The Rogue Spark series Box Set

by Cameron Coral

  “So if I walk into a room full of your androids and yell rassvet, what will happen?”

  “To be honest, I’m not really sure. Never tried it.” He pauses. “What do you think will happen?”

  “Will they obey my command if I tell them what to do?”

  “It depends.” He shrugs. “Like OGR-19, the machines will surge first, but then will emerge with an intelligence rivaling, no, exceeding that of a human’s. To be honest, I never fully tested Cogitare on my robots, so I’m not sure what’ll happen.” He hops onto the stone bench, stretches his arms wide, and dances along. “Guess you’ll be the one to find out.”

  “Can we turn them off? Remove Cogitare?”

  “If only it were that simple. Once you enable Cogitare, it stays on. There’s no going back. Kind of like your hybrid friends. You can’t just flip a switch and make them normal. Much like you. You’ll never be normal after what your military friends did to you.”

  I venture to the edge of the rail, gazing out at the vast city canyons of steel and glass. Cruisers fly on and off rooftop landing zones. Below, the city pulsates.

  Vance has created the ability to cause a mass uprising of androids. I can’t even begin to comprehend how much the world would change if the machines become as or more intelligent than humans. Not to mention hybrids.

  He joins me at the building’s edge. “Please don’t throw me down again. It really hurts.”

  I stare below, silent.

  “I have something else to show you. It’s important.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “What other choice do you have? You wanted information…” He treads toward the door leading inside. He raises a hand, and the door flies open, revealing a dark passageway. “Are you coming?” he calls over his shoulder.

  Slowly, I edge toward him. He motions me through the door. “This better be good.” I step in, and blackness surrounds me. My eyes adjust, and I glimpse a faint light ahead streaming from a crack under a door.

  “Go to the light,” Vance says from behind.

  I stumble forward in the darkness. The light grows brighter, and finally we reach an open door.

  “Go in,” he whispers.

  I enter cautiously, my pulse racing. A familiar smell floods me: sterile antiseptic, harsh cleaners.

  We’re inside a small room made of concrete walls. An exhaust fan hums in the ceiling above. In one corner, a small bed is propped against the wall. In another corner, there’s a sink and toilet with a privacy half-wall. “I know this place. The lab. We’re in my old cell.” I trail my fingers along the cold stone that held me captive.

  Vance notes my fascination and studies me like a scientist.

  Suddenly the door flies open. A man dressed in a white lab suit strides in. Carrying a chemical-soaked rag, he advances on me.

  “No!” I scramble against the wall, edging myself into a corner.

  He kicks me and tells me to cooperate.

  I shrink my body as small as I can, raise my hands to protect my head, press my lips tight to avoid inhaling the chemicals that will knock me out.

  Then he disappears. I glare at Vance. “What the hell are you doing to me? Is this some sick joke?”

  “I’m doing nothing. Whatever just happened was in your head.”

  I climb to my feet, wipe tears away with my sleeve. “Sick bastard. Why’d you bring me here?”

  “To show you this.” He waves one arm as if swiping a screen. My old room disappears, and we’re in a lab hallway. Numerous heavy steel doors line the corridor. I tread down the hall, my boots clicking against the gleaming floor. Alternating patterns of diagonal black and white tiles form a path.

  I reach the first door and peer through a glass portal cut at eye level. Inside, a teenage girl rests on a chair with eyes closed. She wears a dark gown and her head is covered by a cap full of electrodes. My mouth hangs open as I stare inside.

  “You must have been, what, seventeen?” Vance murmurs.

  I nod slowly, blinking back a tear. Somehow, I’m looking back in time at the medical facility where I was held against my will. Was this how I spent my time? Being put under anesthesia against my will, experimented on?

  So much of my time in the lab is blurry, like they wiped my memory.

  A light switches on in the room next door. I hustle to the portal window. Inside, a man lies on a bed face down, secured with large buckles. His spine is exposed, and another man in a white suit pokes inside with a long steel needle as he monitors a screen. Two others wearing medical masks hover nearby, observing.

