The Sentient Mimic (The Sentient Trilogy Book 2)

by Ian Williams

  “Nope. It’s running at normal speed, but he’s still wandering around the ruins. We could end up with hundreds of hours of this shit.”

  Most of the other memories had only lasted a few seconds before becoming completely unusable. This one, by comparison, had lasted a lifetime. A lifetime spent walking through a war zone without any signs of life. Death had swept through the Sentient world like a tornado, kicking everything up and tossing it around with little effort, or reason.

  “Can I ask you something?” Rhys said, his eyes still glued to the screen.

  “Sure.”

  “You know him, don’t you?”

  She glanced over to Ninety-three as he rested peacefully in place. “Yes.”

  “I thought so. So who is he, the one in the video I mean?”

  Even though she had only known him briefly, his face had been anything but forgettable. The one he now hid behind was undoubtedly human. His real one, however, was not.

  “His name is Luke. He was there when Sanctuary was destroyed. He’s the Sentient who ran the place with a human called Stephen.”

  Saying the words still could not really make it any easier to accept. It felt odd to say it out loud, even scary. She had not uttered the name since Sanctuary had fallen. Luke was someone she had known in what now felt like another lifetime entirely. Remembering him now made her anxious, as though the sheer mention of his name somehow made the events from a year-and-a-half ago more real. It was not possible to deny it any longer, or to pretend it had been a dream of kinds.

  “So he escaped his world to help you?” Rhys said.

  “Looks that way.”

  “What about your missing friend?”

  “I have no idea. All I know is that these memories of his world are no good to us. I need to see what he did while in our world, while in Jack’s body. There has to be more of it. Luke must have seen Graham somewhere before he escaped.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  Peeling his eyes away from the screen for the first time in probably at least an hour, Rhys twisted in his chair and switched on a second screen by their side. It was also running through some of the footage from earlier. With the main focus remaining on the current memory, Rhys had begun to multitask on something else.

  “What are you doing there?” she asked, pointing at the second display.

  “It’s just a hunch.”

  “You want to share it with me?”

  He only replied after considering for a second or two. “Well,” he began, swivelling his seat around to face her. “That clip we watched before our friend passed out, the one where he escaped, I’m trying to find out where that might have happened. I’ve had some problems with the footage though, so I cleaned it up a little first. Once that finished I started another program to scan the cityscape we saw as he jumped out the window. If there’s enough detail, we may be able to locate the part of the city the building is in.”

  “Really? That would be worth a look. Any idea how long it’ll take to find out?”

  “Hang on, let me check.”

  A constant flickering of green squares dashed about the frozen image, stopping on anything the program considered relevant. A good portion of the screen had already been highlighted in the same green after being checked. Rhys brought up another small window with a flurry of screen taps.

  “Says it should take another twenty minutes or so to look over the entire image. Although I’d expect to have a rough area worked out pretty soon. We’ve already got a section of the background finished, look.” He pointed to a tall glass-clad building reaching high above the city in the far distance of the picture.

  “What’s that?”

  “You really have been away too long, Phoenix. That’s the new Mayor’s fancy building. He had it built after he took over. Took only six months to build...”

  Phoenix was not as impressed as he appeared to have hoped.

  “Anyway.” He continued regardless. “It’s in the city centre. From that the program can work out the rest.”

  “Can’t it give us a rough idea while it works it out?”

  “Sure, let me just…” He began to type with a frenzy of finger taps at the virtual keyboard on the screen. When he stopped, he swivelled the display to face her. “It’s somewhere around there.”

  She studied the map he brought up and felt her shoulders become heavy all of a sudden. Even though the area was vast, it included exactly the same location as that of an old haunt of hers. This had once been a place of drug abuse and misinformation, one she had fought hard to leave behind. She knew it had to be the same place, it was too much of a coincidence for it to be nearby and not be the one.

  “Fuck’s sake,” she said, as she lowered her head into her hands, resting it like a dead weight on her thighs. A loud grunt was all she could manage to display her dislike of the location.

  “What’s wrong?”

  A loud slap of her hands against her legs, then she stood up and stretched some more. This time it was to release the tension that had quickly built up. “I think I know which place it is,” she said. “Can you zoom in on the map, just there?” She placed her finger over the offending building. Annoyingly, she did not have the power to squish the place out of existence.

  “Sure, there. Holy shit, you were right,” Rhys said, as he pulled up a street level view. “The surrounding buildings all match. So what’s there?”

  “It’s one of Anthony’s buildings, where he kept his Isaac worshippers. No-one should be there anymore, it should be empty.”

  Rhys pointed back at the frozen image of the city on his second screen. “Well, it isn’t empty. That Luke guy, the one currently sleeping off a major headache, came from there. I’d say it’s still in use.”

  “Damn.”

  She did not want to go. Unfortunately, there was no way of telling her feet that, they were already carrying her body straight over to her bag. She then began to pack away her things.

  “What are you going to do?” Rhys said from behind. She heard his chair squeak as he stood abruptly.

  “The only thing I can do. I’ve got to go take a look.”

