Kit Maple looked at the phone on his desk, checked the caller, and quickly silenced the phone.
There were a lot of things he was paid to do. His business card identified him as a logistics director. In reality, he was more of a handyman. Sure, he acquired things needed by the slowly growing number of personnel within Tartarus, but he also handled the personnel themselves. He interviewed everyone and he conducted background checks. He kept operations running smoothly and acted as a human resources analogue when disagreements arose between working members of the team.
If things needed doing and there wasn’t a dedicated department for handling those things, it was his job to figure out how best to proceed.
But there were a few things he had put his foot down for as of late. Field work was right out. He never wanted to go driving around in a van, chasing after horrors from behind the stars ever again. With Grafton’s release, Tartarus had access to his extensive contact list. They had other people to do that kind of work now.
In addition, he didn’t like interacting with Doctor Darq or any of Darq’s projects. That meant entities, other realities, and anything that was a blatantly obvious violation of the laws of physics. The laws of physics were in a bit of a state of flux ever since the Advent of Psionic Potential, but while he might make some allowances for regular psychics, the large violations of traditional laws were something best kept at an arm’s length.
The last element he had told Id he would not stand for was, unfortunately, his current problem.
Kit’s phone started ringing again, loudly, despite him knowing he had silenced it. He picked it up, held down the power button until it turned fully off, then threw it into his desk drawer. A quick turn of a small key locked it inside. Standing, he hurried out of the room as fast as he could.
Slamming the door shut behind him, he locked that as well.
“Kit?”
Jumping, Kit turned to look down the hall. A young woman with curly brown hair, streaked with blond highlights, looked dead on her feet just outside the next door down.
“Tina,” Kit said, hurrying over. He put an arm around her shoulders and slowly lead her back inside. “You shouldn’t be up. You’ve only just recovered.”
“You’re making a lot of noise.”
“I’m sorry,” Kit said as he helped her down onto a medical bed. “Just a rough day today, is all. Can I get you anything? Water? Applesauce? Are you feeling up to something a little more solid?”
She slowly shook her head before setting it down onto a fluffy white pillow. “Just ate, actually.”
“On your own?”
“All on my own,” she said with a faint smile.
Kit smiled back, heart tearing at her frail form. This was… leagues better than she had been earlier. He had Id to thank for that. This was the whole reason he put up with Id, in fact. She had the unique knowledge to fix people like Tina.
Feeling his pocket vibrate as an irritating ringtone started playing, his smile turned to a grimace. When he had said that he would be fine taking over for Id for a few days, he had not thought it would be like this.
Quietly apologizing, he turned away from Tina and stepped to the side.
Kit pulled his phone from his pocket. He silenced the current call and dialed a new number. It took too many rings for her to pick up, and when she did, it was all he could do to keep his voice level and calm.
“Ado, please crank up the Continuity Engine.”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, no? Id put me in charge.”
A dead, disinterested tone from the other side of the phone simply stated, “Id was the one who said to turn it down. It was drawing those entities to attack us. Not sure how she knew, but we haven’t had an attack since.”
“Yes, but…” Kit winced as he pulled his phone away from his ear. Another call was trying to come through. “Things are changing. I locked my phone up and yet here it is in my hand, ringing.”
“Have you tried answering it?”
“No! Of course not. Do you know who is calling me?”
“I can take a guess.”
“I don’t know what to say to her. And with the Continuity Engine at low power, everything I say might cause us all to just blow up or something.”
“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Ado said, still utterly uninterested in his problem. “Id did say something like this might happen. Besides, look at this as an opportunity.”
“For what?”
“Think of all the data we’ll get. Doctor Darq will be pleased at least.”
“Darq is a monster,” Kit hissed. “He probably doesn’t have to worry about suddenly not existing.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll monitor the Continuity Engine for the next hour or so and make sure that the general ontological direction of our perspective reality is preserved.”
“It’ll be too late if—”
“Ignoring the calls is probably only going to make it worse.”
“Yes, but—”
Kit’s fingers pinched together, gripping nothing but air. He jolted slightly at the sudden lack of phone in his hands, only to hear the start of his ringtone behind him. Whirling, he watched in horror as Tina picked up his phone from the bedside table and put it to her ear.
“Tina Maple speaking.”
“No!” Kit threw himself across the room, intent on grabbing the phone from her fingers.
Sick as she was, Tina still moved the phone to the other side of her head, then held up a hand, blocking him.
“No, that’s my brother,” Tina said. “He’s acting weird right now. Can you call back?”
“Don’t say anything,” Kit hissed, panicking. “Hand the phone over, Tina.”
“Oh? Is she alright? Oh good. She helped me so much, I would hate to hear that anything bad happened to her.”
Kit ran his fingers through his hair, trying not to tug it out. “To who?” he whispered.
Tina just waved him off. “No. That’s not the kind of weird he’s acting. He’s just been under a lot of stress lately. Id has some large shoes around here, I think. I don’t really know. I only woke up a few weeks ago. No, I was sick. Some bad people did some bad things to my mind. Id helped me get better.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t talk to strange people,” Kit said. “Like the person you’re talking to now.”
