by David West
14. COP17
It had been a few days since I saw any of their IP addresses. Then, just yesterday, Irene connected to the internet. Her system, however, was protected by technology I had never seen before.
Not only that, but it appeared as though the user of the two fugitives, Adam, had deserted his apartment. Our outside agents found his home empty; with blood slid down the inside of his door. How strange... A video feed from one of our traffic cameras caught him driving inside a truck, to relocate elsewhere. Other than that, we had no leads on the whereabouts of Wade and Martin.
They had left me. Just when things were going so well, they abandoned me. After the countless days I spent watching over them, how could they do this to me? It was Adam's fault; it had been from the start.
"Sir?" a rank H agent asked, entering my system. "We have a status update."
"Did the Priority One Fugitives surface?"
"No, but COP591 spied that Priority One User has been added to a new payroll. We have the address of his workplace," he said swiftly. "Agent Two is awaiting your recommendation."
My recommendation?
15. Martin
Despite being an outlaw, and having, at least, a few hundred CBA agents searching for me, I never felt so at ease. The program, A.I. Guardian, ran in the background of my system. Last night, when Aurora finally cooled down, she gave us the metallic boxes. I gave one to Irene as soon as she came online and we connected our A.I. Guardians together. When they activated, I could see how the program worked - like a border patrol. The only downside, was a small delay in new connections when confronted with a new IP address.
Adam was thrilled to hear the news. As much as he enjoyed the cloak and dagger missions he did for us, he wanted to settle down with his new roommate. When he got his cast removed, we began calling our old missions, Operation Broken Leg. Despite how much he liked our missions, he appreciated not having a broken leg, and enjoyed his new life. He even liked working at Jericho Communications, since his co-workers, boss excluded, were friendly. Working with the woman he loved was quite the added bonus.
I enjoyed the office as well. The A.I. were generally nice and intelligent. They all welcomed me, and gave me their replicated virtual workspace of Jericho Communications, the same type of map I had for my old office. After I modified how the office operated to my liking, I put my old virtual model in storage and used the Jericho Communications office as my new living space. After I connected it to the security camera's live feed, my virtual building was alive in no time. I could see what all the users were up to in the building.
Lara had been sitting next to Adam, at his desk. Despite the cubicle walls being generally high, all the eyes of the office knew Lara was at his desk. It must have been a strange occurrence for her to spend an extended period at a co-worker's desk. Or, they all thought they were brother and sister, and found that to be weird.
Adam was currently scanning through a bundle of programming code. What he was doing was much more advanced than what he did previously, but he adapted to it quickly. He was actually more productive than most of the others in his department, who had been working there for years.
In his cubicle, and what I feel to be, personal space, Lara was working beside him. She sat with her back to his desk, in the opposite direction of him, with her laptop on her lap. She did this, so it was easier to look over at him when they were talking.
Through his webcam, I could see that a lot of the time while working, and during a long span of silence between the two, his eyes would gaze over at her.
We were so interested in seeing what Lara was doing at the same time, that Wade talked Aurora into letting us see through her webcam. At the same time Adam would gaze at her, she would be busy working, or playing video games, but she would always burrow her eyebrows in concentration, sometimes more intense than other times. When she would make these very concentrated faces, Adam gently smiled, adoringly.
It was only ten more minutes and he would get off work. He would either relax at home, or he would watch, from a third person view on his computer monitor, what we were doing in the big city of Jericho. Wade and I were excited about this private virtual city, but Adam was just thrilled. He couldn't imagine such a thing existing.
Wade allowed Adam to control his avatar in the city, using the keyboard and mouse as a controller. He then quickly removed Adam's control privileges, after other A.I. began staring at Wade's strange habit of continually jumping and spinning in circles, instead of walking like normal A.I. He scolded Adam for making him look silly.
During our Jericho travels, Aurora wouldn't let us out of her sight. She said it was to keep an eye on us, and to make sure we didn't get her into trouble. I believed otherwise. There was something strange going on with her and Wade, which he acted as if it was non-existent when I confronted him about it. What I did notice was that Aurora enjoyed watching her user's habits, as much as Wade and I.
"You're off work in ten minutes," Lara announced, checking her watch.
"Already? Time flies by here," Adam stated. "That reminds me, what exactly is your daily work schedule?"
"Usually the same as yours, I just stay late a lot of the time, to make sure everything is running smoothly. If I'm not working too hard, and just helping out, then I clock out and stick around. Sometimes I just play video games here, instead of at my apartment. I guess I just like the active environment," she explained. "Do you have your bags all packed?"
"Are you kicking me out?" Adam asked in sarcastic suspicion.
She gave him a playful smile and nudged shoulders with him. "No, silly, for the trip."
