Cyberdrome

by Joseph Rhea

  “You can’t imagine something like a deletion gun?” he asked.

  “Maybe you could, Alek, if our places were reversed. But I’m simply not the master programmer that you have become.”

  It was the first time that his father had acknowledged his skills, and Alek wanted to enjoy the moment but now wasn’t the time—or the place.

  “Well, we have to do something,” Maya said, rubbing the scar on her face. “I have been through enough pain to last me a lifetime.” She glanced over at the circular pad underneath the floating planet. “Like I said earlier, the Watchport beam may repair damaged bodies, but it doesn’t erase memories.”

  “The Watchport,” Alek almost yelled. “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?” Maya asked.

  “No time to explain,” he said, turning to his father. “Can you open it for us?” He looked up at the planet above them. “Can you send us both in there?”

  Both Maya and his father looked at him blankly.

  “You want to escape?” Maya asked.

  His father nodded. “That’s an excellent idea, Alek. If Ceejer can’t reach you, it will give me time to figure out how to deal with him.”

  Alek heard a commotion outside the door. It sounded like Ceejer was returning. “Just send us somewhere inside a major city,” he said, then glanced over at Maya and added, “Make sure we materialize on the ground this time.”

  His father turned and raced over to the arch on the far side of the room, where Lorena stood watching them—Alek had forgotten she was even in the room. Alek then grabbed Maya’s hand and pulled her to the center of the transport pad.

  “Wait a minute—what about Roy and Herschel?” Maya asked, holding Alek tightly around the waist.

  “There’s no time,” he said as he saw Ceejer step through the door. Javid came in with him, along with several Soldiers. “You have to trust me,” he whispered.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Ceejer bellowed when he saw what was happening. “Guards! Seize them!”

  Alek glanced at his father who gave him a thumbs-up sign. Lorena looked at him too and then pressed something on the arch control panel. The room and everything inside it faded into the blue and then disappeared. They were on their way.

  EIGHTEEN

  As before, Alek watched the planetary simulation build itself all around him. When it was complete, he stepped out of the blue light and into a darkened city street. A second later, he watched Maya step out of the concrete wall behind him.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “It’s a city, which is all I care about,” he replied, looking up and down the darkened street. There were several groups of people walking by, but none of them seemed to have noticed the two of them stepping out of the wall.

  She tugged on his sleeve until he looked at her. She had her head tilted back and was staring at the sky. “No, I mean where the hell are we?”

  When he looked up, his mouth dropped open in dismay. Above them, floating high over the tall buildings was a wall of water. Vertigo hit him and he had a sudden feeling of hanging upside down over the ocean. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. They were standing on solid ground, he said to himself, and the water was above them.

  “Underwater city,” she finally said.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Underwater?”

  “Earth Simulation Fifty-five, I think,” she said. “Remember the hologram of the planet in the Watchport. The polar ice caps were gone—melted by global warming. Most of the world’s coastal areas flooded. The United States in this version of Earth put domes over some of the coastal cities. This must be one of them.” She pointed down the street. “We’re near the edge of the city, I think.”

  He looked down the street and saw another wall of water a few blocks away. A slight reflection of the nearby buildings gave away the presence of some sort of glass or plastic wall holding back the sea. He tried not to think of what would happen if that wall ever broke.

  “You know he was lying, don’t you?” she asked.

  He looked at her. “You mean my father?”

  She nodded. “I think he’s more powerful than he’s admitting to.”

  “You’re saying he could’ve built a weapon to kill Ceejer?”

  “I don’t believe he wants to kill Ceejer,” she said.

  “Why? Why would he risk all of our lives?”

  “He’s obsessed,” she said. “He still thinks he’s saving humanity in here, and he needs Ceejer to continue his work. If Ceejer is deleted, we all go home.”

  “And he dies,” Alek added, realizing that it might be the real reason his father was reluctant to help them.

  “Are you okay with that?” she asked.

  “He made his choices,” he replied as he started across the street.

  She grabbed his arm to stop him. “So, what are we doing in here, Alek?” she asked. “Why did you request a city?”

  He glanced back at her. “My father thinks we are hiding in here,” he said as he grabbed her hand and continued across the street.

  “I know you, Alek. You don’t run from problems—you face them head on.”

  He tried to smile, but it quickly faded. “Not always,” he said. He stopped on the other side of the street and looked down at her. “I ran from you once.”

  She caressed his face. “You had your reasons. But, now you’re back and I don’t plan on letting you go again.”

  His smile returned. “To answer your question: I wanted a city because I need to borrow a computer—something I can write code on.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Remember Herschel’s weapon?”

  “The program on his memory tab was compiled into a gun when it came up through the Watchport beam,” she said. “Are you telling me that you want to try the same thing here?”

  “If I can write the code for a new weapon—something focused like a deletion gun—I should be able to take it back through the Watchport and use it against Ceejer.” He smiled at her. “If this works, we could all be going home soon.”

