by J. Thorn
“What now, then?”
“Y’aint gonna do nothin’ with them on ya. Just chill, man. They’d have killed us if they didn’t want us for something. Sit down. Rest. It’ll all shake out in the end.”
“Do you know what’s happening here?” Gerry said, wondering why Gabe was so calm about it all.
Gabe’s eyebrows knitted together with incredulity. “What ya suggestin’ here, man? Ya think I’d plan this—whatever this is?”
A gunshot silenced them.
Chrome Mask approached the rear of the vehicle and spoke, his voice muffled but still understandable.
“Get off the truck, and follow me. Slowly.”
Together they did as they were told. Like a ridiculous superstition, Gerry tried not to step on the dancing green dots. As if touching one would bring down a bullet.
He jumped off the back of the truck and looked at Chrome Mask close up. Inside those dark eyeholes he saw a bright blue eye, staring, unblinking. The man reached up and slowly removed his mask.
When he raised his head, Gerry gasped.
One eye had rotted out. In its place just a scabbed, black sore sat, seeping a thick pus. Thick folds of skin twisted by burns covered his face. His lips turned up, creating a permanent sneer. Blackened nubs lined rotten gums, and a swollen tongue sat limply inside his mouth. Gerry looked away, unable to bear the sight.
“Who are you? What do you want with us?” Gerry asked.
The man replaced his mask, and his voice, deep and gravelly, laced with pain, spoke. “Where were you going?”
Gerry looked to Gabe, then to Petal for some guidance. None was coming. They looked as baffled at this man as Gerry felt. He tried to think of a convincing lie, but where else was there to go? He couldn’t exactly say they were out for a spot of shopping or a trip to the park. Though clearly, there were more places out here in the supposed Abandoned Lands than anyone had let on previously. Or the Family had let on. How many more lies had they told the population? How many more places were hidden from those in City Earth? Was the Cataclysm not as all-encompassing as they were told?
Gerry sighed, feeling let down by the lack of support from Gabe and Petal.
“To a settlement is all. Just trying to get by, you know? Like the rest of you.”
“You’re lying,” the man said. “I’ll ask you again. This time, if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll have all three of you shot.”
“Hey,” Gabe said. “Calm the hell down. There ain’t no need for any of this.”
“We’re just hackers,” Petal said. “Looking for work. We’re on our way to a job. Some small place up by the Russian border. Nothing special.”
Chrome Mask shook his head, and a rattling laugh came wetly from his throat. “Just because I’m not whole like you, you think I’m stupid?”
“No, no, not at all,” Gerry said, giving Petal a glare. “We didn’t mean—”
“Let me put you all out of your misery,” the man said, standing back.
“No!” Gerry said, reaching out for him. “Please—”
“I meant,” the man said, “I know where you were going. You don’t have to come up with these ridiculous stories. No need for lies. I know more than you realise. We’ve been tracking your communications for the last few hours.”
“You hacked us?” Gabe said.
Chrome Mask squinted with a smile. “Yeah. We’re not without skills out here. How do you think we’ve survived this long?”
“So what now?” Gerry asked. “What is it you want with us?”
“I know where it is.”
Petal stepped forward and bent her head slightly. “Where what is?”
“The node you seek. And I also know who usually accesses it. And now I’m left wondering whether you work for him—or if not, what your intentions are. I see your friend here is different to… everyone.” He pointed a gloved finger at Gerry. “Your code is strange.”
Gerry accessed his dermal implant, realised he was being scanned, and shut it down. Whoever this person was, they were an adept hacker. Gerry didn’t even notice he’d got in. And now that familiar feeling of violation was back.
“I’m just a guy. Look, you’ve got our vehicle, why don’t you just let us go? Maybe tell us where this Meshwork node is, and we can be on our way?”
“Yeah, man, we ain’t lookin’ to do no harm out here. Ya seem to have got ya ’selves organised. Ya don’t need to be messin’ with us.” Gerry noticed Gabe lean hard on his right boot heel, priming his weapon. Gerry didn’t want that, didn’t want that in the slightest. As quick as Gabe was, Gerry doubted he’d be quick enough for the snipers. And as Gerry thought that, he saw the green laser dot creep its way across the ground, up Gabe’s leg, past his chest, to where it rested on his forehead.
“Don’t be a hero, old man,” Chrome Mask said. “I’ll do you three a deal. I’ll take you to the node if you agree to do something for me in return.”
“What do you want?” Petal asked. “You want to hire us for a job?”
“Software,” he replied. “A self-executing, viral payload. You see, you might think of us as survivors, but really, we’re victims. A plague has eaten most of my people, and I’d like to get the vaccine. Only the ones who created it have kept it to themselves and don’t much feel like sharing with us Upsiders. And we can’t do too much about it, being personae non gratae and stuck out here on the sludge borders. But you.” Chrome Mask jabbed a finger into Gerry’s chest. “You, my odd fellow, with your shifting, mutating code, you’re different enough that I believe you could get passed their security. Deliver my program.”
“Who exactly are you referring to?” Gerry asked as Petal gripped his hand.
