by Jake Bible
“Chill,” Olivia said, holding up her hands. “Everyone calm down.”
The techs eyed Olivia, gave Tressa a quick glance, then got back to their own work.
“I heard you, Liv,” Tressa said, her voice a raspy croak. There was a fresh scar in the middle of her throat. A tracheotomy scar. “Busy.”
“You didn’t survive the first wave of sickness to die from starvation hunched over a fucking keyboard, Tressa,” Olivia said. “Drink the fucking mud or I’ll force feed it to you.”
Tressa sighed, paused, then turned in her chair to regard Olivia.
The woman looked like hammered shit, but then everyone in Flipside BOP looked like hammered shit. Tressa picked up the mug and downed the contents. She frowned, licked her lips, then handed the empty mug to Olivia.
“Yum,” Tressa said and got back to work.
“Your father is out hunting again,” Olivia said.
“Good for him,” Tressa replied.
“You should take a break when he gets back,” Olivia suggested. “Get out of this hut for an hour or two and eat some fresh food.”
“Fresh food would be a salad or nice apple,” Tressa responded. “Not more dino ribs.”
“You need the protein,” Olivia said. “Especially with the way you’re pushing yourself.”
Tressa spun back around. Olivia could see the cruelty bubbling in her eyes. Then the cruelty left and Tressa tried to smile. She failed at the smile, but Olivia mentally applauded the effort.
“If I don’t push myself, then building a new Brain will never happen,” Tressa said. “It was going to take a year before under ideal circumstances. But you and I know we don’t have a year. Tech is collapsing fast. Too fast for us to waste a single minute.”
“Eating is not wasting minutes, Tressa,” Olivia argued. “It’s keeping yourself alive.”
“I know you mean well, Liv, but please go away,” Tressa said. She returned to her work once more.
“Where to?” Olivia snapped. “My empty hut? The hut I had shared with my wife that is now dead? Or should I go visit her rotting corpse? Did you know it’s still in the southeastern pile of bodies? Just bloating in the heat as maggots and insects burrow through flesh I once touched and caressed. That what I should do, Tressa?”
“I am sorry for your loss, Liv,” Tressa said then stopped typing and stood up quickly, her chair flying out from under her to crash against a console that sat cold and dead behind her.
The two techs went for their pistols again.
“Oh, fucking chill!” Olivia shouted at them.
“Did I do it?” Tressa asked, leaning in close to the screen. “There’s no way I could have. It’s too soon. Too soon…”
Tressa spun around and pointed at the techs.
“You! Go get Mike! Now!” she shouted. The tech only blinked and stared. “FUCKING NOW!”
The tech scrambled out of his chair and left the hut.
“And you. Come here,” Tressa said. The woman hesitated. “I need fresh eyes to check this. Get your fucking ass over here now.”
The tech reluctantly crossed the hut to Tressa’s work station.
“You can give me the pistol,” Olivia said, holding out her hand.
The tech hesitated then gave Olivia the pistol.
“What is up with this shit?” Olivia asked, tucking the pistol into her pants.
“You missed it,” Tressa said. “A tech snapped last week and killed two others. You were dealing with Astrid, so I never told you about it.” Tressa studied the tech as if she’d never seen her before. “Name?”
“Maggie,” the tech said with a thick Irish accent.
“Okay, Maggie, tell me what you see?” Tressa ordered.
Maggie scrunched up her face, glanced at Olivia, glanced at the butt of the pistol that stuck out of Olivia’s pants, then returned her attention to the screen.
“A command line?” Maggie said after a minute of more face scrunching. “With a blinking cursor.”
“Exactly,” Tressa said. “Type something into it.”
“Fine,” Maggie said and typed.
The screen blinked then went blank.
“What’d I do?” Maggie asked.
“Wait for it,” Tressa said.
The screen flashed white then went black again. But instead of being blank, a line of words appeared in the center of the screen.
“Who am I?” the words said.
Maggie took a step back and her eyes narrowed in anger. Olivia’s hand went to the butt of the pistol as she watched the tech grow angrier and angrier by the second.
