by J. Thorn
At her wild expression and hint of what might be out there, Gerry pulled the gun from the bag and took comfort from its entirely mechanical coldness.
“That’s m’boy. You shoot like hell if anything… weird comes your way, you hear?”
“Wait, what? Weird? Weird how?”
“You’ll know. Sit tight, precious.”
Petal turned and joined Gabriel on the grey stone platform outside of the train. It was no more than a few metres wide, and the stained, tiled wall curved upwards, creating an archway over the train. Gerry admired the organic nature of it: real materials, real handwork. He felt its gravity and presence. Qualities so often missing in nanotube-based materials and holo-projections. Beyond the platform, the train tunnel opened to a cloudless grey-blue sky. Red dust rose and spun into miniature twisters from the parched, bare ground. On the horizon, low and blocky, a series of buildings gathered together like a pack of sleeping dogs.
So this is the scorched earth… the results of the Cataclysm, Gerry thought as he pondered the nature of those buildings. Clearly not everything had been destroyed.
The wind picked up, changed direction, and blew his way.
He breathed in the scent: it smelled wet and heavy with promises, adventure, and danger—of times past, times before the Cataclysm. Nothing survived, they said. All was lost. Now, he knew different. Something did… out there in the dust another living thing existed. He tapped his foot eagerly as he gripped his gun. Gerry was never a patient man. The waiting pulled at him with the weight of gravity, of the tides, of that terrible yearning that boiled within him.
A deep breath and he calmed his nerves.
Petal and Gabriel looked back at him, faces straight, and then they turned a corner out of sight.
***
How long should he have waited? Gabe and Petal didn’t say, but they hadn’t returned in what must have been ten minutes. Or was it ten hours? While he waited, Gerry devoured the first three chapters of the Hacking With Helix book like a child discovering ice cream for the first time.
Imprinted on his mind, like maps, were exploit algorithms, defence mechanisms, early warning systems, and attack ideologies. For the first time in his life he felt like it was actually him who was capable of doing this stuff and not his AIA.
A thrill of excitement ran through him as he pictured himself exorcising demonic AIs like Gabe. The potential and the power—via his own mind and not through a preprogrammed device—made him feel more alive than he could remember. But it didn’t last.
A scream, certainly from Petal, erupted from outside and echoed down the tunnel.
Grabbing the bag and gripping the gun, Gerry ignored their advice and bolted out of the carriage onto the platform. He sprinted the hundred-or-so metres to the exit and spun left.
Gabriel lay at an awkward angle: bent over himself at the foot of a four-metre-high tower. It was barely wide enough to house two people. It looked like a stack of kids’ grey building blocks. A shadow moved behind a small glass window at head height.
Petal stood to the side of the tower. She, too, was bent over, but still on her feet. Blood oozed from her mouth into a dark pool on the dusty earth.
Gerry rushed over.
Petal turned. “Go back!”
“What’s happened?” Gerry asked, wondering if Gabe was dead.
Before Petal could respond, a door in the side of the tower creaked open, and a round metal barrel extended from the gloom. Petal grabbed at Gerry’s shirt and pulled him aside as a thunderous explosion erupted from the gun. He’d never heard such a deep, powerful explosion before. It made his guts squirm.
He fell to the floor, scrabbling in the sickly pool of blood as Petal tried to pull him away from the corner of the tower. A low, heavy voice called out in frustration from within the tower. “You burnt-out, cheap hacking swines!”
The metal door flung open and clanged against the tower. Two heavy footsteps thudded into the dirt, and when Gerry looked up, a man wearing thick, black coveralls and wielding a large, long-barrelled gun blotted out the light. He was as wide as two men side by side. Gerry couldn’t make out his features in the silhouette but felt the hatred emanating from him.
The man pointed the barrel at Gerry, who continued to scrabble on his back like a stuck beetle.
“This a new friend, huh, Petal? Not anymore…”
As the man moved his finger over the trigger, Petal spun round. The chromed spike as long as her arm extended from her palm with a snap. She drove it with all the weight of her body into the man’s ribs, sending the barrel into the air as he sent another booming shot into the empty sky. He howled as he spun round, dragging Petal with him.
“Gez! Help. Shoot him!”
The gun! Where was his gun? He must have dropped it as he fell. While the man was crushing Petal against the tower and screaming in pain, Gerry frantically searched the ground on all fours for the gun. Another metallic crash and the man continued to smash Petal up against the tower. Each impact brought a grunt of anguish from the pair of them as Petal’s spike remained in his ribs.
Touching the coldness of the gun’s handle, Gerry snatched it up. His hand wobbled as he took aim. The first shot went wide, but the second caught his knee, sending the man to the ground, taking Petal with him. He hit the ground hard, crushing Petal beneath his weight.
She tried to pull her arm free, screaming as his bulk continued to crush her small, fragile body.
Petal managed to gasp a single word between snatched breaths. “Help—”
Gerry rushed over, tried to force the man over, but he weighed considerably more than a normal man should. Petal’s head hit the dirt. The lenses of her goggles turned red, and for a split second, she looked like a damaged, discarded doll—still and broken.
