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

by Timothy C. Ward

  “It’s far better than the alternative.”

  There was something Warren was afraid of. Something that made this an offer and not a demand. Rush wasn’t going to figure that out by forcing Warren to put up its defenses.

  “You have a good point,” Rush admitted. “First, though. I’m calling you W. I’ve got enough to think about without you calling yourself a dead guy.”

  “Fine. W it is.”

  “Before we leave, I want to know more about the programs The Gov, Warren, and the creators of the M-MANs wrote. I want to understand the magnetism, repellent, and how we can be sure those unwilling to playing brain playground will be safe.”

  “My pleasure.”

  13 - Nedzad

  Nedzad stared through the flag on the screen as he thought back on his time with Dixon and how the little punk had been playing him. How he outsmarted him. Was he working with Warren and The Gov, just Warren, for himself, or for a fourth party? Was it luck that he wasn’t included in the massacre inside the entry lobby? Warren didn’t come for a bit after that. Did that mean Dixon was working with The Gov and was told not to go with the first group?

  There was a flag like the one on the screen in the lobby. Its wooden staff was cracked and it lay in a pool of blood, staining into the red and white stripes.

  A sudden idea sent his hand to his pocket. He patted his new suit and angrily realized he’d left Jules’ note in the suit he destroyed to get rid of the canines. Registered thirteen. He remembered the clue and how Jules had drawn the horizontal lines for some of the Es, and then one for the T. Thirteen of them. Before, he thought it strange, but now with the flag flapping its thirteen stripes, Nedzad felt he’d solved one aspect of the clue. The second was that last place he’d seen a flag. In the entry lobby, where visitors were registered? It could be.

  Now he wished he hadn’t shot down the cameras in the lobby. Having eyes on that area and its open Visitor Entry Exterior door would be nice in case more people found their way in.

  Before he left, he had to get the containment sequence back online. He used one of his new ID’s and passwords to access the I drive. He clicked on the program file for the containment sequence. An error window popped up saying the file could not be located.

  A small window popped up center screen. That program’s been dismantled. I’m here to stay.

  A chill swept through his gut like night wind. If the M-MANs had found him… “I?” Nedzad asked.

  I go by W now. It’s easier than saying the M-MANs that resurrected Warren’s mind and are evolving into something far greater.

  “That’s nice.” He turned and rose from his seat. “Good luck with that.”

  The door clicked at the end of the room. Locked.

  “I see you found your sandrat girlfriend,” spoke W’s monotone voice from behind him.

  Anger heated Nedzad’s scalp. He turned back to see those words on the screen under the last set. Not only had W been able to lock him in, but it’d also somehow seen, or at least known, he wasn’t looking at the computer screen and thereby needed the text read out loud.

  “Unlike Rush’s deal, I have no use for you,” W said. “Not alive, anyway. It’ll be my pleasure to offer you neighboring graves.”

  The computer blinked off. Then the lights. Nedzad lowered his visor and clamped his mouth over his respirator. If this room had the same gas that killed those in the Visitor Entry, he’d be ready. His tube filtered breaths made the room’s only sound.

  Nedzad had to leave. Get the key—if his hunch was right—then Jules, her briefcase, and leave.

  W appeared on his visor’s icon dashboard. “Where will you go?” it said “You’re not alone. The hunt began before you trapped yourself in that room.”

  He checked the door. The handle swung but the door remained in place.

  He took his DL out, squeezed the trigger, and aimed it at the door. He backed up five steps, his right arm shaking from the clenching grip of the EM surge. He grabbed his wrist to lessen the shaking. Exhaled. Let go.

  The recoil threw his shot five feet from the handle. A three-foot opening showed as a light orange backdrop behind the redness of the door in dive view.

  Nedzad approached the door and saw the handle side had dislodged an inch. He pushed on the door, but it didn’t shift. He backed up, charged his suit, then sprinted forward, waiting for the split second before shoulder impact to unleash the eruption of stored EM. The door broke open in a loud screech of snapped and grinding metal. He stumbled into the hall and fell on his butt, lacking grace, but accomplishing his goal.

