Scavenger: A.I.: (Sand Divers, Book Two)

by Timothy C. Ward

  “Our offer expires in five seconds, Nedzad,” Star said.

  There was a way to gain space and time, but it would mean needing a new suit.

  And it would hurt like hell.

  But if he let them take him now, he’d lose all his leverage.

  He popped the power pellet out of his DL, cupped it in his hands and fell into a ball. The dog’s footsteps skittered forward. He focused his suit’s EM into the pellet he held over his shoulders and closed his eyes. The room brightened into blinding, hot light.

  Pop!

  5 - Rush (8:52 pm)

  “Our offer expires in five seconds, Nedzad,” Star said.

  “Don’t do it, Star,” Rush said through a private channel. He cut at the hall leading to where Nedzad had shot a hole in the floor. Star was now just as much in control of the M-MANs as he was, and much more willing to call Nedzad’s bluff.

  Four strides from the hole, a bright blue light erupted through the floor. A wide shield popped out of his leading wrist, unfolding to grip within his palm. He looked down and saw the open spacing in his Poseidon had been seamlessly covered with the same metal that made up the rest of his armor. He slowed to the hole and peered down. His connection to the M-MANs in the floor below had been cut off in nearly a four hundred square foot radius from Nedzad’s location.

  His neck twitched. Again. Something was wrong. His sense map folded in where it should be flat. Sections dropped out of sync. An alarm went off reporting FIRE. Sprinklers unleashed fire suppressant. Alarm. Alarm. Alarm. Alarm… Rush backed up, clutching his head. “Singer, help.”

  A counter on Rush’s dash read upward through the hundreds. IDENTIFY AN ERROR OR ALARM TO ACKNOWLEDGE.

  A map appeared, locating each one. Many focused in the ring around Nedzad, but then dotted out at random as far as the main level and back near the Depository.

  Rush retracted the shield and clasped his hands at his chest. In a fluid motion, he slid his fingers away from center and zipped them straight out, disconnecting from the M-MANs. Maybe he didn’t need to move in that way but the visualization helped him concentrate on severing the connection, and it worked. His extended body shrank, leaving him smaller and more protected inside his Poseidon. The alarms blanked out on his visor as well.

  He sat up, then crawled toward the hole, feeling for its edge in the darkened room. The emergency lighting was out as far as he could see. A white beam opened up from a slot below the neck shielding.

  “Thank you,” he told Singer.

  The light helped Rush find the hole, but it was too small for him to fit while inside Singer.

  IT WOULD TAKE LESS TIME FOR YOU TO STEP OUT THAN TO FIND THE NEAREST STAIRWELL.

  “Okay.”

  Singer responded to the command by opening up at the chest, retracting the helmet, and sliding the arms back for ease of Rush pulling his arms out.

  YOU’LL HAVE TO PUSH YOURSELF.

  Rush pushed on the sides and climbed out through the chest window. His foot slid a little on the floor. Singer’s light hit the ceiling, casting a faint afterglow where, what looked like a fine covering of black dust, brushed off the floor at his foot’s swiping. Pieces of Singer folded, slid into compartments and clicked into place, leaving a briefcase on the floor. A light glowed under the handle.

  Rush took it and dropped his feet into the hole, sitting on the ledge as he pointed the case’s light onto the floor below. Heaps of black dust marked where the M-MAN canines had been. A pile of Nedzad’s discarded dive suit and visor sat nearer to his hole. Rush jumped down.

  He shone the light of Singer’s case over the suit. The fabric was bent and crumpled like paper in a fire before it turns to cinder.

  He lifted the light to a hall between cubicles. Footprints in the black dust trailed off into the dark down the hallway. He slid his visor back down and activated dive view. Thirty meters ahead, Nedzad staggered forward, hands out, feeling the walls on both sides of an aisle through cubicles. His body readings lacked the power display of a dive suit. Rush set the case down, found a button near the handle and pressed it. The top compartment split open and his Poseidon unfolded back to its normal height, chest open for him to step backwards into. He locked in and his front display had a message from Star:

  “Rush? Are you all right? I’m coming.”