Anger welled up inside his guts like boiling water. His vision narrowed until all he could see was the man’s massive head. He, too, wore goggles, but they were covered in sand and dust. He sported a pair of sick-looking scars across his right cheek, and numerous jack ports punctured his neck.
Moving his gun against the man’s head, Gerry closed his eyes and fired a single bullet. His shaking hand and struggling target conspired to send his bullet wide. The shot ricocheted off the tower with a spark.
The man thrust out a hand and grabbed Gerry by the leg. His grip felt like it would snap his bone. Panicked, Gerry raised the gun again and, despite his tremble, managed to aim the gun and fire accurately.
The gore of the man’s skull and brain muffled the shot.
The tower, once dull and grey, now featured a red and bone-coloured paint job.
With a lunatic’s strength and the monsoon of adrenaline that threatened to drown him, he finally managed to push to one side the dead piece of meat. He pulled Petal out from under him, and her long, thin conelike weapon slipped out of his rib cage with a sucking noise.
Her once pale face was now decorated with an ugly purple-black bruise. Her lip puffed twice its regular size and was split down the middle. She coughed, and Gerry’s relief threatened to bring him to the ground. “You’re alive! Petal, are you okay?”
She nodded slowly and rubbed at her chest.
Gabriel moaned and turned his head to Gerry. He looked worse than Petal. His skin was almost as grey as the tower. A wire from his neck trailed across the ground to a small rusted box attached to the outside of the tower.
“Gabe! You okay?”
He nodded his head slowly. His eyes squeezed tightly closed. Petal reached up and gripped Gerry’s hand to get his attention. “You gotta stop the alarm. Within minutes every City Earth border goon will be on us like flies on crap.” She frantically pointed to the open door to the tower.
Inside, a single console with a holographic projector showed a large circle surrounded by a concentric ring. Along th
is ring, there were at least fifty, maybe more, small squares. Gerry guessed these were the towers. The circle, he assumed, was probably City Earth.
There were no obvious ways of manipulating or connecting to the console.
One of the squares began to flash, and outside, a siren began to tear through the atmosphere.
“I can’t stop it!” Gerry searched the console and all round the small room. It was empty: just a chair and the damned projection of the map.
He stuck his head outside, looking at Petal and Gabriel, who were helping each other up. Then Gerry caught on: the wire coming from Gabe’s neck into the box.
“Gabe, how do I connect? With that box?”
Gabriel smiled and shook his head. “You gotta go in deeper. Like the guard here…” Gabriel kicked at the man’s head until it rolled over, facing Gerry. His goggles were ripped to shreds from the gun blast. Inside one eye socket something glinted—something metallic.
“Ever hacked a dead man?” Gabe said.
Chapter 7
Gerry helped Gabriel to his feet and looked away as the older man removed the jack plug from his neck. Despite his own newly fitted ports, he still couldn’t get used to the idea of plugging hardware into one’s self. It wasn’t natural.
“You’ll get used to it eventually, man,” Gabriel said as he let the cable drop to the dusty ground.
“It’s part of you now, part of your job,” Petal said.
“Job? I didn’t ask for this.” Gerry slumped against the tower and eased the pain in his neck. His whole body felt like taut rope. “What do you need me to do?”
Gabriel twisted his neck and stretched his arms. He looked rough: heavy bags under his eyes and a network of bloodshot veins infiltrating his corneas. Gabe kicked at the massive corpse. “This guard right ’ere is usually accommodating, but he got greedy, wanted more than we could afford. That box over there that I was connected to—that’s a donation box. It took all my bins and refused to let us through. Something’s changed. I need you to get inside his head, crack his AIA, switch off the alarm, and see what’s going on. And you’ve probably got about five minutes to do it before we’re executed by his pals.”
“He’s dead. See—no brains left. What do you expect me to find?”
Petal’s face lit up with a wicked grin.
“What?” Gerry asked as Gabe joined Petal in their secret glee. It felt like he was back at first school. A green, know-nothing kid.
“You really don’t know? Oh, that’s real precious. The Family have you lot completely duped.”
Gerry was losing his patience and irritation started to prickle at his skin. It was that or the heat. Now that he was out of the protection of City Earth’s dome and subsequent controlled microclimate, the natural rays of the sun were beginning to burn a little on his skin. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it wasn’t helping him keep his cool.
Petal’s smile dropped, and she looked to the ground. “Sorry, Gez. Let me explain.” She bent down next to the corpse. She took a leather glove from a pocket on her combat trousers and put it on before reaching into the cavity of what was left of the guard’s head. The brain mulch squelched as she searched for something.
“See this here? You can plug directly into it and get into his AIA. It’s how he operated the terminal.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. If you know all this, why are you asking me to do it? And that’s disgusting, not to mention disrespectful.”
“He tried to kill us. What d’ya expect? A perfect burial?” Gabe said.