  “Probably better that you got out,” W said.

  Nedzad stood, brushing himself off.

  “I’d rather test my new toys than let you starve. They’re hungry, too.”

  14 - Cool (3:20 am, Saturday)

  Thankfully, Dixon hadn’t made them jog, even when he, like an excited puppy, told them the hospital was just down the next corridor. Cool had conjured the might of Colorado not to climb up Viky’s back and let her carry him.

  Dixon stopped their group at a sealed double door with a black stain like an angry fire captured in shadow spread up the middle. Cool’s first guess was someone had set off an explosive that had failed to penetrate the doors. On the right side was a caged light bulb not working and consumed in cobweb. His dive light illumined the map in front of him and a keypad he opened a hatch to see. It appeared as dead as the bulb above him.

  Cool had fought every step of the last hour not to complain like his older brother was the whole time. With their first respectable window for him to relax, Cool slumped to the wall under the keypad.

  Dixon looked down. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Cool’s heels were a fuzzy kind of sore, but if he made it this far… He waved Dixon on, unsure if he’d be able to stand up anytime soon. “Go ahead.”

  “You’re doing a great job, kid.” Dixon took a small handheld from his suit, unfolded a wire with a plug, and inserted it into the bottom of the keypad. The keys slowly backlit in yellow. He tapped a five-point sequence. A tiny green bulb lit up and the doors unlocked.

  Cool was far from ready to stand.

  Jeff had collapsed as soon as the rear of the group slowed and remained on his back, clutching his arm and shivering in the shadowed reflection of red light.

  Cool instantly felt bad for resenting his brother’s weakness. Jeff really looked bad. He had to think back over a few years, but once Cool found Jeff sanding the rust out of a bunk bed he’d scavenged for Cool’s tenth birthday. Cool matched that brotherly love with the grit to stand and hobble over to Jeff’s side.

  Mom whimpered as she held his good arm in hers, head bent.

  Jeff’s hair was matted in sweat on his forehead. He squinted up at Cool.

  The mask of concern on Cool’s face must have silenced Jeff from spitting something hurtful. He knelt and unscrewed his canteen. Jeff’s stare pleaded for Cool not to embarrass him by taking care of him but Cool ignored it, knowing what was best and enjoying the rare moment when neither were at arms with each other. Cool tipped the water into his brother’s mouth. The gulp came out in a bigger rush than he intended. Jeff coughed some over his lips. Cool wiped his dirty finger up Jeff’s chin, lifting some of the water back into his own mouth with his finger. The water felt good on of dozens of scratches he’d picked up back in Fort Pope’s avalanche. Thankfully they’d used supplies in the clinic to clean them up and bandage them, but soaking through the dirty tape, the water still felt good on his skin. He hoped they found more water soon. There wasn’t much left in his canteen.

  Jeff swallowed and rested his head in his mom’s hand. “Thank you.” He swallowed again, painfully. “You drink the rest. You need it, little, bro.”

  His last drink was well over an hour ago, and his throat was scratchy enough to be more sock than flesh. But there were hardly two cap-fulls left.

  A hand landed on Cool’s shoulder. Dixon stood over him, Carroll at his side, both watching th
e family moment. They both wore looks of pity, weighed down by the fact they, too, were tired, but acknowledging something may be worse with his brother. Dixon nodded. “Jeff’s right. We’ll get more, and you haven’t been drinking enough to have that much left.”

  Dixon watched until Cool relented and tipped the mouthpiece. A brief gush of warm water splashed his tongue and eased down his throat. He’d drank more water today than he probably had in months, but he was still thirsty. Somehow, he felt thirstier after he finished his canteen than he had before.

  15 - Star

  Star hit the cold sand, heart racing. Whoever had shot at them popped off round after round. Its echo bounced off the dunes and escaped into the clouded night. The shots hit the sand ahead and behind, forcing her to keep her head down. She feared each sucked breath would be her last, spent surrounded by what she hated most, without her son, and like a teenager with her unrequited love a final memory.

