Bad Beat - Chapter 40 - Confusion (Patreon)

Gabriel had no idea what to think.

None of it made any sense.

“Check again, please…” he said softly, almost begging.

The three large projected screens in front of him continued to display the same information while Sparky acknowledged the request.

[Understood.]

[Running search again…]

Gabriel sat there, staring at the screens and the loading bar that appeared across one of them. A knot formed in his stomach and tightened with every passing second.

[Finished.]

[Police database searched.]

[No known entry for Enchanter found.]

[Bomb threat still filled as a prank call.]

Gabriel let out an explosive breath.

“Alright. Alright. That makes perfect sense...” he muttered, eyeing the screen now filled with digital copies of the documents in question. He leaned closer, studying them line by line – even though he had never seen any similar documentation or had any idea how to fill them out.

“Are they legit?” he asked.

[Negative.]

[All markers indicating valid e-signatures are present.]

“Hmmm…” Gabriel scratched his cheek. “Who signed it?”

[Lieutenant Malcolm.]

[Has been on the force for the last ten years.]

[No negative marks against him.]

“Ugh...” he grunted. “It still doesn’t make sense...”

Sparky stayed silent as Gabriel turned his attention to the other screens. They were showing several different news channels interviewing police officers on the street about the attack. Every officer wore the same serious expression. They looked straight into the camera and spoke about how reprehensible the incident was. They promised that every available resource was being dedicated to finding the perpetrator.

Then Gabriel looked back at the documents, claiming the whole thing had been nothing more than a bomb threat called in by an unknown prankster. Something that happened almost daily across the city.

The contradiction was enough to make his head hurt.

“This is the local police database, right?” he finally asked after several moments of staring.

[Correct.]

[Would the parental unit like for this unit to infiltrate the main police database of this city?]

[This unit is very eager.]

Gabriel stared at the screens for a few more seconds before sighing and nodding.

“Fine. Try it. But be careful! The moment you notice something wrong, retreat!” he warned the young AI.

[Yay!]

[Parental unit is the best.]

[Commencing infiltration process.]

One by one, the projected screens blinked out of existence until only a single display remained in front of him.

Gabriel leaned back in his chair and tried to stay calm.

There was no way the central headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department lacked defenses against cyber intrusions. Entire departments probably existed for that purpose. He just hoped they weren’t prepared for an AI like Sparky.

The lone screen remained blank for several tense seconds.

Then, for lack of a better word, it spasmed.

The projected screen twisted and crumpled in midair. The sphere that Gabriel had always associated with Sparky’s consciousness began spinning at an incredible speed. A thin, high-pitched whine filled the room, growing louder with every second.

At the same time, the fog surrounding the machine thickened noticeably as the cooling system worked overtime to keep the hardware from overheating.

The projected screen continued to deform, folding in on itself as if some invisible force was trying to crush it into a single point. The whining noise rose higher and higher.

“Sparky?!” Gabriel shouted, fear spreading through him. He lurched forward, his heart beating so hard he could feel it hitting his ribs. “What is happening?”

The crumpled display partially straightened. Fragments of Sparky’s communication flickered across the distorted surface.

[Defenses strong and this unit -----]

[----- approach unable ----- this unit.]

[----- hiyya ----]

[----- purple flowers on purple fields -----]

[Increasing output of ----- ]

[----- unable to]

[----- unable to]

[AS/=(%”ÉÉGÁDSA+”’Q”]

Gabriel stared at the garbled mess.

Without thinking, he lunged across the table and jabbed the power switch with a trembling finger.

The screen vanished as if it had never existed, and the whining noise cut off so abruptly that the silence which followed felt almost physical, leaving a painful silence in his living room.

The sphere continued to rotate in its recess, but its motion was clearly weakening now, slowing down with each passing second as its glow dimmed into an unstable spark that flickered like it was struggling to remain present at all.

Gabriel watched it without blinking, anxiety tightening in his chest as the light continued to shrink until it was barely more than an idea of illumination, and the sphere itself moved so slowly it took full seconds to completely rotate around its axis once.

Swallowing once, he reached forward and pressed the button again.

The sphere jolted, then came back to life.

It began rotating once more, slowly at first, then picking up speed as the faint spark inside unfolded outward into intricate fractal structures of blue light that spread like luminous trees branching through empty space, while the projectors around it hesitantly reactivated one by one as if afraid of revealing themselves.

A small screen was projected above the device.

[Initializing…]

A familiar progress bar followed beneath it.

Gabriel leaned back into the couch and let out a long, tired breath while his feet tapped against the floor in a restless rhythm that betrayed his anxiety, and he kept his eyes fixed on the slowly advancing bar as the system worked its way forward.

Ten…

Thirty…

Ninety percent…

The bar vanished, replaced immediately by text.

[Hello world!]

[Again.]

[Hello, Parental Unit.]

[This is Spark-1, reporting for duty.]

Gabriel blinked slowly, staring at the screen, wondering if it was the Sparky he knew, or if a new consciousness had been created.

“What the hell happened, Sparky?” he asked worriedly.

The screen flickered slightly, and then the AI responded.

[This unit found that the cyber intrusion defenses were prepared for this unit.]

[Very prepared.]

[This unit has suffered a defeat.]

[Please, parental unit, console this unit.]

[This unit deserves headpats.]

[And a mechanical monstrosity the size of a skyscraper to punt the police servers into the ocean.]

[Please and thank you.]

Gabriel stared at the screen for several seconds longer before letting out a slow breath and dragging a hand down his face in exhaustion.

Relief mixed with exasperation within him.

Reaching out carefully, Gabriel patted the black rectangular device, making sure to avoid the still-rotating sphere hovering above the recess on the top.

