by H C Edwards
Albert’s map was precise as could be, accurate within a foot. At the bottom of the flooded stairs the wrist screen projected a holographic arrow with a distance gauge, so that Trey would know when to expect the next turn.
The water in the building was murky and thick. Even with the vest lights clicked to maximum they barely penetrated a few feet. He had to rely solely upon the map and hope that there wasn’t a single wrong turn. If so, he doubted he would ever make it out of this maze.
He took hallways both left and right. Sometimes there were bodies he had to push out of the way, sometimes screens and chairs. When he turned a corner to the last hallway that led to the elevator, he realized that this is where the majority of the people had drowned.
From wall to wall, floor to ceiling, bodies floated, packed in like drowned insects, arms and legs intertwined, bloated faces frozen in ghastly expressions of terror and shock.
Trey would have felt something come up had he eaten anything that day. As it were, he set to work untangling the bodies and then pushing them behind him one by one. Not all, not by any means; he’d be there too long. Instead he made a path along the floor. It took precious minutes and he was panting through his respirator by the time he had reached the other side of the hallway.
The lift door was not open, which was why the bodies were piled up. It must have shut down the moment the water hit the building, because on the other side of the glass Trey could see that it was as dry as a bone.
He pulled the circular device out of his pocket, taken from the airlift a few hours before, and placed it on the hand panel for the lift. The device powered up the system and turned green.
Trey put it away in his pocket, braced himself, and then pressed his hand on the panel. The glass doors opened quite quickly, throwing him across the lift and slamming him hard into the opposite wall, knocking the breath and respirator from him. He lost sight of it as the thousands of gallons of water kept him pinned, hammering him mercilessly. Thankfully, it lasted but a few seconds, and then dazed and reeling, he searched for his respirator, found it a few feet away, and then reattached it over his nose and mouth.
When he was able to gather his senses, he found the other panel for the lift and pressed it. The doors closed, not nearly as quickly, but when the inner glass was sealed, the lift started to descend.
Trey watched as the lift took him into the bowels of the building, passing floors that were similar to the one he’d already been through, flooded hallways, bodies drifting in space. When he left behind the ground level, there was a space of rock that went on for a few seconds, before opening up into levels that were not flooded at all.
He had not expected this, but in a way it made sense. They had to have been prepared for this eventuality, while also hoping it would never be needed.
The next shock was the bodies he saw lying on the dry floors. Not nearly as many in the flooded areas, and while he only had a glimpse of them as he descended, he didn’t spot any blood or signs of trauma. It was almost as if they had simply lied down and died.
After that, it didn’t take long before the view in front of the lift opened up to a massive chamber the size of the building itself without walls. Below him there was a dome that housed the quantum computer. Branching out from it were four enclosed tunnels that led away and towards shielded rooms, each with their own lift tubes.
A few seconds later and the lift descended to one of the rooms, the glass doors opening up again too quickly and spilling him and the entire lift’s flooded compartment into a control chamber filled with screens, interactive equipment and chairs, but no people. When he skidded to a stop, fortunately not smashed up against anything, he saw that there was power, the lights still on overhead and some of the panels operational for integral systems.
Following Albert’s instructions he went to the main control panel and used his device to power up the computer. He entered the passwords given to him, and finding the processor settings, made sure to disconnect it. When that was done he reached down beneath and popped out a large panel and slid out the processor. It was the size of a large book and as heavy.
Trey handled it carefully as he reached into another pocket and pulled out a folded bag. After opening it he placed the processor in and pressed a little button on it. The entire bag filled up with foam in a split second. He then sealed the bag and slung it on his back, wriggling his arms into the straps.
Mission accomplished, but it did little to dispel the unease in his stomach. He was thinking about what Albert had said to him before he left to retrieve the processor.
…in the blink of an eye…more powerful than anything we had ever seen…
What could that mean?
When Trey finally ascended from the water in the stairwell, it was with no small measure of relief. He took off the respirator and breathed deeply. The air was irradiated of course, and each breath and second exposed led him that much closer to death, but it didn’t feel that way at the moment.
He gave it a full minute before climbing the stairs. Albert was long gone, maybe they all were. He wondered if he would find their bodies and in what kind of state if so.
It didn’t take him long. Now that he had retrieved the processor he still needed to get it to the housing unit and try to uplink with the satellites left in orbit. When that was done he could rest knowing that there was a way to save the lives lost.
The room that he had been held in was empty. The chairs were still there but not a single soul. His EMP rifle and pistols were against the far wall. He retrieved these out of habit and not because he thought they would do any good. There was no threat in Charlottesville. That time had come and passed.
On the rooftop, Trey found Albert, or rather what was left of him holding on. He was propped up against the same antenna that had originally drawn Trey there. In his hands, Albert was holding a gun, but it lay as if forgotten. He was staring up through the hole in the sanctuary at the sky, unblinking. As Trey approached he saw that one of Albert’s eyes had ruptured and had filled with blood.
