by Scott Cramer
With adrenaline flooding every cell in her body, she leaped out of the doorway and swung the Glock into position. She’d disarm the paladins and order them to sit on the ground. Two sets of eyes widened. “Drop your joules,” she shouted, blinking to clear her eyes of the sweat trickling down her brow.
The male paladin raised his weapon. Raissa trained the barrel at his chest and zeroed in on the heart. An electron slug sizzled by her head. The female paladin had fired and missed. Raissa pulled the trigger.
BOOM. The bullet opened a gaping hole, and, as he was flying backward, now dead, she dived to the ground, tucked her shoulders, rolled once, and came up firing. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. A slug struck the female paladin in the knee and took the fight out of her. She sat on the ground with her hands up and blood gushing down her leg.
Ashminov rushed in and collected the wounded paladin's radio and joule. Caleb pried the joule from the dead paladin's hand.
“Report,” the voice over the radio said.
Raissa held out her hand. “Give me the radio.” Ashminov gave it to her, and depressed the button and brought it to her lips. “Tell Petrov I have a bullet with his name on it,” she growled.
* * *
Multiple sirens signaled that emergency vehicles were on the way. Caleb grabbed the radio from Raissa, who had a distant look in her eyes, and tugged her arm, but she didn't move. When she kept staring into space, he tossed the radio to Ashminov and pulled her harder.
As he half-dragged her to the end of the alley, the radio delivered a steady stream of chatter. “All stations report. Do you see them?” “Request backup, Beacon Street and Gloucester.” “Paladin 245, report your position.” “Repeat, Paladin 245, report. Over.”
At the end of the alley, Caleb glanced up and down Hereford. “The street is clear. Should we go left or right?”
“Let’s grab a taxi,” Ashminov said.
Just then, Caleb spotted a paladin stepping into the other end of the alley, thirty meters away.
When she spoke into her radio, her voice crackled from the radio in Ashminov’s hand. “I see them.”
More voices sounded in response. “Set joules to kill.” “Report their location.” “Hereford Street.” The female trained her weapon on them.
Caleb raised his joule; the mere intent triggered a spasm of pain in his chest. He took aim, but as he shifted his finger to the trigger, the loud roar of Raissa's pistol pummeled his eardrums and left them ringing. The paladin’s arms flew up in the air, and a rosette of blood blossomed on her chest.
Raissa lowered her weapon, transformed. “Follow me,” she commanded and dashed into the rush of traffic. Her steady tone and steely gaze gave Caleb hope they might escape.
He and Ashminov ran to keep up with her. An approaching taxi’s sensors identified an obstacle in its path, and braked hard, stopping within millimeters of hitting her. Raissa hurried around to the back door and flung it open. Caleb rushed up beside her.
A young girl and a man with white hair looked up at them with quizzical expressions. “Please get out,” Raissa said.
“Grandpa, I can’t be late,” the girl said with a crinkled brow.
“I'm sorry, this cab is taken,” the man said. “We have an appointment.”
The passengers were feeling mild frustration and perhaps confusion, but not fear. They had no basis for concern—the chip had eradicated violence from society years ago.
Blue flashing lights caught Caleb’s attention, and he slapped Raissa's shoulder. She saw them, too. The emergency vehicle stopped two blocks away. If paladins blocked the other direction, they’d be trapped. She climbed in next to the girl, and Ashminov sat up front. Caleb slid in beside the man.
“Taxi, resume destination,” Raissa said above the chatter of the paladin radio.
* * *
The girl smiled at Raissa, but the man cast a wary eye at the armed intruders who had joined him and his granddaughter in the taxi. She thought he was old enough to remember the days when carjackings happened at random, something Raissa had only read about.
She folded at the waist as the taxi sped up. “Duck,” she told the others. Pressing her cheek against her thigh, she faced Caleb. When she felt the taxi making a left turn, she knew they would soon drive by Zoe's house.
“Grandpa, look,” the girl exclaimed. “What are the paladins doing to those dead people?”
