by H C Edwards
“Yes,” Egbert stated unapologetically. “But when you wake you will not expose your knowledge. You will wait.”
Claire curled her lip.
“You…will…wait,” the older woman emphasized, “until your grandfather is undergoing the transition. Then and only then will you tell my daughter what to do.”
“You think he won’t kill Misao too?” Claire snapped.
“He knows her life is the only insurance for my cooperation. As long as she is alive, I pose no threat. She will be detained, for certain, during his transition and revival, and that will be your window to find her.”
“We’re supposed to do your dirty work for you,” Claire said, not hiding her disdain.
“You will do what you must to survive.”
The councilwoman walked around Claire to the adjoining wall. She pushed a button as a wave of ambient light flowed along, and a panel slid aside. Slowly, another bed emerged from the wall, on it, the artificial uterus that encased the QUBIT body that was meant for Claire.
She had never seen one still in the womb before. Through the thin membrane, she could see the fluid flow in a circular motion, pumped into the sack by a hose affixed at the head of the body.
The fear came back again. It leaped to the forefront as if it had never left. Claire cringed away from it as best as her bonds allowed. She shook her head back and forth, hating herself for this show of weakness, but unable to stop.
“Nononono,” she began to blubber, and at that moment, she again heard her father’s voice.
Be brave, my love. This is not the end.
Claire cut off her protestations, sucking in her bottom lip and biting it hard enough to draw blood. The metallic taste in her mouth seemed to clear her mind. The fear was still there, but it was joined by a hardened sense of resolution, a determination to not let her death go with a whimper.
The councilwoman returned to her side.
“That’s better,” she said. “That is what I’d expect from a Talbot.”
She started to lower the uplink but Claire stopped her with a word.
“Wait.”
The calm delivery of her demand froze Egbert’s hand, hovering just above her forehead.
“I want to remember telling you this.”
The councilwoman frowned.
“After he’s dead,” Claire said, her eyes locked onto the older woman’s suddenly unsettled expression. “I’ll make certain the rest of you pay for what you’ve done.”
“Is there some sort of problem, Councilwoman?” the one female of the two techs asked.
They sat at their monitoring stations, wearing virtual glasses and their interactive gloves, projection screens curved on the tabletops in front of them. She had surprised them with her entry, the gun being the catalyst for alarm, but they had recovered quickly. Any human would have still been frozen with fear. The synthetics, however, did not fear death like their human counterparts.
“Don’t think of sounding an alarm,” Misao warned, the pistol centering on the woman, whose name tag identified her as Joan.
“I do not understand why an alarm would be necessary,” she replied, confused.
Misao swore under her breath. Of course the woman was confused. Talbot would not have informed the entire Pantheon of the current insurgence. Only the guards would need to know. She had led with her paranoia instead of her brains, and now she was exposing herself.
“I’m sorry,” Misao apologized after some quick thinking, dropping the barrel of the gun. “You have obviously not been apprised of the current situation.”
The woman named Joan looked to her partner and back, her face now curiously concerned.
“Situation?”
Misao nodded, stuffing the pistol in her waistband beneath her robes.
“Yes, unfortunately there has been a credible threat to the Pantheon. I am going to need you two to come with me immediately. I will explain on the lift.”
“But, Councilwoman,” Joan replied. “One of us must stay to monitor fluctuations in the chamber.”
“I am giving you an order,” Misao said evenly. “Do not make me say it again.”
This had the desired effect that the pistol did not. The two techs immediately put down their glasses and took off the gloves, laying them on the desk in front of the projection screens. They stood without protest and waited for Misao’s instructions.
“Let’s go,” she said, moving back a step and motioning for them to take the lead.
The two techs walked towards the door. As they passed her, Misao withdrew the EMP baton that Trey had given her, silently thanking him for the foresight.
“I’m sorry,” she said, powering the baton up, and then tapping the male tech in the back.
He dropped forwards, collapsing onto Joan and knocking her to the ground. Unfortunately, her fall triggered the door sensor, and when it opened, she spilled into the Ring’s hallway. Misao hurriedly closed the gap and tapped the woman on the head with the baton before she could move, but when she stood up, she saw two guards coming around the curve of the hallway.
She didn’t hesitate, not in the least bit. It was instinct, and nothing more. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew the pistol and fired four shots down the hallway. The guards, caught by surprise, stumbled backwards, ducking the fire thrown their way, backpedaling as they tried to bring their rifles about.
When the guards were out of sight, Misao slid the gun across the floor, back into the monitoring station. She bent over, hands beneath the prone woman, and rolled her out into the hallway to clear the door.
The first guard appeared around the bend and fired off a burst of shots, causing Misao to fall backwards. Thankfully, she fell into the room, the door closing in front of her. Quickly, before the guards could get any closer, she hopped up and accessed the panel next to the door. She used her security code to lock it, buying herself some time.
Communications down by the quantum computer were not very reliable, due to the interference from the electromagnetic field, which is why each monitoring station had a hardline in it. It was an incredibly flimsy system for this type of situation, but then, there had never been a situation like this before.
