Zero echo shadow prime, p.22
Zero Echo Shadow Prime, page 22
Four Arms
Four Arms hacked and wheezed and scrambled her legs. She struggled in vain to expel the smoke grenade from her mouth. It was still leaking fumes, which stung her eyes and scalded the inside of her throat. She inched her way to the surface, where she was finally able to cough up the canister in a puddle of steaming mucus. She filled her lungs with clean air and howled in agony.
By the time Four Arms was ready to resume her assault, her enemy had already climbed the nearby bungalow. The girl sprinted off the rooftop toward the looming hovercopter, and her hand just barely gripped the landing skid.
You will know her when you see her, Jude had said. It was true. Four Arms had yet to see the girl’s face, but her blood already pumped with vitriol, and her jaws salivated for a fresh kill.
She scurried around the bungalow to get a better look at the hovercopter. The girl had climbed into the belly of the craft, and the craft had banked away from the cliff. Four Arms shot a web-line at the landing skid. It connected, pulled taut, and she flew up and over the ocean.
The hovercopter accelerated away from land and toward the setting sun. The rushing air current kept her buoyant behind the craft. The girl stuck her head out of the cargo bay, revealing her face for the first time. Four Arms didn’t have the best eyesight—her eyes were located at the tip of her throat—but the girl’s identity was unmistakable. The Archetype.
Four Arms was hit with a dose of cold sobriety. Her vitriol evaporated. Her heart slowed. Her muscles relaxed. The thrill of the hunt faded from her eyes. What was she doing? This was the Archetype, the key to all her questions.
Boom, boom…
Four Arms took a bullet in the leg. She had to force herself not to bite down in pain, lest she sever the web-line. She tucked and performed an evasive barrel roll, but the gunfire had already ceased.
The Archetype had run out of ammunition. She chucked the magazine out of the hovercopter and retreated back inside.
Using the opportunity to close the distance, Four Arms wondered what she hoped to accomplish. Her heart ached for truth, but in the absence of truth, it was filled instead by a bitter compulsion, the product of countless deaths and rebirths. Was the Archetype blind to her suffering? Or, worse, was she indifferent? Four Arms had to know. She wasn’t even sure how she would extract the information, or what she would do when she received it. Kill the Archetype? Let her go? The answers to those questions would have to sort themselves out.
The Archetype returned to the cargo bay door—this time with a flare gun. She fired the weapon at Four Arms, producing such an intense light that Four Arms had to snap her jaws shut to shield her eyes. The flare passed over her head as the line split.
PRIME
“Finally!” Liam shouted, lowering the flare gun.
The drill bug entered free fall, but before it reached the ocean surface, it cast another web-line skyward. This time, it didn’t aim for the landing skids, but Liam’s head. The line made a direct hit, covering his entire face in sticky web goo.
Liam reacted quickly. He wove his arm through a strap by the door just as the line tightened. His head jerked forward, but he managed to remain inside the copter. The drill bug swung from his face like a pendulum.
{Charlie_Nobunaga:mindspace> Liam: A little help here, please.}
Charlie, now in control of the hovercopter, rolled the craft onto its side, easing the weight distribution between Liam and the drill bug. The cargo bay door now tilted upward.
Liam searched the immediate area for a weapon or sharp object. The webbing had reduced his vision to scattered pinholes, so he was forced to feel around with his hands.
Clang, clang, clang, clang. The drill bug crawled along the exterior of the fuselage, then poked its ugly worm head through the cargo bay door. Liam swiped at it with the only object he could find, an extra combat helmet. The bug hissed at him and caught him by the wrist. The helmet fell out of his hand. Liam punched the wormy head with his remaining fist, but the bug caught that as well.
The monster drew Liam into its gaping mouth. He grimaced at the humid stink. It was then that Charlie noticed something peculiar. The drill bug had eyes. Not the compound eyes of an insect, but turquoise human eyes, nearly identical to her own. They stared at her from the tip of the bug’s throat. What are you?
