Countdown

by Michelle Rowen

  was on it?

  And did he realize that I’d stolen it back from him when

  I’d been reading his mind?

  He hadn’t felt me slip a hand into his inner jacket pocket.

  He may have noticed when I’d stolen his wallet on the streets,

  but he hadn’t even f linched this time.

  Sucker.

  Well, I had picked a few pockets in my time. Practice made

  perfect.

  I clenched the disc tightly in the palm of my hand. Only

  one shot. I was betting it all. Both Rogan’s and my life. If this didn’t work, I’d have to summon up something inside of myself to get to that gun and kill Rogan’s father. With a last look at Rogan I moved to the display screen,

  frantically searching the side of it for a slot to put in the disc.

  My hands were sweating.

  Finally, I found it. I slid it in.

  Gareth ended his call and turned back to look at me. The image of the palm tree was gone. Instead there was a

  black screen with a blinking curser at the end of the words:

  EXECUTE PROGRAM

  Since there was no keyboard, the screen also showed a touch pad and the enter key was right there, only an arm’s reach away. I put my hand up to it.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Gareth’s voice was cold as ice.

  My eyes narrowed. “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like somebody who has no history of computer knowledge is trying to act smart.”

  I tried to slow my breathing. “Is that what it looks like to you?”

  “And keep in mind that I said ‘trying’ to act smart, little girl. Not succeeding. I assume you took that disc from me? Once a criminal, always a criminal.” He shook his head. “What program is that?”

  “Just a little antivirus one.” My hand hovered just above the enter button.

  His expression didn’t change. “And who gave it to you?”

  “Somebody who isn’t thrilled with your programming decisions.”

  He blinked slowly and then looked at Rogan. “Was this your idea?”

  “Actually,” Rogan said, voice tight, “I was thinking about killing you and being done with it, but Kira’s a lot nicer than me.”

  He smiled thinly and turned back to me. His gaze was steady. “And why have you put an antivirus program on my Zen screen?”

  I tried to match his with a calm expression of my own. “This is a Zen screen? That’s funny. I thought it was the server that secretly holds the entire artificial intelligence programming connected to your implant. The one with the virus in it that’s turned you into a complete psycho.”

  “That’s not very logical is it? All the servers at Ellis Enterprises are on the second f loor.”

  I had a moment of doubt. Well, another one. If we were wrong, then everything was over. We would lose in a very large way—both personally, and for the unsuspecting world around us.

  Despair took hold of me with a clawed hand, crushing me in its grip. We were wrong.

  But wait. If I was that wrong about everything, then why wasn’t Gareth storming over here and slapping my hand out of the way? He looked relaxed and cocky, but he wasn’t moving, wasn’t provoking me to press the enter button.

  “This is the server.” I put total certainty behind this statement, forcing myself to push past any doubts. “I know it is. And as soon as I press this button I’m thinking that your evolutionary aspirations will be wiped out completely.”

  His lips thinned. “I disagree.”

  “Then let’s see, shall we?”

  “Wait!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Even if you press that, it won’t do anything. My new life may have begun as a difficult-to-reproduce miracle, but I have grown. I have learned and evolved. I am more than man or machine now. You know that. You saw my soul yourself.”

  “Wrong.” I shook my head. “I didn’t see anything inside you except a big black hole.”

  His eyes widened. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? Then let’s try it. If you’re right and you have a big shiny soul inside that body you stole, then you might be able to walk right out of this room. If not, then your implant will be fried and Rogan’s real father will come back.”

  He turned to Rogan, his expression darkening. “You think that you can still save your father? Your father is already dead. The moment he chose to put the implant in his brain he chose this path. As did you.”

  Rogan brow furrowed. “My implant—”

  “It works. I believe we’ve already proven that.”

  I looked at Rogan and then at him. “What does that mean?”

  One side of Gareth’s mouth turned up in a half smile. “It means that if you press that button, there is a very remote possibility that you are right and I will cease to be. My implant will be destroyed. But don’t you see? So will Rogan’s. And since it’s embedded deep within his brain tissue, it will kill him, too. Our implants are directly connected now, thanks to your friend Oliver. Everything here at Ellis Enterprises is connected to this server.”

  I swallowed hard. “What about the Subscribers? They have implants, too.”

  He shook his head. “They’re not the same. The only implants that truly matter are the prototypes. The Subscribers have a lower-grade Network-approved facsimile that’s a pale shadow of what we have. So you see? You’ll be hurting Rogan, killing Rogan, and the Subscribers will all live to see another day.”

  The worst thing was I didn’t think he was lying.

  “It would be better if this was being taped,” Gareth said, regretfully. “The Subscribers would all tune in to see this. Such a waste of good entertainment…and a potential feast for me.”

  He pressed a button on his touch screen, and Rogan yelled out in pain again.

  I snapped my gaze back to his, my heart slamming. “Stop it!”

  “Step away from the screen, Kira,” he said. “And Rogan will live.”

  “No!” Rogan spoke through his agony. “Do it, Kira. Launch the program. Do it!”

