“If we get separated,” Jade said, as the three stood together, “we’ll meet back here at 1430 when Gunk finishes his sanitation rounds.”
But even as Charlie looked at Jade, he knew she wouldn’t be meeting them back here. She wasn’t a rebel, not really. She wanted to help the Lowsmiths, but mainly because they had a common goal. Jade belonged to Crowley, the city and Blake. She would help them get in and solve the hybrid problem, which was also a problem for Blake, but she wasn’t coming back with them to the outpost. And in all truthfulness, Charlie wasn’t either. As soon as this code was in the system, he was headed to the DarkM’attr machine. He was going home after this.
But for now, the five of them were together and on a single mission. And for the most part he thought they might actually get away with it. Who is going to question Jade and Angelo?
“We’re going in through 39C,” Jade said. “I know the guard there, he won’t ask any questions. Just make sure you look defeated.” She glared at Tallahassee as she said this.
They stepped out of the garbage incinerator, Jade and Angelo walking stiffly behind their “prisoners.” Not only did the hulking hybrid guard not ask any questions, but he grinned and sprang to attention when he saw Jade.
Charlie watched the whirring of one of his eyes. Were Gamma hybrids the only ones actually left?
“I found these rebels,” Jade said. “Got to bring them down for lock up.”
Charlie kept his head down. He was still getting used to the idea everybody knew who he was, but regardless of whether this guy cared or not, it was better if he wasn’t recognized. Blake and Warren didn’t need to know he was in Crowley. Warren might be a jerk, but he wasn’t an idiot. He would know exactly what Charlie was doing there.
Soon they were walking down the small narrow tunnels that lead into the prisons. It didn’t look like they were the first humans to be brought down here today. Bots and hybrids moved all up and down the corridors with humans being shoved screaming into cells. A frown creased Jade’s face.
“Why are they locking up humans?” Charlie hissed over his shoulder.
Jade pressed a finger against her temple briefly. Her scowl deepening. “To fulfill the prime directive of Crowley Enterprises. That’s all it says.”
Charlie shuddered involuntarily. Sounded a lot like human experimentation.
“I need to take these humans to cell 586 DL.” Jade said to the massive guard who blocked the entrance to the cell block they were aiming for. The cell block that stood directly beneath the CompuVerse.
He looked up at some numbers floating in the air between them, blinked a few times and moved his finger through the glowing hologram. “That cell’s taken. Put them up to 373GK,” The guard said.
“I can’t do that,” Jade sounded almost bored. “I’ve been told to take him to cell 586DL.”
The guard stopped looking at the numbers floating in the air and cocked his head to the side as he looked at Jade. “What are you even doing down here?” he asked.
Charlie raised his eyebrows. They might’ve just found the only person in all of Crowley who wasn’t intimidated by Jade. Or who, at least, was going to pretend he wasn’t.
“Excuse me?” Jade’s back straightened even more and her chin lowered as she gave the guard the “don’t you know who I am” look.
The Gamma hybrid guard smiled slowly. It was clear he knew who she was and he was going to enjoy this moment of power. “I’m not moving prisoners just to satisfy your requirements.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows and snuck a glance at Jade. Her face was impassive and he could see a slight curl on the corner of her mouth. Charlie was pretty sure she was going to enjoy either beating the crap out of him or watching Angelo do it. However, before any of them could make a move or say another word, a loud rumbling came from up the corridor. The sound of an army of footsteps hurdled up the hall.
“What the hell is that?” The guard asked as another Gamma hybrid came careening around the corner.
Katerina entered the warren of passageways that made their way under Crowley.
“Identification?” A Gamma stood guarding the hallway, his eyes wide as he saw the influx of raging Deltas.
“How’s this?” Katerina asked, pointing her laser at his head.
“What the fuck?” The Gamma asked. “Stand down, Delta.”
Katerina lowered the laser to his arm, firing it. The Gamma wasn’t her primary target, but she would take him out if she had to. The laser sizzled his foot and the smell of charred flesh filled the hallway. The Deltas let out an angry roar as the Gamma screamed in pain and pulled his weapon as he ran down the hall and deeper into the underground prison.