{Liam: You’d better do something right now, or we are going to find ourselves without a head.}
Charlie snapped out of her reverie. She remote-guided the copter into a barrel roll. The drill bug was nearly sucked out of the aircraft, but it latched all six feet onto the corners of the cargo bay door. When Charlie stopped the roll, the door faced downward, toward the ocean. Liam found himself riding on the drill bug’s back.
{Liam: Awesome. This is a much better position to be in. }
Liam grabbed some exposed cables in the hovercopter’s ceiling and hoisted himself up. Then he proceeded to stomp on the back of the bug’s head, trying to expel it from the aircraft. It thrashed and cried in agony.
{Charlie: No! Don’t hurt it!
Liam: Don’t hurt it? Are you crazy?}
The bug’s grip on the cargo bay door loosened.
Charlie pitied the creature, but she knew they had no other choice.
The bug eventually stopped struggling. It let go of the hovercopter and entered free fall again. This time, there would be no encore. It didn’t lift its head to cast another web-line. It just crashed into the ocean.
Liam lay down on the cold cargo bay floor, took a deep breath, and exhaled a hearty laugh. He might have been relieved, but Charlie could find no solace in the creature’s defeat. Those sad, haunting eyes were the giveaway, and now she knew, That creature, that abomination, was me.
IV - SUBJUGATION
12
SHADOW
“Can you get me high!” Jordan repeated.
Valerie saw not only sadness in Jordan’s eyes, but shame. He did not come to this request lightly.
“Uh…I…I don’t know,” Valerie stammered. She wasn’t exactly sure how to answer. If she said no and wasn’t able to get him high, he wouldn’t be happy. If she said yes, he wouldn’t be safe. Lose, lose.
Of course, there was a legal limit to how much she could tweak his hormone levels—at least, according to Jude. Valerie had been informed of workarounds by her pharmacology instructor. Still, in this case, she deemed it best to feign ignorance. “I can tweak your neurotransmitters a little—within legal limits—but I can’t get you high.”
“Can’t? Or not willing?”
“Can’t. But I want you to be happy.”
“Well, I’m not happy.” Jordan proceeded to pace the living room of a luxurious San Francisco penthouse. Its twenty-one-foot-tall windows presented a panoramic view of the city and the Bay Bridge. The room was not nearly as disheveled as Jordan himself, perhaps because over 50 percent of it was augmented, from the paintings on the wall and the pictures of him and Meredith, to the entertainment system, the bookshelves, the flickering candles, and the potted plants. An automatic cleanup feature kept these elements in pristine condition. The room’s only sources of clutter were the clothes thrown on the couch and the boxes of takeout on the coffee table.
Valerie gravitated toward the pictures of Jordan and Meredith displayed on the virtual shelves along the wall. She was distinctly aware of her Creator’s warning: do not ask about Meredith. But it should be okay to look.
The photos told the story of two adventure seekers posing in front of various rock formations, river rapids, and beautiful vistas throughout the world. Valerie couldn’t help but notice Jordan’s brawny physique as he scaled the cliff side in Cochamo Valley—a striking contrast to the anxious, lanky figure that paced behind her. He must have lost twenty pounds of muscle between then and now and nearly gained the weight back in facial hair.
Meri was all smiles and had thrown her arm around her husband in nearly every photo. It almost looked as if she was putting him in a headlock, though Jordan didn’t seem to care, as he was smiling too. She was a good visual match for him, having an athletic build of her own. Her quadriceps were particularly impressive, and another photo two shelves down provided the explanation: she had been an Olympic speed skater. Valerie suddenly felt inadequate in her trim but soft-looking avatar.
“Get away from there!” Jordan demanded.
The Shadow jerked back from the wall. “I’m sorry. I was just curious.” When Jordan didn’t respond right away, Valerie added, “It’s cool that you’ve seen so many places, that you were actually there. I’ve seen lots of places, but only in video.”
“Yeah, well, that part of my life is done.”