“You made it,” Albert whispered, lips also red. “I knew you would. The others are gone. I don’t have time…give me your arm.”
Trey knelt down beside the man and held his forearm screen in front of him. Albert’s fingers were not as deft or quick this time. They moved sluggishly across the screen and what probably would have taken seconds a few hours ago took nearly a minute. When he was done, Albert’s hands flopped to his side weakly, head lolling to one side so that he could stare at the sky again.
“There,” he said, his jaw barely moving. “When you link the processor to the Cloud, you’ll upload to the satellites…not a lot, but enough…that way if you don’t make it back, you’ll remember what happened here when you’re revived…”.
“Thank you for all your help,” Trey said quietly, but it was as if Albert didn’t hear him.
“I’ve never seen the sky before…not really…it’s so big…beautiful really…”
A sigh escaped his lips and he ceased to move. Trey turned and walked away, leaving Albert’s eyelids open…so that he could still look at the sky.
Trey stepped back as the indented swirl on the housing unit glowed green and began to pulse with light. When it turned solid and ceased blinking he knew that it had linked with the quantum computer. Those profiles had been saved.
He left the housing unit and took the ramp back into the air transport, looking back only once as he closed the cargo bay. Even as the door closed, he heard and felt the intonations inside of his skull.
He was uploading to the Cloud.
The table was silent, father and son still mesmerized by the account, Trey having reached the end of his story.
“What happened then?” Quentin asked, leaning forward.
Trey shrugged.
“Who’s to say? I didn’t make it back, that’s for certain. Maybe I crashed; maybe the radiation hit me harder than I thought…I don’t know. But you, Doctor, you know something that you�
�re not telling. I can see it in your eyes.”
Griffin, thoughtful, frowned.
“I have my theory, but not any proof, mind you.”
“And yet…”
Trey let the thought hang there.
“The council,” Griffin said slowly. “I think they’re the ones behind what happened at Charlottesville.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s obvious isn’t it? The program they reinstated. It was cancelled due to lack of resources and then a couple of months ago its back on? Quite the coincidence I’d say, and I don’t believe in coincidences these days.”
“How?” Trey asked. “To bury a sanctuary in the ocean? That would take-”
“A weapon of mass destruction,” Griffin finished. “Like the ones from the Old World.”
Trey shook his head.
“That’s not possible. There’s nothing like that in Akropolis. If there were I would have seen it a long time ago.”
Griffin held up a finger.
“Unless it’s not something we had but something that was given to us…and relatively recent too.”
“By whom?”
“I told you before, the Red Zone project depended upon the resources of all three sanctuaries. With Charlottesville out, Akropolis and The Mountain continued the work as long as they could. Whatever the project entailed, it was touted as the salvation of our species. I saw the resource list needed, divided up between the sanctuaries and what they could provide. Two of the materials necessary were steel and aluminum, and a lot of it, an amount that was only possible to procure from the old city surrounding Charlottesville. Without those materials the project couldn’t go forward.”
“That’s hardly proof,” Trey said skeptically, but he was starting to get a funny feeling about the whole conversation.
“One of the things The Mountain was supposed to contribute was an extremely large amount of ammonium perchlorate.”
“What?” Trey asked.
“It’s a chemical compound,” Quentin interrupted, drawing the glances of both men. “An extremely powerful oxidizer. When you combine it with a fuel it can be…a propellant.”
Quentin uttered the last word quietly, his eyes falling away from the stares of his father and the Major. He was suddenly thinking about the Edge and the objects that he and Claire had seen rise from the desert floor.
Griffin picked up where Quentin left off.
“In the old days that compound was used to make rocket fuel. And as you know, Major, before the war, The Mountain had another name…NORAD.”
“A defensive position,” Trey immediately responded, defensive himself.
“Have you ever been there, Major?” Griffin countered.
A silence fell in which the answer was obvious.
“Well I have,” he continued. “Long before I came here to Akropolis, in fact. Believe me when I say they not only had strike capabilities, but that chances are they didn’t fire all of them at the end. Even one of the missiles they stored there could have created the effect you saw in Charlottesville.”
Trey wanted to retaliate but found he had no real argument, only questions.
“If what you say is true, there would have been nothing left of the city, no walls, no buildings. How could a missile bury the whole sanctuary in water?”
Griffin shrugged, “You’re assuming that it was a direct hit. That would be a bad idea if they were looking to pillage it for resources.”
Trey thought about the details the council had given him. A tsunami, they had said. He assumed the hurricane might have caused it but in retrospect he began to consider a different cause.
“If a missile hit offshore…”
Griffin was nodding, “It would have to be close.”
Trey finished the thought, “Close enough to create a wave a thousand feet tall.”
The theory didn’t seem far-fetched. In fact, it felt right. Could the council be responsible for such a thing? Was it even a possibility?