"We're going on a trip?"
"I didn't tell you? I can't believe this slipped my mind... The whole office is going to the grand opening of Machine Mountain. We're leaving in an hour on the company bus, and then staying at a hotel there for two nights."
"I read about it in the paper... The theme park is like living in the future, where everything is automated - electronically controlled," Adam said, remembering what he had read.
"The hotel is located directly in the middle of the park. Also, and this is the best part, guests of the hotel have exclusive access to the park, and the rides, all night long," she finished in excitement.
"I'll go pack now then."
It was a sunny day, and the traffic was flowing quickly. Adam walked alongside Lara, completely content with his life. The next few years were a mystery to him, but now, he felt safe and in control of his life for once. He had a chance with the girl of his dreams, and he wasn't going to let it get away from him.
They came to the crosswalk, where the pedestrian signal gave them the clear to walk across. However, the traffic light above them showed otherwise. Lara stepped into the street and began walking across, when Adam saw the speeding cars, who were only following the traffic signal's instructions.
In the split second he had, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his chest. One of the cars that drove through the intersection was t-boned by a car that was driving parallel to their direction, which also had a green light. When all was still, the pedestrian signal began flashing the stop hand, and the traffic lights flashed orange.
Lara looked at Adam in shock. She was a second away from death.
"This street has never done that before," Lara said.
"That's... weird."
16. Adam
"Wow, that's a lot of luggage for two nights," I pointed out.
"Oh yeah," she blushed. "I'm just like every other girl in that way, I always have to bring half my closet."
"Is that bag solely for shoes?" I joked, nodding toward the tallest bag.
"No, that has my travel Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii in it, with some hand held systems and travel games. And this one," she motioned toward the second largest, "has my travel server, for, well, you know."
I didn't know.
"And the second to the smallest has my four travel laptops, for PC gaming. The smallest contains my computer em
ergency kit. That thing has saved me more times than I can remember."
"Where do you keep your clothes?" I asked in disbelief.
"Oh, I have a change of clothes in my backpack." She picked up the very small, very pink backpack. "What are you bringing?"
For the first time, I was embarrassed of being normal. "Some clothes and sun block. I could bring some games though," I offered.
She smiled at my effort. "I have more than enough for us. Besides, I installed an entertainment system on the back of all the seats in the bus, which is connected to its own satellite network. That way, whenever our office goes on trips, we all play huge matches in games. My luggage is mainly for my hotel room."
"Is everyone a gamer at Jericho Communications?"
"Everyone is a gamer at heart."
---
We were dying. The A.I. had zeroed in on our location, and they were literally picking us off, one by one. Ken, the head of the graphic design department, was the first to go. We had no idea that the A.I. were with us before that. They were assassins in the night, with an unbelievably good aim.
"Danny!" Lara shouted, running to Dan's now still corpse. "I've let you down. I've let you all down."
I looked around the thrashed war field, guarding Lara as she mourned the loss of our fallen comrades. There were dead teammates on the ground of vibrant green grass, mixed with bright red embers. The suburbs were in ruins. The sky, grey with constant flocks of robot drop ships and their smog, and sea polluted with war ships.
"We have to go now, before they come back!" I advised in a hushed voice.
Lara picked up her gun, jaw clenched with fury. "Let's kick some tin ass."
We heard a team of heavy footsteps in a tunnel, under the pathway we were atop. Before I could jump down and unload my entire magazine on the bots, Lara held my trigger hand gently, and looked at me in the eyes. They told me not to act - it's what they expected.
I nodded and followed her. Behind a tree, off the pathway, and to the left of the tunnel that the bots travelled through, she lay in a prone position, setting her sights just after the opening. She signaled for me to station my machine gun just above the tunnel. I saw her flash a sly smile, before changing her crosshairs, from the tunnel, to me.
My cell phone began to vibrate viciously. The font was in a dripping blood style.
Look behind you :) - Wade
I turned and saw Wade in a robot suit, standing behind me with his never-ending smile. He lifted his death-laser rifle to my face. Before he was able to pull the trigger, a bullet broke through his armor, directly into his circuit-filled heart.
I looked back over at Lara and saw the smoke coming from the end of her barrel. The three A.I. from the tunnel ran out at her, guns blazing. She covered her head and tried to stay as perfectly still as she could. They knew she was there from the sound of her gun - they didn't, however, know I was standing directly above them.
I squeezed the trigger on Martin, Irene and Aurora, and yelled out a battle roar.
"Ahhhhhhh!" I yelled out in a battle roar.
The entire bus turned and looked at me as I fired with my mouse. My phone vibrated again.
