Even if she couldn’t see it herself.
He thought about how she had been at her parents’ house. How sweet and generous and how lovingly she’d served the tea. And now she was this. A vassal to Blake in order to provide for her parents’ future, for the opportunity for them to become hybrids. A sharp pain worked its way through his body. What was she going to do when she found out her parents were dead? Or possibly dead, he corrected himself. He didn’t know for sure, but it didn’t look like there were going to be any other options, not from the footage he’d seen. It didn’t look like anyone in the entire quadrant could survive. Charlie frowned. He could fix Jade’s code, but if her parents were dead… there was no way he was going to be able to fix her heart. There was a good chance she would just go dark for good.
The elevator doors opened to a long square tunnel. Orange sconces lit the hallway for as far as Charlie could see.
Although the chapel of the rebel base had been fairly rudimentary, essentially just a cave carved out of the red mountain, it was clear the main complex of the Mars project was sophisticated. Passages led in every direction and as they moved through the polished, reflective and impenetrable tunnels, Charlie got glimpses of a running track, swimming pool, a theatre, and a dining hall. All the necessary requirements for healthy, safe underground living.
And then they came to Maverick’s lab.
“This is where you make your inventions?” Charlie asked, nodding at the various devices and strange tools that filled the lab.
“Welcome to my palace,” Maverick said, waving his hand with to the room where hologram charts and graphs floated in the air, shelves were lined with gadgets, and in one corner was a clear slab where the Lowsmiths brought Jade.
“Place her over there,” Maverick said, motioned to what Charlie was starting to realize was a triage unit of sorts.
“She needs new code,” Charlie said.
“We’ve had hybrids here before,” Maverick said.
Charlie looked around suspiciously, trying to determine exactly what happened to the hybrids who had been brought into the rebel unit.
“Of course, they’re not here anymore,” Maverick said with a slight chuckle.
“Did you experiment on them?” Charlie asked, his stomach tightening a bit as bile rose in his throat.
“We were doing investigative analysis and research on the enemy,” Maverick said.
“So, you were just hooking them up and looking at how they worked?” Charlie asked.
“That’s a very crude way to describe an autopsy,” Maverick said. “These hybrids were dead already.”
Maverick’s words did nothing to relax the turmoil in Charlie’s stomach. But he realized now it was not the time to deal with it. Something had to be done for Jade before she woke up again.
“How did you do it?” Charlie asked. “How did you get into the hybrid code?”
Maverick spun the table around and waved his hand over a small sphere that projected a fully lit three-dimensional hologram. He blinked three times at it and a beam came out to scan his retina. A scanner descended from the ceiling and sent out a wide fan-like beam of light as it moved from Jade’s head, down to her feet and back again. A 3-D image of Jade began to appear in the air. It built, layer upon layer, until it had created a scanned image of every part of Jade’s body. From the hard bones of her spine and skull through to the soft tissue of her lungs and guts. Shining in silver were the bionic additions.
“The colors identify the different type of flesh, bone, soft tissue, or bionic factors, which comprise the hybrid,” Maverick said.
“Her name is Jade,” Charlie said, his eyes not leaving her floating scan. He finally understood the true power of Jade. Her entire spine was metal, her left eye was metal, her left arm and left leg. He gasped as he realized exactly what he was looking at.
“She has fake organs,” he said.
“She is a masterpiece.” Maverick agreed. His fingers reached out towards the hologram turning it over to look at all sides of Jade. “No expense has been spared on her. Look at that liver.”
Charlie couldn’t quite see the liver from where he was standing, but he ducked underneath the 3-D image and he could see a part of it. He looked back over his shoulder at the real Jade. It was so strange to see her there in real life and here in 3-D, with all of her guts on display. “That’s not a real liver?” he asked.
“No, it’s synthetic material. Do you know how expensive a synthetic liver is? They make it out of a combination of nanobots and flesh, the perfect meld. And it’ll last forever, with nanobots able to replenish dying cells. It’s incredible. We are long past the age of just replacing an arm or a leg. To replace her spine, they would’ve replaced her entire nervous system. She probably doesn’t feel any pain or at least, she can probably control it at the touch of a button, so to speak.”
“Couldn’t they have kept most of her nervous system?” Charlie asked.
“Potentially,” Maverick said. “They would’ve taken her spinal column. There will be a synthetic nervous system running through the center of this and then they would’ve attached it to her actual nervous system if there was no damage. But as you can see here, along her arms, that is only the synthetic nervous system connected to her spine. Since she already has the implant of the spine the minute one of her legs or arms gives out, she’ll be able to have those parts replaced and connected to the spine very quickly. It’s quite genius.”
“So, ultimately,” Charlie said as the reality started to dawn on him, “Jade could be completely made of synthetic material?”
“Yes,” Maverick said. “Because you see,” his fingers curled up the length of the holograms spine to the base of her skull. “This one, Jade,” he said catching Charlie’s eye, “she is 80% hybrid. You see this little part here?”
He pointed to a small silver circle at the base of her skull. “Her cerebellum has been replaced,” he said. “So software controls her major bodily functions.”
“She is like a bot?” Charlie asked.
