Neon Helix

by Nik Whittaker

  “If you could sit here,” Jacob indicated to a small seat laying next to the chamber. “And attach these,” he continued, as he picked up some electrodes.

  Julian walked over to help Owens attach them.

  “How does this work?” Julian asked, his inquisitive nature overriding his disgust at the whole business.

  “Well, simply put, the device maps out the exact location of all synapses and connections within the subject's brain at a molecular level. Once it has created a full digital imprint of the brain, it then works to recreate an exact replica within the cloned body. It’s slightly more complex in detail than that, but that's the lay mans version,” Jacob said, the tone almost sarcastic in its superiority.

  “So you map the central cortex and create a temporary digital signature which you then remap onto a cloned tabula rasa using electron pulses which, in turn, manufactures a complete composite of the original cortex at an expedited rate, without having the need for real time synapse build up for the neural network?” Ally replied, not because she had to, but because she wanted to.

  Julian, Jacob and Owens exchanged glances.

  “I guess Peter wasn’t the only genius in the family,” Owens said, smiling.

  They got to work getting Owens ready for the procedure, once he was set up, they waited for Jacob to begin.

  “This will feel… unusual Owens, I apologise for any discomfort,” Jacob gave a brief look of sympathy at his old colleague before flipping a switch on the computer.

  A jolt of electricity ran through Owens’ body causing it to shake violently, then it stopped. A moment later, the eyes on the body rolled backwards, showing the pure white of the eyeballs.

  “Is he dead?” Asked Julian walking, over to the body.

  “That body is yes,” Jacob replied. “But his mind is transferring.”

  The next second, a gasping sound burst the silence as the body in the chamber rose to a sitting position, looking around wildly.

  “Owens?” Ally asked.

  The body stared at her blankly.

  CHAPTER 45

  Xander

  Xander was pissed off.

  He’d been sat in the apartment taking potshots at the nano version of Donovan, after the others had made their way out of the apartment. It was in these moments of gunfire that Xander always found himself recollecting on the situation at hand.

  They had played him from the start, used him as a diversion by this Yuri to get Ava out of the picture. From the investigation through to getting mind locked in the prison. If there was one thing he hated, it was being played, especially by a floppy disc with delusions of grandeur.

  A shot pinged above his head, a cloud of dust and debris showered him. A quick spin out from his cover, he levelled his gun and fired a shot directly at the exposed Donovan. The shot landed perfectly through Donovan's forehead. For a moment Xander smiled, he’d took the bastard down.

  It didn’t last though, as the wound slowly stitched itself back together, Donovan fired a return volley. Xander barely scrambled back into cover as the shots echoed around him.

  “Hey Donovan, are you still in there, or are you all robot now?” He shouted.

  “We have Donovan’s memories, but he isn’t here anymore,” came the reply.

  “How's about you tell me what the plan is here?” Xander scanned his eyes around the room behind him, searching for anything that could help.

  “It’s too late Alexander, the plan has already begun. It’s a matter of time now.”

  Donovan was walking straight towards the apartment now, Xander fired two shots as he approached. They landed squarely through Donovan’s chest. The body paused and rocked backwards from the impact, a momentary pause before continuing its progress, the bullets dropping to the floor as the wound healed.

  “A matter of time for what?” Xander was running out of room to manoeuvre.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” Donovan was now inside the apartment, “Where is Ava?”

  “Ava? She left a long time ago,” Xander smiled, if nothing else, getting her away seemed to have been a small win.

  Donovan rushed towards Xander and grabbed him by the throat, lifting his body off the ground.

  “Where did she go?” He demanded. “Tell me and I’ll spare your life.”

  “No idea, I was too busy slowing you down,” Xander wheezed as his windpipe tightened.

  Donovan looked round the apartment and saw the open window.

  “Damn you,” Donovan dropped Xander and ran to look out the window and saw the group in the street below.

  “I have no use for you now,” Donovan turned to Xander and fired a shot directly to his chest. Xander felt the impact and crumpled to the floor. He saw Donovan leave the apartment and through the door, he caught a glimpse as he leapt over the stairwell handrail. Then he blacked out from the pain.

  He awoke to the sight of Prime pulling him to a seating position.

  “Hey Xander, you hear me?”

  Xander blinked a few times, focusing on Prime’s face. He could see blood and bruises over Prime's face. Then he remembered the shot and looked down at his chest, sure to see blood covering him. Instead, he only saw the burnt fabric of the shirt he was wearing. He pulled apart the shirt and underneath he saw the CyBio coin Prime had given him. It was undamaged and pristine.

  “What the hell is that made of?” He asked, as he checked it for damage.

  “Looks like you got lucky,” Prime said, as he helped Xander to his feet.

  “You don’t look so lucky, what happened to you?” Xander indicated to the wounds on Prime’s face.

  “Yuri, I think. I had a bit of a blackout but I vaguely remember fighting,” Prime explained the fragments of what had just happened. “When I regained my thoughts, I thought to come back here as Ava and Mollie were long gone.”

