by Mark Walden
Otto stared at Nero, trying to find the flaw in his reasoning, but had to admit that he was right. The only weakness that Overlord had was his inability to interface with other machines. If he took control of Otto and regained that ability he would be unstoppable and every machine on the planet would be his to control. There would be no place for humanity in a world like that.
‘Does anyone have any other questions?’ Nero asked. ‘No? Good. I will alert you when we are approaching the drop-off point. Dismissed.’
The others filed out of the room but Otto and the Professor remained seated.
‘Is there something else I can do for you, gentlemen?’ Nero asked as the doors hissed shut behind the last of the Alphas.
‘There’s something else we need to talk about,’ Otto said. ‘The Professor and I think we’ve come up with a way to counteract the effects of the new strain of Animus that Overlord used on Raven.’
‘Then why are you both looking so worried?’ Nero asked with a slight frown.
‘Their plan, while sound, has considerable risk attached,’ H.I.V.E.mind explained.
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ the Professor agreed.
‘I’m listening,’ Nero said, sitting back in his chair.
‘Well, we theorise that the new strain of Animus is far less aggressive than when we’ve previously encountered it. That would explain why Raven appeared to be suffering no physical ill-effects from having it in her system. If we can create a variant of this new type we could, in theory, program it to infect Overlord’s Animus with a virus – a virus that would shut it down.’
‘That does not sound like a simple task,’ Nero said.
‘No. Well, it wouldn’t be under normal circumstances, but we think there might be a short cut,’ Otto replied.
‘And this is where the risk that H.I.V.E.mind mentioned comes into the equation, I assume,’ Nero said.
‘Yes, the only way that we can see to effectively reanimate the tiny sample that we have and then reprogram it in the limited time is to put it inside me,’ Otto said.
‘Out of the question,’ Nero said, shaking his head. ‘Are you both insane?’
‘I know how this sounds,’ the Professor said, ‘but we believe that the combination of Otto’s abilities and H.I.V.E.mind’s raw processing power should mean that they can reprogram the Animus before it can assume control of Otto. The sample is dormant at the moment and the time that it takes to reawaken after it is implanted should give us a window of opportunity to modify its behaviour.’
‘What if you’re wrong?’ Nero asked. ‘What if you can’t do it and the Animus takes control of you? There won’t be anything we can do.’
‘Then you put a bullet in my head before I can take control of the Megalodon,’ Otto said matter of factly. ‘I’ve been through what Raven is experiencing right now and it’s a living hell – we can’t just give up on her. She’d do the same for us.’
‘And you know her well enough to know that if she was here now she would tell you she’d rather die than see you infected with that filth again,’ Nero said.
‘Maybe,’ Otto replied, ‘but who knows how many people Overlord has infected with the new variant? This isn’t just about Raven – anyone could be under his control and we’d never know. We must have a way to fight this.’
‘Mr Malpense, I have spent my whole life not knowing who I could really trust. Find another way. You are not doing this. Do I make myself clear?’ Nero said, getting up out of his chair.
Otto and the Professor nodded.
g
Chapter Six
The captain of the USS Texas was sitting in his quarters reviewing the crew duty rosters for the next week when there was a knock at his door.
‘Enter,’ he said, and his First Officer opened the door.
‘Sir, we’ve got something on sonar. It could be the target boat,’ the First Officer reported.
‘Show me,’ the Captain said, getting up from behind his desk and following the First Officer down the short corridor that led from his cabin to the sonar station.
‘What have you got, Niles?’ the Captain asked as he looked over the operator’s shoulder.
‘I’m not sure, sir,’ the man replied. ‘It’s moving too fast to be another boat.’
The Captain studied the display and quickly realised why his men were unsure about what they’d found. The contact was too fast and too quiet to be a sub. Niles put the sound from the contact over the speaker mounted above his station so that the Captain could hear the rhythmic throbbing. It might be quiet but it was undeniably mechanical.
‘What do you think?’ the Captain asked.
