Blood Trail

[Raziel]

It took Rikard a while to realise that he'd stopped screaming. The only sound in the room was his breathing, hard and fast. His heart pounded furiously in his chest. The shaking came soon, as the adrenaline hit him like a wall. Rikard whimpered and bowed his head. The stench of burnt flesh was still strong, offending his senses. If his clothes weren't already covered in his own vomit, he was certain he would have wretched again.

"Are you done?" the voice cut through the silence like a knife. There was no emotion behind that voice. The question was asked almost pleasantly, in a high pitch. Rikard gathered his courage and looked up.

 

[Raziel]

Those green eyes were still fixed on him. They were completely devoid of emotion. Rikard's view fixated on the sliver of metal being waved between them. It danced back and forth in his torturer's dexterous hands. Slowly, ever so slowly, it descended towards his shattered hands. So far the torturer had come at him with hammer and flame. His hands were a crumbled mess, every bone cracked. Little whisks of smoke still came from the stumps where they had pulled off his little fingers and burned the stumps.

Rikard had once seen a beggar with hands just like that, he suddenly recalled. Gnarled and twisted and missing digits. He could vividly remember the smell of the back alley, and his disgust as the bony arm reached out towards his from beneath a pile of rags. He hadn't even gone for his bag of credit chits, he had recoiled from the horrendous sight and walked on. Rikard looked down at his own hands, once strong, now horribly maimed and caked in blood. He felt the hot tears on his cheeks.

 

[Raziel]

"Are you going to tell us what we need to know?" the question was simple. Rikard tried to pull his hands away as the flat of the knife was rested on the back of his hand. He knew it was useless to pull against the shackles. The blade was ice cold.

Rikard's breathing started to speed up again. The sound of his quick, shallow breaths reverberated around the room. He couldn't quite muster the strength to say 'no', so he shook his head. His eyes were fixated on the knife, he couldn't turn his gaze away. He just wanted to close his eyes and pretend this wasn't happening, but he could not.

 

[Raziel]

The emotionless gaze changed for a moment. Disappointment and maybe frustration flashed across the torturer's features. The knife tilted upwards, the point pricking his skin. It held there, motionless, for a few seconds.

It pushed down hard, blood welling around it. Ever so slowly it started to move up his arm, leaving a gaping cut behind it. A deep, guttural noise escaped Rikards's lips involuntarily. Slowly at first, but speeding up, the knife cut one long straight trail. Rikard bit down hard, tasting blood in his mouth. Powerless to stop what was happening, yet desperate for the unbearable pain just to come to an end. The knife quickly sliced a parallel path and the a final cut joined the two near his hand. His torturer had a deft touch with the blade. Rikard had never even imagined pain like this before. There was no way to make it stop, it came and it went at another's wish. There was no bearing this pain, no "shrugging it off". It was an experience that wouldn't let him go.

 

[Raziel]

The knife, its previously shiny blade now tainted with dark red, was placed on the table to the side. A pair of thin tongs was picked up. Rikard watched with horror as the implement grasped his skin where the three cuts met. He knew what was coming next.

"This will make you realise that what we've done so far was no more than pleasantries. Talk?"

The offer was left there, hanging in the air, for nearly a minute. Eventually, Rikard gave the slightest shake of his head.

 

[Raziel]

Without pause, his torturer yanked hard on the tongs. Hot pain blossomed from his arm across his whole body. The edges of his vision turned black as his eyes rolled back. Rikard hadn't even realised he was screaming until he stopped.

He didn't want to look down, he desperately didn't want to look at what had been done to his body. And yet, as his whole body trembled, he found himself looking down. The whole strip of flesh, an inch wide, had been peeled away to expose the muscle below. Blood welled in the wound, around the blobs of yellow fat that had been left behind.

"Please," he whimpered.

"Time to talk?"

Those green eyes held his gaze again. Emotionless, expressionless. Rikard shook his head. He tried to voice some defiant statement, but he knew his resolve was slipping away. He just wanted to pain to end. It was too much, it was...

