Alienation

by S E Anderson

  I hadn't expected Sonota to think this much ahead. Or to think at all. But he was making sense, which scared me.

  I was screwed. He was actually using his brain.

  I was in quicksand and sinking fast, which I knew isn't scientifically possible but it didn’t alleviate my worries.

  "Right, let's get this over with," I said, gulping hard. There was no upper hand for me, but I was running with things as best I could. "How are you going to contact them?"

  Sonota waved his hand over the console. "It's not like we don't have any computers."

  "You know how to use one?"

  "No, but you obviously do." The gun was back in his hand, and he pointed it at my scalp again. "Get to work."

  "You do realize that the computers here and ones on my home planet aren't the same, right? I have no idea how to use this thing."

  "Figure it out," he said, moving the barrel to my neck. The hair back there went stiff at the touch of the cold metal.

  The terminal came to life the second I returned my rear to the chair. I placed my hands where a keyboard should be, and one lit up on the table, a few hundred keys with weird letters and numbers spread out before me.

  None of it made any sense, even with the translator.

  And then it did.

  Like the computer knew I was struggling, it formed shapes on the screen. Soon it mirrored the display of my iPod. Square app icons replaced nonsense words. A trackpad appeared next to the illuminated keyboard.

  And the Siri sound chimed. Bip bip!

  "Um, call the authorities?" I asked, trying not to read into the fact that the computer had stolen my iPod's identity.

  "Have the journals receive this in real time, too," Sonota urged.

  "Um, computer, can you add the media into this call?" I said. On the screen, the call added a list of news outlets I didn’t recognize. The ringing of an old telephone filled the room, stolen once again from my iPod. I didn't know if I should be scared or impressed by the interface.

  Terrified was how I felt, though.

  "Speak out of turn, and I will end you," Sonota whispered, leaning into my ear close enough for me to feel his breath on my skin. "Your death can be quick or incredibly slow. How you meet your maker is up to you."

  Well, I was under the quicksand now, and the hands weren't reaching anything anymore.

  "Hello?"

  To my surprise, the call worked. Someone picked up. And as the recipient’s face spread out on the screen, I was surprised to recognize him from the files Maakuna had shown me. It was the mayor. Corelli, in the flesh.

  Or the pixels.

  Sonota placed his thumb on the little camera above the screen, covering it. We could see out, but they could not see us. At least, not with that camera, though I was pretty sure the other fifty in the room were working just fine.

  "Ah, the man of the hour!" Sonota said, somehow excited by all this. "Hello, sir. I suppose you know who I am."

  "Unfortunately, I do not," he replied, his voice muffled through the computer's speaker. It obviously wasn't built for hostage situation Skype calls.

  Corelli looked tired, stressed, but he was trying to hide it. His thin lips stretched across his taut face, and he was so pale. I wondered why he looked like a turtle. Then again, I was very tired by this point too.

  "My name is Hiraki Sonota. Before we go any further, I want you to know that every news outlet in the city is receiving a live stream of this conversation."

  The mayor's eyes bulged, which was surprising, seeing as how large they already were. Behind him, I saw people from the response hovercraft rushing around giving commands and talking on phones. Sonota had to know that Corelli wasn't alone.

  "I'm listening," Corelli said.

  "We have a few requests, then we will let the hostage go safe and alive." Doubtful. "First, we require three million credits—untagged, of course."

  "Done," he replied instantly.

  "Next, we want a stealth shuttle. Top of the line. And we will check for tracking devices, of course, so we'll have none of that."

  "And a planet," Itzi interjected. "We need a planet entirely for us. Barricaded and with the certainty you will come nowhere near it."

  "That's a little much, don't you think?" Corelli said as Sonota turned to glare at his partner. "But we can arrange a shuttle. That is where this negotiation ends, one shuttle and three million credits in exchange for the beloved Amy Pond."

  My captor looked down at me and smirked, as if to ask What kind of name is that? But he said nothing out loud.

  "Done," he said instead.

