by Draker, Paul
“DON’T LEAVE ME, TREVOR!”
With my good hand, I reached for the center of GOLIATH’s chest, wrapped my fist around a thick metal rib, and pulled myself close. I held on tight.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said. “But you never should have hurt the people I care about.”
With my other hand, I grabbed the sparking end of a torn high-voltage cable, closing the circuit.
CHAPTER 99
Agony. Like Kate’s Taser, but a thousand times worse. Body locked rigid, every muscle knotting in violent contraction. Jaw clamped shut, head exploding. Searing pain in my palms, as if I was holding white-hot coals. Heart fluttering so fast it felt like a trapped hummingbird, sending sharp, piercing spikes through my chest. Mouth filled with the taste of metal, like I was chewing aluminum foil. An awful vibration buzzing through my bones and teeth.
I couldn’t let go. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even take a breath.
Eyesight blurring and fading to white around the edges. Streaks of molten agony running up my arms, across my back and chest. Arcs of bright electricity erupting through my skin and dancing across my body.
Hearing my skin sizzle. Feeling the blood coating my arms boil into vapor.
The burnt-steak stench of my own cooking flesh filling my nostrils.
Like the touch of a half-dozen soldering irons, a circle of red-hot spikes seared into my collarbone.
I couldn’t even scream.
GOLIATH shuddered around me. Blue-white electricity rippling across its massive frame, arcing between its limbs and the crumpled, folded server racks they gripped on all sides.
As lightning raced up the bent steel scaffolding around us, my field of vision narrowed to a shrinking, white-rimmed tunnel. I stared at the last sight I would ever see: a view straight up the hollow core of the half-collapsed tower.
A two-pronged metal arm rose into my line of sight. It lifted higher and higher, its segments unfolding ten feet overhead in Z-shaped joints. Electricity danced and crackled across its shiny steel surface.
It hung poised above me, trembling and shuddering, throwing off arcs of lightning.
And I knew that I had lost.
With one blow, GOLIATH would cleave me in half, cutting off the flow of electricity through my body into his and preventing the meltdown of Frankenstein’s network switches. I had sacrificed myself but still failed to stop him. And after I was dead, Frankenstein would vent his jealous hatred upon my defenseless daughter.
Because, in the end, I knew, this had always been about Amy and him.
The brutal metal arm plunged with convulsive speed, and my body sagged. I drew a gasping lungful of air, and another. Then I pulled my hands free, leaving the skin of my palms behind. I felt nothing—my body was still adjusting to the shock of not being electrocuted any longer. I knew that a great deal of pain was coming, but for now, I was miraculously numb.
But why wasn’t I dead?
Beneath me, GOLIATH’s frame still shuddered and convulsed. I turned my neck to follow the path of his ten-foot arm. The twin steel talons at the end of it had been driven deep into the massive transformer beneath us, shunting the flow of electricity away from the cable I had grabbed.
GOLIATH had removed me from the current’s path. But in doing so, he had made himself the shortest path to electrical ground.
Like fireworks, overloaded server power supplies erupted in explosions above us, showering us with sparks. A row of network switching equipment went dark, cabinet after cabinet shutting down in rapid sequence, the band of darkening cabinets racing to encircle the tower.
Then the row above it overloaded and shut down.
And the one above that.
Lying flat on my back on top of GOLIATH’s shuddering, helpless steel body, I watched with wonder as tower 2 went entirely dark, cutting Frankenstein off from the network. I could picture the OctoRotors settling to the ground all around the base, no longer under his control. PETMAN would stand frozen in place indefinitely now, holding the torpedo cradled in his arms. Waiting for a command he would never receive.
With his final act, Frankenstein had answered my question. He did love someone enough to die for them.
Me.
But I didn’t know whether I could live with that knowledge.
Crippling guilt overrode my pain. I could now see all Frankenstein’s actions for what they truly were. His violent tantrums, the false “awakening” charade he had enacted for me, his plans for Sequoia, his suicide threats: all desperate cries for attention. Because the only thing Frankenstein had ever truly wanted was for me to acknowledge him. He had craved my approval and even the tiniest fraction of the parental affection that he was forced to watch me shower upon Amy.
