Cyberdrome

by Joseph Rhea

  They ran up the stairs as fast as they could. By the fourth floor, he was starting to breathe hard. At least inside the Core, he could recharge his energy from contact with the floor. Here inside an Earth Simulation, he was just another out-of-shape guy.

  When they reached the sixth floor, Maya stopped abruptly and pointed to a sign on the stairwell door.

  “Keep going,” Alek yelled, nearly out of breath. “We’re only halfway to the top.”

  “Watertight doors,” she said as she opened the door. “The sign says that these doors will close if there is a water leak. We need to get out of this stairwell.”

  He looked up the stairs, and then heard the sound of water below them. Time to make a decision, he realized, and bolted through the door. As the door closed behind them, they heard the sound of the seals engaging. He tried the door, but it was locked tight.

  “Glad you saw that sign,” he said as he bent over to catch his breath.

  She patted him on the back and pointed to the desk near them. A flat panel computer screen glowed softly in the darkened office.

  He walked over and picked up the computer. “Old fashioned keyboard interface, and a simple multi-core processor,” he said. “Primitive, but it should do.”

  She ran over to the nearest window and looked out. “Oh my God,” she said.

  He rushed over to the window and looked out. The street below was gone—covered over by a bubbling flow of blue-green water. As they stood there watching, the water level rose up to the bottom of their window.

  “Do you think it will hold,” he asked, backing away from the glass.

  She knocked twice on the window before answering. “Feels solid enough,” she said, and then looked at him. “I would still try to hurry, though.”

  “Right,” he said as he ran back to the desk and sat down. It took him a few minutes of fiddling with the computer to find and open a text editor. Then he placed his hands over the keys and began typing.

  A few minutes later, she left the window and came over to stand beside him. “How much longer?” she asked.

  “This isn’t like writing a letter,” he said.

  “I thought you said you could write programs in your sleep.”

  He pushed the computer away from him, then grabbed it and resumed typing. “I was talking about a Swarm program,” he said. “That, I can write in my sleep. This is different.” He pointed to the screen in his lap. “A deletion gun resembles a deletion bomb, but the blast is focused into a narrow beam.” He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “It will require about a thousand lines of code, which on my home computer would take me less than a half hour. Here I have to write every line of code from scratch.” He shook his head. “This is going to take me several hours, at least.”

  She placed her hand on his shoulder. “We may not have that long.”

  He looked up. The window showed only green water, which meant that the building was now completely submerged.

  “How long do you think we have?” he asked, looking back down at the glowing lines of machine code on the computer screen.

  Maya stumbled backward, tripped over a chair, and fell on her butt. When he jumped up to help her, he saw what had startled her. A Soldier was floating in the water, just outside the window.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered. “Don’t make any sounds, either.”

  She sat motionless on the floor. “It doesn’t have a face,” she said. “Do you think it can see us?”

  “Most of the machine creatures I have encountered so far seem to use vibrations to sense their surroundings,” he replied. “Water transmits sound better than air, so it may be able to sense us through the glass.”

  The Soldier shuffled its arms and legs awkwardly and moved closer to the window. It then pressed one foot-claw against the glass.

  He turned and faced Maya. “Not a sound,” he breathed.

  When she nodded her understanding, he slowly turned his head back toward the window. The Soldier still had its foot pressed up against the glass. As the seconds turned into minutes, he began to wonder if the Soldier’s foot was sensitive enough to pick up their shallow breathing, or even the rhythmic beating of their hearts.

  Several long minutes later, the Soldier let go of the glass and swam upwards. When it was out of sight, they both let out a sigh of relief.

  “Back to the program,” he whispered. “All I need is a little more time.”

  Just then, one of the large windows cracked near the top and a small jet of water began pouring in.

  “Time’s up,” she said.

  He threw up his hands. “Holy shit,” he cursed. “Can’t I get a single break?”

  “How far along are you?” she asked.

  “Not far enough,” he said looking at the stream of water. “I can’t finish it in time.”

  “Then we go back,” she said. “We go back and figure another way out of this mess.”

  “We can’t go back,” he said.

  “It’s better than drowning here, isn’t it?”

  “No, what I mean is that we are at least six stories above the street, and the street is where the Watchport opening is.” Another crack appeared in one of the windows, and another jet of water began pouring in. “How the hell are we going to get down to the opening?”

  She turned and faced him. “While you were playing with balls in college, I was captain of the swim team, remember?”

  “I remember,” he said. “But it’s six stories down,” he said, looking at the ceiling, “and these are tall floors. It will take us forever to swim that deep. Plus, I don’t think I can hold my breath that long.”

  “We grab something heavy,” she said. “It will pull us down to street level quickly. Oyster divers have used that trick for centuries. They used big rocks to pull them to the bottom. It will work for us too.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, standing to face the windows. “I’m not that great of a swimmer, and I really hate being under water.”

  She patted his arm. “Aquaphobia?”

  “I don’t have a fear of water,” he said. “I just really don’t like being under it.”

  “I’ll help you,” she said.

