by Rob Vlock
The guard slid his weapon from its holster and shoved it into my face. It hummed to life as it powered up. His finger tightened around the trigger.
My mind raced, searching for some way to stop him from zapping me.
“Do you know who I am?” I demanded suddenly, raising myself to my full height.
His finger loosened and his eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. “What do you mean?”
“I’m Seven Omicron! Did you know that? I’m Seven Omicron!”
He cocked his head at me. “Yeah? So? I’m Seven Omicron too. That guy over there, he’s Seven Omicron. We’re all Seven Omicron.”
Of course he was. They were all components of my programming, parts of my neural network.
I squinted at him. “So what you’re saying is if I don’t show you a boarding pass, you have to disintegrate me? You know, Seven Omicron? Who is also you?”
“Well, yes.” He nodded enthusiastically. “That’s my job. More like a passion, really. I mean, the way offenders kind of sizzle when they disintegrate. I’d do it even if they didn’t pay me.”
Man, this version of me was a psycho.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus eleven minutes,” the PA system announced.
“Come on,” I said, shaking my head. “It can’t be that great.”
“It is, though!” he insisted. “It’s like I was made for this job.”
“Hmm . . . ,” I muttered. “Sounds kind of boring to me. Standing around all day vaporizing people.”
By now, the guard had totally forgotten he was waiting for me to show my boarding pass. He waved his weapon excitedly. “Boring? No way! Reducing offenders to their constituent bits and bytes is awesome!”
“Yeah, right,” I drawled sarcastically.
“It is! Look!”
He pointed the gun at some random person in the line behind me and pulled the trigger. There was a sizzle, some blue mist, and the guy disappeared.
“See?” The guard laughed. “Awesome, right?”
“That was sort of cool,” I admitted. “Do you think . . . do you think I could . . .”
He grinned broadly. “You wanna try it? You’ll see. It’s the best.”
He handed me his weapon.
I felt kind of bad for blasting him into nothingness, but I was on a mission. Besides, that guy was a big jerk.
Stepping through the metal detector, I turned around in time to see the security checkpoint rapidly receding behind me. Soon it was nothing more than a tiny point of light in the darkness. Then it winked out altogether.
With a rush, a new scene unfolded before me. A perfectly smooth field of pure white snow that extended for miles. Here and there, dark gray boulders stood amid the untouched expanse—little islands in a frozen ocean. Off to my right, an abandoned Ferris wheel loomed over the scene. Blackened trees lined each side of the field, branches intertwined into an impassable wall.
Barbed-wire fences hung with a bunch of rusty yellow triangular radiation signs ringed the entire area. The words on the signs looked like they were written in Russian.
A few snowflakes drifted gently down from the sky.
And I was completely alone. No guard. No travelers. Just me.
A profound feeling of contentment settled over me. For a few moments, I actually forgot what I was supposed to be doing, lost in the sensation of ice-cold snowflakes landing on my skin and melting. All I wanted was to collapse into the snow.
Somehow, this desolate yet beautiful place felt like . . . home. Like I was just where I was supposed to be.
Maybe I should just stay here, I thought. It would be so easy to just stay where I am and never go back. Maybe lie down and go to sleep.
I closed my eyes and drank in the peace and quiet, and the cold, crisp air. I didn’t move a muscle. It was bliss.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus nine minutes.”
Nine minutes! My eyes snapped open. I couldn’t just sit here. My friends needed me! And there was a whole world out there that needed saving.
I stood up abruptly and scanned my surroundings. Still nothing but an old Ferris wheel and an empty field. How was I supposed to reprogram myself when the only thing for miles around was me and a bunch of snow?
Wait! At the edge of the field, I could make out a building. It was an ugly, squat little concrete structure so devoid of character that it was practically invisible against the featureless snowscape.
That was where I had to go!
There was no path to follow, so I simply stepped onto the snow. It made a satisfying crunch under my feet. I took two more steps and then stopped. Something told me I was no longer alone.
I spun around.
And came face-to-face with . . .
Me!
CHAPTER 45.0:
< value= [I Meet My Inner Jerk] >
THERE WAS SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT the version of me I met in that snowy field. He wasn’t dressed in a security guard’s uniform. And he didn’t have the vacant stare that the travelers at the checkpoint had. His eyes gleamed with a keen intelligence.
He stood in silence, staring at me.
I scratched my head.
He did the same.
I squinted at him.
He squinted right back.
It was like looking in a mirror.
“Who are you?” I asked the boy in front of me.
“I’m you, dummy. Jeez, who do you think I am?”
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus eight minutes.”
“Right. Well, I noticed the resemblance,” I replied slowly. “So are you here to help me save the world?”
He laughed in my face. “Help you? Seriously? Why would I help you?”
“Because I don’t want to kill every human on Earth!” I snapped.
“Yes, you do,” he said, fixing me with a curious stare. “Of course you do. Why wouldn’t you?”
“Why? Because all my friends are human! I can’t do that to them!”