“You’re a priest. Shouldn’t you be like, you know…”
“I believe in no god, Gez. I’m a different kind of priest, and you’ll learn all this soon enough. Look, Petal’s storage is full to bursting. If she tries anything, all hell will break loose. And I’m not talking biblical hell here, not that you’d know about any of that. The Family have seen to that, haven’t they? Besides, this… thing ain’t no human. How many people do you know have port leads in their spinal column?”
That confused feeling washed over Gerry again. It was like they were all talking a different language. Finally losing his temper, he grabbed Gabriel by the lapels of his longer duster jacket. “Just explain why it’s me that has to do this. And tell me how. I don’t understand anything you’re saying. And what the hell is it if it’s not a person?”
“We call ’em ‘NearlyMen’. They’re a new design. Part of the Family’s security force for City Earth.”
“There’s no one left to get into the City since the Cataclysm, surely?”
“Who said they’re only trying to keep people out? Why do you think we were paying a bribe? Only way out to the abandoned lands is through this here gate system. Look, we’re running out of time. We’re being patient because this is your first time, but jack in and get on with it. Figure it out while you’re inside.”
Petal grabbed a lead from her backpack. She plugged one end into the gore-covered port inside the NearlyMan and the other into the jack socket in Gerry’s neck.
His natural reaction was to jerk away, but Gabriel held him tight and whispered into his ear. “Use your algorithm skills to sniff out the security protocol, Gez. When inside, disable the alarm and open the gate. You’ll see inside clearly enough. These NearlyMen don’t have much else going on in there.”
Before he could speak, his brain pulsed like it was trying to escape his skull from the inside. A burning white pain shot through his eye nerves, and he twitched uncontrollably as he connected with the NearlyMan’s AIA.
Gerry didn’t see it as much as he felt it. A black entity of sorts hovering in the corner of an empty room. He mentally approached it and thought of a way to communicate with it. Outside of his mind, everything had dulled to a low hum. Even the heat on his skin from the sun was now just a fading memory. It was just him and the intelligent program.
In a sweet female voice, it spoke to Gerry. “You’ve been a naughty boy. Daddy will not be happy.”
Gerry ignored it and continued to probe for a way past its security system. Each check, each test was rebuffed with error code #2501: insufficient talent.
It was mocking him.
Reaching out his mind and thinking back to the code samples he remembered from the exploits book, he pictured a complicated algorithm and sent it towards the security module. He felt his heartbeat increase. The AIA processed his thoughts as though they were executable code. It took Gerry’s breath away. He’d never felt anything so… immediate.
Excited, he threw more code at it. Unburdened by having to type or speak code and waiting for it to compile like his daily work back at Cemprom, he just thought his code and there it was, unfolding, executing, running.
“You know, little boy, I’m starting to like you,” the AIA said.
It was becoming overwhelmed with Gerry’s code viruses. He felt the first layer of security break down, and he extended his thoughts further into the darkened room: a representation of the NearlyMan’s storage drive. The AIA recognised Gerry as an owner of the system, and he was free to explore its contents as if he were the guard.
The first thing he did was switch the flag on the AIA’s speech file to Off. That was trivial. Next up was the alarm system. Luckily, it was like Gabe had said. There was very little in this system. Apart from the AIA’s protected files and the guard’s personality profile and behaviour instructions, there were just two areas left: the alarm protocols and one named Personal.
Intrigued, Gerry opened the latter section. Inside, a gallery of images floated up in his mind. There were thousands of the same two scenes from the limited view from the tower. Some looking towards City Earth, others looking away. Of those looking away, Gerry noticed specks of dark colour on the horizon. He flicked through them in time order, the specks growing larger, until the later images showed what looked…
no, couldn’t be… a group of women and men dressed in what looked like furs and leathers. Some sported riflelike weapons, while others had wires, antennae, and dish shaped objects mounted upon their person.
People.
Other people from the abandoned lands.
Unbelievable. But there it was, right there in the AIA. Hard proof. This meant the Family had lied. Growing up, Gerry was taught that all the survivors from the Cataclysm—which was never fully explained—were in City Earth and there was no one left outside.
What else was a lie?
Gerry casually switched off the alarm system, exited from the AIA, and pulled the plug from his neck. He looked at Petal and Gabe, who in turn looked at him like feverish cats.
“They lied,” Gerry said before slumping to the ground, clutching his head as a bolt ripped through his brain.
Chapter 8
Petal shook his arm. “You okay, Gez?”
He blinked, saw her face hovering over his, blotting out the sun. Her goggles were clear. Her eyes were bright violet this time. They shimmered like the surface of a lake. Before he could speak, her goggles turned opaque again, cutting him off from those amazing colours.
“We don’t have much time,” she said with a whisper.
Her skin seemed paler than usual. Her hand felt clammy against his skin.
He wanted to ask what would happen if she could no longer hold the demons, but the pained expression on her face told him it wasn’t going to be anything good.
“It’s done,” he finally said. “I managed to switch off the alarm system. But I—”
“What is it?” Gabe said. He lifted Gerry to his feet and held him by his shoulders. He peered directly into Gerry’s eyes with fervour.