AMP_Phase 1_Cyborg Invasion

by Brian K. Larson

  He began to feel the effects of the AMP and started to remember his drawing. He thought for a few moments and then smiled. He suddenly knew how to complete the schematic. But he felt different this time. There wasn’t any euphoric effect during or after being jacked into the accelerator unit, “What a rip off! I’m going ta’ Sly next time.”

  He began to walk down the alley and then stopped. He held his shaking hands up and then noticed he was sweating profusely. Losing his balance, he fell to his knees and quivered.

  “What’s happening to me?” he whispered. Then his right hand stopped shaking as he reached for his Glock. Unable to stop himself, his smile turned into a look of horror.

  He fought the feeling of wanting to place the gun in this mouth, but couldn’t resist. He grabbed his hand with his other to try to stop himself from what he was doing. He struggled, but at last, he put the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger, making only a click. Before he could check the gun’s clip, his legs gave out, introducing him to the ground with a thud. He screamed with pain at the back of his neck as the chip removed itself from Bennie before he passed out.

  * * *

  Oak Harbor Washington

  Whidbey Island

  Secret Government Building

  September 26th 2067 20:47

  A government aide quietly sat at his computer, then turned to interrupt the General, “Sir, We have successfully downloaded the schematics from the subject.”

  “Excellent,” General McKenzie said, “Is he dead?”

  “Yes, sir,” his aide said, “Very.”

  The General frowned, “Too bad…so sad. Please send my condolences to the family.”

  “That’s Colonel Petersen’s son, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What should I tell them happened, sir?”

  “Tell the Colonel, when we find him, that his son met with another accident.”

  “Yes, sir,” the technician acknowledged.

  “We have pin pointed his location and can send an extraction team for his chip.”

  “Very well, Captain...good work everyone, at least now we can move forward with the completion of the complex,” McKenzie said, rubbing the new jack on the back of his neck.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 18

  Seattle, WA

  Back Alley

  September 26th 20:45

  A black van entered the alley and drove up to where the locator beacon indicated Bennie had been when he self-terminated. The van stopped, the side door opened and two men jumped out.

  “Where’s his body?”

  “I don’t see any body here,” the other said, scouring the area with his night goggles.

  “Wait...over here,” the first one said, motioning for the other to come over.

  Kneeling on the ground they each noticed a silvery and blood stained bio-chip, lying on the ground with a long fiber strand protruding from its end.

  “Get a bio-bag. I’ll call it in.”

  “Better you than me,” the man said standing and running back to the van.

  “Base command, this is Recovery 1...come in.”

  “Recovery 1, this is base, please report,” Hawthorn answered over the wireless.

  “We found the chip, but no body.”

  “Please repeat,” Hawthorn instructed, “Did you say there is no body?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. I repeat, we are recovering the chip, but there is no sign of the body.”

  The other man returned with forceps and a clear plastic bag. He reached for the chip and clamped the forceps to it. The fiber strand wiggled and twitched as he carefully placed it in the bag. He then sealed it and placed it in his vest pocket.

  “Yes, Captain. I understand...we’ll be on our way momentarily...Recovery 1, out.”

  “Guess they didn’t take it so well, huh.”

  “Nope, not at all.”

  The two men entered the van, rolled the door closed and then instructed the driver to enter the expressway and set the auto controls for the van to return to Oak Harbor Base.

  * * *

  Whidbey Island Naval Base & Space Port

  Oak Harbor, WA

  Underground Lab Complex

  September 26th, 2067 23:30

  “Whattya mean, we don’t have the body!” Nadine screamed.

  “Calm down, Nadine!” McKenzie replied, “They have the chip. They’ll be here any time now...so just relax already.”

  “That’s the only reason why you haven’t been replaced with another McKenzie clone. I guess this clone is no better than the real General, now are you?”

  “That’s not a fair statement. I have enhancements that make me superior to my original host.”

