by E. R. Torre
“I’m right behind you,” Nox said. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have any bullets for that revolver, would you?”
“I didn’t think it wise to bring any.”
“Sometimes you think too much.”
General Spradlin illuminated the long unused corridor hidden behind the large storage room. The floor was smooth and extended a great distance. Nox felt it curve upwards, elevating at a slight angle and heading toward the surface level of the Big City. The two hurried down that corridor. Behind them the sounds of explosives continued. The secret door would not remain standing much longer, even if each subsequent explosion proved, at least for the moment, it still held.
At the end of the corridor they reached another corroded metallic vault door. General Spradlin reached for a panel beside the door and flipped open its cover, revealing another dusty keypad. General Spradlin took a few seconds to look at it.
“You don’t remember the code?”
General Spradlin concentrated on the numbers.
“Why don’t you try your date of birth?”
General Spradlin let out a laugh.
“Not a bad idea,” General Spradlin said. “That’s something no one would ever figure out.”
Another explosion erupted down the corridor.
“How about you let me concentrate a little?”
“My lips are sealed,” Nox said.
General Spradlin moved his fingers along the panel’s keyboard. He touched a key, then another, but didn’t press down.
“Yeah,” he said.
He pressed a series of keys before pausing to collect his thoughts. He then pressed another set of keys. When he was done, they heard the loud groans of ancient machinery coming to life. With a loud click, the door swung open, revealing a dark back alley.
General Spradlin shut off his flashlight and cautiously approached the open door.
“How far away are we from the building?”
“Four blocks,” General Spradlin said.
“They might see us.”
“They might.”
Together they cautiously emerged from the hidden corridor and into the alley, quietly shutting and locked the door behind them and moving away from the building as quickly as they dared. They avoided debris and kept their rapid pace, taking several turns before reaching a main street. From there, they had a distant view of the building they escaped from.
All the military vehicles and personnel that brought General Spradlin and Nox to the place were gone. General Spradlin let out a relieved sigh.
“My men got away,” he said. “I couldn’t be sure.”
“What about us?” Nox asked. “Now that my fellow soldiers are back in the city, they will sniff me out.”
“They have a general sense of where you are, but if we keep moving, Lemner’s passkey will have to keep recalibrating your position. That gives us a little time.”
“A little?”
“Enough.”
“Why can’t they sense you?”
“Because I wouldn’t let them. Just like I didn’t want any of the one-time child soldiers to know about that building.”
“Explain.”
“The nano-probes give you enhanced perceptions. Visual, tactile, olfactory. In the field of battle, enhanced perceptions can be both a blessing and a problem. If a soldier is injured and the pain is such that they can no longer focus on their mission, they become worthless to us. We decided to make certain modifications in the nano-probes to enhance some perceptions while blocking others. It wasn’t too big a step to realize if you could do that with things like pain, you could do that with visual and sensory input. The one-time child soldiers cannot feel or see me like they do you because, quite simply, they’re not programmed to.”
“But I saw you right away at the hospital.”
“It was unavoidable as you were looking directly at me. The programming I created to hide myself is subtle. Hiding the Oscuro building was relatively easy as it lies in the middle of a forest of buildings. You probably saw it dozens if not hundreds of times whenever you were in that area, but because it was one building among many, it was easy for the programming to erase whatever memory traces you had of it.”
“But if there was an accident in front of the building…?”
“It would have been much harder for the program to retroactively erase what you perceived. At the hospital, you were under a great deal of stress from Lemner’s passkey and when you looked out the hospital door, I was the only living thing in your field of vision. The heightened emotions and the fact that I was right there for you to see me made it impossible for the programming to disguise my presence. To put it another way, the conditions were such that there was no way you could not see me.”
“And what is seen –and recognized– cannot be unseen.”
“The programming, to put it bluntly, was defeated. For the other one-time child soldiers, that is still not the case, though Lemner’s passkey is no doubt working very hard at countering this programming. It already discovered the building. In time, it will see me as clearly as you can. Until then, the only way they know where I am is through you.”
“Then we should split up,” Nox said.
“We can’t,” General Spradlin said. “We have to save the infants.”
“I can lead them away while you—”
“No,” General Spradlin said. “We have to go together.”
“Why?” Nox said.
“Because…because we do.”
Nox thought about that for a moment. Her eyes narrowed.
“There’s something else going on,” she said. “Something you’re not telling me.”
The General didn’t reply.
“What are we really doing?” she continued. “Do you really think we can avoid the child soldiers long enough to save the children? Even if we do, how do we stop Lemner’s passkey? How the fuck do we save this world?”
They continued moving down the alleys and further and further away from the Oscuro building. The General hadn’t answered Nox’s questions, but the Mechanic hadn’t pushed. Her mind was working, trying to analyze the situation, trying to see what General Spradlin was up to.
You’re obviously a very clever man who plans things out well in advance, she reasoned. Why risk your life by keeping company with someone who still might be turned?