The red dark spots encroached on his vision even further and he felt consciousness slipping away from him.

 

[Raziel]

His eyes blinked slowly as his view came back into focus. Rikard slowly came around to find himself still in the small dingy room. His torturer was sat opposite him still, but his eyes were shut. It seemed as if he was sleeping, but then those deep green eyes snapped open. The slender torturer looked him up and down,. Always appraising him, those eyes, never giving anything away.

Rikard mustered the courage to look down at his hand. It was fine. The absence of pain was startling, there was just a deep throbbing in the hand. His tired, groggy brain struggled to grasp at understanding.

"It will take a moment for your mind to reorientate itself, it has been through so much," the torturer stated plainly. “Soon you’ll start to recall what we were doing before your ordeal, any just how many times you’ve been through it.”

Rikard shook his head trying to focus. The pain in his hand started to dull, but there were other pains. He started to realise: they’d done this many times before. He couldn’t even count how many. The memories came back, hard and fast. So many horrors, so much pain. Over and over again, yet somehow this tormentor made his forget at the start of each new bout.

 

[Raziel]

“It’s amazing the dark places a mind will go do if given a gentle prod. I’ve met people who’ve been through genuine hardship and pain before. You’ve had a relatively easy life, and yet you’re still able to turn your memories into exquisitely horrible new experiences. It's a shame the body can only take chemicals in certain doses, even imaginary experiences can kill you with enough shock. That's why we keep having to stop and start again.”

Rikard’s pulse was racing again, his breath quick and shallow. How many more times would he go through this.

“Just tell us what we want to know, all you have to do is tell us and all this will co…”

“Ok,” Rikard whimpered.

“What?”

“I said alright. Please...just...please.”

 

[Raziel]

The door slid shut behind Raziel and cut off the sobbing from within. The datapad in his hand was passed to the guard.

“That was quick, you got all of this in thirty minutes,” he exclaimed. “We had hours at him and the stubborn bastard barely said a word.”

“Memory is a remarkable thing, difficult to manipulate, you have to let the mind fill in the blanks you’ve left,” Raziel explained absent mindedly. “Unfortunately he didn’t give us anywhere near enough. I fear we’re going to have to cut him loose and follow his tracks.”

“Hard work. These guys know how to go underground and get out of our sight pretty quickly,” the guard relied. They were on one of the Spynet vessels that did not exist. When legal means didn’t work, the papertrail...went awry…and a prisoner would go off grid for a short while. Some of the best mentalists of the Obsidian Shadows worked these vessels, but Raziel had decided to see to this case personally.

“Send him back,” Raziel ordered. “I’m going to see Lab Q.”

 

[Raziel]

A few days later, Raziel was back in his office on the Umbra. A secure message was waiting for him on his Grey terminal. He quickly scanned the message. Someone had recently put forward some ideas for something aligned to his needs, but the funding had yet to be secured.

He opened the attachment and scanned the front page. The name Professor Carth rang a bell. Raziel recalled that he had been in charge of the Nighshrike project. It seemed that he was now head of Research and Innovations at InnoteQ. Hopefully he was enjoying life in the private sector, at the least his pension would get a good top up.

Introduction

• 
  
• This document is intended to inform stakeholders of the progress in developing a new capability for Abrion Intelligence in the tracking of assets. This document highlights the current preferred option, selected down from a range of propositions that were analysed and compared in Reference A. The option is described as a High Level Design in Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5. Section 6 provides indicative costs for further development and highlights potential funding models. The Executive Summary follows.

 

[Raziel]

Raziel decided to ignore everything but the executive summary. A quick scan revealed that the latter contents were beyond his comprehension.




2 Executive Summary

2.1 Background

• InnoteQ were tasked by the client to develop several models for a new tracking device. The new device needed to be:small enough to hide on an individual’s clothing, or within a device;
• difficult to detect through known means;
• effective on galactic scales;
• able to report position within a few hundred metres.

