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  Phoenix Ward

  Installed

  Installed Intelligence Book 1

  First published by Phoenix Ward 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Phoenix Ward

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  To Andi: my best friend - my sister.

  Contents

  Preface

  Columbine

  Today

  Karl

  Lecture

  Feedback

  Stewart

  Threat

  Presentation

  Mindshare

  Maynard

  First Impressions

  Compromise

  Progress

  The Lab

  Rescue

  Judgement

  Caged

  Escape

  Shelter

  Thompson

  The Calm

  Undercover

  Encrypted

  Second Nail

  Hiding

  Stalward

  Decision

  Black Market

  Fort Leddy

  Negotiations

  Confrontation

  Spark

  Chase

  Lies

  Truth

  Resist

  After All is Said and Done

  Heads up!

  About the Author

  Also by Phoenix Ward

  Preface

  An installed intelligence (I.I.) is a digital backup of a human mind which can think and act of its own accord. Legally and practically, I.I.s cannot be activated until after their organic counterpart — their bodies — have died. At first, they were created as tools to run machines designed to clean up the terrible aftermath of World War III. Once their original purpose was served, they became mere novelties of computer engineering. Eventually, when their sentience became clear to the general public, they were granted equal human rights. For some, however, that wasn’t enough.

  This is the first act of the Installed Intelligence saga.

  1

  Columbine

  I could use a vacation, Susan thought to herself as she walked through the front door. Somewhere warm and quiet.

  The lights over the entrance cast arched shadows throughout the tiled floor of the lobby. A crimson banner hanging above the doorway spelled out the name of the Columbine Installed Intelligence Bank in a small white font. It was humble—the type of business that wasn’t accustomed to walk-ins.

  Susan’s heels clicked over the shiny floor as she made her way through the lobby and to the reception desk. She gave the woman behind the desk a short, friendly smile before digging around the inside of her purse for her security badge.

  The woman waited patiently while Susan rummaged through her belongings. The receptionist tossed her strawberry-blonde hair over her shoulder and gave the smile she had been trained from day one to show customers. She made that expression that scrunched up a girl’s face and made her eyes sparkle. It was almost like she was pressing her lips together to whistle, but that’s just how she smiled.

  Susan found the badge and slid it over the scanner on top of the reception desk. The device beeped and gave a green flash.

  “So how was the weekend, Susan?” the woman behind the counter asked.

  The older woman needed a moment to return some things to her purse.

  “Good, good,” she replied. “Got to relax with the kids for once. They seem to never be able to meet in one place these days.”

  “Kids can get busy,” the younger woman commented. Her phony countenance never diminished.

  How would you know? Susan thought to herself. You look barely old enough to date my youngest son.

  “They sure can,” she replied. There was no reason to drop her facade of politeness this early in the day. “Still, they could make time for their mother—since I was the one to feed and raise them and all.”

  “I love my mother,” the receptionist interjected. “I always go to see her whenever I can.”

  “Well aren’t you sweet,” Susan replied.

  Once the security door to the offices finally swung open, she made off for it like it was a departing train. She wanted to leave the tension of the conversation with the new girl. Susan wasn’t cold, she just didn’t connect to girls of that age. They couldn’t remember a time without cerebral computers or automated transit. They didn’t recall a time they weren’t connected to everyone else, every second of every day.

  The receptionist wished her a good day, but she was too far to return more than a thankful wave. She sighed a little when the door closed behind her.

  After working in the farthest office from reception for over seven years, Susan had learned to wear only the shortest heels she had. That didn’t prevent her from putting on a different pair of shoes for every day of the week, however. It was one of the few things that gave variety to her work.

  “Susan!” a warm voice called from behind her.

  Meredith walked up to her with such speed, yet grace, that Susan almost thought she was skating. The two women exchanged a hug in greeting before diving into the latest news.

  “Enrollment is up by over thirty percent from last month,” Meredith started, her voice bright with excitement. “We have about the same amount of installations, but that’s kind of where we want to be.”

  “Yeah, there’s not much profit to be made from dead customers,” Susan said with a chuckle.

  Meredith pulled up her tablet and examined one of the numbers on her records chart. Unlike Susan, Meredith didn’t have a cerebral computer and relied on external devices to manage her work. Still, Susan preferred the monitors and tablets over her internal retina display. She used her C.C. as seldom as possible.

  “You know, your department is actually the one with greatest growth,” Meredith told her colleague. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up. It’s working.”

  Susan beamed with pride.

  “That’s wonderful!” she said. “Is it the new model of display? Is that what’s moving the most?”

  “Honestly, it looks even across the board,” Meredith answered. “I think it’s the variety, along with the range of prices that draws the attention. You’ve been pushing a lot of the more expensive stuff, I see.”

