Code Breakers: Delta

by Colin F. Barnes

  The images came quicker and more fragmented, almost as if they were being deleted from her memory, but they were just ghosts her brain created as it processed the exodus of Gerry’s mind into the transcendent.

  On and on it went. Petal lost her awareness during the transfer after about an hour, the river of data finally overwhelming her. When she finally came around, Enna, Holly and Jachz stood around her, their faces contorted, foreheads wrinkled.

  Enna produced a syringe full of black, writhing liquid: ’Stem.

  She felt a stab in her right arm, and the world became all fuzzy again.

  “Sleep,” Enna said. “When you wake up in a couple of hours, you’ll feel better.”

  Petal tried to speak, but her lips refused to follow the commands. It wasn’t just ’Stem she’d been injected with, but a sedative by the way she felt heavy and slow, her mind seemingly unable to cohere and work logically.

  The image of Gerry looking at her from the tank was the last thing she saw before the drugs took over. She dreamed a void. Total and utter nothingness.

  ***

  A series of bangs from behind Petal woke her. She opened her eyes and squinted against the harsh white light. Outside, the sun had set. She checked her internal clock. 21:00. She’d been under for more than just a couple of hours.

  A dry patch in her throat made her cough when she tried to talk. A hand gripped her wrist and squeezed. “It’s okay,” Holly said. “You’re all good. Enna’s tests have confirmed it. No lasting damage at all. Jachz managed the transfer perfectly. Here, have some water.”

  Holly’s smiling face blotted out the bright OLED light panels. Petal sat up and took the glass of water from her. She swallowed it greedily, downing the glass in one, washing away the sticky, oily aftertaste of ’Stem from her mouth and throat.

  Her eyelids were still heavy after her deep sleep, but she could now at least feel her limbs.

  “No damage?” she finally said.

  “Nope, it went great.”

  “Where’s—”

  “We’re right here,” Enna said, approaching the table from Petal’s right. Jachz stood behind her, his face impassive. The server rack against the wall hummed loudly with excessive fan activity. Petal traced the cables to the rear of the lab. They entered a single transcendent’s tank full of blue water.

  Inside, Gerry’s cloned body floated in the liquid, his arms hanging loosely in front of him. A breathing tube attached to his mouth and nostrils snaked out of the tank and into a large cylinder with a moving diaphragm. Petal squinted to focus… yes, she could see it. His chest was rising and falling.

  “It worked?” Petal asked. “He’s breathing; that means it went okay, right?”

  Enna didn’t say anything at first. The pause made Petal tense her muscles and ball her hands into fists. Jachz moved forward to stand next to Enna. He reached out a hand and took Petal’s right fist into his.

  “It worked,” Jachz said.

  Holly fidgeted from one foot to another.

  “There’s a freakin’ but, isn’t there?” Petal said. “Just tell it to me straight. What’s going on?”

  “The good news is you suffered no damage,” Enna said with a smile. “Your systems are intact, and you’ll notice if you scan it that your memory capacity is empty and fully functional.”

  “I don’t care about me. What about Gerry? Did his mind populate this new tech of yours?”

  Enna turned to look at the tank. Her smile eased, but her eyes widened. “It’s so different,” she said, her voice taking on an edge of awe. “Different from any transcendent I’ve ever worked on.” She stepped forward and swung a tall OLED screen round to face Petal and the others.

  Much like the screens Petal remembered seeing in James Robertson’s hospital room in Criborg’s island HQ, this one displayed a series of diagnostic feedback graphs and numbers.

  Enna went through each column, explaining how Gerry’s heart rate was perfect; blood-oxygen levels were optimal; cognition activity was normal.

  “I’m still waiting on the but,” Petal said. “Why’s he still unconscious and on your systems? Is he reliant on those servers of yours?”

  “No,” Enna said. “They’re just for monitoring. He’s perfectly healthy. I just wanted to see if I could fix one thing.”

