Scavenger: A.I.: (Sand Divers, Book Two)

by Timothy C. Ward

  He passed through and made the winding trek up to the next floor and the room where he’d found Jules. The hall reeked with her decomposition.

  On the floor in the small office, the love of his life lay on her back between the desk chair and wall. He opened the door slowly to reveal her torn rubber shoes and bloodstained gray pants. Her skin was a greenish tint and was beginning to bloat from internal gasses. It was too late for an autopsy. The only blood was from gashes on her extremities, likely from blade strikes or some other slashing sharp object.

  On the other side of the desk was a briefcase. The silver outside was lined with ridges and locked by a key slot by the handle. When he’d found her, he hadn’t had time to do much but check her vitals, take her sunbolt, and run back to help Rush.

  Now that he had time, even if only a minute, he just wanted to collapse and weep. Jules. He compromised and dropped to his knees. “What were you doing here?” He planted his hands on the carpet and closed his eyes against tears. I would have helped if you’d have told me.

  No, you would have argued against it. That’s why she went alone.

  He looked up at her chin, stopping his eye level from reaching her eyes. “Who hurt you?” his voice became a growl.

  Her leather backpack was set standing upright in the corner. A scroll of bent paper in an unkempt roll was nearly consumed in the bag’s shadow, tucked between it and the wall. He lifted the bag and snatched the paper. N was written in dried blood. He unrolled the paper. Her handwriting in the dark ink was nearly as striking as if she’d sat up and spoke the words.

  My beloved Ned,

  That I believe you’ll somehow find this note is either childish or a shout to Colorado that we have the connection that ties the stars. I chose the latter. Unfortunately, my faith in you does not rule out the chance that someone else will find me. The Gov’s son, Warren has been close for a month, and I think my time’s running out.

  I’m so sorry I had to hide so many things from you. You know how hard it is, you must, even if you don’t seem to show it, for a second birther to survive on the surface without bringing up the sand we nearly buried ourselves with. I know you’ve seen my faults. I love you for seeing them and not looking away.

  I’m afraid one of them, though, would have made you look away. I take my shame to my grave and ask that every ounce of love you can squeeze from your heart be poured into a cup of forgiveness. Pour it on my corpse and ask Colorado not to look upon me with contempt anymore.

  Glen and I never did anything. But I wasn’t completely honest with our relationship.

  A long scribble marred the next line.

  Below that:

  I’m not feeling well. In my pack, and I didn’t find it until I got inside, was a note from Warren. ‘I told you, sandrat.’ He —— I’m sorry. I wasn’t smarter than him. I lied to you. I didn’t let our love satisfy me. I’m so sorry. Please, Nedz, please understand. I had to fight back.

  And while she was gone, he’d heard Dixon’s gunfire and gave in to the fight himself. I’ve been so foolish, he thought. You might still be alive if I’d fought sooner—with you.

  If you have found this, her note continued, as I believe more than anything else that you will, it means you have the weapon that I could not deliver myself.

  The key is registered thirteen. Don’t forget to bring me with. Don’t leave without it.

  Instr—

  Her r trailed off the page.

  Drops of blood stained the dust covered carpet. Her blood, he assumed.

  Why did she sign the note with blood?

  What was “the key is registered thirteen?” Why were some of the e’s written differently, as three horizontal lines? What did she mean by bringing her with? Where was he supposed to take her? Did she mean not to leave Fort Pope?

  With the self-destruct implosion able to go off any moment, he had to take her out of Fort Pope. They were a thousand miles from the nearest reclaimed hospital.

  Registered thirteen. Thirteen.

  He thought over anything in the base marked with that number. None of the avenues reached that high. Was it a computer tower? Each one was registered, as were the desktops, with numbers. Was she here for a computer? A file? There wasn’t enough information in her riddle, unless the key was on the computer, but why would she go that far? The data center was down on LL4.

  “Jules, you didn’t give me much. I don’t have time for this.”

