‘I am prepping the rifle now,’ Al responded.
‘We’ll go out and get them,’ Aneka said aloud.
‘I’ll get my rifle,’ Ella said quickly, turning toward the inner door.
‘Ella…’
‘Thirty people. You’ll need all the firepower you can get and my eyes work just as well in the dark as yours.’
‘Damn… I can’t think of a reason why that’s wrong. Hurry. Tell Cassandra to get Miss Forrester vaccinated and prep a load more doses.’
‘On it.’
~~~
A few chucks had followed Forrester to the university, but they were dispatched within seconds and after that it was easy. They moved silently, communicating by radio if they had to, and at a fast walking pace. No running. Aneka had been very clear on that.
The school was a low building, constructed of Plascrete, with little in the way of decorative features. The windows seemed small to Aneka, and fairly high up. They had to give poor light inside, but they had probably helped keep the occupants safe. At least until now.
A gang of chucks were trying their best to get past barricades which had been put up at the back of the main entrance. Forrester’s exit had been noticed and some of the creatures had decided that there might be food which was not running like mad away from them.
‘You two watch for more coming,’ Aneka said. ‘Those weapons are likely to do as much collateral damage as intended.’
‘It’s a good point,’ Ella replied, a little sourly.
‘I’m sure you’ll get to blow up a few on the way back.’ Aneka stepped into the foyer and began firing. There was the ripping sound of her weapons spraying needles into bodies for a couple of seconds, and then silence.
And then part of the barricade was pulled back and a face appeared. A man, young, but not a teenager. He looked scared and relieved at the same time.
‘You… you’ve come to get us out? Cam made it?’
‘Cam barely made it,’ Aneka said, ‘but yes, we need to get you all to the university. Now. There’ll be more of them in the morning. They know you’re here and they’re tenacious bastards.’
‘We have children…’
‘I know. Ella, with me. We need to get this organised.’
Without any order, Al took up a position in the open front of the foyer, his eyes scanning the surroundings. He stood there, still as only a robot could manage. Aneka grinned, despite the situation.
‘I should have called you Arnie,’ she said, silently.
‘I’ll be here,’ Al replied, but he did not do a fake Austrian accent.
They had holed up in the gymnasium and, as Aneka had suspected, the high windows meant it was a dark room, but there was plenty of space for the kids, adults, and what supplies they had managed to collect. Aneka surveyed her charges: there were maybe sixteen in their teens, the rest younger, plus the teaching staff and a few strays.
‘All right… My name is Aneka, this is Ella, and we’ve come to get you out of here. We need to go now, so we’re all going for a walk. That is a walk. No one is to run, no matter what happens. We have another person outside who’s going to help us get through this. Nothing is going to happen so long as you all stay together. Does everyone understand?’
There were a lot of nods and mumbles in reply. One man actually spoke. ‘Those things… they’ll be waiting…’
‘And we’ve killed hundreds today. Do as we say and you’ll be quite safe.’ She looked around again. ‘Now, let’s get moving.’
Al and Ella took the lead, moving out from the foyer with their guns at the ready. They needed them quickly as chucks emerged from the nearby buildings, but the sudden dismantling of the creatures seemed to lend some courage, even to the man who had spoken up earlier.
Aneka brought up the rear where she could watch the sides of the procession and make sure there were no stragglers. Periodically she flicked one of her guns to the rear to check behind them, and that was how she spotted the trail of chucks they were developing. She turned, spraying needles toward them and half a dozen went down in the first volley. Most of the others stopped to make use of the more easily available food sources. Having stupid cannibals following you could be advantageous at times.
It took them ten minutes to walk the kilometre or so to the university, and they had lost no one by the time they were safely inside.
‘We’re going to need to get you people medals,’ Shaw said as Cassandra and Ella busied themselves vaccinating the newcomers. ‘Maybe a statue outside.’
‘I’ll settle for finding more people alive,’ Aneka replied.
