Free World Apocalypse - Genesis
Page 12
reports kept coming in. Then just one door remained at the end, and Zac was the first to it.
He ran at it and booted in its door, then rushed in and knelt, sweeping machine gun fire around the room. Billy was at his side, Noodle the other, Loser rushing past and taking up an advanced position. Pebbles appeared behind them, firing over their heads as she screamed merry hell.
Angled walkways led away on either side, raised hydroponic beds in between.
Not only were there row upon row of beds, but even worse, there were plenty of high-crossing walkways. He waved Pebbles one way and Loser the other.
Zac crouched and ran forward, checking this way and that, seeing no one. At the first intersection, he burst straight across in silence, then stopped a few yards down. If anyone was in here, they were either being extremely cool or they were cowering in some corner or other.
Zac checked back: Billy Flynn and Noodle were still waiting in position. Zac’s breath fogged his HUD, bringing that loneliness back to ambush him once again, making his stomach go light. He took a deep breath, the silence almost unbearable, then swore to himself he’d never again wear one of these damned helmets. Then something caught Zac’s interest.
What he could see was about three rows along and two up: a red form clearly wearing military boots—and red meant enemy. For a moment, Zac remembered his and Billy’s time fighting the feds at his old bar, and he wished it was the same now: him and Billy against the rest—no need for fancy headgear and color-coding. Everyone was an enemy.
He aimed his machine gun around the side of a bed and let off a sharp burst. The figure dropped to the floor, maybe injured, but then maybe not. Zac ran along the row of beds, staying low, soon peering into an aisle where he found a man rolling around in agony. Sprinting toward him, Zac kicked his gun away before reaching down and lifting his visor.
“I surrender,” the soldier groaned in agony, but a movement caught Zac’s eye and he dived to the floor, using the soldier’s body for cover. A burst of gunfire nearly took his head off, and he rolled closer to the beds and returned fire, but his assailant had vanished. Hit and run; so that was how it’s going to be.
Noodle appeared at the end of the row.
Zac wanted to scream.
Then Billy Flynn was at Zac’s side, looking down, kicking the wounded soldier and offering Zac a hand. Zac jumped up.
They hadn’t got to the end of the next aisle before the first scream rang out. Somehow, Zac had known Loser would be good at getting information.
He wanted to say “How the fuck should I know; I haven’t stormed a micro farm before,” but that was just the isolation of the helmet coming back to haunt him. He wanted to have a plan, but he couldn’t help thinking how vast the place was and how few they were. Luckily, Pebbles solved his problem.
Screaming at the top of her voice, Zac saw her golden signature streaking down an aisle, three or four over from them. He heard the rapid fire of her machine gun, then Noodle ran past him, going much the same. Lights shattered and bullets ricocheted around him, bits of leaf and clumps of roots exploding everywhere, then Billy Flynn punched him on the shoulder and started shooting and running and screaming at the top of his voice.
It lasted no more than thirty seconds, and a second hostile had surrendered; lucky for Zac, for he’d already been punched by a few stray bullets. It would only be a matter of time before one found a weak spot.
The enemy figure was kneeling before Pebbles, her machine gun pointing at the soldier’s head, no doubt having realized there was no chance against such a berserker. Long, brilliant-red hair then cascaded out of the helmet as the soldier pulled it off, settling around her shoulders as she looked straight at Zac. He flipped his visor up, Billy and Loser doing the same. Some way off, another scream rang out.
“What’s your name?” Zac asked.
Her blue eyes were defiant. “Karina Drey.” Her voice was deep and husky. “Couldn’t you just kill him?” she added as another scream rang out.
Zac sat down opposite her, across a plain composite table, the bland interview room offering nothing to focus on but each other.
“So,” said Zac, trying to keep his cool. Something about her unnerved him. She was way too confident. Shouldn’t she be pleading for her life? “Just who the fuck are you?”
She cupped her chin in her hand, her fingers raking her cheek, as though thinking about whether to tell him or not. Zac slammed his fist on the tabletop, but all it brought was a faint smile from her eyes.
“The resistance?” she finally ventured.
He sat back, reached into his combats and took out a smoke. Lighting it, he eyed her up and down. “Resistance to what?”
“To Oster Prime, to Josiah Charm, and to Walter and Irving Meyers. That enough for you?”
“Fuck me,” said Zac. “Not another side.”
She dropped her hand and pursed her lips, pointing at his smokes. “Well?” Zac slid them over. Karina spun the smokes around. “Oster Prime: not committed; Walter and Irving Meyers: certainly not committed, and Josiah Charm… What games do you think he’s playing?”
“I don’t follow.”
Karina grunted a laugh and took a drag of her smoke. “We all know that’s not true,” she said through a curtain of smoke.
“Why…” he eventually managed to say. “Why are you stopping Croft blowing the place up… No that’s not right. If you’re against Prime, why are you stopping us?”
