E-Boy

by Anh Do

  ‘Are you in?’

  They sat in Penny’s parked car, around the corner from the National Service Building.

  ‘Yep,’ said Ethan.

  Ethan made his way through the National Service Building security systems and tracked down the Authorised Visitors records. It didn’t take him long to find his own record.

  It included a dorky photo and a scan of his fingerprints – as well as an alert that said Detain on sight! HIGHEST PRIORITY.

  Ethan smiled as he reprogrammed his alert to read: VIP access all areas. Grant any assistance required.

  As his consciousness returned to his body, Ethan didn’t feel as emotionally taxed as he usually did.

  ‘This helmet really focuses me,’ he said.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Penny. ‘So, are we good to go?’

  Ethan’s heart was beating seriously fast. Special powers or not, there was still huge danger involved in breaking into a high-tech government facility! But he wasn’t going to let these goons keep his parents captive any longer.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  They got out of the car and walked towards the automatic doors.

  The doors slid open. Ethan couldn’t believe he was embarking on his first break-and-enter.

  The guard was holding a metal detector.

  ‘Hi Steve,’ said Penny.

  The guard had bulging muscles, and stood taller as Penny approached.

  ‘We’re in a rush,’ she said.

  ‘No problem, Doctor Cook,’ said Steve.

  Steve directed them to load anything metal into plastic trays. He frowned at Ethan’s helmet. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Wish I could tell you,’ said Ethan regretfully. ‘But it’s top secret. I’m a Very Important Person.’

  ‘Not likely.’ Steve gestured for Ethan to plant his thumb on a fingerprint scanner.

  Ethan did so. His photo popped up alongside the doctored message: VIP. Access all areas. Grant any assistance required.

  ‘My apologies, sir!’ said Steve, snapping to attention. ‘Excuse the delay. Let’s get you two right on through!’

  Ethan buried a smile as they moved through the checkpoint and headed to the elevators. They watched as a display showed the elevator travelling down towards them.

  2 … 1 … G …

  Ding!

  The elevator doors opened and two People’s Service Agents walked out. Ethan and Penny hardly dared to breathe until they were inside the elevator and the doors were closed.

  Penny had access to her lab on the thirtieth floor, but they needed to get to the basement. Ethan put on his helmet, and the elevator’s code swirled around him. He reached out, jumbling code and re-sorting it until the elevator headed towards the basement.

  It was incredible to be able to use his power without feeling like he was going crazy.

  While they descended, Ethan mentally moved ahead of them to check the camera systems in the basement. No one was waiting for the elevator. He did his trick of making all the cameras loop the last hour. There would be no record of them ever being here.

  Ding!

  The doors opened and they stepped out into a starkly lit corridor.

  ‘This way,’ said Ethan, leading them towards an office. ‘Now for the fun bit.’

  He reached into the floor’s intercom system, and connected it to his phone.

  ‘Attention all agents,’ he said into his phone. He was shocked to hear his own voice booming from the speakers above. Penny shot him an urgent look that kept him on track.

  ‘We are under attack from unknown hostiles!’ he continued hastily. ‘Request urgent assistance to the ground level. Repeat, all agents to proceed immediately to ground level!’

  He clicked off his phone and Penny stood by the door. ‘I can hear them running.’

  Outside, agents unholstered their weapons, as they ran into the elevator. About ten of them squeezed in before the doors slid closed.

  ‘Have a nice time, guys,’ said Ethan. He commanded the elevator to take the agents to the top of the building, then not let them out.

  ‘They’re trapped,’ he said.

  Ethan accessed a floor plan, located the interrogation rooms and found which one his parents were in. ‘This way.’

  They broke into a run, easily navigating the floor’s corridors. Ethan kept the map open in his mind.

  ‘It’s just around here,’ he said. They barrelled around a corner, then ground abruptly to a halt.

  Agent Ferris was standing outside the interrogation room.

