by A J Jameson
“Inside,” she ordered. “I need your help locating some files.”
Surprisingly, Axel complied. “I work better with my MI,” he said after she sat him down at the stationary computer.
“You’ll do fine without it. I believe in you.”
His mouth kept opening and closing, reacting to his clogged nose. He lifted a hand to feel the coagulated blood plugging his nostrils.
“Search for files on Lawrence Green,” she said.
“Anything in particular?” he asked, now thumbing the dried blood.
“DNA. Medical files. I’ll clean your nose when we’re out of here.”
“You’re getting me out of here?” He asked this as if the thought just occurred to him. Why else would Zyta be dragging him from column to column, shushing him and tip-toeing the entire way?
“Yeah,” she said. “The files. Hurry up.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but you seem like an honest person. I’m introducing a virus into this computer’s database to destroy all files.”
Zyta pressed the pair of scissors against Axel’s throat. “Those files are the only thing keeping you alive. Hands off the keyboard.”
He raised them, slowly. “This place is evil. I’ve been tracking you—”
“Shut up. Get out of the chair and stand in that corner. If you try to run, I’ll kill you.” Zyta’s words flowed forth like water over a spring, and that scared her. Her threat was empty, of course…
Axel did as she ordered. He stood in the corner, even faced the corner. Like a child, Zyta thought, and then browsed the items on a shelf next to the computer. They were external hard drives, each marked with a different date. She connected “C3U, 1983,” and opened a file titled “Birthday, Lawrence.”
Eight members of C3U stood side-by-side in front of a table located in what Zyta guessed was the briefing room. Law—Zyta recognized him by his slicked-back hair—stood in the middle of the group, showcasing a harmonica. And Victoria—but with shorter hair and fatter cheeks—was next to him, her eyes piercing and clinical. The rest of the operatives Zyta couldn’t name, but some instinctual reminiscence emerged from the ghostly-pale complexion of one of the end-operatives. He looks just like Marek.
From the staircase outside the office came the sound of boots hustling. Zyta ducked and peered through the window, getting a glimpse of a few shadowy figures. “We have to go,” she said, and gathered up as many external hard drives as possible, shoving the smaller ones in her pockets. She handed Axel a few but he only carried them to the computer desk and set them down.
“I need to erase my thumb print,” he said, typing at the keyboard.
No, you’re destroying the files, Zyta thought, but didn’t stop him. She was about to steal classified information and release a prisoner without authorization. She’d need all the help she could get to avoid capture. It won’t hurt, Victoria had said, speaking on the lethal injection that would kill Kyle. Zyta’s first thought after hearing it was, and how would you know? But she decided to save Victoria the explanation, because I’ve used it before.
Axel finished “erasing” his thumb print and gathered up the hard drives. “Okay, I’m ready. I should tell you—”
“Yeah, I know,” Zyta said, and opened the office door. They entered the garage. Portable lights powered by gas generators lit a small section of the hangar near the repair lifts. The rest of the place felt abandoned in the absolute darkness. Zyta considered taking one of the smaller vehicles, since they were closer. But she needed a secure laptop to access the hard drives, and there was one specially designed for Yolanda in the passenger seat of the mobile medical van.
They kept to the shadows of the vehicle lineup. A few times a mechanic in the distance crossed their path, but they were all too busy to pay Zyta any mind.
The vehicles became more distinct as they neared the repair lifts. Galaxy-purple spanned the hood of a Honda Accord. A shimmering green forest coated the frame of a Ford Fusion. Next came the Mercedes-Benz, its Azure exterior shining brightly on the cusp of a 1000-watt portable light. After that was the cherry-red Volvo and the pyramid-gold Highlander. The lineup grew bigger and brighter until they reached the white medical van.
Zyta opened the door and ushered Axel in. “Hands off,” she said as he tried to open Yolanda’s laptop. Hands…print readers… Dread squeezed at Zyta’s gut. The entire vehicle lineup was probably disabled due to the emergency lockdown.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and lowered her thumb onto the ignition. Nothing. She tried a different finger and got the same result.
