Mage Against the Machine

by Shaun Barger

  She pulled away from the keyhole, unable to watch the little AI suffer any longer, but before she could completely pull away she detected a trigger that she had quite nearly missed—a button, to set off some sort of simulation. A demonstration of the real Eva’s plan.

  Jem pressed the button and witnessed things that sent every corner of her immense mind spinning with visceral, all-encompassing revulsion.

  She saw the Eva AI, released from its chamber, unleashed upon Synth networks across the globe unprepared for such an attack. The virus, splitting into billions, growing. But not to attack the AI. The Alphas and the Overminds were far more advanced than this outdated Alpha Core, powerful as it might be.

  No, this virus was meant for humans.

  Civilians trapped under Synth rule. Every person in every city across the globe who dreamed their lives away in full immersion VR. The virus would take hold of their minds, trapping them there. And those trapped within would experience Torment.

  Not to the full hellish extent. No, just a taste. Days instead of decades. Enough to brutally traumatize every person caught within the nightmare storm of the Eva virus, but only to the very edge of breaking. The edge of madness. Far enough to forever make them hate the artificial paradise of immersive VR as much as Eva did. To fear its siren’s call—to take up arms against the Synth and never, ever let themselves fall into VR’s sweet, silencing clutches again.

  Then—there. A secondary function of the virus. Inky, malevolent tentacles creeping into billions of screaming minds. Changing them. Rewriting them. Tearing their personalities to shreds and rebuilding them as soldiers. Teaching them the arts of violence and warfare. Networked, to be controlled and rewritten at Eva’s command through the existing Synth infrastructure. But how would she keep the Synth from simply seizing control of the civilians made soldiers? How would she—

  A blast of light. A column of fire.

  There, in the distance, beyond forests and fields. Ezra and a small army of other soldiers. Tunneling through the earth, to come up under the Armitage core. To detonate a warhead that Eva had somehow managed to procure from Base Machado.

  They never sent smart cement tunnels beyond the edges of the city. Without constant updates and commands from their tactical HQs, they were blind and deaf. And without the cover of city infrastructure overhead, the tunnels were far easier for Synth surveillance to detect. To destroy.

  But then Jem saw and understood. The elaborate braided pattern of the other tunnels, hiding Ezra’s tunnel deep below. Sacrificing themselves to the Synth one after the other as Ezra dug through seismic shadow after seismic shadow, until finally he was underneath Armitage’s core.

  Jem watched with horror as Ezra detonated the warhead, killing Armitage, killing everyone in the nearby Base Machado, killing himself and the last remnants of the soldiers who’d kept him hidden.

  Ezra would detonate the very moment that Eva unleashed the virus onto the civilian populace. Then, with Armitage dead, Eva would seize control of its network and sever the borders connecting it to the other Synth.

  Horror and hope boiled within Jem’s immense mind as she watched Eva’s army creep across the continent. The Synth in disarray as every city erupted into mass violence and guerilla warfare. Eva’s army conquering and killing Overmind after Overmind, seizing their resources and technology.

  She saw herself with Eva—each of them controlling their own core—their own armies of tortured puppet soldiers and repurposed Synth. With the resources stolen from the conquered Overminds, they’d build mods and increasingly powerful Alpha Cores. They’d create entire platoons of soldiers with mods as advanced as their own, with cores and networked humans coordinated under their control like Synth armies, only far greater in number.

  All the while they would send record of their conquests up to the colonists beyond the orbital blockade. Show them that humanity was fighting back—maybe even winning. That the colonists should intervene and rejoin the war.

  The lights pulled away and Jem felt herself diminishing, felt her mind dying, and it was with an incredible sense of loss that she found herself back in the lab, the Alpha Core silent behind her.

  With trembling fingers she removed the helm. And there was Eva. Standing there, arms crossed over her breast. Conflicted anger in her eyes, at odds with the vague smile on her lips.

  “There’s a series of physical fail-safes,” Eva said. “They only allow the core to be used for short bursts of time before automatically booting the user. Otherwise it would be easy to lose yourself in the power of Alpha intelligence. Easy to lose track of time and die of dehydration.”

