Neon Helix

by Nik Whittaker

  The moment Mollie damaged the eyes, the whole room was plunged into darkness.

  “No!” Yuri shouted out in the room's blackness, Quartzig could hear him trying to gain some sense of space.

  “Your power in this world just got reduced Yuri,” Quartzig shouted back.

  He knew he didn’t have long, Yuri could reprogram the room to something more suitable in seconds once he recalibrated his senses. Keeping the connection he had already made to the system, Quartzig downloaded his main memory into the system. Rewriting the operating system of Yuri.

  CHAPTER 69

  Julian

  Julian had been watching the spectacle from a distance. He and Ava had done all they could to get Quartzig into the nano body and as he could tell, it hadn’t been successful.

  Yuri had overwrote Quartzig it seemed, the back-ups Julian had made of Quartzig weren’t up to date. Not only that, but the toxins were still dormant in his body, along with the nanobots, with no way of getting rid of them.

  He sat on the floor as the fighting continued; he saw Xander and Ally try to get closer to help with the fight, but Yuri kept Mollie too close for them to get a shot. Beside him, he saw Ava and Owens embraced, despite the fighting. He looked around the floor, scattered around, the bodies of clones and nanobots were dead or deactivated. From the corner of his eye, he saw movement, just off the corridor there was someone watching the events unfold from the shadows. He couldn't quite make out who it was and when they saw Julian watching, they disappeared behind the corner hurriedly.

  “Julian! Owens! get over here!” A shout came out from Mollie.

  Distracted, Julian had missed whatever had happened with Yuri and glanced over to see Yuri laying on the floor kicking out and writhing. Scrambling to his feet, he ran over.

  “What’s happening?” Julian asked, as he knelt down next to the body as Xander and Ally arrived with Owens and Ava close behind.

  “It’s Quartzig,” Mollie explained. “He spoke through Yuri, I think he’s fighting for control in there.”

  Julian couldn’t help but smile, he shouldn’t have doubted Quartzig.

  “What can we do to help?” Ally asked, looking between Julian and Owens. The two of them shared a glance, both thinking the same thing.

  “Yuri is isolated in this body now, he has no means of exit, his storage is limited to the one body. If we can give Quartzig a boost of storage and capacity, he could overwhelm Yuri’s core by sheer force,” Owens said.

  “In English?” Xander asked.

  “Basically, if we can hook some of these nanobots lying around here up to the comms unit that Quartzig is based in, we can give him a stronger connection and power than Yuri’s,” Julian replied, and was already hunting around the nanobots on the floor. “Just drag some of those bodies over here.”

  “What about my arm?” Mollie asked, getting to her feet.

  “For now, I’d leave that, we don’t know if Yuri has any connection to it still," Julian replied, flashing a sympathetic smile. “But I promise we’ll get it sorted.”

  Moments later, they had gathered several bodies closer to Yuri. Julian and Owens were busy pulling cables and reconnecting the bodies into a long series like a paper chain of people. Finally, they connected the last cable through to the comms unit still attached to Yuri.

  “It’s now or never,” Owens said.

  Julian said a silent prayer for Quartzig as he attached the final wire.

  All the nanobots convulsed as the charge went through them and into the unit. Yuri screamed in pain, then dropped motionless.

  After several exchanged glances, Yuri’s eyes opened. Prime posed, ready to attack whilst the others prepared to move away.

  “Quartz?” Julian peered into the eyes, though still damaged from earlier, they recalibrated and repaired, as did the crack that ran along the face from Prime’s punches.

  The body raised a hand to its face, flexing the fingers and making a fist.

  “Yuri?” Owens asked cautiously.

  The hand unclenched, a blink, and a smile formed on the body's face.

  “This, is going to take some getting used to,” Quartzig said, before sitting up.

  “Oh, thank god!” Julian released a breath he didn't know he’d been holding.

