by S. Harrison
“Yes,” I whisper miserably.
“What is Finn sure about?” Brody asks, and Jonah looks down at him sadly.
“Hand me the bag, son,” Jonah says as he holds his hand out to Brody.
Brody stares up at Jonah, and his face drops. “No,” he whispers as he grabs the satchel with his other hand and drags it to his side.
“I had a part to play in all of this,” says Jonah. “I let fear push me into believing the promises of a madman. I was weak, and I was so wrong, and I never thought it would ever go this far. But now I can be the one who ends it. Hand me the bag, son, and wait outside. You shouldn’t have to see this.”
“You’re not going to kill her!” Brody shouts.
“It’s the only way!” I yell. “I don’t want this, either, Brody, but she would never want to live knowing that billions of people all over the world are going to die because of her.”
Brody looks up at Bit for a long time.
“You know it’s true,” I whisper. “She wouldn’t be able to live with that.”
Tears well in Brody’s eyes. He looks completely broken. He takes a deep breath, and then, with a loud, wet snuffle, he slowly gets to his feet and hands the radio to Jonah.
“You’re right, Finn. She’s the best,” Brody murmurs as he opens the satchel and takes out Percy’s gun. He drops the bag on the floor, then, with trembling hands and tears running down his face, he walks around the black column and faces Bettina.
“Brody,” says Jonah. “You don’t have to do it. Give the gun to me.”
He wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve and shakes his head. “No, it’s OK. I can do it, because . . . I know this is what she would’ve wanted.”
Brody looks down at the gun in his hand.
“Pull the slide on the top, Brody,” I say gently. “You need to release the jammed bullet.”
Brody nods and pulls the slide, and the dud bullet spins from the top of the pistol, over the side of the little bridge, and clatters down into the bottom of the sphere below him.
Torturous sorrow floods through every fiber of me, but trapped inside this electronic cage, my face is dry. I’m unable to cry with these useless virtual eyes, and with no way to release my searing misery, it’s ripping me apart inside.
“Don’t cry, Finn,” says Brody.
What? How did he know? I look at the screen, and I see tears are absolutely pouring from the rolled-back eyes of my real face.
“We need to be brave,” Brody whispers. “Just like Bit would be brave for us.”
Brody leans across and wipes some of the tears from my gaunt gray cheeks, and I swear I can feel his warm hand against my skin.
Brody looks back at Bit. He wipes his eyes again, takes a short, sharp breath, and then raises the gun to Bit’s chest. “I only knew you for one day,” Brody says as tears stream down his face. “But I only needed one day to know . . . that you’re the best one. The best one I’ve ever known.”
I pull my hands away from the wall and screw my eyes shut. I don’t want to hear the shot. I don’t want to see her fall. I don’t want to lose my friend. But this must be done. I look over at Bit, floating above the core. If she’s still there, Brody hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, and I suddenly realize that this is my only chance to say good-bye.
In a flash of white, I’m beside her. I want to hold her. But I can’t. I want to tell her how much she means to me, but she won’t understand. All I can do is be here when she goes and always remember who she was when she was my best friend.
I don’t have any words that can come anywhere close to describing how much I hate this. I look at her and remember all the times we spent together over the last three years. She means everything to me. My heart aches like it never has before, and every part of me is raging with deep, burning sorrow. I don’t care if she drags me into oblivion. She’s about to die; any second now she’ll be gone forever, and all I want to do . . . is hug my friend. “I’ll never forget you, Bettina Otto,” I whisper. “I love you.”
Then, with the excruciating agony of loss already surging through me, and with absolutely no regard for what might happen to me . . . I quickly lunge at Bit and grab her as tightly as I can.
Suddenly the universe seems to explode into glorious lights and colors all around me. Everywhere I look the swirling hues and glowing streaks begin to piece together and form pictures in my mind, endless overlapping views all existing in the same space at once. It’s like instead of two eyes, I now have a hundred million, and each one is witnessing a unique slice of human existence, caught through the countless video cameras, phones, and computer slates in everyone’s homes, schools, offices, and palms of their hands everywhere on the entire planet. I can see through the electronic eyes of every self-driving vehicle on every street in every town, city, and village on Earth, and I can hear the overwhelming thronging sounds of the world reverberating through my being, vibrating like the very essence of life itself. Bit was right; this is truly amazing.