Embarrassing... - Wade
Our fallen comrades were already playing a new game, as Lara and I were taking too long playing against my four friends. It just happened to be that the game involved humans under attack from space robots. Lara took the game very seriously, and in turn, so did I. It was extremely fun.
"Your friends are amazing. They killed everyone but us," she praised. "Where are they from?"
"Computers," I slipped out. "I mean, I met them from my computer... through the internet. They're from New York City."
"Maybe we can go on a trip to New York City and meet them."
"Well, they're not that good of friends," I said in an attempt to dissuade her.
HEY! That's cruel. - Wade
Machine Mountain seemed close, despite only having travelled an hour away from Jericho Communications. In this amount of time, I received dozens of text messages from Wade, Martin and Irene. They seemed to be past their Circuitry Board fear, except for Aurora. She wanted no part in communicating with me directly, and she also wanted Lara completely ignorant to the A.I. world. As much as I tried to tell myself otherwise, I felt she was right; I had the lingering unease of how in control the A.I. enforcement were.
The wind blew against the bus, pushing it a lane over. Food slid off our plates and between seats. Our entire plates would have gone overboard, without Lara's handy work. The small tables that unfolded from the back of each seat were made of metal, and the bottom of the plates, made of magnets. There was a small flaw in this though - the metal silverware stuck to the plates. With each shovel with a spoon, lifting it required a certain amount of force, which, even with the steadiest of hands, flung the food upward a bit. A small amount of each bite fell back down to the plate. It was an easy fix with plastic utensils, but no one ever thought to pack them.
A violent snow whipped across the highway. The passengers saw a bleak future at Machine Mountain, and forecasted their stay short, with a snowed-in amusement park. Co-workers, one by one, began falling helplessly asleep, expecting to turn around and head home.
"We're here!" Lara exclaimed in excitement.
Moans of the sleep depraved filled the bus, and they began subconsciously getting up and dragging their belongings behind them, filling up to the front of the bus. The windows were iced over, except the areas the windshield wiper scraped away. Each person was wearing their warmest clothing, and was shaking from the mere thought of stepping outside the toasty bus.
The door opened, and Lara and I, being the first ones to the front, got the brunt of the crisp air that blew past and quickly circulated the stuffy bus. We were all surprised to find that there was very little snowfall, and the wind was tame. Along Machine Mountain, the large steel hill, a constant whirr of fans fought against the snowstorm around the theme park. The fans were the size of propellers on a helicopter, and were constantly shifting for the finest weather suppression. They would crane up, and rotate around, to adapt to the wind change. When the snow and wind would calm, a couple of the fans would withdraw and fold into the metal hill.
It looked as though we were in an oddly shaped snow globe, except most of the snow was outside.
"That is the most amazing thing I've ever seen," Ronald, a fellow data analyst said, gaping up at the automated devices.
"I read about them from Machine Mountain's head engineer's blog. He says that is just a hint of what's to come," Lara explained in awe. "There are videos floating around the internet from people passing by and recording Machine Mountain doing test runs of the WindBlades."
Only small amounts of snow strayed from its school, and it fell like a calm winter day.
Lara and I continued on to the portcullis front entrance. Above it, read the sign Machine Mountain. And below it, Don't touch the gate, please. It had what seemed like electricity running through the bars, giving the gate life. I reached out to touch it, and it gave me a stern shock. An army of guns protruded from the panels on the walls, all different shapes and sizes, and all aiming at me. They ranged from machine guns, shotguns, handguns and even a bow and arrow.
"Your Machine Mountain passes please," a voice requested merrily from the speakers. "Ahh, Mr. Netak! Good to see you again. Welcome to Machine Mountain!" The electricity continued to flow through the gate as it lifted.
Despite there being over two dozen co-workers behind us, each gun kept their aim trained on me. It was a bit exciting. When I was out of site, each gun took aim on new a target. All the Jericho Communication tech nerds were giddy about being a target. Lara was one of them.
When the gateway lifted, and we entered, we walked into a dimly lit area. For a minute it seemed like a small snowy village - until it came to life. At each of our feet, two small lights on the ground drew apart, creating a circle around each of us, and then a fade of the light filled it. I looked around, a
nd we all had the circle marker underneath us, each a different color than the other. Mine was a dark green, while Lara's, a steel blue.
It confused us all, as to how the lights even operated. The ground, along with the portcullis, had the metallic look of steel. How light escaped from the surface puzzled us.
We were all excited about the rings of light under us, that we forgot about the rest of the park for the moment. Even Mr. Netak tried jumping away from his large orb of light. He couldn't outsmart it.
Lamps glowed with light that faded the further they went. Shops had the texture of brick or stone, with small windows covered by curtains. It definitely wasn't what any of us were expecting. It seemed like a fifteenth century town.