Neural Web

by Dima Zales

  “So is there anything that can help my current situation?” I look at everyone in turn, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach.

  “The three drones I promised you are outside the window of the room where you’re being scanned,” Muhomor says. “I have an idea, but I’d like your input.”

  He puts up three screens. Each drone must have a telescoping lens, because I see three views into a room that was probably a big guest bedroom before Kostya turned it into a makeshift lab and infirmary. On a bed to the right of the window, Joe is hooked up to some monitoring equipment. It shows a heartbeat that proves he’s alive, at least for now.

  Three figures in white coats stand with their backs to the window, huddling around another body inside a big brain-scanning machine. Only the middle of the man’s torso and legs are sticking out. It takes me a moment to realize that the torso belongs to me, and that this explains the hum and the darkness.

  “What are they doing to me?” I walk up to the screen and point at the machine. “Is that a CAT scan or an MRI?”

  “They just got your Brainocyte ID,” Mitya says apologetically.

  “But on the plus side, they also scanned your noggin for real, and it looks like Joe didn’t fracture your skull,” Muhomor adds.

  “They probably want to hack into you the way they did with Gogi and Joe,” Dominic says. He winces at the vicious glares from Mitya and Muhomor.

  “As Captain Obvious says,” Muhomor continues after a small pause, “Kostya must have more planned for you.”

  One of the people surrounding me is likely Kostya himself.

  A crazy idea pops into my head.

  “Muhomor, could you crash each of the drones into one of the people in that room?” I ask quickly. “There are three of them and three of the drones. I could jump out of that machine, finish them off, disable a guard to get a weapon, and barricade myself, Ada, and Alan in this room with Joe until the robots and Dominic arrive.”

  “What you said is my earlier plan,” Muhomor says. “I can—”

  “This plan has a low probability of success,” Mitya says. “These drones are not that maneuverable, so unless the people are distracted already, there’s little chance they’ll allow themselves to get hit with one.”

  “And when that glass breaks, they’ll have ample warning.” Dominic stares at the screen intently. He must be looking for another idea and finding none.

  “Anyone have any counterplans?” I ask. “Or are you dead set on sacrificing me to learn how this brain hack works?”

  “Assuming the debug stuff they told me about even helps with that,” Dominic says glumly. “That’s a big if.”

  We sit in sullen silence as the people on the screen begin to pull me out of the machine and I feel the motion in the real world.

  “The bad men are moving,” Mr. Spock tells me urgently.

  Through Mr. Spock’s senses, I see the door open and a man in a white coat enter. In VR, I explain that something is happening in Alan and Ada’s location and provide them with the EmoRat app so they can look on. They didn’t already have this app because only Ada, Alan, and I use it routinely; it never became part of the standard AROS package.

  “It’s wakey-wakey time,” says the new guy. “Boss wants them awake for the next part.”

  The two syringes in the white coat’s hands probably mean he plans to inject Ada and Alan with something that might wake them. That would usually be good news, but in the context of “the next part,” it seems beyond sinister.

  “How long before the girl is fully awake?” asks the rock-on-rock voice I recognize as belonging to Boris. He’s trying to sound casual, but there’s a creepy inquisitiveness in his tone that fills me with dread.

  “She’ll come to her senses almost right away, but I’d give it a few minutes before she stops being groggy,” the white coat replies. He walks up to Ada’s chair, the syringe menacingly extended.

  “Shouldn’t we tie her up?” Boris asks with an unhealthy eagerness.

  “Motherfucker,” Dominic mumbles in VR. My other friends echo his sentiment in their own ways.

  “Boss said not to use restraints,” the white coat says. The chair blocks Mr. Spock’s view, but I’m pretty sure the guy administers Ada’s injection. “He has these two under control already, so they’ll sit still once they come to.”

  It takes a huge effort to pretend to be unconscious in the real world. What I really want to do is open my eyes, grab Kostya’s throat, and not let go until I choke the life out of my twisted fuck of a half-brother.

