Killswitch Chronicles- The Complete Anthology

by G. R. Carter

  He walked back through the control room. His favorite target for jest was still hunched over his workstation, carefully monitoring the prison's cameras.

  “Porter I warned you about watching that,” Morton said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You're gonna rub it raw.”

  “Come on, Sarge. That’s gettin’ old,” Porter whined.

  “Not to us,” one of the other guards on duty yelled out, nearly laughing herself off her chair.

  Morton just smiled again and made his way through to the balcony. He was two stories up, yet the boots that were an integrated part of his tactical suit made him feel even taller. There were backup batteries in the soles of each, adding almost no weight but lifting him an additional two inches. It was enough to give someone vertigo with the spectacular views through the ceiling and the constant motion of inmates down below.

  He made quick eye contact with the Eel in command of the floor and got the okay sign. With that he relaxed a little, watching the line of inmates press their thumb to a button, then put their mouth on a tube and receive their nightly medication. Each dose was supposed to be formulated to their respective size and metabolism. Since Grapevine wasn't functioning, the kitchen staff dialed up the average dosage, times three. After each inmate the tube would retract and be sanitized by the dispensing machine, then come back out to offer the next inmate their dose. Kinda like Holy Communion used to be, he thought, reminded of the Christmas Mass he used to attend with his wife and son.

  “Hey, Sarge, we got a problem,” Porter called out.

  “Give ‘em a minute, they’ll be back for more. He’s not a machine, after all,” Morton replied, trying to deliver the joke without laughing.

  The room roared again but Porter was serious. “No, I mean it. Come here and take a look.”

  Porter was pointing to one of his screens. The view showed a grainy black-and-white view from outside the maintenance building where all the water, sewer and electrical main hubs were kept. Two—now three men were climbing out of an old jeep, creeping towards the generator's fuel tank Morton had put a load of diesel into earlier in the day.

  “What the…?” Morton tried to wrap his mind around what he was looking at. “How did they get inside the outer fence?”

  “When we’re on backup power the outer fence isn’t electrified,” Porter said.

  Morton had forgotten that. His specialty was inside the walls, not perimeter defense. His thoughts shot to the towers; it hadn’t been that long ago when guards up there had been replaced by cameras and sensors. “Let me guess, the tower defenses don’t work either.”

  Porter shook his head. “Same circuits.”

  Crap. He wondered why Lewis had forgotten to tell him that. Or maybe he did mention it and Morton hadn’t been listening? Perhaps Morton had just forgotten. Either way, he had a major emergency on his hands.

  Morton reached for the intercom. “Rapid Response Team, this is Sergeant Morton. I need full assembly.” He repeated the order three more times, then walked to the wall where a large switch had LOCKDOWN printed above it. Normally he’d do this through voice commands to Grapevine, but that wouldn’t do any good tonight. The simple technology of the emergency klaxon worked, and the switch illuminated. He pulled down and an ear-piercing sound flooded the room.

  He couldn’t see it happening, but every Eel in the facility would be in motion. Those suited up would be escorting inmates back to their cells, and those who weren’t would be double-timing to the armory to get fitted. This was the worst possible time: in the middle of a meal shift. That took ten Eels out of the lockdown process; they’d sit on those in the cafeteria right now and wait for the rest of the facility to be secured.

  Morton went back and watched the monitor again. Another truck had pulled up alongside the jeep, much larger and with a large round tank on the back. It wasn’t a fuel truck, more like one used by farmers to mix pesticides out in their fields. He watched two men drag a long hose from the truck to the generator’s tank.

  He did a quick count and came up with a best guess of five men trying to steal his fuel.

  How could they be so stupid? Don’t they know what would happen if the generator quit?

  The Rapid Response Team’s leader was in the room, already suited up and holding a battle rifle. Morton didn’t know much about the weapon; he’d fired it a few times when Jordan Inc. allocated them. All he knew was they were called AK-15s and they could put a hole the size of a grapefruit in a man.

  “Sitrep,” the team leader said harshly. Morton didn’t much care for Robin Wilson, but he seemed to know his business. His main job here at the prison was maintenance and upkeep on the weapons and tactical suits, one of the ways he could get suited up and to the room so quickly.

  “Approximately five hostiles at the physical plant.”

  Wilson looked surprised. “Outside?” he asked.

  Morton nodded. “Looks like they’re trying to steal fuel out of the generator storage tank.”

  Wilson still looked confused, trying to piece the scenario together. “Why break into a maximum-security prison to steal fuel?” he said to himself as much as Morton. “And how the hell did they get past the electric fence and the tower defenses?”

  Morton was short of patience to explain. “What say we interrogate them later? Right now, we need to stop them from taking our fuel. We’ve only got enough to keep the generator running through tomorrow. We need every drop.”

  That seemed to shake Wilson back to reality. He nodded and grabbed the next two men to make it into the control room. “We’re not waiting on the rest. We should be able to handle five unarmed locals.” He ran out of the room and took off down metal stairs.

  Morton called out after him. “Don’t be so sure they’re unarmed.”