“The Deltas! They’ve gone crazy,” he screamed as he ran up to Jade. “They’re attacking everybody! They didn’t just stop at the humans, they’re starting to attack the rest of us, even the twenty-percenters!”
A look of fear washed over the guard’s face. Charlie and Jade exchanged a look. We’ve got to get to the computer room.
“Plan B,” Angelo said, picking up the guard and hurling him out of the way.
They all gazed up the hallway at the raging Deltas. “We won’t be able to stop them,” the guard said.
“We need firearms,” the Gamma with the bleeding arm said.
“Go!” Tallahassee said to Charlie and Jade.
“We’ll stay,” Zeke nodded at the belligerent guard who lay dazed on the floor of the hall.
“You’ll die!” Charlie said.
“We’ll only be able to hold them off so long,” Tallahassee nodded
“There’s a way out,” the Gamma said, pointing towards a smaller passageway. “We can hold them off for a bit and if we’re lucky, we’ll make it out there.”
“We need you to hold them back for five minutes,” Jade said. “Can you do that?”
“We’ll try,” Tallahassee said.
A look of sincere gratitude washed over Jade’s face. “Thank you,” she said.
“You can thank us by stopping them.” Zeke nodded at the Deltas.
“Just make sure you meet us on time,” Charlie said.
“Come on!” Jade exclaimed. She and Angelo were already moving down the hall. Charlie hastened to keep up.
“What’s Plan B?” He asked as they raced down the hallway.
“We’re going to burn the wall down,” Jade said.
They sprinted through the hallways. Anytime they met a bot or a hybrid, Angelo took them out in about half a second. Charlie cringed at the sound of bones cracking against the walls, or metal scraping as a bot went flying.
“They’re going to know you’re doing it,” Charlie said.
“I have a feeling they already do,” Jade muttered.
Charlie’s lungs burned and his legs ached by the time they rounded the final corner and came to the main door of the computer room. But where there had been two bots earlier, now there were ten. Clearly Warren was onto them and not about to risk them getting into the CompuVerse.
But this time, Charlie wasn’t on his own. He had Angelo and Jade. Two of the bots went down without a fight, though Charlie presumed they would’ve fought had they been given a little more warning before Angelo blasted their heads off.
Another bot was too close to Jade when Angelo went in. He couldn’t hit him with a bullet, but he did rip his legs out from under him. The bot fell to the ground as Jade swung out at the bot.
“Get the hell in there,” Jade yelled at Charlie.
“I don’t have access!” Charlie said.
Jade smacked her head as if that was obvious. She kicked the bot in the abdomen so hard with her robotic leg, that it went flying backwards and right into a headlock from Angelo.
Jade stepped to the side and put her face against the retinal scanner, letting it scan quickly first her right eye and then her left eye. Charlie heard the sickening snap of metal being torn apart and glanced over his shoulder to watch Angelo rip the head off of the last remaining bot.
“It’s not opening!” Jade said. “Angelo, blow it up.”
Angelo moved down the hallway. “Duck!” he cried as he popped a HEL charger out of his pocket, punched a hole in the wall and stuck the laser explosive in it.
The reverberation of the detonation stunned everyone and everything in the hallway. Human, hybrid and bot alike. The world spun and the space throbbed as Charlie lifted his head from the ground. A gaping hole was ripped in the side of the CompuVerse room and Dustin and Graham stood there, mouths agape as Jade picked up Charlie and carried him inside.
“You can’t be in here!” Dustin screamed.
“I have to be here,” Charlie said. “If anything is going to stop this nasty code you submitted, it’ll be me. How many people have you killed?”
Jade grabbed Dustin, pinning him down against the desk. He let out a pitiful whimper. But Charlie didn’t care. The door to the computer room was stuck open and they could hear the thunderous rain of hybrids coming up the hall. Charlie had a flash of a zombie apocalypse, but he turned away from the door. He had one task to do here.