‘Hell if I know, sir. I nearly missed it – nobody’s got a boat that quiet when it’s moving that fast. Best guess is that it’s some sort of magneto-hydrodynamic drive but the prototypes that the R&D boys built never worked right – they were too slow. No way something with an MHD is moving that fast.’
‘Can we intercept?’ the Captain asked.
‘Yes, sir, but at the speed that thing’s moving we won’t be within weapons range until it reaches the English Channel,’ the First Officer replied.
‘Signal the North Carolina. Tell them that we’re moving in on the target. They should be in interception range too.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ the First Officer said, heading back towards the conn.
The Captain studied the bizarre contact. He had been ordered to track down and disable this mystery sub by the President himself and there was no way he was going to let it slip the net.
Furan watched as his men handed out emergency ration packs to the hostages in the AWP mess hall. At first there had been many indignant demands for explanations and variations on the old ‘Do you know who I am?’ line but after twenty-four hours the vast majority of them seemed to be slumped around the room in a state of weary resignation.
The doors to the mess hall opened and Overlord walked in, flanked by two armed guards. General Collins’s body was in the final stages of Animus poisoning, the pale skin stretched tight over the bones beneath and most of the hair on his head missing. He looked like he was a hundred years old. Furan had seen this happen to all of the bodies that Overlord had taken but there was no denying that the process was accelerating inexorably. Now it seemed that the Animus that Overlord had been bonded with was becoming so aggressive, for whatever reason, that new hosts might only last a matter of hours. They had to find the Malpense boy – only then could Overlord have a permanent home.
‘Have you selected one?’ Overlord asked, his voice weak.
‘Yes,’ Furan replied, nodding towards one of AWP’s security forces. ‘He is young and he looks strong. He should last longer than Collins did.’
‘Yes, he will do for now,’ Overlord said with a predatory smile.
Furan motioned to the guards and they grabbed the young soldier from the crowd of hostages and dragged him, struggling, to where Overlord was standing.
‘Please, I’m getting married in three weeks. Please don’t kill me,’ the young man begged.
‘You’re wasting your time if you’re trying to appeal to my humanity,’ Overlord said with a sneer. ‘You see, I haven’t got any.’
Furan’s communicator earpiece bleeped and he tapped it to initiate a connection, turning away as the first of the slimy black Animus tendrils burst from the skin on Overlord’s forearm. He ignored the sounds of shock and then terror from the young soldier and the frantic, strangled gurgling that inevitably followed.
‘Furan here. Go ahead.’
‘Sir, we’ve just received word from our source that the US Navy think they’ve found Darkdoom’s submarine,’ the voice on the other end of the line reported.
‘Where?’
‘Off the coast of Spain. It appears to be heading for Britain,’ the voice replied.
‘They’re sure it’s Darkdoom?’
‘Yes, sir. Nothing else could be moving as fast as this contact.’
‘Excellent. G
et me Raven.’
The Professor looked up as Otto walked into the Megalodon’s laboratory.
‘Hello, Otto,’ he said. ‘Is there something I can do for you?’
‘Yeah, I’m getting a few glitches with H.I.V.E.mind’s vocal synthesis through this relay,’ Otto said, placing the unit that the Professor had given him earlier on top of the workbench. ‘I was wondering if you could take a look at it.’
‘Of course,’ the Professor replied. ‘I’m afraid I rather rushed putting it together. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s a few bugs.’
The Professor picked up the device and examined it for a few seconds before activating it. H.I.V.E.mind’s face appeared on the screen.
‘Do not do this, Otto,’ H.I.V.E.mind said.
‘Do not do wh—’ was all the Professor had time to say before he felt a finger press into the soft flesh behind his ear and he lost consciousness. Otto laid him gently back in his chair and moved to the counter.
‘You are acting in direct contravention of Doctor Nero’s explicit instructions,’ H.I.V.E.mind said.
‘Yeah, and it’s not like I’ve ever done that before,’ Otto said sarcastically.