Misao knew they’d try to figure out the door first, and if she was fortunate, the guards would waste time trying to use their comms before they realized that avenue was worthless. It would be a couple of minutes before they even thought about shooting through the door.
It wasn’t much time for Trey to find Griffin or for them to upload the virus, but time hadn’t exactly been on their side from the beginning.
Misao ran to the pistol and scooped it up, stuffing it back in her waistband. She yanked her robes off, leaving them in a pile on the floor. They were useless now and would only slow her down.
She ran to the desk that was manned by the female tech next and powered off the projection screen, then scooped up the glasses and gloves, stuffing them in her pockets. It took a bit longer to disconnect the mini PC, but she knew it was necessary to input the calculations that would overload the cooling system in the chamber, the same set of calculations that her team had used almost two years ago that set off the explosions, killing two of her friends.
Gear in hand, she ran to the other door, using her security access to open the tunnel. She heard it close behind her even as her feet pounded the floor, the echoes rebounding along the curved walls.
The last time she had been in one of these tunnels she had been filled with excitement and enthusiasm, eager to prove her brilliance, brimming with ultimate confidence. Now, as she ran, Misao felt desperate and afraid, not for the death she knew was coming either way, but that she would fail, and that Akropolis would suffer the consequences.
Griffin sat on the cot, staring at the wall, his hands worrying themselves in front of him. They took his forearm computer so he didn’t know how much time had passed, but he’d been gauging it since his capture.
By his estimate, it was roughly forty-five minutes since he�
�d been brought to this cell, more than enough time for Janet to send the data stream, if she had at all.
It was a gamble, he knew, and one he didn’t want to take, but in the heat of the moment, with eminent capture at hand, it was the only thing he could think of to try. And even if Janet did send it, would there be time?
From their house it took nearly twenty minutes to arrive at the heart of the city. The only hope any of them had was that Quentin had not been picked up before he received the message.
If not, then they had some time. Talbot wouldn’t be thinking of tracking him. There was no need. After all, he was just a boy in his eyes.
Then there was the possibility that they did get to Quentin before Griffin’s message. He didn’t want to consider that option, but he had to. Talbot had given him a choice, only it wasn’t really a choice. Cooperate and they both live, or don’t and he’d be wiped, his son no doubt killed, and he’d cooperate without knowledge that anything untoward had transpired.
Griffin knew that wipes were a tricky thing. Short-term memory and long-term memory was affected, and if they went back far enough, certain learned skills and acquired knowledge would be lost, and Talbot needed his knowledge on more than just the operation and maintenance of the cryo-stasis tubes. There wouldn’t be a section on that ship that didn’t contain some part of Griffin’s work, and they both knew it.
The only choice Talbot had if he didn’t agree to help would be to alter his memories, and while that could work to some degree, there was always the possibility of instability or degradation, and if something like that happened out in the stars there was no telling what problems could occur.
No, Talbot needed Quentin alive because he needed Griffin, and that meant there was still some hope.
The guard on the other side of the palladium glass of his cell coughed. Griffin glanced up to see the man looking at him over his shoulder. He wasn’t either of the same guards that had brought him in.
“I know you,” Griffin said, searching his memory for the name. “Gonzalez. I’ve seen you in the lobby. You usually run council detail, don’t you? This doesn’t seem as respectable, standing watch over an old fool.”
The guard didn’t reply, but neither did he turn away.
“Ah, but then Talbot probably doesn’t want you around right now, not a veteran like you.”
Griffin sighed, leaning back against the wall.
“You want to ask me a question,” he surmised. “Go ahead.”
At first, it didn’t seem like he would get a response, but the man’s curiosity needed to be satiated.
“Is it true?” he asked hesitantly. “What they say about the Major?”
“What do they say?” Griffin asked.
“That he went AWOL?”
Griffin turned his head towards Gonzalez.
“How long has it been since your revival?” he asked instead of answering.
The guard turned around fully.
“Fifteen years,” he replied. “And I remember you too, Doctor Byrne.”
Griffin nodded. He was there at the man’s revival. There had been complications with his profile, having to do with a faulty uplink chip that had been installed years before his passing. Janet had come to him for aid, or rather, for help in replacing those memories that hadn’t fully uploaded to the Cloud. His work with Quentin had given him the answer to such problems.
“Do you,” Griffin began, thinking about Rose, all of a sudden.
Rarely a day went by that he didn’t think about her in one way or another, the long life they had together. Some would think it fortunate, but then, they didn’t know that the good memories were always overshadowed by the bad, that when he closed his eyes at night, he was inevitably drawn to the day he found her.
“Do you remember what it felt like to be alive?” Griffin asked, turning his head away from the guard to stare at the wall again, stare through it. “And I don’t mean the memories of it, but the actual…breath of it…the way it felt to…to touch another person.”
