by Therin Knite
The laser gun emits a light grid that washes over half my face and over Salt’s ruined head. "Warning," says a robot voice, "improper alignment detected on both targets. Proceed?"
"Proceed!" screams Salt. "Right upload. Left download."
The green laser grid turns red on Salt’s side, and another, thicker beam runs up from neck to crown. "Droid chip detected. Upload source correct?"
"Correct!"
The beam shifts to blue and engulfs Salt’s entire head. A second later, her body stops moving, and a blue beam appears over my face, too. "Download sequence initiated."
Shit. I try to squirm my way out of its sight, but whatever is broken in me has rendered me helpless. I shift my head as far out of the beam as possible, and I can do nothing more except watch the laser build up a charge before shooting a hot stream of light directly into my left eye.
A million volts pierce the center of my brain. They beat me out of my own body, red hot pincers tearing nerves free from my consciousness. They hurl my detached soul a hundred miles, a thousand miles away, so far from myself I know I’ll never return of my own accord.
Then they let me go, and I drift, numb and slow, into a white, soundless void.
I think: Georgette McClain, Award-Winning Journalist, Dies in Horrific Laser Attack!
I feel: absolutely nothing.
6
Quentin
I leave an impressive blood trail. A series of droplets and puddles and smears and smudges, connected together to form a half-mile-long painting. My heart labors to keep my falling blood volume pumping through my body, and the holes in my torso leak with every movement. But I make it. Staining a corridor the color of war with my single, dying body, I make it.
At the intersection that leads to Howard’s CPU room, I lean against the wall and carefully peek around the edge. There should be two patrolmen guarding the door, once again under Howard’s control and out of mine, but the hallway is clear when I scan it. No guards in sight. Howard must have rerouted the CPU guards upstairs to join the fight against the rebel recruits, leaving his most vital possession—his brain, for God’s sake—open to attack. His capability for logic has degraded to sheer madness.
This benefits me, something Salt surely didn’t intend. Her plot backfired. Enough for me to secure a consolation price, at least. I push my beleaguered body forward, down the hall, to the locked CPU room door. The blood trail grows ever longer, and about halfway there, my vision starts to waver again. I don’t dare stop to collect my breath or attempt to regain strength. You can’t plug a hull breach with a stopper fit for a bathtub.
The CPU room has a passcode twenty-four digits long. I’ve never had to bother with it before because Howard would unlock the door for me whenever necessary. That’s no longer the case, and I have to recall a number combination I learned ages ago. Flattening myself against the wall to stabilize my dying body, I reach for the code pad and recall the numbers in groups of three. A high school study trick: chunking.
Is it funny or sad such simple childhood shortcuts remain useful while the best laid plans fall to pieces?
Yet again, I can’t lift myself high enough to see the pad, so I have to trace the keys until I’m sure my fingers are in the right places. Then I type.
Three numbers. Six numbers. Nine. Twelve.
At fifteen, I black out for a few seconds, but my fingers don’t type any errant numbers, so I gather my wits and continue. Fifteen. Eighteen. Twenty-one.
Twenty-four.
For a second, nothing happens. The hallway is quiet, and I know Howard changed the password to lock me out, and all of this, all of it—the Heights and everything else—was a wasted effort. Then the locks disengage, and the door slides open with a rush of warm air.
The room beyond looks the way I remember. All the consoles and screens and wires and servers. The hologram is absent, Howard’s full attention on the incursion happening floors above me, but the red ring in the center of the floor is still visible.
My vision dims at the edges, so I take as deep a breath as I can and crawl into the obstacle course. Over thick, twisted wires. Around tall, buzzing servers. Avoiding anything producing steam as I go. Slow. Steady. Blood on my hands and knees, staining Howard’s innards with my own.
I reach the hologram sensor circle. Inside are eight metal floor panels, and one of them has a hard-to-see lip a finger can fit under. I flatten myself onto my stomach to conserve what energy I have left and feel for the lip. My index finger slips beneath it, and it takes a substantial amount of my waning strength to pop the tile out of place and push it away.