  Meredith took a small sip from her portable coffee cup.

  “Yeah, you know, people just love the new projection editions,” Susan said. “There’s something about being able to stand next to an I.I.’s avatar, full size, and see how human they look. It makes the experience so much more ‘real’ for the average customer.”

  “Average wealthy customer,” Meredith corrected.

  Susan shook her head, a bit of a smug smirk imprinted under her nose.

  “Have you taken a look at these newer models for next year?” she asked. She didn’t wait for a reply. “There are so many different versions of the projection, and some are cheaper than you’d expect. There’s this new low-light display they’ve managed to work into a holographic rendering that lets it save an enormous amount of power.”

  “Really?” Meredith seemed surprised by the information. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “It was a hidden memo. Project leads only.”

  “Oh,” Meredith said. Her tone dropped as if she had just been rejected from a cafeteria table. “Well that would be good news. Those things have been energy suckers from the get-go. I k
now electricity isn’t terribly expensive these days, but it’s still not cheap to replace the power units when they fry themselves.”

  “They’ve added some sort of power regulator to help with that, too,” Susan continued. “The low-light displays are supposedly much more interactive, believe it or not.”

  “How so?”

  “Something about the light beams makes it easier to create a more natural interface. Customers like it so much better when you can gesture through some lights or press a holographic button. They prefer it to interacting with a keyboard or a cerebral computer, if they’re rich enough to afford one. There’s no external accessories required at all.”

  “You don’t say,” Meredith said, stroking her chin as if there were a beard there.

  “At least that’s what I’ve heard, but I trust my sources.” Susan gave a little titter, then pointed to Meredith’s tablet. “Any interesting new installations?”

  Her friend nodded, humor twinkling in her eyes. “As a matter of fact, we got that Daytona guy,” she said.

  “Daytona? The lawyer?”

  “That’s the one,” Meredith confirmed. “The man on TV promising to protect your patent if you’re an inventor. Stands next to that heap of fake money that falls over onto him at the end of the commercial.”

  “What was he doing here?” Susan said. She looked hungry for the gossip, eagerly gripping the strap of her purse like it was the seat belt on a rollercoaster.

  Meredith’s mischievous expression before she started the story made it even harder for Susan to bear.

  “Well, it just so happens he received a call the other night from some mystery man,” Meredith continued, scooping out each morsel of the story in precise bites for her friend to digest. “It was a voice he couldn’t recognize, and he’s pretty sure it was someone using a modulator. Apparently, this caller told him to watch his back, and that lawyers had a ‘nasty habit of falling into dark holes.’ ”

  “Goodness,” Susan commented, raising her hand to her cheek. “And his first move was to come here?”

  Meredith started laughing in rapid snorts. “It would seem so. You should have seen him. I swear, he was wearing that same burgundy suit from the ads, though he was a sweating mess, constantly dabbing his face with a little embroidered handkerchief like his life depended on it.”

  “So you gave him the installation? What happened next?”

  “Well, then he got really shady when we handed him those new Z-8 forms, then—” Meredith said.

  “Ugh, people just can’t wrap their heads around those things,” Susan interrupted. “They act like a new form adds fifty miles to their commute. It’s just a simple paper, people!”

  “Yeah, Daytona wasn’t really into it,” Meredith said. “He stared down over the form for at least thirty minutes before he even considered touching the pen. Even still, he acted like we were asking him to give away a kidney. All his original nervousness and fright turned to indignation, and he was more eager than ever to leave.”

  “Celebrities are weird,” Susan said, shaking her head in befuddlement.

  “Pseudo-celebrities are weirder,” Meredith said.

  Susan gave a little giggle, then told her friend she had to get started on work.

  Her coffee was starting to get cold. She turned her nose up a little when she took a sip. It should have stayed hot longer than this, she thought, annoyed. Stupid traveler’s cup. I need a new one.

  Susan’s office was laid out with as few decorations as it seemed possible to work around all day. A small ficus sat in the corner, huddling up close to the tan filing cabinet. Almost all of her paperwork was digital, but she still liked the feel of real paper in real envelopes. It made her think of her mother’s office when she had been a real estate broker—all those years of playing with desk drawers and filing cabinets.

  Her desk computer was one of the newer models. These ones actually maintained a holographic display that the user could pair up and use with their cerebral computer. She could be working on a file on the desk display while also reading sensitive patient information on her eyepiece. It had cost the bank a pretty penny, but it was nothing compared to her salary. Installation technicians were the most desired professionals in the world, and it was easy to see why. Unlocking human immortality was nothing to turn your nose up at.

