by A. G. Taylor
The Entity is trying to manipulate me, she realizes. Using my memories to throw me off balance.
A dark-haired woman in a spotless uniform bearing the name Nurse Bowen appears at her side. Seemingly unworried by Sarah’s general appearance and the fact she is holding a samurai sword in one hand, the nurse says, “You’re cutting it fine for visiting hours, you know.”
Sarah barely looks at her as she scans the closed doors along the corridor. “Huh?”
“You’re here to see your grandfather, I take it?”
“My grandfather?”
“He’s in one of our private rooms,” the nurse says, gently taking Sarah’s arm. “I’ll show you.”
Sarah allows herself to be led down the corridor to a numberless door.
“Now, you must promise not to get him worked up,” the nurse says, opening the door. “He needs his rest.”
“Don’t worry,” Sarah replies. “I’ll make sure he gets plenty of rest after this.”
“That’s nice, dear.” The nurse backs away as Sarah slips into the room…
Inside, the room of her “grandfather” is as bland as they come: walls painted magnolia, brown curtains drawn over the window, a vase of wilting daffodils on the bedside table. In one corner a television on a bracket is showing a daytime soap with the sound turned down. Surrounding the bed, monitoring equipment flashes and bleeps, all linked up to the ancient man lying under the covers. As Sarah approaches he wakes from a half-sleep and looks at her in confusion for a moment, before recognizing her face.
“Ah, Sarah,” he says. “You’ve finally come to visit me.”
She tightens her grip on the handle of the sword, which feels suddenly massive and unwieldy – an alien weapon to her. In the confines of the cramped private room, it feels ridiculous to be standing there with it in her hand.
“Well, are you just going to stand there all day?” the old man asks, patting the side of the bed.
Self-consciously, Sarah approaches and sits on the mattress. After a second’s consideration, she leans the sword against the bedside table, point down.
“You weren’t seriously thinking of using that, were you?” the old man asks. “Look at me. I’m no threat to you.”
She meets his eyes and says, “I’m not fooled by this. I know what you are.”
The Entity smiles, yellowed teeth flashing. “I’m dying, Sarah. If you really want to kill me, all you have to do is pull out a few leads.” He waves a hand around the machines monitoring his heart and lungs.
“You’re not dying,” she says. “This is an illusion. A trick.”
“I wish it were. But I’m ancient, my dear. I was spreading out of my first galaxy when your world was still just a ball of dust forming in the void.”
Sarah leans towards him, genuinely interested. “What are you?”
He shrugs his bony shoulders. “I remember…being like you once. Part of a species – a race of humanoids, not unlike your own. And like you and your friends, we evolved. Developed new powers. Augmented our bodies with machines. Eventually we developed beyond the stage of needing humanoid form altogether.”
“What happened to the others of your race?”
The Entity waves a hand dismissively. “Without physical form they soon lost interest in the matters of this universe. They disappeared, one by one – migrated to parallel dimensions. Until I was the only one left.”
“Why did you stay?”
“Because I saw all the suffering in the universe. Pain and despair spread across millions…billions of planets. For a time I merely watched, then I realized that it was within my power to put an end to that suffering.”
Sarah shakes her head. “By turning people into slaves? By taking over their worlds?”
“By freeing them from the struggle of having to exist in an uncaring universe,” the old man insists. “I look after them. Make sure they come to no harm. In my world no one dies in wars, or of disease, or of a broken heart.”
“And what about those who don’t want your protection?” Sara asks. “What happens to them?”
He gives her a hurt look. “They come to understand that it is for the best…in time.”
“Or they die.”
The old man sighs and lays a bony hand on hers. “I won’t tell you I haven’t made mistakes, Sarah. Which is why I need you. I am dying. I feel my consciousness stretched thin over worlds and galaxies…and so much time. Things are breaking down. Falling apart.”
“And you expect me to help you keep control of your slaves?”
“What do you think will happen to the universe if I die? Your planet is young – just at the beginning of its association with me. Older civilizations came under my protection millions of years ago. It is all they know. If I cease to be, they will fall into chaos. It will be an apocalypse on a universal scale – a dark age that will last an eternity. Billions upon billions of life forms will die in agony and suffering. They cannot exist without me any more.” He tightens his clawlike grip around Sarah’s hand. “I need your potential, Sarah. Your youth. I’ve searched for millennia to find a being like you. Someone with the ability to replace me.”
Repulsed, Sarah tries to pull her hand free, but he holds tight. “I’m nothing like you…”
“But you are,” he insists. “Wouldn’t you like to experience everything I have? To know all the worlds I know? I’ve sensed you trying to fight your destiny. Concerning yourself with the petty worries of your friends. Always putting them first.” He rises in the bed and his voice becomes a hiss. “You’re so much more than that. With my help you’ll rule everything…”
Sarah eyes the sword leaning against the table. Sensing what she is thinking, the Entity changes tactic…
“Wait!” it hisses. “If you kill me you’ll never find the cure to the virus afflicting your father and brother.”
Rather than snatching up the weapon, she looks back at him and the old man grins at his little triumph.