“Doing what?” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Just what am I stopping you doing?”
“Getting everyone out of here—that’s what we’re here to do; so Croft can blow the stairwell and the military area.”
“Prime: committed to what? You never asked. I said he wasn’t committed, but I never said to what, and you never asked.”
“So, what is it then?”
“To a world run by AI. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Charm thinks he’s all for it, but I don’t think he really is. Know what I think?”
“No.”
“He’ll take a deal. Walter, Irving, a Russian, a Chinese…one of them, one’ll offer him something in The New World Order. Australia, perhaps. Venezuela? Which one would make Charm betray Byron Tuttle? Which country?”
Now he could see her point. Zac had wondered for a while exactly what game Josiah Charm was playing, and it was now plain to see. He was playing both white and black in this game of chess. “But the fuse…”
“The fuse was needed whatever the outcome.
To threaten those left. The world has had a reset, but the same folk are in charge. Their armies march, but on their own people now. No, nuclear war hasn’t changed a thing, it just made the world even more one-sided.”
“So, why are you attacking Croft? From what I’ve heard, he’s a good man.”
“He’s lost next to no men. We’re just keeping him at bay.”
“And Garrett’s men?”
“Those who are left are loyal to Charm, as is one called Kirk—he’s in a holding pattern, I reckon. Wouldn’t trust either of them. Wouldn’t trust me if I’m honest.” She shrugged. “We appear to be the rebels, but in truth, we’re fighting for what Teah and Connor are, for what Byron Tuttle and Laura Meyers are, and Jake and Cornelius.”
“And how can I know you’re telling the truth?”
A teasing grin danced over Karina’s lips. “Oh, that’s delicious,” she whispered. “After everything, you’re still seeking that.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Zac screamed, frustration running through him like an electric shock.
“The only person you can trust, Zac.”
And Zac wondered how she knew who he was as he sneered back at her, “Why would I trust you?”
“Because, I’m one of the few people who want to keep Connor alive.”
Shifting on his seat, Zac felt he couldn’t discount her words. They were cheap, no doubt, said to save her own skin as she played him like a fiddle. One thing in all this, though, hadn’t sat right with him, not since his visit to the Meyers' retreat, and that was Nick Renshaw.
They’d near enough backed him into a corner, telling him Connor would be a monster, that Zac would have to kill him, but then, as soon as they’d found Connor, Renshaw had been curiously disinterested in him. Zac had kept Connor close, but Renshaw and his men had, if anything, retreated into the shadows, barely playing a part until the attack of the drones. And after that, they’d appeared just to give up on Connor and go back with Charm and Laura. It had bugged him, and it still did.
He inclined his head. “How did you know I’d be the one in the micro farm?”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “That was a surprise, I must admit. I thought I might have to take a beating to get to see you—or worse: your associate appears quite effective at torture.”
Zac nodded. Loser had already told him what the dying man had said, and it wasn’t a stretch away from what Karina was saying now. “What about Renshaw?” he finally asked.
“What about him?” To which Zac relayed his story.
Karina nodded. “Renshaw’s no ordinary jarhead: cyber warfare background, overseas deployments coming outta his ears. No, he’s the top of the tree, and in case you ain’t noticed, biker boy, there’re some tall-assed trees around here. He must have realized what we suspected.”
“And what’s that?”
“That only part of the AI known as Sable resides in Connor.”
“Teah,” Zac muttered, and Karina nodded.
“And that’s why, whatever the cost, we have to hold the military area. We have to defeat Banks. That’s why we’ve got to get word to Tuttle that we think he’s making a big mistake.”
“He’s what?”
“He’s assuming he’s the only one smart enough to realize that she’s split herself in two.”
12
Zac’s Story
Strike time: plus 13 days
Location: Project Firebird
Sticks looked at Zac. “What?” he muttered, his expression one of confusion.
“Well, I for one,” said Noodle, “am quite happy just to be told who to shoot and who not to, until we get back to the bar in Christmas.”
“Amen to that,” and Billy Flynn banged on the little table, the chess pieces jumping up, some toppling. “Too many enemies who appear to be friends, and… Well, you get it.”
They were all sitting in what they’d assumed was Charm’s chambers. Loser was studying the wall behind Billy Flynn.
“What the fuck are you lookin’ for, Loser?” Pebbles asked.
“Secret doorway,” came his reply.
“Jerk.”
Pebbles appeared on edge, like the adrenaline that had flowed a few hours back was still in her system. Zac knew her psycho wasn’t spent yet. Pauly stood, leaning against the door, and Kenny and Molly were draped over the kitchen worktop. Kenny had assured all present that any surveillance was off.
Zac looked back at Sticks. “What can I say? She says she’s some form of faction within a faction—some kind of plant.”
“But who planted her?”
Zac shrugged. “All roads seem to lead back to Byron Tuttle, strange as that may seem.”
“The old guy?” Loser asked.