“Seca and his little group of psychopaths. I’m assuming that’s why you want the node, huh? He’s been getting a little frisky on the Meshwork with his artificial evils lately. The node you seek has direct access to City Earth—I’m sure you know that by now. The Family don’t know about it, though. Old Seca piggybacked their network while they were still building that Dome. He’s clever. Insane, but clever.”
“You called yourself an Upsider. What do you mean? What exactly is this place? What happened?”
“Ah, that’s the question right there… what’s your name?”
“Gerry. Yours?”
“You can call me Len. See, everyone refers to it as the Cataclysm. That’s what the Family teaches all you Dome people. They’re kind of being honest, but as with everything they do, it’s not the whole of the truth. Look, I don’t mean to freak you people out, but you’ve got to understand how tough it is outside of the Dome.”
Gabe and Petal snorted. “You don’t need to tell us,” Petal said. “We’ve been out long enough to know all that. The only thing that’s freaking me out is those damned scopes twitching about us. Wanna call them off?”
“They’ll stay for the time being. Trust is a two-way street, and I only travel one way.”
Gerry looked him square in the eye. “If we can help you, then we will, but you need to give us some slack first. Show us the node.” He just wanted to find the damn thing and get back to the Dome. Since leaving the City, he’d not felt right, as if he was constantly swimming against an ever-stronger tide, and frankly he was sick of it and fast running out of patience.
“Fine,” the man said. “But any one of you takes a step out of line and your brains will be but fragments on the wind. Do you understand?”
They all nodded. Gabe gripped Petal’s arm and gave Chrome Mask a wide grin.
Len gestured a single finger across his slate in a circular motion, and the green dots winked out of existence. Gerry looked up. Saw nothing in the windows.
Across the street, under a tattered canopy, a partially shattered glass door opened.
“Come
on, then. Meet Omega, the node you seek.”
***
Len opened the door and stood aside to let Gabe, Petal, and Gerry through. He led them through an old hotel lobby, its floor tarnished and charred, its wallpaper diseased with smoke damage, and its light fixtures melting as if exposed to extreme temperatures.
It was cool inside. Quiet too. Like a mausoleum. Gerry had only ever been in one: his parents’. Though that was much smaller—just big enough for two sarcophagi.
A tingling in the back of Gerry’s head sent a shudder down his spine as if he’d just been plugged into a power source. His thoughts became lighter. The slow, heavy thoughts of his non-AIA brain quickened, and he started to feel like his old self again. There was something else. The only way he could think of it was a permanently morphing fog surrounding him, almost as if it were reaching out towards him.
They quickly ascended a spiral staircase, dodging broken stairs and gaping holes as they kept up with Len’s urgent strides. He loped like a great dog.
Two more black-clothed people stood beside the entrance to a hallway. Both leaned against the wall wearily, their guns hanging by the sides. They nodded curtly as Len passed them.
“Here. Number 24.”
Len entered a code on the keypad, and the door creaked open. “Go inside.”
The hairs on the back of Gerry’s arms rippled—both from the cold and something more primal. One does not simply enter an unknown room in a strange hotel without the lizard-brain amygdala kicking out its survival signals.
The place stank of steam and mould.
Within the gloom, a bright, blue neon light glowed from behind a paper screen. In front, and sitting opposite each other on tattered sofas, were three more people wearing the same black cloth outfit and face masks. Gerry unconsciously held his breath as he walked in, wondering if the masks were needed to breathe properly in this steam, which now he was fully enveloped within and felt cold and wet.
He swallowed, breathing slowly through his nostrils.
Gabe and Petal followed him inside.
“I recognise this,” Petal whispered to Gerry. “It’s just like Old Grey’s room. Keeps the CPUs cool.”
“Is it safe to breathe in ’ere?” Gabe said, approaching one of the men on the sofas.
The figure didn’t answer, didn’t move. Even when Gabe reached out to grab the man, he just sat there. Gabe’s hand went right through it, causing ripples of holographic pixels to flow around his hand.
“Please excuse my rudeness. These images won’t hurt you. I just like their company.” Len closed the door behind him and approached the paper screen as the hologram peeled away and morphed into another figure standing by a partially curtained window.
“It also doesn’t hurt to have some figures walking about, just in case, you know?”
“In case of what?” Gabe said, frowning. “What are you so scared of?”
“Who. Not what. The Undersiders, of course. They want this.”
He pulled the screen back and revealed a matte black box as big as a wardrobe. A multitude of wires wormed out from its rear and trailed across the hotel room’s floor.
“It’s the node,” Gerry said as he rushed forward to it. He touched his hand against its thrumming chassis. The weird tingling sensation in his head and spine matched rhythms with the node, like two opposing tides becoming one, waves growing larger and faster. Sickness overcame him, and he fell to his knees.
“Gez, what’s wrong?” Petal placed a cool hand on the back of his neck. “You’re burning…”
Gerry swallowed, kept his eyes closed, tried to ride out the sick feeling. And as quick as it came upon him, it went away, leaving him feeling as if he’d been shocked by a stun-baton again. The holograms had risen from their seated position and now formed a protective circle around the node.
