The Link

by Isaac Hooke

  15

  Jain fired at the micro machines that crawled on the floor all around him. The android team had entered a wider compartment, this one with a narrow walkway leading across a series of what looked like sparking transformers. But as soon as they had reached the center of the walkway, micro machines had flooded into the room from either entrance, crawling onto the walkway and trapping the team.

  Jain had tried to force his way through the termites, but there were too many of them, and his power cell drained almost to zero, so he had been forced to retreat. His cell was slowly recharging, but it would be a while before he could risk further contact with the tiny things.

  The walkway could fit two abreast, so Sheila was beside him, firing her laser, and crouched in front of him were Eric and Cranston, unleashing their plasma rifles. Crusher and Dickson were behind, and fired over the shoulders of Sheila and Jain. Mark and Brontosaurus had swung their bodies over the railing to the left and right of Crusher and Dickson respectively, and gripped the bars with one hand while they leaned out and fired their rifles at the incoming termites with the other.

  But even with all of them unleashing hell like that, the micro machines still approached. The termites were slowly forcing the androids back, toward the other team members who were arranged in a similar attack stack behind them; the latter members fired at the termites coming from the opposite direction, and they, too, were being forced backward so that the two defending sides were compressing.

  Jain had already thrown two energy grenades; the attack worked relatively well for clearing the termites within the blast radius, however it did no damage to the walkway. The shockwave also hurled several termites onto the defenders, activating their spark defenses.

  “I’m throwing a grenade!” Eric glanced at Jain expectantly while releasing several more laser shots. He reached toward his harness with his free hand.

  Jain took the hint and slid past Crusher and Dickson so that, when Eric threw the grenade, Jain was shielded from the termites by the bodies of the other androids. Yes, his power cell was that low—he didn’t want to risk being hit by any more termites that might be thrown as shrapnel.

  The androids in front of him shielded their faces as the explosion went off, and their exteriors sparked as the micro machines and their fragments triggered the bug zappers. The termites dropped to the floor around them like hail. A couple were hurled directly past the screening androids, and simply landed on the walkway next to Jain. As they roved about randomly, trying to get their bearings, he stomped them.

  Crusher slid forward to stand beside Sheila, and Jain took her place next to Dickson. He aimed his rifle over her left shoulder and gazed through the sights: the space the grenade had cleared on the walkway was almost already gone as the termites behind them flowed forward to fill it. Jain unleashed his plasma beam anew.

  “Nice path through the ship you chose,” Brontosaurus said between shots. “Could you have chosen one more full of termites?”

  “Glad you’re happy with it,” Eric said.

  “I really wish I had a Cicada body right about now,” Brontosaurus said.

  Mark squeezed off three shots in rapid succession. “What’s a Cicada body?”

  “Look it up!” Brontosaurus yelled.

  “Can’t,” Mark told him. “I don’t have access to my cloud database. My consciousness is constrained like all hell in here.”

  “That’s strange, because I have full access to all my data,” Brontosaurus said. “Then again, I never did have this cloud you speak of.”

  “What, you’re saying you got a better brain then I do?” Mark glanced over his shoulder while firing, and still managed to take out five termites in a row, in rapid succession.

  Brontosaurus leaned out a little farther, the sinews in his android arm cording, and fired even faster, taking out ten, as if to one up him. And said: “Basically.”

  “Impossible,” Mark fired even faster, outdoing Brontosaurus by taking down fifteen in a blur. “You’re a first generation neural net.”

  Brontosaurus pulled closer to the rail once more. He shot ten at his usual speed, apparently already content that he’d proven his point. Wise, because anything faster risked an overheating. “First gen? And so I am. But that’s the key, isn’t it? You later models were designed to offload more of your data in the cloud. We didn’t have much of a cloud in my day, unless you count the Internet, so we had to pack as much information as we could into the neural nets we had.”

  “At the cost of memory capacity,” Mark said. “I heard some of you begin rewriting older memories when you get to a certain age, because you don’t have the room for them.”

