Anti-Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  And finally, something just gives way in me. Exhaustion finally wears away whatever usual restraints I have. And I realize that I am just fucking sick of all this.

  “Yes!” I bellow at her. Psychotic tendencies be damned. My lack of a sword be damned. “That is the plan. That’s what we have.” I can feel the muscles in my neck straining, trying to get the volume up to match the flare of anger. “And if you have a better one, then why the fuck didn’t you mention it earlier?”

  I wait for impact. But sod it, I stabbed her once. If it comes down to it…

  Kayla squints at me. “Jesus,” she says. “Feckin’ temper on you.”

  I want to tell her not to push me, but I don’t think that line works unless there’s movie lighting on you. Instead, I just keep on staring, keep on trying to force my will out through my eyes and beating and crashing into her mind.

  She holds out her hands. “Al-feckin’-right then, but nobody say I didn’t say it was a feckin’ stupid idea.”

  It takes me a moment to realize I’ve won. That she’s acquiesced. “What?” I say, not quite willing to relax.

  “No, man.” Kayla shrugs. “Power of conviction and shit on your side. Just…” She shrugs again. “I mean, usually you’re all, but what about this, and, we should’ve…” I am not entirely excited by the nasal whine she puts on when imitating me. I am fairly sure that’s not representative. “But, you know, if that’s what we got.” A final shrug. “Feck it.”

  Holy shit. I just stared down Kayla. I knew it could be done but… by me? I wish Felicity was conscious to see that. Well, I wish she was conscious in general. And not stabbed. And not a zombie.

  God. This plan had better work.

  “OK,” I say, letting a modicum of the tension slip out of my shoulders, feeling my neck return to a more normal state.

  “Thing is,” Tabitha says, not really looking at anyone, “she has a point.”

  “What?” I look at her. I can feel the anger coming back, like air blown into a balloon of tension in my shoulders and back.

  Tabitha tries out a sneer and then seems to think better of it. “Your plan,” she says. “It is shit.”

  89

  I feel my fists ball. I mean, that’s it. I am done. I have shot Gran to get this far. I will beat down every member of MI37 if I have to, and reprogram the bastard myself if…

  “Fixable,” Tabitha says quickly. “I mean… I can. Fix it.”

  I realize I have taken steps toward her. And that I’ve stopped breathing. I let the air hiss out of me, and back up.

  “Sorry,” I say, partly because… well, it’s probably been ten seconds since I last said it, and partly because the idea of trying to do this on my own is spectacularly stupid. I need help. I always have. MI37 is a team, that’s our strength. I need to rely on that now.

  “So how do we fix it?” I ask her.

  “Version 2.0 will take Clyde apart,” Tabitha says. She looks at him, but not his face. Just his dented and battered torso. “Did it to the other versions. Will do the same here. No difference. Foregone conclusion.”

  “So,” I say, “you go in. You hack him.”

  She shakes her head. “Can’t. He’s…” The next words seem to take significant effort. “… too good. For me.” She kicks at the ground with a force that makes me think she’s hoping it has some sort of pain nerves connected to whatever system Clyde is running on.

  Shit. Piss and shit. Because if we can’t hack him… God, I don’t have a plan. Holy crap, I killed Gran for a plan that won’t work.

  “You have to…” I start.

  “No.” There is enough force in the word to stop a charging rhino. It certainly stops me. “I cannot. Can. Not. Not an option. Forget it.”

  “But—” And there has to be a but, even if I don’t know what it is.

  “Can fix this. Said I can.” She shakes her head. “God. Men. Listen. Open fucking ears.” She takes a deep frustrated breath. And I can understand that. I need to get a rein on myself. Except Felicity is right there. I can hear the clock ticking to the slowing beat of her heart.

  “OK,” I manage. “How?”

  “Trick him,” she says. “We have to.”

  “Erm…” It’s Clyde this time. “The whole super genius AI thing. I mean, speaking as an AI, the whole parallel processing thing… Not trying to brag here, mind you. I’m no super genius. Or regular genius. Hasten to add. Cambridge degree notwithstanding. And OK, that does sound like bragging. But I was totally going in the opposite direction, I promise.”

