by Mark Alpert
I leap toward her, but she rockets into the sky before I can hit her with another surge. So I make a new plan and extend one of my arms to where Hawke lies semiconscious on the grass. I wrap my arm around his waist and pick him up. Then I radio an emergency message to Zia. Run west! As fast as you can! The Flying Fortress is coming down!
We sprint across the lawn, back to the woods. As Zia and I run past the house, Jenny deactivates her cloaking software, and then we can see the gargantuan aircraft plunging toward us. Its fuselage stretches across the sky. Its wings cast shadows over all the houses on Greenwood Street.
We accelerate our robots, trying to build up speed on the soft grass. At the same time, I point my cameras behind us to see if we’re going to make it. The Sentinel is still in the same place, directly beneath the falling plane, looking pretty clueless. But that’s not really fair. It wasn’t programmed for a scenario like this.
Then the Flying Fortress smashes into the ground. Its fuselage hits Greenwood Street and crushes the Sentinel, scattering its dark energy. The plane’s wings splinter the houses on both sides of the street, including my family home and all the oak trees around it. The impact rocks the lawn behind my house and makes the ground heave beneath our footpads. My Quarter-bot and Zia’s War-bot tumble to the grass, pelted with flying dirt and debris.
But our robots aren’t damaged. And Hawke is alive. He’s stretched out on the grass, groggy and injured, but still breathing.
I rise to my footpads and scan the sky, looking for Jenny, but I don’t see her anywhere. Something strange is going on at the crash site, though. A big piece of the Flying Fortress is still intact, a twenty-foot-wide cube of steel that landed on top of the ruins of my house. It’s glowing orange and emitting a high-pitched hum, like the sound of an overworked computer. It reminds me of something Jenny said a few hours ago about her reconstructed human body, how it was linked by radio to a control unit on the aircraft. That’s what the cube must be: Jenny’s control unit.
As I’m scanning the cube with my sensors, it levitates several yards above the crushed house and starts to spin. Within seconds it’s an orange blur, rotating so fast that the wreckage of the house whirls around it, chunks of metal and concrete flying in furious circles. The whirlwind pulls in the fragments of the shattered Flying Fortress, sucking tons of debris into the metallic vortex. Soon it grows as fierce and tall as a tornado, stretching hundreds of yards overhead.
Suddenly, it stops spinning and solidifies. The vortex transforms into an enormous glassy cord that extends miles and miles above the ground. Its base is the glowing cube, which is now embedded in a vast mound of debris. The cord stands on top of it like a colossal glass column, thirty feet in diameter, looming high above Yorktown Heights, so high that I can’t see its top. It stretches ten miles straight up, then curves to the east and arches over the horizon toward Connecticut.
Zia stares at it too. A tired grunt comes out of her speakers. “God, what now? What the heck is that thing?”
I shake my Quarter-bot’s head. “I don’t know. But I think the cube at the bottom of it is the control unit for Jenny’s software.”
“So maybe we’re looking at some kind of cable?”
Then we both get a radio signal from Jenny. Good guess. This is the communications line we talked about. The link to the programmers.
I scan the sky again, but Jenny is nowhere in sight. Where are you? Show yourself!
Be patient, Adam. First we have to establish some ground rules. Before I come near, you and Zia have to promise not to attack me again. That was very nasty of you.
Nasty? You murdered your father! And all those soldiers! How—
Hold on, I’m not finished. You also have to help me with the communications link. I was able to build the cable myself, but we need to run a powerful surge through the line to activate it, and only you can do that.
I’m dumbfounded. Jenny, you don’t get it. I already said I wouldn’t help you, remember? And that was before you killed all those—
I think you’ll help me now. I have something that’ll change your mind.
Jenny appears in the sky over the western horizon. She’s still occupying the giant body in the white dress and flying a hundred yards above the treetops. And she holds a normal-size human in her right hand, squeezing him just like she squeezed Hawke.
It’s Dad.
