by Mark Lingane
The eyes of @brian222Brainwell.VPphil&prob flicked uncertainly around the room. “It’s possible.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means we’ll alter the equations to make sure we establish the correct probability.”
“Does this work? Altering numbers that reflect the world doesn’t change the world, surely?”
A camera descended from the ceiling. It twisted and faced @brian222Brainwell. “@brian222Brainwell, are you planning to perform an unsanctioned calculation?” came the voice from the speaker.
“No. Maybe.”
“I instruct you to do so. This is too important to leave to chance. Examine what Omega calculates then make it so.”
The camera rose back to the ceiling and disappeared.
@brian222Brainwell’s fingers danced over the lights of the LCD keyboard. Images flashed as the calculations rolled past. Finally, one appeared. @Brian222Brainwell smiled.
57
@SUMMER, ISAAC AND Sebastian turned left again.
Sebastian gave Isaac a dark look. “You said right,” he said.
“I meant my right.”
“Meaning everyone else’s left? That was the second dead end. We’re losing time.”
“Stop giving me a hard time. I’m under a lot of pressure.”
@summer whispered to Sebastian, “What’s the matter with him? He appears to be very emotional.”
“I think the tesla boost’s wearing off,” Sebastian whispered back. “He’s returning to his normal level, which isn’t much help to us.”
The corridor was busy, but mainly with small droids running around vacuuming the corridors.
Isaac’s diminishing power had previously kept them safe, but now they were relying on luck.
“Everyone in here,” Sebastian said.
They hustled into a room full of telescreens.
“How are we going to do this?” he said, looking around the room. “@summer, are all these telescreens broken?”
“I have insufficient information—”
“Yeah, okay. Can we try to get one working? At least we’ll be able to see where we are.”
@summer searched among the dusty and broken collection of screens. Isaac and Sebastian helped by lining them up.
“This one,” she said. “It’s old, but it’s unbroken.”
They rotated it the right way up and @summer located a power source for it. She turned it on and they all held their breath. The screen flickered to life. Part of the screen was black but the rest was working.
@summer worked on the telescreen. “I’ve found us, maybe. I’ve worked out a new way, a safer way, to the power—”
“Wait!” Sebastian said. “That was my mother.” A familiar picture had flashed onto the screen. “Does that mean she’s here?”
“I have insuff—”
“No, @summer, please, I need an answer better than that. Is she here?”
“I don’t know. I can’t know. The display’s broken and information’s missing.” She pointed to the black third of the screen.
“We need to focus on the task, Sebastian. Melanie’s waiting for us,” Isaac said.
Sebastian turned on him. “This is my mother. I’ve been promising for over a year to come and get her. I’m here now, and if she’s here I have to try.”
“But we can’t tell from this,” @summer said.
“There must be some clue. Maybe there’s a better screen.” He frantically started to search through the debris. He quelled the urge to burst into tears. “There must be something. There must be.”
@summer reached out for him, held his arms and looked into his eyes. “There is insufficient information.”
“But why would they show a picture of her if she wasn’t here?”
“There are many reasons. It’s better if you’re unaware of them all.”
“No.” He sat on the floor, visibly distraught.
@summer sat next to him and held him. “We must do this first and then we’ll find more information about your mother, okay? But right now Melanie waits for us.”
Sebastian took a couple of deep breaths then wiped his eyes. “Fine,” he said. His face said otherwise.
@summer led them across the corridor, down another and then into a small service room. She placed several boxes together until they made a respectable ladder to the ceiling. She nimbly clambered up then pushed on the dark gray grating in the ceiling. She lifted herself up and into the shaft. She turned back to the two boys and beckoned them.
The shaft was dusty and dry, and soon everyone’s throat was burning. Several turns later Sebastian had to stop. He pulled out his water bottle and took a sip. Isaac did the same. Sebastian then offered his flask to @summer, who declined.
@summer turned another corner in the shaft then disappeared. Isaac scrambled after her and also disappeared. There was the sound of something sliding. Sebastian crept forward and found another long shaft heading straight down.
“Great,” he muttered. He turned around slowly and lowered himself into the shaft and dropped, jamming his feet into the sides of the shaft. He slowly descended. He looked down and saw the two beneath him. @summer waved and gave him a smile.
“Why does she have to be a thrill seeker?” he muttered.
He was about to release and drop the remaining distance when he noticed light coming in from one side of the shaft. He slowed and looked through the grill that was letting in the light. He saw a room buzzing with intense activity. The walls were lined with telescreens of various sizes. Cyborgs in dark green uniforms were moving swiftly around the room. Sebastian guessed they were military.
The image of his mother flashed up on one of the telescreens and he gasped. There was text next to her image locating her in the cells. He relayed the information down to the others.
“Come on, then, we can go get her,” Isaac said.
“Oh, wait. They’ve got a list of towns up on the board.” He read out the first few from the series of names. “You recognize them?”
