by Eric Warren
“She…had a brain defect…” McCulluh barely got out. “It was decided…in the best interest of the colony—”
“That you send her to him. You killed her!” Jessika yelled.
No. I did that, Arista thought. They weren’t brain-dead after all. She thought she might be sick.
“We…had to keep…the colony…safe,” McCulluh said.
“Frees.” Arista put her hand on his shoulder. “You can ease up a little.” He turned to her, perhaps surprised, she couldn’t tell. But he lifted up slightly and McCulluh drew a deep breath. “How did you find out we weren’t in the cell anymore?”
He didn’t respond.
“I bet I know,” Jessika said. She reached forward and searched McCulluh’s pockets until she found what she was looking for: a small circular device about the size of a coaster. She tapped on it and a map displayed of the surrounding halls, complete with a blinking red dot in the center. “David tell you about this?” she asked McCulluh.
Again, he didn’t respond.
“God damn that man,” she said. She caught Arista’s eye. “Remember that program I told you about, on my console? This is a remote sensor that hooks up to that program. So he could track you.” Jessika cursed again, tossing the coaster to the ground and smashing it under her foot. “I should have destroyed that program the day you were lost,” she said. “I guess I just didn’t want to let go.”
“Sometimes it’s hard,” Arista said. After all, hadn’t she been the one who had kept inanimate husks in her own room in hopes she’d find her parents one day? She was the self-proclaimed queen of not letting go.
“You’re a fool,” McCulluh said to Jessika. “Helping them. Helping her. They’ll execute you for it.”
“Better that than being sent to be some AI’s slave for the rest of my life,” she replied.
“He doesn’t deserve it,” Arista said. “But let’s get him tied up too.” She turned to him. “Does anyone else know you’re down here?”
He shook his head. She decided there was a twenty percent chance he wasn’t lying.
“We need to be quick,” she said. “Frees, help me get him into position. Those machines outside won’t be incapacitated forever.”
She pulled a third rope from her bag and Frees made sure it was good and tight around McCulluh’s wrists and waist. The nice thing about having a long rope was they could make the binding stronger.
“I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” Frees said. He glanced at Arista. “Adequate?”
She nodded. “Adequate.” He didn’t have to say it, but she knew he was pleased she didn’t want to torture or beat it out of the man. They’d gotten everything they needed without seriously injuring him. “One last thing,” she said, bending down to look him in the eye as they left the room. “Where’s Max?”
“Gone,” he said, raising his eyebrows to her.
“Gone where? On a mission? Back into the world?”
“You could say that,” he said.
That would have to be good enough. She straightened back up and followed Jessika and Frees out of the morgue back into the hallway. The machines continued to writhe on the floor in front of them, their programs fighting Arista’s influence.
“I wish we had that weapon of Sy’s” Frees said. “The one that incapacitates us yet still allows us to move around.”
“Weapon?” Jessika said. “That’s not a weapon. It’s a diagnostic device, for malfunctioning machines. She used that on you?”
Frees nodded. “And Jill and Max.”
“My god the woman was insane. How McCulluh could have ever…then again, he did sanction sending us to the wolf so maybe it’s not so far-fetched,” she said more to herself than them. “Let’s get moving, we need to reach the Gate. Arista grab the other gun.”
Arista bent down, pulling the sidearm from the female machine. “Sorry about this,” she whispered. “If everything goes to plan we’ll come back for you. We’ll fix you.”
“You better,” the guard said, her face twisted into a permanent grimace.
Thirty-Three
“Do you really think he was telling the truth about no one else knowing?” Frees asked as they ran down the deserted hallway. It didn’t make sense. Wouldn’t McCulluh call for backup? At least let someone know what he was doing?
“Maybe he was embarrassed,” Arista said. “He could’ve seen this whole thing as his fuckup and he didn’t want anyone else to know. That’s the only reason I can come up with. But it seems like he might have been telling the truth.”
She was right, they hadn’t encountered any other machines or soldiers since leaving the morgue. But it bothered Frees they still didn’t know where Max was. As he pondered his internal systems delivered a warning to his cortex. “Hey.” He stopped Arista with his arm. Jessika held up. “I need one of the drives, they nearly drained the one I had when they hooked me up to that table.”
“They wanted to control your power inputs,” Jessika said. “Makes sense.”
Arista fished around in the back of her bag. “How much charge does it have left?”
“Maybe five percent.” He reached down and pulled part of the skin of his torso away, revealing his power port. The drawer slid open, revealing the spent drive. He pulled it out and tossed it to the side with the skin.
Jessika bent down to inspect the energy drive. “This is fascinating. This is what you use for power?”
“It’s what I use now. Instead of the charging cubes,” Frees said, taking a new drive from Arista and inserting it. The port closed, and power flooded his systems. “Thanks.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Arista replied.
Jessika stood as well, pocketing the drive. “I want to study this, it’s amazing technology.”
“Jill invented it. She can show you exactly how when we get back.” Arista replied.
“I’ll be glad when all this is over. This place…I think I finally understand why you don’t like confined spaces,” Frees said to Arista. They picked up the pace and continued jogging down the hall with Jessika in the lead.