  “Star. I’m back.” He jogged after Nedzad, Singer’s frontal light casting into the darkness to illumine the aisle between cubicles.

  “Why’d you go? Is your Poseidon okay? Did the EMP hit you?”

  Nedzad stopped at the door to enter a room Rush’s dive sight couldn’t penetrate, though he knew its location as the room where Star had broken into the safe.

  AND RELEASED THE M-MANS.

  Shut up, Singer. The Gov made her do that.

  MAYBE PARTIALLY.

  Nedzad opened the door and went inside, disappearing behind the wall.

  Rush slowly walked into the aisle leading to the door, wondering if he should be charging. Part of him wanted Nedzad to go in there and solve their problems for him. Force them to find a solution without playing with M-MANs.

  “Rush?”

  “I’m fine, Star. The EMP set off a glitch of alarms that was too distracting to maintain my connection to the M-MANs.”

  He stepped closer, careful not to step on any of the items that had long ago fallen from the desks. What all is in there, Singer?

  THE DATA CENTER HAS 12 COMPUTERS AND 36 SERVERS PROTECTED BY FARADAY CAGES AGAINST EMP. THAT’S THE MAIN HUB OF INFO IN FORT POPE. I DON’T HAVE ACCESS.

  Rush stopped outside the door. Can he lock us out of the fort systems, or even the M-MANs?

  THAT’S VERY POSSIBLE.

  “What are you doing?” Star asked, her tone one of catching him in the act.

  “What if he’s right?” Rush turned his head from the door, afraid Nedzad would hear. “He’s studied this longer than us.”

  “What we can do is nothing like what he’s studied. He’s stubborn and holding on to old views.”

  “So what do you want me to do, run in there and stop him?”

  “Unnecessary. I’ll send M-MANs into the computer he’ll log into.”

  “Were you really going to send those dogs at him?” It would take a lot to convince him otherwise but he needed to ask. He needed hope that what she was becoming was not complete.

  “I liked Nedey, too, Rush, but if he’s a threat, I won’t hesitate to put him down. I wasn’t going to kill him. We need what he knows. And he’s just opened the door.”

  In dive view, Rush saw Nedzad sitting at one of the computers inside the Data Center. M-MANs bloomed up from the floor under Nedzad’s feet and looped up the legs of the table.

  6 - Nedzad

  Nedzad powered up the middle computer. The white backlight on its monitor filled the space with light. He F4’d the startup into a secret channel and entered his username and password, hoping when the computer stopped processing it would deliver a message from Jules.

  The sentry database’s white cursor on black background was all that greeted him. He contemplated the first command to enter. One that would keep Star, Rush, and the M-MANs from accessing what he was about to do, and beyond. Clear a tunnel to access base systems.

  The way the M-MANs worked—in the invasion, all the interconnected government systems were hacked, forcing cell groups like Fort Pope to research and submit reinforcements without open communication—he’d need to isolate an area of the base mainframe in a way that erased any trace it had ever been, while also maintaining as much access as possible.

  First, he needed a fake trail to show where he’d gone once he logged in—he didn’t know how much Star and Rush knew about these systems, as they hadn’t show much aptitude before, but The Gov had Star working at that computer for a reason, and she’d done a mud load since connecting with the M-MANs. He couldn’t underestimate her ability to sniff out a false trail.

  He thought back to the time he and Jules hacked into the Housto
n Desalination Plant ran by Warren’s right-hand woman, Leaz. Jules had created a horned lizard hack to damage registry files. This then cleared a path for his mouse to memorize original code while sorting in his own.

  The assault had failed when mortars fired from subs off the coast had decimated their rear ranks. They hadn’t had time to wait out the plant forces losing their water supply, nor did they realize Columbia had an insurance supply line close by.

  Warren had chased them deep into Underground Houston. After six years of moving from one chamber to the next, speaking to no one and working for the food they needed to survive, he’d found a way out in what was likely northeast Arizona. The war was long since lost. He made them both promise to let it be and find a way to just keep surviving.