Pain crumpled Caleb’s face. Raissa took his hand and squeezed, hoping she might ease his suffering.
“Chrissy, don't look!”
“They’re putting something into a silver bag.” Chrissy was still staring out the window.
“Chrissy, please!” The man pleaded.
The girl burst into tears and faced the front with terror in her eyes.
“Chrissy, look at me instead. My name is Raissa. Where's your appointment?”
Chrissy sniffled. “I'm taking a swimming lesson in the Charles River.”
“Oh, how nice. I love to swim.”
A smile spread on the girl's face. Thanks to the chip, Chrissy had recovered from whatever awful thing she had seen. The chip didn’t seem so bad now.
“How come you have a scar?” Chrissy asked.
“I had an accident when I was little,” Raissa told her.
“What happened?”
“Chrissy, that's not your business,” the grandfather chided.
“I don’t mind,” Raissa said. “Some people wanted to hurt my mother, and they hurt my whole family.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Chrissy said. “Why haven’t you fixed your face?”
Raissa raised her chin and winked. “I like myself the way I am.”
Chrissy grinned. “Good. I think you’re beautiful.”
* * *
Caleb nodded. I agree. Raissa is beautiful. Then he shuddered at the power of M-code. Moments earlier, he had lost his sister and his brother-in-law.
When the taxi stopped at the swimming beach, the girl and her grandfather climbed out. The man pulled Chrissy away hurriedly, but she turned and gave a little wave to Raissa. They headed for the bathhouse.
Caleb didn’t want to know what they had seen as they passed Zoe’s, but he jumped out of the taxi, the cry of his heart overruling the logic of his mind. “I’ll be right back,” he told Raissa and Ashminov.
He hesitated. Will I return? He had no idea.
Caleb raced to catch up with the man and his granddaughter. “Can I speak to you in private?”
The grandfather motioned for Chrissy to go ahead.
“What did the paladins do to those people?”
The man narrowed his eyes. “You really want to know?”
No, I don't. “Yes.”
“They put their heads in organ transplant pouches. Scientists at NanoArtisans will probably study their brains to see what went wrong with them.”
“Grandpa, are you coming?”
The man sighed. “Thank goodness my granddaughter has a chip. Can you imagine how she’d be feeling now without one?” He joined her.
Tears blurred Caleb’s vision. His world and everything he thought he knew had turned upside down. He was the son of rebels, and his sister had killed her child, and Jack had died trying to save the women he loved.
He turned toward the taxi. Does Dr. Petrov have a plan for Raissa and me?
He shifted his gaze to the river and watched a sailboat cut a wake. He yearned for simpler times when his chip kept him happy all the time, and Dr. Petrov spoke the highest form of truth. Is it too late to tell Dr. Petrov I made a mistake?
Rebels had taken him hostage. He'd had to fire a weapon at security paladins, or the rebels would have killed him.
He balled his fist in anger. He had done nothing to bring all this down on his head, and now paladins were hunting him with “shoot to kill” orders. As he trudged toward the taxi, his heart fluttered and he wobbled when he caught a flash of Raissa’s green eyes. What will I tell her? He knew what he wanted to say.
* * *
“He won’t help us,” Ashminov insisted.
“He will.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said and left it at that.
Caleb flung the taxi door open and climbed in. “What do you need me to do?”
Ashminov nodded at Raissa as if to say “you win.” Then he said to Caleb, “We need access to the blimp transmission app. I developed a program that will inspire paladins to kill Petrov.”
Caleb took a deep breath and pondered. “I can only access the app from the campus. Taxi, 42.7 Johnson Street, Cambridge.”
He pressed his forehead against the window and stared out in silence. Raissa slid closer to him until their legs brushed. He was trembling.
* * *
On the way to NanoArtisans, Ashminov held up his trans. “Caleb, they might track your chip. We should disable it with my devourware.”
Caleb nodded. “First, I need two visitor codes to get you onto the campus.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head. Almost immediately, he received a text message, which included two long strings of numbers. Ashminov saw that the sender was Dr. Aubrey. “Ready,” Caleb said.
