The cube was gone, too, but in its place there was a metal hatch embedded in the ground.
Wearily, Leah stood and walked over to it. The sense that the island held all the answers to her problems was gone. Now it seemed like there was no escape. She had no idea how much time had passed back in the real world. It could have been seconds, or her body might be on the verge of starvation. She could be about to die.
There was no lock on the hatch, just a rusted iron handle. Leah grabbed it and hauled the hatch open. She let it drop, and it clanged noisily. White LED lighting flickered to life, revealing a winding staircase leading down into the depths of the island. Three floors down, the staircase ended in a door.
Resisting the urge to simply sit on the ground and wait for Transport to find her, Leah descended the staircase.
The LED lighting behind her died as she walked downward until all that remained was a single glowing white orb above the door. That, too, blinked out when she reached it. She felt a moment of panic at the sudden darkness, then the door slid silently open, revealing a brightly lit white room. She felt it calling to her, but this time there was no spinning black cube, no Siren. Still, Leah felt the prickle of nerves as she stepped into the room.
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The door slid closed behind Leah. There was a huge circular table sitting in the middle of the room. The surface was covered with lumps and mounds. When Leah got closer, she realized it was a topographical map of the entire country, complete with mountain ranges, rivers, and clusters of buildings representing major cities. The map looked real, but when Leah brushed her hand across it, there was nothing there. It was just a projection that flickered and broke apart briefly as her hand trailed through it.
Leah walked around the table. She reached the right-hand side of the map and looked down on the miniature representation of New York. She counted twenty buildings, far less than the actual city, but it was still enough to create a sense of scale. An angular red line surrounded the city.
She was about to continue around the table when she saw another marked area a little to the west of New York. This time, the lines were green and there was no cityscape within them, just a featureless patch of beige ground. It took Leah a few seconds to realize she was looking at the space where Columbia would have been. She traced her fingers along the green line, breaking it apart as though that would erase the damage Transport had done, then becoming angry as the line re-formed behind her fingers.
Her gaze flitted around the map. There were two more cities surrounded by a red line—Seattle and San Francisco. None of the other cities were marked. There was something specific about these four. Something special.
Her eyes were drawn to the line around Columbia. Why was it green? What made Columbia different? It wasn’t even there anymore.
Her eyes widened.
The bomb.
Leah looked at the other marked cities. They were all targets.
The despair that had been dogging Leah since she’d seen the downed helicopter wrapped its arms around her. There were millions of people living in those cities. She imagined them swallowed up by a raging cloud of blue fire, and her despair wormed its way deeper inside her. She backed away from the table, shaking her head.
She should let Alice handle it.
There was something about that thought that was wrong. She tried to find the flaw for a moment, then the last dregs of energy drained from her body. Her shoulders slumped. She leaned back against the wall, then let her legs fold underneath her until she was sitting on the floor.
“Crushing, isn’t it? The weight of defeat. The knowledge that your pathetic attempt at resistance is destined to fail.”
Leah forced her head to lift and looked toward the source of the voice. There was a woman standing in front of her.
“Stop fighting it, Leah.”
At her name, Leah relaxed a little. If the woman knew her, she was probably a friend. She frowned. That idea felt wrong, too. There was something about the woman’s face that made Leah uneasy. She crouched down beside Leah and took her hand. Her fingers were cold, and the skin was smooth and tight. They almost felt like they were made of metal.
Maybe she’s a cyborg.
Leah didn’t know where the idea had come from, but the thought took hold of her, and she couldn’t shake it.
The woman reached up and pushed a stray lock of hair away from Leah’s forehead. Her fingers brushed her skin. Again, Leah was reminded of a machine, not a human being.
“Just sit here and rest. Let the world move on without you. Save yourself the inevitable pain.”
Suddenly confused, Leah looked around. “Where am I?”
“You’re safe, Leah. That’s all that matters.”
Leah smiled, but the words rang hollow. She wished Alice were there to help. The smile dropped away, and she frowned. Who was Alice? Was the woman’s name Alice? No, she didn’t think it was.
“Don’t fight it, Leah. Just give in, and this nightmare will be over.”
The woman’s words made sense. There was some unseen weight pressing down on Leah’s shoulders, crushing her into the floor. The force was strong enough that Leah had difficulty keeping her head upright. Giving in just seemed like the right thing to do.
The idea that the woman might be a cyborg was still there, but Leah couldn’t work out what that actually meant. She let her head drop forward. She was too tired to fight.
“That’s good; just let go.”
The woman’s voice had changed subtly. Where before it had been soft and smooth, now there was an edge to it—pleasure.
Fight. The woman, if she was a woman, had told Leah not to fight it. What was it? And why mustn’t she fight?
Leah forced her head upright again. A spark of anger flared in the woman’s eyes then was gone. Those eyes were the key, Leah was sure of it. She stared at them, trying to drag the name that matched them up from the depths of her mind.
West.
The woman’s name was West. No, Westler. Captain Westler.
Memories hit Leah like a tidal wave. Images of her strapped into a chair while Westler asked her questions. Another of Westler threatening a man Leah knew but couldn’t name. A woman with a scar running across her forehead. Another woman lying injured in a chair. A name—Alice.