  “Superior? Pfff...not so much.”

  “I assure you, my programming is functioning within normal operating parameters,” but before Nadine could respond, McKenzie pointed at the man trap, “See, here they are now.”

  Captain Preston escorted Sergeant Briggs, who was carrying a silver metal case.

  “Gentlemen?” Nadine greeted, “Give me the chip.”

  Briggs handed the case to Nadine, turned and gave the General a salute, “At ease, Sergeant. Tell us about the site, what did you observe?”

  “Sir,” Briggs answered, resting his hands behind his back, and spreading his feet slightly. “The area was already clear. Three other teams were making their nightly rounds. They report seeing no one else in the alley. We scanned the entire perimeter and found this chip, lying on the ground.”

  “And you saw nothing else...nothing at all.”

  “No, Sir. This is all we recovered.”

  Nadine quickly opened the case and examined the chip, “You are positive, that this is chip 5-1-6-1-1-5?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. This was Bennie Petersen’s chip.”

  “Okay, get this cleaned up and installed to the mainframe. Let’s see if we can run a diagnostic on it...see what shape it’s in.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Briggs acknowledged.

  “Captain Preston, see to it that this young man is taken care of, will you?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Preston smiled, “I’ll see to it that he is taken care of alright.”

  “Good work, Captain, Sergeant...” Nadine turned to leave, “Oh, please let me know when you have the chip ready to fire up. I want to be present.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Captain Preston answered, “I’ll contact you on your data pad.”

  “Any idea how long?”

  “I’m going to run a complete inspection after it’s cleaned up, give us about nine hours.”

  “Very well, Captain, carry on. General?”

  “Madam?”

  “Give these men a promotion, or something. They performed well here.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll start the paper work, Major Preston.”

  “Major, yes, thank you sir!”

  Nadine left the lab and returned to her desk where she could recharge for a few hours before the chip would be ready.

  * * *

  Coupeville, WA

  Condemned 1900’s Military Installation

  Fort Casey Switchboard

  September 27 07:30

  Bennie slowly opened his eyes. It felt like they had been glued shut for days. He tried to lift his arms but nothing happened. Then his heart jumped with panic, remembering that the last thing he did was try to blow his own head off.

  “Easy, son,” a soft woman’s voice answered, “You’re going to be okay, Ben.”

  “M...Mom?” he struggled to say, his mouth dry.

  “Yes, honey. It’s me.”

  “I thought you were dead,” a tear ran down his face.

  “I had to get off the streets. It was too dangerous.”

  “Where am I?” Bennie asked, trying to look around the dimly lit room.

  “We’ve been trying to find you ever since we became separated,” another familiar voice answered.

  “Calvin! Uncle Calvin?”

  “Yep, in the flesh.
”

  “But, how come...what happened?”

  “Relax, Ben, take it easy,” Calvin said, resting his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Why can’t I move, get me up! I can’t stand this, please help me,” Bennie cried.

  “Son, you’re paralyzed.”

  “Paralyzed? Whattya mean Paralyzed!”

  “It was the programming,” J said, stepping out of the shadows.

  “You’re in on this too? Jeez, what’s the world coming to? I trusted you, J!”

  “It’s okay,” J said, looking at the others, “I’m perfectly alright with him being mad at me. Better me, than you all.”

  “What did you do to me?”

  “We decided that it was much too dangerous to have you on the streets any longer,” J explained, “There were too many attempts on your life. The Company was very close to finding you.”

  “The Company? What the hell?”

  “Bennie, you need to listen,” Beverly said, rubbing his shoulder.

  “How long did you know about this, J? How long did you keep this from me!”

  “Bennie, he was under my orders,” Calvin jumped in, “It wasn’t as long as you think...”

  “How long!”

  “A few weeks, two months tops,” Calvin answered.

  “Bennie, my dear, we had to make sure you weren’t compromised before we brought you in. A lot’s happened.”