  “Hasn’t happened to me yet,” Brontosaurus said.

  “How do you know?” Mark said. “Memories are subjective. You’d never notice it. One day you’d lose a childhood memory, but you’d never know, because you wouldn’t remember the childhood memory you lost!”

  “Grenade!” Cranston said, the irritation clear in his voice. Like Jain, the former spec ops man didn’t like listening to inane babbling in the middle of combat. Then again, such people weren’t uncommon on the teams. They’d be bragging about all the pussy they got back home in between lighting up tanks. But when things really got hectic, even the chatty usually shut up.

  Though that didn’t quite hold true with Mind Refurbs. Not always. Things were hectic now, after all, and that hadn’t stopped them. He blamed it on the powerful, multitasking minds responsible for squeezing those triggers.

  Cranston threw the promised grenade to forestall the advance of the termites.

  Jain ducked behind Sheila as it detonated, and stomped on the three micro machines that landed unharmed on the walkway next to him.

  “They keep coming!” Crusher said. “No matter how many we take down. We could use up all our grenades, and it still wouldn’t make a difference!”

  “If we use up all our grenades, the mission is a scrub,” Eric said.

  “Yeah well, if we die, the mission is a scrub, too!” Crusher told him.

  “How do we know those transformers will kill us?” Dickson said. That was the only thing keeping them on the bridge at the moment.

  “We don’t,” Jain said. “Care to volunteer?”

  “I’ll do it,” Brontosaurus said.

  “No,” Eric said, standing slightly. “Let me.”

  But Brontosaurus pushed off from where he was leaning off the railing, and plunged toward the transformers. When he impacted, electricity sparked from the transformers all around him, and Brontosaurus’ body convulsed sickeningly. Some kind of hydraulic fluid foamed from his mouth.

  And then the electricity stopped.

  Brontosaurus didn’t get up.

  Jain glanced at his HUD, where he had the status indicators of all the androids listed; Brontosaurus’ had turned red.

  “No!” Eric stood up and vaulted off the railing, landing beside Brontosaurus. The inactive transformers didn’t harm him.

  “Everyone, get down there!” Jain said.

  They all pulled themselves over the railing and leaped down.

  Frogger knelt beside Eric to examine Brontosaurus.

  “He’s gone,” Frogger said.

  Eric shut his eyes. “We have a backup.” It sounded like he was saying that more for himself than anyone else.

  “Yes, we do,” Jain said, resting a reassuring hand on Eric’s shoulder.

  Eric shrugged it away angrily, and stood. He nodded at the walkway behind him.

  Jain glanced where he indicated, and saw the termites spilling over the edges above.

  “Fan out!” Jain said. “Find a way out!”

  He turned around and leaped between the blocky transformers, weaving between the large coils that protruded from them. He reached the far side of the compartment and began scanning the bulkhead.

  “Here!” Sheila said.

  Jain hurried to her position and saw the small entrance below; it was set into the bulkhead where the base
of the transformer touched the floor.

  “Mark, Cranston, secure it!” Jain said.

  The two leaped down.

  Meanwhile, Eric reached his side and glared at him. He sent Jain a private message.

  “I thought we agreed that I was in charge,” Eric sent.

  I never agreed to anything, Jain thought. Even so, he wasn’t going to quibble about their command structure, not now. But before he could agree that Eric was in charge, a terrible shriek came from the passageway below, and then Mark’s status indicator turned red on Jain’s HUD.

  “Mark!” Medeia screamed.

  She tried to leap down, but Jain physically restrained her by wrapping an arm around her waist. “No!”

  Medeia struggled in his grasp. “Let… me… go you fucker!”

  She elbowed him in the face, and squeezed his crotch hard enough to pulverize his genitals—good thing he didn’t have any in his current form. It still hurt, though, and he disabled the pain sense.

  Despite what she was doing, he didn’t let go, and instead only tightened his grip.

