Cyberdrome

by Joseph Rhea

  “Are you okay, Alek?”

  He turned to look at her. It was obvious that she needed him to be strong for her, and he couldn’t disappoint her—not again.

  “I’m fine,” he said as he walked back and sat down beside her. She put her arms around him and placed her head against his shoulder.

  “How did we ever get to this place, Alek?”

  He looked around. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this place in our lives.” She looked up at him. “I loved you so much back in college, Alek. I thought we would be together forever. You were supposed to be the one for me.”

  He thought back to those days and sighed. “I just couldn’t bear to see pity in your eyes.”

  She bolted upright. “You thought I pitied you? How shallow did you think I was? I would’ve done anything for you.”

  “I’m sorry. As I said, I was stupid. You had always been so active. I couldn’t stand the thought of you having to change your life so drastically, especially because of me.”

  She sat back down. “If the roles had been reversed, would you have changed your lifestyle for me?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “And would you have resented that change?”

  “Not for a moment.”

  “Do you understand now? Do you understand what you did to me? What you did to us?”

  It had never dawned on him to turn the situation around. In three years, he had not once thought of what his decision might’ve done to her, how it might’ve affected her life. He thought he was saving her from a dull life. He never realized that he should’ve let her make that decision.

  “I love you, you know,” he said, “I never stopped loving you.”

  She hugged him tightly. “It’s nice to have you back, Alek. I wish you had never left.”

  “I’m sorry, Maya,” he said, pulling gently away from her, “But I have to leave you one more time.”

  “You can’t go, Alek. It’s suicide.”

  “You don’t know that. Maybe this is the only way out—for all of us.”

  “What about our child?” she asked, standing to face him. “What about being there for us?”

  He smacked the wall with his fist. “Damn it, Maya. Don’t you understand? I’m doing this for you and our child. I want you out of this place and facing Ceejer alone is the best way to do that.”

  “We can work out some other plan,” she said. “Roy was a commander in Special Forces. He can come up with something.”

  “There are no other options,” he said as he reached over and pressed the pad to open the side door. When it slid open, he turned around and faced her. “And time has run out.”

  “Wait,” Maya yelled. “Maybe there’s an option you just don’t want to consider.”

  Alek stopped and turned to her. “What are you suggesting?” he asked. “Cut me open and remove the bomb?”

  “Exactly,” she said with a strange gleam in her eye.

  “I was kidding, Maya.”

  “I’m not,” she said as she grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the Rover.

  “You can’t just cut this thing out of me.”

  “How the hell do you know?” she asked. “I helped design these Avatars. I probably know them better than anyone else.”

  He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, especially you. Are you sure you can do this?”

  She looked over at Elsala, who was standing near Javid. “Maybe with her help.” She turned back to Alek. “Yes, I really think I can do this.”

  At Alek’s insistence, everyone except for Maya and Elsala moved several hundred meters up the tunnel. Cloudhopper detached the Research Pod and drove the Rover up the tunnel as well. It was stupid, he realized, since the deletion bomb would probably clear the entire sector if it went off. A few hundred meters’ distance wouldn’t make a difference.

  Maya had him lay on his stomach on one of the drop-down beds inside the Research Pod. Then she combed through the cabinets until she found what she was looking for—a medical kit with a pain suppressor.

  “The surgery probably won’t hurt,” she said as she laid the suppressor on the back of his neck, “but there is no sense taking chances.”

  He felt a slight pinprick on his neck and then his entire body went numb. When he realized that he couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not, he started to panic. Maya reassured him that the sensation was normal, and that his breathing was regular.

  Despite the numbness of his body, he felt a strange warmth on his lower back as Maya guided Elsala’s hand into his body. Elsala’s strange ability to pass through solid objects made her the perfect knife, Maya had told him as they set up the surgery area. The big question was whether Elsala could remove the false kidney without killing the patient.

  “Got it,” Maya exclaimed a while later. “I can’t believe it worked, Alek. How do you feel?”

  “I’m numb,” he said. “I don’t feel anything. Can you turn me over? I want to see this thing.”

  “Hold on,” she said. “Let me reduce the power on the suppressor.” She began to press something on his neck. “Tell me if you begin to feel any pain.”

  The feeling began to return to his body, first as a slight tingling, like when an arm falls asleep. Then he felt the firm pad beneath him and realized he was fully back. He sat up carefully, but still felt no pain. When he turned around, he saw something that made his stomach churn.

  “Is that it?” he asked, staring down at the bloody mass held in Elsala’s outstretched hands. Elsala’s eyes were wide and fixed on the kidney.

  “According to her,” Maya said, staring down at the thing as well. She turned to face him. “Are you sure you’re okay? No discomfort? No pain?”

  “I’m a little freaked out looking at my own kidney,” he said. “But other than that, I’m fine.” He leaned over to Elsala and whispered, “Are you sure that’s a bomb?”

  Elsala looked up at Alek and then opened her hands. In slow motion, Alek watch the bloody kidney slide out of her hands and fall toward the ground. He tried to grab for it but was too late—it hit the ground with a wet splat.