  “Good, it’s Ava he wants, so whatever they are doing seems to have Yuri worried, which means it must be the right thing.”

  “Agreed, we should join up with them at CyBio, Yuri must know that’s where they’re headed.”

  After shaking the cobwebs, the two left the apartment and headed outside, Xander’s car was still parked at the side of the complex. They climbed inside, and headed for the building to join the others.

  “I owe you an apology,” Xander said, “You aren't the person I thought you were.”

  “It’s understandable, I mean I don’t really know who I am either!” Prime replied. “I think, if this Peter person is who I am a clone of, that he still has access to me.”

  Xander looked at him puzzled.

  “When I said I lost control fighting Yuri, I think Peter took over my body. I don’t know how or why but I can still feel fragments of his thoughts in my head.” He turned to Xander, “If that happens again, I want you to make sure he does nothing with my body. You’re the only person I trust to make that judgement, you know who Peter is and what he’s capable of. Can you do that?”

  It was a moment before Xander nodded slowly; he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  “You stay in control Prime, you deserve your life, not the one he wasted. But I won’t hesitate if I think you’re compromised, you have my word.”

  They continued the journey, discussing the implications of what they were heading into.

  CHAPTER 46

  Ally

  The body sat up in the chamber and looked around the room, not seeing each face but looking through them.

  “Owens?” Ally asked, taking a step towards the body.

  It stared at her for a moment, before a slow recognition developed.

  “Ally?” He said.

  “It usually takes a while for the brain to establish a full connection between the new memories, but the procedure was successful,” Jacob said, as he monitored the computers.

  “I feel, okay,” Owens said, as he climbed naked out of the chamber and headed behind a screen to change into some generic clothes from a cupboard which all the clones received on activation.


  “Not to rush anyone but we really need to be getting to CyBio,” Julian said.

  “Agreed,” Owens replied, as he came back from getting changed. He was moving all his limbs one at a time to get the feeling back into them, clearly happy to be back in a familiar body.

  Ally had walked away from the group slightly and held her hand to her ear whilst looking into the chambers, hiding the fact she was activating her comms unit.

  “Quartz, you there?” She whispered.

  “Ally! Thank god! I was worried about you! I was about to call the MPD! Did you find Julian?” The AI replied.

  “Quiet Quartz! I found him at the church, he’s ok but he’s had all his tech removed, apart from a radio transmitter.”

  “What?! No wonder I can’t reach him!”

  “Listen, there’s a lot going on right now. Julian needs to connect to the CyBio headquarters through his radio transmitter, to activate some nanobots in his bloodstream to neutralise a biotech toxin which is coded into him, if it isn’t neutralised then the radio transmitter will send it over the Net and it would infect every augmented person and cause the tech to be rejected by their own immune system,” she blurted out, to bring Quartz up to speed.

  “Wow, OK. If you’re in signal range now, how come neither the nanobots nor the toxin have been activated?”

  “We aren’t sure, Jacob is saying that he set the toxin to be dormant until it reached maximum tech saturation potential. The idea being to trigger in the middle of the Boulevard, so we are avoiding highly populated areas. As for the nanobots, we think something has happened at the CyBio headquarters, I was thinking, could you see if anything is happening there?”

  “Sure, I’ll see if I can get access, though it has some of the highest firewalls to penetrate.”

  “Great, I want to keep this between us for now, I don’t know who we can trust with Owens and Jacob. Julian has no means of talking to you I’m afraid but I’ll keep an eye on him, I promise.”

  “Thank you Ally, by the way, I just found Peter.”

  “You did? Where is he? He’s involved in this too!”

  “I know, he has this second walked into the CyBio entrance I can see from the external CCTV.”

  “What? We’re heading there now, let me know if you find anything.”

  “Will do.”

  Ally walked back to the others who were still checking Owens was all right from the transfer.

  “Are we ready?” She asked.

  “Think so, let’s get started,” Owens jumped to his feet.

  They headed back towards the entrance when a loud noise erupted behind them. Not one sound but a hundred versions of the same sound triggering together at the same time.

  The chamber doors all down the warehouse had opened simultaneously. The hissing sound of air escaping the chambers echoed deep within the walls, as the doors slid aside. In unison, the bodies inside took a step, and all walked towards the exit, past the group, in organised lines.

  “What on earth…” Owens stared at the flood of people coming towards them. “Jacob, is this normal?”

  “I’ve never seen this before,” Jacob whispered. “There’s only one explanation, but it would be impossible,” he spoke half to himself.

  The bodies were getting closer now, the four of them stood to the side as the army marched past.

  “What isn’t possible? Because it looks pretty possible to me,” Julian said, scanning the crowd.

  “It’s Peter, it must be,” Jacob said.

  Ally turned to look at him, the mention of Peter grabbing her attention.

  “All the clones, we created them with a small implant which allowed Peter the ability to connect to them at any time, a small remote controller, which he could access. At first it was for security in case any of them went awry, but it had its advantages for several uses when we needed to test certain potentially lethal experiments,” Jacob explained. “But this, this looks as though he has connected to each and every one of the clones simultaneously! The pressure on his mind is unthinkable.”

