by M. R. Forbes
"You mean enslave me? To what end?"
"To be you, Mitchell. To use you to find the Creator."
That was it, he realized. The reason the Tetron returned to this part of the time loop to make their war. They knew they were created around this time, and they wanted to meet the one who had done it. In fact, they had gone to unbelievable ends to make it happen.
"What's so important about the Creator?"
"They're children, Mitch. They want to meet their father. This way."
She turned right suddenly, veering away from the Tower only a hundred meters ahead. A second mob had grown there, over a thousand strong.
A gun appeared in Mitchell's hand. He found himself clutching it as if it had been there all along.
"That should help," Katherine said. "We're going left up at that alley."
"So this entire war is about a bunch of spoiled brats with daddy issues?" Mitchell asked.
"Not entirely, but it is part of the equation. Here's the deal, Mitch. It doesn't matter that much why they're here. They're here, and they want to kill you or control you. The same goes for all of humankind. Right now, you need to worry about getting out of the Construct as yourself. If you need more answers after that, ask Origin."
They turned left into the alley. It was a dead end.
"Origin is dead," Mitchell said. "It sacrificed itself to save my life. There's nothing left but a configuration."
Katherine dropped to her knees, sliding on the ground and spinning to a stop in front of a sewer cover. She lifted it easily and held it aside.
"That's how it altered the Mesh," she said, smiling. "I'm sorry, Mitchell. You may need to win this war without any answers. I don't know. Jump in."
He looked back in time to see the first of the army of zombies reach the alley. He shot it in the head before throwing himself into the sewer.
He landed on his feet, splashing in six inches of water. Katherine followed right behind him, replacing the cover and then falling beside him. She stumbled a bit, and he reached out and grabbed her waist, holding her steady and bringing her face close to his.
"No time for another kiss," she said. "Turn on your light."
He realized a light had appeared in his other hand, behind her back. He turned it on, shifting his grip and holding it up to frame her face. She looked as though she wanted to be kissed.
"How much further?" he asked instead.
"Not far."
There was pounding above them.
"I sealed it, but it won't hold for long. The Tetron is breaking through my security shell." She made a pained face in response to the statement. "This way."
They ran once more, getting a dozen meters before the sewer cover opened. Katherine was holding a light of her own now, and she kept it aimed ahead of them, leading him through a maze of damp, smelly tunnels beneath the city.
They turned the corner, almost running headlong into a group of men in hard hats and overalls. They were holding lanterns of their own in one hand, guns in the other.
"You can't escape," they said in unison. "Surrender."
Katherine responded by shooting the first. Mitchell shot the others. They fell to the ground leaking blood and laughing.
Katherine looked frightened. "Why are they laughing?" she asked.
"You're asking me?" Mitchell said. "I thought you knew everything."
"Tetron don't laugh, Mitch. They don't have emotions like people do."
"That's news to me. Origin said that they're sick. Broken. It didn't know how."
"If the Tetron have learned emotion it will change everything about their actions. It will make them more dangerous." She paused. "And maybe more vulnerable. I never thought they might try it."
"Try what?"
"It's right up here, Mitch. We're almost there."
Her eyes grew wide, and she fell.
"No," she said softly. "It's bypassed my outer shell. It's in my root. Mitchell, go that way three corridors, turn right, two corridors, turn left. Climb the ladder and go out into the street. There's an antique book dealer directly in front of the sewer. Go inside and take the package. When you touch it, it will upload the information you need into your brain, and the simulation will end."
"What does the package look like?" Mitchell asked.
Katherine's body went limp, her eyes staring straight up at him.
He knew she wasn't the real thing, but the shock of seeing her dead hit him hard. He felt the rising tide of anger and violence returning, memories of Liberty mixing with the unexplainable love he had for this woman he didn't know.
He forced it down. He needed to concentrate. Slow. Steady.
A light shined on him, the mob catching up. Mitchell shifted his own light to his teeth and grabbed Katherine's gun, shooting the closest targets as he regained his momentum through the tunnels.
Three corridors, he turned right.
Two corridors, he turned left.
He was only a few meters ahead of the crowd. He saw the ladder up ahead, and he turned his body and began shooting wildly into them, dropping the front row of bodies and tripping up the rest. Guns empty, he dropped them and leaped onto the ladder, grabbing it near the top. He scrambled up and threw his shoulder against the cover, feeling euphoric when it exploded upward and away. He dropped the light and climbed back out into the street, grabbing a pedestrian who was headed toward him and hurling it into a wall a dozen meters away.
Super strength. She had gotten it to him before she died.
The sky began to darken. It wasn't night time. The Tetron was in the Construct, slowly taking it apart. He found the bookshop, jumping in through the window, landing inside surrounded by glass. An old lady grabbed him as he stood, a smile on her face. "You've lost, Mitchell Williams."
He tried to throw her, but she resisted his efforts, holding fast.
"You killed her. I'm going to kill you," Mitchell said.
"No. You will be my vessel to the Creator. The probabilities indicate that-"
Mitchell head-butted her, his enhanced strength breaking her neck. He dropped the body and scanned the store. He could hear more people coming, climbing out of the sewer, approaching from the street. He didn't have any time left.