  My knuckles are whitening again.

  “Anyway,” Clyde continues, “I just wanted to say that if Version 2.0 is, as we keep on mentioning, a super genius—and I think given the whole end of the world scenario and twisted science thing we have going on, then we have a certain degree of confirmation that he is—then I just wanted to put in a slight query on the whole feasibility of tricking him.”

  “Blind spot,” Tabitha says. “He has one. Big and obvious.”

  Really? Because…

  “I hadn’t feckin’ noticed,” Kayla says.

  That.

  Tabitha rolls her eyes. “Us.”

  Again with the really. Because…

  “He doesn’t exactly seem to have any issues with trying to squish any of us so far,” Clyde says.

  That.

  Tabitha shakes her head. “Doing forty fucking questions here? Not us.” She sweeps her hand around the room. “Us.” The circles become wider. “Humanity. He thinks the worst of us. Thinks we want to survive.”

  And again…

  “We feckin’ do.”

  That.

  Tabitha smiles. It is never reassuring when she does. It is a tight, efficient and slightly macabre thing when she does it.

  “So,” she says, “we die.”

  90

  “We what now?” I’m actually quite pleased my confusion allows for that many syllables in a sentence. It’s normally much more of an “erm” thing.

  “Clyde goes into Version 2.0,” Tabitha says. “Gets taken apart.”

  Clyde nods. “Which is why I’m not going to do it, right?”

  “Why you’ll do it.” Tabitha doesn’t bat an eye as she looks at him. “You give Version 2.0 the codes to unlock the wireless boxes. In a way that means he doesn’t realize we’re giving them to him. Thinks he’s killing you but he’s being sabotaged.”

  Clyde cocks his head to one side. “But he is killing me.”

  “Yes.” Tabitha still doesn’t bat an eye. She turns to me. “Version 2.0 controls Clyde. Gets box. Takes down wireless block. Invades everyone’s heads.”

  My brows are creased enough it hurts. So far this sounds a lot like the whole doomsday scenario we’re here to prevent. “But what about the bit where we distribute the code to un-fungus everyone?” Did I miss that bit?

  “It’s in your head,” she says.

  The brow creasing pain problem is not solved at this point.

  “I spike you,” Tabitha continues. “Version 2.0 goes into your brain. Starts overwriting. But my code is there, waiting for him. You are the trap. You spring. You tear him apart. Code distributes, propagates, de-programs and de-funguses.” She nods, then seems to reconsider slightly. “Theoretically.”

  I nod. Slowly. Very slowly. “So he overwrites my brain.”

  Tabitha nods. “But you’re spiked to take it back.” A pause. “Theoretically.”

  I look over at Clyde. Sacrifice. It all comes back to sacrifice.

  “How feckin’ theoretical?” It seems like this should be more my concern than Kayla’s, but then I consider that if the spiking fails then my brain isn’t the only one that goes down. If we fail… Jesus. Yes, “how theoretical” is probably a question every remaining human has a right to ask.

  Tabitha looks pained. “Untested code. Unknown system. Biothau-maturgical interactions.” She shakes her head. “Very theoretical.”

  Kayla curses for a very long time.

  Clyde
nods in my direction, his head wobbling on his neck as he does it. “Why put the code in Arthur’s head? Why not mine?”

  Another eye roll. I think Tabitha does them partly to comfort herself. “Need to bring down wireless system then spike. If you have the code, we spike too early. And Arthur over me and Kayla because…” Tabitha looks to Kayla. “Fuck it, I don’t want anyone to data-dump in my brain. Crazy bullshit.”

  “Feckin’ right.” Kayla nods with unusual enthusiasm.

  Well, that’s just lovely. Except, considering it’s essentially me and my plan that have brought us to this point, I’m not really in a good place to negotiate. I just wish we could change the phrase “data dump.” It sounds a little too close to the idea of taking a digital shit in my skull.

  Actually, given my experience of having the old Clyde deposit all my sword-wielding knowledge, that isn’t so far from the truth.

