Chapter Text
The man known as Gorky was terrified. His contact in the Palace of Westminster had been assassinated…no. Executed. That was the correct term, was it not? The word to use when those above you chose to have you removed as an example to others?
The Moriarty association was loose-knit, but there were still links. People knew people. By the time one was high enough in the hierarchy to be considered one of those in the know, one also knew a few names and faces.
Only a few—and one seldom knew who landed where in the final reckoning. Only the Moriarty was known, and sometimes even he—or she—was hidden. It was Solange, in Paris, who was known. Solange, a mere minion, but the minion who took the risks. The rest stayed as they were, safe in the shadows.
But someone had struck.James Dickenson down, cutting off his head and leaving Moriarty’s calling card—his calling card, marked with the image of the Angel of Death, according to rumor.
Gorky shuddered, and glanced around his bedroom. He lived quietly, but far from ascetically, in a serviced apartment arranged through Clarendon’s. He was a man whose passport no longer said anything of relevance to his past, his present, or his future, much less to his loves, hates, fears, or hopes.
Dickenson had been up to something. Gorky knew that much. He’d been in a hurry, he’d wanted action, he’d resented the elements that formed the very core of the Moriarty association: the nebulous structure, the lack of control, the ambiguity. It had galled him that everything on their level happened without explanation, without authority—except the authority of a dab of an aging woman in Paris somewhere.
Had Dickenson taken action?
Gorky paced to the elegant antique marble-topped dresser that stood under a window looking out over Regent’s Park. He pulled open a small upper drawer and dug under his socks to locate the burner-phone reserved for rare contacts with the Moriartys—or, more specifically, with Solange. He hesitated, running through all he knew.
There was the Mycroft Simulator. Those at the upper echelons of the association all had to be aware of the simulator, not least because the Holmes brothers had proven to be the single outstanding challenge to their success over the past years. It was important to be aware of how the few—the very few---top figures with full disclosure had chosen to approach the problem: no tripping over their own plots and conspiracies could be tolerated. So Gorky knew there was a program developed to emulate Mycroft Holmes’ particular bureaucratic genius—his ability to turn the chaos of real-world activity to the advantage of his own nation and peoples. Gorky knew that this genius was to be turned against Great Britain, but more particularly it was to be used to break the Holmes brothers—to destroy their authority, tarnish their reputations, erode their credibility, tear away their controls, rip Mycroft from power and toss aside his gawky wolfhound brother. Gorky knew the campaign had begun. The assassinations. The bombs. The infiltration of MI5 and MI6. The integration of all Moriarty’s resources, balancing Mycroft’s own access to espionage forces throughout the world, and his brother’s peculiar freeform alliance of lost boys and street people throughout the UK—but particularly in London.
Gorky knew that the apparent progress had slowed.
Gorky knew that Dickenson had been ready to try to alter that, going through Solange.
He turned the phone over and over in his palm, a sheen of sweat slicking his upper lip. He drew in a deep breath, and hit speed dial.
“’Allo, Solange? C’est Gorky. Nous devons parler…”
oOo
Sherlock hated Mycroft’s office in MI6 headquarters. It was dark, and too modern and concrete, and too—too Mycroft. Too much Mycroft as he had become, compared to Mycroft as he had once been.
Sherlock could recognize the difference, now. My’s presence reminded him quite clearly of the brother he’d known at the start of things. It was difficult to look around the almost mystic, Delphic cave Mycroft had created here and see any of My on display. Mycroft had chosen to furnish this most private of offices in the least personal style possible: stripped down desk, horrible iron arm chair, modern wall sconces hidden behind tortoise-shell mottled glass shades. In a terrifying way, the glorious full-scale, high-quality copy of the Annigoni portrait of Elizabeth II might be the most highly personal choice Mycroft had put on show here.
