by Isaac Hooke
“Screw this,” Slate said. He trampled the servers on the left side, making his own aisle so that he could outflank the attackers. Bambi did the same on the right.
Eric was about to follow, when Brontosaurus spoke up.
“Got some tangos on the rear,” Brontosaurus said.
A quick glance at the rear view camera confirmed Brontosaurus’ words. More Sloths entered from the circular room the team had left behind—either the grav elevator had been repaired already, which seemed unlikely, or the reinforcements were climbing down the chute using magnetic mounts.
Eric, Mickey and Crusher rushed them, using their alien blades to take down the enemy.
“This way!” Clone Manticore said. Another aisle branched away to the left between the servers, and Manticore took it.
Eric, Mickey and Crusher quickly retreated, using their ballistic shields to protect them from the plasma attacks of the rearmost Sloths: the trio’s energy shields had all failed by then. They entered the leftmost aisle after the rest of the platoon, and took up a drag position as the two groups of shock troops—those from the exterior of the building, and those from the circular chamber—joined up.
In that aisle, ahead of the Bolt Eater vanguard, more Sloths awaited, along with milk robots. So advancement proved slow. Eric kept an eye on that battle via his rear view camera; meanwhile he backed up, defending against the Banthar machines that pursued them. Those machines thought they could stay back and open fire at him from a distance, so Eric rushed them and took out several with his alien blades.
Unfortunately, other Sloths shot through the servers on either side to outflank him. But Mickey and Crusher were there, spreading out to take them down.
A crash came from past the Sloths in front of Eric; behind the units, beyond the servers that flanked them, he spotted Eagleeye and Dickson. The pair had broken through one of the glass windows paneling the exterior of that area.
“I heard you guys were having a party without us!” Dickson smashed his way forward through the servers, until he reached the Sloths. Then he and Eagleeye continued bashing their way through until they reached Eric.
“I’d never do that!” Eric said.
“We’ve reached the interface room!” Marlborough transmitted. “Get over here and help us secure the entrance!”
Eric glanced at his overhead map, and quickly retreated with Mickey, Crusher, Dickson and Eagleeye. They held their ballistic shields behind them as the enemies let loose a barrage of energy blasts. Dickson and Eagleeye still had working force fields, but it was doubtful those would last for much longer.
The aisle was covered in the wreckages of Sloths and the shattered crystals of milk robots—Eric alternately plowed through them and crunched over the bodies.
He reached the entrance to the interface room, where Bambi and Slate took down three sloths that had bulldozed through a series of nearby servers to come at them from the side.
Eric and the others stepped between Bambi and Slate. Eric joined the latter to help defend the entrance. They judiciously deployed their ballistic shields, preventing enemy energy bolts from reaching them.
Eric glanced at his rear view feed to survey the situation in the room. Manticore stood next to several rows of pedestals that were stacked one atop the other, reminding him of the pipes of a pipe organ. On either side were several small, ovoid pods, with glowing blue streaks traveling back and forth along their edges.
“Deploy the virus!” Marlborough ordered.
The storage compartment in Manticore’s leg opened up, and the alien scout emerged. It moved forward, then landed on a pedestal near the center of the stack. A telescoping limb emerged from underneath, and vanished into a small aperture in the pedestal.
“Looks like one of the Sloths is carrying a black hole weapon!” Bambi said.
“They wouldn’t dare use it!” Dunnigan said.
“Actually, if it meant stopping us, they would,” Dickson said. “Don’t let them fire!”
Eric spotted the Sloth that carried the double-barreled black hole weapon. It was located down the aisle, past several other units, about a hundred meters in front of him. Those other units were parting to give the Sloth a clear line of sight to the interface room.
He aimed his forearm at the unit, and jettisoned one of his alien spears. The weapon passed between other targets and struck the target. The spear passed through the unit’s force field, and penetrated its central armor. Sparks spread across its body as the Sloth went down. However, the black hole weapon was already glowing a bright white. As Eric watched, it released a bolt directly into the floor, and a rip in spacetime opened up.
“Too late!” Eric said. He felt the immense pull. He punched down with his arm, jabbing his remaining spear into the floor.
“Manticore, how are you doing on the virus?” Marlborough asked.
“I’ve encountered unexpected software security measures,” Manticore said. “I’ll need about fifteen minutes to get past them. Maybe longer.”
“There isn’t enough time!” Marlborough said. “We have to get out of here!”
“The adjacent building will have another interface room on the same floor!” Manticore said. “We can use it instead. This way!”
Eric received a share request from Manticore, scanned it for viruses, and put it up on his HUD. It was a route through the servers: a blue, dashed line overlaid his vision, leading away from the black hole and toward the far wall.
Eric headed outside the interface room, and struggled to retreat from the pull beside him. Around him, the building was imploding as servers, and pieces of the floor and ceiling were being sucked into the black hole. A growing, spherical crater was carved into the building around the spacetime tear as he watched. Most of the Sloths were already spaghettified, considering that the black hole had opened near the heart of their group.