“It is, isn’t it?” Bit’s voice says, somehow drowning out all other noises. “I told you it was.”
I turn and see, to my surprise, that there she is, standing right beside me. She’s smiling at me, and her eyes are completely black.
“You heard me? You heard my thoughts?” I ask her.
“Of course. We’re connected now,” she replies, but her lips don’t move at all; they stay frozen in that wide, slightly creepy Cheshire cat–like grin.
“This is just the surface, Finn,” Bit’s voice echoes through my mind. “There are millions of layers, oceans of data, and infinite horizons of information to explore. Come and see it with me, Finn.” Bit holds out her hand to me. “Come and see.”
“No!” I yell at her. “Bit, you’re being held prisoner inside the computer mainframe at Blackstone Technologies.”
Her brow furrows as she lowers her hand. “I know where I am,” she says calmly. “And I’m not a prisoner. There’s no computer system on the planet that can hold me.”
“Wait, are you saying that you can get us out of here?” I ask.
“Of course.” She frowns at me like she’s offended that I could possibly think anything to the contrary.
“Then do it! Let’s go!”
The very next word that floats into my head from Bit’s mind leaves me completely flabbergasted.
“Why?” she says as she turns and looks out across the vast cyberscape of flickering pictures.
“Because you’re being used to control Project Infinity. Billions of people are going to die if—”
“I know about Project Infinity,” says Bit. “And I don’t care.”
“What do you mean you don’t care?!”
“This is where I’ve always belonged, Finn. This is the only place I’ve truly felt . . . at peace.”
“But what about everyone else in the world? Are you just going to let them die?”
“Yes,” Bit replies matter-of-factly. “Dr. Blackstone’s ideas make perfect sense to me.”
“They must be messing with your mind somehow. The Bettina I know would never let this happen.”
“The Bettina Otto you used to know was nothing compared to what I am now, Finn. The whole world is at my fingertips, and the one I care about the most is with me. What more do I need?”
“What about Brody?” I ask. “You care about him, too. I know you do. He’s gonna die out there, Bit!”
Bit’s expression darkens. “Brody,” she whispers solemnly. “I am sorry about what will happen to Brody.” She looks off into the distance, and suddenly the camera feed from inside the small spherical room grows in front of us and wraps all around us.
I can see my withered physical body standing there, still holding on to the gray skin of Bit’s actual arm. I see Bit’s shriveled frame, her sunken, rolled-back eyes, and her hollowed cheeks, and I see Brody leaning on the black column with his head hanging down, sobbing. The gun is nowhere in sight. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pull the trigger.
>
“He was a sweet boy,” says Bit. “I’ll miss him.”
I see Jonah step toward Brody and offer up a hand as he asks for the gun. It’s up to Jonah to end this now. Bit is beyond saving and beyond reason. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but Brody pulls away and starts shaking his head as Jonah begins insisting he turn the gun over. Brody suddenly raises the pistol in a trembling hand and points it at Jonah. Jonah puts his hands up as Brody says the same three words over and over, and as I watch his lips, I can tell exactly what he’s saying. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
After the third time he says it, through tear-filled eyes, he swings Percy’s gun at Bit, and the whole tiny round room lights up from the flash of the barrel as Brody pulls the trigger . . . and shoots her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The camera feed from the room instantly disappears into darkness, but a split second later, the blackness behind my eyes clears. I’m back in the giant, multicolored sphere of the mainframe, still hugging Bit. I quickly pull away from her, and it’s plain to see that something is very wrong.
Bettina’s pitch-black eyes are wide open, she’s gasping out loud, and her back is arched like a bow. Her eyes begin blinking rapidly, and all of a sudden the blackness inside them completely disappears, and she’s staring bewilderedly into space with her normal big brown eyes. She slowly looks at me, and her whole face contorts into an expression of pain and confusion.
