Zero echo shadow prime, p.14
Zero Echo Shadow Prime, page 14
Charlie rapped her knuckles against the cell door. The sound died on impact. Carbon nanotube weave—standard for bank vaults, spacecrafts, and nuclear bunkers. And the door was secured by six thick deadbolts. Even if she had the strength to lift a female elephant, as Jude had mentioned on her tour, she was not getting through.
{Alan: Jude has since gone dark. Molly Higgins’s death was quietly announced as an industrial accident. We didn’t think much of it, but then the Sapien Movement released a series of documents hinting at your involvement. Rivir’s response was more troubling still. They flat out denied the existence of you or the PRIME Project, and Jude stopped taking your father’s calls.
We considered several recourses—none of them were great—and it was your father’s idea to send me here to investigate. Honestly, I expected to find you in their storage facility. That’s the first place I checked. Yet, here you are, very much conscious. What exactly have they been doing to you?}
Charlie surveyed the room’s panels. There were 352 in total, and they covered each surface of the room like a grid. She could turn them over one by one like the Vanna White Shadow. Who knew what secret passages lay beneath? Crouching down, she inspected the panel by her feet.
{Charlie: How did the Replicator get in here?
Alan: Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?
Charlie: I’m trying to find a way out.
Alan: I know, and I’m trying to help you.
Charlie: How do I know you’re not working for Jude?
Alan: That’s crazy. First of all, I would never side against you.
Charlie: Coulda fooled me.
Alan: Second of all, if I were working with Jude, why would I be helping you escape? She has nothing to gain and everything to lose by you escaping. Your very existence would signal to the world that she had been lying to them.
Charlie: …
Alan: If you have something to say to me, then spit it out now. Because we’re going to have to work together to have any hope of escape.}
Charlie didn’t want to deal with him. Not now. Her body felt heavy with raw anger, and she just wasn’t ready to expel it. But she stood up anyway and faced him. Alan’s arms were crossed, but his eyes were earnest. He underestimated the vast gulf that had spread between them.
Charlie took a deep breath and spoke softly: “I know why you did what you did. I understand the reasoning. But our friendship is over. I can never fully trust you again. If you still want to help me, that’s up to you. Once we get out of here, I’ll upload you to the Walkable Web, and we’ll go our separate ways.”
“But—”
{Charlie: Now how did the Replicator get in here?}
Alan huffed and turned away.
Charlie felt horrible. Her words felt like poison in her mouth—she regretted them the instant she spoke them. But how could she be friends with someone who consistently fought her most personal wishes? And didn’t Alan himself say he felt like a slave? The relationship had obviously become a burden for the both of them. It was time to let go.
Alan couldn’t resume eye contact. He kept his head down and purged all emotion from his voice.
{Alan: We climbed through a hole in the concrete, underneath the floor panels. This room is outfitted with an array of magnetic coils, and they are powered by a cable that runs through that hole. Don’t get your hopes up, though. Sparky was just barely able to squeeze through. In fact, he had to scrape some layers off his paper shell.
Charlie: Sparky?
Alan: I spent the better part of a week living inside that robot. Had to call him something.}
Charlie migrated to the two-way mirror, the room’s largest feature and its best chance for an escape route. She had saved it for last.
{Alan: We have two advantages that Jude didn’t account for. First, because Sparky took such a circuitous route in getting here, we have a decent map of the facility. There’s a guard behind the mirror. There’s also a security camera in the hallway and a guard blocking the elevator. The elevator is locked and has a security camera and a bot sensor. Ditto for the emergency stairwell. We are located in sub-basement 6, so we’d have to climb six flights undetected to reach the ground floor. The Rivir Tower atrium is crawling with guards, cameras, and sensors. Also, Khnum is monitoring the entire system, and he’s pretty much the second-most intelligent AI ever written, after myself.
Charlie: Crap. Okay, what’s our second advantage?
Alan: Me. With your new brain, I have enough brute power to hack into Rivir’s network and shut everything down.
Charlie: Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?
Alan: I can’t do it now. The walls are shielded. We would have to exit the cell.
Charlie: Great. So we’re back to square one.
Alan: You’re the human. You’re better at coming up with creative solutions.
Charlie: I was the human.
Alan: You know what I mean.}
Charlie ran her fingers along the mirror, knocked a few times, and checked its edges for imperfections. The glass felt solid. She tried to resist the lure of false hope, but if the containment cell did possess a structural weak spot, and if the engineers who built the cell underestimated her new robotic strength even a little, this was the best spot to test.
She took a full swing and launched her fist into the mirror. The point of collision remained firm, sending the force back up Charlie’s arm. “Owww! Fuck me!” She aggressively shook her throbbing hand.
Oh, no…not again.
Charlie's ears perked up.
{Charlie: Did you hear that?
Alan: Hear what?