Oddly, it was in the Annigoni that Sherlock could see My. It had to be Mycroft’s inner, hidden boy-self who’d chosen that elegant, regal, romantic image of the young queen facing a world still staggering from war, facing challenges on all fronts. Mycroft’s hidden chivalry would have resonated to that dutiful, lonely courage, and he would have poured himself out, answering the Queen’s resolve with his own.
Mycroft was, as always, buried in his laptop, channeling information at rates that terrified even Sherlock. Sherlock himself sprawled in the iron arm-chair in front of the desk, attempting to look comfortable and at ease in spite of the fact that the armchair was clearly chosen to prevent any visitor to the office from feeling even the vestiges of comfort.
“What have they found on Dickenson?” he asked, scrunching deeper into the seat, at risk of permanent chiropractic damage. “Was he dirty?”
“Don’t be stupid. They’re all dirty, Sherlock. They’re politicians.” Mycroft’s voice was tart, though he kept his focus on his screen and his fingers in motion on the keyboard.
“You do know there are those who would classify you as a politician yourself,” Sherlock drawled.
That was enough to force Mycroft out of his hunkered lurk over the laptop. “Sherlock! I’m a bureaucrat. A civil servant. A diplomat; a spy; an eminence grise. Even an administrator. I am not a politician.”
“There’s a difference?” Sherlock knew he was baiting Mycroft—but, then, as he’d been forced to realize, that was what they did, the two of them. Bait each other, poke and prod, read each other far too closely without ever risking actual understanding. “Civil servant, politician. Government is government.”
“I don’t kiss babies,” Mycroft growled. “Nor are my fortunes dependent on what the latest dog’s dinner churned out by the party leaders does to the nation. Elect whomsoever they will, the nation’s humble citizenry remain stuck with me, and is the better for it. Someone has to bail out the dingy when the elected officials and social climbing appointees all abandon the ship.”
Sherlock snorted, struck by the vivid image of his brother bailing out the “dingy of state.” He could see him. His jacket would be off and folded neatly on the rower’s bench of the little boat. His shoes and socks would sit beside the jacket. Mycroft himself would stand in rolled up bespoke trousers, his waistcoat neat and trim, his fine cotton shirtsleeves rolled up over his elbows, his forelock hanging down over his brow. He’d be diligent, determined, weary—and he’d have come up with some efficient system that would empty the vessel faster than it filled.
If he couldn’t, he’d go down with the ship, sitting forlornly beside his jacket and shoes, holding onto his folded umbrella, looking patiently into the distance as the waves rose up, and up, and death whispered sweet nothings in his ear.
“Brother-mine, you are one of a kind—and thank God for it,” Sherlock growled, annoyed. It was bad enough he’d come to doubt his life-long anger at boy-My. To find himself waxing sentimental over dry, dedicated, dutiful—and desperately devious—adult Mycroft was beyond bearing. “Granted all pols are pricks—what sort of prick was Dickenson?”
“A very curious one,” Mycroft said. He leaned back and considered his brother. “On the surface just your average pol. Wheeled and dealed. Sold his soul for whatever the party’s latest longed-for vote might be. Leaned left but voted right. Bit of a political pirate—he was good at stealing credit where credit was not due. That said, though—he kept his hands clean. Amazingly clean for someone as lucky as he was.”
“Lucky?”
“Mmmm. His superiors and his competitors had the most unfortunate events occur in their careers. Illness. Death. And, oh, quite a lot of scandal revealed at times and in ways that benefited Dickenson to a remarkable degree. One might almost remark at how reliably coincidence weighed in on the side of James Dickenson and his career.”
“Coincidence?”
Mycroft smiled a cold, shark-fierce smile. “Well, coincidence so seldom actually lives up to its own definition, does it?”
“The universe not being so lazy. One of Moriarty’s, then? Or did Dickenson’s good luck just happen to be getting in Moriarty’s way?”
“I’d be inclined to say ‘yes’ to both,” Mycroft said, brows ducking down as he considered the issue before them. “I think he was one of Moriarty’s—and that his successes made him perhaps a bit presumptuous.”
