by Jack Heath
He doesn’t deny it. ‘I could crack your skull open and take out your hard drive,’ he says. ‘Soon I’d know everything you do. But it would be easier for both of us if you just told me.’
I already know what the question is going to be. But I don’t know the answer.
‘Where is the quantum mechanical processor?’ he says.
I say nothing. If he realizes I don’t know, then he’ll go after Kylie.
He belts me across the face, hard. The backs of his knuckles leave a stinging dent in my silicone cheek.
‘You feel pain, don’t you?’ he says. ‘I could do things to you that would kill a human being. But you would stay conscious and feel every moment of it. Where is the quantum mechanical processor?’ I don’t reply.
He hits me again, once in the face, once in the chest. I cry out, and tell myself the agony is just a simulation, but I can’t make myself believe it. My synthetic nerve endings are screaming.
I’m going to die here. No one will ever know what happened to me. I’ll never see Becky again.
‘We know you have it!’ he roars. A thread of spit flails between his lips. ‘The tracking beacon sends out a pulse every forty-eight hours. We followed it to Scullin High School, but you must have got there first. Now it’s underground again. Where did you hide it?’
The QMP can’t be tracked underground. Now I know why Graeme hid it in the basement.
‘Please, I …’
He pulls his fist back, like a wrecking ball ready to be swung.
‘I’ll tell you!’ I say. ‘Please, just don’t hit me any more.’
‘Where?’
I rack my brain for a plausible spot. Somewhere I might have hidden the QMP if I had it. Somewhere underground. Somewhere he’ll have to untie me, and I can escape.
‘I buried it,’ I say. ‘In a construction site near the motorway.’
He hauls me to my feet so as I can see out of the windscreen. The chains twist my arms behind my back. Then he climbs back into the driver’s seat.
‘Take me there,’ he says.
~
My mind races as the van pulls up outside the half-built hotel. How long can I convince him that I’m cooperating? Will it be long enough for me to find a way to escape?
‘There’s security,’ he says, looking out the window. ‘Two guys, at least.’
‘We’ll have to come back at night,’ I tell him.
He snorts. ‘Nice try.’ He opens the glovebox and pulls out a large, square pistol. The safety catch clicks off.
Fear swallows my lungs. ‘You can’t kill them!’ I say. ‘They have nothing to do with this!’
‘They’re in my way,’ he says.
‘We can sneak past. There’s a fence, around the back, we can climb over it …’
‘No.’ He unlocks the cuffs around my wrists and feet. ‘We’re going to walk right in at the front gate. Whatever I say, you’re going to back me up. If you try to warn the guards in any way, I’m going to kill them both, and then I’m going to use a power sander to grind off your hands. Understood?’
I nod. It’s my fault that he’s here. I can’t let the security guards die.
‘Good,’ he says, and slips the gun into his jacket pocket before opening the back of the van. We climb out into the daylight.
Ivan, the middle-aged security guard, is standing in his booth. He looks over at us as we approach. I will him not to recognize me from my break-in on Wednesday night.
‘Excuse me,’ he says, stepping out of the door of the booth. ‘This is a restricted area.’
‘So I’ve been told,’ says the soldier. ‘My name is Aaron Thomas, and I’m a federal agent. I have a warrant to search these premises.’
He flashes a badge, and then pulls a neatly folded A4 sheet of paper from his pocket and hands it to the guard. It can’t have the address of the construction site on it, since the soldier didn’t know where we would be going, but Ivan doesn’t seem to notice the inconsistency.
‘What’s this about?’ he says.
‘I’m afraid that’s classified, sir,’ says ‘Aaron Thomas’.
He’s very convincing. I suspect this isn’t the first time he’s impersonated a cop.
‘Who’s she?’ Ivan says, looking me up and down.
‘A material witness,’ Thomas says. ‘Open the gate, please.’
‘I’ll have to call the owner.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. Not unless you want to go to court. The Official Secrets Act prohibits off-site communication while the warrant is being executed.’
