by Blou Bryant
Wyatt took the stairs four at a time, and stumbled as he hit the landing too fast, slamming his injured arm into the wall. “Damn it,” he complained as Ira passed him. He pushed off the wall and tried to keep up.
They didn’t slow and he reached the first floor only seconds after the others. Ari held the door for him and he didn’t need to slow as the group barreled through. Between the security lights and moonlight streaming through the windows, their way was clear.
Ira and Emm stopped at a closed security door, a bright red sign on it warning of an alarm if it opened. Wyatt ignored this and pushed hard. It swung wide, without triggering the alarm.
He cursed as he heard a door open in the room, behind them. At the sound, the four abandoned caution and quickly exited.
Outside, the door now closed behind them. He took a moment to look left and right. There wasn’t anyone in sight and the forest was only fifty yards away. He put a hand up for them to stop. There was no noise, no movement.
“Can you sense anything?” he asked Ira, trusting in her ability to detect the thoughts of others.
She put her head down briefly and then looked up in alarm. “They’re coming, from inside,” she said and took off to the left, towards the corner of the building. Her sister followed as did Emm.
Wyatt considered following, but if she was moving that quick for the side of the building and not for the forest, their pursuers were too close. Instead, he stepped to the side of the door and waited, the stun gun in hand.
He was soon rewarded for trusting in his instincts as the door swung open, with him behind it. Emm—she was a quick one—shouted as she turned the corner, drawing the attention of the three women who’d burst through the door. One fired off a burst of bullets, but her targets were already out of sight.
Hesitating briefly—three was a lot and he wasn’t a crack shot—Wyatt took the door with his left hand, keeping it open, and fired on the Watchers as they ran away. The first two pellets went wide but the third hit a target in the back of the head. She stumbled to the ground, likely more in surprise than from the force of the shot.
Another pellet hit its target in the back, and she rolled, coming right back up with her weapon aimed directly at him, firing. Wyatt ducked into the building as a pellet intended for the third target instead hit the woman firing at him—right in the face. She fell to the ground.
Wyatt pushed the door open and was about to step out after the third when the first Watcher got up on her knees and picked up her gun in one fluid motion. Before she could level her weapon, he stepped back into the building and let the door close behind him. The girls were now on their own… and so was he.
Moving through the floor, he followed the wall and opened offices as he went, searching for the second exit. At the third office, he started at the sight of his second attacker staring straight at him through the window. He stepped back quickly and recovered on realizing that the tinted black glass prevented her from seeing in. His decision to step left and continue searching saved his life, as the window wasn’t immune to the bullets in her weapon.
She’s trying to get in. Strike that, he thought, she’s in, or will be in seconds. He didn’t consider waiting for her, and instead ran away from the office, down the hall and around a corner. The sound of more cracking glass behind him confirmed she would come soon.
One more door. Nothing behind it other than a desk and one sad potted plant.
A second door and the sound of glass shattering ended. She’d be in now. Another room and another potted plant. Probably plastic.
One more door. This is a waste of time, these are just offices, all identical. Through the window, he saw Ari struggling with the first Watcher. Wyatt wanted to help, to yell out, to do something but moved on when Ira stepped into view, pummeling her sisters’ attacker from behind. She quickly dropped to the ground. The Watchers might be immune to pain, but they went down like anyone else if you hit the right points.
The girls kept going, so he moved as well, matching their path towards the front of the building. He had to get there first, and draw away the fire of the Watchers who surely were waiting. Ignoring closed doors, he made for the end of the hall and ended up in a reception area. A broad windowless door stood in front of him, likely leading to the main entrance.
As he raced for it, he didn’t slow his approach. There wasn’t any point in going slow, there wasn’t any advantage to stealth. He burst through and surprised three men who stood in front of the desk. Wyatt’s first shot hit the largest of them square in the throat.
Pulling the trigger a second time, he shot wide. The third pellet missed as well, but he covered the distance before the other two even had their weapons up. Leading with his shoulder, he slammed into the closest man, and used the contact to swing himself around.
His feet no longer had solid purchase, but he fully executed the turn, pointing his gun directly at the third Watcher, only a foot away. He didn’t miss.
Falling to the ground, he rolled twice and dug in to slow his movement. The man he’d run into was on the ground, but was getting to his feet, his gun in hand. There was five or six feet between them. It was too much.
Wyatt pushed off with his left leg and threw himself behind the security desk as a hail of bullets traced the ground where he’d just been.
A second burst of bullets rocked the desk, but none punched through.
With a deep breath, he considered his situation. He could jump up and over… but the man was on the other side and his gun was no longer hanging loose. A garbage can under the desk could be a projectile… so could the chair. He let out a sigh. Or a magic dragon could appear from above and fly him away. It was hopeless.
“I surrender,” he said. “Don’t shoot.”
The punch-punch of bullets hitting the front of the desk stopped.
After a long silence, or what felt like one but which likely lasted no more than ten seconds, the front door opened and he heard reinforcements arrive. “I surrender,” he repeated.
When there wasn’t a reply, he gingerly stretched his hands over his head—and over the desk. When they weren’t perforated with bullets, he raised himself to his feet. Four armed men stood in front of him.
