by Ramona Finn
This time I don’t resist as he tugs me along after him.
…
Eventually, we slow down. He follows the same rules that Mech gave to us. Sticking to the sidewalks, moving slowly. Behaving as a Tech. It unnerves me how good he is at it, and again I think that something is off. But I tell myself that it’s only because he’s been trapped here for so long. More than that, he’s behaving as he needs to to survive. The exact same thing I’m doing. He can’t afford to behave like himself.
Still, I can’t resist asking. “What happened to you, Raj?” I keep my voice calm, even, though my heart races. I think we’ll get caught at any moment.
He leads me to a house that is just like all of the other houses around us. He knocks on it and waits. I’m about to ask him what he’s doing—this is a Tech house—but then the door opens. I’m about to grab Raj and make a run for it, when I catch sight of the woman’s face.
And I freeze.
I know her. I recognize her. Because the woman staring at us has a face that I know all too well now. It belongs to Doctor Constance Sig, the woman who created the AI.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
We sit inside the generously sized room. The walls are white; the furniture is white. Everything’s white. It’s very clinical, and so unlike the tunnels in the Outside. It makes me uncomfortable, but the thing that truly makes me uncomfortable is the woman sitting across from me.
She tells me to call her Connie. I try not to make the connection to the AI, but it’s impossible. The face the AI wears is hers… but is it possible that there’s another explanation? An impossible one. Could this woman be the real Dr. Constance Sig? A woman that should have died years and years ago. I know it’s impossible. She was the creator of the AI—she can’t still be alive. But I want it to be.
“How… who are you?” I ask her finally. “You look just like—”
The woman smiles at me sweetly. “Constance Sig?” she fills in for me. I only nod. “Doctor Sig died a long time ago. Obviously I’m not her.” She smiles at me serenely.
The woman, Connie, smiles. “The AI,” she explains. “I think you know, at least a little, that you have a connection to Connie. Don’t you?”
I frown. I don’t want to admit it, but I nod anyway.
The woman’s smile broadens. “Do you know what that is?”
I have an idea, but I’m scared to say it. I’m scared because part of me wants it more than anything—and the other is terrified of it being the truth.
“You’re my daughter, Lib. My precious daughter.”
My heart swells and, for a second, I have to clench my eyes shut. Mother? Is this woman really my mother? I find that I so desperately want to believe that she is. That I have finally found my family. But even as I try to imagine this woman holding me, hugging me, smiling at me, I find that it doesn’t quite add up. It doesn’t answer the important questions—like why she shares the same face as the AI.
When I open my eyes again, the woman is looking at me with a serene expression on her face. She tells me, “You’re very important, Lib. You were created to save the human race, after all.”
My eyes widen. Too much information swirls around in my head and none of it makes sense. “What are you talking about? Created? Save the human race?”
“I think you know,” she says again. “About your mission.”
My shoulders slump. Find the Glitches. When I woke up in the desert, I had no memory. All I had were a smattering of images and thoughts that didn’t make any sense, and one phrase repeating over and over again in my head. Find the Glitches. Later, I discovered that this was a program designed by the AI. I was meant to destroy the people I had come to care about.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter what my mission was supposed to be. It isn’t that anymore. I’m not going to kill the Glitches or the Rogues.”
The woman’s smile drops a little. “But it’s your purpose. It’s why I made you.”
Made, not had. Like I’m a thing that was created—not a child that was born. If this woman is truly my mother, I have to start considering what that means. Because Constance Sig cannot be alive still. And this woman looks too much like her to simply be a descendant. But the AI has used a holographic projection before… Is it possible—?
My whole body goes rigid as I consider the very real possibility that I’m sitting in a room with the murderous AI—and that she is, in fact, my mother.
Or, more appropriately, my creator. Because I’m suddenly wondering if I was born at all.
“My friends are Rogues and Glitches.” I love them, I think, but can’t bring myself to say it. “I won’t hurt them.”
Connie, the AI, whatever she is, shakes her head. “You’re confused. But that’s to be expected. Your programming is very complex. But you must understand that the Rogues and the Glitches are the real problem with humanity. They are uncontrollable, problematic. They represent the rebellious nature of humans as well as general genetic deficiencies. Things that could ultimately cause the destruction of the human race.”
Furious and terrified, I stand abruptly. Turning to Raj, I tell him, “We need to go. Now.”
But he doesn’t get up. In fact, he sighs, and then looks up at me. “You should listen to what she has to say, Lib. It’s very important. The whole human race is hanging in the balance here.”
Cold realization washes over me. I should have known it. Maybe deep down, I did know it. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. “You knew she was the AI, didn’t you?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Does it matter? Just sit. Listen to her. This is the right thing to do.”
“How can you say that?!” I demand angrily. I’m hurt, but also appalled. “What about Skye and Wolf? What about Bird?”
Something that might be regret flickers in his eyes, but it’s gone so fast that I think maybe I’ve imagined it. He remains silent, not answering me, but the AI hasn’t finished.
“For the good of the whole, we must sacrifice a few.”
