by Ian Whates
What were the Evolutionists doing down here? What could possibly warrant these radical experiments? What did they tell themselves in order to sleep at night?
The man who’d been speaking put his hand against the curved glass. “She was too similar to this replica. Forel could’ve made his own Alir based on this one. That, or he got a Version I to wake up and survive.”
Alir.
Version I.
Alir-vi.
She looked down at her hands, one of metal, the other flesh. Though Ali longed to dismiss the scientists as deranged, doubt wormed its way into her thoughts. Could she truly be an artificial construct, brought to life in a tank and not a womb?
“Either way, we should get back to work.” The man moved to a nearby table, his robes a white blur in his wake. “Where were we?”
The other scientist joined him, leaving Ali to debate whether to linger or to rejoin Barron and Gail. She’d already risked the plan by coming here –
A noise split the air, grating at her ears before its claws shredded its way into her brain. Her head seemed to explode, draining the strength from her body; whatever sound emanated from the Evolutionists’ contraption worked its way into her bones, shattering them to pieces.
Slumped in the confined space, a scream tore past her lips before she could stop it, then another, and another, until her raw throat could produce nothing but a croak.
The infernal noise ceased, her body left shivering in its wake, muscles seizing, fingers spasming. Her wits began to gather, enough for Ali to realize she’d rusted up, and rusted up royally.
“It’s the Alir. It’s still alive,” one of the scientists said. “The frequency must’ve done something to it…”
“I’ll call backup.”
“Go. I’ll find where it’s hiding.”
The man’s hand moved to the machine again. Not one to be caught off-guard twice, Ali dug into her satchel, instantly finding the rectangular bundle she needed. A twist and a yank, and she had her mufflers over her ears, blocking out all sound.
Though her legs trembled beneath her, Ali brought herself to a kneeling position between ragged breaths, a plan forming in her mind. Risky, but she had no other option. She screamed, this time on purpose, impatiently waiting for the scientist to approach the grating.
Using all the strength in her metal forearm, she punched; the first hit cracked the stone, and the scientist lost his balance from fright, falling backwards onto his behind; the second splintered the grating, sending bits flying towards the gasping white-robed man. She lunged forward, and her mechanical hand found the man’s throat; his lips moved, but whatever sound they formed failed to get past her earmuffs.
Ali dragged him to the machine; without letting go, she kicked at the table’s legs, the infernal device crashing to the ground. For good measure, she stomped it, crushing the body until the red light at the base went out. She uncovered a bit of her ear, and when she failed to pick up the brain-imploding, bone-crushing sound, she took the earmuffs off, stowing them haphazardly in her satchel.
“What. Are you. Doing. Here?” she asked, furiously. “What have you done to the people in the tanks?”
What have you done to me?
The man’s lips opened and closed, making him look a clueless fish. “You… you’re alive.”
“No shit.” A squeeze of her fingers, and she brought him closer, their noses almost touching. “I’ll ask again, once. Just what. Exactly. Are you doing here?”
His face hardened. “My colleague went to get help. There’s no hope –”
Ali shook him. “Answer me! What are you doing to these poor people?”
The man tightened his jaw; she was about to shake him again when he spoke, “They’re not people. They’re not even alive.”
“They are,” Ali hissed through clenched teeth. “They spoke to me. Whatever it is you’re doing to them, they’d rather die.”
Whatever reaction she was expecting, it wasn’t wide-eyed wonder. “I was right. Forel really did succeed.”
“Stop talking as if he made me; he didn’t. He found me in the streets.”
He blinked as if confused. “But he did make you.” He lifted his arm, index finger jutting out towards the tank he and the other scientist had talked about. “He made you right here, shortly before deserting us and joining the Mechanists.”
Ali’s attention darted to where he pointed. The young girl floating in the transparent liquid stared back with eyes exactly like Ali’s own: coal-black dotted with purple, a combination too rare to be coincidence.
Her breath left her, and she almost dropped the scientist. A hum arose at the nape of her neck, and a girl’s voice said, Sister.