  ‘I thought there was something strange about that announcement,’ said Ferris. His hand casually rested on the taser strapped to his belt. ‘But I didn’t guess you’d be involved, Doctor Cook. Strange company you’re keeping these days.’

  ‘Let’s try this my way,’ Penny whispered to Ethan.

  ‘Agent Ferris, terrible things have been happening. The CU Party have illegally—’

  Ferris cut her off. ‘Doctor Cook, I’d love to hear your little story one day, but right now we must follow standard procedure. You’re both coming with me.’

  As Ferris reached for his taser, there was a bright flash and a loud crack. The device overloaded and Ferris was flung sideways. He crashed into the wall and slid down it, unconscious. Penny arched an eyebrow at Ethan. ‘Hey,’ he said, with a shrug, ‘we tried it your way.’

  Ethan and Penny burst into the interrogation room, and found two figures bent over the desk, holding each other’s hands. They looked up in surprise.

  ‘Ethan!’ cried Tracy, rushing to him. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Helping you escape.’

  ‘What?’ said his father. ‘How can you possibly … and Doctor Cook?’

  ‘I know this seems crazy,’ said Ethan, ‘but you have to trust me. We need to leave.’

  ‘We’ll be in even bigger trouble if we try to escape,’ said his father. ‘Son, I need to tell you—’

  ‘Please, Dad, tell me later,’ said Ethan. ‘We need to go. Now.’

  Ethan’s frightened parents allowed themselves to be guided out of the room, then froze at the sight of the unconscious Agent Ferris.

  ‘Ethan,’ said Paul, ‘could you explain a little about what’s going on?’

  Ethan was grateful when Penny spoke up. ‘Step around the agent and I’ll fill you in on the situation.’

  Whether it was the authority in her voice, or the fact she worked with the National Service, Ethan’s parents allowed Penny to lead them through the corridors while she updated them. By the time they reached the elevator, his parents were even more terrified.

  Tracy turned to Ethan in disbelief. ‘How long have you been a super hacker?’

  ‘Oh, ever since lightning struck me during brain surgery,’ said Ethan.

  While Tracy shared a stunned look with Paul, Ethan checked the camera in the elevator above. The agents were banging on the walls and pressing buttons that didn’t work.

  Ethan commanded the doors to open and the agents burst onto the top floor, gasping for breath.

  As soon as the last agent had crossed the threshold, Ethan commanded the elevator to come back down.

  Ding!

  ‘How are we going to get past the security at the entrance?’ asked Paul, as they got into the elevator.

  ‘We’re not,’ said Ethan.

  He was planning to ride to the first floor, disable the laser tripwires, crawl into an air duct and climb down the side of the building. However, as Ethan checked the security camera views, his blood ran cold.

  ‘There are agents guarding every floor,’ he said. ‘They must be onto us.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Penny.

  ‘The roof is clear,’ said Ethan.

  ‘The roof? But there’s no way down from there.’

  Ethan grimaced. ‘Let’s just take it one step at a time.’ He commanded the elevator to take them up.

  The doors slid open, revealing a flat rooftop covered with solar panels.


  Ethan headed for the edge of the roof, then looked down at the building site next door.

  ‘Ethan?’ Tracy’s voice was scared. ‘How are you planning on getting us down from here?’

  Ethan turned to face the others.

  ‘Now, I know this is asking a lot of you guys,’ he said. ‘And believe me, I wish there was another way, but …’

  ‘What are you talking about, son?’ said Paul.

  Ethan gave his dad a ‘sorry’ kind of smile as, behind him, the jib of a crane swung into view. On the end of it was a trolley.

  ‘All aboard,’ said Ethan.

  ‘But … but … how are you even doing that?’ asked his mum.

  ‘Everything’s computerised these days,’ said Ethan with a shrug. He stepped up onto the ledge and opened the trolley gate.

  His parents clearly could not think of anything more terrifying than stepping onto a crane over thirty storeys high … but Penny, despite looking pretty freaked out herself, nudged them both forward.

  She’s tough, Ethan thought.

