by Ian Williams
The Sentient Mimic
Ian Williams
Copyright © 2015 by Ian Williams
Ian Williams has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
For all lovers of books and lovers of Science Fiction, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Cover design by: http://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/RLSather
This book has been professionally edited.
Table of Contents
Prologue: The mystery man
Chapter 1: An unexpected guest
Chapter 2: Under new management
Chapter 3: Conrad Robinson
Chapter 4: No time to heal
Chapter 5: Mind over matters
Chapter 6: The walking wounded
Chapter 7: What bad dreams are made of
Chapter 8: Sanctuary 2.0
Chapter 9: Breadcrumbs
Chapter 10: Hidden evils?
Chapter 11: Pushing boundaries
Chapter 12: The fall of an empire
Chapter 13: Priority shift
Chapter 14: On the trail
Chapter 15: Progress
Chapter 16: Cruellest intentions
Chapter 17: Resistance is worthwhile
Chapter 18: Behind enemy lines
Chapter 19: We came for answers
Chapter 20: A return to ruin
Chapter 21: Ready, set, go
Chapter 22: Who goes there?
Chapter 23: A walk in the park?
Chapter 24: A misstep
Chapter 25: Relentless
Chapter 26: Switchover
Epilogue: End of the road
About the author
Other books by Ian Williams
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Prologue
The mystery man
A tingling feeling slowly pervaded the darkness, awakening a mind that had only seconds ago been dormant. Numbness stepped aside to allow Patient Ninety-three’s fingers to sense the cold surface he lay upon. He touched the strangely smooth material, unsure of what to make of it from behind the blackness that still cut the world off from him. For the time being he was forced to decipher the limited feedback from his body.
But interpreting such strange information proved almost too much for him to cope with.
“Open your eyes, Ninety-three,” someone nearby said.
Ninety-three could roughly determine where the voice had come from and turned in that direction. His hearing was remarkably accurate. When the person continued to speak, he was sure he had faced perfectly towards them. It was effortless.
“You must try and open your eyes. Take command of your body,” the stranger implored him.
With a similar amount of ease, Ninety-three cracked open both eyes and became overwhelmed by a light shining directly at his face. His eagerness now resulted in a painful ache at the back of his eyes. The damage had been done already. Nothing he tried could remove the sensation, he was stuck with it. Such a mistake was a lesson learnt well, and learnt fast too. His first experience since awakening to this world flooded with brightness was one he knew to avoid in future.
Leaning over his body was a strange man with piercing eyes and bright white hair. The same bright white as that of the loosely buttoned shirt the person wore. Ninety-three found himself being studied by this silver-topped stranger, who stared into his eyes, searching for the life-form hiding inside.
“Do you feel?” the white-haired man said. He peered even deeper this time. “Do you feel, Ninety-three?”
“I… I….”
“Yes? Allow the words to come naturally. Take things slowly.”
Ninety-three concentrated hard before trying to speak again. He could see the words he had already chosen, but not yet spoken, floating at the fore of his muddled mind. Then just as the white-haired man had said, the words began to make their way out into the world.
“I can feel… things,” he finally managed to say. The achievement was immediately overtaken by surprise from the unknown voice coming out of him. His own sound was not present, only on the inside of his mind. His confusion was keeping something important at bay, just out of his reach. All he had to do was reach just that little bit further and he knew he would regain whatever had been lost.
“Excellent,” the white-haired man said before turning to another stood beside him. This second man appeared different, with black hair and thin, stick-like arms. “Integration successful. Begin calibration. Patient ninety-three is progressing faster than expected.”
“Agreed,” the second man said with a nod. He stepped forward, blocking the bright light that had been shining behind. “State your identifier.”
Ninety-three remained quiet. The question was one he had somehow been waiting for. It jolted his consciousness back to full life like a defibrillator to the chest. Something had reset his mind as if someone had hit rewind. He could remember the one thing that was put in place to keep him fully intact during the procedure. Where others would have lost their very being, he was complete. The gaps had been partially refilled and a memory returned.
“State your identifier,” the black-haired man asked again.
Thankfully, the two men had not yet figured out what had happened, that they had made a grave mistake, and the moment they did Ninety-three would be in serious trouble. Escape was his only concern, he had a greater mission; people were dying and the world had no idea. This, he knew, he was supposed to change.
Once again the black-haired man spoke, “You must state your identifier.” When no reply came he turned to the side to share a suspicious glance with his companion.
“Are you detecting a malfunction?” the white-haired man said at the side.
Ninety-three shook his head in response. The two looking down upon him did so with a degree of fear in their eyes. Rather than thinking of an appropriate answer, he was looking for an opportunity to act. He began to look about the dim room. Apart from a collection of large lamps the room was left murky and dark. To his left was another person, this time lying on his back and staring blankly up at the ceiling. Whoever was inside was also struggling to manage the unwelcome information flooding in. They were both in the same situation, yet only one of them knew of the world they had just left behind.