  “He’s gone,” Jain told her.

  Finally she stopped struggling and simply sagged in his grasp.

  Cranston appeared in the opening below and leaped upward, scrambling frantically up the transformer. Jain released Medeia, and was relieved when she didn’t try to jump down. Instead she simply stood there, rifle slung over one shoulder, hugging herself.

  Jain reached down and helped Cranston the rest of the way up.

  Cranston’s android face was very pale, and it was obvious he was shaken.

  “Can’t go that way,” Cranston said.

  “Why, what’s there?” Jain asked.

  “Can’t go that way,” Cranston repeated.

  “Are there any other exits?” Eric asked the team.

  “No!” Frogger said from some distance along the curved wall. “That’s the only one.”

  “What about the other side of the room?” Eric asked.

  Jain turned around. He nodded at the transformers, and the floor between them. “Can’t cross that.” The surface teemed with termites. The micro machines covered the entire western half of the room, between the team and the walkway.

  Jain spun on Cranston. “We have to continue. What’s down there? What did you see?”

  “I saw… it,” Cranston said.

  “It?” Jain said in exasperation. “Give me access to your feed history.”

  Jain accelerated his time sense, and connected to Cranston’s recording history. He jumped back one minute in time and played the feed back at an accelerated pace. He watched from Cranston’s viewpoint as the Mind Refurb followed Mark into the passageway. There was a blur, and then the feed went black. It cut back in five seconds later, but Cranston was already retreating by then.

  “So, what did he see?” Sheila asked.

  “His feed is blank,” Jain said. “The video cut out just before Mark screamed.”

  “Convenient,” Marlborough said.

  The other Bolt Eaters often called that one Sarge. He obviously had been in command at some point, before Eric took over.

  Sheila considered what Jain said. “An EMP weapon could do that.”

  “An EMP would have disabled Cranston,” Medeia said, still hugging herself.

  “Not necessarily,” Bambi said. “These androids are equipped with advanced EMP voltage rerouting hardware. The camera feed temporarily going offline is a sign that the EMP rerouting was successful, because the camera subroutines reboot in an over voltage scenario.”

  “But that still doesn’t tell us what happened to your man,” Frogger told Jain.

  “No,” Jain said with a glance at Cranston. “Only Cranston knows.”

  But the former spec ops man merely stared down at the hole, as if expecting it to come alive and eat them all at any instant.

  “It takes a lot to disturb a man of his mettle,” Jain said.

  Crusher stepped to the edge and gazed down. “So what you’re saying is, whatever is down there, it’s worse than the micro machines.”

  “Probably,” Jain said.

  “But if we stay here, we’re dead anyway.” Eric gazed at the ever approaching micro machines. Their tiny metal feet made an audible skittering sound on the transformers, which was magnified by the sheer number of them, not to mention the echo-like acoustics of the room.

  “We are.” Jain tightened his grip on his rifle. He fired at the wall in front of him, hoping the plasma beam would drill through, but instead he melted away only a small crater.

  He sighed. “I’m going down.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Eric said immediately.

  Eric was about to leap down, when Bambi rested an urgent hand on shoulder.

  “No,” Bambi said. “Let someone else go. You’re our leader.”

  “If I could beat the Curator, I can beat this,” Eric told her.

  “But I helped you,” Bambi said. “I will go too, then.”

  “Not this time,” Eric said. “Marlborough, you’re in charge until I get back.” He returned his attention to Jain.

  “Just the two of us,” Jain said.

  “No, stay,” Sheila told him. “Let someone else go. Cranston.”

  Cranston bit his lower lip, but straightened slightly. “I’ll go, if you need me to.”

  “No,” Jain said. “You’ve done enough. Eric and I will handle this. You’re in command, Cranston, if I don’t make it.” He glanced at Eric, and the man nodded.

  Jain smiled grimly, and together they leaped down to face death.

