by Duran Cross
Roths grumbles, “It does. Two backups. The primary and ancillaries were all cut at exactly the same time.”
“I couldn’t help but notice you guys still have power at the lab. I assume you have your own generator?”
“Yes, not a quarter of what we require to run the whole lab, but our most precious projects can still be kept running. What are your weapons systems going to do with the grid down?”
Mia shrugs, “We have a limited supply of petrol to run our vehicles, but the gunships are not set to Raddocks Horizon’s power cluster so they’re still usable. Our ground vehicles are mostly useless. That said, all our tactical targeting equipment is stuffed without the satellite relays so we’re down to line of sight. All missile tracking and things like that are gone.”
“The satellites are down too?” asks Roths, genuinely surprised.
“No, but when the power went down they became erratic and began providing incorrect data. Apparently it’s some kind of virus uploaded from several places at once. Our handheld rocket launcher lock on systems still work and things on independent circuits but anything wired to the Defence Force system is out of action.”
Roths shakes her head. “We told the Defence Force to let William handle their firewalls.”
“We’ve had teams deployed in the sewer system for the last few days. There’s some seriously irregular readings from down there.”
“Yes, we’ve been trying to get a unit sent to find whatever it is. We’ve recorded odd readings there too for the last week or so.”
“Is it the progenitor-class?”
“Sometimes we think it is, but other times it reads as some sort of signal that’s just producing petabytes of data. Its location is always different, and varied in intensity. We had a clear reading once and a direct lock on but when we got to the location it was a domestic computer and certainly not capable of absorbing data from NASA. Even when their IT techs took the PC apart they couldn’t find any evidence of anything unusual,” says Roths.
Mia frowns, “I’ve heard something about a ghost in the machine in this city. Personally I figured it was just you guys prying into everyone’s business.”
◆◆◆
Carla, Rennin and Wayne are still sitting in the tower drinking coffee. Carla looks at her phone from time to time, hoping for some kind of signal, but without city power and with inference affecting the satellites, all phones are inactive.
Wayne is reading half a torn newspaper and Rennin is reading the other half. The two ripped it while fighting over it earlier, not caring in the least that it was Carla’s paper to begin with.
“Hey,” Rennin starts, “it says here that brain cells are basically the same as fat cells.”
Carla prepares for the punch line. “Really…”
“Hard to believe that all this time, Bins of Skin here is really a genius,” he points at Wayne’s robust stomach.
“Oh ha-ha, Rennin,” says Wayne.
“I’m just trying to cheer you up.”
Carla snorts, “You’re an arsehole.”
Rennin grins, “He hasn’t said much all day.”
“I’m just feeling down,” says Wayne.
“I’ve got a spare bra,” Rennin says, receiving a prompt slap from Carla.
“I can’t get my family out of Raddocks Horizon,” he says, the comment causing an oppressive silence in the room.
Rennin’s head lowers a bit. “I’m sorry, Wayne.”
“Godyssey Security isn’t important enough, it seems, and I’m too heavy for the military. I don’t know what to do,” he says looking at his wedding band.
Rennin doesn’t feel remorse very often, and he can’t stand it when he does. “We’re leaving too, you could come with us.”
“Yes, absolutely, come with us. I’ll be back in just a tick,” says Carla stepping into the toilet cubicle near the door, fumbling with the latch Rennin broke previously.
When Rennin hears the door lock he continues. “I signed on with the Horizon Military this afternoon just so Carla gets out.”
“What about her family?”
“My parents and siblings are dead so I should be able to put hers in their place if I make enough of a scene.”
“How will that get my family out?”
“I have to stay behind with the Defence Force but I’ve got no intention of going through the meat grinder with those jarhead rejects. I’m deserting and I’m getting out of here if I have to burn the city down. We can go together.” He wants to break his own nose for making this offer, but his mouth just won’t stop, “Carla doesn’t know I’m not leaving with her, so please don’t say anything.”
“I do appreciate the offer but I can’t accept.”
Thank God! “Why?”
“What if the infected really do go hostile? What if they come after us? How will I know you won’t shoot one of us to use as bait?”
The toilet flushes in the background and Rennin’s eyes flicker. “Well-”
“Would you?” Wayne asks directly.
“It’s…” he takes a deep breath, “possible.”
The toilet door opens and Carla steps out. “You two look intense, did I miss something?”
“I professed my undying devotion to him,” Rennin says, leaning back.
“What the hell happened in the bathroom? It stinks of bleach and my eyes are burning.”
“I was sick and wanted to make sure it was clean,” Rennin says.
“What did you do? Hose it down?” asks Carla.
A cry for help at street level draws their attention to the tower window. The three of them stand and lean towards the glass to peer out.
It’s pitch black.
Rennin risks draining the generator a little more by increasing the power to the lights on the outer wall of the lab compound. They can now at least see the street. He gives them more power, illuminating the surrounding area.
A hundred metres down the road, a man is tripping over himself in a frantic run. Another man, hunched posture, is chasing him down the street. His unusual gait is setting Rennin’s teeth on edge.
