by Joel Naftali
“Yes, here.” The barnacles opened and closed, making the eerie whispering. “San you hear? There is no visual abilisy.”
I kept my distance. “Um, who are you?”
“Lise the soffeemaser.”
“The coffeemaker?”
“Yes. Lissen, Sug—”
“First a coffeemaker, and now I’m talking to a snake fridge?” I said. “With barnacles?”
“Lissen! You muss fin—”
“I lost the Protocol cube.”
“I know. We muss—”
Well, let me translate. A little of that snake fridge accent goes a long way.
Fridge: We must fight Roach.
Me: You and me? Against them? You’re a big snakeskin box.
Fridge: I am not this structure. I am a new function of the Center’s AI. This “snakeskin box” is merely a storage container I am using to communicate. We need the Protocol.
Me: I lost the Protocol.
Fridge: There is another copy, one Roach doesn’t know about. We can only beat him if we have our own Protocol. Otherwise, he will scan in millions of innocent people and—
Me: So stop whispering and get the Protocol! Oh, and they’re setting off a bomb. A nuke.
Fridge: The copy is not yet encoded into wetware.
Me: A nuke, a nuke! They’re setting off a nuke!
Fridge: Then you must hurry.
A SHORT BREAK FOR A BRIEF MELTDOWN
Instead of hurrying, I panicked. My breath grew shallow, and my knees turned to applesauce.
And I suddenly, desperately wished I’d known my mom better—because I wanted to pray for her to help me. If ever I needed someone watching from above, that time was now.
I knew that Auntie M would watch over me if she could, but I couldn’t accept that she was dead. I still expected her to walk through the door and make everything all right—even though I knew that wasn’t possible.
I started to hyperventilate, my mind spinning in crazy circles.
Then a thought struck me: maybe Auntie M wasn’t gonna walk through the door, but she’d made me who I was. And maybe I’d never known my mom, but that didn’t matter. Not at all. Because if she was watching, she knew me.
I took a few deep breaths. This one’s for you, Auntie M. And for you, Mom.
CHILLING LIKE A VILLAIN
Fridge: Better now?
Me: Tell me what I need to do.
Fridge: I will download a copy of the Protocol into a biodigital format—three test skunks currently in a digitized state.
Me: You’re gonna download the Protocol into skunks?
Fridge: Yes. Inside this “snakeskin box,” you will find modified stem-cell self-extraction media.
Me: Are you kidding? I’ll find what?
Fridge: Objects the approximate size and texture of T-bone steaks. Take them to workshop seven.
Me: Where’s that?
Fridge: I will print a map. Inside workshop seven, you will find the HostLink prototype, and—
Me: Would you stop with the crazy names? The GhostLink?
Fridge: HostLink. The next generation of uplinks. The only way to transfer millions of minds into data files at once. Advanced beyond anything—
Me: Fine, a HostLink. What does it look like?
Fridge: The word HostLink is printed on the side. Insert the “steaks,” and initiate six thousand iterations—
Me: Wait! Stop! Gimme the kiddie version.
Fridge: Plug the steaks into the HostLink. They will adapt to any port. I will transfer the Protocol, and the HostLink will output the steaks as the skunks’ bodies. Then you will take the animals home and find a way to extract the Protocol.
Me: So I take some steaks from inside this snake fridge and plug them into a machine in workshop seven? They’ll turn into skunks. Then I take the skunks home?
Fridge: Yes.
Me: Why didn’t you just say that?
Fridge: Do not fail this time. If you don’t get the Protocol, nothing can stop Roach.
COMPLETELY 10010000
I looked for a door handle on the snakeskin fridge. I looked for a latch. Instead, I found a seam inside a flap of skin. Like a puckered scar. It was oozing neon green glop.
“Reach inside,” the fridge whispered.
So I wormed my hand to the inside, which was slimy and warm and throbbing faintly.
Dis. Gusting.
