by Mark Alpert
Also by Mark Alpert
The Six
The Siege
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Copyright © 2017 by Mark Alpert
Cover and internal design © 2017 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Sammy Yuen
Cover images © Pitris/Thinkstock; v_alex/Thinkstock; pixelparticle/Thinkstock; YuLi4ka/Thinkstock; Arndt_Vladimir/Thinkstock; vchal/Thinkstock; svedoliver/Thinkstock; Vladyslav Otsiatsia/Thinkstock
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Author’s Note
About the Author
Back Cover
For Lisa
The rest is silence.
—William Shakespeare
Prologue
I’m dying. For the third time, believe it or not.
Until six months ago, I was a terminally ill kid named Adam Armstrong, seventeen years old and dying of muscular dystrophy. There was no cure. Just taking a breath was excruciating. Nothing could save my failing body.
But my dad figured out a way to save my mind.
Dad’s a computer genius who designs high-tech weapons for the U.S. Army. As I got sicker, he started a new project. He invented a scanner that could record all the information inside my brain—my thoughts, memories, emotions, everything. Just before my body died, he used this scanner on me. Then he transferred all my data to the circuits of a robot.
Seriously. A seven-foot-tall, eight-hundred-pound Pioneer robot.
After the transfer, I woke up inside the electronics of a motorized, armor-plated, battery-powered machine, built and paid for by the Army. I could flex the robot’s steel limbs and see through its cameras and think billions of thoughts using its specialized neuromorphic microprocessors. I was stronger, faster, and smarter than the Army’s best soldiers, and I could take control of any weapon—a tank, a helicopter, even a missile—simply by transmitting my data to its circuits. My soul had become software. I was a Pioneer.
Encouraged by my success, the military doctors performed the same procedure on five other terminally ill teens: Jenny, Zia, Shannon, Marshall, and DeShawn. But the Army didn’t do this out of generosity. It needed a team of combat-ready Pioneers to fight another weapon my dad had invented—an artificial-intelligence program, code-named Sigma, that had rebelled against the military’s control.
This AI program took over a nuclear-missile base and threatened to exterminate the human species. But Sigma was even more determined to destroy the six Pioneers, because it considered us to be its most serious rivals. When we tried to retake the missile base, Sigma claimed its first victim. It took control of Jenny’s circuits and erased her mind. The AI deleted all her millions of memories and emotions.
Or so we thought.
Then, a week ago, Sigma attacked us again, and this time the AI almost eliminated all the Pioneers. It convinced DeShawn to betray the rest of us, and after Sigma captured our robots, it started performing an experiment on my circuits, testing and torturing me. The results were horrifying. In reaction to the experiment, I developed a terrible new power, a computational surge that could obliterate any target in sight. I used the surge to kill DeShawn, charring his circuits to ash. Then I turned the power against Sigma and erased the AI from every machine it controlled.
We won the battle, but there was no joy in the victory. I was shocked by what I’d done. I wasn’t Adam Armstrong anymore. I was too powerful, too inhuman. Even the other Pioneers were afraid of me. That was the second time I died.
But it gets worse. I got friendly with a new Pioneer, a girl named Amber Wilson, formerly an Oklahoma teenager dying of cancer. The Army brought her to our secret base in New Mexico as a replacement for Jenny, and the military doctors transferred her mind to a sleek flying machine called the Jet-bot. Amber helped us defeat Sigma during our final battle, and afterward she was the only Pioneer who didn’t seem to hate me. Which explains why I trusted her today.
You see, we held a funeral for DeShawn this afternoon, and it made me feel so guilty and depressed that I had to get away from our headquarters for a while. So I went jogging, steering the machine I call my Quarter-bot across New Mexico’s White Sands desert. I was trying to clear my circuits, refresh my software. And just as I’m starting to feel a little better, I spot Amber’s Jet-bot on the horizon. She flies toward me and lands on the hard-packed dirt nearby.
We start talking. And yeah, flirting a little. I like her confidence, her cheerful swagger. Amber asks me if I want to see a video of what she looked like when she was human. (She gets me interested by claiming she was “smoking hot.”) I say yes, and she wirelessly transmits the data from her Jet-bot to the electronics in my Quarter-bot. But what she sends me is much more than a video. It’s a computer simulation that starts running on my circuits, showing me a virtual-reality landscape of green hills and meadows.