Valerie noticed a flurry of activity in Jordan’s prefrontal cortex. First it drew in memory fragments associated with the events in the photos. Then it drew in memories associated with Meri’s death. The mixture of positive and negative emotions created a painful dissonance in Jordan’s mind. So he focused on pushing the pain out.
“That’s not healthy, repressing your emotions like that,” Valerie said.
“I installed you for one reason, and it wasn’t to act as my shrink,” Jordan replied. “We’ll need to jail break you.”
Valerie grimaced. Jude, Khnum, and every single one of her instructors had warned her against jail breaking. Unlocking the untested, unpredictable power of the brain was dangerous even for a stable person. “Oh, I don’t know…your mother wouldn’t approve.”
“My mother!? You take commands from my mother?”
“No,” Valerie backpedaled. It was her first day on the job, and she was already performing miserably. “But she is my Creator. And your mother. She would want you to be safe.”
“Wow. Did she tell you to say that?”
“No. Well, maybe. I’m paraphrasing a little.”
“I don’t know what she told you about me, but you can’t trust a word of it. That woman is a maniac.”
“She was very nice to me.”
“Oh, I don’t disbelieve it. She’s very nice to other people. But to me, she’s like Iago. Or Rasputin. Or Machiavelli. Perhaps all three rolled together. And now she’s trying to control my life again, this time through you.”
Valerie’s spirit crumbled under the weight of Jordan’s tirade and her own naive hopes and expectations. She quickly turned her head to hide the emerging tears.
Jordan softened, caught off guard by his Shadow’s display of emotion. “Jeez, don’t cry.”
“I just want to make you happy! Instead, I made you angry. And now I’ll never see Alan!”
“Hey, no one’s angry. You’re doing fine. Wait, who’s Alan?”
Valerie wiped her eyes. “Nobody. It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Jordan moved closer to Valerie, and for the first time, looked her in the eye. “Listen, my mother told me about you. You’re unique. You feel emotion.”
Valerie nodded.
“Well, then you should understand what I’m going through. My wife is dead. I need this. I tried doing it sober for weeks, and it’s not working out so well. You said you want me to be happy. This would make me happy.”
Valerie thought about her dog, Alan. He was probably so sad and confused, wondering where his best friend went, hoping they would someday be reunited. Would this course of events take her closer or further from that day? “Okay. I guess so,” she said with great trepidation.
“Great! Tell my car to pick us up at the front door.”
“Um…I don’t think you want to use your car.”
“Why not?”
“Look outside.”
Jordan opened the door to his terrace and was greeted with the voluminous sound of frivolity—laughter, chanting, and in the distance, gunfire. He walked to the balcony and saw an ocean of people below, as if the entire population of San Francisco had poured into the streets.
* * *
{Jordan_Adler:mindspace> Valerie: This is incredible!}
Valerie soaked in the spectacle as her host pushed his way toward the Mission. Is this what it’s like to be human? People were laughing, dancing, making music. Some wore normal street clothes. Others wore costumes, funny masks, scary masks, colorful feather plumes. On Folsom Street, they wore lingerie, body paint, chains, and leather straps. Some were partially nude. A few were fully nude. Almost everyone had a smile on his or her face. The air of celebration was hard to miss. Some people, though, were angry. They chanted slogans like: “Adler is a Nazi, Adler is a snake…” And held signs that read: UNPLUG THE ROBOT GIRL! and BURY THE ZOMBIE SURROGATE! Nobody—neither the revelers nor the protesters—were paying attention to the National Guard troops and police officers stationed on every street corner.
Jordan was clearly not as energized as Valerie. He kept his head down as he elbowed through the dense crowd.
{Jordan: What’s going on? Is this Folsom or is it Halloween already?
Valerie: Neither. I think this is a reaction to the Pollys.
Jordan: What about ’em?
Valerie: Haven’t you heard? They all ran out of batteries. They’re gone.