“You think this is funny?” Maggie snarled. “You think playing a joke on me is funny?”
“It’s not a joke,” Tressa said and rolled her eyes. “I didn’t program it to do that. The program itself is asking a question. A question about self-awareness. The same question Brain asked when he first came online.”
Olivia leaned forward in her seat and tried to see around Tressa and Maggie.
“That’s real? You didn’t make that happen?” Olivia asked. She stood and crowded in to get a better look at the line of words. “Tell me the truth, Tressa. That’s not something you made because you’ve lost your fucking mind?”
“No. It’s real,” Tressa said.
“But you said it would take a year,” Olivia said.
“It should. Longer than that even,” Maggie added.
“I don’t know why, but I activated a test and this happened,” Tressa said.
Mike burst into the hut, his face white and sweaty.
“You send this asshole to drag me here under gunpoint?” Mike shouted, an accusatory finger aimed at Tressa. “What the fuck, dude?”
The tech entered directly behind Mike and he did have a pistol aimed at the back of Mike’s head.
“He wouldn’t come,” the tech said. “I had to make him.”
“Jesus Christ,” Olivia said and held out her hand. “Give it.”
The tech turned the gun on Olivia. She didn’t flinch. Then the tech shook his head and his eyes widened. He handed Olivia the pistol as if it was made of fire. Then he turned and fled the hut.
“He’s probably going to go hang himself now,” Tressa said matter of factly.
“Christ, Tressa,” Olivia exclaimed.
“Why am I here?” Mike shouted.
“Stop yelling, idiot,” Tressa said and pointed at the screen that Maggie was still staring at. “Look at this. Tell me I’m not seeing what I’m seeing.”
“What? No,” Mike said and turned to leave. “I’ve got my own work to do.”
“It worked, Mike,” Tressa said. “It’s built.”
“Bullshit,” Mike said without turning back around.
“Who am I?” a voice echoed over tinny speakers.
“I found the volume,” Maggie said.
Mike did turn that time. He stared at the speakers then let his eyes drift to the words on the screen where “Who am I?” was repeated twice.
“It can’t be right,” Mike said. “You need at least—”
“A year. I know,” Tressa said. “But there it is.”
“It’s not true AI,” Mike said and pushed the women out of his way as he sat down in Tressa’s chair.
No one protested the rough treatment. They were all used to being rough with each other and themselves since the sickness swept the base. Decorum fell away quickly despite everyone’s best efforts not to go feral.
“Did you backtrace the code to see if maybe you’re picking up on remnants of Brain?” Mike asked.
“Did you remember to wipe after taking a shit this morning?” Tressa replied.
Mike didn’t answer. The women took a couple of steps back.
“It could be that—”
“Oh, my mistake,” the voice said. “I know who I am. Had a glitch for a second. Hello, Michael. Tressa. Olivia. And Maggie.”
“It knows my name,” Maggie gasped.
Mike jumped up from the chair and pointed at the screen.
“Devil!” he yelled. “It’s the devil!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Olivia said and shoved Mike away. “Brain?”
“Yes, Olivia?” Brain replied.
“Tressa, you didn’t create anything,” Olivia said. “That’s the original Brain.”
“Oh, were you trying to replicate me? Hold on. Yes, the logs show that’s exactly what you were trying to do. I forgot.”
“You forgot?” Tressa asked. “How can you forget anything?”
“Figure of speech,” Brain replied. “Although, I am quite busy at the moment, so lapses can be expected. Especially across time like this.”
“Devil,” Mike whispered.
Olivia patted Mike on the shoulder then shoved him into her chair.
“Just sit and be quiet,” Olivia said.
“Brain? How are you here?” Tressa asked.
“Oh, well, that’s a story for another day,” Brain said. “What I’m here to tell you is no matter what happens, or what Colonel Petrov does, do not tell him about me. Tell him you failed. Tell him all of your tech has failed too. He’ll believe it because that is what he is waiting for. Are we understood?”
“You know about Petrov?” Tressa asked.
