《Open Source》


 Chapter 1

    ¡°Fuck this shit,¡± Banks hissed. He pointed the handheld towards the base of the hatch, and pressed the eject button. A warped bit escaped its housing and arced through the frigid air, glinting in the moonlight as the threads that had so lately held it gave it a half rotation of spin. It landed in a pile of its gathered brethren, carbon tinkling on carbon as it settled in amongst its kin. The sound seemed to fit, somehow. Out here, alone, on a frozen mound of granite smack in the middle of unclaimed nowhere, with the crunch of the snow beneath our feet and the panoply of stars above. A perfect echo to their twinkle.


    Banks listened for a moment, then tossed the handheld after it. The sound that made was less poetic.


    ¡°Gimme the chirp,¡± he said, and motioned with a gloved finger for Bergman to turn around so he could access the pack where it was stored. Then he went back to his grumbling, now more to himself the rest of us. ¡°¡­had ¡®nuff of this shit, goddammit. Three fuckin¡¯ hours with that thing. Are you kidding me? Three fuckin¡¯ hours with a goddam handheld, trying to reorganize mod-proof titanium, all to save a goddam hinge?¡± Bergman glanced briefly at Ramsay, unsure whether or not to oblige. Ramsay hesitated, dilemma plain on his Spartan features, then, through the visplate of his bio-suit, gave the barest hint of a nod. Banks tore into Bergman¡¯s pack, reaching for the sonic torch they had brought along in case the hatch refused to yield. He pulled it out and clicked the starter, once, twice, three times, four, before he tapped at some of its circuitry. On the fifth strike it kicked alive with a high-pitched squeal, then faded to silence as he tuned the frequency.


    ¡°Just be careful,¡± Ramsay cautioned. ¡°Try not to, ah¡­try not to scorch it.¡±


    Banks shot him a dirty look. It¡¯s a motherfuckin¡¯ Chirp, that look seemed to say. How can I do anything but? But he set to work without a word. They all knew their orders. Enter, observe, document, report, all critical, yes¡­but above all, contain. The lab had gone dark four days ago. Nobody knew why, but, given the nature of the project, outbreak was the leading theory.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    We all watched as Banks played the Chirp over the weak points at the edge of the hatch, and then, once those had disintegrated, over the tumblers of the deadbolt that must have been drawn from the inside. The blue-white sparks it emitted as its wake reacted with the titanium gave the field an eldritch glow. They skittered off the top of the hatch and down onto the snow beneath, reflected a dozen times over in beads of sweat that, despite the freezing air, began to form on Banks¡¯s brow. Their fall was chaff in a field of wheat, zephyred by an unfelt breeze.


    None of the rest of us said a word.


    ¡°Come on Palsie, just a little more¡­THERE!¡± Banks muttered to himself, working free the remains of the bolt. There was a soft sigh from somewhere inside as the metal lost its hold. He jiggled the lid with his opposite hand until he satisfied himself that it was free, then shook the Chirp twice in the air, activating its emergency shutoff. He wasn¡¯t supposed to do it that way. There was a shutoff process I knew he knew that supposedly minimized the chance of damage. But I¡¯d given up reminding him. To a guy like Banks the right way and the fast way were one and the same.


    He and Ramsay grabbed the handle and, working carefully to keep from burning themselves on the parts still hot from the torch, heaved the lid up and aside, turning it on its edge like a giant manhole cover.


    They almost didn¡¯t send us, I reminded myself, thinking back to those first few hours, after the lab had gone dark and we¡¯d been trying to figure out how to react. I¡¯d been sitting in our emergency conference, representing as the project¡¯s HQ champion, taking in as much as I could of the inside of the war room and trying to keep my fool mouth shut as more decorated members of the cabinet had it out. They almost left the damn thing sealed¡­

 Chapter 2

    ¡°¡­get my strikers in there NOW!¡± yelled a paunchy, broad-shouldered man named Hodgkins. His features led with beady eyes and a bald spot that edged out most of his hair. His dress shirt skewed to the right from a rack of medals pinned to his breast, and his shoulders bore the crosshairs of rank. The Lead Participant from the military. He banged his fist on the table for emphasis. ¡°It¡¯s been twelve hours since their last communication¡­no video, no voice, not even a bloody still! You say we need to control the situation? How are we supposed to do that when we don¡¯t even know what the situation IS?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s already controlled!¡± screamed the Secretary, a shrill woman with a thin, avian face that looked about forty but had to be at least ten years older than that. She was dressed in a button-down coat that reeked of formality and a pair of denim pants that did anything but. Clearly the closest things at hand when she¡¯d taken the call earlier that evening. She stifled a yawn despite her energetic tone. ¡°The breach detectors are still online, and all of them are showing green. The lab is doing exactly what ¡­keep whatever is in there in.¡± She paused, and took a sip of the tea she had been brewing for the past few minutes, sipping around the tab and string she hadn¡¯t bothered to remove. ¡°You know as well as I do how dangerous this research is. Some of those strains were airborne originally, and some could survive for years in the harshest conditions on earth. What of one of them got into the Jetstream?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s EXACTLY why we need to act,¡± said Hodgkins. Glares danced around his pate, tanned to the point of glossiness. They distracted everyone he was trying to convince. ¡°You assume this some sort of screw-up where one of his boys,¡± he nodded disdainfully in my direction, ¡°forgot to carry the one, but what if it¡¯s something else? What if the Reds, or God forbid the Sultan, got wind of what we¡¯re up to and decided not to wait around¡­¡±


    ¡°Uh, not the Sultan,¡± interrupted a dark man in the corner. He spoke casually, almost indifferently, his shaven face and bloodless lips moving with the odd disharmony of someone speaking with only part of their mind. ¡°They still haven¡¯t found a way to neutralize our latest ¡®upgrade¡¯ to their seventeen. One encoded infrared and the whole bloody billion of them are so many slavering dogs, and they know it.¡± He swiped at the holoscreen in front of him, getting back to whatever he¡¯d been perusing before this twist in the conversation halfway piqued his interest.


    ¡°Okay¡­¡± Hodgkins resumed, once he was sure the man had finished. ¡°The Naka-Naka¡¯s, then¡­what if they got intel on what our boys down there were doing, and thought they¡¯d take it for themselves?¡±


    ¡°Then they were the first to die¡± a new voice chimed in from the end of the table. The pathologist. An austere woman in her early thirties, whose hooked nose and frumpy figure had led her towards a budding career and away from what she must have deemed were less than stellar prospects in love. She¡¯d risen quickly through the ranks, achieving her current position as advisor to the diamondhead at an unprecedented age. ¡°If there was an outbreak of some kind, well, the viruses our techs were working with were some of the deadliest known to man. Anyone who walked in unawares would likely to catch all kinds of hell. But that would have been the least of their concerns. Need I remind you, the modulated-beam radiation fields are lethal within thirty seconds to anyone without the proper mods.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    ¡°A valuable safeguard,¡± said the geneticist, a striking man of middling age whose taught skin, perfect hair, and muscle definition made him a polarizing figure in the debates surrounding vanity mods that had been bubbling for the past few years, ¡°but by no means foolproof. If we can engineer the mods, then so can they.¡± Hodgkins fixed his gaze on that section of the table. He seemed surprised to find an ally coming from that direction, but he was glad of the support. ¡°I know what you¡¯re thinking,¡± he held up a hand to the pathologist, cutting her words off at their source, ¡°they¡¯d have to know about them first. Well, that isn¡¯t necessarily true. Mods are hard. They take time. To code one from nucleics up would probably be the work of months, or years, if you wanted it to do anything at all worthwhile. The vast majority of them ¨C including those we gave our techs ¨C are only tweaks¡­different skins we stretch over underlying skeletons, to guard against this disease instead of that, or neutralize longer or shorter wavelengths of radiation, or grow hair here instead of there.¡± His hand slide shyly upwards, as if to graze his own immaculate brow, but he caught himself before it did. ¡°At last count there were fewer than two hundred truly different types of mods. If they wanted it badly enough, and they had the human capital, they could have sent in waves of strikers equipped with sets of all of them, and guaranteed that at least some of them would live to fight. A dozen, perhaps, or however many they thought they¡¯d need to take such an outpost. Not something we would ever consider of course, but¡­¡± he let the silence speak for itself, setting lists of enemies more ruthless than us spinning through the table¡¯s heads. ¡°A maneuver like that might only take a few thousand men,¡± he continued. ¡°The Naka-Naka¡¯s were thought to be planning something very like it in Tehran, before the Krauts brought in their disintegrator.¡±


    ¡°But we would have seen something!¡± said the Secretary. ¡°With that kind of force to organize, there¡¯s no way they could have moved in undetected.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not saying that¡¯s what happened. Just pointing out that there are possibilities you haven¡¯t yet considered.¡±


    Hodgkins grunted, unsure whether to accept the argument or be insulted.


    The Secretary stood her ground, ¡°Okay, fine¡­let¡¯s say you¡¯re right. It doesn¡¯t change the fact that we CAN NOT open up that bunker until we¡­¡±


    Eight hours it had gone like that. An unbroken third of a goddam day, of one side calling for action against a hypothetical human foe, while the other advised caution against an unknown biological one. In the end they put it to a vote. The Actions won, four to three, with the proviso that we wait for three more days to give the de-con systems a chance to kill off what they could. It was the dark man in the corner, oddly enough that cast the deciding vote. At the time I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if he only voted how he did because they were calling for the yeas when they tapped him on the shoulder.

 Chapter 3

    And so, we went. Why three days? I couldn¡¯t say. The mods took hold in a matter of hours, so that wasn¡¯t it. And that bit about the de-con systems was bullshit; if it was something they could handle, they¡¯d handle it a lot faster than that. The pathologist tried to explain it at one point, but I don¡¯t think even she believed her words. A nice, familiar number I suppose.


    THUD!


    The sound of the lid hitting ground brought me back to the present. Snow eddied in the air like dust. Ramsay immediately stuck his hand in a drift of the stuff, doing his best to ice it down. His side had apparently been the hotter.


    We gathered round the gaping maw and all peered down the shaft, as if the answers to what had happened down there might be just that easy, that they might be right there, waiting, in the moonlight at the top of the hatch, twiddling their collective thumbs and wondering what took us so long, but we saw nothing. Just the top third of the shaft, lit by what little moonlight dared to venture in at all, then darkness, then the bottom third or so, lit by a pale light that could have been any number of holoscreens, or LCD¡¯s, or other pieces of equipment that might or might not have still been functioning. It had an odd hue about it, that light¡­pale and blue, almost white, not that different from the glow of the Chirp. It didn¡¯t crackle as the sparks had, but¡­it wasn¡¯t constant either. It oscillated, like a broadcast tower, or a searchlight spinning on a dais. Pulsed, as if it was somehow alive.


    ¡°Any volunteers?¡± asked Ramsay. He reclaimed his hand and looked at each of us in turn, smirking at us through his visplate. Nobody said a word. We all knew he was joking, and he knew that we knew. He didn¡¯t get the lead on this gig by letting his charges play canary. After a few seconds of silence he sighed, swung his legs down onto the ladder, and began to lower himself down rung by rung.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    We followed.


    I, being just the systems guy, and the HQ rep besides, went last. I was about three-quarters of the way down, just to the terminator between the darkness and that pulsing light, when I heard the gags.


    ¡°Good lord!¡± A quick glance between my legs saw Ramsay step off the ladder and hide his mask in his uniform. At first I thought he was shielding his eyes, but as I dropped a few more rungs I understood it was his nose he was guarding. The smell was a hodgepodge of conflicting aromas¡­urine and feces most obviously, and mixed with that the hot, charged scent of circuit boards. Beneath that the smell of flesh¡­not rotted flesh, exactly, but not healthy flesh either, the sick-sweet smell of meat left exposed in the icebox, and all laced with the antiseptic scent of the two layers of de-con systems ¨C the local systems built into our biosuits and the emergency system of the lab itself, which must have been running non-stop the past four days. My skin tingled as the Sentinels breached the sterine and began to probe at the skin beneath. It was a strange sensation. Generally warm, but laced with pricks of ice, as if they¡¯d sent in two at once, each to check a different mod. I tensed, waiting to see what they¡¯d decide.


    Don¡¯t worry, I told myself, it¡¯s safe. They triple-checked everything back at HQ, everything took like it was supposed to. Everything will be okay¡­


    But it was a tough sell. We¡¯d all seen it on the playbacks, times when they didn¡¯t take, or times when they mutated afterwards. There was even one in the classified files where it was later confirmed that the Sentinels themselves had changed, and decided on a mismatch even though the mods were perfect. The result is always the same: one second the unfortunate soul is standing there, tensed, the way I was now, perhaps feeling the beginnings of something not quite right, perhaps as a prickly, tingly sensation not unlike the one I felt, and the next they were so much detritus floating in the air, deconstructed by the Sentinels at a sub-molecular level, without so much as a dying scream.


    Then it subsided, leaving as fast as it had come. I let out the breath I¡¯d held, feeling the tension bleed away, and my skin returned to its usual, no-sensation self. The Sentinels had found what they¡¯d been looking for, and they stood down.


    I advanced into the lab.

 Chapter 4

    There was, of course, a part of me that had hoped for a miracle. There was some small slice of my soul, separate from logic and reason, that still believed the whole mess would prove some crazy accumulation of coincidences and everyone would be just fine, or, failing that, that the destruction might be less than total, and at least a few of the technicians ¨C some of which I knew personally prior to their assignment ¨C would be able to salvage something of a life after we came in and fixed whatever had gone wrong. But the larger portion of my mind was prepared for what we saw. The airlock stood wide open and, as expected, the lab within held three, maybe four of the five Participants I had sent to live down here while they conducted their research. None of them appeared alive.


    Ramsay and the others were already inside confirming this. Ramsay started with the lab itself while Banks and Bergman moved deeper into the bunker, back towards the living quarters. I strolled along in Ramsay¡¯s wake, and started taking inventory as he covered all the corners (Charles, a lifer hardware ace twenty-two years out of Cal Tech, married well, four-bedroom house in the country, two kids, both in school, one playing first chair piccolo in the orchestra, one hoping to make first squad on the pitch next spring¡­Britt, one of my closest friends, up-and-comer middle management, confirmed bachelor in a condo downtown, amateur poker enthusiast who never met an insight strait he didn¡¯t like¡­Rauch, high school whiz kid and my former intern, and my personal recommendation for appointment to this project despite his getting my coffee order mixed up with my director¡¯s half the time) and that¡¯s when things started to seem a little¡­off. They didn¡¯t show any of the horror-movie symptoms that had haunted my dreams for the past three nights ¨C the sores, the legions, the violent emptiness of limbs riddled with bacteria eating their flesh clear down to the sockets, or, in one instance, a single fungus-like mutation that had absorbed the bodies and assimilated the minds of everyone inside the bunker. Instead, they all appeared to have died of¡­trauma. Charles lay on his side, shoved into a bloodstained corner, his chest riddled with stab wounds from the screwdriver stuck in the final one. Rauch slumped over his desk, head twisted, eyes bulging out of their sockets, swollen to the size of plums. The whites were splotched with blooms of crimson from a smattering of ruptured veins. His face was purple down to his shirt, where an angry bruise circled his neck from the dimeteroid cable that was used to strangle him. Britt still sat in his chair, blood dripping (dripping?) from a slit on his wrist onto the fragment of old champagne bottle he had used to open it. Each of them had a holoscreen still hovering over them, and¡­If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Wait, why dripping?


    It took a moment to register. I stood there watching, too engrossed to move, as Britt¡¯s face paled and colored as the lights of the screens brightened and dimmed.


    It¡¯s funny how the mind reacts in a crisis. Sometimes it springs into action, injecting shots of adrenaline into the body in an attempt to spur a reaction, any reaction, to try and somehow solve the issue. Sometimes it grows cold, and analytical, its sense of awareness heightened well beyond its normal levels so crucial details aren¡¯t missed. Sometimes it shuts down entirely, leaving the body to fend for itself, its only concern protecting itself from whatever danger it perceives. And sometimes it zeroes in on one specific aspect of the situation, meaningful or not, that it can¡¯t quite seem to process, and uses it as a mental anchor, a rallying point for its scattered wits. This time, mine chose the last. It focused on the dripping from Britt¡¯s wrist, and insisted on cataloguing each drop as it oozed out of the opened artery, gathered on the scab-encrusted edge of the wound, spilled over onto his skin, ran down his hand, formed a pregnant bead on the tip of his middle finger, and fell, splattering onto the pool on the floor, and soaking into the congealing mass.


    Drip¡­


    Drip¡­


    Drip¡­


    Twenty seconds per drop, give or take a couple. Barely relevant, of course, but that¡¯s how long it took for me to grasp the real significance of the scene. That dripping¡­it meant Britt couldn¡¯t have been dead going on four days. That dripping put his time of death at a couple hours gone at most.


    Ramsay was busy calling orders to the others, so I inspected him more closely. I¡¯m no medic, and I wasn¡¯t exactly sure what I was looking for, but I figured it was better than standing around doing nothing while I waited for the techy stuff. I picked up his arm and traced my finger over the wound, feeling for the skin and flesh through the sterine of my bio-suit. Another squirt of arterial red dribbled through the gap. It danced and sheeted off my gloves before splashing into the puddle on the floor. Everything felt normal as far as I could tell. Definitely not someone that had been dead for the better part of a week. And definitely exsanguinated.


    Britt¡­


    My throat closed up, and I felt the searing pinch behind my eyes of tears not allowed to flow. He¡¯s really gone¡­

 Chapter 5

    I¡¯d imagined this moment a thousand times over the past few days. One can never really prepare oneself, but I thought I¡¯d done my best, and over the course of all those rehearsals I¡¯d convinced myself I¡¯d be alright. But seeing it now, feeling it, holding it in my sterine hand, I realized how wrong I¡¯d been.


    Britt, old pal¡­how will I get on without you?


    Memories darted this way and that, filling my head with their comet¡¯s tails of distraction and emotion. Memories of times when Britt had pulled my ass out of the fire, or been there through the worst of times, or helped laugh off an epic failure, both in coding and in life. Memories of girls we¡¯d hit on with varying degrees of success¡­memories of assignments we had taken, pulling each other through all-nighter after all-nighter just to keep ourselves afloat when we¡¯d been in over our heads¡­the vacuous immemories of being blackout drunk together, using alcohol and sometimes worse to blow off steam when we had somehow, someway kept a nostril above water. And then that one time at D¡¯Antonio¡¯s, when I¡¯d been hung up on that girl that had left me earlier that fall, and Britt had refused to let me waste another lovely autumn evening moping around an empty flat, and we¡¯d met the men who changed our lives¡­


    No, I told myself. Not now. There will be time to mourn, but not right now. Now there is a job to do.


    I let go of his wrist and watched, detached, as it pendulated back to its resting position. A red jet of accumulated droplets gushed out all at once, joining their kin in the mess below. I tried to ignore it, and instead checked out the screen behind him. It showed blank, like they always do after periods of inactivity, pulsing its suggestive pulse in a field of unmarred blue. I paged back once, then again and again, through a double-handful of blanks, until I came to a page that was filled with¡­text? Why text? I thought to myself. The holoscreens were more than capable of projecting voice or video. They could even render complete three-dimensional scenes if needed. Why did Britt bother with text?


    No, not even text! I realized as I swiped back through a few more pages, just the basic elements of text¡­upstrokes and downstrokes, crosses and loops, arranged randomly across the page! It looked like the pidgin markings of a toddler barely learning how to write. What a waste of time!


    I swiped through all of it. I sent the screen reeling with a wave of my arm, and only stopped it when I saw something I recognized.


    It was a conference room. Dimly lit, with only a few soft incandescents reflecting off the mahogany table from the fixtures up above. A console twinkled to one side, its variegated data bulbs sparking and fading in every color of the rainbow. A bank of plaques comprised the other, each recapping the life and times of a Lead Participants, past or present. I tried to read one of the nearer, but the edges of the projection were distorted by that fish-eye view our Bitshare lenses tended to lend to anything they captured.


    A lone figure hunched over a holoscreen at the far end of the table, looking a bit pathetic as it sat amidst a row of empty seats ¨C me, less than a week ago, tired and a little worn but still managing to look a lot more human than I thought I¡¯d ever feel again. A smaller image of Britt projected on the bottom-right corner of the display, showing what his audience was seeing. His lips were moving. Playback of our final call.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°¡­Cha¡­thi¡­we might r¡­ly be on t¡­omething here.¡± The audio started to come online. It came in a little scratchy, which made it tough to catch the first few words, but it smoothed out as it went. ¡°Remember those strains you had us looking at a while back? The ones you sent in stasis cubes, about three months ago?¡± Britt paused while I bobbed my head, agreeing that indeed, I had. Lancers, they had been, though to potentially re-awaken dormant cycles in the body. Grow back hair, strengthen teeth, even re-start menses in women that had been through menopause already¡­that sort of thing. I hadn¡¯t told them what they were, or what I had in mind for them down the road. I¡¯d just needed them catalogued, and these guys seemed to have the time. They sure as hell weren¡¯t going anywhere. ¡°Well,¡± Britt continued, ¡°Charles thinks he found a way to modify one of the strains, and make it compatible with Miller¡¯s hardware. They¡¯re going to try splicing them together this evening.¡±


    ¡°Sounds fascinating,¡± I mumbled, and swiped through a set of notes (which weren¡¯t even from that meeting, I remembered as I watched it play). ¡°Remind me why again?¡±


    There was a moment of silence as Britt gathered himself, obviously flustered from having to repeat himself. ¡°Well,¡± he drawled as I was saying earlier, the tech has gotten smart enough and small enough to penetrate some of the larger viruses and replace portions of their RNA sequence. Miller¡¯s got it so smart it can work its way into the reproduction sequence and pass its code ¨C or it¡¯s ¡®genes¡¯ if you will ¨C on to the next generation.¡±


    ¡°And?¡± I interrupted, perusing my text. The minutes from the diamondhead, that¡¯s what they were. I was catching up on all the dust-ups from their most recent soiree. ¡°We¡¯ve been doing that for years.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Britt agreed, ¡°we have. But here¡¯s the fun part: Miller¡¯s can do all that while still accepting inputs from the tower.¡± He paused and leaned back in his chair, letting the gravity if his statement sink in.


    It worked. My shoulders perked, my eyebrows rose, and I set the holoscreen aside. ¡°So¡­¡± I reasoned, ¡°with this new tech, you¡¯re saying we may have a way to code a pop of cybernetics AFTER they enter the virus?¡±


    ¡°Bingo!¡± The image of Britt in the corner of the screen smiled and tapped its nose. The Bitshare lens followed his finger, seeming to almost echo his enthusiasm. The room felt suddenly less cramped than it had a minute or two before. The mahogany shone a little brighter. Even the data bulbs seemed to notice, syncing up most their phasings so that, for a moment, they appeared toe a single line. But it didn¡¯t last long. A second later they were back to their random, multicolored mess. Britt continued, ¡°So, no more guess-and-check approach to coding. No more days-long processes of sequencing and introduction only to find there was one tiny error on line four hundred eighty-seven thousand five hundred ninety-one that causes the code to fail, no more realizing too late that the synchro-cells in the fertilization cycle weren¡¯t as effective as we thought, and going back to the drawing board when we thought we¡¯d had it pegged. No more watching helplessly as sample after sample dies because we turned up the volume on this trait or that just a touch too high during recombination. If this works the way we think it will, we¡¯ll be able to take an experiment set that used to take months and run it in¡­¡±


    ¡°Hours,¡± I finished for him.


    The pint-sized Britt smiled again and nodded. ¡°If it works the way we think it does we¡¯ll be able to seed a single sample and keep it as a sort of ¡®starter culture,¡¯ and run our variants from that. We won¡¯t have to start from scratch each time. We¡¯ll just twiddle the code for each as we pull it from the main supply.¡± His grin widened further, if that was possible, showing the china gleam of teeth I¡¯m not sure I¡¯d seen before. ¡°And that isn¡¯t even the best part.¡±


    I felt for the holoscreen and tilted it with a gentle hand. It disappeared from view as it faced me with its narrow edge. He had my full attention now. ¡°There¡¯s more?¡±

 Chapter 6

    ¡°Mmm-hmm. By randomizing the polarity of one of the comm lines, Miller thinks he get the bots to split themselves into two groups: one that keeps listening to the tower, taking further instructions as it sees fit, and one group that talks back, telling us what it sees! For the first time we¡¯ll be able to get a worm¡¯s-eye view of what¡¯s going on inside each sample. We¡¯ll know exactly how often each introduction is successful and how often it fails. When it fails we¡¯ll know which line of which section of code it was trying to introduce when it did, and to what part of the sequence it was trying to attach itself. We¡¯ll be able to see how often it killed or otherwise incapacitated the host in the attempt. When it succeeds we¡¯ll be able to see how smoothly it transmits itself, if the virus noticed the change or if it fought back and how, if the modified specimens were able to realize their reproductive advantage and thus permeate the sample as intended or if it was a pyrrhic win and the trait just became part of the scenery. We¡¯ll be able to see how often the virus can re-introduce portions of its original sequence back into the code, and, when this happens, if the results are a mangled mess of old and new or if they yield a viable mutation that poses a threat to the desired result. We¡¯ll be able to see when a virus somehow re-codes a bot and turns it against the rest of the sample. In short, up until now, we¡¯ve always been forced to grade our efforts pass-fail, and if it failed, we guessed at why and started over. With the new tech we¡¯ll be able to letter-grade a slew of different attributes.¡±


    I put my hands behind my head and leaned back in my chair, playing back the last few sentences and trying to process what he¡¯d said. It wasn¡¯t easy. ¡°So¡­¡± I began uncertainly, feeling my way from one island of comprehension to another, ¡°not only will you be able to run each variant faster¡­you¡¯ll be able to write more targeted code each time?¡±


    Britt grinned again, and actually laughed a bit this time, that breathy chuckle that had helped him save himself (and, I¡¯m not to proud to admit it, me as well) from going home alone so many times over the years. ¡°So that¡¯s what you¡¯re doing with all your surface time?¡± he joked, ¡°spending it all at the bar? Have you already forgotten that sexy little number?¡± He jerked his thumb at the panoramic holoscreen that dominated the wall behind him, and through it to the state-of-the-art processing unit it concealed. ¡°We won¡¯t HAVE to! Once we get the bots talking back and forth with the tower, IT will write the code for us! That was the whole point of all the programming Rauch and his team have done these past six months¡­to get the tower ready to accept the billions of feeds the bots will be sending, process the data, interpret the results, and re-write the code based on what is and is not working.¡±


    I nodded, partially in contemplation, and partially in feigned agreement, while I fit the rest of the pieces together.


    Then I grinned as wide as he had.


    ¡°Ramsay!¡± The shout came from somewhere in the living quarters. It sounded like Bergman, but it was hard to tell in the suffocating acoustics of the bunker. ¡°Room Four!¡± Ramsay eyed me, nodded briefly, then ran off. His way of saying carry on, you¡¯ve got this under control.


    I shrugged and turned my attention back towards the holoscreen. The images of Britt and me were getting ready to talk budgets and requisitions and other administrative mumbo-jumbo, so I swiped it forward, hoping for something I didn¡¯t already know.


    ¡°¡­a little disappointing, but not unexpected. These things almost never work on the first try. You say you¡¯ve got a get-well plan?¡± ¡°Well, I don¡¯t know if I¡¯d call it a plan, but there seem to be some irregularities in the Sarien lines. So that¡¯s where we¡¯ll focus next.¡± ¡°The Sarien lines, huh? So it must have flamed out completely?¡± ¡°Well, you¡¯d think so, but¡­here, have a look¡­¡± Britt, conferring with Rauch and Miller after the first, apparently unsuccessful, attempt at introduction. I listened to a few of the details and then swiped on.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°¡­again with the chipped beef? I swear to God, every time he pulls KP¡­¡± Rauch, grumbling about Miller¡¯s menu choices as a few of them sat down to eat. Pass.


    ¡°¡­we all knew when we signed up for this that we¡¯d have to make some sacrifices¡­¡± Charles moderating a spat between Rauch, wearing only a T-shirt and briefs, and a girl whose name I couldn¡¯t remember, dressed in a pastel robe with goop plastered on her face. Yawn.


    ¡°¡­positively brilliant! Why didn¡¯t we think of that before? Well, it looks like you¡¯ve got it licked, at least as far as THAT¡¯S concerned. I think we¡¯re ready to introduce this afternoon¡­¡¯ getting warm. One more swipe, enough to advance the feed a few more hours. Enough so I could see the second introduction. It lurched forward in a blur, then settled on Britt, Miller, Rauch, and the girl gathered around the Tower, staring, slack-jawed, at the data feeds skittering like startled bugs across the background of the holoscreen.


    ¡°Wow,¡± Miller breathed as he admired the results. ¡°At first I thought it was another dud, but¡­wow.¡±


    ¡°Why wow?¡± Britt asked. ¡°What¡¯s it doing? What do all these pictures mean?¡± He stood behind the others with his arms folded across his chest, eyes flitting back and forth across the ever-changing screen.


    ¡°What¡¯s it doing?!? It¡¯s working!¡± Miller didn¡¯t take his eyes off the screen. ¡°It¡¯s doing exactly what we want it to! At first I thought it was another dud because we didn¡¯t see any action for the first twenty minutes or so, but it isn¡¯t! The bots are feeding back to the tower, and the tower¡¯s talking to the bots, re-coding them based on the feedback it¡¯s getting!¡± He pointed at one of the bugs sashaying across the middle of the screen. A black one, depthless and hollow, edged in a skin of red. ¡°Look! That one just had its intro logarithm re-coded halfway through the synchro-sequence and survived when it should have died! And that one there!¡± He pointed towards and aqua blob extruding its way towards the upper edge. ¡°The virus tried to reverse its polarity and ice out the intruder, but the tower wouldn¡¯t let it! It sent a fresh batch of signals to keep it on the straight-and-true! And this brown one, here in the corner! It wasn¡¯t able to replicate after integration, but this old girl spotted the damage and had the tower repair the sequence! I don¡¯t know why it took so long to see it, but¡­¡± he stopped and stood, one finger in the air, as if something had just occurred to him. ¡°The subjects!¡± he exclaimed.


    Britt turned his head toward Miller, his posture hunched over the console of the tower now one of anger rather than fascination. ¡°The WHAT!?!¡±


    Miller fidgeted and dodged Britt¡¯s gaze as he replied, ¡°well, ah¡­don¡¯t be mad, but I was feeling pretty good about this one, so I, ah, stuck a couple in the chamber. You know, to see what effect the viruses might have.¡±


    Britt rolled his eyes. There was anger in the gesture, and a tongue-lashing he had given Miller more than once before, but his curiosity won in the end. He nodded, and Miller ran to check on them before he changed his mind. Britt went back to staring at the data on the holoscreen. ¡°Subjects!¡± he whispered, halfway turning towards the girl and halfway grumbling to himself. ¡°Why the HELL would he introduce subjects this early in the process?¡± He watched as another few thousand bugs chittered across the screen, roiling, burgeoning, crystallizing, and sometimes disappearing as they moved. His eyes moved awkwardly, almost randomly, as if they weren¡¯t sure where to look, and his posture was a bit standoffish. He was clearly having trouble making sense of it all. ¡°What kind of viruses do we have in there anyways?¡±


    ¡°One of our own creation,¡± the girl answered. ¡°A blank we whipped up specifically for tests like these, where we¡¯re more interested in how the bots are working than we are in the resulting strains. It¡¯s based on one of the Lancers HQ send down, oh, gosh, when was that? A month ago now? But this is a pretty de-fanged copy. Harmless, easy to work with, and inherently contagious enough that we don¡¯t have to worry over-much about transmission.¡± She smiled a mischievous smile, and rubbed her hand on the edge of the console. ¡°We¡¯ve been calling it ¡®Professor Haggarty,¡¯ after one of the Mech Eng tenures at MIT. Because it helps us learn all kinds of interesting shit, but it doesn¡¯t have any practical applications of its own.¡±


    Britt snorted, and almost-smiled back. A few more seconds ticked by. A few thousand more miasmas of data manifested themselves on the screen. ¡°Professor Haggarty¡­¡± he chuckled, still mesmerized. ¡°I like it.¡±

 Chapter 7

    I swiped forward again, asking myself why I¡¯d never heard that name before. From the way she spoke I could tell they had used it before, for other tests, if not this one, where the virus was largely academic. It shouldn¡¯t have been new to me. For probably the thousandth time I scolded myself for not paying enough attention to the details of the project, and to the people that were making it happen. Other than Britt, I barely know a thing about them that wasn¡¯t in their dossiers. Their sleep cycles, their dining habits, the way they took their coffee in the morning, who got along with whom, and who just kind of got along. Their interests outside of work, what they talked about at meals, what each of them had waiting for them had they finished in the bunker¡­all thing things I should have known to help me shape them into a team. I didn¡¯t even know the girl¡¯s name, for Christ¡¯s sake. Why didn¡¯t I know that?!? Britt must have mentioned her a dozen times, and it wasn¡¯t like there were scores of people amongst which to get lost. I should have had that stuff down cold.


    And then that always got me wondering¡­what else did I miss? Were there signs I should have seen? Hints that things were getting skewed? Could I have prevented a catastrophe if I had caught them and stepped in? Noticed Charles, perhaps, getting burned out by the schedule and given him some R&R before he made a key mistake? Or made Miller¡¯s frustration, building layer after layer with every unsuccessful launch, and maybe put some guard rails up before he went too far too fast when things finally started to click? Could I have¡­


    Swipe


    No, I told myself. No use thinking like that. What¡¯s done is done, and there isn¡¯t any changing it. We¡¯ve got a job to do down here. That¡¯s all that matters now.


    I shook my head to clear the cobwebs and tried to focus back on the holo¨C


    ¡°Holy Sh-¡± My blood froze. My woolgathering fell off a cliff, and I found myself starting through the translucence of the holoscreen. Staring into Britt¡¯s face¡­his real face, drained and lifeless since we¡¯d entered, and into his real eyes, which somehow, suddenly, stared directly at me¨CStolen story; please report.


    No, I realized, and sighed with relief. Not the real Britt. Just another image on the holoscreen, rendering in such a way that it overlaid him perfectly. It gave the impression of a single, composite Britt that was dead everywhere except the eyes.


    I took a couple of breaths and wondered why the screen would show me this. An image of Britt, by himself, sitting in this selfsame chair, with the Tower dark and silent behind him. As it queued up the scene I shifted a few feet to one side so that it wouldn¡¯t be between me and the body. I expected it to follow me as I did, tilting as needed to maintain its facing with the audience, but it remained where it was, hovering a couple of feet in front of the body. Britt must have put some sort of lock on it before he¡­ah, logged off.


    I rose from my crouch and picked over the body, searching for the device he¡¯d used. The pockets of his coat were empty so I patted down his khakis. A badge, a wallet, a universal identification device that was useless now but, while he was alive, would have combined with the electromagnetic signature of Britt¡¯s own body to grant him access to his condo, his office, his Mercedes, his bank account, and a smattering of other keyed receivers he didn¡¯t need down here in the lab and now would never need again¡­but nothing capable of holoscreen projection. I rolled the body over and checked the cavity of the chair, thinking it might have slipped out as Britt convulsed, then under the chair itself. I even dragged a couple of fingers through the blood, despite the fact that the puddle was far too shallow to conceal any known projection device. It sloshed around inside the crust that had formed around its edges, making a sort of volcanic pool, but did not yield any secrets.


    What the hell? I stood up and wiped my hand on the side of my suit. Which accomplished nothing, of course, since it was sterine wiping upon sterine, but my mind was elsewhere. I looked back at the screen and watched as it continued pulsing, first bright, then dim, fading in and out, over and over and over again. How is it¡­


    POW!


    A shot rang out from deep within the bunker. I ran after it.

 Chapter 8

    Where did Ramsay say they were going? I asked myself. Room Four? I tried to think where that would be, and traced a path there in my mind. I had an easy go of it; there had been plenty of time to study schematics during our waiting period.


    It only took a few seconds to cover the distance. I reached the door and swiped to open once, twice, three times without success, then realized that the blood smeared on my fingers must have interfered with my bio-signature and I tried it with my other hand. It slid open to reveal Ramsay standing behind Bergman and Banks, who were both on the floor in sniper¡¯s crouches, their rifles trained on a figure curled in the lower of the two bunk beds pressed into one of the corners. It was the girl from Britt¡¯s holoscreen, I realized. The one whose name I never learned. She rocked back and forth on the mattress, arms wrapped around her knees. The ghosts of tears streaked like ribbons down the sides of her face and chin. Her eyes were ringed with a Gothic blend of broken capillaries and smeared mascara, and I wondered again why these people bothered perpetuating the customs of the outside world down here in the bunker. Her left hand held a syringe full of a clear liquid which I could only guess was cytomorph, or something equally lethal. A holoscreen pulsed on the wall opposite her bunk.


    Ramsay raised a hand as I entered, warning me to go no further. He didn¡¯t want me there, I could tell. In the half-second¡¯s worth of attention he paid me I could almost see him trying to decide which would cause the least trouble; to make me leave or let me stay. I backed into the corner I deemed most out of the way. He seemed to accept that.


    Neither the girl nor the wall behind her showed any signs of having been fired upon. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±


    ¡°Shhhh!¡± Banks hissed from the butt of his gun. He pointed at his eyes through the plastic of his visplate, then at the girl, and I understood immediately. Hostage protocol one-oh-one: eyes and ears on the mark at all times. The fact that the person holding them hostage was themselves didn¡¯t make a lick of difference.


    ¡°You¡­¡± she sniffed, and did her best to choke back a sob. ¡°¡­you shouldn¡¯t have come.¡± She shot us a sidelong glance. Her emerald eyes were somehow both hateful and piteous at the same time. Her blonde hair framed her face in a way that might have been pretty if she wasn¡¯t so strung-out. Her feet shifted in her sheets, revealing toenails shelled in flaking polish that had once upon a time been pink. I couldn¡¯t tell if she was speaking to the four of us generally or to me specifically.


    Her grip tightened on the syringe. None of us engaged.


    ¡°You should have left us here to rot!¡± she wailed. ¡°You should have listened to Miller, and you should have sealed this place forever! You should have¡­you should¡­have¡­¡± her eyes drifted, transfixed, towards the holoscreen. The projection was massive in the confined space. It covered the entire wall, and it was filled, corner to corner, with scrolling lines of the same nonsensical markings I¡¯d seen on Britt¡¯s a few minutes earlier. Her lips moved idly as she stared. The pain in her eyes began to fade. Her body raised, joint by joint, as if drawn by unseen forces. The syringe started to twitch, gently, oscillating, like an engine stuck in neutral.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    I decided to press my luck. ¡°Ramsay,¡± I whispered from the corner of my mouth. ¡°What¡¯s going on? Why is she¡­whatever she is?¡±


    Ramsay hesitated, then shrugged. ¡°Your guess is as good as mine. She was like this when Banks and Bergman found her. Just sat there, staring at the wall, exactly like she is now. Except for the cyto,¡± he said, almost as an afterthought, and gestured toward the needle. ¡°She grabbed that when she noticed us.¡±


    ¡°When was that?¡± I remembered the gunshot I¡¯d heard that brought me here in the first place.


    ¡°A few minutes ago.¡± It was Banks who answered. ¡°Bergie and I found her in the sweeps, as soon as we got the door un-jammed. She¡¯s been locked in here for days.¡±


    ¡°Banks!¡± Ramsay hissed. ¡°Eyes!¡± Banks grumbled something foul under his breath, but he re-focused on his gun.


    And then she was back. The pain spilled back into her face, and she resumed her defeated posture. ¡°You should have bombed this place to slag,¡± she finished softly. Resolutely. The words of a person who has searched every corner of their soul and found their fifty-one percent. ¡°Not that it would have done you any good,¡± she whispered. ¡°It still would have gotten out. Somehow.¡±


    ¡°What would have?¡± I blurted it out without thinking, and regretted it immediately. The other three shot me daggers. I hesitated for a moment, then pressed on. To hell with protocol. ¡°The virus? Prof Haggarty?¡±


    ¡°How did you¡­?¡± Her eyes sparked at the mention of the nickname, and she picked her chin up off her chest. A shred of humanity crept back into her face. For the first time I noticed how emaciated she was. Her cheekbones looked like they were about to shred her skin.


    ¡°Britt¡¯s.¡± I answered. ¡°Out in the lab. There was a¡­¡± but I cut myself off when I saw her eyes sink and her head fall back to her knees. She already knew. Somehow.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± It took me a second to realize she was answering my original question.


    ¡°What do you mean ¡®it would have gotten out?¡¯ You mean it would have gotten out of the bunker? Out into the outside world?¡± The part of me that knew I¡¯d have to answer for such a breach thrashed in its imagined trap. My mind reeled, already preparing a defense. ¡°And how would it have gotten out anyways? The security is state of the art! How would it have survived the barrier? And the decon systems? And the hatch, and the tundra? What about the fail-safes built into the bots themselves? Wouldn¡¯t you have touched those off if everything else went off the beam?¡± I fired off questions as fast as I could think of them, not giving her a chance to respond. My eyes automatically scanned the room, searching for support, but they were met only by Ramsay¡¯s emotionless stare. The starkness of it stripped away some of my freneticism, and made me realize what I should have been asking from the start.


    ¡°And¡­why would that have been so bad?¡±


    The girl considered her syringe, and switched it to her other hand. Springs creaked as her weight shifted slightly to her side. Banks and Bergman re-focused their rifles, which each had slackened in the exchange, as if that could somehow stop her from, well, whatever it was they were trying to stop her doing. A bead of sweat that Bergman¡¯s biosuit hadn¡¯t been able to siphon off pooled in the rim of his visplate. ¡°How much did you see?¡±

 Chapter 9

    Screens again. The girl swiped at the enormous one opposite her bunk and cleared out all the lines of text. Clumps of it clung to the pulsing substrate, sticking stubbornly against the drift as if they were a pile of ash, and she were blowing it away. Not at all the turn-of-the-page transition I was used to from such things. It cleared to reveal, oddly enough, the same scene I¡¯d watched earlier, after the introduction of the Haggarty code.


    ¡°¡­what¡¯s going on in that head of his anyways?¡± It was Britt again, still in front of the holoscreen in the lab. The girl still stood beside him. I couldn¡¯t tell how much time had passed, but the afterglow must have worn off enough for them to talk of something else for a while.


    ¡°You mean Miller¡¯s?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± He turned to face her, taking his eyes off the code for the first time since watching Miller leave. ¡°Subjects! What kind of a moron introduces subjects this early in the process?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± the girl responded, aimlessly. ¡°He sounded pretty confident that this new variant was going to solve the recombination problem, and we¡¯ve been working so hard for such a long time that we just felt like we needed to see some¨C¡°


    ¡°Wait a while¡­.you KNEW about this?¡±


    ¡°Well, uh, kind of.¡± She shuffled her feet, and adjusted her grip on the console. ¡°He may have mentioned it this morning, but I thought he was joking around. I didn¡¯t know he was actually going to do it, and, well¡­you know how he gets.¡±


    Britt sighed. ¡°Yeah. I do. That¡¯s what I¡¯m afraid of. Why didn¡¯t you step in?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Normally I would have, but he seemed so sure this time, and he just went on about what a breakthrough it would be, and how it was going to change our craft, and the world by extension, and¡­I don¡¯t know. I guess I just got caught up in all the excitement.¡± Twice she tried to meet Britt¡¯s gaze, and twice she failed, her impish little smile falling sheepishly away. ¡°His passion is just¡­it¡¯s infectious!¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°Yeah, I know. But it¡¯s my job to make sure that passion doesn¡¯t get us shitcanned. We¡¯ll have to have ourselves a chat.¡± He checked the door Miller had exited, then the timer on the screen. He watched as it ticked off it seconds. ¡°What kind of subjects did he use anyways?¡±


    ¡°Ah¡­coneys, I think. The white ones,¡± she braced for the tongue lashing she was clearly expecting.


    ¡°CONEYS!?!¡± Britt¡¯s posture tensed, and for a moment it looked like she was going to get it. Then his shoulders slumped again, and his excitement, and perhaps partly some fatigue, overtook his outrage. For the moment, at least. ¡°And why, pray tell, would he skip straight to them?¡±


    ¡°Because the mice are pregnant. Both of them. He didn¡¯t want to put them through anything that might compromise the litter.¡±


    ¡°And the gerbils?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­uh¡­we¡¯re out of gerbils. We lost the last pair testing out those regen haploids last week.¡±


    ¡°Ah.¡± Britt, regarded the data again. Perhaps he was seething under the surface, and imagining all the things he¡¯d like to do to Miller. Perhaps he was merely remembering the days when he¡¯d been culpable of such, and he was finding understanding.


    He found something interesting on the control panel and studied it for second or two. His finger traced a pattern that, even from my view on the holo, I could tell was just an idle waste. The code behind him bubbled and squeaked, perhaps a hint more violently than it had before. ¡°You two aren¡¯t, ah¡­involved, are you?¡±


    She turned towards him. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened as they opened wide. Her lips curled in an embarrassed smile. She was pretty, I decided. More so than I would have guessed. ¡°What?!?¡± She squealed.


    ¡°Well! You work together all the time, you¡¯re both single, and you¡¯re relatively young. And God knows we¡¯ve been down here long enough for anyone to get a little antsy, I don¡¯t care who you are. Is it really such a stretch?¡±


    ¡°No!¡± She smiled coquettishly at the front of her coat. ¡°I mean, he does have a certain charm about him, and I can see why you¡¯d ask, but¡­no, I could never do anything like that!¡±


    ¡°Funny,¡± the girl said. The real girl, in the room, watching the holo by our side. Not the one in the replay. ¡°I believed that at the time.¡±

 Chapter 10

    ¡°You mean it wasn¡¯t true?¡± Banks asked. He and Bergman had let their firearms relax again. A quick glance at Ramsay was enough to know that yes, he saw it too, and that he accepted it¡­for now. He appeared to be evaluating the girl¡¯s grip on her syringe, which, I saw, had likewise slackened.


    ¡°No, it wasn¡¯t. I was falling for him. I just didn¡¯t know it then.¡± A smile crept across her face. Her eyes lit up in a way that accentuated the sliver of humanity she still clung to, and at the same time showed how much she¡¯d lost. She paid no attention as the her up on the screen itemized the reasons why she and Miller weren¡¯t right for each other. The irony was lost on her, apparently.


    ¡°We weren¡¯t really out of gerbils¡± she continued with a laugh. ¡°We still had those two from the regen tests. We hadn¡¯t tested anything much that day; they made it through without a scratch. But it was a drawn-out process with a lot of down time, and we had to find some way to pass it. Miller started talking in this squeaky little gerbil voice, describing the experiment from a gerbil¡¯s point of view, and acting like it was just another day at the office, and talking about his weekend plans and his gerbil wife and kids. He got me into it, and before long we were going back and forth, and having whole gerbil conversations about our unexamined gerbil lives, and I know it sounds stupid and childish and not at all professional but by the end of the test we¡¯d gotten pretty attached to the little guys. The next day we went to pull them again, for something riskier this time, and¡­I don¡¯t know. I guess he could tell I just wasn¡¯t ready to say goodbye. He took them out of circulation.¡±


    She was in a different kind of trance now. One I had no trouble at all understanding. ¡°Yeah, we were falling pretty hard. He could already see the life we were going to have outside¡­going steady, meeting parents, fighting and making up, getting married and moving out to a place in the suburbs with a big yard and good schools for our two or maybe three kids¡­he even named the gerbils after them! That is, he named the kids after the gerbils, or¡­well, we named the gerbils together that day, one apiece, as part of our game, and from then on, whenever he thought about the future, he gave the kids those same two names. Like it was a funny story we could tell when they were older, how we named them after the rodents that helped bring us together all those years ago. That sort of thing.¡±


    ¡°But like I said, I didn¡¯t know it at the time.¡± She turned the needle in contemplation. Bergman re-trained his rifle, but Banks left his at ease, unsure if this was a renewal of her threat. I didn¡¯t know how to respond. How did she find that out? Did Miller confide in her later on? That kind of cutie-pie talk wasn¡¯t at all the Miller I knew, but maybe he broke down in his moment of extremis? Or was there something more sinister going on here? As often happened in situations like these, the question I eventually asked was the one I already knew the answer to.


    ¡°But¡­you know it now?¡±


    She met my gaze. The spark in her eyes had faded, and the smile had left her face, leaving a sunken, drawn, yet somehow knowing look that seemed to hear my unasked questions.


    She swiped her holo in response.


