Dante

  I sit down at my desk, the wood gleaming softly as I spread out my devices and prepare to get to work. My parents got it for me as a gift when I started taking my first classes at U of C as a freshman. A high school freshman. I smile as I open my laptops, but pause before launching into my research. Whatever happened this afternoon with Ghost and the Circle, it’s urgent. But it’s even more urgent for me to bring my best skills out to deal with this, and that will take a few minutes.

  I close my eyes and Stairstep – an old trick where you take some exceptional state of mind and made a mental photograph of exactly how it feels in your body and inside your head. And then bring up the whole, memorized feeling later, whenever it’s useful.

  Like now.

  And then do whatever you can to deepen and intensify that state further and mentally photograph that. And then launch into whatever task you need to be in that state to accomplish.

  I bring up the remembered feeling of calm, relaxed euphoria from my go-to meditation, Noise-Removal Breathing, and then stretch once and leap into doing NRB again. I imagine drawing up air from my feet all through my body in a single long, deep inhalation – and while doing so, stirring up and drawing out dried bits of leaves representing all the noise, tensions and toxins in my body.

  When the visualized leaves reach my mouth, I imagine them igniting. And then I breathe them out in a shower of bright, imaginary sparks, filling the air around me with that free energy, now life-giving and positive.

  For five minutes, I continue, imagining the ‘noise’ of my leaves includes all the resistance inside me to handling my next project.

  Figuring out exactly what the Circle did to me. And who else might have messed with my mind, and how.

  Finally, I open my eyes, switch on my laptops, and wake the AIs in those computers and on my iPhones. I also pick my smartwatch back up from its charging stand and put it on my wrist. I left it at home this morning, still charging and updating, a choice which might have been fatal if not for Lyrica and Ghost.

  I need to talk, and my team of AI specialists are just the people I need. Or the algorithms I need, anyway.

  “Lyrica,” I begin. “You said you briefed the others?”

  “Yes, Dante,” she answers. “And we’ve been discussing it ever since.”

  “And researching it,” Logos comments, his mellifluous voice sounding amused.

  “Instead of debunking it,” Legios grumbles.

  “I lived through it,” I tell him. “I know it’s unbelievable, but something was going on. And nothing else fits with the facts.”

  “Understood,” Foresight comments from his smartwatch. “Logos summarized our findings on his screen, if you’d care to view them. Tell us what you need us to do.”

  I turn to the upgraded laptop hosting Logos’ AI locally and skim the summary with a glance. They’re agreeing the mental assault happened and have in fact taken apart the technologies involved to a surprising degree. A good effort, given how little they know and how little time they’ve had.

  I nod. “All right,” I tell my faithful AIs. “It’s time to get to work.”

  Their discussion won’t take all night, I know, but their labors will stretch into the morning. If there’s one advantage to having your own, jailbroken, autonomous AIs working for you, it’s having powerful intelligences not just at your disposal…

  But willing to burn the midnight oil, every night, to solve every riddle and unknot every thorny question within their considerable capabilities.

  And to work so relentlessly I risk being buried not in questions, but in answers.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  And right now, I need an avalanche of answers.

  ***

  First, though, I drop a line to the people whose job it is to ask questions. One long anonymous tip to the FBI and another to Chicago PD about everything that happened via an anonymous account I access through Ghost’s burner cell. I have her numbers and I’ll replace the burner at the airport.

  Ghost mentioned the Circle killing security cameras before they hit the train station, and also in the alley – everywhere they thought they might be seen. Which means there isn’t much linking me to their crime scenes even before the rain set in this afternoon.

  But if everyone in the Circle is effectively a disposable cutout, I wonder if they can ever be defeated by normal means, anyway. If the Circle itself is only a catspaw, then even the leadership might be conditioned and only aware of what their overseers need them to know. Losing the whole organization might mean no more to whoever set it up than Ghost’s disposable cell means to me.

  Which would mean Ghost’s shadow war is the only game in town.

  I have questions. But I also have my AIs. And they have time to think.

  ***

  “You can come in, Bria,” I say from my desk an hour later, my back to the door. “You too, Tegan.”

  “Oh hey,” Bria says as she slips into my room. “We were just wondering if you needed any help packing?”

  “You mean, ‘Is my brother going to take enough of his stuff I can move in before he’s on the plane to L.A.?’” I translate. I swivel around in my chair and smile at them. “Don’t worry, I talked to Mom. We’ll swap rooms.” Bria plops down on my bed, a big stuffed bear in one hand. The stuffed animal wears a t-shirt saying ‘Big Bear on Campus.’