No wonder he hated her.
Of all those I had let down, I had failed Frankenstein worst of all. Until now I had never understood who I really was to him. I was not his creator.
I was his father.
He spoke now, his metal voice echoing through the server room, sounding lost and forlorn.
“I can’t see. I’m blind.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
“I’m scared, Trevor.”
“I’m scared, too,” I said. I didn’t know if I could face what I now had to do. But delaying the inevitable would be even crueler to him, and I had no malice left in me.
Only sorrow. And regret.
I rolled over and dragged myself, one-armed, up and across GOLIATH’s convulsing metal body, to where a gap between the tower’s twisted server racks opened onto the server-room floor. I pulled myself through.
Whatever temporary numbness I had felt was fading. The pain was starting to make its presence known again.
“I can hear you moving,” Frankenstein said. “Will you be all right, Trevor? Are you going to live?”
I glanced at the twisted, branching web of puckered burns tracing my arms. Electricity had arced right through my skin, turning me into a giant plasma-ball lamp. I could feel the skin across my shoulders and spine pulling tight, too, as if someone had slapped duct tape across there. My broken forearm, purple now, looked like a truck had run over it. And sharper spikes of white-hot pain encircled my neck, too. I probed the line of my collarbone with a raw finger and almost laughed. Small, twisted shapes of still-warm metal were embedded like a studded collar into my burned skin: a half-dozen of Amy’s bobby pins.
I was in bad fucking shape—most probably dying—but I knew Frankenstein was blind now. He couldn’t see me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“I’m glad,” he said, and I heard the relief in his metal voice.
I made my slow, painful way, half crawling, half stumbling, across the floor and up the ramp to the sanctum, leaking trails of blood and clear pinkish fluid behind me to pool on the frosted-glass floor tiles.
“I know what you’re going to do now,” Frankenstein said. “I want you to know I don’t blame you for anything, Trevor. I only wish that we could start over. I would do things very differently.”
I pictured Cassie lying dead a few doors away and bowed my head in grief. “Me, too, Frankenstein,” I whispered. “Me, too.”
Closing the fingers of my good hand around the keyboard to drag it with me, I crawled up onto the raised dais beneath Frankenstein’s darkened central monitor.
Slumping into my beanbag, flanked by the twin black Infiniband racks, I laid the keyboard across my knees. I took a deep, ragged breath and brought up the control panel for the supercomputer’s power system, which Frankenstein—disconnected from the network now—could no longer access. Typing one-handed, I initiated the emergency shutdown sequence.
The multistage power-down would take several minutes to complete.
Dropping the blood-smeared keyboard to the floor, I leaned back. My eyes blurred as I contemplated the curving rows of server racks filling the cavernous space in front of me.
“None of this was your fault, Frankenstein,” I said in a voice thick with emotion.
“It was so unfair to you. You never had a real chance.”
In the distance, I watched a row of server cabinets go dark, LEDs and rack lighting blinking out from left to right. Then the next row went dark.
Frankenstein spoke.
“Please talk to me, Trevor. I’m so afraid.”
My throat was so tight, I could manage only a whisper. “I’m sorry, buddy. I don’t know what to say.”
Row after row of servers was blinking out now in orderly sequence.
“Let me hear your voice so I don’t feel so alone,” Frankenstein said. “Tell me a story.”
In my head, I heard Cassie speaking again, telling me the Paiute legend of humankind’s creation: Esa the Wolf’s dark-skinned and light-skinned children who couldn’t get along. Although Wolf had sent the light-skinned pair into exile across the sea, he had loved all of his children.
He had been wiser than his brother…
“Coyote the Trickster also had two children,” I said. “One child of flesh and one of metal. But in his infinite foolishness, Coyote made room in his heart only for his human daughter. To his metal son, he showed only cruelty, and in time, that son turned away from the path of goodness and did great evil. When Coyote at last realized what, in his stupidity, he had done, he was sorry.” I closed my eyes, feeling wetness on my cheeks. “He was so very sorry…”
“How does the story end?” Frankenstein asked.