  Someone grabbed her calf and pulled her backward. Shots rang, pelting sand close enough for her to see the tunnels they left.

  “Turn your suit on.” Jet let go of her leg. He had his visor down. His suit hummed.

  Another shot rang out, halting her.

  He lunged at her chest and hit her dive button. “Now.”

  A red blossom darkened his shirt. The echo of gunfire drifted into the dark beyond. “Visor. Go,” he said.

  “You’re shot!”

  He pushed her back.

  She lowered the visor tightly over her eyes and bit on the respirator as he pulled her behind him. “Okay.”

  Picture water. Make it so.

  The sand sank under Jet’s weight as she reached for the new pool. He kicked out of its center and she plunged into the dive view yellow of sand. A red burst lanced by her arm, slowing as it faded into the orange and yellow swaths around it. Behind her, a wall of bright yellow formed beyond the green outline of a kneeling Jet. His posture and clenched hands suggested the wall was made from his efforts.

  “Get behind me,” Jet’s voice rumbled through her earpiece.

  Star swam away from the wall, watching it pulse like a puddle absorbing dropped rocks. The sand deafened the echo of gunshots.

  She continued swimming toward the tent, where Jules’ green outline stuffed objects in a backpack. Jet growled through her earpiece. She turned back to see a hole in the wall and Jet falling over backwards. She curled her legs and kicked toward him, breaststroking for the surface. Rush had taught her about stone sand, so she had an idea how much exertion Jet must have used to build that wall, and how much she’d need to help keep it up. She exited the sand to a slide on her knees, focusing her EM on the wall and flexing under its great weight. It would not disobey her command. In parts, it did. She strained harder to collect the falling pieces and refit them into the whole. The erosion stalled, then small sections in the wall buckled. She focused on these weak points until their collective strain sucked on her eyes and pumped heavy heart beats. Bullets rippled from the other side. She held on, near to screaming.

  “Jet, I’m gonna lose it. Get up. Help me!”

  Jules scampered past her and lifted Jet up under his arms. Star growled into the pain. Jules dragged Jet past her line of sight. Her muscles wobbled toward collapse, and wouldn’t endure the distraction of checking behind her on Jules’ progress with Jet.

  A bullet tore through the wall, bursting a fist size hole through the stone. Star twisted her clenched abs and lifted burning biceps to reclose the hole when another hole opened up. She spun out of its way, afraid she’d been hit. The wall’s collapse sucked her forward and onto her face.

  Three green figures, aiming yellow outlined rifles, approached from the other side of the fallen wall. “Jules Collet and Jet Stone. Warren says hello.” The one speaking walked ahead of the other two, his rifle aimed behind Star but his head pointed her way. “And who is our mysterious third?”

  The man’s attention swung behind Star. He cursed, took two long strides to his right and dove. A bright yellow object arced toward his former position.

  “Get down!” Jules said.

  Star covered her head with her arms as a bright hot gust of air whooshed over her, smacking her hands with bits of sand. More rained down as she lifted her head.

  “Catch up if you can!” Jules shouted. She had an arm under Jet as they skipped down the side of the dune. Their sarfer canopy was twenty meters down.

  Star rose but slipped as her foot sank into slush formed by the dispersal of EM. She focused on harder sand but too soon, and it caught her heel. She yanked on her leg and fell onto her elbows.

  “Don’t move, rat.”

  And that was the real story of how she was captured. Unlike what she told Rush.

  The memory faded from the grit of sand on her neck to the fan-cooled room in Oya’s apartment where the boy watched her from the corner. His likeness to Fisher squeezed her heart with cold fingers. It can’t be.

  “So you don’t know why they met or where Justice Stone went?” the boy asked.

  Star shook her head. The rubber dive suit was still in her hand, her knitting needle resting on top. The stark reality that her son was alive, and in the same room, froze her the same way it had when she’d seen Rush carry him out of the sand a corpse instead of her boy with his heart warm and beating.

