The floor sort of swayed under my feet as Donovan’s looming face filled my vision. He didn’t say anything at all, but he didn’t have to because I could hear his “I told you so,” loud enough in my head.
The elevator opened, and Tom leapt past me, sprinting into the room. Lisa was still in the same spot, staring transfixed at the monitor. I couldn’t make out what was on the screen exactly because the images were whirring by so quickly I found it hard to believe she was actually absorbing the information. Then again, maybe she was just fast forwarding through it.
“Lisa Ann, what are you doing?” Tom called, his voice a mix between panic and anger. It reminded me of the one Esmeralda had used when she told me to stop doing something that could hurt me.
Lisa’s face was bathed in sickly green light as she turned her head just enough to glance at us. A strange smile that gave me the heebie jeebies was plastered across her face. “I think I’ve got it,” she said, voice low and strangely annoyed. She turned back toward the screen and pointed at something. The image enlarged to show a giant picture of a brain lit up with various spots of white light.
I had no idea what the image meant, but I was suddenly worried. Rising terror crept down the back of my neck, slinking across my skin as I struggled to push down the horrible realization Lisa had played me like a fiddle. Who knew what she’d found out in the time I’d been gone…
“What have you got, Lisa?” Tom asked, his face drawn and puckered looking as he approached her. He put one hand on the back of the chair and stared for a long time at the display.
She didn’t respond. Instead, she keyed in some kind of command, and a holographic 3D image of a human brain appeared in the center of the room. She stood and walked over to it. “I figured out what’s wrong with the flit.” She made a pulling gesture with her hands, and the brain came apart in midair, separating itself into bits and pieces I didn’t recognize. Little labels hovered above each separate piece, calling out the names in Latin, not that it helped me much.
“See this spot is where the flit enters your mind.” She touched some spindly piece of brain, and it lit up with blue light. “It sort of places you into a dream-state while it takes over your motor control.” She shrugged, turning to look at Tom and quirked an eyebrow at him. “Your backdoor analogy is stupid by the way. It doesn’t work that way.”
Tom’s face fell as she pulled apart some other thing and continued talking. “This is the actual scan of my brain post flit.” Another brain appeared next to her and fell apart into the same pieces. She glanced at me as she put two pieces of brain together in front of her. “I bet even Abby can tell the difference.”
I couldn’t because they looked the same to me. As far as I could tell, Lisa’s brain was lit up super brightly but the other was dark and dormant. Only, maybe that was it?
“Um… why is yours shining like a Christmas tree?” I asked as Tom stepped up and peered at the pieces of brain.
“Because the flit never actually left her brain. All those neurons are stimulated in a way they never have before. Does this mean what I think it does?” He swallowed, spinning to stare at his daughter and my mouth went dry. Was Lisa still being controlled by the flit? If she was, and I’d just let her into the system…
“Yup,” Lisa said, spinning and pointing back toward the screen. There was a piece of what looked like computer code written there. “That’s what actually happens when this protocol gets called up during implementation.”
Tom swallowed again. “That’s bad, Lisa… very bad.”
“Why?” I asked, stepping between them and rubbing my temples with one hand. “Can you just break it down like I’m a third grader?”
“Basically, the flit never actually leaves you. The exit protocol gets jammed because of the way this part of your brain fires as it turns off. It can’t get back in because it never really left. Basically, it can’t come back into your brain because it has initiated a shutdown that never finished.” Lisa smirked. “It’s like when you try to shutdown your computer, and it hangs up on the shutdown screen until you pull the plug. Only you can’t pull the plug on a human brain.”
“Well that’s good, right?” I asked. “I mean it sounds like a bug, but that’s why it can’t take you back over…”
“It isn’t just that though,” Tom said, moving back to the computer and staring at the code. “The flit still receives stimulus from the brain when it takes someone over. It’s a two way street.”
“So?” I asked. “What does that matter?”
“Abby, the flit is getting stimulus from every single person it has entered, always and forever. The code isn’t designed to handle that, but before it didn’t matter because they weren’t trying to make it ‘seem’ human. Those idiots.” Tom slammed his fist against the panel in front of him hard enough that it made him wince.
“I guess I’m too dumb to understand what you mean?” I said, sighing. “Remember, third grader.”
“Abby, the flit is getting feelings from all of us at once, one hundred percent of the time, but they aren’t necessarily related to what it is doing at the time. So say I’m thinking about eating ice cream while the flit is taking target practice. It will actually think about ice cream and every other thought every single person it’s entered is having at the time. It’s bogging down the system because it wasn’t designed to actually think. It’s more designed to go in and do a simple task, not learn.”
“I fail to see why robot ADD is bad,” I replied, smirking. It seemed like having the flit be distracted by ponies and ice cream was a good thing.