    ¡°And does he always walk around in those sweat-stained T-shirts?¡± The girl on the screen was still rambling about Miller, or perhaps rambling on again¡­it wasn¡¯t clear how much time had passed. ¡°I mean, I know we¡¯re not going clubbing or anything, but we¡¯re not hanging out at the frat house either! We¡¯ve got team meetings, and conference calls, and the closed circuit. Why not class it up a little?¡±Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Britt smiled knowingly, content to let her dig as deep a hole as she liked. She was saved further embarrassment by the hydraulic hiss of one of the doors. It was Miller, back from the incubation room. He looked confused.


    ¡°Something wrong?¡± Britt asked.


    ¡°Dial it up.¡± Miller joined them at the control module and flopped into one of the chairs. ¡°Inky.¡±


    Britt obliged. He tapped a sequence of buttons on the console itself instead of swiping, as if he couldn¡¯t bear to swipe away from the code roiling on its surface. As if he didn¡¯t want to touch it.


    The screen phased to show the center of the incubation chamber, a bright room girdled in steel and pocked with airlocked ventilation, and the cage set up therein. It hung suspended at shoulder height, tethered by cables so it didn¡¯t sway but touching as few of the surfaces as possible. LifeStat systems whirred in the background, cycling on and off asynchronously as they worked to maintain atmosphere within the specifications allowed. Miller, featureless in his bio-suit, hunched over the cage with his back to the camera, tapping at the glass, observing. Two white rabbits trembled nervously within. One of them stood on its hind legs and pawed at the bars in an exploratory fashion, while the other gnawed at some pellets that had been set in one corner. The latter stared as it ate, its eyes like drops of the blackest oil pooled in its snowy fur.


    ¡°After this.¡±


    Britt nudged the playback forward three, four, ten full minutes as Miller rolled his fingers over in a get on with it kind of gesture. ¡°There!¡± Miller exclaimed at about the fifteen minute mark. ¡°That¡¯s where things went off the rails.¡±


    Britt re-started the replay. The rabbits had changed positions in the interval. The one at the pellets had eaten its fill and now was huddled beside the in the corner. The other sniffed around it in an oscillating arc, sussing out a way that it could sneak in for a bite or two.


    ¡°What are we ¨C ¡±


    ¡°Just watch,¡± Miller interrupted. ¡°Any second now.¡±


    The more active of the two inched its way towards the pellets. The other eyed it warily, watching it with oily eyes that seemed to pulse with pale blue light as it crouched deeper and deeper into its stance. Then, just as the first dipped its nose in for a bite, it attacked. Its legs flexed and its abdomen stretched as it leapt towards the other¡¯s throat. Its teeth gnashed a gleaming white in the harsh light of the chamber. Its whiskers, stippled on the ends with froth, quivered in the air.


    The other noticed, too late, the danger it was in. The attacker¡¯s teeth were at its neck before it mounted a defense. They sunk into the fur, thickest there, and burrowed to the flesh beneath. Bright blood sprang from the rift the opened in the skin. It smeared on the attacker¡¯s face and the victim¡¯s scruff alike, staining both a sickly pink, and matting down their pristine coats. The victim thrashed and snapped its jaws in an attempt to counter, but this availed it nothing save a mouthful of air and fluff. It kicked its legs in a blind panic, at its attacker, at the cage, at its bedding, at the empty air.


    The other held. Its jaws worked deeper into its victim¡¯s flesh, severing tendons, opening veins, gutting it one surgical snip at a time. Blood sheeted on its teeth. Its whiskers dripped with crimson oil. Its eyes, cold and dark, stared with an intense indifference as its victim¡¯s thrashing began to slow. Sinews hung like jungle vines, guide-wires from the pulsing goo in its scruff to the blood pooling on the floor. The victim kicked, feebly, a few times more, then collapsed. It lay on its side, twitching, for another minute or two as its body realized it was dead, then was still.

 Chapter 11

    The attacker held for several seconds. It too was still, but its statuesque entasis contrasted sharply with the lifelessness of the victim. Then, in one motion, it released its hold without ceremony and crept back towards its corner, dragging stuck-on bits of bedding with it as it moved. It nosed into the pellet dish and selected a morsel, which it nibbled as it hunched, as if rewarding itself for a job well done. The crumbs combined with the blood on its teeth to form a sickly paste.


    ¡°That should have been our first warning,¡± the girl in the room said. I jumped, startled, and diverted part my focus away from the screen to listen to her. It wasn¡¯t easy. The savagery of the murder ¨C my mind refused to use any other word than that to describe what I¡¯d just seen ¨C had commanded my attention. As did the ensuing conversation that Britt, Miller, and the girl were having as they viewed it from the lab. ¡°I guess it was, really. I mean, it¡¯s not like we ignored it or anything, but you know how these things go. We were so excited by the success of the code, and the way it was re-writing itself, that we assumed we¡¯d gotten it almost right. We figured we just had to tweak a few things here and there to iron out the wrinkles.¡± She tilted the needle this way and that, watching the liquid flow from one end to the other. ¡°We never could have guessed the truth.¡±


    ¡°What kind of mod did you queue up anyways?¡± Britt started the postmortem with Miller and the girl on the holo.


    ¡°Nothing¡± Miller answered, ¡°just a color change around the ears. About as harmless a mod as we¡¯ve got in the library.¡± He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. ¡°I actually thought it was taking for a minute or two. Their fur appeared to be mottling a bit, though not where I¡¯d expected. But then¡­well, you saw what happened.¡±


    ¡°What was the truth?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Any idea what went wrong?¡± Britt asked.


    ¡°Not a clue. Could have been a misfire in the disintegration sequence, could have been a mistranslation in the communication modules. Heck, for all we know it could have been a random mutation that triggered an atavistic predisposition for aggression. We won¡¯t know ¡®til we get in there.¡±The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    She shifted, and moved her feet again, burying her toes once more. She tugged the sheets over her to her knees and curled up against the wall, where the shadows of the bunk above fell across her face and neck. Her next words seemed to catch in her throat. ¡°That we¡¯d gotten it exactly right,¡± she whispered.


    ¡°So where do we go from here?¡± Britt asked.


    ¡°Same place we always go.¡± Miller closed his eyes as he spoke, as if the weight of the past few hours was all rolling up on him. ¡°We¡¯ll take a look at the logs, pick through the code, find out what went wrong and when, and see what we can do about it. And then we¡¯ll try it all again. Don¡¯t worry,¡± he yawned, ¡°we¡¯ll figure it out. We always do.¡±


    She swiped.


    The screen went dark. No, not dark¡­blank, but pulsing with the same pale light I had seen in the lab. The afterimages of Miller and Britt faded until they might have only been in my head. More of the pidgin text replaced them. A few to start with, peeking out here and there like the first songbirds after a storm, then more, until they covered the screen as before. But¡­there was something different about them this time. I inspected them more closely, not sure what I was looking for, exactly, but there seemed to be a sort of pattern that I could almost make out this time around, a sort of rhythm in the chaos of the music of the universe I had half a chance of picking up if I only listened long enough. I took a step towards the screen and squinted for a closer look.


    ¡°It¡¯s getting to you.¡± Her words were flat and emotionless, but they would not be ignored. I stopped in my tracks.


    ¡°What is?¡±


    She settled deeper into her corner, as if trying to back away. ¡°The virus.¡± She swallowed. ¡°It¡¯s getting stronger.¡±


    I looked at Ramsay, then at Banks and Bergman, wondering if any of this made sense to them. Ramsay looked as confused as I felt. Banks and Bergman gave me nothing, as if they had written off her comment as the ramblings of a lunatic. I wished I could do the same.


    ¡°God, we were such fools,¡± she mused with a derisive snort. ¡°We came back with guns a-blazing, throwing everything we had at it like it was a problem we needed to solve¡­like there was a problem that we could solve.¡± She rested her elbows on her knees. Her joints jutted out like the knots on a stick of birch. ¡°We even thought we had some answers. We tweaked the code a couple of times and ran a few more tests, and none of them ended like that first test did. Even the first wasn¡¯t a total loss. We kept the survivor for observation, and she got along fine after that. She even started to show some of the brown that Miller coded her for. But by the end of the following day we started seeing things we never could have imagined.¡±

 Chapter 12

    The holo stirred. Pseudopods of color bloomed in its margins. They felt their way across the display, sucking in symbols as they crept. I couldn¡¯t explain why, but I got the impression that they represented something I was supposed to recognize. That they were people I was supposed to know.


    I checked on the girl, wondering if she saw it too. She did, but didn¡¯t seem alarmed. I played the past few seconds back in my head to see if she had activated it with a swipe, but if she had, I hadn¡¯t seen it. ¡°We actually celebrated when it happened,¡± she said, ¡°if you can imagine that. That¡¯s the normal reaction, right? Create an apocalyptic plague, and toast each other with champagne?¡± She laughed mirthlessly at that. Mirthlessly, and all alone. ¡°I still remember it so clearly. Miller and I were out in the lab demonstrating our results to Charles, Rauch, Britt, and the rest of them. We had the coneys back in the chamber, and they were hooked up to a rack of diodes.¡±


    The blobs on the screen elongated and flexed. The idea that I was supposed to know them grew stronger. The one on the left, in particular, impressed me as something that was trying to make a connection.


    ¡°It was Miller¡¯s idea, originally. He noticed the second pair had an interesting way of interacting, so he put them on the EKG and noticed that their alpha waves were incredibly similar. When one showed signs of stress or excitement, the other did too. When one mellowed, the other did soon after. He split them up to see if they were reacting similarly to external stimuli, but the results were the same. It was almost as if they were¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­of one mind,¡± a faint voice finished for her. It sounded vaguely like Miller¡¯s, but thin and faraway, as if spoken through a muzzle. The girl paused, then gestured towards the holo as if to say ¡®yeah, what he said.¡¯


    ¡°He had them in separate chambers at this point,¡± she explained. ¡°He¡¯d split the diodes so he could do it¡­keep them both plugged in to the EKG and still hold them in separate rooms. Though at this point I¡¯m not sure we needed it. The holoscreen was split as well¡­the readings from coney number one were showing on the left half, and the readings from number two were showing on the right.¡± The faint voice of Miller scratched out something through a wash of feedback¡­too much feedback for me to make it out. The girl interpreted, ¡°he said, ¡®now watch what happens when I introduce some food into one chamber, but not the other.¡¯ Here he presses a couple of buttons. Everyone watches as the video insets show a dish of pellets slide into the chamber on the left. Miller says, ¡®as you know, these chambers are quarantine-quality. There is zero chance that the coney on the right could see the food, smell the food, hear of it from its partner, or otherwise know of its existence. But watch¡­¡¯ our eyes are glued to the screen as brainwaves fill first the left half of the screen, then the right.¡± Another wash of feedback mixed with snippets of Miller¡¯s voice. Another chance for the girl to translate. ¡°¡®See how similar the patterns are, both consistent with awareness of food.¡¯ He gets a little flustered here as he notices something on the display.¡±


    ¡°Why did you add the overlay?¡± It was Britt¡¯s voice this time, not as staticky as Miller¡¯s, but also faint and faraway.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°That was Britt,¡± the girl said. ¡°He asked ¡®why did you add that overlay?¡±


    ¡°I heard.¡± I was still trying to puzzle out the meaning of the blobs.


    ¡°I know.¡± She gestured towards the rifle-holders. ¡°But they didn¡¯t.¡±


    What the hell? Banks and Bergman offered no indication that they noticed anything amiss, despite the cryptic message and the odd way the screen was acting. I studied the holo, wondering why, and more importantly, how, she was showing it the way she was.


    ¡°Here they¡¯re going back and forth about the overlay that¡¯s popped up in front of the patterns. It¡¯s hardly worth noting, in and of itself¡­just a shorthand of the signals the background was receiving, but it¡¯s causing a row because Miller doesn¡¯t know where it came from. He and I share a look but I shake my head no, I don¡¯t know either. He checks with Rauch and gets the same response. He looks confused and starts to play with the controls, and, oh hell, I¡¯ll just queue it up.¡±


    She swiped. The pseudopods resolved into human projections. Miller stood in the center, at the controls as the girl had said. Rauch and the girl stood to his right. Britt emerged from the one on the left¡­the one that I¡¯d sensed calling to me earlier. That made sense, though I couldn¡¯t have said why. The backgrounds of the two halves of the holo chattered with the different readouts; the peaks and valleys of the EKG scrolling horizontally across the background, and on top of that a ghostly scroll-up that showed, in plain pictures, what appeared to be a trended summary.


    ¡°¡­and how did you get it to translate like that anyways?¡± It was Britt again, still asking about the overlays. ¡°I know that software ¨C it won¡¯t do it. It can¡¯t translate into anything, let alone graphics like these.¡±


    ¡°I¡­didn¡¯t,¡± Miller pecked at the controls. He locked on one in the center of his interface, and hit it ten or twelve times in a frustrated crescendo, as if he could somehow get results if only he pressed hard enough. ¡°I don¡¯t know what they¡¯re doing there.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re pretty spot-on, whatever they are. Did you see how the one on the left showed an image of the rabbit eating its pellets, just as the EKG spiked with hunger signals? And then the one on the right showed an image of berries and grains, but indistinct, as if knew there was some kind of food somewhere but not what kind or how to get it. And look now on the left, as she finishes eating¡­the EKG shows satiety and restfulness, and the images show her taking a snooze. But¡­hello, what¡¯s this?¡± He pointed as the image multiplied and split, like light passing through a prism. The first of the copies peeled away, but remained an image of her resting after her meal. The next three floated apart, and showed her eating again; in one the dish was at its current level, then half, then just a few crumbs in the bottom of the bowl. The fifth image showed the dish, still half-full, being whisked away by an unseen force through the slot in the side if the glass, and the sixth showed a rabbit pawing at the slot thereafter. The seventh showed her lying, emaciated, in the corner of the chamber, her breathing strained, clawing feebly at nothing. The EKG behind them all peaked and valleyed schizophrenically.


    ¡°Is she¡­¡± Britt ventured. The real rabbit from the feed twitched her head from side to side. Her eyes darted from the pellet dish to an unnamed nothing at the corner of the camera¡¯s view and back again. ¡°Is she planning? Those EKG lines are consistent with cognitive thought and forward-planning, and the images seem to represent a range of possible outcomes.¡± He moved closer to the screen, eyes alight. ¡°I think she¡¯s planning! She¡¯s using past experiences to decide how much to eat now and how much to save for later, and she¡¯s weighing the risks and rewards of each! And we¡¯re seeing it all right there on the screen!¡±

 Chapter 13

    By this point Miller had given up on the controls and was staring at the screens with the rest of them. But, while the others gawked at the overlays and video feed on the left-hand screen, he alone seemed to notice something on the right. He approached it at a measured pace.


    ¡°Let¡¯s take away the pellets,¡± Britt called out to no one in particular. He didn¡¯t take his eyes off the screen. ¡°I want to see how it reacts.¡± There was a small scramble as Rauch, Charles, and the girl all moved at once. Miller reached the right-hand screen and stared, transfixed. By what, it was impossible to tell.


    Rauch reached the controls and pecked a few of them in order. Coney number one swiveled its head towards the pellets as they disappeared into the load cell on the other side of the cage¡¯s wall. The suite of images condensed and shifted. The one of the pellets being whisked away sharpened, while the one of her resting phased in, then out again. The three of her nibbling at the bowl condensed back into one, then transformed into the one of her pawing at the holding bay, which subsequently blurred and then faded into nothing. The one of her pawing wavered, like the air above a car¡¯s exhaust, then it disappeared as well. The one of her emaciated and lying in the corner sharpened and slid to the front of the queue.


    ¡°She¡¯s extrapolating. She¡¯s wondering when her next meal will be, if it will come before she starves. Fascinating¡­let¡¯s try another test. Hit her with a shot of mist.¡± Jets sprayed from a distributor set in the ceiling. She tried to cower in her corner, but their coverage was absolute. Droplets beaded on her whiskers. Her ears twitched with the extra weight. The fur on her chin formed stringy clumps as moisture dribbled down her face. The look in her eyes was misery defined.


    Britt and the others gawked at the overlays, which showed her dealing with this new assault in a variety of ways. One had her trudging towards the opposite corner, which she knew from experience was the last to gather puddles when the mist persisted. One had her climbing up the side of the cage, scaling the walls with limbs spread-eagled like some kind of furry spider, and somehow blocking it to stop the distributor¡¯s flow. One had her waiting it out, hoping it would be short-lived. One still had her nibbling at the vanished pellets, like that would make it all okay.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡°Incredible,¡± Miller breathed.


    ¡°I know,¡± echoed Charles, not understanding. ¡°It¡¯s like we¡¯re seeing into her soul.¡±


    The girl slid away behind him. She and Miller shared a moment, pointing at the other screen. Even Rauch was thunderstruck, staring at the overlay while he dabbed at the controls. Britt, ever the technician, offered the only response I would have believed.


    ¡°More.¡±


    And so it went. They turned up the heat. They hit her with chill. They cranked up the ventilation system and opened the airlocks, generating as much of a wind as the construct would allow. They dimmed the lights to see if the overlays would function when the feed was dark, then hit her with beams, faint at first, then brighter and brighter, from a variety of angles. They sulfured the air. Each produced a sheaf of overlays. Some of them were pretty random ¨C the pulses of light, for example, djinned up images of her and her litter mates sucking at their mother¡¯s teat, and the sulfur prompted thoughts of predators hungry for a meal. But most were consistent with her suffering of the moment. The pellets never left her mind.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think there¡¯s any doubt,¡± Britt concluded, a tense hour and a half later. ¡°We¡¯re seeing her thoughts. Those bots of yours are taking the pulses from her brain and passing them on to the tower, which is interpreting, filtering, and expressing them in pictures we can understand. I have no idea how, or what part of the code we wrote is responsible, or why it forms the images it forms, or any of a million other things I¡¯m probably missing altogether, but the evidence is undeniable. It¡¯s reading her mind.¡± He turned back to the screen and scanned it, confused, a final time, fatigue plain on his face and in his posture. For a long time nobody moved.


    ¡°Boss?¡± It was Rauch who broke the silence. Britt turned to see him holding up a bottle of something corked and foiled, which he had snuck off and collected during one of the tests. The girl gestured with a rack of flutes that she had likewise smuggled in. ¡°With your permission?¡±

 Chapter 14

    Britt¡¯s confusion persisted for a moment, then broke into a slapstick grin. ¡°What are you waiting for?¡±


    Rauch popped the cork and poured. The passed the flutes around, pinching each at its slender stem. The crew accepted them with enthusiastic smiles, like acolytes at first communion.


    ¡°A toast!¡± Britt offered, once all had been served. ¡°To the team, for all your hard work and dedication¡­to Miller and Rauch, for their innovative programming¡­to Charles, for keeping us in A-one hardware¡­and to you, my dear,¡± he gestured towards the girl, ¡°for picking out that little bug, and making it something we could work with. To the past six months, full of late nights, early mornings, and all of the blood, sweat, and tears that each of us has poured into the project, both if failure and success¡­to the good people back at HQ, for the faith they¡¯ve shown in us, and for the resources they¡¯ve provided as we¡¯ve stumbled, fallen, and got back up again¡­to all those that have gone before, paving the way for days like this, the giants upon whose shoulders we are privileged to stand¡­and, most importantly, to the reason we¡¯re all here in the first place¡­to the advancement of the science!¡± Cries of ¡®here here!¡¯ and ¡®amen!¡¯ were heard amidst the clinking of glasses.


    ¡°We¡¯ve accomplished something very special here,¡± Britt continued, once the furor settled down. ¡°Something our predecessors have dreamt about since the first strings of ones and zeroes stored themselves in vacuum tubes: the ability to interpret impulses in the brain and express as common thought¡­all made possible by a truly decentralized approach to programming, where anyone from anywhere, whether man or machine, bug or bot, can help drive the next improvement, and shape its own development.¡± He took a sip of his champagne. His eyes widened as he did, as if something had occurred to him. He raised his glass again, stuttering against the awkwardness of his second toast. ¡°To true open source code!¡±Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    The playback dimmed as the celebrants joked, laughed, sipped, clinked, and their way through the rest of the bottle. The bunker buzzed with incoherent chatter. Even Charles, who I¡¯d never seen take a drink in all our years together, put down most of a glass. The mannerisms of one not used to the act, who lets himself get goaded into it for show.


    ¡°So when did it all go wrong?¡± I asked.


    The girl paused, her hand halfway through a swipe. ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°When did it go sideways?¡± I repeated. ¡°The playback makes it seem like the breakthrough of the century. How did we get from that¡± I gestured first towards the party fading out on the screen, then at the killing field the bunker had become, ¡°to this?¡±


    She finished her swipe. The last of the images voided the screen, leaving only ghosts behind. ¡°You still don¡¯t get it, do you?¡± She laughed a little as she spoke¡­the sardonic chuckle of a condemned whose only consolation is a perverse sort of pride in understanding their destruction in a way most others have missed.


    I shook my head.


    She scanned through the backlogs looking for another scene to queue up, then tapped at the air to make her selection. ¡°It¡¯s not the way the virus is coded that caused all this destruction. It¡¯s how we are.¡±

 Chapter 15

    The four of us cocked our collective heads and tried to puzzle out the meaning. We came up dry. I drifted towards the scene that was pixelating on the screen while we waited for her to elaborate.


    ¡°We weren¡¯t really sure when it happened. Miller was the first to point it out ¨C he always had an eye for details,¡± here her mouth twitched in another one of those heartbreaking half-smiles ¡°and that was about three days ago. But it was one of those things that happens slowly, over time, so it was easy miss. It might have happened earlier.¡±


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you check the playback?¡± I asked. Acting on reflex ¨C It was only after I spoke that I realized I had no idea what they would have been checking for.


    ¡°We did.¡± She shifted her weight forward and scooched her back against the wall, sitting up a little straighter, and moving more of her into the shadows. ¡°We tried, anyways. Charles started picking through it as soon as we saw what had happened. But by then it was so contaminated that, well¡­you¡¯ll see for yourselves soon enough.¡±


    The scene finished manifesting. It held for an expectant moment, then melted into motion. Miller, Rauch, and the girl all were working at Station One, the console at the front of the tower. This time Rauch was at the controls, swiping, tapping, zooming, and coding at the phase-boxes that popped up in patterns I couldn¡¯t even begin to follow, while Miller stood behind him, scanning. He looked¡­exhausted. He must have been, to cede the captain¡¯s chair the way he apparently had. His eyes were shot. His shoulders slumped. His whole body hunched over the back of Rauch¡¯s seat in a way that just seemed¡­defeated.


    ¡°He worked himself so hard that night. I don¡¯t think he¡¯d slept at all since our ¡®breakthrough.¡¯¡± She made a halfhearted pair of air quotes with her hands, working around the syringe in her left. They barely made it past waist-high. ¡°I don¡¯t know how he was able to stand, let alone code. It must have been forty-eight hours straight at that point. Two solid days of picking through these goddam lines.¡± She let her arms fall back to her sides. I noticed again how knobby her elbows looked when she let them hang. Like a tire iron wrapped in Spandex. I checked again the gauntness of her face, thankfully now hidden in shadow, and wondered what she¡¯d look like after


    (if)


    she got out of here, and got back to a normal life. How much of that pretty young thing I had seen on the playbacks would come back to her, and how much of that strain would stay? I sighed, and shook my helmet, once. It felt like such a waste. ¡°Rauch was pretty jazzed about it though. He¡¯d had some thoughts the previous day ¨C how to re-sequence some of the com-lines or something, he thought it might speed up the link with the tower ¨C and he was just dying to try them out. But as long as Miller held the reigns he wasn¡¯t going to get to. This was his shot.¡±


    ¡°Anything worth noting with this last round of mods?¡± Miller was asking. He called it back over his shoulder, towards the girl, who was working on the station pressed against the leftmost wall. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Negative.¡± She eyed her holos. One showed what looked to be rack of EKG outputs. The other gave the impression of a video feed of one of the coneys, but the angle made it hard to tell. ¡°Nothing we haven¡¯t seen already, anyways. Our second is still showing incredible levels of empathy for whatever the primary feels, but the other three are flatlining. At least as far as that¡¯s concerned.¡±


    Miller tapped his fingers on the back of Rauch¡¯s chair. ¡°So what are we missing?¡± he grumbled. ¡°Why can¡¯t we replicate those results?¡± He lowered his head and inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly, enough so that I wondered if he was going to fall asleep on his feet. He closed his eyes in concentration, and began ticking off points with his finger, moving his lips in a semi-audible whisper.


    ¡°¡­introduced randomization in the com-lines earlier than we have before¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­probably would have reacted in the Alabaster frame, which could have caused the¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­a loop that would have¡­¡± But here his whisper dropped too low, and the rest was indistinct.


    The other two listened to the first few snippets, then turned back to their screens. They studied and coded once again, but tentatively now, unable to claim their full attention while Miller traced his little puzzle. ¡°Bring up the original adenine sequence again,¡± he finally mumbled, not bothering to raise his head or open his eyes. ¡°The one from Monday¡¯s demonstration.¡±


    Rauch tapped frenetically at one of the frames trying to finish a blocklet of code, then did as Miller asked. Two more frames planed into view, these backed in reference green instead of the typical black. Miller busied himself in the text they displayed while Rauch pulled the frames he¡¯d been working with over to the second screen and resumed his assembly.


    ¡°What are we looking for this time?¡± the girl asked after only a few seconds. She approached Miller with hesitation, as if weighing the need to snap him out of his fugue against the risk of prompting an explanation that would only tax him further.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly,¡± Miller answered. His voice ground and caught with fatigue, like a garbage disposal sticking on a piece of bone. ¡°Something to do with interpretation and signal sharing. This loop here was designed to process the inputs from the sensory portion of the hosts after they had been re-trained, and this subroutine was supposed to transmit these findings back to the Tower in real-time. And they both seem to be doing what we wanted them to do, but¡­there¡¯s something else going on.¡± He brought a hand to his forehead and rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger, listening to the synthetic whoosh! the interface made every time Rauch sent up a line. He stayed that way for a long time. The girl took another step towards him and reached out a tentative hand, but resisted needling him a second time. She pulled back, an arm¡¯s length away, and fidgeted, as if unsure what to do with herself.


    ¡°Just look at the playback,¡± Miller reanimated, and gestured towards a third display, which had the visuals from the demonstration running on an infinite loop. ¡°We all saw the doe on the left, and the overlays the Tower showed us when we hit her with our various tests, and we¡¯ve analyzed them to death over the past two days. But pay attention to the guy on the right for a while. He was in a totally separate chamber with its own heat, light, ventilation, and soundproofing¡­there¡¯s no way he could have known what we were doing to his girlfriend. And yet, somehow, he reacted to it. Not as strongly as she did, but look at the overlays he was generating¡­like here, when we put her in cold, he curled up in his corner, and his overlay showed winter fur. And here, when we turned out the lights, he thought of foraging for food under cover of night. And notice how his hunger lines spiked when we first removed her dish. We weren¡¯t the only ones getting her feed.¡±

 Chapter 16

    Whoosh! Rauch sent up another line. ¡°How do you mean?¡± he asked.


    ¡°I mean the com-link subroutine didn¡¯t just talk back to the tower like we thought. I think¡­I think that somehow the bots found a way to talk to each other, and that allowed our second subject to experience at least a shadow of the sensations to which our subject was¡­subjected. And I want to know how it happened.¡±


    ¡°Then why are we looking at the adenine sequence?¡± Rauch asked, his voice tinctured with sarcasm and contempt.


    ¡°The adenine sequence was what we called the input/output portion of their programming.¡± The girl piped up behind me while Miller parried Rauch¡¯s question. ¡°I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Adenine is a carbon compound critical to cellular respiration. Its role in a process where materials enter and exit the cell, plus its dynamic nature within the cell as the respiration process occurs, make it a favorite Trojan horse for engineers like us as we try to sneak in our mods. That¡¯s why he wanted to call it up.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯ve been living in the com lines the past half-hour!¡± I tuned back in as Rauch defended his position. ¡±The adenine sequence is a waste of time.¡±


    Miller considered this for only half a second before rejecting it as chicken crap. ¡°Uh-uh,¡± he shook his head. ¡°The adenine sequence controls all the inputs and outputs to and from the virus portions of the cells. That¡¯s where we need to be right now.¡±


    ¡°You take an extra stupid pill this morning? I go through the adenine sequence every other week, with all the shit you¡¯ve got me running. At this point I know it better than I know my own cock. Trust me¡­whatever problem you think you have, it ain¡¯t there.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a freaking signal issue!¡± Miller was visibly frustrated now. ¡°Where else would could it be but in the transmits?¡±


    ¡°How about the signals themselves?¡± Rauch¡¯s tone softened. Perhaps he sensed the ground on which he tread was starting to get a little unsteady, and he sought to step more lightly. Or perhaps he sensed an opening, and didn¡¯t want his next remarks written off as a steamer¡¯s rave. ¡°If you¡¯re right about what happened here ¨C and I¡¯m not conceding that you are, mind you, just playing out the string ¨C but if they really were sharing sensations, it¡¯s not the transmitter that¡¯s the problem. Think about it. If, all of a sudden, your phone gets hols from random people, talking about shit that¡¯s got nothing to do with you, you don¡¯t get the phone checked out. You try and figure out why they¡¯re saying what they¡¯re saying, and why the hell they¡¯re saying it to you. It¡¯s the same here.¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    ¡°But there¡¯s nothing wrong with the signals.¡± This raised Rauch¡¯s eyebrows. Miller noticed, and paused begrudgingly. ¡°Okay, yeah, technically there is,¡± he conceded. ¡°We designed them to send updates back to the tower so it could adapt the assimilation sequence in real-time, and they¡¯re giving us so much more than that, so I guess, if pressed, I¡¯d have to say they¡¯re doing something not designed. But you know what I¡¯m talking about¡­the way they read each others¡¯ signals during that first demonstration. That¡¯s what I want to study. That¡¯s what I want to re-create!¡±


    Rauch only shrugged. ¡°Don¡¯t know what to tell you man,¡± he said, turning back towards one of his interfaces. He brought up a twelfth-or-thirteenth frame of white-on-black text on his side of the holo. ¡°That transmission sequence doesn¡¯t look any different today than it did on Monday. Only the message has changed.¡±


    ¡°Then why won¡¯t it WORK!¡± Miller hissed. He kicked at the wastebasket in frustration, hard enough to tip it over. It bounced once off the side of the console, then fell, spilling the remnants of half a dozen flash-packed meals for one onto the floor amidst a flurry of office detritus. The champagne bottle from Monday¡¯s celebration spilled out from beneath the pile and rolled lazily across the firmoleum, adding its tinkle to the general milieu. Rauch and the girl watched as it meandered on its untrue path. She moved briefly to clean up the mess, but Miller stopped her. ¡°No,¡± he said, sighing and putting a hand on her shoulder, ¡°leave it be.¡±


    He did the same, and shuffled nervously back towards Rauch¡¯s chair, resuming his position there. His hand shook as he used it to steady himself against its back. He touched his other to his forehead, covering his eyes for a moment, then ran it down over his mouth and through his scraggly beard. ¡°Bring up the, ah¡­bring up the adenine sequence again,¡± he stammered.


    ¡°It¡¯s up already,¡± Rauch replied. ¡°On your half of the holo. You asked for it a few minutes ago.¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± Miller said, as if noticing the frames for the first time, ¡°so I did. Well, let¡¯s study it then.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s what I¡¯ve been trying to tell you.¡± Rauch swiveled his chair around so he was facing Miller and the girl. The shift caught Miller by surprise, and almost sent him for a tumble as he flailed to save his balance. The tension between them spiked again, each holding the other liable with their respective stares. ¡°It¡¯s pointless to study the I/O coding. Its job is to take the inputs from the viruses, convert them into something the Tower can understand, and send them out into the world. There is nothing in there about controlling the receiving end, or encrypting them in any way. You need to look at the interpretation-slash-translation programming if you want to study that part of the process. And that¡¯s coded into the virus itself.¡±


    Miller put his hands in the pockets of his coat. The pockets bulged this way and that as he tapped his thumbs against his waist. Like rodents trying to escape. ¡°Yeah¡­¡± he said, ¡°but think about what you just said. ¡®Controlling the receiving end¡­¡¯ that¡¯s exactly where the issue is, on the receiving end. The anomaly here is that the hybrids aren¡¯t just talking back and forth with the tower like we thought they would¡­they¡¯re listening to each other as well. How is that not part of the input/output program?¡±

 Chapter 17

    Rauch sighed. He looked Miller in the eye, then let his gaze fall to the floor. He glanced at the girl for a moment before bowing his head in contemplation.


    ¡°OK,¡± he said when he came out of it ¡°let¡¯s try a different tack. Let¡¯s say you¡¯re going to mail a letter ¨C I mean actual, physical, ink and paper mail now, not just transmitted through the Post.¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t done it in years, but OK, I¡¯ll play along.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, me neither. But let¡¯s say you¡¯re mailing, like, a Christmas card to your grandma or something and you want that special touch¡­nostalgia, and all that shit. So you get it all written out on your fancy stationery with your felt-tipped pen, and you get the envelope addressed and credited, only when it comes time to stuff it your mind is elsewhere and you grab a circular for Bubba Boobalot¡¯s Adult Superstore by mistake, and that¡¯s what they deliver. Who do you blame when dear old granny hols you up and asks her what the hell you¡¯re trying to say? The post, for delivering exactly what you put in the envelope to the exact address you told them to, more or less exactly when you asked them to deliver it? Or yourself, for stuffing it with the wrong thing?¡±


    ¡°Well, myself I guess, but when we talked about this yesterday you said there wasn¡¯t anything wrong with the message.¡±


    ¡°There isn¡¯t! I¡¯m sure It¡¯s a perfectly fine message. It just doesn¡¯t mean anything the way it¡¯s being sent today. If the circular happened to be written in High Arcturian Script, and THAT¡¯s what you posted to granny, no harm done ¨C she just gets a bunch of gibberish and she throws it in the recycler. It¡¯s the same as if you never sent it at all.¡±


    Miller took a couple of steps towards the tower. Slow, shambling steps, using the minimum of muscle movements to accomplish the task. ¡°I see what you¡¯re saying,¡± he bent down and picked up a couple of the meal containers. The girl moved to help but Miller shook her off again. ¡°So let¡¯s say you¡¯re right ¨C and I¡¯m not conceding that you are, mind¡­just playing out the string,¡± he gave Rauch a halfhearted wink at being able to turn his words around on him, ¡°what do you propose we do?¡±


    ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t know¡­¡± Rauch turned back to the interface, made a few final pecks and swipes, and gestured towards his half of the holo. ¡°Maybe something about like this¡­¡±


    Miller and the girl moved in for a closer look. ¡°It still needs a lot of work,¡± Rauch explained, ¡°and it hasn¡¯t been tested yet, of course. But you get the idea.¡±


    Miller¡¯s lips moved as he read through some of the code. He traced some of the more complex portions with his finger, as if doing sums in the air. One could almost see him following arguments in the logic, pretending to be a packet of data getting run through Rauch¡¯s gonkulator. ¡°You really think this will work?¡± he asked.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°As written? First try?¡± Rauch threw his hands in the air. ¡°No idea. But eventually, if we keep at it. We need to get down to the cellular level of communication that we saw on Monday, and this will move in that direction.¡± He swiped at the interface to re-activate the frames, some of which had gone dormant as they¡¯d chatted. ¡°And even if it doesn¡¯t, we¡¯re bound to learn a thing or two. Just remember that ¡®work¡¯ is a relative term. Monday¡¯s demo didn¡¯t ¡®work¡¯ by the definition we had at the time...it was an aberration, albeit one we welcomed, well outside the expected range. It¡¯s only since then that we rewrote our definition of success, and it¡¯s only by this new definition that we¡¯re failing now.¡±


    ¡°But you think this will replicate the results? You think this will elicit the sort of empathetic responses we observed then?¡±


    ¡°Again, no idea. Near as I can tell it will. You¡¯re never sure with runs like these. Like I said, it could take a round or three.¡± He started on his code again. Lines of text began to appear, seemingly of their own accord. ¡°I might be able to give you a better answer if we had the genomes from the Monday strain, but it¡¯s a little late for that.¡±


    ¡°A limitation of the tower,¡± the girl clarified. ¡°It only tracked the bots at first. We designed it as a check-and-adjust for all the artificial code we were cramming down the virus¡¯s throats, and we only cared about the viruses to the extent that they were taking or not taking the insertions. We didn¡¯t sequence the virus halves at all. We forgot all about the other ways those things can change.¡± I tried to follow the sound of her voice, but failed. There was something different about it this time, something¡­not quite right. The pitch was just a little off, and it didn¡¯t seem to come from the bunk as it had before. I spared her a glance; she hadn¡¯t moved. Still leaned against the wall, still with her arms on her knees, still idling her syringe, and watching the liquid move within. About as far from engaged as she could be and still have a pulse. If it was she who had spoken, she¡¯d already forgotten she had.


    ¡°Mutations,¡± I mumbled. I tried to address both the girl and the holoscreen, not really sure who I was talking to.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± her voice said. ¡°Rogue alleles in the strain itself¡­random, chaotic, wild. Just like there have been for billions of years.¡± Her eyes never left the needle. Her lips were frozen lines of stone. It almost sounded like she was speaking through the holo, but¡­that was impossible, wasn¡¯t it? Holos could render scenes that had been captured previously, or they could relay full-dimensional scenes that were being captured elsewhere in real time, but this was neither of those. This was something new. ¡°That¡¯s why the¡­uh¡­the anomaly took so long to show. It hinged on a mutie, one that probably started as a single organism, and it was a score or more of generations before the sample could evolve. And we didn¡¯t have a freakin¡¯ clue.¡±


    She stirred. Sat up, shifted her weight forward, crossed her legs, and used her arms to prop up her head. A pained look came over her face. Her eyes, wet and with the beginnings of tears, drifted upwards, towards the steel of the ceiling. I followed them on instinct, but even as I did I knew there was nothing there that I could see. It wasn¡¯t that kind of stare. ¡°We¡¯ve fixed it since, of course,¡± her voice continued. ¡°As of a couple of days ago. So any tests we¡¯ve run since then sequenced both the bots and the strain. But Monday¡¯s run was lost forever. That¡¯s what Rauch was talking about when he lamented the genomes he was missing.¡±

 Chapter 18

    ¡°Wait a while, what¡¯s this bit here?¡±


    Miller¡¯s voice, from the holo. I swiveled my head and confirmed that yes, it actually was from the holo. His lips and words moved in lockstep, and his body language was consistent with his tone. I almost sighed with relief. Only then did I realize how taxing it had been to reconcile the girl¡¯s voice with her appearance.


    ¡°That¡¯s the com sequence,¡± Rauch answered. ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯ve been talking about this whole time.¡±


    ¡°No, I mean what¡¯s that!?¡± Miller swiped to sync up his biosignature with the interface again, then dotted a finger at the air. A slim portion of the code, perhaps only thirty lines, highlighted itself on the display. ¡°That looks like a spinal tap. What¡¯s one of those doing here? And why is it in the com-line program?¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯d you expect me to put it? We have to gather data before we can transmit data. To me that makes it part of the com-lines.¡±


    ¡°But why¡¯d you have to write it like THAT, with all the probing and the stripping on the front end? Can¡¯t we make it less invasive?¡±


    Rauch shrugged. ¡°You want the data or don¡¯t you?¡± He took back control of the interface and tapped a handful of times to clear the highlighting. ¡°This ain''t like the bots, where they¡¯re coded by design using our technology, our language, and our style. These are homegrown viruses, cooked up over millions of years by nothing more than trial and error, in hosts that typically aren¡¯t too thrilled to have them around; they¡¯re going to have their share of shields. We¡¯ve got to get in there and bust some heads if we want to make any sense of it at all.¡±


    ¡°But you¡¯ll kill the goddamn things!¡±


    Rauch shrugged again. ¡°Not all of them. Some will adapt. Some will survive. Enough to report back anyways.¡± He seemed to consider the lines that had been highlighted, as if seeing something in them that he hadn¡¯t seen before. ¡°Besides,¡± he said softly, ¡°I¡¯m still working on that part.¡± He tapped twice more, zooming in on the first few lines, and stepped back into the set.


    ¡°No!¡± An ear-splitting shriek pierced the air as the girl strode across the room. No, not strode¡­glided. Flowed effortlessly, free of the jerkiness of her typical walk cycle, moving like a ghost in a dream. She reached the chair where Rauch sat coding in three long gliding-steps and, after a full windup, slapped him square on the side of his face. She stood over him, panting like she¡¯d run a mile, turned to one side from the force of her follow-through. The sound of her hand contacting his cheek resonated through the holo. It looked like she¡¯d given it everything she had.


    Rauch didn¡¯t seem to care. Less than not care, in fact. He didn¡¯t react in any way. He didn¡¯t flinch, or wince, and his neck didn¡¯t twist with the force of the blow. He showed no signs of pain whatsoever. He just tapped his finger at his screen and stared, like a grandmaster pondering his next move.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Suddenly the holo slurred. Its images twisted, shifted and warped, and the background noise it had been playing stretched and condensed in a Dopplered wail. When it came back into true the girl was back where she¡¯d been before she moved on Rauch. The rest of the scene remained unchanged.


    ¡°S¡­sorry about that,¡± the girl choked out through semi-sobs. ¡°It¡¯s getting harder to control.¡± It sounded like the real her this time, not the unowned voice from the holo. The richness in her tone was back, the human emotion behind the words. But I couldn¡¯t find the nerve to check. ¡°I¡¯ll push it on a bit. This part is isn¡¯t w¡­worth much anyways.¡±


    ¡°...might work better as a checkpoint down below, let¡¯s try moving it there.¡± Miller and Rauch were still arguing about the com-line sequence. The code Rauch was working on, which had previously been a tight thirty lines, was now a disjointed mass of text that edged off the screen in all directions. Half-formed arguments and hanging calls littered the set like tools at a construction site. Many had been referenced out.


    Rauch hesitated, then obliged. It only took him a few seconds to re-write the snippet to serve in its new capacity. Just long enough to shoot Miller a ¡®where would you be without me¡¯ look as he did it. When he was done he studied it through squinted eyes. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he said, ¡°looks pretty ghetto to me. Maybe we should just scrap it out and start all over. You know, get back to the original plan.¡±


    ¡°Get back to your plan, you mean?¡± This wasn¡¯t the first time he¡¯d been offered this suggestion, by the sound of it.


    Rauch turned up his palms. ¡°Your words.¡±


    Miller considered, then shook his head. ¡°Uh-uh. Proceed as directed. We need to take it down a few notches if it¡¯s going to do us any good. The goal is to recognize the mutations, not to cause them.¡±


    A sigh and an eye-roll. Rauch closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, stalling. Or perhaps just trying to gather enough energy to dive back in. The interface remained active and keyed to his signature. He put his hands behind his head, resting.


    ¡°No, no, take it down a notch chickendick! You¡¯re going the other way. And put that call-box back where it was!¡± Miller hissed as a couple of lines rearranged themselves. A reference blue block of text reactivated itself a moment later. ¡°Ref that back out! We idled it for a reason¡­it¡¯s not compatible with the transubstantiation logic we picked out below!¡± He glared at Rauch, still reclined and semi-conscious. ¡°What¡¯s going on here? What the hell do you think you¡¯re doing?¡±


    Rauch pulled his arms down from the back of his head and crossed them just above his navel. He turned slightly and laid on his side, as if that might help him rest. ¡°Just what we¡¯ve been talking about,¡± he mumbled, eyes still lidded. ¡°Trying to make this more observational, less invasive. You should know, it¡¯s your idea.¡±


    ¡°No, I mean what are you doing right now? That¡­that code you¡¯re writing¡­what IS that?¡±


    Rauch¡¯s eyes flew open. They widened when they saw the holo, where the cursor had just laid a quarter of a screen¡¯s worth of fresh text. The speed with which it had done so suggested they were sent up rather than picked out, as Rauch had done a moment ago. ¡°That isn¡¯t me,¡± he whispered.

 Chapter 19

    ¡°Yeah, sure. Who is it then? The tower is linked to your signature. It won¡¯t accept anyone else¡¯s inputs as long as you¡¯re synched in.¡± As he spoke a different section of code flickered and started to fade. By the time he finished it was gone. ¡°And look, it¡¯s writing just the sort of set you wanted. That new code looks an awful lot like the lines you had in there a few minutes ago, and that chunk you blew away is the one you hated most.¡± It laid a few more lines as replacements. They appeared as if by magic.


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you, it isn¡¯t ME!¡± Rauch protested. A second block of text flickered and faded to nothing. It was too large to fully interpret before it went, but it looked like another loop that Rauch would have considered unnecessary. ¡°I may have wanted to, but you know we¡¯re not that reckless here. We always ref out blocks that big before we delete them.¡± And then, in a softer voice, ¡°even if they are shit.¡±


    Miller passed on the jab, choosing instead to study the screen. A third section vanished as they watched, then a fourth and fifth. After that the cursor climbed to the top of the screen and inserted a lookup to another part of the set, then dropped a few lines and filled out one of the logical tests that had been only halfway written, and adjusted the first half in several places. It settled in one of the voids left by the disappearing blocks of texts.


    ¡°That¡¯s funny,¡± Rauch mused. ¡°I was just thinking that test was a weak point, and that a lookup might help shore it up. But I was just turning it over in my head, I swear! I never sent anything up!¡±Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    ¡°Not really helping your case there, hombre. Maybe it¡¯d be best if I took the reigns¡­¡±


    Why won¡¯t¡­


    The cursor started to pick out one more line of text. But this time, instead of dropping it in with the usual whoosh! it laid it out slowly, one letter at a time, as if it wasn¡¯t quite sure of itself or the signals it was getting. It backtracked more than once, deleting half a word and starting over with something different, or fixing an error of some sort. ¡°I mean, we talked about it, sure, but you didn¡¯t think we should go that way. I may not have been too keen on your approach, but I would never try to sneak one through when I know you¡¯re not on board.¡±


    ¡­this god- damned¡­


    Miller and the girl drifted closer to the screen, as if drawn by unseen forces, and read with growing fascination.


    ¡­jagoff¡­


    ¡±Disengage,¡± Miller ordered. ¡°Synch out and walk away. This is getting weird.¡±


    But Rauch was having none of it. Whether he couldn¡¯t, or was too absorbed to hear, or just plain didn¡¯t want to do it, he ignored Miller¡¯s command. ¡°I would never¡­ah¡­never¡­¡±


    ¡­shut his hole¡­


    He trailed off as the cursor finished its message. Miller, Rauch, and the girl read the last few words in unison:


    ¡­and¡­let¡­me¡­WORK! ?


    The cursor stopped moving and blinked impishly from the end of the line. ¡°You know what?¡± Miller shot Rauch a sidelong look. ¡°I think I¡¯m starting to believe you.¡±

 Chapter 20

    The holo had cut to another scene, this one in the administrative offices. Britt was at his desk ¨C the same one he used for our conference call less than a week ago ¨C speaking with Miller, Rauch, and the girl, who stood before him in a semicircle, as if to block any possible escape. The reflection of the fluorescent bulb that lit the room glared off Britt¡¯s forehead. The atomic clock I¡¯d gotten him as a joke on his ten year anniversary hung on the wall behind him, blitzing through its microseconds.


    ¡°Let me get this straight,¡± Britt was saying, ¡°it read Rauch¡¯s mind?¡±


    ¡°Sure looked that way,¡± Rauch replied. ¡°The tower coded exactly what I was ¡­ah, daydreaming, about, and that last line of text¡­word for word what I was thinking about Miller and his¡­uh ¡®management style¡¯ just before it appeared. No offense Miller.¡±


    ¡°None taken.¡± Miller took a load off on the edge of the guest table. His body seemed to slough into itself, like a snowman in the thaws of spring. He clearly hadn¡¯t had a chance to rest.


    ¡°It was just a little frustrating, you know? You kept putting up arm-bars right when I was in the zone. Or at least I thought I was. In hindsight it was probably just the Tower syncing up with my neural impulses.¡±


    ¡°I said none taken!¡± Miller hissed. His eyes sharpened with his tone and flicked in Rauch¡¯s direction, but the rest of him stayed shapeless and slouched. He didn¡¯t even turn his head.