The watchman grabs his rifle and trains its sights on the fleeing man, seeing that he’s been wounded in the abdomen. The hunching figure giving chase lets out an animalistic roar before performing a leap over an impossible distance for a human. It lands on the man’s back, bringing him to the ground and looks to be biting at his throat.
Rennin swears, while taking a shot more off reflex than anything. The biter is hit in the back of the head, killing it instantly.
Everyone in the tower is speechless and even more so when the man who was fleeing stands back up and calls for help again. Carla comments that Rennin must have saved him.
From what? What the hell was that?
Rennin remains silent while training his scope on the screaming man who doesn’t seem wounded at the throat after all. His face doesn’t even appear scared. It’s a peculiarly vacant expression.
He begins running a few metres one way crying for help then runs a few metres in another direction calling for help again. He keeps doing this, again and again, running then stopping and screaming. Wayne asks what’s wrong with him. Rennin and Carla are silently transfixed by the strange man. There’s no one else on the streets.
What’s he yelling for?
After a minute of this, another man comes running up to the screamer. Judging by his body language, he’s just trying to provide aid. Despite clearly not being hostile, the wounded screamer continues yelling for help, almost like he doesn’t even see him.
Out of nowhere, four others are on the streets, hunched over and running straight for the man who’s trying to comfort the screamer. Rennin manages a curse as the four grab the Samaritan, carrying him off down the alleyway next to the Perseverance pub across the street.
Rennin drops his rifle, switches the courtyard lights up to maximum, and makes a move for the door, “Wayne, keep her here,” and he’s on his way down the tower stair.
As
he runs across the courtyard, he curses again realising he has to crank the gate open by hand. Relying on his combat chassis left leg he springs off the ground and manages to grip the crossbar at the top of the gate to hoist himself over. He lands hard onto the footpath, draws Killjoy and runs towards the alley following the pained, horrified screams.
Once he get to the mouth of the alley, silence descends from within.
It’s as dark as anything Rennin has ever seen. He doesn’t have a torch and doesn’t even know what he’s doing or what to expect. His android eye can see far enough to make his way up the alley without too much trouble, but his visual range is a few metres at best.
Occasionally some shadows dance about from the street as the screamer runs back and forth. The further up the alley he goes the more blood he finds, until finally he reaches a dead end. Wads of flesh are flung all over the walls and ground.
No sign of the people who dragged the poor guy in here to be killed but upon looking at the stone walls on either side there are fresh scratches in the stonework, always four parallel at a time, leading up the wall. So they can climb walls, Rennin thinks grimly.
Rennin heads back to the road slowly, frowning when he sees the screamer still running in random directions yelling for help. Rennin watches him closely for a few moments. He has wide white eyes with no pupils and thick, black protruding veins snaking up the back of his neck to the base of his skull. Something terrible dawns on Rennin as he watches this man.
“An ambush,” he whispers to himself, shooting the screamer in the face to leave an uncomfortably thick silence all around him.
It is then that Rennin notices a couple of people up the street just within sight range before complete blackness. Rennin’s instinct demands him to flee so he turns, finding another two up the other end of the street. He looks left back to the first two that are still stationary but they look closer. He turns back to the right and the others are closer too.
Dinner time…
He feels panic making a desperate push to overwhelm him as he turns left, finding the pair closer again, this time close enough to see their white, dead eyes. The sound of wet footsteps running from the alley behind him freezes his blood, prompting him to run for the lab gates. He throws Killjoy over then leaps up, grabbing the crossbar in an effort to throw himself over. He cries out in surprise as something grabs at his left boot. Kicking himself free, he finishes his climb and drops down on the other side.
He lands a little unsteadily, straightening up to see a pair of white eyes. They stare out of a dead face, looking back at him from no more than a foot away. Rennin swears in shock as a hand comes reaching through the bars. He dodges its grasp, stumbling away from the gate only to trip on his own feet, falling flat on his back next to Killjoy. He grabs the gun and gets to his feet, finding all four infected staring through the bars at him from various places on the road. Not moving, just staring. The silence envelops him again.
The watchman turns his back, intentionally looking away but he can feel their eyes on him as he walks back to the clock tower and up the stairs. When he gets back in the tower room Carla half leaps out of her seat. “Are you alright? Why did you shoot that man?”
Rennin nods distantly, “That was no man.” He looks down and can see the four infected looking at the clock tower. There’s also a less human-looking fifth one at the mouth of the alleyway. He shivers.
Carla sees his left hand shaking but before she can take it he moves for his rifle, “Rennin?”
“One sec.”
He brings the glass shield down and takes aim, forcing himself not to acknowledge the contaminants all looking right at him in unison. The first one he takes out is at the mouth of the alley, the one who gave him the biggest scare. The next is the one at the gate, then the others. He brings the glass shield up and slumps down in his chair, his left hand still shaking.
