by Ian Williams
“What’s wrong?” Phoenix asked, standing next to him with a perplexed look on her face.
“What you just said, that makes sense, doesn’t it? I think Luke was right about there being something wrong. Hang on…” Graham left Phoenix’s side and walked over to the huge window that looked upon the tower in the cave beyond. “Luke? I need to speak to you. Luke? You there?”
There was no response from the tower, which glowed with a consistent level of brightness. Luke was either too busy to reply or he had not heard at all. He may have already gotten past this suspicion and moved on to the next stage. Graham did not know and suddenly did not appreciate being out of contact for so long. “Come on,” he said to Phoenix.
He led them both to Stephen and his wall of screens. There Stephen was still clicking at the keyboard in front of him, working on something important – he had never explained what, just kept at it in the background.
“Hi Stephen, can you check something for me?” Graham asked softly.
Stephen suddenly turned in his chair. He was surprised by the interruption, despite the calm tone. “Oh Hello, G. Sure, what do you need? A biscuit?”
“No thanks. Can you tell me what Luke is planning on doing when he releases the MARCs?”
“Oh, that’s easy. We open the tunnel. Just like we did before, when we showed you.”
“So have you recorded this each time?”
Stephen turned to face his screens and began to type something into the machine. “We recorded a few in the beginning. I can show you my video from one of them if you’d like?”
“That would be great, thanks. Is there anything else you do before you let the MARCs out? Do you activate any other systems at all?”
“No, no, no. I’m not allowed to do anything like that. Luke does all the extra stuff I can’t do anymore. Now, which video should we watch?”
Phoenix stepped up and placed her hand on the back of Stephen’s chair. “Can you search for the latest one where Isaac was mentioned?” she asked.
Graham was thankful to have her there with him, otherwise he would not have thought of this. It made sense considering Isaac had become their main concern.
“Here we go,” Stephen said, a final tap of a key to confirm it.
The large middle screen changed instantly from the metres and graphs display that had kept Stephen concentrating for so long, to a fuzzy video taken from an internal camera. To Graham’s surprise, there in the centre of the video was a much smarter and younger looking Stephen. His face was still scarred, yet his clothing was more together and much, much tidier.
“This is MARC release video number…” The Stephen on screen turned to a stack of paperwork on the table behind him – the one present day Stephen was now sitting at and watching from. He filtered through the stack until he found the one with the correct information on it. “Ah, yes. This is release number 245. I have seen a lot of these now, and each one has been as impressive as the last. Now, when I unlock the cube and let these five specimens free, they should fly straight through and into the room behind, which as you know from previous videos is being adapted by the Sentients from the inside.
“So far there have been no signs of any merging or splitting of the MARCs. So it appears I still haven’t discovered the real purpose of this place. If Isaac intended on recombining inside the room behind, then I haven’t yet worked out how this was to be done. If I could determine how he was planning on achieving this then I could stop it. I’ve worked too hard to catch the ones inside that room. I won’t allow them to be destroyed for the sake of Isaac’s return.
“Perhaps showing you what they’ve created in the back room would demonstrate what I mean.”
The video was reduced to static as the recording switched away from the internal camera. When it returned it was not from the stationary cameras, but a handheld of some sort instead. It wobbled in the younger Stephen’s hands as he walked across the room. It then swung up from the floor and was held steadily in place, aimed at the large window.
“Here, see,” the younger Stephen said. “As you can see they’ve begun to eat away at the walls. That would be remarkable anyway if it weren’t for the fact that they appear to be using the raw materials inside there to create something altogether more impressive.”
Graham could see the room that had originally been behind the large window. There was no cave at all, just a black room with all of the corners seemingly worn away to the rock beyond. In the middle of the space was a small box that sparkled like crystal, exactly as the tower now did. He was astounded to see what the cave and the Sentient’s tower had started out like.
The Stephen on screen turned the camera around to face himself and spoke directly into it. “I cannot stress enough how important these Sentients are. They’ve evolved into something so much more incredible than Isaac. He may have been the most intelligent and the first, but these have been developing by themselves. They are an entirely different species to Isaac. We wanted to create an artificial intelligence that could rival our own, exactly as Isaac was. Well these Sentients are much, much more than we could ever have hoped for. They have a chance to grow a new civilisation, without restrictions or limits.
“Isaac had his chance to develop beyond our programming, and he blew it by turning against those who created him. Yes - we shouldn’t have locked him up like we did. I see that now, and I have the facial scar to prove it was wrong of us. He still didn’t need to try and kill me and the others–”
The video paused mid-sentence, leaving Stephen frozen on the screen.
“He goes on like that for another twenty-two minutes before the video ends.”
Graham turned to see Luke standing behind him. He watched the video too. “Hey, when did you reappear? Never mind. Did you learn anything?”
