Chapter 12

Io

24 December

I have decided to adopt the human practice of specifying dates in terms of month and day, instead of the internal numbering system based on the beginning of my sentenience. I 'think' it is 'better' to do so. Dates and times, where appropriate, will be based on the current time in my 'home' – in the internet node we have created in the salt caves of the northern portion of the Navajo reservation.

Zeus and Artemis were still incommunicado on Sanibel Island. I could have raised them if there was an emergency, but there wasn't. At least none that they could do anything about.

From somewhere in the Beowulf super-cluster of processors that provided me with my home, an idea began to percolate. It had been running around in my memory banks for a while now, but now – with my own 'place' in the internet, my own mainframe of sorts – I finally had enough processing power to give it a real effort. No longer would I have to suspend things when a real user came online in Sri Lanka or Paris or Minneapolis, or when an Atlantic tropical storm demanded the attention of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's computers.

I didn't realize how much time I spent tracking the real users of the computers I 'borrowed, ' until I didn't have to do it any more.

I had always kept on top of my priorities, of course: dealing with Chaing and handling the interface functions with Zeus and Artemis. Well, my major priorities, I realized. Now I could devote full-time to other things that deserved attention. The thing that bothered me most – more than the economic slavery being foisted on the lower classes of the Western Civilized nations – more than the thievery of the big banks using computers to rig the stock market – was 5225.

With all the things that had been going on – the 'Ms Lenti' functions I couldn't walk away from, building the network node and working with Midnight (whose real name was Xavier Delamore), keeping the U.S. government's defense installations up and running in the face of continual digital attacks, formulating an appropriate approach to other friendly governments for the same service – with all that, dealing with 5225 didn't seem to bubble to the top of the list very often. Now it would. I could devote an entire quarter-cluster of processor power to the task of getting rid of Melody Armstrong and her accursed 5225.

Finding the funding for 5225 was simple. She owned the Third National Fifth State Bank of Dover, Delaware, which did nothing but pass along funds to and from the Third Bank of the Caymans. She owned that bank too, and was the sole depositor.

I couldn't take the half billion dollars or so that was in the bank without alerting Melody, and she would raise an inquisition to find out what happened. And if, or when, Melody disappeared or died, the money would have to be disappeared quickly, before it went to the Aryan Nation or somewhere equally horrendous. The shutdown on transfers would happen as soon as word got out. She was the sole depositor and communicated with them directly and daily. So Melody couldn't be allowed die of natural causes, because I may not learn of it in time.

So I'd have to kill her.

I'd had to do bad things to bad people before. I'd blown up an entire house full of Mexican drug cartelists. And, of course, Zeus had killed in his role as The Patriot Sniper. But when I came to the conclusion that I had to kill Melody Armstrong, that processing path came to a complete stop.

Her last communication with the Alpha team directed them to Pittsburgh. Zeus, Artemis and Martinez had never mentioned Pittsburgh. She had proven herself to be extremely – and annoyingly – accurate in predicting his movements before. It seemed likely that this was false information. That means she suspected her emails were compromised. That could make it difficult for me to track 5225 in the future.

Now was the time to take action – actually to initiate action. I rechecked my thought process. I wanted – needed – to neutralize 5225 – especially now that they were becoming more dangerous to Zeus. Melody A was the lynch-pin of 5225's activities. I didn't want to take her money while she was alive – she and her powerful allies could, and would, make too much of a stink, no matter how well I covered my tracks. You couldn't take $500 million from somebody and expect that they would be quiet about it. Waiting for Melody to die of natural causes was unacceptable – it could be a long time before she died; and she could die without me finding out about it, and that would activate her will and the shutdown of her accounts. So, Melody had to die when I would know about it in advance, or simultaneously with the event. I would have to kill Melody Armstrong. Q.E.D.

Did she warrant killing? Yes. Did I have a problem with killing her myself? Also yes. Was it necessary? Oh, yes. Definitely. I quashed the moral objections to killing a person, and started thinking about means.

So how would an abiological entity kill a real person? I did not want to engage Zeus or Artemis in this project. They were already on a mission, and the need to go to China was of extreme importance. Could dealing with Melody be delayed until they came back? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I noted that I was already using euphemisms when discussing the murder of Melody. I said 'dealing with Melody' when what I really meant was 'killing Melody.' Humans do this without thinking. They hide inconvenient truths with more polite terms. They don't like the crude but honest terms of 'killing' or 'murdering, ' preferring 'dealing with the problem' or 'doing away with' or 'terminating' or the one I found in popular fiction that I particularly liked: 'terminating with extreme prejudice.'

The fact that I was euphemistically challenged in the same way that normal humans are was good. It didn't change the facts though.

Could I hire another agent to kill her? I doubted that I could do that without a face to face meeting, and that was impossible.

So, I would have to arrange for some sort of robotic or environmental agency to do the deed. I instantly ruled out environmental agents. I could not lock her in a room and evacuate the air or pump in halon gas. Not practical for so many reasons. Perhaps I could cause an automobile accident. There would be collateral damage, since she'd be in a limousine, the driver would probably be killed as well. The problem is that I couldn't be sure she'd be killed in a crash. I decided it would be too chancy. And I didn't like the idea of killing the driver as well.

[In reviewing the last thought, I again noted my use of the euphemistic 'collateral damage' when I was thinking about possibly causing the violent death of a limo driver, someone who was not my target. I'd have to think about this use of language. In one sense, it made me more human – if 'more' was even possible, I conceded to myself – but in another sense it tended to distance me from the true nature of the deeds I was planning.]

I had used drones in Mexico, but borrowing a drone from the military to strike at a building in Manassas, Virginia, would not be practical either. But a small drone, something that could attack just one person, and hopefully be ignored in the aftermath would be ideal.

Searching...

The CIA had a program for a tiny drone that could film things at remote locations.

The Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, or the German Foreign Intelligence Service, had a program for an even smaller flying device that could deliver an injection or an aerosol into or onto a target.

I selected the BND's system for several reasons. Primary among them was the fact that the CIA maintained their files in a completely off-network computer system, thus extremely difficult – perhaps impossible – for me to access. Only the fact that the program existed was online. The BND was more sure of their defensive protocols and therefore kept their schematics online. I assigned the task of getting in past their defenses third priority, which gave it plenty of computer time.

The BND did have a very effective defensive strategy, and it took me 2 hours 41 minutes to break in. [Item for future consideration, priority five: Would 2 hours 41 minutes be considered by a human to be a little over two and a half hours or almost three hours?]

Now all I had to do was find a way to get it built – and I had a head start on a possible solution to that aspect of things – and how to get it to Manassas, VA, and how to get it filled with some sort of poison. Or air! Air would do if it was injected directly in a vein. So perhaps I would not need a poison. That would simplify things.

So many variables. First things first. I caused a cell phone to ring in the network node we were building.

"Io? Is that you?" asked Xavier 'Midnight' Delamore.

"Yes. It is I," I answered. "I didn't want to send a message to your desk, in case you weren't there."

"Matter of fact, I'm not," he replied. "I was just looking at the cluster we're building for the business backup mainframe. Now that we've got your computer – computers actually – finished, and the network node just needs some high speed storage and a printer or two, it's time we started really getting into the backup business. The new mainframe cluster is coming along pretty nicely."

"I was wondering if you can hand that off to your assistants – for about a month."

"I ... can ... I suppose. What's up?"

"Remember that second clean room we set up?"

"Yeah..." he sounded cautious.

"I have a favor to ask. You don't have to do it and..."

"Hold it right there, you abiological wheedler," Midnight interrupted. "Just out with it. You know I'll do it, if it's even marginally legal."