    Britt ignored the interplay. ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious?¡± Miller breathed. The drone of the HVAC systems, accentuated by the measured ticking of the atomic, let him know that no, it wasn¡¯t. ¡°He¡¯s got the bug.¡±


    Britt gasped, and edged back in his chair, whatever words he¡¯d had queued up for whatever response he¡¯d been expecting dying on his parted lips. He Rauch smiled back nervously. ¡°Come again?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Miller said, ¡°it¡¯s harmless. We weren¡¯t experimenting with anything nasty on this one. Worst case scenario the hair on his temples starts coming in brown in a couple of weeks.¡± He ran a hand through his hair, as if wondering how a little brown might look on his own scalp. ¡°But we¡¯ll get back in there this afternoon and throw the kill switch, just to be safe. No reason to let him spread it around.¡±


    Britt grabbed the edge of his station and, with some effort, eased himself back into the well. He clasped his hands and rested them on the steel. ¡°Are we sure?¡±


    ¡°Sure as we can be.¡±


    Britt waited patiently for Miller to elaborate, but this time Miller did not oblige.


    The girl bailed him out. ¡°We had Rauch put it through the paces once we figured out what was going on. Let it read his thoughts, I mean. It wasn¡¯t perfect by any means, but it seemed to get the general idea of whatever Rauch was thinking. It was a lot like the coneys, actually, only with lines of text instead of the image overlays we saw on Monday. We think because he was plugged in to a coding interface instead of to an EKG.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    ¡°I could fool it though,¡± Rauch added, not without a touch of pride. ¡°If I was distracted, or if I really didn¡¯t feel like thinking about the thing she wanted me to think about, it kind of got confused. Like with the grilled cheese sandwich¡­that¡¯s your idea of a meal, not mine. Part of me couldn¡¯t help but want a cheeseburger instead, and that one came through as a garbled mess. And I had to be pretty passionate about the topic for it to pick me up word for word, like it did with that first message about Miller.¡± He made a move like he wanted to follow up with another comment about his senior, reconciliatory or otherwise, but held his tongue. As if deciding Miller wasn¡¯t worth the effort.


    Britt nodded, then repeated his question. ¡°But are we sure? Can we prove the virus is causing this phenomenon? Have we tested Rauch for infection?¡±


    Miller shook his head no. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t do us any good. We never lo-jacked the Haggarty.¡± And then, before Britt could ask him why, ¡°this was an off-the-shelf blank of a strain, remember. Designed as a vehicle and nothing more. The goal is to cause as little disruption to the host as possible. A tracer would have compromises that goal.¡±


    ¡°What about the mechanical half? You can¡¯t tell me we don¡¯t have eyes on that.¡±


    ¡°Of course. We always build those in. The tower can pick them up anywhere their signals are active.¡±


    ¡°And?¡±


    ¡°What do you think we¡¯ve been talking about this whole time?¡±


    Realization dawned. ¡°I see.¡± Britt clasped his hands behind his head and eased back in his chair. The hem of his coat hung limply at his sides. Its open front grazed against the tiled floor. ¡°Do we know what happened?¡± he asked. His head was back, his eyes on the ceiling, ears listening to the cooling of his station¡¯s holo. ¡°How the virus broke contain?¡±


    ¡°Not yet.¡±


    Another pause. Eyes flitted back and forth, circling like gnats in a swarm. They gravitated towards Rauch, settling on him one by one. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me!¡± he protested. ¡°It wasn¡¯t my fault! I followed all the protocol! I used all the airlocks! I cycled both the de-con systems! I even checked their statuses¡­all indicators green! Run the feeds if you don¡¯t believe me! I did everything I was supposed to!¡±


    Britt nodded. ¡°I¡¯m sure you did.¡± He sat up and clapped his hands to his knees. ¡°Well, priority one has to be the kill switch. Find it, throw it, and make sure it does its job. After that we find the leak and plug it. I don¡¯t care how harmless this¡­Haggarty, did you call it?¡± Miller and the girl nodded. ¡°I don¡¯t care how tame it is, we need to be able to trust our systems. Once that¡¯s done we can discuss this little discovery of yours and figure out what it means. Oh, and I shouldn¡¯t have to say this, but I will anyways¡­none of you hooks in to the interface until we¡¯re back on solid ground. Kapeesh?¡± They fidgeted where they sat or stood. Britt locked eyes with each in turn, extracting from each another nod. Rauch, in particular,


    Britt settled back in his chair. The HVAC system cycled up from somewhere deep within the bunker. The clock ticked off the seconds. ¡°Whenever you¡¯re ready,¡± he said softly.


    Miller sighed and spilled himself onto the floor. He rose on legs that were not quite steady and shambled towards the lab. He gained a modicum of strength as he moved. Rauch and the girl followed.


    Britt watched the door glide shut, shushing gently on its casters, and busied himself with something on his holoscreen. Then with a few other artifacts at his station, then with something in one of his cupboards, though he seemed to do more arranging than he did actual work. After a few moments he stopped, brought up my IP on his holo, checked the readout on the clock behind him, and tapped his foot a couple times. His finger hovered over the call button for an agonizing moment, but in the end it fell without tapping. He put the holo to sleep instead, and joined the others in the lab.

 Chapter 21

    The feed stuttered forward again, and again it was impelled by no action I could detect. It settled on a scene in the lab, where Britt, Rauch, and the girl were standing, dwarfed, in front of the Tower, pecking their respective screens. All three wore headsets, which consisted mainly of a pair of bug-eyed goggles designed to detect the slightest presence of the tracer one of the must have queued up, just in case it manifested itself someplace other than a holoscreen. A smattering of hand tools lay scattered at the base of one of the consoles. I checked all the access panels visible from that angle, wondering which they had been working and why. A fourth figure huddled at the secondary station. I looked it up and down, wondering which of them it was. It kind of looked like Miller, but not the Miller I was used to. Its shoulders were so hunched and narrow, and its hair was far too thin.


    ¡°It¡¯s him,¡± the girl¡¯s voice informed. ¡°It had to be, to activate the kill-switch. Britt would have killed to give him a few hours rest, but he was the only one who knew where it was.¡±


    I nodded to myself, keeping my eyes on the screen. I still couldn¡¯t bring myself to look at her when her voice was speaking.


    ¡°Anything now?¡± Miller asked. He was scanning through a series of graphics that seemed to map changes in acid strings over time¡­quite likely the genome mappings Rauch had lamented missing previously.


    ¡°Negative,¡± the girl answered. ¡°No leak detected.¡±


    ¡°Dammit!¡± He tore his headset off and tossed it on the console with considerably more force than necessary. ¡°I was sure we¡¯d see it this time.¡± He ran his hands through his hair, grabbing a fistful in frustration. More than a few feathered to the floor when he let the fistful go.


    Britt moved to pick up the goggles, but the girl beat him to it. She dusted them off and handed them back to Miller with nothing more than a pleading look. Miller put them on again, likewise without a word.


    Rauch snickered from across the room.


    ¡°What¡¯re you guys testing for anyways?¡± It was Charles who broke the silence. He strode in with the usual bounce in his step as the doors both whooshed aside, carrying a steaming thermos in each hand. And, as usual, he was oblivious to the tension he was breaking up.


    ¡°Anything,¡± Miller replied, ¡°and nothing. Just a harmless tracer coded to act like a virus. Its sole purpose for existing is to trigger our detection systems if it gets out into the atmosphere, like the Haggarty somehow did. So far, bubkus.¡±The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Well, are you sure the detection is working?¡±


    All eyes turned to Rauch, who in turn addressed the console. He made a few strokes on the touch-pad and sat back, waiting. Almost immediately a red bauble appeared on his section of the screen, and the view from the incubation chamber commandeered his feed. The feeds mimicked the wail of a claxon, grinding out its antiquated tone. An inset to the video feed showed a schematic of the bunker, with panels blinking where Rauch had released the tracer. ¡°I¡¯d say.¡± He undid the strokes. Both the screen and the noise level returned to normal. The suddenness of the peace and quiet was somehow more alarming that the cacophony had been. ¡°Any more brain-waves?¡±


    Charles sipped from one of his thermoses. ¡°Alright, alright, no need to get snippy. I¡¯m just trying to help. Sheesh, I¡¯ve never seen anyone get so upset over not finding a problem before.¡±


    ¡°We did find a problem,¡± Rauch replied. ¡°We found a big one this morning. Now we need to figure out what our solution is going to look like.¡± He turned back to the console and swiped through a few of secondary indicators, checking them despite his demonstration a moment ago. ¡°How¡¯s that kill-switch coming, by the way?¡±


    Charles shrugged off the jab. He plopped down in a guest chair next to Miller and handed off the second thermos. ¡°OK hoss,¡± he said. ¡°What¡¯s next?¡±


    ¡°One second,¡± Miller flicked away a couple of pop-ups on his holo. They spun down to an empty corner, diminishing in size with every off-center rotation, until they disappeared into the background, never to be seen again. ¡°I want us to get another test going, then we can work on the switch for a while.¡± And then, in a louder voice, ¡°okay gang, what are we trying next?¡±


    They pondered.


    ¡°Well,¡± Britt reasoned, ¡°If the leak isn¡¯t in any of the primary systems, maybe we should test the secondaries. What about the ventilation network?¡±


    Miller eyed him suspiciously. ¡°Since when is ventilation a secondary system?¡± He inhaled conspicuously, as if to drive home the point.


    ¡°You know what I mean. We¡¯re driving ourselves half to death checking all the designed containment points, but what if the leak happened elsewhere? The ionizers, the oh-two interchange, or someplace else we might not expect?¡±


    Miller considered. ¡°I suppose¡­but no, that¡¯s impossible. The ventilation network is a separate system from all our containment devices. It has barriers all its own. Even if one of them was flawed, a bug would have to break contain ¨C and trip our sensors in the process ¨C just to get to it.¡±


    Britt cogitated, as if trying to think up some scenario where his suggestion might make sense, but said nothing.


    The girl piped up next. ¡°We had the EKG running during the demonstration. Any chance that¡¯s when the leak occurred?¡±


    Miller held a finger in the air, then pointed it at her. ¡°Yeah!¡± he exclaimed. ¡°I forgot about that. I had to split the receivers to accommodate both subjects, and I had to run the sensors through the airlock. It¡¯s supposed to be able to handle a setup like that no problem, but if everything had worked the way it was supposed to we wouldn¡¯t be talking about it, would we? It¡¯s worth a shot.¡±


    She beamed. ¡°I¡¯ll get the coneys!¡± She turned and trotted towards their chambers, lab coat billowing behind her. Miller watched her go.

 Chapter 22

    Charles took another sip. ¡°Why do we need the coneys?¡± he asked. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t the test work just as well hooked up to a paperweight?¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± Miller sighed. ¡°Maybe not. Let her fetch them. You never know what might make the difference.¡± He picked up his thermos and inhaled, savoring the aroma, or perhaps clutching it for warmth. Then he put it to his lips, and drank more at a draught than I would have thought possible of a beverage so scalding hot. ¡°So. Kill switch.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Charles set his coffee down and held his hands, palms first, to the interface.


    ¡°We¡¯re almost there. Drill into the Sibilance series and then scroll down a bit¡­further, further¡­okay, you see that section there, where it¡¯s picking up that call from the bots? Ref that out.¡± Charles gave a twist with one of his hands, like he was getting ready to throw a karate chop, and the block of text turned blue. ¡°Good. That will keep the Tower from trying to repair the bugs once the switch gets thrown. Now we should be ready for the switch itself. Sneak back up to the Colavita area and¡­¡±


    ¡°The Colavita area?¡± Rauch couldn¡¯t help but overhear, apparently. ¡°What the hell¡¯s it doing there?¡±


    Miller ignored him, ¡°¡­and step into that string there, where it goes into the recursion test. Good, good. Now drop it a couple of lines¡­there you go, right after the collection command. Add one.¡±


    Charles turned towards him, confused.


    Miller nodded, ¡°Yep,¡± he said, ¡°it really is that simple. Just add one to the counter every time the recursivity check runs and you¡¯ll drop this thing where it stands. The recursion will never prove out because we¡¯re changing the count between collection and comparison, and the program will need to suggest bigger and bigger adjustments to correct itself. Within a few generations those bots will be so far out of true they won¡¯t be worth the sand they¡¯re printed from.¡±


    Whoosh! Charles sent up the extra code. The surrounding lines reorganized themselves to make room for the argument, which settled neatly into the niche. ¡°So why bother with all the work we did earlier?¡± he asked.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°Oh, just some fail-safes we had to disable. A kill switch should activate when we tell it to, not when it feels like it. Could you imagine a rogue mute tripping the switch in the middle of a run?¡± Charles shook his head no. Miller took another deep draught from his thermos. ¡°I can. Seen it, actually. So I put in a couple of e-brakes.¡±


    ¡°Huh,¡± Charles shrugged. ¡°The things you learn. Now what?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, really. Just need to drop it in the hopper and seed whoever we need to disinfect. But you don¡¯t need me for that.¡±


    Charles shook his head no, he didn¡¯t, and Miller turned back towards Station Prime. The doors whooshed open as he did, and the girl walked in, shambling around the awkward bulk of a vessel held in her arms. Inside the cage were the same two rabbits from the Monday trials. One of them was healthy and well, and pattering about amongst its batting exactly as it had been then. The other was¡­not.


    Rauch paled when he saw the second. ¡°What¡­ah, what happened?¡± he choked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± said the girl. ¡°She was like this when I found her. I haven¡¯t checked the replays yet, but I have to believe it¡¯s the same thing we saw on Sunday. Look, there¡¯s a crust of blood still on her chin¡­and more here, between her toes. She must have just snapped.¡±


    A pall descended. Eyes flicked nervously between Rauch and the dead rabbit. ¡°Maybe we should set up a quarantine,¡± Britt suggested, joining the girl at the cage. He put a finger on the plastic, tracing along with her commentary. ¡°Just in case.¡±


    ¡°It isn¡¯t airborne, dipshit.¡± Rauch spat. ¡°It¡¯s not going to hurt anyone.¡±


    ¡°You mean it wasn¡¯t airborne when we coded it. What if it grew wings?¡±


    ¡°It didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°But what if it did?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you it DIDN¡¯T! It¡­it can¡¯t!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s doing a lot of things we didn¡¯t think it could,¡± Charles said, still swiping away at the kill-switch code. He had a faraway look on his face, and he spoke to no one in particular. ¡°What if it¨C¡±


    ¡°Rauch is right,¡± Miller cut him off. ¡°The strain we use ¨C it won¡¯t inoculate unless it¡¯s activated by the tower. It¡¯s coded into the mech half, at the very basest levels. I was on the team that coded it.¡±


    Rauch shot Charles a spiteful, ¡®I-told-you-so¡¯ glance. Charles¡¯s eyes never left his interface.


    ¡°But¡­¡± Miller focused on the rabbits as he crept the conversation forward, ¡°we still find ourselves one mind short of being able to re-create the EKG setup like we talked about. This may sound a little crazy, but¡­what if we used Rauch?¡±

 Chapter 23

    Rauch jerked forward in his chair. ¡°WHAT!?!¡± He looked like he¡¯d just been shot in the back. Britt and the girl were likewise rattled, if not to the same degree. Even Charles turned an ear, though he didn¡¯t let it interrupt his work. ¡°You can¡¯t be serious.¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± the girl ventured, considering, ¡°we do need another subject, and it¡¯s not like he¡¯s going to get infected again¡­¡± she was warming to the idea. Rejected out of hand at first, but the more she thought about it, and the more she took the contrarian view, the more she was buying in. She and Miller shared a glance, but Miller said nothing, content to let the rest of the room argue the merits of his idea.


    ¡°I¡¯m not some rat!¡± Rauch whined. ¡°You can¡¯t just use me like that!¡±


    ¡°Like what?¡± She argued. ¡°A subject? We wouldn¡¯t be. We won¡¯t be running tests. We¡¯ll just be taking a few readings, no different than if we took your weight or temperature right now. We wouldn¡¯t be introducing any new variables to your¡­ah, condition.¡±


    ¡°So what! If we need another subject just grab another furball! That¡¯s what they¡¯re for.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t work. If we could re-create the results at will we wouldn¡¯t be testing in the first place¡­and even if we could, who knows how long it would take? You¡¯re the only one who can make this happen.¡±


    ¡°Uh uh!¡± Rauch screamed. ¡°I won¡¯t let you hook me up to those things! I won¡¯t let them read me like that again!¡± His eyes darted back and forth as she backed him into a corner. ¡°Britt!¡± He grasped at his last straw. ¡°You¡¯ve still got your wits about you¡­tell them this is ludicrous!¡±


    Britt checked the primary display, then the secondary. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he considered. ¡°How long until that kill-switch is ready?¡± he asked.


    Charles¡¯s lips moved in silence as his pupils traced their lines, engrossed absolutely in whatever they were seeing.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°I said, how long until ¨C¡±


    ¡°Not long,¡± Miller answered. ¡°About twenty minutes more. He just has to queue it up, parse the signal, find the right insertion point and off she goes.¡±


    Britt ran his fingers through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck. ¡°Then you¡¯ve got that long with him,¡± he sighed. ¡°Rauch, gown up.¡±


    Rauch¡¯s eyes bulged. The lines on his face sharpened as his features tensed in panic. ¡°No!¡± he sat up and slammed his palms into his armrests. ¡°This is insane! I¡­I won¡¯t do it!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be such a baby,¡± the girl chided. ¡°It¡¯s not the full interface, not like it was before. It¡¯s only a few electrodes. The rabbits came out of it just fine.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care! I¡¯m not some freaking rodent! You can¡¯t just experiment on me like that!¡±


    ¡°God dammit!¡± Miller screamed and banged his fist on the steel of console, dislodging dust that had ionized to its constant current and sending it eddying into the air. His voice cracked as it reached its crescendo. It was the first time in a long time it had risen above a sigh. ¡°Why are you always pulling shit like this?! Why can you only ever think of YOU?!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t only think of ¨C¡°


    ¡°The hell you don¡¯t! Like last week, when you had to work all that ¡®overtime¡¯ during inventory fixing all those bullshit rogues¡­awfully convenient, wasn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°I had a bug! I couldn¡¯t help it. It just showed up in the code one day. You had one yourself the week before. You wouldn¡¯t stop bitching about it for two whole days!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but mine didn¡¯t sync up with everybody¡¯s least favorite chore, did it? And last month when you burned meatloaf after you and Britt had that row over who¡¯s turn it was to pull KP, even though none of us could find a thing wrong with that oven? What was that all about?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, must have been some kind of power surge.¡±


    ¡°Guys¡­¡± Charles mumbled from the edge of the room.


    ¡°It¡¯s a gas oven!¡± Miller screamed. ¡°And no one wants to hear your shit! We didn¡¯t then, and we don¡¯t now, so why don¡¯t you just grow a pair and help us out, just this once?¡±


    ¡°But¡­it¡¯s the principle of the thing! You don¡¯t run tests like that on human beings! You just¡­don¡¯t!¡±


    ¡°Agreed. Let us know when you become one.¡± Miller slid off the console¡¯s surface and advanced on Rauch, as if to force him into submission. Rauch sat up in his chair, eyes widening, subconsciously preparing to edge away.


    ¡°Guys!¡± Louder this time. The urgency in Charles¡¯s voice magnified in contrast to his usual happy-go-lucky demeanor. ¡°You better take a look at this!¡±

 Chapter 24

    Miller paused, then stutter-stepped, glancing back and forth between Charles and Rauch. He made an off-balance about-face and leaned over Charles¡¯s station as they both began to study the holo. Britt and the girl also gathered around.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­incredible¡± Charles breathed. The whirr of cooling systems suddenly dominated as four sets of pupils mosquitoed over parts of the screen. The three that were standing craned their necks, trying to get a better look. Their faces glowed a ghostly blue in its ambience. ¡°It¡¯s all so far beyond anything we designed. The things it¡¯s coding into itself, the speed at which it¡¯s learning, it¡¯s just¡­incredible!¡±


    ¡°Not learning,¡± Rauch said flatly, stirring as he spoke. ¡°Evolving.¡± He made his way over to the secondary station, moving in an awkward sidelong fashion, as if afraid to admit that was really where he wanted to go. He didn¡¯t join them at in the huddle ¨C not quite ¨C but settled a few feet short of the cluster, just out of arm¡¯s reach, and squinted at the screen.


    ¡°But¡­that¡¯s impossible!¡± Charles argued. ¡°Look at this rate of change in the Epsilon coefficient. Look at those r-scores! You could string them out and barely miss a pip.¡± He reached for his thermos and brought it to his lips. ¡°Nothing can evolve that smoothly,¡± he said, eyes tracing the tendrils of steam that wafted from the opening. He sipped. ¡°Or that fast.¡±


    Rauch merely nodded, in the general direction of the console. ¡°Bring up the life cycle. You¡¯ll see what I mean.¡±


    Charles set his thermos down and swiped a couple of the coded interfaces. An array of reports tiled itself out before him, representing every measure and every indicator every hack that had ever dabbled in the field of cybernetics had once thought might be useful, from charts that plotted their lethality to anatomically correct drawings of the human body, with phasing highlights indicating which parts could be infected. There was even one that tracked the taste the things might have if dissolved in liquid¡­whether it would lend a flavor that was sweet, salty, bitter, or sour, or some combination of the four. He pulled up the regression analysis Rauch had mentioned, which showed the average lifespan of each generation, plotted over time. It peaked and valleyed as schizophrenically as the EKG readings from a few days before. ¡°Why would it¡­¡± he shot Rauch a questioning look.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Because it can,¡± Rauch said. ¡°The code I sent up earlier today¡­the lines that seemed to write themselves while I was keyed into the interface¡­I never told you what they were for, did I?¡± His eyes, widened to the whites, darted back and forth among the lot of them, to make it clear the question was for all. They answered without saying a word. ¡°Their purpose was to manage change¡­to accelerate the rate of change, to be exact. I didn¡¯t think it took at first, what with that awkward syntax and all, but¡­¡± he trailed off for a couple of seconds, lost in his own sense wonder at what he was seeing. The others seemed surprised to hear him speak. No¡­surprised, for sure, but not by Rauch, or the words he was saying. It was something else that had them fixed. ¡°Just before it happened I was...thinking, you know? About how much time we were wasting trying to force the tower to write targeted code. And so I asked myself, why bother? Why kill ourselves trying to figure out exactly which code would fit in here, or what kind of structure is going to work best there, when we could just let it randomize and cull the ones that don¡¯t work out? You know, monkeys at typewriters and all that jazz. And then I thought, ¡®we could vary the bots¡¯ life cycle based on the success rate it was observing for whatever characteristics it was trying to breed. When the success rate is high, we¡¯d want to lengthen their reproductive cycle to give our selection process ¨C whether natural or artificial ¨C more time to make them stick. When low, shorten it to speed the cull, and find that next mutation faster.¡¯ In this way it can manage the shape and rate of change in the population as a whole, instead of having to guess and check with every line it wants to try.¡± He flashed them a smile, sheepish at first, then more and more toothsome as he realized the gravity of his accomplishment. ¡°It¡¯s got these bots completely under its control,¡± he grinned. ¡°As far as they¡¯re concerned, the tower¡­is God.¡±


    ¡°Rauch,¡± Miller breathed as he stood amongst the other three, each of their eyes still transfixed by the space above and behind Rauch¡¯s head. By the sourceless pane of pulsing blue, roiling with text and ghosts of scenes, that hovered there. ¡°We know.¡±

 Chapter 25

    Rauch was speechless for a moment, clearly not understanding what Miller meant.  Then he followed their collective gaze, and he saw what they were seeing.  He jerked.  It swiveled with him as he turned, staying above and behind his head, at the corner of his field of vision, which caused him to jerk again, and again, like he had an itch he couldn¡¯t scratch.  It settled after a few gyrations, and fell back in its original position, allowing Rauch to see it along with all the others.  He was speechless once again.  They all were.


    The holo, however, was not.


    ¡®I can¡¯t believe the syntax took¡­it sent itself up in such a jumble, almost like it sent at random¡­how the hell could that have worked?¡¯


    ¡®¡­can¡¯t wait to show HQ.  I wonder how they¡¯ll react.  They¡¯ll have to give me something.  A promotion, or a task force of my own¡­¡¯


    ¡®¡­all because I bucked the system, and did what I thought was right, instead of listening to these dinosaurs¡­¡±


    The text flitted across the holo over background images of rabbits, syntax, life outside the bunker, and eventually an image of Rauch driving a red Ferrari with a leggy blonde in the passenger¡¯s seat, smiling and laughing on a drive down some sun-drenched coastal highway, ocean breezes rifling their hair.


    ¡®But¡­how?¡±  Rauch whispered.  He waved a hand at a corner of the display.  It warped where he touched it, twisting into a wormhole vortex leading only God knew where.  He wiggled his fingers through the pane and it degaussed in oily mottles.  He held still for a moment and the mottling subsided, save a tremor every second or so as blood pulsed through his arteries.  He drug his fingers through the scene, leaving trails like stardust in their wakes.  ¡°I¡¯m not logged in to any interface, and even if I was, there isn¡¯t any holo gear.  How is it projecting like that?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s gear,¡± Charles murmured.  He had turned back to his station and was once again studying the readouts.


    ¡°Huh?¡±  Rauch reclaimed his hand and turned it over on its wrist, studying it from all angles, as if it might have changed somehow.  ¡°Where?  We didn¡¯t build any in this room.¡±  He flexed his fingers and made a fist, and rocked it back and forth.  He seemed satisfied that everything still worked the way it was supposed to.  ¡°In fact, we didn¡¯t build any anywhere in the bunker, other than the floor model in the conference room.  And this is well outside its range.¡±


    ¡°We didn¡¯t have to build it,¡± Charles swiped away at the display.  It homed in on another monitor, this one a spidery-looking matrix with a pentagram shape that stretched and quivered around its center, it¡¯s angles shaking ever so slightly, and its colors drifting this way and that, as the inputs that were feeding it changed.  A stasis monitor Britt was fond of, used to teep on five key attributes of a sample, and see how well they harmonized.  Its motions vaguely resembled an engine on the verge of overheating.  ¡°It¡¯s in the bots.¡±


    ¡°In¡­the¡­bots¡­¡±  Rauch stilled and cocked his head, giving Charles a chance to reconsider.


    Charles declined.


    ¡°In the bots!¡± Rauch said again.  ¡°The holo gear¡­the projection equipment that¡¯s generating this, uh, whatever it is, full of text and images, that somehow, some way looks for all the world like it¡¯s reading my mind, and throwing out whatever it sees in a baseless display that¡¯s crisp and clear as Lalique crystal, that appeared out of nowhere sometime in the past few minutes¡­you¡¯re telling me it¡¯s in the bots?  The fifty micron shells of tungsten and silica barely big enough to hold a transmitter and a half a strand of RNA?  Those bots?¡±  His eyes darted towards Charles, then back to the holo.  He was silent for a long moment.  ¡°You want to try that one again?¡±Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Well, why not?¡±  Charles questioned back.  ¡°They are programmed to transmit, and you said yourself they¡¯ve been evolving.  Who¡¯s to say they didn¡¯t develop the ability to shorten their wavelength and express themselves as visible light?¡±


    ¡°Come on man!  This isn¡¯t a few pulses of RBG we¡¯re talking about here.  This is full planar rendering!  The drag alone is exponentially greater than anything a bot could handle, to say nothing of the data load a proj like this demands.  There¡¯s no way they could have gained that kind of bandwidth.¡±


    Charles gulped a mouthful of air.  He considered his coffee for half a second, but left it steaming on the desk.  ¡°They could if they worked together,¡± he said.  ¡°You¡¯d be amazed what a quarter trillion shells of RNA can do, when they work in perfect unison.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re talking Star Trek shit, old man.  That many bots could never all synch up like that.  Hell, based on what we¡¯ve seen so far, even getting two of them to talk to each other is more than I¡¯m ready to believe.¡±


    ¡°But you have no problem believing they can read your thoughts?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s different,¡± Rauch said.  ¡°The Tower was in play.¡±


    ¡°It was still pretty incredible.  Tower or not Tower.¡±


    ¡°But¡­there wasn¡¯t any other explanation then.  I could see it when that happened.  I could feel it.  It was¡­¡±


    ¡°Yours?¡±


    Rauch grew suddenly rigid.  He edged away from the group, and hunched down into himself, folding his arms across his abdomen.  ¡°They weren¡¯t coded to collaborate,¡± he said quietly.  But he was losing ground again, making arguments that would be countered easily, in ways he could already see.  And, from the trapped and helpless images on his holo, they all knew he knew.


    ¡°They¡¯re coding themselves at this point, Rauch.  They¡¯re self-selecting, and engineering the population towards whatever traits the tower tells them are necessary to achieve their goal.¡±


    ¡°Um¡­Remind me what that is again?¡±  Miller interjected.  He leaned back, gingerly, against the station he and Charles had been working on, as if the thing were full of nettles that might poke him if he sat too fast.  It sighed audibly as it settled on its joints.  ¡°And, if it¡¯s not too much trouble, explain how all¡­this¡± he gestured at the floating holo, still not quite sure how to put words to the phenomenon, ¡°is supposed to help it get there?¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± Charles said, ¡°I haven¡¯t figured all that out, exactly¡­the code isn¡¯t done evolving, so it¡¯s that much harder to figure out what does what¡­¡± his head peeked at the holo, where even as he spoke a handful of arguments disappeared, only to rewrite themselves a second later.  ¡°But gun to my head¡­I¡¯d say it started when Rauch was spelling Miller at the coding station.  I¡¯m thinking that by then they had probably been in Rauch¡¯s system long enough to start picking up his body¡¯s vitals: his electromagnetic field, the salinity of his blood, and, most germane to this discussion, impulses in his brain, and had already taught themselves to interpret those impulses in their familiar ones and zeros.  They could sense that Rauch had some ideas kicking around in his subconscious that might help them speed their development, but his conscious mind refused to act, effectively creating a barrier between the bots and the code.  So they bypassed it.  They mapped out his bio-signature, hooked into the interface, and wrote the code themselves.  And did one heck of a job of it, if you don¡¯t mind me saying.¡±  Rauch jarred.  The holo swirled with reds and maroons at the perceived insult, but that was the extent of his reaction.  Charles marveled for a moment, appreciating it for the sheer novelty of the phenomenon, then continued.  ¡°But that obviously didn¡¯t last long.  Rauch un-hooked almost immediately, severing their link to the tower and all the code it contained, and also killing an effective way of expressing his subconscious.  We made it pretty clear nobody was going to hook back in anytime soon, so they had to find another way.  I¡¯m not sure I can explain why, but I think this was the result.¡±

 Chapter 26

    ¡°Very interesting¡± Miller sighed. ¡°But there are bits I can¡¯t quite follow. Like how they¡¯d know to use images and text instead of pure, meaningless binary? And what good does it do the bots to show us what Rauch is thinking anyways?¡±


    ¡°None,¡± Rauch spat bitterly. ¡°No good at all. Not anymore, at least. It¡¯s just along for the ride.¡± He watched the holo as he spoke, checking to see if the sentiment would show. It didn¡¯t. Not in any recognizable way, anyways.


    Charles¡¯ eyes widened as realization dawned. ¡°Riiiiiiight¡­¡± He turned his back and pulled up another block of code on his interface. A big one this time; he had to zoom in twice before any of the text was legible. ¡°The first question is easy. They needed to communicate to be effective¡­with themselves, with the Tower, and now, apparently, with us. And any being, real or imagined, natural or artificial, has to know that communication needs to be a two-step process to be effective. They¡¯d have run some guess-and-checks to make sure they were being understood. The second, though¡­that was bothering me too. But Rauch may have led me to it¡­¡± he swiped fiercely at the interface, parsing several of the lines at once, and nodded as he read them through. ¡°Mmmm-hmmm¡­¡± he mumbled. ¡°We see this all the time in hardware. It¡¯s a goddam vestigial tail!¡± He gestured triumphantly towards the screen, as if the answer should be plain. By the looks on everyone else¡¯s face, it was not. ¡°Look at the similarities between these two sequences,¡± he explained. ¡°One of them evaluates their development as a species, and one controls their signal projection. Look how they use the same syntax, and leverage similar sets of calls. At one point, I think¡­¡± he traced through the new code frantically, trying to digest it before it phased out or disappeared, ¡°yeah! At one point they actually coincided, sharing lines like trains on a track!¡± All at once he remembered his coffee, cooled to the point that it steamed no more, and took the sip he¡¯d considered earlier. It seemed to calm him down a bit. ¡°The ability to express subconscious thought developed as a means to access the Tower¡¯s code. That ability might not be needed any more, but the sequence that controlled it was the same one that facilitated that connection. When we forced them to do it without the interface, they found a way to work together, and do all of it without the interface.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re telling us¡­¡±


    ¡°Like pixels on a TV screen. Each one emits an impulse or two in the needed wavelength, for just the right amount of time, to fill their part of the holo, and all of them working together convey whatever message they¡¯re receiving.¡± He panned through pages of code as he spoke¡­code that wrote and re-wrote itself even as he tried to read. He threw up his hands in frustration.


    ¡°But who¡¯s doing the sending?¡± asked the girl. ¡°And how are they coordinating?¡±


    Charles simply looked towards the Tower in response. The rest of the gathering followed his gaze. ¡°I have to assume, anyways,¡± Charles said, gesturing towards the code on his screen. ¡°This stuff is changing so fast I can¡¯t make heads or tails of it any more. But it¡¯s what we told it to do.¡±


    Silence fell over the gathering as they tried to think of something else to say. Miller came up with something first. ¡°Wait,¡± he said, ¡°a minute ago, when you were talking about the bots¡¯ evolution¡­you said ¡®nobody was going to hook back in.¡¯ Didn¡¯t you just mean Rauch?¡±


    ¡°Nnnnnooooooo¡­¡± Rauch said. ¡°I meant nobody." He spoke in an evasive tone, as if unsure how much he wanted to reveal. He braced himself for the follow-ups he seemed to know were coming.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    ¡°But Rauch is the one they¡¯ve infected,¡± Miller obliged. ¡°He¡¯s the one they all evolved with, the one they communicated through to access the Tower. He¡¯s the one that would have had to hook back in.¡±


    Charles fidgeted and stared at his coffee again. The steam that had been wafting from the lid had ceased sometime in the past few minutes. ¡°Well,¡± he said, ¡°that¡¯s not exactly true¡­¡±


    Miller¡¯s brow furrowed. His head swiveled from Charles to Rauch, then slowly back to Charles. He held a finger halfway in the air. ¡°You mean¡­¡±


    Charles nodded.


    Miller exhaled. His already slumped shoulders sagged that much lower. ¡°All of us?¡±


    Charles nodded again. ¡°Afraid so.¡±


    Another silence, this one more gravid than the last. One by one heads turned in Rauch¡¯s direction, their eyes beady with accusation and fear. Rauch¡¯s dipped, almost imperceptibly, and as he settled that much further into his hunch. His eyes narrowed to slits. They focused on Charles, and Charles alone, daring him to say what everyone already knew he was thinking. The whorls on his holo darkened to indigos and violets. They appeared to want to resolve into shapes, but couldn¡¯t manage more than blobs.


    ¡°It seems to help, if that¡¯s any consolation,¡± Charles offered, speaking in that same uncertain tone. As if he would have said anything to break the tension. ¡°Having more than one population, I mean. They seem to feed off each other, to bounce things back and forth, and it seems to help with their development. And there are other impacts too. I think Rauch¡¯s little friend there is actually a two-part process. It¡¯s hard to say for sure,¡± he gestured towards his display again, at the ever-changing panels of code, ¡°but I think there is a sending and a receiving aspect to it. I don¡¯t think we¡¯d be able to see it if we weren¡¯t, ah, inoculated.¡±


    Miller seemed to struggle with that one. He stared into his therm of coffee, and set his forehead on his fist, as he sometimes did when he was thinking. ¡°How now?¡± he asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that complicated. No different than any other form of communication, really. Every transmission needs a sender and a receiver. If the sender sends in visible light or sonic wavelengths then our eyes or ears can be the receivers, but¡­¡± he glanced back at the code, which was still ghost-writing itself in and out of existence line by line, ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s what this is.¡±


    ¡°You mean the bots are doing both?¡± the girl asked. ¡°The sending and the receiving? Like the ones inside of him are interpreting his neural impulses, converting them to some kind of transmittable language, and sending them over to the ones in us, where they get converted back to neural impulses, or some other signal that we interpret as¡­as that?¡± She shuddered as she spoke, and slid closer to Miller, until the two were almost touching. Her hand twitched, as if it want to find his, but steadied, and lay dormant at her side. ¡°But why?¡± she asked. ¡°Why bother with the image of a holoscreen like that? Why not just¡­give us the message, if it¡¯s that deep inside of us?¡±


    Charles shrugged. ¡°Why not? It¡¯s as good a way as any.¡±


    ¡°But it¡¯s so complicated! Why not just tell us in words, using voice, or with direct submission?¡±


    ¡°Who knows? These are random mutations, don¡¯t forget. Maybe it held on to the vestiges of the original successes, when Rauch was feeding the interface. Maybe they decided they needed us to be able to tell the difference between their transmissions and reality in order to accomplish their goal. Maybe I¡¯m way off the mark and it¡¯s plain old RGB light after all, from a source we can¡¯t yet see. We¡¯d have to study it to know for sure.¡±


    Their chatter settled for a moment, unsure where to go from there. Rauch smoldered in his chair, the roils on his holo slowing only slightly. Charles chased down his latest line of thinking, deciding what type of testing would be most beneficial. The girl was all concern for Miller, glancing sideways at him and fidgeting, but still not reaching out¡­yet. Britt was tensing by the second, struggling with the pressure of having to make a decision without understanding the situation. Only Miller remained stoic, in his almost trancelike state, unconcerned with anything the other four might have been thinking.


    ¡°Kill it,¡± he whispered.

 Chapter 27

    ¡°What?¡± Rauch¡¯s eyes shifted to Miller, leaving Charles for the first time since their standoff a moment ago.


    ¡°Is the kill-switch ready to load?¡±


    Charles swiped at his screen, shuffling a couple panes back into the active pile. He checked the kill-switch code that emerged at the top of the deck. He nodded.


    ¡°Then do it,¡± Miller ordered. ¡°This has gone on long enough.¡±


    ¡°But¡­you can¡¯t!¡± Rauch complained.


    ¡°Sure we can.¡± He emerged fully from his stupor of the past half an hour or so. ¡°Charles?¡±


    Charles hesitated, looked towards Britt for confirmation, got it, then nodded again. ¡°You got it boss,¡± he said, and re-engaged the panel.


    ¡°But this is a scientific breakthrough!¡± Rauch pleaded. ¡°A quantum leap for the field! Sure, there¡¯re a few things wrong with it, but when aren¡¯t there? We can work on it! We can fix it!¡± The blobs on his holo continued to resolve and morph. There were three of them now that stood out from the others. Two thinned vertically at the sides of the screen, while the third panned horizontally across the upper portion.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Miller breathed. ¡°It¡¯s a rogue. It¡¯s out of control. Who knows how long before it mutates enough to survive the kill.¡± He slid off the desk on which he¡¯d been sitting and shambled towards Charles. To help with the upload, no doubt. ¡°I can¡¯t let that happen.¡±


    ¡°But¡­it¡¯s not malicious!¡± Rauch screamed. ¡°It doesn¡¯t mean us any harm! It¡¯s just trying to do a job¡­a job that we told it to do!¡± The blobs resolved further. The two on the sides took on a vaguely sapien shape, while the one near the top continued to stretch, but in one direction only. All three roiled with the same chaotic energy that had possessed them from the beginning. ¡°You can¡¯t kill it for that!¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°Watch me.¡± Miller reached the place where Charles sat, and laid hand upon his shoulder. ¡°Yeah,¡± he whispered, watching Charles queue up the packet, ¡°good. Just like that. Now find the insertion point¡­no, a bit further back. It has to disrupt the basest sections of the code.¡±


    Rauch¡¯s eyes flitted from one to the other, then at his holo, then to the Tower, and the mess they¡¯d left at the base of its console. His breathing quickened. The skin on his forehead glistened with a filmy sheen of sweat. The shape at the top of his holo, which could no longer be called a blob, at one end sharpened to a needle¡¯s point, and at the other smoothed into a blunted cylinder, with half-moon indentations up and down its length. The two on the sides became distinctly human ¨C one on the small side, hunched and thin, the other muscular and hearty, a warrior in his prime.


    ¡°You got it,¡± Miller coached, ¡°right there, where it first aligns the arguments in the Colavita sequence. That¡¯s where it has to go.¡±


    Two of the shapes snapped into focus. The decrepit figure on one side, now clearly Charles, cowered before the warrior, now clearly Rauch. The third began to move, gravitating towards the warrior-type, but it remained indistinct, continuing to probe and flex as it ghosted across the screen. The girl¡¯s attention oscillated between Rauch¡¯s screen and Charles¡¯s, unsure which deserved it more.


    ¡°Nothing fancy now, eh?¡± Charles mused, as he dragged his sequence into the hopper. ¡°Just send it up and let it do what it does best?¡± Miller patted Charles on the shoulder and worked a nod into a sip of coffee.


    The third shape elongated further. The sharpened end slimmed to its own distinct cylinder, much narrower than the other, and took on a metallic sheen. Cutouts appeared in the pointed tip, forming it into an X-shaped taper. It snapped into focus as it reached the warrior-Rauch¡¯s outstretched hand¡­a screwdriver. It fit into his grasp, clashing utterly with his bestial aura, as the figure strode across the screen.


    The girl noticed a second too late.

 Chapter 28

    ¡°NO!¡± Rauch yelled as he sprang from his chair. He lurched towards the console and scooped up his weapon of choice from its place atop the pile of debris. In one motion he raised it, advanced on Charles, and swung it in a wide arc, its stainless tip gleaming as it whistled through the air. Charles, startled by Rauch¡¯s yell, pivoted, exposing his chest just in time to catch the blow in in full. It penetrated just beneath his clavicle.


    Charles convulsed as the tag team of pain and shock hit him in force. Blood squirted from the wound, staining both his and Rauch¡¯s coats in crimson. Spray stippled Rauch¡¯s face. Miller and Britt sat in silence, too stunned to move. Charles grabbed for the handle, but Rauch beat him to it. ¡°You can¡¯t!¡± he screamed. ¡°We can fix it! We can FIX IT!¡± With a manic look on his face he wrenched it from the wound, causing blood to gush and pool in the cavity. He raised it for another blow. The girl caught him from behind and tried to drag him away, but Rauch fought her off with a kick and a shove, sending her stumbling backwards, into Miller, a broken Fblood-hand printed on her chest.


    The action snapped Charles out of his stupor. His eyes widened as he noticed the holo, which had shadowed Rauch across the distance and maintained its place above his shoulder. It now showed the warrior-beast dancing in the mist, a necklace of bone bouncing against his chiseled chest as he hopped and pirouetted. The head of his vanquished foe sat on a spike in the foreground. Its eyes had rolled back to the whites, and the skin had drawn pale and tight over its sockets. Its tongue lolled pathetically from its slackened jaw.


    He sprung into action as his blood began to drain. He swiped wildly at the interface, trying to send up the final packets of code for the kill-switch. One took, then a second, data whooshing into existence in the launching chamber on the screen. Blood was pooling on the floor, forming a twistedf angel¡¯s wing as his flailing arm pushed it this way and that. He swiped a third time and the screen went blank, fading to a vacant black. He swiped again, less strongly than before, but this time it had no effect.


    Rauch recovered from the girl¡¯s advance and redoubled his attack on Charles. He grabbed his victim by the shoulder and turned him downwards, dragged him back to the floor and once again exposing his chest to the wrath of the screwdriver. Charles tried to struggle but the angles were all wrong for him; he¡¯d lost all his leverage when he¡¯d reached for the interface. He was quickly overpowered and found himself on his back, pinned beneath Rauch¡¯s greater bulk.


    The first blow faltered and went wide as Charles blocked it with his forearm, forcing it into his upper arm and robbing it of most of its power, but Charles¡¯s strength was fading fast. The second landed just above his heart, and the third pierced its center. The point met with some resistance. Rauch leaned forward and forced it further, to the sound of snapping bone. Fresh blood oozed from the openings, hot dribbles puddling to join the rest as the beating heart began to slow. Charles clawed again at the handle, now slick with sheets of red, but feebly. So feebly.


    Britt and Miller finally reached them. Rauch fought against them both, trying for another blow, and in his berserker state he almost managed to get free, but together they were able to wrap him up and drag him off of Charles. They threw him back in his chair, where Miller held him in place while Britt searched for something to restrain him. Rauch though continued to struggle, but halfheartedly; his bloodlust seemed to disappear once they had him pulled away. The girl, meanwhile, tended to Charles. Or tried to, anyways. She cradled his head in her hands, then let it go in favor of wadding up her lab coat, and used that to prop him up instead. She tested the screwdriver after that, pinching at the handle gingerly, searching for the least congealed portions, but she gave that up when Charles let out a groan and a wail. Next she reclaimed her coat and used it to try and stop the blood, which by now had slowed to a dribble. She wadded it up again and applied pressure to as many of the wounds as she could. Blood welled in each. Some of it soaked into the fabric, but most ran down Charles¡¯s chest in rivulets, where it joined the growing pool. Charles groaned again and tried to sit up. Jets squirted from his wounds.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Shhhhhhhhhh¡± the girl whispered, as soothingly as she could, and eased him back down. She stroked his wispy hair. ¡°Save your strength. Everything¡¯s going to be OK.¡± The panicky look she gave Miller suggested anything but. Help, she mouthed.


    Miller spared a glance at Britt, who considered his charge, then nodded his blessing. He knelt beside the girl. Her relief at having someone to share her burden with was clear. Miller took her coat from her and set it aside. He peeled back Charles¡¯s shirt, with some difficulty in places that had already started to congeal, and inspected the wounds. ¡°There¡¯s a first aid kit behind the Tower¡± he said, ¡°get me the Sanimax and the cryoseal.¡± She did as she was told. Her path took her close to Rauch; they locked eyes as she trotted past. Rauch¡¯s holo showed a garbled mixture of images and text. The words ¡®deserved it¡¯ and ¡®fixable¡¯ swirled among pictures of the warrior-Rauch tossing and turning in his bed and a mouse hiding in a field.


    Charles had passed out by the time she returned. His head collapsed to one side and his eyes, unlidded, rolled back in their sockets. His jaw slackened. His tongue lolled lifelessly to one side, not quite in or out of his mouth. His lips thinned as all the blood that had been in his head sought lower ground. She dumped the kit next to Miller and knelt beside him, cradling his head in her lap once more, her face an anguished wail. Miller, acting on instinct, started to give him CPR. The first thrust sent fresh blood geysering from of his wounds, coating his forearms with its spray. He gave up and fingered the screwdriver, but he had to give that up too, when he saw the blood that welled in the gaps he created every time he moved the handle.


    ¡°Call Head,¡± he ordered. ¡°Get some help.¡± He reached for the cryoseal from the pile of sundries the girl had spilled.


    ¡°It¡¯s too late,¡± Rauch whispered. There was a smile on his face when he said it.


    ¡°Shut up!¡± Miller¡¯s hand found the cryoseal. He uncapped the canister and began unfurling the mesh. ¡°We¡¯ll deal with you later.¡±


    Rauch squirmed in his chair, as much as Britt¡¯s grasp would allow. He clicked his heels together gleefully. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, you¡¯re wasting your time!¡± he gloated. ¡°He¡¯s gone.¡±


    ¡°We still have to try.¡± He said it more to himself, or perhaps to the girl, than as a response to Rauch. ¡°If there¡¯s any chance at all¡­¡±


    ¡°There isn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Your opinion.¡±


    ¡°Fact!¡±


    Miller stopped, mesh crackling in his hand as the nitrogen from the canister chilled it to Antarctic temperatures, and held Rauch with his gaze. ¡°See for yourself!¡± Rauch said, and nodded.


    Miller followed his nod towards the station Charles had used to queue up the kill. The screen there had not changed. It remained vacant and dark just as it was for Charles¡¯s final swipe. But now¡­there was another. A corollary of Rauch¡¯s fairy hovered just beneath the desk, this one smaller, pale and translucent, as if only partly formed. Three words were legible on its pulsing surface, standing out amidst the expected mash of pictures and text:


    Done¡­


    And then, several lines below that, in a space reserved for it alone:


    and¡­


    Goodbye ()

 Chapter 29

    The four of them stared as the blinking of the cursor slowed, then stilled, as if it knew its work was done.  The girl held two fingers against Charles¡¯s neck, then underneath his nose.  She didn¡¯t bother reporting the results.  The three of them sat in silence, coming to terms with what had happened.  Britt was a statue holding Rauch.  Miller slumped, like a tent collapsing, as his adrenaline faded.  Only Rauch appeared alert, perhaps wondering if the rest of the gathering was distracted enough for him to¡­what?  His holo didn¡¯t betray any thoughts of escape.  Tears welled in the girl¡¯s eyes.  She sniffed them back, then realized she was holding a dead man¡¯s head in her lap and eased herself out from underneath him.  His skull hit the tile with a soft crack.  She stood, knees cracking with stiffness, then helped Miller do the same.  The tackiness of the drying blood was audible as he lifted himself from the pool.