The fragments snapped together.
Leah remembered.
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This isn’t real.
Leah pressed her hands against the floor and pushed, rising unsteadily to her feet. The urge to sit down again hit her. She forced it away with a single word. “Alice.”
Westler gave a curt laugh. “Alice is gone.”
Leah shook her head.
Westler laughed again, the sound laden with contempt.
Leah clenched her jaw as another wave of despair slammed into her. Westler was right. She’d never get out of this place.
She staggered to her left. The wall was the only thing that stopped her from falling.
“What are you going to do, Amish girl? Run?”
The idea of taking a single step seemed ludicrous to Leah. Her legs felt like wet noodles. They were barely enough to keep her upright, let alone carry her away from Westler. But they didn’t need to. She just needed to leave the VR area. She didn’t need to move to do that.
“It won’t work,” said Westler.
Leah ignored her. She closed her eyes and pictured the walls around her dissolving. Beyond them was the room Westler had shown her. Alice was there. Dead. Leah was lying nearby, hooked into a VRI that was generating this nightmare. All Leah had to do was open her eyes, and she’d be back there. She could already smell the harsh tang of disinfectant and hear the whirring fans in the computers.
She opened her eyes.
The map room vanished, but Leah wasn’t back in the Transport facility. She was in the interrogation chamber, standing in a circle of light. Westler was nearby in another circle, a smile on her lips.
“I told you it wouldn’t work,” said Westl
er. “You aren’t going anywhere unless I want you to.”
Leah saw something move through the darkness behind Westler. It was gone before she could work out what it was.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me. TRACE will stop you detonating those bombs.”
Westler raised her eyebrows. “You worked it out. Clever girl. But TRACE is irrelevant. They’re a mosquito buzzing around a tiger.”
“Mosquitos kill people all the time.”
Westler snorted.
“We broke into your police station.”
“Because I wanted you to.”
There was an undertone of smug satisfaction in Westler’s voice. She might be lying, but Leah thought she wasn’t—they’d gotten away from the station too easily. “Why?”
Westler rolled her eyes. “You really are dense.”
It took Leah a handful of seconds to work out the answer to her own question. “You wanted to find out who we were trying to rescue.”
Westler opened her arms, a look of exasperation on her face. “Finally, she gets it.”
“We got them out, though, didn’t we? And you still don’t know who it was.”
Leah saw Westler’s jaw tighten, and the sight gave her some small measure of satisfaction. The others had escaped the crash.
“It was a temporary setback. Now that we know where your TRACE friends are hiding, we can deal with them appropriately.”
Guilt crashed down on Leah. She’d betrayed her friends. Alice was already dead, and now everyone else would suffer, too. Because of her.
There was another movement in the shadows behind Westler. Leah was sure there was something lurking in the darkness, but she still couldn’t make it out.
She resisted the urge to look and locked eyes with Westler instead. “So now you can let me go.”
One corner of Westler’s mouth curved up. There was no humor in her face. “I would have, really. But”—she tsked and sighed—“then you had to try to escape.”
Leah hadn’t expected Westler to agree with her, but the energy leaked from her body anyway, taking her last vestiges of hope with it.
“Still, it’s probably for the best.” Westler waved her left arm across in front of her body. A map appeared, floating in midair between them. It was like the one in the white room, but it only showed the three cities that Transport were targeting with their bombs.
“You were there in Columbia; you’ve seen the destruction firsthand. The rest of the country will soon see TRACE for what they truly are. Terrorists. The citizens they claim to be trying to liberate will turn on them. Anyone associating with TRACE will be turned in. The people will look to Transport for the safety and stability they need.”
“But TRACE isn’t responsible for those bombs! Transport is!”
Westler frowned as though she was puzzled, but her eyes were filled with amusement. “But why would we do that? Hundreds of Transport officers will die in those explosions. How could we kill our own people like that?”
“Because you’re insane.”
Westler swept her hand aside, and the map disappeared. “No! We’re doing what needs to be done to protect this country and her people. TRACE’s reign of terror must end if we are to move forward to greatness.”
“I thought TRACE was just a mosquito.”
“They are, but you still kill mosquitos. You crush them or poison them. Or, in our case, starve them of the support that keeps them alive.”
A dark shape flitted behind Westler, just at the edge of the light. Leah’s eyes darted to it. Her heart sank.
“Ah, I see you’ve spotted my friend. I believe you met some of them earlier.”
Westler extended her left arm out to the side, her hand flat as though she were petting a dog. A wolf slunk out of the shadows. It was even bigger than the others Leah had seen, its head standing well above Westler’s waist. It slid beside Westler until her hand was resting on its neck. Her fingers dug through its fur.
Fear wove its way down Leah’s spine. She glanced around the circle of light, reluctant to take her eyes off Westler and the wolf but desperate to find a way out. As far as she could tell, there was nothing there. They could be standing on a platform in outer space for all she knew.
Really, was there any point in fighting? TRACE wasn’t coming to get her. Billingham had never trusted or respected her. He’d just assume she was dead. Even if he knew she wasn’t, he wouldn’t risk soldiers’ lives to get her.