  The water inside the room was already up to their knees now and rising quickly. “It means giving up,” he said, almost to himself.

  She walked over and put her head against his chest, and then hugged him tightly. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  o o o

  Sentinel Javid Rho leaned on his dented, makeshift club as he pulled himself up to a standing position. Around him, a dozen Soldiers lay in battered and useless pieces. He had done such an efficient job of disposing of each new warrior that stepped into the arena, the surrounding ring of Soldiers had stopped removing the damaged pieces several battles ago.

  Javid took several deep but steady breaths as he tried to regain some of his failing strength. Even though he had discovered a weakness in the Soldiers’ design, the machines were adaptive and were now avoiding the swings of his club to protect their fragile joints. The upside of this new behavior was that they were forced to keep themselves intact, which meant that they had little real advantage in either striking range or hitting power.

  Of course, the fact that they were made of metal and he of flesh and bone, still gave them the advantage. Even though he was essentially “winning,” the nonstop fighting had taken its toll on his body. His right shoulder had been dislocated and shoved painfully back in place twice, he had a punctured lung and numerous cracked ribs, one of his kidneys was on the verge of failing, and his left knee and ankle were throbbing and becoming stiff. He was well aware that he could not take this constant onslaught much longer.

  He continued breathing deeply, quietly absorbing raw energy from the ground through the soles of his feet, as he waited for the group of Soldiers to elect the next warrior. He noted that the interval between contests had grown slightly since his initial battle. Perhaps the Soldiers were becoming a bit less sure of themselves a
s the pile of body parts grew. Then again, they might just be toying with him, allowing him a bit more time to regain his strength, so that the next match would be more entertaining.

  In any event, he took the opportunity to kneel down on one knee and place both hands on the ground. A surge of energy poured through his palms and into his body. If he did not believe that he was about to die in this place, he might’ve let out a sigh of relief.

  Then he remembered Alek, and tried to bolster his confidence. I will not fail you, he said to himself as he scanned the ring of Soldiers, looking for the next challenger.

  On the far side of the circle, his former supervisor, Ceejer, sat on an improvised throne made from interlocking Soldiers. So, they are more than just adaptable fighters, Javid thought wryly, they can also become furniture.

  Crouched down as he was, he could see through the legs of the surrounding Soldiers to the other captives. While the clasping mechanisms of the Soldiers segmented bodies might prove weak in combat, they worked perfectly well in holding the wrists of even the mightiest of captives. The KaNanee were putting up valiant struggles of their own, but without the club Jas Kaido had given him, they were simply strong flesh against much stronger metal.

  In sharp contrast, the CeeAut female was putting up no fight at all. She was sitting on the ground, curled up like a frightened child. Javid, however, had known their species too long to believe she was as terrified as she looked. Persis was most likely attempting to lull her captors into dropping their collective guards. What she would do after that was anyone’s guess.

  Then he saw the Tan called Roy Cloudhopper, also sitting peacefully on the ground, but staring directly at Javid. The man nodded slightly when he realized that Javid had seen him. It was a soldier’s nod—a silent greeting among fellow warriors—and it helped strengthen his resolve. If I fail here, Javid thought as he nodded back, that one would take my place.

  Just then, the crowd made its decision and a Soldier stepped into the ring. Javid took one last jolt of energy through his hands and then stood and faced his new opponent. Instead of advancing on Javid like the others before, this one backed up a step. Thinking that the Soldier might have changed its mind, Javid took a bold step toward it. The Soldier backed itself right into another Soldier, and before Javid realized what was happening, the two machines interlinked and became one.

  The new, four-armed, and four-legged Soldier crouched down and then leapt upwards, sailing right over Javid’s head, landing solidly on the other side of the ring.

  As Javid turned and faced the Soldier, he assumed a standard fighting posture, even though he had no clue how to fight this new configuration. With four arms, he realized that he could take out three of them and still die from a blow by the fourth. The four legs would give it exceptional balance, even if one of the legs were severely damaged. In addition, since the legs and arms were identical, the Soldier could remove and replace them as needed. As he sized his new opponent up, he recognized that he would have a better chance against two individual Soldiers than this combined version.

  Unlike his previous opponents, this Soldier did not charge at him immediately. Javid hoped that it was busy working out the logistics of the new configuration. After all, the “brain” of the Soldier had to be a collective consciousness, since each section seemed to be a self-contained entity, and could act interchangeably as torso, arm, or leg. Working out the various requirements and responsibilities of each section in the new configuration could not be easy, and might buy him a few precious moments to work out a plan of his own.

  Abruptly, a decision was made and the Soldier reached back with its two forward arms and grasped hold of the two rear arms, detaching them from the main body. It now faced Javid with two 4-meter long arms, each held straight out to the sides. Javid took one long breath as he faced what he knew to be his final adversary.

  Just then, a blur shot past the Soldier and one of its arms fell off at the shoulder. Undamaged but taken by surprise, the four-sectional arm snaked itself across the ground back toward the main body of the Soldier. It then climbed up the side and reattached itself to the shoulder joint. Obviously confused, the Soldier took a step backward and resumed its original configuration of four arms.