“What do I have to do?” Sarah asks finally.
Pushing himself up in the bed so he is in a sitting position, the old man points a withered finger at the bedside table. “In there.”
Sarah opens the door and sees the Go board they played in the train lying there. She removes it and lays it down on the bed between them.
“Let’s play a final game,” the Entity says. “If you win, I’ll give you the cure and let you take it back to your planet.”
Sarah opens the bag of black and white stones, but the old man holds up a warning finger.
“But if I win… Well, you’re going to be here for a very long time. Sure you want to take the risk?”
She turns the bag upside down on the bed, emptying the stones out.
“Let’s play.”
Hack smashed the metal fist of his battlesuit hard into the head of the spider that had rushed him just seconds before. To the left and right, his companions were holding off the machines any way they could: Wei with fire, Louise by using her telekinetic power to smash the metal arachnids into the ground, and May by making the ground crumble under their feet…
But the spiders just kept on coming.
Cut them in two with a laser and both halves formed into individual units and attacked again. Smash them so hard their legs flew off, bury them under the earth, hammer them down with the wrecks of vehicles… They always rose again… Renewed.
And Hack and his friends were getting weaker.
The battlesuits were getting gradually battered and slower in their reactions, like a computer being pushed to the edge of performance over a long period of time. Rather than being made of the super-strength matter of the hypersphere, they were formed from earthly metals. Vulnerable. It was only a matter of time before they shut down, and then they would truly be at the mercy of the Entity’s machines.
The spider reared up on its hind legs and spat a glob of venomous liquid directly at the eye slits of Hack’s helmet. Immediately the HUD flashed warnings, showing that the liquid was in fact
acidic and slowly burning through the metal of the battlesuit. Retreating, Hack tried to wipe the liquid away with one hand, with limited success. The acid was sticky and immediately began to burn into the battlesuit’s right hand. More warnings flashed on the HUD.
“Hello?” a human voice echoed in Hack’s ears – the spider raced at him again. “Please identify yourself.”
As the spider swiped the battlesuit’s legs, Hack realized that it was the voice of the man Alex had instructed him to contact at HIDRA: Dr. Fincher. The thin-faced scientist appeared in a window on the HUD, looking with some confusion at the webcam of his computer. The battlesuit slammed onto its back and before Hack could move, the spider pounced upon him, pinning the arms and legs down.
“Dr. Fincher!” Hack told the image. “I’m with the superhuman team you sent into London…”
The spider drove a foreleg down with amazing force. It punctured the stomach of the suit and carried on right through, ripping out the back and into the hard earth. Now Hack’s suit was impaled on the leg of the spider. Warnings blared inside and pain shot along Hack’s side in sympathy with the suit.
“Are you okay?” Dr. Fincher said with concern. Whether the HIDRA scientist had visual or only audio from the link Hack had established with his personal computer (by bouncing a signal from the suit around three satellites, passing ten layers of encryption and then triggering an alert in the HIDRA UK labs to get the doctor to his workstation) he had no idea. The main thing was to get the clonebot.
“I need you to upload a copy of the weapon you’ve been developing,” Hack said urgently. Above him, the spider repositioned itself and raised another leg…
“The clonebot? We’re still testing—”
“No time!” Hack yelled as the second leg ripped through the suit, near the right arm. This time the sharpened foot tore not only the metal, but sliced through Hack’s shoulder. He screamed in agony and felt warm blood stream into the operator cavity…
“Okay, okay!” Fincher exclaimed, hustling in the window to open up files on his computer.
“I don’t have long,” Hack gasped. The visual sensors of the battlesuit helmet finally failed as the acid burned them out. Now the acid began to eat through the inner shell of the helmet and he could see daylight through the cracks…
WARNING… SHUTDOWN IMMINENT… HULL BREACH… MULTIPLE SECTOR FAIL…
The breastplate of the battlesuit opened automatically as it went into the terminal stages of shutdown. Hack’s helmet fell back as it disintegrated. The spider towered above him, even more threatening now that he lay exposed. He could have run, but he had to wait for the clonebot to upload…
“I’m almost there,” Dr. Fincher said in the comm system. “Just give me a couple of minutes…”
I don’t have a couple of minutes, Hack thought, gritting his teeth as the spider violently withdrew the leg that had sliced his shoulder and raised it high. Ready for another strike…
The air inside the base was alive with the crossfire of bullets. All seven remaining mercs were simultaneously emptying their machine guns at Alex. The battlesuit was holding up, but the sheer force of the bombardment was making it difficult to stand.
He threw himself forward, through the hot metal flying from all around, until he was under a platform upon which one group of mercs was positioned. Grabbing the nearest support in the battlesuit’s massive hands he pulled… The iron post wrenched free of the concrete floor and the wall, and the platforms crashed down, spilling soldiers into the air. They landed hard on the floor of the power station.
Having taken out half of his attackers, Alex picked up one of the fallen platforms and swung it round his head, before hurling it across the top of the hypersphere. It sailed towards one of the control areas, where a group of four mercs were firing upon him. The men scattered too late to avoid being hit full on by the object. The platform upon which they were standing collapsed, taking out the lower levels with it.
