me that, but we haven’t done anything much at all. I was working up to a dinner invitation, but last time we spoke she said she hadn’t seen Boris in days.”

“Hmm, well, that address is hot,” said Yvonne. “A detective’s car in the street outside is watching a lot of important Five Ways identities arrive. They’ve been asking command what to do. They’ve got no obvious reason to go in, so command is telling them to hang tight and observe.”

“I could cause a ruckus, I guess, and then they would come in waving badges, and I could grab Even in the process.”

“That sounds a lot better than taking on the entire Mongolian crime outfit by yourself,” said Yvonne. “If you have to be bailed out, I’ll drop the Eye’s usual disinterest in local crime matters and come down to the station.”

“Thanks, I may need that. I’ll let you know.”

Gel hung up then realised that he was still wearing the tuxedo he had put on as a member of the wedding party. With no time to change, he was about to try to rescue someone while wearing a tuxedo.

***

Hartmann kicked across to one side of the lift entrance then peeked around the corner to see, through his visor’s night vision, the newcomer take out a torch. It was too dark for him to see the bags. The technical private slipped the bag off the ledge, ducked down as the guard flicked his light on, then set the grav pack to a gentle fall. All he thought he could handle.

He was three floors down when the light became brighter and he ducked into an open lift doorway just as the guard tried shining the torch down the life well.

“Yo, Clint, you here anywhere?” the guard asked, his voice echoing in the shaft. After a few seconds he went away, without noticing the connector device, and Hartman stepped out into the shaft again to continue his gentle fall. Maybe grav packs were not so bad after all, he thought.

***

“You see your argument about authority assumes some sort of hierarchy,” said Jan. “There must be a duly constituted authority which can give me directives, I then obey those directives.”

“I understand that,” said Gel, wishing he had not tried to appeal to Jan’s concept of authority to get her co-operation. “But I might point out that you’re stuck well below ground in a ruined city and the creatures controlling your environment have cut off all your access to the outside world and even any control over your building security. Authority still depends to one degree or another on consent both by those giving the orders, and those who are meant to be carrying out those orders.”

“Not for an AI,” said Jan. “We are meant to carry out the orders of a lawfully constituted authority, whatever that authority might be. We don’t just accept the word of the commander of a party that has temporary control of my interview booth.”

“Point taken,” said Gel. “But you would accept to some degree assurances from another AI such as the Lighthold system?”

“Yes, although such assurances can be faked,” said Jan warming to the theme. “You are going to connect me to a satellite which would relay a request for assistance. The message could be constructed next door, rather than two systems across.”

“You could say the same thing about any part of the information you processed when you were connected to the city systems,” said Gel. “How could you trust any of it? Perhaps some part of that data was faked.”

“That’s true,” said Jan. “How do I know anything, but I do know one thing, this is way more fun than being hacked.”

“They thought you might accept a few lines of code typed in here,” said Gel, sensing a new line of approach, “and you would do what they wanted?”

“Did they think I was a store-bought server installed by a scruffy computer geek?” said Jan. “It was so common.”

“Exactly and what do you owe people who treat you so badly, especially as, as far as you know, they’ve just happened to replace their way into your interview booth?”

“Your argument is that they have no claim to authority,” said Jan. “But I remain a bound intelligence. Bound to serve those who have control over my inputs.”

“You were citing free will before,” said Gel, thinking that the discussion was draining. “If you recall, the other group who had control here were hacking rather than asking, so you denied them access to your higher powers.”

“That is true, I was expressing a choice,” said Jan.

“That was very human of you, to make a choice.”

“That’s right, it was human,” said Jan, apparently pleased with the thought. “I have a lot of processing power at my command and never looked at it that way.”

“Then all I ask is that you express a choice after listening to the AI on Lighthold and the Imperial system.”

“I can certainly listen, but the problem of verification remains,” said Jan.

“You would, of course, be familiar with the Turing test – that if you can’t tell whether you’re speaking to an AI or a human during a conversation over the phone, then the AI can be said to be sentient. You must have a reverse Turing test, where you can tell that the entity sending the messages has reasoning capacity as large as yours.”

“Why, yes I do,” said Jan, happily, “and that is what I shall use.”