“Yeah,” Isaac said, “they’ve all been wiped out by the cys. Most are hometowns of a tesla. No survivors.”
Sebastian glanced through the grating and continued to look down the list. “Oh no.”
“What?”
“Your hometown’s on the list.”
“What! Hadron?” Isaac staggered back and slumped down against the wall, his body shaking.
Sebastian slid down the rest of the way into another storage room at the bottom of the shaft.
“You said you’d been receiving letters,” he said to Isaac. “Who’s been writing to you?”
His voice held no compassion.
“My mom.”
“Are you sure? If they’re saying the town’s been wiped out then how can your mother be there?” A thought occurred to him. “Have you been telling her anything?”
“No. What would I say? It’s not as if I know anything.”
“Well, somehow the cys have been finding out stuff, and deception would be the easiest way.”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Isaac clutched his hands to his head. “I’ve just found out my family’s dead and you’re blaming me. What’s wrong with you?”
“I can’t stand here listening to you complain. I’ve got to find my mother.”
“Fine, you can find her without me.” Isaac ran out of the room and down the empty corridor.
@summer stood looking between Sebastian and the fleeing Isaac. She spoke but he wasn’t listening.
“Come on, @summer, let’s get her,” he said.
“Wait. We can find her because the cells are on the way to the power grid. But remember, for me, what we’re doing here. And promise me that afterward we’ll find Isaac and you’ll say sorry.”
“But he could’ve been the cause of all the trouble.”
@summer shook her head and dragged him away toward the cells.
“He was always going on about his family, and how great it was that they were really intereste
d in how he was doing.”
She turned on him. “Sebastian, there’s something you need to know. Hadron is another name for the Hive. It’s the ancient name for when it was a science facility.”
“What?”
“There is much you don’t know and need to think about.”
The cell level, as agreed by both, was totally eerie. The corridor was a brilliant white, so bright they had to shield their eyes. The cell doors were padded, rounded rectangles, each with a small window sealed by dark glass. The cells held a combination of cyborgs in various states of decay, and also humans, some alive some dead. The smell was intolerable.
Vacant eyes stared out of the tiny windows, broken, haunted. Some faces were missing an eye, a grotesque socket empty of life. They passed lines and lines of cells, corridor upon corridor branching away into a silent graveyard.
@summer and Sebastian tried to keep their heads down and eyes away from the apparitions. But they were drawn to the lost faces.
Sebastian paused in front of one before following @summer around a corner. He stopped.
“What’s the matter?”
“I thought I recognized someone back there. But it couldn’t be.” He shook his head. “It looked like Dr. Filbert.”
“Your mother, remember? No time for anyone else.”
“Dr. Filbert sacrificed himself so I could escape. If it was him … I’m sorry, I have to check.” He turned around and ran back.
“Your mother!” She threw her hands in the air.
He rounded the corner and ran straight into a guard. @summer crashed into the back of him, and both came face to face with the neuron gun.
“I have insufficient healing to repair from that weapon,” @summer said.
“Me, too.”
@summer reached out for Sebastian’s hand and grasped it. She turned into him and looked away from the gun, hiding her eyes.
“Is it going to hurt?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the guard. “I promise you your entire world will be pain.pain.pain.”
He flicked the switch on the large neuron gun and the blue ball started to form in its end.
58
GLASS SHATTERED AS a rain of bullets exploded through. Melanie came swinging in through the window with a gun-machine blazing. She landed lightly on her feet and brought both weapons around to face the cyborg. “Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.”
She pulled the trigger on both guns and filled the guard’s body with lead. He shook violently as the bullets slammed into his chest and cut him in two.
Sebastian and @summer shrieked at the horrific sight.
“Ten minutes,” she said. “You couldn’t stay out of trouble for ten minutes? And I had to fight a huge cyborg spider. Do you know how much I hate spiders? A lot, that’s how much.” She shivered. “There are two of you. Where’s Isaac?”
“He ran away. He was being stupid,” Sebastian said. He folded his arms and looked away.
She rolled her eyes. “What did you say?”
“I found out she’s here.”
“Who?”
“My mother. I have to go and get her.”
Melanie turned on him, grasping his shoulders with both hands. She looked into his eyes. “No, Sebastian. You can’t. She’s gone. What you’re seeing is only her on the outside. If she’s still alive, she won’t be your mother. You can’t bring her back.”
“No, I can get her.” He pulled away from her.
“Sebastian, you’re being blinded by this obsession with her, shutting out everything that’s in your life right now. What about Isaac? What about @summer? What about me? Don’t I, don’t we mean anything in all of this?”
“You don’t understand.”
“How dare you say that to me—me, of all people. I am exactly the person who understands. I’ve promised everything for you, and I’ve lost everything for you. So don’t you dare tell me I don’t understand.”
“I don’t care. I’m getting her.” He turned and sprinted off.
“@summer, you’d better follow him.” @summer ran off after him. “See if you can talk some sense into him. I’ll find a way of getting back to the core,” she shouted after the retreating figures.
