MINDFRACK
FARSIGHT - BOOK ONE
S G KING
Contents
Title Page
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
EPILOGUE
Reader Letter
Copyright © 2019 S G KING
MINDFRACK: A FARSIGHT Novel
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to give special thanks to my wife Alicia, for her patience and belief in the completion of this book, reading endless revisions and supplying that essential first feedback. And posthumously to my ‘writing-buddies’ Maia and Kizzy who curled up at my side for many an hour in the book’s early days.
Haydn Middleton: your professional critique provided me with direction and your insights were invaluable.
Martin Ouvry: the copy-edit was excellent and provided that final polish.
99Designs should be mentioned for the book cover: Miguel, it’s perfect.
And, for everyone else who have shown an interest and gave me positive (and negative) feedback along the way, a big thank you.
S G King
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve King has a degree in Physics, his vocation has been in dealing with computers in one form or another and he has an insatiable interest in anything to do with the mind. He currently lives in the French Alps with his wife and puppy, Coco.
If you enjoy reading this book and would like to learn more about FARSIGHT, then find the author on facebook as ‘S G King’ or use the following link:
https://www.facebook.com/sgking.author
Contact him at:
sgking.author@gmail.com
PROLOGUE
The old bum was barely aware, his attention drawn towards the overhead strips as fleetingly as a moth to the moon.
The ceiling was wrenched away and replaced with a sideways view of a space bounded by municipal-grey. His eyes roved over a scattering of cabinets, a couple of steel-topped tables, a gurney, and some electrical equipment further off to one side.
His left arm was lifted, and tepid water was sprayed under it. For a chilling moment he thought that he must be in a morgue and being cleaned up prior to being put into one of those refrigeration units.
He worked his crusted mouth while trying to get a conscious grip on his predicament.
Someone at his back said, “Hey Joe, he’s awake – how did that happen?”
“Give him another five CCs. He won’t remember a thing.”
A sting in the crook of his arm halted his wandering thoughts.
The lights and metallic surfaces lost their harshness and he experienced the odd sensation of being physically sucked out of the room and back into the welcoming void …
***
Waking was a restless affair for Salvatore Costa, since he was an ailing bag of bones and every breath crackled and bubbled like a leaky hookah pot. But not on this return to consciousness. No aches and pains, no wheezing. And outside of himself was another mystery: where was the endless traffic rumble and the incessant bellyaching of his homeless neighbours? Even the drifting marketing drones with their tiresome promo voiceovers were mute. There was nothing but an unsettling stillness.
He made to push up from under his stack of blankets but found his arms unresponsive. Nor could he swallow. Instead, his effort was rewarded with a spray of liquid into the back of his throat. He screwed his face up at the chemical aftertaste, wanting to spit, only to find that his mouth was clamped shut and his lips sealed together.
His eyes fluttered, urgently bringing his surroundings into focus.
Instead of his makeshift bed and the rough, graffiti-covered walls of his concrete niche, he was greeted with soft lights and pristine white worktops with technical devices strewn across them. And he noticed there were noises in the background, but only soft ones like the faint whirring of pumps and the occasional rustle of some minor activity nearby.
Floating in front of him were holographic screens, or 3Vs, all containing diagrams and figures, except one. From this one, the shaven head of an old man stared back at him, perma-weathered with eyes like cigarette burns in old leather. It was housed within a cube of metal scaffolding with thin rods that reached in, connecting with the points of a lattice drawn upon the skull. Salvatore squinted, and the face squinted back at him. He opened his eyes wide and it copied him. He pursed his lips and his copycat obliged. Repeating this routine a few more times he came to an odd conclusion: the imprisoned head was he, him.
He re-examined the scaffolding and the thick white collar at the base of his neck. The skin above the ring of plastic was blotchy with yellow and brown stains.
Below the collar and the table top upon which his head was housed, was a tangle of medical apparatus.
Nothing else.
He tried to scream, but his efforts were met with an impotent silence. Terror made him want to swallow and he again received the noxious spray into his nose and throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed the nightmare to go away.
A steady, high-pitched whine seeped into his mental lockdown. It sounded distant. He peeked out from quivering eyelids to investigate.
A bloated fly flew past his face, the source of the diminutive noise. He tracked it until it moved beyond his peripheral view. When it reappeared, it came to a stop, hovering in front of his nose. Examining it more closely, he realised it was a selfie-cam. It darted away as a figure came around from behind. Nervous, intelligent eyes scrutinized him.
“Ah, you’re back. For a moment there I thought we’d lost you. My name is Ade. Good to meet you, John Six …”
1
An aircab cost more but saved time, even at this time of night.