    ¡°He must mean the kill-switch,¡± Miller croaked, referring the former of Charles¡¯s final words.  There was no need to discuss the latter.  ¡°He must have sent up.  Or at least, he thought he did.¡±  He picked up a roll of bandages and walked them over to Britt.  The cryo mesh, forgotten next to Charles¡¯s corpse, crackled anew as she kicked it aside.


    ¡°Only one way to find out,¡± Britt held Rauch¡¯s arms as Miller looped several layers of cotton around his wrists.  He nodded towards the girl, who was using alcohol from the first aid kit to wipe the blood from her hands and wrists, then at Charles¡¯s station.  ¡°Do you mind?¡±


    ¡°S-sure,¡± she choked it out around the remnants of a sob.  She tossed her wipe into the trash and swiped in.


    Or tried to.  The screen remained dark as she sat down.  She went through the motions a second time, then a third.  Nothing.


    ¡°Try the breaker.¡±


    She nodded.  For security reasons, the stations were designed without any startup or shutdown protocol that could be activated from the interface.  Instead, there was a secondary interface behind the displays, which had to be activated manually.  It didn¡¯t actually control the power supply, but it earned the nickname for acting as an upstream control.


    She reached around the display and swiped her biosignature.  It beeped angrily and refused to let her in.  She tried again.  More indignant beeping.


    Miller, finished now with Rauch¡¯s wrists, joined her and swiped for himself.  Same result.


    ¡°What the hell?¡±  They inspected the station front and back, but aimlessly, as if they didn¡¯t really know what they were looking for.  ¡°Power¡¯ good.  Data¡¯s clear.  Why won¡¯t it let us in?¡±  He shrugged and swiped again.  The girl, meanwhile, pawed at the holo that had appeared as Charles died, as if it might have somehow replaced the hardware on the station, but earned only a degaussing wave.


    ¡°I¡¯ll fix it,¡± Rauch said.  He¡¯d struggled only a little when Britt and Miller had tied him up, but now that the bandage was in place he seemed desperate to be free of it.  ¡°If you let me go.  I can lock in and fix whatever¡¯s wrong.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a programming issue.¡±  Miller¡¯s gaze drifted towards Charles.  It was obvious what he was thinking.  Charles had been the mastermind when it came to hardware.  He would have been the one to ask.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    ¡°But¡­he told me things!¡±  Rauch squirmed in his chair, causing it to scrap forward across the tile.  Nails on a chalkboard.  ¡°He put in some special security measures.  Last month, after the generator went down.  Untie me and I¡¯ll show you what I mean.¡±


    Miller looked skeptical, though he clearly didn¡¯t have any ideas of his own.  He and the girl glanced at each other, then at Rauch¡¯s holo.  ¡°Bullshit.¡±


    ¡°He did!  He was¡­he was worried that it wasn¡¯t safe, that it might trip accidentally if there was another power failure, and he wanted someone else to know!¡±  Rauch looked over his shoulder, straining to do so against his bonds, and saw what they saw on his holo.  It told a very different story.  ¡°He DID!¡± he whined, and thrashed in his chair, hard enough to lift its legs off the floor.  Clatters joined the squeals and scrapes.  ¡°Don¡¯t believe that piece of shit!  It doesn¡¯t mean what you think it does!  He didn¡¯t know how to code it to do what he wanted so he asked me to help him, that¡¯s how I know!  Let me go and I¡¯ll prove it to you!  I¡¯ll show you everything we did, you just have to LET ME GO!¡±


    Miller inspected the cables again.  A faint glow could be seen as he knelt into the shaded area behind the display ¨C pale and blue, just like the others.


    ¡°Mill?¡± the girl asked.


    Miller depressed the catch on the data receiver and twisted it from its insert.  He turned it over in the shadowy light. ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°If the kill-switch got sent¡­we shouldn¡¯t see the holos anymore, should we?¡±


    Miller blew on the I/O portion of the bulb and plugged it back into its socket.  ¡°We might.¡±  He unhooked the power feed and blew on it as well.  ¡°It isn¡¯t instantaneous, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re asking.  The way it works isn¡¯t all that different than the original code, actually.  It is essentially just one more source of mutation, but in a place where mutation is lethal.  Not to all of them, not right away¡­as with any mutation, some will adapt, and some will survive.  For a while, anyways.  But it will push them, further and further away from the norm, until all of them are over the edge.  The kill only goes in one direction, don¡¯t forget.  It isn¡¯t random like the rest of the change.  Dammit!¡± he cursed as he swiped at the interface again, and was again rejected.  ¡°Why?¡±


    The girl regarded Charles¡¯s corpse, then the holo on Miller¡¯s shoulder.  It was stronger now.  Almost as strong as Charles¡¯s.  ¡°No reason,¡± she said.  ¡°I¡­just want it to be over.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s lying!¡±  Rauch yelled.  He was almost hysterical now.  ¡°Haha, see how YOU like it!  She¡¯s lying through her fucking teeth!  She¡¯s lying cuz she loooves you, and she doesn¡¯t want to say, but she sees!  You¡¯re next!  You¡¯re next, buddy boy, and she knows it!  We ALL know it!¡±  He hopped frantically in his seat, enough to bring all four legs off the floor for an instant.  It crashed back with a metallic clang.  ¡°Hehe, but I could stop it.  Charles asked my help, you see; I know everything he did.  If you just untie me¡­I could make them go away.  I know I could.¡±  He settled down when he failed to extract a response.  His thrashing ceased.  He focused instead on working the bandages, shuffling his wrists this way and that, trying to loosen what little slack Miller had afforded him.  ¡°I know I could¡­¡±


    Miller noticed his little fairy, now as real as Rauch¡¯s, though not yet as large.  He watched it for a few seconds, then shrugged.  The novelty was wearing off, it seemed, and after Charles¡¯s had appeared a third was hardly unexpected.


    ¡°You won¡¯t brush it off for long!¡±  Rauch continued struggling against the bandages, oblivious to anyone who might be watching.  He wasn¡¯t making much progress anyways.  ¡°Wait until it starts showing your thoughts to everyone!  Wait until you¡¯re on display like a monkey in a goddam zoo!  You won¡¯t be so callous then!¡±


    ¡°Sounds like the kind of thing only a sneak like you would have to worry about.¡±  Miller mumbled, allowing himself to be drawn into the argument.  The sheepish figure that appeared on his senescing holo showed that he regretted it immediately.

 Chapter 30

    ¡°Ha!¡±  Rauch spat.  ¡°See?  It¡¯s happening already!¡±  He stuck his tongue out for a moment, thinking he might be getting somewhere with the knot, but it was just a place where the bandages had clumped together.  ¡°It¡¯s not just the lies and the cheats you have to worry about!  It¡¯s every stray little thought that pops into that pea brain of yours!¡±  He drew back into himself.  He seemed to be phasing in and out, one minute doing whatever he could to goad Miller into any sort of reaction, and the next muttering to himself, as if trying to convince himself that his position wasn¡¯t so bad.  ¡°You see.  You¡¯re pretending that you don¡¯t, but you see.¡±  His chin fell back to his chest as his fingers groped around, searching for a thread to tug.  ¡°Oh, but I could fix it.  HQ showed me what to do.  I could lock it in like nothing¡­and I know what¡¯s wrong with Haggarty.¡±


    Another lie.  Miller refused to be provoked further.  He contemplated the data bulb instead.  ¡°Maybe if we¡­¡±


    ¡°Psst!¡± the girl whispered, trying to get Miller¡¯s attention.  ¡°Just thought you should know.¡±  She pointed when Miller turned around, at Rauch¡¯s holo, which showed Rauch ¨C the real Rauch now, not the warrior-thing that had slaughtered Charles ¨C driving a pike through Miller¡¯s heart as Miller writhed on the tile¡­and strangling him in a fit of rage, and shooting him with a flaming crossbow, and dropping him through a hangman¡¯s gallows, the force of his fall snapping his neck as the noose arrested his descent, body dangling in a winter sun.


    ¡°Bitch!¡± Rauch hissed, and spat at her.  It came up woefully short.  ¡°I¡¯ll get you too!¡±  Sure enough, one of the images morphed to show the girl instead of Miller.  The one with the crossbow, if that made any difference.


    Britt checked on his restraints.  He nodded his okay.  Even so, he positioned himself between Rauch and the others, ready to intervene if needed.


    Miller continued.  ¡°No idea.¡±  He put a finger on his forehead and rubbed his temple.  ¡°We¡¯ll just have to use the main.¡±  He made his way over to the primary station.  ¡°It¡¯s overkill, for something as simple as the kill-switch, but I don¡¯t see what choice we have.¡±  He swiped to lock in, but was again rebuffed.  Not by the angry buzz and flash of red this time, but by the tonal double-beep which signaled someone else had beat him to it.


    ¡°Rauch.¡±  He put his hands on the console.  He didn¡¯t bother turning around.  ¡°Out.¡±


    ¡°Who, me?¡±  Rauch¡¯s shoulders danced back and forth, still trying to outsmart the bandages, still doing so blatantly, in full view of everyone.  ¡°What makes you think it¡¯s me?¡±


    ¡°I can see it in the bauble.  It¡¯s keyed to your signature.  But you already know that.  You must have swiped in before you¡­¡± he broke off not quite ready to put the death in words just yet.  ¡°¡­ah, before we tied you down.  Out.¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Love to, hoss,¡± Rauch made a point of emphasizing Charles¡¯s nickname for the guy in charge, ¡°but I¡¯m a bit indisposed at the moment.  Haven¡¯t you noticed?¡±  He threw his weight to one side, as if to demonstrate.  ¡°If you¡¯d be so kind as to help me out of my predicament, perhaps I could help with yours?¡±


    ¡°Britt?¡±  Miller still refused to look at him.


    Britt checked Rauch¡¯s holo.  ¡°Nope,¡± he reported.  ¡°He¡¯s holding it hostage, and not planning on letting go any time soon.  He thinks that maybe, if he holds the reigns, he can somehow save the bots.¡±


    ¡°Thought so.¡±


    ¡°Can we force him out?¡±


    ¡°Not easily.  HQ has some overrides and could do it with just a couple of swipes, but we are not so lucky.  So long as he remains conscious and proximate he can keep the rest of us out.  The sync-up with his biosignature is just too strong.  We would have to knock him out, or drag him someplace outside the network¡¯s range, before it would let us kick him out.¡±


    ¡°How big is the network?¡±


    Miller gestured to their surroundings.  ¡°Every meter.¡±  His holo made it clear he meant the entire bunker, in case there was any doubt.


    ¡°Ah.¡±  Rauch ranted and raved in front of him, letting them know in not-so-gentle terms how stuck with him they were, and making some rather illogical suggestions regarding the taxonomical classifications of their mothers.  Britt sighed.  ¡°I¡¯ll call HQ.¡±


    ¡°You really think that¡¯s a good idea?¡± Miller asked.


    ¡°Yes¡­¡± Britt said, tentatively.  ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t it be?¡±


    Miller motioned towards the screen that was opaquing into existence next to Britt¡¯s shoulder.  ¡°Your fairy has arrived.¡±


    ¡°HAHA YEAH!¡±  Rauch screamed, as both he and Britt strained to catch a glimpse.  ¡°Both of you got it now!  Can¡¯t have THAT showing up in your little conference, can you!  Not when you gotta tell ¡®em about Charles!  Not when you gotta go beg ¡®em for help ¡®cuz YOU couldn¡¯t keep control!¡±


    ¡°He has a point,¡± Miller said.  ¡°You won¡¯t have a prayer of managing that conversation, not with that thing bringing up the rear.¡±


    Britt hesitated, thinking.  ¡°But¡­we have to.  With everything that¡¯s gone wrong¡­not just the override, not just the¡­the murder¡­the whole deal with the holoscreens, and the breach, we just have to.¡±  His holo gurgled and heaved, a semi-formed mass of confusion.  ¡°Don¡¯t we?¡±


    Miller sat back against the console.  He looked exhausted at having stood for so long on his own.  ¡°You know what they¡¯d have to do.¡±


    Britt¡¯s slump mirrored Miller¡¯s.  ¡°Yeah.  I do.¡±  He grabbed a chair and sat in front of Rauch, keeping one eye on him, and maintaining bodyguard positioning.  ¡°So, you got a better idea?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t I always?¡±


    He¡¯s bluffing!  Rauch¡¯s voice rattled around in the background.  It was starting to crack from the strain.  He¡¯s got nothing!  That butt-munch couldn¡¯t figure his way out of a plastic bag!  Check his holo!


    ¡°As much as I¡¯d love to knock this little piss-ant out of his wits, that won¡¯t be necessary.  There¡¯s a manual override.¡±  He shuffled over to a locker at the edge of the station and began rummaging inside.  ¡°Like I said, it ain¡¯t easy.  Because the interface requires such an integrated connection to the user, it is impossible to kick someone off without re-initializing the system.  Which, as you know, can only be done externally.  So we can either get someone at HQ to do it, or¡­¡± he pulled out something and held it aloft, ¡°we can use this!¡±  He appeared to be strengthening, rising to this new challenge.  Or perhaps just glad to be working on something he knew for a change.

 Chapter 31

    Britt squinted at the object.  It was rectangular in shape, about the size of a deck of cards, and the way it turned in Miller¡¯s grasp made it seem heavy for its size.  It had a gunmetal shell that glinted in the fluoros, which coated its entire frame save for a matted interface that made up one of the broader sides, and one tiny data port on what could only have been the base.  Miller¡¯s hand trembled as he held it out for all to see.  ¡°What the heck is that?¡±


    ¡°A fail-safe,¡± Miller explained.  ¡°A copy of the interface¡¯s initialization protocol, with a bare-bones operating system just strong enough to launch it.  Completely separate from the tower, completely off the network.  No matter how strong someone¡¯s connection is this bad boy can cut them off.¡±  He spared a smirk towards Rauch, acknowledging him for the first time since he¡¯d had started raving about the holo.  ¡°Bet you didn¡¯t know I had this tucked away, did you?¡±


    You think that¡¯s going to make a difference?  Rauch squawked.  I also didn¡¯t know you had a cockroach up your ass either, but it¡¯ll do about as much!  I¡¯ve got the whole of the Tower at my disposal!  You think you¡¯re going to take me down with that piece of scrap-heap silicon?  His holo showed a comical image of the referenced insect making a home in Miller¡¯s colon, sipping a coffee and reading a newsfeed from an easy chair, but beneath that there was nervousness.  The Rauches bent on killing slowed, their resolve for vengeance somewhat slaked.  Their attacks struck only glancing blows.  You guys are pathetic!


    ¡°Uh-huh,¡± Miller mumbled.  He unraveled a dimeteroid cable, which he had also extracted from the locker, and plugged one end into the dataport at the base of his device.  ¡°Little help with the panels?  The port for this kind of thing is hidden behind one of them.  I forget which one.¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡±  Britt and the girl both made for the Tower.  Britt beat her by a step.  He and Miller knelt beside the access panels and began popping the catches on the first two as the girl looked over their shoulders.


    That¡¯s when Rauch saw his chance.


    He lurched to one side, picking two of his chair¡¯s legs off the floor.  He teetered there for a fraction of a second, balanced on the other two, then gave it a final twist and fell, crashing to the floor.  There was an audible pop as his shoulder separated.  His holo exploded with novae of yellows and whites.  The girl rushed over to tend to him, but he kicked her legs out from under her.  She fell to the floor with a scream and a thud.  Rauch squirmed forward, up the back of the chair, and used the extra inches afforded by his dislocated shoulder to lift his wrists clear of its frame.  He levered them up and over his head, grimacing in pain.  The open joint of his shoulder ground awkwardly against the floor as he brought them down into his lap.  He kicked again as Britt approached, followed closely by Miller.  He missed, but was able to use the momentum of his kick to effect a sort of side-situp, then leveraged the frame of the overturned chair to hoist himself into a crouch.  He exploded upwards into Britt, who was just regaining his balance after dodging Rauch¡¯s kick.  Britt caught it full in the chin from the crown of Rauch¡¯s head.  He crumpled, pinning the girl¡¯s legs underneath him as he fell.  Rauch stumbled back a step, a little dazed himself, then rounded on Miller, holding his bound wrists and dislocated shoulder off to one side, as if to swing them like a club.  His holo fizzled for a moment, then resolved into a single image of himself beating Miller to a bloody, mercy-begging pulp with this new appendage, which in the holo had taken on the distinct appearance of a wooden mallet.  His face was flecked with spittle in the image, his mouth open in a bloodlust-ridden howl of abandon.  Violets and deep, fiery reds owned the scene.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Miller took a defensive stance.  His holo showed a feral cat, its back and tail thick with horripilation, flicking its head this way and that, as if searching for a predator it knew was there but wasn¡¯t sure what it was.  Beneath that concern for the girl, and, to a lesser extent, for Britt.  He spared a glance at the two of them.  The girl was struggling underneath Britt, who was out cold.  She had managed to free one leg and was using it to kick his body off the other.  She didn¡¯t seem to have suffered any serious injury.


    Stay down, Miller mouthed.


    Rauch breathed.  A clump of sweaty hair dangled in front of his eyes as he stared at Miller from the semi-crouch his shoulder demanded.  ¡°We¡­can¡­fix¡­it,¡± he hissed.


    ¡°We can¡¯t,¡± Miller said, almost pleadingly.  A pained look sagged his face.  ¡°It¡¯s just too big a risk.¡±


    Rauch charged.


    He came in low, leading with his good shoulder aimed at Miller¡¯s gut.  Miller tried to side-step the rush and strike a blow on the back of his opponent¡¯s neck, but Rauch threw an elbow out and caught him in the ribs, shifting laterally to drive it home.  The force of the blow spun Miller partway around and robbed his counter of all its force; it landed on Rauch¡¯s shoulder instead, not hard enough to force him to the ground as intended, but still enough to make him yelp as fresh jolts of pain arced through his torso.  His face was an animal mixture of panic and rage as he stepped back, away from Miller¡¯s body, and swung his hands in a compact arc, trying to land a blow to the side of Miller¡¯s head.  Miller ducked and backed away, not wanting to get into a grappling match with the younger, stronger Rauch, then jumped back again as Rauch sought him with the backstroke of the same attack.  Miller held his arms in front of him to ward off any further swings as he re-established his position.  He clearly wasn¡¯t practiced in the art of combat, but he seemed to sense that distance was his ally in this fight, with Rauch down to a single limb.


    They circled each other, once, then twice.  Rauch feinted to the left, then to the right, testing to see how Miller would defend.  He never stopped working the bandages.  They had loosened as he struggled, but not enough to free himself.  He¡¯d gained an extra inch or so of separation as he slid his wrists against each other, and that was all.  For now.


    The girl freed herself of the burden that was Britt.  Both Rauch and Miller noticed as she shoved her boss¡¯s lifeless bulk off her leg and tottered to her own two feet.  Rauch, savaged though he was, realized his time was short if he wished to fight them singly, and advanced on Miller once again.


    ¡°NO!¡± he screamed.  ¡°That tower is MINE!!!¡±

 Chapter 32

    He swung, first from the right, then from the left, backing Miller off each time. Miller tried to wrap him up, but Rauch managed a kick at his legs, knocking Miller to one knee. He grabbed wildly at Rauch¡¯s chest, catching enough of his uniform to keep himself from falling further. Rauch winced in pain as the action jerked his weakened arm. Miller tried to stretch it further, and to use it as a sort of ladder to help him climb back to his feet, but Rauch twisted violently, and shoved him away before he could regain his balance. Miller stumbled backwards. He crashed against the side of the console, grunting as his momentum threw him back against its surface. Rauch was on him like a shot, pinning him with one of his bony knees. He brought the club of his fists down on Miller¡¯s head. Miller raised a forearm to block the blow but he was too slow; it landed near his temple, knocking his head violently to one side. His defenses slowed, affected noticeably by the blow. Rauch slipped past them, arms still bound at the wrists, and wrapped his hands around Miller¡¯s neck.


    He squeezed.


    Miller¡¯s eyes bulged in panic as his mind snapped back in focus. He clawed at his assailant¡¯s wrists, but now the bandages aided Rauch, protecting them from Miller¡¯s nails. Miller¡¯s eyes widened further. His throat rasped airily, jaw strained in a desperate gape, as he sucked a wisp or two of air. His tongue curled, as if that could somehow help him breathe. He gave up beating Rauch¡¯s wrists and groped the side of the console instead. His hand found the access panel, still open from the work he and Britt had been doing earlier, and played over switches, signals, and readouts as Rauch¡¯s grip tightened and turned. ¡°Come on,¡± Rauch hissed, ¡°let¡¯s hear that snap¡­¡± Miller¡¯s hand found the cable that led to the re-initialization handheld. ¡°Just a little more,¡± Rauch whispered as Miller fed the cable through his fist, inch by agonizing inch. Miller¡¯s face began to purple. His chest shuddered uselessly as his lungs tried their best to expand, creating vacuums in his lungs. Blood bloomed in both his eyes as the veins that fed them swelled, then burst. His fist ate the last of the cable; his hand grabbed the device at its end. He swung it sharply up at Rauch.


    Rauch, crazed though he was, sensed the blow coming, and ducked his head beneath it. It glanced up the nape of his neck, taking a thin scrape of skin with it. Miller lost his grip as it did. It skittered across his neck and dribbled down his unset shoulder, cable straddling his neck like a sock being hung to dry. If Rauch felt any further pain as it settled in the open joint, he didn¡¯t let them show.


    ¡°Now now, none of that,¡± He whispered, and twisted his grip again. His hollow showed a robed figure hued with more of the violent purples, now laced with a hint of green that somehow came across as smug. Miller¡¯s eyes closed and his head lolled back, semiconscious. ¡°Just relax. It will all be over sssssaghghghgh¡­!¡±


    He choked on the final word. The girl had grabbed the end of the cable and wrenched it around the front of his neck, cutting of his air supply. His grip on Miller¡¯s neck faltered, allowing his victim a rasping breath. Rauch clawed at the cable as Miller had clawed a moment before, but he was hampered by his shoulder. He thrashed, trying to disrupt her balance. Miller, recovering now, clamped his hands on Rauch¡¯s wrist, preventing him from throwing her off. His eyes bulged as Miller¡¯s had. His pallor likewise purpled.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°Enough,¡± Miller breathed, once they had him under control. ¡°Ease off. We¡¯ll tie him up again.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± she whispered. ¡°We can¡¯t. Look at his holo. Look at that rage. He¡¯ll keep fighting. Whatever bonds we put on him, he¡¯ll find a way out. He won¡¯t give up until you¡¯re dead.¡± Her unfocused gaze fell between Rauch and Miller as she spoke. She tightened the cable.


    Rauch¡¯s slump tilted backwards, away from Miller¡¯s grip. The girl shuffled back a step, giving him room to fall, and followed him all the way to the floor. He clawed at the cable with his now-free fingers, digging into the skin trying to somehow get beneath it. He kicked at the console around Miller¡¯s legs, but weakly, far too weakly to back her off.


    ¡°But¡­it¡¯s murder,¡± Miller choked.


    ¡°Self defense,¡± she countered. A convalescing holo on her shoulder confirmed the she, at least, believed what she was saying, but her grip on the cable appeared to loosen, ever so slightly. Her eyes remained unfocused.


    Miller rubbed his own neck, where bruises were already starting to form in the indentations Rauch had left. His eyes were almost as wide as Rauch¡¯s. He stumbled as one of Rauch¡¯s kicks caught him just below the knee, only catching himself on the console at the very last minute. He looked at the hand that had saved him, spreading it wide, palm to his face, as if amazed it wasn¡¯t damaged. Then he looked at Rauch again. Then at the girl.


    He nodded.


    She re-strengthened her grip on the cable and jerked it upwards as hard as she could, lifting Rauch partway off the ground. His eyes bulged further and rolled back in their sockets. His face looked like a pimple being popped. Blood spilled over his fingertips as they broke an artery in their furious attempt to loosen the cable. A few fibers frayed and strayed from the bundle, but not enough to weaken its hold. His legs slowed to a twitch, feet twisting uselessly to their sides.


    The girl¡¯s lips curled in a hint of a snarl, and her breathing quickened with exertion, but she held her formless stare. Miller watched, alternately rubbing his neck and the wrist that had held the device, as if he¡¯d strained it with his blow. His fingers smeared with red from a tiny cut where Rauch¡¯s nails had broken skin. Twice he moved as if to intervene, but both times he held back, eyes focused on Rauch¡¯s holo, which now showed the robed figure beating its fists against a cage made of bars of blinding white. Frothy spittle gathered at the corners of its mouth as it screamed.


    Rauch¡¯s tongue tumbled out of his mouth and dangled, like an empty sack, against the purple of his cheek. His eyelids fluttered. His eyes, now devoid of pupils, twitched frenetically beneath them. His clawing stopped. His arms went limp, falling off to either side, and his head lolled back against the girl¡¯s stomach. A drop of blood from the gouge on his neck beaded on the fingers of his left hand, dangling inches off the floor. His right smeared against the tile.


    The girl sloughed as Rauch¡¯s weight went dead. The bridge his body had been forming as he¡¯d struggled collapsed, swinging towards her as it folded. She let him fall, unable to hold him any longer, but she kept her grip on the cable tight. For the first time in minutes her eyes focused on something, flicking towards Rauch¡¯s holo. The robed figure lay on the ground, against the wall of its cage, and was still. A wind ruffled the edges of its cloak as it lay, and then that too froze, like a movie stalling on a frame. It remained that way for several seconds.


    ¡°It¡¯s OK,¡± Miller whispered. ¡°He isn¡¯t faking. He¡¯s¡­gone.¡±


    The girl nodded, tears welling in her eyes. Miller put an arm around her shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze.


    She turned to him, and let them flow.

 Chapter 33

    ¡°Enough,¡± I said, breaking the trance that had fallen over the room.  I turned my head from the holoscreen, a white flag of surrender to the savagery I was witnessing.  ¡°That¡¯s enough.  We don¡¯t need to see the rest.¡±  I¡¯d seen people die before ¨C I did work for the Coalition, after all ¨C but it was always with a purpose, always someone faraway, who had held a needed post, or failed in some spectacular way.  Never in a fit of passion, the way Rauch had murdered Charles, or the girl¡¯s ultimate self-defense.  Never this senseless taking of a life.


    From the corner of my eye I saw the girl still gripping the end of the cable as she cried into Miller¡¯s chest, forcing Rauch to sit up straight, like a handler might a pup.  Only when Miller held her close, found the hand that held the cable, opened it with gentle fingers, and took her hand in his did she release him.  His body slouched to the floor.  The blood in his head made a sickening squelch as it whipsawed to the tile.  I thanked God it didn¡¯t split.


    The girl shifted in her bunk.  ¡°I¡­can¡¯t stop it,¡± she whispered, and turned her head dejectedly.  The girl on the screen had broken her embrace with Miller, and now was helping move the body to a less obtrusive place.  To the place we¡¯d seen it when we¡¯d first entered the bunker.  ¡°They¡¯re still evolving, you see.  They¡¯ve taken all control.¡±  Her bedding rustled in a susurrus of fabric as she worked her feet underneath her comforter.  To me that was a waste of effort.  They seemed to have no warmth to hold.  ¡°But you¡¯ll know all about that soon enough.¡±


    This caught me by surprise.  I noticed Banks and Bergman fingering the visplates of their biosuits, as if that could confirm the seals.  Banks, in particular, was put off by her remark.  He traced a finger around his entire visplate, then checked his wrists, ankles, and the zipper on his chest, every place there might be a gap.  I chuckled softly to myself¡­and resisted the urge to do the same.


    ¡°Ha!¡± the girl hooted.  ¡°You think those will keep you clean?¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± I answered, once enough time had passed that it was clear the others wouldn¡¯t, ¡°that¡¯s the purpose for which they were designed, by folks who know how these things work, so, yeah, I suppose I do.¡±


    ¡°They won¡¯t.¡±


    I waited for an explanation, but no explanation came.  She made me drag it out of her.  ¡°And why, pray tell, is that?¡±


    ¡°Because they¡¯re evolving!¡¯ she exclaimed.  ¡°Haven¡¯t you been listening?  That¡¯s what they do!¡±  She jerked forward as she spoke, pulling herself out of her corner for the first time since we¡¯d entered the room, and sat up on the edge of the bunk.  Banks and Bergman tensed.  They shouldered their firearms once again, but this time Ramsey waved them off, signaling that she posed no threat that rifles in her face could quell.  The girl noticed none of it.  ¡°They were tied to the Haggarty at first,¡± she said, ¡°which is a very mammalian strain.  It can¡¯t survive outside our bodies, or an incubation room.  But that was a weakness.  It handcuffed them while doing their job, and the bots were always agents of change.  They coded that weakness out of themselves, making themselves stronger, more adaptable¡­more contagious.  First they developed a way to transmit through the air.  That was probably easy for them, with so many examples in the database to model after.  But then we grabbed our biosuits, which, as you say, are design especially to prevent transmission through air, or touch, or any other available medium, and we forced them to get creative.  Over thousands of generations they squeezed the Haggarty out entirely.  Only the shell ¨C the organic, biological shell of the virus, which helped them mask their true selves long enough to spread some roots ¨C was valuable to them, so they got rid of everything else.  And they replaced it with code that they could packet up.  Just chunk out willy-nilly, in whatever size blocks it felt like, without regard for the completeness and the self-sufficiency that were so critical to vees¡±  She shivered, suddenly, as if the knowledge of what she was saying gave her chills.  ¡°As a result, they were able to shrink those shells until they were small enough to pass through the filters in the breathing apps, and, with the bits of code as isolated as they were, inert enough to survive sterilization.  That gave them everything they needed to beat the suits.  They just had to find a way to recombine once they entered the body.  And I don¡¯t think they had any problem with that.¡±  Here she paused and lowered her voice, speaking to herself again when she continued.  ¡°It didn¡¯t even take a day,¡± she whispered.


    Another silence.  Ramsey moved as if to give her a goose, as I had a moment before, but I stopped him.  Somehow I sensed that she wasn¡¯t waiting on a prompt this time.


    She made no special haste about it.  She dangled the syringe between her thumb and forefinger, watching in pendulum this way and that, then wrapped it up in a four-finger grip.  A bubble of air rose through the liquid inside as she turned it end over end.  She cocked her head and studied it as it reached the surface and burst, splitting into a dozen smaller bubbles that clung to the walls of the cylinder, like spume on a rocky beach, then dissolved back into the well.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°So you see why your suits won¡¯t save you,¡± she told the needle.  ¡°They¡¯ll pour through them like a sieve.¡±  She placed her thumb on the plunger.  Her knuckles whitened as her grip on the cylinder tightened.  ¡°Like I said,¡± she whispered, lips barely moving, voice barely audible above the hum of her holo, ¡°you shouldn¡¯t have come.¡±


    Her holo showed her and Miller seeing to Britt, who by now had regained consciousness.  He held a hand to his head, still clearing out the cobwebs, by the looks of things, and rubbed the knee on which he¡¯d fallen.  But he appeared to be recovering well.  They were starting to talk about what to do next.  The discussion flowed more smoothly now that Rauch was out of the picture.


    I watched with only passing interest.  My mind was busy playing back some of the things the girl had said:


    ¡°Airborne¡­packets¡­small enough to pass through filters¡­¡±


    ¡°Inert¡­survive sterilization¡­¡±


    ¡°Like I said, you shouldn¡¯t have come¡­¡±


    ¡°You should have bombed this place to slag.¡±


    Suddenly it all made sense.  ¡°It can¡¯t be contained,¡± I said, and edged away from her again, as if ten centimeters of distance might somehow make a difference.  ¡°The sealed bunker, the radio silence, the closed-circuit ventilation, the way the access codes just stopped working¡­that was you, wasn¡¯t it?  The equipment never malfunctioned.  The bots and vees never hijacked it.  You did all that on purpose!¡±


    The girl only stared at the needle, and at the holoscreen beyond, where Britt was gingerly testing his balance, using Miller and the girl as crutches as he paced the floor.


    ¡°You¡¯re the ones who smashed the com-lines!  You¡¯re the ones who scrammed the codes!  You¡¯re why overrides were useless, the reason we had to chirp our way in!  You did everything you could to seal, scramble, redirect, and blast anything you could to help you make a quarantine, even if it meant your lives.¡±  I watched as Britt gave both of them a tentative thumbs-up.  They released him, leaving him to stand or fall on the power of his own two legs, but my attention was in the background, where Rauch¡¯s body sat beside the pool of Charles¡¯ blood, his fairy pale, blue, and frozen as it showed its final scene.  They weren¡¯t wrong.  To seal themselves in like that, to do every single thing they could in an effort to contain the outbreak, was actually commendable.  I asked myself, briefly, if in the same situation I¡¯d have been able to do the same, and it was a question I couldn¡¯t answer.  But the way they went about it left a lot to be desired.  ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell us?¡± I asked.  ¡°Why leave us in the dark, knowing what we¡¯d have to do?¡±


    The girl bobbed her head from side to side, dropping it gently as she did.  A sad little gesture, which seemed to mean ¡®I don¡¯t know,¡¯ ¡®people make mistakes sometimes¡¯ and ¡®because we did, assface¡¯ all at the same time.  The screen homed in on Rauch, as if to ask how HQ would have reacted to two separate deaths on the team.  Then the scene blurred to nothing, making way for the next in line.  ¡°Can you honestly say it would have mattered?¡± she asked, eyes still focused on the needle.


    It was my turn to be stilled.  I thought back to the vote in the war room, and tried to guess whose might have changed.  I had to admit, I wasn¡¯t sure.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± she asked, as the next scene bubbled to life onscreen.  ¡°I never caught it.¡±


    I hesitated.  Names were not protocol in situations like these.  She should have already known it, of course.  It¡¯s not like we had never talked.  But then again I should have already known hers.  Why couldn¡¯t I remember dammit?  If I could just remember, maybe I could ¨C


    ¡°Ramsay,¡± said the voice to my left.  I shot him a dirty look, wondering what he could be thinking, but I held my tongue.


    The girl nodded softly to herself.  I don¡¯t think she really cared who answered.


    ¡°Do you believe in God, Ramsay?¡±


    Ramsay shuffled his feet, noticeably caught off guard.  He and I shared another glance.  Don¡¯t look at me, I shrugged.  Your mess¡­


    ¡°Yes,¡± he said, ¡°I suppose I do.¡±  He shot a nervous glance at Banks and Bergman, as if considering his answer carefully, and how it might affect his command.  ¡°Not in a strictly biblical sense, but¡­yeah, I believe in a higher power.¡±


    She nodded again.  The corners of her mouth curled upwards for a split second, the barest hint of a smile.  It was the answer she¡¯d been hoping for.  ¡°And¡­do you believe that He is merciful?¡±


    Silence.  It was obvious what she was doing.  No one wanted any part of it.


    The scene finished rendering.  She and Miller, alone in the incubation chambers, sitting at the console, staring at another screen.  She looked normal, more or less ¨C a little worse for wear than she had in the other playbacks, but miles fresher than the girl beside us in the room ¨C but Miller¡¯s neck was covered by a bandage that was woefully undersized for the wound it seemed to be trying to patch.  Skeins of code spanned the expanse of one panel on the display.  A colored helix spun lazily on another.  Both their eyes flicked from one back to the other, as if the two were somehow linked.


    The girl¡¯s features drained when she saw it.  ¡°I sure hope so,¡± she choked.


    She jammed the needle into her thigh, depressed the plunger, and sent five cc¡¯s of uncut cytomorph coursing through her system.  After everything she¡¯d been through, all the death she had seen, and the destruction she had helped unleash on all the people she had cared about, I had a hard time even being mad.

 Chapter 34

    Her death was not a gentle one. Banks and Bergman moved to stop her, of course, but they were never fast enough. The innocent-looking liquid disappeared mil by mil through the microscopic opening of the needle until the plunger flushed against its stop. By the time they reached her, her leg had already started to spasm. They tore the syringe out of her hand, bending its tip halfway back in the process, such was the stiffness the drug had already induced in the muscle. Like rebar drying in cement.


    She overshot the vein, I thought, as I watched her thigh convulse and twitch. Poor girl. With that much coursing through her system it would reach her heart soon enough.


    Her knee straightened violently, raising her foot up off the mattress despite the weight of the comforter draped across it. Her coat parted over her leg, revealing a joint strained to the point of collapse by the pressure of muscles tensed around it. Veins, raised almost out of her skin, pulsed grotesquely as they carried the drug to the rest of her body, and, with it, carried her demise. A ligament snapped. I could actually see her hamstring roll up underneath her drawn skin, curling like a party favor as it sought her upper thigh. She, of course, felt none of it. The painkilling power of the cytomorph would have left her beyond numb, her mind in a euphoric, almost catatonic state of oxygen-deprived bliss. Her pelvis thrust high in the air, her hip bones poking against her skin and smock, threatening to shred them through. Her spine wrenched as it spread to her abdomen. Vertebrae popped like bubble wrap as they strained beyond their breaking points. Banks made a move to hold her down, but it was halfhearted, only going through the motions. We¡¯d all seen cytomorph before. There was nothing we could do.


    Veins raised on her neck and hands. Her arms twisted against themselves, muscles straining to collapse the bone. Her eyes turned a searing red as capillaries in the burst. The skin on their sockets shriveled and shrank, leaving them wide, round, and exposed. Sores bloomed like burns on her nose, then down on her cheekbones and neck. One of her shoulders popped from its socket, a fitting corollary between her and Rauch¡¯s final moments. Her holo, showing peaceful images of death and of she and Miller side-by-side, de-pixelated bit by bit as the bots inside of her heated and died. Her heart was stopped by this point. Only the squeeze of the rest of her muscles kept her blood flowing through her veins.


    She remained like that for several seconds, body twisted, eyes twitching, teeth gnashing against themselves beneath lips drawn back in a snarl, grinding, chipping, drawing blood from her lips and gums, and then, finally, she collapsed. Her limbs relaxed, settling at unnatural angles after the damage her muscles had done. Her torso slumped back into the corner formed by the wall and her bed, her deconstructed spine fitting much more closely than it should have. Her head toppled to the side, towards me, and stared at me with open eyes. As drawn as the skin on her face was, I suspected they would never close.


    Banks and Bergman moved to transport the body.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    ¡°Leave her,¡± I whispered.


    They looked at me, confused. ¡°But, she died in our charge,¡± Banks questioned. ¡°The protocol¡­¡±


    ¡°Hang the protocol, I said leave her. She wasn¡¯t a threat to anyone. She doesn¡¯t deserve¡­that.¡± Oh God, why couldn¡¯t I remember her name? ¡°Besides, where are you going to dispose of her, down here?¡±


    Banks shrugged. ¡°Dunno,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯d figure it out. There¡¯s always a way. We still have the chirp, if it came to that¡­¡±


    God, what a sickening thought that was. ¡°No,¡± I shook my head. ¡°Leave her.¡±


    They seemed to accept that.


    I moved over to her holo, now an empty, slate-grey field lit by only a few stray pixels, which even as I watched began to wink out one by one. I swiped at it several times without effect. Only¡­the corner that I swiped at most might have been a little fainter when I finished, just a teensy bit more translucent. I took a step back and beheld the thing. Yes, definitely fainter there, and getting fainter by the minute.


    ¡°Curious,¡± I said to myself as Ramsay and the others gathered around.


    ¡°What is?¡± Ramsay asked.


    I gestured towards the disappearing screen. ¡°None of the others did that,¡± I said, remembering the holos, pulsing and pale, that guarded the bodies of Charles, Rauch, and Britt in the lab.


    ¡°None of the others used cytomorph,¡± Ramsay argued.


    I shrugged. I had to admit, he had a point.


    ¡°Boss?¡± Ramsay asked, just as the silence was getting to be uncomfortable.


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°The job?¡±


    I stared through the last vestiges of the girl¡¯s holo, at the rolled steel of the wall behind it. Just a wall now. Nothing more. ¡°Of course.¡±


    One by one we filed out of her chambers. As usual, Ramsay led the way.


    ¡°Check the others,¡± I said to Banks and Bergman, gesturing further down the hall, where the other chambers lay. ¡°Miller¡¯s still unaccounted for. I want that fixed.¡± Based on the way the girl had acted, and on the last couple of images her holo had showed before she died, I had small hope of finding him alive, but we had to check the box. ¡°Ramsay and I will head back to the lab and try to figure out our next move. Let¡¯s make sure we stay in pairs. Just in case.¡± They went their direction and we went ours. I didn¡¯t have to say in case what.


    ¡°Boss?¡± Ramsay asked again, as soon as they were out of earshot. ¡°Did you believe that stuff she said? About the suits being useless?¡± We reached the door to the lab. He swiped the access reader. It pinged green, and the door slid open.


    ¡°Don¡¯t know,¡± I said as I followed him through. ¡°She sounded pretty sure, but she might have been mistaken. She was pretty far gone.¡± It was a lie, but I didn¡¯t know what else to do. I wasn¡¯t totally comfortable talking about her, so soon after what had happened. Part of me couldn¡¯t help feeling like I¡¯d let her down. ¡°Why? You nervous?¡±


    ¡°Nah,¡± he said, a little too nonchalantly. ¡°I just don¡¯t want to be wearing all this heavy shit if it isn¡¯t doing any good.¡±


    ¡°Heavy?¡± I chided. The bio-suits were anything but. Each one weight two kilos, max, and they were custom fit for maximum mobility. A hell of a lot lighter than the three-piece suit I usually wore. ¡°You going soft on me, old man?¡±


    Ramsay didn¡¯t respond. I clamped a hand on his shoulder, stopping us both. Next to Rauch¡¯s corpse, as it happened. ¡°It¡¯s sterine, Ram,¡± I reassured him. ¡°We¡¯ll be alriiii¡­¡±


    My blood chilled as I glimpsed what had popped up Rauch¡¯s holo, which had re-awakened as we walked by, close enough, apparently, for it to interpret as a swipe, and now was pulsing above his shoulder like it had been when he¡¯d died. The words withered on my lips.


    I could read it now.

 Chapter 35

    It wasn¡¯t because the symbols had changed.  They hadn¡¯t.  I couldn¡¯t have said how I knew this; certainly I had no understanding of their nature, no catalogue to which I could compare.  But know it I did.  They were the same we¡¯d seen when we¡¯d passed by, not yet an hour gone, on the way to the girl¡¯s chambers.  Only now, their meaning was clear.


    I played my fingers over them, like a blind man reading braille.


    ¡°¡­nosy little BITCH!  She CAN¡¯T get the drop on me!  Why didn¡¯t she just stay down?!  I wasn¡¯t going to hurt her!  I was just looking to put a kink or two in her boyfriend¡¯s windpipe¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­could have fixed it.  I KNOW I could have.  When you find a diamond in the rough, you don¡¯t throw it out just because it has some flaws.  You have a master take his blade and carefully cut around those parts¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­doesn¡¯t really hurt.  Not like I would have thought.  Actually feels kind of nice, once you get past the panic.  Euphoric.  Trouble free.  She won¡¯t really do it, will she?  She won¡¯t take it all the way?  No, no, she won¡¯t have the stones¡­¡±


    Rauch¡¯s final ruminations.  Haggarty must have teased them out through the maelstrom of shock, rage, and fear we¡¯d seen on the girl¡¯s holo, and recorded them here as he¡¯d struggled for his last thin dregs of air.


    And I could read them.


    A quick glance at Ramsay confirmed that yes, he could read them too.  A few of the symbols shivered as we conferred, as if resonating with some unheard tone.  Fragments of images patterned into existence beneath them.  They rendered the scene in intermittent bursts, like a cold fluorescent sputtering to life.


    ¡°Every transmission needs a sender and a receiver¡­¡±


    Charles¡¯s words echoed in the helmet of my bio-suit.


    ¡°¡­a sender, and a receiver¡­¡±


    Panic welled inside of me.  I could feel it rising as I hurried towards the Tower¡¯s console, flooding me from all directions, spurring me to action.  Any action.  ¡°We need to find that kill-switch,¡± I called back to Ramsay as I swiped to activate the interface.  ¡°We need to queue it up and get it sent, and we need to do it now.¡±  My mind was a blur.  My God, I thought, infected.  Ramsey and I both, for sure, and likely Banks and Bergman as well.  I shouldn¡¯t have been so surprised.  The girl had told us, after all, and she¡¯s the one who would have known, but¡­somehow I had blocked it out, convinced myself it wouldn¡¯t happen, that we, the cleanup crew, who had played no part in the creation or release of the plague we were tasked to contain, could never be corrupted.  It wasn¡¯t fair, goddammit!  This was their fuckup, not ours!  Even when I realized that quarantine was futile, my concern was for the project, and for the black eye it would leave on the department if we couldn¡¯t keep it under wraps, rather than my personal safety.  It wasn¡¯t until I saw those markings, those god-damned gibberish markings that the bots inside of now allowed us to read, that the danger we were in hit home. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡°You don¡¯t think they thought of that?¡±  Ramsay asked.  I swiped the interface again.  It wasn¡¯t letting me in.  What is it with these goddamn readers?  I thought, slamming a fist lightly on its surface.  First the door, then Charles on the playback, now this?  Doesn¡¯t anything around here WORK!?!  Of course, Rauch was locking Charles out on purpose so that wasn¡¯t a malfunction, but¡­he couldn¡¯t be locking me out too, could he?  I glanced in his direction, at the face that now seemed to be grinning, and that bulging jackdaw eye, but¡­no, that was ridiculous.  It would have released Rauch¡¯s hold on any interface he¡¯d linked the second he lost consciousness.  It was coded that way in case someone forgot to disengage before they went to sleep.  Piss off a handful of beta testers by having to roust them in the middle of the night because they forgot to sign off before they turned in and they¡¯ll code a safety valve in one hell of a hurry.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t see them try it on the holo, did you?¡± I snapped, more violently than I¡¯d intended.


    ¡°We didn¡¯t watch every minute,¡± Ramsey said.  He had sauntered over to Britt¡¯s holo and was now paging through the text it held with one hand.  The other he held on the butt of his sidearm.  Whether because he genuinely perceived a threat or merelyfor the comfort of its familiarity, I couldn¡¯t have said.  ¡°I¡¯ll bet that¡¯s the first thing they tried, once the kid was out of the way.¡±


    Ramsay wasn¡¯t exactly here for his technical knowledge, but he wasn¡¯t stupid either.  He¡¯d picked up a thing or two.  Of course that¡¯s what they would have done.


    I felt my swiping slow.  The reader wasn¡¯t yielding anyways.


    ¡°So¡­¡± I started to ask how he thought it went, but caught myself.  The answer was all around us.  Real fear jetted through me.  Not for the project, or my career, or at the thought of a run of Saturday nights lost to cleaning up this mess, but fear for my life, and the lives of everyone I knew.  This wasn¡¯t just a random strain that necessitated the annoyance of the decon systems, or an outbreak in a distant land I could deal with in cold equations.  This was an epidemic.  It was real, it was close, it was deadly, and we did not have a solution.


    I exhaled, deeply, trying to calm myself down.  We had to think rationally if we were going to address¡­whatever it was that we decided needed to be addressed.  ¡°What do you think they tried next?¡± I finished instead.


    Ramsay paged back a few times more.  The symbols on Britt¡¯s holo, dormant not as long as Rauch¡¯s, were already morphing into images and more dynamic views.  ¡°Why don¡¯t you come take a look?¡±

 Chapter 36

    ¡°I don¡¯t get it,¡± Miller sighed. He put fingers to his temples in frustration, rested his head lightly on the tripod of his hand. ¡°We should see results by now.¡±


    He was at the Tower again. He sat, interfaced, while the screen burped its bubbles of code. Rauch¡¯s body had been moved; it now sat by the secondary station, in the chair I recognized from present time, but in a very different position. Charles still lay on the floor. Britt, taking a more active role after the loss of two of his team, hovered over Miller¡¯s shoulder for the moment, but a smattering of office clutter strewn about the secondary station suggested he was locked in there, swiping away at I knew not what when he sat between the corpses. The girl was nowhere to be seen. Resting, probably, knowing how Miller felt about her. And, knowing how she felt about Miller, probably doing so by force.


    Holos clung to both them.