  “If this secret location is leaked out, or is compromised, we won’t have any chance in defeating the cyborg threat,” Colonel Griffin added, stepping behind Beverly.

  “Griffin? You made it too?”

  “Yes, thanks to you, Ben. You saved us both.”

  “The water current separated us when the bubble burst on our way up,” Calvin said. “We almost drowned ourselves.”

  “What about Jenny and Doctor Rhodes? Are they here too?”

  “No Bennie, we’re still searching,” Cal answered, “But we think we have a lead on them.”

  “And if we can’t get Doctor Rhodes back in the next few days, it won’t matter anyway,” Griffin said, “We need him to help us integrate the new chips into our hosts.”

  “Hosts?”

  “Yes, us.”

  “Bennie, we’re all going to be chipped, it’s the only way.”

  “Will someone tell me what’s going on? Please tell me why I can’t move!”

  “Bennie,” Cal said, taking a chair and sitting next to the bed, “I had been working on a way to program your chip.”

  “So my chip is gone and that’s why I’m paralyzed? You removed it? You knew I’d be paralyzed!”

  “Bennie, that’s not fair. You have to understand that this threat is grave. You saw it for your own eyes...if that complex is completed and that cyborg clone army is launched, there will be no hope for mankind...I’m working on a new batch of chips that we can use to build our own team, and I’ll make you whole as soon as I can...I promise, but we had to ensure that your chip was put back into the hands of the enemy.”

  “You gave it back to them? That’s your plan? To give them what they need?”

  “We still have the box. They’ll need that,” Griffin said.

  “What about my chip?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you, son,” Calvin said, rolling his eyes, “Just listen.”

  “It’s a good plan,” Griffin endorsed.

  “If he’s agreeing with you, then it must be, so please tell me, I’m dying over up in here already.”

  “I had to first come up with a successful extraction program, you know, to have the chip come out on its own...I figured, it grows in, why not reverse the programming. But before that, I wrote another virus.”

  “Package number 9?” J asked.

  “Yep, that was the instruction code.”

  “So instead of getting AMP’d...”

  “Oh, you were AMP’d alright, and I must say those plasma engine schematics you had stored in the chip were astonishing...but across the AMP code I piggy backed a program that loaded into the chip, before the extraction sequence ran.”

  “A virus.”

  “Yep, it worked on the alien complex the last time, it should work this time.”

  “How did this all happen? I thought it was destroyed on your mission, Uncle?”

  Calvin turned to Beverly and smiled, “See, he forgives me already, I’m Uncle again.”

  “Don’t push it,” Ben scowled.

  “We think there’s another sphere out there. They must have made contact when this here box was installed.”

  “What if they adapted?”

  “I did change the code to make that harder...it is a risk...”

  “...a risk we have to take,” Griffin added.

  “Bennie, I hope you forgive me for this.”

  “Just get me my legs back.”

  “Bennie, as soon as they give any power to your chip, the virus will do a feedback loop back to their main computers.”

  “So, you’ve all been here since we took our underwater passage?”

  “Yes, I never had the chance to tell you the location. I’ve been working on building a great hideaway. Some place right under someone’s nose...on your next AMP session, we were going to have you communicate the location to Jenny and Doctor Rhodes, but we were separated...we never made that connection.”

  “So, where are we, anyway?”

  “Fort Casey.”

  “The old military installation?”

  “Yep...the military condemned these buildings twenty years ago and closed the park.”

  “Except for you of course.”

  “Well, yeah. I’ve built this room several years ago. Reinforced the walls and brought in power. We’re our own little happy family down here...we’re in a building that was called the switchboard. Inside, we’re all secured a level below the main room, so any aerial observation wouldn’t even pick up any heat signatures.”

  “You can AMP us from here?”

  “Yep, through the alien box...I’ve managed to interface with it.”

  “What about this Trudy, J?” Bennie asked, “Seems like a little too good to be true that she’s right there, available and chipped.”