  “OK, let me just-” Quartzig closed his eyes, activating the comms unit’s wireless transmissions, he could establish a link to his main server at Julian's apartment.

  “Ok I’m reconnected to our main servers. I have full control of all systems. Let’s see if I can do this.”

  One by one, all the nanobots which were lying around the corridor stood up, each standing like a puppet on a string. They all walked over to one side of the room.

  “Cool, I have access to the nanotechnology.”

  “Hey Quartz, slow down,” Julian said. “Take time to adjust.”

  “I don’t want to Julian, we need to get that toxin out of you right now.”

  Before Julian could say anything, he could feel a strange movement from inside him. Like bubbles under his skin.

  “Is this going to hurt Quartz?” He said, as he realised what was happening.

  “Unsure I’m afraid Julian, let’s say no and see how it goes?” Quartzig replied.

  Ally ran over as Julian doubled up with the pressure running through his body.

  “Hey, lay down Julian, it’ll be ok,” she said, helping him to the ground.

  Julian curled into a ball as the nanobots began their work.

  “I am making sure there is no trace of the toxins remaining Julian, it won't take long. I’m sorry for the pain,” Quartzig said, as he continued the work.

  Julian felt the floor move as the pain took more of a hold, he thought the pain was getting too much and he was losing his senses, when he looked around and realised it wasn’t just him; the floor was tilting.

  “We need to get out of here!” Xander shouted, running over to Julian and helping him get to his feet. “C’mon ,we need to leave.”

  “Mollie, allow me,” Quartzig said, holding her arm out. A small spark of electricity jumped from his hand into the nanos on her arm.

  “I have purged all programming from Yuri from the nanobots, and reprogrammed them to follow your command,” he smiled at Mollie who stared in shock. She focused on her arm and it reformed into a shiny metallic arm, the curves and contours matching her original.

  “Th… Thanks,” she smiled back.

  The group all gathered and headed towards the closest exit, a fire escape stairwell.

  “What about Jacob?” Owens asked, knowing it wouldn’t be a popular question.

  “No time, if he’s not up already, we won’t be able to go back for him now. We’ve already taken too long.” Ally replied flatly.

  As if on cue, the wall behind them fell away, leaving an open space behind them, the lights of the Boulevard twinkling below. They all stumbled down the stairs as best they could.

  CHAPTER 70

  Xander

  Xander took the lead on the escape. Mollie was helping Prime, as Ally did Julian. Owens and Ava followed close by and Quartzig took the rear.

  The building was coming down fast, every few steps they took, another crash sounded like the walls were about to give way.

  “Keep up guys, this place will not wait for us!” Xander called back, jumping several stairs at a time. He glanced back up to check on the others.

  “How much further?” Mollie shouted out.

  “About ten more floors, we’re nearly there,” He shouted back.

  Before he could say another word, the stairs between him and the rest moved away, as if the room was stretching, but eventually the cement cracked and it split the building in two.

  “Holy shit!” Xander shouted. “Quick, get across here!”

  Mollie and Prime were standing on the step behind the cracks, it was only a few feet wid.

  “Go,” Prime said to Mollie, and she jumped without question.

  “Julian next,” Prime said
.

  Julian cleared the space without problems, though it was widening. Ally and Ava made it across next, the jump getting further each second.

  “Owens, you go,” Quartzig said, as he and Prime judged the distance, they should be fine.

  Owens took a step forward, looking over the edge, he saw the ground several stories below. Taking a step back, he ran forward towards the space. Just as he got to the gap, he set one foot and launched himself.

  Something was wrong, he didn’t leave the ground as he should, instead he felt a sharp impact hit his chest, the force pushing him back onto the steps.

  From the space between the walls above them, they could see a female clone. It was the one who had been fighting Yuri earlier with her wrist broken, a pistol in her good hand.

  “You should have protected me Owens! You were my Father!”

  Owens saw the blood pouring from his chest now, the wound was large and the blood flowing faster.

