by John Lane
“Hello, little girl,” the female voice said from behind and above her. “Did I startle you?” it asked. Agnes turned around, and in the ambient light of the car, she saw a silver woman attached to the roof of the tram. Cassie’s body wasn’t a liquid metal, but she still flowed off the ceiling and down to the seat that Agnes had vacated. “Still playing games? I can play, too.” Cassie reached down to grab Agnes.
Agnes still had her flashlight pointed at the control panel. She turned it on Cassie’s face and tried to roll away. Cassie was blinded temporarily. Her one good eye mimicked a human eye, but her sensor covered in goo, still made out where Agnes squirmed to get away. Cassie blocked Agnes’ escape with a leg and grabbed her, lifting her over the seat and slamming her against the forward bulkhead of the tram.
“What have you done to Brutus?” Cassie brought her silver face nose to nose with Agnes. Agnes saw the features were the same even if the body had changed. The pupil in her one good eye bounced back and forth trying to look deep into Agnes’ eyes for her answer. The other eye was a mess. A needle protruded from it, and the shattered remains oozed down her face. Only it wasn’t red blood, it was a blue fluid Agnes recognized for biomechanical circuits. It was also flammable.
Agnes tried to reach her bag with her weapons, but it was still in her seat. “Well?” Cassie lifted her higher and tightened her grip on Agnes’ neck.
“Aack, gurgle, ugh,” Agnes gagged out. She couldn’t even sneeze when her nose got that tickle. The mucus ran down her face and pooled in the bottom of her helmet. Cassie tilted her head and her crooked grin grew larger. The Angel of Death enjoyed this part, making them squirm. Agnes kicked her feet. Grey began to rise in her vision as she choked. Even though her suit was between her attacker and her neck, it was collapsible and pliable. It wasn’t like some of the deep space suits for heavy construction or combat. As she kicked her legs banged against the open control panel behind her heels. She hoped she remembered. Right as the edge of her vision faded and blurred, she kicked hard to the left of the panel.
She guessed right. Agnes’ foot had hit the acceleration override control. It threw their bodies back into the seat, releasing Cassie’s grip on Agnes’ throat. Agnes pushed away, falling to the floor. As Cassie stood to recapture her prey, Agnes punched behind her left ear, hoping to catch the right override button. The breaks slammed on, bringing the tram to a quick stop.
Had Agnes been standing when the brakes stopped the tram, her soft body would have smashed against the forward window and bounced off causing major trauma. With a hard titanium body, the momentum of the tram translated to Cassie’s body turning it into a projectile that smashed through the tram window and to the track beneath the car. Agnes didn’t wait. She punched the acceleration control full, and the tram took off again.
Cassie didn’t have time to stand before the tram ran over her. Agnes cringed as the body bounced around the undercarriage and off the back of the tram. She breathed easier and was glad she’d hooked up the oxygen. Her throat was bruised, but she’d live.
Agnes sat up in that first seat and watched carefully. She had overridden the tram control, so she had to guide the tram in manually to the next stop. “No more passengers,” she shared with herself and regretted it as her throat protested in pain. No more talking for a while either, she thought.
*****
Tommy felt more alone than ever. His father had made contact and cut it off just as quickly. He had lost contact with Alfred. He had handled that once before, and he could do it again. Agnes seemed lost to him, too. He had lost her in the past.
His only companion needed him more than anyone had ever needed him. His mother lay unconscious and isolated in her hibernation casket. She might be dying. He had monitored her blood readings and adjusted the blood thinner as the viscosity indicated. She had regained some color, but she was still hooked up to the pumps that had been sucking and filtering her blood for the contagion.
“Thomas, Brutus is coming.” His father made a surprise announcement in Tommy’s earbud.
“What?” Tommy was alert. “Where? When?” There was no reply from anyone. “Fat lot of help you are,” he mumbled. Tommy checked out his environment. He had to secure his mother, and she was in the most vulnerable location at the bottom of this silo. The caskets offered cover for anyone who wanted to attack. There were entrances to the silo from the stairs above and hatches in the floor. Tommy did his best taking up a position with his back at the foot of Annie’s casket.
