Wake the Dead

by Victoria Buck

  “You remember that? You didn’t when you woke up from that procedure. The NP wouldn’t let you.”

  “Will I need the code when you’re done today?”

  The doctor wheeled the gurney out of the guest house and into the open air. “Hush now. You’re asleep.”

  Chase didn’t speak again. He didn’t move. But he did open his eyes for just a second. Blue sky filled his vision. He could almost hear Mel’s voice. He couldn’t wait to see her again. And his mom. How he missed her.

  “Close your eyes,” Robert said. “We’re going to get caught. I know it.”

  “Only because you’re talking to someone who’s unconscious.”

  The door to the main building gave entrance. Chase kept his eyes shut as they moved through the lobby. He could tell by the echo of wheels on tile that they were in a hallway. Then he heard footsteps. Someone said hello.

  “Yes, yes, good morning,” the doctor said. The wheels turned faster, another door opened, and the gurney came to rest.

  Chase opened his eyes. “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Robert said. “New tech, or nurse, I suppose. He didn’t seem too interested in what I was doing. I didn’t know anyone, much less a new employee, was even in the building.”

  “Do you think he’ll tell the others that you’re operating this morning?”

  “I have no idea, son. Let’s get this done.”

  “What about the code? Will I need it?”

  “No, you won’t need to override the system. There’ll be no programmers, no central processor. You’re in charge now.”

  “Then it’s not really an exoself, is it? It won’t depend on outside programming anymore.”

  The doctor paused, and his brow lifted. “We are reprogramming the exoself to continue within its host, without interference from external forces. This is a monumental day in history. But you’re moving ever closer to what you’re trying to escape. You know that, don’t you?”

  Chase had little understanding of this. “You’re the one making history. After today, I hope you can stop history from repeating itself.”

  “Time will tell, son.”

  “What about the access code?” Chase sat on the gurney, but the doctor pushed him back down.

  “That’s something else entirely. Consider the exoself a freeway. There are exits you’ll need to take to use the drone tracker or any other applications I add today, but you have to take the right exit, or you’ll get nowhere.”

  “How will I find the exits?”

  “The exoself, if we may still call it that, contains self-modifying programs. To execute programs, you’ll have to access the code directly from the exoself.”

  “I have to access the access code?”

  Robert walked around the laboratory flipping switches and touching light panels. “I know it sounds complicated, son. Well, it is. But you can do it.”

  Chase tried to relax while the doctor brought a massive control panel to life. This was no VPad. Numbers and bars and colored graphs lit up in the middle of the room. Robert walked around the phantom display, poking at it, pulling down lines of code and pushing numbers upward. “I’m adding some other programs,” Robert said. “Once you’ve accessed the systems you’ll be able to shut down certain electronics, among other things.

  Chase watched as numbers appeared to float up and down in the room. “Can you tell me what thirty-two does?”

  “What factor?”

  “Seven.”

  Robert put his finger on the number thirty-two and pulled seven lines of code to cross it. “Nothing. Like I said, the system is self-modifying. Later it may mean something.”

  “I don’t understand how I’ll learn to use this thing if the code changes all the time.”

  “Once a code is successfully accessed, it won’t change. Unless you change it.”

  “This computer, this thing—does it know what we’re doing?” Chase asked.

  “Yes, in much the same way you are aware of the exoself, it is aware of you.”

  “Are you saying this is my exoself?”

  “That’s right, son.”

  “It’s WR property. Will it turn us in?”

  “I’m telling it that its primary goal from this day forward is to protect you.”

  “Before today what was its goal?”

  “To use you. To bring you into compliance with WR computer models.”

  “But it’s disconnected from the main brain, right?”

  Robert came near and looked at Chase. “Main brain? Well, yes, it’s disconnected. For that reason, the data won’t update. You’ll be going out of here with information that in only a few days will be outdated.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t care about housing upgrades and job assignments. What about the COP?”

  “No one will be able to activate the COP when you’re disconnected from the system. Try to access the data bank, the way you did before,” Robert said.

  Chase closed his eyes and searched for the exoself. He found the WR information trails just like before, and the processors in his body sparked to life.

  “It’s coming, Robert.” He opened his eyes and looked at his doctor. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’m sure you’re free of the main brain, as you put it. I like that, main brain. But—”

  “But what?”

  “The system may send a message that it’s been revived. Each of the team members installed code to protect the exoself from the tampering of the other members.”

  “So somebody might notice stuff is going in and not out as planned.”

  “It’s possible.”

  The data from the exoself streamed into Chase’s consciousness. It was too late to back out. “You didn’t mention that earlier.”

  “There’s an override code. But I don’t know what it is.”

  “Who does?”

  “The exoself knows. I programmed it to choose a code and not to share it with anyone.” The doctor walked back to the lights and poked a number. “The exoself, hopefully, will use the code that only it knows and make itself invisible, so to speak.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “One of the other team members may get a message.”

  Chase remembered the doctors who came into his suite with Kerstin. “There were four of your protégés at the estate. Team members?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any others?”

  “Thirteen in all. Any one of them could know by now what we’re doing.”

  “I need to go,” Chase said.