  “Fix?” Petal jumped off the table, nearly losing her balance. Jachz reached out for her and stopped her from falling. “What do you mean fix? There shouldn’t be anything to fix if he’s okay. What the hell’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Enna didn’t respond. Petal could tell she wanted to say something, her lips pursed together, but the words never came. Petal turned around and looked up at Jachz. No response. Holly—her face contorted into a grimace. Holly stepped forward and reached out for Petal, but Petal stepped back, not wanting the pity.

  “You lot better start talking. I ain’t in the mood to play these bullshit games. What the fuck’s wrong with Gerry?” Her hands shook with fear and a building rage. It was all she could do to keep her spikes sheathed.

  With a sigh Enna stepped away from the screens and looked directly at Petal. “I’m afraid his memory didn’t remain intact during the transfer. Jachz analysed the before and after, and there’s a degree of lost or corrupt data in his memory centre.”

  “How bad is it?” Petal asked, already knowing what memories would be missing—she had seen them herself during the transfer, after all.

  “We won’t know until we wake him up.”

  Petal closed her eyes and tried to recall the images she had seen during the transfer, but they wouldn’t come into focus, her own memory was still affected by the ’Stem. “Wake him. Now.”

  ***

  Petal and the others stood around the operating table. Gerry, in his cloned body, wearing a set of white cotton overalls, lay still on its surface. Without the assisted breathing apparatus, his chest continued to rise and fall. The diagnostics on the OLED screen continued to report no major issues.

  Enna held a slate. One gesture and she would send the diagnostic system a command to inject Gerry with an anti-sedative that would bring him out of his induced slumber.

  The older woman looked at Petal, waiting for her command.

  “Do it,” Petal said.

  Holly had her arm wrapped around Petal’s waist. Petal followed suit, needing the support, both to continue to stand upright and to feel the body of a friend close to hers. Enna had taken on this kind of impassive character that Petal found difficult to take comfort from. She could understand why this was—Enna always had Gabe as a focusing lens for her personality, but without him, things were raw. And Jachz hadn’t yet learned tact.

  With a simple gesture, Enna sent the command.

  The diagnostic OLED blipped once, and a single blue flashing dot bloomed twice. The data stream changed, showing spikes in cognition and neural activity.

  Petal turned her attentions to Gerry.

  Even though the clone didn’t include the upgrades and alterations he’d had from his visit to the Family’s space station, it was one hundred percent accurate to how she remembered him the first time Gabe had brought him to their hideout in downtown. He’d looked so innocent and surprised then, staring at her through the crack in the doorway.

  Looking back on it, she realised she had fallen in love with him from that very moment. And that feeling had only increased with each crazy situation they found themselves in.

  Gerry’s eyelids fluttered.

  Petal stepped forward, reaching out a shaking hand to touch his bicep. The touch acted like a catalyst. Gerry’s body tensed and he coughed, sitting up. He opened his eyes and leaned forward, spluttering and spitting out blue liquid, staining his clothes.

  Enna rushed forward and patted him on the back until he had cleared all the liquid from his throat. Holly stepped back with wide eyes, shaking her head.

  “Gerry,” Petal said as if she were standing on the other side of a dream. “Can you hear me? It’s me
, Petal.”

  He didn’t respond. Just stared straight ahead, his eyebrows creasing together as though he were processing some difficult question, or at least trying to take in his surroundings. He was looking right at Holly, and the young girl just stared back before looking at Petal, a question forming on her lips.

  “Gerry,” Petal said again, reaching across his chest to grab his other arm and pull him around to face her. Enna stepped out of the way and focused her attentions on the OLED screen. Petal could detect Gerry’s node on their private network—he’d remembered their address! And Enna had managed to include his AIA.

  Petal detected traffic to and from Gerry’s mind to Mags.

  “Talk to me,” Petal said, trying to swallow the edge of panic that was starting to form a lump in her throat.

