by K. C. Finn
BLOOD PRESSURE INCREASING
I shouldn’t be surprised by that, since I’ve been panicking from the moment I woke up, but it’s unnerving to watch the numbers rise and fall over the next few moments. I take a series of long breaths, nice and slow, hoping the numbers will lower themselves again. Lord knows what drugs this little automated devil will fill me with if I don’t keep myself calm and collected. I lie still and watch the lights, willing the healing to speed up so I can get myself free. The display fades from my BP after a while, and I breathe a sigh of relief. But then a new message forms:
DNA RESULTS COMPLETE
We’re moving. The Reaver whirrs into life again and I feel the earth travelling at a slight gradient under me. We’re going downwards, sleek and steady on unseen wheels, deeper into the maze of corridors that Stirling had mapped out. He’s got the map now, and probably my gun and every other useful thing I might need. I rattle against the bonds holding my arms and torso, and something hard pushes against my chest. Malcolm’s silver pistol is still in the front pocket of my kit vest. One bullet. One bullet and no idea where I’m going.
I’ve got to wonder if Stirling did the same to Boy as he did to me. I don’t believe for a second that he had any choice in the matter, given the way he struggled against the orders of the System’s Heart, but the idea that he might have hurt the kid and himself in a similar way makes my throat hot. I swallow at the tight feeling as Reaver hurtles on. It’s going pretty fast, and it’s not just the thought of Stirling making me feel queasy any more. My stomach twists with every lurch around a corner, every little adjustment to the course spinning my head. I’ve cursed my weak stomach for months, but now it might just be my ticket to freedom.
I let the vomit come when it wants to, turning my head to the side and letting it pool against my shoulder. The Reaver is still moving, but a series of red lights flash where the display should be, and I hear a new kind of whirr beside my ear, and above my head. A little suction cup appears beside my head, draining away the foul, sour fluid, and above me the black dome begins to lower. It’s ventilating itself for the patient’s sake, and opening the world overhead for me to see.
We come to a stop, and I find myself staring up at a high ceiling with bright white lights. I blink several times until I’m adjusted, and now that there’s no lid on my coffin, I can crane my head further up to look around. The little laser that was searing my wound shut seems to have finished its work, and even as I’m looking at my body I see the IV needle slide out of my own forearm. I swallow against my sour breath, wriggling once more at the bond that holds my middle down.
Beside me, about two feet away, there’s another Reaver lying open-casket style. I can’t see into it from here, not trapped at this angle, so I start to wriggle upwards now that there’s nothing plugged into my body. I manage a few inches, until I can feel my hands gaining purchase on the smooth edges of the bar that holds me down. I suck in my breath and my stomach, hard as I can, pushing with only my fingertips.
It’s enough. The shove brings me up where my hands can get free, sliding up my hollow belly until they’re loose. The Reaver whirrs and the black lid starts to move, threatening to cover me over again, but I slide myself up fast enough to jam it with my shoulders. Stuck there, the coffin lid has no choice but to bounce back, like an automatic door, so I take those precious seconds to leap out before it tries to shut me in again.
I run from the Reaver, rounding the other one so it can’t surprise me with another needle, or any of its other hidden tricks. Resting my aching body on the lower half of the other machine, I find myself looking down into a face I know. Time stops, like it did when I was stabbed. Except this stab hurts me so much more than the real one.
“Malcolm?”
If the Eatons turned him away, then Malcolm Stryker’s Reaver must have brought him to the only other place it could. He lies completely still in the open casket, his face free of the lines he used to wear from the worries of his life. I shuffle up the Reaver to look deeper in, and suddenly wish that I hadn’t. His body is gone, from somewhere around the stomach down. What replaces it is a series of covered bags, tubes and wires, all plugged into various ports on the Reaver. My eyes return to his face, serene and silent. I reach out with a dirty hand, then retract. He’s so clean and calm that I daren’t touch him with my earthy grime.
“It’s the only thing keeping him alive.”