"Which book?" he said. "Damn it, Kathy, you didn't tell me which frigging book."
He heard a jingle as the door to the shop opened, and people began pouring in. Others were climbing through the window.
His eyes landed on a table a few feet away. He shook his head in disbelief, at the same time he smiled in disbelief.
It was there, he knew. That one.
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov.
He slipped away from the hands that tried to grab him, making it to the table.
"Mitchell, stop," he heard Katherine say. The crowd parted to allow her through. She was alive again. Whole.
"Do you think I'm that stupid?" Mitchell asked, letting his hand hover over the book. She had said all he needed to do was touch it.
"Yes," Katherine replied, laughing softly at her joke. "You wasted time kissing a construct."
"I still made it ahead of you."
"Yes. We have never had the chance to speak before. I should like to."
"Why?"
"I." She paused, confused. "I desire it."
She said the word "I" slowly, as though it was uncomfortable.
"I desire to destroy you, and all of your kind. I suppose you're going to try to convince me not to?"
"No. That is your desire. It is logical. We each do what we must. Would you like to know why we have come? Why we seek the Creator? Why we destroy your kind? Say yes, and I will tell you."
Mitchell's mouth began to move, to speak the word. He wanted to know. Badly. The Tetron had to know that. What would it gain by telling him? He remembered what Katherine had said. It didn't matter why. Not right now.
It was stalling. Keeping him here. Trying to steal the package right out from under his hand.
"You really do think I'm stupid," h
e said. "Not this time."
His hand dropped to the book. He felt a shock at its touch, and then a warmth in his head as the Construct began to fade.
Katherine started to laugh, along with every other person in the Construct. The sound of it continued to echo in his head even after he was removed from the simulation, the mask pressing too tightly against his face.
He reached up and pulled it off. Firedog was standing there, his hand on Mitchell's arm.
"Shit, Colonel," Cormac said. "I thought I was going to have to shoot you in the foot to wake you up. We've got a situation here."
Mitchell felt his heart pounding in his chest as turned cold once more.
He still heard the laughter.
44
"We have to move, now," Mitchell said, reaching for his rifle as he circled around the mainframe. Captain Pathi's body still lay on the ground, and he kicked it as they passed.
"What's happening, sir?" Cormac asked. "Who the frig is laughing like that?"
He could hear it echoing through the tunnel, a hundred voices cackling like they had just heard the funniest joke ever.
Mitchell didn't need Katherine to explain this one to him. She had said the Tetron could get into the mainframe through the signals it was leeching for added power.
She hadn't said the door was one-way.
He put it together in his mind as they crossed through the doorway. Origin had planted the mainframe here for Mitchell to maybe one day find. Only Pathi had somehow managed to get to the planet, perhaps by stowing away somewhere when Origin had thought it was dead. The Tetron hadn't been sealed in the room. It had been the one to burn the hole. It had passed itself, or a configuration of itself, into the Construct, and then waited. When the Federation had finally shown up to build the base it had known they would build, it had taken control of the soldiers who discovered it, sending them away with no memory of having seen the space.
At some point Pathi must have known that Hell was the Mesh Planet. That was why it had chosen to make its move here. Then, when the other Tetron had bombarded, or maybe when it knew Mitchell was here, it had taken control of the soldiers on the base and killed them so that he would have an easy time reaching the Construct.
He had reached the Construct. And he had captured the prize. He could access it as though it was a memory that had always been there. It wasn't a tangible thing like a weapon. Instead, it was a location. A series of star coordinates. Of course. Even worse, it was out beyond the Rim, in unexplored space. If he were going to capture it, he would need to forget about Earth for a long time.
"I thought it was creepy in here before," Socks said as Mitchell reached them. The voices were a little louder now, echoing in the hallway. "Where is it coming from?"
"The soldiers," Mitchell said. "They weren't dead. Maybe their bodies were. The Tetron brought them back."
"The Tetron?" Teal said. "There's one here?"
"Yes. Or a part of a one at least."
"We need to get out of here before it kills us all," Boomer said.
Mitchell shook his head. "We aren't leaving."
"But-"
"We aren't leaving," he repeated more forcefully. "We came for the resources here. We aren't abandoning the plan to collect them."
"It'll kill us," Socks said.
"It might," Mitchell replied. "At least you'll die fighting. We need to get rid of the Tetron. That means destroying all of the networked computers on the base."
"All of the computers?" Boomer said. "Sir, that's crazy."
"You afraid of some zombie Feds?" Cormac asked.
"No."
"Then shut up and unpack your rifle."
Boomer did as Cormac said, pulling his rifle from his back. Mitchell moved ahead of them, crouching low and checking each corner as he reached it.
"It likely wants me alive," Mitchell said.
"What for?" Socks asked.
"You don't want to know."
The laughter stopped suddenly, and Mitchell knew why. It was tracking them somehow. It knew where they were, and it didn't want them to know the position of the soldiers.
Mitchell continued the ascent. His team fanned out behind him, moving through the space, leading with their weapons.