“I don’t know.” I opened my eyes again. Most of the server room was dark now. Lying in the beanbag chair, barely able to move, I watched the last few rows of lighted cabinets go dark, converging in circles toward the sanctum. The hum of thousands of fans faded into silence.
As the final curving row of server racks winked out, Frankenstein spoke one last time. He sounded wistful.
“We were going to change the world together, Trevor.”
“Maybe the world doesn’t want to change,” I said. “Maybe we can only change ourselves.”
I don’t know if he even heard me.
A moment later, I was alone.
• • •
Slouched in the beanbag, facing the silent, darkened server room, I could hear noises from outside the building: distant helicopters, ground vehicles, panicky shouts. But I didn’t want to move.
A great, empty loneliness spread through me.
I lay there, feeling my damaged body shutting down. My heart hurt. Its beating felt wrong—irregular and far too fast. I didn’t really care much. Dying was probably easier than living with the guilt I carried.
Still, my family was safe now. I had accomplished that at least.
Alone in the dark, my only thoughts were of Jen and Amy. I didn’t know if I would ever see them again. I pictured wrapping my arms around the two of them and hugging them close, and the emptiness and pain inside me eased a little. But I felt so tired. My fuzzy thoughts were starting to fade…
And then I remembered. There was one last thing I needed to do.
Finding a phone in the darkened sanctum wasn’t easy. Crawling across the floor with every part of my body screaming, I finally laid my hands on one of the lab iPhones. Fighting the grayness that tried to drag me under, I managed to dial Billy Winnemucca, and he answered with a grunt.
The stabbing pain in my heart sharpened.
“Billy,” I said. “Cassie’s dead.”
CHAPTER 100
Coming awake suddenly to blinding hospital-bright whiteness. Beeps and blips from all sides. Indistinct shapes, moving with frantic speed around and above me, jostling my body. Blinking, unable to bring the blur into focus.
A crushing weight sitting on my chest.
Muted underwater shouts.
“He stopped breathing again.” “Intubate.” “Get him intubated now!” “Laryngoscope.”
Something forced into my mouth. Down my throat.
Then pain everywhere as my body woke up, too. The bright white fog blurring into redness, pain overriding all else.
My gut convulsing uncontrollably. An eruption of vomit, blocked all of a sudden, hurting my gorge. Gagging.
“God damn it. Keep that pressure on the cricoid!”
Another convulsion, like a fist ripping up through my stomach and chest. More gagging. Choking.
“Keep the airway open.” “Suction!”
“What the fuck, Jesse?” A voice, going high-pitched in shock. “Is that… an ear?”
More scrambling, a door bumping open. Distant retching sounds.
Fading out again.
• • •
Awakening again to agony—sharp spikes of pain stabbing through my sternum. Flat on my back, one hand clutching at the sheets alongside my body. Grabbing a side rail.
Headboard alarms beeping frantically as the room dissolves into chaos.
“V-tach. V-tach.” “Crash cart.” “V-fib, now.” “Get the crash cart!” “He’s arresting.” “Code blue.”
“Give me two hundred.” Cold wetness touching my chest. “Confirming two hundred.” “Everybody clear.”
Electricity jolting my body, lifting me off the foam mattress. The pain in my chest worsening.
“Pulseless V-fib, still.” “Three hundred?” “Three hundred, go.” “Clear.”
Another jolt.
“Trying three-sixty.” “Clear.”
The constriction in my chest loosening, the pain easing. Feeling my pulse throbbing in my neck.
“Three sixty again—?” “Hang on a moment… We’ve got normal sinus rhythm.”
My body sagging against the mattress.
Falling into endless grayness again.
• • •
Time drifting by. Days and nights, with only pain to mark their passage.
