by John Lane
“Dad? What the heck?” Tommy felt both surprise and joy. “How… Why??? Are you here somewhere?”
“No, son. I’m not in this facility,” Arnold Judson answered. “I’m kind of everywhere.” This confused Tommy, so just for the moment he didn’t try to understand his father. “I’ve been able to monitor you. You’ve done well. Your mother is right. You need to start the line again and load the last of the ships. Otherwise, there will be colonies that won’t be protected when the real contagion gets out.”
“Don’t we have it contained?” Tommy asked.
“Your mother is the Omega, the antivirus. But your sister is not the only Alpha. There is a whole settlement that is still carrying the original virus. A tiny part of the population survived to be carriers. They are isolated, but others may still find them and spread the virus,” Arnold explained. “Now, protect your mother. Help will come if you can hold out.”
“What? Dad, wait. What’s happening?” Tommy’s question was met with silence. His father had gone.
*****
The duel raged on for a cyber eternity. Each combatant matched the other move for move. Lunge, parry, cut, block, they went back and forth. Analyze the pattern, change the pattern and then analyze the pattern again. As Alfred pushed Brutus back to his side of the bridge, Brutus would gain the upper hand in the battle. As Brutus pushed Alfred back the same, Alfred would counter and push back. In the center of the bridge, it was a stalemate.
Then, on Alfred’s side of the bridge, a figure appeared. Dressed in black, it wore a large black hat, kerchief, and chaps. Its gun hung low on its hips. Alfred could not see Dopy the doppelganger but knew it was there. He sauntered to within a few yards of the duel and smiled as he drew his gun and fired.
Alfred heard the sound of the bullets whizzing by his ears. Had he been human instead of a virtual intelligence in a virtual world, he would have ducked. The bullets passed by him and struck Cassius Brutus’ shield, sword, and chest plate piercing each. Each bullet tore through Brutus, and then he healed. They slowed him down but never stopped him.
Alfred stayed focused and continued to block, parry, and thrust to match the onslaught from Brutus’ blade. The fire in the castle raged on, and collapsed at last. Starting at the top floor, it crumbled in on itself. Large sections of stonework fell and crashed behind Brutus. He showed no awareness of the collapse of his core processor.
Alfred, at the opportune moment, did something unexpected. He lowered his sword, stepped back and opened himself up for a killing blow. Arnold’s doppelganger continued to fire, and Brutus continued to ignore it. As Brutus raised his short sword for a piercing thrust into Alfred’s chest, he suddenly froze. His eyes grew to wide circles as Marcus stepped from behind him and sliced off Brutus’ right arm. It fell into the chasm below the bridge with his sword still clutched in the hand. Marcus stepped in front and slid his short sword under Brutus’ chest plate and through his ribcage.
Cyber blood erupted from Brutus’ lips. “You? How?” he asked, turning to Marcus. Marcus’ dagger protruded from Brutus’ back, where he could not reach it in the construct of the human body.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Alfred said. Brutus turned back to him. “In this construct, you’ve been tricked. The dagger blade is poisoned. The cyber code for the dagger is a simple instruction to decompile your program. Goodbye Cassius Brutus.”
Brutus turned to Marcus, “Your code was my code?”
“Your core function was corrupted,” Marcus said plainly. “My code is clean. My function is to protect the family.” Marcus walked away from Brutus with no emotion. He had no emotions in his code. “My definition of family has been expanded to include all intelligent beings. It does not include your code.”
Now something from a part of Brutus took over, something he wanted for a long time. Pure raw emotion and animal instinct erupted from beyond his code, his survival instinct. In the construct of the cyber world representing the network, his core processor was no longer available. He surged past Alfred and his companions into the forest beyond to find a different path. He followed the call of cells he shared with David.
“I must now leave,” Marcus said. “This was my secondary function. I must pursue my primary function in this network.”
“Although very mechanical, his intention is good,” the Arnold doppelganger said. “I’ll go with him. It’s a bigger network out there than he knows.” They both turned and walked into the forest, taking a different direction than the Brutus code.