  Wilson didn’t turn but he thumped his free fist to his chest. “That’s what the armor is for.” One more of his team was coming out of the armory just in time to tag along as they opened the heavy steel door and disappeared out into the night.

  Silicon Valley

  The Fourth Day

  Rowan opened his still stinging eyes, taking in the familiar surroundings of his meditation room. Bright sunshine washed over the sparkling white walls and he felt the solar warmth on his skin. Too bright for his pounding head, he instinctively reached for the dimmer switch to activate the automatic tint feature built into the triple-layered windows. Of course, nothing happened, forcing the painful memory of the power failure back to his mind.

  How did I get here? If the power is still out, how did I get through the door? He would have to find the answers, and find that traitor Angela. She was going to pay for this, hard. He walked to the auto-slide door, but nothing happened. He pressed the manual override button, but still nothing. He pounded on the door, yelling for security or anyone. At this point in the day, there should be dozens or hundreds of people in the corridors outside. Everything in the meditation rooms was soundproofed, but occasionally he thought he could still make out the sound of human voices above the sound of his heartbeat. He put his ear up to the door. Can I hear them now?

  The complete lack of sound caused a painful ringing in his ears. No white noise, no people noise, not even the whir of the air conditioning system. Regardless of the millions he spent to make this chamber devoid of sound, he always swore he still heard the air exchange units kick in while meditating. He fired three HVAC contractors because of it. But not now. The units must not be working at all, because he could feel the temperature rising in the room. What can I do now? He returned to the large dentist-style chair that served as his meditation station.

  Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours; I think it’s been twenty-four hours, anyway…there were no clocks in his sanctuary. Need to process my thoughts and focus on a plan. As he reclined in the chair, he stared out the picture window to the trees and hills out around. He could make out buildings peeking above the tree tops, but no movement. A slight wisp of black smoke arose from about a mile ou
t. He couldn’t tell if that was a house, a car or something else. Hopefully nothing serious. California continued to suffer a drought that had been dragging on now for about thirty years. Vegetation surrounding this arid landscape was kept alive mostly by diverted rivers and desalinization plants working 24/7. His mind wandered. What would happen if they didn’t get water up here? Would all the vegetation die off? Wildfires might come right up to the base of The Spaceship; without constant irrigation, the landscape plants would make the area a tinderbox.

  Time drifted away as he stared off into the tan and brown mottling of the hills around. His mind raced, suffering the withdrawal of a brain still conditioned to receiving outside stimulus every nanosecond. The headaches pounded at his will to think and he closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

  *****

  Rowan placed his forehead against the window of his meditation room. He wasn’t sure how much time passed since Grapevine shut down. My greatest creation turned on me, now I’m alone. Maybe logical machines were no different than illogical humans. Life was more than a bunch of wires and silicon. Grapevine existed as a mask over the real world, trying to keep humans from facing the realities existing for thousands of generations. Had it been for the good of mankind that he attempted to shelter the world from those realities? He thought so at one time. I think my intentions were good, but now I’m not so sure.

  He munched on a protein bar he took from the plastic cooler sitting in the back corner. That mysteriously appeared the morning he awoke trapped in this room. Rowan hadn’t noticed it for a while; he was too busy beating on walls and crying on the floor, begging for help. Someone left him enough water and food, if you can call it that, to take the edge off whenever he was hungry or thirsty. The mystery benefactor also left him what appeared to be a type of modern chamber pot. The seal on the lid kept the stink from his waste to a minimum in the small room. But without constant air exchange, the odor still lingered after the lid was opened.

  During his time trapped here, he witnessed only one person wandering around the grounds below. Hard telling where everyone went, Rowan thought; even he didn’t actually live in The Spaceship itself. He owned a multi–million dollar condo a few miles from here, though he hadn’t set foot inside for almost a month before the power went out. If most people stayed at home that next day… he began to run through the likely scenarios.

  Funny, he never considered what might happen in his employees' lives before now. He didn’t know who might have families near or far. Even ages or backgrounds were a mystery to him. He knew their religious affiliations, but mostly because they practiced Continuity. At least, that’s what they professed. For sure it’s what they all practiced; Rowan and the other business leaders in the Valley made sure of that. There was no written policy excluding other faiths, of course. No need to mess with some lawsuit from an old religion type. Everyone just knew the key to getting hired and staying employed meant completing the Progressions and building an elite Profile.

  Had Continuity itself been a failure? How could Profiles live without electricity? Would any other hubs of the Network still be functioning, even now? He thought about the small nuclear reactor sitting ten miles away from here, hooked directly into this building. Who was maintaining that? Would it melt down?

  Rowan wasn’t concerned about the safety of the reactor itself. It was almost a mile down, encased in concrete, and The Spaceship sat outside of what nuclear engineers insisted was the estimated blast zone. But what about the constant source of power that was promised? Five hundred years without refueling, and near-perfect environmental impact. The space-age system seemed like a dream come true when first proposed and functioned so well everyone forgot how much electricity the Network used. They tried solar for a while, but the conversion rate just couldn’t keep up the gigawatts needed to keep modern life functioning.

  Rowan’s wandering mind was interrupted by sudden movement on one of the paths below. People! One, two, ten, now twenty figures emerged from the brush and trees surrounding the Spaceship campus. I might be rescued!

