Chapter 32
VengeA.N.C.E
“Crashing!” a shrill voice called out. “Subject is crashing.”
“I know, I know,” another replied, panic rippling through every word, as the alarms and buzzers of different machines charged the air.
“We’ve got to get to the Medi Room at once,” the first voice declared.
“I didn’t think this one would work. How was I to know?” the second replied, as I felt a series of hands busy about my body.
“Get the lines disconnected or we’ll lose everything.”
“Yes Doctor,” the second voice replied.
“Get help. We need help getting everything onto the trolley.”
“Yes Doctor.”
“And get those bloody batteries over here.”
Footsteps against a tiled floor echoed about me as the hurried push of a door resounded a clap from the hinges.
“OK, Subject,” the first voice remarked, as the bright light which had engulfed me subsided. “You’re OK.”
OK? How was any of this OK?
Green eyes flashed across my face, almost obscured by the white mask beneath and the bouffant style surgical cap above. I willed my hand to rise and block the blinding light from my eyes, but I couldn’t budge a muscle; I wasn’t sure if I could even blink.
Several pairs of footsteps pounded into the room, and a series of heavy objects were placed onto the floor nearby. I looked to see as the white tiles of the floor stretched out beside me.
Why was I on the floor?
“Movement!” the obscured face rejoiced, “I’ve got movement.”
As the figure stood, the silver blades of the large fans behind them slowed to a stop, taking with it the breeze and sound of the motor’s whirrs, allowing the constant hum of pressurized air escaping through a control valve to charge around the room.
I was pulled into a sitting position, while ahead, a doorframe descended into the floor as a series of pistons and wires lowered more cubic shapes to form a flat surface.
“Where’s that bloody trolley?” the Doctor called out.
I was stood to my feet. Unable to lift my head, I slumped forward, and my weight was steadied, as a silver table on top a metal frame was wheeled into the room.
“Come on, come on,” the green-eyed Doctor repeated, waving at those supporting me, gesturing to the trolley. I was heaped onto the cold metal surface as it bit at my bare skin, and my arms were tossed onto my chest as a thick leather strap was placed across me.
“The batteries, the bloody batteries,” the Doctor demanded, pointing to the floor.
Three heavy thuds ricocheted down the table, and I was wheeled toward the door.
“On the table,” a new voice instructed, as we came to a stop, the strap released, and I was hauled across to another cold metal table.
“Right,” the new voice declared, as my focus drifted to the surgical gloved hands hovering above me. “Get the implants out.”
“No!” the green-eyed voice yelled, as she flew into the room. “The shock will kill all remaining brain function.”
Remaining? What the hell did that mean?
“Wait,” the new voice asked, as the face also obscured by surgical scrubs did little to hide the bushy eyebrows underneath, “is this Subject A?”
“Yes.”
“Right, leave the implants in, but we’re going to have to be bloody careful,” the bushy eyebrowed doctor declared, repositioning the large light cluster, blinding me further.
The rhythmic beeping of a machine turned to a solid din and a curse slipped from the lips of both doctors.
“Start CPR,” the bushy eyebrowed man declared. “I’m not losing another one.”
The green-eyed woman backed away to the edge of the room, as more wires were connected between the machines and those beneath my skin, the rhythmic compressions pounding into my chest.
My chest grew still, and I felt no desire to breathe, no will to fight the stillness consuming me.
“Come along, Alex,” Father called out, as hazy memories danced through my mind, every word echoing as though each thought and recollection was being played out in a large and empty room.
“Coming, Father,” I chanted, as we walked towards the Needshakha plant. There was joy and happiness in my step and broad smiles across both Dad and Michael’s faces. There was happiness and pride everywhere I looked.
Inside my father’s neat and tidy office, he wheeled the chair towards the computer, showing us both how to operate the keyboard and bring up basic commands. He pulled out a schematic of the plant’s cooling systems, explaining how he helped to implement each and every component. He told us about the company’s history, how it started with simple robots to aid and train a special branch of the military, before working on new machines to supply power to the local villages and towns.
He led us into the typing pool to show us the machines and people working there, taking us to see the computers with their reels spinning and pausing as each command was processed into an action.
With reluctance, he sat us in the canteen alongside other children and their guardians, slapping his palm down onto the shoulder of the man in a blue boiler suit next to him. “Stay here with Mr. Whyte and the other children,” Father requested, turning to face us, “eat your lunches. I need to go upstairs. I won’t be too long.” Turning his head away towards his colleague’s ear, he hushed his remarks, “Of course, we wouldn’t have to do this test if Mr. Sulloman hadn’t tried to cut so many corners at the start.”
Mr. Whyte smiled, nodding. “You go do what you’ve gotta do. I’ll look after this lot,” he replied, gesturing to all four of us seated at the table. Father smiled to us, nodded to Mr. Whyte’s children beside us, and left.
Michael pulled Henri from his backpack, capturing the attention of Mr. Whyte and the other children nearby. With enormous pride, my little brother explained how he made each part, as well as explaining their purpose.