Those thoughts swirled in her mind. Realization came to her in a flash.
“You want them to have some idea of where we are,” she said.
The General stopped. His face was hidden in the shadows.
“You want them to follow us, but not so close they could get us.”
General Spradlin nodded.
“If Lemner’s passkey and the one-time child soldiers completely lost your scent, they’d have no choice but to go back to your last known locations.”
“The base,” Nox whispered. “If they did that…”
“They would kill everyone there,” General Spradlin said.
“Is that what’s going on?” Nox asked. “Are we buying time while your soldiers fortify the base? Was saving the children a lie you peddled to get me to lead the one-time child soldiers around?”
“No.”
The General moved on and Nox followed. They kept to the city’s shadows and clung to every harsh corner or depression. All was eerily silent. The only noise they heard was dripping water or debris flapping in the wind. They saw no one and nothing, whether human, animal, or insect. Even the cockroaches had abandoned the Big City.
“They’re all gone,” Nox marveled. “How did you get everyone out?”
“We offered a safe haven and people took it,” General Spradlin said. “Most went willingly. My men rounded up everyone else.”
Nox thought about that. In approximately six days, the one-time child soldiers and Lemner’s passkey sabotaged every electronic systems and destroyed civilization. In those same six days General Spradlin managed to empty out the city and send everyone to his base. The
logistics to accomplish these actions were daunting, yet Nox was witness to them. If General Spradlin was capable of such a mass exodus, what else was he capable of doing?
“General?” Nox said.
The General stopped and faced Nox. His eye was red and, for the first time, Nox felt she could see in it the tremendous pressures he faced. Thought there was a steely resolve reflected in that single eye, there was also an unmistakable sense of dread and, perhaps, fear.
“How long do we have before everything falls apart?”
“A day,” the General said. “Probably less.”
“We have a day to save those children and take out Lemner’s passkey,” Nox said. “You really think the two of us can save the entire world?”
“That’s the plan.”
“You’re a smart guy, General,” Nox said. “Maybe not the smartest one alive, but certainly the craziest. If I were to keep following you, what would that make me?”
“Care to find out?” The General asked, though he already knew the answer.
35
The parking garage was in a rundown section on the east end of the city. It was a low lying three story structure hidden among the taller buildings around it. General Spradlin and Nox hurriedly entered the structure’s main entrance and made their way to the stairwell. They headed down the stairs and into darkness.
General Spradlin’s flashlight came on and lit the way. The Mechanic and the General bypassed bags of garbage and other refuse before arriving at the building’s lowest level. Their only other company was the strong smell of waste. The stairwell appeared to lead to a dead end, but General Spradlin once again exposed a secret door. This one, like the last, operated by key code. General Spradlin hit these keys confidently. He was far more familiar with this structure than the others.
The door slid open and dim lights within a secret room came on.
Nox followed General Spradlin inside. He closed the door and the bitter smells from the stairwell were shut out. The chamber was square in shape. It culminated in three sets of doors on its opposite end. At the center of the chamber was an impressive computer system. It was shut down.
“Nice place,” Nox said.
“It always impresses the chicks.”
General Spradlin locked the door leading into the room. He then hurried past Nox and to the computer system and turned it on. A schematic of the entire Big City appeared on one of the monitors and the others displayed different sections around the building. General Spradlin eyed the images on the monitors while alternately panning and zooming in on them.
“Don’t worry, this system is battery powered,” General Spradlin explained. “It’s self-contained and hard wired to the cameras. Lemner’s passkey won’t—”
He stopped talking and pointed to one of the top monitors.
“There,” he said.
The camera feed on that monitor came from the roof of a building and displayed an image of a street intersection. Off to the side of the intersection, in a dark alley between buildings, there was movement. A woman emerged from the dark alley and came to a stop. She was nearing middle age and was overweight. Her black and gray hair was frazzled, unkempt. Her eyes, however, were laser sharp and scanned the road around her. She sniffed the air as if a predator seeking prey. Her head jerked around, the movement as precise as a machine.
General Spradlin recognized her.
“Alexandra Despero,” he said.
The woman’s body remained frozen in place while her head swiveled back and forth as if it were a camera. Finally, her head froze as well. Her eyes closed and she held her breath.
Nox could feel Despero probing the area. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind she could feel Despero calling out to her, like a schoolyard bully taunting her victim. The voice was melodic and barely hid a vicious bloodlust. Nox could sense it even as—
Alexandra’s eyes abruptly opened. She looked up, directly at the camera recording her movements. Her eyes were dilated, the expression on her face cold, dead.
“She spotted the camera.”
Like lightning, Alexandra Despero drew a gun. The image on the monitor before Nox and Spradlin immediately turned to static.
“How far away is she?”
“Only a couple of blocks.”
General Spradlin pressed a series of buttons. All the electronic equipment within the room shut down.
“They’re triangulating,” General Spradlin said. “I was hoping we’d have a little more time.”
