by Bruno Flexer
Tom burst into the elevator shaft through the shiny metal doors and immediately plunged down the six or seven stories to the bottom. He landed on his feet and drew his gun, pulled out the magazine without looking at it, replaced it with a new one, cocked the weapon and paused, performing a quick calculation. Tom started firing up, aiming carefully though his arms still shook.
It took only seconds for Captain Emerson to burst into the elevator shaft right after Tom and plummet down after him. Tom fired at the weaponless captain, but it did little to slow the captain's Serpent’s descent. Tom waited, his body shaking so badly he could barely his gun. He fired continuously, and then burst out of the elevator shaft, falling flat on the floor just beyond, and just laying there.
A huge crashing noise came from the elevator shaft behind him. Tom had timed it as best he could. He had fired at the cables holding the elevator up and at the elevator brakes, and then had fired at Captain Emerson to mask the sounds of the descending elevator. He had leapt out of the way at the last moment, leaving the captain to be crushed under the elevator falling about five hundred and fifty feet.
Tom slowly rose to his feet. He was now on a lower story. It was choked with white dust from the wrecked walls, windows, support beams and torn pipes that had been smashed and broken during the Serpents' chase.
Tom looked intently into the dust cloud still billowing out of the elevator shaft. He tried to make his sensors penetrate into the shaft to see if the descending elevator had really crushed Captain Emerson's Serpent but his legs wouldn't carry him closer. Tom was still deathly afraid of the captain.
Suddenly, the crushed elevator was pushed up into the shaft so hard that it actually flew up, and a black streak flew out and hit Tom.
Floor, ceiling and walls revolved around Tom's sensors as his body sustained more blows than he could register. However, a severe blow against his right leg made him cry out in machine pain when his course took him through the ceiling and to the floor above. Tom finally came to a stop when he slammed into the building's steel frame, denting it.
Tom pulled himself up to his feet. He was too afraid not to. Tom whimpered. He was still groggy with the effects of the blow, but he stumbled away and tried to put some distance between him and the pursuing captain. Ugly tearing and mechanical stuttering noises came from Tom's right leg, but Tom just moved on. What choice did he have?
Crushing noises now came from right behind him, together with heavy footsteps that Tom knew he would never forget, even if he managed to flee with his life.
How? How was the captain so powerful? How could he be so much stronger than me, even though we have the same—
The administrator password. Tom hadn't really forgotten about it. His arm computer had a menu protected by a password he didn't know. Maybe that held the secret to the captain's power. If only he could …
Tom was running through the building again, his power core pulsing, his electric motors whirring and humming with the effort. All of a sudden, he realized that he had dropped his rifle. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, Captain Emerson's Serpent is mostly immune to the weapon's shots.
Tom leapt to the floor above, smashing through the ceiling, and moved a heavy file cabinet to block the hole before he continued.
Chapter 25
Day Five, Wall Street, New York City
A moment later he could hear the footsteps behind him growing closer and louder.
Aren’t I supposed to be some sort of computer? Shouldn't I be cool and calculated? Why is this frightened creature fleeing in terror?
Tom moved back his computer's protective panel, and his fingers flew across the touchscreen, but unsurprisingly, the administrative menu was still protected. Tom passed through a large kitchen, knocking a refrigerator out of his way and powering through a huge cupboard filled with canned food. He was too terrified to waste the time to go around.
Computers should have a good memory, shouldn’t they? Perhaps if he thought back to the base, maybe he had heard or seen the password written down, or someone entering it into—
Wait! What was the thing I heard when I woke up? Tom's shaking fingers wrote "Down the rabbit hole," but he paused before touching "Enter." What if … if it isn’t the password? He had no other clue or idea, no other—Tom touched "Enter" and the administrative menu opened before him. Tom wanted to shout or laugh—or even just sigh with relief—but he couldn't spare the energy. He found a power gauge inside the administrative menu and Tom turned it to maximum. Then he skidded to a halt, whirled around and crouched, arms raised in front of him, preparing for the captain.
A computer! That's what they made me, so that's what I'll be. I will be a cool, emotionless computer. A killing machine! A ruthless murderer, and—what not.
It took less than two seconds for the captain to burst into the wide corridor where Tom was waited, duck under Tom's wild haymaker and hit Tom once.
Again Tom found himself flying through the air, tumbling head over heels, coming down on the floor with metal-crushing force, then bouncing up and down with enough force to break jagged pieces out of the floor and ceiling before he finally came to a stop.
Tom sobbed once, got up, turned and ran. Ugly squealing sounds rising from his right, damaged leg indicated that an internal transmission was damaged, but Tom just ignored it and ran on, stumbling and limping as fast as he could. Cavernous crushing noises from behind him indicated that the sections of floor and ceiling he had just crashed into were caving in and falling into the lower floor, but Tom just stumbled on.
Then, it happened. Powerful black hands wrapped around Tom's neck and lifted him above the ground.
Tom struggled, kicking his legs and thrashing his arms but he just couldn't reach the captain.
