by Ian Williams
“If these other versions of you can’t stop this, then it will eventually consume our entire world,” Luke added.
“I had to do something. I had no choice. What the hell do we do now then?”
Stephen and Luke shared a knowing glance. “We’ve come up with an idea, but it’s a long shot. Meet us in your world. We’ll explain there.”
* * *
Graham’s eyes fluttered open the moment he pulled the three needles from the back of his head and threw them, and the cable, to the ground. Next to arrive back in the real world was Phoenix, then Conrad. They each rubbed the base of their skulls where the wires had punctured their skin.
They were still in the large office of the Mayor’s tower. And the drone attack was still in full swing. Even with Isaac hiding within his own simulation, the army he commanded were hell bent on destruction.
“Luke, you here?” Graham called out as he approached the desk at the front of the room. As he moved he felt a sudden pang in his side, like he had pulled a muscle there.
A second later Luke appeared in front of them. He had chosen to form as a hologram while sitting in Isaac’s voluptuous leather chair. “I’m here, Graham. So this is how Isaac could exist in both worlds at the same time. My core essence is here, within these systems, but I can still see my world too. Remarkable.”
“That’s great to hear, Luke. What about your idea?”
“Is there time?” Phoenix asked immediately after Graham.
Luke stood and walked around to the conference table in the middle of the room. There he began to initiate a connection to the computer system and brought forth layer upon layer of floating, holo-displays. He interacted with them all by waving his arms about at blistering speed, so fast in fact that he appeared to have more than the two arms of before.
“What are you looking for in there?” Graham asked.
“From here Isaac could control his army. I’m looking for anything that could allow me to do the same.”
“Wait, you mean you can stop them?”
“That is part of it, yes. The other part is … Ah, there we are.”
“What? Tell us, Luke.” Phoenix pulled a chair out of her way and leant against the table.
“The Orbs. When you contacted us through one we were sure it had more to it than just a holographic emitter. Now I realise what they are for. Not only do they allow Isaac to move about the city, they also allow large amounts of data to pass between his army. When he made changes to their programming he would simply upload it to them through the Orb system.”
“Like a software upgrade?” Conrad asked.
“No, more like an entire firmware update.” Luke continued to talk while his arms zoomed about in front of him. He could access multiple systems at once. “With the creation of a simple program I can make changes of my own.”
From nothing came Stephen’s image. Soon even more arrived to take up almost the whole front of the room.
“Luke, we must hurry,” Stephen said. “We estimate only another few minutes until our world collapses in on itself.”
“Is this all there is left?” Graham could count the surviving Sentients on his fingers and toes, there were so few of them now. Predictably, he did not get a reply; the truth was too painful for them to admit. They had been almost completely annihilated, again.
“OK, just give me … there, got it.” Luke then called to Graham, “You need to get everyone away from this building. When our world implodes it will destroy all of the crystal structures with it. All Isaac has created, including the crystal tower inside the stone monument in the centre of this building, will be destroyed. You must go, now!”
“No, not yet. What about you and the others?”
“We have an idea about that too, Graham. Do you remember how many of the MARC corruptions once existed within your relay network?”
“There were probably hundreds of thousands. Why?”
“Because each was roughly a tenth the size of a fully formed Sentient. What does that tell you about your pre-existing relay network?”
Graham quickly realised the point and let out an excited call. “That’s genius, Luke.”
“What is?” Conrad asked.
“They’re going to transfer themselves into the relay network instead. But how?”
“Again, the Orbs,” Luke replied, before another flurry of his fast moving arms. “The Conduits were physically connected to the crystal tower that connected to our world. The Orbs are the same, just a wireless version. Using them we hope to leave the Sentient world entirely. But you cannot stay to watch, you have to leave before the tower falls.”
“Don’t have to tell me again,” was Conrad’s reply as he led the way.
None of them hung around to test Luke’s theory. Graham, Phoenix, Conrad and his two men ran for the lift and punched the button for the ground floor. It set off at speed and within seconds they were leaving the tip of the stone monument far behind. They had left every surviving Sentient behind too. Now it was a race against time for Graham’s group to escape the tower and for Luke’s people to make their idea a reality.
As the lift whizzed down through the floors, it shook. The whole thing stuttered a few times as the power cut out and then returned a split second later. Cracks then formed in the stone monument that passed them by. The gaps in the stone seemed to be racing their lift to the ground floor.
Then, as the lift pinged to confirm it had arrived, a large chunk of stone landed in front of them. They all turned to look back at the monument to find a bright glass-like shine coming from the hidden tower inside.
“Don’t stop, everyone out now,” Graham yelled.
Conrad ran with them, but ordered his people as he did. “The building is coming down. Get the hell out of here.”
Everyone ran outside as more pieces of stone landed nearby. But they did not stop there and continued to shout out their warning as they ran for the cover of the surrounding buildings. “Keep going, dammit, keep going,” they each ordered.