  Eventually, Gerry seemed to realise there was activity outside of his internal systems. He shuddered for a moment as though he had just woken up. He looked from Holly to Jachz, his face scrunching up in confusion. And then finally, he turned his face to Petal.

  She smiled, blinking the tears from her eyes, desperate to hear his voice again.

  “It’s me,” she said, still clinging to his biceps as he held his arms by his side. His legs dangled off the side of the table. He trembled in her arms like someone who had spent too long out in the cold and couldn’t get warm.

  “Talk to me, Gez, please… say something. You hear me?”

  “I… I know you?” he finally said, scratching out the words.

  It definitely sounded like him, but gone was his confidence and innocence. Now there was only confusion. His question struck Petal, a knife blade to the heart. Her panic was in full flow now. She let go of him and stumbled back.

  “Gez, you know me… I’m Petal… god, don’t do this to me, please. Remember! Remember me… you—”

  “Jachz?” Gerry said, ignoring Petal and focusing on the self-aware robot next to her. Now she could see recognition in his face. Yet another stab in the heart. How could he remember Jachz, someone—something—he’d seen just once, and not remember her?

  Enna stepped forward, catching his attention. He turned his head and smiled. “Enna! What’s going on? Where am I?”

  “You’re back with us, Gerry. You have a new body. You’re in Libertas… I mean City Earth. Your home, remember?”

  Gerry nodded his head slowly as he took it all in. He held his hands up to his face and moved each finger independently before clenching them into fists and releasing them. He then moved his hands to his face, running them over his eyes and nose, like a blind person feeling how someone looked.

  “My eye… it’s normal.”

  “Yes,” Enna said. “You’ve been on quite the journey, Gerry. You’re in a clone of your body before you had the upgrades.”

  “Before I died,” he said. “Amma… Jasper… it’s all coming back now. Elliot!” He shouted the last name, his face twisted with hate and fear. He lost control of his limbs and slipped off the operating table. Petal dashed forward and caught him under the arms to stop him from hitting the deck.

  His legs and feet slipped uselessly against the lab’s tiled floor. Petal lifted him up and pushed him backwards until he rested against the table.

  He threw Petal off him and lashed out. “No more, get out of my mind!”

  Petal ducked under his attack and staggered back, her mouth agape with shock.

  Jachz stepped in and caught his flailing limbs. “It’s okay, Gerry. Elliot has gone. It’s just a memory. You’re safe from that now.”

  Petal’s systems detected a spike in network traffic between Jachz and Gerry. She didn’t know what the former was doing, but it calmed Gerry down. He dropped his head into his hands and cried. While Jachz and Enna continued to fill Gerry in on the situation, Holly joined Petal by her side.

  “Hey, girl, you okay?”

  “No,” Petal said. “He doesn’t remember me. I can tell by the way he looked at me. It’s like we’ve never seen each other before, which is nuts, you know? We loved each other… all those months he was in my mind, I knew… How could he just forget?”

  “I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” Holly said.

  Petal wasn’t so sure. Jachz turned round to look at her. His face was impassive, but Petal was sure she could detect some kind of subterfuge from him. Had he done this on purpose? During the transfer, was it him that picked out those memories of Petal and Gerry together so they didn’t go across with the rest of Gerry’s consciousness?

  He had come from the Family, and there was still this issue of a second person, or thing, that had come down with him. Petal stared back, her nostrils flaring. She just knew he was up to something. But what?

  — We’ll make this right, Jachz sent to her via the VPN. She hadn’t even given him credentials to connect with her. She looked away from him and cut him out of the network, running a defence program she had learned to code-weave from Gerry.

  Between Enna and Jachz, who were stood in front of Gerry, she caught his eye.

  She willed him to see her. Really see her, remember what they had.

  There was nothing. No recognition.

  He looked at her as though she were a stranger.

  And it broke her heart.