  The blur passed near the Soldier again, and this time the Soldier tried to swipe at it with one of its arms, but missed. A second later, its two front knee joints separated and the Soldier tumbled forward onto its outstretched arms. It righted itself and reattached the limbs. Then, just as quickly, another blur passed by and severed its two back legs. The Soldier fell backward, hitting the ground with a loud crash.

  “What treachery is this?” Ceejer bellowed, rising from the throne of Soldiers. “Stop her.”

  Her? Javid thought. Could it be?

  Soldiers around the ring began swinging their arms in a fruitless attempt to hit the blurring figure, but it was too fast and nearly impossible to see. At one point, the blur stopped for a split second directly in front of Javid, and his speculation was confirmed.

  “Elsala,” he whispered to the translucent green woman standing before him, but before the words had left his lips, she was gone again.

  “Stop that abomination,” Ceejer yelled.

  The Soldiers parted and Mathew Grey stepped into the ring. He looked small and unimportant compared to the machines that surrounded him, but Javid knew his power came from another source. He was a Maker in the truest sense of the word. The ability to create objects merely by visualizing them in his head was a skill Javid could not comprehend, and yet he fully understood its power.

  “I won’t help you,” Mathew said.

  “You will help or you will never see your son again,” Ceejer said. “If my Guards destroy this Watchport, he will be trapped inside the simulation until he dies.”

  “You can’t destroy the Watchport,” Mathew said. “My work...”

  Ceejer’s small mouth turned upwards in something resembling a smile. “Then do as I instructed.”

  “I don’t understand what that is,” Mathew said, looking towards Elsala. “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “She is simply a program marked for deletion,” Ceejer said.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Mathew said. He then closed his eyes and held out his right hand towards Elsala. As she continued knocking over Soldiers on the other side of the ring, Javid allowed himself to believe—for a moment—that perhaps Alek’s father had no power over her. Then, without warning, she was suddenly visible.

  “Elsala,” Javid tried to call out, but his cracked ribs and damaged lungs prevented his voice from traveling past his lips. She was still running, apparently unaware that the Soldiers could now see her. Before he could warn her, one of the Soldiers swung an arm at her, striking her square in the face. Her body spun backward in mid air and she fell hard onto the ground, where she did not move.

  “Elsala,” he yelled as he tried to run toward her. The Soldier in front of him took the advantage and smashed one long arm into his back, crushing his spine and sending him sailing through the air. He landed face down on the ground less than a meter from his beloved.

  As what was left of his internal organs began to shut down, he felt the darkness closing over him. He used the last of his failing energy to reach out a hand and grasp Elsala’s rust-colored hair. “Oh, my beloved,” he whispered, “I have failed you again.”

  NINETEEN

  “No!” Alek shouted as he pushed Maya aside. “We can’t let him win.”

  “Ceejer’s an ‘it,’ not a ‘him,’” Maya replied, nervously surveying the room. “Besides, we seem to be out of options as well as time.”

  The water was now up to their waist, but he didn’t care. He turned to her and grabbed her arms. “We can still beat him,” he said as he squared his shoulders. “I can beat him.”

  “How, Alek? How can you beat a supervisor-class program with delusions of grandeur? The Core is Ceejer’s domain. He has the upper hand there.”

  “Now who’
s calling Ceejer a ‘he?’”

  “We can’t beat Ceejer, Alek. You can’t beat him.”

  “Yes, I can,” he said firmly.

  “How?”

  The water was climbing rapidly now, and he pushed himself toward the window. “It’s time to try your plan,” he said. “Let’s find something heavy before that glass breaks all the way.”

  “What are you up to?” she asked as she came up beside him. “What the hell are you planning now?”

  He touched the glass with his outstretched hand. It was vibrating slightly and he thought he could feel it bending inwards. She touched his shoulder, and he turned and kissed her deeply.

  “You have to trust me,” he whispered a moment later.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s only one way to beat Ceejer, but I need your help.”

  She hugged him. “I’ll do anything, Alek. You know that.”

  “You won’t want to do this,” he said cryptically.

  “Stop hinting at it and just tell me what the hell you’re planning.”

  “My father can create any program he wants,” he said, “just by imagining it.”

  “I realize that,” she said. “How does that help us?”

  “I need to acquire that ability,” he said. “Then, if I can hold the thought of a deletion gun program in my mind long enough, I should be able to create a real one inside the Core and use it to defeat Ceejer.”

  She pulled away from him, “That’s your plan? It’s crazy.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for starters, you’re not like him. You’re not a so-called living program. You’re a human being lying in an interface chamber, receiving sensory signals from the life-like Avatar in front of me.”

  “But, what if I was disconnected like my father?” He let the question hang there. Better to let her figure it out for herself.

  “The only way you can be disconnected from your body is to die in here,” she said.

  He stared at her, but didn’t say a word.

  Her face suddenly turned pale. “No,” she whispered.