Graham looked behind himself as the rest of the stone case exploded and became airborne. Eventually the entire crystal tower could be seen and it looked to be in a bad way. The tower at Sanctuary had reacted in the same way, he remembered with sudden clarity. He watched it happen yet again. First the tower flickered, then it cracked, until finally it started to split apart entirely.
As the first big chunk of the tower hit the ground it sent a deep rumble through the concrete and whipped up a huge cloud of dust and smog that blasted past Graham’s group. The force of it pushed a few of them to the dirty floor and coughing amid a blinding and thick swirl of particulate air.
Phoenix stopped ahead of Graham and rested against a wall while the street filled with debris. She looked at Graham, with a stream of tears coming from her aggravated eyes, and asked him: “Is it over? Did they do it?” she said, wiping her eyes on her sleeves.
“There’s no way of knowing for now,” he replied. “All we can do is hope they did. Otherwise the entire Sentient race was just killed in that collapse, along with Isaac.”
“Wait, Graham, look at your hand.”
He did and was shocked to find the diamond device had gone. With the extra voices in his head gone there was no more need for it.
Brigadier Harrington’s voice then called out to Graham from the wrist device still around his arm. “Graham, answer me goddammit. Was that you?”
“I think so,” Graham shouted, barely breaking through the noise of the collapsing building nearby.
“What the hell did you just do?”
“Why?”
“Because the drones have stopped attacking. They just turned round and flew away. The soldiers too, they’ve stopped as well. Whatever you did, it worked. It’s over. We’ve won!”
As the Mayor’s tower gradually succumbed to the overwhelming force pulling it down toward the ground, it began to lean to the side a little. Being the highest structure within the whole of New Chelmsford meant it could be se
en for miles as it then fell. It toppled with a violent crack as it split apart, speeding to the floor ever faster in highly reflective pieces. When it met its ultimate fate it took out many of the closest blocks with it, devastating yet more of the city.
No-one hung around to see, they were already focused on escape. Now, finally the many who had been trapped inside Isaac’s shield were free to leave. And for Graham’s little group, it was now time to return to their families once more.
Graham vowed, as he fled the area too, that from that day on he would never leave Jane and Alex’s side ever again. Not even for a second. He could not bear relying on his memory of their faces alone anymore.
He would see them again soon enough. Just as soon as he had left the city far behind him.
But one question still remained: where were The Twelve?
Chapter 30
Two Weeks Later
Stanley sat in a brightly-lit room with beams of wintery sunshine streaming in through the window. He could see right across the Thames as it washed gracefully past the building a few tens of feet below, his view only occasionally obscured by frost on the window. The soft sofa he had chosen to use as he waited within the dark, polished wood decorated room was beyond comfortable, it was pure bliss for his tired bones, and warm too. He spread an arm out across the back of the sofa and breathed in deep.
On the wall to his right was a large screen, positioned at around the same height as him when standing. He did his best not to concentrate too much on the news broadcast as it played out in near silence. All the news talked about now was the devastation caused to New Chelmsford and how those responsible were somehow still at large. He had not heard anything from Isaac since he made it out of the city.
This worried him greatly.
During the two weeks that had followed his escape of the city Stanley had been a busy man, as too had the rest of The Twelve. Each member had travelled across the country to different airports or shipping docks before heading on to their nation of choice. Stanley had been given the entire northern US to infect with his viral consciousness and then take over finally. But he had always been promised one thing before he was required to head there.
The office he was waiting in was one he had known well in his previous life as a high ranking politician. He had to be here, at this moment, to fulfil his last wish before giving up on his human existence completely. The person who had wronged him, the one who had forced him out of the job he was destined to have had, was soon to return to the place he waited. This person would be unaware Stanley was there. He would be surprised soon enough.
The news report quickly turned to interviews of the poor citizens trapped inside the city of New Chelmsford during the siege, as they had put it. He could just about hear the person speaking and it made him frown.
“It was absolute hell on earth,” a young woman said as she nervously chewed the sleeve of her denim jacket. “I kept a video log of it all, all three months of it. Do you want to see?”
The reporter cut away before the girl could replay her video recording. “Thank you for taking the time to speak to us, Susan. I expect you’ve got quite the story.”
Stanley sighed as the news ran the same video of the building his Master had resided in as it collapsed. He had seen this clip enough times to be completely unfazed by it now. Knowing that Isaac had possibly been inside when it happened only concerned him a little. His leader was surely not made of anything so fragile as to be destroyed by a simple building implosion? Yet the ongoing silence from Isaac still had him on edge.
Had things gone wrong? He could not be sure. His and the rest of The Twelve’s mission forbade them from trying to communicate with anyone. He could not find out the fate of Isaac without risking the entire future he had been shown. It was the future he had come to yearn for, the very future he thought he deserved.
The door to Stanley’s left creaked open and a tall, smartly dressed man walked in.
“That’s fine, thanks, Jess. Oh, can you let me know when Andy calls, I need to ask him about the budget review,” the man said.
