by T. C. Edge
Chloe listened, but didn’t understand. She knew that these devices were used to confirm any nanobot soldier’s location, to relay their vital signs back to base. She’d seen them before on members of the Panther Force and Spectre Squad, as well as agents like Ragan and other, rogue combatants who’d broken from the system and now worked alone.
She knew its function full well. But Ragan wasn’t being clear.
The quizzical look upon her face said it all.
Ragan smiled, and even let out a little laugh.
“Apologies,” he said, “if I’m being cryptic. I’m used to lying and telling half truths. Sometimes it can be difficult presenting things straight.”
“So, what exactly are you saying?” asked Chloe, her sense of intrigue now spiking. “You’re…not working for the CID? You’re…a spy?”
Ragan nodded slowly.
“A spy,” he whispered. “I guess I’ve always been a spy. Well, for many years, at least. I’m a spy for the CID, and I do work for them, technically. But I’m a spy within them too, if that makes any sense.” He tapped the interface on his wrist again. “The CID don’t know I’m here,” he said. “I’ve severed communications with them, but have enough goodwill to have my excuses believed…”
“Excuses. Yeah, I heard…before you came into the room just now. You said your interface was damaged.” She looked at it. It appeared intact. “That’s…not true?”
Ragan shook his head.
“No, I merely disabled it myself, back in LA last night. I didn’t want the CID knowing where I was taking you. I need to maintain my cover with them, for now at least. It may be important soon.”
A heavy frown swamped Chloe’s eyes, her brows pinching tight. She shook her head, as if trying to catch up, to clear the blur that still seemed to be shrouding her ability to think.
“I’m confused. This makes no sense. Just who exactly are you?”
“Ragan Hunt,” smiled Ragan, reaching out with a hand. “Oh, sorry,” he said, remembering hers were bound.
“Yeah, I know your name. But…who are you? If you’re a spy in the CID, then you’re working for someone else? Doesn’t that just make you my enemy, anyway? You’re all the same. You’re all after me for what you think I know, or am, or…”
“And what is it you think, Chloe?” cut in Ragan. “You must know why you’re being hunted. Your father must have told you.”
She shrugged, always struggling to reconcile her love for her father, and her bitterness at the path he’d set her on.
“He didn’t tell me anything,” she said. “He just filled my body with nanites, gave me Remus, and told me to trust no one. And…he said the truth would be revealed in time.” She looked up at Ragan. “I’m guessing you know more than I do. I always thought that people were after my nanotech, to replicate it. But…there are others with advanced tech too. Mine isn’t special.”
“Well, it’s kinda special,” murmured Ragan, looking to Chloe’s hands. “I’ve never met anyone who can discharge electricity like you can. The rumours of your sorcery are well founded,” he winked.
Chloe shook her head mournfully.
“Sorcery. It’s not nice being called a witch.”
“Of course not,” said Ragan, drawing back his grin. “But you’re right, it isn’t the nanotech in your body that everyone’s after, Chloe. Well, not their applications at least, or the powers they give you.”
“So what, then? What else can people want?”
“Information,” said Ragan quickly. “It’s the information stored inside your nanites that people so desire. Your father was the foremost thinker in a range of advanced technologies, Chloe. When he was killed in that fire, most of his research was lost too. But not all of it. Some of it, he put in you.”
Chloe’s frown deepened, her pulse rising.
“Why would he do that?” she asked, incredulous. “Why would he store his data in my nanites? He must have known that people would come after me?”
“I don’t think he did,” said Ragan softly. “No one was meant to know that he’d hidden his research inside you. The nanites were merely supposed to protect you, Chloe, just in case something went wrong. And this drone of yours…Remus. Well, he was designed for the same purpose. Your father never intended for you to live this life. He merely made sure that you would be well protected out there in the perils of the world without his protection.”
A shadow was overcoming Chloe. It was hard to believe, hard to buy. She remembered her final interactions with her father full well. He was agitated. He knew something was coming. And he told her to trust no one.
