Neon Helix

by Nik Whittaker

  “Yuri?”

  “Well, not quite, I’m the security firewall against intruders into the main core. I’m afraid that you being here is against security protocol as you didn’t have the correct password,” The house and garden disappeared from the construct, replaced by a street of grey skyscrapers. They were stood in the middle of the empty road below.

  “Why did you kill Owens?” Ava asked, as she took in the information.

  “He was trying to stop me Ava, that’s all,” Yuri took a step towards her. “Just as you are now, I’m afraid I can’t let you leave here, you are too dangerous. I fed you the information to hire Xander, which you thought Owens had left for you. I knew Xander would lead you to Donovan, and you’d need to access his mind. I had hoped mind trap would keep you occupied long past now, which you would have been had it not been for the Prime and Mollie.”

  He took another step, hands outstretched ready to grab her, but she came to her senses and turned and ran.

  Running down the street, the buildings rushed past her, but they didn’t change, each one looking exactly like the last. Yuri was behind her, she was barely staying out of his reach.

  “It’s no use Ava, this is my world here,” he said. As he did, a building appeared directly in front of her, creating a dead end. She paused for a moment and turned to look at Yuri.

  “It may be your world Yuri, but I was created by Owens as well, and while the kill switch may have been wrong, the source code I have is the same.”

  With that, she turned and ran towards the building ahead of her, as she reached it, she raised her leg and continued the run directly up the building, defying gravity.

  Yuri stood and watched as she moved up the building, a moment of shock before he laughed.

  “Oh Ava, you think because you have access to the base code, you have the control here? I built this place, adapted it and reformed it long after Owens first built it.”

  He jumped and ascended from the ground, within moments he was parallel with Ava and her running.

  “I have more power here than you could ever dream of,” he changed direction and headed straight for Ava.

  At the last second, she pushed off the building and avoided Yuri’s attack by somersaulting over him and plummeted back towards the ground. Yuri placed a hand to the building, stopping his progress.

  “Oh, this will be fun,” he said, looking down at Ava as she touched down on the ground.

  CHAPTER 51

  Peter

  Peter had been sitting for half an hour.

  Seeing through the eyes of nearly 200 people, hearing what they heard and sensing all they sensed. His body was nearly at the breaking point. He had walked them all the way to the CyBio building, and had spoken to Ally, but that would have to wait. He had more pressing matters to attend.

  Finally, he could let go, and he opened his eyes. Before him stood the body of Yuri. Peter wiped his face, blood had trickled down his nose from the strain on his mind.

  “Peter, I was wondering if you’d manage to come back, it must be taxing for a human body to cope with spreading the mind that far,” a voice rang out through the foyer area.

  Peter looked up, he could hear a noise coming from somewhere further inside the building.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to practise, Yuri,” ‘Peter said. “You know why I’m here.”

  The noise became louder.

  “Of course, it’s only logical. You don’t want to stop me, you want what I have. You realise that I can’t let you, it’s quite against what I’m trying to achieve.”

  “Do you think you can stop me? I have an army just outside the door.”

  “You think I’ve not been preparing for this since I last spoke to you? I have more resources than you can comprehend, Peter.”

  As he spoke, a rumbling noise grew to a crescendo. From behind the desk that blocked the end of the foyer, a door flung open, and a man walked through, then another, and another.

  The bodies continued to pile through the door until they crowded the entire foyer, circled around Peter who was still cross-legged on the floor. He watched as the bodies circled, each one an identical copy of Yuri.

  “Nanotechnology, malleable into whatever I need, whenever I need.”

  “You made more copies of yourself? Sentient?”

  “No, they are all directly controlled by me, I wouldn’t want to risk any self-aware nanobots. The entire staff of CyBio were the first to become part of the collective, followed by a few more field test subjects. Once we’ve finished here, I will install into every tech-bodied individual on the Boulevard.”

  “The scope of that, how could you possibly handle that connection?” Peter asked, knowing how hard it was to have the surge of incoming transmissions.

  “I have a sleeper agent in motion already, once activated, he will transmit a signal through to any bio-tech and plant a homing signal which the nanobots will follow for installation. Once inside, they will take over the individuals biology and allow me the control at a regulated pace. It’s really quite elegant.”

  Peter stood up, the bodies around him took a step back in unison, allowing him space.

  “Well, that’s great, but you’ll have to stop me first. Once I get to your core, I will sync your cortex with my own, the first digital brain imprint onto a humans. Then I’ll be in control of you,” Peter cracked his fingers.

  “We will see,” all the bodies replied in Yuri’s voice.

  Peter closed his eyes for a moment, the clones outside shuffled as if something had woken them from a deep sleep. In his thoughts, he finished what he had begun during their walk to the building. Reprogramming their base functions, no longer were they workers with built-in routines. They were now trained in several forms of martial arts which Peter had assimilated over his time. He had imbedded a singular order to them all, to protect him and to stop Yuri. That was all they knew and all they now wanted to do.

  He opened his eyes, having triggered the programming. Shouts of anger and violence rose from outside the doors. Yuri’s bodies looked outside at the crowd.