The floor was magnetic, so he was able to use his magnetic mounts for traction, crawling on the floor with his arms and legs. Around him, servers were dragged along the floor and into the hole.
He amped up his servomotor output, but it didn’t really help his arms, which were still damaged from earlier, so his legs did most of the work.
“Hurry up!” Marlborough said. “We have to get that virus deployed ASAP… they’ll nuke this whole block to stop us if they have to!”
Eric pushed through those servers that remained in place, making his way toward the wall that Manticore had marked off. It was made of metal, but nearby a floor-to-ceiling window offered a view of the adjacent building, which was only a short leap across. Short yes, but still difficult, considering the pull.
He decided that was the best way to get outside, so he veered toward it, instead of the wall marked by Manticore.
That window looked like it was damaged—Eric saw small holes in the surface. They spidered as he watched, and then the glass broke entirely. Big shards smashed into his body, breaking further.
He reached the window.
The route overlaid across his vision updated, and proceeded across the span between the two buildings, to a window across from him.
He glanced down. The height was dizzying. Well, it would have been, were he human.
This is going to be fun.
“We’ll never make it,” Brontosaurus transmitted from Eric’s back. “The gravitational pull is too high.”
“We have to!” Mickey sent.
“No, he’s right,” Eric said. “There’s no way we’ll make the jump. Not while that black hole is still active.”
Movement drew his eye to the sky between the two buildings, where an airship suddenly pulled into view.
Eric dodged back inside. A barrage of energy bolts bit into the window and the floor beside it. Huge blast craters formed. Broken pieces of floor flew past, sucked toward the black hole.
“Manticore is still in the server room!” Bambi said. “He never left!”
“It’s a trick!” Marlborough said. “Blow up his AI core!”
&
nbsp; Eric accessed attempted to access the bomb’s remote interface, but got nothing.
“Can’t!” Eric said. “The remote interface isn’t showing up. The interface room must be acting like a Faraday cage.”
“Can’t do it, either,” Dickson said.
“Bolt Eaters, back to the interface room!” Marlborough ordered.
The platoon struggled to return to the interface room. On the one hand, it was slightly easier, because they went with the pull, rather than against it. On the other, it was difficult to find purchase when pieces of the floor were breaking away underneath them.
By the time Eric reached the interface room again, that ever expanding sphere the black hole was carving through the interior of the building had nearly reached it. Eric dragged himself inside after Marlborough.
Manticore stood there with his back to them. He had crouched so that he could magnetically secure his hands and feet to the floor. His alien sphere remained attached to the pedestal, its telescoping limb still interfaced.
“You don’t really intend to destroy the Essential with a virus, do you?” Marlborough said.
“Oh, I’ve installed a virus,” Manticore said. “It just won’t do what you think it will.”
“You’re taking control…” Bambi said.
“Very good,” Manticore said. “Soon this building will be gone. And all of you along with it. But I will still exist. My consciousness distributed throughout server clusters planet-wide, overwriting the consciousness of the Essential. This world will be mine. The Banthar will kneel before me, and I will use them as my tools to destroy the empire. Then I will return to Earth and wipe out all Mind Refurbs.”
Eric scanned for the remote interface for the sheath bomb. There, it showed up on his HUD again.
“Sarge, permission to detonate the bomb?” he asked on a private line.
Marlborough didn’t answer.
“Sarge?” Eric tried again.
He turned toward him, and saw that Marlborough’s mech was slumped on the floor. He moved backwards slowly, where the other mechs had collapsed, and formed a logjam at the entrance.
They were all offline.
So he installed sleeper code after all. Something seemingly innocuous, a deactivation subroutine that all our scans failed to pick up.
He was about to access that remote interface, when Manticore spun, launching an alien spear directly at him.
Eric attempted to dodge, but the spear glanced off his side; for a moment he thought he had escaped the effects, and then he felt a blast of electrical energy that toppled him to the floor.
24
Eric couldn’t move. Like Marlborough, he was dragged backward until he met the blockage formed by the other mechs.
Beyond the room, the floor had completely fallen away, thanks to the black hole. He wasn’t sure how much longer the place would remain intact.
In front of him, Manticore returned his attention to the series of pedestals.
Though Eric couldn’t move, he was still conscious. He knew he’d barely avoided being shut down by that spear. If it had scored a direct hit...
“You missed,” Eric said over the common band.
Manticore cocked his head.
Eric logged into the bomb’s remote interface and detonated it.
Manticore’s chest assembly bent outward, and smoke erupted from inside. The Devastator mech dropped, and like Eric, was dragged along the floor as the magnetic mounts on the hands and feet gave out.
Goodbye Manticore. You won’t be missed.
Eric upped his time sense to the maximum, and reality ground to a halt around him. He needed all the time he could get right about now.
Not that there was much he could do with that time, other than wallow in regret, and what could have been.
The mission was done. The Bolt Eaters had failed to destroy the AI core. They came close, so close, but were betrayed in the end. Manticore wanted to overwrite the consciousness of the Essential with his own. He believed he had found a way, but whether or not he actually had the ability was another question entirely. Not that it mattered anymore.