  Suddenly, they file toward the door. I shrink back as the first man sweeps past me, yanking his mask down. It’s Will Hunter. I gasp and press against the wall. But he marches down the hall and doesn’t seem to notice our presence.

  Vance was telling the truth. Hunter was behind the military labs and the genetic experiments on me and other people. It will be a pleasure to take him down. Make him pay for what he did to me and countless others. How many of us are out there?

  I’m nearly knocked over by the other man who emerges from the operating room. He rushes past, and I spin to avoid him. Suddenly he halts and cocks his head as if he senses me. Still wearing his mask and cap, his shoulders are broad, his height immense. He’s as tall as… “Tyren?” My voice echoes in the barren hallway.

  The man turns, squints his eyes as if searching. He shakes his head like he’s trying to knock water out of his ear after swimming. Pulling down his cap, Tyren stares past me.

  I edge away, farther down the hall. “No, this can’t be happening.” I’m trembling, and I fall against the wall, sliding down onto my knees.

  Tyren marches away after Hunter, while Vance approaches and squats in front of me. “Shocker, I know.”

  I squeeze my temples. “All these years, he lied to me…”

  Vance’s eyes dance as he watches my reaction.

  “How do I know this is true? Are you tricking me?”

  “We’re in your head, remember? This is your memory. Memory buried deep, I suspect.”

  “Tyren said he’d never heard of more military labs. Said he destroyed the only one.” I lower my head. “But he lied. He was here all along. He was a part of this….torture.”

  “Maybe I’m not the bad guy after all.” Vance straightens. “Come along now. One more room to see.”

  I climb to my feet and plod behind him. He lingers by an open door, beckons me to enter.

  Doubting anything could be worse than Tyen’s betrayal, I enter. A man lies on a hospital bed, unconscious. I approach the edge of the bed and peer down.

  I know this face. I’d know it anywhere. “Gatz?”

  His eyes flutter open at my voice, then lock on me.

  “Can you see me?”

  He blinks twice.

  “Gatz, what have they done? I’ll get you out of here.” His body is human—no sign of the mutant wolf traits that I’ve grown used to. He’s hooked up to machines via wires and needles protruding from his chest, arms, and legs.

  I start yanking wires out of him, but he grimaces.

  Then a group of five men dressed in scrubs enter and surround the table, unaware of me. “Prep,” one of them orders.

  Another grabs the dangling wires that I liberated. “How did this happen?” he grunts.

  Dr. Kenmore enters wheeling a bed containing the unconscious body of a white wolf that’s been strapped down. Next to it, a large machine powers vats of green and orange liquid into tubes embedded into the shaved head of the animal.

  “Commence DNA splicing.” They begin attaching the machine to tubes going into Gatz’s body.

  “No!” I rush forward, but Vance grabs me from behind.

  “Leave it,” he whispers in my ear. “This already happened.”

  “But Gatz saw me. He knows I’m here.”

  “You’re only a tourist here. You can’t change the past.”

  I cease struggling and lean against him.

  The lead scien
tist clears his throat. “Computer, start recording. Dr. Phillip Kenmore. Experiment number 115. We will attempt to splice the DNA of host patient number 73, aged twenty years, male, Caucasian, of European descent with the foreign DNA from canis lupus.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Make it stop.”

  I breathe deeply as the antiseptic smell disappears, replaced by gusty lake air. The humming of nearby buildings and cruisers resumes. Back on the roof, Vance releases me and I fall to my knees.

  “Well? Told you it was important.”

  My mind reels. “How did you do that? I don’t understand. Gatz told me he was created in a lab in China, along with others.”

  “Lies fabricated by the military scientists to keep their operations a secret.”

  I shake my head. “Everything Gatz believes is a lie?” Rising to my feet, I wander slowly. “Hunter’s behind all this. The military is behind the experiments on me, Gatz, and the other hybrids, too?”

  Vance nods.

  Once, the military had been my only family.

  Tyren had been the closest thing I had to a father. I can’t believe the extent of his lies. He stood by Hunter’s side.

