by Phoenix Ward
“I don’t know,” the I.I. in her head said. “Defend yourself!”
She sat up in the cot. Her brain and body seemed to have an agreement to strike against her until she was fully awake. That only scared her more.
“I’m going to kill all of your friends, Beth,” Gary said. “Starting with you.”
“You’re a meat puppet,” she stated.
Gary nodded. “That’s right. Been in Gary here since we took Olympia. They didn’t stand a chance — and neither do you.”
Beth’s eyes darted toward the medical cabinet near the foot of her bed she was using as her personal footlocker. I think the gun they let me have is in there, she mused.
“No,” Simon interjected, “it’s in the toy chest. You couldn’t fit the ammo box with the gun in the medicine cabinet, so you moved it somewhere larger.”
Right, she said, remembering.
She didn’t move for the toy chest just yet. She wanted to wait for “Gary” to make the first move.
“I have to admit, you humans have it good with the whole body thing,” the meat puppet continued. He looked at his hands as if it was the first time he’d ever seen them. “I forgot how good the sensations of being ‘alive’ were. Even eating that slop you guys served up tonight was pure ecstasy. I can only imagine how good some of the other…sensations…can be.”
Beth felt like she was going to be sick. Her stomach ached as if something crawled into it and died overnight. She felt her fingers and toes go icy. Her eyes darted to the toy chest again.
“You’re a pretty woman, you know that?” the impostor commented. “I think I’d like to have a little fun with you before I kill your friends. See what I’ve been missing for the past thirteen years.”
Even through the dark, she could see the hunger in his eyes.
Can’t you jump into his implant and shut him down? Beth asked. Her thoughts felt scattered with panic.
“I’m trying!” Simon replied. “I can’t seem to get a lock on the processor. I don’t understand! It must be how he got past the E.M.P. emitter.”
Gary and Beth stared at each other for a moment, neither willing to make the first move. Then, when she thought she might be able to catch him by surprise, she lunged forward and pushed the meat puppet away from her bed while trying to dive at the toy chest. “Gary” only bounced off the opposite wall a little before regaining his balance.
Beth had to army crawl a little to reach the toy chest. She felt her fingertips on the cheap red plastic of the lid when a weight came down on her from behind. The attacker used the momentum from her shove and brought it back down upon her with his full weight. As he did, Beth let out a loud cry of pain.
The air was pressed out of her lungs. She felt like a rib cracked under the pressure of her assailant. Every breath hurt — each exhale a strained wheeze.
“Gary” started clawing at the medical scrubs Beth was using as her pajamas. He tried to loop some fingers into the drawstring waistband of her pants, but she pushed him away with her feet.
He came back with double the furor, grabbing at her bottom. He managed to get her pants halfway down her thigh when she turned around and clawed at his eyes, shrieking.
A pounding came at the door.
“What’s going on it there?” Bash shouted from the other side. He was trying to open the door, unaware that it was locked from the inside. “Beth, are you okay?”
“Help me!” she cried out.
Gary punched her in the mouth. Her head bounced off the floor a little, softened by one of the blankets that became strewn over the area.
The pounding on the door became louder and more violent. She could hear a number of voices outside now, but she was too stunned by the blow to understand what they were saying. A bit of light entered the room with each slam, the door bowing slightly as the others tried to knock it down.
Without looking, Beth kicked out and managed to put a heel in the meat puppet’s nose. He screamed a little and reeled back. She didn’t waste a second before throwing the toy chest open.
It was too dark to make out the contents, so she started to rummage. She felt something cold and metallic and gripped it like it was the rung to the only ladder keeping her from falling into a bottomless pit. It was only when she pulled it out that she realized it was a flashlight and not her handgun.
It’ll do, she thought before turning around and bashing her attacker in the forehead with the torch. He was trying to lunge at her again, but the blow stopped him in his tracks.
