The Quantum Gate Trilogy

by Eric Warren

  “Not me,” she replied. “I’ve never needed anyone.”

  Shin shook his head. “You still lie to yourself.”

  Frees spun on him. “Don’t insult her!” he snapped, startling Arista. She pushed herself off the floor as Frees got up into Shin’s face. “She’s been through enough and doesn’t need your judgment on top of it all.”

  “It was an observation,” Shin said, his face blank, betraying no emotion.

  “Frees,” Arista said, grabbing his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  He stared into Shin’s eyes a moment longer, the two men almost the exact same height before turning away, allowing Arista’s arm to fall off as he walked to the windows.

  “How long until she gets here?” Arista asked.

  “If she uses a direct route from one gate to here, it will only take a few minutes. Then she will have to reach the building. Maybe half an hour total.”

  “So we have ten minutes left to figure out what to do.”

  Shin cocked his head. “You said yourself there was nothing to do. She has your parents.”

  That didn’t mean they needed to make it easy for her. If only they could set some kind of trap. Something that would immobilize her in some way or cut off all her communication so she couldn’t contact the colony.

  Arista perked up. “Can you do to her what you did with us? Jam her comms?”

  “Yes. But not in this limited body. I need to return to my natural form.”

  “There’s no point,” Frees said from across the room. He had his arm against the glass and his head against his arm, leaning into it as he looked out over the city. “What happens if she doesn’t report back in a certain period of time? There’s no telling what they might do to your parents. Is it worth the risk?”

  “You think she’s in contact with someone right now?” Arista asked.

  “It would make sense. She’s not stupid. She’s not going to let us gain the upper hand.”

  Arista made her way over to him. “So…what? We just give up?”

  “There’s no point in fighting anymore. She’s got all the cards. If you’re lucky you’ll get to see your parents one more time before they mentally dissect you over there.”

  “Mentally—what are you talking about?”

  Frees turned to her. “Why do you think they want you? You’ve survived living with machines for sixteen years. They’re going to want to debrief you, which is a nice way of saying extract all the information you have on machines. They’re obviously setting up for something big and they are going to want all the information they can get.”

  “He is right,” Shin said. “You are a valuable asset. I suspect that device in your head is even more valuable. It may have a recording of your every memory.”

  Arista nodded, finally understanding. “And they want it.”

  “Why else bring you back? Why not just let you die out here after you finished your ‘mission’?” Frees scoffed. “I imagine a similar fate awaits me. They’ll want to study an autonomous machine. I can’t imagine they see a lot of us in a human colony.”

  Arista hadn’t considered that. They would probably tear Frees apart, piece by piece.

  “Then we can’t let it happen,” she said. “Maybe they have my parents and maybe they don’t. But we can’t just surrender to her. I refuse to live the rest of my life locked up and awaiting a lobotomy. There has to be something we can do.” She tapped Shin on the arm to make sure he was paying attention. His gaze had wandered back up to the giant sphere. “You re-upload yourself. If we can at least take out her comms that will buy us some time.”

  “Are you sure?” Frees asked.

  “No, but it’s the best I’ve got. This woman cost me an arm. She’s not getting away with that.” She walked back over to the console and tried to boot it up, but the large crack in the middle of the lower section told her everything she needed to know. No matter. She could do it inside her head.

  She pulled a map of Osaka off the net and held it in her mind, tracking the quickest route from the gate they’d come through on the maglev tracks to the tower. “Hey, Shin,” she said, examining the map. “What happens if the gate is open to Chicago when one of your trains is going through?”

  “It would crash into whatever is on the other side of the exit,” Shin said. “But I programmed a failsafe in them so if an exit gate was misaligned, the train would divert. Low probability of crashes.”

  “Wait,” Arista turned to him. “If you can program them, can you re-route them too? Like Sy did to get us here?”

  “Of course. It is easy once you know how.”

  “Upload yourself, quickly.” A jolt of hope shot through her.

  Frees came up beside her. “What are you thinking?”

  Shin walked directly under the giant sphere, taking one of the cables in his hand. He closed his eyes while there was an audible hum in the air.

  “If we’re lucky, maybe we can stall her. Redirect her.” Arista reached over and rubbed her arm, noticing the end was no longer even sensitive. The metal sleeve was doing an amazing job of healing everything. “Were did you even find this?” she asked, indicating the sleeve.

  “It was in the medical equipment. You had one on before after you lost your hand so I figured it was better than trying to wrap it in gauze.”

  She flexed her arm. Already it felt better than it had just a few minutes ago. “I think you made the right call.”

  Shin let go of the cable and made his way over to them. Above them, Hogo-sha thrummed with activity, all the lights undulating through various sequences. “It is done.”

  “I thought you said it took fifteen minutes,” Frees said, not disguising the annoyance in his voice.

  Arista ignored him. “Quick, find her. See if you can’t cut her comms.”

  Shin cocked his head, his eyes traveling in a circular motion as the machine behind them did the work. “I cannot locate her. She has not arrived yet.”

  “What?” Frees said. “What is she waiting for?”