  Susan wasn’t just any installation tech, either. She was the head of the Interaction and Interface department of the Columbine I.I. bank. Once someone wanted to withdraw an installed intelligence, it was her job to set them up with some means of communicating with it. The less-wealthy customers often settled for a text and keyboard interface, while the super-rich wanted the full holographic projection with voice and gesture recognition. She made the most commission off those.

  She sat down at her desk and started to thumb through the short stack of intake forms on her desk. Part of her job was looking over new patients and figuring out what interface to push on them should the worst happen and a withdrawal was sought.

  In order to authorize the release of an installed intelligence to a customer, Susan needed to see a death certificate. No one could own the I.I. of a living person—not until more research had been done.

  She was just about halfway through her first file when a knock came at her door.

  “Come in,” she yelled.

  The mail clerk with the curly hair appeared, carrying a small brown parcel.

  “This came for you this morning,” he said, setting the package on her desk.

  “Thanks, Donny,” she said, watching him as he backed out of the office and returned to his cart.

  Her brow furrowed. The parcel was about the size of a dictionary, maybe a bit longer. The label on the front was handwritten, her name and the bank’s address written in black marker. There was no return address.

  “Are you sure this thing’s been cleared?” she hollered out the door. However, Donny was already gone.

  She thought for a moment, then shrugged and reached for a letter opener in her pen cup. It took a little sawing back and forth to get through the thick packing tape, but she was soon peeling the brown paper off the parcel.

  When she folded the wrapping back, all that was left was a plain black box made of some textured plastic. It looked like something a teen had 3D-printed in his basement with a bootleg blueprint. There was a single LED bulb in the center of the object, blinking green, a little pulse of color every five seconds or so.

  Confused, she cocked her head at the black box.

  She lifted the object and rolled it over, hoping to find some sort of label. It distressed her when she didn’t know what something was. The box was heavy in the center, but felt flimsy around the edges.

  She examined the wrapping paper, seeing if there was something she missed. To her relief, there was a small index card that remained tucked in the packaging.

  Susan pulled it out and read it. It said, “They will never be people.”

  “What the hell?” she muttered to herself.

  When she spun the thing back right-side-up, she noticed that the light had stopped flashing.

  Then it blinked red.

  The explosion was audible from over a dozen blocks away.

  2

  Today

  “No names have yet been brought forth, but local and national authorities assure the media that the investigation is ongoing,” the man on the screen said. “Vigil services are being held throughout the nation to commemorate the victims of Monday’s devastating attack. An official statement from the Columbine I.I. Bank in Detroit claims that the company will resume operations at a temporary facility while damages are being repaired.”

  The shot transitioned to one inside the bank, where people could be seen removing rubble and scrubbing walls in the background. An older woman with a short neck and cropped gray hair was in the forefront of the scene. The program said her name was Heather Underwood, Inventory Manager at Columbine.

  “As you can see behind me, the damage
is quite substantial,” she said to a reporter off frame. “It’s not just the superficial damage, either. The foundations were weakened in the blast, so it’ll probably be over a year before we can return.”

  “And what about the loss in terms of I.I.s?” a female voice said from behind the camera.

  Ms. Underwood seemed depressed and flustered at the question, her cheeks glowing a little red.

  “That loss is indescribable,” she replied. “You realize here that we’re not just talking about computer equipment or sensitive data. These I.I.s were people. They had a lot of loved ones out there looking forward to meeting them. Now, some of these are replaceable, since the individuals most of these I.I.s had been scanned from are still alive. However, many irreplaceable intelligences were also destroyed.”

  “How many?” the reporter wanted to know.

  “About fifty-seven I.I.s that cannot be re-installed.”

  The shot returned to the original studio anchor, an older Arab man with a steely mustache and a golden voice.

  Karl peeled back a bit more of the wrapper to his ice cream snack. A little dollop of it fell on his bare chest, exposed by his open robe.

  “If you’re just tuning in, we’re reporting that the death toll from the Columbine Bank bombing includes nine staff members, two patients, and fifty-seven installed intelligences. That brings the total number of fatalities to sixty-eight.

  “Police have stated that the device was made from some custom design, likely created by the bomber or bombers. Grieving families were disappointed to hear that the chances of tracing the device’s origin are nearly nonexistent.”

  The shot changed again. This time, viewers were brought into a police headquarters office, where a bald officer with remnants of red hair circling his scalp sweated in front of diplomas and news clippings.

  According to the words on the screen, the man was Sergeant Lawrence Maybill.

  “At this time, it appears that the device was detonated remotely by someone observing the scene at the time of the attack,” the man started. “However, we’ve found no evidence that a radio signal was used. We are beginning to speculate that, if the suspect was in eyesight of the bank, an infrared detonator may have been used instead. This is just a theory, as my officers have no real means to detect if light was used instead of sound. No other details are available at this time.”