The door splintered and busted out of its frame. A few forms piled into the pediatrics room. One of them pointed the beam their own flashlight into the room.
The light hit Beth in the eye and she looked away. At that moment, she heard four gunshots in quick succession. A commotion came from her left as “Gary” tumbled into the toy chest headfirst. He writhed for a moment, then was still.
Beth looked up and saw Lia lowering her gun, a bloodless look of shock on her face.
Dr. Miller came in from the rear of the group.
“Beth! Are you okay?” he asked frantically, pushing past the others to see her. “What happened?”
“He was one of them,” Beth explained, rubbing her jaw. “He was a meat puppet.”
Beth could see the disbelief on the programmer’s face in the glow of Franklin’s flashlight.
“That can’t be,” Dr. Miller said. “I administered the test. He would have died if the emitter found anything.”
“Well, he didn’t,” Beth replied.
They all looked around at each other — then back at Beth — then to the dead man in the toy chest. All of them had the same mixture of sadness and terror in their faces.
“Tarov must have found some way to defend against my E.M.P. emitters,” Dr. Miller observed. “If so, we have no way of knowing who is human and who’s a meat puppet. Anyone could be the enemy, and we’d have no way of knowing.”
They all looked at each other.
Paranoia
A week passed since they killed “Gary”. The mood in the clinic went from tense to suffocating. Hardly anyone spoke to one another, just watching to make sure no one did anything suspicious. Everyone carried a weapon with them, even if they were just getting up to grab a glass of water.
Nobody was allowed in or out of the compound. Rather than risk sending someone out on supply runs — who might get attacked by I.I. insurgents who use them to find the rest of the survivors — they simply rationed what was left of Dr. Miller’s food stores. Everyone had an empty stomach, and that only made their attitudes worse.
At no point were the closed circuit cameras that lined the building unwatched. They took turns staring at the monitors, making sure no one came near the clinic. They wouldn’t even trust a baby, should one manage to crawl over the pavement and asphalt and request help. All strangers were potential enemies, and they weren’t going to take any more chances.
They even stopped listening to the broadcasts because of a new paranoia Dr. Miller inspired that the I.I.s might learn how to travel on radio waves. The programmer immediately debunked the theory as soon as he suggested it, but the genie was already out of the lamp. Everyone was picturing cyber terrorists getting into their brains through the presenter’s voice, turning on the others and transforming the clinic into a bloodbath. Ridiculous or not, it was enough to ruin the desire to power the old fashioned radio back on.
People even started to bicker and fight. The air in the clinic was so thick that it felt like Beth could reach out and grate it under her fingernails. Everyone was at each other’s throats over the most minor indiscretion. Even Dr. Miller, normally a beacon of zen, snapped at the others every now and then. He almost always followed it up with an emotional apology and then a long period of silence.
They all lived in silence now. There was no hum of machinery anywhere to be heard. No babble of crowds, no laughter of children playing in some park downwind. There was no barking, no music, and no flat sounds bleeding out o
f televisions. They were just alone with their thoughts, stuck in some involuntary meditation that never seemed to end.
Is it even worth surviving if this is how it is? Beth wondered. We might as well have already died. We seem to be in purgatory as it is.
“You realize that this is how a prison feels, right?” Simon said. “Except you know the world hasn’t ended. There are people outside the walls living it up. You just can’t.”
I guess so, Beth thought. Still doesn’t make it feel better.
“It’s not supposed to,” Simon replied.
She had taken to talking with the fugitive more and more. In fact, she came to think of him as her tether to sanity. The only thing keeping her from snapping and trying to escape the clinic. To let Tarov find her — find Dr. Miller — and get one step closer to eliminating all knowledge of his failsafe.
It may have been the total isolation — or it could have been the fear of dying during an extinction event — but Beth grew quite fond of Simon. She was more than aware of his effect on her moods, especially from within her own mind. She suspected he could sense it, too.