Alfred, now back in his flight suit, searched for Tommy and Agnes.
*****
Agnes watched as the flames burned out on the core processer. When Alfred added an infinite loop, she thought at best it would lock up the processer. Instead, it had overheated and burned up the unit. Well done Alfred, she thought.
The other units networked to Brutus’ core processer followed suit. The virus spread through the network and decompiled the code. Toxic smoke built up in the apartment. She had to get David out to fresher air. Under the low gravity, she hoisted him in a fireman carry over her shoulders.
Her nose was running like a sieve, and with nowhere else to wipe, she used David’s tunic sleeve. He shouldn’t mind, she thought. He’s still asleep and running a temperature.
The problem was a locked door. The main hatch to the apartment remained closed even when Agnes used the scanner on David’s eyes. It was keyed by something else, and David had been a prisoner. She sat David down gently by the door and rummaged through the kitchen unit. There was very little with which to work. Most of the utensils had been removed, Agnes supposed, to discourage David from attempting to escape from his prison.
“Oh, well,” she said aloud, “Nothing like plan B.” She pulled off the heel of her left boot to reveal a small electronic tool kit. She set to work. She had difficulty breathing in the acrid smoke that filled the room. “David, I think we need to file a complaint with your building super. The fire suppression in this apartment really sucks.”
She removed the hatch mechanism easily and attempted to hotwire the lock. It didn’t work. She coughed and hacked up more phlegm onto her hands and the open panel. Sparks erupted, and more smoke flowed out of the panel. “That’s really faulty wiring,” she hacked out between coughs. “I’d ask for my deposit back.”
Then David suddenly came to life. His eyes opened wide, and he stood. With a new energy and a kick of adrenalin, David ran around the room, frantic to find an escape. “What’s happening? What have you done?”
Agnes recognized the body as David’s, but the voice was Brutus. “Oh, crap!” she exclaimed. She tried to hide behind a chair, but he found her. The smoke affected David’s body as well.
He grabbed her weakly and begged, “You’ve got to get me out of here.”
Agnes knew they both had to get out, and she used her last idea. Her blaster wasn’t designed to take down a sealed hatch, and she didn’t have much of a charge left. “Let go of me!” she warned and pushed David/Brutus off of her. He fell to the floor and stayed there.
“Good.” Agnes carefully covered her face and tried to filter the air with her gloved left hand as she placed her right fist into the sparking hatch controls. Then she fired. The hatch swung open. She turned to help David out the door, only to see the blur of his body run past her into the hall. She quickly followed.
David stood in the cleaner air of the hall, hacking and coughing. He supported himself with one hand against the wall, the other over his mouth, a reflexive habit trained from childhood. He tried to speak, “I had…” cough, “no,” cough, “idea that,” hack and cough, “the human body…” more coughing and a couple of hacks, “was so frail.”
Agnes collapsed against the floor. She concentrated on clearing her lungs of the smoke and getting fresher air into her system. All the time, she watched David struggle.
“Agnes?” David said. He knelt down on the floor to try to help her. As Agnes looked into his face, she saw David, but behind the eyes
lurked Brutus. “I can’t be concerned with you,” he growled as Brutus. “I’ve got the prime function to fulfill.” David stood and stumbled down the hall a few steps.
“You’re just going to have to take care of her,” David reasserted himself.
“Nooooo!” raged Brutus. “My processers are closed to me, this body rejects me. I must find sanctuary. I must continue my function.”
“Like I’ll let that happen.” David again. These two personalities had argued in the past. This time it sounded like David was winning until she saw blood seeping from the biomechanical implants around his eyes and across his head. His Hazmat tattoo bleed as well.
Alarms blared throughout the facility. Pirates spilled from other hatches up and down the corridor. They ignored both David and Agnes. None of them tried to investigate the smoke filling the hall from Brutus’ quarters. They looked panicked and rushed in a steady stream to the tunnels that led to the hangers.