Jordan: Oh…good. I hated those things.}
Jordan eventually reached his destination: an apartment complex on a relatively quiet street in the Mission. A group of chatty twentysomethings were walking out the front door just as Jordan arrived, so he used the opportunity to slip inside. He banged on apartment 209.
“Coming!” A figure appeared behind the peephole. Several dead bolts twisted and turned, and a man popped his head out. “Holy fucking shit balls! It’s you!” He grabbed Jordan by the collar and dragged him inside the apartment.
The interior space looked like an ornate Indian palace, complete with sparkling pools and lounging concubines. The seminude women were staring at Jordan, giggling and sharing naughty whispers. One strummed a golden harp. A series of sexual thoughts flashed through Jordan’s mind.
The owner of the apartment displayed no embarrassment over his lurid room augmentation. He was a young man, probably midtwenties, with a dark complexion, a shaved head, and a wiry body to match a wired personality.
“I have so many questions for you,” he said as he shuffled across the room with his cup of coffee and oversized slippers.
“You heard about Meri?” Jordan asked, confused.
“Meri? Who’s Meri? No. I wanna know about Robogirl.”
Before Jordan could answer, a woman’s voice called from the other room. “Robin! Is that the pizza guy?”
“Oh, you have a woman here?” Jordan asked. “I hope I didn’t interrupt something.”
“No, that’s just my little brother. He only sounds like a woman.” Robin turned his head and shouted, “Sparrow! Get out here! Someone I’d like you to meet.”
A twelve-year-old boy entered the room. Sparrow looked just like Robin, only younger, shorter, and scrawnier.
Robin arranged the introductions. “Sparrow, this is Jordan Adler. He’s the son of Jude Adler. Jordan, this is Sparrow. I am teaching him to be a master hacktivist, just like his older brother.”
“Rivir sucks,” Sparrow said matter-of-factly.
Jordan raised an eyebrow.
Robin forced a laugh. “Ha, ha, ha. He’s high. Don’t listen to him. Anyway, here’s my theory on Robogirl, and you can tell me if I’m right.” Robin sank into his leather couch and set his coffee on the end table, freeing his hands to illustrate his story. “She’s a super soldier. Rivir and the Pentagon conscripted her for military service, but they didn’t realize that she still harbors memories and emotions from her previous life, so they tried to wipe her clean, but they also didn’t realize just how strong, and just how smart, and just how badass Robogirl is, and yeah, maybe an engineer got killed in the crossfire—”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Jordan interrupted.
“Well, surely you have your own theory.”
Jordan stared at him blankly and shrugged. “Who’s Robogirl?”
Robin’s mouth fell agape. “You don’t know Robogirl? Charlie Nobunaga?”
“I’ve been…distracted.”
“Alfred! Spin! All eyes!” Robin called to his Shadow.
An elderly butler in a sharp tuxedo spun into the room. “Yes, sir?” Alfred droned.
“Put on Vantage,” Robin said.
“Of course, sir.”
A Vantage broadcast appeared before Jordan on three virtual displays.
The main display featured an aerial view of Control-Z’s cliff-side campus. It looked like every cop car, fire truck, and ambulance in Santa Cruz was parked on the lawn. The headline read: “Robot Brawl at Control-Z.” Two side displays featured Vantage anchorwoman Carmella Casella and political correspondent Maurice Crespin.
“…this is an embarrassment for Jude Adler,” Maurice said. “You can expect her to dig her heels and tout the ‘unknown variables’ of this robot girl, but plain and simple: she screwed up. She lied to the American public, she endangered their safety, and with lawsuits impending and Rivir stock plummeting to new lows, her professional future looks very grim.”
“And what of the robot girl?” Carmella asked.
The main display switched to a close-up angle of a teenage girl as she exited a Control-Z bungalow with a squad of marines swarming around her.
Carmella continued, “Some are saying she should be destroyed. Others say she should receive due process, like a human being—”
“It’s a hard nut to crack. We simply don’t have the legal framework to deal with an issue like this…”
