by Scott Cramer
Ashminov inserted the data stick into the mindport and downloaded the Hadesware. Now, a single keystroke would upload the code to the flotilla of blimps.
With his fingertip poised over the key, he remembered the first holographic Prince concert he and Petrov had attended. Prince’s guitar licks had bonded them in ways that words and actions could not.
His fingertip kissed the key, a butterfly alighting on a flower, but he still could not press it.
The thunder of jackboots, as AISE agents stormed his apartment, rattled in his head, and he placed the pad of his finger squarely on the key. The bitter memory of Petrov stealing his M-code pushed him over the edge. Executioner and savior, he pressed the key.
Citadel airspace is off limits appeared on the monitor.
He grunted in frustration, but then a grin quickly followed as he thought of a solution. I’ll disable Boston’s network of radar stations. When he had finished the hack, a blimp could fly loops over the Citadel without detection. Whether the sonic cannons would blast it to smithereens—that was a different story. He got to work.
DESIGN: PHASE 12
Raissa, with Petrov no longer lurking inside her head, allowed her mind to wander as she kept an eye on two security gates ten stories below. She liked that Caleb was also looking out the window. Four eyes were better than two. Plus, his proximity comforted her for reasons beyond mission tactics.
Ashminov had yet to transmit the Hadesware, so it was premature to call the mission a success, but Raissa couldn’t help but feel optimistic. She pictured Jaddy’s face lighting up when she walked through the door of her home in Jerusalem.
The future. The concept was strange for Raissa to wrap her mind around after thinking for so long she wouldn't have one. Will Caleb and I remain friends? A quickening pulse made her rephrase the question. Will our friendship develop into something more?
“What did Petrov tell you?” Caleb asked.
“He called me Eve. You were Adam. He spoke of himself as if he were God.”
Caleb’s eyes widened. “I heard Petrov’s voice at the injection center. He said, ‘Adam, can we predict love?’”
Raissa put her hand on the wall to steady herself. “A stranger bumped into me in Jerusalem. He asked me the same thing.”
“What if Petrov wants us to live in his garden? Adam and Eve.”
“And breed us like rats?” Raissa shook her head. “Over my dead body.”
Caleb’s expression frightened and intrigued her. His eyes filled with wonder and he parted his lips. His shoulders lifted and sank with the increased cadence of his breathing.
Does Caleb want to live in Petrov’s garden with me? Raissa looked away before she said something that would hurt him.
“Do you think Petrov can predict love?” Caleb asked.
“No,” she said flatly.
“I believe he can. With trillions of megabytes of data and his algorithms, Petrov knows the future.”
She patted her chest. “No algorithm controls my heart. I decide who I fall in love with.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Have you ever fallen in love?”
He shifted foot to foot. “Have you?”
“Look,” Raissa cried, pointing out the window. A paladin emergency vehicle passed through the gate and drove in their direction. She grabbed his hand. “We’re taking the fight to the enemy.” She headed toward the elevator, pulling Caleb behind her. “Ashminov, hurry.”
“One more minute,” Ashminov replied.
“Lock the door behind us,” she told him.
When they stepped into the elevator, Caleb shifted foot-to-foot again. “Yes, I’ve fallen in love.”
The temperature inside the enclosure rose, and Raissa focused on his eyes. “As long as Petrov is alive, I won’t give him the satisfaction. I’ll never fall in love.”
* * *
The elevator door opened on the ground floor, and Caleb took Raissa by the hand and led her to a bench in the Torvald lobby where they dropped to their knees and peered through the slats. Nearby, an armed paladin guarded the emergency vehicle parked in front of the Guido van Rossum building.
Caleb—heart thudding because of Raissa’s body heat and the lingering memory of her hand in his, and some fear—fished his messenger out of his pocket. “Dr. Aubrey and Dr. Joyce are on the twentieth floor of the van Rossum. I want to let them know that paladins are in their building.” But then he returned the messenger. “No, I’d better not do that. I’m a fugitive. I don’t want to leave evidence that Dr. Aubrey communicated with me.”
