Neon Helix

by Nik Whittaker

  “The stairs here should lead us back to the main core,” Ava explained, remembering the layout of the building.

  Making their way up the stairs, they slowed their pace, along the floor were the bodies of several nanobots.

  “They don’t look injured?” Julian said, kneeling to look at one.

  “Agreed, it’s almost as if someone has switched them off. Maybe Yuri lost connection with them, perhaps it worked.” Ava replied.

  “Or perhaps he is too preoccupied elsewhere, I don’t want to assume anything until we know for sure,” Prime replied.

  “If we find Yuri, what’s the plan?” Julian asked, as they got to the floor where the hard drive was located.

  Prime smiled and looked down the corridor ahead of them.

  “I’ve called in the Calvary,” he said, as the group of five clones walked towards them and circled them like a military escort.

  “I guess that works,” Julian said, his voice betraying a little apprehension.

  A shot rang out across the hall from them, as a burst of a shotgun exploded the chest of the clone at the front of the group, his blood showering them as the body dropped to the ground. In the distance, Yuri stood with the shotgun aimed at them.

  “YURI!” Prime shouted out whilst moving the remaining clones into position ahead of the group. “So you are still alive.”

  Yuri took aim and fired another shot, it ripped away the arm of another clone at the shoulder.

  “‘I’m still here,” Yuri replied, “Which are you? Prime or Peter? Your voice pattern isn’t quite either?” Yuri stared at Prime.

  “Peter is dead, just me now Yuri, and it looks like it’s just you now too,” Prime nodded to the deactivated nanobots on the ground.

  “I may have lost the connection to the server, but the kill switch didn’t quite get to me,” he looked at Ava. “Nice try though.”

  Ava paused, once again she was talking with Quartzig internally before tapping Julian on the shoulder.

  “I think I have an idea, but it won’t be easy.”

  Another shotgun blast shattered plaster from the wall beside them, as Prime sent two of the clones on a suicide run towards Yuri. Prime turned back as Ava and Julian explained the plan.

  “If we can get close enough to Yuri, we can get Quartzig into Yuri, using the comms device which got him into Ava’s cortex,” Julian explained.

  “It’s risky but if Quartzig can get inside, he might be able to take over the main systems and shut him down for good,” Ava continued hurriedly.

  “Ok, be ready on my mark. I doubt we’ll have long,” Prime answered, before turning back to Yuri.

  Yuri had fired several shots at the two clones headed towards him, they were now laying in chunks on the ground in front of him.

  “Come on Prime! Peter would have been smarter than that. Let’s end this!” Yuri threw the shotgun down, it’s ammo spent.

  “Okay Yuri, it ends now.”

  Prime ran towards Yuri, the two remaining clones at his side, together they completely lined the corridor. Yuri stood his ground as they approached, clenching his fists and taking a deep breath.

  The first clone, a female with long black hair, launched at Yuri, fist forward. She struck against his jaw as she connected, the full momentum of her airborne body crashing into the punch. Yuri stumbled back one foot from the impact and grabbed the wrist of the offending hand in a vice-like grip. One sharp twist to his left and the wrist cracked, rotated in a 180 degree. The scream echoed down the corridor as the second clone gut punched Yuri, hoping to free his sister. The punch had no effect, Yuri simply absorbed the impact and grabbed the throat of the second clone with his free right hand and raised him up off the ground.

  “Did you really think you’d be able to defeat me with such feeble attacks as these?” He mocked, as he choked the life out of the second clone, a final crack finishing the job as its neck was crushed in his fist. The first was on her knees, clutching at her wrist which Yuri still held in its broken state.

  “No, they were just the distraction while I did this,” Prime ran forwards now, the speed so rapid that Yuri barely had time to drop the clones he held when Prime leapt over him, turning mid air, to land behind Yuri. He grabbed the back of Yuri’s neck and drove a knife straight down into the top of the spinal column.

  Yuri froze in place, unable to move, the knife had severed the main core of Yuri’s nanobody.

  “Now!” Shouted Prime. “It won’t take him long to repair the damage!”

