Total System Failure

by James Hightower

  Hydraulics hissed. More scratching.

  Alec shifted in the dirt, scattering a few rocks. Hopefully, the droid saw an injured, confused opponent.

  A flicker of shadow. He willed the shield to return.

  The droid crashed into his back, jolting him with such force that his mouth snapped shut. Just as the red shield burst into his hands. The battle droid’s teeth glinted in the red glow.

  Flesh against jagged metal. Metal won. The droid’s paw shredded his shoulder.

  He raised the shield. The jaws of the battle droid rebounded off red. Its claws sank deeper into his shoulder.

  He screamed.

  The battle droid’s mane spun like a buzz-saw. His shoulder was aflame with pain.

  Then something happened. It was as though the code from the battle droid was thrown in a halo-sphere in the space between them. A connection. He became the battle droid.

  Strength pulsed through its immaculately engineered frame. The droid operated at sixty-percent capacity after the wound. According to its calculations, anything above thirty percent was more than enough to achieve its objective: kill the boy and his guardian and bring their belongings.

  Alec didn’t have time to wonder at the connection. He could use this. Alec gritted his teeth and pushed with the shield. He focused on the beast and willed it to power down.

  The buzz-saw around its head stopped spinning. The battle droid collapsed on his shield.

  Alec stumbled away, unable to believe his own eyes. He roared and leapt forward, hurling the shield into the droid’s face. Sparks flew. Metal crunched. He swung again and again until dozens of mechanical pieces lay scattered at his feet.

  A headache thumped against his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut. Deactivate: All.

  Chapter 15

  His back ached all the way to his calves, but Alec held firm to Tara.

  On the way to the King’s vessel, he’d spied a clothing store and found a jacket. It didn’t help so much with his numb hands, but at least the jacket hid his torn shoulder. He didn’t know how his friends would react if they saw it. Even he didn’t want to see it again.

  That’s why he focused on putting one foot in front of the other. If there was another battle lurking in the somewhere, he was done for.

  The ship is there, came Marcia’s message. We are waiting for you.

  He quickened his pace despite the throb along the middle of his back. I’m making slow progress. I have to carry Tara.

  Why? Alec could sense Marcia’s annoyance. Just leave her. This is our chance to be rid of that lying bot.

  As though in protest Tara moaned against his shoulder. Rain drenched his jacket with thick, freezing drops. So, the storm in DC finally caught up to them. Just great.

  Once or twice, he thought he saw a dark shape fluttering in the corner of his eye, but every time he looked, he saw only a blanket of darkness. He had to be getting close. Salt tickled his nose, and he could already hear the crashing waves breaking against land.

  His back spasmed. He grounded his teeth and kept going. If he put her down, he didn’t think he would have the strength to get pick her up.

  Alec wouldn’t just leave her here. Not in this dead city. Not after saving his life twice.

  Just one foot at a time. An incoming notification pricked his mind. He half-expected another admonishment from Marcia. Instead, the voice of the translator filled in his head.

  The King was very pleased with your gift.

  “Why did you even want my memories?” he muttered under his breath.

  Words drifted towards him as though from a long distance. Grief is a very powerful emotion, the translator said. One we don’t experience. We have never loved anyone. You’ve given us a greater gift than you realize. You will bring us salvation. Good luck, Young One.

  He shuddered as he remembered his shoulder. What salvation was he supposed to bring machines?

  A few minutes later, he caught sight of his friends. They stood at the beginning of a pier, a long black tube straddling the shoreline. It must be some kind of decommissioned submarine. Pre-WW3 by the looks of it. As he approached, Marcia unfolded her arms and scowled. Domo sighed and shook his head. They moved to go inside the submarine.

  “Wait,” he called after them. “I need your help!”

  His legs and back shuddered with the effort of carrying the android. Now that he was here, strength flooded out of him in a great wave. He slumped. Tara spilled onto the ground to lay in an unmoving heap.

  Domo approached first. His friend didn’t say anything. He simply bent over the android and pulled a face. Marcia huffed, uncrossed her arms and stomped over. Alec helped them, and together, they carried his guardian inside the submarine.

  “I could use a steaming plate of steak and potatoes right now,” Alec joked.

  Crickets. Neither even bothered to look up as they stepped into the dark cyclical tunnel. Alec frowned. They were acting strange. He’d just saved their lives and they were acting like he’d threatened their lives.

  “I couldn’t just leave her,” he told them, surprised at the hard edge in his voice.

  Still nothing. The hard edge erupted into a flame of anger. He shifted his weight as they stepped over a doorway. “If it was either of you, I would have—”

  “You think this is about the bugging android?” Marcia cut in. Lacking use of her hands, she jabbed her nose at him. “You just survived a fight with a battle droid. How? You’re still hiding stuff from us. I thought we all trusted each other?”

  Alec sneered. “I saved all of us. While you two have been saving your own asses. At the Metro station, you were sitting comfortably in your seats while we ran for our lives. Tara risked her life to get me on that train. What did either of you do other than run away?”