‘I’d quite like a statue,’ Al said. ‘Something appropriately regal. Being largely a disembodied intelligence, it would be nice to have something solid to be remembered by.’
It was an odd thing to say, but somehow it rang true. ‘It wouldn’t capture your best feature,’ Aneka said, turning it into a joke. ‘Your enormous… intellect.’
‘I shall choose to ignore the obvious innuendo,’ Al replied haughtily, ‘and bask in my heroic status.’
Shadataga, 22.2.531 FSC.
Abraham Wallace stood beside the slim, artificial-looking form of Reality and, as far as Drake was concerned, there was not that much to tell between them. Wallace was a genius while the AI just simulated being one by having access to seemingly unending information on physics, but that amounted to the same thing and physically the two were a good match. Wallace had grown up in a low-gravity environment which had resulted in a very tall, lanky body which looked almost as unnatural to most Jenlay as Reality’s did. And the pair of them were absolutely fascinated by the physical sciences.
‘All the probe data is within parameters,’ Wallace said. ‘I can’t see any reason not to go ahead with a live trial.’
‘It would appear that all our calculations have proven correct,’ Reality agreed. ‘None of the data has been more than point one per cent at variance with predicted values.’
‘So we’re going ahead?’ Drake asked.
‘All my subordinates agree that this is the only logical next step and that the danger of failure is sufficiently slight that we can proceed safely.’
‘What my colleague means, Captain,’ Abraham stated, grinning, ‘is that the chances of us blowing up are extremely small.’
Drake’s eyes narrowed. ‘How small?’
‘Somewhat less than one in two hundred and fifty million,’ Reality supplied.
‘Somewhat less than? That doesn’t sound like you, Reality.’
‘I have been told that I should be less exact when dealing with non-scientists. I can innumerate the probability to seventeen significant figures if you prefer.’
‘Uh, no, that’s fine.’
The synthetic gave a nod. ‘We were less sure of success before the last probe run. In fact, some of my subordinates felt that it was unsafe at that probability level.’
‘What was it then?’
‘One in two hundred and forty million.’
Drake gave a snort of a laugh. ‘I’ll see to getting the Hyde ready. And we should probably talk about what us organics view as an acceptable risk factor sometime.’ He walked off leaving a slightly perplexed-looking drone behind him.
Norden Forest, New Earth.
‘We’re going to have to get into the city and get to a hardwired terminal,’ Truelove stated flatly. ‘We don’t know they’re working, but the wide-area network is not coming back up and we need to get this data to one of Winter’s avatars.’
‘You know they’ll come after us as soon as they figure out where we are?’ Sharissa said, but she was looking resigned.
‘I go in with Janine. You hold things here. Hopefully Winter can arrange to get us out of this mess as well, but if not… Well, it’ll just be us who get captured and by then the data should be somewhere useful.’
‘You’re not expecting us to like this idea, right?’ Dillon put in. ‘I may not be some trained spy… We aren’t trained in this kind of thing, but these gu
ys made it personal.’ Beside him, Katelyn was nodding.
‘Two people have a better chance of moving around undetected,’ Janine said. ‘It’s not a matter of training, just logistics. Besides, if we fail you’re our failsafe.’
‘How are you even going to get there?’ Janna asked. ‘We dumped our transport on the way here.’
Janine gave a shrug. ‘We’ll hike out to one of the nearby villages and steal a car. It’s not like anyone’s going to be able to report it missing.’
Tanner Business District, Yorkbridge.
‘It’s kind of fitting,’ Truelove said as she plugged a tablet into one of the wall sockets in an office building.
‘Sorry?’ Janine asked. She was busy watching at a nearby window. The small industrial park they had decided was their best choice of target seemed to be more or less empty, but they might have been spotted by any one of fifty security cameras getting in.
‘This is the park where Charles Hunter had his New Earth base of operations. Aneka and Ella were taken to Odanari from here. It’s kind of fitting that this is where we ended up.’