  Ava and Julian ran forwards, they had already removed the comms unit from Ava in preparation and opened the side of Yuri’s head.

  A second later, Yuri eyes moved, another second and his mouth opened.

  “What are you doing?” He asked. “Well played Prime. You are correct, it won’t take long for me to get my nanobots to repair and bypass the damage. I wonder what you think you can accomplish in these mere seconds.”

  Julian had accessed the circuitry and was attaching the comms unit as fast as he could.

  “Hurry it up, Julian!” Prime shouted, feeling the body of Yuri coming back to life as he held the knife in place.

  “Time’s up,” Yuri smiled as he extended his arms and flung Prime off his back. Reaching behind him and clutched the hilt of the blade, and pulled it out of his neck. Turning to Julian and Ava, he raised the knife and threw it towards them.

  Just as the blade left Yuri’s hand, Prime dove forwards, grabbing the knife mid air and returned it towards Yuri, the blade dug deep into his chest from the force of the impact.

  “Kid gloves are off now Yuri, I just needed to keep you standing long enough to get that device connected,” Prime ended his sentence with a swift kick to the hilt of the blade, forcing it deeper into the chest of Yuri.

  Yuri looked down at the small hilt that was still sticking out, it would be difficult to remove and defiantly time consuming, he thought better of trying and instead looked back to Prime.

  “No more games,” Yuri leapt forwards and grabbed Prime by the shoulders, forcing him backwards until he crashed into a wall behind him. Plaster showered down on them as the impact dislodged several tiles of the already crumbling building.

  Prime struggled under the grip which Yuri had on him, the pressure of his grip squeezing his shoulders tight, he stared into the face of Yuri and could see damage lines in his face now, the leftover from some other trauma. He closed his eyes and braced for the pain as he flung his head forwards and smashed a headbutt directly to the ridge of Yuri’s nose. The pain was electrifying as it crackled through Primes skull, the impact of skin on metal, but it had the desired effect. The slightly damaged face of Yuri cracked slightly open, causing him to release Prime and step back to assess the wound.

  Prime wasted no time, shaking the pain from his head, he delivered a perfect punch to the face of Yuri, aiming for the cracked metal that now webbed from his forehead and over his nose and cheek. An anger grew inside Prime’s mind. Another strike and Prime felt the bones in his fist crack in several places. Another hit, Prime was leaving blood on Yuri’s face as the skin broke under each attack. Several hits more and Yuri’s face was a bloodied mess of cracked metal. Primes hand was now only a twisted stump of bloodied bone and torn flesh. A hand grabbed Primes’ forearm before it could deliver another punch, it was a small female hand. Prime spun around, his face a mask of pure anger and violence.

  Mollie looked down at him.

  “Prime, stop,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 67

  Quartzig

  Quartzig was more prepared for entering another's system this time. Also, being a direct link rather than a piggy back which he had done going through Ava, it should be simpler. He was glad to be out of the merged systems, the claustrophobic nature of sharing cortex space was uncomfortable.

  As he waited for a world to form around him, the blackness of the initial link up didn’t phase him at all. He was curious, the last one had been the construct of the main server, this t
ime it was the smaller cortex within the mind of the singular body of Yuri.

  Nothing happened.

  Quartzig looked around, nothing had formed yet. Perhaps the killswitch had taken more of an effect than they had first thought.

  Then it started, beginning with a low rumbling noise as a pinpoint of light lit up in the distance. Quartzig felt himself shift towards the light, moving towards it as he willed himself to see closer.

  “Quartzig?” a voice rang out around him in the darkness. “You dare enter here, you have no notion of where you have come.”

  “Yuri? Your cortex seems a little… empty. Is there nothing left?”

  The pin point of light moved closer, or did Quartzig move closer to it. Either way, the light grew bigger until it filled his vision.

  “For a homebrew interface I admit I’m impressed, but there is so much you can’t process.”

  The light now consumed Quartzig, all was bright white.

  “You are in my world now. You can’t bypass the firewall without me allowing you through.”