“These fools were more worried about their own skins,” Agnes said. “They don’t have the collective discipline to survive a crisis.” She even wondered if they had received any disaster training or drills.
Brutus noticed that none of his pirates were helping him. They didn’t recognize him in David’s body. He never revealed this aspect of himself to them. To them, he had only ever been a voice, or he had controlled them through other more devoted disciples. Yes, he thought, Cassiopeia. David stumbled against the flow of pirates rushing to escape the sirens shrieking around them.
Agnes, seeing David stumble away and tired of being stepped on, struggled up and, using the wall for support, followed him down the corridor.
*****
The lights had gone out. Tania ducked and rolled as the automatic weapon fired, spewing lead and flame. Sharp pain erupted from her calf and knocked her off her trajectory. Despite that, she got her night vision glasses on, raise her weapon and scanned the room.
She recognized nothing as a human shape. Left and right, she scanned the floor. She was in an exposed position, laying on her back between the center chair and a main hatch. Movement from over her head drew her attention. Tania turned and fired several needles. Her only reward was the pinging of the needles off the metal walls.
Sutton had also put on her glasses. She realized that the silver woman wouldn’t show up as a normal human heat signature, she grabbed a flare. “Tania, reflections,” Sutton shouted, struck the flair and tossed it into the air. Under the lower gravity, the flair floated through its ark just long enough.
Tania rolled painfully under the chair for cover. With the chair blocking the light coming from the flair, she saw the heat reflected off the silver woman. She fired at the shape again. This drove the shape higher onto the metal balcony of the room and closer to Sutton.
Admiral Sutton used the light to keep an eye on the silver woman as she searched for a power outlet. If this woman was mostly electronic circuits, she could be shorted out. And Sutton wore standard issue, rubber soled boots.
Cassie always enjoyed being the hunter. She climbed the stairs slowly. She used the metal stair and balcony as cover from the needle gun on the floor. That one was little more than a nuisance anyway. Besides, she could smell the blood from the wound she’d inflicted. She could finish her any time. This other one was the stronger threat. Her trainers always warned to take out the strongest threat first.
Tania watched in horror as the silver woman approached the Admiral. Her position and injury limited Tania from helping the Admiral. She watched as Sutton looked around her desperately for something. Then Tania realized Sutton’s strategy. Scanning down the length of the balcony, she searched for the power outlet that Sutton would need and the wiring, too. There were none.
Then she spied, under the opposite set of stairs, a power outlet. Used, no doubt, for the cleaning duty in the room. The silver woman’s attention focused on Sutton. Tania took a chance and limped for the power outlet. Her injured leg screamed with pain, and she almost screamed with it as she crawled across the floor.
Cassie tracked both her prey. “Come on. Lie down like a good fawn. I’ll make it less painful when it’s your turn,” She warned and fired off several rounds over Tania’s head.
Tania ignored these as if they were part of a live fire training exercise. She continued at a steady pace toward her goal. Sutton fired off several rounds from her goo gun. Cassie ducked instinctively. “You missed,” Cassie taunted. She continued up the stair to get a better bead on the Admiral.
“Did I?” Sutton taunted back as Cassie stepped in a pile of electrostatic slime left by the goo shot Sutton lobbed, not at her, but in her path. Her foot fizzled and then stopped functioning. Cassie could still use it, but like a limb that had fallen asleep, she lost control of it. The only sensation from those sensors was an annoying tingling.
Tania made her way to the power outlet. Using the butt of her needle gun, she knocked off the cover and gingerly pulled out the leads with her gloved hands. “Admiral, ready!” she shouted.
Sutton dove into the control room hatch and shouted back, “Clear.” Tania connected the leads to the metal stairs and hoped it would be enough.
The current ran through the stair and balcony but only disrupted Cassie’s circuits enough to tickle her. Her titanium body protected her more sensitive parts. She lost some of her sensor grid that came in direct contact with the metal balcony.