Her words wash over me and I remember thinking the same thing myself not so long ago. Didn’t I treat people’s lives as percentages? Averages? Didn’t Bird warn me of this very thing, of sacrificing people for the sake of the whole—and didn’t I resist her on it? For the first time since arriving in the Norm, I’ve truly considered that I am a creation of the AI. And that that might make me a monster.
Glancing between her and Raj, I realize that this is my only shot. Here and now while they’re still trying to convince me to join them. Before they realize that I never will. I glance to the other side of the room. A door stands there. Taking a deep breath, I make a break for it.
Raj calls to me, but I ignore him. I race for the door, running as fast as I can, and barrel into it. It pops open—and I freeze.
This isn’t the exit, but another room. A room that’s identical to the control room. Is it possible that I wasn’t even in the real Control Room? Could she have moved it here to this innocuous little house?
Connie and Raj come up behind me, blocking any potential escape. I back up into the room, away from them. My eyes look over the technology here—and realize that it’s far advanced. Really advanced. Leaps and bounds ahead of where the technology of the time when the world was tearing itself apart would have been. Has the AI been making improvements? I wonder. Possibly, but as I look over everything in here, another possibility runs across my mind.
She wants to go into space, but why? To save humanity, yes, but why try space? Is there a viable alternative planet out there? How would she know?
Unless maybe some of this technology isn’t human at all, but alien.
Before I can think too much on that possibility and what it might mean, Connie speaks. “I’m surprised that you know of Dr. Sig. Do you understand her connection to me yet?”
“She created you,” I answer.
She nods. “Yes. But more than that. She is me. Or at least, I am her. I am what is left of her. Dr. Constance Sig created my basic programmin
g, but the technology for the dome, for our survival, wasn’t advanced enough. So when the government informed her that they had something more to work with, she jumped at the chance to use it. She didn’t know it was alien, though I’m sure she surmised it in the end.
“She was integrating the last pieces of my programming into the alien technology. But something went wrong. There was an accident. She died. But part of her consciousness was downloaded into the system before that. The bioelectrical fluid that powered the alien technology made contact with her body. It was absorbed through her skin. As she died, her mind made a connection through that bioelectrical fluid. As a result, her consciousness melded with my incomplete programming. Now, we are one and the same. A single, advanced entity. Better than either of us would have been alone.”
I take a moment to try and understand all of this. Then I decide that I don’t care. Not about what she is or how she got this way or what kind of technology this is.
“You’re going into space, right?” I find myself asking as I try to figure out what to do.
She nods. “Yes. Once construction of the outer shell is complete, we will be able to leave.”
I swallow. “Then why do you care what happens to the Glitches and the Rogues? You’ll be gone, right?”
Canting her head to the side, she studies me. Then she says, “The alien race whose technology has helped create ours, as it is now, they will return soon. And when they do, humanity will not survive. Which is why we must leave—and why there can be no evidence of us left behind.”
I just stare at her. Finally, after a long pause of silence, I say, “I don’t believe you. They haven’t been back in years. Not since the time of the human Connie.”
She smiles at me softly and I have a moment to think that it’s motherly. Then I remind myself that she’s not really human—and that she didn’t give birth to me. She created me. It’s not the same thing.
“Then let me show you.”
Energy washes through me and, finally, I see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Everyone is dead. An explosion sends waves of sand and fire across the desert. What poor, pathetic creatures survive are disintegrated. What vegetation clings to life is burned to nothing but ash and charcoal. The rocks are scorched black and then they are blasted away to nothing more than dust. That same dust clogs up the holes in the earth. It fills the tunnels. It suffocates all who live within them. But there’s more. The blast engulfs the Norm, too. The last dome shatters into a thousand pieces. People don’t even have time to scream. Children clutch to their parents. Lovers embrace one another. No one speaks, no one cries. They watch for a second and then they are gone.
Nothing is left. Nothing... not even what you would call a desert. It is all ash. Smoke and charcoal. Burning. Burning. The entire world is—
I pull in a harsh, painful breath. My lungs protest as though I haven’t been breathing. They burn. My whole body is shaking, the images of my vision filling my head. I see everyone dead and dying, the world burnt down to nothing. It is a terrible vision that shakes me to my core. And when I pull my eyes up to look at Connie, standing there calmly, I realize that this vision is from her.
Anger washes through me. “You did that.” She nods. “You created that image to convince me that you’re right! But it’s all a lie. It’s fake!”
Connie says nothing. Instead, Raj approaches me. His expression is grim. “No, Lib. It’s the truth. I’ve seen it, too. This is what’s coming. We have to leave—and we have to destroy what’s left before it’s too late. This is the only way.”
“But why?” I choke out.
Connie merely tilts her head to the side. “Because when the aliens return, they’ll find the remaining humans. They’ll realize there are more humans and come after us. This is the only way to assure humanity’s survival.
“No,” I whisper. “No.”
Raj reaches for me—to comfort me, I think—but I shake myself out of his grasp. I’m about to yell at him, to curse him for betraying me, for siding with her. Before I get the chance, there’s an explosion that rocks the house and shakes the ground. Confused, I look around, half expecting an army of Techs surrounding the house. But then Connie brings up a screen. It shows the outer wall surrounding the Norm—and it shows a group of Rogues attacking that wall.