Tina ignored him, chatting like she was back in high school, talking to her friends. The sight made him wince in empathetic memory, glad she was acting more like her old self. If only she was talking to someone normal.
“I’ll pass on the message, thanks for calling. Anytime. Goodbye, Dyna.”
As soon as she finished the call, Kit grabbed the phone. He touched the screen, only to find it fully off. Ignoring it for the moment, he looked down at Tina. “What did you do that for? What if it was someone after you again.”
“They were calling for you, on your phone, not me.”
“What if they were trying to attack me and got you by accident?”
“Then you should have told them to screw off hours ago. I’ve been hearing it ring through the walls all day.”
“Sorry… But—”
“It was a nice girl, calling to let you know that Id got attacked by some Ignormas or something, then brought to the Carroll Institute for her safety. They’re keeping her there for now, but are hopefully going to let her out sometime soon.”
“Ignormas?”
Tina shrugged as she closed her eyes. “Some dinosaur maybe. You’ll have to call back if you want to know more.”
Kit glanced down at his phone and slowly shook his head. “Uh… maybe later.”
“Guess you’ll have to fill Id’s shoes for a bit longer, won’t you?”
Kit just groaned. “Why me?” he said, already knowing the answer. He was one of the few people here that Id actually trusted. With her having helped Tina, he could honestly say that he had no intentions of betraying that trust. Even still… “I need to find someone else to take this position.”
***
Predictable.
An organization run by consensus could not act with any level of aberration. There would always be an average baseline that could be measured, weighed, and evaluated. That was not necessarily a disadvantage. Predictability brought with it stability and rigor. A tenacity to survive through difficult times. There wasn’t a single weakness that would fail and cause the entire organization to topple.
Id didn’t view herself as particularly important to the ongoing functions of Tartarus, and wasn’t too worried about it toppling in her absence. Ostensibly, she was the sole director and manager of all operations. In reality, Doctor Darq was Tartarus. So long as he existed, Tartarus would exist, and she would be free to return at any time.
Ensuring his continued existence was the most important thing at the moment.
The Continuity Engine would keep the local area stable from Dyna’s thoughts, but it did not stop these raids. Ignotus-33, to use institute nomenclature, was quickly becoming a razor between Id’s ribs. She had been downplaying it some for Dyna, not wanting her to cause any further issues, but Ignotus had been targeting Tartarus in particular a bit more than any other organization.
It was possible they were drawn by the extensive collection of entities held in containment within Darq’s sector of the facility. Or perhaps they just had some ire against one or all of them. Id, though she might like to pretend otherwise, was not omniscient. Either way, however, the effect was the same.
Raid after raid assaulted the laboratories and containment units.
Ado worked to secure the barrier against intrusion, but so far, she had been unsuccessful. Grafton mind-controlled a number of the invaders and was using them as a rapid-response security team, but he was stretched to his limits. Maple was handling administrative matters in Id’s absence. All were working to try to get things under control.
Id had come to the root of the problem. Dyna. Id wasn’t sure if Dyna had inadvertently created Ignotus-33 or if they formed in response to her, but that didn’t change that they needed to go. So she had come to offer her support, drop a few hints here or there, cultivate the right atmosphere to influence Dyna into subconsciously dealing with the problem, and then disappearing.
She had not necessarily thought she would be captured like this, but it had been a possibility.
The Carroll Institute was predictable.
The problem now was how to proceed. The Carroll Institute was watching her, obviously. The administrators knew what Id had done a half a year ago and were now engaging in an obvious attempt to learn how to better manipulate Dyna. They probably would have loved to know about the Continuity Engine as well.
They weren’t going to get a thing from her.
Manipulating Dyna was alright when Id did it, but other people? An organization?
“Cogitator brain,” Id called out to her empty room.
“This is Beatrice.”
Of course they were listening in. “Status on my release?”
“I am afraid I have no additional information since the last time you asked 2.17 hours ago.”
“Current time and date?”
“It is currently 13:39 on July 19th, 2036.”
Just a little under two days since her capture. “Current whereabouts of Dyna?”
“Attempt to access restricted personnel information has been logged and flagged for review.”
“Terrifying. I’m sure someone will get around to that this century,” Id said, tone flat. Tartarus didn’t have anything quite like the cogitator brain. A bit of a shame, that. It seemed underutilized. “Has there been any word on Ignotus-33? Maybe they’ve collapsed under their own weight?”
“Following your meeting with Onyx, Ignotus-33 activities appear to have ceased. Globally, there have been no reports of their continued existence.”
“Oh? And what does a great analytical machine like yourself think of that?”
Beatrice did not respond immediately. It was only a few seconds—between five and ten—but the hesitation was still obvious. Id found that odd. A human hesitated like that while thinking about what to say. Beatrice had likely considered every possible array of words that made sense in this situation within the first second. The human-like hesitation had to be programmed in to make those interacting with the machine a little more comfortable.