  Xander immediately raised his gun and pointed it at the clone, but she was just out of his line of sight.

  Owens tried to get to his feet but couldn’t, Prime came over to help him to his feet, before looking up at the clone.

  “Who are you? Why can’t I find you?” He said, trying to focus on the clones mind.

  “Oh come now Prime, I’m sure you can figure it out. Did you really think I’d let a little thing like death stop me?”

  “Peter?” Prime couldn’t understand.

  “You’ll get it, I know you will. Be seeing you brother,” she smiled.

  Taking aim, she fired another shot at Owens, the impact tore him from Prime’s arms and fell away from him. Slipping, he fell into the space between the buildings.

  “Owens!” Ava yelled and reached out in a futile effort to catch him as his body tumbled between the remnants of the floors below. His body ricocheting off several floors, before disappearing into the dark.

  Quartzig and Prime could do nothing as they saw him fall, looking back to the floor above, they couldn’t see Peter anywhere.

  Xander grabbed Ava from the edge and pulled her back.

  “He’s gone Ava. I’m sorry,” he said holding, her tight to stop her from returning to the widening space. After a moment, Ava relaxed in his arms and then returned to her normal composure.

  “I’m okay Xander, thank you,” she said, convincing no one.

  Prime and Quartzig made the jump over quickly and they continued the descent.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Ally was standing with Ava now.

  “He was a good man Ally, I know you may not think so with what he did to you, but he always meant well,” she said.

  “I believe that,” Ally replied. “I wish I’d got to know him more, find out why he did what he did to me.”

  Ava nodded and continued walking.

  They reached the ground floor of the building, passing through what remained of the foyer area where the fighting had started. Bodies littered the floor as they stepped cautiously through the debris to get to the exit. Once outside, they continued a safe distance before turning to see the damage.

  The building was splitting down the center, each half twisting, creating an almost double helix pattern as it went down.

  “Is it over?” Mollie asked, to anyone who would answer.

  “I hope so,” Xander replied.

  “I have deactivated all available nanobots other than the ones that make up this body, I wanted no risk of remnants of Yuri in any of them,” Quartzig said.

  “Peter is still in there, unless he’s made it out already,” Julian added.

  “He’s not got any clones left though,” Prime answered. “There’s only me left.”

  Ally put her arm around Prime.

  “You and me little brother,” she said, and smiled at him.

  “So what now?” Ava asked, having no idea what she would do without Owens.

  “Now? Now we go for a drink," Xander answered.

  CHAPTER 71

  Julian

  Julian was lying on his lounger in his apartment, listening to the news broadcasts which echoed around him. Focusing on the sounds, picking up the keywords.

  It had been a couple of cycles since the events at CyBio, and he’d released a report on the corporation and its downfall. His name had become famous once more. The fall of the CyBio building, referred to as ‘The Fall’ by the media, had caused masses of destruction in the Gigacity area. With Owens and Yuri gone, the funding for the rebuilding had come from the corporations substantial credits, which Ava had inherited and donated anonymously to the city.

  The comms in his ear chimed, bypassing all other feeds.

  “Hey Julian, I think we might have something here,” Quartzig’s voice said.

  “One sec,” Julian hit a button and a screen slid around the lounger so it was hovering in front of his face. He gestured a few times, activating the system. “Just getting the feeds now.”

  Since Quartzig had got used to his body, he’d been determined to see the world from a more first-person perspective. Julian was happy for the extra hands, so they had become a partnership in the newswire reporting. It allowed them to cover more ground.

  “Ok I’ve got you on the outskirts of the Boulevard, around seventh?” Julian found a CCTV link showing the outside of a tech-mod workshop.

  “Yeah, the last Mod-Junkie I talked to said this is the place they got the work,” Quartzig replied.

  The first cases they’d looked into was the last followers of Jacob’s church who needed new mods, as they still suffered from the tech-virus that had infected them. Some reports had come through of someone taking advantage of these lost souls and fixing them up with cheap mods which caused worse infections. In an effort to clean up the loose ends, Julian and Quartzig had agreed to track them down and get the info to the MPD, or if a more hands on approach was needed, Xander and his new Investigation team.