  That was three years ago. He was surprised they’d made it this long.

  But the horned-mouse tandem could work.

  He started writing their code. At the same time, he gathered access rights to necessities like power, air control, and the Poseidon program. Next, he created five ID’s with access to all high level systems. As he copied in the code for floor lights, the screen flickered, quickly enough to make him question if it had.

  He stopped typing and scrolled up to glance over his code, maybe faster than he should have, but he didn’t have time. The performance graph didn’t hint at a third party, but that didn’t prove it. He reached the top of his code and scrolled back down, finding nothing out of sync.

  In the drawer to his right, he pushed aside notepads, pens, a picture of a young soldier smiling in front of an American flag, and a thumb drive. He plugged it into the tower, copied the program, and uploaded Horned-Mouse to the main server.

  While it uploaded, he glanced around the room. A safe had a large indentation in the front. He walked over and examined the forced entry.

  Is this where The Gov sent Star? What was in there?

  If he had been dumb enough not to destroy the M-MANs, as his predecessors had been—idiots—then storing it in a safe surrounded by Faraday cages could be the next, least dumb idea. How did The Gov know about it?

  And if that was in there… Two of the three shelves were empty, but on the top was a silver apple, smaller than he’d seen in a book. He took it and turned to the glisten of white over a smooth black pool at the foot of the door. He ran for the tower and plucked the thumb drive from the USB port. The screen’s white glow showed the progression of black coating the floor like a flood about to overtake him but with the slow pace of a predator.

  7 - Rush (9:04 pm)

  Every second Rush watched Nedzad at the computer was a battle between siding with his wife or with his newest friend. Stuck in the middle made him feel dirty. “Anything of interest yet?” he asked Star.

  “Busy.”

  “Do you need help?” She wouldn’t tell him if she did.

  “No. Stop bothering me.”

  What was he supposed to do? He could try and reconnect to the M-MANs. His ability in the Rtix chamber might have been due to some N3 plasma remaining in his system. The depletion he felt, which tempted him to slide against the wall to have a nap where he sat, said he had very little N3 left.

  In dive view, he saw the glowing green vine of M-MANs intensifying along the floor. It spread out from the doorway. The head of its wave angled suspiciously toward Rush’s position.

  “Star. Do you have control of the M-MANs?”

  In her silence, the M-MAN tide advanced in what he suspected was a flanking position to meet the hall behind him.

  Rush took a breath and flexed his body with his huffed exhale. The M-MAN ocean splashed over his mind, tore over his arms, and down his back. The physical pieces pointed into swords lifted at an angle from the floor. Rush couldn’t stop them. Not only were they chasing him but, in his connection, they grated at his nerves like razors on an open wound. His shoulders shivered uncontrollably and he threw them off, shedding their connection as he turned to run from their front line.

  “Star? What’s going on?” Rush sprinted back toward the elevator hall.

  “I’ve lost control of the M-MANs. Poseidon dysfunctional. Left it behind. Can you get the pellets in his suit?”

  Already? He should have stood up for Nedzad.

  The M-MANs bent around an aisle and headed for the suit lying on the floor between him and them. He’d have to turn left. Now. He made the cut. “Yeah.”

  The M-MANs infected the floor three meters from the suit. Rush focused EM into his right hand and took two long strides. A sling shot rose out of the M-MANs. Rush punched a blast of EM into its center. The tool blew apart. Rush dove sideways, slid, and grabbed the suit.

  Another sling shot emerged out of the M-MANs. The pool held onto its catch pouch. Rush focused a pouch of his own and planted his left hand. The M-MAN sling shot released. Rush threw his EM. A web of neon green and yellow splashed mid-air.

  A dozen sling shots rose out of the M-MANs. Their pouches stretched backward.

  Rush sprinted the other way. He focused an EM pool two meters ahead and dove. As he leapt he swung two EM balls behind him, imagining them widening like soap bubbles. The ground sucked him in with his downward dive, and he passed through to open air at the floor below. The weightlessness threw him too far forward. He spun with his back to the ground. The hard landing jolted into his backside.

