Chrome Symphony - Chapter 4

"Just wait a minute, Renk!" said Atlas. The two of them were already on the elevator. Atlas was trying to prevent Renk from doing anything rash. By now, Atlas knew Renk wasn't going to commit murder but he was more focused on preventing him from confronting Dr. Heimborem or Dr. Thameh until they had more information.

"Renk, think about it a sec. Is Dr. Heimborem really going to launch a cargo shuttle to the asteroid from here without it being detected by the colony? What if they're actually doing this to help us?"

Renk was silent for a moment. "I gotta say... that would make sense, I supppose," replied Renk.

"I still want to talk to Dr. Thameh. We should at least be on the same page," said Atlas.

They made their way back to the science building where Camay had taken them when they first arrived.

Duncan was about to enter a dive.

"Care to join me," Duncan asked Shell and Elise. "I'm going to have a chat with Dr. Thameh about this."

Duncan and Shell closed their eyes as they entered virtual space. Duncan sent an invitation to Camay.

After a few minutes, Camay entered the room.

"Sorry to interrupt you, Dr. Thameh," said Duncan. "but I wanted to ask you about the details of our transportation to the asteroid tomorrow."

"We'd figured we couldn't just barge in the front door," said Shell.

"Of course not," replied Camay. "Dr. Heimborem has used his clout with the Herei Mob Army to set up a shipment of... what they expect to be fuel."

Duncan and Shell both breathed a sigh of relief. Duncan wanted to be careful not to reveal that they had gained unauthorized access to the colony's shipping records. It had become so comme d'habitude for both Shell and Duncan to casually break into everything they could find on the 'net that it was easy to slip up and mention it when it wasn't appropriate.

"Thank you," said Duncan. "We just wanted to check."

The three of them exited the dive.

"Well, there you have it," said Elise.

Camay walked into Dr. Ray Heimborem's office.

"Doctor, may I have a word with you," she asked.

Ray stood up and greeted her. "Of course, Dr. Thameh. What would you like to discuss?"

"The group that extracted you from the EMA compound... I just had a short conference with them," said Camay.

"Oh?"

"Did you already arrange a shipment to the asteroid," asked Camay. "We were going to set up a fake shipment but I noticed that one was already prepared yesterday. It has already been put into the schedule. Did you know anything about that?"

Ray started to sweat. "I'm sure someone just jumped the gun on that. Perhaps the time stamps were entered incorrectly," he replied.

"I see," said Camay. "You know, it's interesting that the people in that group are all together as they are."

"Right, funny how things work out," said Ray. "Why did we choose them to help us, specifically?"

Camay smiled. "Dr. Heimborem, you're notoriously bad for not reading your e-mails all the way through... tsk tsk..."

Ray sat back down. "Are we dealing with... a special class of adepts?"

Camay nodded. "Not all of them, I don't think so. But we have some interesting insights from observing them."

Ray looked confused. "Please, Dr. Thameh... elaborate."

Camay continued, "Jessica Price was a 'designer baby'. Her parents were unable to have a child normally so they used an artificial method. Being of the Price bloodline, the scientists involved in the process were targeted with a rather handsome bribe to perform some additional tampering with the zygote's genetics."

"Ah, yes, and then the accident..." said Ray.

"Yes. Jessica was going to have serious birth defects. However, quite serendipitously... Crest was also working on a new, experimental nanotechnology that enabled the rapid regrowth of damaged tissue. In a panic, the scientists involved decided to save the child by incorporating the yet untested nano machines inside the embryo."

Ray stroked his beard for a moment. "The artificial blood created in that experiment had quite a surplus, if I recall correctly. I had been working for EMA at the time. The artificial blood matched the blood types of some cyborgs that our subsidiaries were servicing that day. They had me working on some new bio-weapons systems so I didn't pay much attention to the mix-up..."

"It was distributed to several clinics in City N on that morning," said Camay. "One cyborg received some maintenance that day. His name was Duncan Sorenson. The artificial blood was used to reduce immune rejection of the replacement parts."

"Who is that," asked Ray.

"He's in the group that extracted you."

"I'm still not quite seeing your point, Dr. Thameh," said Ray, now even more confused.

"Mr. Sorenson was not born an adept. He began showing signs of certain abilities around the time the adept phenomenon occurred," said Camay. "Some of that artificial blood, containing the experimental nano machines, was used eight years later by accident on two other cyborgs as part of some maintenance treatments. Those two cyborgs were Shell Lockheed and Sophia Weiss. They have yet to demonstrate adept characteristics, however."

"And the person who received the lion's share of that artificial blood demonstrated adept characteristics as well..." said Ray.

Camay nodded. "She was never classified as an adept, due to her social status, but yes."

"What about those two military guys," asked Ray.

"Lieutenant Renk was born an adept," said Camay, "but Atlas appears to be the one in the group who is not."