“Yeah?”
“Being unable to move while you’re poked and prodded with a dozen different instruments is quite anxiety-inducing.”
“Arista had to go through a lot of that when she was younger,” Jessika said. She stopped at the corner, peeked around, then continued jogging. Frees and Arista ran to catch up. “She had her first surgery when she was only a few months old. And we could only use so much anesthesia, so she was partially awake. The other surgeries later didn’t go much better.”
“Bad patient, huh?” Frees asked.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“If you two are done…” Arista said.
Frees smirked and spoke over Arista’s head. “I had to do some work on her recently too and you are right, she is a bear of a patient. Never again.”
“You lying weasel!” Arista shouted. “I was the perfect patient! It’s you who got all sickly!”
Jessika’s brow creased. “She just says that because she’s embarrassed,” Frees added.
Arista stopped where she was, causing Frees to slow in front of her. “Frees, I swear to god if you say one more word about it I’m going to take this new hand and rip your jaw off.”
He turned to Jessika. “She was the perfect patient.” He turned his head, so Arista couldn’t see and winked. Jessika smirked in response.
“What was that? What did you just do? Did you tell her something?” Arista asked, catching back up with them.
“No and look, you need to focus. We have to destroy that Gate.”
She clenched her fists and for a second Frees was afraid she might pop a capillary in her eye. “We get out of this,” she said softly. “And you’re paying for that.” He couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. Maybe he’d pushed her too far. But he couldn’t help it, teasing her was too much fun and he rarely got the chance.
Jessika only continued to smile at them. “When we get th
ere,” she said, “we’ll need to get inside, but I don’t want to use the front doors. There’s a good chance there will be a lot more people in there working on it. If they knew we were trying to destroy it, they’ll have redoubled their efforts.”
“So how do we get in?” Arista asked, her voice back to a normal level.
“Emergency access, in case of fires. Frees, do you still have the map you downloaded?” she asked.
He nodded, pulling it up in his memory. “It’s all here, but I’m sure most of it is inaccurate. It didn’t have anything about the Gate room or even the morgue on here.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Does it have a sprinkler plan built-in?”
He tabbed through the levels in his mind. “Yep, one here.”
“Do you see a large area in this section where the sprinklers seem to go around something. Like something is blocking them out?”
“Yes, that’s the Gate room?”
She nodded. They’d reached the end of the hall. Down to the left sat the main entrance to the Gate room itself. “Now overlay that with the regular floorplan. Tell me if there are any doors to the right of that big empty space in the sprinklers that might lead to that room.”
“I’ve got two, they are both marked as supply closet and plumbing control.”
“Which one’s closer?”
“Supply closet.”
“Then lead us to that one. Hopefully that will put us in a good position to get inside.”
Frees consulted the map again then determined their current location. “This way,” he said, leading to the right. They passed three more doors before coming to a small hallway. “It’s this one.” He moved down the short, dimly-lit corridor.
The door wasn’t marked here, but he was sure it was the same one as on the map. He really hoped he wasn’t wrong. He didn’t want to disappoint Jessika, but he really didn’t want to disappoint Arista, who was currently averting her eyes from him.
“One of you crack it, I don’t have the equipment,” Jessika said.
Frees exchanged glances with Arista and she made a “go ahead” motion with her hand. He dug his fingers into the small space between the door and the seal that held it to the wall and pulled, sliding the door into its pocket. The space beyond was dark with just the barest hint of blue light.
“It’s your show,” Jessika said, looking at Arista.
“Once we get in there,” she said, “we’ll move everyone into the corner of the room. Jessika, you’ll keep them quiet while I plant the explosives. Frees, you shut down the Gate if he’s got it running. I want to make sure we get this thing this time.”
“And what if someone in there has a weapon? What if McCulluh stationed guards or something?” Frees asked.
“Then I’ll take them down and you’ll have to incapacitate them.”
“You mean kill them,” Frees said.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know a better way. If you can shut them down without killing them then I’m all for it. But we can’t let them use this Gate. And that means we do whatever is necessary to stop it. Understand?”
“You know, your father is probably still in there,” Jessika said, her eyes on her weapon, inspecting the rounds. “He wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
“I know, I want him to be there,” Arista said. “I want him to see it.” She pulled the weapon she’d taken from Sy out of her bag and slapped it into Frees’ hand.
“Then we’re all on the same page,” Jessika said.
Frees steeled himself. He really missed his felp. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on it. Because it had been nigh-unstoppable. He’d never worried about going into any combat situation because he always had a good chance of coming out on top. Even if he had to take a couple of bullets to do it. Once all this was over he was getting out of this skin and he’d get to work on developing a new one—a better one.
“You okay?” Arista asked, eyeing him.
“Yep, let’s go,” he replied, putting the thoughts out of his mind.
She nodded. They crept along the wall for what seemed like longer than they should. According to his internal sensors, they were most likely somewhere behind the Gate itself. Arista led them with Jessika right behind, both of their weapons up. Frees followed close but kept checking behind them to make sure. The whole area was quiet; he thought he should hear the hum of equipment by now.