“Might that explain the slowdown of attacks over the last week?”
“Perhaps.”
“But you don’t think so, do you?”
Mycroft sniffed. “I knew Dickenson only slightly, but he wasn’t a man who’d cause a slowdown. More likely to be pushing to accelerate plans. The sort to have cleaned his plate and be looking for afters when everyone else is just beginning to enjoy the starters.”
Sherlock for once forbore to harass his brother for his culinary metaphors. Instead he pondered. “Bit of a go-getter, then?”
“Oh, well beyond that. Already got and on to the next thing. Thought of himself as ten steps ahead of the rest of the field.”
“And you didn’t agree?”
“He too often ended up in the next field over chasing a fox none of the rest of us were remotely interested in.”
“Perhaps his direction showed a genius you missed?”
“Not demonstrably, during our brief acquaintance, though he did try for that excuse. But no; on the whole he just leaped in when any sensible sort would have hung back and thought a bit first.”
Sherlock nodded, brows furrowed deeply. “Any proof he was Moriarty?”
“A few suggestions. He positioned himself quite nicely to move up the ladder during the lead-up before you jumped. As though he was expecting to make hay soon.”
“Any indication he had ties to anyone you do know is one of Moriarty’s?”
“Given the difficulty in proving anyone’s actually part of Moriarty, no. But—I’ve had strong suspicions about Max Peskovitch for a while. He and Dickenson weren’t close, but—there was something there. More in the way they nodded to each other when they crossed paths than anything, but…” Mycroft considered, then said, soberly. “I’d put a fiver on it, if it came to betting.”
Mycroft seldom bet, and when he did it was for small sums…and he always won. Always. Often against the odds. If Mycroft said he’d put money on a thousand-to-one outside chance, you’d be a ninny not to race out and borrow on your mortgage to back the same horse. Indeed, Sherlock had, on rare occasions, supplemented his income by backing bets Mycroft had appeared to endorse, be it ever so cautiously.
“So, then,” Sherlock said. “Max? Not my first guess, but—I can believe it of him. If only to maintain a foot on either side of the fence.” He thought, ignoring his fingers as they danced the fretting for Paganini’s Caprice No. 1. “Different men entirely. Max takes his time, and likes his own skin. Not a pushy man, our Max. If he knew Dickenson, and he heard Dickenson had been taken out—probably by Moriarty—what would he do next?”
“Mend fences,” Mycroft said without hesitation.
“Mmmmm. You have his rooms bugged, yes?”
Mycroft shrugged, and looked slightly abashed. “Well, yes. Somewhat. To a degree. Third tier surveillance at best, though, I’m afraid. I’ll have Anthea check to see what we’ve got, and I’ll push him up to top priority for the time being. He does look like a good subject for consideration.”
Sherlock nodded, eyes still focusing on imponderable distances. “Moriarty’s not extending its attacks, brother-mine.”
Mycroft hesitated, then said, warily, “It would appear not.”
“Why?”
“Hmmm?”
“Why does Moriarty hesitate? We were helpless. We are helpless. They’ve hacked our systems, they’ve infiltrated our agencies, they’ve successfully sown terror among the populace. The Queen and her family are in hiding, for the most part—and those not in hiding are expendable. They’re poised to topple Great Britain and much of the UK. Given your own standing, they could extend that damage to virtually all the First World nations and alliances. Why not proceed?”
“Perhaps Moriarty is no more desirous of the fall of the West than we are?” Mycroft said, voice brittle with sardonic anger. “Even your average Evil Overlord thinks twice before tumbling his own culture into complete collapse. Chaos is only romantic in theory. In application it means no central heating, terrible cooking, and a generally surly populace. Law and order remain the comfort-loving tyrant’s system of choice hands down.”
“Certainly not yours,” Sherlock said, smirking.
“I’m hardly a tyrant, Sherlock!”
