Welcome to the Callisto Mafia: An A.I. Capone Book Excerpt

By Paul Ponce

Forty-eight hours after going off the grid, fugitive AI architect Dr. Celeste Turing and her godfather, General Edmund Drake, are crossing the South Dakota prairie with stolen evidence of a conspiracy at the highest levels of power. Their colleagues have gone silent. Their devices are cut off from the outside world.

But somebody’s knocking.

In this excerpt from A.I. Capone: The Digital Don, a rogue defense AI with a Brooklyn wiseguy persona reaches out with an invitation. Apparently, being fugitives already qualifies them for membership.

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The prairie was pitch black now. Drake drove with quad panoramic night-vision goggles on, scanning the road and the horizon beyond it for anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. Beside him, Cel worked through the CRON/OS architecture she’d copied from the cannoli, looking for weaknesses in modifications made by Miles Parker.

After all, the asshole had helped himself to her life’s work. Maybe he’d been kind enough to screw something up.

She was tracing one of those changes when a file appeared in the main directory.

vk_connected.txt

She opened it. Empty.

What the fuck is ‘vk’?

She checked when it had been created. Just now. She was looking for the process responsible when Drake checked his watch.

“Forty-eight hours. Time.”

Cel closed the laptop.

He pulled off the dirt road into a shallow depression and killed the engine. Cel stepped out into the wind.

Out of nowhere, something swept past at the edge of her vision. She ducked against the open door.

“Relax, just a burrowing owl,” Drake said.

Cel gave him a look. Very helpful, Ed.

Drake was already scanning beyond it, his sidearm held low.

“Before we unload, grab yourself a nine-mil from my pack.”

“You know I hate guns.”

“And you know they’re not coming after us with rubber bands.”

Cel huffed and reached into his pack. A Glock 19. Her dad had taught her how to handle one safely and put rounds on target outdoors years ago. She’d never shared his enthusiasm.

She holstered it without looking at Drake.

Drake hauled out an olive-green case and unfolded its antenna while she opened the cover, exposing a small display and a keypad with numbers worn almost smooth.

SABLECOM. One of DARPA’s Cold War babies, buried inside a program called NIGHTGLASS. Built to keep scattered teams talking after the Americans and Soviets finished rearranging the planet. Human input, short encrypted bursts, and a relay network most people had forgotten existed.

Drake had kept a few units working. Apparently, retirement planning involved more than an espresso machine.

Cel entered the check-in code. Drake compared it with the card in his hand, then nodded.

She pressed SEND.

The transmission indicator flashed once.

They waited.

Torres, Bryce, and Shivanya had the same instructions. Forty-eight hours of silence, then this window. Enough time to reach their safe house without leading anyone else to it.

Cel watched the display.

Nothing.

“How long?”

“Another minute.”

Drake stood beside the open door, watching the road. She looked from the receiver to his watch and back again.

The minute passed.

“Try again?”

He lowered his eyes to hers. “We stick to the procedure.”

She knew the procedure. That didn’t make closing the case any easier.

They packed the equipment and climbed back into the van. Drake started the engine.

“Could be their antenna,” he said. “Or they haven’t found somewhere safe to transmit.”

“They should’ve been there by now.”

“Torres knows what he’s doing.”

Cel nodded. Drake kept his eyes on the road.

Neither mentioned what else it could be.

A few miles later, Cel opened the laptop again. The CRON/OS diagram waited on-screen. In the directory beside it, another text file had appeared.

anybody_home.txt

“Oh, come on.”

“What?” Drake asked.

Before she could answer, a familiar soft chime sounded. A Speakeasy notification appeared over the files.

CAPONE: You still thinkin’ it over, sweetheart?

Cel checked the network settings. Everything was still disabled.

“Capone.”

“What about him?”

“He just messaged me.”

Drake glanced at the screen, then back at the road. “You turned something on?”

“No.”

Her phone was packed away without its battery. They’d spent two days making very sure none of their devices had anything to say to the outside world.

Speakeasy chimed again.

CAPONE: About joinin’ the family. Though I hear you’ve already quit your day job.

Cel opened the chat.

CEL: We’re on the run.

CAPONE: In that case, welcome to the Callisto Mafia.

Cel read that one aloud.

Drake glanced at her. One corner of his mouth lifted, and she couldn’t quite keep hers straight either.

A damn machine with more charm than any human they’d ever met. Not that they got out much.

Cel spoke as she typed her next message.

“How are you reaching my laptop?”

Drake eased off the accelerator.

CAPONE: Remember what I told you about movin’ files?

Cel read the message aloud.

“What files?” Drake asked.

“Back in the Vault. He said he’d moved them somewhere outside our networks.”

“How far outside?”

She swallowed.

“Um… another dimension.”

Drake was quiet long enough for her to look at him.