He must think Ivan isn’t convinced. I can see the outline of the gun moving in his pocket, lining up with Ivan’s guts.
‘It won’t take long,’ I say. ‘The sooner we’re done, the sooner you can call your boss.’
Ivan looks us both up and down.
‘Ten minutes,’ I tell him. ‘Tops.’
‘OK,’ he says finally, and walks over to the switch that controls the gate.
As it squeaks and rattles, Thomas walks through the gap. I follow him. When he notices that Ivan is right behind us, he stops.
‘Whoa,’ he says. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘You can’t leave my sight,’ Ivan says.
‘Yes we can,’ Thomas says. ‘This is a matter of national security. You can’t observe the search.’
‘If I leave you alone, I could lose my job.’
‘If you don’t, you could go to prison for obstruction of justice.’ The soldier steps towards Ivan, looming over him. ‘It’s your choice. Either you go back to your booth, or I’ll be forced to arrest you.’
It only takes a few seconds for Ivan to back down. ‘Ten minutes,’ he says.
‘Ten minutes.’ Thomas turns and walks away. I follow him.
‘So far, so good,’ he says, once we’re out of earshot. ‘You might just make it through this.’
He’s lying. He’s already killed Graeme. He has no reason to treat me differently.
‘Which way?’
I point, and we start walking towards Chloe’s grave.
‘Down there?’ the soldier says when we reach the pit.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘This looks like a car park,’ he says. ‘The QMP could have ended up covered in concrete.’
‘That was the idea.’
‘Why? How would you get it back?’
‘It wasn’t about having it,’ I say. ‘It was about Ares not having it.’
He gives me a look halfway between suspicion and respect. Maybe he’s seeing me as a threat for the first time.
An escape plan is forming in my mind.
‘Someone in defence got to you,’ he guesses. ‘They’re trying to terminate the deal.’
‘Do you want the QMP or not?’
I clamber down the ladder into the pit, and he follows. I lead him to the place where the real Chloe Zimetski is buried.
‘You got anything to dig with?’ I ask.
He nods, and points the gun at me. ‘You.’
I sigh, drop to my knees, and start shifting the dirt aside with my palms.
‘You’re sure this is the right spot?’ he says.
‘Yes.’
‘How deep?’
‘Not very.’
He waits until he can see a shape forming under the dirt, and then he says, ‘Stand up.’
I hesitate. ‘I haven’t found it yet.’
He smirks. ‘You think you’re clever. You’ve got some kind of weapon buried under there with it. Stand up, and take four big steps back.’
I do, slowly.
He crouches, and starts pulling away the dirt. His eyes are down, but his head is up, so as he can watch me in his peripheral vision. The pink tip of Chloe’s nose is visible.
With one sweep of Thomas’s hand, more of her face is revealed.
I expected a moment of surprise. He’s looking for a computer chip, and found a dead body instead. But what I get is better. He’s more than surprised—he’s horrified.
Confused.
I scream.
The noise slices through the air like a howling jet engine. It can’t be as loud as a real weaponized noise cannon, but the volume coming out of my throat is a hundred times that of the video the cops showed me. My cheeks bulge and my teeth vibrate with the force of it. I can almost feel my battery draining.
The effect on Thomas is immediate. He stumbles backwards, face contorted, hands pressed over his ears. I charge, still screaming, and hit him with a flying tackle. He slams against the ground and all the air whooshes out of him as I tear the pistol from his hand and press the barrel against his throat.
‘Who are you?’ he gasps.
I ignore the question. ‘Did you really think that Ares was Hera Global’s only little project?’ I hiss. ‘Did you think we would ignore you overstepping your boundaries so flagrantly?’
His eyes widen. ‘What?’
‘Shut up.’ I hit him in the side of the head with the grip of the gun, and he grunts. The crunch of metal on bone makes me feel ill.
I can get rid of this one soldier, but more will come. They know who I am. They know what I am. Ares could destroy me—but not if I destroy them first.