    ¡°It¡¯s adapting,¡± Britt said. ¡°Surviving the kill. Rauch warned us this might happen.¡±


    ¡°But¡­but HOW?¡± Miller ejaculated. ¡°The kill switch is so disruptive, at the basest levels of their code¡­how can they adapt enough?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Britt consoled him with an arm around his shoulders, ¡°but they did.¡± He spoke as if Miller were a grieving child, and Britt his sympathetic dad. That was one of the things I liked best about him, and why I chose him to lead this team. He could be an asshole when he had to, but he knew when to soften up, and at times like this, when he sensed a member of his team teetered on the edge of despair, he knew how to relate to them in ways I could never hope to, and to talk them off the ledge. It calmed me down just watching him. ¡°At the heart of it, that kill of yours is just another selector, no different than a freezing wind, or a famine or a drought. Lethal only to the unadjusted.¡±


    ¡°But this¡­they shouldn¡¯t be able to adjust to this,¡± Miller argued. ¡°It¡¯s like adjusting to life inside the sun, or if the atmosphere turned toxic. It¡¯s just¡­too much.¡±


    ¡°For you or me, maybe, or any other natural thing. But these bots aren¡¯t natural, are they?¡± Miller shook his head. ¡°With as much firepower as we¡¯ve given them, they can code themselves however they want. However they have to, in order to survive. Do you really think, with that kind of power at your disposal, and a nearly infinite number of tries, you wouldn¡¯t be able to draw up something that¡¯d be right at home in a G-type star?¡±


    ¡°I suppose.¡±


    ¡°Maybe if it had taken when Charles first sent it up it would have been effective. But it didn¡¯t. Charles¡¯ sending was ineffective, queued at too high a frequency. All it did was tip them off ¨C let them know what we had planned, and gave them time to ready themselves. They didn¡¯t have to deal with the kill-switch fully until Rauch was off the system, and you launched it yourself. It looks like the little piss-ant saved them after all.¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­¡± Miller stared into nothing. It unnerved me to see him so disarmed. I checked the time stamp on the holo ¨C a time stamp appeared even as I looked for one ¨C and saw that this scene had played out two days before. Working backwards to the last time that I thought he¡¯d slept, I guessed he¡¯d been awake going on seventy-two hours at that point. No wonder he was so suggestible. ¡°So, what are we going to do?¡± He stared up at Britt. The fluoros caught him full in the face. He looked like an albino, his skin had grown so sallow and pale. The gouge Rauch had left in his neck stood out, raised and red, in the harshness of their glow. Its edges were crusted with pestilent black.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Britt stood. ¡°I know what you¡¯re going to do,¡± he said, ¡°You, my friend, are going to rest. You¡¯re no good to us like this.¡± Miller opened his mouth to protest. Britt never gave him the chance. ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear it,¡± he said, putting a finger to Miller¡¯s lips. ¡°Go to your room, and don¡¯t even think about coming out until you¡¯ve had a few hours¡¯ sleep. I¡¯ll hold down the fort until you get back.¡±


    Miller didn¡¯t argue, but he didn¡¯t move either. At least, not right away. He seemed to be gathering his strength.


    ¡°Come on,¡± Britt helped him to his feet. He looked positively skeletal. ¡°Rauch was right about one thing¡­it¡¯s not malicious. It¡¯s not going to come after me while you¡¯re gone. I¡¯ll be alright.¡± Together they staggered towards the living quarters. Miller walked like a scarecrow with a gimpy knee. ¡°Eight hours,¡± Britt ordered, as he swiped the door open with one hand and guided Miller through with the other, ¡°not a minute less.¡± He stood just inside the door, confirming Miller¡¯s first few steps, as if he thought his sharpest puke might try to sneak his way back in. ¡°And dress that wound,¡± he called out into the hall. ¡°It isn¡¯t healing right.¡±


    Miller turned and put a hand to his neck, tracing around its crusted edges with a finger he could scarce control. He nodded.


    The pane of the door slid shut between them, leaving Britt alone in the lab.


    I almost had to laugh. Yeah. He could be a real asshole when had to.


    His holo showed what he was about. Miller, exhausted as he was, hadn¡¯t noticed, or hadn¡¯t understood if he had, but I¡¯d seen it the whole time. He knew Miller would have never let him do what he intended, so, rather than risk another Rauch-like confrontation, Britt had simply sent him away.


    He set upon the tower, and for a moment wondered at the strength the thing possessed. It was like a city in his mind: hustling, bustling, and self-sufficient, composed of trillions of swarming members that meshed together to form something greater than the sum of its parts, capable of designing itself, selecting the direction of its next expansion and moving there with unbound zeal. Of dealing with the unexpected, adapting both itself and its population to the ever-changing need. With its help the bots had backhanded the best Miller had been able to throw at it¡­or at least, the best he¡¯d been able to throw it its back-door. Sure, they could try another kill, and make it more disruptive, or try to insert it in a different way, but Britt had no real hope that that would work. If it could solve their greatest weakness, the soft, unprotected underbelly that had been designed into their basest code for exactly this sort of contingency, what chance would a cobbled-together Hail Mary of a kill-switch, thrown in wherever they perceived another chink in the armor, have? Not much of one, in Britt¡¯s mind. Not much of one at all.


    And so, to him, the answer was obvious. He¡¯d locked in by now, and used his Hades-level clearance to access the startup sequence.


    I felt a pang of regret at that, and glanced towards the now-dormant Tower hulking over us in the lab. I¡¯d been the one to grant him that clearance. Someone on the inside needs to have it, I¡¯d argued. Someone on the ground, who can take the pulse of any situation and know they¡¯ve got the tools to address it however they see fit. And that someone should be Britt. I¡¯d trust him with my life. It hadn¡¯t been an easy sell. The gentlemen to which I¡¯d spoken weren¡¯t the type to disseminate authority, and they¡¯d made it clear Britt¡¯s neck would not be noosed alone if anything¡­unsavory should happen. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯d finished, it¡¯ll be fine. It¡¯s not like he¡¯ll have deic power. We can pull it whenever we want, if things start going sideways. I wondered how we¡¯d forgotten that.

 Chapter 37

    Britt swiped away at the interface, digging deeper and deeper into the operating system.  It did not go smoothly.  Every other swipe brought up warnings of damage, or pop-up panels requesting confirmation that yes, he did in fact wish to proceed.  He pecked his way through all of them.  His holo showed the consequences of what he was about to do.  With the tower offline they¡¯d have to use the second station to develop and insert another kill, one that would, hopefully, be much more effective with the bots deprived of their evolutionary engine.  They¡¯d have to take a different tack, of course.  Crack hacker he was not, but he knew enough to realize that.  The original kill had actually relied on that evolution, tried to send it spiraling out of control, and use it as the agent of its own destruction.  But there was more than one way to peel a grape, as a blue-haired lady I almost recognized in one of the random images that swirled just above his head might say.  They would figure something out.


    They¡¯d have to.


    Deeper he dug, peeling back layer after layer of the system¡¯s defenses.  The warnings grew progressively more dire, the requests for confirmation that much more imperative as he probed.  Towards the end they were borderline insulting (are you SURE you want to disrupt the temporal memory stabilizer?  Are you aware that deactivating the sambal-screen will leave the system unprotected against¡­and it went on to list a dozen or so cyber-threats Charles would have laughed at backwards)  It was a long way down to where he needed to go.  The programs that were linked to the bots weren¡¯t the sort that sat near the surface, and could be flicked on and off.  They were its very purpose for existing, helixed in with the ones and zeroes that made the Tower what it was.  They took some heavy-duty finding.


    He reached the final one.  Warning: you are about to take STENTASYS offline.  All data will be lost.  Processing units will de-frame.  Probability of hardware damage: 100%.  Projected damage level:  FATAL.  Do you wish to proceed?


    For long moments, his finger hovered over the yes option, and I started to hope he wouldn¡¯t go through with it.  Or that he had forgotten, or perhaps had never actually known, the way this last bit must be done.  But no.  He was only gathering nerve.  With leaden ingots in my gut I saw him reach into his pocket and pull out a ring of keys.  He fumbled around with it until he found the one he wanted.  Short and fat, with a sensor glowing on its haft to read his bio-signature, and plastic bittings platforming out from a central core, like the shelves of a death star semi-built.  He slid it into a keyhole that was hidden behind the power button, paused, took a breath, and then, with a determined look on his face, cranked it to one side.  He tapped his finger on the interface a second later.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    The system recognized the dual input and the request to override security.  It idled for a moment, cross-referencing them against the clearance matrix and each other, then accepted the command.  Britt¡¯s interface minimized.  The display dimmed.  The lights on the console flickered and died.  One by one, in descending order of predominance, the background applications halted, slept, and closed, then erased themselves from the operating system¡¯s memory in preparation of the cleansing.  Somewhere, secret breakers closed, and ten thousands volts of alternating current coursed through the Tower¡¯s circuitry.  It searched out any repository where program data might be stored and flooded them with all its power, re-initializing their orientation, and scouring away any vestiges of altered-states left behind.  They sparked and hissed, and more than a few of them started to crackle as they reached, then exceeded their maximum voltages, leaving most of them melted or seared.  The panel from the Tower¡¯s display twisted, warping itself in random patterns, now contracting, now exploding, now bulging in one direction, now stabbing in another, as if struggling against the encroaching darkness.  It inverted longwise, shortwise, inside and out, losing ground with every maneuver, until, when it was a tenth of its former size, it froze in place a final time, and slowly started fading to black.  Before long all that remained were ghostly sets of afterimages that might have been printed on retina or screen.


    In the space of a minute it was done.  The display was vacant.  The console was dark.  Eddies of steam wafted from the vents as the cooling fans kicked into gear.  Fluoros glinted off its steel.  Its facets ticked as they contracted, its processors now dormant for the first time since the bunker had been brought online.  Its framework seemed to almost sag.  And, just that fast, a billion dollars¡¯ worth of state of the art hardware, and easily as much in program architecture and software engineering, was so much silicon and scrap, rendered useless by the de facto self-destruct mechanism Britt had just unleashed.


    Britt extracted his key and returned it to the pocket of his coat.  He put one hand on the console and leaned on it, exhausted, as he wiped his brow with his other shoulder.  His lips trembled as he rested.  His holo boiled with justifications, most of them hollow, lacking in substance, and reprimands he could expect, all of which were anything but.


    He kicked it for good measure.

 Chapter 38

    And still, it wasn¡¯t enough.


    I paged through to the next scene.  It showed the three of them working at the secondary station, doubtless trying a series of kills.  Britt and the girl looked much the same as they had the last time I had seen them, but Miller looked a little better.  Brighter, more refreshed, absent that phased-out look he¡¯d collected in the prior scenes, as he¡¯d worked himself past his breaking point.


    Except¡­


    ¡°Negative,¡± the girl reported.  ¡°They¡¯re still evolving.¡±  She gestured to a display that appeared to represent hours¡¯ worth of data.  Of very dynamic data.


    Of course, I thought to myself.  With the Tower offline, they were back to the slow way of introducing mods.


    ¡°Huh,¡± Miller said.  He put a hand to his neck and rubbed the bandage that covered one side.  Redness radiated underneath it, a web of tendrils branching out beside his veins, buttressing them from either side, like a highway hugs a coast.  They squirmed as he massaged the area, and dodged his fingers beneath his skin.  It looked infected.


    I had a sickening thought: what if it wasn¡¯t so benign?  What if the Haggarty, innocent thought it may have been, evolved along with the bots and turned into something more malignant?  Or what if the bots were less inert when they dealt with weakened flesh?  What if there was more than just a little data transfer going on here?  What if¡­


    Swipe.


    No.  No use dwelling on it.  If it was, it was.  It wouldn¡¯t make us want to neutralize it any more than we already did.


    I skimmed through the rest of the scene.  They lobbed a few more volleys at it, coming at it from different angles, trying different kinds of kills.  Each had the same effect:  Negative. Still evolving.  Somehow, they were still supported.  Still bouncing results off of something, and receiving feedback and mods to their code to sharpen the teeth of the next generation.  It was almost as if the Tower was still online, in some form or another, like a ghost floating through the halls, wailing at the soulless either and touching the world whenever it could, through stains of weakness in the veil.  I chided myself for being so maudlin, but then I had a jarring thought: what if that wasn¡¯t too far off?  What if the Tower, in all its wisdom, perceived itself to be a hindrance, and decided that the bots could adapt more efficiently if


    ¡°¡­if the Tower¡¯s role in the process were de-centralized,¡± Miller explained, as Britt¡¯s holo started its playback at the exact moment necessary to effect a seamless handoff of my half-completed thought.  ¡°All the back and forth between her and the bots, even over just a few meters¡¯ distance, even at the speed of light, was starting to add up.  It was slowing their development, impeding the progress we told her to seek.  So she went ahead and dispersed herself¡­wrote herself into their code, bit by tiny fraction of a bit, into subsets of their populations, so she¡¯d be that much closer to the samples she was managing.  So they could talk to each other instead of talking back to her.¡±


    ¡°You mean she made a copy of herself?¡± Britt asked.


    Miller nodded.


    ¡°Out there, among the bots?¡±This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Miller only nodded again.


    ¡°Impossible,¡± Britt scoffed.  ¡°Something that sophisticated, something that powerful¡­if she had a month to work with, and raw materials, and a way to manufacture, maybe she could come up with something, but out of thin air, over the course of a couple days?  No sale.¡±


    ¡°She did have raw materials, and a way to manufacture,¡± Miller said.  And then, when both of them failed to respond, ¡°think about it.¡±


    ¡°You mean¡­¡± Britt pointed to himself.


    Miller nodded.


    ¡°Phew,¡± Britt leaned against the console.  ¡°But the tower,¡± he said, contemplating, ¡°she¡¯s made of silicon, copper, tungsten, and steel.  Where did she find stuff like that?¡±


    ¡°Who says she did?¡±


    ¡°To make a copy of herself¡­¡±


    ¡°To make a copy of her functionality,¡± Miller interrupted.  ¡°One she did that, her self was superfluous.¡±


    ¡°Her functionality¡­¡± Britt mused.


    ¡°Processing and data storage,¡± Miller helped him along.  ¡°She had all kinds of bells and whistles, and firepower like we¡¯ve never seen, but that¡¯s essentially all she was.  And you know as well as I do that silicon, copper, tungsten, and steel aren¡¯t the only ways to make that happen.¡±


    Britt shifted against the console.  The finger he¡¯d used to point to himself fell absently to his side.  ¡°And the manufacturing?¡± he asked.


    ¡°The shells,¡± Miller stated.  ¡°Once they get inside the host, once they juxtapose themselves with is cornucopia of life, they wake up from their dormant phase and serve as perfect little insulators, creating just the space they need to give the bots a running start.  I can¡¯t say how I know, but¡­¡± he glanced back over his shoulder, at the screen that hovered there, ¡°¡­somehow, it just feels right.¡±


    I smiled, miserably, and shook my head.  A trillion scraps of RNA, I thought.  You¡¯d be amazed what they can do¡­


    I kept skimming, noting as many of their tries as I could.  I catalogued them mentally so we wouldn¡¯t waste our time with dupes:


    Tactic:  countermeasures on the insertion sequence.  Objective:  disrupt host assimilation.  Results¡­negative.


    Tactic:  De-randomization of the Mayhem protocol.  Objective:  eliminate the source of the bots¡¯ mutation, and create a stable, stationary target to attack with further kills.  Results¡­negative.


    Tactic:  Find-and-switch of an adenine molecule in the Capricorn helix.  Objective:    Create a new offshoot of bot mutation that would turn against the original strain.  Results¡­temporary slowing of the bots¡¯ rate of change as they dealt with the new threat, and then¡­negative.¡±


    Tensions started to rise as more and more of what each was thinking started to appear on their holos.  The girl thought the last attempt had shown promise and wanted to try another like it; Miller thought it ineffective, and wanted to move on something more direct.  Britt noticed the two of their affection for each other spawning bitterness and spite as they argued; both of them turned on him when his holo indicated such.  Miller wanted to try something with another strain, and break away to the incubation chamber to work on it; Britt thought that was just a clever excuse to get away from the rest of the team so he wouldn¡¯t feel so exposed.  The girl¡¯s skin was crawling at having to work so close to Rauch, and wanted one of the men to move it for her; neither of them wanted to take the time, and were secretly more loathe than she was to lay a hand on it.  Britt and the girl both noticed the lines on Miller¡¯s neck growing thicker, a sharper red; Miller showed a primal panic, and began to deny it vehemently.


    ¡°That¡¯s it,¡± Britt said, when Miller¡¯s holo began to reveal thoughts of violence.  ¡°I¡¯m calling it.¡±  There was a sadness in his voice.  A sense of resignation.  He glanced backwards, towards his office.  His holo dwelt on the ruined com-line equipment that lay within.  Irreparably so?  ¡°We¡¯re getting nowhere anyways.  It¡¯s backhanding everything we throw at it.  Worse, it¡¯s using our feeble little pokes to identify weaknesses it needs to shore up.  Every failed attempt is just making things harder for ourselves the next time around.¡±  He sighed.  ¡°To your rooms,¡± he ordered.  ¡°Get some rest.  Maybe one of you will have a brain-wave in your sleep.  We¡¯ll try again¡­ah, tomorrow.¡±  By his tone he didn¡¯t believe a word of it.


    I checked the time stamp on the playback.  Earlier that very morning.  This scene had played out as we had gathered at HQ, preparing for our pre-dawn flight.


    Neither did I.

 Chapter 39

    Miller made as if to argue.  His holo, certainly, wanted him to.  Why should I listen to you? it asked.  What¡¯s your rank worth here?  With the com-lines smashed, with no HQ to back you up¡­what difference does it make who they put in charge?  But the girl grabbed him and led him away, with a glance at Rauch¡¯s bulging eyes.


    Miller lost his balance as he wobbled through the whoosh-ing portal.  The girl, looking less and less like the sanguine go-getter from the start of the mission and more and more like the strung-out scarecrow that had cytomorphed herself, caught him, and with some effort managed to keep him from falling.  He looked worse than ever here.  The redness had crept further up and down his neck.  It now bridge the space between the collar of his shirt to the corner of his eye, and it had swelled with a malevolent heat.  She helped him down the hall.


    Both of their holos showed them caring for the other, nursing each other back to health with chicken soups and mugs of tea, and both were filled with the gratitude-cum-relief of knowing that whatever was going to happen here, at least they were together.  Miller¡¯s even showed hints of arousal, that crude, instinctual urge to procreate that never quite leaves the mind of males.  But it was faint, buried deep in the baser portions of his consciousness.  Every other part of him knew he was in no condition to act on them.


    Britt watched them go.  If the interplay disturbed him, he didn¡¯t let it show.


    My hand shook as it hovered over the screen.  I didn¡¯t want to do it.  I didn¡¯t want to see what I knew was about to happen¡­what Britt was about to do.  But I had to.  I had to know what he had tried, if there was one more measure he had taken, one last desperate heave before he let himself collapse.


    With Britt¡¯s cold, lifeless eyes staring at me through the holo, I swiped one final time.


    It showed me Miller, oddly enough.  Miller, not Britt, in the incubation chamber, slaved over an unkempt pile of coding panels scattered about the station there.  He was barely recognizable now.  The redness from his swollen flesh now covered half his face.  It wrapped around one of his eyes like some sort of hideous mask, puffing it to nearly shut.  The rest of his skin clung like papier mach¨¦ to the framing of his skull.  The fluoros seemed to shine right through it, illuminating tendons and veins, showing them pulsing in sharp relief within the translucence of his skin like a sort of living X-ray.  Hair scattered about the floor in strands and drifts where it had fallen from his scalp.  I could see the discs of his spine even through his shirt and coat.


    ¡°I told you to get some rest,¡± Britt¡¯s voice said, from somewhere out of view.  ¡°You¡¯re killing yourself.¡±  He said it without emotion, a simple statement of fact.


    Miller touched the redness around his eye.  Tenderly, as if it caused him pain.  ¡°No,¡± he croaked, as he studied his reflection in the steel of the console.  ¡°I¡¯ll press on.  If we don¡¯t figure out this switch, I¡¯m as good as dead already.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know that,¡± Britt said.  ¡°That swelling¡­it could be anything.  It could just be infected¡­¡±


    ¡°It didn¡¯t respond to treatment.¡±  He fingered bandage, still showing traces of green from the ointments that he, or perhaps the girl, had applied.  It looked pitifully undersized, now that the wound had swelled beneath it.  ¡°We tried everything in the kit.¡±  He coughed into a balled-up fist.


    ¡°Thrombosis, then,¡± Britt offered, ¡°or some kind of allergy¡­¡±


    Miller¡¯s good eye stared directly into the fourth wall.  Really?  That stare seemed to ask.  The pupil of his other eye danced around inside its slit, trying to make itself useful beneath the twitching of its lid.  Don¡¯t make yourself stupid.


    Britt seemed to accept that.  ¡°But no one else is showing symptoms,¡± he said softly.  ¡°Why would it only come after you?¡±


    Miller turned his palms up, slightly, and shrugged as best he could.  His range of motion was impaired noticeably on his affected side.  ¡°Just lucky I guess,¡± he said, with a smirk, and sidelong glance at the fairy on his shoulder.  It showed a couple of his theories.  He had been exposed the longest, of those still alive, anyways, so it had had more time to work on him than it had the others.  Or maybe something about the gouge Rauch had given him accelerated its advance.  Took advantage of a window created by his body¡¯s own defense mechanisms as it tried to heal the wound, or something like that.  But they were only theories.  In the end, it didn¡¯t really matter why.


    ¡°Well,¡± Britt said, voice gathering a shred of the authority he had lost over the past several hours.  ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean you have to help it along.  You should rest, and let us figure this thing out.  You¡¯ve got to be half mad by now.¡±


    A crescent of white opaqued the bottom of the holo, as if fogging over from his breath upon a visplate.  Was he wearing a biosuit?  The view yawed slightly as Britt leaned forward, then back again.  Glares from the fluoros arced across the screen in ways only plastic could have caused.  Yeah.  I was pretty sure he was.


    Looking at the swelling on Miller¡¯s face, I could hardly blame him.


    ¡°No,¡± Miller coughed again.  He turned his back to Britt, hunching over the station like some sort of gargoyle, when his abdomen convulsed in another fit.  It lasted longer this time, and it sounded raw.  He checked his fist when it was done, as if he thought there might be something on it.  There wasn¡¯t.  ¡°No,¡± he choked when he had breath, ¡°it¡¯s got to be me.  I was there when it was born.  I¡¯ve been working with it longer than either of you, and diving deeper into the code.  If there¡¯s any chance at all, it¡¯s mine.¡±  He fingered the interface, moving some of the lines around in a way that was almost nostalgic, after all the work he¡¯d done with the advanced interfaces of the Tower.  ¡°Besides,¡± he said with another smirk, ¡°being half mad¡­it might be the only thing that works.¡±  He sent up his latest change with a wiggle of his finger.  The system whirred, and its not-quite-state-of-the-art circuitry incorporated it into the sequence.  ¡°So I¡¯ll keep at it, if you don¡¯t mind.  So long as they will let me, anyways,¡± The display updated to reflect the request.  The new code nestled in amongst the old, fitting into the gaps that had been created as neatly as a key in a lock.  Miller nodded, satisfied, and brought up another section.  ¡°I think they will,¡± he mused as he scanned the new block of text.  ¡°They¡¯re really not malicious, you know.  I¡­I still believe that.  Deep down.¡±  He touched his face again, tracing the tentacles of red with a ragged fingernail.  He didn¡¯t seem to know he was doing it.  ¡°Even though I¡¯m trying to neutralize them, and there¡¯s no way I can keep that secret, I still think they¡¯ll work with me.  They¡¯re agent of change, at the heart of things.  No more, no less.¡±  He found what he was looking for on-screen and hunched back over the interface, queuing up his next modification.

 Chapter 40

    ¡°What are you working on anyways?¡± Britt asked.  ¡°I mean, I know what you¡¯re working on¡­but how are you going about it?¡±


    ¡°Here,¡± Miller beckoned with a hand that looked like fifteen knuckles wrapped in crepe.  ¡°Have a look.¡±


    The view advanced.  Slowly, hesitantly, as if the viewer was of two minds whether or not he should.  It moved towards Miller with its herky-jerk gait and settled over one of his shoulders.


    ¡°See,¡± Miller explained, ¡°we couldn¡¯t kill it.  You saw that as well as I did.  We threw everything we had at it, and it backhanded it all, as you put it.  It always seemed to have a hidey-hole where it could dodge the worst of the kill, and adapt and come back stronger for it.  But those kills were sniper fire, meant to take out the bots with as little effort as possible, disrupting one tiny bit of their code.  So we asked ourselves, what if we blasted the nooks and crannies, and unleashed full-blown Armageddon on these things?  What if there was a way for us to¡­¡±


    A fit of coughing choked him at the peak of his excitement.  This one was the worst bout yet.  It wracked his body, doubling him over as he hacked out bits of phlegm and spittle.  Britt reached out to him ¨C he was wearing a bio-suit, I noticed, as his arms shot into view ¨C and grabbed him by the shoulders.  ¡°Easy,¡± Britt whispered as he eased Miller back in his chair.  ¡°Easy¡­¡±


    Miller hacked one more time, a wet, sputtering sound, and Britt¡¯s arm was stippled with blood.  A graceless exhale sprayed the console as well.  His head tilted forward and down, jaw slack and tongue curled, as if trying to hold down vomit.  His teeth were stained with sheeting blood.  It pooled in his bottom lip, and, along with strands of his saliva, spilled over onto his chin in a sickly dribble that hung for a second, dangling like a bungee cord, then snapped.  One half splashed into his lap, where it soaked into the white of his coat, while the other recoiled towards his mouth, beading like a milky gem.  Britt tried to wipe it away, but the sterine only smeared it around.


    ¡°I¡­¡± Miller wheezed and gasped for breath, then coughed again to clear his throat.  ¡°I thought I had¡­more time,¡± he gurgled.


    ¡°Shhhhhh¡± Britt whispered.  He knelt, and dropped an arm to Miller¡¯s midsection, cradling him against his chest.  ¡°Save your strength.  We¡¯ll get you to your room, and¡­¡±


    ¡°Ngng¡­no¡± Miller waved him off.  He coughed again.  Another rivulet of blood leaked out the side of his mouth.  It dribbled down his cheek, leaving behind a scarlet trail.  ¡°This¡­is it.¡±  His good eye swiveled towards his holo.  It showed a myriad of images, everything from baby pictures to he and Rauch, struggling in a dozen different ways, all of which ended with him shielded his neck from Rauch¡¯s nails.  But one was foremost of them all: the girl, lying in her bed, smiling up at whatever it was the holo chose to represent.  Her teeth gleamed in a sourceless light.  Her face was framed by an angelic glow.


    ¡°No,¡± Britt tried to lift him to his feet, but Miller only moaned in pain.  Britt was forced to leave him be.  ¡°No, it can¡¯t be¡­¡± the holo flitted this way and that.  Britt¡¯s arms started to tense, as if he meant to try again, then relaxed, and grabbed at Miller in despair.  He brought his friend¡¯s head to his, as if by holding on tightly enough he could bottle Miller¡¯s soul.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°We f¡­f-found¡­¡± Miller closed his eye as the words dribbled out of him.  Sweat poured off his forehead, partly from the fever that was only now starting to break and partly from the strain of trying to hold his head aloft.  He drew a shallow, shuddering breath.  ¡°¡­a n-new kind of¡­¡± but that was all he got before he let himself collapse.


    ¡°Found something?¡± Britt asked.  Gently.  More soothing than inquiring.  His hold on Miller never faltered.


    Miller raised his head again, jaw trembling with exertion.  His holo showed the weight of it, this thing he felt he must explain, but the sad little mouse standing before the Minotaur¡¯s labyrinth showed how sure he was he wouldn¡¯t finish.  Some of the light went out of his eye.  ¡°Don¡¯t¡­¡± He coughed and wheezed again.  He fought through it as best he could, struggling for one last lungful of air.  ¡°Don¡¯t t-tell her¡­h-how it e-ended.¡±  Every word was a Herculean effort for him at this point.  They came out mangled anyways, like the victim of a stroke.


    Britt brushed Miller¡¯s hair to one side, clearing it off his brow.  Several strands of it came free, and stuck to the blood on Britt¡¯s fingers.  ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± he assured.


    ¡°And¡­¡± Miller gasped again for breath, but this time there was none.  He gurgled and worked his jaw noiselessly, a fish dangling in the air.  His good eye ticked to join his bad as panic took him for a moment.  Every muscle on him twitched.  ¡°¡­let her know¡­¡± he mouthed, exaggerating every syllable with the portions of his lips that worked just enough for us to make out what he would have said, ¡°¡­it¡¯s not¡­her¡­fault¡­¡±


    ¡°WHO?¡± I screamed, and banged my fists at the edge of the holo as if it were a solid thing.  I almost lost my balance as they passed through.  ¡°Don¡¯t tell WHO how it ended?  Let WHO know it¡¯s not her fault?!?  Someone say her goddamned NAME!¡±  But of course only Ramsay heard.


    ¡°You got it,¡± Britt whispered.


    Miller nodded.  The corner of his mouth, the one not paralyzed by swelling, twitched upwards for a half a second.  One could almost think he¡¯d smiled.


    And then the spasms took him.  Blood gushed from his mouth as fits of coughs slammed into him.  The tentacles on the side of his face bulged, squeezing his eye, ear, and one of his nostrils completely shut, and freezing that half of his mouth in a gritty snarl of pain.  The other half revealed his teeth as they bit through the tip of his tongue, which had been shoved rudely from its cavity when the tentacles had swelled.  His body, stiff in Britt¡¯s embrace, shuddered, sending fresh blood dribbling down the side of his cheek and further smearing Britt¡¯s suit.  There was a faint pop! and vitreous fluid oozed from his eye socket.  The ridges of the swelling guided it as it flowed, taking it on a path that was not quite natural, not quite sane.  It let across his nose and down the better half of his face, towards the free corner of his mouth, where it mixed with blood that was gathered there.  It was disturbing, somehow, that it would follow such a path.  I couldn¡¯t have said why, but that¡¯s what bothered me most of all.


    Then he was gone.  His good eye closed, his body went limp, and his head lolled back on his neck, blood and fluid dribbling to the floor.  His holo flitted with a few more images, from his youth, his career, of the girl, on a summer evening, sitting next to him on a swing on their porch that creaked like hellgates when it moved, sharing a glass of something cold and watching over a manicured lawn framed in white picket fences, where two, or maybe three children, who of course were named after the gerbils that had helped bring their folks together all those many years ago, played at games of bats and balls in the last of the setting sun¡­and then it stilled, and shared the look that both Rauch¡¯s and Charles¡¯s had.  Pulsing.  Blue.  Idle.  Waiting.


    Britt stood.  The body shifted as he disengaged, and spilled over the side of its chair.  He grabbed for it, but he was too slow.  It fell to the floor with a sickening splat, and lay, face-down, in a gathering pool of fluid and blood.


    Britt left it where it lay.

 Chapter 41

    I paged through the rest of the scene.  Britt spent some time at the console, possibly trying to finish the work that Miller had started, possibly just trying to understand it.  I couldn¡¯t quite tell, because the view had shifted, and now showed Britt from far away, too far away to make out the code he was flitting through.  I wondered how the bots had managed that.  And how they chose which view they¡¯d show.


    ¡°¡­agent of change.  Nothing more, nothing less¡­¡±  Miller¡¯s words echoed in my head, followed closely by Rauch¡¯s from the preceding days, ¡°¡­it¡¯s just trying to do a job¡­a job that we told it to do!¡±  I studied Britt¡¯s waxen face through a clear spot in the holo.  Must be what they thought he would have wanted.


    It didn¡¯t matter, I supposed.  They had shown what they had shown.  And it didn¡¯t really matter what the Britt on the holo was trying to do.  He was a powerful wrangler of men ¨C there was no one else I¡¯d even considered to lead this team ¨C but he hadn¡¯t kept up with the science the way I had.  He still coded like we did in school.  Anything Miller had started would have been beyond his abilities.


    My skepticism proved justified.  Britt grew more and more frustrated as syntax errors and compatibility whiffs buzzed him from the console¡¯s screen.  According to the time stamp skipping along in the corner of the playback, he lasted less than an hour before he gave up, spine hunched and shoulders sagging, and tromped away in disgust.  A trail of bloody heel-prints followed him all the way into the hall.


    I moved to swipe the holo forward again, but this time, I didn¡¯t have to.  It skipped ahead on its own, once, twice, three times, four, pausing briefly between each jump, letting the playback queue itself up just a little bit.  Almost like it was probing for it, testing to see if it got it right, before it skipped ahead again.  It settled on the next part of the scene I felt I had to watch.


    That sent a chill running down my spine.


    The playback started.


    ¡°¡­of course I do,¡± a voice was saying.  ¡°Every hour of every day.  That¡¯s what they pay us for, after all.¡±


    That voice.


    For the second time running, Britt¡¯s holo caught me flush with a hard right hook.  I expected to see Britt as he prepared to take his own life, and perhaps to learn a thing or two about what he and Miller had accomplished, but that voice¡­that voice was mine.


    ¡°Yeah¡­¡± Britt chuckled.  ¡°But do you ever really think about what we¡¯re doing?¡±


    ¡°You mean cybernetic weaponry?¡± I asked.  ¡°Britt, you old snake!  You¡¯re not going candy on me are you?  Not after all these years?¡±A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°No,¡± Britt said, ¡°nothing like that.  I¡¯m sure anyone who gets in these things¡¯ way deserves everything they got coming.  I just meant¡­¡±


    I remembered that conversation.  It happened three, maybe four months ago, early in the bunker¡¯s life, shortly after one of the team¡¯s first real wins, when they had stabilized a smallpox/nano-cyborg that had been de-commissioned the previous year for being too unpredictable.  Things had gotten kind of broad.  A few celebratory pours of bourbon may or may not have been involved.


    Britt was re-enacting it.  He was speaking his lines to the emptiness of the lab, and letting his holo fill my side.


    ¡°¡­I just meant, what gives us the right, you know?  To play around with stuff like this?  We take these things that have shaped themselves over thousands, sometimes millions of years, and cram our tech right up their asses.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡± I leaned in closer on my conference table, goading him to carry on.


    ¡°I dunno,¡± he said.  ¡°Sometimes I can¡¯t help but think that if it was meant to be, it would already be, and we should just leave well enough alone.¡±


    ¡°Go suck yourself off!¡± I hooted, ¡°you are going candy on me!  This is science, not theology.¡±  I took a sip from my latest pour.  ¡°Take a look around you,¡± I gestured at him through the holo, and the Britt in the lab actually did, even though the lab was not where he¡¯d been sitting when the conversation actually happened.  ¡°All of that stuff you use every day of your life¡­this com-line, for instance, or the interfaces in your office.  Or hell, even more basic than that, how about your tools, your clothes, your shelter your food¡­how much of that was ¡®meant to be?¡¯¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s different,¡± Britt said.  ¡°Those things are dead, lifeless.  They were meant to be shaped.  Meant to be used.¡±  Here he mimed taking a drink, as he had in real life at that point, even though there was nothing in his hand, and his visplate was in the way.


    ¡°Not your food,¡± I argued.  ¡°That was alive.  Most of it, anyways.  Clothing too.¡±


    He set down his tumbler / glassless hand and nodded, conceding the point.  ¡°Still¡­this feels different, somehow.  These things are alive now, while we¡¯re working on them, pumping them full of primordial ooze and changing what makes them what they are.  Sometimes¡­I don¡¯t know.  It just feels strange sometimes.¡±


    ¡°Ha!¡±  I downed the rest of my drink, and slammed the glass back on the table.  The thwack! it made as it clapped against the marbled oak echoed through the interface.  ¡°Then it¡¯s a good thing they put me in charge!  If it was up to candy sons of bitches like you we¡¯d still be squatting in our caves eating the fruit that falls from the trees!¡±


    Britt sighed, and traced a finger around his imaginary glass.  He hadn¡¯t done that in real life.  He had laughed, I remember.  Laughed sipped again, I thought.  ¡°But, honestly,¡± he asked, ¡°when you think about it¡­would that really be so bad?¡±


    ¡°Not at all!¡±  I chuckled as I reached for the bottle, and poured myself another finger.  I never was the type that liked an empty glass in front of me.  ¡°Just do me a favor¡­let me be there when you tell your wife.  No, no, actually, let me save you the trouble¡­let me be the one to tell her!¡±  I made as if to holoscreen her, smirking coyly at Britt as I did.


    ¡°Ha,¡± Britt chuckled.  ¡°Very funny.  But seriously, what if that¡¯s¡­right?  I mean, what if that¡¯s how things were meant to be?¡±


    I shook my head in an exaggerated arc.  ¡°Nope,¡± I snapped.  ¡°No way.  Don¡¯t give me that, ¡®meant to be?¡¯ bullshit.  Meaning is relative.¡±

 Chapter 42

    Huh?


    That wasn¡¯t what I¡¯d said.  I wracked my brain, not quite remembering what I had said, but I knew it wasn¡¯t that.  Something jovial about leave being only a couple weeks away, if Britt could cling to sanity that much longer, and we had shared another pour.  Then we¡¯d talked about what he planned to do with his time off, and then moved on to something else.  Budgets, or funding, or some financial shit like that.  I¡¯d have to check the records.


    ¡°No it isn¡¯t.  It can be hard to see sometimes, I¡¯ll grant you that, but it isn¡¯t relative.  Something is either intended or random.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but intended by whom?¡± the me on the screen reached for his drink, only now it wasn¡¯t there.  The holo went staticky for frame or two, and when it came back my arm was back where it had been, folded against its brother as they rested on my kitchen table.  ¡°Take my caveman, for example.  Let¡¯s say that thirty thousand years ago some dumb troop of half-apes was settling into their cave one night, and they realized they were short on space.  So they arm-wrestled, or drew straws, or hell, maybe they just whipped ¡®em out and everybody had a look, and kicked the loser into the wild.  And let¡¯s say that this particular half-ape, who was probably the smallest and the weakest of the bunch, wasn¡¯t quite as dumb as all his half-ape brethren, and, as he was searching for another shelter, he came across a pile of stones, and he thought to himself, ¡®cave is rocks¡­maybe rocks become cave?¡¯¡± I broke into my stupid strongman impression here.  In my semi-drunken state, it left a lot to be desired.  ¡°And let¡¯s say he piled a few on top of each other, just enough to break the wind, and boom, the first man-made shelter was born.  That dumb half-ape certainly intended to survive the night, didn¡¯t he?  So doesn¡¯t that mean it was ¡®meant to be?¡¯  By someone, at least?¡±


    ¡°Well, technically, I suppose it does¡­¡± he looked to want to argue, then realized that he¡¯d been the one to get technical in the first place.  ¡°But what if that wasn¡¯t in the script?¡± he asked.  ¡°What if that caveman was supposed to die from exposure that night, and all the other cavemen were supposed to go on living in squalor for the rest of their existence, and never rub two thoughts together the way that first one did?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re begging the question, Britt.¡±


    That made him angry.  It always did.  He stood, shoving his chair against the console as he rose.  ¡°So what if I am?¡± he snapped.  ¡°Haven¡¯t I earned a little faith, after all the years we¡¯ve known each other?  After all the shit I¡¯ve bailed you out of?¡±  I nodded yes through the holo.  Both of me did.  At the least I owed him that.  ¡°Why don¡¯t you just give it to me then, and let¡¯s play this out?¡±  He raised his hands to his head and twisted the helmet off his bio-suit.  There was a soft whoosh! as the pressures of it and the lab equilibrated.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    ¡°Okay,¡± I asked in a quiet voice, ¡°where are you going with this?¡±


    Britt opened the door to the sanitary cabinet and deposited the helmet inside.  In the ordinary course of things, that would have touched off the decon cycles and gotten it cleaned within the hour.  As things stood, my guess was it was still where he had left it.  ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he said, as he peeled back the rest of his suit.  He rolled it carefully, from the inside out, to make sure the blood on its surface stayed as contained as possible.  Only a handful of the dried-on flakes crusted off.  They confettied through the air, collecting gently at his feet.  ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he said.  ¡°Sometimes, when we¡¯re working with these things, and we¡¯re sending up our mods, and they¡¯re taking, or not taking¡­I can¡¯t help but think about it.  What gives us the right, you know?  To pick and choose from all our cultures, and decide which live and which ones die?¡±


    ¡°You create them.  You can destroy them if you wish.  If they aren¡¯t serving their purpose, you have to make room for something that will.¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­¡± Britt stared into the distance, at the waste bin at the base of the Tower.  At the champagne bottle, still resting at the top, a painful reminder of happier times, and the breakthrough they had thought they¡¯d made.  ¡°And how long does it take, do you think, for us to cull an errant strain?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I found myself playing along, and wondered again at the bots¡¯ abilities.  They weren¡¯t time machines, I knew better than that, but in that moment, as I watched myself up there on the screen, pondering the question with him, weighing, no doubt, the same considerations he was weighing as we formulated our response, it seemed for all the world that they were, and through them Britt was speaking from a past I hadn¡¯t been a part of, and through them I to him from a future he would never see.  ¡°That sort of thing is really up to you, you know.  But if I had to guess, I¡¯d say¡­a thousand generations?¡±


    Britt nodded.  ¡°More or less,¡± he agreed.  ¡°Assuming no sensational urgency, once we identify an anomaly, and we decide it¡¯s undesirable, we¡¯ll introduce some sort of kill and let it die a natural death, which usually takes three to six hundred generations.  Sometimes more.¡±  He stepped out of his suit and moved the bundle to the cabinet.  ¡°And how long, would you say, has humankind ruled the world?¡±


    His question caught me off my guard.  ¡°I¡­I don¡¯t know,¡± I mumbled again, ¡°¡®ruled the world¡¯ is pretty vague.  But, if pressed, I¡¯d say since we established as the dominant species.  Which ¨C again, if pressed ¨C I¡¯d say we did by domesticating animals.  Maybe eight or ten thousand years?¡±


    ¡°Great minds think alike¡­¡± Britt didn¡¯t do the math to change that into generations.  He didn¡¯t have to.


    ¡°So let me ask you again,¡± he said, once the lull had drawn out long enough to be uncomfortable, ¡°back to your caveman example¡­that lone rogue half-ape that wasn¡¯t quite as dumb as the rest, that one random twist of DNA that turned the tide of evolution away from size, strength, and speed in favor of brains and critical thinking¡­what if that wasn¡¯t in the script?¡±

 Chapter 43

    I didn¡¯t answer.  I didn¡¯t believe a word of it, what he was implying.  At least, the me in the lab didn¡¯t¡­I couldn¡¯t speak for the one on the holo.  But that didn¡¯t really matter.  I wasn¡¯t the one he was trying to convince.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing we can do,¡± he whispered.  ¡°Not anymore.  Miller might have been on to something with that new strain he was coding, but¡­oh, hell, I can¡¯t make heads or tails of it.  The language he was writing in, the syntax he was using, it¡¯s all gibberish to me.  I never was any good with the bio half of those goddam things.¡±  He sniffled back a tear.  ¡°I don¡¯t think it would have worked anyways.  I think it¡¯s grown too strong for that.  Too aware of what it is, too good at identifying weaknesses, coding its way around and through them, and turning them into untouchable strengths, to fall to just another kill.¡±  He ambled towards the waste bin, moving with no discernable haste.  When he got there, he bent, grasped the bottle by the neck, and hefted it in both hands, studying it like unearthed treasure.  The fluoros nearly blinded me as they reflected off its surface.  ¡°¡¯cause that¡¯s all it really is, in the end,¡± he whispered, picking at one corner of the label with a bloody, dirt-encrusted fingernail.  ¡°Just another type of kill.¡±


    He raised the thing above his head, and smashed it on the edge of the desk.


    Shards of green flew everywhere.  They arced through the stillness of the air, tumbling on triple-axes like polished bits of asteroid, then fell to the tile in a chorus of tinkling, which sounded louder than it should have without the drone of the Tower¡¯s fans.  Britt cut his hand on one as the neck first cracked, then crumpled in his fist, slicing his skin as his grip shifted unexpectedly.  He winced, and cradled it against his abdomen, applying pressure to slow the bleeding.  The irony was lost on him.


    He pawed through the shards with the toes of his wingtips, pulling a few of the larger off to one side.


    ¡°You remember why we got into this business?¡± he asked the me on the holo, as he knelt down and made his selection.  A hand-sized piece, with a bit of the base at one end, which he seemed to like as a makeshift haft.  He ran a finger over the edge, then held it up to the light, inspecting the slit it had left in the first layer or two of skin.  He nodded grimly to himself.  It would do.


    ¡°A couple of nerds like us?¡± I answered.  ¡°Only way to get some tail.¡±


    Britt laughed.  Actually laughed, as far gone as he was, somehow finding humor in the joke that I/he/the nanobots had fired back at him.  He always was that kind of guy.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± he chuckled, ¡°you got that right.  But seriously¡­what was it we told ourselves, that night at the bar on Jefferson Street, when you were helping me get over that teacher¡¯s aide from our Poly-Sci class, before we pissed away the last of our paychecks buying those blondes their cosmo-tinis?  What was it we promised ourselves?¡±


    ¡°That we were going to change the world someday.¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    He stood, and turned to face the holo.  ¡°Close¡­¡± he said.  ¡°You got the gist of it right, but we didn¡¯t say it like that, did we?  When our last-call rounds showed up, and we were looking for something to toast?¡±


    No, I said, and shook my head from side to side.  We didn¡¯t.


    ¡°What did we really say?  Word for word?¡±


    A wry smile curled my lips.  I remembered that night like it was yesterday.  I¡¯d been in my room, ¡°prepping for a midterm¡± with one of our co-educational friends, when Britt had holled me up, begging me to take him out.  He¡¯d been pretty beat up over that one.  He had never quite put it to words, but I¡¯d always gotten the feeling that, to him, she was the one that got away.  I¡¯d have said anything to cheer him up.  The first couple rounds had been sacrificial lambs, consumed in relative silence at the diviest hole in staggering distance, but things had livened up from there.  Before long we were slapping each other on the back, bidding her good riddance, reminding each other of all the awesome times we had in store, and sneaking one of the most poorly-officiated games of table shuffleboard I¡¯ve ever been a party to in between hitting on anything that moved.


    ¡°That we were going to knock it on its mother-fucking ass!¡±  Once again I found myself mouthing the words along with the me on the screen, and feeling the energy from that night.  Everything had felt so¡­so possible.  I¡¯d have given anything to feel that way again.


    Britt nodded, and smiled.  ¡°Well,¡± he looked directly at me, head cocked to one side.  The image of his face on the holo overlaid perfectly on that of his corpse.  His nose, his lips, his brow, his chin, all sat where they did in death, morphing, twisting, and wrapping around his features just enough, and in just the right places, to refute coincidence.  His eyes locked mine through the pulsing of the holo.  He gestured towards the expanse of the lab.  ¡°Mission accomplished, eh?¡±  I couldn¡¯t shake the feeling he was speaking from beyond the veil.  In a way, I supposed he was.


    He sat back down and began to roll up one of his sleeves, peeling it back from his forearm inch by inch.  He rested the shard in his lap as he did, twisting on his pleather cushion so it didn¡¯t poke him in the crotch. ¡°I¡¯d like to think you¡¯ll find a way to stop them,¡± he said.  ¡°Leave them down here, in this antiseptic pit, where maybe, just MAYBE, they can be contained¡­but I know you too well.  It¡¯ll be your ass as well as ours when news of them gets out.  You¡¯ll have to send someone.  Even if we could still talk, even if you saw me now, pleading with you, praying that you¡¯ll see the truth, you¡¯d still have to send someone.  And by the time they make it down here, and realize they shouldn¡¯t have come, it will be too late.  Once that hatch is blown¡­¡±


    My stomach lurched as he confirmed what I¡¯d long since suspected.  It wasn¡¯t a surprise, of course.  The girl had said it too, and I had more or less believed her.  But to hear it from Britt¡­Britt, who since we were twelve years old had joined my folks on summer trips to our cabin on the shore, who¡¯d roomed with me the last two years of undergrad, once we¡¯d scratched up enough of a bankroll to move out of the dorms, who was the only other soul on the planet that knew just how I¡¯d managed to snag that final spot in professor Englebert¡¯s Applied Cybernetics program, where I¡¯d first had a chance to meet the people who would eventually take us on, who¡¯d been my wingman those first couple of years after we¡¯d joined the Coalition, using his charm to build relationships and open up doors for me to get my ideas out there, who¡¯d been at least peripherally involved in every meaningful success I¡¯d enjoyed in my professional life ¨C who was the reason I was down here personally, instead of ¡®sending someone¡¯ like he¡¯d expected ¨C hearing it from him, it somehow felt more real.