“Deeper,” the fridge said. “Until your elbow is at the seam.”
So I shoved my hand in deeper, until my elbow disappeared into the seam. And my fingertips felt … something. Something harder and more distinct than warm humming goo.
I hooked an edge with my fingers and pulled against the resistance of the glop inside. Then another edge, and another. Finally, with a wet splooch, I dragged three meaty chunks through the seam.
And they did look kinda like T-bone steaks, except with touch screens and stubby little plugs—which might’ve been cool if I hadn’t been covered in snakeskin-fridge goo.
AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR
Hey. This is Jamie. I’m posting this a couple of months after the Center exploded, and a couple thousand miles away. And with the benefit of hindsight.
This whole story is about to get so crazy—well, so much crazier—that I told Doug he should explain some things.
He said, “If you think it’s a problem, you do it.”
He’s such a bug sometimes.
Anyway, to give you some background, let me start with myself: your classic case of “poor little rich girl.” My parents were—are—both lawyers. They made a lot of money, but they worked seventy hours a week and spent another ten driving back and forth to their offices in the city.
I had everything, kinda. They loved me, they provided for me—but they were never really there for me. Unlike Doug’s aunt.
So I used to act out a little, and … Let’s just say that I’ve been to my share of therapists. I’m over all that, though. Mostly thanks to Dr. Solomon. After Bug and I became friends, she really took me under her wing. She’s sort of my hero. She said I’ve got the mind for science, too, which is all I’ve ever wanted.
Enough of my personal Hallmark Moment.
What I want to explain is this:
First, those test skunks were digitized. Their bodies died, and they existed only as digital information.
Then there’s the new Awareness that Bug mentioned. We had no clue what was happening in the Center’s data banks at the time, of course. But that Awareness spawned from Dr. Solomon’s scanned mind, then merged with the Center’s AI, forming a brand-new identity. And that Awareness grafted a backup copy of the Protocol, which Roach didn’t know about, onto the skunks. So three digital skunks contained the most powerful cybernautic code on the planet.
But their minds were stuck in the machine. The output paths were destroyed.
Soon they’d die, too.
That’s what those “steaks” were: a way to output scanned minds into physical bodies. Kind of like clay that you can sculpt into any shape. Because when you transfer a digital entity to the real world, you need something from which the body can grow. Well, usually.
So once the Center gave the right commands, the “steaks” would grow back into real skunks—into Larkspur, Cosmo, and Poppy.
Except now they’d contain the Protocol.
Only one catch: for precision work like that, to re-create the test skunks exactly, you needed the HostLink in workshop seven. Otherwise, things could get craaaazy.
CHAMBER OF HORRORS
Me again. Doug. While I was getting those techno-steaks, this conversation was happening across the Center:
“Commander Hund,” Roach said, tapping at a wall-display keyboard, “I’ve intercepted a communication to the boy.”
Hund turned from the door. “Where is he?”
“Heading for workshop seven—just like you.” Roach touched a few more keys. “There! I finished prepping the HostLink for transport. You’re clear. Remove it
before the boy arrives.”
“I’ll wait until he shows,” Hund said. “Then I’ll remove him, too.”
“He’s not important, but the HostLink is critical.”
“I can grab the machine and kill the boy.”
Roach smiled coldly. “I’ll send my little pet after the Solomon brat. You get the equipment. Now go.”
Hund turned on his heel and prowled away.
To workshop seven.
THE LONELIEST NUMBER
I stuffed the three steaks into a specimen pack I found on the floor, and turned back toward the fridge-thing. “Anything else?”
“Roach is destroying all the data banks he can’t steal,” it said. “I will not remain coherent much longer. You are on your own.”
“Great.”
“I believe,” the thing whispered, “in you.”