  Nobody looks happy. Not even Clyde, and he doesn’t have a face.

  God. This could kill Clyde. Again.

  “Can we copy Clyde?” I say. “Before he goes in there.”

  Clyde looks at Tabitha. She almost looks at him. I can see a muscle working in the corner of her eye.

  “No.” It’s Clyde who speaks. “Not anymore. I think we’ve all had enough of copies of me.”

  “But…” I start.

  He looks at me. “If this all goes to hell,” he says, “who’s going to reboot me anyway?”

  “But if it doesn’t…” Because there’s the rub. Directly there.

  Clyde looks to Tabitha. His body groans with the movement. “Will the code work on me?” he asks. “Deprogram me?”

  Tabitha shrugs, still not looking, her eye still twitching.

  Clyde nods, as if that’s what he thought all along. He turns to me, doesn’t say a word. Just looks.

  I look from him—burned and blackened—to Tabitha—battered and bereft—to Kayla—just angry, still angry. And then to Felicity, balanced across Kayla’s shoulders. My Felicity. Her hair is lank and stained with purple.

  And this is it, right? This is what we have. This is where I’ve led us. This is the point I’ve killed people to reach.

  At least if I’m wrong there won’t be anyone left to tell their children what an arsehole I am.

  “Sod it,” I say. “Let’s do this.”

  91

  TWO MINUTES LATER

  So far, “doing this” has been a mostly static affair. At least I’ve been lying down for most of it. That does mean that almost all of my muscles have seized, but honestly that’s a minor complaint compared to the fact that I’ve not had to shoot any close friends in the face during that time.

  On the other hand, I have allowed one close friend to sit down next to me and pull out large amounts of his innards.

  Tabitha perches above Clyde’s chest compartment, multi-tool in hand, poised like the grisliest of eighteenth-century surgeons. Clyde, his inner electronics splayed out before him, forms the midpoint of a circuit that also includes Tabitha’s laptop and my head. I think the laptop may be getting the best part of this deal. Kayla, who is holding wires against my scalp, also seems to be having more fun than is really appropriate.

  Tabitha shifts from dissecting Clyde to sitting cross-legged in front of her laptop screen and begins swearing so hard that it could conceivably make even Kayla blush.

  Her fingers keep pace with the curse words, a drill beat tapping on her keyboard punctuated by crescendos on backspace.

  “Everything OK?” This is not the most reassuring way to go into battle.

  “Shut up,” Tabitha tells me, which I think is about fifty percent of what she says to me, but then she carries on as if she hadn’t. “Ugly code. No time to fix. Just… Jesus.” More backspacing, more typing. “Don’t know what I was thinking. Oh wait…” More tapping. “God, just going to comment out half this crap. It’s all circuitous.” She shakes her head. “Need more goddamn time.”

  She looks up. “Ugly. Will suck. As close to working as it’s going to get.” She nods to Kayla. “All right. Going to zap him.”

  I swallow hard. Just when I was starting to enjoy lying down.

  “Look at it this way,” Clyde says, “I did it last time, and I can’t possibly have been as competent as Tabby is going to be, and you survived that.”

  Which, actually is kind of a reassuring thought, and—

  BLACKNESS

  Ow. Goddamn but ow.

  VERSION 2.0’S HOUSE OF FLESHY HORRORS

  “—he OK?”

  “Slap him.”

  Someone slaps me. Why am I being slapped? I decide to tell them to stop it.

  “Thwurr wah.”

  There is either something wrong with my ears or my tongue.

  “I think he’s coming round.”

  I followed that. It’s my tongue then.

  “I’ll slap him again.” That voice definitely has a Scottish brogue.

  “Thto paht.” OK, that was still pretty pathetic.

  I am slapped again. I almost feel like I deserve it. Plus, thinking is clearer now.

  “Stop it.” My voice still sounds thick enough to make it sound like I spent the night in the company of Mr. Jack Daniels, but I’m understandable.

  “I think I should just give him a slap one more time.”

  “I don’t think you should. He’s bleeding.”