  “Are you mad? You can’t go there by yourself, what if someone’s still there?”

  “Then I’ll deal with them.”

  He pulled her around and held her in place while he spoke directly into her eyes. “I’m not letting you go out there alone. If you’re going, I’m going too.”

  “No, you should stay here and keep Luke safe. He’s going to be confused when he wakes up. Besides, I don’t want to leave him with Matt, I don’t trust him.”

  After letting go of her, Rhys stood in place and studied her face as she returned to preparing herself for the trip out. She could see him doing this in the corner of her eye and tried her best not to re-engage him on the subject. After a few moments of silence he finally gave in.

  “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?” he said.

  “Nope,” she replied, throwing her bag over her shoulder. “Look, I need you here. I’ll probably still need whatever is on those hard-drives.”

  “But your friend might not even be there. You’ve still not told me why you owe this Graham so much anyway.”

  She stopped and looked down at her feet; the weight was getting heavier now that Graham’s name had been spoken again. “It’s complicated,” was all she could say in reply.

  “Yeah, you said that the last time you avoided the question. Were you two an item or something?”

  “No! He gave his life keeping his family and mine safe.”

  Rhys held up his hand to slow the conversation down. “Wait, he’s dead? What the fuck, Phoenix. This is all for some dead guy?”

  “He’s not dead… dammit, I don’t know.”

  Another short period of silence followed, this time one overshadowed by uncertainty. Neither appeared to know where to go from there.

  “Fine.” Rhys was the one to break the quiet again. “If you want to go off
on some wild goose chase then by all means go ahead,” he said, his finger pointing at the door. “Just don’t blame me when nothing comes of it. For all we know there never was anything about this Graham bloke in the guy’s memory. He probably just said that to get you to help him.”

  “I don’t believe this. You were the one telling me he was here to help. Now I’m on your side, you’re telling me I’m wrong? Make your mind up, Rhys.” she said, stepping through the curtain door and into the small hall. The conversation would have to continue while she readied herself to leave. She made it clear she had no intention of stopping.

  Rhys walked after her. He was not interested in stopping yet either.

  “OK, I get it, you have to go. And even though I don’t agree that you should go alone, I’m willing to compromise.”

  With her bag slung over one shoulder, she hooked her submachine gun over the other. She was now ready, but for Rhys’ added extra, which he held in his hands. He had found a spare wrist computer and a small yellow scrambler box – one of Anthony’s old toys.

  “Put this in your bag,” he said, handing the yellow box over. “This is one I hacked earlier. I took the liberty of fitting an old scrambler with some of the power storage tricks Ninety-three ... sorry, I mean Luke, showed me. You’ll have at least twelve hours of anonymity with this baby. Now, this.” He slid the wrist computer onto her right hand. “This won’t link up to your biometrics, so you don’t have to worry about being tracked.”

  Their small disagreement had faded quickly. She knew it had come from his deep worry for her safety. Something she had seen before, most recently upon arriving at his home and being greeted with a tight hug. If she was honest, she had missed him too. He had been the most ordinary man she had met in the city, before Graham. In truth, she knew she felt more for him than she would for just a friend.

  She admired his helpful additions as they proceeded to the thick metal door. After he opened it, she took a chance. As a quick farewell, she kissed him gently on the cheek, then scurried away without looking back. The door did not immediately close behind her. She knew he was standing in place and trying to work out whether her kiss meant more than just ‘goodbye’.

  It did.

  Chapter 14

  On the trail

  Graham, Stephen and the imitation Alex left the safety of Sanctuary behind soon after the rerun of Isaac’s invasion. They made their way through a dark world, which darkened even more the further they went. Out there, Graham could finally see for himself just how much the Sentient world had really changed. As they walked, the air became cold and full of sharp particles, which caused the back of his neck to itch as it blew past like an arctic breeze.

  The training session had gone by without any more problems after Graham had found his strength. That now felt like a distant memory, in a place he would happily return to. But his family were behind every step he took into the Sentient warzone. They drove him on, pushing him further than he could have managed alone. Seeing them again was his only motivation, it had been since he witnessed the result of Isaac’s fury. That made continuing on the only true option he had.

  As with all routes within the Sentient realm, it was rife with dead-ends and confusing pathways that led to nowhere. Stephen and Alex were guiding him all the way. To navigate between these strange parallel planes of existence would require years more training for Graham. He and his companions had no such time to spare. Finding out what happened to Luke was for the benefit of each party. For Stephen, it meant finding his friend and ally again, while for Graham it was a possible ticket out of there he was interested in.

  “This place has become highly unstable,” Stephen said, as he stopped the group to find their place once again. With the horizon becoming ever more foreboding, it was clear to see they were at least heading in the right direction. “We mustn’t take a wrong turn this far in, we could come across one of Isaac’s patrols. They wouldn’t even blink before attacking and probably disintegrating us, or something equally as horrible.”

  “Don’t worry, Stephen, I’ll protect us,” Alex said. To make herself as big as possible, she raised her head up as high as she could. Even on tiptoes she only just made it above an adult’s waist-line.