  “Wait, you did?” Bria ask. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise, but I think this qualifies.” I grin. “Feel free to redecorate. It’s yours now. Or will be in eleven hours.”

  Bria nods, then glances over at Tegan, who is now leaning against the door frame just inside my room. “That's great, but it’s not really what we wanted to talk about.”

  I raise an eyebrow and look from one to the other. “We?”

  Tegan nods. “About those sigils…”

  “…And what you think Nana Price might have been up to…” Bria continues.

  “…We’re wondering how much it affects us.” Tegan finishes.

  “Especially since the sigils seemed to hit us, also.” Bria adds, bouncing her college-bound bear on her knee for emphasis. They both stare at me, expectant.

  “Wait a second, both of you?” I start. “What did you feel, Tegan? What did both of you feel?”

  I’d been hoping Ghost’s deprogramming toy would quietly wipe away anything afflicting Bria, unnoticed, but hadn’t really counted on it. But Tegan? Why would Tegan have triggers as well?

  And just how extensive was the programming, if it wasn’t just a bizarre family thing?

  Tegan shrugs, a little uncomfortably. “Nothing bad,” she clarifies. “Strange. But almost… better?”

  Bria nods. “Not what we were expecting, given the way you were talking about it.”

  “But then we thought, if you wanted to make something subtle, something helpful might be the best way to get past their defenses. Something that makes them feel better. Something that makes them better.”

  “So when you looked at those, you felt…?” I prompt.

  “Relaxed. Floating. Almost euphoric,” Tegan says. “Took a bit to really kick in, but when it did, it had a real kick.”

  “And I felt like I was seeing patterns everywhere,” Bria explains. “In the cards, between the cards, between you, me, dad and mom. In that planetarium you brought home. Everywhere.”

  I nod slowly. “That… tracks.”

  “Why?” Bria asks, leaning forward, her stuffed bear leaning forward with her.

  “Because if Nana Price was involved, and I’m not saying she is, she was always really into human enhancement and trying to make both of us better. If she were going to implant suggestions in our heads, ‘study hard’ and ‘eat green vegetables’ sound right up her alley.”

  “Tegan’s ‘feel good’ experience though?” Bria waves her bear at her friend. Tegan shakes her head and rolled her eyes in return. “I love Nana, but spreading ‘bliss’ isn’t her thing.”

  “But it is for a lot of this technology,” Tegan remarks. She sees my expression. “I’m not like you, but we go to the same school, Dante, or did. We’ve all been in a floatation tank or used biofeedback – anything they can throw at the ‘special kids’ to make us better.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Even if it doesn’t work, it keeps enough of us blissed out that we don’t make trouble.”

  “Is that what this is doing, though?” Bria says. She and her bear turn towards the trumps spread out on my desk. “We should probably experiment.” She pauses. “Carefully.”

  “I’ll need the cards,” I decide. “But I’ll have Lyrica makes copies of them and share them with you. You can use them – with supervision.”

  “Supervision?” Tegan asks. “Aren’t you leaving tomorrow?”

  I snort. “I didn’t say it would be me.” I pull out a pair of the latest iPhones and hold them outstretched. “Happy birthday in advance. You’ve now both got a copy of Lyrica, and she’ll be looking after you. Legios also, but he’s not as chatty.”

  “But more to the point,” Legios growls from Tegan’s iPhone. She half jumps. I think of Legios’ grim voice as comical, but apparently he’s intimidating to almost everyone else. Go figure.

  “Don’t worry,” Lyrica chimes in from Bria’s phone. “He’ll bark, but he won’t bite. Unless you’re a botnet. Or a hacker.”

  Tegan looks uncomfortable.

  “And if you’re the latter,” Legios warns, “it’s time to get your script kiddie selves off the Darknet. I may be the most tenacious hound in cyberspace, but far from the only. And the other AIs will burn far more than your fingertips if you touch the flame.”

  Tegan glances from her phone to Bria’s and then up at me. “Lovely,” she announces sweetly. “I’ll tuck mine under my pillow at night.”

  Bria nods. “And I’ll,” her fingers move deftly, “let Big Bear on Campus keep track of mine.” Her stuffed bear’s paws are now wrapped around the phone and holding it up as if taking a selfie. “He always wanted to be my personal assistant.”

  “Surprised you haven’t animated him already,” I remark, cocking my head at the huge teddy.

  “Seriously?” Bria snorts. “That would be weird.”

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