He waited. And he waited. And just when he knew he might let his guard down, Tommy reminded himself that he could out wait anyone. The attack, if you could call it that, came in a most unexpected way.
A man crawled out of a hatch in the floor behind the pumps. He looked like he was wounded and feverish. He was mumbling gibberish and ignored Tommy at first. The man noticed the line of caskets had halted. “Good, good,” he said. He turned to the closest casket and opened the lid. A woman occupied it. “No. No, this won’t do,” he mumbled.
Tommy approached the man slowly, weapon drawn. As the man turned, Tommy challenged him, “Who are you?” The man stared at Tommy and pushed past him. The man seemed familiar. If it had not been for the blood oozing from multiple places on his face and the Hazmat symbol tattooed to his neck, he might have seen his brother, David. The crazed look on his face contorted him beyond easy recognition.
The man busied himself with some of the readouts at the pumps and then started for Annie’s casket. Tommy moved to block his way. “Oh, no you don’t.”
“Let me pass boy,” David insisted with Brutus’ voice issuing from him.
Now the attack began in earnest. Brutus, impatient, lunged at Tommy to knock him down. Tommy fired several rounds, which numbed Brutus, but his momentum carried him, and he fell on top of Tommy. Tommy pushed the body off and rolled to a standing position with his goo gun pointed at Brutus’ nose. “I asked you nicely. Now I’m going to ask you for the last time. Who are you?” Tommy contained most of his anger as the goo gun quivered in Brutus’ face.
“I’ve chased you. You’ve chased me. It is about time we were introduced,” moaned Brutus wearily. “I’m Cassius Brutus, Protector,” he proclaimed. “Now get out of my way. I’ve got no time for delays. The prime function must be fulfilled.”
Tommy recognized the Ai name from the settlement, but this was a human in front of him. Brutus rolled over on his hands and knees and continued to crawl to Annie’s casket. “Stay away from her!” Tommy warned, and he let off another shot of goo.
By now, Brutus was slowing down from the combined effects of constant gooings and the decompiling of his code. In David’s body he maintained most of his personality code, but it was getting harder. “Will you stop shooting me?” he bellowed.
Agnes climbed out of the floor hatch. “Tommy, be careful. That’s…”
“Cassius Brutus, we’ve met,” Tommy interrupted with exasperation. “Sorry, Agnes, I’m glad to see you.” Tommy didn’t, however, take his eyes off Brutus. As he watched, he saw the man’s face relax for a moment.
“Tommy?” David was able to get out. “You’ve grown up.” Then Brutus was back. “You are all wasting time.” He turned to Annie’s casket again shouting, “Why do humans always waste so much time?”
Tommy fired again and ran after Brutus. Agnes cut around the other direction and got to the access panel on Annie’s casket first. She expertly disconnected the dangerous lines with medicine, but that wasn’t what Brutus was after. He reached under the casket from the other side and yanked out a media unit. “The function will be completed,” he said raising the unit up to inspect it. Tommy gooed the unit. It sparked and fizzled in his hand.
“David!? Oh David, please try to come back.” Annie had awakened and recognized her son.
Brutus turned to the casket and said cruelly, “David doesn’t live here any more.” And he laughed at his own joke.
“I think that he does,” Agnes declared. She climbed on top of An
nie’s casket and sang:
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought 'twas all in good fun
“What’s that you’re singing?” Brutus asked. “What’s it doing? I feel strange.” Brutus’ eyes glazed over. Brutus dropped to the ground. When he lifted his head, it was David that said gently, “I remember this song.” He doubled over in pain as spasms racked his body.
Agnes finished the verse almost apologetically, watching David writhe on the floor in front of her, “Pop! Goes the weasel.” She circled the casket and ran to David’s side as Tommy did the same.
“David, hang in there,” Tommy encouraged his brother.
“We’re right here with you,” Agnes added.
“Brutus is hurt,” David whispered. “Be careful. All that is left is the interface, and that’s degenerating into animal instinct.” Another spasm of pain ran through him as he covered his face with his hands. He laughed. Brutus took over again, “The jokes on me. I’ve finally got what I wanted by fearing death. I’m alive.”