Ashminov pressed the wand against Caleb's forehead, and a beep followed.
“The devourware eliminated two hundred million lines of code from your chip,” Ashminov reported.
“The V7 beta only has ninety million lines of code,” Caleb said.
Ashminov pursed his lips. “Lucky you. Petrov seems to have given you an extra hundred and ten million.”
* * *
Even though his buggy V7 chip had allowed unproductive emotions to thrive, Caleb noticed the differences creeping in now that M-code no longer had control over him. His rage at Petrov burned hotter. The knot of grief in his chest tightened over the deaths of Zoe and Jack, and, as they neared the campus, his swirl of feelings about Raissa was too chaotic to sort out.
“Taxi, stop here.”
They pulled to the curb two blocks from the security gate. Caleb tucked the joule into his waistband at the small of his back. Before climbing out, he said, “I’ll take care of the guard.”
He headed for the gate.
Thousands of times he had walked up to the paladin guard on duty, brimming with excitement to know he worked at NanoArtisans and that he was contributing to Dr. Petrov’s vision of a future society. This time he was aiding and abetting rebels who wanted to murder Dr. Petrov.
Strangely, he found himself rooting for them to succeed.
“Good morning, Dr. Saunders.” The guard had the calm, steady gaze of someone fulfilling her life’s purpose.
Wasting no time, Caleb pulled out his joule and trained it on her face. “Give me your weapon.”
The stunned paladin passed him her joule. He ordered her inside the guard station where he took her radio and secured her wrists behind her back with polycuffs. After chaining her to the desk with another set, he pulled out a roll of tape from the first aid kit. Looking down at the bound paladin brought home to Caleb the realization he had crossed the point of no return. He knelt beside her. “I’m sorry.” Then he taped her mouth shut.
* * *
Raissa glanced at the clock in the taxi. Four and a half minutes had elapsed since Caleb stepped out. Had the paladin guard overpowered him? Hand-to-hand combat was not Caleb’s strength. “I’m going to see what’s happening,” she told Ashminov.
“Give him another minute,” Ashminov said. “Caleb understands paladins.”
“Eve, dear, your Adam is safe.”
“Petrov is here!” She flicked the joule to the kill setting.
Ashminov’s face crinkled with doubt. “Where?”
She twisted her torso to search out the back window. “Didn't you hear him?” She scanned three hundred and sixty degrees.
“God has plans for you and Adam.”
Raissa grabbed Ashminov’s arm. “Did you hear that?”
He shook his head.
“Petrov called me Eve. Caleb must be Adam. I think he’s calling himself—”
Petrov interrupted. “This God relies on data, not prayer and psalms. I bestow algorithms, not mercy.”
She clutched her head with her hands. “He's inside of me. How do I get rid of him?”
Ashminov held up the trans. “I have a hunch.”
“But my chip doesn’t work!”
“Says who?”
“Ashminov, I can lie without pain. I've killed.”
“Caleb had extra code on his chip. Petrov might have given you special M-code too.”
In an instant, everything around her shifted, and Raissa blinked, no longer in the taxi. She was, instead, nine thousand kilometers away in the Jerusalem bunker, looking at herself lying on the floor unconscious. The rebel actor who had stunned her with an electron slug during her final practice run for the mission walked over and knelt beside her limp body. He unclipped a chip injector from his belt and put the tip against her forehead.
“Eve, he’s injecting you with an Eden Chip.”
“Where am I?”
Petrov chuckled. “In the mind of God.”
Raissa watched as the actor next opened her mouth and scraped the inside of her cheek with a surgical blade which he sealed inside a tube.
Suddenly, Raissa was back in the taxi, with Ashminov peering at her. “What happened?” she asked.
Ashminov scrunched his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Did you hear me talking to Petrov?”
“Raissa, I’m worried about you.”
She realized she had never left the taxi, at least physically, and that her conversation with Petrov had occurred in her mind. After looking all around for Petrov, she leaned forward. “Give me the devourware.”
