Something Poisoned

  “Why attack JR, he’s not even augmented?” asked Connor.

            He had arrived shortly after the Shadow thing had attacked. Ian had gone outside to see if he could find tracks of any kind but as before it had disappeared without any trace.

  “The Oracle wants all of us dead,” said Ed.

  “He was behind the Fall,” said Ian as he remembered something he should have remembered ten years ago. “Son of a bitch,”

  “What do you mean?” asked Ed.

  “Three months after the Fall, I visited the ruins and found the Oracle there. At the time it made no difference to me, but now. The way he had said ‘We were betrayed’, I should have realized it sooner. He didn’t day it with hate or indifference, but with admiration, as if he was pleased with it. No doubt he was,”

  “You only realize this now?” asked JR, slightly outraged.

  “Don’t give me lip, boy,” said Ian and Ed gave JR a ‘Don’t push it’ look. “But yes, I should have seen it earlier,”

  “We all should have,” said Ed.

  “Well, no point in beating our heads against the wall now,” said Connor “We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again. CNet, for the love of fuck, how do they keep on getting past your sensors and shit?”

  “My sensors cannot detect what they have never detected. Going over the data now, I am able to determine the energy signature give off by the Shadow and will make sure to add it to the early warning system to prevent any further intrusions,” defended CNet.

  “You said you know what the energy signature is now?” asked Ian and Ed looked at him, both of them thinking the same thing.

  “Yes,”

  “Would it be possible,” said Ed, “to recalibrate all satellites to search for that signature?”

  “No, but I could recalibrate all of them to warn us if they detect the signature. You must understand, Commander Swardt, I have presence in the satellites but we do not own them. The only way for me to maintain my dominance is to remain undetected,”

  “By now we’re used to that, working from the shadows was always the Agency way,” said Ian. “Well, I’m off to bed. Wake me only if the world ends,” he said and stalked off to his room. As his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.

            Jacks was making his way back into the hospital when he heard two doctors talking. Normally this would mean nothing to him, but when he heard ‘De Beer’ he knew he had to listen. So he eavesdropped.

  “The poison seems to be doing its job,” said the one doctor.

  “It’s too slow,” said the other.

  “We can’t five him anymore, they’ll become suspicious. Besides, he’s bedridden, what’s he gonna do?”

  “It’s not him I’m worried about, it’s that kid. He scares me, his eyes, they seem to draw all the happiness out of you,”

  “I know what you mean. But hey, my break’s over and it’s time to administer De Beer,”

            The two doctors shook hand and went their separate ways. Jacks trailed the one that was going to poison De Beer some more. He wasn’t sure how they were doing it, he was with Bridget and the family almost every hour of the day, which they spent at the hospital.

            Jacks followed the doctor all the way to a storage closet on the ground level where he observed the man through the window in the door. The doctor was using a syringe to contaminate an IV drip which he was no doubt planning on swapping with De Beer’s current one. Jacks had no delusions that the current one wasn’t contaminated.

            The doctor finished with his work and hid the poison behind a lose tile. He made his way to the door and Jacks stormed him as he opened it, driving him back into the storage closet and against the far wall. Jacks knocked the IV out of his hands, reached for the poison and knocked the man to the ground.

            He took a syringe from one of the racks, took a good dose of the poison and injected the doctor who howled in terror.

  “You idiot, what have you done!” the doctor yelled.

  “Cure,”

  “What?”

  “The cure? I just poisoned you, now you will lead me to the cure or die,”

  “I’m not afraid of death,”

  “No? you should be, he’s a very scary guy. I don’t know if it’s the black cloak or the big ass scythe…”

  “Are you mocking me?”

  “Maybe a little. Now, cure,”

  “I said-”

  “Yes, yes, not afraid of death, too bad for you I’m here and not him. And you should fear me,”

  “When I die, there will still be another to continue my work,”

  “And no doubt when I kill him he’ll tell me that others will come to replace both of you. I’ll tell you what I will tell him a little later, and what I will tell those who come after. I will kill each and every one of you. I am not Ian, I don’t mind killing,” said Jacks. “Now, cure,”

  “Go to hell,”

  “Very well,” said Jacks.

            He took a scalpel from another rack and slit the man’s throat with a clean left handed cut.

  “Danny will know what the cure is anyway. Say hello to Death for me, tell him I sent you,”

  “Where did you get this?” asked Danny as Jacks gave her the vial.