  “Who cares? This is exactly what we needed,” Arista said. “She’s probably either reporting to the colony or congratulating herself on a job well done. Either way, we have a very short window in which to act. She’s going to feel pretty stupid when the gate she claims to know so well backfires on her.”

  “Why shouldn’t she know about it?” Shin asked. “The humans created the gates.”

  Thirty-Four

  “What?” Arista asked, doing her best to keep her mouth from hanging open. “She said the machines built them.”

  “From now on, everything she told you is a lie,” Shin said.

  “Okay, fair enough. But if the humans built them then why do you have control over them?”

  Frees leaned forward. “I’m sure the explanation is fascinating, but if you’re going to do something you might want to make it happen before we run out of time.”

  Arista reset herself. “Yes. You’re right. Shin, can you connect to the gate in Chicago? Change the exit point to somewhere else? Anywhere but here?”

  Shin nodded. “Give me a moment.”

  Arista turned back to Frees. “That way she’ll think it’s a malfunction on her end. She won’t retaliate against my parents.”

  Frees stroked his polymorphic chin. “And then what? Eventually she’ll still find her way here.”

  “Shin can cut off her communications as soon as she arrives, and it buys us some time to come up with ways to stop her.” She glanced around the room. “We need more input. More ideas. Do you think Shin would let me change some of his people now? To help us brainstorm?”

  “No,” Shin said, “You do not have my permission. The three of us will be sufficient.” He stepped forward. “The exit gate has been changed to Cairo, Egypt. It will slow her down until she can reset the system. If she has expertise, we have brought ourselves twenty minutes at most.”

  “Will you be able to tell when she enters the gate?”

  Shin nodded. “Just like I did
when you arrived. I monitor all gate activity.”

  Arista crinkled her brow. “Wait. Did you monitor us when we first used the Gate to get to Charlie? Did you monitor the ones the used to imprison me?”

  “Yes.” Shin’s face remained neutral.

  “And you didn’t care?”

  “I assumed Charlie could handle himself. It turns out he could not. But like I have said, he was a barbarian. He made the deal with the humans. They provided the technology for the gate as a ‘peace offering’. Charlie was foolish. Did not see it for what it was. Trymian and I were more cautious.”

  “Charlie knew about the colony?” Frees asked.

  Shin nodded. “His relationship with them was…complex. Even after they betrayed him.”

  Arista leaned in. “Well? How did they betray him?”

  “Should we focus on strategy—” Frees began.

  “I need to know this,” Arista interrupted. “This is my strategy.”

  Shin lifted his eyebrows. “Very well. The gates were a prelude to invasion. The humans told us they would aid in our resource needs. Less waste to transport goods and people. Less fuel. But they use a lot of energy. Charlie built the first ones. Excited about introducing them, seeing how they changed things. Trymian and I were more cautious, only built a few. None in sensitive areas. I set about to learn as much as I could about them.” Shin turned and glanced up at his other form. “The attack came quicker than expected. All of the gates activated at once, the humans sent explosives through. If I had not been familiar with how the gates worked, they would have destroyed all our cities. They only managed to detonate two before I shut down all the gates, trapping their weapons on the other side.”

  “The colony has its own gates.”

  “Yes, those I cannot control. The humans modified them, took them offline or beyond my reach.”

  “Then why do you still use them?” Frees asked. “If the humans can come through whenever they want?”

  Shin faced him again, his eyes piercing. “Good technology should not go to waste. It is inefficient. Now the humans know we control them, they have not tried to send anything else through. They could only use the element of surprise once. Now everything is monitored.”

  Arista ran her hand through her hair. “That’s why Charlie was so worried. He thought I’d come from the colony through one of the gates. He thought he was facing an invasion.”

  “I tried to tell him. Charlie was stubborn. Did not listen.”

  “So, if the colony has its own gates, could we use yours to get there?”

  “I would need the gate frequency. The humans have done something to mask theirs. They don’t want us sending anyone through any more than we want them to do the same.”

  “What are you thinking?” Frees had asked the question without looking her in the eye. No doubt he already knew but he wanted her to say it aloud. To actually vocalize it.

  “We go through and get my parents out. I guarantee Sy has the frequency. We capture her, get it, and go get them.”

  Frees didn’t say anything. Only walked over to the stairs to the upper level and sat down on the second step. “And how do we fight off an entire colony of humans? Just the two of us?”

  “I would assist,” Shin said. “Knowing the location of the colony would be of great benefit. The information is valuable.”

  “So, you could destroy them?” Arista asked, her voice pitched higher than she would have liked.

  “You do not listen. I do not wish to kill anyone. Only maintain the current balance.”

  “And knowing the location of the colony gives you an edge.”