Trey thought about all the things he had watched them and Talbot do for ‘the greater good’. He considered his own past and what he had done for his country and family.
“But why? Our sanctuaries are self-sufficient. We can ride out the radiation-”
“For ten thousand years?” Griffin interrupted incredulously. “I think not. No, we are dying now. Each year there are less and less of us. The human race will not live to see a day when they can re-populate this world.”
Quentin held up a hand as if he were back in the classroom. It was an instinctual action, one which he immediately withdrew.
“I thought the vaccines were working.”
“The council hypes it,” his father replied. “But it’s a band-aid on a gushing wound. Whatever use they have in mind for those resources, the council believes it is the saving grace for humanity, and they are putting all their eggs in that basket.”
Trey shook his head, not because he was denial but for the absurd fact that he believed it. It made sense given all that he had discovered and learned. He thought of Albert’s description of what happened in Charlottesville. The missile made sense. After all, the intent was to preserve the resources, not destroy them.
“How do you know all of this?” Trey asked.
Griffin hesitated.
“I’ve been piecing it together,” he replied, but there was something in that hesitation that gave Trey pause.
“Seems unlikely you could put this together just from my account and the resumption of an old project. It’s a hell of a theory, without proof.”
Griffin sighed heavily and looked to Quentin when he explained.
“It’s Sia. I told you of her inclusion at the Pantheon.”
Quentin nodded, remembering the conversation.
“Who is Sia?” Trey asked, drawing the doctor’s attention again.
“Sia is a program I’ve been working on for quite some time,” Griffin explained. “I created her after Quentin’s matrix became stable. It occurred to me that I could use what I learned about memory replacement from my son and create a computer personality with all the knowledge that we possess as well as embedded memories that helped to give it a human essence.”
Trey arched an eyebrow.
“You made a program with memories?”
“Our memories. My family and I. I gave Sia every memory I had as well as what Quentin possessed in order for her to reference the human aspect whenever she interacted with people, creating what could be considered a conscience-driven program, hence a sentient one.”
Trey looked to Quentin.
“He built an AI program,” the kid quipped.
Trey smirked. He really did like Quentin.
Griffin, with a wry smile, went on.
“The idea was to eventually link Sia to the Quantum Cloud. Instead of the thousands of programs we implement per day to run the city, there would be only Sia.”
“Doc,” Trey interrupted, feeling as if Griffin might be going off topic as a stall tactic.
“Right,” Griffin said, frowning. “I made a copy of her and installed it in the Pantheon systems. They are closed systems of course, which means Sia only had access to public areas that were not deemed sensitive, but long story short, she overheard certain conversations that caused her concern. Like I said before, Sia is a conscience driven program, and when she learned information that she fond troubling, she reported it to me. Some of those conversations concerned what the council dubs The Plan, the details of which I have already related to you.”
“So she was your spy,” Trey stated bluntly.
“You could say that,” Griffin conceded. “But the conversations were vague, lacking specifics. I have had the Sia program at the Pantheon monitoring full time ever since, but whatever plan they have, the council now keeps it behind closed doors.”
Quentin straightened up all of a sudden, as if he had been prodded in the side.
“What?” Trey asked, sitting up himself.
“Dad?”
The kid looked despondently at his father.
The doc sighed.
“She’s talking to you, isn’t she?” he asked, referring to Sia.
Quentin nodded.
“What did she say?”
“She said that you’re not telling us everything, about her purpose.”
Griffin shook his head.
“Damn thing.”
“What does she mean?” Quentin pressed.
His father ran a hand through his scraggly hair.
“The original intent for Sia was to interface with the Quantum Computer and take over the day to day operations of the city, like I said…but a few years ago I was privy to some information that changed my purpose for creating her, which in turn, caused me to alter her programming for a different task.”
Trey leaned in, “What task would that be?”
Griffin looked down at his clasped hands.
“To destroy the Quantum Computer and the Cloud.”
The silence was deafening. Quentin couldn’t quite believe his ears.
“W-why…why would you want to do that?”
“Because,” his father replied, looking up with burdened eyes. “It’s killing us all.”
The Pact
Misao woke with her head feeling like an overripe melon on the verge of exploding. Her eyelids fluttered against the glaring light, sending ripples of excruciating pain across her already achy scalp. Needles, dozens of them, were sinking slowly into her skull, pulsating each time her heart beat, miniscule tendrils that seemed to constrict around her brain every time she drew breath.
An unbidden groan escaped her lips as the nausea enveloped her. She had never felt pain like this; not even as a child when she had taken to sliding down banisters, falling off the steep side one day and landing on her arm hard enough to break, a piece of bone protruding from her skin.
No, this pain made her question if death was hovering close by. Surely one couldn’t live long in this state. It was almost-
Misao suddenly remembered the trade hub, the guns drawn and the fugitive woman standing right before her. She had meant to retreat and come back another day in force, using sheer number to intimidate, but that was not what happened. Instead, Stanton…that damn guard-