  Robert moved to the wall and touched his fingers to a VPad monitor. As he typed, more numbers appeared on the big display glowing in the center of the room. Chase processed what the exoself brought. He didn’t want to leave until the programming was complete, not knowing if Mel’s input was there yet. He’d find her information trails using the access code—the one in his head. He hoped. Like Robert said, right now the numbers meant nothing.

  “Are all the team members here in the compound?”

  “No, only the ones who came back with me from the estate. The rest are doing research from their homes. Or they’re traveling—whatever. I don’t keep tabs.”

  “So any one of them, wherever they might be, may know that I just got my exoself back.”

  “Perhaps we didn’t think this through.”

  “We?”

  The door slid open and a young man in scrubs walked in. Chase pushed up on his elbows. “Jimmy?”

  Robert moved in front of the man. “Chase, this is the man we passed on the way in. You know him?”

  “He worked at the estate,” Chase said. “You must have seen him there.”

  “All scrubs look alike to me.” Robert got right in Jimmy’s face. “When did you get here? You weren’t on the jet with us.”

  “I requested reassignment after you left,” Jimmy said. “Got here yesterday.”

  Chase felt a rush as more of the exoself came in. “Jimmy, why?”
r />   “I came to help you, Mr. Sterling. Patty asked me to find a way to get here.”

  “You can’t just request a new assignment and have it handed to you,” Chase said.

  “What is he talking about?” Robert asked. “Who’s Patty?”

  Jimmy stepped around the six foot hologram of a computer screen. He stared at it briefly and shook his head. “What is this thing?”

  No time for questions,” Robert said.

  “You’re right about that,” Jimmy said. “A message has gone out to someone in Flagstaff. I intercepted it on the institute’s main system. It was a communication from the exoself.”

  The doctor seemed to go into some kind of fit. “Dr. Gaha lives in Flagstaff.” He shook his fists and muttered about his life’s work and going to prison and spending his final years with an NP in his brain. “And the worst part is,” he said. “I’ve come so close to ending this nightmare for you, Chase. And now they’ll come in here and stop us. They’ll delete everything and pull out your sensors and processors. And you and I will both lose everything.”

  “Calm down,” Chase said. “Jimmy, are the doctors in the other lab coming this way?

  “Not yet.”

  “Robert,” Chase said. “I’ve got to go.”

  “But the flight packs are in the other building. And you don’t know how to use one anyway—I haven’t programmed you yet.”

  “I can teach him,” Jimmy said.

  “You can’t just walk into the research lab and take a flight pack from a locker,” Robert said. “They’ll want to know what you’re doing. They’ll want to know who you are. They’ll remember you from the estate. This won’t work.” He walked a circle around the exoself, his hands on his head.

  “You’re not helping,” Chase said.

  “I have a flight pack,” Jimmy said. “It’s with my stuff in the staff locker room in the basement.”

  Information continued coming slowly and orderly from the reloading programs. “Can you continue the process if I fly away?” He looked to Robert for an answer.

  “By the time he gets the pack and I deactivate the tracker, you’ll be done.” Robert looked at Jimmy. “Go, young man, and hurry.”

  40

  Chase stretched out on the gurney, his mind filling with WR facts and figures. He caught on Kerstin’s reassignment and studied it for a moment, and then let it file itself away. He found Jimmy’s information as well. The move, executed by SynVue, was the first of many to reassign SynVue Estate personnel to the Helgen Institute. The network was taking over and Jimmy took advantage, apparently with Patty’s prodding. The clock was back—Jimmy had been gone for 8.3 minutes. What was taking so long?

  He heard a sound, distant, but coming nearer. Miles away, too far for Robert to notice with the hearing of a normal man, Chase heard the hum of a personal hovercraft. If the institute was its destination…

  “Where is that kid?” Robert worked frantically, poking the exoself with both index fingers. “That kid. What’s he doing here? We can’t trust him. He’s probably gone over to the research lab. They’re probably coming with guards and weapons to take us away.”

  “Are you through?”

  The doctor waved his arms before the massive display and then walked to the monitor and pushed one number. The exoself faded away. “Yes, son, the exoself is all yours.”

  “I meant are you through ranting.” Chase stood and pulled a shirt from under the gurney. “Someone is coming.”

  “How do you know that?” Robert asked.

  “Air traffic headed this way. I can hear it.”

  “Gaha,” Robert said.

  Jimmy rushed in with the flight pack.

  “I can’t fly out of here,” Chase said. “Not with a hovercraft coming.”

  “Take the pack with you,” Jimmy said. “When you get away from the compound, put it on and go. It’ll take you a good hundred miles.”

  “So I’m just going to walk out the gate?”

  “Cyber-guards,” Robert said.

  “Exactly, they’ll catch me.”

  “No, son, you’ll be one.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Jimmy said. “There are some in the basement. Wake one up and bring it in here,” he said to Robert.

  “Yes, yes. Then you put on the guard’s gear, Chase, and walk outside the gate.” Robert went to a keypad on a desk. “I’ve got one coming. No one will pay it any mind. In fact, we’ve flown guards out of here before. Even sent one to town for tacos one time.”