  “Eva, I—”

  Eva held up a hand, stopping her. “Jem, I can’t say I’m happy that you felt the need to go behind my back like this. But I’m also sort of relieved. I’ve been working on this alone for so long. I’m glad that I can finally talk with you about it.”

  “So what,” Jem said. “You were just going to initiate this . . . plan without telling me? Without asking me what I think?”

  “I . . . hadn’t decided yet.”

  “That AI,” Jem said. “That little girl. She looks like you.”

  “As my mother rebuilt my mind over the years,” Eva explained, “she took full neurological copies with each progression. That girl began as the very first copy my mother took. My mind immediately after the Synth allowed the Resistance to take me back, fresh out of Torment. As you can see, I’ve weaponized the copy.”

  Jem came down from the throne, unsteady on her feet. Eva reached out to help her, and Jem had to fight the urge to recoil from her touch.

  “So this is why you wouldn’t let Blue leave. You’re going to destroy Base Machado. Kill everyone there.”

  Eva hesitated, then nodded.

  Jem stared at her. Disbelieving. “Eva. Please, tell me this is some sort of fucked-up joke.”

  It was too much. Too big and horrific for Jem to really feel the true extent of human misery Eva’s plan would unleash upon untold billions.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t do this, Jem,” Eva said sincerely. “Convince me. Show me a better path, and I will follow it with you by my side.”

  Jem looked at her with stunned disbelief. “Do you really need me to explain why this is wrong? Rewriting peoples’ minds to make them into someone else? How is that any different from killing them, Eva? Killing everyone. Torturing everyone. I understand turning them into soldiers. I don’t like it, but I understand. But the Torment?”

  “I’m not completely rewriting their minds,” Eva said, heated. “Just giving them the knowledge and skill set to fight back. And showing them Torment is the only way I can permanently pull everyone away from their precious VR so they’ll strop dreaming through the apocalypse and finally fucking wake up!”

  Jem was struck with the image of those very words, painted in blood over the corpses of civilians murdered while they were using VR. Dozens upon dozens of killings across Philadelphia. Men, women. Young, old. Butchered, their throats slit.

  “It was you,” Jem whispered. She looked at Eva, horrified. Finally starting to see the tortured madness within those piercing sapphire eyes. The electric brilliance was still there, but the joy of the girl Jem knew had gone sour, her kindness spent. “The murders. All those people . . .”

  “I ordered the killings, yes,” Eva said defiantly. “I didn’t like doing it, but those VR junkies were already dead, Jem. I needed to scare people. Make them afraid of what might happen if they kept dreaming away.” Eva sneered, her face twisted with disgust. “They didn’t even know they were dying when my soldiers cut their throats. Couldn’t even feel it.”

  “Eva . . .”

  Eva shrugged. Unconcerned as Jem’s hand slowly crept toward the holster of her gun. “The murders were a mistake, I’ve come to realize. Whispered rumors won’t stop a junkie from using. Nobody cared, not really. But that’s why I have to put them in Torment. It’s the only way to cure humanity of this addiction. You know I’m right, Jem!
You know it!”

  “Ezra would never agree to this,” Jem said.

  “Ezra is already gone,” Eva said. “He’s with the warhead, awaiting my command to depart.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “Ezra does what I tell him to do.”

  Jem finally understood.

  “Ezra,” she breathed. “The circle . . . you’ve brainwashed them. Reprogrammed them into slaves, like you’re going to reprogram the rest of humanity.”

  Eva nodded. “I don’t like it. But the stakes are too high for me to selfishly worry about my own precious moral integrity. I’ve made use of the methods my mother developed to rebuild my mind—to cleanse it, and rebuild it from scratch, piece by piece. I’m not proud of what I’ve done. Ever since I woke up, I’ve struggled to think of another way to stop the Synth. To save humanity. But there is no other way, Jem. So please!”

  “Eva . . .”