“The…erm… The librarian; the one with Connor.” Zac lit a smoke. The way he saw it, her explanation had been quite straightforward. Byron had known all along that the apocalypse would leave a huge power vacuum. He also knew that folk would rush to fill it, gutting any who would stand in their way. If Charm wanted to be at the table when the pot was divided up, then he’d better be holding a killer hand. What better than the threat of unleashing the most powerful AI ever grown, ever taught? But Charm had let go of his cards and left his fate in fate’s hands, and that didn’t sound like him. “What if we’ve been overestimating Josiah Charm?” Zac said.
“Got it,” said Loser, and a large panel clicked open.
Zac looked at Sticks. The soldier shrugged and walked straight in through the opening, a whistle soon coming from him. “Seems our Doctor Charm was in it for a longer haul than first met the eye,” he called back.
Zac was now behind him, looking over his shoulder.
“Told you there was something up,” said Loser. “Saw it as soon as we broke into the micro farms. You can’t have a circle divided up into quarters with one bit much smaller than the rest—it doesn’t make any sense. This, on the other hand, makes perfect sense.”
“Perfect sense?” Zac questioned.
Loser grunted. “With what that guy said before he…before he died, it fits. Best of both worlds, isn’t it?”
The room reminded Zac of the computer rooms at the Meyers' retreat. It had that same white, crystalline substance flowing over everything; the floor, walls, ceiling, the numerous long workstations, even the banks of computer monitors. Zac went in after Loser and Sticks, noting how they’d both crept in reverently.
“Why do I get the feeling that this changes everything?” Zac muttered.
“I take it you’re familiar with the anatomy of the human body, Zac,” said Karina Drey.
Zac leaned back against the door to her cell, pushing it shut. Karina was sitting on one of two beds. She looked fairly relaxed, as if her incarceration was a mere temporary inconvenience. She pissed him off, of that he was certain, but she also had something about her that intrigued him.
“More riddles?”
“More smokes?”
Accepting that she had the better of him, he went over to the other bed and sat down, tossing her his smokes and a lighter. “So?”
“So, you’ve discovered Tuttle’s brain, Charm’s ace in the hole. The knowledge, well, Zac, that would be as valuable, if not more so, than the AI. He couldn’t lose with it. With the knowledge of the known world, and I mean everything: medicine, farming, chemistry, astrophysics—the wealth of academia preserved for the future, he’d have them by the balls, even if he lost control of the AI.”
“But…that resin; doesn’t the computer ‘live’ in that? Renshaw or Walter—one of them—said the AI could move from crystalline structure to crystalline structure. They said that’s how it infected Connor…and Sable herself.”
She tilted her head, her red hair spilling over her shoulder. “To a degree. It will grow, though. It’ll find more clusters where it can…almost breathe, in a strange way. Yes, that would be a good choice of words. But the thing is, Zac, only once the AI known as Sable can span the oceans, by living in liquid form, will it truly control everythi
ng on this planet.”
“You mean it will live inside everything?”
Taking a smoke out of Zac’s packet, Karina Drey lit it and smiled. “So, now you know why there are factions inside factions, Zac. Not everybody’s all in.”
Billy Flynn was present, as were Noodle and Loser. Pauly would always say he was honored to be there, as would Spritzer, but Spritzer preferred to take a back seat in most things, so while he could say he was there, he never actually said anything. Pebbles and Pogo were there, too, and relatively surprised to be included. It wasn’t that the club was in any way against women being present at these sorts of things, they just never had been. It was just the way things were. Nathan Grimes was absent on account of his head having been blown off recently, the only other notable absentee being Cornelius Clay, but he’d been gone from the head of the table for so long, his name didn’t even get mentioned.
They did miss the iroko-wood table, but that was back at The Angel Bay hotel, and it just wasn’t worth the trip, plus it wouldn’t have fitted down the ducts. Now in Charm’s secret room, that they suspected was actually Byron Tuttle’s, plus Kenny had confirmed that no one else had ever been to Byron’s quarters, they had to make a huge choice. Those who were non-patched, and for the purpose of the meeting now considered prospects, were Molly, Kenny and Sticks. Zac tapped his machine gun’s butt on the white resin bench that he had his foot on. Unfortunately, it was a little too spongy to make much of a sound, so he cleared his throat, instead.
“Well?” he then asked.
Pauly, being the de facto leader but now clearly hating every minute of it, his eyes almost pleading for Zac to take over, was first to ask a question.
“So…” he said, his gaze then darting to the floor, where it did an in-depth study of his boots. “So, you’re saying that if we do this thing, we’ll all be linked by computer?” He grinned, the kind that reveals that a man’s out of his depth. “That if I have a piss, I’ll piss out a computer program?”
“What I’m saying is that Karina Drey said that Sable, the…erm…the computer in Connor, can technically…erm…travel… Yes, that’s it, through most things.”