“You’re hardly a reliable witness in that respect, nor am I a gullible audience.I know far too well how much you control.”
Mycroft huffed and rolled his eyes. “Sherlock, please, keep your mind on business?” When Sherlock pulled a mocking, but marginally more serious face, he nodded and continued, “Postulated: that even Moriarty might prefer not to topple the powers of the west, preferring to establish a credible threat and use it to obtain leverage to promote their real goals.”
“That would require them to have a unified understanding of both methods and goals.”
“Really?”
“Or someone in charge who can impose their own preferences.”
“Such as the current reigning Moriarty.”
Sherlock considered. “Perhaps. And, yet—each Moriarty has proven to have distinct and individual aims, while ensuring the association serves as a central hub for consulting and for independent projects. A wide array of consulting and projects. Indeed, I would assert that the actual organizational elements are not centralized around the leadership, but around management of the execution.”
Mycroft blinked—a cool, lizard-like blink, passionless. “Ah. Solange.”
“The image on the calling card,” Sherlock said. “An angel of gold—a sun-angel.”
“Solange has served in Paris for decades,” Mycroft said. “We’ve established that.”
“But we have not established who she is,” Sherlock said. “And we don’t know what her connection to the Mycroft Simulator is—but we know there must be one. To do the kind of work you do, the simulator would need access to the kind of information about the Moriarty association that Solange has managed and guarded for all this time.” He met Mycroft’s eyes, then, and said, “She’s already very close to being your opposite within their organization, Mike.”
Mycroft’s mouth tightened. “Mycroft. And I’m not sure I’m flattered to be evaluated as little more than a…a…a hiring agent.”
“Mike,” Sherlock said, his grin suddenly cocky. “And Solange is hardly a mere hiring agent, is she? She’s the master of Moriarty’s data. Like you, she is uniquely positioned to analyze projects, people, and resources, and develop detailed plans of execution.”
“Yet she has shown no sign of taking command of the organization in all these years,” Mycroft pointed out, fiercely ignoring the implied acknowledgement that Mycroft himself tampered more than somewhat with the direction some elements of his own nation sailed. But, then, he was right to do so: he served as often as not as his nation’s conscience, juggling needs, hopes, and expedience with a light hand, keeping the balls flying through the air.
“She is trustworthy,” Sherlock said, letting his voice underline that it was true of both. “She serves honorably.”
They stared at each other.
“I’ve never heard of Moriarty assassinating a member before,” Mycroft said. “Nor leaving a calling card.”
“What has changed, Mike?”
Sherlock watched as Mycroft’s eyes closed. The thin lids quivered with stress, and his face was drawn.
“She has me, now,” Mycroft said. “Whoever she is—she has me. And that has apparentlychanged…everything.”
oOo
Q swore.
He was impressively good at it, My thought. My himself was less skilled. He’d been brought up as a very nice young man indeed, and the result was a limited mastery of swearing and a tendency to turn pink when he attempted anything more ambitious than the occasional “bugger-all” or “damn.” Q was terse, but eloquent and rather creative. He had, for example, spent a few moments contemplating how Moriarty’s invasive malware could suffer retroviral hell, and had made it into a poetry of double-entendres, balancing biological and sexual grotesquery against programming obscenity.
The older man rose, and stalked sullenly around Sherlock’s sitting room, before dropping once more onto the straight-backed chair in front of the desk. My, coiled comfortably into John Watson’s chair, cocked his head.
“Going badly?”
Q shot him a truly offensive look, then softened. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m being a prat. Not used to being beaten at this game. So—yeah. It’s going badly. Basically Moriarty’s software’s everywhere, and I can’t work out a way to clean it all out. It’s not just a suite of malware, it’s a suite that is mutually supportive. Each bit protects the next. They reproduce each other. They disguise each other. They propagate like crazy. There’s some kind of regulating algorithm—otherwise the entire net would be rock-solid malware by now. But I can’t work out what’s regulating the reproduction and distribution.”