Beth was staring out of the small crack in the plywood that covered the window in her room. It had become like a television to her, and she spent hours a day simply staring out at the ruined town around them. The others would check on her, but ultimately decided her voyeurism wasn’t a threat.
Snow fell from a sky of slate gray. It came down in large clumps that drifted softly through the still breeze. A deer stood just inside the fence of the abandoned house next door. It seemed to be chewing on something on the ground, perhaps a patch of grass it had dug out in the snow.
Beth was in awe as she scanned its massive antlers. The buck must have been an old animal; there was a sort of dulling in the fur around its eyes. It lifted its head occasionally, still chewing, as the huge flakes of snow piled up on its back.
The detective thought back to the mall and the pet store of synthetic animals. She wondered if the deer was even real. Maybe he’s another artificial creature under the sway of Tarov and his Liberators. Maybe the deer was a spy, sending digital signals back to whatever constituted the I.I.’s headquarters. It could be staring at her right now and a team of exterminators could already be on their way.
She shook her head.
I’m growing paranoid, too.
“That’s natural right now,” Simon told her. “It could even keep you alive. But I don’t think you have to worry about the deer.”
That’s good, she thought. Though a part of me wishes it was a spy for Tarov. Sometimes, I really want a bunch of I.I. bodyshells and meat puppets to just bust in here and kill us all. Put us out of our misery. Then I wouldn’t have to sit here wondering when it will end anymore.
“That’s pretty morbid,” Simon commented.
It’s a morbid existence we have here, she replied.
“Well, while you were stewing in your self-pity, I managed to find another back route into the Liberator’s network,” the I.I. said.
Her head perked up and she raised her eyebrow at no one in particular. A small pluck of panic touched her chest.
What? she asked. Isn’t that how they found us at the Fog house? She couldn’t hide her more insulting thoughts from Simon.
“I know what you’re thinking — but you have to trust me,” Simon explained. “Now that I know they’re watching the connection, I know what not to do. I’m taking every precaution. I trade out login I.D.s every twenty seconds, mask my connection in seventy-nine-thousand different networks across the globe, cycling through all of them several times a second. They may know that I’m intruding their system, but they’ll have no idea where from. It’s untraceable.”
That’s what you said last time, Beth commented.
“Yeah, well we learn a little bit from each experience, don’t we?” Simon said. “I don’t think you’ll be all that upset with me when I explain what I found, though.”
That caught her interest. What? she asked. It better be good.
“I think I found Dr. Miller’s half of the failsafe,” he said.
His half?
“That’s right,” the I.I. replied. “He was keeping it on a private network, but I was able to make a copy. And that’s not all.”
I’m listening.
“Remember Dr. Miller’s partner? The one who made the Tarov A.I. with him?” Simon asked.
Dr. Silvar? she asked. What about him?
“I found him,” the I.I. answered. “He’s in a refugee camp a few states away. Some place called Fort Leddy.”
She couldn’t help but feel a little excited. If we could get a hold of him…
“We might be able to get the other half of the failsafe and stop Tarov,” Simon finished her thought. “We could end this war.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Beth heard Frank say. She had just walked into the room.
Seth was poised at the other side of the room with murder in his eyes. His body language told Beth that he was thinking about attacking Frank, who seemed to have no idea what his role in this situation was.
“You ate it right after I won it in poker!” Seth shouted. A bit of spittle flew from his tongue.
“I didn’t touch your cherry cobbler, man,” Frank insisted. “I knew that shit was yours and left it alone. I ain’t no thief.”
Everyone else in the clinic gathered around the pair as the shouting match continued. Dr. Miller told them to calm down, but he might as well have had his vocal cords removed. No one else tried to intervene, either afraid of getting hurt in the crossfire or not wanting to end their new source of entertainment.
“Liar!” Seth spat.
” ‘Liar’?” Frank echoed. “You want to talk about lying? Why don’t you tell everyone where the pain meds have been going?”