  My brain was working overtime, f lashing through all the potential scenarios. Press the button and nothing happens. Gareth studies my Psi abilities until he’s bored of me and kills me, anyway. He changes Rogan into a monster like him. Or press the button and launch the antivirus, killing Gareth but also killing Rogan.

  It was too much to process. I didn’t know what to do.

  My hand shook in front of the view screen. My arm burned from holding it up.

  “Forget about me,” Rogan urged in pain-filled gasps. “You have to stop him. It’s not just me. He wants to take Countdown and the implants wider, to the Colony and beyond. More people will be hurt. More will be killed.”

  He spoke to me, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze had shifted to the f loor. To the gun.

  I could try to injure Gareth, not kill him. Just incapacitate him long enough to figure something—

  But I didn’t act in time. And Gareth was closer. With a soft grunt of amusement he walked straight to Rogan, leaned over, and snatched the gun off the ground.

  He inspected it, pulling out the chamber and gazing inside.

  “Humans and their weapons,” he mused. “So violent. So bloody.” He smiled. “And yet, so very entertaining.”

  He turned, aimed and pulled the trigger at Rogan.

  I screamed.

  Blood f lowed red from the fresh wound in his shoulder. Rogan’s teeth clenched, but he hadn’t made a sound when the bullet pierced his skin. He still couldn’t move.

  “I had my people injure you before,” he snarled. “You would be dead right now if it weren’t for Jonathan’s interference. I thought it was fitting to use the same poison on him as punishment.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Rogan snarled.

  Gareth inspected the gun. “If I’m counting correctly, I have ten more bullets available to me. I’m sure after the fifth or sixth, you’ll
start begging for your life. Kira? What do you think? Or would you prefer I continue to torture him through his implant?”

  Tears slid down my cheeks. “Stop hurting him. Please.” “But don’t you understand yet? You’re the one who’s hurting him now. Every moment you delay will cause him that much more pain. Do you really want someone you care about to experience such anguish?”

  Kill me, the real Gareth had begged. There’s no other choice.

  Rogan would be like that, too, once the artificial intelligence was uploaded to his implant. He’d be trapped somewhere down deep with no chance to be free again.

  Either way, he would be lost forever.

  “Do you want him to be in pain like this?” Gareth said again, louder. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. The world I will create will be a perfect one, with no pain, no doubt, no fear and no grief.”

  He was right. I didn’t want Rogan to be in pain. Not if I could do something to stop it.

  I shook my head. “Being human means that you have to feel pain and doubt and fear and grief. But that doesn’t always make it a bad thing.”

  “Do it,” Rogan said, his words a raspy pain-filled gasp.

  Gareth raised the gun again.

  “I’m sorry, Rogan,” I said softly. And then I touched the screen’s enter button.

  A LONG STRING OF CODE BEGAN TO FLOW across the screen.

  After another moment the screen froze and two lines of readable type appeared, surrounded by asterisks.

  **********************************

  ELLIS ENTERPRISES HACKED BY NUCLEARXXX REVENGE IS SWEET

  **********************************

  To add insult to injury, a picture of Joe appeared, giving a clear shot of his raised middle finger.

  What was this? Had he given us a disc with a stupid prank on it?

  A wave of nausea f looded through me, but I fought it. I’d known that this was a long shot at best.

  Rogan was still alive. Relief about that mixed with my ocean of dread over what would happen next.

  “Idiot,” Gareth said, and it was directed at me. He laughed and, if you asked me, looked deeply relieved. He now pointed the gun at me. “I told you that you couldn’t stop me with some ridiculous program—”

  But then he stopped talking, and the gun dropped to his side.

  I glanced back at the screen. The image of Joe was gone again and was replaced with more scrolling computer code.

  Gareth brought a hand up to his forehead.

  “Not feeling so hot all of a sudden?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing.”

  I studied him. “Maybe an antivirus is a lot like the chicken soup my mom used to make for me when I was sick with a cold. Sometimes you’re so stuffed up that you can’t taste it right away. Takes a minute before it kicks in.”

  The hand holding the gun was shaking as he tried to raise it again but failed. It made me think—made me hope—he was losing strength, losing his hold on Rogan’s father’s body.

  The code raced on the screen.

  “A big black hole,” I said to him, my previous fear being replaced by a line of rage so whitehot that it began to burn through my pores. “That’s all I saw when I read you. You have no soul. You’re nothing but a computer program. I can’t even feel sorry that you’re being deleted right now, because you don’t exist.”

  “Bitch!” He managed to lurch the gun up and shoot at me. “I’m going to kill you!”

  His aim was way off. The bullet missed me and smashed through the display screen behind me. It sputtered and smoked and the screen went black, but a small green light pulsed at the corner where the disc was. The antivirus was still working even without the display, sinking farther into the Ellis Enterprises network.

  There was silence for a solid moment.

  Then Gareth screamed and dropped to his knees.

  Rogan clutched his head and his eyes went wide. He yelled out in pain, and the sound pierced me like an arrow to my heart. Then the sound of the Ellis security alarm rang again, so loudly that I felt it like a slap shuddering through my entire body.

  “Rogan!” I moved toward him, but he held up his hand.