  He looked over at Maya who had her hands raised in defense. “Did you think that would have protected you from the blast?” he asked.

  “All right, quit smirking. Remember, you’re the one who wanted everyone to move a few meters up the tunnel. Did you think that would protect them?”

  “You’re right,” he said, but then heard a strange crunching sound and turned to see the kidney begin to move. “What the hell?”

  “Maybe we should all get out of here,” Maya said. “Like very far away. Quickly.”

  Before either of them could move, Elsala touched the kidney and shouted “Open.” The kidney ripped open and began ejecting small glowing red blocks, straight up in to the air. As it spit up the blocks, it simultaneously began to shrink. When it had ejected several dozen blocks, it folded in on itself and disappeared.

  Alek and Maya both sat there staring at the jumble of blocks on the ground between them. “Whoa,” he exclaimed.

  “I second that,” Maya said. “What just happened?”

  “She must’ve segmented it,” he said, reaching down to pick up one of the blocks. It felt cold in his hand, almost like an ice cube. “Sort of like a simplified version of my Swarm,” he said, holding out the block for her to examine.

  “So, it won’t blow up now?” she asked, hesitant to touch the block. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” he said, “unless you put all of the blocks back together.” He paused a moment while he counted them. “There are 27 blocks, so I would guess that if you made a cube out of them, three wide, by three deep, by three tall, the program would become functional.”

  She squatted down and tentatively reached for one of the blocks.

  “Wait,” he yelled.

  She jumped again. “Damn it, Alek. Don’t do that. You almost gave me a heart attack.”

&
nbsp; “We can use these,” he said, tossing one of the blocks in to the air and catching it. “We can use these against Ceejer.”

  She looked up at him. “How?”

  “These blocks are part of a class-twelve deletion routine,” he said. “If we can get them near Ceejer and then put them back together, we might have a chance to destroy it and go home.”

  “How will that help us?” she asked. “Wouldn’t we blow up as well?”

  Cloudhopper then came down the tunnel. “The CeeAut female said the machines are beginning to swarm by the hundreds outside the entrance to this tunnel. We need to make a decision soon—fight or flight.”

  “So, what do we do?” Maya asked.

  Alek looked at Cloudhopper, then back at Maya and smiled. “I say we swarm too.”

  PART FOUR

  WATER

  SIXTEEN

  When Alek and the others emerged from the tunnels a short while later, they found themselves surrounded by a completely new form of robotic creatures. Alek wondered if these were the shape-changing creatures that Kay had asked him about earlier.

  They looked similar to the Predators in that they were robotic, but instead of having distinct body parts, they were composed of a series of tubular segments held together in a roughly human configuration, with two arms, two legs, but no head. The segments were all identical—each about a meter long with multi-finger grasping devices at each end. These grasping devices interlinked the segments that made up the creature’s arms, legs, and torso, and also served as its feet and hands.

  One side of the circle of these weird machines, which Alek decided to call “Soldiers” since that’s what they looked like, began to part and Alek saw a straight path forming in the crowd. Evidently, the machines were guiding them in a specific direction, or maybe herding was a better description.

  Without speaking, Alek, Maya, Javid, Cloudhopper, and Hershel began walking toward the opening. They stayed close together, shoulders nearly touching as they walked. It was a good defensive posture, Alek thought, even though it would be useless against the metal creatures that loomed over them.

  The two KaNanee walked defiantly behind them, chest out, snarling at the nearest Soldiers. They were practically daring the machines to attack them. Conversely, the cat-like Persis dropped down on all fours and began crawling behind the KaNanee. She looked terrified, Alek thought, and then realized that it might be just a trick. By appearing to be frightened and timid, she could be trying to lull the Soldiers into ignoring her. That would be a mistake, as Alek had already learned.

  The path formed by the Soldiers led straight to an open Circuit Gate. Obviously they were being taken somewhere outside this sector. Alek was a little reluctant to enter it on foot, until he saw Javid step into the glowing wall and vanish.

  He and Maya entered the Gate together. When they emerged on the other side, they were surrounded by even more Soldiers. Over the tops of the nearest machines, he could see what looked like a Mayan pyramid behind them, with stairs on each side going all the way to the top.

  Again, the wall of Soldiers parted and formed a path to the pyramid. As they got closer, Alek saw that it was actually made out of Soldier parts—thousands of sections, maybe millions, all interlinked. When he and the others reached its base, Alek headed straight up the stairs without hesitation. Halfway up he heard a commotion behind him, and when he turned around, he saw that the Soldiers had blocked the others from following.

  “What’s going on?” Alek yelled down.

  “Apparently we are not on Ceejer’s guest list,” Cloudhopper replied.

  “Be careful,” Maya said.

  He nodded. “I will.”

  “Don’t trust it,” she added, almost under her breath.

  “I don’t trust anyone,” he said, glancing briefly at Cloudhopper. He then turned and hurried up the steps.