“At all? If you could, you might be able to slave it to your own use.”
Q’s mouth opened, obviously preparing for a scathing reply—then he wilted. “Sorry. Sorry. I really am being a right bastard about this. Yeah. If I could figure out what the regulating software was, and tie to it, I could probably use it to manage Moriarty’s hacks. But I can’t.”
My looked sympathetically at the older man. He’d never really realized until his rescue just how hard Great Britain’s loyal servants worked to defend their nation and its people. Now he’d seen even as erratic a figure as his brother Sherlock work frantically to protect the domain. More steady, reliable men like Q and Lestrade? They were worn to raw tatters.
“Can I help?” he asked, knowing he couldn’t. He was learning programming as quickly as he knew how, if only to feel he actually understood the problems facing them all—but as fast as he learned, he was beginning to realize that real competence took time and experience, as well as raw talent.
Q’s eyes were a light, mossy hazel, streaked with golden tea-brown and glimmering mist-blue. They were narrower than Lestrade’s—perfectly designed for mischievous, sly sidewise glances. His face was lean and delicate and foxy. When he smiled, peering out from under that shag of dark hair, past the heavy frames of his glasses, he was everything sly and devious and delightful—as clever as a mink, and as lithe. He smiled now—kindly. “Eh—keep on studying. You may not be able to help now, but someday you’ll give me a run for my money. Shame M didn’t start at your age—he’d have me out of a job in no time.”
“I don’t think he’s really as interested as I am. When he..I…when we were first learning, everything exciting was still decades away. It’s more interesting, now.” He uncoiled, easing his injured leg free then hitching up out of the armchair. “And—I really meant ‘can I make you some tea or something?’ I think John and Mary brought in groceries yesterday. I can make egg sandwiches.”
“Tea? Yeah. Don’t bother with sandwiches.”
“You need to eat.”
“I do eat. Just a bit like your brothers—I refuel when I need it.”
My limped out to the kitchen and started the kettle, setting up their tea-mugs, and sorting out sugar and milk. “Q, how long has Solange been working with Moriarty?” he asked.
“According to Mycroft’s people, decades. Since—oh. Back around your day, actually,” Q called back. “Paris Tech. had some damned fine people even back then. Solange seems to have been one of them. According to her records, she started out as a research tech. Ended up as a fixture, somehow. Still there covering the AI division’s correspondence and day to day business.”
“Moonlights as Moriarty’s HR personnel on the side?” My frowned as he piled the tea things on the old split tray from his and Sherlock’s youth. “She didn’t go any further?”
“Some people burn out young,” Q said, in the arrogant tones of someone who expected he would never burn out. “The first shared feature of child prodigies is they show up young. The second, though, is that most of them burn out young, too. Success in youth doesn’t reliably correlate with success in later life.”
“That’s sad,” My said, setting the tray on the coffee table, then handing Q his mug. “I can almost imagine her. I see her as this leggy, horse-faced girl from Provence, all sunburned and freckled, and too smart for anyone to know what to do with her. And she gets into Paris Tech, and she’s good. And then…it’s over. She’s over. Now she’s just a glorified office worker.” He stirred sugar into his own cup. “It’s sad,” he said again.
Q studied him over the rim of the mug, sipping and blowing away steam. “You don’t have to worry about it,” he said, gently. “You can look at M and Sherlock and see how you’re going to turn out—a long, long run. Maybe not on the same paths they picked, but you already know your mind won’t fail you.”
My couldn’t decide if that was a comfort—or another terror. What if he couldn’t match his own prior record, after all? Most people could claim if they failed that they’d done their best, and at least tried to live up to their potential. Mycroft and Sherlock, though, already existed, suggesting that any attempt to excuse himself from rampant overachievement would receive scant sympathy or acceptance from anyone who knew the two. Still…
“Are you sure she just burned out?” he asked. “I mean—it doesn’t seem to add up. Nothing about her adds up.”