Ashminov pressed the trans wand against her forehead, and, after the beep, showed her the digital display: “The devourware eliminated a hundred and ten million lines of code,” he said with a satisfied grin. “Looks like your chip had special code. Petrov was monitoring you and Caleb, but now that your chips are inactive, we're one step ahead of him.”
She described the mental trip she had taken to the bunker and what Petrov had told her. “Did I imagine that?”
“You had code on your chip, so I’d say no. But you have a bigger problem. Petrov has your DNA.”
Out of the corner of her eye, the window darkened, and she spun to the right, her finger ready to discharge the joule. It was Caleb, Petrov’s “Adam.”
* * *
Fearing Raissa would plug him, Caleb jumped back from the window. She stepped out of the taxi, her face pale, and said, “Please, never sneak up on me!”
Ashminov climbed out of the front. “Petrov spoke to her telepathically. After that, I downloaded devourware. She had a hundred and ten million lines of code on her chip, but it's gone now.”
“Petrov called it an Eden Chip,” Raissa said.
Caleb drew in a sharp breath. “The Eden Chip supports peer-to-peer telepathy, but as far as I know, only rats have had Eden Chips.”
“Well, I feel like a lab rat,” she said.
“What else did Petrov say?”
“I’ll tell you later. Can you get us onto the campus?”
He motioned for them to follow him. At the guard shack, Caleb punched in the first visitor code on the keypad. The light flashed green. “Ashminov, go!” He didn’t want Raissa to be the guinea pig. The blister guns whirred as they tracked Ashminov jogging through the tunnel. After Caleb punched in the second code, the light flashed green. “Run,” he told Raissa, holding his breath until she made it to the other side. Then he peered into the retinal scanner, the light turned green, and he sprinted through the tunnel.
They hopped onto s
cooters and headed for his lab at top speed. The campus was empty. He turned his head; Raissa’s hair was blowing straight back, and color had returned to her cheeks. Facing front again, Caleb whispered, “I love you.” But the words barely passed beyond his lips before the wind pushed them back down his throat.
They dismounted at Torvalds, entered the building, and rode the elevator to ten. They tiptoed into Paladin Research. “Hello?” Caleb shouted.
No response. They were alone. Raissa moved to the window to keep watch, and Caleb fired up his mindport for Ashminov. “I’ll log you in,” he told him.
Ashminov waved him off. “Don't bother. I need full admin privileges, which I’m certain you don’t have.”
* * *
With Raissa by the window and Caleb silently looking over his shoulder, Ashminov had no distractions, and he took a moment to reflect. He was inside NanoArtisans with the keys to its electronic kingdom at his fingertips. In a matter of minutes, paladins, commanded by his Hadesware, would hunt down Petrov. Strangely, sadness snuffed out the joy he should be feeling, but he had to proceed. After all that had happened, he and Petrov were beyond the point of reconciliation.
He tapped out:
void mKey ( &key k ){ while( !run ){ k.Exploit( rand->try() ); k.pass(); if (k.Entry() ) run = false; }; },
“The morphing subroutine will keep knocking on the server door until it opens,” he said for Caleb’s benefit.
He hit ENTER, and application icons appeared on the screen.
“You hacked the network!” Caleb exclaimed.
Ashminov familiarized himself with the architecture. “I can take it from here. Petrov and I implemented something similar twenty years ago in Rome. Only the apps are different.”
Caleb nodded and seemed happy to join Raissa.
Ashminov opened the blimp transmission app, and a map showed 3400 blimps over Boston. Most hovered above the ricinware killing zones. He entered a command which instructed five blimps to fly over the Citadel at an altitude of 200 meters. For insurance, he ordered 300 blimps to circle outside the Citadel's perimeter at elevations ranging from 200 to 1500 meters. Finally, he issued a command for all remaining blimps to fly in a grid pattern over Boston and the surrounding cities. The latter action was overkill, but well worth the extra thirty seconds of effort. Petrov could run, but he couldn’t hide from the paladins who would want to serve his head on a platter.