‘I’m rather hoping that this isn’t where we “end up” and that we’ll be leaving without a firefight. Is the network functional?’
Truelove tapped over a couple of settings screens and then grinned. ‘Yes.’
‘All right. Burst transmission, like we planned. Get Winter’s attention and get her out here to meet us. We can transmit the files themselves if there’s trouble.’
Truelove nodded. ‘I know. Sending now.’ She tapped a few more controls, waited for a ‘burst sent’ message to be displayed, and then disconnected the cable. ‘Done.’
‘Great. Now we move.’
They had selected that building to send the help request from because its rear let out onto an unmonitored yard which gave them access to any of three other buildings in which they could hide. It was possible that, with the vast amount of data flowing around the city’s networks, no one had noticed the brief connection of Truelove’s tablet, but it was equally possible that someone had.
Finding a room on the top floor of one of their options, the one they had indicated they would be in in their message, the couple settled down to wait, taking turns to watch the roads below for any sign of anyone searching for them.
It was twenty minutes before Janine frowned and turned to look at Truelove. ‘Did you hear…?’
‘Vertol engines,’ Truelove replied, nodding. ‘They’re not exactly hiding their arrival. Do you think I should send the rest of the data?’
‘No. Wait until they’re checking this building.’
‘They may not… No, I suppose they will.’ She got the tablet ready, just in case.
‘Getting radio chatter,’ Janine said a few minutes later. ‘Encrypted and not strong yet, but they’re getting closer.’ She ducked away from the window. ‘They’re on the street.’
Truelove swallowed and then focussed on listening for the sound of anyone entering the building. She could hear the radio traffic as well now, but it seemed to pause, not getting stronger. They would be searching the building she had made the connection from. That would take several minutes. They had that long before she had to connect again, maybe longer if they tried a different building first. Once she plugged the tablet in again, however, it would be a matter of seconds before they were found.
‘Come on, Winter,’ Truelove muttered.
‘I got here as fast as I could,’ a voice replied and a figure in a jet-black, all-encompassing bodysuit materialised in the doorway. The mask shrank away as they turned to look revealing a pretty, dark-eyed face framed in short, mid-brown hair: Winter’s Number Three avatar, the combat model. The firmly muscled physique was pretty clear through the thin, nanofabric suit, and she was carrying a large bag with the same camouflage coating.
‘Am I glad to see you,’ Janine said, grinning.
‘Yes, well we’ve been rather worried too, but there’s time for that later.’ Winter dropped the bag onto the floor, squatting down beside it to open it. ‘Clothes and anything you need to take with us in here.’ She pulled out two wide, black belts. ‘Then you put these on and we leave. Hurry, they’ll be in here soon.’
The tablet and their weapons went into the bag, which already contained a large, efficient-looking rifle, and Winter went on as they began to strip. ‘Once the suits close, breathe through your noses. The suit will interface with your implants to allow you to see. They’re synchronised so that we can see each other, but no one else will be able to see us.’
‘What about communication?’ Truelove asked.
‘Once the suit closes, you don’t. Radio silence until we’re out and safe. It’s a little unsettling having these wrap around you. Just keep your mouth closed, breathe through your nose, and try not to panic.’
‘Easy for you to say.’ Truelove took one of the belts and snapped it around her waist. It activated immediately and she felt something like cold metal beginning to spread out over her skin. Her fists clenched.
‘Stay calm,’ Winter said, ‘and follow me when we go.’
Truelove gave a nod. The metal was sliding down her legs now having done a rather intimate job of sealing itself over her genitals, and it had reached her throat. She pressed her lips together just before it crawled over her mouth. There was a brief instant of panic as it covered her nostrils and she could not inhale, but then it settled and she could breathe again… And that was when it reached her eyes. Darkness enveloped her and she fought the urge to scream, and then she could see. Actually, she could see in every spectrum there was and the sudden burst of information was a little overwhelming.
She could see the bursts of radio transmissions coming from the soldiers outside. One or two seemed to be heading for the building. The reflections of those signals let her see echoes of the walls and building structures around her. Was this what Aneka saw all the time?