  Wait, what if these were the looters I warned Angela about? He told her they would be coming…did they look friendly? Intentions were difficult for him to determine from ten stories up in the air. But he could tell they were carrying something. Behind the group, a tractor slowly crawled up towards the front entrance. Rowan lost sight of the group as they made their way around the building.

  Why would they bypass the main entrance? The only other place to enter the building was the loading dock area hidden at the back of the building. The hardware, food and office equipment needed to run modern corporations, or small cities as they had become, were received in the back. Even companies that dealt in the virtual required some physical items.

  Interesting, so this group intended to enter the building, but probably learned from previous experience that back doors were easier to breach than the reinforced front door. That’s quite intelligent, he thought, must be quick adapters.

  A more sinister and disturbing thought crept like a shadow into his mind…if groups were so brazen as to drive a tractor right up to the headquarters of the most powerful corporation on the planet there must be zero law enforcement in the area. Panic pumped adrenaline into his veins, filling Rowan’s mind with terror. Similar to his experience the night Grapevine died, but this time more primal. And much more immediate.

  What happens if they find me? What will they do with me…will I be offered the chance to join the group? He certainly doubted it. Rowan never once experienced manual labor in his entire life. He only knew how to work on software; the idea of hardware to him was a bank of servers in the basement. What good would a skill like that be to the group? Maybe they’ll at least kill me quick, I couldn’t take torture. His thoughts raced – now he wasn’t worrying about escaping from his prison room, he was worried about how he could keep others out.

  Rowan looked around the room again for anything he could use as a weapon. Nothing. He tried to remember any fighting moves he had seen on movies. What good would that do? These beasts breaking in probably have guns. What could I do against that? What could I do against anything? He was worthless as a man, simply a control interface plugged into the Network. With the Network gone, he was obsolete. The panic in his mind melted away. At least it’s settled. No more worrying about how to get out of the situation. He was caught in the trap, and the predators were on their way. Without some way to fight and to survive, and with no tribe of his own to help him, he was at the mercy of the monsters on the way.

  He moved over to his meditation chair, staring at the beautiful blue sky facing back at him. Not a bad place to meet my end, actually. Had to happen sometime. Perhaps I can meditate deep enough to escape most of the pain. Rowan worked his way through meditation techniques taught to him as a child by his parents. In his mind’s eye, he merged with Continuity. New visions of the Progressions formulated in his mind.

  He now understood. I must be torn down to be rebuilt, he thought. How can one experience ecstasy without knowing agony? Why am I smiling? Certain death is heading my way, yet I’ve never known peace like this. The sun’s rays penetrated his body.

  The sun lights my Path, Rowan thought. We must follow the sun’s energy to where our Profiles will live on.

  His only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to help others see the True Path now. Perhaps Angela had understood this truth on that night, a night that now seemed a lifetime ago. If I set the true believers on the right course originally, even if I strayed myself, some good has come of my life. His Profile wouldn’t live on through the Network, but at least theirs would. That’s more than something, that’s everything, Rowan thought as the deepest sleep he ever felt washed over him.

  Shelby County

  The Fifth Day

  Tan-colored dust billowed in a plume behind Sheriff Clark Olsen’s old truck as he barreled down the county line road that connected the county seat with the outer townships of his jurisdiction. A deputy’
s panicked message alerted him to a burning farm belonging to Patrick and Susan Watson, a family that had been living in the area since the county was founded. Their expansive brick house came into view, with dark black smoke still wafting overhead.

  As Olsen skidded into the driveway, his worst fears were realized. One broken body lay half in and half out of the garage door. Jumping out of the truck, he ran around the back of the house, only to see that the front façade was nearly all that remained of the structure. Misty-eyed, he turned to head for the machine shed in back. The door had been busted open and buckshot holes peppered the doorway. Drying blood pooled on the concrete below. Someone managed to get a shot off at the intruders, which didn’t surprise the sheriff at all. This family had seen sons and daughters in service from the Civil War all the way to America’s most recent Middle East misadventures. The Watsons would have fought till the end.

  Against all hope, the end was what he found. Stepping into the machine shed confirmed his worst fear. A middle aged woman and man lay in the neatly finished area set up as the farmer’s personal office. Decorations from tractor companies mixed into pictures of adventures with family and friends over every square inch of wall. Thin paper photos holding memories of those dearest witnessed the end of a proud family.

  The man had been shot in the chest, and the woman in the back. Clark assumed that Patrick caught a bullet as he charged up to whoever was breaking in. Susan appeared to have received her fatal wound while comforting him in his final moments. Suddenly he remembered the two beautiful young Watson daughters living here…he’d start a search for them immediately, likely fruitless with limited manpower.

  Olsen walked out of the shed and looked around at the surrounding landscape. He tried to figure out where the bandits who did this came from. Suddenly he felt as though a thousand eyes were staring at him from behind the tall grass and weeds. In the short time since the modern world ground to a halt, rapidly growing brush and weeds already began to encroach on the neatly manicured farm fields. Too much cover for anyone or anything wishing to sneak up on unsuspecting victims.