  “We all suspected that your family would be hacked,” Muhomor says in VR. Before he can expand on that thought, Dominic leans over and smacks him on the back of the head with an open palm. It couldn’t have hurt too much, especially in VR, but Muhomor still squeals like a little piglet.

  Ignoring VR, I work on calming my tumultuous emotions as the white coat injects Alan with the wake-up drug. To my luck, the people who took my body out of the machine are all busy watching something in the air above me, probably a private Augmented Reality screen.

  “I’m needed back in the lab,” the injection guy says on his way out. “Boss will be here shortly.”

  “I need a favor,” Boris says to the other guards as soon as the door closes. “You two should take a short bathroom break.”

  The men look at one another.

  “Boss said they’re not to be harmed,” one says, his voice muffled by the Nixon mask. “Not that it makes sense, considering, but orders are orders.”

  I really don’t like the implication of that “considering” remark, but worry about its meaning is quickly overshadowed by the fury building in my heart.

  “She will not be harmed,” Boris says in a tone that sends angry shivers down my whole body. “Just a little sore is all. You know I’ll make it worth your while if you do this for me.”

  The two other guards chuckle lasciviously and turn away.

  My blood is boiling out of my veins. I’m probably more dangerous now than I was with the Emotion Dampener on. Emotion Dampener makes you a cold monster, but I would enjoy inflicting pain on Boris right now.

  “The subject’s heart rate is elevated,” says someone next to me in the lab. “I think he’s awake.”

  “The bypass is now activated,” says Kostya’s voice from my right. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “They hacked you,” Muhomor says in VR.

  “I captured it via the debug mode,” Mitya says.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” I shout in VR, my fists clenched so tight it hurts. “That fucker is planning to rape Ada.”

  My friends look shocked at the vehemence in my voice. Even Dominic steps away from me.

  “Your orders are about to be disobeyed,” I scream at Kostya in the real world, yet nothing comes out of my mouth. “You said not to harm Ada, but she’s about to come to harm!”

  My brain reels from the strangeness of talking without any sound coming out of my larynx, and my fury intensifies at my helplessness.

  Then my attention snaps back to the room with Ada, because Mr. Spock sees the door close behind the two guards.

  Boris walks toward Ada’s chair.

  “I really hope you’re already awake,” he says in his grating voice. “I’ll enjoy this so much more if you are.”

  No sound comes from Ada, but it could be because she’s unable to scream, like me.

  Boris’s hands move toward his zipper.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  If I were there, I’d rip this fucker’s neck out with my bare teeth. Hate must create its own form of dark focus, because a plan of action instantly comes to me.

  “Muhomor,” I shout in VR. “Fly the drones into his head. Now.”

  “But you need them—”

  “Now, or I’ll fucking kill you!”

  Something in my eyes must be convincing, because Muhomor swiftly obeys.

  “Mr. Spock, you have to do something very dangerous for Ada, but it’s very important.
” My EmoRat Zik message is a lot gentler than the order I barked in VR, but it conveys the same urgency.

  “I’m ready,” Mr. Spock replies right away. “What do I do?”

  “I want you to run up this man’s pant leg.” I try to ball my hands into fists in the real world, but this doesn’t work either, and my hands remain at my sides. “Once you reach the top, I want you to bite, over and over, as hard as you can.”

  A wave of eagerness comes back from the EmoRat. It’s obvious that Mr. Spock has been itching to bite the bad guys for a while now, and only the social conditioning we’ve instilled in him was preventing this.

  My perception slows to a crawl as the three drone views zero in on the nearby window. While I can’t hold my breath in the real world, I stop breathing in VR as Mr. Spock dives for Boris’s shoe.

  Boris doesn’t seem to notice the flash of white fur on the floor.

  Mr. Spock’s eyes show a repulsive view of a thick, hairy leg as he climbs toward an even more disgusting destination.

  Boris must feel little claws on his leg, because he stops. The fastest drone points its lens at the window, and through that camera view, I see his puzzled expression.