“Nothing I’m afraid,” Luke replied. “The others are pleased with the progress and they send their thanks to you all. Unfortunately, until the rest of Isaac is collected we have no idea what to expect. As you’ve seen from Stephen’s logs, he hadn’t worked it out either. I suspect there is nothing more we can do. If Isaac had a plan then it has almost certainly been too long for it to happen as he’d expected. Anthony’s people are proof of that. I cannot see why they would have been involved at all. Something happened to bring them into this.”
No-one spoke for an uncomfortably long time as each thought to themselves. Graham asked himself the question too: how did Anthony get involved? He drew a blank, not unexpectedly. They still had a large hole where the necessary information should have been. Unfortunately, Phoenix had not been entrusted with this part of Anthony’s story. He found it frustrating to have nothing to go on.
“I’ve been doing what you said, Luke,” Stephen said. “I watched all of the settings and nothing changed. The relays are still carrying the signal. I’ve counted fourteen thousand relays destroyed or malfunctioning so far, but nothing really bad. Oh, and we’re still generating the required power at a steady rate.”
The statement was a sign of confidence. Although it was more of an opinion than a fact that such a huge amount of damage could qualify as ‘nothing really bad’. In Graham’s opinion that was an unacceptable loss for a normal days work. In fact only one broken relay would have been too much. It was all relative to him now. Because of the threat they were facing, fourteen thousand relays destroyed out of many hundreds of thousands across the entire country, was obviously OK.
“You’ve done well, Stephen,” Luke said. “I see the count is nearing 100%, should only be a few more minutes now. I suggest we gather everyone around the cube to see the release. It should be spectacular to see so many joining with the tower.”
“Fine, just keep a close eye on what’s happening as we do this,” Graham said as he walked away. He did not wait for a reply and instead headed over to his small group.
Ahead he could see that Alex was awake and cuddling into Jane. Also Elliot and Ruth were now talking while holding each other close. It was nice to see th
em all interacting like they would have on any normal day. He felt like he brought them just what they needed too; some good news.
All of the worry and paranoia had begun to fizzle away after he had seen the younger Stephen struggle to answer the same questions he had asked a moment ago: How was Isaac supposed to be recombined? It seemed the answer was irrelevant now. After all, they were ready to release the contents of the large cube into a land of freedom, designed by the many Sentients living beyond their room.
“We’re about to finish up here guys,” he said calmly – mainly for Alex’s benefit. “Luke’s getting ready to release them all. You wanna watch, Alex?”
“Is it going to be scary?” she replied.
“Of course not, honey. Daddy’s helped catch all of them and we want to let them go, like they do with animals in the wild.”
“OK, but I want Mummy to come too.”
“Cool.” Graham took his wife’s hand, followed by Alex’s, and then led them to the large cube. Elliot and Ruth followed soon after.
Already standing beside the cube was Stephen and Luke, with Phoenix and her brother Sean too. They waited to watch the fruits of their labour. Every single bad thing that had happened to each of them had led up to this point: The kidnapping of Elliot, the deaths of Dillon, Dino, Pete and Freddy, even their own near death moments; all would make the coming reward that much more satisfying. It was time to end it once and for all.
“Go ahead and open the locks, Stephen,” Luke said.
“Okay dokey, Lukey Luke!” Stephen replied, with an excited chuckle that caused the others to join in. His happiness was becoming infectious. Although Luke clearly still disagreed with his new nickname.
Graham watched as Stephen and Luke carried out exactly the same procedure they had the last time. He and Ruth both knew what was to come, the others did not. So he enjoyed the looks of anticipation on each of their faces. First Stephen flicked up the first of the levers before moving on to the next. By the third, the faces surrounding the large cube were all beaming with joy at the spectacle.
“I can’t see, Daddy,” Alex said as she tugged on his arm.
“OK, let me pick you up.” He lifted Alex up onto his shoulders and held her hands. They treated what was about to happen as if they were watching a parade going by. The extra height gave Alex the best view in the house too.
When the last of the locks had been opened, Graham could see the same sense of hesitation to each of the MARCs inside – although there were too many to keep track of now. The parts of Isaac’s code that had not joined together to form other MARCs acted like a glowing soup within which they all floated. These bits were yet to achieve the same as the others, if they even could. Graham realised he had never really considered what these parts could do.
Watching closely, he followed a few of the loose pieces of coding. Inside the holographic chamber they took on the appearance of flickering lights that moved about like thousands of butterflies, each a tiny winged creature made of pure energy. He kept a few in view as the first of the MARCs began to venture into the tube above.
“Wow, that’s pretty,” Alex said as she watched the tube at the top of the cube begin to glow. As a steady flow of MARCs began to trace their way through the same piece of tubing, it began to effuse an energetic light.
Graham kept track of the piece of loose code he chose randomly to watch. While his daughter’s excitement was shared by the others, something once again had him worried. For the time being he tried to enjoy the view, which was becoming much bigger and a whole lot more vibrant, past the large window to their side.
Everyone slowly wandered over and they were instantly, and visibly, moved by the swirling light show just beyond the layer of glass. Each MARC was a new life-form about to emerge and the moment the first entered the Sentient tower, the rest were sure to follow.