“Are you worried about them?”
I’m worried about you more. “They’re probably fine,” he replied.
“Dr. Aubrey already gave you visitor codes,” she reminded. “That’s evidence.”
Would the paladins harm his colleagues? The strange events of the past twenty-four hours stoked his worst fears.
Raissa gestured to the guard and raised her joule. “We can take him.”
He gulped. “We don’t know how many paladins are inside.”
A small smile played on her lips. “There’s one way to find out.”
Based on the intensity of her tone, he didn’t think he could do much to stop her, Dr. Petrov’s ‘Eve’.
Suddenly, she pointed. “Look!”
Caleb watched four paladins emerge from the building and move toward their vehicle. Two were carrying silver pouches, which turned his blood cold as he conjured images of Dr. Aubrey’s and Dr. Joyce’s frozen heads inside. He told Raissa what the pouches were used for, but he did not describe the gruesome picture in his mind.
After the paladins had driven away, he and Raissa sprinted to the van Rossum. Fear flooded him when he spotted blood on the lobby floor. Splatters, interspersed with red boot prints, formed a line from the front door to the elevator.
As they rode to the twentieth floor, Caleb averted his eyes from more blood on the floor.
The door opened, and he pointed. “Dr. Joyce’s lab is that way.”
Raissa entered the lab ahead of him. “Nobody’s here.”
“Dr. Aubrey?” Caleb called, stepping beside her. “Dr. Joyce?”
Dr. Aubrey, her lab coat covered in blood, emerged from Dr. Joyce’s office. “Caleb, who’s your colleague?”
He introduced Raissa while grabbing her arm to steady himself. “What happened? There’s blood everywhere.”
“We’re wrapping up our fourth autopsy,” Dr. Aubrey began. “All the victims died of ricin poisoning. We wanted Dr. Petrov to see the results, so we sent two brains to the Citadel. I’m afraid the couriers were in a rush.” She narrowed her eyes in concern. “Come with me, please. They told us a dangerous person is on the loose, and he might be on campus. The paladins provided photos.”
They followed her to Dr. Joyce’s mindport to see the dangerous individual. When Ashminov’s picture appeared, Caleb traded a troubled glance with Raissa.
Hundreds of images scrolled on the screen. Three jumped out.
Ashminov, his face glowing, posed next to an elderly woman who held a plate of spaghetti. Caleb had never seen the rebel look so happy.
A twenty-years-younger Ashminov stood among a group of smiling men and women his age. Caleb drew in a sharp breath when he spotted Dr. Petrov in the picture; his appearance hadn’t changed at all.
In the final remarkable photo, two adults wearing stern expressions and military uniforms held two children; Caleb recognized Ashminov as a toddler. He wore a bow tie, a white shirt, and brown shorts with suspenders. The other child was a baby.
“He doesn’t look dangerous to me,” Raissa said.
* * *
Ashminov had finally finished disabling Boston's network of radar stations to his satisfaction, and the time had come to sign Petrov’s death warrant. He somberly pressed the key that instructed the blimp fleet to begin transmission of the Hadesware.
He peered at the mindport screen with mild concern. The app reported that 1,423 paladins ha
d received two software updates: first, his version of Hadesware; a millisecond later, Hadesware V2. Petrov has countermeasures ready, it seems.
Ashminov could break the encrypted V2 file, but the quickest resolution was to retransmit the original version. Tap, tap. His stomach sank. The app was not responding. Tap, tap, tap. His stomach dropped to his toes.
An unusual image replaced the map on the screen, and he leaned forward. It looked like an old sweater, covered in dirt, balled up on the ground. What does it mean? The image changed again, and he shot back in the chair, thrown off balance by what he saw.
“Christian, it’s been a while.” Petrov, sitting on a rock ledge beside a stream in his garden, stared out at him. He had not aged a minute.