  Mr. Spock climbs higher. When he spots the white underwear, rat rage seeps through the EmoRat interface.

  “Yes!” I spur the little warrior onward. “Bite that motherfucker.”

  Even lab rats like Mr. Spock have large teeth capable of administering painful bites. Rats usually avoid fighting humans because they know it’s a losing fight, but if you corner one, you’d better prepare for some pain (and sometimes for rat-bite fever).

  Mr. Spock’s teeth easily pierce both the cotton fabric and the thin flesh of Boris’s testicles.

  The tortured yelp of pain is music to my bloodthirsty ears.

  The drone is now an inch away from the window, and I get a glimpse of Boris’s horrified face before window shards spray into the room and that face grows bigger.

  Mr. Spock bites his target again, so hard I feel the little guy’s jaws ache.

  Boris’s next scream is higher pitched. Via the drone, I see him struggling to decide if he should punch himself in the groin—a tough call.

  “Run away,” I command Mr. Spock. “Quickly.”

  I can feel his desire to keep biting, but he’s a good rat and runs down. He’s near Boris’s knee when the first drone hits the man in the chest.

  Boris doubles over, hopefully distracted from the source of the biting.

  “To the rat, this must be like a scene from King Kong,” Muhomor says in VR, earning him another smack on the back of the head from Dominic.

  The second drone flies in through the window just as Mr. Spock leaves Boris’s pants leg. Boris swats at it, and it crashes into the TV at the front of the room. His momentary distraction gives the third drone the chance it needs, and it slams into his temple with a satisfying smack.

  Boris drops like a tree, his flailing foot inadvertently kicking Mr. Spock in the butt.

  Momentum sends Mr. Spock skidding under Alan’s recliner. He tries with all his might to slow down, but his claws don’t provide enough traction.

  There’s a loud crash as Boris hits the floor. Through the camera of the last drone, I see him land on the debris of the TV, cutting himself in multiple places. Unfortunately, the view through Mr. Spock’s eyes is nauseating as the little guy torpedoes toward the chair leg, followed by the smack of the rat’s head into the wood.

  Mr. Spock sends a rush of an all-too-familiar sensation—he’s passing out.

  “You did well,” I tell him guiltily. “You’re the fiercest rat in the world.”

  He seems to have heard me, because he flickers pride before he loses consciousness completely.

  “Is the rat dead?” Muhomor asks and dodges Dominic’s hand this time. “Hey, I’m just asking.”

  “I have a biofeedback chip in him,” I say sharply. “His vitals look okay. He’s just going to be out for a bit—and probably have a big headache once he comes to.”

  “Can we tell Mike about his own situation now?” Muhomor looks belligerently at Dominic. “I doubt he has much time left in VR.”

  “We’ve learned more about this hack,” Mitya says. “It’s basically a backdoor that allows Kostya to turn off and on any app inside your—”

  “The loophole was the GPS interface,” Muhomor jumps in excitedly. “They must’ve had to hack into every satellite in the world to pull this off. The scope of this—”

  Dominic smacks Muhomor much harder this time. “Shut up, or I’ll shut you up for good.”

  “As I was saying,” Mitya continues, giving Muhomor a withering stare, “the backdoor also allows Kostya to run any app in your AROS without your consent. You’re getting some of these installed while he’s shutting down your regular apps. When he gets to the VR interface, you won’t—”

  I abruptly find myself only in the real world. The VR room is gone without a trace. Kostya has done what Mitya was trying to warn me about: he closed the app in question.

  I try sending Mitya a private Zik message, but nothing happens. I try email and social media without any results. Even the ancient instant messenger doesn’t start.

  “Let’s try the motor function controls program,” Kostya says next to me. “Have him open his eyes.”

  My eyes snap open without my willing them to.

  The light in the room hurts my unadjusted eyes. I try to squint, but I don’t have even that much control.