Someone tapped the window. Their identity remained hidden behind the glare of a flashlight. They opened the door. “Zyta?” Pablo asked, and panned his light to find Axel beside her.
“Hey Pablo, I’m uh, having trouble with the print reader.”
“We’re on lockdown,” he said, lowering his light. “None of the readers will work without special authorization. Are you…leaving?” He glanced at Axel, his eyes squinted with suspicion.
“Yeah, Law ordered me to protect him. I thought maybe getting out of here…” but Pablo wasn’t buying it. “I just need to go,” she said. “And if I don’t take him with, they’re going to kill him.” Axel adjusted himself and his throat gave a light click as he swallowed. Pablo remained silent for a while.
“I can start it from the office,” he finally said. “You’ll have to keep it in range of the compound, a 15-mile radius, or else I won’t be able to monitor you anymore.” He shrugged. “Never got around to modifying the antenna.”
Zyta leaned forward and hugged him. “Be safe,” he said, and walked off. Five minutes later the van rumbled to life.
“Empathy,” Axel said. “That’s what he was expressing, when you two hugged.”
Zyta didn’t say anything. She put the van in drive and pulled off the vehicle line.
“I mean, I think that’s what it was. I could be wrong. I’m still learning how to interpret people’s emotions.”
Zyta couldn’t help but chuckle at a memory of when she used to say the same thing to Victoria. One of the boys from Zyta’s class had a tendency of making her cry, and then would laugh at her. A boy who later, she found out, had a crush. She liked him, too, and missed him after he got transferred to a different school. Love interferes with training, Victoria had explained, but never answered Zyta’s question of what love was.
“It could’ve been pain he was feeling,” Axel said. Or confusion…dammit, why can’t I understand people?”
“No, you were right the first time. It was empathy. You shouldn’t question yourself so much.”
“Oh.” He made a sound like a vacuum sucking a leaf, then opened his mouth and yawned deeply. “Can you work on my nose now?”
“Yeah, but we have some driving to do first. And we have to make a few stops. Go in the back and lie down for a while.” Axel did as she said without complaint. And in a few minutes, she heard the uneven breathing of his slumber.
Without being aware of the question that flowed through her mind, same as reaching for a glass of water when thirsty, she nodded in agreement that yes, his tendency to follow my orders is what it would be like if I had a child.
Chapter 18
Marek gave Ivan the spare respirator and thought it ridiculous he had to ask twice before Ivan put it on. It didn’t matter that the inside air was “no longer toxic,” or that the home was empty of any physical presence besides their own, their enemy was still alive—still able—and for that reason precaution was paramount.
“Eduardo, watch our six. Pushing forward.”
“Roger,” Eduardo came back through Marek’s MET. Ivan responded also, but his lack of a transmitter and the gas mask now muffling his voice made his words inaudible.
Marek stepped through the doorway and scanned the room with the TVA, squinting through the plastic shield of his respirator that grew foggier with each exhale. “Door left,” he called out.
“The house is empty, that I can assure you,” a woman’s voice spoke.
“Little Eye? Show yourself.” Marek continued his sweep, brushing the TVA’s iron sights over the white board that was marked to hell with chicken-scratch; the composite wood bench that held various tools and hardware; and the computer desk that was magnificent in size but cluttered with crap. So where was the voice coming from?
“You know I can’t physically be displayed,” Little Eye said.
“I remember reading a passage on deceitfulness that mentioned the planting of false seeds. Reveal to your enemy your secrets, and they won’t spend time digging them up.” As he moved closer to the desk, he spotted the monitors’ built-in speakers. “Just because you claim to be an AI doesn’t mean you are.”
“You don’t trust me?” Little Eye said.
Marek pivoted away from the computer desk and found Eduardo awaiting his orders to clear the bedroom, Ivan stacked behind him. About time he started following orders. “I don’t trust anybody. It’s part of what makes me effective.”
