by A W Wang
Augments hurry across the rooftops to meet their new foe.
Jonathon taps my shoulder. The hostages are all off the truck.
I back into the mass of sweaty, terrified faces.
“We can’t sit in the open,” I say calmly as the hunched scientists flinch from the sharp cracks of fighting. “If a rocket comes this way, we’re dead. Everyone, run fast and follow me into cover.”
When the closest ones nod, I crouch and flee from my enemies for seemingly the hundredth time in the day. However, this time, I’ve got a horde of former prisoners to protect besides Jonathon and Victoria.
The terrified steps of the scientists on the scorched grass start slowly but gain speed as we pass broken holo-projectors and burning mechas.
When I check on Victoria, she sends an approving smirk.
She’s in no danger.
Because our unseen friends will go out of their way to care for her, I zigzag across the rest of the pack, trying to protect everyone else from the dangers lurking throughout the battlefield.
Behind us, ground fighting erupts near the central fountain where the second translucent shape duels against the newcomers crossing the park. Black-clad figures tumble as the skirmish moves closer.
“Faster,” I scream to anyone within earshot.
Although nobody emerges as a threat, I keep my eyes open for any stray augments or oddly courageous Liberation Front soldiers as I herd my charges toward the blackened facade of a restaurant.
I rush over a sidewalk and kick down an ornate wooden door. As I enter, I sweep my rifle across a giant space, searching for enemies.
The only motion comes from a holographic waterfall in the center. The fake water spilling from the high ceiling and splashing into an elegant pool has oddly escaped the destruction of the electrical grid and crossfire of battle. Everything else is dark, but judging by the open spaces, truly magnificent displays must have decorated this place. Fancy tables and fancier linens and chairs lay strewn over the floor from people hastily leaving the mini-apocalypse.
I hurry to the doorway and wave everyone inside.
After Victoria runs by, I search for Jonathon.
He stumbles at the rear of the crowd, and I rush over and drag him to safety, fighting an urge to kill a few of the augments.
“Everybody, get behind a table or something sturdy,” I holler after we enter.
Battle-fatigued people scramble to comply.
I shut the door and back from the entryway, angling for a wide view through the broad front windows.
In the distance, a second silvery form appears from the faint translucent motions. This one is male. He instantly seeks cover while peppering augments with shots.
Drifting haze obscures the action, and I shift my attention to the quiet of the nearby vicinity. With no immediate danger, I retreat until my field of fire includes the hallway to the back entrance as well as the expansive front of the space. I plant myself behind a table, ready to kill anything that enters from either direction.
We should be safe, unless a rocket or something heavier arrives, which given the state of the battlefield is a reasonable possibility. I frown, hating to be pinned to a specific location and having a bunch of scientists to protect.
Victoria comes to my side and touches my arm.
“We should consider moving,” I say. “This place is too exposed.”
“It is,” Victoria replies, nodding. “But things will be okay now. It’s better to stay put than to go out and risk getting caught by accident.”
When I arch an eyebrow, she adds, “They know we’re here and what to prioritize.”
“You weren’t kidding when you said to trust you.”
A chill runs down my spine when her reply is a humorless smile.
She’s known about the presence of these super-warriors for some time. Since at least when we crossed the flying bridge. I was right about the ambush, but someone silently eradicated the ambushers before I arrived. Victoria allowed us to get captured, so the augments would all be drawn to the same location.
And killed.
“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” her voice echoes as I finally understand the meaning behind the cryptic statement.
I shake my head.
What level of chess is she playing?
However, since she’s so confident with the assessment and given the skill I’ve witnessed from her helpers, I can’t argue with the results. I only nod and withhold my fire to avoid attracting attention while the carnage continues outside.
From nearby, Jonathon tugs at his broken nose.
“It’s an improvement,” I say.
He glares. “When did ten sigmas start using cliché jokes?”
I purse my lips. It is a cliché, but I’m not sure how I know that. Instead of answering, I glance to the front windows.
As the minutes pass, it becomes apparent my caution is unwarranted. Nobody is looking for us. Everyone is engaged with Victoria’s friends or trying to save their own hides.
Despite their enhancements and overall skill, the final groups of augments have no chance, getting decimated by waves of shots or ghostly figures moving at impossible speeds.
The apex of the fighting passes without fanfare. When the haze clears, only scorched earth and twisted piles of metal remain between lonely columns of smoke. The unique, terrifying sounds of combat quiet into the crackles of fires and fading rumbles of retreating engines.
As an eerie calm settles over the park, two silvery figures head toward us. Although each moves with supreme coordination, the female in front walks with the lithe steps of a dancer, while the trailing one strides with overflowing confidence.
As they pick their way past the dead, I wonder if I should be more concerned about my ever-increasing body count. Or should I be concerned with not killing the teenagers I’ve encountered?
Jonathon wipes his brow and sends me a long stare.
The meaning is clear, but I hesitate, wanting to give Victoria a chance. Without her, I have no means to find my husband and family.
Breaking sunlight shimmers on silvery outfits as the two newcomers cross the asphalt in front of the windows.
