Code Breakers: Delta

by Colin F. Barnes

Endymion stood by the panel with his arms folded across his chest. His cybernetic eye expanded and shrank as he observed Gerry, then Petal, then Holly. The server panel was made up of what looked like a large chunk of quartz crystal. Embedded into its surface were a number of interface ports. Half a dozen fibre-optic cables hung from the ports, and on the end of each one were the common neck port jack plugs.

  “So,” Gerry said, stepping forward. “This game, what’s the objective? Who wins?”

  “If you play it right, we’ll all win,” Endymion said.

  “And if not?”

  “You die, of course.”

  “So what exactly do you want from us?” Petal asked.

  “Galvin has already told you—we want to leave here, take down the defence system, but we need a way into this”—the man-machine tapped a metallic finger to the server panel—“and beyond. Behind this room is the data archive, the centre of all the Family’s knowledge. And our ticket out of here. But no one has ever managed to get inside.”

  “How many people have tried?” Gerry asked.

  Endymion thought for a moment. “Last count… two thousand and fifty-one.”

  Holly made a choking noise. “And what happened to them?”

  Endymion fixed her with a pained grin. “They didn’t make it.”

  “So what are you?” Gerry asked. “Another of the Family’s experiments gone wrong?”

  “Oh no, I’m one that went right. But aren’t we all Family experiments on some level? Your friend here certainly is.” He pointed to Jachz in his prone state. And then pointed at Petal. “And you, your tech can be traced back to a genesis within the Family.”

  He looked curiously at Holly. “You… what are you?”

  Holly rolled her eyes. “Human, douchebag.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Endymion asked with a terrible rictus grin on its face.

  “Fuck you, robofreak,” Holly said, gripping her dagger.

  “Easy, Holly,” Gerry said. “Don’t rise to its bullshit.” Regarding the man-machine, Gerry stepped forward until he was just a foot away. He looked up into its eyes. “Let’s get this over and done with. You want me to go into the system and open the vault?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And if I’m to do this, I want you to let us all go. Including Jachz.”

  Endymion gripped both of Gerry’s shoulders and stared at him directly in the eyes. “If you do this, Gerry, we’ll all go. Let’s see what you’ve got in that brain of yours, shall we?” He turned away and picked up one of the fibre-optic cables and handed it to Gerry.

  “Wait, before I agree to this. There was a girl with the viroborg. Was she okay?”

  “Yes, she was still alive.”

  “What does it want with her?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t concern me. If you survive, you’re free to follow that up yourself, of course. If you survive.”

  Gerry took one more look around the room, trying to find a way out. They were outnumbered, out-armed, and still needed their help if they were to leave. Even if they could take their captors down, and with Petal in the mood she was in that was possible, they still didn’t know the way out. And who knows how many more they would have to fight before they got free of this place.

  “Gerry, you don’t have to do this. Let me,” Petal said.

  “No. I can’t risk losing you again.”

  “How touching,” Endymion said. “Get on with it, Gerry. Why don’t you show us what your parents have made in you? You’re one of their crowning achievements, are you not? What better person to bring down the Family’s technology than their own son.”

  “You overestimate my ability to give any fucks regarding my parents,” Gerry said, lifting the cable. “But before I do this, I’ll warn you: you try to do anything and this will be your end.”

  Not giving the man-machine time to respond or for Petal to protest, Gerry plugged into the server and his mind was immediately swallowed by the data archive.

  ***

  The system stretched out into a 3D representation of a grid. A million nodes, all interconnected to each other, distributing the data like a great quantum mesh. Gerry’s mind traversed this architecture at the speed of thought.

  Oddly, he felt entirely calm during the experience. There didn’t seem to be any malevolent AI or some other interested party wanting to rape his mind like he’d grown accustomed to. There was no threat, no battle for control of the system. It was all just laid bare for him to navigate about as he wished.

  That in itself brought him a degree of discomfort.

  He picked a datastore at random and unpacked the information inside: configuration files for a type of worker ’droid. Another segment held video recordings of scientists experimenting with these same ’droids.

  All very mundane and unhelpful.

  He spun out a search string program to gather his bearings and at least narrow down where in this system of petabytes he needed to look in order to unlock the data archive Endymion was so interested in.

  A few seconds later 2.3 million results came back.

  Gerry coded a series of filters to sort through the number of records.

  All the while, he did his thing of organising the data into a kind of memory warehouse. Log files over there, configuration and preference files here, graphic and audio assets there and so on, passing each piece through the filter, all the while keeping his own defensive programs up in case of some kind of AI attack.

  Eventually, he narrowed down a number of references to the vault and navigated to the particular light-drive that held the security credentials. He was surprised to find that there were no user restrictions on the files and he would be able to read and execute the programs at will.

  That didn’t seem right at all. It definitely felt like a trap.

  He backed away from that particular partition and considered a different approach. The server that he was connected to was capable of great processing and data power. More so than even Alpha or Omega. This was a true supercomputer of the current era, and it seemed like a waste to use it for something as simple as a key to unlock a vault.