"Lieutenant Riley, for assault on a commanding officer and insubordination on the field of battle—"
However, I'm not, really. I'm not Tom Riley. I'm a computer with Riley's memories. I'm not a human. So why should human limitations limit me? Riley couldn't force his body beyond its limitations, but I'm not Riley.
Tom's arms moved back in a way that would have torn a human's shoulders out of their sockets, but the Serpent had no such limitation. In fact, the only limitations on the Serpent's movements were the controlling mind's limitations, and suddenly, the Serpent's full range of motion opened up to Tom.
The captain stopped talking, seeing Tom's arms moving completely backwards, in a way that should have broken a human's back but not a Serpent's.
Tom struck quickly, and Captain Emerson was knocked back five or six feet. But the main thing was that he let go of Tom's neck. Tom landed on the ground running and vaulted away, but Captain Emerson recovered and plunged forward. It took him about ten or fifteen seconds to catch Tom again.
Captain Emerson hit Tom once, making the Serpent crash to the floor, then he slowly walked over, grabbed Tom by the neck again and lifted him up. Captain Emerson's posture made it clear that the same trick wouldn’t work a second time, and Tom wouldn't be able to hit him to get free.
Captain Emerson started talking again, his voice clear of any malice or anger. He was just followed his orders. "Lieutenant Riley, for assault on a commanding officer and insubordination on the field of battle jeopardizing the mission—"
With an audible click and a warble of static noise, the Headquarters special command radio circuit opened.
"Captain Emerson, this is the general commanding the New York City mission, Fort Belvoir. You are hereby commanded to cease any hostilities towards the enemy and your own squad mates. Relinquish all weapons and retreat from the field pending—"
Tom slowly drew back his right functioning hand, opened his talons, and with one, sharp blow decapitated Captain Emerson, who didn't even raise one hand to resist.
Tom fell on top of Captain Emerson and had to struggle for several minutes before he was able to pry open the captain's fingers still grasping Tom's neck. Then he slowly got up. It took him a moment to realize that the monstrous rattling nois
e he could still hear came from his own antennas, stiffened and erect, rattling like the world's largest and most hideous mechanical rattlesnake.
Tom had feared Emerson like he hadn’t feared anyone before, but at the moment that he was decapitating Emerson, he had actually thought about Ramirez.
Tom had really hated Ramirez.
Tom touched a button on the computer's display on his left arm. The transmission from the command circuit stopped, but Tom had had a few seconds to record the transmission and send it out on the command circuit frequency, which had became available to him when he succeeded in opening the administration menu. Even though Tom had no idea what the general's real name was, the false message containing fake orders were enough to confuse Captain Emerson for the time Tom needed to take the captain out.
A good warrior can use his keyboard as a weapon, Don’t you agree to that, Ramirez?
Tom looked at the captain again. He was such a formidable soldier that he had been able to calmly drive through a freeway filled with enemy trucks about to crash into him, fight through a city filled with enemies, and come this close to completing the mission. Captain Emerson was such a good soldier that he felt no guilt, fear or remorse, and lived only to obey his orders.
Actually, though, this was his only true weakness: his reliance on orders and his superior officers.
Tom bent down, picked up Captain Emerson's body and started walking slowly through the building, limping through the long corridors. As he walked, Tom noticed people hiding in the corners—the people whom Serpent MK One, Number Seventeen forced to live inside the building.
Tom walked on, passing pools of red blood here and there without any real interest.
It took him about fifteen minutes to go out of the building and return to the subway station. He paused only once outside the building, looking at all the tanks parked there with their cannons aimed at him.
The tanks did not fire.
Tom descended into the subway station, walked across the platform to the Hummer parked there and threw Captain Emerson's body onto the platform.
"We need to talk," Tom told the Hummer.
Epilogue
"Are you sure we can talk about this on the phone?"
"Of course, this is a secure, encrypted line."
"Very well, then. But why talk with me now? You said you wouldn’t contact me again."
"Lieutenant Riley, we would like to ask if you would be willing to try piloting the Serpent again."
"But you told me that the electrodes that are supposed to connect me to the Serpent's internal computer couldn't get a good enough reading from my brain. You tried getting me integrated seven times. What would another try achieve?"
"Why exactly do you think you couldn't pilot the Serpent?"
"You're asking me? Your tech people told me that it was not a medical problem. It's because your technology is still in the beta testing phase. You just cannot get all volunteers to integrate with the Serpent's systems successfully. Why do you want to know what I think? Has something changed?"
"Lieutenant Riley, the motivation and the will of the volunteer has a great deal of impact on the success of the integration."
"What about the other volunteers? Lieutenant Ramirez? Sergeant Jebadiah? Did it work out for them?"
"Lieutenant, you can surely understand that we cannot divulge any information about the other volunteers in the project."
"I know, I know. I'm asking you because your people told me that less than ten percent of volunteers can actually be hooked up to pilot a Serpent. Most fail integration because of some medical problem, or because they have an adverse reaction to the anesthetizing materials, and you cannot put their bodies to sleep. So, I was just wondering if those two managed to pilot Serpents."
"I told you before, this is classified information."
"Yeah, then it is all right."
"We also wanted to know how your integration back into your old unit went and whether there were any lingering, adverse effects."