I grabbed the map that spewed from a nearby printer, and the countdown started. A calm computerized voice came from all the speakers: “Self-destruct initiated. Detonation sequence in forty minutes. Self-destruct initiated. Detonation sequence in forty minutes. Self-destruct initiated. Detonation sequence in forty minutes. Self-destruct sequence initiated. Detonation sequence in forty minutes. Self-destruct initiated. Detonation sequence in forty minutes. Self-destruct initiated. Detonation sequence in forty minutes. Self-destruct initiated. Detonation sequence in forty minutes. Self-destruct sequence initiated.
HE COULD’VE JUST ADOPTED A HAMSTER
By the time the message changed to “Detonation sequence in thirty-nine minutes,” I’d raced along two corridors and bounded down three flights of stairs.
If I correctly remembered the floor plan the coffeemaker had shown me, about fifty soldiers patrolled the Center, in groups of two. Except I guessed they weren’t patrolling, not anymore. Now they were looting—dragging all the HostLink components to the loading dock.
So aside from the random patrol, I didn’t have anything to worry about.
Well, other than Hund.
And the tactical nuke.
And the Protocol.
And my aunt.
But other than all that? Clear sailing.
Or so I thought, until I stepped from a stairwell in one of the lower sublevels and froze.
Something was slithering toward me from a hole in the wall. A snake or a tentacle or a … I didn’t know. I didn’t stick around to find out. I scrambled backward, and the thing emerged with a thhhht from the crack.
It was a centipede about the size of my leg, with a sequence of lights flashing inside and two antennae quivering from each armored segment. All of them waved at me as the thing undulated closer. It wove between the stair railings, then slithered along the wall, and I saw that it crept on tractor treads layered with tiny suction cups instead of a thousand legs.
This time, I didn’t freeze in terror. I backpedaled upstairs as the thing slithered toward me, fiber-optic antennae waving.
I waited—two seconds, three seconds—then put my hand on the stair railing and vaulted.
I spun in the air, the specimen pack containing the steaks flopping at my side, and landed in a crouch on the landing below. Behind me, I heard the centipede drop from the wall to the floor and scrabble toward the edge of the stairs, ready to leap onto my head and shove pincers into my eyes.
Well, at least I thought that was what it wanted.
I shot into the hallway, then closed and bolted the door to the stairway. Much better. I checked the map. Only a few hallways, a tunnel, and an access shaft remained between me and workshop seven.
I crept down a hallway.
I crept down another hallway.
I crept down a third hallway.
And I froze when I heard voices. Sounded like mercenaries grumbling about the helicopter transport. Coming from a big echoing room down the corridor, with a huge monitor and tiers of plush seats.
An auditorium or a surgical theater: an operating room with a view.
I paused outside the door. The voices sounded distant and … fuzzy, somehow. Staticky. Then I realized I wasn’t hearing the mercenaries themselves, just their voices broadcast in the room. Like someone had left a walkie-talkie on one of the seats.
I slumped in relief, took a single step forward, then saw what was broadcasting the voices. And believe me, it was no walkie-talkie.
Instead, I found myself staring at my first cyborg monster.
Imagine the body of an orangutan, squat and muscular with long arms. Now replace the fur with elephant skin—except as slimy as a slug’s foot—and the hands with knobby paddles.
And instead of a head, picture a helmet: a glowing dome, like an upside-down punchbowl with an oil slick swirling in it.
Roach’s “little pet.” A monkeybeast.
One of the first generation of biodroids, though I didn’t know that yet. A crude version, because Roach didn’t have the Protocol … but still dangerous. Still deadly.
Most of the creatures—or machines or whatever—built by the Center were made for scientific applications. Like that snakeskin fridge, or even, I guess, that fiber-optic centipede, which—
That was one of my designs. An experimental emergency medical unit for disaster response. A mobile, self-guided medic with nanotech healing capacity.
Yeah, I got that. Especially the “experimental” part.
Anyway, Roach’s biodroids were made for one thing and one thing only: destruction.
I stared at the monkeybeast, holding my breath. Afraid to move, even though it was facing the opposite direction.
