“What the…” I tried disengaging the remote.
“It’s MindOpS 2,” Dragon murmured. “It’s been installed.”
Chapter 25: Myth
I glared at the blinking message. It blinked back, unconcerned.
“I can try to override it,” Dragon suggested.
Darren groaned as he struggled to extract his skinny self from under the seats. “What happened?”
“No way,” I told Dragon. “If it is MindOpS 2, it’ll be too powerful for you to take on. You’re not going online.”
He leaned his head to the side, studying me. “Is that an order?”
“Yup. Sure is.” I didn’t return his intense gaze. Instead I fought with the electronic door lock. It didn’t budge.
He floated out of his chair and walked towards the back where Darren was having a mild panic attack. “I didn’t realise you’re now my master,” he murmured.
I spun around on my seat, about to make a snarky comment. I never made it. The van lurched forward and started to make a U-turn on the quiet street. There were no other vehicles around to slow it down.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Darren wheezed out. “It’s taking us back to them. They’re going to get us. And… and…” His mouth opened and closed silently. ‘Mild’ had been upgraded to ‘severe’ in the panic attack spectrum. His face was pasty yellow. Looked like he was going to throw up. I just hoped it wasn’t projectile vomit.
The van completed its U-turn and started to roll back the way we’d come, back to the army of security guards and the Games Boss’s thugs. I pushed myself up, stumbled to the back where Dragon was. I tried the back door. Kicked at it. Swore at it. It still wouldn’t open.
“This window is an emergency exit,” he said, pointing to a large window that was painted dark.
“On it,” I said, fiddling with the window. The latch was stiff and stuck.
As if sensing our efforts to escape, the van picked up speed.
“Darren, a little help,” I grunted. The latch didn’t budge.
“Try this.” Darren poked me in the back and waved my crowbar in front of me.
“That’ll do it,” I muttered. Grabbing it from him, I mumbled, “Thanks” and went at it again, this time with success. The window popped out, but instead of falling out of the van, the way it’s supposed to, it slipped inside and fell down on my feet. I gritted my teeth and cursed.
“Ladies first,” Dragon said, smirking.
I scowled at him. “Age before beauty.” I gestured to the cart, with the tank hidden under the covering. “We have to get that out. The van will slow down soon, to cross that intersection we sped through. We can lower it out then.” I didn’t sound too confident even to myself.
Darren stared at me like I was nuts. “How’re we going to fit the cart through that window?”
He was right. But we couldn’t leave the brain behind.
“We’ll have to slide it in sideways,” Dragon said. “It can fit that way.”
“But won’t that toss it around too much?” I asked. I imagined his brain rattling around in its thick soup.
Dragon shook his head. “It’ll be okay. Take off the cover. Look at the base of the cart. There are roll-up metal sheeting there on all sides. Pull them up and connect them to the top plate.”
Darren and I did that. The van was slowing down slightly. It must be approaching the intersection. So MindOpS 2 was obeying the traffic rules. Good for us.
By the time we finished, the cart looked like a metal box on wheels, with two handlebars sticking up on top. “How strong is that sheeting?”
“Strong enough,” Dragon said. “Ready?”
Darren and I stood across from each other and grabbed the bars. We heaved up.
“Wow, you’re heavy, Dragon,” Darren muttered.
“It’s all brain in there,” he retorted.
I kept quiet. I focused on slipping the cart sideways. It just fit through the window. The van was almost at a standstill. Doing one of those roll stops. Darren and I leaned out the window, still gripping the handles. I felt the wheels connect with the road. We let go just as the van squealed away.
I grabbed my backpack and duffel bag and tossed them out the window along with the crowbar. I stuck my head out. My hair whipped about my face, my eyes stung. Man, we really were going fast now. At least it felt that way hanging out the window of the moving van and preparing to jump.
I decided to go feet first. It didn’t seem so scary. Figured it might be better to land on my feet than my head. With my legs dangling out, I gripped the windowsill and stared at the others. Dragon nodded. I lowered my legs, my shoes smacking the concrete, and let go.