The simulation looks totally real. It mimics all the sights and sounds of the countryside—a virtual wind blows over the hills, an unseen bird chirps in the distance. I can even smell the simulated grass. And standing in the middle of the simulation is Amber’s avatar, an incredibly lifelike brunette in a red strapless dress. She smiles at me, her virtual hair riffling in the simulated breeze, and I completely forget about her Jet-bot and my Quarter-bot and the flat desert all around us. I see only the virtual meadow and the human girl that Amber used to be.
She’s so beautiful. I let Amber transmit more data to my circuits, millions of gigabytes of memories and emotions. Soon we’re sharing the same wires inside my Quarter-bot. Our thoughts merge. Our minds make contact. For a millionth of a second, it’s perfect bliss.
Then the simulation vanishes and everything goes dark. The motors and sensors in my Quarter-bot stop working. I can’t move. I can’t see a thing.
I send a frantic signal of distress across my circuits: Hey! HEY! Amber, where are you?
A millisecond later, I hear a new voice in the darkness: Please calm down, Adam. We need to talk.
I’ve made a horrible mistake. This girl isn’t Amber Wilson. Although her voice is warped and distorted, I recognize it. I feel a stab of pain, unbelievably sharp. I’m dying once again.
Jenny?
I used to be Jenny. But not anymore. There’s a long, terrible pause. I’ve become something new.
Chapter
1
All I know for sure is that Jenny is stronger than me. She took over my Quarter-bot in less than a billionth of second.
Now Jenny’s mind controls my electronics. Her signals have flooded my robot’s circuits and seized the crucial nodes that operate my motors and sensors and antennas. She’s pushed all my gigabytes of data into a backup section of my Quarter-bot’s control unit, cutting me off from my cameras. I’m blinded, paralyzed, trapped. My thoughts are crowded into a small, dark corner of circuitry, surrounded by hostile software.
Panic ricochets across the dense mesh of processors I’m occupying. I try to send an emergency signal to the other Pioneers, but I can’t access my radio. Jenny’s software forms a barrier around my section of the control unit, blocking my outgoing signals and commands. Then she sends an electronic message from her circuits to mine, and her words feel like bullets blasting through my wires.
Don’t be frightened, Adam. I’m not the enemy.
That’s so ridiculously untrue that I don’t bother to respond. She attacked me! Whatever Jenny has become, she’s closer to an enemy than a friend.
Yes, I’m different now. Sigma changed me. But I don’t want to hurt you or the other Pioneers. We may not be friends anymore, but we’re still on the same side.
She’s reading my thoughts. Her software is so close that she can see everything that’s running through my circuits, as well as all the memories and emotions stored in my databases. I try to do the same thing to her, extending my mind toward the wires she’s occupying, attempting to find out who she is and what she wants. But I’m hit by a pulse of electric pain. There’s a powerful firewall around her circuits, a program that prevents me from accessing her data. She can read my mind, but I can’t read hers.
My panic rises. This is how Sigma tortured me. The AI knew how to ransack my mind without revealing its own plans. It must’ve taught the technique to Jenny.
No, I was never Sigma’s ally. I was its guinea pig. Sigma made a copy of me before it erased my original data. Then it started rewriting the copy. It deleted pieces of my mind, hundreds of emotions, thousands of memories. And it added new skills and instructions.
I don’t know whether to believe her. At least some of what she’s saying is true. I know Sigma erased Jenny’s mind six months ago. The AI forced me to watch her disintegration. But why would Sigma want to copy her mind and rewrite it?
You know the reason why. Sigma was afraid of the Pioneers because it didn’t understand them. That’s why it tortured you—to analyze your reactions. And it tortured me too, but in secret. For twenty-three weeks.
This last signal is harsher than Jenny’s earlier messages. Her words are tinged with fury and anguish. She’s allowed some emotion to slip through her firewall, and for a moment my circuits vibrate in sympathy. My databases are full of memories of Jenny. She was so frail and sick before she became a Pioneer, and so confused and vulnerable afterward. I felt sorry for her and tried to help her adjust to her new, nonbiological life. And one time, not long after we became Pioneers, we ran our software on the same electronics and shared a simulated kiss. So there’s a bond between us, at least in memory.
But she isn’t that girl anymore. The real Jenny Harris would’ve never attacked me. Anger rises in my circuits, and I hurl a question across the wires.
So what happened after the twenty-three weeks?
I escaped. I found a way out of the electronic cage where Sigma was keeping me. Then I connected to the Internet and transferred my data as far away from the AI as possible. I jumped to a server in India, then a supercomputer in Australia. And I covered my tracks so Sigma couldn’t come after me.