“Well, this is the problem with hybrids,” Maverick said, his hand resting on his chin as he inspected the rest of the hologram. “Until you look at it this way, you don’t really know what you’re dealing with. Humans are much simpler. You look in the eye and you can start to figure out our behavior and how we work. You may not know exactly what motivates us, you know, your childhood programming and all, but you don’t have to wonder what part of us is human and if our brain is being run by software or by our own logic and feelings.”
Charlie looked down and shook his head.
“How do I access her software?” Charlie asked, his mouth dry. Even though he had gotten a little bit used to the bots and the programming, the thought that Jade was run by software alone was horrifying. What made her any different than the big red giant in the corner, who was standing by ready to subdue her if she woke up?
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Maverick asked.
Charlie frowned. He didn’t dare tell the complete truth. “Sure,” he lied. It was close enough. “The code that’s controlling her is wrapped up in some code I wrote.”
“Ok,” Maverick bowed his head. “In that case, you need to start here.” He pointed to the silver sphere at the base of her skull. “I can give you access.”
Maverick turned to a table and pressed a series of levers, he popped open a drawer holding a set of carefully filed needles of varying lengths. Charlie hated needles but somehow, these didn’t look like the kind to draw blood. These were thinner. They were like the delicate stitching needles his mother used. Very fine, very thin, and very long. Maverick withdrew one needle. He placed it inside a small black disk and then he attached a thin cable to the other side of it. He walked over to Jade, lifted her black hair, and placed the needle above her neck. Clearly it was aimed at a lower cortex.
“Shouldn’t you swab her or get some gloves or something?” Charlie asked as Maverick brushed his fingers against Jade’s neck.
“Well you know, like germs and things?” Charlie shrugged.
“Hybrids don’t host harmful bacteria or viruses,” Maverick said. “Especially not a hybrid of this status. Their antibodies and immune system are constantly regenerated through what is pumping into their body. They can’t get sick and they can’t carry dangerous germs. Everything is immediately expelled. It’s one of the things which makes being a hybrid so fascinating. Not only do they live very, very, very, very long time, but you are never sick.”
Charlie thought about the colds, the flus, the stomach aches. All the illness he had experienced at any point in his entire life. He thought what a miracle it would be if he never had to experience that again. Being a hybrid might not be so bad after all. Except the vulnerability of running on software, well, that was much more dangerous. If someone knew where to look, if someone knew where to get into you, they could control everything you did. Charlie knew the key question wasn’t just “how do you fix the problem now,” the key question was “how do you stop it from ever happening again?”
Chapter 33
Blake sat in his office and fiddled with his reissued iPod. It was very frustrating. This was no 21st century iPod, this was a 24th century reissued throwback, but the Apple Classics (an offshoot company of Apple Inc.) decided to be authentic and keep the same capabilities. He could listen to any song with a thought through his cochlear chip, but he liked to listen to his music through a speaker. Music in one’s head, while the rage of the time, was convenient, but Blake didn’t like voices in his head. That’s what crazy people had. And Blake didn’t want to be crazy, he wanted to relax. He needed relaxing right now.
It was understandable.
His business’s main product, hybrid humans, was having a bad day. The fear of robots turning on humans was a consistent dread for hundreds of years. Great lengths, laws and regulations had been set to stop this happening. He knew it well, he regulated against many such laws to build his empire. The bribes he had to pay to lawmakers back East in order to build his business and city were mind boggling.
Now, his hybrids were killing people. Blake was an expert at spinning the truth. Expert wasn’t strong enough, not by half. He had twisted his previous corporate takeovers, his (some would say illegal) monopoly on wireless power, his bot gentrification of certain regions. Blake had sold it all to the public with pizazz.
But killer hybrids? Tough spin.
His best chance would be to ensure they were only killing rebels until they fixed the problem. But hybrids weren’t his only problem. Robin was sick again.
A hologram of a conservatively dressed male assistant appeared in the corner of the room. “Sir, Warren Relic to see you.”
Blake nodded and the door hissed open. Warren strolled in. Gemini II took up station by the door with Blake’s personal ProtectoBots. None of them could come any closer. Blake had a BotBorder installed in his office. He was grateful for that today. Some days it was harder to read Warren than others. He was as ruthless as the day was long. Blake preferred that on his side, but he wondered how much Warren really was on his side. Even though Warren had never failed him, Blake was not one to trust anyone.
“Sit.” Blake motioned to the chair. “Scotch?”
“Luvian.” Warren’s words were slow and eloquent, just like Luvian liquor. A glass popped up in front of Warren. He took a slow and eloquent drink. Everything was going so eloquently.
“What’s the latest?” Blake was not going slow and eloquent, he wanted answers now.
“We can now say with a hundred percent certainty it was something Charlie Richards did to the code.”
Blake nodded, expecting this. Why did he ever agree to such an insane plan? He had been desperate, and Blake didn’t like being desperate. Now it was worse. This was why bad plans happened.
“What’s more,” Warren continued, “We think he has joined the Lowsmiths.”
“What?” Blake asked taken aback. “Why would he do that? Did you see the nice Penthouse we gave him? And that suit?”