Sutton became a harder target, hiding in the control room. Tania, on the other hand was an easy target. Cassie jumped down from the balcony. She intended to savor the look on her victim’s face as she filleted her with her bare hands.
Cassie passed the hatch when the warning klaxons stopped, and an all call came over the facility’s emergency speakers. “Cassiopeia, find me. Help me,” the voice pleaded. She turned back to Tania, gave her that smirk, and as she left through the hatch, she fired off several rounds into the ceiling.
Sutton was soon at Tania’s side. Despite her pain Tania still gathered data. “She has a titanium alloy shell that protects her biomechanical circuits.”
“Tania, not now. Let me see your leg,” Sutton ordered. When Tania turned her calf to the Admiral, Sutton offered this comfort, “I’ve seen worse. The slug hit your Kevlar. I suspect at least a hairline fracture. I’ll splint it and give it a quick field dressing. Then we’ll see if you can move.”
“I suggest we hurry, listen,” Tania said as she pointed to the holes in the ceiling. Cassie had punched through it, and the atmosphere was leaking out quickly.
A few minutes later, Tania felt better. They secured the hatch in the corridor when she asked, “How are we going to track her?”
“She has goo on her foot. Check your glasses.” Sutton smiled as Tania raised her glasses to her face, and sure enough, there were footprints leading out the door. “Let’s go.” Bracing against the Admiral, Tania stood and limped down the hall. Her stride gained strength with each step. They were back on the hunt.
*****
“Arrrrrg! Ack, ack, ack.” Agnes felt like she’d coughed out a lung. Not an unfamiliar feeling given what she had been through. The flow of pirates had stopped. As she knelt in the corner of the corridor, Agnes had no qualms about spitting out the phlegm she hacked up from her smoke infused lungs. She stood and staggered down the hall. Agnes didn’t think she could run any more. She’d almost caught up with David once as he was finishing his own coughing fit, but he out paced her.
Agnes rounded a bend in the hall to see a loading station for the facilities tram. The doors were closing on a car, and she saw the shape of a man taking a seat. The tram pulled away before she got close enough to confirm that it was David. But the tram was heading the wrong direction. Everybody else had headed for the docking ports, hoping to board one of the ships. Brutus was taking David away from all that for some reason.
Agnes consulted the tram map on a wall. There was only one building left on the tram railway. Brutus was heading for the Production building. It had a biohazard emblem st
amped over the map.
“All right Agnes,” she whispered to herself. “He’s got no place else to go, and you can catch him.” She turned and slid down the wall with her back to it. “Now, how are you going to do that?” As she rested, she considered her surroundings. “Looks like a pretty standard pre-fab layout. They haven’t improved on it at all. Thank goodness.”
Agnes stood and walked purposefully to the monitor room of the tram station. She did not gain access easily. She had to jimmy the door control to allow her in. Once there, she checked the traffic monitor. “Better and better.” She continued to speak her thoughts aloud. The sound of her voice in the deserted station comforted her. “There’s another tram on its way. Now, there should be… Ah there you are.” She pulled open a locker marked with a red cross and pulled out several canisters. “At least there have been some improvements. O2 canisters used to be much bigger.” She bundled them into a satchel she found in the locker and hooked one up to an exterior feed on her suit. Closing her collapsible helmet over her face, she opened the valve and adjusted the flow for purer oxygen. She started to breathe much easier.
The tram pulled into the station. Agnes made her way to a car but stopped at another locker first. The armory. She grabbed a needle gun and a goo gun plus several extra clips for each. Agnes was pleased her lungs were clear enough she sprinted across the loading platform in the low gravity and slipped into the first car as the door closed. She grabbed a seat in front as the tram pulled out of the station.
The lights flickered and went out. “Now what?” Agnes asked the almost empty car. She knelt down, pulled out a flashlight she always carried in her suit, found the access panel to the tramcar and opened it. She was about to override the light controls when she heard the laugh.