  “Ok, I’m going in,” Quartzig said, unable to hide the excitement he felt being on the scene.

  “I’ve scanned the area, seems clear, switching to your POV,” Julian replied, as he activated Quartzig's POV cam. Julian still found it amusing that the world's most advanced nanobot AI was now an investigative reporter on the Boulevard.

  “Heading in now, I’ll let you know what I find,” Quartzig said, before going quiet.

  Julian watched the vid-feed as Quartzig entered the workshop, the lighting was dim and music filled the comms. A deep rhythmic beating of industrial electro vibrated his ear drums. As Quartzig moved further, he saw what could loosely be described as a reception desk; metal chicken wire was surrounding a wooden plank, supported by corrugated metal sheets. A woman sat behind the desk looking decidedly bored, raised her eyes as Quartzig entered. She had several piercings in her face, through which a metallic snake wound back and forth through the hoops.

  “I’m here about some mod work,” Quartzig said, smiling pleasantly.

  “I don’t think dis is the place fo’ you hun,” the woman said, looking him up and down, the snake pausing as she spoke.

  “Actually, I think it is, you see someone has told me that the mods for the St Damian followers came from here. The ones that infected them with the T-pox. Dirty mods.” Quartzig said, his smile dropping from his face.

  “Get outta here Trojan, you don’ wanna be starting nothing here,” her accent a mix of Russian and Jamaican and more aggressive than before.

  “Oh,” Quartzig said, taken aback by the comment. “I’ll take that as a confirmation then.”

  Before he could say anything else, three large men appeared from behind the desk, each of them sporting an assortment of mods from full arms to retina implants.

  “You got some trouble Darcy?” The first, and largest asked.

  “Dis Trojan asking about Damascus folks,” she replied.

  “Hm,” was all the man said, as he made his way around the counter.

  “I was just here to ask some questions,” Quartzig put his hands in the air
and back away slowly.

  Julian flicked a comms switch and opened the channel.

  “Quartz, you probably need to get out of there,” he said.

  “I’m 99.9% sure these are the guys who have been selling the dirty mods, Julian,” Quartzig replied, causing angry looks from the men who were all getting closer. “I’m afraid I can’t just leave now, perhaps you should let the MPD know there might be trouble here.”

  “What trouble?” Julian asked.

  As the first man lunged towards him, Quartzig stepped aside, grabbing the man's arm and placing his foot strategically, he used the brutes momentum against him. Quartzig threw the man to the ground, before a perfectly timed kick to his temple rendered him unconscious. The next two men both ran at him now, the one with a retina implant flicked his wrist, revealing a hidden blade with a streak of red neon running down its center.

  “Quartzig, what the hell are you doing?” Julian shouted.

  “One moment please,” Quartzig replied.

  The retina man swung the blade an arc high, causing Quartzig to duck low. As the blade finished its swing, he kicked the man squarely in the chest, knocking him back into the reception counter. The second man saw the opening and jumped forward, grabbing Quartzig's shoulder from behind. Quartzig turned his body at the torso in a complete 360 turn by activating the nanobots that made up the body. The man just stared at him, stunned by the move. Quartzig delivered a finishing uppercut to his jaw, causing him to lift off the ground several feet before crumpling in a heap. The retina man had regained his composure now and plunged the blade into Quartzigs’ chest.

  “That was unpleasant,” he said, looking down at the man’s hand and blade hilt sticking out of his chest as he turned his legs to their correct position.

  He grabbed the man’s hand and twisted it, breaking the wrist in several places and the hilt of the blade with it. The man screamed in pain and dropped to the floor, clutching his shattered wrist. The blade still embedded in his chest, Quartzig slowly pulled it out and threw it to the side where it impaled into the metal wall.