They stared silently with an implied malevolence like sleeping snakes.
“What’s so special about this computer?” Gerry asked.
“I take it you’ve heard of Old Grey?” Len responded as he stepped forward.
“Are you saying this is the same model? An old-school AI?”
Len shook his head. “No, this has no intelligence that I can find, and yet…” He trailed off, apparently unsure of how to explain.
“Yet what?” Gerry urged him to continue.
“And yet, Seca has killed many of us Upsiders for it. It’s the backbone of the entire Meshwork. His main access into City Earth. Without it, he would be severely crippled. It’s his launchpad.”
“And you let him access it freely?” Gerry stood, shaking his head with disbelief. “Why don’t you just switch it off and prevent Seca from accessing it?”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
Gerry exhaled hard. “How can he access it without power?”
“Look.” Len walked Gerry to the rear of the machine. “There is no power supply. You can’t switch it on or off. It cannot be killed with EMP like what killed every other computer on the planet during the Cataclysm. It generates its own source somehow. Probably some kind of mega fuel cell or reactor. It created and maintains the Meshwork, but when you log in—which it allows freely—there’s no AI in there, or at least none that I can find. Just an old pre-Cataclysm operating system from AppSoft.
“The damn thing is indestructible. And I make it my mission to keep it out of Seca’s hands as much as possible. He still has remote access occasionally, but I’ve found that if I keep it moving, it causes him problems.”
“Will you let me access it? To find Seca’s location.”
Len dropped his shoulders and breathed in. Considered.
Across the room, standing in front of the windows, Gabe circled one of the holograms, poked at it, and made its form shimmer. Other than that odd effect, there was no way of telling they weren’t corporeal meat bodies. Still, Gerry wondered just how much of a defence they could be. Not being solid makes it somewhat difficult to wield a weapon or stop someone.
“Yes, but you must do something for me in return. The payload. I need you to install it in Seca’s network. None of my hackers are capable of bypassing his security. But you’re different… there’s something about you. Something I think will help you crack his firewalls.”
“What does it do?”
“It’ll crack the security on the main compound where he keeps his vaccines and food resources. It’ll hopefully shut down most of the servers that control the drones, cameras and locks. Once that has been bypassed, I’ll have a couple of my people on standby to break in and get the resources we need.”
Gabe turned away from the hologram and regarded Len with a pointing finger. “Look, man, ya could be setting us up with some dodgy bioSoft. How do we know it ain’t gonna fry our brains? I’ve been on the wrong end of some shifty viruses in the past, and let me tell ya now, I ain’t having none of that again.”
The man took off his mask, exposing the mutated face and bloated tongue. Gerry wanted to look away from the sight of Len’s disfigured lips twisting awkwardly as he spoke.
“Take a good look. This is the work of Seca and his buddies at the Family.”
“His buddies? He’s one of the Family?” Gerry asked, stunned.
“Yes. They instigated the Cataclysm. Poisoned the land and made all our parents freaks giving birth to more freaks, until all the interbreeding created people like me. People made to live Upside, scratching for survival among the dust.” Len’s face sneered with hatred as he worked up into a rage.
“All the while he and his people retreated to an underground city safe from the bombs and the poisons. For decades he’s lived there, rebuilding himself, living luxuriously while everyone on the surface fights each other for safe territory and resources. And now his ego has grown too big!
“He wants reven
ge for being left behind by the Family as their experiment got out of hand and they built a Dome for their precious offspring. But what about us? What about our children that no longer live beyond a few weeks before their mutated genes kill them or twist them into hideous shapes? Who’s going to look after us? It’s all right for you Dome people living a life of complete safety and privilege as the Family’s playthings. All your wants and needs are taken care of while the rest of us are forsaken.”
Gerry tried to interject, ask some questions. The details were too much, too fast. But Len was frothing at the mouth as he continued his tirade.
“And now he wants to bring a war to us again. As if we haven’t suffered enough! No, I can’t stand idly by and watch us die out. All there will be left is AI ’borgs and robots. No more humans. Do you understand? No more humans! You take my payload and release it in his network. Then we’ll see who’ll survive a Cataclysm once we mount an offensive!”
“Dude, just chill. We’ll do it,” Petal said.
Gerry spun round. Petal stared back at him as if to say ‘trust me’.
Gabe nodded at Gerry. He had no option but to agree. He wanted to just get this done as quickly as possible so that he could run all the ramifications through his head. Despite his newly active and faster working brain, it was still too much of an info dump to understand what was really being said.
Len reached into his jacket pocket, took out a DigiCard and a piece of paper, and handed them to Gabe. “When you get to Darkhan, look for an alehouse called ‘The Blighty’. It’ll be safe for you if you show them that piece of paper. They’ll know what it is and what you need to do. The landlady will give you access to a secure node. Beyond that, you’re on your own.”
Len replaced his mask, turned his back, and approached the door. As he walked out, he turned and regarded Gerry. “She’s all yours. You’ve got five minutes. Don’t get distracted when you’re inside. Get in and get out. I don’t want your Helix signature floating about on my nodes.”