Chapter
30
I increase the magnification of my cameras lenses so I can see Dad’s face. His mouth is open and he’s struggling to breathe. His lips are turning purple. He tries to free himself, pushing against the giant fingers wrapped around his chest, but Jenny doesn’t loosen her grip.
I found him in the woods a mile west of here, trying to run away. That was a stupid move, Adam. I have access to all the data in this simulation. I can find anything, anywhere.
Terror fills every corner of my circuitry. It’s so dense and overwhelming that I almost lose consciousness. I’m suffocating, just like Dad, even though I have no mouth or lungs.
Then something cracks inside my electronics, and the terror roars through me like an avalanche. The surge is excruciating. I feel like it’s snapping the wires in my control unit and ripping my processors right out of their circuit boards. It’s the most powerful surge I’ve ever created, so powerful that it only intensifies my panic. It’s like sitting on top of an atomic bomb.
I want to fire the surge at Jenny, but I can’t. It has so much energy that it’ll vaporize Dad too. But I raise my arms anyway and point them at the girl floating over the treetops. I let the surge collect in my Quarter-bot’s fists, making them shine red with heat and fury. I want Jenny to see it. I want her to know that I could kill her at any moment.
At the same time, I send her a radio message. Bring him down to the ground. Nice and slow.
Why would I do that? Her voice is casual, almost cheerful. As soon as I let go of him, I’ll lose all my bargaining power. Then you and Zia and the Sentinels will blow me away. She takes a closer look at Dad, holding him in front of her massive nose. This man is the only thing protecting me. The so-called genius who invented Sigma.
Dad’s face darkens. His tongue lolls out of his gaping mouth. He’s not struggling anymore. He’s about to go under.
You’re killing him! Loosen your grip!
Jenny waits another second, smiling down at me. Then she relaxes her fingers. There, see? I’m a reasonable person. And I expect you to be reasonable too, Adam. All you need to do is walk over to the base of that cable and release the surge you’ve already built up. Then I’ll happily hand over your father.
Dad is breathing again. He tilts his head back and pants, taking in big gulps of air. But his face is still dark and his hands are shaking. He can’t take much more of this. I have to stop it, no matter what.
All right, I’ll do what you want. But if you hurt him again, I’ll—
No need to worry about that. Just move fast, please. We need to activate the link before the program sends more Sentinels.
I head toward the cable. I keep one of my cameras trained on Jenny and Dad, while pointing the other at the mound of wreckage that covers the site where my home used to be. The cable’s base is at the top of the mound, which rises sixty feet above the surrounding lawn.
Behind me, Zia bends over General Hawke, checking to make sure he’s all right. Then she catches up to my Quarter-bot and keeps pace beside me. She sends me a radio message, intricately encrypted to block Jenny from reading it. Adam, you need to stop and think for a second. There’s more at stake than your dad. A lot of lives are at risk here.
I pivot my Quarter-bot’s head toward her. The surge is throbbing inside me, and bursts of anger fly through my wires. What do you mean? I’m just going to open a communications link. How will that hurt anyone?
That’s the thing… I don’t know. But I do know Jenny’s lying. She does
n’t want to communicate with the programmers.
We reach the mound of debris and start climbing it, planting our footpads on the loose pieces of metal. Then why is she so determined to open this link? What does she really want?
Zia raises her War-bot’s arms in frustration. I told you, I don’t know! But I have a very bad feeling about this!
I swivel my head away from Zia and keep climbing. I can’t look at her right now. If I did, I might smash one of my glowing fists into her turret. Sorry. I can’t sacrifice my dad just because you have a feeling.
Then I get another message from Jenny, who’s hovering two hundred feet above us. I can tell that you and Zia are having a private conversation. Cut if off, or I’ll asphyxiate your dad again.
I close my radio channel with Zia. She responds by bellowing a curse from her loudspeakers.
A moment later, we reach the top of the mound. The glass cable looms over us, as wide as a silo and impossibly high, like an elevator shaft rising straight up to heaven. There’s a rectangular opening at the base of the shaft, just big enough for my Quarter-bot.