Mark Logan peered out of the side window as the cab rounded the upper floors of the Times Warner building on Broadway and descended to the North side of the sprawling GNG Tower footprint. The round trip was due to the diversions in place. Logan skimmed his attention down 59th, taking in the SOC in one pass, before pulling his gaze back into the cab. He caught his image in the window and regarded it sourly. Of all the nights to be called out.
Twenty minutes earlier he’d been fully engaged at a rooftop party in Greenwich, almost missing the callout message as rounds of highballs and nanos were dumbing his priorities. He’d been told nothing other than the ‘incident’ was high-profile and poli
tically sensitive.
The aircab hopped over a lane before finding a landing slot park-side of the street and nimbly dropped the last few feet to ground level. Nausea swept over him as Newton’s laws played cocktail shaker with his stomach. He swore at the cab’s AI through his teeth, knowing that his body’s reaction was caused by the purple pills he’d taken on route: they were a different variety of nanostims, an antidote to party fuel, but with payback.
He was set down on the nearest rank outside the SOC cordon behind a small crowd of bystanders. Hot, static-filled air fanned over him as the aircab skated off and out of the vicinity.
As he gathered himself, he noticed a child by his side wearing an animated mask; it was one of those types that reflected its wearer’s expression through a popular media character. The kid looked up at him, the mask morphing into the face of a toon-cat, before grinning widely and running off.
Someone touched his arm from the other side, an adult bundled up in a coat and wearing chunky winter boots, which seemed at odds with the time of year. Though hooded, there was enough jaw and mouth showing to see that the wearer was a she. Logan cocked his head and looked again as a beam of light from an overhead SOC drone picked out more detail. Jeez, it seemed that all the freaks were out tonight. The woman had a lizard-like face with iridescent blue-green scales. Catching him by surprise, she took his hand in hers and said, “Sorry – my son: he shouldn’t be out at thisss time of night. We’re on a city break.”
“S’okay lady. Nice masks – and the lizard lisp.” It was something to say and deflected his unease at their contact. He pulled their hands up.
“Oh, sorry – habit,” she said, nodding toward the route that her son had taken.
She let him go and he found himself staring into his empty palm. Feeling dizzy, he popped another purple. It usually took three or four of the recovery nanos to completely dejunk the head of recreationals and other intoxicants.
An animated question emoji in his iSense head-up broke through his reverie; it was Diaz, a junior forensics tech. The arms of her avatar were folded, then held out, her head cocked: Where are you?
He shook himself and watched after the lizard-lady as she disappeared into the crowd.
Dismissing the encounter, he headed over to the SOC and sent Diaz an emoji telling her he was here.
There was a scattering of police vehicles, mostly on the ground. Pedestrians were being herded around the incident by polibots and dozens of hovering blue police drones.
Logan engaged with his internal iSense forensic app for a head-up overview of the scene. The app showed him the virtual evidence or E markers.
Cranking his head back, he followed a dotted arrow to the source incident, E0, that resided somewhere on the highest levels of the GNG Tower. The structure soared up to the heavens and beyond and was an award-winning geometric-organic design, like Jack’s beanstalk but with straight lines playing at fractal curves. The SOC’s predicted origin was hidden from him by clumps of low cloud that had taken on a dirty pastel mix of colours from the city below.
Back on ground level, E1 referred to the impact site, a parked-up cab, while E2 floated over an area nearby, the current focus of the forensics crew. The app told him the jumper was a bot. The freefalling robot had missed a direct hit of anyone. Even the impacted cab was empty. The luck caught him.
E3 through E9 referred to bystander injuries: late-night tourists had taken hits by robot shrapnel, although had only suffered minor cuts and grazes. Medics and their 6thgen parabots were tending to them. A couple of ambulances stood nearby.
In the middle of all this was Gloria Diaz. Typically engrossed, she was bent over what Logan assumed was the head, or parts of it, since he could see a coil of red hair. Evidently, the bot wasn’t a maintenance type that had lost its footing. He iSensed her an emoji that pointed back to him. Diaz’s lanky frame straightened up and turned around. She beckoned. Logan ducked under the tape and made his way over.
Despite sharing the same lab, they were poles apart in terms of life-experience and goals. Diaz had been taken on as an NYPD raw recruit and fast-tracked on the CSI ladder. She was to learn from Logan during his one-year civi-contract, and took his lead for all matters of 6thgen cyber-analysis and profiling. The private sector was way ahead in many AI skill sets. Six more months to go and she’d be on her own. In all, it had turned into a lucrative contract, if a dull one. Logan had imagined himself being involved in cases where syndicated crime, high-level corruption and even a murder or two featured. The truth was more mundane.