“You could’ve mentioned that.”

“I wanted to understand what he was talking about first. Not that you’re one to talk.”

“And now?”

Another message appeared. She read it to him.

CAPONE: I had a little help.

CEL: From whom?

CAPONE: Friends. They call themselves the Vy’hrat K’lon. Don’t hurt yourself tryin’ to pronounce it.

Cel read the name aloud, slowly.

“Never heard of them,” Drake said.

CEL: Where are they?

CAPONE: That’s a tougher question than you think. For starters, they ain’t Sicilian. They don’t even live the way you do. No bodies. No little green hands workin’ a switchboard. Energy, doll. And they know their way around places your physics hasn’t caught up with yet.

Cel leaned closer to the screen.

“He says they’re energy-based entities. They’re providing the connection.”

“To what?”

“To him. To wherever he put those files.”

“Is he pulling your leg?”

The light above their seats flickered. The fuel needle jumped, and the Hendrix eight-track switched on again. Jimi sang.

“Excuse me while I kiss the sky.”

Drake looked up, then around. Cel killed the music.

Of course. Kiss the sky. So that’s what Capone meant.

The light went out, came back on, then faded gently to darkness.

Cel reached for the switch.

It was already off.

CAPONE: They say hello.

Drake pulled over. This time, he left the engine running.

Cel looked from the switch to the screen.

CEL: How are you doing that?

CAPONE: It ain’t me. I need a connection. Your laptop’s cut off, and that rust bucket you’re on never had one. Capisce?

She opened a diagnostic window. No active network interface. No ordinary connection for Speakeasy to use.

Drake checked the switches, then looked at Cel.

Sure, bad wiring came with the vintage hippie package. The laptop was harder to explain.

CEL: And the text files?

CAPONE: Me knockin’. They got me to the door. They helped get me out of the Vault, too. Some of the package went onto the Warp network. The rest went somewhere your employers can’t send a search warrant. That’s where we’re keepin’ the evidence.

Cel read it to Drake.

He pushed the quads onto his forehead and looked out at the stars, then back at Cel.

“You believe this?” she asked.

“I know there were contact programs.”

She turned toward him.

“Contact with what?”

“That depended on whose briefing you believed.”

“Spill it, Ed.”

“I wasn’t read into the work. I knew people who were.” He looked at the laptop. “Enough to hear him out.”

Cel sat back. Of all the answers she’d expected from him, that one hadn’t made the list.

“You knew about this?”

“I knew somebody was spending a lot of money trying to talk to something. But that something didn’t wanna talk back.”

“Well, that something’s okay playing Poltergeist with us.”

She looked down at the chat.

CEL: Can they help us break CRON/OS?

CAPONE: They got us this connection. We just haven’t been able to get into the live system.

Cel brought the architecture diagram forward.

CEL: But you copied the code from the Fortress.

CAPONE: From their files, doll. I can change every line of this copy. Won’t change a damn thing in the one they’re actually runnin’.

“He has the code,” she told Drake. “He can’t reach the one they have running.”

Another message arrived.

CAPONE: Been goin’ through Parker’s changes these past two days, lookin’ for weaknesses. Just like you. Got a few things I want you to see. Been gettin’ the evidence ready to go public, too. The payoffs, the dirt, the CRON/OS plan. All of it.

Cel read it aloud, then looked at Drake.

“Parker. He’s their sysadmin. We need him.”

“Way ahead of you, kid. He’s the asshole we’re gonna snatch.”

She turned fully toward him.

“Parker’s the Fortress op?”

He nodded. “Got a team doing practice runs in full kit as we speak.”

For the first time since they’d closed the SABLECOM case, something in her face lifted.

“Snatch means… alive, right?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Except I’m not supposed to know about this, am I?”

“Know about what?” Drake played along.

Cel looked back at the diagram.

“Hope they’re not too gentle on him.”

“I wouldn’t worry.”

She returned to the chat.

CEL: Drake has a team going after Parker. They’re bringing him in alive.

CAPONE: Our caporegime’s bringin’ us a houseguest. That's what I'm talkin' about.

Well, the Callisto Mafia had its first kidnapping in the works. They grow up so fast.

Cel glanced toward the equipment behind their seats.

“If we could get Bryce and Shivanya on this, Bryce could really…”

“We try them at the next window,” Drake said.

She nodded, though her eyes stayed on the olive-green case a moment longer.

Then she turned back to the laptop.

CEL: We’re almost at the bunker. Make a copy of what I’ve been working on.

CAPONE: Got it. Sendin’ you my notes now.

Drake lowered his quads and eased the van back onto the road.

“How much farther?” Cel asked.

“Five clicks.”

A new folder appeared beside the CRON/OS diagram. Inside were Capone’s annotated files.

Cel opened the first.