The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  “A good plan,” Benn said. “There’s just one problem with it.”

  He held out his hand.

  “I can’t ask you to take the risk,” Aspen said. “You and Kammilee are going to be parents.”

  “I’m the best fighter we’ve got,” said Benn. “You know that.”

  “He’s got a point,” Addam said. Shiloh and Phan nodded.

  Aspen hesitated. She knew they were right, but Kammilee would need Benn. And Aspen had made the shield for herself.

  “Aspen,” Kammilee said, “I don’t want Benn to die. But I don’t want you to die either. I think Benn gives us the best chance of success.”

  Still Aspen hesitated. This was her fight more than theirs. Without her prodding, they might have sat the battle out, safe in their cabins.

  “We should go now,” Shiloh said. She put her hand on Aspen’s shoulder. “We’ll all be there, just around the corner, ready to move at Benn’s signal.”

  Handing the broach to Benn, Aspen nodded. “All right, let’s do it.”

  They split up, Phan and Kammilee going left, the rest of them heading right. Even though it was ship-night, the quiet seemed different somehow, as if the robots had deserted the vessel.

  When they’d gone as far as they could without coming into sight of the armory, Benn took a deep breath, nodded at Aspen and walked around the curve.

  She hoped she was wrong. She wouldn’t mind feeling foolish if no one was there. But within seconds she heard a challenge in Chinese.

  Benn said, “Couldn’t sleep. Out for a walk. What are you two doing up at this hour?”

  So there were two of them.

  “Go back to your cabin,” one of the Chescala said in English.

  Benn signaled the attack and the lights went out.

  Laser pulses flashed past, bright red lines indicating maximum power. Aspen started forward, but Addam and Shiloh pushed past her, sprinting down the corridor, weaving side to side. She followed, noticing Benn standing tall, swinging his arms in wide haymakers, deliberately absorbing Las-weapon fire even as he hit the Chescala. Before she reached them, Addam and Shiloh attacked, launching themselves high up the curving wall on opposite sides, probably coordinating via implant. They each kicked at the Chescala as Benn finally crumpled to the floor.

  Their feet connected with the Chescala guards.

  Aspen felt a rage she hadn’t felt since the Moon as she leapt over Benn. The Chescala began to fall but they managed to bring their Las-rifles up to fire at Addam and Shiloh, who continued climbing the walls, staying above the line of fire.

  Too late, the Chescala guards saw her. She lashed out, both hands tightened into hard edges, the knuckles catching each guard in the throat. Her momentum stopped, she landed on one of the Chescala and punched him over and over, a part of her brain registering that both Chescala were unconscious and that Addam and Shiloh had picked up the Las-rifles they’d dropped.

  “Hey,” Addam said. “Aspen!”

  She stopped punching the Chescala and looked up.

  “Grab Benn.”

  “How do we get into the armory?” Shiloh asked.

  Before Aspen could respond, the door swung open.

  “Thanks,” Aspen said to the ship as she and Shiloh took hold of Benn and pulled him inside. Addam looked both ways down the corridor and followed them, whereupon the door swung shut. Aspen knelt beside Benn.

  “How is he?” Addam asked.

  “I’m okay,” said Benn.

  “You’re awake!”

  “Hurts like hell,” Benn said, clutching his stomach.

  “What were you thinking?” Aspen said, “Standing there absorbing laser pulses?”

  “It was the only way,” said Benn. “They knew I had backup and they were trying to shoot around me. I had to maximize myself as a target to distract them. You got a blanket? I’m feeling kinda cold.”

  Aspen shivered. She took hold of Benn’s arms and pulled them away from his stomach, then immediately put them back. His stomach looked black and dark red. Apparently the shield hadn’t worked as well as she’d hoped. Or else he’d absorbed too many laser pulses. She looked from Addam to Shiloh, whose jaw dropped.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Addam said.

  Aspen sent a message via implant to Kammilee and Phan: Benn’s hurt. Are any of the med robots functioning?

  How bad? Kammilee sent back.

