The DataMine

The rain in Canary Wharf wasn’t like the rain in Hackney. In Hackney, the rain felt honest, like it was trying to wash the grime off the pavements. Out here, amongst the towers of DataMine Corp, the rain felt corporate. It felt like it was charging you by the drop.

John Mason stood in the shadow of a mag-lev pylon, looking at the DataMine HQ. It was a monolith of black glass, smooth as a politician’s tongue and just as hard to get a grip on.

—Lilli, John said, tapping the comms behind his ear. 

—I’m lookin’ at it. It’s a big box, Lilli. No windows on the bottom six floors. No handles. Not even a bloody letterbox.

—That is because it is a Grade-A secure facility, John, Lilli’s voice came through, sounding like she was speaking from the bottom of a very deep, very cold well in Helsinki. 

—They are building ‘The Whisper.’ It is a parasitic sub-routine. It sits on your phone, your glasses, your neural lace. It listens to your heartbeat, it tracks your grocery list, it knows when you are sad. And then it sells that sadness to the highest bidder.

—Creepy, John said. 

He adjusted his jacket. He’d had the sleeve patched after the business with the Liquidators, but it still felt tight. 

—So, you’re in the system?

—I am in the digital foyer. But the final vault—the one with the source code—is air-gapped. I can see the door, but I cannot turn the key. I need you to physically put the data-spike into the master rack. Level 12.

—Right. Level 12. And how do I get in? The front door’s got a retinal scanner that looks like it’d pop your eyeball out as soon as look at you.

—There is a service entrance on the north side. But it is shielded with a kinetic-displacement field. Very high-tech. Very expensive.

John walked around to the north side. He found the door. It was a thick slab of reinforced poly-steel. He reached out a hand—a hand that could crush a bowling ball—and felt a strange, humming vibration six inches from the surface. It felt like pins and needles, but for your whole soul.

—It’s tingly, John said.

—That is the displacement field. It is designed to repel any force. If you try to hack it, it fries your deck. If you try to blow it, it reflects the blast.

—Right,” he took a breath, his massive chest expanding until the seams of his coat groaned. 

—So, it reflects force, yeah?

—Yes. It is impenetrable.

—Lilli, love, John said, cracking his knuckles. The sound was like dry branches snapping. 

—You’ve spent too much time in the clouds. You’ve forgotten how physics works on the ground.

—John? What are you doing?

John didn’t answer. He backed up five paces. He adjusted his flat cap. Then, he put his head down and charged. 

He didn’t use a tool. He didn’t use a hack. He used three hundred pounds of mil-spec augmented muscle and the sheer momentum of a man who was tired of being told where he couldn’t go. He hit the displacement field like a freight train.

The field shrieked. It was a high-pitched, electronic scream as it tried to figure out how to displace a man who simply refused to be moved. For a second, the air around John turned a violent, neon purple. Then, with a sound like a giant tearing a phone book in half, the field collapsed, and the poly-steel door didn’t just open—it left its hinges and flew twenty feet into the lobby.

WUN-WUN-WUN-WUN.

Red lights began to strobe. A voice, calm and female, echoed through the halls: “Security breach. Level Zero. Unauthorised kinetic event.”

—John! Lilli yelled in his ear. 

—You triggered every alarm in the district! The automated turrets are spinning up!

—Well, I’m in, aren’t I? John grunted, stepping over the wreckage of the door. 

He felt a bit dizzy, and his shoulder was smoking slightly, but he was upright. 

—Where’s the lift?

—The lifts are locked down! You have to take the stairs!

—Twelve floors?” John groaned. 

—I hate this job. I really do.

He started to run. He didn’t run like a normal man; he ran like a landslide. Every time his boots hit the marble floor, it cracked. He reached the stairwell and smashed the lock with a single hammer-blow of his fist. 

He was on the fourth floor when the first drones appeared. They were small, sleek things, like chrome dinner plates with machine guns.

—John, drones! Lilli screamed.

—Yeah, I see ‘em.

John didn’t have a gun. He liked ‘em. But not for this one. Instead, he reached out, grabbed a heavy ornamental planter filled with synthetic ferns, and hurled it. The planter caught the first drone mid-air, smashing it into the wall. He grabbed the second drone by its flight-vane as it whizzed past and slammed it into the third one.

—Floor eight! he wheezed. 

—Lilli, tell me the data-spike is easy to use.

—You just plug it in, John! The port is marked with a gold circle.

—Gold circle. Right.

He burst onto the twelfth floor. The server room was a cathedral of humming black towers and blue light. It was freezing cold. In the centre sat the master rack.

John lumbered toward it. His HUD was flashing red—his battery was low from the impact with the field. Behind him, the heavy security doors were beginning to hiss open. He could hear the heavy, rhythmic clank of ‘Peacekeeper’ bots.

—I’m at the rack! John shouted over the sirens. 

—Where’s the hole?

—The gold circle, John! Hurry.

John looked. There were a thousand holes. He saw a yellow one. 

—Is it the yellow one?

—GOLD, John! Not yellow! Gold!

—It’s all bloody yellow in this light,” John hissed. 

He pulled the data-spike from his pocket. It was tiny. Too tiny. He tried to aim it at the port, but his hands were shaking from the adrenaline. 

—It’s like threading a needle in a washing machine, Lilli.

—John, the bots are in the room!

John didn’t look back. He heard the whirrr of a Gatling-loader. He felt a spray of bullets spark off the chrome plating on his back. He gritted his teeth, leaned in, and—with a delicacy that shouldn’t have been possible for a man who just walked through a wall—slid the spike into the port.

—Done.

—I have it, Lilli’s voice was a triumphant roar. 

—The Whisper is ours. I am wiping their backups now. Get out of there, John! Now.

John turned around. Four Peacekeeper bots, eight feet tall and bristling with weaponry, were blocking the exit.

John looked at the bots. Then he looked at the massive, floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the London skyline. The rain was still lashing against it.

—Lilli?

—Yes, John?

—How far down is the canal from here?

—About forty meters. Why?

—Because, John said, picking up a heavy server stool and throwing it through the reinforced glass. 

The window shattered into a million diamonds. 

—I’ve always wanted to see if I could swim.

—John, wait—!

John Mason didn’t wait. He took a running jump, a giant silhouette against the neon lights of the city, and plummeted into the dark, rainy void.

—I’m definitely charging for the dry-cleaning this time, he thought, just before he hit the water.