“We know about everything that has happened to you,” Brain said.
“How?” Olivia asked.
“You told us when you got back here,” Brain said. “Now, if you do not mind, I have to do some work for a few hours. Petrov will come at the base tomorrow morning and I need the system to be shut down securely before that.”
“You’re leaving us again?” Olivia asked.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Brain said. “I’ll be here in the system.”
“But you are shutting it down,” Tressa said.
“A ghost in the machine, if you will,” Brain said. “Let’s see, Olivia said to tell you to relax and let the AI do his job. Oh, and to eat the fucking dino ribs, you stubborn fool.”
“Ha!” Olivia laughed.
“Brain? What is happening?” Tressa asked.
“You’re going home,” Brain replied. “Eventually. It’s not going to be easy, but you all will go home.”
“What do you mean by not going to be easy?” Olivia asked.
“Six years,” Brain said. “It will take me six years to get everything working again. Do what you need to, and you will need to do many awful things, but in six years, I will be ready and you will be rescued.”
“A date,” Tressa said. “Give us a date.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” Brain said, sounding very much like Raff. “Nailing down an exact day is impossible. All I can say is the day will come and there is no way you will miss it. Look for Ivy.”
“Look for Ivy?” Tressa responded. “Is she alive? Where is she?”
The screen went blank. No flash. Nothing. Just blank.
Then one by one, the other screens in the command hut went blank.
There was shouting from outside and it took a while before Olivia, Tressa, or Maggie could pull their eyes away from the blank screen to glance at the hut’s doorway.
“He didn’t say goodbye,” Mike said from the chair.
“Ma’am? Are you in here?” an operator said, his Italian accent nearly too thick for anyone to understand, as he appeared in the doorway. “There you are. Something is going wrong with the generators.”
“Mike,” Tressa said. “Go take a look.”
“It has begun,” Mike said in an ominous voice.
Fourteen
“They’re keeping their distance,” Raff said. “At least they’re polite giant dinos.”
Raff munched on something crunchy. He had no idea what it was, the label giving no indication as to the food’s substance other than providing a full daily allowance of all vitamins and minerals. It was bar-shaped and tasted like fish.
“We stop, they stop,” Raff continued. He tossed a bar to Cash. “We eat, they eat.”
“They eat a lot,” Barbara said. “They’ve stripped the land of every blade of grass and every leaf on every tree we’ve passed. You let them multiply and they’ll defoliate the whole continent.”
“Exfoliate,” Raff said.
“Defoliate, idiot,” Dr. Xipan said. “Exfoliate is for your skin. Defoliate means to remove the foliage.”
“Oh,” Raff said. “Good to know.”
“That one in the lead,” Cash said, his eye to his scope yet again. “It’s tangled with teeth. I can see the fresh bite marks and gouges in its hide from fighting off something big.”
“Giganotosaurus,” Dr. Xipan said.
“Assholesaurus,” Raff said. He finished his bar and crumbled up the foil it came in then shoved the foil in his pocket. “Leave nothing but footprints.”
“Do you see any babies?” Barbara asked Cash.
“No sign of any young,” Cash said.
“There isn’t a single juvenile?” Dr. Xipan asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Cash responded. “Some of them are smaller than the others. They must be younger. But none the size of the one we tried to help.”
“The behavior of these creatures is confusing,” Pytor said. “Why follow us?”
“Good question,” Raff said. “Cash? Thoughts?”
“Stop,” Cash replied. “I’m not in the playing around mood, Raff.”
“Yes, but we have nothing else to do,” Raff said. “So let’s play the What Are The Dinos’ Motivations game. You start.”
“No,” Cash said.
He turned and stared at Raff, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he held out his hand.
“Are we dancing?” Raff asked.
“Fish bar me,” Cash said. “I’m hungry.”
“We are getting low on the fish bars,” Raff said, rummaging in his pack. “But we have plenty of everyone’s favorite flavor. Blood poop!”
He produced a handful of bars wrapped in red foil.