  He put the note in his pocket, left her and the case in the manager’s office and headed for the Data Center to check his theory of a computer registered number thirteen.

  3 – Rush

  Singer helped move Rush’s body in its fatigued state, through a door and upstairs to LL3 and out of the Depository. “What’s Rtix?” Rush asked Star over their suit comms.

  They entered a hall Rush hadn’t seen before. Polished walls and dusty floors that made his steps slick showed no evidence of M-MANs following them.

  “It’s the nano-enhanced nitrogen vapor designed to quarantine people and materials infected by M-MANs.”

  And you didn’t think to tell me? “So, will Avery be okay?”

  Star pointed to the end of the hall and regained her stride. “Let’s find out.”

  Her interest couldn’t entirely be in Avery’s benefit. Rush followed, fighting the weight in his bones begging for rest.

  Dive view.

  The hallway blinked into a blueprint view with all four walls encasing green M-MANs as concentrated as a dive light through a narrow tunnel. Their shade from yellow to green intensified in a box within the walls in time with Star’s passing through.

  Could the Rtix chamber rid Star of whatever is making her so loony?

  IF SHE’S GOING THERE, I DOUBT IT.

  A door slid open at the end of the hall early enough for Star to maintain her pace. She cut behind an adjacent hall soon after, disappearing into its thick red.

  Rush broke around the corner to spot Star inside a room, knelt by a lying still Avery.

  M-MAN green filled almost half of Avery’s frame.

  Rush cursed. Dock view.

  “Hey, Rush.” Avery’s dark skin color returned as the dim light of the chamber took over from dive view.

  Rush knelt on Avery’s other side. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he thought Avery’s skin seemed more polished, the flex in his muscles tighter. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Like my body thinks I’m lying in the center of a snake pit and if I move I’ll die.”

  The monitor on the wall said: Infection: 45%…46%…

  “Did the Rtix chamber start?” Rush asked. “Where’s Nedzad?”

  “It did. Five times.” Avery swallowed back his pain. “No more. It hurts.”

  “We did.” Star wiped sweat off Avery’s eyebrow. “I stopped it when I opened the door.”

  Avery’s eyes searched above as though someone were speaking to him. They were losing him. “Is Nedzad here?”

  Rush began to rise. “Maybe we need to adjust—”

  Star stopped him. “It won’t work. This is more than M-MAN.”

  WHICH MEANS WE HAVE NO MEANS OF CONTAINING IT.

  If I can feel Jeff’s M-MANs, I can fix this.

  I’D RECOMMEND NOT.

  Phantom pain from last time he was connected smoldered like brittle cold fangs clenching in his arm. It’s not real. You have no choice.

  YOU DO. FORT POPE HAS LOTS OF MACHINES AND PROGRAMS TO HELP IDENTIFY HOW THE M-MANS HAVE EVOLVED.

  “We don’t have time for that.”

  “What?” Star asked. “What are you doing?”

  He looked her in the eye with its blue star orbiting below the pupil. “You’re not going to save the world by yourself. If I hold sway over these M-MANs in my connection to Jeff, maybe I can help you keep them in control. If the world fell even with Rtix, now that we know it doesn’t work, we have no choice but to keep the sands at bay, M-MAN or otherwise.”

  Rush slid his visor over his eyes, se
tting the connections over his temples.

  Star began to reach out. “Don’t. You’ll—”

  He pushed a button on Singer’s collar, powering his dive suit. This time, instead of a hesitant toe-tap into the power before him, he dove head first. Instead of pain, the stretching of his body and mind embraced him with a depth he could never fulfill. “Whoa!”

  He felt Jeff’s connection, even as he was where the boy was, or could not be, with the flick of a mental switch. His mind encompassed serenity in a quiet that drowned out the presence of the room. He’d taken on a positive growth, like witnessing new strength powered from within. Had he been like this when Fisher died, he could have moved on without losing a step. He’d have missed the company of his son but it wouldn’t have stopped him because his purpose still needed to be fulfilled.