I point my cameras through the opening and see a round empty room surrounded by a curved glass wall. Its floor is the top of the glowing orange cube, Jenny’s control unit. The ceiling is a circular panel with millions of tiny holes. It’s like a giant, complicated socket at the end of the humongous cable.
Jenny transmits an explanation. This is the conversion chamber. You need to aim your surge at the panel on the ceiling. It’ll convert the energy into an optical signal that’ll travel upward through the glass cable and activate the link. My control unit is right below, but don’t get any ideas about blasting it to destroy my software. I’ve stored copies of my data in the implants inside this body. My software is in two places at once, so even if you bust my control unit, I’ll still be able to decapitate your father.
She’s thought of everything. I’m amazed at all the planning that went into this. And the brutality.
So was this your goal from the beginning? Before you brainwashed me? Before you murdered Amber Wilson?
Stop stalling. Jenny flies closer to the cable and extends her right arm so I can see Dad better. His face is returning to its normal color, but he’s still terrified. Go into the chamber and release the surge.
Zia turns her turret clockwise, then counter, trying one last time to dissuade me. But I ignore her and step through the opening in the glass.
Inside the chamber, I’m stunned by its complexity. The curved glass wall is laced with wires that connect the control unit below me with the circular panel above. It’s like a supersize version of a fiber-optic line, which converts electronic signals into pulses of light that travel inside glass fibers for thousands of miles. In other words, it’s perfect for long-distance communications.
But I’m not here to admire the hardware. I raise my Quarter-bot’s hands above my head and point my glowing fists at the circular panel.
Then my acoustic sensor detects a muffled knocking. Zia’s War-bot stands outside the glass wall, rapping her steel knuckles against it and pointing her other hand to the north. I turn my cameras in that direction and see dozens of black figures in the distance, flying toward us at high speed.
“Sentinels!” Zia’s voice booms through the glass. “They’re coming for her!”
Do it now, Adam! Jenny’s voice is fierce. I can see her through the glass wall, flying fifty feet from the cable and a hundred feet above me. I’ll kill your father before the Sentinels get here! If you don’t believe me, watch this! She gives Dad a quick squeeze, and he lets out a scream, loud enough to penetrate the glass. I just broke three of his ribs. Should I do it again? Maybe a little harder?
Dad’s cheeks are wet with tears. He saw what Jenny did to Sumner. And I saw it too. She’ll go through with her threat. She’s utterly inhuman.
STOP IT! JUST STOP HURTING HIM!
Then I do what Jenny wants me to do. I release my strongest surge ever into the panel above my Quarter-bot.
The energy floods into the giant socket, streaming through the millions of holes in the panel. The electronics convert all that energy to light, and the tall column of glass above me shines brighter than the sun. The blinding pulse of light races up the cable, going a hundred miles in less than a millisecond, traveling across the sky and out of our world altogether.
Now the link is activated. The communications line is open.
An instant later, the glass wall of the chamber shines too. The wires inside the glass receive data from Jenny’s control unit and turn them into pulses of light, which follow my surge up the length of the cable. I assume Jenny is sending a message to the programmers. Maybe she’s saying hello. Or proposing a new compromise. She’ll have to negotiate fast, because the Sentinels are closing in. At least a hundred of Jenny’s dark twins are zooming toward us.
But then I notice something weird. Jenny is sending way too much data for an ordinary conversation. In a millionth of a second, she transmits a billion gigabytes through the cable. She converts all her software into pulses of light and sends the whole package toward the programmers. She’s not communicating with them. She’s transferring herself to them. She’s trying to escape the simulation! But by the time I realize what she’s doing, she’s already gone.
Alarmed, I stride out of the chamber and point my cameras at the flesh-and-blood Jenny. The giant girl in the sky is falling. Jenny is no longer altering the simulation, no longer propelling her human body above the earth. Now there’s nothing to counter the force of gravity, and it pulls the girl down at the usual acceleration. And as she tumbles through the air, Dad squirms frantically inside her fist.
Jenny! What are you doing?
