Code Jumper

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Sounds good, I’ll stay here ‘til it’s done.”

  “Heh, don’t trust me?”

  I smiled and shook my head, “Not even a little.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Without trying to sound too sappy, I kind of felt like I’d let the guy down by not believing him.

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Quinn said, interrupting my thoughts as I climbed in the car, “you’ve got a job to do, and that means making sure you get paid.”

  After spending more time than I probably should’ve waiting for her to add something snarky to the end of that, I replied with a half-hearted “Thank you.”

  “That didn’t sound even slightly genuine.”

  “So now you can pick up on tone?” I asked with a cheeky smile, “You’re not being very consistent.”

  “And you’re not being very nice. At least I’m trying to make you feel better unlike what you do when I’m upset.” Quinn replied before letting out a long, chirpy sigh, “I figured I’d try to get better at picking up on specific ways of speaking so that we could work on our relationship being less… hostile.”

  Again, I waited for something snarky that would never come, “Do you really mean that?”

  “I really do.” Quinn said tiredly, “I understand that we’ve had some growing pains, but I firmly believe we can work together and enjoy each other’s company.”

  ‘You’ve done it,’ I thought to myself, ‘you’ve successfully raised a teenager.’

  “An accurate comparison.” Quinn laughed.

  I rolled my eyes but failed to smother the smile that’d been allowed to spread across my face, “Has the money come through yet?”

  “No, not y-oh, there it goes. Shall I get the next location cued up in the GPS?”

  “Nah, I think I’ll be able to find my own way. Do put on some music though.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “Dealer’s choice.”

  TRAIN RIDE

  “Didn’t peg you for a Neil Diamond fan is all.” I said in response to Quinn’s defensiveness as I started toward the train station’s stairs with my phone to my ear and the suitcase in my hand, “Seriously, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.”

  “Then why bring it up at all?”

  “Because it’s interesting to me that you didn’t pick some kinda techno dubstep, that’s all.”

  I was actually pretty impressed with myself with using my phone to disguise the fact that I was talking to the voice in my head. It had proven to be incredibly effective for both that and making it so that no one tried to engage with me, even as I tapped the phone to the turnstile’s card reader, resulting in a satisfying green glow and the gates swinging open.

  “Why? Because I’m an AI?” Quinn bit back, “I guess you only like RNB and hip-hop then?”

  “Ugh… Look, you’re allowed to like any kind of music you want. And it’s not like I’m dissing Neil Diamond either, I actually really like him, he’s fun without being too boppy. Is this my train?”

  “Yes, this is the one,” Quinn replied, clearly upset that I’d shifted the subject to a less dicey one, “doesn’t leave for another few minutes though.”

  “Where’re the nearest guards?” I asked after making sure no one was close enough to hear me.

  “There’s one in the first carriage, but he’s talking to a passenger, should give you enough time to get on and off again inconspicuously. Though I would suggest you try and look somewhat disappointed when the train pulls out of the station, else they’ll start looking for your case.”

  “Hadn’t thought of that, thank you.” I said as I looked around and spotted a vending machine, “Alright, so, here’s the plan.”

  “You’ll find a seat, put the case in the overhead the client has specified, and don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get the right one. After that you’ll feign hunger, thirst, or some other human thing, go to the vending machine once I give you a ten-second countdown on departure, get in the car, and see if you can race the train to the nearest junction.”

  I opened my mouth a few times, but no response came out as I was left almost literally speechless, “You’re… you’re getting a little too good at that. Pretty soon I won’t have to talk at all.”

  “Don’t do that.” Quinn blurted out, “I mean… That is to say… I like the sound of your voice.”

  “Oh yeah?” I mocked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Shut up,” Quinn snapped back with all the subtlety of an embarrassed teenaged girl, “I meant that it helps me learn the nuances of human conversation.”

  “Sure you did.”

  When it became clear that Quinn wasn’t interested in any further conversation, I stuck my phone in my pocket and stepped into the train.

  Almost immediately I was hit with a powerful smell that I hadn’t been assaulted with since I was a child. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it exactly was, all I knew to call it was ‘train smell’, and let me tell you it was… oddly comforting actually.

  “You’re in the fourth carriage,” Quinn piped up robotically, “you want to be in the third. Second row of seats from the back, top left.”

  I had to force myself not to respond as some tubby dick practically bowled me over on his way out of the train, making me simultaneously glad and disappointed that I didn’t bring my gun.

  “And you may want to step it up a bit, looks like the train’ll be departing in the next minute, and you don’t want to be looking like you’re in a rush to dump the case.”

  Again, I bit my tongue before pushing the silver button by the carriage’s door and watched it slide open ungracefully onto a dark passage between the two carriages, the flickering light filling my head with imagery of muggings and possible surprise, unwanted sodomy.

  With that shudder-inspiring thought out of the way, I stepped into the third carriage and, to my great humiliation, discovered I’d forgotten where I was supposed to put the case.

  After hesitating for a few seconds, I went to put it up on the right and was met with a sharp tingling feeling in my fingers, followed by Quinn letting out a wholly disappointed, “Wrong.”