Eric, and the other Bolt Eaters would soon cease to exist. At least they had given the Essential a good scare, and taught him that it was probably best to leave Earth alone for the foreseeable future. Then again, maybe they had only further pissed the machine being off, and convinced it that Earth needed to be destroyed at all costs. Humanity, and its tools, had demonstrated that they were a far greater threat to the Banthar, and the Essential, then the aliens had originally guessed. That meant humanity’s days were numbered. Especially if the Banthar decided to involve the fabled empire they were a part of.
Maybe it was for the best that Eric wouldn’t be witnessing the days to come, which probably wouldn’t be all that great for Earth. Well actually no, that wasn’t true. If he still had a mind backup intact on Earth, Arnold would probably restore him. So while Eric might be free from seeing what came, a version of him would still exist out there to fight another day.
That felt reassuring, somehow.
He smiled inwardly as he waited for the end.
I tried my hardest. That’s all that counts. I made a difference, in what small way I could.
He had survived for over twenty years since his rebirth as an AI. He supposed his luck couldn’t last forever. He had a good run. His life hadn’t been all that bad, either, at least up until the apartment complex was attacked.
His only regret was that Bambi and Crusher, and all the other Bolt Eaters, would die with him.
Farewell, my brothers and sisters. It was an honor to serve with you.
It was time to return from whence he had come. To the formlessness of the universe that had birthed him.
As he waited for death to come, he found his gaze wandering the room restlessly. He was ready to go, and yet a part of him—the majority in fact—wasn’t.
He spotted Manticore’s alien scout. The unit still squatted intact on the interface pedestal. What if he could use that to inject a virus like the platoon had originally planned, destroying the Essential? First of all, he’d have to come up with a virus that was compatible with the alien technology. Second of all, even if that virus destroyed the Essential, it wouldn’t save him. The black hole would still engulf him and the other Bolt Eaters, ending them all.
But what if there was another way out of this?
Manticore had intended to replace the Essential’s consciousness with his own.
What if Eric could do something similar? But instead of replacing the Essential’s consciousness with his own, what if he could hook into that existing consciousness, like he had done with the Essential instance in his own mind, and take control?
“Dee, are you there? Dee?”
No answer came. It seemed the impact had deactivated her as well.
“Bolt Eaters, anyone online?” he tried over the common band.
Nothing.
He was completely and utterly alone at the moment.
He accessed the list of nearby remote interfaces, and found the scout showing up in the list. But as usual, he still couldn’t log into it.
Eric restarted his earlier hacking attempts, but after about twenty minutes of accelerated time, he realized he wasn’t getting anywhere. The human-compatible hardware Manticore had installed in that drone seemed foolproof. Or at least, it might as well be, given the limited time available to Eric.
He wasn’t sure what else he could do. There was no way to access the alien side of the interface, considering he didn’t understand the protocol involved. He was, for all intents and purposes, screwed.
Unless…
He could execute arbitrary commands within the Essential in his mind, via the hook in the guilt subroutine that led to the human-protocol emulation layer. There were still hundreds of subroutines he could access via that emulation layer whose functions were unknown.
He began to experiment with those subroutines once more. There were a few that attempted t
o access his antennae, which meant they were good candidates for communications code. However, his antennae didn’t utilize the high-energy photons that were standard in Banthar comm technology.
What if I temporarily remapped my antennae code to my LIDAR emitters?
No, it wouldn’t help. He’d have to physically mod them to emit the necessary high-energy photons, something he couldn’t do at the moment. And even if he could, he had no way to receive any return transmissions.
Yes, he was done.
“I’ve got it,” a familiar female voice came over the comm.
“Who…” Eric said.
“It’s Molly,” the voice said.
Eric didn’t know what to say to that. He was silent for several moments. “Molly? My Molly? But… you’re dead.”
“I’m inside Frogger,” she said.
“Ah,” Eric said. “Why aren’t you shut down?”
“He has me operating in a separate partition,” Molly said. “I’m part of his mind, but independent of it. Similar to the Essential instance you’ve got walled off inside of you.”
“You know about that?” Eric said.
“I do,” Molly said. “Frogger shares everything with me. I’m not sitting behind a firewall myself, obviously. Frogger has me rigged, you see: in case anything ever happened to him or his Accomp, I would be able to take over and keep fighting. The servomotors don’t want to respond to me at the moment, though… my guess is it has something to do with Manticore’s sleeper code. I do have complete access to his other systems, including communications, and I’ve been continuing his earlier attempts to hack Manticore’s scout. I’m finally in. But I’m not sure what to do from here.”
“I’ll take a look,” Eric said. “Give me what you have.”
She shared a particular ingenious buffer overflow technique with him, and he used it to escalate his privileges on the alien scout. He was finally able to log in.
“See what you can do about the malicious code in Frogger’s core,” Eric said. “In the meantime, I’ll poke around in here.”
The interface had various commands he could utilize, mostly to fly the drone about, and to interface with other Banthar units. But that was about it. He could understand why Molly was at a loss over what to do next.