  Ally took a step forward and grabbed the arm of one of the clones and pulled it aside, the shock caused all the clones to take a misstep but falling back in line immediately. The one she had took aside was another female, Ally felt as though she was looking in a mirror of a younger version of herself.

  “Peter, can you hear me?” She said, staring into its eyes.

  After a few moments, the clone lowered its view to meet Ally’s.

  “Do I know you?” It asked, searching Ally for some recognition. “I’m a little busy right now.”

  “Peter, it's me, it’s Ally. Your sister.”

  A pause.

  “Ally? I thought you were dead. Jacob told me you’d died in the war.”

  “No Peter, I’m here, I was in hiding. I’m back now though,” Ally had tears in her eyes.

  “I…I don’t have time for this right now. I’m sorry, I need to get to Yuri before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Ally asked, wiping tears away.

  “He has a plan, he will use the nanobots to take over. I’m sorry Ally, I’ll find you after, I promise.”

  Before Ally could reply, the clone's face became stone and it turned and rejoined the lines of clones. She turned to the others who were processing the information themselves.

  “We need to get to CyBio as soon as possible,” Julian said. “If these clones are heading there too, I say we join them.”

  “Agreed,” Ally nodded.

  Owens and Jacob rejoined them and they all got in line with the clones as they headed to the headquarters.

  CHAPTER 47

  Mollie

  Mollie’s thoughts raced faster than ever as she stood with the gun pointed at the security guards.

  She had always wondered what her true heritage was, Yuri was right, she had been orphaned when she was only two years old. Often, she’d dreamt of who she really was, fantasising that she was a lost child of royalty or some such. The dreams were always shot down by her own thoughts, reminding her that if she was anything of the sort, why was she living on the streets, alone and hungry.

  Now though, the dreams returned, maybe Yuri was right, maybe there was truth in what he had said, why would he lie. He wasn’t the one that had been trying to kill Prime or her, she’d only recently met Ava.

  She turned the gun and pointed it towards Ava; she wanted to know the truth about herself. Ava stared at her, eyes wide.

  Mollie closed her eyes, the past moments seeming to have taken a lifetime in her mind, processing everything.

  She opened them, her eyes locked with Ava’s, she adjusted aim and pulled the trigger.

  The shot flew out the gun and narrowly avoided Ava’s head, before lodging into the large mainframe computer behind her.

  “Run!” Mollie shouted, as she sped towards Ava while the guards behind Mollie ran towards them.

  She wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice, but she’d made it this far on her own with no help from her heritage, whatever it was. If there was anything to find out, she would do it on her own terms.

  “You made the wrong choice Miss Dolittle,” Yuri shouted through the PA system.

  Ava and Mollie tumbled into the mainframe room and Ava slammed a hand against an access panel, which caused the door to slide back into place. Mollie then fired a shot into the panel, disabling it.

  “I thought I’d lost you for a moment there,” Ava said

  “Nearly did, lucky for you I changed my mind.”

  They turned to look at the mainframe; it had smoke coming from the bullet hole but overall it seemed intact.

  “Is it still functional?” Mollie asked, as Ava circled it, looking for an access point.

  “I think so, the damage may have forced it to redirect memory from another section to bypass the faults, probably slowed it down while it does.”

  She accessed a display on the server.

  “It looks like you knocked the transmitters out,
Yuri won’t be able to connect to any nanobots outside the building now. She moved to another panel and found what she was looking for and connected herself to the system.

  “You know what you’re doing?” Mollie asked, glancing at the door which was moving slightly from attack's on the other side.

  “I believe so, if my memory is correct, I can access the mainframe and connect with Yuri directly, in Cyberspace. From there, all I need is the kill switch protocol which Owens gave me when he first developed me as a safeguard.”

  “That’s convenient,” Mollie said, part of her still thinking if she made the right choice.

  “Owens knew that Yuri was getting too advanced, he was assimilating information at a rapid pace. He felt that whilst Yuri was ultimately on the side of good, the form that would take was unpredictable.”

  Ava was preparing the cable into the mainframe now, in a moment she would be integrated into it.

  “I don’t know if I can keep them away for long Ava,” Mollie pointed at the door which was inching further open as the guards pulled at the metallic shutter.

  They searched the room for anything that could help, together they pulled several banks of terminals across the door, further blocking it from access. On a desk, Mollie found a small EMP Pistol.

  “That should do the trick,” Ava said. “Just please don’t point that at me.”

  Mollie smiled as she checked the pistol over, she had used most types of firearm in her work with JJ; the gun was nicely weighted.

  “Go for it, I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” she said, setting up with an aim on the door.

  Ava completed the connection, within a moment her whole body went limp and she stood like a mannequin dummy, lifeless other than the occasional eyelid movement.

  Mollie watched her, hardly believing how her day had started to where it was now.

  “Mollie,” Yuri’s voice was over the tannoy again. “Now we’re alone again, let’s talk.”

  “I think we’re past that now Yuri,” she replied, taking aim at the door.