“A penny for a spool of thread,” Agnes sang again, but Brutus, in David’s body, erupted from between the embrace of his aunt and brother.
“No!” he screamed. He still held the now dead media unit that Agnes feared had held Annie’s copy and her research on the virus. Holding it high over his head, he climbed up on Annie’s casket and slammed the unit down on the lid. “Why,” Slam, “does this family,” Slam. “Always,” Slam, “get,” Slam, “in my,” Slam, “way?” Slam! With each blow on the same spot, cracks formed in Annie’s lid.
Agnes had by now removed her helmet and wiped her snot off on her sleeve. She took in another huge breath to sing the next line. “NO!” Brutus roared. “I know what you are doing. That is the key code to your cyber virus, the one that is destroying me right now. If you complete it I die. So, if you breathe another note of that infernal song, I will smash her lid and expose her to this cold. She will die instantly.”
“He’s right,” came from the speakers on Annie’s casket. They all looked at the thin remains of the woman for whom they’d been searching. Annie continued when she was sure she had Brutus’ attention. “I don’t care about your life. I don’t care about mine.” Annie was gathering strength as she faced the demon that had stolen so many of her family from her. She pleaded with her son, “David, help me fight it.” And she sang in her own voice from her casket, “A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle.”
Brutus raised the media unit to strike again and screaming in rage, “NO!” Something made him pause. There was a struggle taking place in his face, and David may have been winning.
Agnes added her voice to Annie’s, “That’s the way the money goes…” And Tommy lunged at David, knocking him off Annie’s casket.
He rolled on the ground, wrenching the unit away from David’s hands. David let him, but Brutus fought him, weakly striking him with his fist in the ribs. Tommy now joined in the refrain, “Pop! Goes the Weasel.” Brutus had become the Weasel.
Brutus whimpered and moaned, “No. No, no, noooo.”
“NOOOOO!” This scream came from above them. Cassie was vaulting awkwardly from one casket to another, working her way down between the spirals. “He was to bring perfection.” Tommy stood up, and as he turned to meet this new threat, she tackled him to the ground. She was missing an arm and part of one foot, but she still was a powerful combatant.
Tommy tried to pivot as he blocked her blows. Agnes leapt on her back and tried to open an access port, any access port so she could overwhelm the biomechanical circuits with a shot from her goo gun.
“David,” Annie called. “David can you stand. Are you there?”
“I’m here, Mother.” David was in control of his body again. He made his way to his mother’s side. Blood was streaming from several of his biomechanical links. His skin was turning ghostly pale, and he was sweating profusely.
“David,” Annie became the clinician, for fear that the mother in her couldn’t help her child. “You’re running a fever and you’ve lost too much blood.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, Mom. I’m suffering from two viruses.” David agreed with his mother. He grimaced, fighting off Brutus for a few more moments. “You’ve got to finish the key code,” He pleaded.
“It could kill you,” Annie realized.
“May be the only way,” David struggled to get out before Brutus said, “What a touching family moment. I really hate this family.”
David was back. “If it weren’t for this family, you wouldn’t be. This is your family.” And as he faded away, struggling not to let Brutus reassert itself, “You are this family’s greatest disappointment, Cassius Brutus.”
Outside on the crater plain, the line of loaded ships launched. The Reaper pirates escaped deserting those that remained like rats running from a sinking ship. Alfred had little trouble blowing the restraining clamps placed on the Swift. He used Agnes’ conveniently placed particle cannons to disengage them from the hull. He launched the Swift and maneuvered across the plain to the casket loading dock at the top of the silo.
“Dr. Ann,” Alfred signaled. “The coast is clear.” The Swift’s lander lifted from over the edge of the horizon.
“Thank you, Alfred,” Dr. Ann responded. Her avatar piloted the lander to rendezvous with the main ship. “The package is secure. All systems responding well.”