  Gerry spread his mind further out into the system and searched for the software that controlled the defensive perimeter of this facility. It took a few moments, but he found it—there would be no need to enter the archive if all Endymion wanted was to shut off the system.

  Gerry could do that right now by coding a patch for the program and rebooting it to interrupt its current configuration. He could, but he didn’t want to. One thing he had learned—the Family knew when something was dangerous. If they felt Endymion and his fellow mutants would be better off trapped here, Gerry found it hard to argue with.

  If he let them out, as suggested, what risk would they pose to Libertas, or even Bachia and Darkhan—or any settlement? There’d been so much bloodshed to bring peace to these places, and he couldn’t just let yet another faction into the world to threaten the safety of those who fought so hard and sacrificed so much.

  Endymion would just have to find a new player; Gerry wasn’t going to play his game. Gerry would make him play Gerry’s game.

  While his search programs were running, he found the source of the suppression. Throughout the pyramid, and others like it in this Korean Empire facility, there were microwave transceivers that disrupted the radio signals and pulled apart data packets.

  That’s why he and Petal couldn’t use their VPN.

  Gerry overloaded the processor cores responsible for running the software and forced that particular program to shut down. With the suppression disabled, he sent Petal a message.

  — Petal, it’s me, Gerry. Are you receiving this? Don’t give anything away.

  — Yeah, Gez, sweet. How did you do it? What’s going on in there?

  — I’ll explain later. Right now, I need you and Holly to try something.

  — What’s the plan?

  — I need the trackers and Endymion to plug into the system.


  — By choice or force?

  — I’ll leave that up to you. Whatever’s easiest for you.

  — I’m on it. Stand by, Gez.

  Gerry’s mind rejoined the server as he continued to plot and plan. He altered the job configurations of the main processing units. At the moment, they were just set up to run a bunch of maintenance scripts and routines, to keep the drives in shape and report on the general facility operations.

  None of that was needed anymore, so Gerry created a special program just for Endymion and his sidekicks.

  A few minutes went by, and he thought about contacting Petal for a progress update when he saw three new guest users on the system. She’d done it! She’d got them connected. Gerry simultaneously launched his new software program and disconnected himself from the system.

  When his body collapsed to the ground, he heard the screams.

  Chapter 21

  Petal dashed back away from Endymion’s flailing limbs. His body jerked and stiffened before collapsing against the wall. His eyes dimmed and his jaw hung loose. The same happened to the two trackers.

  “Shit on a stick, what did he do?” Holly said, aiming the rifle at the trackers attached to the server via their neck ports. Galvin stood aside from them, watching on with horror.

  Petal rushed to Gerry. She gripped the cable and was about to pull it from his neck when he grabbed her wrist.

  — Not yet, he said.

  — What’s going on?

  — I’m sending you some data. Think you can cope?

  — I’ll try.

  Petal fell back with the force of the data burst and had to throttle her systems to prevent herself from blacking out. There was no way to tell Gerry to slow down; she could tell he was locked up, working as a data conduit for the server.

  She was unable to inspect the data as it filled her memory. It’d be like dipping a toe into a white-water river. She’d be dragged away and drowned, so she just shut her eyes and concentrated on filtering the data into her memory. When her internal systems were nearly at full capacity, she shut off the flow.

  She collapsed to the floor, clutching her skull, the pain pounding through every nerve.

  “Gerry, stop!” Holly screamed, catching on to what was happening. Petal reached out a hand to Gerry, but it flopped uselessly on the floor. The pain was still coming, Gerry’s connection threatening to overwhelm her.

  Through one eye, Petal watched with blurry vision as Holly reached down and pulled the cable from Gerry’s neck port. The flow of data stopped, like the pressure of a river against a dam receding and sinking away into the earth.

  Holly knelt beside Petal. “Oh my god, Petal, are you okay? What happened? You’re bleeding.”

  Groaning with the agony of movement, Petal rolled over to her side and touched a finger to her upper lip. Her nose was indeed bleeding. Still, she’d experienced worse. At least smoke wasn’t coming out of her ears.

  She tried to stand and nearly fell over. Holly propped her up on one side. Galvin rushed in and helped from the other side. Using them for support, Petal took a few deep breaths and waited for her heart to stop trying to launch itself out of her chest.

  The adrenaline ceased filling her veins, and she yawned with the sudden fatigue.

  “Petal… are you…”

  Gerry slumped forward. Sweat dripped from his wet hair, making his face glossy and pale in the white light. His eyes looked shrunken, and deep bruising covered his sockets. He reached out for her.

  On unsteady legs, Petal stepped forward and pulled Gerry to his feet. They hugged, using each other for support. Whispering into her ear, Gerry said, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop it once it started. There was so much data… more than I could control. Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” Petal said, clinging to Gerry. Over his shoulder she watched as the three others connected to the server stopped moving altogether. “What did you do?”

  Gerry gave her a squeeze and stepped back to look at his handiwork.

  “Just a little taste of their own game,” he said. “Listen, we need to leave. I saw what the viroborg is after. We’ve got to stop him; otherwise it’s all over—for everyone. The data I sent you: it’s all in there. And… other stuff. I’ll explain later.”