“I hope,” she added quietly.
Melanie slipped past the cells. She thought no one, no matter who, should be kept and tortured like this. She crept around the doorway of the control room and looked in. There was a cyborg behind a desk watching the various screens displaying the cells. She crept up behind him and fired two shots into his head. He collapsed onto the desk.
She scanned over the controls until she saw a set of release triggers. She flicked them all and looked out the door. All the cell doors had slid open. Those still living stepped out, blinking in the light and freedom of the corridors. She glanced back into the room, ready to leave to continue to the core, but something caught her eye. She looked at the bank of displays.
Her knees went weak when she saw the occupant of room 101. Gavin was lying strapped down to a cot.
She ran out and made her way through the corridors, frantically looking for the right cell. The door was open and she charged in.
“Oh, Gavin.” She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his body. The tears came again, but this time of joy and relief.
He stirred and slowly opened his eyes. “They’re coming, I can sense them,” he croaked. “We need to go, Melanie.”
She slashed through the bonds and helped him up. He was pale, paler than normal. She wrapped her hand tightly around his. He staggered behind her.
She could hear the footsteps, all in unison. They were coming from everywhere.
She handed him one of the cyborg guns, then gave him a kiss. “Let’s blow the core and get out of here,” she said.
Isaac ran up and down the identical corridors. It was no use; he was lost. The anger in him welled. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes. He could feel the fury within him like it was solid. He jumped up and down in frustration before throwing his hands in the air and sagging against a wall.
The anger rolled away. He opened his eyes and stared down at his feet. He stayed leaning until his head stopped spinning. Eventually he looked up at the opposing wall. It had a large dent in it. It shocked him. It hadn’t been there before. He ran his hand over the indentation. It was warm to his touch. He put his hand to his head. It was also warm.
“Tesla power,” he whispered.
A door farther down the corridor slowly slid open. It stayed open, devoid of any other movement. He crept down, with his back to the wall, and took a quick look inside. The room appeared dark. He slowly moved his head so he had one eye peeking in. What he saw shocked him.
Bindi was in the center of the room, trapped in a small cage underneath a bright white light shining directly down. The rest of the room was so dark that the walls were hidden.
She beckoned him in. “Help me, Isaac. I’m trapped. We don’t have long before they come back.”
He rushed in. The keys to the large lock were sitting on a small metal table near the cage, just out of Bindi’s reach. He picked up the keys and fumbled through them until he found one that looked about the correct size. It slipped into the lock, fitting perfectly. He looked at her with his eyes shining, dazzled by her beauty.
She smiled at him, stepping back into the shadows. And then she was gone.
He hardly had time to utter a syllable before the door to the room clanged shut. The light went out and, outlined in the darkness, cyborgs emerged from all points of the compass, lights flashing, targeting lasers sweeping over him.
He froze in terror.
They marched forward, closing in on him from all sides.
@pascalNumLover looked at the shimmering image on the VP’s desk. He placed his hand in the long strands and spun them. He expanded his fingers and the strands enlarged. At the base of each strand was a complicated equation. It was followed by a number. The bigger the number, the brighter the strand end.
&nbs
p; “The probability trees are crystallizing,” @brian222Brainwell.VPphil&prob said. “The predictions are coming to pass.”
“LOL. Victory is ours.” @pascalNumLover zoomed out from the strands and they flickered. He frowned.
59
AARON WAS ON his knees, stroking his palm over Nikola’s sweating forehead. A shadow fell over both of them.
Aaron looked up. “Sorry to wake you, bro, but the white fella ain’t good.”
Gilly knelt down and examined the sick man.
“What do we do?”
Gilly shrugged. “He’s not responding to the medicine. What can we do?”
Aaron drew a circle in the sand. He placed several dots around it. “You seen the cave paintings. Someone drew a picture of him twenty thousand years ago.”
“Or someone like him. He ain’t part of the Waking.”
“You and me know you ain’t certain. You said so before.” Aaron hadn’t taken his eyes off the circle.
Gilly sat down next to Aaron and watched him fill in the sandy sketch. The desert wildlife hummed away in the background, soothing the thoughts in their minds.
“You can call the old lady,” suggested Aaron.
“It costs to do that.”
“But we gonna be running out of time. This is our world, too.”
Gilly went silent. After a minute he leaned over and added a smaller circle inside Aaron’s big circle. “Okay, but for the boy, right?”
Aaron smiled. “And us, too. I’ll get the elders together.”
Gilly stood in the center of the circle. He was surrounded by a dozen slowly chanting elderly people. Someone was tapping out a rhythm on a set of sticks, and a didgeridoo hummed away pleasantly. Gilly had been painted in a patchwork pattern of white, giving him the appearance of an unconvincing ghost.
Mary stood outside the circle and examined the pattern on his body. She finally nodded and beckoned him over. She offered him a small white cup. She smiled at him. “Sorry,” she said. “Remember my voice.”