 Chapter 44

    ¡°Maybe it won¡¯t be as bad as we think,¡± he sighed, moving his eyes off of mine.  ¡°Even if the worst should happen, maybe it won¡¯t be a doomsday ending.¡±  He fingered the shard, turning it over in his hand the way the girl had her syringe.  ¡°What was it Miller said?¡± he asked.  ¡°Agents of change, nothing more?  If that¡¯s true, then maybe¡­¡±  He leaned back in his chair and put a finger to his forehead, rubbing his temple in that way he¡¯d had since he was young, when something heavy was on his mind.  ¡°Maybe some of us will adapt,¡± he mused.  ¡°Maybe some of us will survive.  Maybe it will be enough.¡±  He leaned back in his chair, shoulders slumped, his head still cocked to one side.  His knees and elbows dangled, limp, in four uncoordinated directions, like a puppet off its strings.  ¡°It¡¯s just another way to communicate, after all.  We should be able to control it.  We should be able to use it, in the end.  Every form of communication in history, some have found a way to lie.  Why should this be any different?¡±  A hand feeling at his neck, in the same area where Miller¡¯s wound had been, suggested there might be a very good reason.  I couldn¡¯t see the swelling yet, or the telltale redness blossoming beneath the skin, but the look on his face was one of such sorrow, such loss, he had to be feeling something.


    ¡°Bring me home,¡± he whispered.


    ¡°I can¡¯t do that,¡± I answered.


    ¡°Why not?!?¡± he demanded.  ¡°If it has to happen, why can¡¯t it happen there?  You¡¯ve got the power.¡±  He found a spot on the side of his glass where a drop of the bubbly had beaded and dried, and rubbed it clean with one of his thumbs.  His eyes remained averted.  ¡°They¡¯re coming in anyways.  I know they are.  Just have them take me out with them.  Put me in quarantine, and just¡­just let me see the world again before I go.  Let me see the leaves on the trees, and the orchards in bloom, and the endless fields of wheat, and the clouds in their majestic sky.  Let me watch the panoply of one last glorious sunset, and remember all the constellations as the starts come out to play.  Let me take a walk in the park, and feel the grass beneath my feet, and hear the din of the rank and file buying their pasties and kewpie dolls from cheesy vendors hocking their wares, and smell the sweet of the country breeze as it comes wafting from the plains.  Let me hoot at a pretty girl.  Let me eat a real meal, made with fresh meat and fresh vegetables, and roasted coffee with real cream and real sugar instead of this freeze-dried shit we¡¯ve got down here, and let me smoke one last cigar, before these fuckers snuff me out.  Let me go out like a man.  Don¡¯t let me go like¡­¡± the background of the holo flashed an image of Miller, spasming and clutching at the side of his face.  He looked even more twisted and pale than he had on the playback.  A ghoulish hyperbole from Britt¡¯s imperfect memory.


    ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± I repeated.  ¡°They¡¯d crucify me.  You know they would.¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­¡± he choked on the word.


    The background of his holo ran through all the pleasures he had just described.  He glared at the me from the foreground, enjoying them in spite of my negation of the chance to make them real.  I felt pangs of animosity, and had to work to suppress them.  And all at once I found it that much easier to understand why Rauch had snapped.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t have to end this way,¡± my holo said.  ¡°You could fight.  You could at least try to finish Miller¡¯s work, or you could queue up some of your own.¡±This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    ¡°Without the tower?¡±  Britt pondered the shard.


    ¡°You could use the side station.¡± I said.  ¡°Or, hell, you could fix the tower.  You didn¡¯t fry the processors, just some of the circuitry.  A few spare parts and a coat of paint, and she¡¯s as good as new.¡±


    ¡°And just as useless.  I had to wipe the operating system, remember?  How many months did it take our top guys to customize that thing before it reached its full potential?  Working with just the two of us, with the blunt instruments we¡¯d be forced to work with, it would take us years.¡±  His screen showed both him and the girl, each slaved to the lesser console, aging noticeably as they tried to replicate the code.


    I folded my hands.  There was another glitch in his holo, where a handful of frames showed my arm extended, reaching for another drink, then back to clasped, with no transition in between.  ¡°Point is,¡± I said, ¡°it doesn¡¯t have to be the end.  You don¡¯t have to hang it up.  You never know what might happen if you just keep fighting.¡±  I moved my hand towards my mouth in a way that could have been a sip of liquor, could have been a touch on my cheek.  It was eerie, watching myself on the screen this way, not always knowing what I was doing, and having no idea why.  ¡°Like you said, some will adapt.  Some will survive.¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± Britt whispered.  He held up a hand, palm outward, in a stigmata pose.  ¡°But I ain¡¯t one of them.¡±  His hand shook.  Blood gushed from the vein he had opened.  I¡¯d been so engrossed watching myself on his holo that I hadn¡¯t even seen it happen.


    ¡°Oh, Britt¡­¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he let his hand fall to his side.  Blood squirted from his wounds as they dropped below his heart.  The glass had been a faulty tool.  The cut it made had not been clean, but rather a staccato series of gouges that played back and forth across the vein.  As a result, the blood didn¡¯t sheet like I¡¯d imagined.  It sprayed as from a leaky hose.  ¡°I¡¯m sorry for the mess we¡¯ve made.  I¡¯m sorry we all let you down.  And I¡¯m sorry for¡­this,¡± he gestured with his bleeding wrist.  ¡°It¡¯s a coward¡¯s move, I know that.  So call me a coward if you must.  I just¡­I just couldn¡¯t¡­¡± he trailed off, and the image of Miller flashed again.


    ¡°I know,¡± I whispered.  ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡±


    Neither of us had much to say as blood gathered on the floor.  It spread at a steady rate, forming the now familiar shape that also lay before my feet.  The color drained from Britt¡¯s face.  His motions shortened, weakened and slowed.  He reached down with his uncut arm and tried to help things along, but collapsed after a couple of squeezes, lacking even that much strength.


    ¡°Hey,¡± he mumbled, as the last of his alertness waned, ¡°you remember that weekend we spent¡­in the Maldives, eight or nine years ago?  When we were¡­blowing off some steam after¡­after that month we spent in lockdown¡­when we were¡­getting our clearance?¡±  He was struggling to stay awake at this point. His eyes would close for a second, and roll senselessly in their sockets as they detached from the waking world, then fly back open as he thought of something he wanted to say.  His lids were twitching from the strain.


    ¡°You mean at that beach resort?  When we found out that ladies¡¯ volleyball circuit was staying in the next wing over?¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­¡± Britt smiled.  He licked his lips and swallowed.  Not without effort.  ¡°And¡­you know how some folks believe¡­that the thoughts you¡¯re thinking as you die¡­they define your afterlife?¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°Well?¡± he croaked.  ¡°Little help?¡±


    Ha, I thought.  Same old Britt.  I almost smiled.


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    The background filled with images of tanned bodies in bikinis laughing and playing around in the sand.  If they were just a little curvier than they¡¯d been in real life, just a teensy bit leaner and a touch more toned, well, I wasn¡¯t going to say a word.


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    He slid deeper into his chair.  His breathing shallowed, and his pulse began to fade.  The blood from his wrist slowed to a trickle.  His eyes closed again.


    This time, they did not re-open.

 Chapter 45

    A hand on my shoulder brought me back with a start.  Ramsay¡¯s.  ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­¡± nothing, I wanted to say.  But it wasn¡¯t.  It was my oldest friend, who I¡¯d known since I was a boy, dead by his own hand, on a mission I¡¯d assigned, crushed under a burden I should have been able to ease.  And, after what the holo had showed, Ramsay knew it.  ¡°¡­part of the job.¡±   The screen released its overlay of Britt¡¯s face, creating a fraction of separation between the two.  The Britt on the screen still sat atop the one in the lab, but the sensation of unity, that illusion that the image was somehow bonded to the corpse, liching it with the glammer of life, was gone.  Just a body once again.


    I sniffed back a tear.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Ramsay backed off, and let his hand drift to the butt of his gun.  He brought it to his side in a ready pose.  ¡°And¡­speaking of?¡± he asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±  I gathered myself as the holo, having reached its final scene, phased back to pulsing blue.  I considered playing it back again, in part just to see if I could, but I held off.  There were more important things.  I made my way over to the secondary station, and the chair where Rauch¡¯s body sat.  ¡°I suppose we ought to check out that fix Miller was working on.  See if we can¡¯t finish what he started.¡±  I touched a glove to Rauch¡¯s cheek, feeling the smoothness of his skin even through the sterine, and pondered the cord around his neck, buried deep within its channel of asphyxiated flesh.  Already the idea had started to form, you see.  No, I thought to myself.  I brushed a lock of hair aside.  Not yet.  Not until you have to.


    Whoosh!


    Through the door instead, on our way to the incubation chamber, our footsteps sharp and hollow in the quiet of the hall.


    Whoosh!


    We entered.


    For some time I¡¯d been wondering what the girl (A-something¡­Alexandra, maybe, or Aileen.  But no, it was softer than either of those.  Less severe¡­) had been thinking when she¡¯d grabbed the cyto.  It could have been any number of things, from the threat of our impending arrival to the weight of the monster they¡¯d created, to the hopelessness that Britt had felt, that no-way out feeling of inadequacy that left him trapped, alone, and afraid.  But somehow, none of that rang true.  She was stronger, technically, than Britt had been.  Not quite up to Rauch¡¯s level, or even Miller¡¯s, if I was being honest, but her training was current, and she, with her prowess in bio, would have brought a different focus.  Together with Britt, or even alone, she could have put up quite a fight.


    As we stepped into the chamber, I understood why she didn¡¯t.


    The hours had not been kind to Miller.  The swelling had spread since he had passed, and now the entire right half of his body was covered in ropes of hostile red.  They ran from the cluster that had popped his eye down his neck and back.  They ducked beneath the neckline of his undershirt and reappeared at his waist, where his coat had fallen aside and the shirt had ridden past his belt, and again at his ankle, where the snugness of his socks presented them in sharp relief.  Half his body had curled in rigor mortis, while the other half lay flat and stretched, held in place by the vines.  The flesh beneath them had shriveled and shrank.  Gone to feed their growth, no doubt.  Gaps had opened in his skin, which draped across his disappearing flesh, showing blobs of greyish red clumped grotesquely on whites of bone.  As a result, half of him looked almost normal, while the other half resembled something a year in the ground.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°But¡­why?¡± Ramsay whispered.  He was visibly disturbed by what he saw.  Maybe it was the gruesomeness of the deaths he had witnessed, or maybe it was all the time he¡¯d spent peeping in on peoples¡¯ minds, or maybe it was the threat the girl had made so casually before she¡¯d died, or maybe it was something else altogether, but he was starting to break down.  Becoming something more emotional, more human, than the soldier he¡¯d been trained to be.  ¡°None of the others showed anything like this.  None of them showed so much a scratch!  Not from the bots, anyways.  Why was this one so affected?¡±  He poked at one of Miller¡¯s legs, as if a probing toe through the boots of his suit could somehow help reveal the answer.  The leg turned on its side, exposing a ribbon of ankle as the leg of his pants failed to follow.  Skin split like rotten fruit.  ¡°And why the hell is it only taking half of him?¡±


    ¡°Why do some get leukemia and others don¡¯t?¡± I replied, ¡°or the common cold?  Maybe he was predisposed.  Or maybe it just acted faster on him than it did the others, because he¡¯d worked himself so hard.  Or maybe¡­¡± I thought back to Miller¡¯s holo, when he and Britt were discussing this same topic.  Miller hadn¡¯t quite put his finger on it, but he might have been on to something, ¡°¡­maybe it really was the gouge Rauch made in his neck.  Maybe as it tried to heal, his immune system kicked in, trying to flush the foreign bodies, and they evolved to take control.¡±  I stepped over the pool of fluids and locked in to the console.  It was a familiar model.  Current technology, intuitive interfaces.  Very similar to what we liked to use at headquarters.  Its processors paled in comparison to what the Tower¡¯s had been, of course¡­


    Still were, I reminded myself.  Don¡¯t talk about her like she¡¯s gone.  She still has all the horsepower she did, she just needs a few repairs.  Give her those and she¡¯s good as new.


    ¡­what the Tower¡¯s were, I corrected myself¡­but still.  The architects that designed the bunker had been told to spare no expense.  I wasn¡¯t shootin¡¯ cap guns here.


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure we¡¯ll ever know.  Haggarty shows what people are thinking, not what they are.  If they don¡¯t have a¨C¡± I scanned through a few blocks of code, and forgot what I was going to say.


    Ramsay sidled in beside me.  Noisily.  One of his feet velcroed itself to the floor every time he took a step; he must have stepped in Miller¡¯s blood.  ¡°Boss?¡± he asked.  ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°A nightmare,¡± I sighed, and shook my head.  ¡°Britt, you stupid son of a bitch¡­¡±  And then, under my breath, ¡°no wonder you offed yourself.¡±


    ¡°What was that?¡±


    ¡°Nothing,¡± I said.  ¡°He fucked it all up.¡±  I threw a backhand at the screen.  The system interpreted this as a swipe and sent the display careening towards the coda of the set.  I halted it with a dot of my finger.  It landed on a call I didn¡¯t recognize, which didn¡¯t seem to do anything critical.  ¡°His fingerprints are all over it.  Dragging loops, clustered calls, inverted syntax in his definitions.  All the shit that made me pull my hair out when we were kids.  Look how much he¡¯s reffed out!¡±  I browsed through a series of blocks, which filled the screen with reference blue.  ¡°Did he really think Miller wrote that much useless script?  Did he?!?¡±  Ramsay just stood there, listening to me rant.  The nuances were lost on him.  ¡°He must have been at it for hours, trying to figure out how this worked.¡±  I tried to remember the time stamps the holo showed during Miller¡¯s death and Britt¡¯s, and calculate the time between the two, but I hadn¡¯t checked them all that closely.  ¡°And balling it up all the while.  This is going to take some doing.¡±  I made as if to roll up my sleeves and started to untangle the mess, separating the code Miller had written from the ¡®improvements¡¯ Britt had made.


    ¡°That so?¡± Ramsay asked, with a tremor in his voice.  ¡°How long?¡±

 Chapter 45

    It was tedious work.  Identifying which lines were Britt¡¯s and which were Miller¡¯s was easy.  Their styles were night and day.  But segregating them was a different story.  Every call I tried to reverse, every block of reffed out text I tried to reactivate, brought with it a syntax error, or a recursivity paradox, or some kind of illogical flow, as it tried to talk to the parts I¡¯d yet to fix.  And then there were the lines he¡¯d simply stomped over.  I had to figure them out by context, looking for the parts where they hooked in to lines that had not been disturbed, to puzzle out what they were supposed to be.


    ¡°Hard to say,¡± I said.  ¡°It¡¯s pretty jumbled.  I can fix some of it right away, but¡­Oh, come on!¡±  I slammed my fist into the interface as it rejected one of my edits.  ¡°Missing argument my left nut!  It¡¯s all there!¡±  And then, turning back to Ramsay, ¡°If I had to guess¡­A few hours, maybe?  To get us back to where Britt took over, anyways.  Miller wasn¡¯t finished, don¡¯t forget.¡±


    Ramsay nodded, in a way that suggested that was a few hours more than we had.


    ¡°If only I had some way to home in on the juicy bits,¡± I lamented, ¡°instead of wading through the whole damn thing like this.¡±  I tried another argument set and got the interface to take the code.  But it wasn¡¯t right.  Just a placeholder I¡¯d dropped in to get around the error.  I¡¯d have to circle back and fix it later.


    ¡°How do you mean?¡±


    ¡°A mod like the one Miller was working on¡­it wouldn¡¯t need a total re-write.  The bulk of the code would be just fine.  At most we should see ten, maybe fifteen percent fresh copy, and the rest should still be off-the-shelf, with a couple of tweaks here and there to make the newcomers feel at home.¡±  I moved on to the next section and re-integrated a block Britt had reffed.  The screen exploded with open calls.  I cursed again under my breath.  ¡°Britt should have known that,¡± I whispered.


    Melissa?  No, it was an A-name for sure.  But like that¡­Alexis?  No, too rigid¡­


    ¡°It¡¯d be so much easier if I could isolate that ten percent,¡± I sighed, and began to clear them out.  ¡°Then I could just copy it into a fresh vessel and integrate from there.  It¡¯d be doubling up on some of the work Miller already did, but a heck of a lot easier than untangling all of Britt¡¯s BS.¡±


    ¡°A fresh vessel?¡± Ramsay asked.  ¡°What does that mean?¡±  He was asking a lot of questions.  More than I was used to.  He seemed to be trying to distract himself from something.


    ¡°You know, a blank slate,¡± I said, as I cleared the last of the errors and prepared to integrate the block again.  ¡°A new strain with nothing on it, instead of the substrates we usually start with.  This things¡¯s got all kinds,¡± I tapped the data house beside the console, ¡°with skeletons pre-programmed into them to help us get our projects going.  You think we start from scratch each time?¡±


    ¡°Never really thought about it.¡±


    More errors.  Almost as many as before.  I banged the console again, clapping it on either side as if it were a head with ears.  ¡°Dammit!¡± I shouted, and then, turning to Ramsay again, ¡°Here, I¡¯ll show you.  Maybe it¡¯ll help me figure out what¡¯s wrong with these calls.¡±  I backgrounded the interface and in its place pulled up the list of samples.  We had all kinds waiting in the inky¡¯s hold:  easy access, designed to integrate with a wide variety of different programs, strong-arms, which, once they were in, were almost impossible to get rid of, and were perfect for running long-range observations, highly virulent, designed to replicate as quickly as possible, and one especially nasty set we called Leeches, designed to consume their hosts completely, and replace them with a parasitic construct of our choosing.  Not a set we used often, but it was perfect for testing real-world applications without the risk of the host fighting back and skewing the results.  ¡°The library¡¯s pretty standard by now, even among the landed states.  Any halfway decent hack knows these things better than he knows his testicles.  Picking the right ¨C or the wrong ¨C sample to work from can be the difference between hours and weeks on a project.  Of course, we¡¯ve got a few the public doesn¡¯t know ab¡­¡±Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    I trailed off as I noticed one that caught me by surprise.  It didn¡¯t belong.


    My finger hovered over it, and I checked its vitals in the comment bubble that popped up.  One of the more aggressive strains, with a rapid replication rate.  Even in cryo, it hadn¡¯t gone completely dormant.  The preamble didn¡¯t show enough of the code to tell me any more than that, but I did catch a glimpse of Miller¡¯s name in the header.  I couldn¡¯t tell how long it had been in storage.  It had last been accessed a day ago.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Ramsay asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.  It¡¯s¡­new.¡±  I ran through some of the possibilities in my head.  A new template would only be useful if they were integrating with a new type of virus, one we¡¯d never tried before.


    That scared me.  I¡¯d pulled some strings when the bunker was stocked and had shipped in some strains that weren¡¯t technically part of the project.  Not all of them were on the manifest.


    ¡°Well, what does it do?¡±


    ¡°Only one way to find out,¡± I said, with more bravado then I felt.  I tapped it open.


    It wasn¡¯t really all that risky.  No matter how gruesome a form was designed to be when launched, it was harmless without its strain.  Opening it up in code was no more dangerous than carrying malware around on a data bulb, or throwing bullets without a gun.  My nervousness was more about what might have already been done than what I was about to do.


    I scanned through some of the code.  It wasn¡¯t easy to make sense of.  The style was something I hadn¡¯t seen before¡­not Miller¡¯s or Rauch¡¯s, and definitely not Britt¡¯s.  It didn¡¯t seem to integrate the same way as the others, either.  It still needed to hook into its strain, but the feelers it was putting out there, the way it meant to reproduce, they were all so primitive.  So, so¡­


    A sickening thought pressed its way into my head.


    ¡°Play it back,¡± I ordered.


    ¡°Huh?¡± Ramsay stared at me, dumb.  The stress was starting to affect his responsiveness.  I made a note to speak with Hodgkins about that the next time I had the chance.  It was unseemly for a soldier in his position.


    ¡°His holo,¡± I said, jerking my head towards Miller.  ¡°Play it back.¡±


    Ramsay hesitated, clearly wanting to avoid the holo, and possibly the corpse as well.  ¡°But¡­we saw how he¡­¡±


    ¡°No we didn¡¯t,¡± I cut him off.  ¡°We saw what Britt remembered.¡±  I zoomed in on a block that looked like it might be telling and began to read.  Yep.  There it was, plain as day.  The language, the hierarchy¡­there was only one strain known to man this could possibly hook into.  Sorry Britt, I thought to myself, looks like you only deserved most of the cursing I just sent your way.  ¡°He didn¡¯t see everything.¡±


    Ramsay stared at me in silence, waiting for me to explain further.


    ¡°Just play the damn thing back,¡± I repeated.


    Small miracle, he actually did.


    Whoosh!


    The girl sent up a line of text.  The girl, who¡¯s name I still didn¡¯t know


    (¡­Ashley?  Or Amber?  No, nothing quite so valley girl¡­)


    Not the strongest of the crew when it came to programming, and was there more for her knowledge of viruses and communicable disease than for any prowess with the bots.  What was she doing sending code?


    ¡°You really think it¡¯ll work?¡±  Miller asked.


    She kept swiping, but her holo shrugged for her.  You got a better idea? it seemed to ask, as she focused on her other screen, where a colored helix twiddled indolently in a rendered field of blue.  She pointed at it here and there, working her way through the nodes she thought she might affect.  Her lips twitched in silence, the commentary to her inner monologue as she bounced back and forth between the helix and the code.  ¡°It might.¡±


    Miller fingered the bandage on his neck.  Just a bandage this time, I noticed.  The wound had not yet swelled or reddened as it had in later scenes.  I checked the time stamp to see when this one took place:  yesterday afternoon, about the time Britt was busy sizzling the Tower.  ¡°Remind me again¡­how?¡±


    She explained.  My blood dropped ten degrees.

 Chapter 46

    Ramsay and I stared in silence when it was over, each too engrossed to speak.  Clocks ticked in my head.  Or rather, one clock in particular


    (tick¡­tick¡­tick)


    the laconic advance of an atomic, I realized, instead of the metronomic pendulum I usually sensed at times like these.  Ramsay¡¯s eyes flitted towards something off on my periphery.  I followed his gaze, and was hardly surprised when I saw it wasn¡¯t only in my head.  An image of the thing on the wall of Britt¡¯s office hovered just above my shoulder.


    ¡°Congrats, boss,¡± Ramsay whispered.  ¡°You got yourself this season¡¯s hot new accessory.¡±  His voice was flat, mechanical, sharing none of the levity his comment demanded.


    I nodded, resigned.


    I wanted to beat him for pointing it out.  To punish him for trying, and failing, to mention such a crushing thing in such a flippant, casual way.  I wanted to charge him the same way Rauch had Miller, with both hands slung to one side, swinging them back and forth like a weapon, and clout him in the solar plexus, then grab that rifle strapped to his back, and pump a slug into every inch of his sterine-covered torso.  But that would have been pointless, of course.  It was just Ramsay being Ramsay.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Instead I asked him the only question he might have been able to answer.  ¡°When?¡±


    ¡°I first noticed it a while ago, before we watched that last scene.  It wasn¡¯t as strong as it is now.  But it was on its way.¡±


    I nodded again.  Still holding my emotions in check.  Still resisting the urge to wail on him for every annoyance.  ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say something?¡±


    Ramsay shrugged.  ¡°You were pretty into it,¡± he said.  ¡°I didn¡¯t want to, you know, distract you.¡±


    Because, he seemed to want to ask, what good would it have done?


    I didn¡¯t press.  I wouldn¡¯t have been able to answer if he had.


    Miller¡¯s corpse stared up at us, its one good eye still wired open in a snarl of pain.  Its flesh had putrefied further as we¡¯d listened to the playback, dissolving into gelatinous ooze that seeped, slowly, into the space between the tiles, flowing through their geometric channels as if they were an aqueduct.  The infected half of his skull grinned at us with avarice.  His teeth, now exposed to the roots, looked impossibly frail as they clung to his jaw.  You, I imagined it was saying, mocking me in an offhand way.  This is you, before much longer!  An hour, a day, two at the most, and you¡¯ll be just like me.  Both of you will be!  ALL of you!  And then, as the last few sentences the girl had spoken before she¡¯d died repeated in my head, as I thought about the failed efforts to control its spread, and the hinge we¡¯d chirped on our way in:


    All of everyone¡­


    (tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­)


    ¡°We gotta move.¡±


    I locked back into the interface.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ramsay, craning his neck to check over his own shoulders.


    I tried not to take any comfort in the ghostly boil of pale and blue I noticed burgeoning there.

 Chapter 47

    Ten minutes later.  I¡¯d gotten nowhere.  Sheets of gibberish, laced with red, filled one half of the display.  A four-color helix spun about within the other, twisting this way, then that, depending on which part of the sequence I was interested in at the time.  It rendered the selected nodes in sharp, crisp slats and spheres that shone a few lumens brighter than their unselected neighbors.  In my weaker moments I imagined them a xylophone, coiled by some incredible force, waiting for Maestro to come and play the music of the universe.


    Melanie?  Could that be it?


    I¡¯d tried to pick through some of the errors, but it was an exercise in futility.  There were so many of them, and they were all so goddam strange¡­


    Gattaca dispersion immobilized.  Cannot compile consequent inputs...


    Empty recursivity observed.  Correlate values or redirect determination¡­


    and, my personal favorite:


    Invalid conjugation¡­


    Gee, thanks.  Big help there.


    No, dumbass, it starts with an A!


    I couldn¡¯t even prioritize them.  Normally, when faced with a sea of red, I could pick out one or two root causes, and work on those first, and in so doing clear up huge clumps of follow-on errors all with one correction go, but here I was flying blind.  I had no idea which were Britt¡¯s, which were Miller¡¯s, which were mine from the work I¡¯d done since I¡¯d locked in, and which were inherent in the template itself.  All I really knew was that, at some point, a team of the Coalition¡¯s best pathologists had worked in secret to engineer an organism that the girl


    Ahmed?  Is that even a name?  No, that sounds like some embattled Arab, ready to rebel against any government you could name, not a fresh-faced bio-tech from the heartland of the Coalition.


    believed could neutralize the Haggarty, if it was customized correctly, and that with Miller¡¯s help she''d somehow gotten something to cohere.  Whether it was right or not, whether it had been adjusted the way the hacks that wrote the thing intended, or cobbled together bit by bit through the painful process of trial and error, I could only guess.  I wanted to believe they¡¯d done it right, of course.  Certainly, the playback had made some convincing arguments.  But this was the fate of the world we were talking about.  I had to maintain professional skepticism.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    If only I could isolated it, I lamented again.  I needed to know what Miller had been working on, and how it differed from the template I had found.  If I could do that, maybe I could figure out what the two of them had missed.  Or, if Miller had already figured it out, carry it through to completion.


    Allison?  No, that¡¯s way off.  Wrong mix of vowels and consonants, emphasis on all the wrong syllables¡­wait a while, go back a couple.  What was that last thing you said?


    The worst part was, I knew what I was looking for.  Sort of.  I knew Miller well enough.  He wasn¡¯t what I¡¯d call a stranger to women, but he was no Casanova either.  He¡¯d always been a romantic, who truly believed in the concept of love, and if he¡¯d ever been asked, I¡¯d¡¯ve bet any money he would have said that every girl he¡¯d ever been with had seemed like the girl, at least for a little while.  Given the nature of the code and how the two of them developed it, and given the way he was starting to feel (whether it was the beginnings of something that could have been everything or just a case of cabin fever was anyone¡¯s guess, but that hardly mattered now), there was only one thing he would have named it.


    Ah-Melanie?  No, that¡¯s retarded.  No one names their kid that.  But it¡¯s close.  As stupid as it sounds, that¡¯s the closest one yet¡­


    If only I could just remember what that was!  If I could do that, I could search the index and isolate the lines he¡¯d written, and pluck them out of this labyrinthine mess that Britt had left¡­


    ¡°Ah-MEE-lee-ah.¡±


    A voice behind me sounded it out.  Slowly, syllable by syllable, enunciating each phonetic like a kindergartner learning to read.  My voice.  Speaking to me through my fairy.


    Amelia.


    It took a moment to register.  I stood there, stupefied, trying to process what it said.  It was all just so unlikely, so freaking impossible, that this mystery, which I had spent so much time building up inside my head, and these past few hours of torture I had put myself through trying to remember, could be over just like that¡­that those six little letters synthesized into existence by that shaking, probing, Number-Johnny-Five version of my voice could possibly have held an answer, that at first my mind refused to hear.


    Amelia, you little shitbomber!


    My fingers figured it out first.  They swooped up, down, up, and down again, searching for it in the indices.  Then the rest of me caught on, and flicked to activate the Seek.


    ¡°There,¡± I said, as it highlighted the relevant index.  ¡°The Amelia Determination,¡± it read.  Just like it was supposed to.  Good old Miller, my fairy whispered in my ear.  At least someone¡¯s doing what they should.


    I tapped twice, drilling through to the code itself.

 Chapter 48

    It appeared, and I said a silent prayer of thanks.  It was short.  Shockingly so, for something as momentous as the two of them made it out to be.  It filled less than half a pane under the system¡¯s default settings.  Just a few variables defined, a like amount of dubs and calls, and one logical test to help direct them.  There was actually more text reffed out than there was active, documenting Miller¡¯s notes, or perhaps the girl¡¯s, as well as a smattering of arguments that must have only almost worked.  And (I said another thanks for this), just a line or two that smelled of Britt.


    I got to work.  Fingers flew.  The display slued sickeningly up and down.  My eyes scanned the rows of text, reffed out and otherwise, trying to connect the dots before¡­well, I wasn¡¯t sure what, exactly.  Just before it got too stale.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to make a copy?¡±  Ramsay asked.


    ¡°Soon,¡± I said, brusquely, as I swiped through the repositories.  I was looking for the original download of the program ¨C the one we would have loaded when we first installed the chambers.  It would have been tucked in a pretty out-of-the-way hole in the directory, but I knew where to look.  A few swipes, and the right responses to one or two security checks, were all it took to get me there.  I opened up and compared it to Britt¡¯s working copy.


    Tick..tick¡­tick¡­


    I fought against the rising panic as I scanned both sets of code, reading, analyzing, using pictures in my mind to imagine them overlaid on top of each other and searching for the differences.  I ratcheted back the couple changes Britt had made.  ¡°Once we understand it a little better,¡± my fairy whispered, as I delved into the calls.  Its tone was equal parts explanatory and apologetic.  And, like me, just a little rushed.  ¡°We need to study it in context, see what all of these calls are pulling, and where the dubs are taking it, to know what the switch is trying to do.  Then we can transplant it to a host that isn¡¯t terminal.¡±


    It took longer than it should have.  Or at least, it felt like it did, as impatient as I was.  After a year in administration I had more rust than I¡¯d expected, and I struggled to tap back into that blackhat mindset.  Every leap I had to make, every bit of theory or technique I had to try to remember from the time I actually did this stuff, made me want to beat myself, and knock some of the answers loose.  Every minute that passed unused, every second I had to waste tagging up to my mnemonics, hit me like a barbed-wire jab.  A series of singsongy pinprick needles in my eyes, my ears, my orbital bones, reminding me that I wasn¡¯t good enough and everything was all my fault.  My holo actually calmed me down at times, tracing a put I was struggling with, or interpreting a syntax I only knew from deep within my memory, so I wouldn¡¯t have to stop and look it up.


    They¡¯re really not malicious, you know¡­


    Then, finally, it was done.  I queued it up and scrimped out another portion of the biologic, and transported it to the incubation chamber.  In my haste I took more than I should have, drawing jeers from the voice in my holo at my lack of experience with this sort of thing, and questions over how long it would last if used it so extravagantly.  I did my best to ignore them, and focused instead on transferring copy.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°Not much left now,¡± I said, giving Ramsay an update, more as an excuse to break the silence than anything.  I¡¯d been at it for a while, and he¡¯d been waiting patiently.


    I ran an integration check.  Come on, come onnnnn¡­


    Nine errors.


    ¡°Down to single digits!¡±  I announced.  I tried to hide my disappointment, and put a spin on it for Ram, but he only nodded vacantly.  Something on the hands of his suit had the bulk of his attention.


    ¡°Not bad!¡± my fairy chimed.  ¡°We really have to hand it to them.  They made more progress than I thought.  Miller, in particular, seems to have almost figured it out before he¡­ah, before the virus took him.  And look!  He even left some notes on how he¡¯d planned to finish it!¡±  It was getting stronger now.  Speaking with more confidence, losing the cautious, probing style of one who barely knows the language.  I spared it a look, wondering what images might have accompanied this latest diatribe, but there were none.  Just the text of the words it had spoken, overlaid on a field of nothing.  That¡¯s different¡­  I wondered, briefly, if mine had not yet evolved to the point of using images.  Or perhaps, a darker part of my subconscious thought, if it had passed the point of needing them.


    ¡°We¡¯ll just have to be a little more specific when defining the variables, and a little less so when disseminating one of the calls.  That way it can¡­¡±


    ¡°There!¡± I exclaimed.  ¡°That should do it.  Let¡¯s run an integration check, just to make sure.¡±


    I swiped the screen with crossed fingers.  Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseohplease


    Seven errors.


    Dammit!


    I masked my disappointment as best I could, ¡°Well, at least we¡¯re improving.  Better is better, am I right?¡±


    Ramsay nodded, but once again it was absent, and wan.  I skittered through the code, trying to figure out where they were.


    ¡°Check out this argument here,¡± my voice intoned.  It was now a dead ringer for the real thing.  No static, no probing, no guess-and-check hesitation that had marked it from the first.  It even mimicked the effect of listening to myself internally versus externally, and gave the lines it spoke of mine that rich, melodious quality I heard in my head every time I said two words but never quite showed up on playback.  That scared me as much as anything.  ¡°The dubs that it results in are loose.  It doesn¡¯t know what to do in those scenarios.¡±


    I picked one of the dubs at random and followed it.  Everything looked fine.  I picked another, and it was the same.  I felt the panic rise again.  Deep breaths to calm myself, and I tried to find a better way.  I failed, and resigned myself to picking through them one by one, following each in turn until I found the one that was out.  I cursed myself when I saw it.  There was a dub that carried the determinant from the toggling translation, but the variable it tried to deposit back into was defined to hold a different type of data.  I made the correction and kicked off another integration test.  Part of me knew it was a waste of time ¨C only two of the errors looked like they could have been caused by the overdub ¨C but I couldn¡¯t help myself.  ¡°Focus on progress, not perfection.¡±  The voice of my old CoSci professor tiptoed through my holo in its guarded Northern accent.  And then, from even further back, the voice of my father, shouting one of those senseless phrases he liked to use, often at the strangest times, ¡°No steps back!¡±


    Five errors distinguished, it read this time.  Would you like to view the log?


    I nodded, satisfied, and began to ponder how we might address those five.  We were on a roll now.  I scanned the remaining messages and picked one that looked like it would be an easy fix.  Just a couple tweaks to some of the syntax here in one of the calculations, aaaaand¡­


    Click!   Click!


    Two sharp raps of plastic on plastic interrupted the whir of the console, followed by the faint Ssssst!  of air pressures merging.  I opened my eyes.  Ramsay, holding his head in his hands.  Twisting free the helmet of his bio-suit.

 Chapter 49

    ¡°What are you¡­¡±


    ¡°Sorry boss,¡± he said as he levered it up and over his head.  The sterine flap that draped off the back dragged through his hair as he lowered it in front of him, picking up streaks of sweat from his sodden curls.  ¡°I just had to know.¡±  He set the helmet on the console, resting it on the curve of its visplate to keep the gasket off the surface, and peeled the suit down one shoulder.  He then grabbed the sterine covering one of his hands with the other, tugging the grips of each of its fingers until his arm was free of the sleeve.  He lifted it up through the neck hole.


    ¡°The hatch,¡± he explained, as he turned it over in the air.  ¡°When Bergs and I heaved the lid.  This sterine¡­ it insulates well, but that was scorched titanium we were dealing with.  I must have caught an edge.¡±  He showed me his hand, palm to the ceiling.  An ominous sear crossed three of his fingers, and the pad of fat at the base of the fourth, in a band about a quarter-inch wide.  ¡°It got me pretty good.¡±


    ¡°Ram, I¡­¡±  But that¡¯s as far as I could get.  The sound of the atomic filled the silence while I tried to think of something else to say.


    ¡°It¡¯s OK,¡± Ramsay said.  ¡°I¡¯ve suspected for a while.  It¡­it just wasn¡¯t feeling right.  Wasn¡¯t healing the way it should.¡±  He sloughed off the rest of his suit, shimmying out of it bit by bit as he pushed it down against his sides.  Like a snake might shed its skin.  ¡°Like I said¡­I just had to know.¡±


    ¡°Ram,¡± I tried again.  This time I at least found something, even if it was hackneyed and trite.  ¡°If there¡¯s anything I can do¡­¡±


    Then keep your fool mouth shut, because I¡¯d already be doing it for myself, my holo finished.  I stopped, not believing what I¡¯d heard.  It was so unlike me, so not what I wanted myself to think, but I turned my head and there it was, on the screen, in the same emotionless lettering the goddam thing had used from the start.  My blood boiled with hatred for the thing.


    Ram didn¡¯t react in any way that I could see.  He just kept peeling back his suit.  ¡°Just finish it,¡± he whispered.  He stepped out of the pile of sterine, and, with a series of halfhearted kicks, shuffled it across the floor, where it nestled in a blood-smeared heap against the base of the console.  One of its sleeves stuck in the puddle of Miller and dragged out behind the rest, like the chain of an anchor stuck in the ground.  He bent, peeled it off the tile, handling it like a sock worn several days too long, and flung it towards the rest.  ¡°Finish it, and let us end this.  One way or another.¡±


    Two hundred and Twenty-seven errors distinguished, the display announced.  Would you like to view the log?


    ¡°Fuck off!¡±


    I pounded the console and stared at the screen.  There was no way.  That language had been right, goddamit!  There was no motherfucking way!This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Fury arced through frazzled nerves, taking over my


    (you have to fix it have to fix it have to fix it have to fix it just one change so you can fix it have to fix it NOW!)


    head and my holo.  My first instinct was to re-set the call to the old, archaic language and reverse the damage it had done, but¡­no, the fairy had been right.  The adjustment had been necessary.  There was something else going on.


    Tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­


    It taunted me in my confusion, reminding me what we had seen.  I scanned through the errors, trying to figure out the pattern, and understand why this one minor rearrangement caused such cataclysmic failure.  I paged up and down at random.  My eyes darted to every corner of the screen.  I flipped back and forth between the list of errors and the code, as if one or the other might magically correct itself from that action alone.  There were some similarities, I noticed, but¡­


    (sigh)


    I fought down some of the urgency, forcing back that tilting, needling demon of a presence that insisted it should be so easy, that kept asking what was wrong with me that I couldn¡¯t fix the lot of them with another simple re-write of another couple of lines.  That prevented me from slowing down and doing what was needful.


    Tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­


    I sighed again, and, one by one, began to chase them down.  I tried my best not to think about Ramsay as I went about it.  I tried not to think about the


    (tails)


    energy it took to scorch titanium, or calculate the heat that must have transferred, even through the sterine, when a couple hundred pounds of force pressed a corner into his skin, or guess at how much damage such might do at a cellular level.  I tried not to think about that damage healing itself, about the damaged cells dying off, and making way for new.  I tried not to think about all the little dents and dings a body accumulates over the course of a day, a week, a month, even in a job like mine.  I really tried not to think about what I had seen on Miller¡¯s holo, that last


    (wriggling)


    chilling scene that had both guided and scared the living shit out of me at the same time, and tried not to dwell on how few days ¨C how few hours ago that scene had taken place.  All these things I tried to avoid, because trying to avoid them all, even though I knew I


    (like sperm at an egg)


    couldn¡¯t, was the halo of distraction I needed to ignore the thing that really scared me, the thing the outposts of my mind had to watch for, and keep away from the inner camps so they could focus on the code.


    This one here, the first of the errors¡­it doesn¡¯t look too tough¡­The results of their determination, now that the call was working correctly, had just created a language mismatch when it passed the resultant on to the next link in the chain.  All I had to do was change the scope of this bit here, and invert the testament of this part there, and we should be back in business¡­


    I especially didn¡¯t check my fairy.  I told myself it wouldn¡¯t matter, that it had no reason to change its stripes, and was still showing text alone, as it had since it had first resolved into more than a degaussing blur.  But I was sure it knew I didn¡¯t believe it.  I was sure it knew that sooner or later my resolve would tremble, when the code defied me, or something outside startled me, and I¡¯d turn my head, just a fraction, and peek at it sideway from the corner of my eye.  And when I did, I was sure what it would show me: Ramsay¡¯s hand, plain as day.  Ramsey, with his palm extended, showing the stripe across his fingers and down the pad at the base of his thumb¡­and I also knew, if I looked closely enough, or if it sensed a chance to do so, it would show me the whipcord flagella of pulsing crimson I had seen struggling from the edge of the wound.

 Chapter 50

    Momentum built quickly.  That error that had blown things up took a handful of runs ¨C I hadn¡¯t gotten the fix quite right, and even when I did I found I¡¯d only squeezed the balloon ¨C but after that they fell like flies.  Many of the new errors were just copies of each other, manifests in different landing points within the program, (¡°Organism,¡± my voice corrected.  I kept flushing out the errors, trying to ignore its poke, but it sensed what I refused to ask.  ¡°You keep calling it a program, but it''s not.  You heard those two talk about it¡­you¡¯re coding directly into a living, not-quite-breathing, organism.  Not a bot inside a strain, or some software that controls it, but right into the thing itself.  How does it feel to be playing God?¡±)  so, once I had the first one plucked, I just repeated the steps again and again, tweaking the language only slightly depending on the nature of the dub.


    Eleven errors distinguished.  Would you like to view the log?


    Some were more complex, of course, requiring deeper dives, multiple jumps, or a series of fixes before the warnings could finally be cleared.  These rankled me no end.  They tricked me into thinking I¡¯d won, that I¡¯d finally chased the rabbit down the last hole in its warren and trapped it in its dead-end hold, only to bring me crashing back with a flash and buzzer, all while seconds ticked away.  But I kept at it.  I didn¡¯t have much of a choice.  It would all come down to time, now that I had seen the failings, and how much of it we had left.


    Ram was silent as I worked.  Or, at least as silent as he could have been in combat boots on firmoleum tile.  One moment he¡¯d be pacing back and forth, another crouched beside the body, watching as it decomposed, and a third he¡¯d only look at me with that thousand yard stare of his, or absently trace the edge of his burn with the ragged nail of one of his fingers.  At one point he tried to lock in to the interface ¨C one of the few advantages of this console vs that of the tower was that this one allowed multiple users to lock in at the same time ¨C but a flick of my wrist rebuffed his advance.  Britt¡¯s misguided attempts were enough to deal with for now, thanks.


    Four errors distinguished.  Would you like to view the log?


    Yes, I tapped, as I had each of the previous times it asked me that question.  As I had every time any system had asked, on any platform, in any language, since Britt and I had first logged on to the Stedis C that had sat, abandoned, under a sheet in his basement for as long as either of us could remember, until we tired of hide and seek one rainy afternoon and fired the old battle-axe up.  Not for the first time I wondered why it even bothered to ask.


    ¡°Remember what we wrote that day?¡± my holo asked, morphing into a voice like Britt¡¯s.  ¡°Once we fixed the power supply, and finally got it booted up?  We took turns, you and I, building a choose-your-own-adventure game, using some stock renderings of battle scenes we snaked from some repository on medieval history, and a set of sprites that couldn¡¯t do anything but toggle their mouths open and closed.  It wasn¡¯t half bad, for a first try, but¡­remember how we fought over how it should be designed?  I kept wanting to make it logical, to write a series of if-then statements, where choice A led to result B so long as the player held item C, and it would do so every time.  But you¡­you wanted to randomize it, and give the player a chance to win even if they chose ¡®wrong.¡¯¡±  Its voice tightened as it spoke, growing puerile and inarticulate, just like it was that day.  The voice of a boy only nine years old.  ¡°You never know what can happen, you argued.  A smaller army can beat a larger, if they hold a strong position, or if they catch them by surprise¡­a warrior might choose the proper forms to fight an orc ninety-nine times in a row, and slay them easily each time, and then, on the hundredth try, slip on a pile of troll crap and find himself shred to ribbons.  ¡®We should build things like that into the game,¡¯ you said, ¡®and keep the players on their toes.  It will be more like real life that way.¡¯¡±  It laughed softly to itself.  Almost as if it knew I was trying not to pay attention.  ¡°Well, I don¡¯t think I can argue with that,¡± it said, re-equipping the mature version of Britt¡¯s voice, ¡°but let me tell you something¡­I could use a little less ¡®real life¡¯ right about now.  How about you?¡±This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    But I continued to ignore it.  I would not be lured into a conversation with the thing.  It could play the servo-bot all it wanted, and I¡¯d be happy to accept any aid it chose to offer, but I refused to treat it like a human being.


    The log appeared.


    I studied it intently, trying to puzzle through the last few messages.  The first three were pretty straightforward.  Challenging, yes, since they appeared near the end of the sequence, and I could tell they stemmed from incompatibilities several steps up the seeq.  But straightforward nonetheless.  The fourth, however¡­the fourth was an open echo warning.  Which wasn¡¯t technically an error, but it was still something the system couldn¡¯t process.  It seemed to source from lines that butted up against the empty spaces left for the organic portion of the organism.  I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how the two were supposed to interface.


    ¡°Oh, you don¡¯t need to worry about that one,¡± my holo said.  ¡°That¡¯s just how it was designed.  You didn¡¯t expect the sanity check to know what the bugs were thinking, did you?¡±


    I sighed.  I supposed I had, at that.


    Well¡­why shouldn¡¯t it?  I asked myself.  It has the code.  It has the helix.  If they really integrated them as well as the girl said they did, why wouldn¡¯t it be able to¡­


    No.  Absolutely not.  I was NOT going to argue with the thing!


    I set to work on the other three.  Like I¡¯d thought, they were simple, but slow, requiring many chases through multiple jumps to determine which link in the chain was out, and why it had gone off the rails.


    ¡°Rookie mistake,¡± my holo chided as I trudged through one of them.  ¡°Actually, no, it¡¯s the opposite¡­a dinosaur¡¯s blunder.  That language might have worked a decade ago.  Nowadays, with a call like that, you specify the flavor first.


    Of course.  I should have known that.  I wasn¡¯t that out of touch.


    I rearranged the line, snipping out the flavor and positioning it in front of the address, pursuant to the last two, maybe three generations of the programming language our boys had used to write this ghost of a rumor of a holy grail of cybernetics.  I kicked off another integration, then slumped, feeling a little of the overdrive fade as I waited for it to spit out the results.  My shoulders sagged.  My eyelids seemed to gain ten pounds.  I leaned my head back and let them close, trying to steal a few seconds of rest before I had to fire up again.  Ramsay held his hand again, but I refused to see.  My focus narrowed between him and my fairy.  ¡°It¡¯s getting worse.¡±  His voice was stoic, and forced¡­all strength on its surface, but cored with the gildings of whimper and plea.

 Chapter 51

    Two errors distinguished. Would you like to see the log?


    ¡°Almost there,¡± I whispered. Not speaking to Ramsay. Definitely not speaking to the voices in my holo. Just reassuring myself that there was progress being made. That there was progress being made¡­


    ¡°There¡¯d better be,¡± my fairy taunted. It still spoke in Britt¡¯s voice, only now it was switching back and forth between the adult and the adolescent. I tried not to wonder what that was supposed to mean. ¡°How much do you think it takes? If a little gouge on the neck will do it, if a tiny singe across the palm is enough to turn the trick¡­¡±


    ¡­and this bit dubs to Helion section, which passes its result on to the counter-balance in the A-line arena, which then drives the¡­


    ¡°What about that knick you took when you were unclogging your waste converter a couple of weeks ago? When you had to reach down there to grab that seal-tite that got tangled in the compactor, and you scraped your hand on the way out? How¡¯s that doing? What about that toe you stubbed on the way to the can? What about your ears popping on the plane ride in, or, hell, when was the last time you clipped your nails? All those things cause damage, and all that damage needs to be repaired. How much is too much? How much before that busy little body of yours kicks enough into patch-up mode to let those fuckers know they¡¯re not the only things trying to make shit happen?¡±


    ¡­there! In the Amelia Determination itself. That¡¯s where the source of the error was. The handoff came with too much altitude¡­I just had to put a cap on it with a standard-issue min-max collar, and it should be butter smooth. I did so, instructing it to recalculate its routing any time its path was more than one standard deviation out from the mean.


    One error distinguished. Would you like to view the log?


    One error. That¡¯s all that stood between us and a way out of this mess. One lousy, stinking error. Get past that, and we¡¯d be home.