  He smiled at Star and her hesitant stare. He could get used to this. “If this power is the only way, I won’t let you bear the burden alone. I did that with Fish, but I won’t do it again.”

  “Okay. Okay good. It’s about time.” She pointed down at Avery. “Start with him.”

  Rush switched to dive view. Green pixels coursed in thin rivers within Star’s face and into her brain, thickening around her chest and in the veins and arteries traveling through her body. Before long, she’d be like Avery. “Maybe I should start with you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Rush didn’t understand the evolution taking place within them, so he let her have the last word. For now.

  He let his senses drift down to Avery’s body. His was the worst of three and therefore might be the better specimen to study. A warm friction attached to his awareness, moving in time with the hum of pixels replicating in warm bursts within Avery’s body. The brightest points layered from Avery’s skin and darkened down into his muscle. Their weight held at the end of an imaginary lever, one Rush could wield to move them at his will.

  “I can see why you were so enthusiastic about this gift,” Rush said. He imagined Avery stand and watched his old friend mirror his thoughts with action.

  Star backed up to make room. “Good.”

  Rush switched to dock view to see the color return to her face. She didn’t appear as domineering as when he’d been unwilling to eat the plasma at the bottom of the Depository cavern. Her joviality had returned. Not quite what it was before. She’d changed since they arrived, but then again it could be that she’d changed in the past two years of their partial separation. She studied him right back, possibly thinking the same thing.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Right.” She lowered her visor over her eyes, then tapped the helmet button, closing it onto her neck shielded collar. “Let’s go then. I want to see how far can you map. I’m still recovering and haven’t located Nedzad yet.”

  Rush followed her into the hall, thinking for Avery to walk behind him. Dive.

  The walls became a jungle of microscopic green lights moving about as each touch replicated and shared signals. He let his mind hop into the circuit. His view of the walls became an expanded presence, similar to growing larger shoulders and longer arms he could use to tug and relocate at will.

  The armory on LL3 pinged back activity. Rush pointed to their left. “The armory. Let’s go.”

  4 - Nedzad

  The hallway leading back toward the clinic and armory had a dark sheen on the walls. The concrete from before was now coated in a black, granite-type surface. His password allowed him into the armory, where lockers and ammo crates were left open from the last time he was in here. The absence of voices and his passing through naked left him like a stranger creeping through a neighbor’s tent.

  He slipped into a new suit and twisted to see the wound in his lower right side. The bandage was a burgundy stain of dried blood with a darker center where his stitching must have opened. A first aid kit they’d opened last time had a fresh bandage and dressings.

  With his wound cleaned and covered, he zipped up his suit and donned his visor. The screen’s navigation bar lit up on the bottom, showing full power.

  Rush appeared on his visor, then shrank to an R on his icon dashboard. “Hey, Nedzad. How are you doing?”

  Nedzad’s heart jumped at the sudden voice, then slowly calmed as he recognized his friend. “Hey, Rush. Glad to be alive.”

  “Where are you?”

  Nedzad exhaled and sat on the bench. “Getting a new suit. I took Avery to an Rtix chamber to cleanse the M-MANs. He should be done by now. I can go check on him in a few minutes. Where are you?”

  “I’m with Avery, actually.”

  “With him? Rush, he’s extremely infectious. You haven’t opened the Rtix chamber, have you?”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay. Star and I are immune, somehow. Could be from the nanos we got from The Gov and Warren. What I wouldn’t give to ask them about what happened in here.”

  “You’re not immune.” Nedzad stood, checked the power on his suit’s DL pistol. Full.

  “Yes we are.”

  “They’ll find a way.” Nedzad quickly walked to the door, driven by the fear that it’d lock before he reached it. He lunged and extended his hand under the sensors. The door slid open. He exhaled but still took a long step through. “You’re not safe. You sound like you’re not afraid.”

  “Of course I am. The Rtix hasn’t worked on Avery. Star’s drank a lot more plasma than I have, and I see a similarity between what’s going on in her and what I see in Avery. We need to do some more research on what these people knew about the M-MANs.”