  But he facilitated my abduction and torture.

  I’ll make him pay for his betrayal.

  Twenty-Eight

  I bolt out of bed and sprint down the hall searching for Pilar. A hybrid guard sees me and summons her on his comms. Meanwhile, I pace in Lucy’s room.

  “Ogre!” She flashes me a toothy grin. “We visited the robot, and that’s its name. Clever, don’t ya think?”

  I glare at Paul who’s supposed to be watching out for Lucy. “Stay away from the android. It’s dangerous.”

  She frowns. “Seems like it’s trying to help us. Like it’s on our side.”

  “The programming it had was overwritten.”

  “You reprogrammed it?” says Paul.

  I bite my lip. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” I’m not sure whether to tell them the whole story about Vance and Cogitare. Now that I know Hunter and Tyren are behind the rogue labs—that they not only experimented on orphaned teens like me, but also ran experiments on people to combine their DNA with animals—I’ve got to help Gatz before they hurt him again.

  Pilar bursts into the room flanked by the two reptilian hybrids. “What’s the problem?”

  “Gatz is in danger,” I say. “We need to move quickly, speed up the rescue.”

  “Yes, we do. An announcement was made while you were sleeping. A military tribunal convened and sentenced Gatz to death.”

  My chest tightens, and the lump in my throat makes it difficult to swallow. “I believe they may do experiments on him first. They may even claim he’s dead and keep him somewhere secret.”

  “What experiments?”

  “DNA. They’ll mess with his DNA. Maybe try to change him again.”

  “Again?” Pilar raises her eyebrows.

  “I have evidence that Hunter and Tyren were behind a rogue medical lab that experimented on humans—changed their DNA—and created the hybrids. What you believe happened—your memories—of the scientists who created you are false memory implants.”

  “That’s outrageous. What proof do you have?”

  “I was there. A prisoner in the lab too. Recent circumstances have caused me to remember what really happened there.”

  She narrows her eyes.

  “Pilar, I know this is a lot to take in. But we’re running out of time. Who knows what those monsters will do to Gatz if we can’t rescue him?”

  “You think they’ll execute him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Pilar turns to Paul. “Did you know about this? He’s your uncle.”

  He shakes his head, growing pale. “He must have kept it from me. If Ida believes it…” He rises. “I trust her.”

  Lucy springs out of bed. “Let’s go. We’ve got to save Gatz.”

  “Agreed.” Pilar checks her biocuff. “I can get my squad ready to go in twenty minutes.”

  “I have a plan,” I say. “Paul, you’ll escort me as if you’ve taken me prisoner. We bring the OGR-19.”

  “Ogre!” Lucy claps her hands. “Brilliant idea.”

  “Paul, can you handle this?” I lock my gaze on him. “I know this has been rough on you.”

  “I got it,” he says quickly.

  “Do we still have a deal, Pilar? Let me lead the rescue team. I can deprogram the androids.”

  She nods.

  “There’s one more thing. No killing human soldiers.”

  “What? But they’ll be firing on us.” She glares at me. “They slaughtered my people. You saw it happen.”

  “The military are my people, and right now they have a shitty leader. It’s not their fault. Can we try to limit the body count?”

  She sighs. “I’ll order my soldiers to shoot in self-defense, when fired upon. Got it?”

  “Thank you.”

  “For the record,” she says over her shoulder, “if your plan goes haywire, I’m taking over.”

  Gatz’s fate lies in my hands. OGR-19 gave us a roadmap to get in and find him. Getting past the guards will be difficult because Hunter’s probably waiting for us to make a move like this.

  As risky as our plan is, I can’t leave Gatz there on his own. If the military scientists experiment again, they might change him. I can’t bear the thought of losing him as he becomes Hunter’s lab rat.

  Worst of all, I can’t live with myself if they kill him.

  Twenty-Nine

  We traverse the city in an official looking sweeper—a self-driving behemoth that cleans not only the streets but can also hover to scrub skyscraper windows. “How on earth did you manage this, Pilar?” I say, marveling at the controls inside the belly of the machine.