[*]Providing a device that can satisfy the third and fourth requirements is trivial. Most known personal devices are able to find locations from wireless access points, or navigation networks (via satellites or other means). They are then able to send a transmission into the Holonet backbone, which enables faster-than-light, real-time communication.
[*]One of the most obvious options therefore, was to inject malicious code into a device and have it “beacon” its location using a very small data packet that may be difficult to notice. IT was suggested that this capability was not required by the client.



Raziel smirked at that. He was well aware of the ability for Spynet to subvert datapads and have them report location or further information. The problem was, Rikard had not come into their custody with one.

 

[Raziel]

2.2 Solution

• The solution that has been developed, involves the application of existing technologies in a new, novel architecture that meets the high level requirements outlined above. Meeting three of the four challenges was surprisingly simple. As mentioned above, across the galaxy there are geo-tagged emissions. Most wireless access points broadcast a rough location, most civilised worlds have publically accessibly location services. These are mostly commonly in the form of a global navigation satellite system or GNSS.
• We have already developed, trialled and demonstrated technology that can store a trail of locations on a miniaturised device. Figure 1 shows the chip that was developed, References B, C, D, and H contain further information on this experimentation phase.
• Hyperwave transmitters are too large to be reduced in scale, this was thrown out as a possible solution early in analysis (Reference A). A communicator that could scan for and communicate to publically available data networks, with onwards connectivity to the Holonet backbone would be able to report. This was successfully demonstrated (Reference F) and a spin off project to continue to develop and refine this economical model is underway.
• However, it was made clear that this would not be suitable in all instanced. Many wireless access points were alert that an unknown or unregistered device was attempting to broadcast. The nature of the signal would make it apparent what was being sent. It was decided that something needed to be developed that did not:transmit using data networks controlled by unfriendly elements;
• have a noticeable EM signature.

[*]To solve this, we have turned to an older technology, which sees limited application: Quantum Entanglement. Long ago it was looked at as a potential Faster-Than-Light (FTL) communication mechanism, but hyperspace signals ended up being several orders of magnitude more cost-effective. Not to mention the fact that Quantum Entangled devices are point-to-point only, effectively preventing broadcast or direct-dial communications.
[*]Another, long-defunct, technology we have used is spintronic memory. Long surpassed by newer technologies, these three-dimensional memory lattices utilise magnetic spin on a particle to store binary information. If you can imagine how slow and large this made computers that could store qauds of data in the distant past! Figure 2 shows a typical spintronic lattic.
[*]It is believed that particles could be Quantum Entangle by spin, before being applied to a memory lattice. A memory lattice could then be constructed within the prototype tracking chip, without adding more than a nanometre of bulk.
[*]As the device finds a user’s location it will change the memory in the device to a geographical location. This is broken down into: sector, planet, lat-long, and includes a figure for accuracy and source type. This memory configuration will be mirrored on the entangled pair device.
[*]It is envisaged that a device could be tracked to a specific building or location. In some areas with good location services a device could be pin-pointed to within a metre. There is, unfortunately, no mechanism presented that could track a device on low-tech worlds or through space.
[*]There are downsides. Whilst difficult to detect, strong EM-fields can break the memory chip. Powerful scanners, proximity to ship’s engines or a reactor could all break the device. Given the cost of each unit, which is approximately a million credits, this is a significant drawback.
[*]Initial development costs are very high, in the hundreds of millions. However, once the production cycles is begun the per-unit costs could drop in the long term.
[*]InnoteQ would propose that the client funds an initial development and trialling exercise of this innovative application of technology to a unique problem.

​

Figure 1: Prototype Chip Q264-a. This was successfully demonstrated to stakeholders and was carried by an operative in a galactic trip. Chip is almost impossible to detect without thorough scanning as it receives information passively and has an incredibly low EM signature.

​

Figure2: Spintronic memory lattice.