Westler lifted her hand from the wolf’s back, just slightly. The wolf raised its head and let out a low growl. Westler flicked her fingers, and the wolf leaped.
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The wolf traveled the distance to Leah and crashed into her before she could react. The impact knocked her backward, and she fell into the darkness. The wolf came with her. It pulled back its lips, revealing jagged rows of steel teeth, and lunged at her face. She jammed her hands beneath its jaw and pushed, twisting her head aside as its teeth snapped shut barely an inch from her face.
Grunting, she forced the wolf’s head back. The strange half-mechanical growl came again. She could feel its feet pressing down on her chest. Razor-sharp claws dug through her jacket. The wolf dipped its head closer to her face.
She shifted her grip and wrapped one hand around the wolf’s throat and squeezed. Its windpipe was hard, like metal, and the ridged edges dug into her palm. The wolf’s skin shifted and slid beneath her hands. She let out a cry of determination and tightened her grip.
The wolf shifted its weight. The pressure on Leah’s chest increased then turned to agony as its claws pierced her skin. She cried out again, but this time the sound was driven by pain.
The wolf’s fur moved beneath her hands. Its jaw dropped open. There was no tongue, just those teeth and a dark, gaping maw.
A screeching, grinding sound came from the wolf’s mouth, and its jaws opened farther. They were wide enough to enclose Leah’s entire head now. Her arms were growing tired, and she was losing her grip. She pushed at the wolf, trying to force it off her, but the weight of it pinned her to the ground.
The skin beneath her hands moved again. It writhed and twisted as though there were something alive beneath it, trying to get out. The wolf’s silver eyes rolled back in its head. Its jaws opened even wider.
Leah released the wolf’s throat and dug her fingers into the fur on its head. The skin shifted and tore apart. Beneath it lay a shining steel skull. Oval holes in the metal revealed the slick, gelatinous mass of the thing’s brain. Tiny pinpricks of light darted through the substance like stars falling through the night sky.
Fine wires ran across the skull like muscles. They slid back and forth as the wolf’s jaw split into quarters, revealing a cluster of articulated metal probes. They twitched and curled, like grasping fingers. They extended toward her. Clicking. Whirring.
Leah’s head was pounding. The muscles in the arm holding the wolf off her were shaking. She could feel them turning to jelly despite the river of adrenaline rushing through her body.
The wolf was no longer trying to bite Leah. The probes moved steadily toward her face, and as they did, some of the tips broke open, revealing long needles. Liquid dripped from the end of each one, glistening with reflected light. A drop of liquid fell from one of the needles. It landed on her cheek. For a second it felt cool, then Leah’s skin began to burn—a tiny pinprick of pain far stronger than she’d expected.
Fighting back the urge to scream, Leah grabbed the wolf’s head and wormed her fingers into the holes in its skull. The wire-like muscles slid beneath her fingers, cutting her. The wolf growled, and she could feel the sound vibrating through the metal skull. The probes darted forward.
She forced her fingers deeper, and the tips found the soft mass of the wolf’s brain. She could sense the intelligence behind the creature as soon as she touched it. A torrent of data filled her mind. Words and numbers streamed across her vision. The solutions to dazzlingly complex formulas appeared to her, unbidden.
Behind
the data, she could feel the cold, almost alien intelligence of the machine. It had weight—a real, tangible substance. She could feel it bearing down on her, crushing her.
Another drop of liquid fell from one of the probes, scorching Leah’s skin. She twisted her head away and focused on her fingers. She pressed them deeper into the nexus of the wolf’s brain, and she felt them lengthen and split, growing through the gel-like substance like the roots of a plant. Sparks of electricity rippled through Leah’s fingers and up her arms. The smell of burning metal filled her nostrils. It caught in her throat, stinging it.
The machine pushed back, its artificial will fighting against her. She could feel it probing her mind, digging through her subconscious as it searched for a way in. Her skull felt like it might break apart or shatter into a billion pieces. Bright light exploded across Leah’s vision. The pounding in her head turned sharp and pierced her forehead. The light faded, replaced by the image of her mother rocking Leah in a cradle.
The machine seized on the opening, driving the tendrils of its thoughts deep into Leah’s mind. Pain ripped through her body. Bones cracked as her spine arched backward. The tendons in her arms and legs turned to stone. She tried to open her mouth to scream, but the muscles in her jaw were locked tight, sealing her pain inside. Something dark pooled in her eyes, blinding her. She blinked, and warm liquid ran down her cheeks. The tightening of her body pulled her arms away from the wolf, and she felt her fingers slipping free of its brain.
Leah pushed the agony away. She managed to drag in a breath through her nose. The burning smell was stronger than ever, and she wondered if it was her brain that was on fire—ignited by the battle with the machine.
She felt the machine drive its thoughts deeper into her mind. Its will became a tangible thing. The pain grew exponentially. She could see it now—a vast artificial intelligence with access to billions of terabytes of data—the entire might of Transport brought to bear on one teenage girl.
The Girl in the Machine (Leah King Book 3) Page 14