“It makes no sense,” she said, shaking her head. “He knew people would come. He told me not to trust anyone. He told me that, Ragan!”
“Yes, and he was right. His worst nightmare came true. Someone discovered the truth, and the truth spread. People were never meant to come after you. That wasn’t his intention.”
“Then why the hell did he put all this data in me! Why would he do it! I could have just lead a normal life. I was…happy in New York.”
Ragan took a long breath and reached to Chloe’s shoulder to calm her. She shrugged it off and looked away, steaming.
“I know it doesn’t make much sense,” said Ragan, “and I know it hurts. But you have to understand…your father was a great man, a great scientist. He was working on his crowning glory, the greatest breakthrough of his life. He didn’t want it to be lost.”
“But someone did, right? Someone wanted to get rid of it. That fire in his lab was no accident, Ragan. Someone destroyed him and his research. Someone clearly didn’t want it getting out, and that’s why he was so agitated, that’s why he sent me away…”
Ragan’s expression flattened as Chloe’s words flew into that small room, years of frustration and confusion spilling out. She’d always wanted to know the full truth. Now, hearing it, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear any more.
As she vented, Ragan went quiet. She began searching his expression, and then a question worked onto her lips, delivered through a panted breath.
“You know, don’t you,” she whispered. “You know who killed my father?”
Ragan’s piercing blue eyes drifted back to hers, similarly striking. He began to nod.
“Then tell me,’ growled Chloe. “Tell me, so I know who I have to kill!”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” said Ragan. “The man who killed your father is already dead.”
Chloe’s rage boiled. Her fingers began to spark and fizz.
“Who,” she growled again.
Ragan drew a breath, shaking his head.
“It was him, Chloe,” he said solemnly. “Your father killed himself.”
22
The revelation hit Chloe like a gut-punch to the stomach, knocking the wind right out of her. Her fizzing fingers continued to crackle and pop, her anger and confusion causing her to lose control of her nanites.
Ragan was quick to press forward again, his fingers reaching to Chloe’s bound hands.
“Calm down, Chloe. It’s OK, just breathe…”
His weather-worn fingers gripped tight, but they didn’t exactly help. She crafted her gaze right up at him, needing someone to lash out against.
The electrical buzz around her hands continued to swell. Her teeth clenched, her head shaking hurriedly.
“Why…why would he do that!” she exclaimed, tears beginning to gather. Tears of loss. Tears of rage. “Why!”
“Chloe, you have to calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself!”
She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t control it. Her emotions, usually so contained, were spreading free with all these revelations. Her pulse was rushing, her chest heaving. And Ragan’s voice in her ear, trying to calm her, was fading away.
She shut her eyes tight, her fingers still snapping and cracking with sparks of blue and silver. At any moment her hands might explode without command, discharging right into her own body with her hands bound to her
waist as they were.
Suddenly, she felt her shackles being undone.
Her eyes opened and she saw Ragan’s hands working quickly as they unlocked her, a grimace of pain on his face as the electricity zapped into his skin and flesh, singeing its surface.
He finally untied her, and her hands suddenly drew apart, tingling fingers point right up at him. He stepped back.
“Chloe…no. I’m a friend. I’m on your side, Chloe…”
Her hands were shaking. She saw him reach furtively to his hip, ready to draw a pistol to knock her out again. She didn’t want that.
There was still so much more to be said. So much more to hear.
With a roar, she tore her zapping fingers away from him, and aimed them right at the brick wall. She unloaded her anger and frustration, a violent storm of lightning cracking into the surface, tearing off pieces of brick, causing sparks to fly and little fires to form.
Ragan watched, his hand tentatively gripped to his pistol. If she got any worse, he was ready.
The surge of energy was cathartic, a vent for her rage. It poured through her body and out of the tips of her fingers, ripping at the wall in a chaotic net of blue and white. But it lasted only a moment, a sudden and devastating show of power, before her hands went still and silent again, leaving only a billowing cloud of smoke spreading through the room.