Winter’s mask closed over her head and she shifted from a solid, black figure into a flickering, ghostly one. Checking beside her she found that Janine had taken on the same shifting appearance. Her own arm seemed solid, but an indicator in her vision field stated that the camouflage system was operating and she had to take it on faith that it was.
Picking up the bag, Winter activated its camouflage system and started toward the door. It was time to leave.
Sapphira.
Aneka’s image materialised in the flight environment where Gwy and Ella were busy not flying. She had had to plug in in the cabin because Ella was in the flight chair and had been for a couple of hours.
‘Oh, hi,’ Ella said, smiling wearily. ‘I needed to keep busy so…’ She waved a hand at the multiple screens hanging in the air around her.
‘Uh-huh,’ Aneka replied. ‘Flight plans?’
‘Yes. I figured the best thing for tomorrow would be a detailed scan of the planet. All the resolution Gwy can manage, which is very high I might add.’
‘Thank you, Ella,’ Gwy said proudly.
‘We should be able to get a pretty good idea of where the chucks are concentrated and which regions have remained relatively unaffected. Then they can prioritise the inoculations based on that map.’
‘Will a day be enough?’ Aneka asked, scanning the screens.
‘Did I say Gwy was amazing? I think I alluded to it anyway.’
‘Of course,’ Gwy put in, ‘Aggy’s sensors could do it faster, or to a higher resolution, but…’
‘But I think a one-centimetre resolution, multi-spectral map of the entire planet in a day is quite adequate for our needs,’ Ella stated.
‘Uh, yeah,’ Aneka said, raising an eyebrow. ‘We’ll be able to see the looks on their faces.’
‘More importantly, we should be able to identify living people and chucks. Then, I guess, we hit the stations the day after.’
‘We can plan that out while we’re in orbit.’
‘Yes. I was thinking… Those guns of ours might be a bit dangerous on a space station.’
/>
Aneka nodded. ‘I’ve got alternatives for that. I must say, not being here for the clean-up is making me feel happier. Sort of.’
‘It was bad?’
‘We found another ten living on the outskirts of town. This place used to have about two thousand inhabitants and that’s been reduced to less than a hundred. That’s a lot of bodies that need to be incinerated.’
Ella frowned, biting her lip. ‘I want to find the person who did this and roast their balls over hot coals before I kill them.’
Aneka stepped forward, pulling Ella’s virtual body into a hug. The redhead’s head settled on her shoulder. ‘That’s not like you, love,’ Aneka said, her voice soft.
‘When they used this virus to do this, they made it kind of personal,’ Ella replied. ‘They’ve killed thousands of people, Aneka. Thousands! And it’s probably just to keep us occupied while they think up something worse.’
‘That thought had crossed my mind. I’m just not sure what they could do that’s worse than this.’
Yorkbridge Mid-town.
‘The man’s insane!’ Winter said.
Truelove was not sure she had ever seen a look of disbelief on any of the AI’s faces, but there it was. Then again, it had taken her several seconds to really believe that Pierce could actually go through with his plan, and she had spent more time with him.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think he probably is. Maybe not clinically, but he’s definitely gone past “the ends justify the means” so far he can’t see either.’
They were meeting in an abandoned tower block where Number Five, an oriental-looking woman, had set up a cluttered, but effective, hideout with access to communications and fitted out with several banks of computers which were monitoring network traffic. Three was still with them, sitting at a table checking her weapons while she waited for something else to do.
‘I’ll send the data to Shadataga,’ Five said. ‘I think this needs outside intervention. I’ll request that you and the others are evacuated. It’s not safe here and–’
‘We’re not going,’ Truelove said. ‘The others, yes, but Janine and I are staying. We’re needed here. When this blows up, and it will, in Pierce’s face, Elroy’s going to need someone who can sort out the security services.’
Aneka Jansen 6: The Lowest Depths of Shame Page 19