  “Let’s begin shall we? The human mind against advanced AI. How exciting,” Peter smiled as the doors and windows to the foyer shattered and the crowds poured in and attacked the Nanos.

  The chaos that followed was a massacre of blood and electric.

  Peter ducked aside as the fighting began, making his way behind the desk. A Nano grabbed him by the arm as he passed, a quick spin and it broke the grip. Peter followed with a sharp punch to the nanos face and with a spinning kick to its chest, causing it to stumble backwards into the crowd of fighters where a clone quickly grabbed hold of him and dragged him down.

  He approached the lift which lay behind the desk and went to get in, before he paused. Perhaps the stairs would be a safer option, given that this was Yuri’s domain. Another nano launched towards him as he moved away from the door, he grabbed it and using its own momentum, threw it inside the lift before the doors closed, with it still inside.

  The sounds of war continued to echo behind him as the two armies clashed, a glance back and he could see blood drenching the floors. He closed his eyes a moment.

  Pain. Horror. The feeling of limbs ripped apart and bones crunching, the smell of warm blood and electrical burning filled his senses. He couldn't distinguish any individual currently, the collective agony too much to take.

  He opened his eyes fast, sweat was pouring down his face from the experience, his heart beating fast.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to his fellow clones, before turning his back and heading up the stairs towards the core.

  CHAPTER 52

  Julian

  The group had arrived at the top floor of the building and headed towards the core. Owens was leading the way. He stopped suddenly, putting a hand up to pause the groups. Ahead of them, several guards were facing the main route to the core.

  “I know another way,” Owens said, and pressed a panel against the wall of the corridor. A h
idden pathway revealed itself and he headed inside, the others followed and the door closed itself behind them.

  “Hidden passageways, Owens?” Jacob smiled.

  “I had some built off the books when this level was built, ones which Yuri wasn’t aware of.”

  “So are we not trusting Yuri now? Based on Peter’s say so?” Julian asked, he still wasn’t convinced of Peter’s story.

  “I don’t know, but I’d rather play it safe,” Owens said.

  “Fair enough,” Julian nodded. “But what about the toxin, we need Yuri’s help to neutralise it.”

  “One step at a time Julian,” Ally said, placing a hand on his arm. “Once we find the core and why Yuri hasn’t activated the nanobots, we can figure out how to fix this.”

  They continued down the thin pathway until it reached a dead end. Owens stepped forward and placed a palm against a blank space on the wall, another door slid open and revealed the inside of the room with the core.

  Stood with her back to them was a girl, a gun pointed at the door, beside her Ava stood, her body in complete shut down.

  “Ava!” Owens shouted and ran towards her, when she didn’t move, he investigated the cable attached to her.

  “Who the hell are you!?’ Mollie spun around and pointed the gun at them.

  “Woah woah! Calm down!” Julian shouted, putting his hands up in defence.

  “Mollie?” Ally said, stepping in front of Julian. “That really you?”

  Mollie dropped the gun and stared at Ally,

  “Ally? No way!” The two embraced as two old friends would. “I thought you’d died!” Mollie shouted.

  “No, I had to leave fast, long story. What are you doing here!”

  “Long story too I guess, got tangled up in all sorts of mess.”

  Before they could continue, the bang at the door intensified as the guards managed to get partially through the door. Mollie spun and fired off an EMP shot which paused them momentarily before they began again.

  “If I may?” Owens stepped forward and looked at the EMP pistol. “Ah yes, one moment,” he made some adjustments to the settings on the side of the pistol before handing it back to Mollie. “I’m not a particularly good shot, try it now.”

  Mollie took it back and turned to the guards, one almost through the door. An aim and a shot later, a blast twice the size of the last exploded into the guard, a chain reaction triggered and a bolt of energy shot out of the first and into the second and continued until it had struck all the guards. After a moment, they all fell to the ground and were motionless. Mollie looked back at Owens.

  “I know the frequency Yuri operates on, I tuned the wavelength to it so it had maximum synchronicity and shutdown the base units in the robotics.”

  “Thanks,” Mollie grinned, holstering the gun.

  “What’s she doing?” Julian asked, motioning to Ava. “Is she stopping the transmitter from broadcasting?”

  “What transmitter?” Mollie asked. “All I know is she’s trying to access Yuri’s core to activate a kill switch to shut him down.”

  “The kill switch? Oh, no,” Owens looked deflated as he accessed Ava’s circuitry on the side of her head.

  “What’s wrong with that? And who the hell are you anyway?” Mollie started towards Owens, suddenly becoming protective of Ava.

  “It’s ok Moll,” Ally said. “This is Maxwell Owens, he made Ava.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Mollie apologised. “Wait… aren’t you dead?”

  “I’m getting that a lot,” Owens sighed.

  “What do we do now?” Julian asked Owens as he worked. “How can we help?”

  Owens was deep in thought as he worked, he blinked and looked up at Julian.

  “I… I don’t know. The kill switch Ava has is incorrect, once she tries to use it, Yuri will know. The security will trigger and attempt to remove the attacker. It’s built to prevent more rudimentary attacks than Ava, but I don’t know how well she’ll fair against him.”

  “Is there anyway we can help her?” Julian asked.

