Causality (Quantum Gate Book 5)

by Eric Warren

  “He’s eliminating the greatest threat first: the military,” Frees said.

  Charlie had picked up a second weapon and used them both to take down people one by one. Arista noticed somewhere along the line a second husk had filed in behind Charlie, taking position directly behind him so that when his current host was “killed” the next in line took up the first’s position almost immediately. And another husk would come and stand behind that one as he moved on.

  “So much for just controlling one at a time,” she said. “I wonder why he doesn’t split himself into all the husks at once, like he did back on the production floor with us.”

  “My guess, from what you’ve told me, is that he’s still trying to adapt moving from being to being without an anchor,” David said, stepping forward. “If his entire existence he was held inside a giant AI, then transferred all of himself into Frees, it is probably taking him some time to get used to the sensation of jumping from husk to husk. He’s getting used to it. See how he didn’t use a second husk when he first arrived? He’s becoming more confident.”

  “That’s a good theory,” Frees said. He turned to Arista. “Which means we can’t assume he can only control one body at a time. We have to be ready for anything.”

  Once everyone in the barracks was dead Charlie took the elevators up, taking out what little remaining resistance he encountered on the way. He even tossed the guns away. He exited the elevator on the level where he could access the hangar bay, but then the feeds all went dark at once.

  “Damn,” Blu said, turning back to the control panel. “Hang on, let me see if I can fix this.”

  Arista hadn’t thought to check the hangar, having only seen it once. However there looked to be some pretty powerful aircraft inside. Had Charlie destroyed them all? And where had all the humans ended up?

  “It’s no good, that’s the end of the feeds,” Blu said. She hit a button and what few cameras remained active came back on, displaying a real-time view of the colony. “Something happened to kill the system. It didn’t boot back up again until I manually did it, and these are the only remaining cameras that work.”

  “Any sign of anyone else in the colony? Any survivors? I don’t want to be blindsided again.” She shot a glance to Jonn.

  “Not as far as I can see,” she said. “It looks like we’re alone. But then again, I can’t track a husk.”

  “He doesn’t have any down here,” Jonn said. “I would have run into them by now. Plus, the whole colony has been running on minimal power. No one has come or gone through the gates until you showed up.”

  Arista pressed her palm to the table. “I hate going out there unprepared. Can you get the comm system working? Can we call out?”

  Blu shook her head. “It’s a closed system. No outgoing calls or communications. I assume that was to maintain their privacy.”

  Arista walked over to Frees. “Should we go back to Chicago first? Check on Jill?”

  Frees forced his lips into a line. “Without your dampener and with Blu and David we’ll be detected when we arrive. I’m not sure we’d make it to her place and back to the gate in time. I think we need to focus on getting to Trymian and hopefully we can talk him into providing you protection.”

  “Wait!” Arista said, remembering. “The refractors! We’ll just grab a few of those. That way we can remain hidden.”

  “Those are the devices that render us invisible?” David asked.

  She nodded. “They’re cumbersome once you have them on, like wearing a large shower curtain around you. And you can’t move very fast otherwise you’ll break the refractor plane. But they’d get the job done.”

  “Those should be down in the service lockers on the gate level,” Frees said. “If I’m remembering correctly.”

  She nodded. “Okay, then you take Jonn and retrieve the refractors. The three of us will go into the habitat and grab what food and supplies we can find. We’ll meet back up at the gates.”

  He leaned in close. “You sure you want to split up?” he asked, his eyes flicking to Jonn.

  “It’s quicker,” she replied. “If we run into any trouble, I’ll—” she just remembered, she couldn’t comm him anymore. Not with the Device inactive.

  “You’ll be on your own,” he finished for her.

  “I can handle it,” she said. “Just get those refractors. And don’t let him get the jump on you.”

  “Trust me.” He smirked. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  FOURTEEN

  “I just want to know,” Frees asked as Jonn walked a few paces ahead of him. “What is your real endgame here?”

  Jonn scoffed but didn’t turn around. “Care to explain your cryptic comment?”

  “You don’t expect me to believe you’re going to sacrifice yourself to kill Charlie, do you? Arista might have bought that because of your history together but I don’t believe you’re that selfless.” His pistol was shoved in the back of his pants but he had an urge to pull it out and keep it pointed at Jonn anyway.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think, Frees. A lot of time to reflect. It changed me.”

  “But not enough to keep you from killing innocent machines to keep yourself alive.”

  He raised his hands to his sides in a “what are you gonna do” gesture. “Like I said, I knew I was destined for something. Now I know what that destiny is. I know what must be done and how to do it. I would have thought you’d be happy.”

  “I’ll be happy when your smoking corpse is on the ground,” Frees said.

  “You and I have more in common than you think,” Jonn said, his voice tinged with optimism. “We’re both victims of Charlie’s influence. I believe I was his test case for trying to get inside the head of an autonomous machine. Or he put something in me, I don’t know. But after you destroyed him—or thought you did—my mind cleared. Like the influence was gone. I felt more like myself. Was it like that for you?”