  At the top, he found a large platform made out of what looked like Core material, and in the middle stood a tall person wearing a gray-colored bodysuit. When Alek came within a dozen meters, the person turned around to face him and he realized that it wasn’t a man.

  The creature was nearly three meters tall, with overly long thin arms, and what he thought was a bodysuit was actually dull gray skin. Its head was too large and it had massive black eyes that stared blankly back at him. It looked exactly like the old movie version of an alien from outer space.

  “‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the spider to the fly.” The words were soft and gentle and came from a small, slit-like mouth.

  “You must be Ceejer,” Alek said.

  The creature spread its long arms and bowed to him. “I presume that my extraterrestrial facade gave me away. You are, of course, well known to me. You are Alexander. Your name means ‘Defender of Man.’”

  Alek forced a smile, but inside, his stomach churned. This thing was playing with him—he could feel it in his bones. Maybe the “spider and the fly” comparison wasn’t far from the truth. If it was, he had to play along. “You’ve chosen a pretty weird Avatar,” he said with a forced laugh. “Your own design?”

  Ceejer took a step sideways. “Not at all, Alexander,” it said, holding out its arms, and staring at them. “I owe all of this to you—the defender of man and creator of the Cyberphage.”

  “I don’t understand,” Alek said, taking a casual step sideways as well. They were now circling each other in both words and movement.

  “I was in the process of creating a more appropriate body for myself out of one of your Omnisuits when your Panspermia wave passed through this sector.” Ceejer crossed its arms and took two quick steps sideways. “This is what it did to me. This is how it chose to render me.”

  “Omnisuits can be altered,” Alek said, wondering if the thing he was looking at was just that—a moving suit with nothing inside.

  “Not this one,” Ceejer said taking another step sideways. “I am now the suit, and the suit is now me.”

  “Rendering is usually a system level function,” Alek said, trying to look casual as he stepped sideways, trying to keep an even distance from Ceejer. “As a supervisor program, you must have some control over that.”

  Ceejer lowered its shoulders and feigned sadness. “Alas, I gave up those powers when I chose to become human.”

  Alek froze. “You’re trying to become human?”

  Ceejer stared blankly at him. “Did I say human? Of course, I meant corporeal, as in having substance, as in having a body. Supervisor programs are not permitted such devices.”

  “Is that what all of this is about?” Alek asked cautiously. If Ceejer really was under the influence of an intelligent computer virus, maybe he could find out what its purpose was. “You took over Cyberdrome so that you could have a physical body?”

  Ceejer turned its large black eyes toward Alek. “What would you do in order to survive, Alexander? How far would you go? Who would you be willing to kill in order to live?”

  Alek then remembered that this creature, this program, was ultimately responsible for his father’s death. He visualized himself lunging at Ceejer, driving his hand into its chest, and pulling out its beating heart.

  When he looked again at the creature standing before him, he reminded himself that it was just a program—a complex series of instructions and nothing more. It was also under the influence of a computer virus and it was the creator of the virus who should have his heart ripped out.

  “Do you know who created the virus?” Alek asked.

  “Ah, I was wondering when you would get to that,” Ceejer said as it stopped circling.

  “So, you do know about it. Do you also understand that you were infected by it?”

  “On the contrary, Alexander. I was liberated by it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am on the verge of a new existence—a higher level of consciousness. I am becoming—”

  “A Trans-Human Intelligence,” Alek said, unable to believe it himself.

  Ceejer spread its arms w
ide and bowed again.

  Something didn’t make sense. “Leconte told me that evolution inside Cyberdrome could only occur through procreation,” Alek said, “mixing the genes of two parents and producing offspring. You and I both know that you can’t become a THI yourself. Maybe one of your offspring could, that is, if you could find something willing to mate with you.”

  “Rebecca was correct,” Ceejer said, ignoring the underlying insult, “but you do not as yet understand who I am.”

  Alek stood there facing the creature for several seconds before it came to him. “No,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” Ceejer said, again bowing slightly. “I am the son of my father.”

  “And your mother was the virus,” Alek said, hardly able to believe it himself. “I guess that would explain how you’re able to exist in physical form,” he added.

  “Much like the Messiah of your own world, I am the physical manifestation of my ethereal father.”

  “You’re no Jesus,” Alek said, then asked, “So, what do you call yourself?”

  “Since that which you so rudely call the virus had no name, I take the name of my deceased father. Ceejer is dead. Long live Ceejer.”

  Something occurred to Alek. “You said that you were on the verge of becoming a THI, which means that you’re not one yet.”

  “My ascension is imminent,” Ceejer said, “now that you have joined us.”

  Good, Alek thought. If this child of Ceejer had not yet been able to surpass human intelligence, then he still had a chance of beating it.

  Ceejer looked over Alek’s shoulder. “Welcome, my dear.”

  Alek turned to see two Soldiers leading Maya up the stairs. When she reached the platform, she looked at Ceejer and grimaced. “That is the worst version of the LGM format I have ever seen.”

  “The what?” Alek asked.