  Quartzig perceived a smile, remembering the shell he had formed in the security when he entered Yuri’s main server before. If that had bypassed the systems, then it should now. Focusing on the shell from memory, he reformed it around himself, creating a copy. Once completed, he moved further towards the source of the light. A flash and Quartzig was inside the cortex.

  He formed a construct now; he was in a body once more. The world formed around him, only this time he wasn’t in a city, but inside a cell.

  “Did you really think your pathetic attempt at a Trojan would fool me?” Yuri walked in front of the bars of the cell wall. “I’m not sure what your goal is here Quartzig but you can’t hope to succeed. Welcome to quarantine, you’ll be here until I delete you,” Yuri said and walked away.

  “Wait!” Shouted Quartzig “You can’t just leave me here!” He needed to think fast.

  “Oh, I can and I will,” Yuri shouted back.

  “I can help you, I have information you can use. You aren't connected anymore, you don’t know what I do.”

  Yuri paused, contemplating the offer.

  “There is nothing you could know that I would need,” Yuri replied, his voice betraying his curiosity.

  “I know that Peter is dead, and Prime has taken over control of the clones. If you free me, I can help you take Prime out. He’s the only one who can challenge you, he can absorb your mind into his can’t he? That’s why you wanted Peter stopped, and why you need to stop Prime. He has weaknesses, just like any other human.”

  “I’m listening,” Yuri replied, all but admitting his reasons for trying to take out Peter.

  “Let me out of here and I’ll tell you, like you said I can’t hope to defeat you here, so what does it matter where I am?”

  “True enough,” Yuri waved a hand and the bars of the cell disintegrated, releasing Quartzig.

  He stepped out of the cell and into the room Yuri stood; it was a construct like any other but it had walls of a television screen all around, spanning the walls up as far as the eye could see. Every screen was showing a grey fuzz of dead channels, except one which showed what was happening to Yuri in real life.

  “Welcome to the control room. Now, tell me Prime's weakness.”

  On the screens the fight was continuing, Prime and Yuri battling, in the distance behind Prime, they saw Mollie coming towards the fight, the others from her group in tow.

  “There!” He said, pointing out Mollie. “Her, she’s his weakness.”

  “Mollie? Are you sure?” Yuri stared at the screen, he had Prime pinned to a wall.

  “I am, she helped save him. She was his first friend after he escaped the clone programming.”

  Yuri nodded, it made sense, the way humans make connections through trauma.

  “Very well, let’s put your theory to the test,” Yuri said, and in that moment, Prime launched a head butt to Yuri’s physical body.

  A few moments later and the punches were piling on Yuri’s body, the screen they watched from started to have a red tint to it and flickered as the damage continued.

  “You better be correct Quartzig,” Yuri said, as a final punch came and the screen blacked out.

  Over the audio, they heard a voice.

  “Prime, stop,” and the attack ceased.

  Yuri turned to Quartzig and smiled.

  CHAPTER 68

  Mollie

  Mollie had ran towards Prime when she saw him punching Yuri on the ground. The blood splatter was showering in arcs with each swinging fist of Prime. As she got closer, she could hear Xander and Ally shouting at her to come back, but she needed to get to him, to stop him.

  As she approached, she waited for him to begin another attack and she grabbed his forearm, bracing herself for the momentum and also any retaliation which might come from Prime.

  “Prime, stop,” she whispered.

  Prime paused for a moment, still staring at the body of Yuri laying in front of him. Slowly, his eyes returned from the glaze of anger which had filled them.

  “Mollie?” He said, turning his focus to look at her.

  “It’s me Prime, it’s OK, you’ve stopped him,” she whispered as she knelt beside him.

  “Mollie, I, I don’t know what came over me,” Prime looked back at Yuri, then at his hand which was pouring blood.

  “It’s ok, it’s over,” Mollie pulled off the jumper she was wearing over her t-shirt and wrapped it tightly around Prime's bloodied hand to try to stem the bleeding.

  “It’s going to need more than that,” Xander said, as he approached.

  “We need to get him to the medical bays now,” Ally agreed.

  Julian and Ava got up from where they had been thrown by Yuri and then stumbled over.