  “Bennie, may man...I had no idea that Trudy was jacked. No clue at all.”

  “Cal? Griffin? You have anything to do with her?”

  “No, never heard of her,” Calvin shrugged.

  “Not me, I’ve lost most of my outside contacts. I rather like being presumed dead,” Griffin nodded.

  “You mean it takes the heat off of ya,” J smirked.

  The colonel coughed and then cleared his throat, “Yeah, something like that.”

  An alarm began to ring, echoing in the room adjacent to where Bennie was lying, “What’s that? What’s happening?” Bennie panicked.

  Calvin jumped up and ran to his control room and silenced the alarm, “It’s okay, all good...my scanning program has verified the chip ID for Jen,” Calvin yelled from the other room.

  “Oh is that all?” Bennie said, with relief, “I thought we had been made.”

  “No...no, see, that’s a completely different sounding alarm,” Calvin said, coming partway back into Bennies’ room, “That one sounds more like, aheeeeow, aheeeeow, aheeeeow,” Calvin howled.

  “Very funny, Unc,” Bennie chuckled.

  “See, I can still make you laugh, but no, really, that is the sound it makes,” Calvin said, crossing his heart.

  Cal returned to his console and typed a few commands, he held his hand high in the air and made a quick bomb drop whistle as he depressed the transmit key.

  J’s data pad bleeped, nearly as soon as he hit the send button, “I just sent you Jen’s coordinates. Any chance you have some of your contacts that can run her down? Get an eye on her?”

  J examined the coordinates and then stroked his chin, “You know how hard it is gettin’ in and out of the city right now or I’d go myself, but I just don’t have anyone that I really can trust.”

  �
��How about any you sorta trust?”

  “Well, I do know of one associate...can’t trust him as far as I can throw him, and that ain’t’ too far, neither.”

  “Well since there’s no transceiver on her hybrid chip, we can’t even send her a message.”

  “Unless I’m AMP’d,” Bennie said.

  “I don’t have a chip ready.”

  “No, listen to me now.”

  “I’m all ears, son,” Calvin said, sitting back on his stool.

  I was AMP’d a few hours ago, there might still be some residual effects. Just let me concentrate.”

  “The chips not in there...”

  “But my brain remembers it being there and just maybe...”

  “Maybe you can get a message to Jen?”

  Bennie closed his eyes and concentrated, Jenny...Jenny... Ben thought within his AMP’d mind, it’s me, Jenny. It’s Bennie...

  Then he shot his eyes open, displaying a faint green tint that softly glowed, “She’s in town, she knows I’m trying to communicate.”

  “Tell her to stay put. We’ll prepare to extract them from the city,” Griffin instructed.

  “What makes you think I trust you with anything,” Bennie yelled, “There are still memories that I’m going to tap into, Griffin.”

  “Bennie!” Beverly said, “Tom has been very cooperative with all we have asked him to do, you can trust him.”

  “Humph,” Bennie said, returning to concentrating on Jenny, “There’s too much at stake, or I’d probe your mind right here and now,” then he closed his eyes and delivered the message to Jenny.

  “She understands and will be waiting for us at the Palomino Club.”

  “Great,” Cal nodded, “Griffin, J, and I will start putting together a plan to get them out of the city.”

  * * *

  Whidbey Island Naval Base & Space Port

  Oak Harbor, WA

  Underground Lab Complex

  September 27th, 2067 09:30

  “We’re ready here, Nadine,” Captain Hawthorn reported over his data pad.

  A few minutes later, an anxious Nadine made her way through the man trap and entered the lab where Hawthorn and McKenzie were waiting.

  Nadine stepped up to the counter where the chip was resting on a clear platform, suspended and in line with two robotic arms, one of which connected at the tail, the other would connect to the fiber thread. Its surface had been cleaned and sterilized from Bennie’s blood, the thin strand held in place by a pinched connector that held the fiber out straight.