Silence fell. Those mercs still able crawled for cover as Alex walked into the centre of the base once more. Sarah stood there, waiting for him.
“Impressive,” she said, her voice oddly flat. “Most impressive.”
Alex opened the helmet of the battlesuit. “Sarah,” he said, keeping a distance between them. He didn’t want her to grab him again. “I know you’re in there somewhere. It’s me, Alex.”
The girl tilted her head to one side. “Alex?”
“That’s right,” he encouraged, listening for any show of emotion in her voice. Any sign of humanity beyond the Entity. “You remember me?”
She nodded. “I remember you, Alex. I remember everything Sarah Williams has experienced.”
Alex shook his head. “No, Sarah—”
She pointed at the floor. “Kneel before me, Alex, and I will spare your life.”
He backed away and flipped his helmet back on, suddenly at a loss as to how to fight her. The Entity was in control of Sarah now, but what use was the battlesuit in this situation? He couldn’t clobber her like he had the mercs. But how could he get through to her?
WHAM… WHAM… WHAM… WHAM…
Something with the force of a sledgehammer hit the outside of the suit repeatedly. Alex could actually feel the exterior metal being dented out of shape.
WHAM… WHAM… WHAM… WHAM…
He turned and saw Major Bright advancing, the biggest machine gun Alex had ever seen in his hands – a cannon ripped from the side of a wrecked Black Hawk. No normal man would be able to hold the giant weapon, but the major was hardly normal any more…
WHAM… WHAM… WHAM… WHAM…
Disorientated and unable to control the suit during the onslaught, Alex went to his knees. Bright smiled with satisfaction and let loose with the gun, ripping into the left arm of the suit. Alex pulled his arm back, just in time to avoid having it torn away.
WHAM… WHAM… WHAM… WHAM…
As the battlesuit began to disintegrate around him, Alex held up the remaining robot arm for mercy. It didn’t come.
As Sarah looked on dispassionately, Major Bright pounded the battlesuit into a misshapen lump of metal. Inside, Alex screamed…
43
“Your friends are dying,” the Entity informs her as it lays another black stone on the Go board. “They came to rescue you. A suicide mission.”
As Sarah lays a white stone, she wants to call the old man a liar. To say that she instructed Alex to get the others away… But she knows they wouldn’t do that. However much Alex tried to follow her order, she knows he wouldn’t have deserted her.
“Ah, you see it’s true,” the Entity chuckles, laying another black. This move isolates four of her stones, which the old man plucks swiftly from the board and lays on the mattress. The pile of white stones is almost double the size of the blacks. She’s losing.
“They put up a good fight, I’ll give them that,” the Entity continues, trying to distract her as she contemplates her next move. “But they’re no match for my forces. The hypersphere portal is almost complete, by the way. No army on your planet will survive the infinite number of forces I will have at my disposal after that.”
Sarah takes a white stone from her bag and is about to lay it…
“Of course, I could save them.”
She pauses and looks at the old man questioningly.
“Just join with me and we’ll put an end to all the fighting. Swiftly and cleanly.”
Sarah lays the white stone, capturing two of her opponent’s. A look of uncontrolled anger passes across the Entity’s face.
“The longer you resist,” it snaps, placing another stone, “the worse it will be on them. In fact, I’ll make sure the one who came to save you…what’s his name? Alex? I’ll make sure he dies by your hand.”
She wants to pick up the board and smash it across his face. But she remembers the sessions with Commander Craig in the sparring room of the Ulysses. Losing control is the first step towards losing completely, he always told her.
Taking a deep breath, Sarah calms herself…
And lays another stone…
The game goes on…
The spider had impaled Hack’s suit once more, this time narrowly missing his neck. The machine’s control systems had shut down completely, but with his power Hack was managing to keep in contact with Fincher via the uplink. It was the only hope he had.
“How much longer?” he asked into the comm. He’d lost visuals with the doctor since the helmet had fallen apart, but he could hear.
“Almost there,” Fincher replied. “Just preparing the data packet.”
The spider withdrew its foot and raised it again – this time for the true killing blow.
“Doctor!” Hack cried.
“It’s there!” Fincher exclaimed.
Hack immediately sensed the data upload to what remained of the suit’s internal drives. As the spider leg descended, he forced the arm of the battlesuit to raise one last time…and caught it by the foot. The spider howled, but the battlesuit fingers held it firmly.
Transferring the clonebot into his head in a nanosecond, Hack connected with the machine that was attacking him and passed on the program. He had the briefest sensation of the virus spreading from one microscopic organism in the machine to another, before the spider ripped its leg back, pulling the arm off the battlesuit in the process.
Pushing himself out of the shattered suit, Hack stumbled away as the spider smashed its leg down again, breaking the suit in two. The spider rose up and turned to face him now he was exposed and out in the open. In the background he saw Louise, Wei and May fighting their own desperate battles – their suits impaled and shattered as his had been. Turning his attention back to the spider, he held his ground as it approached, pincer teeth snapping for an easy kill…