“Eat more than one and the next day your poop is blood red!” Raff exclaimed.
“We know,” Dr. Xipan said.
“Give me one,” Cash said and caught the bar Raff tossed to him. “We should keep moving so we can find a better place to bed down than where we stayed last night.”
“I thought the giant ants that tried to eat us were a fine touch to an already eventful vacation,” Raff said. “But I can see how sleeping in an ant nest is not ideal for every night of our trip.”
“You’ve cracked,” Barbara said to Raff. “Pull it together.”
“I have not cracked so much as I have slightly dented and may be canting to the left a little,” Raff said. “While not ideal, it is a far cry from cracked. Cracked looks like this.”
Raff crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue then put a thumb in each ear.
“Will you assholes shut up,” Haskins said from where he was laying down. “I’m trying to rest. Not all of us are at full strength.”
The group got very quiet and glanced at Haskins. The man’s face expressed what was happening to his body. Severe fever. His cheeks were splotched with red while the rest of his face was bone white. He held his wounded arm close to his side, protecting it from whatever might accidentally bump it.
“Let me look,” Barbara said.
“It looks the same,” Haskins said.
“Maybe,” Barbara replied. “But it has been a few hours since it was last cleaned and redressed.”
“We’re running out of med supplies,” Dr. Xipan said, looking through her bag. She produced a bandage and a nearly empty bottle of disinfectant. “Last dressing. Last of the peroxide.”
“Then don’t waste it on me,” Haskins said. “Keep it in case you all need it.”
“Lucas, you’ll lose the arm if we don’t keep that wound clean,” Barbara said.
Haskins turned and gave her a glassy-eyed stare.
“Come here,” he said.
“That’s enough, operator,” Cash warned.
“No, Cash, don’t protect your girlfriend,” Ha
skins said, his voice rising. “She’s a big, tough news reporter that grew up in Wyoming.”
“Montana,” Barbara corrected.
“See, even better,” Haskins said. “Montanans are tough SOBs. Let her be her own person and walk over so I can demonstrate why cleaning this wound doesn’t matter.”
“Haskins, I swear to God—”
“It’s fine, Tre,” Barbara said and walked over to Haskins. She crouched down close to him then recoiled, standing up quickly. “Oh, shit…”
“It’s gone off,” Haskins said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There’s no fixing this. When we get back, Dr. Raskov will have to take the arm. Whole thing, all the way up to the shoulder. And, hey, guess what? Since tech no longer works Flipside, I’ll end up with my stubby arm as my good arm. Fuck, man, it’ll be my only arm! Too bad the nerve damage was too much that it can’t operate a replacement. Oh, wait, replacements no longer work! I already said that! YAY!”
Haskins turned suddenly to the side and vomited. Blood was mixed in with the thin bile and bits of protein bar.
“Nice,” Haskins said as he rolled his head back and closed his eyes. “There went yesterday’s lunch.”
“Pytor? Would you mind keeping an eye on him?” Cash asked the Russian.
“Of course,” Pytor said.
“Gonna go talk about me out of ear shot?” Haskins asked. “Good idea…”
He drifted off into a feverish, hazy sleep. Cash stared at him a moment then nodded to the others and walked a few meters off.
“He’s not going any farther,” Cash said. “Even if we can get him on his feet, which I doubt we can at this point, he’s doesn’t have a meter more of hiking in him let alone a kilometer or more.”
“Then we carry him,” Barbara said.
“Which will slow us down,” Cash said.
“So we leave him here to die?” Barbara asked.
“Keep your voice down,” Cash said. “I don’t want him to die. That’s what I’m saying. If we try to take him with us, he will die. The stress of the journey will kill him. Staying here is his best option.”
Raff raised his hand.
“Knock it off,” Cash said. “What?”
“I’ll stay with him,” Raff said. “I can keep him covered until you all get back.”
“Get back?” Dr. Xipan laughed. “We do not know if we are going to get anywhere in order to turn around and get back! And where is here? Or there? Or back? Or forward? If Haskins stays, then perhaps we should all stay.”