  “I like the sound of that,” she said, smiling back at him. “So, where do we find a computer in an underwater city?”

  He looked up at the building in front of them. “Maybe in there.”

  She looked up at the building. “You’re right. It looks like an office building.” She looked down at the main entrance. “Unfortunately, it’s closed and probably locked.”

  “Then we’ll just have to break in,” he said with a devilish grin.

  Just then, a woman behind them screamed. Alek turned to see two Soldier machines step out of the concrete wall and enter the street. A woman was standing right beside one of the headless creatures—her hands pressed to her face, screaming in sheer terror.

  He grabbed Maya by the arm. “Don’t look back,” he whispered and began walking toward the office building. Behind him, he heard the woman scream one last time, but then only muffled silence remained.

  The Soldiers were looking for them, he thought as he walked steadily up the steps to the office building. Fortunately, there were a few other people on the street and in the dim light; they might all look the same to the machines—at least from the back.

  The main door to the building was locked by a standard digital key code. He pulled her close to him, keeping their backs to where the Soldier had been standing.

  “Two minutes,” he whispered. “I can have this door open in about two minutes.”

  “Hurry,” she whispered back, then started to look over her shoulder.

  “No,” he said, grabbing her arm and facing her toward the door. “Don’t look back. Pattern recognition—they know our faces.”

  “Just hurry then,” she said, closing her eyes and pressing her body up against his.

  As he went to work deciphering the lock, he glanced up at Maya’s reflection in the glass door. She looked almost child-like, standing there with her eyes pressed tight. What you can’t see, can’t hurt yo
u, he remembered believing as a child. Was Maya thinking that now?

  He was about to look away when he noticed that behind her reflected image, he could see the place across the street where the Soldiers had been standing. It was now empty.

  “Shit,” he cursed as he pivoted around. He looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of the creatures.

  Maya opened her eyes and looked too. “Where are they?”

  He looked back at the section of concrete wall where he knew the Watchport opening to be. “Maybe they went back up to the Core,” he said.

  “That’s great,” she said.

  “Not necessarily,” he said as he turned back to the locked door and doubled his efforts to open it. “They might’ve gone to get reinforcements.”

  Just then, a shudder rocked the steps. “Earthquake?” she asked. “Or did something just blow up?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He glanced up and down the street. “I don’t see anything.”

  The ground shook again, this time it was much stronger.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  He started to ask what was wrong, but the look of terror on her face made him freeze. He pivoted around, expecting to see one of the Soldiers right behind him. Instead, he saw a huge wall of water rushing down the street towards them.

  o o o

  Inside the Watchport, Javid saw Alek and Maya disappear in the transport beam. One of the Soldiers ran over and grabbed Mathew Grey around the waist, pulling him away from the controls.

  “You surprise me, Mathew,” Ceejer said. “Do you really think you can hide your son from me?”

  Javid saw movement in the shadows. When he focused on the location, he saw a female covered by a material that allowed her to blend in with the background. Only a Sentinel’s eyes would have detected her. She had assisted in Alek’s escape, he deduced. Everyone, it seemed, was working to help Alek. Everyone, that is, except for me.

  On a command from Ceejer, two Soldiers ran toward the beam and disappeared. Without hesitation, Javid sprinted over to the nearest arch control and entered a series of commands. The Watchport beam suddenly winked out just as Javid turned to face Ceejer.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Ceejer bellowed.

  “No one else goes through,” Javid said calmly. “I scrambled the lock—only I can open it now.”

  “Then you’ve trapped them both in there,” Mathew Grey said.

  “I blocked transmission only,” he explained. “This port will still receive input from the simulation.”

  “I’m sure that I can open it,” Ceejer said as he took a step toward the arch.

  “You will fail,” Javid said as he calmly walked past Ceejer and out the door.

  A moment later, Ceejer turned and followed the Sentinel out to the open space. “Give me the combination, Sentinel Rho. That is a direct order.”

  Javid suddenly remembered a catchphrase from his pre-Sentinel life, and turned to face Ceejer. “You can have the combination when you pry it from my cold, dead brain,” he said with a half smile.

  “Clever,” Ceejer said dryly. “You will, of course, pay for your actions with the deletion of your source code.”

  Javid stood tall as he faced his former supervisor. “I am a Sentinel. I have always been willing to sacrifice my code for the good of the system.”

  “I am the system supervisor,” Ceejer said, a rapidly building anger in his voice. “Only I can know what is good for the system.”

  “Alek has reminded me that I am capable of thinking outside my basic programming and I can now see that while he made many errors in judgment, his purpose was never corrupt. You, on the contrary, are indeed corrupt, and are no longer a benefit to this system. Therefore, logically, you must be removed.”

  Ceejer stood there silently for several long seconds. “I see now that I underestimated the interaction of the individual forces within your group,” he said. “Biologics valuing the lives of digitals, Mathew’s Transgenics deciding their own fates, and now Sentinels going against their basic programming.” He turned to Mathew who stood motionless next to one of the Soldiers. “What is the name you biologics have for this phenomenon?”