Arista disappeared, and Jessika followed right after. He couldn’t catch up quickly enough. Now he could hear shouting, yells, and the clanging of machines. He reached the corner where he’d last seen them only to come out into the floor of the Gate itself. They had walked all the way around it and were now on the left side of the room, from an access tunnel buried behind the Gate.
There were at least a dozen people scrambling in different directions while Arista and Jessika yelled at them to remain calm and get in the corner. One approached Frees, apparently thinking she could get out using the passage they’d just taken but when she was in range Frees stuck his arm out, clotheslining her. She collapsed back, her hands over her face where blood now seemed to gush. Frees picked her up easily and took her back into the fray, planting her right in the middle of the room.
A shot went off and everyone froze, including the woman with the broken nose.
“That was your only warning,” Arista yelled. “Now get over here in a corner and stay there until you’re told otherwise.”
People exchanged glances and decided perhaps it was better to comply than risk it. They trudged toward the corner Arista indicated, all in a group.
“Where is David?” Jessika called.
“Here.” A hand went up in the retreating crowd and David emerged. “Right here, don’t shoot anyone. Jesus, Jess, have you lost your mind?”
She scoffed. “No, but you have. Thinking you can make this work. Even thinking this is a good idea. Why couldn’t we just live out our days here? Why do we have to go through all…this?” She indicated the Gate with her gun.
“Because. Humans are designed to survive. No matter the odds. We’ll do anything not to die out. Including break the laws of physics if necessary.”
Jessika sighed. “Get over here and sit down.” She struck Frees as exhausted, but he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t have time to worry about it. Instead, he helped herd the people into their corner.
“Now stay here until you’re told otherwise,” he said. “We won’t hurt you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Arista muttered, pulling her pack off her back. “I’m going to start planting these. Make sure no one in here moves.”
“Got it.”
A blur of motion from the right. It was too fast and Frees didn’t catch it quickly enough. But before he could register what had happened, Arista was on the ground and the bag with all the explosives was gone. “What the—?” He glanced over to see Max, dangling the bag by one hand and wearing a strange smirk on her face.
“Looking for this?” she asked.
“Max, are you—?”
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.” She indicated to Arista who was sitting up, holding her head. “Now I’m finally free to do it all I want,” she sneered. She dashed to the group of humans in the corner, handing the bag off to one of them. “Go. They won’t hurt you, not while you have this.” The people scrambled for the door while Max stood in front of them, staring at Arista.
“Max! No! What are you doing?” Frees yelled.
“Exactly what I’ve always wanted,” she replied. Then she dropped her head and charged, aiming directly for Arista.
Thirty-Four
Everything happened so fast Arista had a hard time keeping up. One moment she was preparing to lay the energy drives along the base of the Gate, then next thing she knew she was on her ass and the bag of charges was gone.
Max was here, and she was still under the control of whatever program they’d installed in her. They had to find a way to disable those discs and get them out of her head. But e
ven as these thoughts ran through her mind Arista had to assume Max wouldn’t go quietly. She struggled to push herself up only to see Max barreling down the middle of the room at her, running full speed.
All Arista could do was throw up her new arm as a feeble protection against the impact that was surely coming.
“No!” Frees stepped in front of Arista at the last second, knocking Max off her path, and redirecting her kinetic energy so she went flying across the room into the side of the wall, leaving an impressive dent in the material. “Stay behind me!” Frees yelled, pointing his gun in front of them.
The sound of muffled gunshots rang out as Jessika took aim and fired at Max who still hadn’t taken her eyes off Arista. Two of the shots hit her but didn’t slow her down.
“Max, stop this!” Frees yelled. “It’s the program, you have to fight it!”
Arista shook her head. “She doesn’t want to. Look at her, all the others I’ve changed with the program have struggled with it. She’s perfectly at ease.”
Max regained her footing and this time ran in an arc around Frees and Arista while Jessika continued to fire at her, missing each time. She was too fast when she was mobile, Jessika didn’t have a chance. “Do something!” Jessika yelled to David, who remained slumped on the floor.
“Like what? I didn’t do that to her. I don’t have the slightest clue how to make her stop. They just sent her here to protect the Gate!”
Max charged again, and this time Arista had her own gun ready. “Sorry, Max,” she said, taking aim from Frees’ left side. Max bore down, her teeth gleaming in a perverse smile as Arista fired two rounds, both of them hitting Max in the face.
But she still didn’t stop.
“That’s it.” Frees squeezed the handle of his own weapon
“No!” Arista yelled. “We can’t fix the damage from that one. You can’t use it on her.” He grimaced then stored the gun in his back pocket and took off running toward her. They were like two trains on a collision course and just before reaching her he ducked down, hitting her legs and sending her flipping through the air over Arista’s head and onto the ground on the other side. Max planted her hands and feet to stop her momentum, causing a screeching as the skin from her hands tore away to reveal her superstructure. She got back up again, looking worse for wear, and took aim at Arista once more.