Ragan quickly hurried over, stamping out any small fires. He headed to the door, and called through to someone Chloe couldn’t see.
“It’s OK. It’s under control. There’s nothing to worry about. Stand down.”
He pulled back, shutting the door, and hurried to Chloe’s side. His eyes were wide, worried. He took a firm hold of Chloe’s shoulders.
“Are you OK?” he asked her softly.
She nodded. It was a lie.
Her chin fell, her eyes watering. Ragan’s warm frame, tall, strong, was so close. She drifted forwards an inch, and he did the rest. She was scooped up into his arms, wrapping her up tight.
He held her for a minute, a fresh silence dawning. A thousand thoughts of her past spread through Chloe’s mind, the torment of the years drawing together, the picture of her world clarifying. She could see her father’s face, how worried he was, how frightened, when he said goodbye. She remembered the news report she’d seen the following week, telling of the fire in his lab, of his death.
She’d never believed it to be an accident. She’d always thought that he’d been killed by a rival nation, unwilling to let the NDSA benefit from his services. Scientists were often targeted for the terrible inventions they came up with, thought wondrous by those who used them, and evil by the rest. Chloe had no doubt that her father’s work in the world of nanotechnology, and other cutting edge fields, had seen him murdered to halt his progress. And her eyes had always fallen on the WSA, worried that Professor Phantom’s work might serve to undermine their preeminence, allow the NDSA to rise up, to come to dominance.
But never had she imagined what Ragan had told her.
Never had she considered that he’d killed himself.
As the thought came, her voice cracked, spoken into Ragan’s strong chest.
“Why,” she asked again through a sob. “Why would he…commit suicide?”
Ragan drew back, and sat her down upon the old sofa. He kneeled, his fingers working to release her ankles. She sat in silence as he released her bonds, before taking a seat beside her.
“There are things you don’t know about your father, Chloe, and what he was going through back then,” he started. “Perhaps you never saw it. Perhaps he kept it from you. But he wasn’t as free as he appeared.”
Chloe’s eyes arched up, weak and tearful.
“They…forced him to work?” The pain in her tone was palpable.
Ragan nodded sympathetically.
“I can’t speak for his mind, but only what I’ve discovered. And, what I saw…”
“What you saw?” Chloe’s eyes intensified, discarding their mournful frame. “You knew him?”
“I suppose…you could say that. I was put on detail to….protect him. But really, we were there to watch over him. To make sure he did his work.”
Chloe leaned back.
“You…you forced him!”
Ragan raised his hands to placate her, frightened she might lose control once more.
“No, nothing like that,” he quickly assured her. “I was merely under orders, sticking to my cover. I was there for another purpose, Chloe. But I saw how it was, how your father was treated. He was torn. His genius was unmatched, and his inventions were too. As a scientist, that was his…his life, his purpose. But he made a breakthrough, one that the NDSA were working him night and day to achieve. He saw what they intended to do with it, saw what he’d become. He was Frankenstein, creating a monster. And…to stop it getting out, he killed it. Destroyed his lab, and himself.”
“And hid the truth in me?” Chloe mumbled.
Ragan nodded.
“But why?” asked Chloe, so troubled by it all, so confused. “Why destroy the research, kill himself, if only to keep the data alive in me…and send me off to be hunted. I don’t understand…”
“His death was meant to save you, Chloe,” said Ragan firmly. “Everything he did was to keep you safe. Your life, though you didn’t know it back then, was always under threat. The NDSA were using you as collateral to force your father to work. He believed his death would set you free, but he was wrong. No one was meant to know his research was stored in your nanites. No one was meant to find that out. He did it only to preserve his legacy, to one day let you discover the truth of what he was doing, to let you make a decision about how to proceed. His work has good applications if used by the right people, and at the right time. But not now, not at times of war. It would only cede great power to whoever wielded it.”
“And this research,” asked Chloe, her mind working at million miles an hour. “What is it, exactly?”