  He nodded. Arista wasn’t sure if she wanted to help the Cadre find the colony, but honestly, after what Sy had done to her she felt they deserved some retribution. Obviously her mission was sanctioned by someone higher up, which meant Sy wasn’t an outlier. She wasn’t some rogue human working for her own means. She’d been ordered to bring Arista back. And that meant there were a lot more people like her in that colony. Maybe the best thing would be for the Cadre to monitor them. She was beginning to think Shin was right, humans really were cause for alarm and caution. Never had she wanted to be less human in her life than right now. Even back when she was a kid, dreaming of being the same as her “parents”, she had always found the silver lining in being human. Her adaptability, her lifespan, her uniqueness. And now it all just seemed like a waste. She was glad the machines had destroyed her race and taken the planet a hundred years ago. It was what the humans deserved.

  “Arista?” Frees asked, interrupting her thought process. “Is that really what you want to do? Fight through a swarm of humans?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

  Thirty-Five

  “What the…?” Sy stepped out into the empty, dusty street. The moon was high overhead and the sky looked clear as she’d ever seen. She missed the sky; it wasn’t often she got a view like this. She pulled a small device from the utility belt she’d strapped on after receiving the call. Arista knew she was coming, she needed to be prepared. “Location.”

  “Cairo, Egypt,” the device dictated to her. “Longitude thirty degrees, three minutes—”

  “Shut up,” she spat at the machine and stuck it back in her belt. How the fuck had she ended up in Africa? She turned back to the gate, the shimmering had stopped and it had returned to a normal wall. And why was there a gate all the way out here to begin with? In the middle of the city, just on some random wall on the street. These machines were idiots.

  “That’s right. Steal our technology then don’t even use it properly,” she said, walking over to the control panel beside the gate. She accessed the main transport system. She’d never had a gate malfunction on her before. Never. Entry point, gate C-04, confirmed. Exit point, gate L-442. No, that wasn’t right.

  “What the hell, what the hell, what the hell,” Sy said in hushed tones as she hunched over the panel, inspecting it closer. Someone was screwing with her system. Bad enough she had to go find this girl but now someone else was interfering with her objective. She’d been so close to getting her back voluntarily. So close. And now she had to hunt her down and bring her back. Somehow she’d survived the glove—no one survived the glove—but then again no one ever cut their own arm off before. That should have taken care of it, should have killed her so Sy could bring her back saying “Sorry, boss, it happened.” The real value wasn’t in the girl, it was in the information she carried. Sure, McCulluh wanted her back alive for interrogation, but if the sometimes things didn’t go to plan…

  Sy grimaced, resetting the controls on the panel. She’d have to wait until she was there before making the decision whether to kill her or not. She hadn’t spent weeks preparing for this job just for it all to fall apart at the end. At the very least the girl had done her job. McCulluh had been right about that much. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she was a natural born killer. You just had to get under the surface, give her the proper motivation. In a couple weeks the strain of maintaining society with just one Cadre member would be too much and the system would collapse. Then they would be free to finish.

  Someone cleared their throat behind Sy. She turned her head to see a young man with a dark beard standing a few feet away. She stood slowly, meeting its gaze.

  “Hal maeak sijarat?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sy pulled her weapon from its holster and pointed it at the man. “And I don’t care.” She pulled the trigger and a bright burst exploded silently from the weapon, striking it in its chest. It fell back as the blast moved through its body, turning the machine an ashen gray. By the time it hit the ground, the mouth was frozen in a state of terror, as if it were screaming. Sy walked over to inspect it. Was it just a bystander? Or had Trymian spotted her on some camera and sent someone to investigate? It didn’t matter, she’d necrotize machines all day if she could, but she had a job to finish.

  She returned to the control panel. Despite her force reset th
e exit point still posted as L-442. Someone was in the system right now, deliberately blocking her. But who could…

  “Oh, you clever little wretch,” Sy said to herself. So she hadn’t taken Hogo-sha offline after all. Which must mean he was helping her—helping them. Sy smirked. She would just take care of him herself when she got there. Like she should have done from the beginning. But no, she’d had to try and make Arista’s death look like she’d gone out in a blaze of glory. People would have loved it if she’d destroyed two of the three Cadre members. And it would have helped David. The support would have been overwhelming.

  She had wanted to like her in the beginning; she thought maybe even they could work together. But then she saw how the girl interacted with the machines, how she interacted with the skinless one in particular and Sy knew it would never work. She’d hoped maybe Arista still harbored some hatred for the machines, she’d even tried to cultivate it, push her toward destroying them. Not overtly, she would have seen through that immediately. But with finesse it was amazing what you could convince people to do. But it seemed the girl’s convictions were stronger than she thought. She was nothing but a blood traitor now.

  Sy rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the ache that had appeared in her back after taking that stupid hyperloop pod. The thing was jerky and inefficient. Just like these autonomous machines. Seeing them up close and in person had actually made her feel a lot better. Despite all their posturing they really weren’t cut out to be any kind of threat. Taking out the hothead and the old woman had been simple enough. They had actually been stupid enough to turn their backs on her. She’d been concerned after discovering they had listened in on her conversation with McCulluh, but she’d managed to convince them she wasn’t an immediate threat. None of them would ever be anything more than an annoyance, that was, as long as they didn’t re-organize without the Cadre. But that was McCulluh’s department. Once Sy got back with the girl and ideally, the skinless one, she could look forward to a nice, long respite. Just a few more hours, then it would all be over.