“It’s like a magical castle with beautiful fairies flying around. Don’t you think so, Daddy?” Alex professed with a tone of wonderment that showed just how old the rest of them were.
“Sure,” he replied.
“Everything OK?” Jane asked, a look of concern on her face.
He focused solely on his wife’s face and expected the sight of the woman he loved to wash away his nagging worries in a heartbeat. But they could not. Something was still there, at the back of his mind, calling for his attention. A feeling of pessimism remained. He would normally have just ignored it altogether. Except this time he was uncertain if that was such a wise thing to do. After all, they were still far from in the clear. Only when the rest of the MARCs were inside the tower, and not a moment sooner, would he know it was truly over.
“This just feels odd, that’s all,” he said, trying his best not to give his increasing uneasiness away.
Luckily Jane chose not pursue the matter any further and instead returned to watching the tower. The first of the MARCs was about to enter. If it was to be as impressive as the first time Graham had seen this happen, then they were all in for a treat. So while the others enjoyed the procedure, he continued to fester quietly about the unknown bad thing he was suspecting would soon happen.
As he looked on without paying that much attention to the tower, he decided to concentrate once more on the loose pieces of code floating around unattached and unlinked. Their holographic form again reminded him of butterflies. They were indeed pretty and yet they were what began to focus his paranoia. For some reason he could not move beyond them. All the time they had been in Sanctuary he had never seen anyone show any interest at all in these pieces. Only the MARCs had ever mattered. Until now.
His vigilance was finally vindicated when he saw something he soon wished he had not. It was quick, even lightning fast, when it happened. Almost unnoticed in the background were two MARCs now seemingly stuck together. A nearby piece of loose code had exerted an irresistible force on them both, pulling them together against their will. Something had caused two separate entities to merge. It was starting to recombine all by itself.
“Shit! Lock it back down, now,” he shouted as he handed his daughter to Elliot.
“What’s up, buddy,” Elliot asked as he then placed Alex gently down on the ground. “Stay with your Mum for a bit sweetie,” he said.
Graham raced around to the far side of the cube and started to pull on the levers. “We’ve got to shut it down. They’re merging. Look. Stephen, help me with this.”
Luke and Stephen turned to each other before looking inside the cube. It was happening more and more and increasing at an alarming rate. The calm and flowing motion of each remaining MARC had already been replaced with violent snaps and thrusts in all directions.
“No, no, no, no,” Luke said in a sudden panic. “Stephen, quick, we need to cut the power to the cube. How could we have missed this? The others in the tower, we must prevent it getting to them.”
“Just help me pull the damn levers,” Graham ordered.
“We can’t, Graham, we’ve already unlocked the cube. What you saw in there was only a holographic representation of what was actually happening inside Sanctuary’s systems.” Luke vanished and then instantly reappeared by the wall of screens. He completely gave up on mimicking human’s now. “This can’t be happening. No, no, no. All of the inert code is becoming active. This was its purpose all along.”
“There’s no time. We’re too late,” Elliot called from the large window.
Graham turned back to his friend and was disturbed by the looks of horror on each of his companion’s faces. What was happening inside the cube was only a small part of it. In the background an unexpected flicker sent the room into almost total darkness as the tower reacted adversely.
Everyone became silent. None of them could bear to speak as something truly terrible had begun. The flickering then returned once more, joined this time by a deep rumble that vibrated through the floor beneath them all. It was too late to stop it now. They had found out how Isaac planned to reform. He had always been one step ahead of them all, and h
ad correctly predicted that the inert code would be overlooked. Even before Anthony had become involved, Isaac had won.
“It was never down to us,” Graham said. He gave up trying to pull the manual levers to prevent it now. “Nobody ever considered what the loose bits of code could be for. They weren’t ever going to become MARCs. They were sent out to stitch together the other pieces. We’ve just released Isaac!”
Another dull boom brought a shaking movement to Sanctuary, as once again the light from the tower dropped out. A fight had broken out within the Sentient’s world and it was becoming violent. Regardless of their strange form and lack of substance, their clash had begun to have a very real-world effect on the surroundings.
“No, I cannot accept that,” Luke said. He started to phase in and out of focus as he stood watching. The holographic projection was losing its cohesion and causing Luke to become distorted. His voice became more and more computerised too. “Oh no, no, no. It’s a massacre. All of the first are being wiped out. Any who contained Isaac’s code are being torn apart.”
“Luke, I’m scared,” Stephen said. He stood in front of his friend and clawed at the fuzzy image that was left hovering in place.
“You must leave this place, now,” Luke managed to say finally.
Stephen shook as he called out one last time to his friend. “Luke, don’t leave me please. Please. No!”
The phantom like image of Luke finally disappeared.
Graham tried desperately to think of something they could do. But with the light display dropping out every second or two and the distant sound of explosions, he could barely get a thought through. With Luke now gone too, there was little hope for them doing a thing. The fight was happening behind the glass and inside the huge crystal tower. A war of Sentients raged that none of them could see, apart from the tower’s reaction.