  Graham laughed as he looked on. It was a strange comfort to have her around. Where before she had irritated him with her impersonation, now he saw it as a compliment to his daughter; who in his highly biased opinion was very special and definitely worth copying.

  “Let me think for a minute then.” Stephen turned away and consulted his trusty map, which he let hover in front of him while tracing his finger through the air in front of it.

  If it was even possible, Graham had become convinced the seasons had changed since they left Sanctuary. Everything about the war-torn remains of the Sentient landscape told the same story he had seen of terror and pain, except now it was one during a particularly harsh winter; one of the many bad things he noticed about the place. The sky was still black and purple, like it had been punched repeatedly. Even the ground felt odd with its thick soot like layer of dust crunching underfoot.

  Oh, Christ! he thought as he soon realised what the dust and dirt probably consisted of; it had to be the remains of the Sentients who had died fighting there. “Can we get going? This place is giving me the creeps,” he said. His eyes traced the outlines of distant craters, the result of multiple bombardments from the enemy. They were the most effective reminder of the enemy’s strength.

  Alex laughed this time. “Yeah, this place is creepy.”

  “Fine, fine. Let’s go… this way.” Stephen pointed to a path that led away to the left of their current one. It had not been there before. This had been the same with many others, which had been hidden to Graham until Stephen or Alex had brought it forward like they summoned them up through the earth.

  So far they had followed the route Stephen had agreed with Luke before his disappearance. It was heading straight into an area only recently beset by the devastation of war. This was supposed to have been where Luke had found and linked up with a small pocket of resistance. If they had survived the latest attack, then there remained a good chance for Graham’s group still.

  “So, these Sentient resistance fighters were the last ones to see Luke?” Graham asked from the back of the group.

  “Indeed,” Stephen replied.

  “Indeed.” Alex had taken to copying Stephen’s orders. She did her best impression of his voice too.

  “Stop that. You are correct, Graham. My hope is they will know what happened to him. Besides, Sanctuary isn’t safe. Joining them is the safest option.”

  If they’re still alive, Graham thought, but chose not to say.

  Nothing had been explained beyond finding the surviving Sentients. It suggested that Stephen himself knew little of what to expect. They could have been defeated already. From the look of the increasingly regular occurrence of battered dents in the landscape, that had started to look the most likely of outcomes. Isaac’s overwhelming strength had left the Sentient world desolate and featureless. They wandered around a strange land that shared more with the pot-marked surface of the moon than the idyllic homeland of a race of AIs.

  They had not seen anything so far that hinted of survivors. So when something moved unexpectedly ahead of them, Alex stopped in place and allowed her body to tense up. She had sensed something. It was something she was unwilling to come face to face with too.

  Looking up to Graham with wide, round eyes, she said, “We should leave the path.”

  “OK, sure, lead the way then,” he replied, a little spooked by the unusually serious tone to her voice. He held his hand out to her.

  Stephen took a few steps ahead to see for himself, then turned back. “What can you see? I can’t see anything.”

  “Just follow me. I’ll explain once it’s gone away.” Alex pulled Graham along, urging him to speed up with the occasional tug. She led them to a small mound, which had been forced into being after an explosio
n ripped through the area just beyond. They each ducked down and poked their heads out to spy on the walkway they left behind.

  Moments later, Graham could see for himself what had scared her into hiding: an enemy patrol. He knew he was the last to spot it. Even with his new skills to hand, he had to concede that he had not fully adjusted to the place.

  The feeling was compounded by the fear he felt as it approached. It was pure chaos in appearance, far more ferocious looking than he ever imagined was even possible. Its jagged limbs, each roughly two metres in length, stamped down upon the dusty surface, stabbing it like pincers striking prey. After each step, it rapidly shifted its weight from one sharp leg to another, in a seemingly random rotation.

  “Holy shit,” Graham said, his hands digging deep into the dirt.

  As the thing moved, it kicked up a whirlwind of grit that concealed most of it from view. The legs were visible because of their mirror-like reflectiveness. The rest of it appeared more glass-like, but with an evil red glow that faintly permeated the gloom.

  It displayed nothing short of absolute hostility, in its purest form.

  “Stay down,” Alex said.

  They watched as the creature wandered along their path. This was one of Isaac’s patrols, although not quite as Graham had predicted. His vision had at least looked roughly humanoid, like the Sentients he had seen before. This was not even close. There was no telling just how cruel it could be with its numerous jutting spikes.

  Graham kept his chin touching the ground as he watched. “That thing would probably turn us into walking sieves in seconds,” he said.

  It passed by with its dust cloud following close behind like a swarm of bees, all humming along to the same low level moan. The time to move had come. With a patrol in the area they would be in permanent danger as long as it remained. Alex was first to stand and look around. Once she was happy they had not been seen, she waved Graham and Stephen up and over the mound. The path was now theirs again, but only for so long.

  “Right, it should be somewhere over there,” Stephen said, pointing a finger directly through the centre of his map as he walked ahead. Understandably, his pace had increased and his voice had dropped to almost a whisper.