by H C Edwards
Dad lounged on his side in the sand, Mom cradled in the crook of his half bent midsection, dressed in her summer dress. She had her knees pulled up to her chest, arms crossed and resting upon them. Her green eyes were squinted against the glare of the sun and the pockets of freckles on her cheekbones were like dozens of fairy kisses. She tucked away a strand of her curly raven hair behind an ear and squinted at Dad in that half amused smirk she wore so well.
They always found moments throughout the day to smile and laugh, to pass each other those knowing winks they thought he didn’t see. But those moments were becoming infrequent as time passed, and whatever shadow was cast upon their home began to lengthen and grow, as did the whispers in the night. Today, though, they were truly happy…today, everything was just fine.
Maybe that’s why they didn’t see the boat.
It appeared on the horizon, outlined by the reds and oranges of the setting sun, stark white sails rippling in the sea breeze. It was too far out to speculate on its build but the boy recalled reading that they were made of wood.
He had never seen a sailboat before, at least not outside of a book, and to his knowledge such a thing should not exist. Yet there it was, riding the edge of the water like a small toy he could almost reach out and pluck off the horizon.
It called to him, beckoned with the promise of mystery and adventure. He knew the distance was too great for him to swim but that didn’t seem to stop his feet from moving forward. He was entranced, eyes eager for more, hands yearning to stroke the smooth sides as one would pet a magnificent stallion.
The water was to his shoulders before he thought to stop. The sea had grown chilly and he could feel the undertow starting to pull at his ankles. He wanted to continue on, kick up his feet and start paddling, but not even the marvelous sight of the sailboat could deter his better judgment.
The boy turned his body back towards the beach, but his head did not follow suit, afraid that should his eyes waver from the image the boat would disappear like a mirage.
He went to call out to his parents, and then realized that something had changed. When he turned to look, his mother was still there lounging in the sand, but his father was on his feet, standing at the water’s edge, staring at him.
“Dad?” he said uncertainly.
His father’s lips didn’t move as he spoke.
“I need you to do something.”
“I don’t understand,” the boy replied, afraid now.
“Listen very carefully…”
When he woke, Quentin jumped to his feet immediately, Sia already in his ear asking questions in what seemed like a concerned tone.
“I’ll explain as I go,” he said to her hastily.
Uploading her program into his forearm computer took precious minutes, in which he paced back and forth in the living room, constantly checking his watch, as if the network would miraculously appear online. He knew it wouldn’t. Whatever was in motion by whomever, his best guess being Talbot, it had already happened.
Quentin knew it was already too late to warn the rest of them, but when he explained the plan to Sia, he was surprised by her doubt. He wasn’t sure if it was a programmed set of coding that compelled her to dissuade him or if she had developed beyond what was intended. The fact that she had not seen it necessary, or pertinent, to communicate with his father when the Major and the councilwoman were at the house, seemed to speak to the latter. The paternal instinct she had developed was a long time in the making, he realized after some thought, and though he had always dismissed it as an annoyance, in retrospect, it had also been exasperatingly comforting, if such a thing was possible.
In the end, she relented.
“It’s my dad, Sia,” was all he had to say.
There was, however, one last surprise she had for him. Without details, she directed him to the basement lab, to a small safe beneath his father’s worktable, hidden behind a full crate of processors and parts. After inputting the six-digit code Sia provided, he opened the door to find a smaller version of an EMP baton tucked away amidst a stack of old photographs and papers that he didn’t have time to peruse.
Sia explained to him that at times during his ‘revival’ process, he had sometimes become unpredictably erratic. He remembered flashes of such instances, and guessed that the baton had been used to put him out during some of his ‘episodes’.
Quentin tucked it into the sleeve of his shirt, right against his forearm, where the bulge was barely noticeable, knowing that it would almost certainly come in handy if he could get to where he needed to be. He also made certain that his forearm computer was snug against his skin and covered completely with the other sleeve as well.
With that, he was ready, or as ready as he was ever going to be.
“We are approaching the Pantheon,” Sia said, breaking him from his reverie.
Quentin sat up straighter in his seat, eyeing the giant reflective dome as they entered the circular lot at the edge of the Gardens.
The transport pulled up to the curb, even as Quentin’s pulse accelerated.
“I need to be connected to the mainframe manually,” Sia reminded him.
“I know,” he replied, his voice tremulous.
“Quentin,” she said, as his hand hovered over the door.
“Yes?”
“Be careful with what you say.”
Trey stuck his head out of the lift and looked both ways down the hall. He had walked through the entire office level above and not met a single soul, but that didn’t give him any comfort now, nor did it relax his guard the least bit.
Stepping out and turning left, he let the rifle lead the way, muzzle down but safety off and a round chambered.