  Holly overheard and stepped closer, patting Gerry on the shoulder. “That was some impressive shit,” she said, pointing to the three still bodies. “I heard so many things about you.”

  “And you thought it was all bullshit?” Gerry said with a smile.

  “Yeah, kinda, though I still haven’t seen you turn into the devil, so I guess some of it still is.”

  “He’s no devil,” Petal said, running her fingers through his hair.

  “Yeah, maybe save the sexy times for later,” Holly said. “Don’t we have an archive to bust open?”

  “Yes,” Galvin said. “And your friend here needs attention.” He stood over Jachz, holding the chest strap, now thankfully switched off.

  Jachz sat up slowly and shook his head. “That was… exceedingly painful,” he said. “How do you humans cope with pain?”

  “We don’t, not always,” Holly said. “What the hell happened to you, anyway?”

  Jachz filled them in on his escape and concluded how similar his approach was to Gerry’s, pointing to Endymion and the two trackers. Petal detected a hint of friction between Gerry and Jachz. She’d ask him about that later before it became a problem.

  “So, are we going to get to the archive and switch off the defence system?” Gal asked, waiting expectantly by a door panel that was almost invisible by the side of the server. He pushed at it and nothing happened. Turning back to Gerry, he raised an eyebrow. “Did you not find the security program?” he asked.

  Gerry stepped forward over the prone bodies. “Oh, I did. I found out everything about this precious archive of yours. Would you like to be the first in?”

  “Um, sure,” Gal said. “How does it open?”

  “You just say—abracadabra.”

  Petal was about to laugh when the door panel slid open seemingly at Gerry’s command. Beyond the door lay a small room half the size of the one they were currently in. Two bodies lay on the floor, hand in hand. Between their bodies stood a clear square column about a metre high, inside of which lay a single piece of paper suspended by wire.

  Everyone stepped inside, careful not to disturb the bodies or the column.

  “What is this?” Gal said, his arms wide. “Where’s the data vault?” His eyes grew wide with panic, and he stepped around the room, tracing his hands across the wall tiles looking for something else.

  “There is no data vault,” Gerry said. “It was a myth. All there is… is this.” He stepped over the first body and reached into the column, releasing the wires holding the paper. He pulled the sheet out and handed it to Petal.

  Printed upon its surface were a series of 256-bit encryption keys.

  “Who are these poor bastards?” Holly said, pointing to the bodies.

  Gerry smiled but said nothing. Jachz kneeled down and looked closer. Even though the flesh was rotting, he still recognised them. Petal could tell from the surprise in his eyes when he looked up at Gerry. “It’s Amma and Nolan,” he said. “How?”

  “Wait, what? Your parents?” Petal said, trying to understand. “I thought they were on Mars?”

  “They were,” Jachz said. “I saw them just prior to my leaving. How can this be?”

  Holly shook her head, unable to take it all in. “This place is fucked up.”

  “So where’s the data vault?” Gal said, still looking for something.

  “I told you, Gal, there is no vault. Not here anyway,” Gerry said. “And as for my parents, think about it. If they’re here and up on Mars, and they’re not AIs or cyborgs, then what are they?”

  “Clones,” Petal said, thinking of herself, her sisters, Elliot and James Robertson. She now understood what Endymion meant when he said they were all related to the Family.

 
“Yeah, clones,” Gerry confirmed. “The first ones. How do you think they brought me back to life when they first took me up to the station? I thought it was my original body that they had upgraded. Over time I noticed small differences, but not enough to realise it was a clone. Also, how do you think Enna got the tech to bring me back into this body?”

  “That was me,” Jachz said. “I stole the information from the Family, but it had never been done before.”

  “Oh really?” Gerry asked. “And what makes you think that?”

  Jachz had no answer. He dropped his shoulders and stared at the bodies by his feet. Petal could tell he had assumed and got it wrong, and now his AI brain was trying to cope with failure and the idea that he had done something all too human.

  “I saw the data in the server,” Gerry said. “The experiments, the failures.” He turned to Galvin. “Have you wondered why your people are the way they are?”

  “It’s the illness, the disease of this land.”

  “No,” Gerry said. “You’re clones gone wrong, bred with bad DNA.”

  “It can’t be,” Galvin said, staring at his hands. He fell back against the wall, slumping his head against his chest. Mumbling over and over that it can’t be right.

  “So what’s this?” Petal said, referring to the sheet of paper.

  “Our ticket out of here and the key to stopping the viroborg.”

  — They’re the top-level launch/abort codes for the facilities’ nukes, Gerry sent.

  — And the bodies?

  — Amma and Nolan’s first clones. The data is all in your memory.

  — This is crazy.

  — It’s the Family.

  Gerry approached Galvin. “I’m sorry, Gal, but there’ll be no more games or bargains. We’re leaving. I’m afraid we won’t need your services anymore. I suggest you return to whatever family you have and live out the rest of your life in peace.”

  Gal didn’t seem to hear. He just mumbled, “It can’t be,” over and over.

  “Come on,” Gerry said to everyone else. “I’m sick of this place, and we have no time to spare. I know where the viroborg is, and we’ll need to hurry.”