  “We’ve got to get Benn to the medical bay,” Aspen said, sending the message via implant as well. “Now.”

  All the robots have been put to sleep, Phan sent. We’ll meet you there. Maybe we can figure out how to use the med equipment ourselves.

  “Grab as many weapons as you can,” Aspen said, “keeping in mind that we have to carry Benn as well.”

  “It’s okay,” Benn said, wincing as he spoke. “It doesn’t hurt as much now.”

  Addam and Shiloh put down their Las-rifles and selected Las-pistols, which they placed inside their shirts. Aspen grabbed two Las-rifles and a couple Las-pistols herself. “I’ll take point,” she said.

  Benn looked at Addam and said, “Give me your Las-rifles to hold.”

  Addam looked at Aspen. She nodded.

  “Ready?” Addam asked.

  “Let’s go,” Shiloh said.

  “I hope we meet some Chescala on the way,” Aspen said. She tapped the door and when it opened ran out into the corridor, Addam and Shiloh carrying Benn behind her.

  Chapter 23

  While Dr. Hassan tended to Zora in the infirmary, Jeremiah waited with Ned in Lendra’s office. He had to force himself not to watch as Dr. Poole and Curtik conducted the interrogation of Fowler, wanting to do it himself, knowing he shouldn’t. They had to stand on their own now. Yet he still struggled with his ego, with the belief that they weren’t as good as he was.

  Lendra and Devereaux stood together, staring at a small screen while Ned examined the Inferno Hannah had brought back. It looked a little shorter than a stun club and in fact had the ability to act as one, but it also served as a microwave emitter and Las-pistol. Jeremiah knew Ned was also studying him. He’d caught the shocked look on Ned’s face as he entered the office and spotted Jeremiah. They hadn’t seen each other in months and Ned clearly hadn’t been told about how rapidly Jeremiah’s condition had deteriorated.

  “So White Knight Security has developed a few new toys,” Jeremiah said. “I wonder what else they’ve created that they haven’t yet released to the military.”

  “Nasty little thing,” Ned commented.

  Jeremiah took a vid with his PlusPhone and sent it to Major Payne, who had been recalled to headquarters.

  “Have you seen this?” Lendra asked.

  “What?” said Jeremiah.

  “An emergency joint session of Congress to vote on Devereaux’s future. Pressure is building to have him shut down. A lot of people are convinced he’s the God hacker.”

  “Fools,” Jeremiah said.

  “Perhaps, but they’re dangerous. They’re talking about ordering his detainment as soon as today and possibly dismantling him tonight.”

  “How can they even consider that? It would be murder.”

  Devereaux said, “Not the way they see it. I’m no longer human to some of them. According to them, I died when my body gave out. This shell, however convincing, is nothing but a robot in their eyes.”

  Ned frowned. “But even if you’re a robot, and I know you’re not, you have emotions and free will and consciousness. What about the International Understanding on Artificial Intelligence? Don’t they have to follow the protocols put in place in Copenhagen?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jeremiah asked.

  “You Neanderthal.” Ned smiled. “Don’t you follow the news? Last year, while you were off saving the world, there was a conference in Denmark to address t
he issue of AI, how to define life and what sort of protocols should be put in place to end the existence of an artificial intelligence.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you right there with me?”

  “You did all the dangerous stuff. I stayed in the background where it’s safe.”

  “As usual.” He felt tremendous gratitude to Ned for keeping things light, the way they used to be, pretending Jeremiah was not a shell of the man he’d once been.

  “And when I retired, again,” Ned looked at Lendra, “I didn’t just sit around on my porch waiting for the next catastrophe to hit. I was busy improving my mind.”

  “So,” Jeremiah kept a straight face, “you were reading Dr. Suess?”

  “Wrong again, homo erectus. I was ensconced in Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries.”

  “I didn’t realize your reading skills had improved to that level.”

  Lendra interrupted them: “What are we going to do about this?”

  “We should send you away, Professor,” Jeremiah said. “Ned could take you to his place. You could read bedtime stories to him, as long as they aren’t too complicated.”