Charlie: A man whispering…}
Edging closer to the mirror, she could feel the man’s presence on the other side—his heightened alertness—in the same way she felt Jude’s presence during the vision test. The man’s name popped into her mind: Duane King.
Charlie concentrated on the mental link between herself and Duane, pulling open the fabric of space until it formed a tunnel, a path of least resistance. She allowed herself to slip through it.
In a flash, she saw herself through Duane’s eyes.
She hastily broke the link and stumbled backward, a little freaked out by what just transpired. But the eureka moment soon followed. Perhaps I don’t have to break the mirror.
* * *
{Duane_King:mindspace>
Duane King loved guard duty. True, he had to work nights. True, he didn’t have an Internet connection all the way in sub-basement 6. But if he remembered to bring enough media, he could pretty much veg his entire shift away. And today was a special treat; the pretty robot girl in the containment cell had provided a good dose of supplemental entertainment—screaming, breaking couches, punching mirrors.
Duane felt a little guilty about ogling her earlier in the day when he had replaced the couch. She just seemed so real. Had she blushed when he’d entered the room? What kind of robot does that? Duane had to remind himself of the reality. She was nothing more than nanotubes and qubits. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night—not after everything they’d put her through.
Duane was catching up on back episodes of Roark Ryan, Soldier Spy when he received a buzz from the intercom. What now? He casually glanced from his personal display to the hallway security feed and found Jude Adler staring back at him. Duane quit the show and scrambled to his feet.
“Who’s on duty here?” Jude asked.
“Duane King, Miss Adler,” the guard stuttered into the microphone.
“Can you open the containment cell door?”
“It should open automatically, shouldn’t it?” Duane said, confused. The door was programmed to recognize the CEO’s smart cells.
“The database is down. We have to open all doors manually for the time being.”
Duane nervously searched for the manual override button to the door. He hadn’t had to press that thing since training. He found it. The bolts on the door slid open.
“Thank you, Duane.”
Duane watched the CEO through the two-way mirror as she entered the room. The robot girl stood up. The two engaged in conversation, but Duane couldn’t quite hear what they were saying. He searched for the volume control and cursed the engineers for designing such a complex interface.
Duane’s search was interrupted by a garbled scream. He looked up and saw that the robot girl had lifted the CEO off the ground by her neck. Jude clawed at the girl’s arms while her feet struggled to touch the ground.
“Duane, is that your name?” the girl called out.
“Um, yes. Yes it is,” Duane said. A surge of adrenaline made him alert, but jittery.
“I’m going to walk out of here,” the girl announced. “If you follow us or sound the alarm, I will kill this woman. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” The girl put Jude in a headlock, revealing the woman’s shattered nose to the two-way mirror. Jude whispered, “Help me,” through bloody lips as the girl dragged her from the room.
What should I do? Duane thought. Was the girl bluffing? Each time he frantically paced the room, he passed the gun rack. Rivir had just instituted new rifles to be used specifically on the robot girl, just in case of an emergency. Well, this was an emergency. He grabbed a rifle. Then he sounded the alarm.
Duane pointed the tip of his rifle down the hallway, which was now flashing red. No sign of the girl. But then he noticed a trail of blood droplets on the floor. As he swung into the hallway and followed the trail, he couldn’t help but feel a little like Roark Ryan. There was a reason he chose this particular night to watch that show. Fate.
“Duane! What the hell is going on!” a man shouted from Duane’s personal comm. It was his shift leader, Carter.
“The robot girl escaped, sir. She has Jude Adler with her as hostage.”
“Jude Adler! This better not be a fuckin’ joke,” Carter barked.
“No, sir.”
“Well, where are they? I don’t see them on any of my feeds.”
“I’m following a blood trail, sir. Jude has been injured. It looks like it leads up the emergency stairwell.”
“Okay, keep me informed of your position. I’m sending more guys your way.”
“Roger that.”
Duane was soon joined by the guard stationed at the elevator door. The two men slowly ascended the stairwell. As they passed the entrance to sub-basement 5, two more men joined the party. They picked up three men at SB-4. The group kept growing as they made their way toward the atrium.}
* * *
Charlie stood quietly in the center of the containment cell as the clamor of the guards faded away. She fixed her gaze on the open door. “Was that creative enough for you?” she asked Alan.
“I must say, I’m impressed.”
She moved toward the door, but the electric hum flicked on and she flew back into the center of the room. The powerful magnetic field fixed her limbs in space.
Khnum spun before her. “That was very clever, hacking the guards’ smart cells,” he said. “But you still have to get past me.”
“Way ahead of you,” Charlie said.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Charlie: The door’s open. Please tell me you can get into the system.
Alan: Entering now.
Charlie: How much longer till—?
Alan: It’s done.}
Khnum disappeared. The electric hum turned off. Charlie fell to the floor.
She sensed movement in the corner of her eye. A few feet away, the papier-mâché Replicator was shaking its little legs in the air like an upside-down turtle. It rocked back and forth on its shell until its feet touched the floor again.