  “It was easy once Dez broke past the cloudwall and hacked into the system’s core programming. Right, Dez?”

  One of the reptilian hybrids, who seems to be her right-hand man, maneuvers the sweeper through dark, densely packed streets. “Saturday night, people are restless. You ladies know how to pick a night to stage an attack.”

  Lucy sits across from OGR-19. “Now Ogre, do you understand what you have to do?”

  The bot raises its head, the red light scanning her within its visor. “Deliver the prisoner to the military. Do not harm the prisoner.”

  “Kind of,” she encourages. “Do you know what ‘acting’ means, Ogre?”

  Paul observes, a smile spreading across his face.

  “Acting,” the android says flatly. “An activity in which a story is told by means of enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character. Occurs in theatre, television, film, radio, hologram, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode.”

  “That’s correct. Ogre, you’re going to be an actor tonight. Ida being your prisoner is pretend. Really, you’re going to fight any other robots or attacking soldiers and make sure they don’t hurt Ida and Paul. Then, you’re going to help them rescue Gatz from his prison cell and bring him to us. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do it the way I taught you,” she reprimands.

  Ogre raises a fist and thrusts a big metal thumb in the air.

  “Awesome. Good job, buddy. I have big plans for you. We’re going to be good friends.”

  “Friends,” Ogre repeats.

  “Quiet,” barks Pilar. “We’re getting close.”

  The sweeper’s digital display shows the twin military towers ahead.

  Home sweet home, Vance mutters. He persists, but I’ve managed to tamp down his voice, so his interjections aren’t so jarring. It’s taken a lot of concentration to learn to quiet him. But I still don’t know for sure what he’s capable of. He hasn’t caused me to harm anyone since the woman soldier. He actually helped me retrieve the memories of the medical lab, and he caused me to realize Hunter and Tyren were behind it.

  Still, I could never trust him. I can’t help wondering if he’s biding his time, trying to gain my t
rust so he can do something awful. I have to guard my thoughts and be careful. Can I keep his physical force from taking over tonight?

  Paul, Ogre, and I prepare ourselves at the hatch as the sweeper descends from the sky and lands on the side of the road. We’ll exit on the south side of the river and cross the bridge on foot.

  Lucy hugs Paul, then me. “Be careful,” she whispers.

  “Stay with Pilar. Don’t leave,” I tell her.

  “Seriously.” Paul squeezes her hand. “Don’t do anything stupid. We’ll be okay. In and out. We got this.”

  Lucy sticks out her closed fist in front of Ogre. The robot fist bumps her, and Paul rolls his eyes.

  “How much have you taught him?” I ask.

  Pilar glares at us.

  “Never mind.” I scramble out when the sweeper door slides up. Paul and Ogre follow, and we march down the street. I turn my head and glimpse the sweeper door close behind us. The machine lurches and hovers in the air as it begins to clean a hotel’s glass facade.

  Ogre locks me in magnetic handcuffs that emerge from his body. Paul lingers behind, pushing me forward, while Ogre aims a rifle at me.

  Between clenched teeth, I say, “You sure you won’t accidentally fire that thing?”

  “My programming will not permit me,” Ogre says.

  Pedestrians begin to notice our group and scurry out of the way. Ogre’s polished rifle gleams in the dark. Our feet stomp along the steel grated surface of the bridge. Underneath us, the black river glistens and reflects the city lights. A public transit bus cruiser flies above, whipping the air around us and tossing strands of hair in my eyes.

  Ahead, the tall towers loom.

  “Ogre, run another check on Gatz’s location,” I say under my breath. “Make sure he’s still in the east tower.”

  Paul sticks a black baseball cap on my head. “Like we discussed. Keep a low profile.”

  “Affirmative,” I say. With HQ on high alert, my image has been beamed to every soldier’s biocuff and into every android’s scanner. The plan is to escort me in like I’m a soldier who got too drunk after a night on the town. Will it fool the guards long enough for us to gain entry?