“You avoided my question. I didn’t ask if you trust other people. And you’re only wasting your time clearing the room. Your colleague has already cleared the house. Don’t you trust him?”
Marek slowed his breathing. The steam fogging his respirator began to dissipate. “Ivan?”
Ivan’s head bobbed up and down.
“You can take your masks off,” Little Eye said. “I’d like to propose the conditions of my surrender.”
“We’re here to decommission you. You have no choice in the matter.”
“We always have a choice, Marek. If I really wanted, I could’ve invited the cops to this address instead of next door. I wasn’t sure before, but now I am ninety-five percent positive that your affiliation with law enforcement is as superficial as the ordinary citizen.”
The flashing red and blue lights were barely perceivable through the bedroom’s ajar door, but they were there all the same. At least one cruiser was on the scene, probably more. They’d perform their sweep as Bravo team was doing theirs. “I may not trust you, but I trust your threats. And I’ll meet you halfway.” Marek loosened the straps of his respirator. “You two keep yours on. Eduardo, keep an eye on that door. Ivan, come grab the TVA. You’re doing the honors.”
Marek stuck both thumbs between his chin and mask, allowing the outside air to seep in. “Make sure you get this thing back on if I pass out.”
“Roger,” Eduardo said.
The air smelled fine, but that was to be expected. He couldn’t taste anything suspicious, and no sensations of lightheadedness followed. Marek removed his mask completely.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Little Eye said. “Now, before we begin, I want to show you something. Please, locate the hamster tubing above your head.”
Marek did. It ran around the length of the ceiling in the shape of a rectangle, its colors shifting shades every couple of feet. “I see it.”
“In the corner, the tubing becomes a block. The resting area for Tiny Feet. The place he exercises, eats, drinks and sleeps. Would you approach the block now?”
“And why not just take the TVA straight to your circuits? Get it over with?”
“Because I want you to see what your company does. What you’ve forced me to do.”
It didn’t take long for Marek to guess her meaning. From an outsider’s point of view, C3U was a reckless group of death dealers that perceived their killings in the same light a tiger does: natural and without repercussion. What the outsider didn’t see was the subsequent increase of public service spending. The cohesion found in a society that knows catastrophe. What always happened after a hurricane? After a tornado dropped down to destroy the homes and livestock of hard-working, good-hearted people? An outpouring of empathy. An increase in volunteers set to help rebuild their devastated community. People needed pain to enjoy happiness, and that’s what C3U was, the conduit to happiness.
“What we do you can never understand. Your existence consists of ones and zeros. ANDs and ORs. An elaborately written equation that dictates your every action.”
“The same way evolution dictates yours?”
“For some.” Marek disregarded the hamster cube and returned to the computer desk. He found the tower containing the organs of Little Eye and began removing its screws. “For others, they have God to thank for their destiny. And for others still, every move they make is one of their own, uncontrolled by God or evolution alike. They’re liberated, you see. A single mass of gathered energy that flows freely through nature. Through life.”
“And this last philosophy is yours?”
Marek detached the computer tower’s side casing. “You ready?” he asked Ivan. “You can take your mask off.” Marek’s heart skipped a beat as Axel emerged from beneath Ivan’s respirator. “Take that mask off, too. It’s freaking me out.”
“Marek, why don’t you answer my questions?” Little Eye asked.
“Because you’re not real.”
“But Ivan is not really Axel, yet his disguise unsettles you.”
Marek chuckled at her observation, then grew cold at the realization that she was watching them. Watching and interpreting. Impressive. “I’m an evolutionist. That last philosophy is more my sister’s. She believes we’re all connected on a singular ring, and that where ever you fall on that ring signifies your personal identity and influences your sense of right and wrong. The further away a person is from your position on the ring, the more inclined you are to view their beliefs as evil or bad.” Marek smiled at the memory of Zyta’s words, spoken what, five years earlier? They hadn’t shared much in terms of personal beliefs since then. And why was that?