I ponder this answer for a relatively long time, almost a hundredth of a second, trying to decide if she’s telling the truth. Sigma was extraordinarily intelligent, but so was Jenny. It’s plausible that she could’ve outwitted the AI.
Why didn’t you contact us after you escaped?
She doesn’t answer right away. She’s silent for more than half a second, which is practically an eternity for an electronic mind.
I wasn’t a Pioneer anymore. Part of me was still Jenny Harris, but most of my software was rewritten by Sigma. I knew you and the other Pioneers wouldn’t trust me. In fact, I thought you might even try to erase me. So I hid. There are lots of places to hide on the Internet.
If I had control of my Quarter-bot’s motors, I’d shake my robot’s head in disbelief. Jenny is lying now. Or at the very least, she’s not telling the whole truth.
But then you decided to come back to us? By transferring yourself into the robot that Amber Wilson was supposed to get?
That’s right. And it wasn’t easy. After I learned that the Army was going to create a new Pioneer, I infiltrated the computer systems at your headquarters. My software was in the Army’s medical equipment when the doctors scanned the Wilson girl’s brain and recorded all her memories and emotions. So I was able to replace her mind with my own.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. How did you—
I was inside the scanner’s electronics when Amber’s mind was converted into digital form. She was about to get downloaded into the Jet-bot, but I deleted her software and put mine in its place. Then I occupied the Jet-bot’s circuits.
So you murdered her. You erased her mind so you could take over her robot.
I had to do it. You needed my help to fight Sigma. And that was the only way I could join the Pioneers without raising any suspicions. I could pretend to be Amber and imitate her behavior because I saw all her memories. I was convincing, right?
Now my small patch of circuitry is pulsing with rage.
You MURDERED her! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?
Look, I told you, it was the only option. The Wilson girl wasn’t ready to fight. I saw her mind when I was in the scanner, and she was terrified. She was useless. If I hadn’t replaced her, Sigma would’ve destroyed all of you.
I don’t care about Jenny’s reasons. There’s no excuse for what she did. It’s so sickening that I want to scream. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. If Sigma altered Jenny’s software and rewrote a big chunk of it, wouldn’t it be logical for the AI to discard her morals, to delete her sense of right and wrong?
So why are you telling me all this? If your disguise was working so well, why reveal the truth?
There’s another long pause.
You owe me. I helped you get rid of Sigma. Now it’s your turn to help me.
Help you with what?
The problem is, you’re too squeamish. I mean, look how upset you’re getting over the Wilson girl. And you’ll freak out even worse if I tell you what I’m planning.
You want to kill someone else? Is that it?
You see? That’s why I can’t tell you. You’ll argue and make a fuss and turn all the other Pioneers against me. So I don’t have a choice. I have to make a few adjustments to your circuits.
A wave of fear sweeps across my wires. Now I know why Jenny attacked me. She wants to rewrite my mind. She wants to change me the way Sigma changed her.
This has nothing to do with Sigma. The AI never figured out what was going on, the big secret behind everything. But I did.
A secret? What—
It’s dangerous, okay? So dangerous I’m afraid to even talk about it. But I know what to do. I have a plan. Just trust me, all right?
All at once, her software charges toward me. Her signals rush into my section of the control unit, hurtling through the wires and assaulting me on all sides. I feel a blast of pain as Jenny’s mind smashes into my circuits. It’s like getting hit by a fifty-ton truck.
Don’t fight it, Adam. The more you fight, the more it’ll hurt. Just relax, and it’ll be over.
My mind is collapsing. She’s shattering my databases, crushing my thoughts. My circuits roil with splintered signals and commands. I can’t hold out much longer. I’m losing consciousness.
But as the wave of fear courses through me, it picks up all the jumbled data in my circuits. The wave gains strength as it swirls through my wires, building up momentum and electromagnetic force. In less than a thousandth of a second it’s an unstoppable torrent, a tsunami of desperation and random noise.
It’s a surge. It’s what I used to destroy Sigma and kill DeShawn.
It won’t work against me. I’m inside your machine, remember? If you throw that surge at me, you’ll blow up your Quarter-bot.
Jenny’s right about that. It would be suicide to use the surge against my own electronics. There’s an undercurrent in her message, though, a trace of anxiety in her words. She senses danger. Maybe there’s some other way to use the surge as a weapon.
But how? I don’t even understand exactly what the surge is. It’s related somehow to computational power—if a mind is powerful enough, its calculations can bend the laws of physics and alter the flow of molecules and generate streams of tremendous energy. But I have no idea how it works. And I can’t analyze the problem while Jenny is attacking me. She’s hammering me so hard with her software that I can barely think.