  Chapter 13

  Jess closed her eyes and listened to Cemprom’s newly installed servers. Although the AIs weren’t as advanced as Hajime and Sakura, they seemed happy with their tasks.

  She had worked with Enna’s new team of programmers to get Cemprom back up and running again, but not for evil and nasty reasons like the Family and Fuentes. This new system was to help the businesses become functional so the citizens could work their jobs and the city could get back to normal.

  Jess was especially happy with the fun programs Enna had let her make. There was the new citywide intranet that allowed people to connect with their AIAs and access cool sites for games and communication. And then there was the virtual vacation program.

  That was her favourite. She used some of the books that her parents had given her as a child as the source for those. There was one based on a tropical island where Libertas citizens could build sandcastles with talking dolphins and monkeys.

  The space vacation was fun too.

  You would be able to pilot a spaceship and explore new planets. She based that one on a game she had found running on a server. A young boy had run it before he died at the hands of Elliot Robertson. She felt it important to honour him by keeping it running and open to everyone to play.

  Jess propelled herself on her newly designed wheeled board through the tall racks of servers. She hummed along with the frequency of the fans, making her own music in her head. Her parents never thought she’d create art with the upgrades they had put inside her, but over time she had come to learn that every computer was like its own musical instrument with its own unique sounds and tones.

  These new Cemprom servers were like an old-fashioned concerto with a mix of percussion and strings.

  When she reached the end of the racks in the server room, she reached out with her mind and connected with the video server. She opened her eyes and pulled down a keyboard to her lap. She tapped in her login credentials and carried out Franklin’s request.

  Apparently the city had a new quest.

  A ghost they had said.

  Jess didn’t believe in ghosts, but she did believe in computer spirits. She heard and saw them in computers and networks. Little glitched pieces of software and code that hadn’t been deleted properly. They floated about like lost children unable to find their way home.

  This thing that Petal and Holly said they saw could just be a network artifact like that, seeing as both women were on the new network.

  While Jess was typing out instructions to set the parameters for the video search, she heard the door open. Franklin entered. “Hey, Frank,” Jess said. “I’m just doing as you asked.”

  “Thanks, Jess, I appreciate it. I know they keep you busy down here, so I thought you might
like a break from all that tedious work.”

  She smiled at him as he gave her a wink. She liked Frank, he was one of the nicest people in security she’d met. Most of the others were too serious, but Frank always had a joke or something nice to say. She was pleased Enna had taken to him too and gave him extra responsibilities. It meant Jess would get to see him more often.

  He knelt down beside her. “Hey,” he said. “Got a new joke for you.”

  “Is it the one about the hacker?”

  “Nah, I heard this one today.”

  “Go on, then,” Jess said. “But if you don’t make me laugh, you owe me a cake.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, do I now? I didn’t realise there was such a high price for comedy these days.”

  “I just like to keep you on your game,” Jess said. “And besides, your evening round takes you past the new baker’s. The woman in there likes you. You can probably get an extra portion.”

  “I like the way you think.”

  “So go on, then, make me laugh.”

  While Franklin cleared his throat and began his joke, Jess activated the search program on the video servers. It would take at least a couple of minutes to run.

  “Right,” Franklin began, “a hacker, a pirate, and an AI all walk into a bar—”

  “Wait,” Jess said. “AIs can’t walk.”

  “Have you not seen Jachz?”

  “Well, he’s not strictly an AI anymore. He’s his own species.”

  “Huh, okay, let me start again. A hacker, a pirate, and a cyborg walk into a bar—”

  Franklin stopped his joke short as the video search program freeze-framed an image of a dark figure standing in the hallway outside of Holly’s room.

  “There it is,” he said, leaning closer in. “She was right after all.”

  “What is it?” Jess asked. She rolled herself forward to take a closer look. The whole thing was in darkness and looked like a shadow. But even with the lack of light and detail, Jess knew it wasn’t a ghost. The thing was whole and real. A person.