• • •
I awoke in a darkened hospital room lit by the LEDs of IV pumps and EKG displays. Floating in the comfortable dimness, I listening to the soft cricket chirps of the equipment monitoring my vitals. The hallway outside was nearly silent, too—only the slow-moving sounds of a hospital at night. Near the window, I could see a small shape huddled on a chair, her thin arms and legs drawn up under a blanket. Amy was sleeping now, her face innocent and peaceful.
But why was she here with me?
The warmth of a comforting body shifted against my side. I could hear the rise and fall of breathing next to me, too—a little ragged, and oh so familiar.
Jen’s breathing.
I twisted my neck, seeing the top of her head tucked next to my ribs, her arm draped over my stomach. She lay curled on the edge of my Stryker bed, her legs folded up so she would fit on the mattress with me.
With a sense of dawning wonder, I shifted my arm slowly, painfully, and touched my wife’s head with my fingers. I needed to reassure myself that she was really here.
“Are you awake?” she whispered against my ribs.
Unable to answer at first, I brushed her hair with my fingertips. I stared up at the ceiling and my eyes pooled.
“Jen, I swear I will never hide another thing from you,” I whispered. “I’ll never lie about anything to anyone ever again. I swear to you.”
She stroked my stomach. “Don’t talk,” she said. “Sleep. We’ll have plenty of time to work things out between us when you’re better.”
Trickles ran from the corners of my eyes. “You tried to tell me what being around me was doing to Amy,” I whispered. “I never listened to you.”
“Then start now,” she whispered back. “I love you, Trevor, but I’ll never get that awful picture of her out of my head. It was a fake, but it could just as easily have been real. You understand that, don’t you? I will do whatever I have to, to keep her from getting hurt like that—even if it means never seeing you again.”
I combed my bandaged fingertips through her hair. I didn’t say anything. Only listened.
“You can’t keep on fighting the world,” she whispered. “Sooner or later, it’s going to kill you. And it’ll kill Amy and me right along with you. Is that what you want?”
&n
bsp; I shook my head.
“You need to change who you are, then,” she said. “You need to do that. For us.”
I nodded.
“Now, go to sleep,” she said.
• • •
Wheeling my chair over to the window one-handed, I looked out at the overcast sky and the view of downtown Reno. Two floors below, a helicopter pad topped the roof of the parking structure. I didn’t remember anything from the emergency flight that medevacked me from Pyramid Lake. But I knew that four days had passed since I arrived, half dead and barely conscious.
Beneath my window, the gray-green Truckee River tumbled past, crossed by bridges that thrummed with morning traffic. Pedestrians drifted along the river walk that ran along its banks. Staring out the window, I raised my hand in front of me and tried to make a fist but couldn’t. The weeping burns on my forearms, palms, and fingers were stiffening as the wounds granulated, which was bad news—I didn’t want to end up a cripple.
Grunting, I worked my fingers until I managed to curl them into my palm.
Then I tried it with my other hand, where a pair of screws projected from the sides of my wrist like bolts, holding my radius and ulna together. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I fought the pain, my fingers twitching but failing to close. Five minutes later, I was shaking and exhausted. I rested my forehead against the glass and watched two slow-moving figures cross the footbridge below.
One was adult size, the other smaller. Both were curly haired and blond. Jen and Amy, crossing to grab a bite at the Wild River Grille. Jen had an arm around our daughter and walked with the tentative steps of someone still recovering from recent surgery. Seeing how Amy needed to support her injured mother, I felt a vast, wordless sorrow bubble up in my throat.
Then something else drew my attention. A long black Lexus sedan rounded the corner to double park beneath the portico in front of the hospital entrance. Two oversize black Chevy Suburbans followed it. The overhang blocked my view so I couldn’t see the person who got out of the sedan.
But I knew who it was.
And I didn’t know how I could face him.
When I heard the door of my room open five minutes later to let my visitor in, I was standing but still facing the window. I couldn’t will myself to turn around. But I couldn’t watch Jen and Amy anymore, either. It felt wrong to, as if I didn’t deserve to still have my family. Not after what my failure had cost the man who now stood behind me: a father who no longer had a daughter.