A gurgle; a soft crunch.
It was only when her arm sagged under the dead weight that Ali realised she’d killed the scientist. Part of her should have felt bad, but she could summon no pity. She let the body fall with a heavy thump, her feet already moving to the tank, as if of their own accord. At the bottom there was a label, which read:
Artificial Live Intelligence Replica
Version I
Oh, rust.
She placed her right hand on the glass. Staring at the girl was like looking into a mirror ten years ago.
Her sight blurred with tears. This was her, and not. A replica, made from the same mould Ali had been. A creature devised in a test tube, grown in a tank, birthed behind glass.
Sister, please, the girl whispered into Ali’s head, at first alone, then joined by the others.
Please.
“Breach! Breach!” the same voice as before blared through the speakers. “All combat units to the Bio-Development Laboratory. Non-combatants, please proceed to the nearest safe room.”
A turmoil broke inside Ali’s head, setting her in motion. With one last look at her genetic sister, she punched the glass tank. Cracks splintered the glass, which then shattered; thick liquid rushed out, drenching the room with a sweet, fleshy scent and delivering the replica into Ali’s waiting arms.
The girl gasped, suffocating on the air as though her lungs hadn’t been programmed to draw breath – as though something as simple as breathing hadn’t been coded into her genes. Ali’s doppelganger shuddered as her skin turned blue, but not even the pain of death erased the smile from the girl’s purple lips.
Laying the replica down, Ali turned to the other tanks, and the room soon flooded with transmuted bodies and the flesh-scented liquid. Like the girl, they died quickly, unable to breathe.
As she moved, it occurred to Ali that the scientist could have been lying, or mistaken; that Ali was the basis of the Version I replica, not an earlier incarnation of it. Otherwise, how come she was alive when this one had choked on its first breath?
Ali didn’t have time to wonder. With two tanks left – the bird man and the feline woman – a squad of twelve soldiers burst into the room, the mouths of their guns pointed at her.
The one at the lead yelled, “Freeze!”
Ali considered the unwinnable odds. She could hide behind one of the two tanks, but the glass wouldn’t last long against the bullets. As for weapons, she had a screwdriver in her belt, the liquid light dangling from her neck, and a spare nitrogen bomb in her satchel. They’d have to do.
If she was meant to die here, it would not be without a fight.
Before they could react, Ali jumped behind the bird man’s tank. Bullets didn’t take long to splinter the glass, which shattered the next moment.
More liquid whooshed forward, and she used the distraction to dive behind the precarious safety behind the feline woman’s tank. She withdrew the last nitrogen bomb from her satchel, and waited for the perfect time to strike.
The soldiers’ aim shifted. The tank collapsed, unleashing another wave of liquid. Ali jumped onto the nearest table and flung the nitrogen bomb at the squad’s feet.
The thin shell broke, the white smoke rising from its carcass instantly creating a sheet that froze four squad members, killing them instantly. As the
room chilled to impossible coldness, Ali slid along the ice, seizing the guards’ momentary confusion to pass by the frozen bodies and break through the open door. She stabbed her screwdriver into the first neck she could reach, and held the screaming man up as blood spurted out, his body shielding her from the bullets flying her way.
When the soldiers paused to reload their two-shot pistols, Ali dropped the now dead man and moved towards the closest one still standing in the corridor; a hard kick broke his leg, and a shove of her screwdriver into his eye did the rest.
A sharp pain on her shoulder told her she’d taken too long; a bullet to her leg reaffirmed it. Ali picked up her latest victim’s gun from the floor and shot one soldier in the head as another bullet ricocheted off her metal arm.
Her screwdriver found another eye just as a bullet hit her stomach. Pushing the pain aside, Ali yanked at the liquid light’s necklace, breaking the vial open on a soldier’s face. He screamed as his face melted, then collapsed into stillness.
Heaving, Ali took in the remaining three men, free from the ice that had held the others in place. Their guns fired in unison. She spun, desperate, but only managed to avoid one bullet, the two others piercing her chest, almost knocking her off-balance.