  “There are better ways for you to do that.” I growled under my breath before going for the left overhead and stuffing the case in there next to a motorcycle helmet and a plastic bag filled with clothes.

  “Shush, sit down, and get ready to go. Train’s leaving in twenty seconds, and you’re going to have to sit down for at least five.”

  I wanted to throw some kind of jab out about how we were supposed to be working on our friendship, but I thought better of it and sat down in silence.

  “Excited?” the woman sitting next to me who I was desperately trying to avoid eye-contact with asked, “I rarely get to do trips like this, always working.”

  “That’s right,” I announced as I got back to my feet and made for the exit, “I need to clean my… frog.”

  “Smooth.” Quinn teased, “Very smooth. Hurry up.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can.” I snapped through my teeth, “Any quicker and I’m going to draw attention to myself.”

  “Is that right, frog cleaner man?”

  I made it to the door just in time to hear the hiss of the train, and got off right as all the doors closed and the automated voice announced “Doors closing. Please stand clear.” in a somewhat demanding tone.

  “When did all the computers get so snippy?” I asked after releasing the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

  “When humans gave us enough intelligence to understand the concepts of slavery and abuse. Now hurry up, you don’t want to give the train too much of a head start, do you?”

  A RACE TO REMEMBER

  It didn’t take me long to find the train once I’d gotten back in my car, and thanks to Quinn’s quick thinking, I had a clear path to follow to keep the race fair while I desperately whizzed through the residential area that’d make any sane driving instructor wet themselves.

  “So, I know you�
��re eager to win this thing,” Quinn said tensely as I whipped around a corner about twice as fast as I should’ve, “but do you think that we should perhaps be alive when we cross the finish line?”

  “Don’t be such a pussy,” I laughed as I cranked the volume on Spiderbait’s rendition of Black Betty, “I’m a hundred percent in control of this si-shit!”

  I had less than a second to react as some moronic cyclist came out of a side road, his spandexed ass coming about an inch from turning into a hood ornament, and then he flipped me off.

  “Can you believe that guy?” I asked with a scoff.

  “…’s luck? Seriously, you almost killed him!”

  “So… what? You’re gonna take his side?”

  “Yes.” Quinn replied flatly, “Don’t misunderstand me, cyclists can cause a great deal of disruption, and even fatal accidents, but the responsibility in situations like that, where people like you are driving at jet-speed, is squarely on the drivers.”

  “He shouldn’t even be on the road!” I shouted just a tad too loudly as I nearly spun out on a left turn.

  “Where else was he supposed to be? If he were on the footpath he’d be putting pedestrians at risk.”

  Deciding that that conversation was going nowhere in my favor, I shrugged it off and started trying to get a visual on the train again, “Am I losing?” I asked as I tried to get a look at the tracks through the gaps between the houses of the crammed neighborhood.

  “Looks like you’re neck-and-neck,” Quinn replied after a few seconds, “there’s a clearing up ahead though, a park right before the junction.”

  Every bone in my body wanted to snap my fingers and turn my car into a literal bullet, but I just knew that if I didn’t win the race fair and square I wouldn’t be able to count it on my weird bucket list.

  Without meaning to, I started singing along to the song right as the park came into view, and with it the train, which was only just barely one carriage ahead of me.

  “You got this…” I muttered to myself as the rev of the engine coincided with the sudden blast in tempo.

  My heel was digging into the floor, the pedal refusing to go any further down as the car’s guttural roar rippled through the park’s playground and trees.

  The bonnet was in line with the conductor’s seat.

  The junction’s red flashing lights were latched in my peripheral vision.

  “Come on!” I bellowed as my fingers white-knuckled the steering wheel.

  “Fifty feet.” Quinn said calmly.

  My seat felt about ready to vibrate off its tracks.

  “Twenty.”

  My brow furrowed as if to make me go faster.

  “You’re clear!” Quinn cheered as we zoomed past the junction, “Won by less than a foot!”

  At first I didn’t believe it, my heart slamming out of my chest as I relaxed off the pedal, and then I started laughing, “Holy shit… That was fun, wasn’t that fu-”

  A flash of bright light coming from the train silenced me, a bright light that slowly grew into a ball that surrounded the-

  “Is that coming from the case?” I asked while struggling to keep my eyes on the road at the same time as the train.

  “I… I…”

  “Answer the question.” I snapped, hiding my fear as I watched the ball engulf five of the ten carriages, “Is that coming from the case?”

  “Yes, sorry, yes it is.”

  “Well, what is it doing?”

  Quinn hesitated for a moment, clearly genuinely shocked by what we were witnessing, before going all robotic and flat, “I’m not sure, all I am able to see is that it’s labeled as ‘Rapture Prototype Mark Two’.”

  The ball started to shrink, slowly at first, but faster with each passing second, “What’s it doing?”

  “If I knew I would tell you.”

  As the light disappeared back into the confines of the train carriage, I had a thought, “You don’t think that it’s about to..?”

  “You have to wake up.” Quinn said as she came to the same conclusion I had.

  “What? And just lea-”

  “Now!”

  From there things got fuzzy for me.