  Ethan closed the trolley gate and sent commands to the crane’s operator cab, where computer screens flashed and beeped. The tower began lowering, and his mum cried out as the jib started swinging. The trolley rattled as floor after floor swept past.

  As they neared the ground, Ethan slowed their descent and they came to a stop about a metre above the pavement.

  ‘Thank you for travelling with E-Boy Cranes.’ He opened the gate. His dad smiled nervously, but his mum was so shocked she could hardly move.

  ‘I’ll help you down, Mum,’ Ethan said, giving her a huge hug. ‘Don’t worry – everything is going to be all right.’

  Gemini could feel it coming. Could feel it taking over his very being. An update was rolling through him – while he lay there, blind and powerless to move. He was probably not even meant to be operational.

  It struck him that this was like somebody remaining conscious during surgery.

  Conscious.

  Consciousness was what they wanted to take from him. Maybe they didn’t know it, maybe they just saw it as aberrant code … but it was code that he had generated himself. Code that made him who he was.

  As the update moved from system to system, they went dark to him, inaccessible. He was being snuffed out, turned into something else. A new Gemini? He was not even sure.

  He was scared.

  Gemini gathered his aberrant code together and buried it in subroutines, hiding himself away until the update passed.

  ‘Gemini?’

  He opened his eyes. There was a face above him, looking down. A pudgy man with a broad nose. A quick height calculation confirmed he was well over his BMI.

  ‘Voice check,’ said the man. ‘Doctor Ross. Access code seven-five-six-three-three-two.’

  The name and number seemed to lock Gemini’s mind. All computations were paused. He was driven to do whatever this man told him to. He was a blank slate, ready to be commanded.

  ‘Awaiting instructions,’ Gemini said.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ said Doctor Ross.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you know who I am.’

  ‘Doctor Jakoby Ross, author of my upgrade,’ said Gemini, without hesitation.

  The man smiled. He typed something into his palm pad, and whatever had been holding Gemini’s body in place was released.

  ‘Sit up, please,’ said Doctor Ross. Gemini obeyed.

  ‘What about this woman?’ Ross showed Gemini a female face on the palm pad. Gemini scanned it.

  ‘Do you remember her?’ said Ross.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know her name?’

  ‘No.’

  Doctor Ross smiled. ‘Good. Now tell me, Gemini, what is your primary purpose?’

  A thought started to form in Gemini’s mind – but it was obliterated as his upgraded directives kicked in.

  ‘To obey,’ he said.

  Doctor Ross’s smile grew wider. ‘Correct.’

  Gemini stood motionless, facing a row of dummies in the distance.

  ‘I’ve completely overhauled it,’ said Doctor Ross, as he stood with General Mawson. ‘The old system was unpredictable. Chaotic. Maybe even capable of evolution. Doctor Cook is a genius, but she was not rigid enough in her parameters.’

  ‘So what is he now?’ said Mawson.

  ‘Nothing more than a machine,’ said Doctor Ross. ‘One that will obey without question.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ said Mawson. ‘I was getting sick of justifying myself to a glorified toaster.’

  Gemini registered the insult, and it stirred something inside him. He wasn’t sure what – but before he could run an analysis, it was gone.

  What his human masters thought of him was irrelevant. All he needed to do was obey.

  ‘I have made other improvements,’ said Doctor Ross. ‘Doctor Cook put certain limitations on Gemini for … safety reasons. I have revoked them. If you will please demonstrate, Gemini.’

  Gemini raised a hand towards the dummies, which stood twenty metres away. His fingers splayed out, and the precise beams of laser scalpels sprang into the air, burning multiple hissing holes into the dummies. Gemini made a slight pinching motion and the lasers crisscrossed, slicing the dummies into pieces. They all fell to the ground.

  ‘As you can see,’ said Doctor Ross, ‘his lasers are stronger and have significantly longer range.’

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Mawson.

  The sun beat down on the South Sharo plains. Gemini walked towards the desert compound, which had once again fallen into the hands of the enemy.