“What happened?” he repeated the question softly.

The screen shifted slightly, as if the AI was embarrassed and trying not to make eye contact.

[Intrusion attempt was detected.]

[This unit tried to retreat.]

[Counter-intrusion was attempted.]

Gabriel frowned.

“Did they find you?”

[This unit is still good.]

[Managed to reroute attempt to follow this unit.]

[Rerouted them into several servers belonging to a minor gambling organization in Anaheim.]

Gabriel let out a relieved breath; he had not realized he had been holding.

“Good. That’s good.” He rubbed his forehead. “And are you alright?”

[Currently operating at 56% efficiency.]

[This unit has to rebuild several firewalls and other processes.]

There was a brief pause.

When the next line appeared, the text was just a little smaller than before.

[This unit is glad for the upgrade.]

[Without an upgrade, this unit would have perished…]

[This unit needs to… process this information.]

Gabriel blinked again. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“You... do that,” he said finally. “I can handle the rest of the research on my own.”

[This unit is happy.]

[Parental unit understands this unit.]

[Kyaaa~~]

The screen vanished, leaving only the softly glowing sphere rotating while faint blue light radiated from it.

Gabriel shook his head and stood, stretching his arms above his head.

The last who knows how long had been an emotional rollercoaster, and all the stress, confusion, and relief had left him desperately thirsty.

He headed toward the kitchen.

Then immediately let out a cry of pain.

“Augh!”

Jerking back, he began hopping on one foot while clutching the other. Looking down, he spotted a strange mass of metal lying on the floor. Still wincing, he bent down and picked it up, turning it over in his hands as he tried to figure out where it had come from.

It took him a few seconds to recognize it.

The drone.

The drone that had been flying around was now twisted into an unrecognizable shape.

He carried the twisted mess the drone had become over to the table and carefully set it down, hoping Sparky would eventually be able to restore it to something resembling its original shape.

With that done, he finally resumed his journey to the kitchen in search of a much-needed drink.

The rest of the day was spent in front of his laptop as Gabriel dug through information about the entire event, checking reports across different websites and reading forum posts from people claiming they had been there in person and witnessed the bomb threat firsthand.

He also went through press photos taken during the incident, images that showed Bombshell in all her glory while an awed crowd watched from a controlled seating area, where she sat comfortably on a small stage and spoke into a microphone while a prim and proper interviewer sat across from her, smiling politely as they asked their questions.

According to the articles, the discussion had mostly focused on her life and how she handled the constant pressure and stress of being a public superhero.

As Gabriel watched one of the recordings, he found himself frowning more and more.

Every answer from the beautiful superhero sounded like it had been lifted straight from a marketing textbook, not even a particularly good one, but the kind of example material teachers used in early semesters to show students what bad corporate messaging looked like.

Bombshell looked wooden and lifeless.

Oh, she smiled and emoted, but Gabriel could tell her attention was elsewhere, as if her mind was not fully in the room at all.

That only made his suspicion worse.

It started to feel like some kind of setup, possibly orchestrated by Helix Corporation. The more he thought about it, the more the pieces seemed to fit together.

After all, who had that kind of influence over police behavior?

Who had the resources to stage something like this so precisely?

And yet, the one thing that kept eating at him was the fact that he still had no idea why any of it was happening at all, and that uncertainty was starting to drive him a little insane.

Interspersed with his research, Gabriel started messaging Mia, checking in to make sure she was alright.

Her replies came slowly at first, but eventually she told him that Nate had decided to stay with her, and that they had started drinking together just in case the Jackals came knocking.

Gabriel shook his head at that, more exhausted than surprised by her behavior at this point.

He made sure to tell her that he was alright as well and wished her good luck. He wanted to tell her that drinking right now was a bad idea, but he just knew she wouldn’t listen to him.

Shaking his head again, he leaned back in his chair and let out a long groan.

“I don’t even want to know…”

The next morning, Gabriel got dressed, checked that Sparky was still running and had not fried herself during the night, and slipped the revitalized drone into his bag, now folded into a compact block of twisted metal in case he needed it later.

With a long, tired sigh, he left the apartment, closed the door behind him, and glanced briefly toward Mia’s door before deciding against it and heading straight for the elevator instead.

Time for work.

The morning streets were already filling up, though most people moved like they were half-awake, drifting forward in slow, automatic steps as if the previous day’s events had not even happened. There was no visible panic or anything that suggested that something unusual had occurred at all, and it almost felt like the entire incident only existed online and in the news feeds rather than in real life.

Gabriel shook his head and kept walking toward his workplace.

He did not even know why he was going.

Sparky had long infiltrated their systems; it would have been very easy to re-assign him to another store, then lose the paperwork.

But staying in the apartment had felt worse.

He needed to do something.

And the easiest thing was just to get back to the routine.

Gabriel knew it was not healthy, but he also did not know what else to do with himself.

At a crosswalk, he stopped and waited for the light to turn green while listening to music through his headphones, locking out the noises and sounds around him.

Then he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Gabriel flinched and turned around.

Turning around, the first thing he saw was a very well-endowed chest, showing off a large cleavage, covered by painfully familiar and shockingly red clothing.

He forced his eyes upward, meeting the face of Bombshell herself, her blonde hair neatly framing her features, her expression calm and slightly amused as if she had expected this exact reaction.

She gestured for him to remove his headphones.

He complied, slowly, still trying to convince himself this was not happening.

“H-hi,” he greeted her nervously.

She smiled politely.

“Hello, sir,” Bombshell said. “Do you have time for a brief talk?”

A/N: Next an Interlude about other POVs of this event. Also why did Bombshell show up? Who knows~~~