“The flit has connected to a bunch of psycho killers bent on capturing you. People’s minds are scary places. If the flit’s objectives even sort of line up with what those soldiers are thinking about doing to you, well let’s just say what you experienced in the trailer with Troy is the tip of the iceberg.” Tom sighed. “You have to remember, the flit doesn’t have a filter to say ‘this is a bad idea.’ It’s not creative. Once it decides to run with a plan, it pretty much runs with that plan until a better one presents itself, but now it is filled with the creativity and anger of who knows how many people…”
“So they turned to unfeeling robot killer into a psychotic robot killer who is channeling the rage and emotions from people who want to see me dead and in a ditch?” I asked as visions of the Troy filled my head. He pinned me down, his inhuman strength holding my struggling body in place as his cold, unfeeling fingers ran across my flesh.
He licked his lips, and in his eyes I could see the countless soldiers maimed not just by me, but by Gabriella, and all those associated with me. My throat seized up and I struggled to breathe as the world teetered.
“Guys, it’s not just that. Remember, I said it was a two-way street. That means the flit is still influencing every person it touches. It never actually stops, which is bad, but do you know what’s worse? Everyone is sort of leaking into each other subconsciously. That means I’m having thoughts generated by some psycho soldier and every other person the flit has infiltrated.” Lisa sighed, and shook her head.
Horrible recognition filled Tom’s features as he stared at the brain with wide eyes. He opened his mouth to say something when the room shook, flinging me from my feet as we were pitched into darkness. Red lights sputtered on, filling the room with crimson shadows as warning sirens blasted my eardrums into smithereens.
16
Lisa’s head smacked into the control panel as the room quaked. Blood spurted from her forehead as she slumped bonelessly to the ground. Tom swayed next to me, toppling over the chair next to him and hitting the ground on his forearms. He let out a yowl of pain that was loud even over the air-raid sirens.
I swung my head toward the elevator as blast doors slid down, sealing it off. The shaking subsided, and the sirens dialed themselves down to a dull, annoying warble. My knees were still stiff from their impact with the metal floor as I got up and leaned heavily against the control panel.
“Systems
check normal, intruders have gained entrance to the outer perimeter but have not managed to breech the inner sanctum,” my mother’s voice said as the screen in front of me zoomed in to show a veritable army of black-suited men standing outside what looked like an immense steel blast door embedded in the side of a mountain. “The safeguards have been triggered.”
Bits of rock and debris filled the air as a man in green fatigues with a well-trimmed grey goatee and long white hair tucked under a green cap approached the door, an annoyed grimace plastered across his face. He waved his hand at the camera, and the bottom left corner of the monitor zoomed in on his face like one of those picture in a picture televisions.
“Abigail, we’re coming in to get you whether or not you like it. You need to come with us.” His voice sounded like he chewed granite appetizers before eating a breakfast of small kittens. “If you surrender now, we won’t kill everyone inside.” He shrugged once. “You may be thinking I can’t get in there, and maybe you’re right, so I’ve brought some persuasion. Tell your computer to focus on these coordinates.” He held up a small handheld with some numbers scrolling across it.
“Computer, do as he says,” I replied as Lisa got groggily to her feet. I glanced at her. Blood dripped down her face from a cut on her forehead, collecting on her chin and staining the front of her shirt scarlet. My stomach sank as she took a wobbly step toward me. I hadn’t even tried to check on her. What if she’d needed help? Geez, I was a horrible friend…
Lisa must have read the look in my face because she waved her hand and mouthed, “it’s okay.” An image of a small town that looked a little too familiar for my liking filled the left side of the monitor.
“Is that Folsom?” Lisa asked as the camera scanned the town. Everything appeared normal, so why were they showing me this?
“I don’t know if you’ve looked at Folsom yet,” the man who ate kittens said. “But if you haven’t, I’ll just have to do this again.” He typed something into his computer, and the elementary school in the center of town exploded into a mushroom cloud of fire and brimstone. “Hopefully, I won’t.”
“No!” I screamed, reaching out toward the screen as tears welled in my eyes. Had he really just blown up a school to make a point?
“I hope you caught that. Either way, I’m going to blow up another building, then another, and another until either there’s no town left or you come out here.” The man turned his back to the camera and began to disappear into the crowd of agents. “You have five minutes.”
“I have to go out there,” I said, swallowing the rage inside me. I could go out there and save everyone. Besides, they weren’t going to hurt me right? And even if they did, I could take care of myself. I mean sure I’d never faced that many trained soldiers at once, but I was Abby Banks, super spy. If I couldn’t do it, who could? Besides, even if I couldn’t get away, I was one person. Could I really be so selfish as to believe I was worth all those people in Folsom?
“Maybe they already evacuated the town, Abby,” Lisa replied, eyes still transfixed on the screen. “All those people are assets. They wouldn’t just kill their own assets to get you, would they?” She turned to look at me, fury bubbling from her brown eyes. “That’s just bad math.”
“It isn’t if Abby is worth more to them than all those assets. Abby brings along with her all of Gabriella’s tech. That’s worth a lot. She had the flit locked in her vault, who knows what else is in there…” Tom must have gotten up because when I turned toward the sound of his voice, he was standing right behind us. “I’d trade a lot of people for Abby too.” He smirked and shook his head. “It’s a good plan, but it hinges on one thing.” Tom’s hands reached out and flew across the keyboard.
“What’s that?” I asked as the lights stopped flashing, and the sirens went off. The image in the screen rumbled and split to show a giant scud missile I remembered from old war movies. Only it seemed more angry and menacing than it did in the movies.
