Unstable Prototypes Read online

  Unstable Prototypes

  Joseph R. Lallo

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover By Nick Deligaris

  http://www.deligaris.com

  Copyright ©2012 Joseph R. Lallo

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Prologue

  "Alright boys. Ready for the show?"

  The man speaking was named Karter. Actually, his name was much longer and more complicated than that, but since no one ever used more than the first two syllables, he'd stopped going any further. He was odd looking, to say the least. His head, covered mostly with black hair threaded with gray, featured patches of immaculate, glossy black that would look more appropriate on a doll than a man. His face was mostly typical of an aging man who has shown no interest in taking care of himself, but patches managed to look as smooth and pristine as that of a newborn. As a whole, the vaguely bizarre features would likely have been enough to push him into the so-called "uncanny valley" reserved for androids, bad special effects, and other not-quite-right humanoids, but one in particular was outright wrong. His right iris, rather than matching the hazel color of his left, had a mirror finish. A pair of dark goggles was perched on his forehead, and he was wearing arctic gear.

  Among any other group of people, he would have stood out like a sore thumb. The three men who joined him, however, made him look positively mundane by comparison. Each was dressed for cold weather, sporting the sort of shiny synthetic outerwear that mountain climbers favor. Equally synthetic headgear, gloves, and boots were joined by almost comically oversized goggles blinking here and there with the telltale indicator lights of electronics. What little flesh was exposed was unfailingly marred by burns both chemical and thermal, scars, stitches, grafts, and – where possible – tattoos.

  "We are quite ready, Mr. Dee. I am optimistic that you are able to provide a tool that meets our very specific requirements," said the man who was unquestionably their leader.

  "Minimal structural and biological impact, maximal electronic and technological? Not an uncommon request. Getting things to work on the scale you're looking for would normally be tricky, but lucky for you a prior party had requested something similar a few years back. Right, so let's get started."

  The group was standing in the middle of a seemingly endless field of broken, cratered ground. A gray sky, scattered with wispy white clouds, offered little in the way of light and nothing in the way of warmth. A crust of ice covered everything, crunching underfoot as Karter approached one of a handful of complex looking bits of equipment in their immediate area. A base approximately the size of a fifty-five gallon drum and constructed from shiny metal panels was topped with a trio of spindly metallic arms, studded with small discs and tracing out the rough shape of a globe. On the side of the base was a hefty, Frankenstein-style knife switch, and dangling above it was what appeared to be a pipe bomb attached by quick release to a flimsy gantry. He pulled down his goggles and leaned down toward it, but a message assembled out of at least three female voices crackled across a speaker somewhere beneath his coat, interrupting him.

  "You should inform your guests of the safety precautions," said the message.

  "Oh. Right. You boys might want to look away. Unless, of course, you want to know what your retinas smell like."

  "Our goggles should provide adequate protection," the leader assured.

  "Heh, you wouldn't believe the number of blind guys I know who said that."

  With a quick flick of the switch, he stepped quickly away from the contraption and began heading toward a dilapidated hover-style school bus a few dozen yards away. Behind him, the contraption was humming, and the discs attached to the thin arms were glowing brightly.

  A few seconds later, the rocky field was bathed in a light as bright as day, as a swirling mass of brilliantly shining light coalesced with a whoosh of sound. The three men turned suddenly away, shielding their eyes. By the time any of them could make anything out in the churning purple afterimages that were crowding their vision, they were seeing their host slip into the bus.

  "Let's go, boys," he said impatiently.

  The trio stumbled across the uneven ground and into the bus.

  "Quite impressive, Mr. Dee," said the leader of the men, once the bus had started and was heading quickly away from the blinding device. "How quickly can you-"

  "That's not the device you are after. That's part of the demo. It's a contained ball of helium and hydrogen plasma, the output of a small fusion reactor. It is there to provide us with a reasonable small scale analog of our reaction medium. That doodad hanging over it is the item of interest, the reaction trigger. One of these," he said, pulling out a device, identical to the one hanging over the plasma.

  "Indeed? And what of the rest of this?" asked the spokesmen of the group, indicating the bizarre assortment of devices that were whipping by outside the windows.

  It was a collection of, it would seem, randomly selected objects. There were remote controlled toys rolling and hovering about between street lamps, data terminals, hover cars, and even a small, hovering space vessel.

  "Targets. A representative sampling of consumer electronics and infrastructure. Some on batteries, others hooked up to generators, and others hooked up to the grid. Right. Here we are."

  They pulled up to what looked to be a fortified bunker. The plasma ball was a bright dot on the horizon.

  "Get ready, and keep your eyes on the plasma," Karter said.

  A few moments passed, the three visitors observing the now distant ball of light with eyes just recovering from its ignition. When nothing seemed to be happening, the leader turned to address their host.

  "What precisely are we-" he began, just in time to see the door click shut on the bunker.

  "Activating," said Karter over a loudspeaker mounted on the bunker.