  The world starts coming back into focus. Kayla is there, Tabitha. It takes me a moment to remember the thing that looks like a badly abused toaster is Clyde’s head, but then that snaps back and I manage to wrestle free and sit up.

  “I’m fine,” I say. My tongue is still less than limber.

  Kayla and Clyde back up to give me space, but Tabitha doesn’t. She reaches out and pulls down the lower lid of my eye, stares critically. Then she pulls back, holds up a hand.

  “Fingers. How many?”

  “Three.” That one is easy enough.

  “Nausea? Headache?”

  I nod and wish I hadn’t. “Both,” I say.

  She nods back. “Mild concussion,” she says. “Nothing worse.”

  It occurs to me that the mild concussion may not be due to the recent data dumping, but rather the week I’ve been having, but I’m not in the mood to point it out.

  “All right.” Tabitha stands up. “Final check.” She looks me in the eye. “Mary Poppins,” she says. Which is weird.

  Or it’s weird right up until my mouth flies open and I start spurting out gibberish. “Zero, one, zero, zero, zero, one, zero, zero, zero, one, one, one, zero, one, zero, one, zero, one, one, zero, one, zero, zero, zero.”

  I clap a hand to my mouth. Tabitha smirks at me.

  “The hell?” I ask her.

  “Check,” she says. “Make sure the code took. Sub-program. Every time I say Mary—”

  With the hand that isn’t over my mouth I point as threatening a finger at her as I can.

  “The trigger phrase,” she corrects with an eye roll, “you say that. Means the code stuck. Means we’re good. Quit bitching.”

  “What does it mean?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “What I just said.”

  She eye rolls and looks away, but I think I catch the smirk again. I glance at Clyde, but he has the advantage of looking like a badly abused toaster to obfuscate his emotions.

  Honestly, in the face of things, it’s probably the least of my concerns.

  “OK, then.” I survey the scene. Clyde has tucked most of his insides back in. “Are we ready then?”

  “If that’s what you want to feckin’ call it.” Kayla looks dissatisfied with something. Us, I suspect.

  I point to the bundle of wires I spotted earlier. “We follow that then.”

  So we do, into a dark corner of the room. There is yet another sphincter door. It is not quite as bad this time. I think the spectrum of bad things that can happen to me may have broadened and it’s a question of relativity. That’s a better option at least than the idea that I may be ge
tting used to them. Some things you just don’t want to ever lose their horror. Seal clubbing, war crimes, sphincter doors. That sort of thing.

  Then it’s a corridor. The bundle of wires grows fatter. Small tributaries joining the main flow. We keep on. I’m leaning on the wall. Tabitha, who seems to think her work is done now, stares ahead and stumbles over her feet. Clyde hisses and sparks. Kayla is probably the most together of all of us, but even she seems to be favoring her right foot over her left.

  Another sphincter door. Not distant enough for the horror of the last one to have really faded. I force my way through anyway.

  And there it is. Finally. Finally. Because as little as I know about computers, this I recognize.

  Version 2.0.

  92

  He is massive, monumental. This must have been how the ancients felt when they stood at the foot of the Colossus of Rhodes. How New Yorkers felt when the first skyscraper rose.

  He is a tower, fat and squat, but no less dominating for that. A black towering stack of server after server after server after server, stretching up toward a roof so distant it makes me think cathedrals lack a sense of ambition.

  He is wreathed in wires. Like a cloud. Like a halo. They twist and twine about the vast stacks of him. A labyrinth of them leading from port to port.

  LEDs blink and flicker up and down his prodigious length. Blue and green flickering up into the gloom, adding ethereal light to the room.

  “Fuck me,” Tabitha whispers from behind my shoulder.

  The heat coming off him is enormous, is almost a cage about him. Vents in the walls hiss clouds of freezing vapor into the room. I see them strike the wall of heat, shrivel and waft away. They are not enough.

  The marines’ plan is working. Version 2.0 is dying. The cool of this place is retreating, will not be enough to keep his systems online much longer.

  Another moment of hesitation, of second-guessing my own wisdom. Then Kayla pushes past and puts Felicity on the ground. Felicity is very pale. And there is no time for hesitations now.