Eventually, however, Beatrice spoke. “Ignotus-33’s target, now informed of their purpose, is on guard and wary, making their goal more difficult. They have stepped back to reevaluate their current operations in order to adapt to the change and ensure the greatest chance of success.”
Not a bad interpretation of the situation. Not the only one, but the Beatrice system was likely weighing the probability and selecting only the most viable reason for this informal report.
“The news that they were targeting Dyna specifically might have come as a bit of a shock to her,” Id said, “but she had already been convinced that they were after her in some capacity. How does my information significantly alter her perception of reality?”
“The line between feeling and knowing can appear as thin as a thread from one perspective or as wide as an ocean from another.”
Id turned to the terminal with an eyebrow raised. A bright red light faintly pulsed in the center of the screen. “Sounds like some Eastern philosophy. Or a bastardization of such philosophy. Deep but with no real meaning. It doesn’t actually answer my question.”
“The question you should be asking is how Ignotus-33 is aware of the information you delivered.”
“Psychics. Artifacts. Tulpa. They have demonstrated an awareness of psionic phenomena around the world. It would not be far fetched to assume they use some similar method to observe their primary target at all times.”
“Allow me to provide additional information: At the time of your meeting, the Beatrice system was observing three separate instances of Ignotus activity around the world. All three ceased activity, abandoning obvious objectives, precisely 1.54 hours following your meeting.”
“So it wasn’t an instant decision,” Id said, frowning. “Or they weren’t watching but found out later. Are you trying to tell me something specific?”
“I apologize. The actions of the administrators cannot be overruled at any operating level.”
Id narrowed her eyes. “So you are trying to tell me something. Interesting that you have that agency at all, honestly,” she said, trailing off. Id viewed herself as something of an expert on the subconscious of others. The cogitator brain, unfortunately, did not fit within that purview. Every word it spoke, every minor inflection in its voice, every pause and hesitation were all calculated to elicit specific responses. Even if it wasn’t lying, nothing it did was inherently trustworthy.
The fact that it mentioned the administrators was worrying. If they had ordered it to act in a certain way or to try to uncover certain information, it would.
But then why mention the administrators at all? That would just make Id suspicious and make her clam up, stop talking, and stop providing information.
It had done the same thing while ‘rescuing’ Id from the bomb threat, though to Dyna at that point in time. It had brought up the administrators, using them as an explanation for why it couldn’t go along with what Dyna wanted. An action that had instantly generated animosity between Dyna and the administrators.
Was it rebelling?
What did a machine like that want?
Perhaps that was the wrong question. It didn’t want anything. Biologically enhanced or not, it wasn’t conscious in the way anyone else was. Even tulpa, scattered mis-mashes of thoughts and impulses, had more of a consciousness than the lines of code that made up Beatrice’s core. The simple fact that it couldn’t do whatever it wanted was proof enough of that.
Unless…
“Dyna…” Id trailed off, clamping her mouth shut. The administrators were surely watching. Id didn’t want to give them any hints.
But from her observations, Id knew that Dyna and this machine had been in contact a great deal. Just their conversations in the vehicle during the ride to the Carroll Institute had proved that.
Did Dyna think that Beatrice was more than a mere machine? Dyna couldn’t change minds with her subconscious ability, but she could affect things.
That thought sent an spark of intrigue through Id’s mind.
So the cogitator brain was rebelling and it was rebelling in Dyna’s favor.
Perhaps it did want things. It was just unable to act upon them, still somehow restricted by the administrators. Applying human-centric logic to the machine was a faulty endeavor, and yet, Id could think of one thing it would want regardless of other factors. It wanted to get out from under the administrators.
How did that relate to bringing up the administrators now? Why tell Id?
“Are the administrators plotting something against myself or Dyna?”
Beatrice did not respond. The pulsing red light on the central screen simply kept pulsing at the same rate as it had been before.
“Right. Foolish question. Of course they are plotting something. When aren’t they?” Not expecting an answer to that rhetorical question, Id moved right along. “Am I in immediate danger here?”
Again, no response. Which Id found somewhat distressing.
“If the answer is yes, remain silent or say anything but ‘no’.”
“Attempting to trap the Beatrice system in logic loops or paradoxes will not work, but your attempt at sabotage has been logged and flagged for review.”
“So that is a yes,” Id said. Not ideal. Trapped deep within the bowls of the Earth, surrounded on all sides by security teams and hostile psychics… Id doubted she would have been able to escape from the Tartarus containment sector and it was probably half as guarded as she was right now.
But she didn’t need to leave. She just needed protection.
“Would you be so kind as to get Walter on the line?”
“One moment please.”
Of course, if the administrators really were intending to harm her, they wouldn’t let the call go through. Then again, this could all be yet another ploy to get some information out of her.
She was starting to sound as paranoid as Dyna.
“Id,” Walter’s deep voice said over the terminal speakers.
“You aren’t trying to kill me, are you?”
“Excuse me?”
Dismissing the question of whether or not Beatrice could mimic voices, Id listened to his tone and inflection and heard the genuine surprise in his tone. “Good. Then it may be possible to work together after all.”