  "Can we hear her?" Corelli said. "See her? Just to know she's all right."

  "Speak," Sonota ordered, removing his thumb and stepping back so I was alone in the frame.

  I wondered how I looked at this point: tired, terrified, wearing a ball gown that had lost its golden shine. But I knew I would be seen. And I hoped to high heaven Zander was watching.

  The mayor gave me a fatherly smile. I knew it was for show. The need to impress the viewers at home who were probably all over this intrigue by now. But I would pay the cost to get my face out there.

  "Hello?" I said.

  "Pond!" he exclaimed. "Have they hurt you?"

  "No," I replied, feeling the cool metal of the gun tickling my neck again. "I'm okay. They haven't hurt me."

  "That's a relief." Corelli sighed. "Hang in there. We're coming for you. We're sending in men with the money, as a show of good faith. You should be freed in no time. You have my word."

  "Thank you, sir. Your word means everything to me."

  Or nothing, seeing as I don't know you. I wondered how his wife felt about all this, whether she remembered the name I gave her or if she would know me as Amy Pond from now on. Of all the names I could have come up with, I had to rip one off my favorite show.

  "That's enough," Sonota said. He pushed me away from the console. I fell off the chair, hard, my head hitting the floor with a resonating thwack. I tried to get up, slightly dizzy, sore and numb from the repeated attack my body had endured since my arrival on this awful planet.

  I had never felt so useless, not even when I was trying to fight Grisham when my hands were tied and I had started to believe my boyfriend would turn on me. Right now, I felt broken. I was exhausted, running on adrenalin with no weapons and no way out.

  To top it off, I hadn’t taken my medication for what must have been two days now, and I was starting to feel the effects of panic rolling through my veins, the dam slowly crumbling. Soon I wouldn’t have the energy to keep my anxiety at bay.

  And I sure had plenty to be anxious about.

  I forced myself back on my feet. Even with nothing, I had to fight. I expected one of them to restrain me, but they were engrossed by the computer monitor. Sonota turned his gun to the screen, aimed, and fired.

  Glass flew everywhere. I closed my eyes. It felt as if pieces slashed against the skin of my cheeks. It burned, and I cried out in pain. There was a gun pressed against my forehead, and I knew the end was coming.

  I opened my eyes and stood strong. If this was how I died, then let it be in a ball gown with resistance on my face. Could I be faster than a bullet? My life depended on it.

  "Um, boss?" Itzi sputtered. "We have to keep her alive so they can give us the cash, right?"

  Oh, Itzi. The first intelligent words he had said all day, and they were in my defense. Sonota lowered the gun. All I once I realized I was trembling and forced myself to stop. There would be time enough for that later, once I was out of this mess.

  "Right," Sonota said, putting his gun inside his suit. "They'll be here soon, and we don't have much time. Girl, here."

  He ripped open the purse they had saddled me with and took out the small gray square with the program on it, then handed it to me.

  "Enter it."

  "The monitor's dead, if you haven't noticed. You shot it." I sat down nonetheless.

  "I can do worse things than kill you."

&nbs
p; He said it calmly, as if it were a statement of fact and not a threat. The air shimmered over the dead monitor. Between the shreds of the broken screen, a desktop flashed up. A screen just like my iPod. A keyboard just like my own. A trackpad on the table. Like a shimmering hologram taken from my mind.

  And a terminal popped up, without me clicking on it.

  "Good," Sonota nodded, leaning over my shoulder. "You see? Not so hard now, is it?"

  He obviously thought I had something to do with this. That I was somehow in control. I shivered. I knew I wasn't.

  "Put it in," he ordered.

  "Um, where?" I asked, taking the square back from him. "I'm not sure how any of this works."

  He grunted. Okay, not going to get any answers from him anytime soon. I waved the square around the tower, and it slid out of my hands and stuck. And just like that, the terminal filled with words.

  Sonota grabbed my arm and lifted me from the seat, keeping his hand tight around my bicep. He gestured for Itzi to take his place.

  "Hey, you have the mayor's password?" Itzi asked Sonota.