“It assumes you’re a good person,” Tom replied with a smirk. “You know, that you’re the kind of sap who will just give in to them because they’re willing to do a whole lot of bad.” He shook his head. “Those kinds of tactics don’t work with bad guys.”
The hatch above the missile opened up to reveal blue sky, and a red counter appeared in the corner. The red number sixty flashed for a second before turning into a red fifty-nine.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked, glancing from the screen to Tom and back again.
“I’m going to launch a missile into the heart of their little camp and kill them all,” Tom said with a shrug. The look on his face was so dispassionate I could scarcely believe it belonged to a person.
“That’s crazy! You can’t kill all those people,” I reached out to try and make the computer stop the countdown when he seized my wrists.
“Those aren’t people per se. They’re enemies who want to kill you and your whole town. Destroying them will give us time to come up with another plan.” Tom shoved me away and held up his hands as I balled mine into fists. “I don’t want to fight you, Abby. I can’t beat you in a fight, but this is the right way.”
The screen flashed forty-five, and a chill ran down the back of my spine. Could I really let him kill all those soldiers when I could stop him? Wouldn’t being complicit make me just as bad? I shook my head as tears filled my eyes. “Please don’t do this, Tom. Please just stop. What if they blow up Folsom in retaliation?”
“They might. I’m willing to take that risk.” He looked over his shoulder at Lisa who was watching the numbers tick down, thoughts flitting across her eyes so fast that it was like watching Nascar in fast forward. “Especially since my daughter is out.”
“I can’t take that risk. I might be able to live with you killing all those soldiers. I could justify it to myself that they are bad guys and deserve what they get. But, and this is a big but, I can’t risk an entire town full of innocent people when all I have to do to save them is surrender.” I took a step toward him, and he backed away from the computer hands raised in capitulation.
“Well, let’s hope you figure out how to disable what I’ve done before we run out of time. Then, when you fail, you can thank me for saving us.” Tom took another step back and made a sweeping gesture with his hands. It seemed… odd. Did he really think I wouldn’t be able to figure out my mother’s computer system?
I ignored the strange premonition in the back of my head as the screen hit thirty, and the old guy with the detonator appeared in front of the camera. He wasn’t smiling this time either. “Tick tock, Abigail,” he said, running his thumb over the screen of his hand held.
I stopped. Maybe they’d be safer if I let Tom destroy them all. But what if they retaliated? Could I take that chance? I sighed, I still had time to turn off the timer and get out there before my five minutes were up.
“What sort of guarantee do you have they’ll do anything they say?” Lisa asked, sidling up in front of me and sitting next to the panel Tom had used to start the missile’s launch sequence. She gave me a weak smile. “This is how it will play out. You’ll go down there, and they’ll blow up the town anyway, or do something a million times worse. That’s how these guys work. You know this to be true, Abby.”
“Why do I feel like you’re channeling the emperor?” I asked and Lisa looked at me like I was a crazy person. “Like from Star Wars?” I added before I remembered she had never seen the movies. “Never mind. Computer, stop the countdown.”
“Permission denied,” my mother’s sugar-sweet tone said, bristling over the speaker in front of me like she was telling me to use a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.
“Um… why?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Missile controls can only be activated and deactivated manually. It is a safety mechanism to keep accidents from happening by misunderstanding a spoken command,” the computer told me.
I resisted the urge to punch the computer in its electr
onic face, and instead, put my hands on the keyboard and shut my eyes. For once in my stupid life, my hands knew what to do. They flew across the controls in record time, pausing the countdown at the three second mark.
“Congratulations, Abby, you’ve killed us all,” Tom said as I turned toward him.
“Tom, those guys are just doing their jobs. We can’t just kill them all. They have families, people counting on them. We can’t just slaughter them for that…” The words had barely finished leaving my mouth when the man on the screen appeared again.
“Maybe you didn’t see my first demonstration, Abigail. Let’s just do another one right now to make sure. I bet this one will hit a little closer to home.” He pressed something on his handheld. An explosion rocked a tiny subdivision of Folsom, turning the street of two-story McMansions into a pile of twisted rubble and flaming debris.
“My parents!” Lisa let loose a scream as she shoved me aside. I stumbled over my own feet and fell as Lisa’s face turned cold and dark. I looked up at the screen and my stomach fell. She was right. That was the street Lisa lived on. Had they done that on purpose? If so, why? Was their plan to get Lisa to convince me to give myself up?
I got to my feet, and as I was reaching out to comfort Lisa, she slapped me across the face. “You killed them, Abby.” Her eyes were filled with murder as she shoved me, hard. “You let them do this because you couldn’t kill the people trying to kill us? Seriously? Are you broken in the head?”
Lisa screamed, a short stuttered howl of frustration, and pressed a command into the keyboard before I could react.
“What are you doing?” I asked as the counter hit zero, and the missile lifted into the air. I watched, too stunned to say anything as the camp outside the door to Gabriella’s compound was enveloped in a fireball that made the attack on Folsom look like a party favor. Lisa had just killed them all.
Meet Abby Banks VOLUMES: 1-3 Page 28