  “You talk too much,” Frees said. But he had to admit to himself that’s how it had been as soon as Charlie was out of his mind. It was as if his thoughts had focused and any fog that had been in his mind dissipated. He’d seen all the questionable decisions he’d made ever since the AI had collapsed were, in fact, Charlie’s influence on him. Frees had been thinking it over ever since the subway accident. And the more he thought about it, the more he was able to delineate the two trains of thought from each other.

  Jonn spun on him, startling Frees to pull his weapon out and aim it right for his chest. “Whoa.” Jonn threw up his arms. “I was just going to say you’re blaming me for things I did while under his influence. They weren’t me.”

  Frees didn’t lower the gun. “Your lack of humility is admirable.”

  “Look,” Jonn replied. “I was a therapist. For machines. There couldn’t have been a more useless occupation. Then Arista came along and opened my eyes. Literally. I saw the world for what it was for the first time. And I thought it was my responsibility to help her. But as soon as she was gone and I was trapped with him, all those thoughts went away. It was like he managed to pluck them from my mind, or suppress them. When he was gone, they slowly came back, one by one.”

  It hadn’t been the same for Frees. He felt like he’d maintained his autonomy while Charlie was in his head, except for brief relapses or influences. But Charlie didn’t have influence all the time, it was only very sporadically. What did it say about Jonn that his mind was so weak he couldn’t even withstand some of Charlie’s mental pressure? Then again, Charlie himself could have been weaker when he’d inhabited Frees as it had been a desperate, last-minute move to save his own life.

  Frees replaced the weapon in his pants. “Turn around and keep going. We’re almost there.”

  Jonn clenched his jaw but turned, dropping his arms. “Is anyone going to tell me about Arista’s hand? Because the last time I saw her it was missing.”

  “She got a new one,” he replied.

  “From here? Because I’ve seen some
of the equipment. Let me tell you, maybe it was a good thing Charlie had everyone under control, because it kept these humans down here. They are a dangerous bunch, weapons from here ‘till eternity. Technology like you’ve never seen before.”

  “I know,” Frees replied. “I lived here as a human for a short time.”

  “Oh,” Jonn replied, sounding disappointed. “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Nothing,” he said. With more humans out in the world, no doubt their agitated states would have by now released thousands if not tens of thousands of machines from their base programming. There should be autonomous machines in every part of the world by now.

  “You don’t think they’ll turn on us? Start trying to destroy us? It sure seemed like that’s what they were doing when they hunted down all those Peacekeepers.”

  “Soldiers did the hunting, not the civilians,” Frees said, surprising even himself by defending the humans. He’d never been one to love them, in fact he’d been more disgusted by them more than anything. But spending all that time in the other universe had given him a new perspective on them. He hated to admit it, but Arista was right. They were people just like the machines were, and there were surprising little differences between the two races. Which, if he thought about it, made sense, considering his race had been based on hers.

  But watching and learning from them he got the impression he’d been mistaken about them in the past. They weren’t all dangerous or out for blood. Those were only a select few. Most seemed to be decent.

  “If you say so,” Jonn said. “Regardless, I won’t be around to deal with it.”

  They reached the storage lockers. Some had been broken open while others remained locked.

  “Okay,” Frees said, planting himself. “Start looking.”

  ***

  Arista grasped the edge of the door with her artificial hand and forced it to the side, the metal protesting as it screamed against its track. The room beyond was dark, with only the glow of a small, artificial light somewhere inside to provide illumination.

  “Of course this has to be the section without power.” Blu squeezed through the small opening. “The creepy, spooky area of the underground base with things moving around inside.”

  “There’s nothing dangerous in there,” Arista replied. Unless you’re looking for a whip. She couldn’t quite squeeze through the door after her. Blu was the only one of them who could explore the room for supplies. And this was the fourth room they’d checked. The others had been cleaned out of what little supplies they’d had. “Just do the best you can.”

  “Something funny?” David asked.

  “Oh,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Nothing, I just…last time I was here was with my mom…my biological mom I mean.” Her face broke into a grin. “We ran into one of these rooms to hide and stumbled on this couple…” The memory of finding their closet full of kinky sex toys hadn’t left her. “You had to be there.”

  “So your mother…this Jessika. She’s my wife in this universe,” he said. She could tell he was treading carefully, having never brought her up before. Arista had mentioned her a few times, but never in great detail because it never seemed like David would want to know more. In his universe, she didn’t exist, and up until about an hour ago he hadn’t been planning on ever leaving that universe, so why would he want to bother? But now that he was here, she couldn’t blame him if his curiosity had been piqued.

  “Ex-wife,” she clarified. “The marriage didn’t last long, or so I’m told.”

  “Huh,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “And you said she’s a scientist?”

  Arista nodded. “Yes, she worked on a number of different projects here. But I didn’t really get to know her that well myself, only briefly. We didn’t have a lot of time together. I just hope she got out safely.”