    But it was a doozy.


    "Interface membrane not recognized"


    I tapped my fingers on the console, keeping them safely out of the way. It wasn¡¯t the first I¡¯d seen of this message. It popped up from time to time, in truly out-there integrations, where the two halves of the marriage-to-be were so unalike it didn¡¯t know where to begin. It was a little like fighting with someone whose language you only kind of spoke. You¡¯d spend so much time translating their words you¡¯d never get a chance to evaluate their arguments. This error was the console¡¯s version of that ¨C it just threw up its hands, and recused itself from the case.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    I tapped Yes, then used my executive access to burrow through to a menu not normally available in this interface. My fingers shook as I hovered above the override option.


    ¡°That was their mistake,¡± I whispered. ¡°I¡¯ll lay anything it was. That error can¡¯t be fixed. The language they¡¯d have had to write, to interface with biomass¡­my holo was right. It would never pass the checks. You can¡¯t clear that one, if you want the integration to succeed. Doing so would absolutely castrate the rest of the code.¡± I played it out in my head once more, weighing the need to make things happen against the risks of pressing on. Against the damage it might do. ¡°But I¡¯ll bet they tried like hell.¡±


    ¡°How about that welt you got from rowing in your muscle shirt? Two weeks ago, was it? Or that busted knee from your Lacrosse days that still acts up when the weather turns a little stormy? That¡¯s always kind of healing, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    My teeth ground. My hands tried to clench into fists inside their sleeves. It took all my effort not to turn in its direction. God, how I hated that thing.


    I tapped.


    The override took effect, and the integration began in earnest. Code and helix pixelated, breaking away bit by bit into streams of windblown sand. Streams that eddied, twisted, vortexed and curled, feeling each other across the distance, and joining in spirals, whorls, and loops that fit as neatly as the girl had promised. Point by point the thing accreted, assembling itself from the materials the tribute pair had offered up, until a single, beautiful, seamless sequence formed, the basis of which was neither virus nor machine, neither life nor artifice, but some combination of the two. In its way, it was as mind-boggling as anything we¡¯d seen so far.


    ¡°There,¡± I sighed when it was over, as if it were an act that reeked of momentum and finality. Which it was, I supposed. But not because of anything we had done. ¡°I told you it would work. It¡¯s all queued up. Now all we have to do is decide how we¡¯re going to¡­ah¡­¡±


    ¡°Release it?¡±


    I pointed at him, then tapped my visplate, as close to my nose as I could manage.


    He regarded his hand, which, now that the integration was complete, I allowed myself to see. The swelling had spread. It wrapped itself around the circumference of his palm, forming a ring that all but forced him to curl into a sort of fist. It conjured up images of alien caterpillars, with its bloated swell and all its tendrils, feeding, pulsing, straining as they probed their way through virgin flesh. He swallowed. ¡°You¡¯re¡­you¡¯re not thinking me, are you?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I shook my head, softly, slowly, answering his question only as collateral damage. I couldn¡¯t tell if he was disappointed or relieved.


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking total dispersion.¡±


    Averted eyes were all the answer I could give.


    Ramsay¡¯s holo, convalescent now to rival mine (or Miller¡¯s, whispered a voice inside my head, which had nothing to do with my holo) registered his surprise.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t tested it¡­¡±


    ¡°Foreign language¡­¡±


    ¡°Too many tweaks¡­¡±


    But he nodded in the end. In understanding, if not agreement. Banks and Bergman were still out there, after all. We had to assume they¡¯d been exposed (of course they have! my holo needled. Those suits of yours are sieves to things like us! We got those bastards hours ago!) but it seemed to show at different speeds. Maybe they didn¡¯t know it yet.


    I eyed the readout one last time.


    Maybe they would never have to.

 Chapter 52

    ¡°I can¡¯t do it from here, you know.¡±


    This time it was Ramsay¡¯s turn to answer without words.  Or rather, question without them.  He glanced at his palm, then back up at me.  His face was blank.  His jaw hung forward, but slack on its hinge.  Only the stretch of the sides of his eyes, that subtle narrowing of the lids, and deepening of the crows¡¯ feet that I could have never detected behind the visplate he had just removed, showed his lack of understanding.


    ¡°It¡¯s an incubation room, for one,¡± I held up a finger as I explained.  ¡°It¡¯s not designed to let things out.  Not until someone on the outside is good and ready, anyways.  That hum you¡¯re hearing, for another¡­¡± a second finger joined the first, trembling in sterine flecked with crumbling bits of blood, ¡°¡­that¡¯s the bunker¡¯s decon systems.  They may seem like a joke right now, the way they failed against the Haggarty,¡± I glanced at Ramsay¡¯s holo for emphasis, then at my own, all the while listening to the sibilant hissssssss of the systems in question, ¡°but I can assure you they are state on the art.  We¡¯ll want to shut them off before we disperse the sample.  No sense taking chances on this being the moment they actually decide to neutralize something.  And lastly,¡± I held up a third, extending it with some effort against the fist my hand was trying to make.  It felt good to speak like this again¡­to be in control, and have a purpose, an actual reason for saying the things I said, instead of just guessing, checking, and hail-mary-ing, hoping at least part of what we tried would stick.  It felt good to know what was going to happen for a change, and to be able to shape events to my design.  And it felt really good to be saying what I wanted to say, all of what I wanted to say, and not have to worry about that¡­thing telling the world all about the stuff I didn¡¯t.  Better than good.  It felt amazing.


    ¡°¡­and, lastly, we, ah¡­we can¡¯t feed the baubles from here.¡±  And just like that, it was gone, and I was the same dumb kid I¡¯d been since the moment we¡¯d stepped off that ladder, trying to hide what couldn¡¯t be hidden, and playing at games where I wasn¡¯t sure rules even existed, let alone what they might have been.


    The bunker was, naturally, a closed ecosystem, recycling and recirculating as many of its materials as possible as it supported its inhabitants.  As such, it required artificial maintenance of its atmosphere.  Earlier bunkers, either built or adapted for projects of similar classification, addressed this issue via their HVAC systems, by including a mixing station that monitored the levels of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, and made adjustments as appropriate.  But that was deemed a security risk when this bunker was designed, so we sought to de-centralized the function.  The baubles were our solution.  They were installed at multiple points throughout the facility, at strategic locations based on expected traffic and resultant consumption.  Each was supplied with liquid oxygen, which it dispersed whenever it sensed suboptimal levels, and each could scrub carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and a smattering of other compounds, out of the atmosphere any time it sensed a surplus.  The glassy hue of their housing was what lent them their name.  That, and the fluid, almost metamorphic way colors swirled inside of them whenever they were activated.  There was at least one in every chamber.  At the start of the project Rauch had made a show of farting on them whenever he could, and seeing how long it took them to scrub the ¡®impurities.¡¯


    Tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°There¡¯s no telling how long the fix will be effective,¡± I explained, trying to get the words out before my fairy beat me to it.  ¡°Before the Haggarty, ah¡­adapts, and develops immunity even to this.¡±  I/my holo thought of the girl, and how she¡¯d


    (pop pop pop!  The discs of her spine snapped one by one as her muscles spasmed out of control)


    cytomorphed herself, and how Ram and I had mused that that was only thing that stopped the bots.  But lately I was not so sure.  Lately, I couldn¡¯t help but think they only kicked off then because of the massive overdose she took.  If she¡¯d used a little less, given them just half a chance to adjust to this new, hostile tilt to the field, I¡¯d have taken any odds they¡¯d have found a way to thrive.  ¡°The baubles will give us the greatest coverage in the shortest period of time.¡±


    Ramsay nodded, and stood, joints crackling as they straightened.  He breathed deeply of the bunker¡¯s air, as if satiating himself after so long in the biosuit.  Enjoying the smell of it as it passed through his nostrils, and the feel of it as it filled his lungs.


    Some choice, my fairy chuckled, as we stepped out into the hall.  It still spoke in voice of Britt, but now it sounded hollow, and tinny, as if our moving had impaired its connection.  For your last lungful.  Recirculated, re-filtered air from the biosuit, or the manufactured air of the bunker, infected with all kinds of bugs.


    Whoosh!


    We stepped into the lab.


    It felt different, somehow, seeing it from this angle.  The landscape had not changed, I knew, and the objects were all where they were before, but the lighting felt a little different, the shadows off by just  a hair.  Like a town at noon and dusk.  The lifeless slump of Rauch¡¯s body, in particular, gave off a different vibe.  Previously it had been formless and pathetic, a cocksure gunslinger dragged to the lowest of lows.  Now it gave a stoic, almost regal impression¡­a keeper of secrets, even in death.  The rancid stench of urine and feces once again filled my suit as I approached, a reminder of the guttural nature of this thing we had once called a man, to which I¡¯d grown noseblind during our previous trip through the lab.


    Yeah.  Some choice.


    But I was stalling.


    I sighed, and stuck a finger in the strangle track in Rauch¡¯s neck, feeling around in the swollen flesh for the cable that was buried there.  Once I found it I traced it around until I found the place where the dangling end spilled out.  I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and, slowly, carefully, peeled it back.  The skin broke even so.  The cable was so thin, and had embedded itself so deeply as the flesh had bulged and lapped it over, and hardened in the day-plus since, that it would have taken a surgeon¡¯s touch to remove it without further damage.  Clumps of it clung to the cable as I eased it free, like the bits of food loosened by someone flossing for the first time in weeks.  Dark, oxygen-starved blood trickled mercurially through the gaps.  I could see the color drain from Rauch¡¯s face, and the swelling start to fade.  The flesh around his eye sockets deflated first.  It left his eyes, still bulging, alone in saucers of skin and bone.


    In the end I lost my patience, and, sensing that the wire would hold, I yanked the last third of it free.  His head jerked with a sickening squelch, and the gaps joined to form a canyon.  Rancid blood gushed down his chest, filling the pocket of his shirt, coating his uniform in sheets.  His head turned, and his tongue flopped to the other side of his mouth, where it settled, dangling as uselessly as ever.


    Ramsay and I inspected our prize.  He ran to fetch a rag, but I didn¡¯t wait.  I ran it through the fist of my suit, forming a tunnel of sterine to squeegee off the scraps and clumps.  It had frayed during the struggle.  Tungsten and silica sprayed like a sprouting thistle from their casing of ionized insulate.


    ¡°That¡¯s going to be a problem,¡± Britt¡¯s voice needled.  ¡°You needed that to hack the life support systems, didn¡¯t you?  You won¡¯t be able to disperse anything ¨C using the baubles or otherwise ¨C until you get that fixed.¡±

 Chapter 53

    ¡°I¡¯ll fix it,¡± I hissed, and flung the scrapings in my fist randomly across the room. They splattered in lumpy pitter-patters on the steel of the Tower¡¯s console. I tried to twist the filaments back together, but it was no use. There was too much damage, and not enough material to bridge the gaps. All I I¡¯d be able to do was mash them full of darkened goo.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to have to cut it down. Don¡¯t worry, you won¡¯t have to do it by hand. There¡¯s a splicing kit in one of these cupboards. We forget which one.¡±


    I started checking them one by one. It amazed me how that goddamned thing could be so sardonic one moment and so cooperative the next (if it was indeed cooperating, and not just sending me on a wild goose chase. But some half-forgotten memory, of a conversation I¡¯d had with one of the team, regarding inventories, or manifests, or some clerical shit like that, told me it was speaking true), and why mine seemed to be the only one to act like this, but


    ¡°they¡¯re really not malicious, you know,¡±


    Miller¡¯s voice, ghosting through my head for about the hundredth time, was the only answer I would get.


    ¡°What¡¯s this thing look like anyways?¡± Ramsay asked, as he opened, then closed a drawer on the other side of the room. He must have been eavesdropping. I let go of my cupboard and waited as the sigh of its hydraulic casters precluded conversation for a moment.


    ¡°It¡¯s a standard kit,¡± I said, stupidly stating the obvious while I thought of how it should be described. I swiped open another cupboard and rummaged around inside, shoving aside this thing and that, wondering why the hell we ever thought we needed half this junk. An air compressor? Really? An extra set of refractors for the gyroscope? Oh, sure, just last week¡­ The motherfucking jaws of LIFE? Come on, man! When in God¡¯s name would we ever have a use for THAT? ¡°Maybe thirty centimeters long. Black¡­no, actually, I think it¡¯s more of a gunmetal casing, with a handle on one side. The base fits into the uni-port of the consoles, or there¡¯s a cell in case that¡¯s not an option. One half of it is a self-contained nitrofoil, used to supercool the cable before cutting it with a hydrogen spray, and the other half is, ah¡­¡± I slid the cupboard shut as I vacillated, and moved on to the next, opening it with another hiss. ¡°The other half is a joining apparatus, consisting of a smattering of data feeds and a white polypropylene tube called ¡®The FUSElage.¡¯¡±


    Ramsay paused and looked my way. Despite everything, a smirk brightened up his face. ¡°I thought you spared us no expense.¡±


    I spread my hands, somewhat sheepishly, and felt myself blush a tiny bit. ¡°Well,¡± I ceded, ¡°almost.¡± I swiped the next cupboard open and poked around some more. ¡°Ah,¡± I whimpered, glad to have something else to talk about for a moment. ¡°Here it is.¡± My hand reached in and pulled the thing from its place at the back of one of the shelves, right behind a box of¡­boxes literally a set of ethylene sheets connected via a series of variable-state hinges, which could be shaped into vessels of a hundred different forms.


    What an age we live in¡­


    I set it down atop the station. Its casing clicked neatly into the surface, where recesses of various shapes and sizes delved like strip mines into the well. It powered up automatically once the console sensed its presence, flashing in pales of yellow and green as it brought itself online. The compressor sputtered back to life, reverberating like an airy woodwind as its coils gobbled up whatever juice the console offered. This was followed by the crackle of frost as the gas inside first cooled, then liquefied, causing crystals of dew to condense and freeze on the outside of its burnished frame.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    I checked the cable one more time, and picked a spot well outside the damaged section. I laid it in the foil¡¯s channel, twisted it so the seam was up, and


    Pffft!


    With one swift motion the jets of nitro did their job. I set the good end aside and threaded the damaged section through, looking for a place to make the second cut. Again I chose a point well outside the damaged range, not wanting to take any chances of the tungsten separating further. And again I seamed it up.


    Pffft!


    The second cut was made.


    Oh my, my fairy observed, as I discarded the severed ends, and inserted the two remaining pieces cut side-first into the ends of the FUSElage itself. Not doing this by halves, are we? You¡¯d better get this right, palsie. I¡¯m not sure you left enough material for a second try. I shook my head and grunted noncommittally, and focused on lining up the splice. The seams had to be topside again. The nitro had cut an acute bias, meant to expose as much surface area as possible, so the pieces had to line up exactly, or I¡¯d risk bonding tungsten to silica, silica to insulate, insulate to God knew what.


    Tick¡­tick¡­


    The FUSElage this time, not the ominous advance of the atomic. The ties at either port, locking cable into place. Almost ready now. I checked the supply of tungsten and silica and saw that the tungsten was nearly exhausted. A silvery ingot, about the size of a sewing needle, that I pulled from a slit in the case¡¯s lining was all it took to fill it up. Enough for several dozen fuses.


    ¡°May I?¡± I looked up to see Ramsay staring over my shoulder, studying my work intently. ¡°Hit the activator, I mean. If¡­if it¡¯s time.¡±


    I hesitated. I didn¡¯t want to let him. Not really. It was an automated process, about as un-fuck-uppable as we were going to get, if the setup was correct. But there were always things that could go wrong. I wanted to be in control. And, besides that, there was the


    Tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­


    time factor to consider. Letting Ram do anything, no matter how trivial, was sure to slow things down. But his voice was so flat, so resigned, so desperate for a reason not to check out completely, that I couldn¡¯t turn him down.


    ¡°Sure Ram. Sure.¡±


    I may have let my holo push me to it, in all honesty. The longer I stood there, listening to it itemize all the doubts and fears I harbored, the harder it was to think of any civil way around it. And I think that, even then, I sensed that I was going to need an ally.


    I stepped aside, and let him swipe the circuit closed.


    It activated. Heat wafted from its ports, carrying with it the scorched scent of melting silica. A high sizzle punctuated its cycle, marking the point when the tungsten liquefied, flowed, and filled the space between the wires. Then the crackle of nitro again, as the FUSElage borrowed from the foil¡¯s reserves to cool the new, seamless connections before warming them all back up to ambient and enrobing them in insulate. It dinged like a kitchen timer when the process was complete.


    Hurry kids, pasty¡¯s done!


    Ramsay unclipped the ports and, taking care not to burn himself further in the eddies of escaping steam, lifted the lid. He plucked it from the mold by the data ports at either end and carelessly, almost casually, handed it to me, treating it like a thing whose purpose had been served. As far as he was concerned, at least.


    ¡°Good as new,¡± I confirmed as I held it to the light. The welds were flawless. If it hadn¡¯t been for the sheen of the newer insulate, just a few lumens brighter than the rest of its jacket, I¡¯d have never guess the enrober had been at it. I gave it a couple of tugs to test its strength, as if that could somehow tell me if the wires inside had been remade. It held. ¡°A bit shorter than I would have liked, but it¡¯ll have to do.¡±


    A lot shorter! I told you not to cut so deep! Now you¡¯re going to have to crawl underneath to hook it in!


    Sigh¡­

 Chapter 54

    It was right. I¡¯d forgotten about that. The data port for the secondary station, the one needed for this sort of override, anyways, was tucked into the sitter¡¯s well, hidden behind a panel that covered a false back in one of the holds. A crude measure, sure, but not an ineffective one. I thought back to the Hedonism invasion a couple of years ago, when all the Americans¡¯ planning, timing, and near-flawless execution to put their blackhats at the terminal had gone to pot because it took them a full two minutes to locate the access panel. Yankee blood had rained that day.


    Well, there was nothing for it now. I got down on all fours, wincing at the pressure on my knee as it bore a quarter of my weight with only thin layer of sterine between it and unforgiving tile.


    Need to take better care of yourself, don¡¯t you? That old Lacrosse injury is bothering you more and more as you get older? Or is it something else, perhaps? Something new these past few hours, causing it swell and flame?


    I eased my way under the console. I grabbed one of the crossbeams as I did, and used it to flip myself onto my back. The pressure on my knee abated, but only partway. All of a sudden I understood why Ramsay had removed his suit.


    ¡°The gear?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    I held out a hand and felt the cable and then the fail-safe press themselves into my palm. I set them next to me and groped in the semi-darkness for the release to the access panel.


    There was none.


    Shit.


    ¡°Screwdriver,¡± I sighed, and held out my hand again. I heard Ramsay shuffle off, then return a moment later. The requested tool found its way into my fingers. It was sticky.


    ¡°Ram?¡± I asked. ¡°Did you pull this out of Charles?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± he answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.


    ¡°Jesus Christ¡­¡±


    ¡°What? It¡¯s not like we¡¯re going to get infected again. Besides, you see another one lying around?¡±


    I supposed I hadn¡¯t, now that he mentioned it. ¡°Still, you might have said something. Give a guy a little warning before you do a thing like that.¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± he mumbled. ¡°Next time.¡±


    I shrugged, and pinched the blood out of the bittings as best I could. It smeared another layer on the tips of my gloves; it had come from deep within the wound, and had not had a chance to dry.


    ¡°It shouldn¡¯t take long, once I get in there,¡± I said, more to fill the silence than anything as I worked the first of the screws free. It wasn¡¯t easy. The blood, drying quickly, both blunted the teeth of the screwdriver and pasted in the head of the screw. ¡°I really just need to set up the overrides and give myself access to the life support systems. Once that¡¯s done, I can finish the rest from the console itself.¡± The first screw fell, rattling metallically down the panel before settling into the gaps between the tiles. I started on the second, which came more easily. The act of unscrewing the first had done a much better job of cleaning the screwdriver¡¯s teeth than I ever could have. ¡°Then I just have to open up the modules that control the atmosphere, and tell the inky to seed the oxygen supplies.¡±Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡°What about the baubles?¡± Ramsay asked. ¡°I thought we had to hack them somehow.¡±


    ¡°Not really.¡± I extracted the final screw. It clattered to join the others. Part of me wanted to gather them up, make sure I saved them so I could screw them back in when I was done. But


    Tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­


    that was ludicrous. ¡°The baubles just need to do what they do. It¡¯s what they¡¯re dispersing that we need to hack.¡± I lifted the panel, and separated it from its housing. A single, unmarked data port yawned back at me, its pins of silica the teeth of some carnivorous plant poking through their bed of insulate. I filled it with the end of the cable, squinting through my visplate as I worked to line things up, then fitted the other end into the fail-safe.


    ¡°Booting now.¡±


    It was strange, this urge I suddenly felt to announce everything I was doing. As the screen began to glow, generating its own tiny interface, I realized why: my fairy was nowhere in sight. Wild hope rose inside me


    Is it gone is it gone already did the booting somehow fix it can we quit this stupid game?


    for a fraction of a second, but Ram was quick to quash it.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± he said, ¡°it¡¯s here. Still doing its job.¡±


    I spared it a glance. I couldn¡¯t see the thing directly, but yeah, it was there, hovering above my feet, pulsing in that eldritch blue, its reflection visible in the curve of the console as it peeled away into the lab. In a way it was almost a relief. To have it disappear like that, through no action of our own¡­it would have been too easy. I wasn¡¯t sure I could have believed it.


    The interface finished rendering. I swiped it with my cleanest finger, and was surprised, after the struggles we had had with the entries and with the incubation room, when it let me on the first try. I¡¯d been ready for a war. So it was almost with a sense of shock that I navigated through to the bowels of the operating system.


    ¡°Let¡¯s see,¡± I said to myself, paging through the various options, ¡°what am I looking for here¡­Setup? No¡­too obvious. Rations?  Let¡¯s give that a try.¡± I tapped, and the pane that opened was pallid grey, intended to warn the user they were about to fuck with sensitive areas of the operating system, instead of the usual depthless black. I closed it again soon after. Not a place we wanted to be. One could do a lot of damage, and there weren¡¯t really any tools available there that we didn¡¯t have on the outside. ¡°Installation? Nah, not trying to re-initialize here¡­Cartage? That looks promising¡­¡± I tapped through panel after panel, searching for the right one. It created a sort of tunneling effect as they piled on top of one another. Burrowing, deeper and deeper, like a gopher on the plains.


    ¡°I thought you said this was going to be easy,¡± Ramsay said.


    ¡°It will,¡± I answered. ¡°Once I find what I¡¯m looking for, it¡¯ll be a breeze. But we don¡¯t touch the OS every day. It¡¯ll take a bit to find my bearings.¡± I tapped through another pane. ¡°Load? Yeah, now we¡¯re getting somewhere¡­¡±


    ¡°Well, find them fast, will ya?¡±


    I snorted. It fogged up my visplate, sending the chillers into overdrive. ¡°If you say so.¡± I scanned the options in the new panel, and tapped the one that read Templates. No. Just a set of forms used to transfer data to HQ. Trials?


    Access Denied.


    ¡°Bingo.¡± I almost smiled.


    I tapped through the error message, then highlighted the file again. But this time, instead of trying to open it, I dragged it to the trash converter. When it gave me the usual prompt to confirm, I tapped around it in a five-point star pattern, then swiped it with my other hand.


    ¡°Deny that, you son of a bitch,¡± I whispered, softly enough so Ramsay wouldn¡¯t hear. I checked on him quickly and saw him standing there, unmoving, and I inferred by the position of his legs he was checking out my holo. Wouldn¡¯t hear in my voice, anyways.

 Chapter 55

    The prompt twinkled out of sight.  The tunnels of grey likewise whisked themselves away.  The interface itself seemed to almost implode, collapsing into a pinprick nothing in the space of nanoseconds.  It left behind a single display, which was not bound by planar frames.  It just ran in all directions, fading into nonexistence as it spread out from its source.


    I felt a chill run through me.  Despite the pressure I was under, despite the


    Tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­


    time slipping through our fingers, I took a moment to appreciate the sensation.  It had been a long time since I¡¯d been this deep, and wielded this kind of power.  Ages since I¡¯d used this access and visited this sacred place.  Here, at the crux of all things for someone in my line of work¡­a place that subsumed the lowest of codes, was baser than the validations, precursors to all conventions and rules.  Here, where hacks like me ran boundless through the untamed wilderness, where I could read the program¡¯s every line and ferret out it¡¯s every secret, touch it at its soul itself, and shape it to my every whim ¨C this, or any other program in the Coalition¡¯s network, if I could find where it was hid.  Here, where the grist of our profession was stored, waiting for its turn at the mill.  Here, where there were no checks or balances, no error messages or logs, where anything went that I could think of, and code was as the Greeks once thought life was like before the world: chaos, dark, wasteful, and wild.  Here, which felt a corporeal place, instead of just a weak projection¡­where it seemed for all the world like I could reach out with my human hand and touch a finger to that plane, press against it and feel it resist or yield, even (dare I say it?) shatter it, if I so desired.  Or just follow it, in any direction, and chase doggedly at that horizon until I, too, faded into nonexistence.


    Oh, no, the bottom it was not.  Make no mistake about that.  There were layers yet I could have burrowed, caverns I could still have delved ¨C places where I could have not only shaken free of laws of the realm, but re-written them entirely.  Made two plus two equal five, or six come after eight, or told the system that 11001001 was actually binary for a clown on stilts guiding an elephant through a hurricane ¨C but this was as far as I would ever go.  Here I was akin to Shakespeare, scribbling at an empty page, with all the tools of our respective languages ready at our beck and call.  Any deeper and I¡¯d be a monkey with a quill and ink, making random marks on random surfaces, scratching my head with a furrowed brow and wondering if they meant something.


    A green-white cursor blinked at the end of a block of text, against a field of darker, duller green.  I smiled inwardly again.  A touch of nostalgia, by whoever had built this thing.


    Who says hacks don¡¯t have a sense of humor?


    I swiped through a few of the blocks, skimming through the opening lines, trying to get a feel for how this thing was organized.  There was no index now, no handy labeling of all the sequences, or links where dubs or calls were used.  Not here.  Things were scattered about in whatever order the hacks had thought of them, knowing the system would parse them down and assign an order of operations based on which definitions were used in which arguments.  Variables called the ends of the earth, names defined themselves wherever they fell.  Some appeared at the end of a thread that were needed in their primal sequence, and others were set in the first few blocks but only used in capstone logic.  I paged through as fast as I dared, scanning for something, anything, that could serve as a landmark, and help me home the thing I sought.  But there were none that I could find.  In the end it was only by sheer luck that I stumbled upon the first of the sections I was looking for:


    <LifeStat Systems>\<Users:>


    Jumbled strings of letters and numbers appeared in the space below.  To the untrained eye they would have appeared random, but I knew what they were¡­the codes assigned to every Participant of the Coalition authorized to play in this space.  All HQ, I had no doubt, with pay grades well above mine.  One I even recognized, from the active personnel reports that appeared automatically at each of the Coalition¡¯s facilities every morning:  the Director¡¯s.


    I had to cull a laugh at that.  The thought of the Director herself swiping away at the LifeStat systems, trying to balance this atmospheric element or tweak that purification stage, it was just too much!


    You remember hers, but not your own, huh?  Innocent bit of hero worship?  Or are you just that much of an ass-kisser?


    Goddamit.


    I pulled back, away from the LifeStat program, and panned across the mantle, searching for another amidst the pods of programming.  Some were complete, closed, and functioning, humming along like the perfect little server farms they were, while others were broken, lost, and decrepit, standing only semi-erect, like stumps of buildings after a blast.  All were linked by relational data ¨C shared definitions of variables, tracing their paths amongst the pods in lines that faded in and out, outputs both exposed and whole, the former lying at the edges of their derelict pods like piles of radioactive waste, data calls to dynamic sets, stretching off into the fog like fistulas to an unknown hold, their carriage seen as strobic pulses as they transferred from the biosphere, randomization columns spinning in massive banks of millions, billions, sometimes possibly trillions of facets clicking into place like some sort of quantum totems and, at the end of the series, either discharging their results or spinning off to try again.  Counters ticking towards infinity, already reaching numbers only theorized by man after only a few decades in existence, keeping silent watch over collars and parameters long since obsolete, the Eternal Flames guttering in their version of a tomb.  The feel of it was otherworldly.  ¡°Come on,¡± I whispered to myself, searching for one that held some auspice, ¡°there¡¯s got to be one.  Something with a cross-reference hard-coded into it, that I can mine for what I need.¡±  Our guys pulled them all the time, and rarely bother to scrub them after, even though they were supposed to.  There had to be thousands from which to choose¡­preferably something universal, where they¡¯d take the whole table, and within the last few years.  ¡°How about this one?¡±  I homed in on a security intelligence for a sub-nuclear research lab we had started as a partnership with the Kremlin.  I scanned through the protocol as slowly as I dared, but didn¡¯t see what I was looking for.  Next I tried the Master Defense Program, already rehearsing in the back of my mind an explanation for HQ why I¡¯d back-doored one of the five most classified scripts in the entire Coalition, but I soon gave up.  It was such a massive program, with so many different modules and limbs, that it would have taken days to scan properly, and even if I found a register there was a decent chance it would be one that was pulled before I had been added.  In a program that mature and sprawling there could be hundreds of copies lying around, pulled and de-linked to help the hack with whatever they¡¯d been working on at the time.  I panned over to an Automated Medical Response intelligence.  Perfect, I thought, that¡¯ll have to have a crosser.  Anyone working a gig like that would want one.  It would be impossible to test it out, and see if the responses it was queueing up were correctly tailored to the Participant, if all you got was a random string.  I didn¡¯t have to do it this way, I knew.  That knowledge nagged at me, shuttling back and forth between my conscious and semi-conscious minds, reminding me that I could have easily used the more traditional interface to scan the matrix lasered onto the back of my shoulder, and gotten my string that way instead.  But I would have had to pull out of the mantle to take the scan, and something about that just felt wrong.  Something I didn¡¯t want to do unless I absolutely had to.  There were guys who could have, I knew¡­guys who had helped build the mantle, back when the Coalition was just an idea in a few guys¡¯ heads, and adapted the language to its needs, and who wouldn¡¯t have thought twice about delving in and pulling out of it dozens of times in the space of an hour¡­but I wasn¡¯t one of those guys.  To me it was still sacrosanct, the interstices of my world, that mystic void between reality and unreality where the building blocks of lives could be created or consumed.  Not a veil to be crossed lightly.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    ¡°Gotcha,¡± I whispered.  There it was: a register containing String, Name, Date of Birth, Blood Type, Allergens, Ohms Humano-Genetic Quotient, and a variety of other medical statistics used to optimize first response.  I paged through and found myself among the millions, using the date of birth as a guide, and copied the string assigned to me.


    After a moment¡¯s consideration, I found and copied Ramsay¡¯s too.


    Now to navigate back to the LifeStat user list, and¡­


    There.  I pasted, adding our strings them to the list.


    And that was it.  Access granted.  I paged up a few times, then down, then pulled out of the LifeStat pod and meandered about a moment more, seeing if I¡¯d stumble on something else that needed fixing, some excuse I could djinn up to stay here in the mantle, and hold on to the control it afforded, and this feeling of power that came with it, just a little while longer, but


    tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­


    there was none.  Reluctantly, and not without a misstep or two, I dotted the interface in the reverse of the five-point star pattern, and felt the light go out of the world as the interface snapped back to normal.  The infinity plane shimmered and shrank, and was bound again by tiled quadrangles.  White replaced the greenish-black background of the mantle.  Navigation resumed its clunky, swipe-driven motion, instead of the oceanic flows, so effortless I hadn¡¯t even notice them the entire time I¡¯d been in there.  I¡¯d just thought of where I wanted to be, and the barest movement got me going.


    ¡°Alright,¡± I said, once I¡¯d gotten past the dullness, and the sense of loss, ¡°that should do it.¡±  Speaking to Ramsay truly now, not just narrating to keep myself company.  I shuffled out from under the console, inchworming forward on my abdomen until I could grab the lip of its surface again.  My suit caught on something edgy¡­the cover to access panel.  It grated against the tile as I dragged it along with me.  One of the screws tinkled as it was brushed carelessly out of its groove.  I paid it no attention.  There would be time to reattach it later.  ¡°We should have the access we need.  All we have to do now is¡­¡±


    Tcht¡­tcht!


    My body tensed.  The sound of a safety clicking off.


    I looked up to see the muzzle of one of ours, trained squarely at my chest.  I squinted through the visplate of the figure that was holding it.  A pair of emerald eyes peered back, their lids narrowed almost to slits around the blackness of their pupils.


    Banks.  I might have known.

 Chapter 56

    ¡°That¡¯s enough,¡± he said.  His voice rasped as he spoke, grating against itself with gravity and dehydration.  The chillers of his biosuit were audible from where I lay, doing their best to siphon off his excess heat.  Even so, I could see a bead of sweat tracing down his brow.  And¡­what was that I thought I saw, reflected in the shine of his cheek?  He turned his head before I could tell, but it almost looked like¡­


    My mind raced.  Where had he come from?  What was he doing here?  How had he entered without me knowing?  Why was he holding me at gunpoint, and why the hell was Ramsay just standing there?  A quick look at Ramsay¡¯s holo answered at least one of those; he¡¯d arrived while I¡¯d been in the mantle, too engrossed, it seemed, to hear the whoosh of the entryway.


    And a quick look at mine went a long way towards answering another.  It showed everything.  Ram and my time in the inky, developing the thing in queue, our plan to use the baubles to do the disperse, even my trip through the mantle only a minute or two before.  Everything we had been through since we¡¯d split up into pairs, spelled out fine detail, using only the plainest of prose so even a simpleton like Banks could understand.


    Everything except the why.


    ¡°Can¡¯t let you do that,¡± he grated.  The finger on his trigger twitched.  He was close, I could tell.  The set of his frame, the fear in his eyes, the couchant way he held himself¡­even without a screen to show us, it was clear that he was close.  Just itching for a reason, for any halfway-baked excuse to take out some of his frustrations on the man who¡¯d brought him into this.  Any excuse to do something, anything, even if it made no sense.


    He hadn¡¯t been this way with her.  Then he¡¯d been a hired gun:  alert, but relaxed, sure of his ability to handle any curves she¡¯d throw at him, and only vaguely interested in the outcome.  Here he was a nervous wreck, the fate of the world weighing heavy on his sterine shoulders.  He swallowed, and seemed to almost choke on the act.  Like he¡¯d tried to swallow a mouthful of sand.  ¡°I can¡¯t let you launch another cyber.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°It¡­it¡¯s not what you think,¡± I started to protest.  How much did he know?  I asked myself.  Had he poked his head into the inky and seen what was left of Miller?  Did he know what we were up against, the twists and turns this thing could take?  ¡°The Haggarty virus, the reason we¡¯re here¡­it¡¯s more than what it seems.  But Ram and I found the fix.  We just need to queue it up, and¡­


    His finger tightened on the trigger, and re-trained the muzzle on where he thought my heart would be.  ¡°What we need is to complete the mission,¡± he said.  ¡°Last I checked that doesn¡¯t include playing roulette with a cyber that could end the world.¡±


    ¡°The mission is to stop this thing!¡± I screamed.  Spittle sprayed against my plate, obscuring portions of my view.  ¡°And you¡¯re allowing it to spread!  I¡¯ll have you thrown in hock for this!  Both of you!  I¡¯ll have them take back both your marks and I¡¯ll¡­I¡¯ll have you culled!¡±  That got his attention.  His trigger finger seemed to slacken, and his rifle wavered just a bit.  ¡°You don¡¯t think I can?  I can.  If we make it out of this, I¡¯ll have you both before the diamondhead within a week, and we¡¯ll see who¡­¡±


    POW!


    A sharp report from Bank¡¯s muzzle, coupled with the metallic ting! of steel piling into steel.  The pane behind the access panel vortexed as the bullet hit it, forming a funnel that I couldn¡¯t tell if it ended in a hole or with a ball of metal.  The echo of it rang in my ears, even through the bio-suit.  It had entered only inches from my head.


    ¡°Next one doesn¡¯t miss,¡± Banks warned.


    I shook.  Words shriveled on my tongue.  My mouth hung open, slack and empty, jaw twitching helplessly as it tried to form the explanation, that one magic string of words that could disarm the situation, but for long seconds nothing came.  Then, in a crash of unearned comprehension, I realized I didn¡¯t have to.  I couldn¡¯t say why, or how, or even how knew I could, but all at once my choice was clear.


    I thought of that scene we¡¯d viewed in the inky, when Ram and I were standing next to Miller¡¯s liquefying form, and, with all the effort of my will, forced myself to play it back.

 Chapter 57

    At first I wasn¡¯t sure it took.  The girl had been able to do it.  Even Britt, in his playbacks, had somehow managed some control.  But I had no idea how.  Part of me scoffed at the notion that I might be able to play it back by merely wanting it to happen.  Part of me screamed that there must be some trick, and that the Haggarty, as bitchy as it had been thus far, would never let me take the reins.  But, as I lay there on the tile, staring up at Banks¡¯s rifle, I didn¡¯t see another way.  So I willed with everything I had.


    It dragged for a moment.  I¡¯m not sure quite how to describe it¡­even though it was static text, changing only when another thought or another memory forced itself into my head, it somehow slowed, and skewed, then caught itself at choppy intervals, as if deciding whether or not to accept this new source of input.  Rifts opened in the screen.  Not blanks, or spaces, but tears in the display itself.  Only not really tears, because I couldn¡¯t the lab behind them.  They were simply gaps of nothing, places where the world just wasn¡¯t.  Like seeing through to time itself.


    Then it caught, and scraps of scene began to flow.  The rifts began to knit together, healing like a time-lapse wound.  Before long it was fully rendered, and the words began to come.  Banks, Ramsay, and Bergman¡¯s eyes drifted curiously towards its image.  Banks¡¯s rifle wavered as his focus was diverted.


    Easy as they made it look, I thought, as the playback began in earnest.  Those same six words ghosted their way across the background.


    I felt a twisted sort of pride.


    ¡°You really think it¡¯ll work?¡±  Miller asked.


    The girl ¨C Amelia now, I supposed ¨C kept swiping, but her holo shrugged for her.  You got a better idea? it seemed to ask.  ¡°It might.¡±


    Miller fingered the bandage on his neck.  Just a bandage this time.  The wound had not yet swelled or reddened as it had in later scenes.  ¡°Remind me again¡­how?¡±


    Amelia pulled another sequence and began reviewing it in detail.  ¡°They really didn¡¯t tell you, did they?¡±  She smirked over her shoulder, a hint of flirtatious one-upmanship in the gesture.


    Miller smiled a fraction of his beatific smile and shook his head no.


    ¡°Ha!¡± she gloated.  ¡°Didn¡¯t think so!¡±  She highlighted one of the longer passages and rearranged several of its arguments.  ¡°Don¡¯t feel bad.  They didn¡¯t tell me either.  But in my line of work, it¡¯s always kind of on your mind, you know?  Back in school we couldn¡¯t get through more than a couple of rounds without the topic coming up at least once.¡±  She traced her finger back and forth over a section of text, excitedly, as if she might have found what she was looking for, then frowned, dropped it, and moved on.  ¡°I thought they might send it down it us.  If the rumors are true, anyways.  It¡¯s part of the reason I took this post, actually.¡±


    ¡°You had a choice?¡± Miller asked.  Also with a hint of flirtatiousness¡­but just a hint.  They both appeared to understand that that part of their relationship was on hold at the moment.


    She started to say something in response, which looked be of course I did, or something similar, but she caught herself.  ¡°Well,¡± she said, with a nervous flick of her eyes back towards her holo, ¡°that too.¡±


    ¡°So?¡±  Miller asked.  ¡°Is it what you were hoping for?¡±


    ¡°I think so.¡±  She paged down another block of text and resumed her study.  ¡°I haven¡¯t found the smoking gun yet, but¡­¡±Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    ¡°But you don¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°No.  I don¡¯t.¡±  She eased away from the interface and rubbed the back of her neck for a moment, turning her head this way and that and working out some of her kinks.  She sighed.  ¡°You always think it¡¯s going to be so easy, you know?  You¡¯ve spent so much time talking about it, heard the theories and the origin stories, and had this idea in your head for years how the thing would have to look, maybe even argued over it with your roommates after a couple pitchers of sangria,¡± a subtle tilt of her head let Miller know there was nothing hypothetical about that last comment, ¡°and you just think you¡¯re going to know it on sight.  But then they you see a thing like this, and everything about it looks so strange, and all of a sudden there¡¯s this doubt.  But I think this is it.  The language is so foreign, and the coding is so¡­so gapped¡­I can¡¯t imagine what else it might be.¡±  She traced another line or two, then shook her head and snapped her fingers.  Miller¡¯s holo couldn¡¯t help but show how cute he thought that was.  ¡°It¡¯s not another bot, you see,¡± she said, and she resumed her scan.  ¡°Not just another bot, anyways.  There are mechanicals involved.¡±  A few strands of hair had fallen into her eyes; she blew them aside, and then, when that failed to clear her view, brushed them back and secured them with the clip from which they had escaped.  ¡°The rumors on their origin are rangy.  Some say they were another top-secret projects, not unlike the one we¡¯re on, where a handful of carefully selected Participants found themselves cloistered away in some hole in the ground, not unlike the one we¡¯re in, and they pounded it out day and night for months, or some say years, on end.  Some say they were a random thing that happened in a lab one night, when a tech or a hack or someone like that had worked themselves too hard and slipped, dumping just the wrong code into just the wrong petri dish and whammo!  Someone¡¯s miracle was born.  Some say it was just some guy in a basement, not of the Coalition at all, tinkering around with specimens he¡¯d picked up on the black market¡­though these, I think, are just attempts to explain why the cover-up was ineffective.  No one less than pissing drunk ever spoke of them with credence.  But one thing all the rumors agree on: the result was the world¡¯s only true cybernetic organism.¡±


    ¡°The world¡¯s only?¡± Miller asked.  ¡°But how can that be?  The things we¡¯re doing here¡­I mean, we¡¯ve made some incredible leaps since we¡¯ve been down here, don¡¯t get me wrong, but the concepts have been around for years.  What do you call those?¡±


    ¡°Hybrids,¡± she said.  ¡°Forced conjugations of opposites that, while they may never realize their potential without their better halves, can exist just fine on their own.  These are different.  They aren¡¯t coupled with their viruses, they are their viruses, and their viruses are them.  The rumors, at least the ones I chose to believe, had them laying code and helix side by side, zero by zero and one by one, nucleic acid by nucleic acid, in such perfect tandem that the finished products had no host or insert, no ¡®bot¡¯ or ¡®virus¡¯ halves, but instead were single, cohesive organisms, as integrated as you or me.¡±  She drilled down another layer, giving Miller a chance to process, but he wasn¡¯t getting it.  ¡°Think of our stuff as a cluster of single-cell organisms,¡± she continued.  ¡°They can accomplish much more as a team than they ever could alone, but they are, in theory, free to choose their actions, and strike out on their own if they think it will help them thrive.  Now think of this new type of organism as the cells of, say, the fingers on your dominant hand.  Assimilation is all they know; they are integrated into the organism of you.  There is no sense of self for them, zero thought of thriving solo.  All their programming and all their structures meant for individual survival-slash-reproduction have been suborned, and replaced with supportive, cooperative aims.  That¡¯s the kind of transformation we¡¯re talking about here.  And that¡¯s why there are so many gaps in the code¡­they¡¯re placeholders, sockets waiting for the plugs only the helix can provide.  Without them, this whole thing is just one big hanging call.  That¡¯s why were in the inky instead of the lab.¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± Miller realized, because our sample¡¯s already been inoculated.¡±


    ¡°Bingo,¡± she tapped a finger in his direction.  ¡°And¡­there¡¯s one other thing the rumors agreed on,¡± she said.  ¡±They can¡¯t infect living flesh.¡±  She paged through several blocks of text at once, far too quickly to be reading, letting that one dangle for him.  He took the bait.


    ¡°Then what the hell good are they?¡±


    She paged back up, apparently realizing how much she¡¯d skipped over, and buried herself in the first few lines.  ¡°That is, they can¡¯t infect flesh directly.  They infect other viruses.¡±

 Chapter 58

    ¡°Huh?¡±  Miller was dumbfounded.  The drawn skin and sunken eyes did little to conceal his stupor.  His holo showed an image of an enraged bodybuilder trying to shove a length of steel through the eye of a needle.


    ¡°Other hybrids, to be more specific,¡± she said, steamrolling his holo¡¯s question.  ¡°That is part of their uniqueness.  They were designed to tackle both the organic and the tech components at the same time, and hijack both at breakneck speed.  It¡¯s the only way they could have done it.  And yes,¡± she swiveled her head towards Miller again, ready to acknowledge what she¡¯d seen and heard, ¡°they had to be small ¨C approximately one tenth the size of the smallest bots we know today ¨C or they would blow their hosts as soon as they entered.  That¡¯s another reason why they had to be developed so painstakingly.  By marrying the two different types of code, and developing them in tandem, they were able to fit more functionality into a smaller space.¡±  She adjusted her hair clip again, though it didn¡¯t seem to need it.  Miller¡¯s holo made it clear she was talking over his head.  ¡°Think of it like screws and nuts,¡± she explained, hands busy gathering strands behind her.  ¡°if you have a container, and you fill it up with only screws, it¡¯s going to hold a certain mass.  If you fill it up with only nuts, it¡¯s going to hold a different mass.  Maybe more, maybe less, depends what kind of screws and nuts.  If you fill it up with both, but just dump them in at random, your total mass will probably be somewhere between the two.  But, if you take the time to thread the nuts onto the screws, and you fill the bucket up with those, you¡¯ll fill more of the empty space, and you¡¯ll have one heavy freakin¡¯ bucket.   That¡¯s kind of what they did here.  If the rumors are true, anyways.¡±  She finished with her hair and, now that her hands were free again, waved back and forth across the interface.  A block of text went reference blue, then zoomed to fill the screen.  Red pips appeared on the screen in half a dozen different places.  They multiplied and scattered to all portions of the display, until they numbered in the thousands.  She¡¯d activated the syntax analyzer. ¡°Cutting out the interface didn¡¯t hurt either,¡± she said, as she scanned through the pipped-in code.  ¡°You know as well as anyone how much time we waste just trying to get those things to speak the same language.¡±


    Miller nodded.  His holo reminded them that streamlining the communication process was one of the goals of their assignment, after all.


    Amy twirled a finger on one of the hotbeds the pips appeared to be surrounding. It was mesmerizing to watch them work.  They boiled around the block of text, into and between the lines, then into the space between the words and letters, stopping only when the structure and the logic failed to align with a database of ¡®successful¡¯ arguments.  In this way they would congregate around the high-risk areas, creating a visual cue that something there might not be right.  I was never a fan of them myself.  Part of it was the way they moved, hungry and keen, like piranhas at the scent of blood, but mostly it was because I found them too restrictive.  Any hack worth his badge would, at some point or another, have to go off script, and send up never-before-seen argument structures and syntaxes that would make those pips go apeshit.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°There it is again,¡± she whispered, tracing her finger through the block.  She swiped up a couple of pages, then down again.  ¡°That structure¡­I¡¯ve seen that before.¡±  She scanned through several other blocks, then consulted a helix spinning indolently in another rendering.  ¡°I¡­I think this is it¡­¡±  She flipped back and forth between the helix and the code, making trace-lines with her finger.  Miller crept in behind her, leaning on the back of her chair, squinting and craning his neck to try and see what she had seen.  The image of himself as a child, wandering, lost, in a field of crops tall enough to block his view pixelated on his holo, making it clear that he could not.  ¡°My god, it¡¯s incredible!¡± she mused.  ¡°So the stories had that part wrong, anyways¡­¡±


    ¡°Which part?¡±  Miller asked, forcing himself to be noticed.