  16 - Rush (9:23 pm, Friday)

  “We don’t have the luxury of time to rest, I’m afraid,” W said. “Before he died, Warren sent out an alert to all of his forces with the location of Fort Pope and to come ready to fight. It won’t be long before Phipps and Friedman follow suit, and we both know The Gov is coming, too. I have something I need you to find that should take care of them easily.”

  Rush liked that idea, but first… “Where is Star?”

  “Resting. Her resistance caused more mental damage. I’m afraid it also was unavoidable. I’m helping—”

  “I want to see her.”

  His visor screen showed a bird’s eye view of Star in a dive suit, lying on a table in an Rtix chamber identical to the one where he’d found Avery. Night vision cast her in a glowing green light. 048 read on the bottom corner of the screen. Her eyes were closed and her face twitched as though in the fit of a bad dream. The gleam of a tear traced a line down her cheek.

  Rush wished he could touch her face. Kiss her. Tell her he was still fighting for her, that it was okay if indeed she had gone after Stone. He’d apologize again for not being there for her when she needed him, for not upholding his marriage vows. For not being a better man. The man he saw desired in the best of her smiles. He didn’t have enough life left to make up for all the times he wasn’t that man. She deserved more…

  “As I said before about not being able to manipulate your cells,” W said, “Considering what you’ll go through before you can sleep can I persuade you to reconsider drinking plasma?”

  It may be the only way Rush survived long enough to see and be with Star in the future he hoped for. He just needed to see it as a necessary medicine until he was good enough to live without it. “You said one option as a part of our alliance was removing the nanobots from our systems?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that include removing plasma addiction?”

  “If that’s what you want, yes. You can live a lot longer with nanos and plasma and, honestly, from what I’ve read of your memories, I think you’re fooling yourself if you think you’ll be okay stepping away from your capabilities as future leaders of our country. It won’t be safe for you and Star any time soon, and you’ll need nanos and plasma to protect her.”

  It was hard to argue with that likelihood. With his energy level, he’d have a hard time swimming out of a bath.

  “Okay. Let’s get on with it, then.”

  “You’ll have to take the northern stairwell to LL3.”

  Rush walked out of the room without an answer.

  17 – Nedzad

  Nedzad got up and ran for the lobby using the readings through his dive view of
the base blueprint. What new toys was W talking about? The walls running south down C Court were still a mixture of red and orange, meaning the M-MANs hadn’t spread this far. That didn’t mean M-MAN canines couldn’t leap out from the hall—5th Street—coming up on his left.

  He approached with his DL drawn. Slowed to peak around the corner. Empty. He side stepped into a jog, straightening out as he prepared for the next hall twenty yards down. Again, empty. His heart raced. These toys could be almost anything.

  Beyond 3rd Street, ceiling lights illumined a room of walled cubicles. 3rd Street was clear. He ran straight for the short hall at the end leading into the lobby. A cubicle wall had three holes that had passed clean through, destroying a monitor and computer tower. He switched to dock view to see the scorched rim of the circles. Matching holes were cut through the door to the office on his right and its opposite wall, giving him three small viewpoints into the lobby. Too small to tell anything, he switched to dive view and intensified the voltage to see the room beyond. Outlines of fallen bodies littered the floor. None had the light of body heat.

  He switched to dock view as he approached the door to the lobby, which had a few holes burnt through the glass. He pushed but it didn’t budge. Locked. He squeezed his DL, aimed at the ceiling where the bolt kept it in place, and fired. The wood shattered. He charged his DL and shot through the bottom bolt. Bodies stacked on the other side slowed his push, but he put his shoulder into it and forced his way in.

  The stench was different than last time. Still a remnant of burnt flesh and spilled intestines, but…different. Less potent, with a hint of something sweet. That doesn’t make sense.

  A boy sitting against the wall with closed eyes had an indented hole above his eyebrow and blood coating down that side of his face.