  Before anyone could voice concerns about why he had seen fit to hide within the shelter and leave them outside, the tiny form of the pipe bomb released, dropping into the plasma. A moment passed, and then a massive lance of light burst out of the top of the plasma ball, curling into the sky like a silk ribbon drawn into a tornado. As quickly as it came, it was gone, but the effect it left in its wake was undeniable. Instantly, each of the devices and vehicles filling the field between the bunker and the test site failed simultaneously. Hovering devices dropped to the ground. Some of the less potent gadgets fizzled with pops of electricity, and there was even a scattered spray of sparks from some. Even as far away as they were, the PA speaker made crackling hiss of failure and the hover bus momentarily shuddered.

  The door to the bunker clicked open again, and Karter walked out.

  "That was a directional emission, pointing straight up. What you witnessed happening to all of this crap in the field was just the collateral damage, so try to picture what it would have done if it was actually aimed at them."

  "Unmistakably impressive," remarked the spokesman. He withdrew a credit card sized piece of electronics from his pocket. It flickered a few times, but finally activated, displaying a mildly scrambled welcome screen. "The effect was very brief, however. My slidepad is already coming back online."

  "That's because the fusion reactor was taken out by the blast. Toss something like that into a reactor that can take the hit, or is self-sustai
ning, and that pulse becomes a continuous broadcast. And it scales linearly with the size of the reaction medium, so you can imagine what it would be like when you try it on the real deal."

  "With any luck, I won't have to imagine it. How long would this broadcast last?"

  "We've only ever deployed one of these in the field once. I think it lasted for three months. But that wasn't anywhere near optimized. It was a rush job. I figure we could get that up to a year pretty easily. And firing these things is all you'll have to do. Automated targeting makes them home in on their targets, automated defenses makes them impossible to disarm, and twilight drives keep them from being tracked by normal sensors."

  "Excellent. You'll be coming with me, then. I'll need you to prepare a production facility so that we can maintain a ready supply," he said, tapping some commands into his freshly rebooted pad.

  "Nope. We do the production here. If you want reproduction rights, we are talking about a much larger fee. So-"

  "Multiple unauthorized device deployments detected in and around the facility," the automated voice announced. "Electromagnetic pulse dev-"

  The signal suddenly cut off in a burst of digital distortion. Karter's hand was already on the grip of a firearm at his belt, but a hypodermic injector was pressed to his neck and he collapsed to the ground.

  "Lock coordinates and activate, radius six meters, centered on transmitting position," ordered the leader into his slidepad as his men gathered up the unconscious inventor and clustered around.

  A few moments later there was a flash. When the dust cleared, the men, as well as a hemispherical bowl of rock and soil beneath where they had stood, were gone.

  Chapter 1

  Lex had certainly enjoyed more than his share of excitement in the past. His short but stellar career in the world of hoversled racing, one would imagine, would have been the high point so far. Failing that, it would certainly be a reasonable assumption that his ruinous fall from grace at the hands of a race he'd fixed against his will would have added plenty of undue excitement to his life. In truth, though, it all paled in comparison to the events of earlier that year when he had, through dumb luck and desperation as much as skill, managed to foil a plot that could have taken the lives of nearly half a million people, not to mention the star systems they called home. That little adventure was something he thought of as the 'Bypass Gemini Incident.' It had involved directly opposing VectorCorp, the largest corporation in the galaxy, and had required the aid of a man who could only be called a mad scientist. Yes, there had been a number of exciting days in his life.

  This was not one of them.

  Currently he was cleaning up his tiny apartment. The place was little more than a combination living room/bedroom dominated by a flatscreen that took up nearly one entire wall and a futon that occupied most of what space was left. A door at the opposite side led to a room that would have been called a closet if not for the fact that it had a sink, a refrigerator, and a microwave. It adjoined a room that was similarly a bathroom in name only, with a toilet and shower wedged tightly enough to make successfully closing the door behind you a veritable contortionist act. Generally he allowed trash and grime to accumulate until it made it difficult to navigate the space safely, but today he was sanitizing it in preparation for a rare visit from his girlfriend.

  Her name was Michella Modane, and by virtue of their jobs, the pair had been having something of a long distance relationship despite the fact they lived less than twenty minutes apart. She was an investigative reporter, and thanks to her coverage of the very same near-catastrophe that had made such an impression on Lex's life, she'd managed to become one of the more respected and sought after figures of local news. In the past, "local news" might not have been an impressive achievement, but these days the term local tended to cover multiple planets, so she was rather proud of how far she had come. Most of her information regarding that first big story had come from Lex himself, but everything since had been due to her own significant skills. In the eight months since that big break, she had gone on to unearth scandals and plots ranging from disgraced government officials to corrupt corporate executives. If you had secrets, you did NOT want to get a visit from Michella Modane.