Underneath, a series of large wires connect to a central station, and plugged into a port on the top of that station is a chip the same size as the one in my pocket.
It’s so simple, in the end.
I reach out and pluck the chip from its resting place. The entire room goes dark, and emergency lights flicker on, a dim red-orange. A piercing siren cries out from the heart of the room and rattles my brain inside my skull. In peak physical condition, it would disable me in seconds, but here’s the irony of injury: I’m so far gone, the additional pain doesn’t hurt enough to stop me.
I chuck the infected mind chip across the room and retrieve the reset chip. Vision failing, I feel around the station for the port to plug it in. A gentle push, and it clicks into place.
Victory.
My bloody body goes limp on the floor, engulfed in darkness blacker than the dead CPU room. It drags me under, away from the siren and the battle and all my achievements and failures, the good times and bad, the few hopes and many worries. Toward a realm where all humans fear to tread but I do not. Because my last will and testament, my last great dream, has been executed by my own hand.
This is triumph.
And somewhere on the surface of a world I’m falling far, far away from, I hear a sound—music to my ears. A sound greater than the siren and the racket of guns and battle cries. A sound holier than prayer and hymns to any god. Good gracious, what a sound...
"System reboot in progress."
It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard.
7
Marco
I’m zipping through the narrow alley network I routed days ago. My hacked patrolman is three or four steps ahead, a vanguard, and it’s holding a rifle at a slight incline, as if it expects an ambush from the rooftops. Or the sky. A higher vantage point would give the scouts free rein to slaughter me, and one of those sky snipers could mow me down with ease. So if any of them find me, I’m screwed. But this is the only path that considerably reduces the likelihood of being seen, so the rewards outweigh the risks.
I think. Reggie was better at this game.
We reach the alley opening directly across from the faulty grid segment and crouch behind a dumpster. The rotten smell permeates my face mask, mixing with the musty closet scent of the fabric. I breathe through my mouth to ward it off and check my personal inventory again. I’ve got the last pipe bomb, a rifle, two handguns, and knives that won’t be of much use for battling patrolmen but may come in handy during my brief Heights breach.
My patrolman turns its head one-eighty and signals to where its ears would be if it had a human head. With the memory of the piercing siren fresh in my mind, I hesitantly reach up and remove the blockers. The night is so quiet it hurts, and the internal symphony of my heart beating quick and my blood pumping hard through my veins is replaced by the noise of my ragged breathing. Sounds like I’m having an asthma attack.
I try to stifle myself as I fold the blockers and shove them into their designated pouch. The zipper noise seems distant to my ears, and I wonder if my eardrums suffered permanent damage from that damned siren. Before the blockers, I was sure my body would vibrate itself to pieces, molecule by molecule. Even after the blockers, I could feel the shrill shriek in my chest. It faded out minutes ago, and I thought the stressful sprint-and-stops might have overtaken it.
But no. It’s gone. Came as it went.
The Sims Center hasn’t stopped blinking. The spotlights haven’t moved from the doors. The threat hasn’t been neutralized, whatever it is, but the siren is no longer necessary. I rub my gloved hands together and blow warm air through my mask. Then I reach for the remote for the disruptor contraption, hooked on my belt next to my bomb detonator. I double check to make sure I haven’t grabbed the detonator by accident—because wouldn’t that suck?—and arm the device.
There’s no movement at any of the building’s exits. No rebels break windows and make suicidal leaps from a high story. The patrolmen in the guard towers don’t shoot at anything. The next five minutes consist of a great steaming pile of nothing, and the nagging feeling that McClain has failed wraps itself around my neck again and squeezes.