“My offer still stands,” Nox said. “We split up and you get the children while I…”
“No,” General Spradlin said. He let out a deep breath.
Nox leaned back. She walked to his side and looked down at him. For the first time since she met him, she saw the left profile of General Spradlin. The intact side of his face.
In her mind’s eye she recalled the images from the meeting between General Spradlin and the architects of Oscuro. General Spradlin’s face, the injured right side, was heavily wrapped. The other side, the left side, was relatively intact. She recalled the lines on the face. It was a youthful face. She assumed he was a much younger man then.
She assumed wrong.
The scarring along the right side of his face made him look so much older. But now, while focusing on the left side of his face and removing those scars from view, she realized that side of his face looked almost exactly like what she saw on that twenty plus year old video.
“How is that…?” she muttered and stopped.
General Spradlin faced her. Somehow, he knew what she was thinking.
“When I saw you in the Hospital parking lot…I didn’t think I had ever seen you before,” she said. “I was wrong.”
More memories flashed into her mind.
Murky images of people walking around her. She reached up to touch the glass that separated her from them. Her hand was that of a baby. He stood there before her, looking down. His face had no scarring…
“You were there,” she said. “B…back in the natal ward. But I was…I was barely a year old.”
There were no scars, yet the face was the same. This was nearly thirty five years ago…
“How…how old are you?” she asked.
“Old enough to be there from the very beginning,” General Spradlin said
“How old?”
“The key to the program was the nano-probes. They had to be distributed to every one of the child soldiers. Every one of you share the same blood. The same nano-probes.”
General Spradlin paused. When he spoke again, the words reverberated like thunder.
“The nano-probes came from me.”
Nox pointed to the scaring along General Spradlin’s right side.
“But they’re supposed to heal you,” Nox said. “These wounds aren’t healing.”
“I’m dying,” General Spradlin said. “I’ve been dying for the past twenty years. The nano-probes within me were poisoned.”
“How?”
“The original version of Lemner’s passkey…the version that was used on the Brigade soldiers…it was conducting unauthorized experiments. I guess we should have expected it to…assert itself. It made modifications to Joshua Landon’s nano-probes. It expanded their usage. It turned them into weapons. When I confronted Joshua Landon twenty some years ago at the McArthur Military Airport, I touched him. By doing that I was infected with his weaponized nano-probes. It took every ounce of effort I had to contain them.” He pointed to his scars. “You see what they did to me. I slowed the process but his poison is even now breaking my body down. At best, I have only a few more years left. I can’t complain. The nano-probes have kept me alive much longer than I had any right to expect.”
“Where did you get them?”
“They were an unwanted gift I received long before the start of the Arabian War.”
“An unwanted gift you didn’t mind passing along to us,” Nox said. “You wanted us to be like you. Just like David Lemner and Jennifer Alberts
said.”
“At the beginning, Oscuro was a promising concept. In time, I realized it was not. The dangers posed by people like Joshua Landon proved it. The program had to be cancelled.”
“That’s what we were to you? A program that ‘had to be cancelled’?”
“I live with plenty of regrets,” General Spradlin said. “What I did to you in Arabia was brutal. It was beyond cruel. Ultimately, having the child soldiers set off the nukes had to be done. Not just to end the war…”
“…but to end the Child Brigade program,” Nox said.
A cold silence settled on the room. General Spradlin rubbed his chin.
“You’ve seen what Lemner’s passkey and the one-time child soldiers are capable of. If anything, I underestimated the danger. I should have acted much faster.”
Nox was silent for a few seconds. Finally, she said:
“What about me?”
“You’re different. The other child soldiers remain captive to the program while you grew past it. I don’t know if the passkey views your independence as a threat or the missing ingredient it needs to build even better soldiers. Regardless, it wants you, Nox. Badly.”
“Why is it destroying everything?”
“The passkey’s goal is to make the world in its own image,” General Spradlin said. “Your fellow soldiers were just the first wave. I can’t even guess what the passkey plans to do with the second, third, and fourth generation of soldiers. But I do know this: Once the world order is crushed and civilization falls, the passkey and its soldiers will be free to grab subjects both young and old for its weaponization procedures. In short order it will triple and quadruple its numbers, until the entire world is filled with soldiers.”
“Why does the program need them? Who does it expect to fight?”
General Spradlin said nothing. His silence spoke volumes.
“More secrets,” Nox said.
“There are things I have to keep from you,” General Spradlin said. “Even now. I will tell you this: Lemner’s passkey was a flawed creation from the beginning. For all his intellect, David Lemner was a very emotional man and prone to pettiness. When he created the first A.I., he imbued it with his own personality. David Lemner knew he created a monster. He tried mightily to correct his mistakes. He failed. He admitted this to me shortly before succumbing to cancer. I asked –begged him– to tell me if there were any more copies of the passkey. I knew there had to be, as David Lemner kept a series of secret laboratories that were lost to the Great Sandstorms that followed the Arabian nukes. We searched and searched…in vain.”