I need proof. Something to show to Anders. Becky suggested hacking into their servers to get their email records.
‘Where are Ares’ backup servers?’ I ask.
Thomas says nothing.
I push the barrel of the gun into the flesh beneath his jaw. ‘I’m not going to ask again.’
‘We don’t have any,’ Thomas says. ‘It would be a security risk.’
Having committed so many crimes, that’s probably true. I can’t prove that they’re behind the attack on the school, or Graeme’s murder …
Unless I break into their headquarters. And not just the car park this time.
‘Surrender your pass key, soldier,’ I say.
He hesitates a minute too long. I hit him with the gun again. ‘Hand it over!’
Thomas digs around in his pocket and produces a card. It looks like the key to a hotel room, except that it’s blank on both sides. I snatch it out of his hand.
‘Where is the server room at Ares HQ?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Yes,’ I lie. ‘But I want to know where you’ve been told it is.’
‘Top floor,’ he says.
‘I need your phone,’ I say. ‘Your car keys, too.’
He struggles to free the items from his pocket. I take them, rise to my feet and point the gun at him.
‘Get on your knees,’ I say. ‘Facing away from me. Interlace your fingers behind your head.’
Fear appears in his gaze. ‘Wait.’
‘Do it.’
He does so, slowly. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘I have a family.’
‘So did Graeme Zimetski. Did you think about that?’
‘I’m sorry. I was following orders.’
My sadness is now overwhelmed by fury. I don’t think my cheeks are capable of blushing, but my whole face feels hot with rage. Thomas is right. It’s not just him I want to hurt. It’s Warren Christiansen. He gave the orders to stalk Chloe, to kill Graeme, to torture me—and he doesn’t regret it. Yet.
I press the muzzle to the back of Thomas’s head and say nothing for a few seconds, letting him think he’s going to die. Then I say, ‘You’re going to bury her again. Exactly like she was. Then you’re going to leave town and never come back. Unless you do exactly as I say …’
I lean in, whispering in his ear. ‘… it’ll be your face I’m wearing next time.’
He falls onto his hands and knees, trembling. I tell myself that he doesn’t deserve my sympathy.
I take one last look at Chloe’s face before I leave. I had half expected her to be a husk by now, flesh nibbled away by ants and worms, but her skin is still filled with lifelike colour. The only damage I can see is the bullet hole in her temple, hideous in the sunshine. Beneath it …
My flesh turns to ice. Through the hole, I can see the gleam of a titanium skull.
UNEARTHED
‘Becky,’ I say. ‘The real Chloe was a machine too.’
‘What?’ Her voice crackles in the soldier’s earpiece. ‘That doesn’t make any sense!’
‘I dug up her body. It’s definitely mechanical.’
I’m in the soldier’s van, hurtling towards Ares headquarters. Before I left the pit, I swept some dirt over Chloe so Thomas wouldn’t see what I saw—the wires, the speaker, the frayed edges of the rubber. I don’t know what he would think was going on if he knew. I don’t even know what I think is going on.
But I know this. In the eyes of the law, Chloe’s murder wouldn’t be a murder. It was just a computer getting broken by a stray bullet.
I passed Ivan on my way out. ‘Give my colleague a couple more minutes,’ I told him. ‘He’s nearly done.’ Hopefully he’ll leave Thomas alone long enough for him to bury the body again. But if he doesn’t, then what? It’s not actually a body. When I thought I was carefully disposing of evidence, all I was really doing was littering.
‘But she was real,’ Becky is saying. ‘I felt her body heat, and her breathing, and her pulse. At Pete’s birthday party.’
I feel a stab of jealousy. I don’t have any of those things, and Becky must have noticed.
‘She must have been replaced after that,’ I say.
Graeme’s voice echoes through my head. She’s been acting strangely for weeks.
The birthday party. The stalking. Suddenly it all fits.