Ragan delayed in his answer. He stood, walking away into the room, turning his back.
“Ragan, what is it?! Tell me. I have a right to know.”
“I know you do,” said Ragan, turning again to look at her. “Of all people, you deserve to know. It’s changed your life, ruined it. They don’t all want me to tell you, but I was always going to.”
Chloe’s mind came up with another question. All? Who are these people? She let it slide, not wanting to distract him. She needed to hear just what her father had done.
“Go ahead then,” she said, growing oddly nervous. “Tell me, Ragan.”
Ragan drew a breath and stepped back in, taking a seat on the chair in front of the sofa. He leaned forward.
“How much do you know about the development of synthetic life?” he asked.
Chloe shrugged.
“Not much,” she said. “I mean, obviously there’s plenty of machine augmentation going on. People who are half man, half machine. I guess you and I are sort of examples of that, what with the tech in our bodies…”
“Right, we’re on the spectrum. But I’m talking about fully developed synthetic bodies, entirely created in the lab.”
“Like nano-vamps?”
“Not entirely,” said Ragan, shaking his head. “Nano-vamps are predominantly developed using human tissues, only augmented during development. But they are partially synthetic, yes.”
“Then I’m at a loss, Ragan. You’re saying my father worked out how to create fully synthetic humans?”
“No, they’re already being made,” said Ragan. “The creation of synthetic clones has been done for a while. The problem is one of consciousness, of intelligence. Artificial intelligence hasn’t yet been developed to the point where these synthetic humans are indistinguishable from their true counterparts. They are a science that remains in the laboratory. No one out there in the public even knows of their creation.”
“OK,” said Chloe, still waiting for the punchline. “So, my father developed an artificial intelligence that could
be transferred to these synthetics?”
Ragan raised his eyes. Chloe smiled tentatively, hoping she’d hit the mark. Her expression fell away when Ragan said, “Almost…”
“Then what, Ragan. Jesus!”
Ragan smirked, coaxing her on.
“You’re close. Dig a little deeper…”
“No! Just tell me. I’ve had enough of this bullshit. This isn’t a damn classroom.”
“All right, chill,” said Ragan, eyes dipping to Chloe’s fingers again. He thought he saw a spark. “Just calm down. You were close when you said ‘transferred’.”
“Transferred,” murmured Chloe, her sharp intellect searching ahead. Then it hit her. “Shit…you mean, not AI being transferred to these synthetics, but actual human consciousness?”
Ragan’s grin burgeoned, his teeth straight, white and beautiful.
“Bingo,” he said. “Scientists have been working for years to find a way to transfer human consciousness into machines and synthetic, android bodies. That’s what your father was working on, Chloe, and he came upon the solution three years ago. During the fire at his lab, much of the data was destroyed, but not all of it. The missing piece of the puzzle is you. The information stored in your nanites will open up this field to whoever obtains it. And the possible uses might be disastrous…”
Chloe was thinking, frowning, as Ragan spoke
“Endless life,” she whispered, interrupting. She looked up into Ragan’s sharp eyes. “If you can transfer your consciousness to synthetic bodies, you can live forever.”
Ragan’s expression grew hawkish, a shadow forming around him.
“Precisely, but there’s so much more to it. Imagine a soldier with decades of knowledge and experience. Their body is ageing, and even if they’re enhanced with nanobots to slow the process down, it won’t work forever. Now, think of that soldier, and the powerful military and combat mind he possesses, and put him into a synthetic body capable of feats beyond all human comprehension. We’re not just talking those like us, Chloe, who can go harder and faster for longer, who can heal fast and age slow, or even perform your little electricity trick. We’re talking about the next level. Super-soldiers far beyond the capabilities of the Panther Force, or Spectre Squad, or anyone else out there. Soldiers who, even should their synthetic bodies be destroyed, will merely live on through another, their consciousness transferred to a new host. Whoever owns this tech will own the world, Chloe. If it falls into the wrong hands, then it will doom millions. It will change the face of humanity, and what it means to be human.”