I jump, spinning at the sound of the voice. The room with the two Reavers has a door as well as a tunnel. If I’d been more with it, I should have been covering that with my pistol. But the man who stands in the doorway doesn’t have any weapons, just a clipboard and a remote control. Half his head is covered in augmentations, just like Delilah’s was, but on this guy, both his eyes are artificial. They bear the red glow of the Reborn, although his voice is low and calm.
“You must be Mari.”
I look back to Malcolm, my breath hitched in a tight knot in my chest. He’s alive, but only just. I watch his eyelids flicker for a second or so. His lips don’t move, and now that I’m examining him closer, I see a tube coming out of his neck on the far side, shifting with the gentle push of breathing. It takes a moment to calm my shaking lips enough to speak to the augmented man with the clipboard.
“Who are you?”
“My name was Doctor Robin Reuben,” the man replies.
“Was?” I repeat. “What do you mean?”
Reuben doesn’t seem to register that question. He cocks his head, watching me a second or two more, before his camera-lens gaze hones in on Malcolm. “Comatose. I’m afraid he’s not likely to ever wake up.”
A gasp of sobs shocks my mouth open. I rush to put my hands over it, shaking a few more out before I can get it together. Malcolm Stryker, neither living nor dead. Trapped in a broken body without the chance to wake up his mind.
“Come along, Mari. You’re needed at the Server. I’ll bring Malcolm with us, if it’ll persuade you?”
Reuben doesn’t wait for an answer. He flips his remote control in the direction of Malcolm’s Reaver, and the little black beetle scurries around me to follow him. We walk out into the corridor, Reuben leading the Reaver as I follow, and it feels like a funeral procession for those last precious steps. Malcolm’s lifeless face flickers from the fluorescent beams overhead.
Pain has begun to return to my body, especially where Stirling’s stabbing blade went in. I clutch it, but that’s a mistake that makes me hiss. My clothes have been cut away around the stab site, and for the first time I dare to look at the seared wound. If I move too much, the gentle scabs of the laser are sure to peel away again and let the blood flow. Here and there, little droplets are escaping already. I slow my pace, lagging behind Malcolm as the room ahead comes into view.
Nothing is closed off by doors or security codes down here. Reuben doesn’t use a password or a fingerprint, but walks casually as though he’s in any other office block. Yet the wires hang over our heads, those banks and banks of endless cables that Apryl and I tracked on Briggs’s hand-drawn maps. The setup that leads to the centre of the System, connected to every electronic means they own. I see the glow around the arched doorway, its double doors wedged open with yet more banks of cable, lights and circuitry.
“We’ve been upgrading for your arrival, Mari.” Reuben speaks without looking back.
I hate the way he uses my name, like he’s entitled to use it. This weird half-man, half-bot, who says he ‘was’ Robin Reuben, but won’t tell me why. He was smart to bring the remote control with him, because if there’s only one thing that would make me walk into the chamber ahead, it’s the thought of running and leaving Malcolm here in Reuben’s clutches. I can’t do it. Even if he’s almost dead, or nearly alive, but never coming back either way. I still can’t leave him to die here.
The Server, as Reuben calls it, is an immense chamber with more kit than I’ve ever seen in my life. In better times, I might have saved a smile for the thought of Apryl walking into
a setup like this, but for now she’s just a passing ghost. The first six feet of the room’s walls are covered with stacked computers, circuitry and banks, none of which I have a clue about. Above them, the wires make a tangled dome that masks the huge, high ceiling completely. They look like veins pumping power out to the rest of the world. Amongst them, there are screens with displays that only show numbers and letters.
Arriving in the room, Reuben takes in some of the nearest screens, writing things down on his clipboard. But Malcolm’s Reaver overtakes him and keeps moving, so I catch up to that to get away from the strange doctor. It takes me around a corner of high computerised towers, until I behold a new sight that throws everything else out of the window.
A frame in the shape of a cross holds a body about three feet off the ground. The body is human – entirely human – but it has tubes and wires coming out of it to keep it alive. I recognise some kind of catheter at one end, and a feeding tube at the other. Its mouth and nose are covered by that tube and what looks like an oxygen mask, and beyond that its brain is totally wired into the system. This is the Heart, and it’s no Artificial Intelligence. It’s a real person, built into the core of Prudell’s nightmarish project.