The holding cells were at the opposite end of the building from the clinic and doctor offices. It was once a part of the psych wing, a place for those few individuals that didn’t take to revival like the majority, who needed extended therapy and constant monitoring so that they wouldn’t harm others or themselves. It was pretty much abandoned years ago because revival had become a streamlined process, and any psychological trauma caused in the transition had been eradicated by inhibiting certain areas of the brain. Since then, people woke from their revival feeling calm and alert, free of trepidation or foreboding.
It had taken Trey nearly ten minutes to traverse the office level above, but in doing so he avoided the certain traffic of the clinic. Even though the rest of the building might be barren, he knew it was one area that would never shut down. Humans weren’t the only patients there. Tech repair was also a part of the clinic, and at any time, the place was at least half capacity.
The hallway here at this end of the psych wing was quiet, the light subdued. There was power, however, which meant that he was on the right track. He tried a few doors along the way but the sensors had been disconnected and the doors permanently locked.
At one point he crossed a junction with another hallway, and in the light coat of dust on the floor he could make out a recent mess of footprints. They led off towards the private rooms, cells made to not look like cells. He briefly thought about following those tracks, knowing that any activity was probably worth investigating, but after a few seconds of deliberating and listening, he continued on. Griffin wouldn’t have been moved this quickly, and even if he had, it would be a simple matter to backtrack.
A little further and the wing took on a familiarity. He had been here before, after all, following the failed revival for Hannah. That memory had been altered, mixed in with another that didn’t quite fit, the soldier who had been on a suicide mission. Had he been that soldier? He wasn’t sure, but he had done something terrible, criminal enough to warrant the intervention of the council to order a wipe.
Had that been the first time?
Trey doubted it. There were memories stacked upon memories in his head, disjointed and fragmented, with large gaps in between. He knew that something snapped in him when he lost Hannah for the second time, and when he had been revived after goin
g to Charlottesville, the data stream sent by the dying Albert had fragmented the altered memories and the blocks the doctor had implanted.
There was only one thing he knew for certain, that even though he was ready for it to be over, Talbot wouldn’t allow it. He had taken Trey’s choice away, and if the doctor had wiped him clean like he was supposed to instead of implanting the blocks, Trey would have never remembered it…but since he did, he knew Talbot needed to die, for that fact alone.
Trey stopped suddenly, realizing that he had been hearing the low drone of voices for awhile now without recognizing it. He cursed himself silently for being an old fool, lost in thought at a time like this.
He was still a couple of dozen yards away from the end of the hallway, but another intersected it, running along the curve of the Pantheon, and from around that corner he surmised was the origin of the voices.
He slowed, creeping along, the rifle up to his shoulder now, his right eye along the sightline. Two voices, he was sure of it, a back and forth conversation, though one was muted and indiscernible. The other…he recognized it, but couldn’t place it at the moment.
When he was at the corner of the intersection, he put his back to the wall, holding his breath as he listened, and then realized who was speaking.
It was Gonzalez, one of his guards. He tried to think back to the last time he saw the man and realized it had been on that day he arrived at the council chambers to hear the fate of Charlottesville. Gonzalez being here meant that Talbot didn’t stock the Pantheon with all newbies. There could be more guards here that Trey had a history with, and if so, it meant that every confrontation didn’t have to result in violence.
The other voice was obviously the doctor’s. Trey waited a few more seconds to make certain he didn’t hear more, and then he peeked around the corner.
Gonzalez was standing in front of the palladium glass cell, his back partially turned to Trey, his rifle slung over his shoulder. His head was tilted as he spoke to the doctor.
Trey couldn’t hear the exact words of their conversation, but he didn’t need to. As long as they were talking, the voices would mask his approach.
The cell was only about thirty feet away. Trey slipped around the corner and walked quickly, closing the distance. He was still about ten feet away when Gonzalez heard him. If he had been human, Trey would have been on him before he even knew what was happening, but even distracted, synthetic ears were better than human.
The guard ignored the bulkiness of his rifle as he whirled around, drawing his pistol from the holster and aiming it in one smooth motion. When he saw who stood before him, his face registered surprise and a mixture of uncertainty.
“Major?” Gonzalez questioned.
“Gonzalez,” Trey returned in a steely voice.
He should have fired when the man’s back was turned, but for some reason he hadn’t. Perhaps his reservations for violence against a person he knew and trusted had made him go against his better judgment, or maybe he still held out hope that it could be avoided.
The doctor leapt to his feet at the sound of Trey’s voice, rushing to the palladium glass.
“Major!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot!”
“Can you give me a good reason not to?” Trey replied, hating himself for hesitating when he knew what was at stake.
“He knows,” Griffin responded, hands pressed against the glass. “I told him everything. He knows.”
The last seemed to be a plea.
Gonzalez licked his lips, a nervous reaction that no synthetic would normally exhibit. His hesitation also spoke volumes. Trey hoped that meant there was a way to avoid killing the man.
“Gonzalez,” he said, peeling his hand from beneath the barrel but still keeping his aim.
He pointed at the doctor with his free hand.
“I’m going to need your prisoner.”