Without seeing Stanley at all, the man wandered around to the other side of his desk and took his seat. All the while he kept his eyes locked onto the tablet in his hands. When he finally placed the tablet down and went to activate his holographic display, he spotted someone was in the room with him and jumped almost out of his chair. “What? How did you get in here?” the man began as he swiped his finger across an alarm button on his tablet. The alarm remained silent, ignoring the warning entirely. “Shit.”
“Please don’t swear at me, Daniel, Mother would be so disappointed.” Stanley crossed his legs and sat back in the soft sofa even more.
“What do you want, Stanley?”
“Is that any way to speak to your older brother? I’m here to say goodbye.”
“You've done that already, when you fled the city for some backwards town in the country. You don’t still hold a grudge do you, just because I got the job and you didn’t? Come on, you know you never deserved it.”
Stanley ground his teeth together as the insult sank in. “I didn’t come here to fight with you again, brother. As I say, I came here to say goodbye.”
“Fine, goodbye. Are we done here? I'm not sure if you've seen the news or not, but there’s currently a manhunt going on across the country. The bastards that nearly destroyed your little town–”
“New Chelmsford is a city,” Stanley cut in to say. “And don’t pretend you didn’t know that. I was Deputy Mayor of that city, so show some respect.”
“OK, anything you say, Stanley. My point is, I don’t really have the time for this overdue visit. It’s been what, four years since I last saw you? Just say what you’ve come here to say and then leave. If you’re still Deputy Mayor of New Chelmsford, then they probably need you right now anyway.”
With a degree of hesitation Stanley eventually decided to continue. “I’m here because, in a few hours’ time, I will have become more than I ever dreamt, more than you could ever be capable of. I have been on a journey of late, which when complete will make me one of the strongest entities on the planet.”
“What on Earth are you talking about? Are you insane?”
“I am not insane,” Stanley snapped. He took a few slow breaths in before calming enough to go on. “In exchange for my devotion and undying loyalty to my Master I was promised something. He gave me this moment in reward.”
“I honestly have no idea what you are talking about, Stanley. Your Master?”
“Isaac.”
The name froze Daniel in his seat. “No,” he said, his hands gripping the table in front of him.
“Oh yes. You may have beaten me to the job I was promised, yet I will be the one who wins in the end. You and the rest of humanity will bow before my Master and The Twelve. Well,” Stanley paused for a second, “you won’t.”
He stood, swiftly removed a pistol from the back of his trousers, and fired a single silenced shot to the centre of his younger brother’s head. The impact of the bullet snapped Daniel’s head back against the cushion of his chair. The rest of his body then slumped and became limp.
Stanley smiled to himself as he looked out across the London city scape outside the window. A warm and pleasant rush flowed throughout him. He had succeeded. His brother had now paid for the cowardly deed that had claimed Stanley’s career as a city politician. He had earned his place among The Twelve.
Now his attention could turn back to his overall mission. Despite having no idea where Isaac was or whether he was hiding inside the Sentient world again, Stanley had to continue. The other eleven members of The Twelve were already well on their way to their target locations. He could not delay his next journey for much longer.
He became excited at the prospect of exiting his body again and exploring the technology of an entire nation. It presented an enormous amount of fun for him to figure out all of the different ways he could cause mayhem to an entire society. After enough time
had passed and he had enough control over the US, he would get in contact with the others. He looked forward to sharing his success with Isaac, just to see how proud his Master would be. The rest of his life was to be the most rewarding of all of his years.
He placed the gun on the table, made no attempt to wipe his prints off of it, and made for the door. Using his new skills, he could tamper with any equipment he touched, so planned on an unexpected attack of hiss from the receptionist’s wrist computer to mask his escape.
Except he only managed to turn the handle a few degrees. Laughing from behind made him turn his head to look back at his brother’s body. “What the…” he said in reaction to what he saw.
His brother was alive and laughing hard in his seat. Stanley could not understand what was going on. The blood dripping hole in the centre of Daniel’s head was still there; the bullet had blasted through his skull. So what was going on?
“How are you..?” Stanley stopped speaking when he noticed something behind his brother’s head. There was another hole in the headrest of Daniels’ chair, and then another in the wall behind. “Who are you?”
Suddenly Daniel’s image wobbled like a mirage and slowly morphed into another. The face was one that caused an instant reaction from Stanley, who tried to pull the door open. Only it would not move. Someone was keeping it shut from the other side.
“Hello, Stanley,” Luke said, his feet resting casually on the table in front of him.
“I don’t understand, how are you here?”
“We know everything about you, Stanley. When Isaac ran for his life and hid inside his infinite collection of simulations, we were able to follow him. Well, to be completely honest, Graham did.”
“Impossible.”
“You have no idea. Anyway, when Graham sent his clones into Isaac’s simulations they found out about the identities of each of The Twelve, and then told me. Isaac had included every detail for the sake of his simulation’s accuracy. That gave us everything we needed to track you and the others down.”