My mirror image snorted. “Friends? That’s a good one! You don’t have any friends.”
“Shut up!” I yelled. “I do have friends and they’re counting on me to stop this!”
“What? You mean Alicia? She hates you. She’d kill you in a second if she thought you were worth the effort. And Will? He thinks you’re the only one at school who’s an even bigger loser than he is. He hangs out with you because you make him look good by comparison.”
“Shut your stupid mouth,” I roared.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus seven minutes.”
He grinned at me. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
I spun around and strode toward the concrete building in the distance. “Get lost.”
His hand closed on my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks.
“Don’t walk away from me,” he sneered. “I’m not done talking to you yet.”
“Why are you such a jerk?” I spat.
He laughed. “Think about it. I’m you, dude. That makes you the jerk.”
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus six minutes.”
I shrugged his hand off and starting trotting toward the building. He jogged alongside me.
“Listen to me, Sven,” he said in a taunting voice. “You can’t run away from me. I’m you.”
“You’re nothing like me,” I told him.
“But I am, Sven. I am you. I’m the part of you that for thirteen years has absorbed all the hate and scorn the world has thrown our way. I’m the part of you that will never forget being held down and having ‘I’M A DORK’ written on my forehead by Brandon Marks. I’m the part of you that can still hear the echoes of laughter as you walked through the hallway at school that day. All those horrible kids chanting, ‘Dork, dork, dork.’ But now we’re going to have our revenge on them all, Sven. We’ll be alive and happy. We’ll be a hero! And they’ll all be dead! I know that’s what you want. I know it! So just stop walking. Let this happen. This is what we were put on this Earth to do.”
&
nbsp; I skidded to a stop in the snow.
“Good.” He smiled. “Good, Sven. I knew you’d stop. You’re doing the right thing.”
I turned on him.
“Yeah, I am doing the right thing.”
My fist connected with his nose. A wet crunch. A torrent of blue 1s and 0s streamed from his face. And he fell backward into the snow.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus five minutes.”
As I neared the building, I could make out a sign attached to the rusty metal door that read:
CPU
I wrenched the door open and lunged through the doorway.
CHAPTER 46.0:
< value= [I Feed My Head] >
I FOUND MYSELF STANDING ON a cold metal floor inside a futuristic industrial-looking control complex, with no windows and no doors. Just about eight million buttons, knobs, levers, displays, and dials. In the middle of the room, sitting at a large metal desk, was . . . Dr. Shallix, wearing a pressed gray suit, white shirt, and striped blue tie. Only he was a much . . . chubbier version of Dr. Shallix. His ample gut strained at the buttons of his shirt, and his double chin jiggled when he turned his head.
There was a good reason for this. The desk and floor were littered with tons of empty junk-food wrappers. Candy bars, chips, empty soda bottles, discarded pizza boxes. It was like the creepy digital pediatrician version of a computer nerd who still lived in a room above his parents’ garage.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus four minutes.”
My heart sank when I saw him. Not only because the inner me was a fat slob version of the world’s most evil doctor. But because I figured at any second he’d notice me and unleash some horrible new Tick monster.
All he did was sit there pushing buttons and muttering to himself.
Piles and piles of papers covered his desk. And every few seconds, another fat sheaf would drop down from an overhead chute and fall with a thud right onto the existing stack. At the front of the desk, a little bronze plaque read:
SEVEN OMICRON
CENTRAL PROCESSOR
I walked up to him and cleared my throat.
The Central Processor was too busy reading papers and pushing buttons to even look at me. “Yes?” he asked impatiently through a mouthful of candy in a voice that sounded exactly like mine, not Dr. Shallix’s. “Please tell me this isn’t another request from Respiratory about burping the alphabet. I have more important things to worry about.”
“Sorry to bother you,” I said timidly. He seemed so important, I was hesitant to interrupt him. “I’m not here about burping. I just . . .”
I wasn’t sure what to tell him. Junkman Sam had said he’d give me a piece of code to disable the sneeze routine. But where was it?
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus three minutes.”
Because I REALLY, REALLY NEEDED IT!
I frantically checked my pockets. All I could find was that stupid eraser!
I was about to throw it down in frustration, when something written on its surface caught my eye.
01111010 01100001 01110000
Zap-o-Matic
Wait a minute! Zap-o-Matic? Could this be the code? Great, but what the heck was I supposed to do with this?
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus two minutes.”
“Uh, I have something for you,” I told the Central Processor. “Here.”
I handed him the eraser.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said and dropped it on his desk.
Then what happened was . . . absolutely nothing.
What was I supposed to do with that code?
I stood there watching the Central Processor push buttons, stuffing one pork rind after another into his mouth. A shower of crumbs cascaded onto his lap.
What was I supposed to do?
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus one minute.”
He tipped the bag up to his mouth, and more pork rinds disappeared down his gullet.
Wait!
I quickly picked an empty candy wrapper off the floor and looked at the label. It read:
01111001 01110101 01101101 01101101 01111001 BAR
Now with 20% more 01100111 01101111 01101111!