Carla takes the rifle and leans it against the desk, then takes his hand. “What happened?”
“Those mongrels set a trap. The screamer was the bait. Infected but not hostile, didn’t even seem to know anyone was there.”
“Did you find the guy they carried off?” asks Wayne.
“Some of him,” says Rennin noticing the early makings of a shiner on Wayne’s right eye. “What the hell happened to you?”
Wayne glances at Carla. “When you went into the alley, she went to stop you, I grabbed her and she belted me.”
Carla can’t suppress a smirk, “Take the compliment, Rennin, I guess I like you.”
Rennin smiles then looks at his co-worker, “Thanks, Wank,” he coughs, “Wayne, I owe you one.”
Over the next hour, some of the Horizon Military are called to secure the lab area whilst the Godyssey team from below decks bag the bodies and take them inside the lab compound to be incinerated in the basement.
Caufmann hasn’t bothered showing his face upstairs. He is with Del, who is now seated in the Chair, the upper back section of his skull removed to run further diagnostics. Caufmann has been examining some system designs from the past that have developed serious coding problems in the programming. He didn’t even hear Doctor Roths enter and start talking to him.
She shakes him, “William.”
Caufmann blinks a couple of times then looks at her. “Something wrong?”
“We had a shooting outside. The watchman killed six people.”
“Yes I know, but they are not people,” he amends.
“How are we going to present this?”
Caufmann exhales. “Presentation is not the concern anymore. Tomorrow there will be hundreds of attacks like that.”
“What do we do?” asks Roths.
“We wait and respond where we can.”
Roths bites her lip briefly. “What kind of losses are we talking about?”
“About eighty percent of the city populace.”
She blinks slowly letting that sink in. “That’s nothing short of a catastrophe. That’s millions of people.”
“That estimate is with both Del and Adrenin active.”
“And if they’re not?”
Caufmann hesitates. “Best leave tonight.”
“How far away is Del from being completed?”
Caufmann slumps in his seat slightly. “Further than I had hoped. Simulated Instinctual Clusters never work, I knew that and I tried one anyway. Even with the modifications to it, it’s still a mess even though some things have started working.”
Roths frowns, “What modifications?”
“I added something to the IC unit to give the algorithm more to work with.”
“I thought you said Del was not to have an IC from a human host.”
“He still doesn’t, he just has a little extra substance.”
Roths looks at him firmly. “What did you do exactly?”
Caufmann glances away momentarily but refocusses on her. “We had a lot of excess tissue, living tissue, from Rennin’s operation.”
Roths’ mouth drops, “You used Rennin Farrow’s genetic material and blended it with Del?” she almost screeches.
“This is why I didn’t mention it,” he sighs. “There was more than enough to compress and use.”
“Del was working perfectly before.”
“Only when his combat protocols weren’t engaged. He has excessive programming to deal with the simulated IC unit but he just doesn’t function correctly so I added Rennin’s genetics to him. Now he works. The only problem is with the sudden influx of data from the IC unit, Del simply can’t balance all the information. The simulation IC is incompatible with his actual genetic data. We will have to un-program him, but he works. He really does, and since part of Rennin was added he’s even showing amazing aptitude with sniper rifles,” Caufmann says, smiling a little.
“Rennin is insane,” says Roths in a level but solid tone.
“Valhara was insane, Arca Drej went insane and only just before you came in did I work out why they, and some other androids, lost their minds.”
“Arca and Valhara broke down for very different reasons, but the result was the same. Several others also went mad during the war and I finally discovered what they all have in common,” he pauses making sure Roths is listening.
“Today, William.”
“The IC unit wasn’t from their donor body.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The IC unit is supposed to be the instinct of a human being harnessed within a shell, yes?”
Roths nods.
“The android body is mostly artificial but their structure is relatively intact along with a lot of genetic material. The IC unit is built before the body dies to absorb and harness the life force. It’s been postulated that the life force trapped within the Instinctual Cluster is the consciousness itself,” he lets Roths absorb that for a moment before pressing on. “Now, genetic material stores memories and all sorts of anomalies relating to human life and evolution. The reason Arca, Valhara and others went mad is because the IC unit within them is not from the body the android is constructed from.”
“I’m not an expert on transmogrification and organic-mech crossover, you understand. How does that make any difference?”
Caufmann represses his frustration. “Imagine a soul literally ripped out of a living person and put back into a different body.”
“Soul?” she asks arching an eyebrow.
“Consciousness, then. Don’t argue semantics!”
“Very well,” she says dismissively.
“Imagine waking up tomorrow with someone else’s memories and without many of your own, just knowing something terrible has happened to you but never knowing which were the real memories you experienced yourself. Two halves of alternate wholes conflicting.”
Roths understands now. “I thought they didn’t remember anything.”
“Not in a literal sense, but the whole point of the Instinctual Cluster is to give them instinct, so they probably remember on some primal level. The genetic material still in the body clashes with the IC emissions. No program, no matter how clever or extreme, can possibly stop the breakdown once it begins.”