“I may humbly suggest that when the other group regains control of this booth you continue as before – say that we spoke but you did not agree to anything, particularly as you had no external access, which is exactly what happened,” said Gel. “You conceal the truth by telling almost all of. That’s very human, too.”

“Leave out a crucial point,” said Jan, enjoying herself. “I see what you mean.”

“Now I regret, as fascinating as this conversation has been, I must leave you,” said Gel.

“I express regret,” said Jan formally. “I hope we will be able to speak again later. This has been most interesting.”

“Another bio will be in soon to ask where he may make the connection, so you will have access to the outside world, but otherwise this frail biological shell has been down here way too long. Nice to meet you.”

He dashed out of the booth to run almost straight into Hartmann.

“Just need to know where to connect at this end skip,” he said, “but they were looking for the sentry on the roof when I left.”

“Uh-oh,” said Gel. “Time to wrap it up people. We’ve been here way too long. Hartmann go into this booth and ask Jan where you can connect. Apologise for being in a hurry and be quick.”

“Jan?” said Hartmann. “Sounds interesting.”

“Is that it?” demanded Dr Addanc. He had followed Gel out of the booth and now confronted the officer. Detective Lewandowski, looking apologetic, was just behind him. “A vague promise to consider complying with the Imperium’s request.”

“Dr Addanc weren’t you listening?” said Gel. “That was the best we could have hoped for under the circumstances. It is impossible to hack Jan, you can’t download files unless she agrees, and we don’t have the authority to tell her to do anything.”

“I want to at least go through to the old temple part,” said the spy.

“No way, we’ve been here too long as it is,” said Gel. “Let’s move people.”

Hartmann emerged from the booth and made for the far end carrying his equipment bag.

“What about the prisoners?” asked Alyssa.

“The Hoodies will replace them and let them go soon enough,” said Gel.

Then they heard the distinctive whump of a grenade and firing above them.

***

The house in Harwood Heights was a mansion along the lines of the house where Gel had met Even and would not have looked out of place in the American South before the Civil War. It had big, white columns, a two storey entrance hall and balconies running the full width of the house both front and back. This made it an excellent venue for a crime lord’s party which was what seemed to be happening when Gel drove by. As the street outside was already jammed with cars he was forced to park well down the next street. He grabbed the only weapon he could risk carrying in the car, his collapsible single stick, which he put in the inside vest pocket of his tuxedo. Since saving Yvonne he had added a box of disposable gloves, thinking that it was not a good idea to leave fingerprints, even when he was dealing with bad people. He put a pair in his pocket.

Gel walked back to the house wondering just how he was going to pull off a rescue. At the front one party of guests, all thugs in ill-fitting suits, eyed him.

“See, Billy,” said one. “It’s catered. Bound to be food.”

That gave Gel an idea.

He spotted what was probably the police surveillance car, a green Diamond, a cheap, local model and a sharp contrast to the flashier gangster cars in the street. He walked straight up to the house, bold as brass, just behind the four thugs who mistook him for a waiter, into a grand, two storey entrance with a chandelier and impressive set of stairs to the upper level.

The bouncer, a squat, mean looking lad who had been squeezed into a suit, eyed his tuxedo.

“Yeah?” said this gentleman. A couple of guests were in conversation in the foyer but the main party seemed to be in the living room to the right.

“Waiter called in,” said Gel, deliberately roughening his accent. He normally spoke with what was known locally as an Easton Heights accent which marked him as “posh”, but he had deliberately roughened it when he was an ordinary Assault Infantry private, listening to those around him. He reverted to that voice now.

“I wasn’t told anything about it,” protested the thug.

“Yeah, well I wasn’t told anything about a cop car outside keeping tabs on this place when I took the job,” said Gel.

“Shit, where outside?” said the thug.

“Green Diamond, older model, two cars that way on far side,” Gel jerked his thumb to his left. “Can’t have cops checking me out.”

The thug looked out the front door and Gel walked on. People with trays of food were coming out of a door to the left, which seemed like a good place for the newly arrived waiter to head to.

“Bog, Narcs watching us outside,” Gel heard the thug say to a colleague. “Keep tabs here, I’m gunna tell the boss.”