  One might then assume that this meant that Lex had no secrets. After all, he was anticipating her arrival so eagerly he was willing to clean out the crevices of his futon, which was at this point a veritable archeological expedition. As a matter of fact, Lex did have secrets, a point which had caused no small amount of friction between them. The first was the specific name and location of the man who had provided him the equipment that had made his heroic deeds possible. Considering the fact that he'd bested the security of VectorCorp, a company more powerful than most individual governments, and had done so despite a complete lack of anything resembling training, her curiosity was entirely understandable. So far he'd been able to avoid telling her by making it clear that his unnamed benefactor would be in terrible danger if he was revealed, and more so, would not be terribly pleased with Lex for revealing him. It had been enough to convince her, and by happy coincidence it happened to be true.

  The second secret had to do with the fact that the owner of his apartment building was a man named Nicholas Patel, the head of one of the better known organized crime syndicates, and why precisely he was allowing Lex to live rent free. Michella had never expressed curiosity about it for the simple reason that she didn't know about it, and had so far not been given any reason to suspect it. This was very fortunate, since the last time he'd become tangled with the mob it had led to the aforementioned fixed race, which had in turn led to the destruction of his career and a two year hiatus in their relationship. She would tolerate an awful lot, but she could not abide getting mixed up with mobsters. Michella had never explained why she felt that way, but he'd learned a thing or two about her childhood, and he suspected she had very good reasons.

  Lex just finished dumping a final load of miscellaneous debris into the garbage, and was admiring an apartment that was almost respectable, when a tone alerted him to a visitor at the apartment building's front door. He walked over and tapped the panel beside the door. The video feed showed him the not quite face-on view of a person who didn't know where to look when waiting to be let in. It was a man with an inebriated grin showing off a grand total of four teeth. His face looked like it was in the process of being reclaimed by a jungle of gray, scraggly hair. The beard in particular looked like it had won a revolution.

  "Um... do I know you?" Lex asked.

  "Trevor Alexander?" the grimy man slurred.

  Lex flinched. After one too many run-ins with the law, you begin to dread hearing your full name spoken out loud.

  "Yeah?"

  "You're 'sposed to give me a stack of chips."

  "Sorry, sir. I don't have time for this. There's a homeless shelter three blocks down."

  He shut off the screen and checked the time. Michella would be showing up in ten minutes. He debated on lighting a candle, ostensibly to set a more romantic mood, but primarily to take the edge off of the combination of window cleaner and leftover takeout food that was currently the dominant aroma. Deciding that it was probably a wise decision, he started rummaging through the solitary closet in his apartment to find one. Before long, there was a knock at the door. He checked the time again, then shut the closet and answered the door.

  After living in an apartment for as long as he had, Lex had begun to react differently to a knock at the door than others would. Since strangers were all stopped at the front door of the building, if someone was knocking on your specific door, it meant they either worked for the building, were a neighbor, or were given access by you or a neighbor. Thus, ninety percent of the time the person on the other side of the door would be someone you know. This turned out to be part of the other ten percent.

  The door opened to reveal the very same grizzled homeless man who had spoken to him a moment ago. Lex slammed the door, latched the door chain, then opened it agai
n, peering through the crack. A potent combination of body odor and fortified wine fumes wafted past him.

  "How did you get in here?!" he asked.

  "Yer magic dog let me in."

  "My what?"

  "Yer dog! I brung yer magic dog!"

  His aromatic visitor held up a creature that could certainly be easily confused for a dog. It was about the size of a large terrier, and had generally canine features, but a close inspection of the pointed ears and narrow muzzle, combined with the black coloring with white stripes and massive fluffy tail, gave it the overall appearance of a cross between a skunk and a fox, which is exactly what it was. The result was a maddeningly cute creature, eyes and feet a bit too big, and tail easily as large as the rest of its body. In short, it looked like a stuffed animal artisan's magnum opus. Lex crooked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow.

  "Solby?" he asked, recalling the name of the last such beast he'd encountered.

  "Not precisely, Mr. Alexander," remarked what sounded like an edited together recording of three women and a synthetic voice.

  Lex whipped around to face the panel beside his door, from which the voice had originated.

  "Ma!?" he yelped.

  "In a manner of speaking," it replied.

  The bewildered young man turned back to the still upheld creature. In a maneuver that finally managed to push the weirdness factor over the edge, it winked.

  Lex reluctantly opened the door, allowing the man and his creature inside.

  "Ma, did you send Solby here? Who is this guy?" Lex asked, addressing the panel beside his door.

  For the sake of clarity, it is worth pointing out that Lex was not under any impression that he was speaking to his mother. The unmistakably unique 'voice' belonged to an individual he'd met during his last adventure. She was an AI created by a man named Karter Dee, designed to take care of him and his facility. Depending on who you believed, the program owed its name to either its nurturing nature, or the fact that it cooked all of his food, washed all of his dishes, and nagged him incessantly. She was really quite an achievement, a computer program capable of genuine warmth, compassion, and integrity; three things that her creator completely lacked. She also had a vindictive streak if you got on her bad side.