One waved him forward and Wyatt let himself be pushed out of the building. Not a word was exchanged.
There were two cars out front, their lights shining on the front of the building. Once his eyes had adjusted, he made out the three women. They had been captured, with men watching them from a safe distance.
Ari had blood streaming down her face. She didn’t even glance at him, her angry scowl directed at the man on her left.
“Hey,” he said, keeping his hands in the air.
The twins didn’t reply, but Emm smiled and gave a wave with both hands, also held over her head. “You made it. I worried.”
“And you’re not anymore?”
“Shut up,” said one Watchers from behind him. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
Ira and Emm complied but Ari continued to glare at the Watcher closest to her. “What are you gonna do, shoot me?”
The man leveled his weapon.
Wyatt kept his hands up but stepped closer. “No, they won’t.”
At this, someone hit him in the lower back with the butt of his gun. “Do you want to try us?”
Wyatt knew where they were going, and from the conversation with Joe, knew that all of them—all the people he’d altered—were wanted by Jessica. “We’ll go, but don’t pretend you’re anything but hired help.” He struggled to his feet and put his hands behind his back. “Ari… now isn’t the time.”
She ignored him.
Ira turned her head slightly. Ari’s face stiffened and she flashed the man guarding her an evil grin. She turned and looked behind her, past the cars, and put both hands behind her.
Emm had already turned, but she glanced back and favored Wyatt with a wink.
We’re going to be hostages… no, worse than that, l
ab rats, and I get a wink? She was a strange woman, better with computers and code than people.
She simply smiled and turned her head again. As he watched her, a light appeared up the long driveway. Two lights. A car was approaching, dead slow.
“Bravo, is that you?” a Watcher to his right asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Emm as the car continued to approach.
“Bravo…” said the man again, and stopped part way through. “It’s not ours…” he said. “Stop!” he shouted towards the car. It was no more than fifty feet away, crawling towards the group.
“Light it up,” the Watcher yelled.
All five spread out, taking cover behind their own vehicles and opened fire. The sound of bullets exploding from their chambers was followed by that of them hitting the vehicle. Glass shattered and metal was pierced again and again by a hail of gunfire.
The car continued to roll forward, undeterred by the bullets.
Wyatt stared, the gunfire rooting him to the spot. He broke out of the reverie when Ira turned to him and said, “Duck!”
The next moments were a blur.
Emm dropped to the ground as if she was a puppet freed of her strings.
Trusting in them, Wyatt dropped down on one knee. A moment later there was a bright flash in the darkness to his right and the guard next to him fell to the ground, blood spraying from his neck.
Ari turned from the car and in two steps reached the man she’d been glaring at. He didn’t manage to raise a hand before she broke his nose and took him out of the fight.
As Wyatt pulled the gun from the man sputtering blood, Ira pushed off the car and flipped back, landing on a Watcher who’d been foolish enough to get close. Her legs wrapped around his neck and twisted him around. Halfway down, there was a sick wet cracking sound, and he didn’t move once he hit the pavement next to the car.
Several more flashes and loud bangs came from Wyatt’s right and the remaining two Watchers fell to the ground. He stayed on his knees, turning his weapon to the man that Ari was on top of. She had her thumbs pressed into his eyes, her knees on his chest. He screamed as she pressed in.
“Ari!” Wyatt exclaimed.
She turned to him, blood dripping down her face, animal rage visible. Blood seeped from his eyes. When Wyatt shook his head, telling her to stop, she pulled his head up and then slammed it into the pavement, twice. His screaming stopped.
Wyatt pulled himself to his feet and tried to see where the gunfire had been coming from. The lights from the cars blinded him, there wasn’t anything visible, not at first. A figure came into view and Wyatt raised his weapon.
“Aim that somewhere else,” came Rocky’s gravelly voice from the darkness.
Chapter 17
Commandeering one of the cars took only seconds. Rocky was ripping at wires in an effort to hot wire it when Emm brushed past him and placed one connected hand on the hood. There were several small sparks of light and then the car started up.
“I’ve also disabled all internet connections,” she said and took a back seat.
Rocky had a handful of wires in hand. With a grunt, he dropped them on the ground.
“Let’s go,” Emm called out as she scooted to the middle. Ari and Ira joined her, leaving the back seat for the men.
Wyatt took the front seat. “Good timing,” he said as he sat down.
Emm scoffed. “Took him long enough.”
With everyone inside, Rocky hit the gas hard and spun the tires briefly before peeling down the long driveway. “You want faster, send a better text next time.”
“What’d I send?”
“You don’t know?”
“Not exactly. I tried to text you… we’re in trouble, men with guns, outside.”
“It was a poo emoji, and a map.”
She laughed out loud. “That sounds clear to me.”
“It was a map of Brazil, and was on the car navigation display.”
“Still clear,” she deadpanned.
“I came anyway, figuring you needed to be picked up. I didn’t figure the four of you would be taken so easy. Sorta disappointed, ya know.”