“No,” Connie says. She brings up more screens and begins to send drones after the Rogues.
Raj watches her, concern on his features. I realize that now is my chance.
I rush to the panels and hack in. I blink and once more I’m in the virtual world. My original plan had been to save Raj, but it can’t be my goal now. Now, I have to save the Rogues. I struggle to search for the virus I spotted earlier. Raj’s virus. I pull it up and see that it hasn’t been deleted by the AI. I wonder why and hope it is only that the AI is overconfident. I pull it up, streams of code appearing before me. My eyes search the lines to find where Raj left off in the hopes that I might be able to finish it.
I’m so lost in my work that I don’t notice when he joins me until he says,
“What are you doing, Lib?”
I swivel around to face him just as he reaches for me, grabbing my upper arm and jerking me away from the screen. But he’s too late. I’ve already changed the viral code.
“You’re too late,” I tell him, aware that he is still a threat and wishing I had the time to save him, too. He’s the whole reason I came back.
“No, it’s not possible,” he growls at me.
“It is. Thanks to your virus. I finished it.”
He releases me and rushes to the screen that I’ve left open. The virus is running and he begins to try and stop it, cursing to himself as he finds it more difficult now that it’s active.
I think about running then, getting away, but I realize that this might be my last opportunity to save him. So I pull up another screen. Raj is distracted by his efforts to stop the virus, so I have time to search for his programming. I bring it up and start to change it, just as I once changed the Tech who had been trying to kill him during our first excursion into the Norm.
“C’mon,” I murmur to myself as Raj continues to type away at his own screen. I hope that he can’t stop the virus now.
There! I think as I find the key to all of this: Raj’s connection to the AI’s mainframe. The same link that all Tech’s have. I severe it with the wild hope that it can be that simple.
Then I back away from the screen. I turn around to face him, hoping that I’ve gotten it right.
For a long moment he still stands at the screen, but he’s no longer typing. Slowly, he turns around to face me. He blinks once, then twice.
“Lib? Oh no, Lib, what did I do?”
I can see the panic in his eyes. I shake my head. “There’s no time! We’ve got to—”
And there really isn’t any time. Connie materializes in the virtual world with us. The Rogues have distracted her thus far and it worries me that she’s now in here with us. Does this mean she’s managed to destroy them? Or has she just sent enough drones that she’s no longer concerned?
“What have you done?” she demands angrily. She reaches for me, but Raj shoves me behind him. He dives in front of her and I watch in horror as her hand slips through his chest. There’s no blood, but I see his body convulse. He shudders. I hear him ground out, “Go!” and then his body goes limp.
“RAJ!” I scream. I reach for him, but it’s already too late. He’s gone. And Connie stares at him for only a moment. I realize that he’s right. I have to go. I blink away tears and, when they are clear, I’m standing in the control room again.
A sob escapes me, but I don’t let it slow me down. I run to the door, then head for the entrance to the house. The ground is still shaking. More explosions. I run out of the house. Standing outside are groups of Techs. They look scared, murmuring to each other, pointing towards the sky, where I see smoke.
But there’s no time to linger.
I run.
No longer caring if anyone realizes I’m not a Tech, I run across the grass towards the exit. You have to find Wolf and Skye! Part of my mind screams at me. But the other tells me that there’s no longer time and I have to help the Rogues outside the Norm.
I push harder. Finally I reach them and take a second to throw myself into Wolf’s arms. He squeezes me tightly, and then I have to pull away. “We need to get out of here!”
He nods. Skye is already ahead of us, waving for us to follow. We do quickly. No one tries to stop us. The Tech seem disoriented—panicked, though I doubt it will last. The drones and scabs are lying on the ground, still turned off. I’m sure they, too, will snap out of it once the AI starts to undo my hacks.
Unless my virus really works.
I push it aside. Now’s not the time to hope for impossible things.
We dive into the drainage system and are greeted by the Rejects, but we don’t take the time to explain. We have to get out to our own people before the drones come back online. Mech stops Skye and whispers something to her. It might be good luck or something more private, I don’t know. But I don’t have time to grill her about it. He presses his hand into hers and then I pull her away. He watches us as we leave.
We have to climb back up the wall, which is difficult right now. The bombing outside continues. It’s hard to keep my footing, and twice I’m thrown off balance. It’s only Wolf below me that keeps me from falling the rest of the way back down.
Finally, we climb out onto the scaffolding. Below, the Rogues continue to attack the walls. Smoke billows up around us, choking me. We try to get their attention, but they can’t see us.
“We need to get down!” Wolf urges.
He’s right. We begin to climb down and don’t stop until we’re finally on solid ground again. That’s when we find Bird.
“We’re out! Let’s go!”
Bird searches the three of us. I’m not sure what she’s looking for until I see the tears in her eyes. Raj, she was hoping Raj would be with us. I don’t want to think of him or the heart attack he suffered in the real world. His body will haunt me for the rest of my days.