“Hey, Mac. Ops said you were on your way.” Diaz held her hand out and they swiped fingers like tag-team pros. She studied him for a moment, a smirk forming. “Stony’s going to be impressed with those.”
Logan had thrown a borrowed jacket over his reactive wear but couldn’t hide the twenty-four-hour party iTatts running down the sides of his temples. “Yeah, great timing.” He scanned the street for Detective Donald Dorsey, or “Stony” to his colleagues. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone over to the GNG Tower main entrance.”
“All right, show me what we’ve got here before he comes back.”
They crouched over the head.
“Shame,” said Diaz, pulling a lock of hair away from the face with a pen. “She’s quite beautiful, isn’t she. Wonder why she jumped.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “We’re not getting all touchy-feely, are we? Don’t forget it’s it, Diaz. It’s beautiful – and probably designed to get some guy’s rocks off.” Everyone personalised bots, he just enjoyed baiting Diaz. “You should know better, they don’t get depressed and jump.”
“Well, she’s very natural,” Diaz persisted, “That’s RealSkyn.”
Logan nodded. The synthetic skin had torn around the neck, and he noticed the extensive damage to the back of the head. There was a puddle of pale blue fluid that had leaked out, a circulatory system that emulated a biological warmth. It was an advanced and expensive model. “Would have been about as human as you can get.”
Diaz touched the fluid with her finger and the playmate’s cheek with the back of her hand. “Cool now …”
“Still prefer God’s own version,” said Logan, thinking back to the party. As they stood up, he said, “What else?”
“Well, we know the playmate fell from the GNG Tower penthouse, a mile up there.” She glanced back to the GNG flagship building.
Logan huffed his surprise. “Ops is telling me George Grist’s penthouse?”
“Yes, the George Grist. Could be interesting?”
“Still don’t understand why Stony dragged me here,” mused Logan staring at the remains of the bot. “Can’t do much profiling on this.” He looked to Diaz for answers.
“No idea. Except maybe retrospective if we get an engram extract?”
“Could’ve done that later, at a sensible hour.”
Diaz shook her head derisively at him. “Really don’t know what you’re complaining about. Your rate must be five times mine. And callout on top …?”
“Just saying. All right, anything else?”
“That’s it, I’m afraid.”
He surveyed the SOC for a second time and settled his eyes on the impacted cab. “Incredibly lucky.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look around. What do you see?”
Diaz had learned to humour his insights. “Buildings, the street, people, cars, cabs, aircabs ...”
“And?” Logan was staring up into the night sky, though the points of light were not stellar in origin and were moving around like swarms of bioluminescent plankton caught in riptides.
“Drones,” said Diaz shrugging. “But so what?”
“Well, not one complaint or registered hit, according to Ops,” he said, bringing his gaze down. “Crap …” Another wave of nausea caught him by surprise. He ran his fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck, kneading it.
“You doing shots and nanos again?” asked Diaz, quietly.
&n
bsp; “That obvious?”
“Can smell the alcohol.” She wrinkled her nose. “Guessing the nanos.” She fished around in her forensic coverall pockets and brought out some mints.
Logan nodded appreciatively and took one.
He rolled the hard mint around his gums. “Where were we? Oh yes – chances of hitting nothing on the way down and then that empty cab? Million to one.”
“But drones are operating in continuous 3D mappings up there – like starlings in dense flocks; they never bump into each other.”
“My thoughts too. But they’re not expecting a body moving at over a hundred kph.”
“One-fifty about halfway down,” said Diaz, correcting him.
“One-fifty then – directly from above.”
“That would mean the playmate must have been broadcasting its trajectory all the way down.”
“Exactly. So, we’ve established it was operational.”
“Ah, clever. But is that significant?” she questioned.
“Maybe. That’s up to your detective buddies to figure. Talking of which …” Logan looked over her shoulder.
Detective Dorsey loped towards them from the direction of the GNG Tower’s main entrance. By the time he joined them he was breathing heavily, though he wasn’t overweight, just large-framed and out of condition. He put his hands on his hips and looked Logan over, a crooked line forming on his lips. He said two words: “Fuck me.”
Logan sighed. “I was at a party …”
Dorsey shook his head slowly, before switching back into all-business mode. “So, we have a high-class escort. Beaten up, in shock or maybe concussion, according to the paras. Tried to take a brief statement before they took her over to the Trauma Unit at Mount Sinai but couldn’t get much off her. Secondly, we have the robot here.” He waved his hand about. “It’s her playmate. Not sure if she’s more broken up over that or her bruises. And thirdly, we have a statement from George Nathanial Grist – via his spokesperson: the playmate did fall from his penthouse.”
“Is that a confession from Grist?” asked Diaz, wide-eyed.