“Remain still while I perform a check on your processor unit.” The white-haired man gently pushed Ninety-three’s head to the right. “We may need to restart.”
Looking in this new direction, Ninety-three could see even more metal beds in a row, all the way to the end of the room, where a large internal window looked out to the corridor beyond. He noticed that some of the nearby beds were occupied by others with a similarly vague consciousness, while a few were more recognisably awake and investigating their surroundings. Behind them, the double doors that split the window in half had both been left open. A possible escape route?
Ninety-three noticed a patch of missing hair on one of the other patients a few beds away, just in front of the man’s ear. The area had been shaved and an operation performed. What now stuck out of this person’s head, like a plastic sideburn, had been attached to the skin somehow. This technology allowed the procedure they had all endured to work, he realised. It was the reason behind recent tensions within their less than peaceful community. If only he could remember more about the place he left behind.
A scrape from something sharp pulled Ninety-three’s head around to see the pair who
had been checking him over now staring back. The white-haired man held a knife in his hand. A tiny drop of blood fell from it and splashed onto the metal table.
“What are you doing?” Ninety-three said as he rubbed the afflicted area. He was initially surprised to feel something attached to the side of his head, but he then remembered the device all of them now had. He was the same as the rest of them and required a small black box of his very own.
The white-haired stranger reached for the side of Ninety-three’s head and tugged at something. “I require an analysis of your processor unit. I have removed the cover and will now continue. Do not move again.”
But Ninety-three was done playing along, he had had enough. His suspicions had been proven right; these people were performing a horrific procedure and needed to be stopped. If he did not do something fast he risked becoming lost, just like the rest of them.
“I do not require analysis. I am working perfectly.”
“Then state your identifier,” the black-haired man said in the background. There was no anger or impatience to his voice, they had yet to master such reactions.
“I have none.”
Both men again looked to each other. This time the black-haired man leaned away and spoke quietly. He angled his head toward his chest and mumbled something into his radio, hushed so only the intended could hear. He was calling for some form of backup.
Ninety-three knew his time was running out. “I have a name,” he said, to both of the other men’s surprise.
“Invalid statement,” responded the white-haired man. “Names are not recognised. State your identifier immediately.”
“I do not have an identifier, I have a name,” Ninety-three said as he jumped up from the bed, wrestled the scalpel free and ran it through the white-haired man’s throat. The skin opened like a ripe tomato, spilling a seemingly endless flow of blood down his front amid a rough and wheezing gag.
After the white-haired stranger dropped to his knees, clasping his gushing wound, Ninety-three launched into the other with similar intent. This time he chose not to end this black-haired imposter so suddenly and instead slashed the blade across his victim’s chest a couple of times. The pain was clear across the black-haired man’s face, but with a visible sense of confusion too.
This was as far as Ninety-three had gotten in his plan when thinking it through only moments earlier. The first part had gone well enough, although he already regretted dealing with the white-haired man so brutally. Such was the way of things recently for him. Violence was once avoided at all cost, not so now. Somehow he had to get out and his new hostage was going to help.
The doors at the end of the room swung open the rest of the way. Two men barrelled inside, their guns raised. They had seen the bloodied scalpel in Ninety-three’s hand immediately. They meant to end him now, identified or not.
“Shoot and you will kill one of your own,” Ninety-three said with the knife neatly tucked under the black-haired man’s throat.
“You do not belong here, stranger,” one of the armed men said. “You will be destroyed.”
There was no time for more threats. Both men opened fire with a volley of bullets. No consideration was given for the black-haired man at all, who appeared completely disposable. A few of the metal slugs found their soft target straight away. He shook as his body was filled with hot metal, some of which continued through him and out the other side.
Ducking behind the black-haired man’s body proved a mistake, as the shrapnel began to fly out the other side. Ninety-three was narrowly missed by a handful of pieces that carried on their merry way until hitting a metal table behind, knocking it onto its side. But one bullet had ideas of its own and cut a deep line across his side as he pushed the body forward.
He let the black-haired man’s body fall, which landed with a loud slap as the dead man’s face hit the solid floor. Without thinking, he stepped back and tripped over the fallen metal table. Behind this surface he was saved from another round of shots, each of which forced a dent into the metal surface and left a hot glowing circle behind. A second later and he would have been torn apart along with the black-haired man’s remains.
“You cannot stop us, mystery man. We will succeed regardless of your futile attempts to hold us back,” one of the armed guards said at the end of the room.