  By the end of that little speech, Tara sagged in his grip. One or both of them were easing up on the load. Anger paved a momentum that carried him onward.

  “Neither of you have been any real help since we left. Both of you seem to forget that my mother died because of this. The person who sent Tara to protect me. She’s done that. She saved all of us, or did you forget? Now, I have an opportunity to repay the favor.”

  Marcia hissed and threw up her hands, abandoning their joint effort to get Tara deeper inside the sub. The girl disappeared down the hallway without another word. Domo continued to help as they stumbled and shouldered their way down the hallway, throughout another set of doors and into a mess hall. Marcia already sat in one of the chairs. Chipped paint had gathered in piles along the edges of the walls. There wasn’t a single screen in sight. How old was this place?

  His wounded shoulder throbbed. Don’t think about it.

  “How did you kill the battle droid?” Marcia demanded. “You owe us an explanation at least.”

  “Right here,” Alec said, and they placed Tara in the middle of the floor. He straightened and met Marcia’s glare. “I can’t tell you. It’s better you know nothing. You—”

  Everything bucked. His shoulder whacked the wall. Pain lanced through his wound to his skull, and stars exploded across his vision. When everything settled, he blinked and shook himself. An orb at the top of the ceiling washed the room in a red light. The vessel gave another shudder. His heart leapt up his throat and seemed determined to stay there. What in the cyberhell was going on?

  “Where’s the terminal?” Alec asked. Even he could hear the weariness in his voice.

  Then, he remembered that he didn’t need a terminal. All he had to do was replicate the feat the battle droid. He cleared his mind and touched the wall. It was cold and the paint cracked and fall onto his fingers. At first, he felt nothing. Just a cold, dead wall. Then, he felt a thrum in a chest. It wasn’t his heart. It beat through his whole chest with the force of a kicking horse. Except it was dying. The submarine engine. What else could it be?

  This was different than with the battle droid though. With the droid, he’d felt alive and one with the creature. Here, he felt like he’d
climbed into a corpse. Parts of it were alive, but huge chunks felt empty and cold.

  Something had a hold on the energy, cutting it off from the engine. He could feel the foreign grip like a hand on his shoulder. Alec brushed the hand away, shocked at how easy it was. The hold returned, but he slapped it away again. Stronger this time.

  The submarine engines hummed to life, the red glow fading from the mess hall.

  Then, he realized sweat poured down his face. What strength he had remaining had become a distant memory. He leaned against the wall.

  Marcia and Domo stared at him as though seeing him for the first time.

  “Just leave her here.” His legs refused to cooperate as he headed for the doorway on the opposite end of the small space. Without his hand on the table, he would’ve surely fell. Not that he cared. He just didn’t want his friends investigating and finding out about his shoulder.

  One problem at a time. First, he needed a bed and sleep.

  “Can you two help her to bed?”

  Alec might as well had asked them to cut off their right hand. Even Domo’s forehead furrowed at the question.

  “You can’t be serious?” Marcia demanded, scowl deepening on her face.

  “I don’t have—” he said before he caught himself. He couldn’t say his shoulder was hurt. He jerked a nod. “Just leave her there then.”

  Marcia sprang forward, hand hitting his wounded shoulder. He suppressed a wince. “What did you do to the ship?”

  What was wrong with her? Alec slapped her hand away and stared down the girl. Had she known? “Fine, since you won’t seem to help me at all, how about we go our own ways when we get to Arctic City?”

  “If you won’t tell us what’s really going on, then we might as well,” Marcia countered.

  Anger gave him more strength. He glared at Marcia and bent over to collect Tara. His back trembled with the effort, but he got her onto his good shoulder. Domo, uncharacteristically quiet, studied his palms.

  “I don’t need either of you then.”

  He left. Grunting and moaning his way down the dimly lit passageway, it took almost thirty minutes to find a room with beds. Two cots squat in the darkness. He dumped Tara on one and slid into the other.

  The pillow throbbed against his ears. He drew in a deep breath. Relax.

  Except he didn’t want to relax. He punched the pillow and sat up, scanning the room for a something to direct his rage. Domo nor Marcia had so much as attempted a message. Exhaustion mounted with his anger, and his thoughts outpaced his will to sleep.

  Couldn’t his friends see that Tara had almost sacrificed her life for him? For them? Still, all the thoughts were a smokescreen attempting to cloud one detail. His fight with the battle droid and the gaping wound on his shoulder. The gaping wound that revealed a shiny metallic frame.

  Murderous androids. Battle droids. What next?

  “Flesh and blood,” Tara said suddenly.

  Alec turned to discover Tara’s eyes bulging white in the darkness. He flinched at the intensity of her gaze. His guardian’s eyes bulged, the look on her face ranging somewhere between horror and awe.

  “You are flesh and blood.”

  Alec stared. “What?”

  “Blood,” the woman murmured. “Is a curious thing.”

  Before Alec could ask what she meant, Tara closed her eyes and went back to sleep. He punched the pillow again. This AI has some answers to give.