  He staggered back to his feet, realizing as he faced the destroyed elevator shaft that he’d just put an extra floor between him and Star, him on LL5, her on LL3, and the closest stairwell was fifty meters away. Add to that a thick jungle of bright green passing through the walls as dripping excess replicated pieces from the ceiling.

  Rush lifted his forearm and the Poseidon unfolded a shield as he ran for the only exit, toward a doorway in the corner of the room. He clenched EM into each footstep, pounding dark spots into the floor of green as M-MANs dripped from the ceiling.

  “She was going to leave you for Justice Stone.”

  The words came out of his inner speakers.

  “Singer?” Rush tightened his free arm at his side in a bent elbow pushing EM from his fist and ran through the doorway. In front of the stairwell door stood three people. M-MAN activity lit their bodies in patches of bright green.

  “Not Singer,” came from his internal speaker.

  Rush blinked to dock view. The brighter green places were replaced by torn clothes and gaping wounds. Red orbs glowed where their eyes would be. The fat one with the dented forehead and blood-smeared face was Charles, the brigand he met in Springston, whom Warren had hired to spike his drink with the nanopak.

  He thought Charles died in the avalanche Rush had used to escape Warren’s trap.

  Charles’ two buddies shared equally impressive wounds. One still had a metal barb lodged in his chest. The other had a chunk of concrete embedded in the side of his head. All three had compound fractures jutting out of their limbs.

  The M-MANs bring the dead back to life? Singer, is that right?

  He remembered The Gov saying, “If your heart were to stop beating, my nanobots would revive you before your brain dies.”

  Charles’ head wound looked that kind of fatal, but maybe not.

  Singer’s scan beam lit their feet and rose up their bodies.

  “I’m back, Rush.”

  Warren? He had no idea how that could be possible. Who else could it be? The Gov? It can’t be Fish.

  “I have another job offer for you.”

  Warren. The voice was true.

  “Star killed you.” Rush thought back to Star’s Poseidons collapsing on Warren. No one could have survived the force of those blows.

  “Yes. She did. But you remember what those nanos do to our blood.”

  “Star?” Rush asked before he noticed her channel icon had disappeared.

  “She’s left.”

  “No she hasn’t.” Dive view. The ceiling’s concentration of green prevented him from seeing LL3. One problem blended with the next as his mind flicked back to the mecha
nically spoken words: She was going to leave you for Justice Stone. Their implication drove a thick blade into his lungs, twisting pressure that belabored his breath. They were always close friends. The possibility she’d have found him attractive wasn’t far-fetched, either.

  Problems swarmed from inside and out. Escape availed him.

  “I would have told you about her cheating plans before, but I needed the leverage in case you didn’t cooperate.”

  “Why tell me now?”

  The room flushed with reinforcements of brighter green, making it hard to trace the human forms from the walls behind them. The patches around the wounds decreased as the M-MANs worked their brighter green stitching. Rush kept his shield high, the EM pulsing through his feet to keep the M-MAN coverage along the floor a meter away, but it was circling. His suit power was at 84%. The M-MAN dominance of the floors and walls intensified to seal him off. He turned briefly. A green wall was forming from the four corners of the door.

  “She rejected my offer to join forces,” Warren said, “but you still can.”

  He could try what he saw Nedzad do with the pellet from his DL. He twisted Nedzad’s suit so he could reach the pellet in the visor. How’d he get it free so quickly? His other option was to sink through and swim.

  “Why would I do that?” Rush asked. “I’d have thought killing you made my intentions clear.”

  Singer, can you track where his communication is coming from?

  UNKNOWN. HIS TRANSMISSION IS BOUNCING FROM TOO MANY SOURCES.

  “You killed me before I needed to share this information,” Warren said. “I admire your resilience. Your victory earned a larger share in my spoils. I want to be partners.”

  “I doubt that. If you could control me, you would.”

  “I’m saying I won’t. My offer won’t last much longer.”

  Rush’s suit was down to 79%. The power and effort required to keep the section of floor around his feet clean of M-MANs was becoming more demanding. “What is your offer, exactly?”