  “From this guy,” said Jacks and showed her a photo of the doctor he killed. After she had seen it, he deleted it.

  “That was Ryland, I didn’t think he was Council though,”

  “He’s not the only one, there’s another doctor that’s also working for them,”

  “I doubt there’s only two. Thank you, Jacks, I’ll see to getting an antidote for this soon. This explains a lot,” she said and rushed off past him.

            He made his way back to De Beer’s room where Bridget was asleep in the chair next to the bed. He went over to her and kissed her lightly on the brow. Then he turned to look at De Beer.

            The man looked like a shadow of the fearsome agent he was told about when he had first joined. Jacks had wanted to kill the man for most of his life, but orders had been orders and Ian knew better. Now, though, Jacks respected the man and loved his family.

  “Who would have thought,” he said to himself, “you killed my father and now I think of you as one,”

            Ian slept late into the morning, something he was not accustomed to doing but it did happen on occasion. What surprised him, though, was that he actually slept and didn’t just enter the usual limbo they all fell into at night.

            The manse seemed deserted as he made his way to the kitchen where he made a quick breakfast of yogurt and muesli, then made his way to the sparing room where he found JR swinging a greatsword around.

  “You’ve gotten better,” said Ian.

  “Yes, care to see if you can still beat me?” said JR with a cocky smile.

  “Oh, I can beat you,” said Ian and he took two blunted swords from the weapons rack. “So, you and Laura serious?”

            Ian lunged at JR and they exchanged a few blows before Ian caught him on the shoulder with the flat of his left blade.

  “Yeah, I think so, she’s a decent girl,”

            This time JR lunged at Ian but three swing into his flurry he overstepped and Ian hit him in the chest with the pommel of his right blade.

  “That’s what you said about the last girl,” said Ian and he unleashed his own flurry at JR, who managed to block each blow although his arm felt numb afterwards. “And the one before that,”

            As Ian lunged, JR drove his own sword forward. Ian barely moved out of the way in time before disarming JR and swiping his feet out from under him.

  “But this one’s different,” he said as Ian helped him up.

  “You also said that about the last one,”

            The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. The two of them went to see De Beer and afterwards headed back to Prime to see if they could locate the Shadow and the Oracle. When Danny arrived after work, she and Ian spent a few hours looking for wedding venues and deciding on dates.

            It was well past midnight, as it often was when Ian decided to sneak out of bed and up to the roof. He expected to find Ed up there, but instead it was CNet’s mobile platform.

  “Commander,” greeted the AI.

  “What are you doing up here?”

  “I noticed you humans did this when you are troubled. It seemed to help, so I thought I would give it a try,”

  “And?”

  “I believe it is a human thing and has no effect on Artificial Intelligences,”

            They were quiet for a while bit Ian couldn’t help but smile.

  “What’s troubling you? Did your date go poorly?”

  “No, quite the contrary, I believe it went well,”

  “Based on what?”

  “She kissed me,”

  “Kissed you?”

  “Yes, on the cheek,”

  “And?”

  “And?”

  “Well normally when someone asks that you give more details,”

  “I have seen what you and Danny get up to, but if you wish, she leaned in slowly, and-”

  “No you moronic device, what happened after the kiss?”

  “Well not much could possibly happen. From what I understood, sex is normally not permitted on the first date. Besides, this platform is not equipped for such activities,”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,”

  “What did you mean?”

  “Did you take her home?”

  “Yes. Was I supposed to leave her there?”

  “No. Never mind,” said Ian exasperated.

            Silence ensued once more.

  “Commander,”

  “Yes,”

  “Do you think it is possible for a human to love a machine?”

  “A machine, no. An AI that is self-aware, perhaps,”

  “And is it possible for an AI to love a human?”

            Ian stared at the robot for a few seconds then looked up at the sky.

  “CNet, I played a cruel trick on you when I built you, I coded in the ability to simulate feelings. I believed it would help drive you, and it has, but it is a cruel thing to do to an AI. Humans have no choice, we have to fell, AIs don’t,”

  “But I can?”

  “The short answer, yes, the long answer? Who am I to tell you that you cannot feel if your code tells you differently? It would be like me telling Ed he doesn’t love Elizabeth simply because of his track record. I cannot prove nor disprove what he feels,”

  “That does not help me at all,”

  “No, but I’m willing to bet you’re feeling better?”

  “Yes,” said CNet reluctantly and looked out over the forest.

  “Good night, CNet. And stop spying on me and Danny, would you?”

  “I will try,”