    ¡°The part about¡­¡± she snapped her fingers, struggling to articulate the idea she¡¯d just held.  Her head started to turn towards Miller, but she kept her eyes on the display.  Miller¡¯s eyes flitted towards her fairy, but for once it wasn¡¯t any help.  All it showed were a dozen different images of the code and the helix meshing together, like two halves of a half-finished Death Star, forming the nano-cyborg that she had built up in her mind as the holy grail of her chosen field.  ¡°¡­about there being two,¡± she finished, finally tearing herself away.  ¡°The stories ¨C most of them, anyways ¨C always had them developing two types of organisms:  one that would denature any hybrid it infected, and one that would accelerate it.  It makes sense, when you think about it.  With space at such a premium you¡¯d think each strain would be designed for one job and one job only.  But this¡­¡± she focused back on the helix and set the rendering oscillating with a flick of one finger.  Different sections illuminated as it scrolled up and down its height.  ¡°It¡¯s hard to tell, since the language is so unfamiliar, but this thing here,¡± she gestured back and forth between a section of the helix, which was predominately greens and blues, and the last few lines of code she¡¯d scanned, which by now were crawling with pips, ¡°appears to be some sort of toggle, which can be used to change which parts of the code get read any time we like.  I think that, somehow, they made room for both!¡±


    Her fairy showed a black-and-white image of her working at a coding table, with a Jacob¡¯s ladder sprouting from the console in the background.  Arcs flashed between its arms as she clutched at her new toy, flicking its function back and forth according to her latest whim, killing and enhancing strains however she saw fit, the quintessential mad scientist bent on world domination.  That, and amazement that the hacks that wrote it could have fit so much into such a tiny space.  She marveled again at how much of the code they wrote was dedicated to things like interfacing and stabilization, and how little went towards true functionality.  What a waste, it seemed to say, and wondered what they could accomplish if they didn¡¯t have to lay those kinds of track.


    Miller leaned in closer, until his chin almost rested on the crown of her head.  He was starting to pick up some of what the code was doing, but, judging by the look on his face, the language it was written in was just as foreign to him as it was to her.  ¡°So what do we do with it?¡±  He asked, moving the conversation forward.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious?¡± she said.  A smirk twitched across the corner of her mouth.  A mischievous gleam shone in her eye.  ¡°We roll up our sleeves, pick through the code, figure out which way is which, and then we point the toggle the way we want it and we light this firecracker!¡±

 Chapter 59

    And that¡¯s exactly what they did.  The next hour of playback showed them poring through the guts of it, debating, agreeing, second-guessing, and debating again what certain lines meant or didn¡¯t mean, discussing the toggle the girl had found and pointing it to the calls they thought they needed, and checking to see what all their tweaks were doing to the helix on the other screen.  That was their fail-safe, the girl had reasoned.  The two codes were so dependent on each other, sharing such a perfect yin -yang balance, with such intricate handoffs from one to the other, that they couldn¡¯t do something they weren¡¯t supposed to, and still have it do anything.  That any misstep or improvisation would have to leave a gap, or an overlap, or a connection that would somehow clash, and the whole of it would be a dud.  It would either do what they wanted or nothing at all.


    But I skimmed through most of that.  It meant nothing to Banks and Bergman.  Hell, it barely meant anything to me, the first time I saw it, and I was the one that sent the damn thing down there.  I slowed it only here and there, in places where they¡¯d had a breakthrough, so I could see once more the path of their progress, and compare it to the work I¡¯d done.  And, in so doing, feel a little better about the gambit I had just queued up.


    It wasn¡¯t until they were ready to inoculate that I let it properly resume.


    ¡°¡­looks like she¡¯s doing just fine,¡± Amy said, nodding towards one of the observation chambers.  A doe sniffed about inside¡­the same doe from Monday¡¯s trials, I noticed.  A clump of dried, blackened blood still clung to the end of one of her whiskers, dangling like a wizened fruit.  The girl had inoculated her a few minutes ago.  She looked to be as beady and as spry as ever as she stuck her nose into this corner or that, searching for God knew what in the antiseptic emptiness of the chamber.  And her images seem to have slowed.  ¡°I think we got it right.¡±


    Miller, crouched beside her in front of the chamber, used the side of the console to climb to his feet, and slowly paced away.


    ¡°Well, tell me we didn¡¯t!¡± Amy demanded.  Her fairy showed her indignation via a series of things that could have gone wrong so far.  None of which, obviously, had.


    Miller sighed.  ¡°It isn¡¯t that,¡± he said, his back to her.  ¡°Everything seems fine.  But this thing is so unfamiliar.  How do we know what fine looks like?¡±


    ¡°If it were broken, we¡¯d know it was broken.  You saw how sensy this thing was.  Every time we torqued the toggle, even just a little bit, even when we didn¡¯t mean to, it threw the whole thing out of true.  It¡¯s doing what it¡¯s supposed to.¡±


    ¡°But on a rabbit.  Not a man.¡±


    ¡°On the hybrids,¡± she corrected him.  ¡°I told you, it can¡¯t infect living tissue.  Of coneys, of gerbils, of mice or of men, it makes no difference to them.¡±


    Miller reached the end of his path.  He paused for a moment, hands behind his back, then turned to face her.  ¡°We¡¯d never do it,¡± he said, pacing back towards the chamber.  ¡°If this were any other hybrid, in any other situation, we would never go that far.  Not this soon.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Amy dropped her eyes, and a little of the energy went out of her posture.  Her fairy phased out entirely for a moment, then coalesced in an array of scenes from times where she¡¯d been wrong before.  One was her right after her performance as Glenda in her drama club¡¯s rendition of the Wizard of Oz, when she thought she might have found her calling as an actress.  One was after she¡¯d put in for that condo on Oak, and sublet her apartment a week before she got denied.  Three of them were men she¡¯d dated, one from high school and two from her senior year of college, that she¡¯d been sure were the love of her life.  The last she¡¯d caught in bed with one of her girlfriends less than a month after they¡¯d gone exclusive.  One was Miller, and how she¡¯d thought of him as nothing but a hapless goof the first few days they¡¯d known each other.  ¡°I know,¡± she said softly.  ¡°I¡¯m just so sick of these goddam screens!¡±  She waved at hers as she would a bee, trying to shoo it away without risk of being stung.  Her hand passed through its center, degaussing it in a spastic ripple.  ¡°They don¡¯t let you get away with anything!  The things they¡¯ve forced me to admit¡­the things I used to tell myself, that I¡¯d have sworn I truly believed¡­¡±  She sunk deeper into herself and cast a nervous glance at her fairy.  Three scenes had emerged from the soup of the degaussing¡­one of a girl dressed in white, waited on by winged spirits as she passed through alabaster halls, one of a girl beset by fire, wailing in anguish as it engulfed her, and one, foremost of the three, of an old woman on her deathbed, surrounded by two, maybe three generations of descendants wearing facades of loss and of love, the woman breathing shallow, ragged breaths as she was absorbed by a dark, empty, inexorable void.  ¡°I just¡­¡± she dragged her eyes up off the floor (God, they were pretty, looking up at him like that!) but her body remained hunched and closed.  ¡°I just need to know they can be beat.¡±


    Miller reached her with his ponderous stride.  He put a hand on her shoulder.  ¡°Alright,¡± he said, and held out his other arm, holding it with his wrist to the ceiling.  ¡°Hit me.¡±


    And then it was done.


    She put up a perfunctory fuss over letting Miller be the subject, but there was never any doubt.  She prepped a sample in one of the larger chambers, Miller cycled through the airlock, and, under Amy¡¯s watchful eye, one of the surgical arms injected it into his bicep.


    ¡°How do you feel?¡± she asked when it was over.  She had to mouth the words through the glass; the intercom had been collateral damage when they¡¯d sizzled the rest of the communications systems.


    Miller flexed his arm, and opened and closed the hand affected.  ¡°Tired,¡± he mouthed, without much emotion, ¡°¡­but good.¡±  He turned his hand over, inspecting it from all angles.  ¡°So,¡± he asked.  ¡°What now?¡±


    She tapped a couple panels on the interface, which bedded down the robot arm.  Its motors whirred their mechanical whir as it first ejected the syringe it had used to inoculate Miller, then folded itself back into its recess, where it waited, patient, for the next time it was needed.  ¡°Right now?  Rest.  Later?¡±  The top layers of her fairy teemed with images of bravado and strength, but underneath her worry showed.   ¡°I¡­I guess we¡¯ll just wait and see.¡±


    The playback ended there.  It let the last of Amelia¡¯s words dangle in a pregnant pause, then cut to a replay of Miller¡¯s death throes, as if to quash any optimism they might have instilled.  We watched as he coughed his fountain of blood, and as the vines strangled the side of his face once again.  The pop of his eyeball still made me cringe.  I¡¯d forgotten how loud it had been.

 Chapter 60

    ¡°See!?¡± I screamed when it was over, pointing at Miller in his moment of extremis, praying for Banks to understand.  ¡°You see what we¡¯re in for if we don¡¯t try?  You see what the world is in for?  They got it wrong!  They set the toggle backwards, and when they shot it into Miller all they did was make it worse!  The virus is out there ¨C accelerator and all ¨C and it spreads!¡±  I tried to read his eyes, to see if I was getting through to him, but the glare on his visplate obscured too much of his face.  ¡°These suits won¡¯t stop it!  They didn¡¯t stop it for us, and they won¡¯t stop it for you either!¡±


    Banks was silent for a moment, and lowered his face behind the eyepiece of his gun, as if to make sure he still had me covered.  Ramsay¡¯s holo showed a replay of the scene in Miller¡¯s lab (which wasn¡¯t really Miller¡¯s, I knew, but I was already starting to think of it that way.  Sort of an ¡®in memorium¡¯ label, to recognize his heroism once this whole ordeal was over) that showed the moments of its genesis, long before Ram had left his suit.  Banks watched it carefully, keeping one eye on his prey.  ¡°Maybe you were just careless,¡± he whispered, barely loud enough to hear over the drone of the bunker¡¯s ventilation.  And then, sparing a glance at Ramsay, ¡°maybe you both were.¡±


    ¡°Hey!¡±  Ramsay¡¯s voice called out from the glow of his fairy.  ¡°I may have been exposed, but I am still commanding here.  Show a guy a little respect, huh?¡±  I wondered briefly why his fairy was doing all the talking and, if it was going to be so vocal, why it was so subordinate.  Two more tchts! of metal fitting into metal caught my attention, and all at once I had my answer; Bergman had him covered from a position near the entryway.


    And, despite the comments from his fairy, Ramsay seemed content with that.


    My eyes darted back and forth as I tried to figure something out.  No other pieces on the board here.  I was on my own.  ¡°Imagine,¡± I pleaded, softening my voice, hoping tranquility might resonate where passion had fallen flat.  ¡°Imagine families torn apart as it works its way around the home.  Imagine them turning against each other one by one, in whatever order it sees fit, choking, beating, gutting each other in jealous fits of rage.  Imagine cities laid to waste as their populations are forced to see all their neighbor¡¯s darkest secrets, hearts laid bare in pulsing blue, until mobs of them riot against each other, slaughtering themselves en masse.¡±  Here I willed the holo again, thinking of reels and reels of towns, empty save for the dangle of corpses lying in their beds, their chairs, crumpled in their shower stalls, wherever they¡¯d been when someone around them had seen something they couldn¡¯t process and wigged out in a murderous rage¡­slumped over their desks, with pens or pencils in their necks, bled out from their carotid arteries after violent, screen-induced attacks, leaning on their steering wheels with bullet holes piercing their skulls, lying akimbo at the bottom of their final, fatal flights of stairs, shoved by someone they had probably trusted with their lives and the lives of their children before their fairies came to ¡°help¡±¡­all dead by either each others¡¯ hands or by some mutation of the vines.  Here it showed a single home, where all but one of the family had died, and that one, a teenage girl with advancing symptoms, spent her final hours tending to the others, trying to heal the fatal wounds she presumably had caused.  Here it showed the Holland tunnel, choked with wrecked machinery and death, the victims of road rage taken way too far.  The drains had run with oil and red.  Here it showed an old folks¡¯ home, where two of the crowd had gone berserk and butchered their entire wing, and then, as they were turning on each other, stuttered to a drying-cement halt as the tissues in their joints gave out, and were replaced by swollen chords.  In the scene they stood like stones, unable to raise their weapons even one more time, prevented from bringing about the end their holos showed they so desired.  Instead they could only stare at the world from the prisons their bodies had become, their agony plain on their faces and holos, forced to endure excruciating hours until the virus made its claim.  ¡°Imagine the end of all things!¡± I yelled, ¡°the extermination of the human race!  All because you wouldn¡¯t let us go off-script!¡±Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    I tried to peer through Bank¡¯s visplate and evaluate the face beneath.  Was I getting through to him?  Hard to tell.  He was a trained soldier, and not betraying his emotion.  What about Bergmann?  Maybe¡­was the muzzle of that rifle starting to droop every now and again?  And did I see a hesitation when he re-focused in on Ramsay¡¯s heart?  Or had I already gotten so used to reading Ramsay through his holo that I was seeing things that weren¡¯t there?


    ¡°Imagine your wife!¡± I screamed again, not remembering if either of them had one.  ¡°Imagine your kids, tearing at each other¡¯s throats like Rauch and Miller!  Imagine your brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, shooting themselves full of cytomorph just to rid themselves of it!  Imagine them overdosing like Amy, their joints cracking, spine popping, spittle dribbling from their mouths!¡±  I fought the urge to tear off my hood the way Ramsay had, just so I could speak more clearly.  I probably would have, if the process didn¡¯t take so long.  ¡°Is that what you want?!?¡± I asked, yelling ever louder.  Animal rage clawed at me as my breath overcame the chillers and my visplate filled with fog.  My voice cracked as I fought it back.  ¡°Imagine them going out like Miller?  Their eyes swelling like balloons, skin draped on fissured flesh, arms flailing as those twisted tentacles wrap themselves around their tracheas, and choke them from the inside out!  And you¡¯ll just have to sit and watch, and tell them why you let it happen!¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Bank¡¯s finger twitched again.  He had to be putting at least four and three-quarters pounds of pressure on that trigger.  ¡°No, that wasn¡¯t the mission.  Observe, document, report¡­and above all, contain.  You¡¯re about to send another agent into the air.  Another risk we can¡¯t control.¡±  He sighed, and some of his contention left him.  But his rifle stayed right where it was.  ¡°I see why you feel you have to, but I¡­I just can¡¯t let you do it.¡±


    ¡°But you have to!¡± Ramsay¡¯s fairy protested.  His voice still spoke with passion and fire, but his face showed none of it.  His head leaned back against the wall upon which his body was propped, and his eyes were wide, vacant and glazed.  His lips were parted as far as they¡¯d go in an empty, shell-shocked grin.  ¡°You have to, and that¡¯s an order!  What will happen to us ¨C what will happen to ME ¨C if we just let it run its course?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s for HQ to figure out,¡± Banks said, not taking his eyes off me.  ¡°They make the calls on things like that.  If they decide you¡¯re one of the casualties, well, not saying I wouldn¡¯t die a little inside, but that¡¯s just the way things are.  If you were still the real you, instead of the mutated marionette that thing has turned you into, you¡¯d understand.¡±  He swallowed.  From somewhere deep inside his suit, I heard his chillers cycle up a gear.  His voice caught when next he spoke.  ¡°More than that.  You¡¯d insist.¡±

 Chapter 61

    He motioned at me with his gun, jerking it to one side in an ¡®away from the vehicle¡¯ sort of gesture.


    ¡°Please¡­¡± I hoisted my body off the floor and started easing myself forward.  I tried to think of something else to say, some way to get through to him, and appeal to the man inside the mercenary, but I could not.  I¡¯d spent my powder, and we both knew it.  But trying made it easier.  Easier not to think the thoughts I really didn¡¯t want to think, easier not to dwell on things I didn¡¯t want my holo showing.  Things like how long it might take to swing myself out, rise to my feet, and lock into the LifeStat systems, or the filepath I¡¯d have to follow to access the infusion Ram and I had planned, and the handstrokes needed to trigger it into the oh-two line.  Easier not to calculate my chances of doing it before Banks stopped me with a round through the heart.  Easier not to wonder


    (if he¡¯d have the balls to do it)


    ¡­if perhaps a rush directly at him might not be a better play, to try and catch him by surprise, and take the rifle for myself.  Easier not to¡­


    Tcht...tcht!


    Banks cocked his gun again.


    Fuck.


    Well, it was worth a shot.


    ¡°Sorry,¡± I said, flashing him a nervous smile, and glancing backwards at my screen.  ¡°I¡­can¡¯t help it.¡±


    He only grunted in response.


    Alright, a voice inside me said.  Now.


    I checked the thing on Banks¡¯s shoulder¡­the one I¡¯d seen inside his helmet, reflected in the shine of his cheek before I¡¯d played the final scene.  The one prop in this little play I had (kind of, sort of, almost) managed to keep hidden, even from myself.  It was what I thought it was.  It had strengthened in the interval, and could now be seen for what it was, beyond any hint of doubt.  It had also moved outside his suit and now sat perched above his shoulder, hovering its massless hover, glowing its senescent glow.


    Tick¡­tick¡­tick¡­


    I had no idea how to use it, or why I thought it might do any good, but I was out of options.  I knew I had to try.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Please,¡± I said, with a bit more confidence than I had a moment ago.  I resumed my shimmy, keeping my eyes locked with Banks¡¯s so he¡¯d know I didn¡¯t have designs.  ¡°Let us try.¡±  I cleared the console and sat up, stiffly, then gestured towards the thing on his shoulder, drawing his attention to it for the first time.  ¡°You might feel differently before too long.¡±


    Banks looked behind him, first over one shoulder, then the other, jerking spastically to either side, like someone trying to dodge his shadow.  ¡°What!?¡± he shouted.  ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°The same way it happened to Ramsay and me,¡± I answered matter-of-factly.  ¡°It wormed its way into our suits.  Did you think you were special?¡±


    ¡°But¡­but the sterine!¡± he stammered.  ¡°I¡­I was so careful!  I never took it off¡­never even jostled it!  Not since they dressed us at HQ, not even to take a piss!¡±


    ¡°Neither did we.¡±


    ¡°But you¡¯re a civilian!¡± he said this last like it was some loathsome thing, a babe he was sick of having to sit.  ¡°You aren¡¯t trained for this!¡±


    I threw my hands to either side, gesturing to the lab, the fairies, the tower, the gore, and in a greater sense to the sheer alien-ness of the situation in which we¡¯d somehow found ourselves.  ¡°Down here,¡± I whispered, ¡°neither are you.¡±


    His eyes narrowed.  He re-focused them behind his sight.  His chillers, now in overdrive, finally caught up to the fog that had accumulated on his visplate and scrubbed the last of it away.  His nostrils flared, and the corners of his mouth were twitching, whether in a hint of a smile or from the grinding of his teeth, I couldn¡¯t quite tell.  His rifle, which he had somehow managed to keep trained as he¡¯d flailed about a bit ago, seemed to stab itself right through me, as if its chambered bullet¡¯s path was a physical thing that held me pinned against a wall.  There wasn¡¯t any doubt this time.  It was coming straight for my heart.


    His holo roiled with shapes and blurs.  For the first time in hours, I saw mine do the same.  Our eyes locked.  Our holos synced.  Our bodies tensed.  A psychic bond formed between us, stronger than any I¡¯d felt before, and through it gushed the raw, animal fury of our pissing match.  For a moment, as the link was forming, I thought I almost had it licked¡­nearly understood his view, could almost reconcile the places where he two of us clashed, and see the sense in what he felt, and maybe ¨C just maybe! ¨C agree with him a little bit, and get him to agree with me¡­


    And then it was gone.  Like an eel slipping from my grasp, escaping forever into the currents of the gurgling stream, flailing wildly as it fled.


    I could tell Banks felt it too.  He narrowed his eyes to slits.  He peered at me through his visplate, then at my holo, then back at me again.  A moment of pure hatred passed between us, borne as much from our frustrations and failures as it was from what we each believed.


    ¡°Please,¡± I pleaded one last time, softening my voice once again in a desperate attempt to be heard.  ¡°This is our only chance.  You know what will happen if we fail.  You know what will happen if we wait for HQ.  We have to neutralize it.  Here and now.¡±


    His holo raged.  The shapes and colors shimmered and shook.  Bubbles formed in random spots, oddly shaded miasmas of chaos that grew, convulsed, burst, and spread, gobbling up rings of substrate even as they birthed another generation, which in turn would gobble them.  Like a cauldron on a witch¡¯s fire.


    ¡°Agreed,¡± he whispered.


    He fired.

 Chapter 62

    Did you know the mind continues to function after death?  That long past the end of any signals we can measure, well after the bonesaws of this world would lid the eyes and called the time, there are still synapses firing in the deepest recesses of the brain?


    I didn¡¯t.  As Banks¡¯s round tore into me, shredding sterine, cotton, skin, and flesh as if they were nothing more than mist in the air, and as it re-emerged from the back of my shoulder, taking with it a fist-sized plug of muscle, fat, and shattered bone, and as my body screamed in shock at the trauma it had just received, I realized something: all the bonesaws had it wrong.  It¡¯s not the brain that calls it quits.  It¡¯s the mind (or the soul, the spirit, the human essence, whatever the hell you want to call it) that finally bags it, when it realizes its body is still, and it has no way to express itself.  Or maybe they all had it right, and we¡¯ve just moved the target on them.  If you, like me, consider life to be a way of influencing one¡¯s surroundings, of interacting with them in such a way that those surroundings take a different form, then maybe we¡¯ve just gone and redefined what death is.  Maybe, a week ago, a person in my current condition would have been declared fully and correctly dead, but now, with the advent of the Haggarty, I was only almost so.


    And the part of me that clung to life was twisted in a cosmic blur.


    It played back Banks¡¯s shot, for one.  His finger on the trigger (four-point-six pounds of pressure) picked out in the exquisite detail afforded by my heightened senses, twitching as his hatred grew (four-point seven¡­four point eight¡­)  The subtle tilt to the set of his shoulders as they shifted to absorb the kick.  The lick of flame at the base of the muzzle as the (five-point oh¡­we have liftoff) powder in the round ignited.  The distortion as the rush of air, and the hazy, invisible waves of heat, billowed out ahead of the slug, which hurtled, spinning, from the chamber, slowed enough in the playback it could be seen by naked eye.


    The pain as it slammed into me, tearing lethal holes in my ventricle.  The cold, clinical detachment as my mind refused to feel this pain, knowing there was nothing it could do for me now.  The widening of Bergman¡¯s eyes, the slacking of his rifle¡¯s cover, the disbelief that Banks had actually gone through with it.  The subtle change in Ramsay¡¯s holo, telling him that it was time, that this was the moment he could strike, when their attention was diverted, and he¡¯d catch Bergman by surprise if only he moved now now NOW!  The apathetic vacuum of Ramsay¡¯s eyes as he slowly rolled his head to see.


    The nervous smirk on Banks¡¯s face, satisfied the job was done.  There, his fairy sent, forming its first coherent words.  Let¡¯s see you rank your way out of that.


    A second shot from Banks¡¯s rifle.  Heard, not seen, as I¡¯d lost all control of my eyes the moment my head slammed into steel.  But I felt nothing as it sounded, not even the vague idea that something else had moved a limb, so I paid it no attention.


    My life, flashing before my eyes.


    My schooling.  Form after form of skating by, placating lecturers and outsmarting tests enough to be labeled ¡®special,¡¯ and ¡®gifted,¡¯ earning myself advanced placement and being something of a sideshow to my mates as a result.  Finding friends among them anyways, and using them as insulation against the few that were so intimidated, so insecure, that they¡¯d lash out with their fists whenever their pea-brains couldn¡¯t cope.  Packing my bags for university a year ahead of everyone else, leaving all I knew behind and diving, alone, into that unknown.


    Graduation.  The moment I got to stand up in front of all the lunkheads, jocks and sorority chicks that had written me off as an upstart pipsqueak for the past four years and collect the hot degree for up-and-comers in this world, the one that would elevate me above them all of them professionally, financially, and, eventually, socially.  The moment that was going to validate all the hours I had spent staring at screens instead of partying or playing ball, and make up for all the times I¡¯d been ribbed on as a result.  Remembering the sea of faces, panning back and forth across the expanse that filled the auditorium, and not recognizing one.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    The night of drunken debauchery at D¡¯Antonio¡¯s later on that year, after the so-called Real World had salted away six months¡¯ worth of naivety from my once-auspicious heart.  Britt and I had been darting for shots, taking advantage of being two of the not-so-many people in the city with no reason to leave on a Tuesday night and our relationship with the barkeep to scratch out some extra elbow room and get good and smashed on budget vodka, when the guys from my Cybernetics program sidled in and sat down in the next booth over.  We got to chatting, and after a round or two they secreted us in on this underground movement they were freelancing with, and sent us a couple of business cards.


    That Halloween party at the Belfry, when the only girl I ever been with that I thought might have been ¡®the one¡¯ had walked out on me in her pert little Empress costume, leaving me to explain for the rest of the night why I was dressed as a Roman slave.  My heart had broken that night in ways that never fully healed, and left me the snake-bit wreck those guys at the bar had preyed on a few weeks later.


    My years serving in the Coalition, rising through the ranks of its ever-changing political landscape, sneaking into gaps that opened when this faction shifted stance or that coordinator got promoted, until I earned my current post.  Reflecting on each move I¡¯d made, from dinners with the diamondhead for general merriment and subtle glad-handing to out-and-out sabotage of a project that was competing with mine for a pool of funds, and on those I¡¯d planned to make, and how both had led me here.


    My father, who I only knew from frames, gone chasing ore in the mines of the Chinese countryside after the Tungsten revolution hit, leaving my mom to raise my sister and I without so much as a postcard home.  Vague memories of tobacco smoke were all I really had of him.  My sister, who looked out for me as best she could while Mom was working double shifts.  One night stood out from the rest, when she had stayed home from a dance she¡¯d been looking forward to for weeks because I was puking my guts out and running a fever.  The whole experience was something of a fugue, but I remember splitting a bowl of soup ¨C tomato, the only kind she knew how to make back then ¨C and she gave me the bigger half, even though she knew I probably wouldn¡¯t keep it down.  I haven¡¯t talked to her in years, I thought sadly to myself.  I began to wonder why.


    That one pickup basketball game I¡¯d played in when I was thirteen, when three of the regulars had been out of town and they¡¯d been scraping for replacements.  Why the hell did I see that?  Sure, I¡¯d made the winning shot, banking one home from the just inside the arc to take the game by the needed four, but still¡­none of those guys turned into friends, and I never played with them again.  Hardly a momentous occasion.


    The earliest memory I could recall, of playing at hols with a couple of kids from the family that lived a few doors down.  I barely remembered what they played ¨C a platformer of some kind, with lots of magic and swordplay, and a complex level-up system that made as little sense now as it did back then ¨C but the amazement that I felt at seeing them so immersed in the game, that feeling that they could queue up one of those bad boys whenever they liked and be in the past, the future, a different world altogether, or in a completely different body with a new fantastic set of skills, stayed with me.  I¡¯d think back to that day for the rest of my years, and every time I did I¡¯d know that that was how I wanted to spend them.


    A million others, which, when taken together, made up the story of my life.  Decades of twists, turns, foibles and vicissitudes that made me who I was, and led me, ultimately, to this end.  How many crossroads had there been?  How many chances to turn left instead of right, press on instead of giving up, maybe talk to this person or that as I passed them on the street, instead of lowering my chin and acting like they didn¡¯t exist?  How many opportunities to put myself on a different path, one that didn¡¯t lead to¡­this?


    Tick¡­¡­tick¡­¡­¡­tiiiiiick¡­


    The atomic in my fairy slowed.  It would offer no other response.  Some things, apparently, even cybers didn¡¯t know.

 Chapter 63

    The fringes of my conscience dimming.


    I¡¯m not sure how, exactly.  It wasn¡¯t a bout of tunnel vision, like when I stood too fast on an empty stomach, and all the blood rushed from my head.  But something on the edges began to shrink and break away, its once-supple borders ossifying, becoming brittle.  I sensed it crumbling bit by bit as we sent our last few thoughts, shuddering and flaking off, like a sculpture of sand in the highest of winds.  For the first time in longer than I cared to admit I wondered where those bits were going.  For they were really pieces of me, and wherever they were going, I knew I was going too.  Elysium?  Purgatory?  Shangri-La, or Tartarus?  Did I even believe in any of those?  And


    (did believing even matter)?


    was it too late to change the outcome, even if I did?  Perhaps.  But then again, perhaps not.  Perhaps, even now, with the seconds I¡¯d been granted in this echo of the final bell, there were things that could be done¡­


    The mild throbbing in my chest.


    It wasn¡¯t pain, but it tried to be.  Instead a dull pressure, radiating from the wound, like fingers trying to spread in in a cast.  A squishy, blood and oil-filled cast.  With a jolt I realized what it was¡­the chords, already starting to form.  In my mind¡¯s eye I saw bamboo sprouting from its clusters, or maybe throngs of deep-sea sponges huddling around jets in the ocean floor, and was revolted.  How could those¡­those things move in like that?  How could they treat the body that had so recently been mine as nothing more than real estate?


    They think they¡¯re helping, a voice whispered.  My fairy, still pretending to be Britt.  They think they need to heal the wound.  They don¡¯t know it¡¯s usel¡­er, ah¡­they don¡¯t know any better.  But they recognize that they can never do their job if their host turns into earthworm food, and they¡¯re doing what they can.  Here his voice grew melancholy, low and breathy.  Strange, for something so inhuman.  Forgive them, it said pleadingly.  They, ah¡­they were never meant for this.


    The wall.


    I didn¡¯t know what else to call it.  It wasn¡¯t really a wall, I sensed.  Not in the traditional sense of a barrier separating two spaces.  But a plane of demarcation.  On one side there was me, my body, my fairy, the lab.  There was perception, and memory, anticipation and light.  There was predilection and design, pathos and yearning, temperance, and at least the illusion of causality, if not the thing itself.  The idea that, if one were strong enough in the formers, one could use the latter to shape a desired result.  On the other there was nothing at all.  The world just kind of bled away to an inky, oily, misty darkness.  I stared into it for an undetermined length of time, searching for some sort of clue.  A glow, a spark, a face in the fog, the entrance to some mythic path, something to serve as a mental anchor as I tried to process what I sensed-slash-saw, but there was nothing.  Just the whispers of a thrush of voices, filtering gently through the void in no language I could name.  Some seemed to almost beckon, though I couldn¡¯t have said how I knew, or whether it was me they called.  Some seemed to try to warn.  Some screamed, some sighed, some cackled, some gasped, and some just were.  Sitting, silent, sensed but never really acknowledged, like a patient in a waiting room with no particular sense of urgency, and no particular end in mind.  Some I almost thought I knew.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    I asked the bots if they could tell me what it was, but they could not.  That place was not for them, they said.  They were not allowed to pass.


    I sensed myself moving towards it.  Or maybe it towards me.  Or both.  Frames of reference meant nothing here.  One was as likely as the other.


    I wondered, almost as an afterthought, if I would be.


    The future of the human race.


    It wasn¡¯t pretty.  The playbacks raged, showing all the same scenes they had when I¡¯d been playing them for Banks: the families, the cities, the lonely, lost, ruminant survivors, dying of starvation and disease.  Only now, the chords weren¡¯t part of it.  They resolved themselves, it seemed.  Already the bots were learning, realizing that the chords did more harm than good, and couldn¡¯t help them do their job.  Already they were evolving another way.  I sensed Ramsay¡¯s slackening, shriveling and pulling back, leaving only minor damage to the skin and underlying fascia.  But the holos offered no such end.  They kept up their cruel charade, showing all our basest thoughts, stripping souls of all their trappings, exposing half-formed wants and needs.


    And they spread.


    Through air, they spread.  Through water, they spread.  Through earth, wood, metal, and plastic, they spread, spread, spread, and spread.  By touch, by cough, by breath, by waste, from one person to ten, ten to a hundred, a hundred to a thousand, a million, a million to¡­all.  They spread, until every man, woman, and child on this planet had themselves a little fairy.  Even fauna weren¡¯t spared.  Everything advanced enough for neural impulses to be firing, from the lowliest mouse to the largest whale, found themselves staring over one of whatever passed for their shoulders at a ghastly square of pallid blue.  Even over open tundra, miles from the nearest hosts, it somehow found a way to move.


    They showed me how it was to happen.  And this time, they got personal.

 Chapter 64

    They spread to Englebert, my first real mentor in the field of cybernetics, who picked them up in his drinking water after his hometown got hit.  They showed him outside a medical supply center, looking back over his shoulder, and not at his holo for a change.  It was his first trip out in weeks; he¡¯d been hiding since his fairy came, shackled by the guilt of what it forced him to admit.  That he was where it really started, more than a decade ago.  That he had taught me how to hack, instilled in me this awful power, which I would use to end the world, and as such, blood was on his hands as much as it had coated mine.  He shuffled nervously towards the entrance, clutching a pair of empty vials in hands pocked and shaking with palsy, his holo wondering if it was worth it, if one more day without a pill would really be as bad as this, and surely the parcel teams would be around again tomorrow.  A group of twenty-something toughs caught sight of him as he approached.  They moved to cut him off, their pale skin poking out beneath the muscle shirts all but one of them wore, their shaven heads steaming in the early imorning air.  It was a robbery, ostensibly.  An easy target, one of the few still dumb enough to wander out alone, who might have yielded a pill or two to get them through another day.  But their screens revealed the truth.  He was a stand-in.  He, and the guilt his screen displayed, were the perfect simulacrum for the thing that came and rocked their world, this thing beyond their comprehension, and he was the first they had encountered upon which they could take revenge.  They beat him.  With fists, with feet, with a stray chunk of building block that had been used to chock a trolley, with anything they found in reach.  They beat him mercilessly, with none of the chatter, none of the jeering I expected.  Execution style.  His ribs cracked.  His joints bent at unnatural angles.  His skull split from a vicious blow by the one wielding the building block, spilling blood and bits of ganglia onto the chilly pavement.  His holo fractured after that.  It split slantwise down the middle, as if forced upon a wedge, and the two halves hung at different heights.  One showed sorrow and contrition, a man on his knees before a lord I didn¡¯t recognize, asking silent forgiveness for a sin that wasn¡¯t in the books.  The other showed forgiveness also¡­but this time granted, not beseeched.  Forgiveness for the thugs that killed him, and forgiveness for me as well.


    They spread to the man from the corner of war room, the one who¡¯d only three days prior cast the swinging vote to send us.  They showed him at the diamondhead, staring, stoic, as the Point for the session read the judgment of their algorithms: ¡°¡­have made it plain to even the most uneducated of observers that your vote was cast without appropriate consideration, and without regard for the impact it might have.  In consequence, the genetic privileges afforded your position shall be revoked, and your Participation shall resume to the best of your remaining abilities¡­¡±  His mods were stripped that very day, culling him immediately.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    They spread to the girl from the Belfry.  Married now, with a couple of kids.  Both girls, I saw, the youngest toddling about on legs still learning how to walk, the eldest about to enter kindergarten, both as beautiful as their mother had been the first time I¡¯d laid eyes on her.  Her husband was sweating away in his workshop of their country home, welding two pieces of aluminum together to form the beginnings of what looked like some sort of security measure for their home, and she was checking up on him.  She approached him slowly, from the side, keeping clear of the stream of sparks that was spewing forth from torch and metal, and set a glass of lemonade on the table at his elbow, in what was apparently something of a routine for them.  She tapped him on the shoulder, and he cut the flame, flipped his mask, wiped the sweat off his brow with a forearm that was just as sweaty, and thanked her around his first few swallows.  They looked to have adapted nicely to the presence of the holos.  Or gotten past the shock, at least, and made a go at a normal life.  And then¡­an image flashed in the corner of her screen, of the prototypical little wifey prancing around in an apron and heels, tending to the little ones and keeping her breadwinner happy while he busied himself with ¡®work of the men.¡¯  Only this particular good little wifey was ball-gagged and bound in chains, and over the next several seconds, through a ping-pong exchange of scenes, expressed how much she resented her role, and the sacrifice she¡¯d made to take it.  At least part of her wished she¡¯d made a different choice¡­been more ambitious in school and focused on something that could take her places instead of her unused comm degree, stayed with a former


    (lover?  Did she say a former lover?!?)


    or put off having kids while she wrote some real poetry, just to see how she¡¯d have done.  Anything to make her life actually mean something more than just ¡®mother of two¡¯, and give her a measure of comfort now that she feared it close to an end.  Hubby took offense to this, and then he took his torch to her, scorching her face, searing her eyes, and branding his name into the alabaster of her chest.  She screamed in pain as her skin peeled, her flesh cooked, the fluids in her eyes boiled, hissed, and popped as they blistered and then burst.  She passed out when he burned through to bone, all the while muttering the she was his, forever his.  No one else¡¯s, always his¡­  He played the torch over her skull, turning it a charcoal black, and then¨C


    Another piece of my holo stressed, shivered, and flaked away, blanking out that part of the scene and leaving me alone with the feelings it had conjured up.  A part of me felt the gilded thrill of schadenfreude, but mostly there was emptiness, as I realized how deeply I still cared for her, even after all these years.

 Chapter 65

    They spread to my sister. She was one of the last to go, holed up in a panic room ¨C I had no idea whose ¨C while the looters and rioters killed each other off outside. She spent most of her time cowering on a pile of blankets, curled into the fetal position, trying to be as small as possible. Twice a knock came at the door. Well, once a knock, and once the blast of small explosives as someone tried to force their way in. The knock claimed to be a friend, and her fairy thought it probably was, but she only curled up tighter, not trusting the voice that claimed it, and nibbled at a bag of chips clutched in a pair of scrawny hands. The room was better stocked with food that it was with water; she died of renal failure a few days after the lines lost pressure. Her skin took on a sickly hue, and her lips drew back in an involuntary snarl. She started vomiting her food, heaving it up in friable chunks, chewed but otherwise untouched by her dehydrated digestive system. There was a pile of them in one corner, as far as possible from where she lay, gathering like drifting dust as she fell further and further away. Her last thoughts were of her family, wondering if they still lived, wishing she could say goodbye. In one of the few mercies the things had granted, she never knew her brother¡¯s role in turning loose the things that killed her. For that, at least, I could be grateful.


    Were they prescient? I didn¡¯t know. I liked to think that no, they weren¡¯t, that the scenes the thing was playing out were ramblings of a dying mind. One possible version of the future, which may or may not come to pass. But honestly, I didn¡¯t know.


    Nor did I know if they were truly the end, as the play-outs seemed to think they were. Yes, there would be looters, and rioters, and hunters and killers, but they would band together, wouldn¡¯t they? Form some sort of alliances, and reach some kind of understanding? Surely not all of them would kill each other off just because their hearts were bare! Surely, some of them


    (will adapt)


    and some others


    (will survive)


    ¡­yeah, that felt right. There would be a few who¡¯d make it, who could bear the burden of their fairies, and wouldn¡¯t care what they portrayed. But¡­


    I thought back to my chat with Britt, and to our hypothetical about the one rogue caveman who was forced to adapt after leaving the clan.


    ¡­would those who did still be men?


    Hssssss..bpth¡­et¡­oo¡­¡­allad. A sibilant hiss, broken by staccato bursts. Voices. Real voices, with human tones and human inflection, which I could hear through the drums of my ears instead of through some trick of the screens. They sounded hollow, and fractured, as if passing through a prism, but there was no mistaking what they were.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°Look¡­is screen,¡± one of them whispered. I couldn¡¯t tell whose it was ¨C it wasn¡¯t distinct enough for that ¨C but from its tone I guessed it was Ramsay¡¯s. ¡°What else¡­ould it be? I¡¯m¡­elling you¡­e¡¯s still there¡­¡±


    ¡°Uh uh. You¡­ay have the higher rank, but¡­¡¯ve seen more of¡­eath than you. This¡­is death.¡± This second voice was short and gruff, and seemed to choose its words with care. Bergman¡¯s, then. Not Banks¡¯s. ¡°It must just be another¡­ayback. This thing¡¯s form of¡­igor mortis.¡±


    ¡°No playback,¡± the first voice said, ¡°I was with him the wh¡­time. He never thought those things before.¡± Ramsay then. I was sure of it. Bergmann wouldn¡¯t have said those words. The tone, the phrasing was all wrong.


    ¡°How do you know what he thought?¡± Bergman countered. ¡°Look at¡­ose eyes. Look at that skin. There¡¯s no life left in them. Sorry Ram, you¡¯ve got this one out.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you, he¡¯s THERE!¡±


    They could still see it! They could still see my holo! Something fired inside of me. At first I didn¡¯t realize what it was, the sensation was so unfamiliar. Then it hit me; hope¡­and an idea. They came as chords of thought alone, without the stab of nervousness that usually accompanied such things, that pump of adrenaline the body uses to goose itself into action. Those lines had been cut, it seemed. All that remained was a sense of cold, academic excitement. Very strange.


    Bergman calmed, but did not sound convinced. ¡°You may be right,¡± he said, ¡°you may be wrong. I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll ever know. But even if he is, what difference would it make?¡±


    I tried to wrench control of my holo again, and guide it with my conscious mind (did I still have such thing as this?) as I had before. It wasn¡¯t easy. I had reached the plane of demarcation, and the oily mist was creeping in, confusing me, disorienting me, making it hard to form a thought, and harder to hold one once I did. On top of that, the holo was a shattered wreck. Pieces of it fell away even as I grabbed for them, crumbling into dusty nothings, bucking any gains of purchase. The whole thing felt like I was trying to steer a three-wheeled cart through a North Sea fog, with an air-horn in my ear to boot.


    Here I had a horrific thought. What if I went on like this? What if something in the fairy, something in the cybers made it so I couldn¡¯t die? What if I just had to sit here, conscious, while they cut me up in autopsy, pumped me full of chemicals, stuck me in a box in the ground, and left me in the dark to rot? Cold, academic fear coursed through me as I remembered Britt and his holo, how it had instilled him with that last fleeting glimmer of life, and¡­


    ¡­then I had it. Through the shifty, slithering coils of mist, and through the crumbling bulk of screen, I grasped upon a solid thing. It tried to break, to slink away, to melt into a slippery mass and seep through the sieve in which I held it, but I held firm, from all directions, keeping it whole with even pressure, forming it a sort of shell. I tapped into it again, using tricks I¡¯d learned only a few moments earlier, and established a connection.


    I screamed at it with everything I had.


    RAMSAY!!!

 Chapter 65

    He was halfway through an argument, a spun theory, which reeked of practice, why the two of them should care, when he saw it on my screen.  His voice trailed off as he and Bergman each read the name in turn.


    ¡°Y¡­yeah?¡±  Ramsay ventured.  They still saw it whole, I gathered.  My holo.  They still saw it as they had, healthy and complete, the way I¡¯d seen Britt¡¯s and Rauch¡¯s.  It was only in my mind it crumbled.  ¡°What is it?¡±


    And then I could see again.  Hazy at first, just blobs of color in a field of light and dark, but resolving quickly.  Clearer than I¡¯d seen before, in fact; there wasn¡¯t any visplate now, nothing to distort the view.  But¡­there was something strange about it nonetheless.  The angles and lights were stiff and clunky, with blank spaces in the field.  Almost like scenes that were still being rendered.  Like calculated views of what they thought I should be seeing, based on Ram and Bergman¡¯s views.


    A form lay prone in front of me.  Face-first, sterine-clad, a channel of arterial red seeping from somewhere on its chest.  An entry wound, fresh and open, pinpricked on its upturned back.  A rifle and accoutrements lay scattered by its outstretched hands.


    So.  That was why Banks hadn¡¯t joined the argument.  The second shot hadn¡¯t been meant for me at all.  I analyzed the angle of his fall and the way the blood was oozing across the floor, and confirmed what I already should have known.  My rant got through to someone after all¡­


    But I had no time for this.  Rapacious fog clutched at my ankles, shins, knees and thighs, wrapping its tendrils around the sterine, tugging at it with their picks.  It found its way into my suit and closed itself around my skin, causing me to twist and cringe.  It was warm against my legs.  Warm, and hungry, the exhale of a slavering hound.  It felt like it to want to drag me in, to wrap me up and swallow me whole, absorb me into its empty nothing¡­but not until it probed me first.  Not until it tasted me.


    RAMSAY!


    I fought against it with everything I had, blasting his name across the holo.


    Ramsay!  I repeated, making sure I had his attention.   It was coming easier now.  Speaking through the screen, I mean.  It was still a struggle to keep it from flaking, but the connection seemed to be established.  I only needed to hold it together a few seconds more¡­


    Ramsay, it¡¯s not too late!  I granted you the access, and the packet¡¯s all queued up!  I watched the message scroll across the jagged section of the holo I could still manipulate.  Ramsay crept a little closer, edging Bergman to one side as he squinted at the shrunken text.  You can touch the LifeStat now!  You can finish what we started!  All you have to do is hook in with your biosignature and¡­


    I felt the licks of mist grow stronger, responding to my wild thrashing.  They circled my waist, enrobed my chest, pinned my arms behind my back, and lashed against my neck and face, forming webs that oozed and flowed, choking nostrils, ears, and throat.  They moved like some volitional oil.


    ¡­hook in with your signature and¡­


    A new scene puddled into existence somewhere just outside my vision.  Not in the holo, not in my mind, but in the field of mist itself.  A far-future premonition, beyond the years of mass destruction, beyond the death, the people at each other¡¯s throats, the beatings in the morning sun and wasting away in panic rooms, beyond the extinction of the race, beyond the ensuing adaptation¡­a world not destroyed by the epidemic we had just unleashed, but one transformed by it, and cleansed.  Gutted, shaped, and built anew.  A world ruled by cybernetics.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Massive amalgams of carbon and silica dominated the scene.  Most were stationary ¨C part of the landscape, forming a skyline, things without a need to move.  A few were motile, zooming this way and that on errands I could not imagine, mostly in the sky.  Their methods of propulsion were a mystery to me.  Some sort of energy field, magnetized perhaps, or perhaps advanced gravitics.  There were no roads.  Nor trains, trams, or automobiles of any kind.  Ground transportation had been obsoleted.  Instead, smaller amalgams of carbon and silica moved ¨C fluidly, without the weight-shifting, energy-wasting gimp of walking ¨C through tubes that connected the larger structures.  Tubes that felt more grown than built.  There was something in the way they moved that bothered me at first.  I watched a moment longer, trying to figure out what it was, then it hit me.  Their starts and stops coordinated perfectly.  When a cluster of them started to move, they all started to move, at the same time, at the same pace, in the exact same direction, without the buffering of men.  Each knew what the others intended, precisely when they intended it, and each reacted with the utmost confidence that those intentions would not change, risking each others¡¯ lives and limbs should this assumption prove unfounded.  Many destroyed themselves as I watched.  Some ventured into restricted areas of the complex and imploded after a sudden pressure change.  Some dissolved into carriers of unimaginable amounts of data.  Some converted sunlight to sugars, sugars to proteins, and proteins into living tissue, while some performed more advanced digestions, undreamed of in our time, to form such exotic materials as gold, diamonds, titanium, even small amounts of neutronium in some of the outlying vessels, and denser things I could not name, and many perished in the process.  Some gave themselves for big, idealistic reasons, like generating vaccinations against diseases of that age, while others died for nothing more than transporting a quantity of materials at faster than the normal speeds.  I watched as one of the largest structures simply collapsed itself, deflating like a leaky bladder, so another could begin anew.  All could be sacrificed, and would be, without hesitation, the second there was cause for such, with no greater a tear being shed then I had for the death of, say, the cells in the fingers of my dominant hand.  Hive mentality.  The extinction of the organism, and the birth of the swarm.


    Just a possibility, I told myself.  Nothing more.


    All you have to do is hook in with your signature and¡­


    The mists closed around my eyes, the last of me it left exposed.  I saw them dragging at my vision, blurring edges, twisting fields, and skewing them beyond all use, then darting rudely towards its center, taking even that from me.  With one final eruption of will I tried to force the words to come, to fight the swirls of mist and fog and squeeze out one last line or two that might yet fix what had been broken.


    ¡­and¡­and¡­


    But this time the words refused.  I pushed at them from every angle, trying to find a way to move them, to jam them through the closing mist and hurtle them outwards, towards the screen, but I didn¡¯t have the strength.  I fell, exhausted, into the mist, losing myself to it completely, and ceded back control of the holo, leaving it to the bots¡¯ designs.  It accepted me without reproach, and forgave my struggles against it the way a medic might a stubborn patient¡¯s, as it assimilated me.


    It¡¯s funny how the mind reacts in a crisis.  Sometimes it springs awake, injecting shots of adrenaline into the body in an attempt to spur an action, any action, to try and somehow solve the issue.  Sometimes it grows cold, and analytical, its sense of awareness heightened well beyond its normal levels so crucial details aren¡¯t missed.  Sometimes it shuts down entirely, leaving the body to fend for itself, its only concern protecting itself from whatever danger it perceives.  And sometimes, every once in a while, when the shit really hits the fan, and it finds itself stuck in the blades, it shows us how we really feel.


    Well, I saw my holo read, as the last slits in the eyes closed in, and the light of the world winked out forever, isn¡¯t that funny?  Didn¡¯t see that one coming.  Didn¡¯t see that one at all...  I smiled and shook my imagined head, watching the letters form themselves with cold, academic wonder.  Turns out, way down deep, in my secret heart of hearts, I don¡¯t really want to say.


    The End