  “With you by my side, we have a chance. A small chance, but a chance nonetheless. And I know how horrific it is. I know history will look back on what I’ve done as the greatest crime against humanity ever committed. But at least there will still be a humanity. My life, my happiness, my legacy. It doesn’t matter, Jem. My family created the AI. This is our fault! We created them, and it’s my responsibility to destroy them. To set things right, no matter what the cost!”

  “Your mother?” Jem said, just above a whisper. “Did you brainwash her too? Did you kill her?”

  “That stupid weak bitch killed herself!” Eva spat, finally losing her composure. “I changed her, just a little. Just so she’d let me help her. Just so she’d work with me, to find a way to put a stop to all of this. But I hadn’t perfected the process yet; the rewrite was incomplete. Insufficient. She shouldn’t have been able to kill herself, but she did. Just like my dad. And the note she left. The horrible things she said . . .” She stood there, trembling. Fists clenched, eyes welling with angry tears. “They left me! Abandoned me! I’ve been alone, Jem, I’ve been alone for so long . . .”

  “If I’d failed your test,” Jem said. “If I’d betrayed you in that simulation, turned you over to the Synth, you wouldn’t have sent me away to be a Runner again. You would’ve changed me. Rewritten me to be totally, completely loyal to you. Right?”

  Eva looked at her, composed once again. Cold. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to, Jem.”

  Jem looked at her for a long moment. Steeling herself.

  She drew her pistol. “Eva Colladi. I am relieving you of command.”

  Eva looked at the pistol, eyes wide with hurt. “Jem. No. You wouldn’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Eva,” Jem said. “I can’t let you do this.”

  Eva took a step toward her. “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

  Jem moved back, keeping her distance. “Stop right there! I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I love you Jem,” Eva said, fighting back tears and taking another step. “Please. Just think about this. We can adjust the plan. We can work together to perfect it. Maybe find another way to make this work. Together.”

  She took another step, and Jem backed into the wall, unable to move any further.

  “Stay back!” Jem said. “Put your hands on your head and get down on the ground!”

  “No,” Eva sobbed. “If you’re going to shoot me, then shoot me! You can’t take me prisoner, Jem. The Inner Circle is totally under my control. They’ll just kill you and set me free. Killing me is the only way to stop this.”

  She took another step, grabbing the gun from Jem’s hand and pulling to yank it away—

  Jem pulled the trigger.

  Eva stood there. Eyes full of heartbroken disbelief. Blood pluming from a hole at the center of her chest. She tried to say something but no words came. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she collapsed to the floor.

  Jem dropped the gun with a moan, sinking to her knees beside the fallen Eva, frantically pressing her hands down on the bullet wound. Struggling to apply pressure to stop the blood from pulsing sluggishly through her fingertips.

  “No, no, no, no, no, oh God, Eva, I’m sorry, no please no!”

  But it was no use. No life stirred within the beautiful woman on the floor. The laughter and love and pain and madness had fled from her eyes, replaced with the glassy emptiness of a corpse.

  Jem clung to her, wracked with sobs as she held Eva in her arms.

  A hand came down on Jem’s shoulder.

  “Shhhh, it’s okay,” came Eva’s voice.

  Jem whirled around with a shriek, EMP blaster drawn in a fluid motion as she turned to find Eva standing there, looking down at Jem with pained disappointment.

  “Wha—what?” Jem stammered, and turned to look at the body, but it was gone. There wasn’t even any blood.

  “I’m sorry, Jem,” Eva said. “I wish you hadn’t needed to go through that. But I had to be sure. Had to know how you’d react.”

  Realization dawned on Jem, helpless terror gripping her.

  “We’re in VR,” she breathed. “This isn’t real; you fucking put me in VR again.”

  Eva nodded and gestured at the wheeled medical bed, where Jem was horrified to see herself lying. Her head was covered with a helmet like the one hanging from the throne—its heavy braided wire dangling across the room to connect to the machine.

  And there was another Eva, sitting on the throne, wearing the other helmet.