"No, Dr. Thameh. I mean they're standing right behind you."

Camay quickly turned around. Atlas and Renk were standing in the doorway, looking directly at her.

Shell, Duncan, and Elise took the elevator down to the lowest level of the hotel.

An observation area with a nearly unobstructed view of space ran around the circumference of the colony ring. The colony changed its position to either allow or block sunlight from shining through the windows at ground level, which created day and night onboard the colony.

Down here, the sun was blocked so that it was much darker and easier to see the stars. Shell had wanted to get a good view of the Earth and, possibly, of the approaching asteroid that everyone would try to invade the next day.

"You just don't get a view like this from Earth," said Shell, in awe of the stars. "The light pollution makes it impossible to see anything at all from down there."

Duncan stood there with his arms crossed. "Sure gives you a perspective on things," he said.

Elise yawned and shrugged. "I'm heading back up to ground level. I think Lazarus is running around trying to find her boyfriend and Mr. Buzz Cut."

Elise walked back into the elevator. "Speaking of, I hope Mr. Buzz Cut can pay for the damage to the wall and that chair."

Shell turned around. "Don't get yourself lost, Mafia Molly," chuckled Shell.

"Really," said Elise, as the elevator door started to close. "You can come up with better than that."

Duncan walked over to a seat along the wall and sat down. He looked over at Shell.

"You ever get deja vu," he asked her. Shell shrugged. "No, why do you ask?"

"I got this weird feeling, just like this thing that happened back when I was six years old," said Duncan.

"You're probably just tired," said Shell.

"No, I'm fine. It's just that... when I was six, I had a weird dream. Didn't remember much of it but this exact scene, with us looking out at space and the earth through these windows - I dreamed this exact moment," said Duncan, with a distinct tone of certainly and conviction in his voice.

"Don't crack up on me now," laughed Shell. "We have to keep it together, unlike Renk earlier!"

Duncan laughed heartily. "Ha ha! You're right. This is no time to be saying crazy stuff like that. Let's head back up."

Shell and Duncan went back upstairs. They separated the tables they had put together for the meeting. Duncan shuffled the chairs back into place and Shell tried to fix the chair that Renk had broken. She noticed the small hole in the wall where the chair had struck it and shook her head.

Standing back up, Shell knocked over an old-fashioned looking paper book that was sitting on the table by the bed. The book fell to the floor and an old worn photograph fell out from between its pages. Shell picked up the photograph. It was of a woman she had not seen before.

Duncan walked over and Shell handed him the photograph along with the book.

"Oh, yeah, although I keep most of my memorabilia in digital form within the data storage I carry around inside me, there are a few old things I prefer to keep in the physical realm. I won't bore you with a slideshow of all the photos I have from my past, though," he said to Shell.

Elise entered the room again. She noticed the hole in the wall and sighed.

Duncan looked through the old book and held up the old photo. It had been printed on an old fashioned ink jet printer, on nice glossy photo stock, which was now somewhat aged. He sat down in a chair next to the window and looked at the photo for a while.

"Rosetta and I met at what was known as a 'hacker's convention' back in.. let's see... it was at Defcon 2048. I remember the first time I saw her, she was wearing one of those Guy Fawkes masks and was sitting with a laptop computer in the lobby, hammering away at the keyboard, obviously trying to set up a script."

Duncan laughed.

"Back then, any electronic device you took to Defcon would be hacked almost immediately. The 'net was truly a Wild West back then and it was a time when a lot of wireless devices had relatively unsophisticated security models. Rosetta had this big antenna coming out from a dongle attached to her machine and I, being nosy, decided to hack into her laptop to see exactly what she was up to. She caught me, though, and that's how we met."

Duncan put the photo away and carefully closed the old book.

"We were both very mischievous at the time. She was involved with some 'hacktivist' group, as it was called back in those days. she'd been working with a group called Anonymous and also Telecomix, which had some heavily controversial political objectives at the time. I wasn't very political but I was one hell of a troublemaker!"

He could tell that Elise was starting to get annoyed with his long-winded story.

"Ok, I'll get to the point," said Duncan. "Rosetta didn't believe in trans-humanism or unnatural body modifications. She lived a long, happy life with me after we were married. We never had any kids. She died of natural causes in 2116. It's been 100 years today since she passed."

Duncan cleared his throat.

"Of course, some of her anti-establishment, fight-for-the-people values rubbed off on me so I've tried to stand up for those ideas ever since. I decided to live on as part machine as long as I can for that purpose."

Duncan checked his messages for a few seconds and then stood up.

"It looks like Jess, Atlas, and Renk are having a little chat with Dr. Thameh and will be back up here shortly."

He looked at Elise. "Yo," he said to her, looking over his glasses with his head tilted downward. "You've been awfully quiet lately."