In the silo, Cassie was banging Tommy’s head against the floor with her remaining arm. Agnes opened an access port in her back when Cassie bucked her off. Tommy’s earbud activated. “Am I too late?” Alfred said, as his spider jumped out of the toolbox a few yards from the struggling Tommy. It scurried up Cassie’s back, and placing two arms into the access port, sent a charge into her delicate systems.
She released Tommy and shuddered as she tried to knock Alfred’s avatar off her back. Agnes grabbed a wrench from the toolbox and swung it at Cassie’s face. “You are human!” Agnes screamed at Cassie. “Stop trying to kill us!” She paused, her anger spent.
“You don’t know,” came out of Cassie in a whisper as the spider avatar’s legs bound her tight. “You’ll never know.”
A silence settled over the silo. It seemed that it was all over. The casket line moved again, and Agnes noticed David was gone. “Where’s David?” Annie was so weak and emotionally drained she couldn’t speak. She pointed up.
On the inside spiral, David rode a casket weakly out of the silo. “Tommy, we need to stop him.” Agnes tried to catch a casket. She slipped off and skidded to the floor.
Tommy recovered enough to say, “Take the stairs. I can follow him.” Instead of riding the inside, Tommy grabbed on and leapt from one loop of the spiral straight up the silo. “David. Stop!” he called as he neared his brother.
“Tommy, don’t follow. I’ve got to finish him,” David yelled back. Then like a switch, Brutus was back, “Don’t come any closer.” He had Agnes’ needle gun aimed directly at Tommy’s head. Tommy landed on a casket and froze. They stayed like that as they both spiraled upward to the loading dock air lock.
He had lost the battle for the body, but David still owned his own mind. He could still speak, “Finish the verse, Tommy. You’ve got to finish the verse!”
“I’ve got that,” Alfred shared through the earbud. “I’ll pass it on.”
“Okay Brutus. I’ve stopped, but where can you go from here?” Tommy asked. He had to buy time. If he started the verse this far away, the audio pickups might not read it all.
“I can hibernate until my function can again bring protection to the galaxy,” Brutus responded.
David gained enough control to talk at will, “Brutus, you are our shame. I’ll never let that happen.” He pleaded, “Tommy, the verse!”
They were passing the upper entrance hatch and ladder landing. Brutus and David screamed. A needle protruded through their hand and into the pistol grip of the needle gun, blocking the trigger from firing. Da
vid ripped the gun and needle with it from his hand and dropped the gun to the floor of the silo.
“Nice shot, Admiral.” Tania Smith congratulated Sutton from their vantage on the top landing.
“Wasn’t hard,” Admiral Danielle Sutton replied with humility. “But thanks, Agent Smith, thanks.”
“Sing, Alfred,” Tommy signaled.
“Here it comes, loud and clear,” Alfred informed Tommy.
From the depths of the silo, augmented through the facility speakers came Agnes, Annie, and Alfred, singing in harmony. “Agnes’ got the whooping cough, And Annie’s got the measles…” And then the sound went dead. The last syllable echoed down the silo.
“What happened?” asked Agnes.
“The Angel Reaper,” Alfred signaled through her earbud. Agnes looked over to see his avatar smoking in the corner.
Cassie rode the caskets up the inner spiral. She used her one last link with the facility’s systems to save Brutus. She glance up the spiral searching for her deliverer, but both Brutus and Tommy had disappeared into the airlock. Cassie released the lock on the casket she rode and opened it to find the body of a young female recruit. “Perfect,” she said and crawled in closing the lid behind her.
In the airlock, David fell off the casket as it passed through the cargo door. He stumbled to the personnel lock and punched in an override code. The biomechanical interface worked both ways. David could tap into what Brutus knew. Next, he stumbled to the outer lock and accessed the opening sequence.
Tommy jumped off the casket line as he reached the top and ran to catch David. He skidded to a stop when he saw that David had cycled the outer hatch open. “David, stop!”
“Yes, David, stop,” Brutus weakly spoke through David. “Please stop. You can’t do this to us.” David turned to Tommy. His eyes relaxed from the pained panicked look of Brutus to the sanity that was David, finally in control of his own body.