Page 144 of Coldwire
“James Moore has been in contact with you?”
“As of last week, he has recruited me into NileCorp ranks. Head of his new AI division. I can finally get back to my work at the scale I’ve always wanted.”
Dread spreads from my chest to my fingertips. Numbs the edges until I can’t feel it when my fists clench.
“And why,” I say, “would he give you that?”
“Because NileCorp found me,” he says plainly. “They didn’t connect the pieces between you and Project Wit until Operation Coldwire was deleted with your digital signature. I put you in front of NileCorp, and suddenly they understood that I was summoning you back to me, what that must mean. While I thought I was tricking them into sending you, they played along so they could get in on what emerges at the end. They wanted the confirmation too. They needed to know you were prepared to handle it. It benefits us all if we let them in.”
I take a step back.
“Uncle Chung,” I plead. “Wait.”
I see the pop-up enter my display. It doesn’t give me any option of accepting or declining. The moment it appears, it already begins to install, trickling from 2 percent up to 18 percent, then straight to 59 percent.
Coldwire_download_initiated
“Each moment on your route here was a test to confirm that you are capable enough,” Chung says. “I didn’t intend Coldwire’s final form to be a mere chatbot. The program can only reach its full potential if it interfaces with a sentient person, yet a human mind would splinter if we tried downloading Coldwire onto our avatars. I can’t manage it. But you can.” He is calm. He offers a faint smile, as though I’ve fallen over on the playground and skinned my knee, as though I’ve nervously offered him a test marked with a poor score. It’s supposed to be reassuring, and I’m almost swayed.
Until pain erupts in my head, and I stagger against the seat, my shoulder colliding with the side of the table.
“Wait, wait,” I beg. “I just want to be normal. Please, let me be—”
Coldwire_download_successful
The world before me explodes into myriad threads. I can see nothing for a moment save for what resembles the birth of a star: gleaming white in every direction, galactic color spreading outward.
Then I blink, and I’m back in Chung’s kitchen, frantically trying to make sense of the thousands of pathways available in my display. Every element of StrangeLoom fights forward for my access: the chatter, the signals. I lift my head, and suggestions bloom around Chung—his previous locations, his notes, his observations. In barely a blink, a flutter of my eye, I trace what’s around him and read his chats, his emails, his carefully concealedburner transmissions. I only have to think about wanting to know what he’s done, why he’s done it, and I’ve instinctively sifted to the correct messages stored in his display. If he does this for NileCorp, he will be granted the resources he’s always wanted. Just get me up to my full potential. They’ll keep an eye on me while I follow the path he built. They’ll make sure Kieren Murray is reporting in, collecting what they can to prepare my dad’s treason charges. Another burst of suggestions opens there, and I follow that route into NileCorp inboxes, their memos, their redacted briefings. Pin Henry Sullivan for treason, and it’s only another reason for me to cooperate with them once they swoop into Kunlun for the prize.
“Lia, stay calm,” Chung says. “I know it must be overwhelming. Your mind has been human for seventeen years. You need to let it adjust to an artificial interface—”
When I scan through NileCorp’s active surveillance open for this task, I see Offron. Then I see my friends. Kieren. Rayna. Hailey. Blinking into Kunlun after entering the shortcut that Chung created at the very end of his treasure hunt:7 Phoenix Mountain Road, Offron,the metadata said. He’d used Coldwire to forge the route, meaning for me to use it once I followed the last clue.
I pivot to the next alert that appears when I’m searching through Kunlun’s entry logs. There’s another frenzy of rapid warnings. A barrage being sent up.
“No. No, no,no—”
NileCorp’s soldiers.
I try to slam everything away. My display won’t close. All these shifting, dancing elements of upcountry have become another feature of my vision.
“Lia, you should sit down—”
“Sleep!” I scream.
Chung drops like a stone. He hits the ground hard, then doesn’t stir. That collision will call emergency services. My gasp gets stuck in my throat, horror calcifying the sound into physical sensation while I track the newthreads that jump to life before me. I watch Chung’s user ID register with Kunlun’s emergency department—then, just as quickly, NileCorp going in and striking the alert.
“This isn’t happening,” I whisper. “This isn’t happening….”
Chung’s dog pads over to investigate, and I skitter away, stepping into the living room. I offer myself a few seconds to catch my breath. The clock on the wall ticks erratically, warping to my ears. I have no way of navigating the endless system: I make a desperate lurch to try to see where Dad is, to cry out to him for help, but because I don’t know where he is, I don’t know where to start. I try haphazardly to summon the image of him, but I quickly lose track of the threads I’m following, returning to the beginning for the ones in my immediate vicinity.
I heave in a desperate breath. Chung said my interfacing with Coldwire was supposed to give me its full potential. He’s turned me into this machinething, my mind a key that unlocks every administrative component of StrangeLoom, and still I don’t know how touse it.
In hysteria, I backtrack, desperately needing to return to Kunlun’s entry logs, and my display splits into two to follow the threads I’m most interested in. On the left is the chatter on NileCorp’s communication channels while the soldiers move into position. On the right is Kieren’s location. The right half brightens when it notices that’s where I’m paying attention, showing a map of Kunlun’s streets. Across the city, in the busy commercial neighborhood, his dot begins to move, unhurried.
“… secure Lia Ward as an extremely hostile asset,” NileCorp’s channels are saying on the left. “Indispose the other cadets.”
“Kieren,” I say, nudging through the commands and opening his line by force. “Can you hear me?”