‘This is not what I intended when I suggested that we attempt to interface directly with the Animus. We need to develop a safer method,’ H.I.V.E.mind said.
‘We don’t have time for that and you know it,’ Otto said as he walked over to the small magnetic containment device that held the dormant Animus sample.
‘You are putting yourself and everyone else on board this vessel at risk,’ H.I.V.E.mind said calmly.
‘It’s going to work,’ Otto replied as he pulled the metal tube from its stand and clipped it into a hypodermic injector gun. ‘It has to.’
‘Please, Otto,’ H.I.V.E.mind said, ‘there has to be another way.’
‘Maybe, but I’m not really the cautious type,’ Otto said with a slight smile before sticking the needle into his arm and pulling the trigger. He closed his eyes and waited. At first there was nothing but slowly he began to feel something stirring inside him, a slight tingle in his arm. He reached out with his abilities and tried to make contact with the waking Animus inside him. He could sense it, a cold alien presence, already beginning the process of replication, preparing to take control of its host.
‘Do you feel it?’ Otto whispered.
‘Yes,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied, ‘though I am struggling to make sense of any of the data encoded within it.’
‘Let me translate,’ Otto said, forcing a connection with the simple, almost animal consciousness of the Animus. He had spent months trapped inside his own body listening to the digital hiss of the previous generation of Animus that had once coursed through him. This was different though, simpler, not as filled with an instinctive loathing for organic life as the previous generation had been.
‘I have accessed the core code,’ H.I.V.E.mind reported. ‘It will take me a few seconds to analyse its command structure and implant new instructions.’
‘Quickly, please,’ Otto said as he began to feel the first hints of something eating away at his conscious mind, subverting his free will. He tried hard not to think about all that he had been forced to do when that had happened before, the lives that had been lost.
‘Upload complete,’ H.I.V.E.mind reported. ‘Command rewrite in progress.’
Otto nodded, gritting his teeth and fighting to stay conscious. There was a horrifying sensation of countless alien voices whispering inside his skull, all trying to get him to release control, to sleep.
‘Not this time,’ he gasped. He started to squeeze the trigger on the injector gun. The injection chamber was empty and if he pulled the trigger the air bubble that would enter his bloodstream would travel straight to his brain. At least it would be quick.
Suddenly he sensed a change. The Animus was no longer replicating and the hissing inside his skull diminished and was gone.
‘I think it worked,’ he said quietly.
‘It would appear so,’ H.I.V.E.mind said. ‘I suggest that we remove it from your body as quickly as possible.’
‘You read my mind,’ Otto replied.
‘No, I did not,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘Your neural architecture is too sophisticated for me to translate patterns of synaptic firing into a coherent –’
‘It’s a figure of speech,’ Otto said with a tired smile. The Professor groaned and stirred slightly in his seat. Otto went over and gently shook his uninjured shoulder. The old man’s eyes slowly opened and a fleeting look of confusion on his face was quickly replaced by a frown.
‘Tell me you didn’t do what I think you did,’ the Professor said.
‘I did,’ Otto replied. ‘The Animus has been encoded with new instructions.’
‘Where is it?’ the Professor asked.
‘Here,’ Otto said, tapping his own chest. ‘Get the containment vessel ready.’
The Professor nodded and got to work preparing the magnetic field generator. Otto took a deep breath and gave the Animus inside him a new instruction.
‘I think this is going to hurt,’ he said as he held out his arm, his fingers curling into a fist. Something dark suddenly appeared, squirming beneath the skin of his forearm. Otto hissed in sudden pain as the Animus punched through the skin of his arm and slithered towards his hand. He picked up the small metal cylinder and held his fingertip over its open end. The Animus slid down his finger and fell into the cylinder.
‘Now the fun part,’ Otto said with a crooked smile as he sealed the cylinder and placed it into the magnetic containment device.
‘And what would that be?’ Professor Pike said, while checking that the containment field was functioning properly.
‘Now we get to tell Doctor Nero that we did exactly what he explicitly told us not to do,’ Otto replied.