 

[Raziel]

Raziel stopped reading the document. He turned to his terminal and sent a message to the Intelligence Director and signed it as Operations-Custodian. The Spymaster title had long gone, as far as the Government was aware. However, people knew that when the Operations-Custodian asked for something to happen, it got done with few questions. Raziel called for them to seriously consider releasing funds early to get development underway.

 

[Raziel]

It was remarkable how quickly the mind snapped back to normality after trauma. At least on the surface. Rikard’s nights were still long and restless, fraught with the images of a hundred types of torture. The only constant through each dream was those intense green eyes. Always watching him, always appraising him. Always judging him.

As he sat at the bar, sharing a few drinks with members of his cell, he almost wished he could return to just one of those illusions. When he’d been ensnared in one of those dream states he hadn’t been able to recall the previous ones. Since returning to his life every one of those nightmare scenarios he’d been forced to live through had returned to his mind in starling clarity. Subconsciously he itched at the place where he’d watched the flesh torn from his forearm.

 

[Raziel]

He was snapped out his reverie by his cell lead leaning over to him: “How are you feeling about tomorrow?”

“Good…good…” Rikard replied slowly.

“I know I can count on you. A few of the guys thought you might have turned, but I know you. I could see that even after what they did to you, you hadn’t broken!”

Rikard merely sighed and tried a half smile as the larger man clapped him on the shoulder. Tomorrow was the big day. All of the assets were in place, they had the devices they needed. Their cell was only part of a much bigger operation. They knew their place, but they also knew that what was going to happen on the capital city of Roon was going to send tremors across the ACA. Maybe the payback would fill some of the hole that had been burned through his soul by shame. Of course they’d broken him, but he’d never admitted such.

 

[Raziel]

The noise that heralded the commotion to come was barely a whisper. A distant clack, followed by one of their men near the door sliding off his seat. By the time Rikard had looked up from his drink, the first of them were through the door. Clad in black, armed with silenced carbines, they rushed into the bar before anyone could even draw a weapon. ACA law enforcement had come for them.

Jakoan was gunned down as he reached for a blaster. The barman, an operative who ensured their meetings could go ahead out of sight managed to down one of the bastards. His heavy scattergun fired twice before it was silenced.

Rikard just sat there, frozen. He knew he should have ran, gone for a blaster, godamn done something. His body just sat there, as if glued to his seat.

“Drop your weapons!” came a cry, which was followed by a female shriek. Rikard looked up to see the leader of their cell had his hold-out blaster pressed to the temple of one of the barmaids.

“I’m leaving here and if anyone….” He started to shout, before his voice trailed off. Rikard started to sweat. Somehow he knew. Someone he could feel a connection to…

 

[Raziel]

The crowd of police officers parted. There they were, those intense green eyes. The bastard wasn’t even armed. Clothed in civilian wear he walked right up to Kansck.

“Give me your weapon,” he suggested, his voice barely audible above the hubbub. Kansck lowered the hold-out, but kept his grip around the girl’s neck. “Now drop it and let her go.” The cell leader did as he was told and was immediately seized by the police officers.

There was a commotion as any surviving members of the cell were escorted out of the premises. Eventually all that was left was Rikard, a pair of officers minding the door and him.

“A pleasure to see you again,” he purred. Rikard sat in silence, frozen in place. “A pity you had little to offer, but your friend should provide us with what we need.”

“Sir, the other cells have all been brought in,” an officer interrupted. The green-eyed man waved him away nonchalantly, as if he cared little for the details.

 

[Raziel]

“Unfortunately for you, we already know what you know and it isn’t enough to waste any more time on you. However, we will need to small chip under one of your finger nails, so I suppose we’ll have to take you in. Go for your gun,”

Rikard found his left hand reaching for the weapon under his jacket. Ever so slowly he pulled it loose and started to point it at the man.

“Oh dear, you appear to be resisting arrest,” there was a flash of motion Rikard’s eyes couldn’t even comprehend. An image of a holdout being levelled at his eyes was burned into his retinas as the weapon flashed. Then there was nothing, only black.