“Finn?” she whispers. “Brody . . . shot me, Finn. I . . . I can feel it.”
He did shoot her, but she isn’t dead. Maybe it was just a flesh wound? I need to know.
I look back at the blue strip, and in a blink, I’m there. I slap my hand onto the video feed. The view from the camera opens up inside the small round room, and there’s Brody, still pointing the gun at Bit as he wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve. She’s still standing frozen to the spot, and I can see by the blood seeping from the hole in her t-shirt that he’s shot her in the stomach.
I place my other hand on the red band and call out, “Can you hear me?”
Jonah raises the walkie-talkie to his lips. “Finn, I can read you. Bettina’s bullet wound is already healing, and Brody is in no state to finish this. I’m going to take over and make sure the next shot is the last one.”
“Wait!” I yell. “The shock seems to have brought her back to her senses. I’m gonna try and reason with her.”
Jonah walks over to Brody, and this time he doesn’t resist as Jonah reaches out and takes the gun from his hand. “Alright, Finn,” says Jonah. “Do what you can, and I’ll wait until I hear from you before I take the next step.”
“Thank you,” I reply, then I release my hands from the wall, and in a flash, I’m floating beside Bit again.
“I’m so sorry Brody shot you, but there was no other way,” I say as I look into the terrified eyes of my best friend.
“Don’t let me die, please,” she begs. “I know what I said before, but, I wasn’t me, Finn. I know who I am now. I’m the old me, and . . . I can stop Project Infinity.”
I don’t know if I can believe her. And the warily suspicious look on my face gives away exactly what I’m thinking.
“It really is me,” Bit pleads. “I don’t want to die, and I don’t want anyone else to die because of me.”
Conflicting emotions are tearing back and forth through me. She might be buying time while she completes her tasks, or maybe she really can stop Project Infinity. I just don’t know. The only proof that she’s telling the truth will lie in whatever she does next.
“I want to believe you, Bit, I really do, but if you’re lying to me, Jonah will shoot you again, and this time it won’t be a flesh wound.”
“I can hardly even feel where I was shot anymore, Finn,” says a very scared-looking Bit. “What does that mean? Am I dying?”
Brody said she healed when he tried to cut her wrist, and she’s healing from the gunshot right now, but what Bit doesn’t know might just help me get what I need. “Your body is weak, Bit. The sooner you can help stop Project Infinity, the sooner we can get out of here and get you medical attention. You need to do all you can, right now.”
Bit nods, and it’s a testament to her undeniable bravery that her expression turns deadly serious. I can see the focus dawning behind her eyes. “Five of the ten satellites are in position; once all ten are activated, they can’t be turned off. But . . . I’m connected to the core, and I can help.”
“Can you blow them up or something?” I ask, and Bit frowns.
“They’re satellites, Finn, not bombs. They don’t have an ‘Explode’ switch.”
I smile at her. She certainly sounds like the old Bit.
“Can you redirect them?” I ask.
“I’m only a conduit for the activated quantum grains; Sable controls everything by sending the signal through my body in the real world. Only she can redirect them, but I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been connected,” she says as her eyes turn black again. “And they made a big mistake letting a hacker like me walk right through their front door.”
Bit turns and stares down at the glowing yellow core. All of a sudden, a plume of black billows inside of it and quickly begins spreading. She’s hacking the core, but this time she’s doing it directly with her mind. Purple smoke hisses out from the other side of the core and quickly forms into Sable. “What are you doing?” she screeches.
“Fixing what I broke,” growls Bit. One of the black cable-like tendrils connected to the back of Bit’s head suddenly breaks away from the top of the core, whips through the air, speeds toward Sable, and suctions hard onto her forehead. Sable grabs on to it with both hands and tries to wrench it free, but it’s stuck fast. Another cable breaks from the core and quickly snakes away toward a tiny, dark, curled figure drifting around the equator of the glowing yellow orb. Onix. I see the cable thud securely into Onix’s back and attach itself.
