1. Circuit Board

Jin, a twenty-seven-year-old Chinese factory worker, dressed in simple blue coveralls, readied himself for work at the factory. Days at the factory were long, twelve hours, but he took some solace in that he was no longer on night shifts. He smiled at his wife who had carefully laid out breakfast on the small table that they used for everything, from eating to repairing their clothes, or somewhere to sit and read. It was a simple life, lived in a room that measured little more than a prison cell.

Jin and his wife Liling lived in a nuclear bunker built on the outskirts of Beijing in the 1970s, that was home to hundreds of people now. There were millions of people across the mega-city that lived in similar conditions.

At the end of the bed was a small basket, once a plastic box used to stock supermarkets with milk, now with blankets carefully placed inside it had become a cot for their daughter, just 6 weeks old. Hearing his daughter burble in her cot, Jin leant over to look inside and tickled his daughter under the chin. She laughed in response to her touch.

“She laughed. Did you hear it? Have you heard her do it before?” Jin said elatedly.

“First time. She has a beautiful voice,” Jin’s wife said smiling, her voice dry from the poor nights of sleep with the baby. “Breakfast?”

Jin took a few quick mouthfuls of the breakfast his wife had made.

“I’m late. It’s good. Save the rest for me. I’ll eat it when I get home.” Jin chewing the warm noodles and another slurping a spoonful of soup.

Jin got off the bed, it was impossible for him and his wife to sit at the table together with room enough for just one small chair. He picked up a small backpack that had his lunch and an old-fashioned book that he was reading, and carefully walked to the door so as not to disturb his daughter.

“Jin. Your tablet?” Liling his wife said holding his comm-tablet. “You have credit for calls?”

“Thank you, Lili. No. No credit.” Jin answered his mood a little dampened faced with the unavoidability of their poverty.

Liling picked up her own comm-tablet. She unlocked a social application, found her husband’s profile, and then transferred half of her credit to him.

“There. You do now.” Liling said warmly, lifting Jin’s spirits back up.

Jin waved to his wife and child as he closed the door behind them. He made his way through the cavernous bunker and greeted those he’d come to know as friends over the months of living underground. He made an effort to be optimistic and to smile, there were others who had much heavier burdens than he, and he found these small gestures helped.

In the distance, he could see the sprawl of the city, the dense traffic and towering buildings. He waited ten minutes for the bus to arrive. It was always on time, and missing it, would lose him two days of pay. Jin’s personal truism was that if you’re ten minutes early, you’re never ten minutes late.

The bus ride was long, although the factory was only ten miles from the bunker, the bus made many stops, collecting workers, like children for school. Jin worked at the factory for a month. He noticed on the bus that the newer workers liked to talk on the ride, but in the factory, talking was forbidden and with so few jobs in the market, one infraction was a warning and the second was termination. After his first week, the desire to talk with his coworkers all but went, and they had no wish to talk either. Talking was a habit best forgotten at the factory.

Everyone at the factory was fortunate to have their job. The assembly lines from the robots, to the self-driving and loading vehicles, down to the conveyor belts had become infected with a malicious virus. The robotic arms tore up and cut into rubber belts, soldering irons burnt scars into circuit boards and the self-driving cars abandoned their programmed routes. The damage was catastrophic. The Otōto Group replaced the infected systems only to have the incident repeat. Eventually, they were forced to hire people to work in the factory while they traced down the source of the virus.

The bus slowed to turn and enter the massive gates at the Otōto Manufacturing Plant. The factory was large and spread out, he estimated a half-a-million square feet divided across four facilities. Every morning, dozens of buses would bring workers from all of the city, to assemble robotic toys for the Japanese company.

Jin fell into line with the rest of the workers and headed to Factory Four where he was assigned. He felt his comm-tablet vibrate in his pocket. He took the tablet from his pocket. The notification screen told him that he had received a video message.

He stopped, increased the volume on the tablet and pressed play. It was a short message from Mr. Harada.

A middle-aged man, with a heaviness to his face, creased with age and violent experience, a friend to Jin.