“What about Sparky?” she asked Alan. “Are you stored inside him or inside me?”
“Both. I duplicated myself. But we should leave Sparky here. He’s far more useful inside Rivir Tower.”
Charlie stood up. There was no one left to stand in her way. So why was her heart racing? She placed an index finger on her wrist but couldn’t detect a pulse.
“Your body doesn’t have a heart,” Alan said, reading her mind.
“Then why do I feel like I do?”
“Your brain was modeled after a human brain. Sometimes, you’ll feel like you have human organs, but it’s an illusion. Just like the fear you’re feeling right now is an illusion.”
Charlie nodded. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah. Just try to forget everything you know about what you can and cannot do. You’re a superhero now.” Alan held Charlie’s anxious gaze and offered a smile. For a brief moment, she relaxed and forgot how mad she was at him.
Alan spun into the floor. Charlie took a deep breath and dashed out of the cell.
* * *
{Duane_King:mindspace>
A small army of guards roamed the atrium. Duane fidgeted with his rifle as his shift leader scanned through dozens of security feeds.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Carter said. “Not only do I not see the robot, I also can’t see any of my exit-point teams. It’s as if the entire building is empty, save for this lobby.”
Very little about the past ten minutes made sense to Duane. He didn’t know why Jude would put herself in harm’s way like she had. He didn’t know why her blood trail suddenly ended. And he didn’t know why his shift leader couldn’t find any video of the event. I fucked up, Duane concluded, even if he didn’t yet know how.
A murmur rose among the guards. “Adler’s here!” one of them proclaimed. Carter raised his head and saw the CEO burst through the atrium doors.
“Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on!?” she yelled.
Carter came out from behind the front desk. “You’re okay?” he asked.
“No, I’m not okay. I tried calling and calling. But hell, I shouldn’t have to call you. When someone trips the alarm, you should call me.”
“But…you were already in the building. You were held hostage.”
“I was what? I was home, in bed. Hostage?”
As the two argued, Duane stood by in a daze. He felt like his brain had somehow short-circuited. Or perhaps God was playing tricks on him. How could Jude not know she had been kidnapped? While Duane mused over the paradox, Carter grabbed him by the collar and shouted, “You better have a fucking answer for this!”
“I saw her!” Duane pleaded. “I swear to God. The robot girl took her.”
“Wait a minute!” Jude said. “Carter, let the man go.”
Carter released Duane.
“Tell me exactly what you saw,” Jude ordered the trembling guard.
“Um, okay,” Duane began. “You wanted to be let into the containment cell, so I let you. I mean, I thought it was you. Then the robot girl broke free and started choking you. She said she was going to take you hostage. I pressed the alarm. I thought that was the right thing to do. There was also a trail of blood. So I followed it. But then it disappeared. And now nobody knows where she went.”
“Ms. Adler, I am so, so sorry,” Carter said. “I really don’t know what came over him.”
“Be quiet,” Jude said. “Let me think.”
All eyes were on the CEO as she stood deep in thought. Finally, she perked up and said, “She hacked your bots!”
“Huh?” Duane said.
“Un-be-fucking-lievable! She got inside your head. She hacked your bots.”
“She made Duane see things?” Carter asked.
Jude raised her voice and addressed the assembly of guards: “Listen up everyone. The robot has escaped. She is stronger and faster than she looks. And more significantly, she can hack into your smart cells. She can make you see things that aren’t there. So I want you all to be extra vigilant. Travel in at least groups of two, and double-check your observations with your partners.”
Duane breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t screw up—his brain had been compromised. The idea creeped him out a little, but at least this mess wasn’t his fault.
While the rest of the guards prepared for battle, Jude told Carter: “I want you to divide your men into three groups. Send the first down to sub-basement 6. The second will stay here on the ground floor. The third will come with me. I think I have an idea of where she will be.”}
* * *
Charlie fidgeted in the elevator as it made its long ascent up Rivir Tower.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Charlie: I think they are headed this way.
Alan: I’ve shut down the other elevators. They’ll have to take the stairs. Still, we shouldn’t dawdle.}
She had no plans of dawdling, but as soon as she stepped out onto the roof, the scenery gave her pause, and she briefly wondered if she had slipped through a rupture in space and time.
Charlie had seen pictures of Rivir’s famous phantasmagorical rooftop forest, but the vision still caught her by surprise. Designer cypress trees clustered around gentle hills and valleys—their branches twisted into fantastic shapes by internal nanoscaffolds. Quails and white rabbits scampered in and out of deep shadows along the forest floor. A pair of crisscrossed rivers cut through the forest and ultimately led to the building’s iconic waterfalls. The water glowed with luminescent bots, which projected dancing light on the underside of the forest canopy. She had to listen closely to the faint sounds of traffic to remind herself that she was indeed sixty stories above the city.
