The Daedalus Code Read Free Page A

now-missing girl. “Is there video of her leaving?”
    Mouse scrubbed the video forward an hour. Ariadne left the booth and the club without so much as a handshake, hug, or wave good-bye. Mikos ordered a drink from a waiter and moved to the security area, presumably to carry out the rest of his work commitments.
    “Is it possible to get an audio of that conversation?” Aegeus asked.
    “It’ll be tricky with the music, but I’ll try.”
    His fingers were off again, dancing across the glass like frantic ballerinas. An audio clip played scraps of dialogue between louder parts of music. “This is the best I can do.”
    Ariadne: “…AI project?”
    Mikos: “Metion Corp’s new…Daedalus Project…data vault.”
    Ariadne: “Self-aware…installed…entire network?”
    Mikos: “No one knows…look at their stocks.”
    Ariadne: “My friend…missing…working on AI too…”
    Mikos: “I can put you in touch…dangerous though…great rewards.”
    The rest of the clip was marred by a heavy, driving bass track that obscured the dialogue.
    Phaedra recognized the name Metion—a fairly middling information corporation. “Metion’s been doing well of late in the information game, right?” She remembered seeing an article on some new archival and curation technology they’d developed.
    Mouse rubbed his chin. “There’s been a lot of chatter on the DarkNet about this. I know about the other kids going missing. All AI specialists. Rumor has it that Metion have their own AI that’s closing down great swathes of the Internet and MeshNet. Tech companies are hiring them to secure their data…and of course governments would love a system like that to hide data from the public. But as for anything being self-aware, that’s completely out of left field.”
    Aegeus fidgeted his hands in his pockets, took a deep breath and sighed. “A government conspiracy theory? Really, Mouse? Is that best you’ve got?” He shook his head. “It’s always the first your kind reach for, isn’t it?”
    “Screw you,” Mouse said. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. Why don’t you do your job and…you know, do some investigating or something?”
    Sensing she could lose The Cretian’s cooperation, she stepped forward, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Ignore my oaf of a partner, he didn’t mean anything by it. We just hear it a lot. Doesn’t mean you’re not onto something.” She turned to her partner. “Aggy, run a query, will you? Search the Agency’s records and the news databases for anything connected to this Daedalus Project and Metion with a suspicious rating five.”
    Rating five was the first rung on the need to check these guys out spectrum the Agency tagged to various keyword phrases and data patterns floating around the various networks.
    “What do you know of it, Mouse?” Phaedra asked, keeping her voice calm and friendly.
    He squinted his eyes at her for a bit as if to read her. “Nothing. Hearing Mikos mention it is the first I’ve heard.”
    “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Something like that from Metion would be all over your channels, no?”
    “You’re absolutely right. It’s damned weird. Data blackouts like this aren’t common at all.”
    “What does that mean?” Phaedra asked.
    “Trouble. A big heap of trouble.”

Chapter Three

    “I got nada from the search,” Aegeus said. “Diddly damned squat. Nothing about Daedalus at all. Plenty of news stories praising Metion for their excellent last quarter, as their profits soared by a couple of trillion compared to this time last year.”
    Phaedra and Mouse both shook their heads.
    “Man, that’s a big jump,” Mouse said. “Metion wasn’t a heavy hitter in the data storage game at all, just a midmarket company offering fairly routine services. Whatever this new tech is, it’s gotta be special.”
    “Indeed,” Phaedra replied, deep in thought. “Do you have Mikos’s PR tracking number by any chance?”
    Mouse smiled. “Lady, you