‘I’m a copy of a copy,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘Six weeks ago, Ares realized that Graeme had the QMP. But they couldn’t figure out exactly where he was keeping it, because the basement muffled the signal from the tracking beacon. The house has incredible security, so they couldn’t break in to look for it and, if they bribed him or threatened him, he might go to the police. Detective Anders was already sniffing around.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘At school, she showed me some videos of weapons, which I later saw in Ares’ headquarters. Anyway, they must have been wary of kidnapping or torturing Graeme at that stage. They wouldn’t want anyone else to know they’d lost it and a missing senior defence staffer would have raised suspicions. So instead they built a listening device. A walking, talking replica of his daughter. Then they intercepted the real Chloe on her way home from Pete’s birthday party, killed her and made the switch.’
‘That’s insane,’ Becky says.
‘Think about it. Graeme trusted Chloe. The replica—Chloe Two—could go into every room of his house, use his car and listen to all his conversations without making him suspicious. She was bound to overhear something useful.’
‘You think Chloe Two was spying on him for Ares?’
‘Not intentionally,’ I say. ‘I think they just gave her really good ears and programmed her to be curious. The craziest part is that their plan nearly worked. If Chloe Two had survived, she might have overheard Graeme talking to Nadine, just like I did. When Ares picked her up and scanned her hard drive, they’d know everything that I know now.’
‘You don’t know where the QMP is, though’ Becky points out.
‘Only because it’s not in Graeme’s basement any more. That’s the part I can’t figure out.’
‘Why would Ares have to collect Chloe Two to find out what she knew? Couldn’t they have designed her to transmit what she saw and heard wirelessly?’
‘The house is a fortress,’ I remind her. ‘For all Ares knew, a rogue transmission would have set off an alarm. Instead, they must have dispatched a small group of soldiers to observe Chloe Two from a distance and pick her up when the time was right. They messed that up the night she died and they haven’t got to me either. Yet.’
‘You don’t think she knew she was a machine?’
‘No. Nor did I, when I first woke up. They probably used the same template for her software that she used for mine.’
‘Wouldn’t s
he have figured it out, though?’ Becky asks.
My lungs tighten in my chest, even though I know they’re not there.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Why would she? I can eat. I can spit. I can sense my heartbeat. I feel real—and I was made out of bits and pieces ordered over the internet. She was manufactured by a billion dollar company which specializes in robotics. Her body would have been much more realistic than mine.’
‘But because she was curious, she noticed the soldiers following her. And instead of telling anyone …’
‘She built me. Chloe Three. Now that I think about it, that’s exactly the sort of solution a machine would come up with.’
‘That’s why you had no memory of me,’ Becky realizes. ‘Because the Chloe who created you wasn’t the same one I had a relationship with.’
‘Exactly. Even if Ares hacked into Chloe’s email, and her phone, and her social profiles, they wouldn’t have known about you—so Chloe Two didn’t know either.’
Becky is silent for a moment. I wonder if she’s thinking about Chloe One. The girl she loved. The girl who died only hours after their first kiss. The girl who was more than I could ever be.
‘So what do we do?’ she asks finally.
‘I’ve got an access card. I’m on my way to Hera Global.’
‘What? No! We have to go to the police.’
‘We don’t have a shred of proof,’ I say. ‘But if I can get into their server room …’
‘You are the proof.’
‘Ares didn’t build me,’ I say. ‘Chloe Two did. Even if Anders believes me after she finds out what I am, Ares has an army of lawyers to protect them. I need their email records.’
‘At least take some time to plan. You can just …’
‘I have a plan, and it can’t wait. Soon they’ll start to wonder what happened to the soldier who kidnapped me. They’ll revoke his access card.’
‘Chloe, listen to me. They have hundreds of soldiers. They’ll kill you.’
The desperation in her voice makes me realize that she actually cares. To her, I’m more than just her girlfriend’s ghost.
But Ares murdered Graeme, Nadine, and two Chloes. They tortured me. They nearly killed Pete. And now that they know who I am, they could come after Kylie or Henrietta. This is my last chance to stop them from hurting anyone else.