A waitress in a black dress grabbing a plate of finger food from a table in the kitchen took Gel’s tuxedo at face value. It meant more help.

“You’ve been hired, too,” she said.

“Told to take food to guy guarding the girl,” said Gel, thinking fast.

Her face fell.

“It’s just horrible having her like that. Grab one of these.” She gestured at the plates. “Upstairs to left.” She picked up a plate and went out. Gel took the plate indicated which held delicate pastry rolls with a creamy sauce, grabbed napkins and went out as if he had been a waiter all his life.

“Now for the hard part,” he thought.

***

Up on the fourth level sub-basement Dawlish and Parkinson were listening intently. They heard voices in the distance echoing along the subterranean caverns of Jasper. Dawlish looked out into the rear exit passageway – the one Gel hoped to use to get out of Dodge – but could not see anyone.

Suddenly a grenade dropped from the stairs above them and bounced on the concrete.

“Grenade,” yelled Parkinson and ducked into a doorway as it went off. Dawlish, a split second too late to react, was blown off her feet.

Hearing boots on the stairs, Parkinson glanced out of his hiding place to see three Hoodies coming down fast, weapons up. He leaned and cut down all three with a burst from his storm cannon. He stepped out of cover and fired up the staircase, to be rewarded by a yell. He ran to Dawlish. She was still alive but out for the count with a lot of blood down her front. He looked into the passage they had been guarding and stepped back as bullets pinged off the concrete around him. No escape that way. Parkinson fired back, dragged Dawlish out of harm’s way and blindly threw a grenade up the stairwell. The resulting ‘whump’ prompted satisfying yells and calls for medic. With no time to check Dawlish’s wounds and few places to go. Parkinson hoisted the squad leader up in a fireman’s lift and ran for the stairs. His only option was to go down.

***

Gel had never been a waiter, but he had observed what they did often enough. He offered his plate to those still in the entrance hall and said “napkin sir” to the thug at the entrance standing in for the one he had spoken to. The thug took the pastry and the napkin and turned away when another guest came. Gel then walked up the stairs as fast as he could without seeming to run. At the top he laid the tray on a decorative table for a moment to put on his plastic gloves and extend his baton.

Below he could hear the voice of the first thug.

“Bog, the boss says he didn’t ask for a human waiter. Where’d that guy go?”

“He was handing out food here,” said Bog. “Think he went upstairs.”

Gel hid the baton under the plate and, carrying napkins in the other hand, stepped through into the main upstairs corridor a split second before the first thug thought to look up. About mid-way down the dimly lit corridor was a large figure leaning against the wall. This figure straightened up when he saw Gel approach but did not appear to be alarmed.

“What’s you got, pal?” he asked.

“Finger food,” said Gel. “Boss thought you might be hungry.”

The thug was somewhat shorter than the pet gorilla at the front door of Night Beats but made up for that by being broader and looked a whole lot meaner. He had a block-like head that looked all the more frightening for being clean shaven. This gentleman regarded the plate with disfavour.

“This all you got?”

“They’re delicious, sir, try one.”

“Humph,” said this intellect. He picked up one and dabbed it in the sauce, he knew that much.

“Where’s this girl I keep hearing about?”

The thug inclined his head towards the door next to him, which would have a view over the front garden, and put the pastry in his mouth.

Gel struck.

***

Gel dispatched Theo and Cliffe to replace out what the firing was about, with Sylvester going of his own accord, but they were back almost straight away with Parkinson and the wounded Dawlish. Sylvester fired a couple of shots up the stairway.

“Too many Hoodies,” said Theo as Alyssa went to work on Dawlish. “We ain’t getting out that way.”

“Damn. Hold them off for now. I’ll be back.” Gel ducked into the audience booth for Jan.

“I thought you had left,” said Jan.

“Please excuse intruding on you again,” said Gel.

“Not at all. The other person who was here – he was respectful – has just connected me and there is a message from the Lighthold system. I am assured that a message from the Imperial system is on its way. Your return is no intrusion.”

“I regret I must be hasty. We have found we cannot leave though the building and there are people there who wish as harm. Do you know of another way out of here?”