And I know who the person is.
I know why he calls me Mari, my real name.
I know why he wanted me to come here.
Twenty-Five
“Bhadrak.”
I don’t think my big brother brought me here to save me. I think he called me in to save him. It’s impossible to gaze upon his once-strong frame, now reduced to a thin, weightless creature kept alive by tubes, whilst his mind is usurped for whatever dark purpose the System has in store for him. His eyes are open and moving, looking around until they land on me. The pupils are huge, absorbing all the meagre light of the glowing chamber.
“I’m sorry, Mari. I’m sorry you have to see me this way.”
It’s Reuben who answers me. The strange doctor makes his way around the corner of computer banks as he speaks, his clipboard and remote long-since discarded. I take a step away as the madman approaches, but he waves his hands at me.
“It’s okay. Reuben’s barely in here anymore. I’ve been using him for a couple of months now, since I figured out how to control the power they’ve given me.”
I look between my wired-up brother and the creepy augmented man before me. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s easier to look at Reuben when I speak.
“Bhadrak… what did they do to you?”
“Apparently it’s the only way to keep the Reborn sane, once they’re returned from the brink of death.” Reuben moves like Bhadrak would, perching on a little speaker and rubbing his chin, even though it’s made of metal. “Prudell was looking for a way to fix her super soldiers, after Reuben’s initial experiments resulted in either simple brainwashing, which could often be reversed, or such deliberate programming of the mind that it drove the Reborn insane. I’m her stability. The first experiment into having a human mind at the heart of a collective conscience.”
“You were shot in the chest.” My head shakes as I speak, eyes travelling down to the dark floor. Beneath its semi-clear tiles, there are wires there too. A grand network of cables, choking us all like vines.
“They saved me,” Bhadrak answers, through Reuben’s lined lips. “And then they cursed me to become this.”
Bhadrak – the real one, on the cross – gives a sickening cry around the tubes in his mouth. I race for Reuben, a hand on his chest.
“What’s wrong?”
He shoves me back suddenly, a wild flare of red lightning striking in his robotic eyes. I cry out too, clutching my broken side, and my hands come away covered in blood. The new wound is reopening, a warm trickle down my side that pools at the waistband of my trousers.
“Sorry,” Reuben says a moment later. His eyes are back to their dull glow now. “I lost control of him for a moment. Prudell’s just sent another wave of Reborn out on the surface. I had to instruct them before they hurt anyone. It’s tough, keeping this much control at once. I didn’t know I could do it, until I heard you speaking to me.”
Reuben reaches out, the tenderest touch cupping my chin. I shrug it away as gently as I can manage, because it’s too weird to know where it’s all coming from. My head is pounding against the pain and the sickness. I’m surrounded by the not-quite-dead here, creatures kept alive by this bizarre symbiosis that the System has installed. Prudell’s grave wish to make super soldiers who can obey her horrific commands without being driven insane by their own condition.
“Do you want to see what’s happening up there, Mari?”
The screens with the data turn blue and blank. I nod, and a second later they all change to different feeds. It feels as though I’m looking through the eyes of different people, soldiers standing still on the battlefield as my crew rush to take them down. Every so often, a feed dies. In the background of many of these attacks, I can see my soldiers fighting Prudell’s human guards. Here, in the capital, they aren’t so well prepared for our onslaught as the honed border guards.
“We’re winning,” I breathe.
Reuben’s body nods, coming to stand beside me.
“The more of the Reborn your forces take down, the easier it’ll be for me to keep them still and non-combative.”
I slap my thighs at once, flapping for the radio which I don’t have. One hand comes away wet again, but I try to ignore the thud of my pulse in my ears.
“I can’t contact them. I can’t let them know that.”
“Yes,” Bhadrak answers. “You can.”
My brother and I both watch as Reuben skitters off, back around the corner. My eyes drift back to Malcolm, lying still and oblivious to it all. I turn to him properly, leaning into the Reaver to speak close to his peaceful face.