‘You, Mr Malpense,’ the Professor replied, shaking his head slightly, ‘have a very strange definition of fun.’
‘Of all the stupid, crazy, hare-brained things!’ Laura said, punching Otto in the chest.
‘You forgot irresponsible,’ Otto replied with a smile.
‘And what did he have to say about all this?’ Lucy said, nodding towards Dr Nero, who was standing on the other side of the Megalodon’s command centre.
‘Something about not knowing whether he should shake my hand or have me shot,’ Otto replied. ‘To be honest, I think he’s still trying to decide.’
‘I’m just glad you’re OK,’ Lucy said, ‘you bloody idiot.’
‘I agree,’ Wing said. ‘With the idiot part, that is.’
‘At least now we have a way to save anyone Overlord used that stuff on,’ Laura said. ‘I wouldn’t mind having Raven back on our team.’
‘If we can find her,’ Wing remarked.
‘I’m slightly more worried about her finding us at the moment, to be honest,’ Shelby said. ‘If we do meet up with her again I’d like to volunteer Otto for the whole injecting her with something against her will assignment.’
‘Yes, that may prove somewhat problematic,’ Wing said, raising an eyebrow. ‘For now we have other concerns though. I assume you have all reviewed the briefing materials that Doctor Nero provided?’
‘Yeah, it looks pretty straightforward,’ Shelby said, ‘at least in comparison to the usual suicide missions we end up on.’
‘Hey, guys,’ Nigel said as he and Franz walked into the room. ‘My dad told me that you’re all leaving for a while. Nothing too dangerous, I hope?’
‘Nah, we’ll be back before you know it,’ Shelby said.
‘I am thinking that I have been hearing this before,’ Franz said, ‘usually just before there is the shooting and exploding.’
‘Well, maybe this time will be different,’ Shelby replied.
‘Torpedoes in the water!’ one of Darkdoom’s men shouted from the other side of the command centre.
‘Or maybe not.’
‘Launch countermeasures!’ Captain Sanders ordered. ‘Sonar, wh
o’s shooting at us?’
‘I have a Virginia class attack submarine, sir – correction, two Virginia class subs three miles off our port bow.’
‘Countermeasures away!’
‘Where the hell did they come from?’ Sanders said angrily.
‘They were waiting for us, sir. They must have been dead in the water for our sonar not to have picked them up.’
‘The first two torps have switched targets to the decoys,’ one of the weapons officers reported. ‘I have four more inbound.’
‘Initiate evasive manoeuvres,’ Sanders barked, ‘and plot me a course away from those boats.’
‘Are we going to be able to make the drop point, Captain?’ Darkdoom asked quickly.
‘Not with those hunter-killers on us, sir,’ the Captain replied. ‘If we surface with them in range we’ll be sitting ducks. Our only hope is to outrun them. You can bet that half the US Navy ships in the North Atlantic are on their way here now.’
‘Very well,’ Darkdoom said calmly. ‘Prep the Hammerhead for launch.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ the Captain replied with a nod.
‘It would seem that Overlord has enlisted the help of the American Navy,’ Nero said, the deck tilting beneath his feet as the Megalodon’s helmsman threw it into a series of evasive turns.
‘Yes,’ Darkdoom replied, ‘and I’m sure we can both guess why.’ He glanced over to where Otto was standing with the other Alphas.
‘We have a torp tracking past the countermeasures,’ the weapons officer shouted. ‘Brace for impact!’
There was a sudden crashing thud from somewhere outside the Megalodon’s hull and the whole vessel shuddered.
‘Detonation fifty metres off the port bow.’
‘They’ve set their fuses for proximity detonation,’ Sanders said.
‘They’re trying to force us to surface,’ Darkdoom replied, ‘not sink us. Max, you have to take your team and get out of here now. Go down to the launch bay and take my mini-sub. You should be able to slip away undetected if we time this right. I’ll meet back up with you at the rendezvous point in the States.’