It still hurt. Even though my shoes were already touching the ground, I kinda bounced, lost balance, landed on my back and rolled. Concrete scratched at my face, my hands, my knees. When I stopped rolling, I lay there, limbs limp, my head against the edge of the sidewalk, staring up at a beautiful blue sky.
I didn’t want to move, think, feel. I just wanted to lie there, imagine I was in a park, enjoying a day off. Yeah, with my head on a concrete pillow.
“Are you alright?”
Oh no, someone saw that.
I glanced to the side. It was Dragon, kneeling beside me, his eyes squinting with worry, his hands gripped at his side, useless to help me. A solid looking ghost without any poltergeist skills.
I groaned, forced myself to raise my torso slightly. “Yeah, just great.” Something was missing. I looked around. “Where’s Darren?”
Dragon stood up faster than I could even imagine. Then again, he hadn’t fallen out of a moving van. He’d floated. He ran after the van, shouting at Darren to jump. I could see Darren’s head sticking out, his hands gripping the windowsill, his face about one step away from losing all colour. And I knew what was going to happen, without any special body-language training or ultra-sharp sensors or a hundred brains’ worth of information.
He wasn’t going to jump.
Dragon didn’t see that. Or maybe he didn’t want to believe it. He kept after the van, shouting at Darren to get out. He only gave up a few blocks down when the van swerved around the corner and was gone.
“Sorry, Darren,” I whispered. I didn’t move, kept staring at the sky. Unblemished, undeveloped, unfettered, it embraced everything without being confined by that embrace. It was free.
Only when Dragon stood beside me did I force myself up. More to convince him I was alright. Personally, I’d have preferred to just lie there for the rest of the afternoon.
We didn’t have the rest of the afternoon. I could hear security sirens coming from the plaza. An unusual sound on this man-made island where crime was non-existent. Except for whatever the Games Boss was up to, but that didn’t really count, unless you were a gambler.
Darren.
“We’d better get moving,” Dragon said. I could tell he was thinking about the kid as well.
I nodded, limped towards my bags. A shopkeeper came outside, carrying a signboard. She stared at me, like she knew I was up to no good but couldn’t quite figure out what exactly. I didn’t have energy to smile, even if I felt like it, which I didn’t. I flung my duffle bag over one shoulder, small backpack over the other, scooped up my crowbar.
The shopkeeper hurried back inside.
A few steps later, I reached the metal box / cart containing Dragon’s brain. I leaned against the handle and pushed.
We kept to the side roads, the less monitored routes, heading in the general direction of the warehouse area. I hoped MindOpS 2 hadn’t reactivated the sensors. Otherwise, we were wasting our energy. We marched in silence. Well, I marched, Dragon floated. He still looked fresh, clean. He was undisturbed about being a fugitive, running from the security force, jumping out of moving vans, losing a kid on the way.
The benefits of not having a body, I guess.
It was late afternoon when we arrived at the deserted tip of the island. Rusting carcasses loomed up around us, abandoned by all but
the birds. Empty windows gazed vacantly ahead, the unseeing eyes of a series of corpses. The breeze whistled through the empty rooftops and rattled loose sheets. Seaweed and salt mingled in the air with a wet metallic smell, tickling the back of my dry throat. Tufts of tough dune grass pushed through every crevice and crack on the pavement, determined to inhabit this desolate place.
Dragon led the way to one of the warehouses and checked around to make sure we were really alone. At this point, I don’t think I really cared. I could barely move. I was so tired and stiff and aching all over. And hungry. But mostly tired. The one good thing about that level of exhaustion: I couldn’t think or feel anything else beyond it. My mom, Darren, MindOpS 2 and the threat against our lives—all of that was smothered under a fog of fatigue.
I can’t remember going inside or unpacking my blanket, but I must have. Dragon was talking, but it couldn’t have been with me. I found a dry, clear patch of flooring, pulled the blanket around me and disappeared into sleep.