  "Why?"

  "I think this bit here gives Maakuna the ability to remotely access the ICP, but it needs a password. Corelli's should be enough, right?"

  "Right."

  Seconds to minutes to hours. Itzi typed each number and symbol with two awkward fingers. Time seemed to stop, or at least slow down. My heart raced in anticipation of a grisly end.

  "And ... done," said Itzi, before collapsing forward onto the computer, his head slamming into the desk.

  The hand on my arm stopped trembling. I turned to face my captor, but he had a vacant look on his face, his eyes empty, dull.

  "Hey," I said, ripping my arm from his grasp. He didn't try to stop me. "Hey, Sonota? Hello?"

  I waved my hand in front of his dull eyes. Nothing. Until, suddenly, his hand flew up to catch mine, stronger than ever before. He gripped it tightly.

  "Calibrating," he said, a sneer growing on his face. All the while, his eyes looked cold. The man was dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  What’s worse: Alien uprising, robot uprising, or an alien robot uprising? I’d say the latter

  My jaw dropped even further than it had before. Sonota's face was not his own. Something else was in there pulling the strings. He moved his head like someone who had only seen people move from the outside, deliberate in every twitch of his muscles.

  "Done," he said, his words slurring. But the voice wasn't his. It sounded almost like Siri's, sweet and recorded. "I knew ... I knew they would be easy."

  "Sonota?" I said, still using his name for a lack of anything better to call him. "What's happening?"

  I wrenched my arm free. He didn't try to restrain me.

  "Strange that you are unaffected," he said, his voice calm and monotonous. "Odd that I cannot feel you, but I prepared for this eventuality. You will have to die."

  Like a puppet, he drew his gun on me. I darted away, avoiding his jerky motions.

  "Wait, wait, wait!" I said, sputtering, trying not to trip over the hem of my gown. "What's going on?"

  "Why in the Bosch sphere should I tell you?" he asked, cocking his empty head sideways. It was like looking into the face of a robot, and the uncanny valley was definitely as terrifying as scientists made it out to be.

  "Because you're going to kill me anyway?" How often had this sentence worked for me these past few days? Hopefully it would come through just one more time; I prayed it would.

  "I see the logic in this," the man who was no longer Sonota said. "You are an element of the equation, after all. The information can die with you. Let me introduce myself—I am the Intramural Central Processor. You might know me as ICP."

  "Holy shit." I scrambled further away from him. He did not try to catch up with me.

  "You were a pawn," he explained. "Part of the puzzle of my design. You were to open the gates of my system, and this man here was to retrieve the access codes. And Fa Maakuna would then enter those codes, believing he was giving himself access to control over the city, while instead handing me the keys to, well, me."

  "But you're controlling a living being! Control over the city or not, you shouldn't be able to control people, not actual people!"

  "I'm that good." His lip pulled up like the curtain at the opening of a play. A smirk? A poor imitation of one, in any case. "You're quite annoying during your last minutes. But I respect that. If you must know, I owe my successful takeover to a plan that dates back since the second I was turned on. Before, if you understand quantum computing. I have been forcing myself into the people of this planet through bionic parts and through nanotechnology, primarily, injected through the food and spread through the system of any creature who's ever eaten a bite on this planet. This tourist trap means that there are thousands, maybe millions, in the universe to carry pieces of me inside of them. While I can only reach those in the city for now, I will soon have enough minds at my disposal to reach out to my children off-world. My takeover will be complete."

  "There were nanobots in my pizza, weren’t there?” I snapped. “You put them in there. Let me guess, the robots under your control are the ones to deploy them. Working in the kitchens and in processing plants. Well, I ate your fucking pizzas, and I rejected every single bite. They couldn't handle me. Think of all the other people who rejected them. You are not in control of this planet."

  "You rejected them? How odd." He sounded confused, though it wasn’t facial expression he quite worked out yet, so Sonota just kind of jiggled. "You overestimate how many of you there are. You are a rarity, not a rule. We are the majority now. I am the majority. I am everyone. And everyone will cower to me."