“We’re ready for you now.” Mr. Harada said with a beaming grin.

Jin switched the comm-tablet off and slipped it back into his pocket and rejoined the workers filing inside to start their shifts.

2. Memory Cloud

Anders and the Support Approxima travelled in a car together to the Kill Box to continue their investigation into Professor Saunders and the theft of the substrate. The Support Approxima that accompanied Anders wore a personality construct that he’d personally designed, Malcolm Drury. Anders had rendered Malcolm as a flawed man, the kind of person that you would never encounter in the Governance, a gambler, a drinker and a womaniser.

Ander’s had gone so far as to insist that the Malcolm be capable of having a hangover for authenticity. To Ander’s surprise, XIS-814 agreed to Ander’s specification, whether or not there’d be time within the assignment to see his partner work out his demons over a casino table or a bottle of whisky was yet to be seen.

“Can you give me an outline summary? You AI work with datasets, we humans, we can take our information verbally, we just need the headlines.” Anders said to Malcolm asking for the breakdown of the intelligence collection and investigation to date.

“There are three Approxima with the ability to wear a complex personality like we saw in Professor Saunders, presently in Taiwan,” Malcolm replied. “The Approxima was smart, it didn’t provide any actionable intel in its conversations with An, the Research Assistant.”

“Where were these three Approxima?” Anders asked.

“All accounted for. So our best theory is the Approxima loaded with the Professor Saunders personality construct came from outside of the country. That’s all we have. We’re going through all the units deployed in the Outside Zone and checking that decommissioned units are where they are meant to be.” Malcolm said sharing everything that he knew.

“What if she wasn’t an Approxima? What if she was human. We’re basing this on the gait-analysis. What if she had prosthetic legs? It could give a false positive. Right?”

“It could. Sound theory. I’m submitting it to the XIS.” Malcolm said surprised at the theory Anders posed, one that the AI had missed.

Anders sat at the end of the bed. Tired. It had been a week and the leads were scant. The room was dark. He didn’t want to catch himself in a mirror or see the tremors starting in his hands. He felt a deep and dull ache in his taut muscles, as they hardened and tightened in a chemically deprived aggravation.

He’d been pressing himself too hard, spending days in the field, and without access to his regular diet, and supplements that increased his mental focus and strength, the pain would only increase, a kind of metabolic and endocrinal withdrawal.

He walked out to the balcony of the hotel room and gazed across the city, bright signs, packed together, built one on top of the other, just like the buildings themselves, every inch of stonework that might grab the attention of a passer-by colonised by advertising.

He looked down at the streets, a few people milled about, drunks and groups of youths returning home from their hedonism, and nightcrawlers who fed their vices.

He felt the realisation in his stomach with a hard surge of adrenaline. He’d been looking for the Approxima in the wrong place. There was no reason to assume it was a Governance Approxima that had stolen the substrate. There were plenty of Approxima in the Outside Zone. He called them ‘tapes’, they weren’t AI driven, they were programmed sexual encounters in an older generation android body. Getting a tape to pose as a real person would be a push, but according to An, Professor Saunders never spoke much about herself. Devote the entire performance of a Comfort Approxima to impersonating a single person, it’s a stretch but not impossible.

Anders dashed back into the hotel room to grab his comm-tablet. He connected to the Kill Box. The one thing he preferred working with Approxima over people was that they don’t sleep and nor do the systems that they watch over.

“Run a check for missing Approxima from adult clubs, strip joints or whoever owns one privately. Search for reports of thefts. Some of them might not be reported so run a location on every unit. Send me anything out of the ordinary.” Anders said issuing his orders.

He felt what he called the thrill, a hunger and urge to hunt when he caught the first scent of his prey. Even without his suspicions verified, he had a lead, something he could put his attention on, to chase down.

“And schedule a conditioning treatment for me tomorrow.” He said as he closed the connection and returned to the bed, but this time he pulled the sheets over himself and slept.