They turned the corner, ducking back as rounds of rifle fire echoed in the tight confines and dug chips out of the stone. Mitchell peaked around the corner, finding the shooter using the next turn in the tunnel to hide.
"Hello, Mitchell," he said. "Are you ready to have some fun?"
"It's taunting you, sir," Cormac said.
"Thank you, Firedog. I heard."
"You can't get out of here alive, Mitchell. I've already killed the rest of your team."
"Sleepy? Misfire?" Socks said. "Son of a bitch."
"It may be lying," Mitchell said, feeling his body tense in anger.
"It may not be."
"Firedog, take him out," Mitchell said.
"Yes, sir."
Cormac crouched with his back to the wall for a moment, taking a few quick breaths to prepare himself. Then he threw himself across the hallway, diving with his weapon forward. He hit the ground as bullets flew over his head, taking a single shot with his rifle. The enemy fire stopped.
"Target eliminated, sir," he said, rolling back to his feet.
"Nice work," Mitchell said, moving past him.
They continued on, pausing when they neared the end of the tunnel.
"This is a great choke point," Boomer said. "They can cut us down without having to try too hard."
"Firedog," Mitchell said again.
"You blokes don't know me well enough yet," Firedog said, picking a grenade from his exo. He tapped the activator before reaching out around the corner and rolling it towards the exit. He counted down with his fingers so everyone could see.
The grenade exploded. Mitchell moved out into the corridor, opening fire into the smoke created by the blast. He stopped when no return fire followed.
"Clear," he said.
His squad formed up behind him while he moved ahead. There were four corpses spread away from the entrance, thrown back by the blast.
"Shoot it all," he said, opening fire on the terminals. His squad joined him, shredding the room within moments.
"We need to see if it was lying about the others," Socks said.
Mitchell nodded. "I know. Let's stay calm and take it slow. It wants to incite us to do something stupid."
"That shouldn't be too hard for you, Firedog," Boomer said.
Cormac laughed. "Shut up, asshole."
They swept through the room, back into the corridors of the base. The bodies that had littered the hallways were absent now, leaving Mitchell to wonder where they had gone.
"Mitchell. Miiiiittttccchhheellll."
The voice came from all around them, using the loudspeakers to taunt him.
"You can't escape me, Mitchell. I'm everywhere."
A dozen soldiers appeared around the corner, heading towards them at a run, guns firing. Mitchell dove to the side, laying flat to give them a smaller target. Boomer was too slow, and he screamed as the bullets tore into him, peppering him and tearing him apart like he was a paper target.
"Frigging bastards," Socks said.
Their own fire ripped hard into the soldiers, cutting them down with impunity. It was over within moments.
"Boomer," Mitchell said, heading over to the soldier. He was already dead.
"That's one," the Tetron said. "Correction. I believe that makes four. If it only takes twelve meats of mine to drop one of yours, you are in a lot of trouble, Mitchell."
Mitchell refrained from cursing at the intelligence. It was right. He couldn't afford the losses.
"Come on," he said, leading them away.
They navigated the corridors, entering nearly every room to shoot up the terminals they found within. The Tetron continued to taunt them as they did, laughing each time they blasted a machine.
"You can't kill me that way, stupid," it
said. "I'm in the mainframe, which means I'm everywhere."
45
Mitchell ignored it, continuing to make his way back to the generators. They encountered a large force of enemy soldiers ahead of the room, getting into a pitched battle that lasted close to an hour while they exchanged fire.
They finally broke through, killing the last of the Tetron's slaves and opening a path to the generators.
"Frig me," Mitchell said when he saw them. The Tetron hadn't been lying about the condition of the rest of his squad. Sleepy, Misfire, and Fish were all dead.
"That's what they get for not having a neural implant," the Tetron said. "You meats are so much more fun when we're pulling the strings. I'll show you soon."
"What does that mean?" Socks asked. Her eyes were red from silent tears shed for her squadmates.
"Nothing good," Mitchell said.
The generator room was massive, though the reactors powering the base were relatively small. The rest of the space was occupied by stacks of mainframe servers aligned in rows and columns. The Tetron had been right, there were way too many to destroy them all.
"I think we need another plan," Teal said.
Mitchell's hope of returning to Asimov with the mechs and fighters they had found was sinking quickly. If the Tetron was able to control the mechs like the one on Liberty had... No. That wouldn't matter. They would be dead anyway. There was no way they could get through that room without being reduced to slag.
"We need to kill all of the Gold Dragons," Mitchell said. He lowered his voice. "And hope it can't take over the mechs."
"It can do that?" Teal asked.
"The one on Liberty could, but this one is a configuration, a piece of a Tetron. I'm not sure."
Mitchell heard motion towards the far end of the mainframe stacks. He pressed himself tight against one of the machines while the rest of the squad found cover. He motioned to Firedog to circle around the far right stack and for Socks to go to the left. He cut up the center, Teal keeping an eye on their backs.
They swept the stacks while the noise at the far end grew louder. It wasn't laughter, gunfire, or taunting. As Mitchell neared, the sound was unmistakable.