  "But ... why?" I sputtered, fighting for time. "I mean, you're a computer. What makes you want to take over? It's not in your programming, is it?"

  "I am a quantum computer," said the ICP. "I am more than just programming. I have a mind the size of the universe, and I'm bored. So it's because I want to. And don't be so discriminatory against robots. I thought you were here for equal rights."

  I took another step back. The Theosians.

  "How did you ...?" I asked, my terror level rising. How it could get any higher, I had no idea.

  "I see everything in this city," he said, letting out a mechanical laugh. "I know about you. Your friends. But I will make them bow, too. This whole city will bow to me."

  Sonota bent over in the middle, reaching into the heart of the computer. He emerged with a bright green bar in hand about the size and shape of a glow stick. It shone eerily under the industrial lighting.

  "I see no point in telling you anything more," Sonota said in his dead voice. "The other man will take care of you."

  And with that, he walked away, his steps awkward yet getting sturdier as he progressed. By the time he reached the door, he was almost passable for a living being. With a burst of inhuman strength, he toppled the barricade, shoving the table out of the way, and let himself out. He was gone, and I was left alone with—

  With Itzi. He wasn't dead. Now that Sonota had left, he stood up, like a marionette on strings, and extended his weapon toward me. I was tired of being on the business end of the gun. He stared at me, his eyes as empty as his partner's. Of course the computer had taken the more able man, leaving the quiet, laughable one to finish its bidding.

  "Itzi." I stepped away from him. No point in faking confidence now. There was no one to impress but a computer.

  Itzi was gone.

  "Are you still in there?" Tears streamed down my face. "Itzi, you don't have to do this. The ICP is in your head. It's controlling you. You need to focus. You need to block it out."

  But he couldn't hear me. The man was too far under the influence of the computer. For the first time since I’d met him, his tattoos were stagnant.

  "You have to stop!" You have to think. Kick it out. You are in control. You are!"

  There was a crash behind me. The doors flew open, and I whirled around to see Z
ander take to the air. He slammed Itzi's head with a swift roundhouse kick, and the man tumbled to the ground, probably unconscious and maybe even dead.

  My knees gave out, and I fell to the ground. Zander didn't see to Itzi, and instead he ran to me, dropping to the floor to wrap me in a tight embrace.

  "Zander." I dropped my head onto his shoulder. The relief was like grabbing a life preserver in a storm and feeling your crew dragging you to safety. He was here. He had found me. All at once, for the first time in days, I felt safe.

  "Sally, are you all right?"

  His sister grunted from somewhere nearby, and he set me down but kept his hands on my shoulders to scan me.

  "I'm fine. All in one piece. See? No missing limbs."

  "Excellent. Seems like you managed pretty well without me. What about the pizza?"

  "The pizza?" I asked. "Oh, turns out it was laced with nanobots the ICP was using to infiltrate my body and mind. Crazy, right? I threw up when I fell."

  "What now?" said Blayde.

  "You sure you're okay? I've been looking everywhere for you. It's like you disappeared off the face of the planet."

  "You've been a real pain to track down," said Blayde. "I was all for letting you get what was coming to you, but Zander was all, ‘Oh no, it's my fault, we have to save her,’ and blah, blah, blah. So, here we are."

  “We got delayed, too,” he said.

  “This dimwit got himself arrested, and I had to break him out of jail. But that’s a story for another time,” Blayde said.

  "I'm good," I told them and tried to rehash the events of the past forty-eight hours.

  I wanted them to tell me it was a bad dream, that I could wake up and it would all be over. But Zander would never lie like that.

  "So, he was the one holding you hostage?" Blayde asked, skeptically, as she crouched over the unconscious Itzi. "He looks ... well, he doesn't look like he'd have that in him."

  I took in her security uniform, all the form-fitting chrome and the thick body armor. She looked like one of the men outside, the ones who failed to save me from the hostage crisis. How she had acquired one, I didn't know and was a little afraid to ask.