  “What can you tell me about her?” he asked, rubbing his hands back and forth over each other in a nervous sort of way and her heart went out to him. This man, who had probably never known love, was trying to learn about the kind of woman he knew he’d find attractive. It was an odd situation for sure, but also kind of sweet.

  “You know what,” Arista said, avoiding the question. “I’m glad it’s the other David who died and not you.”

  “That makes two of us,” he said, returning her smile.

  Blu appeared in the opening. “Nothing,” she said. “Unless you want to count what’s molding in the refrigerator. At least I think it’s a refrigerator.” She squeezed her way out of the opening again.

  “So they were told to evacuate immediately,” Arista said. “And yet they all had the presence of mind to take all their dry food with them? It’s like they were all prepared to go.”

  “It does seem coincidental,” David said.

  Arista tried to check her chronometer again, momentarily forgetting. She’d been good about remembering the Device was off until she’d gotten back here. Something about being back in this place had changed her mindset and she had to keep reminding herself she had spent the last seven weeks in an alternate universe. It wasn’t a dream. “What’s the time?” she asked.

  Blu checked her own small watch. “We should head back over there. I don’t think we’re going to find anything in any of these rooms.”

  Arista couldn’t disagree. She turned and headed back the way they’d come, doing her best to remember the route. It had been so much easier with a map displayed in her vision, but now she had to rely on memory alone. It was tricky.

  “What were you guys talking about?” Blu asked as they walked.

  “Arista’s mother,” David said.

  “You mean your wife?” Blu said, a smile in her voice. She playfully shoved her dad.

  “Bloom,” he warned. “That is off the table. I was just curious about her. It isn’t every day you get to find out what kind of person you were married to in another life.”

  “I imagine a lot of this is strange for you,” Arista said. “You’re the only one of us who existed in both universes.” She glanced back at Blu. “At least as far as we know. Blu might have an entire family on this side too that we have no clue about.”

  “Oh man, that would be so cool,” she said. “I could meet myself and we could have like programming competitions and stuff. I bet I’m a faster runner than her, though. Oh! I wonder if we’re the same height? That would be an interesting experiment; to see if living under different conditions had an effect on our heights. If she spent her entire life underground but I was always outside in the sun…” she trailed off. “Yep, I’m definitely the taller of the two of us.”

  “You don’t know if she even exists,” David said, though Arista could hear the amusement in his voice.

  “Doesn’t matter. But it’ll be pretty cool if we find her, won’t it?”

  “And how are we going to find her?” Arista asked. “Humans are scattered all over the planet.”

  “Well, when we vanquish Charlie won’t we be famous? They’ll have us on the news and—”

  “The machine news? That’s already pre-programmed and written?”

  “Nah,” Blu said, dismissing it. “All that will change once he’s gone. Right? Because there won’t be anyone to control the machines anymore. I mean, if we can get this Trymian guy to play ball.”

  That was the big unknown. How was Trymian going to respond and would he even be amenable to their requests? Could they even get to him without getting themselves killed? Was he even still alive?

  Blu elbowed her. “But if not, you’ve already destroyed two AI’s. What’s a third?”

  She wasn’t wrong. Though Arista really hoped she was done with that part of her life. No more shadow of death on her heels. No more killing.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  FIFTEEN

  As they approached the gate hub Arista had the sinking feeling she’d made a terrible mistake. They would find Frees, dismembered or not at all, and Jonn would be long gone, having retreated to report back to Charli
e. Why had she insisted they split up? Sure, they needed to be as quick as possible, but would another hour have hurt?

  Perhaps she wasn’t used to having so many people around. For the longest time it had just been her and Frees. And now there were five of them and whether she wanted to admit it or not, that caused her stress. It was too many people to worry about. Too many people to take care of. She worked better in small, one and two-person groups. Back in New York she’d been able to take breaks from the people, go off by herself for a while. But here they were all stuck together.

  They crested the bend that led down to the gates, Arista preparing herself for the worst but doing her best not to let it show. When she caught the top of Frees’ head, she breathed a sigh of relief. Regardless of how she felt, she didn’t need to leave them alone together and she wouldn’t be suggesting it again.

  “Tell me you at least found something,” Frees called as they approached.

  She held her hands out. “Everything’s gone. They cleaned out quick.”

  Frees’ deep brows formed a deep ‘v’. “Everything?”

  “I know,” she said as they got closer. “It’s odd. And doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m not sure it was the spontaneous mass exodus it seemed like.” Arista turned to Jonn. “When you got here, were there any humans left? Any husks?”

  He shook his head. “I came through that one over there.” He pointed to the second gate from the end. “And I didn’t see anyone. I thought the place had been abandoned. The only bodies were further along, down there.” He motioned to the way they’d come.

  “Did you get the refractors?” she asked.

  “They only had two.” Frees held them out. “Looks like most of those were emptied out as well.”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” David said. “I’m putting you all in jeopardy.”

  Arista made a pssh noise, taking the refractors. “Two people can use one, Frees and I did it. We’ll just have to be careful, and move slow.” She handed one to David and the other to Blu. “You and I will use the same one, we’re the smallest combined mass.”