“Nineteen years, Nicholas, if I’m not mistaken,” Ashminov said, suppressing a smile. That he had included such an extensive dump of Petrov’s images into the Hadesware ensured paladins would have no trouble identifying him. With luck, some were impatient to rip Petrov’s throat out right about now.
Petrov cupped his hand, dipped it into the stream, and splashed water on his face. “I re-engineered your Hadesware and downloaded a database of your images. One thousand four hundred and twenty-three paladins are now hunting for you.”
Ashminov’s mind reeled. Water droplets on Petrov’s cheeks resisted the pull of gravity. He surmised he was not looking at Petrov, but instead a computer-generated animation. He smiled to conceal his plummeting spirit. “You’ve learned a lot of tricks with M-code.”
“Long ago, I had an outstanding teacher.”
“Long ago, I had an avid student.”
“Nicholas, why do you need a ricinware weapon?”
“God said to Noah, 'I am going to put an end to all people.’ Earth 2.0, I call it.”
Flames of horror licked at Ashminov’s heart. The E.L.F. towers now made sense. Petrov would pump out the ricinware using extreme long-wave frequencies. The lethal malware, flooding the planet from the North and South Poles, would meet up at the equator, and the human race would cease to exist.
A new window opened in the mindport; in it, the earth was spinning on its axis, and two cones of red extended from the North and South Poles. Each cone covered about a third of the way to the equator. A digital readout featured a rapidly rising number. Has the ricinware already killed over three billion people?
Petrov’s twang emanated from the speakers. “Christian, do you recall what red signifies in the Bible?”
“Red? No.”
Petrov cackled. “Imagine how the nuns at St. Mary’s would have beaten you.”
He was right. The sisters had high expectations, and one failed to meet them at his own peril. “If I recall, Nicholas, they left you alone. Father Gorilla was your protector.”
Petrov’s tone crackled with anger. “In the Old Testament, red signifies flesh. The areas of red on the globe have received your devourware. I’m returning people wholly to flesh.”
So three billion are free, not dead?
“Christian, you looked confused.”
Very much so!
“Feeling it was befitting to slaughter the population at religion’s doorsteps, I downloaded your Bibleware to three test groups,” Petrov explained. “As expected, thousands flocked to the International Food Cafetorium, St. Mary’s Bowladrome, and the tourist site in the North End. Then I transmitted the ricinware to the same groups. You saw the results. They died grisly deaths. Even for me, it was too horrific, so I kept testing. A fourth group received your devourware first. Then, when I transmitted the ricinware, they died without pain or suffering. I’m flooding the planet first with devourware, then ricinware. God is merciful.”
The spinning globe disappeared, and Ashminov once again faced only the madman on the monitor.
“After the paladins clean up the carnage, I’ll transmit a paladin version of ricinware to complete the reboot of Earth.”
“What about Raissa and Caleb?” Ashminov asked in a pinched voice.
“I have big plans for Adam and Eve, and I have big plans for us.”
Ashminov gulped. “Us?”
Petrov winked. “Trust me, you’ll fare better than Father Baldini. Interspecies mating rarely ends well.”
Petrov vanished, and the old, ratty sweater appeared on the mindport again. The view pulled back, widening until Ashminov saw a pride of lions. He recognized the arches in the background; the lions were in the Colosseum. He had seen that sweater before, albeit in better condition: Baldini’s favorite cardigan.
Raissa startled him. “You didn’t lock the door as I’d asked you to, and now you’re watching a lion documentary!” She stood next to him, her face tense with agitation.
“Ashminov, you’re a wanted man,” Caleb said, moving beside her. “Paladins are hunting for you. They have pictures that go back to your childhood.”
They listened with blank expressions as he recounted his conversation with Petrov.
“Eight billion will die,” Raissa gasped.
Ashminov nodded. “Likely by midnight.”
She raised a clenched fist. “How do we get inside the Citadel?”
“NanoArtisans employees can pilot observation blimps,” Caleb offered. “My messenger gives us authorization.”
Raissa pursed her lips. “Have you seen the sonic cannons?”