“We’re doing it, Malcolm. We’re winning. It’ll be over soon, this war. A new age. A new life for all of us.”
Reuben returns, a sad look curling his lips down, though it doesn’t travel to his plain, robotic eyes. He hands me a microphone on a long cable, then pats me on the shoulder.
“Just tell me when you’re ready. The Reborn will be your broadcast system.”
I watch the screens again for a moment, looking for faces that I recognise. My gut twists, a woozy feeling overtaking my brain for a tick. I shake it off.
“There must be another way into this place, besides getting stabbed and coming in by Reaver?”
Reuben nods, and Bhadrak answers through him. “Prudell has the only key. Reuben lives down here alone now, working on me. That’s how I was able to get control of him without anyone noticing. The Governor has only been here once since I was installed.”
I clutch the microphone hard in my grip. “Then she’s coming here again.”
The reverb hits me in a wave of noise. Here in the chamber, the slightest change to the setup has every machine humming a new tune, readjusting themselves to the new output. When I first speak, the mic squeals like a banshee, but then it calms again. Reuben gives me a thumbs up, but it’s Bhadrak’s trapped body that I watch whilst I speak.
“Caitlynne Prudell. This is Raja, the Bullet Girl and Leader of the Rebellion. We are at the Heart, and we have control of your Reborn, your transport systems and your airwaves. Surrender yourself to my crew, and lead them to the Heart at once, or we turn the Reborn on you. You have twenty minutes to get here.
My squadrons, focus your attention on the surrender of Prudell’s human forces. We are not here to harm if we don’t have to. It’s in the Governor’s hands now as to whether this ends in surrender, or bloodshed, and I want the people of the System to know it.”
My breath is short when I hand the mic back. I have to sit on the end of Malcolm’s Reaver, my hands pressed to my bleeding side now, despite the pain. When Reuben has put the microphone away, he rushes to me with some instruments and gauze in his hands. I flinch at the first touch, and the augmented man looks up at me.
“Bhad, you’re not
medically trained,” I say.
“But Reuben is,” my brother answers with the doctor’s lips. “I’ve only asked him to dress the wound. The part of his brain that’s still his is figuring out the rest based on his own knowledge.”
Reuben proceeds whether I flinch or not, and it reminds me of the way Stirling said he had to obey the Heart’s orders in the most urgent way he could. The blood is pouring freely now, and the doctor’s still-human lips are pulled into a grimace as he works. Beside me, Malcolm’s eyes are flickering again.
And then they open.
It’s just a moment. One second of that frosted glare that I know too well, then they close again. I shout his name, trying to get away from Reuben for a moment to shake the Highland General’s shoulders, but the doctor holds me back.
“It happens. I’m so sorry, little sister, but it’s just a moment in the coma. His body reacting naturally.”
Hope collapses in my chest, and I feel it stronger than any wound the world has ever thrown at me. I look away, tears falling as freely as my blood, and though Reuben works tirelessly at my middle, there doesn’t seem to be any less red pouring out of me.
“You need to lie down,” he says, with every drop of concern that my brother would. “You’re losing far too much blood.”
A sound in the corridor stops all conversation. There are footfalls – a steady march – and Reuben turns and drops his instruments. As they clatter, the doctor steps forward and pulls a revolver from somewhere beneath his clothes. I scramble for Malcolm’s silver-tipped pistol, walking beside Reuben as we round the data bank.
“Thank God,” Stirling says, racing forward. “I thought you were dead until we heard your voice!”
Beyond him, Boy offers me a beaming smile. And just a few steps behind them, bringing their own march to a halt, are my beloved crew. Apryl and Kip stare around the room, their eyes wide, and it is Andrew and Goddie who bring forward a prisoner in chains. Her halo of golden hair looks green by the strange glow of the wired chamber. She is smaller and thinner than I remember, but she stands with the same stiff pride in her body that she always possesses. When she speaks, Caitlynne Prudell still has all the grace, wrath and ruthlessness of a queen.