My software…is transferring through the link…and I don’t need…this girl’s body anymore. Her voice is a halting monotone. It seems to slow as her body speeds downward. So I’m erasing the copies…of my data…from its brain…and disposing the body.
But my dad! You said you’d—
Oh yes…your father… I almost…forgot.
As Jenny hurtles toward Greenwood Street, she brings her hands together and holds Dad with both of them. Then she gives him a savage twist.
That’s payback for…what Sigma did to me.
Her eyes close, and then the giant girl slams into the ground.
Chapter
31
I race down from the mound of debris, stomping the scrap metal with my footpads. In ten seconds I reach the giant’s body, now lying broken and motionless on her side, her head split on the asphalt of Greenwood Street, her legs sprawled across the blackened grass of our lawn.
From where my Quarter-bot is standing, I can see her hunched back and shoulders, but not her hands. So there’s still a glimmer of hope. Maybe Jenny didn’t kill him. Maybe Dad’s clasped between her fingers, still clinging to life.
I dash around her boulder-size head. Dad lies facedown in a spreading pool of blood. His neck broken. His skull crushed.
The sight extinguishes any hope still sparking in my circuits. I turn my cameras away and spot a charred piece of fabric on the lawn, a brown curtain that used to hang in our dining room. I extend my Quarter-bot’s arms, grip the curtain by its corners and drape it over Dad’s body.
Then I drop to my robot’s knee joints. My circuits freeze, as if I’ve lost all power, even though my batteries still have plenty of charge. I shut down my motors. I turn off my cameras. I kneel in the darkness.
I remember the last words I said to him: “I’ll find you as soon as this is over.”
My speakers let out a howl. I want to die too.
• • •
It feels like an eternity, but less than a minute passes. I haven’t switched off my acoustic sensors, so I hear Zia’s War-bot a couple of yards behind me.
“Adam? I’m so sorry. Really, really sorry. But we need to get out of
here.”
I turn my cameras back on. A hundred Sentinels surround us. Each is a dark replica of the giant Jenny.
Dozens of them approach from both sides of Greenwood Street, stepping around the piles of wreckage. Dozens more float in the air above us. The Sentinels crowd around the dead giant, the body they were programmed to erase. It’s hard to tell what they’re thinking, but they seem perplexed. They know that the body is lifeless, that Jenny’s mind doesn’t inhabit it anymore. But they also know that her software is still running on the system. They just don’t know where.
Zia moves a step closer and taps a steel finger on my shoulder joint. “Adam, please get up. It isn’t safe here.”
I shake my Quarter-bot’s head. “If these Sentinels were programmed to erase us, they would’ve done it by now.”
“Yeah, sure, but—”
“I’m not leaving Dad. You can go if you want.”
The War-bot doesn’t go. She’d rather risk deletion than abandon me. She turns around and takes position between my Quarter-bot and the Sentinels. She’s ready to fight them off.
The closest Sentinel steps to the side, turning away from Zia. It bends over the dead giant and rests a jet-black hand on the girl’s bloody forehead. The body shimmers like a mirage, wavering and swaying. Then it vanishes.
A moment later, the Sentinels vanish too. The black figures dissolve and blow away like smoke. Despite their overwhelming numbers, they failed to achieve their programmed goal. They erased Jenny’s avatar but let her software escape.
Zia synthesizes a whistle of relief. Then she turns back to my Quarter-bot. “What can I do to help, Adam? Please, let me help.” Her cameras pivot toward the body lying under the charred curtain. “Your dad didn’t deserve this. He was a good man. He saved my life. He saved all our lives.”
I nod, but don’t say anything. It’s pretty unusual to get kindness or sympathy from Zia. In the past minute she’s said “please” not once, but twice, which for her is a miracle of tenderness. I guess I should be grateful, but right now nothing can make me feel better. I’m too stunned, too confused. All I can think about is how stupid I was. Why did I believe anything Jenny said? At least I had an excuse when she was pretending to be Amber, but why did I trust her afterward?