He turned to the CompuVerse.
“Get off me!” Dustin yelled, his voice is muffled as Jade pressed his face against the metal desk. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing now,” Jade said. “Thanks to Charlie. You’re a filthy scumbag, Dustin.”
“I made you a powerful part of a machine,” Dustin exclaimed.
“You made me powerless.” Jade punched him in the head.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dustin gave a hoarse laugh. “The Delta army will be here in thirty seconds. That’s not enough time for you to hack into the system. You’ve been locked out for days.”
“But you haven’t been,” Jade said, hefting him off of the desk and pushing his face forward towards the scanner. “Now, if you don’t get your fingers in there and get that damn thing up and running, I will rip your fingers off myself and use them to get in there. And after that, I will shove them up your ass.” Dustin trembled and his eyes teared up. Jade’s reputation was known throughout Crowley. She would do what she said. His hands quivered as he reached for the access field.
Charlie’s eyes were wide as he watched. He was pretty sure Jade was bluffing, but he was glad Dustin was following her instructions. He wouldn’t want to test Jade.
In seconds, Charlie was in the system. Jade handed Dustin off to Angelo.
“Stun him,” she said as guns fired and lasers ricocheted off the walls in the hallway.
Sweat beaded on Charlie’s upper lip, but his hands were steady. He sucked in his cheeks and grabbed the bracelet with the code out of his pocket. He did exactly what Maverick had shown him, he rubbed the bead in four circles and then punched it towards the drive as hard as he could. The code he was looking for appeared in the air and with the wave of a hand, he pushed the hologram into the computer field to exactly the spot he needed.
Sometimes it takes a while to switch operating systems. To learn the tricks and ways that one system is different from the other. And Charlie wanted time to ramp up, but he didn’t have it. He went into deep thought in an instant, allowing his muscle memory to bind up the code and prepare to send it out to the hybrids. He shut off his brain and went into auto pilot. Ignoring the rampage and shouts of the hybrids as they burst into the room, ignoring Angelo’s rapid-fire response and Jade screaming at him to duck. It was as if the world was moving in slow motion, and he was not in charge.
And just like that, it was done. The code was signed, sealed, and delivered into the computer field. Charlie reached forward and hit the button to send the code to the Delta hybrids. But, as he turned around and saw the hybrids swarming into the room, he realized it wasn’t going to happen soon enough to save Angelo, Jade, and himself. They were stuck in the thick of battle, with Deltas surrounding them.
And the hybrids were trying to get through them so they could hill him.
“It’s done!” He shouted over to Jade and Angelo.
Jade gave a brief nod, letting him know she’d heard. Angelo crouched low and with the single burst upwards, he scattered hybrids as he somersaulted backwards towards the back wall. Holding out his hand, a white laser beam blew a hole in the side of the wall.
“Go!” Jade pointed to the hole. Charlie took one look at Angelo and Jade, and knew he had to run. He was great on the computer, but he would suck in real life battle.
He darted to the hole in the wall and Jade was close on his heels. Angelo covered their backs as they ran out of the computer room.
Angelo had to blast through three more walls until they finally made it outside of headquarters, but the hybrids did not give them any respite.
“Why isn’t it working?” Charlie asked.
“Updates take time,” Jade said.
“We don’t have time,” Charlie said.
Hybrids poured out of the building, advancing on them. Angelo and Jade exchanged a look.
“You can’t kill the Deltas. They don’t know what they’re doing,” Jade said.
“We’re cornered,” Angelo said. “If I don’t eradicate them, they will execute you and Charlie.”
“Give it another twenty seconds,” Charlie said, his voice hoarse. “Just give it another twenty seconds.”
He couldn’t quite figure out why he was telling Angelo not to kill the Deltas, except it was what Jade wanted, and these were Jade’s people. They weren’t just some machines that should be blown away. These were people, people who had been given a disease of hatred and mania; a desire to kill.
“What is going on?” Warren screamed as screen after screen went black in the control room. He pressed his finger against his temple. “Dustin!”