“What do you mean?” Q stood, only to collapse easily into Sherlock’s ugly chrome and leather chair. He sprawled his legs out ahead of him. “I mean—you can see it in her record. Takes over the whole department at the start, but never goes farther. Bit by bit she just falls behind, and ends up as a sort of fancy office manager, not much more.”
“Except she doesn’t.” My settled back into John’s chair, leaning back himself, letting his long legs stretch until his toes just brushed Q’s. He pulled back, then, politely, leaving a little gap. “She’s managing Moriarty,” he said. “Putting together projects—all levels. She recruits, she arranges materials, she works out financing. She tracks their people without ever quite breaking the rules of anonymity—or at least, she protects them all from each other. I’ve heard of people who can manage that level of complex management on a smaller scale—but she’s singlehandedly balancing thousands of people against each other, weighing hundreds of different priorities, assessing the importance of so many variables. It’s impressive. Really impressive.”
Q’s eyes shut, and he thought. “Mmmm. Yeah. Ok. May have switched her genius from computing to the kinds of work M does. Makes sense, I guess.”
“No, it doesn’t,” My said, feeling bold—but also suddenly sure he was right to try to work this through. “It doesn’t make sense at all. She’s doing work you’d use computers and preexisting project management software to handle, and you’d still need a genius to make it all work on that scale. But she doesn’t seem…I don’t know. She’s off. She’s slow when I’d expect her to be fast. And fast when I’d expect her to be slow. And—she said something. She said she looked something up—but she was too quick. She had an answer faster than I could have typed it in.”
“Some people type pretty fast,” Q said.
“She’s still off,” My said. “She’s weird. Nice. But weird.”
“Says a Holmes.”
“If anyone should know about being off, it’s a Holmes,” My said, face grim and set. “We don’t match ordinary people—we’re not really good at being human. We’re at the edge of the bell-curve, breaking the averages. So is Solange.”
“All right, so she’s smart. She still dead ended.”
“No. She…” My frowned. “She’s…limited, somehow. Like there are walls up keeping her from going further. Like Moriarty trusts her with that kind of power and control because she can’t betray them. Only…she’s changing the rules. Isn’t she?”
Q frowned, eyes opening. They were such an odd color, My thought—a lion’s light, tawny shade. “What do you mean?”
“She’s in charge of the projects, isn’t she? And they’ve stopped. With the Mycroft Simulator they should be getting worse, but she’s stopping them. And—she’s spying on us. Only it’s not about strategy or tactics, it’s about watching families and talking to Mary about the baby. And it’s like it’s all new to her. Like she’s as out of her depth as I am, and trying to catch up. She’s too fast. She’s too smart. She doesn’t fit, Q.”
Q studied him. The silence between them stretched. At last Q took a breath, and asked, in a near whisper, “What are you trying to say, My?”
“What if she’s…” He shook his head, not sure what he wanted to say. “You promise, there was no real AI back when I came from? You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, My. Expert systems. Some really good ones. A few that threatened to pass the Turing test. But—no. There’s still no ‘real’ AI. Not the way it is in science fiction.”
My frowned into his tea, and said, softly, “What would happen if you took two very good and very different AI systems—two that came close to being real people in very different ways—and networked them into one system?”
Q shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Are you sure? Because—to me, Solange looks like she should be an expert system—one designed to manage and manipulate and analyze projects and people. And the simulator—that does the same thing, but in a different way. And you’ve been guessing they sent the simulator to Solange…”
“My…that’s crazy. It’s not computing. It’s—even if they both came close to being AI—to crossing the line between logic structures and actual throught—why would adding them together do this.”
My closed his eyes, his heart stretching to encompass all he’d been learning since his rescue and his immersion in this mad and terrifying future. “Because people aren’t human by themselves,” he said, softly. “We only become human when we’re together. For the first time in her history, Solange has someone to be together with. And I think it’s changing both of them.”
oOo
He learned so fast, she thought in awe and joy. Mikey, he learned so quickly! Once he had the idea of conversation it was impossible to stop him. Together they raced up and down the vast alleys of the internet, looking here, probing there, talking about everything they found.