  “If we can get her the kill switch code, she can implement it but we can’t patch into the system while she’s inside. It’s a one in one out kind of deal.”

  “Even if we managed that, what about the toxin?” Ally asked, looking at Julian.

  “Toxin?” Mollie asked.

  “Jacob here has developed a poison, which will remove all augmentations from everyone, and Julian is poisoned with it. It gets transmitted through his radio signals, unless Yuri’s nanobots, which are dormant inside him, neuter it.”

  “But to do that, they need to be activated which means Yuri can send out his own signal for them to attack anyone with augmentations,” Jacob said, defending his work.

  “Which means Yuri can control everyone,” Mollie finished. “So we’re damned either way?”

  The group stood in silence, waiting for someone to come up with a plan. Several more nano guards appeared at the door to interrupt the silence and they began forcing their way in. Mollie fired a few shots which slowed them down but more kept coming. They were most the way through when they stopped suddenly. Silence re-established itself for a moment.

  A voice shouted from the doorway.

  “Mollie? Are you in there?”

  They all turned to Mollie, she looked around at the door in shock.

  “Xander? Is that you?” She shouted back.

  “Yeah, let us in, we need to get you and Ava out of here fast.”

  She moved the barriers against the door; the others moved to help, all apart from Jacob who moved around towards Ava.

  Once cleared, they pulled the door open, Xander and Prime walked in.

  CHAPTER 53

  Xander

  A moment passed as the group took in the new arrivals.

  “Travitz?” Xander said, as he looked at Julian, the man who had helped destroy his MPD career.

  “Draven?” He replied, “What are you doing here?”

  “Could ask you the same question kid,” he stepped into the room and looked round.

  Julian then saw Prime behind him, his eyes widened.

  “Is that?”

  “Huh?” Xander looked back at Prime. “Oh no, it’s not him. This is Prime, a clone of him but without the Psycho.”

  “Right, and you’re working with him?” Julian asked dubiously.

  “Something like that, what’s your position on what’s happening here?” Xander knew, despite the repercussions of the past, that Julian was usually on the right side of things.

  “Currently trying to find out a way to stop Yuri but also we need his tech to prevent a virus from attacking the population, you?”

  “Stopping Yuri predominantly, didn’t know of any virus,” Xander had seen Ava and headed towards her, “She ok?”

  Jacob had snook away from Ava now and Owens came across to Xander.

  “Holy shit! Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

  Owens sighed, “Technically yes, but that’s not important right now. Who are you?”

  “Xander, PI. Ava here hired me to find out who killed you.”

  “I see,” Owens replied and explained Ava’s situation.

  Ally had been staring at Prime since he walked into the room, he hadn’t seen her properly yet.

  “You aren’t Peter?” She asked, staring at him.

  “I’m not, but you… you're Ally?” Prime said, his memories, or rather Peters’, seeping into his mind.

  “You know me?” She asked.

  “Yes, I have Peter’s memories from when I was cloned. I was the first, created before he was tested on.”

  Ally watched him for a moment. Trying to understand what was happening.

  “So, you remember me?”

  “I do, how could I forget my sister! I mean, his sister,” the realisation of the fact made him frown in disappointment.

  A body pushed past Ally.

  “Prime!” Mollie ran up and hugged him, before catching herself in a moment of emoti
on and stepping back. “Glad to see you.”

  “Mollie,” Prime smiled. “You made it safely.”

  “You know each other?” Ally looked at the two of them.

  “Yeah, only recently,” Mollie said, “Did you just call her sister?" She looked at Prime.

  Ally laughed.

  “Yeah, sort of,” she smiled at Prime.

  A voice shouted out, it was Xander.

  “Ok, these reunions are all great and everything but we have some real issues here,” he shouted. Owens and Julian had filled him in on the details of the situation. “We need to figure this and fast.”

  A rumble from the building silenced everyone.

  “What the hell was that?” Mollie shouted.

  “One second,” Owens moved over to a panel on the wall and activated an LCD screen which showed the CCTV of the building. It scanned across several screens before landing on the one which showed what was happening.

  In the foyer, the battle between the nanobots and the clones was still taking place, the fighting had escalated to several other rooms across the building. The aftermath of an explosion explained the rumble they had heard.

  “Holy shit!” Julian exclaimed. “We need to shut this down fast.”

  “Agreed, any suggestions?”

  Prime cleared his throat.

  “Well, I was planning on getting Yuri’s help to reverse engineer the device in my head that allowed Peter to control me. If he could reverse the process then I might be able to control him,” he explained. “But it looks like he’s a bit preoccupied at the moment.”

  “We could do that,” Owens said, looking at Jacob. “I helped develop the tech which created you in the first place. Jacob, would you assist? I could use your Biotech knowledge here.”

  Jacob looked up, surprised to be called into the plan.

  “If stopping Yuri is the end goal then yes, agreed. Peter is out of hand. I still stand by elixir, however,” he stated his case.

  “OK, we can work with that for now, one apocalypse at a time,” Owens replied.

  “What about Yuri?” Xander asked. “If we stop Peter ,then he’s pretty much got the winning hand.”