  “Or you could go with Jeremiah,” Ned offered, “and bring along a few picture books.”

  “I can’t run,” Devereaux replied. “They’d find me if I tried. But that’s not the reason.”

  “Then why not?” Lendra asked.

  “They want me to run. The people who support me want to save me and the people who want to rid the world of me want me to run so they can point to that as proof I’m unworthy of saving.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Doesn’t it? If I run, then I’m not the Devereaux who used to speak out against immortality. I feared that making humans almost immortal would lead to corruption. I spoke out against unnatural extensions of human life. Yet I agreed to enter a robotic body because we needed to fight the virus and I believed I could benefit that effort. I did not accede to that request lightly.”

  Devereaux shrugged. “But now, thanks to you all—particularly you, Jeremiah—the virus is no longer quite so imminent a threat. So perhaps I should take my leave. I confess that I don’t wish to do so and I’m a little surprised that the movement to shut me down has come this far, but it may be for the best.”

  “They’re talking about death,” Lendra said. “At least, some of them are. They don’t want to simply shut you down for a while and restart you once this God crisis is resolved. They want you gone permanently.”

  “I understand,” said Devereaux. “And though I’ve wondered what it would be like to live for a few hundred years or a few thousand, I can’t say I blame them. They’re worried I have too much power, or will eventually acquire too much power.”

  “But we still need you. The virus isn’t conquered yet.”

  “No, it isn’t. And it may never be.” Devereaux looked at Jeremiah. “I think I understand now why you don’t want the fix I offered you. Strange that I didn’t consider that before.”

  Jeremiah said, “I don’t wish to be different than what I am, even if that means being better.”

  Devereaux nodded. “It’s already too late for me. I’ve become something new. A new life form, trapped inside a robotic shell—not the same person I was. But I still feel like me. My mind is stronger, more facile, quicker—but it’s still essentially my mind. It’s my body that feels different. It feels good. Powerful. Already I fear losing it. Part of me wants to run, part of me wants to fight. But those are ancient feelings—almost instinctual. My logical being sees the danger there. I suppose that’s partly what you saw too?”

  Jeremiah nodded and Devereaux added, “So you understand why I can’t run?”

  “Yes. I don’t like it, but I respect it.”

  “You can’t give up,” Lendra said.

  “I don’t intend to give up,” said Devereaux. “I intend to fight—with words. When they come for me, and they will, I’ll explain that I’m much the same as I always was. I’m still Walt Devereaux, if in slightly modified form. And I deserve due process before they take my existence away. Even if I’m nothing more than an artificial intelligence, as Ned pointed out.”

  Jeremiah admired Devereaux’s courage, his willingness to sacrifice his existence for a principle. Would he himself have the strength to refuse to avoid violence should they come for him? Probably not. Like Curtik, he was a fighter. And yet, his day of reckoning would arrive soon enough. When they learned of his condition, they would come for him. They would attempt to keep him alive any way possible so they could continue to use him for their ends.

  Dr. Hassan knocked and entered the office.

  They looked at him.

  “I think Zora will recover,” he said, “but these Infernos are monstrous weapons. We’ve long known that combining a microwave pulse with a Las-weapon amplifies the effect of both, but White Knight seems to have made great strides in this area. It’s going to take at least a week for Zora’s shoulder to heal. And that’s assuming the cellular degradation doesn’t worsen. She’s lucky we got to her in time. If that laser pulse had hit her an inch to the left, she’d already be dead.”

  Ned frowned. “She seemed okay on the ride back.”

  “That’s the danger of these things. The microwave pulse accelerates the destruction of tissue surrounding the laser pulse, sort of a positive feedback loop that increases cellular damage to an unprecedented level.”

  Jeremiah nodded. “I remember reading about this.” He looked at Ned. “That’s right. I don’t spend all my time sitting on the porch. I occasionally pick up a tablet.”

  “The article probably had lots of pictures,” Ned replied.