Chapter 26: The Albino
The albino floated in her small, private pool, watching, waiting. As she waited, she toyed with her memories. Not all of them are bad, she concluded.
Her early childhood had lots of laughter and, she suspected, love even. She remembered smiling faces and red balloons. That had been her favourite colour. All her birthday parties until she was eleven were filled with red balloons, red jelly beans and red icing.
Something happened to change all that. She hadn’t had a twelfth birthday party or any others.
She shifted in her pool, ears alert for any alarms. She’d set up a number of triggers throughout the city and online, breaking all privacy regulations using the powers granted her under the Full Protocol. It was only a matter of time.
She returned to musing. What had happened after her eleventh birthday? It was all very vague. She could remember a lot of pain and heat, as if she’d been on fire. But that couldn’t have been the cause. It was something else, eating her up from inside. Whatever had happened, all the happy faces and red balloons had vanished after that. Her next clear and certain memory had been the Games Boss staring down at her.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do” were his first words to her.
That had been… She frowned. Her sense of time was very accurate, but that first memory after the pain seemed a bit lost, outside any context of time. But it must’ve been about eleven, maybe twelve, years ago. She’d spent half her existence under the guardianship of Grogan Ltd, tutored by the Games Boss himself.
She did her almost-smile again, a slight twitch of the lips before they returned to their determined and unyielding line. You’d think after that chunk of time, he’d be more like a father or at least an uncle to me, she mused and snorted.
Not even close. He’d always been the Boss to her. No other name or title. He made it very clear to everyone who he was and, more importantly, what his position was. Especially his position.
An alarm tinged in the background. She checked the source and location, and almost smiled again.
They were making this way too easy.
Chapter 27: Dragon
I wait as Myth collapses into sleep. I don’t know if she heard me at all, when I told her what I needed to do. She had barely been able to stand up long enough to unpack her blanket. I wonder: does her command still hold? Does she have the authority to even give me orders?
“Myth,” I whisper next to her ear. “I need to go online and contact Griffin. We need to make another plan. We have to get off the island.”
She grunts and rolls over, her breathing deep and slow.
“I’m glad you agree,” I say, my voice soft. Even still, it sounds loud in the empty cavern of the warehouse. “And you have no right to command me.”
I add that last sentence for my own benefit, to remind myself that I’m nobody’s slave. My disobedience still feels wrong. For ten years, I’ve carried out orders and followed procedures, the dutiful servant of the city. Now what am I?
A human, I tell myself. Sort of.
I find Griffin easily. She’s waiting for me and calls me as soon as I appear online, even though I stay in my private space, out of the public domain.
‘There was a problem at The Port,’ I tell her. As soon as I tell her, I realise I don’t have to. She is a connected brain. She already knows. I’m getting too used to dealing with people. I mean, people who have bodies and disconnected brains. I am a person too, just in a different form. I have to keep reminding myself of that.
‘I know,’ she replies. ‘I have an idea, but I need to talk to Myth about it.’
I hesitate. Why don’t I want Myth and Griffin to talk with each other? I scan my thoughts and my emotions. Nothing stands out. There is nothing unsound about the idea. Still, something bothers me. And the fact that the idea bothers me for no good reason also bothers me. The concern is illogical.
‘She’s sleeping right now,’ I say, as I pass on Myth’s phone number. ‘We can connect tomorrow morning.’
She agrees. I want to ask her more about herself, where exactly she is located, when she was installed, what systems she runs. Before I can, the conversation is cut off. The Games Boss appears.
“Hello, MindOpS,” he says, his bright smile brighter than usual. “Who were you talking to?”
I watch the Boss. If his people are in command of the communications system, how can they not know? Or maybe they are only paying attention to outgoing calls. Griffin had contacted me. Maybe that slid under their radar until too late.
“Go away,” I order, about to withdraw.