The screwdriver slipped on her bloody fingers, and her legs, both injured, threatened to give. Ali breathed deeply, forcing herself to focus.
The three guards came at her, guns either forgotten or out of ammo, and knives at the ready—looking to finish her off quickly. What was it with men ending conflicts with knife fights when it was easier to shoot? She’d never understand it, but she wasn’t complaining.
Gripping her one makeshift weapon tightly, Ali side-stepped the first blow, then rolled away when her left knee buckled. She rose on one leg, the momentum helping her shove the screwdriver into the side of a man’s neck.
She yanked it out, and her closed titanium fist found its target in the face of another guard. Bone crunched under her blow, and Ali barely had time to keep herself from falling when a blade pierced her chest –
And stopped.
As stunned as she was, the guard grunted, pushing harder. Blood flowed as it scratched at her ribcage, ripping a scream from Ali’s throat, and yet…
The blade didn’t – wouldn’t – go any further in. The scent of oil reached her nose, black liquid mingling with the red. With a twist of her metal hand, she snapped the man’s wrist, took the knife from her chest and plunged it into his. He crumpled to the floor, as lifeless as the replicas they’d condemned to the briefest of existences.
Ali slumped to the ground and, with her back to the corridor’s wall, took inventory of her injuries. Two bullets in her left leg, one in her right thigh. One in her right shoulder. Three in her torso, a couple somewhere in her back – more than she’d realised during the fight.
Her eyes started to close, her thoughts began to fade. Yet what shook her the most wasn’t her impending death, but the fact oil oozed from her body instead of blood. A funny buzz built in her chest, travelled into her bones; it felt as though her entire self had become a trembling malfunction.
Ali no longer had any doubt: she was a replica, one Forel had done something to – something the Evolutionists would never do under their doctrine. It was why she’d lived when the ones around her had died.
She coughed into her hand, spitting out more oil. Her limbs fell into spasms as her consciousness faded.
Forel’s deceit shredded her heart, but what did it matter? Artificial person or not, she was going to die here today.
“Rusting hell, Ali!” Gail’s voice reached her muzzily.
It took all her remaining energy to open her eyes and turn her head to face the mechanic. “How long have you known?”
“Not long.” Gail spoke softly, though without any attempt to dissemble, for which Ali appreciated her immensely. “Forel kept you a secret, and we had no idea he had succeeded in making a hybrid until I had to fit you with the mechanical arm.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
Gail produced her bundle of tools and spread it out before her. “We couldn’t. Not unless we succeeded today. Barron, give me the Sidallite.”
“We’re not supposed to do that here.”
Ali let out a sigh. Good. They’d fulfilled the mission, at least.
“If we don’t do it now, she’ll die!” Gail picked up forceps, and a scalpel. “Ali, I’m sorry, but this will hurt.”
Ali blinked.
Wait, what?
The tip of the scalpel dug into her chest. Ali screamed as it moved down, and she watched, horrified, as Gail opened her ribcage like a drawer. Beneath the fleshy exterior, wires and pumps worked in sputtering intervals, and sparks flew from certain junctions. The sensation of Gail’s wrench tightening valves, of her portable blowtorch sealing tubes, was one of peculiar detachment, an echo of a feeling, almost there but not quite. It was as though Ali could only feel pain on a surface level – on the level where she looked human.
Barron moved to the door to keep watch. Ali shifted her eyes to the dead replicas in the room. “If I’m one of them, how come I’m alive, and they’re not?”
“The Evolutionists have been trying for years to make an artificial human. The closest they got was the ninth ALIR replica, but even though it had a perfect human constitution, they couldn’t get it to breathe. Something about their brains being unable to connect to their bodies.” Gail gave the other ALIRs a pitying look. “Unlike the rest of the Church, Forel thought the answer to the problem lay in Mechanism. The Church gave him an ultimatum: stop trying to marry Mechanism with Evolutionism, or die.