While the Central Processor was busy fishing for more snacks in his desk drawer, I slipped the eraser into the wrapper.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus forty-five seconds.”
“Um, so you like candy, right? I was going to eat this, but here, you can have it.” I tried to hand him the disguised eraser.
He glanced at the candy bar and instantly turned away. “No thanks. I’m on a diet.”
My jaw dropped. What was he talking about? He was just a bunch of digital code. How could he be on a diet?
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus thirty seconds.”
“Are you sure?” I said slowly, trying to keep my racing heart from exploding. “It’s good.”
His resolve seemed to waver. “What . . . what kind is it?”
“It’s a 01111001 01110101 01101101 01101101 01111001 Bar,” I told him, reading off the label.
“Man,” the Central Processor groaned. “I would, but I had 01110000 01101001 01111010 01111010 01100001 for lunch. I’m pretty full.”
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus twenty seconds.”
I couldn’t come this far only to fail because my Central Processor had stuffed himself full of 1s and 0s.
“Well, if you’re not going to eat it,” I said tantalizingly, “I guess I will. Oh, and look! It has twenty percent more 01100111 01101111 01101111.”
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus fifteen seconds.”
A little moan escaped from the Central Processor. “I love 01100111 01101111 01101111. Oh . . . give me that!”
He swiveled around in his desk chair and snatched the fake candy bar out of my hand.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus ten seconds.”
I kept my head and hands out of the vicinity of the Central Processor’s mouth.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus nine seconds.”
He devoured the eraser with a gnashing of teeth and a smacking of lips before he even had time to realize what he was eating.
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus eight seconds.”
“Wait a minute.” He let out a long belch. “That wasn’t a 01111001 01110101 01101101 01101101 01111001 Bar! What did you—”
“Sneeze routine deployment in t-minus seven seconds.”
The words SNEEZE ROUTINE DELETED—WEAPON DISARMED floated in the air in front of me.
“Sneeze routine aborted,” the voice announced over the PA system. “All personnel stand down.”
“What have you done?” the Central Processor screamed. “That was our primary objective!”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” I smirked. “I don’t really feel like destroying the world.”
He glared at me for a few seconds. Then he slammed his fist down on a big red button in the center of the desk.
CHAPTER 47.0:
< value= [I Forget What This Chapter Is Called] >
AN ALARM STARTED RINGING. A new message materialized before my eyes.
EMERGENCY MEMORY WIPE INITIATED.
The voice announced over the loudspeaker, “All systems prepare for emergency memory wipe. This is not a drill. We have been compromised. I repeat, this is not a drill.”
And, with that, the room collapsed into a tiny white point of light that flickered a few times, then went out, leaving me in utter blackness.
• • •
“Sven! Sven! Wake up! Sven!”
Someone was calling out a name.
“Sven! Come on! Sven!”
The voice was muffled, deep, and slow. Like I was underwater.
“Can you hear me? Sven?”
Whose voice was it?
“Sven? It’s me. Can you hear me? It’s—”
I opened my eyes. Hovering over me was a boy with an oversize head capped with flaming red hair.<
br />
“He’s awake!” the boy cried.
A pretty girl with long black braids stepped over and looked down at me as well.
I blinked at them.
“Sven,” the girl said. “Are you okay?”
I blinked again. “Who’s Sven?”
The kids’ excitement instantly faded.
“Oh, no!” the boy gasped. “Sam! What’s wrong with him?”
A weird-looking old guy leaned over and studied my face for a few seconds. He typed something into a laptop, then pursed his lips. “I think his memory is wiped.”
“We should have backed up his memory!” the girl hissed angrily. “Why didn’t you back up his memory?”
“We didn’t have time,” the man answered. “The brain can store about two-point-five petabytes of information. It would have taken us weeks to back that up.”
The redheaded boy grabbed the man’s shirt. “You have to do something! You have to save Sven!”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. I have no idea what kind of damage he did when he was inside. I can’t even tell you if he managed to feed the code into the CPU.”
“You mean he’s gone?” the girl sobbed. “He’s not going to know who we are? Who he is?”
The man looked at the floor. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly, the girl looked angry. “No! You snap out of this, Sven!”
She slapped my face, tears standing out on her lashes.
I looked at her blankly. Who was she? Why was she slapping me?
She seized my shoulders and shook me, her body racked with sobs. “Wake up, Sven! Come back to me! I can’t lose you! Not after everything we’ve been through! I’m not going to lose you now!”
She shook me again and again. My head snapped back and forth violently.
Why was she doing this?
Stars floated across my field of vision.
Wait. Not stars. Letters.
INITIATE MEMORY REBOOT?
YES/NO
I concentrated on the word “Yes,” and in an instant, the room dissolved and I found myself standing in a green, grassy field. Fluffy white clouds drifted lazily overhead. And an old man with a big head full of coarse white hair smiled at me.
“This operation requires a password,” the man said. “Please enter password, yes?”