  “When you first arrived here I put an override on your contact point under your skin,” the Eva standing before Jem said. “It allows me to remotely put you into your own mods’ full immersion and take control of the experience. After our talk this morning, I realized I’d put this off long enough. I knew it would be wrong to go ahead with my plan without consulting you first. So when you were working at your desk this morning I triggered the immersion and brought you to the lab on that bed.”

  Jem touched the skin behind her ear, remembering the itch that had bothered her for days after her arrival. Of course. How could she have been so stupid?

  She looked to the gun on the floor. The EMP blaster in her hand. Looked at the comatose Jem on the wheeled bed, with another blaster and pistol still holstered at her sides.

  “I know you, Jem. I know you trusted me but I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist using the core to see what I’ve been up to. I just wish you could’ve seen things my way.”

  “What are you going to do to me?” Jem asked, voice hushed. Scared.

  Eva took a step toward Jem, growing in size. The room began to darken, the walls and floors fading away, the illusion disappearing. All that remained was Eva and Jem, standing at the center of an infinite darkness.

  Jem looked down, and to her horror, saw that her body was beginning to fade. Eva towered above her, becoming amorphous, a cloud of electric light. Jem’s body disappeared entirely, and she was just a mind, just a point of view, floating helplessly as Eva’s Alpha Core entity closed around her. Creeping tendrils of black beginning to worm their way into Jem’s psyche.

  “I’m sorry, Jem,” came Eva’s voice from all directions. “I need you. I’m going to change you, just a little. To remember this differently. To agree with my plan, despite your reservations. To forget that I changed you at all.”

  Jem tried to scream, tried to pull away, but she couldn’t.

  “First,” Eva continued, “I’ll take a copy of your mind. Then I’ll completely erase your brain. Reset every neuron—completely burn it clean. You’ll be dead, technically, for the minute it takes me to rewrite the copy I’ve taken and burn it back into your brain. But don’t worry—I’ll keep the original, unaltered copy safe. I promise you. And when this is all over, I’ll give it back to you. Then you can hate me, kill me—I don’t care. I’ll deserve it, after what I’m going to do.”

  “Eva, please!” Jem screamed without words, the thought a crimson pulse of fear and desperate animal terror. “Don’t do this! PLEASE!”

  “Please forgive me
, Jem. I love you.”

  She could feel the tendrils sifting through her mind like worms, touching every memory, every thought, every hope and dream and fear—

  But as Eva’s mind intertwined with Jem’s, Jem could see Eva’s thoughts. Could feel Eva’s pain as well, see every wretched memory; oh god, the memories—

  Jem pulled back, trying to focus, trying desperately to think of some way out of this, but knowing it was no use, she was trapped, she’d be erased, her body lying there, helpless as Eva changed her and—

  Her body.

  Jem’s mind was here, but so was her body, just out of reach. Her mind was no match for Eva’s immense AI intellect, but the immersion was nothing special, it was just standard immersion created by her own mods.

  She reached out, straining in the darkness, struggling to find some hole. Some gap or patch.

  When Jem used VR, she never used full immersion. She’d go deep, go to the very edge, so she could feel, and taste, and see—but just beyond the veil of false reality, she was always aware of her body. Comatose beyond the illusion. Silent but listening. Feeling. Like a sleeping limb—numb, but not forgotten.

  Jem strained, fighting to move her arm in the real world, that distant phantom limb she could sense just out of reach. Like struggling to force herself to wake from a nightmare.

  “All done,” Eva said. “I’ve copied your mind in full. I’ll respect your privacy; I won’t look through it to see what you think. What you feel. What you’ve experienced in the years since we were children. And I promise you, I’ll keep it safe. Now.” The color of Eva’s mind changed, darkened tendrils turning thorny and red. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt. I’ll try to be quick.”

  Jem’s brain screamed with pain as fire like that of a thousand migraines crushed into one stabbing motion through her while the tendrils began to push, began to burn, and she could feel it, feel her fingers just beyond the dark. As the fire burned, as Eva slowly seared away her mind, her soul, Jem felt those distant fingers close around the grip at her side. Felt the hand pull, bringing the EMP blaster to her head, feel it pressing the blaster against the helmet on her skull and—