  Panic forms in the back of my mind. Everyone has that visceral fear of being locked inside one’s body without the ability to control it. I guess for me, this fear is stronger than usual. I try to distract myself from full-on terror, reminding myself that this is probably what those poor paralyzed patients experienced before we gave them Brainocytes. I focus on how good it feels to have helped people recover from such horror.

  “Einstein?” I mentally ask. “What time is it?”

  No reply.

  Like every user, I’ve long since associated all my favorite apps with mental commands, which is why I haven’t used the original visual AROS interface in a while. I try to summon it now.

  To my surprise, the AROS interface shows up. Kostya must not have disabled the AROS UI controller app just yet. The number of icons that hover in the air in front of me is tiny in comparison to what’s usually there. The Paint app icon disappears in front of my eyes before I can formulate some practical use for it; it had a Share button that likely uses APIs of the closed apps—a tiny chance that now is gone.

  What’s worse are the unfamiliar icons that show up. These must be the apps that allow Kostya to do whatever evil thing he plans to do to me—apps he can activate without my consent.

  The AROS interface disappears, and a major portion of my mind splinters and dies a horrific death. The awful sense of dumbness is vaguely reminiscent of when I was without internet on a government black site. This sensation, though, is a million times worse. I’ve had more boosts since then and have come to rely on my cloud extensions even more. It’s unclear if the computer substrate in my bones is helping my thinking or not, but in any case, I’m barely able to form a semi-coherent thought. It’s as though I’m a ghost of myself, an analog copy of a copy of a copy.

  Kostya must now have complete control over my mind, but the implications of that are now harder for me to grasp. I wonder if I knew what Kostya was about to make me do when I was whole just a minute ago. I also wonder if I had a plan at that point, because I’m overwhelmingly clueless now.

  “Try to move around,” a thin man in a lab coat recommends.

  Kostya looks thoughtful for a moment, and suddenly, my body moves.

  If having no control over my eyelids was weird, getting up like a marionette is even more bizarre. It’s as though I’ve become a passive passenger inside my own mind. I still feel the pressure of each step, the in-and-out of my breathing, and the swing of my arms. But without control, it’s more reminiscent of a low-budget virtual
reality movie than of being myself.

  I take a step, then another. The weirdest thing is that a part of me feels like maybe I’m controlling my movement after all, and it takes focus to verify that I’m not. That I can’t. I guess my consciousness isn’t used to not being in control, and tries to cling to an illusion of freedom, an illusion that’s easy to shatter—all I need to do is wish to stop walking.

  My body makes its way to the unconscious Joe, and my hand reaches toward a table with medical instruments right next to his head. My fingers brush the cold metal of a scalpel and gently pick it up.

  “No,” I try to say, but no words come out.

  I fight for the control of my hand, but it’s futile. The scalpel caresses Joe’s ruined jaw, leaving a bloody streak where it cuts his skin. The cut is shallow and shouldn’t do much harm, but if Kostya presses my hand even a millimeter deeper, the story will be different.

  “Have you heard from Boris?” one of the lab coats asks.

  My hand stops, and Kostya pauses his own movements momentarily. I can picture him placing a private call with his AROS and learning what happened to Boris. If that’s the case, he’s probably also summoning more goons to clean up the mess.

  With a violent jerk, my hand throws the scalpel back onto the tray and my legs carry me back to Kostya. I stand in front of my half-brother like an ice sculpture, futilely willing my hands to grab his neck.

  “How did Boris get hurt?” Kostya asks in that weird falsetto voice. “Where did those broken drones come from?”

  I assume this means my mouth will work, so I test it out. “Fuck. You. I’m going to—”

  To my huge disappointment, my stream of threats and obscenities gets cut off. That doesn’t stop me from trying to inject my disdain for my half-brother into my unblinking gaze.

  Something akin to an Augmented Reality icon flashes in front of my face. I’m abruptly grappling with the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life, and I’ve lived through gunshots, explosions, and even torture. It’s as if someone is repeatedly kicking me in the balls, only inside my brain.