The guard’s hand fidgeted on the grip of his rifle. His gaze shot quickly to the doctor and back to the Major.
“Is it true?” he addressed Trey. “All of it?”
“If he told you everything,” he replied. “Then it’s the truth. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
Trey watched the man struggle with the dilemma. If Griffin had indeed relayed all that was going on, the man’s head had to be swimming. It was a lot of information to take in at once, and even if he believed it, duty was a hard mistress to betray. He knew, for he had been loyal to her for over three hundred years.
“I…I don’t know what to believe,” Gonzalez said.
Trey realized that he couldn’t wait for this internal battle. He had been foolish to even consider a different solution. Gonzalez was one of the good ones, but weighed against the fate of the sanctuary, against all the souls in Akropolis, it was just one man. He decided that the next time the guard glanced to the doctor, he’d put an end to this stalemate, and regret it later.
“Please,” Griffin said from the other side of the glass, and Trey couldn’t tell if he was addressing him or the other man. “Think of your wife, think of everyone else.”
And then something happened that Trey didn’t anticipate. Gonzalez lifted his hand from the trigger guard of his pistol, and let the barrel point to the floor.
“I don’t know if everything the doctor said is true,” he said. “But you could have shot me before I turned around.”
“I could have,” Trey admonished.
The other man nodded.
“I trust you, Major.”
Gonzalez holstered his weapon.
Trey relaxed his stance, lowering the rifle.
“Thank you.”
The guard reached over and placed the palm of his hand on the sensor along the wall. The scan released the lock on the cell door and it slid open. Griffin rushed out and joined Trey.
“What do you want me to do?” Gonzalez asked, and just like that, there was one more soldier to their cause.
“Is there any of the others in the building, ones we could trust?”
The guard seemed to think about it then nodded.
“Raleigh and Sern are on the security floor, Jenkins and Schmidt in the lower labs clearing out the rest of the techs.”
This gave Trey some pause.
“Why is the building so empty?”
“System wide maintenance,” Gonzalez answered. “The council alerted the whole building hours ago that the entire system would be offline for half a day. They sent everyone home.”
Trey gave Griffin a knowing look, and then asked, ““Have you ever heard of something like that, Gonzalez?”
The guard paused before answering.
“No, Sir…never.”
“Round up the others,” Trey said. “If they will help, get to the lobby. We’ll rendezvous with you when we’re finished.”
“And if something goes wrong?” Gonzalez asked.
Everything had already gone wrong, and he doubted very much he would ever make it to the lobby, not with so much unfinished business. The men Gonzalez had spoken of, they were stout and loyal guards, but he couldn’t trust that they would make the right decision in time, which meant he needed them out of the way if he didn’t want to kill them.
“Misao Hideshi,” Trey replied after a few seconds of consideration. “She’s the only council member who is not a part of this. You find her, Gonzalez, and get her out…if you can.”
He motioned with his head back the way he had come.
“Take the service lift,” he said. “We have business up ahead.”
“Sir,” Gonzalez said, wasting no time as he quickly walked past.
Trey turned to the doctor and handed him his service pistol.
“You know how to use one of these?”
Griffin accepted the weapon as if it were a delicate antiquity that could break apart in his hands.
“Um, I know the basics.”
“Safety’s off,” Trey said, pointing to the little green light along the barrel. “Just point and shoot, but for god’s sakes, d
on’t fire unless I do first.”
“I have something to tell you,” Griffin said.
“I know,” Trey replied. “You didn’t upload the virus.”
He glanced down at the doctor’s barren arms.
“And you no longer have it on you,” he finished.
Griffin shook his head, but he laid a hand on Trey’s arm before he could turn away.
“I don’t,” he said. “But Quentin might.”
“What?” Trey asked, pausing.
“I sent him a message,” the doctor replied, pointing a finger up, rushing through his words in his haste to spit them out. “Through the Cloud, or at least, I hope it was sent. I need to find him, but we have no comms, no way of contacting him.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We need to know where Quentin is!” Griffin nearly shouted, his desperation breaking his composure.
“Slow down, Doc, and explain it to me,” Trey demanded.
The doctor closed his eyes and took a deep quivering breath.
“Before they took me, I was able to alter a memory I had on file in my database, one of Quentin’s. I changed it to send him a message, if Janet was able to get it from my computer and upload it to the Cloud without anyone knowing.”
“Who is Janet?” Trey interrupted.
“It doesn’t matter!” the doctor exploded, clenching his upraised fists as if he was about to strike out. “We need to find him now!”
“Easy, Doc!” Trey shouted back, grabbing Griffin by the shoulders, attempting to contain some of his panicked energy. “We can find him, ok? We can track his signature.”
He was thinking of Misao’s security clearance code she had given him, if it still worked.
Trey’s words had an instant mollifying effect on the doctor.
“You can trace him?” Griffin asked desperately, hopefully.
Trey nodded.
“We can, but we need to find a terminal with access to the mainframe and fast. I don’t know how much time we have.”