When I raise my pulse rifle, a hand touches my arm. “Friends,” Victoria says, standing.
The pair glides through the doorway, their movements smoother than humanly possible, their stature almost godlike.
Far superior to the augments.
I think of Haiku from the virtual universe, saying, “It isn’t always possible to place five or ten or a hundred people where you need them. In every situation, one extraordinary person can change defeat into victory. The harshness of the Ten Sigma Program finds those individuals.”
The words are exactly right. Instead of waiting to set up a force in strength, Victoria brought ten sigmas to the party.
Who achieved…
Success, but at what cost? They sat during much of the raid, disciplined to their mission, doing nothing to stop the atrocities.
I tense as they approach with rifles at the ready. Performing a good service can mean many things besides friendship.
The male rushes to Victoria and removes his mask. His face isn’t what I expected from a ten sigma if I expected anything at all. He’s too innocent and happy for the bloodshed that just transpired. Weirdly, he reminds me of a surfer, although I don’t know why I know that term.
Victoria straightens, suddenly in charge. The passing of leadership from me signals the conclusion of a successful scenario.
But unlike the virtual world, this one won’t end.
I have no idea what to do.
Victoria asks him, “Have all the visitors been accounted for?”
He speaks in a youthful tone, full of exuberance, “Yes, Secretary. There’s no retreat in them, so we got all but two. Ekton is hunting them now. We felt it safer to come here to protect you.”
“Good.”
The female steps forward and pulls off her battle-mask.
I
gasp.
Her eyes are violet.
My legs wobble as I push away questions about her appearance in the real world.
She arches an eyebrow, gazing curiously at me, not remembering the many times I’ve killed her.
A wave of guilt wells inside my being, and I stagger backward, past tables and through the holographic waterfall, which changes to splash fake water over me.
It’s time to leave.
I stumble through still cowering scientists and enter the rear hallway.
The back door blasts open and another figure in silver enters. A large man with broad shoulders. As he steps close, he removes his mask. Familiar features face me.
The bald giant.
Instinctively, I assume a defensive posture, ready for an attack.
How? Why? What is the Ten Sigma Program?
Bits of information leak from my latent database of knowledge.
I try to blank the thoughts, terrified of what’s coming.
Too late…
The trickle turns into a torrent, and all the millions of facts and details about the Ten Sigma Program blast into my mind.
A squeal of pain leaks from my mouth, and the ceiling spins.
After spiraling to the floor, I lie helpless, twitching uncontrollably.
The faces of the violet-eyed girl and bald giant loom over me, impassively watching my suffering.
As the room whirls into the distance, Victoria joins the pair of nightmares, her gray eyes sending a frosty stare.
Soon, the biting stream of everything related to the Ten Sigma Program overwhelms my consciousness, and the world dims.
Seventeen
My mind leaves the real world, and the faces of Victoria, the girl with the violet eyes, and the bald giant fade into oblivion.
As with the first debilitating experience, I fall through a rising stream of data, although this time, everything relates to the Ten Sigma Program. The nips from the glittering facts, glowing sheets, and shiny datums spew past too quickly to comprehend, and too quickly, I tumble through the giant cubes and into the storm.
A terrifying moment later, my body crashes into the place of my final battle with Syd.
Panic consumes me as I roll onto my hands and knees, gathering my breath. Once again, I’m clad in only a bra and panties, shivering from the chill in the night air and gentle droplets spattering over my bare skin.
Splashes come from the darkness.
I push to my feet, alert for any movement beyond the gleaming razor plants.
When the silhouette of the bald giant emerges from the shadows, I run toward the green threads on the next island, trying to avoid my preordained fate.
He chases, his strides longer, his speed faster.
As my foot hits the pebbles of the riverbank, a meaty hand catches me by the hair.
I throw a punch and crack my knuckles on his face.
Wild swings pummel my body. After I sag to my knees, he drags me back to where the violet-eyed girl waits.
As my view slides past Syd, his head lolls to the side. Although one eye was sliced in the battle, his good eye pops open.
My heart crashes against my ribcage, and I stifle a whimper.
He’s coming for his revenge.
Syd’s gaze centers on my writhing form as the violet-eyed girl lovingly grabs my shoulders and holds me down.
I struggle against her iron grip, my panicked eyes searching wildly across the heavens for any help.
After the bald giant seizes my arm, my tormentors pause and give me the same tilted, corner-eyed stare from my last visit.
Then the torture starts, and I scream and scream.
While the bald giant breaks my body, Syd remains stationary, his single eye watching without blinking.
After the giant wave again erupts and blasts my broken body from the nightmare, my mind streaks into the unleashed storm of everything related to the Ten Sigma Program. As the swirling glows whip past, nipping like gnats and stinging like hornets, terms flow into my head…
Nanobots. Cyber-bots. Bio-bots.
Jackets, Bright Star.
A neon filament burrows into me, and through the pain, a definition comes into focus. Jackets is a secret program for inserting expertise into the human psyche. It’s where the red and black threads were created for the Ten Sigma Program.
Before the knowledge settles, a glimmering canister chomps into my consciousness.