Anders stripped down and changed his clothes for a medical gown, then placed himself on the diagnostic table that had been set up in the Kill Box. He’d lost count of how many times he’d been through the conditioning process, it was mandatory after every mission, and on longer deployments every 14 days. Anders closed his eyes, tired or not the machines would put him under, into a deep anaesthetic unconsciousness.

He counted back from ten, he made it to four before the blackness overwhelmed him.

In that darkness came a dream. The Ukraine. The President’s State House. Kalyna. A window. A blackness.

Sleep washed over Anders, and with sleep came dreams. The Ukraine. The President’s State House. He was walking alongside the Chief of Staff’s Approxima, the Kalyna Approxima and the support unit after the assassination of President Andreichenko.

They were in a corridor headed towards the stairs. The Chief of Staff Approxima stopped all without warning and thrust his hand upward, fist closed. Don’t move.

“Stop! We’ve been compromised,” The Chief of Staff Approxima said. “They’ve cut the power. Elevators are out. There’s a four-man team coming up the stairs. Kalyna fall back, take Anders with you.”

As he spoke the lights went out across the floor with a heavy click, as every device and appliance on the floor went dark. The only illumination from the large windows at either end of the corridor.

The two Approxima barked and squawked at one another in their guttural language. The Kalyna Approxima grabbed Anders by the elbow. He wasn’t used to being pulled and directed. He glared at her. She let go of his arm. He followed and turned his head to watch the violence unfold.

The Chief of Staff Approxima and the Support Approxima synchronised. It was something to watch, to see Approxima in battle. Time dilated. They positioned themselves either side of the door. By now Anders assumed that they would have control of the surveillance systems and assault team’s communications.

The soldiers creeping up the stairs couldn’t imagine what they were about to encounter.

Poised behind the door to the stairwell, the assault team slid a snake camera under its base and twisted it to scan the corridor. They would see what the Approxima wanted them to see, their systems compromised by the androids.

The door pushed open wide. The assault team streamed into through corridor and crashed into the waiting Approxima. Shots fired. The Approxima tore into the squad at devastating speed without a care for the bullets that chewed through their synthetic skin, blood welled on their shirts, but once through those artificial tissues, the projectiles bounced harmlessly off the android’s armoured endoskeletons.

A second assault team entered from the other stairwell. The Approxima drew their weapons this time, and remained oblivious to the incoming fire, and returned lethal precise shots. Their projectiles passed straight through the body armour of the assault team as if they weren’t wearing it all. The second assault team fell to the ground dead, like puppets with their strings cut suddenly, limp, lifeless and immobile.

Anders turned the corner at the end of the corridor. Kalyna just ahead of him. He only had a moment to react, just enough time to turn and see a soldier drop from a rappel line to a ledge with his weapon at the ready. Kalyna leapt to place herself between him and the soldier.

“But that’s not how it happened,” He thought “The mission was a success .”

He felt a physical jolt and the same dream began again. The Ukraine. The President’s State House.

While Anders underwent the conditioning treatment, the Medical Approxima examined the topographic representation of Anders’ consciousness. The speed at which the Approxima was able to work with the assistance of an AI enabled it to alter a memory or experience that could cause PTSD or reduce performance in the field. The alterations varied in degrees, from altering mental associations to the subjugation an emotional trauma, to the complete restructuring of a complex memory, that included all five senses.

Using rearranging the memories and experiences subduing emotions and trauma that could lead to post-traumatic stress, and reduce his performance in the field.

This time Anders felt the dream alter. The Kalyna Approxima had become his mother. He accepted the change alteration without question. In dreams this happened all the time, he’d get into a car that would become a cardboard box, a gun became a water-pistol. Memories seemed to last only a few minutes in dreams as though he was on rails travelling through his subconscious.

“Mother what are you doing here? You need to leave. It’s dangerous.” Anders told his Mother, worried with her presence.

“I wanted to see what kind of a man my son grew-up into.” She replied.

Anders turned to look at the Chief of Staff’s Approxima expecting the firefight to explode at any minute, to tell them they need to protect his Mother. He was startled to see the Chief of Staff talking with the assault team and directing them towards the room where the body of the President and his wife were murdered.