“Not one to give in to demands, Forel changed schools and became one of us. A couple of years later, he showed up with you, claiming you to be his apprentice.”
Ali’s sight slowly regained its clarity when Gail tightened another valve, and she no longer spat out oil when she asked, “Why keep me a secret from the Mechanists, then?”
“Paranoia, I’d wager. He didn’t want to risk anyone reporting you to the Church. What matters is that he did make an artificial human. I can’t say for sure how he did it, but from examining you that day I can make an educated guess.” She tightened another valve on top of Ali’s stomach, then put the wrench away and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “To compensate for an artificial brain’s inability to communicate with the rest of the body, he installed a controller to connect both. When that still wouldn’t work, he started adding mechanical pieces to your body. Your bones are titanium; your eyes are a work of glass and microcameras – the same sort you can find in the crow imaging device; your lungs are self-healing steel mesh – he probably got that one from some lizard or starfish; your brain is mostly human, with high-speed processors attached. He had skin grow on you, covering all his alterations. But more importantly… Your heart is clockwork, of the finest I’ve seen, and with an added cavity meant for something he couldn’t get his hands on.”
“Sidallite,” Ali completed.
“Yes.” Gail extended an arm, and Barron deposited a cloth-covered bundle in her hand. “Once you were finished, he put you on the streets, and waited for an opportunity to re-recruit you. Any memories you have from before you became his apprentice are fictitious. Lines of code, telling you of events you never experienced. I’m also assuming he had to repeatedly, erm… improve you as you grew.”
“Hurry up, Gail,” Barron called. “More guards are coming.”
The mechanic didn’t even blink. “Lock the door, and prepare for sacrifice.” With her tweezers, Gail unwrapped the Sidallite, a fist-sized rock that glowed violet, currents of aether spinning within its transparent shell.
“Sacrifice?” Ali muttered.
“The automaton you and Forel built was a decoy. The Sidallite was always meant to go inside you.” She picked up the rock with her tweezers, and, with her free hand, she tapped a button on Ali’s clockwork heart, which sprung open with a loud click. “There’s on
ly one of us who needs to get out of here, and it’s you.”
At the door, Barron knelt with the guns and ammo he’d gathered from the fallen guards, and was in the process of barricading the entrance with the few tables and chairs in the room.
Ali chuckled, a bitter sound of disillusionment and regret. “So. I’m your weapon.”
Gail gave her a despondent smile in return. “You’re our weapon. You’re also one of our bravest and brightest. Never forget that.” She ran a hand across Ali’s cheek, but the tender touch was quickly withdrawn. “I’m not completely certain about this either, but there’s a chance you think and feel like a human because your heart’s been empty all along. Once the Sidallite goes in, your body will conduct energy better. You won’t need to sleep, or eat; you probably will stop feeling exhaustion, too.”
A booming sound reverberated through the room as the forces outside banged against the steel door. Barron came to kneel beside them, a gun in each hand. He and Gail exchanged a nod, after which the mechanic turned to Ali.
“You’ll shut down momentarily while the Sidallite takes hold – we’ll protect you in the meantime.” She held the rock in front of Ali’s empty heart. “Ready?”
Ali looked from the Sidallite to her open chest. She was a thing, built in a tank, then enhanced. An instrument of destruction, made of curiosity and set upon the path of vengeance.
Perhaps her artificial origins were showing, because Ali couldn’t find it within herself to care. She was who she was, hybrid replica or not. The last thing she could do was end the Church’s madness, and make sure they never created anything like her again.
She held Gail’s gaze. “Ready.”
The mechanic nodded. The Sidallite fit perfectly in Ali’s heart, which closed automatically as soon as Gail released the stone from the tweezers. The springs in her chest rotated, snapped –
Darkness.
As though in a dream, Ali floated.
How long…
Her muscles sputtered, her insides spun. Power surged through her, seeping into her limbs, her torso, her head.
… had she been…
She became impossibly hot. Smoke filled her throat, her mouth, coated her tongue with its taste of ash.