  “Kira…” The next moment, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed to the f loor.

  And then every light in the room shut off. The alarm stopped ringing.

  It was a power surge—just like the blackout on the night Rogan had tried to destroy the computers last time.

  I dropped to the f loor. I couldn’t see anything. Nothing. Everything was black.

  “Rogan?” I whispered. “Are you still there?”

  I was answered by complete silence.

  Total darkness and total silence.

  Seconds went by with no change. No nothing.

  I began to tremble as my phobia washed over me in a black wave.

  It was like being dead. Maybe I’d died. Maybe we were dead, and this was what it was like. Maybe there was no Heaven. Maybe this darkness was all there was.

  I hadn’t been able to save my family in the darkness. I’d been a coward and crawled under my bed to hide while I’d listened to them die.

  And now it was the same. I was petrified. Unable to move. And I couldn’t do anything to save Rogan. He’d had the same implant as his father. I’d killed him—if he was dead, I’d killed him. It was all my fault.

  I grabbed my knees and hugged them against my chest.

  There’s still hope. We’re not dead yet.

  I shook my head. No, it was over. I couldn’t do anything. I was too afraid.

  Just pretend there’s a countdown, a small part of me suggested.

  I had to get the antivirus disc out of the display screen to stop it doing any more damage. It was in the server. The server must still have had energy, and it was frying the implants.

  It’s too late, a little voice inside me whispered. Removing the disc will do nothing.

  I ignored the voice. It didn’t do me any good to give in to complete despair.

  The darkness was nothing. It meant nothing. I’d been through too much with Rogan to give up now over something like a little darkness.

  I began to count in my head.

  20…19…18…

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and inhaled, filling my lungs with air. Then I started crawling. I wasn’t sure which way was which anymore. I felt along the f loor until I found the leather sofa. Until my hands passed over the golden Buddha.

  I touched a wall, smooth and cold. Acrid smoke burned my nostrils.

  Up farther and farther.

  9…8…7…

  My sister was screaming.

  I pushed the memory away.

  Think of Rogan. Rogan is here. He’s here right now. 5…4…3…

  The edge of the display screen. I winced as the sharp edge of the broken glass sliced into my finger. Along to the side. Yes, there. The green light pulsed dimly next to the slot I’d shoved the disc into. I felt for the little release button. I pressed it, and the disc slipped out and into my hand.

  I slid it into my pocket and got back down to the f loor, moving more quickly now. I was searching for him. Searching for Rogan through the darkness.

  “Where are you?” I whispered, my voice catching on the words.

  There was no answer.

  I tried to picture the room in my mind. Pretend that it was still lit by the overhead lights. I visualized where Rogan had fallen to the ground holding his head and crawled in what I hoped was that direction.

  Hand over hand, I felt my way until I finally touched something. A boot. A big boot that seemed familiar. Up a muscled calf and a leg to a f lat stomach. Yes. Collar bone. His throat— I kissed his throat. I remembered that so very clearly. And his chin. And his lips, warm against mine.

  My hands slipped into his hair, and I pulled him against me. He wasn’t moving.

  “Rogan, don’t die. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

  I was afraid to check, but I knew I didn
’t have a choice. I pressed against his neck to feel for a pulse.

  He still had one.

  Relief crashed over me. “You scared me, you jerk,” I whispered. He still said nothing, which didn’t set my mind totally at ease. He was unconscious, probably badly hurt, but he still had a heartbeat. He was still alive.

  Through the darkness, I found his lips and pressed mine against them.

  A distant, f leeting memory came to me of a fairy tale my mother once told me. Sleeping Beauty. The handsome prince woke the beautiful princess up with the perfect kiss.

  This is sure one messed-up fairy tale I’m in, I thought.

  I kept kissing him, ignoring any other thoughts.

  Moments passed, but I finally felt him respond with a soft gasp against my lips.

  “Kira?”

  Happiness f looded me, chasing the darkness away—at least, the darkness inside me. We were still in the middle of a blackout, several stories underground. “Well, who else would be groping you in the middle of a dark room?”

  He snorted softly. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “You’re alive.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “I’m going to kick your ass.” I said it sternly, but I couldn’t keep the smile out of my voice.

  “Take a number. Now I have a bullet in my shoulder. And my head is killing me.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “What about my father?” he asked tentatively.

  My heart twisted. “I think…I—I think he’s gone, Rogan. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh.” He was quiet for a long moment. “It’s dark in here.”

  “Yeah, it really is.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of the dark?”

  “Petrif ied.”

  “Thought so.” Another pause and I felt his hand press against my back. “I’m surprised that the backup generator hasn’t kicked in yet.”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking that Joe had a few more surprises on that disc than just the antivirus. The guy was a genius.”

  “Maybe my father should have hired him when he had the chance.”

  “Yes, if you had to go back and change one thing in your history, I’d say that you really shouldn’t have screwed up that job interview. Hindsight.”

  There was another pause. “But then I never would have met you.”

  I couldn’t help but grin at that. “Ditto.” After a moment I frowned. “Hey, are you double-jointed or something?”