“Don’t be like that,” he says, his winning smile beaming at me.
It doesn’t win me over. I’ve seen what the man is capable of.
“I’m not the bad guy here,” he continues, his whole body oozing sincerity. “I’m just an employee, like you. And I’ve been ordered to retrieve stolen property, that’s all.”
And the crazy thing is I know he’s right. He’s not evil. Greedy, yes. Ruthless at times. But he’s not evil. He doesn’t make people gamble and he doesn’t force them to take out crazy loans they can’t afford. And officially, I am stolen property, Grogan’s property.
That doesn’t exactly endear him to me.
“I know what they did,” I tell him. “There’s no way I’m giving myself up.”
The Boss nods understandingly. “We could negotiate, you know. Your silence in exchange for your life, or whatever you call your existence. You’re a very valuable piece of organic matter, MindOpS. A large fortune was spent on this project. I’m sure the Grogan Board would be pleased to save their investment.”
So that’s what I am. An investment. A valuable piece of organic matter. A project. A non-living entity. Stolen property.
“Think about it,” he suggests in a smooth, well-practised tone. It’s the same tone that induces people to sign the dotted line on impossible loans.
Maybe he is evil after all.
He ends the call and I float in my space, pretending I’m asleep, as if I’m unconcerned by thoughts and memories. I pretend I’m floating through my dragon dream, flying amongst the stars. I wonder if MindOpS 2 is taking proper care of all the systems of the city, keeping people comfortable and safe and unconcerned. I’d like to sneak a peek, but I’m risking enough. I can’t enter the public domain where MindOpS 2 now lives.
A sound echoes faintly. Footsteps approach our warehouse. I withdraw from my connection, feeling small again.
I float towards Myth and perch on the cart nearby. I know I must wake her but I don’t. I give her a few more minutes of rest. Something bumps against the outer door and I hear soft voices. Myth stirs, her sleep disturbed. When the door quivers under the impact of someone pushing against it, her eyes blink open.
“Dragon,” she whispers. I can hear fatigue and fear.
“I know,” I reply. I make sure to modify my voice so that it is soothing. I don’t think it works. She knows.
“It’s them? Have they found us?
”
“Yes.”
She curses and stumbles upward, grabbing her things. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” She glares at the cart and my glowing image.
“You needed the sleep.”
She pretends she doesn’t, even as she fights back a yawn. “I need my freedom more. How much time?”
“Five minutes tops.” I’m being generous here. And I am as blind as she is. I have no idea who is out there.
The creaking stops. A bang whispers around the warehouse. I pick up muted conversation.
I don’t think we’ll get five minutes, but I don’t tell Myth. If I panic her, it won’t help. She’s moving as fast as she can. She could move faster without me, of course. It would be easier for her to escape the island without having to take care of that cart and my brain.
“You can always leave me,” I tell her. I don’t want her to leave me alone, not at all, but I don’t want her to get caught, either. I’m torn between her safety and my selfish fears.
“Not really. I’m already a thief, remember? And possibly a murderer.” She finishes stuffing her blanket into the duffel bag. “Time to go.”
She pushes the cart with my brain towards the fire exit. I’m impressed. I thought she hadn’t heard me last night, when I pointed it out to her. She had been ready to collapse on the floor when I was telling her about that fire exit.
Something metal clangs and squeals from behind us. Someone shouts and is told to shut up. In the silence, there is a sawing sound.
We reach the exit.
“The alarm will most likely come on when you open it,” I remind her. I know I told her that a few times last night, but I don’t think she heard me.
She breathes deeply. Behind us, something big bangs against the front door. Our five minutes are up. She grips the handle of the fire exit and begins to push.
The entrance to the warehouse flings open with a crash. Beams of light chase away darkness and I see her face, pale and wide eyed, framed by dark hair and determination. Myth tightens her grip on the cart’s handle and pushes through the fire exit. A screeching bell blasts over the sounds of shouting.
Dragon's Mind Page 10