Nature always has the answer! This tiny spark landed in the dry tinder of Ashminov’s imagination, and he put his mind to work. Suddenly, an inferno of inspiration blazed. “Have you heard of Bracken Cave?”
They shook their heads.
He opened the blimp app again. Petrov, to prevent him from coding a new version of Hadesware, had disabled the transmission component. No problem. He could still control where the blimps flew and at what altitude.
He coded and spoke at the same time. “The cave is home to the largest colony of free-tailed bats in the world. Every evening at dusk, the bats fly out of the cave to catch insects. Hawks soar above the mouth of the cave, waiting to pick off the bats as they come out. So, the best course of action for the bats is for millions of them to fly out all at once and overwhelm the hawks. Using the same principle, I’m going to send every blimp within fifty kilometers into the Citadel. We’ll be in the middle of the armada in an observation blimp.”
Raissa cocked her head. “The blimps will overwhelm the cannons?”
He sat back, coding completed. “In theory.”
“What are the odds we’ll make it into the Citadel alive?” she asked.
Ashminov put the odds at one in a hundred. “One in ten.”
Raissa walked up to him, and he flinched out of habit. But the rebel assassin with the green eyes was full of surprises. She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I know you're lying, but at least we have a chance, however small.”
* * *
Lucky Ashminov. Caleb wished he could get a kiss.
“The closest blimp port is in Arlington,” he told them. “What’s a good time to send the blimps in?” A quick discussion followed, and they agreed it should be in one hour.
Caleb called them to the window and pointed out the northwest guard shack. “That’s our destination. I’ll need to re-enter your visitor codes to get you through the security tunnel. There are three buildings between us and the gate. We can use them for cover.”
They took the elevator to the lobby, checked for paladins, and dashed thirty meters to the neighboring Gates Building. Crouching, they crept along the wall until they had a good view of the Bjarne Stroustrup Building. Caleb held up his hand for them to stop and scanned in all directions.
“Clear,” he said and they raced to Bjarne Stroustrup, where they took shelter behind a marble column.
With Caleb still in the lead, they scampered to the Wirth Building.
Forty meters from the guard shack, he pulled out his messenger to get the codes they would need to exit the campus. An electron slug struck the column close to his head with a sizzling splat. Ducking and spinning around, he saw an emergency vehic
le rolling toward them, with several paladins on foot beside it.
Raissa dropped to one knee and returned fire with her joule. The paladins sought shelter behind the vehicle, but the convoy kept rolling their way, with the paladins taking pot shots that missed badly.
“Follow me,” she barked.
Plastering themselves against the side of the building, they squeezed off rounds as they moved to the southwest corner. The shack was thirty meters away across open ground.
A volley of slugs splatted on the wall above their head.
“We're too exposed,” Caleb shouted.
“I’ll lead them away from you,” Ashminov exclaimed and sprinted towards the Bjarne Stroustrup Building.
The paladins snapped to attention like bloodhounds that had just picked up the scent of a fox.
Caleb grabbed Raissa’s elbow. “Remember, the paladins have a powerful urge to kill him. We can make it to the shack.”
She shot him a hard glare. “I’m not leaving him.” The intensity of her green eyes underscored her tone of determination. She resumed her shooting stance. “When they fire on Ashminov, I’ll nail them.”
Caleb went on one knee beside her. “We’ll nail them.”
Loud voices erupted around the corner, and the air crackled with amperage. Ashminov must have shown his face. His tactic seemed to be working, as the paladins had turned away from Caleb and Raissa's position.
“Always take the fight to the enemy,” she growled.
To Caleb’s shock, she charged into the open ground, firing as she ran. Concerned for her safety and inspired by her courage, he followed her and blasted away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hit the ground with force. Firing as fast as he could flex his index finger, he rushed over and knelt beside her. She had shut her eyes. “Raissa!” She didn’t respond. He jammed his fingers into her neck, relieved that she had a pulse. A fresh wave of slugs buzzed past him, and he tried to return fire, but nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. The joule’s storage cell was empty.