Then, with one last crackle of static, the voices stopped. A gear whined and the shimmer of the biodroid’s helmet intensified. Its arms shifted unnaturally and seemed to break backward. A second later, its legs did the same.
Suddenly, the thing was facing me.
A bony knob on its shoulder swiveled and throbbed; then its legs tensed and the monkeybeast leapt from chair to chair—right toward me!
I slammed the door and ran, but a second later, the thing smashed through and skidded across the hall to the opposite wall. The biodroid wasted a few seconds stomping the wreckage of the door into smaller bits of wreckage—nasty temper. Then it turned toward me, and a stubby gun barrel slid from its armpit.
I dodged behind a snack machine, and the monkeybeast blasted a hole in concrete wall down the corridor.
Looking around, I saw … nothing. No way out. Just a long hallway with a few doors at one end and a snack machine in the middle.
And a monkeybeast, stalking closer for the kill.
For the record, Douglas, the machine to which you are referring did not vend snacks.
Looked like a snack machine to me.
That particular model dispensed preprogrammed nutrient media for the researchers, for propagation of—
Whatever. I’m pretty sure I saw potato chips.
Anyway, the vending machine didn’t offer much cover. And once the biodroid stepped closer, the machine offered no cover at all.
Just me and a monkeybeast, five feet apart. The gun muzzle swiveled, aiming at my forehead.
Killed by an armpit gun. What a way to go.
I closed my eyes and waited for the end.
THE CREEPING DOOM
Then I heard something.
A scrabbling. A pok! Pok-pok! Bzzzzt—thwing!
I opened one eye and saw the biodroid reeling backward, swaying and stumbling and beating itself on the face and neck. It was trying to dislodge the centipede draped across its head, five fiber-optic antennae wriggling madly, trying to burrow into the droid.
I understood in a flash that the centipede had been trying to protect me, to save me from the monkeybeast. It hadn’t been trying to eat me; it had been trying to herd me.
Well, I can take a hint.
I stood and ran. The sounds of the fight—crashing and pounding and an electric zapping—followed me around the corner and through the double doors. As I fled, I frantically consulted the map from the snake-fridge room that had been
helpfully translated into Arsenal Five levels.
I saw the route in a flash and shoved through swinging doors into a small medical bay. In the corner, I crawled under a storage cabinet to an unlocked grate on the floor. I squeezed through and wormed my way along a vent until I fell into a conference room in the particle accelerator wing. I raced down the hall into a lab and pushed into the air lock.
Then I waited for the far side of the air lock to open. Seconds ticked by. The countdown continued. A screen on the wall flashed information about the BattleArmor development lab and the virtual reality combat simulators.
I read it as I waited for the door to unseal, shifting my weight from my left foot to my right. I’d never heard of the BattleArmor or the combat sim before then and thought they didn’t matter.
Wrong again.
I muttered, “C’mon, open!” as I read, and finally the air lock door unsealed.
Then I trotted along the doughnut-shaped tunnel, counting the manhole covers—made from some shimmering plastic alloy—as I ran: one, two, three, four, five, six …
At the seventh, I knelt and yanked at the cool smooth handles and my vision started to darken. I felt dizzy and lightheaded and
the world
and I fell on my butt, breathing hard.
What was that?
It felt worse than panic, worse than exhaustion.
I remembered what the Center’s voice had said: Brain waves compromised. Were dizzy spells some aftereffect of getting stuck in the Holographic Hub? Just what I needed right then.
Luckily, when I shook my head, my vision cleared. So I finished tugging at the manhole cover, and with a shhhh of depressurization, the seal broke.
I slipped through and found myself in a vertical shaft.
ANFSCD
I climbed down the ladder—three stories underground—then stopped at the access hatch. Workshop seven was just around the corner.
Only one problem: the hatch was secured with a complex electronic lock with a card-swipe, retinal scanner, and keypad.