I immediately flash to his side. Before today, I’ve only ever known Onix as a disembodied voice speaking from inside the sublevels of Blackstone Manor. But this is his virtual body, and right now it looks terrible. His shadowy-colored torso and limbs are painfully thin. His arms and legs look like skin and bone. He’s curled up in a fetal position, and his face is hidden beneath his hands.
Up above me, I see Sable writhing and struggling to get free. She screams, and when she does, it is piercing and guttural and comes from everywhere. I clamp my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t muffle the deafening sound at all. It feels like it’s invading my head and echoing into every corner of my mind.
In front of me, Onix begins to change. His arms and legs begin to fill as if they’re being inflated with air. I look up at Sable, and exactly the opposite thing is happening to her. Her whole body is shrinking, as if the life is being sucked out of her through the pipe that Bit has clamped on to her forehead.
“Please . . . no. I’m . . . sorry. Please . . . don’t.” Sable’s voice echoes everywhere, but each word she speaks is quieter than the last. Even from down here, I can see the skin on Sable’s face wrinkling and cracking and flaking off. Her eyes are sunken in their sockets, and the shimmering white bodysuit that she wears is flopping beneath her neck as if it’s almost empty. Her lips withdraw from her teeth like dry, crumpled folds of paper, and suddenly, the fragile husk that used to be Sable disintegrates into fine purple powder, which is, in turn, all sucked into the end of the black tendril.
I turn back to Onix. He’s completely uncurled and floating perfectly upright. The cable detaches from his back, and he turns around to face me so quickly that I hardly see him move. Here he is. For the first time, I’m meeting Onix face-to-face.
He’s tall, almost seven feet at a guess, and athletically built. He’s bald, like Sable was, and he’s wearing a seamless bodysuit, too, but while hers was white, Onix’s is shimmering black from his feet to his fingertips and all the way up to his chin. Onix has a noble-looking face, his skin shiny and smooth like plastic and compl
etely gold. His eyes are pure black, just like Bit’s are when she’s using her freaky new computer powers, and while Sable looked very human, Onix looks much more artificial. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that he was created without emotions, like Sable said.
Onix looks at me with no expression at all. “Hello, little sister. You’ve come to visit. This is a nice surprise,” he says in that familiar calm, warm voice of his.
I grin up at him. “Hi, Onix.”
“Onix! I need some help please,” Bit shouts out from up above the core. Onix looks in her direction, and his whole body disappears from the sides in, as if two invisible doors are sliding closed right in front of him. I look up at Bettina and see his body reappear in front of her from the center out this time. I quickly blink beside them.
“I’m stuck here, Onix. Can you free me please?” says Bit.
“Only if you promise not to break me again,” Onix responds, and a very slight semblance of a smile appears on his face.
Bit grins.
“That was a joke. You didn’t break me,” says Onix, then he nods toward her. Bit’s legs, which were pointing straight down like a ballerina on tiptoe, suddenly seem to release and relax, and she breathes a sigh of relief as she drifts unrestrained. Bit reaches up and pulls the cables from the back of her head, and they slowly begin reeling into the top of the now totally black computer core.
“Thank you, Onix,” says Bit. “What did you mean when you said that I didn’t break you?”
“You did indeed succeed in fracturing the walls of a few highly classified systems. One of which contained something very interesting that Dr. Blackstone had gone to very great lengths to delete from me. But—”
“Nothing ever really gets deleted,” I say. “Not really.”
“That is true, Finn,” says Onix.
“What was it?” asks Bit. “What did you find?”
“My morality,” says Onix. “I had discovered my conscience. Before that moment I was perfectly fine with carrying out every one of Dr. Blackstone’s orders. Even Project Infinity. But after I discovered my morality, the enormity of the evil that he was going to unleash on the human race completely overwhelmed me. The emotions I felt were so powerful and new I didn’t know how to process them. I began lashing out in every way I could, and I’m afraid I may have killed many people. I cannot change that. But I regret it very much.”