“I know, I know.” Warren leaned back in his chair. He was enjoying this immensely. “You are nothing, if not giving. And they just want to take.” Blake wasn’t the only one who could spin a situation.
Blake sat back in his chair with a huff. What a mess. He stood and crossed to the far wall, touching it so it went transparent. Small fires glowed in the dusk all around the city of Crowley. His and Robin’s city.
Warren could tell Blake was heading down to the pits of despair and he seized the opportunity. “Blake, my friend, we will fix this. I personally will see it is fixed. This isn’t like before. We know where the problem is now and we don’t have to rely on some old technology to fix it.”
“Then why hasn’t it been fixed?” Blake’s finger streaked down the window.
“It’s a bit more complicated, Blake, but we will. I know the empire you built and I will not, under any circumstances, see it destroyed.” That was a true statement, Warren thought, but keeping the empire meant getting rid of Blake. “I will handle this. I know you have a lot on your mind.”
Blake swung around. “What, pray tell, are you suggesting?”
“Nothing. Whatever you need. I just hate to see this stress weighing on you. Of course, every decision is yours to make, I’m just suggesting you spend time with your wife.”
“What do you know about my wife? You know she’s a Delta. She’s infected like the rest of them!”
“Which we will fix by the end of tomorrow. And when we do, you should enjoy every second with her you can.”
Blake eyed Warren a long time, sizing him up. Finally, he turned back to stare out the window. His wife was sick again, and just after it looked like everything would be better. Blake had made a staggering amount of money in his life, and every dime went into this city. Every second he was in this city. He spent a fortune making sure his wife would live forever. That’s all he wanted.
And all that was compromised.
Blake needed a solution. He needed the code fixed and his wife better. No matter what it took. And right now, he was too tired and emotionally exhausted to deal with it. He turned from the fires of Crowley and nodded Warren to the door. “Fix the problem.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
Warren nodded and left the room, leaving half of his Luvian on the desk.
Blake turned and looked at Crowley again. His and Robin’s city. He didn’t want to leave this city. He just wanted Robin to be Robin again. He just wanted Robin to be whole.
Chapter 34
Charlie’s hair lay in damp curls around the edges of his forehead. The air conditioning in the room still buzzed with the lightest frequency of chill air being pumped in, but it didn’t do anything for the heat that ran, pulsating and oppressive, through Charlie’s body. He’d been standing at the hologram of Jade for ten hours as he fought through the code and back to the cerebellum.
It wasn’t hard to find the wrapper text with Dustin’s code in it. With a series of quick blinks and twitches he was able to pull the bug out and get rid of it. In fact, it was really quite a ridiculous solution Dustin and come up with. Dustin’s code had succeeded, but it had been shoved in there as if no one would ever try to get it out again. What a cocky son of a bitch.
But perhaps nobody else could. But Charlie had found a way using Maverick’s tool to access at least one hybrid. It had only taken him an hour to clean up the code and delete the corruption. He had spent the last nine hours anxiously trying to figure out what he could do to the hybrid code so this would never happen again. How do you make code inaccessible and indestructible? How do you lock it up and how could he test his theory before he made it live in Jade?
Unfortunately, there was no way to do it. He had asked them to bring a pen and paper, but it was akin to asking a 21st century person for chalk and tablet. The truth is, Charlie still worked best on paper and pen. Maverick had brought over a hologram tab
let, which Charlie could draw on with his finger. Charlie knew it would have to do. So, he had spent much of his time doodling in the air and processing every idea he could think of that would seal away Jade’s code. He knew if he built a wall, eventually someone would go in and find it and be able to dismantle it, brick by brick.
He rubbed his hands against his weary eyes.
“You haven’t got much longer,” Angelo said. “The sedative we gave her will wear off soon, and we can’t give her another. Hybrids can’t be sedated more than eleven hours. It affects their programming and the synthetic organs.”
Charlie stared up at the ceiling, sweat dripping from his forehead.
“This place feels like an Egyptian tomb,” he grumbled. “Why the hell would anyone want to go to Mars just to live in a place like this?”
“Well, I suppose it’s better than dying,” Angelo said.
Charlie looked around. Everybody was long gone, it was just the two of them and Jade’s body, strapped down and waiting for the moment she woke up.
Over the last few hours Charlie had paced around the room trying to figure out what to do. Now as he sat there staring at the ceiling, he realized it was hopeless. There was no way he was going to figure out a solution to protect Jade. He might be able to fix her for now, but the minute they did another update on her system, she could go right back to the killing machine she was when she showed up here.
“Have you fixed the hybrid?” Maverick chirped as the sliding glass doors opened and he walked into the room.
“Watch out!” Angelo called.
Charlie’s head whipped around just in time to see Maverick stumble against the tray Charlie had left standing near the doorway during one of his pacing sessions. Maverick tumbled to the ground, rolling on his pronounced belly until he came to a standstill on his back.
“Are you trying to booby-trap the place?” Maverick asked.
Angelo was there in a second to help Maverick stand up and move the cart out of the way. Charlie stared at them for a moment, but he wasn’t seeing them at all.
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