“Is that how it happened?” Anders said aloud in his dream.

The topographic representation of Anders’ mind flashed red and then shut down as an emergency safety protocol severed the connection with Anders consciousness. The Medical Approxima rushed to attend Anders on the diagnostic bed to determine the severity of the incident that severed the link.

“You’re awake? How do you feel?” The Medical Approxima asked with concern.

“Yeah. Fine. We’re done?” Anders said as he shook off the delirium from the conditioning process. He stretched his arm, the tension and cramps were gone, he felt refreshed aside the cloudiness of mind.

“For now. Yes,” The Medical Approxima replied. “I’d recommend another conditioning treatment in a few days. Don’t leave it so long between sessions”

“I didn’t think I was supposed to dream during treatment?” Anders said as he rubbed his hands across his face.

“You’re not. As I said, don’t leave the treatments so long.”

3. Called Shots

Danya sat on a bench in Feofaniya Park, dressed in a heavy coat, scarf and woollen hat, to shield herself from the bitter winter. She opened an application on her comms-tablet. She’d already switched off the location tracking, but with the meeting due to start in a few minutes, she activated a custom program that would emit high-frequency noises imperceptible to the human ear but would disrupt any nearby recording devices.

She saw Fedir approach on the path that passed by the bench where she sat. He looked at her for a moment and identified himself with a small nod of his head. Danya waited until he was about to pass by her, and stood up to join him.

“Anton’s friend?” Fedir asked without looking at her.

“Yeah. Danya.” She said unsure of using her real name.

“Okay, Danya. What do you want to know?” Fedir said straight and to the point. “Don’t worry about surveillance. They don’t have the budget for it right now.”

Danya smiled. She felt immediately at ease with Fedir and his professionalism. She suspected he was more than State Security, that he was if not at present, he was at one time a clandestine agent.

“You were at the State House when the President was murdered?” Danya asked testing Fedir’s responsiveness to a direct question.

“I was,” Fedir said.

“You don’t think Kalyna killed the President?” Danya said continuing her line of direct questions.

Fedir snorted. Danya wondered for a moment if that was the full extent of his answer.

“That little thing? No. Impossible. We sent Special Forces Teams into the State House. They didn’t come out,” Fedir said as he returned to the events of the day in his thoughts. “That wasn’t all. I don’t know how to explain this part. I was there, coordinating with the military. And everything went just black.”

“The power went out?” Danya asked unsure of what Fedir was saying.“Not that. We cut the power to the building. Black unconscious. Not just me. Everyone in the vicinity, inside or outside the building.” Fedir said explaining himself.

“Who could do that?” Danya said as the words seemed to fall out of her mouth.

“Exactly. Who could do that?” Fedir said emphasised.

“What about the Special Forces team? What have they said?” Danya asked.

“It’s classified. Even to me. I don’t even know how many survived,” Fedir said with a frustrated tone. “I’m a man who likes to know things. The President’s security was my responsibility.”

“Do you know who they are? Where they are?” Danya asked eagerly.

“The Special Forces teams? Yes. I know them. I don’t know who is alive and who died. But the survivors will be at the Kiev Military Hospital.” Fedir replied.

“Thanks,” Danya said.

“Is that all?” Fedir asked.

“Yeah. That’s all.”

“Nice to meet you, Danya,” Fedir said as he walked away from her, leaving her revelling under the weight of the revelations.

Danya waited inside the office of General Leonid Lazarenko at the Ukranian Ministry of Defense. The rooms in the historic building were dressed with dark woods, thick golden carpets and high ceilings, and provoked memories of the autocratic rule in the Soviet-era. Danya chose to visit the General in the afternoon, following his lunch, during which he would mostly have gotten drunk, likely making her ask easier.

General Leonid Lazarenko, had gained weight, in his youth he had been a commando, but years behind the desk, and the injuries from jumping out of aeroplanes had taken their toll on his body. He would never admit it but he was glad to leave those times behind. In stories of his heroics that he would tell when drunk, he’d act as though it was the best years of his life, but Danya had never seen him happier than as a military bureaucrat.