  Jimmy slapped his knee. “This is great. Mr. Sterling, get ready to fly.”

  While Chase listened to Jimmy’s express instructions for using a flight pack, Robert undressed the cyber-guard that had arrived from the basement. When the face shield came off, Chase was stunned to see that the robot had no face to speak of—only a tan, egg-shaped head with a light bar where eyes should be. It wasn’t so intimidating with its gear stripped away. The thing was sent to a closet and shut down.

  Robert opened up a keypad on the back of the fight pack, pushed a few buttons, and put the pack under the gurney. “There, its tracker is deactivated.”

  Chase stepped into the snug-fitting uniform. He’d barely pulled on the helmet with the darkened face shield when the door slid open.

  Dr. Bentley walked in. Chase gave a subtle point to the flight pack, and Jimmy quickly pulled down the sheet to cover the shelf beneath the gurney.

  “Where is he?” Bentley yelled.

  “Jack, I do not appreciate you coming into my laboratory this way,” Robert said. “What’s the problem?”

  “I got a call from Dr. Gaha, who got a message from the exoself. The one we shut down,” Jack yelled. “Where is Sterling?”

  Chase stood perfectly still beside the gurney. Bentley looked at Jimmy. “What are you doing here? You’re a nurse from SynVue Estate, aren’t you?”

  “Got reassigned,” Jimmy said.

  Robert stepped forward. “I sent for him. He and I worked closely on Sterling’s programs. He will be an invaluable asset to our team.”

  “What have you done, Fiender? Why is this empty gurney here? Where is your patient?”

  “My patient is in his room. This guard was just about to retrieve him. If you don’t mind, I have much to do to prepare for the extractions.”

  “Since when do we use cyber-guards for med-techs? And why did Gaha get a message from the exoself? It says it’s been reactivated.”

  “Nonsense,” Robert said. “An anomaly, that’s all.”

  “I’ll just take a look if you don’t mind.”

  Chase barely breathed when Bentley looked him right in the face. If Bentley powered the exoself, he’d find a system active and reloaded into its host. There had to be a way to hide it. The exoself had the power to become invisible—that’s what Robert said. But only the exoself knew the code.

  Bentley went to the monitor on the wall and touched it. Chase knew, somehow, he could stop this. The code from his dreams pounded in his head. He sparked to the thirty-second processor and pulled the seventh factor.

  “Jack, please,” Robert said. “Let it go.”

  But Jack’s fingers stayed on the monitor. He punched the last number, turned to the center of the room, and waited. The light came up in the room and spread open. Nothing was there. Just light.

  “See.” Robert shook his finger in Bentley’s face. “The exoself is dormant.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bentley said.

  “An anomaly, like I said. Now please, let me get back to my work, and you get back to yours. I’m still in charge of this institute.”

  “Fine.” Bentley headed for the door. “Gaha is flying in from Flagstaff because of this. You need to work on that thing, Robert. Make sure it doesn’t bother us anymore.”

  “Yes, yes. I’ll do that.”

  The door slid open, but Bentley turned before he stepped through. “One more thing,” he said.

  Chase didn’t move.

  “Could you send the guard
to town for some tacos?”

  “Of course. When he’s done moving Mr. Sterling, I’ll send him for some lunch. But you tell Gaha to go home. Tell her there’s no reason to come. I’ll never get my work done with her in my lab.”

  “I’ll call her,” Bentley said. “I’ll tell her it was all a mistake.” He went through the door and it slid shut.

  Chase breathed a sigh and pulled off the face shield.

  “I don’t understand,” Robert said. “The exoself didn’t show itself. It hid from Bentley. It must have used the code. But why didn’t it do that sooner, before it sent out a message?”

  “I used the code. I did it myself.” Chase slammed the face shield onto the gurney.

  “Son, why do you look so disappointed?” Robert asked. “And how did you know the code?”

  “I had the numbers in my head. But I thought they were for something else.”

  “The exoself told you the numbers. It’s miraculous, really. It made the decision on its own to work through its host. It preserved its own life.”

  “If you say so.” But Chase had lost a miracle. Now he didn’t have a clue how to find Mel’s programs. He’d thought the numbers were the key.

  “Mr. Sterling, you need to go now,” Jimmy said.

  “You’re right about that. What about you, Jimmy? Are you going back to Chicago?”

  The young man smiled. “This is my new assignment—I guess I’ll stay here. For now. Could be I’ll need to move again.”

  Chase pushed the gurney to the door. Robert came beside him. “I’m so sorry, son, for my part in ruining your life.” He pushed money into Chase’s hand.

  Chase put his arm around the old man’s neck. “Everything happens for a reason.”

  “I doubt that, son.”

  “It’s true. My father told me so.”

  The doctor nodded and sighed. “Whatever you say. I’ll keep them from finding out you’re gone as long as I can.”

  “They’ll know you had a hand in this.”

  “They already think you can shut down the guards. After you’re gone, we’ll take the stripped down guard to your room and leave it on the gurney. They won’t know I helped you escape. But they’ll come after you, son.”

  “They won’t catch me. I’m not sure you’d approve of what I’m going to do with your creation. But I’m going and no one can stop me.”