  The granite black walls shivered. Maybe they didn’t. It was so brief, he couldn’t be sure. He moved toward the elevator bay, turned into a room sectioned off by cubicles and began to jog. He didn’t want to get stuck in an elevator near the M-MANs concentration zone. He was too close as it was.

  “They knew enough to know the M-MANs needed locked up. Can you see what they are doing now?” Nedzad asked.

  “We’re not sure. I cleansed Star’s head during the fight. I think they are waiting for her to reconnect.”

  “Reconnect? Rush, you can’t let her.”

  Star appeared on his visor’s icon dashboard and shrank to an S. “What makes you think he can stop me?”

  Nedzad shook his head and took out his DL. I’m sorry, Rush, but I can’t let her destroy our world again.

  “What she means is, we can use them like tools,” Rush said. “We have to be ready when The Gov returns.

  Nedzad held the trigger and aimed the DL at the floor. An EM vine squeezed muscle from his finger up to his elbow as the pistol gathered power from his suit. “I agree that we must be ready, but if they aren’t destroyed by the time he arrives, they never will be.”

  “What are you doing?” Rush asked.

  How does he know I’m doing something? The suits don’t share that kind of info.

  The EM vine wrapped its barbs over his bicep. He released the trigger. The force kicked his arm back, releasing a heat wave as the floor buckled and caved. A four-foot hole exposed wires and shards of the ceiling in the floor below.

  “Where are you?” Rush asked.

  The hole in the floor wasn’t completely clear. Nedzad held the DL over the center and pulled the trigger. As the pulse gripped up his wrist, he considered the connection between his suspicion of how Rush could know he was up to something and whether or not he was telling the truth about Star needing to reconnect. Behind him, along the wall encasing the elevator shaft, the dim emergency lights illumined a dark stain slowly consuming the concrete. It could take a few minutes for it to reach him but that might not be the only direction it came from.

  “Rush, if you’re working with Star to use the M-MANs, you need to stop. Disconnect if you aren’t already. This power can’t be allowed.” Nedzad released the trigger, sending a whoosh that cleared wires and bent metal to widen the hole leading to the floor below. He holstered the DL, dropped into the hole and landed in a squat on LL4’s surface.


  “Everything’s under control, Nedey,” Star said. “I’ve already reconnected.”

  Everything’s under control? Rush knew about the containment sequence. Had he stopped it somehow? “I know the love of husband to wife, Rush, but as a sentry, you also have to consider the safety of those we’ve sworn to protect.”

  A shadow moved from behind a cubicle wall ahead, three feet tall and chattering from its peak. Nedzad stopped. More sources of the clicking vibration emerged from paths through cubicles, yet hidden in the dark unexposed from the light stealing through the hole above him.

  Nedzad gripped his DL a little tighter.

  “Don’t bother. Look at your feet.”

  Pairs of granite hands morphed out of the floor, rising above his suited feet in a pose ready to grasp around his ankles.

  “You should consider protecting yourself,” Star said.”

  The hands formed shackles close to his ankles.

  “We don’t want to fight,” Rush said. “We just can’t let you stop us.”

  Nedzad considered calling their bluff and jumping out from the reach of the hovering hands. Better to talk them down than force them into action in their state of mind. This isn’t you, Rush. This plan won’t work. “Rush, you can’t leave. Pass the threshold and the base’s defenses will bury you. Star has to disconnect.”

  “The containment sequence has been dismantled, Nedzad,” Star said. “We’ll leave when we’re good and ready. If you’d like to join us, you can start with telling us where you’re going and why.”

  Nedzad needed time. His mission wasn’t lost. “Okay.” How were they controlling the M-MANs? The Poseidon Rush was in? It had an interface that could issue computer commands, but the M-MANs were a carnivorous entity. There was a variable causing them to submit. Something from The Gov? Warren?

  Nano-built canines crept out of the shadows. Their jaws trembled with simmering malice. Paw step after calculated paw step closed him in.