Wyatt kept an eye in the mirrors, but there wasn’t a tail, no police or Watchers following that he could tell. Glancing at Rocky, he noted the gun on the man’s lap. “I thought you weren’t a gun guy.”
Rocky grunted. “No. You’re not a gun guy,” he said.’
“You use guns?” asked Wyatt, surprised.
“Of course, I do. If someone’s trying to kill me… or one of my friends… damn right, I’ll use a gun. Easier than punching someone.”
“Why haven’t you trained me to use them?” asked Wyatt.
“Learn to fight, then I’ll teach you how to use a gun.”
“I already know how to fight,” protested Wyatt.
With a loud chuckle, Rocky shook his head. “Wasn’t that you back there, with your hands in the air, crying?”
“I wasn’t crying.”
Emm laughed. “I thought I saw a tear.”
Everyone was in great spirits. There wasn’t anything better than being plucked from the fire at the last minute. Wyatt found himself unable to join them, however. It might have been his body—feeling off—but he knew there was something in their encounter that he’d missed. Something that his subconscious had heard… a thought that was almost on the tip of his tongue.
“Joe changed,” he said, partially to himself.
“He was there?” asked Rocky.
“Just him, no Jessica.”
“How…”
“On a monitor. Well, on all of them. And he’s different.”
“How?”
Emm leaned forward between the two of them. “He said he’s self-programming.”
“What’s that mean?”
Wyatt turned in his seat to watch Emm, and nodded to her to continue. He didn’t understand it.
“Just what it says… he can write his own programs now. I’m surprised that he wasn’t before.”
“Why?”
“All AIs now self-program, it’s part of their core code. They’re built to learn, and that means that they have to be able to make changes to their own programming to take advantage of what they learn. Like…” she searched for an example, “… like when a shopping algorithm takes the buying habits of millions of people and changes advertising. The code says ‘make a lot of money’ and leaves it to the program to figure out how.”
“So, Joe couldn’t do that before, but he can now?”
“I guess. Probably ‘cause he’s a military program, the original designers didn’t want it getting too out of hand.”
The city rose before them as the car cut through the dark. Wyatt absentmindedly listened to the others, allowing his brain the freedom to subconsciously go through the events in the data center.
Joe was programming himself, evolving. And he still was after Wyatt. His behavior at the data farm wasn’t just ego, despite what Emm had said. The machine was a game player… but was hundreds, thousands of moves ahead. He wanted to scare Wyatt. He wanted to force him to make a move. What was the move—and what was the objective?
As they passed the first huge malls he realized, “We gotta get Teri and Hannah.”
“Why?”
“Joe said he had an agreement, that he had promised to not attack her. He used the past tense. I don’t think he’s bound by it now.”
“Just because he used the past tense?” asked Rocky… but he stepped on the gas.
“With an AI, that’s enough. He said he’s collecting everyone I’ve touched. Hannah was first, then Teri. They’ve changed more than anyone, and they’ll be his next targets, after me. And now that we’ve escaped….”
The car jolted forward as Rocky pressed down harder on the gas. They were well over the speed limit. At some point, automated radar check would spot them, but it didn’t matter. The car wasn’t theirs and the bill would go to Jessica.
The city surrounded them now, with fallow far
mland left far behind and the stars hidden by the light of a city that never went dark. Wyatt tapped out the seconds on his thigh as he counted the minutes. Five minutes, that would be all it took to get off the interstate, cross two business parks and make their way to the Zone.
Most Zones were on the outskirts of towns. He’d read of massive areas in the west, fully returned to nature, and small mining towns in the Midwest that had been abandoned, allowed to crumble. With populations dropping, even the big cities weren’t immune to the drive to close off what the politicians called ‘under-performing’ areas.
Those with money congregated where they could. Those without the means moved often, sometimes by their own choice, more often driven to find new homes. The government couldn’t afford to serve everyone, everywhere.
Wyatt watched dark empty buildings roll by with sadness. He’d been immune to this when he was younger. His family hadn’t been rich, but they had been lucky enough to not worry about electricity, internet and other services. Now, after three years of moving almost monthly, all he knew were dead zones. Despite a preference for his own company over that of others, he regretted the loneliness and yearned for the comforts of the past.
Two blocks from the house, Rocky executed a sudden turn. Wyatt looked right to see two police cars parked in the middle of the road, lights flashing, blocking entrance to the Zone. Rocky drove on, but at each intersection that led to the Zone, it was the same.
“What’s going on?” asked Wyatt, thinking of Teri… and the other people who he’d altered. There were more of them in the Zone than outside.
“We’ll need to walk in,” said Rocky, pulling into the lot of an abandoned used car dealership. With a tap on his ear, he activated his phone. “Dial Sandra.” After a pause, he said, “We’re back. Sneaking through Animal House. Send us a ride.”
He got out of the car and motioned to the group. “Let’s go and keep quiet. The police have surrounded the Zone. Sandra said they’ve given residents an hour to get out.”
Instead of following the street to the Zone, Rocky wove through backyards. Five houses in, he turned up and paused beside a burned-out minivan. He put one hand up to signal for the group to stop. Wyatt peeked over the hood. There was a single police car to their right and another to their left, both about a hundred yards to either side.