"Come on, McClain." I press my temple against the side of the sludge-coated dumpster, ignoring the rank condensation that sticks to my skin. "Don’t make this for no—"
My patrolman’s head whips around to face forward, and it raises a hand, pointing to an entrance on the south end of the Center. I concentrate on the double doors, my thumb lightly brushing the remote’s activation switch. Three spotlights shift from their original bearings and bathe the designated exit in layers of dazzling white light. It reflects off the tinted door panels, and I can’t see anything happening beyond them.
Until McClain and two men shoot straight through the glass with a burn rifle and fly out into the courtyard.
"Now," I say to my patrolman, "initiate distraction pattern two."
8
Georgette
I wake up with Rocky’s hand inside me. And not in the fun way. He’s torn off a loose piece of sealant and shoved his fingers into my abdomen, and if I wasn’t so offended by the image, I’d be screaming—because it fucking hurts. If Dupree lives through this crap, I’m taking the man out for a drink and a screw, because after today we will share a mutual hatred for surgery without anesthesia.
Speaking of Dupree, he’s holding me down on the table while the "surgeon" plays with my intestines like Dr. Frankenstein. When he notices I’m awake, he whistles to Rocky, and the other man’s mutilated face looks up.
"Sorry, McClain. I need a couple more minutes. You’re hemorrhaging. I’ve almost got it sealed." The hand that’s not playing with my internal organs holds the J-COR1H bottle Salt must have had in her pocket. The cap is open, a ring of dried sealant around the edge.
"Are you qualified to do this?" My voice slurs, and a spike of pain radiates from my diaphragm.
Rocky grimaces. "Well, I’m an astrophysicist, so technically no. But I did a stint at med school before I got into my PhD program."
"A short stint," Dupree mutters.
I groan, struggling to keep my breathing steady. To distract myself from the unclean hand wriggling around in my stomach, I take stock of the transfer room. Not much has changed since I lost consciousness.
Salt’s inactive droid body is still on the floor, but someone slid her underneath the next table over with a swift kick, going by the black scuff on her shirt. The laser gun has retracted to the machine base in the ceiling, and the workstation screen Salt was using has reverted to a screensaver. Every thirty seconds or so, the computer voice from the transfer process repeats: "Warning: download failed due to misalignment. Partial data placement rendered."
Something pinches tight in my abdomen, and I bite my tongue. Dupree pats my shoulders. "Almost there."
"I don’t need your comfort."
"Doesn’t matter. I’m giving it anyway."
"Ass."
"Bitch." Streaks of blood and tears mar his pretty face, and when he speaks, he wobbles slightly. He’s using the hands on my arms to balance himself upright more than to keep me pinned. He’s also bobbing his head from side to side, a slow, deliberate motion, as if he’s trying to dislodge something from his ears.
Now that I think about it, I have a fading case of tinnitus. "Did something loud happen while I was out?"
Dupree scowls. "Yes, the alarm from hell. Thought I was going to lose my hearing."
"Done." Rocky’s hand slides out of my abdominal cavity with a loud squelch. He holds the sealant bottle close to the raw incision on my side and squeezes it. A glob of clear gel emerges, and he uses a finger to spread it the length of the cut. "There. Give it twenty seconds to harden."
I wait the allotted time, trying to compartmentalize the memory of Rocky’s fingers touching parts of me no man’s hand should ever touch. Ick. I’m going to have uncomfortable dreams about this experience. If I make it out of here alive.
Which may not happen. Because someone is banging on the massive steel door, and it’s sliding out of its frame an inch more with each attack.
I sit up, my torso sore and stiff in odd places. "We got company?"
"They’ve been at it since you passed out." Dupree retrieves the burst rifle from atop a nearby shelf and resumes using it as a crutch. Salt’s burn rifle is strapped to his back. "Won’t be long before they break through. They had torches on it for a while to melt the locks and hinges."
"We need to get out of here, then." I swing my legs over the edge of the table and slide to the floor, but nausea almost clotheslines me. Rocky reaches out to stabilize me with both his hands, but I jerk away from his bloody fingers.
"Nice thought," he says, frowning, "except there’s no way out. We checked. There’s only the one door."