  Mathew was staring at the ground near his feet, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. Perhaps he was concerned for his son, Javid thought.

  “Dr. Grey,” Ceejer repeated.

  “You’re talking about chaotic interactions between components of an otherwise organized system, resulting in unpredictable behavior,” Grey said without taking his eyes off the ground. “We call it an emergent behavior.”

  “Ah, yes,” Ceejer said. “An emergent behavior that ends now.”

  With a nod of his head, the Soldiers backed up and formed a wide circle around Javid. Then, one of the Soldiers stepped into the ring and approached him. The crouching posture of the creature made it appear only slightly larger than he was, but with two-meter long arms and legs, a solid blow from either appendage could cause him serious damage.

  “Sentinel,” a familiar voice called out. Javid glanced to the side and saw Jas Kaido unstrapping his club from his leg. Before the nearest Soldier could react, he tossed it toward Javid. It struck the ground less than a meter away and slid next to his foot.

  “Feel free to pick it up,” Ceejer said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to accuse me of denying you a fair fight.”

  Javid picked up the club and examined it. It appeared to be a hydraulic piston from one of the leg sections of a Spider. Not exactly a fair fight, Javid thought as he extended the piston to its full length and turned to face his foe.

  The Soldier attacked immediately, lunging onto its two arms and kicking at him with its legs. Javid easily rolled between them and struck the body sections as hard as he could. The recoil from his metal club bouncing off the solid metal sections almost knocked the weapon out of his hands. He scampered off to the side as the Soldier turned around to face him again.

  As the Soldier charged, Javid feinted left, and then rolled to his right. The maneuver fooled the Soldier for a moment, but then it grabbed one of the sections of its right arm with its left and lashed out with a new three-meter arm span, striking Javid squarely in the chest. He saw sparks as he flew backward and crashed hard into the side of the Watchport, then fell to his hands and knees on the hard ground.

  He crouched there for a moment, trying to force the pain down. He did a quick inventory of his body and found three broken ribs and a damaged right lung. He mentally ordered his internal organs to begin repairing themselves. He could feel the ground pulsating below his hands and knees, supplying him with raw energy. Within a few seconds, he began to feel slightly better.

  Although he needed to remain motionless for a few more minutes to give his body time to repair the damage, he knew that he couldn’t afford to let Ceejer, or his opponent, know that he was injured. He took one last deep breath, and then jumped to his feet.

  By now, the Soldier had reattached the extra section to its original position on its right arm. Javid was impressed by the speed with which the creature could separate and reattach sections, essentially recreating its size and shape as needed. It was obvious that conventional tactics would be useless against such a being. However, experience taught him that knowing an opponent’s strengths often shed light on its weaknesses.

  As the Soldier began circling him, Javid hit upon the one flaw in the creature’s otherwise masterful design. The end of each section contained a sort of hand joint, which it used to grasp and hold onto other sections. In order for the joints of the hands to operate, they could not be heavily armored and were therefore the Soldier’s weakest parts. When the creature lunged at him a moment later, he was ready.

  This time, the Soldier grabbed its entire right arm with the left one, slapping it down hard like a steel whip. Javid barely managed to roll out of the way as the last section hit; tearing a hole in the ground less than a meter from Javid’s foot. It stuck there momentarily.

  Javid used the sp
lit-second opening to dive toward the Soldier’s torso. This time, instead of striking at the armored sections, he swung his club as hard as he could at the joint between the extended arm and the main body. As he had anticipated, the joint separated in a shower of sparks.

  The now armless soldier stumbled awkwardly backward, apparently unable to come up with a new configuration using its remaining six sections. At the same time, the disembodied four-section arm unit managed to remove itself from the ground, but it faced a similar predicament.

  Javid knew that if either group could reach the other, he would not have a second chance. He attacked the joints of the main body with his makeshift club, and even though it was able to kick at him with some success, he quickly bashed it into six useless sections. Then he went after the snake-like arm sections but they were not able to put up much of a fight. In a matter of minutes, the Soldier lay in ten pieces across the empty circle.

  Javid turned back to face Ceejer. “Is that the best you can do?” he asked.

  Ceejer smiled as the damaged sections were dragged off by the surrounding Soldiers. “Look around you and the answer will become obvious,” Ceejer said.

  Javid looked at the wall of Soldiers surrounding him, and then back at the opening of the Watchport. “I will hold them until you return, Alek,” he whispered, then turned to face his next opponent.

  o o o

  In one swift motion, Alek turned and entered the final code to unlock the building’s door, then pushed it open and pulled Maya in. “Run,” he yelled. When he saw her turning toward the elevator across the lobby, he yelled again. “No, use the stairs.”

  Behind them, he heard the rush of water blast through the front door. As they sprinted up the steps toward the second floor, he yelled, “Top floor, or at least as high as we can get.”