  16

  Jain advanced through the passageway. It didn’t seem any different than any of the previous routes: the bulkheads formed a rectangular shape with the deck and overhead and glowed a dark blue.

  Eric remained close to his side. The two easily fit abreast here. A third android probably could have fit, if they had allowed it.

  Ahead, Jain spotted the remnants of Mark lying on the floor. Witnessing his friend reduced like that, well, it felt almost like being punched in the stomach. He accelerated his time sense, slowing the external world, taking a moment to recover; when he was good, he returned reality to its normal pace.

  He went to his friend and knelt to examine him. Seeing Mark up close made the pain come back all over again. Mark’s chest was melted open. On his face, his eyes were permanently wide, and his expression frozen in a rictus of pain.

  Jain had witnessed the death of different Void Warriors before when their ships had been blown up in the cold void of space. But this was different. This was up close and personal, more real, reminiscent of the deaths of fellow SEALs from his human days. Instead of space debris, Mark had left behind an actual body, even if that body was robotic in nature. Jain reminded himself that Mark had created a fresh mind backup before undertaking the mission, so he wasn’t truly dead. Though that was little help to this version of Mark, who would never interact with this universe in any form ever again.

  “What did this?” Eric asked. He kept an eye on the passageway ahead, constantly gazing from the bulkheads to the overhead and back again, as if expecting the walls to come alive.

  As he looked down at Mark, Jain found it hard to keep his emotions out of the equation… and harder still to regard the body of his friend as some object simply to be analyzed. But he had a mission to complete. And a hidden enemy to defeat.

  “Could have been a lot of things,” Jain finally said. “The blast pattern in the chest is consistent with something an energy weapon might cause. Could have been a plasma weapon, or something equivalent to our energy grenades.” He examined the small burn holes in the uniform below Mark’s neck; he slid his hand underneath the fabric, poking a finger through one of the holes. “These could have been caused by a laser.”

  “So it wasn’t a bioweapon,” Eric said.

  “Either a robot, or a bioweapon with cybernetic attachments,” Jain told him.

  Then he felt an intrusion.

  Jain sti
ffened. Something was accessing his internal subroutines.

  He quickly heightened his time sense, and slowed reality to a halt around him.

  He attempted to deactivate his internal radio, and thus stop all incoming transmissions, but it was too late. The radio didn’t answer to his requests.

  “Sheila,” he sent mentally over the comm. “The AI has infiltrated my system somehow.”

  No answer.

  He realized his message hadn’t even gotten out. He tried to turn his body. It wouldn’t respond. He attempted to adjust his time sense. No good.

  But then time abruptly snapped to normal.

  He glanced at Eric, whose face was a mask of concentration. Then the look faded.

  “Something just tried to get into my neural net,” Eric said. “I’ve isolated the code, and neutralized it.”

  Jain found himself wearing a puzzled expression. “What was it?” he said, though he hadn’t spoken the words.

  “I think it was the ship’s AI,” Eric said. “It found a zero day backdoor in our communications code. I believe I’ve patched it, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more backdoors. I’d recommend changing all external encryption keys, especially those used for comms, at the very least. I’m sending the isolation code your way, so you can run it.”

  Jain received a sharing request, and the entity in control of him automatically accepted it. But then it promptly slid the code to the trash icon, and didn’t execute it.

  “It’s done,” Jain said. No it’s not! “I’m fully inoculated.”

  Eric nodded.

  Jain still had access to his internal file system. He frantically pulled up the file navigation system and overlaid it on his HUD. As he watched, internal files were being deleted across the board. Those were all memories… he was watching his life being deleted.

  He accessed the trash folder, and saw that the intruder hadn’t yet emptied it, meaning the memories weren’t fully deleted, not yet.

  “Whatever did this is still out there,” Eric was saying.

  As his body nodded of its own volition, Jain scrolled through the list of files in the trash folder, and was relieved when he found Eric’s isolation code. He prayed he could still execute it.