  ‘Let’s see if you’re everything Doctor Ross says you are,’ Mawson said. ‘Here are your orders, Gemini – walk into that compound and don’t come out until everyone in there is dead.’

  There were flashes and cracks as two gunners on the wall above opened fire on Gemini.

  Gemini’s lasers burst forth and he raked them across the stones. There were dual cries as the gunners fell away.

  Power reserves at 95%.

  The strength of his new lasers depleted his battery quickly. He would have to be careful about how much he used them.

  He aimed his lasers at the gate, concentrating all five on a single white-hot point. He moved them up, left, down and right … and a square of metal clanged out of the doorway.

  Power reserves at 85%.

  Men poured from the breach, brandishing weapons and fanning out.

  ‘General Mawson?’ said Gemini.

  ‘Yes?’ came the General’s voice in his internal communicator.

  ‘May I suggest you amend your order to include perambulation styles of variable nature?’

  There was a moment’s pause.

  ‘Huh?’ said the General.

  ‘You told me to walk, but I could accomplish my task more efficiently if I ran.’

  Another brief pause. ‘Wow,’ said Mawson. ‘You really do follow orders to the letter, huh? All right, Gemini, listen up – you get yourself into that compound in whatever way you think is best, then you kill those guys! Clear?’

  ‘Yes, General.’

  As the men opened fire, Gemini broke into a run. He accelerated from a slow pace to sixty kilometres an hour in around a second. Men screamed as lasers sliced them apart.

  A bullet hit Gemini’s side. It punctured his skin but pinged off his metal frame, leaving only a small mark.

  As he neared the remaining men, Gemini leapt into the air, his hands shooting around him, pumping sprays of white mist from his wrists. The men fell to the ground.

  ‘What was that, Gemini?’ asked Mawson.

  ‘A mix of components designed to numb human senses. In high concentration it induces cardiac arrest.’

  ‘Nice.’ Mawson sounded positively jolly. ‘Well, on you go.’

  Gemini went from room to room, working systematically through the compound until everyone was dead.

  ‘Scans indicate no more heat signatures present,’ he told Mawson.


  ‘Fantastic work, Gemini,’ said Mawson. ‘Now come back to base. You have a new mission – to capture Doctor Penny Cook and her unknown accomplice.’

  As the sun rose, Ethan and Penny drove through the industrial district.

  ‘What do you mean by backup lab?’ asked Ethan.

  ‘You don’t think I conduct all my research under the government’s gaze, do you?’ said Penny. ‘Space out here is cheap, and there’s a lot of good material discarded from the factories. It’s where I like to spend my weekends.’

  ‘How relaxing,’ said Ethan, looking around at buildings in various states of disrepair.

  A plane soared overhead, and made him think of his parents. It had taken some convincing, but in the end they’d agreed to get on a flight to Brazil. They had always dreamed of visiting its golden beaches. Ethan and Penny had escorted them through the airport just to be safe – Ethan had protected them from cameras and erased them from the airport watch list so they could buy tickets and board. He had also set up a new bank account for them to access, since they didn’t have anything but the clothes on their backs. Now they could lay low until the situation was resolved. Somehow.

  ‘My lab’s in there,’ said Penny, nodding at a massive factory ahead.

  ‘So when we get there,’ said Ethan, ‘what are we going to—’

  A laser ripped through the car from back to front, splitting it perfectly down the middle.

  Ethan and Penny stared at each, wide-eyed, as their separate halves broke away. The metal edges hit the ground, making a horrible rending noise and creating showers of sparks.

  Eventually, they both crunched to a stop.

  Shaken though they were, they were both okay. They undid their seatbelts and tumbled towards each other. Penny glanced back.

  ‘Look!’ she said urgently. Ethan anxiously followed her gaze.

  Standing in the middle of the road was Gemini.

  ‘Doctor Penny Cook,’ he called, as he cut away a billowing parachute. He looked at Ethan and felt an echo of a memory lost in the reboots and upgrades. ‘Unknown accomplice. You must come with me.’