That struck a nerve in Seth. The blood seemed to drain away from his face before rushing back into it with full color. Seth stepped up to Frank so that they were practically touching nose tips. Frank stood his ground and didn’t step back.
“You saying I’ve been stealing them?” Seth asked, pure venom in his tone.
“Well, they aren’t walking out on their own,” Frank said. He tried to play it cool, stay aloof. It only enraged Seth more.
“Yeah, well I’m not the one sneaking out of the compound at night!” Seth accused.
Finally, Frank showed some embarrassment. His cheeks glowed red as his blood heated up. The others around him gasped a little at the accusation. “That’s a fuckin’ lie,” he replied.
“I saw you with my own eyes, two nights ago!”
“Bullshit! I was working on the refrigeration unit two nights ago. Ask the Doc!”
Seth wheeled around to look at the others. His eyes scanned over their faces as if he was looking for someone to come out and join his side.
“You believe this cobbler-stealing son of a bitch?” Seth asked, like he was addressing a jury. “He’s probably one of the meat puppets!”
“Man, that’s just what a meat puppet would say,” Frank retorted. “You’re all wound up, making leaps. Did you stop and think that maybe you’re projecting?” He turned to the audience. “If anyone’s possessed — it’s this asshole.”
Seth couldn’t take it anymore. He let out an animal-like growl before lunging for Frank. He grabbed the alleged cobbler thief by the throat and pinned him up against the wall.
The others finally sprung into action, as if a hypnosis that had been holding them dissolved. They shouted at Seth to let go of Frank and rushed up to try to pull him off. Frank kicked at his attacker, aiming the hard tips of his shoes for the other’s groin. He landed a hit. Seth lost his grip on him and fell back, winded.
“Get off me, man!” Frank shouted. Anger distorted his voice a little, making him sound a bit like a teenager. “The hell’s a-matter with you?”
Seth doubled over himself. When he stood back up, there was a sinister coldness in his gaze. He extended his right arm, revealing the gun
that was clutched in his hand.
“Whoa!” Frank said. He raised his hands up over his shoulders. “Calm down, man!”
“Seth!” Dr. Miller shouted. He stepped between the armed man and his target. “Put the gun down! We all just need to relax, okay?”
Seth’s face muscles twitched a little. There seemed to be an internal struggle going on in his mind. Like he has his own I.I. to argue with, Beth thought.
Then he looked around the programmer so he and Frank could lock eyes.
“I hope some sicko is making your little sister his meat puppet right now,” he taunted. “Doing whatever he likes with her body.”
He struck a nerve. Frank couldn’t keep his composure any longer. With a tightening of his lips, he marched forward, pushing past Dr. Miller like he was a turnstile. Once he was close enough, he charged at Seth.
The gun went off.
Beth’s ears rang with the sound of the explosion. Everyone had their hands up around their ears aside from Seth and Dr. Miller.
The programmer looked down at his chest and watched a spout of blood leak out of him and soak the front of his shirt. His face was stone cold with shock as he looked back up. Beta shrieked while everyone watched in astonishment.
“Seth,” Dr. Miller said, looking at the man who had shot him. Then he fell to the floor.
“You fucking killed him, man!” Bash yelled. “You killed him!”
Seth’s face drained of blood. His own eyes were wide with surprise. He looked around at the disgusted and horrified expressions surrounding him.
His voice was weak. “I didn’t mean — ” he started. “I wasn’t trying to shoot — I didn’t mean to do that.”
“You son of a bitch!” Frank bellowed. He used Seth’s shock against him and lunged at the shooter. “You’ll pay for that! I’ll kill you!”
The pair of them fell to the ground with a few grunts. Seth was too stunned to stop Frank from prying the gun out of his hand. He was too shocked to stop Frank from bashing him in the face with the butt of the gun. His face burst open with blood and his nose broke. Frank struck him over and over and over.