He held up his hand, looking at his fingers. So realistic, the facsimile they had created. This technology, all their advancements and they had used it to cheat death, because in the end, the majority of them just couldn’t let it go.
“I have a wife,” Gonzalez said, his voice muted, as if the utterance of this small fact left him humble. “She’s still alive.”
Griffin looked back to him.
“I came back for her. I didn’t think she could live without me, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
His smile was wistful and sad as he stared down at the floor.
“She doesn’t look at me like she used to,” he admitted with a shrug. “The man she sees isn’t the man she remembers.”
Griffin saw the guard struggling, but didn’t have the words to comfort him.
“Sometimes I think you should have just left me there in the Cloud.”
And there it was, the regret. He had seen it before, felt it himself, and yet the choice made couldn’t be taken back. Was it better to be remembered for what was lost or reminded of it daily?
It was surreal, this conversation they were having. The world, as they knew it, was about to drastically change, whether it went Talbot’s way or not, and the repercussions would be felt all throughout Akropolis, by humans and synthetics alike. It was time someone else knew the truth, and since he couldn’t shout it from the rooftops, a confession in a cell would have to do.
“Gonzalez,” Griffin said, and the tone of his voice drew the guard’s eyes back to him. “I want to tell you a story…”
Plan B
“I feel it incumbent of me to voice my disapproval for this plan of action.”
“I know, Sia. I’m not too thrilled about it either.”
The transport zoomed along the highway, the Inner Zone coming into view. He always marveled at the beauty of the architecture when passing through. There had never been a time that it didn’t amaze him to see the spiraled buildings, the smooth lines and contours of the high-rise apartments that seemed to reach like outstretched hands towards the heavens, as if the planners had been enamored with the beauty of their lost sky. Here and there were greenhouses and gardens dotting the rooftops, lush with plants and fauna, ivy that wove in and out of stone terraces, open verandas that displayed Greco-style columns or gothic buttresses. He thought about how the buildings seemed to reflect the artificial light so that the city seemed to almost glow, an effect he wondered might be seen from space.
When the Bay came into view, he was inevitably drawn back to his first meeting with Claire, that moment on the pier. It seemed so long ago, a different life perhaps, but when he thought of her, the feelings were no different than they were that first time she sat beside him and he felt the warmth of her body close to his.
She would be at the Pantheon, he knew, probably under watch and guard. There was nothing he could do about that, and though every instinct in his body urged him to find her, he knew that his clumsy wanderings would never reveal her location.
Quentin had to close his eyes and breathe the thought of her away. It was nigh unbearable to let her go, knowing how close he was to finding her, but it was necessary to focus on the task at hand.
Sia had relayed the origins of the signal that she was able to decode, too late unfortunately, to warn the rest of them. It had been transmitting from the Major to the Pantheon, an old radio frequency, which is why she hadn’t detected it at first. Quentin had read about the old signals and knew that they were often used for broadcasting or communications in the world before Akropolis, and when he realized that the call network was down, he assumed the worst.
There had been no plan at first, just a dismal feeling of doom that lasted too long, helplessness that spiraled down into hopelessness, but then he shook off the despair and began pacing the living room, devising routes of action and discarding each one almost immediately. He was almost mad with frustration when he decided that, plan or no plan, he needed to go. His father
would be in the Pantheon by now, Trey and Misao leaving the ASF headquarters to rendezvous. If he didn’t try something soon, they were as good as caught.
It was then that he heard the tone that signaled the Cloud uplink to his profile, backing up all his thoughts and feelings, memories of the last couple of hours. Only this time, something different happened, and when it did, the shock of it sent him into unconsciousness.
That was a great day, maybe the last great one; the grainy feel of the warm sand between his toes, the dark water lapping at his ankles.
It was one of those days betwixt summer and fall, what they used to call an Indian summer. At least that’s what his father stated, who when asked the meaning of the phrase could not quite recollect its origins…just something he had read in a book once upon a time.
The boy could hear his mother’s laughter on the beach behind him, like the musical sound of chimes on a windy day. It tapered off into a girlish giggle that made him smile and feel more at ease.
Dad was good at that…making her laugh. The boy didn’t realize until he heard it how much he had missed it. As of late it seemed like a dark cloud hovered above their home, choking off the sound of laughter before it even found its voice, stifling the very air surrounding them. Something had changed in the last few months; a sinister presence had taken up residence in their home. It darkened the hallways in the middle of the day, crouched in the shadowy corners of each room, naked and hairless like an albino ape, and when it sunk its fingers into his mother the boy would catch her staring at him in such a strange piercing way that it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
On that day at the beach, however, the sound of her laughter chased away all of those shadows. For the first time in a long time everything felt normal again.
He glanced back at the two of them. It was almost as if the world slowed down for a moment, just long enough for his brain to capture the scene…a forever picture.
They were both dressed in white, Dad in his linen beach slacks and shirt, his immaculately combed black hair molded around his skull like a caricature. His face was a little thin; cheekbones too sharp with gray just starting to pepper the three day beard he always seemed to have, but he was strong…invincible.