  Chapter 16

  Alec gasped, eyes snapping open and unable to breath. Tears burst from his eyes, his heart thundered in his throat. A sense of lostness nearly overwhelmed him. Panic seized him like a boot on his throat. Where was he? How did he get here? He shifted in the hard bed. It was little more than a thin blanket spread over a wooden board. The panic subsided as memories from the last few hours trickled back to him.

  A message flashed across his vision. You have arrived at your destination.

  He hadn’t received any messages from Marcia and Domo. Not that he expected any. Across from him, Tara slept like one of the dead, her shredded clothes blood-stained and grimy. He slid from his cot. He kicked the side of Tara’s bed.

  His guardian jerked awake in a snap of attention. Before he could say anything, she bolted upright. “He is here,” she whispered, staring beyond him at the doors leading to the hallway.

  A frown tugged at his lips, but he only sighed. She seems a little off. “Are you coming or what?”

  He left without waiting for an answer. She would follow, he knew. Excitement loomed like a mountain along the horizon, slowly growing. Arctic City. He’d dreamed of this city since a young boy. It was truly a shame his travel itinerary included fighting a professional android assassin.

  Although if he were being honest, Agent Square was probably not even his biggest worries. No one, not even his mother, knew the Super AI’s intentions, and he couldn’t shake the sensation that every move he made was being manipulated.

  As predicted, Tara nipped at his heels, muttering to herself. Alec couldn’t catch everything his guardian said, but he thought he caught ‘not safe’ peppered in there.

  He snorted. They weren’t coming to Arctic City for safety, they were coming for answers. And to finally end this manhunt. In the common area, he stepped over a toppled chair. Otherwise, the room was empty. A plate smeared with food was the only sign that his friends had been there at all.

  A sudden thought occurred to him. “Tara, do you get hungry?”

  The android muttered something, but clearly not a reply.

  Alec chewed his lip. The memory-copying process must have scrambled her code. He added fixing Tara to his list of chores for the Super AI. As he thought, Marcia and Domo waited at the exit. Light poured from the doorway, columns of blues and greens, reds and oranges slanting into the passageway. Bathed in illumination, Domo and Marcia waited just inside the door.

  “We’re leaving,” Marcia announced as he stopped in front of them. “Don’t want to be a burden any longer.”

  His stomach dropped at the words. Marcia squared her shoulders challengingly and met his gaze. Their kiss in the phone booth might as well be a lifetime ago. Something hard slid in place between his shoulders.

  “If that’s what you want,” he said, cursing himself for not pleading her to stay. “I’ll miss you both.”

  Marcia threw herself at him. For a startled heartbeat, he thought the girl was attacking him. Instead she wrapped him in a tight embrace, breath hot and moist against the back of his neck. His hairs stood on end as the girl’s hands locked around his shoulders.

  “It could’ve worked,” she said, lips inches from his own.

  “It still can,” he whispered back.

  She kissed him on the cheek and pushed away. “Goodbye.” Marcia scrubbed her face and backed into the doorway.

  Domo shuffled forward. The boy paused and with great effort said, “I’m…staying.”

  Marcia darted a sharp look at the boy. His friend fidgeted under the gaze like a caged animal being prodded by an overly curious child.

  “Alright,” the girl said softly, eyes turning to the doorway. Her jaw was set in a firm line. “Goodbye to you both then.”

  “Bye,” Alec croaked as light swallowed her. His mother’s gaunt face floated across his vision. She was staring at him with wide, accusing eyes. Why couldn’t he bring himself to run after Marcia?

  He swallowed, staring at the spot where she’d once been. “We have a job to finish,” he said, unable to tear his gaze from that spot. The words were for him as much as for the others. In a daze, he stepped off the ship.

  Arctic City consumed him. This is what being a public citizen must feel like. Like a single drop returning to the ocean.

  A tide of great emotion threatened to sweep him aside. He could feel every thought of every person in the city, all their hopes and desires, all their fears and triumphs. An electricity ripped through him, and his stomach fluttered as he fought against the rising tide. A pressure swelled i
n his chest until he finally relented. He squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed at a nearby rail like a drowning man to a life raft.

  Even with his eyes closed, the city spread out in front of him, a multitude of structures and designs that boggled the mind. Stargate, a dark crystalline spire that rose beyond the clouds, cut the sky in two like a line penciled through the heavens. As the world’s primary gateway to the Moon and outer colonies, Stargate was the wonder of the world. He thought the same thing millions who’d seen it for the first time must’ve though. How could men build something so massive? A collection of smaller skyscrapers clustered around Stargate, like uncountable children clamoring for sweets. The twenty highest buildings in the world are all located there. In fact, ninety-percent of all mega-structures are in Arctic City. The fact floated out of nowhere. A hologram materialized in front of him in the form of a blue toucan with yellow and red along its orange beak. I apologize. I didn’t introduce myself. How rude. I’m Sammy, your personal guide. Welcome to Arctic City Mr…. Whittaker. The bird winked at him. I see you already have a destination in mind. Let’s go!