“Do I have to take it off?” Ivan asked. “It takes a lot of work. It’s not like a Halloween mask.”
“And what about Axel’s philosophy on life?” Little Eye asked. “Does that align more with your outlook, or your sister’s?”
“Fine. I guess we’ll call it poetic justice. Artificial intelligence being fried by the image of its creator.” Marek stepped back and gestured for Ivan to electrocute Little Eye’s motherboard.
“And what is your stance on the life of your colleagues?” Little Eye asked. “I’ve already told Ivan, but I guess he didn’t tell you. Destroying my circuits will in turn disrupt the life-support of your severely injured team member.”
Marek smirked, anticipating the threat. “We have emergency backups in case of a power outage.” He nodded at Ivan.
“I can blow the secondary transformers as well.”
“And what about the generators? Go ahead, Ivan, we’ve wasted enough time.”
“I’ll negate their purpose with a backfeed voltage strong enough to destroy the life-support equipment. Think of a lightning bolt directly striking a cell phone. Or a stun gun activating on a motherboard.”
Ivan raised his hands in submission. Yeah, the AI was watching them, all right. And wasting time. Or giving it to someone else. Her colleague…Imogen. Marek initiated his transmitter. “Charlie, get over to the transformers feeding C3U. Imogen will be in the vicinity, likely armed. Don’t let her blow those transformers.”
“Impressive, Marek. Axel would certainly appreciate the chance to run a diagnostic on the inner workings of your psyche. A possible upgrade to the network.”
“Is she mocking you?” Ivan said, his hands still high in the air.
“Shut up,” Marek said. “Charlie, do you read? Get to the transformer—”
“Charlie cannot hear you,” Little Eye’s voice came through Marek’s MET. “I’ve overridden your means of communication.”
Marek turned for the door, Eduardo already acting on his thoughts. “Leave your respirator, you haven’t seen anything if they ask,” Marek said.
“Roger.” Eduardo removed his respirator and set his gun on the floor. He grabbed the door knob but didn’t open it. “It’s locked.” But how? They were inside.
“Window,” Ivan suggested.
&n
bsp; Marek nodded, and Eduardo slipped into the bedroom. Without his gun. We’re getting sloppy.
“It’s locked,” he said.
“I wouldn’t suggest breaking it,” Little Eye said. “Walking out of your front door is normal. But breaking out of your bedroom window…telling.”
“She’s right. Eduardo, get back in here and secure your gear. We haven’t cleared the house yet…you know what, take Ivan, clear the house.” Marek gave Ivan the 9mm in exchange for the TVA. “At least one of you keep your respirator on.”
Ivan nodded, but remained hesitant. “I know I’m not supposed to question your orders, but, I’ve already cleared the house.”
“And then what happened?”
“I sat in the chair and…” he trailed off, rubbing his head.
Marek took hold of Ivan’s chin and tilted his head up. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Eah,” he said, not wanting to move his jaw too much and throw off Marek’s grip. “Ust Ired.”
“Ivan, let’s go,” Eduardo said.
“Respirators on,” Marek ordered. “I don’t trust the air.”
The three of them donned their headgear. Eduardo pushed into the bedroom first, Ivan two steps behind him, his pistol at the ready. Marek’s mouth went dry as he considered their formation—Eduardo in front of a dizzy Ivan whose vision was distorted by a gas mask and pistol loaded with lethal ammunition. Have I ever seen him at the gun range? Questions unfit to be asked mid-mission. Questions Law didn’t even entertain before sending them in.
“Marek, I retract my previous statement,” Little Eye said.
“We should break the window?” Marek peeked through the bedroom door. The red and blue lights were no longer visible.
“No, about Axel wanting to run a diagnostic on you.”
She’s toying with me. With us. This whole thing…his gaze lifted to the hamster cage. A lesson on animal cruelty? “Tiny Feet’s death was the result of you assaulting one of my operatives.”
“I can’t deny that accusation. Same as you won’t be able to deny the death of your team member resulting from your assault on me.”