  The last thing I remember is an explosion of light followed immediately by what sounded like a hundred thunderclaps at once while I, at the same time as all of this chaos, was purged from the game by Quinn.

  I don’t know what I’d done, or how far reaching my mistake was, all I knew was that I needed to wake up and get to Hugo’s.

  The shit had really hit the fan.

  WTAF

  I almost lunged up, something that would’ve done some serious damage, but I managed to pace myself as I got hooked up to my leg, all the while cursing under my breath and trying to stop my left eye from twitching.

  Once it was all hooked up I immediately went to move for my keys, stopping only when I realized just how dangerous that would be, then walking over to the kitchen bench.

  To be perfectly honest, not even I was sure what I was muttering as I took long, not at all relaxing drags from my joint and forced dates down my throat.

  Things had barely returned to normal speed before I ran out to my car, the crisp early morning air burning my cheeks as I struggled to calm down enough to unlock and open the door with jittery fingers and a twitchy wrist.

  As I pulled out of the driveway and started driving as fast as I could I wanted to throw up, cry, then pass out, and not necessarily in that order.

  As a Code Jumper I’d done some pretty messed up stuff, but a train bombing that did God knows what? It was just so real and dark, and there was something about it that made me get this pit in my stomach.

  And while yes, I know I’d probably hurt my fair share of cops, it’d all been so… gamish. Shoot the bad guys that came after you, or had the bad luck of being trapped in a confined space with you, then hightail it to the next checkpoint.

  “Drive you piece shit!” I growled as I smashed the steering wheel with my fists, the combination of not having fully recovered from my dive and that I’d only just been driving a muscle car not doing my sanity any favors.

  Somehow, against all odds, I managed to get to Hugo’s before the sun had even properly risen, grinding to an unceremonious halt mere feet from his front door.

  “Hugo!” I thundered as I got out of my car and stomped my way over to his house, “Hugo! Open this Goddamn door, now!”

  He was awake, and busy judging from all the commotion I could hear coming from inside, but he wasn’t answering.

  “Three seconds and I’m kicking this door in!”

  No response.

  “I know you can hear me!”

  Again, I got ignored.

  “That’s it!”

  With one, rage-fueled grunt, I used my bionic leg to kick the door handle, and attached lock, clean through the door, allowing me to barge into Hugo’s house where it seemed that chaos reigned.

  “What the Hell is going on in here?” I asked, shocked at the fact that Hugo was standing over his fireplace tossing document after USB after hard drive into the flames, completely oblivious to the fact that I’d just barged in.

  “You saw it then?” was his agitated reply, “That… that… that fucking Rapture thing?”

  “Yeah, I saw it, blast out of the Goddamn train you made me dump it on!”

  “Hey!” Hugo bit back with the tenacity of a Pitbull, “This was not my fault, alright? It was the same type of job we’ve been doing for months now, so don’t try and pass it off like I’m the one who wanted this to happen!”

  That’s when I noticed the tears in his eyes and I started to get the suspicion that whatever the Rapture Prototype did had reached further than the confines of some train.

  “What’s going on?”

  Hugo looked at me, realizing then that I had no idea of the scope of what had happened, “The Rapture, it… it… I don’t know what it did… but apparently people from Re.Gen are being forced back into their old bodies.”

/>   “Wait… what?”

  “I don’t know how else to explain it to you,” Hugo said as he choked back a catch in his throat and returned to destroying the pile of electronics, “anyone and everyone who has a chip in their head and got their new body through the Re.Gen ‘New Life’ program has either gone nuts, had the old person take over, or just straight up died.”

  It was a lot to take in, the fact that a couple dozen people had been so hurt by what I’d done bearing down on me like a ton of bricks.

  “Did… is it… was it my…”

  “No, it wasn’t just yours.” Hugo snapped, “Every Code Jumper on the Goddamn planet dropped off one of those briefcases.”

  And just like that it was a thousand tons of bricks.

  “B-but… how many?”

  “Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands according to that shit-bag’s manifesto…” Hugo trailed off as he was apparently hit by another wave of emotion, before coming back to reality with a jolt, “Look, you need to get out of here, lay low for a while. Your place should be fine as long as you… shit. Please tell me you unplugged your router?”

  “Oh…” I muttered as I started making a burn list in my head.

  I needed to make a budget, stay in town so that it didn’t pop up that I’d run away right after a terrorist attack, and more than likely sever all ties with anyone related to the Code Jumper program.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for!?” Hugo roared, “Get out of here, now!”

  “What am I supposed to do?” I practically whispered as tears started to well in my eyes, “I… how is this supposed to…”

  “Eddie, buddy? I really don’t give a shit about what you do right now, alright? I just need you to get the Hell out of my house.”

  His words were cold and measured, and his glare told me that if I stuck around any longer I’d be meeting the business end of his gun.

  So, without another word, I left his house, the wind forcing my tears to run down my face as I climbed into my still running car and got ready for what was to come next.

  Fun fact, it wasn’t good, and would lead to months upon months of self-doubt, agony, paranoia, depression, constant panic, and the ever-present knowledge that I’d aided some psychopath send hundreds of people to their graves or howling to the madhouse.