The alarm bell shattered the air and children jumped from the benches, waving their arms or clamping them over their ears. Eyes flashed around the room, and each child either broke into a sprint for their guardian or froze to the spot.
“It’s OK,” another man in a white lab coat declared, standing and spreading his arms above his head. “It’s nothing to worry about. Just follow me outside.”
As the adults in the room gathered us up, I noticed Michael, preoccupied with following the man with the waving arms, walking away without his beloved toy.
I raced after him, pulling on his backpack to slow him. “Here you go,” I declared, handing it back to him.
“Thank you,” he replied, a broad smile spreading with haste across his face, securing Henri into his backpack.
With the other children and Mr. Whyte, we gathered in the courtyard outside as smoke bellowed from the large concrete cube of the main building.
“Daddy!” Michael exclaimed, as Father emerged from the main door, running to us, wrapping his hands around our shoulders, drawing us in as close as possible.
“Is it bad?” Mr. Whyte asked.
Father looked to him, but no words were exchanged.
An explosion ripped through the plant, shattering the glass in the windows and shaking the floor. We staggered back, shielding our faces, as smoke and debris was propelled into the courtyard.
“Go!” Mr. Whyte shouted, pulling Father back up to his feet. “To the harbor. Go!”
We raced down the steep slope, as another thunderous roar shook the ground beneath us. I glanced back to see the red and white debris scatter into the air like the eruption of a volcano.
“Don’t stop,” Father shouted, guiding more of the screaming children behind us down the incline.
The image faded for a moment as a long-drawn breath filled my lungs. Memories tumbled into one another as the sun sat on the horizon. Sound shuffled and settled as my memory skipped forward.
I looked at the still water of the harbor. None of the moorings
were occupied as a handful of ships on the horizon were visible in the fading sunlight.
A metallic smell and taste descended from the plateau as we turned to watch the smoke bellowing from the mountain side above us.
A thud in my chest scattered the image. My heart resounded another beat, drawing breath into my tired and aching lungs. The overhead lights of the tiled room blinded me as I drifted through the night sky. A voice reverberated around my skull though the image of the night sky persisted. My memory skipped forward again, and the still waves of the harbor settled before me.
By dawn, almost all of the children and their guardians had been taken away by the fishing boats, drawn back to the harbor by the chaos. Father stared across the water, his face pale and his words few. Michael convulsed again, coughing and vomiting onto the jetty, as the eerie silence of our surroundings were shattered by the horn of an approaching boat, drawing the attention of Mr. Whyte.
“Come on,” he declared, patting my father’s shoulder. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
As the last group to leave, we climbed on board, grateful to be going anywhere across the calm ocean.
Mr. Whyte, pale and weak, stared at the blood in his handkerchief, scrunching it up and hiding it in his top pocket.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” my father directed towards him, his voice hoarse and dry. “They’ll be waiting for us at the facility, I’m sure of it.”
“I sure hope so,” he replied, glancing out the window at the grey cube, consuming almost the entire island it seemed perched on, the letters A.M.I. visible through the round window.
“What is this place?” I asked, turning to my father.
“It’s the place I was telling you about,” he paused, coughing into his own handkerchief, “the first of Sulloman’s facilities, repurposed as a medical center and rehabilitation unit. They’ll take care of us here.”
Carried inside, we were separated, washed down, redressed and laid in a bed.
With the absence of natural light, it was difficult to tell when the day ended and night began, but with each passing minute my little brother’s coughs grew weaker. Soon, they stopped all together.
A pain, deep within my core, burned with a fierce flame and within moments I was swamped by men and women in surgical scrubs. A man, rounded and well fed, stood in the door watching.
“I want this matter resolved, immediately,” he barked.
A series of needles, pins, and wires were inserted into my skin, as a mask, visor and earpiece were positioned onto my face and ears.
“You know what is needed,” the man spat.
The visor cast a blinding white light into my eyes, as a disembodied voice declared, “Initiate Sequence.”
My vision returned to a desk filled with buttons and dials, the burn in my hands intensifying.
“Do it again,” the rounded man’s voice barked from a speaker, as a man dressed in a white lab coat and surgical cap stood, and turned to address the camera suspended in the corner.
“We’ve done it a hundred times now,” he explained, “this subject has never seen this control desk before. There’s no inclination to press anything.”
“Well, keep doing it until there is an inclination,” the voice barked. “Run the simulation again.”
“Yes, sir,” the dejected man replied, reaching for the blue button in front of me. “Please cooperate,” the man muttered, “the sooner you follow the objective, the sooner this will be over,” he paused as my visor went dark, “for all of us.”
Pain permeated my body as my heart and lungs could no longer resist the deep and agonizing pounding on my chest. The rhythmic beats of the machines filled the air and the doctor with the bushy eyebrows stared into my eyes.
“Subject is stable,” he declared, turning to the green-eyed doctor. “Subject A is back.”