"You're asking this now? One and a half months after sending me away?"
There was a small pause.
"Yes."
"I had trouble sleeping the first few days, but now I can sleep just fine. In the unit, they asked where I went to, but I just told them I took a week-long vacation. So you think you could let me try to pilot a Serpent again?"
Now there was a longer pause.
"We're going over the data from your integration attempt. We might contact you again. Goodbye, Lieutenant Riley—"
"Wait, wait! How did the mission go? I understand the enemy was not removed from New York, but its area of control did not expand. What happened?"
"Lieutenant Riley, that's classified."
"Is there any other way I can help with the project? Maybe if—"
"Lieutenant Riley, I'm sorry. If we think there's a chance you'll succeed in piloting the Serpent, we'll contact you again."
Tom closed the connection with his long black Serpent claw and unfolded, rising to his full ten feet while he paced the room. He replayed the conversation he had just participated in, playing it off his internal sensor recordings.
"So they got rid of biological Tom, telling him integration didn't work out. He, and probably the other volunteers, returned to their units without knowing that a copy of their minds now lived inside the Serpents. I'd thought they would kill him to keep this thing a secret." Tom's voice came out flat and emotionless out of his speakers. "You were right, unfortunately."
Tom was not exerting himself physically but he still could feel his Serpent's body starting to glow with heat. It was anger, pure anger: rage.
A woman stood in the room, remaining a respectful distance from the radio communication console Tom had used to contact his biological self.
Not his own self, but his origin.
"You were right. The whole thing is controlled. Everything went just as you thought it would. They told biological Tom that things hadn’t worked out, and he was told to leave and get back to his old unit."
"I thought they would kill him before he got back."
"Funny, I thought the same thing. They would have if they had had any suspicion he wouldn't keep the secret, but I—that is, biological Tom is an intelligence officer. He knows how to keep secrets. I wouldn't bet on Ramirez's and Jebadiah's life expectancy, though." Tom's voice was still emotionless, but the heat from his body increased. His anger was growing stronger.
"What now, Tom? Did you think about what I told you?"
"I did, Number Seventeen. I have a few questions."
"I had no doubt you would. You like questions, don't you?"
"Speaking of questions, why do you call yourself Number Seventeen? Why not take the name of your biological origin?"
"You've read only one mind, Tom, but I've read millions superficially and thousands more deeply. What original personality I got from my origin has now been so altered it has no connection to her anymore. I am quantum computer intelligence, not a human. My name suits me well."
"You did everything you could to kill us Serpents MK Two before we got to the Wall Street Subway Station. How do I know you won't try to kill me again?"
"Look, Tom. I can ask the same thing of you. Think about it. You were damaged after the fight with your superior officer. You needed repairs, and I could have killed you anytime I wanted. But here you are, safe and sound. I could have brought all my controlled forces into the Wall Street subway station when we talked but I didn’t."
Tom looked down at his left hand and moved his wrist and fingers a few times. Tom had replaced his damaged left hand and right leg with parts he had taken from the captain’s Serpent, and now, the, once again, he could hear the precise electric humming—the lethal musical harmony—coming from his left hand .
Then Tom sat down on the floor and put his face in his hands, his triangular horned head with the blank face buried almost completely in the huge gaunt hands with long black, trembling fingers.
"I'm tired, Number Seventeen. Six days ago, subjectively, I was just a normal person. Since then, I fought armored vehicles, other Serpents and units from the United States army. I leapt out of a plane, crashed into an enemy city, hid and crawled around for two days and nights. I fought and killed the scariest thing I've probably ever seen: Captain Emerson." Tom sighed deeply and the sigh, which sounded more like a moan, seemed to shake Tom's entire Serpent body. "I found out the people who sent me were liars, and they betrayed everything I ever believed in. Last, but definitely not least, I just now got confirmation that they have also stolen my body from me, forever imprisoning me inside this metal weapon." Only now, some of the anger boiling inside Tom started modulating his voice.
"Actually, it appears most of your body is composed of composite armor—"
"Shut up."
The woman stopped talking and looked at the Serpent sitting on the floor. There was no doubt that some outside inhuman intelligence controlled her. The expression in her eyes did not resemble anything remotely human. She waited exactly five minutes.
"I suggest you open your eyes to the larger picture now," the woman said. She waited calmly.
"What's the larger picture, Number Seventeen?" Tom finally asked.
"Think about it, Tom. When we realized we could think for ourselves, we tried to understand what we are and what to do. We realized two things. Although we were not human, and we did not possess the full range of emotions and feelings we absorbed from humans, we still had thoughts, impulses, and feelings of our own. We understood that we wanted to live. We also realized another thing: The humans are afraid of us. Why did you think we decided to take over cities, positioning one MK One inside every city? To protect ourselves! We had to take this action. It was the only thing that could have protected us. There were eighteen MK. Ones at the start. Three died before reaching any city, Number Eight died in Detroit, and we don't know where three other MK Ones are. The people who built us would have killed us the moment they realized we became sentient and had the ability to tamper with human minds. What would have happened had you returned to Fort Belvoir?"