Ninety-three remained hidden behind the metal table and looked ahead. If not for the recent firefight, he would have been disheartened by his blocked escape route. Now things had suddenly changed for the better. A few of the bullets had taken out two of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the room, all blacked out until then. He could see the outside of the building.
“Help me,” the white-haired man tried to say through a sputter of warm, frothy liquid.
Turning back to the scene of the crime, Ninety-three saw the pool of blood surrounding the white-haired stranger and instantly felt anger. The attack had been unnecessarily harsh. It did not matter that these people were involved in something awful, only the mind inside was truly guilty. The white-haired man was not guilty himself.
Ninety-three could barely stand seeing such pain. “Get him some help,” he ordered. “Your friend will bleed out if you do not.”
“If you care so much, stranger, then come out and help him yourself.”
It was a feeble attempt to trick him, playing on his guilt rather than his anger. Unfortunately, Ninety-three was in no position to help. His goal was much more important; one man’s death to save many, and all that. The truth was, he had no idea how many deaths would be acceptable to achieve what he knew he had to.
Things were slowly coming back to him as he looked out to the blue sky just beyond the glass of the window. He had been sent there to change something. No, it was to prevent something from happening. To succeed, he had to locate someone. Except he had forgotten so much during the procedure that had brought him to this strange place. The name had eluded him.
“You have no choice. Come out from behind there,” the other armed man said all too confidently. “Tell us your name.”
Ninety-three stared out the window, eyeing the exact place he wanted to land when he made his escape attempt. Accurate judgement was impaired by his ridiculously inferior visual system. He struggled to even guess what the distance was to the building next door, or how many floors up they were. Roughly a twenty-foot drop after a ten-foot gap was the closest he could get to estimating. Of course he had to make it through the window unscathed first, something he was unsure he would manage, considering the bloodied wound to his abdomen and his aching head.
He leant against the metal table, felt the heat from the embedded slugs, and breathed in heavily in preparation. Either he was about to make a huge mistake and end his mission before it had even begun, or he was to make a heroic escape to freedom.
“My name?” he began, “You want to know?”
“Yes. Identify yourself immediately.”
Ninety-three deliberated for one last time before answering. Then, with perfect timing, he unleashed his response upon them both. “My name is not for you!” he called back as he launched himself forward.
“Stop him, now!” one of the armed men replied, pulling the trigger in a blaze of panic.
Ninety-three raced ahead and was less than two metres away from the shattered window, when he heard the bullets begin to pass him by. His body was already fighting back and slowing by the second. He was tired. Such concerns were never his to take into account until then. His body felt more fragile than ever. He was not sure how much further he could push it.
Despite his struggling, he was well on his way to making it out when he felt a sudden and unknown sensation throughout his core. The sight of so much open space stretching out below had begun to make him feel something unexpected. His muscles clenched as his eyes fell away to the ground below. If he did not know any better, he was sure that his distance from the ground was causing him mental anguish. He sensed that lessening that distance would stop him
feeling such a thing.
He was scared of heights. That was it!
“Stop!” The voice of one of the guards forced its way past and ricocheted back at him. Nothing they could do would stop the escape now. Their words were for nothing.
This was it, only the jump remained. He aimed for the centre of the window, keeping his sight locked onto the flat roof of the opposing building. Telling his body to give him every ounce of strength, like a captain to his crew, was enough to release a small burst of extra speed as he extended out his arms and threw himself forward. Less than a second later he could feel the floor beneath his feet no more. His momentum was totally out of his control now, and he had done all he could to reach safety.
The wind brushed through his clothing and made his skin feel cold as he fell. The gravelly surface he jumped for was fast approaching. In an attempt to keep himself straight, he swung his arms about and kicked his legs through the air. Nothing he did altered his path, only forward and down was allowed.
The ground came like a train pushing a truck aside; one had complete power over the other, and with little consideration for the weaker of the two. The impact stole his speed entirely and brought him to a dead stop instantly. His landing had not been followed by a tuck-and-roll, but a shoulder and hip. Suddenly the whole right side of his body lit up with a new set of pains. Locating one over another was impossible.
He rolled over onto his back and peered back up to the smashed window he had thrown himself through. Both of the armed men stood watching in amazement. Neither of them appeared interested in trying to stop him anymore. He left them behind to gawk in shock.
But he was not in the clear just yet. Next he would have to escape the area.
Trying desperately to ignore his injuries, he regained his composure and found himself fighting a strong urge to laugh uncontrollably. Something deep inside needed to come out, a feeling of joy, or a sense of disbelief at having survived maybe. Rather than hold it in for any longer, he let it out in one release of noise. He spat out a reddened liquid that had accumulated beneath his tongue as the laughter flowed. He had never experienced such unbridled elation before, let alone feelings of happiness.