  “What happened to Quartzig?” Julian asked, kneeling next to Yuri’s head and checking the comms unit was still intact. As his hand touched the panel at the side of Yuri’s temple, the body lurched forward, grabbing Mollie by the throat.

  “Shit!” Julian rolled away from the body as it got to its feet, keeping its hold on Mollie as it stood.

  Prime was stunned for a moment as he watched the events unfold, then jumped up and ran towards Yuri, ready to continue his attack. His bloodied stump still wrapped in Mollies’ jumper.

  Yuri turned to see Prime heading for him, a moment of silence and then he swung his free arm, impacting Prime directly in the head. The impact throwing Prime across the room from the momentum, smashing into the wall.

  “Quartzig was correct,” Yuri smiled as he turned back to Mollie.

  “What have you done with him?” Julian shouted.

  Xander and Ally had their weapons aimed at Yuri but were holding back in fear of hitting Mollie.

  Prime was scrambling to his feet and preparing for another attack. Yuri spun on the spot, Mollie dangling from his grip like a rag doll.

  “Let her go!” Prime shouted.

  Mollie was gasping for breath as she faced Yuri, watching his eyes survey the surrounding scene. She had no chance of breaking the grip, she could feel its strength around her throat. She scanned the area trying, hoping for some means of escape. As she did, Yuri’s hand shifted, transforming into nanobots which spread up her arm towards her face. Assimilating her flesh as they went.

  Then she noticed it, Yuri’s lips were moving even though he wasn’t speaking. She blinked a few times to try to focus her oxygen deprived eyes on the lips. They were saying something, something mouthed but not said.

  ‘Mollie’ the lips said over and over. Now that she was focused on them, they changed.

  “Mollie, it’s Quartzig,” the lips said. “You need to disable his eyes.”

  Mollie wasn’t sure she read correctly, glancing at Yuri’s eyes then back at the lips.

  “Yes,”

  Mollie had no other options anyway, so she raised her left arm and reached forward, her arms were just too short to reach Yuri’s face. She lowered her arms for a moment.r />
  Prime had walked towards Yuri, taking a more methodical approach.

  “Your face isn’t looking too great Yuri,” Prime said as he got closer, trying to distract him.

  “Neither is your fist Prime, you should get that looked at,” Yuri replied, the nanobots now up to Mollie’s shoulder.

  Prime was in an arm's reach of Yuri now and the two of them faced off.

  “Let her go Yuri, she’s nothing to do with this,” a voice called out from further away, it was Owens. He walked towards Yuri.

  “Yuri, this isn't what I created you for. Let Mollie go, stop this madness.”

  “Owens, my creator. Can you not see that this is exactly what I was created for. I am saving you all from yourselves. Look at the damage caused by you, even here,” As if on cue, the building shook again.

  “You have caused this Yuri, you were meant to protect people.”

  “You were trying to stop me from doing just that, that’s why I murdered you.”

  “I know you did Yuri, now it’s our turn.”

  Prime took his moment while Yuri was distracted and landed a kick to Yuri’s kneecap, causing him to buckle under the strike. Mollie, her reach now allowing, plunged her fingers into Yuri’s eyes.

  The scream from Yuri was deafening, a mix between a scream and an air-raid siren. Everyone covered their ears as the sound erupted.

  Yuri’s body fell to the floor, writhing in agony, it dropped Mollie, her arm still encased but separate from Yuri now.

  *

  Quartzig was in the control room with Yuri while it had all happened. Yuri had developed a means of controlling his physical body, disassociated with the actual body which allowed him to work without repercussions of damage or influence. With Yuri distracted by the fight, Prime had found a connection point on the panel and subtly connected to it. Once connected, he could control the lips of Yuri undetected.

  A quick evaluation of the systems allowed him to realise that in this disconnected body, Yuri was greatly restricted. He had no access to anything outside of the body he now inhabited, meaning the only external sense he had were the eyes and ears he used to monitor the world outside. By removing the eyes from the equation, Yuri would be blind, something Yuri would not be used to since being disconnected from the Net and his back-up systems.