"That makes no sense. Salt wouldn’t have come here if she couldn’t get out. She—" Planned to escape using the ventilation system. There’s a covered vent near the ceiling large enough for a person to fit through. And if you take two lefts, a right, and another left through the vent system using that opening—a trip zero-point-six miles long and no time at all if you’re moving quick—then you’ll arrive at the ground floor AC maintenance room. Which is three hundred feet from an exit door. "—had a plan."
I blink a few times, willing the flood of information to settle. My head throbs.
"You okay, McClain?" Dupree asks.
"Fine." Not fine. Not even remotely fine. I pivot around and locate the vent. It’s there. The size and shape I expected it to be. I can imagine myself traveling through it, taking the turns my brain suggested, and arriving at a viable exit unimpeded. Even though I have never seen that vent before and had no clue it existed until this exact moment.
I taste bile on my tongue and glance at Salt’s droid corpse.
"Partial data placement rendered."
Oh, hell.
"I know how to get out of here. Follow my lead."
9
Marco
Forty-five seconds.
I flick the disruptor switch, and the grid segment shorts out with a flicker and a crack. My patrolman storms the guard towers and shoots out the spotlights, plunging the courtyard into darkness. Gunfire volleys ring out, orange flashes against a black backdrop. They’re aiming for my patrolman, who leads them on a zigzagged goose chase while I’m free to climb the fence. I’ve got a scrambler sewn into my vest, so as long as the patrolmen don’t have cameras on me, I’m invisible.
Thirty-two seconds.
McClain and her companions make a painfully slow advance to the fence. My eyes see them as limping shadows, and as they draw closer and take on more definition, it’s clear all three are injured. I unclip a rope from my belt, fasten one hook to the top of the fence, and drop the remainder to McClain’s awaiting hands. To my surprise, she passes the rope to a darker-skinned man using a rifle as a crutch.
Since when does McClain give a crap about other people’s wellbeing?
Twenty-six seconds.
McClain ascends the fence without aid, as does the second man, whose face is obscured by dark gunk that must be blood. I help the first man up the fence with the rope, and when he reaches the top, I understand why McClain gave it to him. He’s missing a leg.
Christ, what happened in there?
Fifteen seconds.
McClain shifts her body over the fence and begins her
descent. The bloodied man follows her, but a third of the way down, he slips, falls, and collides with the sidewalk at a painful-looking angle. Groaning, he staggers to his feet, and two rifle rounds eat the concrete where his head was a second before. McClain lets go of the fence, pushes off with her legs, and lands with a graceful tuck-and-roll. She grabs the injured man and darts toward the nearest alleyway for cover.
Eight seconds.
The man with one leg can’t climb down, so I have to lower him. I move fast, the rope slippery against my gloves, and the moment he touches the ground, I wrap my sleeve in the rope and leap off the top of the fence, slowing my descent with friction. The high-pitched scraping of rope on fabric attracts the attention of the nearest patrolmen, and before I can get a move on, I’m pinned in place by a hail of burst bullets. Shrapnel pings off my armored shins as the ground at my feet disintegrates.
Four seconds.
My patrolman makes a final stand. In less than a minute, he’s lost both arms and his chest plate, but he keeps fighting anyway. He bounds from one guard tower to the other, crashing into the shooters like a bowling ball. The bullets cease, and I haul the cowering brown-skinned man over my shoulder and follow McClain into the shadows of the alley. The defense grid segment reengages with a flash of brilliant white behind me, but I can hear another patrolman unit in rapid pursuit already. Boots thundering on the street. Guns and armor clinking.
"Hey, buddy," I say to the guy on my back, "grab that pipe bomb and chuck it into the street, will you?"
"What?"
"Do it!"
The man unclasps the bomb after three tries and tosses it. I rip the detonator from my belt, and as soon as we clear the blast radius, I activate my last hurrah. The ground rumbles, and a plume of fire and smoke blooms into the sky, obscuring the view of the blinking Sims Center.