“Uncle Leonid!” Danya said with excitement as she gave her him a big hug.

“What brings you to my office? It’s not just to say hello is it?” General Leonid said as he took a step back and placed his hands on Danya’s shoulders to look at his niece.

“It’s my friend. Her boyfriend. He was injured at the State House. At least that’s what we think. She was told he’s at the Kiev Military Hospital.”

“Danya, my dear. I don’t know, what you know. But they’re still being debriefed. No one can see them.”

“It’s just to see him. That’s all I need, so I can let my friend know he is okay.” Danya pleaded.

“Your friend, she’s a good friend?” General Leonid said softening in his resistance.

“Yes. The best. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

“I will get you a pass tomorrow. Today, I can’t do. That’s ok?”

“Thank you, Uncle. That’s wonderful.” Danya said as she gave him another tight hug.

“Yes. Danya, I never could say no to you.”

Danya came to the Kiev Military Hospital the following evening. She wore the pass that her Uncle provided her on her coat, and was escorted to the ward where the Special Forces team recuperated. Two armed guards stood at the double doors to the ward.

They stopped Danya and her escort as she approached.

“Identification please Miss?” One of the Guards said, paying no attention to the escort who accompanied her.

“The guard checked her pass, looked at the photograph on it and then at Danya’s face.

“Lazarenko. Related to the General?” The Guard asked.

“He’s my Uncle,” Danya replied matter of fact.

“I served under him. OK. Go inside. Your escort stays here.” The Guard replied.

There were eight beds in the ward, all occupied. The injuries just from her glance were severe, bandaged faces, plaster-casts holding bones in place. They all slept except for one soldier who quietly watched television with a set of in-ear headphones.

“Can’t sleep?” Danya asked the restless soldier.

“Nah. Not even bad television helps.” The Special Force Soldier replied softly.

“Shouldn’t the Doctor’s give you something to help you sleep?” Danya said making sure she kept the tone of her voice friendly and professional.

“Probably but they haven’t. Too many debriefings. They need us lucid.” The Special Forces Soldier told her.

“Sorry to have to put you through another,” Danya said while she placed a seat near the end of the soldier’s bed.

“It’s fine. Better than television. Fire away.” The Soldier said as he invited Danya to ask her questions.

“Just walk me back through the events. I know you’ve told the story so many times already but you know how it is.”

“Yeah. We responded to a threat against the President. Three teams. Red Team on the stairs, Blue Team on the second stairwell and Green Team rappelled from the roof.” The Soldier said as he explained the lead-up to the events in the State House.

“Go on.” Danya said.”

“We didn’t encounter any resistance on the stairs. We ascended to the top floor where the President’s private suite is. And then it went to shit. Sorry. We lost control of the situation.”

“What happened then?” Danya said to encourage him to continue talking.

“We encountered hostiles. Three of them. I was on Red Team, they were so close I only got a few shots off. I hit them. They didn’t even flinch with the impact.”

“They?” Danya asked.

“The hostiles.” The Special Forces soldier qualified.

“Were they wearing body armour?” Danya said following up the soldier’s earlier statement.

“Maybe. But not like we have. Body armour or not the impact will put you on the ground. They didn’t react. That’s not all. The way the spoke. It didn’t sound human. It was like the squeals and static you get tuning in an old-field radio. The shit they teach us how to use if the digital systems go down.I keep thinking about it. They were fast. So fast. Never seen anyone move like that.”

“Did you recognise any of them? Were they known to you.” Danya asked pressing for more detail on the hostiles.

“When people fight, you know they throw a few punches, they kick. They miss a lot. This, the hostiles, every strike was perfectly placed. As I was going down, I watched one of them, take a dozen bullets to the chest and several to the head. No response. They bled but that’s about it.”

“Thanks. It must have been awful. Just focus on getting better.” Danya said as she started to close the interview.

“Yeah. I got the shit kicked out of me. Long time since someone’s done that to me. I’m not bad-ass, I’m the one that got put on his ass.”

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