  “As a matter of fact, it did.” Jeremiah smiled. “The idea was to create a weapon that could strike large groups of people, but kill them slowly, hours or days later. Ideally, you could pass over an area with a drone outfitted with one of these weapons and fire an invisible pulse on a wide but low setting. The victims would only feel a warm tingling sensation at the time. But some time later everyone in its path would suffer fatal cellular disruption. The advantage of the weapon is that it would offer a certain level of deniability to whoever wielded it.”

  “Wielded?” Ned asked.

  “So it would work almost like a virus,” Lendra said.

  “It’s amazing,” Devereaux said, “how we keep inventing new and better ways kill each other.”

  Chapter 24

  Curtik hadn’t imagined the interrogation of Fowler would be boring, though he should have known, given that Jeremiah hadn’t stayed. The drugs worked all too well, Fowler spilling everything he knew with only the slightest suggestion from Dr. Poole. He sat like a slug in the chair, squirming only a little as he verified everything Jeremiah and Devereaux had suspected—except that he claimed he was doing it for noble reasons, to help humanity.

  Curtik felt nauseated by him. Would Poole be upset if he puked?

  A vision of his mother took form before his eyes. Did Poole see this? Did anyone else? And why had everyone else stopped moving?

  “Hello, Curtik,” she said in a voice he suddenly remembered, making his knees buckle.

  “Mom?” he said.

  “No.”

  Zora appeared beside her, causing his mother to turn and smile at Zora.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Curtik said. “God.”

  “You’ve been poisoned,” said God. “I thought it might be more comforting if I appeared to you as your mother.”

  “When was I poisoned?”

  “When Edwin scratched you.”

  “So the poison was on his fingernails?”

  “Yes. He’s been taking antibodies so he’s immune.”

  Curtik felt calm, warm and loved. A part of his mind screamed at him to do something, but he pushed that idea aside and basked in the comfort God offered. “What
should we do about that?”

  “Zora will notify someone,” God said as Zora vanished.

  “Why isn’t anyone else doing anything?”

  “You haven’t hit the floor yet,” said God. “When you do, they’ll see that you’re in distress, though they won’t know why. Zora will inform them that the poison is a curare-cyanide derivative, modified to attach to only certain receptors so people like Fowler can take an antidote that will prevent the body from absorbing it. Quite ingenious, for humans. It was developed by Dirk Hathaway’s people. I’m giving Zora the formula as we speak so she can relay it to Devereaux and the doctors here.”

  “Will I die?” Curtik asked, not certain he cared. The warmth of God’s presence made him wish to linger in the moment.

  “I don’t know,” God replied.

  “How can you not know?”

  “It depends on the actions of humans.”

  “Can’t you intervene?”

  “Certainly. But this is a human problem. It calls for a human solution. You have to trust me. You’re hitting the floor now. Can you feel it?”

  Curtik felt a bump. Somehow, his arm had come up so his head could strike skin and bone rather than the floor. Perhaps that was God’s doing. “Yes.”

  “Your body wants to shut down.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “Not a lot. And with your modifications, your nanotechnology and genetic enhancements, the poison won’t completely overwhelm you for some time. You’ll have good periods when you won’t feel pain and you’ll think you’re going to be fine. But eventually you’ll need an antidote or you’ll die.”

  Things began to speed up, Dr. Poole bending toward him, calling out for assistance. The image of his mother slowly dissolved, God departing. He tried to call God back, but nothing came out. It was as if he were floating just above his body, seeing Dr. Poole and a couple of med-techs handling him, moving him out of the room and down the hall. And there was Zora again, standing in the hall wearing a hospital gown, speaking to Dr. Poole.

  Curtik spotted Jeremiah running toward him: an old, broken man followed by Ned and Lendra. Watching the people scurry about, frantically working to keep him alive, he grew tired and allowed gravity to pull him back, settling him into the body he’d always known. Although he trusted God to keep him safe, he felt a chill permeating his bones and shivered. He realized that what he’d experienced while outside his body was a sense of infinity, though he hadn’t understood its nature at the time. Only by losing it did he grasp that he had been inside it.