Dustin didn’t answer. He wished to everything in the world that he could pull the comm system out of his head. The last thing he needed was for Warren to be screaming at him.
They were losing the Deltas. The code he had slaved away on for eighteen months was destroyed. That damn Charlie had gotten in there and done something, something horrible. Dustin squeezed his eyes shut. How was he ever going to recover from this? Another eighteen months of work?
Eighteen months of Warren screaming in his ear.
It was going to drive Dustin crazy.
And suddenly, the Deltas stopped exactly where they were, their eyes flipped back in their heads, the lids closing, their eyeballs flittering backwards.
“The update!” Charlie cried. “It’s happening.”
“Marvelous!” Angelo agreed.
“That’s an understatement,” Jade muttered, her shoulders visibly sagging with relief as the garbage incinerator pulled up behind the updating Deltas. “Let’s go!”
Blake pushed open the door and ran into Robin’s room. Her teeth had stopped gnashing, her eyes had stopped roving the room in anguish. Whatever Monfils or Jade or the powers that be had been doing, it had worked.
Robin was saved.
Blake grabbed her up in his arms and held her tight against his chest. She was going to live. She was going to be in her normal mind. But when she found out what she had done, he knew she would never be the same again. Crowley was never going to be the same again.
“We have to rebuild, Robin,” Blake murmured as Robin began to sob, seeing her memories clearly and her part in the brutal attack on the rebels. “We have to rebuild everything,” he said.
Even you, he thought.
“Where are Zeke and Tallahassee?” Charlie asked looking around as the door opened and the gang plank came down.
“You can’t wait,” Jade said, pushing him up the gang plank
Charlie looked at Jade. “You’re not coming,” he said. It wasn’t really a question, even though he tried to make it sound like one.
Jade ducked her head. “No. I need to see about my parents.”
“Of course,” Charlie said. “I need to see about mine.”
“Gunk will drop you at the DarkM’attr machine,” Jade said. “You just press the big green button and it’ll t
ake you back home.”
Charlie nodded. “If you ever need help again, you know where to find me.” He let out a slight chuckle. And Jade nodded.
“I do,” she said.
“Keep an eye on her,” Charlie said to Angelo.
“That’s my job,” Angelo said.
“Angelo, you’ll stay with Charlie until he’s safe,” Jade said to Angelo. “Without you, he’s not going to be able to get the DarkM’attr machine to work.”
Angelo gave a deep, low bow. “I will return to you shortly.”
Jade nodded, her face serious. “Be careful. Both of you.”
Charlie wanted to hug Jade. She was the closest friend he had here. He stared into her human eye still wanting to ask her on that sundress date. But that didn’t make any sense. They were about to say goodbye.
Forever.
Jade stared at Charlie. He was so…human. Nothing like the god she’d been raised to think of him as. It seemed strange that he was going back to his world and yet would still remain a strong public presence in her time. But she would never look at his statues the same again. He would always just be, well, Charlie to her.
She thought about holding out her hand to shake his but that seemed so…not the right choice. A frown creased her face as he stared into her eyes. Could he tell she wanted to hug him? They both stood straight and tall.
This was goodbye.
With a brief nod Charlie turned and entered the garbage incinerator, climbing up into the glass dome. He’d barely been seated a second when the garbage truck thrust forward, moving quickly through the streets.
“Well, that turned out just fine,” Angelo said.
Charlie stared at the spaces where Jade, Zeke and Tallahassee had been when they’d entered the city.
“It’s kinda quiet around here,” he muttered.
“Not everyone makes it during battle,” Angelo said. “It’s a sad fact.”
“Right. It’s just- I hadn’t thought it should be, you know…people I know.” Charlie starred out at the burning city, his face aglow in the orange light. His eyes pricked a bit. Zeke and Tallahassee had been his friends, too. Or, kind of his friends. The kind of guys he’d go and have a drink with if they were back home. Now they were gone. He thought they were gone. But he’d never really know what happened to them.
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