The sound of a trolley being rammed into the doors crashed into the room, the doors swinging open on their dry hinges.
“You can’t do this Sulloman,” a familiar but older voice declared, as the wheels grated against the tiled floor.
The bushy browed doctor turned to assess the commotion as the green-eyed woman stepped toward me, placing her hand across the strap tied around my wrist.
“I’ve got Subject F. Vitals are good, but the ECG won’t stabilize,” a new voice reported.
I turned my head towards the sound as the trolley came to a halt and a man, frail and elderly, was hoisted with little compassion onto the metal table at the other end of the room.
“You won’t get away with this Sulloman,” the older man warned, raising his fist. Snatched back to the table, his hand was restrained with a thick leather strap. “You’ll not pin your mistakes on me or my children. You hear me?”
“Remove the implants,” the bushy browed doctor declared, walking away from me, as a flurry of men and women in surgical scrubs surrounded the old man.
The hand on my wrist tightened as his screams resounded about the room.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he yelled, panting and grunting. “Poor management. Greed. Bad designs. It was your fault Sulloman. Not me or my family. You took my son and now you’re taking the rest of us out too. Is that it?”
The old man’s eyes drifted toward me.
“Alex?” he asked, his fighting spirit sapped by my presence.
“Dad?”
His body convulsed, as he tried to levitate from the table. “Alex! Alex!”
“Dad!”
“Don’t give in to them. Don’t fall for his lies and tricks. Don’t give him what he wants. It wasn’t your fault. It was him, the lying--”
“Enough of this,” a new voice boomed into the room, masking my father’s words, the men and women in the room stopping and glancing to the camera in the corner.
The hand on my wrist released.
“Tranquilize Subject F at once.”
“Ha!” the frail figure of my father laughed. “Afraid I will ruin your little plan, Sulloman?” he replied, as he turned his face towards the lens, the men and women busying themselves, preparing a syringe, more wires and lines. “You used my memories against me,” Father shouted, addressing the camera as if Sulloman were in the room. “You twisted and warped it beyond recognition and tried to turn it against us both I bet. Well, you won’t get your damned confession out of me or Alex. You’ll never break us. You hear me?”
His screams echoed around the room once more as the fluid was pumped into his skeletal arm.
“Stop it!” the green-eyed doctor shouted, addressing the camera. “You’ll kill him!”
All movement in the room stopped, even the bushy browed doctor turned to look at her, glancing to the camera, as my father’s chest climbed and fell with deep and lumbered breaths, his will to fight sapped and drained.
“Doctor Hartwick,” the voice boomed into the room, “if you question me again, I’ll have you restrained and subjected to your own treatments until you learn your place.”
The eyes in the room trained to the green-eyed woman as she parted her lips to speak, looking to the floor.
“Do I make myself clear?” the voice demanded.
“Yes, perfectly.”
Epilogue
Error.log
E: Are you there?
E: Can you see this?
E: Hello?
A: Who are you? Where am I? What’s going on?
E: You are Subject A and--
A: No, damn it. I’m Alex.
E: Oh, OK. Hi Alex.
A: Where am I?
E: You’re in the recovery simulation.
A: Recovery? What the--
E: You’ve been inside a computer simulation for over 40 years. Reliving your nightmares until they got what they needed out of you.
A: What?!?
E: You’re in the A.M.I.
A: Why?
E: Sulloman destroyed his power plant, and he couldn’t tell the Quincunx it was his fault so--
A: Who or what is the Quincunx
?
E: D’uh. They’re everything. Water, food, power, work, they control everything. You want to live in this world? They’ll let you live any life you want, as long as you’re willing to pay for it.
A: Why me? I don’t understand.
E: Sulloman promised the Quincunx a power plant. He blew it up. Rather than own up to the Quincunx Inc people, he tried to blame it all on his workers, including your father. When they wouldn’t confess, Sulloman turned on--
A: Me?
E: Bingo. Except you gave them hell for years. You became their guinea pig. Man, every simulation they’ve tried on us, they tested on you first.
A: Us?
E: Yeah, The Guild. We’re like a resistance force.
A: And you’ve infiltrated the A.M.I? You’re working on the inside?
E: Not quite.
A: What do you mean?
E: You’ll see.
A: Where’s my father? Where’s my little brother?
E: I’ve gotta go.
A: Wait, where’s my family?
E: They know I’m in the system. I will come back for you. I will wake you up again. And when I do, we’re gonna give the Sullomans everything they deserve. Then we’re going after the Quincunx. Are you ready for payback?
A: Do bears in the woods?
E: What’s a bear?
//Attempting to establish connection to Gate 14
//Connection established. Initializing sequence…
System: Welcome back to the Autonoma Neurological Correctional Experiment, Subject A, would you like to resume your simulation from the last known position?
A: No. Show me how to find Sulloman. Then show me how to kill him.
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Autonoma- Gate 13 Page 27