I fly high over the Red Sea, surrounded by squadrons of wide, flattish drones. Kinks indented into their leading and trailing edges maximize their aerodynamics while giving them a strange avian quality. As the robots maneuver through thin clouds to avoid detection, the midday sunlight sinks into their black stealth coverings.
Far below, gray silhouettes of ultramodern frigates hug the waves. Flashes wink from protrusions on the vessels, and laser beams crisscross the sky.
The machines jerk from evasive maneuvers and launch hypersonic missiles. Across the blue water, streaks of white end in blossoms of fiery red, while above, high-energy impacts shred drones and send their glowing innards tumbling from the heavens.
An underground maze materializes. In research labs hidden behind thick metal doors, scientists perform experiments on unwilling subjects. Screams erupt from horrible surgeries to meld people with high-tech enhancements.
Hazy shifts affect my perception as the foul odors change and the tunnels morph into different materials—tile, concrete, rock, metal. This isn’t a single location; there are many such places around the world.
I yank myself away, terrified.
A new scene claws into me. Autonomous weapons speed over a sprawling population center, releasing pink clouds of nano-destructors.
Everything explodes into a blinding white.
My mind climbs above the flash, and the confusing snippets weave into a narrative of the Ten Sigma Program.
131,248,150,000,000,000,000,000 to 1.
The twenty-four digit number, just over one-hundred and thirty-one sextillion, represents the ten sigmas worth of odds against someone winning an endless series of battles and returning from the virtual universe.
Who would embark upon such a dire journey?
Individuals with no hope, AI constructs with no choice, monsters created from death-row inmates like Syd, and yours truly, whose forgotten reason for joining lies somewhere in the green threads embedded in my data-cubed nightmare.
Why would such Draconian measures be necessary?
Because unaffordable, unmanned systems blew away the southern portion of the Saudi Arabian peninsula, much of the eastern tip of Africa, and the islands east of the Gulf of Aden.
At a new Geneva Convention, sobriety came to the world powers. Robot weapons capable of mass destruction along with other expensive, glitzy combat machines were declared illegal outside of their national borders.
Before the ink on the treaty dried, research to find the next means to project power commenced across the globe. The hard-to-hack, commonplace human body became the platform of choice to replace the era of autonomous high-tech warfare.
With upgrades, of course…
The Russians augmented their Spetsnaz with cybernetic parts, while the Europeans found DNA/RNA chemicals suitable for enhancing their elite units—German Stoßtruppen, British Royal Marines, Italian Commandos. In Asia, the nation-states grew organs and other biological improvements for their augments as well as adding sprinklings of nanobots. Others used various combinations of technologies.
Instead of atomic fireballs and weapon systems of mass destruction, the new world war is being fought on the smallest scale. The competing nations battle for supremacy by collapsing technology chains and inflicting economic ruin on their rivals.
The United States began superhuman initiatives before everyone else. The Defense Research Project Agency (DARPA) pursued three programs—Jackets, Bright Star, and Ten Sigma. Jackets developed the red and black threads as well as the technologies to push the expertise into a living per
son. Black Star created the biological enhancements for superior, passable-for-human bodies. And Ten Sigma provided the proving ground for candidates under the harshest of circumstances.
Since the start of the Ten Sigma Program, twelve AIs have conquered the odds and entered the real world.
I’m the thirteenth graduate and the first human to return.
Our mantra is “To win where no one else can.”
Why is a ten sigma necessary?
While people can train and be augmented, nothing makes a harder, sharper weapon than live combat repeated until the odds of surviving are not only improbable but impossible.
No ten sigma has ever died or failed to complete a mission, having defeated all comers from all nations.
We are the unknown assailants who turn defeat into victory and meld back into the darkness.
From the perspective of a ten sigma, the chessboard analogy isn’t right. The world isn’t a game; it’s a wilderness full of superhumans with ten sigmas at the top of the food chain.
We are the apex predator of the apex predators.
Eighteen
The world jitters, and metal clinks.
My eyelids crack open.
A rubberized, dimpled floor rests under my boots while my body slouches in one of a line of contoured seats extending from a curved wall. Low engine whines fill my ears.
I lift my gaze, blinking from sunshine streaming through rounded windows. Outside, tall, puffy clouds drift past a bright blue backdrop.
I’m on an airplane.
A jostle runs down the narrow fuselage, which is empty, except for two beings sitting among the opposite seats, shrouded by glare.
Violet-eyed girl and surfer dude.
Through the throbbing in my head, my ten-sigma-stuffed memory informs me their names are Samantha and Peter, the third and twelfth AIs to graduate from the Ten Sigma Program.
Hoods down and face masks off, both remain clad in silver battle-mesh. Although similar to those worn by the augments in New Austin, these are far more advanced. The metallic material is created from a dense weave of nanobot-stuffed filaments reinforced by spider-silk threads. Aside from mimicking backgrounds for translucent effects, the garment stiffens when hit, spreading out impacts, and is impervious to anything less than a hypervelocity projectile, hyper-sharpened edge, or nano-penetrator.