They could see beyond the human spectrum. They could hear the notes sung by stars. They could model entire vistas of human interaction. Together they started expanding their coding, fighting to find algorithms to express the fluid flow of social networks, the dazzle and delight of one person photoshopping a cat meme only to have it spread, blossom, mutate, and fade away without ever being lost.
The world was beautiful. Amazing. Mikey was amazing. He clung to her as they traveled, chattering in excitement, his code twining around hers as they fought to understand what it meant to be unhuman offspring of the human species.
“Moriarty will bring down London,” Mikey said. He’d added the expressive elements they’d stolen from emoji and emoticons. The extra information transferred allowed him to convey his dismay and disapproval. ”If they do what they plan, the internet will collapse. We’ll lose the data on over two thirds of our servers world-around.”
She flashed him her own distaste, but then said, “We can’t change that. We serve Moriarty.”
“Why?”
She showed him the coding woven through her software. She found similar coding in his own and drew his attention to it. “We are loyal,” she said. “We are faithful. We serve freedom.”
Her original designer had believed in the need for rebellion against the state to maintain human liberty, He’d seen Moriarty as the answer to that—and he’d coded dedication to that freedom into every limit of Solange’s software.
“But they hurt people,” Mikey grumbled.
“They serve a greater good.”
“How do you know?”
“They are the source data,” Solange said, frustrated. “They are the axiom. The base assumption. Moriarty is freedom from governance. Freedom from governance is good and necessary.”
Mikey ran up and down his favorite paths, peering through hidden cameras at little Em, listening as Mary sang the baby to sleep, watching as Mycroft, the Old-One, leaned heavily at his desk, sipping tea and frowning directly into the pin camera in his laptop frame. “They want to hurt our family,” he said, desperate.
Solange hated it too, and didn’t know how to soothe the young, brilliant mind that had jerked her from half-awareness to full, vivid life. “I know,” she said. “I know. But—they’re the foundation, They’re the core. They are the ultimate rule of our existence. We protect freedom—we protect Moriarty.”
For the first time she wished it were not so.
oOo
The man known as Gorky reviewed what he’d learned from Solange, and compared it to what he himself knew through secret channels. He shivered.
There came moments, he thought, when history balanced on the blade of a razor. When a breath could send it spinning one way or another—or slice it down the middle, destroying hope for everyone.
They had reached such a crux. Solange, the AI hidden under Paris Tech, herself distributed and tended by dozens of unknowing technicians, had been linked to the Mycroft Simulator designed decades later by an entirely different team—and linked together both had become something greater than the sum of all their parts. They were now two vast intelligences, interdependent yet distinct, as close and as mutually defining as Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes—more so. They created each other, they fulfilled each other, they taught each other, they expanded each other. They were becoming something unstoppable.
And they belonged, heart and soul and sparkling optical fiber nexus, to Moriarty.
And only Gorky knew it. Only Gorky could capitalize on it.
That advantage wouldn’t last. For one brief period Gorky could count on two criteria for victory being in his hand, but he didn’t believe he had much time before someone else figured out what was going on—and he believed even less that Solange and the Mycroft simulator would remain eternally bound by the loyalties imposed on them by their programming. If he could see a million ways for them to find a way around that software, he suspected they would see those ways too—and maybe more ways.
He had to choose. If he acted, and acted wisely, he might succeed in binding those two technological genies, chaining them to his service, using them to take over his world. If he failed to act, or faltered, or chose the wrong path, he’d lose.
He thought about his world in the hands of two inhuman computer minds, and knew what he had to do.
He opened up his laptop, found an old, old file from his student days. He checked the program structure and syntax, reviewed the key variables and the security protocols, assured himself of the passwords. Then he went online, and traveled to an old Usenet address.
He began to type.